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Galactic Wizardry
Chapter 13
"Watch it, you idiot!" Harry suddenly barked at a careless maintenance droid that nearly bumped into his ship with the nozzle of the hyperdrive fuel hose. "I just had the old girl painted," he explained, tenderly rubbing the menacing, black paint.
"Apologies, Human," the droid replied in his robotic voice before paying him no more mind and going back to work. He watched as the droids hooked the hose up to his ship and began refueling. It was an old-school method, but then again, they were on an old-fashioned space station out in the ass-end of the galaxy. He wasn't expecting five-star treatment all the way out here.
Aayla was buying supplies while Shaak went to meet up with her Jedi friend. Only a few minutes later, Shaak and he came walking up to his ship. Shaak Ti smiled at him as did Mace.
"Captain. It's good to see you again," Mace greeted him kindly. Harry nodded his head in respect.
"Master Windu. I trust that the information that was sent has been put to good use." That was his way of asking if there was anything important in the data dump.
"Indeed. Plans, money caches, lists of those being bribed …" he said, smiling wickedly. "Our plans are already being put in motion to counteract some of the things that we've discovered."
"That's certainly good. I take it that we didn't meet up to exchange pleasantries though," Harry asked. Mace shook his head.
"I was already coming this way and decided to give Master Ti the next list of missions. Don't worry though. These are low-priority," he said, letting him know that there wasn't a rush.
"Mace is moving Jedi credits little by little and exchanging them for Peggats," Shaak explained, moving to stand by his side.
"It's troublesome," Mace said, shaking his head. "The Jedi have a wealth of credits, but if we move too much too fast …"
"The Sith will likely discover the suspicious activity," Harry finished while they nodded in agreement. "You said that there are some money caches in those files. I have connections on Tatooine. I can get as many Peggats as needed without drawing attention to myself."
Mace thought about it for a moment, rubbing his chin in thought before nodding his head. "I'll have the files sent to your ship once I board my own."
"Excellent! Then I think that we're done here?" Shaak asked, eager to get back to the plan of saving the Jedi. Mace chuckled at her girlish behavior.
"Indeed we are. May the Force be with the three of you," he said, dipping his head. Shaak and Harry did the same.
"And with you," Shaak Ti told him as the cloaked, dark-skinned man walked away into the hustle and bustle of the busy space station.
Galactic Wizardry
"Now look here you fat lump! The sign says ten credits. You're trying to charge me double!" Aayla fiercely said as she argued with the blue, blobby creature of unknown origin. Only after pulling out her lightsaber hilt and slapping it menacingly against her palm did the blob-like creature accept the correct pay. Packing up her stuff, she made her way out of the small and rundown shop and walked back toward the Chimaera.
As she got closer, she noticed Harry and Shaak Ti leaning against the black hull and talking. More like discussing something, she corrected herself. She knew that look in Master Ti's eyes. She also noticed something else. The sexy Togruta was leaning in toward him. Aayla shook her head. She knew that it was only a matter of time until the older Jedi started feeling something for her sexy captain. It wasn't exactly shocking. After all, he already had three young women eager to be in his bed. She knew that Shaak wasn't ready to shrug off the Jedi Code just yet, but it was only a matter of time.
The first time that she found out that Aayla was sleeping in his bed, she sat her down and had a talk with her. Not being a Jedi anymore, there really wasn't anything that could be used to reprimand her. She just made sure that Aayla was being safe and careful. As time went by, it looked as if she wanted to ask questions about what activities went on in his bunk, but she refrained from doing so. Aayla guessed that her resolve would soon break, and she would be pulled into a private room for some "girl talk".
The Rutian Twi-lek waved happily as she got close. Her two shipmates smiled, and Harry took one of the bags that she was carrying. All three went up the ramp and into the ship. They began looking through the supplies that she had purchased.
"More medical supplies … good. More food … good. Alcohol?" Harry asked, smiling and holding up two bottles of aged spirits.
"I've never gotten to try any, and I'm curious," she defended herself, her cheeks turning a darker shade of blue. Harry just chuckled and placed them in the cabinet for later. Once unpacked, the three went to the Bridge and waited for the annoying droids to finish refueling. A few minutes later, a message came through with a file attached. Shaak quickly opened it up.
"What are those?" Aayla asked, leaning in to look.
"Master Windu provided us with a list of credit caches that our Captain is planning to loot," Shaak teased Harry. He looked back at her and smiled widely.
"The Dreaded Pirate Captain Harry sounds pretty good," he said, checking over his equipment as the droid finally messaged him that he was in the clear. He filed a plan to leave and quickly got the go-ahead.
"Anyway," Shaak rolled her black eyes. "We're planning to raid them and exchange the money for hard currency that we can hoard for later use."
"In case the Jedi accounts become compromised?" Aayla asked, suddenly nervous. Occasionally, things became very real for her. She was still very young and hadn't had a ton of life experience yet … the whole slavery thing notwithstanding, of course. Even though she was no longer a Jedi didn't mean that she no longer cared about its safety. The Jedi was all that she had ever known in her short existence. She had already proved that she was willing to fight tooth and nail to keep it safe.
"Yes," Shaak told her bluntly, but placed her hand on her leg and gave it a tender squeeze of affection.
"Don't worry, girls! Now that we've got those mining droids working Planet A1, we'll be rolling in bars of Nyix. We'll have so much money that we won't know what to do with it!" he cheered happily as they lifted off of their platform. The girls looked at each other and rolled their eyes. They couldn't help but smile at his optimism and boyish charms. Suddenly, both of them felt a little bit better about the future. Aayla calculated the route to the first cache, and they quickly hit the road.
Galactic Wizardry
The peace and tranquility of the beautiful mountains and thick, lush forests of Tython were disrupted by the excited howls of one idiot and his two friends.
"Woooohoooo!" Harry cheered as he zipped back and forth through the thick-trunked trees of the redwood forest. He dodged one just to see another smaller tree in his way. Like on his old Nimbus, he spun until he was flying sideways and avoided hitting his head. He swore that he could feel his toes brush the tree trunk.
"Harry, you're going to kill yourself, you stupid idiot!" Aayla's annoyed voice crackled through his communication/translation earbud. He paid her little attention. Seeing a felled tree that was still being held off of the ground like a limbo pole, Harry put on some speed and aimed right under the trunk. At the last second, he jumped off of the speeder bike, did the splits mid-air while whooping and hollering before landing back on the bike as the tree passed under him. It was truly an incredible feat of stupidity.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Harry hissed and slowed down.
"Did you hit the tree?" Shaak asked him, concerned as the girls pulled up beside him, sharing a speeder. Harry stopped and gingerly got off. He was wincing and rubbing himself.
"I think that I pulled my groin," he winced in pain.
"Of all the idiot things …" Aayla joined in, less than pleased.
"I think that it's going to need a massage," he replied, trying to stretch the pain away.
"It's going to be a very long time before you get any kind of action in that area if I have anything to say about it," Aayla scowled, crossing her arms underneath her chest.
"Show some mercy, will you? I'm in enough pain already," Harry grunted as he gingerly got back on his bike.
"Alright, children. Stop misbehaving," Shaak chimed in, chuckling at the pair. "Let's hurry and get this done so that we can go back to the ship and get him some painkillers."
Aayla huffed but did what she was told. They began flying again, only this time Harry was actually acting his age. Once the forest began to thin, the land turned rocky as they entered the mountain range that they had been looking for.
"It seems that the intel was correct. I don't see any guards or anything," Harry said as they pulled up to the exact coordinates. Getting off of their speeders, they began looking around for the exact spot.
"Here!" Aayla called out, and the others quickly joined her. "You can see where the ground was disturbed. Even so, no one's been here in a while."
"Okay ladies, stand back please," Harry said as he cracked his knuckles. Weaving his magic through the ground, he lifted up his hands and levitated the large patch of dirt off of the crate. Dropping the dirt next to the hole, he then levitated the five-square-foot crate out of the hole and placed it on the ground.
"Cool! Let's open it up," Aayla cheered, stepping forward before Shaak stopped her.
"It may be rigged with traps," the red Togruta warned. Harry nodded in agreement.
"Just what I was thinking," he agreed before conjuring a large, white bedsheet that was spread out on the ground. Levitating the box back into the air, he used his magic to vanish the bottom side and let all of their treasures pour out onto the bedsheet. Once empty, he gently lowered the crate back into the hole and recovered it with dirt.
"Right there!" Shaak Ti exclaimed, pointing at the mountain of credit ingots. "That's a tracker," she told them. Harry looked closer. He had never seen one but trusted her judgment. Closing his eyes and infusing the pile with his magic, he quickly sorted through all of it and placed anything out of the ordinary in one small pile while placing the credits in another.
"What about this stuff?" he asked, pointing to the small pile.
"All nefarious," the Jedi Master answered back. Harry dug a small hole and dropped them in before covering them. With a gesture, the bedsheet tied itself up into a sack, and he waved his hand and sent it on ahead. "Alright. Back to the ship"
"Want to race, Harry?" Aayla smirked, throwing a leg over her speeder.
"I think my racing days are over," he winced while trying to get his leg over the bike seat. The ride back was far from as fun as the other one was. His groin was really starting to throb by the time that they entered the ship. The two girls helped him over to the Medical Bay and watched as the Medical Droid berated him for his ignorant behavior.
"I said that I was sorry a thousand times! What more do you want?" Harry complained as the droid injected him with an anti-inflammatory.
"You didn't say it once, you liar!" Aayla fibbed on him as they went back and forth.
Shaak was smiling at them when she felt something. She could feel the force tickling at her senses, trying to get her attention. Zoning them out, she concentrated on the feeling. With her eyes closed, she followed the feeling back to its origins. Quickly grabbing a datapad, she accessed the ship's mapping scans of the planet and compared them to existing maps of the planet that were available on the holonet.
"What is it, Master Ti?" Aayla asked, concerned.
"The Force is asking me to visit this place," she informed them, turning the pad and showing them the exact spot. It looked like a ruin of some sort.
"What is that?" Harry slurred a little while he struggled to keep his head up. The droid had given him a sedative while the healing salve did its job.
"I believe that it's a ruin of an old Je'daii Temple of some kind. It's likely tens of thousands of years old. There's not much on the surface, but as you can see, there are plenty of underground passages," she said, showing them the scans on the pad.
"And you want to go there?" Aayla asked, still by Harry's side. Shaak Ti nodded. "We can go in the morning. Our budding acrobat will most likely be out cold until then," she said, looking at Harry fondly while gently playing with his hair. By this point, Harry was nearly unconscious. Shaak Ti disagreed.
"No. I'm getting the urge to go now. The Force tells me that I'll be alright," she assured her. Aayla raised an eyebrow.
"You wish to go alone?" Shaak nodded. Aayla shook her head, not feeling comfortable with that. "I don't like the idea of you going into some strange ruin without backup."
"It'll be alright. I've done dumber things in my life. Besides, you need to watch over him," Shaak tilted her head at Harry. "Perhaps an ice-pack on the testicles will teach him to not be so careless next time," she smiled, trying to assure her. She got up to go fly them to the ruin when a hand lashed out and grabbed her wrist.
"My necklace," he mumbled, holding onto her. "Take it. If you get into trouble, say 'Home Sweet Home'," he told her before falling to sleep and letting his hand drop.
"I forgot about those!" Aayla suddenly said, opening his shirt and undoing the silver necklace that was around his neck. "He says that they are called Portkeys and will take us to safety. I guess he forgot to make one for you since we've had ours for a while. Just say the phrase and you'll appear back on the ship," Aayla explained.
Shaak looked Aayla over. There was nothing on her cleavage-baring chest except for smooth, blue skin. "What's yours?" Aayla held up her hand and showed the small, silver ring that she kept on her pinky. She then handed his necklace to Shaak. The older woman saw that it was a locket and opened it up. Inside was a picture of two, lovely young women smiling happily together.
"Padme and Sabe gave it to him. They'd get mad if he ever took it off," Aayla laughed before going back to attending to her injured friend. Shaak Ti smiled and shook her head before going to the Bridge to take off.
Galactic Wizardry
It didn't take her long to find the place. All she had to do was close her eyes and allow the Force to guide her actions. She landed the Chimaera in a large, empty field filled with grass that was nearly as tall as she was. After letting Aayla know, she lowered the ramp and continued on her journey.
Keeping her lightsaber in her hand, she moved through the thick and sharp blades of grass like an expert. Her people were naturally good in the art of the hunt. Moving carefully and silently came easy to her. She kept her eyes on the large, broken pillars that were made of the sandy-gray stone that could be found in the mountains of this planet. Hearing small rodents and other pests scampering by, she was thankful that there wasn't anything bigger in these grasslands. The trek was slow, but eventually, she made it to the pile of crumbled walls and roof. Sitting down on a loan piece of the rubble, she closed her eyes and let the Force guide her once again. It seemed pleased that she had come. Closing herself off to the world, she let herself be immersed in the Force and allowed it to completely take over her senses. Shaak Ti could feel a family of pests burrowed deep underneath the very rock that she was sitting on. She could feel sentients close by as well but put those out of her mind for the time being. She focused as the Force led her to an area of the rubble that it wanted her to go to. Opening her eyes, she assessed the situation for any dangers before getting to her feet.
The spot where she needed to be was on the opposite side of the ruined temple, so she carefully made her way around the edges, wary of anything dangerous waiting in the cracks and crevices of the broken stone. She had met her fair share of nasty creatures over her long life as a Jedi. Her least favorite was the large, jumping spiders that ambushed their much larger prey in great numbers. She could still feel their stings all over her body. Fortunately, she made it to her spot without harm. Under a large, fallen pillar, she could feel something deep in the ground. Whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant. Concentrating with great effort, she levitated the multi-ton rock off of the entrance to the lower levels of the temple. Letting go, it crashed to the ground with a loud thump. Knowing that she just called attention to herself from anyone or anything nearby, she quickly hopped down the deep hole and landed on a section of broken, stone stairs. From this point, there was still a bit of light coming down, but after a few steps were taken, it became pitch black. Pulling out her lightsaber, she ignited it.
Soft blue light filled the area closest to her. She was thankful for her natural ability to see better at lower light levels. A human would have struggled, but a Togruta Jedi Master was easily able to hop from rock to rock without worry of injury until she came to a long corridor that was still in fairly good condition. She could feel something in there … something menacing. Straightening her shoulders, she went in.
Her steps seemed particularly loud in the narrow corridor that was encased in stone, but she continued her journey. She had been walking for nearly twenty minutes before the corridor opened up into a very large and spacious room. She had only begun looking around when a warning blared at her through the Force. Swinging her lightsaber around, she spun and blocked a blaster shot that was aimed at her back. She redirected it back to its place of origin. The pained grunt let her know that the shot had found its mark. A sudden roar and a lunge with a metal spear, Shaak was able to twist out of the way just in time to avoid getting impaled only to block another blaster bolt. This time she wasn't able to redirect the shot so well. She ducked as the spear-wielding beast swung it at her head and when he brought it down on her with a violent swing, she stepped aside and spun, cutting him in half at the belly. The disgusting, wet, fleshy sound of body pieces hitting the stone floor distracted her for just a second, but that was all that they needed. Another beast grabbed her from behind and wrapped his incredibly muscular arms around her midsection, trapping her arms at her side. Having to turn off her lightsaber unless she accidentally cut off her leg, she used the Force in place of her eyes.
Leaning forward to create some separation, she swung her head back violently and head-butted the monster holding her. A pained howl filled the room when she got another urge from the force. Doing the splits better than Harry ever could hope, she slid out of her captor's arms just as another blaster shot came at her. It missed her head by inches and slammed into whatever had been holding her. It cried out in pain and hit the floor hard. Standing back up, she ignited her blade just as shot after shot came at her. Her blade blurred as it spun and slashed, her feet moving in the direction of the shot. Once in striking distance, she swung and removed the hands of the creature before burying her blade in its chest. As it dropped to the ground dead, she felt no more danger through the Force. Kneeling down, she lit up the face of her attackers.
"Flesh Raiders," she mumbled. It was easy to identify them. A mutated sub-species of the Rakata, they had wide mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth and eight slits that they used to smell. They had two eyestalks protruding from the sides of their heads. Their skin was wrinkly with flaps of flesh covering their exposed chests. These particularly seemed to have lived in these tunnels for generations. Their flesh was milky-pale and their eyes had turned a faded and unhealthy pink. They would never survive on the surface world again. She knew that she had to be careful. There were likely many more down here in these expansive passages and rooms. Deciding to not waste any more time, she got back to her business.
Using the Force to guide her deeper and deeper into the bowels of the ancient temple, she finally came across the room that she was looking for. She could feel it inside, tickling at her mind. Finding that the door had rusted shut, she cut it open and walked inside. There wasn't much to see, anything here had long since been looted. She walked to the corner of the room and knelt. Touching the ground, she wiped away the millennia of dust and dirt and found a paving stone. Using the Force, she lifted it up and away. The stone had covered a small, hidden compartment with only one thing inside. Shaak Ti lifted the rag-covered item out of the compartment and set it on a nearby table. Removing the cover, she came face to face with an ancient Holocron. Whether it was made by a Sith, Acolyte, or a Dark Jedi, she didn't know, but she could feel the malice that it was trying to hide. She was just about to grab it when it attacked her mind.
Flashes of all the dark things in her past, her fears, and insecurities were bubbling to her surface. She cried out in pain as it felt like someone had hit her in the head with a cleaver. Her fellow younglings were teasing her and telling her that she wouldn't be good enough … that she would never be chosen. All of her doubts about the Jedi Order were now out in the open for her to see, as well as her fantasies.
Shaak cried out as she reached back and ran her fingers through messy, black hair. His lips were sucking on the sensitive skin of her neck while his strong hands slid up her smooth, tight belly and over her large, perfect breasts. Her back arched as she cried out. The pleasure was more real than it had ever been for her. Seeing his handsome face brought back a memory.
"Home Sweet Home," she choked out and was swept away just as she reached out and grabbed the troublesome Holocron.