Chapter 4: Betrayal

Chapter 4 - 53 ABY - The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies - Unknown
(Jayden-Age 16)

“Master Shan, I know that I’m only sixteen, but I feel like I’m-“

“Jayden, if you are about to tell me, again, that you are ready for the Trials, I’m going to make you wait an extra year!”

“Yes, Master,” Jayden sighed.

“I know you’re anxious.  Let’s just see what happens after this mission, okay?”  Jayden nodded.  She was excited that they were finally sent on a very important mission to Geonosis.  She had done her research and knew that Geonosis was occupied by the separatists during the Clone Wars.  It was used as a base of operations under the guidance of Count Dookoo.  There were rumors that some Dark Jedi were amassing in the system and Jayden and her Master, Quento Shan, were sent to do some reconnoissance and report back to the Jedi Council.  They were ordered explicitly not to engage, but she knew her Master.  He was not one to just sit idly by and wait if there was something he could do.

A few minutes later Jayden set their starfighter down at the entrance of a gorge.  It was a small republic UT-60D U-Wing starfighter.  It was a two seater and had room for an R-Unit droid.  It was small, but very fast and maneuverable.  Once the landing pads touched down she flipped the switch and popped the canopy open.  “Master, from what the intel suggested, if we follow this gorge for about two thousand meters, we should find what we’re looking for.  I’m sorry I couldn’t get us any closer, but we would risk detection.”

“That is fine.  We’ll make short work of this.”  Quento Shan was a Nautolan.  He had large black eyes and head tentacles that could detect chemical signatures that helped him to analyze other’s emotions, which made him the perfect Master for Jayden.  He could detect her emotions even when she was trying to hide them.  “Don’t worry, my young Padawan.  Everything will be okay.”

Jayden nodded but was still apprehensive as they both jumped out of their cockpit and landed on the orange rocky sand of Geonosis.  “I know, Master, I just have a very bad feeling about this place.”  She had read up on the inhabitants and creatures on the planet, but that wasn’t what was worrying her.  She was getting a very bad vibe through the Force.  “Stay with the ship R-9” she told the droid as it started beeping at her.  “You have to protect it.”  R-9 elicited another series of beeps that ended in what almost sounded like a sigh.  She knew the droid would only slow them down, but she didn’t want to tell it that and hurt it’s feelings.

***

They arrived at their destination within ten minutes.  They were in the middle of a large gorge with rocks on both sides that occasionally fell down the rock face as they walked.  The mountain went up for several thousand meters on one side, and then a very steep hill on the other.  Jayden couldn’t help but wonder that it made a very convenient spot for an ambush, but Master Shan felt like it was safe.  Ahead of them was a bridge that connected two mountain ranges.  It was a narrow bridge and looked like it could fall apart with the slightest amount of weight.  As Quento started walking towards it, Jayden tried to warn him.

“Master, I don’t thin-“ He put a hand up and looked around.  She noticed two hooded figures on the other side of the bridge.  “Over there,” she whispered as she pointed to a spot on the other mountain.  Quento nodded as he pulled out his binocs and scanned the entire area.

“There are two hooded figures over there, possibly Dark Jedi.  It looks like that’s an entrance to a base in the side of the mountain.  There’s several droids but I don’t see any… wait a minute…” he trailed off as several Geonosians flew out of the mountainside and landed in front of them.  They started to turn back and run to the ship but several more jumped down from the rock face behind them.  Geonosians were insectoids that had wings that enabled them to fly, and they were the same color as the mountains which made them very hard to see.  Each Geonosian carried a blaster and they were all trained on Quento and Jayden.

“I told you I had a bad feeling about this,” Jayden told her Master as she spun in a circle counting the Geonosians.  There were at least two dozen that she counted.  “We can take them, Master!”

“Is that a fact?” said a deep voice and she spun around to face him.  The two Dark Jedi had made their way across the bridge and stood before them.  “Good to see you again, Master Shan.”

“Do you know these two, Master?”  Quento nodded and frowned.  He bent down and whispered something in Jayden’s ear, and she couldn’t believe what he was asking her to do.  She vehemently told him no, but he insisted.  “I won’t leave you,” she muttered under her breath.

“You have to!”

“She has to what?” asked the other Dark Jedi.

“Go, now!”

Quento and Jayden both ignited their lightsabers and the Geonosians started firing their blasters at them.  They deflected the blaster bolts back at them and took several down.  The Dark Jedi ignited their sabers and walked towards Quento.  He turned back to Jayden and told her to run again and as she started to run back towards the ship she looked back to see him use the Force to lift the rocks on the mountains and pushed them into the Geonosians that were following her, also creating a barricade between her and Quento and the Dark Jedi.  She couldn’t see her Master after the rocks fell, but she heard the distinct sound of lightsabers clashing against each other.  She wanted to stay and fight.  She wanted to defend her Master.  The last thing she wanted to do was run.  But Master Shan told her that she was the only chance of getting word back to the Council about what they had seen on Geonosis, so she made it back to the ship, lifted off, and got far enough out of the system to safely send a distress call to Master Skywalker.

***

Jayden waited just outside of the Geonosian system for reinforcements to show up.  Several republic frigates and heavy cruisers came out of hyperspace in front of Jayden’s starfighter.  After they appeared she immediately received a call on comms.

“Jayden, you need to land your starfighter in the frigate.  You need to stay up here where it’s safe,” Jade told her daughter, but she knew it was useless.

“No mom, this is my Master, I’m going to help rescue him!”  Jade couldn’t help but smile.  Jayden may have been incredibly stubborn, but she never gave up, and Jade knew that was what was going to make her an outstanding Guardian.

“Alright, send us the coordinates and we’ll meet you there.”

Twenty minutes later Jayden, her moms Jade and Kyra, and seven other Jedi were standing on the surface of Geonosis.  They were backed by two hundred Republic soldiers.  Three Dark Jedi stood before them, all with their hoods down so that you couldn’t see their faces, and several dozen Geonosians behind them.

“So you’ve come to rescue Master Shan, have you?”  The deep voice that Jayden had heard before stepped forward and lowered his hood.  He was a Trandoshan, a notoriously aggressive reptilian species.  “You will find that he doesn’t need any help,” he said as he motioned towards one of the other hooded figures.

“I’d like to thank you, Jayden, for creating the perfect trap!” The hooded figure stepped forward and pulled down his hood. 

“Master?”  A look of disbelief crossed Jayden’s face as the realization hit her that her Master was a Dark Jedi.  The disbelief then turned to anger when she recognized that she was just a pawn in his plan to trap the Jedi. 

“How could you do this to us?  To my daughter?  You were like family!”  Jade could feel the betrayal in Jayden, and felt the anger too, but Kyra walked over to stand between them and put a hand on each of their shoulders.  Jade immediately calmed down, but Jayden was inconsolable.  She fell to her knees as tears fell from her eyes.

As they stood there in disbelief that a member of the Jedi Council had just announced that he was a Dark Jedi, hundreds of Geonosians filled the skies.  The Republic forces were severely outnumbered.  Jade signaled for a retreat back to the ships as the Geonosians opened fire.  Immediately Jayden stood up, ignited her two lightsabers and ran towards her former Master.  Jade screamed out at her to stop, but Jayden had only one thing on her mind.  As her sabers clashed with Quento’s he laughed at her.

“Do you really think that you can take me, little one?”

“I’ll show you that I’m ready for the trials!” Jayden responded as she brought both of her sabers down on his and pushed against him.  She was gaining the upper hand and smiled at him.

“Jayden, you’ve always been a little too cocky at times,” he pushed back and parried another attack from her, then reached out with the Force and pushed her into the ground about seven meters away.  She looked all around her and it was a haze of blaster fire.  The Jedi were deflecting blaster shots and taking out several Geonosians, the Republic’s soldiers were doing their best, but many had already died.  Everyone was slowly trying to make their way back to the ships.  Several of the Jedi were dueling the other two Dark Jedi.  Kyra saw Jayden out of the corner of her eye and rushed over to help her up, and as Jayden reached for her hand, she saw a lightsaber plunge through her mother’s chest.  Jayden screamed and while Jade was deflecting blaster fire, she looked over to see Quento standing over her wife and daughter.

“No!” Jade screamed as she swung her saber to block Quento’s just as he was about to strike out at Jayden.  Jayden just sat there with her mother dead in her arms.  She couldn’t move.  She just looked down at Kyra, tears streaming, and shaking her head.  “Get up, Jayden!  Get to the ships!”  She watched as her mother unleashed a barrage of lightsaber strikes that Quento parried.  It was back and forth and neither was getting an advantage.

Several Jedi came over to her and grabbed Kyra’s body from her and tried to pull her away but she fought them.  “I need to help my mom!”  She tried running for her mother, but several arms grabbed her, and then everything went into slow motion.  She watched as her mother parried one of Quento’s attacks, and knocked his saber out of his hand.  Jayden smiled.  It was about to be over.  Jade tried to reach out with her hand to use the Force to take Quento’s powers but one of the other Dark Jedi tossed him their lightsaber and he plunged it into her stomach.  Quento looked to Jayden and smiled as she screamed so loud that it reverberated throughout the entire mountain range.  With every bit of energy she had left, she struggled to get out of the hands of the Jedi that were pulling her towards the ship and she unleashed a Force push that sent Quento and the other two Dark Jedi flying almost a hundred meters.  She rushed to her mother’s side, picked her up, and carried her back to the ships.  Jayden jumped into the frigate and laid her mother down and kneeled beside her as the ships took off.

“Mom… I’m so sorry.  This is all my fault.  I should have known.”

Jade reached up and touched her daughter’s cheek as the tears streamed from both of their eyes.  “He had us all fooled.  This is not your fa-“ she started coughing and choking.

Jayden looked at the other Jedi and soldiers that were all standing around.  “Do something!  Help her!”  She looked back down at her mom as she saw the life drain from her.  “You can’t go yet.  You promised me that you would always be here!”

Jade reached up her hand to Jayden’s heart.  “I will always be here!”  Jade’s hand dropped to her side and Jayden realized that she was now an orphan.  Jayden wanted nothing better than to let the anger consume her, but she knew it was not the Jedi way, and she swore that she would never turn to the dark side.  One of the Jedi that was nearby reached down and closed her mother’s eyes and put his hand on Jayden’s shoulder.  She didn’t know who it was, she couldn’t even look into anyone’s eyes at this point.  She didn’t want them to see the pain that was welling up inside of her.  She was upset that she had just lost both of her moms, and upset that she wasn’t acting like the Jedi that she was supposed to be.  Jayden struggled to stand up.  Everything was a blur and when she took a step forward she blacked out and fell into the arms of a nearby Jedi.

***

Luke Skywalker stood next to Jayden as they watched the fires engulf the funeral pyres of her parents.  He remembered what it was like when he set his own father on top of one of these.  That was a lifetime ago, he thought.  He was seventy-two now, and was contemplating stepping down from the Jedi Council.  He really didn’t want another Padawan, but he knew that Jayden was going to have trust issues with any other Jedi but him, and he didn’t even know who else he could trust at this point.  Quento Shan was one of the leaders of the Jedi Council.  If he can be turned, then anybody can.  The Council members were in an uproar and there had never been a Council Member turn to the dark side since Luke had created the Jedi Order.  These were dark times for the Jedi, and Jayden paid the price because of it.

“I’m embarrassed, Master.”

“Why, Jayden?” Luke asked as he looked at her quizzically.

“I’m having all of these emotions, and on Geonosis… after Mast-“  She stopped herself.  He didn’t deserved to be called a Master anymore.  “After Quento killed my moms, I had an overwhelming anger.”

“Jayden, It’s ok to have emotions.  The struggle is not to let them consume you.  You had just lost your parents, that’s hard for any child to take, even one training to become a Jedi Knight.  Let me ask you this.  What did you do when you felt these emotions overwhelm you?”

“I did what you and my parents, and the other Jedi have taught us to do.  Focus on the Force.  But it didn’t work, Master.”

“Oh but it did.  You see, if you had not focused on the Force, like we have guided you, you would have let the anger consume you.  But you didn’t do that, did you?”  Jayden shook her head.  Luke reached to touch her chin and lift her head so that she would look at him.  “Don’t be embarrassed.  You did everything we taught you to do.  It’s ok to have emotions.  I know you’ve read in the archives about how Jedi didn’t show emotions before, but I honestly think that inhibition of emotions led to the arrogance and downfall of the old Jedi Council.  Emotions are good.  An overabundance of emotions and allowing them to control our behaviors is what is bad.  You understand?”  Jayden nodded and they both turned back towards the funeral pyres.

“What am I going to do now, Master?”

“I’m going to take you on as my Padawan to finish the rest of your training.   You’ve already excelled at your lightsaber skills and Force abilities, so I want to focus more on teaching you to focus on your thoughts and emotions and learning how to better control them.  I’m going to take you to a planet where we can be alone.  A place where Master Yoda once helped me.”

“Dagobah?” Jayden asked and Luke nodded.

“You really do know your history.  Yes, I think you will find the focus and clarity that you desire, on Dagobah.

***