Holocron Access

Ancient Holocrons

Mandara

Anyone looking in on her would have seen Mandara staring into the swirling blue vortex of hyperspace, but she was not seeing the sea of infinite before her.  Instead she examined her own reflection on the inside of the window and drifted through the memories of what brought her here.
She barely remembered her homeworld, the eternal twilight of Ryloth.  Her first tangible memories were of leaving. She remembered with embarrassment clinging to her mothers leg, stomping her feet.  She knew now how childish she had been, how important her father’s new position with the senate had really been.  As a child all she could see was being taken from her friends.
Life changed completely almost as soon as they arrived on Coruscant.  She did not understand why her parents had been so willing to give her away so easily when the Jedi came for her.  She remembered her fear.  She remembered believing she was being punished.  Hiding under her bed.  She grimaced even now when she remembered wetting herself in fear when her mother reached under the bed and dragged her out by the leku.
Mandara’s reverie was dragged to the present just as forcibly by the distant flash of brilliant orange in the depths of the blue sea.  She wondered again what those flashes were.  Passing near a star perhaps, maybe another ship passing in the other direction at the incredibly distorted speeds of hyperspace.
She flicked her head tails in agitatedly, feeling exactly like she did when she would drown her sorrow in Fizzyglug as a child.  She stood, stretched, and paced the room.  On a whim she cleared some furniture from the from the room, and drew her blade out of her luggage.  Closing her eyes, she recalled  the training of her youth.  She begin the ritual of the training kata, and drifted into memory again.
It had taken her three years to master the most basic principles of the saber.  She could feel the force, feel it guiding her, but it was as though the blade resisted her.  She was always distracted by a haunting vision of fighting.  She could not be sure if it was her own future or not, but whenever she practiced attacking with the blade she saw it.  A steel blade in her hands, not the saber of a Jedi, and the blade cutting into him.
She worked for hours with the masters.  Tried to control the vision, to overcome the distraction.  But in her own heart, she knew why the vision haunted her so.  The joy she took in the kill.
She finished the dance with her blade, sweat flicking from the tips of her tails.  She through the blade onto her bunk, disgusted by it, and the vision it had brought out of her again.
She checked her chrono, and knew she risked being late for her shift, but now she needed to shower.  She hurried into the slightly chilly water of the shower, washing away the sweat and scrubbing at the darkness she carried inside.
The water beat down on her, just like it did that night.  She was one of the oldest of the younglings by then.  Passed over so many times by masters that she worked with.  She joined some of the others in an act of rebellion.  Sneaking out of the temple was not easy, nor was getting to the lower levels of the capital, but Jedi training included many useful techniques.
The cantina was completely unlike anything she had ever experienced before.  She could not see across the room through the haze of death stick smoke.  Could hardly hear her companions over the shouting of the sabbacc players who had just found a skifter, and the seemingly omnipresent Bith quintet playing haphazard music.  Nothing could describe the smell, or the sickening bitter taste in her mouth.
Her senses drank in the room, and she felt the surge of gruff emotion running over her like a wave.  Her senses shifted from far to near, her feet sliding into a defensive stance by well honed reflex.  But she moved wrong, defending herself against a hard attack, someone trying to hurt her.
“Doncha know dat tweeelekee girls don’t be wearin dat much clothin when dey dancin…”
The voice belonged to a human, who was so intoxicated his breath could hide a tauntaun.  His speech slurred and his eyes unfocused, he still moved with the predatory smoothness of a hunter.  But he grabbed at her robe, pulling away at it hard.  The stitching split , and the whole thing tore away leaving her standing there in the middle of the cantina in little more than her tight vasssilk undertunic, which poorly concealed her modesty.
Reflexively, she thrust out her hand, lashing out with the force to drive the man away, and for a moment she could see the entire flow of energy through him.  She lost herself in the swirl of organs and blood, the statue of bone and sinew, the tides of the force binding it together, and then he was moving.  He went sailing through the air of the cantina, landing arse over brenkettle on the long pazaak table.
She could hear her companions trying to take control of the situation, but she was already running.  Clutching at the remains of her robes.   She ran till she hit the limits of her Jedi trained and forced boosted endurance.  There she collapsed in the shadows, her tears mixing with the rain.
The trill of her datapad crumpled the memory like old paper.  She dressed hurriedly and ran through the corridors of the vessel to get to the medical bay.
“Good morning, I am Doctor Mandara,” she said as her first patient followed through behind her, “what seems to be the problem.”

It all had been so long ago, and so far, far away, but she had found her place, in the Jedi Medical Service, and Revan himself had asked her personally to be the senior doctor on his flagship.  She would follow him wherever that lead.

Mandara by Vlad De Rosa

Anyone looking in on her would have seen Mandara staring into the swirling blue vortex of hyperspace, but she was not seeing the sea of infinite before her.  Instead she examined her own reflection on the inside of the window and drifted through the memories of what brought her here.

She barely remembered her homeworld, the eternal twilight of Ryloth.  Her first tangible memories were of leaving. She remembered with embarrassment clinging to her mothers leg, stomping her feet.  She knew now how childish she had been, how important her father’s new position with the senate had really been.  As a child all she could see was being taken from her friends.

Life changed completely almost as soon as they arrived on Coruscant.  She did not understand why her parents had been so willing to give her away so easily when the Jedi came for her.  She remembered her fear.  She remembered believing she was being punished.  Hiding under her bed.  She grimaced even now when she remembered wetting herself in fear when her mother reached under the bed and dragged her out by the leku.

Mandara’s reverie was dragged to the present just as forcibly by the distant flash of brilliant orange in the depths of the blue sea.  She wondered again what those flashes were.  Passing near a star perhaps, maybe another ship passing in the other direction at the incredibly distorted speeds of hyperspace.

She flicked her head tails in agitatedly, feeling exactly like she did when she would drown her sorrow in Fizzyglug as a child.  She stood, stretched, and paced the room.  On a whim she cleared some furniture from the from the room, and drew her blade out of her luggage.  Closing her eyes, she recalled  the training of her youth.  She begin the ritual of the training kata, and drifted into memory again.

It had taken her three years to master the most basic principles of the saber.  She could feel the force, feel it guiding her, but it was as though the blade resisted her.  She was always distracted by a haunting vision of fighting.  She could not be sure if it was her own future or not, but whenever she practiced attacking with the blade she saw it.  A steel blade in her hands, not the saber of a Jedi, and the blade cutting into him.

She worked for hours with the masters.  Tried to control the vision, to overcome the distraction.  But in her own heart, she knew why the vision haunted her so.  The joy she took in the kill.

She finished the dance with her blade, sweat flicking from the tips of her tails.  She through the blade onto her bunk, disgusted by it, and the vision it had brought out of her again.

She checked her chrono, and knew she risked being late for her shift, but now she needed to shower.  She hurried into the slightly chilly water of the shower, washing away the sweat and scrubbing at the darkness she carried inside.

The water beat down on her, just like it did that night.  She was one of the oldest of the younglings by then.  Passed over so many times by masters that she worked with.  She joined some of the others in an act of rebellion.  Sneaking out of the temple was not easy, nor was getting to the lower levels of the capital, but Jedi training included many useful techniques.

The cantina was completely unlike anything she had ever experienced before.  She could not see across the room through the haze of death stick smoke.  Could hardly hear her companions over the shouting of the sabbacc players who had just found a skifter, and the seemingly omnipresent Bith quintet playing haphazard music.  Nothing could describe the smell, or the sickening bitter taste in her mouth.

Her senses drank in the room, and she felt the surge of gruff emotion running over her like a wave.  Her senses shifted from far to near, her feet sliding into a defensive stance by well honed reflex.  But she moved wrong, defending herself against a hard attack, someone trying to hurt her.

“Doncha know dat tweeelekee girls don’t be wearin dat much clothin when dey dancin…”

The voice belonged to a human, who was so intoxicated his breath could hide a tauntaun.  His speech slurred and his eyes unfocused, he still moved with the predatory smoothness of a hunter.  But he grabbed at her robe, pulling away at it hard.  The stitching split , and the whole thing tore away leaving her standing there in the middle of the cantina in little more than her tight vasssilk undertunic, which poorly concealed her modesty.

Reflexively, she thrust out her hand, lashing out with the force to drive the man away, and for a moment she could see the entire flow of energy through him.  She lost herself in the swirl of organs and blood, the statue of bone and sinew, the tides of the force binding it together, and then he was moving.  He went sailing through the air of the cantina, landing arse over brenkettle on the long pazaak table.

She could hear her companions trying to take control of the situation, but she was already running.  Clutching at the remains of her robes.   She ran till she hit the limits of her Jedi trained and forced boosted endurance.  There she collapsed in the shadows, her tears mixing with the rain.

The trill of her datapad crumpled the memory like old paper.  She dressed hurriedly and ran through the corridors of the vessel to get to the medical bay.

“Good morning, I am Doctor Mandara,” she said as her first patient followed through behind her, “what seems to be the problem.”

It all had been so long ago, and so far, far away, but she had found her place, in the Jedi Medical Service, and Revan himself had asked her personally to be the senior doctor on his flagship.  She would follow him wherever that lead.