Wedge Antilles was having trouble staying awake through the lecture that he and his classmates were going through. It was supposedly on the genetics, but it had been redirected to being a lecture about the teachers days in the Clone Wars. It was the third war story he had heard today! In Basic class, the discussion was to have been on an incredibly ancient epic poem about some guy who was having trouble getting back home after a ten year war, but the teacher had gone off about how she had waited for a year after the Clone War was officially over to get back home. In math class, the topic was how to solve systems with more than two variables, but the teacher in that talked about how the Senate had rioted when it was discovered that Palpatine was the root of all evil. Wedge still patiently listened, knowing that the reason all that was happening was that it was the anniversary of the end of the Clone Wars.
On the other side of the room, Wes was fast asleep. Wedge was tempted to send a note to Tycho telling him to wake Wes up. Hobbie got to the problem first and slammed a book loudly behind Wes, who snapped awake with an exclamation of "Ewoks!" causing the entire class to stare at them. Tycho tried to hold back a laugh but couldn't and broke out in uncontrollable laughter, causing the rest of the class to follow suit.
"Class!" Mr. Prefect half-shouted, trying to calm the teenagers down. Needless to say, it didn't work. Then "Lizard," as she was known to the group (most of the adults said gang) called the Rogues, stood up like the little suck up she was. "Everyone shut up!" she exclaimed in a voice that made everyone freeze and some flinch. "That's better!"
After the teacher began lecturing again, Tycho passed a note to Wedge. It was in Wes' handwriting. As he was taking notes, he read the letter. "Iceheart strikes again, huh? Anyway, why the hell did you tell Hobbie to wake me up? I thought you'd let me drool on my notes for at least ten more minutes!" Wedge scribbled his reply to Wes and sent it back by way of Tycho.
Wes opened the folded sheet. Unlike himself, Wedge had easily read handwriting. And Wedge's excuse is...? "I was thinking about it, but I can tell you for a fact that Hobs acted entirely on his own. Ask him yourself." Wes wrote an inquiry to Hobbie about the correctness of Wedge's statement and passed it back.
Hobbie groaned. Not the note passing thing again. Did they want another detention? It had only been a few days ago, and they had dragged two of their friends who didn't go the same school into it, too. Hobbie read the note. "Hobs: 1. What was your motivation for slamming the geology textbook? 2. Can I borrow your whiteout? I mean, Lizard's just asking for some whiteout in her hair." Hobbie rolled his eyes, wishing Wes would grow up but knowing that his friend would most likely keep doing pranks for the rest of his life. Maybe even after that, too. Hobbie wrote a note to Tycho with a postscript attached for Wedge. He dropped the paper on the floor.
Tycho stealthy recovered the note and read it. "Tych, was it a mistake waking him up? I mean, he started the whole note-passing thing again. Last time he did this, we got stuck in detention because he had to write that stupid narrative about Jar Jar Binks and how the Gungan was actually a rocket scientist and the true person behind the Clone Wars. Should I stop him? (P.S. Wedge, do you think I should give Wes the whiteout?)" Tycho hid a grin and wrote his reply to Hobbie and an addendum to Hobbie's message for Wedge before passing it to Wedge.
Wedge looked at the now crinkled, writing-covered piece of paper, sighed, and read the messages he had missed. "Wedge, come on! You have to give Hobbie the OK! It would be worth the detention! Hobs, don't stop Wes. He might get on a roll and make up some bogus story worthy of asking Corran to edit so it can be published in the school newspaper. Oh, and GIVE HIM THE WHITEOUT!"
Tycho read the replies Wedge had written and was sorely disappointed by Wedge. He wanted to follow the rules, for Force's sake! "Hobbie---No. Don't give it to him. Even Lizard doesn't deserve to look like a skernkcoon. Tycho---I know it would be funny, but as I said, she doesn't deserve it. What sort of Alderaanian are you?" Tycho snickered. He wrote his reply and passed the note to Hobbie again.
Hobbie read the note. The most recent scribble was written by Tycho. "I'm a Alderaanian teenager who happens to be friends with loons. Face it Wedge, insanity is infectious. GIVE WES THE WHITEOUT, HOBS!" Sighing, Hobbie wrote replies and handed the note and whiteout to an incredibly happy Wes.
While preparing the whiteout for painting a stripe in Lizard's hair, Wes read the note. Hm... Wedge is being an upstanding citizen. He's nuts... Lesse, oh, Hobs is paging most of us now..."Wes---the waking up was completely me. Wedge wasn't involved. Tycho---you're the bad influence, but completely right about it being worth detention. Wedge---I gave him the whiteout. Sorry." Wes passed the note back to Tycho, who grinned and passed it to Wedge, who looked rather peeved after reading it. After about five minutes of hair painting done by Wes, Lizard had a white stripe in her hair and, from the back, did rather resemble a skernkcoon (but more like an member of the extinct species 'skunk'). Most of the class behind Wes was trying not to laugh at the insanity which was yet again being spread by the Prankmaster General of the Rogues.
After being passed back his whiteout, Hobbie needed to use it to correct a mistake in his notes. He opened the bottle. There was nothing left. "Wes! You used all of my whiteout!" he shouted while standing up.
Ysanne Isard, also known as "Iceheart" and "Lizard," connected the dots and figured out what had happened. She was one of the smartest in the class, after all. It had only been a cruel twist of fate that today, Friday the 13th, she had been forced to take a seat in front of Wes Janson. Now she probably had all of Hobbie Klivian's whiteout in her hair, and, knowing how Janson's mind worked, she probably looked like a skernkcoon to boot. Looking to the left, she noticed that Antilles was pretending not to know either Janson or Klivian and that Tycho Celchu was trying very hard not to laugh. She turned around in her chair. "Janson," she said without emotion.
Janson put on a fake smile. The expression practically screamed: oh, sith, she knows. "Yes, Liz---Isard?" he replied.
"Be very glad that the Empire never happened. I would have taken great pleasure in signing your death warrant," Isard declared, smiling sweetly. "I'll get you for this!" she hissed quietly enough for the teacher not to notice.
What the teacher had noticed was that Isard had a whiteout streak in her hair, Janson was sitting behind her, and that the rest of the Rogues were somehow involved as well. "Antilles, Celchu, Janson, Klivian. You stay after class," Mr. Prefect announced. They weren't going to get away with this unharmed. They should be lucky that he didn't have the power to give them a Saturday detention. Too bad the other two Rogues wouldn't be included in the detention. The Academy still had to find out where those two were from.
In the space around Coruscant, a certain beat-up looking freighter jumped out of hyperspace. It had been won by its current pilot in a game of sabacc a while back. The ship, while it looked like a hunk of junk, was one of the fastest in the galaxy. It may not have been the most reliable ship due to its numerous upgrades and jury-rigging, but it was a good one. On that point, everyone agreed, even the ones who had the opinion that it was in need of a new façade or a new coat of paint, at least.
The pilot of said ship was a Corellian smuggler. He had been an officer in the Republic fleet at one point, but he had gotten fed up with all of the bureaucratic nonsense which was spouted continuously at him. After a while, he got so fed up with it all, he resigned his commission and set out to make his own fortune. How he had ended up working for the Hutts, he would never know, but he had to admit that it did pay well.
The copilot was a Wookie who had shown up shortly after the pilot had resigned his commission, and the Wookie had pledged a life debt to the pilot because the pilot had saved him from a bounty hunter. While the Wookie had been a pain in the beginning, the pilot had to admit that he was an invaluable ally and was more of his best friend now.
Regardless, he had been called to Coruscant for some sort of job. Neither the pilot or copilot knew who had contacted them or why they had been contacted, but the job paid enough for both of them to ignore both unknowns. They had been really lucky with the timing of the call since they had had a job to do on a nearby Core world. After gaining clearance to land from space-traffic control, the pilot and copilot decided to rent a landing platform near the Senate to throw the bounty hunter (if he had tracked them) off.
After the Senate finished debating for the day, Leia made a beeline towards the Jedi Temple to reclaim her diary from her father. You know, he probably started reading it by mistake in front of the Jedi Council, thinking it was his report! That would be mortifying! Leia thought as she hailed a cab. Her mother had okayed her excursion since Nacho (Leia's nickname for her father which had sprung from an incident with cinnamon buns and nachos) had called and said that he would have to stay at the Temple late since Adi Gallia had decided to give a dissertation on why they should have coffee breaks on a normal basis instead of one every twenty minutes for a few hours and then one every ten hours. Apparently it was a rather serious discussion and merited an long Council session.
After reaching the Temple (and paying the taxicab driver), Leia walked in and went in the direction she was pretty sure was the correct route to reach the Council chambers as soon as possible. Ten minutes passed, and Leia knew she was completely lost. While roaming the halls and trying to get back to the entrance, she ran into a red headed girl about her age. "Uh... Excuse me?" Leia asked. "Do you know where the Cou---" Leia stopped herself. Why ask where the Council chambers were if she could ask where her father was? "Do you know where my father is?"
The other girl stared at her like Leia was insane. "What the hell? Did you get lost or something and separated from your father?"
Leia rolled her eyes. "No! I'm not that harebrained! I meant do you know where Anakin Skywalker is? The stupid idiot ran off with my diary this morning."
The other girl repressed a laugh. "I'm sorry. It's sort of hard to imagine that guy with kids!" She smiled. "Well, I don't know where he is exactly, but I know some girls who do... They'd be more than willing to help you in your quest. I take it you aren't too happy about the journal-napping?"
"You got that right!" Leia exclaimed as she followed the other girl down the hall. "By the way, I'm Leia."
"Mara." She said nothing more for a minute. "I should warn you..."
"Warn me about what?" Leia asked, curious.
"Ignore any and all guys in the room next door to Teneniel and Allya's room. Sure, one of them is almost normal. On the other hand, one of them is the class troublemaker, and the third is your father's apprentice and informant. Teneniel and Allya are a little eccentric as well. I also believe that---" Mara slapped herself on the forehead. "Dammit! I forgot! They're at Tionne's party! I'm such an idiot!"
Leia blinked. "Party? Tionne? You mean you guys are allowed to have parties?"
Mara laughed cynically. "No! Of course not! This is what the more liberal Jedi Masters call a 'study session' in order to keep the more conservative Jedi Masters from keeping us from having fun."
"Really?" Leia asked. It sounded like a bunch of lies. "I don't believe you."
"Good. I was making it up, but certain Jedi Masters would like to keep us from partying on Temple grounds." Mara suddenly stopped in front of a door. "Well, here we are." She knocked on the door which opened by a crack.
"Password?" a voice asked.
"Teneniel, if you don't let me in, I'll go dark side on your miserable hide."
"Should I let her in?" Teneniel asked someone else inside before turning back to Mara. "We have reached a consensus that if we let you in, you have to stay and play truth or dare with us."
Leia looked between Mara, who looked a little angry, and all she could see of Teneniel, the person hiding behind the door. "Uh, Teneniel?" she ventured.
"Yes?" Teneniel said, turning to look at the new person. "Who are you and from where have you come? Why are you here, too?"
"I'm Leia, I came from the Senate building, and I'm looking for my idiot father so I can get my diary back," she replied.
"Ah. And the father-person is?" Teneniel asked as Mara rolled here eyes.
"Anakin Skywalker."
"Hey! I work for him! Come in!" Teneniel exclaimed. Leia shrugged and walked into the room. Mara was about to follow, but Teneniel barred her way. "Truth or Dare?"
Mara groaned. "Fine. I'll stay." Teneniel let her in and shut the door.
"I'm Allya. So... What information do you require?" she asked.
Leia stared at the rest of the people in the room. Apparently this was a slumber party. Maybe she should stay if she couldn't find her father and her mom let her. "I'm looking for my dad, Anakin Skywalker?"
Allya laughed. "No, seriously. What do you want to know? Heck, what grade are you in?"
"I wasn't kidding! I'm looking for that idiot because he accidentally took my diary!" Leia exclaimed, quite frustrated.
"Oh. I didn't realize," Allya replied. "Well, I'm sorry to break the news, but---"
Teneniel continued. "We haven't seen him since the Council raided the teacher's lounge for all of their instant coffee. He, Master Kenobi, and Adi were flying down the hallway, being chased by Callista and the Dark Woman."
"This means?" Leia asked, pretty sure that she wasn't going to find her father any time soon.
"He probably won't come out of hiding until tomorrow," Tionne replied. "Say, do you want to stay with us? I'd love for you to join us."
Leia smiled. "That would be great."
A thought struck Teneniel's mind. "Mara, we'll let you out for a few minutes if you go find Master Skywalker."
Mara's semi-happy expression suddenly changed into a rather angry one. "No. There is no way I'm going near him."
"Then find Corran! He'd know where Master Skywalker is!" Allya offered as an alternative solution. "Then you can tell Corran to tell Master Skywalker that---"
"Leia," Leia supplied.
"---is looking for him. You wouldn't have to even be in the same room as him!"
Mara glared at Allya and Teneniel. "Fine," she grumbled. "I get to pass on a truth or dare later in exchange."
"Of course!" Tionne replied, smiling sweetly.
"I'm going to get this over with as soon as possible," Mara declared and walked out of the room.
Leia raised an eyebrow. "Why does Mara dislike talking to Nacho?"
Teneniel laughed and asked, "Is that what you call him?" Leia nodded. "Wow. Anyway, it's a long/short story. You see, wherever Anakin---do you mind if we call him that?" Leia shook her head. "Ok, so, wherever Anakin is, Obi-Wan Kenobi is. Now, Mara hasn't really gotten along well with either of the two for whatever reason. She had harbored some sort of antipathy towards you father because of these dreams she had had when she was younger. They were visions of an alternate future or something like that. Well, the other main reason has to do with the fact that your dad hangs out with Obi-Wan a lot."
"Yeah. Obi-Wan comes over for dinner every so often," Leia commented. "He trained Dad, I think."
"You see, the real, sort of subconscious reason Mara avoids your father is because of Obi-Wan's apprentice," Teneniel finished.
Leia laughed. "Are you serious? She has a crush on Obi-Wan's apprentice?"
"Hence the insistence upon playing Truth or Dare," Allya added.
Tionne nodded. "You see, she won't admit it. In fact, she's a little more sarcastic around him, and they sometimes argue up a storm. Last time, Adi and your father had to practically drag them into different rooms to keep them from starting an actual fight."
"There's also this rumor," Teneniel told Leia. "You see, our class is pretty gossipy, and we come up with rumors every twenty minutes. Of course, all the information I receive as the truth is actually true."
Allya nodded. "We're your dad's spies. We have so much dirt on most of the Council, it's insane. I mean, we even have footage of Obi-Wan cursing at a video game!"
Leia was wide-eyed in amazement. Her father had a spy network? Did he know about the time she had accidentally flushed his socks down the toilet? "Wait, what about the rumor? What does that have to do with Mara staying as far away from my father as humanly possible?"
"The rumor's just the theory that Obi-Wan's apprentice is actually your brother."
"I don't have a brother," Leia stated. What a crazy idea. It was almost as crazy as the idea of her marrying some scruffy-looking nerfherder of a smuggler or something.
"But Mara doesn't know that," Tionne pointed out. "It's a crazy idea, anyway. Almost something out of a fairy tale."
"It would be awesome if it were true, though," Allya declared. "I mean, aren't you a princess or something?"
Leia blushed. "Look, that is only because Bail's been a good friend of my family for a long time---"
"It still makes you Princess of Alderaan," Teneniel pointed out, "and according to what Anakin says, you stay there half the year."
"Does he ever keep his mouth shut?" Leia muttered to no one in particular.
Seizing the moment, Allya spoke up. "Leia? I have a few questions about some things which your dad hasn't really elaborated on ever."
"Questions? Like what?" Leia asked. "Like who Jar Jar is or something?"
"He mentions this Jar Jar creature a lot," Teneniel mentioned. "What is Jar Jar?"
"A Gungan, from my mother's homeworld of Naboo," Leia answered. "He's another old friend of the family."
"Then why does anakin hide behind Obi-Wan every time Jar Jar comes to visit?"
"Jar Jar's a really nice and enthusiastic person, but he is a tad..." Leia searched for a word. "...clumsy, I guess. He apparently met Obi-Wan while having been exiled from his hometown of Otoh Gunga for being clumsy. And crashing Boss Nass' luxury heyblibber."
"What's a heyblibber?" Allya asked.
"I don't know," Leia replied, shrugging. "I think it's a yacht or something. After thirty years, I don't think even Obi-Wan knows either."
Mara was so busy stomping around the Temple looking for Corran that she almost missed him outside the hanger. It was only by chance that she ran into him since he had forgotten his wallet and ran back to his room to get it. "Corran!" she exclaimed. "Hey, I need you to deliver a message to Master Skywalker!"
Corran stared at Mara skeptically. "Really? Why can't you deliver the message? I'm about to go out to meet some friends."
Mara looked back anxiously in the direction of Tionne's room. She would do anything to stall going back there or to stay away from Master Skywalker. "Hey, could I come along? I'm sort of trying to avoid some people..."
Corran grinned. "Ah. So Djo and Harken were able to con you into participating in Tionne's little soirée?"
"Shut up, Halcyon!" Mara growled. "If you weren't Master Skywalker's Padawan, I'd deck you right here and now!"
Corran shook his head, amused by the whole situation. "Fine, Mara, but you have to promise not to threaten to kill or kill any of my friends."
"I promise," Mara swore. As she had decided, she would do anything to keep from going back for as long a time as possible.
"No maiming, either," Corran added as they walked into the hanger.
"Force! I'm not a monster, you know!" Mara exclaimed. "You treat me like I'm an assassin or a mercenary or a smuggler!"
"I wasn't aware you were an assassin or a smuggler," Corran joked with a look of mock surprise on his face, knowing he was making Mara want to punch him. "You're just going to have to deal with the joking, Mara."
"Let me guess, you have real delinquent friends?" Mara said sarcastically.
"Yup. As a matter of fact, we were planning on breaking them out of detention."
"Wonderful. I'm going to be with a group of escapees from the funny farm---Wait, Corran. What do you mean, 'we'?" She stopped dead in her tracks and glared at Corran, who was looking around the hanger bay. "Who else is 'we'?" she demanded.
Corran didn't verbally reply, but he grinned as a four-seater navy blue speeder pulled up. Mara felt like groaning when she saw who it was. Just my luck. Katarn and Skywalker! she thought without really thinking. What in the hells! I just thought of Luke as Skywalker! Damn! I should have just delivered that message to the caffeine-high Jedi Master! "Uh," Mara managed to say. "Hi."
"Ma---Jade! Wh-what are you doing here?" Luke stammered. What's she doing here? he thought. Now Wes is gonna come up with a plot or, even worse, a betting pool.
"Can't you two ever say 'hello' like normal people?" Kyle demanded.
"You know that's impossible," Corran said as he jumped into the back seat of the speeder. Luke was driving, and Kyle was in the passenger seat.
Mara got in the back seat, too, and she was pretty relieved that Kyle hadn't suddenly decided to sit in the back, causing her to have to sit next to Luke. That guy drove her crazy. Teneniel and Allya were out of their minds. There was no way whatsoever that she liked him of all people. "So where are we going?" Mara asked.
Kyle let out an exasperated sigh. He glared at Corran. "Did you tell her nothing?" he asked before addressing Mara. "We're going to the Academy. I got dragged into this to help these two idiots bust four idiots out of detention. Apparently this happens a lot but never on Fridays, and the teachers beefed up security in order to catch these two idiots in the act of trying to get the other four out."
"Still haven't figured out we're Jedi in training, either," Corran added with an amused grin on his face.
Mara then noticed that the three guys were in normal clothing. Kyle was wearing a nondescript brown shirt and a pair of pants very much like the shirt. Corran was wearing a pair of jeans and black shirt with some band's name on it. Mara was pretty sure Luke was wearing something black, but she couldn't tell any more than that since she was sitting behind him. She was wearing normal clothing, too, but that was because she had already retired to her room before running into Leia. Mara bit back a curse. She felt bad about leaving Leia back there without telling the message to anyone willing to carry to the Caffeinated One.
"What's wrong?" Luke asked her. Mara hated it when he did that. How in the hells could he tell?
"Nothing. I just was supposed to tell Master Skywalker that his daughter was angry at him for taking her diary and wanted it back," Mara replied as nonchalantly as she could.
"Wait---Master has a daughter?" Corran asked. "When did that happen?"
"Do you know anything about him?" Kyle asked. "Hey, I at least talk to Plo!"
"She's our age, you know," Mara told Corran. "and acts eerily like her father. She looks almost nothing like him, more like the Senator from Naboo."
"That's probably because Master Skywalker's married to the Senator from Naboo," Corran replied. "See, Kyle? I know something about him!"
"Did she say anything about Jar Jar?" Luke asked.
"Jar Jar? You mean that Gungan that started the vote to give Palpatine emergency powers?" Mara replied with more questions.
"Yeah. Master Skywalker talks about him sometimes. There was this one story where Jar Jar crashed this thing called a heyblibber and got kicked out of the Gungan city he was from. Because of that, he met Master Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn," Luke explained.
"Someone's full of useless trivia again," Corran noted.
"I wonder why?" Kyle said, grinning mischievously.
"Leave me alone," Luke complained. "Can't you ever be useful?"
"I'm the one who is messing with the security cameras," Kyle retorted. "I mean, I could just forget to do that, and you get to have a little chat with the Council."
"If you do that, I'll rat you out myself," Corran threatened. "If Luke gets caught, the Council will immediately turn to me, then I'll implicate you."
"Hey, what am I going to do while you go on some ridiculous rescue mission?" Mara asked, hoping she could help in some way.
Corran answered her. "Well, we do need someone to break into the air ducts..."
"Whatever happened to opening the windows and escaping that way?"
"It's not sufficiently complicated," Luke replied. "I mean, according to Kyle."
"Come on! Escaping through the air vents is so more inventive than climbing out a window!" Kyle protested.
Mara then had an idea. "Would walking out through the front door be good enough?"
"Only if you wear a dress for the rest of the night."
"I accept your conditions," Mara replied. "Besides, if this takes long enough, I can evade Teneniel and Allya long enough."
"I doubt it," Luke said. "They stay up till about 2 every day. We'll get back way before then."
"Don't ruin my delusions, Luke. If I have to wear a dress, then you'd better keep your mouth shut about it," Mara warned him. "Or suffer the consequences." Kyle was about to make a witty comment about just what those so-called "consequences" might be. "Katarn, be quiet and contemplate all of the possible meanings of the phrase 'silent as the grave'. Unless, of course, you want to sing soprano."
Review Responses:
Yuna-flowering, Niraha Skywalker, cyndur: Thank you all for returning for the sequel!
nakry, Jahiro19: Thank you for reviewing!
LunaticPandora1: Yes, he's the one and only Kyle Katarn. (I think he might be a tad OOC, though...) Thanks for reviewing!
Witchy-grrl: Thank you for reviewing. I'm glad you like my characterization of Teneniel and the comic essays!