Noelani stopped off quickly at her quarters to change from her Jedi robes. Soon she and Kor stepped out of the
She could feel a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth as she wondered if he was, just maybe, trying to impress her with the uniform; raising her hand over her head she waved at her two friends. As Ben hesitantly returned her wave, she grabbed Kor's hand and dragged her towards the two boys.
As they neared, Ben grinned at them mischievously. "I did something a bit bad."
Noelani frowned. "What?"
"I changed the requisition form my dad gave me, so rather than a single transport, we get four speeder bikes."
Poll cried out in elation. "Wizard! I so wanted to ride one."
Ben tilted his head towards the motor pool, and Noelani turned that way to see four speeder bikes at a rest. She felt a thrill of anticipation as she made out the barely audible hum of the well maintained repulsors that kept them off the ground. A small pack was slung across the saddle of each bike and it was then she noticed that these weren't just any speeder bikes - they were the military versions: fast and agile, capable of handling nearly any terrain. Noelani couldn't contain the low whistle that escaped her lips as the four teenagers each inspected their vehicles appreciatively. Noelani unslung her pack, and shuffling through hit, noticed that it contained a couple of glow sticks, a lambent, a length of cord, a canteen and a handful of ration packs.
She secured the pack in the small hold set to the back of the speederbike on the right side of the engine.
She hopped onto the bike, getting herself situated comfortable. She then picked up her headset and slipped the small speaker into her ear, and attached the throat mic to just below where the throat meets the lower jaw. Flicking on the com, she heard Ben's voice warm and inviting in her ear.
"Test. Test." Then his voice took on a slightly teasing quality, "Sabre Leader to Sabre Lance. All bikes report in."
Shaking the distracting quality of his voice from her thoughts, she responded to him and then cranked up the engines. With a deep rumble that settled into a low pitched hum, the speeder bike rose up lifting its skids off of the hard-packed ground. Noelani gunned the engines twice, getting used to the throttle.
She heard the others gunning their engines and she turned a grin towards each of them, ending with Ben to find him watching her once again. As their eyes meet, he quickly shifted his gaze, focusing his attention onto the console in front of him. A few seconds later, a waypoint appeared on the small directional display of Noelani's console, and Ben's voice sounded again in her ear.
"I've programmed in a waypoint for the place where we're going to be exploring. But it'd be better if everyone just followed me and didn't get lost."
"Hey, if I remember right, you're the one that got lost last time, Skywalker," Poll teased.
"Only because I was following your directions, Poll. Now any real questions?"
Noelani grinned at the boys' banter as she tied her hair back into a single long tail. She then bit at her lower lip for a second, wondering if she would get laughed at for asking what she was about to. Finally, her curiosity won out and she asked, "I'd like to know exactly where it is we're going."
She could hear the amusement in Ben's voice even over the comlinks. "That's a secret. You'll find out when we get there. All right, let's move it."
Then he gunned his engine once more, and darted out through the speeder entrance, Kor and Poll flashed past Noelani as she stamped down on the throttle, her engine roared to live, and then she was darting through the wide gates of the
Trusting in the guidance of the Force, they weaved themselves in and out of traffic. In the back of her mind, where the Force constantly resided as a rolling maelstrom, she could feel the shock and anger of the drivers of the speeders and transports that they flashed past. A part of her was amused by their reactions to a speed which Noelani wouldn't have hesitated traveling at on her home world of Tattooine.
And before long, they were zipping past the last of the buildings, edging into what passed for a rain forest on Ossus. A forest of short, thick-trunked trees with wide grey-green leaves interspersed with thinner, longer trees with thin needle-style leaves, and low scrub bushes which produced a tasty, yellow berry.
Noelani glanced down at her display, and noted that Ben was pulling away from the pack even as Kor and Poll started to slow down as the path through the forest became filled with the debris of life.
She almost laughed as she realized that Ben was trying to show all of them up. Letting it be known that he was the best here, by outdistancing them, outperforming them – by relying on the Force more as he effortlessly flew through the trees which the rest of them were more hesitantly navigating.
She took a deep breath and held it for a second, and then slowly exhaled it. She closed her eyes even as she cranked the speeder bike's throttle down. The engines revved louder and the wind whipped at her hair. She reached out with the Force, feeling life all around her and grabbed a hold of Ben's familiar presence, tracking his movements in the Force, ensuring that she would stay on the same course as him.
Then she went faster.
In moments, she flashed past Kor and Poll, her grin grew wider as their Force presences flooded with shock at seeing her rip past them.
She could feel a tree closing in her path, and twisted to the side, that low niggle in the back of her head indicative of danger flaring brighter as she did so. She frowned and dropped the speeder closer to the ground, leaning down against the console and felt the brush of the thin needles of one of the yikora trees slashed across her back.
Then she was pulling the bike hard to the left, dodging one of the thicker trunked qwo trees.
Shutting down all of her awareness of life in the Force, except for a single thread keeping track of Ben, she focused entirely on her danger sense and that awareness of the immediate possible futures. That precognitive ability which allowed Jedi to deflect blaster bolts and in general perform acts which common people viewed as miracles.
She twisted the throttle more, feeling the wind slapping against her face even harder, tugging at the long braid of her hair. The speeder bike sliced back and forth to the left and right dodging trees, bushes and low hanging branches.
Then crosswinds slapped at the back of her speeder bike, and she struggled to keep it running in a straight line. Opening her eyes, she realized that she had left the forest behind and was now on the open plains.
In the distance stood the sharp, jagged mountain peaks where the Ysanna lived for millennia. Noelani knew that at the foot of those mountains rested the former Jedi Citadel that stood on this planet until the Cron Drift supernovas.
She glanced around, and saw Ben still a few hundred meters ahead of her. A quick look behind her showed the rapidly dwindling forest yet no sign of her two friends. Stretching out with the Force, she reached for Kor and could feel her presence in the distance. Finally, she noticed two plumes of dust as the two stragglers left the forest.
Happier knowing that her friends were out of the woods, she twisted the throttle the rest of the way down, smiling slightly as the engine took on a high-pitched whine.
She watched the small speck which was Ben as it grew larger and closer.
She turned her com on so that only he would receive her transmission. "I thought you were good with these things, Ben?"
She almost laughed as he cast a sharp glance over his shoulder at her, his speeder wobbling slightly as he split his attention between piloting and staring at her.
"Well, I didn't realize it was a race. I was just going out for a nice, leisurely ride."
Noelani laughed. "Yeah. Keep telling yourself that Skywalker."
She looked past him, and noticed that the mountains were closer, larger. The display on her console began flashing, and she frowned, focusing on Ben again, noticing belatedly that he had stopped.
She twisted the throttle down to zero with one hand, and gripped tight the brake with the other. Her speeder bike lurched to the side, and as she was almost thrown from the saddle, Noelani uttered a short curse, one she had often heard her dad use while growing up.
The bike rocked up on its side, threatening to tip over and spill her to the ground. She pushed against the ground with the Force, leaning away from the ground and let out a sigh of relief as the bike dropped back to its landing struts.
As she regained control of her heart rate, slowing the pounding thunder in her chest which echoed in her ears; she heard Ben's laughter.
She glowered at him, as he slipped off of his bike, walking towards hers.
Between chuckles, he managed to ask, "Are you all right, Noelani?"
She watched him for a moment, and then nodded her head, turning away to look at the ravine she had almost driven off of. She gasped as she looked down at a two thousand meter drop to the ravine floor. A little over five hundred meters away stood the other wall of the deep ravine. Noelani eyes started at the bottom and traveled up, looking at the various strata of rock which made up the opening – a stunning display of geologic ages drawn on the ravine wall in glorious oranges and browns.
Finally she looked across the ravine, and saw the ruins of a magnificent city. Large crumbling temples and a few stone obelisks were the only thing recognizable from this distance, but it was still a sight which awed Noelani. The sense of antiquity was nearly overwhelming. Ben's voice sounded incredible close to her ear, and she had to force herself not to turn towards him.
"That used to be Knossa. But where we're going is over there."
Her eyes followed the direction he was pointing and she saw a massive building with four tall towers stretching up towards the sky.
She frowned knowing that she had seen that building before, that it had played a part in one of her history classes, but she could not quite place it.
Ben supplied the answer. "It's the great Jedi Library. The floors above ground held the normal run of the mill histories and datacards, but the interesting stuff was stored in the sub-basements and the kilometers of catacombs beneath the Chamber of Antiquities."
She finally turned to face Ben, finding him, as she expected, standing right behind her. "So, we're just going to go explore the caverns beneath the ruins?"
He grinned, a lop-sided slash of the mouth which caused flit-gnats to appear in her stomach. "Exactly!"
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