Canderous filled glasses for everyone and took a seat beside Visas. He raised his glass and said, "Set one, everyone take a drink." Everyone raised their glasses and took a drink, though some drank considerably more than others. Canderous eyed Mical across the table, "did you even get any, boy? Come on, you can do better than that!" While they watched, Mical closed his eyes and took a fast gulp of juma. He opened his eyes again and smiled, "The second drink didn't burn as much as the first." He stated. Mira snickered as Atton began to deal.

The first few rounds went quite nicely, as the juma began to take effect and loosen everyone up. Vashti shot Atton a look as he dealt another 10, her assigned drink number.

"What?" Atton said with a smug grin.

"Hrm, I just get the feeling this deck has an extraordinary number of 10s in it." Vashti said grinning as she took her 6th mandatory drink.

"Query: Shall I shock the meatbag for you, Master?" HK asked hopefully.

"No, HK, I'll let you know when, keep that shock arm ready." She grinned. "As you wish, Master." HK said with a disappointed electronic sigh.

Atton moved a little further away from the homicidal droid instinctively and his side pressed against Vashti. She jumped slightly and giggled, but she didn't move away. They were all beginning to feel the juma now.

"General, your pazaak is much better now than it was back in the war," Vashti nodded her agreement with Bao saying "ten years of wandering the galaxy without a real job will do that to a girl." He chuckled quietly to himself and Mira shot him a look. "There's a story behind that chuckle, I can tell. Spill it!" She smacked the zabrak playfully on the shoulder and his chuckle spread to a wide grin. Vashti's eyes widened in horror as Bao glanced up at her, tentatively.

"Don't you dare!" she yelled, a little more loudly than she had meant to. Their eyes all shot to her, and then to Bao. "He's got to tell us now, you made it sound much too interesting to pass up," Canderous said with a grin.

The horrified look on Vash's face intensified as the redness crept up her neck, burning her ears. She grabbed her glass and took a long gulp, ignoring Mical as he tried to wrench the glass out of her hands. "You don't get to drink now, no one got a 10, nor have you won a set," Mical said to her with a slightly sadistic smile, "Bao, you were saying?"

Bao-Dur glanced up at Vashti. She closed her eyes, trying to fight off the blush and nodded, the extra juma giving her a bit of courage. Bao chuckled again and started his story.

"Back during the war, the General began coming to the common area of the ship pretty regularly. At first she was just getting a drink while she read through her datapads, but it didn't take long for her to start joining in the activities. A few of the soldiers started teaching her to play pazaak and pooled their extra cards together so she could have her own deck. She played a lot, and lost most of the time. But it never seemed to bother her, well, until…" Vashti sunk lower in her seat and laid her forehead on the table, her ears bright red now. "Until she agreed to play a game with Nar Shaddaa rules." The whole table erupted with laughter.

Her head snapped up. "He tricked me!" she yelled in her defense. "I was a 22 year old Jedi! How the HELL was I supposed to know what Nar Shaddaa rules were?"

Bao chuckled, " but once you lost the first set and he informed you that you were supposed to remove an item of clothing, you didn't quit. If you didn't know, and obviously you didn't, you could have gotten out of it."

"I'd agreed to play! I had to finish the game! They'd have lost respect for me if I didn't!"

Bao grinned again, "Suddenly winning became much more important to her. As a Jedi of course she had quite a few extra pieces of clothing to remove, the outer robe, the inner robe, the belt, each boot, her socks, the tunic, the pants. With each piece of clothing that came off, the crowd watching grew. Of course, she was holding her own against the guy she was playing, what was his name anyhow? I forget."

"Lars," she responded firmly, "I wish I could forget."

"Ah yes, Lars," Bao continued, "Anyhow, Lars was losing pieces of clothing almost as fast as she was, but he had less to lose. As the crowd grew and the game heated up, the General stood up on her chair and began throwing her clothing out into the crowd as she took it off. Of course, the men loved it. She was the most attractive thing any ofus had ever seen. Ah, you should have seen her back then. She looked basically the same as she does now, but there was a freshness about her - a naivety that seemed to accentuate every feature, every curve. She was a magnificent sight." Bao sighed as a nostalgic look crossed his face.

"You seem awfully fond of that memory, Bao" Atton interjected a bit grumpily.

Bao chuckled again, "I was an 18 yr old tech. I hadn't been close to many girls and I definitely hadn't been with a human woman at that point in my life. I, like most of the other men in that room were completely entranced by her. She drank heavily with each round, the juma gave her courage, I think, but it also dulled her ability to play. We couldn't believe our luck, she was losing and best of all, she didn't appear to be trying to get out of it either. The men made a giant ruckus after her tunic came off, and I think she was feeding off their energy. I think the collective wills of all those men bent her to their will.

"She stood there in her leggings with her tunic off. She was wearing what I can only assume are standard issue undergarments for Jedi. They didn't show much, but it didn't matter. Lars was down to just his pants, as well. She lost again, and off came the leggings. She lost again. The cheer that went up from the men in that room was deafening. She was so cute as the determined look came over her face. She climbed up on the table and looked around at all the men in the room. I swear she made eye contact with all of us at once. She began to talk to the us, Ah, I remember her speech like it was yesterday" Vashti sunk even lower in her chair, if that was possible. "She said 'Gentlemen! I am Vashti, a Jedi Knight and your General! I will fulfill this obligation because of the bond of trust I have with each one of you. You know I could walk away now and while you would all be a bit disappointed, I would still have my dignity. However, to prove to you that my dignity is a small price to pay for the trust of my men, I will do this, just as I will fulfill my obligations to fight and possibly die by your side.' With that she pulled the top of her underwear off and flung it into the crowd. The men went wild. The cheering and stamping was deafening. She tried to quiet us down and yelled over the crowd, 'Gentlemen! There's another hand to be played I believe!'

"The place went eerily quiet again as they watched the next hand. She managed to win that one, probably because Lars was too distracted by his now topless opponent. His pants came off and they played another hand. She lost again, and again the place went wild, they were stamping and cheering as she climbed up on the table again. She yelled out, 'For the Republic!' But before she managed to get her underwear off two of the Jedi men on the ship came in to see what all the ruckus was about.

"You should have seen their faces. It was priceless. I don't think either of them had ever seen a woman with that few clothes on, and certainly not a Jedi. They quickly removed their outer robes as they jumped up on the table. One wrapped his robe around her as the other scooped her up over his shoulder and carried her out of the commons."

Vashti's eyes opened finally "I never did get any of those clothes back," she muttered.

The whole group broke out in raucous laughter; everyone looked at her differently for a moment.

"So there is a party girl under there somewhere. I suspected as much," Canderous guffawed at her.

"I was 22! You heard Bao, they were egging me on!"

Atton mused, "I guess that's why you seemed so comfortable in the dancer's outfit when you danced for Vogga. Apparently Vash is a bit of an exhibitionist! Who'd have guessed it?

Mira cackled, "and I thought I was bad."

"Just deal the next hand, so I can take another drink, will you?" Vash said irritably, but a small grin could not help but escape her lips. That had been a liberating day. She had always had confidence in herself, but somehow, getting up there on that table and removing her garments made her realize that she could overcome any fears and do whatever had to be done to get the job done.

"I don't suppose we might be able to get a repeat performance from you?" Atton asked as he dealt the next hand.

"NO!" she yelled, a grin spreading across her face.

Atton grumbled, "I can't believe Bao got to see that. Where was I when this was going on? Not on your ship! No, I got assigned to a ship without a female exhibitionist Jedi goddess. As a matter of fact, the only female Jedi on our ship was pretty scary. I wouldn't have wanted to see her naked. At least, I think it was a she. Might not have been actually, hard to tell with the robes."

Vashti snickered and finally looked up around the table at her companions. Disciple blushed, Mira and Canderous grinned back at her, Visas chuckled quietly, Atton looked at her appraisingly, and Bao smiled at her warmly.

When her gaze reached Bao, her eyes narrowed, "you can just wipe that smile off your face mister, and make sure you get that image out of your head too! We're Jedi for force's sake, you guys should NOT be getting this much enjoyment out the idea of me taking my clothes off!"

"I'm no Jedi," Canderous quipped, "and I can imagine it quite well, though if you'd like to demonstrate that would be much better." Vashti reached across the table and slugged him in the shoulder. "Well, it ain't gonna happen, so you can just get over it!"

"Yeah," Atton agreed, "we'd have to get quite a bit more Juma in her before she'd agree to another game with Nar Shaddaa rules."

Vash's eyes widened once more and she slugged Atton in the shoulder this time. "At least being interrogated by a Jedi in her underwear isn't a personal fantasy of mine!" she taunted Atton. All the eyes at the table refocused on him.

"Oh, another story! Do tell!" Mira chuckled from across the table.