Funny, but for the first time in all the years (two) that I have been writing, I have had an instance of Writer's Block for the this chapter. Hope the wait was not that long.

Chapter 10: Oh, that black-robed Figure!

As dawn rolled over Coruscant, plans were afoot. Or, more accurately, the final stage for Operation: Jomark was about to commence. Late last night a Council meeting was called, and Master Adi returned only around three in the morning, completely tired. I had done a clean sweep of things apparently, as the investigators did not come up with anything, no DNA traces, no forgotten tools, no nothing really, save the empty flash-bang canister.

The official story was that the hallway incident was a drill, no need to alarm the Temple populous, but unofficially, the story was that a Dark Side agent, possibly the Sith Apprentice, had made an assassination attempt on Jorus C'Baoth – most probably in order to halt the Outbound Flight. Fortunately by a fluke of the Force, said Jedi Master was spending the night at a different residence and thus out of harm's way. Strangely, no one could get hold of C'Baoth … I wonder why?

Rather ironically, Master Adi was assigned to the investigation, Mace's argument being that if the Sith were involved, they would be more careless with an inexperienced Padawan on their case, namely me. Personally I think, he just wanted to get rid of me, quiet like.

Whatever the case, it served our purposes and before too long we had requisitioned a dilapidated YV-100 light freighter. It was relatively low cost, had a Class-3 hyperdrive and rather week weaponry. In short, it fit with our mission portfolio of being a below average Master-Apprentice team. No one would suspect … that is, suspect that we were Forcibly exiling a Jedi Master. Some ingenious packing had Jorus C'Baoth stored alongside our supplies in a storage crate, which, among others, I loaded as an exercise in telekinesis, yeah right.

Although ideally the ship should have been manned by three beings, two did just fine, and seeing as how I was on the comms while Master Adi actually flew, we did rather well. As the airspace above the galactic capital was no place for flight training, I did not have to be involved, but transits between our hyperjumps and course-correction stops were my responsibility. Adi would show me the controls and call out directions and I would act like a drunken mynock traversing space from one jump point to another.

Once such stop was near Shulstine V, a shadowport on the Perlemian. I would have flown it fine had it not been for a comm from Coruscant. Five minutes of avoiding traffic while frantically looking for the blasted comm panel were rewarded by Master Adi's gentle reminder. It could have come sooner though, in my oh so humble opinion. "Director, this is Screenwriter."

Operation: Jomark was in its entirety codenamed after a filming setup, I was the Director, Adi Gallia was the Producer, Siri Tachi, our agent in the field, was the Screenwriter, and the Lead Man was the Clawdite. "Screenwriter, this is Director, go ahead…" I finally uttered when everything was under control.

"Director, Screenplay. We have lights and cameras. Lead Man passed mustard and is cooperating with the plot. We will have action in ten, so far it's green across the board." Master Adi told me during one of our jumps that Knight Siri was rather confused with the mission code, but it came out alright. Though I was not really fool enough to believe that any worthwhile snoops would mistake this conversation for a holodrama shoot.

"Screenwriter, Director. Rodger that. Drop a text when you exit the Colonies if all goes according to plan. Hopefully you will be able to disembark somewhere on the Entralla Route. You must, I repeat, must, get off before Yaga Minor." Indeed, no need for Palpatine to know of my meddling, is there?

"Wilco, Director. Screenwriter over and out." The comm shut off with a hiss and a click, and everything was going according to plan. Orienting the freighter towards Centares I pulled back on the hyperdrive levers knowing that now I could travel with fewer realspace stops. We jumped, and before us lay another twelve hour hop.

"Centares, the last 'civilised' stop on the Perlemian. Your typical border world…." I introduced magnanimously as I took the YV-100 out of hyperspace. There was nothing noteworthy on this world, save for the fact it stood on the intersection of the Perlemian and Triellus Trade Routes. If we turned 'right' here and went two thirds of the way to Sy Myrth we would be level with Jomark, our end goal.

During our latest jump the time was spent in rest, restless fretting over the Outbound Flight situation and of course, in training. Being nearly fifty metres in length, the YV had vast cargo holds, which, being empty, served just fine as training modules. Let me tell you, it is not fun clinging one-handed to a support beam while deflecting shots from four remotes while your Master indulges in a pillow fight, slightly forgetting that plasteel crates aren't pillows. If you are ever tempted to use a Force Nexus to travel into the Jedi World, my advice to ou is, don't.

"Padawan," Master Adi mused aloud at a most inopportune time, "We have not created a backstory, have we?" Oh bugger! How could I forget that little detail? So we drop C'Baoth off on his nice new holiday home, but what do we tell the Council? Where are the Sith?

"Aaahm…" I had nothing really to say, "Ahaaammm…" Nope, still nothing, "Maybe Trogan?" I ventured tentatively. "Tourist attraction, smuggler's hive… We could, I don't know, pretend that the flash-bang led us to there … … and we saw a black-robed figure!" that cheeriness was so false, truthfully, this once again proves that you should think ahead before you act.

"And the Council is going to buy that, right…." sarcasm? Master, you astound me by the day! "Oh and don't forget to mention that said black robed figure yelled 'come and get me, Jedi' while waving a flag…."

This banter carried us all the way to Jomark, which just might have been a curse more than a blessing. Once we reached the backwater, and pretended to be a family on a cargo run, the sole air controller gave us free reign and we touched down on one of the more hospitable islands in the southern hemisphere.

We had let off our passenger when he began exhibiting signs of wakefulness, and I redressed in my evil get-up to explain the situation to him. Of course, he had a Force suppressor injected in his bloodstream to avoid any injury on my part. "Welcomer Jedi…" I sneered as best as I could, which was not all that hard.

"How dare you I say!" was his rather unwise exclamation, his voice suggested more lucidity than would be expected in his condition, or maybe not; for if I was a real Sith, he would have had a black eye right about now.

"You are in no position to talk. Now listen up, I'm only saying this once." I hit an imaginary button on my equally as imaginary gauntlet and gave my Master a Force-nudge to drop the cargo lift. As the rusty pistons began to screech, I continued. "If I kill you outright, your pals will sense it, and I don't want that. I am leaving you enough supplies for you to establish a nice vacation home here, make sure it's pretty, 'cause you will be staying here for a long time … a very long time…."

Through the combination of a cargo quick-release system and the use of yet more telekinesis I offloaded the rest of the crates, hopped aboard the transport and jauntily saluted the bumbling figure of Jorus C'Baoth with my lightsaber, "You're gonna need your Force, Jedi! Stay sane!" Another mental prod and the repulsors activated, the ship gained altitude, and Operation: Jomark was a resounding success.

The Force has one ironic sense of humour, one that I'd rather not endure. As per the plan, Master Adi and I flew the ship to Trogan. As per the plan we stopped to refuel and get some information. That was where the whole thing derailed. Starting with the docking bay fees…. We had run into a 'dead end' and were just going to pay the port authority for our use of the landing area and leave when we discovered that our way was barred by a Solar Sailor. A Geonosian Solar Sailor….

Now of course that meant nothing to Master Adi, she did not know what I did. And I, well suffice it to say that after hours of excruciating work in GIMP with that particular ship, I knew it as Count Dooku's private craft. "Here's our black-robed Sith" I muttered morosely at the sight. Questions of course followed, which I answered with the story of how "Darth Tyranus—" who was a pupil of Yoda's "—betrayed and murdered the good man that was the Serenno Count." In short, the Council, nor even my own teacher, needed to know about this … yet.

And so a wild Bantha chase ensued, tapcaf to tapcaf, storehouse to storehouse, street corner to street corner, we shadowed him. He – Dooku I mean – chose to keep his Force-abilities hidden for the time being, I guess so as to not alert Coruscant of his misdemeanours, so shadowing him was not particularly hard.

Thanks to a pilfered holocam we recorded a certain clandestine meeting between a cowled Dooku and a Whiphid. The recording was made in the docks where wind whistled in cracks, machinery grumbled and metal clanged, making for rather convenient interference. In actuality the mercenary was tasked with collecting some 'volatile cargo' from a nearby planet, but some doctoring of the audio track made it sound like Dooku was using the Whiphid as a messenger. But all that was in the future, in the present moment Dooku handed off some credits and strode away, leaving us to ponder what to do.

"Master, should we?" there was no particular reason for us to go after the merc, but cargo pickups ordered by Sith lords seemed to be a good place to check up on.

"Follow him you mean? I think yes." Then after a brief pause, "Whatever he is up to, it can't be legal." I had to agree with that, so without further ado we tailed the poor wretch to his ship, tossed a homing beacon on the hull, and took our YV into orbit.

Rhen Var was the Whiphid's end destination, and a more retched ice-cube could not be found anywhere this side of the Hydian. I did tell Master Adi this, but she told me not to worry. Naturally at that exact moment a thud echoed in the hold, the control yoke shook beneath my hands and the comm system sputtered to life with a gravelly voice on the other end.

"Jeeediii… It will do you more good if you surrender now. The bucket you are on will never escape me, and let's face it, better taken alive than decimated into protons and electrons other this system. My Lord has use for you…."

One thing I've learned from real life just as much as from novels and movies was that your typical bad guy cannot resist a good gloating session. They should really learn to talk less. Maybe then they can actually succeed with their plans for galactic domination. While our host was jabbering on, I figured that this was a trap – no shit Sherlock – and that we were trapped in Rhen Var's gravity well with the Whiphid's ship cutting off our escape route.

The first order of business was to flip on the shields, which I did quicker than I would have thought, and to attempt evasive action. No one was surprised when the merc cut his triumphant rant short to start on a new tack; "Sooo, this is how you want to play, Jeeediii, your loss…." His first shot missed, but his second clipped the edge of our ventral shields. The situation was not good. I could barely shoot straight, and now I had to pilot a freighter with no piloting experience whatsoever. And what was much worse, I was responsible for the lives of two beings, one them myself. And I was not even a legal adult for crying out loud!

I was about to ask Master Adi to take over piloting but as I turned my head in the direction where she was supposed to be, there was no-one there! I saw the tip of a brown robe disappear in the direction of the fire control station and muttered a vulgar mix of Huttese and Mando'a that would make most frequenters of Tatooine gag. I was alone, and the cannons on this bucket could only fire front, Fierfek!

With no other choice, I closed my eyes, relaxed, relinquished conscious control of my extremities and let the Force get me out of this situation. Ultimately it got me into this situation, so it would have to get me out.

Maybe I was wrong when I said that the Force was like a CMD window in Windows. There was no black screen in my mind's eye, no blinking white cursor, no text mysteriously appearing. I don't know what drove me to that conclusion in the first place, maybe it was my aptitude with ICT, or more likely it was one of Qui-Gon's practical jokes. No matter, the real experience was different. My perceptions increased tenfold. My reaction time became nearly inhuman, and the flood of knowledge that washed over me— well it was overwhelming to say the least.

I guess it could be described as having an instant Google Search at your disposal but without the inherent complications in the need to actually locate and decipher the needed answer. For instance, when the need arose for me to locate the controls for the prow manoeuvring jets, all it took was one thought and my hands were guided to the activation levers.

That was not all however. I could also search the Force for the most likely outcomes for my actions, for stray thoughts from our pursuer, and even for insight and guidance. Had there been a non-Force-sensitive observer they would have seem my hands flying over the controls, evading laser fire with apparent ease and even outmanoeuvring the hostile why-vee-six-six-six on our tail.

This clarity of thought would not last however, I was a novice at all this Force thing and could not maintain such a pure connection for any prolonged period of time. Just as we settled behind our attacker's craft, the real world rushed back to me, leaving me with only my wits and what knowledge I managed to gain in the Force Awareness state.

Master Adi began firing as soon as she had a clear line of sight on the hunter-turned-prey's ship and did a much better job of it, clipping one of the stabilizer fins in the process. The Whiphid chose to take offense at us for firing on him and jerked to the side in efforts to come about but I stayed with him. Being Jedi we were mandated to deal with situations peacefully, which quite often took more time, like now. It would have been child's play for a Jedi Master to hit one of the engines and overload the power system which would result in a big boom, but no, we were obliged to force him down. At least we would be able to question him….

"CorEngCorp Yirt-Vev-six-six-six freighter," I spoke into the comm upon miraculously finding the mic toggle, "This is Jedi transport Force's Folly, I am in no mood for the usual surrender speech, so land and power down or you are getting vaped, right now. Do you read?"

Sadly, the moment of distraction cost me, the guy was able to loop around and get on my rear. "Folly, your name suits you…" he managed to get another shot on our ventral shields, reducing them to seventy per cent, but that only let me hit the overdrive, flip my ship on the side and fly towards him, head-to-head.

This game of 'who blinks first?' or 'Space Chicken' was familiar to me through many EU sources, and I was confident that I could do it in real life. Being confident would not really be grounds to do something extremely dangerous, for though I may invent reckless plans at times, they are always thought out, but this time I gave the excuse of there being no apparent choice.

Space was filled with red lances of energy between our two onrushing ships as we both diverted spare power to front shields and eagerly awaited the other's mistake. As the distance closed to less than two kilometres the intercom began to whistle shrilly and demand my attention. Master Adi was not amused, really not amused. "You better now what you're doing, Padawan. I do have unfinished business in the living world you know…."

"No worries Master!" was my cheerful response as I saw the silhouette of my adversary in his cockpit. I waited just a second longer and reached for the Force again. Again it enveloped me in the flood of knowledge. In painfully slow-motion I saw the Whiphid's hands jerk his control column to the right – my right – and frantically try to accelerate away from me. The time was now. My left hand shot out and yanked hard on the throttle controls sending the drives into full reverse as my on-hand jerked the yoke down and lammed an entire row of manoeuvring jets. Our ship came about and after a quick switchover sped after the troublesome YV-666.

Master Adi nailed the other stabilizer as he, and we, skimmed Rhen Var's outer atmosphere giving me hope yet that we might catch this creep. He led us on a merry chase toward the terminator and on one occasion slipped behind me disabling our ventral shields entirely but I retaliated by letting Master Adi shear off his entire starboard stabilizer.

After that the situation ought to have been resolved but he was stubborn and I was overconfident in the abilities of my own ship to hold together. At a most inopportune moment, above a rather wicked-looking mountain range my drives cut out. So letting the Whiphid get away, and cursing profusely, I slammed on the repulsors and attempted to land gently.

Attempted was just the perfect verb for the situation and gently was not to be at all as even the repulsors began to whine in preparation for total failure. It sucked. We were twenty meters in the air with no repulsors. A quick brainstorming session later I diverted all power to the dorsal shields as the ventrals were inoperable, flipped us upside-down and dropped us into a deep-looking snowdrift.

The trick worked, the shields absorbed the kinetic energy behind our fall, and the snow cushioned what was left, but we were … ahem … wrong-side-up. Some groans and cursing later, two grumpy Jedi dropped from the floor onto the ceiling and made their way to the boarding ramp.

"What a nice place to visit!" I pronounced sarcastically as the blizzard through a bunch of snow in my face. "It's just like Hoth!"

"Did we pack cold weather gear?" Master Adi had to shout to be heard over the howling winds even though I was nary a meter away.

"No! 'Fraid not! And it looks like the entire power system's caput. I can't say much while it's dark though! We'll have to find somewhere to stay until morning and come check over the ship later."

"I agree Padawan! There are some ruins not that far away, do you know anything about this place?"

"Rhen Var's a world with significance to the Jedi. It was the place of Ulic Qel-Droma's exile and subsequent death! Those ruins are most likely his Jedi Tomb. Should be safe for Light-Siders!"

No further conversation was required to my great relief. I hammered down the ramp with my saberstaff and hid my freezing hands in my sleeves. Tombs of Force-Users were an ill omen usually, but I could not care less in this climate. He was a Jedi after all… right?

By some extremely fortuitous circumstances we crash-landed some three-hundred meters away from the ruins, but even so it took us a good half an hour to get to them. The gates, when we got there, were open invitingly, which would have raised both mine and Adi's suspicious were we not almost frozen, and as soon as we passed the threshold they grumbled shut. Only then did we exchange a concerned thought, but we really had no-where to go but forward.

The entrance hall led to a peculiar chamber off of which ran other, smaller passageways. It again reminded me of Moria, but I again ignored the similarities and began looking for a place to settle down for the night. And then Master Adi did something foolish. She stepped out of the circular chamber.

Barely had she taken three steps away from the arc when a ghostly voice, which I did not recognise, echoed in the vaulted ceilings. "Welcome Jedi…" With those words previously concealed doors began shutting off the arches. I was just about to begin thinking straight wen the floor beneath be began to lower and the voice repeated, "Welcome young Jedi…."

Well, that's the end to Operation: Jomark and the beginning to the Rhen Var adventure. I hope I cleared things up with the Force and wrote the dogfight reasonably well, and that the Outbound Flight situation was explained succinctly and understandably.

There's a poll on my profile asking about what one-shot you wish to see next, and I have somethingalmost ready to post for April Fool's Day. Also, I like my schedule of two chapters a month for this story and will stick with it from now on.

Public thanks go to "rancorlover" and "peijey" for subscribing to this story this month.

And to everyone out there you are welcome to RSS me, follow, fav, comment or nag me on Twitter NikStalwart.

May the Fiction Be With Us All!

Clean word count: 3,572 | Updated: 3/29/13 PT.