Chapter 7
Chapter 6
Disclaimer: Same as previous chapters.
Chapter 6
Andrew placed the devices into his backpack and smiled, these where what he was looking for or at least what he thought he was looking for as they had information on what he wanted to know. As he walked out of the room he saw a footlocker and opened it, he found a good deal of crystals in it in all sorts of colours: red, green, blue even silver and yellow and one he hadn’t seen before. He put them in his pocket as he walked out of the silent Jedi Enclave and he looked behind him.
And heard the old woman’s voice whisper, *Many years it has been since I last stood on Dantooine’s surface and felt the peace of the force here, it has changed so much but then again, so have both us.*
He walked back to the ship and whispered, “R2, thanks for waiting for me out here.”
It beeped out a response and Andrew smiled, “I found what I wanted to see.”
As he walked back in Shmi welcomed him back and frowned at the dust covering his robes and said, “Did you find what you wanted here?”
“Yes ma’am,” Andrew said as he pulled out the two Holocrons, “I’m going to look at them later, oh yeah and these,” and poured out the crystals which caused Watto to look at them eagerly. Andrew frowned and said, “Watto, they aren’t really worth anything, they are meant for lightsabers, I think.”
“Ah,” Watto moaned, “But Andrew they are beautiful, probably worth a fortune.”
“Yeah, I suppose we could sell a couple,” Andrew frowned, “But not all of them.”
“Excellent,” Watto said, “When we get to Nar Shaddaa I have contacts with Hutts that you might want to deal with, those lowlifes owe me.”
Andrew nodded as he took the holocrons into his quarters and looked at both of them, he reached out to touch the cube shaped one, when it activated the old man came out again.
“Oh, it’s you again,” he muttered, “Lovely, you here for a lesson or do you just want to bother the memories of an old man?”
“Umm,” Andrew muttered, “A lesson?”
“Perfect,” Jolee said, “First, if you have potential and some crazy old man wearing brown robes points at you and goes, ‘Oooh, destiny.’ Don’t you believe a damned word of it, going around spouting about destiny is a good way to get a swelled head.”
“What’s the lesson?” Andrew asked.
“Oh, that,” Jolee muttered, “It’s a meditation ritual, got this lesson from some pazak player on Nar Shaddaa. Man had a mind like a durasteel vault: no entry.”
“Anyways,” Jolee muttered, “Where were we?”
“The lesson,” Andrew moaned, “You were going to teach me a mediation ritual or at least I think you were.”
“Ah yes, the lesson,” Jolee said, “If you’re facing an opponent who can use the force, doesn’t matter if it’s light or dark side as both can do incredible damage to an untrained mind. So he told me to count numbers in my head, like pazak cards.”
The lesson sparked a memory of him standing in front of a man who said, “If someone is trying to break into your mind it won’t matter what happens because you’ll be here playing pazak with me.”
He shook his as Jolee yelled, “You listening kid?”
“Sorry,” Andrew muttered, “I space out sometimes.”
“Get to my age,” Jolee muttered, “You’ll space out all the time.”
Andrew shuddered at the thought and hoped that he could at least keep his hair at that age, as the holocron shut off he looked at it and smiled, he kinda liked the old man. He looked at the other holocron and watched it activate.
The old woman looked cross, “This is my lesson for the day about unnecessary compassion: if you give someone something they have not earned, such as credits, even a small amount can raise the one you’ve helped in other people’s eyes, causing them to do violence.”
‘Wow,’ Andrew frowned, ‘That was a harsh lesson, not to be compassionate,’ he shook his head and shut it off and walk to the cockpit and saw Shmi and Watto looking at the map.
Shmi looked at him and said, “When are we going to leave Dantooine?”
“Not sure,” Andrew mumbled, “It’s been a long day, we might stay here for a bit but I want to head to Nar Shaddaa before the week is out.”
They nodded, both still were worried about him and the way he seemed to so driven to explore these dangerous and dark worlds but he seemed to know what he was doing.
Andrew sat there pondering the lessons; the mediation ritual seemed interesting even if the old man was nuts. He looked back towards his room and said, “We’ll leave tomorrow, if you guys want?”
Watto flew around and stared at the crystals on the table, they almost seemed to glow with inner light and they were beautiful, he wondered what they were for.
The next day while they were sleeping Andrew was still up pacing, he was ready to leave now and got into the pilot seat and activated the engines as he wanted to head to Nar Shaddaa. He began to activate the engines when Shmi came in and said, “Andrew, are you alright?”
He nodded, “Yeah, we’re leaving,” and they lifted from the Khoonda spaceport and towards the edge of the system.
Shmi nodded and sighed, ‘He did have some wanderlust, he just didn’t want to stay in one place and relax for a bit.’
As the ship left the system Andrew looked at R2 and said, “We’re going to Nar Shaddaa then Korriban.”
‘Korriban!!?’ Shmi gasped, she had heard legends about that world; that it was a world of death and silence. She couldn’t order Andrew about, especially on his own ship but Korriban was evil, worse than Nar Shaddaa and he wanted to visit this world, this birthplace of evil?
Andrew didn’t notice the look on her face as he was too engrossed with the stars in front of cockpit, he wanted to go to every world, every moon he could find and learn.
He got up and smiled at Shmi as he went into his room and began to use the holocrons to learn about the history of the Jedi and the Sith.
Watto woke up and was happy to go be to visiting Nar Shaddaa, he had been there only for a week but by the gods what a glorious week; there was any type of vice one could wish for on that planet. He looked at Andrew in his room, who was studying on those weird devices and shook his head; he’d make sure the boy didn’t give into the temptation to indulge as he’d be doing the indulging.
Andrew sat transfixed, listening to Jolee talk about his journeys and of this Jedi civil war and the aftermath. He sat back and wondered, ‘Darth Revan? The name seems so familiar,’ when he suddenly snapped his fingers, ‘The statue in the temple, the prodigal knight Jolee was recording his journey with Revan.’
‘Wow,’ he gasped, ‘This had Jolee’s thoughts on everyone from Revan to Bastilia Shan, Carth Onasi, Juhani and the others they met throughout their journey to destroy the Star Forge. This was incredible; the Jedi would love to have this thing.’
Jolee looked at Andrew and said, “Don’t you dare give me to the Jedi, all they’ll do is put this holocron somewhere where it won’t do a damn lick of good.”
‘This thing is really weird, it was like it had almost intuitive idea of what I was thinking of,’ Andrew thought as he listened to the story.
Andrew picked up the holocron of Darth Traya and activated it; she looked at him and said, “Have you come back for more wisdom?”
“Very well,” she said, “I am recording this holocron in the hopes that if my meeting the Exile doesn’t go well then this will preserve my legacy,” and she began to talk of how the council decided that her teachings were at fault for causing Revan and the others to fall and her own travels with the Exile under the guise of Kreia and how she tried to teach her.
“But now,” Traya said, “I hear the Exile approaching, I go now to face my destiny. Remember to be mindful of the lessons you shall have from me.”
The Rancor’s Rage passed through hyperspace towards Nar Shaddaa when Watto flew in and said, “Andrew, I gotta talk to you.”
“About what?” Andrew asked with a smile.
“Nar Shaddaa, it’s about this: you might see things that anger you,” Watto said, “And as bad as you think Tatoonine was Nar Shaddaa is worse; if you try to be a hero you’ll end up with a dagger in your back and they won’t care about your age.”
Andrew looked ill and Watto continued, “You’ll see slaves being bought, men and women doing spice and worse things but you can’t go around telling people off, this isn’t a core world.”
The voice whispered, *You’d do well to listen to him Exile, his words carry wisdom.*
“Alright,” Andrew said, “I’ll try to ignore what I see.”
The Rancor’s Rage came out of hyperspace over Nar Shaddaa, Andrew looked out of the cockpit and muttered, “It almost looks like Coruscant from here,” as the ship landed in the spaceport and walked towards the exit.
R2 beeped worriedly and Andrew smiled, “R2 stay here, you have to protect the ship.”
It beeped out a response and rolled away while Shmi looked concerned, ‘He’s going out alone again? Dantooine was one thing but this world was in Hutt Space,’ she had heard horror stories about what they might do to visitors there.
Watto followed him and said, “Not alone, this isn’t a world for children.”
Andrew nodded as Watto came with him and they walked out, Andrew sniffed the air and nearly vomited as it was vile while Watto sniffed the air and said, “That smell is the smell of progress and life.”
“It smells like crap,” Andrew muttered as he paid the docking fee.
Watto laughed as they walked to the Corellian sector as Watto told him that it would be the safest place relatively for him.
They walked past some junk dealers and Watto flew over to inspect the junk and started to laugh at the prices, he called Shmi to bring out the stuff from his Tatoonine shop. She came out and he looked at Andrew and said, “Time to swindle these Nar Shaddaa morons I think.”
That made Andrew uneasy, he wasn’t sure that these junk dealers would be happy to lose credits from a backwater planet like Tatoonine.
Shmi whispered, “Don’t worry Andrew, Watto knows what he’s doing,” as Watto began to show potential customers what he had.
Andrew walked off; he wasn’t going to be much use here as he watched Watto begin to sell the junk from Tatoonine. He was honestly surprised as the junk began to sell; Watto was in his element while selling the junk.
“Hey Andrew,” Shmi said, “Why don’t you explore a bit, I think we should be alright here for awhile, just don’t go too far.”
“Alright,” Andrew said as he walked towards some other shops to see what they had in stock, he passed by a droid shop and frowned, they were selling some old battle droids from Naboo and he had bad memories of those things so he quickly walked past them, he looked at some of the astromechs and wondered if R2 wanted a friend other than the old R1 that Watto brought aboard.
The Twi’lek shopkeeper came up to him and said in heavily accented basic, “Young man, can I help you?”
“Sorry,” Andrew stammered, “Just looking around for a bit.”
She nodded and said, “You look like you might appreciate an older model, the newer R2 droids are fine and fancy but they lack some the durability of the older models, follow me.
Andrew nodded and followed her out and nearly collapsed; it was one of the T3 models but it looked like hell but he supposed that it’d have to being around four thousand years old. It was deactivated but something told him to buy it.
“A hundred credits and it’s yours,” the Twi’lek said.
“Alright,” Andrew said as he pulled out some of the credits.”
“Good choice,” she said, “It’s a good model, it just needs some upgrades to keep up with the newer models.”
Andrew picked it up and carried it out to Watto and Shmi who both looked at it a bit suspiciously.
“How much did you pay for this thing?” Watto groaned as he flew towards it and tapped its saucer shaped head.
“A Hundred credits,” Andrew said as he opened a hatch and looked at the insides of the old T3 model.
“Good price at least,” Watto said, “I hope you didn’t kill anyone for that price?”
Shmi frowned, he was just like Ani, bringing things home but Anakin never brought home a four thousand year old droid but then again she thought the T3’s were classics, she vaguely remembered, before she had been put into slavery, that her family own a feisty T1 model.
Andrew dragged it aboard the ship and called R2 over so they could begin working on the old droid.
It turned out that parts for the T3 were hard to come by but Andrew had made it a point to repair it, he would scour the moon for the parts he needed or Shmi would make a couple of pieces of technology
They ended up staying on Nar Shaddaa for a couple months, working on getting the droid parts they needed and Shmi taught him how to repair like she could.
She smiled, “I used to help Ani with his repairs or rebuilding, he has a natural talent for it you know?”
Andrew smiled and said, “I’m thinking of dropping you and Watto off at Naboo or one of the Core worlds, that way you can get a transport to Coruscant or wherever you need to be.”
“No Andrew,” Shmi said sternly, “You need someone with you.”
“I guess so,” Andrew said, “But I’m not even sure when I’m heading back to Coruscant or home, it could be months or years.”
“No one should be alone Andrew,” Shmi said, “And besides, you freed me.”
Andrew frowned, “Yeah, I guess so but it’s so hard, I’m going to some fairly old worlds that have seemingly been forgotten and not all of them are going to be safe.”
Shmi had hoped that Andrew had given up going to those worlds and said, “Andrew, why are you going to these worlds?”
“Because, I didn’t tell Padmé this, but for as long as I can remember I’ve been having memories or dreams of these worlds: Korriban, the moon of Dxun, the planet Onderon even Telos but I’m heading to Korriban first.”
“And,” Andrew continued, “I don’t want to have to tell Anakin, if I meet him again, that I took his mom to the tomb world of the Sith, I’m not sure he’d be happy about that.”
“No, I suppose not but I wouldn’t let a Jedi go to these places alone. You need someone to be there for you, what if you get hurt?” Shmi said
Andrew smiled, “Alright Ms Skywalker, you’ve made your point.”
They finally activated the old droid causing it to sputter as its head spun around; it let out a bunch of musical beeps as it attempted to look around. It looked at Andrew and beeped a question.
“Oh hi, I’m Andrew Naberrie; this is Shmi Skywalker and Watto.”
It looked at them and looked at R2 and beeped out a nasty comment.
R2 beeped out a nasty comment right back at the T3 model, Andrew said, “Be nice, both of you.”
The T3 looked at R2 and they both began to scan each other warily.
Andrew smiled and decided that they would head off world soon, he picked up new supplies for the trip as he had no idea how long they’d be gone but he would find out the secrets of his past, he swore it as they left for Korriban.
TBC
What do you think they will find on Korriban? What will they find in the T3’s memory bank? Why are T3 and R2 not getting along? Will they ever get along and become friends? Does anyone want HK-47 to appear in this story? Andrew will be using his first force technique soon, what should his first light side and dark side abilities?
In the coming chapters I will be describing the beginnings of the Clone Wars.
Please rate and review.