I do not own Ranma 1/2 or Star Wars. Mores the pity.
And here is the second gift from Santa Vimes to you all! May the Force be with you all, and Merry Christmas/Hanukkah (first and second night) to you all!
I would like to thank Ultimaflare0 for his help in beta-ing this work for small corrections and word choice issues.
Chapter 9: Warm Receptions
The next day, Ranma was unsurprised to find that most of the Jedi involved in the fight against Dark Clown Face had decided to sleep in. Even Jedi after all needed time to heal. The only one who came out as he did was Kit, though Obi Wan also came out for some reason, wincing with every stride.
"You know you didn't have to come out with us," Ranma said looking over at the older young man. Ranma sometimes had trouble remembering that simply because of how self-effacing and less worldly Obi Wan came off at times.
"I'm not about to start sparring that's for certain," Obi Wan said with some faint smile. "I know my limits. However I did want to talk and see what I could learn just from watching you, Ranma. My style of Soresu helped me survive that Dark Side user's assault, but it's obvious there is still a lot of room for improvement. I'd also like to simply talk about your impressions of him frankly. You're not Jedi, and your insight into things offers… a unique perspective."
"That's one way of putting it," Kit said with a laugh shaking his head, his series of lekku twitching from side to side.
Ranma grinned at him, before smirking at Obi Wan. "So, did you take up Padme's offer to rub ointment into your wounds last night? I'm still not certain if she was serious or not."
"Oh." Obi Wan flushed slightly despite his Jedi self-control. "You heard that?"
"Our rooms are right next to each other so yeah, I did. It was rather funny at the time."
"It's just an infatuation," Obi Wan said shaking his head quickly. "She knows that Jedi are not allowed attachment."
"Keep that thought in mind and you might someday convince her. But I wouldn't hold out much hope." Though, Ranma reflected, there was another reason the two shouldn't really get together, at least in his opinion. Padme was 14 Galactic Standard years old, and Obi Wan was pushing 25, though if Ranma was honest he looked more like Ranma's own age of 19 or so.
"But the whole now attachments thing is probably a better bet in her case than your ages I suppose." Ranma said aloud, causing Obi to chuckle. "After all, how many reigning queens are elected to the post at 14? She's obviously mature for her age."
"Something about that sentence bothers me," Kit said frowning in honest confusion for a moment. "I can't put my finger on why though."
"Good," Ranma sighed in relief. Shaak would not have let that one go and would've teased him for at least twenty minutes. Ranma idly wondered where she was at the moment. She did say something last night about wanting to listen in on the start of the talks between the chancellor and Padme, and something else about talking to Master Koth, though what she could talk to that ass… eh, I guess he has sort of redeemed himself somewhat from my first impression of him. never gonna like the guy though.
The trio stepped into the small courtyard around the series of rooms which had been given to the Jedi for the duration of their stay, moving into the center of the area. It was a cleared courtyard that was normally devoted to the palace guards which suited them just fine.
"What are we going to practice?" Kit asked, stepping forward lightly and testing his injured foot, which despite the cauterization of the wound had bandages wrapped around it within his shoe with pain reliving solution.
"Let's start with some warm-up exercises then I'll switch to a staff. I still need to work on my staff work in general then lightsabers." It went unsaid that pushing his body and Force Precognition in order to keep up with Ranma would help Kit's own skills.
Obi Wan moved over to sit on us nearby bench, wincing occasionally. The sunlight felt good on his skin, but he didn't let that or his ongoing pain, filtered through his ability to ignore it to distract him. "I was told your lightsabers were taken from that bounty hunter, Aurra Sing? What are you going to do with those long-term?"
"Incorporate the crystals into my staff, and maybe melt down the metal casing to reuse it. I asked Yoda about it, and he said that was fine."
"That's Grand Master Yoda please." Obi Wan said rolling his eyes at his younger friend's irreverent attitude. "At least out in public."
"Meh," Ranma said with a shrug. "I think the old guy gets a kick out of it frankly."
"No doubt he does," Kit said, shaking his head with another laugh. "At his age, new things are always unique, and he's always preferred to keep things simple. Though I bet the uniqueness of your attitude will start to fade as he spends more time around you."
"Ouch that hurts." Ranma said, then without warning his feet tapped twice on the ground using the momentum from that he shot forward to launch into a high spinning kick a bare second later.
With that the two began to spar, Ranma's limbs glowing briefly whenever they intersected Kit's lightsaber, though he had once again changed his style, trying to avoid direct impacts like that, using mobility and dodging even more than he had previously. It wasn't a marked change, but it was enough to throw Kit off for a second. Still he adapted quickly, speeding up his attacks and moving back and forth around the arena, never taking to the air himself, knowing that would be a very bad idea.
"What did you think about that Dark Side user's style? Can you even analyze how good your opponent's Battle Precognition is? I know you don't have any, but can you tell if someone else is able to keep up with you using it? I have to admit that facing him the second time was easier than the first, but that feeling he gave off in the Force…" Obi Wan asked thoughtfully, his eyes tracking the duel.
"Not really," Ranma replied grunting as Kit nearly got a blow in when Ranma turned slightly to address Obi Wan. His return kick nearly caught the green skinned Aqualian in the chest, forcing him backwards a few steps before Ranma pulled out his staff from ki space.
The staff, a stick of wood Ranma had cut down to the side of the staff he was making, glowed for a moment whenever it interacted with Kit's lightsaber. But Kit kept up the assault, forcing Ranma to expand his ki faster than Ranma had wanted. Suddenly the staff disappeared from his hands, and he ducked under the blow, the staff appearing out once more to slam end first into Kit's stomach, sending him backwards with an 'Ooof' of pain.
"I can tell if someone's able to keep up with me, and I can tell that they aren't simply using speed and strength to do it. But if you're asking me if I can sense whatever Clown Face was doing to you guys, then no, sorry. I could feel his hate and anger, but it didn't really impact me as much is it seemed to you lot going by what Koth had said last night." Ranma went on, his eyes still locked on Kit even as he talked to Obi.
"It was indeed very odd," Kit said, circling around Ranma now his lightsaber making short arcs in the air in front of him rather than the broad sweeps of his normal style of Shi-Cho. Adaptability was key when fighting someone like Ranma, if you did not adapt to his style, you quickly fell to it.
"I had never faced someone like that before, his rage and hate distorted the Force around him, making his Battle Precognition better and impacting mine negatively. I was able to correct it thanks mostly in part with working in tandem with master Koth, but alone I'm afraid that Dark Side user would've overwhelmed me."
"Seriously, just call him Clown Face." Ranma said with a laugh, charging forward before Kit could set his foot down from one step to another. But Kit had anticipated that, and kicked off with the other foot rolling away to one side bringing his lightsaber around in a flashing arc that forced Ranma into the air. Then he scowled realizing his mistake.
For a moment it was all Kit could do to keep Ranma away, and even then he knew that Ranma was playing with him, his staff lashing out occasionally as he remained in the air, dodging and hovering there despite Kit's attempt to ground him with a Force Pull or get some distance with a Force Push. Just as one such pull succeeded Kit overextended lightly with a follow on blow, which Ranma dodged. HIs staff's end flashed out to slam into Kit's shoulder.
Ranma use the momentum of that below to throw himself backwards up into the air in a whirling flashing somersault to land on the far side of the courtyard, a faint smirk on his face. "Point to me."
"Point to you," Kit shook his head ruefully. "But Clown Face?"
"Well yeah, just going on talking about the Dark Side user isn't really good enough you know, and with all that tattoo work on his face he really did look like an evil clown."
"I have no idea what a clown is, but I think I can get the gist." Obi Wan said chuckling.
Kit laughed too, discarding his Jedi robe. This left him in a tight dark brown shirt, which accentuated his upper body. This caused a reaction from a crowd that he hadn't known they had attracted. One of the handmaidens as well as a few of the maids of the palace general had come out to watch the show.
"I don't know, think he's a little too green for my tastes," Sabe said to someone else's comment, shaking her head and looking away. Despite that, a small camera she was holding kept on recording the action, something she had brought along to share what she was seeing with the queen, who could not be here. Sabe and many of the others had decided to use this as a break from getting back into their regular duties, after all it wasn't every day you got to see Jedi training after all.
Padme will be so cross to have missed this. The shirts Kit and Ranma wore left very little to the imagination, and it was a very hot, muggy day. Both of them were already sweating profusely though actually only Kit was sweating because of his exertion.
"He's probably a little darker below the belt too. I would have to wonder about those tentacles, myself" said one of the oldest maids in the palace service. Sabe blushed hotly, and Kit suddenly paused, frowning slightly.
This was the first time he'd actually heard such comments. The feelings he was sensing through the Force from the onlookers was far easier for him to deal with, having felt such feelings before. But the comments were a little beyond what he was used to. Obi Wan on the other hand took them in stride, having heard worse on various missions directed both at himself and from men to women.
"Just ignore them Kit," Ranma said with a laugh. "You won't be here long enough for it to matter, let them have their fun, after living under the TF's boot or guarding Padme these past few weeks they've earned it."
"If you're asking me Obi Wan, if I can figure out a way to help you train against that Dark pressure or whatever you want to call it, the answer is no." he said looking back over the younger Jedi and going back to the original conversation. "Sorry, I just don't know enough about the Unifying Force, and I'm damn sure not going to use any anger-based techniques myself. Even before I arrived in this universe that was a bad idea."
Both Jedi actually shuddered a little at Ranma going Dark then laughed. The image just didn't seem to work frankly.
The spar continued, as Ranma switched off to his dual lightsabers. At the same time Obi Wan began to ask Ranma some questions about his own techniques, trying to figure out what kind of training he could do on his own to take advantage of them. Ranma didn't answer except in generalities, mindful of the fact that they were being recorded by Sabe. He didn't feel the young maid had any malicious intent for doing so, but wasn't about to give anything away either.
"I see you've begun without us," Dooku said as he and Knights Lissarkh and Murani stepped out into the courtyard, raising a hand to shade his eyes for a moment from the sunlight before moving forward. "Masters Yaddle and Plo Koon are deep in discussion with the Queen and the Chancellor, Koth is getting fitted for a robotic arm, And Jerec has left the palace to scour the city's libraries. But I am now at loose ends for a bit. I don't suppose you have time to spar with me, do you Ranma?"
Kit backed away, bowing from the waist to the Blade Master as he deactivated his lightsaber moving to sit beside Obi Wan on the bench. Dooku moved forward, discarding his robe and activating his own lightsaber. Ranma brought up his dual lightsabers into an en-garde position, and the two of them stared at one another for a moment before moving as one, lightsabers flashing out.
Ranma pressed in hard, his lightsabers flashing with a speed Dooku could barely match with his Battle Precognition and his own speed training, but he did so smiling all the while as he got used to Ranma's dual sword style. He was very mobile, dodging here and there on the ground, leaping into the air occasionally. But Dooku was mindful of the fact that Ranma was far more dangerous in the air than on the ground, and just like Dark Clown Face had, Dooku used judicious Force Pulls to try to keep Ranma on the ground.
In turn Ranma had adapted to this by flaring his ki. Still the angle of Dooku's various Force pushes, which often changed direction from one millisecond to another, curtailed his movement. The first time Dooku did this he forced Ranma to back off and away from an attack he had launched at Dooku's head and upper body, barely blocking a follow on thrust.
Then Ranma blinked as Dooku deactivated his lightsaber reactivating it quickly as it fell before thrusting forward again. Ranma did the same thing with one of his blades, twisting the hilt around in his hand to block the downward thrust as he reactivated it. Using the impact Ranma rolled away coming out of it, pushing off the ground with both feet propelling himself forward again lightsabers flashing.
"Your style needs work," Dooku said simply, moving into the attack quickly, his single lightsaber a blur as it pushed both of Ranma's blades back or to the side, both of them using the momentum from their swings to try and control the next exchange. Despite Ranma having two blades to his one, Dooku's Battle Precognition seemed to work better against the dual sword style than it had against Ranma's unarmed style.
There are just so many more tells! Ranma thought as he was forced back again and again. I can't control them all enough to fool him, Dooku really does deserve the title Blade Master. Still I doubt he'll be able to deal with this!
With that Ranma twisted his body slightly to the side, bringing up one lightsaber as if it was a rapier thrusting forward quickly several hundred times as he brought the other sword around like a broadsword. As it came around he switched styles to once again use both in conjunction.
Dooku backed away, his lightsaber flashing to block the rapier thrust with the side of his own lightsaber letting the thrusts that would miss pass by harmlessly, then he blocked the second blow from Ranma's second lightsaber, bringing his own sword up and around to block the first of Ranma's lightsabers after Ranma once again changed his style. "Very good, not quite good enough though. Your lower body can also give your intentions away when you have swords Ranma, your tells really are… telling."
"Was that a joke, it almost sounded like one but not quite," Ranma quipped then his foot lashed out, catching Dooku in the side, forcing a grunt out of the older man.
Dooku however moved with the blow, his lightsaber coming up again and around to block both of Ranma's lightsabers forcing them down into the side his own coming up quickly flashing into hundreds of swift assaults along the same general line of attack. Holy Hell he recreated the Amiguriken!
Ranma barely got one of his lightsabers interposed between his body and the attack, and shuddered slightly as the feeling of the multiple hundreds of blows reverberated in his wrists. Luckily Dooku wasn't able to redirect any of those blows to impact slightly different targets like Ranma could, so he was able to block it without resorting to his own speed attack.
Not so luckily he was so preoccupied with that he didn't even remember he had dropped his second blade until it nearly took his head off under Dooku's Force direction. Grabbing the hilt out of the air he was unable to block another slash from Dooku's blade when he halted his speed assault and switch targets to Ranma's leg.
Deactivating his lightsaber Dooku backed away quickly, bringing the hilt up to his face in a formal salute. Ranma ruefully did the same with both of his, bowing formally at the same time as he did. "You're win." Ranma shook his head. "Even if that one blow wouldn't' have gotten through my ki shield. You taught yourself the speed technique?"
"Indeed. It was rather difficult, and I don't have to tell you how badly it strains the wrists. Still, it is possible, and am I correct in saying it would overcome the durability of your strengthening technique given time?"
"Yep, it's how I go through Clown Face's durability." Ranma said with a nod shaking his head as he moved backwards away from Dooku. "I always think speed is deadlier than durability myself. With these lightsabers you've all got that's magnified."
"Indeed. Round two?"
"So where do you go from here?" Ranma asked conversationally as the two of them locked lightsabers, both of them flowing in and out of battle as nearby the two knights began their own practice with Kit joining them. The onlookers however almost ignored the trio of knights, watching in awe as the elderly-looking Dooku continued to move faster and stronger than the far younger Kit had been able to in his own match with Ranma.
"Thankfully my self-imposed task to repay the Mon Calamari and the Sluisi for their aid against the Yinchorri is finished. The Council has no more need of me as a Consular than I have interest in the job. Instead, master Yoda and master Windu have decided that I should be sent out to hunt some rumors of some kind of deity or other drawing in heretofore unheard of numbers of Anzati away from their home planet."
"Never heard of them," Ranma said. "Should I?"
"Given that you've been in this dimension less than a year, no," Dooku replied dryly. "Knight Lissarck if you would describe them?"
"Of course master Dooku," the female Trandoshan nodded, interrupting her own duel with Kit and Knight Murani. The two of them backed away, deactivating their lightsabers as they too listened. "The Anzati are a very, very long-lived race. But they have a peculiar and rather disturbing genetic disposition to being something that is far too like cannibals for most sentients."
Ranma blinked, pushing himself back from another clash with Dooku, shaking his head. "Run that by me again? How can something be 'like' cannibalism, what, they only eat the brains or something?"
"Your joke is a little too close to the mark to truly be funny. Anzati can drink something they call the soup, essentially they drain the Force and mind of the victim leaving said victim catatonic or dead. But the Anzati are not a true race as most understand the term, organized as such with a central government, laws and so forth, and there have never been many of them seen away from their homeworld, certainly not for millennia. There have really been rumors about to that effect master?"
"Of a sort." Dooku grunted, blocking a particularly heavy blow from Ranma forcing his lightsaber up and around turning inside Ranma's reach for a moment only to find his lightsaber's attack blocked by Ranma's other lightsaber. But a quick Force Push helped his blow along pushing Ranma back, nearly opening him up to a second blow though Ranma was able to correct his stance in time.
"Some rumors, at least enough for us to look into of numbers of them leaving Anzat because of kind of callbyo a 'Dark Dreamer'. Including the disappearance of Knight Nikko Tyris, a young Anzat who was brought into the Order as a baby. He wished to follow in a Master Karkko's footsteps. According to the Head Librarian Karkko was once one of the most learned masters of the Order until he tried to taste the soup to prove he was above such things, and fell to it instead. Tyris was researching his fall the last time he was at the temple, and he dropped out of contact two weeks ago while looking into those rumors."
Dooku paused, bringing his blade up in token of peace to Ranma before he looked over at Kit, whose revulsion and loathing for the Anzati had come to him clearly through the Force. "Do not loathe the Anzati Knight Fisto, rather pity them. I have talked with Yoda, Tholme and others who have dealt with Anzati personally, and they have no more control over their actions after tasting what they call the 'soup' than any drug addict."
He sighed sadly, shaking his head. "They are indeed among the most long-lived species anywhere in the galaxy and they have been around for longer than even the Jedi Order. They could have built a culture of such beauty and majesty as to inspire the entire galaxy. But instead, anything but the hunt for the 'soup' is unimportant to most of their race. Those who can rise above it are to be respected, as Karkko was. And those who fall, who cannot turn away from their beast chill addiction, are to be pitied, again like he was."
"I understand master." Kit said bowing his head humbly.
"So, some kind of spacefaring vampire who sucks out your energy and brains rather than your blood." Ranma said with a nod. "Got it."
"I have no idea what a vampire is, but I can certainly guess from context." Dooku shook his head with a chuckle then both combatants fell silent as they reengaged.
A few moments later, the group was joined by Anakin and Master Tiin. As a Guardian Saesee had no interest whatever in politics and he'd been assigned to watch over Anakin. The two of them had actually been having a very decent discussion that morning pilot to pilot.
The Ikotchi Master didn't care about the boy's reason for being there, feeling that the Dark Woman and the others had questioned him enough about why the Force had compelled him to join them on this mission. Rather he was interested in the boy's piloting skills, which would no doubt be a credit to the Jedi Order as a whole in time. Even at so young an age, Anakin's skills and instincts were incredible. He needed to work on keeping the whole battle in mind rather than getting tunnel vision, but that was normal in young pilots and his Force sense also helped him there.
Obi Wan nodded at the boy, moving over slightly to let him sit down, but Ranma shook his head, having just finished another match against Dooku. "Come on out here Anakin, let's work off some of that energy of yours."
Anakin nodded quickly, moving to stand for Ranma who deactivated his lightsaber and began to rummage around in his ki space for a moment. He pulled out the original wooden staff he'd used, snapping it in half quickly and throwing one half to Anakin. Anakin caught it, and Ranma began to instruct him on some of the basics sword techniques he learned in his old dimension. Dooku watched for a moment, then began to correct the styles to be applicable to lightsabers. The weight distribution of the lightsaber was after all very different from a normal sword, and that had to be taken into account. With that done, Dooku moved over to Kit and the two knights, and began to give them some instruction in turn.
After only ten minutes however Ranma began to run Anakin through more physical exercises, such as sit-ups and squats, running behind the boy as he moved around forcing the boy to sweat more in less than an hour than he normally would have in an entire day back on Tatooine. He was used to the heat, the mugginess in the air here on Naboo was something else entirely.
After Anakin finished a final rep of sit-ups, Ranma nodded. "All right, that's enough for now go get some water and we can take a break." They moved over to join Obi Wan on the bench, noticing he had moved off it to sit on the ground of the courtyard, his legs crossed under him as he meditated. Dooku and the other Jedi were still exercising however, with Dooku giving the younger trio instruction in how to personalize their lightsaber styles further.
"Ranma," Anakin asked, thoughtfully as he drained a small bulb of water. "Can I ask you some questions?"
"Depends on the topic Anakin," said Ranma with a shrug. "I'm not a Jedi, so I don't know if I'm the right person to ask questions about the Force or anything like that." And you're going to face enough problems from your peers without my ideas muddying the issue further.
"I don't have any questions about that. I'm just, I'm a little confused by how the Jedi reacted to my coming with them on this mission, and the Dark Woman told me I'd be punished too. I was able to describe the feeling, and in the Force did want me here after all, isn't that the whole point? That the Force is supposed to guide the Jedi?"
"I just told you I wasn't the one to ask that question." Ranma said with a laugh. "I don't let the Force drive me anywhere after all."
Obi Wan came out of his trance having heard them despite communing with the Force. "Your reasoning was sound Anakin, it was the way you went about following your feeling that bothered us."
"But if I had just told someone that the Force wanted me to go to Naboo, wouldn't I have just been laughed at, or told not to worry?" Anakin asked.
"Possibly if you went to the wrong Jedi master, yes your age would be against you. But there are procedures and rules to be followed Anakin, regardless of what you may think the Force is telling you. There are many more learned masters far better than you are at discerning those feelings. And besides, if you had gone to Master Qui-Gon do you think he would have simply waved your concerns away?"
Though it hurt to admit it Obi knew that Qui-Gon would have been more than happy to listen and possibly act on Anakin's feelings. His master had a marked interest in the youth, and seemed to feel he was destined for great things. And given Qui-Gon's own antiauthoritarian streak he might well have helped Anakin slip off if given the opportunity.
"Personally, I think it's a combination of that and the fact that you snuck onto the ship without telling anyone or even being found that bothered the Jedi." Ranma said with a nod. Although it could be that they also didn't sense you doing it, heh. "So while the Force might've sent you here, you'll still get punished for those things, understand?"
"I guess," Anakin said with a frown. "I just think that if the Force is telling me to do something that should be more important than the rules."
"Possibly, but think about it like this, the Order is now supposed to look out for you and keep you safe until you're ready to keep yourself safe."
Anakin scoffed. "I've been looking out for myself and my mom for years. I'm not a baby."
"No you're not, but you're not an adult either," Ranma said shaking his head but keeping how much of that was down to Shmi rather than Anakin to himself. "And besides how is your mom going to react hearing that you ran off like this? After being inducted into the Order, where you're supposed to learn how to harness your Force powers? In fact, I bet Yoda's probably already told her about your little exercise."
Actually Ranma wasn't certain about that, but if the little midget had any sense he would have. But the Order's reaction to family connections left much to be desired. He just hoped that with all the other changes going on Yoda was willing to work with what he had with Anakin and his mother rather than force them apart in an attempt to follow rules which themselves were idiotic.
"But it isn't the Jedi's response to you being here that really bothers you is it?" Ranma asked, gesturing Anakin to sit cross from him as they moved away from Obi Wan slightly. Not far enough to be out of hearing range, but enough to make Anakin think they were. "You're worried about Padme and her response to you, right?"
Anakin flashed, looking down and twiddling with his fingers. "I, I don't know what you're talking about."
"Pull the other one kid," Ranma said shaking his head.
Anakin's feelings toward Padme were so obvious even Ranma could see it. The fact only Shaak and possibly Dooku had seen it said very bad things for the Jedi's ability to pick up on such things. Just because they are not allowed in the Order or unimportant to you doesn't mean you should ignore them entirely, morons!
He stared down at the younger boy, who flushed and looked away. "All right, so I was a little worried about it, I mean she didn't, she didn't seem to see my side of things. And she barely said hello to me this morning, I mean the chancellor had more time for me than Padme did. I know that's because of the ongoing talks with Boss Nass and the rest of it, but still…"
"Well she's not a Force sensitive for one thing, and for another, she had no way of knowing how you good a pilot you'd be." Ranma replied reasonably. "After all, pod racing and piloting in space in a combat situation are two very different things. And ever since we won, she's a head of state trying to clean up after an invasion, of course she's going to be busy. Look Anakin, I know what you think of her and I even feel for you. A beautiful foreign older girl coming into your life and along with a trio of Jedi save you and your mother from a life of slavery, how could you not fall for her? But there's a difference between a crush and love."
He sat down across from Anakin, gesturing in the sit down to. Anakin did so, cocking his head thoughtfully. "Crush, what's that, I don't want to hurt Padme!"
"A crush is my people's term for being extremely attracted to someone, mostly because of how cute or whatever the person is, trust me, I know, I've been there. Most of time a crush is built on first impressions, and a crush grows into love only over time and, this is the important bit, growing understanding and affection between both of you. You're not in love with Padme Anakin, you have a crush on her."
"You don't know that! I could be in love with Padme!" the boy said, making to standup, not realizing that Obi Wan was listening intently frowning at the boy's emotional state and lack of control. He was more open to the idea of allowing himself to feel… certain things than he had been, but not if they could control him rather than vice versa.
"What do you even know about her Anakin?" Ranma asked quietly.
"I know she's a princess and she's pretty. I know she needed help here, I know she's young to be queen even here on Naboo..." Anakin trailed off, realizing he really didn't know a lot about Padme the person besides that. "I know she does sometimes like to get away from being treated like a queen, and doesn't mind getting her hands dirty. That has to count for something right?" Anakin frowned as he realized how lame that sounded.
"See what I mean. Love isn't that abrupt Anakin. Attraction can be, but love takes time and a lot of time spent around the other person to build. You haven't been around her that long, and you certainly don't know enough about one another or have enough in common to really build a relationship like that. Irrespective of the fact that Jedi aren't supposed to have relationships and all that stuff." Ranma added hastily, glancing over to Obi, who in a rare moment of understanding merely rolled his eyes, deciding to leave this rather touchy subject in Ranma's capable hands.
While Ranma wasn't yet willing to say he was in love with Shaak aloud, he felt he would eventually be able to, and be honest about it too. Mostly because of the amount of time they'd spent around one another, their ability to communicate far better than he ever could with Akane, her general understanding and her courage to challenge her own way of life to be with him. Her sexy as hell body doesn't hurt anything, but it was her personality that really made me willing to try to have a relationship with her. Ranma also knew it was his own personal growth that allowed him to even think of having a relationship at all, but at the moment that wasn't important.
Anakin frowned, but couldn't deny any of the points Ranma had made, not having seen many real relationships now that he came to think of it. He'd never spent time with any of the other families in Mos Espa, since most wanted nothing to do with a slave like him, and the other relationships he saw were less permanent and based on the exchange of money or physical attraction. Hearing the there was more to a relationship than attraction Anakin didn't know what to think any longer.
"Now," Ranma said springing to his feet. "Back to work."
Over the next hour Ranma ran Anakin ragged, until he finally collapsed into a heaving sweaty mass, completely running out. Ranma on the other hand was still good barely warmed up despite his sparring with the others and he smirked down at the boy. "You want some water?"
At that point Shaak arrived with the Dark Woman and Master Koth. She stopped frowning as she saw Sabe and the other maids. They had watched Ranma work Anakin through his paces, matching the younger boy with ease while carrying what looked like a giant weight of some kind on his back and now were watching silently as Ranma stood over the gasping youth. Some kind of feeling Shaak Ti hadn't felt ever before went through her as she saw Sabe and a few of the other human women checking Ranma out, their eyes raking his form while others had turned to watch the martial display the rest of the Jedui were putting on.
She grabbed up a water bottle, intending it to see what their reaction would be to Ranma's curse, not even understanding why but knowing she had to do something. Other, that is, than the other suggestion her mind had come up with; that of gauging their eyes out.
Shaak stopped however as Ranma turned somehow having noticed her, his eyes lighting up as they locked on her. "Shaak," he said, moving over quickly. "You done talking to Koth or were you busy with the queen and company?"
Shaak smiled, her feelings of jealousy, yes that must've been jealousy, she mused, leaving her quickly. She had sensed the feeling in others directed at her, but Shaak realized that was very different from the emotion originating within her own head. "We have finished our discussion yes, if not in the way I would have preferred. On the other hand, it is a little late in the day to exercise so I simply came to talk to you."
"Fine by me," Ranma said with a small, but warm smile as his hand brushed against hers for a moment as he turned away gesturing towards the bench. Kit was there, and the two of them joined him while the Dark Woman moved over to Anakin, staring down at his gasping exhausted form.
"I see someone is already begun your bit of penance." The white-haired woman smiled. "Good. I will finish it then when you get back to Kashyyyk you'll have already been disciplined and can rejoin your youngling class without any further interruption. Now get up."
As Anakin was forced back into several physical and then meditation exercises, Ranma Shaak and Kit talked. "So what are your plans? I meant to ask, but then Anakin arrived and I wanted to see with the kid could do."
"Your opinion of him?" Shaak asked, interrupting for a moment smiling apologetically at Kit who merely nodded back.
"He's driven, he's got some interesting preconceptions though, and is not is physically strong or fast as he seems to think. At his age that kind of thing goes with the territory I guess."
"Which must mean that you were right terror when you were growing up." Shaak mused with a twitch of her lips before they both turned to Kit.
The Aqualian knight smiled. "I, along with Anakin and the Dark Woman will be returning to Kashyyyk with you two aboard your vessel. If that's all right?" He added, watching Ranma's eyes narrow. When Ranma nodded after a moment Kit went on. "It's been decided I don't have the temperament to become a sector Jedi or be part of the organization of one of our new temples from the ground up. I'll be assigned a new mission soon enough."
He looked at Ranma, then around at the other Jedi and past them to where Sabe was still recording the exercises being conducted, concentrating now on Obi Wan who the Dark woman had made join them despite his various pulled muscles. "I am to join you in undergoing some training you've begun to set up there?"
"Good," Ranma nodded. "You would be my second choice after Shaak to join me in that. I'll even agreed to train you with you as much as I can while working on my own projects."
"What about Obi Wan? With his master being placed on light duty, will Obi join Master Qui-Gon on Kashyyyk or be temporarily reassigned?" Shaak asked.
Dooku joined them, leaving Lissarhk and Murani to retire to mediate for a time. "Obi Wan will leave here with master Yaddle and the other back to Coruscant. He is to take his Trial for knighthood."
Nearby Obi Wan looked up in shock at that then bowed solemnly, something which the Dark Woman replied to with a cuff above the ear and an order to get back to exercising. Shaking his head at that Dooku went on. "After that however he will be assigned to a group of four investigating a segment of the so-called legal slave trade near the Hapes Cluster."
Dooku shrugged. "The mission had originally been assigned to just two others, but after what happened with young Secura, Master Windu has decided to overhaul the Council of Reassignment, and has placed top priority on assigning such missions more numbers than before."
"Huh, so even a bureaucracy can be taught new tricks if you threaten it with a large enough stick?" Ranma laughed. He looked over at Shaak then back out to the open training ground, but she shook her head. He shrugged and got to his feet, followed swiftly by Shaak. "For now though, I think I want to explore a bit, we'll see you all this evening."
OOOOOOO
"While we might not like the idea of such powerful ships remaining in local hands masters Jedi," Palpatine said, cutting into the argument. "You have to admit that both not only is it a lawful act, but that it could be a final political slap in the face to the Trade Federation."
"We understand that point yes," master Plo said. "But who is to stop some local captain with less moral conviction then the Queen from taking one of those ships and turning pirate? That is our main concern here."
They were discussing what to do about the massive amount of army and naval material that had been confiscated from the Trade Federation after their occupation was brought to an abrupt end. The android troops on the ground were already being dismantled. Their weapons would be used to arm the Grand Gungan army, which would be the core of a new land-based defense force for the planet. It would in no way be a true military force, made up of barely trained levees but it would be able to defend the planet.
The rest of the military supplies from the army would be sold to the Galactic Republic at cost in return for shipments of food, construction equipment and shield generators for the planet. Before this Naboo had not been a rich enough world to purchase yet alone maintain such a system, like Alderaan, Coruscant and other Core Worlds could. But the amount of material they had to sell now could at least fund the purchase and installation of a planetary shield generator.
All well and good, the Jedi were very happy that Naboo could enrich itself off the Trade Federation's supplies. The sticking point for them and initially Palpatine was the two Trade Federation Lucrehulk capital ships which had been taken intact and their accompanying vultures. There was enough there to make a rather decent fleet, and Padme was unwilling to simply hand that back over to the Trade Federation. But Palpatine and the Jedi were not pleased with any single system having that much firepower. At least at first, but Palpatine had seemingly come around to his queen's perspective.
"Perhaps a compromise," Palpatine said, smiling internally. While Padme might think she was the one pushing for this in reality she wasn't, and her general antimilitary stance would eventually come to the fore down the line. By that point, the ships and their maintenance would have become a severe drain on the planet's resources, and after a few years of no military threats he could convince the next Queen to let them go for a song.
The Jedi however needed to be appeased in some other form. "Your main concern is that these ships could be an offensive threat correct? The Vultures do not have personal hyperdrives, they rely on their capital ships for that. So if we remove the hyperdrives from the two surviving Lucrehulks become system defense ships, which are allowed to be any size under Republic law. Why just look at a few that Corellia has, or Golam. That and using the ships as further collateral to pay Naboo back for the Trade Federation's invasion would remove my concerns about the lawfulness of this act."
"Suppose do I that will, and magnificent for in system cargo transportation too would they be. How the trade federation began after all, that was." master Yaddle said thoughtfully. "Take much work of course, updating the soldiers on board computer systems would, but even so, a large military force, it is."
"Which will serve as Republic auxiliaries should the need arise. Indeed, I would prefer to turn them entirely over to the Republic, so long as I was assured that they would remain in station in this system for a time, and never find their way back into the hands of the Federation. But it is not just up to me. My people were caught without defenses once Chancellor, Masters Jedi, and I have talked to the various sector governors and mayors, they are determined that we will not be so caught again." Padme replied.
She sighed faintly. "I have to say that I am not happy about that but I can understand their points and as their queen I will do what I can to safeguard my people."
"Excellent," Sheev said with a nod. "In that case, we should get down to the wording of the announcement we'll be sending to the Trade Federation to that effect, as well as discuss how we will deal with the rest of the Senate concerning this matter."
Despite his upbeat tone Palpatine was somewhat irritated, both by how well the queen had argued her points and the need for him to change his plans once more. Those massive ships were expensive in the extreme, the Lucrehulk class was the bedrock of the Trade Federation fleet not only in terms of military power but trade, and returning them would have garnered him even more control over Gunray.
However, once turned over to Naboo, he could subtly see to it they were counted towards that get the Trade Federation owed Naboo entirely, which meant the Trade Federation as a whole might not have to pay another dime, and wouldn't need to expend further political capital to do so. They would still have to recant publicly, and the public denouncement and trial of the Board of Directors would be enough to exonerate Gunray and keep him as head of the Trade Federation. His position would slowly become more powerful because of the Senate's need to have a single individual to interact with about the Trade Federation in the future, and that would allow Palpatine in turn to control Gunray.
The Jedi would no doubt keep a close watch on Gunray and the other higher-ups of the Trade Federation, but that wouldn't be enough. No, the Nabooans arming program would continue out in the Outer Rim. Moreover their not contesting turning these ships over would be seen as a major concession towards peace, which might earn the Trade Federation more Senate approval and thus influence.
A few hours later Palpatine left the conference room, smiling politely as Padme did the same, moving down the corridor with her talking quietly about the damage done to the capital city. The Jedi moved in the opposite direction talking to each other, happy about the outcome but so not happy about the militant attitude the previously peaceful planet seemed to be adopting.
The two of them nearly ran into one of Padme's maid, Sabe, coming out of her room. "My Queen," she said bowing quickly. "Er, I apologize, but I have that security video you wanted to look at."
Padme nodded, nothing in her face giving anything away and Palpatine nodded agreeably at her and her look alike. "I believe I will leave you here. It's been a long day already for the both of us, and I too have some work I need to get back to."
"Thank you Chancellor Palpatine," said Padme, bowing her head slightly, one head of state to another, to the older man. "I hope you will have time to dine with us this evening but until then, I think it is indeed time we both see to our separate duties."
After a few more pleasantries, Palpatine moved towards his own quarters quickly, entering and locking the door behind him before moving towards his computer system, the most secure type of system money could buy. He had implanted a suggestion in Sabe's mind to record the Jedi exercises that morning, eager to see what he could get out of it. Her recording device did not only record, but could also send data, and it did so to his system.
After a moment however he cursed pushing away from the chair and slamming a fist down on the table top in a rare sign of anger. The camera angle wasn't very good, and they weren't close enough most of the time to hear any of the discussion going on with the recording device. Worse, the stupid girl had concentrated on the exerciser's chests and faces almost to the exclusion of the actual combat going on. Despite that Palpatine could see several examples of this speed technique at work thanks to Dooku, but he couldn't hear anything about the training to duplicate it.
He calmed down as he watched Ranma put Anakin through his paces, then listened intently to the recording of them talking, which Sabe's pickup had been close enough to overhear with a faint smile on his face. That could be another string on the boy, definitely something to keep in mind going forward. Something to keep in mind, as was the other conversation he could overhear, about some kind of training being developed on Kashyyyk. Hmm...
Still, over all this was a failure and Palpatine scoffed as the video slanted to decidedly below the belt for a moment. So much effort to subtly influence the useless sluts' minds and get them interested in watching the Jedi's exercises for next to nothing! And I doubt I will be able to spy on the Chaotic Locus in the future now that he might be wise to such. I will have to step up my attempts to either curtail the Chaotic Locus or remove him. I am getting very tired of having to adjust for the bedlam he leaves in his wake.
OOOOOOO
"Sense you there I can." Yoda murmured into the darkness of his meditation chamber on Kashyyyk. "Come far to test your ability to sneak about, you have. If the only reason you are here that is, disappointed, I will be."
"It is not master, though I suppose I should have known that you of all people would feel my presence," said a light, lilting female voice from the darkness around him. Then there was a brief flare of light as one of the small local bugs the Wookies used in some of their lights was released, unharmed, from a hand. It hovered in the air besides the being who had caught it, seemingly happy to remain there.
Yoda turned around in his on his meditation had, staring up at the tall merely human woman standing there wearing a plain Jedi robe over an equally plain white shirt and pants. Most of her features were human, but the long pointed ears protruding from out of the long dirty blonde hair gave her otherworldly nature away. Her features were angular yet beautiful, her eyes deep, compelling and infinitely kind.
"A long time master Fay, or been for me at least, it has, since we last saw each other." Yoda chuckled, and Fay laughed quietly as she moved to take a sitting position in front of him, folding her legs under her body smoothly as the small light bug moved into the air above their heads.
Jedi Master Fay was a near-human Jedi Master, who had been master Yoda's first padawan. Not even he however knew what race she was from, having never met any other like her in her his travels. Indeed, Master Fay was a extraordinary individual in every sense of the word. Even as a padawan, Fay's connection to the Force had been profound. He had not felt the like until recently with young Anakin, who had an even stronger connection to the Force than she did, though nowhere near her intrinsic level of understanding.
She was also famous for not following the Orders of the council or even listening to the Senate, rather looking to the Force to guide her path without any other exterior entity getting in the way. Yoda had until recently felt that was possibly the best but a far too simple way of dispatching a Jedi's duties for the universe they lived in. The Order was too tied into the Republic as a whole to allow more than a scattered handful of Jedi to follow that calling. But Fay had done so almost from the moment she had been raised to become a master. And unlike most, Fay had been acclaimed as a master rather than achieving the rank in the normal method of raising her own padawan to knighthood.
And surprised I would, if aged a day since the last time we saw each other, she has. Yoda thought with another chuckle, the sound echoing lightly in the room. Unchanging and ageless Fay could possibly live forever, free of disease and the touch of centuries. A lesser creature might've been jealous or even angered by that, but Yoda was old, and knew that all things aged as they would, ended in their own time.
Yoda smiled at her, reaching across with his small wrinkled hands to take hers. "Welcome my dear, you are, welcome and more than welcome. But weary you seem, hrhrhrm?" Indeed, though only those who knew her very well, of which there were only three still alive, would've recognized it but it was there. Fay looked exhausted despite her normal poise, her hair was a little out of joint in places, and her eyes were slightly red. There were even dark bags under her eyes.
"Master, as you know I have allowed the Force to guide my path for centuries. But around seven months ago, I began having increasing difficulties doing so. It is not the growing power of the Veil of the Dark Side. I have felt that for years and been able to cope with it. This is something inherently… chaotic. Light-based I feel, but chaotic. When I was finally able to understand what was going on, I tried to ascertain the source of the chaos, and came here."
She looked around the temple, shaking her head wonderingly. "Evidently I have been out of touch for a little too long this time," she said with a sigh. Last time she had been to Coruscant had been over two hundred and forty years ago. It had been for a ceremony to honor a fallen comrade who she had met and befriended out in the Outer Rim, but she had left immediately afterwards. The Force was her guide, not politics, not the vagaries of society, not even the Order itself.
"And here on this planet I feel echoes of happiness in the Force that do not match anything I've felt before. It's awe-inspiring to know that there are still things about the Force that I do not know." Fay now smiled softly, the smile of a being who would happily spend her entire life trying to discover new things, yet always happy knowing she would never accomplish it.
"You felt not only that the Chaotic Locus was here, but here you should come, Hrhrhrm?" Yoda asked, though his tone made the question a statement.
"Yes," Fay said simply. "I can't say discerning that was easy master, but so long as I can unravel this mystery, I will consider the time well-worth spending. A Chaotic Locus you say, I remember reading about that kind of thing, but have never run into one before."
"Ranma, the Chaotic Fulcrum's name is. A most unique young man, he is." Yoda chuckled at that monumental understatement, wondering what these two would make of one another. "Tell you what he has done, will I, as well as had on the Order, the impact he has. Hrhrhrm, for me, began when a certain future shift, I felt."
That took some time, with Fay interjecting at points. Not because she didn't believe master Yoda, though if anyone else had told her about Ranma's curse she might have tried to see if they were on a hallucinogen. But Yoda wouldn't lie to her, and if anyone else had she would've felt the lie in any event. Nonetheless she asked for clarification several times which made the already somewhat long tale lengthen further.
About two hours had gone by before they finished, and Fay shook her head in shocked amusement. "Fascinating, he makes such a gigantic impact on the Force yet doesn't reach out to it as we Jedi do? Fascinating and most enlightening as well. And he is coming back here?"
"Indeed. Knights Ti, Fisto, the Dark Woman, young Anakin and Ranma, return here soon they will."
He chuckled lightly as Fay frowned, though not at the idea of meeting Anakin. He might well become a powerful Jedi, but the idea he was the Chosen One was not something she would be drawn on. The Force worked as it willed, if he was so chosen her belief would not matter one way or the other and she preferred to believe they were all equal to the Force. Fay's frown was at the mention of the Dark Woman.
She had met the Dark Woman once, and to say they did not get along was a vast understatement. It was ironic considering that in many ways their views of the Force were similar, but how they went about fulfilling their duties as Jedi could not have been more different. The Dark Woman was a spy, a mover in dark alleyways and someone who would not hesitate to kill if she thought justice or the Force demanded it.
On the other end of the scale, Fay had never been a fighter, never seeing that as something a Jedi should be at all. She had been decent enough with a lightsaber under Yoda's tutelage, but she had never been enthusiastic about it. And now Yoda noticed that she didn't even have a lightsaber on her belt. Instead Fay used persuasion and in particular the projection of an aura of calm and fellow feeling to fulfill her duties, along with an ability to discern intent, negative feelings and lies that was second to none. When that failed Fay had a mastery of Force telekinesis and mental disciplines that made her a very dangerous opponent.
"Stay to meet him, you will?" Yoda asked though he didn't really have to. Even he could tell that the Force wanted Fay here for that purpose. Why that was, he didn't know but would accept it.
"Yes. I am not certain if it is this Ranma character who I am here for, or if it is one of the people who have been affected by him, but nonetheless this is where the Force wants me to be. And I a very much looking forward to seeing this curse of his in action, to feel the Force laughing. It sounds fascinating." Fay replied with a smile.
"Indeed, appear fascinating many things about Ranma do. At a safe distance however, they are best observed." Yoda said dryly.
OOOOOOO
Ranma, Shaak, and their passengers left for Kashyyyk the very next day and almost immediately, the cramped conditions for so many people on the Wild Light proved irritating. Kit was okay, even Anakin. Ranma shared his room with Kit, who slept on the floor with Anakin sleeping on the couch in the sitting room. They both went out of their way to not rub either Shaak or Ranma the wrong way, knowing the cramped quarters could cause trouble.
The Dark Woman however was contentious, commanding, and rather oppressive. Whenever she saw Ranma and Shaak together, even if they were simply sitting next to one another not even touching she would frown censoriously at them. Nothing about the Wild Light seemed to interest her, and she was always trying to needle Ranma or Shaak, either alone or separately, pushing at their self-control.
In Ranma's case she found fault in his not being a Jedi, his personal moral code and refusal to reach out to the Force. Though thankful for his aid and for his slaying Sing, her greatest failure, she found Ranma's non-Jedi attitude to be dangerous. In Shaak's case she questioned her dedication to the Force and the Order, accusing her of arrogance for asking to retake her Oaths in the old way.
She didn't get anywhere with either of them. Ranma simply ignored her for the most part, primed by Shaak to expect this kind of response and frankly not caring a whit about the woman's opinion of him. Shaak simply smiled and took her verbal sparring with ease, letting her control, her new skills and the fact the Force had responded so positively to her retaking the Oath speak for her.
The censorious aspect of the Dark Woman's presence however got old very quickly, stopping the two of them from being as affectionate towards one another as they would have liked. Neither were effusive in their affections, but a touch of the hand here, a kiss on the cheek there, hugs and general closeness mattered given how new they were to their relationship.
So it was with relief that they came out of hyperspace after a day and a bit, and this time they weren't even immediately fired upon. Though there were two Wookie patrol craft however swiftly moved in their direction as they moved towards Kashyyyk.
"Attention incoming patrol craft, this is the Wild Light returning from Naboo, identification codes inbound to your systems." Shaak said crisply into her intercom, then switched over to another channel. "Kashyyyk Space Control this is Wild Light, requesting clearance for space lane and landing coordinates."
She listened to the growls on the other hand, and gestured Ranma in the correct direction while the two patrol craft peeled off, their small almost nonexistent wings waggling as they moved from side to side in a gesture of respect towards them before moving away. A few moments later they entered orbit over the planet, before moving down at an angle into the atmosphere towards the coordinates they had been told to follow.
To both Ranma and Shaak's surprise, they were not being ordered to land at the landing field they had used previously, instead they were directed further down and around the city from that landing field. It was hard going, the verdant foliage becoming more interweaved and pervasive as they lost altitude. It got to the point where if they didn't have the local instructing them on where to go a normal pilot would have crashed a dozen times over.
Eventually they turned the ship slightly and spotted their target, a sight that woke a gasp from Ranma and an impressed 'hmm' from Shaak. Several hundred feet below the Jedi Temple was a small docking bay carved out of the interior of a wroshyr branch, its sheared off end blocked by metal and wooden doors which opened as they watched. The branch was more than wide enough to take their ship, a sight that once again made Ranma shake his head in awe at the size wroshyr trees could reach.
Inside they were met by a Wookie, taller than most of his species and almost emaciated with russet fur, as well as Anakin's mother and Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon looked almost back to normal, though he was using a walking stick, which came up to his waist. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when Anakin came down the ramp, though his mother, who Qui-Gon was standing beside yet somehow separate from, frowned at Anakin severely.
"This is amazing," Ranma said ignoring the trio for now as he gestured around them looking at the Wookie. That was fine with Shmi and Qui-Gon, who ignored him and Shaak in turn, tearing into Anakin for how he had just gone off on his own. "Is this new, it doesn't look it but why didn't we use this place before?"
The Wookie too ignored the human youth and the two adults' discussion, growling a reply in his own language and Shaak translated. "It was down for a new coating of the mixture they use to protect the wood from heat and fir. This is to be the Jedi Temple's own landing area now. Connecting this with the temple, carving a path up to that heretofore unused section without doing any permanent damage to the Wroshyr tree itself has also taken some time apparently."
"Understandable given how tough the wood is." Ranma cocked his head and looked at Shaak smiling faintly. "You're smiling Shaak."
"I know, it's the feel of this planet. Naboo might've been alive with animals and plants, but not to this extent. It did not burn with the Living Force as Kashyyyk does to my senses." Shaak shook her head, looking around her smile slowly growing. "It's simply amazing."
By this point Anakin had been thoroughly berated by his teacher and Shmi, and Shmi threw her arms around him hugging her tight them tightly. "I'm proud of you Ani, but please don't do that again without telling anyone. There are a lot of dangerous animals on Kashyyyk, and some of them even come up this level. We were afraid you'd been taken in the night with no one the wiser."
Anakin looked suitably chastened at that, bowing his head. "I'm sorry master Qui-Gon, mother, it was just I didn't think I'd be allowed to go even if I described what I was feeling accurately enough to appease the youngling's Masters, and I just knew I had to go!"
"You might not have," Qui-Gon said with a faint smile tapping the boy's shoulder lightly with his staff. "And I have often found that forgiveness asked is easier gained than permission. However if you had come to mewith your concerns we would have been able to work something out. The Force speaks to us all, and you are not the only one who can hear its message Anakin."
"Don't encourage him," Shmi warned, shaking her head at the older Jedi master who sent her a frown, but said nothing. It was evident that she was here on her own, he hadn't brought her and indeed seemed almost to not know how to react to her still being a part of Anakin's life. The Dark Woman scowled too, looking at Qui-Gon seriously before gesturing him to one side leaning in to talk to him in low tones, her eyes also flicking over to Shmi.
While the two Jedi talked Tune came out of the Wild Light behind them, moving over to interact with some equipment which looked almost incongruous against the backdrop of this seemingly primitive landing strip. He tootled at them for a moment, a socket appearing on his side from which a small linkage control manipulator, the same he used to interact with the ship, came out, inserting quickly into the side of the mechanism. A moment later it began to move towards the Wild Light opening and extending various cleaning devices on thin arms.
"I didn't think the ship was that dirty Tune." Ranma said, watching this.
Tune warbled at him, and Ranma raised his forearm to look at the translator device embedded in his vambrace. "The majority of the ship is not master, but we have some electrical damage to the paint scheme, and the engines could do with some cleaning, as well as could the recycling center. We're also out of several comestibles."
"That's true. See what you can do about getting us some human or Togrutan foodstuffs here on Kashyyyk, fresh if possible. If not then we'll rely on what the temple can give us both in terms of fresh foods and nutrition bars." Ranma suddenly smiled. "In fact, if you finish cleaning the exterior and setting up the food see if you can scrape off that dark blue paint color. Shaak and I will see if we can decide on a paint scheme for the outer hull."
"I'd go for dark green personally," Anakin piped up. "Maybe with a splash of gold here and there?"
"I'm not a painter Anakin, so I'm not going to even try other than saying what colors don't go together." He clapped Anakin on the shoulder, shaking his head at Shmi, a wry smile on his face which the mother returned wanly. "Ani? Really? Could you please come up with a less emasculating nickname for him? Stowaway maybe or The Little Flyer That Could, hmm, no that one's way too wordy."
"I could get behind The Little Flyer That Could," Anakin said with a laugh shaking his head. His attitude had improved markedly since his and Ranma's discussion on Naboo, and he was eager to resume his studies with the Jedi despite Padme not having seen them off. It seemed as if he had decided to move on from his crush, which Ranma thought was a good sign.
By this point Qui-Gon and the Dark Woman had finished talking, and Qui-Gon gestured them all towards the hall leading into the hanger bay. "Since the Dark Woman says you have done penance already, we will say no more about it and I will prevail on the youngling masters not to punish you further. But this is still a mark against you Anakin, whatever good you did you broke the Order's rules. Many people will look at you askance for that for some time until you have proven that you can work well with others."
As Anakin nodded the older man went on. "I personally believe you did the right thing if you honestly thought no one would believe you, but that is neither here nor there. I am but one teacher among many you will be dealing with remember that. And also realize we cannot play favorites."
At that point Kit joined them, shaking his head as he looked back over his shoulder into the interior of the ship. "Are you sure you want to get that homicidal head a body Ranma? I realize that sentence sounded ridiculous, but…"
"Yeah I'm sure," Ranma said with a sigh. "When we get him a body HK and I are going to talk and I'll lay down some ground rules for how he can act in certain circumstances, but I think he cold be a major help in combat situations, especially at range where Shaak and I aren't at our best."
"On your head be it." Kit said, his lips twitching slightly.
Ranma groaned aloud at the pun while adjusting the strap on a backpack he was carrying as Anakin and Shmi laughed and the Dark Woman rolled her eyes. "That was so bad Kit, put yourself on punishment!"
Shaak sighed. "Boys, let's get a move on please. Shmi, have you been able to find a job in the city, or are you still working for the temple itself?"
"At the moment I'm writing up several things related to my time on Tatooine for the Order, what I know of the Hutts from the belly of the beasts as it were. I'm also still helping mistress Unduli with miss Aalya most days. We've made some progress, especially for so short a time, but we've still got a ways to go. I've found an apartment in the city, but in the long term I am still looking for a permanent job."
"I'm good with mechanics, though not as good as my son," Shmi smiled down at Anakin who smiled back at her. "And most Wookies who lean toward those kinds of professions can put my skills to shame. I'm good with people, and have a decent mind for organization, but my time as a slave means I was never actually credited with any of the work I did. So it might take some time to find someone willing to hire me."
"I think you'll find it easier than you assume. The Wookies have a soft spot for ex-slaves, and they know they often need interpreters when dealing with offworlders. I would recommend attempting to learn the Wookie language, not to speak it of course, but to understand it, and look for a job where you could be a go between a local factor and some off-world business." Shaak said, as the group began to walk up a long flight of stairs leading upwards from the level they'd previously been on after leaving the dock.
The stairwell weaved this way and that, stopping occasionally and going straight for a time, but generally speaking heading upwards. Why it meandered so wasn't clear to Ranma, but he figured they were moving around sensitive parts of the wroshyr tree or something like that. Here and there they passed by Wookies working on some part of the corridor, and Shaak paused occasionally, looking over the Wookies shoulder with a smile, which the Wookies seemed to return after seeing her lightsaber.
About five minutes into their journey Shaak and the other Jedi looked up, even Anakin snapping his head upright staring upwards through the intervening levels to the Jedi Temple. "What is that!?" Anakin gasped.
Ranma looked at them all quizzically. They were well out of his range to feel anything via his ki sense, and his danger sense wasn't telling him anything either.
"Something's wrong with Aayla, I can sense it from here!" Shaak said, leaping over the intervening heads of Kit and the other Jedi along with Anakin and the Wookie guide, moving ahead so fast that she was almost out of sight before the others began to follow her. Ranma swiftly moved in her wake, leaving the others behind just as quickly, and they arrived at the Jedi temple together.
They burst through the temple's doors just in time to see a young padawan, a human male, hurled through the door of Aayla's meditation chamber. Other males of several different races were swiftly ordered away and Luminara, who hadn't been in the room with Aayla at that moment, raced through the temple's halls towards the room.
"GRAAAH, stay away!" Aayla's Force telekinesis lashed out indiscriminately, smashing out from her in a circle, creating a dent in the wood beneath her feet, bulges in the walls and hurling the door to her chamber off its hinges. The wind around her picked up into a near gale, and the clay and other loose items in the room zoomed around with bone breaking force.
Raising her hands Luminara tried to push back at the younger girl's force powers, trying to curtail the damage while also sending out a faint tendril of her mind out through the Force to touch Aayla's mind. I only went to the bathroom for a moment, that young padawan is going to be on punishment detail for weeks if I have my way! "Calm down child, you are among friends please see us, not your fears."
Her calm tone did nothing to help Aayla unfortunately and her small mental probe found no purchase in the roiling violent, fearful chaos of Aayla's mind. She was caught in a nightmare of memories now, unable to escape them. And there were still men nearby, men who were like the men who had raped and abused her for their sick pleasures or the amusement of her Hutt 'master'. "GYAAA, stay away, stay away!"
Without a word Shaak moved to stand by Luminara, her own hands rising as she joined her Force power to that of her friend. They began to slowly push the telekinetic storm back, not quickly for fear of terrifying Aayla further, but stopping her from causing any more harm to anything but the walls of her chamber. "Aayla, please my friend, you're safe, remember? We saved you, Ranma and I. Push past your fear and anger Aayla, you are remembering scenes from your past, but lashing out in the now."
Ranma on the other hand looked around desperately, knowing that getting any closer to Aayla right now as a guy would be bad. Looking into the room where Aayla was standing, he saw a tray of discarded food, shattered and scattered on the door. That moron must've been dropping off some food, who the hell assigned that job to a guy?!
But in the rubble was a small bulb of water, which had remained uncrushed up to this point. That'll have to do, but how to get to it?
By this point Yoda had arrived along with several other masters. Mostly men, they remained back but one of them, one Ranma hadn't seen before, a woman of possibly middle-age with pointy ears that made her look elven stepped forward.
Instead of joining the effort to curtail Aayla's manic assault she began to move physically toward the room. The wind around her died to a tiny breeze, and any items hurled her way went wide. Her face was composed and kind as she held her arms out wide. "Sshh child, you are among friends here, please, let us in young one. We only wish to help you. Feel my words, know them as the truth..."
Aayla's attacks subsided, but the fear and wild rage in her face didn't go away, nor did her control return. Aayla was still stuck in her own memories, not seeing the real world around her at all despite the master's best attempts to get into her mind. Instead she backed away physically from the door, grabbing up a small, edgeless knife from the ruins of the food tray. "Don't, don't come any closer!"
Ranma moved around the hallway, coming at the door to Aayla's room from the other end and for a moment he looked at the woman, who looked back at first stern then nodding. "Ah, you would be Ranma yes?" She asked, over the tumult of the wind in the room in front of her. "I trust you have a plan?"
"Well I figure if my curse feels like I've been told it does, it might knock Aayla out of her memories." Ranma shrugged. "It's worth a try."
"Indeed." The woman's lips quirked upwards and then without warning, while still protecting herself from Aayla's powers, a small tendril of Force telekinesis lashed out, picking up and hurling the small bulb of water at Ranma. Many a master nearby blinked in respectful awe at the amount of control that move showed, working her own thoughts through Aayla's control of the air around her to reach the object, then taking control of it through its arc, not allowing Aayla out of control power to redirect it.
The blub splashed Ranma, and he felt the change occur instantly. And as always the Force responded, a bright pealing note of laughter splashing out from the wet redhead.
Everyone in the temple felt it, even Aayla through her mindless anger and fear. It knocked her out of her memories, and Aayla blinked, before collapsing to her knees, tears running down her azure cheeks.
Shaak and Luminara both raced forward, passing by the older master and Ranma to reach their young friend. Shaak went to her knees in front of her, pulling her into a hug as Luminara looked her over, making certain she hadn't hurt herself before doing the same. It wasn't very Jedi-like, but there were some instincts even Jedi training could not wholly abolish, and this was one of them.
Ranma sighed, breathing a sigh of relief as the hugs seemed to do the trick, slowly calming Aayla down further. She turned around looking for the padawan whose idiocy had started this. "Okay, where's the moron?"
"The moron, with a friend who injured her ankles in class yesterday, switched duties he did. Informing the Jedi knight in charge of kitchen duty he did not. Hmmmmmm." Yoda replied, his voice soft. "Disciplined, will he be, but truly faulted for that he cannot. Knowing about Aayla or how, react to his presence, would she, he did not. Indeed, thought beyond this sort of instinctual fear response, might have been I thought." Yoda sighed, looking every inch his near to a thousand years old for a moment. "Wrong, I was."
"What, you mean Jedi don't gossip? I'd've thought that Aayla's problems would've made the rounds around the temple by this point." Ranma said, still looking angry but not so much now.
From beside him, the elven-looking Jedi had moved forward, her hands outstretched to the younger women. Shaak looked up from the hug she was giving Aayla, and her eyes widened in recognition but Ranma's attention was taken from this moment by another male master, an elderly looking birdlike alien of some sort.
"You see Master Yoda, it is as I said. Padawan Secura is damaged, admittedly through no part of her own. But there is no doubt that she is a danger to all around her so long as she cannot let go of her anger and hate of the people who abused her. We should lock her up somewheRE!"
Ranma turned, her hand flashing out with a speed even Shaak would have barely followed, pinning him against the far side of the hallway, the birdlike alien having no warning and thus no time to enter into his Battle Precognition. Her other hand flashed forward, but stopped a bare millimeter from his target's face, quivering. The wind of the punch alone was enough to smash the man's head back violently into the wood with enough energy to create a small crack in the wood.
"Spoke in haste Master D'olme did. A shocking lack of empathy and ignorance, his words show. But reason for you to murder him, that is not." Yoda said calmly, nothing in his bearing showing the strain he felt having to hold Ranma's hand still with the Force, his glimmer stick stabbed toward the restrained arm. "An ongoing process Ranma, doing away with such blind arrogance and lack of feeling is, which barely begun, have we. Release him, please."
Teeth gritted in a snarl Ranma scowled down at the aged Grandmaster then slowly nodded, her hand on the other man's throat unclenching convulsively, letting him fall to the floor. "How'd it feel to be helpless?" She asked, her voice almost conversational, but not quite, there was a brittle, ragged echo to it that gave her words a dangerous edge.
The birdlike alien on the floor looked up at him, massaging his throat, but didn't reply before Ranma went on. "Didn't feel good, did it? Remember that feeling the next time you look down from your ivory tower and try to condemn someone else for being unable to forget memories so much worse than that you can't even imagine." Without another word Ranma turned, picking up the shattered door and propping it back up behind her before turning to move towards Shaak and the others.
Yoda watched the battered door for a moment, ignoring D'olme's attempts to get his attention. Greatly damaged Aayla Is, but help her that quartet will. Repair the damage nothing can, though realize it too few Jedi do. But help her accept it, they will. Her scars accept, and to live continue, rather than be defined by them. But never happen again this must, to one of our younglings. Never again. Having success in overhauling the council of reassignment's assignment policies, I hope master Windu is, because if it does, have no one to blame but ourselves for allowing it to occur, will we.
Seeing Ranma come in Aayla's eyes widened. She reached up to rub at her eyes for a moment then cocked her head to one side, looking at the petite redhead. "Ranma, that, that feeling just now, was that your Force disease or whatever it is you call it? I didn't really believe it existed before."
"Yep," Ranma nodded squatting down in front of Aayla, her blue eyes gentle as she gazed into the Twi'lek's eyes. "I got it around… I think a little under three years or so ago. Cold water changes me to a girl, hot water back to my male body." Ranma pulled at her red hair, shaking her head. "That's why I can really understand what you've gone through. I have some nightmares in that direction myself."
Aayla nodded, frowning, biting her lip so hard it bled. "I wish I could say it helps, but… I, I just looked up, and that padawan, I noticed his braid, was standing there, reaching out to, to touch my shoulder I'd guess, but that didn't register at the time. All that did was he was a man and he was standing over me. I couldn't, I..."
She fell silent, a full body shudder going through her. Shaak and Luminara tightened their holds around the girl while Fay debated with herself internally. There was precious little she could do here that wouldn't be counterproductive in the long term. She could take away Aayla's pain, even reach into her mind and either remove the memories dealing with her trauma or simply cover them with a thin veneer which would make them seem less painful.
But the first would be dangerous even for Fay to attempt, and doing it to another Jedi would constitute assault, in her view anyway. The second sounded better not being a permanent solution, but such a thing wouldn't last for longer than a few weeks at best. It would take days on end of careful meditation and psychological intervention to help Aayla through this without losing her to hate and anger.
Luckily Knight Unduli seems on top of things. This was simply a nasty series of events working together to create a worse one rather than a sign of her neglect. Indeed the young Knight was now doing one of the first things Fay could have done, sending soothing thoughts into Aayla's mind, connecting her own mind to Aayla's.
It was dangerous, since as that type of therapy continued, Unduli would see and come to share some of the memories they were working on, but it would definitely help Aayla. And it also would come to replace the younger woman's padawan bond to her master, though from what Yoda had told her about Knight Vos that was possibly a good thing.
But there is something else I can do. I can listen, and listening banish the feelings of self-recrimination, guilt for not fighting back as she thinks she could have and self-destructive hate for the same reason. "Padawan Secura, I am Master Fay. Have you heard of me?"
Aayla looked up in shock as did Shaak, both of them recognizing the name. "Master Fay, of, of course, you, there's a bust of you in the main hall on Coruscant, everyone knows that name, but we all thought you were a myth or a legend."
"Really, then what would you call Master Yoda, or Master T'ra Saa? Both of them are older than me, though I will admit only by a few hundred years in Master Yoda's case. I have no idea how old Master Saa is, and no inclination to ask." Fay shook her head, a glint of humor entering her eyes. "And a bust, really? What a useless thing to make for me. I am a mere servant of the Force, nothing more, nothing less."
Aayla actually laughed quietly at that, while Ranma looked over at Shaak, who nodded her head seriously indicating this woman was someone she, indeed most Jedi deeply respected. Fay looked at him, her lips quirking slightly before she turned back to Aayla. "More to the point right now, I have discovered over my many decades that a burden shared is often not nearly so arduous, and that talking about nightmares often make them disappear. Even if those nightmares are grounded in memory. I and your friends here want to help you, and we are willing to listen."
She said nothing more, letting the implication hang in the air for a moment, sitting down in a meditation pose across from Aayla, projecting a feeling of peace, serenity and safety into the Force around her, the potency of which few masters could match. Even Ranma, closed off in most ways as he was to the Force felt it. The redhead blinked, then backed away lightly from Fay, looking at her in confusion, mouthing a name under her breath.
Aayla too felt it, and a burden seemed to lift from her shoulders. And maybe Master Fay is right, maybe, maybe talking about it, maybe having other people know the details about what happened, will help me get over it. She and Luminara had been working toward this since she had first arrived on Kashyyyk, though Luminara hadn't been pushing for it very hard just yet, wanting to teach her some of what Ranma and Shaak had learned about concentrating on her own Living Force rather than pulling on the Unifying Force in order to avoid the reverb effect first.
But now when she reached out to the Unifying Force, all she found was peace, serenity, Fay's powers enveloping the entire area. Despite still feeling fearful and angry along with a welter of other emotions, she felt no backlash, no inclination to lash out in anger or mindless fear as she had moments ago.
Licking her lips, Aayla began. "I…, I was there in Mos Espa for about three months, after using several months to create my back trail. I had gathered a lot of information about Jabba's growing criminal empire, and the fact it was still growing, making connections and moving into places where before Black Sun had operated without any competition. My ability to block or redirect the minds of those around me had served me well many times, and I'd kept out of the way of Jabba as much as possible, but that ended one day…"
The story was as horrible as Shaak and the others had feared, though of course they had barely begun to hear it all, which would have been impossible in just one sitting. But with Fay's help, Luminara and Shaak convinced Aayla that there wasn't anything she could have done to protect herself after she had been subjected to the drug. The moment that had entered her system it was a losing battle. After that Aayla's thoughts and actions were not her own. And with no backup, which had been promised but wasn't there, Aayla could not have avoided the drug in the first place.
It was the drug that made her pliable, and any woman or man who had faced the same would have been overcome because unlike Shaak who had been subjected to the drug as a gas, Aayla had been injected with it twice after that first time. There was no way what Aayla had gone through had been because of some deep seated submissiveness or desire, no weakness within her. That was something that had been at the center of her guilt, fear and hate, hate of herself rather than the people who had done it.
It was a cathartic process, which ended up with the Twi'lek basically curled up over Shaak and Ranma, who she identified with most strongly given their rescue of her. The final straw had been when Ranma had, at Fay's instruction, changed back to his male body. They had just been talking about how there were men here in the Order and without who would have fought and died to prevent what had happened to her, that not all men were like those Jabba had loaned her out to.
After getting over the feeling of laughing joy in the Force, she had stared into Ranma's eyes. Aayla fully expected to see something there that would set her off, no matter how slight. She expected to feel some emotion via her empathic ability, some measure of lust, or desire, or condescension perhaps.
But she didn't. Instead, Aayla felt compassion, sympathy and understanding. No lust, no desire, no contempt, and Ranma's body language was entirely unthreatening. Nothing in the young man kneeling in front of her could be construed as aggressive, unlike what her battered mind had seen in the padawan whose attempt to help a friend had gone so badly wrong.
Staring into those soft, caring blue eyes, then over to Fay, Shaak, and finally Luminara, she had begun to cry softly, not in remembered pain, but joy at being around friends, as she had when Yoda had first broken through her defenses. Though admittedly Ranma had trouble realizing that, and panicked until Fay sat him back down with a Force Push. When he did, he found his lap full of crying Twi'lek, then Shaak and Luminara's arms around him and her, as Shaak pressed her forehead against his, staring into his eyes, gratefulness affection and something deeper in her eyes.
After Aayla fell asleep, Fay lifted the poor girl out of Ranma's lap without waking her, and moved off still carrying her to the room she and Luminara shared. That worthy looked after the older master, her Jedi self-control coming back to her quickly. "That was a debilitating experience for me to listen to, I can't imagine what it must have been to live through."
"You didn't make Jabba suffer enough Shaak, not nearly enough. I think I'm going to go to this Nal Hutta planet and play Squish the Slug for a bit." Ranma growled, his fists shaking as he finally let the towering rage he had felt listening to Aayla show.
"Hmmm… tempting. But they own armies Ranma, and a defense system that is just past cutting edge." Shaak said, as if she had actually thought about it. "Worse, given how long it would take us to get there, they'd know we were coming."
"Bah, fine wave away my ambitions." Ranma groused.
"Look at it this way Ranma, Aayla's experiences were awful, but Shaak already made the people directly responsible for it pay. On top of that her ordeal forced the Order as a whole to reevaluate its overarching priorities and how it operates in regards to certain missions. I have also heard rumors that Master Windu has basically declared it open season on the slave trade, both the illegal trade and so-called lawful indenture." Luminara replied.
Ranma's lips curled into something that could only be described as a smile by someone who had never seen one. "Not a moment too soon. Now if you'll excuse me, I need a shower after listening to that filth."
Late that night, Shaak and Ranma met up with one another before turning their feet to the stairs heading up toward the top of the temple. They were silent as they walked, but when they reached the temple's rooftops they moved together, shoulders touching as they clasped hands, staring out at the landscape then at one another sitting on the edge of the roof, their legs dangling out into nothingness beyond. After the emotional day they'd just had and the day and a bit before that where they couldn't express their feelings towards one another even this discretely it was just what they needed.
Their moment of silence was interrupted as Luminara came out of the stairwell behind them, moving towards them with an exhausted but pleased smile on her face. "We made a lot of progress today thanks to you two and Master Fay. I, I must confess I had feared we would lose all of the progress we had made, even that which master Yoda made on the first day when I first felt her start to lash out. Thank you."
Shaak smiled faintly at her friend, knowing that was almost effusive praise coming from the other Jedi. "You're welcome Lumi."
The green-skinned Miralian winced, shaking her head. "You know I hate that nickname, I haven't been called that since I was a youngling."
"I know." Shaak replied, smiling somewhat impishly. "I'm trying to add teasing into my repertoire, do you like it?"
"Not really, no." Luminara shook her head, looking at Ranma speculatively. "You seem to have rubbed off on my old friend in many ways. I just hope that rubbing was merely mental rather than physical."
As a dedicated Healer, Luminara worked in hospitals often, and if there was a legal establishment where dirty jokes were more prevalent she had no idea what it could be. Not, it must be said, that Luminara actually understood or could picture what her joke implied, just that she had heard similar jokes before and wanted to get back at Shaak for the 'Lumi' crack.
Unfortunately for Luminara her return jab didn't strike home simply because neither of her listeners understood the innuendo for a few moments, simply looking at her quizzically. Ranma eventually got it and flushed, looking away, but the moment had passed and Luminara moved on. "In any event, I wanted to ask you two if you would be willing to help Aayla in the future."
"You mean taking her with us on some of my explorations? You realize I ain't a Jedi right, I'm not going to be assigned to missions or anything like that, I'll be choosing where I go from here on." Ranma said, before looking at Shaak, his eyes worried.
Shaak merely smiled, squeezing his hand in response. "My long term mission hasn't changed Ranma, I am still assigned to learn from you and try to keep you out of trouble." Her purple lips shifted from a smile into a smirk. "Although that should be 'try to minimize the trouble he gets into, will cause, or stumble over', really. Regardless I doubt my time with you will be peaceful."
"What is this thing you call peaceful?" Ranma asked, cocking his head quizzically, but he laughed looking into Shaak's eyes and suddenly Luminara felt she was very much an outsider witnessing a private moment. "Besides, would you have it any other way?"
"In the main no, but perhaps a few more quiet moments would be nice. Don't you think?" Shaak replied, her smirk turning into a far more tender smile as she squeezed Ranma's hand again.
"Yes, well," Luminara interrupted, somehow embarrassed, having felt the affection the two of them held towards one another in the Force. After the day she had just had, she knew dealing with the emotions of these two on top of what she had faced was impacting her habitual control. She wasn't one of the many Jedi who believed they needed to push away or ignore their emotions but even so…
"Going back to the original subject, I don't think that's a problem Ranma. As a friend of the Order, you've proven yourself at least four times over, and Aayla seems able to trust you, look at how she responded to your changing forms. If it had been any other man in that room we might well have faced another backlash. That is why I think being around you both would be good for her."
Shaak and Ranma both nodded, and Shaak replied for them both. "That is fine with us, simply get in touch with us when you think Aayla will be ready to leave your care. We will however be heading to Corellia after this, and I somehow doubt Corellia is the very first planet she should be reintroduced too after her ordeal."
"How long before you leave?" Luminara asked, moving closer to her friend and sitting down on her other side. "And what in the Force could make you go to Corellia? The Green Jedi are not like the rest of us after all."
Ranma blinked at that, and looked at Shaak who shook her head, indicating ignorance. He shrugged in return before replying to Luminara. "We have a holocron to drop off to its descendent, Master Yoda's already given his permission for it. And we also want to get HK a body, which means heading to a world that can build his parts special order. Kashyyyk has no droid industry."
"As for how long we'll be here, I'm setting up a training room for one of my techniques, and I'll want both of us to go through it several times at the very least. I also want to build my lightsaber staff, or whatever you want to call it. Should be interesting to see what kind of color comes out of the pearl I got from that Krayt dragon."
"You can use a pearl in a lightsaber?" Shaak asked.
"Master Yoda told me it might work, so we'll see. In terms of time though Lumi, 'snort', I would say at least two weeks or so." Ranma said smirking for a moment before falling silent as he noticed Luminara didn't respond to his dig. "Um, is there something on my face?"
Luminara was in fact staring at Ranma's lips, remembering what Shaak had said about kissing him. "Oh, no nothing like that, just remembering something I was told…"
"Ahem." Shaak said, feeling that odd mix of fear, anger and possessiveness she had labeled jealousy on Naboo. Luminara blinked, looking away, promising herself she would apologize for that to Shaak later and not really realizing why. Maybe it was Shaak telling me how it felt, or seeing Ranma with Aayla earlier that has made me wonder these things. But no, I am a Jedi, and unlike Shaak, I have no desire to change. Not really anyway, just inquisitiveness, and perhaps I am being effected by the feel of the Force around these two.
Do you mind if I join you young ones?" Said a female voice behind the trio. They all turned standing up and bowing respectfully to master Fay, even Ranma as she moved towards them from the stairwell.
"Master Fay," murmured Luminara, as she and Shaak retained their bows to the legendary Jedi master. "It is an honor to meet you. Your deeds are legendary among the Order. I would have tried to talk to you earlier but we were rather busy at the time."
"If understatement was enough to win elevation you would have just earned Master Yoda's position." Fay smiled, shaking her head. "Oh do raise your heads, signs of genuine respect are appreciated, obsequiousness is not."
As the two knights obeyed her, Fay took a moment to feel them out both with the Force and her own perceptions. Luminara Unduli was interesting, grounded physically and within the Force to a degree that told Fay she was one who would be ready to become a master soon enough. There were the telltale signs of a Healer in her Force sense too, and the physical signs of one who took her lightsaber drills seriously, something which Fay recognized but did not adhere to herself.
Shaak Ti on the other hand was somewhat more attention grabbing than her friend. Where Luminara's Force sense was normal for a Jedi of her skills, Shaak's was not. Instead she radiated Living Force to a degree that would be surprising in any individual… if they weren't standing next to the massive pillar of Living Force that was Ranma. Good grief, he radiates like a sun to my senses! Shaak was also centered in the force, calm like a still, deep pool, an analogy which Yoda had told her was most apt for Shaak Ti.
But in her, you could tell there were emotions roiling underneath the surface, controlled but there adding to the colors and the depth of the pool without changing its nature, rather reinforcing it. And Shaak's body was the hyper-trained athletic sort that the best Guardians aspired to, with heavy callouses on the hands showing intense lightsaber work.
"I do not know how much you have been told about me young Ranma, do you mind if I use your given name?" When Ranma nodded Fay went on. "But I am not a master in the traditional sense as the Order sees it. I refuse to conform to the overarching organization of the Order or take a padawan, and was not raised to master status by raising a padawan to knighthood as most do, rather by acclaim. I do not take assigned missions, rather going where the Force wills me. And I have been doing so for more than seven centuries now."
"Centuries?" Ranma asked then laughed. "Please, you don't look a day over thirty, thirty-five at worst!"
Fay laughed quietly, bringing one hand up to touch one of her ears, which twitched as she touched it. "Suffice to say I am much older than I look." She sat down easily, gesturing the three to do the same, before going on. "But that is not the most important thing I just told you. I go where the Force wills me. That is why I am here, not just because since you came into this universe you've made reading the eddies of the Force incredibly difficult, but because the Force wants me here. It wants me here, I think, to speak to you."
Ranma fell silent, looking over at Shaak for a moment, then to Luminara and back to Fay. "I don't understand. Why would the Force send you to me? I mean, I understand I have this weird effect on you Jedi and your ability to see the future, even the chi, er, the Unifying Force in general. But what could you tell me that the other Jedi already here couldn't? No offense meant. And I haven't even decided yet if I want to reach out to the Unifying Force anyway."
"None taken. But many Jedi are not as open to different ways of doing things as they should be." Fay paused, her eyes lighting on Luminara and Shaak, her lips curving into a warm smile. "Though there do seem to be a few here that would be. As to you not wanting to reach out to the Unifying Force as you put it, that is your prerogative, but why do you think the reverse would be true?"
"Excuse me?" Ranma asked, blinking in incomprehension. Shaak however was smiling in a way that made Fay think maybe the girl had been having thoughts in that direction already. "What do you mean by that?"
"I think the fact you are here, in this universe that is, at all is a sign of the Force wanting you here. I think that the Force will guide you to do what it wants you to do, what it feels you can do." Fay watched as Ranma's eyes narrowed, but went on calmly. "Please do not mistake me. The Force is not some omniscient being, not a god directing our path as it will regardless of our feelings. It will never ask more of us than we can give, nor will it make us do something we would not. Instead it helps us become all we can be."
"I think that is the saddest thing about those who fall to the Dark Side, to reaching out only with anger, hate or fear in their hearts." Fay mused, seeming to go off onto a tangent. "They always think they control the Force, rather than being part of it, and in return, they only get out the feelings they put into their connection rather than the whole."
Ranma looked at her then nodded slowly. "I realize you think that, and I know Shaak thinks something similar. But all you Jedi are trained to let the Force guide your actions. I will give of myself freely, but I won't allow myself to be controlled like that. To a martial artist, allowing someone else, something to control me like that is a very hard concept."
Fay was silent for a moment and the two Jedi knights did the same, allowing her to reply. And when she did, her words were a scalpel, cutting into Ranma so swiftly it was almost painless. "I understand. You were trained in a very different school, one which has given you strengths and talents we do not have. But you in turn fear that which you do not understand, and that fear is holding you back."
Ranma jerked backwards and was about to respond angrily at the very idea he was afraid of anything, but then he sighed, deflating. "Maybe a little," he confessed, something that would have astonished any of his old acquaintances back in Nerima. "It's a daunting concept, that this Unifying Force wanted me here, has a mission it wants me to do."
"Say rather that it will show you possibilities, what you do with that information, your actions, are still your own." Fay replied, shaking her head. "Let go of the idea that the Force will try to control you Ranma, you said it before: you will give of yourself freely. Trust that that love, and yes, it is love, you love the martial arts, you love the use of ki, and therefore you love the Force, will be returned."
Again Ranma was shaken by what the old, and after this discussion he had no trouble believing she really was old, said. Then he laughed, shaking his head. "How the hell do you know that?"
"Yoda did give me a hint, he apparently has seen you in action. And I do have many years of seeing into the hearts of beings I interact with. You are not the hardest person to read I've ever dealt with, believe me. So, will you let me help you reach out to the Force as we Jedi can?"
"We'll see." Ranma said then frowned. "You know, you're the first Jedi I've seen who doesn't even carry a lightsaber. Why's that?"
"I have no need of it." Fay replied simply. "I rarely engage in combat, and when I do, I have other powers to use. The lightsaber has become a symbol of the Jedi Order, but a symbol is not the thing itself. We are stronger for not relying on such a device, either in combat or as a sign of our authority.
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Nice sentiment, but what happens when you run into people your Jedi mind tricks won't work on? What happens when you have nothing to throw with your powers, when you're pinned down from a distance by blasters? Can you turn aside their plasma bolts? I get why you think the lightsaber isn't necessary, and even that you obviously have been able to get by without it, but don't make the mistake of limiting yourself because you're trying to make a point or something."
"Perhaps in these dark times, I may need to revisit that idea, but the lightsaber will never be my first choice." Fay replied diplomatically, unwilling to concede Ranma's point, though she realized she was being hypocritical after pressing him on his own stance about the Force, and Ranma knew it judging by the smirk he was now wearing. "…I still have my old lightsaber somewhere on my ship, I'll see what I can do about retraining myself on it, but only if you agree to let me walk you through reaching out to the Force."
"Agreed." Ranma said promptly, and Fay chuckled, shaking her head at the other boy.
"Things we can still learn, we all have, yes, hmm?" said Master Yoda's voice out of the darkness. If they hadn't been Jedi Luminara and Shaak would have jumped out of their skin as the diminutive Grand Master appeared beside them all without having announced his presence. As it was both woman's eyes widened in surprise, and they took a slight step back from him, bowing their heads respectfully.
Ranma wasn't a Jedi, and hadn't sensed anyone else nearby with his sixth sense, which was not quite the same as a Jedi's senses either. "GAHH!" He shouted in shock, leaping a foot into the air, kicking out automatically. "Damn it you little, don't sneak up on me like that!"
However Yoda ducked under the kick swiftly, absently noting Ranma had put quite a bit of power behind that blow. His glimmer stick lashed out, smashing into Ranma's pivot leg right behind the knee, dumping the boy onto the roof.
And, to Yoda's shock, breaking his steel-reinforced glimmer stick. "Hrhrhrm, before I met you replace my glimmer stick in over four hundred years I had not. Gone through three of them in less than a year, I now have." Yoda grumbled, still staring at the steel reinforced stick he held, it's top half missing, showing the pipe of metal which had been covered by a thin layer of wood. He'd come out here to thank Ranma once more for his help, and to possibly twit the boy slightly so he didn't grow a big head, but while it had worked, it had cost Yoda somewhat.
"Ow," Ranma muttered, sitting up as Shaak laughed and Luminara and Fay looked on, even Luminara who had seen some of it before somewhat bemused at Ranma and Yoda's interactions. Ranma however ignored them, smirking at Yoda's broken glimmer stick. "Heh, serves you right you Keroro look-alike!" At Yoda and everyone else's blank stare, he sighed. "Nevermind."
OOOOOOO
"Ah, there's the newest knight of the Jedi Order!" caroled a female voice, light and airy almost with a hint of laughter to it at present. "Better late than never anyway, right Obi?"
Obi Wan turned, smiling at his friend, Siri Tachi. "Just because the trip took longer does not mean the journey was any less important Knight Tachi." He watched her roll her eyes even as they clasped hands, and his smile softened slightly. "How are you doing?"
"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" The other knight asked, frowning as she looked him up and down. Siri Tachi was a somewhat taller than average human woman, with short cropped blond hair and light blue eyes, eyes which softened as they looked at Obi now. "I'm not the one who not only just went through the trials but faced a Dark Side user in single combat after that same Dark Side user had slain several other knights and even Master Piell."
"The trials were difficult I must admit. Thankfully they waived the Trials of Skill, Courage, and Flesh in my case given the events on Naboo and Tatooine, though I volunteered to take them anyway they did not see a need for it. Facing the Mirror and the Trial of Perception were not what I expected." Obi Wan answered honestly. "I passed the perception aspect easily enough, but the Mirror, that… took me a while to overcome. I have to say I now know why many knights come out of the trials different. Having to face your most inner fears, your inner Darkness, is something that must perforce change someone."
The Trials for ascension to knighthood were different for every knight which took them. They tested different aspects of the Jedi's mindset and skill to see if he or she were ready to act alone with no one to guide their actions.
The Trial of Skill tested combat skills, as the Test of Courage tested a padawan's ability to face dangers not just in combat but any other situation. Both tests had slowly lost importance over the years since the New Sith Wars ended, and many padawans were attested to have completed them with the missions they had completed as a padawan. This was a sign of the decline of the Guardian and Sentinel sects in favor of the Consulars, but Master Windu and Master Yoda had begun to push for a more stringent test along with Yoda's many other ongoing reforms. It would be some time however before that had much impact however.
The Trial of Flesh was designed to test the prospective knight's ability to deal with hardship, loss and of course physical pain. Unlike the first two, this one was still seen as important even by Consulars, though many felt that the combination of the padawan bond being broken and their missions as a padawan could say to have accomplished it. If not, there were other ways to test the individual.
Obi Wan had passed this test thanks to his being able to ignore the pain of his body in his fight against the Dark Side user on Naboo, pushing himself well beyond his body's ability to go through sheer force of will. That and having his leg cut off, though they had been able to reattach it. His bond with Master Qui-Gon had already been badly frayed around the edges, which coupled with the distance between them physically meant Obi hadn't felt anything when one of the masters present broke the remnants of the Force connection.
But the Trials of Spirit and Perception tested your mental abilities. For these, no mission or past experience sufficed, they had to be tested and passed before one could become a Jedi Knight. The Trial of Perception was designed to test if the tested could perceive what is real from what is illusion, solve problems by perceiving the world around them through the Force or their own senses.
The Trial of Spirit, or Facing the Mirror, forced the tested to dive deep into himself and face his greatest, most hidden thoughts and fears. The padawan dove so deeply that there was a real danger of his never finding his way back out, which was why a master was always present to help him return to the land of the material.
In Obi Wan's case, Facing the Mirror had been by far the worst test. He had proven his Perception by discerning what reports were real and which ones had been tampered with in a made up trial situation designed by the four most learned Republic law masters in the Order, a test that had flummoxed more than a few padawans. The Mirror however had forced him to face his greatest fear.
It hadn't been what he'd expected. Not the Dark Side user standing over the bodies of his friends and those he had hoped to protect, nor any kind of combat at all. No, he had faced the fear of what could have been, what he would have become if he had turned aside from the Jedi Order at different points in his life. The images tried to undermine his faith in his own abilities, his faith in the Order and his place in it. They had not succeeded, but it had been a near run thing.
And even if they had not succeeded, facing those choices again had changed Obi's perception of them. "The world, the Force is not nearly as black and white as I thought a bare year ago, nor my duties so all-encompassing." He said aloud, eliciting a startled 'hmm' noise from his friend. He shook his head, smiling at her, and something in his face nearly caused Siri to gasp. "Nevermind. I, I would like to talk to you at some point however."
Somewhat flustered by what she had seen in her friend's face Siri nodded. "I'd like that Obi, but for now, I think we need to meet up with whoever we're working with on this mission." The two knights remained silent as they moved down the corridor, but even as they did, the two snuck glances at one another, and there were faint smiles on their faces even so.
OOOOOOO
The next day, Ranma and a team of Wookies began work on the Wild Light, to open up the bathroom's floor in order to get at the water tanks. It wasn't easy, Mon Calamari ships were not made to be taken apart like this, all of their parts worked and fit together almost artistically which made them all work better, but repairing or redoing an area of the system was much harder and time consuming.
Besides the difficulty of even getting to the water tanks there were of course some design issues. First they had to open it up and put in the layer of wood Ranma had ordered, which had nearly caused the team of Wookies Ranma had hired for the project to attack him.
Since Shaak was busy with Aayla and Luminara that first afternoon, Kit had volunteered to help translate for Ranma. The Wookies had listened intently to what Ranma had asked them to do, looking at the 3-D representation of the Wild Light's schematics, which Ranma had Tune project into the center of the group. But when he said they were going to add a layer of wroshyr wood to the tank, they began to roar and shout angrily, one of them going so far as to reach over to thump Ranma in the chest.
That the Wookie looked surprised when the blow didn't even rock the pigtailed human amused Ranma, but he looked over at Kit for an explanation. Kit nodded seriously at the group of Wookies, then waved his hand for silence before turning to Ranma. "You see my friend, wroshyr wood is very important to Wookies, part of their culture. Using it to coat a water tank, a perfectly acceptable water tank, with no reason strikes them as insulting. And you really don't want to insult Wookies, they tend to rip off limbs for that kind of thing."
Ranma chuckled then held up the small decorative box of wood that Shaak had given him to experiment with. "Well then, I invite one of them to reach inside this."
One of the nearest Wookies did so, snarling at Ranma right up until he had put his hand entirely into the box and not felt the edges. His snarl turned into a confused frown when he kept on pushing his arm into the small box. Around him the other Wookies stared in shock as their friend's arm disappeared into a space that should have had trouble containing his hand.
"This is a bit of a Force trick," Ranma said, lying slightly. "I'm the only one who can do it so far, but that might change eventually. For now though, I think one of the best ways to use this power is to have a nigh on unlimited water supply. Sonic showers suck, end of story."
The Wookie who had taken up Ranma's little challenge pulled his arm out, looking at Ranma thoughtfully, then tapped a dew claw on a pouch at his utility belt, growling at Kit but Ranma didn't need any translation. "Sorry, I wish I could give you your own pouch of holding or something like that, but I can't. The material might be an issue, I can't do something like this with metal, and stone might be impossible too. But the main problem is that the, call it the charge I suppose, fades after time without direct skin on object contact and I'm the only one at this point who can charge them. That's a problem we'll need to look into solving as we work on this."
The Wookie looked a little put out by that, but eventually nodded and the team got to work planning out the job.
Over the next few days Ranma ran a few experiments with ki spaces late at night. Trying to conduct ki through metal into the wood simply didn't work, the metal drained the entire charge, it did not conduct it. It could conduct from metal to metal, like a sheet of metal to a screw or bolt, but even there it would lose some of the charge. And it simply didn't seem to go from one medium to another.
Electrical signals and electricity wouldn't work across from a ki space to the world at large either. Ranma had a robot stick his arm into the box, and after dealing with a blow to his logic centers, the droid had reported being unable to communicate with his arm or even feel it at all.
Ranma had even wondered what it would be like for a person, having become curious thanks to the intense cold of the water from his experimental box. He could only stand it a few second before pulling his head out shuddering. It was cold, black, no noise, no feeling. It was simply a void, and one of the weirdest experiences Ranma had ever felt. That put paid to his daydream of adding a layer of wroshyr wood to the living quarters in the Wild Light.
At the same time Shaak worked with Luminara and Aayla, while also taking the time to help train the youngling when she could. Shaak no longer thought that her path led to teaching, but it was still fun to work with the little ones.
But of course, not even a normal day could go by without some Ranma type chaos occurring. The first example of this happened on the second day of their stay on Kashyyyk at lunch time in the Jedi temple. Ranma walked to an empty bench, carrying in one hand a large heavily piled tray of food from the Jedi Commissary and had only just set it down when he was interrupted. "Are you the one that has that strange Force curse thing?"
Ranma looked down and saw a maybe seven-year-old girl looking up at him, her light orange skin and tiny montrals marking her out as a Togrutan. Ranma didn't realize it at the time, but this was the same young Togrutan that had caught Shaak's attention when they had arrived at the temple for the first time. She was dressed as all youngling's were in simple white shirt and pants with a belt of rope around the middle, and she was staring up at him with eyes that showed a distinct level of intelligence at odds with her age.
That was normal Ranma knew having talked to Shaak about training as a youngling. They tended to emphasize the mental aspect at first, making the younglings far more intelligent and far more dexterous then anyone their age would be normally.
"That's me," Ranma said cheerfully leaning down towards her. "Unless you know anyone else with a Force curse." Ranma was getting better at actually calling it that, figuring that trying to explain the reality of his curse was just far too much trouble than it was worth.
The girl nodded thoughtfully, then reached forward and threw a small glass of water she had been holding into his face. She blinked in shock as she watched the change, then giggled aloud as the humorous Force splash hit her.
"Ahsoka Tano!" exclaimed someone else, pushing forwards from where she had been directing a line younglings, who had all laughed and giggled as the chuckling laughter of the Force hit them. "That was so disrespectful, I can't believe you, that will be a punishment detail for you young lady."
"Now, now," Ranma said, pushing her wet hair out of her face for a moment looking at the attendant. She was a middle-aged human woman, sort of dumpy looking, the first somewhat overweight Jedi he'd yet seen. She gave off a sort of grandmotherly air, but she was the strict grandmother rather than the friendly type, as evidenced by the grip she had on the girls shoulder. "She's just being inquisitive. Besides, what would this punishment detail actually consist of?"
"Standing and holding a tray packed with a pyramid made of round pebbles while meditating for two hours. I have to keep the pyramid still, if a single pebble moves, I have to add another hour." The girl said in a flat droning sort of tone. Evidently it would not be the first time she was given punishment detail.
"Sounds tough," Ranma commiserated, reaching into her ki space for a moment and searching around. "Really have to figure out a way to organize this thing without it taking so much energy," she muttered, sticking her full arm up to her elbow into the pocket, ignoring the gasps of many of the others in the cafeteria. The older Jedi there frowned, trying to follow the threads of Living Force they could sense, but few could make out more than that something was happening, nearly blind from the activity happening on Ranma's person, which as always glowed to their senses like a nova of Living Force.
"Heavy blaster, book, some kind of data slate, water bottle with a warming tab I love that thing, feels like a wrapper of some kind, ah paint brush and it should be nearby by this point, yep there it is" he said pulling a small container of paint out. It was one of the smaller ones that Shaak had bought to use on the interior of the ship, and the only one she hadn't used completely. He had grabbed it when they were cleaning up prior to landing, and hadn't actually gotten rid of it yet.
Before Ahsoka could react to a sudden sense of danger she got through the Force, Ranma had opened the top, flicked the brush in, and then swished the brush over her face several times, drawing a design there. She gasped stepping away quickly, and Ranma smirked the two items disappearing back into his ki space. "Now were even," he said looking over at the suddenly even more aghast teacher.
Ahsoka grimaced putting her hand up to try to wipe at the paint, but this was paint designed to be used in the interior of spaceships, it dried within milliseconds and she couldn't get it off. Scowling at Ranma she raced over to a window and used it to look at herself. The marks worked with her normal white markings, making her look as if all the white patches were interlocked together, and her mouth formed into a frown.
"Rule number one of pranking someone kiddo," Ranma called after her, sitting down languidly to her meal. "Never prank someone unless you can afford to be pranked in turn."
The rest of the younglings in the cafeteria laughed, and even a few Jedi assayed small chuckles as Shaak came into the room looking around for Ranma and finding him, currently her, quickly. She shook her head as she took in the scene, the little one she was interested in glaring at him with obviously painted on marks, and Ranma in female form. Yes, I think I can safely say what happened here.
Sitting down next to Ranma she shook her head. "Was that really necessary?"
"I'm not much of a punishment person, but on the other hand, escalation, yeah that I'm pretty good at." Ranma said with a laugh.
Neither of them noticed Anakin move over from his more advanced class to tap Ahsoka on the shoulder as she made to move back towards Ranma with fell intent. A whispered conference later in and Anakin was moving away before the attendant assigned to Ahsoka and the other youngest group of youngling could once again corral her. But Ahsoka's frown had disappeared replaced by a small smile.
Little did Ranma realize it at the time, but the younglings all got a big kick out feeling his change's effect on the Force. It was new, unusual and it was above all a funny feeling. Most of their training wasn't actually fun, some was of course, but not all, and the feeling of laughter they got through the Force was almost contagious. Because of this, Anakin was able to rally some of them in a series of attempted ambushes over the next few days despite all their minders could do to stop it.
Most of them didn't work but some of them did, especially after Anakin decide they needed to augment their arsenal…
Ranma met up with Shaak outside of her room that morning as he had the morning before, holding out his hand to her and squeezing her hand lightly. Shaak smiled at him warmly and the two of them moved away from one another slightly and began to walk through the corridors of the Temple up towards the observation deck on the roof.
They remained silent as they walked, not wishing to break the stillness of the dawn just yet. Eventually they stood on the roof, staring out through the canopy of leaves as the sun rose high above them, changing the dark green of the verdant forest into a lighter shade, interspersed with pink and orange where the sunlight got through the topmost canopy of leaves.
"This is a beautiful planet," Ranma said softly, reaching out to touch Shaak's hand, feeling her fingers curl around his in turn. In the Temple, this light touch was all they would allow themselves. They had discussed it and decided they didn't need to rub their relationship or rather their ability to have one without Shaak being kicked out of the Order in anyone's faces. In a way Ranma thought that might actually cheapen their relationship somehow, and honestly the Order was having enough trouble with all the changes lately he felt no need to add to them.
"Yes it is," Shaak replied, smiling as she nudged her shoulder against his. They moved away slightly after that, but their hands were still inclined as they stared out over the vista. "You're still not bothered by the amount of time I'm spending with the Luminara and Aayla? I understand its normal for people in relationships to spend as much time as possible with each other."
Shaak would admit to feeling something like anxiety given how little time they had to be alone like this. Though thankfully the spike of jealousy she had felt when she noticed Luminara staring at Ranma's lips hadn't returned.
"I've never been normal, so I don't think we should worry ourselves about what normal couples do." Ranma laughed. "Besides, I told you once before just because we're in a relationship doesn't mean I'm going to demand you change how you act or how you go about performing your duties as a Jedi. Frankly, your dedication to the Order and to your friends is one of the things that attracted me to you."
Shaak flushed at that, smiling a small warm smile for a moment, then her lips quirked. "Really, I thought it was just because you wanted to touch my lekku."
Ranma blinked, turning away from the vista to look at her and realizing she was teasing him decided to respond in kind. "That's not all I want to touch…" They both blushed at that and he shook his head. "Um, too much?"
"M, maybe a little." Shaak said then laughed and Ranma laughed to and the awkward moment passed quickly. It was true of course, but both of them had subconsciously decided to take this relationship slow if at all possible. Shaak was taking it slow because everything about being in a relationship but the 'clinical knowledge' was new to her. Ranma was taking it slow for that much the same reason, and the fact that he been burned once already.
"So what you want to do this morning?" Shaak asked changing the subject slightly.
"I'd like to go exploring the upper reaches, move away from the city for a bit, see how this level of the ecosystem works. If that's alright with you?"
"And the fact that it will allow us both to jump around like a pair of monkeighs is obviously part of the appeal." Shaak replied drolly.
"Yep," Ranma said with a chirp, chuckling aloud. "Oh, I also spotted this small eatery in town that apparently has human food. Considering we're going to go to a mostly human planet next, I figured that it might be a good idea get me used to what is called human food around here other than steak."
"I don't think there is a so-called normal human food except maybe base ingredients such as rice or wheat Ranma, and even those can taste very, very different from one planet to another. Still, it sounds like a good idea. Though part of me wants to see what we could hunt up ourselves."
"That's a good idea too. If we run into anything that decides it likes the taste of human or Togrutan I'm perfectly happy with the idea of eating it in turn."
"Poetic justice at its most base," Shaak said with a laugh, and the two of them turned, moving through the now waking Temple nodding at the night shift guards who patrolled the Temple even on Kashyyyk. Though there were only two of them here unlike the five that watched the temple on Coruscant as the rest of the temple began to wake.
They were nearly down to the bottom entrance level when Shaak frowned, looking around them thoughtfully. "Ranma, we seem…"
Then it was too late, and several small youngling's popped out of a few of their dormitories they had passed holding small, primitive but working water guns, squirting them quickly in Ranma's direction. Anakin was in the lead, both his hands holding water guns of somewhat better quality than the rest as he dual shot them at Ranma.
Ranma quickly responded ducking and dodging this way and that, but couldn't dodge them all he was so surprised.
So prank intent doesn't trigger my danger sense, she mused as she wiped her now wet face. Interesting and somewhat good to know I suppose. She glared at Anakin and the other younglings. "You realize I am going to get you back for this?"
Anakin shrugged his shoulders. "My minders decided that I'd still be punished for running off, despite the Dark Woman telling them she'd already seen to my punishment. I figured I might as well do something to deserve it."
"Can't argue with that reasoning," Ranma said with a laugh, ruffling his hair before grinding his knuckles into his head a little. "But I will get you back anyway."
Shaak however had turned to the other younglings, a wide smile on her face as she shook her head. "I think that all of you will be punished for this little escapade, I also don't think it will stop you from doing it again. However, perhaps we should come up with some rules for this little war? I'll talk to your teachers about it."
Then she turned to Anakin with a faint frown. "They are not your minders Anakin," she said firmly. "They are your teachers. Just because you have an excellent connection to the Force does not mean you have nothing to learn. You will treat them with respect, is that clear?"
Anakin nodded contritely, though he was still somewhat miffed about having been given punishment detail despite the Dark Woman's words and Ranma running him into the ground while they were on Naboo more than once. Several days later and he was still sore in places from that.
"For now," Ranma said as he moved off. "I think I'm going to go and change back to my male form, I doubt," he said quietly to Shaak, "that you want to be together with me in this form."
Shaak followed him as they left the younglings and the teachers of said arrived on the scene, waving at them as they passed. The younglings made no attempt to escape the scene, most of them knowing they would be punished for this but having thought it would be interesting anyway, and the feeling of Ranma's change had certainly been enough to pay them back for it.
As they rounded the corner however Shaak's hand snaked out grasping Ranma's wrist, noting once again that Ranma was much smaller in this form than his male form, even her wrists were tinier. But she had seen his female form punch out creatures there were far stronger and taller than she was. Looks truly can be deceiving. "I thought I'd proven on the trip to Naboo that I didn't have a problem with this form Ranma," she said softly. "You don't have to change back on my account."
Ranma turned staring at her, then nodded slowly and the two of them left the temple heading out for a day of exploration. "Sorry, I just, got a thing about my other form, so I'll probably need to be reminded of that a time or two."
It turned out that some animals even on the top level of Kashyyyk's multi-level ecosystem had not gotten the memo about what not to attack. A large avian creature that looked like a cross between a lizard and a bird attempted to eat them as they were heading back from exploring, but was dealt with easily.
"I wonder if it will taste like chicken," Ranma mused as she stared down at the corpse, scratching at one side of her face.
"Possibly." Shaak said with a shrug. "Many avians do."
"Wait, you know what a chicken is?"
"Of course Ranma," Shaak said cocking her head to one side. "Many human planets have that animal, though admittedly sometimes what they call a chicken does not match the picture in the Republic Bestiary."
Cooking the beast took some time, but thankfully it's feathers came out easily and cleanly and Ranma had a small fire going quickly. He watched it closely, knowing that despite the layers of dirt under his feet they were still on a admittedly large branch of wood. It was smaller than most wroshyr branches even at this angle but still able to support both of them and their kill with no apparent effort.
The two of them snuggled against one another leaning back against the upward rising branch behind them, Ranma's arm around Shaak's waste and Shaak's arm around the shorter girl's shoulders. "This is nice," Ranma said, leaning her head against Shaak shoulder. "Somehow I doubt that little restaurant I found would be quite as nice frankly."
"It certainly would not have been as comfortable," Shaak said, speaking about how close they could sit here and cuddle without anyone else around. She was still rather leery about showing much affection in public, not just in the temple, but she hoped that would come in time.
"Yep," Ranma said, "especially since in public, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing this." With that Ranma leaned up kissing Shaak, tracing along one of her lekku where one of her stripes of blue met the white, then moving upward, pulling back to stare into Shaak's mesmerizing eyes.
Shaak closed the distance, and the two women kissed slowly, deeply. Thanks to the Dark Woman's repressive presence they hadn't been able to do that on the trip back to Kashyyyk, nor had they been able to spend much time together since arriving thanks to everything else they were doing. This might be why the kiss slowly began to get out of control.
Ranma pushed Shaak lightly backwards further against the trunk as she moved rolling her body so that she sat on Shaak's lap, her legs to the side of either of Shaak's own. Shaak moaned, her hands rising to clutch Ranma's hair, causing her to squeak a little into the kiss, before she disengaged pulling Ranma slightly back and away from her.
They stared into one another's eyes, then began to kiss lightly, not deepening it again just for now. Then they began to hear a chittering noise, and Ranma moved off of Shaak's lap turning to stare across the fire towards where the sound was coming from,.
Several small animals had invaded their tiny campsite, the otter-like arboreal creatures that Ranma had spotted from the sky on their first trip to this planet. They were gambling and cavorting around, flipping up and over smaller branches, to land lightly against one another, as they stared at the food and the remnants of the dead bird from the other side of the fire. One of them poked its head up out of the small posse, staring at the two aliens.
Ranma shrugged, waved a few fingers in the air. "Have fun guys, we weren't going to eat it all."
The creature couldn't understand his words of course, but the tone apparently came through. The little creatures quickly began to tear the carcass into pieces, biting through even bone and digesting it with ease.
Shaak chuckled, her face still flushed from their kisses, and pulled on Ranma's hair lightly to get her attention again. This times it was Shaak's turn to lead and she turned them both, leaning over Ranma, pushing her back in turn. They didn't kiss for as long that time, but it still sent a shiver down Shaak's spine and she pulled away reluctantly, shaking her head. "This relationship concept is rather intoxicating." she confessed.
Ranma nodded, staring up at Shaak as she moved away. That was fun, weird but fun. It didn't feel like it did as a guy, he couldn't say it felt strange or anything like that, it just felt different kissing Shaak in his female form. Just as good, but different. He couldn't describe it better than that. "I completely agree," she murmured, sitting up. Putting one arm around Shaak again she leaned forward for the food with the other, pulling off a piece of the bird and holding it out to Shaak, who nipped it out of Ranma's fingers with her sharp carnivores teeth with a playful smile.
Once again keeping a distance from one another, though it was admittedly somewhat harder at that moment then it had been when they left the duo returned to the temple mid-morning. Inside the main hall they were met by Master Yoda and a few of the other teachers. Yoda chuckled as he saw them, his glimmer stick towards them.
"You've already got a new one?" Ranma said cheerfully, once again in his male form thanks to a brief stop and his favorite bit of tech, the water bottle with the heat tab built into its bottom. "What's this one reinforced with?"
"Solid steel, not pipe this time, it is." The diminutive alien replied, shaking it up towards Ranma's face. "Coated it with a wood veneer for the feel of it, have I, but not the same it is. One metal stick to hit you with, another for day to day use, I might have to keep."
"My heart bleeds," Ranma mocked.
"Was there something you wanted master?" Shaak asked before the two of them could continue their little act. And it was an act Shaak was certain now. Both of them seemed to get a kick out of it, and she felt Ranma truly did respect Yoda and vice-versa, which was the most important thing to her.
"You two were ambushed by some of our students," said one of the teachers, an older wolf-like alien of the kind that Ranma had only seen once before though he couldn't remember what the race was called at the moment. "Forgive me," he said suddenly, bowing his head lightly. "My name is Rahhdool I am the head teacher at this temple. Except, of course for those times when Master Yoda decides to step in."
"A sign of my age and rank in the Order, can do so I can." Yoda replied mildly, ignoring the other master's put upon manner. "Talk about the younglings ambushing you, we would like to."
Ranma related the incident from their perspective, and Yoda nodded, a small smile on his lips. "Matches with what we've learned already it does. Able to stop the younglings from acting out in this manner, possible it might not be. Feel of your change, too amusing it is to them. Prefer instead to use this as a teaching moment, I would."
"Continue to allow them to ambush you so long as they use their Force powers to do it, we will. Your position in the Force, the youngest can sense to ambush you, working together through the Force. For the advanced students, your balance confusing or water towards you throwing, they can do."
"Sounds like fun," Ranma said with a nodded and a smile which Shaak shared, both of them nodding their heads towards Master Fay, who had appeared at one end of the hall and was obviously waiting for Ranma. "So long as they don't bother me when I am with Master Fay or Aayla that's fine by me. If they do that, I suggest ramping up the punishments threefold just to make them realize we're serious about it."
"Agreed," said Yoda, to the well-hidden shock, horror, and affront of the teachers.
One of them made bold to ask. "Master Yoda, this is completely outside any kind of real teaching, we might well see all of our classes and long term lesson plans disrupted with this kind of nonsense. Surely a regular lesson would be much more beneficial."
"We can stop the younglings from acting out through isolation mediation or assigning extra physical exercises," said another.
"Perhaps, yet perhaps not. And, so long as this hurts no one or get in the way of the running of the general temple, really doing any harm is it, hrmm? Ambushing Ranma on their free time they are after all, doing so during lessons they will not be. And, mold them into Jedi, our task is. Not, only through obedience and meditation can they understand the Force, convince them. Teachers we are, task masters at times, fonts of all wisdom we are not."
Yoda stared hard at the two teachers. While he had organized this temple, many of the appointments had not been to his liking, particularly in the teaching staff. He'd gotten his choice as the head teacher, master Rahhdool's latest padawan being raised to knighthood a bare few weeks before this project began. But the others had been appointed by the Council of Reassignment before Windu had begun to revamp its bureaucracy.
They were all Consulars, and like many had begun to subtly influence their students towards that sect. Nor did they seem to be able to roll with the punches as much as he could wish, and seemed to resent the various changes sweeping the Order as a whole and the curriculum they were forced to teach.
In particular they seemed to resent the emphasis on flexibility and finding their own way that Yoda had begun to teach, as well as his insistence that all advanced younglings be given more instruction in combat, particularly lightsaber vs. blaster style combat. That was a small wedge of what he was trying to do to prepare the Order for the dark times to come. But it was the one these masters had to deal with and they had not responded well to the change. They went along with it, but there was a difference between endorsing something and dragging your feet about it.
Yoda was in fact using this opportunity to nip that kind of thinking in the bud. He'd have had to create something else to do the same without Ranma and his curse, and not for the first time he thanked Ranma's chaotic nature and his ability to bring things to the fore.
"Agreed," Shaak said with a nod, smiling her serene smile at the teachers. "Do not worry, we can even change the actual attacks into a teaching moment, calling them together afterward, going over what they did wrong, how to reach out to the Force and control it better. Not all teaching should be in the classroom, or even the majority."
Many of the teachers still looked as if they wanted to argue, but Yoda's face had firmed, and his placid stare swept them all. In response they bowed their heads, and agreed.
Shaak and Ranma spent two weeks at the temple in this manner, with Ranma devoting most of his time not spent on these various projects learning from Master Fay to try to reach out to the Force to decide his course from here on. He still refused to use the Jedi powers, feeling they opened him up too much to the Force when he couldn't handle the flow of it and refusing to subsume himself to it as Jedi did. But he was willing to meditate occasionally as Fay had taught him, and had begun to get a sense of where his journey should go from Corellia.
He, Kit, and Shaak also all trained in the repulsor room, whose construction had finished a day after they had returned from Naboo. The toughening technique took hold quickly for both Shaak and Ranma, the Togrutan having built up her Living Force to a level that approached Shampoo's when Ranma had fled his old life. It was painful as hell, but the repulsors simply worked faster and better than the old style, though as Ranma remarked once it was not as fun to watch.
Kit on the other hand ran into problems. He hadn't had months of training with Ranma, and so hadn't built up his personal reservoir of Living Force. His body therefore could not adapt to the pressure put on it. But even he began to build up some more durability after about a week or so. Ranma cautioned him not to experiment with it until Ranma said it was okay, but it was a good sign for teaching other Jedi in a similar manner. But Living Force reserves were a must, which meant intense training regimens beyond even what Jedi were used to, even if you discounted the need to meditate on that internal reserve rather than the Force as a whole.
The pranks continued, with Ranma and Shaak both getting into the spirit of it. A few of the advanced teachers were dismissed and others added, who were able to follow the new curriculum with its emphasis on flexibility and combat skills Yoda had ordered. Many still questioned why, but not loudly, as the Veil of the Dark Side was now present in nearly every mind. Though many didn't want to admit it, the time was coming when fighting against that Dark would take a far more physical form than it had in centuries.
Shaak took the time to get to know Ahsoka, her decision to take her as padawan firming into a certainty as their bond began to form through the Force. That would be several years in the future of course. First choosing routinely happened at 12 or 13 and the girl was seven now. But five years down the line Shaak would be back for her, and made certain the girl knew it, and what Shaak expected of her. As a Togrutan herself, she could easily word her instructions to the girl to get her to flow them despite her slight antiauthoritarian attitude.
Every evening Ranma and Shaak would have a meal with Aayla and Luminara, after which Shaak remained with them for that evening's session and Ranma would work with Master Fay. These meals were fun and pleasant, with all of them sharing stories from growing up, and more than once Ranma's adventures had Aayla laughing aloud or Luminara biting her lips to keep from doing the same.
He learned more about Luminara, her time as a Jedi, and what the marks on her face meant. At first it was somewhat awkward at times, with Luminara staring at his lips occasionally, but that faded as they got to know one another. Luminara was most definitely more of a traditional Jedi than Shaak Ti had become, despite her brief interest in the romantic side of things.
She didn't believe in abstaining from emotions as the Oath demanded, she had seen too much as a Healer to believe that. But there was a big difference between that and embracing them on a day to day basis, as Shaak seemed to have, despite the amount of control she had over them.
The other aspect was that while she found Ranma physically interesting, Luminara didn't appreciate his wild nature as Shaak had come to and she had none of Shaak's own well-hidden wild nature. Luminara and Aayla on the other hand became close, with Luminara nearly always nearby working with her.
Aayla made a lot of progress during their stay, so much so Ranma began to stay in his male body for these meals and got to know the Rutian Twi'lek more now that she was healing and no longer pretending nothing was wrong as she had on the trip from Tatooine. Her stories about Ryloth and how slavery was so common there made his blood boil, but her stories about the missions she and her former master went on gave him a much better opinion of Quinlan Vos than he had before. Some even had him laughing nearly as much as his own had Aayla, and when he did her face lit up with a grin that made her hardships seem to fade away.
When informed of the decision to separate the two of them, Aayla had been rather saddened but not angry after hearing how he had nearly struck down fellow Jedi. Especially not when informed of how she would be assigned to Knight Ti after Luminara had cleared her. She was eager to learn Ranma's techniques, and spend time with both of them going forward.
At the same time, Fay was able to walk him through reaching out to the Force for brief spurts of time while he entered what he called his kata trance, getting so far into going through some of his katas that he actually entered a trance-like state, but not like a Jedi's. During that he could reach out to the Force, to the skein of the future and present, without being immediately being overwhelmed as he had on Dac.
But other than some vague images and a sense of welcome, Ranma couldn't interpret what he was seeing, and Fay couldn't see the same visions as he could. Even so, that seemed to be enough for now, and the sense of urgency Fay had felt before coming to Kashyyyk faded, slowly replaced by the feeling it was time to move on.
The work on the Wild Light's interior finished in around thirteen days. The bit of wood that Ranma would have to touch to charge the ki space inside the water tanks stuck out of the shower's floor, which all of the workers felt was the best way to do it.
Late one evening two weeks into his stay on Kashyyyk Ranma and Kit were talking about that, as they walked from one of the training areas back to the temple proper and Kit asked "How long do you think it would take for me to get up to that point?"
"I think you probably already are if I'm honest," Ranma said with a chuckle. "There are some things you Jedi seem to pick up a lot quicker than I did when I was first learning how to harness ki. Projecting your ki should be relatively simple once you have enough of it. But it's got to be Living Force, not Unifying. Unifying Force just shatters the wood for some reason."
Ranma had experimented with that too with Master Fay. While Fay could control the flow of Unifying Force into her piece of wood the results were very odd. Instead of creating a ki space, the wood seemed to somehow transform the Unifying force, becoming almost alive, with small buds of growth appearing. When Ranma tried, he couldn't control the flow, and the influx was too much for the wood to handle, shattering it in an explosion of wooden shrapnel. Neither had any idea why that was, though Fay had been intrigued by her result.
"You do know that eventually you're going to have to sit down and figure out all of the differences between using the Living Force and Unifying Force, correct?" Kit asked. "I know you began to meditate on the unifying Force, and it's a good start but there are still so many unanswered questions about why some of your techniques work so well sometimes and others fail."
"I know," Ranma replied sighing. "But that's not my thing, y'know. I'm not scientific about what I do. I'll learn through trial and error but come up with reasons about what so and so doesn't work, blech."
Kit rolled his eyes at his friend before stopping him momentarily his face going serious after second. "Thank you," he said, not for the first time. "Without your training, I would not have faced off against Clown Face as well as I did. And without you, Aayla would still be…" he cut off shaking his head. Aayla had begun to spend a few hours a day out in the rest of the temple, she was still leery of letting any man within arm's reach, but she was getting better over time.
"You're welcome," Ranma said with a smile. "I'd like to say I only did what anyone else could have, but I'd be lying. What anyone else should have done yes, but could have? That's a different story."
"So modest," Kit rolled his eyes, smacking Ranma's shoulder with his fist in a comradely way that he'd picked up from Ranma over the past few days. Gestures like that wasn't normally a Jedi thing, but Kit was quickly coming to realize that there was no reason why it couldn't be. Shutting out that dark side of the Force didn't mean we had to shut out the Light side of our emotions. We only did so because of fear, and there is no reason to do it. There are other things out there to fear.
"Have you been assigned a new mission yet?" Ranma asked as the two of them continued to move, heading up to the lightsaber construction center. Ranma was nearly finished his staff, all that was left was to put in the crystals, the two from the lightsabers he been using and the pearl that he'd taken from the Krayt Dragon on Tatooine.
"He has," said a feminine voice, and both men turned bowing their heads to Master Fay. She smiled at them both, reaching over to pull Ranma's ear lightly. "The Force is done with me for now here on Kashyyyk. You and I have had our discussions, you have learned what you are willing to from my teachings and I have learned what I can from you. I think we are too dissimilar and how we go about our lives for more."
"I wish I could disagree," Ranma said and was honestly surprised that he meant it. Fay was a peacemaker, a peaceful gentle soul that put even Kasumi to shame, though Ranma thought if Kasumi ever had become a Jedi, Fay would've been the teacher he would've chosen for her. Maybe Kasumi could have grown it to be like her. But Ranma was to combative, too chaotic, and far too aggressive for Fay's gentle nature to put up with for long. Her teachings had really helped him and vice versa, what Fay could do with Projected Force attacks now put most of his own long range attacks to shame. But a longer association would serve neither of them.
"It says good things about you that you are able to say that and mean it Ranma. Despite your own nature, you are a gentle man. That pleases me," Fay said simply. "However, I have other tasks. The Force is calling me away now, and I will follow it."
Ranma sighed and nodded.
"However," Fay went on, looking at Kit. "Master Yoda has decided that I need a guardian, quite literally. In this dark time, with the threat out there whatever it might be, no Jedi can truly assume that he or she can handle everything that comes at him on her own. And since I haven't even used a lightsaber in centuries, the point is even more… pointed… in my case." She smiled faintly at her little word joke, and Kit smiled back.
"I am to be assigned to you master Fay?" Kit asked. "I welcome it and the opportunity to learn from you." He bowed his head humbly, and Fay smiled.
Ranma on the other hand was looking at her one eyebrow raised. "The little frog let you in on that?" He asked not saying what 'that' was in this case.
"Yes he did." Fay replied, not commenting on his derogatory term for the aged grandmaster after interacting with Ranma for two weeks. "Mainly because I can sense where two of the so-called Lost 19 are going to be. We will be getting in touch with them first about what has been going on, and then the Outer Rim is calling me. There is some disturbance out there, something that is calling to my senses in particular."
"I understand," Kit said with a nod. "When do we leave?"
"Now," Fay replied simply. "I have said my farewells already." She smiled faintly shaking her head at that. Normally Fay would've simply left, assuming that anyone who knew her would know that the Force had called her away and bear her no ill will. But now, Yoda had insisted that she at least take someone with her, and Knight Fisto had sprung to her mind quickly. So quickly, that she felt that the Force had a hand in that too. "My ship, the Starry Ocean, is ready."
"Give me a moment to gather my duffel bag then master. I will meet you at the hangar bay." With that Kit nodded to Ranma, clasping forearms with him before turning bowing his head again to Fay and running off.
Fay smiled at that, and nodded her head at Ranma in turn. "May the Force be with you Ranma, and, please watch out for Knight Ti. The two of you are a magnificent beacon of Light in this growing darkness, but that will attract even further darkness to you. Darkness I feel that you two are equipped to handle in many of its forms, but perhaps not all."
"We'll watch out for each other, and you and Kit watch out for you each other too." Ranma held out his hand, but when Fay made take it in a clasp like Kit had he pulled her into a hug, lifting the slightly taller yet far less dense master off her feet into an exuberant hug. Fay found herself laughing even as she pushed him away slightly. "If you don't, I'll come looking for you!"
"I'll hold you to that," Fay said with smile, and Ranma set her down. She nodded her head once at him again then left as Shaak Ti moved towards them from the inner temple.
OOOOOOO
It had taken weeks to get away from Naboo, but it had been time well spent. The Queen thought of Palpatine as a cautious but insightful ally and more importantly a powerful one. The general populace was well behind the idea of militarization, which would push the young queen in a direction she personally did not want take. That could be reversed given her popularity, but in the main it was unimportant because the populace had also responded well to his subtle anti-alien messages and he'd found a few locals to keep that feeling going. One movement or the other would keep Amidala off-balance at home, and more susceptible to suggestions from him.
But despite all that good work, Sidious only felt relief at finally entering his sanctum, discarding his Chancellor garb and pulling out his plain black robe as he sat down in his throne. Too much time wearing his public face wore on Sidious badly at times, especially when not everything was going his way as had been the case of late. Much still was, but it required constant effort on his part. The Chaotic Locus and the trouble he was causing was an itch he just couldn't scratch.
Here surrounded by darkness at the center of his power Sidious immediately felt more centered in himself. He simply sat there, his eyes closed as he meditated for a few moments, sending his senses out into the Force light tendrils on the ocean of the Veil of the Dark Side.
Opening his eyes after those few precious moments Sidious gestured, and a small walker droid with a communication device on top of it move towards him obediently. Another gesture pushed in a few keys, and the communication device opened, revealing the hologram of his one of his underworld contacts. "Bounty Hunter Jango Fett I presume?"
Elsewhere on Coruscant Jango Fett, former Mandalorian and now one of the greatest bounty hunters in the galaxy, was looking at the small hologram droid being held in the far larger droid's arms. He'd been asked to remain on the planet before being paid for this last job, but as he was also being paid for his time that was no hardship save boredom. This though, this and the droids which had guarded his ship, or perhaps his cargo since his arrival, hinted at something more.
"If you're the one that asked for this one," he said gesturing over his shoulder at the woman frozen in carbonite, "Your man only paid half of the bounty. You paid me for my time here, but that's a secondary issue, not part of the original bounty. If you really want her, I need the rest of what I'm due."
"Check your bank account, bounty Hunter," the figure in the hologram said. The voice was soft, but stern, nothing special on the surface of it. Nothing to match the rest of this set up, which made it stand out all the more.
The younger man did so, and smiled underneath his Mandalorian style helmet. "Good. This is highly unusual, but you paid for my time here as well as the payment for delivering her. What's the second job? No one spends this much time on a bounty hunter without having a job already lined up for us."
"How would you like to help kill a lot of Jedi?" The figure in the hologram asked, the visible lower portion of his face twisting into a sneer of such malevolence that a lesser man might have taken a step back.
Jango was not a lesser man, and he hated the Jedi almost as much as he hated the Death Watch, possibly more if Jango was honest with himself. A poisonous rawl snake could not be anything but a rawl snake after all, whereas the Jedi always put on airs about being so honorable, so dispassionate and neutral in any conflict. They always looked down their oh-so superior noses at people when in reality, they not only killed but they died just like anyone else. Jango should know, he'd killed several of them with his bare hands. "Tell me more."
Moments later Jango signed off, having just received the coordinates of a planet that no longer appeared in the Republic or Jedi database thanks to a little worm that Sidious had let loose into their systems.
Excellent. Fett will make a perfect candidate for the cloning process. And talking to him has reminded me of another contact I can use to possibly eliminate the Chaotic Locus. The Death Watch Mandalorians pride themselves on being the equal of Jedi in terms of combat, let them prove it. Sidious smirked. Using the newly rebuilt version of that cult to one end while using the man who wiped out the original for another is deliciously ironic.
Sidious spent the rest of that day setting things in motion, contacting people and generally manipulating his ever-growing power base towards his goal of destroying the Jedi and taking power over the entire galaxy. Though he now included the death or capture of the Chaotic Locus as an important side project. He also updated his computer system on the various Jedi that he had seen in action or felt in action on Naboo, detailing what new skills he had could predict.
Night found Sidious deep underground in Plagueis' secret laboratory, slowly unthawing the young female human from her Carbonite prison. He stood at one end of the room as carbonite slowly unthawed, waiting calmly in the dark of the room, the room lit only by a single red light set in the ceiling. Eventually the process was finished, and the young woman fell forward on her hands and knees, gasping and looking around her.
The young woman had sharp, angular features and athletic, well-formed body clad in dark black leather that hugged her from around the chest, with an open patch over her stomach which left her shoulders bare, tall leather boots, and pale white skin. Her hair, short and spiky was white too, a sign much like her yellow eyes of her unbridled use of the Dark Side, a sign that it controlled her as much as she controlled it.
Her beauty was marred by several scars here and there, in particular on her shoulders and along her lower jaw, but they did little to take away from the whole image. These were signs of her torture under the Bando Gora, a Force worshipping cult of assassins and death stick users that she would come to rule through giving in to the Dark Side, manipulating their minds and becoming a crime lord through their efforts.
"Hello Komari Vosa," said a male voice from the shadows in front of her, its tone rich with command and power. "We have much to talk about."
With a wordless snarl the woman raised her hands. A Force Push grabbed the equipment all around her tearing it of the floor and hurling it towards the voice.
She gasped in astonishment as her attack was blocked, some kind of Force power held in the hand of the man standing there sucked her Force Push away. The items it had pushed towards him dropped for a moment before he languidly thrust them away right back to where they had been before. "Is that all, a mindless, animalistic attack? I was expecting more from the former padawan of so accomplished a Jedi as Dooku."
His other hand gestured, and despite trying to use the Force to latch onto the ground beneath her, Komari found herself flung backwards slamming with bone deadening force against the far wall. She was held there suspended off the floor, her throat constricting in an unseen grip, her attempts to break it with her own Force power were batted away with contemptible ease as the man stalked forward.
Stepping into the light he allowed some of his features to be seen under his hood, though not enough to identify him. "You have much to learn about controlling your anger and hate, much to learn about power and the Dark Side. I can teach you," he said releasing his grip on her neck. "I can teach you, and I can mold you into a weapon that will extract vengeance against the Jedi for forgetting about you, for using you and leading you on. But only if you are willing and able to learn. Are you up to this challenge, would you like to learn the true ways of the Sith?"
Komari gasped slightly, rubbing at her throat as she stared up at the man before standing stiffly, bowing her head in submission, her yellow eyes suddenly glimmering with eagerness and intelligence, not just hate and rage. "What would you have me do?"
Under his cowl, Sidious smiled.
OOOOOOO
Two days after Kit and Fay had left, Ranma shook his head, coming out the last kata of the night, letting his hands fall to the side. Despite Fay's patient tutelage, he just couldn't get anything more from reaching out to the Force than a few distorted images. He was now more at home with taking energy from the Force as a whole, because he had figured out how to give it back later thanks to master Fay, and had got over his fear of damaging the Force as he would have the chi of the area around him at home.
But reading the 'skein of the future and present' was still beyond him. that made him unable to use Force Precognition entirely, though given his speed, and the fact he was still training himself to become faster both armed and unarmed that didn't matter. The bits and pieces of visions he got were just enough to irritate him, but going by what Fay had said, either the Force was happy with what he could do now, or just didn't have anything it needed to tell him immediately.
He looked up, only now noticing that the small training area he had commandeered for the evening was empty now. "Good grief, was I at it for that long?"
"I've been watching you for at least an hour, beyond that I don't know." Ranma looked to the side sharply, seeing Aayla there. Before he could open his mouth, Aayla held up a hand. "Knight Luminara was with me for most of that, but watching you practice your martial arts is rather mesmerizing, and almost but not quite peaceful too. It's obvious you love your art, and the Force too."
Ranma shrugged, he wasn't really at home with throwing out the word love like that, though he couldn't deny he did love the martial arts. It was part of who he was. But expanding that to loving the Force… I guess I do love ki, so it could be just a hop skip sort of thing to loving the Force, if you think of the Force as an entire combined system anyway. Still not certain I do, but meh. "Did ya want to talk to me Aayla, or are ya just waiting for the rush to pass by so ya can get back to your room without running into too many guys?"
Aayla walked towards him, cocking her head to one side. "Did you know I am an empath?"
"Shaak mentioned something about that, though it took her a bit to explain what the difference was between that and her ability to feel emotions and thoughts sometimes. You can't turn it off right?" Ranma asked, frowning slightly. Even now it was not usual for Aayla to approach him this close when he was in his male form.
"Yes. Most Jedi only can feel emotions when the emotions are sharp as it were, distinct or powerful, and rarely can they detect a single feeling in a crowd. Otherwise Jedi are better at seeing thoughts. But I feel emotions all the time from everyone around me. That's why I began to feel comfortable around you. I felt that you sometimes felt desire for me, but it wasn't a constant thing, and it was always followed by a heaping of guilt. And I never felt it when Shaak was around." Aayla smirked at the older boy. In fact Ranma was closer to her age by a year than he was to Shaak.
"Um, sorry?" Ranma asked, wondering why his instincts were telling him to back away.
Before he could do so, Aayla was close enough to reach out and touch him. "I don't mind it, not in comparison to what I felt when I was, when I was a slave." She shuddered once, but moved past it quickly. "But that wasn't what I wanted to talk to you about. I know I'm good looking, guys, especially those not raised to be Jedi from the cradle, look at me that way from time to time. Heck I feel some bits of attraction even from other Jedi Knights or even Masters at times."
She grabbed Ranma's shirt, holding him in place as he went to back up. In her other hand she had pulled out her lightsaber, which Quinlan had sent to her from Coruscant. Luminara had kept it before this and later Aayla would get in trouble for having it at all at this stage of her recovery. But there was something she had to do, and Luminara, after being told what that was, would forgive her.
How the heck did she get her lightsaber!? Ranma of course knew nothing about that, only that the girl who had a firm grip of his shirt also had a lightsaber. And he would catch ever-loving hell from Shaak if he hurt her in trying to escape.
He would have broken her grip, but for some reason he just couldn't take his eyes away from Aayla's, they seemed to stare into his soul. "You and Shaak are in a relationship, don't bother denying it, it's obvious to me and those who know her. Admittedly there aren't many of us but still. I can feel the emotions between you, the affection, the desire, all the rest. It almost makes me blush, and it does make me a little jealous. But more than that, it makes feel very protective toward her."
Ranma couldn't stop himself. "I thought Jedi weren't supposed to put emphasis on attachm…. I'll shut up now." He broke off as Aayla flicked her lightsaber on for a moment before turning it off.
"Good, especially since you don't believe that any more than I do now. I just want you to realize as much as I like you, and I do like you quite a bit, you've become as close to me as any friend I've ever made in the Order, and in less than three weeks of interaction. But more importantly, Shaak Ti, my best friend, has feelings for you." Aayla continued to smile, but her eyes became very dangerous. "So if you hurt her, in any way, I will cut off what makes you a man, cook it, then make you eat it, understand?"
"Um, do spars, I'll shut up again." Ranma began and ended when Aayla lit her lightsaber up again. "Message understood. And I'd have never entered into this relationship if I thought I was gonna hurt Shaak Aayla. We were friends before we decided to be together. We both knew getting together was major issue on her part, so we will try our best to make it work, that I will promise. If we break up it won't be because of anything I've done."
"I will hold you to that Ranma, and… just be happy, the both of you." Aayla said with a smile, clipping her lightsaber to her belt and patting Ranma on the cheek before walking off without another word.
The very next day, Shaak and Ranma waved farewell to their friends before boarding the Wild Light. Aayla was there, she didn't seem to have a reaction to the Wookies so long as they stayed out of arms reach of her, which was all to the good. Luminara was there too, as was Yoda. "I'm looking forward to travelling with you both in time, I will repay your aid, I swear it."
"No payment is necessary between friends Aayla, especially not between Jedi like you and I." Shaak rebuked the younger girl gently, before pulling her into a brief hug, mindful of the other Jedi who had come to see them up. "Be well Aayla and we will see you soon." Aayla nodded, stepping back and watching as the two of them turned away, heading up into their ship.
"Power up HK," Ranma said as he passed the still disconnected head of the assassin droid. "I presume you finished shopping for your parts and ordering them from someplace on Corellia?"
"Eager response: Yes master! Are we had last leaving for that oddest of odd systems?"
Ranma paused, cocking an eyebrow the droid. "Did you just read about that kind of thing, or is that from your memory?"
"Deliberating tone: A bit of both master. While I cannot remember any details, I remember someone commenting on how anyone could even doubt that it was an artificially created system, when there was so much evidence to support it, despite it being 'patently impossible'. Meatsacks like to toss out that phrase for things they just can't comprehend, much like your curse." HK replied.
"Businesslike redirection: In any event, I have indeed already acquired and paid for a new body for from a single specific company with holdings on Corellia. They create one off protection and guard droids, as well as high-end mining droids, asteroid repair ships, and other goods of that nature. While the final product will not be as streamlined or perfect as my old body was, it will be as close as possible."
"Good job," Ranma said with a nod, sitting down across Tune from Shaak. For a moment he and Shaak were busy, piloting the ship up and out of the hidden hangar bay then out through the verdant forest and into space. Ten minutes after that, they had left the small bit of traffic in orbit over Kashyyyk behind. A few minutes spent turning to face the right direction, and then the Wild Light jumped into hyperspace.
Shaak looked at Ranma, taking his hand in her own with a faint smile. "Away again."
"If home is where the heart is," Ranma said with a grin, "then thanks to the Wild Light I don't think we ever need to leave, not really anyway. Though I will miss having space to roam on Kashyyyk, and all the different training areas."
Shaak laughed shaking her head, her lekku twitching with the movement, her headdress glinting in the light of the cockpit. "While even under the Old Oath Jedi are not supposed to place attachment upon possessions, I do have to admit that this ship has grown on me. I still believe that Jedi shouldn't have a love of possessions like that, but in this case I will make an exception."
Ranma laughed again shaking his head then he became serious. "So, tell me more about this Green Enclave. Whenever our going to Corellia came up it looked as if Yoda and the others were, hmm, not against it so much as extremely frustrated or leery of something."
"Yes unfortunately that is the case, though I hadn't actually realized it until I asked master Yoda about the Green Jedi Luminara mentioned. And of course he assigned me some reading, so that I could form my own opinions about the issue in my copious spare time." Shaak said drolly.
"The little imp's a good teacher, but it can sometimes get a little irritating." Ranma replied, rolling his eyes. "And if either of us had a lot of free time I'd like to know how exactly we got it, y'know? Controlling time like that would be damn useful."
The only time the two of them had free was breakfast in the mornings, which they had through unspoken agreement turned into their time to be together. Most of the time they hadn't been able to spend too much time together even so given all the other things they had going on, but it had been nice to have those moments alone just to talk, take in the sights, or explore Kashyyyk.
"Far too true. However, that question is a little complicated. Tune, can you take over the controls for now?" Shaak asked.
"Was that supposed to be an insult mistress?" the Astromech droid asked, beeping and shaking in his slot between the two of them. His voice this time was that of an elderly, urbane sounding gentlemen, but it shifted mid-sentence to that of a young boy with the same kind of accent.
"Someone's been hanging around HK too long, he's enabled your sarcasm function." Ranma quipped, following Shaak as she moved towards the sitting area. She sat down on the sofa, her robe flaring slightly as she did, and Ranma paused, shaking his head at the flash of red ankle he had seen there before sitting next to her. Shaak leaned back against his chest after moving her back lekku so that it draped to one side of their bodies rather than be squished between them, shuddering as he ran a hand down its length before putting his arms around her.
Once she was comfortable, Shaak began. "You know of course about the three sects within the Jedi Order, Guardian, Sentinel, and Consular. What you don't know is that there were at one point other sorts of divisions within the Order that depended on where you were trained. Dating back to before even the last war, only one has continued to this day. The Green Jedi as they are called are Jedi raised and trained in Corellia and the systems around it that do not leave its sector. They remain within its borders, an almost separate entity yet still ostensibly under the council."
"I didn't think that was allowed." Ranma said frowning, one hand making gentle circles on her stomach, which caused Shaak to shiver slightly despite the touch needing to pass through her robe. "I mean, correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the only Jedi Temple was on Coruscant before Yoda began to push for us to spread out to more temples once more. So how could these Green Jedi be trained on Corellia?"
"That is indeed the case, though there used to be an enclave on Corellia. It isn't an official one anymore, a nice little bit of legal fiction. Master Yoda and the other more senior Masters know it is still there and being used however."
"I don't get it," Ranma said with a shake of his head. "Why are the Corellians allowed to keep themselves separate like that, I just don't see the Order going along with that kind of internal division."
"They really aren't. I mean they are but they are viewed as being highly suspicious, almost heretical by the masters who know about them at all."
"Last time I checked, the Jedi aren't actually a religion. Heretical?" Ranma said, now somewhat enjoying needling Shaak.
"I'm just paraphrasing what I've read Ranma," Shaak said, her elbow moved slightly to thump into his side as if she had sensed his amusement, which she probably had. Ranma let out 'umph', squeezing her lightly in response in apology, and she chuckled before going on. "Yes it is odd, and there are two large sticking points between the Green and the High Council."
"First, politics and loyalty. The Corellian Jedi view their loyalty to their home sector as being more important to their loyalty to the Republic as a whole. They will always put Corellian interests over that of outsiders, even going so far as to rule in their favor in any negotiations dealing with external parties. That's occurred more times than I would have credited it, and is a major point of contention. I'm not saying they were always wrong to do so, but they certainly were not always right by the letter of the law either."
"Second is their training and, though I personally no longer see it as a sticking point, the Green Jedi have kept to the Old Oath. Many of them have apparently even married and had children who became Jedi, like the Halcyon clan. That apparently has continued to this day, despite the Ruusan Reformation. The High Council at the time tried to force them to conform, but were leery of starting another war, so backed off on that point, simply ordering them to keep it under wraps and since they have ever since, the High Council has allowed it rather than, again, start another war."
"Yeah, I can see why that wouldn't be a sticking point for you anymore." Ranma chuckled throatily, leaning down to nip at the side of Shaak's neck before nibbling at her back lekku, dragging his teeth along the white and blue rows near where it merged with her montrals at the back.
She gasped, arcing her back. "Gah, sto, stop that, we need to finish this discussion first." Shaak said, trying to wriggle away without actually doing so.
Ranma pouted at that, but nodded and leaned back up, resting the side of his head against hers, feeling the hard montrals pressing into the side of his head. "So this all happened upwards of a thousand years ago, what happened during the New Sith Wars, I thought all the different Jedi groups had to band together then?"
"The Green Jedi fought with distinction at times but until the final campaign of the Army of Light only when battles occurred near the Corellian sector or within it. Because of that, the rest of the council had an easy time painting them as dissidents and marginalizing them. Not, mind you that the Green Jedi at the time seemed to fight the label, as I said, their isolation from the rest of the Order began long, long before that."
"I've said it before, but that High Council bunch were assholes, political assholes who really screwed the Order over hugely."
Shaak scowled slightly, shaking her head, her montrals rubbing against the side of Ranma's head as her back lekku rub across his side. It felt odd, but not in a bad way, though of course this wasn't the first time he had felt it.
"If you had said that in front of me a bare year ago I would have taken umbrage at it, but I can't disagree now. We allowed ourselves to limit ourselves out of fear, and we didn't even realize it was because of fear and external influences. Politics, power mongering, and a desire for centralized control. We Jedi are supposed to be above such things, and ever since the Council and the Order as a whole have paid for it, becoming ever more tied to the Senate and its power structure without even realizing what we were losing."
The two of them fell silent, before Ranma shook his head, getting back to the original topic. "So let me get this straight, the Council views these green Jedi as quote heretics, but they're not willing to actually go in and dig them out?"
"As I said, they retreated almost entirely into their own isolation at the time of the Ruusan Reformation, and their isolation was a tried and tested thing. The Council demanded they keep their retaining the Old Oath to themselves along with all that means and a representative on the Council of Reassignment, so that there are as few problems in the Corellian sector assigned to Jedi trained on Coruscant as possible, and then tried to forget they existed. It's worked for the most part."
Shaak shrugged. "There have been of course incidents where a Green Jedi and a Coruscant trained Jedi met over the debates table. That is how Luminara knew about them, apparently she met one in that manner, and was… not impressed. Luminara won the debate, but she apparently got the impression that the other Jedi was rather contemptuous of her on some levels, and she was not impressed by his partisan manner and bearing. Oh, and there have been several episodes of poaching."
"Poaching?"
"When Jedi on missions to find younglings with Force ability run into their opposite numbers from Corellia while in the Corellian sector. Luckily most of those incidents were peaceful ones. A first come, first serve rule is the general order of the day apparently. The Green Jedi have shrunk somewhat over the centuries because they are not as good at finding and getting to such children and because of some other, mostly political shifts between them and the High Council."
"Strange, but I'm not a politician." Ranma waited for Shaak to finish exclaiming 'Force be praised' before going on. "So what does this actually mean for us?"
Shaak remained silent for a moment, leaning further back and Ranma went back to rubbing her stomach in gentle circles. That touch was beginning to impact her ability to think despite being so innocent and it took her a bit to concentrate on his question.
"I have no idea," she answered honestly. "Master Yoda called ahead to a master Grikass, they have been talking since Yoda began to push forward with the idea of having multiple temples and wanting one to be in Corellia. He also gave me a recording to give to them and a series of verbal messages dealing with your own skills and the vision Master Yoda had on Coruscant."
The two of them exchanged a glance at that, but after a moment Shaak went back to the current conversation. Talking about the danger that might be out there did them no good since neither had any idea where to look for it, and there were others set on that task already anyway. "At any rate, Yoda wants the Jedi to have a series of interconnected temples, not separated entities with separate loyalties which is directly opposite to how the Green Jedi see things."
"That makes sense to me." Ranma said with a shrug. "After all, if you're trying to do away with that kind of factionalism, as well as protecting yourselves from putting all your eggs in one basket, how else could it be?"
"Yes but again the patriotism of the Green Jedi, and the fact they see themselves as Corellians first and Jedi second is not exactly endemic to creating warm feelings. And don't make the mistake of believing they are above the internal politics of Corellia either," Shaak said.
Ranma shrugged again. "So we drop off the holocron, get HK's body, don't make any political statements and get the hell out of dodge as fast as possible. I really, really don't want to be involved in politics, even Jedi politics."
"If I wanted to be involved in politics I would have chosen to become a Consular like my master wanted me to." Shaak said, one hand moving down to lightly touch the hand Ranma was still moving on her stomach. Her body was now definitely reacting to that gentle touch, and she twisted her head, leaning up to kiss him for a moment before pulling back, her eyes staring into Ranma's blue ones. "But for now, I have other things on my mind."
The trip to Corellia, though longer than most given they had to use regular hyperspace for a time rather than a trade route and thus stop over many times to avoid running into astrogational hazards, was uneventful in the most pleasant possible manner. Shaak and Ranma continued to grow into their new relationship, talking and learning about one another, cuddling and kissing often, but mostly simply getting to know one another even further.
They also got used to how their new relationship effected their living together aboard the Wild Light. The bathroom, with its now almost unlimited water supply, became a battleground at times. Shaak was nearly addicted to showering with real water, and sometimes Ranma forgot whose toothbrush was his, which quickly became a pet peeve of Shaak because he often had morning breath, which stuck to the toothbrush somehow.
Once they lost control of their hormones.
Warning Lemony content:
With a flourish of his wrist Ranma disarmed Shaak with the end of his light pike. But only after doing so did he realize that the move had put him slightly off balance. Shaak swiftly took advantage, tripping him and smacking her fist hard into his hand holding his pike, forcing him to loosen his hold on it. As his light pike fell to the floor and deactivated he grabbed her arm, pulling Shaak down with him. They came to a rest with Shaak's body across his, her legs on either side of his waist.
Letting go of her arm, Ranma laid his hands on Shaak's hips, staring up at her with a smirk on his face as a heat began to expand from where their waists met. The fact she had discarded her robe for this session was definitely helping that heat along. Shaak's body on display in her training shift, her chest rising and falling as she gulped in air, the feel of her skin under his hands, it all combined to make Ranma's hormones begin to rage out of control. And from the look in her eyes Shaak could feel it too. "So you've pinned me, what are you going to do now?"
"I can think of many things," Shaak said, before the leaning down to kiss him, tongue immediately questing into his mouth. Ranma responded, one hand moving along her thigh, the other gently playing with her back lekku. His tongue began to duel with hers, pushing her tongue back into her mouth, his own moving over her sharp teeth, so alien but not disconcerting at all by this point, rather a bit of a turn on all their own.
When Ranma's hand reached the tip of her lekku he began to rub and pinch it lightly. She gasped and shuddered, breaking away from the kiss to moan aloud. "Raannnnmmaaa…. Ahhhh…."
That was easily the most erotic sound Ranma had ever heard, and he let that hand remain there, fingers dancing over and with her lekku tip as he leaned up, his other hand on her back while he began to nip and bite at her neck, teeth just grazing her exotic red skin, leaving little kiss all along her neck and collarbone area. He did not venture lower however, thinking that Shaak should be the one to decide to go to that stage.
Unwilling to be a passive participant Shaak leaned down in turn raining kisses on Ranma's forehead, cheek and then neck as Ranma did the same to her. At the same time her hips began to gently rock against Ranma's waist, the feel of his bodies response to her fueling her desires further. Her sharp teeth ran down the side of his throat, until it met the shoulder. There she tried to bite down, a deep, instinctual desire to leave a mark on her mate overcoming her for a second only for her teeth to not sink into his skin. Then Ranma's lips captured her own again and Shaak just went back to moaning into his mouth.
The two of them pulled back for a moment, Ranma's hips beginning to lift of the deck, rocking into her own then they kissed hungrily, tongues intertwining and gasping. Ranma's hand on her back started trying to hold Shaak still, letting their hips crash together more deliberately, and the fire in her body had spread, wetness also spreading out from the point of contact, soaking through her simple underwear.
Slowly Shaak's movements became more erratic, the feelings within her continuing to rise, until she was just moaning and going with it, unable to control her body's movements as instinct took over. All Shaak could do was hold on, her body moving towards a finish of some kind that she didn't even know how to describe.
Breaking off the kiss Shaak moaned again, a low wail of a noise as the universe exploded, inside of her head, inside of her body, and Shaak's spine stiffened. "Ahhhhh!" An instant later she collapsed, all of her muscles turning into so much mush as she fell against Ranma chest to chest, bearing them both backwards onto the floor, her head lolling to one side while her lekku continued to twitch in delayed reaction.
For a moment all she could see was the back of her own eyelids as they fluttered in place while Ranma gently nuzzled her cheek, slowly bringing her back to reality. "Are you all right?"
Shaak shuddered throatily shaking her head slightly from side to side. "Mhmm, better than alright. By the Force, that was, that was, that felt, wow. Why was passion seen as such a bad thing for so long? I, I think you just gave me my first, what is the word, orgasm? Something like that anyway." Shaak waved her hand languidly unconcerned about the exact terminology.
Ranma blushed, nodding his head. "I um, yeah I thought that was where you were going there. Um, would it help if I apologized?"
"You don't have to apologize Ranma, I was the one urging you on, if not verbally. Oh by the Force that was incredible." She shuddered again, looking over at Ranma, their noses now brushing against one another so close were their faces, before she frowned slightly. "Did, did you… finish too?"
When Ranma shook his head her frown became more pronounced even as she blushed. "Would, that is, would you like me to help you?"
Ranma blushed, embarrassed beyond belief despite what had just happened between them. "Don't force yourself Shaak, I'm fine, I'll just er, take care of it later." It wouldn't be the first time since he'd come to this universe, though Ranma always felt a little dirty about it frankly.
"No, no I want to. You, um you helped me, so it only seems fair…" Shaak trailed off, one hand going between them. As soon as her hand began to rub directly over the large bulge of Ranma's arousal, all his concerns and worries about them going too fast fading as the sensation overrode his body.
He threw his head back, groaning in a throaty, guttural tone that caused Shaak to shudder in reply, her slightly bruised purple lips quirking upwards into a smile. Her hand continued to graze up and down Ranma's bulge, marveling at its size. Though not a Healer, Shaak Ti had been taught basic human and human-like anatomy as a youngling, and of course she knew what she was touching. She also understood that Ranma was quite large for his race.
It feels like he stuck my lightsaber down his pants! If my lightsaber pulsed and twitched and felt like it had a soft skin over its steel core anyway. Shaking her head, Shaak concentrated on the task at hand, amused by how now it was Ranma's turn to become a passive participant in the event. She scooted back in order to lean closer, shuddering as her own sensitive parts bumped along Ranma's legs, leaving a trail of her own arousal and recent completion as she went.
One of her montrals rested lightly against Ranma's stomach as she watched her hands, both hands now, moving along the bulge up and down, around, pressing down. Her movements were almost random, but she began to respond to Ranma's moans, and soon found the right tempo. And while Ranma had built up a lot of endurance, even durability in many ways, this was not one of them. It only took a few moments of attention for Ranma to approach his own finish. "Shaak, I, I'm gonna!"
That was as far as Ranma got before his shaft twitched in her hand even more violently and liquid shot out from the tip with enough power to actually lift the fabric of his pants. The liquid quickly spread darkening the front of his pants as her own arousal had darkened her panties and skirt.
Some of it even leaked through and Shaak was tempted to see what it tasted like, but decided against it right now despite her own arousal returning quickly. There had been enough firsts for one day. Shaak did not resist as Ranma's arms pulled her up into a kiss, before leaning back onto the floor, kissing and nuzzling against one another lightly as they recovered.
End Lemony Content
By unspoken agreement they didn't revisit that moment the next day. They both knew that it had been a little too far for their still-new relationship, even if had seemed like a good idea at the time.
For Shaak however there was another aspect to it, because she was still a Jedi, and after mentally recovering her balance, knew now why relationships, indeed attachment of any kind could be seen as dangerous. For one thing, it definitely created a conflict of interest. The Order as an entity could not command the kind of loyalty an individual, especially an individual you were close enough to have moments like that with.
Then there was the idea of attachment, of attraction and desire could lead to the Dark Side. Shaak did not believe it was inevitable as too many in the Order thought of course. But having felt the highs of the relationship, feeling not just the physical kind of things but the emotions, she could see how it could if the other individual didn't return your emotions. Or worse yet, pretended too, then abused them or thought that because of their relationship they had control over you.
With Ranma she had no fears of any of those, though Shaak knew that she would deal with feelings of jealousy a time or two, having felt them already more than once. That could be controlled at least, which she had also already learned.
They were still cuddling, still kissing, but stopped short of another moment like that. Indeed, they were having another make out session when Tune reported they were coming out of hyperspace into Corellia.
Joining the droids in the cockpit, Ranma found the ship moving through the outer sector of the system as his ships sensors began to pick up the planets and other space going bodies nearby. A few small patrol ships moved in their direction immediately. They looked like a variant of the Uglies they had seen in pirate hands before, though as their sensors picked out more detail Ranma realized they were not nearly as ramshackle.
Maybe some local in system defense ship that just looks like them? The power readings off those things are more in keeping with a freighter too, Ranma mused.
"Corellia space control this is the Wild Light out of Kashyyyk, do you read us?" Shaak asked into the intercom.
"Roger Wild Light, this is CSC, we have you on our scanners. You're right on time for your arrival, our compliments to your astromech droid. Please send identification codes on frequency 66497." a crisp male replied voice within a bare second of her call.
"Sent . Did you receive it?"
"I have indeed." Ahead of them out group of uglies peeled off from their intercept patrol, heading back out towards their hangar bays in a small series of small satellite stations. "Be advised, there is a lot of traffic here, probably more than you're used to if you're out of Kashyyyk. Follow the nav data being sent to your droid now, and do not deviate."
"What would happen if we did deviate?" Ranma asked as Shaak cut the connection.
Shaak shrugged her shoulders, her lekku twitching in symphony with the movement, and she smirked as Ranma's eyes seemed to be caught by them once again. He really is fascinated by my lekku isn't he? "You'll see as we get closer to the planet. The space lanes here are almost as crowded as Coruscant's, and not nearly as well organized from what I was able to find out."
"I'm really glad you're the one piloting then," Ranma laughed. "I'm not exactly the best of following orders, even if the order is just for me to go in a straight line."
"No really?" Shaak replied dryly, then laughed as Ranma reached over to poke her in the side.
As they neared Corellia, they passed by dozens, even hundreds of in-system ships plying the trade routes between the planets. Others, dozens more, came out of hyperspace in the outer edge of the system, moving in to this or that space station.
At first Ranma thought that they were farther away than they were, but as they came closer to the planet, the number of ships grew, as well as the detritus scattered around the spaceways. "Why hasn't this all been cleaned up, and what is it all anyway?"
"Debris of past battles, debris of ships that ran into trouble, derelicts left to drift by their owners for one reason or another, bits of asteroids, space stations moved out of orbit and replaced because that was cheaper than upgrading them, and just plain junk. Corellia has seen more battles than any system save Coruscant, and even that is debatable and it is also one of the Republic's major industrial hubs." Shaak replied.
She went on as in the distance the Wild Light's sensors picked up one of Corellia's vaunted system defense dreadnaughts, two-kilometer long monsters bristling with weapons which Corellia used as its primary defense platforms. "As to it being cleared, I understand much of it is at any given point, but the whole process is slowed by various bureaucratic nonsense and the fact it's being added to all the time. It's much the same on many Core Worlds. It's even worse I've been told over in the Corporate Sector, though there it's the newer 'resource' planets which are the worst."
Soon they reached the planet's orbit. Ahead of them a gigantic dockyard sprawled, and Ranma used the word with feeling. It was an uneven cavalcade of dozens of different construction projects all welded into one. There didn't seem to be any kind of artistry or plan to the edifice as Ranma had seen in the Mon Calamari docks, just sheer energy and ongoing effort. Nor were as the station as large as the Mon Calamari dockyard ring, though there were dozens of separate stations scattered across the globe, so Ranma supposed the planet's total capacity might be close.
"We're being directed to that docking port up there Ranma," Shaak said, gesturing to one side as they began to follow blinking lights in a series of satellites guiding them forward into the cluttered area above the planet.
"Why aren't we landing on the planet itself?"
"Corella doesn't allow that except to ships registered here. And before you ask, no it's not for political or military reasons, it's an environmental necessity. A few hundred years ago apparently a set of extremely dangerous doglike animals were let loose or escaped, reports are sketchy, and soon began to dominate the local environment. They wiped out a few native species, before they were sharply curtailed and wiped out themselves. And there are rumors that the Sith tried to use a biological agent here in the first war against them."
"I'd heard of problems like that in ancient history on my own planet, guess I didn't think it would occur here for some reason."
"Plague is one threat every space going race fears Ranma, believe me. Much of what the Healers of the Order do is to make certain that no one is developing any such agents, or to stop any budding disease in its tracks whenever we can."
The two of them fell silent as Shaak maneuvered the Wild Light into its hangar Bay, setting down easily. "Are we expecting a welcoming committee here?" Ranma asked as they and Tune worked their way through the series of power down check lists.
"No," Shaak said with a shrug. "The Green Jedi of course know we're here by this point, they would have been informed by the space control. But they'll wait for us to come to them on their own ground. Politics again."
"Remind me again what the difference between Jedi politics and real politics is?" Ranma asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"One can be openly corrupt and make it seem a virtue. The other seems able to do the same with high-handed arrogance." Shaak replied quickly, standing up and closing her eyes momentarily.
Ranma fell silent, watching her as she centered herself in the Force, getting rid of the bit of irritation his joke had caused. When she opened her eyes Ranma shrugged his shoulders apologetically, and Shaak smiled faintly shaking her head indicating it wasn't his fault. The two shared a quick kiss before leaving the cockpit, with Ranma pausing to disconnect HK's head. "You might want to shut down HK, I'm going to put you in my ki space for now and while I don't know if droids can go crazy through sensory deprivation, I'd rather not find out."
"Wary response: Shutting down immediately master." the droid said, his eyes dimming immediately.
The two of them made their way to the gangplank, waiting for it to stop moving before descending. The hanger was large, with several dozen billets for ships of all size spaced out around it. The Wild Light was situated along the inner wall in a small enclosed alcove, the berths all around it already in use. Ranma noticed that at least two of the ships looked as if they were in the process of being taken apart as they sat there.
As Shaak had said, there was no welcoming committee from the Green Jedi here, just a series of workers and droids moving towards their ship. Ranma shook his head at them, waving them off. "We don't need anything, just docking space for now."
"You'll still be charged for it as part of the service." said one of them with a shrug before gesturing his team back. Another officious man came towards them from the entrance to the rest of the station, holding a clipboard.
That was the moment when it all went to hell. Shaak blinked, looking up sharply and activating her lightsaber. "Ranma, I sense!"
Blaster fire began to cascade down towards them from several gantries here and there as scruffy humans and aliens of all sorts poked their blasters out of cover and began to fire on the two of them.
Shaak deflected what she could as Ranma, who had already been moving before she had shouted her warning, dodged to one side, smashing his foot down hard on a floorboard below him. It's bolts screaming in protest, the piece of metal plate came up and he grabbed it, using it as a shield. Rated to take the heat of takeoff thrusters, the metal was up to the task of stopping blaster bolts with ease.
"Who do you think they are?" Ranma shouted over the tumult of the sudden battle.
"They are not dressed in any kind of uniform I recognize." Shaak said almost conversationally despite the exertion of blocking dozens perhaps a little under a hundred blaster bolts coming towards her. Her lightsaber was a blur of light all around her, forearms and hands disappearing almost so fast was she moving as Ranma guarded her back, the two of them racing towards large blast shield set on the ground between to ship's berths. "Possibly bounty hunters?"
"Oh joy!" Ranma muttered. Between one step and the next he hurled his makeshift shield forward before leaping up onto it, using it as a springboard up towards the ceiling.
The gravity in the bay was only half a normal planet's, the bounty hunters having not even waited for the gravity to stabilize before attacking. But this cost them now as Ranma used his ability to move in midair to even greater effect, hurling himself upwards into the darkness of that hangar bay's ceiling.
The people shooting at him lost sight of Ranma for a split second but before they could retarget Shaak and possibly overwhelm her, he opened fire and dove down on top of them, his skimmer grade blaster rifle in one hand hosing down several of the attacker's positions. No need here for my new lightsaber, not for scum like this, though I gotta remember to grab up some more ammo packs.
Twelve of targets fell dead, and a further six screamed as their hands, legs or shoulders were punctured by the heavy blaster bolts. The rifle disappearing once again into his ki space, Ranma lashed out with hand and fist as he landed, sending five more attackers brawling. Two of them had even released their weapons as they went, and Ranma grabbed them out of midair, firing both on full auto emptying the batteries of both in a matter of seconds but silencing another enemy position as he did.
"Frank this!" said a voice, "Use the thermals!" Several of the bounty hunters heard that and tossed thermal detonators towards Shaak and Ranma.
This was a mistake. Shaak reached out with her free hand, and the thermal detonators paused in their flight, before zooming backwards towards their attackers. At the same time she ducked under another blast, unable to get her lightsaber within between her and it in time. She could have simply taken that bolt, her studies with Ranma were up to the point where she could take even heavy blaster bolts, but she wasn't about to advertise it.
A Force Jump took Shaak away from the explosions into the attacker that had nearly shot her just then, her lightsaber flashing in midair to block more bolts midair before she landed among them. The arc of energy flashed once more, and their guns fell silent as their owners were cleaved in two.
At the back of the hangar bay for bounty hunters and Limburg heavy weapons, one a concussion missile launcher, and the other an even heavier type of crew served blast than Ranma carried. Ranma scowled at the sight, bring up his own blaster again and firing as he charged towards them.
Around them the startled and rather astonished dockworkers began to respond. Having ducked for cover at the first onset of violence, a few of them actually brought out their own weapons, and began to fire at the bounty hunters. Not many, but more than there would've been on most so called civilized planets.
In the distance alarms began to blare, telling the bounty hunters they were running out of time. Several of them retreated towards the entrance to the rest of the space station. However the inner hatch clanked shut, trapping them within the hangar bay with their quarry.
As Ranma noted that, the concussion missile launcher got itself settled down and began to fire concussion missiles towards Shaak and him. Shaak battered them aside with Force pushes that sent them careening in different directions, seemingly unable to send them directly backwards this time busy as she was with several other threats at the same time. Even so she was able to make certain they exploded harmlessly to all involved including the bystanders, of which there were more than Ranma had ready noticed.
Ranma however had to plow through one of them, grimacing in pain at the explosion blew him off his feet. He rolled with it, shaking his head groggily. "Okay that hurt," he muttered, bringing his hand forward, a bright cerulean sphere of Force leaving them. His attack shot forward, slamming into the concussion launcher slagging it and he charged forward before the blaster rifle could bear on him through the smoke and shattered debris that the missile launcher had created.
Moments later the battle is over and Ranma began to move through the hangar bay grabbing the wounded bounty hunters and piling them up in a corner near the inner airlock as Shaak moved to a few of the dockworkers who had been injured, calling out to Tune to bring out some of their medical supplies.
One of the still breathing bounty hunters had gone down with shattered shoulder from a blow from Ranma. Beyond that however he was uninjured, and he gasped and groaned cursing Ranma volubly as he was dragged towards the door. "I'd be a bit gentler with you if you told me what this is all about. I mean come on, this was a decent show of timing I suppose, but a rather amateurish setup besides that. And I could've sworn I told one of your organizers or whatever you call them to only send the best bounty hunters after me. Numbers alone don't make you the best crew."
He looked over at a dock worker, who had been shot through the thigh by a bounty hunter trying to get him out of the way to shoot at Ranma as he had charged the concussion missile launcher. "If he thought I was joking about the consequences of you people killing innocents to get to me, he's dead wrong. The only thing keeping me from putting you all down like the dogs you are is the fact that I have other things to do with my time. But you just moved up the priority list."
"You fucking shit, I what? Bounty hunters? I've no idea what you're talking about! I work for Boss H…" he cut himself off, grimacing in something other than pain for a moment, though the pain might have loosened his tongue for the worse there.
At that moment the inner airlock opened, and several troops of armed and armored men entered. "This is Corsec, weapons down hands where we can see them!"
Shaak waved at them making certain they all saw the lightsaber at her belt. "I need a medic over here!"
Ranma and Shaak gave their statements as the police moved through the bodies of the dead, lining them up for inspection to one side of the hangar Bay while a medical team saw to be entered hunters as well as the workers. The workers of course got priority, while the still living hunters were also cuffed hand and foot, if they still had them that is.
The commander in charge of the security force was looking at Shaak a little askance, almost but not quite suspiciously. "I've not seen you around Master Jedi, what's your business here?"
"My own," Shaak said simply, one eyebrow rising in query. "We are here to purchase supplies of a sort, and to drop off something to one of the Jedi here. That is all. I have no interest in politics, no interest in staying, and no interest in making trouble." Her lips quirked as she looked over at Ranma. "I can't deny that trouble will probably find us though."
"That is not what I wanted to hear." The man said dryly, but his look of suspicion faded. Their attention was pulled to the side however as one of his men shouted for his attention.
They moved in that direction, joining the man as he stared down at one of the killers, having rolled him onto his face. "Boss, isn't this O'Markel?
"I do believe it is Lieutenant," the company commander said. "He's had a bit of I work done on his nose and jawline, but the rest of the face is still his own."
"You know him?" Ranma asked. He recognized the man who had been one of ones around the heavy weapons he'd taken out.
"I do indeed. Search the bodies Lt, see if you can find any communication devices on any of these worthies." As his subordinate went to work the man turned to Ranma and Shaak. "O'Markel is a wanted criminal, a murderer several times over, a drug dealer, and a hitman for hire. He's wanted on every planet in the system, and several outside it. We had no idea he was in-system again, he probably came in on a ship to Selonia. The Selonians don't notice differences in our faces so they use computers for most of their security work, and even a little plastic surgery can fool them. We'll backtrack his movements and get to the bottom of this, don't worry."
"But what you should worry about," the man went on gesturing back down to the body, "Is that this man was one of the troubleshooters for a local crime syndicate. No one knows who their main bosses are, though we've got our suspicions."
"Meaning you think you know who the bosses are and in part fact probably do, but they're politically connected or too rich and too careful." Shaak said with a sigh. "That at least is true in every system where crime abounds."
The man winced, but nodded. "Not politically Knight Ti, at least not in Corellia, I'm not going to comment on how any other sector runs itself. We just haven't been able to pin anything on them."
"Witnesses turning up dead or suddenly recanting their stories before disappearing with their families, that kind of thing?" Ranma asked his face somewhat grim.
"No, just no witnesses found in the first place." the man said dryly. "We're not entirely foolish here thank you."
His Lt. chose that moment to run up to them, carrying a small communication device. "Boss, all of their com gear is shut down, one shot cheapo jobs, we won't get anything from most of them. But this one was still showing some information. I think we know the reason why they attacked these two."
He displayed the picture of Ranma both in his male and female form, with a message of dead or alive, 40 billion credits below it.
"That's almost more than, you could buy a space station with that, you could buy a flotilla for that!" The commander exclaimed in shock, looking over at Ranma.
"It's gone up," Ranma amused frowning mock-thoughtfully. "I wonder why?"
"Would you like the reasons alphabetically or simply listed by date and time Ranma?" asked Shaak shaking her head.
Ranma laughed, then reached into his ki space, ignoring the man's gasp of astonishment as he did so, figuring that since the man wasn't a Force user he wouldn't be able to see anything that he could pass on to anyone else. Man this caring what other people see sucks. After a moment Ranma pulled out HK's head, holding it up for a moment. "Wake up HK."
HK did so, is eyes flickering around the hangar Bay. "Affronted shock: Master, he you had fun without me…again! Bemused irritation: Did you just wake me up to rub it in?"
"Apparently my bounty has gone up sufficiently enough for whole crime syndicates are looking to collect it, which means we might run into more of this. I just wanted to give you a heads up and tell you to connect to the local net, get an update on the local bounty hunters, and see if we're lucky enough that any of this lot have bounties. More importantly, make certain your body's ready for delivery to us tomorrow. We might need it."
"Atavistic thrill: Oh master, your master of motivation is truly exceptional! Just give me a moment, and I will do so."
About ten minutes later Shaak and Ranma exited the hangar Bay, leaving the police chief behind them to sort out the bodies. "So, 400 billion dead, 800 billion alive. That's quite a bit more than would be charged for even a senator's death or ransom Ranma, you could buy a whole army with that."
"Are we talking a good army, or just a large one, because I'm assuming that stuff like guns and other things cost too."
"Mostly an illegal one I think," Shaak replied dryly. She paused then, looking in the direction of the inward face of the docking bay. "Ah, it seems the Green Jedi have decided not to wait planet-side for us."
Ranma turned in the same direction and saw a tall weather-beaten man with the build of a swordsman like all Jedi seemed to have coming towards him. Beside him was a slightly younger looking man wearing the same uniform as the security officer they had been dealing with. His face was slightly less weathered, hence why Ranma thought he was younger, but his eyes, as they closed, showed he had seen possibly just as much bad shit over his lifetime as the older man.
The two of them waited where they stood for the newcomers to arrive, and when they did, the Jedi began to speak immediately, not even introducing himself. "While we were somewhat ambivalent about agreeing to allow a foreign Jedi into Corellia, we did not anticipate you would bring trouble of this nature to our very doorsteps."
"The local crime syndicate decided to waste some of its members by attempting to collect the bounty on us," Shaak said with a shrug of her shoulders. Her face was once more serene and calm, rather than filled with droll amusement as it had been a moment ago. "I do not believe you can consider it our fault that they showed such a poor lack of judgment."
"I was going to go with blissfully moronic myself." Ranma said, looking down at HK's head. "What about you?"
"Disgruntled pout: I wasn't going to say anything master, as I wasn't able to take part in the fun."
"Fun?" said the security officer aghast as he looked past them at the amount of bodies being stacked up to one side of the hangar bay. "You call this fun?"
"Amused condescension: Of course I do, I was created for violence, it is what I do and what I love. Nor is it my Masters fault that meatbags like this decided to shorten their own existences by taking on a superior opponent."
"Not bad HK but I think that's enough of your particular brand of diplomacy." Ranma said with a chuckle. He could see Shaak's mouth almost beginning to twitch there for a moment, but she controlled herself easily enough and he mentally snapped his fingers. So close.
"Do you have time to answer some questions about this?" the security officer said coldly, and once more Ranma noticed neither of the newcomers had bothered to introduce themselves.
"We were just answering questions from your friend over there." Ranma gestured to the security officer they had been talking to. The new man seemed to notice him for first time and nodded abruptly to both of Shaak and Ranma before moving off leaving the Jedi with his two fellows, obviously washing his hands of them.
The Jedi simply sighed faintly then bowed his head. "City Jedi always seem to cause trouble either with your general attitudes or with your mere presence. This kind of trouble is new I will admit but I have to ask, do you think we should expect more of this?"
"Probably," Ranma said, as a faint gargling rock sound came from HK's mouthpiece, the droid's equivalent of laughter perhaps?
"I'm afraid so," Shaak said sending Ranma a quelling glance. "It's out of our hands after all. We still have no idea why Ranma has this large a bounty. We have irritated the Hutts recently however."
Or could it be something more sinister at work, the Order's hidden enemy at work? If so, his resources are even greater than we feared, I must send a message to Yoda about that. Shaak thought.
The local Jedi sighed again, frowning at them both. "Very well, let us conclude your business here and see you gone as quickly as possible. While I am in no way against you defending yourselves, I do not want honest Corellian citizens to be harmed in any kind of shootout between you, criminals out for your bounty or actual bounty hunters. We'll have to see what we can do about that."
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "I'll agree with you on that one, though if they do, I'll send the same message to them that I've sent to the Bounty Hunter's guild. If they involve innocents, all bets are off, and I'm going to start go hunting them instead." His eyes flashed, and the smile on Ranma's face had no hint of actual humor in it.
The Jedi's eyes narrowed. "We have laws here, and if you break them, you will be no better than the people who attacked you."
Ranma rolled his eyes but didn't rise to that one, instead looking over at Shaak. "Perhaps we should get on with why we're here after all, as you said." Shaak interjected smoothly. "Shall we move on? And, who do I have the… pleasure of addressing? I am Knight Shaak Ti as you know, and this is Ranma."
The Jedi didn't flush or look away but he did bow his head very slightly, acknowledging his bad manners. "Forgive me, I am Master Nejaa Halcyon."
"Then you're the one we're here to see." Ranma said, pulling out the holocron from an actual un-expanded pocket. "Your ancestor asked us to give this to you."
The older man looked at the holocron in something like surprise under his Jedi control and he nodded slowly, his bearing thawing noticeably. "I had been informed of that, as well as your other mission here." He drew himself up and nodded his head more formally at them both. "I find I have to apologize, I let my concern and shock at the violence your arrival caused to rob me of my good manners. Please, follow me."
Ranma and Shaak exchanged one more speaking glance before Ranma ordered HK to shut down again, stuffing his head back into his ki space. Only a raised eyebrow showed his surprise at Ranma's ability to stuff a large droid head into a very small pocket before he turned away.
The three of them made their way silently through the corridors of the space habitat, and Ranma once again noticed the diverse construction designs at work here on the inside as they had been on the outside. This place hadn't been built so much as enlarged over time, with bits and pieces added on haphazardly by various different groups with very different ideas on how everything should go.
It looked like a real city frankly, one that grew as its population did, unlike the impression he had got from Dac's massive dockyards. Ranma had no idea if that was the case, but it was just his impression.
As they were coming around one turn in the corridor, entering what looked like a major industrial district Shaak and Nejaa automatically dodged to one side as a man pushing a small grav cart carrying a large barrel of something passed between them. Ranma didn't notice the man, having turned to look at a neon sign over a small doorway leading into a shop which advertised something that looked remarkably like okonomiyaki.
The grav cart smashed into Ranma, the barrel slopping forward. Ranma had a split second to look at the liquid approaching him with resigned acceptance before it splashing Ranma. The smell which rose to her nose afterward however was something else entirely. Whatever that was, it wasn't water, water doesn't stink like this without something seriously being wrong with it!
"All right," she said slowly grabbing the man by his jacket and lifting into the air by about a foot off the ground with no apparent effort. "What the hell was that stuff?"
The man hadn't had a good look at whoever he had run into, so hadn't noticed the change. Instead he was swiftly becoming very, very scared of the short redheaded girl who was holding him up as if he weighed less than the barrel he'd just been pushing on the grav sled. "Emergency coolant, the, the Dawn Venture over in bay five burst a leak in its coolant systems, and the engine's slowly going critical even while on standby. There's no one in their right now but droids, but we had to cart in extra coolant by the boatload while the other teams try to find the leak."
"Then maybe you should have been more careful about watching where you're going!" Ranma said hurling the man aside. She then sighed looking down at herself as she noticed the looks she was getting from a few passerby. Thank God I don't wear white. I'm giving the local boys too much of a show as it is.
While Shaak shook her head in amusement Nejaa stared at Ranma in shock. He had felt the change occur, and was mildly disturbed by the odd Force sensation, but the change was beyond anything he had ever even imagined was possible even with the power of the force. "H-how, how..."
"You're supposed to say how, when and why, not just repeat yourself, get it right." Ranma said shaking his head. "Whatever. Shaak you explain, I'm going to go see if I can find an emergency shower. I'll find you in a bit?"
"Where is the docking port for the shuttle will be taking down to the planet?" Shaak asked the older man.
The Jedi seem to snap out of it shaking his head. "Our shuttle's waiting for us at hatch fifty-three birth ten, that's on the planet-facing side of the space station."
Ranma nodded and without another word turned and moved off heading deeper into the space station, still holding the guy he'd who had bumped into her despite his protest. "I'll drop ya in a bit, but you'd better point me in the direction of a shower first."
Behind Ranma, Shaak turned to the local Jedi and began to explain about Ranma's 'Force curse'. Of course Nejaa didn't believe most of it. After all if it was a curse as he understood the term it should've felt Dark, not like the Force was laughing at Ranma somehow, a feeling that was unusual and therefore worrying but not Dark. But he decided to take it at face value for now. After all, while Shaak wasn't a Corellian Jedi, she was still a Jedi, and there was no reason for her to prevaricate about something so odd.
Ranma rejoined the two of them at the birth designated, and a few minutes later they headed down to Corellia's capital, Coronet. As they went down Ranma took in the view once again, smiling almost nostalgically. Of the planet's he'd been on so far, Corellia looked most like Earth, white clouds, blue ocean, brown and green landmasses of what his brain told him was the correct mix.
Pity the locals haven't come up with any martial arts to interest me, I would've liked to explore a bit. But then again given the their attitude toward us so far, maybe it's for the best that they don't. Nejaa seems okay now that he's gotten over his response to the fight, but even so it's not been a friendly welcome.
Looking out the window Ranma allowed a smile to grow on his face. And I want to start striking out on my, that is our, own, distance myself from the Order for a bit. Whatever the Orders internal problems, whatever this enemy out there, I can't do anything about the second and don't care about the first. It's time to use the Wild Light like I had hoped to, to seek out martial arts styles, incorporate them into my own, and just explore!
Coronet was more like the city of Coruscant which Ranma had seen from the air than the cities he had seen on Dac. There wasn't near as much depth to the buildings, he could see the actual ground far below the spires all around, but there was far more height than the cities of Dac. And again, there was no uniform type of construction. Some aspects were clearly new, others apartments, still others looked alien to his eyes, but they were all a jumble like on any city on Earth would have been.
Moments later they landed at a small exclusive landing field situated well below the sky line, surrounded by several towering buildings and more than one walled complex. Nejaa, who had piloted them down personally, told the two visitors this landing area was accessible only to Corsec, high level government officials and Jedi. "The enclave is this way," the local man said gesturing in one direction.
Shaak and Ranma followed, and soon enough they were at the green enclave, which was as Shaak had suspected the same building whose picture she had seen in the history texts as the Corellian Jedi temple. The exterior was of a squat, unlovely looking building separated from the rest of the city by a small, admittedly quite nice garden, which was open to the public, and a single road leading up to the entrance for both foot and vehicle traffic. The entrance itself was large, and guarded by two Jedi like the temple on Coruscant was.
That was all the two newcomers could tell from here, though Shaak noticed what looked like a portion of a planetary shield generator on top of the building as they moved along the street. Hmm, I remember reading about the shields being able to protect the enclave from large scale orbital bombardment, if they have a planetary grade shield generator that would make sense. But the power requirements must be huge.
As they entered the building Shaak stopped and stared, her purple lips quirking upward as several youngling looked up at her. The entrance, a small, well armored area with a series of doors, abutted a small internal courtyard which was currently being used for lessons, advanced ones from the age of the younglings, a clan of ten. Two ramps led off from either direction heading upwards, while the far side of the courtyard was open at present to another garden set inside the square of the enclave.
At the younglings attention Shaak bowed her head lightly, which after a moment's hesitation they returned. The hesitation might have been caused by her robe's color, since every other Jedi she had seen so far here had green robes, hence the Corellian Jedi's nickname. Or it could have been because she was an alien, by which she meant a species not represented within their ranks. There was a Drall and a nonhuman whose race she didn't recognize offhand among them, but no Togrutan or any other species close to her own.
Shaak also noticed that there were a few here that looked enough alike as to be family, particularly one of the Jedi who had ushered them inside and one of the younglings, close enough to be siblings at least, but she didn't say anything. It was not her place to criticize, and frankly given her own relationship with Ranma, she wouldn't have been in a position to do so in any event.
Of course with us even if our relationship becomes permanent that particular aspect won't be a problem. Shaak thought with a twinge of something like unease but not quite. Just the knowledge that whatever happened between them, children would not be part of it. Togrutan and human relationships were infertile.
"This way please." Nejaa said, after returning the youngling teacher's nod, gesturing them to one ramp leading upwards. Shaak and Ranma followed and the ramp ended on the second floor in a corridor that seemed to go around the whole building. They followed it through two right turns before Nejaa stopped at a door hallway down the las segment of the corridor.
The council room they were ushered into abutted the interior side of the building overlooking the open garden beyond, giving a very pretty view of it and the large fountain that dominated it. The lighting was given off by the sun beyond and four lights in each corner. Along one wall were a few art pieces of exquisite glasswork for the most part, but they were the only sign of extravagance in the room.
Situated within the room were four Jedi masters situated in the shape of a half circle, with the window behind them on small cushions, with one more spot empty alone one portion of the circle. Two other cushions sat before them, separated by a more than a yard from the rest of them.
Do they present a united front against us, or against anyone from the Order at large? Shaak mused internally. She let one hand fall to her side tapping Ranma's hand lightly twice, trying to indicate she should be the one to speak.
She needn't have bothered; Ranma was uninterested in getting involved with politics, especially Jedi politics. He stood back, looking at them all thoughtfully as Shaak stepped forward. "Greetings masters, I am Knight Shaak Ti, and I bring both a message from Grand Master Yoda and the rest of the Order, as well as a holocron of one of your own, returned to his descendent at Master Kieran Halcyon's behest."
Knowing that was his cue Ranma once more held out the holocron to Nejaa, who after getting nods from his fellows took it before sitting down in the place reserved for him. One of the other masters spoke up, frowning coldly. "The return of our property is a nice gesture after you had 'lawfully' confiscated it during the Reformation I suppose. However why couldn't this message be sent via the Holonet? You've already brought your foreign troubles to our shores, what does that old fool want with the Green that would demand a personal messenger?"
The meeting didn't go downhill from there, which would not have been possible given all the participants save Ranma were Jedi. But the masters certainly didn't make any secret of their distrust for 'city-trained' Jedi even as they listened to her intently. As Ranma stood silent, something she was extremely thankful for, Shaak dealt with all their subtle digs or jabs, laying out some of the changes Master Yoda had told her to inform them of verbally.
This included Ranma and the vision Yoda had while Ranma was on Coruscant, something they didn't want recorded anywhere. Many of them shook their heads at the idea this young man could know anything about the Force they didn't. But looking at him with their Force senses and after having the curse described to them by Nejaa and watching Ranma generate a ki ball, they conceded that point. They also looked askance between her and Ranma, obviously able to feel the connection between them in the Force and wondered about it, though that was a subtle thing.
Worse for the Green Jedi they had to admit that some of their own, who specialized in visions, could no longer see more than a few months into their personal future, so clouded it had become with the Dark Side. Because of that they were forced to agree that there might be more to the rising power of the Dark Side, but Shaak got the impression that if they could have buried their heads in the sand and let the rest of the Order deal with it, they would have.
They were not truly resentful of the rest of the Order. That would not have been possible for anyone trained in the ways of the Jedi, they understood their ways were not everyone's, though they didn't recognize the reasons beyond much of the Reformation. They were also very, very insular, almost unwilling to look beyond the Corellia sector's borders, and completely engrossed with their own doings.
Of course the same could be said for the Order too, far too busy with the Senate and its own doings rather than looking at the Republic as a whole, Shaak mused. I suppose it's a danger of the monastic mindset, we are told to believe in the Force above all else, and that does tend to make us more insular than we probably should be. And worse, makes us believe in our ability to discern the morality of any discussion over anyone else's.
Whatever other messages Yoda sent to the group on his chip Shaak didn't know and frankly was thankful for that, while she had the patience and the knowledge to play the politician she no longer truly had the temperament. Whatever concessions or demands Yoda made toward them they could review on their own, though Shaak doubted they were all that arduous. The Green Jedi however had asked her to return tomorrow to discuss them anyway, and since they were going to be in-system for the night, Shaak had no reason to refuse.
"Y'know," Ranma said as the two of them exited the temple, heading back to the landing pad and up to the Wild Light. The Jedi had offered to put them up for the night, but neither had felt any inclination to take them up on that. "I sort of had high hopes for them after Master Halcyon told us about his family and you told me about the Green Jedi during the New Sith wars, but that was disappointing."
Shaak's lekku twitched slightly and she shook her head. "I'm afraid I'm noticing a pattern among Jedi Ranma thanks to access to your outside view of us. We tend to stake out the moral high ground and keep to it, regardless of any new information that comes our way. Their standoffish attitude also irritated me as well. I just wonder…"
"Wonder what?" Ranma asked as she trailed off.
"I just wonder if it was an act that's all, to see if they could get under my skin. I'd almost think that was the case, in Master Halcyon's case at the very least if not for some of the looks directed towards the two of us at times. The ones which had nothing to do with your abilities or Master Yoda's vision anyway."
"Like they weren't quite sure what they were looking at, or weren't certain what to make of you? I thought it was just me."
"No I think it was us," Shaak said emphasizing the last word.
Ranma looked at her then nodded. "You think that they realized we were in a relationship? I thought given what you said about them that wouldn't have mattered? I mean, I know I saw at least few Jedi in there that were related so…"
"Almost certainly, though whether or not they were looking at it askance because they know I am a 'city Jedi', or because we are different races I don't know. From what little I know of them, my own people are very open about such things, or rather not so much open as understanding when it occurs. If two people are together it's their own business so long as it doesn't impact the community as a whole. If it does that, my people apparently have very abrupt and certain ways of discouraging the relationship."
"But let me guess humans are all over the scale right? Some systems don't care, some systems have outlawed it, that kind of crap?"
"Oh yes. Of all the races Ranma humans are the hardest to understand or categorize." Shaak replied with a droll tone.
"We confuse ourselves often enough that's for damn sure, even on my own planet that was the case." Ranma said with a laugh.
A moment later they were on the shuttle, which took them back up to the space station. From there they made their way back to the Wild Light, pausing as they reached its landing Ramp. It was open, and the two exchanged a look. "Tune, any reason why the ramps still down?" Ranma asked into his wrist communicator.
At the same time Shaak began to stretch her senses out, trying to find anyone watching them with ill-intent or if anything was out of the ordinary. With electrical devices that was much more difficult than it was to find people out of place, but it was within her Force abilities. And given how Ranma's techniques had leaked to the enemy they both felt was still out there, she was more than willing to put in the effort.
Looking over at her Ranma shook his head. "Tune says that he just returned with a purchase of some foodstuffs for us about twenty minutes ago. He says he was going to head out again to get some oil for himself, so left it open. Remind me to talk to him about security later."
After a moment Shaak came out of her trance, frowning. "I can't detect anything dangerous this time, nor out of place with the Wild Light itself. We should still scan for tracking devices however." Ranma nodded and the two entered the ship
As they did, Ranma cocked his head looking over at Shaak, suddenly nervous. "Ya know, this is the first time we've been on a planet that had restaurants and other you know normal date-like things to do, and I was wondering if you'd, um, actually like to go out on a real date?"
Shaak paused cocking her head thoughtfully. "That actually sounds like a lovely idea. I've never been on one of those obviously, though I have to say I enjoyed our explorative dates…" she frowned shaking her head. "That just came out wrong."
"Yep," Ranma said with a laugh. "Yep it did. But if those Jedi want you back tomorrow, that means we've got tonight to ourselves. And its early, so we'd still have time to prepare and everything…" He trailed off, puling at his pigtail self-consciously.
"I," Shaak paused, flushing slightly but she still nodded. "Yes, I think that would be lovely."
Ranma grinned, nearly sagging with relief, though why he been nervous in the first place was beyond him. "In that case, here." He reached into his ki space, and pulled out a wad of cash, handing it over. Shaak look at it blankly then up at Ranma. "If we're going to do this, we should probably do it all out right? Getting dressed up, fancy food and stuff like that."
Shaak frowned slightly. "I've been to a many formal dinners on protection or diplomatic missions Ranma, my Jedi robes were enough there then they should be enough here."
"You mean you've never wanted to try on different clothing and that kind of thing?" Ranma asked cocking his head thoughtfully. "I might not be have been born a girl, but I know that girls normally like to dress up."
"I… suppose I might have when I was younger." Shaak said hesitantly then nodded decisively. "All right. I will go out and see if I can find anything that I like. But what will you be doing, and won't you need to dress up too? Should we do it together, it would make more sense after all."
"That's sort of a prerequisite yeah. But to doing it together, you really have no idea how normal women shop do ya? Definitely a point in yer favor in my book Shaak." Ranma said with a laugh and a kiss to the side of her montrals, then looked over at the com gear in the center of the room, which was in the sitting room configuration at present. "Nah, I'll find a place to shop but for the most part I'll be looking for stuff to do."
After exchanging a brief kiss, Shaak left once more, smiling at the idea of going on a date like this. She had of course had a few protection assignments that brought her along as silent observer along dates or formal dinners like she had said, but to actually dress up was something she had only ever done on undercover missions. Then it was for a purpose, and she still wore her Jedi robes in her own head as it were. But this time, she was going to take part in the date and was buying clothing for her own sake in order to please both herself and her partner.
It was something well outside what the Jedi Order had prepared her for. Indeed, one aspect of her still railed at the idea, that special clothing or dates went against the Order's rules about placing attachment on objects and pleasures of the flesh. And Shaak knew that there was a point to that, but also knew that the idea of any such self-aggrandizement was anathema to her. This was simply another aspect of the whole relationship that she had been allowed to have with Ranma.
Behind her Ranma turned to his work, quickly finding a few things that he thought were date-worthy. One was a restaurant that specialized in meat dishes, which he knew would be to Shaak's taste. The second was local theatre which was putting on a show about a heroic pirate captain trying to save his crew from a corrupt official's ire while also, of course, seducing said official's daughter. It was labeled as a comedy, which was right up Ranma's alley, and he hoped Shaak would like it as well despite the basic premise.
Never mind that most pirates are utter bastards rapists and murderers, the scum of the galaxy. Pirates are the underdog, and therefore there's some kind of romanticism to them here I suppose, Ranma thought to himself shaking his head. People are weird sometimes like that. Now, where can I go to rent a tuxedo or the local equivalent?
OOOOOOO
The Jedi Masters of the Green Enclave all looked at one another having listened to the hologram of their ancient ancestor on this enigma called Ranma and the missives from Grand Master Yoda. For once their faces showed their thoughts clearly as all of them, all human men, looked around at one another.
Master Halcyon in particular was looking conflicted and even said so aloud. "On the one hand, we have Ranma all of his new abilities, what he can teach us of his version of the Force, what it could mean for our skills and abilities. And on the other, we have Yoda's demands to us, and the chaos Ranma seems to leave in his wake. From chaos comes imbalance, from imbalance comes conflict and from conflict come the Dark side."
"Do not mistake the chaos he leaves behind him for the individual himself," Kieran Halcyon said quietly, bringing all their eyes back to his hologram. "I have spent hours with Ranma at times, and found him difficult to work with, but an honorable and gentle man. For all his love of conflict and violence, he is a strangely gentle individual."
His descendent suddenly clicked his fingers remembering something. "Rostek asked me to find out whether or not Ranma was serious about going on a hunt for anyone who tries to take him on for his bounty and hurts innocents in their way."
"Oh yes," his ancestor replied, the hologram's image going cold somehow despite just being a hologram, an interesting feat. "He was very serious. If I were you, I would get a subtle word spread about that, because when Ranma and now young Ti goes hunting, well apparently two Hutt crime lords have already learned what happens when you get in their way."
"Good," said another master nodding his head.
The others looked at him and he shrugged. He and Halcyon were liaisons with Corsec so there was no surprise they were of that opinion, but there seemed to be more to his statement than that. "There have been some noises of late about a bounty going around the underworld for Knight Ti herself because of that business on Tatooine." He supplied.
Faces hardened all around, and they all nodded. The one chairing the meeting, Master Grackel, shook his head. "Get in touch with your contacts on the other side of the law." That the enclave had such was a given, smalltime felons were not the Jedi's concerns after all, and even Jedi knew the importance of an information network. It hadn't helped so far in trying to crack down on the crime bosses, they of course knew the movers and shakers, and routinely observed them, but Force powers were not admissible in court without evidence to back them up, and the Jedi were a force of law, not a dictatorship.
"She may be a city Jedi, but she is still a Jedi. Such like that is not to be encouraged. If they start striking against us, we will take the law into our own hands and strike at them." Halcyon looked a little dyspeptic at that, but the others simply nodded. "Now, as to Yoda's demands, we have to think about what we would lose, and what we would gain before coming to any decision about that matter. This is not a decision that should be reached quickly, therefore I propose…"
OOOOOOO
Shaak sighed faintly as she moved through the shopping district, pausing occasionally. I really have no idea what I'm doing here, do I? The idea of fashion, as a Jedi, just did not exist to her. It was one robe fit all, though admittedly what you wore under the robes were up to you. But even so, there wasn't exactly a wide range of things to have, and she had never been on a security assignment which included shopping trips, mainly, it must be said, because such people had droids or other menials for shopping.
With her enthusiasm now gone, Shaak walked into one story which seems to have women's apparel, looking around as lost here as she had ever been, her Force ability no help here. Luckily for Shaak there were actually workers there, and one of them noticed her confusion. "Can I help you?" she said, bouncing up to the Togrutan.
Shaak smiled faintly at the younger woman, nodding her head lightly. It was only as the girl came up that she noticed that Shaak wore a light saber on her belt. She paused, her eyes wide.
"None of that," Shaak said before the girl could say anything. "I'm not a local Jedi, so I have no idea how they act while out and about, but we Jedi don't routinely demand that people bow and scrape to us, or treat us anything other than other people. And I could use some help I must say."
The girl nodded, slowly recovering her equilibrium. "Um, of course. So what are you actually here for?"
"Clothing?" Shaak said almost desperately. "A dress of some type. I've seen pants on senators occasionally, but dresses seem to be more normal dress-up fare. Which of course makes sense given how they impede your movement."
The girl blinked again, then nodded again. "Okay, where are you going that you need a new dress then? I can only think of a few instances where a Jedi's robes wouldn't be acceptable."
Shaak debated for a moment then shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose you could say we're going undercover?" Frankly she didn't want to explain what was really going on. Even if the girl didn't know that Jedi couldn't be in relationships it would be just too much trouble for too little return. Besides, she felt… embarrassed enough as it was, as odd as it felt to be embarrassed at all given her Jedi training.
Her attempt at prevarication didn't work. "So a date then," the girl said cheerfully, grinning at her. She was a rather pretty young human female, with long dirty blonde hair that fell to her shoulders in a wave, dressed up in the store's uniform of a knee-length dress skirt and a blouse tight around her waist and flaring at the chest. "Do you know where you're going?"
"One moment," Shaak said looking away and pulling out a small communicator to avoid the girl's somehow knowing eyes. "Ranma, have you decided on where we're going to go eat?"
"Warnar's Alcove." Was the response, though Ranma sounded disgruntled for some reason. "I've got us reservations for tonight at 8:30."
Shaak nodded. "All right, I will meet you back on the Wild Light."
Once Shaak relayed the information to the girl she nodded thoughtfully then led her over to another section of the store. "Well, in that case you'll want something a little high-end, but not too much. Since this is just for a single date, you should know we do offer rentals. However I'm not certain we have that large a selection dresses which would go well with that your skin color and those striking white and blue marks of yours. The white around your eyes really bring them out, but they and the white of your, um, those tentacle and horn things, kind of rule out white for the rest of your outfit."
"They are called montrals and lekku. But what does my skin color have to do with what I'm wearing?" Shaak asked, cocking her head quizzically.
The girl stopped midstride, turning to look at her, her eyes wide. "Oh dear."
OOOOOOO
Ranma sighed, closing the communicator which had, for one brief moment freed him from his current horror. I'm in hell. At a touch on his shoulder he turned, staring in another mirror as the man behind him, who had a noticeable lisp and rather colorful choice of personal clothing, tutted.
"No, no, no that simply will not do. We need to emphasize those broad shoulders more, that chest too! Oh my word, and that color will simply not do, Heren what were you thinking? Now come young man, back to the dressing room!" So saying the man, the owner of the shop apparently, pushed Ranma through the door to the changing area. He began to shout orders over his shoulder at the first man that had tried to help Ranma while others in the store looked on with expressions ranging from amusement to sympathy.
Shaak better appreciate this… Ranma thought, as more pants and shirts were tossed into the dressing room. And if he tries to reach below the belt I'm feeding him a Moko Takabashi!
OOOOOOO
"I don't care how much it is," said the man across the desk to the armored form in front of it, amused that his visitor wouldn't take off his helmet even here. Anonymity is all well and good, but if you're trying to keep a low profile, that armor really doesn't help your case with anyone who knows even a bit of history.
"Going after this Ranma character is more trouble than it's worth in the long-term. The Jedi have put the word out, if we keep trying for their knight and this Ranma fellow, they'll start gunning for us, and stop caring about the laws. And if they swing it right, the government will back them to the hilt too. Yes, it's almost as much money as my entire syndicate makes in three years. But, I'd have to be alive to spend it, and seeing as the Jedi know who I am and where I live, its very doubtful that would occur."
"I understand your hesitation," said the man in armor, his voice coming out as a deep growl from his headset. "And frankly, we don't want any of your people helping us anyway. This is a task for professionals, and there are few true professionals when it comes to fighting Jedi anyway. Information though would be helpful."
"What kind of information?"
"How long will they be here for, and what's their itinerary?"
"Not long, they've only booked space in Corohab for their ship for one night and two days."
The man in armor cursed, frowning thoughtfully. "What are they here for anyway?"
"The Wild Light's owner purchased some specialty droid parts from Coronet Personalized Robotics, a company I have no stock or sources in though I do use a few of their droids. They specialize in one-off droids or small groups designed for specific jobs or environments. They are expensive, but extremely good."
"Interesting," the man murmured. "Could you get me a layout of that place?"
"I can point you to another local information broker," the man said flatly. "I'm not getting involved further than that."
The man inside the helmet sneered slightly at the other man's cowardice, but didn't say anything. "Good, now if you'll excuse me, the Death Watch have a job to do."
OOOOOOO
"By the ancients, what are you wearing!?"
"This is my training shift, I always wear it under my regular clothing." Shaak said frowning as she looked up from where she had been pulling on a dress over her training. "You didn't strike me as a prude when you were ordering me to hold still and act like a doll before, what's wrong?"
"You're going to wear that on the date, hells no!" The girl turned, sticking her head out into the rest of the room. "Alice, could you send one of the view-bots over here?"
"What is that?" Shaak said after a moment, staring at what the woman in the image of the hologram projected over the droid was wearing.
"That my dear is lingerie, a woman's best friend and her greatest weapon. Now come on, let's get you dolled up for real."
OOOOOOO
"So that's the plan. We'll move the surprises into place this evening, then keep an eye out for when this Ranma character shows up at the CPR building. How much time do you slicers need to get in there?"
"CPR's got faith in it's internalized net, which is very good, but not that good once you get an actual connection to it. Getting that physical connection to the net is a lot tougher though."
"Leave that to me and my team." Said a female voice, the first one heard in this meeting. The first voice had been the same as the man in armor who had met with the local crime lord, having snuck into his office with none of the numerous people who watched his every move the wiser and back out again. The second voice was young sounding, vain and arrogant, with the local drawl to his tone telling everyone he was a Corellian native, while the other was crisp and cold, the voice of a military man.
The woman's voice was also cool and clipped, as if they were talking about nothing more important than the weather. "We'll get you into the building. Even on planets with hover cars, the security of the top of the building is almost always weaker than below, especially if you go through the windows just below the roof. So long as this map's accurate, we're golden."
"Good. I want no slip ups. We might not have been able to bring together the full Death Watch for this, but if we can pull this off and turn in this bounty, we'll have enough money to fund our movement against Satine. I want no slip ups, understand Bo-Katan?"
The woman nodded her head, her orange hair shifting in the light. "Of course, Chief Vizla."
OOOOOOO
Ranma smiled as he looked up as Shaak walked into the sitting room then felt his jaw nearly unhinge as it dropped to the floor, and a blush spread on his face. Shaak was not wearing her Jedi robes, he had known that, but he hadn't expected this.
The Jedi knight currently wore a black dress with white stripes that hugged her around the waist and covered her from shoulders down to just below her knees, with blue highlights on the sleeves and bottom of the dress. The dress was also slit halfway along one side, allowing some of her leg to show, but not much. It had a bit of décolletage showing, but not much. The white stripes in the dress complimented the stripes of white on her lekku and montrals, while the blue matched her blue stripes, and the black of the dress set off her red skin color dramatically. She also wore lipstick which turned her purple lips black and dark purple eyeliner that set off her eyes even more starkly against the white marks around them. She looked altogether beautiful.
"Well, what do you think?" Shaak said, smiling slightly, Ranma's reaction had already given her answer.
"Y, you look good," Ranma shook his head. "I mean you always do, but this is just, wow."
"It was rather difficult to get all this on me I must say," Shaak said, still smiling at his reaction, "So the sentiment is appreciated. You look very good too," She said, and it was the honest truth.
Ranma wore a pair of tight black pants under a shirt which fell to halfway down his thighs. The shirt was grey and was buttoned on a diagonal along his left pectoral. The buttons were bronze colored and there was a bronze edge to the shirt and at the end of the sleeves. Ranma had also let his hair down too, letting it fall loose to his shoulders. The pants flared out at the bottom, but looked somewhat tight at the waist, and the shirt also hugged his shoulders and stomach, showing off how fit he was.
"So, shall we go?"
Ranma nodded, and took her hand, tucking it into his own as they exited the Wild Light. They walked through the station, very much out of place among its utilitarian corridors for a time, until they took the shuttle down to the planet.
From there they made their way to the restaurant, where they were seated quickly. Shaak's eyes lit up as she looked at the menu, smirking over at Ranma, though she had to womanfully ignore the prices on display here. "I can see why you chose this place," she said, reaching out to grasp his hand and squeezing gently. "Thank you."
"No problem," Ranma said with a shrug. "I'm not as big a meat eater as you are, but it's still tasty."
"Yes I've noticed you are definitely a quantity over quality person when it comes to food." Shaak laughed, but stopped as Ranma took her hand turning it lightly to kiss her palm. That touch sent a shiver through her, and she laughed again. "So," she said after a moment, "what are we supposed to talk about while out on a date?"
"I think the discussion part is just supposed to be normal." Ranma shrugged. He grinned lightly at her, his eyes taking in her form once again. "My God you're beautiful. I mean you normally are like I said before but still. I'm surprised I didn't have to beat off guys with a stick as we were coming in here."
Shaak smiled and returned the compliment, though she had noticed more than a few stares of both genders sent their way. It had been oddly irritating frankly. Does clothing make the person that much? That's rather sad. Though perhaps I should take it to heart and remember not to judge people by what they wear, their station in life or job.
They talked quietly, touching on how Ranma saw their training moving forward, about Aayla and whether or not she would be ready once they returned to Kashyyyk and where they would go from here. Ranma wanted to head to Eshan. Home of the Echani martial arts, Eshan was a planet on the cusp between the so-called Inner Rim and Outer Rim territories. The Echani martial art style was a style known to be able to fight equally against a Jedi, so it interested Ranma, especially since Dooku had recommend he look into it.
Shaak was fine with that idea, though she had warned him she doubted he would find anything new to learn there. Many of the Echani skills were inherent in their own race's ability to read people's body language, a skill they learned literally from birth. A Jedi could learn some of that, substituting Force Perception for that skill, but Ranma might not be able to, and his physical abilities were well beyond what any Echani practitioner would be able to match.
Still, simply traveling the galaxy looking for new martial arts styles, and weapons too, would be interesting. Though Shaak had no doubt that they would occasionally be asked to help the Order, which didn't even consider the threat still out there, something both knew they would be involved with combating down the line.
Then Ranma began to tell Shaak about some of the 'dates' he'd been on, which had her laughing aloud several times. She replied with several of her own stories about political dinners and other such things she had been at, topping them all with a story about how one such dinner had nearly degraded into a food fight. The host hadn't known about his guest's allergic reaction to one of the main ingredients in the food served him. The resultant regurgitation had hit another guest, who had been drunk enough at that point to reply in kind. If not for a quick Force grab of the food in midair from Shaak's master the entire dinner would have become a disaster. As it was, none of those senators were willing to talk to one another to this day.
The food soon came, and it was just as good as the menu had said it would be. The talk continued light and airy now as they described the most embarrassing moments of their training when they were younger. Naturally Ranma had more amusing anecdotes, though Shaak had one story of a grueling training trip to a forest world to teach the younglings how to find food which had been called on account of a mud slide that had Ranma cracking up.
The two of them then went on to the show from there. The play was amusing in places, but had Shaak shaking her head far too often for it to be a real hit. She had far too much knowledge about what real pirates were like to think this kind of thing was all that humorous. Whereas Ranma thought the voice of the main female lead could be used to etch steel, and most of the jokes fell far too flat to him.
After that they made their way from there back to the shuttle pad and up to the Wild Light, still talking. Finally they stood in the sitting area, just looking at one another. "So, um, did you like it?"
Shaak cocked her head to one side before leaning up to kiss him lingeringly on the lips. "The company was amazing Ranma, but…" She frowned trying to think of a way to say what she wanted to without sounding insulting. "But the rest of it, well I just don't know if I wouldn't have had just as much fun making a meal with you up here and maybe watching something on the holo or learning a new kata."
"Oh thank goodness." Ranma nearly sagged with relief. "I thought it was just me." He shook his head as Shaak smiled up at him. "I mean, yeah the meal was good but really damn expensive, my fault I suppose, but dressing up was…"
"Far more trouble than it's worth." Shaak agreed, nodding her head emphatically. "I almost smacked the young girl who was working at the store I went to. She was just being helpful, but I really did not like the whole shopping thing."
"Er, for me there was no almost about it. So we're agreed this just wasn't us?" Shaak nodded and Ranma smiled, before leaning forward to kiss her lightly on the lips. "Not that other kinds of dates should be ruled out. But this whole dress up thing, we should just cross it off the list and move on."
"Agreed," Shaak replied, returning the kiss before leaning against his neck, biting playfully, though her instincts were again somewhat irritated in not being able to actually bite into Ranma's skin there. "But for now, we have an early day tomorrow, and it's already one o'clock local time, so…"
"Right, right, and I need to return this suit before heading over to CPR tomorrow." Ranma said, pulling back from the hug slightly. Shaak leaned in for another kiss, but nodded her head, and they both returned to their rooms.
The next morning Ranma left his room to the smell of someone cooking breakfast. He smiled, moving through the sitting area to find Shaak in the kitchen, making what looked like… "Are those pancakes?"
"These are called hotcakes here, but I assume that's another moment of cross evolution. They have several varieties of syrup here as well based around local berries, many that I've never seen before."
Ranma, nodded, moving behind her, putting his arms around her waist in a gentle hug. Shaak stopped, leaning back against him as Ranma kissed the area right at the base of one of her montrals. "I didn't think Jedi would be allowed such niceties as pancakes and syrup."
"We're generally not, which again comes down to not putting any attachment on possessions, though in this case it could also be cost. However, since you are the one paying for it…"
"Now I know we're in a relationship, you're already using me for my money." Ranma laughed, moving off quickly as Shaak turned swiftly, bringing her elbow around.
They sat in the sitting room for a moment, quietly for the most part as Shaak pulled out her data pad and read a few messages from the local Jedi left at their Galactic network account. "The Green Jedi not only want to see me again but I've been invited by one of them to join them on an excursion to Drall."
"Interested?" Ranma asked, having to wait a moment to clear his throat. "These pancakes are really good Shaak." They were quite a bit thicker than pancakes normally were, about the thickness of a pie, but the texture was the same as pancakes to his mind.
"Not very no, and thank you Ranma, it's my first time making them." Shaak replied with a smile. "As to their invitation, no, I have no interest in getting involved with the Green more than I have to. And frankly the idea of leaving you to your own devices for an entire day is a horrifying one."
"Ouch." Ranma laughed, holding his head over his heart.
Shaak rolled her eyes at him before turning back to her messages. "Master Windu sent a message to me saying that master Bulq has formally taken Quinlan as his student, the actual term is up in the air at present. Master Windu wants me to write up a message to send to Quinlan about Aayla's recovery from my own perspective. He feels it will be helpful to create a cleaner break between the two. I can do that easily enough."
Ranma nodded, not saying anything. He had been present when Aayla's padawan bond with Quinlan had been broken in a small ceremony. Warned of what to expect he had tried to feel something through his own senses, but hadn't felt anything. Something had happened, as Aayla had looked like she was in pain for a moment, then almost liberated but not quite. She had spent several hours afterward talking to Luminara and Fay, but he had no idea what they had discussed.
As they cleaned up, Ranma chuckled shaking his head. "Yeah, this was definitely more my kind of thing."
"I agree," Shaak replied quickly. "The clothing was nice, but as I said last night, far too much effort." she said diplomatically, though she made no mention about some of the other items she had bought. "And don't get me started about lipstick and other cosmetics."
"I always think that kind of stuff is for women who aren't comfortable in their own skin for whatever reason." Ranma shrugged. I guess I had one thing right in Nerima, I do have a thing for tomboys. "You really don't need anything like that to look beautiful Shaak, trust me."
Shaak smiled, leaning up to kiss him lightly on the lips, tasting a hint of syrup there, before turning to help him clean up. After that the two of them took a flight down together to the same landing pad they had used the day before, but broke off at the landing area. Ranma took HK's head with him moving through the city in one direction while Shaak was surprised to find that the Green Enclave had sent another Jedi with a hover car for her.
Having no indication of danger, Shaak did not have her senses extended into the Force at present. Because of this neither Shaak nor her companion noticed that a small traffic control droid was following them from a distance above them.
The trip from the landing pad to the temple was silent, neither Shaak nor the other Jedi interested in small talk. He was a young human male possibly just having started his padawan years judging from his braid, with a curved lightsaber that looked somewhat like the type master Dooku used at his side. Shaak found that rather pretentious, given Dooku had designed that hilt for himself after having proven his worth as a duelist for years, but wasn't about to comment.
They swiftly entered the temple's parking zone, a small internal bay which could open to take in air traffic as well as ground at need. Moving through its corridors swiftly Shaak arrived at the same conference room that she and Ranma had been in before. The boy stopped outside of it bowing. "The Green await you."
Shaak nodded her head graciously at him, rolling her eyes mentally at the unnecessary ostentation of that statement. Once more she found a place for her waiting, and sank onto the cushion without being prompted. Placing her hands in her lap, she looked around her serenely. "Gentlemen, you asked to me to return today. I presume you therefore have questions?"
"We do," said Master Grackel looking at her closely. She felt his Force senses reaching out towards her, as well as the others but remained still and calm, letting them see whatever they could. They pulled back quickly, and the man asked simply, "What is Ranma? We feel his effect on the Force, we have heard of his abilities, and we listened to what he offers the Order. What we want to know is the man himself."
"That is a simple question with a very complicated answer," Shaak said with a faint smile. So, it's about Ranma, not about the messages I brought from you to. Good. No politics at the very least. "He is not a Jedi, whatever we may wish to think trying to place him in that mold is an exercise in futility. He does not think as we do. I believe he is a breath of fresh air, a wind brought to reinvigorate the Jedi Order, possibly to help us, or possibly just to give us the tools to help ourselves. He is gentle at times, caring, combative, arrogant but not overly so, and frighteningly direct, but he possesses a code of honor which has many parallels with our own."
"About the vision master Yoda claims to have had, I wish we could say that we had similar ones, but we have not." began one of the other Jedi.
He looked irritated, but not disbelieving, rather he was irritated that it had been Yoda who had the vision in the first place rather than one of their own. Politics! We are supposed to be above these things. Shaak thought, though nothing about her body language gave her inner thoughts away as the man went on.
"Perhaps if you and Ranma stay here long enough one of our own could have a vision like that?" the other went on, making the statement into a question.
"I'm afraid not." Shaak said with a shake of her head. "Ranma isn't interested in staying here longer, and frankly, given what happened to us on our arrival it might be a good idea for both of us to get out of this system quickly."
"We have let our informants know how irate we were about that." said another master, bowing his head slightly in apology. "They have passed on the word, the local criminals will not act against you again. It was an internal matter apparently, a lieutenant taking an action the higher ups did not agree with. He would've been dealt with if you had not dealt with him during the altercation."
"In other words, while the money is still tempting, they don't want to spend the blood collecting it," said master Halcyon dryly. "And of course are worried about our own response, which has up to this point been constrained by our need to act within the law."
"It's much the same everywhere," Shaak said with a shrug of agreement. "You should try to contact master Ranicisis and Master Sicaria sometime, they run into much the same trouble. The Outer Rim territories are much easier to deal with in that way at least. There we carry the law with us rather than are constrained by it."
As a Core World Corellia had far more laws and rights guarding its citizens than most Outer Rim Territories did, and here local law mattered more than Republic law. Under Republic law, a Jedi's word could be taken as evidence in murder cases as well as other capital crimes. For things like embezzlement, money laundering, and other computer related crimes of that nature they could not be. And even in cases of murder, unless the person accused was the actual murderer, the Jedi could not give supposition as to who ordered the murder in the first place.
In Corellia it was slightly different, but not overly so. They still needed more evidence than a Jedi's word, though a Jedi's word could start an investigation. And Jedi could act as officers of the law in said investigation, which they could not in the rest of the Republic's Core Worlds, where such a thing was seen as a conflict of interest.
"He is too chaotic," said another master going back to the original topic. "I can feel the chaos, the Force swirling around that pillar of Living Force like the eye of a hurricane almost. The effect he is having might be positive, but it might not be, it is too soon to tell what the long term consequences might be, and we must always think about what is best in the long term. From chaos comes imbalance, from imbalance comes, conflict and from conflict the Dark Side."
"Perhaps, but also growth and life," Shaak said holding up her hand. "I've had this conversation many times, I will continue to have it no doubt many more times. Forgive me if it is getting a little worn. I have no desire to have this same debate again here. If you merely wanted my impression of Ranma you have it, you must make your own decision about what to do with Master Yoda's proposals, your opinion of Ranma matters little at this point. Were there any questions you wanted to ask me about anything else?"
"A few," said Master Halcyon. They asked her about her missions with Ranma, trying to get a handle about how his training had affected her beyond what their Force senses could tell. In the end though they came away with nothing truly negative. She was more emotional obviously, but she was in control of those emotions, much more like them than a regular 'city' Jedi.
One of them even said so chuckling slightly. "If you are the future of the Coruscant-trained Jedi, then we welcome this Ranma fellow, even if he is chaos incarnate to our senses."
Shaak smiled faintly. "I have come to the conclusion that much of the Ruusan Reformation was not wrong per-se, but put in place for the wrong reasons. Affection and love, friendship and fellow-feeling, we did not have to associate these with possession, jealousy, or split loyalties, or even see the last as an insurmountable problem."
After a few more questions about Yoda's new reforms and the training that was already being offered on Kashyyyk, the meeting came to a blessed end, and Shaak left retracing her steps through the temple. She still felt a lot of resistance toward bridging the gap between the green enclave and the rest of the Jedi, but that was all down to politics and Shaak thankfully wouldn't need to help broker any further agreements there.
She stopped once to stare out into a courtyard to watch a few younglings being put through some training before moving on, moving towards the front of the enclave rather than the landing port. It was a nice day, and she could meet Ranma by walking to the CPR where he bought the parts as easily as she could take a taxi.
In the main hall of the enclave she found several other younglings, balancing small balls of water in the air with their Force powers. She smiled faintly and had to resist the impulse to push against a few of them to see if they would splatter. Ranma and Anakin's ongoing prank war seems to have affected my sense of fun somewhat. She moved forward, pausing as their teachers said "Master Jedi, wait a moment."
Turning Shaak looked at the Jedi who had addressed her, one of the few non-human Jedi in the enclave, a young Selonian female who bowed quickly to her. "This one's students were asking this one questions much of last night about missions beyond Corellia, how other worlds differ from our own. This one was wondering if you could talk to them for a few moments."
Shaak nodded, bowing her head. "I would be happy to."
The children quickly gathered around them, and Shaak took around an hour to answer their questions. Most of them had to do with specific missions she went on, others had to do with the training and life beyond Corellia's borders, how Jedi were seen out in the rest of the galaxy. The training on Coruscant was much more intensive than these youngsters faced, but not overly so.
They all bowed to her as she moved away heading towards the main door. She bowed back, then exited walking out of the enclave and into the city beyond. The two Jedi outside also nodded to her, and Shaak reflected that perhaps the Green Jedi were not nearly all so standoffish as she had first feared.
Even without her Force senses attuned to look for it, Shaak still had enough presence of mind to feel a faint tingle from the Force warning her of danger. She stopped, looking around abruptly as she gathered her senses.
Behind her the two Jedi assigned guard duty also gasped suddenly, their hands flying to the lightsabers as they looked around. "What is it?" one of them asked, not certain what they were feeling but responding to Shaak's sudden tension.
"Danger," Shaak said "Diffuse, but aimed towards me I think. Something mechanical, I can't sense any living minds behind it. Watch out!"
As Shaak had been speaking two heavy grav trucks stopped outside a building to one side of the road leading to the enclave had opened, and over a dozen concussion missiles flashed towards her at once. Quickly Shaak began to analyze the situation. Bringing both of her hands up as one, she let her lightsaber drop to the ground for now. "Deflect them upwards, with me!" With more experienced Jedi or someone she had worked with before she wouldn't have had to verbalize that, but Shaak wasn't about to take chances.
The two Jedi behind her tried to do just that, reaching out with their Force powers. But none of the Green Jedi were really that good at telekinesis, the enclave preferred to emphasize the mental side of the Jedi teachings, a holdover from when they had mostly been from close-knit families which specialized in manipulating actual energy and lightsaber skills rather than telekinesis. They couldn't help her much, concentrating on two of the missiles each leaving the majority for Shaak.
Reaching forward with her powers Shaak created a blast of power which struck hard enough to activate the impact fuses within them, while reaching for others, redirecting them into one another in a show of subtlety, and split attention, that few Jedi Knights could've matched. Over a dozen of the missiles exploded, taking more of the missiles with them in a cascade effect.
Luckily there weren't any people around underneath them, but the blast radius still destroyed several of the park's trees. The debris also rained down, perforating still more
But it even so, several missiles flew through the flak towards her. Again the two Jedi behind her reached out thinning the herd, but at least ten more missiles were still screaming towards Shaak and the entrance to the enclave behind her.
Narrowing her eyes Shaak reached out with the Force again, redirecting all the missiles upwards, forgoing subtlety for the moment to catch them all in one go. But whoever was controlling them from out of range of her senses must've realized that they weren't going to hit her and sent a message to the missiles, ordering them to explode immediately. The flashing fury of the explosion rocked Shaak backwards, reaching down and towards her.
Desperately Shaak threw up a wall of solid wind in front of her with the Force, the wind billowing around her almost taking the other two Jedi off their feet as she redirected the explosion upwards, biting her lip so hard enough to break the skin as she exerted her Force power with extreme difficulty. Shaak could feel her Force powers straining to contain the explosion and control the wind around it, but she kept on, redirecting the explosion into the air where it would dissipate harmlessly.
Between one second and another it was over, and Shaak fell to her knees gasping as her body shuddered in response. The two Jedi from behind her, both human one man and one woman rushed to her, lifting her up quickly. "Are you all right?"
The door behind them opened and several of that Green Masters came out, with the two Jedi quickly filling them in on what it happened as Shaak gulped in air. "That is most impressive," said one of them wonderingly staring at her. "Few Masters here could've matched that kind of skill or power."
Shaak shrugged her shoulders, not comfortable with the amount of praise she was getting for simply not getting killed, especially since at that moment she had fallen back on pure Jedi skills rather than try and deal with the attack as Ranma might have been able to. A sudden flash of Force cognition however told her that this wasn't the main attack.
"This, this was a distraction." she said suddenly, pushing to her feet and away from the other two Jedi nodding almost brusquely to them for their aid. "This was meant to keep me here. Where can I find the CPR company, and how long would it take us to get there?"
OOOOOOO
Ranma walked through Coronet shaking his head slightly. The more things change the more they stay the same. This place might not have the depth that Coruscant has, but it's like the cities at home. Simply add in the flying cars, a bit more height to the skyscrapers and some more trees. I suppose Kashyyyk and Dac kind of spoiled me, made me think every planet would be so awesome and cool.
He made his way through the city to the skyscraper which was owned almost entirely by CPR. It was smaller than most of the buildings around it almost squat, based around a large loading area in the back and apparently dozens of robotics laboratories. The top was studded with what looked like small anti-personnel guns, and the entrance had two rent-a-guards outside and inside it.
They eyed Ranma coolly but he ignored them, entering the building and moving towards the front desk. "Hi, my name's Ranma, I placed an order for droid parts and I was told they were ready?" He held up the head of HK, which was at this point deactivated. "I have the last part with me here."
A few moments later Ranma was being ushered towards one of the laboratories, pausing occasionally to stare at the robots which were on display through the thick glass. Though small CPR was on the leading edge of robotics technology, not mass-produced stuff, but one-off designs covering a wide range of styles and needs, and were proud to display their work.
HK really found the best company for this, which is good, but the price is gonna near bankrupt me. Thanks to Padme's largesse, a few of the morons from yesterday actually having bounties, and the Order paying for the renovations to his ship Ranma had a goodly amount of money. But after this, I might have to go looking for another pit fight, damn.
He listened to the saleswoman drone on about the company's history and the parts HK had ordered until they arrived at the laboratory where HK's new body had been constructed. Ranma looked at it thoughtfully, nodding in approval.
HK's body would stand about an inch taller at the shoulders than Ranma himself, but was much wider across said shoulders. It had thick legs, with heavily articulated feet, which looked as if they had folded clips to either side of their ankles, which could open to reveal magnetized claws. One arm had an articulated hand like any normal humanoid droid, the other had four large articulated claws which could be used as fingers or, of course, as actual claws. The back of the legs each had smaller repulsors on it, and there was a pack over one shoulder, which could flip up over the shoulder to reveal a heavy blaster cannon, larger and faster firing than the one Ranma had in his ki space. There were also numerous small plates on the body which could be magnetized to hold other things. All of it was simple metal silver now.
"Damn," Ranma said shaking his head. Looking at the head he was holding in one hand he turned it on, turning it so it could look at it's new body. "HK, this is incredible, I told you to get the best you could, but how much is this going to cost me?"
Before the droid could answer the saleswoman spoke up chirpily. "1.8 million Republic credits, or 1.7 million Corellian script."
"That pretty much wipes me out HK," Ranma said with a frown. "Damn, I really am going to have to go pit fighting again."
As the saleswoman spluttered at that, HK's head came online, first staring at its body avariciously. "Awed declaration: The body is lovely. Not quite as adaptable as my old one, but good enough for now. I'll have to make some changes to its configuration overtime but that will be simple enough once I have hands of my own."
With that out of the way the droid replied to Ranma. "Amused Response: Meatbags are easily controlled by monetary means, but they can do adequate work when properly motivated, and money works at a distance even better than fear. As to your concern, simply put me in some of those fights. I'll have fun, and you'll get your money."
"I don't think they'd allow droids in." Ranma said with a chuckle.
"Affronted question: In that case, how will they truly prove who is the best?"
"Well whatever, that's for later. let's get you situated, and then I'll hand over the cash I suppose."
"I'm sorry sir, but you'll have to pay first before we release the droid to you," said the saleswoman, losing some of her chipper attitude.
Ranma shrugged, moving over towards a nearby computer. A moment later, the company had confirmed the payment and he was given a code to actually enter the lab in question, moving over towards a few mechanics waiting for him.
"This job was somewhat irregular." said one of the mechanics, shaking his head as he stared down at the head Ranma was still holding under the crook of one arm. "Normally we build the entire droid, and the programming for the droid itself is unique, often times very difficult. That cut down the cost, but still it was unusual to say the least, to prepare a body complete with every internal program it required without the central control hub."
"I'm all about the unusual," Ranma said not really listening as he moved towards the body holding up the droid head. "So I just put it up here?"
Unlike Shaak, Ranma didn't have any warning before things began to go pear-shaped. "Warning" shouted a loud voice over the buildings intercoms. "Warning, our system's being sliced all security forces to their stations, all labs go to internal…" At that point it petered out.
Seconds later several other droids in the lab began to move, pulling away from the walls where they had been connected via multiple wires. Two of them were huge droids which looked like they were designed to be mining droids, another was a rolling ball thing which came up to Ranma's waist with several dozen ports which opened to emit arcs of electrical energy. Still a fourth looked like some kind of attack animal, a low slung dog-like creature.
As one they turned to Ranma. "Oh joy…" he said slowly, "HK…"
"Amused astonishment: Master, you really do attract trouble don't you? If we live through this, this relationship will be even more satisfying than I had thought."
"Hold this," Ranma growled, hurling the head towards one of the laboratory assistants who caught it but was thrown head over heels by the momentum to roll underneath one of the tables. This saved his life because a moment later laser fire from one of the mining droids crisscrossed through where he'd been standing, heading towards Ranma.
Ranma dodged to one side before kicking hard off the floor leaping up over the laser fire of the other minding droid. Grabbing one of the hanging lights set into the ceiling Ranma flipped himself to one side, kicking off another before falling downward dodging laser fire aimed where he had been and where he would have gone if he hadn't changed direction like that. A kick smashed into one mining droid hurling it back into a wall.
Before the second droid could turn, Ranma had grabbed it's arm tearing it off in a welter of sparks. He turned quickly, bring that arm up and around like a baseball bat to smash into the rolling droid. "Homerun!"
The rolling droid let out an electrical squeal as it left the ground like a beach ball to shatter against the lab's heavy outer wall. Smirking Ranma turned, crushing the second mining droid's head with his makeshift club. With that done, he finished off the first as the mechanics and engineers all looked on from their hiding spots in rising horror seeing their work be destroyed so easily.
The last droid in the lab hurled itself forward, trying to take Ranma from behind, but he turned at the last second, grabbing it around the neck. One of the engineers, faster to get over his shock and seeing a lot of their work being torn apart before their very eyes shouted "Wait! There's an emergency shutdown button underneath it's tail, don't destroy it!"
Ranma rolled his eyes, twisting the thing in his grip even as it tried to claw and bite him. Turning it entirely around he held the robot there in midair, one arm around its, neck, the other pulling the long, lizard tail out. "Well then you get over here and push it man, I've only got two hands!"
Gulping the man raced forward coming up to press the red button directly below the tail. The robot immediately went still in Ranma's grip, and he let it drop to the floor with a clang before glaring at the man. "You put its emergency shut down button where an animal's asshole would be. Why, I mean, just, why?"
The engineer looked abashed at that, but before he could answer or Ranma turn his attention to the rest of the current situation, they were interrupted by another voice coming over the intercom. "This is the Death Watch. We are here for the one called Ranma. No one else needs to die today, take cover where you can and keep out of the droids way. We have reprogrammed them to attack Ranma alone no one else unless someone else attacks them in turn. Your security forces have been dealt with, or will be dealt with shortly. I urge those few remaining alive to lay down their weapons. Ranma I would urge you to give up to save these people, fight us and more will surely die."
They're trying to use my sense of ethics against me? Or is this a real attempt to keep the damage to a minimum? Ranma thought coldly. Whatever, they've brought the fight. I sure as hell am not gonna back down.
Several of the engineers had moved over to a series of computers along one wall as two more worked on the system quickly. "We're still getting the security camera feeds," one of them said. "But nothing from the managers is getting through and we can't get in touch with anyone outside the building." He frowned, looking over at Ranma.
"What do these Death Watch characters look like? Can you bring up a picture?" Ranma asked.
Punching a few keys the engineer pulled up the picture of the front lobby, where two security be teams were being dealt with by three men dressed in formfitting armor the likes of which Ranma had seen before in history texts. So they really are Mandalorians. Good, at least this might be a challenge.
"HK," he said taking the head back from the bruised but alive scientist he had hurled it at, "Are you affected by whatever happened?"
"Prideful response: Negative master, I was not connected into the company's wireless network, and thanks to my perspicacity, my body hasn't been uploaded with any of its runtime systems either. Without that, there is no program the slicers here can use to take control of my body."
"Good. Here you two, help me with this." he said looking at two of the scientists. "The rest of you, get in touch with anyone you can reach, tell them to take cover, I'll handle this."
A moment later, HK was connected to his new body, and pulled away from the stanchions containing it, cracking its neck this way and that and moving its arms getting used to the body. "Are his weapons online?" Ranma asked.
"We normally have to input a command, but…"
"Amused contempt: Nevermind master, I have already overridden their primitive programming. I am fully armed and ready for glorious mayhem! Professional tone: What is the plan? I would normally say we wouldn't need one, but Mandalorians tend to be a cut above most meatbags in terms of constructive violence. In many ways they are the wolves to the Jedi sheep herder."
"I'm not a Jedi," Ranma said, even as he pulled out his light pike from his ki space.
It was around three feet long from one end to another. Both ends looked reinforced, and were, so Ranma could use it with the plasma blade turned off if he wanted to and the plasma blade could come out from either end. There were two loops of wood set into small inserts along it, and it also had patches of darker metal here and there. Those were the pieces of cortosis metal Ranma had taken from the Yinchorri, which was proof against lightsabers and even blaster bolts. He hadn't had enough of the metal for the entire staff, but enough for it to be useful.
There were a few other surprises Ranma had built into it, but they weren't visible to the naked eye just then. "I'm not a Jedi, but I do use some of their tools." Ranma went on, smirking as they began to hear the sound of heavy feet moving towards their lab from the ones surrounding it. "All right, HK you head down. I don't know if any of the other droids in the area will fight you, they might think you're one of them. If they don't attack you, leave 'em alone, the Death Watch are the primary targets."
"Gleeful reply: Excellent master, meatbags are so much more fun to eviscerate than other droids anyway."
"Take out any Mandalorians you run into. If you see anything denoting one of them as an officer I want him alive and able to answer questions if you can manage it, if you can't I can handle that. Protect the civilians in the other in the area if you have to, but other than that cut loose."
"Gleeful reply part two: Master, you say the sweetest things."
"Never say that again." Ranma said his voice deadly serious, which for that brief moment had nothing to do with the actual battle they were facing. Then it passed and he grinned like a wolf as he turned toward the door, kicking it off its hinges into the face of another droid, a large droid with huge grasping pincers for hands but no other weapons which had been about to rip into the door.
The droid flew across the hallway into the other wall as Ranma rolled to one side, dodging under blaster fire from four droids, a group of security droids that looked somewhat like the TF's droids only shorter and broader. They also carried shields in their off-hands, but they availed them not at all as Ranma brought his light pike around, activating it for the first time in battle. The plasma arc erupted from the end a pure white blade, slicing into and through the two droids on the right with no apparent effort.
HK barreled out after him, turning the other way, hosing down another the other two droids. "Analytical statement: the blaster works well enough, but the lock on time is a little deficient, I will have to work on that in the future." His claw hand punched out, smashing the pincer droid's head into pieces. "Amusement: That of course works very well."
"Let's go." Ranma said, turning down the hall, twirling his light pike to block a few blaster bolts from further down the hallway.
OOOOOOO
On the roof Bo-Katan Kryze of the Death Watch gasped in shock as she watched their target tear droids apart with her bare hands. "What the hell, no human can be that strong!" She said aloud. "Our information didn't say anything about that."
"He's also fast and skilled too," said one of her fellow Mandalorians, another woman from her own squad. "That's wow!" she cut off, watching as Ranma bent his body backwards out of the way of a droid's punch coming at him from around a door. His lightsaber, some kind of weird long hafted one Bo-Katan had never seen before flashed out and cut the door and the droid behind it in two. "Amazing flexibility."
"He's supposed to be some kind of Jedi, but I don't see him using any of the normal Jedi tricks. Just speed and skill, odd. And some of those blaster bolts have gotten through, you can tell." Bo-Katan said, shaking her head at her friend's tone. "They've burnt off his shirt in places, but I don't think they've actually done any damage to him. Is he wearing armor under his shirt? And that droid is just deadly."
By that point HK had run into a few droids that weren't willing to just let him go through. In response he tore them apart as efficiently as Ranma could have, if not as quickly.
Another Mandalorian turned to them. "Chief Vizla is pushing his troops up through the building. He wants you to do the same, catch the two of them between us."
"Let's go then," Bo-Katan said, "We'll leapfrog down third squad you're on point first,then fourth when we reach the stairs." Even as Bo-Katan began to bark out orders about sending down scouts and not relying on the internal videos she wondered if maybe they had bitten off more than they could chew.
Deciding to plan for the worst, she opened a private channel with her own squad. "If we start to lose men here, I want us ready to break off. We'll meet up at a local restaurant called Iris's Eyes."
OOOOOOO
Ranma and HK split off when they reached the staircase, not trusting the elevators. Ranma went up while HK went down, and for a moment neither faced any new resistance. Few of the droids sold on the floor above apparently had legs capable of handling stairs so were unable to come down to him. Several from the level above that had already been dealt with and those from below didn't attack HK bar a few, instead still heading up, trying to find Ranma.
The ones on the second floor were waiting for him at the entrance to the floor, but Ranma simply used his light pike to cut a portion of the ceiling away and leaped up, landing behind a group of droids waiting for him by the stairwell. Taking them from behind Ranma cut several of them, most of which looked like they were designed for underwater work, into pieces before they realized he was there.
The others turned and charged forward, but their makeshift weapons were no match for Ranma close in, even without his light pike. After finishing taking them out as swiftly as possible, he turned and once again cut a path up to the next floor.
There he ran into his first true opposition. Two Mandalorians had scouted ahead of the rest of the group coming down from the roof and took him under fire immediately. One of them held position at the end of the hall while the other used a few robots from this level as cover to close, his own blaster flashing occasionally.
Ranma leaped over a charging robot which looked like it was intended as some kind of pet, his light pike decapitating several more humanoid droids, all of which looked like protocol droids with specially toughened chassis. They fell but then the first Mandalorian was on him, and his pike was out of position.
The trooper fired his blaster on full auto, trying to hose Ranma down with fire to overcome his durability. But Ranma's body just took it, and he turned, kicking out. The Mandalorian used his rocket to flare off the ground, dodging the kick and watching in shock as it dented the floor beneath his previous position. He then shot out a rocket from one wrist and a high tensile wire from the other, hoping to either blow Ranma up or entrap him while his fellow took Ranma under fire from behind him.
Ranma deactivated his light pike as he landed, ducking under the rocket and whirling the pike in one hand, blocking and then gathering the wire to him. Before the other man could disengage the spool of wire from his vambrace he found himself pulled through the air into Ranma's waiting fist. That punch crumpled the Mandalorian's faceplate before smashing the skull behind it to pieces.
The second scout opened up with a flamethrower from his hiding spot before retreating down the corridor, using his backpack's rocket to blast backwards. But the flamethrower didn't reach Ranma, the ball of flame losing cohesion about two yards in front of him. Then before he was out of sight, Ranma had picked up his fellow's body and hurled it after him, pulling out his own heavy blaster. A series of bolts impacted the dead man's backpack, and it exploded taking the second Mandalorian out with it.
Looking down at himself, Ranma shrugged, pulling off his now ruined shirt which was more tatters than shirt at that point. "Damn good aim, decent soldiers, but not durable or fast enough to fight me." Gotta wonder though if they had all the info they needed to heading into this, I mean it's a great ambush, but it feels almost hurried, not quite but still.
Shrugging his shoulders Ranma moved on, dealing with a few more robots with kid gloves, only doing enough damage as he needed to shut them down before his next real fight. One of them however was a fire fighting robot, and caught Ranma with a blast of cool water, which caught him on the rebound off of a door.
"Well isn't that just typical!" The redhead groused even as her tiny fist smashed forward, crushing the droid's head as her leg lashed out, taking out another one's legs, dumping the top heavy droid onto the floor. Leaving it there Ranma went on her way, putting her blaster away before searching in her ki space. "God please let me have an extra shirt or a water bottle in here, I know I had both there yesterday, but did I remember to put another spare in last night?"
OOOOOOO
"What the…?" Bo-Katan and every other Mandalorean still using CPR's internal security cameras asked. Bo-Katan turned to her fellows unable to see their faces through their helmets, but knowing they were feeling the same shock as she was. "What the kriff was that!?"
And she wasn't just talking about the curse, but Ranma's ability to make things appear and disappear to their sight like that. They hadn't had a good angle to see where Ranma had kept his light pike in that first lab, but this time they did. Bo-Katan was about to get in touch with Chief Vizla to ask if he had any idea how their target was able to do that, and, more importantly, why they hadn't seen any information about it.
But at that moment Chief Vizla was having his own problems.
OOOOOOO
HK had made it through the second level without even a bit of violence, the droids seeing him as one of their own, and the human noncombatants all having hidden themselves away. Even the pitiful remnants of the security forces had done so, which, HK thought, was sensible of them. Amateurs had no place in a meeting between true professionals in the art of violence.
He was almost getting bored by the time he broke out of the stairwell onto the ground floor. There the Mandalorians, who had taken time to barricade the front door from outside interference, had begun to move forward at last. That this wait would have allowed Bo-Katan to be the first to meet Ranma in person was also in Pre Visla's thinking. Despite this, he was no coward and his troops were ready as HK tromped out of the stairwell. "Fire!"
The Mandalorian fire was rapid, controlled and precise, forcing HK to back away quickly lest he take too much damage to his new, now no longer shiny, body. They were indeed very damn good. But HK was durable, and just as good. "Joyful Warcry: Rejoice meatbags, for very bad things are about to happen!"
With that cry HK send the command which brought his heavy blaster over his shoulder, the rifle clicking into place before sending the okay signal back to his central command hub. Heavier than the skimmer rated gun that Ranma carried, the weapon wasn't any heavier, but it's rate of fire was faster. He fired it at the roof above the Mandalorians which came apart in places raining down on them and breaking their fire for a moment.
The second squad behind the first was still in cover however and began to fire even more heavily at the entrance to the stairwell where HK had taken cover. But that was fine by him. With his claw hand moving the rifle from one target to another, he kept the Mandalorians dodging, unable to line up a shot for their small wrist rockets, while he used his other hand to grab at two batteries he had grabbed on his way out of the lab.
The only difference between a droid's battery and a thermal detonator was that one was designed to explode, the other had to be made to do the same by some heavy external force. But without being in a robot's protective shell, that was a lot simpler than most people realized, and they exploded beautifully as they intersected his fire. And these batteries were quite a bit heavier than most, and therefore more explosive.
The concussion of the explosions knocked many of the Mandalorians off their feet, though only one was close enough to actually die from it, his armored body smashed to the floor like a broken doll. Several of them still fired at HK when he came bursting out of his hiding place, but not enough, and thanks to the smoke of the explosion many of them even missed.
A second later HK was in among them. His claw hand slashed out, crushing armor plate, and his other hand clamped down on one of the Mandalorians blasters, pulling it out of his death grip to turn it on his fellows.
Two small rockets flashed through the smoke toward HK and he leaped backward, using his repulsors to move faster than his bulk would allow. Even so his claw hand reached out, snatching the head off another Mandalorian before he changed his direction abruptly, skidding into cover behind the reception desk.
From his position near the front entrance Pre Vizla scowled angrily, shaking his head. One kriffing droid, one kriffing droid and I'm down four men! This was my fault, I thought our firepower and the distraction of the droids would let us pin down our target down, I never realized being inside would cut down our own mobility so much, or that the droid he was here for was a kriffing combat droid of this caliber! "Pull back by teams, keep a distance, wait for your lock on before you fire your rockets!"
HK heard these commands shouted in Mandalorian out over the noise of the battle rather than over the communicators, and actually nodded his head. That was a decent command under the circumstances, especially given in their own language which few would know. But that didn't mean it would work.
Kicking out hard, HK sent the reception desk barreling forward before dodging to one side his stolen blaster, much faster to lock on and fire than his own, lashed out, taking a Mandalorian who had using a piece of shrubbery as cover. "Bemused aside: why in the universe did you think that was adequate cover meatbag? Let us hope you have not had the opportunity to breed. Stupidity tends to be genetic."
HK skidded around the bit of shrubbery, turning and thrusting himself backwards as fast as his repulsors could take him, dodging two min-rockets which crisscrossed through the space he had been about to enter. Mandalorians really are quite adequate at combat. Twisting around at the waist, HK activated his heavy blaster and the bolts roared out, cutting one Mandalorian in two.
Two more fired their small wire riding gyros, which flew around HK, trying to pin him in place. But HK simply pulled one of them toward him, a fist smashing him into broken pieces, before ducking under the other, his stolen blaster firing and hitting several times but unable to find a weak point on the Mandalorians admittedly decent armor. Then he was behind cover once more in the doorway to a woman's bathroom of all things. HK noticed absently that there were both men and women hidden here and he let out a grating chuckle. "Amused Comment: Good little meatbags, stay under cover. This isn't over just yet."
OOOOOOO
Several stories above HK, Ranma had run out of droids to dismember and run into the rest of the Death Watch coming down from the roof. Ranma grunted as very accurate blaster fire smashed into him as he (ki-space held water-bottles with built in heat tabs for the win) once more jumped up from making his own entrance to the next floor up, and he rolled away, lashing out with his light pike blindly to block what he could. They must have seen my light pike as I cut into the floor, damn it! These guys are good!
A voice shouted out, "Squad three rockets, now!" Several mini-rockets shot out immediately as that voice continued to bark commands. "Squad four switch off by teams, blaster, gyro-wire and flamethrower."
Bo-Katan had kept her squads together, leapfrogging as they made their way down toward Ranma, watching as he cut his way through the droids between them trying to analyze what she could of Ranma's style. The only thing she had realized however was the same thing Vizla had, that taking on Ranma inside a building had taken away more of their own mobility than Ranma's. Worse, his durability was far more than their Mandalorian armor gave them, giving him an advantage at range.
Ranma once again used his light pike's staff to wrap up one of the gyro-wires fired at him, looking at the little drill thing on the end curiously as it passed his head, which he hadn't noticed the first time. These Death Watch characters have some interesting toys. Even as he thought that he yanked hard, pulling a Death Watch trooper of his feet.
But the trooper in question went with it, his rocket pack firing and hurling him even harder down the hall towards Ranma. He only had a brief moment to notice the large missile on the back before it launched, and he cursed. "Well hell."
Letting his light pike fall behind him Ranma hurled himself backwards, letting the missile pass over him as he hung on the edge of the hole he had cut into the floor from the level below, which thankfully had already cooled to the touch. In a move few Jedi would have tried Ranma caught the light pike as it fell past him with one hand, flipping himself upward with his other even as he lashed out with it.
The Mandalorian he had previously pulled towards him was cut in two, but even as he fell the others resumed their fire on Ranma, and he could feel the stings of their blaster bolts. But thanks to his toughness training they were not much of a threat. He pulled his light pike up and began to deflect them with the cortosis metal, but only the bolts which would have hit his face. His eyes of course could not be put through the durability training.
"Damn it, this isn't working!" Bo-Katan shouted. I kriffing knew we didn't have all the information! How the hell are we supposed to take him out when he dodges our missiles and our blasters… wait… "Squad three follow me in, close with vibroblades!" Squad four cover them!"
Ranma blinked in shock as some of the Death Watch closed with him while the others kept up a steady rate of fire. Ranma scowled, forced to split his attention between the charging people and the incoming fire over their heads for a second, then they closed just enough to block their fellow's blasts. Leaping up he was unsurprised when those little gyro thingies fired almost immediately but he weaved through them, his light pike flashing and cutting. The wires were cut, then the unpowered end of the pike smashed out, sending one Mandalorian down with his helmet and skull crushed.
Using that point of impact Ranma hurled himself over the charging groups head, landing between two more of the group which had kept up a steady fire at him. They tried to turn, but were just two slow. A kick and a punch sent them flying backwards dead before he turned bringing up his light pike to deflect the fire from the remaining two.
"By the oceans of Mandalore!" Bo-Katan cursed then activated her rocket. KJirffing hell, he can shatter our armor so damn easily, we need to find some real beskar plate if we have to fight this kriffing bastard! "Pull out, pull out!" She zoomed down the hall, slamming into Ranma back before he could leap out of the way. "Meet up at the rendezvous point!"
Ranma grunted under the impact, and was carried forward through the hall, losing his light pike at the impact, but otherwise unharmed. Lashing out his hand slammed into the back of the head of the Mandalorian who had rushed him, but he hadn't been able to angle it right. Instead of crushing the helmet and the head within it merely dented, shattering the small radio antenna on the back as well as the bit that connected the helmet to the rest of the armor.
Bo cursed as her HUD died, but she continued barreling forward for a full second then cut out her rocket pack. At the same time she threw her arm back, her own gyro wire shooting out. Her memory was good, and it slammed point first into a metal doorway. The rope went taut pulling Bo to a stop.
Ranma hadn't tried to grab his assailant, and so was hurled forward for a bit through the air of the hall as the Mandalorian stopped. He flipped himself around however so that he landed feet first on the far wall of the hall, staring down it towards his attacker and two more Mandalorians. The others had all retreated at whatever order that had been given by the one who had rushed him.
The two remaining charged forward on their own rocket packs as the one who had charged him first struggled to pull off his helmet. Ranma had a brief moment to question that statement now, able to see that this warrior's chest plate was slightly curvier than you'd expect from a guys. Crap. "Mandalorians don't have any kinda rule about marrying the guy who beats them do they?"
The woman had just pulled off her helmet revealing a rather pretty face and orange hair now matted to her head with sweat when he said that, and she stared at him, startled enough to actually answer. "What no, why the kriff, wait!"
"Just a question!" Ranma shouted, then the other two were on him lashing out with long vibroblades, neither willing to use their flamethrowers so close to one another. But Ranma was faster and stronger than any target the Death Watch had ever faced. He caught one blade with his ki shield which appeared around one hand to smack away the blade, while at the same time he kicked out hard, catching the other man in the chest and hurling him backwards, his chest plate shattered. Ranma couldn't tell if he had also shattered the man's ribs, but he was down.
The man whose vibroblade he had blocked with his ki shield twisted his body suddenly, another knife appearing in his foot as he kicked out. Ranma ducked under that but then the man activated his rocket once more, barreling past Ranma. His rocket launched, exploding against the plexiglass window at the end of the hallway.
Ranma once more pulled out his large blaster rifle, firing on the fly, but the man had moved out of his sight before he could. Ranma turned quickly, only to find the woman and the other man gone. Frowning Ranma made his way down the hall and then up through the building, only to find the Death Watch had pulled back completely. "Well, damn. I wonder if they're the type to come back again? I hate having to fight people like that more than once, gives them too much time to get used to my fighting style."
On the top floor Ranma found a few men in good suits tied up in various rooms, along with a shattered window and four other men in rather disreputable looking clothing and wearing extremely high tech gear.
They too were tied up, and he frowned, looking over at the suits. Picking out the most expensive looking one he pulled him along behind him, toward the room which had the four men. "These four work here?"
"N, no, they don't. They came in with the Death Watch, I recognize one of them from a wanted poster, he's a slicer who specializes in industrial espionage!"
"Good, I could use the money." Ranma muttered untying the man before pushing him away. "I'd suggest you check with your people to shut down your toys, I just hope they all took the bastard's advice and stayed out of the way of the droids." That done, he grabbed the four men and began to drag them away, two over his shoulders and two actually being dragging behind him by their ankles.
By the time he had reached the entrance, Shaak had arrived, though to Ranma it looked as if she had arrived too late to help. HK turned to him, looking a little irritated. "Wounded pride: Master, I regret to inform you that not only was I unable to take prisoners, but that at least one of them got away, if not whole." He held up an arm in his claw hand, shaking his head. "Amused analysis: I believe I faced the leader of this assault, and I nearly had him for questioning as you had ordered. But the fool actually cut off his own arm with a vibroblade to escape me. So at least the meatbag in question had the intelligence to know when he was beaten."
"Good to know." Ranma mused, then looked over to Shaak as she moved towards them. Her own exhaustion was clear to his eyes, and Ranma's eyes narrowed as he caught a bit of blood at the corner of her mouth.
Nonetheless she was somewhat upbeat as she came close, shaking her head at him. "I can't let you out of my sight for a moment can I?"
Ranma laughed, reaching forward to wipe away the blood at the side of her mouth with a gentle finger pulling it away when her smile widened just enough to show her pointed teeth. "I could say you've had your own share of the fun today Shaak. We're gonna have to sit down and compare notes, but after we leave I think." Shaak smiled and nodded, leaning into his hand slightly before she turned to Master Halcyon, who had come with her, to help him direct the Corsec response to this incident.
"Anyone want to take these four off my hands?" Ranma asked, gesturing at his burdens. "I understand one of 'em at least has a bounty."
OOOOOOO
Pre Vizla grit his teeth in agony. The tourniquet he had put on the stump of his arm meant he wouldn't bleed out, but wound was torture and he couldn't take the time to look at it now, he had to get as far away from the scene of the battle as possible. Still, he had learned a lot about the Hunter Killer droid, and was certain that out in the open they could have beaten both it and his master.
This was but the first attempt, that money was too rich for Vizla to ignore. Not to mention the… other aid… he had been promised by the mysterious man in black. Regardless of the loss of his arm he would continue this hunt. I will be Mandalore and lead our people to greatness again, if I have to pave the way to that greatness in the blood of my own people to do it!
OOOOOOO
Later that same day Bo-Katan, sans armor and wearing what passed as good civilian clothing looked up from her spot at the far back of the restaurant she had designated as her squad's emergency rendezvous point. Beside her squad mates all stiffened as she did, before subsiding as their last fellow, another woman named La-Nara, entered. Her long black hair, which Bo always thought was a rather stupid style for someone who wore a helmet, gleamed in the light of the upscale bar. She grinned and raised a hand, which Bo replied to, and joined her fellows quickly.
They all calmly ordered their meals then made small talk until the waiter had come and gone. After that, Bo got down to business. "Okay, we kriffed up by the numbers but we need to get out of here." She said bluntly. "So, where do we go from here?"
"Back to Mandalore." Said La-Nara. "I got a call on my com, the chief got out, wounded but alive. He's ordering us all to look into somehow following the target from a distance, keeping an eye on him. I think he's thinking of trying again soon, maybe with the rest of the Death Watch."
Bo rubbed her forehead, then nodded. "Alright, I think we need more information about this Ranma character. Let's find what we can about him without trailing him. He travels with a Jedi and has some of the same tools, he might be able to spot us."
He's no Jedi that's for sure, none of those kriffers would use our own weapons against us like he did, and none of them are that strong. And he didn't use their tricks either, he blocked our blaster bolts with sheer speed, not that precognition crap of theirs. If so, I wonder…
She remembered that odd question he had asked, and her lips quirked upwards involuntarily at that and the curse. There's more going on here than I'm happy without knowing but that can be rectified, and I've always been good at dying my hair and wearing contacts is no hardship either. "The good thing is he doesn't know what most of us look like, so it might be easier than we expect, so long as we can figure out where he's going from here…"
OOOOOOO
It came as no surprise to Ranma that the Green Jedi, at the behest of Corsec apparently asked them, politely, to leave immediately. Despite Senator Bel Iblis, who had been impressed by Ranma and Shaak's part in liberating Naboo, vouching for the pair of them the locals didn't want to deal with the violence that Ranma was apparently calling down on himself. And since the senator was not on planet to speak in their behalf, Corsec's desire for peace had won the day.
That very night Wild Light pulled out of its dock and into space, leaving Corellia's orbit and moving away towards the hyperspace limit. HK was with Tune at the controls for now while Ranma was busy in the kitchen putting away the food Tune had bought for them, the droid being unable to actually put the food away in its cubicles above the kitchenette.
Turning from that, he made his way to Shaak's room. Knocking Ranma entered quickly as the door opened, thinking to find her resting from her ordeal which she had told him about during a break between rounds of questions from the locals. Instead his eyes widened, and a blush began to grow on his face.
Shaak turned slightly, wearing her training shift and holding up one of the purchases that rather pushy woman in the store had thrust upon her. Though it seemed to cover more area, it really didn't, and the material was so silkily and see through it was amazing it could even be called clothing. She stared at Ranma, her own blush growing as Ranma stared at her in turn then she watched as his eyes rolled upwards and he fell backwards unconscious. Shaak continued to stare at him for a time then began to laugh as the Wild Light continued on.
Later, after laying Ranma out on the sofa, Shaak woke him up by splashing him lightly with some cold water. "So, was there something you wanted?" She asked archly. "And I thought we had talked about boundaries."
Ranma glared at her, but couldn't stop another blush from appearing as she remembered the thin negligee that Shaak had been holding up in front of her small mirror. "Um, y'know, for some reason I just can't remember what it was."
Rolling her eyes Shaak leaned down to kiss the shorter girl's lips, marveling again at how different the feel of those lips was in this form. Not bad, but certainly distinctly different. "Focus Ranma, I thank you for the compliment, but focus please."
"You mean focus on something else right?" As Shaak made to smack her on the stomach Ranma held up her hands. "Alright, geez. Anyway, I was thinking about the whole bounty thing, and what you told me about the Death Watch and what their coming after me might mean in the long term. I know we can't really go hunting for them, there's too many bounty hunters and underworld groups gunning for us and neither of us can trace the money back to find out the person behind my bounty. But I remembered a line I read in a book once: a bad hunter tracks, a good hunter waits. So, what do you think about setting up an ambush of some kind on the next planet we visit?"
"Hmm… interesting." Shaak murmured. On the one hand, her Jedi instincts were rebelling against the very idea, the violence, the promise of more death inherent in the plan going against her Jedi training to always seek either a peaceful solution or the solution which would cause the least amount of deaths.
But her Togrutan instincts on the other hand approved entirely. In many ways Shaak Ti was an unusual Togrutan, feeling only a slight need for companionship rather than the deep need most of her race felt, and being more naturally calm and introverted as well save around those she knew well. But she was still a hunter deep down, she had hunted the akul whose tooth she wore on her forehead armed with nothing more than her wits and hands, and this plan called out to that part of her personality.
Still there were problems with it. "But doing so on Eshan might be a problem, the locals would take it poorly if we set something like that up without their permission. But it's a good idea. We leave there quickly, let everyone know we're heading somewhere else but commenting on it constantly in public and leaving an itinerary with the port authority. Then we leave heading to…"
She reached forward, pulling up the hologram device and after a few moments a star map popped up. She closed her eyes, reaching out to the Force for guidance, and she smiled as the Force responded, guiding her hand slightly. "Say we head to this system called Yavin after that. There is a very old report of ruins there which we can say the Order asked us to look into. The jungles might be perfect for your little ambush."
"Sounds like a plan." Ranma said, hopping to her feet and making her way to the cockpit.
End Chapter
So violence, romantic development and character introduction and development in equal parts I think. A fun, amusing chapter, even if I had a lot of trouble fitting the Green Jedi into the rest of canon. I think it worked well enough however. As always I hope you all enjoyed it, and please review if you want.
I will try to get the other monthly winner, Gods and Devils, out by New Years.
