JARIN VALE
JEDI KNIGHT
"The first step is forward."
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LOCATION: Devaron Transit Centre
TAGS:
Balun Dashiell
Muad Dib
Jarin had been a Jedi Knight for eleven days, and he was reasonably certain he would stop counting eventually. For now, every time someone addressed him as
Knight Vale, some small part of his mind still expected another person to answer. That happened again when a Devaronian dockworker called his name from several meters away, and Jarin looked up from the supply crate in his hands before remembering that, yes, apparently that was him now.
"Medical shipments are supposed to be going through customs first," the dockworker said, pointing toward the opposite side of the loading area.
Jarin looked down at the crate. A blue symbol on its side very clearly identified it as medical equipment.
"Right. Of course they are." He adjusted his grip while the dockworker gave him a sympathetic smile and started toward the indicated checkpoint. He had been assigned to the Transit Centre as part of the Republic presence on Devaron, though he suspected his actual responsibilities involved security, keeping an eye on the shipments, and being visible enough that anyone considering causing trouble might reconsider. Instead, he had spent most of the last half hour moving boxes. There were workers everywhere, many of whom had clearly been at it since well before Jarin arrived, and standing around in clean robes while they carried Republic supplies from one side of the terminal to the other had started to feel ridiculous after about five minutes.
His Master would probably have said something about allowing people to perform the duties assigned to them. Jarin smiled faintly at the thought as he set the crate beside several others and rolled one shoulder beneath his robes. His Master had said a great many things over the years, usually immediately before Jarin did something that technically proved the point while somehow convincing himself otherwise.
He had just started back toward the loading area when something changed overhead. Jarin stopped without knowing exactly what had caught his attention. It might have been the Force. It might simply have been the sound of the engines outside. Whatever it was, some instinct made him look toward the broad transparisteel overlooking the approaches to the Transit Centre just before the freighter exploded.
The flash came first, bright enough that several people near the windows recoiled from it, and then the sound reached the building hard enough to vibrate through the floor beneath Jarin's boots. Someone behind him dropped a container. Voices rose throughout the loading area as burning sections of the freighter separated from the wreckage and began tumbling toward the city below. Jarin stared for perhaps half a second before blasterfire erupted somewhere deeper inside the terminal, followed almost immediately by alarms and the confused movement of hundreds of people trying to decide whether they should run and, if so, where.
His hand went instinctively toward the lightsaber on his belt. Then another explosion sounded to his left and a woman screamed. Jarin stopped himself before his fingers reached the weapon and turned toward the scream instead. Whoever was firing could wait a few seconds. Someone nearby could not.
A blast had torn through part of the upper walkway overlooking the loading level, collapsing sections of ceiling and scattering broken panels and twisted framing across the floor. Several civilians had become trapped between the wreckage and one of the terminal walls, while part of the damaged structure above them sagged badly enough that Jarin could see it beginning to shift before he reached them. A support beam gave way as he approached. He threw both hands upward and caught the collapsing section through the Force, stopping it several meters above the people beneath it.
The effort drove his boots backward across the floor before he found his footing. Jarin clenched his jaw and steadied himself, feeling the weight of the beam and everything resting against it pulling in half a dozen different directions. Throwing something was easy. Holding several tons of damaged structure in exactly the right place while pieces continued shifting against one another was considerably less so.
"All right, everybody out," Jarin said, forcing his voice to remain calm despite the strain already spreading through his shoulders. Nobody moved at first. There were six of them, perhaps seven. One man had blood running down the side of his face, an older woman was trying to help another person stand, and a boy near the wall was staring upward at the wreckage suspended over his head. Jarin widened his stance and tried again.
"Listen to me. I've got it. You've got time, but I need you to move now. Help each other and come straight toward me. Don't worry about anything except getting clear."
The older woman reacted first. She pulled the injured man beneath one arm and started toward Jarin, and once someone moved the others seemed to remember that they could. They began filing beneath the wreckage in awkward groups, supporting one another where they could. The boy remained where he was.
Jarin looked directly at him.
"Hey. Don't look up. Look at me."
Another impact somewhere in the terminal shook the structure and Jarin felt part of the weight shift against his grip. The boy flinched and looked ready to retreat farther toward the wall.
"You're all right," Jarin told him. He wasn't certain whether that was completely true, but he made himself sound certain.
"I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you're all right. Come toward me. You don't need to run. Just walk."
The boy took one hesitant step and then another. Jarin kept talking to him until he crossed beneath the beam and the older woman caught him by the arm. Only after the last civilian was several meters away did Jarin change his grip on the wreckage and shove outward with both hands. The damaged structure collapsed away from them with a violent crash that sent dust rolling across the floor.
Jarin bent forward with his hands briefly resting against his knees. He had barely managed one full breath when a blaster bolt struck the wall beside him and showered the floor with fragments. He straightened and saw three armed figures emerging through the dust at the far end of the concourse. The first fired again, and Jarin's lightsaber reached his hand before he consciously decided to draw it. Blue light snapped into existence between them and caught the incoming shot.
The second bolt came lower. Jarin turned the blade, redirected it harmlessly away from the civilians behind him, and immediately began moving forward. He had been taught throughout his life that the lightsaber was a defensive weapon, and he believed that without reservation. What he had never entirely understood was the assumption that defense required a Jedi to stay where he was. The civilians were behind him. The pirates were ahead. Every meter Jarin moved toward the attackers became another meter between those attackers and the people he was trying to protect. To him, that seemed perfectly consistent with everything he had been taught.
A burst of fire came toward him. Jarin caught the first shot high, shifted around the second, and redirected the third into the weapon of the pirate on the left. The blaster burst apart in the man's hands, forcing him backward. Jarin used the opening to close the remaining distance before the others could settle into a firing rhythm. The center attacker swung his rifle like a club. Jarin slipped underneath it, drove his shoulder hard into the man's chest, and sent him sprawling across the floor. The next pirate tried to bring his blaster around at close range, but Jarin caught his wrist with his free hand, twisted the weapon away, and struck him across the jaw with the pommel of his saber.
The third man recovered enough to reach for a sidearm. Jarin felt the movement before he fully saw it and snapped his left hand outward. The pistol tore free of the man's grip and disappeared across the concourse. Jarin held his saber between them and watched the pirate glance from the weapon to him.
"Don't," Jarin said. His voice was quieter now, and there was no humor in it.
"You've already lost. Don't make somebody die because you haven't realized it yet."
The pirate hesitated before slowly raising both hands. Jarin watched him for another moment, then deactivated his lightsaber and turned toward the civilians behind him. His breathing had quickened and sweat had started to collect beneath the collar of his robes, but the physical exertion bothered him considerably less than what he could feel through the Force. Fear spread through the Transit Centre in overlapping waves. There were flashes of pain, anger, desperation, and occasionally the sudden absence that came when a presence disappeared entirely. He hated that feeling. No amount of Jedi training had ever made it feel normal.
"Security should be moving people toward the western exits," he told the civilians.
"Stay together and listen to them if the evacuation route changes. They know this building better than I do. There are medics farther back, so anyone who's hurt needs to go with them."
The older woman looked past him at the pirates on the floor before returning her attention to Jarin. "You're leaving?"
Jarin glanced toward the sound of blasterfire deeper inside the terminal.
"There are more people in there."
He knew it wasn't really an answer, but she seemed to understand what he meant. Jarin started moving before anyone could argue with him.
He passed through two adjoining concourses while following the sound of sporadic weapons fire and the pressure of frightened minds through the Force. Along the way he found two security officers dragging an injured colleague behind a barricade and stopped long enough to help get the man under cover. A medic arrived moments later, and once Jarin was certain they no longer needed him, he continued deeper into the Transit Centre.
By the time he reached the next large section of the terminal, the fighting had become scattered. Bodies lay among broken furniture and abandoned luggage, most of them pirates but not all. Blaster burns marked the walls, and the air smelled of smoke, scorched metal and something Jarin preferred not to identify. He slowed as he entered, taking in the situation before moving farther.
Another Jedi stood among the aftermath, an orange lightsaber nearby. Not far from him was a man who looked considerably less like a senator than Jarin had ever imagined a senator should look. The smell of a death stick reached him as he approached, followed shortly afterward by enough of the conversation to hear the man comment that it was good to see not all Jedi were peacefully apathetic.
"Careful, Senator. Some of us are sensitive about that."
Jarin continued toward them, stepping around a discarded rifle as he did. There was the beginning of a smile on his face despite the sweat along his brow and the exhaustion slowly settling into his arms. He gave the other Jedi an acknowledging nod before looking back toward the senator.
"Not particularly sensitive, in my case, but presumably some of us."
He stopped a comfortable distance from the two men and clipped his lightsaber back onto his belt.
"Jarin Vale." His attention shifted toward the deeper sections of the terminal, where distant blasterfire continued in uneven bursts. The humor in his expression faded slightly as he listened. Through the Force, fear still pressed at the edges of his awareness from somewhere farther inside.
Jarin glanced around at the wreckage surrounding them. Whatever had happened in this section appeared largely finished, and judging by the number of pirates scattered across the floor, neither of the men standing before him had spent the attack hiding behind anything.
"I suppose that settles the apathy question for the three of us, at least."
The smile returned for a moment before Jarin nodded toward the distant sound of weapons fire.
"If you're both still able to move, I'd rather make sure everyone gets out. We can philosophize about the Jedi when nobody's trying to kill us."
Dominique Vexx
Aurelian Veruna
Kadie
