Icing on the Cake

The orders came from the Council itself. Masters Secura and Skywalker, with their respective Padawans, were being paired together for an ultra-secret covert mission on some distant planet in the Outer Rim. The objectives were to identify, infiltrate, and incinerate yet another Separatist super-weapon, said to be able to emit a sound that would drive clones (and just about any other bystander with functional eardrums) irrevocably insane within minutes (effectively proving that whatever scientific minds the Confederacy had could, indeed, come up with more creative ways of killing things than simply trying to blow them all up at once). Oh, and the distant planet in the Outer Rim? Was distant even in Outer Rim terms, right on the edge of the Unknown Regions. And locally famous for its arachnoid predators with as many teeth as they had eyes (and there were a loooooot of eyes).

This was, hands down, the best day in Jinx's life thus far. Much to O-Mer's disturbance, though he wisely said nothing.

What wasn't to like, after all? This was the first real assignment Jinx had had since he got back to civilization. Well, the first real assignment that didn't include some variation of "Go to the dark, dank east wing of the Temple, talk to the creepy psychiatrist whose species is unidentifiable but possessing of too many orifices to be completely natural, and come back when you're somehow feeling saner, if only by comparison." Yeah, chopping clueless droids into pieces and trying to avoid the cold, clammy hands of death was much, much more therapeutic than that, and that was not sarcasm in the slightest.

But the best part of it, the absolute icing on the cake, was the fact that he would get to see Ahsoka again.

Not that he hadn't seen her in the six months since Wasskah. There'd been two intervals of a few days, when she was not going on missions with her Master and he was not in a self-induced catatonia in the day or so after each therapy session. There also was the occasional conference call, when both of them happened to be working different aspects of the same mission and were able to offer a few pointers.

This was going to be a more extended period of time, so they could have real conversations, instead of the small chats he had been able to steal thus far. And it would start as soon as he and Aayla's starfighters docked in the Resolute's hangar.

He was whistling when he got out of the cockpit, walking jauntily and smiling as he went through his post-flight checklist. He didn't even notice her until she was right behind him.

"Hello, Jinx, how are you?"

The boy turned…and stopped. Ahsoka had grown a little since they last saw each other. Her montrals were a slight bit taller, and had gained just a little more curve. Her lekku hung lower, a good twenty centimeters past her shoulders now. It was a very subtle change, and she probably hadn't even noticed it in the mirror, but it was quite becoming. Quite distracting, really, and…oh, frotz, he had to pull himself back together again before she walked away.

"Uh…h-hi. Good, how are you?"

She rolled her eyes just a little, but smiled knowingly, as if she got this a lot. He didn't doubt it.

Oh, yes, seeing Ahsoka again was definitely the best part of this.

Aayla, quietly observing from the other side of the hangar, sighed sadly. It was probably time to have that Talk with her Padawan. It could wait until morning, however.