So maybe I didn't update that soon. No coming after me with lightsabers, please, it's here now! I'll get back to Luke in the next couple chapters and into some really good action after that-these little talk chapters are kinda annoying me to but they move it along.
"Move along."
Anyway...
Chapter 7: Party Selection
The two X-wings and De'shar's ship descended into Yavin 4's atmosphere at the break of day as the Temple was waking. The Imperials were detained and interrogated without much trouble, and a meeting was called in what had once been a Rebel command center.
It was a Massassi-built room, brown rock etched with strange symbols along the base, around a modern, rectangular conference table. Those assembled were the senior jedi; Tionne, Kam Solusar, Streen, Cilghal and a few more. Corran stood at the front but did not sit. It felt empty to him without Luke Skywalker at the head of the table, and he tried to project the confidence and poise the master displayed.
"This is a time machine." The sphere sat on the table suspended in an energy field anchored by thin metal joists. Jado Krake had been unusually cooperative but had not told them how the device worked, so the machine had not been touched since its capture. There were murmurs of comments; "Time machine." "What sort of technology...?"
"This machine was being delivered to an old secret military installation in the Kessel system called Maw Installation. This station had housed the scientists who created the Sun Crusher and the Death Stars. It appears that what we have is a prototype-it was being delivered to Maw Installation for a final modification when we intercepted it. The inventor Leeondro K'Saavis now knows how to program it to pinpoint any time in history, and send a person there."
A clear voice called from across the room. "Master Horn. So where is Master Skywalker?"
"You mean when, Master Akola." Corran looked at the blue-skinned, spike-bedecked alien Jedi near the door. Behind him and outside, Corran could sense agent De'shar approaching. "The Galactic Civil War, most probably, though there is no real way to tell. Choosing the time on the machine isn't specific yet. What he programmed in was a general era, most probably that one but there is no real way to tell-unless we find Leeondro K'Saavis."
"Will a group be able to enter the installation?" Kam Solusar asked.
Corran sighed. "We don't know. The installation isn't even supposed to be operational." After a pause in which De'shar entered and stood near the door he continued. "I propose we send a few Jedi, two or three, to see if we can peacefully approach the station to retrieve Master Skywalker and control or eliminate the production of these machines."
There was general agreement.
"Excuse me Master Jedi." De'shar said. "but this can be taken care of by the Republic authorities. You do not need to be concerned with it."
For a moment Corran was surprised. "Um, ma'am the mission of retrieving the machine was given the Jedi; I expect the follow-up would be ours also?"
The Pho Ph'eahian scowled, and Corran could not be sure if it was concealed threat in her smooth voice. "I realize that in the absence of your leader, Master Horn, you wish to assume responsibility for the Jedi, but there must be another party to the mission. I will mediate for the Republic."
She looked defiant, her arms crossed, and mostly everyone was looking at her now. Corran wasn't sure what she meant. "You wish to accompany the team to the Maw?"
"It is required, and I am willing to sacrifice the time. Assemble your team, Master Jedi. I will be at my ship."
"I don't know if she doesn't trust us or there really is some rule and she has to go...don't you think it is a bit strange though?"
"Maybe she's suicidal."
The serious and senatorial attitude of the meeting was gone, and Corran was bringing his packed bags through the temple hanger beside one of the members of the new team, alien Jedi Knight Kell. Her species was like a thinner, tailed mold of the Trandoshans, their heads impressively toothed and orange-scaled. Thin antennae, gill slits at their cheeks and thick plated backs and forearms attested to an origin more crustacean than the immediately obvious reptilian. When Kell spoke, the words hissed out from the gill slits, her muzzle not moving at all except in an occasional predatory smile.
"And maybe this is going to be a simple mission and this K'Saavis fellow is going to hand us his time machine on a platter." Corran continued sarcastically.
"Maybe we'll be able to stop on a planet where this thing can get a paint job." The third Jedi member of the group, near-human Sidi Driss, swung himself in an easy backflip off the roof of De'shar's ship. "Really needs a little style, you know?"
"Quit jokin' around, Driss." Kell admonished. "Everything ready?"
Sidi saluted Kell smartly. "As ready as it's gonna be with this hunk of Jawa scrounge."
Kell grinned ruefully. Sidi Driss was the academy's resident expert mechanic. He was found as a parts monger on Tatooine at the age of fifteen. Now he was a twenty-something Jedi in training, a half human, his alien ancestry attested to by long, high cheekbones that seemed to peak in dull spikes below his ears and a dark blue stripe across the bridge of his nose. He was known to be level-headed and clever, but usually hid these qualities under a joking and frivolous attitude.
De'shar appeared from inside the ship, glancing suspiciously at Sidi. Then her question was aimed at Corran, and she payed the others no attention."You all ready?"
The various answers were in the affirmative, Corran's concise, Kell's a nod, and Sidi's slightly sarcastic. De'shar treated them indifferently. "Very well then. We shall head off?" She stood in the main hatchway, as if impatient.
So they entered and were off, and into the dark closeness of the cockpit and hyperspace each took to their own.
Now, dear reader, do to some chapter editing on my part thou must go to the chapter entitled Agent Training, and then back to what is called eight.