Prologue
3635, early Dry Season
>>>The broken shards of acicular crystal glittered like shattered stardust in the dark wooden chest. Beneath the gravel, sand, and dust peeked the corner of a small black metallic ingot. Cortosis.
>>>“I...I could buy a small moon with this,” Nayomi said. “Where in Wild Space did you manage to get this much?”
>>>The human crone before her smiled a cunning smile. “We are frugal, my child. And we are not so disconnected from our High Republic progenitors that we forgot how important the ore was.”
>>>“Is this to help me pay my way to the Core?”
>>>She gently shut the lid of the chest, her gnarled hand spread protectively over it. “Not for you to trade or spend, no. That would draw too much attention to you. Gamond and Rho still remember the days when they bloomed the ore into metal, and drew the steel into wire as thin as spider silk,” the Elder said, the wrinkled smile returning.
>>>Nayomi's jaw went slack, and then she chuckled nervously, “Wouldn't a sword or shiny new breastplate draw more attention to me than a pouch full of dust?” The red-black armored figures of the Jenasaari Conclave sprang into her mind, the garnet helms and oil-slick blades of their more aggressive kin looming like ancient Mandalorian warriors.
>>>“Not if you are as discreet as you always are, my young shaman. And not if you weave the metal into cloth with your skillful fingers.”
>>>“Yes, Mother Li,” Nayomi stammered. Could that even be done? She had never heard of such a thing, but she was already eager to try.
>>>“I know you have done well these past few years, but to navigate the Mid-Rim and the Core Worlds...” she shook her head. “I fear you will need more that your wroshyr stick and pistol. We wish you to be protected.”
>>>Nayomi nodded, contemplative.
>>>“The process will be long, to harvest the wood, bake the charcoal, stoke the fires, and bloom the metal, but you must be patient.”
>>>“The biofuel reactor will take some time to start generating again, too,” she said, thinking now of the litany of tasks ahead of her. “And I should sew a few new sets of clothing besides. But I'll get started harvesting wood right away.”
>>>“Take Rho with you. He knows the correct trees and deadwood to pick.”
>>>“Yes Mother. As the Force wills,” she said, bowing her head, and walked back out of the granite Zanshin temple into the crisp golden sunlight of the afternoon. There was energy, now, in her legs, fire glowing in her veins as Nayomi walked back down the small mountain trail. She would know. Within a couple years, maybe less, she would know what happened to their distant Jedi brethren. She would finally have enough support and resources from the Conclave to jump to a Core world!
3635, late Dry Season
>>>She fumbled in the dark for a moment, finding the lever with her fingers. With a thunk and some clicking, the shutters of the hanger opened and threw pale light onto the small HWK-290 spacecraft housed within. Its wings and tail fins lay quiet, the light scattering across their cloudy oxidized hull plates. Nayomi walked to the left of the craft, however, and tugged on a sheet. A cloud of dust lingered in the air over the biofuel reactor, and a mouse scurried away into a darker, more accommodating hole in the hanger. She sneezed. Her light green fingers took on a dirty gray color as she checked the various knobs and fittings of the reactor for damage—no signs of chewing, thankfully. The quality of fuel it produced wasn't anywhere near that of refined galactic fuels used by the Republic, but it would be enough to get her to a “more civilized” planet like Tatooine. She snorted at the thought. Her hand hovered over the toggle to start the reactivation sequence, but felt something brush the back of her mind. Recognizing the compulsion, Nayomi let the Force guide her eyes and hands to check the ventilation at the top of the large boxy machine, and found a nest built into the space between two pipes.
>>>“Oh, sorry friend,” she said softly.
>>>Two fluffy red adolescent pterals cheeped at her, upset at the disturbance.
>>>“I can come back in a couple days. You're almost full grown.” Careful not to touch either the babies or the nest, Nayomi backed off and turned her attention instead to the spaceship. She would need to make a list of any repairs and supplies long before her departure—the Zanshin did not have many resources, but they had patience, and certainly knew how to improvise.
3636, Dry Season
>>>Nayomi gave the last loop-horn goat a rub and a smack so it would prance away to the other freshly-sheared goats. It brayed at her fondly before joining its six other friends and clacking horns beyond the veranda's wooden roof. She holstered the heavy black iron shears in her apron and carefully stuffed all the soft bluish gray fluff down into a canvas sack, drawing the bag closed with a poof of stray fibers. She tucked it just inside the doorway of her stone dwelling, and walked back to the goats. They nibbled at her smock and rubbed their circular hoop horns against her body as she unlatched the back fence of her little pasture, and let the seven of them amble up the hillside. Don't wander too far, she impressed upon their gentle minds. Stay by the hill. White smoke curled and rose from just beyond the hill. Rho and Gamond had kept their kiln and forge burning for moons now, even through storms and rain, only letting the fires dim to a smolder at night to be wakened to a roar the next morning. Nayomi had kept a steady stream of freshly baked charcoal going from her own temporary mud kiln just outside the hangar to the forge, each time glimpsing the ash-smeared Arkanian and Pau'an hammering impurities out of the cortosis ore. They had smelted the metal at least 4 times now, and the radiant heat felt like a bath every time she approached to dump another basket of charcoal into their holding pit. Despite many of the humans saying the dwelling was “unbearably hot”, the colonists were happy for the abundance of ash; nothing was ever wasted on Shisukana.
3636, Wet Season
>>>Three spooled cones of blue-gray wool and two cones of black metallic cortosis sat in a neat row beside Nayomi's wide loom. She rubbed her chin and chewed at her lip, thinking. Loop-horn wool was naturally fire and heat-resistant, with wonderful insulating properties, even when sopping wet. It would compliment the cortosis perfectly...if she understood its properties correctly. And if she could somehow join a twill weave with a complex wire structure of compact twists and bends. Nayomi looked again at the precise drawing scrawled on the aged vellum page that Gamond had given her, trying to visualize which component would need to be woven first—the warp and weft of the twill, or the branching orthogonal fractal pattern of the cortosis. She had never worked with the black metal before. Would it behave like metallic thread? Should she work it through the wool like an embroidered filigree? The musical tinkling of rain on clay roof tiles drew her eyes away from the page and out the slats in her window. All was gray and calm chaos. The wrinkle in her brow eased. There is nothing to fear. All is as the Force wills it to be.
>>>Inhale.
>>>Exhale.
>>>The answer drifted up to her, as it always did, once she quieted her mind and stilled her body. This is why she was called sham'an, wise sentient; she could see past the illusion of the eyes, of the mind, of all crude matter, and knew that the answers in life were neither her own, nor those of the Force. They were both. Nayomi unspooled a length of the cortosis and began to weave. She wound each bit of wire carefully, firmly, precisely around the pegs of her loom, up and down and up and down, working her way steadily across the frame to create the warp of the fabric, each strand only a millimeter away from its neighbors. It was thin, so thin, and delicate. She would lay down a grid of cortosis first, a loose plain weave, so that the thread would be in contact with itself at regular intervals throughout the fabric, maximizing its energy-dissipation properties. The wool would simply fill in the gaps.
Push the wood rod between the warp threads.
Twist to hold them open.
Feed the wire spool through the warp.
Pull the rod out.
Gently pack the weft down with the comb.
Push the rod between the warp.
Twist to hold them open.
Feed the spool back through.
Pull the rod.
Pack the weft.
>>>Nayomi rubbed water out of her tourmaline pink eyes, waking from her trance. A glimmering mesh of silvery black thread winked at her in the dim firelight. Her aching fingers were discolored to a teal blue from the cortosis, and her back let out a yelp of stiff pain. Her stomach moaned. Oh how bittersweet, the needs of the flesh, she thought, smiling grimly. Nayomi stood, knees cracking, and went to put a pot of juk on the woodfire stove, along with a kettle of water to take tea with her mother.
>>>Days and weeks and moons passed while she sat at her loom, alternately tending the needs of her village quarter and her cortosis cloak—for a cloak was the best design for such a thing. A half cloak with no hood, that reached from her shoulder to her thigh and looped around her left wrist to be thrown across her body at the first sign of a firefight. It would take little to no tailoring or piecing after being woven, and could easily be trimmed with a thick border of pure wool and attached to a strong collar and belt. Slowly, ever so slowly, the fabric took shape. The weaving filled her nights, crept into her dreams, colored her thoughts. When she took care of the neighbors' children and taught the Zanshin youth of her craft, she spoke of the Force, of stars and morality and philosophy and everything through the lens of threads and fabric until they began to whisper that the cortosis had woven into her blood.
3637, Dry Season Solstice
>>>Nayomi adjusted the buckle on her chest, and straightened. The spare folds of her new slate blue cloak enveloped her left arm and half of her back, the geometric cortosis embroidery woven into the wool glittering darkly in the afternoon light. It was done. She had finished it. Five seasons of grueling precise work, complete. It was beautiful. A culmination of her skill, artistry, and heritage. If there had ever been a time to feel vanity or pride in her life, this would be it.
>>>The fuel tanks were full.
>>>The ship was repaired.
>>>Her new clothing was complete, and short vibroblade was sharpened.
>>>It was now time to leave Shisukana.
Continued at...The Outer Rim
