Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the clones on my back.

Episode 10 - Fatass and Meatbags Part 3/3

I don't claim to be a fortune teller, psychic or anything of that nature. I can't even tell the future except to a little Jedi-Sense thing that makes my hair stand on end when in danger. But if there is one thing I know, everyone who knows me, comes to regret it.

This is no exception.

"Bored…"

…

"So bored…"

…

"Bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bor-"

"Stop translating that." Koj says, and the droid stops translating my rambling.

"Booooooooooooooooored." Unfortunately for him, I've said it so much he caught on to the word. The translating was just a formality.

The Sand Person with the fancy things on his neck says something that sounds like a curse and turns to me. The translation is: "Do your companions find you equally annoying?"

"Yes."

"Why the Good Spirit smiles on you, I'll never guess."

"Yeah, I wonder that myself at times." I mutter. Don't know anything about this 'good spirit' dude of his, but if it smiles on me, well… I'll take anything I can get. So far the trip has been a whole lot of… nothing. We get shot down (not my fault), held not-prisoner (not my fault), left at gunpoint (again, not my fault), and now have to trade favors. All in order to just get to a spot so I can go "open says me", follow Revan, work my magic and boom: instant coordinates. I prefer instant oatmeal with apple pieces and cinnamon myself, but if the Republic wants it…

And the fight with Tree-Hugger. Not my brightest moment. I was angry and… something I keep forget is how he is human himself. He's just doing the best he can, and its not like I can hold it against him truly. I'm a handful even at the best of times and he isn't holding me back despite my frustations. He helps me teach myself and have daily exercises as well to keep a foundation. I've grown much stronger and faster since I awoke from amnesia. My control on a small scale sucks, but the miniscule growth still has helped me get a grasp of controlling the larger scale. But its just… I get the feeling I am so much more. My body wants to do so much better than it actually is, and I know deep down in my gut that I can do more, almost like I have and there is something… just something in me holding my back.

Maybe its one of those mental 'clog' things in my 'chi' or whatever the Order tried teaching me one time. One of the Masters I had the misfortune of sitting next to one time tried explaining it to me, and I tuned him about. Later, Rahm Kota spent five minutes on that subject before I fell asleep and woke up to him smacking me around with his boot. The next five hours involved us wrestling and fighting, and it wasn't for training either. Just thinking about the psycho makes my blood pressure rise. I think the Master I ignored put Psycho-Bunny up to it.

I'm sorry, but no matter how hard they try, I will not hug a tree, meditate like a monk, or be one with the sausage. No matter how tasty they can make it sound.

But still, Tree-Hugger's mood just simply ticked me off. I don't need him to be an ass, I need him to be the guy who understands me and can help me when I'm being an ass. But now that we had our scuffle, I understand. He is just a man, in an Order to requires you to be more than that, and frankly that isn't possible all the time.

Tree-Hugger isn't a tree hugger. He's a wannabe tree hugger.

Still gonna call him Tree-Hugger though. If I mix it up the whole universe will be thrown off and up becomes down. He hates, he loves… and I wouldn't take it up with any other master.

Wait a minute, he loves?

Oh! I have gotta find out who! That will be enough blackmail material to last me aaaaages! There are soooo many ways I can milk that. I laugh in maniacal glee.

"Something you find amusing, Outsider?"

"Nothing, just thinking." I abruptly stop laughing, even though a brief snicker escapes me.

I return my thoughts to the present situation. We are riding a five-ton fifteen-foot donkey-behemoth with enough hair to stuff a drain, that somehow isn't dieing from heat exhaustion across a desert of sand, wind, yellow, and lots of particles of: You guessed it! Sand.

I am so bored… It's going to be hours until we reach the destination.

"Bored…"

"Stop saying that."

"Fine, I promise I'll stop as soon as I am no longer bored."

"No promise!" He says a little too quickly. "Just do!"

"Fine, fine. Whats the problem with promising? It a taboo to you or something? Sheesh."

"In fact, it is."

Promising is taboo to them? Wow. "How about a 100% guarantee?" I say like a smart ass. I think I saw the 100% guarantee thing on a billboard somewhere. Not sure what the word even means, but it sounds cool.

And he goes deathly silent. I roll my eyes. "fine, I get it. You don't like it when I promise, guarrentee, and probably swear on it too. Whats the big deal?"

"Big deal is Outsiders come, they promise this. We agree. They break promise. We die, we retaliate, they call us savages and murderers and hunt us. They promise again. We accept. They break promise. It continues on since they first settled. Last Outsider in your position no different. He make deal. He help Ji. Ji keep promise. Outsider does not."

So. Promises mean nothing to them because us Outsiders keep making them and breaking them, and we call them the evil ones for resisting… Well with the slug Fatass's being the ones in constant control of Tatooine (yes I paid attention in Tree-Hugger's lecture on the politicial bullcrap around Tatooine.) I can't say I blame them.

"Who was this Outsider you mean? The one like me?"

"He call himself-" He says something that sounds a lot like 'Refahn'.

Revan.

Yeah, I'm doomed. Probably should leave out the part about me having the guy's Holocron in my head.

"Then why kind of promise can you accept?"

"Say yes, mean yes. Say no, mean no. Words are a promise to begin with. Without it, words hold no meaning." He preaches.

Well, that tells me nothing. "Fine. Then I will stop saying I'm bored, when I ain't no more." And that horrible phrasing makes me sound like an idiot, but he probably can't tell the difference. The translation droid as him coming out slightly funny too.

"Speaking of which, I aint bored right now." I smile. He says nothing, but it doesn't seem as though it's a bad sign. And for my part, talking about his crappy culture is taking the heat (hahaha, puns) off this crappy trip. "So, what else do I need to know?"

He says nothing. "You know… What else is there about you all that I offend easily? I have this knack for making enemies on sight, and it reeeeaally sucks… How about that sword thing from yesterday?"

"Talking excessively is a waste."

"Is that offensive?"

He releases a breath of air that comes mighty close to being a groan. "When there is topic of discussion between parties who status is… neutral at best, we plant sword. You stay on one side of it, we stay on other. Crossing it warrants the right to use the sword. So long as sword is in ground, the discussion carries on."

Ok, makes sense in a way. It represents a line in the sand (hahaha, more puns) that seperates them. Almost like a political… exactly that is exactly what it was. When the Sand guys were talking amongst themselves, they were very close, almost intimate in distance. But when it was us 'Outsiders' and them, there was usually a weapon between us. Its not a threat exactly, but in perspective is a fair warning. 'You cross us, we not afraid to use this.'

Wow, the Hutts have really messed them up if a simple conversation has to involve threats of decapitation. "There is no sword now." I taunt.

Now he really does groan. "I think I get it." I admit honestly. "Next one."

"Next what?"

"Offenses. Come on, I'm on a roll here!"

"Are you going to do this the whole way?"

"Yes." I smile. "You don't want me to say I'm bored, and I don't want to be bored. Fair trade. I am trying to keep up my end of the not-promise!"

While the slump of his shoulders tells me he isn't enjoying this, I get the feeling I just got some points on this guy. We continue talking and to an extent it is rather interesting. I've never truly considered what life was like from someone else's perspective.

"So let me get this straight." I continue later. Our bantha climbs down another dune. In the distance is a outcropping of rocks and hopefully shade. "Excessive talking is a waste… Long explanations are a waste… Doing anything with extended effort is a waste and waste is the most evil thing there is on this planet."

"Outsiders take all. Sand take rest." He says simply.

"Yeah, but playing? Come on, kids need to be allowed to have a good time! Their wild little freaks of nature. If they don't let it out, they'll explode." I can't say how I know so, but I get the feeling I mean it literally. Something ticking in the back of my head tells me they don't actually explode, but there is a voice like a cruel joke telling me otherwise. Would be kinda cool to test the theory out though.

"Young ones are most sufferable to heat." He tells me. "Heat kills."

I nod. That explains why they do so little and mean every bit of it. If you do too much traveling, you die. If you play in the sun, you die. If you don't eat every green on your plate, the planet takes it from you. If you don't control every scrap of land in your area, the Fatass slugs take it. If there is anything on your land that is salvageable, the sand takes it. Everything is just take take take with these people, and they're the ones on the short end of the deal; which with their history, can be said quite literally.

"That sucks." I say. He simply nods. "No, really. I get it. We're sort of alike."

And that right there is where he stops the whole bantha-train in its tracks and causes my head to smack him in the back. He speaks, and up to now I have never heard him truly angry. The translation droid doesn't do him credit. "Do not assume to think we are anything alike, Outsider. That alone is the greatest insult your kind has ever given."

He continues it on, and this time his silence is set in stone. Well, fine. "Fine, don't believe me. I may not understand the desperation in every aspect of your culture, and frankly, I don't even understand my own, but I am the last of my kind, and that sucks. I have amnesia, which if you didn't know, is a condition where you don't know your own damn past. And what little I have been able to find out tells me that I am the last of my people. The rest were all wiped out by some bastard called Darth Nihilus. The saddest part is how I don't even know what to damn well feel about that."

He finally says something, and his tone has finality to it. "When you know intimately in your heart the weight of their deaths on your shoulders, and you feel the void of space all around you pressing in threatening to swallow you whole and end the existence of all you represent; then you will know what to feel. Now speak no more. This conversation is over."

I roll my eyes. "Well aren't you a little ray of sunshine."

Unfortunately, true to his implied words, he says nothing more for the rest of the trip.

Bored…

…

So bored…

He better be thankful I'm not saying it outloud. Because true to my non-promise, I clamp my mouth shut.

"The sandstorm will be upon us soon. It is on the horizon." Koj'Ineh said.

Finally! That is the first thing the Sand Person has said since he gave me the silent treatment. Does he realize I've had to entertain myself for three hours? And what's so special about the sandstorm? I ask him as much.

"The Ghost of Ravine inhabits the sandstorm that brews in this area. We must enter the storm and defeat it."

Great. As if fighting a ghost in a desert wasn't ridicules enough, we have to do it INSIDE a sandstorm. At least I won't get a sunburn in the battle. I'll just be coughing my lungs out on sand.

And will the translator droid be able to function? I know enough about hardware to know that water or a lot of sand do not mix well with machines. It tends to clog things and get in tiny spaces. So yeah, this will be great. Fighting a ghost in the middle of a sandstorm while coughing my lungs out and trying to communicate to an alien without the use of the translator droid. Have I missed anything? How about how to even fight a ghost to begin with?!

"How does one fight a 'ghost' anyway?" I ask. I peer out of the crevice in the side of the cliff we are using for shade. It's unbearably hot. Odds are I am sunburned and don't know it.

"The same way you fight Outsiders."

Ok… that doesn't make sense. Ghosts don't have bodies I can cut with a lightsaber. It might be possible to use the Force on a ghost, but that is only if I know how. It's not like their made of flesh and bone.

"I think we have entirely different definitions of the word 'ghost'. Ghosts, where I come from, are spiritual apparitions that scream a lot, haunt you, -OH!- and cannot be cut. Usually a guy who doesn't wanna bother sorting his crap out in the afterlife and take his issues out on the rest of us."

He turns his head to look at me, and I feel his studying gaze through the veiled hood. He shakes his head at me and returns his attention to the coming storm. Its getting close. He tells me. "Good Spirit wants something, a ghost does it. They embody the will of the Spirit. Your master, plant-embracer, you call him, is one such ghost. Good Spirit wanted the Ekhor ended for their sins. He acted out Her will."

Wait… "But Tree-Hugger is mortal." I argue curiously.

"So is the Ghost of Ravine."

Seriously? Now he tells me! That will make things a whole lot easier. I don't feel any life in the sandstorm that is already closing in, but at least now I can cut whatever it is. Just a swoosh-swoosh-stab, and it's game over.

Wait… Ravine… Ravine… Revan… That sounds a whole lot like Revan.

Seriously?! Is the Force messing with me!? What is with this guy! I can't go to a single place without it involving him! "I can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Revan!" I hiss.

"Why would you want to swing a dead cat?" He asks incredulously.

The sandstorm came on us and we entered in. He gave me a head-cloth and breathing mask so I wouldn't suffocate, and after that it wasn't half bad. The feeling of the mask over my face was tight, and the visor showed practically nothing, but at least I'm not suffocating.

Dang this sand is itchy.

And where's the ghost of his?

I reach out and feel the rope that ties me and Koj together, and of course the droid. With a short tug, I walk in the direction he is. He has his skull-on-a-stick in one hand, sword in the other, and is peering out into the storm. "The storm will last!" He yells. "We have time. Not need to rush!"

That's good to know. We have plenty of time. I hold my saber in my hand and keep myself ready. "How do you suggest we find it?" I ask.

"We don't."

…

"WHAT?" I yell.

"It will find us." He responds. "It is inevitable. The ghost leaves few alive in its path."

"Well that is just GREAT!" I look around and around, and there is nothing but sand and more sand in the winds. We come here, we look for a ghost, but hey! Guess what! WE'RE THE BAIT! We want the ghost to look for US!

The minutes tick by. We walk this way and that, and after a while we decide to walk in the same direction as the storm to buy more time. It extends further, and longer, and at some point I lost track of time. I can say it extends from minutes into hours.

As if an answer to a silent prayer to alleviate the boredom, a sudden pop echoes. It's subtle and quiet, gone just as fast as it appeared, but it's not the pop that I notice coherently, it's the Force. The Force is wary. Something is nearby.

Koj says something, and I wait a second for the translation. But… nothing. I look around, and there is the translation droid on the ground with a hole in its head. "Well, that's another thing that has made this trip ever so delightful…" I mutter. The translation droid is shot. No literally, shot. The pop was a bullet…

Koj says something that sounds like a sarcastic mutter as he looks at the droid. Yeah, me too bud. We're sooo dead.

The Force screams, another pop, I swipe my saber, and a bullet is disintegrated in mid-air. Whatever this ghost is, it uses bullets I can block, but not reflect back; and something tells me its an assassin. Its not some regular run of the mill ghost. He is using very few shots, he is thinking, he is aiming for crucial body parts, and he already removed our ability to communicate.

The ghost is a predator. It knows how to hunt. How to elude its prey and bring it down a piece at a time. A robotic voice fills the air around me. "Query: A Jedi? How fascinating! I shall enjoy killing you!"

The voice sounds oddly.. Familiar.

"The Maker marked you; nothing personal!" The voice says again.

I instinctively blocked another bullet aimed for my heart, and suddenly a bunch of sand is kicked in my face. Even through the visor I can't see what it is in front of me, but I trust in the Force to guide me through it, and I block another three shots aimed at me. Koj hollers something, and tries to help, but after the sand clears a bit, it appears there is nothing there.

The ghost is invisible. I can't explain how I know that, consider it is already concealed by the storm, but I just do. This 'ghost' is incredibly familiar in too many ways to count, and I just know it can be invisble.

Where the hell do I know it from?

Another pop, and the rope tieing me and Koj together is severed.

"Target's separated; Death imminent." The ghost says.

Koj is barely visible in the blowing sands. I see him by his staff. The sand storm is covering my shoulders and head in sand, and it's very difficult to stand with the sand burying my feet out from under me. Sand or storm or droid; without the rope, we have to be very careful not to be seperated. I inch my way closer to Koj. His presence is comforting in the chaos and noise all around me.

The ghost is smart.

It picked off the translator droid.

It picked off the rope.

Next is Koj. That much is obvious. The droid is trying to isolate me, pick off everything around me until it can take me down at its convenience, and knowing its sick sense of humor, it will do it with glee. And how do I know it's after me as the prime target? Let's recap the last couple MONTHS where everything has seemingly revolved around me, and see if my luck holds.

Damnit, what is this things name?! I know it's a droid by its voice, its an assassination droid to be more specific, but I just can't recall its name! It's right there on the tip of my tongue!

The Force draws my attention, and I jump in by Koj to stop another bullet. Interestingly enough Koj moves his sword to block it as well, I was just faster.

How did he know to block it?

I don't have time to consider it thoroughly before a grenade is landing at my feet. I toss it away with the Force and it explodes in fire and shrapnel. The heat is unberable and my side stings.

Koj shielded himself from the shrapnel with his cloak and ton of clothes, but I'm not so lucky. I glance down at my arm and cringe at the number of metal scraps sticking out of my arm. They aren't deep, but the blood and wounds sting in the blinding sand storm. Blood trickles down my arm and already I feel a distant numbness over my shoulder. I can barely see out the eye pieces on this damn hood…

"Statement: First blood goes to me; death inevitable."

Koj swipes in the air with his sword and says something that sounds a lot like a curse. I put my back to him and watch.

The sand goes by on and on like being in the strong cicumfrance of a tornado, but for brief times I can almost see a silohuette of something there as the sand collides with a solid invisible object. The droid is thin, has long arms and legs, a large sniper rifle poised directly on me, and a head that is more boxy than round and smooth. It moves with a silence and grace I never would have figured for droids to have. Then just as fast as I caught onto it, it disappears again.

My hair rises as my Force senses warn me, and before I manage to stop it, Koj spins and redirects the solid bullet with his sword. Ok… that's odd. I really need to figure out how he knows to… do… that…

Is he a Force-Sensitive? That would explain a lot of the Good Spirit and Far Seer mumbo jumbo. Maybe Far Seer is their version of a Jedi. Hmmm.

I'll worry about it later! I don't have anything to worry about with him. Now… how do I get to a droid that I can't see? I smirk as a thought comes to me and I draw as much energy into my hand as I can. I let the Force come over me, fuel me, and I collect as much as I can handle. Just as I think I have enough, I shape it in the palm of my hand, and slam it down.

An explosion of wind erupts around me as everything is blown away. Koj is knocked down, and I have no doubt the damn droid felt it either.

Unfortunately, a metallic hand grabs me by the shoulder as I rise. It spins me around, jumps up, and it puts all of its weight on my chest. I land flat on my back and it sits squarely on my lungs so I can't breathe. It points its gun directly between my eyes.

Crinkles of electricity ripple on the droid's skin as though it had been struck by lightning on a small scale. Not sure when that happened, but now I can see the droid clearly. My lungs ache with the need to expand and my chest feels like it's on fire. Images flash before my eyes at seeing it now, but I just… can't…

"Send my best wishes to the Maker, Organic Meatbag!" It says to my face.

Meatbag! Of course!

"HK-47! CODE: REVAN-78619A-MALAK SMELLS LIKE FISH OIL!" I wheeze with what little breathe I have left.

Everything freezes. The gun is still poised on my eyes. Koj is just managing to scramble to his feet. And HK-47 isn't moving a single limb. It's reddish-orange eyes, unblinking, bore into me. Every fiber in my body screams that it is going to kill me, but the droid just became still as a statue.

"Master?" It says questionably. HK lifts its gun and rises from my chest. I gasp for breathe. Damn droid weighs a ton! I raise myself up, bring my saber back around. Koj gets ready to cut it down just like me, it doesn't respond. It just stands there looking at me. It straps its weapon behind its back and almost… expects me to give it an order.

Well… things just got awkward.

"Uh… Hi?" I say like an idiot with my mouth hanging open. But then again, really, how am I supposed to respond to going after a ghost, find out it's an assassination droid built specifically by Revan, nearly get my face blown off by it after it toys around with me and blows a grenade in my side, only for me to pull a password out of my butt , and suddenly turn it into a submissive servant hanging on my every word.

There is no manual for this crap!

If there is, I would question the writer's sanity of having to put up with all of that. Then again, my sanity is questionable at the best of times. Oh, well, will you look at that, the sand storms gone.

All of this 'coincidental timing' bullcrap has gotta be the Force's way of getting a daily laugh. I swear. You don't 'coincidentally' pull up a memory to password in access to a droid your trying to kill at the exact moment your going to die. And you don't 'coincidentally' end a sandstorm until literally -uh- fifty-six seconds after the fight.

I have gotta start keeping track of just how many ways the Force is toying with me. The list would be staggering. Oh, and lets NOT start with the amnesia, oh no, that would be too easy! Let's go back to birth. For one thing, I was born into a very cold place in comparison to where I was before, that sucked. Second, some bastard slapped me. I bet I slapped him back too.

HK looks to Koj and back to me. "Query: Master, your sack of meat, water, and bone has changed much since I last saw you, and your voice box has been damaged. What happened to you?"

"What?" I ask.

"I said, 'Query: Master, your sack of-'-"

"I heard you." I respond. "But uh-…"

Oh, he must think I'm Revan. Wait… Really? Force, really? As If it wasn't damned obvious enough as it is that I am not him, the killer droid has to assume it, and therefore, be the reason for it's passiveness.

Dear Force, if it goes berserk on me, I'm going to think dirty thoughts in my next meditation. ON PURPOSE!

"I'm not Revan."

…

"What?" It responds.

"I'm not Revan!" I snap. "I think I would know if I was!" Trust me, I should know. I have his memories in my head, and I still know I'm not. This is as close to being him without actually sitting inside his skin as you can get. Even his wife wasn't this intimate with him, and let me say, they were… uh-touchy… Ok, moving on. "I just have his memories in my head! I know about you and all your passwords and how Revan made you as his personal droid. I have access to your permission passwords, but I'm not Revan."

"Understood."

…

Great. Now its just standing there. Again. I slowly lower my saber, and turn it off. HK doesn't move. I see Koj relax slowly, but still, HK doesn't move. Every cell in my body is still poised and ready at a moment's notice if it goes all ape-shit on me, but it… doesn't… happen. A full minute passes where Koj and I glance at each other, and HK watches me with an attentiveness that is awkward to say the least. "So?" I finally say. "Now what."

"I am your's to do as you command." It says.

Uh-huh. Right. "Stand on your head." I order skeptically.

It does that. I burst out laughing at the sight of the scrawny droid doing a hand stand and lower itself to balance on its head. It actually does what I say! Oh, and Koj doesn't understand a word of what I'm saying. The stance, posture, and overall aura he is emitting is one of complete confusion. How am I going to explain this?

Wait wait wait wait wait! Who cares! I got my own assassination droid! Mine! All mine! "Oh! This is badass! Ok, HK, that's enough." I say excitedly. It stands again. Ohhhh… this is going to be fun. Just wait until Tree-Hugger and Girly see this! They are going to freak!

Windu checked over the map again to be sure, a fifth time. The first time he swore he didn't read it correctly, the second time he hadn't believed it, the third time it didn't make sense, the fourth time it didn't bode well, and now he just needed to be sure. "The Sith are withdrawing." He concluded.

The rest of the Councilors all came to the same unnerving conclusion. They did not find joy in it, but rather despair. Sith, by their very nature, either relied on aggression or schemes. The fact that they were no longer pushing borders, leaned them to think the latter.

"This is a good thing!" A few Senators said. Among them the Senator to Naboo, whose opinions the Master found to be a good compass in the confusion. She was the only Senator to not be overjoyed.

The meeting itself was a special one. After the attack on Chancellor Palpatine, a more 'unified' assembly was voted and passed through the Senate. Now the Jedi Council did much of their war meetings in a public standpoint. Windu could understand the reasoning behind the petition. The Republic didn't want the war meetings to be going on in such secrecy when it involved their worlds as the risk factor. The problem was that it was inadvertedly… messing with how things worked.

There is a reason politicians do not make good generals, and a reason why Jedi shouldn't be expected to be either. Blast that Revan for messing up how the system worked…

"It is not a 'good thing'." Obi-Wan Kenobi responded. "The Sith will return and in greater numbers than before." Windu nodded his consent. The Sith would return. It was inevitable in the same ways as roaches.

"Yet this lapse on our borders will allow us to reestablish a foothold on the worlds we lost, and focus attention on the Seperatist front! The tide is turning against us!" Another Senator responded, and unfortunately it looked like almost all of them backed him in his opinion.

The rest of the meeting went slowly. Windu chose to observe rather than speak in the tail end of it, and his attention was drawn to Palpatine most of all.

Palpatine, for as long as he had known the man, was attentive, kind, compassionate, caring, focused, hard-working, and all around a good man, on the outside. Windu didn't claim to not know the man had webs of intrigue built up in every corner the man could get his hands on. It was the nature of politicians, and he acknowledged that The Chancellor was a skilled one at that.

But Palpatine had been acting odd of late. In fact, in this very meeting, Palpatine looked like he couldn't care any less if he tried. He was bored. He wasn't attentive or offering any insight at all. The man was just sitting there, watching, saying nothing and showing nothing. In fact the presence and aura of the man was dormant as well. It was almost like watching a robot.

The Chancellors recent activities had also been odd, to say the least. He failed to attend meetings at the slightest whim, went out on secret get aways, and all of the bills he received were 'Accept' one day and 'Rejected' the next. Literally. It was like Palpatine just sat there and stamped every single bill with the same stamp without paying attention just to get it over with. He wasn't paying attention and analyzing the situation like he always does.

"Noticed Palpatine too, you have?" Yoda whispered. The green alien's eyes never once looked at the Chancellor, but then he didn't have to. He was an alien that still surprised the other Master's at the best of times. You never knew what he was paying attention to or what he knew.

Windu nodded. He drew his eyes away to the meeting itself. Something pertaining to Mandaloriens establishing a closer relation with Wookies. He caught a brief point of it that he found interesting. The two were willing to establish a joint space station to encourage trade and good relations. Interesting to say the least, the Master had not expected the Mandalorien Senator to make headway with anyone, considering the history behind the Mandalorien Wars.

"Most peculiar, his activates have become."

"Or lack of." Windu mused. "You know he stamped every bill yesterday in two minutes? Rejected every single one. The man didn't have time to even know what was on them, much less read them. Day before he accepted them all, just like that." Windu snapped his fingers and returned to his usual position. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward with his hands in front of his chin clasped together. It was a posture he picked up to appear to have the advantage, keep his mouth hidden, appear thoughtful, and a lot of other things, all without moving or saying anything.

With how Palpatine had been acting ever since the attack on his life, the Republic was in for dark days. Windu wished he could force the man to take a true break, or get others to think the same, but the Senators practically loved the man. And no wonder, he fed their pockets and gave them exactly what they wanted. Never mind the fact his term was over two years ago, yet he is still in office.

Something had to be done. Windu played possible scenarios in his head, but nothing he considered was any use. But then again, thinking in the midst of a heated debate lead to distractions. He would have to think on it.

As it stood, the meeting produced a fraction of the results it should have. Only another reminder that War Generals and Politicians do not mix.

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