Chapter Text
Dominik woke up right after the shuttle had exited hyperspace. The half-awake Jedi Master ran to the cockpit to look at the battle raging right in front of his eyes. Luminara, sensing danger, was also awakened. She walked up to her master at the cockpit.
“Master, what’s going on?” Luminara said before she could see thousands of vulture droids and Mirialan starfighters zooming through space.
“A battle, obviously. The committee has elected to allow you to pilot the shuttle for the descent down to the surface.” Dominik said before moving himself into the co-pilot’s seat. Luminara rolled her eyes before taking on the pilot position. Flying is for droids, not twenty-five-year-old padawans who had just been roused from their slumber.
Luminara tried to pilot the ship down to the small spaceport in Galan, where the crown prince was gathering an army. She flew the ship down into the atmosphere, but not before picking up several vulture droids. The woman, now somewhat flustered, attempted to avoid the automated fighters with her slow and bulky shuttle. Just when she could sense the vulture droids charging up their blasters, they were shot out of the sky by a native fighter. Luminara sighed in relief, but this victory would be quite short-lived. She looked on her screen, confused.
“Master…” Luminara said, hardly able to believe what she was seeing. Dominik looked at the screen. Dominik gave a cocky chuckle.
“Well, looks like the Federation’s having to revert to older models.” He said, looking at the Scarab Fighters on screen. Not long after that boast, some new compartments opened up near their wings.
“You really shouldn’t have said that.” Luminara said, panicked as the droids launched missiles from these previously hidden cannons. The padawan tried to evade them, but found that there was nothing to evade. Apparently, the missiles were flak. Sure, they sent small debris towards the ship, but it was much less harmful than Luminara had first suspected. That was until some small droid with a buzzsaw coming from its head crawled across the glass of the shuttle. The droid was very simple, a set of sensors for navigation, legs to move around, and a buzzsaw to cause damage. It didn’t have the two half-spheres of armor later models would have. But still, it was able to cause a lot of damage.
In a panic, Luminara tried to stab the droid with her lightsaber. Indeed, the droid was destroyed, but so was the window. The other buzz droids reacted to the fall of their comrade by staying around other systems such as the gyroscope. This caused the ship to veer off course. Realizing that any attempt to land in the city would probably kill dozens if not hundreds, Luminara opted to listen to the force. And the force was guiding her to the southeast. So that is where she piloted the ship.
As the smoke-shrouded shuttle descended closer to the surface, Luminara realized that she was going to land on a small farm. The she heard some popping. At first, she thought it was just from the buzz droids destroying the engines, but it actually got louder as she descended.
“That flak’s going to turn us into a ball of fire in the sky if we don’t jump.” Dominik said, grabbing Luminara’s hand.
“But master, the ship! We can’t have it crash into a populated area!” Luminara responded, unfastening her seatbelt.
“Those droids have already taken out whatever control we may have had over this thing. Now jump!” Dominik ordered. Surely enough, he found his grey-clad padawan’s hand in his own. And so, the two jumped out of the crashing shuttle. They scanned for flak installations, but all they could see was a small girl standing with a slugthrower pointed directly at them.
Shortly thereafter, the two had landed about 100 meters away from the girl. Luminara and Dominik got back up on their feet before approaching her. The girl stood there with amazement in her eyes. She believed that she was the one who destroyed their shuttle, somehow. Seeing their sabers, the two looked to be Jedi - the same group that had aided the Naboo in their fight against the Trade Federation. The girl, thinking she had made some terrible mistake that had doomed her planet, started crying. Luminara, acting on a feeling she had about this girl, ran up to start comforting her.
“Barriss, it’s okay.” Luminara said, comforting the child. Barriss looked up, and said through sniffling.
“H-how did you know my name?” Barriss asked, but wasn’t as frightened about this as would be expected. She felt that somehow, this woman had always known her.
“The force told me.” Luminara answered, finding her way over to a rock for her and Barriss to sit on. Dominik, who stood behind his padawan brushing dirt off his clean blue tunic, walked over to the two.
“Padawan, this is a warzone. We can start adopting younglings after we’ve won this battle.” Dominik said as he headed over to the two.
“Master, this girl has a destiny. I can feel her strength in the force.” Luminara spoke as she looked over to see a horse coming over to them. She was starting to wish that they hadn’t left their binoculars on the ship.
“We do not know that for sure. Her planet does have a force order of its own, after all.” Dominik replied. Looking up to see the man. He could only assume that this was her father. Even if Dominik was fairly begrieved by the loss of his friend Qui Gon, he still figured the man had the best and most understandable for not guarding the farm, leaving only his very young daughter to do so. Barriss stood to wait for her father next to this rock. Luminara stood up as well. The man had rings around his eyes. Something had been keeping him up. He got off his horse, and reached out his hand for the oldest looking member of the group, who happened to be Dominik.
“Master Jedi, I take it?” The man said. “My name is Karlo Offee, and I am this girl’s father.” He finished, shaking hands with Master D’Alfonso.