Author Notes: In Which Jai Attempts to Not Get Sued

Star Wars and all ideas that exist within it belong to George and his Lucasfilm buddies. Not me. I seek to make no money from any of this, and if anyone out there thinks that there's a chance in hell that I could make a buck off of this, I'd like to know what the fierfek you're smoking. But Pi Squad and Sadri are mine. If you'd like to borrow them, ask. Chances are I'll say yes.

To those of you who, like me, absolutely love the RepCom novels, I apologize for blatantlyreusing a majoridea from those stories. But this was half in my head before I even touched a RepCom novel.

Finally, yes. There are and there will be vast multitudes of pi jokes within this story. It's primarily a humour-fic after all. I'm not taking it all too seriously, and I hope that you don't either, and just let yourself be entertained.

Enjoy!

Pi In The Face

Chapter One: In Which A Premise is Given, Although it May Be A Very Poor One

"Exploring pi is like exploring the universe" - David Chudnovsky

The ship was a behemoth of metal; an Acclamator-class vessel christened the Benzylic – over seven hundred metres from stem to stern, with firepower enough to bombard a planet into complete submission. She was a true machine of war. Inside and out, every inch of the ship was constructed so as to give the air of dominance. Everything was metal, shiny and new.

And the Jedi felt oddly out of place, standing on the bridge of the ship. The ship – and the one hundred thousand men that went along with it – that was under her control. Sullust had fallen into Separatist hands yet again, and it was up to her and these one hundred thousand men to bring it back into the fold again.

She was a Jedi Master now; having ascended to the rank only two months before.

Yet she had never, ever been in control. She had never been a General. She had never directed a war.

She shivered as she stood there. The planet was coming closer. Soon they would have to engage.

Tilting her head, she stared into the endless expanse of stars that were visible outside of the main window of the bridge and smiled as a tinkly chime sounded over her comlink. The smile spread into a vaguely manic grin that brought life to her green eyes. She didn't know exactly what to do, so she had decided on the best course of action:

She'll make it up as she goes. She turned away from the bridge and went down a corridor, answering her comlink as she walked. Her smile disappeared as the message came through: A change of plans. The Council would send another Jedi to direct military actions on Sullust. For her, they had something a bit different...

-------

"So," Sadri Oboa said, in an authoritative voice as she entered the briefing room, "who put you losers on my ship?"

She was talking to four entirely identical but entirely different men, who wore expressions varying from passivity to evil grin. These were her personal batch of Republic Commandos: aptly named after her favourite food, they were designated as Pi Squad.

"The same person who put you in charge," came the cutting reply from RC-2425, affectionately named Leeroy. "I mean, don't you remember what happened the last time we worked with you?"

"Yep," Sadri said, her deadpan flawless. "I had to come and round you up like a batch of lost pups." She grinned suddenly. "But it's a damn good thing to have you here." Leaning on the table, she picked up a datapad and pressed a button on it. "Rumour has it that there's a man by the name of Xav Marott who, in addition to being one hell of a rich man, has been channeling funds to the Separatists from his home planet of Adanac I."

"Now there's a big surprise." Leeroy interjected.

"Can it, would you?" This came from Ven. Ven, desginated as RC-9097, had the personality of an extremely hardened soldier – or, as Leeroy had declared the first time they'd all met, the personality of a very old and cranky man. If Pi Squad had a leader, it was Ven, and he was a solid contrast to Leeroy's class-clown persona, but nowhere near as ornery as his brother would claim.

"You get one more, Leeroy," Sadri said in a curt voice before continuing. "It's the same-old, same-old. The authorities at Coruscant want to freeze the largest of his accounts, except to do that, they need..."

"Access codes." Another member of Pi Squad spoke up: RC-2468, who had been given the nickname Jav. "Those are easy enough to procure with a bit of computer slicing."

"Unfortunately," Sadri said, rocking back and forth on her heels, "it's a bit more complex than that. Marott is known for never storing sensitive information like that in any sort of technological device. Ironically enough, his account has been encrypted by the Banking Clan to such a degree that, well, they can't get in. So..."

"So you need to somehow worm it out of the guy." The last member of the squad, RC-1259, otherwise known as Scrat, spoke very quietly as he provided his input to the conversation. Scrat was inexplicably shy – Sadri had only had a handful of conversations with him, whereas the rest of Pi Squad were talkative enough to make one's ears fall off.

"Exactly," Sadri said, nodding in Scrat's general direction.

"Okay," Leeroy said, raising his hand as though waiting for Sadri to call on him but speaking anyway, "then why d'you need us?"

"Because of the and then. Basically we have three objectives. Number one: I weasel the codes out of Marott, and relay them to the Coruscanti authorities, and Marott's account is frozen. However, getting the codes isn't going to be enough for the Chancellor's office. They want Marott... well... dispatched."

"Can't you do that?" Jav asked. "I mean, you are a Jedi..."

Sadri chuckled. "Which is precisely why I can't assasinate someone. Bad publicity for the Jedi and all that. That's what you boys are going to have to figure out. You know I can help out with the logistics of the thing, but beyond that it's in your hands. Once Marott is out of the way, we will proceed to destroy the heavy arms facility on Adanac I. This particular facility, which, of course, Marott's big creds are financing, is producing the majority of the Super Battle Droids that are being used by the Seps." She grinned and threw down the datapad. "Then a fleet will show up, Adanac I is brought back into the Republic, and we go home and get drunk."

"Yeah, right," Leeroy said under his breath. "Sounds pretty standard."

"I get to interrogate, Scrat gets to knock someone's head off, and we all get to blow up a really large factory." She paused, brow furrowed in thought. "Sounds like fun to me."

"But ma'am – " Ven began, but Sadri immediately cut him off.

"Call me whatever you want, Ven, but don't call me 'ma'am' again, alright?" She made a face. "It makes me sound like I'm sixty. 'Hey You' or 'Sadri' or even 'General' works. But never 'ma'am'."

Leeroy made an odd coughing noise, as though he was stifling hysterical laughter. "Will you forgive me if I ever take you up on the Hey You bit, General?"

Sadri shook her head, laughing. "Maybe," she said. "But right now, we have more pressing matters. The Benzylic, as big and mighty and kick-ass as she is, is not heading for Adanac I, so we need to get our stuff and hop on ..." She picked up the datapad again. "You're not gonna like what we're driving."

"It can't be that bad," Jav remarked as all five of them exited the briefing room and went toward the hangar bay.

"They gave us a Consular­-class. And something tells me that the paint is holding her together. She's probably older than Chancellor Palpatine."

"Okay, it is that bad."

They had entered the hangar bay, and perched there, rusty and ancient and surrounded by crates containing their kit, was their vessel, which had clearly seen better days. Her paint scheme of blue and white was peeling in places, and the entire hull was dotted with spots of rust. Something in her innards was clicking in a manner that Sadri didn't like. She walked around the ship, eyeballing some of her more worrisome rust spots, and carefully evading the droids that were completing some last-minute welds.

"She's named the Aniline, and she's been given to us as-is. No mods. Well, I mean, she's been modified insofar as they strapped an automated turret to the roof of the thing, but..." Sadri scowled. "And we have to fly the damn thing ourselves."

"While I can fully appreciate that the Republic has bigger problems to handle," Ven said sourly, "you'd think they'd let us have what we need to do our jobs."

"She should be able to carry everything that we need," Jav remarked, eyeing the ship with distate. "I think. How far do we have to go in this thing?"

Sadri consulted the datapad again. "A parsec or two if we get our butts in gear and go now," she said, pocketing her datapad. Scanning the labels on the kit boxes, she grabbed one that wasn't something caustic or explosive and hefted it onto her shoulder, and walking on board the Aniline. "Anytime now," she said, turning around and grinning at Pi before disappearing into the ship's hold.

-------

"We're not dead yet," Leeroy said with a shrug in response to Sadri walking up behind where he and Scrat were piloting. The Aniline was making slow progress toward Adanac I, her engines thrumming hard the whole way. Once or twice Sadri heard a deafening thunk from the aft of the ship and tried not to think of what crucial component may have just fallen off. They were preparing for the hyperspace jump now, a prospect that they all knew could be fatal if the Aniline couldn't hold herself together.

"That's encouraging," Sadri said with a crooked grin as she nursed a cup of caf in her hands. "So barring anything else falling off the rear of our ship, how long until we get to Pegwin?"

She was speaking of Adanac I's only settlement, apart from temporary mines and logging encampments. From the description that had been stored on her datapad, Pegwin was a city of just under three million settlers that lacked any sort of suburbia. The city spread over seven hundred square kilometres, and then simply ceased to exist. It then gave way to rolling, old mountains, vast forests of inep trees, and countless freshwater lakes. The Republic wanted its resources. The Confederacy of Independent Systems wanted its big money. Pegwin was the location of several small but affluent banks, where the assets of many a Separatist – but also many a Republican bigwig – were stored in vast vaults.

Leeroy shrugged. "If we're lucky," he said just as another ominous thunk rent its way through the cockpit, "we'll be there in an hour."

"And if we're not?" Sadri said, taking a long swig of caf and smiling merrily as though nothing was wrong.

"If we're not, then that thunk we just heard was the hyperdrive falling off." He turned to Scrat. "Have the coordinates ready?"

"Yes," Scrat said, his face a study in calm demeanour. "They're in the nav computer now."

"Okay," Leeroy swallowed audibly, his clownish personality failing just enough to show that he was clearly nervous. "Let's hope this works."

Sadri gripped her caf cup to the point where the flimsi was starting to buckle in her hands. Jav and Ven suddenly appeared behind her, and everyone watched and waited as Leeroy punched a button on the control panel. The three observers were thrown back against one another as the Aniline managed to streak through the fabric of space-time.

"Ow." Sadri rubbed her chin, where the end of Jav's gauntlet had made a solid connection. She had collided with Jav, who had been thrown against Ven, and all three of them had ended up on their rear ends behind the pilots' seats. The view from out the windscreen was encouraging: stars streaked by as the ship continuted on her merry way toward Adanac I.

Leeroy sniggered. "I guess I should have told you to buckle up, huh?"

"Maybe," Sadri muttered.

The Aniline continued its transit for the better part of an hour, finally dropping into realspace within suborbital range of the planet. Sadri and the four commandos stared out the viewscreen, each completely stunned by what the datapad could not convey.

The planet was tiny and green all over, flecked with blue and gray. It had no seas, just several large lakes. Pegwin was huge relative to the planet, clearly visible as an angry reddish blotch that marked its northern hemisphere. For somewhere that was considered to be a regional business hub, Sadri noted that it was strange that they seemed to be the only transit for parsecs.

"That's it?" Jav asked.

"Yep," Sadri sighed. "I hope you all brought bug spray."