LIBERATE AWAY!
"Got any other bright ideas, oh clever one?"
"Shut up, Valin!"
That was the voice of Tahiri Veila, my partner, or should I say, partner in crime. The reason for her slightly aggressive hiss of a reply was due to the fact that we were currently stuck in a utility closet in the middle of the Senate complex on Coruscant, and covered in a heavy coating of sticky orange goo.
All thanks to her amazing leadership.
Needless to say, whatever brilliant plan she'd devised had certainly gone awry, probably somewhere close to when a large melon-sized plant had spilled its putrid contents all over our dark Jedi robes.
After that, things had gone from bad to worse.
We'd been climbing through the catacombs of old Yuuzhan'tar, the remnants of the alien city that was once Coruscant many years ago, when we'd come across the interesting plant. It was blocking our path to the upper levels, and if we'd thought about it in a little more detail, we would have been able to find another way up. However, Tahiri had insisted that it was quite safe, and being half Yuuzhan Vong herself, I'd trusted her intuition on the topic.
Then we'd been sprayed, and were forced to struggle through the labyrinth of tunnels covered in the gelatinous goo and smelling of something not unlike bantha droppings.
At least we'd been left alone during the rest of the trek.
I'd refrained from saying, "I told you so" at the time. Being drenched in stinking goo was enough of a punishment - for both of us. Besides, I wasn't about to have my head bitten off by Tahiri; she could be quite the little Sith when she wanted to be.
After the incident with the Yuuzhan Vong plant, we'd squeezed our way through the mass of rotting vines and old tree roots to the top, and into the underbelly of the Senatorial quarters.
We had thought that once we were inside the complex, we'd be able to make our way through the corridors relatively unnoticed, despite the reeking odour and the trail of orange in our wake. However, as was the case with the rest of our journey, luck wasn't with us, and in no time at all, an entire squadron of GAG soldiers had been chasing us through the maze of chambers.
That was about the time where we'd found this utility closet and crammed ourselves inside. We'd been here for the last hour.
"You know, this would be a whole lot easier if you lost the attitude. Remember, I only came because you asked me to," I said, staring at the shadowed features of my friend as the light from the crack in the door shone across her face.
"No, you came because it was a matter of galactic security. You were already planning on coming before I asked you."
It was true - from a certain point of view. Tahiri had told me that Jacen Solo had acquired a weapon that, if used correctly, could destroy the Jedi, and that she was planning on stealing it from where it was currently being held: Jacen's personal suite in the heart of the Senate building. She had asked me to go with her, but there was no way I was going to stay behind - not when my best friend was headed into certain danger.
I'd had no choice but to go. I needed to make sure Tahiri didn't get hurt... or worse. Jacen Solo wasn't the animal-loving Jedi he used to be; he was ruthless, and evil, and not afraid to kill the people he loved in order to get his way. Mara was proof enough of that.
"I think the guards are finally giving up," Tahiri whispered, her warm breath a tickle on my ear as she spoke. "We move on my signal."
I nodded in reply. Hopefully, the force would be with us for the rest of the mission. It was of the utmost importance that we recover the weapon in question; Tahiri had made that pretty clear before we'd left, and if we couldn't save it, then we had to destroy it, so that Jacen couldn't use it for his evil acts.
"Let's go."
We silently crept out of the small closet and slunk across the hall to a half open door at the far end, slipping inside without a sound. I took a quick sweep of the room and instantly saw that this definitely wasn't Jacen's suite.
"Um?"
"What?" Tahiri answered, slicing open one of the many lockers lining the walls with her vibroblade and spilling the contents on the floor. "You didn't think we were going to make it to Jacen's office with this rather distinctive trail of orange goo, did you?"
"Besides," she continued, peeling off her damp robe top to reveal a white bra tinged in pale orange from where the gelatinous liquid had soaked through. "We'll fit in a little more in this GAG garb."
I hadn't realized I was staring until Tahiri placed her hands firmly on her bare waist and glared at me. "Do you mind turning around, Horn?"
"Oh, right... sorry." I knew I was blushing; I could feel the hot flush creeping up from my concealed neck, all the way to the top of my cheekbones, but I was hoping that I'd spun away from Tahiri fast enough so she couldn't see it. Unfortunately, I didn't have an army-sized weapons arsenal hidden on my person like the half-naked blonde beside me, but what I did have was expert hacking skills, thanks to my kid sister, Jysella, and her ever-increasing fascination with all things electronic.
It took me less than three clicks to hack into the code of the locker in front of me, and in no time at all, I was dressed from head to toe in the uniform of the Galactic Alliance Guard.
As I took in my appearance in a nearby mirror, I felt like a traitor. I vaguely wondered if this was how Ben Skywalker felt whenever he saw himself. On second thought, probably not.
My danger sense flared to life then, and when I stretched out into the force, I found half a dozen presences just outside the main door... and they were headed inside!
"Oh, no, not again!" I moaned. The bad luck just seemed to be following us like the plague today.
"What?" Tahiri asked in a hushed tone.
"You can't feel that?"
There was a pause from her side of the room, and then a string of words I couldn't quite decipher - possibly Yuuzhan Vong - before a curse I recognized as very Corellian. Definitely Han Solo's influence.
"Valin! Do something!" she hissed.
"Me do something? Why can't you do something, you've got two arms and two…" my sarcastic retort trailed off into a low gasp as my eyes took in the view before me. Tahiri was standing there in nothing but her underwear, a pair of black GAG slacks pulled halfway up her legs. She'd started changing well before I had, yet she was still nowhere near fully clothed.
There was no time to question her about what might have caused her obvious procrastination; I had to get rid of these soldiers, and I had to do it fast. On my signal, Tahiri hopped out of sight on one leg while continuing to dress in a frenzy, leaving me alone with the approaching enemies.
A whooshing sound echoed from the entrance as the soldiers punched in their access codes on the other side, and then they were in the room, laughing and joking with each other as if they weren't serving the vilest, most evil person in the galaxy. They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw me, and were about to alert the rest of the occupants in the vicinity when their faces took on identical looks of confusion.
After a few seconds of standing there in disbelief and scratching their heads as their squinted eyes darted around the locker room, they each shrugged their shoulders and took off in the direction of the showers, as if they hadn't seen me at all.
It was times like this that I was proud of my little known force ability to create such vivid illusions.
"Astral," Tahiri said from behind me. "Now let's get out of here."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
We arrived at the door to Jacen's private quarters without a hitch, and I was once again able to put my amazing hacking skills to good use.
Thank you, Jysella! I silently praised, as the keypad in front of me beeped with the correct code – Allana. It was an interesting code, to say the least, and one that would pose some equally fascinating questions when Tahiri and I were both back in the safety of our respective apartments.
Once we were inside the large suite, I did an automatic sweep on the surrounding common room, half expecting to see Jacen sitting there waiting for us, even though I knew he was currently off planet to settle a dispute on Hapes. In the time it had taken me to do this double check, Tahiri had already made it to the other side, and was now cutting into the Chief of State's locked desk with her emerald blade.
Not exactly the subtlest way to steal a super weapon from a Sith Lord.
An ecstatic smile spread across her face as the drawer she'd been working on popped open, and she pushed her small hand inside to pull out what we'd spent so long trying to recover… a lightsaber?
"That can't be right…" I muttered to myself, staring at the glinting metal tube clutched in my friend's hands. She'd said a weapon, but for some reason, I'd expected something a little bigger, and a lot more destructive, than a single light sword.
After my bewilderment had subsided, the only thing left inside me was raw fury. "Don't tell me I just risked my life so that we could stop Jacen from wielding his nasty red blade?"
I was angry that she'd lied to me in order to get me to help her steal a stupid lightsaber, but stopped my chastising when I saw the look on her face as she rolled the glossy hilt in her palms. Her eyes glazed over as she gripped it tightly, stroking it lightly with her fingertips as it revolved in her grasp with ease. The dim glow from the room's overhead lights caught the polished edges, bouncing luminous rays around us. In a way, the end result was beautiful.
Tahiri was gazing at the object with an almost loving expression on her face, and as I took everything in – her posture and attitude throughout the mission, and even before it – I suddenly understood what this had all been about. For the first time, I really looked at the weapon she was holding; it was old and battered, like it had seen many wars. Too old to be Jacen's new Sith saber, that's for sure, but just the right age and appearance to be the one I'd seen him holding in a news cast from three days ago.
I'd been too far away from the holoscreen to hear exactly what was being said, and quite frankly, I wasn't really paying that much attention, anyway. What I did hear, however, was something about Jacen recovering a long lost lightsaber with a violet crystal from a primitive planet. At that point, Tahiri had muttered something in her Yuuzhan Vong tongue and stormed out of the room in a huff. The next day, she'd come to me for help in retrieving a weapon that could destroy the Jedi. It hadn't even occurred to me that the two instances were related until now.
She ignited the blade and gave the purple beam of light a swirl around, watching it carefully as it arced around her. I could see a single glistening tear roll down her cheek as she inspected the sword, but I said nothing, stepping to her side and putting an arm around her shoulders for support.
I knew whose blade that had once been before she even opened her mouth to explain, but I let her tell the story. It was something she needed to do.
Tahiri fell into my open embrace and gazed up into my eyes, thumbing off the activation switch and letting out a short sniffle as she spoke. "I couldn't let him use Anakin's saber for evil, Valin, I just couldn't!" Her tone was pitchy and thick with passion, and I didn't know what else to do except hold her, so that's what I did. Wrapping my arms the rest of the way around her petite frame, I engulfed her with all the love and support I had in my being.
Her acceptance of this was tentative at first, but when her barriers came down, they were really down, and she nuzzled into the crook of my shoulder even further, sighing as she struggled with her emotions.
"Bet you didn't expect the day to go quite like this," she mused after a while, a little of the old Tahiri humour I'd come to love sneaking back into her voice.
"Well, I didn't expect to be covered in disgusting orange goo, that's for sure."
She let out a short laugh at this, pulling out of my hug to wipe at her damp eyes with the sleeve of her borrowed uniform. "We'd better get going," she said, hooking Anakin's lightsaber on her belt next to her emerald one and glancing around the room. "Don't want any unwelcome visitors to turn up before we're home free."
"Agreed."
Just before we'd reached the exit, I grabbed Tahiri's hand on impulse and tugged her towards me. Her expression took on one of shock as she stumbled from my restrictive grasp. "You could have told me, you know," I said in a soft voice. "I still would have come with you, especially if I'd known why you wanted to do this."
"I know," she whispered back. "But I didn't know how to tell you-" Her words were cut off as a racking sob shook her body. "I just... I can't believe he'd use his own brother in this way."
I tried to calm her as best I could and as quickly as possible, given the circumstances, patting her on the back and running a soothing hand up and down her spine. She shivered under my touch, so I stopped abruptly, blushing slightly. What had been a poignant moment had just turned very uncomfortable, very fast.
"We should get out of here," I said stiffly, dropping my arms to my sides and keying in the word 'Allana' to unlock the door. It hissed open the same as it had done earlier, and we both hurried down the corridor in the direction of the lockers, where we'd stashed our soiled Jedi robes.
With the damage Tahiri had done to Jacen's office, there was no way I was going to leave behind our robes to add even more evidence to what the GAG already had.
Once we'd retrieved our robes, we didn't waste time in putting them back on, instead sprinting down the rest of the labyrinth before us until we reached the small piece of uneven floor panelling that had allowed us to enter the senate building.
Thank the force that our bad luck streak had ended by this stage.
"You know what's really nauseating?" Tahiri said to me as we squeezed our way down the lines of vines and rotting plants to the lower levels of the Coruscanti underground. "Jacen's still flying around the galaxy, taking over planets and killing innocent people, in a star destroyer named after his very own brother ¨C the same brother who died for him on Myrkr."
I nodded in reply, which was probably a stupid thing to do in the gloomy atmosphere we were currently in. Tahiri knew I agreed with her, though, as I could feel her mind connected with mine in our force bond.
It was best when she did most of the talking, anyway.
"Stopping him from using Anakin's lightsaber for evil was a good thing, but until we can stop him from using that-that thing to take the galaxy's freedom away from its people, he's still dragging Anakin's good name through the mud."
I paused as she said this, my foot resting on a chunk of coral jutting out from the moist wall. "What are you saying?" My tone was two parts wary and accusatory, and I was positive she understood this subtlety.
"I'm saying that we need to take out the Anakin Solo, or at least take control of it."
"And how do you propose we do that, Ms. Veila?" I asked mockingly, leaping from the last vine and landing on the debris-covered ground with a loud crunch.
She followed suit, touching down next to me with a little more poise than I'd managed. "Well... we could always commandeer a ship..."
"No."
"Or, we could take a more active role with the GAG, and get ourselves posted on the flagship, and then..."
"No."
"How about this? We could..."
Her chirpy banter echoed in my ears for the rest of the journey back to our apartments, each new plan getting more and more far-fetched every time I shut the last down.
One thing was for sure, Tahiri loved to devise intricate plans almost as much as she loved to talk; and boy, did she love to talk! I guess it's a good thing I enjoy the sound of her voice, otherwise, my time with the beautiful blonde would swiftly drive me insane!