I've never minded.
It is the Korunnai that Depa came here to train and use as anti-government partisans. The civil government of Haruun Kal is entirely Balawai: off-worlders and their descendants, beneficiaries of the financial interests behind the thyssel bark trade. Government of the Balawai, by the Balawai, and for the Balawai.
No Korun need apply.
The government-and the planetary militia, their military arm-joined the Confederacy of Independent Systems as a cynical dodge to squelch an ongoing Judicial Department investigation into their treatment of the Korun natives; in exchange for the use of the capital's spaceport as a base to conduct repair and refit for the Al'har fleet of droid starfighters, the Separatists provided arms for the militia and turned a blind eye toward illegal Balawai activities in the Korunnai Highland.
But since Depa arrived, the Separatists have discovered that even the smallest bands of determined guerrillas can have a devastating effect on military operations.
Especially when all these guerrillas can touch the Force.
This was a large part of Depa's argument for coming here in the first place, and why she insisted on handling it personally. Untrained Force users can be exceedingly dangerous; wild talents crop up unpredictably in such populations. Depa's mastery of Vaapad makes her virtually unbeatable in personal combat, and her own cultural training-in the elegant philosophico-mystical disciplines of the Chalactan Adepts-makes her uniquely resistant to all forms of mental manipulation, from Force-powered suggestion to brainwashing by torture.
I believe she may have also nursed a private hope that some of the Korunnai might be persuaded to enlist in the Grand Army of the Republic; a cadre of Force-capable commandos could take a great deal of the pressure off the Jedi and accomplish missions that no clone troopers could hope to survive.
I suspect, too, that part of the reason she insisted on taking this mission was sentimentaclass="underline" I think she came here because Haruun Kal is where I was born.
Though this world has never been my true home, I bear its stamp to this day.
The Korun culture is based on a simple premise, what they call the Four Pillars: Honor, Duty, Family, Herd.
The First Pillar is Honor, your obligation to yourself. Act with integrity. Speak the truth. Fight without fear. Love without reservation.
Greater than this is the Second Pillar, Duty, your obligation to others. Do your job. Work hard. Obey the elders. Stand by your ghosh.
Greater still is the Third Pillar, Family. Care for your parents. Love your spouse. Teach your children. Defend your blood.
Greatest of all is the Fourth Pillar, Herd, for it is on the grasser herds that the life of the ghosh depends. Your family is more important than your duty; your duty outweighs your honor. But nothing is more important than your herd. If the well-being of the herd requires the sacrifice of your honor, you do it. If it requires that you shirk your duty, you do it.
Whatever it takes.
Even your family.
Yoda once observed that-though I left Haruun Kal as an infant, and returned only once, as a youth, to train in the Korun Force-bond with the great akks-he thinks I have the Four Pillars in my veins along with my Korun blood. He said that Honor and Duty are as natural to me as breathing, and that the only real difference my Jedi training has made is that the Jedi have become my Family, and the Republic itself is my Herd.
This is flattering. I hope it might be true, but I don't have an opinion on the subject. I'm not interested in opinions. I'm interested in facts.
This is a fact: I found the shatterpoint of the Gevarno Loop.
Another fact: Depa volunteered to strike it.
And another fact- That she said:,' have become the darkness in the jungle.
The spaceport at Pelek Baw smelled clean. It wasn't. Typical back-world port: filthy, disorganized, half choked with rusted remnants of disabled ships.
Mace stepped off the shuttle ramp and slung his kitbag by its strap. Smothering wet heat pricked sweat across his bare scalp. He raised his eyes from the ocher-scaled junk and discarded crumples of empty nutripacks scattered around the landing bay, up into the misty turquoise sky.
The white crown of Grandfather's Shoulder soared above the city: the tallest mountain on the Korunnal Highland, an active volcano with dozens of open calderae. Mace remembered the taste of the snow at the tree line, the thin cold air and the aromatic resins of the evergreen scrub below the summit.
He had spent far too much of his life on Coruscant.
If only he could have come here for some other reason.
Any other reason.
A straw-colored shimmer in the air around him explained the clean smelclass="underline" a surgical sterilization field. He'd expected it. The spaceport had always had a powered-up surgical field umbrella, to protect ships and equipment from the various native fungi that fed on metals and silicates; the field also wiped out the bacteria and molds that would otherwise have made the spaceport smell like an overloaded refresher.
The spaceport's pro-biotic showers were still in their long, low blockhouse of mold-stained duracrete, but their entrance had been expanded into a large temporary-looking office of injection-molded plastifoam, with a foam-slab door that hung askew on half-sprung hinges. The door was streaked with rusty stains that had dripped from the fungus-chewed durasteel sign above. The sign said CUSTOMS. Mace went in.
Sunlight leaked green through mold-tracked windows. Climate control wheezed a body- temperature breeze from ceiling vents, and the smell loudly advertised that this place was well beyond the reach of the surgical field.
Inside the customs office, enough flybuzz hummed to get the two Kubaz chuckling and eagerly nudging each other. Mace didn't quite manage to ignore the Pho Ph'eahian broadly explaining to a bored-looking human that he'd just jumped in from Kashyyyk and boy, were his legs tired. The agent seemed to find this about as tolerable as Mace did; he hurriedly passed the comedians along after the pair of Kubaz, and they all disappeared into the shower blockhouse.
Mace found a different customs agent: a Neimoidian female with pink-slitted eyes, cold- bloodedly sleepy in the heat. She looked over his identikit incuriously. "Corellian, hnh? Purpose of your visit?" "Business." She sighed tiredly. "You'll need a better answer than that. Corellia's no friend of the Confederacy." "Which would be why I'm doing business here." "Hnh. I scan you. Open your bag for inspection." Mace thought about the "old-fashioned glow rod" stashed in his bag. He wasn't sure how convincing its shell would be to Neimoidian eyes, which could see deep into the infrared.
"I'd rather not." "Do I care? Open it." She squinted a dark pink eye up at him. "Hey, nice skin job. You could almost pass for a Korun." "Almost?" "You're too tall. And they mostly have hair. And anyway, Korunnai are all Force freaks, yes? They have powers and stuff." "I have powers." "Yeah?" "Sure." Mace hooked his thumbs behind his belt. "I have the power to make ten credits appear in your hand." The Neimoidian looked thoughtful. "That's a pretty good power. Let's see it." He passed his hand over the customs agent's desk, and let fall a coin he'd palmed from his belt's slit pocket. The Neimoidian had powers of her own: she made the coin disappear. "Not bad." She turned up her empty hand. "Let's see it again." "Let's see my identikit validated and my bag passed." The Neimoidian shrugged and complied, and Mace did his trick again. "Power like yours, you'll get along fine in Pelek Baw," she said. "Pleasure doing business with you. Be sure to take your PB tabs. And see me on your way offworld. Ask for Pule." Til do that." Toward the back of the customs office, a large advertiscreen advised everyone entering Pelek Baw to use the probiotic showers before leaving the spaceport. The showers replaced beneficial skin flora that had been killed by the surgical field. This advice was supported with gruesomely graphic holos of the wide variety of fungal infections awaiting unshowered travelers.