Baze Malbus

Baze clearly wasn't thinking when he asked X for a job as a member of Security. He didn't think, at that time, that he would be building a lightbow, and how the restriction of no violence would interfere with his duties. So when he tried to interpose himself between Logan and that clawed stranger, Baze broke that restriction--and therefore must restart his lightbow-construction project from scratch.

He's already forged the pieces again. Now he needs to anodize the aluminum once more, converting it to its oxide form and making it porous enough to absorb metal dyes. He already owns the supplies: sulfuric acid, lye, red metal fiber dye, and distilled water, as well as a speeder battery, soap, and three plastic tubs.

He finds he must meditate before beginning, to give his frustration over to the Force. He didn't think he'd have to do this process more than once.

With a squeak of rubber over skin--which he has always hated the feel of--he dons a pair of gloves that cover up to his elbows and washes the metal. Wrinkling his nose at the smell, he immerses the parts in lye and then the sulfuric acid solution--after rinsing the lye off with water.

Carefully--oh, so carefully--he connects a jumper cable to the first part, the stock and sinks it down into the acid. With a resigned sigh--which he kicks himself for--he then connects the cable to the speeder battery as well as to a spare piece of aluminum, the latter of which he submerges into the acid next to the stock.

He turns on the power, listening to the satisfying hum of the battery. Watching the stock soak for an hour, he notices a lot of bubbles around the piece of scrap metal, but very little bubbling around the stock. Good.

Finally, trying not to mope about it, he soaks the stock in the dye bath and then boils it for thirty minutes to seal the dye.

With a genuine smile at the color, he sets the stock aside to cool, and moves on to the next piece.

Acolyte Malbus, twenty-two, has been gone from the temple for weeks.

He'd noticed that Chirrut was having trouble with keeping up with people in staff practice, and while Chirrut was never cautious, he moved more freely around the kyber. Baze determined that he had to do something about that. So he begged the elders for a sliver of kyber--just a sliver, not big enough to be used in any lightsaber or for anything else--and was granted his request after months of petitioning.

As soon as he recieved the crystal, he tucked it away in a pocket. He walked to the uneti grove on Jedha, hundreds of miles away, and cut down a branch to drag back to the temple. More days passed, and eventually, the temple was within sight.

He's lost weight on his walk. He ran out of food in the last week or so.

He probably should have told Chirrut what he was doing.

Because this is Milliways, when Baze requests a workshop for fireworks making, he gets one tall enough that he can test them indoors, soundproofed to the outside.

The challenge is to make a firework that sounds interesting and is possibly scented. But first, he must learn how to make a firework that, well, works. That requires a lot of trial and error.

He pastes shells, wrinkling his nose at the odor of the wheat paste. The shell innards include fuel, an oxygen producer, a binding resin, and color-producing agents all carefully mixed into a recipe. Baze weighs black powder, praying he doesn't blow his hand off. He blends potassium nitrate, charcoal, dextrin, and sulphur to make a "Tiger Tail" orange set of stars--the components that give fireworks their color.

His first attempts are duds. The first one has air holes near the time fuse--or spolette, as it's called. The second has too much black powder. Next come misaligned stars and a misplaced trigger. Then he learns he wasn't pasting the shells correctly. He corrects what went wrong with each version, and finally shoots off several orange peonies with resounding booms.

Next, he works on how to make a firework that sounds interesting. He learns that fireworks filled with lead oxide crackle, and narrow tubes create whistling sounds. There are also "screaming turbo candles," which screech. He builds several working prototypes of varying sounds and colors, learning how to measure out chemicals for each one.

Good. Now to figure out how to work scent into a fireworks show. He could just permeate the space with a sapir-infused mist, but where's the fun in that? Then, one night, while he's blowing bubbles into a bantha milk glass with a straw, the idea to use smoke-filled bubbles dawns on him. He takes apart a bubble machine and rebuilds it to produce bubbles filled with smoke using dry ice. Bar provides the oils that produce sapir scent, and Baze spends the next few days rebuilding several bubble machines to produce the thousands of bubbles he wants for a good show. The only downside is that Chirrut won't be able to see them to pop them. Baze will have to make sure plenty pop around him, to get the full effect of the scent.

Throughout this process, Baze has kept his cards close to his chest. He hasn't told Chirrut anything, except for the fact that Baze is making fireworks. The show on their birthday is mostly for Chirrut, but if other people enjoy it, that's great! Baze is looking forward to the party. He purchases 10,000 Roman Candles to round out the fireworks show, and continues experimenting until the day of.

It can be said that Baze Malbus, having only once drank alcohol before he came to Milliways, is starting to become a lush. He dips into the moonshine stores frequently, enough that he's starting to worry Chirrut, and he knows it.

After his drinking contest and scare with Cassidy, where Baze imbibed enough moonshine that he lost count of the bottles, he's sleeping off his nasty hangover in the early, early morning. He snores loudly, having thrown an arm over his head, completely given over to a dreamless sleep.

This is a terrible idea.

Baze can't remember if the thought to visit the Temple of the Kyber years after it fell was his or Chirrut's, but it's already terrible. They scale the outer wall at night--which makes no difference to Chirrut, but it certainly does to Baze--in order to avoid the attention of the stormtroopers.

Baze notices the lack of herbs burning in the winter braziers out in the courtyard as he trails Chirrut's unerring steps. Shadows and quiet suffuse the temple, a place previously filled with light and life.

Blaster fire and dried blood mark the steps of the entrance, and Baze's heart shatters in his chest. There's a hole there, a hole filled with ground glass.

He licks abruptly dry lips. "Well," he says, soft in the darkness, "we're here."

In darkness, cold.
In light, cold.
The old sun brings no heat.
But there is heat in breath and life... and death.
In all, there is the Force.
And the Force is eternal.

The night is still, and the two Jedhans are sleeping. The smaller Jedhan is splayed out on his stomach across his and the larger one's still-pushed-together beds, feet resting on Baze's shoulder. Chirrut has already stolen all the blankets, as is his nightly wont, and breathes deeply in repose.

Until a quiet noise--bordering on a sob--rouses him.

"Baze?" Chirrut murmurs, raising his groggy head.

"No," Baze mumbles in his sleep. He sucks in a great gasp, tossing and turning on the sheets. Chirrut can't see that Baze's knuckles are white from the force of his clenched fists, but the smaller man can feel the tension vibrating in the larger man's frame once Chirrut places a hand on Baze's chest. "Chirrut, come! No! No!"

"Baze!" Chirrut says, shaking him. "Wake up!"

And Baze Malbus wakes up screaming.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single Baze in possession of tastebuds, must be in want of tea. He ambles up to the bar after morning forms, sweaty and tired but content, his now twice-as-heavy--thanks to Ibani's cortosis core--staff slung across his shoulders. He leans it across the counter, and pats the bar.

Bar provides a cup of tea--oolong and almond--and a datapad.

Curious, Baze picks up the pad and tests the tea, making an appreciative hum at the taste. He reads the first couple of lines.

Then he drops the cup.

He needs to find Chirrut.

Baze wasn't sure how it happened.

He'd found her. Nineteen years after the fall of the temple, he'd found Eiko, Chirrut's white flower. She was walking in the market, just as haughty as she pleased, staff slung over her shoulder and a dirty look for anyone who passed her by. Including Baze, until she recognized him.

"Baze!" she said, rushing forward to meet him. She'd changed from the girl he knew into a too-thin, angry woman, a shell of her former joyous self. "I thought you were dead! Where's Chirrut?"

"Eiko! He's safe," Baze said, picking the slight woman up and swinging her around. "I'm so glad to have found you!"

She giggled, kicking her feet against his legs. "Put me down, you big oaf," she said, slapping him on his shoulder with the hand not holding her staff. "Please, I have to see him."

"Yes, of course," Baze said, setting her on her feet again. "Of course. Come with me."

He'd led her down the wrong alleyway. Imperial troops were there, 'questioning' a shopkeeper. The twi'lek's cries of pain echoed against the stone as the troopers beat him for information. Eiko refused to pass by. Instead, she launched into a furious defense, taking down stormtroopers with her staff at a speed Chirrut would be proud of.

Baze didn't see what happened next.

He'd had his back turned, firing at reinforcements when Eiko screamed. Blaster fire had scorched her chest and the side of her face. Bright, red blood stained her white skin, spattered across her body. She dropped to her knees, the grace suddenly gone from her movements. Her staff fell from her hands to clatter on the street, oddly loud despite the noise of the fight.

"Eiko! Eiko, no!" Baze cried, cradling her against his chest, but it was too late. Troopers swarmed the alleyway like so many fire ants. He had no choice but to flee, cutting a swath through them with his repeater cannon.

It had all happened so fast, Baze wasn't sure if he'd really found her, or if she was just a hallucination brought on by hunger and poor sleep. But the blood on his hands didn't lie.

He couldn't tell Chirrut.

Following Jay's advice, Baze heads to the library to request holovids on beer brewing. He reads slowly, so the vids are most helpful. His first few bottles explode, and the ones that don't taste terrible, but Baze Malbus perseveres. Soon, his beers are both potent and delicious, and Baze enjoys the process so much that he branches out into distilling moonshine in his workshop upstairs.

On the surface, this is a great idea.

The basic ingredients needed to distill moonshine are sugar, water, corn meal, yeast, and malt extract. Hefting the twenty-gallon drum, Baze mixes ten gallons of water with the sugar and corn meal. Wiping sweat off his brow in the hot workshop, he heats the mixture to a temperature of 145F for a half hour. He performs an iodine test on the mash to see if the starches have been converted to sugar, and, sighing when they haven't, reheats the mash until they have. Then he adds the yeast and malt extract.

Baze waits impatiently for three days for the mixture to ferment. The mash, rising in the bin with a lot of froth, is soon ready. He transfers it to pressure cooker with a hole in the lid and a copper tube inserted into the hole. The first cup of moonshine produced is toxic, so Baze plans to dispose of it properly. He settles in with Chirrut and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to read aloud to wait for the distillation process to finish.

All is going well--until the still blows up.

The young Guardian, Baze, has a secret.

He's managed to smuggle something soft and small and adorable into his room, without alerting any of the Masters or the little acolytes he's supposed to be training at the moment. Now he's waiting for Chirrut, stroking the baby animal and hiding at any random noise from the stone corridor.