Din sat with Melvin for hours eating and drinking together. His helmet never far out of his sight, but for the first time he began to feel the parts of himself that had hardened over time start to melt. Every fiber of his being had been trained not to trust, those parts of himself that were soft that needed nurturing had been cut off. Limbs amputated to save the body. He had a long way to go to becoming whole again but this was the first step down that arduous path. "It's been nice talking to you Din, I never thought I would meet someone from the covert again." Melvin said, taking a long swig from his drink. "Thank you for meeting with me, you didn't have to do this." Din said, not sure of his next move. "I feel like I have a duty, to help you, to show you what you have been missing, a life that is fuller than you could ever imagine."
Din was grateful but his inner ledger, of owing and being owed refused to allow it. "I owe you so much already, I simply can not accept anything more." He said without thinking. Melvin laughed, leaning back into his seat. "Always a task, always a bounty. What if you do a job for me, and then I can do something for you, then nothing is for free." He said, fully understanding that the code would never allow Din to accept gifts from him. "Yes, I can do a job, but I am here on a mission already. There is a bounty on my head, a tracking puck." Melvin raised his eyebrows "the hunter becomes the hunted, its bound to happen eventually. No one can handle success, and by the looks of it you have been very successful." Din looked down at his Beskar now shinier than it had ever been thanks to his efforts. "Removing a tracker is hard but not impossible, it helps if you have access to a healer, but there are some devices out there we can find." Melvin moved to get up, he was running late for an appointment in another sector now, and his communicator was beeping. "I need this part for a machine, its been stolen so many times that I have lost track, but the last location is listed here. Get me the part and I'll help you remove the tracker." On the table was a holo device, and map appeared. The sector was across Coruscant but accessible with transport. "Din, I don't need to tell you this but these people are dangerous, the parts I sell are all former empire, they are hard to find and fetch a high price." Din simply nodded and walked out. He had taken the job.
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Clara was alone now in the chamber. She remembered letting go of the handle with Grogu and falling to the floor, but to her surprise the floor was divided in two, she went right and he went left. Alone in the dark she quieted her mind and reached with the force. Grogu was near but not in the same area as her. She was alone for this task. She started by finding a wall and leaning against it. She lit her saber for light and saw a podium at the center. In the middle was another keyhole, she inserted her saber and the room lit up.
The walls depicted the story of the first human Jedi. After learning the ways of the force from the serpentine creature the human set forth to help others. The story showed great success, teaching others to feel the force and saving lives. Yet along the way there were always some who used the force for personal gain. To hurt others, to gain more wealth and power. Clara knew that these were the early members of the dark side. However, these people did great good and great evil. They helped many and hurt many as well. The original Jedi became angry with these people and set out to kill them. However, the more that the Jedi fought against the dark side the more powerful it became. The Jedi formed the first temple and began preaching the ways of the force. The Jedi turned people away, people he thought would become evil, so they joined the dark side instead, and became evil.
Clara could see the message before her, believe that people are evil and they will become that way. We must accept that all creatures are both dark and light, they are capable of great good and great evil. Only when the whole person is accepted will balance be restored. Clara became angry and frustrated. If this was true, if this was the core Jedi teaching, why did they exclude so many? Why were Jedi never able to form attachments and love? Why did they abstain from emotions and lead from a place removed from feelings? What had Yoda seen that made him make this decision, to lead the Jedi this way?
A door in front opened to a long narrow path. On either side of the path there was darkness and Clara could feel the wind passing by her. She walked slowly and carefully, balancing on the narrow beam. Once she reached the middle she could see nothing in front of her and nothing behind. She continued along the beam for some time until she reached a platform. In the middle were two statues of the first Jedi. They were facing each other, touching hands. At the bottom was a message, solve the puzzle to open the door, fail and you will stay here forever. "So solve the puzzle or die." Clara said. Great.
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Din had been on the transport for over two hours riding to the last known coordinates of the machine parts. As the people left the transport at their stops he had dozed in and out of sleep. The revelations of the last few hours had left him feeling more conflicted not less. The idea that his whole life could have been wrong was a difficult idea to comprehend. He could understand the desire to be safe, to survive, to hide when they were being hunted. But everything else, the cruelty he endured, fighting his own brothers and sisters. These were things he couldn't understand. The conversation with Melvin had opened a dam of emotions that were hiding under the surface. He was so distracted in his own thoughts that he missed his stop and had to double back on foot.
This sector was full of ships in various levels of construction. Some were being repaired, some were being stripped. There were droids everywhere, hauling carts of pieces, making deals, and exchanging money. Large creatures with heavy arms and thick hands moved enormous pieces of equipment as if it was nothing. Din found the workshop with the last known location of the parts and made contact with the owner. "I don't deal in stolen parts I don't deal with strangers." He yelled at Din, nearly an inch from his helmet. The man in question was a thick chested creature covered in warts and scars. His face resembled a sack of fruit with eyes and a mouth. "We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way." Din said, placing his hand on his blaster. "You gonna shoot me or what ay ay ay, you think you can walk out of here in one piece if you shoot me?" Din said nothing and stood in silence. "I don't think you have the balls to pull that trigger." Din flipped out his blaster and shot the man in the top of his foot. He yowled in pain grabbing his foot and hopping around the floor. Din had checked the perimeter for guards and found few. This place was a fend for yourself type of establishment. His host looked like he had taken a few risks and lost. "Ayyyye ay ay, you shot me in my foot you dumb druughehddj." His last few words were incoherent. "You know how long its gonna take me to re grow a new foot, its gonna be months!" He was sitting now, trying to wrap his bare foot in a cloth to stop the bleeding.
Din stood, watching the scene unfold. No one came to help the man, everyone continued working, business as usual. "I sold that stupid part a week ago to a trader in sector 9, he underpaid me for it. I wouldn't go looking for it, this guy wasn't someone you want to mess with. Why don't you let me find you another one, same size." He was leaning back now in his chair, his head resting on the edge of a shelf. "I don't have time to wait for you to find something, I need it today. Tell me where this guy is." Din said, growing impatient with the man. After looking at a map and getting coordinates Din left the shop. He figured he had just a few minutes head start before the shop owner gave a heads up to his buyer that he was on the way. It always worked like that. This guy wouldn't want to risk his business by telling bounty hunters where his buyers were. This was going to be more of a mess than he thought.
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Clara had been sitting in front of the damn statue for over 6 hours. She knew it was that long because she had snuck a communicator in her robes. The communicator had no signal, of course, but it could tell the time. And time was ticking. Nothing about the room made sense. She was standing on a platform, suspended above a pit that had no end, and she was supposed to solve some kind of puzzle. She had tried almost everything she could think of, saying words, moving things with the force, hitting something strategically with her lightsaber and anything else. She was exhausted, hungry, and felt like giving up. The "secret knowledge" had been something incredibly simple that her teachers had taught her on the first day of training. The force does not deal in absolutes, no one is all good or all evil, we are all parts of a whole. Yet, no matter how she worded the phrase or meditated, she couldn't find a way out of the chamber. She decided to take a break and rest, maybe a nap would clear her head. When she laid down she closed her eyes and imagined a world where there were no Jedi or Sith, where people could choose to be good or evil. Minutes passed and Clara fell asleep.
She dreamed of a galaxy of endless stars and civilizations, of people not yet discovered. She dreamed that the wars that had been fought meant almost nothing, that each individual in the galaxy meant so much and yet so very little. Then she saw cycles, the force moving and growing, changing over time. She saw the cyclical nature of life and death and change. Clara woke up. She knew the answer to the riddle.
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Din arrived at the junkyard just 15 minutes after he left the previous shop. This new location was nicer, more put together, more official. It looked to be made completely out of empire ships and had well armed guards at the front and rear. He counted ten guards total that he cold see. Din paused for a minute in the shadows and thought about his next move. He never thought he would ever wish for company but he wanted Clara and Grogu here with him. He found himself thinking that they would be good assets to his efforts. He wondered what they were doing, how the challenges were going. He thought of Clara, of her smile, and her determination to pave her own life.
His opening arrived when a shipment showed up at the front door. Din crouched low behind the speeder and climbed on to the shipping container. He rode the transport right through the front door into the receiving room. Hidden by a tarp and the low lighting he was safe for now. The guards walked up and down the rows of parts and inspected the shipments. When they arrived to his hiding spot he stood as still as he could, they didn't spot him. The leader of this clan walked in, a human in a long blue robe. He muttered some instructions to a few people and then walked into an office. Din took a chance and followed him in.
"Hey what are you doing in here!" He shouted. Din closed and locked the door, blaster in hand he said "Don't move, if I wanted you dead you already would be." The man stopped, "Get on with it then." Din laid the picture of the parts on the table, making sure not to move his blaster or take his eyes off the man. "That thing, that has cost me more than enough problems. Since you are probably not walking out of here alive, tell me what do you want with a destroyer class hyperdrive?"
"I'm just the delivery man, it was stolen and I was sent to retrieve it." Din said. The man made a motion to reach for a control panel and Din shot at his hand. "You are good. You know, with that hyperdrive you could buy enough beskar for a whole army." Din stood in silence, waiting for the mans next move. Men like him talked too much, waiting was often the best approach. "It's in storage bay 4, behind a locked door. The code is 2377465." Din reached down and pulled out a plastic handcuff, he tied the man to his chair and turned off his communicator.
He was correct, the drive was in storage bay 4, but it was the size of a battle droid. The hyperdrive was at least 9 feet tall and 6 feet wide. It looked to be in perfect condition and sat on a metal pallet with handles on it. There was no way that Din was getting it out of here alone. He could imagine the man in his office, tied to his chair, laughing at Din and his mistake.
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Clara exited the chamber starving and half asleep. Her brain was a mess of ideas and thoughts. The solution to the puzzle was simple yet excellent. She had to reposition the statues in the middle of the platform so that they balanced on either side of a set of scales. The idea being that if one person leaned to heavily on either side the entire statue would collapse. This solution had come to her after her nap, yet executing it was very tiring. The statues were heavy and she had to exert all of her abilities with the force to move them. That was never her strength as a Jedi, she was much more skilled in healing and understanding the mind. Geetal had dinner, or was it breakfast, waiting for her when she arrived. She sat down and ate without speaking. Grogu arrived moments later and he ate as well. They all sat in silence, Geetal not objecting. Once she finished she started talking, "Grogu I have so much to say, so much to ask you. I believe that Master Yoda chose his path because it was necessary to get to where we are today. He knew this information that we know and he still choose the path of the Jedi's. I think," She stopped as her communicator beeped. It was Din and he was in trouble.