Karen Kenobi

Arrival to Calyeni Caverns

The trip that Karen took back into Alliance territory led her to believe that there were good and bad times ahead for her old friends. They were now calling their organization the "New Republic" and things seemed mainly sedate.

Mainly - but not completely, and there would always be an Imperial presence lurking about. On the fringe worlds which had actually gained benefits by throwing in with the Empire, those Imperials would remain secure.

It seemed that the deeper back into the core she went, Karen found herself surrounded by happy cheerful people. Except those who had to work even harder to maintain their old standard of living. The division between rich and poor had become even sharper in her absence.

Karen's heart was torn. Should she track down the high-ups from the Alliance? She wasn't even certain most of them had survived the big battles that everyone spoke of. Those battles ended the Empire's reign, but at a huge cost.

Or... She could start looking for some of her old Imperial cohorts. She doubted very much they'd really want to see her, though.

So she decided that even though there was a galaxy worth of newness out there... None of it was what she wanted. She didn't want to rehash her old haunts, she didn't really want to open old wounds.

Karen made her way into a starport where she intended to trade in her beat up old craft, now a 'classic' by some collector's terms.

Before she actually sold it however, she very carefully unloaded the navigation computer's memory, all the star charts, and every notation she'd made during her decade-long absence. Whoever bought it would have to put in a new navicomp, anyway.

But she would hardly want anyone else wandering through her notes and finding the riches that she'd located - they wouldn't understand how to treat the worlds she had been on.

Karen took the pieces of her ship and loaded them into a carry-cargo unit, along with her other goods. Once the whole little ship was gutted of things she'd use or had owned, she put it up for sale and headed off to a local inn.

She still had a number of unusual items left to barter, and it seemed that she attracted more than her fair share of attention just walking down the street. Her clothing was totally unknown, and the fact that she boldly displayed a light sabre on her hip, in addition to the blaster at her other, made her a target.

"So exotic," said one local alien teen. He hung out with three others, only one human among them. They all looked a little hungry and a lot like they'd been kicked out of whatever homes they had lived in.

"I don't think so," another said, "too ... rustic. There's no synth-fibers anywhere on it."

"If you're referring to my clothing," Karen said, offhand as she glanced at them, "you're right. It is rather rustic. Hand dyed, and tailored for me."

Her tone was a warning, which they acknowledged but didn't heed. They followed her all the way down the line of shops she examined, which led down to a rail transport station.

A huge semi-modern looking train sat on the tracks, but it didn't look like it was going anywhere for a while. In fact, it looked like people were camping in it.

When she reached a point near the train's engine, the foursome of youngsters decided to make whatever move they could. She had a light sabre. Those were worth a lot.

She had a light sabre. Those could kill you in a moment. Karen kept that in mind, when she heard the rush of light footsteps from behind and to her sides. What she didn't count on was the one leaping down from above!

The half-canine looking boy tackled her from above, while she was turning to face the other three. Good tactic, she thought, a little too late. She went to the dusty ground, heavy with the boy on her back. He tried to prevent her from getting up.

Failing that, he tried to hang on to Karen's shoulders as she rolled to her side. That very sort of move had been done on her before... Many years before. She couldn't help but flash back to the foursome of grown men who assaulted her - her temper flared and she went into combat mode.

Flinging the boy nearest her side with a Force blast, he struck the side of the train, and crumpled into a heap below. The one on her back clung on and tried to get a grip around her neck. She took her right arm and grasped his shoulder, tossing him physically off her and into a pile of wood scraps.

Karen looked at the other two, with a menacing eye. But they were tough, these boys. And, they'd already attracted a crowd. Chants of "Fight! Fight!" broke out.

"Keep back, while you can still walk away," Karen warned. Her hand hovered near her light sabre, but she didn't want to pull it on the boys. The crowd perhaps, but not the boys.

One of them listened, but the other did not. His black-brown furry skin was covered in dirt and grime, and he actually left a trail of dust behind him as he bolted up to her. Fists flying, he tried to assault her with speed on his side.

Karen moved quickly, but still got hit a number of times. His fists were hard, fingers covered in calloused knots. But she was still a far more talented fighter, and she managed to lock both his hands under her arm, and rendered him unconscious with a pair of knee-blows to his gut. He fell to the ground with a grunt, as his friend tried to back out.

The group of people betting on the outcome of this little spat wouldn't let him go. Of course, they'd probably beat him senseless later on anyway.

Karen let her breathing go back to normal, while the angry crowd tried to get her to attack again.

"I'm not interested in this. This isn't worth my time," she said, low. "Now get out of my way and let me get back to my room."

"So some Jedi wants to run, not fight?" Someone yelled, and chanting began again.

"I'm not a Jedi," Karen said. "Jedi don't know what I've learned. But I'm not in the mood to play with you any longer."

Karen sprung to the slanted side of the train engine, clung on long enough to get her bearings, and then lept into the air using a bit of levitation. She cleared the crowd easily, and found her way back to the inn.

***

The new ship she had was a much nicer model. Sure enough, she'd found a collector of old Imperial junk. He wanted to restore it. She was just glad to be rid of it at last. It smelled.

Though it was fast, the new ship wasn't really as quick in the atmosphere as her old one. But it would do. It had far more storage space, and an area to move around, sleep, and cook in. Those luxuries were not ones found in an Imperial single-person jump craft.

Loading her old posessions onto the new craft, Karen thought again about whether she would head back to the core or not.

Deciding 'not', she pulled out the navicomp and downloaded its contents into the new model aboard her ship. It protested: there were no legally recognized space lanes on that list!

"I don't care. We're not playing in that part of the galaxy." She muttered at the comp, which meekly beeped back at her. Then, after clearing the gravity of the last world in the system, she took out her new map.

The key glimmered in the darkness, but the map still glowed strongly with its Force-text. Someone had concentrated very hard on precise instructions on this map, and embedded it knowing that some day someone would come.

But would there be anything there? The other old maps had little going for them now - the Sith instructors were all long gone and their worlds were wild again. Their society might rise again, but it wasn't likely.

Karen didn't want to just jump into another wild chase, but she so desperately wanted to find out why there was a clear image of a dragon on this map. So she punched in a number of coordinates, which the navicomp told her were ridiculous.

"I'm going to yank you out and leave you on a moon," Karen said. Though the navicomp wasn't a true sentient droid, it certainly thought it was. It shut up.

***

It took several jumps, and a number of weeks between, to locate the place which was listed on the map. The items were probably close to ten thousand years old by now - and stars drift in that time. By a trial and error method, Karen finally located a world which vaguely looked like the one shown on the map.

There was something quite odd about the planet, though. In fact, about the whole system. Surrounding it was a thick gas cloud - but one which was almost invisible to the naked eye. It registered on the navicomp but hardly could be seen while in the ship.

When Karen brought the small craft into the system, she felt something very strange indeed. It was as if her guts were twisting - but not in a bad way. She felt energized and exhausted at the same time.

The navicomp didn't respond when she tried to plot a course out of the system, if need be. "Great," she muttered.

Deciding to head down to the main world, Karen steeled herself for a place long-dead like her Temple world.

What she found was hardly dead. It was a thriving, mostly-human and oddly-not-human society. It was filled with Force users - but their outward appearance indicated that these people treated the Force as if it were magic, not something else.

She guided her ship down into an area which had other craft on it, a flat landing pad for aircraft - or something.

Before she actually got out of her ship, however, she saw something that made her heart quicken. A darkness above, all around.

Dragons.

So they did exist. Just like the map showed. They had long, elegant wings, and whiplike tails. Their skin shone and their armored bellies rippled with strength.

Karen got out, dropping to the ground without aid. She had to find out more. Hopefully, the key which had been included with the map would come in handy - but she wasn't counting on it. Everything looked relatively modern, if strangely made. It didn't look as though she had to unlock anything to get to a dragon or some such quest.

She tied it to the lantern stone cord, around her neck, just in case. It weighed little, but the crystals were a bit scratchy on her skin. So she carefully nestled it outside of her clothing.

And her clothing seemed to fit right in with everything here. Color filled everyone's lives on this place. The dragons mirrored that.

There were still people with long swords, mounted guardsmen on exotic long-legged mammals, and a thief running about in the market when she found one of those.

It was not so very different from any other world she'd been on. But this one still thrilled her. She could barely speak the language, but she would catch on quickly - plus she had her trinkets of Sith tools. They were immediately requested as trade items, if not as Sith relics than as magical tools.

Everyone - almost everyone anyway - seemed to be proficient at something magical or Force-oriented. Karen realized that she would be able to fit in here, possibly, to pass along her ideas of meditation, and her skills at war.

But she had to go back to Edmy with something. What that something was, would clearly have to be something special.

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