Saga - PT Everyone Comes to Doran's Place: OC, Repost

Looking forward to seeing how Doran escapes these two alternatives, finds that Third Option that he needs right now. I wonder if the GFFA has a French Foreign Legion?

 

"The usual this morning, Vice-Prefect?"

"Hmm?" Raissa opened her eyes reluctantly. The few moments of sleep she'd managed to snatch while Sascha was waiting on a pair of Bothans at the other end of the bar was more rest than she'd gotten all night. "Actually, I could really use a cup of caf. And make it strong, please," she added with a yawn.

Sascha nodded. "One Malastarian blend, coming up. Rough night?" she asked as she set a steaming mug down in front of Raissa.

"You could say that," she answered, cradling the warm mug in her hands. Raissa took a long swallow of the caf and sighed. It was probably just her imagination, but could have sworn she felt the dark, rich brew spreading its warmth throughout her body, sweeping away all her fatigue. This was just what she needed after spending an endless, sleepless night in contemplation. After she'd left the café last night, Raissa had found herself in her office again, while she pondered the order of the universe and-- against her better judgement-- toyed with the irresistible holocron. Thoughts of Doran, the Jedi, the Force, and the Empire had chased each other 'round and 'round in her mind as she turned the crystal cube over and over in her hands. Neither her thoughts nor her restless fidgeting brought Raissa much comfort. They kept her awake, staring out the window at the rooftops of Merkesh City. It was nearly dawn before Raissa came up with any conclusions, but once she finally realized what she had to do, all the pieces fit together. And those plans brought her back to the Café Alderaan.

Something like a flicker of movement seen from the corner of her eye caught Raissa's attention--Doran Blayne sneaking past her to his table. Raissa clenched her teeth when she realized she had sensed rather than seen him, but conceded that, whatever the source, it was a useful talent. She tipped her mug at him in greeting, but Doran's eyes skittered away from hers. He sat down and busied himself with his own beverage. Raissa shook her head. Doran had suggested that they act like nothing had happened, but really, pretending that he hadn't noticed her wasn't going to do either of them any good. She rose from her seat at the bar and slid into Doran's booth before he could protest.

"And good morning to you, Vice-Prefect," Doran muttered ungraciously. "Won't you have a seat?"

Raissa ignored his peevishness, reminding herself that he probably hadn't gotten much rest the previous night, either. "I've been thinking about our conversation last night," she told Doran. He raised an eyebrow at her over the rim of his caf mug and made a noncommittal grunt, but since he offered no useful comments, Raissa continued. "I've decided that you were right; the best thing for both of us is to pretend that nothing's different."

The raised eyebrow shot higher. "Oh really?"

"Yes," she answered. "We're both the same people. Why should anything have to change?" Raissa paused to take a drink of her caf. "There's just one small detail that needs to be taken care of, but I need your help with it."

Doran set his mug down wearily as if its weight was suddenly too much for him. He slouched back into the booth shaking his head disgustedly. "I know what you're thinking," he informed her, "And I already told you I don't want it."

For an all-knowing Jedi, Doran had a remarkable knack for coming to the wrong conclusions. "No, but your friends do," she replied in as patient a voice as she could manage. "The pretty blonde who just had to talk to you last night and the tall man with the scars who's been hanging around here." Raissa leaned forward conversationally and smiled. "You know. The Jedi."

"Jedi?" The derisive snort came just a beat too slow. Doran picked up his caf with a nonchalance that did little to conceal his posture of wariness. "What makes you think they're Jedi?"

Raissa bit back an exasperated sigh. "Oh please, Doran." Raissa tried to keep herself from rolling her eyes at him. "They do teach us a few things at Carida, and we've already established that I have some… unorthodox ways of getting information, too." Where were you born? It was entirely too coincidental that Paolo L'zselo and Doran had asked her the same question yesterday. Perhaps it had been a matter of simple deduction to compare the incidents; perhaps the repetition had had stirred something in the Force. Whichever of her senses had noticed the parallel, that simple question had given her all the answers she needed.

"All right," he said, watching her carefully. "Let's assume for the sake of argument that they are Jedi. What's that got to do with me?"

"I'm willing to bet a certain sparkly little trinket is the reason they're on Merkesh in the first place. I need your help to get it to them." Doran's caf mug stopped halfway to his mouth and his eyes narrowed. Disbelief radiated from him so strongly, Raissa could have felt it ten meters away even without whatever special awareness the Force granted her. She pretended not to notice and went on with her explanation, "I saw the way your lady-friend looked at me last night. What do you think she'd say if I walked up to her and offered to give her a holocron? I'm an Imperial officer. She'd never trust me. But they know you; you're one of them. If you told them you could get the holocron, they'd believe you."

"They might," Doran conceded. "The real question is why should I believe you? As you pointed out, you are an Imperial. Why would you want to help the Jedi?"

Raissa sighed. She'd hoped he would accept her offer without asking too many of the uncomfortable questions she was avoiding asking herself, but had known somehow that he'd never let her escape without answering them. She swirled her caf in the mug, staring into the dark vortex so she wouldn't have to meet Doran's intense gaze. "I don't know, exactly," Raissa hedged. She chose her words carefully, trying to frame an explanation Doran would understand and accept. "Maybe knowing that I'm a little bit like them made a difference. Maybe I just don't know what else to do with it. I thought about giving it to Moff Cassius, telling him I found it in an alley, like you suggested. But I can't stand the thought of that stuffed-shirt nerf's behind turning it into another insignia bar he doesn't deserve. You don't want it. I don't like having it-- I want to touch it too much. And I have the feeling that if I just tossed it out, it would only come back to haunt me. I want …." To make a difference, she thought. She wondered if this was the opportunity Paolo had foreseen for her. Had he seen the choice she'd make, too? "I want this thing finished, so life can go on."

Doran fixed her with a questioning look and Raissa could almost feel the brush of his mind against hers for a moment, before the presence pulled away sharply. She could see him weighing her words, sifting them for hidden meanings, alert for any trap they concealed. She held her breath, waiting. Finally, he shrugged, either in defeat or indifference. "All right, all right," he said wearily. "Get me the holocron and I'll make sure they get it."

"No," Raissa shook her head. "I want to meet them in person. There are a few questions I need to ask Paolo L'szelo. I think it's a fair exchange. Have them meet me here after closing time-- I'll come alone, I promise." She rose and smiled with a bright confidence she couldn't make herself believe. "Do you really think I can do much against three Jedi?"

"Two Jedi," he corrected her firmly, taking a slow sip from his mug. He looked up at her. "Are you really sure this is what you want, Baiard?" Doran asked. "You can ask a Jedi all the questions you want, but you may not like the answers you get."

Raissa nearly laughed. "I don't expect to."


Moff Cassius pounced on Raissa the instant she set foot in the garrison. "Ah, Vice-Prefect, we've been waiting for you," the Moff remarked, a bit too eagerly for Raissa's comfort. She was beginning to have a bad feeling that she shouldn't have come back. Her instincts told her she was stepping into the sarlaac pit. Had they found out about her plans? Wait, she told herself. Just wait. See what they know first, then make plans for damage control. An eminently sensible course of action, but Raissa had to force herself not to bolt out of the garrison when Cassius fixed her with his lean and hungry smile. "You will come with us," the Moff told her, and his lieutenants, acting on some unvoiced signal, encircled her.

It was a command, not a request, but Raissa nodded deferentially anyway. "Of course, sir." She managed to put on an expression of puzzlement as she glanced at he officers who surrounded her. "May I ask what this is all about?"

"I think you know," Cassius retorted as his men herded her into what used to be her office. "Take a look around, Vice-Prefect. Does anything seem different to you?"

Raissa knew exactly what was different, knew just how many millimeters askew she'd moved the sheaves of flimsies, though she never would have thought a group of thugs in pretty uniforms would have had the mental capacity to notice. Apparently they'd learned something at Carrida besides how to lick their superior's boots. Raissa cursed mentally. Making assumptions was a rookie mistake. Just because the lieutenants were violent, disrespectful, lewd, and ignorant didn't mean they were unobservant as well. Perhaps she could still count on them to be sexist, though. She put on a blank, ingenuous look as she glanced around the room. "I'm sorry, Moff Cassius, but I'm afraid I don't see anything."

"Don't you? Well, my men brought it to my attention that someone had been in their office. Their reports had been disarranged." He crooked his spidery brows at Raissa. "Would you like to guess how they got that way?"

"Perhaps the cleaning droid moved them, sir?" she suggested.

"And would a cleaning droid also have access to the computer?" Cassius asked. "You see, when they realized someone had been in their office, my lieutenants conducted a thorough search, including a scan of the computer's log. What they found was most interesting. Whoever had been there pulled up records from the Imperial History Museum, specifically images of Jedi holocrons." The Moff rounded on her, and Raissa suddenly realized how tightly the lieutenants had closed their circle around her. They were slavering like a pack of hunting hounds that had found their quarry. "You will empty the contents of your satchel now, Vice-Prefect," Cassius ordered, giving her an ugly little smile. "Come along and be a good girl, Vice-Prefect. Of course, if you're not feeling cooperative, I'm sure Lieutenants Rosiere and Verrine would enjoy searching you for the holocron."

I just bet they would. Raissa backed away from the salaciously grinning Rosiere. He sniggered when she ran into the desk behind her, and she felt the heat rise to her cheeks. Raissa took a deep breath. Carefully, she had to proceed carefully. She would not let this pack of kriffing morons ruin all her meticulous plans. She couldn't fight against five Imperial officers, but maybe she could bluff her way to getting what she wanted. Maybe, just maybe, her unwanted talent for the Force could come in handy after all. She took another calming breath and tossed her head as she leaned back haughtily against the desk, borrowing one of the moff's poses of arrogant boredom. "Your men are better than I would have thought," Raissa remarked coolly. "But not quite good enough. You see, Blayne and his little knick-knack are just the beginning of something much, much bigger. "

Rosiere and Verrine bristled, hounds on a very short leash. The Moff pursed his lips. "What do you mean by that, Vice-Prefect?"

She gave him a smile that said it was really quite obvious. "There's no profit to be had in keeping such a treasure to himself. Since he certainly didn't plan to turn it over to the Empire, as was his duty, who do you think would have paid the most to get their hands on a holocron?"

"The Jedi! They're here, on this wretched planet?" Cassius inhaled sharply. He strode forward, grabbed Raissa by her lapels, pulled her towards him, and shook her. "Where are they? Tell me!"

"Temper, temper, Moff Cassius." Raissa clicked her tongue, tsk-tsking his lack of manners. She plucked his hands from her shirt and pushed him back. "But I'm willing to forget this little breach of protocol. I'll even let you have the Jedi-- and the holocron, and Doran Blayne--as long as I get what I want." She paused, waiting for him to take her bait.

True to form, Cassius took the opening, if grudgingly. "And that is?"

"The same thing you want," Raissa replied with a bright smile. "Power. I know you'd like to have me demoted or court-martialed. And I know you plan to put your own toady-- probably one of your redoubtable lieutenants--in charge of the Merkesh garrison once you leave. But that's not going to happen. You're going to make me the Prefect instead."

"Are you trying to bribe me Vice-Prefect?" Cassius looked perfectly livid at the thought.

Raissa laughed, pouring all the hauteur she'd ever heard in her superiors' voices into it. "Of course I am. I've been in the Imperial military long enough to know how this works. It's a sweet deal, Moff Cassius. What do you think the Emperor would give to the man who turns in a Jedi Master, his padawan, and a holocron? Grand Moff Cassius has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" The rusty gears were beginning to turn in his mind. Raissa could tell from the sparkle in his beady eyes that she'd piqued his vanity. He would move one step closer to the center of Imperial power, and all he had to do was turn over control of an insignificant desert planet. Still, she could sense his reluctance; Merkesh might be a speck on the Imperial map, but put a woman, and such an impossibly aggravating one, in charge? She decided to twist the vibro-shiv just a bit more. Raissa caught his eyes and looked deeply into them until she could almost feel the greasy brush of his thoughts. Act quickly, she suggested, before she gets smart and realizes she could turn the Jedi over to Palpatine herself.

A shiver of panic raced though the moff's mind. Suddenly, he smiled at Raissa. "Very well, Vice-Prefect. You may have what you want. Tell me where to find the Jedi."

"You do think I'm stupid, don't you?" she asked derisively. "First, I want your assurance that your men won't interfere with the plans I've arranged." He gave her a sour look, but Raissa merely smiled back. "Don't worry; you'll get your Jedi. But you're going to do it my way."

 

Ooh, very nice development - and Raissa is juggling furiously all the issues in her life, good for her! I think she'll win out, in the end.

 

Awww, brilliant! I loved how Raissa realises what she can do with the Force, now that she's aware of her abilities. And Cassius got a well-deserved dressing-down ("tsk, tsk") and he doesn't even know what's coming to him...

 

Drinking in the dark was starting to become a habit for Doran. For the past three nights he'd found himself nursing a bottle of Corellian whiskey in the empty cantina-- the first night while waiting for Alyse, last night to soothe his irritation at stubborn women of all affiliations, and tonight to quiet his nerves as he waited for his world to fall apart.

But at least tonight he didn't have to drink alone.

Alyse Bergeine paced the café's floor, betraying an impatience and anxiety that were decidedly unbecoming in a Jedi. "Relax," Doran advised her, waggling the bottle at her. "Have a drink; it'll calm you down." She stopped in front of his table with a pointed sniff and glared at him, a look that said in her estimation, Doran had already had more than enough for both of them. He probably had, Doran reflected as he took another long pull of whiskey, but he could drink the cantina's whole stock tonight and still not be at ease. He set the bottle down on the table with a thunk. Minions of Xendor, couldn't the woman stand still for one second? Her incessant motion was starting to make him dizzy.

"Patience, Alyse." Paolo's voice came from the shadows that draped table thirty. "Remember, there is no emotion, there is peace," he said, quoting the Jedi code.

Alyse sank down next to him with a sigh. "You're right, of course, Master, but I have my doubts about this woman. How can we trust our fate to an Imperial?" She looked up towards Doran, blue eyes piercing the darkness like a blaster bolt.

He shrugged back. "I've never known Baiard to break her word," he answered. It was the best he could offer her, and under other circumstances, he would have considered it enough. But today, he'd sensed that while Baiard was had been telling the truth about the holocron, she hadn't been telling the whole truth. There had been something more lurking at the back of her mind. Her explanations had been just a bit too smooth, too vague. Baiard hadn't wanted him to know her complete reasons for her change of heart. Perhaps she still hadn't been sure herself. Doran had nearly dipped into her thoughts to find out before he'd stopped himself from relying on the Force for protection. As Baiard had pointed out, it wasn't as if she could do much against two Jedi.

"I believe we can trust her," Paolo agreed. "Raissa Baiard is a conflicted young woman in many ways, but her service to the Imperial army has not completely hardened her heart." Doran clicked his tongue in irritation. To hear the Jedi master speak, you'd have thought he was the one who'd known Baiard for almost a year. And worse, Paolo's arrogant assertion carried more weight with Alyse; her face lost some of its tension at his reassurance.

Doran reached for the whiskey to quell his annoyance, but a tiny scuff of metal against tile caught his attention before he could drink-- the sound of the side door opening. He was inordinately pleased to realize he'd noticed it before either of the Jedi. "But hey, don't take my word for it," Doran told Alyse as he rose. "Ask her yourself." He met Baiard as she emerged from the alleyway. She was covered with a thick cloak, but Doran could see that underneath it, one had rested on the butt of her blaster. The other held onto the edge of the door. Apparently she was as nervous to meet the Jedi as Alyse was to meet her. "Vice-Prefect, how nice of you to finally show up," Doran greeted her.

Alyse shot up from her seat and fairly lunged towards Baird in her excitement. "You have the holocron?" she asked anxiously.

Baiard raised an amused eyebrow at the eager Jedi. "I do," she replied. “But first things first." She opened the door again, and Doran abruptly noticed that, under her cloak, she'd slid the blaster out of its holster and was slowly raising it. He looked past her in sudden alarm. A shadowy figure lurked among the trash bins in the alley, and Baiard smiled as she addressed it. "Won't you join us, Moff Cassius?"

She lied to me, Doran thought in stunned disbelief. The shock immobilized him as surely as a stun grenade. By the time he remembered the blaster at his hip, Baiard had leveled her own weapon at him. "Stay where you are," she warned them. Doran felt a horrible tremor of unease; Baiard was using a clumsy version of the Jedi mind trick to back up her words. She was weak and unpracticed-- he was little more than mildly compelled by her command-- but she was using the Force. He risked a quick glance at the Jedi. Alyse had been standing next to him, but she'd fallen back a step under the threat of Baiard's blaster. Her eyes were wide with horror; one hand was clapped over her mouth, stifling a shriek. Behind her, Paolo L'szelo stood motionless, watching Baiard carefully, his forehead creased with a frown. Clearly, they had noticed Baiard's mind tricks and clearly they couldn't be counted on for help. They obviously still believed that old line about the Force being used for knowledge and defense, not for attack. As usual, it looked like it was going to be up to Doran to pull them all out of the sarlacc pit. He slowly edged his fingers towards his blaster.

Keen-eyed as a hawk-bat with binoculars, Baiard noticed before he'd gotten his hand halfway to the holster. "Doran," she said sternly. This time, no mind tricks accompanied her warning, instead the far more tangible threat of the click of the safety catch being taken off a blaster followed. She gestured with the barrel of the pistol for him to put his hands up. Doran complied, cursing silently. He couldn't get to his weapon now and he wouldn't lay odds that he could charge Baiard before she snapped off a shot. That left just one possibility, and he hated to sink to that level.

He had no other options. He was going to have to use the Force.

Doran drew a deep breath and smiled crookedly. "Baiard," he said softly, adding just a touch of persuasion to his words, "You don't want to shoot us."

She blinked, momentarily confused. "No, I don't," Baiard agreed, but she didn't lower her gun. Doran was puzzled. He could sense that she was telling the truth. She wanted no violence. Regret and determination warred in her eyes, but her aim never wavered, not even a millimeter. Baiard shook her head, and the silk thread of Doran's suggestion snapped. Her mouth firmed in resolution. "But I will if I have to," she said. Baiard glanced quickly over her shoulder, back towards the alley and its shadowy denizen. "Shavit, Cassius," she barked. "Get in here, now!"

The snort of an enraged bantha issued from the alley, and Moff Cassius marched through the door, his face as red and pinched as if he'd just tasted his first flameout. "This was not the plan, Vice-Prefect!" he snapped. "Trust a woman not to be able to follow directions, even her own!" The Moff raised a comlink to his lips. "Come in, Rossiere!" No answer came, nothing but the slight hiss of static of a dead com-line. Cassius angrily adjusted the frequency. "Verrine!" Cassius snarled. "Answer me!" Once again, there was no reply. He shook the offending piece of equipment savagely. "Damn it all! Nothing is working tonight," he swore, giving Baiard a pointedly accusing look.

She returned it with one as calm as his was irate. "Don't bother, Moff Cassius," Baiard told him.

"What?!? What do you mean by that?" the Moff demanded, his expression going from incensed to apoplectic. Doran thought his reddened face bore a striking resemblance to an overripe blum fruit. Any moment he was liable to explode like one. But he still didn't seem to have noticed what Doran had; Baiard was no longer facing her captives. Her blaster was now pointed at towards Moff Cassius.

"They won't be coming." Baiard replied levelly as she took the comlink from him and slipped it into her belt satchel. Cassius had just opened his mouth to protest when he finally saw that he was now her target. His face paled in belated understanding, and he brought his own blaster rifle up.

He wasn't nearly fast enough. Baiard already had her shot lined up. All she had to do was squeeze the trigger. Blue energy engulfed the Moff and he had just enough time for an astounded snort before he collapsed into an awkward, angular heap on the floor. Baiard looked down on the fallen officer and nudged him sharply with the toe of one boot. There was no reaction. She grinned, triumph only slightly tinged with guilt. "Good night, Moff Cassius."


Looking down at Moff Cassius, Raissa felt a perverse sense of satisfaction. She knew she shouldn't have enjoyed shooting another sentient being this much, but, oh, the look on Cassius' face when he realized that she'd outmaneuvered him had been so sweet! Seeing Cassius drop like a stunned nerf almost made this whole escapade worthwhile. Raissa's adrenaline was still pumping. She'd come closer to losing control of the situation than she liked to think about. She'd misjudged the potential threats, expecting the Jedi to be her most dangerous opponents, but Doran was the one who nearly caused her careful plans to come crashing down. Her Carrida training and sharp reflexes had saved her when he'd gone for his gun, but when Raissa felt that subtle tug at her thoughts, she'd thought she was bantha fodder. She had an uncomfortable suspicion that the only reason she hadn't simply handed her blaster over to Doran was that he hadn't been trying all that hard.

You're not clear just yet, she reminded herself. Nothing says he has to trust you now, either. Raissa looked up slowly, watching for any small move Doran might make. She stretched her senses to their limits, alert for anything that might signal more Jedi mind tricks. Doran had lowered his hands to his sides, but there was no indication that he was going to reach for his gun. Though a trace of surprise still lingered about him, he was clearly relieved, and more than a little approving. Doran flashed a quick grin at Raissa. "Nice shot, Baiard," he murmured, and despite her best intentions, Raissa smiled back.

Doran seemed convinced, but two Jedi were more than enough for an unpleasant and unpleasantly short confrontation. They hadn't done much when it had been three against one, which struck Raissa as odd. If they were really half as fierce or cunning as the Empire had always painted them, she should have been sprawled on the floor with a smoking hole through her. She shifted her gaze back to the Jedi and found that they had had barely moved at all. Paolo hovered in the background, watching her with a look of great interest, but not particularly surprised and certainly not alarmed. The Jedi woman was alternating glances between Raissa and Moff Cassius' crumpled form. She looked like she was about to be ill. Raissa almost laughed aloud when she realized that the Jedi was so deathly pale because she thought that Raissa had just killed Cassius. Probably thinks she's next, Raissa thought, her mouth quirking into a wry grin. So much for all the horrific tales of the inhuman Jedi she'd heard during her training. "He'll be all right," she assured the nervous Jedi. "I had it set on stun. See?" She held out her blaster for inspection. The woman backed away as if Raissa had offered her a week dead scurrier.

Paolo L'szelo finally stepped out of the shadows that draped Doran's booth. He knelt beside the unconscious Imperial, and laid a long-fingered hand along the Moff's neck, just below the jawline. The Jedi stared into and past the Imperial's slack face for a moment, then nodded his satisfaction. "He'll be quite fine in a few hours, Alyse," he confirmed for his companion. "A lingering headache, perhaps. That blast was enough to down a wild bantha. You're not taking any chances, are you?" Paolo asked, looking up inquisitively. "What do you plan to do now?"

"Funny you should ask, because I could use a bit of help with that part," Raissa answered. "If you do your Jedi mind tricks on the good Moff and his lieutenants, make them forget what happened here tonight, you can be gone with the holocron by dawn and no one the wiser." She tried to give Paolo a self-assured smile, but it slid sideways, crooked and half-unsure. This part of her plan unsettled her, no matter how she tried to sugar coat it. She was asking a Jedi to unleash his awesome mind powers on a helpless man, to strip his mind bare and plant lies there instead. Raissa pushed away the horror stories she'd heard about how Jedi could use their mind tricks and reminded herself that she had very little choice.

"And if I were to tell you that I could not use the Force to destroy a part of this man's memories?" Paolo asked, gazing steadily at her. "What would you do then?"

"So you can't help me at all?" Raissa felt her careful plans unravel around her. After her chat with Doran the night before, she'd begun to see that at least some of the Jedi weren't the evil creatures of the horror stories her fellow cadets had swapped in the barracks at Carida. But there were so many stories of Jedi mind tricks--everything from persuading people to act against their wishes to wiping away their entire past--that she had assumed there was at least some truth to them. It seemed that nothing was ever certain when dealing with Jedi.

Alyse gave her an odd look, pity mixed with a faint touch of disdain "It's not that it's impossible for us to help, but what you want us to do would be unethical," she told Raissa firmly. "Abuse of the Force in such a way leads to the worst possible consequences. There has to be another way."

"There is," Raissa agreed. "But I don't think you'll like it." She held up her blaster and thumbed it off of stun.

It took the Jedi woman a moment to grasp the significance of Raissa's gesture, but when she did, her eyes went wide with shock. As Raissa had predicted, she thought even less of this proposal. "Surely you wouldn't!" Alyse gasped.

"If I have to, yes," Raissa answered, smothering her own displeasure. She'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, for many reasons, not the least of which was that, despicable as the Moff and his men were, they didn't deserve the kind of summary execution they'd dealt to Pterr Lorr. "Look," she explained, "Unless you want the Moff and his men trailing you for the rest of your lives, I've got to do something. You can't negotiate with men like this, Jedi. If you won't do something to render them ineffective, I'll have no choice but to… dispose of them."

Alyse pursed her lips, shook her head, but a caustic laugh sliced through her objections. "I can't believe this," Doran exclaimed. He turned to face the Jedi, arms crossed over his chest. Incredulity twisted his features into a sneer. "Baiard put her life on the line for you, and all you want to do is debate ethics? You can guess what's going to happen to her if she leaves them alive. But if you think Baiard's taking the easy way out by killing them, you're wrong. Five dead Imps are likely to attract some attention, even on an Outer Rim planet like this. They sent Cassius to investigate a Prefect's death; whoever they put on this case will be worse. And guess who his favorite suspect is going to be? If Baiard's lucky, they'll court martial her and ship her off to Kessel. But that's probably not going to happen-- as we all know, the Imps have killed for less." Doran stared hard at his former companions, unruffled by the appalled looks they gave him. Sparks of green fire burned in his hazel eyes as he took a step back, putting himself squarely by Raissa's side. "If you won't help her, I will."

Raissa thought that Alyse would faint at the idea of disposing of the Moff and his men, but Doran's proclamation made Alyse several shades paler still. "Domnic, no!" she gasped in a mortified whisper. "The Force is to be used to defend and protect others, never to attack."

Doran crooked an eyebrow at her, adamantly unimpressed. "'The galaxy will live in tranquility if certain matters are a bit overlooked,'" he retorted. Doran smiled grimly at the blonde woman and shrugged. "I'm just helping things along."

Alyse's expression was so scandalized that Raissa knew he must have thrown some bit of a Jedi sacred text back at her. Paolo rose from his place at Moff Cassius's side and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Alyse, you know that I would never condone the use of the Force to wantonly rearrange minds, but in this case I believe our friend has a point. Any other course will result in lives destroyed, not merely memories. Do you understand?" The young Jedi bit her lip and looked away. She gave Doran one last glance, then calmed her features as she turned back to Paolo. "I understand, Master."

"Very good, Alyse." Paolo nodded and patted her shoulder reassuringly. They stood quietly for a moment, then Paolo stepped past his young companion and smiled approvingly, the expression that put Raissa in mind of a teacher whose student had learned some basic truth after a much struggle. "We should begin at once. This task will take much strength in the Force," he said. "Even with all of us working together."

Note: the quote "'The galaxy will live in tranquility if certain matters are a bit overlooked" is from the Star Wars RPG core rule book, where it is given as part of Master Odan-Urr's commentary on the Jedi Code.

 

Oh, Raissa... This is what we call in Greek "to play them (Cassius, the Jedi) on the tips of her fingers."

Every word of this had me roaring with laughter -- and I can just so imagine Bogart saying it.

Seriously. Alyse is such a wimp.

 

Way to go, Raissa - a simple, elegant plan that bends lives only slightly.

 

Whoo! I believe this is what is known as a Crowning Moment of Awesome.

 

Thank so much! Bogie has so many great lines in "Casablanca," it's nice to think I've caught some of his wry delivery.

She really is. On reflection, I think she's much more passive than Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa. Doran really needs to find someone with more spirit...wonder where he could find someone like that?
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"What new story shall we spin for our Moff and his men? Shall we narrowly escape from them? Or simply never show up here in the first place?" Paolo asked.

Doran shook his head. "Not showing up leaves Baiard holding the holocron, and it's unlikely that Cassius will accept that it was lost or stolen from her. Escape means the chase continues." He circled the Moff, looking down at the angular tangle of Cassius's spidery limbs. "You could leave them a false trail," Doran suggested. "Or better yet, let them think they won." There was a gleam of morbid humor in his smile when he looked up. "Death may be the only safe hiding place for fugitive Jedi."

It was a clever idea, Raissa thought, except for one small problem. "Wouldn't that require us to provide some bodies?" True, there were plenty of stories of the Jedi doing six impossible things before breakfast, but reading minds, fighting twelve opponents and levitating starships were somehow different than creating a human body or even a reasonable facsimile thereof. No tale Raissa had ever heard suggested such a task was within their capabilities. And she doubted that Paolo and Alyse wanted to stick around and play dead.

The look of faint pity crossed Alyse's face again, though now it was more condescending than disdainful, as if Raissa was a small child who couldn't be expected to know any better. "Jedi can sometimes become one with the Force when they die," she explained, and smiled gently at Raissa's blank stare. "Both our spiritual and our physical beings join the Force. Our bodies disappear. If Paolo and I were killed by the Imperials and became one with the Force, only our clothing would remain behind."

Raissa saw Doran's nod from the corner of her eye. As patently absurd as Alyse's answer sounded, it was apparently true. Raissa decide it was best if she simply accepted it; she wasn't sure she wanted the Jedi to explain the workings of the Force any further. "Pretty handy for us, though," she murmured.

Paolo steepled his fingers pensively, index fingers resting lightly against his lips as he considered Doran's plan. "It's a daring-- and clever-- scheme," he conceded at last. "Our apparent deaths remove Alyse and me from the list of Jedi who are still being sought, leaving us free to vanish into the Corporate Sector. Very well-- the Imperials defeat us. Shall we decide the details of our heroic last stand?"

"It might be easier if we brought all our Imps together for reference." Doran said. "Then we can figure out who stands where and who shoots at who."

"Wait a minute. You have to script out new memories for them?" Raissa glanced between the two men, wondering once again what she'd gotten herself into. It was a simple thing for Jedi to play with someone's mind, wasn't it? All the stories she'd ever heard.…. Raissa sighed inwardly. All the stories she'd ever heard bore only passing resemblance to reality. Unless these Jedi were better actors than she thought, the Imperial propaganda department had obviously written the stories about them. Unfortunately for them, she thought, checking her chronometer. Like most cantinas, Doran's place didn't close until the early hours of the morning, and she'd hoped to have the Jedi on a transport off Merkesh before dawn. "Exactly how long is this going to take?"

"Could be a while," Doran answered with a shrug. "Coordinating memories of the same event for five people is considerably harder than, oh, making an Imperial officer think he doesn't need to see your ID card. The memories have to seem real, and in this case that means they have to be consistent. Throwing some vague pictures into their heads won't do. They'll know their minds have been tampered with."

And that was going take time, time they didn't have. Alyse and Paolo had to be gone before Merkesh City started to wake up. Someone was bound to notice odd figures scurrying out of the Café Alderaan before it opened, and if the rumors somehow reached the Moff's ear…once again, she and Doran would be bantha fodder. Raissa scowled at the unconscious Moff and felt like kicking him again. He didn't deserve all the effort they were putting into saving his slimy hide. Would he really notice if his mind was a little foggy? Raissa's eye fell on the bottle of Correllian whiskey on the table above Cassius, and she scowled. Knowing the tawdry little man he'd simply assume he'd had a few drinks to steel his nerves before facing the Jedi. Suddenly, an awful, wonderful idea hit Raissa. Her lips curled up into a wicked grin. "Unless they thought they were drunk." Three heads swiveled to face her, various shades of puzzlement and excitement playing over their features. "Well, think about it. We are in a cantina, and Cassius and company aren't any too fussy about standing on procedure. If you invited them in to celebrate or calm their nerves or whatever, I'm sure they'd have a glass or two or six. Scatter some bottles and glasses in front of them, and they'll believe their fuzzy-headedness is due to alcohol, not Jedi mind tricks. I don't drink on duty; they know that. All you'll have to do is give them enough of a memory to corroborate the story I tell them."

Paolo raised an eyebrow at her, a hint of mirth or mischief tugging at the corners of his smile. "An ingenious idea, Vice-Prefect," he remarked.

"Ingenious? That's downright devious, Baiard!" Doran crowed with laughter and grinned widely. "I love it!"


The stench of Merkesh City's back streets should have been enough to warn any sane being away, Doran thought as he stepped into one of the sordid alleys that lead away from the Café Alderaan. He wrapped himself in the shadows that draped the walls. They were unpleasantly damp where he pressed up against them-- Doran shuddered to think what was now smeared across his cloak. He was almost certain he didn't want to know, nor did he want to investigate the misshapen lumps that lurked in the alley's dark crannies.

None of it bothered Doran half as much as the presence of the woman behind him.

Let's split up to get the lieutenants; it'll make our work go faster, he mocked himself. Next time keep your brilliant ideas to yourself, o wise master. Especially when there are Jedi involved. Paolo had been strangely amenable to Doran's suggestion, though of course, he'd had to go through the whole sage Jedi-Master-considering-a-lowly-padawan's-advice pose before concurring. But he'd promptly ruined one of the prime benefits of Doran's plan by announcing he would take the Vice-Prefect and get the two officers to the east, while Doran and Alyse took the west side of the cantina. Baiard had gaped like a startled fish at that, looking exactly as horrified as Doran felt. She reverted to her unflappable Imperial sabacc face after her momentary lapse, and acquiesced, no doubt hoping to have an opportunity to ask Paolo a few questions. Doran silently wished her luck. Jedi Masters had a way of only giving you as much of an answer as they thought you needed, which, frequently, was none.

Her luck couldn't possibly be worse than his was turning out to be tonight. Doran scowled. For someone who vowed never to put himself in the blaster sights for anyone, he'd done a wonderful job of getting tangled up with the Paolo and Alyse. In trying to help them, he'd broken his resolve not to use the Force. And instead of his hoped-for reprieve from the Jedi, Doran was now paired with the last Jedi he ever wanted to be with.

Alyse trailed close behind him, much closer than he would have liked. Her hand hovered tentatively by Doran's arm, never quite daring to touch. Her presence jangled in his mind; the confines of the alleyway made her edgy. Doran remembered that during their time on Nar Shaddaa, Alyse had never really gotten used to the filth and disorder of the city-planet. Her kind, trusting nature had made her ill suited to dealing with such squalid conditions and dissolute residents. She’d been much happier in Ton Mumd’s pastoral setting. While Doran used to dream of becoming a Jedi guardian, stomping out the Republic's brush fires wherever they flared up, Alyse would have been better as a consular, dispensing advice from her cloister in the Temple's towers. If they managed to pull off this mad scheme, she'd probably find great satisfaction in instructing a new generation of padawans.

Between Alyse's uncomfortable clinginess, the general aura of oppression and the creeping pace at which they stole through the darkness, the end of the alley seemed not meters or blocks but lightyears away from the Café's back door. The rubbish bin where Baiard said Lieutenant Rosiere had been stationed was obvious; Rosiere was not. After a moment's search, Doran found the unconscious officer wedged between the dumpster and the corner of a building. Clearly Baiard wasn't taking any chances that someone would stumble across him, or that he would wake any time soon. The ugly red welt at the base of the Imp's neck said he'd been stunned on high at almost point blank range. Baiard was nothing if not thorough, Doran reflected. Sometimes frighteningly so.

"So, heads or tails?" Doran asked as he unfolded Rosiere. Alyse blinked down at him and he bit back half a sigh. So much for trying to lighten the mood. "Do you want to take his shoulders or his feet?" he rephrased.

"Oh, shoulders, I suppose," Alyse replied. She knelt beside the crumpled officer and, frowning, gingerly took hold of his broad shoulders. When Doran hefted the Imp’s lower half off the ground, Alyse’s reluctant grip failed. Rosiere slipped, and she lunged for him, less willing to let him crash to the ground than she was to touch him. Alyse grappled with the lifeless lieutenant, finally managing to catch him in a sort of awkward embrace around the middle. She staggered, looking like she might reconsider her decision to let him drop.

Doran set Rosiere’s feet back down. “Here.” He said. “Let me take that.”

She pulled away, or tried to while still maintaining a hold on the cumbersome deadweight. “I can do it,” Alyse insisted, with an indignant toss of her long, golden hair. If her hands hand been free, they probably would have been planted firmly on her hips. “I handled far heavier loads in the tall-grain processing plant on Ton Mumd.”

“I know,” Doran answered, another sigh escaping. “I remember.” Not like I could ever forget. She was much stronger than her slight frame made her appear, and a lot more stubborn than her ingenuous blue eyes suggested. Still, this wasn’t Ton Mumd, and Rosiere wasn’t a sack of grain. More was at stake than just being docked a couple credits for slacking if they didn’t get this load in on time. If anyone caught them carrying an unconscious Imp, it could lead to some uncomfortable questions, at the very least. No time to worry about Alyse’s pride. Doran reached for Rosiere; Alyse tugged him away. “Alyse,” Doran growled, as he attempted to pull the lieutenant away from her, only to have her yank him back again. They glowered at each other over the top of Rosiere’s head, locked in a ludicrous game of tug of war.

Her determined look softened unexpectedly. “You always did try to carry my share of the burdens,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Doran replied awkwardly, “I guess I did.” Their eyes met in uncertain and almost unwilling attraction. Doran’s gaze wobbled, unable to look at Alyse, unable to look away. In her blue-gray eyes were reflections of the good times they’d shared –bits of laughter cutting through the misery of Nar Shaddaa, near peace in the fields of Ton Mumd, and, always, the sound of “The Sequential Passage of Chronological Intervals” playing in the background. He hesitantly smiled, a small, cautious gesture offered as a fragile truce bridging their past. Alyse returned it far more readily than it had been given. This time when Doran moved to ease the lieutenant’s weight out of her grasp, she didn’t protest.

 

Okay, okay, some of the awkwardness between Doran and Altar may be gone, but Raissa once again stole the show. Devious, cunning, clever, taking no chances, and even though it was in tiny details her interaction with Alyse in the first half of the chapter was simply priceless

 

And we are down to the last three posts in the story.....
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Lieutenant Verrine had been exactly where Raissa had left him, slumped in an alley beside a pile of dubious-looking refuse. She'd arranged him to look like just another sodden drunk, sleeping off his latest binge until the cantinas opened again-- not an uncommon sight in Merkesh City's back streets. Neither, Raissa hoped, was the sight of a few well-meaning friends lugging said drunkard out of the alley. At least that was the picture she wanted to project as she and Paolo dragged the stunned officer back to the Café Alderaan. If indeed anyone noticed them at all; when she'd mentioned her concerns to Paolo, he'd merely smiled enigmatically and replied "Weak minds see only what they expect to see, Vice-Prefect." Raissa hadn't pressed further, not really wanting to know what kind of Jedi mind tricks he planned to use if they were spotted.

Fortunately, the alleyway remained clear, save for her and Paolo, as Raissa pulled the lieutenant upright. Though she could have handled him by herself, Paolo insisted on taking an arm. He even tried to take the greater part of their burden though his gaunt figure suggested he'd be hard pressed to carry Verrine's boots. It was only a short trip to the café, though, and once they'd shouldered Verrine through the side door and poured him awkwardly into Doran's booth, Raissa paused, leaned against the nearest table, and fanned herself just a bit theatrically. "Let's take a break before we retrieve Carreau," she proposed.

Paolo nodded affably, not looking the least bit tired as he perched on the table across from her. "A good idea, Vice-Prefect," he said. "I can sense that there are many questions you'd like to ask me. Ask; for only by asking can you find the answers you seek."

Raissa didn't quite flinch at Paolo's casual reading of her thoughts. It was still a little disturbing that he found it so easy to tell what was on her mind, but she did want some answers from the Jedi master and the more time she spent protesting his use of those eerie Jedi talents, the less time she's have to get those answers. There were so many things she wanted to know; Raissa hardly knew where to begin. She settled on a small matter that had been plaguing her since her chat with Doran the night before-- the holocron. "What's on this thing that makes it so important to you?" Raissa asked, pulling the palm-sized cube out of her belt satchel. "The Coruscant Database said that the Jedi store their knowledge on these through some kind of unknown holographic technology that only they can access."

Paolo nodded. "The Force is instrumental in creating a holocron; it becomes more than a simple holographic representation, it takes on the personality and characteristics of the Jedi who created it. Let me show you." He held out his hands and Raissa placed the cube gently in his cupped palms. As she did, the light inside the holocron grew. The pale yellow light it had always cast when she held it intensified to the fiery gold of a desert sunset. A momentary flicker of surprise crossed Paolo's face and quickly blossomed into an expression of pleasure. "Ah," he sighed. "I hadn't expected…. " He closed his eyes and let his fingers play over the holocron's surface, touching a sequence of the shifting runes inside the cube. Golden light flared above the cube and coalesced into the image of a robed figure. The Jedi stood straight and tall; his countenance was intense, full of wisdom…familiar.

"It's you," Raissa breathed. Glancing between Paolo and the shimmering image, it was plain. The dignified, vital Jedi in the hologram was the same worn figure who now stood in front of her. "It's your holocron! But how did you know?"

"I didn't." Paolo replied. He waved a hand over the top of the holocron and the image of him as he'd once been dissolved back into glowing light and faded. "Not until you gave it to me." He smiled and clasped the precious object firmly in his long, thin hands. "Truly, the Force moves in mysterious ways."

"Truly." Raissa managed a weak nod as she stared at the pale gold holocron Paolo held. Out of countless thousands of possible of worlds in the Empire, the holocron and its master had arrived on the same insignificant Outer Rim planet. It was a staggeringly huge coincidence. It was even more staggering if, as Paolo seemed to suggest, it wasn't a coincidence at all. Raissa considered the implications of this. She knew, as almost everyone in the galaxy must have, that the Jedi drew upon the Force for their power. She'd always thought of it as a thing to be manipulated, a tool to be wielded, a battery to supply energy, and the Jedi as the hands that controlled it. But that analogy fell short if the Force could control as well as be controlled. If that was true, the Force was immeasurably stronger than she had thought-- not just some mystical energy field but a power able to shape the galaxy to its own-- purpose? Liking? Was it capable of having either? If it could care about the galaxy, why were those like Renau and Cassius in command? And if it had a purpose for something as small as a holocron, why was it letting its chosen, the Jedi, be destroyed? The questions pressed against Raissa, demanding answers. She could hardly sort them into a logical order, and the one that found its way out first was less philosophical and closer to her heart. "If this force is so powerful it can arrange for you to find your own holocron, why couldn't the Jedi find me?" Raissa was aware that, as when she had asked Doran why the holocron lit up for him, she most likely wouldn't like the answers she received. "You had no trouble spotting my…talents. So then why….?"

"Why? Who can say?" Paolo regarded her with solemn, considering eyes-- the professorial look again. Raissa liked it even less now that she had an idea what he wanted her to learn. "Perhaps because there are innumerable worlds to search and only a finite number of Jedi." His eyes met hers and held them. "Or perhaps you were meant for such a time as this."

Raissa pulled away, her lips curling in distaste. "You mean the Force altered my whole life just to give you the holocron?" A chunk of plasti was worth more in the grand scheme of things than she was. Was she just a game piece for the Force, then? A trivial token to be used and then discarded? Better to have been forgotten, ignored than to simply exist to be the conduit for some mystical datacube.

Paolo sighed, his prize pupil reverting back to stubborn ignorance. Raissa could feel him trying to catch her eyes again, the slightest brush of a suggestion against her mind. She refused, dragging her gaze down, away with effort. Another sigh. "You told me that you wanted to make a difference." Paolo's voice filled the empty cantina. "You've given the Jedi-- and me-- a tremendous gift today. Every bit of knowledge we can save is one that the Empire can't turn against us. That will make a difference for us, and maybe for the course of the whole galaxy. Vice-Prefect, whether you see it now or not, your actions, your presence have made all the difference. But your life and your path in the Force don't have to be defined by this one moment. You can keep making a difference, if you choose."

Paolo was quiet for a moment; his silence even more eloquent than his words. Raissa was compelled to look up and read the unspoken offer in his eyes: Come with us; learn the ways of the Force. She grimaced to herself, shook her head. Perhaps Doran really believed that things could carry on the way they were before, but she’d known from the moment she learned that neither of them was exactly what they seemed that returning to normality would be impossible. Raissa had suspected that someday, someone would expect her to choose sides. She just hadn’t expected it to be quite so soon.

"I'm sorry,” she told him. “I can't." It wasn’t that she still believed all the Imperial propaganda that had been drilled into her in Carrida, or that she couldn’t quite bring herself to completely trust the Jedi. It wasn’t even that she resented the Force for using her as its personal courier. Raissa struggled to put what she felt into words. "I have a duty here. No, not to the Empire,” she assured Paolo as his expression darkened with sadness. “A duty to the people of Merkesh. If I leave, they'll put someone just like him in charge of the garrison," Raissa explained, gesturing to Verrine's limp form. Thinking about the Moff’s men in control of the garrison fairly made her shudder. Merkesh would be worse off than before-- Renau leaned more to benign neglect than real abuse. Raissa had no illusions that any of the lieutenants would be so kind. “Merkesh may be just a speck on the Outer Rim, but its citizens deserve to have some semblance of the justice the Empire promised them. This is where I can make the most difference.” The cantina seemed to dim around her as she spoke and a succession of images played before her eyes: two silvery lightsabers arrayed on a table before her, a heavily cloaked man taking a packet of papers from her with a grateful smile, the shadowy outline of a sleeping child snuggled under a Merkeshian weave blanket. “I must follow my own path,” Raissa heard her own voice say, and was startled to realize that she sounded like a Jedi.

Paolo was smiling at her when her consciousness returned to the café. “You wondered why the Force didn’t lead the Jedi to you,” he said. "I believe you've just answered your own question."


Watching Jedi use the Force turned out to be far less spectacular than Raissa expected. She wasn’t sure exactly what she had expected, but she supposed she’d pictured something more dramatic than Paolo, Alyse and Doran sitting cross-legged on the floor with eyes closed and expressions of serene concentration on their faces. They never even touched the any of the lifeless Imperials slumping bonelessly in Doran’s booth. Only a faint tingle of power, like the feeling of a thunderstorm building over the desert, told Raissa that anything was happening. The power of the Force, she thought, shivering involuntarily, caught between wishing she couldn’t sense it at all and wanting to do something to help besides just gathering props.

Since whatever talent Raissa had in the Force was untrained and untried, the Jedi had given her the job of providing the physical evidence to corroborate the scenario they were spinning in the Imperial’s minds and gathering the supplies they would need for their escape from Merkesh. Raissa appropriated combat grade survival kits and several days worth of field rations from the garrison’s supplies. It was somewhat harder to find clothing to replace those Alyse and Paolo would leave behind when they “became one with the Force.” Between military surplus and confiscated property at the garrison and Doran’s and her own closets, though, he managed to put together a suitably anonymous ragtag. She’d added a some artistic blaster scoring to the alley behind cantina and scorched the Jedi’s discarded cloaks until they looked like the ones Prefect Renau had been so proud to find. She’d worried that someone might come to investigate the shots as she finished decorating the alley as a combat zone, but realized that the locals wouldn’t stick their noses into someone else’s dispute and even the officers at the garrison wouldn’t help, not without promise of reward or a direct order, preferably both.

Once Raissa completed her weapon work, she arranged the Moff and his men into a tableau of drunken stupor, setting the table with enough scattered bottles and half-empty glasses to imply that they’d consumed a quantity of liquor that would have dropped a herd of bantha. She tipped the last of the bottle of Corellian whiskey Doran had been working on all night into a glass, slid it over next to Verrine, and stepped back to inspect her handiwork. Raissa thought the arrangement of empty glasses and half-full bottles looked convincingly like the aftermath of a particularly hearty celebration. That left just one task to accomplish before Doran and the Jedi woke up or came to or whatever one did when one finished using the Force, the one little job she’d been dreading.

A mode of death that left no corpse was quite helpful when you were faking someone’s demise, but it still left a few challenges. While Moff Cassius and his lieutenants wouldn’t question a lack of bodies, they would expect to find the Jedi’s physical artifacts, and not just their cloaks. Cassius would want to send the lightsabers back to Coruscant as trophies—along with the holocron he gone through so much trouble to reclaim. Cassius’s men had proven that they were at least as perceptive as nearsighted Gungans, so they would certainly notice if something that important was missing. Doran persuaded Paolo-- and with greater difficulty, Alyse—to relinquish their lightsabers; they could, he pointed out, always build new ones. But Alyse adamantly refused to leave the holocron behind for the Imperials. After much wrangling, and a few scowls and threats from Doran failed to move her, Raissa proposed a solution. The holocron was almost the same size and shape as a standard datacube; they would substitute one for it.

Doran had given her a skeptical look. “Interesting. However, a datacube doesn’t look all that much like a holocron. Someday an Imp who’s smarter than a nerf’s backside is going to come across it, and..”

“Won’t know the difference, either, once we’ve run a lightsaber through the cube,” Raissa replied. She sketched a scenario for them: one Jedi dead, the other gravely wounded. In a final dramatic gesture, the Jedi, plunges his lightsaber into the holocron rather than surrender the precious knowledge contained within to the Empire. It was overwrought and melodramatic, exactly the kind of pointlessly noble thing that was expected of the Jedi. The idea passed unanimously; Alyse was in favor of anything that spared the holocron, Paolo seemed amused, and Doran simply shrugged.

She hadn’t realized when she made the suggestion that she’d have to slag the datacube.

Raissa stared down at Paolo and Alyse’s lightsabers where they lay neatly arrayed at table thirty. Alyse’s was a delicate piece of art, gold inlay set against the gleaming silver cylinder. Paolo’s was simple burnished durasteel, a few gray-on-gray buttons the only ornamentation. Raissa’s hand hovered over them indecisively; choosing one meant she had to pick up the weapon of a Jedi. Using the weapon of a Jedi meant…. You already have the Force, she reminded herself sternly. You’ve already used it. Using a lightsaber won’t make you any more like a Jedi than you already are. She inhaled deeply, closed her eyes and seized the first lightsaber that came to hand, Paolo’s.

It felt strangely light, strangely right in her hand. She took another deep breath and hit the activator. A brilliant emerald blade sprang to life with a snap-hiss. Raissa swung it in a slow, experimental arc. The shaft of green light swished through the air, moving as effortlessly as if it were an extension of her. She’d never handled any weapon so responsive, not even the force-pikes she’d trained with had been so easy to handle or hummed with so much power. She made a few more practice strokes with the saber before she pulled a data cube from her belt pouch and placed it carefully on the floor.

The lightsaber’s blade plunged into the plasti as if it was warm blum fruit jelly. Raissa pulled back before the cube completely melted, leaving one square edge protruding from the messy puddle of plasti. No one could have told now what its original form had been.

Raissa shut down the lightsaber, and felt a small, sharp pang as the dazzling green column vanished. She laid Paolo’s saber down carefully next to Alyse’s and took a seat at table thirty to wait for the Jedi.

 

Raissa's concerns were fascinating and emotionally charged. This is something that I've often thought Force-sensitives would wonder about. Her resolution to carry on doing her job while knowing all of this in secret is fantastic. Really liked this chapter!

 

This is so artfully written -- I really thought that Paolo was acting like a ***** until Raissa formulated her purpose to herself and that's when I remembered that, as neutral as the narration sounded, it was actually her POV. I am really enjoying how she's coming to terms with the fact that she's Force-sensitive through the execution of the devious plan she concocted. *applause*

ETA: Oops, sorry, edited for language.

 

I liked how Raissa was half afraid of the Force, and half wanting to be impressed by seeing its use. She's intrigued, despite herself.

 

The penultimate post..... And now for Doran's side.
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Doran joined the Jedi ringed around his table with reluctance. A wave of uneasiness spilled over him when he took a seat on the floor next to Alyse. He’d spent so long fighting the Force, denying it, ignoring it. Would he have to push his way through to it, like prying open a long rusted door? And once he did-- if he could-- would he be able to touch the Force, to wield it as he used to? Or would his strength in the Force have atrophied from long neglect? Doran didn’t realize how far he’d pulled back into himself in his apprehension until a light, probing touch brushed against his mind, bringing him back to the moment. Alyse’s blue eyes met his, and she gave him an encouraging smile as she closed her eyes and slipped out of time and place and into the Force. Doran steeled himself, took a deep breath, and followed her.

There were no duracrete walls to batter down. The path was wide before him and the Force was all around him, waiting to embrace him like long-lost friend. Alyse and Paolo were there to welcome him as well, and they drew Doran into their circle. The Force transcended the barriers of space-- someone on the far side of the galaxy was as close as a thought once you knew that—but it still seemed to Doran that he and the Jedi stood around and slightly above the Moff and his lieutenants. Their minds drowsed in a muzzy twilight while they slept off the effects of Baiard’s precisely administered stun blasts. Doran reached out oh-so-carefully to Moff Cassius’s torpid presence so that he wouldn’t damage it—any more than he intended to.

The Imperial’s mind was as slippery as Hutt slime, but not as wholesome. Doran recoiled from the noxious feel and smell and taste that permeated his senses as he slid into Cassius’s thoughts. He pulled the Force around himself like armor and pressed through the crush of lurid memories, searching for the right one. Countless strands of sensation, emotion, and action came together to form it. The butt of the blaster tight in his grip as Cassius crouched in the alley. The nauseating smell of garbage and sour liquor. Frustration, impatience and anger, all aimed at that damn Baiard who dared to bribe him, dared to mock him. “Shavit, Cassius, get in here!” Dared to swear at him. Rushing into the cantina to confront the stupid girl. The pale visages of the Jedi and Blayne behind her. The barrel of a gun raised against him. Shock and panic that disappeared in a flash of blue. Darkness

It was easier than Doran would have guessed to unravel Cassius’s memories. He picked the threads of memory loose, leaving a few images to serve as the warp for the new tapestry he wove. Employing the Force with a curious sense of artistry, Doran snipped out this part, blanked out that, and rearranged the other bits. Paolo and Alyse’s drawn expressions now met Cassius when the door to the alley slid open. The sound of blaster fire became his and his lieutenant’s, the flash of blue transformed to Alyse’s lightsaber. The stuck-nerf grunt the Moff uttered as he fell came from Paolo’s lips just before he vanished into the Force. Doran found it strangely entertaining to change the past this way, and he was tempted to give the egotistical Imp some memories he would truly cringe to recall. He rather enjoyed the idea of having Cassius remember wetting himself in fright as the Jedi ignited their lightsabers. But, Doran conceded, even as he stifled a grin, that would probably constitute a misuse of the Force; Paolo and Alyse were sure to frown on it, at least.

He allowed himself one poetic touch, though, a memory that would shine clearly among the hazy wisps of that night: Alyse had fallen and in desperation, Paolo destroyed the holocron. He turned to Cassius with a crazed look in his eyes, raised his green blade high overhead and bore down on the Moff, who cringed away. Before Paolo’s blow fell, a figure slid between Jedi and Moff. Doran patched in the image of Baiard’s intense expression as she squeezed the blaster’s trigger. This time, however, Paolo fell.

Doran grinned again. He could just imagine what Cassius would say when he realized that some damn incompetent woman had saved his life.

He came back to the Café moments or hours later—there was neither time nor space in the Force—slumped forward with his chin on his chest, as lifeless as the stunned Imps. It had been so long since he’d used the Force this much that Doran had forgotten the mental exertion could be just as taxing as the physical sort. And tonight had seen plenty of both, between dragging the lieutenants in from the alleys around the Café and rearranging their memories into a more useful pattern. He felt like he'd been picked over by bonegnawers. Doran closed his eyes again, just for a minute, he told himself. Or maybe a few hours. There was no time in the Force. As Doran slid back towards oblivion, he felt of a pair of hands cupping his face softly. A golden light poured over him, washing away his exhaustion and infusing him with new energy. He felt himself wrapped the warmth of the Force…and the embrace of another familiar presence.

Doran awoke to the tender smile he remembered so well from those far-off days on Nar Shaddaa. Alyse’s gentle hands glided down the line of his chin, her Force touch pulling away with the same whisper-light caress. “Good morning,” she said with a smile in her voice. “I almost thought you’d slipped into a Force trance for a moment. I wondered if you were going to wake up at all before we had to leave.” Doran wobbled to his feet, more in a daze from that entrancing smile than the previous night’s ordeal. Alyse extend a hand to steady him, but didn’t let go once Doran had regained his balance. She clasped his other hand, too, pulled him closer, leaned her head against his chest. “Come with us, Domnic,” she entreated. “We need your help so much.”

His heart bucked like a cornered nerf. When she left him standing at the spaceport with only a flimsy from a messenger droid by way of farewell, Doran felt like the galaxy had exploded. During the drunken days that followed, he swore he would never waste another moment of his time thinking about Alyse Bergeine. That love was dead, he told himself, and so was the poor sap of a padawan who’d waited at that docking bay. But that had always been a lie. Alyse lingered in the corners of his dreams in those first days on Merkesh, and even now, she slipped into his unguarded thoughts. Doran had never quite banished her from his mind or heart. Now she stood in his arms, just like in those early dreams, whispering I need you.

Reality jarred against the dream. “You need me?” Doran asked, pulling back. “Or the Jedi need me?”

Alyse looked up at him, frowning prettily. “Does it have to be one or the other?”

Did it? Tonight, they’d worked together effortlessly, wordlessly. It had been so easy and so comfortable to fall back into their old rapport. Alyse was asking him to come with her; she wanted him to be part of her life again. Why should it matter why?

It mattered terribly.

Doran looked down into her fathomless blue-gray eyes and finally understood. The emotion he saw sparkling in their depths wasn’t love. It was need. The Force brought them together after the fall of the Jedi Temple because they needed each other. The friendship and compassion they shared had kept them from giving into their grief and loss, had kept them from turning to the Dark Side. But while Alyse had given Doran reason to keep going when his world shattered, the thing that kept her going was her belief in the Jedi Order. When her master needed her, there had been no choice for her. Paolo needed her more. He still did…and she needed him, needed the Jedi, needed their cause. A cause Doran couldn’t truly share, because he’d built a life on Merkesh. It might not seem like much of a life to Alyse or to Paolo, but Doran had friends who were counting on him: Sascha, Haaz, and everyone at the Café Alderaan…. Baiard, he thought. Someone has to keep her from throwing herself headlong into the sarlaac's pit while she's adjusting to her new talents. Keeping the Jedi Order alive was Alyse’s calling, not his. Until his came, he belonged here.

"Alyse, where you're going, I can't follow. What you're doing, I can never be part of.” Alyse shook her head and her arms tightened around him. “No…” she began, but Doran stilled her protests softly. “You belong with Paolo. This is your path in the Force, to rebuild the order if you can. To teach those who will take up the fight after us." He unwound her arms from his waist, nudged her gently away from him. "Go, and may the Force be with you."

Tears streamed down Alyse's face and she bowed her head, acknowledgement and farewell. "And with you," she whispered, slipping away into the shadows.

All the healing energy that Alyse had poured into Doran drained away like the last of a drunkard’s bottle spilled in the dirt. He sat down heavily at the nearest table-- not his usual, comfortable, safe table, that was full of unconscious Imps. He dropped his head into his hands and let himself fall into a tired gray haze again, so deeply that he didn’t hear or sense anyone approach until a large hand patted his shoulder. Doran grudgingly pried his eyes open and groaned at the sight of Paolo L’szelo looking down on him with an expression of deep concern.

“You’ve made the right choice,” Paolo told him solemnly.

Doran snorted; the last thing he needed at this moment was to listen to a Jedi Master spouting comforting aphorisms about the will of the Force. “Thanks. I’m so glad you approve,” he said, shrugging off Paolo’s hand. He knew his decision was right, but that didn’t mean that it was easy or that it didn’t hurt. And having a Jedi Master’s support wasn’t going to make it all better somehow. “Don’t you have a ship to catch?”

Paolo waved away this small matter—and Doran’s impertinence—as unimportant. “There’s something I must give you first, something you’re going to need in the future.” The Jedi drew an object from the tattered robes that Baiard had provided. It flashed with crimson fire at his touch, and remained faintly alight even after he set it on the table in front of Doran.

He sat up with a jolt and stared at the glowing holocron. “You’re just giving it back?” he protested. “After all Baiard went through to get this to you?”

Paolo brushed his fingers over the glyphs that were carved into the holocron’s surface, eliciting a burst of golden light. The nebulous shape in the center of the shaft of light coalesced into a miniature of Paolo, standing straight and proud, not bowed beneath the weight of an Empire. Another wave of Paolo’s hand, and the figure disappeared as quickly as it had sprung into being. “It is mine to give,” he replied with the serenely assured smile of a Jedi Master. “Of all the holocrons that Alyse and I have saved, this is—alas—the only one I can afford to part with.” His smile grew wistful. “I already know its contents. You will have a greater need of it than I when you take your first student.”

“Student?” Life on the run had obviously unhinged the man. “I’m not taking any students!”

“No? Who else can the Vice-Prefect turn to for advice? She has not truly come to terms with who she is yet. Someone must keep her from throwing herself in the sarlaac pit until does.”

Doran gaped for a moment as Paolo echoed his own thoughts back to him, an old Jedi’s trick, damn it. He pushed away from the table and strode across the café. “I can’t teach her,” he said. “I’m no master, just a padawan. And not a very good one at that.”

“You are a Jedi,” Paolo insisted, his voice carried such conviction that Doran had to look back. The laugh that had formed on his lips evaporated at the expression on the Jedi’s face. He’d lived among Jedi his whole life but he’d only seen any of them look that solemn once before—when Master Onfroi had sent him away and gone to face the Imperial soldiers alone. “You are a Jedi,” Paolo repeated. “What you have been through has been far more difficult than any test the Council could have devised for you. That you remained true to the teachings of the Jedi through such adversity proves you are worthy of the title.”

Now the laughter welled up, bitter and hopeless. “But I failed the order. I abandoned the Code.” Doran slumped against the nearest column. “I turned my back on the Force!”

“Did you?” The Jedi regarded him curiously. “Ah, well, that explains why you were so quick to turn me and Alyse over to the Empire when you had the chance.”

“You really think I’m so Hutt-belly-low that I would have pulled something like that?” Doran asked, unaccountably stung that anyone, even a self-righteous Jedi Master like Paolo, would think him capable of such reprehensible behavior. Never mind that nine out of ten beings on Merkesh would have done it, would have been only too happy to make a profit while getting revenge on the woman who betrayed him and the Jedi who’d taken away any normal life he ever could have had. Even though Doran didn’t serve the Jedi any longer, and didn’t really care what happened to any of them, selling them out that way would have been….well, wrong. Against everything he believed.

He still believed. As much as he tried to deny it, he still believed in the lessons he’d learned at the Jedi Temple.

He hadn’t abandoned the Jedi code; it was too much a part of him. He couldn’t turn away from the Force; it was everywhere, in all things.

Doran looked down at Paolo’s holocron, glowing warmly in the café’s shadows. He reached out, brushed his fingertips against it. Its faint glow grew stronger and a tingling warmth spread up his fingers and arm to suffuse his entire body. He closed his hand around the holocron. It felt strangely comfortable there.

Paolo smiled and clapped his hand on Doran’s shoulder, the acceptance of a colleague and friend. “Welcome back to the fight.”

 

Aw, the right choices made and a future looking better by the minute!

 

Whew, finally got caught up! Real life intrudes at the most inconvenient times.

I like the twist on Rick's, "Where I'm going..." line, and it fits the story perfectly.

Can't wait for the last bit of the story, but I'm sad it's almost over. I know I'm jumping the gun a bit, but any chance of a sequel?

 

Actually, there's a very good chance. I've started on a sequel called "In the Cards," and I'm also working on an entry for the OC Challenge featuring Raissa and Doran.

Here we go, the final post (and the last line is for you, Chyntuck)
----------
No tables! We got no tables! Go on!” Haaz’s gruff voice rose over the buzz of conversation that filled the cantina like a cloud of busy wisties. The Café Alderaan was bustling tonight, even more than usual, as even those who normally frequented the Azure Kroyie flocked to see the place where a pair of notorious Jedi had met their fates. The story of the epic battle in the Café’ hadn’t even taken a standard hour to spread from one end of Merkesh City to the other, and while that wasn’t particularly startling, the locals’ reaction was. The café’s patrons, both Imperials and fringers, had always respected—or at least appreciated—Doran’s political neutrality. So he was surprised that when word got out that he’d aided the Imps against the Jedi that his reputation hadn’t been destroyed. In fact, he seemed to be even more popular now. It didn’t take him long to figure out why; the Imperial propaganda machine had done its job well. The Jedi were as strange and unwelcome as a nashtah on a nerf ranch. As much as the Imps and fringers hated each other, they hated the Jedi worse.

Yesterday, Doran would have simply laughed at that bitter thought and chased it away with another glass of Corellian whiskey. Today… he raised his glass in a silent toast to Alyse Bergeine and Paolo L’szelo, in hopes of their safety and success. May the Force be with you.

Something quivered at the edge of the Force, bringing Doran’s focus back to the moment. He looked up just in time to see a woman in a pale green dress enter the Cafe. A curtain of wavy auburn hair spilled past her shoulders, hiding her face, but the cut of her dress set off her slender form quite nicely. Doran watched her appreciatively from behind the screen of ch’hala trees; she moved with the self-assured grace of a dancer, her flowing skirts swirling as she walked. Haaz noticed her at the same moment and buzzed up to her, waving his hands in an agitated shooing motion. “We got no tables! No tables! No…” The Toydarian’s litany came to an abrupt end as the woman looked up and brushed a lock of hair away from her face. Doran’s jaw dropped nearly to the table in a shock of recognition. Haaz apparently had the same reaction. His whirring wings faltered momentarily and he rocked back in midair, webbed feet paddling to right himself. “Vice-Prefect Baiard!” he greeted loudly, trying to cover surprise with volume. “I almost didn’t recognize you without the uniform!” Doran silently seconded that opinion; he didn’t even know she owned civilian attire. But it definitely suited her. He made himself stop gawking. “I’m sorry Vice-Prefect,” Haaz continued apologetically, “we got no tables right now. Maybe I can open something up for you at the bar, huh?”

“Thank you, Haaz,” she replied. “Actually, I’m here to meet Doran tonight. Is he at his usual table?”

The Toydarian’s eyes bugged out a little further. “Uh, yeah. But you know he don’t drink with customers.” He fluttered after Baiard as she headed towards Doran’s booth.

Doran rose in acknowledgement, gesturing for Baiard to sit. “It’s all right, Haaz,” he told the astonished maitre’d. “I’ve been expecting her,” he added, and suddenly realized that was true. Haaz stared, mouth open, but for once the garrulous Toydarian could only manage a stunned squawk. He hovered there until a small knot of Bimms decided to take the opportunity to slip past him, and then lurched back into action. “Hey! Get outta here! We got no tables!” he bellowed, swooping off to pursue the furry little aliens

Baiard smoothed her skirt awkwardly as she sat, and Doran realized his attention hadn’t been as subtle as he might have hoped. He took a long sip of Corellian whiskey, and leaned back casually in his booth, regarding her over the rim of his glass. “I’m honored you decided to grace the Café Alderaan with your presence tonight, Baiard,” he commented. “I’m sure one who has performed such a heroic act must be welcome everywhere.”

Her amber eyes glittered behind an expression of polite deference. Doran could almost hear her hidden laughter. “Thank you,” she answered, quite as formally. “But the honor is mine. You certainly deserve the Empire’s thanks for your part.” Baiard leaned forward and lowered her voice, her lips quirking into a smile. “I don’t know what you did to Cassius, but he was almost humble this morning. Kept mumbling about sticking to his agreements and paying his debts.”

Doran grinned back. “It’s not what I did, Baiard, it’s what you did.” He tipped his glass to her. “Ah yes, the brave Vice-Prefect who, at great peril to herself stepped between the good Moff and a battle-crazed Jedi with nothing to lose, and fired the shot that killed him.”

“He thinks I saved his life?” She suppressed a laugh; it came out as a nasty little snicker instead. “Well, that explains it, then. I’ve been promoted. I’m now Prefect Raissa Baiard of the Merkesh Garrison.”

“Congratulations, Baiard.” He raised his glass again, this time with genuine enthusiasm. Cassius might only have been paying off an imagined debt, but Doran knew how much Baiard truly deserved the position. Renau had had the title, but Baiard had done all the work. He had a feeling things were about to change in Merkesh City, and, though he was sure many of his patrons would disagree, change for the better. “I’d say that calls for a drink on the house.” Doran flagged down a passing waiter. “Ralla mineral water?”

“Actually, if you have it, I’d love a glass of Chandrilan wine,” Baiard said with a smile. “After all, I am off duty.”

Truly, the Force moves in mysterious ways. Raissa smiled to herself as she recalled Paolo’s words. Truly. She hadn’t meant to come to the Café Alderaan tonight. She’d had every intention of spending a quiet evening at home and going to bed early; she felt she’d earned it after the chaos of the last few days. But something in the back of her mind insisted that she needed to go out, go to the Café Alderaan. Raissa tried hard to push the nagging little suggestion away; she’d resolutely settled down with a cup of tea and an old holo-vid. The more she fought, the more she felt that she could take a Star Destroyer down with a slugthrower more easily than she could ignore that voice. Raissa finally gave up with a sigh and pulled her favorite dress from the depths of her closet—she hadn’t worn it since her graduation from Carida. If the Force wanted her to spend a night on the town that badly, she felt she might as well do it up right.

Doran had produced an excellent Chandrilan wine from the back of the café, an excellent vintage that suggested his stocks were far more extensive and sophisticated than the average sabacc player could appreciate. He poured them each a glass of the mellow golden wine, and had barely raised his glass in another toast to her when the Café’s patronage descended on them in a frenzy of well-wishes, noisy as a plague of congratulatory makants. What seemed like the entire population of Merkesh City, from mostly respectable merchants to disreputably scruffy gamblers, crowded around Doran’s usually secluded table to share in the celebration. One after another of Renau’s old sabacc buddies offered her both congratulations and libations in copious amounts. The former she returned in the same patently insincere manner in which they were offered; the latter she politely declined. Raissa reflected further on the vagaries of the Force as she fended off their wheedling requests and outright pleas for her to tell the story of her confrontation with the Jedi. Yesterday she’d been bare millimeters from finding herself on a one way trip to Kessel for insubordination, dereliction of duty, and whatever other charges Cassius managed to trump up. And that was even if he didn’t discovered she was conspiring with Jedi. Today, she was prefect of the Merkesh garrison, lauded for defending the Empire against those very same Jedi. She’d finally gotten the respect she’d always hoped for--- and it was all for an elaborate ruse to protected the enemies of the Empire.

Beside her, Doran seemed alternately amused and annoyed by the stream of fringers, gamblers, con-artists, and thieves that paraded past their table. He accepted their admirers’ compliments and their drinks with a certain wry equanimity. Tension and excitement radiated from him, growing as the evening wore on—and on and on. Raissa could sense the weight of a barely-kept secret pressing against his mind and she knew why the Force had called her here. Whatever news Doran wanted so badly to tell her would bring them to another turning point in the Force. Doran gave her a sidelong glance, as if he had sensed her thoughts, and nodded slightly. We need to talk, his voice came to her mind, just as Sascha announced last call. Stay. Raissa sent back a wordless assent, remaining seated while Doran dismissed their last few admirers, a pair of drunken Gotals and a wretchedly nervous Rodian who’d been lurking in the shadows, unable to speak all night. He gave them each a brisk nod and a firm “good-night” and let Haaz chase them out the door.

Doran glanced toward the bar. Sascha was still at her post behind it, wiping down the counter, though she was scrubbing the same spot in endless circles and her eyes were fixed pointedly on Raissa. Doran stood up and stretched with exaggerated nonchalance. “Why don’t you go on home, Sascha,” he suggested. “I can take care of closing tonight.” His right hand moved in a small arc, a barely perceptible gesture. Raissa felt something in the air quiver, the slightest breeze from the flutter of a wistie’s wings.

Sascha blinked and paused in mid-scrub. “Yeah, I guess you can take care of closing,” she agreed, her voice a bit distant.

“You deserve time off once in a while.” Doran waved his hand again, and again Raissa felt a tiny, subliminal stirring. She recognized it now as the Force moving, and she repressed a shiver as she realized she was seeing—was sensing—the famous Jedi mind trick in action, a much smaller version of what Doran and the Jedi had done to Cassius’s men the night before.

“Hey, I deserve the time off, right?” Sascha laughed, untying her apron, blithely unaware that she was being manipulated. In fact, Raissa felt sure that, if asked, Sascha would have insisted that leaving was completely her own idea.

“See you in the morning,” Doran said with a smile and a final flick of his hand.

“Good night boss. See you in the morning.” Raissa watched with a strange fascination as Sascha gave the bar one last swipe, hung up her apron and left. She’d imagined the Jedi mid trick to be something like overriding a droid’s programming, but Doran had used a subtle touch on his friend, not so much commanding as persuading. She wanted to go home, so he encouraged her to take the opportunity, dissuaded her from seeing Raissa’s presence or any other reason why she should stay. Perhaps there were advantages to having the Force, after all. Such an ability could be of great help to her. If she had mind powers like that, she could restrain an unruly suspect, calm a frightened child, even disperse a mob before they turned violent. ““That was impressive,” she told Doran. “You’ll have to teach me how to do that.”

Doran’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. “Shavit, I hate it when those all-knowing Jedi masters turn out to be right after all.” He held up a hand to forestall Raissa’a puzzled comment. “Wait here. Our dear friend Paolo left you something to remember him by.” Doran disappeared into his quarters for a moment. When he returned, he was carrying a small object cupped in his hands, a cube that glowed with yellow light, shot through with flickers of gold.

“No,” Raissa groaned, dropping her head into her hands. “We just took care of that thing.”

“Yeah, I tried telling him that,” Doran answered. “But he seemed to think you’d want to learn the ways of the Force.” He pushed the holocron across the table towards Raissa. She raised her head slowly and looked at the glowing cube in front of her. The warm light intensified, almost as strongly as it had when Paolo had touched it and brought his own image to life. The gold colored symbols flickered merrily—encouragingly, Raissa thought—at her. Something within her responded and without even realizing what she was doing, her hands crept slowly, gingerly up to caress it. The runes’ flashing slowed at her touch, forming a measured pattern she could almost understand. A sudden surge of longing woke in Raissa, the same strange yearning that had prompted her to take it when she’d searched Doran’s quarters. She half-smiled to herself; she’d been trained to fear and distrust all Force-users, especially the Jedi, to hate and fear the Force itself. But its call felt so strong—and so right—to her now that she knew she couldn’t refuse it. Didn’t want to refuse it. Raissa reached out towards the power and wisdom she felt shining in the depths of the holocron.

And found a wall of meter thick, blaster proof, stealth cloaked transparisteel guarding the treasure within. She frowned; there had to be way past the impenetrable barrier. She could almost sense it…almost. “Not so all knowing after all,” Raissa sighed, pushing the holocron away. “This might as well be a photo cube for all the good it will do me. To learn the ways of the Force, I need to use the holocron, but to use the holocron, I have to know the ways of the Force.”

Doran shifted uncomfortably next to her, his eyes slid away from her and came to rest on the half-full bottle of Corellian whiskey next to his glass. “Well…actually, Paolo left it with me.” Doran picked up the bottle, swirled the liquid and started to pour himself another glass but reconsidered and pushed both glass and bottle away. He looked up at Raissa again. “He seemed to think that I should be your teacher.”

“But you don’t think that’s a good idea.” She didn’t need to make it a question. The tension that had been twining through Doran’s emotions all evening had come to the surface and was seeping off him like a thick fog.

He shrugged and spread his hands. “I doubt I’d be a very good teacher; I’m not a very good Jedi.” Doran gave another short, bitter chuckle. “In fact, I wasn’t, strictly speaking, a Jedi at all until this morning. But since Paolo may be the only one left who can confer that honor, I guess I’ll have to take his word on it.” He slid the holocron towards her. “Look, I think you should take it. I’ll show you how to use it. I’m sure you’ll learn more from it than I’ll ever know about being a Jedi.”

“I don’t know what makes a good Jedi,” Raissa answered. “But I know you and I know that you’re a good person—honest, fair, trustworthy. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have teach me.”

Doran considered her for a long, silent moment. Finally, he nodded slowly, solemnly and said, “There’s something you should know if we’re going to be working together, though you’ve probably figured this one out already. I’m not really Doran Blayne.” He paused, waiting for some reaction, and when Raissa said nothing, continued. “I bought the name off a slicer on some spaceport on the way to Merkesh—can’t remember where, I was probably drunk at the time-- traded him one of the focusing crystals from my lightsaber for a fake ID and a record in the Empire’s databases. Sold the other two to buy the Café Alderaan and start a new life, but it looks like the old one has caught up with me.” He squared his shoulders and looked up at her. It might have been a trick of the glowlamp’s flickering light, but when he did, he looked different somehow. Some of the world-weariness relaxed from his face and the bitter edges of his smile softened. His hazel eyes sparkled an almost lambent green in the shadows as he extended a hand to her. “My name is Domnic Jade.”

For all its seeming insignificance, Raissa understood that this was no simple introduction. It was a gesture of absolute trust. Many of the galaxy’s oldest cultures believed there was a power inherent in a name, that it captured the essence of a person. There were still places in the Empire where these ancient superstitions lingered, and knowing someone’s true name meant you could gain control over them. In a very real way, by giving Raissa his true name, Doran had given her that kind of power. His name was listed on the Empire’s roll of fugitive Jedi. Turning a suspected Jedi over to Coruscant might get her a letter of commendation; handing over a known Jedi would earn her a couple shiny emblems on her insignia bar—at the very least. His fate was hers to choose.

It was an easy choice. Raissa inclined her head formally. “I’m very pleased to meet you.” She reached out to accept the proffered hand.

The universe spun giddily as her fingertips touched his. She felt the Force swirl around her. It was like looking through a pair of macrobinoculars set on scan; images streamed past in blur and suddenly the world came into crystal focus. And at the center of it was Doran Blayne, who was staring at Raissa with eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. His grip on her hand faltered for a moment, but he shook his head, and grinned his old, disarming grin. Doran clasped her hand warmly in both of his, adding his affirmation to the Force’s.

Raissa answered his grin with one of her own.

This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

 

Very, very nice! And I liked the change in wardrobe for Raissa, acknowledging her new status - even if all the rest of the world doesn't know the whole story, we do. jBest of luck in any sequel writing.

 

I intend to leave a more intelligent comment at some later date, but I love this ending. And I'm gleeful at hearing that we will see more of Raissa and Doran in the future!

 

SQUEE!

This was a perfect way to start my Sunday. Over the past couple of months your fic has climbed to the top of my all-time favourite fic list. I love how you transposed Casablanca in the GFFA, I love the characterization of your OCs, I love the plot and I love how you managed the story of Doran and Raissa coming to terms with their Force-sensitivity. If I didn't know that you have a sequel in the works, I'd be but now I'm left with a beatific grin and I'll just patiently wait for more.

As a side note, one thing I thoroughly enjoyed about this story is how you sprinkled it with just the right amount of Star Wars-isms such as "Hutt-belly-low", "as unwelcome as a nashtah on a nerf ranch" or "more easily than to take a Star Destroyer down with a slugthrower" (I also recall something about "standing out like a Wookiee in a Bimm family reunion" in an older entry that had me roaring with laughter.) It's just such a smart way to keep the reader in the SW universe in a story that isn't packed with lightsaber duels and epic space battles

Thanks for this. As a reader, I'm just grateful that you chose to write and publish this story

 

I love a happy ending! And I'm so excited that there's going to be a sequel! I get so attached to characters that it always feels like I'm saying goodbye to friends at the end of a story, so knowing there's a sequel coming makes it better. I, too, liked the Star Wars-isms you sprinkled throughout the story. So much fun.

And "Domnic Jade," hm? Any relation to a certain future Force-user?

 

pronker, Kahara, Chyntuck, Tyria_Sarkin
Thank you all for reading and reviewing; I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I've grown quite fond of Raissa and Doran over the years, so it warms my that you'd like to see more of them. I've started writing the next chapter in their "beautiful friendship," a story that's been laying dormant in my brain for over 10 years. i can only hope it will be a worthy successor for the original.

The next story is titled "In the Cards," and it will feature the GFFA version of Signor Ferrari of the Blue Parrot (Sydney Greenstreet ) Question for the Casablanca fans... What species do you think Ferrari would be? Human? Hutt? Something else?

Thank you! Credit for these ultimately goes to my old Jedi master and composition 101 professor who encouraged us to use interesting and original metaphors. (Using a common figure of speech would earn you a "trite," "boring," or "THUD," scribbled over it.

Quite possibly

 

Hmm, Ferrari, hmmm ... well, I'm fond of the Phlog species. Generally used as thugs, Ferrari as a Phlog could be the rare cunning, intelligent one. And they are more mobile than Hutts ...

 

A Chevin perhaps? There's something pachydermic about him