Son of a Clone Trooper - Is It Me You're Looking For?

Running, it’s something that I am good at.  I have had a lot of practice at it.  I was pretty much born to it.  Why should things be any different now?  It’s been months since I fled the Smuggler’s Moon.  I’ve holed up in nearly every backwater planet in the known galaxy.  I’ve stayed away because while the Empire may not look here for me, bounty hunters surely will.  I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter though.  They find me no matter what I do, so why not keep sharing my story?  Hutt’s and their bounty hunters… Is there anything more persistent in this galaxy? 

Oh and how’s this for irony?  Boba Fett is hunting me.  That’s right my “uncle” is tracking me around the galaxy.  To add more irony to the situation, he apparently hates Jedi with a passion.  He’s understandably upset, given that it was a Jedi who killed Jango, and rumor has it, right in front of him too.  If someone killed my father, especially right in front of me, I would be absolutely incensed.  Undoubtedly the Hutt told him I was a Jedi and surely showed him the footage.  I can’t imagine I would be worth enough in terms of bounty for the legend that is Boba Fett to be tracking me without personal motivation.  Thankfully we haven’t had any run-ins just yet, but there have been a few near misses. 

I can feel him in the Force when he gets close.  The first time, for a moment, I thought it was my father.  It didn’t take long to realize though, that the signature was different.  For one, he was sober, but there was a decided “taste” of malice in there, along with a calculating precision I haven’t ever felt in my father.  The result was a serious and alarming sense of danger that had me fleeing in very short order.  I now have his Force signature emblazoned on my mind and will avoid it every time I feel it.

That being the case, I will now only post the accounts of my adventures while on the move and will refrain from disclosing my origin or destination.  In the worst case a bounty hunter will have a general idea of where I was at some point when I transmitted.  Strange too that I feel so compelled to share my adventures.  Experience has told me that it is generally a very good idea to listen to those compulsions however.  They have kept me alive where most other beings would have died.

I recently tried to contact my smuggler friend but he was nowhere to be found.  I thought perhaps he and his Wookiee might like another companion.  It would keep me moving and I would make some money.  Strange that shortly after Alderaan was vaporized he disappeared from contact.  Something in the Force is telling me that I will run into him again.  I look forward to that day.

As for me, well, it’s hard to say.  I feel as if I am at a crossroads.  Many beings have fallen at my hands in these last few months.  Every time I use the lightning I feel something inside me change.  I seem to further detach from my sense of compassion.  Perhaps it’s just desensitizing from the killing I am forced to engage in.  I am finding that however intoxicating its power is, that I am reluctant to use it.  I don’t like the way I feel afterward.  I am losing my humanity a little at a time and it frightens me.  I have to make some choices and my instincts tell me that the choices I am about to make are going to alter my destiny forever either way I go.  I hope I make the right choices when they are presented to me.

I recently discovered this small blue cube.  It was humming with the power of the Force when I stumbled across it in an abandoned temple in the Outer Rim.  On the surface it was a very beautiful artifact with intricate scroll and crystal work, but in the Force it was amazing.  It swam in swirls of blue light and conveyed a sense of peace and happiness.  The closer I got to it, the more my worries seemed to peel away.  I am now keeping it in my quarters aboard the ship.  It is soothing and I sleep better and have better dreams with it there.  I have been trying to figure out what it is, but to no avail.  I sense that I can learn much from it.

Well my navicomputer is telling me I am about to come out of hyperspace.  I will do a couple of unusual jumps to try and cover my tracks before I make for my next stopping point.  It’s terrible how much work I have to go through just to slow down the multitude of bounty hunters who are undoubtedly stalking me across the stars.  There are others seeking me too.  I can feel them using the Force to try and find me.  The vast majority of them are dark, like my mother.  I can feel them and their anger reaching out towards me every time I stop.  Staying a step ahead of them is harder than the bounty hunters.  There’s another one though, like the cube, it’s peaceful and calm.  It seems to be with me all the time, but rather than trying to overtake me, it seems to be observing me from a distance.  At times it seems to even aid me.  Even now I can reach out and feel its presence with me, and… Ahhh!  It’s Fett.

Son of a Clone Trooper - Blog Noire

I’m back on the run again… How in the whole wide galaxy does this keep happening to me?  It’s not a strange sect of Force users, Mandalorians or the Empire this time, no, it’s the Hutts and from what I know of them, I will never be able to stop running.  They are some seriously persistent slimy slugs.  I took a shuttle over to Nal Hutta after a really difficult Huttball match.  It was Wookiees against Trandoshans.  We all know there’s bad blood there, but the local Black Sun Vigo thought it would be entertaining to pit them against each other, no weapons allowed.  It was an absolute festival of destruction.  I don’t think the ball ever actually left the pedestal until the end of the game.  Both teams just met up in the middle and let the fur fly.  I had to sit and watch the debacle knowing full well I couldn’t do anything about it unless I was to be drawn and quartered in that frenzy.  The Wookiees came out on top in the end.  Bleeding and battered the one surviving Wookiee took the ball and limped his way across the goal line to score.  There was one lizard left alive as well, but with a leg ripped out of his socket and bleeding to death, the last thing on his mind was scoring a goal.   The images will forever haunt me.

I figured I could use a few drinks and wanted to try my hand at the casinos on Nal Hutta.  Seriously, no funny business either.  I swore to myself I wouldn’t use the Force to influence my luck in order to win at the casino games.  I kept that promise too.  I was losing my shirt at the machines, so I figured I would try my hand at some Sabacc.  I am usually good at reading people even without the Force and it had to beat the weighted odds of the machine.  So I sat down at a table, nothing high stakes; just a few friendly looking folks having some fun.

I ended up getting on a roll and cleaned all but a couple of them out.  It was at that time several seriously nasty looking Weequay bought in and sat down.  The friendly types left immediately.  Oh had I only taken their cue.  I swear my life is just a series of bad decisions.  Anyway, the game quickly went from friendly to downright competitive and very high stakes.  I was still doing well, but not as well as before.  These guys were much harder to read.

Hours crawled by, winning a little, losing a little, but I stayed ahead for the most part.  I was getting tired and the Weequay were getting twitchy.  I could feel tension mounting so I tapped into it using the Force just to see what I could expect from my competitors.  Flashes of violence, anger at their losses in the Huttball match and recognition of me as a referee.  “Lovely,” I thought to myself, “Better to lose a few credits than my life, it’s time to go.”   I went all in.  My hand was terrible, a three a five, a two and a one, and the way the guy across from me was betting, he was sitting on at least a 21.  He called and threw down a pure Sabacc.  I couldn’t tell you the relief I felt when I saw it.  What I didn’t notice as I was throwing down my cards was that my five shuffled, hitting the table with an Idiot’s Array, trumping the pure Sabacc.  I wilted in my seat knowing things were about to get ugly.

“You cheating nerf lover!” he screamed in broken Basic as he flew up from his chair.  I let myself fall into the Force, if nothing but for survival.  Everything was moving in slow motion as he drew a pair of blaster pistols.  Had I been any other person I would be dead.  His draw was exceptionally fast.  I’m not sure even my smuggler buddy and his Wookiee friend could have outdone this guy.  My hands came up a split second before his as I reached out with the Force and pulled his blasters into my hands.  His friends, no longer stunned were drawing their weapons by this point.  One shot, two, three, four and they were down slumped over the gaming table with holes smoking in their chests.  “Did I do that?” the though raced through my mind.

My would-be assailant fell to his knees across the table from me covering his face with his arms.  He was muttering in what I was guessing was his native language and sobbing uncontrollably.  Clearly he was begging for mercy.  I removed the power packs from the blasters and put them in my pocket.  Then I tossed the blasters to him saying, “I’m not going to kill you, you fool.  I was trying to throw the game, and dumb luck beat you.  Next time, if you can’t afford to lose it, don’t bet it.”  I walked away thinking the business was done after all, this kind of thing happens in Hutt space all the time.  I was wrong.

I was nearly out the doors when two Gammorean guards stopped me and a Rattataki woman came walking out.  She had an air of unwavering confidence about her, it was impossible to miss.  “Gorga wants to see you.”  She said as she looked at her finely manicured nails.  She turned and walked away leaving me with the two bloated bags of mucous called guards. 

I could sense Gorga’s anger before I even got into his “offices.”  The walls vibrated in the Force from his tirade.  I walked into the audience chamber.  The smell was putrid, and made my stomach do somersaults.  If the smell of Toydarians was sickening in its sweetness, then the smell of this Hutt was sickening in its bitterness.  The room was lavish, with things that sparkled everywhere.  Servants milled around, and “guests” enjoyed entertainment and other, less reputable pleasures.  For a Hutt, it’s all about showmanship.  He gave off a sense of composure now.

“Jedi are not allowed in my casinos.”  He grumbled in Huttese. 

I replied.  “The Jedi are extinct.” I took a swat to the back of the head.  “Your eminence.” I concluded.

His anger was rising like a tide in the Force as he showed me the holovid recording of my altercation.  “Then how do you explain this?”

“I have certain… talents and I used them to defend myself.  I have seen people shot dead in cold blood at your casinos before with less fuss than this.”  I answered.

His anger was at the boiling point now, I should probably stop antagonizing him, but something is driving me to it.  “I don’t care that you killed those fools!  It’s your ‘talents’ as you call them, that I care about!  If I let that happen in my casinos, nobody will come to them!  I should kill you for it and for your insolence when you speak to me!”

I bowed, feigning respect.  “My apologies your exaltedness, it is not my place to offend you.”  The sarcasm in my words was biting.  “If you demand it, I will return the money, at refrain from gambling at your casinos in the future.  What else can I do to appease your greatness?”

Rage burst through.  “You mock me in my own chambers, in front of my guests?!  I would have settled for a public beating, or perhaps a run in a Huttball match, but your insults earn you no mercy!”  He was bellowing now, pure anger pouring out.  It somehow made the room smell worse.  “Guards take him and feed him to the Gundarks!”

Enough was enough.  I wasn’t about to appease the slug, I certainly wasn’t going to die at his behest.  I withdrew my lightsaber from its hidden pouch and struck down the Gammorean guards as they squealed like a pair of Roba Boars.  Blaster bolts came in at me from several angles.  I managed to deflect them as I backed into cover and unleashed the lightning from my fingers.  Bodies fell to the ground writhing in pain.  It fed the lightning which spread from person to person like a chain.  The wails of pain in so many languages filled the room.  I backed out the door seeing the pure embodiment of wrath in Gorga’s eyes.

I let the lightning go and Force pushed the doors closed as I ran from the building.  Other than the guards I didn’t feel anyone die which was good.  I really don’t like killing in anger.  I fled to my apartment.  It wouldn’t take long before Gorga had ever bounty hunter in the galaxy tracking me down.  Still, there were things that I needed.

By the time I got to my shuttle, it was an hour later.  I expected there to be a greeting party waiting there for me.  I was fortunate, they hadn’t pieced together that this was my shuttle.  While I didn’t change my name, my shuttle was registered under a false one with an Imperial title.  It’s an Imperial shuttle after all.  I loaded up and blasted out of there without so much as a by your leave and jumped into hyperspace almost as soon as I cleared the atmosphere. 

I’ve been in hyperspace for two days now.  I have been meditating on what to do and where to go.  I miss home and want to go back, but that won’t work, and any bounty hunter than tries to mess with my father will be, how should I say, in trouble.  We come from Jango Fett and my father is battle hardened, drunk or not.  No, I need to go someplace nobody would think to look.  Of course I keep trying that.  I need to meditate on it more and perhaps the answer will come to me.

Son of a Clone Trooper - Settling In

Well, I’ve been here on the Smuggler’s Moon for a few months and nothing eventful has happened like the last few places as of yet.  I got a job refereeing at the local Huttball tournaments.  It’s a strange job to have as there are no rules other than how to score.  But hey it pays well, and my enhanced reflexes allow me to dodge the occasional errant blaster bolt when a contestant has had enough of his or her opponent.  It also helps when I call off a goal and a player takes exception to it.  All-in-all it’s pretty tame compared to my other adventures though.  Did I mention it pays well?  Yeah, I got a nice apartment and made a few friends.  At first I thought about trying to use a different identity, but then I thought, who knows me anyway?  I’m even thinking about selling the shuttle, though the idea of not being able to make a quick escape is scary.

I was so ignorant about different places in the galaxy when I first set out.  The idea of even being in the vicinity of the criminal underworld would have repulsed me but now, some are my friends.  Take this Corellian smuggler (omitting his name to protect his anonymity) I met a few weeks ago.  He’s the kind of scoundrel that I wouldn’t have even thought of associating with back on Rori.  He appears trigger happy and very self centered, yet that really isn’t the case.  He has a wookiee companion that he risked his life to rescue from slavery.  That doesn’t sound like a selfish person to me.  He’s also pretty funny, albeit a bit cynical.  We were hanging out quite a bit until recently.  He had to make some major preparations to his ship for a job for someone on Tatooine (I really hate that place).  I am sure I will see him when he gets back though.  He was telling me about this little Twi’lek dance club in the Corellian district.

Speaking of alien species; this place is a haven for all sorts of species.  I never thought I would end up living in such a diverse locale.  There’s everything here from Bothans to Wookiees.  It’s a real treat for the most part.  It’s a good thing the Empire avoids this place for the most part.  Their intolerance for non-humans would probably make for some uncomfortable confrontations.  The only way they are here is unofficially.  For instance I had to ref a Huttball game between a Stormtrooper squad and a team of Slavers the other night.  That was messy and I am glad I am not the one who had to clean it up.

Oh and on a side note.  If you can use the Force, then stay away from the booze.  Man that stuff really messes with the decision making process.  I got a bit “tipsy” drinking Corellian Ale the other night and I guess I was being quite the prankster.  Using the Force to pull people’s chairs out just as they were about to sit down, holding the fluid in the glass when someone went to take a drink, tying shoelaces together and the occasional wardrobe malfunction were part of my repertoire, or so I was told by my buddy Talon.  I have no doubt in my mind that he was encouraging me all along, but I can’t really remember enough to say one way or the other.  I just need to be wary that I didn’t draw too much attention to myself. 

Well it’s been a long night and I am sitting here dozing off, so I think it’s time I sign off for now.  As uneventful as the last couple of months has been, there certainly are a lot of things to talk about.  But first, sleep.

Son of a Clone Trooper - Shuttles, Huts and Caves Oh My

Son of a… wow does my face hurt.  Mental note; when in a duel with someone, don’t get hit in the face with a stick.  It cost me a couple of teeth, a fat lip, a broken nose, and I am sure a pair of black eyes good enough to make it look like I am wearing sunglasses.  Let’s not forget the fact that it hurts a LOT!  Why didn’t I anticipate that there would be a guard on board?  I executed my plan with spectacular efficiency only to get busted up when I had escaped.

As you can surely guess, the noise was another Nightsister that had been on sentry duty aboard the shuttle.  She was a bit miffed that I had fled the planet and set up a little ambush for me.  I walked right into it like an idiot too.  I walked right through the door of the passenger compartment without much of a thought when that Force danger sense kicked off.  I managed to duck the blade of her vibrolance just to have her catch me right on the button with the butt end of that thing.  Despite her landing the blow, her charred remains went out the airlock a few minutes later.

I guess that makes the decision on whether I go to an inhabited planet or not.  I need to find a dentist to fix my stinking teeth now.  At least I got the bleeding to stop.  I thought I was going to have to cauterize myself with my lightsaber.  Imagine that sight; me standing there in the refresher with a lightsaber up my nose.  Excitement… Adventure… Ha!  No longer do I crave those things.  I fear though that my life with be fraught with them.

So let’s see.  I am scanning through the planets looking for a good place to get myself lost.  Something civilized, yet one that doesn’t draw a lot of attention and hopefully has a decent dentist.  Of course, if the Force has anything to say about it, I may end up at some other planet than the one I intended.  That’s how I got to Dathomir in the first place.  It’s funny that with all the control the Empire seems to have, and all their tremendous firepower, there are so many places in the Galaxy that seem out of their reach.  My mind keeps going to Nar Shadaa, so that’s where I will point myself next.  Everything I need can be found there, and perhaps I can find some work as well.  I could certainly use the credits.  I could also stand to live in a real apartment.  I am getting tired of shuttles, huts, and caves.

So now I am heading through hyperspace with a destination in mind.  I took a look that the Holonet for a couple minutes while I was getting everything set.  It seems as if wrinkles and his iron lunged lieutenant (The Emperor and Darth Vader for those of you living under a rock) have just unveiled the largest star destroyer ever built.  It’s the Executor and it’s called a Super Star Destroyer; real original, I know.  I have to admit though, that it is one impressive piece of hardware.  That thing just dwarfs its non-super counterparts.  The poor rebellion doesn’t stand a chance not that the Empire has that machine.  Even the big Mon Cal ships are no match for that behemoth. 

Another surprise I saw on there too was that a non-human was selected for a high-level rank within the Imperial Navy.  Some blue skinned species with weird red eyes by the name of Thrawn.  That’s definitely not like the Empire to be recruiting and/or promoting from outside the human race.  I am not sure what their issue is with non-humans.  They are really shorting themselves in terms of a talent pool.  It’s scary to think what their infantry would be like if they had a bunch of wookiees running around dismembering people and you can’t forget about that wookiee life debt.  I need to save a wookiee just so I have a large, intimidating companion to help keep me out of trouble. Hahah, maybe I should have gone to Kashyyyk instead of Nar Shadaa.   

Oh coming out of hyperspace now, and yes, I am at the Smuggler’s Moon.  I never thought that looking down on this place would have ever been a comforting sight.  Now that I am doing it, I can already see the opportunities to essentially hide in plain sight without having to forgo creature comforts.  It also means that it’s time to land and I can’t be sitting here and writing while trying to land this shuttle.  Hopefully all goes well here and I can finally have a place to hang my hat for a little while.

Son of a Clone Trooper - Run Awayyyyyyyy

Perhaps I am not cut out for this life.  I am fleeing yet another planet.  If you remember me saying that Nightsisters are intolerant of failure, you may also remember that I said their intolerance can lead to death.  It seems that being male, even the son of the Queen, made me a bigger target for such harsh punishment for failure.  It wasn’t a failure of me to learn the lessons being taught so much as it was a failure to subscribe to their penchant for cruelty.  By refusing them, I in turn failed.  In my failure, I became useless to them.  Without a purpose, I wasn’t just expendable; I was a liability.  Fortunately, their training proved exceedingly useful in facilitating my avoidance of death and ultimately, my escape.

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.

Son of a Clone Trooper - Swoop Bike, Meet Force Lightning

I believe the word intense is far too weak a word to describe the training I have been subjected to by the Nightsisters.  The words, brutal, unforgiving and excruciating are much more fitting.  These women do not tolerate failure.  Fail to meet their standards and you become an outcast; if you survive.  It’s taken every ounce of strength and fortitude I have to get this far and it’s still very much the beginning.  I would have thought that the very beginning would be the worst.  Sort of indoctrination similar to the training my father described in his military service.  It’s not true of these women.  Each day becomes progressively more difficult, not easier. 

It hurts very badly, but I have found that the hurt in turn fuels my connection to The Force which then allows me to drive further than I ever thought was possible.  It’s a cycle that seems to be perpetual, but the fact is that one’s capacity for drawing upon The Force wears out and the result is an exhaustion induced collapse.  I am just beginning my recovery from said collapse.  I can feel the difference in me though.  The depth of my connection to the proverbial energy source has been revealed to me and it is much greater than I had previously imagined.  As a result my body is getting honed as well.  Drawing upon The Force to complete my tasks is only a part of it.  Through The Force my mind and body are being sharpened into a precise instrument of pure power.  It is nothing like the Jedi as my father described them.

As challenging as it is, I am finding great reward in my training.  It goes beyond the shaping of my mind and body.  My connection to The Force is growing.  I am growing closer to being able to fully give in to The Force.  For short bursts, I can let go and it will take over making me a tool of its will.  It reminds me of my run in with the leather chickens.  Except now I understand it.  The Nightsisters tell me that as my skills improve and grow more precise, so it will be when I give myself to The Force.  They say that it will allow The Force to guide me in doing things that I could not do without it, but that my skill and training will allow me to impose a conscious control over the precision of everything that is happening.  I am not sure what it all means, but it sounds really amazing.

Speaking of precision that is something I definitely need to work on.  It’s the opposite of what I have been raised to believe.  I large boulder is much harder to physically move than a grain of sand.  But that is not how it is with The Force.  I can blast around all manner of large objects with little to no effort, but when I try to use my power to pluck an insect from a rock I find myself clumsy and unable to complete the exercise.  I will continue practicing until I get it though.  I am nothing if not determined.

Lightning… Oh I can’t forget the lightning.  My dear mother has been giving me private lessons in my lightning use.  It’s only now that I realize that my previous attempts were sad and paltry.  I haven’t come half way to using it at my mother’s level and already it has increased ten-fold.  Instead of a couple of paltry, low-powered bolts, I am now able to emit a small storm of crackling, pulsing energy at will.  I hope that someday I will be able to destroy swoop bikes on a whim like my mother and her “sisters.”

Funny story now that I think about it.  I was out on a training exercise with a couple of Protectors who were teaching me the finer points of pole arm combat.  We had tracked our quarry to an area that was fairly close to one of the outposts for science expeditions and brave adventurers.  While we were there we heard the unmistakable sounds of several approaching swoop bikes.  The Nightsisters don’t take kindly to strangers (or anybody really) encroaching on their territory.  They sent me off beyond a ridge to watch and learn.  Three swoop bikes came racing over the top of the hill we were on and right into the Protector’s trap.  Lightning flashed from their fingertips and bikes exploded throwing their riders into the dirt. 

There were three of them a gigantic wookiee with an egg-shaped head, a bald human in his boxers, and another human with a Mohawk.  The look of confusion on their faces when they got hit was priceless.  I had no idea wookiees had the ability to show such expression on their faces.  The bald one was shouting profanities faster than I can swing a lightsaber and the one with the Mohawk had a look of malice in his eyes that could freeze a lesser man’s blood, at least until he saw what caused the accident.  Upon realizing what had happened, they turned and burst into a sprint.  Clearly confused, they ran the opposite way of the outpost. I followed my teachers as they pursued the running, screaming trio into the depths of the Dathomirian forests before breaking off pursuit.

When I finally caught up, the Protectors were heading back my way laughing hysterically.  It seemed the wookiee left a trail of droppings as he ran.  The bald human, apparently somewhat drunk tripped over a log and face planted into a pile of rancor dung and the one with the Mohawk looked back to see if they were still being pursued and ran right into a tree and got stuck.  To top it all off, they had gone right into the territory of a rancor even bigger than my mother’s ride, one that the Nightsisters call “The Ancient.”

Well, it’s time for me to bathe in some Bacta so I can resume my training sooner rather than later.  That stuff is great.  It will reduce my recovery time from a couple of weeks to a couple of days.  I am anxious to get back to my training.  I really want to learn more skills with weapons so that I can apply them to my lightsaber combat.  It’s still my favorite thing about having the powers that I have.  

Son of a Clone Trooper - Meaningless and Trivial Tricks

Well, it’s been awhile.  I am guessing everyone figured I got killed when I went out to face my mother and her army.  Admittedly I was terrified.  It’s not like she and her followers were pushovers or mere mortals deprived of a connection to The Force.  It’s actually quite the opposite.  Getting into their midst altered my perception.  I went from feeling it, and perceiving it intangibly to actually being able to see The Force swirling around them.  It was amazing to see the combined power of these frighteningly savage Force wielding women.  Their power seemed to pass from one to the other generating one massive collection of heavy, dark, ever moving tendrils of energy.  It was nearly imperceptible from a distance but as I grew closer their power seemed to amplify my own thus allowing me to actually see it.

It beckoned me seductively, its tendrils wrapping around me and pulling me in.  I was powerless against it.  The closer I got the more I became part of it until I was standing face to face with my mother completely enveloped, and entangled in the web of dark essence.  I couldn’t have moved had I wanted to and I didn’t want to.  It was intoxicating and it bent my will to its desire with seemingly nominal effort.  It was easy to see how Axkva and her clans could overrun an Imperial prison.  I can’t imagine anything short of a full battalion of troops being able to handle the raw power these women possessed.

She stared at me with those piercing yellow eyes.  I could feel her consciousness penetrating my mind, rooting around my entire life almost as if she were looking for something.  I made no attempt to resist.  She was going to get what she wanted from me one way or the other; I might as well let her do it unimpeded.  I had nothing to hide from her anyway.  I occasionally caught glimpses of the memories she was looking at.  Several minutes later, apparently satisfied, she departed my mind, tilted her head, put her thin, long fingers on my shoulder and proclaimed, “My stolen progeny has returned!”

With her words, the cloud of dark energy dissipated into the air.  Apparently there was a conscious effort to produce it by the Nightsisters.  It was a curious thing.  Was it something to give them an edge?  Perhaps it was some way to use their collective power to empower each other should things have turned violent?  If so, why was I included in it?  My best guess is that they used their combined power to draw me in and keep me pliable and compliant while their Queen examined the strangely familiar human approaching them.  Whatever it was, its effects had begun to wear off.

No longer enamored by its seductive presence I realized just what had happened.  Not only did she not kill me on the spot, it seemed that my mother was not unhappy to see me.  Perhaps things had changed in the years since my father was held captive here.  Maybe the Nightsisters had found some value in men beyond being slaves.  Or perhaps it was the fact that I was Force Sensitive.  At that point there was no telling what it was that stayed her hand, much less made her accepting of me.  It didn’t matter.  I was just happy to be alive.

The rest of the clan began to disperse until after a few minutes it was just me standing there with my mother.  Despite my relief, I felt no warmth from her.  Ours was obviously not a reunion that provided her significant positive feelings.  That then begged the question again, why then was I still alive? 

As if reading my mind she responded.  “We did not kill you because you may prove to be useful to us.  You have a great power you have only just begun understanding.  Your potential is far greater than the meaningless and trivial tricks you have been performing.”

Meaningless and trivial were the words she used.  I was baffled.  The meaningless and trivial things I had done took every ounce of my concentration and willpower to execute and she made it sound like I had been performing parlor tricks.  My curiosity was piqued at the same time my ego was deflated.  At least she thought I had potential, and if those things were in fact simple tricks, imagine what I would be able to do with the proper training.

Again, she picked up on my thought.  “I will train you.  You have much to learn.  You are soft, weak and pliable, but we will change that.  We will need to change that if you are to fulfill your destiny.”

“My destiny?” I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.  I had heard those words come from Darth Vader on his Holonet spots.  As a matter of fact, from most of the stories I have heard and read, destiny seemed to be a common thing for Force users to reference.  Perhaps the connection The Force creates between everything allows its users to get a better understanding of how things work together to achieve an end.  Or perhaps it’s just as I had thought all along and it was just philosophical mumbo jumbo.  It seemed I would be finding out soon enough.

“Yes, your destiny.  You are connected to The Force as you call it.  It is strong with you and holds immeasurable power.  Do you think that you would be granted such a gift without it having some purpose?”  Her tone was one of little patience and little regard for ignorance.

“We will teach you how to unlock your power and give you the ability to reach your potential, but we want something in return.”  Here it was; the reason I was spared.  “When your training is sufficient, you will go back to the civilized parts of the galaxy and be our eyes, ears, and when called upon, our hands.  When your tasks are completed, you will get a ship adequate enough in size to accommodate me and my clans so we can escape this place.”

“Why not just load up on my shuttle and I will fly you all out of this system to wherever you would like to go?”  I asked with all sincerity.  It was not well met as evidenced by the fact that my face met the back of her hand. 

“If we wanted your shuttle, you would be dead and we would have departed before your corpse was cold!”  Patience was definitely not her strength.  “It’s your potential we want, not your ship.”

She paused staring up out towards the large moon in the sky.  “First you must prove yourself.  This planet is fraught with deadly creatures and the terrain is equally as dangerous.  You must stay here until I return.  In the time that I am gone you must survive without using your ship or the supplies on board.  If you are alive when I get back, then you will be trained.”

With a wave of her hand, the ramp to my shuttle closed.  She then mounted her rancor and rode off.

It took me about an hour before curiosity got the better of me and I wandered over to my shuttle.  I punched in the code to open the ramp and nothing happened.  I tried it again, still nothing.  I reached out with The Force to try and get the ramp to lower.  Again, I had no luck.  She had done something to it to keep me from cheating.  I was outdoors with the clothes on my back and my lightsaber at my side but nothing else.

I would love to finish the story up to this point, but I don’t have the time right now.  I have to leave for the Nightsister village shortly to begin my training.  I will get caught up here as soon as I can.  Until then, wish me luck.