Lord Aries: best part of my Sunday also. Especially when I'm having such a rubbish Sunday myself (working nights - exhausted!). Thanks for keeping up my spirits.

Hopefully no typos in this chapter.

Chapter 23: A Civilised Hutt

For all of Cody's pessimism, Windu had been right about Grakkus: his obsession with the Jedi far outweighed his capacity for reason. Their jostling welcome to the palace, punctuated with shock-staff jabs and a rapid stream of snarled Huttese that drowned out Cody's attempts to espouse the special abilities of his slave, became rapidly more courteous after Korkie took the liberty of demonstrating his Force sensitivity by breaking several palace windows with an irritable jerk of his head. Grakkus's enormous eyes bulged and his jagged mouth curved into something resembling a smile as the hubbub in the dim drawing room peaked and then quietened. With a wave of his hand, Grakkus dismissed a whispering cluster of spectators from the court, keeping with him only his guards, a Pa'lowick translator, and a Palliduvan child who did not dare to look up from her unfortunate task of moisturising the Hutt's cracked, leathery skin.

"The great Grakkus Jahibakti Tingi welcomes you to his palace," the Pa'lowick intoned.

Cody gave a deep bow.

"Great Grakkus. I present to you a young Force-sensitive I captured on Fest. I have no use for him."

He gestured at the broken glass littering the floor.

"You can see he is unruly if not well-handled. But he is talented. And I have heard you have some expertise in his kind."

Grakkus nodded thoughtfully as the Pa'lowick translated. His necklace jangled as he did so. Cody realised after a moment, with a lurch of nausea, that the pendants hanging from his necklace were lightsaber handles. With a clinking of his cybernetic legs, the great slug descended from his dais and came to inspect Korkie where he knelt, Cody's blaster trained casually against the back of his neck.

Stars, Cody hated this plan. He hated everything about it.

"Is he trained by the Jedi?"

"He tells me nothing. But I presume he is trained. He has impressive control of his abilities."

Grakkus lifted Korkie's chin, examining him closely. Korkie flinched as a drop of saliva spattered his cheek.

"And why do you bring him to us, soldier, and not to your Empire?"

Cody grimaced at the inevitable recognition of his famous face. He wished Korkie could do the talking. That boy lied like a professional. Lied like his father. Cody had always let Obi Wan do the talking, in all those battles they had fought side by side.

"I'm a Faulty," Cody explained. "But not the bleeding-hearted kind. I'm tired of war and politics. I'm ageing fast and I know that the Empire wouldn't pay me anything for him."

Grakkus inclined his head, amused.

"You are hoping for a good price? To sponsor a comfortable retirement?"

"For a fair price."

Grakkus chuckled and gave another rumble in Huttese.

"He is certainly a fine-looking specimen. But come, we will test him. See whether he is worth the risk to me."

The child and her bucket of perfumed ointment were shaken discourteously from the Hutt's enormous back as he turned and scuttled across the tiles with an uncanny speed granted by his cybernetic legs. Cody yanked Korkie to his feet by his collar and they followed.

As far into the palace as possible, Mace had said.

Stars, Cody hated this plan.

"The risk to you, great Grakkus?" Cody ventured instead.

The Hutt barked out a laugh and presumably scolded him for his naivety; the Pa'lowick gave an abbreviated translation.

"The Empire has given him great trouble for acquisitions in the past."

Cody clenched his jaw against his surprise.

"I'm sorry to hear it."

They entered an enormous cavern, its walls decked with lightsaber handles, gleaming kyber crystals, a pressed and mounted set of tunic and tabards – how horribly like Obi Wan's they looked – and faintly glowing holocrons.

"A fine collection, great Grakkus."

The Hutt nodded his acknowledgement of the praise as he perused his collection, looking closely for a particular item, muttering still.

"The great Grakkus says it is a terrible shame, the trouble the Empire gave him. He had in his possession a girl who would have bred well with your offering. But the Inquisitors took away all of his gifted slaves in the last lunar cycle."

"A terrible shame indeed."

Stars. Cody swallowed against his rising disappointment. Korkie was glaring stonily at the ground. The children they had come to liberate were gone. The mission would be a waste.

"He had a fine collection. Three real Jedi Padawans. Grakkus valued them very highly. When the Empire took them he even sent bounty hunters to see if they might be retrieved. But they were taken to a fortress that none of his…"

The Pa'lowick searched for an acceptable translation for the profanity.

"…none of his pathetic bounty hunters would brave."

Korkie's head had snapped up, to attention. Cody counted three steady breaths, pretended to examine a youngling's blinding-helmet with interest.

"A fortress?" he repeated lightly.

Grakkus gave a vigorous nod and grumbled onwards.

"Yes. On Arkanis. An enormous monstrosity of a fortress only an hour's speeder ride from the Officer's Academy. The cowards insisted it was not safe to attempt a raid."

Grakkus turned back towards Cody, holding a holocron in his short-fingered hands.

"So the truth of the matter is, although you have offered an impressive slave, he will be of little value to the great Grakkus if he is unable to display him. What good is a young Jedi if he cannot be exhibited in Grakkus Arena in combat against Kongo the Disemboweler? But perhaps if your offering can help to unlock these holocrons, Grakkus may be interested in the purchase."

The holocron was held out to Korkie, whose hands Cody had apologetically bound prior to their entrance. Korkie's fingernails dug into his own palms.

"No. I cannot."

Grakkus eyed the boy with suspicion. The Pa'lowick translated with neutral expression, but Cody did not miss the menacing tone of the Huttese.

"Cannot? Or will not?"

Cody quietly suspected the latter. He prodded at Korkie with his blaster.

"Don't you fail me, boy."

Korkie glared at him.

"I cannot," he repeated, voice firm. "I am no Jedi."

There was a solemnity to Korkie's fierce gaze that Cody did not entirely understand. He turned then to face Grakkus and spoke to the beast directly in Huttese. The Hutt chuckled at the presumed insult.

"Your boy requires discipline. Will you, or shall we?"

Cody hated this plan and this was why he had hated it most of all. For what was he supposed to do? He could not raise a hand against Korkie and he could not allow Grakkus to do so in his stead. He tightened his grip on the boy's shirt but did not have the heart to hurt him.

"Show Grakkus what you can do," he warned, giving Korkie a jolt, "or I will sell you to a less civilised owner."

Grakkus seemed pleased with the threat.

"The great Grakkus says you would be wise to listen. He says that he is a civilised Hutt, attempting to live a civilised life in an uncivilised place."

Korkie snapped something back, again in Huttese. Grakkus laughed even harder.

"Your boy asks why a civilised Hutt should have an arena for blood-sports. We are glad he has mentioned the arena. We will go pay a visit to Kongo the Disemboweler and see whether the boy recalls how to open a holocron."

Cody's stomach dropped. Fist still clenching Korkie's shirt, he jerked the teenager back towards him.

"Hold on. I'm not having him put in an arena with a monster before you've even paid me anything."

"If he cannot open a holocron, he will have proved he is worth nothing."

A Palliduvan guard prodded Cody in the back with her shock-staff.

"Oi! Jedi trained or not, he's worth something. I'm not having you feed him to-"

Korkie stomped on Cody's toe and cast him a quick glance.

Don't worry, his lips mouthed.

Kriff's sakes. Why had he ever complained that Obi Wan was going to be the death of him? Korkie was a hundred times worse.

But gifted, Cody reminded himself. The kid knew what he was doing, most of the time. He steadied himself and walked ahead of the looming shock-staff.

"Fine," he grumbled. "But if the beast eats him, I expect some sort of compensation."

In, and out. Letting go of the noise. Not blocking. Letting go. And trying – although there was no try – to remain open, somehow.

I'm here, Mace. Come now. We need you now.

Mace was out there, Korkie knew. He sensed him in amongst the mess of Hutta Town. Was he communicating back? Was he in any trouble? Korkie couldn't make it out.

The roar of a roggwart brought Korkie firmly back into his body. The Palliduvan guard was prodding at it with her shock-staff, waking it from sleep. It unfurled itself from where it had nestled upon the floor of its cage and reared to its towering height, claws striking against the metal bars and fangs glinting in the muted starlight.

The children aren't here, Mace. We need you now.

The roggwart was striking it tail repeatedly against the cage in a futile bid to repel them.

"Will we try the holocron again, boy? Let Kongo get back to sleep?"

Korkie hesitated, then reached out his hands.

"Good boy."

The cube was faintly warm in his palms. Grakkus had already demonstrated his distaste for the Empire but Korkie could not bring himself to open this repository of precious wisdom before him. It might have been something benign: a meditation guide, a sparring lesson, the reading of an ancient parable. But Korkie had a strange feeling that the information he held in his bound hands was something much greater.

"I- it will take some time, I can't just-"

"Work!" Grakkus instructed, clouting him unhelpfully over the head.

Korkie closed his eyes and focused not on the holocron but on his teachings again. In, and out. Letting go. Not blocking.

Mace, come now.

Not blocking. Letting go. Letting go of the stomp of the roggwart and the heavy breaths of an eager Grakkus and Cody's sparking anxiety. Letting go and opening himself to the Force.

And then, finally. A voice amidst the muted clamour.

Nearly there, Korkie. Hold tight.

Korkie had been wise to lead them to the arena, which loaned itself well to an aerial entrance. Mace leapt from the battlements, gathering the darkness of the falling night around himself, and landed with Force-cushioned footfall. He could make out the shadowy figures at the periphery of the arena, where an enraged roggwart battled against its cage.

Run now, Korkie.

The boy had learned to listen. Mace saw the movement – Korkie running, hands still bound, clutching a faintly glowing object – and watched Cody land a blaster bolt on the sword-hand of the lone Palliduvan guard and turn to follow him. A Pa'lowick shrieked for back-up. But the great Grakkus did not dither. He roared his displeasure and began his pursuit on clinking cybernetic legs. Mace ran to meet them.

"Get to the south wall," he instructed, as he nearly collided with his companions. "You can climb it from the grandstand."

Mace carried on towards Grakkus. He could deal with the Hutt, but reinforcements would arrive fast. Already, there was the thunder of footsteps from deep within the palace and the movement of sentries atop the staggering walls.

They needed a distraction.

He lifted a hand and drew deeply from the infinite power of the Force. The roggwart's cage rattled, strained, and clattered apart.

The beast let out a triumphant shriek.

Mace slashed the advancing Hutt's foremost cybernetic legs and turned, running, to the south wall. The roggwart would pursue the most calorie-rich prey. The Hutt's reinforcements would be well-occupied protecting their leader. The promised slave would be forgotten entirely.

There was no pursuit as they clambered down the wall and into the bustling street, only the shrieks and roars floating through the cool night air from the great Grakkus's Arena. Still, they strode quickly back in the direction of their waiting ship. There was nothing left for them on Nar Shaddaa.

"So the rumoured Force-sensitives weren't there?" Mace asked.

Cody shook his head.

"They were there, last lunar cycle. Three Jedi Padawans. But the Empire beat us to them."

"But there is good news," Korkie added.

"Yes?"

"We know where they took them."

Cody grimaced.

"It's kind of bad news too, though."

"It's some enormous, supposedly impenetrable fortress on Arkanis," Korkie explained. "In the same region as the Officer's Academy."

"Grakkus tried to have his prized slaves stolen back. But none of the bounty hunters would take the job. If the best paid bounty hunters of Nar Shaddaa won't do it…"

Mace acknowledged Cody's point with a sigh.

"It will be a difficult mission."

Korkie beamed.

"You're saying we'll do it?"

"Not now," Mace cautioned him. "Not with such limited forces. We'll need to-"

He was cut off by the loud laughter of two sentients sitting on the drink-slicked footpath outside the Slag Pit cantina: a thin human woman and a stocky Latero, taking turns sipping from the same flask. There was the potent smell of lum in the night air. Korkie wrinkled his nose with distaste and side-stepped the woman's long, outstretched legs. He was eager to move on before the drunks could vomit their cheap liquor in his presence.

But Mace stopped abruptly – so abruptly that Cody almost stumbled over him. Mace did not turn to apologise to his companion. He was staring at the woman, as shocked as Korkie had ever seen him.

"Master Junda?" he asked. "Cere?"

The woman was looking at Mace with glazed eyes. Korkie backtracked hastily, letting slip a breath of laughter.

"Have you got the wrong person, Mace? They're both Force-blind."

Mace said nothing.

"Aren't they?" Korkie pressed.

Certainly, the Force around the drunken woman flowed past and through her of its own accord, unmodulated. It sang out with her woozy joy and affection for her companion in a manner that could not be controlled. This was the signature of a Force-blind sentient.

And yet Mace continued to ignore him.

"Cere?" he asked again.

The woman's eyes narrowed and then widened again as she made out the face in the sputtering glow of the cantina's neon sign.

"Master Windu? Mace?"

She grasped him by his forearms and staggered to her feet. She stared at Mace with sheer, screaming disbelief in the Force.

"How- how could this-"

Korkie thought for a moment that the woman was going to cry; certainly, there was a torrent of grief and shame and something else that Korkie could not quite place in the Force around her. But she managed, swaying faintly, to draw herself to her full height – nearly as tall as Mace – and set her expression steady.

"There is a great deal," she managed, "that we need to talk about."

Mace acknowledged her determined sobriety with a faint smile.

"Not tonight, I don't think. Do you have the means to meet us on Yaga Minor?"

"Yes."

She found her data-pad at her belt and proffered it to Mace, who registered their coordinates. Korkie tried not to look too aghast at the provision of the Hidden Path headquarters to a drunken Force-blind on the street of Nar Shaddaa.

"See you soon, Cere."

They walked onwards and left the Slag Pit cantina behind.

"What in the hells was that about?" Korkie pressed. "That woman can't be-"

"That woman," Mace corrected him, "is Master Cere Junda of the Jedi Order."

Korkie gaped.

"But she's-"

"-cut herself off from the Force," Mace told him. "Not Force-blind."

"But…"

Korkie didn't even know that was possible.

"How do you know she's someone we should be giving our coordinates to? She's drunk. On lum! In the street!"

Mace looked down at Korkie with scathing gaze.

"You say that as though you didn't have a few too many Sunrisers a few weeks ago."

Korkie grumbled and folded his arms.

"Sunrisers are a cocktail. Lum is basically petrol. And I was drinking in the club, not the gutter."

"At sixteen-standard. Very classy," Mace summarised. "But that's not my point, Korkie. Cere Junda was a great Knight of our Order. You ought to have more respect."

"But why has she cut herself off from the Force?"

At this, Mace's defensiveness softened to thoughtfulness.

"I don't know, Korkie," he admitted. "As Master Junda said, there is a great deal we need to discuss. But I'd expect you to have some empathy for her."

He fixed Korkie with a knowing gaze.

"There is a great deal of power in your past that is still too painful for you to wield, no?"

Korkie sighed and nodded.

"Yeah. Fine. You're right."

He turned back to catch one more glimpse of the former Jedi. There was more to the story, he was sure.

As Nar Shaddaa shrunk into an almost benign-looking sphere through the viewport, Mace found Korkie sprawled on the floor of the ship's hold, in a decidedly unmeditative posture, regarding an intricately-patterned cube. Mace recognised it instantly.

"Is that a Jedi holocron?"

Korkie greeted his companion with a weary smile. It had been more than twenty-four standards hours since they had left Yaga Minor and still the boy had not slept.

"I almost forgot to tell you about it, with all the excitement on the streets."

"You stole it from Grakkus?"

"Stole it?" Korkie snickered. "My mother raised me better than that. Grakkus gave it to me."

Mace frowned with confusion as he came to sit with the teenager on the floor.

"Gave it to me as a test," Korkie clarified. "To see if I could open it. He had heaps of them."

"I see."

Mace reached out a hand and Korkie nodded his permission. He took the holocron, faintly warm, in his callused palms.

"How did he choose this one? Did you persuade him into picking it?"

"No. Why?"

"I feel…"

The holocron seemed to whisper to him in faint promise.

"I think this might be something I've been searching for."

He lifted his gaze to Korkie, who was now regarding the holocron with renewed interest.

"Will you do the honours? Grakkus gave it to you, after all."

Korkie rearranged his long limbs, sat up straight, then paused as though Mace might change his mind. When he did not, the teenager closed his eyes and focused, levitating the holocron just above the floor.

The corners of the cube quavered and then lifted, transforming the holocron into a dodecahedron that rotated with an air of lazy patience as Korkie, brow furrowed, guided it to unravel. There was a delicate clinking, a hiss and release. The hold was illuminated with blue light as the elegant figure of an ancient Jedi Knight loomed above them.

"In the Outer Rim, far beyond the reaches of the Republic or those who wish to do it harm, buried deep within the enigmatic turbulence of the Koboh Abyss, lies a hidden planet, a haven in the Force…"

Mace watched the Knight, her face young and full and bright with her discovery, and he felt hope, real hope, finally rise in his chest. His own voice emerged hoarse, almost a whisper.

"Tanalorr."

Cere Junda appeared at the given coordinates one week later, standing tall and imposing without sway to her posture. Her hair was close-cropped above her angular face. Her gaze was steady and solemn and her body lean and powerful. She was in every facet the sort of figure Korkie imagined of a Jedi Master, except her bizarre silence in the Force.

"Mace. Padawan. It's good to see you. Sorry about Nar Shaddaa. My pilot and I were celebrating our victory in a cantina brawl."

She swept over the threshold before Korkie could correct her misidentification.

"You don't know how hard I've been searching for survivors of the Purge. And yet I found you where I least expected to see a Jedi."

Mace acknowledged their good fortune with a smile.

"The Force works in mysterious ways."

"Indeed it does."

She turned her sharp gaze to Korkie.

"Do I know you, Padawan?"

"Not Padawan. Just Korkie."

Cere pondered a moment before realisation dawned on her face.

"Oh. I see. You're Korkie Kenobi."

"Kryze, actually."

"Of course. My apologies."

And she might have simply been apologising for mistaking his surname but the words felt heavier than that. Korkie saw his father in her mind's eye, the mirror she was holding him up to. It was a dizzying sensation.

"Come, Cere, meet Kawlan. And here's Boil, Trapper, Kix and Cody. We've been working together since the conflict on Ryloth to build a Hidden Path for Force-sensitives to escape Imperial persecution. Kawlan and Korkie founded the Path before we met them…"

Mace and Cere had ventured deeper into the apartment. Korkie hung back by the door, taking a steadying breath. Surrounded, still, by everything Cere had unwittingly allowed him to glimpse. The shock. The pity. For he must have looked such a mess against that memory of his father. The neglected son of Obi Wan Kenobi. The useless not-quite-Jedi and not-quite-Mando son of Obi Wan Kenobi.

"Korkie! Will you show Cere our gift from Nar Shaddaa?"

One more breath. Then Korkie shelved his grief, mounted his shields, and obliged.

"Of course."

The holocron, presented to the newcomer above the ever-smaller kitchen table in what had once been Kawlan and Korkie's two-bed apartment on Yaga Minor, evoked from Cere the same reverence it had drawn from Mace Windu.

"Tanalorr," she breathed, a slow smile curving upon her lips. "It's perfect."

Kawlan and the Faulties shared a look of bewilderment.

"Is this actually a real planet?" Boil asked.

"An almost inaccessible planet," Mace admitted. "But a real planet, nonetheless. It's very strong in the Force. Discovered by the Jedi millennia ago and then in a series of disputes erased from our history."

"Nearly erased from our history," Cere corrected him, with a nod at the holocron.

Mace shook his head in wry disbelief.

"Grakkus the Hutt had a more priceless collector's item in his possession than he realised."

Kawlan did not share in the levity, frowning still.

"What does this give us, practically speaking? Could we access it? Use it to make the Path safer?"

It certainly needed to be. Kawlan, Trapper and Boil had returned to Yaga Minor three days later than planned, trooping into the crowded apartment anxious and under-slept bringing a tale of the near-disaster: of Inquisitors that had awaited them on Mapuzo, of the deaths of two local Hidden Path workers and of a flight course hastily rerouted to the Nicandra hyperlane.

"The information in this holocron can get us there," Cere affirmed. "I've been searching for the path through the Koboh Abyss since the Jedi fell. As long as we're smart about it, the Inquisitors cannot follow us."

"It's exactly what we need," Trapper muttered, with guarded optimism. "If the Inquisitors knew to wait for us on Mapuzo then it's only a matter of time before Jabiim and Daiyu are both in trouble."

"And Yaga Minor," Cody added.

"Yaga Minor is already trouble," Kix grumbled. "The Imperial presence here gets stronger every day."

"It gets stronger all over the galaxy," Cere emphasised. "But Tanalorr will be different. Tanalorr will be an end to the Path that they cannot take from us. Not just a place for Force-sensitives to go into hiding all over again. But a place where they can live freely. And more importantly, be trained."

Her gaze fixed now upon Mace.

"This is how the resurrect the Jedi Order," she articulated. "It's the best chance we have against the Empire. It is not good enough to simply survive. We must grow strong. We must fight."

And Korkie's rising hope mingled with confusion, for how could the former Jedi Master speak of her Order with such reverence and yet have shunned the Force that lay at its very core?

But Mace looked at Cere with none of Korkie's reservations. The trust emanating through the Force was palpable.

"We will fight, Cere."

And if Mace trusted her, then that was good enough for Korkie. He waved a hand and extinguished the holocron, drawing it through the air, pieces reassembling, until it came to sit snug in his coat pocket. He would forget the past. He would pour all of his energy into the future. A better future. The future that Cere could see ahead of them.

"I'll start packing for the scouting trip, shall I?"

The apartment on Yaga Minor had long ago reached capacity and was now at the point of overflow. Korkie had, with princely courtesy, offered Cere the bed in his ship, condemning himself to a top-to-tail arrangement with Mace on the rug on the floor beneath the apartment's two bunks, where Trapper, Kix, Boil and Cody were sandwiched in similar fashion. Kawlan, the shortest of them all, slept on the couch. It brought Mace great relief in the cool of the evening to leave behind the noise of the house – it brought Korkie joy, clearly, to fill the space with teasing and laughter, in resemblance no doubt of the home he had lost years ago – and to walk with Cere to the shipyards in which the battered fighter, scavenged on Ryloth's second moon, was parked.

"As Korkie said, it's hardly spacious. But there is room for you to lay down."

"And sleep without listening to you all breathing."

"It will be a little more peaceful than the bunkhouse, perhaps."

They shared in the sparking smiles, the silent laughter, of those raised within the confines of Jedi moderation.

"Your connection to the Force, Cere…"

The probing half-question did not spark in his old friend the anger it might have; Cere looked at Mace with calm certainty.

"I am not deserving of it, Mace. Not now."

And Mace would have liked to tell her that it wasn't true, that it could never be true. But there was something unspoken that held him back. Cere's effortfully repressed shame. Her grief. He could have probed; Force-detached, she could not shield. But he would not.

"If I could be of any help, any guidance…"

"Thank you, Mace."

She took a breath and stood perhaps a little taller, her guilt waning and resolution hardening.

"I will reconnect to the Force when I am ready to do so. But I am ready now to fight for the resurrection of the Order."

"I know that you are."

He wanted to ask about Trilla, the prodigiously gifted student whose powers Cere had often sought Mace's advice in wrangling. She reminds me of you, Mace, when you were young. Such righteousness. And more power than she knows what to do with. But he did not ask. Cere's grief was as deep as the oceans of Kamino and there was nothing to be gained by making turbulent the waters that had settled, now, to an aching calm.

Hurt and healing.

They would speak of it in time.

Cere and Greez drunk on lum in Nar Shaddaa? The sort of pearl you find on Wookieepedia that is too precious not to weave in.

I'll confess that I'm not actually that well-acquainted with Cere: I have read of and loved the narrative of Jedi: Fallen Order but not played it. So I'd love to hear any inputs about her characterisation.

As per your requests Lord Aries, now I just need to figure out how to squeeze in Cal...

xx - S.