Too Many Justins - Chapter 49

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Chapter 49 - Admissions

“To understand the Force, you must first admit that you are ignorant.”

- Jedi Master Vodo-Siosk Baas

As a droid, waiting was something that came naturally. As Revan's personal assassin, waiting was something HK-47 did only grudgingly, being much more inclined to action, preferably violent action, than standing around. Yet he had been standing around for days. The little droid, and he had grown convinced over time that he was correct in his assessment that he had heard T3-M4, hadn't come back out.

It was just one more reason to be annoyed at the little AstroMech that had so unceremoniously left him on Ord Radama to deal with the insane Jedi Kreia alone. Not that he needed the assistance of a glorified safe-cracking machine, T3-M4 had been originally built to infiltrate security systems, to deal with a single Jedi. He'd killed dozens during his first stint with his master, purging the Sith ranks of those who could not adapt before turning his attention to eliminating troublesome Jedi do-gooders.

Somehow, though, the witch seemed to have gotten the better of him, to his continuing consternation, reducing him to just a head until he was found by his old master. That meeting had been one of conflicting considerations for the old droid. He was pleased to see his old master once more, but he was disappointed in his lack of a body and enraged at the Jedi hag for his predicament. Fortunately his master had put everything not exactly straight, but at least well enough; HK was rapidly adapting to his new nanny-style body.

But the little droid hadn't reappeared.

HK wasn't worried though, he'd found a job.

To be more accurate the job had found him. He had been standing outside the old Sith Embassy when a group of human meatbags walked past, a smaller one trailing the huddled mass, a larger one, it's parent HK assumed, tugging it by the arm to keep it moving. Normally not a very interesting sight, as HK's impression of meatbags did not improve materially when they were seen dealing with their biological replacements. What HK did notice was the frozen milk substance the tiny meatbag was eating, thinking that it would have been far simpler if the retched parental meatbag had just put it into a bucket and dipped it's offspring's head in.

The mess would have been smaller, for one thing. By the time the little beast had finally been dragged past the vigilant droid, the tiny meatbag, the floor, the walls and much of HK himself was covered in the sweet-smelling and terribly sticky goo. Disgusted, HK had then spent the better part of an hour looking for some meatbag from Sanitation to clean everything. He gave up the search disgusted. Fortunately, he managed to find his way into a nearby Service Locker which provided him with cleaning supplies, sweepers, swabbs, disinfectants and ordorants, so at least he was able to clean up the mess to his expectations.

His plan had been to clean things up and resume his post outside the old Embassy, but one thing led to another. For starters, the hallway itself was in quite a state of ill-use, so by the time he'd finished cleaning the milk by-products it was obvious to even the meanest intelligence that the one part was substantially cleaner than the other. So HK just kept going, doing the entire entryway as far as the access hall from the main walkway to Ahto West.

Of course, that left a large pile of discarded wipes and swabbs and several dozen liters of dirty water to be disposed of. Not too monumental a task for one as resourceful as HK-47. By the end of the following day he'd found the Disposal and relieved himself of the waste materials. Of course, he'd needed to detour to the Selkath Council chambers in order to acquire the necessary permits, licenses and stickers to use the Disposal.

It also opened him to other tasks, starting with a request from a nearby cantina owner to take out the trash, wipe down the bar, dust and restock all the liquor and take a complete inventory of the place. He was so pleased with the job, he passed told all his friends and business acquaintances, which gave many more days work to the hybrid assassin-nanny droid. So many, in fact, that after a while HK had nearly forgotten why he had been standing outside the old Sith Embassy in the first place.

Until his presence was requested at a meeting there.

*

“Don't you have somewhere to be?” asked Mission.

“Well...” Carth moved the flowers around guiltily, then a thought struck him. “Actually, these are for you.”

“For me?” Carth nodded, holding the bouquet out. Mission raised an eyebrow. “For me? Seriously?”

“Yeah. I mean, why shouldn't I give you flowers when you're in the hospital?”

Mission took the bundle, a quizzical look still on her face. “Maybe because you didn't know I was going to be in the hospital?”

Carth stammered. “Ah... Uhm...”

“Look, Carth, just forget it, okay?” She raised the brightly colored bunch to her nose and inhaled. “They smell nice.”

“Thanks. Uhm... About your... uhm...”

“Injury?”

“Yeah.” Carth seemed more ill at ease than Mission had ever seen him and she couldn't tell why.

She knew he was there to see her, that annoying blonde waste of a Lieutenant; he'd probably carried her in himself the minute the boarding ramp was down. And he'd bought her flowers. Mission wasn't aware of any other time Carth had bought flowers for anyone; she wasn't aware he even knew what flowers were, and yet he'd bought some for Tianna.

“Love sucks,” she thought.

But there was still the problem of the foot-shuffling Admiral, passive-aggressively questioning her about 'possible brain damage'. Mission took a deep breath, the better to get it over with quickly, limiting the explanations.

“I ran into some trouble on Bestal III.” There was little point in prevaricating on her destination. As an Admiral it was well within Carth's power, and potentially within his thought processes, to pull the flight records on Big Z, telling him the truth anyway.

“You mean you went there on your own?”

Mission gave him her best 'Well duh!' look. Carth pressed on quickly. “Why?”

“Bastila? Remember?”

“But I didn't think you liked Bastila that much.”

“I don't. I mean, I didn't. I mean... Look, I went, okay?” Carth wore an expression of confused happiness, wondering once again about what happened in Jolee's old cabin. “It's just... Okay, we've never really gotten along, but...”

“But what?”

“Carth, if you could have seen her, how sad and scared she was...”

“I've seen her, Mission. We've been traveling together for months.”

“You haven't seen her or you wouldn't talk that way. You've looked at her and judged her. What happened to her...”

“What happened to both of you,” he interrupted.

“No! To her! What happened to her was... I can't even describe how awful it must be.” Mission looked away. “I don't know how she manages. I don't think I could.”

Carth's jaw dropped. “Mission, you were drugged and tortured! What do you mean 'You couldn't manage'? What happened to you...”

“What happened to me was different, Carth.” Mission's tone changed, the human noticed, firmer, hard even, but what it indicated he didn't know. Her old determination? Her childish bravado? A suddenly obvious maturity? Any or all were possible, he realized. She turned back to look him in the eye, shaking her head slowly.

“I didn't know what was happening to me. Even today the few things I do remember, the slaver or Justin...” She paused and squeezed her eyes shut. “Even those things are like a dream, like they happened to someone else. I don't remember what happened with Bastila. At all.”

Carth wasn't sure if he should reach out to hold her or leave her be, letting her have some space to work things out. Mission continued without pausing: “All I know is now she can't even look at me without nearly fainting with panic.”

“But the torture...” he asked quietly, his voice trailing off.

“Is over, Carth. It happened and now it's over. What Bastila has... It's so much worse.”

The little Twi'lek saw Carth's questioning face.

“Because,” she said, “Bastila knows what's happening. She knows. She feels it. And she can't do anything to stop it. All her training, all the Jedi's medical skills, all her 'Force stuff' and none of it matters. None of it helps.”

“I didn't know how helpless I was,” Mission continued. “She does. Can you imagine how awful that must be, to feel so helpless?” She looked into Carth's eyes again, remembering all his late nights aboard the Ebon Hawk worrying about his son. “Yeah, I suppose you do.”

Mission paused again and pursed her lips, looking at the flowers she held in front of her.

“I'm fine, Carth, so why don't you give these to someone more in need of them, huh?”

*

Jolee slipped quietly around the corner, the strain of keeping his mind clear raising beads of sweat on his chocolate colored brow. More than anything in the Universe he wanted to keep his destination a secret from his Padawan.

Not that he liked keeping secrets from Yuthura Ban, he did not. He loved her too much for that, too much to let something a silly and insignificant as a secret drive them apart. And he hated that he was doing it a second time, so soon after his experience with Dathka Graush, but it had to be done.

Besides, he told himself, it wasn't that she would object, he knew that she wouldn't, she wasn't like that. But he also knew that if she found out she would make an infernal nuisance of herself, hovering over him, pestering him, offering him advice he wouldn't tolerate from a life-long friend, let alone an 'upstart' padawan.

Jolee was going to the Infirmary.

“It isn't anything serious,” he'd told himself over and over all the previous day, “it's just part of growing old.”

The Force might be a powerful ally, a close friend, but Time was more powerful still, and far more intimate. The Jedi claimed that one cannot resist the Will of the Force, but Jolee understood neither can one resist the 'Claims of Time'.

He'd grown tired of the sounds the various parts of his body made. At first it was only occasionally, a small popping in his knee when he stood up, a grinding from his shoulder as he reached for his morning caffa, but of late it had become almost routine, every movement accompanied by a clattering symphony. And he had finally had enough of it. It was one thing to grow old, Jolee was comfortable with that, understood that it was the way of things. But he was not prepared to have his advancing years announced to the universe with a clash of percussion.

That visit with the Sith holocron hadn't helped any, either.

“Well, it isn't anything serious, Master Bindo.”

“How many times have I told you to drop the titles, son?”

Yeron Redfern blushed, the tips of his ears turning bright red. “Yes, sir.”

Jolee groaned.

He'd been torn from his first glimpse of the young man. He was please to see his new friend, especially in 'his environment', a confident young medic, totally at home with ordering a Jedi Master nearly three times his age to strip off all his clothes. That was one of the parts Jolee Bindo was more reticent about, having the whippersnapper telling him what to do with the complete abdication of authority people always felt when sitting on the cold padding of the doctor's examination table.

But he was concerned that Yeron's assignment meant that Lena would be alone, waiting for her soldier to return home safe.

“How is Lena taking your assignment?” he ventured to ask, slipping his undershirt over his head. It was impertinent, Jolee knew, but the were perquisites that came with age.

“Oh, she's fine with it.” The young man's answer lacked conviction.

“You didn't tell her, then.”

Yeron stammered for a moment. “Not in so many words.”

“Which words did you use?”

“Uhm... well... I told her I'd drawn an assignment.”

“So you lied?”

Yeron's eyes popped. “I forgot you were a Jedi. Mind reading and all that... Yes, I lied. I requested the assignment.”

Jolee didn't get a chance to scold him. Someone else did it instead.

“That wasn't very nice.” Both men whirled to look at the interloper, standing just inside the examining room door. “Of either of you,” Yuthura Ban added with emphasis, her eyes boring into her master.

“Ugh. Here it comes,” Jolee said under his breath.

“Of course 'here it comes'! Master! Why did you sneak off without telling me where you were going? I've been looking for you for the better part of an hour!”

Jolee glared irritably. “Because I knew you'd react like this! All mother-hen. I'm an old man, dammit.”

“I am not being a mother-hen!”

“You are so!”

“I am not. I am merely showing the proper amount of respect and concern for my master...”

“Bantha-doo!

Yeron stepped back, not sure if he should laugh or be embarrassed by the display.

“Get back over here, you!” Jolee scolded, grabbing Yeron by the arm. “I'm not going to let you abandon me to this.... this... tyranny!”

“Tyranny?” asked Yuthura, offended.

“Tyranny. Rank Tyranny!” repeated Jolee with emphasis. “Always hovering over me. Fussing over me.”

“Atris likes it,” said Yuthura.

“Well I'm not Atris, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“Oh, I've noticed!” Yuthura interrupted, now worked up to fever pitch. “I've noticed that you are a grumpy, smelly old man, more likely to tease me than teach me. Better spouting off against the Jedi than for them. You are, without a doubt, the most infuriating man I've ever met.”

“Then why don't you leave?” Yeron was surprised by the old man's question and he stepped back, allowing the powerful Twi'lek to pounce on her master.

“Not on your life!” Yuthura jabbed a finger into Jolee's shoulder with every syllable. “Now let's go!”

She practically pulled the Jedi Master off the examining table and pushed him toward the door, Jolee barely able to grab his tunic from the hook, a whirlwind of nature. Her lekku twitching, she glared back at Yeron Redfern.

“And we'll talk about Lena later!”

*

“Ma'am, we've still had no word from Admiral Onasi.”

“Contact the Jedi. Perhaps they've heard from Shan. Or the other one.”

“Juhani?”

“Yes, that's her. Juhani.” Dodonna smiled, remembering the name from the scandalous news reports many weeks before.

Forn Dodonna was not the least surprised that Carth Onasi hadn't checked in. In fact, she thought it so unlikely that she had a small wager with her Exec, to the tune of fifty credits, that he wouldn't report by the end of the year.

“A sexy blonde will do that to an old spacer...” she thought with a laugh.

Not that she was worried for Lieutenant Tianna Ression, Carth's Liaison officer. The younger woman had previously held a similar position for Dodonna herself and the Grand Admiral knew her as efficient, thoughtful, intelligent and well mannered. If anyone needed worrying about it was Carth, not Tianna.

Dodonna knew from that very first holo message, Carth spewing some bantha-doo story about 'lack of support' and other such rubbish in the hopes of having the younger woman reassigned, that his hormones were already working overtime. But knowing Tianna, it was far more likely that he would end up the one with his pants down. “And Force help him then...”

“Admiral?”

Dodonna fumbled to cover, having forgotten about the open comlink channel as she mused. “Nothing. Who else is nearby?” With her preferred choice still missing, she needed to find an alternate.

“Only Admiral Darney,” the voice from the holoprojector replied.

Forn had a quick flashback to a long assignment she'd spent with the formerly good-looking Klashtan Darney, now gone to seed, practically needing an anti-gravity belt to haul his belly around, before deciding.

“Take this down. Standard Orders format, with a personal attachment to follow. Admiral Darney, you are hereby ordered and required to travel with all due haste to Borleias...”

*

Tarre rolled over and stretched. At some level, for she was still mostly asleep, the previous night's concert taking more out of her than she would ever have predicted, she realized something was wrong.

She was alone.

She raised her head, scanning the bed and then the rest of the dimly lit room. Then she heard the sound of the water running in the 'fresher. She smiled and rolled over to the other side of the big bed. It was still warm and she could smell Dustil on the sheets and pillow, the mix of sweat and his cologne reaching deep into her primitive parts. She flushed at the thoughts that flashed through her head, unconsciously for certain, but still much appreciated.

With a mischievous look she got up and crossed the room, intending on slipping in quietly and surprising him, but just as she reached the 'fresher door it opened and Dustil stepped out, already dressed in heavy trousers and a sturdy shirt. He saw her crestfallen expression.

“I'm sorry I woke you, darling. I wanted to go riding and you looked so tired last night, and so peaceful this morning, that I thought I would let you sleep.”

“Oh? But what if I would rather...” For a moment the vision of throwing herself at him and seducing him back to bed passed through her mind, but the thought of the harsh fabrics of his clothes rubbing against her delicate bits turned her lusty leer into a frown. “What if I join you later, love?”

“That would be great. I'll have Crucian saddle Pixie for you and we can meet at the pond.”

“Okay. I'll see you in a bit.”

They kissed and went their separate ways, the 'fresher and entry doors closing simultaneously.

*

Bastila stood at the end of the hall.

“What was I thinking?” she asked herself. When she'd awoken that morning the plan had seemed so clear, so sensible.

Justin loved Tarre Adjura. There was no denying it, she'd seen him looking at her the entire night, and there was no way to misinterpret the meaning behind the look. Nor could she ignore the red-head's looks back; she was as smitten with him as he with her. Bastila had seen those looks before, only then they had been exchanged with her. She knew that was how Justin had always looked at her and, as embarrassing as it was given her Jedi upbringing, she knew she had looked back at him in exactly the same way.

But now it was over. Now, Justin loved Tarre.

Bastila took a deep breath, feeling something like calm. “Strange,” as she thought of it, “I haven't been calm about... anything... since Bandomeer.” It felt so good she took a few more.

“Good morning, Madam Jedi.”

“Oh!” Bastila jumped, completely startled by the mechanical voice of a passing maintenance droid. “Good... good morning.”

The lady Jedi stood for another long moment, waiting for her racing heart the slow, closing her eyes and calling the Force to help her. Again she found that calm came to her quickly. She wasn't truly calm; not the calm of the Enclave meditation room on Dantooine, more the calm of the flight to meet Revan's ship during her mission to capture the Dark Lord, but much more calm than seeing Mission standing in the squalor of Jolee's old hut on Kashyyyk.

Then she came to the door.

It was plain as doors aboard the Fantasia went, not covered in gold-leaf or intricate carvings, just an understated but pleasing blue. The small placard said “221B”. She took another deep breath and pressed the button. After a moment's pause there was no answer, no opening door, no call of “Come in!”. Nothing.

She pressed the button again. Again no response. Bastila checked her chronometer, the device having automatically synchronized with ship's time. 6:20 in the morning. Could Justin already be up and gone?

“Possible” she thought, but then she wondered if he might be in one of his strangely drawn out sleep cycles. He'd done it in the past, sleeping for days straight, allowing him to then stay awake for a similar amount of time.

On the other hand he might be deliberately ignoring her. She had a vision of Justin smiling evilly as the door chime rang over and over, Tarre Adjura sitting silently across from him, the two just staring at each other...

She looked again at the chronometer. 6:30. She'd been standing (“Like an idiot!”) in front of the closed door for ten minutes.

Her eyes turned to the security panel to the door's right, opposite the placard. Almost without thinking she reached into one of her hidden pockets and withdrew a security spike, one of many she had been fussing with while she and Juhani wiled away their time in hyperspace aboard the Star of Peltion. In an instant the small panel turned from red to green and a moment later the door whooshed open.

“I guess some of Mission rubbed off on me,” she said aloud but softly as she slipped into the room.

“I shouldn't be doing this,” she thought. “I shouldn't be sneaking in to his room.”

But she wasn't here to spy. That wasn't the plan. She was here to do the right thing, to do the noble thing. If Justin no longer loved her, if he had found love with Tarre Adjura, Bastila Shan was big enough to do what was right. She would give them her congratulations and step aside. It was the right thing to do. It was the mature thing to do. It was the Jedi thing to do.

She had planned it all out: tell Justin and Tarre of her happiness for them, return to the Order and take up her place as a Jedi Master, devoting her remaining years to the betterment of the Jedi; she had already sent word to Vandar about the problems on Kashyyyk and her desire to be assigned there to clear things up. She would put away her radical thoughts, her radical ways, and devote herself to the Code.

“There is no emotion,” she whispered, “there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion...”

Bastila froze as the pass-through door slid open.

“Damn and blast the man!” spouted a small red-headed woman, dashing quickly into Justin's room. “Takes all the towels... What am I supposed to use?! Lucky for him he's good in be...”

Tarre Adjura pulled up short, her eyes locked to Bastila's, only the sound of the water dripping off her naked body and onto the hard tile floor breaking the unnatural stillness.

As she looked at the smaller woman all thoughts of nobility or congratulations flew from Bastila's head. With a small strangled cry, Tarre covered herself awkwardly with her hands before running back to her own room, closing the door behind her.

*

The night hadn't been going as Mission expected.

It wasn't the place. The casino aboard the luxury liner Fantasia was rightfully famous throughout the Outer Rim as the most outrageous gambling locale; ornate tables, hand-made glass lighting, beautiful people milling about.

It wasn't the company. Her pazaak opponents were, if not very good, at least entertaining. And rich enough not to mind losing to her repeatedly.

“No,” she thought, “it's definitely the drinks.”

And it wasn't that they weren't good, they were; as well-poured as any she'd ever had, and not stinting on the inebriants either. Which made sense. When someone paid as much for a drink as on the Fantasia they expected an appropriately sized buzz to come along with it. Fortunately for Mission she was playing for 'stakes', and sizable chucks of credits would flow into her account at every round with the goal of keeping her at least even with her bar tab.

But so far, she could only bring herself to buy two, the desire to order the third strangely displeasing. She finished the last bit of her drink, a slightly metallic taste she didn't expect causing her to frown.

“You're very good,” said a voice from over her shoulder; deep and masculine it went straight through her and fanned that little flame that kept her awake most nights.

Mission spun around. “Thank you. You're...” Her eyes met his. They matched his voice, as did the rest of him. “... Gorgeous,” she finished inside her head and she just stared, playing her last card without even looking.

“Damn!” cursed her opponent, losing his third game to the pretty blue Twi'lek. He paid his due and, seeing that she still hadn't looked back at the table, decided to look for an easier opponent elsewhere.

The stranger moved around, Mission's eyes never leaving him, and slipped into the vacated seat.

“There,” he said, the word reverberating around inside her empty head as she stared. “Now we can talk.”

“Talk?” Mission was surprised she could get the word out.

“Sure. Talk.”

“Well, handsome, what would you like to talk about?”

“You, of course.”

Just then the pit boss walked by and rapped his knuckles on the table, a subtle indication that the tables were there for play, not for chatting. There was a perfectly serviceable cantina nearby for that.

The stranger put down his bet, the house would take 10% off the top, and Mission did likewise. Each arranged their cards and play began. Whoever he was, he was very good, much better than any of the idle rich the little Twi'lek had been fleecing so far, and it was nip and tuck until the very last card, the stranger winning on a -5.

“You're not too bad yourself, mister...?”

“Justin.” Mission's eyes shot open and her lekku twitched. “Justin Yer'natta,” the man continued, smiling at her strange response. “What?”

“Nothing. I just... Nothing. Your play.”

He played a card and the pair spent the next few minutes in feverish 'combat'. Again the contest see-sawed back and forth for a period before things settled down, Mission winning 3 to 1.

“Your name... It's Twi'lek, isn't it? How is that?”

The man laughed and Mission's heart synchronized with the sound from his throat. “Yes it is, actually. From our hair color no doubt.” He ran one hand through his dark hair, a large silver ring catching the light as it passed along the complex curve. “I was born on Ryloth, although I don't remember much about the place.”

Mission looked at him questioningly and she tapped her credit chip on the table, recording her wager for the next game. Yer'natta did likewise as he answered. “I was raised in an orphanage on Telos after my parents died. I wasn't there when the Sith attacked, but thank you for asking.”

Mission hadn't asked, but she was going to, realizing after his preemptive answer that he must have been asked a million times already.

“Sorry,” she said without really knowing why. “I'm from...”

“Taris,” Justin answered. “Oh, don't look so surprised, you're famous remember? The famous Mission Vao. How is Revan, by the way? Do you still keep in touch?”

The blue Twi'lek paused, unsure how to answer the question. Her hesitation was partly because she wasn't sure what to actually say, the situation between her and Bastila and Revan, calling himself Justin once again, and all the rest of them had grown so complex she didn't know where to begin, and partly because she wasn't sure how comfortable she was with the casual way this stranger had come to dominate their little conversation. Instead of answering she simply played a card, winning the game.

And delaying the inevitable.

*

“{Oh, Revan! Thank Old Prince that you are here.}”

Halarunga grabbed Justin in a great hug, lifting him clear off the deck and squeezing him tightly, before realizing that they had never actually been introduced and she dropped him just as quickly, the outsider landing hard before regaining his balance.

“Yes. Yes,” said Justin, brushing his black sweater and picking off several long brown hairs. “I'm here. Would you mind telling...”

“{Oh! Of course,}” Halarunga said, stooping down in a clumsy bow. The female had little experience with humans and assume that was the way they greeted each other. “{I am Halarunga, wife of your great friend Zaalbar. Kashyyyk welcomes you.}”

Justin bowed, assuming it was the proper way to greet a Wookie.

++ 'Mo. Zaalbar? I should know this right? (By the way, nice job on the translations.) ++

== Affirmative, sir. Zaalbar was the Wookie companion to Revan, having been a long-time associate to Mission Vao prior. (And thank you, sir.) ==

“{How is Zaalbar, Halarunga?}”

The huge female took a step back, startled at the howling grunts and growls that came out of the small human's body.

“{Zaalbar said you understood us, but he never mentioned that you could speak!}”

++ 'Mo, warn me next time I'm about to do something stupid like that. ++

“Something I picked up. How is Zaalbar?” This time Justin spoke Basic.

“{Badly. Did you bring the kolto?}”

“Kolto?”

“{What little the others brought back was appreciated, but his injuries were very great.}”

“Others? You mean the delivery?”

The female shook her massive head, her long beard and mustache waving. “No. There was no delivery. I mean the others, little Mission and the two Jedi.”

“Mission? Jedi?” he asked despondently.

“{Bastila Shan and a cat.}”

Justin's shoulders dropped and he spun away from Halarunga. If he'd had something hard to bang his head into he would have. “Somebody out there hates me...” he said in a low voice. A million different emotions passed through him in the next few seconds. Just then the twins shot out of the house, the calm having stretched on long enough that neither child even recalled that a battle had happened, distracting their mother, climbing up her broad back, Grimshawk finally perching on the top of her head as his sister Rorrowork scrambled around her front, hugging her with both arms and legs.

“You need kolto?” he asked, raising his voice so as to be heard over the chattering children.

“{Yes,}” Halarunga replied to 'Revan's' question.

“{Wasalk, momma. Wasalk,}” said Rorrowork.

“{Shh. In a moment, little one. In a moment,}” her mother answered.

++ 'Mo, Red Cross. ++

In an instant Justin and the Wookies were buffeted by a tremendous blast of wind as the electric blue fighter pulled to a halt a meter above the Walkway, just behind the human.

“{Pretty!}” squealed Rorrowork as her mother covered her with her arms. Her brother dropped off Halarunga's head and onto her back, his fingers digging tightly into her fur, the noise and shockwave frightening the little male.

“Sorry about that!” Justin said. ++ Showoff! ++

A moment later he joined the Wookies, a satchel in his hand, passing it off to the big female. “Will this be enough?”

Halarunga looked at the bag and the small container she pulled from it with suspicion. “{Come. I'll show you.}”

*

“Crucian, can you saddle Pixie for Knight Ajdura, please?”

An old man's head poked out of the utility room of the ship's stable. “Nope.”

Dustil stopped short, puzzled. The grizzled old horsegroom was never much for talk, preferring to spend his time fussing over his beloved animals, but this was abrupt even for him.

“Nope? What do you mean 'nope'?”

“Just what I said, lad. Can't saddle Pixie for no one.”

“Why not?”

Instead of answering, Crucian opened the halfdoor separating the utility room from the main stable, walked past the confused padawan and to the third stall down, pointing a long calloused finger inside. After a moment's pause Dustil joined him.

He was looking at an empty stall. Completely empty. No horse, no feed bag, not even hay.

“It's empty.”

“ 'Course it's empty. Took 'em all they did. First thing this morning, and Pixie barely awake. No respect for horses.”

“Took them? Took them where?”

“Nobody knows. Some rich bastard that's for sure.”

“Rich?” asked Dustil.

“And no horse person neither! Took the lot, barely anything left...”

“Took the...?” Dustil was even more confused now than when they started. “Crucian, what are you talking about? What's been taken?”

“The horses, lad. The horses. And pretty near everything else, 'cept the building.”

“Everything?”

“Saddles, tack, feed, hay. Even the watering troughs! Can't be a horse person if he don't have a watering trough!”

Dustil goggled. “Taken by who?”

“Don't know. Some folks from the Line sent word last night that they were all sold off.”

Dustil ran back and forth over the extraordinary news as the groom continued to mutter, disconsolate. “Don't know what I'm going to do with myself now...”

*

Buth Redfern had devoted all his energies to deciphering the complex control circuitry of the inactive Bee-six droids for weeks and it had nearly gotten him killed.

A random patrol, three war droids, their heavy tracks making the very floors shake as they rolled, had come across him out in the open and only a Force-enhanced jump into a tiny air vent high above his head had prevented his capture. Or worse. Since then he had stayed much closer to safety, closer to his hiding hole in the heat exchanger behind the deep freeze unit in the galley working on a plan to prevent a similar situation.

He turned the small globe over in his hands, checking to make sure the hover unit was still clear of obstruction. With the waldo he'd added, a spidery 5 jointed arm with a three fingered gripper, the unit would be able to do more than reconnaissance, it could actually fetch things for him. So long as the arm was kept out of the way.

The first test after he'd installed it hadn't gone all that well. His programming was faulty and the little droid would allow the arm to dangle beneath it, throwing it off balance and occasionally interfering with the hover unit, causing a precipitous loss of altitude, otherwise known as a crash. Another week had been spent repairing the damage and changing the programming for this test.

He set the charcoal colored spheroid down, balancing it on the flat part of the hover unit, the arm stretched out to one side. It dawned on him as he looked at it that he should have added two arms. “The balance would have been easier,” he whispered. Too late for that, he pressed the hidden actuator on top and the sensor panel glowed to life. A moment later the arm flexed and a moment after that the hover unit activated.

Slowly the little droid lifted free of the floor, wobbling back and forth slightly as it sought a balance position for its arm, finally settling on wrapping it like a halo over its head.

“That's an improvement,” Buth said quietly, pleased that the device seemed to be working. “Now what to call you...”

He looked again at the little machine, product of his own hands and imagination and whatever parts he could manage to steal from this world of machines without getting caught. The circlet wrapping the head reminded him of a tale from his early childhood, one his mother told him and his brother Yeron as a bribe to get them to sleep rather than hit each other with pillows all night.

It concerned a young boy, a pauper, looked down upon by all the townsfolk. His job was to muck out the animal stalls and he lived in the barn with them, having no family to care for him. The mean old man who owned the farm called him Spot, on account of his dirty spotted rag clothes, but his real name was Buth (or so his mother always told him). Working so hard for the farmer, he had little time for friends or games and every night he would pray to the gods the way his mother taught him before she died. He would pray for help, pray for a way out of his miserable life.

And then one day his prayers were answered. As he walked the pastures, working to herd the stupider of the animals back to the barn for the night he saw a flash in the sky accompanied by a terrible screaming sound. In an instant he was knocked flat by an explosion, the impact of some thing, out in the field. When he went to look he found a living being, a tiny little man, and it looked almost as if he were made of glowing golden light. And around his head was a circlet, just like on the little droid.

The little man was magical, first helping the boy care for the animals. When the farmer came by, supposedly to check on the beasts but really to torment the young lad, the little 'angel' made his pants fall down as he raised his hand to strike the boy, forcing him to run off to the house. It was then that the boy realized that only he could see the angel.

The rest of the tale spoke of their adventures together, this boy and his companion, how they escaped from the mean farmer, how they rescued a drowning man, how they saved a whole town from pillaging raiders. Buth always loved the story because it seemed never to end. Every night his mother would come into their bedroom and he would snuggle under the blankets and hear the next wonderful adventure of the boy Buth and the little angel who helped him.

Buth decided to name the droid after the angel in the story. It appealed to his sense of humor, for once again Buth and his companion would travel into adventure. And like in the story, he hoped, no one but him would see the little droid.

“Okay,” he said with a smile, motioning the hovering machine to follow him. “Let's go Iestyn.”