A/N: Reminder to google the fic for more discussion etc on it.

Chapter 55

I had hoped to never wake up in one of these.

It was a foolish hope, given that I was fighting in a war.

My eyes lazily opened and all I saw was bubbly water? No, wrong viscosity and the feel of it against my eyes was also wrong. It was actually comfortable and didn't have the slightly stingy feel when H20 was introduced into direct contact with my eyeballs.

Oh yeah, full immersion bacta tank. Yay.

My thoughts were incredibly slug… gish.

I was half-awake, still half-sleeping and I really felt like just nodding off again. It was like someone had attached weights to my eyelids.

I listened to nature's insistence this once and nodded off into sleep.

It was just an eyeblink and I knew I had slept, but it really didn't feel like it.

I firmly opened my eyes this time to take stock; still in the bacta tank, but something was wrong. Something was missing.

What was missing slammed into me with the weight of a dreadnought.

I saw the tank, I could feel the bacta surrounding me, I could feel the boob tube around my chest, the breathing regulator clamped onto my mouth and the tech-diaper hooked up to my plumbing downstairs, I felt the concentration of the Force surrounding me, healing me and aiding the bacta in doing its job.

The world and universe around me was otherwise utterly silent.

I should be hearing the pumps and the machinery of the bacta tank doing its job.

I should be hearing the bubbles collapsing around me.

Yet there was nothing.

I could feel my body start to react to this realization, the iron bands of panic trying to wrap themselves around me.

No!

I passed it all through me, letting it out into the Force and instead focused on memory, on the path that the emotion had taken.

I… remembered defending Padme from the missile attack. The one that slipped through… HK firing, the missile must've detonated too close. I remember covering her with my body and in that moment too quickly for even a Jedi reaction with precognition, still unable to gather enough strength to put up TK shield, the overpressure hitting from the close explosion. My own Prescience, utterly exhausted, had just not found the probability line and in retrospect I had probably used the Force so much at a constant level over the whole day…

Stupid.

There right in the background, very small, like a church mouse, was the tiny bit of fear that had inspired me all day. The fear of losing Padme, fear of screwing up somehow, the fear of missing something.

Now I had lost my hearing.

I focused inward, looking towards my body through the Force.

It's what happened to most species with very sensitive hearing in proximity to blasts and because I had looked at case studies from Shili, my montrals had experienced a full collapse. It wasn't as bad as a full burst, but clearly the overpressure had done just enough to result in the second worst scenario.

Structurally, my montrals had already been healed by the bacta dip and I could see the precise work of a medical droid, but there was now swelling and I had been implanted with a neural shunt to literally shut down my hearing whilst the healing continued on a cellular level. If that shunt hadn't been there I would now be in absolute agony from both the pain and where even the slightest sound would be like I was standing next to a starship engine at full throttle in an atmosphere.

Either way, even if things healed fully, I was looking at a week or even two weeks of being deaf to allow my montral's equilibrium to come back. Force Healing would help cut down on that, but a togruta's hearing was biologically complex and I had long ago been advised by Master Shaak Ti to not speed things up too much if something like this was to happen. Push things too fast and I risked completely changing the delicate structures, as a result influencing what frequencies I perceived, skewing them unnaturally or even permanently deafening me to certain frequencies of sound.

I moved on from my head to the rest of my body and found the healing remnants of surface tissue and skin damage all along my back, butt and legs. I must've been one huge bruise when they dropped me in this tank. Yes, a few broken ribs too, one of which had nearly pierced through a lung, ouch. That had been reset and was nicely on its way to a full recovery. There were also a few clear shrapnel wounds, which had been removed and were now just fresh scars.

All in all, if I had to judge, I'd been in this tank for nearly three days.

I refused to panic further, as thoughts of what other bloody assassins could have joined the little convention we were holding for them arose, thanks to Ziro the hutt. They would have to go through the premiere assassin droid intelligence of the galaxy, who'd be very motivated, especially after his own master was incapacitated, an even more motivated RNSF and the entire security apparatus of Alderaan.

I sensed Padme was fine, though obviously she had also suffered from the overpressure, getting a severe case of bleeding eardrums, bruising from my tackle and hard contact with the floor of that balcony.

She was currently in a large building somewhere on the north side of Aldera, in a very luxurious apartment or guest room, a bit of Farsight… oh, it was the palace of the Prince of Alderaan. Next to her was HK, Typho and Master Sinube!

The old cosian Jedi got a small, knowing smile on his face.

Oh, of course he'd sense that my attention was on them.

"Well, it seems we have good news, senator," Sinube said, wearily getting up from a seat and using his cane. "Our padawan has awoken."

Padme whirled on him, "That's…" She paused, visibly calming herself. "That's very good news, Master Sinube."

She was looking as breathtaking as ever. You'd never know that she'd had a bacta dunk herself to fix her ears and bruising just days before. I pulled back and refocused on my immediate surroundings. The building I was in was definitely a hospital, but I was in an isolated and secure wing, judging by the amount of security personnel and how fortified it was. It was a place I imagined Bail Organa himself would get any medical attention he required. The hospital was also barely a stone's throw from the palace itself.

My bacta tank was also the only one in the room, and it was tended by two medical droids that buzzed around the room's various panels, controls and medical instruments. Currently, the tank was encased in a privacy shield, which unfortunately had the effect of letting me see nothing beyond it. Really, how difficult would it have been to make the inside of the physical shield a conformal screen that at least showed what was going on outside to the patient.

They probably didn't bother because usually patients were unconscious when in full bacta immersion and raised the shield when they woke up.

The droids hadn't been expecting me to wake up, given that they were used to dealing with non-Jedi. Just as I thought that, the shield rose up, letting me see the room with my own eyes.

'Finally detected my increased brainwave activity,' I thought with irritation. The med droids began truly buzzing about and started to inject further medication directly into the tank for me to absorb.

One of them was a silvery GH-7 medical analysis droid with huge green photoreceptors, that hovered about and from its third arm, held up a large screen datapad towards my tank.

'How are you feeling, padawan?'

How did the thing expect me to answer?

A pad lowered itself into view, just a few centimeters from my face with a full Aurebesh keyboard and screen on it.

Right.

I figured it would not be happy with just a 'Fine' answer, so I took the time to type out a full explanation of how I felt, including my own self-diagnosis through the Force.

'It would be best if your medical diagnosis were left to me, padawan.'

I could almost imagine the droid's snippy tone, especially as I could tell from its body language that it did not appreciate my 'amateur' diagnosis. I found it rather amazing that the GH-7's had emotive expressions encoded in its subroutines to that extent. Unlike the med droids at the Jedi Temple, these ones wouldn't have any notion or programming regarding the Force or how to specifically treat Jedi.

'Fine, then how long will I remain in this tank?'

'You're scheduled for at least another day, padawan.'

If I was actually talking to this blasted droid I'd have started an argument about it, but it wasn't worth typing it out.

'Does this thing connect to the Holonet at least?'

I gestured at the datapad in front of me.

'It can. However, I've disabled such a connection. Any patient must avoid undue stress and given what records I can access about you, Padawan Tano, you need to relax and not worry about the outside world at the moment.'

I was very sorely tempted to practice my Force Crush, but let the petty anger go.

'Fine.'

'If you need anything further, just type it in. I am constantly monitoring your pad.'

I'm sure he was. Just so I wouldn't slice or hack the thing to give me Holonet access. It lowered its third arm and hovered to the side of the room and all the terminals there to do more med droid things.

I closed my eyes, expanding my senses via Farsight… there had to be someone in this hospital watching something.

It turned out, when you were on the planet renowned for all its culture and artistry, that its population would generally be rather enthusiastic about it. Every holoscreen in every hospital room or ward, in front of every patient who had nothing to do but lie in bed, heal and pass the time was tuned to watching something artsy.

If it wasn't classic Alderani music, which had a greater preponderance of wind and string instruments with only few percussion, then it was shows about fine art or sculpture. There was even one show that I ended up getting rather mesmerized by, which was like the Alderani version of Bob Ross. Only this artist was a rather pleasant old lady named Eirshu Dran, who specialized in painting the many beautiful natural vistas of Alderaan and tried to get you to paint along.

The patient who was watching this, was a man in his middle ages who looked like he had been in a nasty accident that had broken both his legs, as both appendages had been encased in cylindrical blue containers that constantly circulated bacta. The guy even had another holoscreen open and was using a painting program to follow along with Dran's instructions.

His effort was commendable, but it clearly wasn't his day job and I wouldn't want it to adorn any wall I looked at.

I was still watching the painter five episodes later when I picked up on Padme entering the hospital.

A few minutes later the GH-7 droid was back to announce that I had visitors and if I wished to see them.

I firmly tapped in YES on my pad, whilst glaring at the droid. It was naturally unaffected by my hostility and simply hovered over to the door to let them in.

Padme was the first to enter, followed by HK, Typho and a hobbling Sinube. She stopped at the other side of the transparent tank and looked at me with deep concern. I even felt her trying to poke at the bond. I only smiled at her in return, sending her my feelings of heartfelt thanks.

The GH-7 hovered over to give the pad that would let them communicate with me. Padme took it with thanks, but Master Sinube held up a hand to pause her, he said something which I couldn't really make out since I wasn't adept at reading cosian lips. It wasn't difficult to deduce though.

Then I felt the master reach out to me through the Force.

I met his mental handshake, sending out one of my own, which he readily accepted.

"Master Sinube, thank you for coming." I thought towards him.

"Padawan Tano, it's good to see you on the mend. You gave many quite a scare there."

I could well imagine. A montral collapse was not pleasant to look at and I probably bled all over Padme. Sinube's mental voice was slightly richer and even sounded younger than his physical voice. He truly didn't let his advanced age affect his mentality.

"Thank you, master. Please tell everyone that I'm sorry about that."

The old master nodded and dutifully relayed that.

Padme scoffed and pointed a scolding finger at me. I could read her lips well enough to deduce she said something like, 'Don't you dare do something like that again.'

I merely smiled in response and shrugged. "Tell her I'd do it again in a second."

Sinube chuckled and did so.

She didn't appreciate that and glared at me, folding her arms pointedly.

HK said something at this point.

"Your combat droid says, quote 'Agreement: Master, I concur with the senator. Statement: Finding a new master will be most vexing, master. Complaint: Oh the annoying fragility of meatbags.' End quote."

"Tell HK that I intend to be his longest living master. It will take more than a pithy little explosion like that to kill me."

Sinube again laughed as he relayed the message.

"The droid says, 'Statement: Statistically, stating such facts has never resulted in a good outcome, master.'"

I rolled my eyes and waved at the droid in irritation.

"Master, what's been happening these last three days?"

The old cosian hobbled closer with his cane and looked up at me. "There's been some developments. Two further assassins have been stopped trying to kill Senator Amidala. One was a clawdite changeling, intercepted at the Aldera spaceport, the other a human bounty hunter from Tatooine, trying his luck with a sniper, only to be counter-sniped by your combat droid."

I sighed in relief, even as I felt a rising frustration.

"This has to stop, master."

"Yes, it does. Which is why your own master will be arriving by the end of today. His campaign on Balith has been completed and the few remnants of the CIS sympathizers can be dealt with by the local government."

"That's good news, but-"

"Patience, young one. Once you are out of that tank and you're given a clean bill of health, you both will be heading off to find and confront Ziro. I'm sure that you both will find a way to convince Ziro to stop sending more assassins."

Padme asked something at this point, probably what we were talking about and Sinube quickly replied.

"That will not be easy, master. How will we even find-"

"Ziro is currently doing what most hutts of his wealth do; eating, drinking and entertaining on Nar Shaddaa."

"Of course he is," I thought with a slump of my shoulders. Asking how Sinube actually had confirmation of that was pointless. The old cosian probably had his own network of informants spread across the galaxy's underworld.

So we had a location, but actually getting to Ziro was an entirely different kettle of fish. He was a former Hutt Cartel council member and not only would Ziro have his own personal protection detail, he'd also have the cartel keeping an eye on him. Whether they would interfere was a bit of a gamble. Ziro had dirt on the cartel, dirt that they wanted to keep hidden, which was the reason they sponsored and aided his escape from Republic prison.

Getting to Nar Shaddaa without alerting Ziro that we were on the way was another little puzzle to solve. I would bet quite a lot that the slug had numerous agents monitoring all the hyperspace approaches to the Nal Hutta system. Approaching openly in any Republic aligned ship and we might as well be waving a huge flag and blowing into trumpets.

"Don't worry your mind for now about the specifics, padawan," Sinube thought. "Trust that your master and I will be working hard at it and all you have to do is heal and meditate."

"Understood master."

"Now, I sense that the senator is rather anxious to 'speak' to you in private, let's not keep her waiting."

"Yes, thank you, master."

Sinube broke our connection, turned around and shooed Typho and HK out of the room.

The moment the door closed Padme dropped her somewhat stoic mask. I had already sensed it, but now she wore her weariness openly and even had to wipe away a tear. She stepped even closer to the tank so that I could see her face clearly through the general murkiness.

I felt her trying to push across the bond, so I bit the bullet and opened it.

"Yes, Padme?"

"I've had to bury two protectors who gave their lives for me. Please don't make yourself the third."

"I'm a Jedi," I pointed out.

"Which means you have a duty to the Order, the Republic, not to sacrifice yourself just for me. I'm just one person, a senator for a Mid-Rim backwater sector."

Oh, she was much more than that, but I couldn't tell her about the importance she had for the future. She was more than just the mother of Luke and Leia. She was the wife of Anakin and through that she could potentially shape the course of galactic history.

"The smallest pebble can begin the greatest avalanche, Padme."

"There you go again, the wise, cryptic visionary," she complained in annoyance.

"I'm fully within my rights to act this way, you know?"

"Yes I do, Miss Centenarian. I still have a ton of questions about that."

"You can ask, but I suggest you begin typing into the datapad, so we can hold some inane conversation. Us two just staring at each other will begin to look suspicious at some point."

"Ah, good point."

She began typing, a question again asking if I was sure I was feeling well.

"So, were you married?"

"Yes, I was. Rather happily for a time."

"Children?"

"One, a boy, economic problems at the time meant that having any more was just unaffordable."

She nodded in understanding as we continued the typed convo.

"Have you figured out when you were alive relative to now?"

"You mean a date?"

"Yes."

"Unfortunately not. I have tried, but to quote someone much wiser than me, time is more than just a linear progression of cause to effect. It's more like an infinite branching fractal at the scale we are talking about. Even my Prescience is like an old woman with an ancient set of glasses squinting at what is in front of her nose."

"So I shouldn't even try to understand, when even you can't?"

"For your own peace of mind, Padme, I won't even try to put words to this."

"Fine. Your son, what was his name?"

"Why do you want to know? It's utterly pointless and will mean nothing to you."

"Doesn't it mean something to you?"

"At this point, no. I have died, Padme. He and my family from that life are all gone, their bodies dust, their spirits moved on, as I have moved on to this life. All that matters now is this existence."

She kept up her questions about that life, until she managed to surmise that I had been human.

"Really?"

"Yes, flesh matters not to the spirit. It is but the vessel we use in this plane of existence to experience and influence it."

"Was it difficult to adapt?"

"No, no more than what any togruta infant and child goes through."

I was about to type further in our pretend conversation, which had moved on to speaking about the finer points of dejarik, when the pad shut itself down.

The GH-7 approached and began speaking. I managed to glean from Padme's mind that visiting time was officially over.

The pad switched on again. 'Visiting hours are over," she typed.

"Thank you for the visit, Padme."

"Now you relax, meditate and don't worry about me, I'm in good hands."

"I will."

The pad shut down again, she waved at me with another breathtaking smile and walked out of the room. I made sure to look up into my own tank and not give in to the temptation to look at her butt as her dress swished about.

I tapped the pad to get GH-7s attention.

"Yes, padawan?"

"Can you lower the temperature a bit in here?"

"Padawan, you should know that bacta must always be matched to the body temperature of the person inside it."

"Just checking."

Despite my determination to be awake for Anakin's arrival, a bacta tank was just too comfortable and watching Alderani broadcast entertainment was not conducive to keeping awake. The closest thing it got to being exciting or dramatic was a nature documentary on the life cycle of the thranta. Not a single person in the entire hospital had watched an action, drama or anything that got the blood pumping or an edge of your seat thriller. I recognized that it was generally bad for patients to get 'stressed' in any way, but seriously, even the pediatric section of the hospital had kids watching artsy shows.

The end result; I was fully asleep when the evening visitation hours arrived.

When I awoke grumpily at one in the morning and got my bearings, I instantly knew he was on the planet.

I mentally slammed shut both his bond and Padme's.

"And of course they're knocking boots," I grumbled in annoyance to myself.

The pad within my tank was flashing for my attention. I tapped it and got a message from GH-7 that I was clear to take in solid nutrition again and should do so when I awoke. The big button named 'Dispense' was the obvious candidate, so I pressed it.

A small opening above me irised open and a bottle with a specialized straw dropped. I felt my breathing mask for the port that would let me insert it and annoyingly found it on the left side. Every bacta tank at the Temple had that on the right hand side.

I finally managed after a bit of fumbling and could feel the straw with my tongue and squeezed the bottle.

The concoction that hit my taste buds was genuinely awful. Would it kill them to add a little bit of flavoring to a liquidized protein? I bore the taste though because my stomach was really appreciating actually doing something and not having its function circumvented artificially by the tank.

When every last bit was squeezed from the bottle, I had another fumbling session to remove the straw without getting any bacta leakage through my mask. Fortunately, I managed that successfully and shoved the empty bottle upward towards the hole, a mechanical claw arm that belonged to a FX series medical droid grabbed it and the gap closed.

The satisfaction of a relatively full stomach hit me and there must've been yet more medication in the food because not even half an hour later I was pulled down into the land of sleep again.

When my eyes next blinked open it was to regard a very stern looking Anakin Skywalker outside my tank and he was impatiently walking back and forth. He was oddly in his newly upgraded Aegis armor, minus the helmet, but in retrospect it was probably a good idea given all the assassination shenanigans.

I pinged him across the bond and opened it.

He stopped his pacing and gave me an exasperated look.

"Snips," he thought to me.

"Skyguy." Briefly, I sensed two large parts of him in conflict; one side wanted to scold me, the other wanted to profusely thank me for saving his wife. However, both clearly came from the same place and emotion. "No problem, Skyguy. I would do it again in a heartbeat."

"I'm going to get you both back for that prank, somehow," he promised, pointing an accusing finger at me with a mock angry look on his face.

"Oooh, I'm shaking in my bacta tank, Skyguy," I thought back sarcastically, smirking.

"Just you wait," he gave me an evil grin, which was actually quite convincing. If I hadn't been able to sense his true emotions, I'd be quite worried.

"So what's the plan?"

"For now, getting you out of that tank. The med droids gave the all clear for that to happen as soon as you woke up."

"It's about kriffing time. I was getting a bit stir crazy in here, Skyguy. That GH-7's bedside manner needs an adjustment in my opinion."

I felt my tank shudder and could see above me the entire upper cover opening and a 2-1B med droid modified with grasping five fingered hands ready to help me up and out. I tested and flexed every muscle in my body briefly before kicking off from the bottom of the tank and pushing myself through the bacta, including the use of an awkward swimming stroke with my arms.

My head breached the upper surface and tank, into the upper level of the room. Up here it had a lot of servicing equipment and huge tanks for the circulation of bacta.

The droid offered me a hand, but I waved it off and pulled myself out. It was a struggle though. My body had gotten used to being in full immersion, and gravity felt as if it had doubled, though that was just a physical illusion that would go away as my muscles got used to it again.

The 2-1B disconnected the tubing from my tech-diaper and pointed at my mask.

I felt for the clips, unlatched them, before pulling the whole thing from my face and the breathing regulator out of my mouth.

"Argh," I winced as my mouth, especially my tongue, felt pain at the sudden absence of the foreign thing the soft tissues had grown used to. I was also acutely aware of my deafness at that moment, as I knew I had used my vocal chords, but my montrals received no feedback. That disconnect was going to push my speaking all over the place.

The droid let me take a minute to recover and get used to sitting before approaching again and offering its hands for me to stand.

I took it up on its offer and shakily got onto my feet.

The world started to swivel a bit as my balance and the internal senses that reported to my brain, got used to it again. I kept a firm hold on the droid, bringing my right hand to its shoulder for further support.

Another thing that they never showed in my previous life, detanking and the consequences of a full immersion bacta bath. Already the residual bacta clinging to me was drying out and starting to make me look like I had the worst case of dried out skin and it was starting to itch something fierce.

The droid walked with me in a circle until I was confident enough to retain my own balance, then I walked on my own for a few minutes until I was satisfied I wouldn't keel over randomly.

Next was the awkward and unpleasant experience of removing the diaper. It unlatched at my hips and instead of gingerly fiddling, I just pulled it down quickly and got it over with. Then handed it off to the droid. I stretched and pulled off the boob tube next and just dumped it on the floor, before making a beeline for the obviously marked shower.

I indulged myself in a nice hot flow and got busy scrubbing the dried bacta off every inch of my skin.

When I emerged the 2-1B was hovering forward a small cart that had a full set of my typical Jedi outfit on it.

"Thank you," I said automatically and again winced at what my words must sound like. I could literally feel myself bungling the pronunciation and putting out too much air through my vocal chords to actually say the words.

Fully dressed I walked down the small flight of stairs and emerged into the lower room.

I reached out with TK and summoned my lightsabers to me as Anakin held them out.

With them clipped to my belt, I felt the beginnings of normalcy return.

"Ready?" he thought.

I nodded and we exited the tank room and into a hallway of the secure wing of the hospital. There were only ASF guards, med droids and the occasional doctor doing the rounds as we walked.

"We're leaving for Nar Shaddaa just after lunch."

"What ship are we using?"

"The Xanadu."

"Master, please tell me-"

"Relax Snips, the Temple engineers have done their usual amazing job. It doesn't look at all like an 'ugly' anymore."

"Really? Wow, I can't really imagine how one would go about that."

"That's why you're a Jedi and not a starship engineer, Snips."

"Okay, so we'll get to Nar Shaddaa undetected. What about the rest of the plan?"

We emerged from the secure wing into public areas of the hospital and now started to see more people and families moving about, visiting their loved ones.

"Master Sinube's contacts are still working on tracking down a precise location for Ziro, we'll get something to work with by the time we arrive. So at the moment we have a plan… to get a plan."

The Xanadu Blood was parked on a private landing pad of the expansive palace of Prince Organa.

Walking through the grounds of the palace was an experience in itself. It was a royal garden that had a few thousand years of tending and careful planting of exquisite specimens of every beautiful flora the planet had to offer. Trumpet shaped, violet aralutte flowers were tended to in artfully arranged beddings, mixed with beds of yellow gingerbell flowers that made your eyes just want to stare at them forever.

The walking paths were lined with red hydenock trees that naturally curved overhead and provided shade to those who walked under them. Even the shape of the shade on the ground formed very interesting artistic patterns to look at. It wouldn't surprise me if they were designed to form different shapes depending on the time of day.

The largest plants on the palace grounds were kriin. A thick trunked, dark colored tree that reminded me of oaks, but these were manicured to the level of bonsai trees by gardeners who floated around them on small platforms. They formed all manner of shapes from them and for others let them branch naturally.

When the Xanadu finally came into view, I was quite amazed.

Anakin was dead right, the Temple engineers had produced a beauty.

Far from looking like a fighter that had a spherical 4 man passenger hull jammed on its nose, now it was pushed back and centered perfectly between the main engine nacelles, with the connecting struts smoothly molding to the passenger section as if a sculptor had worked on it. The nacelles themselves were also enlarged to accommodate more powerful engines. It still had its intimidating green paint job with triangular shapes of red and yellow. It had also lost its two laser cannons completely. The only weapons I could see off hand was an integrated concussion missile launcher that sat to the right of the passenger section.

"Skyguy, that is one very pretty and intimidating ship. Has the power to weight issue been solved?"

"Of course, she has her old speed back, 1200 kph in atmosphere. She'll do roughly 2600G in space. It's got a missile launcher starboard and a rapid fire, articulating, rotary blaster cannon that pops out from a panel on the port side."

I gasped and smiled pleadingly at him, "Please tell me it can double as an anti-missile system?"

"The engineers at the Temple did take my notes when working on her, Snips, so yes."

I pumped a clenched fist in victory. "Hyperspace range?"

"That's where she suffered a bit, due to all the extra weight. It's roughly thirty to thirty-five percent less efficient. There is an external drop tank that's being filled up as we speak by the palace ground crews. It works out to five days of range. We'll have to refuel at either Kashyyyk or Randon Run."

"Does it also have thief countermeasures?"

"Of course," Anakin grinned. "Anyone messing with the Xanadu on Nar Shaddaa will quickly regret it. It's the same droid intelligence controlled system as the Twilight. Now that you've finished slobbering over the ship, Prince Organa wants to have a light early lunch with us before we leave."

"I did not slobber!" I thought in annoyance.

He just gave me a mild sarcastic smile, "Whatever you say, Snips."

That was how I found myself sitting at a truly humongous kriin-wood table that was so polished I could almost see my own reflection staring back at me. The equally massive room to house this table was clearly used for state dinners where the usual guest list would be in the hundreds. The walls were surprisingly spartan though, with only lightstrips and perfectly spaced, traditionally painted portraits of the Organa monarchs throughout the ages.

Prince Bail was seated with his wife at the head of the table, whilst Padme sat to the right of the prince. I got to sit next to the queen, opposite Padme, whilst Anakin sat right next to me. HK and Typho stood against the wall nearby, being ever vigilant despite the fact that the room was currently the most secure place on the planet at the moment.

Naturally, I heard nothing of the conversation being had between everyone, so I was trying out my lip reading skills and I had a datapad with a speech to text program on the table next to me. Padme had done her research and acquired nearly every readily available aid to help those with deafness.

Lip reading was a very imprecise thing, especially when the language being used started to become complex. At the moment, the best I could do on that front was just recognize when my name was spoken and a smattering of words here and there. My pad also helped here, where it would visibly alert me when my name was spoken.

I could technically also use Anakin to be my voice, but I didn't want to burden him with that. So I stuck with the datapad to show I was appreciative of Padme's efforts. When I had to speak, the pad also had a text to speech function, letting me type out what I wanted to say.

Prince Bail raised a hand to get my attention and spoke.

'Padawan, it's good to see you recovered so well.'

My right hand tapped out the answer rapidly. 'The credit must go to your excellent medical facilities on Alderaan.'

'We do our best.' The prince shrugged humbly. A duo of chefs entered the room, each carrying two huge trays with dishes on them. As the dishes were presented and put in front of us, I realized we were going to eat in a fashion that my previous life would call 'Eastern'. An array of dishes which we pick and choose from to put on our plates, in whatever proportions we liked. The only thing missing was steamed rice, chopsticks and green tea.

Bail was the first to put food on his plate, then he put a selection on Breha's plate. At that point, the rest of us were free to help ourselves.

I chose a bit of everything meaty on offer.

It didn't surprise me that gastronomy was also considered an artform on this planet. Each bite of meat melted in my mouth; juicy, oily flavors emerged and each meat had different textures that never failed to leave me wanting for more. If this is what Bail ate daily in the palace, it was a wonder that he wasn't overweight.

Drinks came next and I simply ordered some water from the chef, who I sensed found it almost insulting that I was asking for something so simple.

'Knight Skywalker, I wish you success on your mission to Nar Shaddaa,' Baid said, raising a glass of something alcoholic and spicy.

'Thank you, Prince.'

'I hope that you can find a way to reason with Ziro, though pragmatism tells me that is somewhat of a forlorn hope.'

Anakin put down his knife and fork, 'That is true. In my own experience, a hutt just does not forgive any slight. He'll rescind the bounties on Senator Amidala over his own dead body. Even then, it's possible he's left behind time-delayed contracts to a neutral party that will pay out, such as with one of the Banking Clans.'

'So the only way to truly end this, is to somehow get Ziro to rescind the contracts himself,' Bail nodded.

'That is what we are planning, but how to accomplish this is something that has eluded us so far.'

That conundrum had been percolating in my brain for most of the day.

You couldn't Force Trick or Persuade a hutt. You'd need a hutt Jedi to even try and I could vaguely recall reading that the last Jedi to come from the species was over six hundred years ago. They could theoretically be alive but it was on my to-do list to research deeper into it during the voyage.

So you had to somehow conventionally persuade them.

Somehow get through that instinctual petty spite that would inspire them to resort to murder for the slightest affront.

What did a hutt value the most?

Their own life was the easy answer.

So did we just walk up to Ziro, brandish our lightsabers and say 'Rescind the assassination contracts or die!'

That was ridiculous. We'd have to slice our way through Ziro's entire security retinue at that point. An entire moon of hutt security thugs and scum would descend down on us. Whilst the Hutt Council would be privately celebrating, they couldn't let us casually murdering such a well known and wealthy hutt go unanswered.

I stared morosely into the water of my glass, when a notion hit me.

Could that work?

I pulled out my other datapad, linked up to the Holonet and began typing out a message. Then sent it off before quickly putting it away again.

My translator pad was blinking and everyone was looking at me.

I reviewed the recorded conversation… yeah, that was embarrassing. I had zoned out in thought and had not responded to even my pad flashing. Anakin had said, 'She does this sometimes.'

I bowed in apology, then typed.

'Sorry, Prince Organa, just researching something that occurred to me.'

He nodded graciously, accepting the apology, 'I was going to say that the House of Organa and the people of Alderaan would expect me to at the very least reward you in some fashion. Your efforts have brought to light a conspiracy that would've destroyed countless families and plunged the planet into chaos not seen since the ancient Sith occupied our world. I hear from Padme that Naboo has awarded you land and title for preventing the Blue Shadow virus outbreak.'

Oh no. As much as I wanted to interrupt and stop him, you did not do that to a monarch in his own palace. You smiled, nodded in agreement, accepted whatever he offered and dealt with the consequences afterward.

He smiled at me, his dark eyes twinkling with mischief. 'She also explained that you have quite enough of that on your plate, especially as you are a Mandalorian land holder as well as a clan head. You really have to explain one day to me how that happened, ideally over some steamed Alderaani spice wine.'

I typed, "Certainly, your serene highness."

'So if land or title is off the table and I know Jedi don't care about money, then I can do only one thing. Ahsoka Tano, from this point, you are a friend of House Organa and Alderaan, one who will always be welcome on this world. Should you wish to claim citizenship of this world, that is open to you as well. The door to my house will always be open to you.'

There was really only one thing to say to that. He had literally given me the local equivalent of a 'key to the city' award.

'Thank you, highness. One day, I will definitely take you up on that. You might come to regret it, I always seem to bring interesting times to the people of the planets I visit.'

'Let's hope that those interesting times will be good then, rather than bad.'

Of everything I'd seen of Alderaan, it only reaffirmed my resolve. That a place so beautiful and with so much culture and heritage could be so cruelly snuffed out in the future…

It didn't matter that it was a future Princess Leia's homeworld and Tarkin ordered the Death Star to fire just to get her to betray the location of the Rebellion's primary cell. Alderaan was a symbol. It was an ancient founding member of the Republic. Its destruction was envisaged as a warning to the rest of the galaxy, a final closing of the book on the Republic. If the Empire dawned, Alderaan would fall. Somehow, Palpatine would find a way to use his new planet buster on it anyway.

If I didn't somehow stop Palpatine's New Order from dawning, then this planet was dead.

The Xanadu Blood climbed through the atmosphere and was soon in the cold embrace of space.

Anakin was naturally at the controls and engaged full thrust to accelerate us into a shortest time course to leave Alderaan's mass shadow and arrive at the Tyed Kant hyperspace point. Our first stop along the Commenor Run hyperspace lane.

Traffic was substantial enough that we were forced into a queue, as the Commenor was the most efficient route for those who wanted to travel from Coruscant towards the Trellen Trade Route. So even though it would only take less than three minutes to travel to the hyper point, we had at least a twenty minute wait before we could engage our hyperdrive.

I could sense that Anakin had a distinct bee in his bonnet and that he was very reluctant to talk about it.

'Skyguy, this is going to be a very long eight days in tight quarters, say it.'

'So… you love, Padme.'

'Yes.'

He studied me for a moment before turning his gaze back to the void of space. 'Well, I suppose I can understand. It happened to me after all,' his thoughts were rueful. "And to me…"

'You are my master, Anakin. I am your padawan. As long as these beads are dangling from my head, we will be that, we will be close friends, brother and sister in arms. We have and will shed blood together. We will trust each other. My love for you is of a different kind than romantic or of the flesh. However, love is like anything in the universe, it can change.'

'Do you foresee that?'

'Master, I foresee many probabilities, some more likely than others.'

'Do you see us becoming more?'

Oh, why didn't he just say it plainly, as if this wasn't already difficult enough. 'Yes, though the chances aren't good.'

He nodded and smirked at me, 'Now that, even I can foresee.' I slapped him on the shoulder. 'Ow, what? You need a bit more growing up, Snips, before it'd even be on the table. Just telling the truth.'

I rolled my eyes and gave him an unimpressed look, 'You males.'

'Yet you females still love us.' He laughed outright.

'Force knows why,' I groused in mock anger, folding my arms with a huff of annoyance.

'So you're dya?'

'I'm attracted to those who are attractive, Skyguy. Flesh matters not. I prefer males but Padme…' I gave him a pointed look.

'Yes,' he said with complete understanding. 'By the way, in the future, I'd prefer that you at least inform me across the bond when something like this is happening to Padme.'

I gave him a narrowed eye stare, 'You're telling me you'd be able to keep your focus in the moment, your decision-making rational, knowing Padme is in mortal peril, whilst you're thousands of light years away?'

'I'd like to think you would trust me to be able to, Snips. I've been down this road before with Padme.'

'Understood, Master. If such a situation arises again, I will be completely honest and forthright about it.'

'And I feel I should say… Thank you for finding a way to realize the bond. It means a lot to Padme. I didn't truly know her anguish and loneliness, knowing that I was fighting, risking my life every day, but not knowing if she would one day get the message that I'd done some foolish stunt and died…'

'But now you do.'

'And she's just a thought away now,' he smiled softly.

Yeah, having your wife on a mystical Force speed dial would be awesome. He wouldn't have to worry anymore about vaguely worded encrypted letters.

'Speaking of, there are a number of techniques, benefits and dangers about bonds that I have to teach you, Skyguy.'

'We'll have plenty of time for that on the trip ahead, it's our turn to jump.'

He grabbed the hyperdrive motivator throttle and pushed it forward.

The Xanadu accelerated hard, stretched itself briefly and plunged into the infinite misty blue tunnel of hyperspace.

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