Unity of the Jedi: Fear
“See, here it is,” Lomaa, her old rodian pilot motioned to a small hill created by some jungle insects burrowing undergrond. “My people will surely be safe now,” his funnel-shaped mouth spoke the words, but without the usual buzzing voice. He sounded strangely more generic than she’d remembered. “You will bring everyone here,” he was saying. “You will save us all, you are surely a great jedi!”
Tara smiled at the affirmation from her old acquaintance. “I will go get everyone,” she said as she stood to her feet, her own voice sounding strangely muffled but echoing at the same time. “The PH factor of the soil and density of root compilation will protect us from the dark side.” Of course it would, she thought to herself as she said it. This all makes perfect sense. I know what I’m talking about and I’ll save everybody. She didn’t bother sparing a look to Lomaa as they walked back to his people’s camp, she knew he bought it. Thankfully it didn’t have to make total sense as long as they could believe it.
They were back at the camp and she was telling Lomaa’s people it was time to get ready and go. Strangely, she recognized a few of the rodians. One reminded her of Jaala, a waitress she saw often when her master would take her to eat on Coruscant. She had that same long blonde hair and fair complexion. There was also Jown, a boy she’d known at the temple, and Seela too. Puru was also there, both hers and Seela’s headtails setting them apart from the other rodians present. She went to them both and reassured them it would not be long until all those in the tribe were safely underground.
Then there was another rodian she recognized.
Gan…
Months she had spent with this man after she fell from the cliff on Viscara. They had gotten to know each other quite well in that time, and he had come to care for her. She had come to care for him too, but not in the way he’d wanted. Later, she’d wondered if she did have those feelings for him, but it would not matter, because she had made her decision to leave his little cave and return to her previous life. She did not regret that decision, because she knew where she belonged. Her place was with the order.
Or so she had thought before they kicked her out. Kicked her out?
That can’t be right.
Lomaa had called her a Jedi…Isn’t she a jedi?
Gan seemed to look dead at her. It was as if his eyed bored through to her soul.
He opened his mouth to speak, but it was her first master’s voice that came out…
“Something is…”
“…coming,” she found herself finishing the warning she’d so often heard.
Then suddenly there was a kath hound barking at her. She startled and stumbled backwards off the pier that she was now standing on, and plunged into the water, all else becoming distant. Shouting muffled through the water.
And she sank.
And sank.
All turned dark.
Her clothes drenched by the rain as she fell.
She fell forever.
Untill she didn’t, abuptly landing on the ground atop a high cliff, thunder crashing loudly all around her. Two figures fought in the darkness of the night, illuminated only by the lightning and their blue and red lightsabers.
Dread began to fill her, as the sight was all too familiar to her. She opened her mouth to yell out but her voice did not come. Again she tried to yell for her master, but only managed a strained wheezing. She tried to start running towards them, but her feet landed sluggishly. She tried harder and harder to push herself forward against the ground, forcing herself forward out of sheer stubbornness.
Verrac and Akaadi stopped their clash and turned to her.
“What are you doing here little one?” Akaadi asked him with that sinister smirk.
Her voice finally found her throat as she replied, “I won’t let you take my master from me again!” She shouted over the storm.
Akaadi just flashed that smirk at her as another bolt of lightning crashed, but it was Verrac who spoke, his expression looking sincerely confused. “But Tara, I’m not your master. You’re not a jedi.”
Suddenly the storm quieted. The words rang relentlessly in her ears, echoing in all the voices of the Viscaran Council. She looked all around her as all in the order she had met on Viscara surrounded her, telling her she was not a jedi. Even Sandra appeared before her, the redhead’s eyes blank as if staring right through her as she spoke the words. “Not a jedi.”
Tara stumbled back again as Verrac, her second master turned away from her and began to depart, and it was just the three of them again. Akaadi, still flashing that sinister grin of his at her as he raised his lightsaber one more time, and then turned and threw it at Verrac, impaling him through his back.
“Nooooooooooooo!!!”
1 year, 4 months ago (3 months after departure from Viscara)
Tara sat upright, drenched in sweat and out of breath. Her heart pounded as the image was burned still freshly in her mind of her former master dying.
She sat in her bed panting, slowly taking in where she was.
She was not on Rodia.
She was not on Viscara.
She was on Dantooine.
As her heavy breathing slowly subsided, she looked around her makeshift dwelling she had made for herself. All was silent. There were only the distant sounds of local wildlife hooting distantly in the dead of night.
Tara buried her face in her hands and began to sob. Noone had heard her tortured cry in her sleep, and noone would hear her cry now. Certainly not anyone at the jedi enclave, for she was nowhere near it. She had been turned away, the same as on Corscant. They would not even let her enter.
After all, she was no longer a jedi.