By Tim Lebbon
Part 2
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A soft, insistent alarm pulled her up from sleep. Lanoree sighed and sat up, rubbing
her eyes, massaging the dream away.
𝙳a𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜...
Dear Dal. She dreamed of him often, but they were
usually dreams of those later times when everything was turning bad. Not when they
were still children for whom Tython was so full of potential.
Perhaps it was because she was on her way home.
She had not been back to Tython for more than four years. She was a Je’daii Ranger,
and so ranging is what she did.
𝙹𝚎’𝚍𝚊𝚒𝚒 𝚁𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛
Some Rangers found reasons to return to Tython regularly.
Family connections, continuous training, face-to-face debriefs, it all amounted to
the same thing—they hated being away from home.
𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚜𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜
She also believed that there were
those Je’daii who felt the need to immerse themselves in Tython’s Force-rich
surroundings from time to time, as if uncertain that their affinity with the Force
was strong enough.
𝚒𝚖𝚋𝚞𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝚃𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚗'𝚜 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚌𝚊𝚙𝚎
Lanoree had no such doubts. She was comfortable with her strength and balance in the
Force. The short periods she had spent with others on retreats on Ashla and Bogan—a
voluntary part of a Padawan’s training, should they desire to go—had made her even
more confident in this.
𝙰𝚜𝚑𝚕𝚊 / 𝙱𝚘𝚐𝚊𝚗
𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚙𝚊𝚍𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚗
She stood from her cot and stretched. She reached for the ceiling and grabbed the
bars she’d welded there herself, pulling up, breathing softly, then lifting her legs
and stretching them out until she was horizontal to the floor. Her muscles quivered,
and she breathed deeply as she felt the Force flowing through her, a vibrant, living
thing.
Mental exercise and meditation were fine, but sometimes she took the greatest
pleasure in exerting herself physically. She believed that to be strong with the Force,
one had to be strong in body.
𝙻𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚛𝚒'𝚜 𝚙𝚑𝚢𝚜𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚐𝚝𝚑
The alarm was still ringing.
“I’m awake,” she said, easing herself slowly back to the floor, “in case you hadn’t
noticed.”
The alarm snapped off, and her Peacemaker ship’s grubby yellow maintenance droid ambled
into the small living quarters on padded metal feet. It was one of many adaptations
she’d made to the ship in her years out in the Tythan system. Most Peacemakers carried
a very simple droid, but she’d updated hers to a Holgorian IM-220, capable of limited
communication with a human master and other duties not necessarily exclusive to ship
maintenance. She’d further customized it with some heavy armor, doubling its weight
but making it much more useful to her in risky scenarios.
𝚢𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚒𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚕 "𝙷𝚘𝚕𝚐𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗 𝙸𝙼-𝟸𝟸𝟶"
She spoke to it, its replies
were obtuse, and she supposed it was the equivalent of trying to communicate with
a grass kapir back home. She had even named it.
𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚜𝚜 𝚔𝚊𝚙𝚒𝚛
“Hey, Ironholgs. You better not have woken me early.”
The droid beeped and scraped, and she wasn’t sure whether it was getting cranky in
its old age.
She looked around the small but comfortable living quarters. She had chosen a Peacemaker
over a Hunter because of its size;
𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚌𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚗
even before she’d flown her first mission as a
Je’daii Ranger, she knew that she would be eager to spend much of her time in space.
A Hunter was fast and agile but too small to live in. The Peacemaker was a compromise
on maneuverability, but she had spent long periods living alone on the ship. She preferred
it that way.
𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙿𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚎𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎𝚛
And like most Rangers, she had made many modifications and adaptations to her ship
that stamped her own identity upon it. She’d stripped out the table and chairs and
replaced them with a weights and tensions rack for working out. Now, she ate her food
sitting on her narrow cot. She’d replaced the holonet entertainment system with an
older flatscreen, which doubled as communications center and reduced the ship’s net
weight.
𝚌𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚗 - 𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎
Beside the extensive engine compartment there had been a small room that housed
a second cot for guests or companions, but because she had neither she had filled
the space with extra laser charge pods, a water-recycling unit, and food stores. The
ship’s four laser cannon turrets had also been upgraded, and it now also carried plasma
missiles, and drone missiles for long-distance combat.
𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚑 𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚞𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚖𝚊 𝚛𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚝𝚜
At the hands of the Cathar
master armorer Gan Corla, the cannons now packed three times more punch and were effective
over twice the range as those standard to Peacemakers.
𝙶𝚊𝚗 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚊
She had also altered and adapted the function and position of many cockpit controls,
making it so that only she could effectively fly the ship. It was hers, it was home,
and that was how she liked it.
𝚌𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚙𝚒𝚝
“How long to Tython?” she asked.
The droid let out a series of whines and clicks.
“Right,” Lanoree said. “Suppose I’d better freshen up.” She brushed a touch pad and
the darkened screens in the forward cockpit faded to clear, revealing the star-speckled
view that never failed to make her heart ache.
There was something so profoundly moving
to the distance and scale of what she saw out there, and the Force never let her forget
that she was a part of something incomprehensibly large. She supposed it was as close
as she ever came to a religious epiphany.
She touched the pad again and a red glow appeared, surrounding a speck in the distance.
Three hours and she’d be there. Tython.
The Je’daii Council ordering her back to Tython meant only one thing. They had a mission
for her, and it was one that they needed to discuss face-to-face.
𝚃𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚗
TO BE CONTINUED
In Russian translation from Natalia Kodysh. Click
Genres: #STAR_WARS #SPACE_FICTION #SOCIAL_FICTION #Foreign_FICTION #CLASSICS_FICTION