Star Wars: The Trials of Vala Kos

[LordVagabond]

Hello all!

 

I'm a long time fiction writer, sadly unpublished However, I thought it would be fun to write the backstory of one of my alt characters, a Miralukan female Jedi, and so I pounded out an outline over the weekend and wrote this chapter in the past couple of hours I expect, according to my outline at least, to have 10-12 chapters, one every week or every other week, which should catch up to the start of TOR where we are all level 1 and Vala Kos is one of the Jedi you meet somewhere out there in the Galaxy

 

Without further ado, chapter 1!

 

(Also, please note, I do appreciate feedback and comments. However, as this is a story-centered thread, you can PM me your thoughts/comments. Any immature or derogatory messages will be deleted and not replied to, and if they continue, they will be reported.)

[LordVagabond]

Star Wars: The Trials of Vala Kos

 

The story begins on the day that Coruscant fell...

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

Chasin City

Commenor

 

Vala Kos hated crowds.

 

With a sigh, she pulled her robes tighter around her body and plunged headlong into the swarming, teeming mass of beings that made up the central plaza of Chasin City. Already, she could smell the million and one scents of thousands of species mixing with the aromas of the city's famous multitudes of restaurants. Her stomach growled gently at the thought of food. It had been a fair few hours since her simple breakfast.

 

Glancing skywards, she felt the sun penetrate the depths of her hood. She had to suppress a smile as a few near her saw her face, her eyes covered with bandage wrappings, tight and clean, hidden under long bangs of brown hair that covered most of her upper face. A Miralukan, a near-human species, she had been born without eyes, despite having eye sockets that had grown over with skin. It was more of a social particularity to cover the eye sockets, as many species did not enjoy the sight of an eyeless face. It was also the reason behind her long hair, as her sight was not impeded by the physical presence of her own body.

 

However, due both to her kind's natural Force affinity and the fact that she was a master, as were most of her people, of Force sight, she was able to see as well, if not better, than most Jedi, let alone most common species. Deftly dodging through the crowd, she quickened her pace as her agoraphobia began to press at the back of her mind, a failing of hers that she was ashamed to admit. She felt herself start to panic, feeling the crowds closer, tighter, squeezing, no escape. Her breath caught in her chest.

 

So involved in her thoughts was she that she did not see the Gamorrean run into her path until she had been bowled over and sent sprawling, the heavy, piggish alien slamming down beside her with a squeal that ended in a wet sounding grunt. Silently cursing herself, she immediately checked her hip, feeling the comforting weight of the lightsaber slung there, then quickly sprung to her feet.

 

“Are you okay?” she asked, extending a hand down to the Gamorrean as he... or she... pushed up off the ground, grunting and snorting a very unkind diatribe at her.

 

“I'm sorry, I honestly didn't see you,” Vala insisted as the Gamorrean continued his... or her... tirade. It was difficult to determine which gender a Gamorrean was, mostly because both sexes looked exactly the same to anyone not a Gamorrean.

 

“Excuse me,” she mumbled as she dodged around the miffed alien, a string of gutteral grunts and squeals mostly aimed at Vala's heritage and parentage flung after her.

 

With a sigh, she slid through the crowd and ducked into a doorway of one of the thousands of restaurants that lined the central plaza, the kilometers long and wide center of Chasin City. Checking her chrono, she allowed herself a few seconds to breathe and catch her breath, still chastising herself in her head to be more aware, pay more attention.

 

“That was the most graceful faceplant I've ever seen a Padawan make,” a deep, rumbling voice said from barely a foot behind her, tinged with humor and good charm. Still, the sudden closeness of it made Vala jump, before she turned and saw the brilliant golden glow surrounding her Master, Entapha Jara, a Togruta male.

 

“Sorry Master,” she said, hanging her head. At twenty four years of age, she was still well within the age range of a Padawan, a Jedi-in-training. It also meant that she was still young in the eyes of the Jedi, having being trained by the Order since she was a scant three years old.

 

“Don't be,” Entapha said, putting a calloused, veteran hand on her shoulder. “Learn from the mistake, don't be apologetic for it. It's not like you blew up a planet or anything. You let yourself be distracted, and because of that distraction, you knocked over a Gamorrean. Which, I might add, is a feat unto itself, so congratulations are in order.”

 

Vala felt her face go red under the gentle chiding of her Master, her embarassment rising as he chuckled at her reaction.

 

“It was fear, Master,” she admitted, sighing heavily again. “I freaked again. I thought I could handle it.”

 

She felt his hand squeeze her shoulder gently. She looked up, seeing the wise smile cross his face, almost as if he knew exactly what she was feeling.

 

“You will defeat your fears, Vala, of that I am certain,” he said. “All Jedi have fears, especially the younger ones. It's how you deal with your fear, and the way you react after dealing with it, that makes you a Jedi Knight.”

 

Her eyebrows, hidden under her bangs, rose at that admission, despite the fact that her Master could not see them.

 

“Don't be so surprised, young one,” Entapha laughed, clapping her shoulder before he turned and gestured back into the teeming crowds. “Come. We have a meeting to attend.”

 

 

-----------

 

Vala let herself float, her mind cast deeply inwards, her meditation coming as naturally to her as breathing. Only a scant few hours ago, she and her Master had concluded their meeting with the local magistrate, signing documents and picking up sensitive case files that needed to be conveyed to the Jedi and the Republic on Coruscant.

 

Now, however, she could meditate freely. While her Master was busy recording a report up in the cockpit of the shuttle, she had appropriated the passenger compartment and switched off the gravity. Nonetheless, she remained perfectly centered in the compartment, using the Force to hold her steady as she sent her mind through itself, peeling away the layers of thought and emotion so she could focus on the Force and her fears, and how she would use the one to overcome the other.

 

She had panicked, earlier, if only slightly. Still, it had caught the attention of her Master, and she was determined to overcome her phobia, if not for herself, then for her duties that would come with being a Knight.

 

Opening herself deeper, she felt the hum of life, the everpresent feeling of the Living Force. She let it flow through, around, past, under her. It was everywhere, a calming, warm flow, almost like a gentle summer stream as it passed over sun baked rocks. She inhaled, smelling the lush grasslands of her homeworld, Alpheridies, feeling the Force emanate from each blade of grass, despite the fact that she was thousands of light years distant from those very fields.

 

She felt the warmth spread on her face, almost like rays of the sun had warmed her face earlier on Commenor. She felt the blades of grass tickle her feet gently as they swayed between her toes. Vala took another deep breath, the dry scent of a hot summer afternoon relaxing her completely.

 

Once she was centered and open, she let her phobia creep forward from the place she kept it tightly locked away. Immediately, she felt the warmth ebb slightly, the fingers of darkness creeping forth into her mind. Frowning slightly, she increased her focus in the Force, letting its purity eat away at the doubts and fears she had in her mind.

 

And then she felt it, a sudden, snapping darkness that burst through the force as if a lightsaber through flesh. It was so sudden, so painful, that she gasped and felt her body spasm once, a defensive reaction to the ill feeling that permeated the Force.

 

And then it was gone, replaced with the quick series of beeps that signalled an opening intercom.

 

“Vala,” she heard her Master's voice over the comm. Returning to herself, she gently nudged the reply button on the comm with her mind as she opened her sight to the bright, almost sterile white compartment.

 

“I am here.”

 

“We're almost to Coruscant. Anything interesting in the Force?”

 

Stretching her legs out and feeling her muscles howl in complaint, she grimaced and felt her lower back pop. Apparently she had been under for quite some time. She flicked the gravity switch on the wall with a thought, deftly landing on her feet in the sudden Coruscant-level gravity.

 

“Nothing much,” she said, hoping her voice didn't betray the odd darkness she had felt moments before waking from her trance. “I smelled the grasslands of Alpheridies, actually. Almost as if I was there. It was... relaxing.”

 

“Good!” she heard him exclaim. Master Jara was one of the masters of introspection and meditation, probably one of the reasons he had chosen her as one of his Padawans. It was even rumored that he was adept at premonition, using the Force to see the future. “That's definitely a sign of Oneness with the Force. Now you have to determine if it was the scent of the present, or a memory you dug up in your thoughts.”

 

By now, she had reached the cockpit door, and waved her hand over the sensor pad. With a hiss, the door parted and she was greeted by the spinning, cylindrical sight of hyperspace out the front viewport. Sitting in the copilot's seat, she quickly strapped herself in while talking.

 

“I think it was the present, Master. It felt like I was actually there, the grass between my toes, the sun on my face. It was a glorious summer day.”

 

“You sound almost wistful, my Padawan,” Master Jara smiled over at her.

 

“Don't we all long for home, Master, even if in some small way?”

 

His face creased in thought at that, and she could sense him wording his reply carefully before he spoke.

 

“We all have homeworlds, Vala. Some of us, like you and I, even get to visit those homeworlds once in a while. But our home, my dear, is the Order. We serve, wholly and completely, in the purview of the Force. So, really, our home is where the Force wills us to be at any one time.”

 

Vala bit her bottom lip, mulling it over in her head. To his credit, her Master did not interrupt her thoughts until she looked up at him.

 

“I guess that makes sense. I mean, I do feel at home at the Temple. My chambers are there, my friends are there, and Coruscant is as much a home to me as Alpheridies. I guess I just miss being there,” she said, reaching up to touch her bandages as she spoke the last. “I'm comfortable wearing these most of the time, but it was pleasant to not have to wrap my eyes every morning when I was on Alpheridies last. I supposed that it's just a memory that I want to hold on to, of feeling the air, the sun, the day on ALL of my face, not just half of it.”

 

“Careful with your thoughts, my Padawan,” Master Jara spoke, his voice jovial yet serious. “Remembering fondly, and yearning for, a moment in time are two different things. One is natural, the other can lead to the Dark Side.”

 

As he spoke the last word, another sliver of shock coursed through Vala, thankfully not making her spasm as the last had. Carefully hiding her feelings, she instead studied the navicomp in front of her, making note of the timer in the upper right hand corner of the star map.

 

“Reversion in thirty seconds,” she said, despite knowing her Master was well aware of the countdown. If he noticed her nervousness, he did not speak or act on it.

 

Vala automatically began the post-hyperspace checklist, prepping gravity generators, power switchover routines, and warm-firing the sublight reactor to transition from hyperspace to sublight propulsion. She reached out and put her hand on the hyperspace lever, watching as the countdown hit zero. She felt the slightest tickles of darkness in the back of her head as she pulled back on the lever.

 

“What-” her Master started, his eyes widening as he too felt the darkness at the back of his mind, even as the stars snapped into normality before them.

 

Coruscant quickly grew then stabilized as they decelerated, the city-world gleaming in the darkness of space, great circular suburbs visible even from beyond the reaches of the planet's gravity well. The space around the world was, as usual, teeming with all forms of ships, from personal yachts to giant freightliners and even a few gargantuan pleasure cruisers.

 

However, the ship directly in their path, barely a kilometer distant, set off every collision alarm and warning system in the cockpit, which was suddenly drowned in the wails and klaxons. Turbolaser fire impacted on the ship, glancing ineffectively against shields and abalative armor, the energy of the lasers fizzing away into the vacuum of space. In an instant, Vala could see the dark blue glow surrounding the ship, strong and vicious. She could see the angular cuts and stubby wings, and her heart rose into her throat as the ship let lose with a volley of turbolaser fire, arrowing straight for the shuttle, the singular curse escaping her lips even as she felt the finality of the moment before her.

“Sith!”