Make No Assumptions- Playing the Game

This is going to hurt. But it'll hurt you a lot more than it hurts me, I thought to Ve'vuut's steely gray eyes. She held them, unblinking, on me, clearly willing me to make a move. I savored the sweetness of the moment for just a fraction of a second longer, watching her, setting her up...

In the instant before she would have spoken, I reached out with my right hand and moved my matriarch one square further, capturing her mercenary captain and spiriting it off of the board.

Taking the bait without thinking it over, Ve'vuut moved a vizier out of position and captured my matriarch.

Suppressing a victory cry that would have been utterly out of place in this contest, I used my left hand to guide my last remaining scout across the six clear diagonal spaces, all the way to where her strategist sat in its corner, no longer protected.

"You lose again," I said levelly, raising my gaze back to Ve'vuut and leaning back a little on my seat, which reeked of blasterfire and must have been salvaged from the ejection seat of a severely damaged fighter. Possibly even one whose pilot died in the cockpit... I resolved not to think about that.

"Shavit," she said, but without any force. "I never saw that coming." Leaning forwards to study the enormous board, the Mandalorian's eyes flicked over the assembled pieces, clearly trying to pinpoint the moment where she had lost control.

I hesitated. Should I? Ah, what the heck. "You weren't supposed to," I told her. "I set you up." Blunt again. Good thing Ve'vuut doesn't seem to mind.

One of her eyebrows rose, but Ve'vuut's face remained straight. I suppressed a flicker of unease as I recognized her expression as very similar to the one I had practiced endlessly in a mirror when I was eight. It doesn't mean anything. I first saw that kind of eyebrow-lift on an actor's face during a holodrama; she could have seen the same one. Or something.

"I see," was all she said, and that eyebrow came down as she scanned the board again.

Again, I hesitated, but for a different reason. Ve'vuut was pretty good at this strategy game, which borrowed elements from both chess and dejarik, but I was better. In an interesting reversal of our previous "sparring matches", after I had figured out the rules I had, for the most part, been in control of each game, and Ve'vuut had only managed to lose gracefully. It was a Jedi thing, at least in part; I could sense the state of her thoughts and knew when she was setting something up or suspected me of doing the same. It was also partly the result of my own resolution to never let first Bolook, and later Kreia, to beat me again; because they were such damn bad sports about it, I had studied and practiced at every opportunity.

The important thing was that this string of defeats gave me a slight advantage. I had been leaving my mental shields "down" to pick up surface impressions, the state of her thoughts really, and the "pre-echo" of what she was about to say a moment before she said it. Very, very few people, even among Force-Sensitives, can detect that kind of passive telepathic reading, and it takes very little effort to do.

My thought-sensing ability- like my empathy, precognition, telekinesis, and draining abilities- was unimpressively low-strength and not entirely reliable. Kreia had of course been disappointed, although she had waxed eloquent about how these abilities might, in time, grow into the potential she claimed to have seen. Still, she'd taught me a number of things.

There are many, many ways to probe a mind. Some are more intrusive than others, some are more or less difficult to detect. The method I had in mind was moderately intrusive and almost impossible to feel, provided that my victim was distracted, although it was easily rebuffed if she felt me probing. Of course, it was rather difficult to use that probe and stay alert and un-tranced at the same time...

Pah. I'm a Jedi Knight. I can handle it. This is a minor violation of ethics, but these aren't normal times, and this one isn't too severe. Not like some of the other methods, anyway.

Ready to withdraw if she showed any signs of noticing or trying to converse, I reached out to the Mandalorian in the Force, hearing Kreia's voice so clearly that the old woman might as well have been whispering into my ear.

'Be as the proboscis of a Devish bloodmoth. Find a soft place in anyone's defenses... even Jedi have them... and pierce it slowly. Carefully, making the tiniest hole. Anesthesize it. Make yourself small and narrow to fit through. Silent. Undetected. As the barest wisp of thought, encourage the mind to go down the pathways that you desire it to take, remembering the thoughts that you desire to know.' That kind of alteration took a long time, and every second made it more likely that the probe would be detected

Ve'vuut shook her head slightly, as if bothered by an annoying insect, but didn't look up. I gripped my lower lip between my teeth. If I knew her better, I could just worm past her defenses. But I don't. And really, trying to read her mind here and now is a bad idea. Only simple people are that easy to probe, and Ve'vuut is far from simple. I reminded myself to breathe and considered my options.

This time, I decided to try a compulsion. This was not something another Master, not Kreia for once, had taught me. My most unusual-looking Master, Skirkil the Amani, had been - was - very proficient at planting these compulsions. But the method he had used, the one I had learned, could only be set into a mind that was, if not willing, at least open to suggestion.

No chance of that here, of course. But perhaps if I use both techniques... Search out a soft spot, puncture it, insinuate a miniscule probe... It's amazing how this kind of thing becomes routine.

I formed the compulsion. Like all good ones, it was simple, wordless, and irrational, yet not out-of-character. Ve'vuut was already training with me; she had taken off her armor yesterday before sparring with me and today she had appeared without a helmet. Never mind that she was a trained warrior surrounded by other trained warriors, and could probably stop me very quickly if I tried something. At some level, in some way, she trusted me. My compulsion would serve to enhance that - telling her, at some level below consciousness, that I was worthy of trust. It might not take any effect for days, and it would wear off eventually, but perhaps I could get her to talk to me.

Just as I completed it and planted it, I felt a kind of prickling and withdrew, coming back into complete awareness and staring at the Mandalorian's head. She wasn't wearing her helmet or her sloping neckbrace, but I could see yesterday's olive-colored bodysuit, fitting snugly under her chin... some kind of underarmor, probably. I couldn't see her face well from this angle - just as well, really - but her graying dark, oily hair was only just long enough to be tied into a snub of a tail, high on her skull.

Reacting to either my gaze or the probe, Ve'vuut raised her eyes and looked right back. She can't have detected the compulsion- I thought, startled, and wishing I could just tap into her thoughts like a stronger telepath. I could not read her expression, but she was definitely debating with herself. I could feel her thoughts slow as she resolved something or made a decision. Now what?

"All right, Rhevan," she said suddenly, in that low, slightly hoarse voice of hers, tinged with a bit of mordantly dry humor. "I do not think, then, that my pride will survive too many more losses. There is little point in continuing- but we have not been here for long enough, I believe."

"What are you proposing?" I asked carefully, illogically proud when I managed to keep my voice steady. I hadn't noticed my energy ebbing away, but my mind-trick attempts had still taken it out of me.

Clearly unaware of the path my thoughts were taking, Ve'vuut leaned forwards again, far enough that the midsection - the cuirass? - of her armor touched the edge of the board. She brought her arms up, too, folding them earnestly. "We are not, now, within the Circle. My bones are not as they were; fighting without armor in this-" with a jerk of her squared-off chin she indicated the downpour outside - "is not something I care to do. Nor do I care to leave you in the hands of my men; you will not challenge each other properly, not at this point."

"So what I propose is this. I show you the Clan; I show the Clan you. You have never truly seen Mando'ade before. And my people, while familiar with the aruettisse, have never seen a real jetti."

I blinked at her, taken aback. She waited.

"I... don't see why you're asking me this," I told her finally. "If you want to show the Clan a Jedi, you might as well get Malak. He'd probably be better to spar with, too. And I don't know why you want to show the Clan to me. It- I'm probably missing something here, because I don't know why you're doing this." Rule eighty-two about being a Jedi: things that make no sense to you generally are perfectly sensible to someone else. A little less to-the-point than a few of the other things I've said around her...

Ve'vuut's eyes narrowed slightly. "I am a Mandalorian, jettii. I can hear bluntness without taking offense. If you have a question, ask, or it will be taken as... as 'thinking out loud', and may be answered, or ignored. And I do not want to spar with your Malak. He may be jettisse, but he is still only another aruettise; perhaps you may think well of him, but even the best of them cannot be made to understand honor." She stared off into the distance as if remembering something saddening.

Hold on. Aruettise means 'outsider' and 'traitor'. Should I let her brood? Or interrupt? After a moment, loyalty won out. "Malak's not a traitor," I stated with a bit more heat than I'd intended, earning myself a sharp, arch glance.

"Udesii," she told me. Relax. "I was using the general sense of the word. He is not particularly suited; you may be. You are not too much of a di'kut; you know what the Clans intend. Invasion. How is this said..." Ve'vuut trailed off again for several long moments. Unusually antsy, I shifted in my blaster-seared ejection seat.

Finally, the Mandalorian found the words she was looking for. "I need another challenge. Of all the aruettise my Clan has seen lately, other than some few that died before we could capture them, you, Rhevan, look to be the closest to us. Our leader Mand'alor can use quality more than quantity."

I blinked, trying to digest what I'd heard. Why is she telling this to me? The compulsion can't be taking effect so quickly, can it? It finally dawned on me exactly what she was trying to say and I stood up. "You're - you want to recruit me?"

I flicked my gaze from her right eye to her left, rapidly, seeing no hint of teasing, no deception. "I really don't think that's going to happen, Ve'vuut. Ever. I'm a Jedi. I don't just switch sides."

"Perhaps that is so," she allowed, rising from her own seat. "Yet what is the harm in showing you the Clan? If nothing else, you could take what you see back to your Republic, if you manage to escape. A large if, I might add. You also might change your mind." Turning and stooping somewhat, Ve'vuut retrieved her helmet, slid it down over her head, and engaged the seal. The neckbrace was then draped like a scarf or set into place like an enormous collar between the helmet and the main body of her armor.

Oddly enough, now that it was out in the open I felt calm and clear-headed. As much as I might have wanted to make a confrontation out of this, I did not. There will be time, and more than time, for that later. "Are you offering this because of my skills? Or because I look like you?"

Her features were hidden beneath the helmet, but I had the impression that Ve'vuut smiled. "You would love to know, jettii. The Mando'ade come from many worlds. Perhaps you and I are kin, perhaps not. I am not certain myself. Does it truly matter? Genes do not matter, not like skill and stubbornness and will. Shall I show you?"

Almost like the Jedi. "Yes," I replied, softly. "I'd like to see that."

[Thanks Charamei for being my beta]