Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [73]
But if he moved too soon he could get turned into fer-tilizer, and if there was one thing this planet didn’t need, it was more fertilizer. Not to mention how much he didn’t need it.
No, he would just have to stick it out. Find another story to justify his being here.
Maybe something with Phow Ji, that fighter who’d slaughtered the mercenar-ies? It wouldn’t be too comfortable having him irritated at you, either, but at least Den could get some protec-tion from the higher-ups, Ji being only a lieutenant. Yeah. That would keep the pot boiling long enough for him to eventually jet this swamp world. Once he was on the other side of the Core, then he could bring low the mighty Admiral Bleyd for his audience.
Black Market Admiral Revealed! Associate in crime dies mysteriously!
Den smiled. He did love a thrilling headline.
He took a bigger sip of his drink. Problem raised, problem solved. Another victory for crack reporter Den Dhur, speaking to you live from the Jasserak Front in the Clone Wars...
26
There were times, during her meditations, when Barriss slipped from her concentration, drifted from being-in-the-moment and into memory. In earlier years, she had never been sure whether this was a good thing or not; then she had learned to simply accept that it was what it was. True, it was not conducive to the purpose of achiev-ing a clear mind, but sometimes the past offered insight into the present; therefore sometimes she went with it.
And so it was tonight. Because she was still troubled by the strong feelings she’d had during the fight with Phow Ji the night before, when the memory arose un-bidden she let it take her where it would...
It had been a sunny but cool morning on Coruscant. No rain was due in this sector for another day, and the slidewalk leading to the park was busy, but not too crowded, as she and Master Unduli reached the desig-nated greenbelt. The other beings also on their way to the large patch of nature represented an amazing vari-ety of sentients: Nikto, Phindians, Zeltrons, Wookiees, Twi’leks... a fascinating glimpse of the galaxy’s infinite diversity, all headed for Oa Park. There was much ferro-crete and metal on this world-some said too much - and parks were dotted here and there to help those who wished more contact with nature achieve it. Oa Park contained within its boundaries more than thirty differ-ent environments simulating various other worlds, each with its own atmospheric mix, solar spectrum, and grav-ity field, separated from each other by energy boundaries.
On such a bright morning, in the middle of smiling and laughing folk going to enjoy the multifarious flora and landscapes and streams, the dark side seemed far, far away to Barriss. But even as that thought crossed her mind, as she and her Master stood in the shade of a four-hundred-year-old blackneedle tree three meters thick and two hundred meters tall, Master Unduli had smiled and said, "The dark side is always at hand, Padawan.
It is no farther away than a heartbeat, an eye-blink, side by side with the bright side of the Force, sep-arated by no more than a hair. It waits to snare the unwary, wearing a thousand disguises."
Barriss had heard that before, many times, and she believed what her teacher said, but she had never really felt or understood exactly what it meant. She had not been tempted by the dark side, as far as she knew. She said as much, as they moved to a quiet spot where the grasses had been engineered to grow short and soft, like a living carpet. "We’ll do the Salutation here," her Mas-ter said.
Barriss nodded. She moved to one side a bit to give her Master space.
"To answer your question, let me offer this: every conscious move you make, from the smallest to the largest, requires choice. There is always a branch in the path, and you must decide