Make No Assumptions - Lineage

Reaching out in the Force, I felt for the small, spiky objects that were the two Mandalorian's helmet communicators. They seemed to be built into the helmet and strung out interestingly; two wires that I assumed were speakers were positioned over the ears, and another wire was close to the mouth. Interesting... I already know that Mandalorians use self-contained comm systems, but I've never had a chance for a good look before. It's a good idea, but if it malfunctions you're effectively rendered mute unless you take that helmet off. Hmm. If I destroy these now, it's a safe bet that they will know something is wrong.

Tightening my grip on them - the comm units were both aflicker with traces of electricity, which probably meant that they were in use - I sensed something else. My lightsaber. It was near. Ve'vuut had it clipped to a bandoleer or something.

I hesitated. True, a lightsaber is just a tool and a symbol. The Force, not the lightsaber, makes a Jedi. I didn't need it.

But...

That was the lightsaber I had worked on for two, almost three years, and finished when I was twelve. My first real one. Almost nothing was left of my original lightsaber- the casing, the handgrip, the emitters, focusing crystals, the various lens assemblies... well, just about everything had been replaced, sometimes more than once, at various points for various reasons. By now it looked nothing like the smallish thin-hilted version I had first constructed; even the size, thickness, and exact hue of the blade had changed. But the primary crystal, the one that gave my blade its reddish colors, the one that I had made and "tuned" to work best with me, was still there. I would know it anywhere. It was like an extension of me.

I could use the Force to pull it away from her. But it's always a lot easier to make something malfunction then it is to move it around. Ve'vuut would notice, too. I wouldn't be able to keep ahold of the helmet coms- yes, I could easily just find them again and destroy them. It wouldn't take more than a second, but she might well be able to get a message off before then. And even if I destroy the comms, then get my lightsaber, these two will be here, armed, and alerted. I could fight them off with my lightsaber- ow. No, precog says that won't work now. Sometimes I wish precognition could warn me, just once, in a way that doesn't involve a first-person view of my horrible, horrible death. By decapitation. Ow.

I took a moment to consider my options a bit more. Hmm. I could go back and get Malak, and we could work together. As long as he isn't handling anything really heavy... in which case it tends to overbalance and start spinning... he's a fair hand with telekinesis. But that would leave the pilots and Margoli alone together, even if only for a few minutes. Besides, they might hear him. Maybe not, then. Why would I fare poorly against those two with my lightsaber? I'm no Weapons Master, and it's true that these are trained Mandalorians and I'm missing an arm, but a lightsaber should still make short work out of them. Wait, isn't Mandalorian iron supposed to be resistant? How in the nine hells would iron resist a lightsaber?

Precognition flickered at the edges of my vision, showing me Ve'vuut and her companion from a much closer view. Well, so they won't shoot me right away if I get close. That's something, I guess. This is about as close as my precog ever gets to telling me what to do - showing me doing it.

Why am I stepping closer to them? Chaos take me. I must be chewing the luna weed... that, or I'm just an idiot.

Noticing my presence about half a second after I'd expected her to, Ve'vuut raised her head to stare at me, clearly interrupting some conversation. The relative who stood before her did the same, twisting around at the waist to transfix me with his? her? black visor. I was struck by the sudden, irrational idea that they had been talking about me.

To her credit, Ve'vuut didn't start up the barrage of idiotic "How did you get out? Why are you here?" questions that I had almost expected. On the contrary, she seemed to know exactly what this was about.

The crackle-pop of her helmet speaker activating would probably have made me jump if not for the flicker of warning I felt beforehand.

"So," she stated, voice flat and without inflection. "You are leaving. And, since you came here, you plan on stealing one of my smaller ships to do so. Yet I do believe that you are the worst pilot I have ever seen. Not only that, but your very unusual prosthetic arm is gone. Interesting."

I blinked, trying to pinpoint where exactly my lightsaber was. Not in plain view from the front. Maybe hooked on the side? Or under that frontless skirt-kilt-thing... it's called a kama, right. I was glad as she kept talking; it meant that she was distracted. Part of me registered the irrelevant detail that the rain had stopped.

"You must have brought others who can fly competently, and are hiding out there somewhere. While I have only a little doubt that, if needed, you would sacrifice yourself, somehow I don't think that this is your plan," she said slowly. "You are bright enough... you may be acting as a diversion." The Mandalorian reached one arm up over her shoulder and unholstered a weapon that looked more like the kind of tripod-mounted portable cannon used by entrenched infantry than any blaster I had ever seen. Where. The Hells. Did that come from?! It made even the repeaters that I'd seen look like children's toys.

Then again, considering how comfortably Mandalorian children tote weapons of their own, maybe they are toys.

Cradling that - thing - in her arms like a baby, Ve'vuut looked at me and drawled, "Pick your jaw up before you start luring insects. This may be Clan Ordo's favorite, and they certainly jump all over anyone else using it, but as a clan leader I'm entitled to some privileges."

I closed my mouth. Ve'vuut's companion had also drawn a weapon, also apparently from nowhere but probably from a holster on his or her back. I was faintly relieved to see that it was only a vibrosword.

'Only'. Hah. A very, very large vibrosword that is both heavy and sharp; the 'live' counterpart to those swords that I've been 'sparring' with. It's a good thing that I, ah, 'persuaded' Margoli that it's a bad idea to try rushing in... I don't know if I can use the Force to pull these things away from them, though. And they have other weapons with them, too, I can see smaller holsters on their hips. Hmm.

"So, jettii," Ve'vuut continued, "I will give you two choices. One. You may continue with whatever plan you had in mind; please to keep in mind that however valiant your efforts may be, we will use lethal force." Punctuating that bland statement, the Mandalorian did... something... with her overgrown blaster cannon, tightening a ring on its muzzle, which produced a decidedly menacing click. "You really must excuse my presumption, but I do not think you would do well in a fight, unarmed and... ah... one-handed. Or, perhaps, you will hear me out, and my ad and I will walk away. I... do not think that you will join us after all, not now. But there is something that I would have you know." I sensed no deception in her, but this really seemed too good to be true.

Oh, there's a choice. "How do I know I can trust you?" Oops, put my foot in my mouth there... "Not to impinge on the honor of the Mandalorians or anything, but if you two walk off there isn't anything keeping you from raising the camp, is there? And why, exactly, would you 'have me know' something?"

Ve'vuut actually sighed, gustily and with some force. It sounded very odd over the helmet speaker. "If you will only listen if I swear that both I and Ergeron, my second-youngest here, will leave you to your own devices, then I will swear. I do not think you will be leaving here alive if I do leave you here, but I must... what do you say? get something off of my chest. It has bothered me for close to thirty of your years. All of my children save one, and those of my grandchildren that are old enough to understand, know it. Would it be too much to ask that you understand this?"

I blinked again and, very cautiously, allowed that I might. If she swore.

"Good. Jettii, you do realize that you did not require us to keep silent now, and that Ergeron could easily have raised the camp moments ago? Do not worry. We have not. And we will not. I so swear." Ve'vuut looked at her companion impatiently.

"Ah- yes. I so swear. I do not summon the Clan or any in it, my buir does the same, you are let to, to..." Fumbling awkwardly through the words, Ergeron paused on the last one. He found it a bit more quickly than I would have expected. "Escape. Yes. I am not much good with Basic... understand it well, but it is so slippery..."

Ve'vuut nodded in what looked like sympathy. 'Once we have conquered the galaxy, such absurdly complicated syntax will not be used much. Nor will those ridiculous past and future tenses, or separate pronouns for men and women. They will be left as a curiosity, a relic of older times. But until that day, you must practice Gera'dika. You progress well with language; you will be better than I, in time. For many of our warriors, it is acceptable to be imperfect in speech, but if you wish to go far, you must be able to deliver more than threats and warcries. Be wordy. It impresses the aruettisse."

Seeing that this discussion was in grave danger of going off on too much of a tangent, I cleared my throat. Their helmets and opaque visors made it impossible to read the two Mandalorians' expressions, but their body language telegraphed slight embarrassment. I contrived to look patient.

Ve'vuut recovered quickly. "Yes. My apologies, jettii. I would have waited to tell this to you, but... now I am stalling. No more." She leaned back and shifted her two-handed grip on her blaster cannon. "I am not of pure blood. Not of pure lineage; not a direct descendant of the Taung. Several of my great-great grand... fathers, and mothers as well, were aruettisse. Outsiders. It shows in the color of my eyes. This means little among the Clans; it is not a mark of shame. But, perhaps because of my lineage, I was not adverse to taking an outsider as a mate, and bearing a child. This was not at all long after what you call the Great Sith War, and I was wandering, searching for the honor that had been denied to me in proper fields of battle."

She paused there. I narrowed my eyes, beginning to get an inkling about where this was going. "Go on," I said before the silence could stretch. Inwardly I hoped that Malak and Margoli and the pilots weren't getting too impatient out there. I hadn't given them any signals since walking up to the two Mandalorians, after all. They were probably chafing at the what-do-we-do-now stage.

"When that did not work well, I chose another, and another, and one after that. It seems that I do not make a good wife, or perhaps I was not picky enough with my husbands," she mused. "But it is our way that if one partner is unhappy, the union is dissolved. The children decide to either remain part of the Clan, or live among the aruettisse. Mine chose to stay with me as I drifted. After the last one, I decided that I had had enough wandering, and returned to Mand'alore."

Ve'vuut nodded to herself, leaning back slightly. "There was an attractive new slave within my Clan. He was said to be Echani-trained, although he always denied that claim." I heard the distinct sound of lips being licked over the helmet speaker. "I was not the first to court him, but I was the only one to win. He was... small, compared to his predecessors, and certainly inexperienced, but oh, most satisfactory." She tilted her head, apparently lost in nostalgia. I shifted.

Ergeron coughed over his helmet speaker, raising one fist to the lower portion of his helmet. The sound appeared to jar the older Mandalorian out of her reminiscence. "Ah. Yes. I thought it was perfect. He always denied Echani connections, but I do think that I learned more from him than from all of my years of wandering. They are not so very unlike us; finicky and ornamental, yes, but less grasping and cowardly than most of the galaxy. Anyways. I bore another two children with him, a boy and a girl, and happened to be nursing the boy when their father stole the girl, took my personal shuttle which I had taught him to fly, and was never seen again." Ve'vuut's tone was not so much angry as it was melancholy. "Again, I chose poorly."

I didn't need a map to figure this out. "You think I'm that stolen girlchild." Huh. Oddly enough, dealing with people who pushed themselves forwards as long-lost relatives was part of Jedi training. A small and relatively new part, yes, but the fact was that at any point in time when a Jedi stood out, people of all ages, species, and backgrounds would press forwards and claim to be kin. Some of them would even believe it, some were making a calculated effort to get in on a Jedi's notoriety. The ability to handle these claims without causing an uproar was all but essential at times. And I was schooled by the best.

Evidently irritated by my lack of a dramatic response, Ve'vuut turned to Ergeron. "Buy'ce off, Gera'dika." Her son obeyed, sheathing his vibrosword and removing his neckguard and helmet to tuck under one arm.

I suppressed a sigh. I never thought that I would need to think this, but suddenly I'm tired of people who look like me. He did bear a strong resemblance. Almost a mirror-image, really - my squarish, stubborn jaw was a bit broader in him, and my blunt nose was longer, but he had my high cheekbones, my slightly-curving eyebrows, my ears. It was hard to tell through the armor, but it looked like he had my slightly-too-big-for-his-body hands too. If I had been younger, in that phase of development where I had longed for parents to carry me off, it probably would have meant more to me. Maybe Ergeron was my long-lost brother... possibly even twin... maybe not. Does it really matter? I am a Jedi before I am anything else. It might have bothered me somewhat later, but at the moment it mattered not at all.

Ve'vuut, evidently having watched me like a hawkbat, seemed to deflate. "Mmm. Perhaps I was wrong. You have the look, you are of the age, you learn in the right way. But you do not react to the smell of the forge or armor polish or anything the way that you should. Perhaps I was wrong..." Without another word, she turned and walked away. After giving me a measuring, faintly hostile Look with his steely blue-gray eyes, Ergeron followed, putting one hand up on his mother's shoulder and murmuring to her in Mandalorian. She was taller than him, too, part of me noticed.

My lightsaber! It had been jammed into a loop in the harness that had held Ve'vuut's massive blaster. That harness had a number of other items in loops that I recognized as the severed hilts of normal blades; trophies or mementos perhaps. This is my chance.

Going on one knee in the mud to steady myself, I reached out with both hands and the Force. My lightsaber seemed to sing, to vibrate, to glow at my touch, but I knew that illusion for what it was. I used the Force to grip it firmly, noting again that my phantom left hand seemed to work better with telekinesis than my "real" one. Teasing my lightsaber out slowly, centimeter by hopefully - undetected centimeter, was difficult, the more so because it was being walked away. But I managed, and my lightsaber floated back to my hand before it could be carried out of my range.

I could have handled that better, I realized as the Mandalorians receded into the darkness- thankfully, not in the direction where Malak and the rest waited. She won't be happy with me after this. And Malak won't be, either. I didn't see his lightsaber and I don't even know where it is. But the two sentries are gone. The G-wings are unguarded. This still feels too easy- but this is the opportunity we've been looking for.

Checking it for damage and finding none, I thumbed the activation stud on my lightsaber's hilt. Nothing happened.

"Shabla!" I realized. "That's why I would have lost so badly! She took out the fripping power cell!"

---

Popping his head out of the G-wing's slanted entry hatch, Tanaab saw me watching him and pulled his head back in, making a face as he did so. Satisfied, I rested my hand on my hip and swiveled to survey the other pilots. One and all had practically formed lines to start examining the snubfighters. Ordinarily Malak would have been with them, but this time, instead, he was moving from unclaimed ship to unclaimed ship, ducking under the tarps and cracking open the canopies, then leaning in to fiddle with the control boards. G-wings were, by all accounts, the fastest fighters in the Mandalorian's arsenal to carry their own hyperdrives and high-functioning comm systems. Ve'vuut may have sworn not to raise the alarm, but I was willing to bet that that our sudden liftoff would trigger it, and we really didn't want to be followed. Given the opportunity, he would have sabotaged the shuttles, other snubfighters, and the war droids as well, but they were parked seperately. We can't have everything, after all.

Margoli, having finished her own inspection early, leaned against her chosen G-wing, still flinching at every minor sound. I decided to talk to her.

"Hey," I said, strolling up. The Bothan met my eyes briefly, then looked down and away. I suppressed a sigh.

"Margoli, I'm sorry that I was harsh earlier, I really am. You didn't deserve it." I watched her watching me through her eyelashes and didn't need intermittant telepathy to know that she was thinking "But?" Concealing a slight smile, I went on. "But you were drawing attention, and you didn't respect the pilots. They aren't Force-Sensitive, but that doesn't make them less than we are." I paused. "Well. Not much less, anyway."

She said nothing. Prompted by an impulse that may or may not have been precognition, I said that one thing. The one thing that each of my Masters had agreed about completely, totally, and without any reservations. The one thing that should never be promised to any Bothan who isn't a Jedi Knight at the least.

"I'll make it up to you somehow, Margoli." This time she did look up, facial fur freezing mid-twitch.

"Promise?" she asked, obviously startled.

"Sure, if you show some consideration." The Bothan nodded slowly to herself and smiled. It was not a very nice smile.

"Well then," she half-purred, rippling her fur. "I bet you'd like to know how we unlocked and activated these G-wings."

"Actually, yes, I would. We don't have the keys, and I'm pretty sure that these things are rigged to send out an alarm if they're tampered with." I'd assigned myself rearguard duty while the pilots fanned out and took the tarps off of the fighters. Yes, I had seen Malak telling them not to try and open the G-wings' canopies until he or Margoli had checked it over, but I really had no idea just what they'd done.

"Here, I'll show you," she decided, suddenly helpful. "We have some time; your pilots are fiddling with control settings and adjusting the chairs and such." Turning abruptly, she leaned in and thumbed a control in her G-wing, extricating herself before the transparisteel canopy could shut on her. Closing, it made a distinct "I'm locked and I know it" sound, punctuated by a brief hiss as it pressurized.

Sealed, the G-wing bore a distinct resemblance to the Republic's own Aurek fighters, or A-wings. The main difference - other than coloring; apparently Mandalorian pilots were allowed to paint their ships in whatever shades or designs struck their fancy - was that the G-wings were blockier, with larger and more curved S-foils, one of which seemed to bear a torpedo launcher of some sort. Hopefully this similarity extended to controls and handling; our pilots would be confused enough as it was.

Margoli's chosen fighter had been lovingly decorated in such a way that it seemed to have been flown through a tornado of vibroblades, all of which had left long, jagged silvery lines. The Bothan splayed her furry fingers over a point where the canopy met the body, which was marked by a "scar" that divided sharply into three prongs like a bird's footprint.

"Pay attention, I'm only doing this once," she announced. I obeyed, "watching" closely as Margoli used the Force to simultaneously hit several triggers in the locking mechanism while stabbing deep into the device itself. She then turned it, increment by minute increment, until the entire mechanism clicked.

With a faint whirr, the canopy unsealed and lifted up invitingly.

"There you have it. The ignition's a bit harder, though, and I don't think I can slow it down any." The Bothan slid her legs in first and wormed into the seat, then poked her fingers at a point on one of the control boards, jabbing twice before the boards lit up in green. "And since I doubt these controls were made by Selonians, green means good." Twisting around to meet my eyes, she told me, "We gambled that there'd be a manual release. Sure, there are voice-activated systems, and all these functions can be assumed by an astromech of some kind, but manual is more reliable and usually quick, so it makes sense that these Mandos would use it. Your Malak probably does it differently, but he's occupied."

"He's not my Malak... and how do you know all of that?" I asked after a moment.

She smiled faintly. "Whatever you say... You think this is the first time I've had to hijack a ship? I may not be a Jedi, but there's still plenty of excitement in the Exploratory Corps. We do a lot more than you Knights realize." She changed the subject abruptly. "Well, looks like we're about ready to go. I'm certainly not an ace like Malak, but the Force guides my hands, too. Worry about yourself."

Belatedly I registered the sudden change in the atmosphere- my pilots had all finished their inspections at roughly the same time, and were waiting, tense. I sent a wordless thought off to Malak, who responded in kind that he was almost done, give him a minute, why wasn't I ready yet.

Seeing my approach, Tanaab sighed and made a hurry-up gesture. He'd already adjusted his seat as far forwards as it would go, leaving a small space behind it. I climbed in and fit myself, barely, into that space, bent knees almost at eye level.

During the planning stages, it had been decided that I, as a definite nonpilot, would have to ride behind someone. Tanaab and the two Sullustan pilots in our group had drawn straws, and he had lost.

I had explained why I needed to ride with a very light pilot by the simple expident of leaning on the boy. His reaction - nothing less than pop-eyed surprise - had been very amusing. Obviously Tanaab didn't have very many dealings with Jedi. Gradually, using the Force to enhance the body's oxygenation and such increases the density of a Sensitive's bones and muscles. As a result, even Sensitives who have been cut off from the Force tend to be stronger, more durable, and decidedly heavier than they look. But the kid couldn't have known that.

Yes, I could have wedged myself behind a different pilot. Maybe even Malak, although he would have needed to fold his legs considerably. But although the G-wings could fly with my dead weight, I was pretty sure that they'd suffer in terms of mobility.

The canopy lowered itself smoothly, locking into place centimeters above my head. If I had cared to move the stump of my left arm any farther to the left, the metal-capped tip would have scraped against the fighter's interior. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic... As it was, I took a moment to remind myself that the space behind Tanaab's seat was not going to become any smaller, and that there was enough good air for both of us.

"You have the comm system set up already, yes?" I asked the kid.

"Yes, Mother," he reassured me, dragging out the syllables in an exaggerated fashion. "You only told everyone, oh , four times. It's set to broadcast and recieve at a lower frequency than these Mandalorians use, so they won't be able to spy on us."

"Hmph," I said, mildly pleased.

I couldn't see much from my position, but I felt Malak come tearing up from the last of the G-wings and half-diving into his own fighter, which I already knew had been painted on its snout with glaring eyes and a snarling, toothy maw. It took a fraction of the time that the "normal" pilots had taken for Malak to finish his own examination, but then again, he had been running about unlocking the things, so perhaps he was used to the fighter's design and controls by now. From there, engine warm-up and the pre-flight checklist progressed a bit more slowly than I could have hoped, but it happened smoothly enough.

There were a handful of almost-crashes as pilots pushed off on the G-wing's repulsorlifts and became acclimated to the controls. From my position I couldn't help but grin vindictively as I heard Malak's voice over the com becoming increasingly toneless; logically, he knew that they couldn't use the Force and weren't being clumsy on purpose, but emotionally he was becoming annoyed and trying to hide it.

The grin vanished as the pilots managed a formation of sorts and started accelerating upwards, through the thick low-hanging clouds. I gritted my teeth and hardened myself as acceleration and gravity combined to press me back against the G-wing's inner walls. Fortunately for me, this world's escape velocity is fairly low.

"You know," Tanaab said suddenly. "There's really no point in going by codenames now. I'm Trask Ul-"

"Don't." I told him, feeling almost sick with the mounting tension I was picking up from him and the other pilots. "Right now, that would only be confusing. You'll just stay Tanaab for the moment, and I'll be Alderaan. Tell me later, all right?"

"Oh... all right. But it's still not Tanaab; my homeworld is really Taanab. Nobody gets it right, ever," he complained. I supressed a sigh of exasperation, reminding myself that he was young, he had very little practical experience with fighters, he was trying to distract himself...

We must have cleared the clouds at about that point - around the pilot's chair, I glimpsed stars - and, over the com, I heard someone saying "Uh... the little light on the communications board, the one Alderaan said meant 'recieving' is on, but I hear nothing..."

"Mine too. What-"

"It's because you're talking to each other, nerfwits." That wasn't Margoli's voice, but I felt the slightly acidic tingle in the back of my head that meant she was laughing at it.

"Switch on the com, Tanaab. Taanab. Whatever. Hold it down for a few minutes. I have to tell them something," I said, trying to nudge the back of his chair. My hand and legs weren't in a very good position to do so, but he heard me and complied.

I infused my voice with a perfect calm and certainity that I assuredly did not feel, pitching it so the microphone could pick up on it. "I asked you to reset your communications systems to a specific Republic frequency, remember? This way, they might know we're broadcasting and recieving, but they'll have to find our exact frequency to hear us. This also means that we aren't hearing their specific frequency. They might broadcast 'out in the clear', and we'll definitely hear them then. But I can guess at what they're saying."

Another pilot broke in, a Rodian by the sound of it. "Unh? What're dey sayin', den?" Most Rodians could just about manage to speak Basic, but the shapes of their mouths generally made for horribly thick accents, which lead to the stereotype of Rodians being very stupid. In this case, it was what was being said, rather than how it was said, that gave that particular impression.

I smoothed my voice still further, to the point where Malak, at least, would pick up on the mockery, but not quite smooth enough that the pilots would figure it out. "What else? 'Why are you out in formation? You're not supposed to be up right now. Land or be attacked.' I suggest that you get ready. Levas, are we out of the atmosphere yet?"

Levas, the Durosian woman who had been assigned this duty, responded calmly enough, although nothing could hide that pulsing current of anxiety I felt in her through the Force. "Not yet. We're in the thermosphere now. The long-distance function on the subspace radio works best if we're outside the exosphere; preferably, outside of the magnetosphere, too."

"Well, you can repeat our message, can't you? You might want to start transmitting now. Can't hurt to send it over and over again, can it?" That was Margoli, keeping her voice civil and reasonable. Well. For Margoli, anyway.

I half-smiled. At least she's trying... "Negative, Levas. Not just yet. You can't hear us while you're transmitting, and the moment you start, the Mandalorians will know for sure that we aren't supposed to be up here. Start when they're already alerted."

"So, when dey hear 'bout us breakin' out, won' dey jus' get in da G-wings still down dere?" The Rodian pilot's accent seemed to be thickening with stress. I spared a moment to wish that he would just use his own language. Rodese is easy enough to understand...

Malak cut in confidently. "We don't have to worry about those spares. Why do you think I spent so much time with them? I rigged them all with those smuggled power cells and the like. I don't know how well Mandalorian armor protects them, but a concealed improvised explosive is never good to the interior of a delicate control panel." Through the Force, I felt a kind of shared wince as the pilots realized what he meant. "Bit of a pity... these are fine birds. It's a shame to have to damage them." He used pilot's slang for 'ship', and I knew that he was sincere in his admiration.

"I think you jinxed us, Alderaan," Tanaab announced a few seconds later, still broadcasting to our entire group. "There's a flying wedge formation coming at us on the liboard. Launched from a ship somewhere in orbit, looks like."

I had no idea what a 'liboard' was, but presumably it showed the positions of ships that were nearby but not close enough to see through the cockpit windows. I licked my lips. "Right... well, remember, when we're outside of this planet's gravity field, we all have to engage our hyperdrives and go to the assigned coordinates so we can regroup. No heroics, people. I'd rather we all got out of this alive." There are enough deaths on my conscience for a good while. "Levas, now is a very good time, but don't forget to go to hyper. Oh, and get your shields up, too."

"Roger."

"You're the ace, Malak. Take over," I said, nudging at Tanaab's chair again. He shut off the microphone without further prompting. Vaguely, I wondered how good this G-wing's inertial compensator was. Not good enough to prevent me from being pressed back while we came out of the planet's gravity. Perhaps Mandalorians liked it that way. I could feel the sense of "downwards" shifting, gradually moving from the back of the G-wing to its belly as the artifical gravity started to work.

"Dial up your ablative shields, Republics. Keep your S-foils closed in flight position for now. Divert power into shields and engines from everything but life support. We're tiny little snubfighters, so the big ships can't target us with any accuracy. I'd love to see just what these birds can do, but we won't win here if we stay and fight." Malak, too, sounded calm, although I knew full well that he was sweating now.

I knew I was. I felt completely and utterly useless. All I was doing was weighing Tanaab's fighter down. I hated the feeling of being all but unprotected, just waiting for the lucky shot to get past our shields. True, a capital-type ship's turbolasers couldn't lock in on a target as fast and small as a snubfighter. Turbolaser bolts move at the speed-of-light, but the laser cannons that produce them are relatively slow. But if anyone was hit, he or she would be vaporized, shields or no shields. Instantly. Turbolasers are powerful; they have to be, since they usually come into play during bombardment or capital ship-to-capital ship 'slugging matches'.

Don't worry about the turbolasers. Worry about all the other ships. After all, there were plenty of starships bigger than fighters, which were rarely longer than twenty meters, and smaller than capital ships, which were a hundred meters or larger. I had no idea what the Mandalorians used... Ve'vuut had never covered that, and any information from the Great Sith War was quite out of date.

And, of course, if the Mandalorians decide to block us and we can't clear this planet's gravity, they can just finish us all at their leisure. Well, I'm about as useless as ninety-three kilograms of rubat crystal right now. Maybe I'm invaluable in different situations, but here I'm just dead weight at best, a distraction at worst.

As an alternative to waiting and fretting, I settled back as best I could, closed my eyes, and slid into a trance.

---

The trance, as it turned out, was a good idea. I felt... abstracted. At two removes from reality, almost as if everything was happening to a set of actors that had been done up to look like Malak and the various Republics. It would make an interesting plot for a holovid, I mused vaguely. Not the best, no, but interesting. Maybe I should pitch the idea to one of the entertainment companies. 'Oh no! The Republic pilots and the Jedi ace are in stolen ships, running the gauntlet of Mandalorians! The odds are not in their favor - will they make it?' Hmm. Maybe not; I've seen rather similar plots before. Several times. Except that the Jedi ace was always either romantically entangled with someone who gets hit, or somehow the fate of the Republic was at stake. Or both. No originality in the holovid industry.

Someone died, a feeling like a bright spark flaring and winking out, and I felt the usual slight melancholy; it wasn't someone I had been close to, but now I could never know who he was. Was that one of ours, or a Mandalorian?

Ah, I realized, drawing out my perspective. One of ours. Lucky shot, huh? Pity about that... I could still dimly hear the comm chatter and feel my body wedged uncomfortably in that space behind Tanaab's seat, but using the Force I saw a kind of starfield, made up out of all the beings around me. Tanaab and the other Republics had a certain brightness to them, nothing like the shine coming off of Malak and Margoli but certainly brighter and more constant than the machines they flew in.

I could see the G-wings working, see how some areas were bright with the energy streaming into the engines and the shields while other areas were dark, see the small ripples going out from them which must have been com signals. They had come out of the tight formation that we had been in earlier and were now fairly spread out, the better to maneuver. The dead pilot had been at the rear.

Malak, who was currently trailing to one side and near the back, juked, and a burst of energy poured, far too fast to follow, past the point where he had just been. He juked again- or was it a jink this time? At any rate, he jerked and the same thing happened. Drawing fire, perhaps? I could see that he had extended himself into his fighter, part of the ebb and flow of its energies, making it faster and more efficient, a part of him, an extension of his body. It was one of those abilities that made him a Jedi Ace; most Jedi extend ourselves into our lightsabers, but a lightsaber is both small and a very personal item. Fightercraft are always considerably larger than the beings they carry and are almost always made by machines. It still seemed strange and marvelous and pride-worthy that Malak or any ace could do this, and so quickly.

Somewhat less bright and definitely less clear, I could see that Margoli had been right. She flew with some skill, but was no ace. Still, I could see thin, tenuous lines of sorts trailing far, far behind her as she flew. Curious, I looked at the tight wing of Mandalorians behind us, far enough away that only one, the leader of the wedge, was close enough to shoot at extreme range. At Malak, of course, since he was closest. They, with full knowledge of their ships' abilities and currently without the need for shields, were gaining on us

The lines connected to a pair of the Mandalorians in the wedge. I didn't have the faintest idea what that meant. She wasn't talking to them or influencing them in any way, I could tell that immediately. It looked more like she was keeping tabs on them. After a moment, I dismissed the thought.

Are we free of the planet's gravity yet? No, that's the inertial compensator, tweaking my perception of "down". Weird. I can see gravity... kind of. And is that- yep, it's a largish moon. Looks like we'll have to get farther away before jumping to hyper.

Am I as good as a liboard? I wondered with detached amusement as I saw other ships of varying sizes trying to get on an intercept course. Whatever ships these were, they did not appear to be as fast or as maneuverable as the G-wings. Still, the group was forced to make several drastic course changes to avoid them, and that allowed the other G-wings to get closer, perhaps even close enough to see with the naked eye.

I found out what Margoli's lines were for as she angled way "overhead", dropped back, and jerked around- predictably enough, some of the Mandalorians followed, copied the jerking, and promptly bashed into each other. She had chosen the maneuvers that would force them to do so. A useful ability, and one I hadn't seen before. Probably an Exploratory Corps thing. Her pursuers hadn't hit hard enough to explode, but they now had damaged shields, in one case damaged enough to drop out of the chase. Margoli had been hit repeatedly by their fire, but her shields had taken it without too much trouble.

At one point, to avoid a wing of gunboats, we even had to make an unpredictable jagging course across a capital ship that happened to be lurking about, practically skimming our shields off of the bigger shields that it set up at our approach, buzzing it like powder gnats on the face of a kath hound. A handful of Mandalorian gunners, apparently unable to resist, opened fire with their turbolasers, "getting lucky" and managing to hit some of our fighters. Levas, the Duros on comm duty, had her shields peppered with shrapnel and cut off her attempts to hail the Fleet, reporting a "hisser" - a very slow atmosphere leak that she patched with convenient strips of adhesive before resuming the com. I could only assume that instead of hearing Malak's orders and acting them out, she was watching her fellows and imitating them.

The foolish turbolaser gunners, apparently unable to distinguish one G-wing from another, also opened fire on our close pursuers, who, bunched up in a tight formation since Margoli's trick, did not fare very well when one "lucky" bolt tore through them. I winced a bit, but "friendly fire" at least sowed some confusion. I could easily imagine superior officers suffering apoplexy under their opaque visors over this.

Malak wanted to skim the capital ship again. Snubfighters armed with missiles are sometimes able to destroy far larger ships, and he wanted to try it himself. But he knew better. I could see this in the truncated tendrils that spun out of him, stretched briefly towards the big ship, and retracted to vanish into his glowing fighter.

I couldn't help wondering what I looked like in the Force. I couldn't really see myself in my entirety; it was like trying to sketch my own face without the use of any reflective surfaces, and without prior knowledge of just what a face looks like. I glowed, of course; all living things and plenty of nonliving things glow in the Force, and Jedi are brighter and clearer than others. But how bright, how clear was I? To hear my first Master, Kreia, talk, comparing me to any other 'prospective student' was like comparing a nova to a white dwarf star. A few of my other teachers had told me that I had great potential, but then again, they said that to everyone. Wouldn't someone other than Kreia have noticed if I was as special as she claimed? Perhaps she had just been trying to get me to stay with her. I've gone over this before, both alone and with my friends. It isn't that important.

In the mean time, the Republics had cleared the capital ships, earning a decent lead in the confusion. These particular Mandalorians seem pretty green, to make these kinds of stupid mistakes. Colliding, friendly fire, milling around in confusion... if I was in charge, I'd be ashamed. Well, Ve'vuut did say that one of the reasons she was here involved training. Presumably the veterans are hanging back. All the better for us, I suppose.

The barely-visible emanations that I suspected to be gravity were even harder to see now. Taking that as a sign that we were almost in the clear, I dropped back into my body and opened my eyes. There was a faint, achy pressure in my sinuses. I ignored it.

"How long until we can make a Hyperspace jump?" I half-croaked as I forced my throat to work again. In the seat in front of me, Tanaab jumped. Patiently, I repeated the question.

Instead of answering, Tanaab hit the comm switch. "Republics, what's the estimate to get to hyper?"

"We'll get there when we get there," Margoli snapped.

I had the distinct impression that Tanaab was rolling his eyes. "Leader, how long?"

"I would guess three minutes, kid," Malak replied, clearly distracted. "We aren't completely clear of the gravity well yet, nor will we be for a couple of hours at this speed, but it will be weak enough soon. If we try now we'll probably trigger the failsafe."

There was some muttering that I, distanced somewhat from the sublight radio, couldn't quite catch, but it sounded hopeful and relieved. It seemed to involve 'We'll be heroes!'.

"Hey, hey, hey, don't party yet," Margoli said, ascerbic. "The hen may be gravid, but don't count the chicks until after they've been incubated." She paused. "And even if we do get the credit, that isn't necessarily a good thing."

Exactly what she meant by that had to remain unsaid.

I felt the Force kind of ripple, and the com was clogged with half-panicked shouts along the lines of "Ships coming out of hyper! Big ones!" and "We are dead."

"Wait-" Levas said, leaving off comm duty. "These aren't Mandalorians."

The voice came over the comlink loud and clear, on the "standard" frequecy that everyone could pick up on. Its owner seemed to be talking to himself. "It is good, sometimes, to encourage old friends to take starcruisers out together. Oh, goodness," he said as if surprised. "Mandalorians. Well, the Senatorial advisors may have forbidden us to answer the original distress call, but, seeing as we have happened upon a new one, we really must answer. Change your transponders to reflect your allegiances, please. I would prefer that none of my friends had to kill an old student."

"Is that- is that Nemo?!" I asked, incredulous. I hadn't seen him in years. Not far from his dotage, my old combat instructor usually stayed on Dantooine, as far from military concerns as he could go while remaining in Republic space.

"Has to be. Who else talks like that?" Malak reasoned. "Do as he says. The transponder is to the left on the comm board, people. If anyone needs to be walked through it, speak up." He had several immediate requests. The instructions that he repeated meant nothing to me, so I tuned them out.

I leaned back about two centimeters, as much as the tiny space would let me. My folded joints were complaining with a series of dull aches; I felt stiff and uncomfortable. Note to self - do not be the second being in a one-person spacecraft ever again.