UNFRIENDLY FACES

Doctor Modarr was alone now. Fedarish’s funeral was over and she was the
only one with the secret of the young Jedi girl’s location. She was staring
at the tube that held the girl’s body and the box containing the personal
effects of Tam Chronin, Jedi Padawan. "Start recording: I am Doctor
Modarr, one of the team of scientists responsible for the condition of the
young Jedi you see before you. We were attempting to perfect a long-term
stasis chamber for terminal patients whose ailments may be treated with
breakthroughs not yet made. Our focus was to alter the time sense of those
patients to the point where a year would seem like only a week subjective
time and reduce psychosis associated with other methods of induced stasis.
The first experiment with a sentient being was sabotaged, but we managed to
sneak the subject out before the laboratory was destroyed. All the notes I
could gather are included, as well as a recording of what happened when we
attempted to place the subject in stasis. In the years that have passed
Doctor Fedarish and I have attempted to keep her safe and discover why she
was targeted for death. It at first appeared to be a matter of revenge by a
corrupt senator, but I fear I have uncovered something more that she may or
may not have known about. I am on my way to tell the Jedi Council as we
perhaps should have in the first place, but for some reason Doctor Fedarish
was hesitant to approach them. Now that he is dead I feel I must make my
own decisions; that is why I am taking this step now. I hope it is one of
the members of the Council that hears this next, but if anything goes wrong
I must trust whoever stumbles across this to go to them for me.
"Her name is Tam Chronin, and from what I have been able to learn she was
Master Yoda’s Padawan, or apprentice. Her daughter, Cshanil Chronin-Rees,
has been taken in by the Jedi as an apprentice also; the Force seems to be
strong in their family. I am afraid her daughter will never know her
though, because of the injuries sustained by Tam. If Tam is removed from
stasis within the next century she will die. I was amazed to note that she
is able to heal herself with her Jedi powers while in stasis, but it is
taking quite some time. Her injuries would have been fatal to anyone
without her training I am sure; given time I hope she would recover if given
the proper medical treatment. My estimates of a century may be
conservative, but the longer she has to recover the better her chances will
be.
"The other files have more detailed information. I hope that you, whoever
finds this, will put the information contained here to good use. Good luck,
and may the Force be with you."
Doctor Modarr closed the secret lab down with a heavy heart, never
expecting to be back. She took one last look at the young lady in the
stasis tube and sighed. Tam’s clothes were burned, the flesh beneath was
barely better than the day of the experiment. Her expression was peaceful
and her skin looked somehow younger than that fateful day. There were no
lines on her face, they had all been smoothed out over time, which was why
she looked younger. The clothes weren’t hers, so that wasn’t a problem.
She should have something to wear in a century or so. In fact the only
personal effect that was on her was a strange necklace. Modarr looked
closer and noted that it had an alien recording device, probably for
sentiments given by the one who gave it. Looking closer she noted that it
hadn’t been damaged and smiled. Maybe it was from the father of Tam’s
child, given as a keepsake from one lover to another. With a melancholy
smile she turned away and shut down the lights.

Coruscant was constantly changing, but it was always the same. That is,
progress left its mark but after a certain point it couldn’t change the fact
that the entire planet was a massive city and there wasn’t much room for
growth. Atmosphere could only contain so many levels, gravity could only be
battled so high, and there wasn’t much land left to be built on. Modarr
looked around and remembered a building here and there that had vanished for
the benefit of a newer and better style, but the major landmarks were the
same. The Senate Chambers still stood as tall as ever, the Jedi Temple was
still over there, and her favorite restaurant was still in business. She
decided to stop there first, as she always had when she landed on Coruscant.
It would settle her nerves and give her more of a chance to go over what
she was going to say. As she walked in she ran into one of her informants
and he offered to buy her dinner. They sat down in a secluded booth and
began to talk.
"I had hoped you would come here. I have more information on our dark
stranger."
"The one who shot the Jedi? Or the shadowy figure masterminding
everything?"
"Both. It seems they may be one and the same. I can’t tell you any more
here, let’s eat and then you must come with me."
"I had something else I was going to do first. Can it wait?"
"No. The only reason it can wait while we eat is I don’t want to look
suspicious. I really can’t say any more about this here. You’ll just have
to trust me."
The rest of the meal was tense; Modarr barely tasted her food as it went
down. Her friend looked nervous and on edge, and he kept looking over his
shoulder. When they finished they went to a nice neighborhood and walked up
to the apartments of a man everybody knew. The door opened and they walked
quickly into the sitting room. "I’m sorry Doctor." Her friend edged away
from her and as a figure in a dark cloak approached he quickly left the
room.
"What’s going on around here?" Modarr was confused and frightened, there
was something going on that she had no idea how to handle.
The shadowy figure spoke in a soft voice, quietly but clearly. "You have
touched upon things you should never have looked into. I’m afraid I can not
allow you to report to the Jedi about this matter."
"You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?"
"Yes. It can’t be helped at this point, if you continue you will know too
much and I can’t let that happen. I gave you the chance to quit when your
friend died, but you have clearly been doing more searching since then. Why
did you disappear after the funeral?"
She didn’t answer, but she couldn’t help herself from thinking Tam’s name
and seeing her face as she had last seen it.
"Tam Chronin still lives? How can that be? Ah, the stasis chamber did
work… and she still has the necklace. Where is she hidden?"
"NO! I will not let you find that out!" Modarr charged at the figure, the
only thought on her mind was of killing him. He held out a hand and she
stopped against some sort of invisible wall. Her eyes widened and her
foremost thought was of the rumors of dark Jedi she had heard of. Fear
overcame her and she almost ran, but there was nowhere to run to. She
pulled out the small blaster she kept for emergencies, but it was soon
flying across the room. She was running out of hope of saving the driving
force behind all her actions for the past few years.
"Give up trying to resist me. I will find out what I want to know."
"I have found what I need to know, dark Jedi, and I’ll never give you the
satisfaction."
"You have no idea what you have, and I will find what I need. You’re
pathetic, Doctor, if you think you have anything on me. I am stronger than
you. I—"
Something clicked in her mind, something from legend she had uncovered in
her research. As she thought the name the figure stopped, enraged. "I do
have the knowledge you don’t want me to have. I have the key, you filthy
Sith scum."
She felt her throat constrict as the dark figure’s control slipped. She
knew she should regret that she would never be able to tell the Jedi this
important secret, but as she died she only felt satisfaction that the other
secret died with her. Tam Chronin was safe from the Sith.

Tam knew that something bad was happening in the world outside. Visions of
her friends calling her haunted her stronger thoughts. They were dead, part
of her knew, and now they were one with the force, but it couldn’t be. Not
enough time had passed for her parents to die of old age. Or her daughter.
Or her daughter’s children. Every day her memories were interrupted by
another death, and it just didn’t seem right. Finally she had some peace,
but the memory she had to relive wasn’t peaceful at all.
Tam stood before the rising sun as it shone in Voron’s window. Master
Janak Torai would know as soon as she stepped out of the room what had
happened. Tam had endangered both of them by her actions, she was supposed
to be protecting his life, not dallying and allowing herself to be
distracted. Voron stirred, reaching across the bed behind her. When he
discovered that his arms were still empty he sat up, searching. Quietly he
walked over and put his arms around her, comforting her and trying to
reassure her without words.
"It’s no good. I have failed in my duties. I failed to maintain control."
"I’m here, you saved my life and I was in no danger after we went to bed.
Don’t do this to yourself, it will kill me if you regret what we shared last
night."
Her eyes were still sad when she turned to him. "I don’t regret it, and
now I have a conflict with my heart and with what I have been taught all
these years."
"Come over here. I love you and I can’t stand to see this conflict in you.
You’re going to leave, aren’t you?"
"Hey, I thought I was the mind reader here." She offered a half smile
followed by a resigned shrug. "I have to leave. Master Janak will do a
better job without me; I’ll be too distracted and emotionally involved. I
wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I failed because I’m in love with
you."
"Will I see you again?"
"Yes. I won’t let anyone keep us apart, but it will take some time. I
don’t know when we will be together again."
"Then I want you to have this. It’s a token of my trust in you, my father
gave me this necklace years ago and I want you to keep it with you always
until we see each other again. Keep it safe and keep it secret, it’s
special."
"It looks recordable, is it?"
"Yes, but I’m not sure how to retrieve the message that’s on it. My dad
said he would tell me the secret when I need to know, so that’s why it’s a
trust." He smiled and gave her a hug. "In other words, I’d better see you
again."
Tam attributed the feeling of dread at his words to the doubts she had of
trying to talk her way out of trouble with Master Yoda. No matter how she
looked at the situation her studies were about to be interrupted and he
wouldn’t be happy about someone with her talent and promise losing any time
in studying at this point in training.
They both slept some more, and then gathered their courage to leave his
room. As luck would have it Senator Rees was walking past as the door
opened. Anger projected from him in waves, and the situation only got worse
from there. Rees was from a very conservative planet, in their culture Tam
and Voron had dishonored his home. Master Janak did her best to smooth over
the situation, but Tam had made an enemy for life in that instant.
The situation may have improved over time, but two things happened that
locked the hatred forever. While Senator Rees was conducting business a few
days later their home was blown up with his wife, Voron, Master Janak and
the house servants inside. There were no survivors. Voron’s last words
were recorded by his father; it was a statement that he would marry Tam one
day even if his family disowned him.
The other thing was that Tam discovered that she was pregnant, and the only
one who could have been the father was Voron.
There were no more attempts on the Senator’s life after the loss of his
wife and only child. He refused further aid from the Jedi, claiming they
were worse than useless. Tam did what she could to deal with the situation,
but Senator Rees began to seek custody the moment Cshanil was born. By the
time his granddaughter was two standard years old Tam had run out of
defenses. Then Tam wound up in stasis.
Stasis would have been better if she didn’t have so many interruptions in
her recollections. This time Master Yoda himself came to her. He was
surprised to find her, he had looked for years. That wasn’t possible, she
hadn’t been here for years. She asked why there had been a sudden chorus of
screams a few weeks ago; it was too fast to understand what had happened.
The Empire had blown up Alderaan a few years ago. He told her he had died
of old age, had become one with the force. Nonsense. He had at least a
good century and a half left to him, he was only seven hundred and
something. No, he was nine hundred, and in hiding from the Empire on a
swamp of all places. What Empire, she asked, I don’t remember an Empire.
There was silence; he wasn’t there anymore to answer her questions. Just
another dream, another side effect of the stasis. Tam slipped back into
darkness without being aware of the transition. There were other, less
important flickers within her awareness, hints of an impossible length of
time passing. Then there came another intrusion on her disjointed
awareness. She felt a strong sense of many presences becoming aware of her
and quickly coming to her. In what seemed to be a great rush there were
three people around her who were more powerful in the force than she knew
any being could be. One last time her awareness was cut off in the cycle
that had preserved her sanity, then she felt again the great pressure on her
chest followed by greater pain. Tam inhaled to let out a scream, and then
numbness quickly superceded that necessity.

--tbc--
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