"Hey, yo!"

Iella paused at the door to the training classroom she'd reserved. Halfway down the hallway Brianna was walking, with Sir'ren and Visalia close behind. Sir'ren waved and Iella waved back. Brianna was dressed in her casual cargo pants and short jacket again. Sir'ren and Visalia wore traditional brown and beige Jedi robes. "Good morning," Iella said. "No problem getting in?" She'd left instructions with Melki to get Sir'ren and Visalia visitor badges.

"Nah, Melki's a superhero," Brianna said.

"Good." Iella keyed into the door. "Everyone else should already be here."

Iella keyed into the room and let Brianna, Sir'ren, and Visalia in ahead of her. The five employees she'd pulled from other divisions were already there, sitting, standing, or lounging around the center classroom table. Sir'ren and Visalia joined them. Brianna chose to take a spot leaning against one of the side tables along the wall, near the door to the training space. Iella took that as a sign that Brianna preferred for Iella to take the lead.

"Good morning everyone," Iella said. "For those of you who don't know, I'm Iella Wessiri, the Assistant Director for Special Projects here at the NRDI. The seven of you were selected for a new pilot initiative for a liaison effort between the NRDI and," she gestured to Sir'ren and Visalia, "the Jedi Order."

"Wow," Iella heard someone whisper.

"This initiative is not an open ended mission set," Iella continued. "Our Jedi guests are volunteers and liaisons. This is strictly for situations that we think may fall into their area of expertise and therefore something the NRDI cannot manage on its own."

"I take it we actually have that kind of situation, then?" said one of the human males sitting around the table.

"We do," Iella said. "But before I go into specifics, why don't you all introduce yourselves, say what you do, and how long you've been here, just so we all have an idea of the combined skill set in the room."

"Okay, well, I'll go first then. I'm Senevir Dherva, people call me Sen. I'm one of the senior all sources analysts here. I'm originally from Chandrilla, and I've been with the NRDI for about twelve years."

"Thanks Sen," Iella said. "Sen is also the designated team leader when you're all out on missions."

Sen threw Iella a casual salute. "Yes ma'am."

"I'll go next," said the human female next to Sen. "I'm Kyra Betham. I'm a news media analyst. I'm originally from Coruscant and I've been in my position for about six years."

"I'm Valah Veen," said the next person. "I'm Sullustan, obviously, but I was born here on Coruscant. I've been an all source analyst here for about five years."

"Glad to have you," Iella said. She looked at the Duros male to her left.

"I am Divin Carn," said the next, "originally from Duro. I am a crime analyst and have been here for about eight standard years."

"Guess I'm next," said the other human male, sitting with his feet propped up on the table. "I'm Dom Elspin, the NRDI's premier counter espionage artist. I hail from the one and only Lothal, and I've been practicing my craft for ten years."

Sen half turned around to look at him. "You're calling yourselves counter espionage artists now?"

"Well," Dom said with a grin. "I am."

"Great, lots of experience here." She turned to Sir'ren.

Sir'ren waved at everyone. "I'm Sir'ren Choth, originally from Ryloth. I moved to Yavin just about ten years ago and have been training as a Jedi ever since."

"And I am Visalia DeBreen of Chalacta," Visalia said in her heavy accent. "I have been training as a Jedi for six years."

"And we thank the two of you for being here," Iella said. She paused, waiting to see if Brianna would jump in. "And this is -"

"Just Brianna will do, please and thank you," Brianna said. "Oh, what else? Well, I was born on Yavin, so I've been training with the circus for about twenty years."

Dom whistled. "They start you all young."

"Don't be too impressed," Brianna said. "It has its disadvantages.

"As the senior Jedi, Brianna will go out on missions with you, at least at first," Iella explained. "But primarily her job is to make sure Sir'ren and Visalia have the training they need to support the team. She'll also be here at headquarters making sure the NRDI leadership doesn't ask our Jedi volunteers to do anything inappropriate or outside the mission set." Iella saw a few people frown, and Sir'ren turned around to give Brianna a quick look.

"So, Sen," Iella said, "you asked what prompted all of this."

"Yes ma'am."

"For the past few months, we've been tracking some worlds with a spike in reporting of missing persons, disrupted government services, and mysterious injuries."

"I heard about that," Sen said.

"I was on one of the analyst teams for Charapath for that reporting," Valah said.

"One of the reasons you were selected for this," Iella said. "We didn't have much to go on, we were just keeping tabs on it, when our liaison officer on Praxis sent us this holocam security footage." Iella tapped into the console on the table. "It was taken by a diner camera at night, about half a kilometer from the action, so it's a bit fuzzy." Iella dimmed the lights and started the holoprojector at the center of the table. The three silhouettes came into view. Iella heard Visalia gasp as the three red lightsabers lit up the scene. The fight was brief, and only two silhouettes walked away. Iella turned the lights back up.

"We definitely didn't see anything like that on Charapath," Valah said.

"Those were nifty swords though," Dom said.

"Those were lightsabers," Sir'ren said.

"So, they were Jedi?" Sen asked.

"Those were not Jedi," Visalia said.

"So, they were...bad Jedi?" Dom asked.

Brianna appeared behind Visalia. "Not all Force-users are Jedi," she said. "Lots of different training philosophies out there."

"We don't know who they were," Iella interjected. "Local authorities found a dead Elomin in that location in the morning. In four pieces. No more information on the other two." She threw a quick glance at Brianna. "We don't even know that this is connected to the spike in reporting. However, immediately after this incident, the spike in new reporting on Praxis dropped back to normal levels. Who they are and whether they are connected to the reporting is part of what we're tasked to find out."

Sen nodded and turned to look at the three Jedi. "So, what is it you all do, exactly?" he asked. "I mean, what canyou do? I've heard all the stories, you know, Luke Skywalker, all that stuff. But I never really figured out what it is you do."

"Ah," Brianna said. "You'd like a demonstration."

Sen nodded. "Sure."

"Excellent." Brianna turned to Sir'ren. "Circle drills."

"What?" Sir'ren frowned.

"Circle drills." Brianna turned around and waved at her backpack that was still sitting on the floor by the side table. The zipper opened and two collapsible practice sabers flew out of the bag and to her hand. She tossed one to Sir'ren and snapped open hers. Brianna turned back to her audience, happily pretending to ignore their shock at her casual telekinesis. "Circle drills," she said, "are a focusing exercise. Sir'ren is going to stand here, with his eyes closed. I am going to walk around him and when I bring my saber up, he will say up, and when I bring it down, he will say down." She turned back to Sir'ren. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Excellent. Eyes closed. No cheating! Begin."

Brianna walked around Sir'ren counter clockwise, as Sir'ren, eyes fully closed, accurately called out her ups and downs. Iella stole a glance at the NRDI members of the team. They seemed intrigued, though this obviously wasn't as exciting as objects flying through the air. After a few times around, Brianna stopped directly behind Sir'ren. "Corner call!"

"Corner call," he repeated.

Brianna moved a few steps to her right. "Back right," Sir'ren said. Brianna moved to her left. "Back left," Sir'ren said. Brianna let go of her saber and let it float about a meter in front of her. It came to a stop. "Front left," Sir'ren said. Brianna let the saber float around. "Right center." Brianna brought the saber back around and met up with it in front of him. "Front center."

"Excellent. Well done."

Sir'ren opened his eyes. Brianna turned around and tapped the floor with the tip of her saber. "Next!" Visalia dutifully moved into place and Brianna ran through the same two exercises with her. After she was done, Brianna turned back to her audience.

"Those," she said, "are the two most basic things any Force user can do: passive sensing and active manipulation."

"Well, I'm impressed," Kyra said.

"You got the cool colored ones, though, right?" Dom asked.

Brianna grinned. "Yeah, we got the cool colored ones." She unclipped her lightsaber from her belt loop and lit her shorter than average yellow blade. Sir'ren lit his, a pale blue to match his skin, and Visalia let hers, a neon green.

"You have the whole rainbow," Divin said.

"Pretty much any color you can think of," Brianna said. "Though, blue and green are the most common."

Dom nodded. "Nice."

"Sounds like we're off to a good start," Iella said. "I've got this classroom and the adjacent training room reserved for the next few days. You can spend some time getting to know each other and running through some basic training scenarios - Sen, you can help me pick those out. Before the end of next week, you should be able to head to Praxis and maybe one other place, maybe Charapath, and do some fact finding." Sen threw her a thumbs up. Iella nodded. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Special Projects."

"Iella!"

Iella held the door to the elevator as Director Brollin jumped in behind her. "Good morning Director."

"Good morning," he said. He pressed the floor button for the executive suite and the elevator started upwards. "How's your project going?"

"Well, it's still early," she said. "They've been doing team building exercises for the past few days and going through the reporting we have. They're headed to Praxis tomorrow to talk to the liaison officer there who sent us the holocam footage."

"Good, good, good," Director Brollin said. "And, uh, how's your… I don't even know what to call her. Your partner? Coworker? Protegé?"

"I'm sure she would prefer just Brianna," Iella said. "Though, partner might have a marginal chance of being acceptable too."

"Right."

"But, she's taken a particular interest in reading the reporting too, and she's going with them to Praxis."

"Hmm, very good."

Iella turned to look at him. "Is there something I should know about?"

Director Brollin hesitated. "I heard a rumor," he started.

"You know RUMINT is the worst form of intelligence," Iella said.

"That there's a rumor," he continued.

"That's even worse."

"That the senate's intelligence subcommittee heard about what happened on Praxis," he finished.

"Hmm." Even as a rumor, Iella didn't like the sound of that.

"And you know," Director Brollin continued, "that some members of the intelligence subcommittee are nosier than I like." He glanced at Iella. "You know who I'm talking about."

"I know exactly who you're talking about," Iella said.

"And when they start to ask questions, they won't be asking me or you. They're going to ask her."

"I'm sure she'll find it delightful and entertaining," Iella said.

Director Brollin pressed the hold button on the elevator to pause the ascent. "Look," he said. "I appreciate everything she had to say to us. And you were right. Most of it was things that never occurred to me before. I want to do the right thing here because that family has sacrificed a lot to make this Republic what it is. And I understand they are all personal friends of yours. I even think many members of the senate would agree, if they knew all of that. However, some of them won't care. Especially -"

"Yes, I'm familiar with at least some of that history," Iella said.

"Is Brianna aware of it?"

"I'd be surprised if she wasn't."

"Well, make sure she is," Director Brollin said. "When those questions start coming - and I don't think we'll be able to keep this under wraps for long - it could get ugly."

"Yes sir," Iella said.

Director Brollin sighed and resumed the elevator. "Praxis tomorrow, you say?"

"Yes sir. And Charapath."

"Good." He paused and looked at Iella. "I don't know if I should hope they find something interesting or not."

"Grandpa, look!" Evan exclaimed.

"Yes, we're looking," Corran said.

Corran and Luke sat on the couch watching the kids while Corey and Lujayne got some other work done around the apartment and had a few minutes to themselves. Evan was zipping small cars around a miniature hovertrack, having great fun making them crash into each other. Julie, meanwhile, had busied herself with a set of blocks and a couple of buckets. A bucket was set up at each end of the living room. She'd take the blocks one at a time and crawl across the room to dump them in the bucket. When the bucket was full, she'd dump it out and bring the blocks back to the other side of the room. Dump, and repeat. Dumping the blocks seemed to be her favorite part.

Corran nudged Luke with his elbow. "Have you noticed," he said quietly, "that Brianna has been on Coruscant more the past week or so?"

He had noticed. "I suppose," he said.

"What do you think she's doing?"

Luke shrugged. "Whatever it is, she doesn't need to tell me about it. I'm retired."

"Yeah," Corran said. "But, aren't you a little bit curious?"

"I try not to be."

"Okay, but how successful is that?"

"It's successful," Luke said. He paused. "Until it isn't."

"Ha! See, I knew it. Even you think she's up to something."

Neither he nor Wedge had told anyone about the encounter they'd had with the NRDI staff member in the lobby several days ago. "I'm sure she's perfectly capable of handling whatever comes her way," Luke said.

"Hmm. Somebody must know what she's doing..."

"Whoa!"

Luke and Corran looked up at Evan. Two of his cars had crashed, sending one almost a meter into the air. Evan craned his neck to follow the car up. On the way back down, he stretched out his arm and caught it cleanly in his left hand.

"Good catch," Luke said.

Evan grinned at him, then went back to his game.

"Think he used the Force for that?" Corran asked.

"It's possible," Luke said. "It can be hard to tell how Force abilities will manifest in really young kids, if they aren't already actively training." Luke paused. "We started all the other ones so young." Luke hadn't known it then, but starting that young had been the standard in the Old Republic. In the Old Republic, someone like Evan would be just about ready to be taken from his parents and whisked off the Jedi temple…

"Because we started so late," Corran said.

"True," Luke said. "But then, we had something like normal childhoods. Maybe there's something to be said for that." He looked at Corran. "Maybe they should just be kids for a while and we let their Force abilities manifest in their own time."

Corran nodded. "Yeah. They did all kind of rebel in their own way, didn't they?" Corran smiled. "The real question is, will they be able to lift rocks or not?"

Luke raised an eyebrow. "They'll probably lift the rock and then make you think they didn't."

Corran laughed. "Best of both worlds."

"Hey."

They turned to see Lujayne poking her head around the corner from the hallway.

"Don't you two give my children any ideas."

"Yes, ma'am," Corran said.

Lujayne squinted at her father and disappeared back into the hallway.

Corran turned back to Luke with a small grin. "Oops."