I let my main body rise back into an arched, standing position. Typhin’s gaze traces my main body.

“I can’t think of any ship or space station you could fit on,” Typhin says sort of absently.

I’m sure he didn’t really mean it that strongly, but once he says it, it really hits me in the face. Shoot. Um-, yeah, I can’t can I? I got too big. The consequences of my hubris are upon me. Is this how I-, no, wait! “Sir, not all of me has to be on the ship!” I say, a rush of intellect coursing through my veins. He looks at me kinda weirdly as I grab my tail, fumbling until I find a place I can actually bite, and then I slice it in two. My smaller body is disconnected from the larger one, while a tail of sorts remains. “See, sir? I can fit!”

He just looks at me for a second, before erupting in light laughter. “P-, pahahah! You’re just-, Mort, you truly are a creature bursting with surprises, aren’t you?”

“Only the predictable ones!” I say with full confidence, feeling how the grabby tentacle I was formerly connected to slides away, leaving my body free and disconnected. It actually feels pretty neat, even though I previously dreaded a situation like this! Having two bodies is really weird, but as long as I keep my focus in one, I’m sure it’s fine. Now, as for where we’re going…

I point at the mountain behind the temple, but Typhin can’t see it since he’s still arching both neck and back to look up at my large body. Hrm.

To catch his attention, instead of pointing with my small body, I instead do so with my large one, raising a single grabby tentacle to point. It looks kind of like a grim reaper pointing at a gravestone, but since Typhin turns around to look at the mountain, everything worked out. “That over there is the mountain, sir! And the pillar of light, too.”

But his eyes don’t linger at the pillar, no, they continue up at the sky, taking in the whole of everything. “-A planetary barrier, is it?”

“...Yeah?”

“The kyber crystal needed to power one of this size… must be massive.” He turns to me. “Will you guide me to the opening?”

I scratch my cheek. “See, I thought it’d be easier to get there if I carried us?”

“Carry… us?”

One of my grabby tentacles descends from the sky, the base of it as thick as the entire temple. The end of it splits in three, each of these branching into three again, the very tip of these doing the same thing, revealing the smallest tentacles to be the size of a man. These smallest of tentacles are held out in front of us both. “It’ll go much faster, I promise!” To prove my point, I grab ahold of my own body, enveloping it in many small and large tentacles, providing a protective sort of coat. “See? Perfectly safe!”

Typhin seems deeply apprehensive. “...I’m not sure I trust you to gently hold me.”

I cross my arms. “I carried you all the way here, sir! Fell all the way from the atmosphere without breaking a single of your bones!”

His own apprehension aside, since he can’t really make any strong argument against how gentle I can be, he has no choice but to submit. “...Fine. But, by all means, carry me as gently as you can. Don’t toss or throw me or squeeze me, will you?”

My smaller tentacles approach him like slithering anacondas, making him take a few steps back. “Don’t worry sir, you won’t feel a thing!'' They soon take a hold of him, a few around his midsection, others under his armpits, encasing him until only his arms, shoulders and head is free. All for the sake of comfort. Then, once he stops struggling too much, I lift him off of the ground. His struggles to break free is replaced by a sort of wide-eyed wonder as he peers down at the ground growing distant. “See? I wouldn’t hurt you in a million years!”

“...Suppose so,” he grumbles trying to hold onto me as best as he can. I’ll take it as a compliment!

Just to make things easier on myself, I shift my consciousness to my large body. And then, I start walking. Holding the two little bodies in front of my like two very, very fragile eggs. All the while the rest of my tentacles get to work, lifting my body with slow, intentional steps, quickly moving me several hundreds of meters in mere seconds. Soon we’ve moved over the side of the mountain and around to the back, where that gaping mine is still standing proud like a naked crevice in the rock.

The second the mine becomes visible Typhin makes a movement in my grip, but I can’t really make out what he’s trying to tell me, if he’s trying to tell me something.

Once close enough, I lower the grabby tentacle holding me and Typhin, letting us both down. He stumbles a few paces, turns back, dusts off and straightens his clothes, and then turns to look at the mine. “-If you ever lift me again, I’ll blast you to Ansion and back.”

“I don’t know where that is, sir?”

“I know you don’t. Now, let me guess. A Republic kyber crystal mine of some sort?” I shrug. “Clearly, they grew desperate by the end of the war. Wanted to end it quickly. Jedi usually place a lot of weight on their younglings finding their own ‘special’ little crystal, but desperate times call for desperate measures.” Here, he starts moving towards the mine, but at a slow enough pace to tell me that he’s counting on me to bring him to the large crystal.

“I’m not very sure about any of that, I just like eating them for the-,” a dark glare is shot my way, “erm, well, I used to eat them, but now I won’t eat them no more! For the sake of the people of the Empire!”

He nods approvingly as we enter the final tunnel leading to the big crystal. “As long as that remains your attitude, I assure you, you will have no trouble finding allies.”

As we go further inside, I can feel my skin start to itch in that familiar way, alerting me to the presence of a gas I no longer like. “You could take off your helmet now sir, there is air here.”

He gives me a long, calculative look before removing his helmet, facing the bare air once more. Taking a deep breath. In, out. He looks at me again. “You’re a peculiar creature, Mort. How much further to the crystal?”

“I’m not sure, but not long, I think.”

He nods, and we continue walking. Before long, we emerge into the room. Unlike what I might have thought before, the big crystal is actually not silent at all, but emits a deep, murmuring hum that somehow feels alive, much like the sound my own body seems to produce. It feels weird, because it somehow makes it feel like the crystal is alive. Breathing where it sits, floating above the ground.

It’s around ten meters high, though.

“...By the Emperor, this is…” He moves closer to it, the intense heat radiating from it bringing the whole room to a pretty moderate temperature (I think). Still, seeing Typhin approach that flaming thing without a care makes me damn scared, so I hurriedly scuttle up to him to reign him in.

“Easy there, it is very warm!”

“Huh? Oh, yes, of course. Thank you, Mort. Truly, this in itself, is far more valuable than anything else this world has to offer. That is, if one of these displays has transmitter functions.” He wanders over to the many tables, looking over the strange things on them. “Let’s see here… The technology is indeed a bit old, but if my eyes are true, then this here should be a holotransmittor. I may not be a technician, but I should be able to get it working.”

So he promised. And, well… It barely took an hour, but after a bunch of fiddling (at one point removing his space suit cuz it was “too hot”) and at a few points physically abusing the poor thing, he was able to get it working. I think. It made a bunch of noises, he said it was working, and then he did a few more strange things, and now-,

The so-called “holographic transmitter” zaps to life, the three-D image of a man appearing right above some flashing little thing and I’m so surprised and taken aback that I stumble back and fall on my arse, cushioned only by my tail.

Typhin stands up in front of the holographic image on a metallic disc. “This is PRY-99 requesting direct contact with Commodore Aaln. The situation is urgent.”

The blue-flashing man standing like a lanky-armed creature waits a few moments before speaking. He’s dressed almost the same way as Typhin is, lacking only a plate, the cylinders and if I’m not mistaken, his suit is a little darker, almost black. “Request is being processed. Just a moment, Commander Typhin.”

A few seconds pass and I, entranced by the moving, real-life hologram of a man, creep forward.

The blue man speaks again. “Request granted. Redirecting you momentarily.”

The blue hologram flickers again, changing to yet another man, this one dressed much more alike Typhin himself, the main differences being his appearance and the fact that the plate on his chest has an additional red and blue square. His face is much fuller than Typhin’s, but not from fat, more so from a general broadness of the chin. He’s got a large, strong body, almost suited for combat.

“I expected a message from you earlier than this, Commander. Did you encounter any issues in your search for the origin of the distress signal?” he asks in a bellowing voice that truly commands respect.

“You read my mind, Commodore. The asteroid field was harsher than expected. Our cruiser was hit badly and only I survived.”

The Commodore nods gravely before suddenly grabbing a stale paper seemingly out of nowhere. “-You’re transmitting this on the very frequency you were sent out to locate. I’ll assume this means you discovered the location you were sent out to find?”

“It was a mere coincidence. I was rescued and brought here by a creature of unknown species,” Typhin says, shooting a strange glance at me that makes me want to wave at him in greeting.

“Rescued? Was it an intelligent species?”

“...I suppose you could say so, Commodore. If my personal opinion is to be heeded, I believe that the creature may make for a great asset to the Empire if given a proper chance. Furthermore, as believed, the signal did come from a Jedi base. A Jedi temple.” The Commodore startled at this before erupting in a bloodthirsty grin. “It is abandoned, but it contains an entire library and several dozen holocrons. More importantly, the planet seems rich in kyber crystals, currently using a particularly immense one to power a planetary barrier.”

“Good, good!” he says. “Excellent! What an amazing find! And at the cost of a mere hundred men, too! Truly, such a discovery is worthy or great remembrance!”

Typhin moves his hands together, glancing down. He takes a shallow breath. “Commodore, speaking of my crewma-,”

“Men, Commander. Must I correct you every time? Refer to them as your men or soldiers. Personal attachments will only corrode your strength and loyalty.”

“...May the men unfortunately killed in the accident have their bodies recovered? I would hate for the cold embrace of space to be their final resting place,” Typhin timidly suggests, not daring to look his Commodore in the eye.

The Commodore huffs. “Always about this, aren’t you? They’re in the middle of an asteroid field. Retrieving their bodies would be like trying to steal a lightsaber from a Jedi temple. Give up on them, Commander.”

Typhin looks up. “But sir-,”

“That’s an order.”

“...Yes, Commodore.”

“I’ll have a rescue ship sent to your location, alongside a few freighters to recover the library of the temple. Consider yourself lucky, Commander, you’ll have the best pilots of the 101’st task force sent to your aide. Be proud. If your planet is as fantastic of a find as you say it is, you will surely be rewarded handsomely for it,” the Commodore finally said, crossing his arms decisively.

“Thank you. Tell them to land beside the light pillar.”

-And that is how it ends.