Star Wars: Dark Future

At least until I returned to considering my various successes. Remembering the trust both of them had placed in me recently, during the run on the Malevolence, I forcibly shake off the doubts trying to cling to me.

Wordlessly pointing out to my inner critic just how much circumstances had changed, now that I was no longer Dim.

...

The main pool proved a surprisingly short walk from the Boss's chambers. More than four hundred meters across, and perhaps half that wide, it was essentially a large spherical chamber bisected by a series of flat walkways. Each walkway intersected with one or more other metallic paths, all of them just above the surface of the pool.

Ringing its edges were a number of sizable devices. Machines I immediately understood to be part of some sort of gravity-lift system, due to one large submersible that already hung in the air perhaps five meters above the pool.

Surrounding us were Gungan workers wearing three distinct sorts of uniforms. All of them were either swarming the vast majority of the craft, overseeing said swarming, or moving in and out of the chamber conveying tools and components of all kinds.

The movements of each individual team seemed a swirl of uncontrolled chaos, until one viewed the activity as a whole. Activity which showed no signs of slowing with the increasingly late hour of the surface day.

Down at the far end of the immense chamber, I could see a half-dozen smaller, sleeker, manta-shaped submersibles. All of them similar in appearance to the one I'd seen utilized by Master Jinn and Obi-Wan in another life. When Soldier Rin Rin led us speedily to the walkway adjoining the craft furthest from the passageway we'd entered by, I finally saw what I was asking of my apprentice in another light.

Not that the sight made any material difference in my thinking, of course. Not when set against the press of necessity. This was the job, and if I felt a bit more sympathy for just how deep the water I had flung my Padawan into on her first mission was proving to be, what did it matter? A Jedi was regularly called upon to do the impossible.

If I were to make the grave mistake of leaving my apprentice with the impression that the demands made upon her abilities would always be reasonable ones, I would only be leaving her cruelly unprepared for, well, days exactly like today.

"What happened to remembering your apprentice would have limits different than yours?" A traitorously reasonable voice inquired inside of me.

"I have to push her, if I'm to find those limits. I can't set an upper bar on my expectations until I hit her limit," I doggedly responded.

Knowing Dark Woman would already be accusing me of coddling, I pushed the doubts out of my mind. Ahsoka was an incredibly gifted young woman, and it was my responsibility to see to it those gifts were fully realized.

Feeling the pulses of unease keeping to a staccato beat inside my Padawan, I watched as she strode up to the open bubble of the submersible.

Her expression and stride were as confident as she could manage, but the seesawing of doubt and confidence within her continued as she clambered inside the craft. Padme gave me a brief look, as if checking to make sure I was aware of what was going on with Ahsoka, but the real surprise was IG-1.

Trooping past me to stand beside the entrance to the submersible, the droid slowly turned to fix me with a long, considering look, then pointed with one long metallic digit in my apprentice's direction. A long moment passed, before IG-1 pointed the same finger directly at me.

Tilting my head in Ahsoka's direction for a moment, I returned my gaze to the droid's photoreceptors, but it wasn't until Padme slipped past me to seat herself in the space behind the pilot and co-pilot's chairs, that I quietly whispered to the droid.

"It's better for Ahsoka that she begins confronting her doubts now, while I'm right here, than sometime when she's on her own. I am prepared to handle the entire situation myself, if it comes to that, but Ahsoka's success here would really be for the best."

Tilting his head up and down a few centimeters in a subtle gesture of qualified agreement, the droid turned far more quickly this time, then climbed into the bongo in complete silence. The entire incident seemed to me a good sign, though, for multiple reasons.

IG-1's personality was coming along, slowly but surely, and it appeared he'd added Ahsoka to the vanishingly short list of things he considered worth paying much attention to outside combat. A list which, up until now, only had mine, Seraph's, and Dark Woman's names on it.

Climbing into the empty seat beside my Padawan, I turned and thanked a hovering Rin Rin for his assistance. Then, when he showed no sign of moving off of his own volition, gently informed him Ahsoka was about the engage the canopy bubble-shields.

Startled into action, the young Gungan fired off a sudden salute I had a sneaking suspicion wasn't really a thing that members of the militiagung generally did, before whirling into another ear-whippingly quick about-face, and skip-dashing off back the way we'd come.

A blue and purple wash of color began to ripple upwards from the bottom of the spherical openings positioned at the front of the submersible. Next, a clear and curved surface rose like a pair of windows within the arcing forcefields of the bongo.

Finally, a low thrumming sound accompanied a vibration that could barely be felt, as the intensifying thrum grew lower in pitch, and the vibration that had passed front to back finally fell off to nothing. Announcing the readiness of the bongo's strange aft-mounted engines.

Depressing a couple of illuminated pads next to the sub's control-yoke, Ahsoka took hold of said yoke, muttered "Here goes, something," then pushed the yoke forward and down in one quick movement.

Nosing down sharply, the submersible shot forward as if fired from an anti-orbital emplacement. Below the pool was a considerably narrower tunnel that arced gradually downward and out for perhaps three hundred meters.

Ahsoka shot through its entirety in one continuous surge of acceleration. Arrowing downwards even further the moment we were in open water, the young Jedi tapped a blinking pad beside the yoke as if that was the obvious next step in piloting the craft.

Only to seem more than a little surprised, when the crystal canopy in front of us suddenly began displaying what I quickly guessed was a high-resolution rendering of our immediate environs.

"That's odd, I was sure the Force was guiding me to the button for the sub's external lights. Thought I was going to be stuck maneuvering by instrumentation alone for a moment there. No thanks," Ahsoka muttered to herself. She seemed a bit shaken by the misunderstanding, so now looked like a good time to provide a bit of assistance.

"You weren't wrong, Ahsoka. It's just, Gungan submersibles don't have external lights. When you're piloting a craft that can be swallowed by more than one species of local predator without your vessel touching the sides of a beast's mouth.

You don't add anything to the design that's liable to announce 'Free food! Just follow the eye-catching illumination back to its source!' You can trust the Force about things like this," I explained in a calm tone meant to be encouraging.

My explanation must have provided some reassurance, because she flashed me a quick smile of thanks, then turned her full attention back to keeping us headed downwards.

Checking the chronometer a little while later, I was surprised to see only four minutes had passed since we left Otoh Gunga, yet we'd already traveled a little more than six kilometers.

"Ninety kilometers an hour is an absolutely blistering pace underwater. I wonder how the Gungans managed to design a faster submersible than the Mon Cala," I thought. My innate curiosity concerning any sort of novel technology an itch I wanted to scratch in the worst way.

Setting the thought aside with some difficulty, I studied a compilation of sonar returns taken of the environs around Otoh Gunga. Judging by those, it seemed we'd have to slow down in another few kilometers, as we neared the tunnels leading to the core. For now, though, the Force seemed to be telling my Padawan the same thing it was telling me.

Go. Faster.

The thrumming coming from the rear of the bongo increased for several seconds, then the sub began trying to shimmy off the line of descent Ahsoka had chosen, as we continued our downward plunge. My apprentice was having none of it, though.

She smoothly corrected her course with small, steady nudges to the control-yoke, rather than risk overcorrecting with one big adjustment. Having been back-seated by Master Koon more than once while hunting the Piloting bead I'd so coveted, I thought I detected something of his favored methodology in his protege's command of the craft.

Filing the thought away to share with the Jedi Master later, I couldn't help but be pleased with how my student was handling the situation. This was obviously the easiest leg of the journey we were on, but Ahsoka's earlier anxiety seemed nowhere in evidence, now that she was actually behind the wheel, so to speak.

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