Interlude: Year 5 (Patreon)

Interlude: Year 5

Karla

“Come on, don’t be such a baby! We’re gonna miss it!”

The voice was distorted, amplified and muffled all at once, echoing as if spoken through a tube.

In a way, that’s because it was.

On closer inspection, peeking out of one of the larger vent cylinders, a pair of feet could be seen, their owner struggling to push themselves further into the tiny space.

“I don’t know about this, Karla,” Iskt called nervously behind her. Her best friend was always so nervous.

“It’ll be fine!” the small, Lethan Twi’lek insisted, “Come on! I need you to give me a boost further in, I can’t reach on my ow-”

Fingers clamped around her ankle.

Firm, slender fingers that didn’t feel at all like Iskt’s scaly, Trandoshan talons.

“Eeep!” she squeaked as those same fingers dragged her back, sliding across the metal and making her shirt ride up.

The world lurched and spun, and before long she was hanging upside down, dangling from her ankle.

Iskt was dangling right next to her, looking very stiff and nervous.

For her part, Karla offered a wave, her sheepish smile obscured by the shirt that partly covered her face now.

“Hi, Miss Victoria!”

“I might’ve guessed,” Victoria said wryly, a strange mixture of expressions across her face. Annoyed, amused, expectant and everything in between as she held the two kids in the air with nary a sign of strain. “I get playing hooky every now and again, but why are you two knuckleheads trying to get into the vents?”

A Knight passed them by, blatantly staring at the odd scene with palpable confusion. Vicky noticed, smiling beatifically in response. “Hi there, Tii!” she raised the kids an inch higher, as though trying to wave before catching herself. “Be with ya in a moment!” Then she turned back to the two still dangling younglings.

Luckily, the distraction had given Karla time to think of a perfect excuse!

“I dropped my coin!” she insisted. “I wanted to get it!”

Miss Victoria raised a very, very unimpressed eyebrow.

“Uh-huh. Your coin. Inside a horizontal vent. That’s not how gravity works.”

“Uhhh… It rolled!”

“Oh, I’m sure,” the blonde woman smiled. “And it wouldn’t just so happen to have rolled all the way to the gardens, hmm?”

…

“Maybe.”

“I tried to stop her, Miss Victoria,” Iskt whined beside her.

“Traitor!”

“Yes, Iskt, you usually do try to stop her while going along with her hare-brained schemes.”

…

“Hah!”

She offered a cheeky grin to her friend’s direction, one which he thoroughly ignored.

“I stop her from getting hurt,” he amended. “She’s clumsy.”

“What!” she squawked, swinging over to smack him on the arm! “I am not!”

“Is that why Healer Belume has said that if she ever sees either of you again, you won’t be able to sit down for a month with the thorough spanking she’ll give the both of you?”

Oh yeah. That had happened.

“Ummmmm….”

Miss Vicky’s eyes rolled, her head shaking before she carefully placed both younglings down. Karla’s lekku touched the cold marble of the temple floors first, then her head before her back and the rest of her. Her ankle was released before she scrambled back to her feet and tried to straighten out her frumpled shirt.

“Right,” Miss Victoria sighed. “So you two decided to get out of your lessons and sneak through the temple vents to reach the gardens. I can guess why but, honestly, the vents?”

“We figured you wouldn’t find us that way!” she blurted the words out and then realized her mistake. “I mean, ummm… if I was sneaking into them it’d be for that. But I’m looking for my coin so… that’s why I was going in.”

“Uh-huh,” Victoria fought valiantly against the smirk that kept threatening to tug at her lip. “So, you’ve thoroughly missed Master Havek’s lesson for today…” she said sternly. Karla winced, her lekku twitching.

Then Miss Victoria brightened. “So I guess you’re coming with me!”

Two hands found two shoulders, pulling/pushing the two kids alongside her.

“H-huh?! Wait, where are we going?” she asked.

“The gardens, of course! I want some eye candy too!”

Huh!

Wait. There was candy in the gardens?! She hadn’t heard about that!

(X)(X)(X)

“Woah!”

The exclamation came from Iskt. Her taller, Trandoshan friend was able to just stand over the railing to look down at the gardens below, she had to try and hop. It was unfair.

She heard Miss Vicky chuckle beside her, “Aaaand, scoop,”

Karla was yoinked off her feet, small legs dangling for a moment before she was planted over Miss Vicky’s shoulders, the human woman now holding onto her ankles as Karla’s hands pawed at her head and hair to stay steady. The small Twi’lek laughed, delighted. “Oh! I can see them!” she squealed, pointing.

Far below, standing in a ring of perfectly circled sand, were Miss Taylor and Master Tapal.

Karla had always thought that Miss Taylor was tall, she was taller than the other human females at least, but standing next to Master Tapal she looked almost tiny. Seated at the side of the arena was Cal. He’d been picked to be Master Tapal’s Padawan just two weeks ago from Master Beq’s creche.

“Oh, this is gonna be good!” Iskt was nearly bouncing on his toes, all previous nervousness forgotten. ”Miss Victoria, is it true that Miss Taylor’s the one with the best Force senses in the Order?”

“Not exactly,” Miss Victoria chuckled. “Pay attention now, looks like they’re about to start round two!”

And start they did.

Master Tapal moved first, stalking forward with long purposeful strides that swallowed the distance, his saberstaff igniting with twin blue blades.

Karla found blonde hair fisted tightly in her tiny fists as Miss Taylor’s golden blade lit up, meeting the descending swing with a crackling crash of blade on blade.

She’d never seen her teacher fight. She’d heard stories from the others in the creche, but never actually seen it!

Her teacher moved with a fluid, almost liquid grace. Master Tapal was pure strength and power, Miss Taylor was completely different. She danced around his blade, light steps and quick strikes. Master Tapal met her sword each time, pressing forward with an unceasing, relentless pressure.

“I think Master Tapal’s gonna win,” Iskt said

“Shut up, stupid!” she squealed. She’d have thrown something at him if she had it.

Miss Vicky tapped her leg. “Be nice. Don’t call your friend stupid. Now, say you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” she answered mulishly.

He was being stupid, though. Miss Taylor wasn’t going to lose.

As if reading her thoughts, Miss Victoria continued, speaking as the blades snapped and flashed down below. “When Tay practices, she practices so that she doesn’t lose when it matters. So, she practices with people that can beat her in ways they can beat her.”

“See!” Iskt crowed, a trill in his throat that just oozed smugness more than even his widely grinning mouth displaying his rows of needle teeth.

She stuck her tongue out at him. Miss Victoria couldn’t see, so it was ok.

She then turned her eyes back to the fight.

Master Tapal’s advance hadn’t slowed. In fact, he seemed to be getting faster, his huge size giving him reach and letting him wield the saberstaff like any other Knight or Master would wield a baton, the spinning blades almost a blur as he used one blade to bat aside Miss Taylor’s golden one and the other to immediately follow the act with a strike.

Miss Taylor kept circling, giving ground, feet at the edges of their arena but never quite stepping out of bounds.

Karla hadn’t been made a Padawan yet, she’d never been trained how to fight, but she knew that something had to change soon.

Then it did.

From this distance it was hard to see, but as it happened she was able to figure it out.

Cal lurched forward where he sat, stumbling, something slipping free from him before she heard his startled shout as his blue blade came hurtling towards Master Tapal’s exposed back.

The Lasat Master turned, whirling around with one hand already outstretched, catching the blade with a thrumming grip of Force energy even as he scrambled to move the saberstaff into position for a hasty block.

Karla lurched forward in her ‘seat’, her body almost curling itself around Miss Victoria’s head as the blonde woman let out a startled squawk, trying to tell the girl she couldn’t see now that little red fingers were covering her eyes.

Miss Taylor, suddenly seeming to physically overpower the much larger Lasat, drove forward. One step, then another, pushing him closer towards the blue blade, one hand on her saber, the other coiling behind her.

Cal’s blue saber was shunted aside, now held out at a safe distance away from the two. She wasn’t sure which of the two were holding the blade there anymore as the weapon trembled and jerked sporadically in the air, but Master Tapal was finally able to place both his large, meaty hands over his saber staff as he faced his opponent.

Miss Taylor’s hand, the one pulled back behind her, thrust forward, Master Tapal sailing back, off his feet, before Karla saw Miss Taylor stumble back, losing her footing as she fell to the floor and was then dragged back across the sandy arena til she tumbled over the edge to hit the soft grass.

Master Tapal twisted in the air, his large form belying a cat-like grace as he touched the arena floor’s exterior a moment after her.

Then the sabers were turned off.

“Huh?! Why’d they stop?” Iskt asked, visibly confused.

“‘Cause they’re done,” Miss Victoria explained. “It’s for practice, kiddo, not a fight to the death.”

“Well… no,” her Trandoshan friend mused. “But no one won.”

“You think so, huh?” Miss Victoria questioned. Karla leaned forward, body coiling around the woman’s head to try and look at her expression, red lekku falling down and hanging in front of Miss Vicky’s face, making the woman laugh.

“Come on, ya little goobers. You’ve had your fun. Now it’s time to get back to your lessons.”

“Awww.”

(X)(X)(X)

Vicky

“I’m never sending you to be a good influence again.”

The door hissed shut behind her, and Vicky’s smile just wouldn’t budge off her face.

“Oh, come on,” she cried, sliding into the room. “I’m a great influence! The kids had fun, I had fun-”

Taylor offered her a very dry look over the edge of her book A copy of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the ring”- the exact replica courtesy of Alexandria. Apparently the trilogy was a massive hit on Mandalore.

Resting on the brunette’s head, Angelica squeed happily, the cheerful hug-bug juxtaposing the image of the stern, angry Creche Master. “You helped two of my kids play hooky out of their classes, V.” Taylor growled.

“Should I have doubled up?” Vicky winked cheekily “Taken four up to see the show?”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “I swear, why do I try?”

The Blonde smiled, plopping down on the couch and sprawling herself over the seat to plonk her head on Taylor’s lap.

“Don’t be mad,” she demanded, reaching over to poke the brunette in the ribs, making her squirm before she hid the physical reality that she was ticklish by passing it into her bugs. “If I took them down to the creche, I never woulda made it to see you in action. I wanted to see the show too! You’re hot when you fight.”

A muscle on Taylor’s face twitched, it could have been the beginnings of a smile or a frown. The fact that she was trying to hide it tho…

“You calling me eye candy isn’t gonna get you out of this.” The bug wielder insisted

“That a promise?”

Tay’s face went completely flat, realizing the trap she just walked into as Vicky’s eyebrows waggled.

The brunette groaned, facepalming. “I swear… I fell for a ten year old.”

Vicky snickered, leaning up to offer a kiss to the bit of cheek not covered by Tay’s hand. “I’ll stop tormenting you,” she promised, hoping it wasn’t too much of a lie. “I saw the last fight,” she mentioned, somewhat needlessly. “You’ve gotten way better.”

It's something Tay had been working on with… basically everyone who could challenge her.

Ever since all those years ago where she nearly died on that station without her bugs, she was determined to make sure that if she was ever without her bugs again, she wouldn’t be nearly so vulnerable.

Vicky would have joined her in the effort, but unlike Tay, turning off her power was… tricky. Tay didn’t ‘turn off’ her power so much as she simply shoved all the bugs away to the edge of her range and let her sparring partner fight without any ‘spies’ on him. But Fragile One turning off Vicky’s abilities simply wasn’t in the cards.

As far as she understood, it caused her partner the equivalent of physical pain to stop. So Vicky could practice other things like meditation, telekinesis, and some of the more esoteric techniques that Fragile One couldn’t ‘halp’ with, but physical combat was still a chore to practice. She’d learned Juyo and Ataru because they favored her mobility and raw power, but her form was hardly as flawless as many of the other Masters or even Knights.

She was still by far and away one of the strongest fighters in the Order, but she envied the… to put it frankly, the beauty that she could see in the best Jedi when they practiced and used their chosen fighting styles. Obi-Wan with Makashi and Soresu was poetry in motion, Little Green was a storm.

And Tay… well, call her biased but Tay was gorgeous with a sword in hand.

The brunette had been slowly working her way up the ranks of the Jedi’s most prolific combatants, including Vicky herself, using nothing but the Force. She’d become very adept at Shien, Djem-so and sprinkles of Obi-Wan’s Makashi here and there. Vicky wouldn’t soon forget the nasty little combo her girlfriend had nailed her with using a glancing saber swipe followed immediately by a solid left hook to the jaw.

They’d met Master Tapal just last year, and the massive Jedi Master had become a frequent sparring partner. As far as the rumor mill went, the Lasat could give Windu a solid run for his money. So sheer stubborn determination and bullshit levels of grit were carrying her in leaps and bounds.

It was admirable, and a bit scary to see just what Tay could do when she set her mind to it.

Vicky was hardly gonna complain, tho. She still had nightmares from time to time about not getting to her on that station before it was too late.

“Hmm,” Tay seemed to accept the change of subject for what it was, her free hand now threading fingers through Vicky’s hair, scratching at her scalp with a pleasant drag of her nails. “Tapal’s improved just as much. He seems determined to stay ahead.”

Vicky smirked. “Don’t pretend you don’t love that. With Obi and Ani hanging out in Mandalore all the time and Master Plo leading his Enclave, it's been hard finding a good practice partner.”

“It's good,” Taylor conceded with a small smile. “Frustrating, though. I almost had him. And then he got me at the last second.”

“I’ll bet,” Vicky nodded. “Still, it’ll make things all the more satisfying when you do win.”

“Hmm,” she nodded. “By the way, did you hear about Mandalore?”

That made Vicky perk up, paying a bit more attention. “No. What happened?”

“Well, not Mandalore per se, but Mandalorians,” Tay shrugged. “There were some attacks on Mandalore and surrounding space lanes. Pirates, they were wearing beskar. Plenty of Senators are calling for the Senate to sanction Mandalore itself. Alexandria’s pissed-”

“I’ll bet,” the blonde nodded, her mind churning to the political implications.

It was no secret that Alexandria and Satine were playing the equivalent of a high stakes footsie battle against the Republic Senate; the former pushing for Mandalore to rearm and be ready for any threat in the Outer Rim, including the Hutts and anyone else that might come knocking, while the latter wanted to reign them back in so they’d stop rocking the boat and pissing everyone else off.

Mandalorian raiders, be they true Mandalorians or not in order to actually get some traction in reining them in, would piss off Alexandria by a lot. A whole lot.

Honestly, she was surprised it hadn’t happened before now in retrospect. Was it because beskar was so hard to get? Or did Alexandria have such a lockdown on everything on Mandalore that the dissidents were just that far underground?

Or had maybe the Enclave been enough to push some of the dissidents into action? She knew a lot of Mandalorians had been furious at a Jedi Enclave being opened up on their world. It was a small miracle nothing had happened… probably because that Master, Fay, was the textbook definition of ‘zen’ or whatever.

Then… “Wait, is she pissed off enough to have called us in? To go there and help?”

That would be a surprise. Tay and Alexandria were cordial with each other, but both preferred to ignore the others’ existence wherever possible beyond Tay occasionally asking for some music or… well… using Vicky to ask for some music. Same difference.

Above her, Tay shook her head. “Not her. Obi-Wan. But it seems like she didn’t protest much when he suggested it, which is telling.”

Damn.

Vicky let out a low whistle, her head falling back onto Tay’s lap as her hand fished above to grasp at the brunette’s free hand and place it back on her head. “She must be pissed.”

“I imagine so,” Tay conceded. Then, to Vicky’s surprise, leaned down to place a kiss on the blonde’s lips.

Wide eyed, Vicky stared up at her. “What was that for?”

But Tay just raised an eyebrow. “Can’t I?”

The question made Vicky smile, leaning up to steal another kiss. “Absolutely.”

(X)(X)(X)

Vizsla

The celebration roared across the camp. Drinks, roasted meats, and warriors celebrating as warriors should.

This is what his people were made for.

“I suppose you’re pleased with yourself.”

Almec’s nasal voice spoke up beside him, interrupting Vizla’s own appreciation of the spectacle before him.

Pre turned to look at the old politician, reminding himself that the old codger still had a use.

“What’s not to be pleased about?” he asked, sneering as he brought the mug of tihaar to his lips. “We finally spilled blood as the Mandalorians of old did. We’ve reminded our weaker neighbors who it is that they should pay tribute to. This is just the first step.”

Almec snorted. “Drunkards and pirates. We have a greater goal than mere raids.”

“I know, old man,” Pre snarled. “We will move on our own time and not be thrown into stupid, hasty choices because you’re angry that some offworld harlot took your intended place as Kryze’s right hand.”

Almec’s features darkened, the lines of his face growing deep and hateful. It was no secret that the turncoat had been an advocate of Satine and her ‘New Mandalorians’, at least until he realized that the woman calling herself Alexandria was well and truly not going anywhere and thus, neither was his career.

“Arguing so soon?”

Both men turned towards the new voice.

“Ahh,” Pre nodded. “Vosa.”

The white haired woman marched in, looking over the celebrations far below with a neutral gaze. “Vizsla,” she greeted. “Your men seem cheerful enough.”

“We finally struck at our enemies,” he nodded. “It has been a long time coming.”

“There will be more targets soon,” she said. “My… Master will mix in unrelated targets to mask our true intent, but I’m sure you and your men will put the additional credits to good use.”

Pre nodded. “Aye.” Food, medicine, weapons, ships… all they’d need to fight a war, a real war. The war looming just on the horizon.

His heart stirred in excitement, pleased at the very thought.

It would be soon. Very, very soon.