Chapter 7
After what seemed like two months of hyperspace jumps, to confuse any pursuit and to confuse me, I laid eyes on the planet that was to be home for the next few months. From first glance I could tell it was much bigger than Kashyyyk, and I had a felling that it was a high G planet. Dieago confirmed my suspicion seconds later, “I can’t tell you the planets name, because I’m not sure if it even has a name. The Gravity on the planet is about three times stronger than the gravity on Kashyyyk. It’s going to take you a few days to get accustomed to the change in gravity. It’ll also take you a few days to get used to your new master, I only met Aren once. He struck me as a little off, but his skill with a lightsaber is unquestionable. I saw him fight Master Kith and two other Masters to a stand still. So you’ll definitely learn how to use a lightsaber and the force. I disagreed with Master Kith, I felt you could have used a master who focused more on the meditative aspects of the force, but Master Kith felt you would serve the council better as a weapon. I hope you understand what that means.”
“I understand, the council will use me as a disposable tool. They will throw me into impossible fights and expect me to either win or die. Without a thought to my well being, I’ll never advance within the order because they will always see me as ‘hired muscle’. I’m comfortable with that.”
“Well it’s nice to see that you’re going to be comfortable with your new position in life. So let’s head down and see if your Master is ready to begin your training.” With that Dieago started towards the planet and slide us right into the atmosphere. “Better strap in, I’m not sure how bumpy this ride will be.” After twenty minutes Dieago started the landing cycle, cut in the repulsorlifts and set us down smoothly on a permacrete pad that looked like it hadn’t seen much use. “When you leave the ship you won’t receive the benefit of the inertial compensator so take a few minutes to get used to the feel of the extra weight. Good luck I’ll see when you’re a Jedi Knight.”
My first step onto the planet brought me to my knees. I could barely stand back up. It felt like I was carrying a backpack full of permacrete. Standing there thinking that there was no way I would make it a week on this planet I heard someone laughing. “Well I see you are a rather large one. Well this ought to be fun.”
“I’m glad to see you’re having a good time. I assume that you are Jedi Master Aren, the man that is going to train me to be a Jedi Knight.”
“Yes, I am. First however you must learn to walk. Your first task will be to catch me if you can. To be fair I’m going to give you a thirty second head start.”
“Wouldn’t it be fair if you had the head start?”
“Confident fellow aren’t you. Okay you win just remember that it was your idea to let me go first. One, Two, Three……” As his voice trailed off in the distance I realized that I could barely crawl and he was running. Maybe he thought he could get away from me and hide but I could smell his scent and I would catch him. Leaving my bags beside the landing pad I took off after at the speed of a hutt. I could barely stand and I could barely move and I couldn’t do both at the same time. So I started by crawling after him. The first kilometer was the toughest, my fur was matted down, twigs and leaves were sticking out of it. My knees were rubbed raw and my hands were getting there. By the third kilometer I was in a good rhythm, shuffling along right then left then right then left. By the seventh kilometer it was night and I really began to regret leaving my supplies behind. I was alone on a planet that was whipping my behind and my Master was no where to be seen. So I crawled up next to a tree and laid there till I fell asleep. I woke up in the morning with every muscle in my body screaming; never before had they had to deal with so much stress. I spent the whole second as a ball of pain wallowing in self-pity. I knew that I was going to die on this planet and no one would care. Heck I didn’t care. As dawn broke on the third day I smelled something strange, it seems that Aren was walking around me the night before. His scent was fresh all around me and he led off to the North back towards the landing pad and there sitting on the ground was a pink bantha. I didn’t believe it I was out here dying and he was rifling through my things. Well I couldn’t have that, so I got up on my knees and set about crawling back the way I came.
As I reached the landing pad I could tell Aren had come and gone, but I was glad to see my supplies waiting right where I had left them. When I finally reached my bags I discovered there was no food but instead there was a piece of Flimsy that said:
Giving up already
Boy what a disappointment
If you want to quit just wait
Here for your ride, if not I’m
Still waiting for you
-Aren
Well I was sure as hell not going to let him get the better of me. At least he left the rest of my supplies, so with a vibroblade, a multitool, and a few meter length of fibracord I set out to find myself some food and a Jedi Master.
* * * *
I could hear him snoring as I approached him. I figured it had been about two months since I had seen him last. In that time my body had adjusted to the increased gravity and I had grown stronger. I found creeks and lakes to drink from and I was able to make simple snares and catch myself some local wildlife that resemble a gnort nicodemus had once eaten at a restaurant and got violent ill from, it was paler and tasted pretty good. When I finally caught one I had been a week without food and I could have cared less what it tasted like it was raw meat. Now I had mastered the ability to walk and over the last week or so I had been gaining on Aren and I had finally caught up to him on this dark night. The planet was orbited by three moons so there was plenty of moonlight for me to see by. I stalked up too Aren as silently as possible, as I got closer I noticed a reflection of light on his face. Was his eye open? “Well it’s about time.” His eye was open.
“Yeah well I forgot my bantha so I had to go back for him.”
“Ah, the bantha yes we will talk about your choice in traveling companions later, but first we must celebrate. You have accomplished your first mission of course most of my other students finish it on the first day.”
“That’s impossible, unless they came from a high G planet, they couldn’t catch you in a day.”
“That’s true but most of the students take the head start and can cross a meter in thirty seconds. So you have learned a different lesson, but it is important to remember that accepting an advantage does not make you appear weak but smart. So if you’ll follow me we can go back to my camp.” As we walked back to camp I took the chance to look Aren over. He looked to be mid age for human about a meter and a half tall and about 100 kilos. He squat and powerful looking, he had the hunched over way of walking that seems to go hand in hand with a high G planet, because I seemed to have developed the same kind of walk myself. He had close cropped black hair and his skin was weathered and pulled tight around his body. He wore a dark green robe that blended in within the general terrain and he moved with a sure step of someone sure ion his surroundings. His surroundings were familiar to me but still alien. I was used to a forest setting, but the tallest trees I could see were only 8 or 10 meters tall. The trees were few and far between allowing a good view of the sky and its three moons. The planet’s day cycle was longer than I was used to by about 20 standard hours, making for long days and night. Which I was about to learn to my own chagrin.
After we got done celebrating, which consisted of a bath and a long rest we began training in earnest. “I placed your breakfast on the top of that tree over there. Since wookies are natural climbers you should have no trouble climbing up there and getting it down.”
“Is there advantage you have to offer me before I begin?”
“Your learning already, no it’s straight forward but I’ll bet you dinner that you can’t get it before breakfast tomorrow.”
“Well that’s a wager I’m willing to take.” So I walked on over to the tree, unsheathed my climbing claws and got a grip on the tree and reached up got another firm grip and couldn’t pull myself off of the ground.
“Ha, Ha, Ha, Well it looks like you’re too fat to climb a tree, you must be an embarrassment to your father.” An embarrassment to my father, I’ll show him, I’ll show them both. With every ounce of strength in my body I slowly climbed up that tree. Centimeter by centimeter I finally reached the top and retrieved my breakfast. When I returned to the ground Aren looked at me and said, “Well you got some fight in you I suppose. Well a bets a bet I guess dinners on me. You did bring some formal wear with you, because we will be dinning at an eloquent restaurant this evening, my tent.” I chuckled at him and wondered out loud if they let banthas in this eloquent restaurant. “Sure we do but they are usually on the planet.” I couldn’t hold the laughter in any longer and I let out a howling laugh. “Calm down there big fellow, dinner’s still along time off and we need to work up an appetite. So we better get started.” So I passed time sleeping and working out. Aren wasn’t happy till I could I could 100 push ups with him sitting on my back or a 100 sit ups suspended from a tree branch. That was just the first month soon I was up to 500 a day and doing Aren’s extra little training ideas like Kilometer long runs with a backpack full of permacrete or water. We still played hide and seek and I got pretty good at catching him, he even let me hide a few times but he usually found me before nightfall on the first day. He said that I was outmatched because with the force he could find me in a black hole. I didn’t believe him at first but then we started doing other exercises.
Aren taught me how to open my body up to the force and feel the flow of pure life flow throw me. It was like joy compressed down and shot through my whole body. Every time I touched the force I wanted to shout with joy. Slowly day by day Aren taught me to use the force to enhance my strength and speed, with the force I could jump on top pf some of the smaller trees. I could also use the force to refresh my tired and aching muscles or use a force trance to rest for two hours and be fully rested, which I did often because Aren rather enjoyed night runs. Then he taught me how to pick up things with my mind. At first it was just small things but then they got bigger. It was hard at first using my mind to push or pull things but after hours and hours of practice I got the hang of it. Of course Aren couldn’t stop with pebbles pretty soon I was hanging from a tree doing sit ups and picking up boulders with my mind and making a pyramid out of them.
“Well kid it’s time to celebrate”, in reality we were probably the same age. “It’s been a year since you set down on this planet.”
“Really a year already, I thought I would be out of here in six months, I see I was mistaken.”
“Yeah, well today we are going to do something a little different do you know what a lightsaber is?”
Continue on to Chapter 8
Return to Greenbacca's Page
Return to Main Page