The third time is the charm. ~ Modern proverb

Part I

Nejaa Halcyon, neophyte Jedi Knight and proud Corellian couldn't help but grin at his first assignment as a Jedi Knight. He was to return to Corellia, the planet of his birth and a place where he hadn't been since he was a very young child. He was to liaison with CorSec and assist them in any way he could to help with the capture of the leaders of a spice smuggling ring. They had told him to meet the two officers he was to assist at the 201-AA-Delta Station in Coronet. And he had no idea of what to expect.

He was nervous, this being his first assignment. Nejaa also figured that he would be dealing with people far older than him, far more experienced, and who would collectively decide amongst themselves that they would block, obstruct, and do everything in their power to make life difficult. Difficult for a young Jedi whom they would collectively assume knew nothing and would do nothing but be a hindrance to their investigation. He could see it all in his mind, along with him having to perform dozens of mind tricks and Force illusions to get any work done.

Force, this was going to be a trial.

Even as the two officers he was to meet with entered, he was distracted by these thoughts. He had in his mind's eye the picture of two middle-aged, crotchety and bitter men who would begin dismissing him immediately. Once they entered, Nejaa was so distracted by his thoughts that he didn't even look up from the ceiling that he was staring at. He didn't look at them until one of them caught his attention.

"So, are you the Jedi liaison from Coruscant or the new fly catcher we ordered?" a surprisingly light female voice asked somewhat mockingly.

Nejaa immediately looked down from the office ceiling and came face to face with perhaps the last two people in the entire membership of CorSec that he had ever expected to see. A tall dark haired man with steel gray eyes and a laughing grin, who was trying to hold back his laughter at his partner's comment. And auburn haired women of medium height and laughing hazel eyes, wearing a smug look on her face as she took in Nejaa. Nejaa blinked twice, thinking that what he was seeing was nothing more than a mirage. Something that could go away at any moment, leaving him with the two middle aged, angry bitter men that he had been expecting.

"Umm...yes, I suppose I am. Nejaa Halcyon, Jedi Knight." He said, knowing nothing else to say.

He offered his hand to the tall man and auburn haired woman, who introduced themselves as Rostek 'Ros' Horn and Scerra Miransi respectively. There wasn't much difference in age between them really; Horn was a few years older than he was and Miransi was about a year younger. They had been childhood friends who had joined the force together: signed up at recruitment, went through the academy, and then by some miraculous twist of fate, had been assigned as partners once their training had been completed. At the moment, they even held the same rank: though, Ros had admitted that he figured in about two months, he was getting or expecting a promotion to the rank of Sergeant. Scerra, for some reason he found himself already mentally labelling her by her first name in spite of the fact they didn't really know each other, immediately started in on some good natured sarcastic mocking.

While the two CorSec operatives started in on what apparently was some sort of odd and seemingly ancient friendship ritual, Nejaa found himself strangely struck by something about Investigator Miransi- Scerra, he corrected himself. And it was something that as a Jedi, he should have found slightly disturbing. But he didn't.

Instead, he found himself noting the colour of her hair, which he rather liked. Her eyes- he had never known anyone with hazel eyes could make them so expressive. He had known plenty of his age-mates from training- whether they were human, near-human or not- who had hazel eyes, but they had always seemed so dull to him. So, lifeless. But he did like hers.

He just barely paid attention to them as they started to go into the actual details of the mission. What they expected, the players who were involved and what they were involved in, as well as aspects of the operation that they intended to conduct. He was so distracted- he was hardly acting like the duty-bound Jedi he was supposed to be- that he didn't even hear about how CorSec felt he could help them out. He should have paid attention, he really should have.

After all, he was making a really poor first impression, both professionally and well- he knew he shouldn't voice that one or even thinks about that one, given the rules of attachment. He needed to think of himself strictly as Nejaa Halcyon, Jedi Knight and not simply as Nejaa Halcyon, young man on his very first professional assignment. Unfortunately, he didn't seem able to get himself to think that way.

"Hey, Halcyon!" Investigator Miransi called to him after the meeting must have broken up, trying to get his attention.

"Huh?" he answered perhaps in the stupidest way he possibly could have and ended up demonstrating it further when the chair he was in to somehow end up on the floor along with the chair.

"Is this how members of the vaunted Jedi Order act now a days? Or are all young Knights sent into the field just this unprofessional and incompetent?" she seemed strangely miffed yet amused at the same time.

"Not really. Only when we are distracted by our own theories on what should be done. I think you'll find that I'm neither unprofessional nor incompetent."He was grasping for straws really. He knew that he had already made a bad first impression and knew that it would be next to impossible for him to overcome that.

But his old Master, the wily Duros Val d'Or, had taught him that often the first impression wasn't the last chance to make a good impression on other beings. That if one was able to overcome that initial first impression that went so disastrously wrong and make at least two excellent impressions after that, one would be left with nothing but a good impression in the end.

At that, Scerra laughed. Apparently, she thought that he was funny. And not in a good way.

"Right. You're just some Jedi chump I've been saddled with- period. You'll probably be more of a hindrance than a help, so here's some friendly advice: Stay out of my way and we'll get along just fine. Got it?"

Nejaa just blinked and coughed once before nodding.

Perhaps this business of making a better impression was going to be harder than he thought.

Part II

It was two weeks before Nejaa was able to find an opportunity to put his theory into practice. And then it wasn't with Ros that the problem was- it was with Scerra.

Ros quickly seemed to get over any ill feelings from the first introduction with the Jedi once he learnt that Nejaa was highly competent in undercover work and had a number of useful skills- mind tricks and Force illusions among them- that proved handy in criminal investigations. Nejaa being a native born Corellian certainly hadn't hurt either. They had begun trading stories over drinks; Ros had learnt the origins of many traditions among Corellian Jedi while Nejaa had started to learn skills at reading people that made up for his own pitiful emphatic skills. The two had become friends.

That was not the case with Scerra. Scerra seemed to think that there was nothing that Nejaa could do to improve her opinion of him or Jedi. At least, there seemed to be nothing that he could personally do. Maybe if it were another Knight doing this rather than the Knight who had inadvertently insulted her, then perhaps it would work. But it didn't seem to be working out for him.

Not that there had seemed to have been a clear-cut opportunity for him to put the theory of making a good impression into practice either. Every circumstance that he had been involved with the two officers so far hadn't proven at all conductive towards making a better impression on Scerra. In fact, they had- if anything- made things distinctly worse between the CorSec Investigator and the Jedi Knight.

And Nejaa Halcyon knew that none of it had been his fault.

After all, could he really control if a perp tried to proposition her if he was supposed to be posing as an undercover spice dealer interested in purchasing illicit spice from said perp? Could he really help if some sort of circumstances out of his control made him look like an even greater fool than in their initial meeting? Was it possible that she could be at least a little more understanding of when he made minor slip-ups, given that this was his first solo mission in the field as a Knight?

No, it didn't seem possible at all. And Nejaa was left wondering- yet again- exactly what he was going to do about it.

Now, if only he could find a way to do just that.

The opportunity itself didn't seem all that auspicious at first. A simple, straight forward sting operation that was meant to be the first step towards breaking up the spice ring. Things went as expected at first but then rapidly palled. It got so bad that before Nejaa realised it, Scerra was being held hostage by a spice runner who had the gull to hold a blaster to her right temple.

"You lot are gonna give me what I want, or I blow away lady CorSec's head." The thug made clear as the light of day.

"What are your demands?" the newly made Sergeant Rostek Horn smoothly asked, though adding a bit of a bored undertone. It was as if he was making it clear to everyone involved that he had no real interest in what the thug said and was relying on the emergence of another solution.

At least, that's what Nejaa read of the situation. It quickly became obvious to him once the thug got an overly smug grin on his face just before he started to bark out his demands that he took Ros completely seriously. And if that hadn't told him, the thug's rather zealous and over-the-top demands- the one-way trip to Coruscanti Gardens theme park followed by freedom of movement to the most distant world he could find- certainly did.

Nejaa knew that something had to be done and quickly. With a perp this unstable, a fact that was all too obvious to all involved except perhaps the man himself, that there was no telling what he would do. All it might take is some sort of trigger (which could be anything really) to set the man off, leaving a dead CorSec operative and a Jedi's shattered conscience and sense of self-worth in its wake.

Taking a deep breath, Nejaa stepped forward and acted. He quickly created an illusion in the mind of the thug, one of the room where they were now if it were empty. The thug's grasp on Scerra immediately loosened as he looked around the room bewildered, trying to reconcile in his mind what he was seeing and what had been there just minutes before. Swearing a rather colourful oath and muttering something about her own perceived stupidity, she moved to slap the stun cuffs on him before Nejaa dropped the illusion. In response to this, the thug too began to swear a torrent.

After the thug was put away in his cell for the night, the three of them sat down in the station house lounge for some caf. They were almost silent as they shared their satisfaction at a job well done. And once Ros left to answer a call from their superiors who were overseeing the case, only then did Scerra see fit to speak to Nejaa at all.

"You know something Jedi; you might actually be useful in this operation." She said to no one in particular.

"I see. How am I useful, precisely?" He asked, curious as to how he had managed to change her mind about both himself and Jedi all of a sudden.

At this, she briefly rolled her eyes but in a way that Nejaa would later swear was all in good humour. She waved off her hand recklessly in the air, trying to demonstrate something but doing a rather poor job of it. Only then did she decide to answer his question.

"That Force trick or whatever it was you did. The one that seemed to have the perp so confused he was dancing in circles." She said simply.

At this, Nejaa smiled, knowing that at last his moment to make a better impression had finally arrived. Then he decided to explain exactly what that 'Force trick 'was to Scerra.

Part III

Things were starting to go Nejaa's way. Or at least to the point where he might be able to accurately say that he had made up completely for the bad impression he had made when he had first been introduced to Ros and Scerra. Well, maybe not quite that far.

He had taken care of it in Ros' case, sure and had made some headway with Scerra, but there still were troubles. She no longer held such a negative view of Jedi and that at least, had lead to a better working relationship. But there seemed to still be something that made conversations between them a little forced, awkward even. Scerra, on some level, still seemed wary of him or feel that he, personally, was untrustworthy. And she definitely still took it out on him.

Weeks had passed since he had intervened to defuse the brief crisis that potentially could have taken her life in that sting operation. He had explained exactly what it was that many of his powers did when he used them. And he had used them to great effect to aid in taking down the spice smuggling ring. Nejaa knew that his efforts were appreciated but was still puzzled as to why they didn't seem to being making things run more smoothly with Scerra. Was there some sort of element that he was missing?

He certainly thought so, but one thing was clear. He had no idea what it was that he was missing. Thus, the cycle would continue until he figured it out or was reassigned: whichever came first.

Nejaa's third and final opportunity for making his good impression came about by accident. Everything that happened that day seemed to be something of a happy accident in fact. And the young Jedi certainly felt that he probably would spend weeks afterward grinning like an idiot. Which in fact, he did- Ros took the holo-pictures to prove it and would keep bringing them out years later to show various friends, family, and well-wishers that he trusted when he had a point to prove in Nejaa Halcyon's presence.

First, they managed to easily break-up the spice ring. As Nejaa was learning, criminals often were willing to turn witness on their fellows when faced with lengthy sentences in the mines of Kessel. That had made it simple work to go and arrest the ringleaders and by what seemed to be a gift from the Force; they had unexpectedly managed to get them during a meeting with a high ranking member of the Black Sun who controlled the organisation's criminal interests in the Corellian Sector. This had definitely been a highpoint of the operation.

Second, this had even unearthed a formal connection to the Hutt cartels and had further broken at least some of the spice smugglers' supply lines into Corellian space. Though, he knew better than to think that meant that illegal spice trafficking and spice addicts would become a thing of the past. After all, where there were twelve arrests, there would be at least that many wannabe traffickers and thugs to take their place. There seemed no way for it to end, simply just trying to keep it under control.

Third, the Council had sent him a personal communiqué that was glowing in its praise of his work on Corellia and his conduct in the position of liaison with CorSec. They did a wonderfully through job, he thought, of analysing, dissecting, and reasoning through all of his field reports- while that aspect of it did admittedly irk him somewhat, he had learned to expect that of the Council even when handing out compliments. It was their way of promoting self-improvement- at least that was what Master Val d'Or had always thought. But it was what was at the end of the communiqué that had thrown him.

And that was the final surprise of his week, the one that perhaps would change his destiny forever. The Council told him how impressed the Director of CorSec was with his work. The Director, one Valin Miransi, seemed to think highly of him and had practically begged the Council to make the Jedi liaison position a permanent one. He couldn't believe it: CorSec, or at least its director, wanted him to stay on Corellia permanently. And even more so that the Council had consented wholeheartedly.

So, after finding this out, he walked into the staff lounge of the station for a cup of caf- hoping perhaps to find Ros to tell him the good news. He wasn't looking forward to letting Scerra know- he was beyond certain that she would not be pleased at all. This meant that he was pretty shocked to see Scerra sitting alone at the table at the centre table- Nejaa had been expecting and hoping for Ros instead.

And even stranger, she seemed to be overly pleased with herself for some reason that Nejaa surmised was unknown to him. It couldn't be known to him at any rate- Scerra didn't seem to be one to tell him anything to personal in their conversations. She just went about her business, now occasionally giving him compliments regarding his usefulness and sniping at him for what she thought he still mucked up on. It was all very confusing to him- things at the Temple were so much more straight forward.

Here, out in the world where everyone else lived, things could occasionally be both simpler and more complicated. He was certain that he would never get used to it.

Trying to avoid her gaze, he simply sat down and began to nonchalantly drink his caf. It was as if he were trying to fade completely into the background, making himself completely invisible to the young CorSec Investigator. He thought that might make things easier in making a better impression on her- that being invisible, would somehow render his now permanent presence tolerable. But she seemed to notice him anyways. Her walking up to him in spite of that attempt at making himself invisible was futile.

She sat down for a moment and gave him that smug smirk on her face. It was utterly insufferable, the way she had of doing that. She serenely drank her caf, continuing to smirk, continuing to stare intently at him. She knew something, she had something on him, she...she knew.

That fact struck Nejaa almost by accident, as did the thought that somehow, she had obviously found out about it before he had. And before he could even comment on that, she made sure that she beat him to it.

"So, congratulations are in order. Welcome to CorSec and Corellia." She just said that, simply that and walked out of the lounge with her cup of caf in hand.

This left Nejaa perplexed and confused in the worst sort of way. Though still pleasantly so, if he thought about it. Somehow, apparently, he had made his way to making a better impression on Scerra Miransi, CorSec Investigator, than he had thought.

And he had no idea how or when he had managed to make that better impression recently. Even a speedy review of the facts in his mind didn't help. Instead, it left him even more confused.

Still, third time must be the charm. He thought to himself with a little bit of irony.

Fin