Lucas ain't my last name, and Rumiko ain't my first. I understand romance far too well to be either of those worthies.

For those with ATP questions, I have the next chapter vaguely outlined, but I am waiting until Mordreek and I can communicate on a set schedule before promising I can get the next chapter out - RL Sucks for everyone can't do much about it. At that point, work will proceed quickly, but I am in no position to promise anything.

This was the winner of this month's poll in my SW crossovers.

This was once more the winner of the SW crossover poll. Unfortunately, that is rather par for the course LOL. If I don't stick my own votes in, the Ranma fans win hands down.

At the moment, this has not been betaed by anyone but me and Grammarly - hence the late hour: that thing takes me several hours to use in chunks of various sizes so that it doesn't crash my web browser or my word doc. That means there is no doubt many mistakes. Hopefully, there aren't enough to ruin your enjoyment of the chapter. However it has now been given a once over by a guest who created a review to point out mistakes, Hopefully he caught all the remaining major ones.


Chapter 19 New Acquaintances, Old Problems Solved

Steak could be used to soothe the most savage Togrutan. Against a padawan who was merely intensely curious and a somewhat amused Jedi master, it worked even better. Shaak's smile at her first few bites promised that Ranma might be rewarded for his culinary efforts later and the food gave Ahsoka enough to concentrate on so that she could sit on her curiosity until it had been cleared away.

Whiphids were meat eaters as well though, since it led directly into the bloodthirsty violence his people were known for, K'Kruhk had pushed that aspect of his personality aside in his Jedi training. Nonetheless, the meal that Ranma put together was most definitely a hit.

As K'Kruhk and Ranma finished clearing the table away, Shaak hit the small button which caused the table to slowly sink into the recess in the floor, followed rapidly by the circular sofa they had all been sitting around, each segment moving backward then down into the floor. Shaak sat on the floor while looking on in amusement as Ahsoka seemed to enjoy the ride, turning on the sofa looking down as the lifting mechanism of the ship moved the sofa underneath her.

After a second Shaak cleared her throat slightly, getting her new padawan's attention. Looking a little shamefaced Ahsoka sat across from her, taking up the same position that Shaak was, her legs crossed under her, her hands settled into her lap. "Now, would you like to hear our explanations first, or just blurt out your questions?" Shaak asked with a faint smile.

Ahsoka quickly reined in her irritation at that and her own curiosity before calming herself in the Force. Bowing slightly she said, "I believe I would like to hear the explanation first Master Ti. "Listening is supposed to be one of the paths to wisdom after all."

"I could do without the tart tone there but at least the answer was correct," Shaak said dryly, then watched as Ahsoka flushed a little before going on. "Now, the best way to start any story is at the beginning, even if that story is about real events. For this story, we must go back to before the invasion of Naboo, during the mission which brought young Anakin to the Jedi Temple. It was on that mission, where we first saw a sign that…"

The telling took about forty minutes and after which Ahsoka was left with more questions of course. But to her credit, most of those dealt with training. She had no doubt at all that she would do her utmost to fight the Sith and the Dark Side, not after hearing about what her new master and Ranma had done, and not after Shaak was able to reply to Ahsoka's questions on training quickly. The rest of the younger Togrutan's questions were about the Sith threat, Shaak could not answer.

Ranma cut in at that point, coming out from the kitchen area to squat down next to Shaak. "The only thing we can really tell you for certain about the head asshole is that the Sith have massive resources, hidden ones, ones we can't seem to find a pattern to whatever the Order tries. We've dealt with at least one before, the one who apparently might know the technique from that Bastard on Yavin. But I still think he's an apprentice at best."

"I do not think he is even an apprentice, Ranma," K'Kruhk said softly. The other two looked at him in surprised as did Ahsoka, and K'Kruhk shrugged his large shoulders, moving to kneel down on the floor himself. "Consider what the High Council said. They have identified two other Sith agents, assassins like the one you called Dark Clown Face."

"We really do need to find a way to discover that one's name," Shaak mused. "Dark Clown Face just does not scan very well, and frankly makes them sound far more comical than a creature of his proven deadliness deserves, even in memory."

"That's what makes it funny. Besides, I killed the bastard, I get to decide what name he's remembered by," Ranma said with a smirk, before looking back to K'Kruhk. "Sorry continue."

Shaking his head at their byplay, K'Kruhk did so. "I believe that this one, the one who gave his name as Seth Harth to you, is another tool like an assassin who was simply assigned the task of killing the two of you. Perhaps the Sith Master was able to coerce him in some fashion. I further sense somehow that he discovered how to use this technique which would allow him to abandon his physical form on his own, but it could have been the ability which made the Sith Master choose him for this task because it allows them to learn about the two of you even after a defeat. So the question becomes, what of your techniques have you two used, and what do you think can work again on opponents who are prepared for them?"

Ranma thought about that for a moment, nodding his head slowly. "There are a few," he said aloud. "One of them I would definitely want to keep in reserve unless I'm facing the master of these Sith rather than his tools, not unless it's a matter of literal life or death for me or mine. Set knows about my lightsaber, that won't come as a surprise any longer, or my own durability against them. Ki attacks, he's seen those, though I doubt he's been able to figure out a way to defend against them. And I bet I could figure out of a few ways to surprise him with them."

"Key attacks? Attacking someone with a key?" Ahsoka asked looking quizzical.

"He means Living Force attacks. Don't let Ranma's more bizarre idiosyncrasies bother you, child," Shaak said with a smile.

"Hush sexy person," Ranma said, smacking her lightly on the shoulder.

Still smiling, Shaak stated, "You also tornadoed him. Is there any way he could figure out how you did that?"

"I don't know," Ranma said thoughtfully. "It depends on how much of his environment and the flow of battle Set notices when he's in a fight for his life. I bet I could pull it off anyway if only to see the face he made when he realized I did it."

"Tornadoed?" Ahsoka and K'Kruhk asked as one. Even K'Kruhk had not heard about that ability just yet. Surely they aren't really talking about what that word implies, Both Knight and padawan thought.

"You would not believe me if I told you," Shaak said of the faint smile.

"What about this ship?" K'Kruhk asked. "Did you use all of its abilities?"

"We did. Except for a large portion of its durability, the starfighters we can contain though at the moment that isn't much of an advantage, and the expanded magazine space for our weapons. They will have an idea of our mobility, a false view of our durability, though they will know it to be quite high and our maneuverability. However, there was a secondary aspect to that fight," Shaak said, with a predatory smile, her sharp teeth showing in a smile that was all Togrutan.

Ranma nodded. "We needed to bring back the fear of well us to the various pirate groups bounty hunters and scum of the galaxy out there. Now that they know we're back, and that we're just as deadly as before, the Sith will have a harder time to gather up the Forces necessary for an attack like that."

"I see," K'Kruhk said evenly. "You mentioned that before, and while I am unused to using that tactic, I suppose it makes sense. We could also perhaps have tried to trace back some of those ships if we had stayed where we were."

"I doubt it," Ranma said with a sigh. "Even Set Harth would have used a middleman for hiring that group, that seems to be normal for any of these Sith. No, I have some other ideas for when we're ready to go hunting."

"That is for later. Any speculation is intriguing, but right now without a starting point to try and discover their relocation, we can do nothing about the Sith on our own. Instead, I believe it is training time for you, young Ahsoka. We will meditate for 20 minutes while letting our bodies settle down from the most magnificent steak Ranma made for us she said, flashing a smile towards Ranma and then I will again walk you through various lightsaber forms as I started to do on Kashyyyk. I understand you wish to eventually learn Jar'kai, but let us see if your hand-eye coordination and more importantly your ambidexterity are up to the task."

Ranma scowled, standing up as he did so. "I suppose I can go and do a few new martial arts moves in the corner. I thought you and I would spar, but I guess not."

Shaak looked up at him quizzically, then stood with them, leaning in lightly to ask "…Are you jealous?"

"Nah, not really anyway," Ranma said with a scowl. "Just really realizing for the first time that I'll need to share your time with Ahsoka I guess," he said with a faint laugh.

Shaak chuckled quietly at that and leaned in kissing his cheek lightly. "There'll always be time for us Ranma never fear." She leaned in to kiss his cheek again when he noticeably brightened up at that, but he turned, twisting and kissing her on the lips.

"Gross," Ahsoka muttered, "I thought we were supposed to be meditating master," she said in a louder voice.

Rolling her eyes Shaak pulled away from Ranma, completely ignoring the glare that he was giving Ahsoka to kneel in front of the younger Togrutan again. "Very well, let us begin."

By the time Shaak called a halt to the day's training, Ahsoka regretted her decision to interrupt the kissing couple, very, very much.

Shaak had proven true to her word back on Kashyyyk: she was a very hard taskmaster. Ahsoka was now exhausted, mentally and physically, wrung out entirely. She could barely push yourself to her feet after having been thrown by an unarmed combat move that Shaak had used, despite the fact that Ahsoka had been using a lightsaber! A simple Force Push at the wrong time had brought Ahsoka's blade out of position, then Shaak had grabbed her lightsaber using arm right behind the wrist and Ahsoka found herself flipping through the air to land hard on her rump. "How, how did you do that Master Ti," she muttered, getting to her feet.

"That is enough Ahsoka. You did reasonably well, and I agree, you have the raw ability that you would need to have to use Jarkai," Shaak said with a smile, moving over to pick up her robe once more.

The fact that she didn't even look to be sweating once more was also rather telling, Ahsoka thought morbidly. What have I gotten myself into here?

K'Kruhk had already gone to bed. He had spent an hour sparring with Ranma, which wore him out considerably. While he was quite fast for his bulk, that didn't actually equate to being fast in terms of those at Ranma's level. Forcing his body to fight at that speed via the Force took a tremendous toll on both of his reserves and his body in general. With a night to work with and meditate, K'Kruhk would be fine by tomorrow, but an hour was all he been able to take before calling a halt.

Ranma had then gone on to spar with HK the rest of the night. The droid used one of the lightsabers Ranma had taken from Sing years ago. In fact, it was the only one that was still in one piece given how Ranma had cannibalized their crystals and parts for his light pike.

That had been a somewhat tougher match for Ranma, given the fact he and HK had been sparring for years, and the droid never made the same mistake or created the same opening more than twice. The large assassin droid still could not keep up with Ranma's speed, or maneuverability, which told the longer the fight went on.

Needless to say, concentrating on their own training while the two of them were going at it hammer and tongs in a way that only vaguely looked like they were sparring at all rather than trying to kill one another had not been pleasant for Ahsoka. However she had gotten the impression that that was simply another test set for her by Master Ti, and she had tried to bear up under it.

"Does that mean we're done now, Master?" She asked.

"For today. We will have at least two practices of that level whenever we spend a full day aboard ship, so I would get used to it if I were you," Shaak said continuing to smile as instead of putting on her Jedi robe, she simply folded it around one arm, then moved toward Ranma. She dragged one hand lightly down from one shoulder to his opposite hip as she passed by, adding a little swish and sway to her walk as she did.

Ranma grinned after her then winked at the younger Togrutan. "I suggest taking a shower before you hit the hay short stack. But you're about to find one of the most amazing things about this ship: we have water, enough water to last four weeks of showers for a full crew."

Ahsoka twitched, staring at Ranma in shock. "Your lie…" She paused then, thinking about it. The expansion space you were talking about with Master Ti earlier. You use one of those for water?!"

"Yep. Although I'll warn you, don't get in until you can actually see some steam. The water that comes out of that is ice cold!"

"As if I care," Ahsoka retorted, stretching this way and that to loosen up some kinks.

"Your funeral," Ranma said with a shrug. "Now, one more rule aboard the ship you have to know: he went, gesturing towards where Shaak had disappeared into their shared quarters. "If this door is closed, don't come in."

"What, why?" Ahsoka asked

Ranma rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to give you the Talk kid, I'd bet the Order has it's own horrible version of it anyway. So let's just say that it has a lot to do with the fact that Shaak and I are a couple, and leave it at that okay?"

At that, Ahsoka understood, and began to blush, stammering a little as HK clanked between them, heading up to the cockpit. "Amused drawl: good little meat bag, she seems to be able to understand about boundaries."

"Then that makes her smarter than youm doesn't it?" Ranma said in reply, thwacking the droid upside the head as it passed.

"Jaundiced retort: Perhaps in that area, but not in the important areas, such as anything that has to deal with violence."

"Heh we'll see," Ranma said with a laugh.

By this point Ahsoka had made good her escape, turning and rushing towards the shower, leaping in and tossing her clothing off quickly. The bathroom's hatch automatically closed and Ranma chuckled, moving towards his own doorway. Opening it he stopped as he saw Shaak sitting on the side of their bed naked save for the necklace on her forehead and the torque for her back lek Ranma had bought her.

"I told you there would always be time for us. Now come here, and let me prove it," she said softly, raising her arms to Ranma.

Ranma moved towards her kissing her on the lips as he pulled off his own clothing, aided by Shaak's nimble fingers.

An instant later there was a shriek from outside and Shaak broke off their kiss, looking around Ranma toward the hatch. "What was that?"

"A sign that Ahsoka needs to learn to listen a bit more," Ranma said with a grin, before pushing Shaak back down onto the bed, kneeling over her as he moved his mouth down to her left lek. "It'll keep till the morning…"

OOOOOOO

Darth Sidious reached through the Force, grabbing Set Harth's body in a Force Grip so hard it felt like he was in a vice, then began to twist his bones this way and that. "You failed yet again!" Sidious roared, half through the pickup, half into Set Harth's mind.

The tiny part of Set's mind that could concentrate through the pain of his torture thought, How is he doing this!? How can he reach through the Force so far? It simply added more reason to fear the man, not that Set needed more reasons.

The torture went on for some time as Set screamed himself hoarse then abruptly cut out and Set found himself flailing back to the ground of his prison/room on Waypoint as the image of Sidious glared at him with fell power. "Your personal failure I can understand. I can even accept such a setback given the fact that the Jedi have proven they understand the need to secure their communications by this point. But the implications of it are disturbing."

"Th, *cough*, there are always going to be more pirate bands. And I didn't use any bounty hunters on this job just yet." Set said, his whole body shaking as he raised a hand to his throat, messaging it, his voice coming out cracked and broken.

He tried to use the Dark Side of the Force to calm his body and remove the pain from his mind, but it was hard since that wasn't an ability that came naturally to the Dark Side. Pain is a weakness yes, let your anger at it fuel you, but that doesn't actually get rid of the pain! "Even if word of this new ship spreads and no one is willing to fight the Chaotic Locus in space again, we will have lost nothing there."

"Fool!" Sidious roared, and Set felt as if someone was gripping his head in a vice of steel. It didn't last long this time, cutting out abruptly but still left him shuddering. "That is not what I was speaking of. No, you had to plant a spy program in one of the droids within the Temple in order to figure out both where and when to ambush them. That cost us a valuable resource! I had intended to use that weakness at least once more for a purpose far grander and more important. But now, now they will step up their defenses against that avenue of assault further in all their temples!"

"Perhaps, *cough*, I exceeded my mandate, but I had no idea of your own forward plans." Set let Sidious think on that for a moment, the fact that his compartmentalization had bitten them on the rear, before going on. "However, there is one thing about this that we have learned. The planet that your tool Tarkin was trying to conquer, it created that ship."

He fell silent, letting Sidious work that through his mind. "Yes," he's said frowning thoughtfully, the frown visible underneath his ever-present cowl. "If this ship was that formidable, we cannot allow the Jedi Order to have access to more of them. We need to find this planet then, this Zonama Sekot."

"The Locus and his lover reappeared first in the Dac system. Perhaps it is somewhere near there?"

"That sector is still a vast area to search, and thanks to you the Jedi will be on the watch for more spyware in their cleaning or astromech droids, which they were already protecting against all such," Sidious growled but he still nodded his head. "And yet and yet I believe it is worth the risk. I will pull several of our mobile espionage assets out of their current missions, and send them into the Dac sector." Those assets had been scheduled to look into a few odd reports coming out of scattered systems about junk ships that were the size of dreadnoughts showing up in places, but this seemed far more important to Sidious.

"So your plan to fight in the spaceways is null and void. Will your team be ready for a more subtle confrontation?" Sidious asked, sounding far calmer now.

"They are, and we have even begun to lay the framework. Whenever we can anticipate the Chaotic Locus's arrival on a planet, we will be ready to move in. Even my little toys are nearing maturation," Set said, grateful that he was getting off with just the one long torture session rather than several as he had feared.

This was actually because Sidious was on a tight schedule. "Very well," he said, cutting a hand across the screen. "I expect better results on this task in the future Set Harth, or I will start to question whether or not I chose the wrong tool for this job."

With that threat hanging between them Sidious cut the connection. While on distant Wayland Set tried to stand up and head for the medical room, Sidious quickly moved to the side of the darkened throne room changing into his senatorial garb before racing up the ladder to his office.

By the time his aid knocked on the door, the mask that was Chancellor Palpatine was ready for the day. His face was set in a grave look of concern and determination, his body still looking energetic despite his now entirely white hair, and the signs of age on his face growing here and there. It was evident to everyone who looked at him, that his years as Chancellor had aged the Nabooan native but that the man still had both energy and the mental faculty to continue to navigate the Republic through the ever-darkening times it was facing.

This was proven throughout that day, to everyone who watched him during the Senate's meeting. It seemed as if the Centrist faction was growing stronger thanks to the successful passing of a few new ordinances. But behind the scenes, Serenno and its entire sector were being pushed into the Secessionist camp, and the nonaggression party lost further face. Alderaan and Naboo, its primary speakers, still had some respect but their position was becoming more and more isolated.

And of course, Sidious continued to make it seem as if the Jedi Order had become simple mouthpieces for the Senate, alienating more planets that would fall into the Secessionist camp whenever he could. Later, after the war began, his propaganda machine in the Core Worlds would expand further cutting the Jedi Order's connection to the common people of the Republic. Then by the time the Order was in a position to be slaughtered, Sidious could do so and expect it to not matter overmuch to the majority of the Republic's citizenry.

But today, Sidious had a few particulars plots to push into their next phases, and not all of them dealt directly with the Jedi. As one law was placed on the backburner for now, the Chancellor's personal hover bubble rose up into the air of the Senate the various screens and speakers carrying his voice and face to all of them.

"Now I would like to turn this body's attention to the recent terrorist depredations on Thyferra by the Vratix reported by our fellow Senator, Bagara. While any such violence is deplorable, we all must admit that bacta, its creation, and distribution, are important to every planet within the Republic. As such, I would like permission from this body to send in armed peacekeepers, until such time as these acts are halted."

This strong stance drew many a nod and even some applause, but Chancellor Palpatine and the rest of the Senate were surprised when Senator Bagara motioned to take the floor and did not endorse the Chancellor's suggestion. Since the man was known to be part of the Centrist party, this was doubly surprising.

But it was not as surprising to Sidious as what the other man actually said. "Senators, Chancellor, you are correct that my planet has been plagued by growing terrorist activities. However, that has been brought to a close recently, thanks to aid unlooked for." The man, a tall, saturnine fellow with sallow skin, looked uncomfortable but pressed on. "It has ended in a way I would never have anticipated nor is it one I am comfortable with, but my government is, and the violence has indeed come to a halt."

"This is indeed news!" the Chancellor said, both his tone and words conveying both shock and happiness to everyone who saw them, despite being caught flat-footed in a way that would make most politicians angry. "Tell us more about how this has come about what occurred please."

Unseen by any Sidious grit his teeth angrily. What happened here! I thought I had created an opportunity for chaos there that would keep the flow of bacta to a minimum, making the war even harsher on everyone involved. But the Vratix have stopped their violent bid for freedom? How?! Who could have convinced the hidebound human Thyferrans to acknowledge those disgusting bugs as sentient?

Bacta was a synthetic chemical created by mixing the distilled gelatin of the alazhi plants with kavam bacteria within a colorless, viscous fluid known as ambori which could be used to heal practically anything. Alazhi and kavam could only be found on Thyferra, where the Vratix had created bacta around four thousand years ago. Since then, bacta had replaced nearly every other form of medicine in areas where it could be found at all.

The Vratix, a bug-like species, had long been considered something like a species of idiot savants, pushed to the side, marginalized and even, some whispered, enslaved by the humans who had colonized Thyferra. A few years ago they had begun terrorist attacks in order to fight for their freedom, but it was only recently that it had started to effect bacta production, which made the rest of the Republic take notice.

"Two weeks ago a Jedi master by the name of Master Fay arrived. Somehow she was able to both bring the terrorist assaults to a halt and all sides to the dialogue table. Once there, my government hammered out an agreement with the locals, which will serve both us and their interests as well as the interests of the Republic. Those who actually carried out or ordered the terrorist attacks will be dealt with, as will several of our own security individuals who ordered bloody reprisals against noncombatants".

"The main point of contention between ourselves and the Vratix has… been dealt with, removing the main reason for their violence towards us. The Thyferran government has... has acknowledged that the Vratix are truly a sentient race, and will be represented in our government from here on."

While he had looked uncomfortable with that last statement Bagara brightened up noticeably as he went on to something he felt was even more important. "Indeed, I have recently received some information that makes me think our output of bacta is going to quadruple in the next few days, thanks in large part to the ideas and concepts of the Vratix."

"I believe then that everyone here will join with me to congratulate the Jedi Order and Master Fay in particular for a magnificent job well done then. "I hope that the Senate can continue to look to them as voices of intelligence and calm in this trying time." Sidious intoned in his best Chancellor Palpatine voice. Once again he had implanted the idea further that the Jedi and the Republic were one in the same, that the Jedi were simply voices of the Republic and the Senate, and could not be trusted to be impartial on anything that would attack that base while also sharing out the glory of Fay's recent success.

Despite that cover, Sidious's thoughts were incredibly dark as he allowed the malaise of the continued debates to go on around him, interjecting here and there when he needed to keep the turmoil going but otherwise fading into the background as if he had been embarrassed by how his request had been proven unnecessary. Master Fay again, curse her! The impact she is causing is just as irritating as the Chaotic Locus now that she is becoming more active rather than remaining in the Outer Rim! She must die. Of all the Jedi that are still alive, only she could turn public opinion back entirely towards the Jedi, and even that not even by trying, just by being her goody-two-shoes self!

I must send Darth Narcis after her, wait… Sidious grabbed at his self-control, which had frayed there underneath the surface, remembering that Narcis was busy on Corellia anyway. She is attempting to sway the population there against the Republic, and from her last report having some luck on that task, though the local Jedi are making the job difficult, which I had not foreseen.

Corellia was an economic powerhouse, a single system equal to any four Core World systems, with three industrialized planets, and hundreds of various space stations, mining centers and a vast, if disorganized, fleet of trade, scout and defense ships. The system could be a bulwark of both industry and defensive ability. With their homegrown, Green, Jedi, that made them a threat.

Years ago Sidious had been astonished to discover that the Order had reached out to the Green Jedi, and the two parties were now close to if not reintegration then reconciliation. Neither he nor any of his predecessors had seen that coming, and Sidious had been forced to put it once more down at the feet of the Chaotic Locus.

Still, does that mean Corellia is more important to the Great Plan than Fay's death? I will have to meditate on that question. Or, could I perhaps have Tyranus pull in Ventress early from her mission out in the Outer Rim to take care of Fay instead of Narcis? Or… or sacrifice Vos? Hmm…

As the various more bombastic Senators started shouting at one another and another few started to shout for them to quiet down in turn, to respect the Senate and all that rot, the Chancellor came back to the here and now. Taking in everything around him he sighed, leaning back wearily and covering his eyes with his hands, the picture of a man made weary by the disrespectful attitudes of others.

He helped this along by saying into the pickup just loud enough to carry to the receivers everywhere "If this is going to turn into a shouting session once more its best that they get it all out of their system now, here on the floor of the Senate, rather than in the corridors beyond where every newscaster and their daughters will see it."

This had the effect he had wanted, scattered laughter, snorts, while more than a few of the shouters were shamed into quieting down. Several more quickly followed suit as they were glared at by their fellows.

At that point the Chancellor looked up again brightly, his personal floater moving into the center of the giant auditorium as the last few shouters returned to their own places. "Ah, are we going to all act like our age is now? Excellent. We still have an entire session to get through gentlemen. Do recall that the Senatorial floor is not a venue for you to vent your spleens, but for all of us to try to work together to if not solve problems, then come to a consensus on a wide array of solutions to said problem."

From there, the Chancellor once more took command of the talks, showing in no uncertain terms that he was in control. With the Centrists backing him he pushed forward with several more acts and laws which, on the surface, seemed geared to reducing the bureaucracy of the Republic and its inbred corruption. Of course reading underneath the surface, it also fit the Centrist package of making the Senate as a whole more powerful over the local governments, which none outside the Core Worlds and their backers were going to be happy about, and which a few of the actual senators were not pleased about either, as shown by the increasing opposition as the day went on.

However, by the end of the session, Sidious was well pleased. Another few months and the Secessionist crisis will come to a head and I will still be looking like a virtuous, justice-minded individual, who is pushing for centralized authority because of corruption and the need to cut down on middlemen and the powers of special-interest groups. No one in the Core Worlds is going to believe anything else, and not even many in the regions beyond. With the Core Worlds as strongly behind me, the Secessionist crisis will serve as my catapult to real power.

Still, he thought to himself as she smiled and nodded to several well-wishers and other senators who wanted to talk to him, going through the motions of being polite, making small talk and everything else as his mind was on other things. This was much harder than it should've been. That shot across my bow with Fay having solved the issue on Thyferra made the Jedi practically unassailable today. And made me almost look like a fool, which I was able to use admittedly, but it is not a tactic that I want to use often.

After that, Sidious had several different parties to go to, where he had to hobnob with other senators, shake hands, smile for the cameras, and generally speaking create the oil that kept the business of government running. That was exceptionally tedious, but it was always necessary.

Once more in his office, Sidious paused, thinking for a moment on whether or not he should contact Skywalker today or not. The issue with Master Fay going to Thyferra could give me a reason, but do I need to do so now? Yes, I think that will do, Sidious thought to himself after thinking through what the Dark Side of the Force was telling him. Something had changed with young Anakin, connected somewhat peripherally to the Chaotic Locus, and Sidious wished to know what it was.

With that in mind, the Chancellor moved around the seat of his office rather than to the bulky looking bookcase to one side that led to his secret throne room, sitting down at the desk and inputting commands to connect to Coruscant's Hypercom. He connected to the one on Kashyyyk then to the temple there, only to be told by the young man on duty that Anakin had left after being assigned to Master Giiett.

That caused Sidious to curse angrily in his mind. Giiett was too good a Jedi Master, too good a Warden specifically, for him to want to have him in control of the fulcrum of the Force that was Anakin. However, he could not say that aloud.

"Well, I suppose that is a sign that he is growing up isn't it? In that case, might I ask you to connect me with Master Yoda? I suppose if I cannot vent at someone unofficially, I might as well do it officially," he said smiling thinly. The young knight at the other end of the communications looked a little pained at that but did so.

"Master Yoda," the Chancellor began without preamble a second later as the ugly little creature appeared on his screen. "Good…afternoon… I believe it is there? I had a couple of questions for you, one of which is on a topic that made me look rather silly in front of the Senate this afternoon, when I learned that a Master Fay had not only been assigned to Thyferra but solved an issue that I was going to assigned to a full peacekeeping force to. Although I wish to thank the Order for seeing to that problem at all, of course, I would have rather liked some warning…"

OOOOOOO

Obi-Wan and his partner and lover Siri Tachi moved through the multi-story multi-mile complex of the Hypercom relay unseen by most, thanks to their Force Stealth. Underneath that, they both wore what looked to be the uniform of the station so that if anyone who was immune to Force tricks saw them they would look as if they had a right to be there.

The Hypercom network relay was huge. Simply monstrous, dwarfing most works of sentients by a wide margin. Each wing of the construct was the size of a thousand-story tower on Coruscant, complete with living quarters, shops, stalls, and everything else needed for the individuals who lived there. But the vast majority of the space was given over to the equally large computer and the massive series of massive radar dishes on the surface. Each of those was several dozen blocks long and pointed in a different direction, feeding into and connecting to the rest of the HPC network.

And we have to search that giant computer? Obi-Wan sighed internally. If I did not already believe that one had to be slightly sadistic or rather masochistic to become a Jedi Knight, this mission would make me a believer.

Between one corridor and the next, the two Jedi disappeared into what looked like a random janitor's closet. But it also led to a ladder down to the next floor down into a tiny, emergency control station. There, they found their teammates for this job, Master Koth, and Knight T'vern.

T'vern was dressed like the two of them, as if he was a regular worker here although with a different specialty than the two of them, his being computer software. Specifically, the open eye set over a computer screen showed that his job was to root out and delete illegal malware. It was easily one of the most thankless jobs in the galaxy, and despite his Jedi training, the young Aqualish male looked exhausted after just a day and a half on the job.

Only Master Koth was dressed as a traditional Jedi. He was not here to be part of the investigation at all, rather, he was here as a backup. If he had to be called in, then at least half of the mission might well have failed. "Any luck?" he asked, handing the young T'vern a large drinking bulb.

"Master, I am afraid this is going to be a job of weeks, perhaps even months. I never realized how vast the computer network for even one of these uplink points was," T'vern said in his grating thick voice. Their voice made most people think Aqualish were thugs or unintelligent, a label most of them in the wide universe tended to fall into. But T'vern was most decidedly an exception, despite sharing the same grating voice as his fellows when speaking Standard.

"This is the kind of job you would need a whole crew, upwards of twenty professionals to work on. Here, we only have me, and the Force cannot help me very much in this. If I could even feel it is all guiding my steps in the first place," the knight said, looking away as he said that.

"With the Veil in place, there is no shame in admitting that we lack the guidance we as Jedi are used to getting from the Force," Master Koth said delicately. "There would only be shame in giving in to despair about it."

"I am not giving in to despair," T'vern said, then hesitated as the other three looked at him. "All right, so maybe I was, but this job is too big! And even if we figured out where I was going from here, that might just be the start."

"I wish the two of us had anything to report ourselves. I think I've narrowed it down to five wings in which the information about into and outgoing calls from Kashyyyk are kept, but beyond that?" Siri Tachi shrugged. "Since this place has over twenty of them, I suppose that is progress, but we were able to get nothing more from her.

"Very well,"Master Koth said. "Obi-Wan?

"I had somewhat better luck. I have discovered fully fourteen people on the take. Three are taking payments directly from criminal elements. The other eleven are being paid by disparate companies to pass on information, or stop information from getting out fast about their competitor's companies so they can manipulate the market, that sort of thing. Three of them knew of twelve others, however, and I will start investigating them tomorrow. As our young friend said, I did not realize what a hotbed of corruption a place like this was."

"Now you understand the monumental task the Order's been working through. We've cleared two of these places nearer Coruscant, as well as the one on Coruscant of such people, and it took years," Master Koth said idly thinking things through.

"All right, we are not here to solve every little bit illegality that exists: we are here to hunt down a threat to the Jedi Order and the Republic as a whole. Ignore everything else, you see. Knight Tachi you were able to figure out which wings might contain the information we will need? Then we will move there tomorrow, and the two of you will help T'vern as much as possible in his task." He looked between them before nodding. "Knight Tachi, I understand you have taken at least a few programming classes within the Order. You will help Knight T'vern directly. Obi-Wan, you will run interference."

He pulled out a paper map of the giant complex and asked Siri to point out the wings to them. She did so, and after rifling through a few more detailed maps, Master Koth nodded. "Here," he said decisively, point to one identical storage room out of many. "Here is where we will make our next base of operations. I will remain there, near where this first wing connects to the rest of the complex, and near enough to all of you that I can be called then instantly for backup it if need be. We clear each wing in turn, then move on."

"Beyond that…" he looked over at T'vern. "Beyond that, I think that you need to take charge of this mission Knight T'vern. You're the only computer specialist here, the only one who has any idea what we're looking for and how to find it. We will follow your lead from then on."

Centering himself in the Force the Aqualish nodded, looking back at them all sternly. "Very well, here is what we need to do to make this work. We need to make the locals do some of the work for us…"

OOOOOOO

Three days after the ambush, Ranma and the others arrived in Mandalore, with them having settled into life with the newest crewmember relatively well. That wasn't to say that there hadn't been a few moments of friction of course…

Her second day on the ship, Ahsoka stretched, pushing through the cobwebs of sleep as she grunted. Rolling out of bed she almost landed on her face, but caught herself quickly. Once on her wobbly feet she moved towards the doorway. "Shower…" she groaned.

Moving through the central room, Ahsoka ignored the smell of food cooking. Food could wait until she was awake and for that, she needed a shower. A real shower, with real water. If there had been one thing she had been dreading, it had been missing out on showers with real water on it after leaving the temple. To have that worry dealt with so easily last night had been a godsend.

Not that Ahsoka actually had much ability to create such thoughts at the moment. Her thoughts were more of a drone of: shower, shower, wake up, shower.

She opened the door to the bathroom, dumping her clothing on the floor as she did, not even registering the fact of the shower was already going. Instead, she simply felt that was a godsend since it would allow her to hop in quicker.

She then opened the door and stepped into the shower, only to bump into a wet, hard mass.

Ranma turned as his door to the shower stall opened, one eyebrow cocked underneath the water in surprise. As he pushed water out of his hair "Shaak, I thought we agreed on no shower stuff while Ahsoka was around…"

Then he stopped and stared. Ahsoka stood behind him, naked as a jaybird. Ranma too was naked, after all, he had been in the shower, and Ahsoka was also staring. And then she began to scream. "AHHHHH!"

"AHHHHH!" Ranma screamed in reply reaching to one side of Ahsoka to grab a towel.

But thinking he was trying to grab her she quickly kicked out hard, catching Ranma right in the fork. "GUh!"

But as she did, Ahsoka slipped and fell, falling outside the shower and staring up at him for a moment. As Ranma grabbed at his private parts. But he wasn't able to do so before the young girl got a full frontal view of his boy bits, whereupon her shrieks began again louder this time.

Shaak was there in an instant, coming from the kitchen and ducking into the shower area before the hatch was fully open. She stopped and stared, as Ranma now hid behind one of the shower screens, and Ahsoka simply stared straight ahead, her blush making her so pale, it looked as if she was about to die of blood loss. "What exactly happened here?"

After that, the first rule of many was installed: Ahsoka was not allowed showers until she was fully awake. She thought that was a tyranny, believing that people who needed them to wake up should get the showers first, rather than be forced to wake up before the shower. But she wasn't about to win that argument. Tune was also pulled from his job up in the cockpit to place a small electronic lock on the door to the shower area, which could read occupied or not occupied.

After getting over the pain of having a nut shot delivered with such startling accuracy and power from the young Jedi Ranma, however, took the experience much more philosophically than most would have anticipated. "I just thought of another area where we might have issues once we have a full crew aboard. We only have the one shower after all. We're going to have to do something about that when we get to Mandalore if we can."

Later that day, Ahsoka found out that Ranma would be in charge of half of her training. He led her through a series of calisthenics exercises, which at first made her feel good, limbered up and everything, then began to feel painful as he kept on pushing, with Shaak and K'Kruhk both performing alongside her. After that, while Shaak trained with K'Kruhk, Rama again trained with Ahsoka in lightsaber combat.

"Okay short stack," Ranma said, setting a box down at his feet. The objective of this exercise is to get at the box. Touch it, pull it away from me, whatever. The box is your goal. All you have to do is get past me," he said as he stepped forward, pulling his light pike out of ki space for a moment and activating it.

Ahsoka gulped, thinking furiously. This can't just be about a physical exercise, that would be unfair…

Her thoughts jolted to a halt as Ranma turned off his light pike and winked at her. "Almost forgot. With that, he pulled out a rope and tied one of his arms behind his back, before going over to one of the walls and pulling off not one, but two helmets. They were both of this same kind, the type used to block out all sight and sound in order to train the users Force senses. "Shaak's been on me for using the Force senses rather than my own, so I figure this might make it more interesting for the both of us."

Scowling, Ahsoka took the specially prepared helmet for her species, noting that she would have to thank Master Ti for that. The one-size-fits-all kind of helmet was a bother to put on since it did not take her montrals into account. "Bring it on, aqua boy!"

"Four out of ten," Ranma said as he placed the hell that over his own head. With that, he moved unerringly back through the's intervening space to stand in front of the box again facing Ahsoka showing a remarkably accurate memory of the area.

"Four out of ten what?" Ahsoka asked, pausing as she was putting on her own helmet.

"Four out of ten points for that nickname. You have to get better at this whole taunting thing if you want to make it part of your style," Ranma said professionally. "Listen to HK and me at times, and work some more insults into your personal repertoire."

"Isn't that wrong? Ahsoka asked "taunting your opponents like that, it doesn't feel like something a Jedi should do. It also feels childish."

"Actually, as much as I do not like to admit it, taunting is a valid tactic and preparing for it is a good idea since it is one the Sith use almost to an individual. Set Harth used it against us, and vice versa." Shaak said.

She didn't bother looking away from where she was sparring with K'Kruhk, moving the larger Jedi around. Despite seeming at first to be on the defensive the truth was obvious in how much each of them was working. Shaak didn't look winded at all, while K'Kruhk was now breathing like a bellows, being pushed once more to keep up with the far faster, and more maneuverable Jedi.

"Analytical note: Words and verbal displays of intellect or spleen can often lead to pushing your opponent off balance, either physically or mentally. If you are trying to get information, poking and prodding at their pride or their long-term plans and how you are going to make them all look like the work of an incompetent buffoon sometimes works. If you're talking about pushing them off balance physically, denigrate their looks their appearance, their past, their personal lives, what, who and how they last mated, and of course their mothers." HK said from where he was looking through a downloaded weapons catalog.

"That still seems wrong," Ahsoka said, the helmet now in place but the visor not yet pulled down.

"It is only wrong if you actually believe it if you let hate, disdain or anger cloud your voice and your words. But if you don't do that, as I said, it is a valid tactic." Shaak said now looking over at Ahsoka even as she blocked a blow from K'Kruhk, twisting around it and bringing out a hand to smack hard underneath the other Jedi's arm, causing him to ground in pain. "As is almost visibly not paying attention in order to throw off your opponent," She added with a faint smile.

"I will remember that last part," K'Kruhk said with a wry chuckle, moving back to his starting point.

As the two of them fell into a deep breathing exercise, Ranma twitched a finger at Ahsoka. "Now enough talk short stack, let's see what you got."

What followed was rather humiliating for Ahsoka. Despite the fact that Ranma should've been deaf and dumb without being able to reach out to the Force of the Jedi could, he seemed to anticipate her moves almost perfectly. And that wasn't even with his light pike activated. Instead, he simply kicked the box up into his hand, and then danced around her, only using his light pike to block her attacks occasionally.

By the end of it, Ahsoka was sweating, exhausted and on her knees, as Ranma was standing over her with an amused look on his face she could feel even before she pulled off the helmet.

Instead of doing that she swiftly reached down to her belt and pulled out her small holdout water gun spritzing it up at the boy's face before he could speak. Then she leaped up and grabbed the box out of his hand as the redhead coughed and spluttered, pawing at her face to get the water out of her nose. "I win!"

"If I had not already declared the session over, perhaps so," Shaak said, shaking her head. "However, since I did, you have this coming to you."

"Wait, what?" Ahsoka looked at her then over to Ranma who had let his light pike fall and was now reaching for her with both hands.

Before Ahsoka could force her body to move Ranma's hands were on her side, and Ahsoka's world exploded into a fit of giggles and shrieks. Ranma kept tickling her until the girl was nearly foaming at the mouth, then let her slowly recover, before Shaak came over, helping the girl to her feet and over to the table, where during the tickling attack K'Kruhk had brought out lunch. "After this, I think we will need to deal with some self-control issues. More meditation for you Ahsoka."

Unfortunately, this did not nip this issue in the bud as Ahsoka had feared. A small-scale prank war sprang up between Ranma and Ahsoka, which had Shaak nearly pulling at her lekku in irritation at times. Ranma showed none of the maturity he had grown into over the years since they had met, sinking to a near childish level, with Ahsoka gleefully matching him.

Most of the time Shaak would simply shake her head in despair at how quickly her lover had regressed back to childhood. Most times she was hard-pressed to keep her laugh off of her face as he and Ahsoka attempted to vie for her attention. It was amusing to see Ahsoka being so straightforward and aggressive, something that would be unusual in most young padawans. And it was utterly hilarious to see Ranma so jealous of someone else 'horning in on their time together', as Ranma had put it.

On the other hand, she fully agreed with one point of that Ranma had raised that first evening. If the hatch into their room was locked then that was their time. During that time, the only individual allowed to bother them then was Tune, who was piloting the ship and would be warning them of dangers to their lives, rather than anything else.

Two days into their trip before their arrival at Mandalore, however, Ahsoka decided to test that. One morning Shaak and Ranma were slow to leave their room, which left Ahsoka to her own devices after breakfast. K'Kruhk had made them something to eat, but then he got into a debate with HK about the origins of the various lightsaber styles and did not notice Ahsoka leave the dining table.

Since as a youngling she hadn't had much in the way of privacy, Ahsoka didn't even bother to try and knock. Instead, she just opened it, and walked in, looking around. "Master Ti, it's morni…" Her words and thoughts juddered to a halt as she stared, her face turning whiter in the Togrutan version of a blush.

At the time Ahsoka had opened the door, Shaak Ti and Ranma had been engaged in a sixty-nine, with Shaak working Ranma's length between her breasts. Luckily for what remained of Ahsoka's innocence Shaak was facing away from the door, her body blocking much of Ahsoka's view of Ranma's lower body. But seeing her Master's back and rear in all it's glory, along with what Ranma was doing to it,

"GAHH!" Ranma shouted, staring past Shaak's legs to the door where Ahsoka stood. But Shaak had already felt his sudden shock, and extending her Force senses she found her padawan's presence. Within their room. Interrupting them. Pulling away from Ranma's shaft, Shaak scowled, irritation rising from deep within her despite her Jedi self-control.

"I, I'm sorry!" Ahsoka babbled, turning away rapidly and trying to imagine herself invisible, panicking so much it didn't occur to her to just run away.

Shaak rolled off of Ranma at the same time using a Force Grab to pick up a blanket and toss it onto Ranma. A second later she stood up in all her naked glory, glaring at Ahsoka and when she spoke, her voice more censorious than Ahsoka had ever heard her yet use. "Not nearly as you are going to be. And I am a staunch believer in fitting the punishment to the punished. I think in your case, more meditation, and perhaps yes, Astro-navigational studies with Tune all day tomorrow. With only one break for food. And there will be a test when we get to Mandalore. If you do not pass it, you may safely assume that your punishment will continue, along with my forbidding you from leaving the ship." Shaak intoned grimly. "Now, out!"

For the rambunctious and energetic Ahsoka, this was the next best thing to torture, even if Tune tried to liven things up by changing his voice several times every hour. The novelty of learning from an actual Astromech droid with a real voice faded in the first hour and it was a very repentant and nearly vibrating with energy Ahsoka who escaped to the lunch table that day.

"Has someone learned her lesson?" Shaak asked archly.

"Yes Master Ti," Ahsoka said with a sigh. "I'm sorry, I didn't think that is…" she blushed her skin lightening noticeably. "I didn't think you'd be doing… that… in the morning!"

"We tend to do 'that' every chance he can get," Ranma said with a grin, causing Shaak to flush a little, even though she did not move away as Ranma put an arm around her shoulders. Besides, teaching you has been cutting in on our us time to you know. Both you and K'Kruhk."

Ahsoka blanched, then sighed as did K'Kruhk but Shaak spoke up before either of them could say anything. "We do not begrudge it, not really. It's just that we know that our time together will become even less our own when we take on more people at Mandalore so we wish to make the most of it at the moment."

"That, and we're sort of going from the feast to fasting," Ranma drawled, one hand gently moving to touch Shaak's back lek, the only area where he could in public, right below the white gold torque he had gotten her. Despite the rather aggressive way she had responded this morning, Shaak was always aware of public propriety.

"It will be interesting to meet these… I don't even know what to call them padawans doesn't work because it's not one-on-one, students? But they're all supposed to be already blooded-warriors right?" Ahsoka asked. "Are they going to be near my age, your age, somewhere in between?"

"Probably somewhere in between, 16 to 18 I believe that was the age group we were looking for the last time least spoke to Bo," Ranma said. He looked thoughtfully at Ahsoka, then over at Shaak, cocking an eyebrow.

Shaak looked back for a moment then over at K'Kruhk, examining him before looking at Ahsoka. Something in that look made Ahsoka straighten up, and Shaak smiled a little. "Yes," she said aloud "that might be a very good idea."

"What is?" K'Kruhk asked looking a little leery.

"Cross-training," Ranma said bluntly. "We'll already be training these Mandos in my own style and techniques, but I bet they'd have a lot to teach the two of you about blasters, tactics and piloting in Ahsoka's case at least. In turn, I'd bet she and you could teach them some swordsmanship, and mediation too, since that'll help them to get in touch with their own ki, if they can ever get to that point. That way, we all have something to learn."

"Even the two of you?" K'Kruhk asked, one eyebrow raised in his droll query.

"Maybe," Ranma said with a laugh. "It depends on where we go from here and after restarting with the Nova Guard."

Shaak on the other hand simply nodded, looking somewhat pensive. She had attempted to learn from K'Kruhk how he was able to sense the Force to the extent he could, but it hadn't gone very far. For whatever reason, the Whiphid's connection to the Force was more subtle than her own in this area.

"Unlike the Mandalorians which I have studied in my time, I do not know much about the Nova Guard other than the fact that they are militant society, one which believes in martial powers above everything else. Is that the case?" K'Kruhk asked.

"Sort of," Ranma replied for them both. "They believe in the rule of the strong: that it is the natural way of the universe for the strong to rule over the weak. And that means that yes, martial prowess means quite a lot. Shaak and I proved that we had a lot of strength when we rescued some of them from captivity, and then later when they came to observe us."

"And the Jedi Order as a whole earned their respect by taking such a hard stance against the various slaving bands and other Hutt holdings outside their nominal space, as well as aiding them in their own efforts in that area," Shaak replied. "Master Rancisis I believe was the one who orchestrated that entire enterprise."

"So what's the difference between the two?" Ahsoka asked. She wasn't nearly as well-read about the Mandalorians as K'Kruhk was of course, but Shaak felt that was actually a good thing. She would start interacting with them without any preconceived notions in her head.

"It depends on what you're talking about. For one thing, the Nova Guard are a race, they're not a..." Ranma paused thinking before coming up with the right words. "Societal movement maybe? Certainly not a religion. The Mandalorians don't worship the Resol'nare, they simply follow it. And they welcome all races into their fold, so long as the individuals are willing to follow the Resol'nare and keep its tenants. Those have changed recently, some of them anyway thanks to Bo-Katan's work, and the Reborn. We haven't been back since Bo and her fellows took over as the official government of the planet."

"Although, I will say that we haven't been attacked by pirates at any point since we entered this sector. That is most definitely a plus," Shaak said dryly.

"Historically speaking, the Mandalorians are an expansionist society, always wishing to fight and conquer their opponents i.e. anyone who is nearby. They have had several wars with the Jedi, although they did not fight as a unified force in the New Sith Wars. They do not like Jedi because in those wars we were mostly able to keep them in check or just beat them. And After the New Sith Wars when they looked to be getting strong enough to go back to their old ways, the Republic, with the Jedi's connivance, performed a quick strike on them."

Shaak sighed sadly. "The Republic calls that the Excision, but the Mandalorians call it the Dral'han, the Annihilation. We decimated their planets and their populations when there was no need to. Worse in a way, when the Republic was done, they left the sector nearly to its own devices to a planet. This made for a power vacuum that no one could fill, and the survivors of the sector suffered greatly, even the Mandalorians. It was an act that the Order should never have been a party to, and is one of the worst signs of corruption in our known history."

K'Kruhk spoke into the silence this statement evoked. "The Nova Guard has never had the Mandalorians numbers or their expansionist outlook. I understand that that dogma is part of what has changed with the Reborn, but they are still looked at askance by the rest of the Order generally speaking. Although, some of that tension went away when the Reborn agreed to allow a Jedi Watchman to live on Mandalore."

"Do you have any idea who the High Council chose for that?" Shaak asked.

"I'm afraid not," K'Kruhk said with a shake of his head. "I imagine it would be someone the Mandalorians would have to respect, but the High Council of course never shared that information with me."

"And they didn't tell us about it either," Ranma said with a groan. "That tells me that the old frog is having a little joke at our expense."

He looked back at Ahsoka, moving back to her question that had started this conversation. "K'Kruhk's kind of right in how the two groups differ. The Nova Guard and Mandalorians both believe martial prowess matter a hell of a lot, right up there with their personal honor. But the Nova Guard don't have the numbers and have never specialized in space warfare probably because of that. They're better at squad tactics, working together as a team and using heavy weapons, but they're not as good at scouting, flying, or as skirmishers, as the Mandalorians are."

"And from that, I believe it is time to have a bit of a history lesson," Shaak said clapping her hands lightly. "K'Kruhk, Ranma, why don't you two and HK go have some fun while Ahsoka and I adjourn to the cockpit?"

"Sure," Ranma said, shaking his head slightly. "Maybe two on one might give me some exercise anyway."

"If I was not a Jedi I would be insulted by that," K'Kruhk replied mildly, getting out from the lunch table. "As it is, I will simply brush that aside as hubris and, alas, fact."

"Irritated grumble: I am not a Jedi, and I most definitely am irritated by the comment. I also have to admit that it is true. I still believe however that having a meatbag Master who can punch harder than any turbolaser, and can lift more weight than a heavy hauler is cheating."

Ahsoka was still giggling at that when Shaak gently ushered her towards the cockpit. The girl was still being punished after all, even if the lessons had changed. Luckily for Ahsoka however, when she took her test the next day, she passed, and would not be forced to remain on the ship during their stay on Mandalore.

Very early in the ship's next day cycle, the ship came out of hyperspace and into the Mandalore home system. And almost immediately Ranma and Shaak could tell that a lot of changes had been going on here. For one thing, they were almost immediately hailed by a motley collection of starfighters which came out to meet them from a converted freighter situated within the outermost gas giant. But the moment they saw Ranma and Shaak on the communication screen, they pulled back, moving into respectful formation, while also making comments about the Wild Blade.

Once more, Shaak could feel the ship's pride in how it was being viewed but pushed it to one side to concentrate on what their sensors were telling them. Not only were there far more ships in space around here, but the few space-stations in orbit over the planet had been enlarged at least twice over if Shaak was right about their previous size. Four other space-stations were also under construction, with gantries sprouting out in a seemingly haphazard way around a central construction.

The one base on the moon had also been expanded, sprawling out over the former mining entrance for miles in every direction. It had been joined by three others or smaller size built out from other mines. As they passed the moon Tune also spotted what looked like the nose of the Katana fleet dreadnought sticking out from one of the craters. It looked half buried, and again, someone would have to know what to look for to spot it, but it was there.

"Only one?" Shaak murmured to Ranma. "I have to wonder if that is a case of over-caution or simple sense."

"Sense," Ranma said firmly. "I trust Bo-Katan, but there's no point in tempting fate that much."

"This coming from you? I feel as if I must look around for lightning bolts now," Shaak teased. As Ranma maturely stuck out his tongue at her, Shaak went on more seriously. "Yet you're right. After all, the Mandalorians alone might be well able to field what, twenty-five, thirty of the dreadnoughts?"

"If all Mandalorians were cross-trained to that degree sure," Ranma said with a laugh. "I'd bet the numbers closer to fifteen unless they've brought in a lot more of the sector's planetary population. A large force, but not terrifyingly so. Still, the better idea would be to bring them in after war's been declared as honorable mercenaries, or as part of a defense league or something."

Shaak nodded agreement at that, and then they concentrated on flying the Wild Blade into the atmosphere of the planet. Mandalore itself at least didn't look all that different. There were no new large-scale terraforming projects going on, and the giant cube cities were still there, dotting the desert created by the Dral'han's orbital bombardment. But the older cities looked a little more lived in this time, and they were ordered to put down at the new/old capital of Keldabe.

As they set down Ranma looked out the viewscreen and began to laugh. "I see why the old frog didn't think he needed to warn us about who they assigned here."

Shaak looked too and smiled warmly. "Ah, no that is a surprise!"

K'Kruhk looked and gasped lightly, while Ahsoka simply looked on in confusion. "Is that…"

"That would indeed be Master Dooku," Shaak said with a smile. "That was an ingenious bit of assignment. He has experience as a diplomat, statesman, teacher, and leader and above all would be respected as a warrior. Especially since he trained with you in the past Ranma."

"And was smart enough to reverse engineer a lot of what I used in front of him, the cheeky old bastard," Ranma said, still grinning.

Ahsoka gasped. She might not know what Dooku looked like, but she had certainly heard that name before. "Master Dooku? The same one who created that Holocom which is used as an introduction to Makashi? And the one about footwork which is used as the precursor to even Shi-Cho?! I thought he was dead!"

"Ouch," Ranma said with a laugh. "I'd be careful in not mentioning that in front of him. He's a prideful old guy."

"Indeed young one, though I don't think he's as touchy about his age at this point given our last conversation," Shaak dryly.

She and Ranma exchanged a look as Ranma pushed out of his copilot's chair. The fact that enlarging your Living Force reserves had an effect on how your body aged was something they were still keeping a secret, and would do so forever if they could help it.

"Tune, you're on guard duty. Not that the ship needs it," he looked over at the ship's consoles, touching it lightly as he thought the phrase 'guard yourself'. That would be enough to tell the ship that it could retroactively take any action it wished to defend itself from anyone attempting access. "But if you notice anyone taking pictures, take note of it. HK, with us."

With Shaak and Ranma in the lead, the five remaining members of the Wild Blade crew exited and began moving towards the three people waiting for them. Or rather, Ranma thought drolly three people and a young boy who looked the part of a hanger-on to a T plus a local rugrat younger looking than Ahsoka.

Master Dooku stood in the center, looking almost unchanged despite the several years it had been since they last saw him. His hair was still steel gray, his face still somewhat gaunt with more than a few wrinkles, but his body looked spry and powerful, and his hand rested with an easy confidence bordering on arrogance on his lightsaber. He had added vambraces to his forearms in the Mandalorian style and wore a cape rather than a cloak, but that seemed to be it in terms of fashion changes over the years. He was also smiling about as wide a man like him could at the sight of Ranma and Shaak as was Bo-Katan who stood next to him.

Bo-Katan had changed far more. Her shoulders were a little wider, her hair slightly longer and done up in a braid now. She had a new scar on her cheek, and she was walking with a bacta boot on one of her feet, one of the things that could be used in places where bacta was not readily available.

Standing on Dooku's other side was Satine, but the way they stood it was pretty obvious that Dooku was not the leader of the party, rather he was a moving buttress between the Mandalore and the former duchess. Satine too had aged somewhat, her face becoming more lined with her smile lines around her face. she also did not wear the rather overdone accouterments of her former station, rather a simple dressing gown, her hair done in two long braids falling down in on either side of her chest.

"what happened to your foot, Bo?" Ranma greeted them looking down at the device on her foot and somewhat ignoring the fact it had been years since they had talked.

"I cracked a few bones in a bad landing a week or so back. On the other hand, I killed the tank I landed on, so there's that," Bo-Katan said, her smile shifting into that of a happy lioness. "You two are looking good." Then she looked down and Ahsoka, then back up that Shaak. "There something I should know about here?"

Shaak rolled her eyes good-naturedly. Whatever animosity or rivalry had existed within between the two women had dissipated in her years ago. "I mentioned Ahsoka to you the last time we were here, but I suppose I should be formal about this. This is my new padawan, Ahsoka Tano.

"And this is K'Kruhk, Jedi Knight. He's joined us because he's got a few tricks up his sleeve, that the majority of the Order doesn't have." Ranma said gesturing up to the large Whiphid before he could be asked.

"Truly?" Master Dooku said, moving forward to clasp forearms with the younger man, then looking up and exchanging a Jedi raised hand in greeting with K'Kruhk. "I would assume Force Sensing of some kind correct?"

"You are astute Master Dooku," K'Kruhk said, giving the other man a respectful bow of the head rather than a greeting as between equals. "We have already in point of fact made use of it."

"Now that is interesting," Dooku said thoughtfully. "We will no doubt have to talk more about that score more."

On Dooku's other side Satine sniffed, and moved forward to shake hands with the new Jedi and then Shaak, rather pointedly ignoring Ranma. "You are welcome on our planet of course, but I had hoped that you had brought along some missives from the Jedi Order as a whole? A study of agricultural farming and terraforming?"

K'Kruhk nodded, holding out a large datapad, one created to hold twice the information of a normal one. "I was given this by one of the other Masters right before we left actually. I take it that is for you lady?"

"It is. I am head of the department for agriculture, and I oversee the slow-burn terraforming project we have going to reduce the damage done during the Dral'hain." Satine said smiling slightly. She took the datapad from K'Kruhk, nodded to the others and without further ado walked away with the young boy who had been standing behind the other three following her. The two of them moved towards a group of fifteen people nearby, who moved towards her in turn, chattering excitedly as they began to upload from the datapad that Satine was carrying to their own.

"I have to say, I wasn't happy about keeping her around, but damn if she doesn't do a decent job of it, and she isn't nearly as prissy now," Bo said, which was probably about as close as she would ever get to saying something positive about Satine. Some things just would not go away, no matter how many years went by.

"Yeah, but who's the kid and the little rugrat?" Ranma asked looking at the boy who had followed Satine.

"Korkie Kryze, our cousin and a staunch believer in that New Mandalorian osik (crap)" Bo-Katan said with a scowl. "Satine got her hooks in him long before I even knew he existed curse it. As for this one, this is Keala Kryze." Her scowl turned into a smile as she looked down at the young girl standing next to her, who had growled angrily at Ranma's teasing, earning a nod of approval from Ahsoka. She had a Mandalorian's chest plate but little else just yet, with midnight black hair and lively looking violet eyes.

"She had been taken in by the Saxon family, but when their head, Gar, attempted to challenge me I had to remove him, and I took the girl in. Whenever I'm on the planet and I can make the time I spend it with her, make sure she's learning the Tenants right and so forth." Bo-Katan elaborated.

Ranma nodded. "And you don't want us to take her on I hope I hope? Having one young girl to look after is already a bit of an irritant."

Ahsoka promptly kicked Ranma in the shin hard, only to yelp in pain and start hopping around while Shaak rolled her eyes. "Children we are in public. Let us put our animosity towards one another to the side please."

"It had occurred to me, but no I wasn't going to ask," Bo-Katan said with a laugh. "It is the clan's duties to make certain that its members are trained to a certain point, and I take this personally." That, and I rather would like Neala to have a few more years as a regular Mando before coming in contact with your brand of crazy. Bo thought dryly.

She then gestured over her shoulder towards a waiting skimmer, looking up at K'Kruhk thoughtfully. "We might have to get a second skimmer for you Jedi Knight. I wasn't told or expected more than these two, the killer droid and the padawan. And yes Shaak, I do remember you mentioning her."

"That would be fine," K'Kruhk said with a smile. "In fact, if it is within walking distance I would prefer to walk myself."

Shaak, Ahsoka, and Ranma all murmured agreement to that, and Bo-Katan scowled irritably at her foot. "If not for this thing I would've said yes in an instant."

"We could carry you," Ranma said with a grin.

Bo-Katan gave him the finger before releasing a sigh. "No, this has to at least be somewhat formal, that means the skimmer." It didn't take the leader of the planet long to rustle up a second skimmer for K'Kruhk, and he and HK took it, giving the others more room in the first, heading off deeper into the city.

As they skip zoomed through the city towards the Mandalorians fortress, Dooku and Bo-Katan filled Shaak and Ranma in on the changes that had occurred here since they had left the planet. The Reborn had spread to nearly encompass their old sector. They brought peace at gunpoint to two out of every three planets, but also some prosperity with it. Several planets beyond those which had sent representatives to the clan conclave had rejoined peacefully, but others had not and had been forced to conquer them as they had Hrything.

Several dozen pirate bands large and small based in space had also been destroyed during that time. This had yielded up a surprising number of droids of all types along with a number of freighters and Ugly-type starfighters that could be retooled or used as scrap.

Thanks to their depredations, thirty-two bounty hunters of various skills had been hired to kill the Mandalore who was leading the Reborn during that time. All of them had been dealt with, their heads sent to the nearest bounty office with notes of 'better luck next time' written with them. Bo-Katan was quite smug about that last one with some reason since she had personally dealt with each and every one of them.

The most surprising thing though was perhaps on the home front. "We've found a few veins of beskar lately," Bo reported, her face positively gleeful at the announcement. "Our own industrial capacity has increased thousand-fold thanks to bringing in workers from across the sector, and we've got our space-based industry set to expand further."

Dooku, in turn, informed them of his own duties. He had taken part in two planetary assaults on planets which had been taken over by pirates or gangs and then had helped set up real governments. He had also argued both for and against Bo Katan's plans for specific planets, forcing the Reborn to tread lightly here and there, aiding the locals in becoming more self-sufficient so they could make a more informed choice before they joined the Mandalorians. He had also mediated several points of contention between the Reborn and the New Mandalorians, who still dominated the industrial side of things, and had indeed spread their own message of peace and nonaggression to a few other planets.

That talk took them both to the 'palace' and through several hours after they arrived there. The palace was more of a sprawling mix of a training area, living quarters (most of it with the feel of a very upscale hotel) and administrative center, with the last one taking up a large portion of the internal space. The interior décor was mostly trophies taken from fights since the Reborn had started to spread their influence, along with weapons, and a few startlingly good portraits of current clan heads. Besides these, there were pictures of sunrises here and there, and Shaak and Ahsoka paused at each one, taking in the image as they walked.

Hours later Dooku and Bo finished relaying most of the news they had for Shaak and Ranma in terms of the Reborn as a whole, and they could all turn their attention to more currently important matters. By this point, they were also sitting down in a small lounge having finished the tour of the interior portions of the mansion. Ahsoka had been sent away with HK to scout around the exterior and maybe find some place for HK to train the young padawan in marksmanship. Bo had a real drink in her hand, while the others were nursing water or fruit drinks.

"First of all, Count Dooku told me about the worries that there is a whole Sith Order out there, and I can think I can swing the Reborn into coming into any conflict between the two of you on the side of the Jedi. It will be a very hard, the Republic is not well thought of out here. You left a power vacuum out here, and everyone and their grandmother knows that all the hardship since the Dral'hain can be set at your feet," Bo-Katan said with a sigh. "And of course there are still a lot of Mandos with an ax to grind when it comes to the Jedi.

"If you will not fight in the defense of the Senate, then would you fight in the defense of the helpless?" Shaak asked.

"That's how I'm going to sell it yeah," Bo-Katan said with a nod. "They won't lift a finger to help the Reps or the Core Worlds, but if any Outer Rim planets or sectors are attacked, we can move to defend them and I won't have to what worry about challenges to my position."

"Wouldn't you normally look forward to that kind of thing?" Ranma asked with this raised eyebrow.

"I would if the people had any actual skill!" Bo-Katan said with a scowl. "Outside my Nite Owls and their male equivalent, the Sun Striders, there aren't very many who have been able to come close to my skills thanks to your training."

This was all too true. In terms of sheer physical skills, only Dooku of anyone in the whole sector could match Bo-Katan. She was simply far faster and far stronger than anyone else thanks to her training with Ranma, and her training (read: rivalry) with Shaak Ti had pushed her sword skills far higher than any other Mando.

"But I want to make certain you understand this: my people will not be manipulated again," Bo said, glaring at each Jedi in turn, even Dooku who had heard this before. "Not by the Sith, not by the Jedi. The Sith attempted to manipulate things here already, and we will be making our anger very plain if it comes to open warfare. But we are not tools of the Order. We will not be cannon fodder."

Shaak held Bo-Katan his eyes and nodded slightly. "If master Dooku has not already made that position plain to the High Council, then I will do so the next time we speak. I do not think the Jedi Order should ever make use of cannon fodder as you put it, but I will make certain they know that your people will need to be as respected as possible"

"The High Council and I are not able to communicate openly," Dooku interjected at that point. "My being out here it all is a bit of a secret, and I have not communicated with them over Hypercom even once since my arrival, and there is no other Hypercom in the sector bar the one on Gargon. As far as the galaxy as a whole knows, a young, entirely made up human male by the name of Curtis Monroe is the Sector Jedi here, a Consular who was sent out here to simply record events. With the Reborn's stranglehold on nearly everything in space we've been able to make that stick for now, but that won't last long once the Republic realizes how strong the Reborn has become."

"Yeah, but that lack of up to date info cuts both ways. Now you tell us about the Secessionist crisis," Bo-Katan ordered. "We only get the Newsbytes out here and as we all know those have a very limited connection to reality. How bad is it, and is it really likely to end up being open warfare?"

Shaak looked over at K'Kruhk as did Ranma indicating he should be the one to take that question. The large Whiphid sighed, but nodded back and began.

Dooku listened throughout not asking any questions, simply staring at K'Kruhk with an almost eerie amount of intensity in his gaze as he steepled his fingers on his chest. in contrast, Bo-Katan interrupted several times asking questions, mostly about the military capacity of this or that Secessionist or Core World system when their senators were mentioned by name, as well as whether or not one group or the other had started to try to intimidate the other. That, she knew would be the start of the slippery slope to real war.

"So we have this Secessionist movement, which is being led by a Jedi who has left the Order," Dooku mused as K'Kruhk wound down not looking away from the large Jedi. "And I am certain that someone has investigated him to see if he has fallen to the Dark Side?"

"Master Windu did it himself, the council thought that appropriate given their friendship. There was no sign of his having fallen to the Dark Side. He had become sick of the Senate and its mercurial moods and it's philandering and it's endless corruption. Since Master Bulq had taken and then lost a padawan within a month of having found him, it is somewhat understandable. He is also not the only one."

"But, he is now leading the Secessionists. And he left the Order to do it. Speaking from experience that is a very difficult decision to make: I was in a position to contemplate a similar decision years ago before running into Ranma and being shown how much more there was to learn about the Force. My interest in seeing the Order grow away from the Senate and the Republic might've been a precursor to my interest in the Sith," Dooku said, with a sort of grim self-honesty. "In Masters Bulq's case, that wedge could instead have been his mastery of Vaapad. That form brings the user far too close to the Dark Side."

"We asked the same question," K'Kruhk said. "And as I said, he's been investigated."

"Besides, I don't know if the Sith would want to be that open about it. They've been having a lot of luck moving in the shadows after all." Ranma said.

"Yes they have, but also no, they haven't," Dooku said with a sigh shaking his head as all three of his listeners looked at him quizzically. "You're not thinking like a Sith, any of you. Yes, the Veil is powerful, and growing stronger, yet it is a tool, not the goal. They have killed Jedi here and there certainly, but nowhere near enough to topple the Order. Remember that will be their goal: not power for power's sake, but power for the sake of revenge and the destruction of the Jedi Order. They can't kill us all from the shadows. The Secessionists are tools, and master Bulq is serving their ends whether willing or no."

"You're preaching to the choir here," Ranma said with a shrug. "I tried to tell the Council they needed to pull away from the Senate as a whole, it didn't take."

"And you're not the type to simply walk away and let your friends in the lurch either which will pull you in too," Dooku said with a chuckle.

"Still, you make a very relevant point. I wonder what would happen if someone told Master Bulq personally about the Sith, and how he was helping them…" Shaak mused. "Perhaps that could force him to either give up his position or at the least reopen normal contact with the Order. With that in place, we might be able to calm down both parties enough to get them to back away from the abyss."

"Perhaps, but do recall that Bulq felt strongly enough about his position that he left the Order. I cannot understate how hard a decision that is. Do not be shocked if he will not listen to you regardless of the Sith threat. Not unless you actually bring him a captured Sith at any rate," Dooku replied, his voice serious despite ending on a droll note.

"Yeah, I've noticed a certain kind of stubbornness among you Jedi, not exactly flexible most of ya," Ranma said with a wry chuckle. Then he looked at the old man, his eyes glinting. "Speaking of conflict, I trust you've been keeping up your training?"

"These old bones still have some years left," Dooku replied mildly, his eyes flashing with challenge.

"Gentleman that is for later," Shaak said, while Bo-Katan growled to herself, glaring down at the bacta filled boot she was wearing as if it had personally offended her. "Let's move on to talk about something else. I trust that you have been sifting through the Reborn for a group of young hopefuls that will be learning under myself and Ranma?"

"You too?" Bo-Katan asked startled.

Shaak smiled slightly. "I have learned quite a lot from Ranma over the years," she said in the most perfect understatement that anyone there had ever heard. "And we will be splitting up the training duties on top of my training young Ahsoka. In fact, I believe that having other youngsters around near her own age to spar against will help her immensely."

Bo-Katan winced a little. "We have been doing that ever since you two left, the problem is, well, narrowing it down. We've brought together around three-thousand hopefuls together, all of them pretty equal in terms of training and skill set. So I was thinking of making the two of you be the final arbiters."

"You realize we are only going to bring in eight or so right?" Ranma said with a wince while Shaak fell silent shaking her head.

"I understand that. But consider my position: we used your techniques as the carrot to my still of changing the tenants in the Resol'nare in order to push the Reborn ethos. The training you gave me and the others while you were here has already spread somewhat, but learning from you personally is seen as a massive honor. Everyone wants to join, even the age requirement was a hard fight to get them to understand!" Bo said with a sigh.

"I can see your point," Shaak said diplomatically. "However, we did not intend to remain on this planet for that long. We also are going to be bringing in the Nova Guard. Can you at least read the thousand down to say two-hundred or so?"

Bo-Katan scowled thoughtfully. "I don't think so. I can't be seen stacking the deck in favor of anyone I might choose. The only one who I was able to do that for is the one Nite Owl girl I told you about, Janice Kasle of clan Kasle I might have had two, but Ursa's pregnant. On the other hand, Janice is good," Bo-Katan said with a smile of pride at her young protégé/friend. "Very good and I think she'll fit right in with you lot."

Surprisingly it was K'Kruhk who came up with a suggestion at this point. "Since these are Mandalorians, a certain level of combat competence should be assumed, so let us instead focus on the mental side of things. Are they mentally flexible? Can they pilot a starfighter? Can they work with outsiders, or do they show disdain for such? What are their feelings about working alongside Jedi?"

"That's true," Shaak said with a nod. "There's no doubt in my mind we will be adding a few more Jedi at times to our crew for various missions, and even if we do not, there is K'kruhk and Ahsoka to think about, to say nothing of myself, who they will be taking lessons from in the first place."

"Sixteen to eighteen was what we said right?" Ranma asked.

Bo nodded. "Right, Janice just turned eighteen and she's older than most of the applicants by at least a year, mostly more. And they are all blooded warriors too, you have to have taken part in at least five battles before you're even considered and most of them have more battles than that under their belts. However Shaak is right, we can use those parameters to cut down their numbers without looking as if I'm trying to play favorites. But I will still only be pairing them down to something like two-hundred."

"That we can work with," Shaak replied confidently.

"We can even have them try to impress HK with their marksmanship," Ranma said with a grin. "I bet that'll cut them down by quite a large margin right there. Oh, and how best they can deal with taunts."

"But we should make the final choosing a larger affair, correct?" Shaak said looking at Bo-Katan thoughtfully

Bo-Katan nodded furiously, with even Dooku nodding his head judiciously to one side.

"How about this then," Ranma said, his grin turning into a somewhat nasty looking smirk. "A combat version of King of the Mountain."

From there he went on to describe his idea, and the others all listened intently, adding their own points to it, but by lunchtime, they had hammered out an idea for two versions of a final test for the applicants. Before that, Bo-Katan and her people would go through the portfolios of all the different candidates, while HK, Ranma, and K'Kruhk would start searching for a proper place for the final test, and prepare for the other tests as well. For her part, Shaak would meet any of them that were already within the city to get a feel for their personalities in that manner, while also continuing Ahsoka's education.

As she spoke those words, there came a thumping of feet, and they all turned to look at the door which burst open, allowing HK and Ahsoka along with a young woman, who looked vaguely familiar to enter. The young woman was smirking so hard her amusement was almost a visible aura around her while Ahsoka looked a little huffy and HK was looking murderous as usual.

Ranma grounded looked at his droid with a groan. "What did you o this time, HK?"

"Aggrieved tone: It's not my fault master," HK said, pointing down that Ahsoka. "This little one attracts trouble just like you do, only is far less competent in dealing with it!

At the same moment, Ahsoka pointed up at him. "it's not my fault master, it's his. He mouthed off and threatened and even challenged people and of course around here that didn't go so well."

"Oh, this should be fascinating," Shaak murmured while Ranma laughed and K'Kruhk sighed. "Why don't you start from the beginning padawan?" She asked, or rather, ordered.

"Um, well, it started like this…"

Flashback:

Earlier, HK had led Ahsoka through the large collection of barely connected buildings that were ostensibly called a palace. "Amused snort: this is not a palace, this is simply a mix of buildings. You should have seen the monstrosity that the previous ruler of this planet or rather the ostensible ruler of this planet, thought was sufficient."

Ahsoka shrugged. "This is precisely the fourth planet I've ever been on so it's not like I have a lot of palaces to compare it to HK."

After this past few days, Ahsoka's wariness of HK had disappeared. She now considered the droid a very bizarre, and above all excruciatingly deadly combatant coupled with a standup comedian. It was a very odd combination to be sure, but one she was slowly getting used to.

"Amused drawl: Don't worry about that, as long as you are with the master and mistress, you will see both palaces and slums galore. Cheery tone: And battlefields. Lots and lots of battlefields."

Rolling her eyes at the bloodthirsty droid's obvious response, Ahsoka pushed open the doors to the back of the mansion which led directly into what looked like a small military camp or perhaps a depot sprawling out from the edge of the mansion, which itself was on the edge of the city. As they exited they saw dozens of different starfighters arrayed on one side including three that she'd never seen before in her studies at the Temple. It looked sort of like a mushroom to her that someone had taken a bite out of before attaching a pyramid to the end of the stem. It looked as if there were four guns situated around the edge of the mushroom head, while it had an overlarge shield generator for its size.

They looked kind of interesting, but they weren't what Ahsoka was looking for right now. Looking around, There were about fifteen different Mandos gathered in one area, observing some kind of sparring match between two more. Ten more were in a distant corner around what she was really here for, the blaster range. HK moved in that direction, ignoring the fact that numerous other Mandos, busy around the various starfighters or one or two other larger ships beyond them paused to stop and stare. Even those around the competition noticed the two of them as they passed by.

"Analytical query: Tell me Junior meatbag, have you ever fired a gun?"

"No," Ahsoka said with a shake of her head. "In fact, I bet if you went back to Kashyyyk and asked any of my teachers about it, they would be utterly appalled at the very idea of a Jedi using a weapon other than the lightsaber. And even then not often for some of them," she muttered grumbling to herself.

"Appalled contempt: While young meatbag education is sorely lacking in the more important things, many Force users take it to a new level with how narrow-minded they are. Indeed, going by the shredded chum that is my long-term memory I would say that even the Sith did not practice with weapons of other types. Analytical query part two: Have you ever done weight training exercises?"

"Of course, it's part of our daily regimen," Ahsoka said with a huff, hopping over an energy line that HK had just stepped over, the energy line being massive and about two feet in width, before splitting up into multiple runs heading towards the starfighters. "Even before I became Master Ti's padawan I weight lifted every third day, and did arm and chest exercises for at least an hour." Saying that she was Master Ti's padawan aloud like that gave Ahsoka a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but she resolutely pushed it to the side, knowing Jedi should not revel in such things. It still didn't keep a smile from her face though.

"Professional response: Good, then you should have no trouble hefting the weapon at the very least. We will start with rifles then, they are easier to aim with for the most part rather than one-handed blasters, and once you learn to aim with the one, it will somewhat carry over to the other. We should be able to tell if you have any efficiency with the weapon quickly."

"Even though I've never shot one before?"

"Dull response: Even then. Trust me, short meatbag, I have taught more people how to shoot and kill than you have had hot meals."

They reached the group that was standing around one edge of the weapons range, and HK made an electronic rattling noise, the equivalent of a droid clearing its throat. Although Ahsoka mused, I have to wonder if all droids sound as threatening when they do it.

"Contemptuous drawl: Excuse me meatbags, I have been sent on a mission for my master. This young meatbag student of the mistress needs to learn how to fire blasters properly, can you take your fumble handed attempts to learn the same elsewhere for now or will I have to remove you by force?" HK asked.

The Mandos all turned to them, and Ahsoka realized with a start that most of them were on the young side, a few looked only a few years older than her, and none of them looked older than their mid-twenties. Most of them were human, three were Duros and two were other sentients she hadn't seen before, and one was a young, white-skinned Twi'lek girl.

To one side of them, stood another girl, this one wearing a helmet so Ahsoka could not determine her age, although her stance seemed to indicate some authority, and her armor was slightly different. And while the others wore various different color combinations which Ahsoka took to mean different clans, she wore matte gray and black, with the image of an owl on one pectoral, the rest of her armor being done in a solid dark blue of someone who had forsaken clan to devote herself entirely to the Reborn cause. She also wore the full backpack and weapons of a Mandalorian heading out to a fight. The others only wore their blasters and long knives that looked more like short swords at their hip and their chest plates. She also seemed to recognize HK, for she bowed her head towards the droid, and stepped to one side, reaching up to unlatch her helmet.

While she was doing so, however, HK attitude had its usual effect on the others. Many of the youngsters scowled, gesticulating angrily and one of them marched up to HK before staring down at Ahsoka with contempt clear in his eyes. "This is for Mandos only off-world droid! You don't talk to us like that here!"

Groaning Ahsoka covered her eyes knowing what was going to happen at the moment.

As she did so, HK performed what he felt was the appropriate response to that bit of stupidity. He reached forward with his claw hand, grabbing the talker's armored chest plate and hurled him to the side, to land in the dust.

This caused all of the others to raise their weapons toward him, but HK simply stomped over to the downed individual and rested one claw foot lightly on his chest. "Arrogant tone: Is it better if I talk to you that way over here then? Young Meatbags always like to bluff and bluster, but I have to wonder if you actually have anything worth blustering about."

"Enough," said a female voice, causing both HK and the others to turn towards the girl with the owl on her pectoral. She had finished pulling off her helmet by this point, and set it on her backpack, before turning her attention back to HK, Ahsoka, and the rest of them.

She had short cropped yellow hair, intense-looking green eyes, and a scar running just below her eye and up one side of her nose. Despite the age of that face, it was one that you needed to take seriously. "In case you deadheads don't know, that is HK, the assassin droid. His master and mistress are Ranma and Master Ti Ti of the Jedi. The people you're all here to impress so that you can earn the right to become their students. I think that you did not get onto the right foot there Gareth."

"Analytical yet contemptuous drawl: Indeed, my master always prefers to have intelligent students. Meatbags who did not know when to keep their mouth shut, or at least do some research into who they are supposed to be impressing would not meet with his favor." HK intoned removing his foot from the one called Gareth.

However, among the others a muttered grumbling had gone up and one of them pointed angrily at Ahsoka. "Now wait just a damn minute! The droid said that that one is a student to them already?"

"That's right," Ahsoka said, throwing her head and shoulders staring up at the older boy without any hint of being intimidation. "I am padawan to Master Ti. You have a problem with that?"

"Yes, we've got a problem with that! You are what, twelve at the most? What've you done to earn a position as impressive as that?!" shouted one of the others.

Ahsoka scowled at that. "I'm one of the better lightsaber duelists in my class, I'm decent at piloting already, and am strong in the force," she said crossing her arms and now glaring at the one who had shouted that question. Even as more of them crowded around her she didn't show an ounce of fear, or trepidation or really understanding that she was very outnumbered. Such things were beneath a Jedi's notice, she felt. Master Ti and I have formed the padawan bond, and that's all there is to it."

"Not enough. Even if Shaak is a Jedi, she travels with the Ranma! That means you'll be learning from him too. Even if you are a Jedi you can't just be handed something like that! Not when all of us have to work for it." Another man said, though he sounded a little less belligerent and a lot more hurt.

Ahsoka scowled, looking around at them. "Well, how about this then: If you're going to be joining us, then we'll have to all get along anyway. So how about we all prove to one another right here and now, that we have the skills to have earned that position okay?"

"That's a good idea," said the white-skinned Twi'lek girl. She smiled at Ahsoka, actually winking at her for a second before turning back to the rest of them. "We were all here to see which of us was the better marksman, let's extend that. Better marksman, better swordsman, combat and general, and pilot too if we can get permission…" she said, trailing off at the end there.

"Fine by me," Ahsoka said, grinning widely. "Just give HK a few minutes to actually teach me how to fire a blaster first." This won a round of guffaws and laughter, but Ahsoka resolutely ignored them, moving over to look at the rifle rack by the owl woman thoughtfully.

"Offhanded note: I do not think that most Jedi padawans should be this belligerent, but then again, I think you will fit right in with the master and his lover," HK said, moving with her.

"All too true," the woman said with a bright grin, that shaved off decades from her face, making her look as young as maybe eighteen, HK supposed. Estimating meatbag ages is always difficult.

"Why do you think I want to join you lot?" the woman went on. "The training is nice and all, but I think I learned one thing from watching Ranma from the sidelines when he was here."

"Curious query: And was that?"

"Whatever is happening in the universe at large, the fire is going to be hotter wherever Ranma is. He attracts it like moths to a flame and that is the proper place for any Mando today." The woman replied, before blinking. "Right, should probably introduce myself. My name is Janice of clan Kazle, nice to meet you Ahsoka, HK."

"Nice to meet you too I suppose," Ahsoka said with a shrug. "Now, which of these rifles would you recommend HK?"

"Irritated drawl: Mistress, I cannot physically roll my eyes at you, but I would be doing so now if I could. They're almost all quite obviously identical." He reached forward with his normal hand, picking one rifle at random, inspecting it minutely for a moment before shoving it down to Ahsoka, who took it quickly, and to HK's amusement actually held it properly. "Analytical tone: Now come, your rivals apparently have given us fifteen minutes to make certain that you do not make a fool of me, and I intend to see to it that you do not."

"A fool of you? If I kriff up, won't that just be on my shoulders?"

"Affronted growl: Obviously not, considering that I will be the one instructing you. If that happens young meatbag, I will be most harsh on you the next time we spar."

Fifteen minutes later, HK was somewhat impressed. Ahsoka could use the Force to both steady herself and feel where she was aiming for at any given time. It helped her immensely, and he felt it would be something of a surprise to the locals. An interesting ability, which makes me wonder why other Force users do not regularly consider long-range weaponry as part of their normal arsenals.

"All right," Ahsoka said, moving to the firing range pushing between some of the others who made room for her reluctantly. " Let's do this!"

Janice moved to the side, looking at them all thoughtfully. "All right, this will be a challenge of three shots by three. First at the hundred yards, then two hundred, then at three hundred. You will have three shots at each station. If Ahsoka is able to shoot better than half of you, I would say she's proven that she has the shooting ability at least to have earned her place. Then we'll go on to swordsmanship. I trust, Ahsoka, that your lightsaber can be said to a training setting?"

"Of course," Ahsoka said with another huff.

"Very well, when I lower my arm begin." Janice intoned.

What followed was somewhat humbling and humiliating for many of the hopefuls. Ahsoka didn't shoot better than half of them; she shot better than four/fifths of them, hitting the center of every target at the first two distances and twice with the 300. The first wasn't all that impressive obviously, the second was somewhat surprising. The third was the eye-opener, and the Twi'lek girl looked at her in surprise. "You said you didn't know how to shoot a blaster," she said accusingly her eyes narrowing as she looked at Ahsoka.

"Nope I didn't," Ahsoka said with a grin. "The Force can help out in a lot of ways."

The girl scowled at that and Ahsoka was somewhat saddened to see her turn away.

"Next!" Janice said clapping her hands once to get the youngster's attention. "I think this will be Ahsoka against the group of you in one-on-one matches with a lightsaber against our swords. Shall we move over to the dueling area?"

"Now wait a minute, she can use the Force!" said one of them, after the Twi'lek girl had surreptitiously whispered in his ear. "Whatever her age, that makes her way more dangerous than even someone our age. Shouldn't we have a way to even up the score?"

Janice smiled grimly. "And how exactly would you like to do that?"

"How about four or five of us at once?" said another boy.

"Irritated mutter: This posturing is wasting time. How about we up the stakes from that further? Young Ahsoka and I against all of you at once," HK said stepping forward. "Bored drawl: I have no intention of simply standing and watching you meatbags have all the fun."

End Flashback

"It obviously went downhill from there, especially after they won that fight," Janice explained with a smile on her face as she sat down next to Bo-Katan. "On the other hand, at least none of the idiots declared blood feud on HK or Ahsoka. So I'd count it as a win."

"Ahsoka…" Shaak said coolly, while Ranma was chuckling in the background "I believe that we will need to be talking more about self-control. Control of our emotions in particular, and pride. A Jedi does not look for confrontation. If confrontation comes, they must be able to deal with it, but they do not start trouble like this. Am I understood?"

Ranma opened his mouth but before he could speak Shaak squeezed his hand lightly, giving him a light glare out of the corner of her eye. Ranma understood, and he subsided. This was most definitely a Jedi master, and he would leave it in her hands. He did not like the light whipping noise he heard Bo make though, and vowed to get both women back for this.

Ahsoka sighed and nodded. "I'm sorry, Master Ti. I suppose I should've been more diplomatic."

"You probably should have, but then again, I think we just found another area to test the hopefuls on," Bo-Katan said with a smirk. When the others turned to her, she elaborated. "Whether or not they're willing to work with Ahsoka, on top of the Jedi as a whole," she stated, looking over at Janice.

Janice shrugged. "I got the impression it was definitely the fact that they thought Ahsoka had been handed the honor because she was a Jedi and her age which got under their noses. So yeah, that would work."

"How many of this group would you wash out?" Ranma asked, looking at her thoughtfully and approving of what he saw there, as well as what little he remembered of the few times that he could recall having seen her when they were on this planet years ago. "Since you're going to be squadleader for the Mandalorian portion of this team, anyway."

Cocking her head to one side, Janice slowly shook her head. "None of them were able to keep their cool, that's not something we want around young Ahsoka or Ranma from what I remember," she said, winking at Ranma who smirked back at her. "If they can't keep their cool when faced with Ranma and HK, then that is in itself a deal-breaker. If they can return fire sure, but being goaded like this, that was. The only one of them I would say would that seems to kept her cool was young Trac'a Del Zoon, the young Twi'lek girl."

Ahsoka, however, shook her head, and Shaak looked over at her thoughtfully. "Ahsoka?"

"She was keeping her cool," Ahsoka said with some sadness on her face, "but she was also egging on the others. I could sense it, whenever she left one or two of them, their emotions became heightened, and their irritation towards me too. She was very subtle about it though."

"I didn't catch that," Janice said with a shrug. "But, if you saw it, then that's definitely not the kind of personality you want on a squad that's going to be on extended solo duty."

"All right, I think we've got a good couple of ideas on how to cut down this group of hopefuls to a manageable level, I say it's time to get organized," Ranma said, standing up. "HK and I will get on that, K'Kruhk, you can join us if you want to."

"While you and I have some lessons about keeping our cool, and not going looking for conflict," Shaak reiterated. "Do you have a room we can borrow, or should we return to our ship?"

Bo-Katan chuckled and directed the two Togrutans to a room on the second floor walking them and the others to the door, before moving back to join Janice where she still sat. The two of them looked at one another then burst out in laughter. "Oh God! Shaak is so screwed! There's three of them now. Three troublemakers!"

"It's even funnier because she asked for it!" Janice replied with a howl.

After a few minutes the two women's laughter calmed down, and Bo sighed, looking at her young protégé. "And you're going to be up mixed up with it too. Are you okay with that?"

Janice smiled and shrugged. "I asked for it didn't I? It should be fun whatever happens."

"True," Bo-Katan said with a put-upon sigh.

She looked thoughtfully down at the helm that she routinely wore as a symbol of her office, but Janice quickly shook her head. "Don't even think about it, no one else could keep the Reborn together like you can. If you leave the clan heads will battle for the position, and we'd have another civil war on our hands, but this time with dozens of sides and all of them armed.."

Bo-Katan let loose a huff but nodded staring mournfully down at her boot. "At least they'll be here long enough for me to get some fun in once this heals."

OOOOOOO

Master Fay looked at Master Tiin thoughtfully. "You are not an individual I would expect to be on a simple courier mission."

"Nothing simple about it, especially not this one," Master Tiin replied, exchanging a Jedi greeting of a raised hand with the ageless Master. He nodded to Kit, smiling very slightly at the Guardian who had become a bodyguard for this most singular of Jedi Masters. "I understand that you did your usual excellent work here on defusing matters?"

"Indeed," Master Fay said with a sigh. "It was somewhat difficult, considering that the sentience of one of the parties involved was in question by the other, but we were eventually able to win through. I would recommend that a Jedi be sent here to keep an eye on things, however. In particular, that such racism does not rear its head again.

"Another Jedi is already on the way," Master Tiin there with a nod. "I however am to take this package of items, and take it… elsewhere. Are you certain that it will prove fruitful?" He asked, looking down at the large box to one side, which contained numerous seeds of the plants that together would create bacta, and very detailed orders on how to look after it.

"I am positive," Master Fay said with a smile. "It might take a few months to grow, but it will, and eventually that source will grow to rival Thyferra in output which will be good for both the Order, who will be the distributors and that planet. It might even be good for Thyferra. Isn't competition always good for an economy?"

"I suppose it would depend on who you ask," Mister Tiin said with a shrug. He was not an economist after all. "Where will you go from here."

Master Fay frowned thoughtfully, staring out into the distance. "Elsewhere," she said thoughtfully. "I know the proper direction, but I have not been to the planet before and am only getting an impression of the environment. It is a place of endless rainfall, ever-shifting mud yards deep, and metals beneath. I will have to research it carefully, and let the Force guide my eyes until I have discovered it."

OOOOOOO

Over the next two months Ranma, Bo, Ahsoka, and HK, helped to winnow down from the three thousand hopefuls until they had a batch of four-hundred. They tested them on starfighter skills which got more than half of them, the ability to work with others the ability to work with Jedi in particular and that too cut down the number significantly. Hand-to-hand skill and marksmanship barely cut down any, but since Ranma and HK took to taunting them and trying to get under their skin, even there they were able to cut down on the numbers simply by getting rid it of people who took such things far too seriously, or could not roll with the punches that the two of them delivered.

From there, the tests became even tougher. They became group battles, tactical assessments of all sorts. The aspirants would be told to attack one position or defend another, to take some computer, or guard this caravan, or this ship or port, constantly pushing all of them, day and night, sometimes even forcing them to stay up forty-eight hours before fighting. Eventually, this wore the group down to a band of around sixty-five, with four more that should have been involved, but had been injured in some of the matches. Most of the time those injuries would've resulted in them losing their place, but considering that they had won those matches, they stayed for consideration.

At that point, those who had been washed out were applauded and returned to their clans with their heads held high. They had come farther than most of the rest and had proven themselves in a school that made even most of the Mando's normal training seem soft. Bo-Katan and the clan leaders had marked them all out as warriors to watch in the future, even if they hadn't gone the distance.

Shaak and Ranma met with each of sixty-five in turn, trying to get them to know them better as individuals. From this, they cut that group down to thrity who they thought they could work with for the long haul. This included one of the injured, a young woman who had been adopted into clan Kildreen of Arkanian descent. After listening to Shaak and K'Kruhk about that race, which bred incredibly brilliant, and often morally deficient, scientists, the two of them talked to her for a long time, getting an impression of the girl and how she had come to be a Mandalorian. Eventually, Both Ranma and Shaak both agreed that she should join them, becoming the second Mando to be added to their crew formally after the young Nite Owl, Janice.

Now they only needed four or at most six more. To winnow it down further, the group was broken up into squads of four with the fifth of that group's number being made up by Ahsoka. These groups were brought together into the mountains at an area that Ranma, Bo-Katan, K'Kruhk and Master Dooku had created throughout the days preceding this event. It was split into two different areas. One was an old mine, which had since the ores had run out become a mushroom farm of all things. It was a veritable maze inside and made for a very difficult environment to move through.

The other was a very rocky and broken up area around a central pyramid-like building in the center, seemingly made of crudely cut stone. On top of it was a large box. Shaak and Ranma stood there to either side of the box, watching as the hopefuls approached. Most of those hopefuls halted however as they saw Shaak. Other than the conversations, Shaak had not been involved at all in the choosing, being busy with Ahsoka. But a single spar with Bo-Katan she'd had a week ago quickly become the stuff of legend, right up there with Master Dooku and Ranma's own spar the day after they had arrived.

"Greetings," Shaak said, looking around and down at them all. "You all have proven yourselves to be among the best of your people, fully able and willing to make the best in turn of Ranma and my teachings." She emphasized the word 'my' very slightly there, to make certain that they understood that they would be learning from her as well. Her lessons though would not just be about martial prowess, she would try to instill in these Mandos a sense of the greater universe, and perhaps a bit of Jedi meditation as well as making certain that they understood that their primary goal with these teachings should not be just to pass them on, but to use them to defend others. Ranma would do the same but she hoped by giving that added emphasis would make it sink in.

"in this exercise your objective is simple," Shaak went on, ignoring looks that the Mandos were giving one another as they started to get over their surprise at her being part of this exercise. "But like so many simple things, it is actually quite hard to perform." She smiled a wintry little smile, and her lightsaber suddenly appeared in her hand, clicking on, the hum of the blade audible even to the Mandos below. "Between myself and Ranma, there is a box. You must take it from us."

"Basically just touch it in any way," Ranma said elaborating slightly. "One of you has to get past us, doesn't matter who, and whoever aids him will be included in the squadron that is coming with us."

One of the Mandos below, a young man from his voice asked thoughtfully. "So let me get this straight, we just need to get the box? That's it? There are no rules of engagement or anything of that nature?"

"No," Shaak said simply. "Just get the box."

Without another word, many of the Mandos lit up their jetpacks, zooming into the air and beginning to barrage the top of the short pyramid with fire. Even Ahsoka raced up, eagerly engaging her master in a lightsaber duel. The man who had been speaking, however, backed away slightly, looking at everything occurring with his arms crossed over his chest frowning thoughtfully under his helmet.

Shaak and Ranma moved together as one, light pike and lightsaber flaring as they bounced back or simply deflected every blaster bolt coming their way. "You're going to have to do better than that," Ranma caroled. "There aren't nearly enough of you to get through our defense with simple blaster fire."

At those words, several of the people Mandos who had leaped into the air, stopped, flaring forward on their jets and closing the range still firing, while others began to fire rockets. These were intercepted by light Force Pushes by Shaak, exploding in midair or redirecting to impact without exploding against the individual that fired them before they could go the distance they needed to actually activate the explosives contained within.

More of the Mandos raced up the few steps to engage the two Masters standing there. But they quickly found out something that any lightsaber duelist could've told them: that height mattered quite a lot, and their short swords were no match for the range of Shaak's lightsaber or Ranma's light pike. But the two of them were careful not to actually eliminate any of the people around them, simply defending, looking for openings Shaak was even instructing Ahsoka in her normal, gentle tone, not showing any sign of stress or tension.

Noticing this, the man who had stepped back to observe, scowling inside of his helmet as he took cover behind a large chunk of rock. His name was Kad Solus and if he had learned one thing about these tests so far it was there was always a trick of some kind; you just had to be smart enough to see it. Moving forward, he gestured to a few others, not his original team, unfortunately, who were just taking potshots up at the two defenders. The teams had quickly faded away, though one or two were still working together, but far too aggressively.

"This is a trick," he said to them all in low tones, his voice not going far before the sound of combat drowned it out, including their own weapons as they worked to 'provide cover fire' for their fellows. "That defensive position is one that we simply can't overcome. If they were taking this seriously, we'd already be down fourteen effectives."

"Agreed. Which means we need to get around it somehow." Another voice said, another young man. He was slightly thinner in the shoulders than Kad, but not by much.

"Blow it up from the bottom mess with their footwork, and have someone else on high in a position where they can duck dive down to the box." Said a third voice, a woman's this time. She had moved forward to engage with the others, only to come back and move to join the few that hadn't rushed in. She now skidded into cover with them, gesturing with a hand towards the bottom of the pyramid. "That pyramid's not stone its wood covered with something to make it feel like rock. But it's kind of obvious if you are looking for it."

"Agreed." Said the second man, who had quickly followed Kad's lead and pulled off his rocket launcher, before looking around at the others "Thomas, you're the better flyer here."

"In a starfighter," the man called Thomas objected. "Still, I'll take what I can get. I'll back out of sight a little way, then aim high to fall without power from directly above. You just radio me when you're ready to blow it so I know when to start my descent."

The three remaining hopefuls moved around the tower by fire and maneuver placing the charges at each corner, while their fellows continued to try to simply force their way through. The only one of them who noticed what they were doing was Ahsoka, who backed away, limping down to join them as if she had pulled something before then sprinting away to skid into cover. She winked at the group as she did, and they smirked back at the younger girl, though of she couldn't see that thanks to their helmets.

None of the others noticed what Kad and his two helpers were doing, nor did they notice someone arcing down towards them after having attained a tremendous height, now coming down unpowered towards the top of the pyramid.

Shaak did, and she smiled. "It looks as if someone has figured out a way through," she said in a quiet voice, barely able to be heard over the sound of combat all around them.

"Which was it, Kad or Natasha?" the two of them had a private bet going on that point.

"Kad I think, though Natasha is there too." Just then the explosions went off, and both Ranma and Shaak feigned losing their footing slightly, as someone from on high zoomed down towards them. Ranma turned, far slower than he could've moved, his right leg flashing out, but the boy was able to grab the box, before the blow landed, and Ranma deliberately missed, letting him roll way through the chaos as the entire pyramid came crashing down with the two of them and the rest of the Mandos who had been on their feet coming down with it.

Both Ranma and Shaak easily leaped clear, while the mock attackers who had been on foot activated their jetpacks to move away. By the time all of them had landed, Thomas had met up with Kad and the other two who had helped him. The four of them were now standing in front of the box, their own weapons up and ready to fight.

"I believe we have our winners. And there's four of them too," Ranma said with a laugh. "I suppose that means we won't have to use our second stage."

There was a lot of grumbling about that, but Ranma shrugged his shoulders and said. "This was never really a test of your combat ability, this was a test to see if you could think tactically, and outside the box more importantly. We're never going to be a group that will be told to hold an entire city or something equally huge. We will be strike teams, point assault and point defense, and in that kind of environment, the ability to think for yourselves and to improvise matters much more than whether or not you know how to use a blaster or a sword."

"Exactly," Shaak said with a smile. "Young Kad and his companions were able to discern something of the environment that none of you noticed. They correctly ascertained that our defensive position was too strong to bull your way through."

"If something is too strong, think your way around it," Ranma said.

"Which," Shaak said with a smile "might seem odd to hear from Ranma, but it is also true."

A lot of the Mandalorians around them protested, demanding a retrial and Ranma shrugged his shoulders and said simply "If you want one, we have another challenge for you. But don't expect us to be playing with kid gloves this time around."

Of course, the Mandos still took him up on it. But in an enclosed space, Ranma, even without using his light pike was simply unassailable. Yes, the inside of the cave limited his own ability to move around, but not his strength or durability. Eventually, the remaining former hopefuls had been smashed into so many unconscious battered masses.

Finally, it was done and the four Mandos, Kad, Natasha, Thomas, another young woman named Jethro, and the Arkanian girl joined the older Janice.

The next day there was a small ceremony that Shaak and Ranma were perforce forced to observe, but thankfully not take part in. This ceremony was for Mandalorians only.

The six youths marched into the same amphitheater that had been used during the clan conclave in a row. Waiting for them Was Bo-Katan resplendent in her formal Mand'alor armor, the Mand'alor helm on her head, and the Darksaber at her hip. To either side of her were droids with paint guns at the ready. The new students marched in and formed a line in front of her, saluting with their fists to their chests as they bowed as one before reaching up to remove their helmets.

When she spoke her voice was formal and she spoke in the Mandalorian tongue. "The six of you have proven yourselves, the best, the brightest, the sneakiest and most skilled of your generation. Perhaps in some ways the luckiest, but any soldier would tell you that luck too is something to be proud of."

She paused to let them smile at that line before going on. "You go forth not as our best, however. Instead, you go forth to become even better. You leave here to learn, to be the first of many, to be the cadre for the future, the trainers to be." She emphasized the word trainers, using an ancient word for it which gave the word a special meaning: that they would be trusted to teach children, which was always a valued position to those who followed the Resol'nare.

"In you, the best of the now is represented. In you, the future of our people will be created. Do you believe yourselves worthy? Only time will tell. But know that when you leave, the thoughts of the Mandalore will go with you, the tenants of the Resol'nare will live within you, and the future will be shaped by your actions. Because of this, you will wear the colors of the Reborn, of hope. Keep those colors on you at all times, as a visible reminder of what you have done, and what you have yet to accomplish."

With that Bo-Katan gestured to the two droids on either side of her, and they whirred to life, moving forward for the first helmet, that of Janice. An instant later, they began to paint over her helmet ignoring the visor. Silver on one side, blue on the other, the same colors Shaak had used during the debates.

"Remember this well, and comport yourselves always as the best of us," Bo said, her voice low as she moved to the other end of the line, with a small covered tarp following her. At each young Mando, she stopped, reaching under the tarp for an object. Twice it was a bracer made of beskar, the others were weapons of different types, crafted especially for their users. "Remember Ijaa (honor)."

"We will remember honor." The line of young people intoned as they were given their weapons and their helmets. "We will remember we are Mando'ad (children of Mandalore)."

Ranma looked on at this with a rather jaundiced eye and leaned over to Shaak, who was sitting with Ahsoka placed between them, and K'kruhk on her other side, with Dooku on Ranma's as they all watched this ceremony. "So, how long do you think those paint jobs will last? One mission, two? A week, less?"

Shaak rolled her eyes and smacked him lightly on the shoulder while the other two Jedi smirked and Ahsoka bit her lip to keep from giggling.

OOOOOOO

To the immense joy of both Shaak and Ranma, picking up a squad of Nova Guard was incredibly easy. After about forty minutes of back and forth as the Wild Blade swam through space towards their planet, unimaginatively named Alion Prime, the Alion Nova Guard had prepared the squad of six and their accouterments. They asked for Ranma to perform a demonstration match against one of their best staff users, the staff being their traditional hand-to-hand weapon, and to show his physical strength on a prepared weight machine. Both were done in front of a recording device, which would then let it be shared with the rest of their population, which was scattered between three different planets.

The squad of six was an ad-hoc team created by taking the best young sergeant (that was what the title translated to anyway) with five of the best young trainees taken from the aspirant boot camps, the Nova Guard's equivalent of training centers. And unlike the Mandos, they had simply kept on going, cutting down until the fifty greatest had been brought into direct competition. Then the five of them who had begun to work together, despite never meeting one another before and not having any plans prior to doing so, were awarded the place.

Shaak found the system itself interesting, and spend time with Ahsoka and Tune going over their scanner readings while Ranma dealt with the locals. Ahsoka and Tune concentrated on the star system, while Shaak concentrated on the Nova Guard, looking into the culture and everything else about them they could tell, from their sensors and the Jedi Archives, which had recently been updated by Master Rancisis.

The upshot was, within a day of their arrival, the six new Nova Guard were aboard, accompanied by their gear: three heavy CSWs, one concussion, two quad cannons, blaster rifles, and enough magazines for a month-long campaign, an armor repair station, twelve grenades for each man, combat staves and actual clothing too.

They were so quick, that Ranma and Shaak decided to have a date while they were in the system. They booked a nice restaurant and left Ahsoka with K'Kruhk for the night working on her Force Push skills. Shaak dressed up in a formal dress, her lekku all showing including the torque that she routinely hid under her Jedi robes. The dress in question was white with light blue highlights along the side and the shoulders, with wide and long sleeves that looked something like her normal robe's sleeves. The dress, while being rather, demure set off her body's natural crimson skin color and even worked with the blue and white of her lekku to perfection.

Ranma was in his female form, the better to let them both pass through the space station where they were going for their date unobserved. While some of the Alioni knew about his/her curse, that information was not common knowledge. After all, who would believe something like that? But Ranma wore what could be best called a female leisure suit, complete with tight black pants, a loose white shirt, and a jacket. Her red hair fell loosely down to a little below her shoulders, and the ring Shaak has given Ranma on her finger.

The two of them found a nice secluded corner in the restaurant Ranma had booked them in for dinner and just sat, leaning against one another in silence after ordering their meal. After a while, Ranma murmured, "So, I vote we make time at least once a week for some just us time, and I don't mean in the bedroom. That, um, that's great and all, but just spending time together, just the two of us."

"Hmm… you were rather accurate when you said we were going from feast to famine in that area, my love," Shaak whispered back, reveling in how Ranma fit against her, her shorter body fitting against Shaak's own as she would have his male body. She felt her lek on that side of her twitching and watched as Ranma leaned against it lightly, shuddering as the redhead laid a light kiss on it.

"And who's fault is that huh?" The redhead quipped after removing her lips from Shaak's right lek. "I think Ahsoka's growing on me, but even so, she and the rest of them are going to cut our time to nearly nothing."

Shaak shrugged philosophically, which Ranma was quick to notice did very enticing things to her upper body. "We signed up for it, now we have to see it through. Besides, with the trouble we can all feel coming, a larger team is probably going to be a very good thing to have around."

"Grr. Hoisted by my own freaking petard," Ranma groused, then pulled away slightly to stare at Shaak. "We've talked about what we want to do about the Sith, but before that, I think we both know where we want to go right?"

"Shili," Shaak said with a smile. "Yes. The only question is how to get there from here."

"Well, let's talk about that now then," Ranma said with his own shrug, which Shaak in turn rather liked to watch. Hmm, Ranma once more forgot to wear a bra I see…

There was no set hyperspace trade route to Shili from the Nova Guard home system. The nearest one would carry them through a sector of space controlled by the Trade Federation. While Ranma was willing to go that way, Shaak argued against it, believing that the Wild Blade would be perceived as a Republic warship sent into the sector to wave the flag in one of the core Secessionist sectors in an effort to intimidate them.

That wasn't what anyone wanted, to be seen as the aggressor like that, so Ranma allowed himself to be convinced to go the straight route. That this would take them through unknown space, systems which were not habituated and rather unknown beyond the fact they had been given a bare astrological number, did not matter one way or another.

Eventually, that serious discussion fell by the wayside as Ranma decided they could finish that discussion later. Their alone time was far too important to waste on something so silly as talking about their route. The two of them went back to flirting with one another for a time, then headed back to the ship to continue their time together as all loved ones should.

The next day as the Wild Blade left the system, Ranma and Shaak had decided, after debating it with K'Kruhk and Ahsoka, to go the straight route rather than use the nearby hyperspace lane. With that decision made, Ranma ordered all of the Mandos and the Nova Guard to join them in the main hall armed with their hand-to-hand weapons. The two groups had already begun to mingle thankfully, the two societies having some respect for one another, which Janice and young Cro Gasic, the Nova Guards Sergeant, was making certain to beat into their younger charges.

At Shaak's nod, Ahsoka and K'Kruhk joined the rest of the crew in front of Ranma and Shaak. The two of them looked at one another, communicating without words and then Ranma stepped forward. "Alright, you all know why you're here: you're here to learn, specifically from me, to see if you can all push past what most people think are the hard boundaries of what people can and cannot do physically. What you might not know is why I agreed to teach you."

Ranma pointed to Janice then around at each Mando in turn. "I agreed to teach the Mandalorians in return for their aid and to help Bo Katan Kryze in her efforts to reform the Mandalorians, to bring them together from the two… um…"

"Diametrically opposed groups of the New Mandalorians, the Traditionalists, and the Death Watch," Shaak interjected smoothly, a faint glimmer of humor in her eyes.

"Yeah, that. It worked, and in a way, your being here is because it's time to pay up. The same goes sort of for the Nova Guard, but in your case, you've waited longer and haven't seen nearly as much of what I can do, and this is more payment for aid in the future, since any aid ya gave us in the past was in payment for us freeing some of your fellows from a Hutt's gladiator arena."

"But you also should all have an idea of what being around Shaak and I will mean. You all gave your word not to speak of this without our permission and we're going to tell you what you all really just agreed to now." Ranma finished, stepping to one side.

Shaak stood forward at that point, and began, giving first an overview of the New Sith wars and what Sith were in general: that they used the Dark Side of the Force, cared not for the lives of others and used their hate, anger and the fear of others to power their own Force powers. "We learned years ago that the Sith were still out there, hidden, but waiting to strike, and they have begun to move."

"And they don't like me." Ranma drawled. "They really, really don't like me. They originally put a bounty on me, both forms of me, that could have purchased a planet. Then when criminal groups began to die out in the doing, they started to use other intermediaries, ending up with assigning one of their own assholes to the task. It hasn't worked yet, but not for lack of trying."

"Before this, we, Ranma and I, were acting as stalking horses almost, drawing the Sith's attention to us, while the order prepared on the sly for war. Through the guidance of the Force we have been able to stop several plots from the Sith, and their power-hungry dupes. However, the time to simply be moving targets is going to end soon."

Shaak and Ranma smiled grimly at one another and then she continued. "The instant we get a lead of any kind, via the Force, the Order or anything else we will be acting upon it, and hunting the Sith down. At present the Order is following up on one such, but we hope that whenever he attacks us again, we will be able to somehow find some clues to follow back to something more important than his pawns."

"So that's what you all signed up for. To be involved in a fight against a megalomaniacal Sith Order who has been hiding for centuries and who has a hate-on for me." Ranma said with a grin. "So, are you all up for it?"

For a moment the room was silent, all of them just thinking about all they had heard then Cro asked curiously, his voice as usual for his people given an odd tinny quality by the helmet/rebreather they all wore. "Is this a trick question, or are you honestly trying to question our honor?"

After the laughter from that had died down, Ranma went on, moving into the center of the room as Shaak moved to the hallway leading up to the cockpit. "Now then, I think it's time for the Nova Guard amongst ya to learn first-hand why your higher-ups think my training is so important..."

The only ones who got out of that experience without bruises to both ego and body were Ahsoka and K'Kruhk. It was a very tired, weary, but ecstatic group of young people who collapsed into their beds that evening after a group meal, where they all started to get to know one another in earnest. Later that evening, Ahsoka and K'Kruhk joined Ranma, HK, and Shaak in the Wild Blade's cockpit.

Ahsoka, though somewhat tired, had not been battered nearly as badly as the others, having avoided the numerous grapples and holds that Ranma had used to hurl the others around. So she had enough presence of mind to ask, "Where to now Master Ti?"

Smiling gently, Shaak rested a gentle hand on Ahsoka's head, feeling the semi-hard horns there, which would eventually grow into montrals. "We are going to Shili, child. We're going to our homeworld."

OOOOOOO

Sidious scowled angrily, clenching and clenching his hands in a rare show of pure rage which he could not control and thereby direct. That fool Harth! The Jedi were somehow able to follow the message his spy droid sent into the nearest HPC relay. The Dark Side take their souls!

He calmed down and began to smile at the way the Force itself still favored the Sith. It was pure 'chance' if someone believed in such, which had warned Sidious that Jedi were present at that relay, touching base with the spies Sidious had bought in the HPC relay itself, who had not been able to pass on any information on their own for fear of discovery. But that agent had then left the system, and traveled far out of his way to send that news in. Truly, the Force itself is on our side.

However, that leaves me with the need to decide what to do. This took Sidious but a moment, and Sidious smiled. Five mercenary kill-teams from the Viper's Core, a group of Nikto can be brought to bear quickly enough, and even make the Jedi look in that direction rather than into the Core Worlds, which is all to the good. Pity, I could wish there were enough Morgukai to use, but there is not. And to aid them, I think that our assassin, Asajj Ventress, will do very well. I will have Bulq relay her orders to her. If push comes to shove, destroying the entire relay will be allowable in this instance. Nothing can lead the Jedi to look into the Core Worlds more than they already are.

Meanwhile, Master Fay has begun researching Jabim. Jabim, which in turn will be a fulcrum for the war to come, for the hate and the pain and fear that I will feed on! She must be dealt with. With her work on Corellia being stymied now, Darth Narcis can be sent there next. Fay will die, and Jabim will be luck a ripe fruit, which will fall to the Dark Side whichever way it decides to go when the Clone Wars begin.

Unfortunately for Sidious, his week was about to take another negative turn.

OOOOOOO

The trip to Shili should have taken them a week. This would allow the original quartet to get to know their new crewmates more and vice versa. With so many new people living on the ship, this was very necessary.

The men and women quickly created times to use the bathroom and slowly hammered out a daily regimen together: which of them would train with Ranma in the main room, which of them would start to bond with the odd, living ship starfighters, maintain their weapons and self-train. At first, the two disparate warrior cultures had broken apart along their own cultural lines, but Shaak had quickly put a stop to that, forcing them into several mixed culture combat exercises against herself and K'Kruhk. Though they fared better against K'Kruhk, who had yet to fully grasp many of Ranma's Living Force techniques, they still lost, and Shaak defeated the whole lot of them with an ease that was quite humbling to them all.

That was the plan rather, until they stopped in one of the uninhabited systems and Tune, who was on duty as usual on duty as a pilot, called them up to the cockpit. "Master, Mistress, there is something unusual here. Either with the Wild Blade's sensors or this system, I am… uncertain which."

Shaak looked up from where she had been instructing Ahsoka on keeping multiple, different sized and shaped objects in the air at once. "That sounds ominous…why are you smirking like that Ranma?"

"Oh, just thinking that we used up our luck when our trip from Mandalore to Alion went uninterrupted. And that you and K'Kruhk both argued for this route." Ranma said with a smirk. "Methinks the Light side of the Force is still able to influence you occasionally."

Shaak paused in thought then sighed despite a faint yet extremely happy smile on her face. "I suppose that could be true. I meditated on our route after we…" She looked around at the others, and fell silent, a slight white tinge coming to her stark red skin. "Well, yes."

"Exactly," Ranma said, leaning over to kiss the tip of one of her montrals before standing up and moving towards the cockpit. "I'd suggest you lot get ready, prepare your infantry gear, but also get into your suits for starfighter work. HK, K'Kruhk, Ahsoka with me."

Looking a little embarrassed and somewhat more befuddled by what Shaak's silence seemed to imply, K'Kruhk and Ahsoka followed Ranma and Shaak up into the cockpit, leaving the others behind.

All of them turned to Janice, who had the most experience with what Bo Katan had called 'The Ranma Effect'. "'The Force likes to move in mysterious ways, and Ranma acts like a lightning rod in a storm, when the two get together, watch out', Bo said. I think this is what she was talking about. You heard the man, let's get ready."

Getting into the starfighters secured within the expanded space of the Wild Blade was a chore, but one they had all practiced at least three times before this, and it was made somewhat easier by the fact that both Mandalorian and Nova Guard used armor which could protect them against the cold. Instead of needing to put on a special suit, they simply entered the expanded area two at a time until they were all within their starfighters. Pulling off their helmets and connecting to the limited neural relay device of the live-ships for those four who had chosen them was the worst part of the exercise, but even there, they had practiced enough to do the exercise quickly.

The Wild Blade possessed twelve starfighters at the moment, which was enough for all of the Mandos and Nova Guard. It could have had another twelve, but they couldn't have housed twelve more people in the ship comfortably.

Four of those starfighters were Sekotan starfighters, their hulls reinforced via ki strengthening, but no shields and their offensive firepower was rather small. The other eight were the mushroom-like starfighters that Ahsoka had first seen when she learned how to shoot a rifle. These were called G'nau or Flashfists, and they had been designed by a Mon Calamari designer that Bo had brought in along with a few of her own people. They had four laser cannons set on a series of rolling belts around the mushroom head that could also swivel and track independently, an accompanying astromech droid (something of a luxury for a single seat starfighter), heavy shields for their size, and two concussion missile launchers. They were built to kill other starfighters, though Ranma, and indeed the Mandalorians, didn't know how they would do in a large fight. They had the shields to spare, but it remained to be seen if durability was more important in a dogfight than maneuverability.

In the cockpit, Shaak sat down at the pilot's chair this time, connecting to the sensors. Almost immediately, she understood what Tune had implied. The sensors were telling them little to nothing. The system was as it should have been going by the Republic Bureau of Astronautical Data. There were five large asteroids around a brown dwarf star, with nothing reading from any of them that would warrant interest in terms of minerals or anything else.

However, there was a sense of something odd. The Wild Blade was uneasy, like a predator who had just entered the range of another predator, and was now anticipating either the need to defend or attack. And the Force… when Shaak reached out to the Force, she shivered in disgust, followed instantly by K'Kruhk and even Ahsoka. "By the Force, this whole system reeks of the Dark Side!"

Ranma frowned but didn't reach out to the Force as they did, instead concentrating on bringing up the Wild Blade's weapons. A process which, he was amused to note the ship's gestalt had already begun. "Can you find a center for it?"

"I can," K'Kruhk said, even as Shaak was shaking her head. The Whiphid reached over and pointed to the radar blip representing one of the asteroids. "This one."

Ranma and Shaak looked at one another and Shaak nodded. "Alright big guy, if you say that's it, we have a target. But let's go in loaded for bear." Ranma said, before flipping open the internal communicator. "Alright Blade squadron, we have a target, possible Sith base of some kind. Prepare for deployment."

After getting twelve positive responses to that, Ranma opened the latch and disgorged the corral-ship starfighters two at a time. While he was doing that, Shaak had brought up the shields to full power followed by their sensors, raking the entire system with the full power of their scanners.

Instantly this elicited a response. The dead asteroid suddenly burgeoned with numerous energy signals, and as they came close, those energy signatures showed themselves to be scattered defensive installations, the exact same type, and size of the ones that had ambushed the Wild Light on Vjun. Turbolaser batteries and ion cannons of capital and planetary installation size flashed out towards the incoming ships.

"All ships get behind us, wait until those larger guns are seen to then start your attack runs!" Ranma barked, and the starfighters the Wild Blade had just finished disgorging obeyed, flipping themselves behind the far larger ship.

The incoming fire slammed into the ship with enough power to slag any two or even three similarly sized ships, with enough firepower to have killed the Wild Light, ki reinforcement and all. But this wasn't the Wild Light, this was the Wild Blade, and this was the kind of fight it had been made for. "Shields fifty percent, but holding."

"Ecstatic Statement: Oh, Master I do so love traveling with you, you make even the most mundane travel so interesting! I have the larger turbolasers and ion cannon installations dialed in."

"Take them out!" Shaak and Ranma barked as one and the murderous droid replied, while Shaak drove the ship forward.

The asteroid also had a planetary shield generator, but those were notoriously slow to come online from a cold start, and even on standby would have been obvious to any ship passing through the system. Before it could come online, a single magma cannon blast blew the generator apart. The larger turbolaser batteries and the ten planetary sized ion cannon guns went with them. the Wild Blade took hits in turn, but then it was past, and the Starfighters all dove straight down toward the asteroid's surface.

Wordless shouts and battle cries abounded over the intercom as Janice and Cro led their people in, getting in under the anti-air batteries, few of which were of the deadly quad laser variety, designed to take out starfighters rather than capital ship. There were a few concussion missile launchers down there, but they died quickly under the ferocious pounding of the G'nau.

Thus began a deadly dance of speed and accuracy against brute firepower. The starfighters took hits, and each hit nearly took those ships out, but the ki-reinforcement held them together. The defensive installations had only numbers going for them, and that was an advantage that didn't last long, especially after K'Kruhk made a startling announcement as the Wild Blade swooped back down to join its smaller cousins. "There are no sentient minds down there! I am feeling the minds of several dozen beasts of some kind, the Dark Side is very strong in them all. But I am not feeling any sentient mind guiding the defenses."

"Then they must be firing some kind of set pattern, computers are predictable like that."

"Mocking tone: I would take offense if it wasn't so true. Honestly, the computational abilities of combat droids and computers in this age is simply appalling." Another turbolaser battery died under the droid's fire, and then he nodded. "Professional Statement: I have the pattern master."

A second later, that information had been distributed, and the attackers didn't take any more hits from then on. Eventually, the last gun fell silent, and the battered but ecstatic starfighters linked back up with the Wild Blade. "Now what, Shes'la (teacher)?" Janice voxed.

"Now, Now we get down there finish the job, and see if there is anything there we can discover to lead us to other installations," Ranma said grimly.

OOOOOOO

Set Harth twitched out of a sleeping cycle as an alarm wailed through his quarters in Wayland. "What is it?" he asked blearily.

That hated droid's visage appeared on the screen. "Set Harth, since this is not a time in which the Master is accessible, it is my duty to inform you instead of what has occurred. There has been an attack by an unknown vessel or vessels on the Terentatek cloning center. It is now under heavy attack."

"What?! How? How could anyone have found it?" Set shouted back, shock, fury and a tremendous heap of fear making his voice come out more like a squawk than his normal dry, jaundiced tone.

He had good reason for fear, both personal and physical. The Terentatek factory had been developed on an entirely different asteroid system called Dark Hole. It had been one of Set Harth's own bolt-holes. He had put it there, believing that being out of the way and anonymous was the best way to hide anything. The system had been off the beaten path quite a ways, there was literally no reason anyone would pass through that system, and it had nothing at all that could attract any attention. It was a simple dark spot on the map of the Republic, hence its name.

But Sidious had wrenched the secrets of it and numerous others out of Set through torture and mental probes, his touch like scalpels cutting into Set's mind. A goodly portion of his cache of Sith artifacts which Sidious felt were useless was stored there now. Torture devices (Sidious preferred Force Lightning and drugs if need be) broken Geegaws, and three Sith Holocrons that could only be accessed by those which had given themselves to the Dark Side were there, Sidious having looked through them, and determining they had nothing to teach him. Dozens of Sith weapons, the cremated remains of Darths from millennia back, shaped and made into devices which could harness the Dark Side and make it into weapons. For Sidious, these things were redundant, useless, or pathetic memories of past losses of the Sith.

To Set Harth, however, they were more precious than his own blood. And they were under attack. Along with, though this was less important to Set personally, the five breeding pairs of Tarentatek which were supposed to be the source for the beasts that would be the cannon fodder of any future attempt to slay the Chaotic Locus. The only such Sidious had been able to create as yet via Sith Alchemy. The process was time intensive, as well as draining in the Force, and as such those breeding pairs represented quite a large resource expenditure, one that could not be remade any time soon.

"Unknown at this time. We are getting a Hypercom relayed feed. Bu the time that feed began, the station was lost. As per orders emplaced on every installation of the Master, the Hypercom relay would have self-detonated the moment the computer in command of the installation calculated its loss as being above forty percent."

"Relay it to me anyway," Set ordered. The instant the images appeared, Set began to clench his teeth. The Chaotic Locus's ship. Perhaps Sidious's hatred for the Chaotic Locus is entirely justified.

He continued to watch as Dark Hole's Defenses were slagged. He continued to watch as the Wild Blade landed, disgorging the Locus and his paramour. He stopped watching when that paramour began to emit a solid corona of Force Light, the Force technique visible even via electronic scanners. With that technique in play, he knew the Tarentatek there, over thirty of the brutes by the last report, would not prevail. Half my, my precious collection, gone. Soon to be destroyed by the Locus and his band of Jedi do-gooders! RAGHGHGHHG!

After that, Set Harth left his room, marching outside and to his personal training area, where he worked himself to exhaustion until his anger and fury, so unlike his normal state of mind, cooled enough to let him think.

Think, blast it, where did our spies put the Locus Last? Mandalore. But they said he was going to the Nova guard homeworld Alion Prime. The Sith had very few information resources within the Mandalore sector by this point, but they had a few, mostly people who sold information to everyone who could pay them. But it still put the Chaotic Locus and his ship there. So, where would he be traveling from there that would take him through Dark Hole? A moment later he had it and he smiled thinly, the anger from earlier burning in him like a coal, waiting to be ignited once more. "Yes, at last. A target. Contact Durge, we have a target for the team. I will want us all on Shili within the week."

OOOOOOO

"Terentatek!" Shaak called within seconds of their touching down in the small crater which obviously severed this installation as a landing area. The creatures, about ten of them, it was hard to tell at first, had boiled toward them the instant they touched down. Having no need to breathe, the lack of atmosphere did not bother the Dark Side creatures.

"Okay, on the one hand, that's bad, those kriffers are tough and nasty. On the other hand, the fact they're here at all means this installation's important," Ranma muttered as he pushed himself out of the chair. "Ahsoka, stay on the guns, K'Kruhk, follow us out after we clear this lot out and bring up the atmosphere shielding. Help Ahsoka give us cover fire until then."

"Master?" Ahsoka asked, looking a little worried. She had read about Tarentatek in the Jedi Archives from the ancient Sith wars, and the sight of them worried her. Rather, they frightened the twelve-year-old girl immensely, but she was a Jedi padawan, and Jedi did not admit to being afraid. "Shouldn't I come with you?"

Shaak smiled a calm, soothing smile toward her padawan. "No child, this is a threat I would not risk you against. But that does not mean you cannot help us."

The joke made Ahsoka smile, her fear disappearing as she leaned over her console, taking command of one of the quad cannons underslung the Wild Blade's wings. K'Kruhk, a faint smile on his large face behind his tusks, did the same.

The Tarentatek charged the ship, but thanks to the quad cannons they slowed, pushed away or tripping thanks to the impact rather than being downed by it. Their hides were resistant to lightsaber strikes; standing up to a quad laser was easy enough, but the impact still threw them off thanks to the low gravity of the asteroid, which the beasts didn't seem to be used to for some reason. Two did die though when Ahsoka spotted them crossing directly in front of the front pointing Yaret Cor plasma cannons.

As those two disappeared under the massive plasma bolts, the hatch opened and Ranma leaped out, his hands flashing, his feet smashing. The small amount of gravity the asteroid had was like a playground to him, and he leaped and cavorted here there and everywhere at once. Another Tarentatek died with its head caved in by an overhead kick before Shaak and HK joined the fun.

"Ecstatic Announcement: I do love me a target reach environment!" Ignoring his hand blaster, HK opened up first with his Concussion missile launcher, two of the missiles smashing into another Tarentatek that had ignored Ranma to charge the ship.

The others, even those wounded and enraged further by Ranma, started to act differently when Shaak appeared. One hand thrust forward from the Togrutan Jedi Master, and the same technique which had won her that honor flared out from her like a corona. But because they had been created to hunt Force user, Force Light acted like catnip would on cats, attracting the Terentatek madly. They all ignored Ranma to race towards Shaak.

But Shaak had planned for this, and she had used her Force Light to lure the Terentatek into a kill zone as the starfighters flew in to hover overhead. The Terentatek's armored hide was proof against even the weapons of the starfighters at first, but over time the hovering starfighters gunned them down. Then four G'nau moved to cover the entrance from which the creatures had appeared while the others settled down.

The remaining starfighters opened up, and the Mandos flashed out on their rocket packs, landing lightly and moving in to cover the entrance as well. The two remaining Nova Guard came out of their ships far more slowly and made their way back to the Wild Blade.

Ranma nodded approval at this and moved towards the entrance, hampered only slightly by his Zero-G suit. "HK with me and Shaak. The three of us will push in until the first intersection, then hold. Mandos follow us in but remember that you don't have the armor or the skill to stand up to these things in close. Blasters only, keep your distance."

Wordlessly joining her lover Shaak concentrated for a brief moment, and the corona of Force Light became a searing lance in her hand, flashing out into the tunnel. There was no sound of course, but Shaak sensed at least a few beasts within moving away quickly, not because they were hurt, but because they wanted to stay to the dark for now. With that done, she moved to a small hatch to one side of the tunnel, and inputted a series of commands, only for the panel to go dark. "Tune, we might have need of you for a moment."

One of the Mandos moved forward. "Mistress Ti, if you'll let me I can see if I can slice it. I have some training in that area."

"Thank you… Jethro?"

"Yes, ma'am." The young female Mando said. She moved forward, her fingers flying for a moment over her own forearm, where there was a small dataslate. Two wires connected it to the controls, and after a few minutes, Jethro nodded in satisfaction just as a bright shimmer of silver began from the edges of the crater. The controls went from red to orange then green. "I wasn't able to access the mainframe, but I took over the local controls and forced the atmosphere shield on. This place still has power, but for how long I don't know."

"Nice job kid," Ranma said then pushed into the tunnel, pulling off his helmet as he did the better to see and use his ears too. Shaak followed, having also divested herself of the helmet. As he did so, he activated his light pike, using it as a source of light mostly.

Behind them, the Mandos moved forward. With Ahsoka, Tune and the Wild Blade's own gestalt on guard behind them, the Nova Guard too followed, along with K'Kruhk, who helped Cor in lugging out the Nova Guard's heavy weapons.

Shaak and Ranma were in the lead, with HK behind them, its eyes able to see into the dark without their lightsabers, and it was because of that that HK spotted the first intersection. "Analytical tone. Master, there is an intersection ahead, but I cannot detect movement."

"That means they retreated further into the base, just great," Ranma groused. "I'll take left, Shaak, you take right, HK, lay fire where you need."

With that, the three raced forward suddenly in an effort to take advantage of the beast's retreat from Shaak's earlier blast of Force Light. They reached the intersection and twisted to their assigned sides as the Mandos raced after them, followed by the slower Nova Guard.

As they did, the beasts retreated further, shrieking and snarling to one another as they did, but still falling back before even HK could take them under fire. A hasty Moko Takabasha nearly took one of them in the leg, but it leaped around the curve in the corridor a second before it struck.

"Hmm…" Shaak mused, frowning. "No other… ah there they are, she finished dryly, as a few weapons emplacements appeared in the ceiling. HK killed one of them before it could fire, then Ranma and Shaak used lightsaber and light pike respectively to bounce back the bolts of energy to their sources.

"Why are we along with you again?" Janice mused, to muted laughter from her fellow crewmen.

"Just for that, ya get to come with me. Nova Guard, this is a hard point, do your thing." Ranma ordered, moving down one way as Shaak did the other. K'Kruhk moved with her having pushed forward to do so, while HK moved to follow Ranma, putting him in front. "We'll call you forward if we come to another intersection."

Behind him, the Mandos split up, with Janice leading five of the Mandos forward with Ranma. The two remaining went with Cro and another Nova Guard to follow Shaak, with Cro carrying the last CSW. As they went, HK issued an order. "Professional notification: all meatbags using blasters as their primary weapon should see to overcharging their bolts. Nothing less will get through these creatures' hides."

Blaster rifles could be overcharged, that is, set to take as much gas into each shot as the barrel could take, creating a weapon somewhere between a regular blaster and a disintegrator of similar size. It went through the gas-based magazines quickly, however, and invariably did a lot of damage to the rifle's barrel too.

Still, HK was the voice of experience, and the Mandos quickly followed orders. The Nova Guard didn't. The crews at the CSWs had no need to. Cro and his fellow simply clamped their rifles to their backs via magnetic locks and pulled their pistols out, showing they were disintegrators rather than regular blasters.

"And don't close, whatever you do, do your damndest to keep the range open if you can. Not that you'll have much luck in this freaking tunnel, and the dark," Ranma groused.

Shaak's team was the first to come to something beyond the tunnel walls. On one side the tunnel abutted into a large room of some kind, filled with items large and small. From the glow of her lightsaber, she couldn't tell much of them, but her Force senses were screaming at her. Whatever was in that room, it was tainted by the Dark Side to a degree she had seen only a few times before in her travels with Ranma.

Before she could concentrate on that, the Tarentatek struck, coming down both from the front and from deeper in the room. "Ware! Heavy fire into the room, I will handle this side until you clear it!"

Shaak slipped easily into a Soresu stance, modified to be used against an opponent that had some immunity to lightsaber strikes. The First Terentatek lost a portion of its jaw to a nifty little jab, then Shaak flitted around it, to cut off the foot of the next, sending it sprawling and tangling up two more. The third and fourth pushed her back, their nails and talons, and above all those odd spikes that protruded from their arms and heads, being far larger than the first three and also lightsaber proof. But a punch to the side of one smashed a tusk loose, while Shaak rolled under its charge, her lightsaber flicking out into a jab to the side, burning through the waist of the other.

That Terentatek howled, but turned, kicking out at Shaak, who couldn't dodge in time. She rolled with it, but soon found herself surrounded in the tunnel. "Oh, drat," she murmured, no sense of fear or unease in her voice.

Two years ago even Shaak would have never been able to fight this many Terentatek. Nearly two years ago four such beasts had almost killed her on Vjun. That was two years ago. Shaak had spent that time sparring nearly every day with Ranma, growing stronger, growing faster, becoming better. There might have been four better pure lightsaber duelists in the Order. There was no longer any deadlier combatant in known space bar Ranma himself than Shaak Ti. This was proven now as began to whirl and dance in place, her legs, and free hand smashing out while her lightsaber wove a deadly pattern of light.

Nor was she alone. The group of mixed Mandos and Nova guard began to fire into the downed beasts, killing them while another Terentatek had gone chest to chest with K'kruhk.

But the Whiphid had been training with Ranma for over two months and had been very strong to begin with. The Terentatek, who had tried to bite the large Jedi's neck out when it had knocked his lightsaber out of position with a claw, found itself actually lifted off the floor and hurled into two of its charging fellows. But as he bent to get to his lightsaber, another Terentatek leaped over that pile, only to be gunned down by the CSW as Cro and his fellow went to work, blasting away as fast as the weapon could manage into the group coming down the other side of the corridor.

Hearing all this Ranma and his team pushed on quickly, hoping to come to a dead end soon so they could turn around, even as Ranma ordered the two CSWs left at the first intersection to move to help Shaak. A second later Ranma looked down at his communicator as it beeped at him, and Ahsoka's voice made itself known. "Ranma, Master Ti isn't responding!"

"She's busy kiddo, what do ya want?" Ranma growled his eyes trained into the darkness beyond the glare of his light pike.

"Tune and I were able to use the Wild Blade's sensors to get a general idea of the layout of the base!" Ahsoka replied excitedly rather than giving a snarky response to Ranma as she normally would. "Listen, the whole base seems to be a circle, with the crater in the center and the entrance coming into the rest of the circle near a large area opposite a small offshoot. There's only one other offshoot in the circle facing out, a large one. What little energy reading we're still getting is coming from the large one, and it just went up in what Tune says was a self-destruct. We think that's the side of the circle you and your team are on. But then your tunnel will meet up with the large area!"

"A power and control station, and a, a pen or something on the other side from the entrance. So you're saying there's nothing but that one room between me and the back end of the area where it seems most of the Terentatek have hoarded up?"

"That's right," Ahsoka said. "There might be more defenses near the energy room, our sensors aren't that good through this rock we're just reading the metal content of the walls really. But they might not even have power."

"Good to know. You did good kid, thanks." Cracking his neck, Ranma shifted his light pike off, the staff now held to either side of him, touching either side of the hall. "HK, stay behind when we pass that power area with Jethro. The rest of you, follow up and fire on anything that's moving that ain't us."

Before Janice or one of the others make a remark on that positively erudite order, Ranma charged forward, racing forward like a hover car going full out. "Wh…"

"Amused drawl: Ah, there goes my master, charging straight into the unknown, with no thought of his safety. Or the body count. Plaintive tone: Darn it Master, leave some for me!" With that, he too clanked forward.

Ranma smashed into four Tarentatek, the pair of them charging forward out of the dark only for Ranma to smash into them bodily. Two of them took the shaft of the light pike to the chest and was merely doubled over, then flipped around the poll to land behind Ranma as he continued. The other found itself smashed nearly off its feet and grasped with its talons at the creature attacking it as the one behind it was pushed back.

But Ranma let go of his light pike for an instant, and the thing's head disappeared, becoming dead weight for the creature behind it, which could only growl and snarl impotently as Ranma bashed his way forward. He gathered six more of the beasts and just kept charging forward around the circle of the tunnel towards the large holding area or something.

Behind him HK and Janice and her Mandos finished the two downed beasts then HK split off. Entering the room one of them had just come out of he found several more. "Mocking tone: oh goody!"

Soon enough Ranma arrived at the large holding area. With barely a growl of effort flicked his light pike forward this way and that, hurling the beasts he'd gathered forward into the area then charging after.

This holding area was the first Ranma had seen that was multi-storied, the entrance into the tunnel on this side exiting onto the floor of the thing. The sides, about four stories or so, had been lined with cages connected together and there were the shattered remains of downed droids, massive, powerful ones and small, multi-armed ones, littering the area.

And there were about fifteen, maybe more Terentatek gathered around the other entrance into the area, growling and snapping at one another in eagerness to rush forward. Or rather they were until Ranma arrived. Many of them turned, bounding toward Ranma as the ones he had bowled over to get here scrambled to their feet. They roared as one,

"Come on!" Ranma roared back, using his ki to amplify the effect, wondering idly if maybe he should start practicing the big head technique that Soun had used. Might be useful against beasts like this or others in the future.

The Terentatek came, and Ranma was in among them in the center of the room as Janice and her Mandos finally arrived behind him.

Janice, the first one through the door, ducked under a wild swing by the fourth of the original quartet Ranma had run into, wounded in numerous places by its fellows. A rocket to the face blew the creature's head off, but not before its claws wracked down her forearm, slicing into her armor like paper.

Falling to one knee she began to blast into the crowd around Ranma while barking orders. "Spread out, follow Shes'la Ranma's orders and take them out!"

One other Terentatek came from the side of the tunnel entrance, smashing into and taking down Natasha, but the younger woman whipped out a vibro-knife and stabbed it into the thing's eyes, twisting away. She got away with a broken arm and a stomped on foot for her troubles, but a full salvo of five overpowered bolts to the neck and chest put the beast down.

The other Mandos were able to clear the tunnel, racing this way and that, laying down heavy fire as they used their rockets to stay in the air. They were ambushed in turn by two extremely young looking beasts, which hurled themselves out of a few cages up on the third floor. Thomas was able to dodge, unloading both his rifle and a rocket tube from his forearm into one of them, killing it in midair. The other however slammed into one of the other flyers, hurling both of them to the floor.

That Mando, the young Arkanian girl, dropped her rifle and stabbed forward into the thing's midriff, seeking its heart as she rolled in midair. Her helmet took a blow that smashed it half off her face, but before the beast could finish her off, it died under fire from her fellows. She rolled to one side, then used her jet to push herself along the floor with a scream of metal to rejoin Janice by the door.

Caught in the open by overwhelming firepower, the Terentateks still fought on for several minutes, each of them taking enough damage to have downed a whole squadron of normal troopers. Worse, they never broke, they simply roared and fought and died. In the end, none of the Mandos escaped without injury, and the Nova Guard too was battered, with one having had his leg snapped nearly in two, and another nearly dying from a Terentatek who had been so enraged it ignored its guts having been flash-fried by numerous bolts from one of their CSWs.

Shaak and Ranma, on the other hand, were a little sore, but otherwise unhurt. Despite both of them having taken hits from the mindless beasts, they had gotten out of it with only Shaak's hand and feet hurting from the number of hits she had delivered. "Toughness training," Janice remarked, cradling her arm. "Right. We are definitely going to be looking into that one as soon as possible."

"Heh, so what do you think about your first mission on the wild side?" Ranma said, his eyes still alight with battle light, while Shaak chuckled.

"You two are insane," K'Kruhk said, looking down at his numerous slashes and bite wounds. He had avoided any disabling injuries, but he had still taken far more than he liked. Now with the fight over his concentration shifted from using the Force to keep the pain at bay to healing them as he could one after another. "When can I get off this crazy ship?"

Ranma laughed at that, while the Mandos and Nova Guard shouted, raising their fists or weapons in the air in token of victory.

End Chapter


I made up the Mando word for teacher. Found a page with a lot of Mandalorian words, but not that one.

The Light side of the Force keeps on striking back where it may, and Sidious no longer has his created Terentatek to play with, although I had honestly wanted them to find Wayland. But I decided that would be too momentous to come out of the blue like that, so they will have to locate it rather than be sort-of led there by the Force. Without that, this chapter was very much a transition sort of chapter, leading into the next three very large confrontations with the Sith, one after another.

I would like to thank my patty r on fans for their help in coming up with a few Mando names, both OC and canon characters, to use for the crew.