Of Days Long Past:
Just Plain Odd.
By Emparra
Disclaimer: This story has been disclaimed. The writer only plays in someone else's sandbox.
Author's Note: in case of confusion, this particular piece is set sometime during the Clone War, not after the Purge.
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Jedi are the oddest.
Really.
Oddest creatures in the whole galaxy, and that's saying something coming from a starcruiser pilot, even old Marlowe Deedut. Twice around the galaxy, and Jedi remain at the top the list of Oddest Things.
They're usually pretty quiet, they hang on the edges of things, plain-looking, dressed up in the drabbest colors, and generally mild-mannered. But there's the kicker! Jedi are some of the most powerful critters to crawl the galaxy, with that Force and mind powers and the ability to throw tanks and jump over buildings if they want, but they don't do all that stuff much. Oh, you'll usually find them smack in the middle of Big Trouble, only they tend to talk first, try to talk people down instead of roundly pass out knocks to the head until everyone sees sense. Now Marlowe? That kind of power would come in downright handy in some of the customs offices he's seen, and he doesn't know that he wouldn't use it to his own advantage...
But when push comes, those Jedi folk will pick up and shove.
Confident buggars, they are! Meek as you like, "we come to serve", bastions of peace and all that, but they'd walk right into a sarlacc pit cool as can be and walk right out again. And then escape to corners and shadows before anyone "oohs" and "ahhs" too much and makes 'em uncomfortable.
Once, Marlowe'd seen a drunk hurl a broken vodka bottle at one, and the fellow hadn't even flinched, hadn't ducked, didn't bat an eye. That bottle sailed just a centimeter or so away from his face, and the cool old cucumber just stood there calm as could be. Others he'd seen move so fast that a raindrop in a hurricane probably couldn't hit them.
The best thing he'd ever seen, though, was this one red-bearded fellow, possessed of the utter height of dry and sardonic wit he'd ever seen! Best delivered too, and weird as hell coming from a mild-looking man and his polished Core accent.
He'd stumbled into that mess on his way to Baros when a gravity mine had pulled his ship right out of hyperspace and into a raging pirate conflict. He couldn't really say it was a pillaging, because once his ship had been pulled in by an automatic tractor beam and connected to the pirates ship, he found himself in the middle of the strangest standoff; a dozen or so pirates huddled in one end of a corridor with that ruddy-haired Jedi huddled on the other, trading threats and insults respectively instead of blasting each other to vapor. He'd discovered later that the pirates had had horrible aim and the Jedi had been able to bat away every bolt sent his way. Hence the standoff.
After a few moments frozen in shock at the appearance of an ugly old Kaleesh spacer, the pirates had screamed sorcery, demanded that the "filthy Jedi" leave their ship with his summoned spawn, and had fled behind blast doors.
Being fairly quick in the head and an a decent sort of being, Marlowe had bellowed to the Jedi to hop aboard and make tracks for more civil space. In minutes, they had disconnected, the tractor beam released them, and off they went! The Jedi had expressed his thanks for the lift, saying his ship had been destroyed, and would the kind captain please drop him off on Moorja? There was a Jedi Temple there that he could go to and be out of his hair.
Marlowe had laughed and agreed, and spent the remainder of the trip quizzing and conversing with the Jedi, 'Obi-wan Kenobi, at your service.' And little gods, if that pale little man wrapped up in his big brown robe and catlike grace didn't have the sharpest, wickedest sense of humor he'd ever heard! Ten years later, and Marlowe still used some of the quips he leaned to great effect.
Ha!
Whatever came of this godforsaken war, what with those Jedi thrown smack dab in the teeth of it all, old Marlowe Deedut hoped that weird little Jedi found some peace in the end.
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Finess.