Note: If someone, who is a follower of the story, has some concerns, critiques, when it comes to the number of dialogues (really, he or she believes their number is vastly greater than necessary, their content is worthless), then don't forget to post a review with a take on the matter. By the next chapter, I will have assessed the presented information.
Note #2: Speaking of the next chapter, I've contemplated on conjuring something special with it. I've already acquired the vision of what will it look like. There is a slight dilemma with it. The length, proceeding to the task of posting it as with previous chapters seems kind of unfair. I have no interest in misbalancing the story. Therefore, instead of making a 2 or 3 parts (the essence can't be dissected into chapters because of the major loss of a great experience), I intend on posting it all in one chapter & calling it a 'Special' one. If everything goes according to plan, in the future their amount might mount. Of course, there won't be abundance of them. A 'Special' chapter will contain either some kind of first of the story or a different tone, feel than at least a couple of previous ones. At least, that's the plan for now.
Note #3: The name of something was… yeah… not that great. I might change it in the future if I manage to think of a better one. Don't worry; you won't mistake the name with another one. At least, I hope.
-Got to fixate. The knowledge of an interaction between 3 members of established powers in the Galactic Republic is in effect of creating several reactions amongst their other members. In the not so distant past, they would not have shifted their attention to this meeting's existence. Sadly, circumstances managed to completely shift their technique to the opposing side. Dealings will have to be thought up… very soon.-
Chapter 20. A precautionary contact
A great advantage of multitasking is its time efficiency. Every beings time on the physical plain is limited, interactions – even more. This is why a talk with someone worthwhile as an addition to a primary task exhibits brilliance. Of course, on seldom occasions a busy person can get a period of time alone with said someone.
"One thing is surprising."
"What would that be, Zane?"
Farnos lets out air through his nose & smiles, Oswald soon follow suite with his own smile. The two late adolescents are holding their dialogue near a 'T' intersection.
"Hah! You are fast paced this time."
"This… 'thing' that I have to deal with is important."
"I'd say that's… fairly accurate."
"Chmmm! Why are you speaking so adult-like? We're friends, remember."
"That word does sound familiar."
"Might be because it's true."
"That could be it."
Both laugh for several seconds.
"Good talk, good mood, good time."
"I'm happy that it is this way now."
Zane takes close to a minute to extend the dialogue. A shift in tone is achieved.
"Though, a shame the War has robbed us of such memories."
"A sad state indeed, Zane. It feels like it has dragged out far more than history would tell."
"It is only a number. I believe it lacks emotion."
"It definitely lacks something."
Somewhat unconsciously both friends came to the conclusion that a disposing of their primary motivators has reached the deadline. Again, the white chocolate skinned male made the first statement.
"Do you need any help with that 'thing', Oswald?"
"No, my friend. I've got it all set up correctly."
"I can imagine that easily."
"And what about you? When I called you, you sounded a bit confused to me."
"As do you, so do I have an important 'thing' to handle."
"What about my assistance on your end?"
This part was very easy to anticipate for the 18 year old. When entering a confrontation with a farseeing somebody, questioning of loose ends comes as standard pretty much. However, just because someone knows what is coming, it doesn't necessarily correlate to preparedness for a great reply. The recent 'unofficial' investigator still came up with a method to achieve his goal.
"You were correct on your first evaluation. I'm… experiencing… some indecisiveness."
"Alright. Towards what are you indecisive?"
"It centers on a moment when the Force nudged me to a situation, where I don't understand where the near future is going. At first, it was quite clear, than, as time went on, it got more foggy and foggy. A fresh vision adds more pressure." – explained Zane.
Mundi's Padawan took a couple of minutes to process his friend's situation. There were hints of vagueness that were quickly picked up. The severity of the task was checked. The part in the short period of time that Oswald latched onto was the last sentence.
"You received a fresh vision? Of what?"
Farnos realizes a misuse of a word.
"I said vision? Sorry… I meant to say signal."
"I'll ask just for common sense – through the Force?"
"Yeah."
"How would you best describe the signal?"
"Loss, intense sorrow over someone's death."
"How strong was it?"
"Strong enough to convince me that it is someone very precious to me."
"Whooooh! That's not very welcoming for a future. Not at all."
"So. Since we have discussed the whole ordeal of my… situation, I would like to ask you for some advice."
"Specifically, about which part?"
"How to deal with the Force. It doesn't fill me with confidence, when it's sending messages of an incoming death of someone close to me."
Immediately after the ending of his friend's specification, Oswald increased his minds fixation on the matter at hand, started to shuffle the facts into a puzzle, which would be useful. Not so long ago Katooni got guidance from Menson, the substance – trust the Force. In this case, trust of the Force is not a solution, but – a problem. Kind of a neat joke. The Force sensitive calculated the value of every fact, whether it was accented or not by the confused one. Due to recent events, the living essence of the universe has gone somewhat out of favor with the insightful young male. His superiors often said:
"Trust in the Force."
No one seemed to be more persistent than Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi. To most Younglings and Padawans, his tone when giving advice sounded old-manlike. Sometimes, especially in a bad mood, a member of either group could treat the mentioned statement as condescending. Basically, it could sound as pompous as such: 'Your lack of experience is preventing you from learning from an all seeing eye'. A good thing is that this was a very rare moment. Staying with the same topic, there were 3 Force sensitives, who took these words tremendously lightly, them being Anakin, Ahsoka & Oswald. To other beings, Skywalker's self-belief was enormous. When a battle was being thought, the famous Jedi Knight always relied on his own abilities first, on the Force – second. Doubt almost didn't exist in his vocabulary. Tano, Menson did feel some uncertainty in their actions. There was one clear example for the togrutan female – the blockade of Ryloth. Taking into account an unexpected arrival of enemy reinforcements, disobedience of higher command, more than ¾ of the squad dead, the female responded naturally to the new environment. She was in disbelief. Anakin recognized this, and then later stated:
"Take heart, little one. That's the reality of command."
Some lessons cannot be learned without suffering, grief. She reacted well and managed to secure the Republic victory at the second attempt, despite all odds. The young blue eyed human male lost battles as well. As did she, so did he gain experience with every loss. As a result, they became smarter than their peers. The 19 year old connected the vagueness of Zane's explanation with a need to be discreet. Essentially, his friend was doing something that the Jedi Council or pro-Council Padawan's most likely did not approve of.
"Why else would he be so vague?"
The three of them were close friends; therefore, trust in one another was on a high level. If one did not want to tell the other something, it was either because he or she did not deem it worthy of the other twos time or thought the situation can be managed solely by one. This agreement was upheld throughout their time together with minuscule exceptions.
"It's better to tell him something than simply end the conversation with complete unknown help."
After several minutes of thinking, Oswald said:
"Be careful with your pursuit of the goal from here on in, my friend. If you truly felt a strong wave of sorrow through the Force, than you should take extra precautions with whatever is your busy with."
"You conclude that it has to do with my life?"
Oswald takes a step closer to Zane.
"No, I only want you to worry about your life here, Zane. Kelan is gone, your Master is capable of dealing with threats and I'm going on vacation. So…"
He slowly places his palm on his friend's right shoulder.
"The second thing is meditate on it in our favorite room. Grab the orange drink if you fancy it right now. Maybe you could discern when that tragic moment is going to happen. Is it in a week? A month? Two months?"
"Narrow it down? Sounds good."
Happy with his work, Menson pulls Farnos into a hug. Farnos gladly accepts the kind gesture. Some seconds are spent being in each other's arms. Then an inevitable separation occurs.
"I just want you to be careful too, Oswald."
"Believe me. A reckless approach doesn't suit for quite some time."
"We might struggle a bit, but I assume we will succeed."
"In addition, keep our promise that we made with Kelan."
"So we can enjoy each other's company for as long as possible."
"That's the plan."
They smile to each other, say their goodbyes. Soon Oswald leaves him with his chocolate brown duffel bag hanging from his right hands fingers.
At one of the hangars of the Temple. The space was mostly empty; only one transport ship was standing within it. The lights were lit; the ground was seeable in every direction. Near the Nu-class transport stood a young being, specifically, just a step of its platform. Suddenly, the doors slide open, a figure appears out of them. A noticeable movement speed wrecks the quit nature of the hangar.
"You took your time, Oswald." – said the being near the platform.
"My apologies, Katooni."
"You're finally all set?"
"Yeah…"
The blonde haired human passes the tholothian girl.
"Let's move."
Starts climbing up the platform, she swiftly follows suit. It doesn't take long for the platform to retract to the bottom part of the ship. The ambience of the transport's main room was one of bleakness, coldness. The mostly dark grey colored walls around them instilled such a reaction from the subjects. Most military commanders didn't mind it, they were, being bluntly honest, going to the battlefront. Mundi's Padawan placed his duffel bag on one of the 4 available seats in the room. Their top portion was dyed in parakeet green. Katooni spotted the lowering of the objet.
"What's the matter, Oswald?"
He turned half a circle to his right.
"With what?"
"Your bag. You haven't stored in one of the shelfs."
"Correct, Katooni. This is because…"
The older of the two exposes his front fully to the other one.
"…I haven't figured, where I exactly want it placed."
"How about you just store in the lowest shelf?"
She points to said location.
"It will be in good reach."
"Perhaps, partner. Perhaps."
A realization soon emerged in his mind. They were going to take off in a matter of minutes. Even if he buckled his chocolate brown duffel bag with the seatbelt, it still will most likely fall to the ground first, later start to fly all across the main room.
"Yeah. She's right. We've got to get going right now. There are a lot of things to do, a lot of things at stake here. Going around such a meaningless detail for another minute is anything but productive."
The carried object is put aside to the lowest space of a column shelf. With a press of a button, a sparkling, cobalt blue, metal piece begins to hide it from Menson's eyes. As soon as it closed, he marched to the cockpit.
"Alright. Time to signal to the workers that the ship is leaving."
A key is inserted into the mainframe, turned at a 90 degree angle. Seconds pass and the ship comes to life. A plethora of different lights, numbers, screens light up the cockpit of the Nu-class transporter. The young tholothian girl arrives at the cockpit, as silently as she could be, takes a place in the co-pilot seat. During her movement, the workers engage a mechanism, which begins raising the hangar door. Oswald notices the change, raises the ship off the ground, strongly moves an average human fist sized lever forward. The Force sensitives' flight to Naboo had begun.
A little past 19:00.
"You are clear to leave Coruscant space."
"Thank you, Commander. Have a good evening."
"You too, sir."
The transmission ends. At this moment, the Nu-class transport ship starts increasing the distance between it & a Venator-class Republic cruiser. When the Force sends Oswald a clear message of no threat, he states:
"Prepare to jump to hyper-space."
Turns to Katooni.
"Ready, partner?"
"Yes… partner."
He nods, another level is moved forward and the ship disappears into a light blue tunnel. No trace of it remains in space.
8 o'clock in the evening. Oswald did not enjoy sitting in the cockpit, while they were in hyper-space. It just had to do with his character. Being an insightful person, largely considered among other Padawans as the 2nd most skilled foresighted being in the Order, right behind Master Yoda, passiveness was not a favorable tactic. However, this did not mean Mundi's Padawan was impatient. The light blue surrounding that was automatically packaged with flying at an extreme speed was not emotion-provoking. It was a constant. Given the fact that their trip to Naboo took a whole day, the sight bored him exceptionally quickly. Solution? After slightly more than 30 minutes of flying, Oswald engaged the auto-pilot. Now there were 23 hours of 'free' time. His first idea was to encourage Katooni to get some sleep. She didn't really mind the suggestion. Her psychological aspect was drained, the physiological aspect faired decently better. Shortly after the auto-pilot's engagement she went back to the main room, got onto one of the bed's, slid under the covers and rested her head on a pillow. The entrance of the dream world was over the horizon. On more than 99/100 Nu-class transports a bed was not found. This was one of the exceptions. It was actually codenamed the Nu-class-3G-SB#4. The 'SB' stood for special build, while the #4 implied the unit's production number. Officially, there were only 3 'SB' type transports built. You might ask yourselves: "What were the changes from the standard transport ship?". Well, the Special Build ones had different dimensions: the length had been increased by 3 meters (~10 feet), the width – by 60 centimeters (~2 feet). The cockpit was practically identical to the Standard Build one. On the other hand, the main room differed severely. Rather than have 4 seats on both sides, 2 were left on both sides. Instead of the other 4, a 2 meter bed was installed, which had a partition above the lying area to the required side. The objects for sleeping were kept in cupboard above the bed or in a long, but small height rectangle under the bed. There was also the addition of a 5 story, ivory column shelf in front of the bed. These 4 produced ships were chosen by military officers, who expected to be taking day, two or three long trips across the Republic & did not want to spend the night at a planet on the journey to a goal. At this moment the perceptive human male was meditating on his bed, trying to remember of anything that he really had a great opportunity to complete right now. A couple of minutes passed before Menson remembered her conversation with Senator Avergreen right before the deadline. He opened his eyes and whispered:
"I should inform them immediately. There is no telling when I will have a better chance to do this. Not to mention the fact I have to keep all of this away from Katooni. I'm still not sure, where ultimately here loyalty will fall."
The human male got off from his bed, went to look for some particular clothes.
15 minutes later. The three fundamental states are solid, liquid, gas. The make-up of a planet crust consisted of various sequences of the trio. Some had only one fundamental state, some had two, others – all 3. Usually, if a planet was solid, it was the most likely to be inhabited by some organisms. Heremona was not one of them. Heremona's crust had no liquids or gasses; its size was 50% bigger than Earth, location – Mid Rim. If someone would have to explain the planet in the shortest version possible, it would be: 'Devoid of life plains of blueish sand, with rock formations all round and only a hand size of mountain chains'. There was one riveting sight on the surface – a black, seemingly artificial building in one of the mountain chains foots. Said place had just begun to experience more movement than usual. Something unexpected had been realized in the physical domain.
"Could it actually be him?" – One asked.
"We won't know until we answered the call." – Another answered.
The two quickly rush over to a more than a meter in diameter hollo-projector, the questioning one pushes the button. In a short period of time a figure appears before them. Said figure was hiding face behind a hood, which had stripes running down his shoulders.
"Authentication code, please."
The unknown being spoke in a low, dread instilling voice, saying 'please' in a quite unhappy manner.
"The Extra Military League, short for EML, is ready to act in ways that would help preserve freedom through the Galaxy. Now… prove your identity. "
"I'm Lord Mist. I founded this organization with the signing of the Treaty of Heremoneless. In it you two and the rest of the people here agreed to wait out for the right moment to help the Galaxy protect itself from the sadistic, control freaks spread all around it."
"Identity confirmed."
"Identity confirmed."
"Good to hear from you again, Lord Mist. It has been almost a month since our last talk."
"True, Commander John. Our conversations have been sparse lately."
"No doubt because of the seriousness of our actions, material, subjects."
"Quite right, Vice-Commander Theodor."
"I trust you have brought us news."
"That is the reason for my call."
"What are they centered on?"
"The Time. The time to bring you into the active sphere of the Alliance."
"Really? It is happening?"
"Yes, Commanders."
"Alright. What are your orders?"
"Very simple ones, actually. In less than 5 days I will appear before you in person and we will journey together to a planet, where an event of enormous significance to our cause will be held. Until that point, I want you to prepare all the men. All of them will be appearing before the rest of the Alliance, so practice is a necessity. It doesn't matter, whether it be pilots, soldiers or tacticians, they all should revise their craft from this message onward."
"Understood, Lord Mist. Anything else to add?" – John asked.
"Yes. I've anticipated a substantial amount of danger coming in my direction. This might prevent me from reaching Heremona, when wanted. Therefore… Be prepared for an unexpected message either from me or Lord Shadow. Its occurrence will most definitely be a sign of an immediate battle. In short, be on alert." – explained the hooded hollo figure.
"Will do."
"That is all. Continue your tasks from before."
"Goodbye, Lord Mist."
The image disappears and conversations erupt around the two commanders..