Ilum: Long Shadows At Dawn

[Jeseth Cloak]

7 Years Before the Battle of Yavin...

Ilum was a frigid world, dotted with mountain ranges, caves and a handful of small mining towns. The planet had become lawless since the collapse of the Republic. As Jeseth trudged through the ankle-high winter snow, he wondered if his sister would have ever come to accept such a bitter life. She had been so very young when Anakin had viciously robbed her of her life. Images of her broken body often filled his mind and poisoned his heart. Her torn wings and blood drenched, broken limbs... Jeseth would never forgive Anakin Skywalker for what he had done. Not when he had been forced to watch his sister die crippled and ashamed.

People did strange things to survive sometimes... Jeseth for example, now taught in the nearby town's primary school. Basic grammar, science and common language were the foundations of all his syllabuses. It didn't pay much though; most of the town's people thought school was rather pointless, and that children could better help their families by working the mines or - in the case of the young girls - selling themselves to the miners. At least he could afford to feed himself, and he was satisfied that, if nothing else. He spent long evenings training himself in the slience of his study, and waiting for better days.

By the time he had arrived in town, morning had turned to afternoon. It was unusual that no one was out... but the reason was obvious: several meters further down the road, someone was waiting. The man was leaning against a black swoop and lit up a death stick as he looked up at Jeseth. It was obvious that whoever this man was, he was a bounty hunter.

[Taja Loraan]

The man's index finger then turned and curved inward into a hook, beckoning for Jeseth to approach him. Once it had become obvious that his summons were being ignored, however, he took the initiative himself and straightened his posture, rotating his neck this way and that and stretching his arms out in front of him before finally beginning to walk towards the Dark Jedi. His mannerisms and slow, sluggish pace seemed to indicate that he had all the time in the world, and even the look on his face was one of overly indolent confidence; he exuded the air of flippancy typical of someone who had been assigned a task with rewards which far exceeded the actual difficulty of the situation, as well as too much time during which to complete it. He knew exactly what he wanted, and was more than certain that he was going to get just that.

He pulled one last drag from the cigarette before discarding it casually over his shoulder, all the while carrying on with his relaxed amble as his gaze fixed itself on Jeseth's countenance. Long strands of his hair were settled messily over his nose and cheeks, dark and unkempt, and a small half-smile twitched lazily at the corner of his mouth. The man's attire was entirely black, and as he reached his gloved hand into the inside of his jacket, his boots continued clicking against the asphalt with each step while his darkly outlined eyes stared ahead unwaveringly, never once blinking. The closer he got to the Dark Jedi, the more his bored and uninterested expression slowly twisted into one of grim resolve.

"That man."

Jeseth's head snapped to the side. There, standing right next to him, was a young girl, barely five or six years of age. For some reason, he had not heard or even sensed her arrival; stranger still, she was clothed in what appeared to be tattered and worn, ancient Jedi robes, the folds of which hung loosely off her deathly thin limbs despite the fact that the garment was intended for use by such small children.

She craned her neck upwards to better view the Dark Jedi. "He wants to kill you, and you won't be able to stop him."

[Jeseth Cloak]

“We’ll see,” Jeseth responded, knowing full well that the strange young girl was right. Any display of his command over the Force would result in the townspeople casting him out from their midst; during such a cold winter, it would be a death sentence. He reached slowly into the brown messenger bag that hung at his side, but the effort was too little, too late. The bounty hunter had already drawn his weapon and trained it on Jeseth.

It was blaster – unlike any Jeseth had ever seen – with a barrel long enough and thick enough, that the thing could have easily been mistaken for a heavy blaster rifle. “Don’t even think about it,” the mercenary snapped. “This is a modified DLT-19. Storm troopers use these to take down landspeeders and swoops, so unless you want to find out what they can do to flesh and bone, I suggest you not make another move.”

Storm troopers, Jeseth wondered, what are those? Taja felt a draft of air as he leapt several meters, rolling to a stop behind a small nearby house. A shot from the bounty hunter’s blaster ripped through the ground where Jeseth had been standing. Bits of hot dirt and cold slush struck her along her side.

Jeseth peered out from behind the building where he was bunkered down, only to catch a glimpse of the man training his blaster on Taja. “Praklatya,” he cursed in a whisper, darting out from his cover just as the bounty hunter fired a second shot. Taja felt the heat of the blast briefly, and then found herself laying on her back in the snow with Jeseth on top of her. He had managed to spirit her away, and not a moment too soon. They were now behind another small structure, just opposite to where Jeseth had been intending to hide. “Stay put,” he ordered her, getting to his feet quickly and going through the motions of reaching into his satchel – but it was gone.

From where he stood he could see its strap resting out in the snow, not far from where Taja hand been standing.

[Taja Loraan]

The second she felt the pressure of the man’s weight rise up from her back, Taja scrambled away from him and to the opposite end of the statuette’s base. The carving had in ages long past served as a monument to old town heroes and the protagonists of village lore; sadly, its role that day as a transitory hiding place was quite possibly the most attention it had received in many years. The girl pulled her knees up below her chin and wrapped her scrawny arms around their width, her eyes wide, fearful, and utterly transfixed upon the ground immediately before her feet. Jeseth, taking heed of her nervous demeanor, paused for a second to reach out a hand in reassurance – but at this, Taja shrank back even further, appearing more terrified of him than she was of their predicament.

“His left leg,” she stammered quickly, her stare unfalteringly downcast. The shadow of the man’s fingers, ascribed fierce and frightening transformations as it passed over the uneven gravel spanning the distance between the two crouching figures, appeared to halt suddenly along the path it had begun traversing. Taja inhaled sharply, and did not dare to release her breath until the man had fully retracted his hand. Her gaze cautiously followed the trail of the silhouette upon the ground as it retreated backwards, gradually being engulfed once more by the blackness of the man’s larger outline from whence it had originated. As it did so, the sense of apprehension that had settled so callously over the child’s bones slowly dissipated, and she heaved a shuddering sigh.

She closed her eyes, willing the serrated black talons to withdraw, and only once they had faded away completely did she resume speaking. “His left leg is injured. I heard him say so,” she finished thinly at last, and for the first time Jeseth became aware of a strange hesitancy in the young girl’s voice. The strain this exerted could easily be perceived in the crinkling of her forehead and the occasional stutter, but apart from these physical warnings, there also existed in her speech a peculiar intonation that seemed to suggest that the words she used were new and entirely foreign to her, as though she had hitherto been accustomed to communicating in a wholly dissimilar language. She frowned, carefully and with great precision formulating her next sentence, but at that exact moment there sounded from behind the ancient sculpture the distinctive crunch of frosted earth being compressed beneath approaching footsteps.

Taja’s shoulders slumped down in relief, having been spared an immense effort, but the man beside her grew tense and stiff with foreboding. His mind had returned to the bounty hunter who, despite being taken quite aback by the swiftness of his target’s reflexes, had recovered from his shock sufficiently enough to begin stalking forward once more – albeit with considerably more stealth and furtiveness imbued in his movements during this second attempt. After promptly surveying his surroundings from behind a fragmented corner of the effigy, Jeseth turned to gesture for the girl to remain silent … only to discover that she had disappeared, leaving behind nothing more than a few small impressions in the snow to mark her abrupt departure.

[Jeseth Cloak]

Damn! the exiled Jedi thought to himself, bringing his fingers in towards his palm and forming a tight fist. The girl had vanished without so much as a sound. He could feel the bounty hunter drawing nearer with every passing moment. The crushing of snow beneath the mercenaries boots was faint, but still audible to Jeseth. He wondered what all of this might look like to those who were watching quietly from the cracks of their window shades.

"Don't move!" the bounty hunter exclaimed, pressing his blaster to the back of Jeseth's head. Somehow the man had managed to get behind him. "You'll be coming with me. Get to your feet."

Jeseth complied slowly, rising up to his feet and keeping his hands in the air. "I'm not who you think I am." the exiled Jedi said.

"You're a Jedi, wanted by the Galactic Empire for treason and conspiracy." the bounty hunter responded. "And you're worth a lot to me."

"I'm much more than a Jedi now." Jeseth said, his crimson eyes going vacant. He was reaching out with the Force, smothering the man's senses. Another round of blaster fire rung out. Smoke trailed up from several large large craters in the base of the statue by which Jeseth had been standing. He was gone.

"My eyes!" screamed the bounty hunter, turning towards the town square, blood flowing freely from his tear ducts. He dropped his weapon and clutched his face, hiding away from the cold. A few droplets of his blood it the snow and froze. "My... my leg! Ahh!" he screamed, dropping to his knees under the weight of an unseen Force.

Jeseth watched from atop the statue where he was perched, keeping his legs against his chest to maintain his balance. Now, he wondered, where has that little girl gotten to? I have some questions for her...