Star Farmers - Chapter 4
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Disclaimer: I do not own any franchises mentioned in this story. This is fan-based work of fiction.
Beta: Gerald_of_Revea
-Line Break-
How does one explain the importance of Qui-Gon Jinn?
Without him, the entire Star Wars story wouldn’t exist. If he had never picked up Anakin on Tatooine, Anakin never would have been trained in the Force. Become a Jedi. Become a Sith.
Though it would hardly be fair to blame Qui-Gon for Anakin becoming a Sith. After all, he was dead.
Many have wondered what would have happened if Qui-Gon lived. If he were the one to train Anakin Skywalker instead of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Could things have gone differently?
Either way, the war would have broken out. Sidious had plans spanning decades. Order 66 still would have happened, and many Jedi would have been killed in the slaughter.
But could he have stopped Anakin from falling to the Dark Side?
Probably, but that didn’t matter at the moment. You can’t change the past, only what’s to come.
“Young Padawan?” I repeated, testing how the words sounded on my lips. “Close but not quite right. I’m not even a Jedi.”
Qui-Gon said nothing at that, simply walking beside me, the two of us looking out over the pond. As a few more moments passed, I broke the silence.
“Do you know about me?”
“About your origins?” he asked gently, which confirmed my suspicions. “The Force has many currents, and some flow from beyond the horizon of what we know. You are a reminder of how vast existence truly is.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s all good,” I countered, and he smiled softly.
“But it brought you here. So it does not mean it is all bad, either.”
“Maybe,” I muttered, begrudgingly conceding the point, another silence briefly settling between us.
“What do you know of the Force?”
“Useful, but hard to learn,” I answered quickly, making him chuckle.
“As is everything worth doing,” he replied, turning his gaze back to the water. “It is not simply a tool to be learned, but a life to be shared. The Force moves through all living things. Binding us, connecting us. Even those who come from beyond what we know.”
He turned to face me fully, his eyes holding a patient warmth.
“The Force speaks to those willing to listen, guiding us where we are needed most. It was that very current that brought me to your side.”
 “Was it worth the trip?” I asked, a crooked grin on my lips.
“It is the Will of the Force. Where it leads, I am content to follow.”
I hid my scowl. I could just tell I wasn’t going to win any battle of words with this guy. “So, what is the Will of the Force? Why did it bring you here?”
“A question you ask, for an answer you already hold,” a raspy voice murmured from the shadows, startling me.
We both turned as Yoda stepped forward, his walking stick gently echoing throughout the clearing as he approached.
“A helping hand, welcome it is...hmm?”
One of these days I’m going to sneak up on Yoda. Become so good at hiding myself I’m going to scare the gremlin to death. At the moment, I decided to ignore him.
“So you’re here to train me?” I asked, and Qui-Gon shook his head.
“I am here to guide you. For whatever may come in the future.” 
“Return to this topic later; we should,” Yoda said, opening the door to the hut. “For now, let the mind rest.”
-Line Break-
Aside from the deadly wildlife, total isolation, and lack of resources, the worst thing about Dagobah is the smell.
There’s no escape from it. It soaks into your skin, food, and clothes. By now, I’ve gotten used to it, but that doesn’t mean I like it. I wouldn’t like to sleep next to piles of garbage either.
The closest thing to reprieve you can get is from the rain. There’s a good spot where you can just bask in it, let it fall onto your shoulders. But the rain doesn’t last. It comes and goes, like with everything on Dagobah.
I frowned as I arrived at the spot where I had originally planted the red potato.
“No growth at all,” I murmured, placing my hand over the spot. Channelling the Force through the dirt, I smirked as the stem began to surface, the potato growing bigger and bigger with each passing second.
Yoda was right about my Force leaking when I slept. That’s the only reason why the potato grew when it was planted outside Yoda’s house, but the plants grew much quicker when there was a constant effort to channel it.
Meditation and sleep are not the same. You can relax with meditation, but it only delays when you need to sleep. I’d need to sleep eventually, but once I get the hang of the meditation well enough, I should be able to control my output subconsciously.
‘I could probably turn this into a vegetable patch,’ I thought, looking at the half-built wall. I’m much more a farmer than Jedi. I haven’t even used the lightsaber yet. Planting food and swinging a shovel around? That’s more my speed.
By the time Luke arrives here, he’ll never want to leave. It’ll be the best farm in the galaxy. It’s just going to need some good tools, a couple of trees to be cut down, and cows. A lot of cows.
A rustling noise on the ground made me jump; my hand reached for my lightsaber as I saw a lizard start to approach me.
It was small. Green-skinned and barely a foot long. It blinked at me with wide, innocent eyes as it continued to approach me curiously.
“Calm yourself,” Qui-Gon’s voice echoed from behind me, startling me briefly. “It is a nudj. It means you no harm.”
I remained silent as my eyes stayed locked on the nudj, the reptile tilting its head at me.
A creature on Dagobah that doesn’t want to harm me?
“Do they taste good?”
Qui-Gon’s lips twitched with amusement.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t harm one of the rare beings of this world offering you peace.”
“That’s not a no,” I countered, but Qui-Gon remained silent, his ghost simply staring at me with quiet patience.
I let out a heavy sigh and clipped the lightsaber back onto my belt. "Fine. No lizard barbecue. But if a dragonsnake tries to eat me, that’s a different story."
“The nudj approaches you without hostility; perhaps you should return the gesture.”
“This planet turns everyone mad, doesn’t it?” I muttered. “Myself included. Usually when I talk to the dead, they don’t respond to me.” I looked at Qui-Gon again, who was watching me with quiet amusement.
Shaking my head, I gently reached my hand out to the lizard. The creature sniffed my hand curiously before scrambling up onto my palm. 
“Whoa there,” I said, my arm going tense as the lizard traveled up it, wrapping around the back of my neck and settling neatly like a scarf. “What the–” A small laugh escaped me as the nudj rested his head, his eyes drifting shut.
“Despite their outward appearance, nudj are docile creatures,” Qui-Gon said, making me turn my attention to him. “They are responsive to the Force. They feel it around them, and bask in its presence. One of the rare creatures of Dagobah that will do you no harm.”
“Must be rarer than finding gold in a shoebox,” I said idly, gently scratching the lizard around the neck. “You should have seen the first time I came across the spiders around here.”
“Your fear of the Knobby White Spider is understandable,” he said, nodding. “Such a creature is not nearly as harmless, even as a juvenile.”
“It’s part of the reason why I tried building that wall over there,” I said, nodding to the bundle of sticks beside a tree. “I didn’t get too far, but y’know…Out of sight, out of mind and all that.”
Spiders have no right to become that big. They’re already creepy when they’re small, but these guys? It’s like their skin is made of bone. Smashing one with my shovel barely dented the one trying to kill me.
“A collection of twigs will hardly deter a creature of their nature,” Qui-Gon noted, making me still. “Out of sight does not mean out of reach.”
“Then it’s a good thing Yoda stopped me from wasting too much of my time,” I said, chuckling to hide my worry, though I don’t think I was fooling anyone.
‘I’m never going to have a day of peace on this planet, am I?’ I mused quietly, the thought settling in my stomach. ‘I can’t even farm without worrying about something coming out of nowhere and trying to kill me.
“Hey Qui-Gon,” I ask, getting the man’s attention. “What other creatures are on this planet? Y’know, the ones that will try and kill me.”
His answer made me gulp nervously.
“Perhaps I can show you.”
-Qui-Gon Jinn-
Master Yoda’s new Padawan was…interesting. No, interesting didn’t quite encompass his thoughts on the boy.
His connection to the Force was unlike anything Qui-Gon had ever witnessed. It was neither exceptionally deep nor non-existent; rather, the Force simply swirled around the young man constantly, no matter how much the boy tried to hide it.
The nudj on the boy's shoulder looked the most content he had ever seen an animal be. To a passerby, it would look as if the two had been partners for years, not minutes. The boy may have made a lifelong friend.
“What do you know of Butcherbugs?” he asked conversationally, as he and the boy headed deeper into the forest.
“Uhhh, I remember they can kill you?” he said hesitantly, which wasn’t untrue. It’s just their method was unconventional, to say the least.
“Come,” he said, and the boy followed. “Do you see its web?”
The boy squinted into the darkness underneath the tree root. As the seconds passed and the more visibly confused the boy got, he decided to approach this differently.
“Can you feel the web?” he asked instead, the boy looking at him with realization. The boy closed his eyes, and he felt the pulse in the Force. He heard the nudj on the boy's shoulder let out a satisfied groan, enjoying the sensation of the Force being used.
“How can it get so thin and not break?” Yoda’s Padawan asked, reaching out to the web only for the nudj to croak in warning. 
Interesting, the nudj could sense the danger and was ensuring the boy remained unharmed.
“While thin, its web is strong. Stronger than most metals, and extremely sharp. The string of a butcherbug isn’t designed to stick, but to cut. It relies on prey running into the web and feeds on its remains.”
“So I have to worry about just…walking around now?” the boy asked, and he nodded. He could feel the fear and frustration radiating off the boy, but didn’t fault him for it. It was a reasonable fear.
And as the boy said himself, he wasn’t a Jedi. He was not being trained to be a Jedi. To hold him to such a standard would be unreasonable.
“Trust in the Force, and it will show you the path to safety.” he paused for a moment, his lips quirking into a smile. “Or only walk to the places you need to be.”
“Easier said than done,” the boy muttered. “If another one of those spiders chases me…”
“Then, unlike before, you have the means to defend yourself,” he answered, which made the boy pause. “Are you aware of the history of gnarltrees?”
“More preoccupied worrying about things that can kill me than the trees,” the boy said offhandedly. “The most I have to worry about with the gnarltree is one falling on top of me.”
“Take a step back,” he suggested, the boy following suit. “Don’t look at the individual parts; look at it as a whole. What do you see?”
At first, the boy looked confused, before the realization struck in, making him back away in fear.
“That shouldn’t be possible!” he blurted. “How. How in the f–” the boy forcibly cut himself off, looking towards him in trepidation. “How does it look like that?”
It seemed like the boy had figured it out. “The Knobby White Spider is one of the oldest species in the galaxy. For the first few years of its life, it roams the planet. Hunts. Eats whatever animal it can come across. Once it has gathered enough nutrients, the spider finds an anchor spot. In time, it will become a sapling. As the decades pass, the tree grows to towering heights, eventually giving rise to new life of its own.”
“So you’re telling me, every single gnarltree I’ve seen is a spider breeding ground?” the boy asked, his disbelief and fear palpable.
When he put it like that, it made it sound worse than it actually is. “Most of these gnarltrees have died. Time and disease can take all creatures great and small.”
The boy calmed down at his words, though he still looked at the trees warily.
A guttural growl echoed through the swamp. It was answered not even a second later by a louder, deeper roar.
“Are those dragonsnakes?” the boy whispered, looking into the distance warily. He hummed, confirming the boy's suspicions.
“The dragonsnake. One of the most dangerous creatures on all of Dagobah. They hunt in deep waters, though they can surface on land. On land, they are slow but powerful. In water, they are fast, powerful, and worst of all, stealthy.”
“We should probably stay away from them, then.” 
“A wise decision,” he agreed. Wandering into the territory of dragonsnakes is one of the last things he should ever do on this planet.
The moment the words left his mouth, a sudden tremor rippled through the air. The nudj on the boy's shoulder went alert. Croaking loudly as the boy looked around in worry.
“What was that?” the boy asked, unclipping the lightsaber from his belt. But it was the wrong question to ask.
“Use the Force, young Padawan. What do you see?”
He couldn’t tell him the truth. Not now; he could tell how antsy the boy could get. But something the boy did do was listen.
He closed his eyes and felt everything around him. The grass, the ground, the trees—every living creature that surrounded him.
In this case, from above.
“Shit!” the boy shouted, watching the bogwing dive toward him with its wings spread and talons extended, intent on making him its next meal.
The boy narrowly dodged, dropping to his knees to avoid the talons entirely. The bogwing continued to fly, the nudj croaking in warning as it started to turn, not easily deterred from missing its meal.
For a moment, the boy looked scared, terrified as the creature charged towards him once more.
Then he heard those familiar words echo.
‘Use the Force.’
In that moment, the boy changed in front of him. His fear disappeared, replaced with anticipation. The nudj croaked louder, though the boy didn’t seem to hear it.
Once more, the bogwing glided down, its roar echoing through the forest as it got closer.
In one move, the boy dodged to the left, missing the talons by a hair. With a snap-hiss, he ignited the lightsaber, bringing it down in one fell swoop.
The bogwing’s roar became a cry of pain, the creature wobbling in the air as it struggled to find its balance. Meanwhile, its tail landed heavily on the ground, squirming briefly before it went still.
Meanwhile, the bogwing crashed into the closest gnarltree, continuing to make noise as it hobbled away.
The boy didn’t follow after it. Instead, he warily watched it crawl away, emitting groans of pain as it disappeared into the swamp.
For a brief moment, there was silence, the boy looking at the lightsaber in awe and fascination, only to snap out of it a moment later.
“Was that a fucking Pterodactyl?” the boy asked in disbelief, deactivating the lightsaber. The word was foreign to his ears.
“A bogwing,” he answered, and the boy looked at him weirdly. “Another danger of Dagobah. While dragonsnakes rule the sea, bogwings rule the sky. It was your trust in the Force that saved you today.”
“Are you saying I have to worry about Spyro the fucking dragon eating me as well?” the boy asked, and he felt his turmoil of emotions through the Force. “The ground isn’t safe, the sky isn’t safe… This really is Australia, isn’t it?”
He remained silent for a moment. He had never heard of a planet called Australia. Nor of a Spyro Dragon. But while the boy's exasperation was clear, he did not feel any hopelessness.
The boy sighed, leaning down to inspect the severed tail. It was almost two meters long, the edge cleanly charred where the lightsaber had sliced through. The color was a mix of green and grey, with lines covering the tail entirely.
“Hey Qui-Gon, about these bogwings…” the boy said, getting his attention once more.
“Do they taste good?”