Trial of Insight

[Lilla Syrin]

The cantina-ship broke suddenly to its starboard, banking tightly, and Lilla twisted her ship around to follow, closing the distance between it and the fighter between them. The last of the fighters pursuing them, behind them, pulled up abruptly, and on the rear monitor Lilla watched as it met the fate of its partner, the tractor beam from the Destroyer tearing it to shreds.

She felt something sickening and hard forming in her stomach; she had no love for any tyrannical government, but the willing sacrifice of their own pilots, their own ships, in pursuit of the them was a level of brutality beyond the pale. Whoever was giving orders on Ascension would stop at nothing to catch them.

A sigh came from Nadorcot. Lilla didn’t bother saying anything. She and the Ranger were thinking the same thing.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

The cantina-ship was accelerating, now pulled tighter by the planet’s gravity, the remaining fighter still gamely following and Lilla closing in behind. Lilla heard Onnect lining up his shot and brought the yoke up just a fraction to allow both turrets a clear field of fire. The targeting computer beeped slowly, then more and more rapidly as the fighter came into range, then trilled loudly, signifying a lock. The ship vibrated slightly as both turrets fired together, turbolaser bolts converging on the fighter, tracking onto the centre ball. The fighter burst like a punctured balloon, shards of metal spraying in all directions.

“Shut down the weapons,” Lilla said. “Nadorcot, reroute all power to the engines, stand by to cut off on my order.”

“Full power won’t be enough to get away from that tractor beam,” Onnect said.

“I know what I’m doing.”

The ship jerked, engines suddenly shrieking in protest as the whole ship shuddered, slowing rapidly.

“Cut them,” Lilla said.

Nadorcot moved without hesitation, her arms rising to strike the rows of engine cut-off switches overhead. The ship went suddenly silent, its engines guttering out. They were still moving forward, momentum and gravity each working on the ship, but they were slowing, and slowing quickly. It was going to be very close.

“Taska?”

“Five seconds.”

Lilla eyed the sensors again and nudged the yoke, adjusting the ship’s approach to the planet. They were in the outer atmosphere; she could see the faint shimmer beginning to surround the cockpit.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Onnect said.

“I always know what I’m doing,” Lilla said, with a little more conviction than she felt. "The gravity will affect their tractor beam.”

 

[Lilla Syrin]

The cantina-ship was pulling up, using the planet’s gravity to help slingshot back into space, but Lilla’s ship was now on what appeared to be a dive, as if she intended to bury the ship in the planet’s surface.

Caught between free fall and the slackening grip of the Ascension’s tractor beam, the Lilla’s ship trembled and hopped, the atmosphere around the ship growing thicker and thicker. The distant, faint outline of the domed capital began to resolve below. Lilla nudged the yoke and risked using the landing jets, separate from the now-cooling engines, to adjust the ship’s angle.

“Taska?”

“Coming up…We’ve got it, we’re ready!”

“Then what are you waiting for? Go!”

“I can’t thank you enough...”

“Taska, you’re still talking! Go!”

 

[Lilla Syrin]

The comms went dead - no static - just the heavy presence of empty air. Nadorcot smiled and adjusted her grip on her yoke. On the sensors, the cantina-ship vanished, launched into hyperspace.

There was silence in the cockpit for several seconds.

“So, your plan is to crash?” Onnect asked. It sounded very conversational.

“Actually, no,” Lilla replied, equally matter-of-factly.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

“Telemetry puts them on approach to the capital,” someone said.

“Pull them back!”

“We’re trying,” the beam officer said. He looked up from the command pit, helpless. “Our lock won’t maintain. This is the best we can do at this range.”

“Then bring us closer!”

“You want us to follow them into the atmosphere?” he asked.

“If that’s what it takes.”

“If we attempt to tractor beam them within the atmosphere, without a precise lock…the beam will splash. There will be overlap. Collateral damage to the planet could be immense.”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“We’ll destroy the dome,” the man said. “We’ll shred the protection. We’ll destroy the city.”

The officer saw it, then, saw what Lilla and the Ranger were doing with their ship, the gamble they had made.

Yes, Ascension could follow them down, could stop them, could pull them back with its tractor beam. But in so doing, it would render the planet inhospitable. It would decimate the city, and do it before millions and millions of witnesses on the ground who would see the Destroyer overhead and not see the tiny ship they were pursuing. Those who didn’t die from exposure to the planet’s toxic atmosphere would know only that the government had destroyed their home. They would remember. They would share.

The word would spread and people would hear. Some of those people would demand an explanation, and more would demand vengeance. And among those, some would take action.

Some would become rebels.

Without a word, the officer turned on her toes and began the long walk past the command and control pits, to the elevator.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

“Engines, Nadorcot!” Lilla yanked the yoke with one hand and brought both feet down hard on the pedals for the landing jets. Her free hand flailed, caught the master switch for the repulsorlift generators, and threw them to life. The ship groaned, creaking as multiple stresses played all at once across its hull.

“We’re still falling,” Onnect observed.

“Nadorcot, the engines!”

The Ranger’s hands played deftly across the console. A grinding noise rose from the back of the ship, then faded, then rose, then faded again, this time with a pathetic cough.

“Still falling.”

“I know!” The planet was coming closer. Quickly. Very quickly. “Open the manifold on the primary thrust!”

The Ranger pressed keys on the console again, then reached past Lilla and twisted one of the larger handles fixed to the wall. The engines gasped, the grinding noise returning.

“Still–”

Lilla lunged out of her seat, almost splaying herself across Nadorcot as the Ranger did something similar in the opposite direction. “On three, Nadorcot, manual restart. One…two…three–”

Each of them yanked on separate levers simultaneously. The engines coughed, protested, and suddenly roared. Pilot and copilot scrambled upright, took hold of their respective yokes, and pulled.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

The planet, frighteningly close below and growing closer, seemed to spread out before them as the ship’s nose came up, and Nadorcot could swear the belly of the ship kissed the top of the dome as they levelled off, then began to climb.

Lilla pushed the throttles forward, heard the ship’s engines singing, and they were looking at stars again, the Destroyer now well out of tractor beam range on their sensors. The proximity alarm warned of more fighters being launched, twelve of them this time, but it didn’t matter.

Lilla grinned, reaching with one hand for the hyperspace engage. And she gently pushed the lever forward.

The ship’s response was to leap them into hyperspace – and to safety.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

Lilla was back at the Temple. Her time as a ranger was at an end – for now at least. She knew her master would have questions and suddenly she felt under pressure.

For so long now she’d had the luxury of seeing a career beyond a Padawan as something set in the future. But now it was becoming more and more a reality. She’d spent time in many of the traditional Jedi roles. Most in fact. In a time of relative peace, she would have loved to have devoted her time to studies – perhaps becoming a librarian in time. But these were not passive times and she knew the role she would ultimately choose had to reflect the context of the galaxy at large, as opposed to her own needs.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

Lilla sat in the gardens. They were, in truth, located in the hangar of an old ship, but they felt as open and as natural as anywhere Lilla had ever been. The babbling of a small brook and the gentle twitter of bird-song only added to the ambience of the environment.

Master Mei ambled up to her and took a seat on the bench opposite her. He glanced around before settling his eyes on his Padawan.

“You have done well, my young Padawan. Well enough for the Council to have determined that your latest mission satisfies the Trial of Insight. You solved challenges of both a cerebral and philosophical nature – and you should be commended for that.”

“So tell me, what does that mean for you? What does it tell you about your future?”

Lilla stared into the near-distance. “I am not necessarily conflicted or even troubled, but I am at a loss to have a clear path in my mind.”

“I have enjoyed all of my assignments and sometimes it is easy to be swayed by the most recent, given the freshness of the memories.”

Her master remained silent, wishing his charge to fully explore and reveal her thoughts. His role here was not to make a decision, or even offer counsel – but to listen and reflect on what he heard.

“I would very much like to be a Ranger when the time is right. But I also know I would like to take a Padawan in the future. To pass on the knowledge that I have received to others. To leave a legacy – to be the next step in the chain that leads to a new generation of Jedi.”

Lilla’s gaze returned to her Master. “But as I say, when the time is right.”

“And the time is not right now!”

Lilla’s head cocked to the side slightly. “What do you mean, Master?”

“I think your period of service as a Padawan is over, my young Jedi.”

“You mean…I am to be knighted?”

“That is precisely what I mean. I have met with the Council and they agree that you are ready.”

 

[Lilla Syrin]