Aayla paces backward and forwards unseen in front of a set of makeshift cells on Cavamina Minor, a moon only just large enough to maintain a liveable atmosphere, and orbiting a gas giant that's right on the edge of the habitable zone. The only reason for the single settlement on the surface of the moon is cost, as it's cheaper than a space station. At some point in the distant past, someone decided to plant trees on the planet, so now there's a choice in scenery, you can either look at snow, forests, or both.
Shaking her head, Aayla turns back to the cells, as none of that is relevant to why she's here today. Each of the men in these cells is a pirate, and maybe a slaver too. Apart from Maris, any of the Jedi or Padawans in the hive could be trusted to determine their guilt or innocence. For Aayla, that's not the problem. The problem is that she is currently the only person able to try them due to the way they were captured. She can't even rely on the other queens, as they have no interest in the galaxy outside Felucia, and are likely to just execute them out of hand.
To make it harder, the force has offered no guidance to her at all.
Suddenly, Aayla's lekku twitch, as though Ulli has done something again.
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Mallie smiles brittlely as a small worker hands her Galen just as he's started to cry. It had taken Ulli less than two days to decide to go and catch something small, cute, and furry and do whatever it was that turned them into the creatures that were part of the hive. Only, Ulli told her that she'd asked Master Secura to give it the memories of a house elf that had been a nurse.
As Ulli opens the door and dances inside, Mallie says, "Speak of the inquisition."
Ulli looks up, "Oh hey Mallie, you're up. How are you feeling?"
Good naturedly, Mallie grumps, "Well enough to be looking after Galen on my own."
Ulli carries her bundle of small logs over to a corner of the large living space, "Well with the house worker, you now have time to do whatever you normally do in the day, and look after Galen."
"I negotiate between tribes, and act as a translator and occasional adviser for the King. But that's beside the point. If we wanted a nanny, we could have got a droid."
Bringing one of the logs over to the table, Ulli looks at it critically, "I should really work out how transfiguration works, or at least make a cutting charm. Anyway, a house elf, house worker is much better than a droid as they are faster, they can't be sliced, and they want to please you. Oh and you should name yours soon, so that she knows when you need her."
"Ulli, that's not the point. Ow Galen, that's my hair. Anyway, what are you doing?"
"I'm making more taps, Rhrillullosh wants me to make her one, and she said that Chraoarfa was interested too, then there are the other wookies that keep asking to look at my toy tap. I also want to work out how to make hot water too. Then I can try having a bath, as I've seen the memories of them, and they look nice. Hmm, the enlarging charm would probably make it easier to put the whole thing together, and get access to the inside of the tap."
Mallie shakes her head as Ulli starts to move her head as she hums and taps the table, occasionally mumbling about a pose being wrong, or a transition being impossible.
Shortly after she's finished feeding Galen, there's a large pounding at the door. The house worker appears silently, and takes Galen from her gently, before disappearing with a pop. With a sigh Mallie pushes herself to her feet and makes her way over to the door, but not before the wookie on the other side bangs on it again.
As she opens the door, she stops in surprise, "Chief Snierkkim, I wasn't expecting you."
The Chief says, "Is Ulli here?"
Mallie looks over her shoulder at Ulli, "She is, I can get her for you."
"I heard these two talking about her toy and a hive." Mallie leans to the side to see two sheepish looking wookies standing behind the chief, "I want to talk to Ulli to make sure the hive isn't a danger to the clan."
Mallie hesitates, "Uh, sure. Let me get out of your way."
The chief shakes his head, "No, stay. I need you to translate so there are no misunderstandings."
Mallie turns around to let Ulli know, only to pause as Ulli picks up the log and carves a deep gouge in the end with her fingernail. Shaking her head, she walks back into the home, "Ulli, the Chief is here to see you."
Ulli makes another gouge with her fingernail, "Really? Um, where are we going to sit?"
Mallie translates for the Chief, who says, "Stay at the table, I will stand."
Once the Chief reaches the table, Ulli puts the log down and faces the chief primly, "How can I help you Chief Snierkkim?"
"What were you doing?"
Ulli gestures to the pile of logs on the counter by the wall, "There are several wookies that want one of the taps I made, and I need a few other taps too. So I'm cutting out a disk so I can make a cutting charm. Then I'm going to try and make one that will allow me to enlarge things. Those should then make it easier and faster to make the taps."
The Chief nods, "Why not use a knife?"
Ulli shivers, "Not allowed to use knives, or get near anything that could be used as a blade."
"Why? With claws like that, the rule is silly."
Ulli looks at her hand, "Oh, no. I didn't have these when I was a slave. These are a gift for being part of my queens hive."
The Chief leans forward slightly, "I'd like to know more about this hive, are they a danger to us?"
Ulli looks startled, "What? No, not unless you attack them. I mean deliberately attack them, not accidentally because you didn't recognise them. We're even establishing a territory on the ground so that Mallie, Kento, Blake, Rhrillullosh, and, and, all my wookie friends really. We're making sure they're all safe from the predators down there."
The Chief manages to look sceptical despite the fur, "Really?"
Ulli nods emphatically, "Yes, it reminds us of home, well the home of the first queen anyway. But we've grown and evolved since then."
"That's the second time you've mentioned a queen, is she your ruler?"
Ulli shakes her head morosely, "No, sort of, maybe? I don't know, it's hard to explain." Her expression brightens, "I know, I can take you to see her, like I did Kento. Um, I don't have enough hands, so if I hold Mallie and Rhillullosh's hands, would you two put a hand on my shoulders? Oh, and be careful of my lekku, as they're sensitive."
Somewhat fatalistically, Mallie allows Ulli to take her hand as the wookies also follow her instructions. Then the five of them are engulfed in fire.
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Aayla walks out of her house just after Ulli arrives with the visitors. She'll need to apologise to the chief, and maybe build a home on the surface for official visitors.
As soon as Ulli sees Aayla, she smiles, and waves, "I'm going to check on the broken ones. Mallie, as long as you're near the queen or another hive member, your house worker will be able to come to you."
Aayla sighs, "I guess I asked for that. Greetings, I'm Jedi Master Aayla Secura, and queen of this hive."
The wookies all look around curiously, and the Chief asks, "Where are we?"
Aayla smiles, "You're deep underground on Felucia in a native Felucian settlement."
Turning to Mallie, the Chief asks, "Is she being honest?"
Mallie sighs, "So far as I can tell, yes. Kento took a similar trip just after Ulli arrived, and said he'd met two Jedi Masters."
Aayla nods, "Master Shaak Ti. Before we start talking about weighty subjects, would you help me with an issue that has come up?"
Mallie gapes, "What could cause you problems that don't need an army to solve?"
Aayla shakes her head, "Knight Marek, have you already forgotten the code? We are advisers, diplomats, defenders, researchers, and many other things, but we are not leaders, judges, or executioners. That is especially true for me, and any other Jedi that becomes a queen of a hive. The problem I have is that we captured a group of pirates that may have been slavers, and I cannot just hand them over to any planetary authority as our ability to transport ourselves over galactic distances needs to stay secret for as long as possible."
The Chief asks, "Why not just kill them?"
Aayla looks at the Chief honestly, "Because it's easy, and because I want to. It would be so simple for me to implant them all with eggs that will grow, before ripping their way out of their bodies through their ribs. Then I'd have another 20 warriors. I could send my hive members out to track down pirates, one or two sentients per ship, along with xenomorphs to round out the crew. How long would it take for me to move onto other targets, and justify each one with the crimes they've committed, until just paying an official a bribe is justification enough? It would be simple to leave hives thousands, maybe even tens of thousands strong, on all the different worlds in the galaxy, and they wouldn't even kill everything. I couldn't control a hive that large, only direct it. But they know the value of not over hunting, and bringing sentients into the hive. Tell me Chief Snierkkim, is that a path I should go down? Should I give in and spread out in a wave that would make the Sith Empire look like they weren't even trying?"
Mallie shouts at Aayla, "Why haven't you killed the Emperor yet?"
Aayla looks back serenely, "Because I don't know if I could, or even if I could survive the attempt whether I succeed or not. Because it would no longer change much, if anything. Finally, because I can teleport to places I, or a living member of my hive have been to."
Mallie shakes her head, "Why would it matter if you survive if you succeed?"
Aayla looks at Mallie sadly, "Because every hive needs a queen, and if the queen dies then the hive splinters and the different groups will choose one member to bear a single egg, that they will turn into a queen. Then, instead of one hive with a Jedi at the head, you'll have hundreds of hives with queens that may not gain sentience for hundreds, or thousands, of years." As Mallie goes to say something else, Aayla raises her hand, "Mallie, you won't be able to understand until you experience it. The only way to do that is to join a hive."
Chief Snierkkim looks up, "I will agree to convene a tribal council if you agree to send either a Jedi or Wookie representative to the council to present your evidence."
Aayla sighs, "We only have two Jedi in the hive, and both of us are Masters. Normally I'd be fine with either of us visiting Kashyyyk, as it the planet should mask our presence. However, for whatever reason, the Empire is very interested in your planet. I'm not sure where I'll find Jedi or wookie volunteers, considering that while anyone can join, there will only ever be females in the hive. That means that any males that join will become female over time."
Chief Snierkkim and Chraoarfa both stare at Aayla in horror, as wookie society is patriarchal in nature.
As they do, an older human woman walks out along the path leading to the community behind Aayla's house. Aayla gestures to her, "This is Handemel Thet from Naboo. Technically, she was an indentured servant, however the owner of her contract took her out of republic space and had her fitted with a slave chip. On paper, her service ended 10 years ago, and she's since been paid for her work. She has agreed to act as an official point of contact, and transporter to the world the prisoners are on if you wish to question them, as long as she's paid fairly for her work."
As she turns and walks back into her house, Ekria speaks over the hive, "Master, won't they just kill them anyway?"
Aayla sighs, "Maybe, if they had facilities for keeping slaves better than a locked room and sedatives, I'd say yes. On other worlds their piracy may have been the crime that got them killed. However, part of our duty as Jedi is to see criminals brought to justice, not administer justice ourselves. With one exception, a Jedi Killer."
Ekira is contemplative for a moment, before she asks, "This is to do with the extended code isn't it. About serving others rather than ruling."
"I don't know, as I've never read the extended version. I'm sorry to say that I don't even have a copy of the book either, as you are my first padawan, and it was never official. Once we've finished rediscovering how to make parchment, Master Ti and I are going to copy out her book for you, using the hides of the nerfs you traded for."
Ekira feels stunned for a moment, before sounding hopeful, "Really?"
Aayla sends Ekria a sense of comfort, "Yes really. Even if enough of the council still existed to make a decision, I would defy them to keep you as my padawan. I hope that you can grow to be a knight worthy of the name, and eventually a queen of your own hive when you find your own padawan. But to do that, you need the right tools. Part of which is going to be the book."
"Master, why weren't you allowed a padawan before?"
"The masters on the council felt that I was too impulsive and passionate. I've often thought they should reject some masters because they have no passion or empathy."
After a comparatively long time, Ekira responds, "I'm glad you're my master, and even that you brought me into your hive when you did."
Aayla sends back a sensation of comfort and happiness, "I'm still sorry that I did it without asking you though."
Ekira sends back her own sense of comfort, "If you hadn't, we would have probably left the force behind. Something I think Drake is already doing as he's getting a handle on haggling."
"That is his choice not ours."
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It takes less than a week for Rhrillullosh to become a member of the hive due to the need for precise communication with Ulli while she's trying to understand the pictures used on the disks.
A week after that, she sits bolt upright in her hammock as a dream of learning about star ship engines reaches the point where the instructor demonstrates the theory with a pair of rods rotating closed, and the way the point at which they join travels faster than individual motion of the rods.
At the sudden motion, the hammock turns to one side and dumps her out on the floor. Something she doesn't care about as she makes her way down to the cooking area and takes two knives and brings the spines together like she saw in her dream.
"It works, by the ancestors it works."
In a hurried panic, Rhrillullosh dives into the ancestral memories looking for the one that her dream came from. She's still standing there, holding the knives and staring into space, as her parents exit their own room to start preparing the food for the day.
It's at that point that Rhrillullosh has located the individual the memories belonged to, and is looking for that particular memory. As she stops to look at a memory in detail it's clear that it's after her dream, but she can't help herself as she watches the engineer explaining to E'Jeah that the drive latches onto the intersection point of two converging gravity waves in order to achieve faster than light speeds.
In her shock, Rhrillullosh drops the knives on the floor, and her mother asks, "Rhril, are you alright?"
Focusing back on the present, Rhrillullosh jabbers, "They used gravity to go faster than light. There's a species that didn't use hyperspace to traverse their galaxy."
Her father shakes his head, "I didn't think that was possible, something about the energy requirements."
Rhrillullosh levitates the two knives back into her hands, "Not like that, they worked out how to travel along the intersection of two gravitational waves. Look, see how this point always travels faster than I'm moving the knives past each other."
Her mother shakes her head, "Is this one of those hive things? Then it can wait, as you've already got the knives out you can prepare the meat to break fast while we prepare the spices and vegetables."
Rhrillullosh sighs, "Yes mother."
"You're almost an adult Rhrillullosh, that means you need to think about how you can contribute to the tribe."
"I'm going to build this drive mother. I'm going to prove it works."
Her mother nods, "While you're doing that, remember that unfinished things don't help us survive. It's ok to have an ongoing project, but you need to finish things in the meantime if we are to survive."
Rhrillullosh nods as she thinks about all the tools that E'Jeah knew how to make.
