anovelconsole 95
95
A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars95
Hyperspace, in transit from Nar Shaddaa to Mandalore. 33 BBY/967 GSC.
The comm chimed as the ship shuddered and set down as the droid brain flying it finished docking. I felt the immediate shift to hyperspace and tried to wrestle enough control over my libido—and attention away from the sexy woman in my lap—to answer the comms. Smacking the console, I heard it pick up.
There was a pause, then Aylin’s amused voice. “I didn’t realize you were indisposed. Should I call back later? And what you wearing? That is just .”
I blinked, pulling my lips off of Obi-Wan’s neck long enough to look at the console, where I found that in my distraction, I had smacked the button to pick up with video and not audio only. I met Aylin’s eyes and the woman stared back, looking entirely too amused and smug for my own good. “…I will bring back keel hauling just for you if this video leaks.”
The woman smiled, reaching up and miming zipping her lips. “Not a word will leak from me…” She glanced down and added, “As long as you keep that outfit for later.”
Knowing when I was beaten, I decided a tactical withdrawal was in order. A move to a new front, not a retreat. “I need a containment team sent down to the ship. Full quarantine and cleanup. Send Cindy.”
“I see. I’ll have them down ASAP.” Glancing at Obi-Wan, she asked, “Will your… friend need quarters?”
I looked between the hologram and Obi-Wan. She smirked, her hands ghosting along my sides in a way that was entirely intimate as she asked, “I don’t know. ”
“No,” I drew the word out. “It’s fine. She’ll bunk with me.”
“I see,” Aylin nodded, and that was the extent of it—no jealousy or irritation, just acknowledgement and a bit of amusement. “Should I hold all your meetings and calls?”
“Yes. Though if Qui-Gon or Master Dooku call, let me know.”
I disconnected the call and let out a sigh. Sending me an amused look, the brunette asked, “You have to schedule your time off now?”
“,” I grumbled. “And it’s only going to get worse in the near future.”
“Awe, poor thing.” In my lap, Obi grinned. “Let me help relieve some of that stress—”
Someone pounded on the main hatch and Obi twitched—annoyance and frustration rolling off of her for just a moment before she mastered herself. “That had better be important. ”
I reached out with my senses. Feeling Cindy, I sighed and grabbed Obi by the hips, easing her off my lap. “Come on. The decontamination team is here. I’ve got some spare robes we can use so we don’t have to parade around the ship in these,” I wrinkled my nose, picking at the metallic top.
“No? But I was enjoying them,” the brunette menace pouted, and I very nearly threw decorum out the airlock.
“…I have a certain image and reputation to uphold. These things are so damning it would be less politically radioactive if I just walked out naked,” I shook my head. “Unfortunately, you really shouldn’t space or even threaten to space competent workers just because they saw something inconvenient. It’s a waste of human resources. Better to just avoid it entirely.”
The pout remained as we left the cockpit and made our way back. Asajj and Arthree were waiting at the main hatch and I paused long enough to tell them, “Wait for us. It won’t take long to get changed.”
“Alright,” the blonde girl nodded as the droid beeped.
We made our way back to the sleeping quarters and quickly pulled on a couple of spare over-robes after removing the slave outfits. As we removed them, we found our eyes drawn to each other, and I had to fight to keep from picking her up and pushing her down on the bed and just locking the ship down. The heat that had cooled with Aylin’s call returned and for just a moment, my hands trembled and the muscles of my back, stomach, and core tightened in a way that felt both uncomfortable and good at the same time.
I bagged up the outfits in a sealed hazardous material container and we rejoined Asajj at the hatch. Stepping out, I saw the crew had already set up some temporary plastic sheeting to seal off the area around the and were just finishing with the portable decontamination equipment. Cindy greeted us in a sealed vacsuit as we stepped out.
“That everyone?” she asked, and I nodded. “Alright then, boss. I’ll have her scrubbed from top to bottom.” Pointing at the hazmat container, she asked, “What’s that?”
“Contaminated clothing. Please have it cleaned the next time we’re planetside and doing so won’t contaminate the ship. And do me a favor? Don’t look at the contents.”
Cindy raised an eyebrow. “Well, now I’m curious.”
“If you look, you’d better be ready to get your own,” I warned, and the blonde grinned.
“If you say so, boss lady.”
.
I put the thought out of my head and we proceeded through decontamination, where our clothes were collected and Cindy had brought a set of spare uniforms. I slipped into mine without any problems, but Obi’s was a size too small in the hips. Thankfully, it wouldn’t matter for much longer. If I had my way, we wouldn’t be wearing clothes in the next five minutes…
“So, this is a Mandalorian ship?” Obi asked, looking around the docking bay with curiosity. “Mind giving me the tour?”
“Sure,” I nodded, gesturing for her to follow as we headed for the stairs, while Asajj ran off ahead and Arthree disappeared off into the bay to do who knew what.
We got off at the deck reserved for my Padawans and I, and Obi raised an eyebrow as she spotted the strip of songsteel and kyber. “What is that?”
“I modified the ship based on what I saw at the Temple on Jedha, and some information I found in a holocron about protecting from certain types of threats,” I answered as I led her down the corridor. “This entire deck is ours. We’ve got the training room,” I opened the door and Obi poked her head in to look around.
“It looks like the adjustable rooms back on Coruscant.”
“That’s what I based it off of,” I confirmed, before moving us along to the next stop.
Obi opened the door and had a look inside, before asking, “Rec room?”
“Yes. Though I can’t say I’ve spent much time here. This is usually where the girls are, when they’re not training or with me,” I shrugged. “Not much time for holodramas or movies, and if I have spare time, I’d rather be productive with it.”
Obi made a face at that. “Still so uptight and serious. Do you never just relax and enjoy yourself?”
“…I find training, meditation, and reading to learn new skills enjoyable,” I argued, and the older girl rolled her eyes.
“Those aren’t what most people would consider , Tanya,” she sighed, shaking her head.
Humming, I nodded as we left the rec room and moved on. “We have a large training area in the lower decks where we train with the marines using blasters.” Obi started to respond and I preempted, “On training mode.”
The brunette’s eyes narrowed. “Still not leisure.”
I sent her an incredulous look. “Are you kidding? Lots of people would pay large sums of money to run through an obstacle course, shooting relatively harmless, low power blasters at each other. For fun, and sport. That is the definition of a leisure activity.”
Obi started to argue, only to stop and frown. Finally, she conceded the point. “Fine. I suppose it is.” Stopping at the next door, she opened it and looked inside. Taking in the kyber and songsteel covered walls, floors, and ceiling, she asked, “Meditation chamber?”
“Yes. Like the one with the Kyber Mirrors,” I confirmed.
Blinking, she stepped inside and frowned. “The Force feels stronger here than in the rest of the ship.”
“It’s concentrated here. Veins of kyber crystal and songsteel run through the ship and create a network for collecting the Force, almost like a living thing.” I had spent entirely too long crawling through very small, cramped spaces to get it all set up, but now that it was, it made all the effort worth it.
Nodding, she stepped out and hurried down the corridor. “The girls’ quarters,” I answered as she came to the next door.
At that, Obi turned and asked, “Where are ours?”
I closed the distance between us and dipped to scoop her into my arms. Obi squeaked as I picked her up in a bridal carry and carried her the last few feet to my quarters. Into and through my office, then into my bedroom. I reached out and slapped the locking control on the door as I passed. Obi’s interest in the tour went out the airlock as soon as her back hit the bed and our lips met again.
My grip on my pheromones remained solid, as I didn't want to contaminate the ship... again. She had long since purged the effects of exposure from herself with the Force. Which meant that the arousal and desire I felt from her were .
.
The tenuous control I’d had over my libido afforded by my death grip on the thought of getting the mission done and getting back went out the airlock. Arousal peaked again Obi gasped, her eyes going wide as I pointed it at her—beaming concentrated straight into her brain, as I decided that if I had to suffer an inhuman level of hyper arousal, she should too.
The girl beneath me reacted by latching on, wrapping her legs around my waist as she practically mauled my face. Obi’s lips left mine and found my neck, before her teeth sank in and a hot tongue ran over flesh that really shouldn’t be that sensitive. A moan escaped my lips, earning an amused, muffled chuckle from the girl and at that point I realized I have miscalculated.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
.
I chewed my space udon slowly, savoring the sweet and spicy flavor as I ate. My body felt utterly relaxed—a bit tired and a little sore, but in a good way. My mind felt clear and the pervasive arousal and sexual hunger was, at least for the moment, —though how long that remained so was entirely dependent on how long Obi’s robe stayed on.
I had known my body had certain needs, but it had been a bit of a shock to discover just how deep those ran. Or perhaps it was like a thirsty man finding an oasis and drinking until he hurts himself. I hadn’t thought I had been denying my needs, but apparently my body disagreed.
I had been reminded once again that for all that I was used to being a human, and Zeltrons looked and tended to act like humans… .
‘Near human.’ Human derived. Human . But that ‘plus’ was .
.
Across from me, Obi stretched in her seat and yawned, drawing my attention back to her robe-clad body. A body that was in bruises. Some shaped like my hands, on her wrists and throat. Some that looked like hickies, on her neck, arms, and inner thighs—and I knew there were more under that robe. Others that were white crescents which matched my teeth. And those were just the visible ones, given the way she hissed as she shifted where she sat.
Not that Obi was the only one with bruises. I had my own matching set for everything but the red rear end I’d left her with. I hadn’t seen the point in healing them yet, if only because it wasn’t practical to heal them only to get more immediately after.
Of course, that wasn’t the only thing marking up Obi’s body. The funny thing about being able to see in the UV spectrum was that certain things that wouldn’t be visible normally stood out like they were practically glowing. In this case Obi’s face, neck, hands, and practically everything I could see had traces of our activities marking her skin like body paint at a rave.
Not that it was the first time I’d seen that particular effect, but I tried to ignore it when I saw it in public, or on the ship.
“So…” Obi spoke up, looking up from her own bowl of indeterminate space Asian cuisine, delivered to my quarters by one of the ship’s stewards.
“Hm?” I hummed in question, looking up and meeting her eyes as she sent me an amused look, having caught me staring.
“…What now?” she asked, and I felt her uncertainty and a bit of worry.
I frowned. Admittedly, I didn’t have a lot of experience. As a Japanese salaryman, I had just been too busy for romance—not that I had been all that interested at the time. There was nothing really to say about my second life, in that regard. So, I turned to what I knew—examples I had seen of functioning relationships… which mostly came from media, unfortunately. Still, I didn’t think the source invalidated some of the general knowledge gleaned from those. Especially this case, as I chose what was generally considered the safe route.
“Take things slowly and see where they go.”
There, that seemed like a perfectly reasonable and logical answer. The KISS method rarely failed. There was no way that could go wrong!
As if to prove me wrong, Obi frowned. “It can’t anywhere,” she shook her head. “The Order forbids it. We can’t let things grow into more than this.”
I disagreed, but I wasn’t going to argue with her about it right now. I would have to approach anything more than a casual relationship with her as a battle of attrition. A long, slow advance and encirclement over time, until one day she looked around and couldn’t pinpoint when exactly she lost. She would only have the certainty that she had. At that point, she would have only two choices: accept it and live with it, or reject it and flee.
That is, assuming we got to that point. I wasn’t even certain I wanted to pursue her romantically. My feelings on the matter were… .
“That’s a non-issue,” I shook my head, dismissing the matter entirely for another day, after I’d had time to think it over.
“What about,” she gestured around us and I raised an eyebrow, “all of this? You’re a traitor to the Republic.” I started to retort, but she held up a hand and continued. “I know. The Confederacy believes the Republic betrayed them first. That’s not the point. I don’t care who’s right or wrong here. We’re going to be on opposite sides of the war. What happens then? What happens when you want to do something and I can’t let you, or vice verse?”
I leaned back in my seat as I considered her. “That’s a good question. I don’t have an answer for that. Only that I’m not going to fight you if I don’t have to. If for whatever reason we do have to cross sabers, I’m not going to try to kill you. However, I believe we can avoid it coming to that.”
“Fine. I don’t like it, but I suppose we won’t know until the time comes,” she murmured. “What about—”
“You’re overthinking things,” I said, fully aware of the irony in that statement given my own habit of overthinking. Thinking back, I smiled and said, “Just enjoy life while you can.”
Obi raised an eyebrow, a rueful grin coming to her lips. “How very unlike you. Usually, it would be me giving you that advice.”
“I seem to recall you did, once,” I reminded. “Sometimes, we need to hear it from someone else before we’ll take our own advice.”
Also, the rumors that I didn’t know how to relax and enjoy the moment were just as wildly exaggerated as the rumors that I didn’t have hobbies. …It’s just that my idea of relaxing and hobbies differed from that of most people.
.
“Alright. I’ll try,” Obi sighed, relaxing across from me and picking up her cup of tea, making a happy sound as she took a sip. “What do we do now?”
“Didn’t you ask that—”
“I , the situation with the slaves, the hutt, and the assassin killing Jedi,” she glared at me. “Is it over or are there others we don’t know about? The hutt said a backer within the Republic made the offer to a bunch of others. How do we know no one else took the bounty?”
Thinking it over, I shook my head, taking a sip of my own tea before answering. “I doubt it’s over, nor is this the only assassin. The worms are greedy and I doubt they’d turn down credits, even if they know they’re being used as patsies if it ever gets back to the Jedi that they’re involved. What else did you get out of it?”
Closing her eyes as she thought, Obi said, “He suspected it was a human. Male, definitely. Always wore a cloak when they spoke via holocall and always used intermediaries for everything else. The kidnapped children are gone and he didn’t know where they were taken, only that his people put them on a ship. I get his bank information. Do you think you can do anything with it?”
I hummed. “Not here. Probably not anywhere but within hutt space. Their banking system runs parallel to that of the Republic. Unlike what we did when we formed the CIS, theirs mirrors that of the Republic, keeping up to date on all of the Republic’s transfers and so on, while keeping hutt business separate unless it gets laundered first and then passes through various shell companies. That’s standard practice within Hutt space. Meaning that we couldn’t access the information from outside of hutt space. Send the details to my holomail and I’ll forward them to my people and have someone look into it.”
Obi raised an eyebrow. “Ah, that’s right. You have now,” she mused, a teasing smile coming to her face. Shaking her head, she asked, “When will we arrive and meet with Master Qui-Gon so we can interrogate the assassin?”
“A few more days,” I answered, after a bit of mental math.
“Then we have some time to kill, and there’s no point dwelling on something we can’t do anything about until we land,” Obi nodded. “I could go for some exercise that doesn’t involve being horizontal, and we should catch up.” Standing, she sent me an annoyed look. “You went over a year without contacting me. I thought you cut off contact because of the war.”
I stood as well and we headed into my bedroom to get dressed. “No. I was busy running a year long infiltration mission.”
Obi raised an eyebrow as she pulled on a set of exercise clothes issued from the ship in her size. “What sort of infiltration mission requires being out of contact for a year?”
“The kind that takes place on one of the most secure planets in the Republic,” I shrugged as I began pulling on my exercise clothes.
Blinking as she pulled her top on, Obi frowned and asked, “What did you do?”
“Why does it sound like you suspect I sabotaged the Republic or something?” I asked, sending her an incredulous look as I grabbed one of my lightsabers and tossed Obi’s to her.
“”
It’s like she thought I couldn’t just go for more mundane reasons!
Deciding I was going to enjoy proving her wrong, I answered, “I went to a school.”
Obi stared at me, doubt radiating off of her for a few seconds before she asked, “Which school?”
Heading for the door, Obi following along, I smiled. “The Naval War College at Anaxes.”
“And there it is,” she sighed, reaching up and palming her forehead as we passed through the office and left my quarters. “I knew it wouldn’t be something simple and harmless. I’ll ask again: ”
“I didn’t anything, except attend class and send Asajj to a school for children her age,” I rolled my eyes. “You make it sound like you suspect I blew up the building behind me, with the entire class and faculty inside.”
There was a moment of silence, save for the sound of our footsteps off the deck plates and the hum of the ship around us. Then, “Did you?”
“”
Admittedly, I considered it. Taking out the current crop of graduates, the current instructors, the admiralty, and blowing up the school itself would have been a devastating blow for Republic morale. It would have shown that it didn’t matter how safe they thought they were, how much security they had, we would find a way to get through it and strike at their heart.
The problem was, there were lines one shouldn’t cross. Where what common sense would dictate should be a demoralizing blow, instead . Aligns an entire populace towards a single shared purpose. A common enemy. Then, all of those people who previously either didn’t care, or felt it didn’t concern them, realized that there was no peace. No refuge. War was coming , and the only choice was to fight.
Those were the worst. The most violent. The ones who didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. The sorts of people who, when the dust was settled and everything was done, they had to update the rules of war and add several new entries under ‘war crimes.’
My people had learned that the hard way, after making what turned out to be the worst mistake for Japan over the course of World War II. I would prefer not to go down in history as this universe’s Marshal-Admiral Yamamoto—who had likely only been saved from having to salvage his honor after the end of the war via seppuku as a scapegoat by the fact that he died and was honored as a hero two years before the end of the war and Japan’s surrender.
Besides… While it was only for a short time, and ultimately we would be enemies in the coming war, I couldn’t bring myself to kill the people I had come to call my men even if it was temporary.
Of course, if the Republic Navy’s top brass twisted themselves into mental knots about whether I spared them because I had some ulterior motive or not, I would take that as a bonus. Morale was a fragile thing, and the psychological effect that visibly distrusting their own people had on everyone around those people could butterfly into wider reaching effects.
“You thought about it,” she accused.
I ignored the completely accurate accusation as we entered the exercise room. We went through some quick stretches before squaring off across from each other, igniting our lightsabers and filling the room with the familiar thrum of plasma blades.
“A quick warm up, then I want to see how you’re progressing,” I said, and Obi raised an eyebrow.
“Oh? Are you to be my teacher now~? Perhaps you expect me to call you Master?” she asked, a teasing lilt to her voice as we slowly circled each other.
“If that’s what you want. It have a nice ring to it,” I smirked, earning a laugh from the older girl.
“It wasn’t so long ago that I remember a cute, tiny,little girl begging me to teach her how to use a lightsaber. My, how quickly time passes.”
I came in with a relatively slow overhead strike, which Obi blocked and briefly locked our blades, testing our strength against each other for just a moment before we both withdrew. “I didn’t beg. I seem to recall that it was you who needed the lesson in why her Master was having her stick to the basics and I just took advantage. Two birds with one stone.”
Obi scoffed, stepping in with a horizontal swing that I caught on my own blade, fixing my stance and staying steady as she pressed, before we broke apart again. “And I have yet to move beyond the basics. How am I supposed to advance to Knighthood if I don’t?”
“There will be plenty of opportunities in the future,” I shook my head, stepping forward into a thrust that she parried as we slowly began to transition into an actual spar, even as we kept things slow to warm up.
“Says the girl who was promoted at thirteen,” she grumbled, coming in with a basic overhead strike, which I intercepted, before she quickly jerked the blade back and down, for a horizontal swipe. She eyed me then shook her head. "Still can't believe you time traveled just so you could close the age gap between us."
"That's not what happened and you know it," I rolled my eyes, blocking again, only to have the strike fade away into a diagonal strike at my shoulder. I wondered for a moment if sharing that particular secret while in transit on the to the had been a bad idea, before dismissing it. It wasn't like the method was easy to replicate, and I trusted Obi not to abuse it if she found another such temple. “Has Master Qui-Gon started your trials?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Obi shrugged, not committing to a blade lock and going for another horizontal strike. “I haven’t really done anything that would be worth calling a ‘trial.’”
Humming, as I fell into the rhythm of her strikes, as she switched back and forth between zone one and three attacks I suggested, “He could just be waiting until he’s confident that you can pass any trial he throws at you.”
“Maybe,” she murmured. Our blades flashed back and forth twice more before on the next swing, instead of going for zone one, that being my head, she went for zone six—my leg. I was so caught up in the rhythm and the Force felt so she was going to go for the head again, that I didn’t react in time—my own blade only halfway back down when she made contact.
The lightsaber thumped solidly into my thigh. Our spar came to an abrupt pause as Obi-Wan blinked, radiating surprise as the emotion crossed her face. I looked down at the blade—in training mode—touching my thigh before she pulled it back.
“First point to you,” I acknowledged and backed away to reset our positions. As I did, I chuckled, “Weren’t you just complaining about still being stuck on the basics?”
Obi frowned as she moved back into her own starting position. “Did you me…?”
“No. That was all you. But if you’re not certain you can do it again, or you believe I wasn’t giving my all since I was sticking to the basics to match you…” I shifted into the opening stance for Form II. “Let’s test that theory~.”
Obi let out a quiet, “Erk!” as she frantically made to block as I launched myself at her, going fast and hard right from the start—right at the edge of what I estimated her own speed and strength to be. If she needed to feel like she’d scraped and clawed every inch of her victory to truly feel like she won, then I’d make her fight for it every step of the way, or lose soundly.