Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy A Fan Novelization

Chapter Four - The Droid We're Looking For

Kyle landed the Raven's Claw just inside the opening of the canyon. It had tall, curved walls with thousands of layers of dirt in varying shades of red, orange, and brown. Nearby stood a lone sandstone hut, typical of the types of houses built out in the Tatooine desert. Jaden had read that the dome roofed huts were actually built as the entrance and led underground into the real living space.

Cooler underground instead of burning up above. Smart.

They'd seen more of them surrounding the outside of the canyon. While Kyle went to the lone hut inside the canyon entrance, Jaden sat atop the Raven's Claw, binoculars in hand, watching for Rosh's arrival to make sure he knew where he was headed. The X-wing he'd been lent from the Academy appeared shortly and he landed almost expertly close to the Raven's Claw. Jaden jumped down from the roof of the ship and hollered, "Kyle, Rosh is here!"

Rosh hopped out of the cockpit with a rehearsed swagger, the wind catching his short dark locks and hurried over to her and Kyle. He looks cool, I'll give him that, Jaden thought. "Hey, how was it?" She said aloud, pointing to the X-wing.

Rosh waved his hand dismissively. "Aww it was nothing! Especially for my first flight in a real ship on my own."

"You've never piloted a ship before? I thought you'd been training in the hangar this whole time?"

"Well," Rosh shrugged. "I've driven plenty of speeders before I came to the Academy and I got to pilot a Y-wing one time a few days ago, but that was while I was still in the planet's atmosphere. I've apparently been doing so well that I finally got the go ahead from Officer Nuss to take an X-Wing out. And perfect timing too, seeing as how Kyle needed me to come help today."

"That's pretty impressive. Kyle's been showing me the controls on the Claw, I've piloted a few speeders too but never a ship. I'm gonna have to learn quickly though if I want to pilot a ship for my own missions soon." Jaden put her hands in her pockets, it felt good to catch up with Rosh, because even though they had the same master, they trained so much when they were together that they hardly seemed to have a moment to really talk, even in the dining hall they were usually just waking up or too tired from training to do anything but eat or make the occasional comment when their fellow new students talked or asked a question. Come to think of it, their conversation on the Academy's rooftop that first night had been their longest. The memory of it made her feel warmer, amplifying the planet's twin suns heat beating down on her.

She suddenly looked away from Rosh in the direction of the Claw. Where was Kyle?

"Well, maybe not too soon, I don't wanna get ahead of myself," she added hastily, wiping away the sweat that beaded on her brow. "Do you have enough water with you?"

Rosh scratched the back of his neck. "I think so, Master Tionne gave me a bottle before I left, hold on, it's in my X-wing." He ran back to get it.

Kyle sauntered back up into the heat, "No one's home," he said. "No Jawas either. Never around when you need them." Rosh returned with his bottle of water. "Ah, Rosh, glad you're here, it'll make this search a lot easier. Good to see that you got here in one piece."

"It was no problem," Rosh said easily. Kyle bent down to examine something he noticed in the dirt.

"Tracks... maybe they've already come and gone." He straightened up and looked at both his students. "Follow these tracks through the canyon and see if you can find their sandcrawler; they might have stopped further in. I'll talk to the moisture farmers around the area, see if they know anything about this cult."

Jaden looked sideways at Rosh then back to Kyle. "All right," she said, not sounding particularly confident.

"Don't worry. Jawas are pretty friendly," Kyle chuckled. "You kids have fun, this'll be a great way to build teamwork." Without another word, he turned and headed towards the exit of the canyon. Rosh glanced at Jaden, Jaden glanced at Rosh.