CH-34

"Weird," he said, no attempt at all on his part made to make his confusion seem believable.

He was really tempted just to chuck the Jedi out of the docking bay. Harry was actually genuinely annoyed with the way she was talking to Ahsoka, like she needed to explain the situation in it's entirety as if the younger woman was still a child.

"By the time I got back to my ship, it was just a crater," Aayla said, irritation in her voice.

When that statement hung in the air for several seconds Harry shrugged slightly and looked entirely unsympathetic as he clapped his hands, "Right. Miss Tano. You said you could do a bit of maintenance. Can you hook up a ship's computer to a spare and do a reinstall with Minnie? I think Minnie's got a backup archive from only a few days ago. I tend to run them every other hyperspace jump or so. And Dobby is not supposed to touch the ship's computers unless necessary."

Ahsoka looked surprised at the forethought before she responded promptly, "Yeah, I can do that. It'll take a few hours though."

"That's fine," Harry chuckled softly. "Dobby! Ahsoka will be fixing the computer. You're job is to get these bounty hunters clothed again. And after Minnie scans them all for bounties, toss those that are worth something in the brig, stack the rest in the corner."

"In the meantime, Minnie will interrogate each of these arsewipes, find out where their ships are and then steal them." Harry stated with an amused grin, and a tone of finality.

"Yes, Master Harry Potter!" Dobby nodded earnestly and turned to look at the pile of people. He snapped his fingers once, and the people on the top of the pile began to float off.

"Your… mechanic can use the Force too?" Ahsoka asked, managing to keep her jaw from dropping.

"You mean he can use magic," Harry said reprovingly, reminding Ahsoka once more that he thought of it completely differently than she did. "It's a little bit more complicated, but essentially the answer is yes. He is a being of magic."

"Magic?" Aayla blurted and turned to scowl at Ahsoka, "You've fallen in with a Force using bounty hunter… who thinks of the Force as magic?" Disbelief and more than a hint of condescension in her voice.

"Master Secura…" Ahsoka started only to be interrupted by Harry.

"Hey, Blue. Be quiet for a bit would you? You're pretty and all, but at the moment your ignorance is just annoying." He shook his head slightly, irritation in his voice. "And please note I'm being nice by assuming it's just ignorance. If it's not, then it's idiocy and that would mean you probably missed your calling as a dancer, or maybe bondage model for a holovid company. Intelligence not really required."

Aayla looked absolutely mortified at the accusation and couldn't even form words at the insults flung towards her. A response hadn't even formed yet in her mind when Harry began to speak again.

"So… just be quiet a bit would you?" Harry said as he flicked his finger at her. There was a slight surge of the Force, that caused Aayla to look around in confusion, but caused Ahsoka to narrow her eyes and stare at Aayla. Ahsoka knew that Harry had to have done something to the Jedi, but nothing was immediately visible.

At least until Aayla opened her mouth and began to talk back at him, but found that no sound managed to come out of her mouth. She frowned and tried several times to say something, anything. Her hands went to her throat instinctively.

Harry nodded looking satisfied and turned away to look back at his ship, only to then immediately turn back with his eyes closed. "Dobby! Believe it or not, having them hanging in the air on display actually makes the whole nudity thing worse. Give them clothes! Now!"

"Yes, Master Harry," Dobby replied distractedly, though this time there was more than a little amusement in the small being's tone. There were small whispers both audibly and within the Force as Dobby fashioned undergarments on them in mid air.

Aayla paused in the middle of touching hands to her throat as she watched with wide-eyes as the undergarments appeared out of nowhere.

"Mister Potter, I have the list of bounties for you to review," The droid spoke up from where it had remained at the open hatch on the ship.

Harry shook his head and waved off the droid. He didn't have the time nor inclination to review each one. "That's okay, just pick the most expensive ones, and the ones we can deliver to a station on Kashyyyk and share it with Dobby. Then dose 'em with Veritaserum and get me the location of their ships."

"Harry, you didn't have to silence her," said Ahsoka as she gestured at the blue Twi'lek.

Harry turned away from the sight of Dobby floating body after body quickly past the droid's ocular scanners. The two were moving quickly, and bodies were already disappearing into the ship with soft pops.

He blinked a bit when he turned back and saw the Twi'lek with one hand on her hip, the other still touching her throat in disbelief. For just a moment Harry shook his head, as he was struck by a memory of more than one of the people he knew in his life in nearly that exact same pose.

Harry quickly shook himself from the memory. "Sure I did, she was about to get on her soapbox and start proclaiming about poor backward cultures still thinking of it as 'Magic'. Since, for some reason, it's more impressive and scientific calling it 'The Force'." Harry went so far as to do quotations in the air with his fingers when he called it that.

Ahsoka blushed a bit as she remembered saying the exact same thing to Harry not long after they met.

"A name, which doesn't have any sort of 'power and subjugation' overtones at all." Harry added sarcastically as an afterthought before gesturing at the still silenced Twi'lek. "Also, while she's not as bad as you in the lying department, she's not exactly good at it either."

"Lying?" Ahsoka asked with a frown as she turned to look at the Jedi Master she had thought she could still call her friend through narrowed eyes. Aayla hadn't been part of the trial, judgement, or subsequent expulsion her from the Order.

Aayla was taken aback by the accusation and by Ahsoka's suspicious expression but was unable to formulate any sort of reply or retort while somehow unable to make a single sound.

Harry shrugged, "She was sent here for one of three reasons."

He began ticking off his fingers, "Option one, the Council of old idiots, you know, the sames ones that were going to murder you for P.R. points without anything but circumstantial proof, now wants you back. Option two, that same council wants for me to be brought in because I could make their week even worse in the court of public opinion with that holo I sent them."

"Or option three, they don't like someone who can do things with their precious 'Force' that they've never dreamed and they want to know how… likely before casting aspersions that I'm one of their big bad evil Sith boogeymen."

Harry turned his head and jerked his thumb towards Aayla, who could only stare at Harry while open-mouthed. "She's either a spy, kidnapper, or assassin."

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