Star Wars: Attachment

by Rhysati Ynr

Attachment can lead to the darkside, as one wise man once said. So when an attack is threatened against the trading world of Corellia, how is it so that Jedi Knight Kai Darklighter's attachment to everything is put under threat? Let the mystery unfold...

Dramatis Personae:

General KAI DARKLIGHTER, Jedi Knight (human male)
General KEISHA FARLANDER, Jedi Knight (human female)
Commander LENA ARANO, Jedi Padawan (human female)
ISSAARU LUCA DARKLIGHTER, Bounty Hunter (human female)
General TOMOS DARKLIGHTER, Jedi Knight (human male)
General KARANA JETSPEED, Jedi Master (human female)
General SENU MEJI, Jedi Master (human male)
General KENDARI, Jedi Knight (human male)
General COHRU XATER, Jedi Knight (humanoid female)
Commander ORIMA JIQUA, Jedi Padawan (Twi'lek female)
FERRA MJU, Former Seperatist personal aide/Republic Intelligence (human male)
MIKOS ARGO, Fallen Jedi Master (human male)
Alpha ARC Trooper Sergeant 036 THRIX (human clone)

Republic Commando Units:
Vod Squadron

RC-7283 ARAN
RC-1548 BESBE
RC-1139 ORAR
RC-6372 ADENN
RC-4376 CUYAN

Additional Clone Units:

CT-6673/3473 CARUD
CT-6253/6277 DARJUM
CT-2247/8676 BUURENAR
CT-8379/4273 RUUS
CT-7872/6453 EKUR

Star Wars:

Attachment

Written by Rachel E Hayler

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Night time on Coruscant was unlike night time on any other planet, because it never got totally dark. Well, that seemed to be true for the bowels of this city covered planet. All around me the neon lights of holoadvertisements and other illuminations burned garishly and pinched the darkness from the air as I walked down one of the dirty, bustling streets of the under-city. Certainly I had been to far worse places in my time as a Jedi, but right now I felt more nervous due to the fact that I was trying to remain inconspicuous. On other occasions, sneaking around had been the last thing on the agenda, but not right now.

In my ear, my very small and hopefully unnoticeable com-link buzzed with static as a gruff voice spoke to me with a tone that mimicked that of a parent lecturing a child, "Remember, Darklighter, you're headed for the Star's End bar. It's about one klick ahead and to your left."

"Relax, Thrix." I grinned sheepishly behind my thick scarf and made a slight alteration to my course down the street, grateful that the Advanced Recon Commando had not commented upon my mistake over our shared 'link. "No need to worry about me."

"I'm not worried about you, di'kut," the ARC replied and I was pretty certain that he meant it. "All I need you to do is get a move on. Vode are getting anxious and this Seppie won't wait around for long."

"Relax," I reiterated, though my pace did subconsciously pick up speed a little. "At the amount of credits he's being paid for his information, I know he'll stick around."

"If it's the Force that is telling you that, Jedi boy, then I'll keep my blasters close by. Vode out."

Looking up as the line went dead, I could see the large, illuminated sign of the Star's End bar, an odd combination of fiery orange and calming green streaming down to high-light the club's triangular shaped door. Plucking up my scarf so that I felt my features were covered by the heavy fabric, I slowly entered the bar.

The name Star's End suggested that this bar was popular with sleazy, space jockey types, and it wasn't half wrong. But there were other people in there too, more respectable types of beings, and deep down it was something animal inside of me that told me why these men were also attracted to a dingy bar like this. Across the fairly cavernous, gloomy room were elevated platforms that were occupied by green and orange, writhing Twi'leks. I couldn't recall there ever being an orange Twi'lek in existence, so I presumed that a lot of make up was involved in their costumes. The strobing jade and sun coloured lighting surrounding each platform made it seem as if they were dancing on fire, adding to their appeal I supposed. Upon tearing my gaze uncomfortably away from the poor beings, I found myself in need of a strong drink.

I confidently strode across the remaining floor between myself and the bar and ordered a Corellian ale from yet another scantily clad, Twi'lek female. I drained the glass almost a split second after it had been placed in front of me and tapped its rim, indicating to a very startled bar tender that I wanted a refill. She complied instantly, and after paying her rather handsomely I allowed her to slope off to serve another patron. I was still feeling uncomfortable, which was hardly surprising considering my surroundings; but it wasn't just that.

I had been disobeying the Jedi Code for nearly a year now, and my guilt was starting to niggle at me. Well, I didn't consider it to be disobedience, but my actions could be seriously frowned upon. My partner, Jedi Knight Keisha Farlander, and I had been secretly dating since the incident at Induomodo, and thus far our secret love had not been discovered. Everything had been perfect, until recently. It had started off as a feeling deep down inside of me that would happen one day in the future, something that I did not need to think about until later on, but…skrag, it was at the front of my mind every passing moment of every passing day.

I wanted to marry her.

Only certain Jedi such as Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi had been given permission to marry and produce off spring because their species was under threat of extinction. I, on the other hand, was human and so I did not have that excuse. But the urge was still there rooted and niggling away at me, causing me to think of the consequences that marriage could bring, especially between two Jedi Knights. It would be a lot harder to hide than just dating, considering that we would have to find a quiet place to have a ceremony with our close friends and family. None of which had any ideas that we were together in the first place.

I shook my head and took another sip from my Corellian ale, allowing the bitter, spicy taste to melt onto my tongue before swallowing. My sense of unease was heightened at that moment, and I instantly felt that my cover had been blown. I was about to call for back up when my danger sense tingled and alerted me that the attention upon me was from someone that I knew, but it wasn't my informant. My mind fluttered through the possible people that might be in a place like this, but no names or faces came to mind.

Something brushed against my back and tantalisingly a whisper lurked into my ear in the bitter sounding words of Selonian, "A word."

Oh kriff. I knew that voice. I downed my drink and rose to my feet several moments after I sensed that the presence had moved away to make our talk less noticeable. What the blazes was she doing here?

"Darklighter," Thrix's angered voice came over the bead com-link in my ear. "Where are you going? He could be here soon."

I ignored him as I pushed my way through the patrons and made my way towards the 'freshers at the back right hand corner of the club. As soon as I had entered the shadows towards the far back wall of the room and turned around to try and locate the presence, a blaster was pressed into my ribs quickly and roughly as a woman with long, golden blonde hair and vibrant green eyes stepped in front of me.

I fixed a disarming, Corellian smile upon my face and cheerily greeted, "Iss –"

The Force warned me too late as a hand lashed out and slapped me whole heartedly across the face, whipping my head hard to the left. The woman growled at me coldly, "Utter one more syllable and I'll kill you now."

I raised a hand to my cheek, nursing it as I rolled my eyes and spoke anyway, remembering this time not to mention her real name, "Good to see you too, sweet heart. Not keen on the blonde, I must say."

The woman smirked and I had seen more warmth on the face of a wampa. "That mouth of yours will land you into trouble one of these days, sith spit. Now tell me what you're doing here."

"Osik, Darklighter. Don't tell her anything, di'kut," Thrix's voice hissed into my ear. He had no idea who this woman was though.

I kept the cocky, confident grin on my face as I replied, "Jedi business."

Her blaster pressed harder into my ribs and caused me to cough slightly. "Enlighten me."

A look dropped onto my face as I looked down directly into her eyes, one that was of mock superiority and pity for her ignorance. "You know that I can't tell you that." I made a sweeping gesture with a hand and decided to try a different tact. "But why don't you enlighten me, sweet cheeks. What are you doing in a place like this? I thought you'd given all of this bounty hunting up?"

Her green eyes narrowed to calculating, emerald slits. "Is Tom with you?"

I shook my head. Good, I had chipped her nerve. "He's still in the Outer Rim, or so I've been told." It had been almost two months since I had seen my older brother. "And I know that he wouldn't approve of this."

"He's been away for son long now that he has no right to govern my job choices." The woman finally lowered her blaster. "And I'm trailing a GAR bounty. I'm not that hypocritical."

Well, marrying a Jedi Knight must have a limit on the number of jobs that someone in your profession can take." I smirked; glad to see the sister-in-law that I had known for years returning to the woman's demeanour. "Dead or alive?"

"Alive only. RI wants to ask the guy some questions," she explained, and I felt a frown creep onto my face.

We were hunting the same target.

"You have to back down," I protested. "The Jedi Council need information from this Seppie that could be vital to the war effort."

She laughed as if I was stupid and fixed me with a look that showed she thought as much. "Not on your life, Darklighter. Do you know how much this guy is worth? I could buy myself a nice little apartment in the upper city for turning him over to the boys in the RI."

I groaned in exasperation. Republic Intelligence, RI, must have caught whiff of our interest in the man. My informant and her target, a male human by the name of Ferra Mju, was one of the personal aides to the head of the Intergalactic Banking Clan, San Hill. Well, "had been" would have been a better choice of words. After his former employer had discovered the credits from his personal back account were being drained and transferred, he had investigated the mysterious goings on and followed the trail back to his former aide. Mju had barely escaped an assassination attempt upon his life and fled to Coruscant in search of help from the Jedi Order – the most secure place in the whole galaxy.

He must have been aware of our undercover work within the Banking Clan and commerce guilds, and had figured that he would be an invaluable source to us. He was right, and so in exchange for a sizeable amount of credits and protection from the Order, he'd tell us all that he could about the finances of the Intergalactic Banking Clan.

His information was key to keeping our agents within his old organisation safe, and if Republic Intelligence got hold of the information first, then all of our deeply secret work would have been in vain. They might uncover our work and compromise the intelligence that we had gathered, let alone that we would be reprimanded by the Chancellor himself for "keeping him out of the loop" so to speak.

I needed Mju, and no one was going to take him from me.

"The Jedi need his information more than Republic Intelligence. Being married to a Jedi Knight should mean that you have more loyalties to us than the RI," I growled, knowing better than to play to her sense of loyalties, but I was running out of options. With her being family, I couldn't do what I would normally do with someone who got in the way: kill her. Just one of the battles against attachment that I was facing.

She laughed again and ran a hand down the side of my face, affectionately it seemed until it returned in front of her, palm up and revealing the com-link that had once been in my ear. Fierfek. She followed this up by stepping in close to me, as if she was going to whisper into my ear for a tense moment and then stepping away again with my lightsaber in hand. Fierfek, I needed to watch people's intentions more carefully. "I'm not backing down, Darklighter. Tom and I need this money." My danger sense suddenly tingled as she slipped the stolen lightsaber hilt behind her back and placed it upon her gun belt. "Especially now that I'm -"

Mju.

"Down!" I yelled as plume of fiery orange brilliance ripped into the air above us and sent patrons screaming. So Mju was in more osik than I had first realised, our sudden attack had come from some unseen party within the bar that I had not sensed. That also meant that Mju must have been in the bar at the time of the shot, which now meant that he was probably making a hasty retreat. Fierfek.

Half covering my sister-in-law's body with my own in case our attacker decided to fire another plume of fire at us, I rolled onto my stomach and with one quick motion my fingers closed around the handgrip of her blaster and pumped two shots into what I believed was the source of our attack. There was a sound of a death defiant scream a second later, followed by a clang as the flamethrower dropped down to the cold floor. I pushed myself up into a crouch then, gripping my sister-in-law's arm roughly and dragged her hurriedly behind the bar that I had been at earlier as the whole room burst to life in a laser filled battle field.

Slapping her blaster back down into her grip, I liberated my lightsaber and com-link from her and then slipped the latter into my ear and called, "Mju got away, Thrix. It's over to you now. We're locked down pretty tight in here."

I didn't receive a reply, and felt a shudder plough up and down my spine. Thrix was going to kill me for this.

No time to think about that now. I was currently in the most difficult battle terrain of all – a room filled with civilians. The Force and the occasional pain filled groan amongst the cacophony of blaster fire told me that there were casualties, but no fatalities. Shouldn't be too much of a law suit against the Republic, then.

It was at that point that my thumb depressed the activation stud on my lightsaber, and the blazing, cerulean blade burst into existence. I probably shouldn't have left my sister-in-law by herself in the middle of an ambush, but without conscious thought I found myself leaping up and over the make shift cover that we had found and charging across the mercenary encrusted dance floor, deflecting blaster bolts with ease as I went.

By the time that I had reached the doorway, Vod squadron were planted outside, returning the fire that I had attracted to them. With only pausing for a brief moment to instruct the commandoes not to shoot the woman behind the bar, I pushed through their barricade and hurried off into the street, lightsaber still ignited. The hiss and glow of the weapon was enough to scatter screaming pedestrians and open me up to the sight of a fleeing man who fit the description of Ferra Mju.

I need not have bothered sprinting after him. I was roughly six or seven footsteps behind him when a clone in blue pigmented armour tackled him and dropped the man like a stone. A small struggle ensued as I came to a skidding halt above the wrestling pair, but the clone was far stronger and soon had one of his blasters pressed against the Separatist's bloodied temple and growled, "Copaani mirshmure'cye, Aruetti?"

Are you looking for a smack in the face, traitor? I managed to translate the Mando'a phrasing in my head as the wide-eyed man shook his head vigorously.

"Jatne, so ne'hojaa," the clone growled as he rolled off of the man and I knelt down beside him and crudely cuffed him.

"Good work, Thrix," I commented somewhat breathlessly as we both hauled the man to his feet.

"Start watching everything, Darklighter, and not just your own shebs," ARC Trooper 036, Thrix, replied as we began to lead the man back down the street to the Star's End bar that the Vod boys had fully secured by now. "It'll save the Republic a lot of credits in compensation for wets injuries and structure damage."

Wets being the military slang for civvies or organic hostiles. His use of jargon brought a smile to my face as we continued and Vod squadron appeared in the distance. "Just keeping the Republic on their toes."

"And keeping me on mine," the Alpha ARC replied gruffly as we finally reached Vod squadron who were busily calculating kills, injuries and building damage after the fire fight. My sister-in-law looked over at me angrily and icily before turning back to the civilian's wound that she was attending to.

The ARC noticed the look. "Who's the girl, Darklighter? She's a liability. She could have gotten your head blown off."

"But she didn't," I replied with a tone that was a lot firmer than I had first thought. "And you wouldn't believe me if I tried to explain."

"Well, she'll have to come back with us for questioning." The ARC pointed towards one of the members of Vod squadron and indicated my sister-in-law. "We're going to need the details of the bounty that was posted. We need to know what Republic Intelligence knows of our mission, and if it's been compromised."

I nodded. "Leave that to me."

Thrix's helmet turned to the left, his T-shaped visor reflecting the judgement that must have been playing across his eyes. "We'll see."

He turned and marched away at that point, conferring with a member of Vod squadron before flipping on his wrist com-link to get us transport back the Jedi Temple.

It was just as well that he had turned around and not seen the expression upon my face, for I was judging my abilities as a Jedi too…