#pirate to make hondo ohnaka proud | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eleniel-starlight · 4 years

Text

Dream State

Chapter Name; A New Journey

Summary; A former Jedi Master is found in a ruined city, on a fallen planet. The Empire has taken over, and won their war, but some still rage in their dying light. Some, like our Jedi, just need a show of kindness to realize their place.

Author’s Note; This took me WAY too long and I am so so so sorry but it has been a wild ride with my laptop being left behind in Phoenix, to it just not working in general, and I am done with excuses because from now on I will have a steady update schedule that I will hold myself to, and this time I will finish I promise.

Word Count; a measly 2,098

The Empire had taken everything that they could. Every system willing, and those unwilling, for it’s expanding power and wealth, and there were none to stop them. With all the Jedi either dead or in hiding, never to return, and the Clone Army having betrayed the Republic, there was nowhere to run. The Siege of Mandalore had been a deep seeded, planned take over, with Palpatine at the head of the Order.

Jedi Master Lo’ri often spent her days sifting through the ruins of the planet Mandalore, one that she had once fought for during the final days of the Republic. The planets that had fallen in the takeover. Mandalore, Onnderon, even Florrum; while Hondo Ohnaka had once held her captive, he had also provided aid when she had even lost faith in the Council. But it was all gone now. Hondo had gone into hiding, as pirates often do when the situation becomes too dire; not even the scent of a Jedi could bring him from his hole, wherever that might be.

She was out of a friend, in such a difficult time. She was a Jedi, trusting anyone was a risk. The Empire had it out for her head, Vader had killed one of her best friends and sent the other to a planet so remote that even she had refused to follow him, and destroyed the Order that she had devoted so much of her life to, and now here she was, a bounty hunter for hire, flying just under the radar of the Empire as someone who had simply acquired her lightsabers from the body of a Togruta Jedi.

Though such a lie was not easy to pass to former Jedi Knight, Cere Junda. A Knight that had served in the Republic would not be so easily fooled, even cut off from the Force Cere could sense the immense aura of the Force surrounding the planet of Mandalore.

The Mantis landed on the ruined city of Keldabi of Mandalore, and Cere set off in search of one more Jedi before venturing to Bracca for the final Jedi, a Padawan by the name of Cal Kestis.

Mandalore’s history was one of war and death, a war that had been fought and lost by the Jedi just over twenty years before the fall of the Republic. The Jedi Master located on Mandalore was once a member of the Jedi by birth, and the fastest learner that the Jedi had seen in quite some time. Before the fall, word about the Temple had been that Master Lo’ri had been as skilled a Force-user as Anakin Skywalker, but even now Cere was unsure if she had truly survived the Siege of Mandalore. The fall of the Republic had taken it’s toll on everybody, and whether or not Lo’ri had driven herself mad from the lonliness was unknown.

Keldabi had once housed the leaders of Old Mandalore, those of the people that had embraced conflict rather than having turned a blind eye to the concept. It made sense that a former Jedi would dwell on her past in a place like Keldabi, the perfect remnant, and the perfect hiding spot. Sundari was still inhabited by those left that supported the Empire.

Lo’ri had holed up in the old throne room, a place full of sun and warmth, a place for her to meditate. This was where Cere found her, on her knees, eyes closed in concentration as the Force radiated about her. It had a depth, a swarm of its own, the deeper into the well within her that she dwelled. It overwhelmed Cere and threatened to bridge the divide that she had tried so hard to sever between her and the Force. Long black hair flowed down her back, unkempt and knotted with different vines that laid coated with pink flowers. Her cloak and lightsaber laid to the left of her, bare for all to see.

Confident in her abilities, then. Cere thought to herself.

“No, but I haven’t seen another life form capable of conversation in the area since the Siege.” Her voice was weak and scratchy, and Cere was unsure that she’d actually heard the young woman say anything until Lo’ri stood, allowing the true length of her hair to fall from where it had once rested on her shoulders. The length fell to below her knees, and swept behind her as the former Jedi stalked forward. Cere kept her guard down, so as not to set Thestra on edge. She desperately needed the woman on her side if Cal was not to come. Though she suspected that both would be needed for the journey ahead.

“Now what is it you’ve come to ask of me, Junda?” Thestra moved forward in a slow manner, an animal stalking possible prey. “The Order has been destroyed, and you come in their stead, but I cannot see why.”

Cere bristled at the sheer unbridled ability that rolled from the woman’s aura, but she pushed onward with her mission. “The Force can be cryptic in what it allows you to see. My friend, Greez, and I, are in search of Jedi for a task that I cannot complete on my own.”

“And what task would that be? To aid you in fighting the Empire? Fight against Vader?” Her already broken voice tapered off in a tone of sadness.

“If need be, yes.”

“No. Vader stopped being my problem after the Siege. He was gone well before the battle even begun. Now leave me, before I decide that you are my enemy,” Lo’ri turned and began to stroll back to her meditation spot, but Cere had other plans.

“I need you, if you will not come, then…” Her face fell. “Then we have no chance to defeat the Empire,” she finished. But Lo’ri did not seem to care. She returned to the position she had been found in, on her knees, hands positioned just above her thighs. Her hair was now splayed about the ground around her, as opposed to the resting spot it had occupied when Cere had arrived. The former Jedi moved forward. “Please, you have to help me.”

“Why can’t you help yourself, hm?” Cere was in front of Thestra. The woman’s eyes opened, and Cere could see deep into the violet that was her irises, a colour Cere had never seen before. The dead look inside of her didn’t change the iridescence of her irises. The older woman stood in shock for only a moment, though.

“I need someone more in tune with the Force than I am. If you don’t turn out to be who I thought, well, then Greez and I will bring you back here.”

Lo’ri shook her head, an incredulous look on her face, raising the ends of her lips upward in a humorous smile. “Not good enough, Junda.”

Cere was exasperated. “Well then what do you want?”

“To be left alone as I had been!” Thestra was on her feet, menacing as she pushed Cere back with the Force, all the while her eyes grew brighter and brighter, as though something were about to boil over.

“Master Lo’ri, please, calm down!”

Lo’ri’s lip curled upward in a snarl, as something inside of her snapped. The Force oozed from every node in her body, a malice that seeped into each corner of the throne room. The immense exertion was a result of the burrowing that Thestra had been attempting before Cere had arrived, and nearly depleted the Force that was left, welled inside of her. It was a display of power, of the ability and will that she carried. Cere gave a soft smile of sympathy as Thestra collapsed to the ground shaking; the woman followed after to kneel.

“Help me, Lo’ri. And we can repair the damage Vader has done to the galaxy, to us.”

“I don’t want revenge,” her already weak voice was cracking with each word, tears were beginning to stream down her face and fall to the stone below. “I just want my friends back.”

Cere felt her stomach twist at the broken words falling from the Master’s lips.

“I can’t give you your friends back, I can only offer you a chance to make new ones. A new family.” Lo’ri shook her head as she fell back to sit on her bottom. Sorrow filled her expression, and fueled the shaking in her hands as Cere took them in her own. “The Jedi were my family, too. We have an opportunity and I need all the help I can get.”

The raven haired woman opened her violet eyes to Cere’s amber ones, and saw a glimmer of hope for herself. A chance to rise out of her wallow and avenge her family. Her heart pounded in its cage, driving her upwards and Cere with her.

“What is your opportunity?”

Greez had the most issues with Lo’ri coming aboard his ship. She found it odd that, for such a small Latero, he was very loud and proud about the cleanliness of his ship, the Mantis. Clean as it was, Lo’ri found it difficult to view the plant life that Greez Dritus kept behind glass. Her homeworld was a place where plant life was allowed to roam free, and the population was lucky that, through the will of the Force, they were allowed a home.

Greez disagreed with this philosophy heavily, and immediately ordered Thestra to brush and braid her hair.

“Preferably outside of my ship, you have no idea how hard it is to sweep dirt off of this floor.” He then shambled off to look at his empty plant casing.

“Greez, come on, you know I don’t have any idea how to work with hair like this, why can’t you do it?” Lo’ri stared at Cere in confusion as the woman winked at her with a smile. Greez groaned loudly.

“You know what? You’re right! If I want anything on this ship done, I have to do it myself! Come here, whatever your name is. I’ve got a brush around her somewhere.” Greez went about the ship on his little legs, searching through the things that he had once had so neatly tucked away in search of a brush, or maybe even a pick, that would be able to work it’s way through the wild rats nest that was Lo’ri’s hair. While he searched, Lo’ri began to work up the voice, and the nerve, to tell the Latero male what her name was.

Once he’d found a brush and pick that he believed would serve his purpose, Greez ushered the woman out onto the landing pad of Keldabi and began to pick through the flowers that had taken root. As the time wore on, Greez was obviously becoming impatient, so the woman decided to speak.

“My name is Thestra.” She rasped. Greez made a grunting noise and continued to pick through her hair, nearly done with the largest tangles. He pulled exceptionally hard on the center tangle, causing Thestra to yelp in pain; her body pushed her into a forward roll, landing facing Greez, one hand in front and the other protecting her backside. Her muscles were tense and many ached from her lack of time in combat over the last decade. Greez just watched with a tired look in his eyes, as though this had happened to him before.

“Come here, Thestra, I didn’t mean it,” the woman let a deep breath out, and fell out of her fighting stance. She allowed Greez to tug on the rest of her tangles without any protest or trigger, and when he was finished, she hadn’t even noticed that the Latero had taken the time to braid her hair in an intricate manner, letting the length fall into a soft knot that formed at the end of the braid. When she stood, her hair fell to just above her knee as opposed to past the bone, and the flowers that had once been seen at odd placements in her unkempt hair were now seen at perfectly spaced intervals within the braid. Greez smiled to himself with pride as Thestra marveled at the beauty.

“Thank you,” she muttered. Greez shook his head.

“No need, little lady,” he grunted as he shuffled up the ramp and back into his ship. Thestra turned to take one last look at the ruins of Keldabi, her home for the past ten years, and boarded the Mantis for a journey that she was still unsure about embarking on.

#Cameron Monaghan #cal kestis #cal kestis x oc #original character #star wars #jedi #jedi fallen order #empire #mandalore #cal kestis x reader

54 notes · View notes

shadowsong26fic · 5 years

Text

Because Roommate and I think we’re funny...

...here’s another excerpt from our Epic Crossover RP of DOOM!

For those of you who don’t know, this started life...yeesh, three years ago...anyway, it started life as a Star Wars/Marvel crossover (primarily rooted in MCU, but with a fair amount of comics canon drawn in; and using Precipice for the Star Wars side).

It has been going for, as I said, three years, probably a good 250-300k words long at least, and now includes ten fandoms (though one is mostly in the background and the other has yet to actually appear on page but will fairly soon). It is delightfully cracky and wonderfully self-indulgent, involving a boatload of OCs because Why Not.

This bit is from fairly early on. As a note, neither of us had seen Rebels when we wrote it, which means that some backstories are not necessarily consistent to canon. Also, if this scene seems to end rather abruptly, it’s because it’s about to veer off into Major Spoilers for a future Precipice arc.

And so, without further ado, behind the cut is an excerpt which focuses on certain Avengers meeting Hondo Ohnaka. Enjoy!

Tony was actually kind of proud of himself that it had only taken about three hours between "my kids are nowhere to be found" and "rescue party assembled and through the portal." Under ordinary circumstances that would have been quite a bit longer than he liked, but he'd been waylaid into believing Emily used "Coruscant" as a code and it took him a couple of hours to realize she was serious. The remaining hour had been been roughly half and half between recruiting helpers and suiting up, and deciphering Addie's handwriting to figure out the coordinates she'd left. But now they were there, ready to go, him and Steve (of course) and Thor (who adored the girls and had since immediately after he met them, it was weird) and Natasha, silent and deadly. Clint and Bruce had agreed to stay behind, stall Fury and Coulson (and Pepper) and take care of anything that popped up in the meantime. So… here they went… he took a deep breath, and launched himself in full armor through the portal.

They did not land on Coruscant, or in any other city. But they were on what was probably some kind of spaceship--a cluttered, dirty spaceship, with a trio of aliens playing some sort of dice game on a crate.

Or, that's what they were doing, until Tony and the others came through the portal. Then they jumped up and started shooting.

Tony didn't feel entirely comfortable repulsoring the shit out of them, so it was probably a good thing that Steve came through next, and took them all out with a single shield throw. Thor actually looked disappointed, which would have been hilarious if he hadn't been so worried about his kids. He picked a random groaning pirate and hoisted him up, shaking him. Where are my kids?"

"Kids?" the pirate said. "Dunno what the hell you're talking about. We don't got no kids on board." He somehow dragged a holdout blaster from his boot and tried firing it into Tony's abdomen.

Oh, hey, the armor deflected blasters too. Tony sometimes amazed himself with how good he was. "They're adults," he said. "But they're my kids, so tell me where they are or else."

"Dunno what the hell you're talking about," the pirate insisted. "We ain't got no hostages on board at all."

"Well, well, well, what is going on here?" A fourth pirate had joined them, same species, one with dark goggles and a weird sort of monkey-parrot-thing hovering on his shoulder.

Natasha was behind him. On the off-chance (or, okay, fairly good chance) that he hadn't noticed her, Tony wasn't planning on drawing his attention to her. "My kids came here, they didn't come back, so where the hell are they?" he asked, without dropping the pirate he had. Thor was swinging his hammer and looking sufficiently ominous even without Steve glaring at the guy.

"Kids?" The pirate tilted his head and tapped his chin. "No, no children here. I haven't kidnapped anyone's children in almost a year, have I? And let me tell you, Hondo Ohnaka is not a man who lies!"

"Sure," Tony said, then did a double-take. "Wait, the wiseass pirate?"

Hondo laughed uproariously. "I like you! Come, come, put down my men and I will help you find your children. I am in a generous mood today!"

"Are you really," Tony said, more than asked, "or are you just angling for a payday? 'Cause don't get me wrong, I'm happy to pay to get my kids back, but I don't think you accept credit cards."

Behind Hondo, Natasha raised an eyebrow at him.

Hondo waved a hand. "We can work out all those details later. Right now, there are children in danger, and I have just finished a very profitable deal--very profitable indeed!"

Tony hesitantly put the pirate down, and glanced at Steve, who was frowning, but when wasn't he when the kids were in danger. "Technically they're not children," he said. Emily, after all, was an adult. "Well, Addie is."

"Ah, yes, but daughters are always children, are they not?" Hondo said. "Come, come. You say your children came here? How do you know? You're the first stowaways on my ship, unless that crazy horned man got to my men again."

"No, Hondo," the pirate Tony had dropped said, rubbing his neck and glaring not-so-subtly in Tony's direction. "We learned our lesson."

"So! No stowaways, until you came here. Only me, my men, and my new business partner."

Whoever that was. "My kids are geniuses," Tony said. Thor nodded, and boomed out an, "Indeed!" Tony ignored him, and continued, "One of them built a portal generator and left me these coordinates, which means they came here."

Natasha, from behind Hondo, inquired, "Where is here?"

"Deep space," Hondo said. "You are very lucky, I think, that I was here to catch you!"

"No," Tony said, "because I thought of that and I was going to go back and keep them from coming through if there wasn't anything here." Which he totally would have done, if he'd thought of it. And judging from Natasha's expression, she knew it. He didn't dare look at Steve.

"I see, I see." Hondo frowned. "Well, we will just have to try and find which ships passed through here in the--whenever your daughters passed through. We find the right ship, we find your children, everyone goes home happy. I like this plan!"

"So do I," Tony said.

"Me too," Steve said. "What do you get out of?" He pinned Hondo with his all-American-gung-ho-GI-man glare.

"I don't think I like you as much as your shiny metal friend," Hondo said thoughtfully. He then shook his head, and completely and totally did not answer Steve's question. "Come! I will show you my scanners, we will find your mystery ship!"

"Yeah, you didn't answer my question," Steve said.

"You're going to want to answer his question," Natasha said, sweetly. Since she was pants-wettingly terrifying when she was sweet, Tony wasn't sure how Hondo could hold it together.

His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "No, no, I didn't." He sighed, then put back on his carefree persona. "Why must you make things so difficult? Very well, fine. What I get out of it all depends on what ship we find, yes? If they're friends of mine, that's one thing, but if they're not my friends, well. That's something different, isn't it?"

Which made absolutely no sense to Tony, but Steve's eyes narrowed. "We won't kill anyone for you," he said, flatly.

"Excuse me," Tony said. "If someone is hurting my kids I absolutely will kill them."

"Well, yeah," Steve said, momentarily distracted, "but, I mean, that's for the girls, not for him. We're not mercenaries."

"Technically," Tony started.

"Tony," Natasha said, still sweetly. "Shut up." He shut up.

"For me, for them, what does it matter?" Hondo shrugged. "Trust me, my not-friends are very unreasonable people. You won't like them, either."

"Yeah, you don't seem like the kind of person who'd be friends with the Empire," Tony said. "Wait, are they around yet? When is this?"

"Ah, the Empire." Hondo tutted and shook his head. "Bad for business, bad for business. Except when they're good for business--more profit, but sadly more risk. This is no game for an old man like me. It's why I'm branching out--new deals, new partners. Legal businesses! Or, well, mostly legal, anyway."

"Oh," Natasha said, and smiled, sharp and unfairly beautiful. "You two should get along wonderfully, then."

"Hey, fuck you," Tony said, but not very loudly, in case she heard him. "My business has always been legal. Just not, you know, super ethical sometimes."

Steve coughed. It sounded like "Stane." Tony gave him the evil eye and said, "I said my business."

Hondo laughed again. "I knew I liked you, shiny metal man! So, are we going to look at my scanners, or not?"

Tony wondered if he ought to mention that he wasn't actually metal, and decided that wasn't really an illusion he was interested in dispelling. "Sure, let's go."

He could hear Steve roll his eyes, but at least Cap got it. "Thor, you're behind Tony. Natasha and I will have the rear. If anyone tries anything, hammer them."

Thor hefted Mjolnir, and grinned a feral Viking grin at the nearest pirate. "I look forward to any hammering."

Tony choked at that, but managed to keep his voice steady. "Lead on, weird pirate man."

The pirates glared back at Thor, and Hondo turned and led them through the cluttered, narrow hallways of his ship.

They made their way to the bridge without anyone trying anything--Mjolnir seemed to be an effective deterrent.

On the bridge were another couple Weequay pirates, who Hondo nudged out of the way as they headed to a viewscreen, and someone who looked an awful lot like Lando Calrissian.

Tony pointed at him and yelled something incoherent. Again, he heard Steve roll his eyes, but screw Steve anyway, he'd seen Empire Strikes Back on opening night and it was formative, all right. "You!"

Lando blinked, and turned to face the group with one eyebrow raised. "Last I checked, yes. I don't think we've met, though. I'm pretty sure I'd remember the four of you." He flashed a particularly wide grin at Natasha. "Lando Calrissian, at your service."

Natasha smiled back at him, her unnerving, terrifying smile. "Charmed."

"Steve Rogers," Steve said, and offered his hand, because Steve was like that. "These are my teammates, Natasha Romanava, Thor, and Tony Stark. We're here looking for our daughters."

Steve and his "no relationships while in uniform" policy. Ah well.

At first, Lando had seemed only encouraged by Natasha's terrifying smile--then again, he'd been pretty flirty with Leia at her most antagonistic, so that wasn't all that surprising. But that smile slipped when he heard Steve. He shook his hand firmly. "I'm so sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"They were in this part of space sometime recently," Hondo called. "I'm finding the ship they may have landed on for my new friends here."

"They're smart, they're resourceful, and you shouldn't fuck with either one of them," Tony said, "so I know they're fine, they're just having trouble getting home. So I am here to retrieve them." Or so he was going to continue to tell himself, anyway.

"As far as we can tell,” Steve continued, "they came here about five hours ago."

"Good, good," Hondo said. "That will make it easier to find the ship, yes?"

"Hondo, I've got some time. I'd like to stick around and help, if you don't mind my company a little longer," Lando said.

"Of course, of course," Hondo said. "Anything for my new friends."

Steve narrowed his eyes again, although Tony wasn't sure why since he'd seen Empire Strikes Back too. "And… no offense. Mr. Calrissian, but what's in it for you?"

"I don't like it when people hurt kids," he said quietly.

"Okay," Tony said, "I'm just gonna reiterate that Emily's not a kid. I mean, she's my baby, she'll always be my baby, but she's twenty-five and she can kick you in the face from a standing start."

"I taught her that," Natasha said, rather smugly. "She could also break a man's neck with her thighs. At least theoretically."

"See?" Tony gestured at Natasha. "See? Also, Addie will just fuck you up."

Thor nodded, solemnly. "Indeed, the Miss Starks are intimidating."

"Still," Lando said. "At least one kid is in danger, even if she can hit back. I may be a lot of things, but I'm not a monster. That satisfy you, Rogers?"

Thor straightened up to his considerable height and glared. "Captain Rogers," he said, "is worthy of being addressed by his title."

Tony was ninety, ninety-five percent sure that Thor was just fucking with Lando, but he wasn't completely sure, so he was glad when Steve said, "It's fine. And sure, why not."

"Sorry about that," Lando said, with an apologetic shrug. "I would've used it if I'd known it. Any luck, Hondo?"

"Three ships came by around the right time," the pirate said. "One at about six hours, one at five, and one at four and a half."

Thor settled down into a glare, but… no, the corner of his mouth was twitching a little. Yeah, he was fucking with the guy. Anyway, Tony had other things to worry about.

"What kind of ships?" Tony asked, walking over to the scanners. He didn't know what he was looking at but he could guess. "Who do they belong to?"

"Well, this first one--they are not my friends. Star Destroyer. The...Chimaera, I think."

Tony frowned. He knew that name… right, Zahn. "When is this again?" he asked. "What's blown up most recently?"

"I love that you track timelines through explosions," Steve murmured. Disturbingly, he sounded sincere, but Steve had weird taste in men, obviously.

"There was a big one out near Yavin earlier," Hondo said. "I don't know what it is yet, I'm hoping my friends will tell me. This second one here--ah, false ID. It may take us some time to identify."

"I'll work on that," Lando said. "I can at least figure out who made the fake transponder for you."

The big one near Yavin was probably the Death Star, which meant the Emperor was still around, which meant it probably wasn't Grand Admiral Thrawn or Captain Pellaeon, which meant Tony really hoped his girls weren't on the Star Destroyer. "What kind of ship?" he asked.

"Midsized freighter," Lando answered. "Looks like it's--"

"Aha!" Hondo said, jabbing a finger at the third ship. "I know that ship! That is the Waterfall! They are my friends! Or, well, my friend's brother, who is almost my friend."

Tony snorted. Steve choked. Thor looked vaguely hunted, and even Natasha looked vaguely amused. "Emphasis on almost," he said. "Who's your friend?"

"Why, Kenobi, of course. I should call him, we haven't spoken in months--"

"He's been trying to call you for an hour, Captain," one of the other Weequay said. "Our comms haven't been working too well since--"

"Yes, yes, fine," he said, waving his hand in annoyance.

"Uh," Tony said, because if Kenobi was who he thought he was… "Maybe you better call him back." Because he was like, 95% sure that Kenobi had died on the Death Star earlier.

Judging from Steve's expression he'd just figured that out too. Thor just looked blank— Tony made a mental note to pick Star Wars for the next movie night— and Natasha kept her poker face as per usual.

"He's hailing us again, Captain," the same Weequay said.

"Kenobi has always had the best timing," Hondo said, and wandered over to the comm system. He pushed a few buttons and a grainy, wavery hologram of a bearded man appeared. He could very well have been Obi-Wan, but it was low-quality and hard to tell. "Kenobi, my friend! It has been too long."

"Hond--I need--headed to--" There was some kind of interference or bad connection, but that was definitely Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice.

"Huh," Tony said, intelligently.

"Huh," Steve agreed, making Tony feel better about himself.

"Kenobi, Kenobi, I can't hear you," Hondo said, gesturing dramatically at his ears. "Call me later." He hung up. "Anyway. If Kenobi and Skywalker picked up your girls, they're fine. I know those two almost as well as I know my men. The adventures we've had! Twenty years and more of them!"

Tony stared at him for a moment before he remembered that the faceplate was down and thus it wasn't having the effect he wanted. "So… you didn't ask him if he had my girls because...."

"I couldn't hear him anyway," Hondo said. "But he said 'need' and 'headed to,' so I think he needs a favor from Hondo, and is coming here. These conversations are much better face to face, yes?"

"No," Tony said, "they're better when I know if my kids are okay," but there wasn't much he could do about it now. Not yet, anyway. "When's he going to get here?"

"Hmmm, well..." Hondo glanced at the pirate manning the comm station.

"Signal didn't come from far," she said. "Looks like he just dropped out of hyperspace. Should be here in a half-hour or so, on the outside. Depending on which ship he borrowed."

"Fine," Tony said, and because he was a scientist and an impatient bastard, started a clock running inside his HUD because why not. "Half an hour."

"In the meantime," Natasha said, "may I suggest contingency plans? How might one take down a Star Destroyer, for example?"

Somehow Tony suspected she wasn't asking out of idle curiosity. It was something to do with the glee on her face.

"I have never tried," Hondo admitted. "Shame, such a shame. But you can ask Kenobi when he gets here! He's done such things."

"Are you taking it out from the outside or from inside?" Lando asked absently, still working on the fake ID for the third ship.

"Either," Natasha said, and moved over to him. "Explain."

Tony would have been intimidated by her looming, but then, Lando hadn't seen what she could do. Yet. He did anticipate Natasha beating up someone, if only because she was bored and hadn't been able to.

"From outside, depends on what kind of firepower you're packing, and whether or not you're alone," Lando said. "From inside..." He looked over at her, and quirked a smile. "I'm guessing you're used to infiltration tactics. So, I'd get the specs and then sneak on board in a stolen uniform--you're too short to pass as a stormtrooper, but if you get a low-level army or navy officer uniform, you could probably bluff your way into the engine room and disable the hyperdrive. You'd probably only get to one vital system before you got caught, and that's where you'd want to start. That or the shields, but there are fewer redundancies on the hyperdrive. You'd still need someone on the outside to finish the job, and probably an extraction team, but you could do it. Corporal or something similar would probably be best for your cover. High enough that no one bothers you, low enough that people don't actually look to you for commands."

Natasha thought about it for a moment. "Clint and I could do it in an hour," she said, after a minute. "Less if we had a lightsaber or repulsors, more if we were working with just his arrows and my knives."

"A whole hour?" Tony asked, not quite joking. "You're slipping."

"It's an unfamiliar ship," Natasha said, serenely.

"Plus, those things are big," Lando said. "And your best infiltration points aren't all that close to the engine room, because the Empire's stupid about some things, but that ain't one of them. And if the rumors about the Super Star Destroyers they're building are true, those'll be even harder."

"God<i>damn</i> I want one of those," Tony said.

"No," Steve said, without looking around. He'd been taking lessons from Pepper, clearly.

"All right," Lando said. "I know the guy who made this ID. He works all over the map, but given they were meeting up with the Waterfall, I'm guessing they're Alliance. Either that, or Skywalker's got an underworld contact that isn't you," he added, nodding to Hondo.

The pirate looked scandalized. "Such a betrayal! I would never think it of him! But, then again, it is good business. On the other hand, Skywalker has never had a good business sense..."

"Skywalker?" Steve asked, frowning. "Wait a minute..."

"No," Tony interrupted, quickly. "I don't care. I don't care yet. Let's find the girls first and then we can care, okay?"

"Okay," Steve said, "but I will care."

"Fine," Tony said, waving a hand. "We can absolutely care then."

Lando shrugged, and turned back to the third ship. "I'll keep working on this, see if I can confirm it's Alliance or not."

"And if it is, we can make a deal with them!" Hondo said. "I like making deals with the Alliance. Nice people. Not much money, though."

"Money I got," Tony said. "Money is not really a problem here."

"Well," Steve said, thoughtfully, but he cut himself off almost immediately. "Hey, what's that?" He gestured at the scopes.

"Looks like an X-wing," Lando said.

"Might be Kenobi," Hondo added. "Is he hailing us again?"

"Trying to, Captain," the pirate monitoring the comms said. "It's all choppy, though."

Did Obi-Wan Kenobi fly an X-wing? Tony honestly couldn't remember because at that point in the movie he'd been yelling about the problems of fires in space until Emily kicked him in the ankle. "What's wrong with the comms?"

"Oh, they keep breaking, ever since that mess last year on Ordo Plutonia," Hondo said, waving a hand.

Gah, it was driving him nuts. Tony got down on his knees and peered under the console for a minute, before he held a hand out and said, "Screwdriver. Did anyone look at this? The wiring's all fucked up and crossways but I can fix it." Something else to think about beside his children, missing… yeah, okay, wiring.

"Better do it," Steve advised Hondo. "He'll just tear it apart otherwise."

Hondo paused for a second. "Well, all right then." He clapped his hands twice. "Come, come, get the shiny metal man a screwdriver!"

One of the pirates complied, dropping one into Tony's outstretched hand.

"Thanks," Tony said absently, already poking around the wiring. Oh, yeah, some of them were just cross-plugged. It looked like… "Did this get thrown around or something? Because it looks like somebody just plugged these back in any which way."

"Uh, more or less?" Hondo said. "Why, did we do it wrong?"

"Way wrong," Tony said. It might have come out really muffled, he wasn't sure. "It's like you screwed up the whole AC/DC circuit except that's not what's going on at all."

He barely heard Steve tell Hondo, "He's like this. Just nod and smile."

"Ah, I'm good at that!" Hondo said, then laughed again.

"X-wing transponder matches Alliance codes," the pirate on comms said. "Odds are good it's Kenobi. Should I let him land, boss?"

"Yes, yes," Hondo said. "Let him come!"

Tony tweaked a couple of wires, swapped another pair, screwed one loose nut back into place and then came out again. "Okay, try it now, should be good." He absently stuck the screwdriver in his gauntlet sleeve.

Hondo pushed a couple of buttons, and a much-clearer hologram appeared. It was definitely Obi-Wan Kenobi--but he looked younger than he should have, if the Death Star just blew, by at least a decade. "Hondo. I'm just coming into your docking bay. Shall we hold off until I can see you face-to-face?"

Interesting, Tony thought, staring at the hologram. Amazing what twenty years of not being on a desert planet would do to a man.

"Yes, yes," Hondo said. "I was just making sure the shiny metal man fixed my comms. I will see you soon!"

"...Hondo--"

He flipped a switch, cutting the connection.

"Am I going to be shiny metal man forever?" Tony asked. "I ask purely out of curiosity, since I do have a name and you can use it, weird pirate man."

"You are as soon as I tell Clint about it," Natasha said, sounding annoyingly pleased. Tony flipped her off and then hid behind Steve.

"Well, you are a shiny metal man," Hondo said. "And I am a weird pirate man, too!"

"So everyone is pleased!" boomed Thor. Tony jumped, having either forgotten that Thor was there or lost track of him or SOMETHING. "This is excellent! You may call me mighty lightning man."

"Mighty lightning man?" Hondo asked. "Why are you the mighty lightning man, eh?"

Thor grinned, and raised Mjolnir, but then apparently thought better of it before anyone said anything. "Alas, I cannot demonstrate in here."

"He'd fry us all," Tony said. "Well. You all. I'm grounded."

Steve choked at that, and then said, "No you're not."

Tony flipped him off too.

Hondo looked almost as disappointed as Thor did. "Some other time, then, yes?"

"When we are not surrounded by metal," Thor said, and bowed. "It would be my pleasure, Weird Pirate Man."

Tony could hear the capitals.

"I look forward to it, Mighty Lightning Man," Hondo said, with an extravagant bow of his own. His monkey-parrot thing chittered and danced a little bit on his shoulder.

"Oh, my God," Tony said, to no one in particular. "Thor's made a friend."

#epic crossover rp OF DOOM #shadowsong writes star wars #shadowsong writes crossovers #shadowsong cowrites stuff #tigerkat24

3 notes · View notes

asokatanos · 7 years

Note

Tell us about Hondo finding tiny runaway padawan Anakin and raising a force-sensitive space pirate whose favourite hobby is obliterating slave empires

anakin skywalker is ten years old when he escapes the Order. he’s already a gifted pilot, but he is a child, and he misses his mother. he steals a ship. or rather, he steals aboard a ship.

it’s a credit to his force sensitivity that he manages to escape the Temple - escape from his and Master Obi Wan’s adjoined padawan-master rooms - and out into the Coruscanti underworld both unseen and unscathed. an untrained padawan should not have such strong shields. he follows the scent of illicit activity and finds the smugglers. there were plenty of them in this too loud, dark and scary city-planet, and smugglers were predictable. years of listening to the pilots in various cantinas had taught anakin quite a lot about smuggling. like the fact that hutt space was as good as wild space when it came to the law of the republic. he steals away on a ship that stinks of spice.

anakin ends up on Kessel fifteen parsecs later; obi wan has set the general alarm back at the temple, and, unbeknownst to anakin, is quite beside himself with worry. master windu is angry, unsurprised, and master yoda is quietly speculative. he does not say a word. obi wan wonders if he’s failed already, after barely a year of having a padawan, he’s lost the chosen one. he sets off in pursuit alone, ignoring the disapproval from members of the council who believe no one jedi - not a padawan, not a master, and not even the chosen one - are worth such risks. there’s whispers about attachment as he leaves.

to his credit, anakin makes it to hutt space, even if the twin suns of tatooine were many, many parsecs away. to his credit, he even manages to sneak off the ship with a minimum of trouble (he’s only spotted once, and managed to get away without even taking out his lightsaber-)

he runs right into a young and particularly chatty pirate, who recognizes his clothes and padawan braid for what they were right away. Hondo Ohnaka is ecstatic. His first Jedi!!! A small one, but complete with a lightsaber! He would fetch a handsome price indeed, Mama would be so happy, think of the profits!!!

anakin stops him right there and shouts him down in a way that might indeed have made obi wan proud; at ten, anakin skywalker negotiates himself out of being sold with no leverage, no money, and no help on a strange planet full of criminals and smugglers. it turns out that hondo knows all about slavery. he is a weequay, after all, and the Hutts had made slaves of his people for years. he doesn’t miss his homeworld Sriluur, but he understands missing his mother.

anakin skywalker is ten years old when he becomes a pirate in the Ohnaka Gang, and he and his captain have a bone to pick with the Hutts.

#obi wan catches up with anakin somewhere near nal hutta and follows them to tatooine #he's about to storm the Gang himself to rescue anakin #when he overhears anakin giving orders to grizzled pirates and realizes the kid is somehow safe #he helps them free Shmi and liberate the rest of tatooine from salvery: two jedi are better than one #shmi is very confused by this turn of events and doesn't know what to make of hondo #but anakin is so happy to be reunited with his mom and with a supportive obi wan #he's practically Glowing with the Force and is much more amendable to obi's wisdom #shmi winds up friends with mama ohnaka; obi hondo and anakin become this ridiculous liberation movement throughout hutt space #it's plenty profitable for hondo because each stop is an excellent opportunity to loot and commandeer #star wars #this got long???#anakin skywalker #hondo ohnaka #obi wan kenobi #sw hc #Anonymous

2K notes · View notes

fireflyfish · 7 years

Text

Tano and Kenobi: A Respite from Excitement

Previously on Tano and Kenobi...

Ahsoka Tano and Obi-Wan Kenobi successfully negotiated their freedom from the Ohnaka Pirate gang led by the colorful matriarch Mama Ohnaka. After making the exchange of prisons on Mirial, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan return to Coruscant with the rescued civilian crew and Jedi Master Sifo Dyas.

First | Previous | Next | AO3

“Knight Tano? Padawan Kenobi? Might I have a moment of your time?”

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan looked up from the storage container they were sorting through searching for some extra pillows and blankets. While their cruiser could in theory house up to fifteen sentients, that did not mean the accommodations would be the most luxurious and they were making up beds where they could.

“Of course, Master Dyas,” Ahsoka said, standing up and dusting her hands off as Obi-Wan closed the storage crate and pushed it back under the berth it came from. “What do you need?”

“I would like to speak to you two in private, if I may?” he asked, standing just outside of the doorway. “I understand you were going to turn this room over to Captain Penyo and her crew?”

“They’ll take three of the staterooms,” Ahsoka explained as she followed Master Dyas out into the hallway, Obi-Wan trailing after them. “Obi-Wan and I will double up in a room, which leaves a room for you and Captain Avett and Pilot Lincae.”

Master Dyas nodded as they passed down the hallway, returning a greeting from Joti, who was handing out freshly brewed caf to his crew mates. Ahsoka smiled at the relieved survey crew and Obi-Wan held up a hand as they passed by, taking a turn towards one of the smaller, more private rooms that was usually used for sensitive diplomacy or to negotiate delicate matters.

“Please take a seat,” Master Dyas gestured to the room’s round table circled with four plush chairs. He walked over to a hot water dispenser that was built into the wall and opened up another cabinet that held a collection of blue-grey porcelain cups. “Would either of you care for tea or caf?”

“We’ll take tea,” Ahsoka said, looking over at Obi-Wan, who watched the master with sharp blue eyes. “And honey too, if we have some.”

“No honey but we have some excellent sun nectar from Arcadia,” Master Dyas replied as he finished the preparations for tea and carried over a tray of three warm cups. “Drink up. I imagine you two are exhausted after everything that’s happened to you in the past few weeks.”

Ahsoka poured herself a generous helping of sun nectar before handing it over to Obi-Wan who, in true teenage fashion, gave himself perhaps a bit more than he really needed. “I’ll be happy to return to the Temple, where the most exciting thing to happen to me is deciding if I should run to catch a turbolift or not.”

Master Dyas and Obi-Wan laughed softly at her joke and Ahsoka let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding. “So… what did you want to talk to us about?”

“Two things,” Master Dyas said, smiling behind his tea cup. “First of all, I wanted to tell you both how impressed I was with your handling of the Ohnaka gang out on Florrum. That could have been a tragedy on all sides but not only did you two manage to rescue yourselves and your own crew but you were able to rescue the civilians as well. Captain Penyo has spoken glowingly of your actions.”

Ahsoka felt a proud grin rise to her face and she tried to remind herself that a Jedi should always be humble and that she should present a good example for Obi-Wan.

“I agree,” Obi-Wan spoke up, his eyes glowing. “Master was amazing!”

Well, so much for modesty.

“I only did what any other Jedi would have done,” Ahsoka insisted, giving her padawan a look that said now was not the time to enthuse. Obi-Wan had the good sense to keep his glowing praise of his master to himself but he was ready if Master Dyas gave him another opportunity to expound on the virtues of his master.

Master Dyas smiled, a brief flicker of amusement passing over his features. “Be that as it may, it was not another Jedi that was placed in that situation. It was both of you and I believe I can speak for the whole Council when I say that I commend you for your heroism, not only with the pirates but for your actions on Raxus. You have both done very well.”

Sensing that they should just be thankful and accept the praise, Ahsoka glanced over at Obi-Wan. “I think I speak for both of us when I say, thank you, Master Dyas. We’re just happy to have made it out alive and in one piece.”

“And to have freed the civilians,” Obi-Wan added with pride. “What will happen to them?”

“They’ll be debriefed on Coruscant and given new assignments,” Master Dyas explained, tapping on a datapad to confirm his theory. “I would imagine the Republic will give them something a bit less exciting for their next go round.”

“I think Joti would like that,” Obi-Wan said. “I know I would like a respite from excitement for at least six months, possibly a year.”

This earned a round of laughter from Ahsoka and Master Dyas and it was clear the matter was closed for the time being. They exchanged a bit of small talk, Obi-Wan extolling Ahsoka’s wisdom before he launched into a colorful description of the trash compactor that was Hondo Ohnaka’s bedroom. Ahsoka listened to his story, already catching glimpses of the engaging storyteller her padawan was going to grow into. It was strange to think that her anxious and self conscious Obi-Wan was one day going to grow into the assured and confident master of her own youth but the brief glimpses she got every now and then reassured her. They were on the right path.

She was on the right path.

“That must have been quite frightening to wake up in a cell,” Master Dyas observed, sipping his tea. “How did you manage it?”

“Honestly, Master Dyas,” Obi-Wan said, finishing off his tea with an exhausted sigh. “That wasn’t the weirdest thing that happened to us that day. I’ve quite forgotten what my initial reaction to the cell was, although it might not have been fit for polite conversation.”

Ahsoka giggled at this and stood up to get them all another cup of tea. “Obi-Wan is a stickler for propriety, Master Dyas. At all times.”

Flushing bright red at his master’s teasing, Obi-Wan shrugged a little, his hands folded in his lap. “Being trapped in a pirate’s holding cell is no excuse for vulgarity.”

“Quite right,” Master Dyas agreed with a wide grin. “But I am curious. What was the weirdest thing you experienced if not waking up in a pirate’s holding cell?”

Ahsoka paused at the tea kettle, making sure to steady her breathing and hide her sudden nervousness behind the smoothest and most subtle shields she possessed. It wouldn’t do for Obi-Wan or Master Dyas to notice her sudden anxiety about their conversation and the direction she was almost positive it was going to go.

Not now. It’s too soon! Obi-Wan won’t understand. He’s not ready for the burden. He’s still just a kid!

“Master Ahsoka can tell you more but we experienced a,” Obi-Wan paused, searching for the right word. “A wave of… joy? Emotion? I’m not really sure how to describe it, Master Dyas. At first I thought the Force was trying to drown me or kill me and then I was crying with joy but I didn’t know why.”

Obi-Wan frowned at his hands and continued, his voice soft. “I still don’t know why.”

“Hmmm,” Master Dyas murmured, leaning back in his chair and gratefully accepting a new cup of tea from Ahsoka, who sat back down next to Obi-Wan. “It seems we have experienced the same Force event, young Obi-Wan. I, too, felt a distant but powerful happening in the Force when I was on Mirial.”

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan gaped at Master Dyas, mutual shock on their faces. Ahsoka recovered first, suddenly worried that in the heightened moment of their capture she had deluded herself into thinking she and Obi-Wan had witnessed Anakin’s entrance into the galaxy. “You felt it too, Master Dyas?”

“Yes,” the master replied, rolling one of the wrapped locks of hair that hung in front of his ears between his fingers as he rested his head against his hand. “I believe I mentioned before that I am unfortunately gifted with some amount of foresight, have I not, Knight Tano?”

Ahsoka nodded. “You did. Right before Obi-Wan’s padawan ceremony.”

“What is it like?” Obi-Wan asked, head canted to the side and then seemed to hear his question and shook himself out of his trance. “If it’s not too forward of me, Master.”

Giving Obi-Wan a warm look, Master Dyas assured him he had not been too forward. Relaxing back in his chair, the master closed his eyes and held out one hand as if trying to grasp the image in his mind to properly describe it to Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. “It is like seeing an imperfect picture or a broken holo. Some details are sharp and clear and others fade in and out of shadows. And sometimes my gift is nothing more than sensations, impressions or shadows cast by figures behind me. Honestly, it is more frustrating than helpful.”

“So you think this… Force event was some kind of shared vision of the future?” Ahsoka asked, carefully phrasing her words. “Of Obi-Wan’s future?”

Master Dyas opened his eyes and shrugged. “I do not know. As I said, I only experienced the event from a distance. It is clear from your descriptions that you were much closer to the epicenter of it. Whatever it was, you two are connected to it.”

So it most likely is Anakin, Ahsoka thought with a mix of relief and trepidation.

She and Obi-Wan exchanged glances before Master Dyas continued. “When we return to Coruscant, if it’s not too much trouble, I would like to meditate with you both on the subject.”

Obi-Wan turned to face his master and Ahsoka ran her hand up and down his back before agreeing to Master Dyas’ request. “If it will help you solve the mystery of what we experienced, then we would be glad to help. Right, Obi-Wan?”

“Yes, of course, Master Dyas,” Obi-Wan replied, bowing to the Jedi Master. “If it is from the future, it seems quite encouraging. There are times I think I can still feel it.”

Ahsoka watched as her padawan touched one hand to his heart, the softest smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as their own master-padawan bond gently pulsed with warmth and affection. Master Dyas watched Obi-Wan, his dark eyes narrowed, and the stood up, collecting their empty tea cups. “Well, this is a mystery I look forward to unraveling with you both. Now I think it’s time you two got some sleep. I am sure you are both exhausted or at the very least, in need of some quiet. Grab yourself something to eat in the galley and then get some rest.”

They stood up and bowed as one before Ahsoka stepped back to let Obi-Wan leave first with a promise to meditate on the Force event for Master Dyas. He headed out into the hallway while Ahsoka stood in the doorway, watching the Jedi master carefully wash and rinse their tea cups out in the sink.

If Master Dyas can really see the future, maybe… maybe he can help us?

“Ahsoka?” Master Dyas spoke, not turning away from his washing up. “Whatever it is that is troubling you can wait. You and your padawan are safe. That is all you need concern yourself with at this present moment.”

Ahsoka blinked, surprised, and bowed her head again. “Yes, of course, Master Dyas. I’m sorry. It’s hard to… come down from the excitement.”

Master Dyas smiled back at her over his shoulder, a fox-like expression of understanding. “I know. But it is not yet time for that. You will know when that time comes, won’t you?”

Confused but comforted somehow, she nodded. “Yes. I will. Good night, Master Dyas.”

“Good night, Ahsoka,” Master Dyas said and turned back to the sink.

And with that, Ahsoka headed off to the stateroom she and Obi-Wan shared, heart full of hope that maybe she had found someone who might just understand a bit of what she was going through.

Mace Windu stood next to Master Yoda, the life and activity of the Temple hangar bay humming around them. Pilots and mechanics gossiped in the far corner, currently engrossed in the tribulations of a famous holonet couple as droids walked past the two Jedi masters, pushing a freight sled that was weighed down with goods for Temple operations. There was a pleasant wind winding through the cavernous room, buffeting Yoda’s cloak and tugging lightly at his.

“Late, they are,” Yoda finally commented, opening his eyes and glancing up at Mace. “Talk with them, you should.”

“The ways of the Coruscant Planetary Authority are beyond even our reach, Master,” Mace replied. “And Master Dyas informed me they were going to drop off the civilians before coming to the Temple. I’m sure the Senatorial Census and Survey Bureau had more than a few questions for them. Do you have some place else to be?”

Pointed green ears twitched upwards as faded blue eyes widened in amused surprise. “Ohoho! Enjoying your new position, are you, Master of the Order?”

“Well I’m certainly not enjoying the paperwork,” Mace grumbled, glancing away before something brushed against his senses. “Ah. Here they are.”

A vermillion Republic cruiser slowly hovered into the hangar bay, carefully lowering itself to the ground and venting steam and exhaust as the landing cycle finished. A loading ramp was lowered to the deck and out stepped Master Dyas, followed closely by Knight Tano and Padawan Kenobi.

Mace and Yoda started toward the trio to quietly welcome them home when Mace sensed a presence at a nearby doorway back into the Temple. Yoda carried on ahead as Mace stopped to glance back, frowning at the tall, broad-shouldered shadow there.

What is Qui-Gon doing here?

Shaking his head, Mace put the thought out of his mind for the moment and returned his attention to the returning trio of Jedi.

“Master Yoda! Master Windu! Such a distinguished welcome party,” Master Dyas grinned, bowing low to the Grandmaster and to the Master of the Order. “If I had known you were coming to meet us, I would have polished my boots and worn a nicer cloak.”

“Happy to see you, we are,” Yoda chuckled, bowing his head to Master Dyas before turning his gaze to Ahsoka and Obi-Wan. “Relieved we were, to hear of your rescue, Knight Tano and Padawan Kenobi. Anxious I am, to hear the details of your report.”

“Padawan Kenobi is already working on it,” Ahsoka smiled, putting a hand on Obi-Wan’s back as he held a datapad close to his chest. Mace watched the teen try his best to be humble and modest as was expected by the Order, but he could catch the faintest sliver of a gleam of pride in his aura.

As he had expected, Obi-Wan was thriving under Ahsoka’s tutelage. His emotions were still tumultuous and his anxiety and extreme self criticism had not gone away but there was an underlying confidence that hadn’t been there before. Mace had no doubt that Obi-Wan would have done well under any teacher that would have been willing to take him on, but there was something about Ahsoka’s unorthodox openness and her warm affection that made the boy blossom.

I wonder how Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan would have fared under a similar mission?

“Welcome back, Knight Tano and Padawan Kenobi,” Mace said, finally joining the conversation. “I’m glad to see you emerged from your adventures unscathed.”

“So are we,” Ahsoka replied, sharing a happy look with her padawan. “Thank you for sending Knight Di. We couldn’t have done it without him. Has he already returned to the Temple?”

“Arrived, he has, a few hours ago,” Yoda said, walking over to Obi-Wan and tapping the boy’s leg. The padawan respectfully squatted down and let the Grandmaster climb up onto his shoulder before standing up straight. “Spoke highly of you two, he did.”

“He’s being too kind,” Ahsoka laughed, a little embarrassed as the five Jedi started to walk towards the entrance to the Temple. “It was because of his timely arrival that we were really able to convince Mama Ohnaka to negotiate with us.”

“He tolds us about this… Mother Ohnaka character,” Mace said, his hands clasped behind his back. “She sounds… colorful.”

Ahsoka managed to stifle her mirth as she and Obi-Wan exchanged a glance before Ahsoka gestured for him to speak.

Obi-Wan answered with all the solemnity of a wizened elder. “Master Windu, there are no words to describe Mama Ohnaka. She can only be… experienced to be truly understood.”

Even Master Dyas cracked up at that and Mace got the distinct feeling that he was going to enjoy hearing about Ahsoka and Obi-Wan’s adventures with the pirates. He allowed himself the smallest of smiles as he acknowledged the padawan’s statement. “Then I look forward to hearing all about it in your mission report and debriefing tomorrow.”

“Yes, Master!” Obi-Wan replied with a grin matching his master’s pleased expression.

“Obi-Wan!” came a loud chorus of shouts from the doorway and the group looked up to see a small clutch of padawans clustered there.

Mace noted that Qui-Gon Jinn was nowhere to be seen. Adding that to the unending list of things he needed to think on later, he reached out to touch Ahsoka’s shoulder.

“A word, Knight Tano?” Mace asked. “I’m sure Padawan Kenobi would like a moment with his friends?”

Ahsoka nodded and helped Yoda down from Obi-Wan’s shoulder as he was dismissed to lope over to his friends. Master Dyas took his leave of the group with a warm goodbye, passing the small, excited padawans as he moved into the Temple.

“What is it, Master Windu?” Ahsoka asked.

Yoda hobbled over to Mace’s side, and he glanced at the little green master before addressing Ahsoka. “You did good work out there, Ahsoka. Not just with the pirates near Florrum but on Raxus too. The Council may have had some doubts about your skills before this little adventure but you have gone a long way in proving those doubts were unfounded.”

“Impressive,” Yoda cackled with an emphatic clack of his gimmer stick against the floor. “Very impressive. Proud we are, of you both.”

Mace nodded in agreement. “Yes, and impressed with your diplomacy, as unorthodox as it is.”

Ahsoka blushed and bowed her head for a moment before meeting his gaze. “Thank you. That… That’s very kind of you to say. I was just trying to do my duty as a Jedi.”

“And you did it well,” Mace said, his voice warm, hoping she understood the depth of feeling behind it. He was not given to overt displays of emotion, positive or negative, but it did not mean he did not have those feelings. His padawan Depa understood his quiet ways but that had taken nearly a decade of mentoring and teaching to come to that. “I have to collect my padawan but… Welcome home, Ahsoka.”

Yoda nodded at Mace before he made his goodbyes. He hobbled towards a passing knight and was given a ride on the wookie’s broad shoulders.

Mace took his leave of the knight and her very popular padawan, walking back into the warm and comforting shadows of the Temple.

Ahsoka watched them both go, feeling a little stunned.

Did Mace Windu give her a compliment?

Did he just say he was proud of her?

Did he just smile at her?

I wish I could tell Anakin. Ahsoka mused, a grin hidden behind her hand as she watched Obi-Wan’s friends gasp and exclaim over his adventures on the Outer Rim. He wouldn’t believe me but the look on his face would be hilarious. “No way, Snips! Mace didn’t smile. He can’t smile. His smile was stolen by a Dathomirian witch!”

She was starting to wonder just how much her view of the Council and the Order had been skewed by Anakin’s own opinions of them.

But there would be time to wonder about that later. She needed to extricate Obi-Wan from his circle of adoring friends and take them back to their room to unpack and decompress after a long, eventful but exhausting trip.

“And that’s when Master offered to exchange herself for the pirate matriarch’s son,” Obi-Wan said, as Ahsoka walked up next to him. “Oh! Hello, Master! I was just telling them about the pirates off Florrum.”

“Did you really retake a pirate ship with three blaster rifles?” Quinlan Vos gasped, his eyes round in awe. “All by yourself?”

Ahsoka looked down at the assembled padawans, picking out a young Kit Fisto and Luminara Unduli among the crowd. “Well I had Obi-Wan and the Force so I wasn’t entirely by myself.”

“Is it true the pirates overwhelmed you?” Luminara asked, her blue eyes round. “And that you actually engaged in a lightsaber battle?”

“Yes, we did,” Ahsoka replied, glancing over at her padawan. “And I’m sure Obi-Wan will be happy to tell you all about it tomorrow during your lunch break but unfortunately I need to borrow him. If you all will excuse us?”

“Yes, Master Ahsoka!” the group chorused and waved goodbye to Obi-Wan as he followed after Ahsoka who was heading to their rooms.

“So how upset is Quinlan that he wasn’t the first padawan to face off against brigands?” Ahsoka asked once she and Obi-Wan were in the turbolift back to their quarters.

Obi-Wan let out a yawn. “He’s not too terribly upset. He has instead vowed to be the first padawan to arrest a pirate and thinks it was poor form to let Mama Ohnaka and Hondo get away.”

Ahsoka let out a loud happy sigh, shaking her head. “Well, he is welcome to try. I think I would pay money to see Quinlan Vos try to arrest Mama Ohnaka.”

Obi-Wan thought about this for a moment before replying, “I would bet you dinner at the noodle shop that Hondo would try to hire him.”

“That reminds me,” Ahsoka said as the turbolift doors pinged open and they walked off towards their quarters. “I owe you some celebratory ice cream, don’t I?”

“Yes, Master. Could we go tomorrow after our debriefing?”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, Obi-Wan.”

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan’s notoriety only increased after their successful return to the Temple. Obi-Wan’s agemates were fascinated by his adventure out on the Outer Rim and it only took a few days for everyone in the Temple under the age of twenty to learn the story. Younglings gasped and giggled at Obi-Wan’s passing and outright waved with excited glee if he was in the presence of Ahsoka. There were more than a few impressed head nods from senior padawans and even Depa Bilaba told Obi-Wan she was impressed when she assisted in one of his self defense classes.

“But I didn’t do anything!” Obi-Wan insisted as he carefully and methodically blocked a series of attacks, wondering when his own skill would become as fluid and graceful as the older padawan’s. “I only did as Master bid me and babysat a very talkative pirate who has all the sense of a lothcat.”

Depa laughed at that, shaking her head. “You don’t understand, Obi-Wan. It isn’t what you did but the fact that you did it at all, and at such a young age, is what is impressive. I didn’t engage in an actual battle with Master Windu until was I seventeen, and even then he pushed me out of the way and handled the altercation mostly by himself.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan blinked, surprised to hear that. Depa Bilaba was someone he and his fellows looked up to. The Master of the Order’s padawan and a quietly impressive young woman in her own right with her shining black braids and her sloe eyes. She had an air of quiet solemnity about her that evaporated whenever she gave the younger padawans one of her impish smiles. To hear that he had done something before her was shocking to say the least. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Master’s upbringing is so unusual that I was worried I was falling behind, honestly.”

“From what my master has told me,” Depa moved her hands into a position that allowed equally for offense and defense, circling around Obi-Wan and waiting for an opening. “Master Tano is the exception that proves the rule. I don’t think you have to live up to whatever it was she was doing on the Outer Rim before she met you.”

Obi-Wan nodded in understanding and then Depa attacked and he found himself falling to her last carefully balanced but well-placed barrage of strikes, ending up on the mats next to the rest of his classmates.

Time passed, the golden glow of summer making the days long and filled with learning and adventure. Obi-Wan’s age-group went on their first unsupervised visit to the Parks where Padawan Rast and Luminara ended up rescuing a drowning child. After that was their trip to Aurealia and their extended survival workshop. Obi-Wan found that the armored tooka he and his group were sent to chase after was more than fond of him and was prone to escaping from his cage and following Obi-Wan as he went about his tasks on that field trip.

Master Ahsoka found the whole thing hilarious and named the little creature Cody for reasons beyond him.

Time passed and there was another mission, this time to Commenor, to attend a ceremony honoring the planet’s acceptance into the Republic. Things had been routine until Obi-Wan stumbled across what appeared to be an operation trying to smuggle chrysopaz gems off planet. Several exciting and explosion-filled days later, Master Ahsoka and Obi-Wan found themselves local celebrities, being sent back to Coruscant with grand fanfare.

“Does this happen every time we successfully complete a mission?” Obi-Wan asked his master as they flew their light corvette back to Coruscant.

Ahsoka laughed at Obi-Wan’s obvious discomfort with this new round of what he considered egregious praise. “When you uncover a smuggling operation that was costing a planet trillions in lost revenue and putting civilian lives in danger? Yeah, it happens.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes and flopped into the co-pilot chair frowning at the controls. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I hardly did anything. You did all the work.”

Ahsoka grinned, resting an arm on the pilot console and rest her head on her hand. “Oh really? And who was it that just so happened to stumble upon a crew of smugglers making off with the jewels? And set off the alarm and engaged them in a small firefight before I could catch up to you?”

Obi-Wan risked a glance over at his master and felt his attempt at purposeful Jedi modesty wither on the vine, a slow, secretly proud smile appearing on his face. “Well… I couldn’t let them get away, Master. Those gems did not belong to them.”

“Uh huh,” Ahsoka nodded with fake solemnity. “Your hands were tied, of course.”

“I’m glad you understand my position,” Obi-Wan snickered, relaxing back into his chair. “Where are we going to get ice cream this time? I think we should go to that place that makes Corellian crisped waffles.”

“I think that is an excellent choice,” Ahsoka said as she finished putting the coordinates for Coruscant in the navicomputer, which let out a chime once it was done processing their route back home. She activated the hyperdrive and stood up once the ship had completed the jump, the blue-white swirl of starlight streaking past the cockpit. “I think I’m going to go meditate for a bit. Let me know if anything comes up.”

Ahsoka spent most of that particular ride home worrying about time and how fast it was hurtling forward. It had been nearly six months since their adventure on Florrum, and the event which she had finally decided was Anakin’s birth.

This meant Anakin was still an infant and unlikely to remember whatever hardships he and his mother were undergoing. She had gone over her notes, despairing the fact her master had never been interested in talking about his past. All she had known was that he said he came from Tatooine but she didn’t know if that meant he was born there or simply arrived on the planet before he was aware of the world around him.

And on top of that, who was the current owner of Shmi Skywalker? Ahsoka frowned at the ceiling of her stateroom, trying to piece together the fragmentary nature of a slave’s life. As far as the Republic was concerned, whatever took place outside of their jurisdiction was not to be bothered with. There was a kind of unspoken agreement between the Republic and those who operated on the fringes of the galaxy. Don’t make too much of a fuss and the Republic won’t involve itself, or the Jedi, in the affairs of local systems.

It disgusted Ahsoka on a basic level but her hands were tied. For now.

I will find a way to free you, Master. I swear it.

Another six months passed as quickly as the ones prior to it. Obi-Wan was seventeen and he was growing like a wroshyr tree on Kashyyyk, a few bits of soft blond fuzz appearing sporadically on his chin. He was tall and gangly, not quite filled out yet but the angles of his face were sharpening to the familiar visage Ahsoka remembered from her youth.

Slowly, inexorably, Ahsoka’s padawan was growing up. And she still had no clue how to best go about searching for his future padawan.

It was early one bright spring morning, the stained glass windows of the Northern Solar Room levered open to allow a cool breeze, when an anxious senior initiate interrupted Ahsoka and Obi-Wan’s jar’kai practice. The young Rodian stood on the edges of training area, her hands clasped against her stomach. Neither master nor padawan noticed the young girl until Obi-Wan slid across the room, his sabers behind him and almost scoring the floor with the tips of them.

“Keep your blades up, Obi-Wan!” Ahsoka critiqued as she chased after him, trying to overpower his defenses with both her sabers. “Lightsabers can cut through ship floors and you don’t want to accidentally fall through them.”

“Sorry, Master!” Obi-Wan grunted, managing to deflect his master off his blades and spin free only to find himself blinking in shock. “Oh. Hello there. When did you get here?”

“Ah! Behind you!” the senior initiate gasped, as Ahsoka came back around for another attack that Obi-Wan neatly blocked by crossing his blades over his back.

“Master, we have a visitor,” Obi-Wan said, his voice loud enough to be heard over the happy buzz of four lightsabers.

Ahsoka leaned around her padawan and smiled at the young Rodian before them, who was both awestruck and a little terrified of all that white-hot plasma on display. “Hello! What can we do for you?”

“Knight Tano? I’ve been sent by the Council,” the senior initiate said, standing up a little straighter.

Ahsoka stepped to the side to allow Obi-Wan to turn and face her. Her padawan gave her a salute with his right hand and blade before deactivating them both and walked over to grab their water bottles and towels while Ahsoka talked to the messenger.

“You are to come to the Council Room at your earliest convenience to receive your next mission assignment. And… Master Dyas says it’s all right if you wish to shower first. He had a feeling you were sparring.”

Ahsoka laughed at this and bowed her head to the young girl. “Oh did he? Was that actually included in the message?”

The Rodian held out a small datapad as proof of the accuracy of her missive. “Yes, Master. He did.”

“What’s going on?” Obi-Wan asked, handing over a water bottle to his master and peering at the datapad in her hands. “We have another mission? Where to?”

“It doesn’t say,” Ahsoka answered, handing the pad back to the messenger. “Thank you, Senior Initiate Bani. We’ll be there as soon as possible.”

“I will let the Council know,” the girl replied with a bow before turning around and heading back toward the turbolift.

Obi-Wan took a long drink of water, pouring the last of it over his head. He scrubbed his face and head off with his towel and grinned at his master. “Where do you think they’re sending us?”

Ahsoka pursed her lips as she twisted open her bottle. She took a sip of cold clear water before speaking. “I’m not sure. There’s been some unrest out on Dantooine, but nothing that would require a Jedi. Maybe something on the Outer Rim?”

“I’ve been following the news and it seems there have been a few raids along the Harrin Trade Corridor. Do you suppose it has something to do with that?” Obi-Wan mused as they made their way back to their rooms to shower and change into something more appropriate for a mission briefing. “Given our last encounter with pirates?”

“I doubt it,” Ahsoka shook her head. “Maybe it’s a diplomatic squabble. Or bodyguard duty.”

They were showered and dressed in about twenty minutes, which gave Ahsoka enough time to consult her personal database and nothing came up as pertinent. She also checked the amount of credits she had been able to save for Anakin and Shmi’s eventual freedom, frowning at how it never seemed to grow fast enough. There was no going rate for slaves but Ahsoka distinctly remembered her master bitterly quoting his old owner one particularly dark night. “No pod is worth two slaves.”

After we get back from this mission, I’ll see if I can get permission to take Obi-Wan on a… field trip. Yes, I think that would be a good way to phrase it. I’ll tell the Council I want him to get some experience going undercover and seeing what life is like outside the Republic.

And we’ll go find them.

Confident in her plan of action, Ahsoka met Obi-Wan in their living room, watching him tuck his long padawan braid, complete with silka beads, over his shoulder as he studied himself in the room’s simple mirror. “I think I’ve finally grown into this habit, Master. How does it look?”

For one brief, painful moment, it was as if Master Obi-Wan was standing there, straightening his tabards and smoothing down his collars while he waited for Anakin and Ahsoka to join him before a meeting.

Her little boy was growing up.

“Master?” Obi-Wan repeated, turning to face Ahsoka, his braid and lack of beard chasing away the phantoms of another life. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Ahsoka smiled, calling her robe from a hook by the door and pulling it on as she walked out of their suite. “I was just thinking how tall you’ve grown.”

“Have I?” Obi-Wan asked with a smile of his own as he followed her. “Do you suppose I’ll be as tall as you one day?”

“We’ll see,” Ahsoka chuckled as they made their way to the Council Room.

When the pair arrived, they were greeted by a smaller group of masters than usual because several of them had been called to a meeting at the Senate building that day. The new Chancellor, a man by the name of Valorum, had requested their wisdom on a particular matter and the meeting could not be rescheduled.

“Knight Tano and Padawan Kenobi,” a Council assistant announced as they stepped into the room. The two moved as one to the center of the room, bowing respectfully to Master Ki-Adi-Mundi who was the defacto head of the Council in Master Windu and Yoda’s absence.

“Good morning, Knight Tano and Padawan Kenobi,” Master Mundi began, acknowledging each of them as he spoke. “I hope we did not interrupt anything too important this morning.”

“We were just sparring,” Ahsoka explained. “We came as soon as we could. What is the nature of our next mission?”

“Master Plo Koon has the specifics of your mission,” Master Mundi said and handed off the meeting to the Kel Dor master who held out a datapad for Obi-Wan to take from him.

“We have received a request for aid from Mandalore,” Master Plo began, gesturing with one hand to activate a holo projector that filled the room with the blue-white light of a ghostly planet. “The planet has been embroiled in a terrible civil war for some time now and the Senate has received a request for aid. There have been several attempts on the life of the head of state, Duchess Satine Kryze, a young girl who has recently ascended the throne.”

“Mandalore?” Obi-Wan murmured, watching the planet spin in place. “Don’t they hate the Jedi?”

“The Duchess and her supporters are part of a new movement within Mandalorian culture,” Plo Koon explained, pulling up an image of the young duchess, a young carefree portrait from happier times. Ahsoka watched in a kind of numb shock as the regal woman from her memories stared back at her, her elegant features soft and sweet with youth and innocence. “She is a pacifist. The request came from her supporters and the senator representing their sector.”

“What…” Ahsoka found her throat dry as she suddenly realized how little she actually knew about this particular part of Master Obi-Wan’s life.

She took a deep breath and continued. “What is our mission?”

“You will go to Mandalore and you will protect the Duchess from the insurgents trying to kill her. This is a dangerous mission, Knight Tano, Padawan Kenobi, but the Council is confident you are well-suited for this task. May the Force be with you both.”

73 notes · View notes

badolmen · 7 months

Text

“I’m scared to pirate stuff - ” do it scared!*

*with Firefox and Adblock and a VPN and -

If you want a nonspecific, nonexhaustive “where do I even start” guide…

Sail the cyber seas at your own risk!

Streaming - “I want to watch xyz”

This is normally what most people want when they talk about pirating.

Use Firefox with uBlock Origin and additional privacy add-ons such as PrivacyBadger, TrackMeNot, etc.

Free VPNs are out there. Get one - but vet it’s efficacy. My go-tos are Proton VPN, or Windscribe if you plan to do a bit of torrenting.

What is torrenting? How does it work? Here’s a guide!

Back to streaming -

Make sure that a) you’ve got your Mozilla browser with all its adblocking private glory, and b) you’ve got a VPN turned on to hide what you’re doing in that browser from your ISP (internet service provider).

Now you need to actually find a site to stream from. This is the tricky part, because openly sharing these sites will get them taken down if they’re talked about widely enough. (Remember how tiktok idiots got zlibrary taken down?)

You’re going to have to talk to people on forums. You’re going to have to experiment with sites you find yourself. Search for ‘x online free’ and look at the links that come up - is the preview text mangled or clickbaitey? Are there Reddit threads about that website confirming or denying its content? A good rule of thumb is to ignore the top result or two - copycats of good streaming sites will often buy out the top result spot. Eventually, you’ll develop a good gut feeling and understanding of what a good site ‘looks like’ from the results page alone.

However, there are some places that compile good sites that haven’t been nuked by lawyers (yet) - check out r/FMHY! The masterposts are actively curated and updated when a site goes down or is found to have malicious downloads.

Remember - loose lips sink ships. No tweeting (xeeting?) or Facebook statuses about your new favorite piracy website and where you found it. Even posting to tumblr (kind of like this…) isn’t a great idea if you want those websites to stay under the radar and stay accessible. Nobody talks, everybody walks (away with their share of pirate booty)

If you aren’t downloading media, pick pretty much any site and watch away! Adblock and Firefox will keep away pop-ups and other annoying ads, and your VPN means your ISP can’t tell that you’re visiting an unofficial streaming service.

Note: In my experience, I’ve never heard of visiting a site and watching stuff on it infecting or otherwise compromising your computer. That tends to come from misclicks on invisible or overwhelming pop-up ads that redirect you to an automatic download or similarly malicious bullshit. If you’re using Firefox and uBlock, you shouldn’t be in any danger of an accidental redirect.

Downloads - “I want to keep xyz”

This is the realm of pirate archiving - you’re keeping files physically on your hard drive, an external hard drive, or burning a disk.

Adblock + Firefox browser? Check. VPN on? Check.

Go to your streaming site of choice - most if not all have download options. You can download those files or, manually, right click and save the video file from the webpage as an mp4. I honestly don’t know if there’s a difference in quality or more danger in clicking the download buttons, but regardless -

Run that puppy through VirusTotal.com! It’s a reliable browser based virus checker - if the file is too large, use a local virus checking program (your native Windows Defender on Windows computers or, I prefer, Malwarebytes)

Generally mp4 and mp3 files are clean - choose where to save them for the long term, and bam! Free forever media.

Optionally, I also upload mp4 files to a named Google document - this way I can easily share them or make them findable through a ‘xyz Google doc’ search for others :]

Torrents - “I want to keep and share xyz”

I’m not going to go into this subject in depth because, honestly, it’s not something I do regularly.

See the previously linked Torrenting guide for information on how the process works, and check out r/FMHY for recommendations and warnings about different torrenting clients (I’ve personally only used qBittorrent - I’ve heard to stay away from the Pirate Bay and Bittorrent.)

As with streaming, turn on that VPN baby! You’re going to need one that supports peer-to-peer (p2p) connections, so Proton’s free version is a no-go. Windscribe is what I’ve used for torrenting (and it’s a good free VPN on its own - I’m just partial to Proton). You get 10GB every month on Windscribe’s free version, which is more than enough for a few movies/a season or two of your favorite show.

(Bigger torrents like video games are easily 30+ GB, so be prepared to either pay for a no-limit premium account or spend a few months downloading your files in chunks.)

VPN on? Double check.

Boot up your torrenting client - I use a slightly out of date version of qBittorent, but there are other options. The Reddit thread and previously linked torrenting guide have a few dos and donts of selecting a client, so be thorough before you download your client of choice.

This is getting into the logistics of torrenting a bit, so forgive me if this is vague or incorrect, but now you need a torrent seed. These will be .tor files found through pirating websites or archives - these are rarely malicious, but it’s good to run any piracy related download through something like VirusTotal.com or scan it with a local program like Malwarebytes.

You open your seed file in your client and wait. A ‘healthy’ seed tends to have lots of seeders and few leeches, but sometimes you’re stuck with an obscure seed you just have to wait for.

Your torrented files have fully downloaded! Now what? a) keep your client open and seed those files for others as long as you want to - sharing is caring! and b) run those files through a security program like Malwarebytes (not sponsored it’s just the only program I’m familiar with).

Be wary of what gets flagged - sometimes the files seem important, but are just trojans, and likewise sometimes they seem malicious, but are just cracked software getting flagged by your system. It’s good to check and see if others have had a problem with this particular torrent before - Reddit threads from 2008 are your long dead friends.

And that’s about it. Feel free to correct me if anything I’ve recommended is malicious or outright wrong. I’ve been doing this for years and haven’t had an active problem to my knowledge, so if there is something fishy with how I do things, I am a statistical outlier and should not be counted.

I wish you smooth sailing and strong winds in your ventures me hearties!

Obligatory ‘don’t pirate small author’s or artist’s works what the fuck dude’ statement.

#ra speaks #piracy #pirating #pirate to make hondo ohnaka proud #I’ve seen so many people on my streaming piracy post bemoaning that they don’t know how like !!!!#congrats you get to learn without the middle school trial and error phase we zillenials had (RIP family computer 2004-2009)#I genuinely think piracy has gotten easier/safer than it used to be. that or I’ve gotten smarter. which is also likely.

131 notes · View notes

sinisterexaggerator · 1 year

Note

ALRIGHT. Gimme numero 18 for the writer one and 16 and 18 for the Star Wars one, por favor.

Ooh, thank you for the asks!

#18 from writers: What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

I am really proud of the chapter I wrote in Stars Above where Hondo Ohnaka and Cad Bane are "having a conversation," but Hondo is trying to make Cad out to be immoral even though he himself is a scoundrel and Bane points out he is hypocritical.

“So Cad, you agree then? This New Order’s not to be trusted?” It was more than conversation; the Weequay was a strategist in his own respect. His antics were parlor tricks, his comedic gestures just for show. He would get to the bottom of his business dealings before the night was over.

[...]

“Ne’ver said I trus’ted dem.” He was short with him, cutting straight to the point – that’s what he wanted; he wasn’t stupid – this was a mere game he was playing, though Cad Bane wouldn’t bite.

“Then why work for them?” The Weequay’s face had transformed into a mask delineating that he was serious, his cordial demeanor all but fleeing for this instant. Zulara herself was curious, and Kayson had been afraid to ask, though perhaps it was his good fortune to have invited a man like Hondo to their sabacc game. Even old Masse had turned his gaze, thumbing through a small datapad he had produced, though his ears had never strayed too far from the conversation, and the Rodian rather soundlessly kept his place, yet this new round of queries promoted him to speak in Basic.

[...]

“Did you hear that, my dear? Cad Bane’s a murderer. What a ghastly business, bounty hunting… By the way, what is your name?”

“Zulara,” she stated, even-toned. She felt relaxed, her mind was drifting to pleasing thoughts; the Gardulla was having its effect on her.

Cad Bane sneered, hating this back and forth that only he seemed to be privy to. Hondo was the one that had told him her pretty title, yet he still pretended to not be the deceitful pirate that he was; a smuggler, a racketeer. “You actin’ like yer’a honest man. ‘Least I don’ try’t hide m’nature.”

"No one's hiding anything! I was merely pointing out your lack of conscience. I pick and choose carefully; death only need be present where there is no alternative."

"You playin' Maker, den? Sounds like’a fun game… Must be nice t’pick an’ choose. Ain’ no monster – rather take scores a’live - sometimes it can’t be ‘elped. De Jedi … d’ere’a sspecial lot, and dat one deserves t’die fer double crossin’ me.”

“Ahem.” Hondo nearly coughed; it was a façade.

I just wanted to do right by both the characters. They never met in canon. I thought it would be so much fun if they had a back and forth.

#16 from Star Wars asks: Which movie/episode have you watched the most?

The Bad Batch: Reunion and Bounty Lost ft. Cad Bane. ;) I love his TBB outfit, but also his unaltered voice is to die for.

18. What is your favorite star wars book or comic?

Resistance Reborn and Shadow of the Sith because they both feature Shriv Suurgav in canon outside of Battlefront 2.

#author ask game #star wars ask game #thanks for the ask!#fanfic #writing

5 notes · View notes

swfanficbyjz · 7 years

Text

SW AU - Fate of the Master Chapter 15

<- Previous Chapter

Months passed and Anakin stayed with Hondo as they slowly gathered another crew. He started going by the code name, Maelstrom and traded his red lightsaber out for a couple blasters.

Ohnaka was an odd pirate, he wouldn't go so far as to call him a good man, but he did seem to have a code of principles he lived by. Anakin allowed himself to turn a blind eye to their questionable dealings, since the captain didn't like to kill. At least not in cold blood. Once, long before the war, this band of pirates would have been a cause for the Jedi to shut down. But those days were long gone. Even with all the fear of the empire; piracy, smuggling and black market dealings flourished. It really amazed him how adaptable and persistent they were. He'd never really given much thought to what motivated people.

When he'd first joined Hondo's crew, he would have said credits was their highest motivation. But now after dozens of missions with them, he was starting to see it differently. They weren't really that different from anyone else, they just wanted to live a life full of pleasure and happiness. The Weequay pirates knew how to party better than anyone he'd ever met. He remembered the first time he discovered that.

Him and Obi wan had been sent to make a deal with Ohnaka to capture count Dooku and bring him back to the republic to face trial for war crimes. Hondo had invited them to join his crew for a feast; good food, good drinks, plenty of entertainment. But apparently him and Obi wan couldn't hold their drinks, and they'd ended up as another bargaining chip. They'd tried to escape multiple times, but failed spectacularly. For a bunch of drunkards, Hondo and his crew were a sly and crafty bunch.

But he had to admit, the party had been pretty fun. And he'd been enjoying all the ones since. He still didn't trust the pirate, but he was a lot different when he was on your side. His favorite thing about hanging with them, was that it was easy to forget your troubles. When he was striking deals and sneaking around, he didn't have to feel the guilt of all that had happened. Sometimes it would creep in at night during quiet moments, but then he could just wash it down with some spice and forget it for awhile.

Hondo often credited him for helping rebuild his pirate empire. Anakin wasn't sure if he was really proud of that, but it was fun to stick it to the empire in new and different ways. More fun than being a serious rebel fighting for freedom. It was a strategy game like the ones he played back in the clone wars. Except it was psychological. He didn't really know if any of the imperials he faced knew that he had been Vader. And he didn't really care. He wasn't running around slashing his lightsaber, so for all they knew, he was just another annoying pirate. One they probably wouldn't survive meeting.

The crew would gather after every successful mission and tell stories and trade news. Then they'd have a couple drinks and party until early morning.

Anakin didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to what they considered news. It was usually just comparing their exploits to rival pirate gangs.

"Hey hey hey," Hondo's slurred voice broke into his thoughts. "I heard a story the other day that might interest you." Oh here we go, Anakin thought and took another sip of the rum in front of him. He tuned Hondo out and just listened to the music letting the alcohol fuzz his thoughts and feelings. At least until he heard "two white laser swords."

"What did you say?" Anakin snapped to attention.

"Mael, buddy, you need to go easy on those drinks. Your attention span has dropped even by pirate standards." The drunken captain chuckled. "I was saying that I've been hearing stories about this cloaked lady that appears out of nowhere. She swoops in, sets things right, and disappears. Nobody knows who she is or where she goes. But they say that she has two white laser swords like those things you Jedi used to carry around. Oh and get this! She's accompanied by an akul. That's unheard of. The reason those crazy beasts aren't found all over they galaxy is because no one is fool enough to try to tame one."

Anakin's mind was suddenly buzzing. He hadn't really allowed himself to think about Ahsoka since he'd been indoctrinated into Hondo's crew.

"Could you imagine what a powerful ally she'd make! With the two of you by my side, we'd be unstoppable..." Ohnaka's voice faded out and then there was a loud thump as he fell backwards off the stool because he'd passed out. But Anakin really didn't care. He usually found them draped over pretty much anything the mornings after their parties.

"Ahsoka..." he breathed.

–-

Luke sat in the cabin of the millennium falcon leaning over a broken holocommunicator. He had tools spread out in front of it as he fiddled with it trying to make it work again. It had been about five standard months since he'd joined Han and Chewbacca's crew so he could leave Tatooine behind him. He'd been wanting to send a message to Leia for awhile now, but they were never in a safe enough place to do that. His aunt and uncle were probably worried about him, but he didn't really care anymore.

Han Solo was an obnoxious braggart who thought he knew better than anyone. But he could be charming when he wanted to be. He was older than Luke had originally thought, but he didn't really act like it. He teased Luke mercilessly about his beliefs about the Jedi and the force; he claimed it was just a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Despite Luke getting him out of trouble time and time again with it, he remained a disbeliever.

"There! That ought to do it," he said to himself as he snapped the panel back in and tried turning it on. It worked. "Finally," he thought. He typed the numbers to call Leia, rubbing his fingers through his hair and brushing off his jacket.

"Luke!" She cried out. "Everyone's been worried sick! Where have you been?"

He stared at the image of her pretty face. It was nice to know someone cared.

"Oh here and there," he tried to reply casually, but she gave him the look and he spilled the beans immediately. "Dad dumped me back on Tatooine, but I couldn't stay there! I'm supposed to be training to be a Jedi, but my uncle just locked my lightsaber away and forbid me to even talk about it. So I ran away. No big deal. I joined a smugglers' crew. It's fun. We get to mess with the empire and I get to run in and save the day."

"Luke, you're not using the force all the time are you?" She asked nervously. What was she so upset about? He thought if anyone would understand it would be her.

"Of course I am. I'm getting better everyday! I can't wait to show you all I've learned."

"But people see you use it and the lightsaber?"

"All the time. People always ask me what am I? And I say 'I'm a Jedi!'"

"Oh Luke!" She shook her head, "don't you know how dangerous that is?"

"What's so dangerous about it? I can strike down a dozen people with blasters and no one lays a finger on me!" He was getting agitated. Why did everyone think being a Jedi was such a bad thing? He'd always heard good things about them; amazing things! As if sensing his frustration, even at such a distance, her voice softened.

"Do you know what happened at the end of the Clone Wars? Why you only hear stories about them but never meet any?"

"No," he said shaking his head.

"They were slaughtered." She said. "It became a death sentence to be one. Any survivors, anyone that showed signs of being one was hunted mercilessly. If people find out you are one... if they live to tell about it... you'll never be safe again!"

Luke gulped. He'd never thought about it. "But what about dad? And Ahsoka? And old Ben? And and..."

"Did dad tell you why the Jedi disappeared?" She interrupted him.

"He just said that the emperor was manipulating everything. That he turned bad to save mom. But he failed. Why? What really happened?" Luke was feeling disheartened. He thought talking to Leia would make him feel better, not worse.

His sister looked as though she was deciding exactly how to give some bad news. He wanted to stop her. He didn't want to hear it, but he knew he needed to. "Dad is the reason they were nearly wiped out." She said at last. But she didn't have a chance to say more. An explosion rocked the ship.

"We're under attack!" Han yelled at him. "Get in the nose gun!"

"Luke! What's going on?" Leia asked but the connection failed and she flickered away. He jumped up and ran down to the gunner seat. Dad was the reason there weren't many Jedi left... what did that mean?

"Boy! I don't know why I let you talk me into joining my crew! You've brought me nothing but trouble!" Han yelled from the bridge as he tried to outmaneuver the ships that were now chasing them.

"I seem to recall you finding plenty of trouble before I came along!" Luke yelled back. Not really in the mood to argue right now. He shot down two fighters, but they weren't ties. Pirates... he curled his lips in disgust.

"Raaaaaahhgh aaaaahnr huurh!" Chewbacca growled an agreement from the rear gunner's seat.

"Oh can it, Chewie!" Han replied as the ship shuddered from another explosion.

"Why aren't we jumping?" Luke called out as several more ships appeared in view.

"Hyperdrive is broken, we're dead in space. Chewie, get down here and fix it. Boy, prepare for boarding!" Han barked the orders. The falcon trembled as a ship docked with it. "Never mind! In with the goods!" They all scrambled into the secret hiding place of their contraband. Watching through the cracks as a group of pirates walked around the ship searching.

"The ship is empty captain." One of them said.

"It can't be empty, it was shooting back at us. Search again!" Drawled another voice.

Luke's hand tightened on his lightsaber, mentally preparing for battle. But the pirates wandered off.

"So was that your girlfriend?" Han whispered casually.

"What? Ew no!" Luke scowled at him.

"That bad huh? She looked pretty fine to me." Han grinned.

"Aarrragghuuhw?" Chewbacca asked.

"She is fine! She's a princess! And yes I love her," he responded punching the Wookiee on the arm only to get a return punch that knocked the wind out of him, he never learned. "She's my..." he stammered. "She's my sister."

"Now you're just pulling my leg!" Han said but then they all fell silent as some footsteps got closer. They shifted slightly to prepare to surprise the pirates. Luke was always the one that went first. His reflexes were faster and his weapon more destructive.

He counted to himself, wait for it, he thought. And then he pounced. Moving the grate above them with one fluid motion, he leapt up into the air, but before he could swing, he went flying back into the wall of the ship. He hadn't even seen what hit him. As he slumped to the ground, he heard Chewie cry out in pain.

"Take it easy..." Han started but was interrupted by the pirate they'd tried to attack.

"Luke! What the hell are you doing here?"

Luke looked up, his vision was red from the pain of being knocked back. Standing above him was his father.

–-

"Do you two know each other?" Hondo asked coming around the corner with several other pirates on his tail.

"Yes." Anakin said, but Luke had said no at the same time.

Hondo just looked between them. "Well Maelstrom, it's up to you what you want us to do with them." Anakin didn't respond. He was looking at Luke trying to read him. What had happened? Why was he hanging out with these lowlife smugglers? He'd taken his son back to Tatooine believing he'd be better off. Yet here he was in the middle of space glaring up at him.

"Take those two to the brig. I need to have a little chat with my son." Anakin said at last. To Ohnaka's credit, he didn't ask any questions, but he'll probably hear about it later. He loomed over Luke while he waited for everyone else to leave the area. Then he pulled him to his feet and dragged him down the passage to the bridge. "Why aren't you on Tatooine where I left you?" He demanded as soon as the door shut behind them.

"You mean where you abandoned me?" Luke replied venomously. Anakin was taken aback.

"I didn't abandon you!" He said, his voice rising. "I was protecting you! Keeping you safe!"

"Protecting me from who? You?" Luke hissed. Crossing his arms. "Good job!"

Anakin froze. What had Luke heard? What did he know?

"Luke," he said trying to steady himself. "I told you, I had some things I had to work out. I can't offer you a better life until I do."

"Is joining pirates one of them? I don't want to hear your lies. Why are all the Jedi dead? What did you do?"

Anakin felt anger burn in him again. He had kept wishing people would punish him for the mistakes he made, but he never expected it to be his son. There was no easy way to tell him the truth. No way to spin it so it didn't seem so bad. He wanted to just yell. To just rant. To let all of it out. But what was the point? No one could ever hear what he had to say and believe it was justified. He didn't even believe that.

He could feel the seething anger in Luke as well. He could see himself in him, and suddenly he felt lost and broken all over again. If Ahsoka were here, she'd respond to him with love. She'd be tender and sweet and tell him everything would be alright until even he believed it. But she wasn't here. And now he saw, for the first time since he'd come back to the light, that the true consequences of his actions would never be felt by him. Only those impacted by his choices.

He sat down hard in the other chair. He didn't have a clue where to start. How do you explain it? Maybe you didn't.

His comm beeped but he ignored it. Him and Luke sat in silence for a long while as Anakin just breathed in the waves of anger and hate that rippled off of Luke like they once had him. "I made mistakes." He said softly. "So many mistakes."

Luke didn't look up at him. He knew the moment the words came out they were weak. Nothing could ever be said about what he'd done that wouldn't be weak.

"I failed as a Jedi because I fell in love with your mother. Jedi aren't allowed to form attachments. They create emotions that can lead you to the dark side; jealousy, anger, hate, fear... I was afraid to lose her. I started having visions that I would. That she would die in childbirth. I couldn't let that happen. I knew the Jedi, who had forbidden attachments, would not help me..."

"So you slaughtered them?" Luke interrupted savagely.

Anakin was trying to resist the anger that was bubbling beneath the surface, but it was getting increasingly difficult. "No... well... I let a Sith Lord manipulate me into believing that if I joined him, I'd be able to save her. I was so desperate to at that point, I would do whatever it took. And that meant obeying my dark master's commands so that he would teach me the power."

Their lives for Padmé's... at the time, it had seemed like a perfectly reasonable trade. But now as he looked in the eyes of his son... he saw reflected back at him the monster he'd become. How had anybody been able to show him love? It couldn't be love. Nobody could love that.

----

He got up angrily. He just wanted to burn it all down. What right did Ahsoka have pulling him back to the light? Lying to him, pretending? Making him believe there was hope for him? She was wrong, there was no hope. There was nothing left for him. He pulled his red lightsaber out of the pocket of his shirt and ignited it. Luke had jumped out of his seat the moment Anakin had stood. He too had his lightsaber lit.

"How dare you?" His son screamed at him. "I've spent every day of my life wishing my mother was alive, but not at such a horrendous cost! You were one of them! You betrayed them! You're the one that should have died! Not her!"

The fury overtook Anakin before he could restrain himself. He swung wickedly at the boy in front of him. Luke fought back with such ferocity that it surprised him. They moved throughout the ship, lightsabers clashing, both fighting from a source of rage and hatred. Luke's skills had tripled since he'd last seen him. They fought as though to the death, but when the ship suddenly tilted, it threw them both off balance and Anakin cut right through his son's arm. Luke screamed in pain and fell to the floor.

Something inside him snapped back to reality at the sight of his son in so much pain. He dropped his lightsaber and knelt down. But Luke kicked up at him and then got up and ran away. Anakin went racing after him, but was thrown off balance again when the ship tilted again the other way.

"Maelstrom!" His comm buzzed with Hondo's frantic voice. "The empire is here and has us all caught in a tractor beam. They're pulling us in!" Anakin didn't answer, he just kept chasing after his son.

Next Chapter ->

3 notes · View notes