THE RED NEBULA
Part I: Dust Rock Blues
Hal Mikko drifted aimlessly in a sea of red.
His months-long expedition to the Red Nebula's fabled rogue planet had been fruitless. This unnamed, legendary world the likes of which few spacers had ever reached and many fables were told... If anything, the trek through the comet field was more insightful than the planet itself - at least then he'd been forced to confront his own mortality, as existential threats tend to make one do. The planet itself had been barren, with nothing of archaeological significance whatsoever. No Zeffo artifacts, no Rakatan texts, no Imperial survey markers. Nothing.
Back on Taris there was a diner close to where he'd grown up, and it served a dish known as Nerf Steak with Red Nebula onion. Hal had never actually tasted it - he'd been too poor for most meats, much less a delicacy - but nevertheless he'd asked waiters and bartenders what exactly a Red Nebula onion was. They told him that it was a unique vegetable plucked from the fertile red soil of the world shrouded by the Red Nebula. Only a handful of spacers in recorded history had ever breached its veil and returned, and thus this onion was exceedingly rare, hence why it was exceedingly expensive.
Even as a child he'd known that was nerfshit. But he had to admit - it was tough seeing a barren rock when he'd hoped for a pristine jewel. There were no onions bursting from lush soil, only a dusty rock too bombarded by comets to even support an atmosphere. It was almost poetic. A bitter disappointment of a world... for a bitter disappointment of a Jedi.
Hal interrupted his ruminations with a puff of his cigarra, blowing the smoke against the canopy of his X-Wing. His copilot - the droid Em-One - whistled his disapproval in Binary and clambered down from his perch on the Knight's chair onto the dash. "What?" the Jedi replied while scribbling an outline of the droid onto the smudged cockpit glass, "You think someone's gonna find out? I'm five-thousand lightyears out buddy, I don't think it's that serious." The droid didn't respond, but the unyielding stare of his photoreceptor spoke volumes. Finally, with an exasperated sigh, Hal put the cigara out against the cockpit glass, and dumped the remainders in a nearby compartment.
"Seriously Em-One, when did you become so uptight? We used to be partners in crime man, you and me against the 'verse." He tried to pat the droid's head with a smile, only for the diminutive machine to brush out of the way. Before the Jedi could come up with a clever retort, Em-One spoke up in a string of Binary. Its serious and subdued tone took the Knight by surprise, and Hal's expression had visibly darkened by the end of it. His smile disappeared into a firm line, and his brow furrowed in annoyance. "I don't care what Rishe would think. She isn't here now, and I doubt it'd change anything. It's not like I was a great master before..."
Hal sighed, and reached down towards the lightsaber sheathed at his hip. For all his skills as a pilot, all his martial prowess, all the brushes with darkness he'd overcome... he'd been a shit Jedi, and an even worse mentor. First Xalkaia, then Neel, then Rishe. Three times he'd taken on an apprentice, and three times he'd failed them. That's why he'd found himself so frequently in uncharted space... to get away from it all. He was a good enough Jedi to deal with solitude, and this way he didn't have anything or anyone to slow him down. At least, that's what he told himself.
Em-One, noticing his companion's glum demeanor, offered a soft chirp of apology, but Hal waved it off. "It's fine Em-One. You weren't wrong. Just plot a course through this asteroid field, and I'll make sure we get through it in one piece." The Jedi looked out through the glass at the miasma of red hues surrounding them. In the distance, he could already see the streaks of comets lying before him, blocking the only hyperspace route leading back towards the rest of the galaxy. It was beautiful - hauntingly beautiful... and it was a sight only a few eyes in all of galactic history had witnessed.
Maybe things weren't so disappointing after all.