The Force's Balance

By Kassien

Chapter 7: Are We Jedi?

It really was a shame that Jedi didn't form more permanent attachments or marry here in the temple, as I watched Sirius stutter and blush every time Ardu'kinvra rewarded his hard work with a dazzling smile that made the elderly purple skinned Twi'lek look decades younger. The pair were once again having another long mental healing session, trying to reverse the years of damage to Sirius' mind, and making wonderful progress. This had been going on now for almost a month since Sirius finally awoke from the coma that had stolen seven years from him, and the kind Jedi healer offered counseling sessions to help with that and his growing understanding of Basic.

Of course, I gave Sirius no end of grief over his obvious infatuation with the admittedly attractive Jedi healer, even as I thanked her every day for all the time and work she put in making sure my godfather was healing as well as possible mentally, from the many traumas in his life. She had been appaulled at the conditions of his mind, and lack of any experience with mental health after innocently suffering for over a decade in a mentally torturous prison only to follow that up with seven more years of mental torture that would cripple most men. She had made it her duty to work through everything he suffered, and to repair even the oldest of damage from the messed up family life he was raised in to the new galaxy he now found himself in.

"Hey Old Man?" I called to get his attention away from the smiling Twi'lek he was so enamored with. It was almost comical in its obviousness, "it's time to leave your crush and come to Force training."

"What?" came the undignified shriek of a startled Padfoot as he whipped around at my voice as the blush on his face grew even redder as my words registered. "That's not what ...I don't have ...dammit Harry!"

"Come on Don Juan," I continued in English so Ardu'kinvra couldn't actually understand what I said, so as not to embarass or offend her ...only Sirius, "let's leave the celibate Jedi alone ...you're only setting yourself up for more disappointment."

"Fuck you Harry," came Sirius' uninspired reply. "You only wish you got this kind of personal attention from a female."

"No thanks," I laughed back, "I've been friend-zoned enough in my life."

"Urghh," came the intelligent reply from my older godfather.

Saying goodbye, and thanking Ardu'kinvra and promising to bring my horny pubescent son back tomorrow got me a definite laugh from the older Twi'lek Jedi, who at least had the grace to cover her mouth and pretend to cough at Sirius' wide-eyed and betrayed look. My laughter at Sirius was well deserved as we made our way to the room we usually practiced in, and I ignored his grumbling with a warning not to try and prank me while I'm sleeping again unless he wanted me to continue giving him and Ardu'kinvra a hard time. That at least stopped his grumbling as he smirked at the memory of his last prank the previous night that had me waking up screaming in a cocoon as an illusion of an Acromantula descended onto me.

"So you want a prank war against the King?" he smirked, with an excited gleam in his eyes that I was glad to see, even if it came somewhat at my expense.

"No Padfoot," I replied, shaking my head, glad to see him becoming more and more of himself over the last week, and definitely not wanting to get into a prank war with him ...I had only heard a few stories and knew it was one area I was completely outmatched. "How about a truce ...at least while we are here as guests of the Jedi?"

"Now who's being the Old Man?" he replied while sticking out his tongue at me, and making me just shake my head in exasperation, while secretly very glad to see him being more playful than when he was first revived.

We were greeted by Jedi Master Yoda, who had been helping us for the last week as Rohann was gone investigating something for the Order, and Sirius was still at the beginning stages of finding his Force powers. I was set up with a pair of training remotes, and told to continue with my Form 1 training which he agreed was developing very quickly, especially for someone of my age. I think I was almost offended for being called too old to learn something new, and made me wonder if Yoda was joking with me after listening to mine and Sirius' argument on the way here.

I watched them move on to a different training room, as I settled into the Force and began the very demanding training that would take up the better part of the next three hours and leave me an exhausted and sweaty mess. To be honest though, it was completely amazing. I had never felt so strong or capable, and knew I was still at the beginning of my training in the Jedi Arts and couldn't wait to continue.

Afterwards, I made my way to my room to shower and change before going next door and waking up Sirius from his customary afternoon nap. His body was still recovering somewhat, even though it was in fine physical shape, he had never pushed it athletically and definitely not like these Jedi did. Luckily, his overall fitness seemed to gradually become stronger, as he wasn't nearly as exhausted as he was after his first week of Force training and was quick to get up and join me for supper.

"Harry!" came an excited shout as I entered the cafeteria, and turned to see my first Jedi friend Qui-Gon Jinn waving me over to his table with an excited smile on his face, and less his customary Padawan braid.

"Qui-Gon," I responded happily, having not seen him since the first few days after my arrival when he left on his Jedi Knight Trials, "I'll be right there ...let me get some food."

"Who is that?" asked Sirius with an unusual look on his face, "I thought you didn't get along with any of the other Jedi besides Yoda and Rohann?"

"Qui-Gon Jinn, he was the Padawan I first met when coming here who helped me run some of the initial magic versus Force experiments and dueled against me," I answered quietly as I quickly started working through the food line to load up a plate followed by my godfather. "He's pretty cool ...you'll like him ...just try to ignore his Jedi Master ...he's a real piece of work."

"So, is it Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn now?" I asked the late teenage Jedi with a bright smile as I approached the table, with Sirius a bit behind me.

"Yep, finally passed my trials," he laughed happily.

"Wonderful," I responded before motioning to Sirius as we came to sit in the empty seats of the small table. "Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn and Count Dooku ...I'd like to introduce you to my godfather Sirius Black. Sirius, these are the Jedi responsible for transporting you to the Jedi temple from Kashyyyk, the newly knighted Qui-Gon Jinn and hopefully, the soon to be named Jedi Master, Count Dooku?"

"Jedi Master soon, he may be," came the voice of Yoda as he too joined us at the small round table, while giving everyone a nod of his small green head. "Very proud of my former Padawan, I am."

"Thank you Master Yoda," replied the gruff but very respectful voice of Count Dooku, as he bowed his head both in acknowledgement and to hide a small blush at the Jedi Grand Master's words of praise ...wow, never thought I would see the uptight Dooku so humble and flustered.

"Oh look Siri, your crush just arrived," I spoke giddily as I saw Ardu'kinvra enter the cafeteria, "want me to enlarge the table so she can sit next to you?"

"Not unless you actually want that prank war ...you arse" he grumbled, while glaring daggers at me, but not until he looked over at the purple skinned Twi'lek and blushed the tiniest bit.

"No ...I'll be good," I acquiesced quickly with my hands in the air, and a smile on my face at how easy and fun it was to rile Sirius up about this as Qui-Gon tried to control his own laughter and both Yoda and Dooku looked on in disapproval. "So ...how were the trials, Qui-Gon?"

The rest of the meal was spent in relative peace, as Qui-Gon described his trials and everything he had to accomplish over the last month and a half since he had been gone. We also talked about the beginning of our own Force training, which he was happily surprised about while Dooku was equally surprised but very much against our inclusion in learning any Jedi techniques. Even Yoda's approval and feelings through the Force didn't convince the rather strict conservative Jedi that it was a good idea, and the two eventually broke off from the table to continue the debate away from us.

We were left with Qui-Gon, who was planning to stay around the temple for a few weeks and visit some friends, before he took his first solo mission as a Jedi Knight. He was really excited to go out into the galaxy as a fully fledged Jedi Knight and start making a real difference in the lives of others. His idealism and somewhat youthful delusions about how amazing it was going to be, left me a little wary and I probably came off as relatively jaded as I warned him several times about random dangers to avoid and the overall crappiness of mankind and probably all the other races as well.

His optimistic confidence in others was unshakable, and we left it alone and instead started discussing the experiments we had run back before he left, and that I had continued with Master's Yoda and Silvere. He couldn't believe that we were both also being taught Force techniques and I was learning lightsaber forms, even though neither of us were going to ultimately become Jedi. He asked if we had spent much time on the Jedi Code and if it too was being taught, but we agreed that it had only really been mentioned a few times, and we were instead just being shown the basics probably to test us as we both had ridiculously high Midi-chlorian counts that they couldn't discount.

When he asked how high they were, I just laughed and told him that we both easily eclipsed Yoda and left him in open mouthed shock for several long moments while Sirius and I got a chuckle at his gobsmacked face. Then he wanted to have another duel which I was actually completely fine with, having fought several duels since with the two Jedi Masters that were training me and wanted to see how I fared against a more average Jedi. He wasn't very happy to learn that I had actually dueled both Masters already, and had beaten them both in magic as he was hoping to surprise me with his recent growth in skills, but I convinced him that they both cleaned my clock when it came to Jedi only duels that we could also have.

After dealing with Yoda's speed and maneuverability, Qui-Gon almost seemed to be in slow motion, and with magic was relatively easy for me to quickly catch and wear down until he was defeated. When we transferred over to lightsaber duels however, he was much more evenly matched. My speed was the only thing that really saved me, as even after facing the two Jedi Masters often over the last several weeks, neither went all out against me in Jedi only duels. Qui-Gon really pushed my lightsaber skills as every time I made the slightest mistake in Form 1, he was there to remind me with a shock from the training blade.

Qui-Gon was using both Form II (Makashi) and Form IV (Ataru) to great effect against my inferior skills with Form I (Shii-Cho), having not yet progressed beyond the initial form all Jedi learn first. His competence in both forms was impressive, and while he seemed to favor Form IV, he was still learning them as well, so not as overwhelming as it could have been had he mastered just one of those forms. It really showed me how much there was still to learn about the different forms, having not had too great an introduction into them all as Yoda primarily used Form IV and Silvere used Form II, and neither was really a master of Form I nor had they fought me at their best ...obviously.

An hour later, and I had bruises on my bruises, and was beyond exhausted as Qui-Gon was easily declared the better fighter when it came to lightsaber duels, much to Sirius' enjoyment. I grumbled good naturedly, that I only had weeks to learn what Qui-Gon grew up with, and that I could still wipe the floor with Sirius any day which got me some laughs from my sparring partner and a glare from my godfather. We agreed to meet again the next evening as Qui-Gon, really enjoyed our duels and promised me that I was much better starting out than several of the current Jedi younglings who had spent ten times the time on this.

That night, Sirius and I sat down inside the Marauder for a private discussion on our future, and talked through our desires and goals of learning from the Jedi, but also having our independence to go out into the galaxy and explore and experience it all. I also laid out my desire for Sirius to go through the rituals that I performed on myself, namely the body & magic enhancements as well as the Mage sight and sense which he agreed with after I explained what they required. We decided to hold off on them until we returned to Kashyyyk, as I didn't want the Jedi aware of what we were doing, as I had a feeling they would not completely approve, nor did I want the rituals to find their way into the Jedi Archives.

The Jedi Archives was also something we talked about, as I really wanted to get access to them, but wasn't completely sure how to go about it, as I had been told that I would not be granted access. We brainstormed on possibly trying to smuggle in one of my library droids under a disillusionment charm or my Invisibility Cloak, and seeing if they could start copying everything they could try and access, but hadn't settled on it yet. We surmised that there were probably too many safeguards in place to trust the whole operation to a droid, but it was so far the best idea we had.

We also went through the Marauder to redesign and expand the interior some more now that we had three full time crew with Kenroo and ourselves, and Sirius was excited to learn I had a few other magical tents in my possession as he loved my idea for his own room as well. We now had similar rooms for both of us which were currently empty, with Kenroo having his own oversized luxury suite, and added another luxury guest suite for any passengers we had with us. The cargo hold was restored with a hidden wall that could only be accessed by magic, the training room was enlarged and strengthened, and the cafeteria and medical bays were both improved upon, especially with all the new gear I received from my medical equipment orders.

We now had two top-of-the-line and EMP protected bacta-tanks, as well as a small collection of high grade medical equipment and droids that gave our little ship a similar setup to the Jedi Temple's own medical bay. The cafeteria too was upgraded with top of the line food processors and storage devices I ordered directly from Coruscant, that were meant for dignitaries and were usually found on top of the line yacht cruisers, but would suit our needs perfectly as well. Our cargo hold was currently a quarter filled as well, with several dozen magical trunks stuffed with thousands of shrunken droid parts we purchased from various dealers in Coruscant that we were planning to repair and resell.

Sirius suggested that we should completely load up on cargo everywhere we went, as space was almost unlimited for us, and would quickly allow us to turn an incredible profit in moving it to the most opportune place to sell. It would also allow us to buy up broken droids and ships from all over the galaxy to repair and really start making money, and building an empire. Sirius, despite not wanting to follow in his family's ideological footsteps, learned well his family's lessons of growing wealth, and really had a good sense for making money and how to accomplish it on a larger scale.

We agreed to pull TC-7H off the library assignment, and put him to work lining up more purchases from droid dealers and cargo shipments for about a month down the road. Knowing that we would need to at least return to Kashyyyk relatively soon to check in so to speak, it would also give us a chance to perform the necessary magical enhancement rituals for Sirius before he got too far into Jedi training. I could also use the travel time to work on my blood project, as I would need phoenix tears for Sirius' ritual, and the Basilisk venom would also prove a potent magical substance and provide another revenue stream once we synthesized everything.

For the following two weeks, we kept to our very busy schedule of Jedi training, and mental healing for Sirius which really seemed to be improving in huge leaps. Sirius was getting close to starting lightsaber training, and finishing up with his counseling sessions with the Jedi Healer Ardu'kinvra and seemed to be doing very well. I had progressed even faster with the added duels and training I was engaging in with the newly promoted Jedi Knight, Qui-Gon Jinn on top of the usual lessons, and was really starting to understand Form I to such a degree, that they were ready to start moving on to another Form of my choosing.

While I had by no means mastered Form I, as few ever truly mastered any of the Forms, mine was deemed good enough to branch out into the other disciplines to find the one that felt the most comfortable to me. So, I was given a basic crash course in Forms II, III, IV & V as the most common among the Jedi. Form II was pretty good for me as it was one handed, had both simple offensive and defensive capabilities and worked well in lightsaber duels, while Form III was too passive and Form IV too acrobatic. Form V was the one I think I liked the best though, as it was used at both distance and up close, was strong in both defense and offense and didn't require much acrobatics.

As neither Master Yoda nor Master Silvere were very confident in Form V and they couldn't convince any of the other masters who specialized in Shien & Djem So (Form V) to train me, they instead started me on Form II for now. They also allowed me to work with a lightsaber training droid in my spare time to begin developing my skills in Form V as well, which was the real prize of my continued learning. Learning about the lightsaber training droids, I asked if they had old scraps and parts for them as droid restoration was my primary hobby and business with the Wookies, and could restore theirs if I was able. I was led to an old storage room filled with decommissioned droids in various parts and pieces that had me secretly gleeful, and I was quick to promise that I could help restore several droids for them in payment if they let me tinker about.

I think Yoda could tell that I was hiding something, as the look he gave me was rather curious, but he said that if I could restore any of these, the Jedi would be very appreciative as they spent a great deal of money on replacement droids. I mentioned that my magic allowed me to restore their physical appearance pretty well, but that it often shorted out any of the electrical components and wiped memory chips, thinking he didn't want me getting my hands on any sensitive materials and it would put him at ease. He nodded along and then left me to it, as he had to return to the Jedi Council chambers for a meeting, and I quickly got to work.

Within an hour, I had restored over thirty of the lightsaber training droids, about a dozen lightsaber training remotes, and even a pair of training lightsabers themselves. I was even able to restore all their memory chips and programming, so they were in fact very useful to my purposes. I quickly took all the collected memory and copied it to six of the training droids before wiping all the remaining droids clear of any memories or programs to return to the Jedi in peak physical condition and blank memories as I stated I could. The six remaining droids with all memories and programs still working were shrunken down along with four of the training remotes and both training lightsabers and stuffed into a shrunken trunk I carried.

The real find though, was an unusual shaped droid I didn't recognize at first, until I completely restored it and discovered it was an old librarian droid from the Jedi Archives which I quickly added to my personal collection to study later. With the storage room now considerably cleaner and empty, a few spells made it tidy and shine as if brand new. I then marched the almost thirty training droids to the Jedi Council chambers to show off the gift I had prepared, hoping it would go a long way towards ingratiating myself with the more conservative of the Jedi Masters who still protested my being here and learning.

"Jedi Masters, Grand Master Yoda," I started with formal bows after walking straight into the meeting, ignoring the gasps and grumbles directed at my audacity, "I have managed to restore 28 of the lightsaber training droids to perfect condition, they will need to be reprogrammed as all lightsaber protocols and memory banks were rendered obsolete in their repair, also I restored eight broken training remotes as well that I will leave here for you. I thank you greatly for all the help you have provided me and my godfather, and wish you all a good day."

I bowed once more to all of them, and then left the chambers quickly, not wanting to get dragged into any discussions and happy that at least a few of the Masters were now giving me slightly less hostile looks, as they saw the brand new looking droids and remotes I left for them. Hoping it would help my few dealings with others besides Yoda, Rohann and Qui-Gon, as they were the only ones I had really spent any significant time with, I returned to my room to put my new finds away in the storage area of my tent after a little investigating. I was quickly able to discover that the Jedi Archive librarian droid was a treasure trove of information, as he had almost 80% of the basic Archives in his memory, though nothing from the last ten years.

The droid had the histories and information the Jedi had learned about all the core planets, and most of those in the Mid-Rim as well, countless star maps and histories of other planets they visited in the Outer-Rim and unknown reaches of space. It had the complete History of their Order, teachings, techniques, and members, as well as the floor plans and locations of the treasures of the Archives ...the holocrons and lightsabers of their heroes and most notorious members of their past. It was pretty much everything I was hoping to find by infiltrating the Jedi Archives, and it just fell into my lap and I couldn't be happier about it. I hoped with this knowledge, I may be able to get into the Archives itself, and get this droid updated with current information and maybe even check out some of those treasures myself, but was willing to be patient.

Unfortunately, my gift of the droids did not go as planned, as several of the masters that just didn't like me, raised quite the stink when they learned that I was still here and learning lightsaber forms. They complained and argued enough that Yoda was forced to end our arrangement, to keep the peace in his Order. He apologized several times, but in the end he said that we would have to leave the Jedi Temple for the foreseeable future. He did ask that we continue to keep in touch, and provided his own personal comm channel for that exact purpose.

We were at least given the night to say our goodbyes and pack up our rooms, though that would only take moments, and had to leave tomorrow. I greatly thanked the short green Jedi Grand Master who taught me so much, and who I greatly respected and asked him to pass on my goodbye to Rohann, who had yet to return from Alderan. With that done, I searched out Qui-Gon to say goodbye, and heard that he too was planning to leave in the next few days on his first assignment as a Jedi Knight, and wished him all the best. We exchanged personal comm channel information as well, and I also gave him a small necklace with a built in protean charm he could use to call me if he was ever in real danger.

I knew Sirius had left to say goodbye to Ardu'kinvra, and didn't want to interrupt them. Even if I didn't think anything would come of his little infatuation, I had to let him try without my interference. Instead, I went to my tent and started planning an incursion into the Jedi Archives, knowing that I would probably never get a better chance to slip in again and started working with my reclaimed Archive Droid and TC-7H on how best to infiltrate and get the information and items I was most curious about. According to AD-7JL, or Archive Droid-Seven Jedi Librarian, there were three major areas within the Archives, each successively harder to enter than the previous.

The first area consisted of the standard Archival data storage of which my droid already contained an estimated 80% of its current information, so was probably the smallest priority. The next section contained the Jedi holocron library consisting of at last known count by AD-7JL at least 152 Jedi holocrons, and 24 Sith holocrons all locked inside small containment fields that required an Archival Droid to access. The final area of the Archives held the relics and DNA samples of several notable Jedi and Sith in the history of the Order, protected inside a type of safety deposit box vault, with some of the most complicated computer locks ever created.

I had to run a few tests first, checking to ensure that a compulsion charm would work on the Archive Droids, which I was luckily able to test right away on AD-7JL to successful results. The other was a duplication charm on holocrons, grateful for the one I found among Milthanex's treasures to determine that an exact copy could only be made with the Elder Wand, and even then it would need a set of runes to make it permanent otherwise it disappeared within ten minutes which was half the time it took to etch the correct rune sequence. The last problem was going to be the actual Jedi in the temple themselves, as I would need a suitable distraction to keep their attention elsewhere while I was trying to pull off this epic heist.

Luckily, that distraction came in the form of a slaver TC-7H discovered in his attempt to line up cargo and droid parts here on Coruscant's subterranean levels, that had connections within the Senate itself which would provide the necessary interest in taking care of this immediately. I just had to get one of my unregistered droids to go down to the proper level, and send an anonymous distress signal to one of the main comm channels used by the Senate, which would bring the attention of the Senate and the Jedi down upon the slaver in question. That it would probably help rescue several dozen slaves as well as ruin a fucking well connected slaver, was just a bonus that I was happy to benefit from.

Within minutes of my unidentified droid's distress signal being transmitted, the Jedi Temple was a hive of activity, and I was hidden underneath my Invisibility Cloak with AD-7JL shrunken in my pocket near the Archive's entrance. I waited until my homenium revelio spell showed several beings leaving the temple, some going to Coruscant's underground levels, while others headed to the Galactic Senate including Yoda who I was most afraid of discovering me for two reasons. He was the most skilled sensor and therefore the most likely to discover my heist, but also I genuinely liked the little green Jedi, and didn't want to disappoint him or prove to the other sticks in the mud that they were right in not trusting me.

To be fair though, I wasn't planning to rob them blind, just duplicate anything I could get my hands on without being discovered. It was a small difference, but I thought it was an important one that allowed me to not feel too bad about abusing the trust I was given. Anyway, with the majority of the Jedi gone, I was quick to enter the Archives and get around the pair of Jedi sentries that guarded it's entrance.

I then quickly apparated behind the two Archive Droids that were present in the main Archive's front desk area and put them both under a large compulsion charm, telling one to act as usual and not be bothered by the other going to do a full inspection of the Archives. Following that droid, we entered the Main Frame of the first section where I quickly unshrunk AD-7J and had him plug into the MainFrame of the Archives to download the entirety of their content. Luckily, his original estimation was pretty solid, as it only needed two minutes to download the remaining 19% it was missing from it's memory banks before we continued to the holocron storage area.

I didn't have time to replicate every holocron, and apply the permanence Runes, so I went for the big three, the holocron of Rajivari one of the Je'daii Order's founders, and the pair of holocrons of Revan, one each from his time as both a Jedi and Sith. It took another twelve minutes until I had created perfect permanent copies of all three holocrons, during which time I had the two Archive Droids with me, my own and the compulsioned AD-9JL start removing and extracting small bits of DNA from as many samples as we could in the time it took me to add the necessary Runes to my new holocron copies. Luckily, the alohamora spell had no trouble with the complicated computer locks, and the pair of droids were able to extract over several dozen different Jedi DNA samples into pre-prepared unbreakable potion vials in the time it took me to finish my Runes.

I then cleaned up everything behind me, and made sure that nothing was out of place and no record of my or AD-9JL's presence remained within the Archives, before retracing my steps and returning the helpful droid to his rightful place at the front desk of the Archives, after making sure that I had everything stored and my presence over the last twenty something minutes was completely forgotten about. The two droids then had those same twenty minutes replaced with a looped version of the previous twenty, and I left with a shrunken AD-7JL fully up to date and several copied and stolen artifacts in my possession.

After quickly and securely putting everything away in my tent, I ventured out of my room and found Sirius coming from the direction of the medical bay with a small scowl on his face. I acted like I had no idea what was happening, and asked him what was going on and what was wrong.

"Some emergency with the Senate," he answered with a disinterested huff, "and Ardu'kinvra said she wouldn't leave the Jedi for me."

"Oh shit, are you alright?" I replied, knowing this was probably very painful for him, and genuinely concerned about him despite my usual desire to tease him about his obvious crush on the Jedi Healer.

"Yeah ...I guess," he sighed somewhat resigned, and maybe a bit resentful. "I just thought maybe she would have wanted to be with me, but she couldn't get past her Jedi conditioning of no attachments."

"It's not her fault Siri," I replied, trying to lighten the blow, but also understanding just how hard that conditioning was. "She was raised here in the temple, the Jedi are all she knows. She has never understood or experienced relationships like we have. Their Jedi Code is very restrictive and against any kind of attachments, I'm actually surprised they are allowed to have friends."

"Yeah," he muttered, not much happier, but I could tell that he at least understood. "I just really thought we had something."

"You do," I answered, "she just doesn't understand it, and is probably afraid of going against everything she has even known and believed ...give it time, maybe we can come back sometime and you can try again."

"Thanks Harry," he agreed with a small smile directed at me for being supportive, and not making fun of him when I knew he was legitimately hurting.

"Come on, let's pack up our tents and find Kenroo," I responded. "We need to let him know we've been kicked out and have to leave tomorrow morning."

"Sanctamonious arses," muttered Sirius in english, not pleased to be kicked out and basically having to end his growing relationship with the attractive healer before it really had a chance.

"What really did you expect from a religious cult?" I responded in our language so as not to offend any listening ears, of which I was pretty convinced we had around our rooms at all times, one of the reasons I wanted a conversation out here, to help establish my alibi in case they ever discovered the theft of Jedi Archive resources.

"Better Kool-Aide for one," joked Sirius with a bark life laugh, that had me chuckling along with him at the joke that would only make sense to us.

"Come on Siri," I started after a moment, "let's pack our tents and head towards the ship, I bet Kenroo is there with his little buddy this time of night anyway."

Within ten minutes, both Sirius and I had our tents packed up, and shrunk in pockets as we made our way to the Jedi hangar and our spaceship, hoping to find our third member working away on the duplicate YT-1000. The temple seemed to have settled a bit from the earlier confusion, and I hope it meant that the Jedi had finished dealing with the slaver and they were wrapping things up with the Senate, as most of the higher ups still hadn't returned according to my senses. Kenroo was with Chabesdee working away on the duplicate of the Marauder I let them tinker on, as they had almost completed all the repairs and it was looking more and more like it's partner every day.

A quick discussion with him about being "asked to leave" by the Jedi, and he understood that we would be leaving soon, and decided to spend the last night with his young friend trying to finish the last few systems to bring the new duplicate ship online. He pointed out the broken parts to the hyperdrive, that I would have to replace to get everything up and running well, and I surprised the shit out of his young friend by performing a negligent wave of my wand that re-assembled the entire thing back to its brand new condition. Kenroo just chuckled at his young friend's expression and roaring questions, and I assumed he was telling the little guy why the Wookies liked me so much, and about my incredible powers to restore just about anything back to its original working state.

That night, we all stayed in our rooms on the Marauder, as we were preparing to leave at first light in the morning. Kenroo and Chabesdee had said their goodbyes late in the night, and the duplicate Marauder was shrunk back down and stored in the magical section of the cargo hold, now just needing the magical upgrades to make it an exact replica of my current spaceship. I was planning on taking care of that when we returned to Kashyyyk, and Sirius was recovering from the magical enhancement rituals we had planned for him.

In the morning, before we could get clearance to leave the Jedi hangar, I was asked for another meeting with the Jedi Council, and for a moment was pretty worried that my little excursion the night before into the Jedi Archives may have been discovered. It turns out, I was worried about nothing, as no mention of it came up, nor did any of the other Jedi Masters whose surface thoughts I could read, even know anything was amiss with the Archives. Instead, they asked me to wait due to the rescued slaves from the night before, as four of them were Wookies who wanted to return to Kashyyyk, and one was a Bivall from Onderon.

The Bivall were a sentient species of tall bipeds with crested heads and eye stalks that were very lanky, and the one they rescued was a pale red color. His name was Okaletti, and was an environmental scientist in the employ of the Onderon government that was captured during a trip to Coruscant for supplies. Since Onderon was on the hyperspace route back to Kashyyyk, the Jedi were asking if I would transport him to his home as well as the four Wookies returning to Kashyyyk.

I easily agreed, as it would not be out of the way, and was the right thing to do. It also had me leaving the Jedi on better terms, as many of those that had only the day before fought against me being trained in Jedi techniques, could not ignore the fact that I was at least helpful. I was instructed that all of my passengers were currently being brought to the Council Chambers, and had nothing in the way of personal effects but that their governments were both informed that they had been rescued and were being returned home.

"No worries," I replied easily, "we'll take good care of them all and return them home. Thank you for your assistance in caring for my godfather, and for our time here. If you are ever in need of my help, please do contact me."

"Your help in the future, valuable it will be," came the reply from Grand Master Yoda with a slight bow of his head which I gratefully returned, knowing that I was going to miss the little green Jedi the most.

With that, my new passengers were brought in, and informed that I was captaining the ship to return them all home. I introduced myself to them all, and informed them that we were ready to take off, and just waiting on clearance to leave if they would follow me to my ship in the hangar. They were very thankful to both the Jedi and myself for first their rescue, and now being returned home so quickly, and were quick to follow me to my waiting ship.

The four Wookies were greeted warmly by Kenroo upon arrival, who after a relatively quick roaring discussion were happily led inside the ship, and I called after them that I would add rooms for them all on the ship before we took off. I then turned to the Bivall, and asked him if he had any requirements for his own room or requests on the journey to his home planet. He seemed relatively overwhelmed by everything that had been happening so quickly, and just shook his head as I motioned him to follow me to the guest suite where he would be staying on the four day journey to Onderon.

After showing him his quarters and the full wardrobe with several different clothing options, since I didn't think he wanted to wear the brown Jedi robe forever, I left him to get settled in and told him where the cafeteria was and everyone else's rooms were in case he needed anything. I then went to the cargo hold and created four doors, each to a relatively nice if plain room for each of the Wookies to stay in during the journey. Going to the bridge to find them all crammed inside looking over various parts of the ship, I informed them that we would be taking off soon, and had rooms prepared for each of them in the old cargo hold.

It took another couple of roars from Kenroo to put all four Wookies at ease, and then they all almost rushed to their new rooms to inspect them, as I expanded the bridge just a bit so we wouldn't be too cramped if they all decided to join us on the trip. Sirius was very eager to get going, as this would be his first experience with space travel and I was happy to see him rebounding from his earlier depressed mood. He was trying to pay some attention to the flight controls too, but mostly focusing on the view out of our viewport as we were finally given clearance to leave and slowly took to the air.

Seeing the city-wide planet of Coruscant as we rose above it was something I don't think Sirius or I would ever forget, as it stretched on in every direction endlessly, and was more dense and built up than London ever managed. His excitement to begin our space travels together was rather contagious, and had me grinning along with him as we rose into space relatively slowly compared to most planets, due primarily to the abundance of traffic around the capital of the galaxy. Once our course was plotted and entered into the navi-computer, we shot off into hyperdrive as the surrounding stars blurred into long lines all around us.

Sirius watched in fascination for about the same ten minutes I first did, before realizing that just seeing little white lines all over the place didn't really lend itself to a great viewing experience. When he turned to me to ask what now, I could only smirk at him and remind him we had four days of this journey until our first and next stop at Onderon. I told him about the workout/training room where I would be spending a good bit of time every day, but also told him he should probably try finding a hobby to help keep him busy.

With my library droids over half finished with the large task of digitizing my entire collection of books, I mentioned that he could always get something to read or explore the holo-net some more with the readers we had purchased a few weeks back on one of our trips into the bowels of Coruscant looking for droid parts to purchase and repair. He could also work on said droid repairs, or review all the information I had been collecting from all the repaired and confiscated droids I had so far encountered on my few trips. There was a ton of information from various slavers, pirates, and arms dealers already from just the few interactions I had across the galaxy so far, and a lot of opportunities for gathering their now abandoned money, resources, and power; or helping free slaves and harassing other criminals now known to us.

I also mentioned very quietly and in English, that we had the Jedi Archives to go through as well, including hundreds of star charts into the unknown reaches of space if we wanted to try and find Earth at some point. Sirius gave me such a wide eyed look of shock, that I had trouble not breaking down in laughter. I settled for letting him in on my little Archive heist, and why I didn't mention anything about it until we had left the Jedi Temple, in case the Force allowed any of the Jedi masters to learn of it.

"Holy Shit Harry!" he exclaimed in stunned shock for a bit, until he slowly started laughing and soon couldn't stop.

This was the scene that the four Wookie guests arrived at, but Kenroo was quick to assure them that nothing was wrong with Sirius. I asked them if their rooms were to their liking, and if they needed anything else, and then had to wait for TC-7H to arrive and translate for me as I didn't at all understand their roared replies. It seems they really liked the accommodations, but didn't understand how there was so much interior space in the obviously customised YT-1000 Freighter.

This led to a brief and basic explanation of my magic, and that space expansion was one of my specialties, making transporting cargo relatively easy. Kenroo also chimed in several times to explain certain parts and abilities I had shown him and the other Wookies during our brief time together, and I quickly had four new eager Wookie friends. None of them however were very knowledgeable about space ships, their forced slavery had them working instead on repairing weapons which I quickly discovered was another area I could really expand my repairing techniques into for a nice profit.

Leaving the new Wookie passengers with a crate of confiscated weapons from Milthanex's, to give them something to tinker with while we travelled was a great way to ingratiate myself with the newcomers, and got them out of the crowded cockpit, so Kenroo and I could make sure everything was running as it should. Sirius decided that he needed to get his three bedroom tent set up more properly for the long term, and spent a good bit of his time every day inside his room fixing up and organizing his tent until it was exactly how he wanted it. Okaletti, the Bivall passenger, was given one of the readers, and spent most of his time inside his suite, and based on his praise of the hot tub, spent most of the four days relaxing in the hot water.