Don't own Ranma, ain't named Lucas.

A shorter chapter than most, but I felt that while I wanted to show time passing, there was no real need to fill in that passage with a lot of little, inconsequential scenes. There have been enough training scenes in this work already.

Spelling errors - Wookie is actually Wookiee, and ferocrete is actually Ferrocrete. My bad.

Chapter 17 New Home


After hearing the explanation about Zonama Sekot actually being alive, Ranma finally understood the odd feeling in the air he'd sensed since the battle had ended. He looked around, taking in the scenery, which looked pretty normal in comparison to most planets he had seen, if you didn't look too closely. The fact that he could say that he had been on multiple planets still made him smile occasionally.

Right now, though, he was looking around for signs of this planet being different. And it wasn't hard to see once you started looking. In the distance he could see the loose forest the small capital had been built into change at the edge of the horizon. There it became somewhat denser, and he could see that the normal trees around here changed to truly massive trees, the looks of which, from this far away, made him think of Kashyyyk. But now that he was looking for it he could the differences, including the big one: portions of those trees were moving on their own.

The buildings he had been fighting on and around also looked as if they had been grown in many cases, not like trees, but like corral maybe? Ranma wasn't sure, but they certainly weren't made of ferrocrete, as he had first guessed. There was steel involved in their construction here and there, but most of it was obscured by some kind of moss, which seemed to work as a caulking material.

But that was secondary to the feel of the planet, which Ranma had been dealing with since the fight ended. It's like being in another person's ki presence. Damn. No wonder I couldn't figure it out! Not even when I fought an enraged Happy was I actually in his ki presence. And it's not like a person's battle aura. That I've felt a lot of times, though never all around me like this. This is like being an ant or something even smaller on the skin of a martial arts master…who can actually feel ki. The ant, I mean, and while the martial artist is having a conversation just above its head.

Ranma fought back a groan as he tried to think of an analogy for what he was feeling, but, like the Force, when it came to explaining ki, words often didn't suffice. Anyway, it's a weird feeling, but also an oddly welcoming one.

I wonder what this…Sekot? Fay said the sentient mind was called Sekot and the planet Zonama. Odd that, having two names: one for your body, one for your mind. But I ain't a sentient planet, so what do I know? Maybe it makes sense when you measure your mind alone in miles and your body in leagues. Heh. But on that note…

"Question, Shaak," he said aloud, looking over at Shaak. "These living ships, how sentient are they?"

Seeing the gleam in her lover's eyes, Shaak barely held back a chuckle, winking back at him to show she understood where his interest was coming from. "As I understand from Master Fay's description, the living ships are not sentient on their own, exactly. They are more of a symbiont to the pilot."

"Just the pilot? They have to be that small?" Ranma asked intently.

"No, they can be much larger," Master Fay replied as Sekot whispered the words in her mind. "It depends on the number of seed-partners you bond with, which is a process that the planet is refusing to share with me. I wonder why?"

"Ahh, I see," she said after a second's communion with Sekot. "It is a sacred right of some sort. You cannot be told about what the process is like until you walk into this seed room."

Here Kit spoke up. "The seed room is a fascinating area. Imagine a well-tended grove of bizarre wroshyr variants around a central building made of the local material. Within is a single large room, but the walls are made of purple filaments with little lights going through it here and there and these odd spiked fruits hanging everywhere. The fruit are the seeds, of course, and they're mostly brown with striations of red throughout. You can feel a sort of potential hanging in the air there."

The Nautolan shrugged, setting his numerous head tentacles to twitching. "Or at least I did when we went to examine the seed-partner left by Vergere that Jerec destroyed. Deliberately, I have no doubt now."

"It does sound interesting, but how does the planet go about actually creating the ship? Are we going to have any insight into the design? That was one of the parts I liked best about working with the Mon Calamari," Ranma confided.

There was a sparkle of interest coming from her connection to Sekot, and Master Fay smiled thinly. "I think you might want to discuss that with the shapers and the other locals, including Sekot himself.

"Is there any way we could get that ship down here?" she asked, looking over Chief Magister Cran Tole. "I don't think they've ever dealt with the Mon Calamari, and I can guarantee that you could learn quite a bit even from the Wild Light's wreckage." Shaak had been brought down to the planet via one of the local shuttles.

The old Ferroan chuckled ruefully. "Master Jedi, we haven't even heard of that species. Where would their homeworld be located?

"I will show you on an intergalactic map when we get back to the control center." Fay looked over at Shaak and Ranma again. "That is the place where Sekot is most easily able to talk to multiple people at once."

"You mean where he communicates with non-Force users," Ranma supplied, still looking around.

"Indeed. We are a rare breed, after all, and none of the locals have a connection to the Force. Indeed, I think one of the reasons why Sekot has been so forthcoming with us is because he is fascinated with our own Force powers."

"With yours, milady," Kit said, bowing drolly from the waist, which brought attention once more to his severed arm. "It hasn't said a single word to me."

"I am getting a feeling of welcome and intense curiosity. But that is all, no actual words," Shaak supplied. "I suppose I am getting a far better impression of the nature of the planet then the nature of its personality."

"What she means is that we can feel the Living Force around us here, and it's massive," Ranma said with a laugh. He leaned down and actually patted the ground for a moment. "This could be the start of something interesting."

For a moment annoyance flashed through Sekot's mind. "I am not some pet that you can pat like that," it said into Master Fay's mind much more clearly than it normally would have outside the control room.

Kit, however, had already turned his attention to something else, staring up into the sky. "What are we going to do with our new allies, those cruiser crews who Master Fay was able to convince to turn against their former admiral?"

"I invited them down for a conference before Magister Cole and I left the control room. They should arrive shortly."

Beside Fay, Magister Cole nodded, reporting that he had already organized a welcoming delegation by representatives of the disparate races that made this planet their home. There was even a conference room being prepared in a building near the landing area the cruiser captains had been told to send their shuttles to. Other preparations were also continuing, of course.

"But there will not be any kind of armed escort," Fay said, wanting to make certain of that point. "We must appear friendly and thankful for their aid while also not giving any hint of a lack of strength."

"Derogatory Snort: Humph, as if any armed escort the local meatbags could come up with would match me or my master's lethality," HK said, actually emitting a snorting sound to go with his words. It sounded like someone grinding some gears and somehow sending that sound through a foghorn.

The statement caused some looks from the locals, but Ranma just nodded and silently followed the others, still occasionally looking around, his concentration on something else entirely. Seeing that, the locals were forced to take HK's words at face value, which was rather simple for several of them. They had seen the combat droid in action during the infantry battle.

His Force senses were not as attuned to the Unifying Force as the Jedi were, but they were slightly more in tune with the Living Force than all of them save, perhaps, Shaak. Her ability to manipulate plant life gave her a heads up there. But she had more training in compartmentalizing what her senses were saying

Weird is what it is, he thought. He smiled as Shaak turned to look at him, cocking an eyebrow very visible in her white facial markings, her eyes standing out so starkly against the white background. Using that as a distraction from what his senses were telling him, Ranma moved up beside her, linking his arm with hers. "I was worried when I heard what you were doing out there, trying to board the Captor alone," he said in a low tone. "I knew the Wild Light was failing even as you dropped me off. I mean, I know you had to try to take Tarkin prisoner, but I was really worried when the locals said the Wild Light looked to have crashed into the Captor."

"You could have just reached through the Force to check, Ranma," Shaak said slightly admonishingly. Despite having learned how to reach out to the Force, Ranma rarely did so. His reasons for this were convoluted and sometimes only made sense to him, but these days they boiled down to the simple fact that he was worried about foreign influences in his mind. Shaak had told him numerous times that this was rather silly, but she couldn't really refute the concept given the Veil of the Dark Side. Although that is changing these days, she thought, fighting back a smirk. The Force was shifting constantly and in such a chaotic manner she hoped that even the Sith were no longer able to see the future clearly.

"I know I could have, but I didn't think of it until after you had called us all," Ranma said, as Shaak had known he would.

"You're not going to say I was foolish for rushing in?" she asked.

Ranma barked a laugh causing the others to turn to them, though they all turned back, even the locals, realizing that the two lovers were sharing a private moment. "Shaak, I'd be the last person in the galaxy to tell anyone not to rush in. That doesn't stop me from worrying about it, though, when I'm not there to watch your back."

Shaak smiled too, leaning in to kiss Ranma lightly on the jaw. She preferred kissing him there than on the cheek for some reason, which Ranma hadn't quite figured out yet. Perhaps it's more intimate? But she didn't say anything, simply leaning into his side, her montral scrapping against the side of his head and her body pressing into his side in a very distracting manner that hinted of what she would like to do once they went to bed that night.

A nearby Ferroan had been talking into a communicator as he paced alongside Magister Cole and now nodded to his superior and the Jedi. "We have shuttles incoming. Judging by what space control is saying, they're quite nervous about leaving their ships, and quite nervous entirely now that the battle is over. I believe the phrase they're using most often would be translated to, 'we're going to get in trouble for this, aren't we?'" he said drolly.

"No, they're not," Master Fay said firmly. "I take it that all of the ships that came over to our side are still present?"

"That's correct, Master Jedi," the man said after relaying that question. "Even the two mine layers are still there, primarily because they have about a squadron's worth of our fighters around them at the moment. The cruisers don't; we thought that would be undiplomatic."

Master Fay smiled faintly. "I am also still influencing all of their minds," she said softly. "Nothing invasive, of course. Simply helping to convince them that running would not solve their problems in the long run: rather, that it would simply make it worse. The captains are most receptive, I think. They're the most politically astute among them."

"I'm missing something here," Ranma said, as did most of the locals who also looked confused. Kit looked as if he had an idea, but not a solid one.

"Eriadu is a very stratified culture built around what I would term clans. Though they call themselves houses, I believe," Shaak said, supplying the answer as Fay looked away, watching another flight of local starfighters racing up to join their fellows. "The counts and their families are royalty for all intents and purposes, and the normal people are treated like serfs, but not quite as badly as they could have been in a truly medieval society."

"So, basically they know that since they decided to follow the law rather than their local lord and master's orders, they'll be screwed if they went home." Ranma summarized. "Fuck, that sucks, especially since if they hadn't thrown in with us that fight would've gone the other way right quick. The Wild Light was good, and the local starfighters are okay for amateur-designed ships, but they wouldn't have been strong enough to have stopped that fleet."

There was another sense of irritation once more from Sekot at that. This one was also felt in the material world, as numerous trees nearby swayed, their branches creaking like they were men cracking their knuckles.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you," Ranma said, looking around him and almost glaring at the trees, which were not the large variety he saw in the distance, but rather looked like spruce trees. "I guess you can hear us out here even if you can't speak to me, so I'll say it plain. Those ships need to be a heck of a lot better than they are. HK?"

The droid, which had been mostly silent as they had moved away from where they had initially met up, quickly followed his master's request. "Professional summary: Their maneuverability and speed are well above the norm for meatbag vessels or even the mass-produced Vulture type of space-combat droid. But their durability is abysmal. They come apart at a single hit from a Vulture fighter's weapons and have no shields to speak of. And those projectile weapons, while strong, are not as powerful as targeted weapon systems like proton torpedoes or concussion missiles would be, and are as susceptible to running out of ammunition. Using the same weapon system to attack both capital ships and other starfighters is the height of inefficiency."

There was a rumble as if the planet was shaking in anger, and then the ground opened up to one side. A vent of some kind spat cold water, so cold it stung, out to drench Ranma. It would have caught Shaak too, but she dodged to one side at the last instant. Ranma did not, and there was the usual faint susurration of giggling laughter in the Force as Ranma's curse activated.

Fay felt it through the Force and, thanks to her letting it piggyback on her senses, so too did Sekot. The moment of pure laughing joy seemed to stun the planetary sentience, and she quickly followed it up with an explanation.

"Joy, now even a planet is able to splash me somehow. Where the heck did the water come from?" Ranma asked, wringing out her hair and then pulling out a bottle of water, hitting the heating tab on the bottom.

"Artisan wells right below the surface. The pressure in them is intense, hence why it thrust out like a geyser," Shaak mused while Kit and HK looked on in amusement. "The well opening up right there, that was all Sekot. One does not anger the planet one is standing on," she finished, her lips quirking in amusement. "It seems that HK's and your critiques were not welcome."

Master Fay looked pained for a moment as she felt Sekot's bemused wonder and interest, wondering what Sekot was going to do next. "Let us set this to the side for now," she said diplomatically. "We have a meeting to attend to at the present time. And there are more mysteries here that we need to discover above and beyond talking about the actual nature of Sekot himself, remember that."

Despite Fay's gentle remonstrance water just happened to blast out at Ranma three more times during the walk. It was getting to the point where he was twitching and had just about run out of his own water bottles when Fay was able to get Sekot to stop, threatening to cut off their Force connection so it would no longer be able to feel the Force's response to Ranma's curse.

A moment later they watched as the shuttles of the various ships in orbit touched down. Five men trooped out from each, all of them wearing a variant of a blue uniform. First out were four guards from each shuttle, their rifles held at port arms. HK gave an electronic snort at the sight of them, and Ranma had to agree with his comment. "Contemptible observation: Sailors given weapons that they do not know how to use or could ever truly fight with. They look pretty, but even a squadron of the pathetic examples of combat droids that we fought earlier could take them easily."

"Thank you for the threat assessment, droid," Master Fay replied, stepping forward. "And the next time we need your input, I will ask for it." It was a very polite slap down, but it was without a doubt a slap down, and such was the authority Master Fay projected that even HK, a droid that had no Force in him, could only obey.

"Gentlemen," she went on, smiling at the captains as they moved around their escorts towards her. "Welcome to Zonama. I truly welcome you now as I could not before when you were following the illegal orders of Admiral Tarkin."

At that one of them stepped forward. He was a taller, slightly older gentleman with distinguished features. "We understand that Master Jedi, and we feel nothing but remorse for our part in even coming here in the first place. The admiral was convinced that this planet held the key to making Eriadu even more important than our homeworld already is, and as lesser officers, we had no choice but to obey. His taking us out of our patrol routes and to this place wasn't actually illegal according to our charter, but when he decided to fight representatives of the Republic, that is, you and the other Jedi, that was too much."

One of the others put it even more simply. "I had family who was watching the trade conference that occurred a few years ago on Eriadu. They would've died in the firefight that broke out thanks to those pirates if not for the Jedi. Whatever the House of Lords might think, I know at least that you Jedi stand for something more important than just the rule of Coruscant."

"I believe I speak for all of us that we should represent justice beyond the law. Certainly more than the law of Coruscant, as you put it," Shaak said simply before even Master Fay could. "I take it that by that you mean the centralized government of the Republic, perhaps?"

There was some grim laughter among the captains, and more than one turned to wave off his guards back to their shuttles. "We don't know, lady. None of us are highborn, and on Eriadu the common folk aren't exactly encouraged to take an interest in the Republic as a whole."

That caused many a frown among the Jedi, though Ranma didn't understand why until Shaak slipped backward, leaning in to whisper into his ear once Fay took control of the delegates, leading them off towards a conference room with Magister Cole. "Free speech and the need to allow a proper educational system which will teach not only about their own planet but about the Republic as a whole is a necessary part to be considered a sector capital like Eriadu. It's a subtle way of enforcing democratic rule. That Eriadu has not been doing so or is tacitly attempting not to is not a good sign."

"So how do we get the word out about it? And how fast could Jedi get there to follow up on this Tarkin guy's family?" Ranma asked intently. "From what you said earlier, I can't imagine that he was the only one that knew about this attack, right?"

"It's worse than that," Kit said softly, trailing behind the two of them. All three of them had moved to the back of the now enlarged group. "During the initial confrontation Tarkin was almost contemptuous of the Jedi, saying that taking Zonama Sekot would allow him to come to the attention of a rising power."

"The Sith," Shaak and Ranma said as one, before exchanging a look and a chuckle.

Like Master Fay, Kit had been read into that secret. This was not because the High Council had wished them to, but because Fay had taken it upon herself to educate him about what might be going on. The fact that she couldn't figure out a way to find the Sith had bothered the heck out of her, and him too. "Perhaps if we move fast enough..."

"Does this planet have a Hypercom uplink or its own array?" Shaak asked, interjecting herself in between the two boys before they could get more excited. "Ours was destroyed, and I doubt any of the cruisers have an uplink either. Tarkin would not have been the type to let his subordinates talk with other people."

"The flagship might," Ranma argued, then sighed. "Still, you're right. Besides, even if we could use a Hypercom network, how would we communicate with the Council without warning the Sith via the bugs we all think he has within the system? I doubt Windu's learned enough Japanese yet for me to get this all across to him that way."

"Exactly. Master Fay might be able to reach out to Yoda or one of the others at this distance, but even that is doubtful. I'm saying this so that you do not get your hopes up for this to be the game breaker. Concentrate only on what you can control, what you can affect, and you will feel much more centered in the Force," she said, smiling faintly at the other two.

While Ranma rolled his eyes good-naturedly at that, he threw an arm around Shaak's shoulder, his hand resting tenderly on her left lek for a brief instant before moving away. Kit simply nodded seriously. By this point they had come to the building Master Fay had been directing the group towards.

The group entered quickly, finding inside a small single-story room with a tiny kitchenette to one side. In the center were chairs around tiny tables, three to a table. One of the locals, a young Ferroan girl, was already at work in the kitchen, preparing some local food of some kind. It smelled good, almost like baked bread to Ranma's nose. A few of the captains, who were all men, stared at the local girl, one of them even going so far as to whistle. Their eyes widened further as more of the locals followed in behind them, taking seats here and there. More than half the locals were women of various ages.

The food turned out to be a kind of thick tea. Ranma thought it was good and was rather amused to note the local serving girl winking at one of the captains. Don't tell me they're going to try for the old honey trap scheme? Though it might work, especially if all of the Eriadan ships are manned solely by men. Whoever thought a single-sex Navy was a good idea needs their head examined. And this is me saying it!

With that thought, Ranma turned his attention back to Master Fay. She alone of the group had stayed on her feet, moving around the room until she was in a position where everyone could see her. She took a sip from her cup, holding it in both hands and raising it almost formally to her lips like someone performing a tea ceremony back in Japan. At this gesture all of the others, except, of course, HK for obvious reasons, did the same after taking a few sips. Still holding the cup in both hands out to the others, she began. "We share this drink in good faith, one and all, to come to a proper agreement which all may profit from."

The others all replied in kind, locals and offworlders alike. Later Shaak explained to Ranma that this ritual was one of the most ancient and most basic methods to ensure that everyone would deal with one another fairly in a business transaction or a trade talk. It also showed everyone that Fay considered them all equal in this discussion, a powerful message.

After setting the cup down, Master Fay began. "Captains, local representatives, I believe it behooves us to summarize what has occurred from our two disparate perspectives, to see if one side or the other has any further insight into what has occurred here. Before that, however, I know I asked this earlier of the captains via the coms, but I am speaking for Sekot formally now: Do you need any medical aid on your ships?"

For a moment the captains were silent, all looking at one another, then the same one as before stood up, bowing formally. "Gentlemen and, um…ladies," he said haltingly. "My name is Captain Morgan, and I suppose I am the most senior amongst us here. Um, beyond the shuttles already heading up to collect injured and the kri, er, the survival pods, we don't need any further medical aid. We've got a kr, um, that is, we've got a ton of wounded and former kr, friends to see to, but that seems to be getting handled by the locals already."

It was obvious to Ranma that Morgan was not used to public speaking like this. Or maybe the lack of uniforms're throwing him off. He looks the sort that was made for the Army. Heh, the way he needs to keep on correcting himself to keep from cursing is kind of amusing though.

Morgan had a salt-and-pepper beard and a slightly more rugged feature to his looks than the others, but was still trim, fit, and wore his uniform like one who had done so for decades. Not that any of them were young—they were all at least in their thirties or forties—but Morgan looked to be in his fifties. Too old to be a simple captain, really, but Ranma supposed the man didn't come from the right kind of family to break flag rank.

"From our perspective, this was going to be a routine operation at first. Admiral Tarkin is one of the most aggressive commanders of the Outlands Regions Security Force, so he had the clout to put our group together. Far as we know he informed the higher-ups that he was going to take out a pirate base that had been set up by several broken remnants of other pirate groups the Jedi had smashed a few months back. When we arrived at the coordinates, however, we found that the pirate base had already been destroyed. And then, instead of leading us back to Eriadu, he was going to lead us off on this crusade. We…"

Morgan paused then, shrugging his shoulders uncomfortably. "As I said earlier to the Jedi when they met us, we had concerns, but it certainly sounded good to us. A planet out of the way like this which had a whole new method of manufacture which could create the fastest ships in space? And on Eriadu, well, if one of the lords says go, we obey. Bad things happen to people and to their families sometimes if you don't. Even we in the Outlands Regions Security Force can't argue with anyone of flag rank, let alone someone like Tarkin."

"Did you know or were there any rumors about how he discovered that Sekot was out here? Or how he discovered about the living ships at all? It is not as if we have sold many of them to offworlders," asked one of the locals. One of only four red-skinned Langhesi, he looked to be the oldest one there besides Magister Cole (and Fay, though she didn't look it, of course). "In fact, we've only sold seven of them to offworlders at all."

"We had an example on board the flagship, apparently," said one of the other captains, shrugging his shoulders. "Other than that, I can't tell you."

Sekot, however, was able to provide some more information to Fay at that point. There was indeed a living ship onboard that vessel, a small speedy vessel, according to Sekot. She said aloud, "It is one of the ones sold to offworlders. It died during the battle, but it might have sparked Tarkin's interest in this planet. And the individual who had purchased it might well have provided the coordinates."

It's altogether possible that the Sith had no true idea about what was going on out here then. This sounds like it was simply a power grab by Tarkin, plain and simple. It certainly would not fit the Sith's MO to do something so overt, Shaak thought, an idea shared by the other Jedi and Ranma.

From there one of the minelayer captains spoke up. He explained how they had been ordered to start laying their mines despite there not being any sign of local enemy starships, and then how they had detonated them when they switched sides. Beyond that and the fact that the Trade Federation actually hadn't been involved, the Eriadans had nothing more to add. They said that the droid carriers had been purchased by Tarkin in the past, ostensibly to give the Outlands Regions Security Force a ground-based punch. Shaak made a note of that, concerned about the idea that the Trade Federation or the Tech Union were selling their droids like that on the open market. The last thing anyone wanted was to see was more robotic type armies popping up all over the Republic.

"And you have no idea about what this rising power Tarkin mentioned could be?" Fay asked as the captains wound down.

"We do not," Morgan affirmed after gathering shakes and shrugs from his fellows.

The locals had asked a few more questions about what route the Eriadans had taken to Zonama Sekot and a few other things, but eventually, it became turn for the Eriadans to ask questions. "The main question is what is going to happen to us now? Will we have to turn ourselves into the Republic? Or will you allow us to try and return home?" Morgan asked bluntly.

"Would you really try? To go home, that is," Master Fay asked, smiling blandly at that. "We both know what would happen to you and your crews the moment it became clear that you had gone against Tarkin's orders. While his giving the orders might've been unlawful, on your planet ignoring him in turn would also be unlawful, is it not? A cleft stick without any way out"

There was an uncomfortable silence there as the captains slowly nodded.

"Luckily for you, I believe that we can do better," Master Fay went on, breaking the silence easily with a smile on her face. "You might not have noticed, but while Zonama Sekot has no shortage of starfighters, the planet does not have capital ships. Moreover, as one of my colleagues pointed out before this began in a rather rude manner…" She paused to send a pointed look towards an unrepentant Ranma. "Sekot lacks a true military organization. These are both points that you could help with if you're amenable to it."

"What will we be getting out of it?" one of the captains asked tartly. "If it's just our freedom, Master Jedi, I'm sorry, but it's not worth it."

"You will be both paid and housed on the planet. Already construction is beginning on a series of houses—I stress the word houses, not barracks—for you all. And, as your crews will be asked to help defend this planet against any aggressive party, you will be paid in the local currency commensurate to that, along with a set stipend," Magister Cole said, stepping in smoothly. "From what has been said gentlemen, I think you have to acknowledge that it's an incredible offer."

"Throw in a few dancing girls, and you've got a deal," said one of the captains at the far back of the room from Master Fay. He probably meant that to be a whisper, but there had been a lull in the conversation just then as the other captains fell silent, considering the offer from the locals.

Now one of those selfsame locals turned to that man, raising her eyebrows. He shrugged sheepishly. "I'm a sailor, and it's been a long time between ports," he said by way of explanation.

"Too much information," intoned more than one voice, including Ranma's.

"Are their facilities here to repair our ships? None of us got out of that fight unscathed," Morgan asked seriously, more to move the conversation along than to save his friend from his gaffe. "And if there are, we might be able to do some salvage from the wreckage up there."

"Salvage we will be able to do easily," said the same Langhesi from before. "Repairing your ships, that might take a little while longer. You might have seen that our ships are somewhat different than the Galactic norm," he said sarcastically.

The captains, instead of taking umbrage, simply laughed at that, nodding their heads. "Once our shield generators finish recharging and any damage to them is repaired, we'll be at least at 65 percent combat efficiency or so," said one of the captains, looking around at the others. "My ship's taken the most damage, so the others should be a little better than that."

"What if we don't want to stay here?" asked one of the two mine layer captains who had remained silent to this point. "What if we want to go home? This sounds like a nice deal and all, but it's not a deal if you're dictating terms and we simply can't leave."

"You're free to leave whenever you wish, so long as you allow us to erase from your mind the knowledge of this planet. I'm sorry, but given some of the things that Tarkin said, security is paramount," Master Fay replied.

"That makes sense, I suppose," said one of the other cruiser captains. They looked at one another and then nodded in agreement. "We agree, Master Jedi."

Fay smiled and then turned the discussion over to a few of the locals, including the older, hard-faced Langhesi. Sekot told her that he was the head of the small local defense force, so it would be his job to figure out what to do with the cruisers and their crews. She was tempted to also leave HK there, given the droid's apparent knowledge of military matters. But she thought better of it, realizing that only Ranma and Shaak had enough clout with the droid to make certain he didn't simply piss everyone off in an effort to start a fight.

Instead, she led him and his owners out of the conference hall, with Kit and Magister Cole trailing them. "Come, it is time to introduce you to Sekot in person." She paused then and actually let loose a giggle. "Or in person as we can, anyway."

Entering the control room, Ranma immediately stared at a central obelisk that jutted out of the center of the room. "That, I suppose? And if it says something like, 'Foolish bags of flesh, you stand before the old growth,' I am sooo out of here."

"While I believe it is grammatically correct, having my synapse spine called that bothers me for some reason, let alone the rest of your blathering," said a voice emanating out of the walls of the bunker. The bunker, which, while covered in ferrocrete and protected by metal doors, had an interior that a Wookiee would have approved of, with some kind of leguminous growth covering the walls, chairs which looked as if they had been grown rather than emplaced, and ambient lights from a series of small, faintly glowing orbs in the corners.

The voice was deep, a bass rumble of sound, yet its tenor was that of a young man like Kit or Ranma, one who was rather irritated. That matched what Fay had felt since the moment she had arrived: while Sekot was an amazing being, his sentience was relatively young, barely fully formed. She had no idea how old the planet was, but she was certain of that, at least.

The obelisk at the center of the room was surrounded by steel initially, but Magister Cole removed a small panel from it, revealing what was inside: a faintly glowing vein of red-tinted rock that pulsed with brighter lights occasionally. "This is a synapse spine. It is connected via a few of our local biological devices to several speakers, and we can, in turn, connect directly via neural links if need be."

Cole gestured at the chairs all around them, and the offworlders all noticed something that Kit hadn't before: that two of them had small, dark purple bumps at the back of them which equated to where an individual's head would sit. The others looked more normal.

At a command from Sekot, one of those chairs extruded a small vine or feeler of some kind before pulling it back in. "I use these when we need to consult on complex matters, though I find doing so with multiple minds at once as we discuss an equal number of topics rather irritating, especially if I am doing so with individuals I have not yet linked with."

"I'd say that's kind of gross, but it ain't the worst thing I've seen in my travels, and I'd prefer ya not to try and splash me again," Ranma quipped.

"But if you had these, why was talking with Fay such an experience?" Shaak asked.

"Because none of my people have a Force connection," Sekot replied simply. "I have sensors, of course, the equivalent of radar, eyes, ears, even some growths that allow me to sense what goes on beyond my surface out into space. But it has only been in the last twenty years that I have even been able to talk to anyone via the link in a meaningful manner. Before that we had trouble communicating as I was unable to change my thoughts into words that could be understood," Sekot replied. Ranma noticed now that his voice came from a few vent-like segments in the walls, which seemed to thrum like large gills or something when he spoke.

With a flash from the visible portion of the synapse spire, Sekot set that topic aside, turning to another swiftly. "As for you, human, your attitude earlier was not pleasing. You heaped scorn upon my starfighters and upon how they were designed. You then implied that you could provide me an 'education.' Would you care to now elaborate on that, or are you all just talk?"

"Ranma, please don't pick any more fights with the sentient planet," Shaak said, then spoiled her attempt at peacemaking by smirking. "Even you would have trouble punching out a planet, after all."

"Hmmm…" Ranma mused as if considering that very idea before grinning. "Nah, I won't do that. It ain't Sekot's fault that it's ignorant, after all." Before the now angry planetary intelligence could take umbrage at that, Ranma went on. "You've never been in a fight before this, right?"

"I was the victim of another attempt at invasion from the Far Outsiders, but at that time I had yet to construct any of my starfighters," Sekot replied, sounding surly. "Yet given what you have said and the way you conducted yourself in the battle, you have."

"Before we get into that, can you tell us anything more about the Far Outsiders?" Fay asked quickly, holding up a hand over Ranma's mouth when he made to speak.

"Nothing I have not already told you," Sekot said, still sounding rather argumentative. "They came here searching for something. Where they came from, I know not, though I think I might have known them at one point before I gained sentience. As a baby, you could say."

Fay didn't know if she would describe it like that. She still felt like someone else had locked that information away. But she didn't think it would be politic right now to bring that up. Besides, I doubt I could break through them. Whoever put those blocks in place did a far too thorough job. And if it was Sekot itself, which it could well be since I detected no signs of foreign intrusion when we merged minds during the battle, I don't have the right to undo the block in the first place.

"But since their arrival, my Langhesi have been working with me to create a hyperspace drive, a hyperspace drive for me," Sekot finished. "I have no desire to fight the Far Outsiders or anyone else, really; only to live peacefully. Escape, therefore, is actually just as viable an option as staying and fighting."

"Maybe," Ranma interjected. "But that doesn't mean you should fight badly. Now, like I said, I liked some of what your starships could do, but their defense was abysmal. I think I've got a technique that might be helpful here." He looked at Fay and asked, "Can Sekot sense the Force?"

Sekot replied before Fay could. "No, I cannot. I have no Force sense. I have tried off and on since Vergere arrived and then even harder since Master Fay arrived." The planet's voice calmed down and become much warmer as it went on. "Thanks to Master Fay allowing me to use her senses, I have been able to touch the Force as she would. Hence my fascination, which was helped along by the feeling of the Force when you went through your transformation. That was the second most amazing experience I have ever felt, behind only the first time I was able to communicate accurately with my people."

"That's sad, but I suppose it's also kind of a good thing. Ya don't have any preconceived notions I'll need to hammer down. See, I wasn't taught like the Jedi, to reach out to the Force around us. I was taught to reach inward, to what the Jedi call the Living Force. And it's somewhat different than the Unifying Force. A lot of what I can do, the Jedi have never even thought of."

Ranma stopped talking for a second, then turned, looking over at HK. "HK, shoot me."

"Tempered eagerness: With a noticeable amount of pleasure, master." With that HK immediately raised his blaster and fired at Ranma, hitting him in the stomach.

The heavy bolt seared Ranma's clothing to ash where it hit but didn't even make his skin go pink. "The toughness technique," Ranma explained. "A way to use a person's Living Force to reinforce your body to the point where you can take hits that should hurt you at the very least and negate them entirely."

Holding up his hand, Ranma clenched then unclenched his fist, holding up his palm containing a large gold and blue ball of energy the size of HK's head. "This is another Living Force technique. You push out your energy into a controlled form and use it as an attack." He looked over at HK contemplatively, then shook his head. "Nah, I wouldn't do that to ya." Then a second later he hurled the ball at HK, who ducked at the last second, letting the ki ball hit and mangle a portion of the metal security door behind him. "Oh yes, I would."

"Irritated mutter: Master, your penchant for violent responses is one I normally enjoy, but not nearly as much when it bites me on my metallic posterior."

"Children, could we perhaps act our ages instead of our mental capacity?" Fay asked a sweet smile on her face despite her somewhat tart tones.

"You…you say that this technique could be learned by anyone with this Living Force within them? I presume by that you mean an individual's biological energy?" Sekot asked. There was something in its voice that hadn't been there before when talking to Ranma, a hint of respect as well as avarice.

In reply Shaak stepped forward, holding her hand out and summoning up her own ball of energy. Hers had no hint of blue, however, being pure gold. "Ranma has taught me about reaching inward rather than outward to the extent that I can do many of the things he can. Some still elude me, but this was the third technique I learned, after the toughness technique and what Ranma calls the weapons' space technique."

"That sounds just as interesting as this demonstration," Sekot murmured, with Magister Cole nodding rapidly. "Are you offering to teach me this? For what?"

"A ship," Ranma said bluntly. "A ship as dangerous and as nasty as we can make it. Plus your agreement that you won't back our enemies against me and my friends."

Since that was possibly the easiest deal Sekot had ever made, the planetary sentient did so quickly. After that Fay left immediately to aid the hospital workers, while Kit left to coordinate search and rescue operations already underway, putting off having Fay see to his dismembered arm. A Jedi had no need to rely on computer systems to find living minds, after all, and he could thus save lives. For that, he was willing to put up with a few days discomfort. Shaak left to help him and to get Tune down from the wreckage of the Wild Light, which was still in the Captor's landing bay.

Ranma and HK remained there for a time before HK left to continue the work of crushing 'pathetic, mass-produced trash' droid heads. Ranma and Sekot talked for a few hours until night had fallen. They talked about the Living Force, meditation, and Ranma and Shaak's adventures, trading barbs all the while. Sekot quickly reached Tune's level of competence in that regard, though that just meant there was still a lot of room for improvement.

It was around nine o'clock local time when Shaak returned, gathering up Ranma for some personal time. The search and rescue work was still ongoing, as, of course, was Fay's work with the wounded. Indeed, there would be a few days of various cleanup operations before anything else occurred. And Sekot had said that the planet would be jumping out via its hyperspace drives the instant that cleanup was done. So it would take even longer before work could start on the lovers' new ship.

Still, tonight they had time off for themselves. Shaak's ability to heal others wasn't such that she would add any more to the locals than the equivalent of another surgeon, and Ranma couldn't heal other people at all save by loaning them some of his Living Force. And, as good as they were in terms of pilots, Kit and Sekot had the search and rescue operations well in hand.

So they decided to go exploring for a time, first walking around the small city, then moving further out in a direction where Shaak remembered there being a large stream. It was so large that Ranma, once he saw it, thought it looked like the Yangtze and the Yellow Rivers had been combined. The sound of the flow of water was audible from several yards away, but for some reason, there were numerous patches along its length where the local trees had not grown.

Looking down, Shaak noticed that those places only had bare grass and were much lower than elsewhere. "Ah, I see. The river occasionally floods at these points. Seeds and seedlings would not survive those conditions."

"It's a nice planet, though its sentience leaves a bit to be desired," Ranma drawled, sitting down on his haunches. Shaak followed him down lithely. Then she almost let loose a squeak as Ranma drew her to him, kissing her soundly on the lips. "But my focus ain't on Sekot just now," he murmured between kisses.

After a while they finished, with Shaak laying on Ranma's chest, her breath coming in ever-slowing gasps as she got her breath back from their exertions. Her lekku were still twitching, tickling Ranma in a way he had come to treasure, her montral scraping against Ranma's shoulder and just under his chin.

For a moment they were silent save for murmured words of affection. Then Shaak asked, "So, how long do you think it will take you to teach Sekot to use your techniques?"

"It'll vary, though I think they'll be able to build our ship at the same time. Sekot mentioned something about a bio-reactor, something like that, anyway. Sekot didn't really want to go into details on the construction process. But I think the Ferroans do the design, the Langhesi work with weapons and tech, and those giant haystack guys do the actual forging. Sekot just provides the raw material, especially for a ship like ours."

"Hmm… We might have to leave with one of the cruisers to send off a message to the rest of the Order. We'll have to see. If we do, it will have to be us, since I can't speak Japanese without your brain along for me to make use of. Though I suppose it's good that someone makes use of it in the first place," Shaak teased, before switching back to serious. "Still, I would like to send out some information at the very least."

"That's a good idea if Fay can't get through to the old frog via the Force. Although we'd have to take one of the crews along with us since I doubt two people, or even two people and two droids, would be able to run a cruiser like that," Ranma said, then abruptly sat up, looking around them suspiciously. "Hey, you don't think Sekot watches us at times like this, do you?"

"Sekot doesn't have senses like that, and you know it," Shaak teased, then reached down and cupped Ranma's privates with one hand, quickly working her hand up and down his shaft. "Nor does it seem as if the possibility bothers you overmuch."

Neither saw a few of the trees shifting slightly as if looking away. Most of the local animals had already left the area, both those independent of Sekot and those which were part of Sekot's network. Humanoid mating rituals held no interest to Sekot, but it had been following Ranma and Shaak before that due to their being Force users, and thus were of interest despite that.

"Well, that's good, then," Ranma said, and leaned down to kiss Shaak once more.

Elsewhere, however, both work and discussions continued.

OOOOOOO

Though she had told the others to turn in for the night, Fay did not go to sleep herself just yet. There were two more discussions that had to occur, the sooner, the better regardless of her mental exhaustion. While the locals probably don't want to think about it this way, and, frankly, neither do I, yet this planet does represent a major resource as Tarkin said. One that cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands, yes, but one which I think we Jedi need to do our best to bring to our side.

That evening Fay entered the control room, moving through it into the alcove just beyond which contained the spire of Sekot's actual mind. As she did, it pulsed in welcome, the red light of it welcoming her. This was followed by Sekot's voice, thrumming through the air from the living speakers in the control room beyond. "Welcome, Fay. Was there something else you wanted to discuss?"

Fay sensed that Sekot was mentally tired and could relate to that easily given that she felt it herself. Controlling that many starfighters had been a nasty strain, and, for all its monstrous intelligence, size and ability, Sekot had never done anything like that before. Add to that the need to continually replace its losses, and you get a very tired planet, Fay mused. I suppose that is why he isn't willing to continue to speak to me mind to mind.

She sat in the chair directly in front of the spire, addressing her words to it as they had been doing since this morning. This portion of their discussion needed to be said aloud and recorded by both Sekot's own recorders and the numerous mechanical ones around them. "I speak now as a Jedi Master representing the Order as a whole and a separate entity connected to but not part of the Senate. Would you hear me?"

This was a phrase the Jedi had come up with millennia ago when they talked to groups, mostly planetary based species who did not have any connection to the Republic and which the Jedi Order wanted to have dealings with for one reason or another. Most of those times dealt with ending hostilities against the Order, the Republic, or various expansionist governments within the Republic. Sometimes this expression had also dealt with acquiring resources.

It had never been used in Fay's time, nor even Yoda's, she supposed. Since the Reformation, both the Republic and the Order had been more concerned with internal issues, and there had even been laws which stated where the Republic ended and that any planet within those environs were subject states regardless of their representation within the Senate.

But it was still a somewhat-official, if not legal, statement, and Fay delivered it with both aplomb and gravitas. While as a planet in a sector owned by the Corporate Sector, Sekot falls under the laws of the Republic, trying to enforce that would be impossible. It would also be wrong morally.

For a moment Sekot didn't answer, and Fay could feel the thoughts of the immense mind working out the import of what she had said and why in terms of the battle earlier and what it could mean. "I will hear you, Master Jedi. What is it you wish to discuss?"

"I wish to offer an alliance between the planet and individual of Zonama Sekot and the sentients who live upon it with the Jedi Order," she said simply. "There is a growing threat out there, of which this attack was but a part and not even an authorized part of too. We cannot let you fall into the hands of the Sith. Your ships are a fantastic resource, more especially for those of us who can use the Force to connect to the seeds than for normal people. I would see those ships in the hands of a Jedi instead of our enemy."

Again Sekot didn't answer right away, and when it did, Sekot's voice had become even more serious. "Your reasons are understandable, and I believe that war is going to come to me one way or another in the future. But I do not wish to embrace it without recompense. I could hide somewhere in the Outer Rim, either near here or elsewhere, and simply disappear. What, to be blunt, is in it for me and those sentients who live upon me?"

The relationship between Sekot and the three species that had come to live on him was complex. They were all people rather than mere drones, as would have been the case in a hive society or something similar. Yet they were also entirely dependent on Zonama Sekot for literally everything. There was no real government, though there were education centers and public transportation. There were hundreds of different jobs and industrial centers, but they were all bound up with Zonama Sekot, part of the planet itself. The different races could choose their own leaders however they wished and were heavily involved in ship design, construction, and everything else, but outside of making local decisions for their own people, those decisions could be vetoed by Sekot. It wasn't a power the planet used often, but it was there.

The closest term Fay could come up with for the bond was that of a symbiotic relationship. Yet that implied an animal or perhaps a mindless bond, which this was not. Still, it was undeniable that when it came to defense and foreign affairs like this, it was Sekot who would make the decision.

"While Ranma has quite a bit of knowledge about how to use the Force in his own unique manner, his ability to speak mind to mind is limited. I can help with that, thereby making your learning process easier and faster. The Jedi Order will also provide resources on a steady basis both now and when we arrive to bond with the starships in question. The steady trade will be in spices and other agricultural products at first, and, after that, in metals and other mineral resources. I believe we can also bring in ship designers of various species to make your living ships more formidable."

Sekot grumbled at that, the earlier discussion obviously coming to mind. While it had thought up a few plants that could be mutated to create various gravitic effects in order to protect a ship and even to disrupt the energy shielding used by other ships, they were not as good as energy shielding in terms of defense. Not unless there were a lot of them, like on a capital ship.

"We might even be able to find a way to make ships which are both living and not," Fay went on, making no sign of having heard the grumble from the planetary sentient. "Beyond that, we offer general knowledge: on the Force, on the Republic, on history. And, in my opinion, on medicine."

"…I will agree to this provisionally. However, when Jedi arrive to be bonded to a seed-partner I will require more from each individual: something singular. This can come in the form of stories or of time. The stories will be taken from their own memories of their travels throughout the galaxy. The time spent will most likely be used to aid in training my self-defense forces," Sekot replied at last.

Fay replied in the affirmative to that, and the two of them got down to specifics as two Ferroans and a Langhesi came in, carrying numerous documents and data pads. That discussion lasted long into the night. Indeed, it was pushing dawn by the time they finished. But the agreement was soon in place. Tomorrow, Fay and the trio of astromech droids on hand would begin the process of figuring out where the planet should head once the cruisers and mine-layers had all landed and been repaired.

Special housing would be necessary for their crews as well, from what Fay understood. For one thing, there were not enough residences already in existence on the planet which were suitable for humanoids. For another, they had to be specially made, because otherwise the planet's movement through hyperspace might well drive the sentients who witnessed it insane. The planet's gravity kept hyperspace from affecting the surface physically, but hyper-rapture was still a danger.

Sighing with pleasure at a job well done, Fay left the small governmental complex, heading out and away from the small community with a speed that few would have thought possible, taking to the rooftops like Ranma was wont to in order to cover more ground even faster. By the time dawn broke, Fay was well away from any of the local sentients, deep into one of the local tempasi, or forests. There she found one of the tallest trees (and around here she was rather spoiled for choice), or boras, and climbed up it.

These boras did not look like any tree most sentients would think of when they said the word. Instead, they looked like several different types of trees all mixed together. They had massive branches like wroshyr trees, snapping vines, and even a few large, dangerous looking 'mouths' which looked like something from a flytrap. The mouths and vines moved in defense of the tree, and the boras also each had a limited amount of intelligence.

Sitting atop her chosen bora's foliage, Fay faced the sun, closing her eyes as she felt the sun's rays upon her skin, welcoming it. At the same time, she began to meditate, reaching out through the Force to a distant friend. Yoda, Yoda… Feel my mind's touch and answer...

OOOOOOO

Reaching out with the Force, Fay attempted to find Yoda's mind despite the distance between them. That distance was significant, as the more space between two points, the harder it was to find a specific individual. Fay was one of the best when it came to discerning the skein of the future and where the Force wanted her to be, but she had never been one to reach out in this manner to find a specific mind somewhere else and communicate with him or her.

This was made worse by the swirls and eddies of the Force as it was now: Light and Dark swirling together. Thus she was only able to send vague impressions, establishing no real connection. And even that was more because Yoda felt her efforts and reached out in turn than due to Fay's own ability.

Though it was nighttime on Kashyyyk, Yoda did not need nearly as much sleep as most people did. He got by with long periods of meditation, letting the Force support him as he meditated on it. In this manner he felt Fay's attempt to establish a connection immediately.

Reaching out first to see who this was, Yoda quickly began to pour more power into the tenuous link. It wasn't enough to make actual sentential communication possible. That would have been impossible at this range even in the best of times, which this certainly wasn't. But it was enough for Fay to pass on a series of images: that she was all right, that Ranma and Shaak were with her and Kit, and that Jedi had died. On top of this there was a feeling of grim success and the image of one of the Sekotan starfighters, accompanied by the feeling of an ally gained.

Sending his own acknowledgment back, Yoda waited until Fay had pulled her mental presence back before frowning in thought as he allowed the Force to fill him. Darkness, receding slowly it is, but still there.

Old though he was, even Yoda had to use analogies for what his senses told him about the Force. The analogy that came to mind now was that of a massive bowl which had initially been full of clear liquid, then dyed a deep, impenetrable black. That black in turn was now decreasing somewhat in very specific areas, the tiny stars of the Force Vision that Yoda had had when he and Shaak Ti had followed Ranma into the gambling den deep within Coruscant's outer shell. Here and there were also bonfires of Light, creating even larger areas of gray beyond their own radiance. There was still far too much black, and the source of it was still unknown, but there was hope once more and it was growing.

Even odder in a way was that 'water,' which had always moved in a somewhat discernible pattern, was no longer doing so. The waters had become violent, fighting itself, with numerous tiny eddies and streams pulling it this way and that. At times this chaos worked to the Jedi's advantage, at other times not. But Yoda had the distinct impression that it was helping them a lot more than their Sith opponents.

Small that hope is, but growing. Making progress we are in preparing for the Dark, but not yet in excising it. An end to this conflict, sense it I cannot, Yoda thought, a grim but determined smile coming to his lips. It was the kind of look that would have stiffened the spine of any Jedi. Times, darker will they become before finding the source of this cancer we can. But see it, we will. More allies, needing we will be. Time it is to meet in person with the Green Jedi. Corellia, in this conflict, important it could become…

OOOOOOO

At the same time that Yoda was thinking that the Sith Lord Sidious was thinking along much the same lines, but in reverse: that he and his followers had to start being more proactive in order to halt the gains the Jedi had been making of late. Though many of those gains were still unknown to Sidious, he could feel the ongoing shift in the Unifying Force just as well as Yoda could, and he too had an idea of what to do. Though in his case it had nothing to do with gathering new resources, but with buying time and pruning back the Jedi.

"It is time to make the Jedi bleed," Sidious said as he looked at Tyranus, whose image was kneeling in front of him, projected from a nearby wall. Though most of Sidious's face was invisible, thanks to the shadow of his hood, his lips and jaw were not. Those lips were now twisted into a smile that held no warmth and which was perhaps the most sinister thing Bulq had ever seen. "They have been making too many gains of late, and we need to slow that process down if not halt it entirely.

"It will be three years before the clones are ready, correct?" Bulq asked calmly. Unlike Maul or even Vosa, Bulq had not lost his self-control when he had turned to the Dark, just as Set had not. But while Harth attempted to use self-interest and humor to combat his fear and rage, Bulq simply contained his, preparing his hate and anger to be let loose when he needed to. "It seems to me that that is too long a time to let them know any specifics about us. We will need to work through proxies."

"Yes, three years. Though the fact that we were forced to speed up their gestation process will mean that no single batch will last as long as they should in the real world. Their combat training will also need to be cut in half, but that just means their losses will be greater," Sidious replied in complete unconcern.

"In some cases we will be able to use proxies, but many in the underworld are no longer willing to take out bounties on Jedi, regardless of the amount," Sidious went on. "There are other ways to defeat Jedi, of course. Bombs set into their ships. Astromech droids suddenly miscalculating a jump and sending the ship into a sun or other hazard."

But with the Veil losing strength, those things will only work on the weaker, less important Jedi, he admitted to himself. He did not say it aloud, since showing weakness in front of another Sith was a certain way to set you up to be attacked. Bulq had been told of the Chaotic Locus, of course, but Sidious had hinted that his effect on the Force as a whole could be contained or offset.

Bulq simply nodded. "And you want myself and my apprentice to attack specific targets?"

"Not you," Sidious said sharply. "Your work to begin consolidating the Confederacy powers is still ongoing. Indeed, you are almost at the point where you can start moving openly, bringing further attention towards you from the Order. Nothing can be allowed to show you have any connection to the Dark Side, not yet. Even Ventress's actions will need to be closely controlled so as to make certain she leaves no witnesses. If push comes to it and we need to slay a target in other, more dire, situations, then I have other agents whose loss will muddy the Order's perception further."

"I see. And what about the Senate?"

Sidious's smile widened noticeably. "The Jedi will need to deal with several new laws meant to curtail their ability to act independently. I won't even have to do much there. Their actions against the criminal elements scattered across the Republic and how often many of them have begun to make rulings against the Senate's desires have made them many enemies there. The debates on that will completely blind them to other debates, such as the growing Independent Movement and my own Centralist clique."

Bulq nodded, his small hologram projection visibly showing his awe and appreciation of the masterful way the Sith had set things up. "Very well. What specific orders do you have for me and my apprentice?"

"Nothing detailed for you, though I will have a few speeches for you to give at the various conferences you're going to be going to out in the Mid Rim territories. From there I will assume you know what you are doing with the Confederate powers. As for Ventress…" Sidious gestured, and several megabytes of highly encoded data were spurted out into the Hypercom array, where it was lost among the untold trillions of data bytes already there, appearing again in Tyranus's computers with no one the wiser. "This contains a list of fifty mid-level Consulars and two Guardians. Four of the Consulars are active as a unit at present, and together they represent a dangerously capable anti-corruption force. Two of them are renowned slicers, while the other two are known for their ability to ferret out secrets. Those four should be her first target, but I will leave that up to your discretion. Those Jedi, however, need to die within the next year or thereabouts."

Bulq nodded, and after a few more questions going in both directions, he signed off. With that done, Sidious turned his attention to his surroundings once more, sensing his Assassin Vosa had arrived for her own instructions. He glanced at the time and sighed faintly. He only had another forty minutes before he had to get ready to once more assume his public identity, so this would have to be quick.

An instant later Vosa entered Sidious's meditation chamber, her prowl that of a hunting cat mixed with an angry juggernaut. Whereas Bulq had simply knelt on both his knees, bowing from the waist as he did so, Vosa made a show of it, genuflecting slowly down to one knee where she bowed her head servilely. "Master, you called for me. What task do you have for me?"

"You are to hunt down Master Coleman Trebor. He is in the Core Worlds right now. His last communique put him on the planet of Supasur, though he was deliberately vague as to where he was going next," Sidious said biting back a scowl at this reminder that the Jedi had taken to exercising some excellent transmission security. "He has discovered one of the more subtle attacks the Sith have developed over the decades. I wish for that to stop."

He gestured, and the same droid he routinely used to carry around things appeared, bringing a tray of different data crystals. "Specifically, I need him to die in a manner that cannot be linked back to us. I also require any information he has accumulated to die with him. On these you will find different 'bot' programs which will help in hunting down such on any system they are inputted to. They will then self-delete or replicate, as initially instructed."

Vosa had been nodding, but now paused and asked the obvious question of what Trebor had found, which Sidious replied to. "He has discovered the anti-Jedi public campaign my forebears began. Some of the damage has been done, but not enough to weld the Core Worlds to our cause just yet." Those planets would follow his orders in one form or another, but that was a long way from where he wanted them to be by the time the clones were ready. He wanted them to be willing to follow the Centralized Government movement into war and even against the Jedi once their 'perfidy' came to light.

"I understand, master. It will be difficult to create such a death for him, but I will see it done," Vosa said, already standing up.

"See that you do," Sidious hissed, sending a brief surge of pain through the girl's mind, confident that the Veil hid him here deep in the Rule of Two's hidden Sanctum. The woman grunted, but showed no further sign of his ministrations, and he smiled thinly once more. "If Trebor can help the Order regain their public image despite what the Sith and their enemies in the Senate have done, it could eventually prove a disaster to our overall goals. Remember, revenge is but one of our goals. The other is to rule the Republic for all time. We will need the sappy, brainless sheep on our side for that."

"Yes, master," Vosa replied much more seriously. She was about to turn away, when she asked in a deceptively disinterested tone, "By the way, master, how goes Set Harth's attempts to curtail the Chaotic Locus?"

"That is none of your business, apprentice." Sidious said coldly. "And before you ask, no, I will not allow you to take over that operation. Dealing with the Locus takes a convoluted and meticulous mind, which you do not possess."

That and a very large bag of tricks, one of which makes you immortal, he thought coolly. Nor do I have any wish to let you try to woo the Locus to the Dark Side. You are far too likely to give away my own identity doing it. Sidious, of course, knew that Vosa was still planning to supplant him. She was good at hiding her thoughts, but he was better at picking them up. And he knew that if she did go through with her mad scheme to try and get the Chaotic Locus to help, things would swiftly spiral out of control even if she tried to keep his identity secret, which wasn't certain.

Deciding that he needed to use a sliver of carrot to go with his stick, Sidious went on. "Do this task for me, apprentice. Kill Trebor in the manner I wish, and when you return I will bestow the title of Darth upon you."

Vosa's eyes lit up at that, and she bowed deeply before turning and leaving the room.

"Fool," Sidious murmured in the dark, unheard by any. Then he sighed and moved away toward his personal lift, which would quickly get him back to his living quarters. An overlord's duties are never done…

OOOOOOO

Leaving the small, incredibly advanced, and very illegal Hypercom relay, Sora Bulq or, as he was slowly starting to think of himself, Darth Tyranus, walked through the corridors of the large, sprawling building he had taken over here on Kooriva. The building was in fact a series of interconnected buildings built into the tropical jungles of the local planet. It was built well away from any other sentient construction, be it city or plantation, but it was one of many like this scattered around this area of Kooriva, which was something of a high class area for the Koorivans. This species of humanoid's skin looked somewhat like Bulq's own species, but instead of the Wequay's near-bald head, they had a gracile horn rising out of the top of their heads.

Bulq had bought this through use of both money and using the Force to manipulate the previous owner. Since the man had been a local drug dealer of some ill repute, beyond ostensibly having part ownership in a few off-world trading companies, he had since disappeared, killed and removed by his rivals, Bulq knew. He knew this because he had arranged that such would be the case, though no one save Sidious and he would ever be able to discover how.

As he walked, Tyranus thought about how he had gotten to this point in his life. What had begun as a quest to remove himself from the shadow of Mace Windu had become something far more when he had begun to realize there was more to the newly instated Chancellor than anyone realized. That was the moment, he thought now, with something approaching amusement. That was the moment when I stopped dabbling and fully embraced the Dark Side. When I fully realized what Palpatine, or rather, Sidious, was hiding and decided not to immediately turn on him or tell anyone. When I instead found myself more curious than anything else and eventually decided to give him my service in return for instruction.

Since then Bulq had not looked back. The power found in controlling the dark emotions called to him. The jealousy he had first felt towards Mace, and the fascination with anger he'd had when working with Windu to create Vaapad had been replaced by a controlled hate for Windu and the other Jedi, along with anger towards the status quo of the Order and the galaxy as a whole. It had been ridiculously easy to make that final jump, and now he had the blood of Jedi on his hands and couldn't care less. Power and control. That is all that matters in this galaxy, not foolish ideals of law or the Jedi's own prideful arrogant belief in their own moral suzerainty.

Hearing the sound of lightsabers clashing, Bulq paused for an instant to take in the sight in one of the building's larger rooms. It had previously been the main dining hall, the Koorivans liking high arched ceilings. Bulq had converted it to a training area, and it was currently in use.

The woman leaping about the room held two lightsabers in a classic example of Jar'kai mixed with Ataru. The lightsabers in question were a little shorter than regular lightsabers, but not short enough to be called traditional shotos. They were also the violent red of grown crystals, which had for millennia been a sign of a Dark Side user. Oddly enough, Bulq's own lightsaber was still the blue it had been before he had become a Sith. Bulq had no need or reason to change the color, and, given his part in the plan, doing so would have been counter-productive.

The woman herself could have been beautiful, if not for the fierce rage contorting her features. She wore a black leather outfit, a tight blouse coupled with a slightly loose dress marked with strips of gray here and there, and gray wraps from her wrists up to her upper arms. The tight blouse covered her upper body like a second skin, bringing attention to her large, firm breasts and tight, near washboard stomach.

Her face too was decent, a good if pale complexion with a hint of blue to her skin from somewhere, with two light tattoos of some kind curving down from the side of her mouth to under her chin and deep, compelling eyes. This was marred only by her wrathful expression, the angry ecstasy of a Sith enjoying a fight, and the fact that she was as bald as an egg. Bulq never had felt lust as humans did—his species was far more controlled in such things, and what little desire in that area he'd had his Jedi training had killed. But he understood that hair was supposed to be a beauty point.

No, Tyranus had no interest in the woman as a woman. Rather, she was a power he controlled and used for the ends the Sith wished. That and she could be truly deadly with a blade. Jedi or Sith, my joy in helping such along has not changed.

With that in mind he spoke, his voice stern but not harsh. "Keep your left hand blade higher up; you're leaving yourself open on that side, Asajj. Further, watch your footwork when you land after a triple jump. Your landing is poor. If you were facing a true master of Ataru that could have been your end. Further, you need to work more Makashi skills into your repertoire, not Ataru."

As the woman and the ten combat droids she had been fighting came to a halt, he moved forward, then suddenly leaped into motion, his lightsaber out and flashing. "See!"

Asajj hadn't lowered her weapons, and she met the first few flashing stabs and controlled cuts. But the instant she fell back on her Ataru form or Jar'kai, trying to leap around Bulq, he turned, quick as a snake, his movements far more economical and controlled than her own movements. Just as he had warned, she found his lightsaber flowing through her defense to push ever so lightly against her dark blouse.

The tip of Bulq's lightsaber seared through the blouse, but did not touch her skin. Asajj stared over her own blades to Bulq, who stood just a tiny bit out of her own range. If she tried to correct that, she would impale herself on his lightsaber. And if she stepped back, Bulq could take a single step forward and end the fight just as quickly.

"You see? Ataru is excellent to use against multiple opponents or against another Ataru user. Against Makashi, you must have an intense mastery of it as well as natural talent. I realize you wish to retain Ataru, just as you retain your second lightsaber, in homage to your former master. But you will not avenge him if you are dead. Your body type, your speed and true strength, can only be brought about by mastering Makashi."

"And what of Vaapad?" Asajj asked, making no moves, but also no acknowledgment of the humming blade of plasma hovering just out of searing range of her skin. "You promised me you would teach me it."

"I said I would teach you Juyo, not the bastardized version the Jedi have created," Bulq said tartly. "And only when you have mastered the anger within you instead of always letting it out like a burst pipe whenever you enter battle. Juyo is built upon control most of all. Vaapad makes you a mirror, reflecting the hate of your opponent back, letting it fuel your responses, yet not inhabiting your mind. The Sith version is about controlling and releasing your hate and fury as you direct it. You are not ready for that just yet."

"Yes, master," Asajj muttered, looking away with something that could only be called an angry, wrathful pout on her face.

A Force Grab closed around her chin and turned her head back to face Bulq, who stared at her coldly. Her anger and rage rose, but it was quickly drowned out by the power radiating from that gaze, a cool control which made her feel like a petulant child denied a treat. At that gaze her anger guttered out like a candle, and she bowed her head in submission. "I apologize, master."

"Then we will speak of it no more. Remember, Asajj, a Sith does not let his Dark emotions control him, if you do that you are no better than a berserker. Through passion we gain power, but power is nothing without control," Bulq replied.

"Peace is a lie; there is only passion. Through Passion I gain strength," Asajj replied, reciting the two lines of the Sith Code before going on to the modified version that Sidious had devised. "Through control of that strength I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken. The Force shall free me."

"Well said," Bulq replied, releasing Asajj from the two Force techniques he had been using, an aura of intimidation and the initial Force Grab. "Now, that being said, I have a mission for you. While I am dealing with meeting more like minded individuals, it is time that you get some more combat experience. I have also determined that it is time for Jedi to die."

Asajj's eyes lit up with an unholy fire at that, and she nodded hurriedly, stepping back and deactivating her lightsabers, placing them on her belt. "What is it you wish of me, master?"

Only once Asajj had deactivated her lightsabers did Bulq do the same, setting it as she had on his belt. "I have a list of possible targets, but four are more dangerous to our cause than others. Not because of their combat prowess, but because of other skills they possess. Those four will be your initial targets. They are working as a team, apparently. But you will need to kill them in such a way that it will never be linked to you or any other Force user. This will make it more difficult."

Leading the way deeper into the building, he passed on Sidious's instructions. Asajj had no idea there was another Sith out there, a true master to Tyranus's barely journeyman status, if such a stage existed. And that was the way it would stay. Sidious was adamant that, even among the Sith themselves, there was to be compartmentalization. With the Jedi being more proactive than The Plan had expected them to be they could not afford any slipups even as they in turn became more active.

OOOOOOO

Dawn broke on the fourth day since Ranma and Shaak had arrived on Zonama Sekot. It had taken that long to interrogate the few survivors of the battle who had stayed loyal to Tarkin and to get the various captains, their ships, and their men ensconced on the planet. While the interrogation had yielded nothing at all, they had found some security footage which showed Tarkin forcing a man who looked equally aristocratic to surrender at gunpoint, while behind him could be seen a small living ship.

One of the locals had recognized him as the man they had sold a ship to, Raith Sienar. He had been supposed to serve as an intermediary with the ship construction company so Sekot could spread some of its ships. Sienar Technologies would have gotten the credit, but the origins of the live-ships would have been kept secret, and the planet would have received resources in turn.

After that, a quick search of the Captor ship by Shaak and Ranma found Raith, a man of Tarkin's age or somewhat older, dead in a room near Tarkin's quarters. It had been a decently accoutered room, to be sure, but it had still been a jail cell, and the man had died there, killed by flying shrapnel caused during the battle.

On the other side of things, the other Eriadans had quickly begun to mix with Sekot's communities. None of those communities were very large, and the cruisers had crews of a little under a thousand each, so they had immediately become near to equal in terms of numbers to any one of the local races. Ranma and Shaak had also both been amused by the fact that those crews, all men, since Eriadu believed in gender segregation in its military, had quickly begun to start up relationships with some of the Ferroan and Langhesi ladies.

They had been moved into dozens of newly created homes while shelters were still being prepared for them to protect the newcomers from hyper-rapture. Ranma and Shaak had also been given their own small shelter right within the government building. Since Sekot could control his hyperspace drives with only about a third of his attention, he would have more to spare to his education in ki. Fay and Kit were also housed there along with several government officials, but since no one would be able to walk the surface of the world during the hyperspace jump for fear of being driven insane, they would all take the time catching up on reading or other things.

Elsewhere there were other signs of the planet preparing himself for the hyperspace jump. The giant Jentari were everywhere, putting up large, pulsing domes of fungi over plants in their farms. The baras, too, were preparing, their flytrap mouths pulling into their trunks and their vines slowly removing the seeds on them and putting them somewhere safe.

Animals, all the animals on the planet, native or otherwise, had started to disappear. The exceptions were the birds that either were too stupid to know that danger was coming or were immune to hyper-rapture.

Whole villages and towns of locals had started to bring in their crops, supplies and bedding, making their local shelters as livable as possible. They wouldn't begin living in the shelters until the time came, of course. This would be announced via a loud gong sound. But until then they had to prepare.

The trip would be slow, given how far they were going, but Sekot could ignore all but the largest gravitic dangers along their route. Thus it would actually only take them three jumps—massively long ones, admittedly—to get to their destination, which Sekot had chosen based on Fay's recommendation.

There were several systems out past the Mon Calamari sector which had yellow stars, which Sekot required, but which had no native species or colonies. These would do as a hiding place for the living planet while also putting the planet and its unique abilities near enough to Dac to be within transport range.

Ranma hadn't helped much with all this, of course, save for helping Shaak search the Captor ship. Instead he spent most of his time either meditating or talking to Sekot, while Shaak worked with Kit or Fay, healing the locals and their new allies or interrogating the prisoners.

Today, however, marked the day when the Wild Light would be brought down and stored in a hanger bay on the planet. Ranma and Shaak had both insisted on that, despite the ship being so badly mangled now that even its original design team would have been unable to repair it. But a lot of the ideas which had gone into it, both from the Mon Calamari builders and Ranma's own ideas, were such that they wanted to see them incorporated into the new ship.

Work on said ship wouldn't start until they reached their destination. While Sekot could create its small starfighters in less than an hour, a ship designed to be both independent and to house other sentients was more difficult. It needed to be designed by Ranma, Shaak, and a team of Ferroans and then constructed by the Jentari, rather than simply grown in a single hanger bay/specialized nursery.

Needless to say, HK was appalled at the very idea of a living ship. "Affronted horror: Why would anyone trust or even want a ship that is also a meatbag?! The very idea is a horrifying contradiction of all known logic!" He had come around to the idea after Ranma had explained how much stronger he would be able to make any real living ship, but he still didn't like the idea very much.

Five small, specially grown starfighters slowly deposited the two large pieces of the Wild Light as Ranma, HK, and Shaak watched. Ranma sighed sadly. "Holy hell, I knew it was bad—I mean, you even told me we had lost the aft section—but this is…"

The ship was not merely damaged; it was destroyed, chopped in half. The aft section was surprisingly intact: it had the ship's regular space and hyperdrive nacelles still there, even if all of them were out of alignment. However, as Ranma moved around it, he saw where that aft section would have connected to the rest of the ship. It was a mangled, ripped segment of hull so bad it looked more like modern art instead of something that had once been a part of a ship, let alone a Mon Calamari ship.

Tune also reported that the engine room within was, "Just gone, master. The power generator there and the reactor both exploded, I can tell. There's nothing salvageable in there. As for the rest of the ship…"

The quad guns were gone. The proton torpedo and ion pulse cannons were both gone. The point of the jutting underjaw that Ranma had thought looked so fun in a 'come get some' kind of way had been shorn off sometime during the last crash. The shield generators had all exploded either from overloading or from direct damage. The two wings which had housed their rooms had been holed or mangled in turn. The cockpit had survived along with two of the repulsors, but that was it. There wasn't a single system beyond those two repulsors that had survived.

Stepping out from the bathroom, Ranma smiled wanly, calling over his shoulder. "The wroshyr lined water tank is still here. We might want to try and remove it. But other than that, I'm not seeing anything salvageable in here. Hell, I can't even find a lot of our toiletries; there's this giant hole in the hull right over the sink."

"The Order teaches us to not get attached to things so that moments like this do not cut us so deeply. Yet, while I know I still retain much of that training despite taking the Old Oath, I find this most distressing," Shaak said in reply, moving down from their room. "The bed was gone, blown out or destroyed during the fight when a turbolaser blast punched straight through that wing of the ship. And your clothes are gone too along with the dresser… And mine."

She coughed a little at that point, looking uncomfortable given the number of locals moving around the ruined ship within hearing distance. After all, most of the clothing she wore, beyond her Jedi robe and everyday underthings, had been purchased to use with Ranma. And not just on dates either, but during 'bedroom activities.'

Ranma brightened up at that. "Huh. So we'll have to have a shopping trip at some point. I'd like to see you actually try some of those outfits of yours on…"

Blushing now, Shaak laughed, hopping down with him out of the ruined ship. Several Jentari were already moving over the small landing pad the bits of their ship had been dropped on, intent on moving the ship into a holding area.

While that was going on, Ranma and Shaak made their way back to the governmental building. They had barely been there for a few moments before word was passed up from the control center. Preparations had been finished, and Sekot was ready to jump. "Do you wish to be in the control room while we jump?" Kit asked. Fay was elsewhere, helping heal a few of the locals who had been injured in the battle against the infantry droids, as she had been every day since their second day on the planet.

"No thanks," Ranma and Shaak said as one, though Shaak, of course, said a far more polite, "No, thank you." They looked at one another and laughed before Ranma went on. "I think right now we just want some time to ourselves. We'll see you lot when we reach wherever the hell we're going."

"It's not a named system, so Sekot has decided to call it Hidden Hearth," Kit replied with a shrug as he turned back.

Both Shaak and Ranma had to admit that that fit, but the two of them quickly put that to one side as they entered the room they had been given. The bed beckoned, and, after having surveyed the damage to their former home, both of them wanted to have some serious cuddle time.

OOOOOOO

It did not take Asajj Ventress more than two and a half weeks to find the team of four Jedi she had been ordered to target first, though it took a good bit longer to come up with a way to kill the quartet that could not be traced back to her or to anyone else. It wasn't work that she had been trained in before this, after all. But she found a way, and all it took was waiting a bit longer.

The four Jedi in question were named Master David Collingo, Knight Wessa Nomasi, Master Jai Maruk, and Knight Cam Safir. Master Collingo was a male human who was native to Coruscant. He was one of the known Jedi slicers, though the data Tyranus had provided didn't tell her if he had somehow been able to use the Force to help him become so. The same was true for Jedi Knight Cam Safir, though she was a native of Chandrilla.

Jedi Knight Wessa Nomasi was the only one of the four who wasn't human. She was a H'nemthe, a nonhuman species whose face looked like someone had pulled a skin over a large, pointed and ridged seashell coupled with a long pointed nose. Though Asajj felt there was something to be said about the H'nemthes' method of mating, that would not stay her hand. Wessa was one of the Jedi most feared for her subtle Force abilities to ferret out the truth in any heart.

Master Jai Maruk was the only one of the four Consulars who had any kind of a reputation with a lightsaber, and that was that he was known to be a furious combatant if forced to fight at all. Reading this on a datapad as she sat in a cavern overlooking the house the Jedi had commandeered for their stay on Duthakk, Asajj sneered. Let us see if that is simple hyperbole or if there is some actual reality to it.

Duthakk was a cratered world where life was only possible in massive sinkholes scattered around the planet thanks to various environmental issues. On this planet was a poison in the air that began at just about head height on an average humanoid and continued upwards from there. It was too prevalent to get rid of, but the locals, a short, very ugly species of burrowers called the Duthakki, had made their homes first in burrows, then in the larger craters left over here and there from ancient impacts. These became their cities, and the minerals they mined out from below made the planet somewhat rich, if not important in the great scheme of things.

The planet was also habitually wracked with storms the like of which had to be seen to be believed. Asajj had never seen the like, but the one the locals had warned about was going to be a doozy. It would, with a bit of help on her part, completely bury the Jedi's hovel and the bodies therein.

The Jedi, of course, knew it was coming, but felt that the locals' preparations against such would save them and the rest of the town. But Asajj knew something they didn't: that some of those protections, a series of environmental shield generators around the city, were due for maintenance.

Seeing her current targets coming up the small maintenance shaft to one side, Asajj stood up, moving further into the darkness of the tiny cavern set just under the rim of the larger crater. She waited there until the work crew of five was walking right in front of her. On silent feet, she quickly stepped out behind them.

Asajj dwarfed the locals, who barely stood three feet tall, looking like moles crossed with worms, and without the best features of either. That was immaterial to Asajj, however, who quickly pulled out two small automatic syringes, walking through the line of Duthakki and applying them quickly just behind the neck. One after another they fell unconscious.

With all of them unconscious, she then reached into their minds with the Force using touch as a medium. This way her own Cloak allowed her to keep her use of power to a minimum. None of these Jedi were known to have fantastic Force senses, but it was better to be safe than sorry. With the Force, Asajj manipulated them into thinking that their job was already done. She would then prop them up, turn them around, and, when the local concoction she had used wore off, they would be missing the appropriate hours too.

It would look for all the world like the shield generators in this area were just faulty, letting in the storm. The storm would then give Asajj time to make certain the Jedi could not escape. After all, I only need to make certain the deaths cannot be traced back to a Force user. That in no way means I can't challenge them.

Hours after her drugged dupes left, Asajj watched the storm arrive. It was a sight to see: sheets of massive, fist sized drops of rain coupled with winds the like to tear any sentient from his feet and hurl him or her about with ease.

As Asajj waited, the shield activated, keeping out the majority of the rain and the wind, but not all of it. She watched the generator tower for a few moments, then smiled and turned, racing down the maintenance walkway. She was barely in place before the generator pole failed, letting in the rain. Almost immediately it inundated the ground around the lip of the crater and below in an ever widening arc. The soil began to shift, not a lot, but enough to warn of the impending mudslide. The wind, too, swirled down into the crater, rattling the tops of houses here and there.

Asajj leaped down onto the tiny deck that abutted the back of the house the Jedi had commandeered, a Duthakki custom, though in every other way the house was built to scale for offworlders rather than the locals. Pausing for a second, Asajj listened as the Jedi within woke from their rests or mediation to the gathering danger. Then, as they began to actually talk to one another, she pushed open the door.

The four Jedi inside turned as one, staring at the newcomer dressed in black colored clothes, her face hidden by a cloak. "Who are you?" asked Master Collingo.

"Retribution," Asajj hissed, seeing the four Jedi as examples of everything that had killed her master, everything that had abandoned him and her, everything that was wrong with the galaxy. An instant after the word escaped through her clenched teeth, she activated her lightsabers and attacked.

Caught utterly by surprise and being Consulars on top of that, the Jedi were caught flat-footed. Wessa and Collingo died in that first lunge, one headless, the other bisected. Master Maruk brought up his lightsaber in time to save himself, and Knight Safir danced out of Asajj's range.

She turned, racing toward the door, but, while still crossing blades with Maruk, Asajj hurled her lightsaber. Cutting through the air like a side-thrown boomerang, it cut Safir in half before whirling away to land on the floor of the one-story apartment.

Before Asajj could use the Force to recover her weapon, Maruk had used his Force powers to pull Collingo's blade to him from the other man's corpse. With one lightsaber of green and the other blue, Maruk advanced, cutting at her in a decent display of Jar'kai from someone who had never tried this style before.

But Asajj had practiced her own Makashi enough to add it to her personal style, and the man's movements were hampered by the battle occurring inside. Even as the mudslide began, the two of them dueled around the room. Maruk fought as hard and as well as he ever had, pulling the Force to him, even calling on his anger to power him. Asajj could see it, see his eyes slowly beginning to shift yellow as he gave into the Dark.

And it wasn't enough. Between one pass and the next Maruk opened his side to an attack, and Asajj's blade punched through his side, cutting upwards until it found his heart. Maruk fell, his eyes slowly going back to normal before he finally succumbed to death.

Staring at the four bodies, Asajj smiled, flicking her lightsabers off. "Four less Jedi in the galaxy. A good start." Then she sighed, pulling out small explosives which would weaken the house further. With that and the strength of the mudslide building above, the bodies would be reduced to paste, with nothing to show they had been the victims of lightsaber strikes.

The Jedi would wonder how four of their number had been caught unawares, but they would have no clues. And, as I understand it, that kind of unfounded paranoia may actually serve our ends, so long as they cannot link the attacks back to the Sith in particular.

Once done with the cleanup, Asajj turned, exiting the house. She Force jumped up, and then up again until she landed on the lip of the affected area, pulling a gas mask from her belt. Placing it over her mouth, she moved through the drenching rain, reaching out with the Force to sense the nearest settlement that wasn't the one she had just left. Asajj had left her ship there. As she walked through the storm, pulling the Force around her to deaden the impact, she also reached out, pushing at the two weather control poles to either side of the one she had already sabotaged.

With a hard Force Crush she shattered the pole near the bottom, watching as they fizzled out, one after another. The storm continued to rage, and the small mudslide that had already begun quickly began to gather size and power. Eventually it would bury the Jedi's house along with a large majority of the city. Untold thousands of the locals would die, but what did that matter? They had served their purpose.

Two days later Asajj sat in her ship, the same ship Darth Maul had used for so long, reveling in the darkness within as she listened to the locals' police and emergency reports. There was no hint of the nature of the Jedi's deaths, though the locals were, of course, dismayed that they had died in the first place. There were no hints of unusual injuries being found or anything else. The locals were too busy looking after their own dead to care, and the four Jedi were swiftly cast back into the earth of a communal grave.

Sighing happily at a job well done, Asajj pulled up her datapad, sifting through it. "I wonder how long it will be before the Jedi begin to realize they are being hunted…"

OOOOOOO

It had taken three jumps and over two weeks to basically pass through more than two-thirds of the Republic unseen. The speed was decent, but moving unseen was even better. Once Zonama Sekot came out of hyperspace, the planet took several hours to make certain he was alone in this system, then his inhabitants heard the bugling call of an all clear reverberating through numerous public speakers.

In their room in the governmental building, Shaak and Ranma looked up from where they had been working on a design for their new ship. Both of them were naked, and they had cuddled up against one another in one of the local chairs, which looked rather like giant mushrooms filled with beads. They weren't an actual living plant, thankfully—that would have been odd to Ranma, if not to Shaak—but they had been designed to look as natural as possible.

Ranma shrugged. "Meh, I suppose that we were sort of spinning our wheels here."

"Indeed. And there is little we can do with our extremely limited understanding of Sekot's design process. He has been most helpful with describing the plants and other parts which can equate to portions of the ship, but I was actually quite surprised how hands off he is when it comes to actually designing specialized ships."

"Only specialized ships that are supposed to bond with other sentients," Ranma cautioned. "Sekot designed those tractor tug boats quickly enough, and he said yesterday he was making larger patrol ships."

"True." Shaak nodded at that correction. "It is the bonding experience, I believe, the one that occurs between the seed-partners and the chosen sentient. It cuts them off from Sekot, and thus from his control. It seems to be a cross between a child leaving home for the first time and a plant being removed from one owner to another."

Nodding, Ranma sighed, his fingers tracing down Shaak's lek, then up and around the underside of the swell of her breasts. "Blech. This means we have to get dressed too."

"It would be rather distracting…" Shaak murmured, her voice coming out in a faint throaty whisper. She twisted around, leaning in for a kiss, her arm shifting to wrap around Ranma's neck.

Just as Ranma was about to break the kiss and suggest they put off rejoining the rest of the universe, a knock on their door interrupted proceedings. Kit's voice came through, sounding rather amused. "Ranma, Shaak, I hate to take you form your pleasures of the flesh, but Sekot is starting to grumble about 'foolish bipedal sentients and their obsession with mating rituals taking their attention from more important things.' I don't think you want to find out what he might do if you continue on as you are."

Sighing, the two lovers pulled back from one another, with Shaak pushing up out of the bean bag first, being very careful to slide her naked form over Ranma's own, reveling in the tactile sensation even while biting back a giggle at his suddenly constipated look. "Duty before pleasure as always, my love."

"Ugh… That'd be a lot more convincing if ya didn't take such pleasure in leaving me with blue balls," Ranma groaned, looking down at his lower body and trying to get his flesh saber to deactivate.

(They had been going through an odd period of finding weird names for bits of one another at one point since entering their rooms here on Sekot. In Ranma's opinion, flesh saber was far too silly to ever use, while white-capped red mountains was a perfectly descriptive and just silly enough name for her breasts to actually use during lovemaking. Shaak had still won the debate, however, calling his pigtail Ranma's 'emotional handlebar,' since that could possibly be used around other people.)

When the two lovers had finally made themselves decent and opened the door, they found Kit standing there, waiting patiently. His ever present smile was on his face again, and he was broadcasting so much humor that Shaak could feel it even if she wasn't able to sense his actual thoughts. "I am so pleased we amuse you, Knight Fisto," Shaak said repressively, then laughed, smacking him on the shoulder. "Lead on, my friend. I suppose we do need to get to work."

Ranma nodded at the other man, falling in on Shaak's other side, staring at Kit's now reattached arm. "How's that feeling? Watching Fay attach that was a little strange from a bystander's point of view."

Fay had done that the second day after Shaak and Ranma had initially arrived on Zonama. There had been more badly wounded people and, of course, the need to conclude negotiation with their Eriadan allies, so it had taken that long before Fay could turn her attention to his arm. And they had no bacta tank to allow it to soak in. Fay had been forced to cut open the cauterized edges of the arm and Kit's stump, fusing the two together slowly, mending first bone, then flesh. It had been a slow and ugly process from the outside, since she had also been forced to actually somehow breathe life back into the arm in question.

That she had done it at all was astonishing. Only Yoda and maybe one or two other specialized healers among the Order could have done that. There was a reason why the elfin Jedi Master was a legend.

"It was… Well, it was like something was itching just below the surface, but it was also almost tickling my Force senses as well while my body was being healed," Kit replied, touching the arm that Jerec had cut off with his other hand and shaking his head ruefully. "It was almost something like being stretched at the point where the arm was being reattached, and there was a feeling of shifting bones…"

He paused for a second, then grinned even wider. "It is not an experience I would like to feel again, but if the outcome would be the death or capture of another Dark Side user, I would swiftly make the trade."

Ranma laughed while, between them, Shaak fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Men."

They swiftly entered the control room and were promptly greeted by the voice of Sekot. He had gotten into the habit of speaking aloud like this even to Jedi when Ranma was around, since he understood that Ranma couldn't reach out to connect to it mind to mind. "It's about time. Ranma, I have prepared a small cargo container for you with which to show us this space expansion concept. I believe I understand your explanation about the web of life energy, this Living Force, needed, but a visual aid would be most helpful."

Two of the best Ferroan designers had already arrived from their own bunkers. "It is more for us than for Sekot," one of them admitted. "But we are also concerned with this, this coldness that you describe as being a byproduct of the expanded space."

"Yeah, I always learned better through visual aids."

"Jaundiced interjection: That could possibly be because it took your poor meatbag mind longer to learn how to read than to throw a punch," HK replied, his robotic voice a drawl.

Ranma held up a finger, then slowly lowered it. "Yeah, that's actually true, sadly."

"Well, don't worry. Your mind won't be strained by such onerous tasks," Sekot said as two of the Langhesi came in, carrying between them a large box made of local wood. It was worked wood, but just as obviously green wood too. They introduced themselves and explained that they, with the two Ferroans, would make up the leadership of the team being gathered to work on Ranma and Shaak's ship.

Ranma and Shaak both moved over to the box, followed by Kit. "Where's Fay?" Ranma asked, looking around.

"The hospital area is further away than most of the buildings in our community here. She will arrive soon, though. I can feel her coming," Sekot said. There was a barely restrained eagerness in his voice as the massive intellect of the planet came to bear on the control room. Numerous feelers of some kind, green and dark purple, came down from the ceiling, lightly touching the box. "I suppose we need to wait for her to arrive?"

"Nah. She and Kit have seen this before. I'm just going to start, then," Ranma said, looking around at the others. "Do you want to see the toughness technique too?"

"Yes, of course. But the space expansion technique is possibly far more important," Sekot replied swiftly. "My starfighters are still going to need to rely on lava cannons, and their need to have onboard magazines for their guns is a weakness." The planet's voice trailed off at that point. "I've had a few ideas that I've shared with my best Jentari shapers, and we've come up with a few ideas which might be able to create some growths that can create energy based attacks, but there's no way we would be able to do it as efficiently as the non-organic weapons."

Sekot had been talking almost non-stop with Tune, Kaasa'lia, and Jerec's unnamed R-3 type astromech. Kaasa'lia was the name of Master Fay's astromech droid, an old yet well-kept R1 unit. Like Tune, Kaasa'lia had developed the ability to communicate verbally. But unlike Tune, Kaasa'lia had a built in speaker.

Now she spoke up from where the three droids had congregated in one corner, her voice like that of an old grandmother whose voice was still good enough to sing. "We have shared with Sekot and his Magisters everything we have in our databanks about the various ship designs we have worked on or seen. I must say that Tune was most helpful in that, having observed the construction of the Wild Light."

"I do not like the gender designation," Sekot mused, while Tune wobbled in place, doing the R2 equivalent of preening. "I believe now that it carries a negative connotation. Besides, it is the female that is most involved in the creation of new life."

"Then you should act less like a young male flexing his muscles at times," Kaasa'lia retorted, causing Shaak and one of the Ferroans to bite their lips to avoid laughing. The others, all men, looked at one another and shrugged as one, not seeing it. "Every time you come in contact with a new concept, you are eager to try it out at once, bulling forward single-mindedly. Master Fay was right in urging you towards the masculine pronouns."

"You say that as if it was not necessary," Sekot retorted, another emotion entering his voice as the synapse spire pulsed. It was fear, Ranma realized with shock. "Twice I have been attacked in the last five solar cycles. Once I was saved from the Far Outsiders by the sacrifice of the Jedi. The second time though I fought, I would have been forced to run if not for Master Fay's ability with people and the timely arrival of aid unlooked for. I want to build a defense force that can protect me and mine, and I want to do it as quickly as possible. Obscurity alone is no longer enough."

The locals all nodded at that, and Ranma and Shaak realized that while they had been involved in talking with Sekot about the Force along with the other Jedi and telling Sekot about their own adventures, it had obviously been talking to its own people. Shaak stepped forward now, gathering everyone's attention. "We understand and respect your need, Zonama Sekot," she said formally. "It is why we have agreed to share as much knowledge as we have. However, I think at this point we need to actually get on to showing everyone some of Ranma's tricks. Now, is everyone here who wants to view this?"

There was a shiver from the synapse spire while the Langhesi and Ferroans all laughed. "Every foreman the world over wants to see this, regardless of race. No, this is just for a start. We want to see what this cold you describe is like, and if it can truly be used on larger spaces rather than just your pocket," Sekot said.

Entering at this point in the discussion, Fay paused, smiling slightly as she thought about how far Sekot had come. Sekot had always sounded intelligent and alive, vibrantly so, both in mental and verbal discussions. But now he was slowly starting to show more of his burgeoning personality. If a planetary mind can be said to be growing up, it is certain that Sekot is doing so. Her lips quirked, trying to frown and smile at the same time. Oh dear. I do hope that doesn't mean that Sekot will go through his equivalent of teenage years. Ugh, what would that even be on a planetary scale anyway?

"In that case, perhaps we should all attempt to watch Ranma in action, hmm?" she said, moving over to her personal Guardian and smiling brightly at all of the people in the room.

What tension there had been in the room from Sekot's earlier seriousness evaporated under the power of that smile like water on a hot grill. They all nodded to her, and then Ranma touched the edge of the box, closing his eyes as he began to channel his Living Force into the box.

Sekot's voice became a whisper. "Quickly, the sensors! This is something you have to see…" Sekot had been in awe of the Force since having it described by Vergere. When it had met Fay, he had rejoiced at the depth of the connection she could create, the concepts she could impart, and the help she had given in the attack, her mind helping Sekot's own in controlling its starfighters. Now, using his senses to feel what Ranma was doing, that same sense of awe came back to him.

From Ranma's hand came tendrils of Living Force, merging with the tiny, dying remnants already within the green wood of the cargo box. Ranma's Living Force slowly flowed out, lighting up those embers with its touch and then beginning to create a lattice, a network like a balloon of energy within the wood. An instant later, Ranma began to somehow pump more ki into the net, blowing it up, for lack of a better term. Then that second line of Living Force receded, and the balloon remained.

"Okay, that should do it," Ranma said, looking around him and blinking at the looks he was getting. The locals looked shocked, staring from some very odd sensors built around tentacle feeler things and small scrolling screens to Ranma, and then back again. The droids hadn't been able to follow that at all, not having the necessary ability to see the Living Force.

Shaak simply looked back, putting an arm around Ranma's waist. She had seen Ranma do similar things before, and, indeed, she had her own ki pockets, several of them. That didn't make her feel any less proud of his accomplishments for some reason.

On the other side of the box the two other Jedi both just nodded, having watched and felt what Ranma had done. Kit thought he could perhaps emulate that technique given time, if on a smaller scale. Fay, on the other hand, remembered all too well what happened when you tried to do something like that with the Unifying Force: the container couldn't contain the energy, and the user had a lot of trouble controlling the flow in the first place. And, unlike Kit, she had scant Living Force to spare, being so attuned to the Unifying Force.

Smiling a little, Ranma reached back to tug at his pigtail as he did when he was thinking, or feeling embarrassed or sheepish. Eesh, Shaak was right. It really is my emotional handlebar. "Um, so what do you all think?"

"I think that a seed partner would definitely have enough native intelligence to control such. The power supply will be difficult, but not impossible to… Hmm… Still, that was only part of the question. Design Specialist Satur?"

Satur nodded and opened up the cargo box. He gasped, then, before Ranma could realize what he was doing, stepped into it. He was about to disappear when Shaak grabbed his shoulders, pulling him out quickly. "I wouldn't do that unless you find sensory deprivation fun. Ranma, how much ki did you pump into this box?"

Breathing a faint sigh of relief at his lover's quick reaction to the Ferroan's sudden move, Ranma shrugged minutely. "Well, I wanted to make a point, so just about as much as I could? It's… I'd bet if you could fit one past the opening you could fit one of your starfighters in there."

The other Ferroan came forward at this point, setting down several flasks made of plastic and containing various liquids. "Let's do this a bit more intelligently, shall we? One of these contains water, the other a blood sample from a Sekotan starfighter. Another is the liquid… The technical term for it is overlong, but it's the liquid found in our bioreactors."

The bioreactors were the Sekotan equivalent of the reactors found on ships. Ranma and Shaak had learned about them over the past few days from Sekot and theorized that they would be more durable but less energy efficient in the long term. Whether they could match the output of similarly sized generators was a question no one could answer. The locals hadn't done that kind of comparison in anything, but Ranma and Shaak were slowly doing so, if only by example.

The as-yet-unnamed designer dropped the flasks into the extended spaces, hooking a long rope attached to them to the edge of the box. With that done Shaak closed it and looked toward Ranma, who was still touching the box. "How long will it take those to freeze, you think?"

"It takes water about twenty minutes to freeze. Beyond that, no clue. I know it takes longer for foods to freeze, but they keep like you stuck them in an icebox," Ranma said with a shrug. "Which I gather is sorta an issue at present."

"Indeed," the still unnamed Ferroan woman said, tapping the cargo box thoughtfully. "Do you need to touch it? I understood that once the…call it the space expansion matrix…is in place, you could leave it."

"Ah, no," Ranma said with a laugh. "You can't do that with space expansion areas. Once the ki balloon is made you need to keep a small steady stream of ki feeding into it, or the space starts to shrink. Right before I was found by the Jedi I had an issue with that. The ki space exploded, throwing everything within everywhere around me."

"Interesting. So, a space expansion matrix—that is a good name, Designer Tamira—a matrix would need a constant source of energy to keep its shape," Sekot mused, before changing the subject. "Ranma, neither these shapers nor designers have seen you showing your toughness technique. Could you do so while we wait?"

Ranma nodded and gestured with his free hand. One of the forgers brought out a wooden spear of about half again the size of Ranma's arm, very thin and obviously made for throwing instead of for staff work. Once more Ranma pushed out his ki, this time into the spear, but instead of creating a balloon, Ranma simply infused the spear from one edge to another with his ki. "What do you want me to use this on?"

The same forger left for a moment, coming back with a small plate of metal about two feet square. He and his fellow stood near Ranma, holding it between them. "Strike at this," one of them said. He looked a bit older than the other one, but the two Langhesi looked so alike they had to be related. "This metal is about the same density and strength as Yorik coral, which is what our starfighters are made of.

"You serious? Um, you're not nearly strong enough to… Well, whatever." Ranma trailed off, looking at the bemused, almost irritated expressions on the Langhesi's faces. It was evident that while they had come around to believing the expansion technique, the toughness technique was another thing entirely. Even the two Ferroans looked skeptical. "Just don't say I didn't warn ya."

In an instant Ranma had pulled the spear back and thrust forward with what he judged was enough power to pierce the slab of metal. This the wooden spear did indeed do, imparting enough force to the rest of the slab to rip it out of the locals' hands, spinning them both around so much they landed on their rears a second later.

From where they had fallen the two men and the other locals, even Kaasa'lia and the unnamed astromech droid, stared. A spear made of pliable wood had just been thrust through metal, and the spear didn't seem damaged at all.

"May I?" Satur asked, and at Ranma's nod pulled the makeshift spear from the metal and from Ranma's hands, hefting it in his own. "This is, there's no added weight, no outward sign of change. Is this…? You mentioned that this too was like charging a battery. How long would the charge last?"

"It depends on the material used and the amount of energy imparted," Ranma replied promptly. "When I helped build the Wild Light I could charge up a piece of metal, sure, but it took hours upon hours, and even then it lost the majority of the charge quickly. I tried, but after the ship was finished I could do little beyond strengthen it very slightly."

Ranma had done that during the journey to Vjun and slightly again before this last battle. It had taken a bit out of him, something he honestly had only realized after the battle, but it had paid off too. The plucky little ship had taken enough of a pounding to put down anything smaller than a Star Dreadnought in that battle, and while a lot of that could be attributed to the multi-layered shielding with the numerous generators, some of it had come from the ki toughening technique.

"For something that had been alive, the charge would last longer without draining away." Ranma gestured at the spear in Satur's hand. "The old biddy who used that technique had a small, gnarled old staff. She'd spent more than a hundred years filling it with ki, and it could be used to smash through metal or the local building material. Or rock. Or, well, pretty much anything, really. It will take near to constant charging as we are building the ship, but eventually we could toughen the wood—or coral, I suppose, since coral was alive too—so strong it would resemble metal many times its real thickness."

All four of the locals asked a lot of questions about the two techniques, which actually helped Ranma as much as it did them. While a decent trainer of other people, when it came to his own abilities Ranma tended to fly by the seat of his pants. Talking to the locals, he began to understand more about how much power the two techniques took, and even figured out a vague power to space ratio for the ki space technique.

Tune brought their attention back to the other half of that experiment with a beeping whoop which caused Ranma to look down at his bracer. "Tune says it's time to check on those liquids."

Shaak opened the cargo container, and the locals pulled at the ropes, staring in shock at the plastic bottles and what they contained. The sample of water had frozen, as had the blood, though not as solidly as the water. The generator fluid had congealed somewhat, but not entirely.

"Fascinating," one of the forgers muttered, staring at the trio of flasks and running a temperature device over them. "And..." He quickly turned, pulling up some data that looked like an energy graph to one side as he worked through an equation on the other. "Very fascinating…" He was quickly joined by Tamira and Satur.

While her colleague began work on that aspect, the younger forger turned to the others. "Would you be willing to train a living computer to do this? It would be very fascinating to see if this could be accomplished by a dedicated computer system with bioreactors instead of a sentient and his…"

"Or hers," Sekot interjected, amusement radiating out of the synapse spire like a flash of light. Ranma got the impression that it was only the fact Sekot didn't have any of its semi-sentient workers here and also wasn't communing with a Jedi at the moment that kept Ranma from being drenched.

"Or hers, yes, to do this," the younger Langhesi finished.

"I'd be willing to try, though if you're asking me to program it in like a kind of software code, then I'm gonna say no. That kind of thing doesn't work. You need to be able to feel the flow of energy, to make certain it goes how you want it to. And remember, it will take a while to create the expanded space," Ranma said with a shrug.

"Hmm… We can't use it to just put in multiple bio-generators..., but what if we covered them with something to ward off the cold? A plastic layer of cold inhibitor…" Satur muttered, looking over the older forger's shoulder. He swiftly turned to look at Ranma, an adoring, almost reverential look in his face. Whatever it was made Ranma somewhat uncomfortable. "Do you know what the relation is from the outside world to the expanded space? Does the space need to be entirely enclosed? Could we, say, run energy lines from a bio-generator within the space to the outside world?"

Shuffling slightly sideways so that a visibly amused (at least to him) Shaak was shielding him slightly, Ranma answered, thinking through the questions. "There isn't any relation between the outside world and the inside as far as I know. I mean, it's like a separate room. Y'know there's something there, but it isn't seen or heard or anything like that. I once tried to put a Walkman… er, a type of music player, in there and run a set of headphones out. Didn't work. Didn't even get static: just nothing, like they weren't plugged in. So I doubt running energy lines out would either. The space does need to be entirely enclosed unless you're reaching in for something."

"Damn," Satur muttered. "Still, the possibilities are interesting nonetheless. Not workable to be used for the entire ship, but perhaps for specific cargo areas…"

"Yes, yes. The design implications are one thing, but this could also turn actual ship creation on its head too. The toughness technique, that alone will be a massive force modifier. But the other aspects we've learned since the invasion, those are going to be very difficult to take advantage of," the older forger replied.

"I trust there are no more questions on the validity of the techniques?" Sekot asked dryly. "Good. Now let us get down to specifics. We can use the ship Ranma and Jedi Knight Ti have requested of us as a test bed for any actual experiments that are required. Let us see what our two allies want and then see about whether it is possible. But first, we must introduce them to the seed-partners."

As the locals all nodded, Sekot went on. "Outside you will find Chief Caretaker Pinna. She will lead you to the seed chamber. Meanwhile: forgers, designers, are you ready to meld with me and share your thoughts?"

Satur stiffened, but moved quickly to the main chair of the control room as the others moved to other chairs around the exterior of the room. "We are, Great Sekot." Ranma and the Jedi watched in silence as the four locals sat down. Behind each of their heads a tiny tendril moved from the back of the chair, sliding into the base of their skulls. The tendril was an example of what was called a neural cusp, and it allowed direct connection to the various plants available on Sekot or,in this case, Sekot itself. All the chairs in the room were neural cusps, though only that little tendril actually created the connection. Nor was the connection as equal a bond as the one that could be forged via the Force.

Shrugging their shoulders, Ranma and the other Jedi moved to the door. There they found a young Ferroan girl, possibly just hitting twenty or so. She wore a sort of uniform which was green and light brown with bits of tan on her sleeves. Whereas the other four locals had looked rather scruffy in the way that only senior officials or academics could get away with, she was polished. "Gentles, I am Caretaker Pinna. I am to take you to the seed chamber. Please, follow me. It is a bit of a trek, so we will be taking a skimmer."

Introducing themselves, the three Jedi and Ranma followed the girl out of the building. They found a small skimmer painted with the same coloration as the girl's uniform waiting for them. Even with the skimmer, it took them more than an hour to get to the seed-chamber.

This room was part of a sprawling complex built like a massive farming community. Boras, like the ones Fay had seen before, made their homes here. Indeed, it probably looked like a regular forest from on high, but the signs of habitation were obvious on the ground. Everywhere they saw a mix of Langhesi and Ferroans, with the Ferroans outnumbering the Langhesi more than twenty to one. They tended the boras, watched the grounds, and seemed to be performing various duties involving the boras everywhere they looked.

Inside, the seed chamber was just as Kit had described it, the sides pulsing with purple energy.

Looking around, Ranma looked at the tiny, spiky seeds. "Okay, so what do we do now, and why do I think it's going to be hilariously painful?"

Pinna, who had been heretofore been acting like a tourist guide with her prepared spiel, blinked. "We?"

"Ranma and I," Shaak replied. "This ship will be ours, and both of us will have input into its creation. Whatever is going on, the seed-partners will need to bond with both of us, not one of us separately."

Looking between them, she sighed, then moved out of the room. "Please wait out here for a second. I need to call this in. We've never had two people wanting the seed-partners to bond to both of them at once. Either would be fine, but both?"

Moments later she was back with Sekot's reply, which amounted to, 'try and see what happens.' Sighing she gestured Ranma and Shaak into a small changing area, where underthings had been prepared for them. The two stripped down until they were now wearing only their underwear, basically, and then they entered the seed chamber once more. "All right. You need to move to that central segment there. When I release the inhibitor field, the seed-partners will feel your life force and come towards you. Those who choose you will remain with you after the others have retreated."

"Can you please explain what part of a ship a seed-partner is?" Shaak asked politely, while Ranma muttered about how he had called it earlier. "I am still at a loss as to that aspect."

"The seed partner consists of two different aspects, physical and computational. Computationally, the seed partners will form a gestalt together that will become the overall computer system of the ship, connected to everything within, from the engines to the weapons systems, if you've paid for such and have the proper permits." Pinna's voice came out once more in her tour guide mode. "They can act like a full droid pilot at times, but unlike a droid they can build a psychic connection with the user."

"Physically the seed-partners will be formed into and become part of the bio-generators, biotic engines, and weapons systems, if, again, you have the appropriate permits. Essentially, the more seeds who choose to bond with you, the more powerful the ship will be, and the more systems it will be able to handle," Pinna finished.

Shaak nodded at that, then moved back to back with Ranma, looking around at the seed-partners. "Very well, let's see what happens."

"Oh my God, those are some famous last words right there," Ranma muttered, shaking his head. "Still, I suppose there's nothing else we can do. We're ready."

Nodding, Pinna moved through the room to a smaller door at the end, with Fay and Kit trailing after her. As they watched, a small viewing panel opened up in the wall there to let the three of them watch what was happening in the seed-chamber. "Releasing the inhibitor field now."

An instant later the seeds, all of them from all over the room, flew from where they had been staying. Ranma had a single second to shout out, "I told you so!" before they were positively buried by the seed-partners. Where before they had been standing back to back, now there was a slowly moving pile of the pineapple sized seed-partners, a large, spiny pile of them.

Pinna turned to the other Jedi. "Don't worry; this isn't abnormal. The seeds who are unwilling to bond to them will remove themselves soon."

"We're not worried," Kit said, his grin so wide it looked like it hurt and his head tentacles twitching spasmodically with the effort to keep in his laughter. It would not fit with the traditional Jedi image to keel over while busting a gut, laughing.

"Hehe, um, ahem, how long will it take them to decide if Master Ti and Ranma are worthy of becoming bonded to?" Fay asked, her own lips twitching while she fought back her own giggles.

"It shouldn't take more than five minutes or so," Pinna replied, frowning at the odd reactions before turning to look back into the seed chamber.

It took more than fifteen minutes, actually, by which time both Shaak and Ranma had gotten rather fed up with the process. This was shown by Ranma's shout of, "Get the bleep off me, you little spiky bastards!" With that shout Ranma flapped his arms despite the weight of the seed partners pressing in on him.

Shaak too had become a little irritated despite her Jedi training against feeling such things as physical discomfort, but she didn't show it as the pile finally, rather reluctantly, began to come apart. "Indeed, we will welcome all of you who wish to bond with us, but there needs to be some actual progress in the bonding process at this point."

One by one the seeds who had decided to reject the two lovers moved off, somehow moving back to their chosen cubicles in the wall. Pinna, who had begun to frown as the process continued, did not stop at this point, simply opting to stare instead.

The only portions of Shaak Ti that were visible as she slowly moved away from her lover were her montrals, back lek and her eyes. There were even two seed-partners attached to the sides of her head, looking like the ugliest mufflers in the galaxy. Quickly Pinna began to count, shaking her head internally. It looked as if there were over eighteen, possibly as many as twenty four, attached to Shaak Ti alone.

With something like trepidation she turned to look to Ranma. He too was still obscured by seed-partners, who covered him from head to toe. It took her a moment to count them, and, when she did, she breathed out in shock. "Forty-two! Good grief… That, the normal number is three. I heard of one ship being given five. But this, this is on an entirely different level. The sheer power this ship is going to be able to put out…"

"That's nice and all, but do we really need to leave these things still on us?" Ranma asked, growling a little. It was like being constantly poked and prodded, and he'd had to consciously pull his ki toughness inward, as had Shaak. But while Shaak had Jedi training on dealing with such mental problems, Ranma didn't. He now was holding back his Living Force from rising once more to skin level with some difficulty.

"Ah…" Pinna hesitated, then sighed. "I am sorry, but you have to let them remain connected to you for two days."

Ranma's groan rattled the spines of the seed-partners still connected to him.

The next two days were among the most uncomfortable that Ranma could remember. They were unable to even sit down, since both Ranma and Shaak had seed-partners attached to their backs and even their legs. The constant itching and need to let the seed-partners bond with him instead of using his toughness training to ward them off exhausted Ranma mentally, while Shaak took it somewhat easier. They spent their time dictating a few notes about the capabilities they wanted to see in their next trip.

"Finally!" Ranma roared as he stepped out of the nursery building, moving towards the waiting skimmer. "God damn, I know the little guys're gonna be important later on, but that was so uncomfortable!"

Giggling lightly, Shaak followed, unmindful as Ranma was that they were both still in their underthings. They drew a few gazes thanks to that, though most were amused rather than interested. Evidently the two of them were not the first bipedal sentients to walk out of there like that. "Indeed. I think I would like to have a nice meal, a nice soak, and then find some place to just let the wind fly over my skin for a time."

"That gets my vote, for certain," Ranma replied. The two of them followed through with this idea, taking a local skimmer from the government building and moving off into the wild expanse of the planet and just getting lost for a day.

The next day it was back to the grind. With the seed-partners being looked after, treated with various chemicals and being taken to the forging pits, the two of them met up with the group of six who would be in charge of first designing, then building the ship. They all met at the forging pits in a small conference area along one side of the natural crevasse ,which was lined with boras and canopied over by other boras.

Here the two of them were introduced to the Jentari Hugal and Crafvo. The large, cyborg like shuffling behemoths sat at one side of the room directly opposite Ranma and Shaak. To Ranma they looked like Ents coupled with haystacks with various small or large patches of cybernetics. They didn't talk much, being only vaguely self-aware extensions of Sekot's will, but they had greeted the two customers courteously, if not with any real personal interest.

Fay and Kit were not there, having nothing to contribute. Kit was working with another Ferroan duo going over various starfighter designs, while Fay was in deep discussions with the local doctors. That conversation had been going on ever since they left Shaak and Ranma in the nursery and didn't look to be stopping anytime soon. Even if you counted out her Force abilities, Fay was one of the best doctors in the Order, and when it came to mental or brain trauma she was easily the best, beyond even Yoda in that field.

"Some information for you both before we begin. I and my fellows have been working with our newest settlers, comparing our own organically created systems with the mechanical variety they use," Satur said. "I am unhappy to say that while we are well ahead in speed, reaction time and maneuverability, in offensive punch we are sadly lacking. Our equivalent of concussion missiles are good, but not up to proton torpedoes, and while we can create launchers, we do not have the capacity here on Zonama to actually build the torpedoes. We lack the material for the explosives."

Tamira nodded. "Further, we have been unable as yet to create a purely biotic version of an energy shield. What we, in close conjunction with Great Sekot, have designed is this." At that she began to manipulate the table in front of them, and an image of a large, matte black fungus or shrub of some kind appeared. Next to it was a human to give some scale. The black fungus came up to the human's shoulders. "This is a dovin basal. Normally they are used to replace movement thrusters by our Jentari shapers, but they can be mutated to be a defensive weapon. It doesn't actually create a passive field, but it will reach out with a gravitic anomaly to turn aside any danger to the ship, even energy attacks."

Here one of the still unintroduced Langhesi spoke up. "But we have tested some of them, and they are severely lacking in terms of efficiency in comparison to an energy shield. We would recommend that you have a few of them on the ship, but that you not rely solely upon them. However, those, at least, we can create here on planet. We intend to copy the Mon Calamari style there: multiple shield capacitors with as much overlap as possible, associated with an equal number of bio-generators. Given the number of seed-partners we have to work with it would be stupid not to use it to the utmost."

"We have also looked at the schematics for the Wild Light. Truly revolutionary in many ways, somewhat larger than a normal system patrol craft, but designed to hit well above its size," Satur gushed. "Your droid, Tune, was invaluable there, and we have discovered far more than just the overlapping shield concept from it."

"So now we get down to the real nuts and bolts," Tamira said. "You tell us what you want, and we will tell you if it's possible. To start with, what size do you think this vessel should be?"

Shaak and Ranma exchanged glances, then Shaak slid a small data crystal into a reader set into the table. "While we are willing to hear and take in your points on the overall design, we would like it to be about like this." She waited as all six of the locals looked at the design thoughtfully. "We think of it as a heavy cruiser. However, we want it to be more maneuverable, as we did with the Wild Light, exchanging straight line speed for maneuverability and responsiveness."

"Unneeded in our designs and with the astonishing number of seed-partners we have to work with," rumbled one of the Jentari—Hurgal, Ranma thought. "With them we will be able to create true cognition thrones. The responsiveness of the ship will be well beyond anything you have ever seen before."

"Good to know," Ranma said, taking over from Shaak quickly and manipulating the ship's design to show a cut away portion of the ship. "The interior should look something like this: Four training areas, one of which will double as a dining room, with the others being designed for weapons or other types of training. One married quarters for myself and Shaak. Two rooms for guests or permanent crew members. One larger room for students brought aboard to train with us. Cockpit at the head here just beyond the married quarters and guest rooms. And then back here will be the kitchen, two bathrooms and two of the three Living Force expanded space areas, if you have all figured out how to use those spaces. The third will act as a water tank, just like the one in the Wild Light."

"Again, you won't need crew members," interjected one of the Langhesi, the younger one this time. "Living ships will run themselves for the most part. Especially with the sheer number of seed-partners we have to work with. And we have discovered a way to use the expanded space matrix via a synth skin to inhibit the cold."

"Yes, but most of those see-partners will be used to create the weapons. We would like to retain two proton torpedo launchers, or perhaps even four. We want four forward facing ion cannons and turbolasers, and eight or so Quad lasers, spaced to provide coverage entirely around the ship. I understand the seed-partners will be part of the targeting software and systems there."

For a moment the sextet was silent, then Satur, who was evidently the most senior of them, sighed. "We can provide an equivalent of turbolasers, but we need to perform some experiments first to see if we can use the space expansion matrix to solve the ammunition issue you pointed out to Great Sekot. The ion cannons, since we have the design for them from the Wild Light, we can manufacture as well. The quad lasers are more problematic, given the need to have them on swivel mounts. The programming and the energy requirements are not an issue, it is just the need to figure out a way to create the swivel mount. I take it, then, that you do not want a true living ship?"

"We have talked about this. While there are enormous defensive advantages of having a living ship in terms of our hull and general durability, the offensive punch of your starfighters was indeed rather lacking," Shaak said gently. "You might be able to improve on that as you research and grow, but it's not there right now."

"The overall size is fine, the interior layout is all right, but there are numerous design problems with what you laid out here. Too many control runs bunched up here, not enough space for more here, and the engine room is far too small. We need to make more room for the hyperspace and normal space engines there, and some more here and here for the bio-generators…" Tamira muttered.

Satur and the two forgers didn't let it go at that though, trying to argue Shaak and Ranma down on the number of weapons. The two Jentari joined Tamira, their large fingers surprisingly dexterous on the computer.

Eventually Shaak and Ranma won the argument about the ion cannons, but lost on the turbolasers. It came down to the size of the weapons platforms and the amount of damage they could do. The Yaret-Kor plasma weapons were somewhat shorter range than turbolasers, but they hit harder. They also were just like the rest of the living ship: they could both be toughened and, once the ship was finished and the seed-partner gestalt awake, would heal themselves from any damage. That was enough for the lovers.

By the time that argument wound down, however, Tamira had finished her redesign, taking into account what she was hearing at the same time. Staring at the ship, Ranma couldn't fight back a grin and had no desire to do so. Holy hell. It'll hit like a cross between an escort carrier and a battlecruiser. "How long will it take to build?"

The growth of the exterior shell will take several weeks, given the amount of different minerals that will be need to go into the coral's growth," the Jentari said as one. Their voices, Shaak noticed, sounded much like that of Sekot in person. "Creating the various parts, working in the seed-partners as we go, will take months. The process will be slowed by the need to incorporate mechanical parts throughout, as well as the toughness technique that you have shown us all. You will both need to be a part of that process, the creation of the gestalt, and, of course, training Sekot in the use of the Living Force, all of which will slow the construction further."

"Right… So how long for the entire job?" Ranma asked, groaning.

"At best eight months, possibly longer. Toughening the ship, teaching Great Sekot and the gestalt, emplacing the various mechanical parts… Yes, at least eight months," Satur said apologetically.

Shaak too sighed, wondering if Kit and Fay would remain here or move on in that time, and, if so, whether would they be able to pass on a few messages. But still, there was nothing else for it. "Well then, I think we need to get to work, don't we?"

OOOOOOO

"I know you are there," Master Coleman Trebor said, not looking around. Instead he stared out from a room in a seedy hotel into the darkened cityscape of Por Trenan, a Core World planet. He had come here hoping to try and discover a link between the various production companies who had created the anti-Jedi videos he had seen, the communication networks having proven a dead end. Four of them had holdings here, and he thought that perhaps if someone was influencing what they created, doing so on a planet where he or she could interact with more than one company without leaving would be a good idea.

It had worked, too, but perhaps not for the reasons he would have hoped for.

Though a Core World, this wasn't a very important one, but it was a Core World, a cityscape much like Coruscant. Though in Trenan's case it did have some pockets of artificial green here and there. And it didn't have nearly as many people, though near to five-hundred billion wasn't exactly a small population. Here in the Core Worlds, though, those numbers were seen as every day, yet even in the Core Worlds there were people who believed that violence was the answer to all their worries.

From many stories below he could hear the ongoing riots and see the lights going out. The riot was caused by some local issue about power allocation, which had been in flux since the Humanity First League had struck at the area's power generators. It had since spiraled out of control of the authorities and, Coleman supposed, the people who had started it.

He said so aloud, still not turning as he added, "But then, I suppose this manner of chaos is exactly what you wanted."

"Your sense of smell is more acute than most, Master Trebor," said a grim female voice followed by the sound of the door locking itself behind her. "It is a pity your insight does not match it."

That voice, Trebor thought. I've heard it before somewhere, somewhere in the distant past. "Oh? Then please, tell me, what am I not seeing?" With that he turned, staring at his late night visitor.

"You cannot see that times are changing. The time of the Jedi, of the false peace you all cling to, is coming to an end. This chaos, this madness you see down there, you and the Jedi are the cause of it, propping up weaklings, never realizing that only power can keep order."

The speaker was a human woman who stood a little taller than most such Trebor had met. Her eyes were a faint yellow, her skin white, and her dirty blond hair cropped short. Around her neck she wore a dog collar, of all things, and her clothing was tight, the kind of clothing chosen not for appearance but to cover everything without restricting movement. Those eyes were the eyes of a predator staring at prey.

Yet for all of that, Trebor could not shake the idea that he knew her from somewhere. "You have the advantage of me, madam," he said, ignoring her words for the first foray of dun moch, or simple taunting, that they were. "You look somewhat familiar, however."

That seemed to take the woman aback, but she didn't reply. Instead she pulled out her lightsaber, activating it swiftly. The ruby colored blade thrummed, filling Coleman's room with both the sound of it and its light. "Yes, I do have the advantage of you, in literally every way imaginable."

"We shall see," Coleman replied, the Vurk pulling out his own lightsaber. It was obvious this woman had an axe to grind against the Order, and moreover was serving whoever was behind the anti-Jedi propaganda here in the Core Worlds. But if she expected Coleman to be a normal Consular, she was wrong. I might not be known as a great duelist, but that doesn't mean I'm entirely defenseless.

Without another word spoken, the two moved towards one another. Coleman stepped forward swiftly, then shifted to the side just slightly, falling into his own variant of Soresu rather than actually attacking. This didn't take his opponent aback at all, however, lashing out with a swift thrust and cut combo from Makashi.

The two lightsabers crashed together once, twice, and then a third time as the last emergency power lights went out of the city all around them. The largest nonhuman conclave on the planet was now utterly without power, and, if that wasn't fixed quickly, thousands would die of the cold and lack of food or turn to cannibalism. Ecumenopolises like this planet were always very weak edifices when it came to internal troubles.

Not that Master Trebor had any time to notice such things. Fighting the red-hued shadow that was his opponent was calling for all his attention. Even relying on Soresu, he was barely able to keep up with his opponent, falling back, unable to jump away or put distance between them, let alone use the momentum of her attacks to go on his own offensive as Soresu was made to do. She was so fast! It was like fighting four or maybe even five Makashi users at once. It didn't help that she was so precise, her mastery of the style so high. Trebor quickly began to use Force Pushes and Grabs in an effort to slow her down, but the woman replied with an almost languid ease.

It was obvious that only his defensive style was keeping him alive, and she showed no sign of slowing down. Her mastery of Makashi was such that the other aspect of Soresu, that of wearing down an opponent and outlasting them, was not going to happen. If it ever could in any event. The human female wasn't even breathing hard, and, not five minutes into the battle, Coleman was, his large nostrils flaring as his mouth remained open.

Yet the girl's mastery of Makashi and some hints in her appearance allowed Coleman to realize where he had seen her before. "Komari Vosa! That is you, is it not!? It might have been many years, but I still remember watching you drub several other padawans when Master Dooku brought you back to the temple."

The girl stumbled at that, her eyes widening slightly, but she recovered too quickly for Coleman to take advantage of that even if he had been in a position to do so. He hadn't been, too busy gasping in air, even his Jedi endurance and ability to ignore the bodies needs having been pushed past its limits. "Knowing that will not save you!"

"What, what happened to you?" he gasped. "What did the Bando Gora do to you?"

"The Bando Gora?" The woman cackled, her eyes becoming almost insane. "The Bando Gora were just the start. You have no idea, do you? No idea at all what is out there, lying in the Dark! Heheheh! The Order is doomed! Your greatest enemy is right there, right at the heart of your power, and you don't even know!"

"The Dark is strong, yes, child, but that strength comes at a price. What have you given up to feel that power?" Coleman asked, trying to buy time as he stared across their crossed blades at Vosa, who seemed content for the moment to trade words instead of attacks. "I can see it. You still feel guilt, still feel shame at your actions. You can turn back; return to the Order. Think of Master Dooku; think of what he would want you to do."

"You see falsely," Vosa said, her eyes flashing with rage at the mention of her former master, the brief flare of self-loathing Coleman had seen gone in a torrent of fury. "There is no coming back from the Dark, and you Jedi will pay for your hubris!"

In a split second Vosa broke their lightsaber lock, allowing Coleman to go on the attack for a brief second. But instead of trying to match his flashing lightsaber, she had dodged sideways and brought her lightsaber around at knee height. Before Coleman could leap over it, his legs were cut off, causing his upper body to flop to the side.

Pain filled the Vurk Jedi Master, pain like nothing he had ever before felt. It was only his ability to deaden some of it via the Force that kept him conscious. He couldn't stop a fierce Force Grab from pulling his lightsaber out from his grasp. He stared up through pain filled eyes at the girl turned woman he had seen back then, now his killer, turned to the Dark. Yet even so he had to try to get through to her one more time. "It, it is never too late to return to the Force, Komari. Turn, turn aside from this course…"

"It is far too late for me, Master Trebor," she said almost sadly, before plunging both her own lightsaber and his down into his body. One took him in the heart, the other the forehead. "And it is far too late for the universe."

Deactivating her lightsaber and his, she placed both of them on her waist, staring down at the Vurk. She had never met him before this, but the way he had recognized her had rattled Komari. "That will be something I need to watch out for in the future," she said to herself grimly, before moving over to Coleman's personal datapad, pushing the conversation they had to one side. Once she had broken into it via one of the slicing programs, she found all the information Coleman had found and began to delete it swiftly.

I've already been intercepting all his reports back to the Order for several of his stops. That bot that Master Sidious gave me to imitate him was uncanny. The Order no doubt truly believes he is hunting down the leadership of the Humanity First League. Who will be blamed not only for this riot, but his death once I am done. And it will even be the case, or rather, they will think that it is. A Jedi dying in an explosion is nothing new, after all. And my other bots have destroyed all the recording devices in the area that could run on their own power.

I still wonder why that bitch Unduli met up with Trebor a few months back, but there's nothing I can do about that. She is too high profile a target, too often returning to the Order for me to target just yet without it being discerned as anything beyond an assassination attempt.

Though aware of the fact that the Jedi had begun to use communication protocols and even code in their communications, the Sith had not yet found out that the Jedi had also begun to use couriers. Master Windu had proven to be quite good at contriving believable missions for Luminara or Master Giiett which just happened to take them where he wanted them to go to convey secret orders or to bring back reports. And that level of duplicity and compartmentalization was so beyond what the Jedi would normally be capable of that even Sidious had yet to realize what was going on.

Of course, Komari didn't realize that either. So when she left that portion of the ecumenopolis behind her just as a large freighter crashed into the ground there, exploding spectacularly, her feeling of accomplishment was well deserved. Misplaced somewhat: the Jedi knew about the anti-Jedi propaganda, though not enough of Trebor's findings to truly understand how pervasive it was in the Core Worlds.

OOOOOOO

The locals' estimate on how long it would take them to build Ranma and Shaak's new ship proved to be grossly optimistic. But that was what happened when you were not only creating an incredibly advanced one off ship but trying out numerous new techniques during the construction at the same time.

One big issue with the actual construction was Ranma and Shaak's insistence on using quad lasers, ion pulse cannons, and proton torpedo weapons. The locals routinely used mechanical engines for their ships and even controls at times if the offworlder hadn't bonded with three or more seed-partners. But that was a far cry from whole weapons systems and needing to figure out how to work weapons that were supposed to rotate into the living ship's hull. That alone took several months of experimentation and mutation of the various plants and growths under the Jentari's massive hands, let alone the other weapons and making them run on bio-reactors.

Ranma couldn't help with that, of course, nor could Shaak. But Shaak and Fay proved hugely helpful in aiding the locals in working out how to recreate the expanded space technique. That only took a few days with their help, though the locals then went a little wild on how to try and use the technique. Ranma, meanwhile, worked with every aspect of the ship, showing how his Living Force could flow into it, how the Living Force could then toughen the material well beyond where it had been originally. The coral-like substance that would make up the hull took to this well, if slowly.

Both Shaak and Ranma also continued to bond with the seed-partners, as directed by the locals. They held the seeds as a Jentari broke the outer shell, pulling the seed out. They watched as the Jentari worked with the seeds, small white egg-like shapes, before planting them into various beds. They helped tend them until the various animal-plant hybrids began to grow and spent at least an hour after that letting the ones that had yet to be used sink their tiny spikes into them to further cement the bond.

There were also other distractions. Sekot's training under Ranma, for one thing, which yielded an…appallingly predictable result several months into their stay on the living planet's surface.

Ranma stared at the screen, which was currently showing what looked like an asteroid field. An asteroid field that had been disturbed by something, since it was still spreading out as she watched, the changes visible to the naked eye. At the face of that, her current period based issues began to take a backseat to shock. "Oh shit… What did you do, Sekot!"

"What did I do?" the planet-mind retorted, sounding almost like a panicked teenager who had been caught doing something he shouldn't. "You're the one who told me to see if I could recreate the Moko Takabisha! You even said it might be helpful to gather resources from asteroids!"

"Yeah, well, I never thought you'd just go and blow up a planet!" Ranma groused, though calling Sekot's previous target a planet was a misnomer. It was a tiny ball of rock and other minerals barely the size of Mars and just at the edge of the sun's gravity well, having been captured there after it had escaped from some other galactic body. "I wonder… I know that Shaak can feel it when I let loose with a Moko or other ki attacks… And that was a lot bigger…"

Hearing the sounds of running feet coming towards the control center answered Ranma's question. "Yep, they could sense it. I'm out of here!" Being in no mood to listen to a diatribe, Ranma pulled the Umi-Sen-Ken around herself, disappearing from all senses as she raced for the door.

"Hey, you bastard, Ranma, get back here! If I have to listen to them bitch, you have to too!" Sekot roared to his suddenly empty control room, the synapse spire pulsing angrily. But by that point Fay and several Magisters had already burst into the room, looking around wildly.

This event not only got both Sekot and Ranma lectured by Fay, but forced the planet to leave the system via hyperspace once more, jumping even further out the back, for lack of a better term, of the Mon Calamari sector. They made a series of small jumps until Fay told Sekot they were beyond her ability to sense the residue of his attack, which she hoped would mean they were well beyond the area anyone who had felt it would think to look.

The rest of Ranma's training, however, went off very well. The planet's crust could now act like so much hardened steel, practically immune to all weapons. And with the ability to channel a Living Force bomb, as Sekot called his technique (rather proudly) from any point, he could simply pull in his ships, then destroy any attacking fleet, only sending them out to deal with the stragglers. There were some grumbles about that from the Eriadans, but they were all quite happy with their lives on Zonama by this point, so that was immaterial.

While Shaak remained busy with the locals in various ways along with the shipbuilding, and Ranma was busy with either Sekot or his own part in the shipbuilding, Kit worked with the Eriadans and the locals. He helped them merge together into a decent self-defense force, installing a local Ferroan, Magister Crown, in command. He had the best mix of knowledge of space tactics and local knowledge of what Sekot was capable of. His second in command, and leader of the cruiser squad, was Captain Morgan.

Fay, too, busied herself in educating the locals and Sekot in various matters. The medical side of things took a long while, and Fay made it a point to write up a request that the Order send some samples of the alazhi and kavam, so the locals could try and create their own type. She felt that Sekot could easily become a producer of these, eventually. "And, if this breaks the hold the Thyfferrans have on that trade, all the better," she had said to Shaak, who also helped on the medical side of things, bringing some more organization to the locals' hospitals.

There were, of course, other things Fay and Shaak talked to the locals about, in particular to Sekot. The lay of the land in the Republic, how economics worked, the Force in general and the Sith in particular were topics of discussion over the months. History too was a major topic, with Fay imparting as much of the history of the Republic as she knew, which was quite a lot.

And of course there was more time for Shaak and Ranma to be together. They debated at one point having Fay officiate an actual wedding between them while they were on the planet, but decided against it. Shaak still felt she would like to have her wedding on Shili. Ranma did, however, talk Kit into agreeing to come and be there in some fashion. Not as a best man—the Togrutans didn't have that tradition—but the husband-to-be was allowed to have clansmen stand with him to show he was a respected member of his clan. Shaak too was still of the opinion that she wanted Aayla, at the least, involved in some fashion.

Eventually, however, their ship was finished…

Ranma and Shaak stood with Fay, Kit, HK, and the two astromech droids whose name Ranma had learned. The one whose designation he hadn't, the one who had been used by Jerec and taken from the Order's pool of droids, had decided to stay and work for the locals. The rest would be leaving on Ranma and Shaak's new ship.

The thing was sleek and about as long as a football field or thereabouts, standing around three stories tall in the main body and about as wide as the Wild Light had been at its tips. It had curving lines everywhere, with what looked like indents for eyes at the front where the cockpit was, over the same forward jutting chin that Ranma had so liked on the Wild Light. It had curved, forward arcing wings which nearly met at its front. From the back numerous engine ports jutted, and here and there along its length were blisters concealing the quad laser arrays. All of it was painted dark blue and black, with a wide streak of white going down the back of the main body.

Following the Ferroan Satur around the ship, Ranma and Shaak listened attentively. "We followed your instructions on how nimble the ship needs to be. It might look like a larger than average cruiser, but it will move under your control with a speed that will not quite be starfighter level, but far better than anything its size should move. It won't be as fast in hyperspace or real space as we would like, but even there it will be slightly faster than most things its size."

Walking underneath the ship, which was currently sitting in a slipway awaiting launch, the two forgers joined in. Their work done, the two Jentari who had led their people on this project were nowhere to be seen.

"Weapons blisters here, here, and here. Two quad lasers on both the underside and topside of the wings, with one more on both the top and bottom of the main ship further back along with two defensive-type dovin basals. To add to its aft firepower we've included magma missile launchers. They are small, but will be very effective against starfighters. All of those will open, the quad Lasers will be pushed out, and they will both move on their mounts and respond to the controls of the gunner," the forger, whose name Ranma had learned after several months was Resseio, said proudly.

That hadn't been because of an oversight or rudeness, actually. The Langhesi did not share their names with other people until they knew they were trustworthy. It was just a culture thing, which, coupled with the fact their overall population was so small, showed how the Ferroans were the most numerous of the locals.

"Here on its side are the hanger bays. These two here are the ones which lead into the expanded space segments of the ship," Satur said, gesturing to faint marks on the side of the ship. Even if you knew where to look the apertures were hard to see. "At the moment there are only a few of the Sekotan starfighters in there, but there is room for at least a squadron to fit comfortably. Repairing them, of course, would require both lighting and special clothing to avoid freezing in there."

The issue with ki spaces being cold was something no amount of experimentation had been able to fix. The starfighters were ensconced in a sort of womblike growth at present, fueled by a bio-generator. To add more live-ship starfighters Ranma and his friends would have to come back, since by the time it came to add more starfighters to the ship, even the number of seed-partners Ranma and Shaak had bonded with would have run out.

Not that this was a big hardship in Ranma's mind. Despite his and the others working with them, Sekotan starfighters were at least another year or two of design and experimentation away from being the equivalent of the latest type of starfighter which Anakin had talked Ranma's ear off about back on Kashyyyk nigh on two years ago now. Their maneuverability and reaction times were incredible, but their shields were not. Work was ongoing in attempting to mix in mechanical tech on the smaller starfighters to try and correct that, but with limited results so far. Though now that the larger ship was done, work would probably pick up on that.

"The one next to this one on the port side houses a small generic shuttle," Resseio finished, gesturing to a more obvious aperture.

That made sense, Ranma supposed. Since this ship was so large, some space stations might not have a landing area which could house it. "And generic so no one can see up close that the ship is organic, I suppose. Though, given the paint job, that's going to be pretty well hidden anyway."

"True. The paint we use will also give back a metal reading from anyone attempting to scan the ship," Satur said with a nod.

They quickly came to the prow of the ship, where Resseio once more began to point out sections of the ship's hull. "The four ion cannons are all mounted on solid mounts here, one to either side of the prow on the bottom and two more above the cockpit. Unlike the quad cannons, they cannot be placed on computer control. Between the two bottommost cannons are the two proton torpedo launchers. We put in enough space for over fifty such, but as I warned you, that is mostly currently empty."

Moving to one side they moved under one of the ship's wings. "Along the forward face of the wing are the plasma weapons. Shorter ranged than turbolasers, but somewhat more powerful, as we told you. Three to a side, and, like the magma missiles, they will heal themselves of damage given time, energy, and resources. Their magazines are also enlarged by the ki technique."

"Aggrieved respect: While I do not like the idea of all these meatbag things, I can at least approve of the amount of firepower. It will remain to be seen if it actually works as advertised in combat, of course," HK noted.

From there they entered the ship. The interior was in greens and browns, and, inside, it was very clear the ship wasn't made of metal. Rather, it looked like the interior had been lined by wood, which occasionally pulsed with vibrations or lights in certain areas. The landing ramp led into the airlock, which then opened up directly into the main dining room, which was set up much like the one on the Wild Light had been. There were two circular sofas facing one another around a table, which had a holographic device installed in it, plus space for the Hypercom uplink system, once they got a replacement for it, anyway.

Beyond that was a corridor leading fore and aft. Aft led to the engine room, the kitchen, bathroom and two of the guest rooms while fore led toward the cockpit and two more guest rooms. None of the rooms but the master bedroom had any permanent furniture, though two of them had temporary beds for Kit and Fay just now. Ranma and Shaak both planned to add bunk beds as needed in the future. The guest rooms were certainly large enough for four people to sleep in.

The cockpit was utterly fascinating when they reached it. It looked like the interior of a cyborg, with several different mechanical instruments in the control panel. But the full control chairs sitting there were another matter entirely, looking about as organic as anything could. There was even a hood along the back of them.

"Sit down, please, and we will finish the bonding process to the gestalt. The left chair is for weapons, the right for piloting. There is also a purely mechanical control here in the back of the cockpit for your droids. One for the quad laser controls, the other for astronavigation."

"Angry mutter: Well thank you for that. Ugh, pushed to the back of the room like a recalcitrant meatbag child, how degrading. If they weren't giving me command of so many weapons I'd be very cross," HK growled, moving in that direction. Tune warbled and followed, locking himself into a disk on the floor which lowered by a few inches.

"Heh. You know you like it. More weapons are always good, HK," Ranma muttered, moving to control the guns for now. He and Shaak could switch off at need, of course, but he had entered the cockpit to Shaak's left, so right now it made sense.

They sat down, pulling the hoods over their heads. Shaak's hood quickly shifted to accommodate her horns and lekku, but then both she and Ranma felt the touch of numerous feelers, dozens of them. They both concentrated, pulling in their Living Force enough to let the feelers prick their skin, but found that unnecessary. The sheer number of feelers allowed the connection between the seed-partner gestalt and the two pilots to form a psychic connection. It wasn't fueled by the Force, though Shaak later maintained that it helped her side of things immensely. When he reached out through the Force himself, Ranma was forced to agree.

One moment the two of them were present in their bodies, then the notion of those bodies changed, and suddenly they were the ship. They saw through its sensors, felt through its skin. Their fingers twitched, and the bits of corral 'skin' slid out of the way like a piece of bone moving in a joint. Their weapons pushed out like claws, then back. The ship thrummed, all of its reactors starting up from standby to active. The ship was ready, awake, and eager to flee this place of gravity for its natural home: space.

"Oh my word," Shaak murmured, not having words to truly describe what this felt like. It was amazing, incredible, and terrifying all at once, like the first time she had consciously reached out with the Force to manipulate the world around her.

Ranma too felt it, though he would have likened it to the first time he had really understood how much stronger he was than a normal man thanks to his father's training. That had happened when he was ten and had bested a fully grown martial arts master by simply being too strong for the other man to overawe when they locked hands. The look on his face was still one of Ranma's best memories from his training trip. And this was the same sensation, feeling out your power and knowing you are strong, knowing what you can do, what you were made for.

And, through the gestalt, the two lovers felt one another, as they did at times when Shaak reached out to touch Ranma's mind via the Force. But this was like that plus having Aayla's empathy thrown into it on both sides. Ranma felt the pillar of strength, of calm assurance, intellect, good humor, well-controlled if barely civilized predatory instincts, and, above all, love for him that was Shaak Ti, a searing flame which had grown to encompass her whole being. Shaak Ti felt the strength of Ranma, the good natured chaotic nature of him, the iron rod of his own personal code, his love of discovery and the Art, and, running through that and around it, his love for her, deeper than oceans, more certain than gravity.

It was like falling in love all over again for both of them, and they reached out as one, grasping each other's hand and squeezing, a pulse of emotion flowing down the link before they began the work of getting to know the gestalt and the connection. It wouldn't do to be so overwhelmed every time they had to fly the ship, after all.

Once more the locals were astonished. They watched as the ship's various systems came online faster than usual, but given the number of seed-partners that was almost expected. But to see them come under control so quickly was another thing entirely. The weapons flared to life after the generators, then the engines thrummed with potential, just like a bird flexing its wings in preparation for flight. It was an amazing sight, and both of the locals felt pride as they knew this ship and its masters would do great things in the future.

After only a few moments the hoods rolled back up, revealing Shaak and Ranma, both of them breathing hard as if they had just finished a sprint. "Ooowee, was that a rush. I don't know about you guys, but if it's always like that, well, we just better be already jacked in before we run into trouble, 'cause that was very distracting."

"Agreed," Shaak said, breathing just as hard as her lover while fighting off the urge to hurl her friends out of the ship and christen every single inch of it with their love through use of her Jedi training, that training being the only thing stopping her from doing just that. Feeling Ranma's emotions that clearly had been a rare treat for her, and the love and power she had felt in him called to her Togrutan instincts something fierce. Glancing to Ranma's lap, she was glad to see that she wasn't the only one dealing with such an issue.

Ranma tried to hide reaction to the joining, hoping that their love for one another didn't somehow infect the ship or something like that. It would be very strange to feel like this every time they plugged in, especially if they were heading into a fight. Some wrong connotations there.

Satur coughed, leaning in to whisper into Ranma's ear, having been the only one who had noticed. "Ahem, don't worry. We have had a few paired mates bond with seed-partners before. The gestalt will only go that deep the first time, as it is tasting you as a whole entity for the first time. After that it will be much more controlled. You may still feel a sense of exhilaration the first time you fly through space, but it won't be, ahem, be um…linked to any…sensual feelings."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Ranma nodded at that, and he and Shaak continued the tour for a few more minutes before it came time to start the ship up. They were scheduled for a series of exercises around Zonama before the locals would be satisfied. After that, after that it's back to the rest of the galaxy. I gotta wonder what's been going on out there since we've been stuck here…

"By the way, we, of course, haven't named the vessel yet. Have either of you thought of what you wanted to call it?" Satur asked as they reached the loading ramp once more.

"The Wild Blade," Ranma and Shaak said as one. "It's both an homage to our last ship and an understanding of what Ranma's presence means," Shaak went on, exchanging a smile with her lover. "Now, I believe we have a shakedown cruise to get to?"

End Chapter:


So it's the good guys who have a Death Star now, except it's a purely defensive installation that has no interest whatsoever in going looking for trouble. Just fucking trouble up if it comes looking in turn.

This is the last of the large time skips. We will have the next chapter occurring over a series of months. At that point we'll be within a year of the Secession crisis starting, since Sidious was forced to adjust his timetable, after which the war will begin. We shall see what happens after that, LOL. Till next time.