Star Wars: Return of the Sith

26: The Triellus Detour

By Nanaki

On the Corellian Run

Jerin and Tenn were seated at the small table in the Justice's cramped kitchen area, grabbing a bite to eat while they had a free moment. While Jerin was virtually inhaling his cup of rehydrated noodles, Tenn was just taking little nibbles of hers. Jerin wasn't very surprised. After all, you didn't get to be that thin and dainty by truly enjoying your food. On the other hand, if she was pregnant, she'd probably develop a bigger appetite pretty soon. Although, human women often suffered from regular bouts of nausea when they were pregnant, he reminded himself. Was the same true for Twi'leks? He didn't know. He briefly wondered if he should ask her about it, but decided not to. That kind of thing would be easy enough to look up on the HoloNet later. No need to find out just how sensitive a subject this was.

Instead, he decided to bring up something that had been on his mind ever since she finished her story. "You know, something tells me you were doing a bit of acting when we first met."

Her brow furrowed like she really didn't know what he was talking about. "Oh? How's that?"

He smiled a bit as he recalled. "All that business about 'You can't take me back to them. They'll kill me.' Along with some impressively convincing tears."

"Oh, right." Tenn nodded now. "Well, I truly didn't want to be forced into their custody, that part was no act. Each of them alone is more powerful than I am. Together, I don't stand a chance if it comes to actually fighting them. As for the tears..." She shrugged. "Well, consider the culture I grew up in. Females on Ryloth don't ever get what they want just by asking. When it comes to dealing with men, manipulation is our best friend."

Jerin laughed a little. "Yeah, that's not unique to Twi'lek females. Not that I mean to sound judgmental. I know what Twi'lek men are like."

A small smile appeared on Tenn's face. "Oh, what are they like?"

"Well, in general they're very smart. Very shrewd too, not just book smart. And utterly amoral." Jerin summed up quickly.

"Amoral? Not a word I would have expected you to use." Tenn's smile broadened. "But that encapsulates the whole gender pretty well, I'd say. Of course, they would say they're just being pragmatic."

"Pragmatism is overrated." Jerin shook his head. "I mean, think about it. A good compromise leaves everybody mad, if it really is a GOOD compromise. So, who wants to compromise?"

Tenn regarded him with a raised eyebrow for a second, before she actually laughed a little. "Spoken like a Fett, all right. Anyway, to get back to your original question, did I play up my concerns a little more than necessary when we first met? Absolutely. Did I flat-out lie to you? Not at all. Also, you did have a blaster pointed in my face, which is always a little disconcerting."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Jerin looked a little sheepish. "But I really didn't understand what kind of situation you were in. You must have figured that out a while ago, right?" She nodded. "I got played for a sap by Korgo, and I'm still not sure why. I mean, why would he send me after you, when Seco and Negian were already going to be there themselves? I really don't get it."

"Who can fathom the mind of a Hutt?" Tenn shrugged. "He must have been trying to exploit an angle that we just can't see. Anyway..." She looked up at a chrono on the wall, just above the framed holo of a younger Jerin with Zairina. "We're only a couple hours out from Ryloth now. You have an actual plan ready yet?"

Jerin did have a plan largely worked out, although even he wasn't sure if it was brilliant or idiotic. He was pretty sure Tenn would lean toward idiotic. He had been surprised that only a few of the girls had bothered to ask him where they were going, until he reminded himself that they were used to having no control over what happened to them. Joona and her Zeltron friend had stopped by the cockpit to ask about it a while ago, then more recently the blue Twi'lek who seemed to constantly be in a bad mood. Nula, he thought her name was. And now, Tenn. Though Jerin didn't think of Tenn as being one of the girls, someone who didn't know her background would probably think she WAS one of the former slaves. She was more than pretty enough, that was for sure. In fact, Jerin reflected darkly, if she hadn't been born Force-sensitive, to a Jedi father, that could well have been her fate.

He shook his head a bit, not wanting to spend a lot of time contemplating that. "The way I see it, we mainly need to buy some time. Time for the Jedi to investigate exactly how Seco and Negian are manipulating the Republic military into doing their bidding. In order to get the Jedi to investigate, well, that depends on you." Jerin took the last bite of his meal, then set the cup down on the table. "When was the last time you talked to your father?"

"I... It's been a while." Tenn looked away from him. Jerin couldn't help smiling a little at that. It was exactly the kind of vague answer Zairina would have given.

"Well, hopefully that while is long enough that he'll be more happy to hear from you than irritated. But however awkward it might be, we need to get the Jedi on our side for this one." He said solemnly. "That shouldn't be hard in theory, considering the other side is Seco, Negian, and a Clan Besadii Hutt, but there's something more going on here than we know about. Plus, I'd bet the Jedi would consider me every bit as much of a rogue as the opposition." He stopped to think for a minute. "They'd probably listen to Denan and Joona, eventually, but it'd be a lot more efficient if you make the call. Ideally to Master Rondo directly."

Tenn let out a quick sigh. "Yeah, you're right. I'll take care of that part, but how do you plan to buy time for them to investigate?"

"Well, if it was just me, or just the two of us, I'd find an asteroid field in an obscure system and lay low for a while. But a ship this size gets very cramped very quickly with thirty nine people on board. And the last thing I want is for the girls to feel like they're STUCK on this ship. Then, just staying on one planet the whole time would give Korgo and the so-called Sith too much time to find us. So, I'm thinking we'll go up the Triellus Trade Route."

Tenn wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something unpleasant. "Up the Triellus? To where?"

"All the way up. To where it meets up with the Perlemian at Columex."

Tenn again gave Jerin the look she'd given him several times at Brentaal IV and Kuat, the look that indicated she could not believe what an idiot she'd gotten mixed up with. "Let me get this straight. You want to go through virtually the entire length of the Triellus Trade Route, the longest, slowest, and most dangerous major hyperlane in the galaxy."

"That's what I'm saying." Jerin grinned.

"Even in this ship, that would probably take close to three weeks." Tenn observed. "Which would definitely meet your goal of buying time. If it was just the two of us, I'd say go for it. But it'll be dangerous for the girls."

Jerin's grin remained in place. "They'll have me to protect them. And you. And Denan, for whatever that's worth."

Tenn nodded, seeming to mull it over. "Well, no one in his right mind wants to mess with a Mandalorian kitted out in full armor, that's for sure. But you may be biting off more than you can chew in another respect."

"Oh? What's that?"

Tenn lowered her voice a bit. "These are not well-adjusted, mentally healthy women, Jerin. They are seriously abused, still partially in shock girls. Including the ones who would legally be considered adults, since they had their childhoods abruptly terminated in their mid-teens. If not before. And..." Now Tenn dropped her voice even more. "Top off that already volatile cocktail with the fact that they're all used to having sex VERY frequently, and have suddenly been cut off from that. Sure, some of them are probably going to want to be celibate for a long time, but not nearly all of them. And the ones who don't are probably going to start looking your way in short order. Do you really want a bunch of teenage girls being flirty with you all day?"

"Do I want that? No." Jerin answered, reasonably sure that he was being honest. "But I can shrug it off. I know what their lives have been like, after all."

"Plus, there may be some additional drama." Tenn continued. "A lot of the older women don't much like each other. I think that's based on years of all of them trying to make their own lives easier at the expense of the others. The one thing they all seem to have in common is that they can't stand Joona."

"What?" That bit of information caught Jerin by surprise. "How could anyone not like Joona? She's..." He paused for a bit, wondering if he should try to sound less enthusiastic, but he decided against it. "Well, she's great!"

"Apparently, Joona has a habit of being kind and supportive with new arrivals, instead of bossing them around like custom would dictate." Tenn explained.

"And that's a reason to dislike her?" Jerin sounded disgusted. "That just proves that she's a strong person! Not that we needed proof of that, anyway. After all, she was the only one who insisted on turning back to help you, when you were fighting Negian, and that was when she was already injured, no less."

"Hey, you don't have to defend her to ME." Tenn agreed. "I'm just saying, there are a lot of potential issues involved with having the girls stay on board your ship that long."

Jerin thought that over for a second. "Well, I didn't think it would be a vacation. But if I can make it a vacation for THEM, then it's worth whatever drama I have to put up with." Tenn was giving him an appraising look now. "What?"

"You... are a complicated guy, Jerin." She said slowly.

"Look who's talking." He shot back.

"Fair enough." She smiled.

"Say..." Jerin thought of another question he wanted to ask her. "Do you still have your lightsaber?"

"No." She shook her head slowly. "I left it behind at the temple. I didn't feel like I deserved to take it with me." Now she looked him in the eye again. "Just out of curiousity... Did you actually make YOUR lightsaber?"

"Mostly." He replied bluntly. "I bought the focusing crystals, but I put the rest together myself."

"Wait, you BOUGHT the crystals? They're supposed to be classified Jedi technology." She seemed more surprised about this than angry.

"Yeah, but, come on!" Jerin laughed. "No tech that's been around for thousands of years is still actually classified."

"Were you aware that, if the crystals were flawed or you hadn't put it together perfectly, the lightsaber would probably explode when you first turned it on?" She asked with a faint smile on her face.

"Sure, but I was confident in my work. Besides, I have a different outlook on death than most beings do. You've probably figured that out by now." He shrugged.

"Yeah, that's something you may need to change a bit, if we follow your plan." Tenn responded. At his questioning look, she elaborated. "The girls' valiant protector isn't going to seem so valiant if he dies on the first day."

"Good point." He admitted. "All right, let's get the girls rounded up in the cargo bay again. They have a decision to make, though probably not a tough one."

"Say, don't you have some kind of intercom system on this ship?" Tenn wondered.

"Nah. I never planned on having so many people on board at once." Jerin explained. "Plus, up until now, I've usually only had Arfive to talk to anyway. And, if you get to know him, you'll see he's kind of a know-it-all."

.

"And so, that's the basic plan we've put together." Jerin again found himself at the front of the cargo bay, addressing his prismatic group of young ladies. Except this time, he couldn't sit on top of the water tank, since it had a second one stacked on top of it now. Instead, Jerin was standing in the cradle of one of the empty missile racks, holding onto another one above it to keep his balance. "Though if you all think it's suicidally stupid, we'll try something else." He smiled. One of the three human girls raised her hand. In fact, Jerin realized, it was the same one who'd spoken up the last time they were all assembled down here. She had skin a good deal lighter than his and long, wavy brown hair. "Yes?"

"Just to be sure I understand, you want to take us through the Hutt Dependencies, the long way?" She couldn't help sounding skeptical about that. "You do remember who owned us until VERY recently, right?"

"Well, the Hutt Dependencies don't officially exist anymore." Tenn offered.

"Since when do the Hutts worry about official Republic designations?" She responded.

"Good point." Tenn admitted. "And to answer that question- Jerin?" She turned and quickly pointed to him.

Jerin couldn't help smiling at her for a second. There were aspects of Tenn's personality that he'd simply found annoying when they'd first met that were quickly becoming entertaining. "Well, it's a classic hiding in plain sight tactic." He explained. "The idea being that the Triellus is the LAST place a Hutt would expect to find you."

"Yeah, but we all still have those tracking devices inside of us." The human girl pointed out.

"Oh, right." Jerin had honestly forgotten about that until now. "Those shouldn't be a problem. They aren't capable of broadcasting across interstellar distances. It would only be an isue if you were on the same planet as someone who was looking for you AND knew the tracker's signal frequency, which I would say is extremely unlikely." That seemed to mollify her, if not exactly make her happy. "So..." Jerin looked across all the various faces gathered around him. "Any other questions about the plan?"

A smile appeared on Joona's face at that. "As long as you're there with us, Jerin, I don't think we have much reason to be worried." Jerin looked around to see general nods of agreement with this statement.

"Well, that's the idea. But a lot of you do have a decision to make. From where the Triellus intersects the Corellian Run at Arkanis, it's only about two more hours out to Ryloth. At least, on MY ship it's only two hours." A grin appeared on his face. "At this point, we should have opened up a big enough lead on our pursuers that I can stop at Ryloth, then get back to the Triellus, before anyone can catch up to us. If anyone wants to go back to Ryloth, that is." Looking around, Jerin saw a lot of frowns and urgent whispering, but no one spoke up. "By the way, this isn't some kind of bizarre test of loyalty, or anything." He elaborated. "No judgment from me either way, I promise."

There were another few moments of quiet, then a high but determined voice called out, "Kark Ryloth!" The crowd of ladies parted to allow the owner of this voice to walk up to the front of the group. She was one of the youngest of the girls, with skin of a dark yellow shade. "Who wants to go back to the idiot relatives who sold us for chump change in the first place?!" She asked as she was walking forward, to general nods of agreement from the others. "Especially when we have the choice to stay with you." She added more quietly as she stopped a few steps away from Jerin.

Joona was nodding in approval. "I think, in this case at least, Rayna speaks for all of us." She said to Jerin. Then she turned back to the others. "KARK RYLOTH!"

"KARK RYLOTH!" The shout came back from nearly every Twi'lek, and a few of the Zeltrons were caught up by the angry enthusiasm as well. Jerin was a bit surprised by their vehemence, but he didn't blame them.

"Well, sounds like that's settled then." He said cheerfully. "The next decision is a minor one. Based on the supplies we currently have on board, and the general sleep schedule you guys have been sticking to, our first stop should be either Tatooine or Geonosis. They're only a parsec apart, so either would do fine."

"Oh man, there's a heck of a choice." Denan spoke up for the first time in a while. Jerin was about to say something concerning his less than helpful tone, but then Joona piled on too.

"I know, right?" She nodded at Denan. "Choose your method of execution: Torn limb from limb by wild beasts in front of thousands of cheering drones, or slowly starving while being repeatedly tortured by Tusken Raiders." Now Rayna was staring up at Joona with apparently real worry on her face.

"Okay, yes, Tatooine has its fair share of dangers." Jerin admitted. "But most of those aren't much of a worry if you stay in the major citites. We wouldn't exactly be going on a hiking trip deep into Tusken territory. As for Geonosis... Yeah, Joona's right on the money about that one." The smile returned to his face.

"Well, at least Tatooine is a desert world." Joona tried to put a positive spin on it. "Should be comfortable for us. Especially those of us who lived in the bright lands." She put a reassuring hand on Rayna's shoulder.

"And it has a sizeable Twi'lek population." Tenn added.

"Really?" Jerin looked around, feigning surprise. "No one's eager to see an acklay up close? All right then, Tatooine it is."

.

"You're doing that thing."

"What thing?"

"That thing where you use mockery, sarcasm, and derision to deflect a sincere question."

"Ah, that thing. It's a very good thing." - Jas Emari and Sinjir Rath Velus, Star Wars Aftermath: Empire's End

.

(Nanaki's note: Is it just me, or does "The Triellus Detour" sound like the title for an episode of The Big Bang Theory? In fact, I'd bet any major hyperspace route could work for that purpose: "The Hydian Hypoteneuse Hypothesis" or "The Penultimate Perlemian Permutation". Hey, this is actually pretty fun. And yet, a long-dormant reflex to avoid behavior that would get me beaten up in the locker room is telling me to quit doing this. Well, just one more: "The Costly Corellian Corellation Conundrum"! Okay, done. Although now, I have to make at least one of those a chapter title at some point in the future.)