Three updates in one month. I honestly didn't think this would happen again. Between work and life, I usually do not have the time or energy to maintain that sort of output. This chapter in particular took a while because the chapter I'm writing now is proving difficult. My muse up and took a vacation halfway through it, taking my motivation with her. I did eventually hunt them down and drag them both back, but it's still slow going. My writing usually comes in big spurts, followed by days or weeks of minimal progress.

As before, I ask that any of my readers who can afford to do so contribute to one of the charities helping Ukrainians impacted by the invasion of their country. The crisis doesn't go away just because the news gets bored with it. I hope this is the last of these requests I have to write, but I doubt it.

There's not much in the way of action this chapter, but don't worry. Plot happens, and (some) answers becoming clear. I'd tell you what they were, but that's kind of what the chapter is for.

Disclaimer: I do not own either Naruto or Star Wars. Just in case there was any confusion on that point.

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Chapter 25

Mace and Captain Panaka met him in a speeder five kilometers from Deyne's mansion. When they asked where Deyne was and he responded by waving the scroll, Panaka's reaction nearly had him on his knees with gales of laughter. The poor man's eyes had nearly vacated their posts in his skull, and his mouth might have lured in nesting birds had the sun been up. Mace had restrained himself to a weary sigh before hustling both of them into the speeder and flying off.

Half an hour later, they arrived at their destination, a safe-house, one of many that the Royal Security Forces maintained across Naboo. Panaka and Mace had judged it to be the best available venue to interrogate Deyne. With hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Naboo still being held by Black Sun, they could not risk a more formal location.

The secrecy bothered all of them, except for Naruto, who was used to such things, but it rankled Mace most of all. Captain Panaka was, first and foremost, a practical man. So long as his Queen was safe and no one explicitly broke any laws, then he would accept the subterfuge with equanimity. Padmé, while an idealist at heart, was also an experienced regent and politician, one who had steered her people through dark times. While she had no love of secrets, she had long since made her peace with keeping them. It helped that she was at something of a remove from the whole situation, not being directly involved with either the arrest or the coming interrogation.

Naruto was still getting accustomed to the idea of how justice operated in the Republic. He had grown up in a world of secrets and shadows, where concepts such as due process and the rights of the accused were, at best, ephemera. He had not liked it, but he had rarely thought of it either. It had just been the way things were done, and it was only with time and experience that he was seeing just how bleak a place the shinobi world had been. To compound matters, Deyne was involved in the most disgusting sort of slavery that Naruto had ever heard of, and like Anakin, he had not only issues with slavery, but volumes and ongoing subscriptions. If stopping him meant trampling his legal rights a little, Naruto would not lose an hour's sleep over it.

Mace was not so sanguine as that. He had seen where the road of hidden justice and secret police led. Seen it and fought against it. He knew better than most just how short that road could be. It was why he held firm his conviction that justice had to be delivered in the light of day, or else it was little more than retaliation, self-defense at best. He recognized that any government needed men and women to walk in the shadows for the good of others. He would not be one of them, though.

However, as a Jedi, he had a duty to life above all other things. Specifically, he had a duty to the hundreds, perhaps even thousands of lives, of people, that Deyne had delivered into the hands of Black Sun. Those people were not only victims, they were also hostages. Mace had encountered Black Sun operations before, and the organization had a well-deserved reputation for using hostages as leverage and living shields. The only way to save those people was to take their captors by surprise, and that meant subterfuge. It also meant that he needed to get the location of the Black Sun base from Deyne, and quickly. Naruto's clone would not be able to pass as Deyne for long.

Once they had set up the interrogation room, Mace gestured to the waiting chair.

"Let him out, Naruto, then stand to the side. Observe and learn, but do not interfere."

Naruto flushed. "What? But master, I can help. I want to-"

Mace raised his palm, silencing his Padawan. "I know you want to help, Naruto, but now is not the time. I have not taught you how to conduct an interrogation yet. What's more, you are too close to this."

Naruto flinched and made to retort, but Mace kept right on. The last thing he needed was for Naruto to build up a full head of steam. He sympathized with his Padawan's frustration. His reaction the first few times Master T'ra Saa had benched him during a mission had been much the same, if not worse. Still, there was too much at stake for him to bend on this issue. He could sense the shatterpoints surrounding this interrogation.

"You are still off balance from earlier. I can sense your grief, your anger. Beware those feelings, Naruto, for they lead to the Dark side." Mace saw Naruto's resolute determination, and his voice softened a hair. "Padawan, this is not a matter of trust. I trusted you to investigate and arrest Deyne, and you did not let me down. However, interrogating someone like Deyne is difficult. It takes experience and calm. Right now, you are short of both. Do you understand?"

Mace could feel the ball of emotions all tangled up in his Padawan. There was his natural stubbornness, a deep sense of righteous anger, and the lingering trauma of feeling such awful deaths. All of it was mixed with a healthy dose of typical teenage turmoil, something even Jedi were not wholly immune to. As he spoke, though, he saw a change. He watched as the frustration in Naruto's eyes slowly drained away, to be replaced by understanding. Reluctant understanding, certainly, but understanding nonetheless.

"Fine," Naruto said, a tinge of bitterness still present in his voice. Mace let it go, though. There were more immediate concerns than some teenage attitude. Without further protest, Naruto unsealed the still unconscious Deyne from the scroll and stuffed him into the proffered chair.

"Cut his bonds," Mace said. When Naruto shot him an uncertain look, he explained. "He uses fear as a weapon. Let him see we are not afraid, that we are strong. Men such as this are usually cowards at heart. Take away their favorite weapons; fear, money, hired muscle, and they become far more tractable."

Naruto nodded and stepped into a corner, blending into the shadows. With the hood of his robe up, he cut a vague and indistinct figure, more a part of the background than another person in the room. Mace turned his attention to Deyne, who was still slumped in the chair, out cold. He reached out with the Force and gave the man's mind a sharp prod. It was not hard enough to do actual harm, but it would certainly leave him off balance and confused for a few seconds. Deyne twitched and jolted into the land of the living with a startled gasp. He looked around with wide, panicked eyes, trying to figure out where he was and what was going on. Mace let him. A less experienced interrogator might have immediately started in with the questions to keep him off balance, but Mace knew better.

'Let him get his bearings,' he thought. 'Let him see the truth of his situation. He will try to usurp control if he can. When I take that control away from him, how he reacts will tell me just what sort of coward he is.'

Sure enough, after a few seconds of naked fear and confusion, Deyne schooled his features and seemed to calm down. It was an act, of course. Mace could see the seat on his brow, and the furious beat of his pulse in his neck. Still, when he spoke, his voice was steady, holding just the right amount of indignation and anger.

"What is this? Who are you people? How dare you kidnap me? Do you have any idea who I am?"

"You are Deyne Tapalo, candidate for the throne of Naboo, former member of Naboo Royal Security, planetary terrorist, and current accomplice to the Black Sun." Mace's voice was a glacier, cold, and implacable in its inexorable march, grinding any feeble protests beneath its grim weight. Deyne flinched for an instant, before he rallied and fired back.

"What are you talking about? Terrorist? Black Sun? What sort of nonsense is this? When the Queen finds out about this outrage, she'll-"

"The Queen ordered this," Mace said. "We have a recording of your conversation with a Black Sun operative earlier tonight. We have records of you accessing the remnants of the Naboo census data just weeks before the attacks began. We even found several bank accounts you hold under an alias. The money in them came from a known Black Sun front company."

Deyne was silent for nearly a minute. His face flickered between anger and shock, before it finally smoothed and went blank. His voice, when he spoke again, was no longer indignant or outraged. It was flat, arrogant, and even a little bored.

"If you have all that evidence, why am I here, then? You don't need to waste time with some secret interrogation. You could just put me on trial and have me convicted within a month." His eyes narrowed. "You need something from me, don't you?"

"We will get to that," Mace said, before he added the Force to his next words, making them harder to ignore. "First though, you are going to tell me what exactly Black Sun was using you for."

It was subtle, but he saw the twitch in Deyne's face at the mention of Black Sun using him. Clearly, he liked to think of himself as an equal in their partnership, though deep down he obviously knew better. Such an insinuation would not bother him otherwise. Still, the suggestion worked, and Deyne kept talking. All the while, Mace kept up a gentle pressure on his mind to discourage any lies.

"Well, I suppose there's no harm in telling you anymore. They wanted to expand their power into Hutt Space. Naboo is the perfect gateway for that. It's out of the way, insignificant, but rich in resources and right on a hyperlane into Hutt territory. They promised to help get me elected, so long as I swore to let them operate out of Naboo once I was King."

"The kidnappings. The attacks. You must have orchestrated them. Tell me about the plan. Tell me how they were going to make you King." Again it was an order, not a question. Mace was not truly forcing Deyne to respond, but then again, he did not need to. He could sense the man's shatterpoint; his arrogance. He may have been a sociopath, but Deyne Tapalo was also a vain, narcissistic braggart. With apparently nothing to lose, he would not turn down the opportunity to explain what he viewed as his genius plan, not even to a Jedi.

"I was going to make myself King," Deyne said, venom lacing his voice. "I orchestrated all of that, and more. They said they needed people, subjects for some experiment or other, so I provided them. It was easy to round up some of the unimportant scum, especially with access to the census data."

Mace felt a swell of disgust rise up in him at the casual way Deyne described his actions. It was as though he were describing a trip to a store or some other mundane task; as if they hardly mattered. Through their bond, he could also feel a hurricane of outrage ready to burst from his Padawan. He sent a wave of calm and restraint down the link, and kept it up until Naruto regained control of himself. It would not do for either of them to have an outburst now.

"As for the attacks, that whole plan only worked thanks to me. I provided the targets, the getaway routes, the security schedules, everything! They would have been caught in a week if not for me."

Mace did not allow the satisfaction he felt to show on his face, but inside he could have smiled. As ever, the Force had steered him true. It would only take a few more pushes to get Deyne to turn on his erstwhile allies.

"From the recordings we made, it did not sound like you were a very equal partner. Your handler threatened you, berated you, and you just took it. It sounded like you were just a puppet."

Deyne actually snarled at that. Flecks of spittle sprayed the table from the force of his rage.

"That insolent piece of filth. No one speaks to me that way and gets away with it."

Mace raised a doubtful eyebrow. "Really? Because that 'insolent piece of filth' seemed confident he could get away with it just fine. He made the consequences for another failure like the one a few days ago quite clear. Tell me, what would you call this," Mace gestured around the room, "but failure."

Deyne's anger seemed to leak out of him at that, leaving him looking deflated. He went pale, and Mace spotted a tremor in his hands. Clearly, narcissistic sociopath or not, even Deyne Tapalo knew to fear the wrath of Black Sun. As that fear grew in him, Mace spotted the second shatterpoint; self-preservation.

"You must have provided them with a base as well. They would need one to operate from. Tell me where it is, and I will see to it you receive protection in prison."

Deyne snorted in contempt, but Mace could sense his resistance buckling, and pressed on.

"Black Sun insulted you, humiliated you. You owe them nothing. No one knows that you have been arrested. They will have no reason to think you sold them out. Tell me where their base is, and I will take it, and them, down. Black Sun will be too busy doing damage control to bother with you."

With that, Mace could feel the shatterpoints break. Deyne pretended to mull it over for another minute, no doubt trying to see if he could get something more for his cooperation, but he had already made up his mind. Mace waited patiently for him to realize that, and soon enough, he did.

"I don't know exactly where their base is. I never actually went there. But I know it's somewhere in the swamplands east of Theed. The rendezvous to drop off new subjects was near there, and it's the only place nearby where they could hide a base. That's all I know, though."

Mace stared at him long and hard, looking for any signs of deception. He found none. Satisfied, he stood and signaled Naruto to follow him.

"Wait," said Deyne. "You promised me protection. You'll keep your word, right? Jedi always keep their word."

Mace didn't even bother to turn around when he answered.

"A Jedi's word is absolute. Whatever hole you get thrown in, I promise it will be so deep and so dark that not even Black Sun will go looking for you." Without a backward glance, he led Naruto out of the room.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Naruto struggled not to fidget with impatience as the shuttle descended to the ground. It had been three hours since his master had squeezed the intel on the Black Sun base out of Deyne, something he was still a little impressed by. Hell, not just a little. From what little Naruto knew about interrogation, sociopaths like Deyne were incredibly hard to get information out of. It often took weeks to break them down, but Mace had gotten both a confession and vital intelligence in less than ten minutes.

'I guess there's a lot more to being a Jedi Master than just being good with a lightsaber and the Force,' he thought. 'Still, I hate waiting like this, no matter how much it's needed.'

In the hours since they had left Deyne, Captain Panaka had contacted Padmé and left to secure a platoon of Royal Security Guards to help them take down the base. Given how widespread the plot against Naboo had proven to be, he had gone to oversee their preparations himself. He had been adamant that he would not be surprised by any more treachery. Naruto had not wanted to wait for their backup to rendezvous with them, but Mace had been unwilling to even consider assaulting the base on their own. Intellectually, Naruto knew it was the right call, that an attack by just the two of them on a fortified compound with no reconnaissance data was, at best, monumentally risky, but that didn't stop him from grinding his teeth at the delay. There were people suffering while they stood around and did nothing. His knuckles popped and whitened as he clenched his fists for the tenth time.

"If you feel the need to do something, try sensing the location of the base again," Mace said. Naruto sighed and frowned at him.

"I already tried that. There's just too much. The swamp is full of animals. It's like trying to find one voice in a crowd."

"You are trying to use your typical Force senses," Mace said. "Try using your empathy. The emotions of sentients should stand out among the animals of the swamp."

Naruto swallowed hard and had to shake himself a bit.

"But, I don't know how. Last time I used my empathy like that, it was an accident, and I… I… you know. What if it happens again? I need to have my head in straight for this. I-I can't…"

Mace must have noticed the slight tremor in his voice, because he turned and leaned down, bringing them eye to eye. Naruto felt a soothing calm pass through the link, with none of the censure or disappointment he had feared. His breathing slowed, and it was only then that he realized he had been on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Naruto, I know what you felt was traumatizing, but you must not let your fear control you. I am not asking you to connect with anyone in the base, just to sense them. You may be new to these powers, but I believe in your ability to control them. You are strong, and I will be right here with you."

Naruto wrestled with himself for a long moment, before he finally took a deep breath and let the tension fall from his shoulders. "Okay. I'll do my best."

Mace only nodded once, but he still managed to convey a sea of approval and support in that simple gesture. "That is all I can ask."

Naruto gave his master a weak smile, not that he could see it beneath his mask. Nervous flutters churned in his gut, but he fought them down. The last thing he needed was to let his nerves get the better of him. Once he was as calm as he felt he was going to get, he reached out with the Force.

Immediately, a glut of information flooded his senses. The Force flowed from life, and there were few places as biotic as a Naboo swamp in early summer. Trying to pick out any specific life forms from the pulsing sea of light and noise would have been a challenge for Master Yoda, let alone an inexperienced Padawan. The sheer overload had already stymied his previous attempts. Still, Naruto was allergic to the idea of giving up, and he had another card up his sleeve.

He ignored the clamoring of the swamp and instead focused inwards. He could hear Mace next to him, gently guiding him with both his words and the Force.

"Remember the feeling of sensing another being's emotions. Not their life, not their presence in the Force, only their feelings. Let everything else fall away."

Naruto did as instructed. He thought back to all the times he had glimpsed his master's feelings, or Ahsoka's, or Padmé's. He even recalled the sensation of feeling the attackers from the square as they died. His breath hitched momentarily at the sour memory, but then Mace's presence was there, his unshakable calm soothing his panic before it could even begin.

"Do you have it?"

"Yes, master."

"Good. Now keep it in your mind, and reach out. Do not try to find anything in particular. Just remember that feeling and look for it again outside yourself."

Naruto nodded and extended his senses once again. This time, rather than the overwhelming clamor from before, he felt only a few flashes. Most of them were simple, primitive, the basic emotions of the more advanced animals that lived in the swamp. Naruto spent a moment just taking them in, reveling in this new insight into the world around him. After a few seconds, though, he moved on, mindful of his mission.

The search was hard. It was difficult to maintain the specific focus he needed to sense only emotions, rather than everything. He could feel the rest of it at the edge of his mind, waiting for a slip of concentration to rush back in, like water held back by a dam. Several times he nearly lost control, and it was only thanks to Mace lending him a helping hand that he kept his focus. His spiritual gaze moved through the swamp like a spotlight, peering into every nook and cranny one by one.

After ten minutes of searching, he felt something other than the basic animal feelings of the swamp creatures. Deep within the wetland forest, several dozen meters below the ground, he felt a tangled cluster of negative emotions. He looked closer, straining his newfound senses, until the indistinct sensation came into focus.

Fearpain. Angersadness. Nohopenohope, lonelylonelybad.

"Naruto."

Alone. Darkfear, screamfear. Nonononopleaseno. Hungrypainfearhungry.

"Naruto!"

Helpmehelpme, painfearpain. Darkalonefear. Tiredthirsty, hungrythirsty, coldcoldcold.

"Naruto, come back!"

Naruto opened his eyes with a heaving gasp. Cold sweat poured down his brow in defiance of the muggy heat of the swamps. Mace was kneeling right in front of him, his hands on either side of Naruto's head.

"What happened?" Naruto asked. He was still a little disoriented from what he had felt.

"Whatever you felt must have started to overwhelm you. You hyperventilated, and you weren't responding to me. I had to force you back to yourself before things got out of hand. Just rest for a bit. You will be alright."

Naruto nodded and let himself slump to one side. The effort of maintaining such a narrow focus, along with the battering his still bruised psyche had taken from what he had sensed, combined to leave him feeling spent. The exertion of the past few days did not help matters, either. While using kage bunshin to maintain a round-the-clock watch was not nearly as draining as doing it all himself, it still meant that some portion of his mind believed it had been awake for nearly a week now. For several minutes, he just leaned against a rock and waited for the strength to return to his limbs. Mace stood over him, apparently content to exercise his seemingly endless patience as his Padawan recovered. After the better part of twenty minutes, Naruto finally managed to sit upright once again. Mace didn't waste any time in questioning his Padawan.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes," Naruto said. He hated how weak his voice sounded, but there was nothing for it. He strove to sit up even straighter, hoping his posture could communicate the strength his voice lacked. Mace frowned at him, but apparently decided not to comment, and instead continued with his questions.

"Did you find them?"

"I did," Naruto said. "They're approximately 50 clicks northwest of our position, in an underground bunker of some sort. And Master…?"

"Yes, Naruto."

"They're hurting. We need to get them out of there soon."

Mace nodded. "I just got word. Our backup will be here in 15 minutes. As soon as they arrive, we will take that bunker and rescue the prisoners. This ends today."

Naruto returned his nod and struggled to his feet. His master's fierce determination lent strength to his limbs, and he used a basic Jedi cantrip to soothe his weary mind. It wasn't a replacement for actual sleep, but it would keep him going for a while before he began to really feel it.

Soon enough, the silence grew uncomfortable for Naruto. He cast around for some subject to bridge the silence and lit upon one that he was surprised he had not thought of earlier.

"Master, how are we going to get into the Black Sun base? We can't just blast our way in, can we?"

Mace gave him an approving nod.

"Indeed not. Black Sun bases tend to be well secured, with a focus on advanced warning and delaying tactics. Remember, for all their strength, they are alone on this planet, without backup or resupply. They cannot afford a siege. Given that, how do you think we should approach this?"

Naruto jerked back in surprise. He didn't know what he had expected, but it certainly hadn't been this.

"You're letting me plan our approach? What if I mess up?"

He sensed a sudden burst of amusement from his master, though the man's face remained as stoic as it ever was. Clearly he had said something funny, but by the stars he had no idea what. He shot Mace an inquisitive frown, and the man seemed to take pity on him.

"Naruto, I am not proposing that you make the plan alone. I already have an idea for our insertion. I want to hear your ideas, though." Naruto nodded in silent comprehension. So this was a teaching moment, then. He supposed it made sense. Mace was a firm believer in learning by doing whenever possible, even in the field. With a start, he realized his master was still speaking.

"With what I have told you about their likely defenses, tell me how you would go about breaching that base." His voice, indeed his whole demeanor, relaxed into the very image of a patient listener. It was one of the things Naruto most appreciated about his master. When the man asked for his opinion, he genuinely listened to it and gave it due consideration.

Silence reigned once more for several minutes while Naruto mulled the problem over in his head. Prior experience had taught him not to blurt out an impulsive answer in moments like these. If Mace was asking for his input, then he expected his best, just as in every other aspect of their training. Only once he had ordered his thoughts did Naruto speak.

"If they focus most of their security on giving them advanced warning of any intruders, then our best bet would be to find a way to blitz through it without being delayed. We don't have time to disable it and sneak through properly; my ruse with the kage bunshin won't last that long. Once we're inside their main perimeter, they won't be able to react fast enough to stop us. We need to find a weak point."

"Good," Mace said, nodding. "Where is it, though?"

"… the sky," Naruto said after a moment of hesitation. "We could fly up high, maybe even into low orbit, and jump down right on top of them. They can't have much in the way of air defenses; those would be too easy to spot. By the time we land, we would just have to find the actual entrance to their base and breach it. We would be in before they had any chance to react."

He stopped there, suddenly out of breath. In his eagerness to tell his idea, he had not realized how quickly he had been talking. Heat threatened to rise in his face at his show of excitement, but he fought it back down. His desire to hear what Mace thought of his hastily assembled plan outweighed any embarrassment at losing his bearing. It was hardly the first time that had happened. Sith hells, it was not even the first time that had happened today.

It took an effort for him to keep from fidgeting as Mace considered his ideas, his face an inscrutable stone wall as always. Naruto suspected that the man secretly enjoyed making him squirm like this, but his emotions were nearly as closed off as his face, so he could not be sure. Either way, it was a torturous test of his patience to watch his master silently contemplate what he had said. Naruto was on the verge of actually hopping up and down when Mace finally spoke.

"It is a decent plan, or at least the beginnings of one. I do not think we should be so quick to abandon the possibility of surprise, but you made a good point regarding their probable lack of flexibility. You would need the exact coordinates for the entrance, as well as a whole team with space jump training. That is a rare skill outside of elite special ops units. Assembling a team like that would take time, time we do not have."

Naruto, whose ego had done a pleased little dance at Mace's initial assessment, now had to hide a wince as his master exposed the flaws in his plan. Still, he took the criticism without complaint. There was no judgment or censure in Mac's voice, just the even tone of a teacher imparting knowledge to a student.

"You were also too quick to dismiss the potential of aerial security measures." Mace said. "They could easily conceal sniper droids, hunter-killer drones, or even micro-rocket launchers in the swamp. Any of those could decimate our forces before we landed, along with alerting Black Sun to our incursion."

Naruto swallowed his disappointment and tried not to choke at the taste. He had not expected his plan to be perfect, but Mace had picked it apart in no time at all. For someone who prided himself on his quick thinking and clever ideas, it was a little humiliating. His self-recrimination must have traveled across the bond, because Mace refocused on him, and his face softened ever so slightly.

"Do not be so hard on yourself, Naruto. Black Sun chose their base well. It is not an easy target. You overlooked some things, true, but with a few adjustments, your plan could work. I actually considered something similar, but with you here, I have a better idea."

At his encouraging words, Naruto perked up again. He did not bother to conceal the eye smile as it flashed across his face. Then, amid his internal celebrations, Mace's last words suddenly flashed across his mind.

"Wait, what did you mean you had a better idea with me here?" He asked. "Am I going to like this?"

Mace told him. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

After Naruto had explained the plan to Captain Panaka and Lieutenant Typho, both stood still as carbon frozen rocks, identical expressions on their faces as they stared at him. To Naruto's dismay, those expressions were not ones of awe and excitement, as was befitting the masterpiece he and Mace had come up with, but rather ones of skepticism and dismay. The men behind them, twenty well-armed Royal Special Operation Guards, all bore the carefully blank looks of professional soldiers who had not yet been told what their opinion was supposed to be, and were therefore diligently concealing what it actually was. The three small toads, one pale green, one dark brown, and one a mottled mix between the two, sitting at Naruto's feet, just croaked disinterestedly.

"Let me get this straight," Panaka said as he eyes the toads warily. "Your master's plan is to let these… things… eat us."

Naruto shook his head, mildly offended. "No, his plan was originally to have me send one of the Toads to infiltrate the Black Sun base and disable their security. I was the one who suggested using the Diving Toads instead. This way is much better. And you should apologize. These guys aren't things! They're Toad summons, and they have names. This is Tenzo"-the green one waved-"Haru"-the brown Toad saluted-"and Ito"-the mottled one gave a loud croak-"and they're going to be helping us out."

Lieutenant Typho made a pained noise, much to Naruto's irritation. He really didn't see what all the fuss was about. People always started acting strangely when the Toads got involved. They got all nervous and started asking dumb questions. It was getting on his nerves.

"Naruto, I'm sorry if we showed your friends here any disrespect-"

"You should apologize to them. They can understand you. Kichi's been teaching them Basic."

There came that pained sound again, this time from both men. People made sounds like that a lot around the Toads. He didn't know why. Still, Naruto didn't back down, and gave them both expectant looks. Finally, Typho cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably before starting again.

"I'm sorry for any disrespect we have shown you," he said to the Toads. One of them, Haru, just waved it off casually.

"It's no big deal. Water under the bridge and all that," he said, much to the shock of those watching. Naruto's shoulders shook with hastily swallowed laughter at the looks of surprise on the soldiers' faces when the Toad spoke.

"… right, well, that's good," Typho said haltingly. "Anyway, as I was saying, Naruto, it wasn't who came up with the plan that we had questions about so much as it was the whole 'getting eaten by Toads' bit."

"Oh," Naruto said as comprehension finally dawned, and he scratched the back of his head.

'I guess I could have phrased that part better,' he thought with some embarrassment. 'That part freaked me out too, the first time Jiraiya taught me this technique.'

"Don't worry," he said out loud. "They're not actually eating you. They'll just fold space into a pocket dimension inside their stomachs, and we'll all hide in there while they bypass all the security."

"Oh, is that all?" Panaka asked weakly.

"Yep," said one of the Toads, Ito this time. "Don't worry, we've done stuff like this before. Besides, humans are too bony to eat, anyway."

None of the men looked especially comforted by that remark, but Naruto chose to look on the bright side. None of them had outright refused or been nearly ill yet, so they were doing better than Ahsoka or Barriss had when he had suggested using this same technique to sneak through the Room of a Thousand Fountains for a prank. He hadn't even known that Mirialans actually turned greener when nauseous, but it had certainly been impressive to see. Not quite worth the punch in the arm that Ahsoka had given him, but still interesting.

"We do not have time for you to be squeamish," Mace said, speaking up for the first time. He had let Naruto explain the plan, with the excuse that he didn't know the Toads nearly as well. Naruto privately suspected that he was, once again, deriving some secret amusement wherever he could find it in their grim circumstances. If he was, Naruto couldn't blame him. The only way he had stayed sane throughout the day was by finding whatever distractions he could to take his mind off of the seriousness of their mission.

"Those prisoners are living on borrowed time. This is the best way we have to rescue them. I will not order any of you to do this, but make your choice now. We move out in two minutes."

Panaka, Typho, and the rest of their men all stiffened at that. With barely a second's hesitation, they all stepped forward as one. Naruto gave an internal shake of his head. He had spent several minutes trying to convince the lot of them that the plan wasn't crazy, and all Mace had to do was utter a handful of sentences and look stone-faced and they all fell into line. He could actually feel their resolve harden at his master's words.

'I guess it pays to have a badass reputation,' he thought. 'I should probably try to get one of those.'

He shook off his musings, though, and turned to address the Toads.

"Alright guys, it looks like we're a go. You know the plan?"

"We take you lot, find the entrance, and Master Windu gets you inside," Haru said. "Nothing to it."

"Awesome. Let's go."

With that, he stepped forward and put one foot into Haru's open mouth. The appendage, which by rights should have squashed the Toad flat, instead sank into its waiting gullet in defiance of all laws of physics. As he put his other foot in and sank into the much smaller summons, he twisted around and could not hold in a laugh at the expressions on the others' faces. Even Mace's infamous bearing looked a little shaken at the patently ridiculous sight in front of him.

"What's with the faces?" He said as he sank up to his face. "Haven't you ever seen someone get swallowed by a Toad from another dimension before?"

His laughter echoed through the small clearing even as the last of his hair vanished into Haru's mouth.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

After Naruto's display, the rest of the men lost the last of their hesitation. Mace joined Naruto inside Haru, while Captain Panaka and Lieutenant Typho each took ten men inside Ito and Tenzo, respectively. As soon as the last man had safely settled inside of them, the three toads hopped into the waters of the swamp and vanished with nary a ripple.

Inside of Haru, Naruto tapped his foot impatiently on the squishy flesh of the ground. Without the distraction of explaining the plan to Panaka and the rest of the guards, he had nothing to take his mind off of the looming mission. While he had done stuff similar to this before, it didn't make the waiting any easier.

"I can feel your stress, Naruto," Mace said. "Breathe. Focus only on our goal. Let the Force wash everything else away, leaving only the here and now. We have planned as best we can, and now we act. Whatever happens, we will deal with it."

Naruto nodded and followed his instructions. In and out he breathed, in and out. With every inhale he opened himself more to the Force, and with every exhale he allowed its currents to carry more and more of his worry away. By the fifth exhale, his heart had stopped hammering against his ribs, and by the tenth his foot had stopped its nervous dance against the floor.

He kept it up for the rest of the journey, allowing himself to slip into a light meditation. As always, the swirling eddies of the Force painted a stunning view in his mind. He allowed their endlessly shifting patterns to wash over him, and with them came a warning. It was vague, shrouded in fog, but he could sense some sort of deception; shadows hiding behind shadows.

"Master-"

"I felt it too, Padawan. There is something more waiting for us in that base than just Black Sun."

"What do we do?"

Mace said nothing for a long moment before he seemed to come to a decision.

"There is nothing we can do. We still need to rescue those prisoners, and we are as prepared as we can be. We will alert Panaka and Typho to be extra cautious, but we will continue the mission."

Naruto bit his lip, but said nothing. As much as he hated feeling helpless, his master was right. There was nothing they could feasibly do to further prepare for what lay ahead. Even so, he promised himself that he would keep a careful watch for any nasty surprises.

'I helped make this plan,' he thought, as fierce determination replaced his earlier nerves. 'I will not lead these men into a trap. Black Sun has hurt too many people here already.'

A warbling rumble from the surrounding stomach tore him from his thoughts. It took him a second to realize that Haru must have been croaking, probably to let them know they had arrived. Mace must have reached the same conclusion, because he stood up and readied his lightsaber.

"I will go first and clear out any guards. Follow after me and disable any security measures at the entrance."

Naruto nodded and palmed his own lightsaber. With one final deep breath, Mace squeezed himself out of Haru's mouth. As soon as he was through, Naruto followed on his heels. Exiting the Toad was an odd sensation, comparable to being squeezed through a tight rubber ring while simultaneously being inflated. It took him a few seconds to pull himself completely out of the Toad's stomach, but he hurried as best he could when he heard the distinct sound of a lightsaber coming from in front of him.

By the time he had fully emerged, though, all he could do was stare in shock. Mace was standing on a small piece of solid ground with his lightsaber deactivated, looking utterly unruffled. Surrounding him were the dismembered remains of what looked like a dozen IG-86 sentry droids, some of the best money could buy. The glowing edges of the lightsaber cuts were still smoking gently.

"You were out here for maybe four seconds," Naruto said, baffled. "How did you-? There were twelve of them. Those things are tough. And you just-"

His bewilderment only grew when Mace actually flashed him a lightning quick smile. It vanished in an instant, swallowed by the customary stone-faced visage, but it had definitely been real.

"I got the drop on them. You can be impressed later, Naruto. For now, focus. I temporarily Force blinded the cameras, but I need you to find us a way into the base and disable any alarms."

"Got the drop on them," Naruto muttered and rolled his eyes. "Like that makes it less impressive." Still, he pushed his awe aside, nodded, and scanned his surroundings. It did not take long. Even with the flora of the swamp acting as natural camouflage, he quickly spotted the large metal trapdoor poking out of the mud. Haru and the other Toads had done their job perfectly, and delivered them less than twenty meters from the entrance to the hidden base.

While Panaka, Typho, and the rest of their men crawled out of their respective Toads, he walked over to the concealed door, his eyes alert for any hidden traps or security systems. Sure enough, with the Force guiding his search, he soon identified a bioscanner hidden in the trees next to the trapdoor. It would flag any large life forms that approached the entrance, and no doubt activate some sort of alarm. He also spotted several unnatural looking ripples in the water on the other side of the door, as if multiple somethings were concealed just below the murky surface.

'I suppose they could be stumps,' he thought. 'Then again, they could be automated blaster turrets just waiting to shoot us all to pieces. Let's not find out.'

Using the Force, and a great deal of care, he gently levitated the bioscanner out of the tree. Once it was clear of the branches, he slowly moved it away from the door, until the hatch was outside of its range, and then carefully lowered it into a convenient bush. As for the suspicious objects lurking underwater, he didn't sense any danger in destroying them, so he crushed them one by one with the Force. As he had suspected, they crumpled like metal rather than wood or rock.

Once that was done, he moved on to the actual hatch. It was reinforced durasteel, with no visible means of opening. 'Must need someone on the inside to open it up,' he thought. 'Clever design. Pity they didn't account for lightsabers, though.'

Satisfied that their entryway was secure, he turned back to check on his master and the Guards. Judging by the slicing kit he could see next to one camera, it looked as though someone had looped the security footage, probably one of the Guards. Mace looked up at him, and he waved to signal his readiness. Mace said something he didn't hear to Panaka, and the entire group moved quickly but quietly over to his position.

"The door is clear," he said. "We just need to cut our way in."

"Too slow," Mace said, and then turned to the whole group. "Form up and be ready for anything. Follow as soon as I move in."

Without further explanation, he kneeled in front of the two meter wide metal hatch and stared at it intensely for a few seconds. Naruto could not tell what he was looking for, but apparently he found it as he moved to place one hand on the metal surface, a dozen centimeters off center. He gave it a single, sharp tap, and Naruto felt a brief surge in the Force

Crack!

With a sound like an ice sheet breaking up, the whole reinforced, blast proof, durasteel hatch just shattered into tiny shards. It was so sudden and unexpected that it took Naruto a moment to even realize what he had just seen. With one blow, a blow that would not even have bruised a ripe jogan fruit, his master had just turned a multi-ton slab of durasteel to rubble.

'That must have been his shatterpoint ability,' he thought. 'I've never seen him use it like that before. I have got to learn how to do that someday.'

He had no time for further musings, though. As soon as the last pieces of the door had collapsed, Mace jumped into the brand new hole. Naruto didn't hesitate to follow him, and dropped into a dimly lit hallway made of unadorned duracrete. Pipes and conduits snaked along the walls, and cold condensation dripped from the ceiling. It was stark, barren, and oppressive, a feeling made even more poignant by the faint tremors of fear and suffering he could feel pressing against his senses. This place had been, and was still party to such a horrific amount of death and pain that his empathic sense registered it even without him trying. His jaw clenched in righteous fury at the thought of what had happened in this dank prison. As the Guards jumped down behind him, each landing with a dull crunch in the shattered durasteel, he had only one thought on his mind.

'It's time to end this.'

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Thus begineth the end of the arc. I'm not entirely satisfied with the interrogation portion of the chapter, but it was the best I could think of at the time. Mace, especially at this point in time, is not going to be willing to overtly use fear or intimidation to get information out of a suspect, no matter what is at stake. Just straight up using the Force to compel Deyne to talk would have been boring, and the Jedi rarely do that even to regular criminals. Naruto, as Mace pointed out, has no real idea how to interrogate someone. I tried to show another aspect to Mace beside the hard-ass teacher and badass warrior.

The plan for infiltrating the base was obviously inspired by how Jiraiya infiltrate Amegakure in canon. I figured, since he isn't spending time helping Naruto control the Kyuubi, Jiraiya would probably devote more time to teaching Naruto about the Toads. I like the Toads, and I think they are very rarely used to their full potential. I can't say I'll include them all the time, but I have and will try to make them a regular part of Naruto's arsenal.

Next chapter, whenever it comes, will have a lot more action, so you can look forward to that. If you have any questions, comments, theories, suggestions, bitches, moans, or complaints about the story, please leave them in the review section. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I will see you next time.