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Slowly, I’d become used to feeling it at the edge of my awareness - a spark where there had been ashes; a light flickering to life in the dark spaces of my mind. It was a fragile thing that had not yet fully taken root, equally ready to blossom or be extinguished.
Bell let me have my privacy, and he kept his - sometimes, I confess, to an extent that chagrined me a little. I wanted to know more than he let me see. But the flickering Force-thread that now ran between us bent to his will alone. He chose what to allow through, whether it was the gentle warmth of approval, the whisper-like sensation of amusement, or, sometimes, the acerbic cut of displeasure.
I learned as much about him as I could through ordinary observation. I noticed that he favoured his right leg, and, indeed, that his lightsaber was actually a part of a sabercane, which he used habitually if venturing out of the ship. It was an elegant arcetron thing, and from the way he wielded it, I suspected it was a second weapon as much as a disability aid.
His vessel he called the Kittiwake. It was a fitting name for the little gunship. The way the names of the more famous starships - the likes of the Ebon Hawk or the Millennium Falcon - showed off their speed or power, so, too, did the Kittiwake’s moniker summarise her purpose: to be inconspicuous. See, it said, I am no one. There is nothing of importance here.
Bell was an ascetic. He ate whatever he had on hand; whether it was colo claw roe or field rations seemingly left over from the times of the Old Republic, his attitude was equally philosophical. He was more obliging towards me, however. I observed that he went to some lengths to make sure that I had some variety in my diet, even as he chewed equanimously on his fiftieth nutrition stick of the month.
He had a dry but surprisingly genial sense of humour. His sharp features softened when he smiled.
But it was as though everything I could see was through a layer of glass. He allowed me close enough for an amicable professional relationship, and no closer.
I remember resenting him for the perfection of his control. Or was it that I resented myself for how much weight I put into his judgement, even when I could only feel it like this, in scraps and flickers?
“Do you agree with the Order,” I asked him, once, “on the subject of attachment?”
Bell’s attention was on one of the items in his odd collection - a large translucent flower, the dried veins of its petals skeletally opalescent in the twilight of the ship’s main hold. Presently, he turned away from it and looked at me, his white brows drawing together a little. “Is it your family you’re concerned about? Innes?” he asked, instead of answering.
Innes was a part of it, certainly.
I remembered my first meeting with Bell – his luminous figure in the darkness of the dying Rancor, so unexpected and miraculous that it had seemed to me a hallucination. I thought of the note of hesitation in his voice when he’d told me his name.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s who I was thinking of.”
He learned about Innes only a few months into our acquaintance. For the sake of my little brother’s safety, I had long become used to being unforthcoming with my family history. No one could know of him. Too many members of the Alliance had lost friends and loved ones to a careless word, a weak protocol, an unencrypted transmission. Better, I thought, for Innes to be tucked away safely on Dantooine than to risk his life in Imperial space - even if that meant that we would sometimes go for months without having a chance to talk.
I meant, I think, to bring it up with Bell eventually. To ask him to consider stopping by, perhaps.
I woke up one morning - as much as there can be mornings in space - to the sight of unfamiliar stars in the viewport. There was a large pink and gold nebula, lovely as a bride’s veil, obscuring some distant star cluster or other. A cold blue sun shimmered off the port side of the ship, a miniature planet’s dark silhouette crawling slowly across its peaceful azure expanse.
For the past several cycles, Bell had kept largely to a single quadrant, and I had come to know it well. The view outside was a different sector of space - we were on the move.
There was a light metallic clatter behind my back. I knew, even without turning, that it was the sound of LL-22 - or, as Bell, who had a quaint sympathy for droids, called it, “Lily” - stalking the corridors in search of this or that piece of electronics to chew. When I headed for the bridge, yawning and sipping lukewarm caf out of a flask, Lily followed me, making friendly whirring and clicking noises.
He was, of course, already there. I could make out the angular set of his shoulders and his silvery braid against the muted blue of the starscape outside.
“Doyle,” he said, without turning around. “It is good of you to join me. How is your wound?”
My chest, which I’d injured when I and my Alliance colleagues ran into an Imperial mass shadow mine three months earlier, gave me little trouble these days. Last night, however, I’d slept awkwardly, and the space between my fifth and seventh left ribs was now starting to complain at such cavalier treatment.
Could he sense my pain? I wondered. The thought alarmed me. It was unnerving to know that I could not hide any hurt, any weakness.
After I didn’t respond, Bell turned to face me and came closer. He reached out in an unvoiced question; once I nodded, he undid the collar of my jacket, relaxing it a little.
“Better if you don’t constrict your ribcage too much,” he murmured. I felt it, then: a bittersweet twinge that made my breath hitch. Concern - his concern for me. I didn’t know if I dared to call it care.
Lily whined a little, as if jealous.
“Where are we headed?” I asked.
I told myself that he was a Jedi, and that the Order taught us to care about every living thing. I told myself that I was nothing exceptional; that to imagine him singling me out would be foolish arrogance. Yet it did not stop a wordless broken thing inside me from aching.
Bell looked at me a beat longer. I was momentarily struck by the terrible possibility of him sensing my turmoil. Certainly, no matter how much I tried to silence my own thoughts, they rang clear as chimes in my head, as if mocking me for my weakness.
“Dantooine,” he said, finally.
“Do you intend to speak to the Alliance, after all?” I asked, astonished. I could think of no other motivation that could’ve drawn him to that quiet agricultural planet. But Bell’s refusal to have anything to do with the Rebels had been staunch, his mind on the subject seemingly made up. It was hard to conceive of anything that could have made him alter his decision.
“No.” His thin mouth twitched a little at this familiar argument, though I could not tell if it was in amusement or in irritation. “I have no business on Dantooine, Doyle. You, however, do.”
Innes. The thought shot through me like lightning. Somehow, he knew. Accustomed only to secrecy and fear, the part of me that kept that precious knowledge safe recoiled in response. How dare he take this from me? How dare he learn what was not his to learn?
“You’ve taken this from my thoughts.” I was brimming with indignation, my face burning. “This is a violation. The Order would not have stood for it. My brother is safe only because I make it so, and to wrest something so private from me – and for what –”
I was about to say more on the subject of what I thought of his supposed indiscretion, but the expression of genuine surprise on his face stopped me short.
“My dear Doyle,” he said after a pause. “Please forgive me. I swear I had no idea there was any secrecy involved, much less that the person you sought to see was your brother.”
“Then how did you know?” I demanded.
“Simply through observing you when you look at our star maps.” He allowed himself a slight smile; then grew serious once again. “People’s gazes tend to linger on sectors and planets of interest. This is often the home planet; but I knew that you are from Corellia. The location of a loved one, then. You returned to Dantooine more and more as we travelled through this quadrant. I judged, then, that you had an appointment to keep.”
He paced the length of the bridge. “Whatever other faults I may have, I would never touch your mind without invitation. You have to believe this.” There was an eagerness of conviction in his voice, and I knew that I had lashed out at him for nothing.
“Life in the Alliance teaches us to hide such things,” I said quietly, feeling some belated remorse.
“Of course,” he said, raising his grey-gloved hands in a pacific gesture. “And I should have realised that.”
That seemed to be the end of the incident, though the awkwardness between us was not quite extinguished. After fumbling with the console for a few moments, Bell turned back to me. “I hope I am, after all, permitted to bring you to Dantooine?” he asked.
“If you can,” I said. My face was burning again, though no longer with anger. I had a really rather inconvenient propensity for blushing. “Innes will be glad to see me.”
“Good.” He smiled, his translucent eyes crinkling at the corners. “We shan’t keep him waiting, then.”
A few standard hours later, he set the Kittiwake down a few klicks away from the enclave, behind a little tree grove in the middle of an empty plain. True to his word, he showed no interest whatever in coming with me and appeared content to confine himself to the ship.
“I have more than enough to occupy me here,” he told me. “A few experiments to run, some repairs to make. Go, and take your time.”
I had, at that point, resigned myself to the idea that he would never voluntarily make contact with the Alliance, and so I left without further argument. By the time I made it to the enclave, it was growing dark, and the skies above were dotted with stars, shining brilliant blue and green through the methane clouds in the outer layers of Dantooine’s atmosphere. I had sent a comlink message ahead, and Innes was waiting for me; as I walked closer to the perimeter, I could just make out his tiny figure under an old moonfruit tree.
So many odd, terrible, and marvellous things had happened to me while we were apart that I didn’t quite know how to explain it all - certainly not to Innes. After we settled down in the enclave’s common room with a pot of Moogan tea, I gave him a heavily abridged account of the Rancor’s demise and my fateful meeting with Bell. He listened in silent awe.
“And now you’re his padawan?” he asked me.
I shrugged, uncomfortably. “Something like it. He doesn’t like to be called Master.”
Innes cocked his head, clearly giving this some thought. I found that I dreaded his questions. For the truth was, of course, that I did not know what I was to Bell. Force visions were all well and good, but I’d come to realise that uncomplicated happiness was exactly that - the stuff of visions.
“But he has taught you… Force things, hasn’t he?” Innes whispered.
I smiled involuntarily and leaned forward to wipe a smudge of Moogan tea foam from his upper lip. “He has, indeed, taught me ‘Force things’.”
“Will you show me?” His eyes radiated excitement.
I was by no means a prodigy, but I showed him a little of what I knew - levitating his teacup, among other things - and this was, of course, enough to utterly blow his mind. After observing my newly-acquired miraculous powers, he, to my considerable relief, quickly got side-tracked asking me things like whether Bell could shoot lightning out of his eyes and if the Kittiwake had orbital strike cannons installed.
Occupied with entertaining him, I startled when the Force-thread between me and Bell suddenly flickered to life. It was not words, exactly; just a touch of restrained inquisitiveness. He was checking whether I’d made it to the enclave and if all was well. A gesture of courteous practicality, of course - no more - and yet it heartened me.
I took my comlink out of the pocket of my jacket and clicked it on. “All good here,” I informed him.
There was a momentary pause, as if he was considering his next words. “If you wished to invite your brother aboard, he would be welcome here,” he said, at last.
It was an expression of trust - like giving me his name when we’d met. “I… thank you,” I stammered, belatedly. But he evidently considered the conversation finished, because all I got in response was silence.
Innes, who was on cloud nine at the idea that Bell himself was inviting him aboard the Kittiwake, wanted to leave right away; but I was wary of taking him outside the enclave after dark. He was outraged when I tucked him into bed and informed him that he’d have to wait until morning.
“I’m not going to sleep, just you see,” he told me, indignantly. I nodded, rounded the corner, counted down to thirty, and poked my head back in. He was out like a light, one half-open hand hanging off the edge of his bunk.
I myself slept fitfully that night. Perhaps it was the uncustomary surroundings of the enclave or the lack of the familiar hum of ship engines. Perhaps, too, I’d grown so used to feeling Bell’s presence nearby that the emptiness of the Force around me felt unsettling.
I dreamt of the cold fire of the stars. I dreamt of the Kittiwake among them, tiny and impossibly distant, as if at the bottom of some infinite dark well. In the dream, I knew, somehow, that something terrible was going to happen to her without me. I wanted to hail her, but she was somewhere no message could reach.
It was closer to sunrise when I managed to succumb to mercifully dreamless oblivion, and so I was hardly at my best when Innes woke me up several hours later.
He didn’t give me an easy time of it, either. “Have you no concept of beauty sleep?” I groaned into my pillow, as my little brother hopped merrily about our shared room.
“No,” he said. “But you are already very handsome, Arthur! I made you a cup of caf. Can we go see Master Bell now?”
“Sure,” I said, a little mollified by the promise of caf. “Better comb your hair and wash your ears first, though. You wouldn’t want the great Master Jedi to see you with dirty ears.”
Half an hour later, I loaded Innes, now appropriately clean and groomed, into a jumpspeeder. We made our way westwards, across a plain dotted with giant blba trees, whose crowns glowed golden-green in the morning light. Save for having to cross the occasional stream - with Innes, of course, stretching his legs so they’d strike the water and create the largest backsplash possible - the journey went uneventfully.
Meeting Bell was clearly an event of a lifetime for Innes, and he hung on to my mentor's every word. Bell, for his part, seemed happy to indulge him. Before I knew it, they were chatting amicably in Coronet Corellian; I had not even realised that Bell knew any. Innes was also delighted to meet Lily and gave her so many headpats that I was worried she’d malfunction.
I sat at the edge of the Kittiwake’s open main hatch, a warm southerly wind ruffling my hair. Dina, Dantooine’s sun, flooded the grassy plains around us with its gentle radiance.
Watching Bell and Innes like this felt odd. Bittersweet. Amid the fondness and contentment in my heart, something stirred, a strange, dull hurt. I did not realise what it was at first - I thought it must’ve been my wound bothering me again.
Where was he when we were children?
Jealousy. It was foolish, painful, childish jealousy. I envied Innes his uncomplicated delight. I envied how unguarded my normally restrained mentor was around him. Everything the bounds of deference and propriety would never permit me, Innes was allowed.
It was an ugly, shameful feeling. I looked at Bell kneeling before Innes, the weighty handle of his inactive lightsaber balanced in his hand, and I choked that jealousy down the way one chokes on a bitter drink.
Glory, destiny, purpose - I wanted these things, of course. But I realised, for the first time, that I had ceased to see Bell as a way to achieve something greater. His approval had come to be its own purpose to me. More than I wished him to teach me Force forms or battle stances, I wished for his respect, his affection, his friendship.
It was a realisation that stung me more than any thought of my inadequacy as a future Jedi could. For if not having a talent for Force meditation or lightsaber combat was a lamentable shortcoming that could be remedied with training, no training - I thought - would ever earn me his regard.
The wound did bother me, too. Although Bell had expended a great deal of his considerable power on saving me from certain death, not even he could remedy the lingering consequences of my injury. There was only so much a bone knitter could fix.
The real trouble began a short while after we’d departed Dantooine. As the Kittiwake made its way back into the Inner Rim, I began noticing traces of fresh inflammation around the scar. Sensitive and easily irritated, the newly-growing skin at the edges of the wound hurt from the lightest touch. There was a pocket of near-constant gnawing pain there by the end of the second day, and when I examined the spot, it burned an unhealthy, angry red.
It was with unhappy certainty that I concluded that I was experiencing synthflesh rejection - a nasty condition at the best of times. I was lucky only in that Bell had an impressive medical arsenal, to which I had unrestricted access.
I should’ve gone to him in the first place, of course. I do not quite know what stopped me. Perhaps I didn’t want to trouble him with my problems after he had already done so much for me. Perhaps, too, I didn’t want him to think me weak or incapable.
Be that as it may, I injected myself with an array of immunosuppressants and carried on. My condition seemed to improve; the edges of the scar began healing, and for a time I thought that I might make a full recovery. I knew from experience that it took anywhere up to three months for synthflesh patches to be replaced with the body’s own soft tissues - nothing I couldn’t weather.
After a few days, however, the situation took a rather dramatic turn for the worse. Shivering and weak, I could barely make sense of the Kittiwake’s sensor data that Bell had asked me to look into. The shabby interior of the ageing ship blurred before my eyes.
I would’ve been radiating pain and frustration through the Force like a beacon; but Bell must have kept true to his word, refusing to pry into my private feelings, because he looked cheerful enough when he walked into the engine room. Then he saw me, pale and miserable-looking, and his face fell.
“My dear Doyle,” he said, with a measure of alarm, “you seem decidedly unwell.”
“Some trouble with that chest wound.” I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but succeeded only in wobbling on my feet like a young loth-cat learning to walk. There was a sour and metallic taste in my mouth, as if I'd been chewing on rust.
He hastily stepped forward, catching me by the elbow. “You should have told me.”
He was, of course, right as always, and I felt foolish. “I didn’t want to trouble you with a small thing like that. It is only synthflesh rejection. I can treat it myself.”
“I do not doubt your medical skills.” His tone was grave - graver, I thought, than the situation merited. “But even the best of us work better together. Come - I will examine you, with your permission.”
Secretly, I was relieved to have his help. I allowed him to hold my arm and escort me to the medbay.
Bell ordered me to sit down on the cot. Blinking under the harsh white lights, I clumsily wriggled out of my jacket, trying not to aggravate the wound. Bell snapped on a pair of bright mint-green medical gloves and carefully undid the buttons of my shirt.
At the sight of my injury, he inhaled sharply through his teeth; then, he was in a different headspace entirely. I could see the all too familiar expression of a combat medic’s detachment settling across his features.
“That synthflesh patch has to come off,” he informed me, in clipped tones. He was already pulling on a respirator. I looked into his eyes through the plexiglass visor, and he held my gaze for a moment.
“Agreed,” I said. He clicked a medkit open in a practiced gesture and produced a nullicaine spray. There was a soft hiss, and the pain in my chest subsided almost immediately from a roaring hungry flame to the weak sputter of a handful of embers.
A soft, relaxed feeling came over me. It was only local anaesthesia, but the dose he gave me was enough to make me pleasantly dizzy.
It was an honour to watch him work. He was quick, efficient, his scalpel-work unerring. Even the astringent smells of cauterised flesh and heated bacta seemed somehow comforting to me.
After a while, he set his laser scalpel aside and looked at me again. “The synthflesh will no longer trouble you,” he said, his voice crackling through the respirator. “But there is the matter of the underlying injury. I cannot wholly fix it - that is beyond even my abilities - but I will do what I can to assist your recovery.”
I did not at once understand what he intended. It took feeling that gentle Force-pull in my intercostal muscles for me to realise, belatedly, what other remedy Bell wished to use.
I knew by then just how sophisticated Force-healing was, how much strength and willpower it took. I stirred anxiously and attempted to clasp his hand in mine. “You shouldn’t do this,” I mumbled. “Not for me. I will get better with time.”
“You will get better even faster if you let me help,” he said. He took me by the wrist and held it firmly, clearly to prevent any further interference from me. There was a well-hidden note of underlying frustration in his voice; for some odd reason it warmed my heart to hear it.
The weave of the Force through my flesh was a blessed relief. It felt like sunlight; it felt like water. For all my noble attempts at preventing Bell from using his powers on me, I was infinitely grateful for them now, when I was remembering for the first time in days what it was like to not be in pain.
“There,” he said, after what felt like too long and too short a time. He sounded, I thought, more than a little exhausted. “I want you to rest now, Doyle. This will help.”
I was about to attempt to get to my feet, but his arms were suddenly around me, and he lifted me up. My head rested on his shoulder. I sensed the warmth of his body through his thin wool cloak. Whether it was the gesture itself or the nullicaine, I felt that I could’ve sobbed with affection. I was lucky that he couldn’t see my face; I was in no state to hide anything from him in that moment.
His gait was irregular but deliberate. I put my arms around his shoulders to make it easier on him, conscious of his own impairment.
When he set me down, it was onto a soft, blissfully cold blanket that smelled like Innes’ favourite sweet-sand cookies. There was probably some mundane explanation for it - such as, for instance, that Bell had given Innes sweet-sand cookies, and Innes, being himself, got the crumbs all over the ship’s blankets. At the time, nullicaine-addled as my brain was, I felt that that small comfort must have been a gift from the Force.
Through the approaching oblivion I could sense him, still - a bright presence nearby, like a solitary white flame in the dark.
Then there was a sharp stab of sadness. It took me aback; I had not been sad. If anything, I’d felt more content than I had in months. The feeling was foreign, like a sliver of ice in a handful of warm water. It felt bitter on my tongue and cold in my chest.
Not just sadness. Guilt.
I looked around, suddenly more awake than I had been in hours. Bell was sat on a supply crate next to my bunk, his eyes on me, unblinking. He absently massaged his left ankle with one hand - carrying me must have hurt him, after all.
“Bell,” I said quietly. He flinched at the sound of my voice.
“Doyle,” he acknowledged at length, equally quietly.
“It is not your fault,” I told him.
“I did not mean for you to sense that,” he said, his expression uneasy. “I apologise.”
“You have nothing to blame yourself for. Certainly not my injury. You’ve saved me-”
“You cannot believe that when you know that that mass mine was intended for me.” He spoke quickly, fervently - this was clearly an argument he’d had with himself before.
“The Imperials have done this,” I said. I meant it to sound calm and reasonable; but it came out sounding desperate instead, as though I was begging him for something. “Not you. They want bystander casualties.”
“I know.” His eyes gleamed strangely. “The Empire uses my very existence to inflict harm. My life against others. The calculus of it all does make one doubt, does it not?”
For a moment I wondered, stupidly, what he meant by that; and then I knew. I had a nauseating inkling that he had already given altogether too much consideration to that particular solution to the problem of collateral damage.
“No,” I snapped. “You know that wouldn’t help. The Empire is an all-permeating evil. Without the Order, we would still be its victims, only we wouldn’t have anything to fight for.”
I made it all sound very lofty. In truth, my reasons for arguing with him so vehemently were far less selfless than I made them out to be. Without the Order, I said; without you, my traitorous mind echoed.
Without you, what would I do?
“We need the Jedi,” I said, haltingly. “Otherwise, what is the point? If we allow the Light to be extinguished, everything is ashes.”
His features softened. “You truly believe that.”
“Yes,” I said. Then he leaned forward and ran his hand along my hairline, brushing back a few stray locks. His fingertips were cold against my temple. There was such devastating kindness in that touch that I felt undone by it.
“Then perhaps there’s hope for us, after all.” He didn’t quite smile, though he looked like he might.
The link ran between us like a fracture through stone, blindingly radiant with light. Long after he left me, I focused my mind on it, fearful that it should slip away if I were to think of something else. I remembered the Kittiwake at the bottom of an infinite star-studded well of darkness; and I clung onto Bell’s presence in the Force the way I might’ve held onto another’s hand.
I could scarcely believe that my words were a source of hope for him - him, who seemed to have all the answers, whose power seemed limited only by the will of the Force. I thought of his expression when he'd inspected my injury. My companionship seemed to mean something to him: something beyond a shared purpose. I fell asleep with that knowledge healing my soul just as surely as the bacta was working on my wound.
“This,” he told me, gesturing at me with the flower, “is called an akat’tal. It is attuned to the Force. Like reeds sway in the wind or water-nets in the water, it grows and blossoms in the currents of the Force. You can sense it, if you try.”
I could. Mixed in with the low murmur of the Kittiwake’s engines, something sang and whispered around the akat’tal. It was a sad song, feeble and halting. And when I looked at the flower closer, I realised that the opalescence I had seen in its petals did not come from any physical source. The dried ochre film of dead plant matter enveloped little crumbs of light - all that was left of the once-living thing within.
Bell put the akat’tal back into its transparisteel cell and turned back to me. “It belonged to a group of Alderaanian mercenaries, once,” he said. “Half a good-luck charm, half a religious token. Before the rise of the Empire, it was only one Force artifact out of many; but afterwards, it started drawing the wrong kind of attention. Anything Force-touched that was outwith their control, the Sith wanted to destroy. Once the Alderaanians realised that their once-cherished relic was now a source of undue danger, I was asked to take it into my custody.”
It made sense, of course. While possessing the akat’tal would have been unreasonably perilous for the Alderaanians, it was nothing to Bell, whose capture or death the Sith desired exponentially more. Yet I still resented them for a moment - these strangers who had feared for themselves but not for him.
“They did the needful,” he continued, as if guessing my thoughts. “It was more important to them to preserve life than to hold onto religion or tradition. It is as it should be. This, Doyle, is what the Order teaches us to cultivate: a love that lets go. The power the Force grants us cannot be misused to cling onto objects of attachment, be it things, ideas, or people.”
I found his wording very peculiar. “But I asked you what you thought.”
He was silent for a few long moments. “What I think no longer matters. I do not argue with the dead.” Then he looked at me, and his expression grew a little warmer. “If it is your parents you are worried about, Doyle - if it is Innes - then you need not fear. It is not the same for you as it was for the children of the Jedi. You had a family before you’d come to me; it is only natural that you are attached. I see the Light in you. You will not fall.”
There was a quiet faith in these words that struck me. I did not know what I’d done to earn his confidence, and I scrambled for something to say.
“Thank you,” I only managed, in the end. He seemed amused by how flustered I was, though not in a contemptuous way.
“There are many schools of thought on this among my peers,” he offered. “There’s more to the matter than doctrine. I find that the Jedi Masters who were fond of droning on about the dangers of attachment in the classroom were often the worst when it came to fussing over their own padawans.”
“Fussing?” I asked, a little taken aback at the idea of associating the word with someone as noble and dignified as a Jedi Master.
“Fussing,” Bell repeated, sounding very nearly gleeful. “I remember, clear as day, how Master Plo ran around the Temple begging all the quartermasters for some rare tea his padawan was fond of when she fell sick.”
There was a rare spark of genuine mirth in his eye now. He did not often reminisce on his times on Coruscant; but these seemed to be pleasant memories, and he smiled a few moments longer, as if looking fondly at something only he could see.
It was a pleasure to see him like that, though the conversation did little to alleviate my own troubles. These days, it was most certainly not my parents I thought of when I reflected on the problem of attachment.
I tried to make myself feel for my father what I felt for Bell. But by that point I may have as well tried to extinguish a star. Even when I was angry with him, even when I resented his aloofness or his refusal to consider helping the Alliance, he meant more to me than the man on Corellia ever had.
“We are nearing Aesh Sonnor,” Bell said, interrupting my thoughts. There was a short burst of static as he keyed an approach vector into the Kittiwake’s console. “With any luck, I can return the akat’tal where it belongs. There, it will be only one of many.”
“May I come with you?” I asked, coming up next to him and surveying the vibrant purple and green expanse of the planet below us.
“Certainly.” He made a vague gesture. “Though you may find the place a bit… peculiar.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what this warning implied, but I found out soon enough. After I made my way to the starboard dormitory to gather some essentials for a trip planetside - ration bars, distress flares, a couple bacta packs - I returned to the main hold. There was a soft whooshing sound and a gravitational impact as the gunship entered the atmosphere. And then, about five seconds later, I sensed it -
Emptiness. The Force-link I had become so used to felt like it suddenly snapped. The steady flame of Bell’s presence was gone, swallowed up by Aesh Sonnor.
I’d had my doubts about the bond in the past, but being without it turned out to be disorienting, frightening. It was like being blinded. I don’t quite know what I thought had happened; I felt only that something deeply treasured had been suddenly torn away.
“It is a little unnerving, is it not?” came his voice. I raised my head and took a rough breath. Bell was there, leaning on his sabercane. I had a sudden urge to grab him by the arm to verify that he was alive and whole even though I could no longer sense his soul.
“You could have told me,” I said. Even to my own ears, I sounded afraid.
Bell inclined his head a little. I must have grown quite pale, because he looked concerned. “My apologies.” He stepped closer, the sabercane clanking against the floor. “I did not realise you would feel so strongly. As a matter of fact, I thought this might be a welcome break for you.”
For a moment I was nearly angry with him for suggesting that. I owe you my life twice over, I wanted to tell him. You’ve shown me my place in the world, you’ve given me hope, you’ve looked after me when I was ill. Maybe this means nothing to you, but I’m not so cold-hearted as to-
But I could not accuse him of cold-heartedness; my tongue would not turn to say such things to him. I knew, even as I thought it, that it was not true.
“I cannot say I’m enjoying this, no,” I said instead, a little stiltedly. “What is it on Aesh Sonnor that does this?”
The Kittiwake landed on autopilot. I could feel the landing gears do a little bounce off the underlying vegetation before settling in place.
“The bond isn’t gone,” Bell told me. The main hatch behind him slid open with a soft hiss, and I blinked in the bright light of three variously-sized suns. “This world is very Force-attuned. The Force is constantly flowing and shifting here, feeding the plants, changing the animals, forming the landscape. Much like you wouldn’t hear a musician play in a noisy crowd, you cannot feel the bond between us against Aesh Sonnor’s Force-clamour.”
I jumped off the ship into the grass below; for him, I knew, this would’ve been an exercise in pain, so I waited a little while he leaned against the sabercane and lowered himself down to the ground.
“One might’ve thought the Sith would be all over a place like this,” I noted.
“Oh, they can’t do anything with it.” Bell shrugged a little, coming up to me. “It’s not something a person could exploit or control. In fact, it makes the use of Force-powers an absolute chore.”
He extended his hand by way of demonstration and levitated a broken tree-branch. It hung in the air for a moment, its rich purple leaves swaying in the breeze, and then fell. I could see that even that cost him some effort. If he, who’d held a ship’s atmosphere intact in open space to save me and my Alliance crew, struggled to manage such a simple form, then weaker Force-sensitives certainly stood no chance.
“The only reason it’s still here is because it’s small and they cannot spare the resources to vaporise the place,” Bell concluded, somewhat grimly. “Beyond that - Darth Nihilus could’ve consumed it, maybe. No, the Sith have no use for Sonnor.”
But my thoughts were running in a different direction now. Ever an Alliance recruit at heart, I grasped all too well the implications of a world where a Jedi could not use their powers. The place was a death-trap in the making.
“This planet sounds like the perfect place for an ambush,” I said aloud.
Bell clicked his tongue. “It does, at that. Well-observed, young one.”
I patted my hips, feeling the reassuring weight of a vibrosword on the left and a light stingbeam on the right. The situation in the Galaxy being what it was, we were not exactly swimming in kyber crystals; Bell had at times lamented the fact that I was deprived of proper lightsaber practice. For my part, I was content enough with my old weapons.
Bell walked ahead of me, one arm curled protectively around the akat’tal. The day on Aesh Sonnor was bright and tropically vivid. The air smelled of wet sun-warmed vegetation and something else, sharp and sweet like the flesh of a ripe fruit. An odd little creature with transparent wings, curved into tight spirals like two glass corkscrews, landed on my sleeve. Half-charmed, half-apprehensive, I carefully shook myself free of it.
Now that Bell had told me about it, I could sense the “Force-clamour” of this world. If I concentrated on it too much, it became overwhelming - like so many voices whispering incessantly in my ear, like hundreds of feathers brushing my skin. Somewhere below it, lost in the songs of the insects and the plants, I fancied I could still feel our link - a shimmering, fragile thing in the vastness of the universe. It was embarrassing how desperately I wanted it back.
But obsessing over it was hardly going to help. The quicker we addressed our purpose on Aesh Sonnor, decided I, the quicker we’d be back to the Kittiwake.
We finally made it to a clearing at the edge of a narrow gorge. When I walked closer, I could see the bubbling stream at the bottom, shining a vivid indigo. It was, perhaps, a touch too vivid. I was no chemist, but the liquid did not look like water to me.
Like long, rich hair, the stems of hundreds of akat’tals weaved through the gorge, swaying with the current. These were a far cry from the dry husk surrendered to Bell by the Alderaanians. Their petals glistened and shone; the Force-light within their veins flowed like blood. I gasped a little at the sight. It was beauty in its purest form, the stuff of dreams and visions.
Bell stood next to me, observing my reaction. His mouth was curved in a smile; his eyes, half-closed against the light of Aesh Sonnor’s suns, looked nearly wholly white. “It is a wonderful place,” he said. There was a touching inflection of pride in his tone, as if he were showing the planet off to me. In a way, I supposed, he was. He could not have had many companions on his travels over the past few years - if, indeed, he’d had any.
He held the dry akat’tal in one hand and extended it over the river. The flower slid off his palm and floated gently downwards, until, at last, it landed in the stream beside its brothers. From the edge of the gorge, it was barely a faded spot in a sea of colour.
“If the Force wills it, it may even sprout again,” Bell commented. “But be that as it may, its former owners will be happy to know that it has found its way back to Sonnor.”
We stood for a few moments in silence. Then, without so much as a warning, Bell ignited his lightsaber. He held it at eye-level, his other hand holding the shaft of his cane a few inches lower as another would hold a second blade. The wrist-cord of the cane looped loosely around his wrist, and I could see the dorsal muscles of his hand flex a little.
“You were saying something about ambushes, Doyle,” he muttered under his breath.
I did not know what it was that had alerted him to our enemies' presence, but I unholstered my stingbeam and clicked the safety. The very air around us seemed tense.
“You’re not alone,” a voice came. The tone was mocking, though there was a touch of surprise to it. “I thought you’d left all that foolishness behind when the Order perished, Master Bell.”
There were two of them - one around my age, one a little older. The older one was a Twi’lek, the tips of his lekku an unnatural dark blue, a sickly yellow film in his eyes. The younger one was an Iridonian, not yet visibly Darkness-touched; but his allegiance also hardly left room for interpretation. Both assumed battle stances, holding blood-red sabers ready.
Bell and I stood back to back. “Leave the master to me,” he breathed, at the edge of my hearing. “The young one won’t know to deflect your blaster-shots yet. His stance is weak. You can take him.”
I was not about to play hero. Even here, on Sonnor, I could almost feel the Dark power coming from the Twi’lek. With my stingbeam and my vibrosword, I knew he would make a bowl of squill liver salad out of me before I could say “may the Force be with you”.
“Okay,” I said, and then shot at the Iridonian.
All hell broke loose. Behind me, I could hear the hum of Bell’s and the Twi’lek’s lightsabers. Every now and then, they’d collide, showering me and the young Iridonian in white hot sparks.
Knowing that my vibrosword would snap like a twig against a Sith’s lightsaber, I avoided direct sparring altogether. Instead, I aimed at his arms, at his legs, at his torso; every now and then, I’d get back far enough that I could use the stingbeam, also to great effect. The Iridonian was skilled, but not skilled enough. Being a part of the currently-ruling force in the Galaxy made him soft. The Sith's characteristic arrogance did not permit for the idea of a weaker opponent prevailing over the stronger. And I, a Rebel and a companion to one of the last of the Jedi, knew only too well what it meant to fight with my back to the wall.
On the Sith's side was the fact that, unlike Bell and I, they had no obvious consideration for each other’s wellbeing. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Bell had fenced the Twi’lek within an inch of his life; where a Jedi might have switched to a defensive stance, however, the Sith abandoned the engagement altogether and turned his attention to me instead.
This was an opponent of a completely different sort. The very first blow struck my vibrosword and cut it clean in half. I backed away in what I mentally termed a controlled retreat, to avoid the more shameful label of “abject panic”. The Iridonian was, of course, in a similar situation with Bell, but whether that was enough to save me from being cut in half was a different question entirely.
There was a reason they’d set the ambush up on Aesh Sonnor. Without Force-powers, the duel was only a matter of swordsmanship. They'd no doubt taken into account Bell’s limp and the fact that, to the best of their knowledge, he was alone. My presence was unwelcome news, but if things continued the way they were going, it would not be a problem for much longer.
Bell knew this, too. I briefly saw his face across the clearing - a picture of all-consuming determination.
He opened his defences to reach me in time. The Sith would have never done that for one another. That was their strength - and their weakness.
The Twi’lek’s lightsaber sank hilt-deep into Bell’s shoulder; but Bell’s cane struck his ankles hard, and he went down with a yelp. Then Bell’s lightsaber drew a radiant arc through the air, severing the Sith’s head from his body.
In an instant, Bell was on the Iridonian. This was barely a fight at all. A second lightsaber fell onto the ground and rolled away, to the edge of the akat’tal gorge. The young Sith was on his back before my mentor, his neck exposed, Bell’s brilliant silver blade hovering over his throat.
I stood there a little stupidly, adrenaline roaring through my veins. I saw the scene as if through another man’s eyes.
“You will not kill me.” The Iridonian leered with his bloodied mouth. “I am weaponless, defenceless. The Jedi do not kill the weak.”
The tip of Bell’s lightsaber hummed as he made a little swaying motion with it, making no move to withdraw. “You assume much with little in evidence,” Bell said, very coldly. “The Order is gone. You have murdered everyone who was dear to me. You have murdered our children. And yet you’d hang your life on the belief that I will follow the tenets of the fallen, young Sith, and presume to tell me whom I will or will not kill?”
The Iridonian was afraid. I could see it - I could almost smell it, that all too familiar sour smell of fear.
“Not everyone,” he said, hoarsely. “You’ve taken a padawan, have you not?”
If anything, Bell’s expression looked more dangerous now than it had a moment ago. “Who said anything about him being my padawan?” he asked, his voice deceptively level.
“Even here, I can see it,” the Iridonian rasped. “How you feel about him, what he means to you. He’s special, isn’t he? Not just a travelling companion. Someone important. If you won’t let me go for the tenets of your Order, then you will let me go for him.”
Bell stood still a moment, his face reflecting nothing. “If that were true,” he said finally, in low tones, “then you’d be threatening the last precious thing left to me. That, young one, is a more dangerous game to play than trusting in the Light in my heart.”
But he lifted the tip of the lightsaber, letting the Iridonian crawl back a little. Then, after a moment, he turned the lightsaber off altogether and clicked it into place in the handle of his sabercane.
“You’re barely more than a child yourself,” he said. The ice was gone from his voice. “Force willing, you will someday come back to the Light. Go and live. I will not harm you.”
The Iridonian did not need to be asked twice. He stood up and rushed away, leaving the body of his fallen master in the middle of the clearing.
Bell looked at the body with a pained expression. “There’s this to consider,” he said slowly. “It won’t do to leave him exposed to the elements, or to profane the gorge with his remains… But - a matter for another time, I think.”
“Your shoulder,” I said urgently, finally finding my voice. “Let me help you - please.”
He winced. “It’s more an inconvenience than a serious injury. Do not trouble yourself overmuch.”
But he complied when I took him by the elbow and led him back to the ship, just as he had once helped me to the Kittiwake’s medbay to treat my chest wound. Once back, he obediently sat down at the table in the main hold and let me fuss over him.
I rolled up the sleeve of his robe and inspected the injury. Despite my fears, it was, indeed, fairly light; although the muscle had been penetrated, the bone was intact, and, owing to its nature as a lightsaber wound, there was no bleeding.
“What’s your prognosis then, Dr Doyle?” His tone was dryly humorous. “Will I live?”
“Do not joke like that,” I said, biting my lip. “But - yes, you were right. It is not serious.”
I had sprayed his shoulder generously with nullicaine and was applying a bacta patch when he spoke again.
“You were afraid for me,” he said quietly. “There, at the gorge.”
“I-” I didn’t know what to say to him. I was still light-headed with the excitement of the battle; I could concentrate enough to treat him, but explaining myself to him was another affair. I opted instead for the offensive. “Of course I was afraid,” I said, my voice cracking. “Who opens their defences like that, let alone in a duel with a Sith Master? You’d taught me that very form only two weeks ago. What else could I possibly have felt?”
Bell sighed. His shoulder moved back a little, shifting his deltoid muscle, and I hissed at him to be still.
“You asked me what I thought about attachments,” he said. “It is difficult to formulate an opinion on such tenets of the Order when most of it is in ruins. We live in a different world now, Doyle.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. They were meaningless words, but his expression when he’d said you’ve murdered our children stood before my eyes, and I could not leave that grief unanswered.
“I appreciate your sympathy.” He looked straight ahead as I smoothed a lump of synthflesh over his wound. He seemed careful not to meet my eye. “What I think, Doyle, is that you’re very dear to me. What I think is that I could not live with myself if I let you be harmed. That I - that I would have rather died than seen them hurt you. I wish for you the utmost happiness, and, selfishly, I thank the Force for bringing us together, even if I cannot be grateful for the circumstances under which we met.”
I wanted to ask him to stop because I could barely see his shoulder for the tears, making it quite impossible for me to finish treating his injury. And yet I did not at all want him to stop. For safety’s sake, I put the synthflesh applicator aside and wiped my eyes furiously on the sleeve of my jacket.
“You’ve done a great job,” he said, inspecting the results of my efforts. “Come, take us into orbit. I think I’ve had enough of Aesh Sonnor for today, beautiful as it is.”
I did not need to be asked twice. Soon, the Kittiwake was making its way into the upper layers of the atmosphere. I returned to his side; at that point he’d taken the last of the treatment into his own hands and was now rolling his sleeve back down.
There was a light pop of momentary weightlessness as the ship broke away from the planet and settled into orbit. Then, artificial gravity kicked in and I once again felt steady on my feet.
Something else was back, too. The Force bond, free of Aesh Sonnor’s troubled currents, shone and blossomed between us. Feeling the warmth of his presence in the back of my mind once again was such a visceral relief that I could’ve wept.
He stood up, intending, perhaps, to return to the bridge. But I couldn’t bear the thought of letting him out of my sight in that moment, and I threw my arms around him and clung onto the back of his robe so hard my fingers ached.
“Bell,” I said, rather incoherently, into his wounded shoulder. He made a quiet little sound of surprise but made no move to free himself; I felt one of his hands on my shoulder-blades and the other one on my temple, stroking my hair with clumsy tenderness.
“My dearest Doyle,” he said quietly, "I'm not going anywhere". And then, “All will be well.”
With anyone else, I would have scoffed at the notion; but him, I believed. Because he willed it, somehow, somewhere all would be well. And for the moment, aboard the little gunship floating through the evening skies over Aesh Sonnor, I was content with what I had.
The last precious thing left to me, he'd said.
I love you, I thought desperately. I don't know if he heard the words, but I believe that he felt it. His hold on me tightened, his fingers faltering mid-motion. He didn't say anything, but I felt the bond sing - soft, sweet, sorrowful, overflowing with light.