CHAPTER 2: STRANDED ON THE SHORES OF OCHERON

The shuttle carrying the Matratis, exiled king of Fannefax, and his Jedi bodyguard Obi Wan Kenobi is in grave danger...


An explosion rippled through the steel hull of the shuttle, and Obi Wan's mind shifted into another plane of consciousness.

The explosion occurred in the cockpit; Obi Wan felt the deaths of the pilots instantly. In that same instant, the fail-safe systems of the shuttle responded by slamming a six inch plasteel blast door into place, protecting the rest of the shuttle from explosive decompression. The door violently slid into place in the blink of an eye.

In that same instant, Obi Wan's Jedi trained mind reached several inescapable conclusions.

The shuttle had been sabotaged. No doubt by the same hand that arranged for King Matratis' exile from his homeworld and throne.

The navcomputer was to blame. The pilots had relied on this computer to chart a safe path through hyperspace. The computer had been compromised, and one of their lightspeed jumps took them almost directly into a large gravity well...probably a planet or a star.

The escape pod was almost certainly sabotaged as well.

Obi Wan had precious seconds in which to decide what to do with the rest of their lives.

Metratis was staring at Obi Wan with eyes wild with primal fear. His round face and bushy moustache pallid and ghostly in the sparks and haze of the cabin, the frantic light panels screaming in silent strobes. Gravity buckled and lurched, Metratis was thrown bodily to the floor only to be caught by Obi Wan's sudden out-thrust hand.

"Move!" Obi Wan shouted above the chaos. Without really knowing why, the Jedi pushed the terrified king through the small door leading to the tiny aft cargo area. Snatching up his precious satchel, Obi Wan scrambled through the door, hurriedly sealing it behind him. His training, the endless lessons and drilling, pumped through his muscles like an electric current as if his rational mind were only a single seat on the council that decided his actions. In truth, a Jedi's mind is only a piece of the whole picture.

This was good, because Obi Wan Kenobi was also an eighteen year old man, and a part of him understood the horror in Matratis' eyes.

For a precious second, Obi Wan's eyes swept the room, breathing in the details with one big mental swallow. No pressure suits, not that he would have trusted them any more than the escape pods.
His eyes stopped on one particular object. A large container. Big enough for two people.

The shuttle lurched sharply, lumbering and bucking in the presence of a large gravity field. The Force was pushing his mind, feeding his senses. Knowledge flashed through his mind, memory, lessons of the mathematics of gravity, the conditions of debris in a vacuum, the dynamics of friction in a heavy atmosphere.

He couldn't be sure if his guess was correct. It didn't matter;if they stayed on the shuttle, they were dead anyway.

Obi Wan kicked over the container, spilling out a fortune in airsealed, expensive gourmet cuisine from every corner of the galaxy. A stack of cabriin fish hit the metal deck with an icy crack.

"Sorry about the smell, Your Majesty." Bodily throwing the king inside, Obi Wan took a glance at the airlock controls, instantly freezing them in his memory. Climbing inside...a tight squeeze with the King's rotund midsection... Obi Wan took a deep breath.

"Obi! I don't understand!?"

Obi Wan braced himself against the container walls. " Hold on. "

Through the Force, Obi Wan saw the airlock controls. With a sharp push of his mind, the finger level clicked up, the unlock button pressed, and everything in the shuttle shot like a bullet through the airlock door and into space.

The seal on the container held, partially due to its quality construction, but mostly due to the extreme pressure Obi Wan was using to hold the lid in place through the Force. The inside of the container was utterly black. Flotsam from the shuttle bounced and pinged off the container's skin. Matratis was breathing in ragged gasps.

Please don't have a heart attack, Obi Wan thought, I couldn't do much about that at the moment.

The drifting of the container through space was surprisingly smooth, velvety. In fact, it was so disarmingly gentle one could almost forget that the only thing keeping out a quick and violet death by decompression was the generous shipping budget of a gourmet supplier and the intense will of a very young man.

Nothing happened for several seconds. Then both men became aware of a growing pressure, the unmistakable gradual tightening of gravity's steady hand.

Outside, a low roar began to bellow. The motion of the container was no longer gentle.

"Ah," Obi Wan grunted, " this may be...a bit rough, Your Majesty...just hold on."

Metratis' breathing was gulping, hollow.

Obi Wan reached out with the Force, feeling the space around them, searching with mental fingers their path into the future. He could feel it now, the presence of a world, a planet..very strong. He could feel the mounting air pressure as they plummeted into an atmosphere, roaring at many thousands of kilometers an hour.

Obi Wan Kenobi's mind tightened, sharpening like a laser beam on the tasks at hand. His mind gripped the container's lid, holding it against the onslaught of air and friction. He could feel the burning air frying the outside of the container, threatening to slowly bake both men alive.

The Jedi began to focus on the more trying task...slowing them down before they either exploded from the stress or flattened themselves on the surface.

The container was growing hot. Despite the intense mental focus to hold their makeshift escape pod intact, Obi Wan became aware of a dull, hazy orange light in the inches between his face and the king's. Metratis' eyes twinkled through beads of heavy, panicked sweat as he looked up at the container lid's seal and saw the glowing red line there. Just inches away, a screaming inferno was ripping at the container's hull like demons lusting to yank them out into infinity and instant death.
His eyes were pulled to Obi Wan's dripping face. Obi Wan's eyes snapped open and looked back at the king, grinning. "So far so good."
Matratis simply gaped. In the tempest of his terrified mind arose the impossible thought, he's keeping us from burning alive with his mind!
Obi Wan's eyes were closed again. His forehead bunched and knotted with strain.

***
A six legged snave creeped up the shear grey rock with a halting, careful motion, its leathery head pointing arrow straight at its prey on the branch above. A triple forked tongue whipped from side to side, the snave's tiny brain buzzing with hungry anticipation. Long, clawed fingers gripped the rock so tightly that tiny fragments crumbled loose and fell silently to the shelf floor 1000 feet below.
On the branch above...so very close to the snave's slathering jaws...a ekoppi bird clucked and twittered in its nest, oblivious to the danger just below.
Now the snave's snout was close enough...the triple tongues slowly reached out...carefully...carefully.
The ekoppi bird suddenly stilled in its nest. Something wasn't right....
The snave's rotting breath was hidden in the high-step breeze, and rows of razor sharp teeth flashed wide under the ekoppi. The predator's eyes rolled back, savoring the imminent meal.
Suddenly an immense CRACK split the sky in two. The ekoppi shot into the air, and the stunned snave lost its grip on the rock face. As it cartwheeled backward through open air, dropping to the shelf floor in the dense mists below, one shocked eye spun into the blue/pink nebulous sky.
A fiery trail was drawing a line there, cleanly cutting the world in two as something plummeted toward the planet surface.

***
"Well, welcome to what is apparently the planet Ocheron, Your Majesty."

Obi Wan fiddled with his contax, reading everything his miniature computer had to say about the planet.

Matratis was sitting on rock. He was dripping wet, his clothing ripped in places, but otherwise the king was none the worse for wear. His face was ruddy and distressed, the moustache which was usually fidgeting was now still as he eyed the charred husk of the gourmet food container that had saved both of their lives. It was a blackened husk on the outside, but through the power of the Force, Obi Wan had not only held it together through planetary re-entry but had somehow managed to put them down in a small lake.

The hull of the container still smoked.

"Well, this isn't too bad, really, Your Majesty," Obi Wan remarked, staring at the screen of the contax, "This is an independent mining planet. Should be no problem finding a transport off-planet and back on our way to Alderaan."

When Metratis didn't answer, Obi Wan looked up. The king was eyeing Obi Wan like a strange creature he'd never laid eyes on before.

"That was....you just....I...I don't..." Metratis looked at his bare feet in the sand. He looked again at the husk of the cargo container. My God. He did that with his mind! "Obi Wan," the King's voice lowered, heavy with sudden, immense respect, "Thank you."

Obi Wan grinned as if he'd just won a hand of sabaac. "Your Majesty, I only did what you hired me to do, after all."

"I think I owe you a new pair of boots, my friend."

The Force pulled at the young Jedi's mind and Obi Wan's eyes took in the horizon at the end of the wide lake. In the mist and churning clouds, a tiny speck was growing. A shuttle of some kind. Obi Wan and the king had been spotted.

"Speaking of doing my job, Your Majesty..." Obi Wan pulled the black travelling cloak around his shoulders and stepped the water's edge, never taking his eyes from the quickly growing dark spot. Faintly over the heavy air and rolling water, he could hear the shuttle's engines.

Obi Wan prepared himself to be the humble beggar in need, absently brushing his fingers along the cold, machined metal of the lightsaber hidden in the black folds of his cloak.

NEXT: CHAPTER 3: ENTER THE SHADOW