Chapter 2

Without her robe, Jada had a much more difficult time blending in. Mos Eisley was not a place for modest women, and very few women tended to take up smuggling or get involved in the crime syndicate. Hiding without a cloak was near impossible. She took a few seconds to use the Jedi mind trick to swindle a cloak from another humanoid that was close to her size. It was a black robe, and very similar to a Jedi robe, in design. Black was not her favorite color in the least, but under these circumstances, she could not afford to be picky.

Under normal circumstances, it would take her no time at all to get to docking bay thirty-four, but the movement of the Freedom Alliance forces was keeping her from taking the direct route there. She was using the Force to zig-zag through the streets of Mos Eisley to avoid any uneeded confrontations. She had to assume that all the docking bays were guarded, so she knew that she would have to fight to get to her ship. Until then, she wanted to avoid running into them.

She walked cautiously through the crowded street. It was littered with people of all different species. She looked over to a small shop which was being run by a Toydarian. Three Freedom Alliance soldiers were asking questions to the shop owner, no doubt asking if he had seen her. She focused as hard as she could on not getting noticed by the soldiers that she nearly tripped over a Dug.

The alien quickly riled himself up, cursing at her in his native Dug language. "(Stupid imbecile! I'm gonna…)"

She flashed her lightsaber behind her robe, hoping it will quiet him down before they attracted the attention of the soldiers. The moment the Dug saw the weapon, he retreated. "Jedi Poodoo!"

Jada pressed on towards docking bay thirty-four. After taking the long way there, she reached the entrance without any further incidents. Standing guard were two Freedom Alliance soldiers with their blaster rifles prepped for assault. Remaining calm, she approached the door when one of the soldiers raised the palm of his right hand. "Halt! No one may leave this planet until we have apprehended a dangerous fugitive on the loose in this city."

Keeping her face hidden by the hood of her cloak, she slowly waved her right hand in front of the soldier. "You're not the one we're looking for; you may pass."

The soldier showed no signs of being influenced by her mind trick. "Wait, you're the Jedi!"

With no time to ponder on why her mind trick failed on both soldiers, she reached out in the Force, hoisted them off their feet, and slammed them into the wall. The two soldiers fell to the ground, freeing her to enter the docking bay unhindered.

Knowing that the Freedom Alliance was, by now, making their way there, she hastily ran down the two flights of steps. At the bottom of the steps, she came to an extended doorway. The Docking bay was one big circle, with two sections. The outer section contained durasteel storage containers full of tools and supplies for any traveler that docked at the city's space port. The inner section was where her ship was parked: dead center of the circle. There was no rooftop or anything to keep her from taking off and leaving Tatooine.

The docking bay was clear of any further soldiers at this moment, which was a relief; she had feared that they might have known what kind of ship she was traveling in. If they had, there would be many more soldiers there to stop her from getting onboard. She was glad that decided to come in this apprehended smuggling shuttle instead of a Coruscant shuttle.

Wasting no time, she pranced towards her shuttle. At the last second, she felt the Force warn her to stop. Having learned from past mistakes, she listed to the warning in her head and stopped. She stopped so abruptly, that she nearly fell flat on her face. She corrected herself just as her shuttle exploded into a ball of flames.

So much for the Freedom Alliance not knowing which ship was hers; this could only mean that they knew she was going to be here. This was supposed to be her trap for the bounty hunter Ty-Kra', but as it was turning out, this was a Freedom Alliance trap for the Jedi.

She shrugged off the black robe and pulled out lightsaber as the trap was launched. The docking bay began to flood with soldiers, and they immediately open fired as they entered the bay. She started deflecting the shots away from her, but she quickly realized that she was going to have no choice but to kill these soldiers. She had done her best to kill as few as possible as to not stoke the already tense situation. That was no longer an option any longer.

What should have been the perfect con turned out to be a catastrophe for Gideon Mars. All he was going to do was sell Ty-Kra' some false Coraxian Crystals. He knew full well that the Bounty Hunter wanted to kill him. If his plan had worked to par, he would have activated his properly-placed, holographic projectors, which were going to project false allies surrounding the Trandoshans. Holographic technology had improved greatly over the past few decades to the point where the images looked life-like, instead of a bluish, staticy blur. Of course, life sized models of this technology was banned in the New Republic and the Freedom Alliance; only the neutral systems allowed their usage.

Before he could turn on the projectors, the female Jedi had appeared and ruined everything. Whether she was after the Bounty Hunter, or himself, he had no idea. He was not going to stay and find out either. Because of the Jedi, he could not steal the money from Ty-kra'. This whole thing turned out to be a bust.

He had snuck away while the Trandoshans were distracted by the Jedi. It was better to give up on this con and live to lie another day. He was on his way to docking bay sixty-six.

He could not help but notice the heavy presence of the Freedom Alliance, which was the remnant of the Galactic Empire. After the truce between them and the New Republic, the Empire wanted to reorganize and rename their government in hopes to make them appear more citizen friendly; that was when the Galactic Freedom Alliance was born, and they still had a handful of systems that remained loyal to them. Those that opposed the changes instantly became neutral systems; most of the seceding systems still remained distrustful of the New Republic, and feared that history would eventually repeat itself. Therefore, they decided to remain neutral.

Gideon found it strange that the Freedom Alliance were all the way out here on Tatooine. His only guess was that the Hutts, Rotta in particular, had granted them permission to track down a fugitive. Rotta the Hutt was the son of the late Jabba the Hutt. His reputation passed that of his father's in brutality and criminal activity. There was a time everyone thought Rotta was dead. Shortly before his father's death, he had disappeared.

This was not the first time he was kidnapped; he was but baby when Zero the Hutt had orchestrated a plan to overthrow Jabba by aligning himself with the Separatists and having Rotta kidnapped. This time, it was believed that Jabba's father, Zorba had forged Jabba's will and had Rotta kidnapped so he could have his sons criminal empire. Rotta fought back and reclaimed his rightful empire from his grandfather. That was when Zorba disappeared and was never heard from again. Gideon was certain that Rotta was brutal enough to have had his grandfather killed for his treachery.

Gideon walked past the soldiers without any hesitation. He had nothing to fear from them; he had not conned anyone from that government. His primary business was with fellow smugglers and bounty hunters; he drew a line when it came to stealing from the innocent and helpless. Yes, he may have turned his back on his destiny, but that did not mean he had to be a complete jerk. He still had some principles he had to live by.

As he was walking past docking bay thirty-four, he could hear the sound of a growing number of blasters being fired; it sounded as if a war was breaking out on Tatooine. He needed to get off this planet quickly, but one of his major flaws was that he had an unquenchable curiosity. He could not count the number of times his curiosity had gotten him into trouble, and he had feeling that it was about to happen yet again.

Besides the door, there was a window looking down onto the docking bay. The window was nothing more than an intentionally left-out brick space. Glass was not ideal on Tatooine; the temperatures could get too hot for them to survive. You would expect that someone would have created something to cover up window slots that could withstand the heat; there were plenty of sandstorms to warrant such an invention.

Gideon approached the window and looked down at the action. He saw the very same Jedi, who ruined his job, trying to fend off a large number of Freedom Alliance soldiers, and the number was rapidly growing. It appeared that her ship, or what remained of it, was what the pile of burning scrap was. He could not help but chuckle at the irony of the situation. "Good luck with that," He whispered to himself.

He stepped away to the window and was about to continue his way to his docking bay when he saw the three Trandoshans coming down the alleyway. They were using their keen tracking skills to hunt him down. Somehow, they had escaped the Jedi and were using their efforts to track him down before he could leave the planet. How did this all get so complicated?

There was no way he could escape their tracking ability on his own. His mind reeled for a way out of this mess, and he could only come up with one crazy idea. "After this, she's going to owe me two." He pulled out his two blasters from his holsters.