Interlude: Year 3 (Patreon)

Interlude: Year 3

Dennis:

Even as he walked he found himself turning around, still moving but… he just had to risk the potential embarrassment of tripping just to take this place in.

“This sure beats a hovel on Tatooine,” he mused with a wry smirk.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know of the Jedi Temple. He seemed to be hanging out with Jedi on the regular these days.

But it's one thing to know about it, another to walk into and experience it.

The place… had a grandeur to it interlaced with a quiet serenity. It was… odd.

He could understand how the place, and maybe the Jedi raised up in it, had an effect on Skitter of all people.

Vicky too, but mostly Skitter.

“Is everything alright?” His distraction was noticed, the Jedi escorting him turning with a curious eye.

Dennis nodded, smiling. “Yeah, yeah, just taking it in, ya know?”

The Jedi smiled, pride shining through his posture. “It truly is a grand place,” he nodded. “I can’t imagine having been raised up in an enclave as opposed to the Temple. It must be so different for the newest younglings,” the man mused.

Dennis shrugged. Mandalore still didn’t have an enclave of its own and apart from traveling once to Zygerria, a place that seemed equal parts temple and fortress, he couldn’t say what the others were like.

“I’m sure it is different-” he said, stepping into an elevator, “but different can be good.”

God knew his own life counted as different, and ever since coming here he could hardly say it was all bad. It may have even been a step up from his previous situation in the eyes of most.

The elevator doors shut, as his Jedi escort sighed. “I suppose. Master Sinube has said similar things. I just don’t see the need for these changes. The Jedi have endured for thousands of years within the halls of this Temple. Expanding so much so quickly just feels… wrong.”

Again, Dennis shrugged. It wasn’t really his job nor within his knowledge to debate with the guy.

Before the doors opened, there was a knock on the glass pane behind him.

He and the Jedi both turned, but before his eyes even found the source of the noise he’d already figured out what was happening.

Vicky was there, floating up at a pace with the elevator, smiling as she waved.

He waved back.

The elevator halted but Vicky kept floating up, surprised at the sudden stop.

Stepping out of the small space, he wasn’t really surprised to see her circle around with a smile on her face.

“Clock!” she said, and the name stirred a warmth in his chest. It was a name only ‘they’ knew, the ones that came from home. And somehow, childish as it was, stupid as it was, it always made their reunions feel a bit more… special.

She reached out, offering a hug that he returned easily. “What’re you doing here!?”

That question gave him pause, the smile on his lip transforming into a frown. “Huh? Wait, you don’t know? I thought you and Skitter were the reason I was called.”

“Don’t call her that.” she answered reflexively. “And no. I had no idea you were coming. It’s why I came to the elevator when I sensed you.”

Right, Jedi could do that, and now Vicky and Skitter were Jedi…

He shrugged. “All I know is, Obi-Wan and Skywalker were given a message to give to me. Apparently the Jedi Council wants to talk.”

Vicky frowned, suspicious. “Tay hasn’t said anything about this-”

“Because I didn’t know.”

A startled shout came from the Jedi still waiting politely beside him. Had Skits not been showing off this trick? You’d think they’d be used to it by now.

Either that or she really was going soft.

Yeah, no. He was an idiot.

He turned to the amalgamation of bugs coalescing next to them, not a body this time but an orb, just enough to carry her voice even as it writhed and buzzed.

He smirked. “Someone’s slipping.”

“I’ve been busy,” she remarked, “And the Council’s apparently been careful.”

The words ‘I’ve been busy’ sent a feeling that could charitably be called ‘mild dread’ through his stomach, but he decided to firmly put that out of his mind to be dealt with never.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, it didn’t sound too bad when they called. I even got an ‘at your earliest convenience’ and everything.”

“Hmmm… I’ll keep an ear open then.” The bugs dispersed.

Dennis turned back to Vicky. “Busy?”

The blonde smiled brightly. “Very,” she nodded. “But she’s been so happy with a full Creche. She wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Creche? What the hell was a-

Suddenly, he remembered Anakin mentioning it, a place where they keep children.

Skitter… with children.

His mind flashed to a conversation a lifetime and a half ago that involved a very unique take on drugs…

Suddenly, he was very, very nervous… and very, very understanding as to why the Jedi were opening up so many enclaves and getting kids far, far, far away from this place.

(X)(X)(X)

“So, wait, let me get this straight. You guys want me to smuggle Jedi?”

When he’d been invited to a meeting with the members of the Council, this was not what he’d been expecting to say the least.

Even so, unexpected or not, some of the Jedi Masters nodded.

“We have been hunting the Sith for years now with little luck. We are beginning to wonder if he is using the Force itself to cloak his movements.” A woman, Billaba, if he recalled, answered him. “Across the galaxy there are certain Force nexuses, places of power, both light and dark. We must go to these places to search.”

“I get that-” he nodded, “but why do you need a smuggler?”

The dark skinned man answered him. “We have reason to suspect, perhaps even expect, that the Sith has the means of keeping track of our official movements through the temple’s regular channels somehow.”

“So you’re hiring a smuggler,” he nodded, the picture starting to become clearer, bit by bit. “First off, I don’t transport anything or anyone unless I know where I’m going and who I’m going with.”

The Zabrak nodded. “I will be traveling with you for the majority of these excursions alongside Master Tiin. There are… a handful of sites that will require the utmost secrecy, and in those cases we will be accompanied by either Master Yoda, Master Windu or Master Yaddle,” he gestured to the two little gremlins and larger man.

He’d heard of Yoda, the head of the Jedi Order.

“That’s gonna be tricky,” he warned then gestured to the little alien. “Not for nothing but you’re famous, even to people who don’t know shit about the Jedi.”

“Understand we do, meet elsewhere we will. Some tricks we have learned on keeping secrets in recent years.”

A niggling thought crept into his mind. “Ski-I mean… Taylor. You’ve been practicing with her.”

“The fact that the Council was able to keep this operation away from her eyes and ears is encouraging,” the Kel Dor said softly. “If the Sith are keeping tabs on us, we must adapt accordingly. I hope you understand.”

He opened his mouth to respond, ready to reassure that he hadn’t taken offense when he realized that the Kel Dor wasn’t exactly talking to him.

He put it out of his mind, Skitter’s drama with the Council was strictly hers. “Where will we be going?”

This time an old woman stepped forward, dressed in opulent robes of gold. She held open a holo, depicting several shining places across the galaxy.

“As stated before, there are several known Force Nexuses,” she sniffed. “Most of these will not appear in subpar star maps, but we will update yours accordingly. In alphabetical order, they are Ambria, Dorumi, Dxun, Ilum, Lothal, Odessen, Ossus, Tython, and Weik,” her lip curled. “There are also three others: Dromund Kaas, Ziost, and Korriban, but those are… last resorts.”

“Not friendly places then, I take it?” he shrugged. “I’ll have to discuss it with Rugess, but I don’t see why we’d say no. You guys are good on your bills and that Sith did kill old man Dooku, so I can see why you’d want to find him.”

“I’m glad we could come to an agreement,” the Zabrak nodded.

Dennis extended his hand, offering it to shake. “No worries. I’ll see myself out.”

(X)(X)(X)

He didn’t exactly ‘see himself out’ so much as he went exploring a bit. Well… searching. Sure the Temple had a lot of sights to see, but he was hardly here as a tourist.

It took him a bit longer than he’d have liked, but eventually he did find her.

“Couldn’t help your curiosity, I see.”

He must’ve come at just the right – or wrong – time, depending on your perspective. The kids, still toddlers mostly, were asleep on their cots on the floor, and she was sitting behind a quaint little desk filling out paperwork.

“Don’t think I’d have believed it otherwise,” he remarked with a wry smirk.

She cast him a side eye, not quite annoyed.

“It’s good work,” she answered, fingers ghosting over the holo keyboard.

“I never said it wasn’t,” he smirked. “It just… never seemed like a you thing.”

She gave a shrug. “A few years ago… I’d have agreed. Then again, a few years ago you were different too. Less ‘easy teasing’ and more ‘bitter asshole’.”

He snorted. She wasn’t wrong. “Fair,” he answered, letting the silence fall for a moment as he gathered his thoughts.

…

“Is it just as strange for you?” he dared to ask, eyes passing over the kids splayed across the floor.

He didn’t need to specify.

Her hands stopped over the keys, pausing briefly.

“Yes,” she finally said, turning her gaze towards him. “It… can be overwhelming sometimes. Sometimes I still feel like this is all a dream and I’ll wake up soon.”

“I know the feeling,” he nodded. “Being… content-”

“Happy,” she interrupted, not quite looking at him; rather, looking past him. “I’m… happy.” It almost sounded like a confession. Something she didn’t want to give voice to lest she destroy it with the whisper of what it was.

He hadn’t quite reached ‘happy’ yet… sometimes he wasn’t sure he ever would.

He nodded, though.

She understood.

“Either way-” he continued. “It feels like someone… screwed up the delivery address. Like you got a package that you’re not sure was ever meant for you.”

She looked away, back to her computer. “Yeah.”

He cast another glance across the room. Sleeping tots and scattered toys.

“I’m glad for you,” he said “And not just because I’m afraid you’ll send bugs crawling through my pants if I say otherwise.”

She offered her own smirk. “You don’t think it’s happening right now, anyway?”

“Yup! Yup, I am gettin off this fucking plane-” he saw a flash of something across her expression, and wondered if she was mad that he’d cursed in front of the sleeping kids before her head turned towards the wall, eyes narrowing and brows pinching close together.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately, still staring at the wall.

Then…

“A Jedi named Sifo-Dyas just walked through the Temple’s main doors.”

The name tickled something at the back of his mind.

“The Jedi I was searching for with Dooku?”

She nodded.

Somehow, he knew at that moment that something had shifted, like the world had been turning on its axis, but something that should have been innocuous and irrelevant but would have so many knock on effects down the road had happened. Like Skitter taking down Lung.

He didn’t really like the feeling.