Manaan Part 1

 A/N: Yes, the  Skye Imarr saga continued.

 Thanks for Tat92 and Verna for the beta, and everyone who's been waiting for this.

 Enjoy.

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Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic

Manaan

Part One

 The large, symmetrical, marble-like rocks, which clustered like a granite flower bud, made a loud clanging noise and started moving. It opened up like a flower stretching its petals in the first sunrise. The sound echoed in the dark space around the stone structure. A sphere slowly rose within its center. It turned and emitted silver auroras that grew stronger by the minute and eventual spread through the entire surroundings. When it finally reached a few meters above the rock petals, the lights around it had changed. They began to gather, broaden and expand into a giant globe. A somewhat map-like structure was formed.

Skye knew instantly it was a Star Map.

The Star Map of Manaan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jolee opened his eyes and stared at the corridor outside. He had been meditating for a lengthy period of time. In this time of the night, the ship was usually pretty quite. You wouldn’t hear much noise at all, other than the beeping sound of various machines and computers.

There were some gentle and suppressed boot-on-the-metal-mesh-surface sounds from the main hold. He certainly did not expect that.

Jolee frowned.

Who could this be?

He was about to use his Force Sight to see the nightwalker’s identity when a familiar slim figure appeared at the door of the med bay: light tinted blue skin, waist length lekku, sparkling dark blue eyes and long thick lashes.

“Hello, Jolee.” Skye Imarr looked slightly sheepish.

“Good evening, Skye.” Jolee grinned. “Can’t sleep?”

Skye nodded. “….Do you have some med packs?”

“What for?” Jolee raised his eyebrow while turned around and slowly ran his wrinkling fingers through the rows of medicine on the rack behind him: “I thought I’ve taught you about the breathing technique that can help you fast asleep?”

“No, not that.” Skye threw herself into the armchair. “Migraine. Old habit now. Been with me for ages. And nope, Force Heal isn’t working. Bastila had already suggested it.”

“I see.” Jolee handed over a couple of capsules before sit down at the edge of the bed. “One of those dreams again?”

“Yes,” Skye nodded, quickly injected the capsules into her arms. Then, as if she remembered something, she gave him an arched eyebrow. “How do you know?”

“Arrh, you thought an old fella like me was too numb to sense those kind of things?” Jolee smiled. “There are signs: you seldom sleep, even if you do it is usually a light one; you often submerged into some unknown space when you woke up from one of those light sleeps; Mission mentioned to Zaalbar a few times you mumble quit a lot in your sleep, no offence here, she was actually really concern about this; and lastly,” he winked, “Bastila told me.”

Skye chuckled. but did not comment anything further.

For a while, the two of them sat in a rather crammed and small med bay, each staring at the blank space in front of them and lost in their own thoughts.

“Jolee.” After a while, Skye opened her mouth thoughtfully.

“Arh-huh?”

“I don’t like those dreams.” Her deep blue eyes drifted towards him. The vulnerability nearly swallowed him.

“I bet.” Jolee gave her a sympathetic smile.

“This might sound silly, but I want them to go away.” Skye shut her eyes tightly again.

“That I can’t help you with.” Jolee sighed.

“I thought so.” Skye stood up and patted her robe. “Night, Jolee.”

“Night.” Jolee watched her with great concern as her tinted blue silhouette disappeared into the darkness.

“Poor child.” He shook his head.

He was about to resume his meditation when another set of footsteps echoed down the corridor. This one didn’t even bother to suppress its loud banging noise. The corner of his lip curled up. Even without Force Sight, he knew exactly who this was.

Sure enough, a tall, strongly built figure stood before him within minutes. “Hello, Jolee.”

“What’s this, a new fashion? Everyone has to take turn to walk around the ship in the wee hours?” Jolee looked at Carth Onasi in mild amusement.

“Sorry, Jolee.” The corner of Carth’s mouth twisted upwards slightly. “Have you seen Skye around?”

“She was here a couple of minutes ago. What’s the matter?” Jolee arched his eyebrow.

“Urrh….nothing.” Carth’s face went all red tomato. Telling someone about what he thought wasn’t exactly his specialty. Particularly when it came down to Skye….

Jolee folded his arms and gazed at Carth with great astonishment. Yes, this was something he had been sensing since he meet the blue Twi’lek and her companions in the deep forests of Kashyyyk’s Shadowlands. The lad in front of him seemed to have grown some special interest in his female companion. He picked up the chemistry between the two almost as soon as he started working with them. They teased and joked on each other almost non-stop, or whispered something in low tone to each other from time to time. When danger approached, Jolee quickly saw Carth drop all the masks he had put up towards the others and guarded her protectively and seamlessly. He also noticed Carth’s eye literally followed Skye everywhere, mostly in indulgence, admiration and sometimes deep thoughtfulness; while Skye’s occasional, well-hidden side glance revealed her feelings toward the Commander might be as much as his.

 He couldn’t help himself grinning from ear to ear. How long had he not been seeing something like this? Twenty years? Fifty years?

 “You came into the med bay at this time just to ask me if I had seen Skye?” He mused.

 “No. I…..I thought I heard her walking by…” Carth’s face now had gone past the shade of red tomato and progressed into total magenta. “I….I thought she might be having one of those nightmares again…” He finally spilled it out.

 Jolee’s eyebrow now nearly rose towards the ceiling. “You know about that one as well? Hmm…I wonder how many of you actually noticed this……”

 “Quite a few, actually. Since she mumbles a lot in her sleep.” Carth rested his arm against the doorframe. “What dreams has she had now?”

 “According to Bastila, another Star Map,” Jolee replied.

 “Oh.”

 “What? Is there anything else?”

 “Some odd bits that don’t make any sense to her.” Carth waved in front of him, as if there were some annoy flies around him. “I thought there might be some kind of Jedi meditation technique that can get rid of those things?”

 “She’s just a mere Apprentice, young man.” Jolee shook his head: “Do you think she can block them all? From what I’ve known, those dreams have bothered her as far as she can remember.”

 Carth stared at him but did not reply.

 “Besides,” Jolee added, “from what I see, she has a weak spot for those dreams.”

 “What do you mean?” Carth dropped his arm that leaned against the doorframe and straighten his back.

 “She wanted to see those dreams,” said Jolee simply.

 “Oh, really. Explain this to me; who would want dreams that repeat night after night and gives you headaches?” Carth snapped.

 “Beats me, I don’t know.” Jolee shrugged.

 Carth glared at the old Jedi for a long, long time without blurting out any words. Several thoughts flew through in front of him but finally he gave in. After all it was wee hours in the morning.

 “Night, Jolee.”

 “Night. And shut the door, will you? Just in case there are more nightwalkers deciding to stop by for midnight counseling.”

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 “No, it is no good. Big posters of Bastila are everywhere.” Mission climbed up the onramp and sighed.

 “I was under the impression this is a neutral planet.” Bastila sounded beyond disbelief. “They let the Sith put their most wanted poster anywhere they please?”

 “Oh, they had a warrant.” Mission flashed a tear off poster in her hand. She had managed to snatch it right under the nose of Selkath guards without being caught. “Apparently you had killed a number of their high ranking officers, so they managed to convince the Selkath to issue an inter-Galactic arrest warrant to catch you no matter which planet you are on. There, read the fine print on the bottom.”

 “Lovely,” Bastila moaned. “Right in front of the Republic and they did nothing!”

 “I don’t think they can do anything here, Bastila,” Juhani opened her mouth thoughtfully, “From what I know, Manaan is rich in Kolto and both sides need the source pretty badly, so they don’t really want to piss off the Selkath.”

 “[What’s that got to do with anything?]” Zaalbar roared impatiently.

 “Everything.” Canderous jerked his head up from his personal datapad. “This is how Manaan has remained neutral for all this time. The Kolto is the one and only powerful revitalizing source anyone can find in this Galaxy, and it is in high demand, especially at a time like this. Whether you are a Sith or an Republic, at some point and time you will get injured and the only way to treat you is using a med pack, which is made from the Kolto. The Selkath know that, and they use it as their bargaining chip. To avoid any form of war activity going on, they enforce the law quite strongly on this planet. They wanted to make Manaan a peaceful place, not taking sides.”

 “I see.” Bastila glanced towards Skye, who had been examining the poster during Canderous’ lengthy explanation. “Looks like I will have to stay on the ship.”

 “I won’t be going, too.” Juhani stood up and was about to leave the main hold. “I don’t like water.”

 “All right,” Skye sighed and looked at the others, “Who else is going to stay on the ship?”

 “Me.” Canderous put his hand up. “Never liked this planet. But I will have the ship on standby and ready at your moment’s notice.”

 “I suppose we will need that.” Skye started checking her backpack. “What about you, Mish?”
 
 “Sure, I will be coming with you. I kind of need a proper shower, not those dry cleaning facilities in the ship.” Mission smirked. “Which means Big Z will be coming as well, aye?”

 Zaalbar let out a few low roars, basically meant yes.

 “I will be coming with you, too, young lady.” Jolee’s eye glittered with emotions. something triggered the memory deep within him. “Don’t forget I need to investigate about my mate Sunry.”

 Skye nodded, and finally turned her eyes towards Carth, who was watching their discussion from an armchair at the corner of the main hold. “And you?”

 “Count me in.” Carth flashed her a warm grin. And their eyes locked.

 For a moment everything else seemed to disappear. There was something flickering deep at the back of Carth’s dark brown eyes. Something gentle, warm, and….

 Skye shook her head and returned back to reality. “Okay then, let’s go.”

 “Are you sure you know where to go?” Carth caught up with her as they stepped down from the ramp.

 “‘Course.” How could she not? She’d been having the vision of the Star Map pretty much since they took off from Kashyyyk.

 They went through a fog-like steam maze and arrived at the door of the Hangar. The door made a loud hissing sound and slid aside.

 The buzzing Manaan was displayed in front of them.