Chapter Twenty-Four: A Night On The Town
River woke up to the sound of Z10 coming into the room.
"Hey buddy, were have you been?"
He beeped and whistled in response.
"Well I'm going to change and we're going out for some sightseeing."
Z10 beeped with excitement.
River grabbed a black skirt and a green tank then went into the bathroom and changed. She decided not to wear her cloak so she put on a belt and hooked her lightsaber on to it. And she and Z10 headed for the hanger.
When she got there she found that it was exactly like the one on the Invisible Hand except two things were missing: one instead of droids running around it was a rare droid, clone troopers and other humanoid begins, and two there was no familiar cyborg barking orders at the incompetent droids.
When reality hit her she realized how much she missed the flagship and the General.
A Clone Trooper came up to her and asked her for her authorization, she gladly showed it to him and he showed her were her fighter was.
It was like all the other fighters yellow and white and no sign of any individuality. She got Z10 settled into his spot and was getting ready to climb in herself when Obi-wan came up behind her and sacred the begeezers out of her.
He looked at her ensemble and guessed what she was doing.
"Your going out for a night on the town right."
"Yep figured that I would do some sightseeing."
"Well there will be plenty of that, I would go with you but I have an assignment. But if you want to go to a good place to get something to eat go to Dex's Diner."
"I think I'll try that. Thanks for the tip." she said as she climbed into the cockpit.
"Your welcome." he said flashing her one of those nice smiles.
He waved as she started the engine up and she waved back. When they were in the air River asked Z10 to get the exact location of Dex's Diner, when the directions came up on the screen she put it on auto pilot and let it take over and she looked at the scenery.
Grievous had hacked into Z10 and was doing some exploring around the temple. When he went back to Rivers room she was taking a nap. He didn't mean to wake her up but she did. She said that she was going sightseeing and him feeling responsible for her safety decided to pay her a visit. And decided to also ask her about that man that she hung out with.
He climbed into his personal fighter pushed some buttons and from being hacked into that unit he was able to follow her every move.
As River walked out of the diner full and satisfied she climbed back into the fighter and decided to go to the more dangerous parts of town. It was after nightfall so the city was all lit up and looked really cool.
River parked her fighter in a parking hanger, paid her fee and went exploring she of course left Z10 in the fighter to keep watch (she wasn't that stupid). She wandered out into a part of town that looked like every corner you turned some kind of trouble would be there. She being the naive Kaleesh female that she was and had never been told not to go into a dark ally after the sun had gone down walked into well, a dark ally!
She walked all the way to the back of the ally to come to a dead end. She turned around and started to go back to the street when she was grabbed from behind and a knife or some sharp object was pressed against her throat.
"Hand over all your money." a voice demanded
She didn't do what it said, he pressed the object harder to her throat and she felt a warm trickle of blood run down her neck.
"You think I'm totally defenseless don't you? Well that's were you go wrong oh so wrong."
When she said this she heard a loud clunk come from behind her and she heard a blaster go off and the body of her so called captor fell lifeless to the ground. She stood there knowing who was behind her and she did not want a lecture, not know, not ever. But she knew sooner or later she would have to so when she did turn around she found a very displeased master.
"Oh I didn't know you were in town," she said rather innocently.
He just sighed and shook his head.
"What? What did I do?" she asked trying to get him to say something and look at her. Well the second part worked but he still didn't say anything.
"I didn't do anything," she said defending herself against his look of disappointment.
He walked up to her and bent down to her eye level. "Thats the point." he said in a soft whisper.
"Oh so just because he caught me unawares that I wasn't able to kill him on the spot is something wrong?"
"So your saying that your mind didn't slip and you were in complete control?" he said already knowing her answer.
She hesitated at that. "No I'm not saying that my mind didn't slip, but I do have a lightsaber at my fingertips that I could and would have used."
"Thats the point your mind slipped if that happened in combat with a Jedi you would have died." he said putting both his hands on her shoulders as if he were going to shake her.
"Oh so you think that I can't take care of myself? Just so that you know I do have experience in the category of combat."
He let her go and walked a little ways from her. "I know that but the last time you went on a mission I thought I had lost you and I don't want to go through that again."
This stumped River. Did he still have feelings for her? She shoved the thought out of her mind thinking how stupid she was to be even thinking that.
"Thank you. Thank you for being concerned for my well being, unlike some other people."
He turned around and looked at her. His eyes were unrevealing as to how he felt and this frustrated her.
She just looked so fragile and he wanted to protect her. What he wanted to do was to pack her up in his ship and take back to the Invisible Hand were she would be safe. But he knew that he would have to deal with an angered Dooku and he didn't want to.
"Just be more careful."
"I will." she promised
"I want you to go back to your room and get to sleep."
She turned from him and started heading toward her ship.
"Oh by the way who is that blonde guy that you hang out with?"
"That's Obi-wan Kenobi and how do you know I "hang out" with him?"
"I have my ways." and he disappeared out of sight before she could ask anything more.
As she made her way back to the temple the one thing that she thought about was does he still have feelings for me? And she also went to sleep trying to answer this question.