Nemak, and I along with him, moved to our kitchen-dining area.
The teacher asked what his Padawan wanted.
The Padawan, naturally, wanted meat, meat, and more meat.
Well, yes — I’m a predator.
It’s in my nature.
I can, in principle, chew on various salads, especially seafood ones, and other greens.
It would even do me good, but still — my main diet is meat-based food.
“A rare steak with blood — magnificent,” I stated the obvious while putting away the dishes.
“I prefer different food,” the mentor said, slightly grimacing.
“Matter of taste,” I didn’t argue with the obvious, looking at the sensei sympathetically, as if he were a hopelessly sick but still beloved relative.
“Coming out of hyperspace,” the AI reported, immediately starting a countdown.
“Master, I’ll run to the bridge.
Just in case,” I twitched an ear vaguely and bolted, not waiting for a reply.
Got some sleep, ate, and now I feel like doing something, running somewhere, just goofing off.
Hormones at play.
“Mmph-mmph-mmph,” replied the sensei, actively working his jaws — he’d just started on his second helping.
Got hungry from all that sleeping.
I understand.
I even sympathize.
Alcohol doesn’t replace food, even if it is rather caloric.
While I was hanging around in the cargo hold, wasting time, the Master was diligently practicing fencing.
Though I only found out later that the sensei’s phantom mentors were running him ragged.
When I finished my supercargo duties, I couldn’t resist satisfying my curiosity.
Pif, naturally, immediately obliged.
I was curious what the teacher had been doing with himself on the ship all this time.
He didn’t even bother to show up in the hold.
To be honest — I thought he was just sleeping, but it turned out he was training hard.
Commendable.
Fully approve and keep it up.
Apparently, the sensei is preparing for a sparring session with me.
Well, I understand him and am all for it.
Only one thing bothers me — we won’t get to cross blades anytime soon.
What Nemak was doing in the recording…
it was, to put it mildly, not great.
For a Padawan, it would be a decent enough level, but for a Knight — in my opinion, it was utter darkness.
Maybe my standards are too high?
Actually, what do I expect from a mentor?
He became a Padawan at fourteen, and after that, no one really trained him in swordsmanship.
And as I understand it, he didn’t put much effort in either.
Whether it was because he had no time due to constant meditations or something else — who cares?
The main thing is the result.
And there it is — a deplorable outcome, frozen on pause.
If we were to spar now, I’d have to try very hard — I’d need to somehow manage to either lose or win in a way that doesn’t hurt the sensei’s pride.
Rrrr, so many problems with him.
Okay, calm down.
The teacher isn’t hopeless — after all, he’s started training.
That he’s embarrassed to show his skills is understandable.
Youth, pride, a brain bruised by the Code and coddled by a peculiar idea of a Master’s role.
Anyway, it’s more or less clear.
All that’s required of me now is one thing — don’t interfere.
Ideally, give the mentor the opportunity to train, which means, hmm, focus on meditations and practicing Force techniques.
Free up the training hall — let him jump around in it as much as he can.
Who knows, maybe in two or three months he’ll improve his skills enough that I can lose to him beautifully, or at least convincingly.
Yes, I have to throw the fight anyway.
It’ll do the sensei good.
He’s way too insecure.
Eh, if it weren’t for the stupid schedule, I could go for a walk, but as it is…
well, we’ll get through.
And so it went.
I train during the journey, focusing on meditations and techniques, mostly holed up in my own quarters or the lower hold.
If only he wouldn’t prowl around the port cantinas during loading and unloading — he’d be priceless.
Alas, my sensei is a stubborn one.
A lousy set of circumstances, or maybe fate and the will of the Force — depends on your perspective.
It’s all because of that damn pilot.
Nemak, sobered up and fully recovered, hadn’t forgotten the conversation.
He wrote a long message to the Order, and there, unexpectedly, the information was forwarded to brothers who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They, of course, didn’t sit idle, checked it out, and — what rotten luck — found some pseudo-pirates being covered by a minor official from the Judicial Forces.
In short, it ended with us receiving a message where the Masters personally, albeit in a recording, expressed gratitude and approval.
In my opinion, it was a standard holo of approval — the praise and wording were way too vague.
But it was more than enough for the teacher.
He got all excited and is now actively trying to drink himself to death.
Okay, okay, I’m exaggerating; he hasn’t gotten that drunk since, and he’s even started practicing some healing, but still — I don’t like it.
I tried to talk to him; got assigned to meditate and was told that he’d already learned a lot of useful information about what’s happening in the Outer Rim.
My attempt to slip him a selection of materials compiled by Pif and processed by me was unsuccessful.
They, you see, don’t inspire trust.
The Net is such a murky thing.
Uh-huh, the drunks who occasionally visit the core worlds of the Outer Rim are certainly the most reliable and completely unquestionable source of information.
Somewhere after the twentieth planet where I’d served as supercargo, the clients started blurring into one homogeneous mass.
A kind of averaged image of shippers and consignees emerged.
Both were barely distinguishable from each other.
Thoughts, aspirations, desires — everything was some kind of faded gray.
Work became unbearably boring; poking around in other people’s minds was uninteresting; listening to the same thing over and over made me nauseous and evoked nothing but a dull growl.
The funny thing was, I really enjoyed traveling and doing cargo runs.
There was a feeling of actually being useful, but the mind-numbing hanging around in the hold was killing me.
In short, I endured a bit more, meditated, but never achieved zen.
After visiting the fortieth point on the route, I decided to talk to the mentor again.
“Master, I’ve stopped learning anything new.
All the clients look the same to me, their stories barely differ from each other, and…”
“No droids, Padawan.
You must learn to work with different beings and develop a strong will,” Nemak cut off my prepared speech at the root.
“Master!” I didn’t back down.
“How can I learn to work with different beings if everyone I deal with looks the same?!
They don’t differ from each other except for appearance!”
“Well, that’s perfect,” the sensei smiled.
“Your task will be to find the differences between our clients.”
“Fine, Master, as you say.
But maybe we could practice working with swords?
We’ve been flying for so long and haven’t worked with blades even once.”
“No,” the mentor decided after some thought.
“We’re not ready yet.
We need to wait, meditate, practice Force techniques.
Yes!
Exactly!
Focus on meditations.”
“As you say, teacher,” I flicked my tail.
“I’ll go meditate.”
“That’s right, I’ll join you later,” Nemak nodded.
So, Plan A failed — time for the backup plan.
I was sick of hanging around in the hold, and the timing was right.
In short, I got to my cabin, sat down on the mat, twitched my tail, thought it all over again, and made a decision.
It should work!
Not exactly proper, of course, but I’ve had enough of wasting dozens of hours regularly!
“Pif, sorry, buddy, but I’m going to have to break you a little.”
“No problem, I understand everything, and besides, I find Jedi Knight Nemak’s behavior irrational, illogical, and simply stupid.”
“No, it’s just…
hmm, quirks of temple upbringing and the Order’s worldview.”
“You know better, Mirr-dono.
Happy birthday, by the way.”
“Thanks, I confess I’d kind of forgotten about it.”
“Yeah, few children remember such a holiday, and it’s not celebrated everywhere, plus the emotions, and standing out from the crowd isn’t really done among younglings — not if they want to find a teacher quickly and become Padawans.”
“Every place has its customs.”
“True that.
Alright, hold on, buddy — I’m about to ruin the superconducting windings in the coils.
Which ones are the worst off?”
“The second, fourth, and seventh have been degrading more than usual lately.”
“Got it, we’ll write them off prematurely as scrap.”
“Do you think, Mirr-dono, we’ll manage to get the standard set of droids?”
“I’d be happy if we could squeeze even a couple of drones out of the mentor.”
“I would find it interesting to control them,” Pif-Paf replied after a pause.
His personality was developing, really developing.
Look, he’s already interested in seeing the world through the lens of a different platform.
Actually, Pif tries to hide his sapience, individuality, and development.
He doesn’t want to be wiped.
He remembers his past state and doesn’t want to return to it.
I understand him perfectly — I suffer from my own anomalous nature too.
So, in a sense, we’re in the same boat.
Only Pif has far fewer opportunities to run away or somehow defy fate.
Certainly less than I do.
I scratched my ear, hummed thoughtfully about the untimely thoughts of kindred spirits, and waved them away.
Let them lie in a far corner of my mind and wait their turn.
There are more important things to do.
Breaking something carefully isn’t that easy.
“Curiosity isn’t a vice — it’s the engine of progress,” I snorted-purred and reached out through the Force to the coils.
“Command cannot be executed,” Pif relayed to me the message currently sounding on the bridge.
He had a good vocoder, conveyed sarcasm perfectly.
Nemak had an average understanding of technology.
After receiving the report from the AI and realizing he couldn’t handle it himself, he did what any reasonable being would do — turned to specialists.
Soon, a platform rolled up with a stooped man of indeterminate age and four droids.
The robots quickly disassembled the coils, identified the malfunction, and reported to their owner.
He tried to cheat the teacher by inflating the price, but failed.
Of course — blatantly lying to a trained Force-sensitive takes a special kind of stupidity.
In short, the man was disappointed, got his money, made the replacement, and left without saying goodbye.
“We’re unlikely to find even this level of service in the Outer Rim worlds,” I floated a trial balloon.
“There won’t be any problems in industrially developed ones,” the teacher objected, but not very confidently.
Still, his visits to cantinas had some use.
His main conversation partners were complainers, which created a corresponding worldview.
Though it wasn’t too far from reality, just overly emotional and slightly embellished.
“By regulation, our ship is entitled to a set including a technician with robots, plus loader droids, a med droid, and a pair of android stewards.”
“What for?” Nemak was astonished.
“They’re versatile; they can replace a missing crew member.
Besides, Pif could be on a passenger-cargo ship.
It’s not the captain’s job to do maintenance and keep order on the decks.”
“Actually, the latter is part of his duties.”
“Well, the captain is responsible for everything that happens ‘on’ and ‘with’ the ship in principle,” I twitched my ear.
“In any case, it’s worth buying a couple of drones and a technician droid.
Out there,” I waved a paw toward the local moon peeking out from behind a cloud, “not only will replacing an ordinary coil cost three times as much, but you’ll also need to actually find someone who can handle it.”
“You’re probably right,” Nemak nodded after a moment’s thought, and I nearly broke into a dance.
“Weren’t you saying you were ready to assemble a protocol droid from scrapped parts?” he shot me a questioning look.
“Yes, Master.
The routine got tedious, and it translates better than the mobile unit.
Certainly knows more languages, plus it can advise on customs and always provide information.
It would be useful to have such an assistant in the Outer Rim,” I started waxing lyrical.
“Then go ahead and build us a technician droid and some drones,” the sensei clipped my wings.
“I’ll do it, Master,” no way that gets me down — I’ll drag so many spare parts that a crowd of machines will spawn here.
“Good.
We’ll have a couple of days in six systems — you’ll take care of it then,” the mentor demonstrated an excellent memory of the route.
“Yes, Teacher.”
“Good.
Now, let’s go meditate.”
“As you say, Nemak-dono.”