It was a small black box. A rectangle, about one forearm long, half of a forearm wide, and not taller than the span of your palm. It was heavy, very heavy, and there were no creases or markings on it beside the white specks giving it the look of marble. This was what worried the pilot holding it. From this height he could see the entire Jedi complex through the thin viewing window; an elegantly formed, black metal fortress sitting on the side of a mountain, and inside that fortress was the addressee of the package. But how would he give it to him? There was no visible way to open it, and no way to tell the top from the bottom. What if he handed it to him upside down? Were the contents fragile? Could he use his Force to just know that it was upside down?
I'll find out soon enough... They wouldn't fire me for something as simple as delivering it upside down... would they? He shook his head and focused on the scenery.
The black metal complex he was approaching looked extremely out of place, as if the whole of it could only exist in some fantasia. The stone which composed most of the planet's crust was an eerie, solid white. It had taken three different brand new Khrassway industrial stonecutters just to make the holes for the supports, and the chemical structure of the stone was such that it couldn't be dated. As far as anyone knew, these marble mountains had been sitting unchanged for the last four billion years.
From directly above the complex looked to be a circle, or rather a circumpunct, sitting on the mountain slope. (The mountain, it begs mentioning, being about the size of Mount Everest.) From the pilot's vantage point, however, the complex was clearly an oval shape, gripping the mountain with giant squares of the same black metal that seems to compose it in its entirety. Four landing pads, each the size of a football field, created a square cross with one of it tips pointing towards the apex of the mountain. The complex itself wasn't a structure in the traditional sense, however, it was rather a series of buildings, each with its own individual square anchor, connected with a system of seemingly random walkways.
The landing pads each had very wide tunnels running around the perimeter of the compound to its neighbor. Each pad also had one, thinner tunnel leading straight to the building in the center. These smaller tunnels acted as walls and divided the ellipse into four equal parts. The pilot knew of the three specializations that Jedi could undergo: guardians, consulars, or sentinels, so he assumed the other section must be for the initiates first entering training.
He looked out the window, saw they were almost within traditional firing distance, and attempted to reach the station through their comms. After a successful hail and the reading of their landing codes, they were ordered to the landing pad most distant from the center of the mountain, the part of the structure that hung furthest over the edge. As the crimson, triangular cargo ship made its landing, three elegantly curved hydraulic landing gear reaching from open portcullises. Immediately a team of white robed, heavyset men with white face masks approached the ship. One went inside the now open cargo door, walking a short distance past rows and rows of tightly bound crates before making it to the bridge of the small vessel. The narrow door whistled open smoothly.
"Good day, sir." the Jedi began with his hands behind him. His voice was clear and even despite the distortion of the mask's speakers. "I am here to escort you to the package's recipient. I hear you are to hand it off face to face."
The pilot jumped at the sudden entry and pressed a button on the dash for his chair to spin around. The slanted red eye pieces definitely didn't help with his unease. "Err, yeah. Those are the orders." He looked from the Jedi's face to the black box in his hands, feeling unprepared and naked in front of him, especially with the blast of frigid air that suddenly gripped the inside of the ship. "How did you get inside?"
The Jedi grunted in amusement, "These landing pads are equipped to electronically open the doors of any ship that lands here, for immediate parley with our courteous greeting party." The other men were clearly visible from the outside, standing idly in a semicircle around the open door. "I assure you that you are in safe hands. This only shows how seriously we take our security."
It was quiet for a moment, and the pilot shuffled in his seat. "Uh, yeah. But is that allowed? I thought... with Republic codes and all-"
"With respect, pilot, Republic codes do not apply to this system," His tone was calm and level, "The Jedi are sovereign here."