Author: Flora Stuart
Recipient: StarsGoBlue
Rating: PG-13
Fandoms: Star Wars, Farscape
Summary: He is a Jedi Master, even if he is the last of his kind.
Yoda wakes surrounded by gold; gold light, gold walls, gold lattice across the door of a small room, and the glimmering sense of a living presence. Something aware hovers at the edges of his consciousness, a being whose location he cannot pinpoint, unless she is in the walls. He has no idea where he is.
He remembers a surge of vast power even he could not deflect, out beyond the Outer Rim planets. Light, swirling and blue, all around him, and when it faded all the stars were strange.
Less than ten minutes, but it had shaken him, and shorted out half the systems on his ship. Else he would have seen the approaching spacecraft that shot out his engines.
"Ah! You're awake!" The only other being in this cell is shorter than Yoda, and he waddles over on legs that look too short for his broad body. "They brought you in last night. Said they captured you on an unregistered vessel."
Reports of Imperial warships approaching had spurred him to flee his latest refuge, but whatever this ship is, it is no Imperial cruiser. He looks around warily. "A prisoner here, am I?"
The creature nods. "Trespassing. That, and you're an unclassified species. The guards who brought you in were all in full quarantine gear." His tufted earbrows droop over wide gray eyes, in what might be a sympathetic expression. "They're going to torture you. You're an object of scientific curiosity, you see."
He wonders who "they" are; he can sense no presence of the Dark Side here. But there are other dangers in this galaxy, and he is far from a safe refuge. They have taken his lightsaber. "Electric shocks, heat, plain old-fashioned knives," his cellmate elaborates. "Peacekeepers can be very inventive with knives."
"Peacekeepers?" The name is unfamiliar, but the Imperial newsvids on the last planet he visited told how the Senate had begun renaming many government agencies, even branches of the military.
"Giant, long-limbed, clumsy creatures. No fashion sense and no sense of humor. Xenophobic lot, too."
Names, Yoda thinks, can be deceptive. The new titles were far more grandiose and far less informative than the old, and only served to try to distract observers from more substantial changes in their functions and operating procedures.
"If you survive all that, they'll forget about you, and you'll eventually die of boredom. That's assuming the horrid food doesn't kill you first." He sounds almost cheerful, and Yoda guesses he has been without anyone to talk to for a long time. "You laugh now, but I assure you, it's a very real danger."
Palpatine rose to power on a promise of peace. All is still and peaceful under the iron grip of martial law. If these Peacekeepers are not the new Emperor's allies, they serve the same darkness, whether they know it or not.
"A name, you have?" he asks, after a pause. "Here for a reason, you must be, hmmmm? Committed you what crime, hmmm?"
Tufted earbrows go up in an indignant gesture. "What crime?" He has clearly struck a nerve. "I don't believe you grasp what an important individual you are addressing."
Yoda's head tilts. "Grasp? Not I."
"I am Rygel the Sixteenth, Dominar of the Hynerian Empire." He pauses, graciously allowing Yoda an opportunity to appear properly astounded, and looks a bit put out when Yoda simply waits, patiently, for further information. "Ruler of over six billion subjects, spread across vast areas of space!"
"One of those areas, this sector clearly is not," Yoda observes dryly, hiding his first twinge of doubt. Six billion such creatures could not have held an empire anywhere close to Republic space in the last eight hundred years, without his knowledge. Either this creature exaggerates wildly, or his ship has been thrown farther off course than he had guessed. "Rule yourself you do not, here."
"These people have no respect for someone of my superior stature and rank!" Yoda simply cocks an ear, eyes flicking from the diminutive Hynerian to the tall guard at the cell door. Rygel huffs indignantly. "If I had my throne-sled in here, I could look down on all of them!"
Yoda crosses his legs, resting clawed hands on his knees. So very easy, it would be, to levitate himself to the ceiling without technological assistance, but such showing off is unworthy of a Jedi. It is the sort of trick a ten-year-old padawan would pull, and he should not be tempted. The thought of the look on this pompous creature's face amuses him far more than it should.
Lifting large objects is of little value in his present situation. The things he needs to manipulate are small, wires and circuits and tiny threads of electrical charge, woven together to make the cell's locking mechanism. He closes his eyes, breathing deep in meditation, focusing past his own growing unease. He is a Jedi Master, even if he is the last of his kind, and no newly trained knight on his first mission, to let fear distract him from the task at hand.
Whatever distance he has traveled, however unfamiliar his surroundings, he will find his way back. He exhales slowly, ignoring Rygel's huff of wounded pride. The idea that Yoda might find satisfaction in contemplating other matters besides his august cellmate clearly offends him deeply.
A day passes, then another, but no one comes for him. Perhaps they are busy with other prisoners; perhaps Rygel exaggerated his initial warnings.
The Dominar hadn't exaggerated about the quality of their rations. Munching on a sour-tasting green cube, Yoda closes his eyes. The presence he felt on waking is still here, harder to ignore as he focuses on the door. The lock is not complex, but it is different from any he has seen before. Some time passes before he realizes why.
"Alive, this ship is." That explains the presence around him he's been unable to pin down. A presence great and gentle, alive but - restrained, somehow. A sentient, organic being, held in place by the equivalent of a droid's restraining bolt.
"She's a Leviathan," Rygel says, as if that should mean something. Yoda's ears go up, questioning. "A living ship. Not terribly intelligent, but they make good cargo haulers."
"Intelligent she is," Yoda corrects, spreading one hand on the floor, feeling warmth soaking through golden deckplates. "Enslaved. In pain. A prisoner she is, as well."
"Are you some kind of priest, like the Delvian?" Rygel looks skeptical. "How do you know that?"
"If spiritual wisdom you had, understand you would the beauty of silence."
"Tell that to the blue bitch down the hall. Haven't you heard her? Every night, around the end of third watch, she starts chanting."
"Chanting now, she is." He can feel the nexus of power gathering around her, recognizes the signature of one capable of feeling and moving unseen energies. Some species use words of ritual to focus their inner feelings; most Jedi have moved past such a stage by the time they become knights. The words are not the power, nor do they call the power. They merely focus the mind.
Hers is not a discipline he has encountered before; they could learn much from each other, he senses.
The creature looks impressed. "Those big ears aren't just for decoration."
Yoda considers pointing out that as a Jedi, he has moved beyond reliance on physical senses to focus on changes in the Force. His ears impart far less useful information, such as the inane chatter of this creature. Still, he puts on a show of listening, sensing that Rygel has been alone for a long time. But his thoughts are elsewhere.
If he ever finds his way to where he is going, he will likely be without sentient company for many years as well. As a Jedi, he is trained to sense the life energies of all beings, sentient or not. He will never be alone in the dense swampland ecosystem of the planet he has chosen, saturated as it is with the presence of the Force.
But he will miss having students to train, young piping voices of padawans running in the Temple halls.
This - this ship, these stars, even his overly talkative cellmate - all these are more novel than anything he has seen in the last two hundred years. A being his age rarely finds himself surrounded entirely by new thoughts, new ideas, new lessons. New enemies, if what little information he has gleaned about his captors is correct. There could be much to teach here, and much to learn, as well.
Yoda strokes one hand along the deck, letting the ship's energy wash over him. He could stay here. She is a gentle presence, humming constantly in his subconscious. Yoda had been on the run for nearly two years since the fall of the Republic, spending most of his time on small ships between barren, uncharted worlds, one hyperspace jump ahead of Imperial warships.
He has never liked space travel, for the Force is elusive to grasp surrounded by hard vacuum. But the background hum of her life is nearly as strong as his native swampland.
The lock will not be difficult to open; finding an escape craft may be harder. Normally, he would sense other life forms in so small a space, but the energy, the sheer presence of the ship itself blocks all but the faintest buzzings of her passengers on the upper tiers. Impossible to tell how many guards are on board, or where they are stationed.
Afterwards - he does not doubt his own ability to navigate back to his home stars, given enough time. Nine hundred years have taught him the value of patience.
Obi-Wan will have reached Tatooine by now, will be anxious to hear from him. Yoda's eyes open to see Rygel, slumped on his bunk, snoring softly. He wishes he could free this ship, but that must be a task for others. He has another duty, to wait for the darkness over his own galaxy to lift, and watch over what slim hopes their Order has left. It would be easy, too easy, to admit that the Sith have won. But a Jedi Master does not give in to despair.
He reaches for the inner workings of the lock, feels it slide open with a click before slipping out the door.
When Rygel wakes, the strange creature is gone.
The guards will question him; he knows that. But he can tell them nothing. He knows nothing, as a cursory examination of the cell's security cameras will tell. The interrogation will be merely for show, to intimidate him enough to ensure he won't get any ideas about escaping himself.
Rygel has been intimidated by experts. Captain Crais has never taken enough interest in his royal prisoner to bother to interrogate him personally, and he will hardly change his mind now. He will send lackeys to do it instead. Once, Rygel would have found this insulting, but an intimate acquaintance with Durka has taught him it can be better to be overlooked. Durka was a connoisseur of pain; whatever makes Crais so interested in this Leviathan has nothing to do with its passengers.
Still, he silently curses his erstwhile cellmate. For nearly ten cycles, now, he has had a relatively easy captivity - compared to torments he has endured before. He tells himself he can endure whatever might come next, but he watches the guards patrol with a new sense of dread.
Yoda found a way to escape, he reminds himself. And if a mystical alien who talks backwards can find a way out of this cell, surely a Dominar can find a way. If Yoda was right about the ship's sentience ...
This ship wants to escape.
He just needs to find a way to contact the Pilot. Stomachs rumbling, he leans back on his bunk, shoving aside old fears. A cunning plan begins to come together in the back of his mind ...