The Jedi And The Warrior

The Turning Of The Wheels

A flagship sat silent and still beneath the shadow of the canopy. The trees were thick and grasping, so close together that not even a deer path could be seen between the overlapping branches. The air was heavy, warm, clinging to the senses and weighing upon the mind, as though some unseen malice was bent upon any that entered.

A strange, red mist hung over the trees, so that the leaves seemed to be floating in a sea of blood and the trunks were pillars of ghostly crimson. The very air was a portent of violence and war, a herald of dark and uncharted deeds.

The dense foliage surrounding the ship rustled, too individual and too deliberate to be the machinations of the wind. The ship's huge grey walls were tinged with red, and it loomed over the bushes like a heavy slumbering giant, scored with many wounds.

From the glossy leaves of a dark bush, a figure emerged, heavily hooded in black but bearing the silhouette of a man. The shadows on the face within the hood were so dense that no lines or features could be made out, but a limp creature dangled from the folds of the cloak, dripping blood through the red air.

The figure moved on silent feet from the shrub, keeping low and close to the ground, darting towards the underbelly of the ship, which was raised high above the forest floor on four squat legs. Beneath, the world was a world of shadows, broken only by the shaft of clear light that pierced the air from the door in the base of the ship.

An arm appeared from the folds of the cloak as the figure hauled itself upwards.

"About time," grumbled Solari Kal from her perch at the large table that doubled for a computer, its screen now awake and casting her face in a blue glow. "Malco's getting impatient."

She had a lean face, rugged, framed in thick waves of golden hair. She was young, but there was a weariness to her bones and skin that spoke of too many years of hardship and grief.

The figure pulled himself through the door, landing on his feet with nimble athleticism, and threw back his hood. He was young, too, hair shaved close to his head, cheekbones high under his black skin. He chucked the dead creature onto one of the white surfaces with a sickening squelch.

"Next time you can go out there, Solari," he retorted, but there was no malice in it.

She smiled, the kind of smile a mother gives to humour another person's child. "Call me Sol, Fey," she said, swiping a finger across the surface of the desk and sweeping aside a couple of pages. "You've been here long enough."

A trace of sadness entangled with her voice, but it could barely be heard.

"I think getting to call you Sol might be the real initiation," he said, grinning, though that trace of sadness echoed again.

Solari grinned back, though she returned to her computer and flicked open a large map of the galaxy that took up the entire desk. Little red dots winked upon it in several locations, on different planets. "I presume you saw the same thing we all —"

"Good, you've returned."

The powerful, deep voice came from the man who strode from the door off to the side, his orange cloak billowing as he walked. His high cheekbones and steely blue eyes were complimented by the silver hair that fell to his shoulders, and he moved with a feline calculation and grace. Solari and Fey turned to him immediately.

"I've called a meeting," Malco Flint went on, halting in the centre of the room where a small round table sat surrounded by six white chairs. "There are... pressing matters which must be discussed."

Solari shut down the computer at the same time as several other cloaked figures filed in behind Malco. Their hoods were cast back, and they each took up a place around the circle. Fey followed suit, Solari arriving last, crossing one leg over the other as she sat down.