I fully expected my time on Dathomir to be limited. It wasn’t someplace that I wanted to take up residence. While it was a great hiding place for a rogue Force Sensitive, it wasn’t what one would normally call home. Ironically, even the native Nightsisters were wanting off the planet. That was what they had me there for actually. I was to be their salvation and means to escape. I learned that not too long after my last entry and I had no problem with it, until I learned how they planned on it.
My training had been going quite well. After my Bacta bath, I went back to it with a renewed vigor. I felt strong, powerful, nigh invincible really. I could feel my connection to the Force as more than just some instinctual awareness that there was something there. I was literally feeling it as something tangible. I was attached to it and with a little bit of focus could actually see it much like I could in the Endorian crystal caves. My confidence was high, yet I felt some apprehension. There was something of a taint to my connection. It may have been powerful, but it felt parasitic, at least in part. The more of myself I turned over, the more of it that invaded me. At first I figured it was just my apprehension about turning myself over to the strange power. Besides, it was seductive. It did beckon me. I dismissed my fears and pushed on.
The rest had done me good. When I returned to my training the previously difficult tasks were now easy and I was pushed onto bigger things. My training with “safe” weapons was over. Sparring turned more to dueling. Blunted weapons were replaced with their lethal counterparts. Hunts went from creatures that could scar, to creatures that could kill. Training turned into survival. If I was to survive then I could not fail in my training. And I didn’t. Instead I excelled.
I quickly discovered what I had once anticipated, but didn’t really believe. Weapons were optional tools providing more choice in a fight. However, in many situations they were completely unnecessary. Against the creatures, I found I didn’t need them at all. Drawing upon the Force was more than enough to ensure my success. What I couldn’t veritably crush with my mind, I could cook with incredible lightning storms. Those resistant to lightning were susceptible to the sizable boulders I could hurl. But it wasn’t all brute force either. My practice with fine control paid off. I could manipulate anything from a single grain of sand to coordinating large numbers of grains of sand independently of one another in an orchestrated performance. Everything was coming together and I was beginning to exceed the raw skill of even my most astute teachers. They were absolutely startled by my progress.
Still, there was something wrong. It just felt wrong. The power was amazing. It came to me easily. It was everything I hoped it could be, but still I could feel it trying to consume me. Anger came too easily to me. When I was engaged in any type of combat I could feel rage and hatred towards my opponent. During sparring I nearly killed several of my sparring partners. I didn’t like what I was becoming, but it was becoming more difficult to resist. The Nightsisters didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they encouraged it to the point that restraint on my part was met with punishment. They were molding me into something different. Something…. Evil.
It was upon that realization that I made up my mind to cease my training with them, accomplish the goal of getting them off world and taking my leave of them for good. It seemed that the Force knew my destiny as no sooner did I make that decision that my mother approached me about completing my mission. There was fire in her eyes. It was rumored amongst the other witches that she could foresee the future. I was subject to examples of her prophetic skills and while not always 100% correct, they were often very accurate. It was likely that she knew some time ago that this situation would arise, which would explain her sudden and uncanny timing.
“You are ready to leave, as are we. I can sense your desire to complete your mission and move on. You have been a good student, and we will honor our agreement.” She walked into my hut as if continuing a conversation that started earlier.
Bowing my head I acknowledged her and confirmed her statement. Her response was however, not what I expected. To be honest I don’t really know what I expected, but I knew that wasn’t it.
“There will be a colonist’s ship entering our space within the week. It is adequate for our purposes and will facilitate our expansion into the galaxy. I need you to acquire this ship. We will then use your shuttle to transport our people up to it. When our people and supplies are loaded, you will be given your shuttle back and we will part ways.”
I asked if they were actually intending on colonizing the planet when their ship would be clear to be able to steal it. Her answer made my stomach turn.
“No, they aren’t bound for this planet. They are going to dock with the space station to take on supplies and then they are moving on. You are going to go there and persuade the pilot to undock and move to a more secluded orbit. At that point you, along with a contingent of my sisters will exterminate everyone aboard and take possession of the ship.”
My head was swimming; colonists; really? It wasn’t some Imperial military vessel. These were civilians… families. Something inside of me, foreign and invasive seemed to smile at the prospect. The rest of me however cringed in revulsion. It wasn’t within my capacity to kill those people. Perhaps if I was just to scare them off the ship, but to systematically slaughter everyone aboard. I just couldn’t. Still the price of refusal would surely be death. I had to find a way out of it, and preferably alive.
“You seem pensive?” She was asking a question while simultaneously answering for me. “You will honor our agreement. You were trained specifically for this task. Failure to accomplish your mission will result in a painful death.”
Abruptly she turned and left my hut. I stood there in disbelief for what seemed to be an interminable amount of time before I moved. My strength was sapped from me. All the confidence I had was laid to waste. I felt about as strong as I had when the Mandalorian on Endor used me as his whipping boy. I had no idea what I was going to do. I only know what I wanted to do. I wanted to rewind time, make this Force Sensitivity go away, and just spend time with my father. But no, I had to be Chester, the Force Sensitive son of an outcast Clone Trooper.
It took me awhile to finally snap out of my miserable self pity and actually begin to think. I wasn’t going to complete my mission. If it cost me my life, I was not going to kill those people. However, if I were simply to be killed, they would take my shuttle and make an attempt at it anyway. If they were successful, my sacrifice would have been in vain and the colonists would have died anyway. No, I had to do more than just simply refuse and suffer my fate. I had to, at the very least make it to my shuttle and destroy it before I got dead. Death was not exactly appealing thus making that the alternative to the alternative; plan Z if you will. No, a good plan needed to be formulated. One in which, both I and the colonists survived. There were only two ways I knew how to make that happen. Escape with my shuttle, or kill all the Nightsisters. The latter would be all but impossible. Some may die in the process but certainly not all. I needed to escape.
I spent the next several days formulating my plan and working hard to obfuscate my plans from the Force and thus the premonitions of my mother and the other witches. I decided on a simple and direct plan. Go to “prepare” the shuttle on the day of the assault, but instead of waiting for the rest of the boarding party, I would just blast into space and escape. If there were any guards there to make sure I stayed in line, then they would have to be dispatched. It was simple, and that made for less of a chance of failure.
On the day of my planned escape, it appeared as if my obfuscation had been working. While the Nightsisters seemed slightly more suspicious of me, none directly challenged me nor did they indicate that they sensed something afoot. I stayed wary however. While most of them were little more than pawns, my mother and her inner circle were extremely deceptive. They played their cards close to their chests and they weren’t likely to give away anything until they figured I would feel safe. As far as I was concerned that would only be when I was in hyperspace. Until that point, the only comfort I had was my lightsaber at my side.
The day wore on and still no word about making preparations had arrived. Shortly before nightfall they came to me. It wasn’t what I was expecting. It was the entire contingent of the boarding party. It seemed they had taken the necessary preparations to get my shuttle ready. Someone had anticipated my actions. Now I was being subtly coerced into the task. Not wanting to give myself away, I acted pleased by the fact that preparations had already been made and I leapt up to the shoulder of my rancor and rode out towards the shuttle. It was time for plan B.
My accompaniment was a group of six Nightsisters. There was one Elder in command, two rangers, and three acolytes. The acolytes would surely succumb to a storm of lightning. The rangers I could pick apart with my lightsaber, but the Elder, well, she would be another matter altogether. If I didn’t eliminate the other five in very short order, I would have her to contend with at the same time and that would be a real challenge.
The Elders are very strong in the Force and proficient with a veritable armory of weaponry. They are Elders because they are quite simply capable enough to survive on one of the most harsh, dangerous and inhospitable planets in the known universe. A lifetime of pure survival instinct would be in her favor. While I might have possessed a greater degree of raw skill, she would have had the experience to tip the scales back in her favor. Still, I didn’t have much of a choice. There were bound to be others at the shuttle. It was the only opportunity I would have.
Slowly I gathered the Force so as not to draw attention. I stored the energy in me allowing it to build over the course of the trip until I physically could no longer keep it contained. A small spark of lightning escaped my fingertips and arced into the scaly hide of my rancor mount. It reacted, swinging its massive arms wildly and smashing into the Elder’s mount and the Elder. The impact sent them both sprawling across the hard-packed dirt. It also seemed to disorient the other five as they attempted to ascertain what had just happened. I used the opportunity to my advantage.
Springing from my rancor, I landed on my feet several meters behind the rest of the entourage and unleashed the full amount of my stored Force energy in a lightning storm that would have made a Sith Lord stare in awe. Everything within the cone of power was engulfed in raw power. The rancors dropped to the dirt smoking. The acolytes didn’t last much longer even while trying with all their effort to resist the energy. The rangers, crumbled, falling to their knees in exhaustion. I ignited my lightsaber and launched myself at them cleanly separating every part of them from every other part of them. Everything had worked brilliantly if not accidentally. That’s when I felt the burn.
It took everything I had to fight her lightning back and keep it from killing me. The fraction of a second that the lightning came in contact with my skin was agony as it left the contact spots charred. The Elder, somehow managed to have gotten back up and was sending arcs of cold blue energy directly at me. My lightsaber managed to absorb some of it. The rest, the Force handled for me. Sensing her failure to affect me, she stopped and charged at me with her poison tipped lance. I narrowly dodged her first blow while regaining my composure. Then I slipped into the Force.
I am not really sure all what happened. The speed at which everything moved was beyond comprehension. Her lance was made out of a lightsaber resistant material and the deftness of her parries prevented the lightsaber from hitting her and assured that it only glanced off the lance which kept it from giving in to the heat of the saber’s plasma blade. Her movements were an orchestration of near perfection. With the notable exception of her sole mistake which claimed her head. Her aggressiveness led her to overextend when presented with a slight opening. I don’t remember consciously doing it, but the blade of my saber had much less problem getting through the soft tissue of her neck than it did the shaft of her lance.
With that obstacle cleared, it was time for my last hurdle. Getting in my shuttle and getting myself into hyperspace. There would be no need to warn the colonists if I could just get into orbit. My mother needed my shuttle to complete her nefarious plan. Calling upon the Force again, I ran at preternatural speed towards what I hoped would be my last destination on the surface of this forsaken ball of death.
I arrived at my shuttle and to my surprise and pleasure; there were only two Nightsister sentries there. If they didn’t buy my story, they would be easy to eliminate and I would be home free. I approached them with, putting on my best look of fear, shock and disbelief. I told them about how a platoon of Imperial Storm Troopers had intercepted us on the path to the shuttle and how my companions decided to face them head on and sent me ahead to get reinforcements. They listened intently and I could see excitement growing behind their eyes. I finished my story and let myself sit heavily on the ground near the shuttle ramp, appearing completely exhausted. They eyed each other and exchanged some brief words, looked back at me and said “We’ll be back very soon. Stay put.” And off they went.
Now I am sitting here tearing through hyperspace writing this as I try to conjure up a new place to set down and try again. Perhaps the Smuggler’s Moon, Nar Shadaa really isn’t that bad an idea. The Empire leaves it alone mostly, and it honestly can’t be any more dangerous than the places I have been. Maybe I need to sleep on it. There are a lot of…. Hang on; I hear something from the crew compartment. I will be back.
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