Chapter 33: Hennia
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- You made me look for you, Mr Skywalker," the Jedi said disapprovingly.
- Why is that?
- Who gave you permission to leave the medical examination?
- It's over, isn't it?
- You could say that. The medic got overexcited and ran off early, but nobody let you go!
- I'm sorry, I'm not used to asking permission to leave," I said indignantly. - And anyway, she ran off in an unknown direction. I had nothing to do with it!
The Jedi was unhappy with my words, but he remained silent. He took me to the same administrative wing where Lex was located. Master Lex, master of the Jedi order.
Unlike the duty officer who'd escaped yesterday, the Jedi walked into the executive office and stood at attention. I followed, but I didn't take the stand.
Lex was already waiting for us - no wonder they hadn't knocked on his door - what was the point if the Jedi could sense guests approaching within seconds?
In the office was Lex, a woman unknown to me, of Togrutian ethnicity, and my escort, who reported back:
- Found and delivered.
- Dismissed," the Master said, glancing over at the Togruta.
As the Jedi left, the Master and his guest looked at me. I in turn looked at them - the togruta was as tall as a normal human, with hollow montralas on her head and two lekku. I had never met the red-skinned Togruta I had seen in the film - the skin tone of this race ranged from European-white to what was called "mulatto" on Earth, but they were neither red nor green. Thin white lines, reminiscent of tattoos, framed the eyebrows, visually enlarging the already slightly larger than human eyes, as well as a pair of stripes on the cheeks. One could even say that the Magister's guest was a good-looking woman. Except for the montral on her head, I found no differences from humans, and I began to strongly suspect that Togrutians were descended from humans. How else could I explain the similarity?
- Finally, you've been found," Bale said, interrupting our glances with the Togruta and drawing attention to himself, "I've resolved the current issues for now.
- What are you talking about? - I raised an eyebrow.
- For starters, you're retroactively enlisted into the Order. I told you there was no need to create rumours and problems with the staff. You can use all the archives if you want.
- Thank you, - I briefly bowed to such a royal gift.
- Wait a minute," Lex grinned, "next. Meet Toshi Dun, Jedi Knight. I've brought her up to speed, and Tosi has agreed to teach you the skills you need," she shot a glance at Lex. I bowed briefly again, thanking my superiors. My superiors continued to surprise me: - I still haven't come up with a name for you, so your teacher will assign one.
- Then how did you get me into the order?
- We don't write down names. Only identifiers, and those are encrypted. You need to understand the situation," Lex chastised me. What kind of organisation would use the same name in both documents and ordinary communication? Or some Sith will seize information and all will be declassified....
- In that case, what will be the orders? - I asked, expecting to be sent to go to school. The chief did not disappoint me, fully justifying my expectations:
- Toshi, take care of the padawan. Teach him wherever you want, but don't interfere with his quest.
- It will be done, Master, - the teacher replied in a military manner, and already turning to me: - Let's go.
- Wait a minute, - the main one interrupted the movement, - is this your test? - he asked me and slid me a sheet with the results of the midichlorians test.
- It must be.
- You didn't fool the medic?
- No.
- Are they all like that in there? - the Master asked hopefully. I didn't understand what "like that" meant, so Lex explained:
- The normal midichlorian level for a Jedi is five to ten thousand. I have fourteen thousand, Tosi has nine.
- И? - I didn't understand. Yes, I know I have a lot more than twenty of them - constant meditation and use of the force had rocked the level to a decent size, but that didn't guarantee success or mastery of the force. These little parasites only showed the level of power development and its volume. Ali, for example, had about ten thousand at the time we last communicated. She'd done the tests specifically to find out what had happened to her after she'd started practising meditation under my supervision. However, her highly developed potential was balanced by her extremely low volume, so even small manipulations drained her severely.
The Master handed me a leaf - it had a figure of over thirty thousand on it. Or rather, thirty-six thousand. Judging by the surprise of Tosya, who looked over my shoulder, she was more surprised than the Master, who was already prepared for anything.
- Don't tell anyone. Don't stand out from the rest of the Jedi, unless you plan to stay in the Order forever. And the Sith would be interested in such a thing, so it would be no problem if someone other than us found out. I've already instructed the medics to keep quiet.
Toshi, who had been silent until now, looked at Lex:
- What am I supposed to teach him? With that level, he's...
- He's no better than any other youngling. Anakin can control subtle currents quite well and can use telekinesis of incredible power, but that's about it. No complex abilities, no swordsmanship, he doesn't know. So get on it, Toshi. I also recommend you send your apprentice to one of the Jedi healers. With that kind of control, it's a straight path to healer," the Master said, his tone signalling that the audience was over.
Togruta pulled me with her out of the office, so I barely had time to say goodbye to the Master. As soon as the door closed behind us, she immediately turned to me, walking away from the door to the Master's office.
- Hello, apprentice. What's your name?
- Didn't the Master tell you? In that case there's no need for that, you can make up any name you want for me," I said. I really didn't care what they called me, as I am me by any name.
- All right then. Come on, let's go see what you can do," she took a quick stride towards the other wing. I could barely keep up with her quick and sweeping steps.
After five minutes of wandering the corridors, we found ourselves in the training area. Judging by the hum of lightsabers coming from the hall, we weren't alone. Scans confirmed that there were many Jedi, younglings, and Padawans in the hall. Tosi walked inside through the large doors. The floors of the dueling hall were a dark blue colour and slightly springy, which improved traction. On several square areas about ten by ten metres, there were junlings of various ages. On another were a bunch of Padawan-aged individuals, teenagers and young men of thirteen to twenty years of age. They sparred more vigorously than the younglings - it was obvious that they had style and well-choreographed movements, and the intensity of emotion was much lower than the younglings - they held themselves in their hands like good sports fighters, or professional military men.
The teacher went to one of the free zones. We were being noticed - I could feel it well. The master swordsman who was supervising the younglings was also looking in our direction, and missed the way his subordinates began to mutilate each other with great ferocity.
Toshi drew her sword and switched it on, I did the same, but she remained unsatisfied. Remembering that I was new here, the Togruta enlightened me:
- Combat swords are forbidden in this hall. Only training swords. - she nodded towards the wall where the armoury was. On the wall, like a shop, hundreds of black sword hilts lay in mounts. The general background of power was such that I didn't even feel them. Now the scattering of training crystals was visible as I turned my attention. An interesting idea was born in my mind and I, contrary to Togruta's expectations, stretched my arm towards the swords and drew one of them across the hall. Which, for a moment, is about a hundred metres. Togruta and everyone watching were surprised, and I, right on the spot disassembled the training sword by force and pulling out a crystal from it, began to realise a simple mechanism. A couple of gears that rotated the mounts with crystals. No motor was required - I could do that by force myself. After that, I disassembled my sword right in front of the togruta's eyes, and inserted the newly forged mechanism into it, at the same time putting the old crystal into it. It took about five seconds to focus, and then I switched the sword back on. The silver-white blades were quite rare - I had to buy the crystal from a private collection of rare blue diamonds, and after that I had to facet it and infuse it with power for a long time. The amazing thing was that diamonds, even small ones, could be crystals for a lightsaber. In idea, any crystal would do, or even no crystal at all - the important thing about it was the power the Jedi infused it with. The force held well in many materials, but only transparent ones were suitable for the sword. Ordinary glass or crystal fused in a special way would have sufficed. I chose diamond for the fact that a small five millimetre crystal was enough. It saved a lot of space for other stuffing. Just in case, I had a few crystals with me, with which I experimented, creating and destroying various lightsabers.
As a result of repeatedly repeating the same action, I could build myself a sword from spare parts in less than three seconds. Simple, of course, but workable - most of the operations were automatic.
The white blade grew in front of my eyes, and then I switched off the sword and turned the inner mount. Now a green blade appeared in front of my eyes.
- What kind of mechanism is this? And how did you change the crystal so quickly? - The teacher was interested.
- I just made it up myself. And I've worked so much with swords that I can assemble it from spare parts in seconds.
- Really? Let's see what you can do..." she adopted the standard Jedi stance I'd seen from Obi-Wan.
I didn't bother repeating the stance, while relaxing and closing my eyes. As I'd noticed on Mandalore, the more nervous a Jedi was, the less he could hear the force, and the more vulnerable he was. That's why it's suicide to lose your temper in battle, because then a Jedi loses his intuition and all other abilities, becoming unarmed in terms of the Force.
Toshi lunged at me, swinging from top to bottom, but I blocked her sword with mine, taking no action. The teacher made a few more attempts, a gentle side kick that I took as a hard block and almost got her sword in my liver because of the difference in weight and strength of the blow.
With a disapproving snicker, the teacher threw her sword in my direction, almost hitting me with a stabbing blow - I saw it coming, so I thought about how to get away from it and almost missed the blow. I had to deflect the blow and quickly bounce to the side to avoid a possible continuation of the banquet. Then Toshi finished probing me and finally started to fight seriously. Here I had to feel all the failure of self-training - Toshi easily conducted combinations of blows, which I could foresee, but dodge - no way. Because Toshi changed styles of blows on the move, switching from chopping to stabbing, knocked the weapon out of my hands, and even once made a jump, which would be the envy of any Olympic champions and with a sharp swing hit my shoulder. It stung, though there was no damage from the training blade. After dragging me around the ring and zeroing in on me with the sword, she stopped and switched off the sword. I was already exhausted, and breathing heavily, I was ready to do anything to stop the execution.
- Your reactions are very good," the teacher said. - But you have no style, no stretching, no stamina, and your speed leaves much to be desired. I won't say anything about your lack of experience and your strange attempts to block power punches.
I had to listen to and accept the rebuttal silently - Toshi was one hundred per cent right - I even limited my training to warm-ups in the morning. And that was only when I had the time, sometimes I just meditated all day or studied. There was almost no benefit from it, rather the opposite. Having expressed all the negativity that she had about me, she began with a devilish smile, scaring me about the upcoming study:
- Since you're a grown-up guy. I don't know how you are, but we have had cases when at your age people became knights, so it's too late for you to train with younglings, you can't stand the pace with padawans, so I'll have to personally take care of your training.
- Yes, Master," I replied briefly, feigning humility.
- We'll be training at a special pace, so that you can catch up with your peers. If you want, I'll introduce you to our medics, they can sort of speed up or slow down your physical development. It'd be nice if you could help me with that. Next. I can help you with stretching, it's not that long, but stamina and other delights of a trained body will have to be acquired painfully. Let's go," she left the training area and walked down the corridors of the temple. I hurried after the teacher, who quickly led me to the medics. Clicking on the same medic who had examined me, she placed me in her hands, telling me that the Master had ordered me to be introduced to medicine.
The Jedi medic, with a rather advanced gift, immediately turned her attention to me, recalling the incident with the test.
- Interesting, interesting..." she stretched out, "Call me Nova. Or 'Master Nova', I don't really care.
- Are you a master? - I was surprised.
- Yes. Not all masters of the Order prefer to swing swords, but someone has to cure these lunatics, right? - She said cheerfully, causing displeasure to Tosi, who turned to me:
- I'll leave you here for now. By the way, where do you live?
- On my yacht, it's in the hangar.
- On a yacht? They didn't give you a room?
- Even if they did, they didn't show me. Anyway, I have a VIP model yacht, I paid ten million for it, so it's more than comfortable on board.
Toshi and Nova looked at each other, after which the teacher said:
- Okay. Then how do I recognise her?
- Fifty metres long. Boarded up, one engine ripped out by a gunshot," I said the distinctive features of my bird. - It's angular.
- Well, I'll come to you in the evening, we'll have to discuss something... - said the teacher enigmatically.
- Okay, - I said, and the togruta turned round and left. Nova was interested in such an interesting specimen as me.
- Why did the Master send you? - The doctor asked. I quickly looked at her face - a woman in her forties, with the first wrinkles near her eyes, a strong slender body and a stern look. Brunette, white skin - clearly not often out in the sun.
- The Master said that with my control, I'd be a healer. I'm not sure I'd be able or willing to learn that profession, but if the chief says so, I should listen," I shrugged. Master Nova was even more interested, and after clearing the table of various rubbish, invited me to sit down, and immediately began to ask me questions:
- 'So, have you ever practised medicine?
- No, never," I said honestly.
- Did you think about it?
- I did. But only in terms of experiments!
- 'So be it,' said the doctor. - Let's try to see what you can do first. Pull one of the capsules from that shelf," she pointed to a shelf on the opposite wall, filled with some vials. I complied and pulled one of the vials to the table with the Force. The doctor was pleased with the result. - Now put it back.
I complied with her request and she continued to test me on my ability to subtly manipulate the Force:
- Now let's try it on a living organism. Let's take a plant - there were indeed several pots of flowers in her room. - Take this one. Can you scan it? - she placed a potted flower in front of me.
- I'll try...
- Try it.
I started scanning. The problems started immediately. If the metal was malleable to the force, the living flower resisted my attempts to look at its structure. The flower had its own current of force that prevented my attempts to penetrate it. Taking up a new task, I began to look for ways to work with its cells in such a way that would not disturb the flow of force inside. At first I tried, as with the sword - as thin streams of force as possible to enter the structure, but it did not work - they were instantly eroded by the force circulating inside the plant. After sitting for about ten minutes on the task, I finally found a way acceptable to me - to adjust the frequency and resonance of my power to the parameters of the flower and get inside. It took a few more minutes, but finally I did the required action and penetrated the structure of the flower, feeling that I could influence, as I had done with metal, the force that circulated like a fluid through all the living cells of the plant.
- Good," Master Nova interrupted my gaze, "you've done well with this one. It usually takes a few days for a novice medic to adjust his power to a living organism.
- As best I can, Master Nova.
- This is just the beginning. Medicine is first theory and then practice, so you'll be studying anatomy. I advise you to start by taking information on this subject, - she threw the information on the datapad to me, and then said: - When you read it and memorise it by heart, you can move on. And now you can be free, - the doctor let me go and I said goodbye and went to my ship, where Erdva was waiting for me. Frankly speaking, I was ready to take a break, but I had to get ready for Tosi's arrival. Not a candlelight dinner, but at least I could treat her to tea, especially as my collection of teas was quite interesting and tasty.
It was only noon, so I spent the rest of my time opening the files the doctor had thrown at me. There was something like "Anatomy for Dummies", that is, primitive general anatomy textbooks, but as far as I was concerned, seeing every cell and having intuition, there was no need to learn anatomy at the same high level as medical school students.
I had to accelerate myself again with meditations to read quickly and memorise everything from one reading. As a result, by the time Tosya came, I had already finished one book and started another, more detailed, about the musculoskeletal apparatus.
"The book, or rather an interactive package of educational information was equipped with detailed illustrations in the form of three-dimensional images, with explanations of experts, as well as reference information, and other delights of modern life. The speed of perception was reduced, but the understanding of the material was complete, as there were no ambiguities.
I did not notice how the teacher came on board and found me, together with Erdva, and burst into the cabin.
- And I'm calling you..." she snorted, "have you started to learn something?
- A little, Master," I closed the learning material and got up from the bed I was sitting on.
- That's fine. Get ready for the flight, we're leaving soon.
- Where to?" I asked, expecting the worst.
- I'm not going to train you in front of everyone, am I? So we're going to Shili, my home planet. The not-so-friendly fauna should cheer you up, and the air there is better than Coruscant's.
- Yes, Master," I said. Indeed, it would be undesirable to study at the temple, for I knew no one here. - I'd have to stop by Master Nova's to get some new materials.
- Come on, we leave tomorrow. In the meantime, get ready. You can get whatever you want from the techs. We won't take the ship, yours is still quite serviceable...
I kept silent about the damage - it would be embarrassing to complain in front of the teacher about the technique, which, by definition, I should know better than any local specialist. I had no education, of course, but constant observation of the work of various parts of the starship led to the presence of scattered, but extensive knowledge. All I have to do is replace the engine, usually a week's work, but if I hurry, I'll make it....
- And one more thing, - said Toshi, who was watching my thoughts, - I've made up a name for you so that you can communicate normally. You'll be Hennia.
- What's that?" I asked her again.
- Hennia," she repeated, "it's a Togrutian name, but I think it will suit you.
- Does it mean something?
- All names mean something. I'll be here tomorrow morning, get ready," the teacher said and walked away, leaving me alone. It's strange, but now I'll have to keep my real name out of sight. But it's really better not to create a paradox. Time is such a thing that nothing extraordinary was seen in my situation here. Well, I came from the future, so what? Write me down as a saint and give me a medal?
In short, they treated me calmly, which pleased me very much. And even allocated a teacher, which pleased me even more. In the meantime, rebuilding the hyperdrive and the engine is my first priority.
To find engines with the same thrust - problematic, they are times five times covered the best models of this time, but to install the stock and reduce the power of the second engine that would equalise the left and right - it was possible.
Deciding not to slow down, I went to the local mechanics to ask them for an engine. It was a good thing that I had ingots of various metals in the hold, which I had forgotten about - there was half a centner of neuranium in a small ingot, a little, two kilograms of beskar, chromium, and others... in theory, I could get some money for them, but I'm greedy, and I won't sell my working materials to anyone. I'd rather make something out of them myself!
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