Project Boussh: Best Destiny
by Josh Cochran

The sun was sinking quickly into the ocean and a warm breeze was
blowing across the stone promenade of the Mendellian High Palace.
Some kind of techno dance music I couldn't identify blasted out of
the section of the courtyard where the party was in full swing. Most
of my new teammates were still in there, reveling in the warmth of
the thrill of victory and the relief of survival.

Me, I was warm too. Whether it was from the setting sun or the
tropical breeze or the beer I'd consumed. The hell of it was that I
shouldn't be warm. It was cold at home this time of year, and
thoughts of that place and that life certainly didn't warm me any.

So it was probably the sun, and the warm breeze, and the alcohol.
But mostly it was *this* This place, these people, this moment.
Finally I was part of something important. I'd fought along side
some truly great people and we'd won a major victory. And now I had
a rank again and would get to fly again. Could things be any better?

Well, I supposed it'd be nice to be able to go home someday.

I closed my eyes and pushed the unhappy thought out of my mind, took
another drink from the bottle in my hand, and sighed contentedly.
Yeah, this was how life should be.

When I opened my eyes again a short man in a green flightsuit was
approaching. The datapad in his hand and the pleasant but business-
like look on his face gave him an air considerably more serious than
he'd had when he nearly dropped his wife mid-dance earlier.

"Lieutenant Cochran?" he asked. I nodded. "I'm Corran Horn." He
offered his hand and I shook it gladly. Corran was one of the ones I
hadn't met yet, and had most wanted to. "Can I ask you some
questions?"

I gave him my most puzzled look. "Uh...sure."

Corran dug around in the pocket of his flight suit for a moment and
pulled out something metallic I couldn't quite identify.

"Heads or tails?" he demanded.

"What?"

"Look, we'd call this something completely different where I'm from,
but here I think the question is 'heads or tails?' So, which one?"

"Um, heads."

He flipped the coin up in the air and caught it in his open palm. He
stared at it for a moment before saying, "Well, that's definitely
someone's head. One right! Do it again."

"Okay...heads."

He flipped, the coin landed. Heads. Corran smiled. "Again!"

"Tails."

Another flip. Tails. "Again!"

"Heads."

Flip. Heads. "Again."

"Tails."

Flip. Tails. I was about to guess again automatically when he
dropped the coin back into his flightsuit pocket and studied the
datapad he carried.

"Um, Commander Horn...?" I began.

He held up his hand impatiently. "Look, at home we have much better
ways of doing this, but here we have to make do with what we have,
okay? Besides, I have to do this so that *you* will believe it."

"Believe what?" I asked in confusion.

"Pick a number between one and ten," demanded Corran, completely
ignoring my question and the baffled look on my face.

"Er, seven." he glanced at his datapad and nodded.

"Between one and one hundred."

"Fifty-eight."

Corran nodded happily. "Between one and one thousand."

"A thousand!? Commander...!" But he just glared at me, so I sighed
in exasperation. "Okay. Six hundred ninety three."

"Exactly right!" he said. "One more test." He put each hand in a
separate flightsuit pocket and when he withdrew them, both were
shaped into a fist. He held them out to me at arms length. "Pick a
hand."

At that point I'm sure I looked like a monkey doing a math problem,
but I reached out and tapped his left hand anyway. He beamed
triumphantly at me and turned his hand over to reveal a datacard
resting in his palm.

"Okay...what's that?" I asked.

"This, lieutenant, is your destiny."

He held the datacard out to me and I took it, turning it over in my
hand a few times and examining it closely. "It's in Aurebesh," I
pointed out.

"Right. We'll get back to that." Corran sat down on the stone wall
and I took a seat next to him. "Lieutenant, how did you know those
Imperial pilots were clones? You were right, by the way. They were
clones - we just heard a few minutes ago."

I frowned, trying to remember exactly how I had known. "I don't
know...it was just a feeling. I got this weird feeling when I was
flying against Kelly, and those Imp fighters gave me the same kind
of feeling from them. Kelly said she was a clone, so I just guessed."

He smiled at me patiently. "But you don't know why Kelly made you
feel that way?" I shook my head. "Josh, have you ever made anything
happen you couldn't quite explain? Known things you shouldn't have
known?"

"Last night, Alison said I responded to something she didn't say out
loud."

"Exactly. You haven't figured it out yet? Josh, you're Force
sensitive."

I opened my mouth to respond, but despite my jaw moving no sound
came out. A week ago I would have laughed at the whole thing, but it
was harder to scoff when a real Jedi Knight with a lightsaber and
everything was setting next to you. It did make some sense, too. I
couldn't think of a better way to explain the conversation with
Alison last night, or how I'd known about the clones. Then I thought
of the coin tosses and the number guessing. '...so that *you* will
believe it,' he'd said.

Corran smiled at me. "I guess this takes some getting used to for
someone from Earth, who's always thought of the Force as fictional.
But the Force is strong with you - I could feel it as soon as I came
over. We suspected before, but now I don't have any doubt."

We sat there in silence for a few minutes as I tried to wrap my mind
around it. I finally gathered my wits enough to ask, "So what do I
need to do?"

"The next few months and years will be hard for you, because the
Dark Side tempts the untrained the most. Since you're staying here
in Mendellia with Terra Group, I'm going to assign Vickie to train
you as much as she can. She's struggled with the Dark Side herself,
so she'll be able to help you recognize it and resist it. That
datacard," he said, indicating the almost forgotten disk in my
hand,"contains a lot of information on Jedi training techniques and
exercises to help you train while Vickie is away.

"Make no mistake: this will not be easy. Jedi training is difficult
under the best of circumstances, and trying to do it alone will make
it that much harder. You should both consider going to Yavin someday
for more training. I know you all have a lot of work to do here for
the near future, but keep it in mind when things slow down."

Corran and I stood up and he took a step back towards the party. "I
imagine you'll have a lot of questions about all of this.I'll be
here until tomorrow, and after that you can always send me a holo.
For right now, I'm going to give you some time to think." He smiled
again, and turned away to rejoin the rest of the group.

I turned and stared out at the sea for a long while, beginning to
feel even warmer than I had before.