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Isadora Johnson: Thanks!! I love the Halcyon/Horn family and this story is such a rip one for possiblity. Thanks for reading...

Melmarett: As I said above, I love Corran's story too. I'm glad that you are enjoying it. Thanks for reading!!

Chapter 2

Chateau Saffore, on Gold Beach, near Tyrena, Corellia

"Let me do the talking," Nejaa said as they approached ornate gate of the one of many estates of Baron Franses Saffore, the president of Corellian Engineering and undoubtedly the richest being on Corellia.

"Be my guest," Ros replied. "I still think this isn't going to get us anywhere except on Jenaves's bad side. Even a rooky knows enough to leave the extremely rich alone."

They had parked their speeder down the street and walked up to the massive mansion that sat on an artificial bluff that overlooked Gold Beach and the ocean. They rounded a manicured shrub row to stop at the gatehouse at the entrance, Nejaa said in a low tone, "That's really no excuse; you've seen the evidence, Ros. Everything points to Saffore."

A voice came over a speaker from the gatehouse, demanding, "Please state your business, gentleman."

Ros looked at Nejaa who smiled and said, "We would like to speak to Baron Saffore."

"Do you have an appointment?"

Ros watched Nejaa smugly as he sought out the guard's face from behind the transparasteel of the gatehouse window. As he reached out into the Force and made a small gesture with his hand, he responded in an even tone, "We do not need an appointment."

"No, you don't need an appointment," the attendant guard repeated.

"You will let us pass and forget that we were here."

"I will let you pass. Have a good day."

Instantly losing the smugness, Ros stared at Nejaa with his mouth hanging open as Nejaa winked at him and said, "You have a nice day too." However, if the guard heard him he didn't respond, he had already turned away from them forgetting about them.

The gate opened, but Ros was still staring at the Jedi. It really was the first time Nejaa had openly used the Force in the presence of the CorSec detective. "I can't believe you just did that," Ros whispered as he finally shook himself out of his disbelief.

Moving through the open gate, Nejaa laughed and said, "Now you know why I said I'd do the talking, CorSec."

As Ros looked back at the gatehouse and a guard who didn't pay them any more attention than he would a stray insect, he followed the Jedi through the open gate and again shook his head. After a moment, he asked, "You'd never do that to me, would you? You know, mind tricks?"

Nejaa sniggered and said, "Ros, you should know better. I'm an honorable Jedi Master, after all."

Ros smiled at him and responded, relieved, "That's good to know."

"But sometimes when you become as stubborn a gundark the temptation does arise from time to time," Nejaa added, gaining him a sharp look from his friend which caused Nejaa to laugh. He patted his taller man on the shoulder as they moved along the drive. "Oh, c'mon. You'll get to see how a Jedi does things."

"Yeah, that's what's worrying me. None of this plan is legal, you know."

"I know." Then he grinned and added, "But if we're caught, you can always claim I used Jedi mind tricks on you. No one would ever be the wiser."

Ros just glared at the Jedi. After a moment, he laughed but didn't say anything.

They were quiet the rest of the way up the immaculate stone walk to the beautifully carved wood front door. As they waited for the door to open, Ros glanced over at Nejaa and asked, "You going to keep doing that thing with the Force to get us the whole way in?"

Nejaa only gave him lopsided grin.

-x-

Ros couldn't believe, first of all, that he agreed to Nejaa's outrageous plan, but then he couldn't believe how easy it was to literally walk into the mansion of such an important person. They stayed to dark hallways and moved slowly through the house. Nejaa had told him during the planning session that his greatest talent in the Force was something called Alter Mind. As he explained it to him, Nejaa was very good at manipulating what others could see with illusion and with Force suggestion, as he had with the guard and butler who answered the door.

They had been gathering leads for over three weeks, all pointing to Franses Saffore. A week ago they had their biggest break when they found the art agent, who had bought the forgery on behalf of the Chandrilia Museum, by using spaceport and several cities surveillance cams. After ten days of using a computer to cross match a staff holo from the museum with the data from the surveillance cams, they got a positive match. She was having lunch at a local Tyrena café with someone known to be an art collector for Franses Saffore.

Then Ros tailed the collector for a few days and was brought to this house twice. It was a safe bet that if the art was here, it was in this house. That was when Nejaa cooked up the elaborate scheme to sneak in to find the painting. Once they had proof it was here, they could get a warrant and come back. But no magistrate was going to give a CorSec cop a warrant to search the home of Baron Saffore without a solid reason.

They rounded a corner, when a protocol droid came out of a room. "Oh, my! Who are you?"

Ros glanced at Nejaa, who slowly pushed him back against the dark paneled wall. Then the Jedi held out his hand while he half-closed his eyes. Ros held his breath, not certain what was going on.

Suddenly, the droid looked around seemingly confused. Then, as his photocepters blinked a few times, he said, "That's odd." After looking around again, he made a motion that was in imitation of a human shrug as he closed the door. Then he simply wondered down the passageway, without as much as a glance back.

Ros didn't move a muscle until Nejaa dropped his hand. The Jedi took a deep breath and turned to look at a shaken Ros. "That was close."

As they moved toward the door the droid had come out of, Ros whispered, "What did you do?"

Nejaa held his hand over the keypad of the door for a few moments before glancing back at Ros. "I wrapped us in an illusion and wiped a few seconds from the droid's memory."

"You can do that?"

"Yeah, but it's not easy. Now shhh. I have to concentrate if I'm to trip this lock without setting off the alarm. According to those schematics I memorized of the house, this is a storage room."

Ros raised his brows and stepped back a half step. He watched fascinated as Nejaa held his hand over the keypad, with his eyes shut and a complete expression of deep concentration on his face. After a few seconds, the door slid open.

Nejaa held his hand out in gesture for Ros to be still as a far away look came over his eyes. Ros had seen the Jedi do that enough times to know that he was checking the Force to make sure there was no further danger.

The windowless, dim room was clearly a storage room, with crates and boxes sitting on the floor and stacked against the walls. They slowly moved around a stack of plastic crates to find a large, slender, rectangular shaped object sitting on a tripod draped with a white covering.

The intruders looked at each other, and Nejaa smiled as he whispered, "I'd bet my lightsaber that's our painting."

"The size is right," Ros whispered back.

Suddenly, Nejaa grabbed him and pulled him to the floor behind a stack of crates. Nejaa held his finger over his lips to indicate silence, while he pointed up toward a cam that was panning the area where they had just been.

Nejaa frowned and Ros wanted to ask what he was thinking, but couldn't risk it. Then he turned to Ros. Barely whispering, he said, "I can create an illusion to trick the cam, but you'll have to check to make sure that's our painting."

Ros nodded, not wanting to risk speaking. He waited for Nejaa to take his pose of concentration. Once the Jedi gave him a slight nod, Ros crept across the space to the tripod. His heart raced and he tried not to breathe too often or too loudly. He had to be crazy to risk his career like this. Breaking and entering into to the home of the wealthiest being on Corellia was enough to get him thrown out of CorSec, but to be an accomplice to some of the things Nejaa so willingly did with the Force to other beings' minds was somewhat disturbing.

He finally reached the sheet and risked a glance back to Nejaa behind the crates. His eyes were closed and his brow furrowed as if in deep thought. Perspiration was beginning to bead on his forehead. He turned back to the sheet and lifted it ever so slowly. After peeking under the drape, he smiled and pulled a small camera from his belt. He lifted the sheet up and tucked it over the top. Then he glanced back at Nejaa, praying that his illusion, or whatever he was doing to trick the surveillance cam, was working. Turning back to the painting, he snapped a holo.

Once that was done, he replaced the drape and hurried back to Nejaa, who finally let go of the illusion with an exhausted gasp.

With a huge grin on his face, Ros held up the cam and nodded. They found their stolen painting. Now, they just had to get out of the house so they could come back with a warrant.

Scerra Mallane's Apartment, Coronet City

She stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror and wondered what in the Hells of Corellia she was doing. She never dressed up to go to the Ranto, but here she was in a new black dress, high-heels and applying makeup. Her short red hair was curled with the left side held back with a beaded comb. She shook her head as she put the cap back on the wine colored lipstick she had just applied.

"This is crazy, girl," she said to herself as she threw the lipstick back into the bag with the rest of her makeup. "He's a vaping Jedi." She met her reflected gaze. "You know nothing can come of this. So why are you trying to impress him?"

She hadn't stopped thinking about Nejaa Halcyon since meeting him a month ago at the Ranging Ranto. They had ended up dancing into the night that evening and for two other Fifthnights since then. It had become expected to meet him and Ros for dinner, and then she and Nejaa would dance until the band stopped playing several hours later. He surprised her with his skill and natural charm. Ros never liked to dance, nor was he good at it; so, it was fun to find someone so talented. Through their times at the Ranto, she discovered he was on Corellia for a several months. She knew he and Ros were working on a case together, but he told them that he wasn't planning to return to Coruscant even after their mission was complete.

However it wasn't only this news or his dancing ability that encouraged her, she discovered Nejaa Halcyon enjoyed flirting with her. Yes, she was sure some of his complements to her while they danced, his questions about her students and comments about his joyful memories of teaching were nothing but pure and honest flirting. But surely Jedi didn't flirt, she kept telling herself. Maybe he was just being nice and refreshingly honest. Though, all that did was make him even more appealing. She couldn't help the attraction to the older, ruggedly handsome Jedi Master. She guessed that he had to be about ten years older then her, but she always had been more attracted to older men. And he was so unlike the men she normally dated. There was just something about him that intrigued her. He was mysterious and well traveled, having been all over the galaxy as a Jedi scout—whatever they were, but it all sounded exiting to her.

A sudden soft mewling sound and a soft thump brought her out of her daydream. She smiled as she looked into the sulfuric yellow eyes set in a furry black face of her spukamas who had jumped up onto the vanity. He wiggled his wet, whiskered nose and meowed again as he ran his sleek head and side over her hand which was still holding the makeup bag.

She laughed and picked the cat up and hugged him. "If I was smart, I'd let you be the only man in my life, Chuckles."

The spukamas was a type of housecat which had black, silky fur and bright yellow, diamond-shaped eyes. Chuckles had been her pet since Ros had given him to her after her father had been killed in an industrial accident ten years ago. She rubbed her face against his silky back and he simply purred at the attention.

"Yeah, if I was smart," Scerra murmured again as she put the cat down on the floor. She watched as he slinked from the room as quietly as he had entered. Then she looked at her reflection again before standing. "But who said I was smart when it came to men."

She entered the common area of her comfortable apartment. Chuckles meowed as he ran up to her and rubbed himself over her foot. She gently pushed him away and he pounced playfully on the toe of her high-heeled black shoe. He growled and she grinned as she said, "Okay, okay. I know you're hungry."

She entered the kitchen and opened a container of food. After plopping it into the cat's dish, she watched as he wiggled his nose and prowled toward the bowl as if he was coming up onto prey. She laughed at his shenanigans, it was this type of stuff that earned the cat the name Chuckles ten years ago when he was only a kitten from Rostek. The black cat never failed to cause her to laugh.

Suddenly, the door bell rang. She glanced at the chrono over the foodprep area and frowned. Who could be calling on her now? She was to meet the guys in less then an hour at the cantina.

She opened the door and instantly groaned. "Mother."

Adelyn Mallane was a tall, middle-aged woman who had made a career, and a name for herself, as an engineer and ship designer for Corellian Engineering. As she entered the apartment, she looked her daughter up and down, taking in the full-skirted, faux shimmersilk, sleeveless dress.

"You must have a date," she finally said as she moved past Scerra.

"Not really," she said, knowing it was better than lying. "But I am going out. I'm meeting some friends for dinner."

Adelyn turned and responded disapprovingly, "Not with a cop, I hope."

Exasperated, Scerra walked back toward the kitchen. "I'm not going on a date. I'm meeting Ros." When the older woman rolled her eyes, she said, "Mother, Ros is my best friend."

"I'm not talking about Rostek Horn, Scerra. Even I know you wouldn't ever dress up like this for him. So, who's this other 'friend'?"

Scerra stopped short. Damn, how does she do that? She took a deep breath and turned. "He's just a friend. He's consulting with Ros on a case. He's a lot of fun and that's as far as it goes."

"Really?" Adelyn made a point to look her over again. "I don't remember that dress. New, isn't it?"

She shook her head and replied, trying to not become too defensive, "So, I went shopping and bought a new dress. I'm allowed. I'm twenty-eight years old, not eight, Mother. If I want to dress up to go out with some friends, I'm allowed."

Adelyn pursed her lips and was silent for several moments. Scerra and her mother hadn't gotten along for years, actually not since her father was killed when she was eighteen. He too was an engineer and worked for the ship building industry giant, Corellian Engineering. He had been working on a hyperdrive of a ship when the reactor went critical and exploded, killing him and forty-five of his fellow workers. Adelyn changed after that, becoming cold and demanding.

Scerra knew she had been an accident, her mother never wanted to have children. She was a career-minded woman, and, at first, her father had been fine with that. However, it was no secret that Valin Mallane loved his baby girl, once she graced his life. Scerra had always been closer to her father, a relationship her mother was rather jealous of, and once Valin died, Adelyn tried to control Scerra in a way her husband never had. Of course, all this did was cause the eighteen-year-old, independent young woman to rebel. She moved out and for a few months she lived with Ros, until she went to Corellian University.

Finally, Scerra said, "Mother, have you come over here for a reason? I have to leave, or I'll be late." To punctuate her point she picked up her small handbag from the formchair in the sitting area of the common room and opened it to peek in, making sure she had everything she wanted in it.

"If you would return my comm calls, I wouldn't have tocome over during inconvenient times. But I've been invited to a dinner party tomorrow evening, and was hoping that you'd come with me."

Scerra immediately knew her mother was up to something. She snapped the purse closed and said, "Mother, since when do you invite me to go to dinner parties with you? You've always been too ashamed that I didn't follow yours and Daddy's footsteps."

"Scerra, I've never been ashamed of you," Adelyn said, exasperated and maybe even little sadly. "I just think you could do so much better for yourself then teaching. But I didn't come here to argue. Mazy asked if I'd invite you."

Mazy Callowin was an old friend of her mother's and together they were constantly trying to set Scerra up with Mazy's son, whom she absolutely had no interest in. Impatient and ready to get away, Scerra said, "I'll think about it. Now, I really have to go. "

Sighing, Adelyn moved toward the door, once there she turned and said, "Scerra, despite what you think, I do care about you and only want the best for you."

"I know," Scerra responded obsequiously and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll think about the party." Adelyn looked one last time at her younger replica, and Scerra smiled, "I promise I'll call you."

"Take care, Scerra. You know I don't like you hanging out with all those CorSec officers. Some of them come from questionable backgrounds."

"Mother. Ros would never let anyone hurt me. He's as protective as a big brother sometimes."

She left and Scerra thought she was free of the questions, until Adelyn turned and asked, "This new friend of yours, what exactly does he do? You said he was consulting with CorSec."

She closed her eyes for a second and said, defeated, "Mother, he's only a friend. In fact, nothing can come of whatever you are thinking. He's a Jedi."

Adelyn's green eyes widened in surprise, but fortunately the door slid shut before she could say anything. Scerra leaned against the closed door, shut her eyes, and whispered, "He's perfect, but he's a Jedi."

CorSec Headquarters

"Horn, where you goin'?"

Nejaa and Ros turned at the voice. "To dinner, Cap. We're meeting my friend Scerra at the Ranto." Then Ros narrowed his eyes and shook his head, "Oh, no, my shift ended exactly," he looked at his wrist chrono, "ten minutes and fifty-two seconds ago."

Yarlet Jenaves chuckled as he said, "And you know as long as you are still in the building you're fair game when someone calls off."

"But, Jenaves, I've been putting in extra time all week, working with Nejaa. You know that," Ros all but whined.

"I know, but it's your turn. Faxland's wife went into labor, finally. He won't be in tonight and I want an experienced officer with that rooky partner of his."

Ros looked at Nejaa and then said, "Can I at least go to dinner?"

"Actually, no," the captain said simply. "Not out anyway. Grab something from the cafeteria here. I have a case I want to go over with you and Benaby."

Ros huffed, but relented. "Okay, fine. I'll meet you in the conference room in ten minutes."

Yarlet smiled and cuffed him on his shoulder. "Now that's the attitude that will make you the director someday, Horn. I'll go tell Benaby he's with you tonight." The older man turned and began to move away, then he looked back and said, "Oh, by the way, I still want a report on just how you two got that holo of that stolen painting. But you should have your warrant by tomorrow."

Nejaa grinned and said, "Thank you, Captain Jenaves. Maybe I'll let you in on that little investigative Jedi secret, once I have the painting back to the royal family of Aderaan."

"I'm anxiously looking forward to that, Master Halcyon."

Once the captain was gone, Ros said, "Well, I'd best be going. Tell Scerra that I'll call her."

"Wait!" Nejaa exclaimed when Ros turned to leave. "What do you mean by that?"

Ros smiled. "Go have dinner with Scerra. She'll enjoy it, and you two can dance the night away without feeling like you're leaving me out. I hate to dance, which obviously she loves, and you, my Jedi friend, are the perfect partner for her." With that he turned again and headed back down the corridor, waving his hand over his head as he went.

Nejaa stared after him for a moment, suddenly unsure of what to do. He knew he was treading dangerous water with Scerra Mallane. But there was something about her that intrigued him. She was lovely and had a fantastic personality to go with her good looks. Through their dinner conversations, he learned that they shared many of the same interests, teaching and dancing being among them.

Realizing that he was staring down the hallway, he turned and headed toward the exit. As he whistled a jaunty tune he had picked up from somewhere on his travels, he decided there was nothing in the Jedi Code that prohibited him from enjoying the company of a lovely, young, female friend.

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