"You mean to tell me that you two managed to overpower your captors, dispatch ten of the other slavers, and make it to the bridge without more that a few bruises?" The officer of the seemingly friendly ship said incredulously.
Jace nodded towards Naruto. "He's good with a knife." He said in English/Basic.
Naruto nodded towards Jace. "He's good with a gun." He said in Japanese.
"What did he say?" the officer asked Jace.
"Sorry, he speaks only Japanese, but he can understand what you call Basic just fine." Jace said, shrugging. "He said that I'm good with a gun." He twiddled his fingers, fiddling with his old tags.
This subtle action didn't escape the notice of the officer. "What are those?" He gestured towards the tags around Jace's neck. "They look like useless metal plates."
"I'd appreciate it greatly if you would quit asking so many damn questions, sir." Jace stood. He walked towards one of the windows that the officer and his crew referred to as a viewport. "I just got kidnapped from my homeworld, which I don't know the coordinates for." He looked at the officer. 'I don't think asking about my tags is going to do any good at this point."
"So they are some form of identification, then..." The officer mused out loud. "You were in the military on your planet, then?"
"Yeah," Jace responded, irritated at this point. "Until one of the countries my region was having trouble with tried to blow the whole world up in a bid for planet-wide control of everything." The young man walked towards the exit to the room, only to be blocked by one of the guards posted at the door.
"You can leave," the officer said. "When I'm done questioning you..."
Jace and Naruto tensed simultaneously. Naruto spoke first, if in halting, uncertain Basic. "Then you should continue these questionings while Jace-san and I eat."
"Naruto has a point." Jace said, almost about to hit the officer in frustration. "We just spent several days on a ship with next to nothing to eat, killed ten men, and have been questioned by you for what feels like hours." As if to emphasize the point Jace was attemting to make, both young men's stomachs grumbled loudly.
"Okay..." the officer began.
"Good!" Jace said, suddenly cheerful. "Now, if you would please show us the was to your mess hall?"
Both blondes walked into the ship's mess hall, immediately finding the line. The resulting piles of food on both of their plates could have fed half the grown men in the room for a week, but Naruto and Jace destroyed their meals in a matter of minutes, both ravenous from days without sufficient sustanence.
"Now, I suppose we can answer your questions." Jace said, suppressing a belch. "Though between what I've said, and what Naruto had me translate for him, we've told you just about everything there is to know about our current predicament."
"Everything but how you two managed to overpower a well-built slaver crew with nothing but a knife and a stolen blaster rifle." The officer balanced his chin on his half-clasped hands in a patient gesture.
Naruto and Jace spent the next twenty minutes relating their story from just twelve hours before. The unfortunate part of this story wqas the fact that Naruto tended to go into great detail in the mess that the two boys had made of dispatching their captors. Several of the soldiers who had stopped by to listen were sent to the infirmary for severe cases of nausea.
"And you said these pansies were in your military?" Jace asked the officer, who had identified himself as Captain Tarkin of the Galactic Republic Navy.
"None of them have seen any action, Mister Chrytos." Tarkin laughed. "Though I never knew that it was possible to bend a man's spine to such a degree that his head was between his own legs. And backwards for that matter."
Jace and Naruto laughed together, recalling the look the man's face held as Naruto had compressed his spine with that very same action. "It's all a matter of persistence, Captain. Unfortunately, that particular man faced the kindest of all the crew's fate."
Tarkin shuddered visibly at the mention of this. "You two come from a ruthless civilization. It does not surprise me that you would kill with such glee."
Naruto spoke again, his Basic having improved. "It was not with glee, Tarkin-taichou." He let shadows cover his eyes. "It was with a notable lack of mercy." The young man began to laugh with a note of insanity in his mirth.
Before the guards nearby attempted to detain Naruto, Jace spoke up. "The craziness my new friend here displays is not of insanity. It is a natural façade that ninja like him put up to hide the trauma of killing many people at once." He clasped Naruto's shoulder. "We all need to cope somehow, yeah?" Naruto was still laughing, so Jace smacked him in the back of the head. "They get it, baka. Now shut up before they decide to lock you up."
Naruto rubbed his head in pain. "You didn't have to hit so hard. I swear, you and Sakura-chan must be related." He said in Japanese.
"Did he say something nasty about me?" Tarkin asked irritably.
"No," Jace responded, hitting Naruto again. "He's just bitching."
Tarkin walked past the exercise room of the ship and heard what he identified as a full-scale battle inside. He rushed in to almost be slammed into by two of his own men, who Jace had just thrown across the room.
"What in the name of the Force is going on here?" He yelled over the crashing of another one of his soldiers hit the weapons rack.
Jace stopped and Naruto stood from his position in the far corner of the room. "Just having a friendly spar with your men, Captain Tarkin." Jace stated cheerfully. One of his opponents tried to sneak up from Jace's blind side. The fool was sent flying by a snap kick from Naruto, who was walking to stand next to Jace. "Wanna join us?"
Tarkin shook his head. "I'm sure that we would have plenty of fun putting each other in the infirmary, but I do still need some of my crew to be in working condition for a little while longer." He gestured towards a nearby viewport. "As you can see, we've dropped out of hyperspace."
The two blondes stared at the captain blankly.
"We are currently set to dock at the Republic station over our capital planet, Coruscant." Tarkin continued.
Blank stares.
"We'll be leaving you in the care of the Jedi, who have expressed some interest in both of you."
Continued blank stares.
Tarkin sighed. "You get to leave the ship."
Jace and Naruto cheered loudly until Tarkin signalled for them to be quiet.
"As such, there are a few things I need to tell you about common etiquette in the Republic and how you will be expected to act..."
