The end of 2025 was rough, to say the least. Maybe more to come on that later, but for now, I am back. I have a new computer, a new 3d printer, and new stories to tell. I’ve also forgotten my workflow for posting fanfic, so I’ll update this later with the picture and title. In the meantime, here’s Chapter 20 of Emotion, Yet Peace!
Kendra’s eyes drifted from the control panel and focused on the repeated instructions she heard from the training room behind her. Huyang led Sabine through the same forms he used with Kendra, though more slowly. They seemed to be going over the same things repeatedly.
Sabine had talked her way back into being Ahsoka’s apprentice and joined them on their way to the Deneb system, where they hoped to find Morgan Elsbeth. Maybe even this Thrawn guy they were hunting.
Ahsoka and Hera had found Imperial remnants, gotten into a fight with yet a third dark Force user, and managed to attach a tracking device to a fleeing ship. Kendra wasn’t sure what was happening, but it was happening a lot faster than their hunt so far.
“Keep your focus here, Kendra.” Ahsoka stood beside Kendra in the cockpit of the shuttle.
She hadn’t said as much, but Kendra assumed Ahsoka had her training on the controls specifically so Sabine could train without an audience.
But Kendra wanted to see how that was going and to see how the Mandalorian fought. They might need to fight together at some point. They probably would, given their mission.
“If something happens to the rest of us,” Ahsoka said, “You’ll need to be able to pilot the ship, at least minimally. Which requires you know what all these controls do, not just the ones we use when things are going well.”
“Isn’t that why there’s a checklist?” Kendra nodded at the old spiral notebook in her lap, which held step by step instructions on handling any emergency.
“The checklist is for avoiding emergencies in most cases.”
“Well, I’ll have Huyang help me.” Kendra felt more defiant today, though she wasn’t sure why.
Ahsoka held her stare. “Let’s assume there’s a problem with the deflector. That button,” she pointed at one of the warning lights, “is flashing red.”
“Great, I’ll look that up.” Kendra moved to start flipping pages in the notebook.
Ahsoka grabbed the notebook and flung it backwards into the wall next to the door. “We’ve just been attacked, nothing is where it is supposed to be. Including you. Go back to the gun turret and return. Ideally fast enough we wouldn’t die in the interim.”
“Now?” Kendra rose hesitantly.
“Yes, now!” Ahsoka chased her from the cockpit and tapped the control to close the blast door.
Kendra fled into the training room and passed a surprised Sabine and Huyang. She grabbed the ladder and pulled herself up and into the narrow tube leading to the turret.
“Something I should know?” Sabine asked behind her.
“Just doing drills,” Ahsoka said.
Kendra touched the gun turret seat and then turned around, speeding back along the tube before missing the ladder as she grabbed for it. She used the Force to halt her fall and regained control, sliding down the sides and landing on the training room floor.
Sabine and Huyang stood to the side. Ahsoka leaned against the wall near the door to the cockpit. “Alarms are now blaring. Huyang and Sabine are unconscious or dead in this room. I’m nowhere to be found.”
Kendra nodded and continued moving toward the door.
“Door seems to be broken and won’t open,” Ahsoka said. “Now what?”
Kendra stood in front of the door, considering her options. She’d only ever used the button to open and close the door. Was there another way? Her ears burned red as she thought about Sabine watching all this.
“No checklist for this out here,” Ahsoka said. “The clock is ticking.”
Sweat crept down the center of Kendra’s back, between her shoulder blades. “Why do I need to get in there immediately?”
“Because we’re being shot at,” Ahsoka said. “And no you can’t go back to the turret; it lost power.”
“There’s an override in the panel on the right,” Sabine offered.
“Hey,” Ahsoka said. “This is her drill.”
Sabine shrugged. “Didn’t tell me I was dead.”
“You’re dead. No hints.” Ahsoka looked at Kendra. “And you now don’t get to use the panel on the right.”
Kendra licked her lips in an attempt to restore moisture. She moved to the panel on the left and pulled it off. Sabine’s anguished sigh behind her told her the Mandalorian didn’t think there was anything useful there.
“The dead do not sigh,” Huyang said.
“We are all going to die if you don’t fix the problem,” Ahsoka said. She paced around Kendra for effect. “Perhaps this is why she’s training her forms and you’re studying more on the ship.”
Something about the phrase reminded her of something else. Jedi learned the forms at the Temple. Kendra’s eyes darted from Ahsoka to the door. “I’ll cut through it.”
“What?” Ahsoka’s head snapped in surprise.
“Yeah, with my lightsaber, like we did at the Temple.”
“You’re going to cut through a blast door with a lightsaber?” Ahsoka asked.
“If we’ll die if I don’t get to the cockpit, I don’t see why we should save the blast door.”
“Hmm.” Ahsoka squinted her eyes but smiled.
Sabine laughed behind them. “Dead me approves.”
“I assume you don’t really want me to do that?” Kendra asked.
“Let’s not,” Huyang said.
“No,” Ahsoka said. “How would you know if the hull has been breached? Cutting a hole in the door then wouldn’t work out for you.”
“Are any of the imaginary alarms telling me there’s a hull breach?”
“What would such an alarm sound like?” Ahsoka asked.
“Um.” They’d never had a hull breach while Kendra was on the ship, so she’d never heard one. She vaguely recalled one of the checklists referencing the sound. It may have had a description. That she didn’t read.
“Is there somewhere else you could find this information?” Ahsoka asked, crossing her arms.
“One of the displays.” Kendra returned to the training room wall, next to the where they stored the training blades and other equipment. “I could check here.”
“Which screen, padawan?” Ahsoka leaned against the wall next to her.
She knew which screen held the climate control, but that was about all. Kendra started pressing buttons, going up and down menus. She found the options to adjust the lighting and a control to empty the sewage, but nothing about critical ship systems.
Minutes passed. Sabine shifted from foot behind her. Huyang stood motionless, but still somehow felt judgmental.
“Have I made my point?” Ahsoka leaned past her and hit the correct sequence of buttons to arrive at the ship status.
Kendra ducked her head. “Yes, master.”
“Good.” Ahsoka turned to Huyang and Sabine. “You’re both alive now, thank you for playing along.”
“You could still cut through the blast door.” Sabine walked over to the door. “Cut a small hole, but be ready with a plate or something to block it. Like this panel door you pulled off.”
“Thank you.” Kendra felt small, and figured her face was as bright as any of the system panels nearby.
“How are your forms going, Sabine?” Ahsoka asked, directing attention away from Kendra for the moment.
Sabine shrugged. “Huyang tells me I’m average.”
“Huyang,” Ahoska said, “Let’s try something else. How about Zatochi.”
“Oh, no,” Huyang said. “I’m not certain Lady Wren is ready for that technique.”
Ahsoka nodded at the droid. “Thank you, Huyang.”
“Yes,” Sabine echoed, “Thank you, Huyang.”
The droid moved away from the pair in the center of the training room, unfazed by the apparent rebuke.
Ahsoka put her hands behind her back and started a slow pace. “Your skill with a weapon comes from your Mandalorian upbringing. Those skills alone will not be enough to defeat our enemy.”
“Yeah I learned that the hard way,” Sabine said.
Kendra wasn’t sure this was a fair assessment. Sabine had chosen a lightsaber to fight on Lothal. What would have happened if she’d been in her armor with blasters?
Ahsoka continued. “You’re training the body but you must also open your mind. Learning to wield the Force takes a deeper commitment.”
Whatever had happened between Ahsoka and Sabine ran deep. Ahsoka may have agreed to take her back on as a padawan, but this was as reserved as Kendra had seen her. She wouldn’t have thought that was possible.
Sabine asked, “How?”
“That’s something you’ll have to discover.” Ahsoka walked to the open equipment closet.
“Well,” Sabine said, “I discovered that according to Huyang I’m the worst candidate to be a Jedi out of every Jedi he’s ever known.
Ahsoka took out one of the blast helmets from the closet, as well as a wooden training sword. “You told her that?”
“Its true,” Huyang said.
“It doesn’t matter.” Ahsoka walked to Sabine and traded the helmet for Sabine’s weapon.
“I think it does,” Sabine said.
“Agreed,” Huyang said.
“Why does it matter,” Kendra blurted without much thought. The other three turned to face her, as if they’d forgotten she was standing there. Apparently, it didn’t bother Sabine to have an audience. “If the Jedi are all gone, don’t they have to start somewhere anyway?”
Ahsoka smiled, briefly. “Exactly.”
“I don’t disagree,” Huyang said. “But the truth remains the same. Relative to earlier Jedi, Lady Wren is below average. By a lot.”
Ahsoka rubbed her head and glared at the droid. “Sabine, put the helmet on.”
“You’re joking,” Sabine spared a quick glance toward Kendra.
“No,” Ahsoka said.
Sabine sighed and slid the helmet over her head, blocking her entire face. “I can’t see, how am I supposed to fight?”
Ahsoka returned the wooden sword to Sabine’s hand. “I want you to see with more than just your eyes.”
“Okay, now what?”
Kendra had done this exercise with Master Edith a number of times, at least until the older woman moved too slowly to test her Padawan. She’d moved to following the creatures of the forest with her eyes closed to maintain the practice. It was not the same as a fight, but Master Edith assured her connection to the Force was more important.
They’d find out soon enough if Sabine had any connection to the Force. Mandalorians were known warriors, rarely at peace. Kendra couldn’t imagine finding the Force without that sense of inner peace.
Ahsoka moved in circles around Sabine, occasionally reaching out with her own sword to touch Sabine on the shoulder. She offered some guidance, but not nearly as much as Master Edith had provided to Kendra the first time she’d tried this exercise.
Kendra moved to a corner to get out of the way and watched as Sabine attempted to track Ahsoka while blind. She noticed each time Ahsoka landed a tap, Sabine responded with a defensive follow up, and kept going. Which is more than Kendra might do if she didn’t have the Force.
If Huyang was correct and Sabine had no Force potential, she would never be able to find Ahsoka with the helmet lowered. Kendra didn’t agree with Huyang’s assessment; either about it mattering or about the Mandalorian not having the Force. She’d felt something when she healed Sabine that she did not feel when healing Evan or the injured on board the Home One.
Again and again, Ahsoka found Sabine’s shoulder with the wooden practice sword. Eventually though, Sabine had parried an unseen attack. And then another. She wasn’t perfect, but better than someone with no skill. She could use the Force.
Kendra locked eyes with Huyang and he gave a nod. Was his earlier critique just meant motivation? Telling a Mandalorian they couldn’t do something did seem like a good way to get them to do it anyway.
Ahsoka led Sabine carefully, slowly. This was not the speed at which she trained with Kendra. Perhaps it made up for the lack of verbal encouragement. Sabine would parry one or two blows, and then make an error. It seemed where she wanted Kendra to be more aggressive, she wanted to lead Sabine into more control.
“Again,” Ahsoka said. Repeatedly.
Kendra could have felt the growing tension in Sabine even without her skills as a Jedi. Sabine could use the Force, only not all that well yet. She just needed some help; some help Ahsoka didn’t seem to be giving her.
How could Kendra help? Sabine had helped her. She moved to her knees to start meditating. She slowed her breathing.
Emotion, yet peace.
Ignorance, yet knowledge.
Passion, yet serenity.
Chaos, yet harmony.
Death, yet the Force.
As she did on Home One, she lost herself in the great lake of the Force, and directed her healing waves outward into the room, focusing on Sabine.
With her eyes closed, she could not see the two others sparring. She felt them in the room, though. She had no issues sparring while blind herself, and she applied the same thought process to healing.
“Are you trying to help her, or me?” Ahsoka asked Knedra as she slid behind Sabine’s defenses.
“Mostly her,” Kendra said.
“What?” Sabine asked.
“Interesting,” Ahsoka said. She thrust her sword toward Sabine, but Sabine was ready. She parried and managed to land a returning tap on Ahsoka’s arm. “Nice job.”
“Thanks,” Sabine said. “Again?”
“Again.” Ahsoka said. “Kendra, keep going.”
“What is she doing?” Sabine asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ahsoka said.
Again and again, Ahsoka circled Sabine and attempted to tap her on the shoulder. Sabine blocked about half, but always lost focus when she counter attacked.
“Let’s take a break,” Ahsoka said. “I think that helped, Kendra.”
Kendra rested back on her heels, pleased with herself.
Sabine removed the blast helmet and looked at Kendra. “Healing?”
“I tried, at least,” Kendra said.
“I wonder,” Ahsoka continued, “if that can be used for focus instead of healing.”
“Battle meditation?” Huyang offered.
“Perhaps,” Ahsoka said. “It wouldn’t need to be like the stories of old to be useful, though.”
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt anything,” Huyang said.
Ahsoka looked to Kendra. “Let’s get back to your cockpit training. Sabine, keep doing your forms with Huyang.”
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