Author Notes: In Which Jai Praises Her Readers and Reviewers: Wow! I got some reviews! Scribbles Editor, giveGodtheglory, and YodaBreaker - thanks a million for your kind words and encouragement, and thanks for the add to the C2 community!
I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'm going to try to work on my time-management skills and try to have Chapter Three up as soon as I can. Silly analytical chemistry. Oh! I do hope that those of you who found the Benzylic and the Aniline amusing (all, um, one of you) noticed that the reason I was using cyclics was because of their pi bonding systems! rimshot groan
Chapter Two: In Which We Head To The Woods For Some Casual Camping and Note That Pegwin Just Might Be An Analogue of Toronto
"And the black flies, the little black flies/Always the black fly no matter where you go..."
– Wade Hemsworth, The Blackfly Song
After coaxing the Aniline into a somewhat gentle landing pattern in the woods a few kilometres outside of Pegwin, Sadri and Pi Squad were immediately presented with a challenge.
Ven, Scrat, Jav, and Sadri all stared down the landing ramp at a loudly swearing Leeroy, who was dancing about unhelmeted, waving his hands around his head in an attempt to quell the onslaught of a cloud of insects that appeared as though out of nowhere.
"Maybe if you put your helmet on..." Jav called.
"And what good'll that do if the shabla things get inside?" Leeroy yelled in response.
"They'd die from the smell!" Ven said with a grin.
"Oh, shut up."
"Try using one of the repellent jars that Procurement gave us," Scrat said, rummaging around in one of the many crates that the Aniline's cargo hold contained. "It'll keep the things off you."
Leeroy looked at his brother with sheer contempt as the can was tossed to him. He caught it expertly in midair and tore off the lid with relish. His look of contempt was replaced by a look of complete glee as he sprayed some of the liquid into his hands and rubbed it over his face. Immediately the flies maintained their distance from him.
"Sometimes your attention to detail makes up for your annoying silence, ner vod." Leeroy said with a sigh. "Now can we all get to work here?"
The others covered themselves with the unique repellent before stepping off the ship and noticed that the flies kept their distance from them as well. It had been decided that they would not set up their base of operations in Pegwin proper, but would play the role of recreational campers and utilize an old, abandoned miners' camp that was far enough away from the city to provide respite should they stir up a fracas or two inside, but close enough such that the sojourn into the city wasn't too much of an expedition. Camping was a common enough occurrence on Adanac I that Sadri and Pi Squad wouldn't create much of a stir by occupying the camp and lighting a fire or two.
The blackflies notwithstanding, the group found themselves facing a large cabin that was very well-kept for its age. None of them could tell exactly what it was made out of, but it appeared sturdy enough that they could move in. Leeroy led the way as the motley crew of Republic commandos and one Jedi Master walked through the doorway of the place.
"Remarkable," Jav commented. "The flies didn't get in here, and it's clean."
"Ooh, a fireplace," Sadri said, placing the boxes she'd offloaded from the Aniline onto the floor and walking over toward one corner of the main room. "And a kitchen! Beautiful. No rations for us!"
"You'd cook for us, General? Aww, we feel so loved!" Leeroy said with a smart-aleck grin on his face.
"Of course I would, Leeroy, but that's all you're getting from me. I'm not touching your laundry," Sadri said with a grin. "So what say we get the rest of this stuff loaded, hide our ship as best we can, and then go and explore the wonderful city of Pegwin?"
"Tourism isn't exactly our strong point," Scrat said.
"I wouldn't call it tourism," Ven said. "Think of it more as recreational reconnaissance."
"Besides, you guys get to scope that foundry, and I get to discover exactly where this Marott guy hangs out." Sadri shook her head. "If you happen to wander into a few museums along the way or check out a curling game or two..."
"Curling?" Ven looked puzzled.
"Just some random sport they seem to be fond of here," Sadri said with a shrug. "I got bored once we punched to hyperspace, so I read every damn word in that datapad. This place is all about its culture and its sports, and the local cuisine. I suggest that while I'm worming numbers out of Marott you guys enjoy yourselves."
She turned to look at the four of them, who seemed vaguely apprehensive at the idea. In fact, they looked as though she had ordered them to march straight into a pot of boiling oil. "What'd I do?" she asked.
"Like Scrat said," Jav muttered, "tourism isn't our...thing."
"Pff." Sadri made a noise through her nose. "Fine, then. I just figured you'd take advantage of not being able to be suited up in that armour to-"
"Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa." Leeroy held up his hands to stop Sadri's speech. "What's this about no armour?"
"Well," Sadri said matter-of-factly, "it would stand to reason that you would not be overly conspicuous while doing your recce of the foundry, because then all the Seps would know we're here and that just wouldn't be pretty. I don't know about you, but I don't think the five of us, no matter how good at asskickery we are, are going to survive long if we wake up a droid army." She glanced at all of them with little remorse in her look. As far as she was concerned, this was the way it was going to be.
Ven shrugged. "Good point," he said.
"I figured you'd see the light. Now, of course you'll be able to be armed – I'm not that silly – but none of this stuff." She stepped forward and rapped her knuckles on Ven's breastplate. "Anyway, we'll get to all of that once we're set up in here," she said, stepping out the door and back to the Aniline.
Pi Squad watched her walk a few steps and then heard an ear piercing scream. Immediately they snapped into action, preparing to burst outside and secure the area around their cabin. They were making a beeline for the door when they saw Sadri come marching back into the cabin, movinq quickly so as to evade another cloud of blackflies. "Bug spray, please," she said with an irate expression. Mutely, Jav handed her a can. She sprayed it on her face and clothes, and handed it back to the confused commando. "Thanks."
She walked out the door again without much fuss.
"What the fierfek was that about?" Leeroy asked nobody in particular.
"I dunno," Jav said, still holding the spray can and looking scared. "She's one weird general."
"Okay, why does the city need a giant freestanding tower?" Scrat asked, leaning out the speeder window and pointing at the Pegwin skyline. The vast expanse of kilometre-high skyscrapers gave the city a contemporary look; its architecture wasn't that dissimilar from Coruscant. The only different thing about this city was a monolithic structure that marked its geographic centre. It resembled a communications control centre and was so unbelievably tall that the closer they got to it, the more they had to crane their heads to take it all in.
"I have no idea," Ven said, reading a tourism holozine that detailed some of the large city's better known landmarks. "All this says is that it's two kilometres tall, took three standard years to build, that it's made of reinforced duracrete and plasteel, and that it has a revolving restaurant at the top." He scratched his head. "Why would someone want to eat in a restaurant that spins?"
"I say we go there eventually," Sadri said from the front seat of the speeder where she was driving, "and see which one of you loses his lunch first. How does that sound?"
"You're on," Leeroy said with another one of his grins. "So where are we going, exactly?" He shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable without his armour on. They had, for the time being, all donned the red tunic and pants that served as fatigues for the army.
Sadri looked at Leeroy through the rear-view mirror of the speeder. "Groceries and new clothes."
Jav groaned. "Just don't dress us in leather pants, please, General."
"Don't worry, I'm not that cruel. But remember that they don't know we're here, and we don't want them to know..."
"Alright, alright, we understand."
"Besides, I have to pick up some fabric and thread."
"For what?" Scrat asked, settling himself back inside the speeder and turning to look at Sadri.
"I need new clothes too, you know."
"Yes, but why don't you just buy them?"
"Scrat, you try being a woman who is almost two metres tall. Let's just say that your clothing options are rather... limited." She parked the speeder. "I think this might do the trick," she announced.
They clamoured out of the speeder and faced the hustle and bustle of Pegwin's shopping district. For a settlement with three million people, there sure seemed to be more than enough things to do and places to shop. Sadri turned to the commandos, who were thoroughly engrossed in surveying the city.
She let her mind poke into the Force to ascertain what they were thinking, and it amused her greatly: they were each attempting to remain professional and take this opportunity to do some informal reconnaisance of the area, but that attempt was failing in all of them. She mused that they hadn't seen much of any world save a battlefield, and quickly decided that before things got serious, she'd let them see a little more.
"So..." she began, gesturing for the four of them to go through the main doors of the shopping centre that lay ahead of them. "Let's get something to eat."
"Uh..." Ven began to come up with another excuse as to why they shouldn't, but Sadri's glare cut him off as they walked through the crowded halls. Metropolitan Pegwin seemed to be such an amalgam of different cultures and fashion styles that nobody noticed Sadri's Jedi robes, nor the identical red uniforms that the identical clone soldiers in her wake wore.
They walked until they reached the dining section of the complex and elected to go to a pub-style restaurant that seemed to have hot fried meats as its general bill of fare. The five of them managed to get a large corner booth in the place, and they spent the majority of time in uncomfortable silence.
Sadri read her datapad again, brow furrowed in concentration as she sipped her fizzade through a straw. Leeroy watched across the table as Ven, who was seated beside her, tried not to look like he was taking an interest in what she was doing. With a stifled laugh, Leeroy elbowed Jav in the ribs and pointed, and the two of them laughed. He was then rewarded with a swift backhand across the back of his head from the calm and silent Scrat.
"Ow! What'd I do?" Leeroy yelped.
"It's not your business to take note of things like that," Scrat said, his voice even and calm.
"That doesn't mean we can't laugh at them." Jav added innocently.
"Shut up, you two," Ven said
Sadri looked up from her datapad with a quirked eyebrow and grinned at them. "Problem?"
"No ma' – er, no." Ven shrugged. Leeroy sniggered.
"Alright," she said, a knowing grin on her face as she went back to perusing whatever she had downloaded from the holonet. She always acted as though she knew exactly what was going on. Leeroy envied her that much.
Their meals arrived: baskets of mashed root vegetables, platters of seafood, and a delicious-smelling plate of fried bits of duck, breaded and served with sauce. Immediately they all dug in, piling their individual plates high with the steaming and vaguely unhealthy food.
"Are you sure you can pack all that away, General?" Jav asked, pointing to Sadri's plate, which had the most food on it out of all of them.
"Yep," she said, grabbing her fork and starting to eat.
After a few moments, she decided it was time to make her announcement. "So I was reading the latest issue of the holonet news from here," she said, sipping at her fizzade again, "and I think I've found Marott."
The four commandos grinned, and kept eating, but their attention was on her, so she continued. "His corporate offices aren't too far from here," she said. "He runs several businesses out of Pegwin: a logging conglomerate and an advertising firm."
"Advertising on cut-down trees," Leeroy said. "Why does that seem an odd combination to me?"
"It is," Sadri said, biting down on another duck piece. "But I guess in a place like this, you make money where there is money to be had. The logging conglomerate gets him the money and the advertising firm – oh dear." She looked down at the datapad, chuckling.
"What?" Ven looked at Sadri with concern.
"The advertising firm appears to get him the women," she said, still laughing. "It appears we're dealing with a womanizer here."
There was no response from Pi Squad – but all of them had stopped chewing and were staring at Sadri with that look again. She squirmed in her seat. "What?"
"So... what does that mean, exactly?" Jav asked.
"It means that with the right dress and the right alias, I just might get to him sooner than we thought. He's holding some social fundraiser in a few days for a charity group he spearheads. If I make a donation of a few thousand credits, I might be able to go."
"Then what?" Now Ven was speaking.
"Then I persuade him to tell me what I want to hear," she said, that knowing smile back on her face. "It's as simple as that, really. Just a little persuasion."
Aw, man. I hate cliffhangers. Hope you liked it and an R&R is always appreciated.