Chapter 4:

Six hours into the 56 hours and some-odd minutes of travel time, Aric Dorawn dragged Sakira Orobu into the med-room and brought up the standard diagnostic program for humans on the computer. He worked his way down the taxonomy to “hyperdrive coolant poisoning” and started praying. Untreated, Sakira had about a week to live. She’d be completely bedridden by the time they reached their destination, which meant Aric and T3 would have to figure out how to switch hyperdrives without her. Given that astromechs weren’t designed to do that sort of thing alone and Aric was no mechanic, that could be difficult. And that was assuming that there was a ship with an intact, compatible drive waiting for them in two days time. Even then, would they be able to get her to a medical facility in time? Aric wasn’t too familiar with Rim geography, but he had a feeling that Sakira’s prospects weren’t good.

That shouldn’t bother him as much as it did. After all, he’d known the woman all of a few hours. But in that time they’d saved each other’s lives several times over, and besides, he liked Sakira, and he had a feeling he’d have connected well with her even if they hadn’t met in life threatening circumstances. Provided they hadn’t started off by discussing jobs, of course.

“I’ve got no problem with Republic citizens,” she says. Meaning she has a problem with the Republic itself, as an organization, undoubtedly because we’re so meddlesome, don’t leave the Rimmers alone. What would she think of me if she knew I was an Intell agent? If she knew what I was doing out here? Force, I’d be screwed then.

It was the first time since Sakira’s and his escape from the mysterious ship she woken him up on that he’d thought about his job or even what he’d come out to the Rim to do, and it set off a lightning fast chain of associations.

Rand… that ship… Sakira… the Ebon Hawk…

Sith. That ship has got to be associated with the Sith. Could Sakira be one of their agents? As much as he hated the possibility that the woman currently sleeping in the med-room, having kolto (SP???) run through her system to repair the damage caused by, if not remove, the highly toxic coolant, was one that Aric hated, but he had to admit its existence. It was a slim possibility – if the Sith had known enough to care about what he might know, enough set up something as elaborate as his and Sakira’s escape from that ship, probably have felt him important enough to just call on a Force user rip open his mind. If he were to speculate any further than that he’d end up with no firm ground to stand on, not even the reality of what he was experiencing at that very moment. – but it did exist.

He couldn’t assume that was true, though, at least not yet. He couldn’t afford to alienate his only non-mechanical companion. Though, when he thought about it, some of her mannerisms – her posture, how she turned her head, certain movements of her hands – actually reminded him of those of droids.

The system the beacon lead them to had seven planets, none of them, including the one the beacon originated from, had any signs of high technology. Aric was no hotshot pilot, but he knew the basics. He wasn’t sure he could land without help from traffic control, led alone without even a landing pad, but he could do a dive into the atmosphere so the ship’s sensors could test the air for breathability. The results came back positive. The planet could support human and near-human life.

As he brought the Hawk – the frakking Ebon Hawk, and, Force, he was flying it – back into orbit, Sakira made her way into the cockpit, leaning against the bulkhead for support, one hand rested on T3’s head.

“Where’s the beacon?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

“It’s coming from a plain on the smallest of the six continents.”

“Can you land us?”

“Maybe. If you talk me through it or T3 helps, and I rely heavily on the repulsors.”

“Let’s do it.”

It took a quarter of an hour, and Aric felt as if he’d run for miles by the time it was done, but with Sakira talking him through it and T3 linked to the ship’s systems to deal with the more severe air currents, Aric managed to land the Hawk safely, though he ended up a few miles from the beacon and hadn’t gotten a look at its source. Sakira, sitting beside him in the co-pilot’s seat, seemed to collapse, falling asleep where she sat. Aric had a feeling the ride down had stressed her more than it had him.

“So what do we do, T3?”

An inquisitive beep.

“We need to check out that beacon, but I don’t want to leave her here alo–”

He was interrupted by a clanging from the direction of the entrance.

“What in the world?” He ran to the small security room and checked to boarding feed.

There was, the security cam’ showed, a woman outside the ship. She was dark skinned and tall, with high cheek bones, green eyes, and a shaved head. Her dress was primitive, a simple, lightweight black wrap. She carried a staff of dark, smooth wood, topped with a few dangling wooden charms. She stared at the camera and said, in accented but perfectly clear Basic, “Open the door, starman.”

Her name was Toyin, and he wasn’t sure why he had let her in. She’d introduced herself briefly, asked his name, and headed straight to the cockpit. He’d run after her, and found her standing over Sakira, eyes closed, head bent. Her eyes opened as he came into the cockpit.

“This woman,” she said “is very sick. We must take her back to my village so that I can heal her. Your warrior-shaman will meet us there.”

“What? Wait, are you… You’re a Force Adept!”

“So I am told.” She picked Sakira up with a quiet grunt and handed her limp body to Aric, who staggered slightly under her wait.

“You made me let you in.”

“Yes. I am sorry, and I will do penance for it. If you wish, you may challenge me with the spears and I will fight you as a warrior, and not as a warrior-shaman. But for now, your companion is very ill, and I must take her back to my village. I did not bring my healer’s kit with me.”

They must have made a strange procession, walking the mile across the plain to Toyin’s village: Toyin – tall and dark, striding with purpose across the plain, the only one who knew where they were going , Aric – struggling to keep up with Toyin while carrying Sakira on his back, feeling small next to the presence Toyin exuded – and T3 trundling along behind them, the only droid on a world too primitive to have it’s own (not counting, of course, the assassin droid in the storage area. It occurred to Aric, not for the first time, that he was now operating under circumstances he would have once thought occurred only in holodramas.). The sun set to their left as they made their way through the tall grass, and Aric could hear the sounds of animals across the plain.

The village appeared to be a permanent settlement, comprised of small stone huts fronted with pounded earth. People, tall and dark like Toyin, paused in their business to stare at their little procession, especially at T3, and chattered among themselves, pointing. Toyin led Aric and T3 to one of the larger huts and entered through a curtain of wooden beads. Aric hesitated a moment, entering only when T3 gave him a small push.

The hut dark inside with the only light coming from two small windows near the door. It smelled of herbs and spices that were completely foreign to Aric, and strings of dried plants hung the ceiling along with more wooden charms. Toyin gestured to him to lay Sakira on a pallet at the center of the hut, and to take a seat on the floor. Ten she knelt over Sakira with her hands held over the young woman's head and began to chant. Aric, unsure what else to do, sat and watched. Eventually the chanting lulled him to sleep.

When Aric woke it was dark outside, and Toyin was still chanting, her eyes closed. She'd taken some herbs down and was waving them slowly over Sakira, whose breathing seemed just a little less ragged than it had before. Some one had lit an oil lamp that hung from the ceiling. He'd been woken by the sound of footsteps entering the hut.

Toyin paused in her chanting, but didn't turn or open her eyes.

"Starwoman," she said, " you came. Thank you. This is, perhaps, one of your people? She is gravely ill, afflicted by a strong poison. You will help me to heal her?"

"You know very well, Toyin," said a voice Aric knew well a voice familiar from the holonews of his early teenagerhood, "that I would be perfectly happy to do any healing you will allow me."

Aric turned away from Toyin and toward the voice. There, standing in the doorway of a primative hut on a planet that was more than backwater, on the very edge of the Unknown Regions, Bastila Shan was silhouetted against the stars.