Chapter 5 The Contact
Standing in front of the Masters, Rachel felt her argument losing its weight, but she knew she needed to make it.
“Padawan Bakandi,” Master Zhulung greeted her, “we understand that you have a philosophy that you wish to debate with us regarding a part of the Code.”
“That’s correct,” Rachel responded.
“Proceed.”
Taking a deep breath, Rachel began, making sure to look at each Master in turn as she spoke. “The Code states that the forming of attachments is forbidden. However, what does it state about the forming of relationships? Friendships? Even the bond between Master and Padawan? Are these not encouraged on some level? Certainly, the Master-Padawan bond is a strong thing that is encouraged and is inevitable as, usually, a Master takes on a Padawan at a young age and essentially raises them as a parent would. As Younglings, we are placed in clans and it’s encouraged that we form bonds with our clanmates, and I have seen the friendships formed between Younglings, Padawans, and Jedi Knights. Why are these encouraged but outside friendships discouraged? What’s the difference? Are we trained any different in forming these friendships than we are in regards to the friendships that form inside the Temple? If so, why? It is my belief, and I challenge the philosophy, that attachments, by themselves, are not bad. The fear of losing those to whom we have formed the attachment is what is dangerous. If this distinction can be taught, I think there will be less confusion about it.”
She took a calming breath as she finished and looked back at Master Zhulung.
“An interesting outlook,” he said.
“I presume this philosophy has formed due to your friendship with the Chiss Ambassador?” Master Ywin asked.
While she felt her jaw tense, she tried not to let them see her react. “In part, yes,” she admitted. “However, I fail to see why outside relationships should be viewed in a different light than relationships formed inside the Temple. If a Padawan loses their Master, what emotions does that Padawan feel? How has he or she been trained to deal with them?”
“One would hope,” Master Sahga interjected, “that the Master has adequately trained his or her Padawan for that inevitability.”
“Be that as it may,” Rachel said, “emotions still come regardless of training.”
“Your upbringing has been unique,” Master Hetti said from behind her. “Do you think this has had an effect on your outlook on this philosophy?”
“I think it gives me a different outlook on it,” Rachel said. “I don’t think it’s either good or bad. Just different. And I think it warrants a discussion.”
“I can see your point,” Master Zev spoke up. “I think it is fair to bring this up. Friendships and bonds are encouraged here in the Temple, and yet, when a Jedi passes, we know and are taught that there is no death, there is only the Force. This same philosophy applies with others outside the Temple, though it is, perhaps, more difficult to see. As Jedi, we are taught to move past grief and not hold on to those we lose. This should also apply to those outside the Temple. I can see Padawan Bakandi’s point. Why should outside friendships and bonds be seen differently when they can be taught the same?”
There was a short silence in the room. Rachel hadn’t expected any of them to agree with her. And from the slight stirring she felt wave through the room, the others hadn’t either.
But before anyone else could raise any contradictions, Master Zhulung’s and Master Ywin’s commlinks flashed.
“Perhaps,” Master Zhulung said, looking down, “we shall have to discuss this at another time.”
“You are dismissed, Padawan,” Master Ywin said.
Taken aback, Rachel bowed and left.
That was it?
She understood that something had clearly come up, and she had made her point, but they had dismissed her without further discussion or making any kind of decision.
At least she had Master Zev’s support. For now, that was something.
She’d barely made it to her room when Master Ywin called her on her comm and told her to go to the hanger. They had a mission.
She was glad. It had been months since Rattatak, and she was running out of ways to keep herself occupied. Master Ywin drilled her in the different lightsaber forms over and over again, trying to make sure she knew each one, and the training helped her get used to how her knee had healed in those months. It still didn’t hurt, but every now and then, it reminded her that it wasn’t the same. He made sure that she could follow her chosen forms blindfolded and sleeping. He had his own way of training her, she realized. He noticed little by little how much she had learned on her own and, at first, he had begun to push her even harder, but, lately, he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her training.
Perhaps this mission would help.
“Where are we going?” she asked him, as she boarded the shuttle with him.
“Nar Shaddaa,” he said. “There is a contact there who wants to meet us about establishing better trade for medical and food supplies from the Republic.”
Another planet she never heard of. Great.
“What is it like there?”
“Nar Shaddaa is a moon in Hutt Space,” he said, as he sat down in the pilot’s seat and began firing up the engines. Rachel sat in the co-pilot’s chair and tried to take in every word. So it was a moon, not a planet, that was probably good to know. “The Hutts are not keen on the Republic, but they tolerate us. The fact that this contact is reaching out for Republic aid may not go over well with the Hutts, and so, this is risky.” He turned to her. “How has your study of Huttese come along?”
Rachel winced inwardly. “I can probably understand it all right, but please don’t ask me to speak it.”
“We’ll practice on the way,” he said curtly as the shuttle lifted off and exited the hangar. “While most beings on Nar Shaddaa speak or understand Basic, it’s a Hutt world and Huttese is the primary language.”
“Will our contact speak Basic?”
“In private, he will. But in public, he won’t.”
“If the Hutts don’t want the Republic in their space, how are we going to help our contact and his world?”
“That is the question, isn’t it?”
She looked at her Master. Did he expect her to find the answer like he had on Bandomeer? If so, she knew she’d better start thinking now.
While the nearly three-day trip was uneventful other than Master Ywin’s instruction in Huttese, and his drilling her lightsaber forms, their entry onto Nar Shaddaa was not. Obtaining clearance to land was harder than it should have been, and Master Ywin cursed himself for not thinking ahead enough to travel via a public transport. Their obvious Jedi shuttle was a clear sign of trouble.
When they did manage to land, Rachel instantly felt the eyes of every being watching them. They all knew she and her Master were Jedi, and Rachel wondered if that word would spread through the area and make their contact nervous.
“Calm yourself, Padawan,” her Master spoke next to her. “We can lose ourselves in the crowd soon enough.”
“You don’t think they’ll all know we’re Jedi?”
“Keep your hood up and your head down. You’ll blend in, and soon no one will pay attention to you.”
Rachel nodded, but she didn’t feel confident in the idea.
Besides, there was so much to look at.
She thought Coruscant was a bustling metropolis, but this was something entirely different. There were flashing lights everywhere, and while the buildings reached right up to the sky, there were booths and kiosks lining the streets and alleys, and everywhere, there were beings of every shape and size and color. And the smells! One minute she would smell a delicious food, and the next, she smelled the foulest thing she ever had, and then she would smell something so exotic that made her head spin, and then something even more foul brought her right back to the present.
She had the vague sense that they had gone in a circle, and she looked at Master Ywin whose eyes were darting between buildings and people. His sense was cautious and alert, and yet he was driven and certain. Rachel hoped she could have that kind of sureness in her missions someday. Right now, she wasn’t even sure she could find her way back to the ship.
“This way,” Master Ywin said just loud enough for her to hear before he turned abruptly down an alley where there were fewer beings, but it was still lit up just as bright.
Rachel reached out again to sense if they were still being watched, and she realized that Master Ywin had been right. No one was paying any attention to them.
The alleyway they were walking down opened up into a large plaza with several tall buildings and towers. There were tramways and bridges from building to building, and smack dab in the center of the huge plaza was a gigantic golden statue of a Hutt.
“Stay close,” Master Ywin said, and Rachel tried to ignore the twinge from her knee as she tried to keep up with his long stride as they crossed the plaza to a building on the opposite edge where a tram was exiting and beginning its climb towards a neighboring tower.
There was a being wearing a dark green hood leaning against the wall, and she had the feeling that he was watching them approach as others exited the building through the door on his left.
“Chess ko,” the man warned them standing straighter as they came closer to the door. “Pateessa.”
Master Ywin merely inclined his head as the man removed his hood. He was a middle-aged human with light brown hair contrasting his dark skin.
“Alay,” he said, as he turned and walked towards a door in the building.
He and Master Ywin talked quietly and quickly as they turned away from the doorway down an alleyway, and it was hard to keep up with what they were saying. There were a series of doors they passed, and the establishment they finally entered was what appeared to be a cantina of sorts. In one corner was a band playing an odd kind of music with instruments she had never seen before, and there were dancers of different species near different tables, and Rachel wasn’t sure they were dancing just for fun. The bar itself jutted straight out of the center of the back wall, making the far corner of the room difficult to see, but the general sense she got from the place was lively yet peaceful.
She turned her focus back to Master Ywin and who she assumed to be their contact. They had arrived at their own table, which thankfully did not have a dancer near it, and their contact switched to Basic.
“Have you thought of any solution?” his voice pleaded.
“I have one idea,” Master Ywin said, “but it involves a lot of risk, and I am not certain either side will be willing to take such chances.”
“We will do anything if it gets us the help we need.”
Master Ywin nodded. “What I am suggesting is the use of privateers—”
“Pirates!?”
“I told you it was risky,” Master Ywin’s voice remained calm but turned stern. “These privateers would be commissioned by the Republic to bring your people aid in the form of food and medical supplies. This way, the Republic is not directly responsible, the ships are not Republic and thus will not be scrutinized, and your people receive the aid they require.”
“Master,” Rachel said, “won’t the Hutts catch on to the fact that the same ship keeps coming to their planet?”
“Different privateers can be hired and at varying intervals. These worlds are the hub for such people, and the Hutts are a proud people. They won’t notice a ship here and there going to and from one of their planets amongst all the others.”
Rachel nodded but still saw the risk. Pirates were dangerous. They could easily sell out their cargo for a bigger profit or simply refuse the job altogether if the Hutts looked too closely.
“I am not sure,” the man said. “Pirates are not my first option.”
“Padawan,” Master Ywin said, “go to the bar and order three Corellian ales. I think it would help us all relax a little.”
Rachel felt her forehead crease. She hadn’t thought her Master was one for drinking, but she nodded and went to the bar.
A tall female Twilek wearing hardly anything asked her what she’d like in Huttese, and thankfully Rachel was able to understand at least that much, but she didn’t feel confident enough to answer in the same language. She placed her order and looked back toward the table she’d just left.
They appeared to be having a normal conversation, but she couldn’t hear anything over the music and general noise. She didn’t feel entirely comfortable with the fact that Master Ywin had sent her away. She couldn’t be sure from this distance, but she thought their contact became suddenly tense, and Rachel reached out to try and get a feel for his mindset, but her own mind was flooded with a strange static. It felt as though her senses were overloaded, and she turned back to the bar to place a hand on her head to try and stop it from spinning.
It was then that she noticed that someone had come and stood next to her, and she tensed. She looked over at him and saw that he appeared like a human if humans were green and had scales. He was bald except for a short black ponytail on the back of his head, and he had a sharply featured face accentuated by ridged forehead. He wore only a sheer, purple robe and loose black pants, which only drew attention to how muscular his body was, and Rachel couldn’t help but stare.
The strange man looked at her and smiled, and the strange fuzziness in her brain made it hard to breathe. He was exceedingly handsome, and she felt herself drawn to him.
He didn’t use words, but with his striking green eyes and an outstretched, clawed hand, he led her away from the bar. She briefly thought about looking back towards Master Ywin, but her brain was riddled with the strange fuzziness again, and she couldn’t break away from the exotic man whose claws gently gripped her hand as he guided her out a back door into a small alley.
“Where are we going,” Rachel asked.
“Somewhere special,” his deep, melodic voice whispered back as he continued to lead her.
They came to a doorway that didn’t seem particularly special, but he smiled back at her as he opened the door, and she felt her knees involuntarily shake as she followed him inside.
The room they entered was lavishly furnished with many ornamented green and blue couches and chairs. There were pillows and cushions across the thickly carpeted floor. Even the deep green walls looked like they could be padded.
Her senses overloaded again the instant she walked in, and she tried to look around for incense sensors or oil lamps that could be burning, but she couldn’t see any. Whatever scent she smelled, though, was irresistible.
The being who had led her there, now led her over towards one of the couches where he then ran his hand up her arm, circled behind her, and slowly removed her outer robe.
She didn’t resist. His touch was electrifying, and it was warm in the room anyway. She found that even her other clothing was making her sweat.
“While we wait for my friend,” his voice purred into her ear, his nearness making it hard to breathe, “we can make ourselves as comfortable as we would like.”
He began placing gentle kisses along Rachel's neck until he came around in front of her, tugging at the robes, and she felt herself being pushed back onto the couch before she could even protest, but she found that she didn't want to. Every part of her wanted what this alien had to offer her. Her head tilted back as he again began to ravage her neck, pulling at the tie that kept her robes in place.
Her skin felt like it was on fire, and her clothes were constricting her, making her too warm. She needed them off, and the alien wanted them off.
As she attempted to shift her position, she felt the twinging in her knee, and it snapped her mind out of the daze. It felt like a burst of cold air, but it didn’t last long as he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to him as he kissed her hard, and her brain spun. This felt right, and this felt good, and she didn’t want it to stop.
But behind them, a loud booming voice echoed through the room.
“Waki mallya kuna chu chu!”
The alien scrambled off her, and Rachel felt dizzy as she took in the large Hutt that had slithered into the room.
“Apologies, Great One,” the alien said. “I didn’t think you would be here so soon, and—”
The Hutt roared something about making himself comfortable.
“I wanted to be sure she was up to your standards,” he said with a short bow.
“Mmmmm,” the Hutt rumbled deep in his throat as he turned his glare on Rachel.
She felt the fuzziness in her brain starting to lift, and she tried to cover herself with her fallen robes.
“Kava sa she?” the Hutt said, licking his disgusting lips.
The alien looked at her with a lustful smile and hunger in his eyes, and Rachel again felt the haziness creeping back over her mind. It was coming from him. Whatever this fuzziness was was coming from him.
“Delicious,” he said.
She tried to fight off whatever the alien seemed to be doing to her. They were making some kind of deal about her, and she didn’t like it, but she couldn’t resist how alluring he was. Somewhere in her mind, she knew she should be running, but something was stopping her. Something about him. The way he looked at her made her want him. She desired him. The conversation meant nothing, and she paid no attention to what they were saying until the Hutt boomed in a loud voice.
“Nobata Bargon! Peetch Azalus!”
“I assure you,” the alien said, “it is not dangerous. The other Jedi has no idea I took her away, but the longer you argue, the greater that risk becomes.”
Rachel felt along her hip and noticed that her lightsaber was gone. The sudden panic she felt as she tried to look for it on the couch was snuffed out as the alien took a step closer to her, reaching a hand to stroke her face, and her skin tingled beneath his touch. She couldn’t remember what had been so important as she looked up into his beautiful green eyes.
“She is fiery,” he said with a smile.
The Hutt said something about restraints, but she didn’t care in that moment. All she wanted was for the alien to come back onto the couch with her.
A deal seemed to be finalized, and Rachel didn’t struggle as she felt restraints put on her wrists behind her back.
“I do apologize,” the alien said, stroking her cheek with a clawed finger. “We could have had such fun.”
In that instant, a hood was pulled over her head, and she was shoved into darkness. There was an odd odor that she had never smelled before, and she no longer felt the strange haziness clouding her mind as panic took its place.
She was in trouble. Before she could make any noise to bring attention to herself, however, she felt herself growing sleepy, and it wasn’t long before she allowed her eyes to close and collapse into someone’s arms.