Malarow's instructions turned out to be very short, indeed. It took him all of five minutes to hear it.
"Great," he muttered irately. "Aleena's message takes three hours, and mine's only five minutes. Who the hell is the silver-haired master anyway??" He seemed to realize after a moment that he was alone, and that he probably shouldn't be shouting so loud or someone might hear him through the walls and think he was crazy.
Now resigned to his fate (such that it was), Malarow hauled himself off of his cot and pocketed the silvery cube. He had been instructed to take it to Obsessive, which wasn't a good thing because he had no idea which room was hers. He slid open the durasteel door and stepped into the hallway, nearly tripping over Aleena's still form. The young knight was sleeping soundly, curled up on the cold tiles.
"Oh, lovely. That just spells crankiness," he muttered, prodding her with a foot. "Aleena! Wake up!"
"Mmm, not now Ben, I'm sleeping," she muttered, curling up more tightly.
"Ben?" Malarow stared at Aleena for a few more moments, thoroughly confused, before walking off down the hallway. He supposed Obsessive would be in the student quarters like the rest of the Padawans and turned towards the lift that would take him there. As it turned out, however, he wouldn't need to seek out Obsessive's room. The younger human nearly smacked right into him as she rounded a corner.
"Oh, sorry Master Malarow," she said breathlessly, bowing. "I should have sensed you there."
"Don't worry about it," Obsessive replied. "Here, take this blasted Holocube and go find Blade. You two have a message to hear together."
Obsessive took the small, silvery cube reverently and put it carefully in her pocket. "Thank you, Malarow! I'll go find Blade right away!"
"Good, you do that," Malarow replied. "I'm off to get some sleep."
The next morning the seven Chosen met in one of the Temple's council rooms. It was just an hour before dawn, and none of the Seven had been too keen to wake up and gather, but Fae's instructions had included an order to have them all gather.
"So here we all are, and we know what we must do," Hotaru said as she sipped a mug of hot, dark coffee. "Does anyone have instructions that were to be given to the group?"
"When dawn breaks I need to find a hidden Sith," Malarow grumbled. "I already found this Silver-haired master that Aleena told me to find."
"I did?" Aleena asked curiously.
"Yes, but it must have been a trance. When I tried to wake you up later, you just mumbled something about Ben. Who the hell is Ben?"
"Oh, no one important!" Aleena exclaimed, blushing. Then, as if to steer the subject away from 'Ben', she asked, "Who is this Silver-haired master, then?"
"A Jedi Knight known as Aquel Faemir. She's offered to pilot us to our destinations, as long as we don't mind cramped spaces."
"How would she know to offer us her transport?" Jennria asked. "Isn't that a little weird?"
"She said she dreamed that we would come and ask." Malarow looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully for a moment, then turned a sharp glance towards the door. "I know who the hidden sith is," he said quietly. "No one is to take the transport prepared for us."
"Well, one point for the Seven, zero for the Apocalypse," Hotaru said wryly. "Were are we going first?"
"I was told that I needed to remain on Naboo for the duration of this mission," Fae said.
"I was told to go to Tatooine," Malarow grimaced. "What a hellhole that world is."
"I must stay on Coruscant," Jennaria murmered.
"Obsessive and I can come to Tatooine with you, Malarow," Blade added. "We only need to get to Naboo within seven days from now."
"I'll stick with Fae," Hotaru said. "I wasn't told to be on any specific planet."
"And I've got to be on Naboo at the same time Obsessive and Blade are, so I'll go with you as well, Malarow," said Aleena.
"Well, it's settled then. We'll get this Faemir person to pilot Fae and Hotaru to Naboo, and the rest of us will tag along and have her take us to Tatooine." Malarow paused and looked around at the others. "You're not getting angry with me for being so commanding, right?"
"No, we think that's very sweet of you," Aleena cooed. "You're taking command of this mission to protect all us girls."
Malarow turned a strange shade of red as he realized that he was, indeed, the only male in the group. He cleared his throat and nodded curtly at Aleena. "Yes, well, maybe you should take command now. I'm finished."
Jennaria coughed politely, drawing the attention of the other six to herself. "If I may make a suggestion, we should have a secure way of communicating. If I am correct in my assumption, a lot more is going to happen subconsciously to us, and we need to be able to get a hold of each other quickly in case something else important comes up."
"We have comlinks," Fae noted. "Aren't those secure enough?"
"I have a bad feeling that we'll be facing against some fairly sinister opponents. We should code our comlinks and fix one secure channel for communication."
Blade nodded in agreement. "Let's use one of the obscure, high-number channels that no one ever uses. Me 'n Yarro always used those to organize dorm escapes and never got caught…" The Padawan suddenly realized that she might have said a bit too much. "We weren't doing anything dangerous, of course."
"Of course," Hotaru muttered.
"Well, you did do damage to Master Windu's lunch," Obsessive piped up. "You ate his gourmet Nerf steak."
"Well, he never shares!" Blade protested.
Just as Obsessive was about to reply, the council room doors opened and a pale, silver-haired master glided into the room. She was followed closely by a young avian female clad in the robes of a Padawan.
"Did someone call for a taxi?" Aquel Faemir, the master, asked with a smile. "I'm afraid some of you will have to ride in the cargo bay. The Shield Dodger wasn't exactly designed as a bus."
"How much do you charge?" Malarow asked.
"You know, that question could be taken in the totally wrong context," Blade giggled.
"Oh, shut up!"
Aquel suppressed the urge to engage in the endless teasing and answered Malarow's question without laughing. "All I ask is that you don't open any of the cargo boxes, and that you don't look too hard at the modifications to my ship. Some are, ah, a little less legal than the Council would like."
"Excellent, an illegal transport," Aleena cackled. "Erm, aren't you that master Be- uh, Obi-Wan keeps mentioning?"
Aquel sized Aleena up and allowed a hint of a grin to creep onto her face. "You must be Aleena Tarlana. I've heard… quite a bit about you."
"Like what?" Aleena asked suspiciously.
"Oh, you don't want me telling you in front of all these people."
"…I'm gonna kill him for blabbing in front of other people…"
A very perturbed Hotaru cleared her throat. "When are you able to take us?"
"Now, if you want," Aquel replied. "If you follow me down to the hanger, I'll introduce you to the Shield Dodger, the best damn ship this temple has seen in a millennium."
End Notes: Now would be a good time to read Twinsabers: The Master if you haven't already. That's Aquel's fic, and the newest chapter is sort of a companion piece to this one. It's this chapter of Jedi Fellowship from Aquel's point of view…
Saturn: Did you like your little part at the end there? I tried to get it as Aleena-ish as I could. Did it work?