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Force Academy Fan Fiction: Untitled, Chapter IV

Chapter Four

Jana was looking around herself. She was hidden from the sights of the others behind the dark corner of the room. She could see how some of the students of the Academy hurried for classes. She closed her eyes. No, no, no, I won't go today... perhaps never, appeared in her mind.

Why don't you...? Jana asked herself in few seconds after previous thought.

Jana sighed. No, no more!

She saw some of her friends, a few friends, who she was able to meet and be friends with, who were able to penetrate Jana's shield of silence and shyness. She recognized one of them, as he approached central hall. But - it wasn't he, it was she. Catherine was her name. Jana felt that this young lady has something in common with her. That's perhaps why she become close friend with her. And although she was new student at the Force Academy, she seemed so familiar for almost everyone at the Academy. Even for Jana.

Cath was almost running, as she was late for Mark's lecture, and she probably hoped that her late arrival will be unnoticed by Mark or by another Knight. But Cath wasn't lucky this day, because she came into sight of her Master, Kir-Wan Queren.

Kir-Wan..., Jana sighed, wise Jedi Knight. I doubt there's somebody like her. It was always pleasure to learn from her. She has a lot of thoughts to be shared with us.

With this Jana hid herself behind the corner, to remain unnoticed by her. She really didn't want to explain why she was hanging around instead being at Mark's lecture herself. Catherine and Kir-Wan were talking about something, but they were almost whispering, so Jana could hardly understand them. It only took a few moments and Cath with Kir left the hall.

Jana sighed again. She felt miserable today.

I failed again, she thought, how I can be a Jedi, if I'm...I'm so... Her thought was disturbed. She didn't want to continue with it, but she couldn't help herself, as her thoughts were still coming into her head. Some of my friends tells me that I'm wise, but it's not truth! How I can share my thoughts, try to help others, if I'm not able to deal with myself?! If I'm lying to myself?!

Jana was angry. Angry about herself, as she wasn't content with herself. She wanted to shout loudly, she wanted to scream, to become calm.

See? I even forgot about lecture my Master gave me about self-control! Damn it! These struggles of mine... are they only another test how "good" Jedi I'm?! Damn it! Damn it! Jana's mind wasn't quiet at all. Her mind was full of anger and Jana sometimes thought that her anger was like a lighthouse on the sea, so everyone could see it, even in the biggest storm, or in the deepest night.

Jana didn't know how long she was standing in the hall, hiding behind corner (like coward, which I am, came to Jana's mind immediately) and looking into emptiness, without marks of being present and with senses. Her thoughts were disturbed after she heard the noise. Mark's lecture was over. Time to change place, yes, that's it. I DON'T want to meet my Master at the moment! And yes I DON'T want to make explanations why I...

Master Mark Faulkner was walking away from classroom and Jana was stunned for a while, almost without breath, as she wanted to not be noticed by him. After he left Jana's sight, she took a deep breath.

What do you think you are doing?! You are like small child, who is afraid to go home, because of bad results at school! Are you really coward like this?! Coward, who isn't able to deal with herself?! Jana was silent. Unable to say any word. To herself, to her friends, to her Master.

A few hours later, Jana was hanging in her room, trying to calm down. But she wasn't able to do so. She was still thinking about her struggles with being a true Jedi of Light Side. She levitated the chair in front of her sight and then, when it was near top wall, she let the chair fall with noise. She could watch, how the chair was falling and how it broke on the ground. Jana was smiling, full of irony and wryness.

This... this will happen to my every attempt to be a Jedi! Jana pushed the remains of the chair against the wall with her Force.

Being a Jedi ISN'T only about my cursed abilities! Damn them! Damn it everything! I would give a half of my Force sensitivity for self-control, or, at least, for some control of my flaws I have!

Somebody knocked at the door.

Ha! Master Mark, he perhaps noticed I wasn't on his lectures! Bah! I think I will do something stupid...!

But, it wasn't Mark.

"Jana, you there?"

It was Catherine. Jana didn't want to let her in, as she didn't want Cath to see Jana in this state. But regardless of this, she let Catherine in. "Yes, I'm here... come in, Cath..."

Cath entered Jana's room and looked around herself. She saw broken chair and scratched wall. Then Cath's eyes looked at Jana's blue, cold eyes. "What happened here? Are you all right? I could sense something, when I was planning to go at Mark's lectures today. I wanted to ask you, if you felt it too..."

Jana looked at her friend. She tried to calm down again. She tried to say something, but she wasn't able.

"Something's wrong?"

Jana laughed, again with taste of irony. "No, not at all, Cath. I just need to be alone, that's all!"

With these words Jana left her room, leaving Catherine where she was, without any other word.

+++++++++

Cath stood in Jana's room, dumbfounded. She stared at the broken chair, feeling the anger and self-loathing in the Force that still hung in the room.

What in the blazes had happened here? she thought. Jana seems to be one of the advanced students here. Why would she be so upset with herself? It's not like she is late to morning lectures all the time...

Catherine sighed. Kir had given her a good hard lecture about her continued tardiness to Mark's class when they'd left the auditorium. As a reprimand for the behavior, she'd been assigned to kitchen duties for the main daily meal for a week! To Cath, there could be no worse punishment.

"Jana, what's going on in your reality?" she whispered.

She'd come by out of concern for Jana, having not spoken with her in a few days. Also, she'd hoped that her friend might have also felt the strange rippled in the Force early that morning. Cath had accepted the reprimand from Kir-wan without complaint even though she'd used the waking meditation and had been up well before the time she'd set on her chrono. The ripple in the Force had made her nauseous, overwhelming her emotions and her mental clarity. She'd been late to lecture because she'd felt sick!

Could that be why Jana is so wound up too?

Having not even told her own Master why she was late to lecture, Cath was hesitant to seek out Master Faulkner about Jana's behavior. Having missed his class twice in one week didn't make it any more pleasant a thought. Of all the Masters, Mark made Cath the most nervous. His eyes seemed to see through her, and she was afraid of what he might find there. Deciding to leave Jana's situation well enough alone, she backed out of the room.

Deciding she couldn't bear to be cooped up in her own room, Cath took the turbolift down to the main level and went outdoors. She inhaled deeply and willed the anxiety in her to lessen.

"Hey Cath!"

She turned to see S'anne, one of the Independent lecturers, coming up the walk behind her. "Oh. Hey, S'anne. How goes?"

"I'm okay. How're you?"

Cath shrugged. "To be honest, kind of out-of-sorts right now. But I'll be alright."

"Where you headed?" S'anne asked.

Noting the shadows cast by the sun on the ground, Catherine realized the time. "To the main dining hall, actually. I'm on kitchen duty this week."

"Ooooh! Lucky you! Guess what?"

"What?" she said unenthusiastically.

"I'm supervising the cooks all this week. Lucky me!" S'anne replied. "So what'd you do to earn kitchen time?"

"I've been late to morning lectures twice this week, so Kir-wan thought it'd be a suitable reprimand."

The main dining hall was located at the geographic center of all the dormitories. They approached the kitchen's service entrance, both somewhat resigned.

"Hey, where've you been?" exclaimed a dark haired young man, pointing emphatically at S'anne.

"Oh, Sa, lay off of me," she replied. "My whole existence doesn't exist in this kitchen like yours does."

Sa blinked, chuckled and turned to Cath. "Well then, you must be Catherine. Hi. I'm Sa. Or you can call me Dan."

"Beware," S'anne said with a wink and moved off to the office.

"Uh... yes I am. Hi to you, Dan or Sa or whatever."

He nodded. "Follow me. I'll show you how this works in here. Your first time serving in the kitchen, right?"

"Yeah. From what S'anne said, it sounds like you're an old pro!"

"This time, it's all Tom's fault, but we won't go there okay?"

Sa led her to the warming trays. "Okay, so you can see that the other shift already got the meals started. But the warming trays are empty, right? We have to transfer food from the vats, into the warming trays, then out into the cafeteria area for people to pick their scrumptious choices."

"Thrills."

He grinned. "Well, there is something more fun that I can tell you about."

"Oh?"

Sa pulled a slip of bright green paper out of a drawer and handed it to Cath. "Party in the Lounge late tonight," he whispered. "The Satirical Donkey and the Unicorn are hosting it. Should be killer!"

"The who?"

"No, not The Who! Who's that anyway? The Satirical Donkey and Unicorn." Sa rolled his eyes. "You Lightsiders. Always so serious, with your noses crammed into a datapad."

Cath grinned. "And what are you studying?"

He held up his ID badges. "Shadow and Dark."

"That's allowed?"

"Your... uh, clone, you know, Spark Vallen? She sort of coined that undecided major around here."

Cath sighed. "Don't mention her to me, please."