Within three weeks, Drosili booked her flight back to Phindar, anxious to look for the rest of her family and to arrange for them to come to the capital. Right before she left, she pulled Tilla and Ashkhen into a tight embrace and assured them that she would put bounties on their heads if they dared to look for another job while she was gone. She hung out the Temporarily Closed sign and knocked her knuckles on, for the lack of a more organic alternative, the plexiglass panel of the door thrice. Her son stayed behind on Coruscant with his uncle's family.

Ashkhen immediately took up the fourth night at Irigo's. Taking an unpaid leave from her day job didn't concern her too much, knowing that the air conditioning unit was almost three-quarters full. What she conveniently overlooked was that the majority of it were credit chits in smaller denominations—saving up for a speeder with tips proved frightfully slow, even with the occasional surge concurring with the senators' private gatherings.

The narrow, winding path led her to a pond. Compared to other parks in the Senate District, this garden was on the smaller side. It made up for its size with a variety of water features and a hundred-year-old Uneti tree planted in its central point. Large boulders dotted the irregular edge of the central lake, oddly reminiscent of the Room of the Thousand Fountains. Ashkhen had stumbled upon this hidden gem on one of her lunchbreak strolls, and found the divergence from the ever-present New Architecture style a puzzling, yet welcome surprise. While the answer likely lay a few clicks away on the HoloNet, Ashkhen preferred her own, rather romantic theory of a High Republic-era maverick Jedi moonlighting as a landscape architect.

Ashkhen reached the end of the wooden pier and sat down on the edge. Traces of muted conversations carried over the water, otherwise the park was fairy unpopulated. As far as one could tell through the evergrey atmosphere, the sun was still nearing its zenith—people of this time zone were still buried deep in their work.

Ashkhen glanced at the upside-down skyline on the water surface. Tiny ripples distorted the reflection. From where she sat, rows upon rows of skyscrapers obscured the Senate Dome, but following the imaginary lines of the skylanes above, she could easily triangulate its exact location. She acknowledged the knot of irritation in the pit of her stomach and breathed it out into the Force.

The Clone Wars had begun a little over a year ago. Despite the numerous victories the Republic had won over the Separatist army—titled 'glorious' and 'tremendous' by the media—it seemed as though the war had gotten stuck in a loop. For every 'magnificent triumph', another system had seceded to the Confederacy; for every relief mission, taxes got raised or budgets got cut, and every time deproliferation peace talks were proposed, another ten thousand clone trooper units were commissioned by the Senate. That first big rush of excitement, patriotism and mass hysteria of buying merchandise with the GAR logo printed on it had long since abated.

Drosili had dropped the Clone Wars theme soon after—people first grew inured to, then sick of seeing clone troopers everywhere: in the news, in holoAds, patrolling the streets, just walking about while on leave, with or without their Jedi generals, working with the police, and sometimes even in entertainment facilities. Two squads worth of clone troopers even turned up at Irigo's once, giving Tilla a very hard time trying to match order to guest.

To the general population of the Capital, the pan-galactic conflict had somewhat lost its novelty. Based upon the casual conversations Ashkhen overheard in the diner—and the lot less inhibited ones in the club—people felt life was still relatively safe and convenient on Coruscant. The initial willingness to take up arms and give life and blood for the Republic gradually subsided into complaining about travelling restrictions, delayed shipments, prices creeping up, and scores upon scores of refugees flooding the Core Worlds.

Ashkhen wasn't alone in thinking the Senate lacked a central vision—she soon gave up on following the broadcasts from the Senate Dome, for they provided little insight besides the endless debates about passing and vetoing the same bills, prioritizing and de-prioritizing the same issues, and the Vice Chair's pained expression as he tried to maintain order among the squabbling politicians.

Not all seventy of them, thank the Force, but a few Senators indeed became regulars, turning up at Irigo's every once in a while. Ashkhen couldn't shake the feeling that they were using the Krayt Dragon Pearl private suite upstairs to stage off-the-record meetings with only a few select attendees, but according to the waitresses, they were always polite and pleasant, and tipped phenomenally well.

She took another deep breath and glanced down. Fragments of vague anticipation brushed against her senses, coming from the tiny minds scattered under her dangling feet. The general mood blossomed into full blown voracity as a small canister of fish feed appeared in her hand.

"Now I don't remember if the Code explicitly mentioned gluttony," Ashkhen said. "But looking at you guys, it should be up there at the top with fear and anger."

A score of colourful koi fish swarmed under her feet, gobbling up the tiny pieces of brine shrimp she threw into the water. She tried levitating some of the pellets directly into the path of her favourite one, a deep red koi with two black marks on the top of its head. The chosen one, however, ignored the treats and continued to swim around a group of fry in elegant circles, keeping a watchful eye and relinquishing every piece to the younger generation. Ashkhen chuckled to herself.

Swap the horns for gills and Master Balian would still—

An invisible force tore the plastoid container from her hand. Ashkhen was just about to turn around and educate the park maintenance guy that feeding small amounts of marine crustaceans to freshwater fish was a perfectly safe and nutritious choice when she realized—the only thing even more unusual than a regular hedge-trimmer giving a shit about mixing different aquatic ecosystems was a regular hedge-trimmer using the Force.

She turned around with a wide grin which promptly froze on her face—Nahdar threw back his head and downed the whole container in one go.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you want some?" the Mon Cal Jedi asked, casually wiping his chin.

"If you're that hungry, we could have met up for lunch instead." Ashkhen got to her feet, glancing down at the koi slowly dispersing. Master Balian's decorative doppelgänger shepherded his school of younglings away.

"A Jedi shall know no hunger, for his ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is." Nahdar tossed the empty can into the trash bin some thirty meters behind his back. "But I just got back from my second tour, and the only snack option in the MRE packs is salt crackers with cheese and I can't eat cheese."

It had been almost two years. Ashkhen took a long look at her former clanmate and friend, noting the subtle changes in his bearing.

"Looking sharp, Jedi Knight Vebb!" She leaned forward into a formal and respectful bow. "Congratulations on passing your Trials. I'm grateful you could make the time."

Hands tucked into opposite sleeves and sporting a sanctimonious mien worthy of senior Council members, Nahdar addressed an imaginary crowd of a hundred people. "We are never too busy for the citizens of the Republic."

"Oh, you're just gonna keep rubbing it in, aren't you?"

"To put it in layman's terms for you, I'm a bit jealous that you get to sit out the Clone Wars"—his eyes twinkled with humour—"but I'm supposed to have mastered my emotions, so I'll just say it must have been the will of the Force."

Ashkhen's nostrils flared as she took a controlled breath. "If you only showed up just so you could whale on me, we can totally wrap this up, like, five minutes ago."

"I'm joking, Ash!" Nahdar gave a hearty laugh reminiscent of his Master's. "It's so good to see you! How you've been?"

Ashkhen stepped off the wooden pier and continued down the path. "Life outside the Temple is a little… less structured, but I think I'm getting the hang of it," she said.

"What do you do nowadays?"

"Well, I…" Careful, careful. 'I alternate between slowly killing people with trans fats during the day and with alcohol during the night' didn't sound like a career choice a Jedi Knight would appreciate and support. "It's simple work, but I'm still… serving people."

"I'm happy for you," Nahdar said. "It's always a relief to know those who left the Order keep walking the path of selflessness. Last year, one of our Healers failed his Trials too, but all things considered, he made the most of it and has since found work in a regular hospital."

Ashkhen kept her face straight. Somehow, instead of 'how wonderful he stayed true to his vocation!' the way Nahdar put it conveyed more of a 'doctor for the plebs, how embarrassing!' sort of sentiment. Ashkhen briefly wondered about the discrepancy between the Jedi dutifully sacrificing themselves to help and protect people, all the while holding non-Force users in a little higher regard than goldfish.

"Yeah…" she mumbled. "Something like that. Anyways, what's going on with you? Any tidings from the Temple?

Nahdar's face grew solemn. "Things have changed since you left." His eyes rested upon the small ripples travelling across the water surface. "It's a lot less rowdy now."

"Oh, come on!"

"No, I'm serious!" He raised both hands in defense. "The Temple's pretty much abandoned. Everyone from Junior Padawan and up is dispersed over the Galaxy. I could count on one finger the number of times I ran into more than three Council members simultaneously, in person, since the war began. Nowadays, the only place where you can see ten Jedi next to each other is the inpatient ward at the Halls of Healing."

"I saw the reports on Geonosis." Ashkhen lowered her voice. "So many had died that day."

"Yes." Nahdar's head instinctively turned in the Temple's direction. "More than half of the Padawans in the drop zone… B2 super battle droids are a big jump from training remotes."

Ashkhen had only seen those battle droids on video, towering a head over the clone troopers. She briefly wondered which Council members voted for assigning children to the strike team.

"But you… won."

"We seized one of the Separatist strongholds, yes." Nahdar gave a disdainful scoff. "But Count Dooku escaped and we haven't been able to get that close to capturing him ever since."

Vindictiveness swelled beneath his words, an uncharacteristic tone for Nahdar. Count Dooku's popularity index tanked with every blow he dealt to the Republic, but the way he set his jaw made him appear angry. Having had spent almost ten years watching Master Balian's diplomatic brilliance at work, Ashkhen knew exactly when it was time to let tempers cool and steer the conversation to less turbulent waters.

"You mentioned two tours," she said. They reached a fork in the path—without thinking, Ashkhen turned left, keeping close to the central lake. "Where did you end up?"

"I spent three months on Kamino last year, right after I was Knighted. I was to tour the medical facilities and gain a better understanding on the clones' physiology. That was useful, but in hindsight, I'm glad I got to know them better before we joined the war."

"What are Kaminoans like?"

Nahdar's face remained expressionless, but his voice grew a little more tense. "Haughty and perfectionist bunch. Polite to a fault, but a little distant towards outsiders."

"Huh… Reminds me of exactly twelve people that I used to know." She turned away, pretending to read a memorial plaquette to hide her grin.

Nahdar covered his mouth to stifle a short bout of dry coughing. Ashkhen glanced back at her friend suspiciously—she could have sworn she heard the words 'sour grapes'.

"My second assignment wasn't so fruitful," he said aloud. "I was sent to Sullust."

"Before or after they seceded?"

Nahdar's glum expression had Ashkhen immediately regret blurting out the question. The Mon Cal Jedi tucked his hands in opposite sleeves and pulled mentally inwards in the very same manner.

"As much as the simile upsets my stomach, Master Plo Koon was right: every Jedi is like a single pat of blue butter spread over a square parsec of toast. Everyone needs us to be an inspiring military leader, a master healer, a shrewd negotiator, a brilliant strategist and a berserker with lightsaber, all rolled into one. The Sullustan governement asked for funds the Republic didn't have, and military protection it couldn't spare. We've yet to truly fathom the consequences of losing the system to the Separatists."

Speaking of systems on the brink of leaving the Republic, Ashkhen hesitated to bring up the Quarren Isolation League to Nahdar. According to the reports, Republic reinforcements arrived at the last minute, led by Master Kit Fisto. It had been a solo operation of his—there must have been a reason for him not to take his Mon Cal Padawan back to Dac, his very own home planet.

"I've read some posts on Lateral Line about—"

Nahdar's jaw dropped. "You're on Mon Cal social media?"

"Aren't you?"

"I'm a bit busy to post Moappa memes with the war going on!"

"I'm just lurking," Ashkhen said in defense. "I'd get downvoted into the hadal zone if they found out I wasn't one of you guys."

Nahdar gave a little snort. "Concomitantly, you'd get a boatload of unsolicited clasper pictures once they found out you weren't a guy."

"Nooo!" Eyes squeezed shut, Ashkhen tried to physically shake the picture out of her head. "Do a mind trick! Do a mind trick! Make me unsee!"

"That's not how the Force works, Ash, you know that," Nahdar said. "And, as a Mon Cal male, I'd like to put it out there: your reaction is extremely unflattering."

Pulling up a mental image of sea turtle hatchlings and baby dolphins worked wonders—Ashkhen circled back to their original discussion of the Mon Calamari and Quarren internal affairs in no time.

"I know Senator Tikkes had been removed from his position, but he has a massive base of followers. Do you think it'll further escalate?" she asked. "Could a civil war break out between the Quarren and the Mon Cala?"

"I honestly don't know." Nahdar spread his arms. "I doubt the League would be willing to risk serious retaliation from the Republic. But your sources might be more up to date, given that I've only been to Dac once, ten years ago."

"So Master Fisto truly didn't…? I mean, I thought…"

"Ash, I'm not questioning my former Master's decisions, and you shouldn't, either. I'm grateful that he lent his strength and insight to the Mon Calamari Knights and restored peace among my people. And having seen the horror of the Clone Wars up close, I'm glad the Battle of Mon Calamari is not my most recent memory of my homeworld."

The word homeworld invoked a controversial twinge of envy—Ashkhen never had the opportunity to revisit Glee Anselm, either during her time as a Jedi or since leaving the Order. Shifting her perspective, she gave a little mental shrug—apparently, Nautolans were just simply too chill to run into any kinds of diplomatic issues and ask for Jedi intervention.

"I remember you from ten years ago," she said, giving Nahdar a teasing nudge. "Timid little whitebait, catching the wave of a recently appointed Council member's celebrity."

"I'm sure the only reason Master Fisto had chosen the lesser challenge with me was that our Initiate class had just gotten fresh out of raucous efts."

"Still salty I got picked first?"

Nahdar's facial anatomy made for a very impressive eye-roll. "No, I acknowledged the brilliance of Master Balian's diplomatic acumen. By removing you as soon as Anakin joined our class, he alleviated the tension, restored order among us, and saved the Temple from turning into the setting for yet another a middle school holodrama in one fell swoop."

"I've come a long way since. I learned how to act civil with people who breathe wrong," Ashkhen said. "Still, with Master Fisto, it must have been a very different experience for you. I mean, swinging by Dac with Master Balian was fun, but I couldn't let go of the feeling that he was perpetually running the risk of equipment failure."

Nahdar shook his head. "That little cultural excursion had been his previous Padawan, Master Eerin's idea," he said. "Master Fisto had an… incurious attitude towards his own homeworld, and he passed that detachment on. But I'm happy I got a glimpse of how my people lived their everyday lives—art, music, literature…"

"…gastronomy," Ashkhen added with a longing sigh. "What was that reddish thing called, you know, those little bio-luminescent rolls?"

Stroking his barbels, Nahdar watched a grasshopper leap from their path and land on a thin blade of tall grass, gently swinging back and forth. "Uhh… dulse-filled lampfish wraps?"

"Oh, Force." Ashkhen's eyes rolled back into her head. "Say that again, but slower."

"You would have made a terrible officer," he said, looking askance at his friend. "I can imagine you defecting to the Seps after three days of eating our military rations."

"Look, I don't care what they say on the news, you and I both know the Core Worlds can't feed their centillions of inhabitants without supplies from the Inner Rim and Colonies, and those are the very worlds that are seceding by the hundreds. Now think about the clones entering the equation…" She turned to face Nahdar. "How grand is our Grand Army?"

Nahdar considered his friend for a moment. He wasn't authorized to share confidential information, but Ashkhen wasn't just any civilian. He closed his eyes briefly to quest around if anyone could be listening, then dropped his voice.

"The number of active personnel, officers, clones and conscripts combined, is nearing two billion," he said. "With another hundred thousand units in their final stage of development. They'll be ready to deploy in about two months. Promise me you won't post that anywhere and cite me as a source," he added as an attempt to alleviate the shock.

Two billion people. More than all the Nautolans and Mon Calamari in the Galaxy combined. For a fleeting moment, Ashkhen imagined the ocean of toothpaste the clones gargled away daily. Shipping personal hygiene products to the Army must have been a lucrative business, second only to weapons manufacturing.

And food? Nahdar had mentioned the MRE's—another unfathomable expense. Dread crept into the back of Ashkhen's mind. In a time of active war, feeding the army surely took precedence over aiding the hunger-stricken Republic worlds? How soon before food rationing became the next step?

"In case you change your mind about lunch, I know an authentic Calamarian place fifteen minutes from here," she said, trying to push the swarm of locusts in white carapace out of her mind. "Eight, if I'm driving. It's called the Ack Bar 'n' Grill—waaay out of my price range, but if you lent me your robe, I could pretend to be your Padawan and we could both eat for free!"

Nahdar gave his friend a sideways glance. "What kind of company have you been keeping?"

Without elaborating on that, Ashkhen stepped on the wide wooden bridge that arched over to the small island in the middle of the lake. In an attempt to steer the conversation towards less anxiety-inducing topics, she circled back to Nahdar's most recent achievements.

"What were your Trials like?" she asked, secretly crossing her fingers Nahdar's experience involved no deep-sea creatures with razor sharp teeth. It took her a moment to notice Nahdar had stopped in his tracks, pulling up his mental shields tight. He let out a long sigh, eyes closed. Hurt, disappointment and a trace of embarrassment dispersed around him, making Ashkhen's brows knit together.

"There wasn't much of a Trial," he said. "At least not like yours had been. I received an official evaluation by Master Windu. He said that the Council had taken all my previous achievements into account and all twelve members reached a consensus that I was worthy to be granted the rank of Jedi Knight."

"Seriously?" Ashkhen threw her arms up. "I got kicked out of the Order for getting half eaten on an assignment way beyond my training, and you got a kriffing text message saying 'yay, congrats'?"

Nahdar turned into a statue of himself and completely withdrew inside.

"I'm sorry, that was uncalled for." Ashkhen dropped her head in apology. Failing her Trials of Knighthood was still a sore point, one she struggled to overcome. She glanced up with a lopsided smile and asked her slowly approaching friend, "Well, what did Master Fisto say about you levelling up?"

"Nothing. He wasn't there."

"What!?"

"I've met him twice since the outbreak." He passed by her, gave a half shrug and contined towards the island. "He's busy."

"B-b-but you're—you were his Padawan!" Ashkhen failed to wrap her head around the Nautolan Council member's uncharacteristic abandonment of his pupil. "Masters don't get to bow out before time!"

"It's complicated." Nahdar fixed his gaze on the Uneti tree up ahead. "Duty comes first. Jedi Masters already have more than enough on their plates being in the army, the supervising of Padawans has to take a back seat from time to time."

Ashkhen's mouth quirked downward. "Skygazer hauls his snarky little ankle biter everywhere, and she's ten!"

"That's General Skywalker, Padawan Tano is fourteen and you calling anyone snarky is just too rich."

So weird to think about—a year or so younger than herself, Anakin already had a Padawan of his own. Well, he got assigned one by the Council, at any rate. Speaking of which…

"Have you met Master Balian recently?"

It took an exemplary level of self restraint for Ashkhen to refrain from cannonading Nahdar with an additional thousand questions concerning her former Master. How she yearned for even a glimpse of insight into what his life was like, to be assured that he was well, to know that she still had that tiny little anchor of the past in her life!

Nahdar shook his head. "He's been away from Coruscant for well over a year. I met his Padawan a few times though." He hesitated for a second, to keep his voice judgement-free. "All cooped up in the Temple by herself."

Ashkhen flicked a small pebble off the bridge by lifting a finger. Master Balian would never abandon his duty, he did everything with good reason. Ever expanding concentric ripples marked where the pebble had fallen into the water.

"Maybe she's done something and Master Balian put her in a time-out," she said.

Nahdar stepped off the bridge and headed for a vacant bench with an exasperated sigh.

"Ash, the stunts you pulled in your time should have gotten you keelhauled, yet Master Balian never left you behind or thought there were things more important than helping you walk the straight and narrow!"

"You're saying I was a lousy Padawan?" Ashkhen crossed her arms with a frown.

Nahdar turned around and mirrored her pose. "You skipped classes."

"Who didn't?"

"Cheated on exams."

"Never got caught."

"Snuck food out of the refectory."

"Teenage growth spurts, duh!"

"Hid Master Sinube's cane."

"That was hysterical and I had to scrub maintenance droids for a month."

Nahdar skewered his friend with a stern look. "Had a boyfriend!"

Ashkhen's hearts skipped a beat in sync. "That's… who told you that!?"

"He did," Nahdar said quietly, dipping his head. "He was my friend, too."

Master Balian being a firm believer in the power of dialogue was the reason Ashkhen's run as a Jedi had been extended for another couple of years back then. Taking both Ashkhen's age and temperament into consideration, instead of immediate referment to the Council, he advised his Padawan to be mindful of the Jedi way and call it quits.

A tremendous effort to overcome feelings, long hours of meditation and many bitter tears later, Ashkhen had made up her mind. She had chosen the Jedi Code over her knight-errant, let go of the attachment and resolved to return to being brothers and sisters in the Force.

One day, soon after that, Master Balian had pulled Ashkhen out of saber practice. As the living embodiment of tact and compassion, he chose a quiet spot in the Temple Gardens to tell her that he had been killed in action.

While it all happened many years ago, she still remembered the shock and the unending waves of raw pain. Master Balian had wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders and let his Padawan silently cry her eyes out.

Ashkhen shook her head to snap back into the present moment. "Okay, your point is…?"

"It's not about the Padawans." Nahdar gathered his robe around himself and took a seat. Ashkhen plopped down next to him. Whoever positioned the bench under the overhanging branches of the Uneti tree had a real knack for choosing the best spot to enjoy a breathtaking scenic vista. Ashkhen fell in love a little bit more with the mystery Jedi Architect.

"The war has changed the Order," Nahdar continued. "We all have to adapt. Many of our teachings simply don't apply anymore."

Ashkhen studied Nahdar's profile—the way he set his jaws and the grim determination in his eyes. The boundary between the Healer and the Commander had become blurred, the balance had shifted.

"What is truly going on out there?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The topic comes up a lot where I work, and—" Ashkhen gave herself a mental kick for the blunder. Master Balian would have found a way to bring up the question and simultaneously skirt the nightclub issue. "Well, alcohol makes people talk."

A relieved smile lit up Nahdar's face. "You're working in rehabilitation?"

Oh, noble Nahdar, you're too Jedi for this world!

Ashkhen scratched her neck. "No, I'm the… supplier."

That hopeful, gill-to-gill smile contorted into a scowl of shock and anguish.

"Sheesh, Nahdar, I work in a bar, okay?" she said, dropping her head back on the backrest. "Go ahead, your high horse is waiting."

"Well, at least that sounds like something fun to do," Nahdar ventured after a pause. "You could have ended up in a fast-food joint."

For a fleeting moment, Ashkhen contemplated shoving Nahdar into the water with a sudden Force push, but reconsidered. She vividly remembered the last time she tried to bust on her former clanmate and promptly made friends with the floor. Neither of them were Padawans anymore—they both had taken a big step in the opposite directions.

"So, what's your take?"

"War is perverse. It has to end." Nahdar fell silent for a while. "But as long as the Republic is merely reacting, countering the Separatist attacks and mending the breaches in our defenses, victory will remain out of our grasp."

The vehemence behind his words took Ashkhen by surprise.

"You're suggesting the Republic should go out and mount an attack?"

"We need to focus on bringing the key figures to justice."

Hunt them down, Ashkhen heard.

"Viceroy Nute Gunray has been captured on Rodia," he continued. "We shall deal a devastating blow to the Separatist Council if we can make him answer for his crimes."

"You're planning to bring him to Coruscant? That's a long ride from the Outer Rim."

"Padawan Tano has been tasked with escorting him back to the Capital."

Ashkhen's mouth pressed into a thin line. "The mind rebels at how incredibly delusional it is to extend Spythwarter's infallible demigod status to his Padawan and to entrust the overseeing of a crucial prisoner transport to a ten-year-old."

"Again, fourteen," Nahdar pointed out. "And Ahsoka will be accompanied by Master Unduli. You're being unfair, both of us had gone on plenty of dangerous missions when we were that age!"

"Yeah, but none of those had the potential to turn the tide of a war tearing our Galaxy apart!"

"We're aren't exactly rolling in options, Ash." Nahdar's voice remained even, but the knuckles stood out as he balled both hands into fists. "The Republic must do anything and everything in its power to stop this threat."

"Like enlisting Jedi?" Ashkhen sprang to her feet and turned around to face him. "Pulling an army of clones out of thin air? Creating that many living, breathing, thinking beings for the sole reason to send them into battle to die is an affront to the Force!"

"You haven't fought alongside them!" Nahdar's temper rose to match hers. "Sentient soldiers are far superior to droids."

"And what's going to happen to them when the war is over? Will the Republic keep them around just in case? Will they get decommissioned and taken apart like droids would? Will all of them get honorably discharged and settle down? Get a job, start families?" She shook her head in disbelief. "A planet worth of human males with the exact same genome? I wonder what could go wrong! As if their species wasn't kriffed up enough already."

Nahdar waved a hand in dismissal. "That's just your anthrophobia speaking."

"Suppose some of them turn to crime. We could be looking at the deadliest syndicate in the making, with their supersoldier skills, and faces, fingerprints, hair, skin cells and body heat signatures copied and pasted all over the Galaxy!" Ashkhen folded her arms, tilting her head to the side.

Nahdar jumped from his seat, fury all over his face. "Don't tell me you've been reading Separatist propaganda!"

Ashkhen's mouth snapped shut. It had been much easier to argue with Nahdar while he was seated. The difference in height and build called to her subconscious, deterring her from further antagonising him.

"Know thy self, know thy enemy," she offered with an apologetic half-shrug.

Nahdar sat back with a long sigh. "I don't believe that's from the Code."

"No, Nahdar, it's common kriffing sense!" Ashkhen unfolded her arms and sat down next to her friend again. "You've grown a bit radical. What would Master Fisto say about that?" she asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Nahdar reached across and gave her hand a squeeze. "He'd crack wiseass jokes about my opinion, then kick my dorsal finlets around the dojo for expressing it."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the dragonflies dance above the water surface. They dipped and rose, not unlike the LAAT series gunships deploying and picking up clone troopers over the battlefields.

"I'm leaving for Bakura tomorrow," Nahdar said. "Routine command inspection. Master Kenobi said it's supposed to be a blue milk run, but I don't think he realized how awful that sounded to me."

Ashkhen pulled a face in disgust. "Blech."

"If I don't get deployed somewhere else immediately, I'll be back in about a month," he continued. "Then I'll take you out to lunch to that Calamari place you said, okay?" Nahdar slowly stood and pulled his robe straight. "I should be a decorated war hero by then. Not only shall we eat for free, they will have put my portrait up and named a dish after me."

"I'll hold you to that." Ashkhen nodded. "Be careful out there, okay? Go easy on the Seppie-hunting."

Nahdar's mouth curled upwards at the corners. "Unlike you, I'm not just cold-blooded, I'm coolheaded, too."

He glanced over the garden one last time, soaking up its peaceful and quiet atmosphere. "See you soon, Ash. May the Force be with you."

"May the Force be with you, too," Ashkhen said, looking after her friend with a heavy sigh.

••• ••• •••

Ashkhen needed the least amount of distraction to properly turn the midday conversation over in her mind. A short ascension later, the elevator doors opened, and a depressing, dimly lit corridor greeted her.

As she approached her apartment door, her eyes narrowed. Someone was squatting right next to her entrance with his back to the wall. The faint red glow of his t'bac stick lit up his haggard face—she recognised the guy from next door. He took another long drag and looked up at Ashkhen with sad eyes.

"Hey. Chate, right? Everything okay?"

"No, not good." He slowly shook his head. "Qilka is, uh, we fight. A lot."

"Not as much as you used to, that's good," Ashkhen ventured, squatting down to get to his eye-level.

Chate took another drag. "Yes… still, fights very vicious. But now it's changed. We're getting married."

"Oh, wow. Congratulations!" Ashkhen said politely. She wondered in what universe was them getting legally bound together a good idea.

"Thanks, but… Not sure anymore. I don't know why, but I feel, when I asked her, I was in… falheer, what you call, a… cloud."

"You were high?"

"No, not drug. I feel I was in a… haze. No, daze. Yeah, daze. But some months went and now there is no daze, only Qilka and fights." He flicked the end of the t'bac, sending a pinch of ash cascading to the floor.

Ashkhen scratched her head. Two people, truly, madly, deeply in hate, about to make a vow to make each other miserable for the rest of eternity.

I must be missing something here.

"Well, if you're having second thoughts about it, maybe don't rush it. You know, don't get married until you're sure she's the one?"

"I can't go away now." He buried his face in his hands. "Baby is coming."

"Shiii"—she cleared her throat—"No, I mean, c-congratulations. Wow, that's a big one."

Chate glanced at her between his fingers. Kill me now, his eyes said.

"I'm sure everything's going to turn out okay," Ashkhen lied. She had a feeling that this was getting beyond the point where either a pat on the shoulder, a hug, or something like what Imos kept in the second drawer of his office desk (the one with the false bottom) would have been any use.

He butted out the stick and flicked it down the hall. "Yeah. Maybe I fall down temple stairs and break neck."

"Let me know if you need food or booze for the wedding, I can hook you up," she said, slowly standing up to extract herself from the cloud of his despair.

"Thanks… hey, sorry we fight so loud. Thanks for the help."

"Yeah, no problem. Good night." She entered the codes on the wall panel, then slipped inside. The door got stuck two-thirds closed.

Shit.

Ashkhen landed two kicks on the secret spot, a lot stronger than necessary. The door slid shut, closing out Chate's miasma of smoke and misery. She leaned with her back against it, running fingers through her headtails.

Shit!

••• ••• •••

Imos didn't elaborate on why he switched up Ashkhen's shifts for the week. She dutifully turned up at her post on a Primeday, and found nearly nothing to do—compared to weekends, weeknights at Irigo's were mind-numbingly slooow.

Ashkhen, bored out of her mind, tried killing some time with creating elaborate straw arrangements in the glass container, experimenting with different napkin folds, and wiping down the bottles in the backbar. A busser placed a tray of a singular empty glass the bartop, then ambled away to commence his next slow round of hunting drinkware.

A slightly off-beat quadruple sequence of slap-tack-thump-slap got Ashkhen's attention as she walked back towards the sink, tray in hand. The tidying up continued at a leisure pace, then she turned around. An imposing Besalisk leaned heavily on the bartop with all four of his hands, far along on his path to self-destruction. The air around him trembled with irritation and impatience, his eyes wandered around unfocused, but when he spotted Ashkhen behind the bar, his brows pulled into a scowl.

As a former diplomat-in-training, Ashkhen had easily adapted to dealing with people who had already drank themselves past the stage of increased pain tolerance.

"What can I do for you?" she asked, pulling up a you're-among-friends-here smile.

The Besalisk hocked a loogie. "You can swash the kriff outta my spot, for starters."

Ashkhen dropped the smile in an instant. "Grazz, what an unpleasant surprise! Finally made it to work? Too bad you're about six months late!"

"This some kind of joke?" Grazz leaned over the bartop, peering into Ashkhen's face.

Ashkhen folded her arms. Standing downwind of his barbiturate breath challenged her composure more than his attitude did. She tried to lean out of his range without giving the impression of getting intimidated. "If you've got a problem, you can take it up with Imos."

Grazz reached over the bar and grabbed a random bottle. He flung the pour spout in Ashkhen's direction as he drank. "You're lucky there's noise coming out"—he let out a long belch—"I thought you were a piece of garnish someone's dropped. Can you even reach the top shelf?"

Ashkhen stuck both middle fingers in his face. "How many fingers am I holding up, Gee Gee? If it's more than seven, I suggest you turn around and retrace your itinerary up to the point where the stupid idea of heading this way sprang up."

"You do not want to talk to me like that."

"I don't want to talk to you at all," Ashkhen said, eyes narrowing. "You're holding up my line."

"This is my bar."

"Not anymore."

"Get out."

She leaned on the bartop with both hands. "Make me!"

"Are you challenging me?" At the hiss of his incredulous breath intake, Grazz's wattle doubled in size.

Ashkhen said nothing, just threw her headtails behind her shoulder, very much in challenge.

"Bring it on, Twinklefins, I feel like seafood tonight," he said, cracking all of his knuckles.

A Bend Over, Schutta popped up on Ashkhen's terminal—excellent choice with excellent timing to add a little craft flair to the mix.

"The crowd will decide who's crowd favourite," she said. A bottle of juna berry liquor swung high up in the air.

Before the bottle reached its vertex, Ashkhen had already flipped over the shaker and scooped it full of ice. The pinkish liquid poured into the jigger in a wide arch. One measure of lime juice and a hint of grenadine syrup followed, then she covered the tin with a smaller one, gave it a little twirl and poured the drink into a tall glass. Three measures of ginger beer filled the glass to its brim. Brandy-soaked cherries and a slice of lime were the finishing touch.

"That took you so long, I dozed off twice," Grazz circled around the bar, crowding Ashkhen out. "I'll show you how it's done. Where did you put my cobbler?"

"Next to the trash where it belongs. Irigo's doesn't need big, bunglesome shit that leaks liquor from every orifice and falls apart at a touch. It makes for poor service."

For a strained second, Ashkhen expected Grazz to push her into the fruit blender mouth first, but the Besalisk was too blitzed for barbed witticisms. He picked his shaker apart and began to fill it up with crushed ice.

His thumb left a smudge on Ashkhen's terminal—next up was a Blackthorn. Grazz's mouth pulled into a vanquishing, gappy grin, and he flung all four of his arms wide.

"Here's how you get where you're going fast."

Whiskey, dry vermouth, a bottle of bitters and a Green Fairy appeared in his four hands. He turned all four bottles upside down above the shaker, strained the mix into a rocks glass and finished the cocktail in less than ten seconds.

Ashkhen rolled her eyes. "People sniff at Dottie and you offer your best assembly line robot impression."

A waitress walked up to the bar, looking from Ashkhen to Grazz, then back to Ashkhen.

"A gentleman from upstairs twenty-nine sends his regards and a generous tip. He wants to order a White Lady"—she slowly exhaled—"from the white lady."

Ashkhen chose the glass-on-tin shaker for show. Grazz's abandoned bottle of gin, a triple sec from the back bar, and a thrantcill egg went up in the air. Working flair shifted into exhibition flair—the bottles spun faster, the egg flew higher, and Ashkhen relied more and more on the Force to keep the show going. When the juggling and mixing was done, she tossed the eggshell into the trash and fine strained the milky emulsion into a chilled champagne coupe.

Grazz gave a disdainful snort. "Circus freak! You forgot to balance a beach ball on your nose."

A medium-sized crowd started to form around the bar. Bust coursed through the dancefloor and stood closer to keep an eye on Grazz, but he enjoyed the impromptu bartender-off just as much. Orders for all kinds of cocktails came flooding in, keeping both contenders busy—Ashkhen wondered how long would the contest go on before they rotated through the entire menu of Irigo's. Someone of the staff had put a champagne cooler out on the counter, and it was steadily filling up with credit chits.

Ashkhen scrolled down on the terminal, eyes jumping from order to order. "This one's yours. "Burnt Fuselage and a glass of Blood and Sand. Tell us a Tusken Story!" she said, mouth curling into an impish grin. "If it's not too much for you, that is. Burnt Fuselage used to be popular around the first Galactic games, you know."

"So?"

"It's a very old recipe. Do you even remember where you woke up today?"

"Shut up and move out of my way." Grazz yanked up his pants with one hand. Regardless of his alcohol-impaired coordination, his upper and lower pairs of arms worked on the two different cocktails with ease. Once the drinks were finished, he threw the cognac and vermouth-soaked ice into his enormous mouth, munching on it with apparent joy.

Ashkhen awarded his feat with a theatrical yawn.

"One-trick eopie," she said. "Your craft is so boring that I might as well just"—she pulled her headscarf over her eyes—"get some shut-eye."

Grazz's wattle sounded a weird sibilant as it deflated. A confused silence settled on the crowd. Such a manifest perplexity of the collective had Ashkhen's mouth pull into a grin.

"Fallen Angel up next, wasn't it? Such a classic, I could do it in my sleep."

The Force swelled around the people, flowed freely behind the bar, even between Grazz and the shaker still in his hand. Ashkhen sank further into the meditative trance and let the Force guide her movements.

A power cell clicked into its place. The hilt slowly rotated on its longitudinal axis. Focusing lenses rose from the meditation mat and slid into their grooves on the inside of the cylinder. The blade emitter sank and twisted into its bayonet mount. Last but not least, Ashkhen opened her palms, and the kyber crystal floated up to the hilt slowly rotating in front of her. The Force rang out, and the lightsaber softly descended onto the mat in front of her.

The shaker rolled down her arm. She caught the cocktail glass by its stem just before it smashed onto the bartop, flipped it right side up and filled it to the brim.

Ashkhen pulled up the scarf with the other hand. "Playtime's over. Now get the kriff out of my bar."

All eyes turned to the Besalisk.

"I'll kriffing swallow you whole."

Grazz pulled his shirt over his head and tied it around his eyes inside out. It wasn't just his unbrushed teeth that made it hard for Ashkhen to stand in such close proximity to him—stains of dried spew and blood smudged his chest, too. She took a step backwards to stand out of reach of the quartet of his flailing arms.

First, he reached in the general direction of the cognac bottle, wabbly fingers knocking over miscellaneous items on the bartop. Hefting the bottle in one hand, he felt for the shaker with a wide sweep of his other arm. A triumphant grin spread over his face as he took a hold of it. He raised both above his head to show the crowd, then swung the bottle to gather some momentum and tossed it high up in the air. Ashkhen leaned further backwards to get out of the projectile's range.

Overconfidence and high blood alcohol makes for a very dangerous solution.

On the first spin, the bottle slipped from Grazz's hand. He frantically snatched after it with the other three—Ashkhen had but a split second to decide whether to save a bottle of cognac worth a thousand credits or to teach Grazz a lesson in humility.

Go kriff yourself, Gee Gee.

She made a subtle handwave—the pricey booze swiveled further out of control—Grazz belched up a loud curse—and the bottle shattered into to a million pieces.

The crowd exploded. Their ovation drowned out the music for a moment, making even those who had lost themselves in dancing turn their heads. Bust stepped behind the bar, acting as a one-strong live barrier between the title holder and Grazz's tightly balled fists. Both men were well aware of what the other was capable of—the sore loser slipped on the glass shards on his way out.

Ashkhen took a big breath to launch into her excuse, but before she could have said a word, Bust picked her up and sat her on his shoulder. The sudden change in altitude prompted an idea—Ashkhen grabbed a bottle of extra brut Dowager from the top shelf, wrenched the cork free with the Force and sent it flying over the whooping and hollering crowd. She took a big swig, then passed the bottle to the waitress by Bust's elbow.

"If you're done tearing up the place, Imos wants to see you." Bust barged through the crowd towards the storage corridor, and put her back on the floor.

"Is it bad?"

"You tell me."

Ashkhen left the club area proper and headed for the elevators with Bust on her heels. Her apprehension swelled into a full-fledged bad feeling as she knocked on Imos's door. Would he dock the smashed bottle from her pay?

But Grazz broke it, it wasn't me!

The club manager looked up from his holofeed, then glanced at Bust. The bouncer closed the door behind them.

"Have a seat."

"Look, Imos, I—"

He raised a hand. Ashkhen shut up.

"Here's my take on flairtending." He leaned forward in his chair, tenting his fingers on his desk. "I don't endorse it, because it slows down service, gets messy and really expensive. I'd rather you went crazy on competitions and not behind my bar."

He raised the same hand again, promptly intercepting Ashkhen's unspoken protest.

"Tonight, on the other hand, you thoroughly convinced me that Grazz does not represent the vision I have for this place. I'll deal with letting him go."

Ashkhen gave him a tentative nod, waiting for the but hanging in the air. Bust stood so close that the front half of his body pushed into her personal space.

"But before I let you take home that bucket of credits, I must ask this one question that has been bothering me for a while now."

He typed a few words into his terminal, then pulled up a holofeed, footage from security holocam mounted in the Obsidian suite's ceiling. Imos's green eyes pierced into hers over the three-dimensional diorama of Rix's stage: miniature plates orbited the stripper poles as a tiny Nautolan figure danced in the midst of it.

"Now, what the kriff is a Jedi doing undercover in my club?"