The Short Fic Weekly Challenge Thread!

“Go, go, all of you,” Valho said, ushering the beginning one-daan class down the rear stairs. He stopped his assistant, his daughter, “Stay with them, Vashtarl, keep them safe,” he said. She nodded and followed the class out into the garden behind the salle. The students, all ages from children to adults, milled about near the garden’s far wall.

Valho took a deep breath and headed back into the salle. He heard raised voices from the vestibule, one of them his father’s. Then a blaster discharge and a low thump. He broke into a run and rounded the corner.

An Imperial Military officer was in the vestibule, flanked by two full squads of armored troops. The Salle de Umrahiel’s secretary and the rest of the clerical staff crowded behind the office window. His father’s advanced class stood arrayed along the broad open entrance to the salle’s main sparring hall, their training vibroswords filling the air with an ominous hum.

His father, Varrel Umrahiel, lay dead on the floor, a blaster-burned hole in his chest.

The officer fixed him with a glare, “Are you in charge here?” he demanded.

Valho stared at the corpse. He couldn’t be dead. They’d shared tea only a few hours before. Discussed what the change in Imperial relations might mean. Valho heard himself reply “Yes.”

His eyes snapped up, drawn to a pair of figures entering the salle behind the officer. They were thin and bent, shrouded in robes of black and purple. Thin, coarse material, meters of it, a burial cloth wrapped around still-living bodies. A shiver ran up his spine. His mind equated them with Sorrahi, though they had none of the bogeyman’s trappings.

“Then let’s hope you have more sense than the old man,” the officer said.

Whatever their demands, his father disagreed. He didn’t need to know what his father’s reasons were; didn’t need to know what the Imperial’s demands were. Papa had stood against them, and Papa was an honorable man.

Valho’s eyes flicked to the advanced students. There was shock there, but hints of something else. Something resolute. Valho turned his attention back to the officer, “ I don’t. And I am proud to be so foolish.” He stepped forward in the opening move of kata seven: ‘The Defender Engulfed.’

Varrel left Vette and Quinn behind, knowing somehow that whatever happened here was for his eyes alone. He sensed the gathering of power before it manifested. A figure coalesced, humanoid, bluish, a holoimage approaching across the still water of the grotto. As it neared, Varrel recognized its features as his own.

Belésh. Fetch. He Who Guides.

It halted just beyond the shore, its feet still in the world of the dead. “You know what I am,” it said. The voice was his, hollow and echoing along with drops of water falling from above.

“A warning. A premonition,” Varrel replied.

“I am what you have forgotten,” it said.

Varrel shifted his weight. He often remembered too well. “I doubt that very much.”

“You have forgotten your honor, Varrel Umrahiel, son of Valeri Umrahiel, father of Valho Umrahiel. You have forgotten the very precepts upon which your line was founded.”

Varrel bristled. Whatever its function, this ghost had no idea the situation in which he found himself. The old principles did not apply. Could not apply. “What would you know of that?” he asked, “You wear my shape, but you are not me.”

“I am you as you could be,” the fetch said, “as you should be.” Its form shifted. Varrel recognized his father, his grandfather, a whole series of his ancestors all the way back to Veljann Umrahiel, founder of the Salle de Umrahiel, whom he’d seen only as woodcut prints. But this was not a woodcut. This was Veljann as he might have been alive, in the armor of his time, the symbol of the house he served flying high from the flag on his back. “I am who you chose to emulate, whose path you have lost.”

Varrel bristled further. He’d devoted his life to the art of the sword. Experience honed him into a weapon, and the fact he still lived where so many others died was testament to his skill. He could feel the Force calling, singing its siren’s song, speeding his heart, his perceptions. “My technique is flawless—“

“The hand mirrors the heart,” Belésh-as-Valjann said, his voice the sound of stones grinding in a waterfall, “your heart is shadow, your hand is dark. With a soul so twisted your technique is nothing. This is not the way. Was never the way,” he intoned.

Varrel approached the apparition. Within arm’s length, his feet in the water, he slashed through the image with one hand, “You do not understand these Sith. You served the emperors of old, not this Empire, not these lords.”

Belésh-as-Valjann’s flag changed. Grgure. Odak. Ulenn-Tek. Several others Varrel didn’t recognize. “My world was that of the Warring States. The Fractured Time. I served many factions, many powers.” Belésh-as-Valjann’s image grew dark, grew tall, grew menacing, “You presume that because my weapons were simple swords, that my people had not yet reached the stars, that I do not understand intrigue? That I am ignorant of subterfuge? What were the courts of the old kings but battlefields where words were as spears? Where manners were as swords? The true battlefields as bloody as any in your Empire. I kept my heart.” Belésh returned to Valjann’s shape.

Varrel stood frozen. Valjann’s teachings were more than mere technique. The hand mirrors the heart was his most basic premise. A clear heart sees true, sees through the lies, know how to strike, knows when to strike, directs the hand without thought. Mind and body and weapon are one. Was this not the same as what the Sith taught? The Force directs?

“It is not the same, Varrel Umrahiel,” Belésh-as-Valjann said, answering Varrel’s thoughts, “You know it is not. The heart is your center. It is who you are. This—“ Belésh reached forward one spectral hand toward Varrel’s chest. His fingers drew out dark tendrils like poisonous shadows, “is not your center. It is weakness, it is pollution, and it does not belong.”

Varrel clutched at his heart, “It is Sith power. I cannot fight without it,” he protested.

“It is pollution,” Belésh insisted, “You had power and grace without this before, when the Sith sought you out and corrupted you. You do not need it, Varrel Umrahiel, my son-many-times-descended.” The tendrils writhed on Belésh’s palm, a ball of ash snakes. Belésh shifted his form again, back to a reflection of Varrel’s own, “Serve your master and serve your heart. Leave this filth for lesser men.”

Varrel stared at the twining shadows, “But there is so much darkness,” he whispered.

“Be a light in that darkness, Varrel, and you will find that light attracts light,” Belésh said. “I taught those who would listen. I slew those who would not. If you wish to reclaim this foreign plague, you will have to fight me for it.”

Varrel stared at the shadows. He knew the proper answer. The Sith answer. But for the first time in a long time he could see a different path. A brighter path. A path where he need not sacrifice his soul for survival. Belésh was right. He was strong with the Force before absorbing a word of Sith doctrine. As for what he’d learned at their feet, he would find a way without the darkness. Even as the thought occurred, the writhing, twining snakes in Belésh’s palm faded to nothingness.

Belésh-as-Varrel smiled, “Take my strength,” he said, stepping forward. His image merged with Varrel’s, became part of him, the bright memory of his revered ancestor, “and remember your heart.”

Belésh’s last words echoed as drops of water falling from the ceiling. Varrel was alone in the grotto. He stood in water up to his ankles, ripples spreading out over the pool’s surface. Hidden water on a dry planet. Hidden knowledge in a dark world.

He turned, heading back through the winding cavern to where he’d left Quinn, Vette, and his guide. He would still serve Baras. Perform his duties as assigned. But he would perform them his way.

It was at the Slippery Slope cantina that they saw what they thought was the woman they'd been searching for, her rescue the main point of their mission. Miriah was downing Hutt tequila, her drink of choice when working, since she could consume way more than was healthy without the consequences that would befall most other people. She was facing the table with the woman, less threatening that way, when she saw the surreptitious movement under the robe that indicated the woman was breastfeeding. Miriah gazed lovingly at Corso, leaning close to him. “She has the child with her now, feeding him under the robe. I’ll create a distraction, you get her out of here and back to the ship.” He nodded, at once excited to have found her, and worried about what kind of distraction Miriah would start. He didn’t have long to worry, though. Miriah stood and climbed on top of their table. She looked positively delicious in her black leathers, and he’d noticed several of the men in the cantina looking her over already.

“I challenge anyone in this fine establishment to attempt to outdrink me. If you can, you win five thousand credits. If you lose, you get to pay my tab. Any takers?” At that, she grinned and put one hand on her hip, striking a sexy pose. Corso almost got trampled by the rush to their table, and he edged out and over to the robed woman, who was trying to gather her bag and the hidden child and escape.

Corso managed to hold onto the woman’s elbow long enough to whisper to her, “We know who you are and we've been hired to get you and the child to safety.” That one statement stopped her cold, and she decided to trust the dreadlocked human with the kind eyes. He was leaving with her when he heard Miriah call for another round, and shook his head. He’d be back for her as soon as he could.

Corso got the woman, who said her name was Nuala, to the ship, where Maura and Sarai took over, helping her to her own quarters, cooing over the baby, who had been very well cared for. They fed her and helped her get the baby settled so she could sleep. Nuala had no idea who these people were, but she knew the older woman was a Jedi, and she felt safe with them.

Corso hurried back to the cantina, hoping to get Miriah out without having to shoot anybody. When he arrived, there was only one man left drinking, and he was going under fast. Miriah appeared as sober as usual, and smiled up at him with a wink. “Hello, sugar. I’m just gonna beat this one guy, then we can go. Now,” she said as she picked her opponent’s head up by his hair, “one more? Or are you done?” The man roused enough to do one more shot with her, which she downed with a smile, and then he passed out. Miriah raised her arms in victory, and stood, swaying, to follow Corso out. She stopped at the bartender, handing him a cred stick. “Don’t make him pay for my fun, I’ve got it.” She took Corso’s hand, wanting to get out of the cantina before that last shot made her unable to walk, which it did, halfway to the taxi stop. Corso just swung her up over his shoulder, at least she wasn’t drinking champagne, he thought. She giggled and sang all the way back to the ship, and he had to laugh. She was rarely as relaxed as she was when she was drunk. He came through the airlock with her on his shoulder, both of them laughing. Aric and Maura were there, and expressed concern as Corso gently put her on her feet, then caught her under her arms as she almost fell.

“Izz okay, jus’ need water and a whole lotta painkillers,” she giggled, slipping to the floor. “I love you guys, do I ever tell you that? I love you so much.” She brushed her now loose hair out of her face to take the water Aric handed her.

“How much did she drink?” he asked Corso, looking at his sister in law slumped over under the table, humming.

“I counted twelve shots on the table, but she’d had at least five others while we looked,” he replied with a sigh. “She might feel it tomorrow, but she has an incredible tolerance for tequila. Not the first time I’ve seen her run that distraction, but it always scares the hell outta me.” He shook his head, picked up his very drunk wife from the floor, and carried her to their quarters. She was out, he noticed, and gently undressed her, tucking her in with a kiss before he went to the bridge to get them out into space where the woman and child would be harder to find.

My son was injured, but his body is intact and he will recover in time. I'm grateful and thank you all for your wonderful support and prayers while he's been deployed. He's coming home, nothing else really matters right now.