Make No Assumptions- Margoli

After that first day, when Ve'vuut lead me about like a child, the days took on a bit of a pattern. In the mornings, I would eat and try to clean myself up, and then I'd bring my paltry healing skills up and work on whoever'd been hurt. I can't do much more than "kill the pain" and encourage the body's natural defenses - I can't even stop the bleeding unless I'm using my hands or the Force to physically hold something shut - but sometimes that's all you need.

I had the impression that, other than Tralus, who knew that I was a Jedi, most of the captives thought that I just had a knack with splinters or something. I understood when he told me to keep my profession secret; many of the prisoners had a bit of a grievance against the rest of the Republic, including the Jedi, for not noticing when they disappeared. Malak chafed a bit at that, but agreed, and helped me concoct some fiction so that we would have answers if anyone asked. It helped that none of the crewmates from our little cruiser shared our stockade.

A bit later on in the day, when it was close to "noon", a red-armored Mandalorian would come fetch me out into the Mandalorian encampment. Ve'vuut would meet me there, and usually proceeded to use blunt practice swords to pummel me, shouting harshly that I needed to suck in my gut and keep my di'kutla guard up, mir'osik. Apparently I was improving; I can't think of any other reason why she hid a flush of satisfaction whenever we finished.

After a while of that she resumed walking me around. I saw another redarmor that she proudly identified as either her son or her daughter(she didn't specify which, and I wasn't close enough to find out) giving the same treatment that I had endured at Ve'vuut's hands to a batch of youngish Mandalorians. It was oddly, distressingly similar to watching Nemo train fumble-footed Younglings; harsh and painful but brutally fair. The major difference was that I never saw this son or daughter off the practice field, and never saw whether he or she became mild-voiced and even-tempered like my old teacher.

I saw the slaves, a number of whom had been Republic captives at first. I hate slavery instantly and on principle, but even I had to admit that as slaveowners go, you could do far worse than Ve'vuut's clan. These slaves appeared unbeaten and unbroken; they argued and talked freely with their masters. It seemed almost as if they were family. I couldn't help contrasting them with the pitiful hollow-eyed things I'd seen as a Padawan and a Knight. Slavery is outlawed in the Republic, but this law isn't well enforced at all, and a lot of Senators are so corrupt that they'll ignore anything to stay in power.

One day Ve'vuut even took me to get a look at their Basilisk War Droids and the snubfighters; the G-Wings. The Basilisks were utterly foreign to me; something like a war mount, something like a very small ship. Even if I hadn't known what they were, I would have known their purpose - insane bravado and great destruction. Some of them were more ship-like, others more like rontos with laser cannons for heads. The latter, as well as being clearly dangerous, looked really, really stupid.

The G-wings, at least, had a purpose I could understand. Some of them had been altered; enlarged somewhat, given more seats, bearing less in the way of weaponry and assuming more of a troop-transport purpose, although they were still light, agile craft that Malak would have loved to dismantle and tool around with, given half a chance.

Ve'vuut actually tried to get me to learn how to fly a G-wing using a rather battered simulator. It didn't work, of course. I was not, had never been, and probably will never be a pilot. After about an hour, give or take a minor eternity, she gave it up as a bad job before I did some serious damage. That wasn't one of the good days; she actually took me back to the circle, called in a relative, and proceeded to show me why it's a bad idea to be outnumbered. Fortunately, I heal quickly.

She never came right out and answered the question, but from the hints Ve'vuut dropped and the fact that I didn't sense any of the vague Force "signatures" that truly young children give off, I decided that there were no mothers with younglings in the encampment. Perhaps because most non-Jedi children below a certain age are pretty useless, I saw no Mandalorians who had not already made their own armor. The youngest 'felt' ten years old or so in the Force, and carried a set of cut-down blasters as if they had been born grasping them, as if the weapons and armor both were mere extensions of their bodies, the way Jedi are with our lightsabers. Worlds away from the carelessness I had seen in new Republic recruits...

Anyway, I was always escorted back to my stockade when Ve'vuut was finished. Sometimes I would eat again, other times I'd skip the meal, but I'd always talk to Tralus and watch him with the prisoners. He had a way of knowing each name and a hundred little details to go with the name, and gave me the impression that not only did he care about his fellow captives in a way that had too much authority to be called "brotherly", but they cared right back. It was strange and fascinating, a way of quickly connecting to a disparate mass of near-strangers, and which appeared effortless, though it was surely anything but.

After that, Malak would generally find me and demand that I tell him absolutely everything that had happened. Half the time he seemed certain that I would take Ve'vuut up on her offer, no matter how vehement I was in telling him that it was never going to happen. Our friendship threatened to decay because of that, so we tried to avoid the topic altogether, but I could tell when he was thinking about it.

Fortunately, someone among the Mandalorians, a mere blue-armor, had finally decided that Malak might make a good sparring partner. We never found out who it was, or even if it was one person or, say, a pair of siblings who took turns, but he or she was determined, showing up almost every day and having at it. I never had the chance to watch, what with Ve'vuut's "training" happening at the same time, but both Malak and the soldiers who watched told me that it seemed fairly even, and Malak would probably win if not for that armor.

During one of those sessions, I was told, the sun had shone between patchy clouds, giving the fighters a white-gold glow and instantly sunburning poor thin-skinned Malak, caught without any protection, into a semi-permanent blush. I was very sorry to have missed both the fight and the sunlight, but Ve'vuut had taken me to the enclosed forge that day... pity, really. The weather in camp was usually overcast or raining, and I could have used the vitamin D.

After going over (or not going over) our respective fights, we generally ate before settling down to sleep. It was always the same kind of food; root vegetables, edible leaves, large grubs, all "browse" that had presumably been scavenged from the surrounding jungle. Captives who weren't frequently "sparred with" did their best to make the stuff more palatable, but the "browse" was almost universally despised in the stockade for its monotony. Privately, I felt a bit of contempt for these soft Republics, so used to luxury that they weren't satisfied with regular meals, but needed variety as well.

I never voiced that thought, though. I, as a Jedi, had been trained and conditioned to "make do" when there wasn't enough. These soldiers had all been civilians before they started their all-too-brief training, so they had little experience with blandness. Thinking of them as "soft" sounded a lot like something a Mandalorian would do, even if it was true. And training or no training, I would have welcomed something new and different, too.

With the establishment of a "routine", I stopped thinking much about the all-too-important task of escaping and getting word to the Republic. Presumably Malak did too, or else he assumed I was taking care of it, because he never said anything about getting out. And certainly there was no help from our fellow captives. One and all, from Tralus to Tanaab, human and non, seemed to assume that they would be escaping or rescued, but it was up to someone else to make and implement plans. There had been a few, a very few, who had tried escape earlier on, but they'd all been detected, even the Defel, so everyone else threw up their hands and waited. Even me, in a way. I made the excuse to myself that I was just gathering information on the Mandalorians, that if the opportunity presented itself I would take it, but like all the others, I did nothing. Didn't even really think about it.

Until Margoli arrived.

Margoli was a Bothan, of that vaguely equine(as opposed to the slightly more common canine or feline) offshoot, long-muzzled and long-eared, her fur a brown that was two shades paler than Quatra's. More importantly, she was Force-Sensitive, enough so that she had been Jedi-trained, to a point. I sensed her presence from the moment she was taken to the planet's surface - brighter and stronger than that of anyone else in camp except Malak and I. Still, other things had been on my mind, so I dismissed it until she was transferred into my stockade and decided to seek me out. Early in the morning.

Very early in the morning. Before dawn; before false dawn.

Tensed, I woke abruptly just before my internal clock would have started to wake me, startled by the distinct sensation that someone was standing over me, waiting, and not patiently either. Still, the waiter had not come into the tent, or close enough to actually, physically stand over me, let alone tap my shoulder or shake me, so it couldn't have been too urgent.

Then again, I realized as I climbed to my feet, shook off the dead grass clinging to my body, and picked my way across my sleeping tentmates, it could just be that whoever it is looked inside first and doesn't want to try and clamber over Malak. He'd wake up, and he might do something incredibly stupid. Like get loudly, violently angry. I don't think he would, unless he got stepped on in a sensitive region, but then again he is my best friend. And I don't know what Tanaab would do if he got that sort of awakening, so...

At any rate, since it didn't seem all that urgent I lowered my shields and extended a noninvasive "finger" or "eye" out so that I could find out just who it was that wanted me and couldn't be bothered to wait ten minutes. It didn't really feel like Tralus...

I withdrew the probe and snapped my shields shut hastily, feeling the blood collect hotly in my face. Ack. I felt her yesterday... why didn't I do anything? Must have been daydreaming about tooth-cleansers... right, right. I feel the clarity/obscurity of a Jedi or a trained Sensitive, but not all of the edge or the power. Half-trained Service Corps? Nobody I know... I'd better play this carefully.

Balancing on my prosthetic foot, I found Malak's right shoulder in the darkness and prodded it twice with my "real" toes, then experienced a spark of satisfaction when, instead of staying asleep or grunting, he rolled onto his back and opened his eyes, instantly awake. Even though we hadn't used that signal in years, it was gratifying that both of us remembered the old "wake up quietly so we can get out and explore in the dark" cue. Maybe some of the others, too... focus!

I held one upraised pointer finger to my lips in that semi-universal "silence" gesture, feeling pebbled scales rasp against my mouth. In the barest thread of voice that I could muster - not a whisper - I breathed, "There's someone unknown outside. Force-Sensitive. Back me up?"

Frowning a little that I would ask a question with so obvious an answer, Malak nodded and sat up, then extricated himself from the dead grass and positioned himself in a crouch. I relaxed a little and glanced at Tanaab, still snoozing. The kid looked rather silly wrapped up in his bedding, like a baby bird in a messy nest or a caterpillar trying to weave a cocoon. I decided to leave him and slipped out of the tent, staying to the left so Malak would have enough space if he needed to come out fast.

That was the first time I saw Margoli; in a moderately confrontational legs-spread stance, arms akimbo with her hands on her angular hips, hairy ears folded slightly backwards against her head. Her bright amber eyes looked me up and down, clearly evaluating me and just as clearly finding me lacking.

"You're not much of a Jedi, are you?" she half-demanded, not bothering to keep her voice down.