The Care Taker

2004 short story by Louis Turfrey and Mark Newbold

Twenty years before Episode IV – A New Hope

“Notami. It’s time.”

I turned around to see my wife Seranomi’s beautiful face and I was amazed again that she is my love. My life. I placed my hand on her stomach and felt the unborn child that awaited his birth. She smiled at me and I noticed the small overnight bag that rested in her hand. I smiled back in recognition of what she meant and again I fulfilled the role of protector and husband.

The labour was hard, and on more than one occasion I could feel Seranomi weaken, my own ragged emotions heightening my access to the Force. I tried to lend my strength to her and as always she saw it through. Eighteen hours of intense pain later our son was born.

Seranomi once again rested and I marvelled at the child that rested in the nook of my arm. We called him Blake, a strong name the same as that of my great grandfather. I could feel the Force emanate from him like a beacon of strength. He will be a great Jedi, of that I am certain.

That is of course if the Jedi Order survives the chaos of the Clone Wars.

I sighed as I remembered being ordered to leave the Jedi and I was once again forced to remember my pain. Blake’s face wrinkled up in reaction to my discomfort and so I deliberately lightened my mood, attempting to think of something else. It worked, and he fell back to sleep. I had time to place Blake back into his hover-cot and then the vision hit me like a battering ram.

I am standing alone; a great metal floor runs away from me in all directions. The sky is full of unknown stars and a giant red planet fills one quarter of my view. In the distance I can see a figure approaching, tall and dark it strides purposefully towards me. It wears black armour and a deaths head mask.

The figure stops less than three metres away from me, and starts to laugh, extending one hand out in front of it. I feel a tugging sensation in my chest and then intense pain as skin and bone is crushed beneath an unknown force. More pain as something pulls from deep inside me. I feel my chest being torn apart and suddenly my beating heart is being held in the figures gloved hand.

I awoke with the same pain in my chest and my wife kneeled pale faced above me. My son was crying in the background and I looked up blurry eyed at my ashen-faced wife and pulled her healing hand into mine.

“A seizure?” My voice managed to rasp the words and somehow she heard them. Seranomi nodded sadly.

“This can’t go on any longer. Your seizures are getting worse. You need treatment.” She glanced away momentarily. “I’ve sent for a medic.”

I felt the disappointment rise inside me and for a moment the pain was forgotten, for I knew precisely who she had contacted.

The Jedi Order.

“No Seranomi. I will not submit to their treatment. They removed me from the Order, cut me loose when we could have benefited from each other so much. I will not go back.”

Seranomi’s face became stern and she bent down towards me.

“You no longer have a choice. Our son needs a father and I need a husband. This is for your own good.” She reached out and placed her hand on my forehead and I felt my anger fall away with my objections as she once again wove her magic. Within seconds I was asleep.

I awoke in a comfortable bed that was placed in a soothing and functional room. I sat up, feeling a small ache in my chest where the pain had once been. There was a quiet knock at my door and a young Jedi entered, a Padawan girl no older than twelve or thirteen. She looked at me and smiled.

“I trust you had a pleasant sleep?”

Such sureness in her question needed no answer but I nodded my head out of politeness. I was unsure of my vocal ability until I managed to drink something. She passed me a glass of water, as if sensing my thoughts. I took a sip.

“Where am I?”

She smiled again.

“The moon of Benesk of course. Where else?”

I laughed lightly and she frowned.

“Where else indeed.” I allowed myself a small grin. “I’m eager to hear how the Council will justify helping me”.

The nurse smiled a knowing smile. I almost plucked the information from her mind, but she frowned at me once more and I knew she was reading me. She thought for a moment and spoke.

“It doesn’t need to justify anything. We’re Jedi. And you are Notami De’Athe”.

“A good meal and a warm bed is all I desire, you know that. But now, Seranomi and my son are all I need.”

I narrowed my eyes as I closely watched my good friend Ade-arr B’erain as he stood silently at the foot of my bed, arms folded across his chest. He looked tired, weary. The Battle of Salutarr had been a long and hard fought campaign, and the loss of Shayy, his headstrong, belligerent yet brilliant Padawan bore down on him heavily. The sorrow in his black eyes was almost more than I could bring myself to look at. In many ways, just as I had gained a son he had lost a daughter. I only hoped Master Zeboden could help alleviate his pain.

“And yet, even after all your trials and your excommunication from the Order, here you are.” Ade-arr fixed me with an iron stare, as if he was stealing a look into my soul. “If the Jedi Council on Coruscant knew they would not be best pleased.”

“You can thank Seranomi for my being here today.” I cast a glance out of the small oval window and the pin pricks of stars that lay there above the airless surface of Zelons moon. “She fusses too much.”

Ade-arr raised an eyebrow at this.

“She loves you. And you love her. The most precious gifts of all.” Ade-arr followed my look out of the window. “I envy you.”

“And I you. My most fervent wish is to serve the galaxy.” I paused as I looked back at Ade-arr. “And I fully intend to do just that.”

Ade-arr frowned at me, a look of barely hidden suspicion on his face.

“What do you mean?”

I couldn’t help but smile. As Jedi we were similarly matched in our skills with a lightsabre, but like all Jedi our proficiencies differed. While I had the ability to influence the minds of the uncertain and the weak, Ade-arr possessed the strongest will I had yet encountered. His mind was like a vice, and I could never break inside, even as we had trained as younger men. Conversing with Ade-arr B’erain was as normal and truthful a conversation as I ever had with anyone. Apart perhaps from my sweet Seranomi.

“I mean that just because I am no longer a Jedi Master doesn’t render me useless. I have much to offer this world, this life. Being expelled does not have to mean the end of my potential to help.” I sat up straight in the bed. “And I only want to help.”

Ade-arr lowered his eyes as he returned his attention to me.

“I agree. The Council was too hasty in banishing you from the Order.” Ade-arr’s shoulders slumped a fraction. “The Clone Wars go badly. Many Jedi have fallen.” His voice fell to an almost inaudible whisper. “We need good men, leaders and warriors like you. There is a darkness coming, a plague of evil sweeping through the galaxy. Men like us.” He fixed me with a sad but proud stare. “Men like you should be leading from the front.”

“I agree, but Master Windu’s words were clear and final. I fear there is no going back to the way things were before. The only path for the Jedi is forward.”

Ade-arr rubbed his chin, the stubble of a week bristling against his hand. He paused, then eyed me again. I knew a question was coming.

“Your vision. What did you see?”

I told him of my vision. A man in black, armoured and tall on a metal floor, a strange sky filled with a red planet, his hand tearing into my chest and ripping out my heart. Ade-arr cleared his throat uncomfortably and it was my turn to study him.

“Master B’erain, I may never have been able to truly read your mind but I can read your face as well as anybody. You have something to say.”

“I had a similar vision, although I was not gripped with pain like you. I was on Salutarr, about to embark on another mission when I collapsed alone in my tent. In my unconsciousness I saw a vast field, as wide as an ocean. I was hovering at a great height, and from the edge of my eyesight I could see smoke and fire sweep inwards towards the centre of the field. As I looked down I could see five people.”

“Who were they?” I asked. Ade-arr shook his head.

“It was impossible to tell, I was too far away, but they were people I knew. I tried to lower myself but I could not. The fire rushed towards them like a tidal wave, something alive. And the nearer the fire got the blacker the flames, until it was an ebony wall of fire that engulfed them and scorched their flesh to the bone. Then suddenly I was in amongst them, smelling the burnt flesh and listening to their screams.” Ade-arr shook his head in consternation. “I told Master Zeboden of this, but he could offer no answer. We Jedi do not sleep well these days. A number of us have been afflicted with these visions. You are not alone in this Notami.”

I forced a smile, but felt no pleasure. Ade-arr’s vision was as confusing and strange as my own and as he could offer no illumination upon my dreams I could offer none to him. All I did know was that both visions offered a dark future. My heart, tore from me by an armoured giant. Ade-arr’s friends burnt alive by a black flame. As Jedi we were always taught to take such signs as portents or omens of the future. I believe it was then that I determined to begin setting in motion the events that ultimately led to the establishment Worldship Rinsome, the vessel that may prove to be the potential saviour of the Jedi Order.

Although, in all truthfulness I could not claim that this was my only motivation for risking so much. After my expulsion the only reason I needed to breathe was waiting for me down in the city of Chancai on the planet below me.

My wife Seranomi and my son Blake.

I would build a future for them, free from black armour and black flames, wars and Sith. With my bare hands, using every means at my disposal, utilising every trick I had ever learned and calling on every favour I had curried I would be the architect of their salvation. If it meant losing every friend I had ever made, lying to those dearest to me, cheating and stealing away my very soul, I would do it.

Or the man in the black armour could take my heart unopposed. It would be worth nothing to me.

The Care Taker

2004 short story by Louis Turfrey and Mark Newbold

Twenty years before Episode IV – A New Hope

Histories - Here we see for the first time a conversation between Notami De’Athe and Ade-arr B’erain that ultimately leads to the series of events leading to the purchase and modification of the Worldship Rinsome. We learn the motivations behind Notami’s drive to arrange the Rinsome project and assemble the Wanderers – not only to safeguard the future of the Jedi but to save his wife Seranomi and son Blake from a dark future.

Cast of Characters

Notami De’Athe

Seranomi De’Athe

Blake De’Athe

Ade-arr B’erain