A Place Of Death

The desert is a place of death.

The sun burns the skin while the wind picks up grains of sand that inflict more pain. Thirst is the worst of all ailments. Finding water on the planet Idria is nearly impossible. As is finding hope to ever depart the world that had once flourished with yellow grass and tall trees, that had once been a metropolis of busy streets and alleys, crowded spaceports and markets. Idria had been splendor and magnificence, enchantment and beauty – until they set foot upon the land.

Until the Empire had sent out their legions of white armored murderers to clean Idria’s surface of aliens and humans alike. Only few survived the first wave of the attack and only few ever dared to fight back. No one had come to help.

Whatever for?

Idria is an unknown planet in the far reaches of space. There is nothing important, nothing special – besides three young lives perhaps.

Idria.

A desert.

A place of death.

+++

A ball of white hot flame engulfed the young Idrians as they ran for their lives. Just not fast enough. Within seconds their pale golden skin blistered along their long bones, melting into a thick mold of indistinguishable biological mass. The scent of singed hair and cooked flesh permeated the air. Cries were drowned out by the deafening roar of the explosion behind them.

What had once been an underground weapons cache was now nothing more than yet another hole in the ground.

Bodies flayed as they were hurled through the air by the shockwave. With sickening crunches and painful thuds, they landed on the desert floor in a heap of limbs. Out of the group of six, two survived.

It took several long moments for Natal to get her bearings. The bright purple sky above her hurt her violet eyes but she didn’t have the strength to turn away. Moving hurt.

“We have to hurry.” Tusir’s distorted voice sounded odd along with the ringing in her ears. Of course, Natal knew that he was right. The strike team had effectively eradicated the weapons cache but they still had a job to do. But getting to her feet would force her to face the carnage. Already she could smell the blood, the gore mixing with the warm sand.

Her stomach heaved while she let the faces of her friends pass through her mind. They were all dead, their lifeless bodies broken and scattered all around her. Natal turned onto her side and emptied her stomach, crying milky tears for those who had died for a cause that had already been lost from the beginning.

“If we find the Essence user, he will help us.”

“You believe so fiercely, Tusir.” Natal hissed between clenched teeth while she wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “Blind faith will ultimately get you killed.”

“I hope –“

“There is no such thing as hope!” She snapped, her voice dripping with purest venom while she stared at him and shook her head, black feathery hair falling to her shoulders. At least, what was left of it.

“They will have died in vain if we give up now. The white armored men will not hunt us while they try and save their precious weapons.”

Natal nodded slowly, feeling lightheaded as the scene before her finally settled in.

Death. All around them.

“Let’s go.” Without so much as a backward glance, Natal got to her feet and began walking a straight line, ignoring the pain in her arms and legs, the stinging of her charred flesh, the smell of scorched clothing. She dared not look back for fear of wanting to be with her friends, of wanting to embrace death rather than fight for her homeworld the way the revolutionists had taught her.

But it was hard. With every step she took, she felt like a traitor to her people.

They had died.

She had lived.

The desert was a place of death.

+++



The prison cell, if one could actually call it such, smelled dank and musky. It might have been used as an old shed back when the Idrians had grown as a community. In the dim light, the Jedi recognized wooden shelves along the walls, some still stacked with cans of food and bottled water. Although, going by the thick carpet of grey dust covering each surface, he supposed no one had really ventured into the shed for several years.

Not until he had stumbled onto the surface purely by accident. On his way home from a mission gone awry, his ship had developed a slight glitch, forcing him to land on the desert world. He had estimated a day or two for repairs and hadn’t expected white armored Stormtroopers to appear out of seemingly nowhere, leveling odd-looking blasters in his direction. More than a dozen had surrounded his ship and realizing he had nowhere to go, he had not resisted when they had taken him away in utter silence.

He’d counted seventy-eight days so far.

Seventy-eight days in which he had been certain his friends would find and rescue him, sixty-one days in which he had hoped that the search was still ongoing; forty-three days in which he had been tortured and asked questions he could not begin to answer. Twenty-eight days in which his hope had slowly dwindled. Ten days in which he knew his time was up.

The entrance to his prison opened with a loud creak, spilling purple light into the enclosed space from above. Sand pooled down through cracks from the wooden trapdoor as it was pulled upward and with an all too familiar thundering thump, it was laid aside before booted feet came down a flight of old stairs.

The Jedi drew on the Force to calm himself. In the beginning he had fought off the Stormtroopers, had undid the binds holding his wrists and ankles tied in place to an old wooden chair and on occasion he had made it to the surface. Only to be caught and dragged back. The punishment had been worse than he could have ever imagined.

Being a Jedi, being able to use the Force – it got him absolutely no where.

Pain was his constant companion now. Pain and more than dozen faceless soldiers he had thought all but extinct.

One man came to him every day. It seemed he was the commanding officer and as such it seemed he had privileges the others did not. He did not wear the armor, nor the mask.

He wore a hideous face of an old human male.

“Ready to talk?” He grumbled, his voice deep and scratchy.

The Jedi merely smiled. On the forty-first day of his incarceration, he had realized that talking, answering questions was equal to staying silent. The outcome was always the same.

At one point, the Jedi had hoped for a quick death. He hadn’t expected medications, certain drugs to help him regain consciousness; drugs to make him hallucinate and babble incoherently while he saw scenes from his nightmares play out in front of him.

They had broken him.

“I will let you go, if you talk.”

The Jedi shifted his gaze towards the tall man who stood flanked by three armored guards, two beside him and one at his back. He’d never suggested letting him go.

Never.

Which meant it was a trick.

The Force had always been his ally. The Force had forsaken him. He was completely alone, trapped beneath the hot desert floor, waiting for peace to find him.

The Jedi smiled. And yet he spoke nothing.

“Don’t you want to leave? Take back your ship and return to your own life? I’m giving you that chance.”

There was no doubt in the Jedi’s mind that the man was lying. There was no need for being truthful. All he wanted were answers he could not possibly give. Questions about the Empire, the fall of the Empire, the Remnant – he was far too young. At twenty-seven, the Imperial Era was ancient History to him.

Minutes ticked by while the Jedi closed his eyes and prayed to the Force that his soul would rise to become one with the essence of life once his body lost all its functions.

“One more chance. Tell me what I want to know and you’re free.”

The Jedi threw his head back and laughed. The tall human male balled his hand into a tight fist and shattered the Jedi’s nose.

Still he laughed.

He finally understood.

The desert was a place of death.

+++

“Do you see it?”

Natal crouched behind a great boulder, holding magnifying lenses in her hands. “Four guards.”

“Four?” Tusir whispered incredulously. “We can’t take on four guards at once.”

“We’ve dealt with worse odds. We can do this, Tusir.” She paused while the wind whipped around them, singing the song of a crying planet. Her tears fell during the night as she wept for her slaughtered children, her screams echoed through the air when it rained and thundered. Idria wept. “Either way, we have nothing more to lose.”

Natal set the magnifying lenses aside and laid a hand on Tusir’s arm. “We have lost everything in this war. You’ve lost your family as have I. We have one chance to save the Essence user while we make sure the armored men never again breathe a single breath of our sweet air.”

Tusir closed his beautiful turquoise eyes and nodded once. “If we die –“

“We won’t, Tusir. Have faith that the Goddess protects us and our cause.”

He took a deep breath and forced a smile onto his pale, golden face. Perhaps, if things had gone differently, Tusir might have become a scholar. He loved to read and to learn, he loved history and asking questions. He wasn’t a fighter, unlike Natal and it saddened her that he had been dragged into this like the rest of their people – dragged into a war started by a species they had never even heard of before. “I would have loved to study these humans.” Tusir muttered.

“Perhaps you still can.” Natal took a deep breath and squeezed his arm briefly. “Let us hurry.”

They closed their eyes and spoke a quick prayer to their Goddess before unhooking their own weapons from their belts and stepping around the boulder.

In plain sight of the white armored murderers, they began firing yellow shots at those that would see them harmed.

After all, the desert was a place of death.

+++

The taste of blood is nauseating. The sound of breaking bones equally so. The knowledge that rescue is no longer an option is flooring.

The Jedi coughed and squeezed his eyes closed. He had no choice but to listen to his assailants muttered curses while he beat him.

“How stupid are you, boy?” The man snarled, throwing yet another punch to the Jedi’s gut. “I gave you a chance!” Another punch. And another. And another.

Yet in between the sound of fist against skin, there was the distinct hum of blaster fire from above. The Jedi smiled a toothy, bloody smile and again he laughed. Perhaps not all was lost. Perhaps his rescue had finally come.

Rescue after seventy-eight days.

Could he dare hope?

“Take a look what’s going on up there.” The male said in a dark, sinister voice while he glanced over his shoulder and spoke to his guards. He grew quiet, pensive almost, while they ascended the stairs. Quietness reigned for a long moment and then more blaster fire. The human male growled obscenities under his breath and grabbing his blaster, he turned around and walked up the steps that would lead to freedom.

The Jedi slumped in the chair and closed his eyes. Hope truly prolonged the suffering of man. He had thought he’d given up but hearing blaster fire up above… it opened a valve within him and the urge to die drifted away.

He wanted to live.

He heard a menacing scream, like a warrior’s call followed by an ugly gurgling sound that told him everything he needed to know. Silence reigned for a very long time. Unending and daunting.

The soft fall of footsteps made the Jedi raise his battered face to the purple light. Where once had stood a Stormtrooper with a rifle pointed at his chest, now stood a beautiful native of the planet Idria. Her golden face was expressionless, her slanted violet eyes hard with mistrust and hurt. She was tall even for her species, long and gangly yet strong.

“Tusir!” She whispered in her native tongue. “He’s alive.”

He could not put into words how grateful, how indebted he felt to these people.

The woman hurried to his side and undid his binds in hectic, yet graceful motions. The man behind her beckoned for them to hurry and so she did. She wound an arm around his waist and carried him out of the shed, out of his prison, up the wooden stairs and towards freedom, into an unknown future.

Perhaps the desert was not only a place of death.

Perhaps the desert was indeed a place of hope.

Involuntarily Uncooperative

“You call it madness”, Jag shrugged, “but I call it love.”

And I swear by the Force I could see little pink hearts popping out of the man’s eyes. Everyone had known about Jag and Jaina besides Jag and Jaina. You could have thrown a ten pound brick at their heads with inscribed words YOU’RE IN LOVE and they wouldn’t have grasped it.

Talk about dense.

Jag and I sat together in the Southern Underground, a bar/café/funhouse (call it what you will) in the seedier parts of Coruscant-down-below. A motley crew of thugs, smugglers, drug dealers, you name it came here to lay low for a while, enjoy the view and all that and while at it, drink their minds into oblivion. The place had the best ale credits could buy.

It was a hive of busyness, which was one of the main reasons we came down here in the first place. Too many people, too many different faces – no one paid attention. Here you could put your feet up and enjoy your drink like any other average being. No one would come up to pester you, ask you questions, demand answers.

Here you were normal.

People like us, we don’t get normal very often.

But in between all the crap we have to take, we do have to deal with normal problems once in a while.
Jag, for instance. A drunk fool in love.

There was no way in the nine Corellian hells that I could drink Jaggy-boy under the table. So while he sat staring into his ale with a big fat grin on his face, I knew he was getting to that certain stage where walking out of the bar on his own was going to be a problem.

And me? I could barely sit up straight. But even down here I told myself I had a reputation to uphold. I was not going to fall off my chair. The good thing was that no one would give a damn if I did but my ego wouldn’t like that, now would it?
I gripped the table to steady the moving room around me. Until the waitress returned with another round – courtesy of Jag Fel in that lovey-dovey mood of his.

The waitress was a looker, I have to admit. She swayed those hips back and forth, smiled and batted her eyelashes, flung her long blond hair over her shoulder. Which male in his right mind would not take a good hard look at such a beautiful woman?
The answer?

Jag Fel in love. He kept staring into his ale as if answers to all questions of the universe lay right there, just a swallow away.
“She’s perfect, you know.” He called over the music, leaning forward so I could hear him better. I really couldn’t understand a word but it didn’t much matter. Not only could I read his lips but he kept repeating himself over and over again. I lost count how many times I had to listen to how perfect Jaina Solo was.

“Yeah, I know. You’ve told me ten times already.”

He glanced up, his eyes almost black in the dimly lit club. “Your speech is impaired.”

Can you believe it? Even in a drunken state, the man still uses big words!

I rolled my eyes. “Shut up, you mad man.”

“Mad?”

“All men in love are mad.”

“What about women?”

I took a gulp of my ale and chuckled. “They’re always mad.”

I have to admit I was rather glad my significant other wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity. So you see, I do know what Jag was going through. I am older than he is and therefore much wiser – the man should listen to my words.

He doesn’t though. Much too stubborn for that, which is a good thing actually. I tend to have reckless ideas at times. Understating the fact, really but who cares?

The waitress came by a second time and brought us another round on the house. Jag drained his glass, I nipped at mine feeling sick to my stomach. I knew this night wasn’t going to be kind to me and I had promised Jaina to bring Jag home safely.

How, I ask you?

How?


It looked like it was going to be the other way around. There was an intimate revolt going on in my innards – I swear a war broke loose. The food was discussing with the alcohol: should we stay or should we go?

Jag decided that we leave the moment I knew that if I moved, I’d throw up halfway across the table. I closed my eyes and took care while shaking my head. I didn’t even need to say anything – Jag sat back and laughed at me. Then the idiot punched me in the arm.
“You don’t look too well.”

“Shut up.”

“Do I need to drag your sorry butt home?”

Isn’t it unfair? Here sits Jagged Fel, having drunk double the amount I had – it wouldn’t have surprised me if it had been half the damned bar – and he spoke clearly, he sat straight and he grinned at me.

At that moment, I hated him.

“Leave me alone.”

The urge to sleep overcame me then. I couldn’t help it. My muscles went slack, my head felt ten times heavier than usual – I remember a thud and then I was out.

Can you believe it? I passed out on the kriffing table.

***

I wandered back into the land of the living hearing voices all around me. Some whispered, some spoke loudly, others laughed and some yelled at each other and all this in a multitude of different languages. I tried opening my eyes but that was harder than expected.

My body wasn’t obeying. Not really.

I managed to breathe.

Good, yes?

After what seemed like a lifetime of listening to these odd sounding voices, I realized I wasn’t standing.

See, using the Force while drunk out of your mind doesn’t work. To all those people out there who consider us Jedi to be almighty and unbeatable – it’s not true. Just lies being fed to make us seem perfect.

Well, to hell with that.

Perfect is something else all together.

A soft bed and silence – now that’s perfect.

I felt a slithering of dull pain in my right shoulder. It felt like it’d grown a pair of feet and now walked around my arm and right into my wrist. That’s when I used all the strength I still possessed in my state of utter drunkenness and ripped my eyes open.

I groaned when I realized where all the voices came from. Jag had dragged my sorry butt onto a public transport back topside. People didn’t pay too much attention – there were a few teens who pointed at us and one of the girls waved. I couldn’t help the stupid grin on my face then – or the drool collecting at the side of my mouth.

“I see you’re awake.” I heard Jag’s amused voice.

My arm was slung over his shoulder and since he’d literally dragged me all the way, that’s why my arm hurt. And this little fact made me think about my boots. I paid a fortune for these things and silently, I swore to Jag I’d kick him in the butt if my boots had a single scratch.

“And you’re heavy. Can I drop you now?”

It took a long while for me to process what Jag was saying. Drop me? That didn’t sound good at all. Too late did I realize that he’d already let me go. I found myself sprawled on the floor of the transport, with people staring and pointing.

Yeah, we were definitely on our way back top-side.

Coruscant-upper-levels don’t know how to have fun.

A small glint of satisfaction glistened in my eyes, though. Jag swayed on his legs, even if only a little. He held on to a pole with one hand, looking down at me. I lay on my back with my hands on my belly, grinning like the idiot I can be all too often.

“This view doesn’t do you credit, sweetheart.” I drawled and laughed. I could hardly recognize my voice. Dark and scratchy.
Don’t chicks dig the dark and scratchy, though?

The thought made me grin again.

I felt the tip of Jag’s boot dig into my side. “Get up, old man.”

I managed to sit up. But I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. I had to get up because the transport arrived at our stop. I looked through the windows, recognizing tall spires and buildings – you could even see the Jedi temple from this altitude.
Beautiful, stupid, annoying Jedi temple.

Nowhere near my home.

“Where are we?” I asked with a frown.

“On our way home. Up with you.” He about yanked my arm out of my socket, I swear.

“Do you get kicks out of almost breaking my arm?”

Jag’s lips curved into a grin. “The great Kyp Durron is worried I could break his arm?”

I tore away from him, stubborn to the last. Screw him, I could go on without his help. I didn’t want or need his help in the first place.

So I stood on wobbly legs. The doors opened when the transport set down on the landing pad. I walked out, breathed in cool night air.

I took a step out.

And then tripped over my feet and fell flat on my face.

Wonderful.

***

I scratched my left cheek. It burned like a [insert various curse words here].

At least I was back on my feet, glaring at Jag because he laughed at me. He does that a lot when he’s drunk.
So anyway, we were on our way to his place. And all I wanted to do was go home because my bed was calling for me and I yearned for it. But Jag wasn’t having any of it.

“I’ll have you picked up.” He said but at the time I wasn’t listening. I was concentrating on not tripping or falling. I did my best to seem like an average human being on a night out. I think I was doing too much, though.

Jag did a double take, then frowned. “Wipe that idiotic grin off your face, Durron. You’re scaring people.”

Maybe he was right.

I did not wipe the grin off my face. I made it worse.

It got me into a good mood, that should count for something.

I realized that we were only a few minutes away from Jaina’s private domain. Nothing fancy, just a small remote apartment near the Jedi temple. On a normal day, we would have been there in under five minutes but this day wasn’t normal at all.

My stomach heaved. I stopped in my tracks, counted backwards from ten and calmed myself. Force, I felt sick. It made me vow never to go drinking with Jag again. But I’ve said this before and what did I do? I went out drinking with Jag.

From a certain point of view, it’s all his fault really. It was his suggestion, he wanted out for a while. So did I but that’s beside the point.

Jag grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. I started to whine like a kriffing baby.

I’m not embarrassed. Uh-uh. Nope.

Maybe a little.

What a picture the two of us must have made. We were dressed casually, so recognizing us (unshaved and disheveled, smelly no doubt) wasn’t going to be a big deal. Hopefully. Still, the short man dragging me along because I felt like crap – hopefully no one had a holocamera on us.

The press would have field day.

When we finally made it to the building in question, some eighty stories high, I slumped with relief. My legs wouldn’t have carried me much further anyway. Jag opened the front door of the building and I glanced down the hall.

I would have to walk the entire distance to the turbo lifts.

That was definitely going to be a real mission for me, let me tell you. Because in between the stomach flip flopping around, my head buzzing and my legs feeling like jelly, the whole walking thing was going to be a problem.

And I had promised Jaina to get Jag home safely?!

What the heck had I been thinking?

As if from far away, as in really far away, I heard Jag say something about someone picking me up again. Even though my brain was all fuzzy, there was only one person Jag could call to pick me up. And she’d make fun of me until my dying day. My significant
other.

My Liz.

Force help me.

***

Eventually, we actually made it to the apartment. There was a lot of yelling, dragging and I do believe kicking involved. On Jag’s part. I was involuntarily uncooperative.

I wasn’t feeling well at all. It was like falling into this big black hole and inventing new curse words as I went.
Bluntly put, I felt like shavit.

And here was Jag still standing, his normal quiet self. I invented curse words for him, too.
He’d gotten me back onto my feet when we reached Jaina’s front door. She stood with raised brows and one hand perched on her hip, smiling a little. I tried to wave.

It didn’t really work out too well. I actually tried to say hello, too.
I think that did work, though.

“Hey, Kyp. You look like hell.”

“I feel like hell, too.” I answered when Jag dropped me – again! I lay behind the sofa, in a heap of nausea and the smell of alcohol. I wanted to sleep. Sleep sounded insanely good.

I closed my eyes and wished I hadn’t. Even then, everything started to spin. My stomach revolted again so I forced myself into a sitting position, pulling my knees to my chest and laying my head atop my knees. I sat there for a long while.
A very long while.

I heard Jag and Jaina smootching. That was odd, to say the least. They whispered and laughed, giggled.
Dammit, he should have been even more wasted than I was!

The bastard.

“You okay?” Jaina knelt before me with a glass of water in her hand.

“Do I look okay?” I asked in that scratchy voice again.

“No. But you smell worse. Drink?”

I shook my head and closed my eyes. Drinking or eating didn’t sound good at this point.

Not good at all.

How much time passed? I have no idea. I heard the holonet running in the background. A news coverage, I believe. Jag was talking in hushed tones, on his comlink. Jaina was in the kitchen. She brought a damp cloth and smashed it into my face.

Sweet Jaina. Gotta love her.

“You know, you don’t have to stay on the floor.” She said and I detected real worry in her voice. It warmed me, to tell the truth.
“Moving is not good.” I breathed. I started to hiccup and that was a very bad sign. “I think I need to use the fresher.”
Even through my personal hazy hell, I saw Jaina grin.

It was like she and Jag were in this together, I swear! A conspiracy theory!

Distantly, I heard the door chime. I debated whether or not to get up and drag myself to the fresher. It might have been a good idea because my dinner from earlier didn’t want to stay put.

I squeezed my eyes shut, took deep breaths and just counted. To distract myself, I suppose. And then I felt cool hands grasping mine and I looked up.

I smiled. “Hi, Beautiful.” I whispered.

The smile Liz shot me would have knocked me off my feet, had I not already been sitting on my butt. She cleared her throat and shot me a typical Liz look. The one that told me she was doing her best not to giggle or some such.

“Hey there, Handsome.”

“Not so much.”

“I think we should get you home.”

I nodded then shook my head. “I don’t wanna move.”

“You’re going to have to.”

“I’ll stay right here. On the floor.”

“The couch is more comfortable.” I heard Jag. I looked up and there he was, leaning over the couch and smiling down at me. I wanted to punch him.

So. Un-kriffing-fair.

They talked some more. I wasn’t listening. I was losing the fight with my stomach.

I grabbed Liz’ hands and squeezed. “You love me, right?” I asked, trying to smile, hoping my smile didn’t look like something out of a horror flick.

“Of course.” She said, her brow crinkled.

“Whatever happens, you’ll still love me, right?”

She narrowed chocolate brown eyes. “Don’t you even dare thi—“

Too late.

As I said, I lost the fight with my stomach.

Sorry sweetheart.