Ket never thought he’d wish he had his despised stormtrooper helmet on again, but as the blood from the four claw gashes ran down his face… he did for a small moment. But then he gripped the worn metal of his lightsaber tighter and let himself sink deeper into the flow of the Force around him. He didn’t need the weak, white armor of that former life. Now his armor was the force.
Looking back to moments ago, he realized that he had jumped too quickly into the middle of the attacking kath hound pack. The girls’ shrill screams of fear had reached him before conscious thought did. His first instinct was to put himself between them and the pack. His second was one he’d learned years earlier in Imperial special warfare training: eliminate the largest threat first and the rest might falter and flee. Before the Jedi in him could fully center himself, the soldier had already committed. He had thrown himself into the fray to stop the kath hounds nearest the girls. Psohi had engaged to his left downing kath hounds from a safer position at the edge of the pack. She had used her tail for quick darting movements to attack, spring back and spring forward again with her blue blade working furiously.
Ket had severed the head from the horned kath hound in that initial attack but a smaller kath hound jumped and slashed at his face with a mighty swipe. Instinctively, he had pulled his head back, though not far enough to escape the claws cutting down his cheek. His blade lashed out running down the back half of that hound, ending its life. At the same moment three more had attacked, one lunging from the side with both front paws and clawing diagonally across his chest and back. His blade in his right hand had veered into that hound’s mouth, and with his left he had unleashed a powerful wave of the Force that threw the other hounds through the air.
Back in the present, warm blood running through Ket’s injured eye, he centered himself within the Force. He pushed his soldier training to the side and calmed his mind to draw more deeply upon the force as Grandmaster Luke had taught him.
Psohi sprang and coiled beside him in an instant as he reset his stance. They were perfectly positioned between the last 6 kath hounds and the girls. The crazed creatures attacked with abandon. Psohi sprang low and to the side with her blade passing through the head, neck and shoulder of the far left hound. As she hit the ground her tail launched her on a perpendicular flight path to plunge her blade into the ribs of a second beast. Ket sent a boulder crashing into two hounds. Green blade flashing he met another in mid-leap, his saber shearing it vertically in half down the middle from face to tail. The last kathhound lunged at Ket. Psohi sprang straight up. Ten feet above the battlefield she tucked into herself before driving straight down, her blue blade piercing cleanly through the creature’s skull.
“Tadpole, you’re a wonder,” Ket panted,“I'm officially retiring from underestimating Seaphids.”
“Thank you master. Oh no, you’re bleeding so much.”
“Don’t worry about me yet, I’ve been through worse…well…maybe not. Let’s check the girls quickly.”
They approached the force-sensitive, teenage twi’lek twin girls that they had just met that afternoon at the Dantooine Jedi Temple ruins. The lifeless body of the pink skinned twin that Ket remembered was Notah lay near a very narrow gap between two large rock formations. The massive horned kath hound, that Ket had slain first, was right next to her. He could see now it had been trying to reach a clawed paw into the gap when he killed it. Visible inside the narrow opening was blue skinned Naraya, shaking and crying out for her sister. The front of her left leg had two long gashes running from knee to ankle that made Ket grimace when he saw them. This reminded him to finally look down and acknowledge the only lacerations on himself that he could actually see. Only then did he realize these were the worst wounds he’d ever suffered, and he hoped that there was enough emergency bacta.
Removing his tattered cloak, Ket ripped it in two as best as possible, planning to cover Notah’s body after administering first aid to Naraya. He couldn’t fit his shoulders between the rocks but he covered Naraya as best he could and stood up.
“Here Master Ket, let me help you,” Psohi said, noticing he was blindly fumbling at his right side for his small emergency bacta spray vial on his belt. He knelt down and she handed him her vial while taking his from the belt. Ket was pleased to see Psohi bounce over Naraya and cradle her head. Just as Mara Jade had taught them, she used the Force to send waves of peace, and she spoke calmly to Naraya while her crying slowed. With the limited amount of bacta, Ket applied two spray runs down the leg, covered it with the cloak, and then slumped with his left shoulder against the rock. The adrenaline was leaving his body and his hands began to shake. He briefly thought about meditating like Grandmaster Luke had taught, but the thought slipped away beneath exhaustion. Right then, he needed something familiar left over from the soldier he'd once been. Luckily, he was able to get his Bothan pipe out, to his mouth and inhale, sending a warm buzz through his veins. Through the blue smoke, he saw Naraya had relaxed into a deep force-induced sleep, and a moment later Psohi was at his side and he felt the cool spray of bacta on his right cheek and eye along with waves of Force peace emanating from his padawan. Psohi gave a slight gasp and sigh, and he sensed then that he had lost vision in the eye for sure.
“That bad, Tadpole? Is the eye completely gone?”
“It has a shallow gash right through the middle and the whole eye is a cloudy white, but it’s still in there.”
“Well that’s good enough for now, at least I don’t have to go looking for it in the Dantooine tall grass. Master Varshog only has his left eye, and I “literally” look up to him, so now we have even more in common.”
“Master, he’s the tallest Wookiee we know, everyone literally looks up to him.” Psohi said not wanting to play along with the joke while spraying the last of the bacta on Ket’s chest and back. Tabac smoke puffed out his nostrils, as he gently chuckled, though he stopped when the movement pulled painfully at the torn cheek flesh.
He cracked open his good eye and looked at his colorful padawan. She had a dazed expression and she kept looking from Naraya to the blood covered ground around Notah. Her already large eyes, were opened wide, full of shock and pain. With a slight movement of his hand, Ket gently floated his remaining cloak piece to cover Notah’s still form.
“You fought brilliantly today Psohi, and I don’t want you to ever blame yourself for Notah’s death. The Force prompted us at the same time when something was wrong and we reacted as best as we knew how,” Ket said, lightly placing his hand on her small shoulder. “You’re far too young to have to learn the lesson I’ve had to learn as both a soldier and a Jedi, ‘sometimes we do everything we can… and we still arrive too late.’ Please check on Naraya again, while I rest a while and meditate on what to do.”
“Notah was so excited to learn about her force potential and the possibility of becoming Jedi alongside her sister. She was so alive only a short time ago,” Psohi said quietly, as the largest tear drops Ket had ever seen, formed and fell from her deep purple eyes.
Ket’s weary heart sank. He imagined the tear forming in his good eye might be large enough to rival Psohi’s.
