Ain't mine, either of 'em. The plot is though.
As you can see, Horse for the Force won the big story poll this time. It brought in a total of 1568, with 159 coming from here on fanfic. Magic of the Force brought in 1242, with 370 votes from here.
But is it just me, or are most of the SW crossovers lame as fuck? I hate to use such language in this section, but I really would have liked to read something to get my muse a bit of a jumpstart after so many months, but every good fic out there in this genre is one I've already read. But hey, if you think you can find a fic I will like set in this Era of SW, try me, and if true, you'll earn yourself four extra votes to use in the next poll.
Anything Goes Gamchanger won the small story poll, with 1283, pulling ahead by a near whisker from the second place winner, the habitual FILFy Teacher, despite bringing in only 140 here. The biggest impact was my own notes on it, since it is the story closest to completion – three chapters or so more before I reach where I think the fic can be naturally brought to a conclusion – and my major beta readers also voting for it. FILFy brought in a total of 1210 votes, with 437 votes coming in from here on fanfic.
Normally this would mean that FILFy would also be updated this month. However, February is short, and made shorter thanks to my work on the latest chapter of Making Waves up to the Super Bowl. I also wanted to prioritize Horse for the Force. That being said, I will use FILFy as one of my small story updates in March, since I've already started to work on it – can't get it done even by Saturday, but I should have it sent off to the beta-reader by next Tuesday. So it should be out sometime the week after.
The name of the Arkanian Girl and much of her appearance was originally created by Friendly Neighborhood Eldritch Horror over on Patty ron. I felt his description of her was interesting and have decided to follow up on his offer to use some, if not all of it. Thank you.
This has been beta read by the magnificent Michael Duggan from patty on fame. Please give him your thanks as without his aid this chapter would have more than enough mistakes to sink Grammarly like the Titanic.
Chapter 20: The Female of the Species Is Often the Deadliest
While K'Kruhk started deal with those Mandos who had been poisoned by the claws of the Terentatek horde, Ranma and the crew of the Wild Blade searched the place from one side to the other, hoping to find some clue as to the individual who had built the breeding center they had stumbled upon. All of them were somewhat bruised and battered, even the Nova Guard, and everyone knew that it had mainly been Ranma's leading the attack from the other side that had allowed them to win through without losses. This heightened the importance of the search, but that didn't mean they had much luck.
With Jethro, Janice and, HK's aid, Shaak concentrated on the power generator section, bringing out a spare generator from their ship stores—a spare part for a Flashfist—and using it to power the computers. Shaak frowned as Jethro continued the work the young Mando had started before even the last Terentatek had been killed. "Everything is automated except for the loading process. Someone comes in, loads them up, and leaves. The issue is in the energy dampeners. This place was so well hidden the implications are kind of scary," the computer expert Jethro said, frowning as she played with her ponytail, having laid her helmet to one side. "How many of these places could there be?"
"I doubt there would be many," Janice soothed, trying to calm the younger girl down a little. The fight against these creatures had been intense, and, while they came from a warrior culture, the idea of facing an unending horde of Terentatek would have worried even the most confident Jedi. Seeing their body armor completely overwhelmed by the monsters' strength and their own weapons barely doing much damage at first, the Mandalorians, in particular, no longer qualified as confident when it came to these creatures.
Indeed, Shaak didn't really have the heart to tell them none of the ones they had faced here seemed to have been as fully grown as the ones she and Ranma had faced on Vjun. Instead she asked, "Why do you say that? I have to admit to being somewhat at space when it comes to computers and programming."
"They might have gotten rid of the serial numbers and such like that, but they can't really disguise the fact that these computers are extremely high-tech, built to order too. And I mean latest generation stuff here, in the last…" Janice paused, gesturing HK over to help them move the computer away from the wall. With the droid holding it there, Janice leaned over to look behind it before nodding, though no one could see it since her head was now stuck in between the wall and the computer. "I would say this computer's at best only a year old, maximum. You might be able to get your order to look into some of the more high-end computer purveyors, because whoever had it must've obviously gotten it from somewhere."
"There's also the dampening technology," Shaak said with a nod now that her mind had been brought to look at the possibilities there. "The number of corporations that could create such as that is large but finite in number. It is yet another means to try to find the Sith, and that is all to the good."
Jethro sat in front of the actual computer that they had been studying, not even having looked up when HK had pulled the computer out and instead having simply moved her chair backwards to keep staring at the computer screen as her fingers worked. "All right," she said at last with a sigh. "Master Shaak, I'm afraid I've got some bad news. The memory of the computers been erased. All of it: security data, interior footage, even the operating system. And I don't mean kriffed to all hell; I mean literally erased somehow. The only thing I can tell you is how many times it's been accessed and how long the computer was operational. That information was in the hard line boot-up data rather than in the overall programming. Although the date counts up from when the computer was initially brought online, so it really doesn't mean anything to me."
The Jedi made a small gesture, indicating that the young woman should keep talking, who then informed her that the computer had been online for thirteen months, backing up the former Night Owl's guess. "And it was accessed once a little over three years ago. I'd say that was the only time any Terentatek were taken off the space station."
Shaak thought for a moment and then nodded. "That would possibly put them right on target for the ambush that was sprung on Ranma and me on Vjun."
She then looked out past the doorway into the corridor and gestured the Mandalorians and droids out of the room. "Well, thank you for your help with this, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to join Ranma and the others. K'Kruhk and myself will be going through the Sith artifacts now, and many of them can have deleterious effects on unshielded minds."
"Don't have to tell us twice," muttered Janice, quickly leading the way as Jethro hurriedly followed, looking ill at the very idea as she clamped her helmet back on.
Shaak found the other Jedi already within the room with the Sith artifacts. Having finished removing the poisons from the wounded, he had then left the wounded warriors to make their way back to the Wild Blade, since all of them had disdained further Force-assisted healing at the moment. Now he moved around the room, examining each object in turn closely. Some of them were obviously weapons, a few were simply varied oddities, but from each and every object in the room there could be felt a certain amount of the Dark Side, forcing Shaak to pause as she prepared further mental defenses, just in case.
Among them K'Kruhk had pulled out three different objects, setting them aside. "The others should simply be destroyed," he said with a gesture of one hand. "These three, however… They feel more important, or perhaps simply Darker to me. This one was given pride of place on the wall it was put on," he said, gesturing down to a large black gem of some kind set into a box consisting of gold filigree and purple silk. "And these other two were well-hidden under a kind of small Force-based concealment in an alcove in the back of the room."
"How that veil was in place without a Sith here to guide it is beyond me," Shaak confessed. "I could not create a Force creation like that which could exist without my being there to guide it."
"I am flummoxed by that as well," K'Kruhk said, frowning thoughtfully and gesturing to two electronic-looking pillars that had stood on either side of the wall. They were opened now, and their innards had evidently been turned into so much slag from a small internal explosion, the comprehensiveness of the destruction rather inspiring, if one wanted to look at it that way. "I think it has something to do with these two, but when I tried to push my way past into the small alcove where that one was, they shorted out."
"Don't apologize," Shaak said, pulling the objects up in her hand and examining them closely.
Like the other one these were black gems, but, unlike that one, which looked relatively normal except for the gold box it was set into, these gems had been cut and shaped. One of them looked like a small hand grasping the image of a sun, complete with little bits of sunlight shooting out through the fingers. It was obviously something that a craftsman had taken quite a bit of time with, and, as she held it in her hand, Shaak could feel the evil within. The other was the tiny skull of a Terentatek merging into the skull of a human, and it too must have been the creation of some twisted artist in the distant past. It didn't feel quite as evil as the hand did, but it still felt seeped in the Dark Side.
"None of them contain a soul, not like Exar Kun's tomb did," she said aloud, startling K'Kruhk, who had not felt that that was even a possibility. "And yet, it is a fragment of such. The Sith equivalent of a holocron, yet with quite a bit more of the original owner's self emplaced into it. That, at least, a Jedi could do, though these souls are so black it is rather horrible. The other two, despite that last one being of special significance, do not feel as simply evil as the one carved to resemble a hand holding a sun."
"I will bow to your greater understanding of that sort of thing," K'Kruhk said, nodding. "I could sense they were important in some fashion, but discerning what they meant is beyond me, considering I've never run into similar. But what will we do with them?" K'Kruhk asked.
"A part of me thinks we should just destroy them," Shaak said, shrugging her shoulders. "But another part of me thinks that knowledge is power, and if we can somehow figure out from these three items and the spirits within how to find their successor…" She paused, smirking wryly. "If such a word can be applied to the Sith and how they routinely step into dead men's boots by murdering the man who owned them. Regardless of the correct term, it is a chance we must at least consider."
"Master Yoda and Master Yaddle, you think?" K'Kruhk asked. "If anyone can be trusted to not be swayed to the Dark Side, it is the two of them."
"True," Shaak said, putting the strangely designed gems down before she picked up the other one in turn, examining it and then placing all three in the box, the fit rather tight but doable. "However, transporting them is something I'm going to turn over to Ranma."
K'Kruhk blinked. "Might I ask why?"
"You'll see," Shaak said with a smile, leading the way out of the room. They found Ranma back in the breeding pens, where he and the Nova Guard had been doing some tests on the dead Terentatek figuring out where the weak points were. It was grisly but methodical work, and if they ever ran into similar creatures again it would prove advantageous. Not all of the Nova Guard were with Ranma at the moment, though. Several of them had moved back to the ship with the most wounded Mandos, bringing back several more items from their gear and passing Shaak with HK, who was lugging a heavy pack.
Ranma looked up as Shaak entered the room, sending her a smile. "All done?" he asked before his own limited senses told him what she was holding. "And what are those things, and why shouldn't I take them and stomp them into a fine powder before expelling the powder into space?"
"Memories of pure darkness and Sith knowledge, and, while I agree with your sentiment, they might have something important to teach us," Shaak said, holding them out to him. "Could you put them in your weapons space for now?"
Ranma nodded quickly grabbed each item in turn, and then stuffed them up his sleeve, which did not surprise K'Kruhk. He had seen Ranma's weapons space in action before. What shocked him, however, was that as the holocrons disappeared out of sight, so too did the feeling of them within the Force. He blinked then narrowed his eyes, raising one hand and pointing it towards Ranma as he concentrated, trying to discern if he could detect any hint of them, and he realized with a smile that he could not. "Now I see what you meant," he said, shifting his gaze to Shaak.
"I know ,"she said, also with a smile, and leaned over to buff Ranma's cheek with her lips. "He's such a handy person to have around."
She held back a yelp as one of Ranma's hands caressed her rear, squeezing gently. "In so many ways," he said dryly. But a second later they all became serious as Ranma asked, "So, have we discovered any way to find other installations like this?"
"No," Shaak said with a sigh. "Still, we know they are hiding them and how. The Order can follow up on that aspect, I think. They have the manpower and computer access to do so, at any rate."
Ranma blinked at her, and she shrugged. "The dampening technology is one item, a trail that someone else in the Order might be able to follow. But the other way they are hiding is simply by being out of the way. And while the Republic is vast, we might be able to discern the most likely areas similar installations could be hidden by simply looking at areas where people do not go."
"Moreover," K'Kruhk interjected, shaking his shaggy, boar-like head from side to side, "if they are relying on hiding like this, it stands to reason that they might even have gone so far as to erase data from the Republic databanks." Shaak and Ranma looked at him, and he expounded. "If we can compare survey data or astrological data from the Republic and from the Jedi archives, we can look for discrepancies and examine each in turn carefully."
"Makes sense," Ranma said with a nod, then turned to look as one of the missing Nova Guard members stuck his helmeted head into the pens from behind the two Jedi, nodding at them all. "We have the explosives almost ready," he reported, his voice tinny yet still young sounding despite the helmet.
Shaak nodded and gestured everyone towards the doorway. "In that case, let us leave this foul place."
The Nova Guard took about fifteen more minutes to rig the asteroid base for destruction, using the asteroid base's own generator to create much of the explosive force needed, along with a few other devices of their own design to propagate the explosion. After that they bordered the Wild Blade and lifted for space. In space they had to re-stow the starfighters, a somewhat laborious process given the size of the entrance to the ki-expanded interior and how dark it was within, but about an hour later they were all aboard the small, yet massively powerful vessel once more.
They waited there until the station below exploded, shattering the asteroid. "Content statement: While I would prefer to battle sentient meatbags, although I use the term loosely, this was a most satisfying mission in most ways, and the explosion at the end is, as humans would put it, icing on the cake."
"Heh, true. And whatever else, I hope that we've hurt the Sith here," Ranma said with a chuckle before looking over at Shaak and K'Kruhk. "So, do we need to change our schedule to report this or not?"
"I think not," Shaak said with a faint smile. "Shili has a Hypercom array, after all, and moments like these are why Master Windu decided to use your native language as a code."
Ranma nodded agreement as Ahsoka perked up. She hadn't been pleased to be left out of the infantry aspect of this mission but knew that her Master had a point about her being too young for such just yet. "In that case, Tune, get us turned around and jump us out of here." Moments later the Wild Blade boosted to hyperspace, its destination the Togrutan homeworld, leaving the shattered remains of the Terentatek breeding center behind them.
OOOOOOO
At the same time the Wild Blade was making for the hyperspace limit of the system it had previously been in, another ship was coming out of hyperspace into a system where those aboard knew they should find friends. Master T'ra Saa sat aboard the small bridge of the last training frigate of the Jedi Order, looking at the readouts for the system where the living planet, Zonama Sekot, was currently residing. Around her, four crewmen, all Jedi, moved about their business as she called ahead to the planet and its denizens of their arrival.
Thereafter she watched as three squadrons worth of unusual-looking starfighters blasted up out of the planet's atmosphere from myriad points before linking up and moving towards them in a single group. Once they intercepted the training frigate, a bulbous, overlarge ship somewhere around the size of two Consular class vessels nose to tail, the starfighters created an honor guard around the ship. A few of them even went so far as to wiggle their wings at the larger ship.
As the training ship, which was named Evian's Light, moved deeper into the system, it was hailed by a few midsize capital ships on maneuvers, whereupon they received welcoming messages from their captains. One of them even asked them to join him for an evening meal at his home on Zonama Sekot. Master Saa accepted that on behalf of herself and her two chief aides, interested in getting more of a feel for the social structure of the living planet and how the former Eriaduans had fit into it.
Almost as soon as they entered orbit, Master Saa became aware of the planet itself and the whole 'living planet' aspect. Unlike when Ranma and Shaak had initially arrived in the system, Zonama Sekot was making no attempt to hide its presence, and, as a Neti, Master Saa was far more in tune with plant life and that aspect of the Living Force within such than nearly any other Jedi Master. As her senses made contact with Zonama Sekot, she found herself forced to turn over control of the frigate and the younglings within to her second-in-command, becoming almost immersed within the vast mind of the living planet, only shaking herself out of the fugue once the ship landed.
Even as she walked outside and met some of the locals, she could feel the living planet's mind, just outside of her senses, wishing for her to reach out once more. But she abstained for now. That would come later.
She blinked, however, in something approaching surprise when the locals' delegation to the frigate included four Mon Calamari. "Greetings, gentle beings," she said, bowing her head. "I had not anticipated that Dac would already have sent a few starship designers here. Might I ask how your presence is being hidden from any suspicious eyes? I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that Sekot stay hidden as much as possible."
One of them laughed quietly, leaning on a large staff and looking at her with his head cocked to one side. He was, without a doubt, the oldest member of his race that T'ra Saa had ever met, but his bulbous eyes were still sharp and clear, and when he spoke there was a certain tone of ebullient energy within. "My own presence here is being hidden easy enough. I officially 'died' of old age. Even my closest relatives think I died, all save my young boy who requested the ancient cremation ceremony in my place. I am ship artist Cros Artize. And I am the leader of this design pod.
"With me," he said, gesturing with his free hand, "are others whose presence here is hidden in similar manners. All of them are unmarried and, in fact, uninvolved with anyone, the easier to make them disappear."
One of them grunted, waving a webbed hand. "All of this cloak and dagger nonsense didn't really make sense to me until we arrived on planet. After that, even I had to admit that the waters we are being forced to swim in are truly dark. But we must make whatever course we can, with our own flippers and those of our comrades."
Another one stepped forward, clasping hands with Master Saa and shaking vigorously. Visibly the youngest, he lacked any sign of the facial fibers or lekku that Mon Calamari grew as they aged. "For my part, like this old one said, my presence here is covered by an official obituary. I don't think I actually fooled my family, but, considering that my only existing family are the two ex-rangers that Master Ti and young Ranma saved and their son, I doubt they'll say anything about it to anyone."
"And have you already started work on capital ship design?" T'ra asked curiously.
"Indeed, both capital ship design and starfighter design. Ranma and Shaak might not have known it, but their critiques of the existing starfighters were actually taken on board, despite a certain amount of comradely back and forth, I suppose you could say," Cros Artize said with a smile. "Would you like to look over our designs?"
"I'm afraid not," Master Saa said with a sigh. "I am a Consular. My path in the Force is one of learning, diplomacy, and a bit of lightsaber skills. I do not have any idea about ship designs or ship combat."
"That is why I am here," said another voice briskly from beside Master Saa. The speaker was a four-armed, green-skinned being of belligerent appearance and stance. "I am Jedi Master Pong Krell, and I will be overseeing the retraining of your land-based troops as well as giving my insight into any starship or starfighter design you come up with. I will expect rigid adherence to my orders once we begin training and will require a work area well away from the training going on for the younglings. And, of course, I will also need computer access. Now, come, show me what you've done already. It's been a long journey with many stops, and I want to get to work immediately."
One of the locals looked pained as Pong led the ship designers off, and Master Saa shrugged. "He is a…forceful personality," she said mildly, "but you will find that he is also honest, hard-working, and driven to a fault. He will help in the ship design area as well as training your troops. I would suggest, however, that you assign a liaison who is able to take his gruff attitude and not take it personally while also soothing any ruffled feathers at the same time."
"We will take that under advisement, Master Jedi," said one of the green skinned men, bowing his head towards her. "For now, would you and the other teachers like to see the facilities we have created for you and your younglings? And will they be transferring directly to there today?"
"If it is already prepared, yes, please. Evian's Light is normally as accommodating as anything designed for a Jedi should be, but it is not designed for the number of people we have currently aboard."
The man paused and then nodded slowly. "I…see. For that level of discussion we have to wait until we can have it in the control room, Master Saa. So for now, I will simply show you the training center we have set aside for you."
The planet had arranged for a massive complex for the Jedi, about three times as wide in every direction as the training frigate, with numerous small huts for younglings, masters, and so forth, a large outdoor training area, seventeen classrooms, and fifteen dedicated meditation niches here and there, both outside and inside buildings, the better to commune with different aspects of the Force. It was built around a single fifteen story tall tower that looked like it had been molded out of both the ground and a giant piece of corral. It held a meeting hall set three levels below the top, which was itself a mix of a meditation area and an observation deck. Yet, even so, T'ra Saa knew that it would have to be, if not enlarged, at least enhanced further to deal with the number of toddlers and babies they had brought, along with the parents of many.
The complex as a whole was within two hours hiking distance for a normal sentient from what was called the seed chamber, where Shaak and Ranma had bonded with the living seeds which had then been shaped and molded into the creation of the Wild Blade. Master Saa understood that several of the Jedi who had been added to her group would be sent there in the days ahead to bond with their own living ships and to join the Zonama Sekot defense force.
As the thirty teachers that she had brought with her went to work on assigning different youngling clans to different areas, checking out the computers and other such business, Master Saa and her two seconds in command met up with the locals in the planet's control center. There Master Saa once more found her mind reaching out to that of the living planet almost without her conscious control. She laid a hand on the central spire, and she could feel the thoughts of the living planet within her own mind.
"A fallback point," Sekot's voice said, reverberating through her mind and out of the nearby 'speakers,' the lung-like devices causing some interest in the other Jedi. "To use a similar phrase as a Mon Calamari would, are the tides so dark as all that?"
"If you had asked any of us about that a year ago, we would not have said yes," said one of the other Jedi circuitously. He was a middle-aged man, human, with honest to goodness spectacles, of all things, perched on his nose. Unlike Master Cros Artize, who was probably of an age with this Jedi, he exhibited a world weary nature, a simple exhaustion of body and spirit.
"May I introduce Master Cime, Consular. With him are Master Gren of the Guardians, and Master Bistol of the Sentinels," T'ra supplied, gesturing to each in turn. Gren was a Gand, while Bistol was a female human, young looking but with a pock-marked, grim looking face and a missing arm.
"All three sects? That is equally as telling as the sheer number of youngling clans that are here," Sekot said musingly.
"Not so many clans as actual younglings, I'm afraid," Master Saa said dryly. "And that, organizational wise, was not pleasant on the trip here."
"Explain, please," asked Chief Magister Cran Tole.
"As Zonama Sekot has already discerned, this is not just going to be another Jedi Temple: it is going to be a fallback point for the entire Order. A hidden one, one that will not be further used in that manner during any conflict unless it has to be. We have brought two out of every three new younglings brought into the Order in the past year and, indeed, have gone out and brought in over four-hundred younglings that were of an age that they would have been allowed to stay with their parents for another year or even more in some cases. Babies, toddlers, and their caretakers, including many parents, which was another strain on the resources of the frigate on our trip here," T'ra Saa said, her tone quiet and pained.
This work had actually been why it had taken so long to send them here at all. The young temple on Dorin had been emptied save for five Guardians who would train and train with the Baran Do. The two clans there had been taken and then added to, with Saa and her followers moving across almost the entire Republic, gathering Force sensitive children as they went.
"We are here, essentially, just in case. If the worst comes to pass, the Jedi will still exist as an organized order because of this Temple and your aid, Master Zonama Sekot," The Gand master said. "Yet, from now on, remaining in hiding is even more important for your safety and our own than it was before. We don't want to stop your work in creating starfighters for the Mon Calamari and your own capital ships, but we have to urge you to be even more circumspect in such things going forward than you already have been."
For a moment the control room was silent, then Zonama Sekot spoke, its voice going from serious to somewhat amused, startling all three Jedi, even T'ra Saa. "In that case, I think we should all hope that the worst does not come to pass, shouldn't we? And work together to make certain that we, I, am not discovered. A pity, too. I had wondered occasionally what would happen if I was attacked again and was able to use the techniques Ranma taught me."
Looking at the pained expressions on the locals' faces, T'ra Saa found herself fighting back the urge to start twitching for some reason. When one of the other Jedi opened his mouth, however, Cran shook his head quickly. "Don't, just don't ask. Please. That knowledge is far more trouble than it is worth."
OOOOOOO
Asajj Ventress smiled like the predator she was as she stared at her ship's scanners, which currently showed her the five ships carrying her backup for this mission. Most of these troops were odds and ends, guns for hire taken from several dozen nearby solar systems, most of which had such to spare. Indeed, that type dominated on all but one of the tramp freighters around her own starfighter at present, all of whom would fit in anywhere they went. But the others, the others were special: the Nikto sect called the Viper's Core, who wished to prove themselves against the Jedi, to in some fashion gain a bit of the reputation of the Morgukai of ages past, while on another ship four companies of modern attack droids waited, ostensibly stolen right out from under the Trade Federation's noses. The droids were a blunt force, though. The Viper's Core were the real strength of her attack force when it came to the Jedi.
They wish to kill Jedi, and they may well do so before this day is out. Jedi will die, including one of their strongest. That was all Asajj cared about. The Jedi Order, in all of its sanctimonious, narrow-minded stupidity and all of its hidebound, arrogant, venal members who were so steeped in complacency, arrogance, and corruption that they didn't even know it. All of them would pay, pay for their hubris, for their shortsightedness, for the way they allowed her Master to die. The Sith will reign, and, from us, Master Tyranus and I, we will create a perfect order.
At her orders the ships under her command suddenly moved from where they had been hovering above the relay with a few others to dropping straight through the planet's atmosphere. At the same time her R-2 unit began to analyze the system's Hypercom output, watching for any sign of alarm. As she had hoped, they could detect a few from the surrounding ships, but none from the relay itself. Evidently our bribes were well spent.
As backup to that, her droid, which would continue to monitor the com-traffic, would upload a program into the relay. At her command it could create a virus that would attack the Hypercom's central processor, scrambling the Hypercom's systems something fierce and blocking out all attempts to send out any calls for help at the merest hint that someone in the station knew what was going on. It did limit the amount of time she had on this mission to barely four hours, which, given the size of the station, would have been daunting for anyone else. But once she let her Force Stealth fall, Asajj knew she would be able to sense the Jedi.
A second later her Fanblade landed on one of the dozens of landing areas on top of the massive Hypercom relay center. Exiting her ship, she was met by two of the locals, short, thin aliens with large bulbous heads, who bowed formally towards her, their uniforms that of the station's security division. She had bribed them to help her in this mission, and, considering that the Jedi were hiding themselves from the locals, it had been relatively simple to get these two to believe that she and her fellows were simply after one of the data cores here.
Of course, that didn't last when the two saw the number of ships touching down and disgorging the troops, most of them in various kinds of spacesuits. The planet was arid and nearly lifeless, just a hunk of rock that was made important by its location in the Republics monstrous Hyper Communications Relay Network. The only thing of real value on the entire planet was the station itself, which was, of course, ridden by internal division, bribes, and other weaknesses that could be exploited.
Weaknesses like these two fools, Asajj thought dryly as the locals guided her inside. Truly the Republic in miniature. And yet, it can be far more easily destroyed, if need be. As she waved the two locals over, she also signaled two droids from a nearby ship, who fired one bolt each, killing the foolish security men.
Asajj then rushed forward, grabbing at their necks and pulling off the security cards there, moving towards the airlock and tossing one card to a man who had moved up beside her. "Go. Open as many of the airlocks as possible, get in, start looting, and destroying to your hearts' content!" she shouted, getting a roar from the scum of the galaxy all around her. Only the Viper's Core did not shout, instead splitting off into small, highly organized squads, only one of which followed her in through this first hatch.
As she entered, Asajj sent a signal towards five combat androids at the far rear of their company. At that signal they turned around and reentered the ship they had been on, coming out with several large devices before they began to move out over the surface of the installation. Hopefully those won't be needed, but if they are, there is no kill like overkill.
OOOOOOO
Of course, even hip deep in their investigation, the arrival of so many dangerous, bloodthirsty minds, in particular minds whose aggressions were directed towards them, grabbed the attention of the Jedi that Asajj was here to deal with. "Master Koth?" Obi-Wan asked, looking over at Master Koth as the Zabrak stood up from where he had been meditating.
Master Koth really didn't have much to offer to this part of the investigation, lacking the ability with computers, and both Siri and Obi-Wan were much better at blending in without use of the Force than he, despite his Master status. He occasionally went out to sift through the station to mark out this or that corrupt worker, official, or what have you, but most of the time he spent meditating, trying to find something that could help them further direct T'vern in his work. It had worked, to a small extent, anyway, and T'vern thought that he was about four more days of hard work away from finding the next step in the communications they were here to search for.
Now Koth nodded slowly, feeling out the minds of those whose aggression and eager bloodlust had acted like a bell, grabbing the attention of all four Jedi. Such was her ability with hiding her presence that he couldn't detect Asajj, but he could detect the sheer number of aggressive minds now searching for them. "Yes, they are here for us. Someone has discovered our being here and, no doubt, why.
With that in mind, the Zabrak Jedi Master began to move decisively, stalking towards the door of their small enclosure. "Young T'vern, continue your work. I will reveal myself, to those in charge here and the security forces. Obi-Wan, Siri, wait here for now. You will no doubt be needed to lead the security forces in their response, whatever that may be." With that he strode away, leaving Obi-Wan, Siri, and T'vern behind.
Obi-Wan sighed and moved to stand in the doorway, his lightsaber flicking on as he gestured up towards the other entryway into their secret hiding place. "Siri, do you think you can do something to block that off? We would be much better able to defend from only one direction, after all."
As the two of them got to work on that, Master Koth made his way through the massive station until he found the closest security hub. Doing so, he gathered quite a few odd looks and even several scared ones. After all, no one there had known Koth was there at all, and he was, unlike Obi-Wan and Siri, dressed like a Jedi: flowing robe, lightsaber, and all. More than one worker or aide rushed off at his approach, reaching for communicators to spread the word. If a Jedi was here, that meant some serious stuff was going down.
Soon enough he was outside the main security office for the station, passing by several gawking officers outside. Inside the chief security officer's room he found an obese human lounging in a chair, playing some kind of computer game on a datapad, though Master Koth didn't take the time to bother looking at it. The man glared up as his door opened without any preamble, only to stiffen and pale as he saw the lightsaber at Koth's side. Perhaps there is something to the fact that too many people see the lightsaber a the symbol of the Order, he mused.
Setting that aside, Koth intoned coolly, "I am Master Eeth Koth of the Jedi Order, certification code numbers sigma sigma five alpha niner. I am here on Jedi Order and Republic business. Several thousand individuals have just arrived on top of the station and are intent upon invading. We must muster your security forces to stop them."
The next fifteen minutes Koth browbeat several dozen security officers as the terrorist groups, as he'd named them, continued to move through the outer edges of the communications station. When they started getting reports of killing and looting going on, the security officers quailed. The station was a place of white-collar crimes, as it were: graft, funds going missing, information trading, that kind of thing. It had an underbelly of drug dealers, stim sellers, and even a few murders spread out over a year. But that was an entirely different thing than the assault going on now.
With Master Koth glaring at them, several of the officers found their backbones, however, and those who didn't he removed instantly. Over the next few minutes scattered firefights began to break out as alarms whooped throughout the entire space station, urging workers, support staff, and their families into protective areas. Master Koth was not just a Master Jedi: he had acted as a commander of men before, been trained to do such, and had done so well. Now he put that knowledge into action, using the Force to aid him in feeling out the flow of the battle as best he could.
That was why he nearly gasped and fell to his knees as suddenly the Dark Side began to broil to his senses. A moment ago he had ordered the station director, a thin, sallow Duros, to send out a distress signal on all channels. The man had balked for several minutes, but the truth of the assault had finally gotten home to him. But there the planning of the attackers had anticipated them, because the instant he had started to take command of all the outgoing Hypercom, a program had gone live throughout the main operating system, shutting all of the Hypercom transceivers down. It was a brute force, almost ugly program, that itself would serve as a distress cry, but it cut the station off from the rest of the Republic.
And now, a bare few seconds after that, the Dark Side had suddenly flooded his senses, a veritable wave of anger, hate, and fury smashing into his mind and those of his fellows. They threw it off, but Koth could sense that they had not been that assault's real target. Instead, the Dark Side was reaching out now to influence unguarded minds as it would. Koth coughed, shaking his head like a boxer who had just taken a haymaker before speaking quickly. "Signal all security stations: prepare for further internal trouble. I fear our homegrown criminals are going to start acting out now."
The security officers didn't seem to question that as Koth reached out with his own Force powers, imbuing them and their fellows with purpose and energy. It wasn't something he did lightly, but against what the Sith had just done it was necessary. He could feel Siri and Obi-Wan doing the same thing, and together they were able to create a web of influenced minds to try and keep a lid on the violence the Dark Side had just sparked. Yet, at the same time, this took troops they could ill afford to remove from the original defense.
Such was the size of the station that, despite the chaos, the central communication hub where Master Koth now presided was almost cut off from the growing carnage. The alarms wailed elsewhere but not here. The progress of the invaders was shown on one screen, both live and on a small map to one side of that screen.
Several attackers had pushed through one of the spines of the station and were reaching the central facility now, about twenty minutes after the assault had begun. Their progress swiftly slowed at that point, though, as they ran into further security forces on the Jedi side, and the chaos abounding throughout the rest of the station, which Koth allowed to break out here and there to further give them a layer of protection.
But, even so, Master Koth could tell that the weight of numbers they were going to break through soon enough. The loss ratio was also heavily in favor of the attackers, who had all brought heavy weapons, disruptors, crew served weapons, and thermal detonators. The local defenders barely had any heavy weapons to speak of, and all they did have were single stations scattered here and there as defensive points, more riot control than anything else. Riots aboard stations like this were a major fear since the station couldn't grow enough food to feed itself, even a single stop in the flow of food into the station would cause problems. In the face of what they were facing, these security centers were not enough.
And yet, the chaos of the battle is not the main attack, is it? Koth mused as he began to turn over command of the defense forces to one of the locals. Rather, like the chaos they have caused, the Sith are using the greater assault as a smokescreen to assault us Jedi directly. And I must be there to stop this Sith, whichever of the two assassins it turns out to be.
OOOOOOO
Elsewhere in the station, that level of disconnection seemed a pleasant dream.
While at the time I was somewhat concerned about what it said about how he felt our future missions would go, I have to admit to being thankful that Obi-Wan forced me to retrain my lightsaber skills, Siri Tachi thought as she defended against several dozen blaster rounds currently coming towards her from the distant end of the corridor, deflecting the bolts of plasma into the walls or attempting to send them straight back toward the distant shooters. At the range from which they were firing, though, that was beyond her skills to do perfectly every time, but she had forced more than ten of them into cover and had even killed six of them.
To either side of her, four of the local defense force, two lizard-like aliens she had never seen before, a Nautolan, and a male human, moved quickly backwards, grateful for the reprieve. "Thank you, Master Jedi!" shouted one of them. "But we need to pull back two sections, ma'am! We've lost this quadrant!"
Thankfully Siri had gotten used to the local parlance before this violence had started and knew what the man meant. A section was a block of computer memory. Some of them were separated, with intervening corridors leading off. Some were not, connecting directly to the next massive block of computer memory or programming core. A quadrant was one of the spokes of the relay, of which there were twenty. Each of them was dominated by a massive Hypercom array on the surface and the computers necessary to run it along with the conjoined memory modules, which in turn were connected to still more that all of them used in the main central body of the station, hence the difficulty of the Jedi's current mission.
"Are they destroying the computers as they come, and are there any other workers or family members back there?" Siri asked, nearly shouting to be heard over the sound of the incoming blasts and the 'ffz-spam' noises her lightsaber made as it intercepted the bolts. There is aimed controlled fire underneath the rest of this wild assault. Interesting.
"No, Master Jedi. We were able to get the families out as the alarms sounded. We've practiced such things before. We lost most of our security team trying to get the remaining workers out of the main thoroughfare, but several of them were killed anyway," the human male replied.
"They don't seem to be looking to kill off the workers, but they are destroying the memory blocks as they go, sometimes even before they look to transfer any of the memory," said one of the lizards-like aliens, their species called the 'Grotoga,' which Siri pulled out of their minds. He spoke in some other language, but her Force powers allowed her to understand him easily despite his translator having been shot away. She could even hear the despair in his tone. "They are destroying trillions of data files and only taking a few dozen to later use! Why are they doing this!?"
"I don't know, but I think we need to wait to question them until after we have beaten this attack back," Siri lied lightly. She in no way wanted to say that this whole attack had been started because of her and her fellows' work, after all. Whatever the long term good they were trying to do, that would have sat poorly with the locals. Then she frowned as the Force whispered a warning to her beyond the Force Precognition she was using to intercept the bolts coming towards them, and she ducked to one side as a solid state projectile went through where she had been standing. Her lightsaber hit it as it passed by, deflecting it into the ground.
From beyond the rest of the attackers appeared two Nikto of the Esral'sa race. They were wearing matching dirty coveralls and full-body gas masks for some reason. In their hands they held long-barreled rifles which they were pointing through the crowd of their fellow attackers directly at Siri.
"Retreat to the left at the next intersection!" she shouted, concentrating a brief moment and then gesturing using the Force to grab the debris in front of them and hurl it downrange, halting and getting in the way of the attackers. This all spoiled the two Nikto's aim, though they pulled back and began to make their way around Siri's former position.
Even as they obeyed, the human asked, "Why not straight back to the hub?" The hub was the central construction of the relay station, which housed about fifty-percent of the living quarters and the things needed to let the station run and house its population: the air purifiers, food silos, exercise facilities, medical facilities, et cetera.
"Because we're cut off! Now, please, move!" Siri said tartly, having felt more antagonistic minds getting between them and the dubious safety afforded by the hub on this level. And, in the quadrant directly below this one, several gangs had fallen to vicious infighting. Armed with weapons the security force had no idea about, and, thanks to the Dark Sider's earlier attack, fearing their little empires would be ruined by the presence of the Jedi or the attackers, this or that sector manager, made fat by their illegal dealings with corporations, governments, or what have you, went to war with one another and the security forces along with the invaders.
Chaos. It's pure, very bloody, chaos, Siri thought as she followed after the four locals. We knew how corrupt this place was, but this level of violence is well beyond what we anticipated! The local gangs, those selling illicit drugs to the work force or juvies acting out to protest their lot in life is one thing. Even those representatives of larger criminal groups, I could accept that they would be violent at need even if their job here did not call for such. But people guilty of governmental and corporate insider trading or equivalent crimes shouldn't be willing to become so violent at what amounts to a drop of the hat!
She knew the reason, of course, as did the other Jedi. It was the same reason why a few local murderers the security forces had been searching for had come out in the open and gone on killing sprees here and there throughout the hub. It was the same reason why, in some sectors, one species fought another, baying hate. The Dark Sider's assault was still going on, a palpable miasma affecting those minds that were already open to hate, fear, and anger.
Its effect was somewhat subtle at first, and Siri lacked the ability to really tell where it was coming from, but she could easily discern the impact it had. Why, though? Why this overblown attack? If this is the Sith, why wouldn't they go for a assassination strike rather than this overblown attack? Siri thought, then paused as it occurred to her. Of course, it isn't just to kill Obi-Wan, T'vern, Master Koth, or myself. It's also to erase any evidence of the signal we were tracking... and possibly to add another log to the fires of war between the Secessionist movement and the Centrists. That will no doubt work, given the damage already done to this facility.
Leading her small group of survivors away, Siri was able to find a security team, and made one more stand in another quadrant around a security station, its heavy riot gun providing some needed firepower. But eventually they were forced to retreat, made stronger now with fifteen security men and forty workers, but still retreating in the face of being flanked once more by the same Nikto she had glimpsed before, the two of them having been reinforced too by more than a dozen other men. As a Jedi, Siri was not one to give in to fear, but she could feel it welling up in her troops as they retreated back towards their homes, leaving three of their own dead around a hard point and the shattered remains of an anti-riot gun.
Just as they reached the next hard point and Siri began to breath in a sigh of relief, she felt a spike of concern from Obi-Wan and instantly pulled out her communicator. "Obi-Wan, are you all right? I sensed your unease."
"Thank you for inquiring, Siri, but I'm afraid I really can't talk right now!" Obi-Wan replied before clicking off.
Frowning and looking at her communicator, Siri set it on her belt again and urged the troopers on towards the central hub, sensing that those oddly dangerous Nikto had pulled back for now, lessening the threat. With that done, she turned and moved in as direct a manner as possible through the vast complex to where her lover was defending from another attack.
OOOOOOO
The spike of concern from Obi-Wan was caused by him being ambushed by the same group of Esral'sa'nikto that had troubled Siri a moment before. A group of six of them had gotten behind him, between Obi-Wan and where T'vern was still working. Unlike Siri, however, Obi-Wan recognized the uniform they were wearing as belonging to a small, tight knit mercenary group. They were called the Viper's Core, and they were one of the many sects and warrior societies Kintan, the homeworld of the Nikto species, had given rise to over the millennia. There had been rumors that the Viper's Core wanted to gain some of the mysticism of the Morgukai, an even more ancient sect devoted to combating Force users that was supposed to be extinct.
Regardless of where they came from or what sect they were part of, the group that had nearly ambushed him wielded short, very wide vibro-swords in one hand and gauntlets going up to their elbows on the other with built in slug throwers. One or two weapons among them looked odd, as if they were created with cortosis metal mixed in. One wielded a lightsaber, its color a light blue, no doubt a prize from some previous opponent.
"Die, Jedi!" shouted one of the others, flashing its vibro-swords towards Obi-Wan's head. He dodged to one side, slipping into a Soresu stance, his lightsaber flashing one way and then another, destroying each weapon that came at him for a second as he quickly bounced off the walls and around the attackers so they were getting in one another's way, while also moving so that he was facing all six of them at once. Elsewhere, though he could see more Nikto arriving along with even more pirates. "T'vern, we have to go!" he shouted out. "We've lost this sector!"
"Just, just a minute! Can't…I think I've found it, the destination point for that message we've been trying to trace! The work of half a year done in barely a month! The Force must be able to guide us even here with these computer systems, that's the only explanation! Just, just hold them off!" shouted the Aqualish back from where he was sitting in the small secondary control room they had been using as their base of operations for the past few weeks.
Obi-Wan's eyes widened, but he nodded resolutely even as he saw more Nikto joining their fellows. "Very well, but hurry it up! I don't know how long I can hold them!"
That actually was a bit of an understatement. Unlike Siri, whose use of Ataru was sharply derailed by the close confines of the corridors, Obi-Wan's Soresu lent itself to any environment. The Nikto, now that he had killed the two who had gotten behind him and twisted so the others were all in front of him, were realizing this to their cost. Their blaster bolts were returned into their fellows, and their attacks were redirected. In other words, Obi-Wan was able to face them despite their number, but that was only in one direction, and he knew it. With that thought he started to fall back to the small control center.
Unfortunately, he did so too late. Behind Obi-Wan he felt someone let a Force Cloak fall, and someone steeped in the Dark Side stood there. Obi-Wan glanced over his shoulder and saw a bald woman of a pale, almost blue complexion wearing a black leather outfit—a tight blouse coupled with a slightly loose dress marked with strips of gray here and there—and gray wraps from her wrists up to her upper arms. Two tattoos curved down from the side of her mouth to under her chin. Her eyes were practically entirely yellow, and she held in her hands two lightsabers, which she turned on with a hiss.
She sneered at him and then entered the room where T'vern was working, only to backpedal quickly as Master Koth launched into a furious series of assaults taken from Makashi followed by whipping his lightsaber around into another series, nearly decapitating his opponent before the woman could recover. The woman grimaced, backing away and down the corridor the way she had come, scowling angrily. "I suppose even a Jedi could discern my real target."
"All this for a diversion. Yes, I knew. You will not find us so easily duped," Master Koth said. He had arrived back here four minutes ago, having run all the way from the command center, then hid in the room with the young Aqulaish knight. Now he faced off with Asajj and without further discussion, attacked once more.
Asajj found herself pressed back and then further back, Koth's furious assault proving difficult to match even after her training with Darth Tyranus. Yet it was primarily a Makashi attack, and she had learned to defend against those. Her primary style, the Jar'kai version of Ataru, however, wouldn't serve here. So Asajj started to use more of Djem So suddenly, attempting to batter Koth's lightsaber to the side and then moving into a series of powerful blows, forcing him to back away and defend, only to break through his defenses before he could quite set himself, her Force Precognition also overwhelming his for a brief instant. He ducked at the last instant, avoiding a decapitating strike, and then it was her turn to leap away from a cut that slipped past her defenses which would have disemboweled her. A Force Push was repelled by Koth's own, and the two of them strained at one another.
To his shock, Koth found himself being pushed back. His opponent's fury, rage, and, above all, her hate giving her Dark Side powers a brutal strength he could not match. Very well. If I cannot face her strength for strength, then guile will serve. An instant later a small sliver of the corridor flashed up towards Asajj's face. This forced her to cut off her Force power to defend, and Koth crossed the distance between them in a single leap, his lightsaber stabbing.
Roaring angrily, Asajj slipped into Juyo, using her anger and passion to power her Force Precognition. Koth's eyes widened, and then he was forced to defend again and again. Then he saw what he thought was an opening and stabbed forward only for his eyes to widen, his own Precognition blaring at him, and he rolled forward. As he had seen, Asajj bounced up over his blow, dancing on the side of the corridor for a brief second to bring one of her lightsabers down at his head, missing him by inches. She kept on trying to catch him out, but he was just fast enough to keep up with the pace until his Force Precognition could respond to the change, and then they were back on even footing.
But now Koth was between her and several attack droids that had just come down the corridor from the same direction Asajj had attacked from initially. Koth had to split his attention between defending against Asajj and sending a violent Force Push down the corridor, but couldn't quite get it off before the first few droids fired, hitting him in his side and leg.
Even as the droids were flung back into a heap, the sight of Koth still fighting, still moving easily and exchanging blows with her despite these hits, caused Asajj's eyebrows to rise up her thin, tattooed face, but she didn't let it slow her. Hmmf, another Jedi who has learned the Chaotic Locus's techniques? Still, he will not be the first such I have killed. And the droids' primary mission wasn't to take the Jedi from behind anyway. Indeed, even as most of their fellows had sacrificed themselves in this attempt to take the Jedi from behind, others were elsewhere, performing their duties in the suicidal nature only droids could ever do.
The two of them danced backwards and forwards along the corridor, neither of them using any flashy moves now since there just wasn't enough room. Indeed, whenever one or the other took to the air for a brief moment it proved a mistake, their enemy able to press them backwards. Koth found his speed and Makashi style matched by Asajj's Jar'kai Juyo and mixed Makashi style, neither able to get an edge. Even when Asajj tried to use Force Grip or other telekinetic attacks, she was stymied.
Asajj began to target Koth's leg, forcing him to defend it more and more often, the two of them starting an exchange that would inevitably lead to her breaking through his defense there, and Koth tried to shift the momentum, breaking the exchange in his favor, his lightsaber crashing through her defense in a blast of green to nearly impact Asajj's shoulder. She, however, dodged just enough for his attack to miss and her own lightsaber carved through the wall of the corridor, sending sparks up into his face even as he dodged the blade itself, the red plasma having been slowed somewhat from its passage through the metal of the corridor.
Koth stopped his body from flinching, his mind so controlled that that kind of impulse barely even registered. Yet, his own attack having failed, he was still just a bit out of position, and Asajj's second lightsaber shifted into a full Makashi move which his Force Precognition had not foreseen. Her blade flicked around his defense in a small arc, getting around his lightsaber and cutting into his dominant arm at around the midpoint of his forearm. Asajj's blades, powered to a far higher heat than most lightsabers, cut through his arm despite Koth having been through Ranma's toughness training, sending his forearm falling to the floor of the passage with his lightsaber still in his grip. Koth's toughened body slowed Asajj's blade so much, however, that, in turn, Koth was able to catch her with a blow from his other hand, hurling her down the corridor and away, the blow imputing a Force Push that was just below the level of a Force Crush like that which Koth could use.
Rolling with the blow, Asajj grimaced, having felt the power of the hit even though she had been put through the Siths' toughness training, which made the Jedi's version look tame in comparison, enhanced by numerous pain-inducing techniques. If I hadn't gone through the training that blow would have shattered my rib cage and possibly burst my lungs! This Zabrak is good. No wonder he is on the council. Still, without his dominant arm, he is mine!
Even as Asajj thought this, Siri Tachi arrived, dropping down from a service tunnel above them, her lightsaber flashing down in an attack. But this was a mistake: Asajj was easily Siri's master with the lightsaber. Siri backed away, on the defense almost the instant she showed up, and within five seconds Asajj started the same series of cuts and exchanges that she had used before with Koth. Siri didn't see how it would end, though, and couldn't counter as he had.
After twelve ripostes, their lightsabers spanging and flashing off one another, Siri found her lightsaber, a brilliant blue blade, knocked out of position with one of her opponent's red ones, and Asajj's second blade hit. Worse, unlike Koth, Siri had not gone through the toughness training, being too often out in the field. The red plasma of Asajj's blade cut her leg off at the hip, sending her sprawling with a cry of pain.
It was only Koth getting between them, his lightsaber in his off-hand now, that saved her life. Koth's mastery of Crucitorn allowed him to continue to fight as well as he would have even if he hadn't been injured at all. Yet that could only compensate for the pain, not for using his offhand. Asajj knew now she could have them both, the Dark Side screaming this certainty to her so loudly it was like a siren song, and grinned viciously. "This is over, Jedi! I will have all of you!"
"No!" Obi-wan shouted, then sent out a blast of Force Push which hurled his remaining enemies, four of the six original Nikto, backwards before reaching out with a Force Grab, pulling Asajj towards him and away from her previous opponents so quickly she couldn't break his grip before he was past her in the corridor, only managing to guard against his lightsaber blow and returning one of her own. She broke his hold then, but Obi-Wan was now between her and T'vern, and then the two of them started to exchange blows, with Asajj in the way of her allies.
Almost at once Asajj felt the flow of the fight shifting against her. Obi-Wan's Soresu style was purely defensive, and her own Juyo assault could find no weakness, no point to strike. Her rage and anger flowed around him, and even his Force Precognition stymied her own, focused entirely on defense, becoming something like the fulcrum instead of a weight on the other side of a scale. The more Asajj raged and used Juyo, the more Obi-Wan's defense infuriated her, and Asajj could feel her self-control slipping to the point where she could no longer call on it to use a telekinetic strike. The same thing had occurred to Maul, although to a far lesser degree, and Obi-Wan had refined his mastery of Soresu since then.
Perhaps another Asajj would have raged, would have pressed forward or tried to taunt Obi-Wan in order to break his concentration. But this Asajj had been trained by Sora Bulq, and her self-control was better than that. More importantly, because of that training and the years spent hunting Jedi without leaving any trace, she had come here having created an assault plan that had several layers to it, not just one, and she knew time was running out. So she leaped away from Obi-Wan, glaring at him from several yards away. "Your name, Jedi."
"Obi-Wan Kenobi. And who do I have the pleasure of addressing?" Obi-Wan asked politely, more to buy time for his fellows than anything else. Even now he could sense Koth and T'vern carrying Siri back down the corridor, T'vern having finally realized that they had to retreat.
"Asajj Ventress, Sith," she replied, then flicked open a small communicator. "And, unlike you Jedi, we Sith have learned to use anything we need to in order to achieve our goals."
Before Obi-Wan could move to attack, she punched in a code on the com, and there was a bright blast of fire and light behind him. Several droids had not engaged the Jedi, rather they had used the confusion of their fellows attack and Asajj's to get directly below the Jedi's position. A very large explosive device carried by one of the droids had just gone off, blasting out in several directions with the equivalent of a starfighter's proton torpedo.
T'vern didn't have enough of a connection to the Force to feel the danger coming. Siri Tachi did, but she was currently unable to move under her own power and could barely stay awake through the pain of her injury. Koth, however, not only saw the blast coming but had enough mental control to do something about it. He let go of Siri and reached out through the Force, grabbing both the other Knights and hurling them away down the corridor just as the floor beneath them exploded, sending fire and shrapnel up through the corridor for several hundred feet in every direction.
Koth was caught near the center of the blast and disappeared in the roiling explosion, while T'vern and Siri found themselves on the edge of it in the air, their impetus aided further by the shockwave of the blast. But Siri still had the presence of mind to cushion the impact against the far wall with the Force. T'vern did not. He hit at an awkward angle, and, even over the ringing in her ears, Siri could hear the Aqualish's neck snapping.
Feeling Koth's death through the Force, Obi-Wan's eyes widened in horror, but he fought the urge to see what had occurred, being just outside the area of the blast himself. But he knew he couldn't turn away from his opponent. Asajj, however, didn't press him, instead moving over the bodies of the Viper's Core and away, smirking. That clued Obi-Wan into what was about to happen and he desperately leaped up using his lightsaber to cut into the ceiling, a Force Push and Jump carrying him up and into the other corridor as a secondary explosion went off.
He couldn't quite get out of the way, though, and Obi-Wan grimaced in pain as he was caught in the shockwave of the second explosion, the impact of it flipping him around and out. He couldn't protect himself as he landed and found himself nearly blacking out from the pain. With his fellows either dead or wounded, Obi-Wan cloaked his presence in the Force and moved away from where he had cut into the floor, moving over towards where he felt Siri Tachi's presence. But then the Force started to niggle at his senses, warning of another threat, and Obi-Wan, very reluctantly, shifted his attention in that direction, racing away towards the surface of the relay station.
The corridor below, so weakened from the dual explosions, started to collapse into the passage below, fire and flame everywhere, the sound of the flames and the shrieking metal starting to become so loud that it drowned out the fire alarm that had gone off a moment ago. Asajj stared through the fire and smoke to see the female Jedi slowly pushing herself to her feet, then closed her eyes, searching for the other one who had stymied her a moment ago. Curse it, he's disappeared under Force Stealth!
As she thought about what to do next, Asajj's copilot droid, a modified R-2 unit fitted with a voice box, got in touch with her via a communications bead in her ear with the message she least wanted to hear just then. "Mistress, we have incoming ships on our radar. IFF indicates they are the Balmorran Defense Force: squadrons of hyperspace capable starfighters, five gun boats, two cruiser-sized vessels, and four troop transports. Probability says we cannot fight such a large force."
Cursing, Asajj turned away, sending a recall order out to the various mercenary groups that had been part of this assault. Every one of them was expendable, hence why she had used them in the first place. But their fleeing would cover her own escape, and, at the least, the Viper's Core had won themselves some respect here, even if they hadn't claimed any Jedi lives. And none of them know I am a Dark Side user or even that I own a lightsaber, save for the Vipers, and since their contract stipulated keeping my secrets, they'll do just that. And as for the Jedi, there's always my ultimate backup.
For a moment she thought about that and then nodded sharply. The loss of this array would be a blow that would send the whole Republic reeling, and it would get rid of all the evidence and the last two Jedi, regardless of Obi-Wan having cloaked himself.
Moments later she boarded her Fanblade starfighter and rocketed away, flying nape of the earth for a moment until her copilot informed her that the mercs had broken for space and the BDF had intercepted them. Four starfighters tried to intercept her, even so, as Asajj boosted up to space, but she destroyed them easily, the double laser cannons on either wingtip able to punch through their shields with appalling ease. A second later she burst out of the atmosphere and transmitted a code to a another explosive device she had left behind on the outside of the relay. As her R-2 unit powered up their hyperspace engines and her ship moved directly away from the Balmorrans toward the planet's hyperspace limit, Asajj waited, watching the sensors and hoping to see the nuclear explosion before she jumped. She had chosen to deliberately use a nuclear device so that the radiation would cause further damage and chaos in her wake.
But the explosion didn't happen. Nothing happened, and she roared in anger. "Obi-Wan! It must have been him, may the Dark Side claim his soul! He must have somehow sensed the danger to the entire station and then found the device. Blast it!" Asajj then smirked, leaning back in her chair. Still, I did destroy the memory core I was ordered to with that secondary explosion. There is no chance that the Jedi slicer was able to find anything useful yet. And, of course, I killed two more Jedi, including one from the Council. A good day, even if one, possibly two, might have survived.
On the outside of the station, Obi-Wan leaned back, staring in something approaching relieved horror at the device he had just deactivated, shaking his head at the lengths the Sith were willing to go. An instant later his communicator beeped and the security commander's voice sounded off in his ear. "Master Jedi, we can't reach any of your fellows, I'm afraid, but we seem to be gaining the upper hand against the various criminal groups now that the attackers have retreated. We have medical teams now fanning out through the station from hub-ward. Do you require assistance?"
"I do not, but please send medical personnel and firefighting teams to the area where my fellows and I had created our hide. Then I need an explosives disposal team out here ASAP," Obi-Wan said wearily. "I am staring at one of several very large explosive devices I just disarmed, but I think it would be better for everyone if we removed it as quickly as possible.
A new voice sounded then, someone else having intercepted the communications somehow and deciding to cut in. He sounded gruff, almost unfriendly, but professional. "This is Commodore Hitch Beltane of the Balmorra Defense Force. We are coming in with several troops ships and medical teams. Master Jedi, what in the world happened? This whole station has been offline for several hours! The amount of damage and turmoil that's caused throughout the nearby sectors is probably incalculable!"
"I know that, Commodore. It was what we were here to try and stop," Obi-Wan said, prevaricating quickly even a he stood up, using his lightsaber as a signal to five men who had just stuck their heads out the hatch he'd used to gain access to the surface of the station. "We had thought the terrorist group in question would be trying to infect the station with a series of viruses so they could influence what information and news was sent, perhaps even a bug to take a percentage of money from every transaction that came in. We had not anticipated them being so foolish as to come into the open and assault the station like this when their first attempt failed. Nor did we anticipate them willing to be so destructive."
Hitch replied that they would talk further soon, his voice telling Obi-Wan that he didn't quite believe him but was willing to go along with things. Later, Obi-Wan met with a few medical teams looking over the bodies of T'vern and Master Koth. Oddly, Koth's body was still recognizable thanks, no doubt, to its trained durability, but the Zabrak's corpse was literally covered head to toe with third degree burns, and he had taken a sliver of metal through the eyeball at speed, which had gone on to penetrate his brain slightly. Yet that slightly had still been enough to kill him. Siri was, thankfully, still alive, even though she had fallen unconscious from the pain of her leg. The sight of her chest moving up and down on the stretcher as she breathed caused Obi-Wan to bow his head in relief.
Then he turned his attention to aiding the locals in trying to find their fellows and to clean up the mess the Sith had left behind. Yet, even as he did so, Obi-Wan hid a small data disk in his robe. T'vern might not have been able to localize the signal which the spy droid had sent on, but he had figured out that the signal had at least been going deeper Coreward. That wasn't anywhere substantial enough for the price they had been forced to pay, but it was all Obi-Wan had to show for their efforts just now. That, and Siri still being alive, would have to be enough.
OOOOOOO
The rest of the trip to Shili was uneventful, astonishing Ranma and depressing HK. Ranma was on the bridge with Shaak, staring at the image of the planet on their screens as they came in, watching the blue, white green, and oddly reddish marble grow in their imagery as they closed. This planet was more dominated by white and red than most other planets, with nary any sign of deserts or simply heavily rocky terrain. Indeed, the red was apparently a native plant that literally covered the plains of the planet anywhere there wasn't Togrutan habituation or a dense forest. There were ten space stations in orbit, all of them large, sprawling things that put Ranma in mind of the ones he had seen over Corellia, of obvious civilian use.
The moons, of which there were six, also had space stations in orbit, but they were most noticeably not commercial stations. Around each of them were several starfighter wings, moving in tandem and obviously running exercises as the Wild Blade moved through space towards the planet. Even though Shaak called ahead, it was obvious that someone over there has their head screwed on straight, Ranma reflected, since two of those starfighter squadrons broke off from their practice and began to move in their direction, shadowing them just at the edge of their radar.
He grunted, moving his head slightly as Ahsoka nearly poked him in the eye with her montrals as she crowded in between him and Shaak, staring ahead of them at Shili, while Ranma kept his own attention on the starfighters. "Is that normal?" he asked.
"For them to shadow suspicious and possibly armed vessels? Yes," Shaak quipped with a faint smile. She smiled still more as Ranma wound his fingers with her own on the intervening armrest between their seats. "Shili isn't as heavily regimented when it comes to ships coming in or leaving as Dac, but neither is it as open as Outer Rim planets tend to be. And, you have to admit, even with our weapons under cover, the simple look of our vessel is such that most will be wary of us."
As she thought that, Shaak and the other two Jedi could feel a bit of amusement course through the Wild Blade's computer systems. The ship's sense of identity was growing all the time even though it showed no sign of being able to act on its own, which all of them were very thankful for, given its firepower.
A moment later they heard a voice coming through the intercom. "Master Ti, your ID code has been verified, although we were not told about that ship of yours. Forgive any suspicion, but we will continue to have our starfighters shadow you until you're on the ground."
"Derisive tone: As if those starfighters are any true threat against the Wild Blade," HK said with accompanying electronic snort, shaking his large head from side to side. "If we wanted to cause some mayhem here, they could not stop us. Hopeful tone: Master, do you think we could teach them to better understand the balance of power between us?"
"Enough of that, HK. We are here for peaceful reasons, not violence," Ranma warned. "If you have any desires in that area, you and I can find a spot to spar, and I'll mangle your body up a bit for you."
"Rueful response: Yes, Master. I suppose I shouldn't anticipate that we will run into fun times every time we come to a planet."
"I rather think that actually shows quite a bit of intelligence on your part, HK. I simply hope that that will not be the case here," Shaak said with a sigh.
Moments later the living ship broke atmosphere, and they descended through the white, light orange, and pink landscape of a sunset down to the land below. The ship moved over the terrain of a massive forest that stretched from one side of the horizon to the other for a time before coming to a city leading into the forest, with numerous roads and railway systems leading out in the other directions. The railway systems looked much like what Ranma remembered of the rail system in Japan, the tram lines and other such, although they were few and far between. Most of the traffic seemed to be on the ground, single small landspeeders moving here and there as the ship wound into the city and touched down on the landing pad that had been assigned to it. The Wild Blade was quite a bit larger than most ships this place had been designed for, though. Nonetheless, they fit between the ships already there with ease, the controls' responsiveness still astonishing Ranma even now.
Once they were down, Ranma turned in his chair and shouted out back into the ship. "All right, Mandos and guard-boys, remember we're here to make nice with the locals. That means while you can still wear your armor, you have to leave your weapons here! I've got no problem with hold out weapons or weapons that can't be seen, but nothing obvious for now until we get set up wherever we'll be staying for the rest of our time here."
"Oh, shut up. We've been ready for this for a while now. None of us want to do anything that get us barred from the wedding," Janice barked back to much laughter from both groups as she pulled off her helmet and set it on her backpack behind her head, staring meaningfully at her squadron. They all hurriedly did the same thing despite some grumbles.
Shaak blushed at that, while Ranma tugged at his pigtail, looking away even as he stood up. "Everyone's a comedian, I swear," he muttered.
K'Kruhk stood up and followed them out, with HK following behind his bulk while Shaak and Ahsoka began to take up the rear, talking quietly to one another. While they were here, Shaak was determined that Ahsoka would go through the same rite of passage that she had when she was a young padawan.
Outside, five Togrutans waited for them at the outskirts of the landing pad, their eyes narrowing somewhat at the armor of the Nova Guard and the Mandalorians. Then, when Shaak moved in front of them, their eyes widened, seeing both the Jedi robes and the lightsaber as well as the wedding band glinting as she turned aside to address the younger Togrutan standing beside her. That was strange to many, but none of them commented on it, since doing so would've been rude. "Master Ti, welcome back to Shili," one of them said. They would have said welcome home, but it was well known that the Jedi disdained any such. "I am Administrator Das Ovur, and this is Security General Gal Baurd."
That worthy was an older man than the first, grizzled and with the white of numerous scars showing on his dark red skin as well as the normal random white markings, the difference obvious to Shaak if to no one else among her party, and a segment of one lek's tip missing. "We are always happy to see Jedi here and are thankful you let us know beforehand. But might I ask why you are here and being carried in a ship made for war, whatever its attempts to hide that fact? That we were not warned about, and it caused my space defense pilots some angst."
"Do not worry, General. We are not here on any official business. Rather, we are here for personal reasons," Shaak said with a smile. "Tell me, was an out of the way hostel of some kind prepared for us as I requested in my original communique?"
At that first sentence many of the locals nodded, having seen young Ahsoka standing respectfully by Master Ti. The others with Shaak and Ahsoka had thrown them off their stride, but they understood the reason why at least the two Togrutans were here. Getting to know one's roots was important to nearly every Togrutan who left Shili, and Master Ti had done much the same when she was Ahsoka's age.
Yet the Mandalorians presence still concerned them: after all, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't recognize them. So before anyone could address Shaak's question, the general spoke up again. "With respect, Master Jedi, but why are you traveling with a group of Mandalorians, and, further, why are they here?"
"I'll answer that," Ranma said, stepping forward. "In accordance with an old honor pact between us, Shaak and I have agreed to train some of the Mandalorian warriors' best—best and youngest, I should say," he said with a smirk towards the Mandalorians, many of whom gave him the finger or other equivalent gesture. "That training can't stop halfway, so while we are here for two personal reasons, we can't let that take precedence. Don't worry, we're not here to cause trouble or even stand out overmuch."
"Hopeful interjection: unless, of course, trouble comes looking for us," HK said from where he stood with the Mandos and Nova Guard.
Janice reached over and smacked the droid upside the head. "Don't go borrowing trouble like that, you overgrown toaster."
At that, the general subsided, though he did glance warily at the large combat droid. Still, for the moment his concerns were somewhat alleviated by the Jedi's words. That didn't mean he wouldn't watch the offworlders closely, but he wouldn't make waves right now.
"We have prepared such a domicile for you, Master Jedi," said one of the other locals. "Your calling ahead allowed us to pick out what we believe is a perfect place." He held out a datapad, and, activating it, Shaak saw an image of a large mansion-like structure on top of a cliff sticking out of a mountain over what looked like a deep lake of some kind. "This is a retreat for a few local corporations, but it isn't in season at the moment, and we were able to procure its services for you and your party. Will this suffice?"
"It will do very nicely," Shaak said with a smile and a bow from the waist as Ranma looked at the datapad in turn before handing it back. "Thank you. Could you give us the coordinates? I note that it has an area nearby where we could land the Wild Blade."
"It does, Master Ti," the local said. He wore a large computerized headpiece, which almost covered either side of his head along with the base of his montrals and a suit that informed those who knew local uniforms that he worked for the planetary air control office. "Although I don't think it would accommodate any further ships given the size of yours. You might have to taxi it off the landing area if you are expecting further cover."
"Might I ask what your second reason for being here is?" Administrator Ovur asked.
"Nothing to do with the government or anything to do with the law or the Order in general," Shaak said with a tranquil smile that put the man off his stride. "It is simply a personal reason. Please leave it at that."
Shaak had actually been of two minds about calling ahead at all from Mandalore, but, upon mature reflection, she had made the decision to do so despite the risks of such being discovered by the Sith. The Wild Blade was, despite its attempt to hide its fangs, too dangerous looking a ship to let them sneak around, and, further, trying to hide that would have soured the locals on them even once Shaak and K'Kruhk's Jedi status also came to light. It would be better to come in under the auspices of her station as a Jedi in the first place than to run into the myriad issues attempting to sneak in and fail would have garnered. But the day of her and Ranma blending in when they arrived to a new planet was now gone.
At her polite yet very firm slap-down, Ovur nodded and backed away, frowning somewhat but not willing to question the younger woman further.
Ranma smirked at that and moved forward, taking Shaak's hand in his and gesturing her back towards the ship. "Let's go, then."
A few minutes later the Wild Blade lifted off once more, traveling across the world towards the hotel that they had been assigned. Ranma stayed with the Mandos and the Nova Guard in the main sitting area for now, while Ahsoka and Shaak took over the cockpit, with Shaak pointing out this or that area of particular historical significance as they flew through the planet's atmosphere rather than back out to orbit and then around, which would have allowed them to go far faster than they could in atmosphere. He told the others about the place they were going to be staying, since none of them had seen the datapad the locals had given Shaak, the Jedi having taken it up to the cockpit, finishing with, "And we maybe will have some access to the ocean. That'll be good for endurance and balance training, not to mention swimming's always fun."
At that, the head of one of the Mandalorians whipped up, and her eyes turned almost gleeful. "Really!?"
Seeing the girl's silver hair, Ranma remembered that she was the Arkanian girl, although he couldn't for the life of him remember her name. Dammit, I seriously need to get to know these people better. I know they're tough, I know they're decent soldiers, but on a personal level beyond that, I don't have any clue about any of them bar Janice.
"Really," he said aloud, giving her a thumbs up. "We'll see when we get there."
Without another word the girl, who was easily the shortest of them all barely above four and a half feet, leaped to her feet and raced towards the cockpit, and Ranma blinked, looking around at the others. They all shrugged their shoulders, and that made Ranma remember that the Mandos, at the very least, didn't actually know one another very well either. Oh, a few of them did, and if Shaak's comment a few days ago was correct, they had at least one couple among them, but they needed to get to know one another to a greater level than they had up to this point. They could fight together very well, but that was simply because of their society making certain the two groups were trained to a very high individual level.
And, even then, Ranma reflected, looking over to Sergeant Cro in the Nova Guard, they didn't fight as well as a unit as the Nova Guard did, who in turn did not fight with the Mandos. Both groups fought nearly alone rather than as a single unit. Okay, so it worked thanks to the nature of the space station, but we can't count on that. They have sort of begun to mingle on an individual basis, but not in terms of training or tactics.
A few moments later Shaak informed them all via the intercom that they were coming down for a landing.
Since they were not going to be staying on the ship, the group grabbed their stuff this time and prepared to exit as Ahsoka, the Arkanian girl, and K'Kruhk joined them. A moment later the ship touched down very lightly, with barely a jolt being felt. Cro barked out a command, and his troops actually moved into combat formation before he looked over at Ranma. "Good to get some practice, and there aren't any local officials here," he said.
"Let's not scare the locals, shall we?" K'Kruhk said, laying a large hand on the Nova Guard sergeant's shoulder. "I understand your eagerness," he went on, although he really didn't. "But let us not start our stay here on the wrong foot by scaring any hotel employees that might be about the place."
"Indeed not," Shaak said, coming down from the cockpit and smiling at them all. But there was something about the smile that made Cro step back hurriedly, and every other person there to quail a little. "It would be very irritating if something were to ruin our time here, especially so quickly."
Smiling and ignoring the aura of fear Shaak had just projected, Ranma moved over towards her and extended an arm. "In that case, shall we?"
Shaak smiled and linked her arm with his, and the two of them led the way outside as the ramp lowered.
Outside they found that the ship had touched down in a small private landing area, filling the entire area with its bulk as one of the locals had warned would be the case. To one side there was a path leading toward a hotel, its design reminding Ranma of several postcards he'd seen of places in Greece, though he had never actually been there himself, of course. Why Happy had those in his pocket, I have no idea, but it sure as heck was good pick-pocketing practice. What was it called again Capper or something? Another trail led off in a different direction, while about a mile away in a different direction, the direction that their ship was currently pointed towards, there was a forest that began almost abruptly before expanding out of sight.
Ranma and Shaak led the way up the path towards the hotel, where they were met by a pair of Togrutan men dressed in yellow and black butler-like outfits which must have been the uniform of the hotel. The two of them opened the door and bowed then in. The number of offworlders there raised a few eyebrows, but not many. Togrutans were very ecumenical in terms of offworlders, although few stayed over long on Shili. To one side of the entrance was a lobby and another Togrutan man, who bowed towards them.
"Master Jedi and guests, we were warned of your coming, and we have prepared numerous rooms for you. I have here a…Ranma and Shaak being given the honeymoon suite?" the man at the desk to the hotel asked. He blinked in surprise when Shaak, the obvious Jedi in the lead, nodded, indicating herself and the young human man beside her, and he turned back to his computer quickly. "I'm sorry, Master Jedi, that must of been a mistake. We will…"
"It is not a mistake," Shaak said with a smile. "Please, don't make a fuss about it. We will be quite happy with the honeymoon suite."
Ranma bit back a quip about that as he saw the man's eyes widen, and more than a few of the locals responding more to that then the fact the offworlders were there or that they were so obviously lugging things along that included weapons of all types. It was evident that far more people understood about the whole no attachments thing the Jedi followed than he had anticipated, at least here, anyway. Still, they'll get used to it eventually. Or not. No skin off my nose either way.
The group had been assigned all of the rooms on the first floor, each floor having a honeymoon suite at the far end from the entrance which took over the corner of the rectangular -shaped hotel, the suites thus overlooking the cliff on the other side of the hotel from the landing area. Ranma and Shaak assigned Janice and Cro the work of splitting up their troops, which both of them did with aplomb, before all of them trooped into the honeymoon suite which would both be Ranma and Shaak's area and their communal sitting room during their time here.
Once more the short, Arkanian girl, who he also noticed now was nearly boyish in appearance, surprised Ranma by moving past them all to stare avidly out over the cliff and down to the ocean. "Can we rent boats here?" she asked.
"I'll look into it tomorrow," Shaak said with a smile. "For now, I think we should talk about what we will be doing here. And for how long we will stay.
K'Kruhk sat down, then blinked as the sofa he'd chosen creaked rather alarmingly under his weight. He quickly stood up to the chuckles of many of the others and sat down with what he could of his dignity on the floor to one side. Despite that he spoke up before any of the others could. "I would like to get in touch with the Jedi Council," he said without preamble. "I think we need to tell them about what we found and hope that the Order can hunt for other bases like that. Unless all of you have any idea of hunting those bases on our own?"
"That kind of job needs a lot of manpower and time," Janice said, shaking her head and sitting down on the empty coach. "Unless you all have some Force power that can point you the correct direction?"
"Yes and no," Shaak said while K'Kruhk just shook his head. "Ranma and I have had some luck years past in using Force visions, but we distrust them because they can all too easily lead us into traps. We might be able to find a base like that if we were close to one, astronomically speaking, but not otherwise."
"That leaves computers, then," said Jethro, pulling at her long ponytail and looking around at the others. "Astronomical data, computer data, and the actual computer type, my suppositions about its construction, and so forth. I can have a copy of what little data we were able to find for you in a little bit K'Kruhk."
"That will do nicely, thank you," K'Kruhk said, bowing his head towards her.
She nodded back, and Shaak took over the meeting a bit. "As you all know, we are here for a personal reason: Ranma and myself wish to formalize our relationship in, in wedlock." For a second Shaak had to fight back a blush at that, while Ranma did the same, but no one there could miss the smile of pleasure on their faces at the idea. "I will need to get in touch with a few people to organize everything, but that shouldn't take too long. Organizing it will take a bit longer, and there are a few people I would like to see here. Ranma?"
Ranma pulled at his pigtail thoughtfully, causing Jethro to smirk, not having realized that the two of them had that thinking pose in common before that. "Training," he said, glancing around at them all. "We need to start cross-training, training as a whole unit, getting to know one another, and all that jazz. Staying here for what, a month, month and a half?" He looked over at Shaak, who paused, thinking about it, and then nodded. "That should give us time to work on our teamwork and various skills sets. We did pretty well in that fight just now, but I think that's more because all of us are just damn good as individuals and we could use the terrain to our advantage. I want us to be good as a team."
"That's nice," Shaak said with a smile, "and I concur, but my question was, do you want anyone here during our wedding?"
Ranma flushed a little and then slowly nodded. "Ah, yeah. Um…Yoda, Dooku, maybe? Other than those two, Kit and Obi-Wan, I suppose. Kit is, next to you, my best friend, though I'm almost tempted to ask if Bo Katan could get away, but I doubt it, so I'm not even going to ask. If Kit could get here, maybe we can incorporate the idea of a groomsman, um, sort of a best male friend kind of thing, he's supposed to handle some aspects of the wedding I think."
"Good enough," Shaak said with a faint smile. "K'Kruhk and I will get in touch with the Council, and then I will try to get in touch with Aayla and the others. Meanwhile, Ranma, they're all yours."
Ranma smirked, clapping his hands together, then reached over and grabbed up Ahsoka, pulling her out of a large, very fluffy and inviting looking lounge chair and holding her in the air. "I think it's time the rugrat and I work out some issues too. The name of the game, ladies and gentlemen, is to flush the foxes."
He grinned evilly at all of their quizzical expressions, save for Shaak, who leaned back and crossed her arms, watching with interest as Ahsoka squirmed in his grip, actually flipping entirely over and kicking out only to then be caught by her foot and once more found herself hanging in Ranma's grip except upside down this time. She then put her hands on the ground and kicked out at his chest with her free foot. "Get off, darn it!"
Ranma dodged easily but did let go of her ankle then as Ahsoka rolled to her feet he grabbed her by the back of the shirt again, holding her off the floor once more. "Give Ahsoka and me about fifteen to twenty minutes out there in the forest, and then come in to hunt us. How you do it or anything else is up to the lot of you. But just remember, this fox," he said, pointing at himself and holding up a now resigned Ahsoka, "is also going to be hunting the lot of you, so think about your approach very carefully."
With that he set Ahsoka down on the ground and moved towards the door. "Come on, rugrat, let's get going. And while we're at it, you and I get to work on our own teamwork too. That bit will be called, 'When it's okay to banter and argue, and when it ain't.'"
Ahsoka grumbled a little then shook her head, looking pack at her master and bowing. "With your leave, Master?" she asked pointedly, every inch of her saying she listened to Shaak and not Ranma.
Shaak rolled her eyes and gestured with one hand. "Have fun, Ahsoka. And do remember, Ranma is as much your teacher in terms of combat as I am. Do not allow your issues with one another to blind you to the fact he can teach you quite a lot if you let him."
With a moue of distaste, the younger Togrutan nodded back at her, then raced after Ranma.
The others looked at one another as K'Kruhk and Shaak stood up and made to exit the room as well to head to the Wild Blade and use its Hypercom uplink. Janice and Cro, in particular, were looking at each other, wondering how best to go about this.
Thomas, on the other hand, simply leaned back and whispered to Kad, "I think we're going to get our rears kicked in again."
"We learn through our mistakes," Kad said philosophically even as he pulled on his helmet. His next words were muffled but filled with wry humor all the same. "I think we should probably get used to that feeling."
OOOOOOO
While somewhat exhausted from an extremely violent and vituperative day with the Senate, Sidious could only smirk as he set aside his guise as the Chancellor and once more allowed his true self to appear in the soothing darkness of his hood. The death of the Jedi slicer was nothing. Yes, they didn't have many of those, but if they were subtle about it, the Order could probably bring in more help, computer-wise. The galaxy was vast, after all, and the Chancellor knew that he could not control everyone who had that particular skill set, and even trying would be like trying to fill a punctured sieve with water.
But the death of a councilmember was excellent. Oh, the feeling of his passing through the Veil, glorious! I had not anticipated one of those top tier fools would even be involved in that action, but to have Asajj kill him! Simply fantastic. Even the fact that two of the Jedi survived and were able to convince the locals and the Balmorra Defense Force of the fact that there was a Dark Side user there is useful.
Sidious let his lips quirk into a brief frown at that thought. Balmorra had responded to that in such a way that would infuriate the Techno Union's leadership. They had asked to have a Jedi permanently assigned there and further decried any violence of that nature which, in their words, 'struck at the very fiber of civilization.' This last could be said to be a blow against the Secessionist concept, certainly the idea of winning their freedom with violence. Since Balmorra was a planet that specialized in weapons design and construction, that was rather disingenuous of them. But it had garnered a lot of support, and their leadership looked as if they were going to pull entirely away from the Techno Union, which would be a harsh blow if it was allowed.
Hmmf. This Obi-Wan Kenobi, he has come to my attention before. Was he not a padawan during Maul's assault on Naboo? His ability to convince the Balmorran commander of what was going on and his openness about a Dark Side user being involved was something I had not anticipated. Nor did I think the Order would leap at the idea so quickly and even assign Kenobi and the other survivor, Tachi, to them right away.
Still, Asajj's over-the-top attack on the Hypercom center proved to be the impetus I needed to start assigning small military units to each Hypercom Relay Station. Military forces that, in the main, he controlled, or rather, 'the Senate' controlled, at any rate. Any further activity by the Jedi would be spotted and give him further warning if the Jedi attempted anything further. It would also make taking the Hypercoms over and shutting free speech down once the war began all the easier for fear of 'fear-mongering propaganda' and allowing the enemy access to pass along military orders.
And what was even better was the Senate's response beyond that! he thought, an evil smile on his face as he descended into his special throne room. Practically two-thirds of the Senate had blamed the Jedi for the destruction and the damages, which was of such a magnitude that it would shift the budget of that sector for years to come. The fact that the Jedi could not stop the attack even though they were there is a blow to their reputation that they will never recover from! I can perhaps even use it in the public forum, although that is a little more chancy. Hmm… If I go that route, best to use a senator with ties to the Secessionist faction.
Still, I could have wished that we had more conclusive data that the Jedi had lost the trail entirely. I can ill afford for them to look more closely at the Core Worlds than they already are. Sidious scowled a little at that as he sat in his throne, glorying in the darkness all around him, broken only by a few screens and blinking red lights here and there. Sidious didn't like the fact that public opinion had slowly begun to change towards the Jedi in the Core Worlds. It's impacted the basis of what would come after the war ends, the Empire I mean to create. Still, since the war hasn't even begun, I suppose that is rather counting my avians before they hatch. More than time enough to shatter their newfound popularity, especially if I can blame the war utterly on them, as I know I will be able to.
And, judging by the latest report on Anakin, even with his training under that fat fool Giiett, he has continued to have weaknesses I can exploit and use to bring him to the Dark Side. So the future, at the least, looks bright. And yet, despite the Veil of the Dark Side, the Chaotic Locus was able to find one of our Terentatek breeding centers. That is somewhat worrisome. As is the fact that he was able to destroy it. The sooner that issue is finally dealt with, the better.
With that in mind, Sidious contacted Set Harth, smiling almost pleasantly into the pickup. "How goes your planning of late, Set? I understand that you have placed yourself on Shili."
"We have indeed, both myself and my two co-infiltrators, the two Clawdites Javrad and Kusak," Set said without preamble.
Sidious had sensed a renewal of purpose in the younger-seeming man since the destruction of the Terentatek breeding pens. It amused him to no end to know that the Locus's destruction of half of Harth's useless trinkets had pushed Harth into sharing Sidious's hate for the Locus, but he wasn't about to point that out to Set lest he realize it and go back to his pain-enforced enthusiasm.
"I have brought together the entire team, and put them nearby, hidden in a ship a single microjump away. I intend to bring them in right before the strike, since the Whiphid Jedi and the Togrutan have proven that they are getting better at feeling out the Force for threats. Indeed, we have to stay well away from them for this ambush to work at all. But we know the hotel where they are staying and have already infiltrated ghost programs into a few cleaning droids brought in occasionally to aid the hotel staff. Javrad has also befriended one of the staff there over the past week. I used the Force to influence the fool's mind, and he thinks Javrad is his best friend for now. Over the last few weeks he's begun to take shifts for the man since he is dealing with being a single father and a colicky son."
Left unsaid was that that kind of weakness was the sort of thing Set had been looking for when he had helped the locals decide on which out of the way hotel to offer the Jedi during their stay on Shili. Shaak Ti's idea of calling ahead had smoothed the way with the locals, but she had not really thought of her homeworld being dangerous and thus had missed the fact this would allow the Sith to try and lay a trap. She and Ranma were both almost always ready for an attack, but not a ambush like this.
"I will need quite a while to set everything up, and I have to admit to some anxiety about letting Durge out of my sight, but hopefully he will control himself. He and the Dathomir Dark Brother, Savage Oppress, are a little too eager for the fight and liable to ruin things if allowed to act on their own," Set went on with a frown. "To forestall that I slaved their ship to another that the Anzati hunters are staying aboard together and then disabled the control computers on Durge's ship."
"Such is the way with such violent blunt instruments. Still, it is good that you know this and have taken it into account," Sidious replied almost pleasantly. It had been a very good day after all, and seeing Set's newfound enthusiasm for his task amused him still further. "Will you need further troops?"
"Yes," Set Harth said bluntly. "The video recordings I saw of the Chaotic Locus's attack on my collec..., that is, the Terentatek breeding pens, showed that he has gathered at least one squad of Nova Guard and an equal amount of Mandalorians. We will need troops of some kind, whatever Durge says about how he could kill them all without breaking a sweat. I want to leave nothing to chance here."
That caused Sidious to frown thoughtfully. "I believe we will need to look elsewhere for brute manpower. The attack led by Asajj may well have left some bad feelings towards her in general and will certainly have made the rounds of the mercenary groups that attacking Jedi is not a conducive to long life."
"I've certainly found that recruiting more troops to take against the Jedi is hard. The tales of the Chaotic Locus and his lover have once more begun to spread, unfortunately," Set replied.
"Then let us use that," Sidious said thoughtfully. "Reach out to groups that they have wronged. In the distant past, perhaps, but still, wronged, and which we can both manipulate and afford to lose."
"The Hutts?" Set Harth asked.
"Indeed," Sidious said with a nod. "Those slugs are the type to hold a grudge until it dies of old age, so will surely want to strike back at the Jedi who started their downward spiral. I have a few deeply buried contacts with them, and the Hutts in turn can funnel more troops to you. However, you will have to perform a balancing act with them. I do not want the Hutts to have any knowledge about who they are truly working with. They are far too good at manipulating the criminal element for me to want to have them know more than is necessary. Such would be more than willing to sell us out to the Jedi in turn."
Set Harth nodded, and Sidious cut the connection before calling his true disciple, smiling thinly at the alien as he came on. "I believe," he said without preamble, "that we can use Asajj's attack and the Centrists 'overdone response to it against the Secessionists.' Let us turn public opinion fully against your faction in the Core Worlds and elsewhere. I want both sides ripe for war within another six months. We can't sit on the violent factions of both sides longer than that, curse it."
"If we do that more attention will be placed on me personally. Do you wish me to play peacemaker or disappear further into the background?" Tyranus asked equably. That was one thing Sidious truly approved of in his apprentice: he had taken Sidious's personal addendum to the Sith's Code to heart and mastered it to an extent only Sidious himself could exceed.
"Disappear slightly, but also play peacemaker. Let us play a bit with this. Within the next few months I want all of the Jedi Council's attention directly on you and the insurrectionists, but not right away. The timing will be tricky."
"Undoubtedly," Sora Bulq replied with a chuckle. "But if it wasn't, anyone could play the game, and that would be far too messy."
OOOOOOO
Ranma and the others returned to the hotel late that evening, with the two groups of soldiers utterly exhausted. Indeed, more than one of them was being dragged along by their fellows. Ahsoka too was practically asleep on her feet but was using her Force techniques to keep her mind awake and her legs moving next to Ranma, who looked positively chipper in comparison.
He helped the others into their various rooms, saying jokingly, "Tonight is room service night, ladies and gentlemen. Decent job, and get a lot of sleep since we'll be doing something like that again tomorrow and worse."
The groaning he heard from every open doorway was music to his ears, and Ranma helped Ahsoka into the room she would be sharing with K'Kruhk next to the honeymoon suite with a smile. There the padawan promptly collapsed onto the bed, starting to snore uproariously. Ranma rolled his eyes but then shifted Ahsoka onto her back, knowing that laying on her lekku would be painful and would wake her up at some point during the night. "You did good, kiddo," he said, patting her forehead lightly. "You did good."
That was only the truth, after all. While Ahsoka lacked the endurance and training to keep up with Ranma for any length of time, she had decent woodcraft skills and had taken to tree-hopping very well. She also, once they were in the woods, anyway, had taken instruction quite well. She had fought decently, almost as well as one of the Nova Guard in close quarters, and she worked well with him too. They had also talked a lot and had somewhat buried the hatchet. That doesn't mean we won't prank the heck out of one another from here on, but it won't be malicious, and I don't think we'll fight for Shaak's attention any longer either. Although I could be wrong there, hehehe.
He found Shaak and K'Kruhk in the honeymoon suite. The large Jedi was leaning against the far wall, his legs crossed under him as he meditated. Shaak was nearby, but she was facing inwards instead of out to sea and opened her eyes as Ranma entered, a small warm smile on her face. Sitting behind her, Ranma enfolded her in a hug, kissing her back lek and then the back and side of her neck. "I had fun. What about you?"
"Not so much, I'm afraid," Shaak said, moving slightly away, enough to make Ranma realize that this was not the time for flirting, but not leaving the comfort of his arms around her stomach. She twisted around to look at Ranma. "The Order has lost people today."
Ranma winced. "Tell me."
"Master Koth is dead," Shaak said, shaking her head. "As is the young Knight that joined them as their slicer. Obi-Wan lives and apparently was able to beat off their attacker through use of Soresu."
"You've mentioned a time or two that that style completely bollixes up a lot of Sith," Ranma said with a nod. "But Koth is dead? Honestly, I hadn't expected that. The guy was tough and was, along with Kit, able to fight clown face and actually make him run, way back when. Didn't he also go through the toughness training?"
"Evidently not as much as Kit or myself, although both of us would also have trouble with stopping a lightsaber. There is a sort of plateau that you must reach and then surpass in terms of toughness training in order to be able to take lightsaber strikes. After all, the heat of a lightsaber is far higher than that of a blaster. You must make your skin like diamond or cortosis rather than regular metal. I am not certain that many Jedi will be able to pass that plateau. Then, too, perhaps the Sith have learned how to increase the heat of their lightsabers."
Ranma's scowled at that but nodded. "You passed on the information we discovered? Anyone have any ideas of what to do with it?
"None. Master Windu and I were talking in code, of course, and even so there was only so much information we could share. But I think that Jethro and the others were correct, that sort of search is best done via computers first, unless we are able to tell via the Force."
Ranma scowled again but nodded. He had an idea about how to find another Sith base, but it would have to wait until after the wedding. After all, it wouldn't be the first time we've played bait. It would be the first time we might let someone escape willingly. Still, that idea will keep. Well, unless they attack us here, and I'm not even going to think about voicing that idea. My old man might've tried to raise me a fool, but that doesn't mean that I am entirely stupid. Hmm, best to get HK on security. Put that paranoid computer brain of his to use.
Changing the subject, he asked, "So were you able to start organizing the wedding?"
Shaak smiled, thankful for the change of subject, and nodded. "I was able to contact one of the local priests, or what we call Guiders—at least it translates to that—and a wedding planner who is willing to work on short notice. The three of us will work together to create a ceremony. Do you want to have any input into either aspect of the ceremony?" she asked, cocking her head thoughtfully.
Ranma thought, then blinked. "Either aspect?"
"Well, yes. We have talked about my marrying you in both of your forms, after all," Shaak said, sending him a grin.
Ranma blushed, poking his fingers together and looking away. "Does that mean I'm going to have to wear a dress?" he whined.
"Something of the sort, perhaps," Shaak said soothingly.
"Isn't that going to kind of disrupt the wedding if I have to leave and change?" Ranma asked, fighting the idea for some reason.
"We will work it into the wedding," Shaak replied calmly. Then she looked at Ranma closely and took his chin in her hand, looking deeply into his eyes. "Ranma, I want to tell the universe that in either form you are mine, and me yours. It is that simple."
That this would also finish the job of Ranma's fully accepting his curse was another aspect, but she wasn't going to say that aloud. Nor was the fact that the fact that Ranma could change forms like that was possibly one of the reasons why Shaak had fallen in love with Ranma in the first place.
"Now, isn't that sort of against that whole 'no attachments' thing you Jedi have to follow?" Ranma asked jokingly. But his eyes were warm, and he took her hand and kissed it lovingly: first the palm, then the tips of her fingers, then her wrist.
"Yes," she said, setting aside her earlier concerns and letting Ranma pull her to her feet. "But it is a mutual thing, after all."
"Oh yes," Ranma said, pulling her to himself possessively. "Yes, it most certainly is that."
Nearby K'Kruhk coughed uncomfortably, the feelings the two were displaying not conducive to his continued meditations at all. "Should I leave?"
Both of them blinked and then turned to the Whiphid, having actually forgotten he was there, before Ranma nodded, pointing towards the doorway. "If you don't mind?" Shaak's quiet laughter and his own embarrassment caused K'Kruhk to hop to his feet far faster than someone his size could normally move, and he moved towards the doorway just as rapidly.
OOOOOOO
Actually, HK was already taking the security of the hotel under his command. He might not have liked being left out of the earlier humiliation of their new meatbag hangers on, but while his long-term memory could charitably be likened to Chandrillan cheese, HK knew one thing very well: if anything happened here that would ruin the wedding, Shaak Ti would go completely bat-shit. The fact that she was a Jedi would not matter; there were just some things that were hardwired in females regardless of species. If anything happens to this event, best that I in no way could be blamed for it.
This was why he was currently looming behind one of the locals who had just entered the main floor from a small servants' only area at the back of the hotel. "Interrogative tone: And who are you, meatbag? Hopeful tone: Your meatbag visage does not appear on the roster of the hotel workers. Perhaps you are a thief, a spy?"
Javrad, one of the two Clawdite shapechangers employed by the Sith raised his hand as the barrel of the blaster smacked into the back of his head again. A droid that large shouldn't be able to move so silently! He turned, not having to playact being fearful as he kept his hands raised. "I'm, um, I'm part of the night shift," he stammered. "I just take over an occasional shift as a favor to one of the others! His name's Mal! You can check with his manager."
HK did so and then was visibly disappointed at the response. "Irritated announcement: Your story checks out; you may go. But know this, meatbag: any further deviations from yours or this Mal's set schedule will result in further scrutiny."
Javrad nodded quickly and moved off. It looked as if infiltrating the hotel was going to be more difficult than anticipated. They would have to watch and make certain their back stories and papers were in order at all times. Still, that's nothing we haven't done before. As long as we stay well away from the Jedi themselves, we should be good for the few hours I need to be here.
OOOOOOO
The next day planning for the ceremony began in earnest, with Ranma and Shaak meeting with the locals that morning, hammering out some of the details like what bits and pieces of the ceremony would be human and what wouldn't be. Since Ranma didn't know much about weddings here in this universe and disdained most of the memories of the Wedding disaster, he really didn't have much input, although he did state that he'd like to put some pictures and images around the place from their adventures and travels and that the phrase, 'dearly beloved,' should be used in the ceremony somewhere.
Beyond that, he let Shaak had her way, as he knew was traditional when it came to weddings. Huh, looking back on it, maybe that should have told us the wedding ceremony itself was doomed, regardless of Akane and her…issues. It was planned by two men who might as well have been poster children for Misogynists Anonymous.
After that Ranma took over the training for the rest of their crew: individual exercises, group exercises, team building via splitting them up into random teams at different times during the day, and various strength building and speed training exercises. He and K'Kruhk saw to Ahsoka's training along with the rest as Shaak started to subtly get in touch with her friends and Ranma's via the Order.
It turned out that Kit and Master Fay were out of contact. No one knew where they were or what they were doing. The best that the Order could tell was the direction that they had traveled once they left Thyferra and that there was an issue wherever they were going with the weather and the locals' impressions of offworlders.
Hearing that, Ranma asked, "Hey HK, you want to be my best man?"
"Sardonic response: As I am a droid rather than a man, that would be a no. I want no part of this meatbag ceremony other than defending it if, and hopefully when, it gets interrupted." The droid replied.
This proved to be a mistake as Shaak gestured and Force grabbed HK Lifting him off the ground and tossing him off a window Ranma quickly opened. "I find your sarcasm and lack of good will disturbing HK. Go have a walk."
Looking at his lover's face, Ranma decided to keep his own thoughts that maybe HK had a point to himself.
Obi-Wan wasn't going to be getting away either, since he and Siri had been pulled from normal duty and assigned to Balmorra, a planet the Order was attempting to convince to break off from the Techno Union. Since it was a major weapons design facility, this was no small thing. Eventually the two of them would be reassigned to continue to follow the trail whose next step T'vern had found, but that had fallen in priority given how deadly that hunt could become.
However, Shaak did have better luck getting in touch with Aayla, talking to her for the first time in several years in a face to face call. The other young female Jedi smiled at her, a conspiratorial twinkle in her eyes. "So, let me get this straight. You and Ranma, and all these new hangers-on, apparently, are on Shili, and you want my opinion on an 'issue' there," she said, actually making little quote marks with her fingers in the air when she said the word issue. "You do not consider it something that the Order as a whole needs to be concerned about, however. My word, whatever could it be?"
Shaak smiled but was trying valiantly to keep a blush off her face at Aayla's knowing look. Despite being teased like that, though, she was happy to see that her friend had not lost any of her good humor since the last time they had seen one another after the disaster of Aayla's mission on Tatooine many years ago. By the Force, but it has been a long time, hasn't it? "As I said, it is simply a small, minor issue. One could even call it personal, if such a thing were allowed to Jedi."
"Or even if it wasn't quite allowed but not so against the rules any longer, at least not for you since you retook your oaths in the Old Way," Aayla replied archly. She let Shaak squirm for a bit before smiling again. "Well, I am more than able to get away at the moment. Master Giiett has actually taken over here on Ryloth as Sector Jedi. He and young Anakin are going to be stationed out here to oversee an effort to crack down on the illegal slave trade and to monitor the legal one."
"My word, that's an interesting assignment for young Anakin…" Shaak said with a frown. "Given his particular axe to grind there, I have to assume that Micah is going to basically have to force the fact that he will need to follow the laws of the Republic down his throat, rather than him simply going on a one-man crusade against all slavers."
"Exactly. That and the need for control to get the best results, the need to work with the system, and, more than anything, the need to put his life as a slave behind him in order to move forward. I'm just not certain that Micah is right in this case. I also wonder if Master Giiett knew that Anakin's mother and Booster had also moved into the area shortly before they arrived," Aayla said with a frown. "We worked together on a few cases, and, while Anakin was certainly enthusiastic, I am not certain that Micah will be able to rein in his passions on this point. Or to really make him understand the limits of the Order and the Force in this manner."
"Hopefully this will not prove to have been a mistake on Micah's part. Still, you can get away?" Shaak asked, concerned about young Anakin, but not overmuch. The youth had made something of an impression, and Shaak knew he was strong in the Force, but that truly didn't matter as much as it would have otherwise to her.
"I can for this," Aayla said with a smile. "I most definitely can for this."
Later that night Shaak was pulled away from meditating with Ranma to take a call over the Hypercom from her other friend, Luminara. Unlike Aayla, the Mirialan didn't understand what was going on, so when asked to give her help on a small project she simply nodded her head. "I am more than willing to join you and give you my advice on whatever this issue is, though why you cannot talk about it even to myself in Japanese over the Hypercom is beyond me. Still, Master Yoda indicated that I need to disappear for a time, and I agree with him. My padawan and I have been dodging assassination attempts for a month or so now. My work as a courier has apparently become too well known, and the Sith are still able to call upon far too many in terms of criminal groups to do their dirty work for them without leaving any trails behind. I want some retraining as well," Luminara said with a sigh. "This last attempt nearly cost young Barriss and I our lives, so some retraining and perhaps some peace and quiet to help train my young padawan further will be precisely what we both need."
Ranma and Shaak blinked, looking at her through the pickup incredulously. The Mirialan chuckled, smirking at them. "That was a joke."
"Ah, I'll alert the media," Ranma said, while Shaak giggled, shaking her head.
Over the next week life in the hotel settled into a routine. Breakfast was a communal affair, with all of them talking about what they had done the previous day. Then would come combat lessons for all of them, including Ahsoka, which Shaak and Ranma would oversee, and which K'Kruhk would join. Then, in the afternoon, Ranma would then train with HK and the others, including Ahsoka for half that time. After dinner Ranma would start work on the various pictures, paintings and other decorations for the wedding, while Shaak would go over the planning for it with the locals, making certain that they understood what was going on with Ranma's dual forms and the very nature of the wedding as a whole in relation to Togrutan culture.
Perhaps the best thing that occurred over those first few days was that the Arkanian Mandalorian, whose name was Dralshy'a Arpat, became a person to Ranma rather than just another Mandalorian. On the second day of Shaak's absence, Ranma dragged her and Thomas out of the hotel for some time on the waves, although it didn't really take any dragging in her case. She immediately moved to look at the boats that they would be taking out—small, almost surfboard-like objects—which Ranma intended to use to help them practice balance as well as swimming.
The swimsuit she wore was a one-piece thing which was open in the back but covered everything in the front, the silver color matching her white hair color exactly. The others, though, had far simpler swimsuits. And as for the Nova Guard…
They looked a little out of place with their gas masks over their faces. They did have swimsuits, though they had to be talked into the water. Swimming was known and even practiced as a good fitness exercise, but swimming in the ocean was not. "Our oceans are not exactly clean enough for that kind of thing," one of them, Mattoc, said.
"But this one is," Ranma said firmly. "And occasionally we might need to swim rather than have it be a simple sport, and, besides, you lot need the balance practice even more than the Mandalorians do. Get out there," he ordered.
Honestly speaking, Ranma was getting a little irritated with how the Nova Guard were acting when it came to these team building exercises. They learned, they took in everything Ranma could teach them in terms of fighting like so many sponges, but they didn't open up as people beyond a certain point, just as soldiers. Ranma knew by this point that this was a societal thing, but that knowledge didn't make it any less irritating.
Following Dralshy'a all of the others took their turns on the watercraft, with various levels of success.
Ranma walked them through how to balance, using several lessons he had taken from Penkat Silat, and then took it to a higher level, actually leaping from one tiny boat to another. He balanced so well that he didn't even change forms until he back flipped deliberately off a board he had been standing on, landing in the water with a splash. After that she dove down before coming back up again.
Later that day, only Dralshy'a and Ranma were still at it, the others having retreated off the boats to take some lunch on the shoreline. Ranma turned to her, laying out on her own board and soaking in some rays as the girl did the same thing. "I take it you like today's exercises?" she asked jokingly.
The girl mumbled a response and then turned to him, grinning as she laid out, half on the board and half off, her foot and hand trailing through the water. "I love the ocean. My clan, or, well, you know, the clan that adopted me, lives on one of the plains of Mandalore, but we went to the ocean once. I just fell in love with the water almost as much as I like designing weapons. The movement of the waves, it's so soothing, and it's such a mystery too."
"I get you. But you say you like weapons?"
"Yeah. I know it's a little, you know, stereotypical, but that doesn't change the fact that I am a bit of a engineering nut in terms of weapons," the girl groused.
"Okay," Ranma said with a nod. "In that case I think I'm going to get you and HK to talk."
"What? Why? That droid is a little out there…" she said, sitting up on her board, flipping one leg over the other side to do it.
"True, but there are a few things I want you all to think about as we start to cross train."
The girl blinked at that, then frowned and nodded. "I get you. You might regret that, though, you know? There's a reason why my race is looked at a little askance when it comes to science and engineering. As a rule, we don't know when to stop. And HK certainly isn't going to put any kind of blocker on me."
"If you can figure out some new high-powered weapon or how to up the output of your booster packs or whatever, more power to you," Ranma said bluntly. "You have to run any requisition request by me, K'Kruhk, or Shaak, but beyond that, on the design side of things, go wild."
She smirked at that, cracking her knuckles gleefully. "Let's head back to the shore. And then you can tell me all that again."
"Why?" Ranma asked, turning in that direction and paddling alongside her.
"Because I want witnesses to hear you say that, that whole go wild thing. I don't want to be blamed later on for when HK and I inevitably create a monster."
Ranma laughed, splashing her lightly. "I think you have hung out a little too much with Thomas and Jethro."
Thomas and Jethro were the jokers of the group, the glue that kept everyone else happy and moving. They'd even gotten to like the Nova Guard and vice versa, being the first to cross that little divide successfully, something that irritated Ranma somewhat. They became the first Mandalorians to start learning the staff techniques of the Nova Guard while, in the process, teaching some of them the Mando knife techniques as well.
They were just easy to like, and Ranma used them as the bridge between the two groups as he began to cross train them on the fifth day after Shaak had left with Ahsoka. Jethro was also something of an amateur slicer, as had been discovered early on in her time as part of the crew.
And Thomas was after her something fierce. Although Jethro didn't seem to either see it or was just unwilling to acknowledge it for her own reasons.
Ranma didn't follow the Dralshy'a, instead swimming over to where Shaak had moved out on her own board. The instant she looked in Ranma's direction, Ranma splashed her and then dove, to which there could only be one reply. Shaak leaped into the water after her, cutting through it like a dolphin, and the two of them played for a time together, ignoring the rest of their crew on the shoreline and even Ahsoka, who rolled her eyes and paddled away. Eventually Shaak caught Ranma, pinning the shorter girl in some shallow water along the edge of the tiny bay. Then she leaned in for a kiss which quickly became ardent, the two women pressing their bodies together tightly as Shaak slowly began to dominate the kiss, causing the redhead to moan.
They were so close to the rest on the shore, though, that this make out session was clearly visible. Ahsoka quickly looked away, leaping to her feet and racing up the cliff-face to leave behind her suddenly embarrassing master. Most of the others followed, but a few of the men simply stared. Thomas took this a step beyond that, putting their thoughts into order. "Damn, but that's some dream fuel there."
Cro, two of his men, and even Kad nodded agreement. Then Janice's voice sounded out from behind the men. "You think that's interesting, do you?" They unfortunately nodded before realizing who had actually asked that question, and even Cro winced, knowing what was coming as the others flinched.
"You worthless maggots! Voyeurs like you have no place in this Mandalorian's unit!" Janice roared into Cro's ear, causing the sergeant to grimace. "Assume the forward rest position, scum!"
Later, Ranma and Shaak returned to the beach and looked at the five men quizzically, then looked up at Janice who was glaring down at them. "Do we want to know?" Ranma asked.
"Just a bit of discipline, isn't that right, boys!?" Janice growled. She was answered by a chorus of groaning replied affirmatives.
Yet even the pain of more than four hundred pushups didn't detract from what was a very odd bonding moment. Indeed, Janice added still more when she caught Cro and Thomas exchange a fist bump, which appeared to be a universal gesture of manly solidarity.
Of course, Ahsoka and Shaak also trained extensively together, and, about a week after their arrival, while Ranma was once more putting the Mandalorians and Nova Guard through their paces in a free-for-all in the forest, Shaak took Ahsoka with her, rented out a local open-top landspeeder, and headed out for the afternoon. They stopped randomly at several towns, where Master Shaak occasionally left her lightsaber and robe behind, indicating that Ahsoka should do the same.
Ahsoka was confused but went along with things. The two of them talked to several of the local merchants, over a dozen shop owners, mingling with the populace as Ahsoka watched her master. Then they would be off, and, in the next town, they would be wearing their Jedi robes and lightsabers. She immediately understood that part of why they were doing this was to show her very starkly how the locals viewed the Jedi. From there, while they were wearing their robes, Shaak would occasionally instruct Ahsoka how to both Cloak herself to those around her and to use Force Stealth to hide her Force presence. Ahsoka wasn't very good at either, but that was to be expected given her age.
These lessons continued for several days, and, after five days of it, Ahsoka asked, "Master, I'm getting the impression that there is something else I'm supposed to be learning here other than how Jedi are viewed and how to use our stealth techniques. But, I'm sorry, I just can't figure it out."
"Asking questions is part of the padawan experience, Ahsoka," Shaak said with a smile. "Never be afraid to do so; I'm certainly not going to censor you for it. Still, let us walk now."
Leaving the land speeder behind in the last town, the two of them first moved out into the suburbs of the small town and then further out into farmland, where the two of them exchanged waves with distant farmers and moved among the local version of wheat, a tall, thin plant with large white fronds which swayed in the breeze and was noted to be somewhat sticky if touched. As they walked, Shaak remained silent, thinking how best to explain the more subtle message that she had been hoping to impart.
"The Jedi Order teaches that, once you join the Order, you leave behind your sense of self as both an individual and as a member of your race, whatever race that might be. Many go further, claiming that we become mere conduits for the Force. And yet, you know this is false. Certainly many Jedi do leave behind that sense of self, but it isn't entirely necessary."
Ahsoka nodded slowly. "Like yourself and Master Koon? Both of you retain a lot of your culture yet merge it into the Jedi Order's." Ahsoka was so close to Master Plo Koon, the master who had found her and brought her into the Order, that if Shaak had not formed the padawan bond with her, Ahsoka might have been taken by the Kel Dor Jedi instead.
"Exactly. That kind of…not balancing act, because it isn't something so dichotomous…say, rather, that that mixture, like a chemical solution, perhaps, with many different parts, is sometimes hard to maintain and create in the first place. But it will be up to you to decide what the proper mixture is. We must know that we are both Jedi and Togrutans. Do not let the second be subsumed by the first, and do not give the second so much weight that it impacts your thoughts.
"Every being is unique," she went on, moving into the wheat fields to one side, the fronds moving away from her just enough to let her pass without touching her, a subtle use of the Force that Ahsoka had trouble even feeling as she followed, let alone trying to emulate. "Every connection to the Force is different: large or small, strong or weak, it matters not. Though we are Jedi and must subsume ourselves to the vagaries of the Force in many ways, we can never leave our sense of self utterly behind. The Force calls to us as people, not automatons. We are servants, not mindless slaves."
She stopped, turned, and began to walk backwards, and Ahsoka noted that the whole moving of the wheat thing continued as Shaak winked at Ahsoka. "Now is the proper time to ask questions…" she said leadingly.
Ahsoka quickly began to do so, and for the rest of their time that day the two of them moved through the wheat fields, with Ahsoka continually asking questions about the Order, about its rules, and about how Shaak had reached her own 'correct mixture.' Using that kind of analogy helped Ahsoka quite a bit more than the idea of balance had. Shaak Ti also started to walk Ahsoka through how to shift from using the Force to using her enhanced sense of hearing with her montrals and how to enhance the senses further, which was quite a bit harder for Togrutans, thanks to the near echolocation-like hearing their montrals afforded them, than for most.
After several hours the wheat fields began to give way, and Ahsoka knew the lessons were over with for the day. "Yet I still have more questions than answers at this point about the Force, about my place, and about the Order," she confessed.
"Excellent!" Shaak said with a wide smile, laying one hand on the girl's head and gently stroking down one of the youngster's montrals, which was the equivalent of what ruffling the hair of a younger sibling would've been among humans. "That is the way it should be. All of life is a series of questions. It is when you assume you have all the answers that you run into problems and cause them for others."
Ahsoka sighed irritably but nodded. "Yes, Master," she droned, rather fed up with the amount of philosophical talk.
"And now we will run for a time," Shaak went on as they came out of the wheat field at the edge of the same forest that, in the distance, would stop by the hotel. "After which I will turn you over to Ranma, because I can sense that you really wish to hit something right now."
"Oh yes, please!" Ahsoka exclaimed not even trying to hide her sigh of relief. "There's only so much of this side of learning about the Force that I can take."
"Be careful for what you wish for, my young padawan. You might just get it," Shaak laughed. Then, without further preamble, she began to pick up speed. She was eventually blurring through the forest ahead of Ahsoka so quickly that she struggled to keep up.
That night Ahsoka once more fell asleep utterly exhausted, and Ranma looked up as Shaak entered the room, a slight sheen of sweat on her face as she did so. "I take it you worked the kid hard?"
"I believe so, yes. She has quite a lot of energy, after all, but at this point in time we also have to work her mind appropriately. That is a tough dichotomy to reach, but now that we are going to be staying here and I can devote even more time to her than I could on Mandalore, I intend to push her training to the next level."
Those kinds of lessons would continue for a time until Shaak decided that Ahsoka had made enough progress in her Force Cloak and decided to change things up on the young padawan. After having decided that and having requested to be allowed to see to a problem further south that she had been informed of by the governor, Shaak went in search of Ranma but did not find him in the suite or outside in the area of the forest they had turned over to be a training zone. It was only when she moved towards the Wild Blade that she saw him, a silhouette against the darkness, sitting up on the topside keel of the large ship. "Ranma, what are you doing up there?"
"Just thinking and watching the moons," Ranma said, not turning to look at her as Shaak leaped up to join him. "Six of them; damn, but the view is amazing! I never get over this, you know: how many planets I've been to in my time here, the views I've seen."
Shaak smiled at that, kneeling down beside him, her Jedi robe causing a rustling sound. Once kneeling, she reached out and gently placed a hand on his chest, trailing it up to his chin and gently turning his head to look at her. "Is there something wrong?"
"Weddings," Ranma said, making no attempt to lie or demur. They had been together for far too long by this point for that kind of thing to fly, plus, of course, Shaak had her Force powers too. "I can't help but think about the last time, with the Wedding Disaster, you know, the people involved, and how it all went wrong and was wrong. Why it would have never worked, why it happened the way it did, how I might have been part of the reason… Just a lot of thoughts, some about what could be going on back there and what might go wrong this time".
Ranma took Shaak's hand in his, holding it against his heart for a moment as he looked up at her, his blue eyes almost shining in the dark. "I want to marry you; don't get me wrong. I want that torque on your lek to signify our marriage rather than just our relationship. I want to put the past behind me. But I'm just… Even in a life full of random chaotic moments and a whole lot of wild shit, that one still stood out. So I'm just worried that even attempting this is just asking for trouble."
"We have HK on the lookout and Tune going through the hotel's computers and droids' programming every day. We have K'Kruhk and I here always trying to feel out any sense of danger and will have other Jedi here when it comes to the moment. We have allies and friends. If something happens, we can deal with it," Shaak said bracingly, then smirked. "Besides, given the changes to the ceremony we've made, I think we've built in enough chaos to satisfy any non-corporeal entity in existence."
"Not going to talk me out of the whole weddings are bad luck then?" Ranma asked sardonically, pulling her hand to his mouth and kissing it lightly.
"Would it have worked if I had?" Shaak shot back.
"No, not really." Ranma shook his head.
"In that case, why bother? I very much prefer to spend my time in more…meaningful ways." With that Shaak pulled Ranma to his feet and kissed him hard on the lips. She attempted to dominate the kiss for a moment, but Ranma's hands snaked down her body, pulling free of her own grip and lifting her up by her rear, kissing her back just as ardently. She pulled back, a thin string of saliva connecting them for a moment before she whispered, "What is in the past is in the past. Live for the now and the future, with me."
Ranma nodded at that, flipping her lightly into his arms into a princess carry, causing Shaak to giggle as he leaped down. "I can definitely get behind that idea! Now…what were you saying about spending our time meaningfully?"
OOOOOOO
Set frowned as his datapad signaled a negative tone. Another attempt to get a spy program into the hotel's droids has failed. And Jarvad has reported that the assassin droid follows him whenever he is there, and that both Jedi seem to be on edge more too when he's around. Our attempts to watch the Jedi from close by has failed miserably. Even our long range eavesdropping devices have failed: none of the droids can get close enough with how much of the forest the Jedi and this odd crew they've put together use for training. Blast it. Still, the Hutt troops should arrive in a week. That will at least give me a lot of cannon fodder for when the time comes.
Hmm… Best to get a command to Jarvad, tell him to pull away from his dupe. The cake shop, though…there again the Jedi's inability to realize when they have been led by the nose let us have an in on the wedding for my little pets. Good. Yes, switch Jarvad over there with his fellow. I'll head there too. Best to do that bit of mental reconditioning myself, since I know I can and still maintain my Stealth. Two steps forward, one step back, I suppose, but the plan is still sound. I just have to change a bit of the timing.
OOOOOOO
Shaak smiled as Ahsoka came out of the hotel to find her master packing the landspeeder with a small pack of supplies for some reason. "So, where will we go today, Master?"
"Today we will be going further afield. There is a slight problem which we Jedi are uniquely suited to dealing with," Shaak replied, settling the pack in the back of the landspeeder and gesturing for Ahsoka to sit down in the passenger's seat. "We will not be returning to the hotel until this issue is dealt with."
"What is that, Master?" Ahsoka asked, frowning. She didn't think it would be a judicial matter—she knew her master handled such whenever they came up, but Togrutans in general preferred to deal with that kind of thing without outsiders getting involved. Even a Togrutan Jedi would have been a bit much.
"An animal has run wild in the plains of Msikent province. The locals are having trouble handling it and have asked me to look into the matter given my previous experience with this particular animal."
Ahsoka blinked and then understood, her eyes flicking up to the simple circlet on Shaak's forehead with its akul tooth. Ancestral fears warred with her Jedi training for a moment, and she nodded almost convulsively. "Erm, I, I see, Master Ti."
Shaak and Ahsoka traveled a third of the way around the planet in their landspeeder, swiftly leaving behind the massive forest and the mountainous area directly around the hotel, continuing onward for hours. During this trip Ahsoka was forced to meditate by Shaak. That she was prepared for. What she wasn't prepared for was being forced to alternate between that and running alongside the landspeeder throughout the day.
The first time she was ordered out of the stopped landspeeder, Ahsoka had gaped at her master and then the back of the landspeeder as Shaak started it up, forcing Ahsoka to run quickly to catch up before falling into an easy jog. "Master Ti, if you don't mind me saying, this exercise makes me think you've been listening far too much to Ranma's ideas of training! Do you really believe those stories he tells about his own training when he was younger?" Ahsoka gasped as she raced along one side of the landspeeder.
"You cannot sense the truth in his words when he speaks of those?" Shaak asked quizzically, a look of merriment in her eyes. "If so, it seems I'll have to add a bit more to your mental training, then."
Ahsoka gave her a look at that but said no more. About twenty minutes later, as she began to run out of breath, Shaak slowed the landspeeder and switched off with her. Shaak continued to run for more than an hour before she hopped into the still-moving landspeeder, where she took over the driver's seat from Ahsoka before telling her to meditate again.
As the drive continued, however, Shaak realized that Ahsoka was not pushing through a certain problem on her own. After one such switch, she said softly, "I can sense your concerns, Ahsoka. You're transmitting your thoughts and feelings."
Transmitting emotions like that was something that younglings did all the time, but as an padawan it should have been second nature for Ahsoka to not do so. She paused now, coming out of her meditations as Shaak had spoken, and then slowly reined in her emotions, becoming more aware of them than she had been before, a sense of low-key fear warring with anxiety and exhilaration at the idea of what they were going to be doing on this trip. "I'm sorry, Master Ti. It's just…"
"Fear is an emotion that is always with living beings in some fashion. We cannot let it affect our connection to the Force," Shaak said, a line that Ahsoka had heard many a time before. Shaak went on with a faint smile, reaching sideways with one hand to gently stroke Ahsoka's montrals. "You must face your fears and conquer them, which you should know already, Ahsoka. You have faced numerous fears before this, most of a far more personal and powerful variety. Why are you afraid of an animal that you have never seen, let alone been in the presence of?"
"I… My body started to react on its own when you told me about us going on an akul hunt," Ahsoka said, frowning. "I just, I just heard the name of the animal we were going to hunt, and it somehow got to me."
"The body and the mind are not nearly as separate as people like to think, nor the mind as simple. It is a sign of a Jedi that we can control as much of our mind as we can. The fear you are feeling of the akul is not your own. It is something you feel on a near genetic level, a societal survival skill passed down to you during your brief time before Master Koon found you. Dispel it; it is but a shadow, and you have faced worse realities before," Shaak reiterated, her voice full of confidence in Ahsoka, showing she had no doubt the younger Togrutan could do just that.
Ahsoka smiled at that, remembering how Shaak had walked her through the fear which had been so all encompassing after her first vision of the future had soured, showing Shaak Ti's death at the time, inhibiting her ability to use the Force at all. "I pushed through that; I can push through this!" she said to herself, buoyed by her master's words.
She closed her eyes, put her hands together, and began to meditate once more, reaching inside her mind this time rather than out into the Force, and when she opened her eyes the fear and anxiety were gone from her mind, her eyes, a blue almost matching that of Ranma's, clear and centered once more. "Thank you, Master Ti," she said formally. "I am ready for the rest of this test."
"I did not doubt it for a moment," Shaak said simply, and the trip continued.
They stopped for food in a small town before pushing out and away from the last of the hills into rolling plains of red and white fronds, the color of which dyed the whole planet that color. This grass, called turu-grass, had more in common with wheat than normal grass. It could rise to up to eight feet in height, with heavy, thick fronds of dark red and occasional white stripes that worked as camouflage for most of the species that existed on the planet. The only ones unable to use it were forest predators, like the fearsome Giant Kusaka or a few different types of mountain lizard.
The Akul, however, was a grasslands predator, a top tier carnivore. Indeed, it could use this grass so well that even modern equipment would have trouble finding one, if it could at all. Even heat sensors wouldn't be able to work very well amidst the grass, which retained a lot of the heat of the day to be used at night during the winter.
Before they had joined the Republic, the turu-grass had been a staple of the Togrutans' diet, only to be eventually replaced by a wheat derivative that had been designed purposefully for the planet's soil. However, turu-grass was still around and still covered a large portion of the planet, because it was such a robust plant and switching over to the wheat derivative was expensive. Farmers who used the grass, however, continued to face issues with animals—of which the Akul was only the largest and most dangerous—that more modernized farming communities did not.
This was fine to the Togrutans, however, who, though mostly peaceful, were hunters by nature. Indeed, it was only the fact she was a Jedi that let Shaak Ti take this current hunt over from the local government, who had many teams of hunters and even some single hunters who would have enjoyed the challenge of an akul. An akul tooth was a major badge of honor among Togrutans, and only someone who killed an akul on their own could claim one. Doing otherwise, if it was found out, was social suicide, and for most Togrutans, a communal species, that was worse than death.
Still, despite the cultural significance of their mission and the turu-grass around them, the second day of their trip was much more monotonous than the first, the grass dominating their view as they passed small towns and villages, with Shaak following a series of directions that she must of been given by someone in the government. Shaak and Ahsoka switched off running along the landspeeder more often now, which slowed them down, since Ahsoka couldn't run nearly as quickly or as long as Shaak, but it kept the boredom at bay for the young padawan.
Eventually, on the morning of the third day out, they stopped at a small town where they began to hear rumors about the akul they were after. With that confirmation, Shaak left the landspeeder there at a small rental place and, ignoring the odd looks they were getting, headed out into the grasslands beyond.
"All right, Ahsoka," Shaak said as they walked. We're going to be using our Force senses and our own enhanced sense of hearing. I've taught you the techniques; now you must put them into practice. Are you ready?"
"Yes, Master Ti," Ahsoka said. There was no hesitation and no fear in Ahsoka's voice now, and she crouched down, breathing in deeply as her hearing expanded.
Shaak waited silently nearby until Ahsoka began to report what she could hear. Then she expanded on what the young padawan could hear and pointed unerringly in the direction they should be going, though that was based on her Force perceptions rather than her physical senses, and at this range they were dull, a bare whisper of a suggestion. The two of them then moved through the grass, looking for signs of the animal they were hunting both through the Force and in the material world.
As they went, the two of them constantly used the Force to cloak their own senses and bodies to anyone looking at them as well as using the Force to detect anything out of place. Doing such a thing in a city or with anything mechanical was incredibly hard, since the Force did not really exist in mechanics or ferroconcrete. But, here in the grasslands, the Force was in everything.
As such Ahsoka quickly caught on and, as the hunt continued, became better at all of these skills, and even began to be able to push through the fronds with the Force, leaving no trace of her passing behind as Shaak did. Doing so, she swiftly learned this skill was only half-based on a Force trick and was half simple skill at moving her body. After all, their ancestors had not all been able to use the Force to do something similar. In this, the Force was an addition rather than the source of the ability.
OOOOOOO
With Shaak gone, Ranma had worked HK into his training with K'Kruhk as well as all the others. He wasn't really happy without Shaak around to really spar with in the evening (in many meanings of the word), but it did really help with getting to know the others as individuals even more than he had already begun to since they had arrived here.
Janice and Ranma got along quite well, having met each other before and having built a certain amount of respect between them when Janice was a Night Owl under Bo Katan. Janice was forceful, nearly arrogant, but as a Night Owl was easily the most experienced among both the Mandalorians and the Nova Guard. She was, simply put, a very, very talented warrior and soldier. Ranma leaned on her to help organize the training for the group as a whole.
On top of that, Ranma found her oddly helpful in one very particular area…
One day Janice came upon Ranma sitting up in a tree when he was supposed to be helping the Nova Guard learn how to move through the foliage better. "What're you up to?" she asked, hopping up and thinking to herself wryly that doing so would've taken her use of her jetpack several years ago. Instead she was easily able to leap two meters on pure leg strength alone. The strength training that she had been given in the past few weeks was simply taking the training that she and the other Night Owls had begun under Ranma years ago to a new level. I wonder how long it will take the others to reach the level of strength I have now.
Ranma looked up from where he was perusing a datapad with a frown. "I'm supposed to come up with these vows, one of them on my side, one of them on Shaak's side, and one of them that the priest or whatever his title is will give. I'm having trouble though."
"Is it just the wording issue?" Janice asked, suddenly a little interested. Despite being a hard-bitten, hard charging warrior, she was still a woman, after all, and was greatly looking forward to the wedding even if it wasn't going to be in the Mandalorian style.
"Yeah. You think you can help?" Ranma asked, somewhat surprised.
"Sure," Janice said with a nod. "But later. After all, you're supposed to be helping the Nova Guard now."
With a sigh Ranma put the datapad away and leaped away through the trees, so quickly that Janice had trouble keeping up and had to use her backpack several times. That irritated her, and she took her irritation out on the Nova Guard as she helped Ranma put them through their paces in moving silently through the trees.
It turned out that Janice actually had a very good grasp of language and grammar because she wrote out odd poems and limericks to herself occasionally. She even made rhymes to make fun of those around her during training, which Ranma got a kick out of.
Shaak was also proven correct in that they did have a couple among the Mandalorians. Kad and Natasha had quickly paired up barely a few days out from Mandalore. They weren't open about it, but apparently they had quickly changed rooms and, on the Wild Blade, shared a bunk at night.
Ranma thought that last was kind of bizarre and pointed it out to Kad at one point. "How exactly are you able to do that? Those bunks on the Wild Blade aren't made for more than one person. Is she so comfortable that you can sleep on top of her or vice versa?"
Kad blushed brightly, mumbling a response and moving on. Natasha didn't respond any better, which let Ranma have at least a few days' worth of fun with the two of them.
The two of them were the thinkers of the group, always looking at the tactics and trying to take control of the others and how they moved. Janice and Ranma occasionally had to slap the backs of their helmets to get them to realize that they had to concentrate on what was in front of them rather than trying to orchestrate the group as a whole. But, in the main, they too were a resource that Ranma routinely used.
The day before Shaak was due back, Ranma brought the groups entirely together and said simply, "Okay, people, now were going to start cross-training in entirety. From now until lunch the Mandalorians are going to learn from the Nova Guard how to use heavy weapons, defensive positions, and group tactics. The Mandos in turn are going to teach the Nova Guard more about how to scout and ways of movement."
"HK, Dralshy'a, you two are excused from this," Ranma said, looking over at those two.
HK looked at Dralshy'a, whom he had begun exchanging ideas with, and then back to Ranma. "Inquisitive tone: May I ask why, master? This looks like fun, considering that I had assumed that you and I would be the opposition force."
"We will be, or rather, K'Kruhk and I will be. You two need to figure out the one thing that the Nova Guard will need going forward if they're supposed to join the Mandalorians in one of their specialties."
It took them a while to get it, and, when they did, the Nova Guard shivered as one while Janice clicked her fingers together. "Aerial drops and orbital drops! They're our calling card, so to speak, almost literally, really. But with the amount of armor and gear that the Nova Guard have, we can't just slap a jetpack on them. We need to figure out how to put more power into the jetpacks at the very least."
"That's right," Ranma said with a nod towards Dralshy'a. "So get cracking."
"Meanwhile, Mandos, you're going to be ordered to hold a position and defend it like the Nova Guard do: digging in, heavy weapons, squad-based tactics."
Janice winced but nodded gamely, looking over at her opposite number. If they had been quitters they wouldn't have been here in the first place, after all. "So, how do we want to do this?"
OOOOOOO
To Shaak's delight it was Ahsoka who found a small, recently used trail on their second day out from the town. She signaled her master, a slight wave of the hand that pulled Shaak's attention back towards her, and crouched down to examine her find. "I don't think it's the akul, Master Ti," Shaak whispered, her voice so low it would've been inaudible to anyone but another Togrutan or someone with equally good hearing. "But it's the freshest sign we've seen since we began."
"The akul is a predator," Shaak said, crouching next to her and looking at the trail. It was indeed not that of the akul, but that didn't matter. "However, it cannot live on Togrutans alone. If we find a series of animal runs, we will eventually find the akul itself."
Trailing that animal run took the better part of the day and well into the evening. It eventually led to a small stream, overgrown with the ever present turu-grass to the point that Shaak doubted it could be seen from the air, but quite deep for all of that. They spotted signs of numerous other small animal runs, and, as the two Jedi approached, they saw that there were even animals there, small things that came up to Ahsoka's knee yet had the look and bearing of deer, which were called packuga.
At the sight, Ahsoka's Force Cloak began to unravel in her excitement, but Shaak quickly gripped her shoulder. At that touch she quickly renewed the technique just as the animals looked up, staring around them as they seemed to either hear the two Jedi or smell them.
Ahsoka felt Shaak pull her to one side, crouching down underneath a small series of grass fronds, which Shaak then began to reach up to. As Ahsoka watched, Shaak bent the fronds over them, creating a small hide that looked so natural that, even if you were looking for it, she doubted they would have been seen. "And now we wait," she said simply, her voice low and barely discernible.
"That I might need more practice with, Master Ti," Ahsoka said ruefully.
"Oh, don't worry. I have something to keep your hands busy." With that Shaak reached down and pulled out from under them a long, old-seeming frond of turu-grass. It looked almost like a reed, thin and whippy, but the edge could be cut to create a very sharp, if weak, spear. "After all, using our lightsabers to kill the beast would be cheating."
Ahsoka's eyes widened, and she took the reed and a small deactivated vibroknife from her master without looking, just staring at the older Togrutan. "Um, really? Is, um, is this what you did too when you hunted one alone?"
"I had a single spear of wood as I found the akul I was hunting near the edge of a small copse of trees rather than out in its hunting grounds like this. But otherwise, yes. I wanted to do it the same manner as our ancestors, to earn my tooth unequivocally. If you don't wish to join me in the kill, however, I will understand. You have already performed to an extremely high level, Ahsoka."
Eyes narrowing at that, Ahsoka settled back with her master and began to work on the frond while Shaak pulled out some of their supplies and began to set out a meal for them both. They stayed there throughout the night, with Shaak waiting up and letting Ahsoka sleep, ever watchful.
Late the next morning their wait ended with a suddenness that startled Ahsoka so much that she once more almost lost control of her Force Cloak. One moment everything was clear, and then, the next, the akul they were hunting was there. It came out of the grass so silently and so quickly that it took Ahsoka's breath away, a suddenness that would have terrified many.
The akul stood about as tall as an adult Togrutan at the withers and was longer by half again than an adult would be laying down with a thick, powerful body, its fur looking almost bristly. It had four legs with heavy, wide paws tipped with ten claws each and moved, oddly enough, in a manner that reminded Ahsoka of Ranma: all control and sinuous dexterity. The thing's jaws and face were almost catlike, but with long whiskers like a drooping mustache and four eyes, set two to a side on its face. It had a long barbed tail too, which it swished from side to side as it moved two paces forward before leaping the remaining distance between it and the small deer-like animals. The packuga barely had an instant to realize that they were in danger before one of their pack was down. The akul chomped down on it, shaking it twice from side to side and snapping its neck with ease before dropping it to the ground and yowling loudly as it looked at the rest of the group.
At that sound the deer-like animals, all of which had been frozen in terror, sprinted out wildly in every direction, smashing through the turu-grass, too panicked to stay to their runs. The akul waited until they were well away. Then it knelt over its kill and began to feed, tearing large, bloody chunks away from it.
Engrossed with what had just happened, Ahsoka jolted visibly when Shaak whispered in her montral. "That is a sign of blood madness right there." Ahsoka turned to look at her, and Shaak shook her head. "If the akul was in its right mind, it would never eat here like that. Instead it would take its kill back to its den. Those packuga will never return here now; the scent of death will keep them away.
"Now, reach out with the Force," Shaak commanded. "Tell me what you can sense of that animal's mind."
Ahsoka did so, then almost reeled back. It had been much easier to reach out like that than she had anticipated, all of the meditation and mental training she'd been doing since arriving on Shili having paid off. Although she didn't realize it, the physical training she'd done before that had also paid off. If Ahsoka had gone up against any other padawan of a similar age and fought them, she would've realized that quite quickly. As it was, she was training against older Mandalorians, Nova Guard, and monsters like Ranma and Shaak, so it wasn't quite as obvious as the mental side of things had just become.
What she felt through the Force from the animal's mind was disturbing. There was a hunger there, a insatiable one, not for meat or anything of that nature. "It's not a hunger of the body, it's a hunger of the mind," she whispered. "It's an out of control craving! It almost makes me think it's like a drug addict, almost, or what I'd imagine one would be like, anyway."
"Exactly. Well done. Akuls are predators with few equals on Shili, but their minds are not as strong as their bodies. If they kill and eat too many Togrutans they will fall into a blood sickness like this. It occurs quickly and will be exacerbated with each new Togrutan kill."
Scientists had long theorized that this was, perhaps, a kind of rudimentary defense mechanism that Togrutans had developed long before they had become sapient, much like certain frogs developed a taste and a look that told predators they were poisonous, which had weakened since. But there was no way to ever know the real answer to that one. Nor would Shaak have cared.
"We must put it down," she said simply. "It would take weeks, possibly months for entire trained teams to do what we did in a bare week of our own time, and now it is time to finish this hunt."
Ahsoka nodded resolutely and then looked at Shaak, her eyes flicking up to the necklace or tiara that Shaak wore on her forehead and then down to the spears she had made. "Master Ti," she said firmly, "may I do this alone?"
Shaak blinked, then smiled. "I had wondered if you would ask. Do you think you're up for it?"
"Yes, Master Ti," Ahsoka said firmly. "I am."
In that case, padawan, be my guest. Be aware, though, if I think you are going to be injured or killed I will step in quickly." With that Shaak leaned back, steepling her hands as she watched Ahsoka closely.
Ahsoka nodded firmly and pulled out her lightsaber, setting it aside along with her robe. She then slipped her vibroknife into her belt and stepped out of their hide, grabbing up a reed spear in either hand. As she stepped forward from the hide she let her Force Cloak drop before rushing towards the Akul, hurling the spear in her primary hand and then switching the other over quickly.
The Akul sensed the change in the air around it and then smelled Togrutan, twisting around quickly, its eyes lighting up with a hunger that the deer thing had not been able to fulfill. Yet, even as it roared a challenge, the first spear hit its side. Ahsoka grimaced, though as the thrown spear simply stuck in its fur, the prickly fur acting like a primitive armor, almost. Then the akul charged, and she had no time to waste lamenting her opening move.
The catlike predator lunged forward to bite, but Ahsoka twisted to one side. Instead of stabbing forward, which would've brought her within range of those teeth, she moved around the side of the animal before it could twist to bring its jaws to bear, stabbing with the spear held close like a dagger before pulling it away. She was then forced to use the butt end of the spear to block a blow from one of its other legs, leaping into the air to dodge a second as the thing twisted around too quickly for her to attack once more.
The akul yelled in pain, but its second blow still scored a light hit on Ahsoka's lower legs, buffeting her out of the air. She rolled desperately away from its gaping jaws, ignoring the pain in her legs and even the pain of some downed turu-grass leaves cutting into her, grabbing up one frond and stabbing upwards, forcing the akul to back away for a second lest it lose an eye.
She continued to roll, tossing another makeshift spear, but it lacked a point and bounced off the beasts forehead. Still, it flinched, allowing Ahsoka to gain her feet and reach out with the Force, pulling the first spear she had thrown to her hand before she flipped herself through the air to the side as the akul lunged. Her spear flicked out and caught the creatures directly on its snout, opening up a long, thin gash.
With blood pouring down its nose, the akul screamed and turned on a dime, leaping forward again. But Ahsoka rolled forward to be under the thing's main body as it leaped, where she braced the spear, shoving it deep into the ground and then holding it as the akul's weight hit, driving it down. She then had to duck out and away, letting the spear break behind her under the weight of the animal. But that weight had forced the animal onto the spear point, which had gouged deeply into its chest
It was still alive, but it was thrashing wildly now, pain and the panic it caused overriding its desire to kill. Its thrashing caught Ahsoka just as she brought her roll to a halt, sending her tumbling. Still, the damage was done, and the akul couldn't follow up, allowing Ahsoka to once more stand up, if somewhat groggily.
Seeing her chance, Ahsoka pushed through her pain and leaped once more, this time aiming to land on the akul's back. Landing, she grimaced as the prickly fur started to rub against her skin like a heavy cleaning pad of some kind. But, even so, she held on with her legs for just a second as the beast began to heave under her, panic at her weight having gotten through its pain. The next second she flicked out her vibroknife and stabbed into the area right between two if its eye pairs, where the skull was weakest. The vibroblade cut through cleanly into the predator's brain, and it spasmed twice before going still.
"Well done," Shaak said, moving up behind Ahsoka.
Ahsoka gasped, breathing deeply and wincing occasionally as her aches and pains began to demand her attention now the battle was over. She shook her head in mild wonder, staring at the beast, feeling the bruises it had given her despite her Force Precognition and all of her training, making her wonder just one thing: "And our ancestors used to do this without the Force!?"
"Quite a few of them, yes," Shaak said with a smile. "Never underestimate someone just because they can't use the Force, my dear. I would've thought that lesson, at least, you wouldn't have to learn here given the Nova Guard and the Mandalorians," she said somewhat reproachfully.
"That wasn't what I meant, Master Ti, and you know it," Ahsoka said repressively, then looked at the beast below her, lifting a leg off of it and slipping down its side to land on wobbly feet. "Do we just leave the carcass here?"
"Yes. Other predators will eventually deal with it. Such is the cycle of life, and I doubt you're in any mood to deal with carving up the carcass for its meat. You have one more thing you have to do, my young padawan," she said, teasingly pointing at the akul's mouth. "Go and claim your prize."
Ahsoka nodded firmly and held up her vibroblade, moving towards the animal again.
Once she had her tooth, which matched Shaak's own exactly, she moved backwards, groaning a little now as the aches and pains really hit her. She wasn't nearly as good as a full-blown Jedi would be at keeping the pain at bay, and now that she was in pain in the first place, concentrating through it to start deadening that selfsame pain was tough. "Now what, Master Ti?"
"Now we call for a shuttle to drop and pick us up. We had to hunt this creature down using the Force and the methods of our ancestors, but we can return home using modern technology. Much better that way, don't you think?" Shaak replied with a smile, moving over to support the younger Togrutan with an arm around her middle.
Later that night Shaak was unsurprised to find Ranma waiting for them at the hotel. They had, after all, been due back the day before, Shaak's estimate of the time it would take them to hunt the akul having been off. But whatever Ranma was going to say let was left unsaid as he looked at Ahsoka's battered, barely moving form as she leaned on her master. "Worked the kid into the ground, did you?"
"Something of that nature, yes," Shaak said with a smile.
Her smile widened slightly as Ranma moved over and lifted Ahsoka easily into his arms in a princess carry, moving down the hallway towards their rooms like that. Ahsoka made to protest, trying to struggle out of Ranma's grip, but unlike Shaak, Ranma didn't let her go, simply warning her, "If ya keep on struggling, I tickle ya, and in your state at the moment, that'd be quite painful."
At that Ahsoka subsided. Before they even reached the door to her and K'Kruhk's room, she was fast asleep in his arms.
The door opened in front of them, and K'Kruhk stood there, gesturing them all in. He smiled slightly as well at the young padawan, then noticed the tooth in her grip. He gently pried her hand open and held it up, looking over at Shaak and obviously making the connection. "Interesting method of teaching you have, Master Ti," he said dryly.
Shaak smiled once more in a more tranquil, Jedi-like manner now. "It was effective for me, and it seems to have been very effective for Ahsoka as well. We have made a tremendous amount of progress in our stay here. Ranma, do you think you can make a necklace for her?"
"Of course," Ranma said with a nod. "Give me about an hour or so."
Shaak nodded at that and then looked at the two of them, her Force senses telling her something was off. The two of them were radiating too much amusement. "And what exactly happened here while we were gone?"
"Well, just today, you're not the only one who's run into a large carnivore," Ranma said dryly. He and K'Kruhk laughed, and, gesturing for her to follow him, Ranma exited the room as K'Kruhk moved over to his own bed,
Entering the honeymoon suite, Shaak gasped as she saw the magnificent fur spread out over the sofa. She recognized it too. "That is the fur of a Giant Kusaka. They're rarely ever seen, and you just happened to run into one?" she asked quizzically, looking at Ranma speculatively. He had said at one point that he wanted to hunt up another fur coat for her, after all.
"Don't look at me like that. I wasn't skipping out on training or anything. Actually, me and K'Kruhk were sparring during our one-on-one time when this thing came out of the woods at us…"
Flashback:
Ranma stood across from K'Kruhk with one hand tied behind his back and heavy weights chained to his feet, forcing him to fight on the ground rather than in the air. In his hand he held his light-pike, and across from him K'Kruhk was moving quickly around him, forcing Ranma to turn to face him. This was the only way that K'Kruhk alone could make Ranma work for a victory, which galled the Whiphid Jedi somewhat. But it also trained Ranma how to better fight on the ground, considering that it wasn't always possible to take to the air, no matter how much he wished it was otherwise.
After Ranma had nearly taken him in the side with a jab from his low-powered light pike, K'Kruhk backed off and once more began to circle, only to pause at a roar from nearby. Out from the forest around their little clearing stomped a tremendously huge bear-like creature. Its fur was striped a dark russet and a deep black, its fangs were overdone like a sabretooth's, but, beyond that and its basic size, Ranma was surprised to see how alike it was to the bears back on Earth. It roared, the sound almost like a physical force, and tromped forward at a deceptively fast, rumbling sort of run.
Just as K'Kruhk was about to raise his hand to start to use a Jedi technique on the beast to make it calm down and retreat, Ranma roared back, and K'kruhk blinked, staring over at him. Immediately the bear had turned its attention fully on the little human who dared to challenge it, and the Jedi asked, "Ranma, what are you doing?"
Ranma simply stared up at the bear, tossing K'Kruhk his staff without looking. "I've been wanting to get a fur robe for Shaak again, and here one comes walking up to me like this? You think I'm going to let it go?"
K'Kruhk blinked at that and then watched as Ranma stood there, scratching his chin as the giant bear loomed on its hind legs over him. "Now, how best to go about doing this?" It was only when he made to move to one side that he remembered about the weights on his legs, heavy steel bands connecting his lower legs to large weights nearby. "Ah, that could make this a bit more of a challenge…"
End Flashback
Shaak laughed, moving her hands over the fur. The only bit of the animal that was missing was its head and neck area, which was rather telling in how Ranma had dealt with the creature. "Amazing! And then the two of you skinned it?"
"That took a bit longer than actually killing it," Ranma confessed.
"And I suppose you would like your reward, oh mighty hunter?" Shaak teased, peeling out of her clothing slowly before she turned around and sat down languidly, turning to look at Ranma invitingly. He didn't need to be told twice and put the akul tooth down. Work on Ahsoka's akul necklace would just have to wait.
OOOOOOO
Two days after Shaak and Ahsoka returned, guests began to arrive, a day before the wedding was scheduled. Aayla was the first, and, after spending several hours with Shaak, she found Ranma out on the rooftop of the hotel, still working on his vow for the wedding. "So, you and my friend are really going to tie the knot, are you?
"That's the plan, although I don't think knots are actually involved in the ceremony," Ranma said dryly, then pulled up a datapad, looking through it. "Nope, no knots."
"Cute," Aayla said dryly, kicking him lightly on the shin before she sat down across from him. "This is a big step," she said seriously. "You two might be downplaying it, but the idea of a Jedi marrying, of your attachment becoming permanent like that? That's big."
Ranma looked up at her, locking gazes as Aayla continued with,"I need to know how serious this is. You're not going to get cold feet, you're not going to turn around later on and regret this, are you?"
"No, I'm not. This is simply formalizing everything that we've already done to find ourselves together," Ranma said simply. "Nothing else is going to change, just the placement of where I wear this ring on my finger," he said, holding his hand up to show the ring that Shaak had bought him. "And where she wears the torque I bought her."
"You really believe that, don't you?" Aayla said slowly, looking back at him.
"I know I love her. I know I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I know I have spent the last several years with her, and I don't see that changing," Ranma said with a nod. "I want the universe to know that we're together, but, other than that, no I don't see this changing us."
"I suppose that makes sense on your part. The Order, though, that aspect I'm still worried about," Aayla said with a sigh. "Still, I'm happy for you both," she said, bowing from the waist as she sat there. "May your lives from here on out be happy, and may the both of you find strength and love from one another." She smirked then. "I normally would've said something about your life being peaceful as well as happy, but I think we both know that would just be asking for trouble."
Ranma laughed, and Aayla grinned.
A guest that arrived the next day, however, surprised both Shaak and Ranma. "Master Yaddle? We did not expect you," Shaak said, only her well-trained Jedi sense of calm keeping her from gaping as the diminutive Jedi Master walked off the shuttle that had taken her, Luminara, and her young padawan down from one of the orbital docks.
Ranma had been studying Luminara's padawan, a Mirialan like her master, if slightly darker skinned. She looked to be around Ahsoka's age, maybe a bit older, certainly more mature in body than Ahsoka, and she moved with that kind of ingrained gravitas and solemnity that seemed to be issued to Jedi along with the lightsaber, although her robes were a bit longer and of slightly better quality than most. Ranma had basically decided to prank the little girl back into her when Yaddle had moved around the two taller Jedi.
"The High Council, aware of what you are doing," Yaddle said complacently. "Many, unhappy they are. Duplicitous you were not quite, but subtle you were, deceptive in many ways were you, most certainly." She cocked a wintry eyebrow at Shaak, who had the grace to look a little embarrassed.
But she replied gamely. "I did not think that it was something that the Order as a whole needed to know or were, in fact, prepared to know. It is something Ranma and I have both decided to do, and while I respect the Order and acknowledge the issues this might cause, nor am I willing to say that the Order has veto power over this particular decision."
Ranma made to interject a snarky comment at that moment, but Shaak looked at him, giving a slight head shake, and he subsided, if unwillingly. But Shaak knew that if the High Council had wanted to try and stop the wedding, wary of the precedent it set or how much it would look like favoritism, Yaddle would not have been their messenger. Yoda and Windu, perhaps, would have been sent, or more if they expected the two lovers to balk at their orders, which, given Ranma's personality, was practically a given.
"Truth there is in that," Yaddle said with a sigh. "Many discussions there were. One or two, wished to forbid it they did. Cooler heads prevailed; your own business this is. Illegal it is not; unlawful by the Order it is not, since retook your Oaths in the Old Way, you did. Pushing towards this moment, that choice for years has. Further, boastful about it you are not. News of this act, spread throughout the Order it will not. Good this is. Further divisions, the Order needs not," she said, finishing with a self-deprecating chuckle and a shake of her head.
Ranma was looking at her thoughtfully and then nodded. "If that's the case, though, why are you here? No offense, but from what the old frog said at one point, weddings and suchlike don't hold any interest for him or you. So why were you chosen?"
"Felt a representative had to be here, we did. Your ability, to occasionally beat back the Veil, of great interest it is. Thought perhaps, this moment, a reaction it would cause. Further, Master Luminara, joining your crew she and Padawan Barriss will be. Taking over her duties as courier, I will be." Yaddle's ears flicked flat. "Further, here to search for further younglings for the Order I am. Coincidence it is only that I am here same time as you are.
"Will that kind of cover hold?"
"A cover it is not. Search for more younglings I will. Searching for such, I have been, ever since reappear on Dac you did." With the Order taking as many Force sensitive toddlers into hiding as they could, Yaddle and several other masters had been put in charge of the task of collecting those children. Each of them had been chosen, among the Order's best when it came to dealing with parents and children, although, to be frank, Yaddle was saddened to realize that barely fifteen masters and knights could be said to be able to both watch over children and talk to the parents in such a way that they didn't leave behind any resentment, whether or not the parents could come with the children.
Yaddle also knew for a fact that they had left little breadcrumbs of what was going on, but hoped that no one had been able to figure out how widespread the operation had been. "Here for only two days I will be. Hold for that long it will."
Master Luminara, on the other hand, did have a problem with it. Later that day after Ranma had taken Barriss off to exercise with Ahsoka, the two of them argued about it. Luminara had an issue with the fact that Shaak was being allowed to do it. She felt it would most decidedly force Shaak to have divided loyalties, and that it almost certainly took her attachment to Ranma to an entirely new level. "Whatever happens after this, you won't be able to just walk away from it as you could have before. What if the Order sends you on a mission that Ranma finds boring or simply can't be sent along with you?"
"If that happens, and I rather think the Order would not do such a thing at this point given how much Ranma has aided us all, I would assume that Ranma would wait for me. Most probably in the nearest space station or what have you so he can leap to my rescue at need," Shaak replied dryly. "Further, my loyalties are already set towards the Order and then towards Ranma in that order. Ranma knows that and fully understands the call of duty and honor. Indeed, he respects me for it."
They had long ago made the decision that Ranma would not get in the way of Shaak's duties to the Order, and Shaak would not try to stop Ranma from searching out more martial arts to learn. Ranma's devotion to the Art was quite like Shaak's devotion to the Force, though Ranma's devotion couldn't jerk him around like the Force occasionally had, however subtly. And Ranma's code also called on him to help those in need, something that the Order did on a regular basis.
Luminara frowned and continued to question her friend on this decision. Yet for every question Luminara raised in protest of her marriage, Shaak had an answer. For every near accusation she shot at Shaak's relationship with Ranma getting in the way of her devotion to the Order and the Force, Shaak simply took it without replying as fervantly. She was a tranquil pool, a Jedi who knew exactly what she was doing and that the Force had given her no sign it disagreed. Eventually Luminara shook her head with a sigh. "I'm not going to change your mind on this, I see."
"It's taken you this long to figure that out?" Shaak jibed back, a small smile on her lips at her friend's expense.
"Oh, hush!" Luminara rejoined, reaching over to slap her friend's shoulder lightly, something she would never have done with anyone else in the Order save Aayla and her young padawan. "I should've known that something like this was a possibility two years ago when I saw the two of you together on Dorin. It just, this last step has come as a shock for some reason. I suppose I am just a little too wedded to the old ways of the Order. The changes we've been going through in the past six plus years thanks to Ranma's presence, all of it has changed the way I view the universe, and I am not as comfortable with that as I would like to be, I think."
Shaak rolled her eyes. "Trust me, it has not exactly been easy here in the path of the tornado either."
"Yes, well, I will have to find that out first hand, won't I?" Luminara said whimsically. "After all, I will be joining you here."
"You are certain that is what you want to do?" Shaak asked, taking the Mirialan's hands in her own. "I will not deny that your being with us would be a help. You have strengths and abilities our growing team could use. But, Luminara, you are a Healer. That is your role, one you have followed despite all your other strengths in the Force. Are you certain you want to be with us? As much as I might dislike it, the Force has not called on Ranma and I to solve many problems that did not need to be solved with martial strength."
"With the times becoming so Dark, you are certainly not alone in that, although you might be alone in that practically everything you have set your hands to you have succeeded." Luminara smiled wanly, showing more weariness than Shaak had ever seen in her friend before. "You do not know how rare that is. But yes, I am certain. Why, I think we will discover in due course, but I am where the Force wants me to be. I can sense that despite everything."
She pulled her hands away from her friend slowly and then asked, "So, tell me about this new ship of yours and the crew you've assembled. What are they like?"
OOOOOOO
Finally, Set Harth thought to himself. My team is ready, and all the bits of the plan are in place. The clawdites were both embedded at the store which would supply the cakes. They had been for over two weeks now, and anyone who worked there thought they had been there for years, thanks to Set's use of various drugs and a very deft Force touch to their minds.
The work on the cake was done as well, his little toys within ready to activate at the appropriate time to cause maximum chaos. Set had quickly decided that that would not be during the ceremony itself. The wariness of the Jedi and the assassin droid, even of the Locus himself, was such that an attack during the actual ceremony would possibly not take them by surprise. But afterward, when everyone is feeling more mellow and eating? When someone thinks they have achieved their goal, when they are celebrating, that is when they are most vulnerable.
Dirge and my other blunt instruments are ready too. Set had split his blunt instruments into three ships. The Anzati were using one. Savage Oppress and Karis, the Dathomirian Nightbrother and Nightsister, were together with Cad Bane and Durge in another. Then there were the eighty odd galactic scum the Hutts had been able to bring together in a third dropship, one stolen by the Hutts from the Trade Federation and modified by them.
The Hutts think this whole mission was planned out by the Zann Syndicate, another criminal gang that operates on planets nearby to Shili, in hopes of currying their favor and further monetary aid. None of their men or those who sent them here have any idea I am involved at all, or the Sith as a whole, just as Sidious wanted it.
Those three ships were, in turn, in the hangar bay of a large tramp freighter which had entered the system and promptly developed engine trouble, bleating angrily anyone who would listen that their engines had been overdue for heavy service and replacement, but that their owner, a Corellian conglomerate, had refused to pay for it. Such a thing happened all the time, and it would serve for the few days it would have to. This cover had been aided further by a boarding party which had been lightly manipulated via the Force to tell the locals they didn't find anything. Karis had seen to that.
Even as Set sat at a small café in a town near the retreat the Jedi had taken over, the ship was slowly making its way towards Shili, disdaining any help from the local tugboats, as most captains would. It would reach orbit just as the wedding began to finish and would then disgorge it's contents.
Yet that is but one assault, the attack that the Jedi are meant to see coming. They will turn their attention there, then, just as they are tensing for battle once more, the real attack, my little toys, will awaken. I will then avenge my collection! Set thought, allowing a brief smile on his face before standing up from the café and heading out into the street. Take some pleasure in wedded life, Jedi. It will be the shortest marriage in the history of the galaxy.
OOOOOOO
There were many aspects of Togrutan wedding ceremonies that were based on the reason behind the marriage, be it love, familial, or due to clan obligations. Other details were determined by the age of the participants or if it was the first marriage of the two people involved. Whether the bride was a virgin didn't matter to the Togrutans, although, if the union was supposed to bring forth children, the general health of both participants would have. Every Togrutan clan or family also had their own little additions to the various wedding ceremonies. The equivalent of dowries was sometimes involved.
Since Ranma and Shaak were marrying for love, they would walk down an aisle from one end of the room to the other instead of moving from a side of the ceremonial area, walking down the aisle much like in most human wedding styles. Further, the area wasn't split up, putting the family of the bride and groom on either side, since neither represented their clans or even really had one, although for a time the wedding planner and the priest who was going to marry them argued that Shaak did come from Clan Jedi, which she had often used when speaking to Ahsoka.
But Shaak had stood firm. She was not marrying Ranma as a Jedi to wed him to the Order, though, admittedly, something of the sort had occurred, a fact Ranma had jokingly brought up. No, she was marrying Ranma solely for herself.
Since this was the first time marrying for both of them, Togrutan tradition dictated that the ceremony would happen at dawn, with the light of the day bathing the area of small outdoor ceremony, signifying the start of their lives together. Ranma thought that that was kind of silly since they had been living together for several years now, but it made Shaak happy, and every girl in their crew thought it was romantic, even the two Nova Guard women, so he didn't make an issue of it.
In the days leading up to the ceremony, Ranma had put a lot of effort into creating numerous bits and pieces of furniture and arts pieces, which traditionally would come from the groom's culture. These consisted of several Asian dragons carved out of wood or molded out of large chunks of metal that Ranma had bent, mangled, and shaped as he wanted them, bears, and other animal images, including one kitsune with eight tails that Ranma had hung a scarf on without telling anyone why.
He had also attempted to paint Mt. Fuji, but had eventually given up on the project, instead describing it to Sergeant Cro and another Nova Guard named Kik'tova, who were actually quite accomplished painters. So a large picture of it was spread out between two pillars to one side of the area. Ahsoka and Natasha had tried to create a similar image of the forest within which Shaak Ti had gone on her akul hunt so many years ago, thought the image wasn't quite as good. Here and there easels were set up around the ceremonial area, holding up pictures of the numerous planets the couple had been on, most of them having come from HK's memory, much to the droid's grumbling displeasure. "Affronted horror: Master, if you're going to use my memory for anything, why can't it be for something important, like the glorious violence we've seen?"
Actually, Shaak had oddly insisted that some of the pictures be of scenes of combat. "It is a part of you, Ranma. Even more than your wanderlust and your desire to protect others, you love your Art. We would be remiss in not including it in the ceremony." So HK had taken several memory files he had of Ranma and Shaak fighting, both unarmed and armed, and, of course, sparring together. One of those last scenes took pride of place directly across from the large image of Mt. Fuji, replacing one of the local scenes from Shaak's past, much to the chagrin of the local wedding planner and priest, who were unused to signs of such martial fervor.
At the front of the aisle, behind where the priest stood, were two trees. Those two trees were simply called 'lovers.' If two 'lovers' trees were planted near to one another, no matter what, they inevitably moved to intertwine with one another. Ranma and Shaak had planted them there the evening before, and even now Ranma could see that they had moved towards one another, the largest of their boughs already meeting and moving around one another. The two trees would then be transplanted into a forest near the town where Shaak Ti had been found by the Jedi when she was a toddler. She didn't have family there, but that was the closest thing to clan land they could find. They couldn't very well send it to one of the Jedi Temples, after all, and there was no way they could plant it in the ship, not with the size the trees, which looked somewhat like a pine and a weeping willow, could grow to.
That odd sight caused Ranma to smile, and he kept his eyes on it, not looking at anything else as he forced his feet to continue moving down the aisle. Oh, come on! We had four freaking walkthroughs! I know nearly everyone here. And it ain't as if our lives are going to change all that much after this. Why the fucking hell am I nervous!? And in a way that isn't to do with someone trying to gatecrash?
For this first portion of the dual ceremony, Ranma was in his male form. He was currently wearing long pantaloon-like pants and had heavy weights latched to either arm and a bandoleer he wore on his chest over a good, button-down black shirt. If he had lekku he wouldn't have been wearing the bandoleer, but would instead have had more weights attached directly to them. These were meant to signify the weight of the marriage and the groom's willingness to shoulder the burden of creating a family. Of course, Ranma barely even noticed the weights.
He exchanged a nod with the priest, whose name was Raal Kut. He was easily the oldest Togrutan Ranma had ever met, his skin nearly pink instead of the normal red and his lekku and montrals larger by far. He stooped too, as if the weight of his montrals bore down on him. His eyes, marked by smaller white marks than Shaak, were thin and nearly closed in the light of dawn, but he still smiled back at Ranma commiseratingly.
"Don't worry about it, young one," he said, his voice deep and far stronger than his frame would suggest. "Every man becomes anxious on this day. It's hardwired into our genes, I think. Just remember," he went on, leaning in conspiratorially. "The wedding's for the bride, the wedding night's for the groom. Keep that in mind and you'll get through everything well enough."
Ranma had to bite back a guffaw and a blush at the same time from that statement, but it did actually serve to calm him down somewhat. He stood there, looking around at the crowd, sending a nod towards K'Kruhk, Ahsoka, and Yaddle, who were sitting together to one side of the aisle, while Aayla was on the other side sitting next to Janice and Natasha with Tune on the otuer edge of the second aisle. The three Jedi looked almost absurd given the difference in their sizes going from smallest to small and then straight to huge. Yet Aayla was just as eye-catching, and not for any kind of humorous reason.
Among the six Jedi there, only Aayla had decided to forgo the normal Jedi robe, instead wearing a silver dress that hugged her curves from the waist up and then flared out slightly to allow her legs move easily. She even wore a kind of jewelry-like silver mesh that fell from her forehead to cascade down her lekku, which were arrayed to fall down her front to either side of her chest. She winked at him, and Ranma nodded her way before looking down the aisle as the doors to the hostel opened and Shaak walked out.
In Ranma's unbiased opinion, Shaak could make a paper bag look good. In fact, she did every time she put on a Jedi robe. Even her most ornate robes were barely what most denizens of the galaxy would call lower-middle-class fare. What she was wearing now made Shaak look like a goddess come down to earth.
She wore a diaphanous white blouse and skirt combo that was lined with gold that offset the white and red of her skin, trailing behind her almost like a loose cloak but leaving her flat stomach bare in a triangle around her navel. Her simple normal headdress, which normally only had her akul tooth on it, had been replaced by a white and gold circlet, the work so fine the metal looked as if it was simple cloth rather than metal. The akul tooth instead rode on a similar necklace around her neck. Her lekku hung down her chest as normal, but something had been worked into them, making them shine, almost, in the sun. The same had been done to her montrals. On her arms she wore a series of small gold bands, none of them as thick as the torque Ranma had given her. Her face, however, lacked any makeup save for her purple lipstick.
"Guhh…" Ranma groaned, his higher functions practically shutting down at the sight, and Shaak smiled at him, her eyes raking his body in turn.
For her part, Shaak too smiled at what Ranma was wearing. Ranma was in no way a cloth's horse, indeed, he rarely ever wore more than his silk pants and shirts, along with his armored gauntlet. It was very, very nice to see him dressed up like this, and in her people's clothes too. Mhm, my man does clean up quite well, when he is of a mind to.
Still taking in the view, Shaak moved slowly down the aisle towards Ranma, stopping by his side. Raal let them look at one another for a moment, smiling internally at the amount of love and affection he could see between them. This would be the first time he had married one of his race to an offworlder, and he had been somewhat ambivalent about the idea, yet that had disappeared after meeting these two in person.
Letting the moment pass, Raal smiled at them both, gesturing for them to kneel. They did, and he moved forward, wrapping a band of white leather around their joined hands as he intoned. "Today, two souls are joined as one. Today, these two young people start a life together." He then smirked a little. "Although I am given to understand that their lives together have been going on for quite a while now. Times have certainly changed since I was young. Still," he went on as chuckles wound through the audience, "there is a difference between simply living together, and being married. If you are simply living together, all you have to worry about is getting along. Your problems are your own, your time and everything else only shared when you wish it to be. When you are married, that becomes so much more. Your time, your lives, are no longer just your own, and your problems become both of yours. When a husband needs a crutch, a wife will become that crutch. When a wife needs a shoulder, the husband will become that shoulder. When either needs a stiff kick in the rear, the other will provide it. As lovingly as possible, of course."
Again there was some chortling, and Ranma realized that Shaak had chosen the priest for their marriage very well. Raal brought both humor and a very humanizing (although he knew the term wasn't quite right in this case) element to the ceremony. Ranma had liked the guy when they were talking about the ceremony the day before, but now that it came to it, the man had truly warmed to his role in a way Ranma hadn't anticipated, calming Ranma's nerves even more than the knowledge that HK was there at the back of the area with an anti-aircraft gun slung under one arm.
"This union, though it does not bring clan together with clan, is one of love," Raal went on. "When one person loves another, they need not ask clan or family for permission. They may marry so long as they understand the trials and travails that they will face together. So long as they make us believe that they will become a strength to the community as a whole and not a burden. In any marriage, it should be that two become one, removing one another's weaknesses and becoming a greater whole and thus strengthening all. Do you attest that this is the case?"
"I do attest that this is the case," both of them intoned, with Ranma going on alone as they had practiced. "I have changed a lot since meeting Shaak. I am more open, I am more willing to go out of my way to help other people. I see myself now more as one among many rather than a singular individual, going my own way. I have no doubt that trend will continue from now on."
The priest nodded solemnly, then looked over to Shaak who began to speak in her turn. "I too have grown since Ranma and I met. Besides my martial prowess, which has been helped immensely, I have changed my entire outlook on life. I have opened my eyes to the reality of the world around me, not just through the eyes of my teachers and those who went before. I am stronger for it, and I hope that, together, we can continue to grow in the days to come."
These were not rote responses to the traditional question the priest had asked, which were the same questions he would've asked any young couple who are marrying for love. Yet that was fine, Raal thought. The question had to be asked; the answer had to be the couple's own. Nodding formally, the ancient Togrutan raised his hands and looked around at the crowd of well-wishers, who in this ceremony represented the community as a whole. "I attest that my question as representative of the community and of our ancestors has been answered. Now these two young people will exchange their own vows."
In the opposite of the answering the priests questions, Shaak went first here. She held their joined hands up where everyone could see them, the links of flowers rustling audibly in the silence of the field around them.
"Ranma, when I met you, I did not know how important a part of my life you would become. I was at a moment of transition in my life, and meeting you, talking to you, getting to know you, helped me answer some questions. But my learning did not stop there, and I know for a fact I have grown as a Jedi and as a person. And during that time my feelings for you changed. It wasn't a fast process, and, looking back on it, I am not certain I could find a specific moment where my friendship with you changed. But it did, and I am happy for it. I have known that I have loved you for years, and I vow that that will not change as we continue on the journey of life together."
Ranma looked back at Shaak and smiled, that tender, loving smile that never ceased to set Shaak's pulse to racing, although at the moment it did the same thing for more than a few of the girls in the audience. Aayla felt that as well as the sheer love these too shared and couldn't stop herself from leaning over to nudge Janice. "Is it just me, or is Shaak a really lucky girl?"
"Don't think I'd be able to put up with the curse; not exactly a ladies woman," the former Night Owl replied as her personal datapad continued to record the event in front of them. "But yeah, I think she is very lucky in many ways."
"Before I met you, I don't honestly think I had ever met someone in…quite the same manner," Ranma began, and Shaak smirked while the others looked on in confusion. The only other one there who got the joke was Yaddle. "You could say I fell for you almost immediately." Now Shaak had to hold her hand to her mouth, biting at her thumb to keep from giggling as Tune let loose a warble from where he was rocking on his little rollers.
"I had thought I had friends before, but, looking back on it, I only made one or two my whole life that were really friends. You became a friend first, a traveling companion, a person who was supposed to help guide my steps in this odd universe." Ranma smirked a little. "Or rather, make sure I didn't step on too many toes."
Now a lot of the audience were chuckling along with Tune's warbles of humor since, even without any further information, they still could understand what Ranma was saying, given his personality. Janice, however, started to scowl, since that joke broke the flow she had helped Ranma create for his vow.
"But along the way that changed. You say I changed you, but you changed me too, because somehow, somehow what I was traveling for changed. Somehow the martial arts, adding to my strength and skill, which I had always thought was my life's goal, wasn't quite as important anymore. Instead I just, I just, I just wanted to keep traveling with you. The sights we saw, the things we did, all of it was sweeter, was better because you are by my side seeing the same sights, doing the same things."
HK's grill made a small beeping noise, as if it was about to speak. But Luminara, of all people, swiftly turned, her eyes boring into the droid's as she tapped her lightsaber's hilt from where she was kneeling. Her gaze spoke eloquently of death, and the droid turned its attention back to watching the skies, not saying anything. The rest of the audience was spellbound, staring at Ranma.
Making no sign that he had actually seen what Luminara had done and promising both revenge on HK for his aborted attempt to intrude and to give Luminara a present of some kind, Ranma went on once more, raising their conjoined hands to his lips and kissing the back of Shaak's hand delicately. "That's all. That's all I want right now out of life. I want you by my side. I want to continue to explore the galaxy. I want to see things, to do things, but all of it wouldn't matter at all if I didn't have you there walking along beside me. I love you, Shaak Ti, and I vow wherever we go from here, we go together."
The priest smiled cheerfully, stepping back and clapping his hands, creating a small, rhythmic, thumping noise—not a clap, more like his hands were trying to imitate drums of some kind, that same kind of slow, steady beat, a loud sound coming from such frail hands. "I now pronounce you man and wife," he said cheerfully. "May your days be long, may your nights be bright, and may you both continue to find joy and strength in one another."
The priest then paused. "I would now be ending this ceremony if not for a special little fillip that these two have requested to add into the normal ceremony."
Everyone else looked confused, not having heard what Ranma and Shaak planned at this point. Raal looked at Ranma expectantly, who sighed and stood up disengaging his hand from Shaak's for a second. As he stood up he pulled out a robe from his ki space, flipping it up into the air right over his head as the priest swiftly handed him a small glass of water from the ground.
"Ah, wondering I had been about that glass," Yaddle murmured to K'Kruhk, who nodded his large head in reply.
A quick thirty seconds passed as the cloak billowed around him and fell to the ground as the Jedi there all felt the brief susurration of the Force's laughter before Ranma pulled it off, revealing that 'he' had changed into her female form and had actually even changed her clothing. Now she wore a similar outfit to Shaak, except in her case it was starkly white.
"What! What just happened!?" shouted Barriss as she leaped to her feet, shocked by the sight and the feeling she had just gotten from the Force.
Aayla and everyone else turned to look at her, and Ranma muttered, "Oh, right," then looked over at Luminara. "You didn't tell her about my curse?"
"Your curse is not something that anyone would believe lest they saw it for themselves," Luminara said, sweat dropping a little. She honestly had kind of forgotten to tell her padawan about it and didn't anticipate it coming up like this.
"Master, what just happened?!" Barriss shouted again, sounding no calmer but a bit more plaintive, since it seemed everyone else had anticipated this weird change.
"Sit down, Barriss. I'll explain later. I apologize," Luminara said to everyone as she gently tugged her padawan back down to her knees. "Please continue."
Shaak smiled and took Ranma's hand in hers, rewinding the bit of leather around them before kissing Ranma's hand as Ranma had earlier when he began his vow to her. "For as long as I have known you, this 'curse,' as you put it, has been a part of you. Indeed, I originally met you in this form. A bright young Force user, who knew some odd techniques but was far too old to be brought into the Order. I had wondered then about the mystery of you, and I have loved deciphering that mystery ever since. This curse is not a curse, Ranma. It as much a part of you as your Art is at this point, and I could not love you, Ranma, the man, without loving you, Ranma, the woman. And I do love you. Whatever your form, whatever your shape, you, Ranma, are the man, and woman, I wish to spend the rest of my life with. The man and woman I wish to grow old with. The man and woman I want to continue to grow beside, to face trials together, because I know that so long as we are together, nothing is strong enough to tear us down."
Raal smiled and once more raised his hands in benediction, ending the ceremony for real this time. Short, sweet, and rather heartfelt, just the way I like it, he mused, moving toward the area of the hotel's balcony that contained the tables of food.
Everyone rose from their crouches with various levels of difficulty, moving towards the food or the now happily wedded couple. Before Aayla, who was the first to reach them could open her mouth, though, Ranma held up a hand. "I don't want anyone to say anything about the hard part being over, or 'aren't you relieved,' or anything else that your Force could take as a challenge, please!? Not until we are going to bed tonight. Only then will I feel safe enough to let that kind of thought enter my mind."
This brought some confused glances, none of the others understanding the history Ranma had with relationships or weddings in particular. But seeing Shaak laughing ruefully, they all nodded and gave the two simple well wishes as the now married pair moved towards the food, with Ranma breaking off to head inside and change into her male form. Ranma might have put aside the last vestige of her problems with her female body, but she still much preferred being able to look into Shaak's eyes from the same height. That and I saw both Jethro and Thomas spike the punch, and I figure my male body's added mass'll give me a better chance of staying sober.
He returned to Shaak's side quickly, grabbing a plate for them both of little dainties, seeing that she was busy talking to Luminara and Dralshy'a about something as she removed much of her jewelry. Most of it was specific to the ceremony they had gone through and would be returned to Raal afterward, as would the male equivalent. Ranma fed her two bites from his plate as she continued before giving her the plate and taking over removing the jewelry while Shaak continued to talk without any break, simply smiling at him gratefully. This went on for some time, with others coming and going, giving congratulations to the couple before breaking off to mingle and get more food at the same time.
"Oy, you two, it's time for the cake!" Janice shouted. "Get over here!"
"I thought it was the wedded couple who decided stuff like that? Isn't the cake for desert anyway?" Ranma quipped, though he knew most of their friends and crew had already eaten.
"I don't know who told you that, but it is most obviously false. Come, my love," Shaak said, feeling a thrill as she moved to link her arm with his. "Let's go give them what they want, I suppose. Though, honestly, Janice is the last one who I could see as a cake person."
"Meh, I'm just glad she hasn't taken me ta task about going off-script earlier," Ranma replied, pulling Shaak into a hug and laying a gentle kiss on the side of her head in front of where her lekku merged into her montrals. "Whatever. I can get through this. Just another trial, y'know, and the prize is well worth it."
"Ohh, so I am a prize now, am I?" Shaak asked mock crossly as they made their way over to the cake, talking low to one another and ignoring the other people around them.
"Mmhm. The greatest in this universe, and you're all mine," Ranma replied, kissing a little closer to her mouth this time, causing Shaak to blush and push him away with a laugh. Despite being married now she had no desire to be more open about such affections than she had been previously. Catching on, Ranma backed away, and they walked on with their arms still linked together, only separating as they neared the cake.
It was a large, multi-layered square, about half the height of a man and more than two feet across at the base. The icing was a vanilla thing with cinnamon, the cake something local, with spices and a spongy nature along with numerous raisins. Ranma had really enjoyed the taste testing. Each layer was smaller than the next, with tiny images of mountains, oceans, ships, and so forth here and there. Two small figures stood at the top. Shaak's image was easy to tell, but the locals had had a bit more trouble creating a human figure, and 'Ranma's' skin was noticeably reddish, and his ponytail was obviously a cut down lekku. But, other than that, the thing looked magnificent.
Ranma was handed a large cutting knife by the locals and turned as Shaak began to thank everyone for being there with them. But she stopped halfway and stared up into the sky as did every other Jedi there. As Ranma blinked at them, the two padawans also turned their eyes skyward, and he groaned. "Motherf… Ahem, let me guess…"
"Enemies incoming. At least one powerful Dark Side user is among them. A very powerful one. All noncombatants, please get inside and into the hotel's basement, please!" Shaak said, raising her voice, calm despite a certain thought beginning to push itself to the fore of her mind. These bastards are ruining my wedding!
"Hrhrhm, sense more than that I do. Sense one more there, and many minds. Their attention, on us it is centered," Yaddle said slowly. "Disorganized, hateful many are; cold, calculating others. Mad, two of them are." She shuddered, hunching her shoulders as if against a storm. "Mad one, very powerful he is. Unnatural it is."
Stepping away from the cake, Ranma set the knife down and turned to HK. "HK, you're up! If you see anything flying, light it up!"
"Gleeful response: Oh yes! Now this is what I call a party!" At that HK hefted up the cannon under his arm to face the sky. It was a massive thing with a separate small generator next to it, a creation of Dralshy'a who quickly moved to kneel beside him.
Yet, even as that happened and the others all started to prepare to receive, Set's true assault struck. Yaddle felt something through the Force, a scream of warning, and turned rapidly, raising a hand. "Look out!"
Yet she was too late. The cake exploded, hundreds of tiny bugs bursting out to assail everyone nearby. There were two types, although that wasn't clear at first. One looked almost like wasps, except their stingers glowed green as did their bodies, which were quite bulbous. The others looked like flying scorpions, except they had stingers where a normal scorpion would have had claws. Both types showed an appalling level of coordination and moved in groups of ten, attacking anything and anyone nearby.
These were Sith Fear Mongers and Blood Bombs, creations of Sith Alchemy, the ability to create such having been hidden in a series of small hideouts Set had found and despoiled in his lifetimes before Sidious had found him. The first worked through attacking the mind with a specific kind of Sith poison that affected the target's mind alone, filling them with fear and forcing them to face their greatest fear over and over again. The second, Blood Bombs, were a variety of bug that had never seen wide use in the wars against the Sith because defending against them was relatively easy. Yet if they could inject their poison into a target, the target's very blood would become a combustible agent which would quickly reach critical mass and explode. They had broken out of their containing chrysalis hidden within the cake, a process which had been set on a timetable, a process that had started when the attack from on high had begun, just as Set had planned.
Still standing by the table with the cake, Ranma barely had a second to gasp before he was surrounded by hundreds of the little bugs. He tried to smack them aside and even succeeded, but there were hundreds of them all around him, and a lot of them tried to sting him and those around him. That part of the attack failed against Ranma, since the little monsters couldn't get through his skin, though he had to protect his eyes.
But two of the Fear Mongers got in his face, and from what Ranma had thought of as stingers a small cloud of gas appeared, bursting into his face. Ranma couldn't stop himself, and he inhaled it. An instant later he started to scream as his mind was forced to face his darkest fear. It got worse a second later as one of the Blood Bombs tried to enter his mouth only to bitten in half as Ranma's teeth clenched in a rictus snarl, madness gripping him.
Ranma wasn't the only causality either, as, nearby, Jethro went down as did the two closest Nova Guards, Samor and Kriss, the latter of which was the only woman among the Nova Guard team. Slow to put her helmet on, one of the Blood Bombs caught Jethro in the throat and stung her, causing her to fall backwards, where she was swarmed by several others. The Nova Guard, in contrast, found that their armor had weak points which the bugs targeted.
The Mandos might have realized the same thing if not for the Jedi. Merging into a gestalt with the ease that always set the Order apart from the Sith or any other sect, they lashed out with a controlled blast of Force Telekinesis, a wave of air that slammed into the bugs and threw them away from their allies while leaving Ranma and the others unharmed, the wind not strong enough to do anything to them. Yaddle then waved her hand once again, and a Force Push crushed the bugs into the ground, where she held the technique until they stopped moving.
"Ranma!" Shaak shouted, going to her knees next to her husband, pulling at the shattered remains of the Bug Bomb in his mouth and trying to pry his teeth open, but Ranma's eyes were rolled back in his head, and he couldn't even feel her touch him, let alone realize she was trying to help. His mind was gone, subsumed by the fear the Fear Monger had forced upon him, a fear he couldn't fight and couldn't escape.
Luminara knelt down next to her friend, barking out orders. "Barriss, get those other three over here now! Put them into stasis. I'll get to them after I see to Ranma." It hurt her as a Healer to prioritize anyone, but this wasn't the first time she had had to, and, not knowing what the bugs had done, she had to go with what the Force was telling her: that saving Ranma from whatever was being done to him was part of why she was here, and that she had better get to it.
Yaddle moved to assist Barriss, smacking Shaak Ti on the side as she moved, while above them the sound of incoming ships became louder and louder. It did so very quickly, so quickly that everyone there knew the ships in question were coming down far faster than they should. "Respond to the other attack you must! Leave this you will to Master Unduli and I!"
For a moment Shaak looked as if she was going to argue, but then she visibly recovered herself, the well of serenity that she had built up over the years with Ranma coming to her rescue now. She leaned down and kissed him lightly on the forehead, and he seemed to calm down somehow, which caused her to smile. "I'll be back, love."
When she stood up, though, her smile was gone, and while her anger and fear at Ranma's condition had disappeared, something else had replaced them, the name of which Ranma would have easily been able to tell her: righteous feminine fury. "Ahsoka, Barriss, K'Kruhk, with me!" she shouted, holding her hand up and out, pointing at the sky.
She gathered her Force powers and felt the other three do the same as ships burst out of the cloud cover above, rocketing down so quickly their hulls glowed red. One of them was large troopship, the look of which Shaak thought reminded her of the Trade Federation. Another was a small two person starfighter of unknown design. The third was a small Corellian freighter, a YT series, perhaps. The reasons for there being three didn't matter to her. Who was onboard didn't matter just yet either. Stop them.
With that thought, Shaak reached out and grabbed all three of the ships, holding them in place as if they had run into a cloud of tar. "HK!"
"Derogatory response: I don't need an engraved invitation to do what I do, mistress! Firing!" The cannon under his arm blasted out, smashing into the troop ship, and it was only then that the others around them realized it was a pocket turbolaser, a capital ship grade one. But even that was a bit below what Dralshy'a had done to the thing. She had done something to it that overloaded its power inhibitors, blasting out all the gas it contained in one long blast of plasma.
The shields of the dropship failed, and the Wild Blade, with Tune at the controls, started to fire up at them too. The quad lasers began to fire from the top of the ship, smoke began to billow from the troopship, and the shields of both the YT freighter and the starfighter became visible.
This lasted only a second before the Dark Side users struck back, breaking the grip of the Jedi. They did it with difficulty, and not on all three ships, but the starfighter broke through and started to strafe the Jedi, forcing them to using their lightsabers to ward off the attacks, breaking their concentration.
"HK, don't tell me you're a one shot wonder!?" Janice shouted as she and the Mandos split off in every direction, reluctantly leaving Jethro behind with the other wounded. None of them wanted to think about losing her right now, but they were Mandalorians. Time enough after the battle to mourn their fallen.
Luckily, none of the people there were unarmed. The Jedi had all worn their lightsabers, save Shaak, who had retrieved hers from Ahsoka as she moved away from Ranma. The Mandos had removed their helmets and burnished their armor, but that was all they would do for their own ceremonies, and that was what they had done here. Retrieving their weapons from the back of the balcony was quickly accomplished, and they spread out now, using their jetpacks to do so and dodging incoming fire. The Nova Guard had rushed inside ahead of this to fortify the topmost floor.
Even as HK replied to Janice's question with a rude gesture, they opened up on the starfighter with their crew-based weapons. The starfighter went down quickly, crashing on the other side of the hotel from the balcony where the wedding had occurred, and they turned their guns back up to the freighter and the people now leaping out of it. Then they turned to concussion missile launchers on the troopship, which blew out its shields and smashed its side, causing it to crash into the forest.
There were three of them who leaped out as the YT tried to turn away. One of them was huge, a massive man-shaped being in armor from head to toe that just dropped toward the ground, his features becoming clearer as he plummeted. He carried a weapon as large as the one HK routinely used and had a light pike something like Ranma's in his other hand, though it didn't have a lightsaber's blade, rather a smaller tip at both ends. He blazed away at the defenders with accurate fire from his gun, targeting the Mandalorians in particular as he fell, hitting none but forcing them further apart, and slowing his descent at the last moment with a jetpack of his own.
The others were smaller in comparison, if only slightly in one case. That one was a beast of a being too, his features that of a Zabrak male with large horns and yellow tattoos covering his face wearing heavy armor that looked something like the other larger being's. In his hand he held a large pike of some kind with a metal blade. The other was a woman of normal height with a fit form and a series of light blue tattoos moving up from her chin and over her bald head. In one hand she had just activated a lightsaber as she fell through the air.
And they both practically glowed with the Dark Side. They both stopped their own descent easily with the Force, then the larger one lashed out with a blast of Force power like an explosive going off in the center of where the Jedi had been standing, casting the four defenders, the two healers, and the wounded aside like leaves in the wind. Only Shaak was able to use the Force to ground herself, standing like a rock against the assault, but she wasn't quick enough to do the same for the others, and Yaddle, the only one among them who might have had the strength to do so, was busy trying to keep the two Nova Guard wounded alive.
Luminara gasped as she was flung through the air, grabbing at Ranma's body, and found herself using it as a shield against the ground. She pushed the irony of that to one side as she kept on trying to reach him and tried to dispel the unnatural hold fear had over his mind. Yaddle too kept working, though she grimaced as she felt Jethro expire, her body exploding within her armor, her mutated blood having reached critical mass.
HK too was flung through the air, but he moved with it and came up firing, stitching the three attackers with return fire. The two Dark side users blocked his attacks, the other one just ignored it, taking the shots on his armor.
"Is that all you got!" that man roared, opening up and charging forward. The hand holding his lightsaber came up, shooting out a bola of all things at Dralshy'a who had remained by HK and who had been flung through the air with the droid. She dodged, but at some unseen signal one of the bola balls exploded, sending her crashing to the ground once more. "You Mandalorians think you're badass, but that's only because I haven't been around for a few centuries to put you in your place!"
"Derogatory remark: Oh joy, yet another would-be killer who wants to make it big. Do you know how many of your ilk I have seen in my master's employ? Your attack might have been planned out a bit better than most, but you really should leave the boasting until you're standing over the twitching dismembered corpses of your opponents." HK retorted, slicing another bola in two and then charging forward far faster than a droid his size should have been able to, clashing with the equally as large armored attacker. "Conciliatory tone: Or, oh, I am sorry. Was that your attempt at smack talk? I do apologize. One should never make fun of youthful meatbags when they are attempting to ape their intellectual superiors."
"Bah!" the large man grunted, his light pike flashing forward to be met by HK's, the two of them exchanging blow after blow while also trying to bring his gun to bear at close range, only to have it shot to pieces by HK's. In return, his light pike smashed into HK's heavier, shoulder mounted gun, and from his other hand came a vibroblade which he started to use along with the light pike to good effect. "The day I, Durge, can be stopped by a rusty bucket of bolts, is the day I die!"
"Analytical observation: Excellent, we seem to be on the same wavelength then!" HK retorted, his lightsaber getting through the other's defense and cutting into his leg. Durge was good, but he wasn't very fast, and HK had been training with Ranma for years now. To him Durge was moving in slow motion.
HK's lightsaber burned through Durge's leg halfway, but HK couldn't finish the swing, pulling back and rolling away from a slash from the light pike. The droid watched with something like astonishment on his features however as in about a second the damage was healed, and Durge came on not even having slowed down. "Rueful observation: Now that's just cheating. Well played, for a meatbag. Let's see how perfect that healing ability is."
Nearby, Janice and the Mandos had spread out, more than half of them blasting away through the woods, where they engaged the group of attackers which boiled out of the troopship. Janice took command of that aspect of the battle, using her team's knowledge of the woods and maneuverability to great effect. The main mass of the attackers weren't going anywhere, yet, at the same time, they did do at least half of what they were supposed to: they took the Mandos out of play, while the rest of Set's assault force concentrated on the true targets.
On the other side of the hotel the two Anzati disembarked uncontested and calmly made for the hotel. "It seems we are being grossly underestimated, Saje," said the Anzati man to the woman beside him as he pulled out a vibroblade and blaster before he opened the hotel door for her, bowing her within.
"Indeed, Caska," she replied with a stern nod towards him, her manner making her opinion of his flippancy plain as she readied a blaster of her own and a metallic claw on her other hand, tiny vibrations coming from her fingers. "We will show them the error of their ways and have our pick of the soup on offer here too."
The two Dark Side users landed and immediately rushed forward. Shaak met them, leaping forward, a Force Push catching the larger one midstride and holding him for a moment as she lashed out at the other with her lightsaber, causing that woman to fall back. The Nova Guard took the opportunity to fire at the two of them, a heavy quad laser along with their rifles. The two Dark Side users blocked or deflected them, but that and Shaak's attack allowed the healers time to gather their patients and flee, putting distance between them and the attackers. At the same time Aayla got to her feet along with K'Kruhk and rushed forward.
K'Kruhk, though, made the mistake of going for a straight lightsaber strike on the larger of the two Dark Side users. The Zabrak's massive pike blocked the blow and, with a roar and a kick, the large Zabrak sent the Whiphid flying. A second later he lashed out with a Force Choke at Cro, who had stuck his head out just a bit too much as he lined up a shot, Cro choked and found himself being pulled through the air out of the window. "Die! All of you will die, and then I will have my brother's killer at my feet!"
Shaak jumped towards him, pushing herself through the Force faster than most would have been able to, her attack flashing and being blocked but breaking the attacker's Force Choke on Cro, who fell only to be caught by Barriss while Ahsoka moved to join her master. "I have no idea who your brother is, though if I had to judge by your general appearance and race, I can only imagine he was the one we call Darth Clown Face?"
"Clown Face, Clown face!? His name was Maul!" the Large Zabrak roared. "You are not worthy to have his name pass your lips, Jedi whore! I will avenge my brother and then desecrate your corpse!" He moved with a speed and strength that was well beyond what even the Force should have allowed unless he had been put through something like Ranma's training, forcing Shaak on the back foot, his pike actually getting through her defense to slice into her arm, leaving a large bruise but unable to penetrate.
"Ah, I see. So nice to know when one's enemies are as insane as they seem. Makes it nice and simple," Shaak muttered, wincing at the hit but lashing out in turn, her adapted Makashi nearly pushing Savage back onto the defensive. Ahsoka joined her a second later, and she shouted out, "K'Kruhk, get into the woods and help Janice and the others! We have this!"
Nearby, Aayla engaged with the other Dark Side user, their blades whizzing and battering off one another as they both leaped and danced, each using their own modified versions of Ataru and Jar'kai Ataru respectively. Barriss made to join her, but Aayla barked out, "Go and help the healers, Barriss! I've got this, and you're not trained to a level I want you in a light saber duel without Luminara around!" Master and apprentice could, more often than not, work together to a high degree, the experience and skill of the master buoying the padawan. But she and Barriss lacked that rapport, and this Dark Side user was good, too good for Aayla to want to chance adding another Jedi into the mix who wasn't up to her own skill level.
But as the Anzati started to move through the hotel, the remaining three Nova Guard pulled back from trying to fire into the fight going on outside. This bit of relief let the large Zabrak reach out with the Force while still fighting off both Togrutans, a feat that Shaak would have thought was simply impossible given her own abilities. But something had been done to this Zabrak, something that made him move nearly as fast as Ranma could at his best, and he was monstrously strong in both the Force and physically.
Now he reached out and grabbed Ahsoka with a Force Choke, lifting the padawan in the air and into the way of the swing from Shaak's lightsaber. Shaak clicked off her lightsaber just in time to avoid hitting her but then did something the Zabrak didn't see coming. She twirled into his grip then lashed out with her offhand, a punch taking him in the chest just below his neck as he moved back. The power of the blow, assisted by the Force, lifted the large Zabrak off his feet and hurled him backwards. "Ahsoka, head into the hotel and see what is going on there. Take Cro with you. I sense he's still alive despite his fall. I can handle this one."
Elsewhere, well away from all this activity, Set cursed. With his own mental shielding down, Set had been using his Force powers to watch his victorious attack. Yet his little toys had not fared nearly as well as he had hoped. Yes, the Chaotic Locus was down, but he respected the Togrutan's combat power too much to think that she would be overcome by the Darkbrother Savage. Savage was powerful, and what Talzin had done to him was impressive in the main, a type of Sith Alchemy he was most interested in, but against someone like the female Togrutan, who had trained and fought beside the Locus for a little over six years now, he doubted it would be enough.
He thought for a moment, then sighed and hopped onto his speeder bike, heading quickly towards the distant hotel. I had hoped to not need to get involved. Two deaths to the Locus and his companion were more than enough, but I have to clean this up. It was my bug's inability to do more that has pushed us to these straits. The Jedi were too far away to be caught in the initial rush and responded too quickly despite their attention having been diverted. I will have to kill the Locus, at least, and perhaps the others with him.
As he went, Set also reached out through the Force to nudge at Cad Bane, who he had felt holding back. At that mental push, which the Duros bounty hunter had no defense against, he started to move into the woods to help the Hutt troops, who were rapidly being taken apart by the Mandalorians. I supposes whatever millennia you live in, one thing never changes: if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
While all this was going on, Luminara was trying to help Ranma through his induced fears which had trapped the martial artist into his own mind. The first issue was that, despite that, she could barely get into his mind at all. It was taking all her concentration, hence why she had retreated away from the hotel down to the beach, well away from the battle. Nearby she could feel Yaddle doing her best to stave off the deaths of the two afflicted Nova Guard with scant success, but she couldn't pay more attention to that, not and keep Ranma's fear induced mind from shattering under the strain.
The problem, she found, was that Ranma was facing not one fear, but three. One fear was a simple one, and it was the first whose grip on his mind she was able to break: this fear was of Shaak Ti's death. This fear had started as an image of her being struck by some of the bugs and exploding, then had been replaced by the view of her after she had fallen to the bounty hunters on Mandalore. From there it had propagated, showing her dying in numerous ways in horrible ways, many of which were based on the battles the two of them had seen. The worst, possibly, was her being taken over by the spirit of Exar Kun during their battle on Yavin 4 and Ranma himself being forced to kill her.
Still, Luminara was able to break that within a minute or two in real time after retreating down the cliff face to the beach. She had used the brief moment where Shaak had somehow gotten through to him with the kiss on the forehead, then her own memories of seeing Shaak help scatter the bugs, followed by pulling out Ranma's own real memories and interposing them over the death scenes, one after another. This was tough but rather quick.
The next was worse and opened up parts of Ranma, the brash, arrogant and self-assured martial artist, that she hadn't realized existed: the fear of being alone, of Shaak and everyone else in his life turning on him. This fear was made up of lots of little parts, and each aspect had to be dealt with in turn, from being a 'freak,' to their simply using Ranma and not really liking him. Again, Ranma knew this wasn't the case, but the worst sorts of fears were irrational things.
The third was an older, already conquered fear being woken to full strength again, the days, even years of training to get over it having disappeared under the impact of the Sith Alchemy-created gas and its impact on the fear centers of his mind. That one proved to be tenacious in the extreme, taking just as much time as the second fear, and Luminara was rather worried that even after she got Ranma out of this, his fear of cats would need to be dealt with all over again.
Luminara was still dealing with that third fear when Set came upon them, leaping down from on high. Luminara and Yaddle didn't sense his approach, too busy with Ranma and the other wounded, but Barriss saw him coming. The younger Mirialan interposed herself bravely between her master and the oncoming Dark Side user, bringing her lightsaber up into the first defense of Soresu. "I will not let you pass!"
"Hmm. Soresu, a good choice if facing Sith assassins or other berserkers. You will find it of limited utility against me, however," Set replied, mocking the younger girl further by flicking up his lightsaber in a salute before launching his first lightning fast attack.
The Mandos had basically been having it all their own way for a while. With the Force users and Durge busy elsewhere, and the Anzati hunting through the hotel, that left the Mandos to deal with two company's worth of scumbags. In the woods, where the Mandalorians both knew the terrain and had full use of weapons and jetpacks. To say it was a massacre was to be very mild about it.
Yet that changed abruptly when Kad and Natasha both went off the tac-net, alive but wounded, their helmets smashed by precise, well-aimed fire despite the fact they had been flying through the trees a bare minute before. Janice grimaced and moved in that direction, turning off her jetpack and sneaking through the foliage of the trees now as she barked out an order. "Everyone, pull back. Kad and Natasha are down; regroup on their position and assist."
While her squad did so, she moved around that position in a circle, hoping to catch a glimpse of this new threat. At the same time this allowed the rest of the attackers a moment's peace to get organized and regain some courage. They did so, pressing in hard on her wounded and trying to get past them, only to run into K'Kruhk. The Whiphid Jedi cut down several dozen, then used his lightsaber to cut down several trees and used the Force to create a small berm of trees to protect Kad and Natasha. From this position and thanks to K'kruhk's defense, they were giving a good account of themselves, which was added to a moment later as Thomas arrived to add his firepower into the endeavor. The gangsters and rowdies crowded in from all sides, but they weren't any threat, really.
No, the real threat was a single gunman staying well back from the near-melee around the Mandos' current position. He was a Duros, a blue skinned one with a thin face, red eyes, and the appearance of a desert gunman, a look the Duros who took to the use of violence seemed to prefer. In his hands he held two personalized blasters, and he moved through the woods quickly and easily. At his waist was a long vibroknife, and a few other weapons. He was also speaking into a com-bead, and, watching from nearby, it was obvious that the thugs were responding to his orders, becoming somewhat more organized. The man shook his head, obviously dismayed about something as he took a shot.
Watching, Janice suppressed the urge to whistle, despite the fact it wouldn't have been heard by anyone thanks to her helmet. K'Kruhk howled as his foot was struck before he could interpose his lightsaber and he fell to one side, still flashing his lightsaber around, but obviously wounded and off-balance, allowing the thugs to build up a weight of fire on their position that kept their heads down.
She could also see, thanks to her higher elevation, that both Kad and Natasha had been forced to remove their helmets. Kad's visor plate was burnt badly, utterly useless, his face a mass of blisters from the heat that had seeped through. Natasha's had been shot in the side, and the side of her head was similarly marked. They were still going, but it was obvious they were in a lot of pain.
He's good. But not quite good enough. Raising her rifle, Janice waited. Now, if I was a vainglorious idiot, I would probably dive down on him, guns blazing, and engage him in a firefight. But I'm not, and this isn't the time for such bantha poodoo.
Cad Bane, one of the galaxy's most feared bounty hunters, had barely a second to realize he was being targeted before she struck. His reflexes were such that he still dodged enough to stop her first shot from being lethal, but it still smacked into his thigh. He had armor, but Cad preferred to rely on dodging than taking hits. It didn't help when Janice lobbed two grenades forward which landed both where he had been and near to right in front of the way he had dodged. He cried out in pain as he twitched aside, dodging the explosions even so, but then Janice had moved to take him under fire from the side. He turned, his return bolts striking her armor in the center of her chest and shoulder despite his own pain. Yet this didn't stop Janice, unlike a headshot would have, and Janice lined up one more shot before she calmly blew Bane's head to pieces.
With that done, Janice turned and flew away through the woods, dodging past the numerous blaster bolts from the bounty hunter's fellows who tried to tag her. Turning on her radio once more, she shouted, "Now, spread and strike!" From behind the once more confused thugs, Thomas and Kad blasted out in either direction, while Natasha grimly fired from her current position. A second later they were once more moving all around the thugs, who found that they were now trapped. Within moments the thugs began to surrender, what was left of them anyway.
Elsewhere, the battle between Shaak and the Zabrak warrior had changed once more. The Zabrak had leaped backwards over the side of the hotel's deck, lashing out with a Force blast, not at Shaak, who was ready to counter, but at the deck and its guardrail. The debris flew up toward Shaak, who grimaced but cut the large chunks to pieces with her lightsaber or just dodged through them, letting the smaller ones hit her, doing nothing more than lightly bruising her.
However this had brought the Zabrak over to his ally and, before Shaak could shout a warning, a Force Crush attack lashed out, catching Aayla in the ribs before she could defend herself, crushing her ribs and hurling the Rutian Twi'lek backwards from the second Dark Side user. "With me, Karis! Enough playing! This Togrutan still stands between me and my brother's killer!"
"I do not take orders from you, Savage! Remember your place, male!" Karis hissed, but turned away, moving to flank Shaak Ti while also keeping an eye on the fight between the droid and Durge. Durge seemed to be losing, but his regeneration skills were such that he was outlasting the droid. He had lost limbs and even half his head, but it had all grown back within seconds, although he had also lost most of his weapons, a sign of tactical thinking from the droid that won a moment of grudging respect from the Darksister. The droid still had a lightsaber but had also lost a hand, and one leg was shorting while his chest was pockmarked with wounds.
As she turned away to engage Shaak Ti, Durge tackled the droid bodily. The Mandalorian girl leaped onto his back, firing her gun, a disruptor of some kind, into his neck, blowing it to pieces along with his armor, but this simply revealed more of the grotesque, warped flesh of the ancient Gen'dai warrior within. Even as HK stabbed him through the heart with his lightsaber, Durge reached behind him and grabbed the Mandalorian girl off his back, slamming her into the ground over the droid's body despite her trying to twist out of his grip. There was a snapping sound, and she fell limply to the ground.
"GGGGGRAAAAA! Wrathful response: I actually liked that one, Gen'dai scum!" HK roared, activating his few remaining thrusters as his claw arm, minus the claw, went around Durge, squeezing and holding him to HK's body. The thrusters sent them both sideways, crashing across the ground toward the cliff.
Shaak had a brief moment to realize that, despite the snapping noise, Dralshy'a was still alive, the noise having been made from her collarbone snapping rather than her neck, but she was still unconscious either from the pain or the secondary hit to her head, which Shaak could see had dented her helmet something fierce. That was all she could see, though, before Savage, the very aptly named Zabrak, and Karis were on her, attacking from both sides.
Inside the hotel, Ahsoka reeled away from the man in front of her, who had just grown some weird looking tiny tentacle feeder things from either side of his mouth. The man had met her eyes and then begun using some kind of mind trick on her, but just as he had been drawing Ahsoka in, he had been distracted by Cro who had attacked with his staff, the ends flashing with electrical energy. As she ducked away from that attack, Ahsoka found her body once more under her own control and, with a wordless shout, she brought her lightsaber around, bisecting the enemy before he could duck away.
The two halves of the man fell to the ground, and then there was an explosion from above them. "That would be one of our anti-infantry mines," Cro said, leaning on his staff. He had broken something in his side and one of his legs, but he was pushing through the pain for now.
"Good. Now, let's go: we need to get your men back into the fight!" Ahsoka shouted, then lifted him bodily off the ground with the Force, racing on as he sputtered in indignation. The two of them quickly reached the rubble of the stairwell, passing it and the body of a woman half-crushed there. She too had those weird face tentacle things, and Cro noted that she had nearly gotten out of the mine's kill zone, but since that mine had been set to go off if someone reached the second floor—the Nova Guard having prepared for an attack much like HK—and had been powerful enough to shatter the whole stairwell, that hadn't been enough.
Or so Cro thought. But the woman behind them slowly pulled herself out of the rubble, growling and rubbing at her legs. Saje's speed had been such that she had actually been in the doorway to the hotel lobby before the antipersonnel mine had gone off. She could have pushed herself to her feet while Cro and Ahsoka were still moving towards her but had decided not to try to take them on, despite the young one's soup calling out to her like a siren song.
Saje decided that her legs were battered, but she didn't think they were that badly hurt. She could at least use them to get out of here. And that is what I am going to do right now! No amount of soup, no matter how magnificent, is worth my own death, after all. I am not one of those feral beasts who have let their hunger consume them. Better to live and hunt another day than to die trying to take a prey too dangerous for me.
Anzati could live for thousands of years, though admittedly most went mad at some point, the ravening hunger for the 'soup,' the bio energy of other beings minds, driving them crazy. Saje had lived for several hundred years, and she hadn't done that without learning how to tell when a battle was going against her. The body of her fellow Anzati hunter barely even registered on top of the shouts of panic and worry from the regular thugs that had been added to their assault team. That and the feeling she was getting as if things were about to go very bad indeed for her side, a preternatural sixth sense that hunters could develop over time.
Saje shook her head, pulled out a spray, and turned it on her hair as she made for the door to where the hotel kept a cargo hauler for the hotel's use. A second later her white hair had become brown and was turning browner as she got behind the wheel, expertly hotwiring it. The feeling became almost a physical thing, and she shuddered. Yes, I am sooo out of here! And I do think I will lay low for a goodly while. Set Harth might survive; he might not. But I believe that, one way or another, this particular prey is going to become the hunter all too soon, and I would rather not be one of its prey.
Before Saje had started to pull herself out of the rubble, Cro and Ahsoka had linked up with his three remaining teammates. He led them into firing down at both Durge and the two Dark Side users, disrupting the battle there. As they did, Ahsoka moved into the second story's honeymoon suite, which looked out over the ocean and had a small balcony, which she could use to turn and look down at the beach.
There she saw Barriss on her knees with her arm on the sand to one side and her lightsaber having just been pulled into the hand of a man with wild silver hair and oddly pointed ears. He moved past her towards Ranma and Master Unduli, and that was enough for Ahsoka. She leaped out and down, her lightsaber activating in her hand again, using the Force to add speed and 'weight' to her fall.
Set blinked and looked up, then dodged away as the young Togrutan flashed down, her lightsaber having been aimed to cut him. "Really, this is getting ridiculous! Out of my way child! My business is not with you but with that collection destroyer!"
With a lunge he was on her, and it was only her weeks of training with Ranma, her master, and the others that kept her alive for the next few seconds. But she just wasn't skilled enough to match Set's mix of Ataru and Makashi. His use of Barriss's lightsaber was clumsy, the old Sith being untrained in Jar'kai, but that hardly mattered, and Ahsoka knew she was going to die.
But then Yaddle turned and was there, a blast of Force Light accompanying her movements. The two Nova Guard she had been trying to save had died, Yaddle having been unable to combat the Sith alchemical attacks from the bugs on mind and body at the same time. She had been keeping them alive, at best, until Luminara could add her, but had become aware of Set Harth as he finished with Barriss.
Set Harth had been a decent lightsaber duelist before Sidious had recruited him. He had gotten better since and had been put through the Sith equivalent of the training they had stolen from Ranma.
Yaddle had gone through some of that training too, though not much. She was also a master of Force Light, and whatever their training since Set's battle with Ranma and Shaak on Vjun, the Sith had not discovered a means of combating that technique. It weakened and nearly cut Set off from the Force, and he reeled back, falling back only on his physical abilities as Ahsoka grinned and attacked in turn.
That was about the time HK's mangled body was hurled down on top of them from on high. "GRAHHH! I've had just about enough of this, it's time to kill me some Jedi!"
He leaped down with HK's lightsaber in his hand and landed next to Barriss and Luminara, glaring at Barriss, Ahsoka, and Yaddle. "You're a bit small, but you'll do."
Yaddle, however, twisted around and interposed herself between them, blocking the far larger being's assault and then blasting him backwards with a Force Blast. This, though, caused her to stop using Force Light, and Set acted before he could think even as Yaddle set herself again. Sith Lightning lashed out, but Yaddle blocked it, shifting it back on him with her lightsaber.
"Guh!" Set screamed, falling backwards and canceling the technique, and before he could do anything, Ahsoka's lightsaber cut him in half. The oldest living Sith in the universe was cut down by a simple, young Jedi Padawan.
Yaddle's eyes widened as she felt the Sith's presence in the Force and closed her eyes, reaching out into the Force. Yaddle was one of the three best Jedi alive when it came to sending out her presence into the Force and detecting others there. She found her quarry there and enveloped the essence of the Sith in her grasp.
"WHAT are you doing?!" Set's voice came to her, a whinny, plaintive, hate and fear fueled thing, traveling from mind to mind.
Although that phrase wasn't really appropriate, Yaddle thought idly. Perhaps soul to soul came closer, but no, she rather liked the word essence here. Soul was too ephemeral, mind too connected to the body. "Ending you, I am. An unnatural life, you have lived for far too long. Time it is, you join the Force."
"Fool Jedi! You and all of your filthy kind, you think that your precious Force can end me! I, I will live, forever! You merely concentrate on me when you should be concentrating on what is going on around your own body!" Set screamed back fearfully. While distance was nothing when he was in this form, time was, and the longer Yaddle held his spirit in limbo like this, the more of his long term memories he lost when he returned to his body.
Indeed, as Yaddle had closed her eyes, going to her knees, Durge had stood up and bull-rushed Ahsoka, hurling her into the ocean. He had then turned on Luminara and Yaddle, with Yaddle being closer. Barriss pushed herself up to her knees and tried to reach out to the Force, but Durge just shrugged it off and raised his blade, bringing it down and through Yaddle's body. "No!"
Barriss shouted, anger, fear and hate breaking through her control as pain had been unable to, and she surged to her feet. Her Force Grip reached out, grabbing her lightsaber from where it had fallen next to Set, and she lunged forward with it in her off hand. But Durge just turned and blocked her almost casually, then punched out with his other hand, sending her flying backwards with a broken nose. She rolled with it, but the blow had carried her down the beach.
But instead of cutting down Luminara and then the target they were really here to off, Durge cocked his head to one side. "What the hell? Jedi these days don't even have the grace to leave bodies behind to gloat over?"
Yaddle had died, but then things got strange. Instead of being cut in half, her body had just…disappeared. This was a phenomenon called becoming one with the Force, and only the greatest of Jedi Masters were known to have this occur when they died. It wasn't something you could learn; it was simply something that occurred if the Force felt you had learned enough, or perhaps devoted enough of yourself to its service. The reason was unclear.
If Set had thought that the death of Yaddle's physical form would releases his essence from Yaddle's grip, he was sorely mistaken. Even as he sensed Yaddle's death, the grip around him grew in power, and suddenly Set was utterly cut off from the Force, Yaddle's spirit somehow creating Force Light around him, searing away not only his connection to the Force as a whole but the Veil too, if only for a short amount of time. "You, how are you doing this?! What is this!? How can a Jedi…"
"More power in the Light, there is, than you know. Time, it is, both of us to fade," Yaddle's spirit replied calmly, her form far more distinct as it hovered in the Force next to Set.
"You, no! If, If I, I can teach you how to hold on, how to take another body! You can live forever!" Set wheedled. "Let us go, or we'll both fade!"
"A difference between the Sith and the Jedi, there is. Jedi, while embrace it we seldom do, afraid of death we are not. The Force, balance it requires, life for a life. Dead I may be, but taking you with me I am," Yaddle said softly, and then she smiled. "Interesting it will be, being one with the Force."
As Set's spirit began to scream and rail against the cage of Force Light he found himself in, Durge had shrugged off the minor mystery about Yaddle and turned to Luminara. Barriss was too far away, and Ahsoka's lightsaber had never been given the treatment necessary to make it work in the water. It was all she could do to toss it away before it electrocuted her, and she watched in dismay as Durge turned on the Mirialan Jedi Healer.
However, that brief, brief second had been enough for Luminara to finish her task of dispelling the unnatural fear from Ranma's mind. Gone were the images of Shaak's death, gone were the fears of being used, friendless, and alone, and gone was the fear of the neko-ken. In its place was the knowledge that he had been taken out by those self-same fears while his friends and loved one was in danger.
Ranma snapped open his eyes and saw Luminara looming over him and, above her, this freakish looking alien with a face almost like that of the alien from the American movie Predator, with a purple, red, and dark blue fibrous body holding a lightsaber above his (Ranma thought it was a he, anyway) head. He reacted with a speed no one in this universe could match, grabbing Luminara and rolling to one side with her, ending up lying on top of her for a second. "Um, thanks for the assist, Luminara! Sorry about that, but, well, any way to save yer life and all!" he quipped, leaping towards the creature.
A blow blasted into Durge's face, sending him flying into the cliff face and burying him a full foot into the rock while, behind him, Luminara blushed, shaking her head before looking around and becoming aware of the carnage around her for the first time since beginning her work on Ranma. "Barriss!" She rushed to her padawan, catching the girl and Force grabbing at her arm. "Hold on a moment! This will be very painful, but it hasn't been long; I can still attach it. The disintegrated skin will need to be created, however, and that will take a lot out of you."
"You, you fucking think one punch and you've got time to see to the brat's arm!" Durge growled, bursting out of the rocks, his body even more covered by what looked like tendons and tentacles mixed. "I'm going to rip the pigtailed punk's head off, then I'm going to kill all you Jedi! Why die tired?"
"Damn, I've seen a lot of aliens in the past six years, but you have got to be the ugliest," Ranma laughed, cracking his knuckles, but, looking around at the carnage this being and Set, whose body Ranma easily recognized, had done, he lost much of his good humor. "Still, you can take a punch at least."
"Bah! I've been sliced, diced, had my head chopped off, my heart ripped out! I've had people try to drown me and bury me alive!" Durge roared back, his chest plate, the last bit of armor, falling away. "Nothing you will do can kill me, you bastard! I am a Gen'dai warrior!"
"Huh…" Ranma whistled, then shrugged. "Well, I always like a challenge." With that Ranma launched himself forward, ducking under a blow from Durge, whose arm extended and grew almost into a mobile wall above him. But Ranma was too fast, and he brought his arms forward and up from his side, aiming at the large alien. "Kijin Raishin Dan!"
The vorpal blades of the Loud Thief school lashed ou and, cut Durge into neat segments, creating a fast X in the center of his body and to both shoulders and hips. Each section sloughed off for not even a second before Ranma kicked them away from one another, figuring that they would try to come together again like pieces of a slime from an RPG game.
This didn't actually happen, though. The limbs just lay there. But the head and the triangular section of the stomach began immediately to sprout more of the weird-ass tentacles. "GRAAHhhh, fuck, that hurt! You bastard, that'll take minutes to heal from! But don't worry, I'll just make your death a bit more lingering!"
Yep, tentacles. Thanks to Tofu I know where this is going if I let it, so, yeah, no, Ranma thought as he saw the things wriggling around one another, starting to vaguely form a humanoid shape. "Huh, well in that case, I think I'd better come up with something better." With that he reached forward and grab Durge by his face, his fingers digging into the flesh and armor there, causing the Gen'dai warrior to howl in pain. Then he leaped upwards to the top of the cliff.
When Set Harth had died, the battle up top between Savage, Kiris, and Shaak had also turned against the attackers. At this point Shaak Ti was still going strong, pressing both Savage and Karis despite their almost non-Sith like ability to work together. Karis also had to worry about the blaster fire from the hotel, which got in the way of their working together. Savage, though, was simply mad. He kept attacking Shaak Ti with his hugely powerful blows, using the Force to defend and sometimes hurling her around, but Shaak was able to block enough that he couldn't get a grip on her, and her lightsaber skills made him look like a rank amateur. His strength in the Force was monstrous as well, but his training left much to be desired, and while whatever had been done to his body let him keep up with her in speed as well as enhancing his durability, making him practically immune to even the Nova Guard's quad lasers, and he had strength enough to match Shaak's training with Ranma, it wasn't enough to offset Shaak's skill.
Having just ducked under and around a blast of the Force that ripped up the ground to one side of her new position, Shaak felt a Dark Side user die and a Jedi pass on as one. So too did Karis, who stumbled and turned slightly away. Now, Shaak thought, still almost calm except for the righteous anger at how this attack had ruined their wedding and her worry over Ranma and the other wounded. In reality, her mind really wasn't calm at all. Rather, it was focused, like a hunter who had been trailing behind his quarry for days and had just spotted the right moment to let his arrow fly.
She lashed out, but not with her lightsaber: rather, with her hand, which created a Living Force Shield. This old technique Ranma had turned away from because it was so energy intensive against lightsabers stopped Savage's metal blade with ease, and the next instant, before the recovering Karis could cover him, her lightsaber stabbed for Savage's throat. He tried to back away but couldn't get away as she lunged under his glaive and after him, her lightsaber catching him in the chest rather than his stomach.
"N, no… Brother…" he groaned, collapsing to his knees.
Shaak flipped herself up and over Savage before whirling around his falling corpse, her lightsaber coming around to deflect Karis's as it sought her life. Then Karis tried to turn to deflect more blaster bolts and couldn't quite get around in time. Shaak's blade skirted around her, cutting off her arm right below the elbow, and a Force Grab pulled the arm and lightsaber within its grip to Shaak as she backed away. She might have tried to take the other woman hostage, but the Nova Guard had been firing at the woman at the same time Shaak had attacked, and, without her lightsaber, she was dead before Shaak could interpose her own lightsaber to her defense.
Sighing slightly, Shaak was about to turn and run to the cliff face when a bright smile wound its way onto her face as she saw Ranma land there, carrying what looked like the head and neck of Durge stuck on a mass of wriggling tentacles. "Ranma! I see Luminara was able to break you free of whatever those bugs did to you."
"Yeah, but it cost us. It cost us a lot," Ranma growled, shaking his head as he heaved the still cursing Durge. A single vorpal blade from his free hand cut the tentacles back down to size, and he continued on. "Let me just take care of this thing. I'm sorry I wasn't much use. That bug's gas…"
"I know, Ranma. Sith Alchemy: a horrid thing. It could have happened to any of us," Shaak said, moving over to kneel down next to Aayla. Her friend was alive, thankfully, but badly wounded, her ribs having been crushed by Savage's earlier attack. He had tried the same thing on her numerous times, but Shaak had either deflected his aim or dodged, while his attack had taken Aayla by surprise. Shaak was no healer, but she began to do what she could as she watched K'Kruhk and the Mandos coming out of the woods leading ten men who were made to kneel as the Mandos bound their hands behind them. Most of them were a little singed around the edges but grimly satisfied by how the battle had gone until they saw Jethro's body, which sobered them up noticeably.
"Yeah, but it didn't. It happened to me." Shaking his head again, Ranma moved towards the Wild Blade. "Tune, power up the plasma cannons. The way I figure it, we just have to keep firing at him until nothing's left."
"Plasma cannon?" Durge asked, the words having broken through his rage, pain, and vitriol. "What the hell…"
Seeing the weapons slide out of their organic looking protective sheathes along the wings, Ranma started to hold Durge up in front of the first and then turned to see Ahsoka sprinting by him with HK's head disconnected from its body. "Jubilant note: Oh please, master, let me! That astonishingly irritating meatbag destroyed my body. Please let me be a part of ending it!"
For all his regeneration ability, Durge couldn't force his body to regenerate faster than it already was. Two shots from the plasma cannon were all it took to kill him for good, with the last being after Ranma had tossed his still screaming head into the air. Durge had barely begun to regenerate his neck and shoulders and was still screaming imprecations before the next shot hit him, disintegrating his body entirely.
And with that, the second Wedding Disaster in Ranma's life ended. The cleanup, that took much longer. Shaak, after convincing Ranma that he really couldn't have done anything once the gas had hit him, talked to the locals, while K'Kruhk saw to the bodies of the dead and Luminara to the wounded but still alive. Aayla was the worst wounded, with Janice, surprisingly, following, with Barriss and her loss of a limb having already been taken care of. The Mirialan padawan was now on a meat and protein heavy diet to rebuild the fat and muscle mass Luminara had used to reconstitute her limb at the right length, much like Kit Fisto had been after Fay had reattached his. Janice's shoulder had been burned badly by one of Cad Bane's shots, though her armor had stopped the other round with only a bit of heat being transmitted through. Dralshy'a had a broken clavicle and a concussion, Cro had some badly bruised ribs, and Ahsoka sported a twisted ankle, while the rest had bruises and heat blisters aplenty, like Kad and Natasha.
But all of them were alive. Yaddle, Jethro, Samor, and Kriss were not. Jethro, Samor, and Kriss's deaths were a body blow to Ranma, Shaak, and their team. Not even Thomas had a smile on her face as they prepared the bodies for burial, indeed, he was almost cold, distant and unresponsive as he went about helping the others prepare the funeral. Yaddle's passing, though, was, while a nasty blow to the Order, somewhat less of a tragedy. All of the Jedi had felt her passing and then what she had done with Set Harth's essence, ending the Sith's threat forever. Set Harth wasn't coming back from this one.
That night they burned the bodies of the dead on a funeral pyre, the same defensive berm K'Kruhk had created. The Jedi retreated to the top of the hotel, where they meditated on the life of Master Yaddle, putting their grief for her death behind them along with any lingering anger at the act. At the same time Cro and Janice led their people in talking and sharing tales about the fallen, mostly hugely exaggerated, creating a wake for the fallen, something both their peoples had in common.
Shaak and Ranma joined them for a time, telling their own stories and taking part, but left when the drinking got to be too much. Even the Nova guard were imbibing, using long tubes of some kind of drink that was added to the paste they normally ate through small irises in their masks. The two of them walked through the woods for a time, simply sharing one another's company. Ranma wanted to make a joke about this being some wedding night or about finding Raal and getting his money back since this groom certainly wasn't enjoying said, but he didn't. The attack had soured the day badly, yet even so a part of Ranma was happy they'd been able to get through the ceremony, that they were married now. Yet even that was a selfish thought, and he didn't say anything, simply kissing Shaak before letting her go to join her fellows. He could sense that she had similar thoughts, but they were dimmed in her, the loss of Yaddle meaning far more to her than to Ranma, who had barely known her after all.
He then spent a few hours on the Hypercom with Yoda and Mace, talking about what had happened. Shaak and the others had already called in, giving them a rundown, but Ranma wanted to express his own commiserations to Yoda, who had just lost one of his oldest friends in particular. That talk wound through much of the night before the two Jedi masters let him go. By the end of their conversation it had almost been more them helping Ranma get over his own frustration about having been next to useless in the fight than anything else. Still, he went to bed that night with a clearer conscience and a renewed determination, only waking up as Shaak joined him, cuddling up to her when she entered the bed, and being cuddled in turn.
That determination was on display the next morning when they all met up in the lounge area of the honeymoon suite, even Aayla, who had decided to join the crew along with Luminara for a time. Even HK's head was there, held by Dralshy'a. "We got bushwhacked here, and it wasn't the first time. We thought that if we were ready, if we took precautions, we could see them coming. We didn't, not really, and we paid for it. But I am kriffing done with being a target, the hunted! Give me options, people. I need options on what we can do to strike at the Sith, or else I'm just going to randomly throw a dart at a map of the galaxy, go to the system it hits, and start wiping out every criminal gang, organization, or vaguely illegal group until I get a lead."
For a moment the others were silent, then Aayla raised a hand hesitantly. She had not actually known about the Sith secret until last night, but that secret was being shared throughout the Order by this point via word of mouth, so that hardly mattered. "Do we have any idea about how long the Sith have been in operation?"
"We believe the current Sith were started by a survivor of the New Sith Wars. So perhaps as long as a thousand years."
"Then they'd need a single, truly secure base, and I don't mean one that is only churning out one resource they need. They'd need an industrial base, a small one, maybe, but one they could use to broker further goods, further money."
"We can't follow the money trail," Luminara interjected. "The Order has been trying to do that ever since a little while after Maul's death on Naboo. We think they had a connection at that point to the Trade Federation, one that might still be in place. We think they are involved in the Secessionists. We can't find any evidence to back it up."
"There's a thought," Ranma mused. "Sora Bulq. Find that guy, shake him until we're certain he isn't a Sith or, if he is, just shake him till he comes apart, either or." Ranma's voice was whimsical, but everyone looking into his eyes could tell he was serious.
"Rather than causing an incident which might push Secessionist into declaring war, I think we need to look at this another way. Asteroids like that Terentatek den you all destroyed that Shaak told me about are one thing. But planets able to support an infrastructure, those are rare. Rarer still that there won't be someone else who knows about them," Aayla said, before holding up a hand. "I know that's the kind of thing the Order might be already looking into, at least, I hope so. But the Republic's Survey Corps is good, very good. It boggles the mind they would have entirely missed a planet like this. Heck, didn't they know about the asteroid you all found?" When Tune and HK said they did but the information had been changed, Aayla went on. "Then we need to find a library that hasn't been changed. And I doubt we could use the Order's: this Sith has been too good for that kind of slipup."
"…Or we could go to Korriban itself, search for clues there," K'Kruhk said with manifest reluctance. "Surely the Sith homeworld would have some clue, if only signs of Sith journeying there to study the Sith Lords that have gone before."
"Let us stave off that choice for now," Shaak said, looking troubled. "I would like all of us to know how to use Force Light before we travel into that den of ancient evil. But where would we find a database like that?"
"The best way would be to go as far back as possible and then update slowly, looking for discrepancies," Cro said. The others looked at him, and the Nova Guard sergeant shrugged as the others looked at him. "I've had to do much the same when looking for missing data in terrain maps."
"Ossus," Luminara said slowly. "The libraries there were mostly destroyed during the Cron Cluster supernova, but some still existed and were updated later numerous times. The world is too inhospitable, and the destruction too total, for even the Jedi Order to want to rebuild it, but for decades after the Great Sith War ended we still stored data there until the Council began to centralize the Order on Coruscant. Ossus has been forgotten for millennia, for far longer than the New Sith Wars. If the Sith really are using a planet that was ever known by the Republic, record of it might well be there."
The Jedi all exchanged looks while Ahsoka and Barriss looked confused, until they nodded one after another. Ranma nodded too. "Then, in that case, we have ourselves a destination, ladies and gentlemen. And let's hope we find something there we can use. I would dearly love to go on the attack against the Sith for once."
End Chapter
Hehe. Hope you all enjoyed this, and the end of Set Harth. No more ever-living baddies now. Or are there… Still, Shaak and Ranma are now married, and Set is dead. Hmm… I wonder what impact this will have on the Force?
As always review, and if you want to have a bigger say in what stories are updated each month, check out my patt on site.
For those interested, regarding ATP: I hoped to initially start writing up the chapter in March, however I am dealing with severe battle-scene drain, and the VAST majority of both of the next to chapters of ATP are combat scenes. So I have decided to push it back until April in the interest of keeping my sanity and my motivation high.
Yet planning is ongoing! I will start to share outlines with my beta-readers this weekend, and start talking to a few people who have offered their advice on a few combat-related questions, mostly on the infantry side of things. On a similar topic, I know I was PMing with a former British Air force pilot about Magic of the Force, but I can't find those PM's any longer! Fanfiction really needs to come up with a way to organize PMs better, because unless you started out organized and deleting as you went, you just can't find anything after a time.
