All characters that are not my own belong to George Lucas, Dave Filoni, Disney, Lucas Films, and others. I do not own any of them.
Jedi Master Plo Koon looked around at his troops. We were all good soldiers. But, they might not take this very "Men, I need to introduce you to someone." The Wolf Pack stood at attention.
'I wonder what the general could be doing' Commander CC-3636, or Wolffe, thought. They had just gotten deployed a couple months prior, and all of the 104th battalion was still getting used to the way the jedi acted. He was by far a good general, but it seemed that he cared too much about the clones. They were replaceable, of course. They were clones, copies of a single dead bounty hunter. Besides, he doesn't need our approval from us to introduce someone, he's the kriffing general. "Yes sir," the ship rang out as it flew through hyper-space back to Coruscant.
"As you know, Jedi can often train new padawans, but it is usually public business. But, I have been training one of my own. Many people, even jedis do not know of this jedi in training. She is a knight, and is completing her training with me. She was trained as a padawan by Master Yoda," Plo admitted. He knew this was a risk, but in order for both the troopers and his knight to advance in their training they had to be prepared for unthought of circumstances.
A few of the men looked around. They had never heard of a secret jedi. "When we dock in Coruscant, we will not go to the barracks straight away. We will be going to a secret landing zone. You will meet her their." Plo continued. He turned back to the windows of the transportation ship. We would be docking soon.
As they docked to the landing space, the men along with the well-known general neared the ship's entrance. As the doors slowly opened, they could see a figure. When the doors were fully opened, Plo Koon stepped out into the city-filled world and walked towards the women, with the soldiers following, catching glances with their brothers. What were they to expect from an unknown jedi? Plo Koon called out into the smog filled air, "Zhade, how nice to see you. Come meet my men, the 104th." Hesitantly, the women stepped out of the shadows to reveal a pale-purple twi'lek. She looked fairly shorter than the clones and the general.
She smiled to Plo as she returned with a jokingly, "Plo, good to see you. I thought you wouldn't get here for another couple light-years."
"War does take time, my sweetling," causing the alien to blush a patriarch-shade.
'Sweetling? Aren't the jedi forbidden from attachments?' Wolffe thought. This was getting weirder by the second.
"Oh stop," she nudged the general's armor covered shoulder. She swept her eyes across the troopers with a content smile on her face. "Nice to meet you, my name is Zhade Secura," with a slight salute to them.
"Men, as I said, this is my knight-in-training, Zhade Secura. She will be joining our ranks as a second commander until she becomes a master. She will explain her rank in the jedi circuit at the barracks" Plo introduced as he beckoned for them all to get back to the ship.
It was silent on the way back to their original destination. The men did a sweep over her. She looked fairly young, younger looking than the clones did. She was wearing a standard headdress made with dark silver fabric. The young women dressed in a platinum top that with off the shoulder sleeves that bellowed out and then collected back to an end a little lower than her elbow. It had two cut-outs on her side of each side of her sides. Her belly-dancer type pants that the clones had seen some clones in clubs wear where a midnight color that matched the color of her combat boots. She wore black fingerless gloves. Her brown belt with a standard loincloth in the middle held a single lightsaber. Still, that name was nagging in all the clone's heads. Haven't they heard that name before. Secura? It sounded so familiar. Her eyes looked slightly familiar as well, the hazel hues contrasting from the lilac shade. Wolffe racked his brain, and it popped. The new jedi knight General Secura! It couldn't be though. He decided to ask either the general or the new commander that he would surely be working with when they docked.
"I must report back from our battle," General Koon explained as he walked away. 'I hope we will all get along, but they will have to if they want to succeed in this war'. When he put on the holomessage to contact the jedi of their success, Master Yoda showed in the blue hue.
"Master Plo Koon, succeeded in this battle on Teth, I sense you have?"
"Yes master. Is anyone else with you at this time?"
"No, alone I am. In my temple quarters, I am."
"Good. My troops met Zhade after the battle. Knowing her, she is probably introducing her and what her rank is at this moment. "
"Very well. Long overdue, this meeting has been."
"I have a question though Master Yoda. Should we still keep her existence to the jedi who have not met her yet? I think that she should meet Aayla at the very least. They could become a good pair."
"Hmm." "Long overdue, this reunion is, but a secret, this must be kept. To be able to work with only herself and her men, jedi Aayla must. After almost turning to the dark side, work this out on her own, she must."
"With all due respect Master, that is my point. I think a little personal help would help her and Zhade."
"Get your point, I do. Unfortunately, give up our plans for a special operation jedi, this might. Advise the decision, I do not."
Plo sighed. He had a point. "I understand Master Yoda."
"Hard decision for myself, it is. But, do what is necessary we must. See you at the temple, I will."
"I understand. Where should Zhade stay?"
"At your barracks, she must. Not let anyone in, you must."
"I understand Master. Plo Koon out." After a nod from the old jedi, the general shut off the hologram. He ran his hand over his head. 'This will take time' he decided.
Meanwhile, as Master Koon had suspected, the mystery jedi was introducing herself. "So…" she mumbled as it cut through the awkward silence. "You can speak freely, you know."
Wolffe let out a short breath. 'Might as well.' "Are you related to another jedi, by the name of General Aayla Secura?" The new commander gave a weird look.
"No, I've never heard of that person." she replied. She would have to ask Master Koon. "As you know I'm under the training of Master Koon. I was originally trained from Master Yoda. He was my master through my padawan years. When I became a knight, I began training with Plo. He's been my master for a little over three years."
"So, how old are you, twenty?" Sinker commented. The new commander gave the slightest glare that you could miss if you weren't looking or blinked before giving a brief smile. 'Great, we've pissed her off already.'
"I know, I'm short. I am twenty-eight." She answered. Before anyone would ask anything else, Plo Koon came back into the quarters, "You all are dismissed." "Master, can I ask you something?"
"Of course. What is it?"
Who is...Aayla Secura?" She asked hesitantly. She winced internally as she observed the slight change in her master's composure.
"Where did you hear that name?" He knew he would have to reveal the secret someday, but not now.
"One of the men, the one with the right eye removed, asked me if I knew who they were." She responded nervously. She didn't want one of the troopers to get trouble because of her snooping.
Sensing her worries, her calmly stated, "I will not do anything to Commander Wolffe." 'Now to the hard part'. "You see, Zhade, we have kept a secret that we shouldn't have. Aayla Secura, another twi'lek jedi knight like yourself, is," He paused. Should he tell her? It could cause unwanted emotions and affect her training. "Well, she is your younger sister."
Silence overtook the room. Zhade wore a shocked expression on her face. Suddenly, Plo felt a wave of emotions roll over his. Anger, confusion, fear, happiness, worry, shock, anguish, horror, and many other emotions that he could not comprehend hit him, causing him to take a step back. "What?" she whispered.
"I'm sorry for keeping this secret from you," Plo hurriedly explained as he rushed over her to put a reassuring shoulder on the young twi'lek's shoulder, "Master Yoda and I agreed to not tell you or her because it might affect you and your training."
She suddenly felt a wave of anger come at her, "You still could've told me. If anything, it could of helped. I would have wanted to know I had a kriffing sister!" She backed away, now full out glaring at him. She couldn't believe them. Screw the order, she would've wanted to know!
Feeling her anger, he replied, "I didn't want to keep this from you, and neither did Master Yoda. But, we found it would be for the best in your special training. I'm sorry Zhade, I know I should have told you. We can go over her information if you want?" Moving to hug her, he felt her sag onto his taller figure, putting her face into his shoulder. A muffled "okay" could be heard as Plo felt the anger and anguish drain out of the small figure.
She stuck her head out to rest it out on the Kel Dor's shoulder. "I'll go get something to eat," and sulked away. Her head was racing. How? What did she look like? Did we look similar? How many years younger was she? Did she have a battalion? Who trained her? All these questions abruptly came to a halt as she slammed into a armored chest. Going into self-defense, she force-pushed the person away. Snapping her head up, she saw that, in embarrassment, she was getting stared at by the whole mess that had cleared of sound as a bewildered Commander Wolffe has pushed against the foot of a table. Blushed rapidly across her cheeks and lekku, she rushed to help the soldier up. "Sorry, I was thinking," she muttered. Ducking her head down, she grabbed a random ration cube and started to speed walk out of the mess. Someone grabbed her arm though. Turning around hesitantly, she looked up to see a slightly smirking Wolffe.
"You're not leaving yet are you? You must of been thinking pretty hard to not see where you were going and thinking you were in danger."
Rolling her eyes as the blush slowly appeared on the tips of her freckled lekkus. "I said sorry."
"Yeah, yeah. I heard. You might want to look at the flavor of ration bar before picking it up. Some are disgusting," He explained as he led her to a table where all of men had wolves painted on a shoulder.
Thinking quickly she retorted, "I'm not picky." As they sat down, one of the men flicked his eyes between the two commanders and smirked.
"Already got on, Wolffe?" Both commanders rolled her eyes, the twi'lek looking mildly disturbed. 'Match made in heaven' as Wolffe flipped the other trooper off.
Zhade noticed him as the one who had asked about her age. Wolffe spoke up with an annoyed tone, "This is Sinker. The others are Tracer, Comet, and Boost. We call ourselves the Wolf Pack. We're picked as an elite type of squad." She looked across the men in the order he had named them, the distinctions that she could make out were that Boost had two stripes of hair colored a murky brown, Tracer had one line of black hair on his bald head, and Sinker had grey hair. She nodded at them all. Taking the advice Wolffe gave her, she looked at the flavor. 'Lemon, couldn't be that bad.'
Sinker smirked even more as the younger commander tried to cover her gag with a cough. "We warned you," he commented in a singsong voice, causing the alien to flip him off with a glare. He looked around, and saw that Wolffe was smothering a silent laugh.
"How do you live of these things. I mean, I've had my share, but lemon? Ugh," Zhade protested in a hushed voice as she chugged her water down.
"Metabolism the speed of lightspeed has it's ups and downs," Wolffe replied as he gained his composure. He saw Commander Secura's eyes light up in understanding.
"So, how old are all of you?" She questioned. Sure they looked in their thirties, but she had heard of how they speed-grew the soldiers to make more in minimum amounts of time. She saw the men look around.
"Well, we aren't all from the same batch, but we're all around twenty," Boost admitted. Sinker looked away.
"Not so young after all, am I?" Zhade smirked. Sinker rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. Anyways, I happen to like lemon, and I chose strawberry accidentally," Sinker retorted as his face scrunched up at the mention of the "vile" flavor.
Zhade shrugged, "Might as well," as she traded her ration. Crunching her teeth into the meal, she nodded. "Not bad," she turned to Wolffe, "Actually, Master Koon told me why you had heard of my last name before," said commander raised his eyebrow in question. "It turns out that I apparently I have a younger sister, that's a jedi," with a thin smile as they could hear the slight annoyance in her voice.
"They didn't tell you?!" astonishment filled Boost's voice. Bewilderment took over the other member's faces.
"Yep," they could clearly hear the emotional straining through her voice, "turns out that they didn't tell me since it might mess up my training."
'Wow', Comet thought, 'I couldn't imagine not having my brothers by my side.' Before they could carry on, Plo Koon emerged from the doors of the mess hall.
"It's past everybody's shifts that are happening, time for curfew if you are done in the mess hall and gym," he stated. He saw his trainee stifle a laugh before she looked around and, realized he was serious, dropped her jaw and raise one of her contrasting blond brows. He knew he shouldn't have let Yoda take her out on her twenty first birthday. Focusing once more on the mess, he saw many of his troopers leaving, and the Wolf Pack leading the twi'lek to the rest of the ship. Oh god.