Chapter 15 – Slave Route
Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die
Chapter 15 – Slave Route
42BBY
It was two years into Harry's and Hermione's apprenticeships had started. The pair had settled in well to Temple life, Obi-Wan had introduced them to some of his friends from his old initiate clan, a couple of them were a little standoffish at first and disliked how the pair had apparently been given preferential treatment when they heard how the pair had been admitted at such a late age, hadn't had to go through the initiative program, how they were allowed to keep most of their possessions and also had not been required to cut their hair to standard length. Thankfully once it was explained about their planet, about how most of their possessions were unique examples of Earth culture in the Republic and where aiding them in continuing their magical education and that they could not cut their hair because it would grow back, they quickly warmed to them, though Harry taking them flying on his broom around the towers of the Temple definitely made some of them more friendly, others came back terrified.
When Hermione had remembered to ask how Harry had managed to get them to be allowed to keep their hair as it was, he explained how his grew back when it was cut. She had been quite shocked as hers had never done anything like this and she quite regularly needed haircuts whereas Harry had only had the one unsuccessful hair cut in his entire life. When they looked into it they eventually had to put it down to his high midi-chlorian count and magical ability, most of the books they had brought with them were not really suited to this sort of research and those that were were buried right at the bottom of Hermione's magically enlarged trunk, some of the Librarians from the Archives had been trying to get a room set aside for all the books but they were having difficulty finding a reasonably sized room within the temple ziggurat. After finding out how Harry had done it Hermione had then gone on to chastise Harry for lying to both their Masters before Harry pointed out that he never said that Hermione's hair would grow back and he never actually lied to them, he just showed them what happened to his and neglected to correct the wrong conclusions they drew about it happening to hers too. Hermione had felt quite guilty for a while but decided after being convinced by Harry that she would only tell the Masters the truth if they directly asked her, she was very attached to her hair, and once they reached the level of knight she could do what she wanted with it anyway, she knew enough glamour charms thanks to living in the same room as Lavender and Parvati for years to keep up the appearance of her hair not changing length for a few years and for it to be cut in secret when their Masters were not around for them to get away with it.
Harry and Hermione were currently engaged in a three way sparing session with Obi-Wan while the three masters watched from the sidelines. When the pair had been engaged in the attack on Mandalore they had both been less than average swordsman for their age, now they had both caught up at least as far as Force and lightsaber use went and were on par with their peers in the Temple.
Hermione was an average swordswoman and a fair Force user ranking her somewhere in the middle of their age group, something that annoyed her immensely as she was excelling in everything else academically and was well beyond in most, even taking some classes with the older padawans. Her skill in Republic technology had enabled her to fully designed Harry's second arm complete with storage spaces for ha pair of shotos forged from Mandalorian iron and a strong directional electromagnet built into the palm to allow him to hang onto metal surface or to summon his lightsaber back to him without having to use the Force, though not as accurately obviously. In addition to this she also came up with an excellent idea to make people think that he did not have the extra storage space; after much research she figured out how to cast permanent notice-me-not charms and together Harry and Hermione cast it on his new arm, making the casual observers ignore the fact that his hand was actually skeletal and metal, but additionally she cleverly put a failsafe underneath this as droids and most Force-Sensitive's were not affected by the charm, of having the arm and wrist part of the limb get a covering of artificial skin, but deliberately left the hand bare and made it look like only his hand was artificial. When Harry queried this (as he had left his arm bare on his original, now his backup limb) she stated that if anyone was looking him up they might see his identify information and most of these list physical injuries but not necessarily the extend of the injury, when she looked him up to demonstrate her point it listed under 'distinguishing features' his scar and 'partially artificial left arm', she then went on to explain that unless someone really did some digging on him and managed to hack into his medical file, which as a Jedi was even more secure than for the average citizen, they would not know how much of his arm was flesh and how much mechanical so even if they had the mental strength to see past the charm they would not think he could have a storage compartment in his arm because as the casual observer was concerned his arm was still his as it looked like only his hand was artificial so he would have a surprise up his sleeve come a fight.
The three way sparing session was something that the Masters liked putting them through as it trained them in facing multiple opponents at the same time, they also made it harder by limiting them to using certain Lightsaber Forms so as to better train their skills in each discipline.
"Harry, Form VI."
"Obi-Wan, Form I."
"Hermione, Form II."
The three apprentice separated for a second as they readjusted themselves to the new Forms, Hermione and Obi-Wan both assuming the new ready postures while Harry flicked his long handled wooden blade made from his old Nimbus over his back, whilst taking his original primary blade in his right hand and ejecting one of his shotos (the one made of transparisteel with the clear sided hilt allowing you to see the working) from his wrist into his other. With two blades Harry became the main target of the duel though his Form was more useful at this type of combat than theirs was, as his was specifically for lightsaber versus lightsaber attacks. He could have used his long handled blade for this but only his mechanical hand had the strength to manoeuvre it without the assistance of his other arm so if he was fighting two opponents it was easier to use two of his smaller blades.
Harry was slightly bit behind the other padawans in some of the academic subjects like galactic languages and history but not by much, he easily made up for it in the way he had rapidly excelled in both flying and lightsaber combat. His flying skills had got to the stage where Jedi High Council Member Master Adi Gallia, who was easily one of the top flies in the entire Order, after hearing about his flying skills from several different sources decided to test Harry had gone out with a look that said 'right, let's show this padawan how to really fly' and challenged Harry to keep up with her whilst she flew a top of the range speeder while Harry first flew his Firebolt then the same make of speeder after him. Four hours later when they had come back the Master looking utterly drained, visibly shaking and mentally exhausted, while Harry had a huge grin pasted over his face, the like of which Hermione had not seen since the last time he won at Quidditch.
His lightsaber combat had progressed equally as far. Cin Drallig, the Jedi Temples Battlemaster who had been trained by Master Yoda himself in lightsaber combat, was taking an eager interest in him, not just because he had got skilled enough at making lightsabers to have been recruited by the Artisans to help create and repair training lightsabers for one of the initiate clans (which was a very good way of earning 'credit' with the High Council) but because he, after fighting the Battlemaster a few times in test sparing sessions to judge his lightsaber skill, although he never managed to come anywhere close to defeat the Battlemaster (he was years away from being that good or even good enough to beat his own Master), he had managed to surprise him and almost catch him off guard a few times which few his age were usually able to do, which was enough for him to earn the esteemed Battlemasters respect and as such had earned him some one on one tutelage with him which had allowed him to progress at great speed in the discipline which was rapidly marking him out as one of the best padawan swordsmen the Temple currently had. He was doing so well in fact that Aayla and the Battlemaster were discussing whether in a few years he should train him in the dangerous and controversial Form VII Vaapad lightsaber technique.
Form VII was considered very dangerous by the Jedi Order; it was created by Master Windu and required the user to use his own internal darkness and the darkness of those they were fighting during combat. It was highly taxing as it required constant use of the Force whilst in use and unlike the other Forms its moves were rapid, powerful but significantly seemingly completely random, it required the user to enjoy the fight and relish the victory of defeating ones opponent. When being faced by an opponent using Form VII it was often said that it looked as if the opponent was using many lightsabers at once because of the sheer power, speed, randomness and ferocity of the attacks. It was considered to be the most powerful Form of lightsaber combat but because of its affinity with making the user walk the line between light and dark it was very dangerous to learn.
Currently there was only two Jedi in the entire Order who had mastered the controversial Form and that was Master Windu who had created it and Knight Depa Billaba his former padawan. Grand Master Yoda and Battlemaster Cin Drallig had skill and could use the Form but were not as skilled in its use as Master Windu or is former apprentice. There had been a fifth, Jedi Master Sora Bulq who helped Master Windu develop the Form, but unfortunately the dangers of the Form hit home with the Master and he fell to the dark side. It was said that either you master Vaapad or Vaapad mastered you. Since the fall of Master Bulq no one had been taught the controversial Form and Master Windu had banned ANY and ALL instruction of it without his express permission, not least of all because he was the only Jedi in the Order who had the required skill to teach the Form to mastery. If and when Aayla and Master Drallig agreed that he should be taught it, they would have to try to convince the Master of the Order first but ever present in Aayla's mind when it was discussed was the uncontrolled fury that Harry displayed in the Graveyard.
Hermione had also earned herself the attentions of one of the more powerful Jedi in the Order (not including her Master). High Council Member Yaddle, who was the same species as Grand Master Yoda, had taken a keen interest in her and her progression and had proved to be a most useful ally for her Master when trying to talk Hermione out of some of the more crazy ideas that she came up with which she was convinced were good ideas. Harry and Coleman believed she had better success because unlike her best friend and her Master who she was comfortable around, Master Yaddle was still seen as a powerful authority figure, similar to how Professor McGonagall had been at Hogwarts except with about four hundred years more experience at teaching many padawans. She had become somewhat of a mentor for Hermione who enjoyed trying to research and study more varied Force techniques which was a subject that the old master (though barely middle aged for her species) excelled at.
"All three of you, freestyle."
This was the bit the three padawans liked the most as this was when it got interesting. In the second it was said all three Force Jumped apart; Hermione and Harry in order to get distance for their ranged attacks and Obi-Wan because he knew it was about to get much harder for him. Hermione Force Pulled her wand from the wrist holster she had constructed for herself and took aim. Harry quickly reattached his primary lightsaber to his waist, threw his second back into his wrist compartment and drew his long handled blade from his back but only igniting the blade on its shorter setting to make it more manageable, the game was on.
Hermione made the first move, launching a spell at Harry causing him to swing around his blade to deflect it in Obi-Wan's direction before retaliating, spinning his wooden lightsaber back so the blade was horizontal over his shoulder, he pointed the end of the hilt at Hermione before hitting one the extra buttons causing a blasterbolt to be fired out of the small hole in the shaped end of his old Nimbus.
Harry had seen firsthand at the Graveyard, the major weakness in a Jedi's arsenal and that was the lack of any ranged attacks other than Force Push, Pull and Throw that did not require the other party to fire on them first and was determined that he was not going to have the same weakness.
He had originally planned to place his wand in the end of his lightsaber but Hermione was not sure if that would prevent it from receiving spell instructions from his hand (although it seemed to receive them alright in his artificial arm, whether it somehow utilised the electrical network of sensors in his hand they did not know) so he had substituted it for the parts for a sports blaster (which was just a less powerful and smaller blaster often carried by nobles). What had annoyed him most was that instead of just cutting four holes in the old broom handle (as he had decided to make his long handled blade from his Nimbus as it meant he could keep more of it), one for the lightsaber power switch, one for the lightsaber power control, one for the small recharge socket and one for the wand tip (the broken end was smoothed off, hollowed out and used for the beam), he now had to cut three extra; the short barrel used the wand tip hole so that was fine but then there was the blaster trigger button, the power setting for the blaster and the larger hole for the separate blaster powerpack to fit in, he had managed to compromise though by making sure that the visible parts of the buttons and the setting controls were all made out of the wood cut from the holes and that they were only just raised above the surface so they could be adjusted without getting in the way too much.
Harry's personnel weakness had been his eyesight, as he had discovered when on a mission a year or so earlier they had been dropped and had instantly been snapped up by a quick mouthed predator who made them into his lunch. Thankfully his eyesight was still good enough for it not to have caused a problem on the mission but as soon as he got back to the Temple Aayla took him straight to the Halls of Healing and insisted that he either get a new set of glasses or he get his eyes fixed. He opted for the latter as it meant he could no longer be disabled by a simple summon spell or a careful Force Pull.
Knowing what was coming Obi-Wan easily redirected the spell and was ready for it when the blasterbolt was also deflected his way, this was a common strategy during these sparing sessions, both Harry and Hermione had learned that the easiest way to keep him at distance was to redirect each other's fire his way so he had to worry about two incoming sets of well aimed fire while they only had to worry about each other. This time though he was not having it.
Running around he came up behind Harry, making it difficult for both opponents to redirect spells or bolts his way. Swinging his lightsaber around to attack, Harry was forced to dive sideways and change his weapons again, switching back to his primary blade and firing his wand into his hand from his wrist space. He was just in time to raise a shield as both a spell and a lightsaber landed on it, thankfully for him the spell rebounded at point-blank range on Obi-Wan who was taken down by the stunner that left just the two magic users.
Turning to Hermione he rapidly countered her incoming spell with his lightsaber whilst simultaneously sending one back. What followed was a Force enhanced magical duel, with both parties firing spells whilst moving around the room rapidly with the occasional few lightsaber parries before they separated again. Both padawans magical knowledge had increased greatly in the last couple of years and they were now much more confident with a wand than they had been, each knowing that certain attacks were better against certain opponents; spells like stunners for example were not as useful against Jedi as they could be reflected by lightsabers, whereas blasting hexes could not be and detonated on contact with lightsabers or any other object.
Harry caught Hermione off guard by using a Force Pull to pull her towards him a few feet, not enough to be in striking range, but far enough to pull her off her feet and cause her to drop to the floor.
Quickly running at her Harry struck downwards, giving Hermione barely enough time to raise her yellow blade to block him, she Force Pushed him back a few feet, giving her enough time to do a backwards roll which turned into a backwards summersault as she sprang back to her feet before blocking him again with her blade and propelling herself backwards along the floor.
As he charged forward again he leapt skyward to bring his blade down on top of her, only for Hermione to leap up to meet him, raising a shield from her wand as she did so making his attack deflect off before he collided with the shield, forcing him to land awkwardly when he came back down. Harry's next move was decisive as when she then moved to strike him from above he Force Pushed her wand hand forcing her to lose her grip on the piece of wood which clattered away along the floor.
What followed was the most common conclusion to one of their sparing sessions, a short blast of ferocious lightsaber combat before one lightsaber went flying through the air and Harry's silver blade ended up at one of the others, in this case Hermione's throat.
"Good, very good," congratulated a small voice from the doorway.
"Master Yoda," replied Master Coleman as he, Qui-Gon and Aayla bowed. Harry turned off his lightsaber before copying them and helping Hermione to her feet Force Pulling her wand to her as the Grand Master's hovering chair moved towards them. "Padawan Granger, Padawan Kenobi please revive."
"Yes Master. Enervate."
Obi-Wan groaned as he came back to consciousness, cursing his fiends magic skill under his breath before jumping to his feet and bowing as he realised who was in the room with them.
"Good skill, you all show," explained the wise Master before turning to Obi-Wan. "Padawan Kenobi, understand positioning, you do well. Of multiple opponents when in front of you, good awareness you show. Improve you can, being as aware when they are behind."
"Yes Master," he acknowledged as the Master floated onto the next padawan, realising that Hermione could have easily cursed him instead of at Harry's shield, directly taking him out of the fight rather than by an accident of deflection.
"Padawan Granger, using multiple skills at once, good you are. Remember your training well, you do."
"Yes Master," she bowed. The Temple Instructors and Masters had quickly learned that pointing out Hermione weaknesses was not always a good think as she would normally go off and study whatever it was she thought she had done wrong even sometimes at the expense of eating and her own health until someone caught her doing it and stopped her, usually her Master or Harry. As such they had discovered that it was far better to just make subtle suggestions instead which she would then look into in a much less frantic way.
"Padawan Potter, for one so young, great skill you show. But believe do not, one sort of lightsaber only, one sort of fight or Form only is for. As versatile with your wand, with your lightsabers, you must become."
"Yes Master," nodded Harry as the Master floated towards their Masters.
"What can we so for you Master Yoda?" asked Master Coleman.
"You and your padawan Master Coleman, nothing at this time. Masters Jinn, Knight Secura and their padawans, in the Operations Planning Centre your presence required is," he explained before heading back out of the room with Qui-Gon and Aayla following behind.
The two padawans Force Pulled their robes to them as they waved goodbye to Hermione and chased after the others. The pair awkwardly slipped into their robes as they raced to catch up with the others.
The makeup of a Jedi's garments were pretty standardised until they reached the rank of padawan, at that point they could customise their attire to a certain degree; Obi-Wan had stayed strictly to that issued to them, not adding anything other than a few pockets inside his brown robes. Harry by contrast, had not gone for a radical change as he had once discussed with his Master, but had stuck to the same design but had changed the colour scheme to a variation of the darker style some Jedi wore. Where most Jedi wore light browns, light greys and creams, he had changed his to be a black cloak, a deep green tabard, a dark brown overtunic and a lighter brown undertunic. The only other changes he had really made where to make the hanging sleeves of his robe and tunics to be even more open so as to allow easier access to his wand holster up one sleeve and to his shotos up his other. Hermione had similarly gone for a change to the traditional colours and wore a deep brown robe, a deep red overtunic and an undertunic that was halfway between yellow and cream, Harry when he had first seen it wondered if she had subconsciously mirrored Gryffindor colours when redesigning the tunics but decided not to mention it.
The group of five rode the lift up the High Council Tower to the Operations Planning Centre, upon entering the room the padawans spent the first few seconds just looking around, not many padawans ever saw this chamber, most missions were issued in the High Council Chamber itself, this must be an important mission. The Operations Planning Centre was a high ceilinged room with a large open space in the middle of the room which descended a floor space below them and continued for a floor space above them, in this space was projected a large holomap of what appeared to be a region of the Mid and Outer Rims.
The room was not empty when they arrived, Master Windu, Master Piell and Master Koon were present, as were a few other Jedi, few of whom the padawans knew.
"Master Yoda, Master Qui-Gon, Knight Secura," Windu greeted. "Good now we can begin."
As the lift doors behind them sealed, the lights dimmed slightly to draw attention to the holomap.
"We have been getting disturbing reports of Illegal Slave Trading happening in the Mid and Outer Rims, it seems to have been started by a small group calling themselves the Guild of Zygerrian Slavers. They are using the Triellus Trade Route and the 5709-DC Shipping Lane hyperspace routes to transport slaves to Tatooine for large scale auctions of Twi'leks and Taung Mandalorians."
"Are the Hutts supporting it?" asked Qui-Gon.
"No, our sources tell us they have not heard of it yet, if they had they would almost certainly have either stopped it, taken it over or have cut a deal to allow the continued sale of slaves whilst making a profit."
"I thought the Republic usually ignored the selling of Twi'lek slaves in the Outer Rim?" interrupted Qui-Gon.
"Usually yes," replied Windu, not overly happy about being interrupted. "But this request had come from the Heads Clan on Ryloth, as you know the main currency on Ryloth is slaves which are sold by the clan chiefs, but these slaves have been acquired illegally, reports tell us that ships land, grab as many Twi'leks as they can then take off before anyone can stop them, several hundred have already been taken. There have also been reports of already sold slaves being stolen but no slave owners have reported this for obvious reasons."
Qui-Gon went to interrupt but Harry got their first.
"Is the only reason that we are looking into this Master Windu, because the clan leaders of Ryloth are not making a profit out of these slaves?"
"Padawan," said Aayla firmly in a warning tone.
"The Order might not approve of the slave trade on Ryloth Padawan Potter," replied Windu, not as angry as he might have been as he was one of the few Jedi to know all the details of Harry's past. "But it is the way things are and the Senator will not allow us to interfere with the official trade in slaves. But the Jedi Order can act in this case and we will do what we can to rescue the slaves that were wrongly taken." The Master then turned back to the room as a whole, while several of the other Jedi sent Harry disapproving looks for interrupting the Master of the Order.
"The operation will be split into several parts, the main force consisting of myself, Master Piell, Master Jinn, Knight Secura and their padawans will travel to Tatooine on a Barloz Class Medium Freighter under the guise of transporting slaves to the auction. The Guild are permitting independently gathered slaves to be admitted to the auctions as well as the ones they have captures as long as a surcharge is paid and a percentage of the profits goes to the Guild. Once we land, Master Piell and myself will hack into the auction house computers and identify all the previous buyers and sellers before slipping aboard separate Guilds ships and smuggle ourselves back to their base or bases and then to call in and the force of Jedi commanded by Master Koon to come and capture the bases. Meanwhile Master Qui-Gon is going to be in command of the freighter and its cargo of fake slaves."
"I get the feeling I am not going to like this," remarked Aayla quietly, but Windu heard.
"No, you probably won't Knight Secura. Qui-Gon will captain the ship with both yours and his padawans and a couple of Antarian Rangers as a crew. You as a Twi'lek cannot be a member of the crew as it would look suspicious. As such you will be down as a slave along with the volunteer group of other Twi'leks who will be our contribution to the auction."
Harry knew a little about the Antarian Rangers but not a lot, they were one of the few groups of the people in the galaxy who did not fear the Jedi's power. They were a paramilitary group that did everything in their power to assist the Jedi Order. They were made up of a few Force sensitive's who were too old to be trained but mostly non-Force sensitive's who admired the Jedi and their work and had dedicated their lives to doing everything in the power to assist the Jedi no matter what it took. They were just what the Jedi needed to support them on a mission like this.
"Who are the volunteers?" asked Qui-Gon.
"A few Twi'lek members of the Antarian Rangers and a few other volunteer Twi'leks from Ryloth, about twenty in all, all of whom understand the risks. Knight Secura is to be marketed as being the best among the 'slaves', hopefully that way she will be bought by the most powerful bidders. Each 'slave' will be fitted with an implanted homing beacon under their lekku that will enable the combined rescue group of Jedi, Antarian Rangers and Twi'lek volunteers to locate each 'slave' and rescue them. Each volunteer will also carry several other small transmitters under their lekku that they will be able to distribute to the other slaves and will stick to the skin, if they are in danger of being discovered they can swallow them but this is obviously a last resort. We are hoping with this operation to capture both those shipping and selling the Twi'leks and to retrieve as many of those Twi'leks already sold as possible."
"What about the Taung Mandalorians?" asked Master Piell.
"We will make every effort to rescue them as well obviously, just because we have not been asked to rescue them that does not mean that they should not be rescued."
"What is the range on the transmitters?" asked Aayla.
"The ones under the skin are bigger and can transmit about a parsec, the smaller ones they will distribute can transmit about a planetary orbit, they use body heat to recharges their on board power cells, and transmit a short signal once every three hours then shut down again. We have already have many scout droids ready deployed or ready to deploy in hundreds of star systems and hyperspace junctions as well as numerous listening posts ready to locate the slaves when they are taken."
"When do we leave?" asked Piell.
"Tomorrow morning, the volunteers have already been fitted out with slave costumes, all that remains is for Knight Secura to be fitted out with a similar costume-"
"Oh I bet I'm going to love that," she muttered.
"-and for Master Qui-Gon and the padawans to be fitted out with appropriate attire. I suggest everyone gets a good night's sleep, we leave first thing."
AUTHORS ESSAY: Thank you Towrag for the suggestion of the slave mission that our favourite Jedi are about to undertake, I had planned something originally but I could not figure out how to include it in the story but Towrag responded to my request for mission ideas and suggested a slaver related mission which allows me to add my original idea in as well, so a win-win there.
Thank you mwinter1 for the idea regarding the skin graphing over Harry's arm. I had already added something into this chapter about Hermione designing the second arm, but your suggestion gave me the idea of using the notice-me-not charm and your idea as a backup to it. I also added a bit more magic into the training session in this chapter as I realised you were right as there had not been an awful lot of magical training thus far. So thank you for that, you put that review in just in time.
Raven Marcus, as much as I like the idea of Harry as a leonopteryx (and I really do like the idea) this is a HP/SW crossover and I can't bring a creature from Avatar into it really can I?
Most of you please ignore this paragraph as its going to be said in an annoyed way and I wish I did not have to do it. This response is aimed at urfan if he is still reading which I am guessing he is probably not, but as he left me no way to reply to his review I have to hope this gets back to him. urfan, if you had continued to read beyond chapter 6, which I bet you have not done, before stating that the way I am writing my story is 'WRONG' then you would realise that Voldemort is not as you phrased it doing to be 'spamming auto-upgrades as whatever Harry is around, sees, or hears he gets to absorb' because since Harry ordered his mind he had been buried deep inside it away from the outside world. The plot is NOT totally translucent where it's going to be heading towards a big Sith lightsaber wielding Voldemort fighting Harry at the end of the story, I am planning to have Voldemort dealt with before Harry even becomes a Knight (that's a plot hint for the rest of you) so he WONT 'pwn' Sidious and every other bad guy the second he sees him and become his replacement. And to say that things that you have described that you think that I am going to do that I am NOT going to do in this fic rubs people up the wrong way is actually rather arrogant as so far I have only received reviews from two others saying this story was not for them and they were entirely different reasons and both were very polite, in fact that fact that I have 93 people with this story on favourites and 106 people receiving updates alerts kind of discredits your theory. Also to say that a work of FanFiction is 'WRONG' is wrong in itself, this is my story I can write it whatever way I like, and lastly swearing in a review is not the greatest of ideas it makes the author take you less seriously if you think you have to resort to swearing to get your point across.
Right now that's over with, sorry to everyone else, I wish you had not had to see that but even if he is not going to read that I needed to have it written down in case he ever decides to revisit a 'WRONG' story.
I have taken some liberties with canon facts in this chapter, officially Sora Bulq did not fall to the dark side until after the First Battle of Geonosis, but I wanted to have reasons for Vaapad being restricted at this stage and at this point in time there were none.
Also I have promoted Cin Drallig to Battlemaster of the Temple a few years early because we don't know who the Battlemaster was at the time and I like being able to use canon characters.
Something I was going to do in this chapter then decided against was not to have a Barloz Class Medium Freighter but to have a YT-1300 Light Freighter called the Stellar Envoy as the cargo ship, which for those of you that don't know was one of the many old names for the Millennium Falcon but I could not quite make it fit the time line and I didn't want to keep taking liberties like that for what is effectively a cameo appearance years before it should appear.
And lastly a BIG BIG thank you to all of you still reading. 118 reviews, 93 favourites and 106 story alerts is absolutely wonderful for a writer to see especially as I am only on chapter 14, so thank you again.