Part 4: Mandalore ~ Chapter 2 - Setup

Renora was almost repressively tempted to ask, “The Duchess Satine Kryze?” But she knew that such an inane uttering would be an utter disrespect to every kilo of self-discipline her Master had taught her. Not to mention it would make her look stupid. So she didn’t say it. She just thought it. Repressively.

“Thank you, Duchess,” said Renora, standing and bowing slightly. Before the last juicy little piece of snippiness could fade from memory and from the tips of her vocal cords, Renora became intensely tempted to add, “Do you come here often?” It seemed as if it would be in bad taste, but that’s not why Renora didn’t vocalize her quip; the word “taste” was less than irrelevant to her. She just didn’t feel comfortable about snarking off at the deceased.

That’s when she finally decided what she was going to say. Just as the quiet whisper of the mind nearly translated itself into a vibrant utterance of the lips, Renora began to doubt that this was the right thing to say, too. At that point, she didn’t really care, so she went ahead and said it.

“Aren’t you dead?”

The Duchess laughed, short and bitter. “To most, yes. To some, not quite. To others, most certainly. To myself, only on weekdays.”

Renora decided she wasn’t half-bad, for a dead person.

“What’s the consensus, then?” asked Renora.

“Somewhere at a halfway point between dead and alive.”

“It sounds more exciting than either of the alternatives.”

“I’d rather have peace than excitement, but, yes, there are moments.”

“Do you have any details on those terrorists we’re supposed to track down?” Giddy interjected. Renora narrowed her eyes, trying to probe her Master’s consciousness without letting on that she was doing it. She detected something that her Master was hiding -- was that the right word? -- faint and muffled by the layers of the past, but she wasn’t quite certain what it was. Quickly pulling back before she could be discovered, Renora dispassionately took a sip from her cup of water to try and cover any traces of her investigation through the Force.

“Not much. I only hope it’s enough. As you know, since the creation of the Empire, Mandalore has been fragmented between peaceful bipartisan leaders, and the warlords who wish to return to our old ways.”

“Wasn’t it always like that?” asked Renora.

Satine nodded. “Your Padawan is well-read, Gidrea. Yes, it has been like that for a very long time. Before you were born, as a matter of fact.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you,” said Renora, before she could stop herself. “Duchess Satine,” she added respectfully, her face enveloped in a bright red blush.

Giddy laughed, looking as if she enjoyed watching her Padawan squirm. “Watch that mouth of yours, Padawan,” she said gently, still grinning.

“Sorry, Master,” Renora mumbled.

“What I need you two to do,” Satine said smoothly, as if the short interlude had not occurred, “is track down the mercenaries our current regime is using to terrorize the populace into voting for this new military conscription bill.”

“A conscription bill?” asked Giddy.

“Yes, with many a provision that will legalize a lot of the traditional Mandalorian practices that we’ve tried so hard to get rid of, that are destroying our society, that almost destroyed us in the past.”

“That ‘we’ve’ tried so hard to get rid of?” asked Renora. “What’s with the pronoun, Duchess? A royal ‘we?’”

“My Padawan has a thing for grammar,” chuckled Giddy.

“Nevertheless, there is a ‘we,’ and I’m not using the pronoun for any reason having to do with decorum. No, there’s a group of us, former writers, activists, journalists, and politicians, who’ve been around since the Clone Wars and who saw this coming.”

“You’ve been fighting for the same peace for the last twenty-five years,” said Renora.

“Longer. I don’t expect it to come overnight, but it will come. I know it.”

“You knew Master Kenobi!” said Renora, a sudden realization hitting her like a fly in the fan on a hot day. Then she shut her mouth, tightly. She blushed, brightly. And she cursed, lightly. “Uh, during the Clone Wars, perhaps?” she inserted, feeling very, very stupid. “Ne…negotiations?”

“Don’t you know, Padawan? She’s the Duchess Satine,” said Giddy, her expression a mixture of wry amusement and admonishment.

“Right, I know that, Master.”

“You’re right, Renora,” said Satine. “Master Kenobi and I were good friends during the Clone Wars.”

“You were?” pressed Renora, in spite of herself.

“Yes, we were.”

“Was that before he met you, Master Giddy?” asked Renora, raising her eyebrows and flashing her Master a sticky smile.

“Master Kenobi made many acquaintances when he was alive,” said Giddy, her eyes glinting with something approaching a warning.

“He was a great Jedi. So great, perhaps, that I don’t think even death can stop him from touching the hearts of those he loves.” Renora was nearly busting, but she struggled to maintain her composure.

“Do you find that amusing, my young apprentice?”

“No, Master. Do you?”

“No, Padawan. Do you, Satine?”

“No, Giddy. Should I?” she asked, her thin lips twisted in a rare moment of humor.

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe we should ask your Padawan--”

“That’s all right, Satine,” Giddy said quickly.

There was an awkward moment of silent stillness, in the large room and through the echoes of the Force.

“So,” said Renora, almost as smoothly as a trained politician, “he visits you, too, does he?”

“He did, once,” Satine sighed. “Just to tell me he was all right, but he couldn’t see me anymore.”

It was subdued by their extreme shows of self-discipline, muted through the transitory tendrils of the Force, but something, almost painfully deep, but fleeting in nature, passed between Satine and Renora’s Master. A little more than a gesture, a little less than a sigh, Renora barely noticed it, and decided she wouldn’t acknowledge its presence. But she couldn’t forget its existence. Master Kenobi had touched more lives than he cared to admit in his brief conversations with Giddy’s Padawan. And he had touched them in more than one way. Renora almost smiled at this pun, but, once again, she didn’t want to look stupid.

“The terrorists,” she said softly, “if we hit them from the top, as we’re undoubtedly planning to do, won’t the government know that there’s an opposition group?”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt that they already know that,” said Satine.

“But our job will be to make sure they can’t connect anything we do to Satine’s group.”

Renora nodded. “And how will we know if we’ve succeeded?”

“The bill doesn’t pass, lives are saved, and the mercenary group toppled,” sighed Satine.

“And live Jedi,” said Giddy.

“The only kind I like,” smirked Renora.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true
That no other Star Wars fan is as obsessed as you.

You talk to Ben Kenobi when nobody's around
You swing a wrapping paper roll and make the saber sound.

Your catalogued collection is the talk of all the street
You've got more toys and games and crap than Mr. Steve Sansweet.

You live and breathe Star Wars Galaxies, fighting for the light
You hog the couch on Friday at 9:00 at night.

You lose sleep over who shot whom, Greedo first, or Han?
You've memorized all your sourcebooks, from Atris to Zeltron.

You post on message boards all day
And then you blog the night away.

You made your own authentic Anakin scar
Your costume costs more than your car.

PT, OT, TCW, FotJ, and EU
LotF, NJO, JK, and TFU.

You wouldn't find someone more obsessed if you searched the galaxy
This is, of course, not counting and ignoring someone -- me!

Part 4: Mandalore ~ Chapter 1 - Guessing Game

“Mandalore.”

Renora regarded her Master’s features with a mixture of bemusement and intensity, trying to detect any trace of humor in that gentle smirk. Besides evidence of the normal, snarky wit that was a mere fact of life with her Master, she couldn’t locate any kind of trickery. Which was really too bad, because the last four seconds of her life were starting to make her feel depressed. Really depressed.

“That’s not really the word I like to begin my day with.”

“Since you ended your day so well yesterday, I thought I’d make up for it by ruining the start of your day today,” said Giddy, suppressing a snicker.

“Your generosity astounds me, Master.”

In truth, as far as endings go, yesterday had ended very, very, very, very well for Renora. If you had to have a conclusion to the story, that was the one to have. D’onny had continued his clumsily tactful investigation into the enigmatic premiere explosion, and was only a little infuriated when Renora told him that it had been a fake bomb that Giddy and she had put together themselves, complete with phony, dimensional, air-contact bodies that would stand up to a Level 3 DNA matchup.

“You are without doubt the best kidnapper I’ve ever heard of,” D’onny had said to her, shortly before she deposited him at the rear entrance of the same building she and Lari had snuck into.

Renora wondered whether he remembered using the same sentence only hours earlier, with one adjective replaced with something decidedly less tasteful. She didn’t care.

“It’s about time you were astounded by something other than yourself,” said Master Giddy, bringing a halt to Renora’s brief voyage into the past.

“Is it my fault I have high standards?”

“‘High standards’ here having the meaning of ‘an ego problem?’”

“A problem is in the eye of the problem.”

“And you’re my problem.”

“Good, I’m doing my job, then.”

Giddy sighed. “Do you want to hear why we’re going to Mandalore or not?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Jedi do not have prejudices, Padawan.”

“But they can have preferences.”

“Don’t let your hatred of the Mandalorian way of life cloud your judgment.”

“All right, Master. The weather forecast for my judgment is showing absolutely clear, absolutely cloudless skies,” Renora laughed.

“I’m glad you’re finding this so amusing,” said Giddy, crossing her arms.

“And that’s accurate to the twelfth decimal point.”

“Very humorous,” she said dryly, a smile twitching the corners of her lips.

“Just in case you were wondering.”

“I was. How did you know?”

“Just a hunch. Now, are you ever going to tell me why we’re going to Mandalore?”

“Suddenly, I’m not so eager.”

“Come on, Master, we’re burning daylight here.”

“Oh, you have plenty of that. Or so the weather forecaster tells me.”

“They’re always wrong, you know that.”

“But you’re always right. But you’re the forecaster. Where does that leave us?”

“At a regrettable but uninteresting impasse.”

“Uninteresting? I’m finding it very amusing.”

“Me too. I’m amused. Now tell me!”

“Say please.”

“Do I have to?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“But I won’t tell you if you don’t.”

=========================

If you were to ask Renora what she considered to be the most important thing in the entire galaxy, under normal circumstances, she would probably reply that she regarded the Force as the answer to that question. Living beings -- breathing, struggling, flawed and dangerous, beautiful and terrible -- created the Force, and the Force sustained them. It was central to her purpose and her existence, the reason she came to be, the reason she continued to live. It brought her to the galaxy, brought the galaxy to her fingertips. It created a partnership between Master and Padawan like the galaxy had never seen before, and would never see again.

The Force was the most vital, most fundamental, most essential facet of the galaxy; the Force itself, and the beings who imbued it with a wondrous power. Under normal circumstances.

These were not normal circumstances. In fact, these circumstances were quite abnormal. In these circumstances, Renora’s physical and mental states were both highly compromised. And she was enjoying it.

“I have two words,” said Renora.

“Only two?”

“Only two. Nerf. Steak.” Grinning as if that were some kind of revelation that had come to her from deep within the sonorous echoes of the Force, she viciously stabbed another forkful of the succulent meat, and shoved it, as delicately as possible, into her mouth.

“Just chew it, will you? I’d hate to be the Master whose Padawan died because she choked on a piece of nerf steak.” The rate at which Giddy was shoveling in the steak belied her words of caution.

“Chew it, Master? I’m too busy swallowing it!”

“You’re supposed to chew it before you swallow it.”

“Aww, that’s no fun.”

“It’s going to get to your stomach sometime, Padawan. Chewing it first just means it’ll take a little longer.”

“Master, this is no time for a lesson in patience.”

They acted like they hadn’t eaten in months, which they really hadn’t, unless you’re liberal enough with your words to refer to nutrient bars and protein shakes with the “food” honorific. As they ate, Renora halting the mechanical flow of fork to plate, fork to mouth, and fork to plate, only to breathe or take a gulp of chocolate blue milk, Giddy studied their lavish surroundings.

It wasn’t called Elava Palace for nothing. It was a palace, in every sense of the word. The dining hall housed an almost comically massive table, adorned with a opulent. deep blue tablecloth of Onderon spider silk. The seats of their high-backed chairs were lined with the impeccably treated, cream-hued pelt of some animal almost suspiciously soft, and a colossal, glistening chandelier, its rim bejeweled with tiny, vague mirrored surfaces, was suspended over the table, ready to fall on Giddy and Renora and kill them.

Giddy and her Padawan sat at opposite ends of the table, about fifteen meters away from one another, and as close as they could get to the room’s two exits. This wasn’t a safety precaution; this was Renora finding something funny about shouting across the room.

“So, Master,” began Renora, clearing her throat and taking a sip of milk. She noticed that the cup matched the plate, which matched the silverware, which matched the chandelier, which matched the various paintings and miscellaneous décor sported by the large room.

“Are you talking in pairs of words today, Padawan?”

“Must be this steak. Interfering with my brainwaves. And my vocabulary.”

“What a tragedy.”

“If you’re quite finished with the snippy remarks, Master…”

“I’ll never be finished with them, my young apprentice, so you might as well banish that silly though from your nerf steak-infested brainwaves.”

“Consider it banished.”

“That curiosity is going to get the better of you someday.”

“Curiosity? What curiosity? I haven’t even said anything yet!” Renora’s voice echoed in the confines of the substantial room, bouncing and tumbling until it came to a rest in Giddy’s eardrums.

“Yes, you’ve been too impatient to say anything. In too much of a hurry to get your question out of your mouth. Which is ironic, considering how fast you were trying to put something in it just a few minutes ago.”

“All right, then, my unbearably wise Master. What’s my question?”

“Nice try, Padawan, but that would be too easy. It’s your question, you ask it.”

“Fine, then. I’ll be a good Padawan and do what you tell me, as I always do.”

“Hmmm.”

“Why…uh…Why are we here?”

“What did I tell you back at the ship?”

“That we were going to speak with a Mandalorian planetary official about some terrorists that needed eradicating.”

“Former planetary official.”

“Right. And the terrorists aren’t really terrorists.”

“How so?”

“Because they’re in power. They’re basically the Mandalorian government.”

“They are the Mandalorian government, actually.”

“So who’s this mystery official? You’ve told me nothing about them at all.”

“Not true.”

“Okay, right, you did tell me something. You met this person before. You’re old friends, but haven’t been in contact in years. Until yesterday, when they contacted you for help.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Some friend,” said Renora, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I don’t know, Renora, you might like this friend.”

“I doubt it.”

“Don’t be so negative all the time.”

“Master, I told you before. I recognize my negativity, but fail to embrace the need to banish it.”

“Well, at least you’ve reduced it.”

“Significantly.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“As does my liking of this friend.”

“You can see for yourself now. I sense that they’re coming.”

Renora sensed it, too. A powerful presence, remarkable in its intensity, but laden with an infinite sadness, tinged with a resolute determination. It almost reminded Renora of her Master, but this person was not Force sensitive, and lacked Giddy’s trivial wit and almost alarming calm.

The figure entered the room on Giddy’s side, strode towards the table, and draped an arm over one of the high-backed chairs.

“Gidrea, it’s been too long. And you must be Renora. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Nothing good, I hope,” said Renora.

“She’s just as you described,” the figure chuckled. “Renora, it’s good to meet you. I’m former Duchess Satine Kryze. Welcome to Mandalore.”