[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Covalent Bonds

Chapter 16

Yoda's quarters smelled as they always did when he was not cooking a meal that only he and Master Yaddle could call tasty.

The rooms reeked of an unknown incense and of a friable kind of soil, damp and fertile. Obi-Wan and Anakin seated themselves comfortably on the sandstone floor in meditative positions. Yoda sat on a rolled shape of material that gave slightly with his weight. To Obi-Wan, it looked like one of those new-fangled pneumatic sofas, though why Yoda would want a piece of furniture running nearly the entire length of his common room baffled him. Who could Master Yoda invite comfortably here to a party of his? Master Yaddle, of course, and Master Piell and Master Rancisis if he wanted to slither in here and naturally some Initiates on the small side, like Liam ...

"What know you of the Great Hunt?"

Obi-Wan had to think. Jedi History class had been so long ago: weekly 'lightsaber drills' with little hands clasped palm-to-palm or palp-to-palp or claw-to-claw over their heads, eyes closed, waiting for the prompt. It came, spoken in Master Yoda's garbled way, followed by a pregnant pause, then ... "Begin!" Down came the hands or feelers or paws to scroll through datapads, which they sometimes dropped in nervous tension. Then the Initiate who answered the question correctly would receive a treat of their choosing. Obi-Wan had won only once, and not for this question.

"It was for terentateks, Master," Anakin answered confidently. "It took place with limited success over some years about four millenia ago."

Terentateks are, um ... Obi-Wan remained in the dark, though he was pleased that the after-dinner tutoring in Jedi history until Anakin had grown too big to sit on his knee had made an impression. He applied an earnest listening cant to his features and wracked his memory.

"Forged by the Sith or naturally occurring on Korriban, these creatures are Jedi killers, mmmm, yes. A noble effort, the Great Hunt was and many Jedi perished in the attempt to eradicate the monsters. Tragic tales of the times, tragic tales --- "

Obi-Wan took a deep breath and spouted, "Terentateks are beasts similar to rancors, most likely native to Korriban, although they are also found on Onderon, Tython, Yavin-4, Tatooine and lately have been spotted on Kashyyyk. They make it their business to hunt Jedi, so we decided to hunt them." He smiled a ferocious smile that Anakin had never seen on him. "They are warped physically and mentally by the Dark Side on whatever planet they are on when the Dark Side grows in power, such as it did up to the point when Sidious died" --- Anakin firmed his lips --- "and to a lesser extent even now, with Count Dooku's continued presence besmirching the galaxy. One tragic part of the Great Hunt so long ago occurred on Korriban when one sortie consisting of Nuur, Qel-Droma and Saresh, puissant Knights all, failed despite their magnified powers of connection to each other and to the Force. They had a falling out over a r-romantic attachment between Qel-Droma and Nuur and when Knight Saresh abandoned their group in protest, each one succumbed separately to a terentatek. But even more tragically, Nuur Fell to the Dark Side through grief after her lover's skills failed him and a terentatek won their encounter. She, Qel-Droma and Saresh were devoured by the beasts and it was only many years later when Revan found their effects and some bones and pieced together their story that the Jedi learned what happened and if you've heard of a new sighting of the kriffing things then I would like to volunteer for any --- " Where did that knowledge spring from and did I really say 'kriffing' to Master Yoda?

The silence rivaled the pause after Master Yoda's long-ago prompt. Anakin and Yoda stared until Obi-Wan raised his head in self-respect and added, "I've monopolized. Please go on."

"Hmmmmmph. As beasts go, terentateks' tough skin and back spines protect them from predation, yet win many times, we did, and brought back their foul remains to study." Yoda rose to his feet, planted them and his cane firmly. "But mention, neither of you did, the main feature of terentateks and the reason why we hunted them." Obi-Wan and Anakin looked at each other like younglings caught out from lack of study. Yoda sighed. "Immune to the effects of the Force, they are." He gestured to his former seat. "Help me unroll this, Master and Padawan." He stood with one hand on an end of what now looked like not a blow-up sofa but a carpet, aged enough to be considered an ancient Jedi artifact. To Anakin, the whole thing looked like something he recalled dimly from Gardulla's opulent quarters. Terentatek leather in it, I'm assuming. Our aesthetic sense has changed in the past four millenia. He exchanged a glance with Obi-Wan. And for the better.

I did not notice that ridge running its length. Was he clouding our minds? Obi-Wan handled the middle and as Anakin maneuvered the far end, Yoda began to unfurl a large carpet, unusual in design with strips of thick nubbled leather alternating with worn lengths of a tough napped fabric. As the length unrolled to cover a large amount of the common room, Obi-Wan sensed nothing from the expanse of the artifact, but then he would not have if it had been innocuous septsilk. He had his mouth open to query Yoda about the meaning of their efforts this morning when dyspepsia slammed him fast and hard, as if the most noxious cooking smells from these quarters and the effects of his very worst allergies nauseated him at once. A last flip of the carpet revealed a small Sith holocron. An unshielded Sith holocron.

Already bent nearly double in the small quarters, Anakin dropped to his hands and knees. The sickmaking sense of surety about Padmé's affair hit him all over again, the galaxy flipped and he raised a hand helplessly to his lips, gagging. Yoda himself swayed a moment before calling a box to his claws and clapping the holocron into it. "Demonstration of these artifacts' power, this meeting was for. More effective than hologram or flimsi with diagrams, was it not?" From down the hallway clattered booted steps, one firm knock came and then a Knight whom Obi-Wan did not recognize burst into the room, lightsaber at the ready. The human's pale hair floated cloud-like about him as he swirled to defend his Grandmaster. Swift glances revealed nothing amiss.

"Master Yoda? I, I was down the hall and sensed a disturbance in the Force, a sickness --- " The Knight still held himself in the Ataro mode, Obi-Wan noticed, altogether a fine exhibition of form and purpose. Obi-Wan's chest swelled.

"Yes, yes, an experiment we had this day, Knight Jennir. Commended, you are, for your readiness." Yoda made a small pass with his hand, and Jennir's gaze that had fallen to the carpet focused only on the ancient Master. "This item, return to Madame Nu. And stay away from Initiates' Hall and the nursery. More sensitive than we, younglings are." The Knight took the deceptively small box and left, leaving the scent of ozone in the air from his lightsaber. Obi-Wan preferred it to almost anything else.

The carpet in place, Yoda planted himself nonchalantly in its middle. "Examine it closely." Obi-Wan and Anakin did, lifting one edge to study the two-decimeter-wide alternating strips of terentatek leather and fabric. The fabric's dull green complemented the darker green of the leather. There was a plain binding of that same leather around the whole artifact, cracked in only a few places. Anakin wondered at the Jedi who had perished by this beast's talons, crushed by its mandibles while it speared future meals on its hideous back-spines. If they were fortunate, they died quickly, otherwise they would live to hear their fellows' shrieks while waiting for their own demise. He dredged up more information from those almost-forgotten lessons. If he thought hard enough, he remembered his small hands gripping a beige-covered knee while the shin bounced him as a mellifluous voice said, A Force-choke could be used effectively against terentateks, if the Knight were quick-thinking enough and not too badly wounded. Bile rose in his throat. Obi-Wan hasn't taught me that yet, but he'd never let me become a Knight without knowing all that he knows. It must be one of the last lessons given to Padawans. He shivered without knowing why and put the matter out of his thoughts.

"Made this in the spirit of triumph in an age of more unbridled emotions, our crafters did and it lay in the refectory's lounge area for two centuries, I am told. Few efforts were made to archive it, Madame Nu has informed me, it serving as an example to remind upcoming Jedi that the Dark Side can be defeated and turned to dross. What think you of this item?"

Anakin swallowed and cleared his throat as he looked around the room. "Perhaps if you changed the color scheme of your glowglobes, Master --- "

"Padawan, decorating advice at my age I do not solicit. Master Kenobi, what do you say?"

Obi-Wan considered. His loquacity from earlier had deserted him. "A ... shield? Camouflage for a device or a person to engage a Darksider, a source of confusion to them ... Master?"

"Stay on target. Person ... or persons could fit inside this roll?"

"Perhaps two humans, or three Dagobans," Obi-Wan chanced. He recalled how enamored Master Yoda was of that planet and shocked himself by suggesting by merest nuance that Master Yoda was Dagoban. I am bolder than before. What is happening to me?

"Dagoban, Master Yaddle and I are not." Pry, they do, even the Masters.

Obi-Wan lowered his head. "I beg pardon. Two humans, three Lannik, one Praci if it could solidify enough not to be absorbed by the fabric --- "

Yoda's bent gait became a waddle as he strode back and forth on the carpet in question. He stepped first on the leather strips horizontally, then the fabric strips for a full five minutes before continuing. "Feed on the blood of Force-sensitives, terentatek did and still do, though their numbers are lessened. Said to produce a near-rapture when this artifact is utilized by a follower of the Dark Side. A great treasure this would be to one who hates all that we are. Feed on our lifeblood, such a follower would."

"Surely a metaphor, Master." A metaphor, of course it is, Obi-Wan. You do state the obvious at times. Obi-Wan harrumphed and smoothed his already-smooth tabards.

Sounding board for the ages, Master Obi-Wan is. Clarify one's thoughts by voicing common knowledge. "Yes. Metaphor only. Onward, younglings. One who treasures dark things would pay any price for this, do you agree?"

"Within its resources, yes. But, Master Yoda, we cannot be so pressed for funds as to sell this artifact, though I realize the war is draining the Republic's coffers --- "

"Not speaking of selling for profit, only for gain." Puzzle this out, they should be able to.

"Gain? Excuse me, Masters, but this sounds like one of Watto's schemes to undersell or cheat or something. I've eavesdropped on enough of his meetings to recognize wheeling and dealing. The Jedi have this thing, and if someone else gets it by hook or by crook, it will be to Jedi advantage. Am I right?" 'Profit' implied credits, 'gain' may mean non-monetary advancement. Like grooming a customer, though Watto sometimes called them 'marks.'

"Let us consider logistics, Padawan. This artifact may be used as subterfuge, in that it may be bugged? imbued with a toxin or those damaging nanobots that Master Koon is studying? Master Yoda, give us a clue, please."

Yoda studied the two attentive faces, one as eager as the other. Together, they are, and yet not. Their flame has dimmed. He dropped to the floor beside them. "Let me tell you of a Padawan named Dooku, who came to me after he was no longer a Junior Padawan. Master Cerulian taught him the heart of being Jedi, I thought, and so on swordsmanship, I concentrated when took over his training, I did. A fine Padawan he was, a fine Padawan." His ears drooped. "Later in life, his heart turned cold and sad I was that I had taught him swordsmanship, for cut me deeply, he has."

That same morning ...

"Crystals, the most stable of structures, Milord Dooku." Grievous had to speak quickly and succinctly, because Dooku had a limited attention span when it came to materials science. "Droids made from crystallites could resist blaster bolts more effectively than our duralloy droids."

"How so?" Dooku fingered his family crest ring, waiting its vibrating signal that the latest JediNow auction had ended. He had bid today on items not entirely up to his standards and feared that his interest had saturated the market with hastily-produced, inferior product. Trying to lure Honest1 into becoming jaded. I'll quit collecting before I allow my taste to be tainted by boredom. He pulled his attention back to the conversation, stating what he remembered from classes over a half-century ago. "Almost all metal exists in a polycrystalline state. Surely you are not suggesting producing single-crystal metals. The cost and time alone are prohibitive. And how would we animate them?"

Patience. "Of course not, Milord. I am speaking of multiple-jointed droids made of crystallites, formed by covalent bonds such as are in silica. Such a droid would immediately reform around blaster bolts and lightsaber strikes. Their integrity would be secure, because any force applied against them could not disable them."

"What would power these droids?" Hurry up. I sense it's nearly time.

"Since they are made of small crystallites, piezoelectricity generated by the pressure of their footfalls powers their internal mechanisms. If the material is not short-circuited, the applied charge induces a voltage across the crystallites for powering purposes."

"And to initialize this piezoelectricity?"

"One large push to get them started. It can be applied in the factory. They will be self-powering after that, due to cells inside them." He's doing better than I surmised.

"Crystallites being small crystals, how are they grown?"

"By seed crystals in a molten bath of feeder material, with later application of the epitaxy process to form a new layer" --- his eyes are glazing over, need to summarize --- "and since they are essentially one large computer chip, their capacity for programming is phenomenal." Show me you are half as far-sighted as Milord Sidious and approve this.

Seize upon a familiar term and expound upon it when the rest is gobbletygook, Lesson Number Eight in How To Deal With Techhead Underlings. "Feeder material. Is this material common or would it need to be purchased?"

"It's sand, Milord."

"There's certainly plenty of that in the galaxy. And you will program them to your standards? I shall continue to form tactics and will apprise you of any specialized ability to program into them, but you have the expertise in schematics, a natural ability, I may add." He does have a use. I chose him over Durge and Ventress as military leader. A stray thought struck him. "Crystallites would perhaps form rainbows, would they not, in certain weather conditions?"

"Given their ability to refract, yes --- " a possible diversion for any organics, good thinking, Milord, a first --- "so a blurring of their outline may occur, another reason to favor crystalline droids over metallic, Milord."

I shall be making art, rather than purchasing it. Dooku's smile was thin. It puzzled Grievous. "Very well. I approve an immediate conversion to this process. Raid any source, any world you need for the feeder material."

He jumped a little. His ring must have gone off. "As you wish." Grievous took his leave as Dooku activated his comm station and ignored him.

TBC

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter