Session 20: A Familiar Face, Part V

General Summary

Day 8, Morning
The padawans' training continues with individual sessions with Master Dal Konur. The Jedi Master starts with Rin. They both sit in the cargo bay of The Mynock's Wing and meditate as Rin is pushed to look into the future. Rin sees a vision of his friend Lem and Tomla lying dead on the ground not 5 minutes from now. He immediately ends his meditation and starts to rush out the door and to his friends' aid. Master Konur shakes his head and reminds Rin of the first line of the Jedi Code: there is no emotion, there is peace. Had Rin taken a moment to search his feelings in the Force, he would have immediately realized that the vision was placed there by Master Konur and that his friends are not actually in any danger. Rin, properly admonished, is directed to continue his meditation and to control his feelings lest the dark side draw him further in.    Next is Lem's training. For this, he asks Tomla and Rin to join them in the cargo bay, but to stand by silently. Master Konur asks Lem to simply use the Force to lift one of the broken speeders in the cargo bay. When he is unable to, Master Konur sighs and then says that they can start with something more in his comfort zone and asks Lem to attack him with his lightsaber. Lem does, but is immediately and easily disarmed by Konur. As Master Konur lest his frustration show, he asks Lem if he can even recite any of the four Jedi leadership styles as defined by Jedi Master Atris of the Old Republic, which was covered in his early training. When he can't remember, Master Konur asks Lem why anyone should follow him if he can't even remember such a basic element of leadership. Lem, embarrassed, simply says that he is sorry and that he will try harder. Master Konur smiles and apologizes for the harshness of this lesson, but he is pleased that he has accepted that there is no ignorance, there is knowledge. Lem has clearly grown beyond the need to make excuses for his failures in front of his peers.    Finally, Master Konur tells Tomla that they will need to go to a remote location for her training so that no one is endangered by her natural abilities. They head to the mountains near the government district of Khomm 1, walking up a long, winding path. Halfway up, Master Konur asks her to stay there while he retrieves some supplies. Not long after he leaves, Tomla sees a group of four Onyx Tigers in a landspeeder chasing and shooting at a frightened human on a speeder bike. A sudden gust of wind slams into both, knocking them against a cliffside and disabling their vehicles. This causes an avalanche with an uncountable number of giant boulders about to rain down on both of them. Tomla only has enough time to try to save the four Onyx Tigers or the human they were chasing. Tomla, refusing to let anyone die, lifts the broken speeder with the four pirates in it with the Force, but instead of pulling it away from the mountainside and the boulders, pulls it alongside the mountain to give them a chance to grab the human as well. Not only do they refuse to try to save the human, they shoot at him with their blasters as the boulders slam into the speeder, crushing all of them. Once this happens, the boulders, speeder, and people all vanish as Master Konur walks around the corner, shaking his head. He reminds Tomla of the Jedi Code: there is no death, there is the Force. She can't save everyone, and if she keeps trying to, it will eventually lead her to the dark side. She must accept the limits of her abilities and role in the galaxy and simply do what she can to protect those that need protecting. But people die every day, and she can't save them all.    Day 8, Afternoon
With their training done, Master Konur calls everyone together on the Mynock's Wing and asks them about their next steps with Dorsk 82 and the memory download proposed by The First Born. After some discussion, they agree to have Konur take the Mynock's Wing to the Dead Reckoning. They will get the engine upgrade done and try to convince The Alderaan Raiders to join with the First Born in an alliance. At the same time, the padawans will talk to the First Born and try to convince them that they can arrange a relationship between them and the The Alderaan Raiders in place of the memory download in exchange for their information on where Dorsk 82 is. Unfortunately, the Dead Reckoning is leaving the system within the hour so that the Imperial Remnant doesn't have time to send a larger force against them and the First Born are in the middle of an operation and won't be available until it's over in about two hours. The Initiates meditate and see Rosk 1 in the Industrial district by a factory. Konur and Lyshea drop the padawans on a rooftop near where they believe Rosk 1 to be before heading into orbit to meet the Dead Reckoning.    The padawans jump from roof to roof until they find the familiar-looking factory from their vision. Tomla sees Rosk 1 and two other First Born about to blow their way into the factory. Rosk 1 sees Lem and comms him asking what he's doing there. Lem explains that they're there to help and then cuts a hole in the roof. Rin ties Tomla's wrench to his synth cable and puts it in the hole so they can climb down the back of the building. Once they are all together, Rosk 1 blows the door to the factory and runs in firing. Once the smoke clears, it becomes clear that this is an assault droid factory, which is illegal on Khomm. While the Jedi help the First Born destroy the inactive droids in the factory, the factory manager rushes to his console to activate the dozens of deadly droids. Despite Rosk 1 tossing several thermal detonators at groups of droids, there are still a couple dozen droids standing when they are all activated. After some initial trouble adjusting to the situation, Lem cleaves through multiple droids at once while Tomla runs up the wall, slices through a droid as she drops down, then jumps high into the air and splits a droid in half with her lighstaber. Lem and Tomla both take a couple glancing shots from the droids, but no where near as bad a one of the First Born who runs past an entire group of droids as they fire into his body over and over. Rosk 1 manages to stabalize him before he helps Rin finish off the remaining droids and capture the factory manager. He takes him captive and then his men start setting explosive charges around the factory. Rin is able to download the droid schematics and operator information from a terminal before they all clear out and blow the factory to the ground.    Back at the First Born HQ, the padawans tell Rosk 1 that they aren't willing to do the memory download, but can set up a relationship with the Alderaan Raiders. Rosk 1 isn't convinced, so Lem agrees to do the memory download. While Rin tries to get access to see how the memory download works, the technology is too complicated and unknown to him, so he and Tomla can do nothing but stand by as the machine goes through Lem's mind. Lem does his best to use the Force to shield some of his memories from the machine, but isn't entirely successful.    After the memory download, they contact Master Konur and confirm that Kylett Dandean is willing to meet with Rosk 1 to establish a formal relationship, but it will have to wait at least 24 hours as they reach their new destination. With this and the memory download, Rosk 1 begins to tell them what he knows about Dorsk 82.    He explains that Dorsk 82 has been working with the First Born on two different projects. The first is studying Khomm cloning techniques to see how the force sensitivity that manifested in Dorsk 81 and himself came to be in order to see if it can be replicated. This has more to do with his interest in how he came to be than it is to create a force-sensitive clone army, although the possibility and implications are there. The second project was stealing communications technology that would help him to create a much more effective version of a communications disruptor - one that could block all incoming and outgoing communications for an entire planet from orbit. He had just succeeded at creating such a device, which he took with him when he left Khomm several days ago.   During his time with the First Born, Dorsk 82 was in frequent communication with another Jedi who he referred to only as "K", and who referred to him only as "D". Dorsk 82 didn't say exactly where he was going, but Rosk 1 did hear him discussing the construction of a base of operations at a secret location and that he was headed there after he "picked up the colonists" and "dropped off the device".   The only other thing he knows is that the secret base must be on a planet not far from here, and likely someplace uninhabited and remote.