Chapter Thirty Three

The moment they came out of the first jump, Harry reached out through his connection to Aayla, trying desperately to find it. He did eventually, but the distance was so great he couldn't get much out of it save a general location, which was next to useless at this range, and the fact she was physically okay.

Coming out of his mediation he shook her head, looking almost shattered, so sad Fay hugged him again, her arm around his shoulder as she looked over at Lily. "No luck?"

Gathering himself with difficulty Harry shook his head slowly. "I can feel her, but only barely, not enough to get much out of it. I think she can feel my feelings a little better, but not much at this range."

"I don't think it's a power thing, it's just we can't seem to reach that far… like we don't know how or…" He trailed off, unsure how to explain what he was feeling.

Fay smiled slightly, shaking her head. "Harry you know Force Precognition takes a lot of work to get to any useable level. But that is only a small sample of the skill needed to reach through the Force from one system to another to feel out a specific item. Your connection, consider it like a rope, tying the two of you together. Up close it is a thick rope, easily seen and usable. But at this distance it has become unraveled to a single thread, still connecting you but hard to use, and harder to find among the waves of the Unifying Force."

Shuddering lightly Harry nodded, pushing himself gently out of Fay's arms to smile up at her. "Like how you can feel where the Force wants you to go?"

"Exactly. I will teach you Harry, and I promise that you will be able to reach out and connect with Aayla in time even from this distance." Fay replied looking up at Lily once more who smiled in thanks at her.

Harry nodded as well, leaning back into the copilot's chair, shaking his head and deliberately concentrating on something else for the moment. "So, where do we go from here?"

Those first few weeks away were a trial for both Harry and Aayla. Thankfully they each had a good support structure in place to help them through it. in Aayla's case, Shaak Ti, Zule and the rest of the clan helped her immensely, never leaving her alone to brood and always there with a shoulder to cry on. In Harry's case Fay became far more touchy-feely than she normally was, touching his hair or hugging him whenever she or Lily thought he might start brooding.

Despite this personal issue, life had to continue. Since Master Fay had described how she was guided to her various missions, neither of her two companions questioned her about what they were doing, which was to the good, since it took them several small jumps to get to their next target, something that slowed them down noticeably. And overall, Master Fay was pleased how the first two missions with them went. Both of them were diplomatic missions which were Fay's forte for one thing.

The first was on the planet of the Ikotchi or rather the gas giant the Ikotchi's home planet, a moon, orbited. The conflict, which was between them and the Techno Union about mining rights, was threatening to become violent. The Techno Union of course had a huge industrial and technological base, as well as several dozen bought senators in the Senate, so if it had come to a true bargaining table, the Ikotchi would have lost. Their Senator was not well thought of, they didn't have the money or resources that their opponents had, and they were not nearly as ruthless as exploiting the bureaucratic maze of the Republic's ruling body.

Master Fay however was able to calm things down, moving them away from formally demanding a Senate hearing on this issue, and get both sides to agree that they each had points that the other could benefit from. Eventually, the Techno Union agreed to a partnership for the mining rights of certain gases from the moon, provided they used plants on the Ikotchi homeworld to refine them, providing jobs and a major monetary boost to the planet's economy. The profit wasn't nearly as great this way, but both sides still made some, which was the important thing.

Throughout this entire process Master Fay continued to teach Harry about the Force, about how it could be used in situations like this, and about politics in general. She already knew however that whatever Harry was going to be, he would not be a Consular. He was extremely charismatic in a way for a young boy, people seemed to gravitate to him, and he was extremely intelligent. But the minutiae of diplomacy held no interest for him.

Lily was much the same way to Fay's surprise. She just didn't have enough patience to hear everyone else out on any given issue if she thought they were being arrogant or willfully blind. On the other hand her ability to go anywhere unseen by anyone or anything beyond another Force sensitive was a major boon.

For Lily, the second mission was much more of an eye-opener than the first. She'd gone on a few sort-of diplomatic missions for the Order of the Phoenix, and had seen the kind of back-and-forth that politicians so loved. But the second intervention was of a different sort entirely.

Their ship had made its slow way around the Outer Rim Territories, only heading into the Mid Rim Territories a few times, and once to the Colony region to take a hyperspace lane back out and away towards Galactic North and East. Why they had gone out of their way to do this Master Fay couldn't explain, only that the Force was telling her to move in that direction. This meant several weeks cramped inside the ship, but that was fine, considering all the enhancements Fay and Lily had done to this particular ship.

The second mission turned out to be a series of pirate raids on the planet Tenaab. Tenaab was an agrarian colony, a major exporter of foodstuffs, but in no way a rich planet. It did however sit in a nexus of space that was almost cut off from trade routes, making it a target for pirates since they did not have to fear reprisals from the more advanced worlds which had their own defense forces.

In fact a raid was in progress when Master Fay's ship arrived in system. A dozen ramshackle vessels of various sizes were moving towards the planet, destroying what few defensive satellites the planet owned in their wake.

These satellites were small things, almost like stationary space fighters, armed with a single turbolaser or Quad laser and shield coupled to a very basic computer program. Only in massive numbers were they any real threat to anything larger than a single starfighter, and even then, they weren't worth much, a few Core Worlds had devised them more as an efficient way to scam money out of Outer Rim worlds than actual defenses.

"Harry, take the controls keep us heading in system on this heading, I am going to be busy for a bit." Harry jumped to obey Fay's command while she closed her eyes concentrating on her Force powers. Both of them felt it, a wave of energy emanating away from her and out throughout the entire star system, acting almost like a radar ping for a moment before finding its targets and narrowing down like sunlight through a magnifying glass.

Through the Force Fay found the minds of each of the ship's captains. Once she did, she reached inside them, shutting them down in turn, literally cutting the connection between mind and body for the moment, sending them into unconsciousness. She wouldn't keep them that way, that was beyond cruel after all, but it was a much more peaceful solution then boarding the ships would have been even if she allowed Harry to use his abilities.

None of the captains or their crew was Force sensitive. They couldn't fight back, and fell to her soft assault far more easily than they would have to any Guardian boarding their ship. Their seconds in command fell similarly, and then, as Harry guided them forward, she widened and softened her attack almost, putting dozens of pirates to sleep in the next few moments. Only one ship at the far edge of the formation was far enough away to even try to escape her unseen, unstoppable assault, and it did not succeed.

No other Jedi could have done this. No one else had the sheer mastery, the deft touch that allowed her to reach so far, touch the minds of her targets from this range. And even to Fay this was a difficult task. Sweat appeared on her forehead and her hands clenched around one another as her attack continued for several moments while Harry flew her yacht closer to the planet.

"Done," Fay said at last, wiping a weary hand over her brow. "Please contact Tenaab's government and relay it to me when you get to it Harry. Tell them to shut down their defenses for the moment, and not target this cruiser."

Fay leaned over to the navigator's console, nearly falling to the side as she did, but righted herself quickly, her strength returning slowly. She pointed at the symbol of one of the larger pirate vessels on the radar.

Harry did so, searching through the planet's communication frequencies looking for a voice that sounded as if they knew what they were doing, and were calm enough to understand that circumstances had suddenly changed. After the first few frantic signals he picked up, Harry realized this was going to be a while. "Why that ship Master?" he asked, looking over his shoulder only then realizing that Fay had gone.

He still heard her voice however as she moved through the ship towards the landing ramp. "Because you're going to dock us with it, and then I'm going aboard. I sense something different about that ship."

What she had sensed was that this ship had already taken some cargo, a cargo which made Harry's blood boil. He knew that slavery was allowed in this universe, not even just allowed but condoned in many cases, even knew the reasons behind it on Ryloth. The Twi'lek homeworld had literally nothing else to offer offworlders, it had never developed any kind of hyperspace technology or heavy industry of their own. The very nature of their world fought against it.

But to once again see slavery like this after nearly more than two years among the Jedi knowing that the Jedi didn't actually fight against the slave trade in any meaningful way was a blow. He looked at the slaves chained to the wall of the ship's cargo hold, most of whom looked as if they had been taken in raids, shaking his head.

"The Jedi don't do enough to fight this brand of evil," he said aloud, moving forward to help Master Fay free the slaves one after another. She had already retrieved the device from the ship's very limited, very crude, medical center to remove the small bombs set into each of their necks.

Fay sighed but nodded. "It's too deeply entrenched, has too many factors, and unfortunately the Jedi Order tends to look inwards at the Republic rather than out to the Outer Territories and the Hutts."

Of course even in the Core Worlds there was a certain amount of slavery, though nowhere near to the extent practiced elsewhere. That was much more personal sort of slavery, but it was still vile for all that.

"I could make it my personal quest to change that state of affairs," Harry said, his voice deadly serious, as he helped one young boy who looked about three years older than himself except for the fact that he was emaciated to his feet. Luckily for Harry's state of mind there weren't any women aboard this group, these were all laborers rather than pleasure slaves.

"I think you will find that some things are beyond even Jedi, my young padawan. Doing what you can when you run into the issue is the best you can do for the most part." Fay said, sighing again.

Harry, Master Fay and Lily were soon joined by several shuttles coming up from the planet below to take possession of the pirate ships one after another, while the pirates remained asleep. The pirates were taken down planet and summarily executed to a man. Regardless of circumstances, piracy and slave-taking were still nominally illegal, and carried the death sentence in most Republic systems save for a few, as Lily put it, bleeding heart, Core Worlds like Alderaan and Chandrilla.

The trio remained on Tenaab for a time while Master Fay did what she could to help train the locals in how to use their new ships. The largest four ships Master Fay sent to Gizer, a system somewhat further out along the Perliman Trade Route, to be retrofitted and rebuilt as system defense ships.

Of course when the Gizer's governor was told what had happened, he ordered the systems construction yards to take up the job gratis so long as they in return got a deal on food supplies from Tenaab. A nearly barren world with massive mineral resources and a thriving orbital industry, Gizer could not feed its people and needed to import most of its food.

It had deals already with a few food corporations to bring in food, ironically the same who had initially pushed Tenaab's colonization. The same companies who were too skinflint to employ a defense force or build real orbital defenses, and who had been voted out of control of the planet several years ago because of this neglect. But who still controlled a monopoly on out-system shipping to and from the planet.

It would be much cheaper to buy direct from Tenaab than work through these food corporations of course even if Gizer had to pay for the transportation, which it would at first. Master Fay negotiated a deal between the two systems to this effect, which gave Gizer what amounted to enough food for its population for two years in return for the work on the ships and the creation of enough orbital industry to service them and the transports which would now ply the space-lanes between the two planets. This would eventually evolve into mutual defense treaties and an almost equal alliance between the two systems, cutting out the greedy corporations entirely from the ongoing profit.

After several months work the agreement was in place, the planet had its first real defense, and Master Fay felt the Force calling her on.

It was only after they left Tenaab that Master Fay began to realize that for all her skill in listening to the Force, she could not match Harry's penchant for finding trouble, mostly trouble of the violent kind unfortunately.

The planet the Force called her to next was named Vena. It was a relatively high tech world situated near the Hapes cluster along the only hyperspace route into that cluster so it did a brisk business with the Hapan Shield Worlds and the rest of the Republic. Despite that, because it had been developed by ancient Hapan colonists, it was remarkably isolationist in its policies, with no other Republic companies or corporations allowed to operate within its system.

That had changed a few years ago. The pro-Republic Baron and Baroness, both of whom had been trained and educated elsewhere in the Republic, had slowly begun to open its borders to Republic companies and businesses. This brought money pouring into their own coffers.

There was a lot of pressure from the rest of the planet to stop this process, both social and economic based. It was after all only the Baron and Baroness becoming rich on this policy, not the rest of the nobility. And there really wasn't a lot that the Republic could provide that the planet itself could not at this point. Local businesses were suffering hugely, and the opposition was growing. In return, the Baron and Baroness had begun to crack down on any such often times violently according to what little news of the planet Master Fay had going in.

Moments afterthey exited hyperspace and she told the local system controllers who she was, Master Fay started to broker a meeting between the two rulers and the nominal head of their opposition. Setting it up would take days even with her Jedi powers and reputation helping the process along, there was a lot of arrogance, distrust and venom at work here. Master Fay spent a few days doing legwork with Harry, though when she finally had set up the meeting Harry had begged off of actually joining the discussion.

"What will you do instead?" Master Fay asked, looking up at him from a reader she was reading on a few of the local issues. She couldn't just give an arbitrary decision here, far too many lives would be impacted by their decisions to let any Jedi do that. And the Force, while an excellent tool to put an individual where they needed need be, wasn't so very good at providing all the information needed to do the task in front of you.

"I thought I would check out the local markets," Harry said with a shrug. "It's been a while since we've taken on food after all, and apparently Vena has some unique animals and spices."

"Trust you to look up that information when you're supposed to be helping me figure out this planet's issues," Fay said jokingly, reaching out to pull Harry's ear lightly. "I don't know about you going off on your own though," she said more seriously. "Lily, would you go with him?"

"Of course I would, but don't you need my help to spy on the locals?" Lily waved her hand to the hologram device set between the three of them in the small corner that was the sitting room of the larger training area. It showed the meeting hall that would be used for the upcoming discussion, as well as in another portion of it the image of the Baron and Baroness's palace. "I thought you were of the impression that these two would possibly try to double-cross you, and wanted to be fore-warned of any such."

"I am, but I still don't like the idea of Harry going off on his own."

"I can handle myself even if you haven't allowed me to build my lightsaber yet," Harry said with a grin that took a bit of the sting out of the words.

Master Fay didn't use a lightsaber, period, full stop. She thought of them as a useful tool for those who were inclined towards combat, but she knew herself to not be one of those, and she disliked the fact they were seen as the symbol of the Jedi when they were but the smallest portion of what truly made the Jedi who they were. But Fay knew that was not for everyone.

In fact, it was beginning to bother her a little, given that in another year Harry would reach the point in his training where he would normally start building his own lightsaber rather than use the numerous training tools they had brought along for that purpose. They had even brought along training manuals from Master Yoda and Master Saa but those were no substitute for training with the masters in person.

She knew that in his ongoing communication with Aayla she and the rest of the clan were starting to build their own lightsabers now. The two of them communicated at least once every month even now, more often if they could get away with it, but that wasn't often. And she knew Harry was beginning to feel anxious about being left behind by his friends.

Nonetheless Fay reached out to ruffle Harry's already messy hair, laughing that jab off. "How does it get so messy?" she asked, pulling her hand back and looking at Harry's hair for a moment, shaking her head with a fond smile.

She had gotten quite close to Harry over the past few months, closer than they had been on the Explorer, and Fay had come to the same conclusion on the Light side of emotions and attachments as Lily had: that fear of said was ridiculous in the extreme and the fear of those emotions turning against you no reason to shut oneself off from them in the first place. She would be hard-pressed to say if she saw him as a younger brother or a son, but the feeling she had toward him was definitely something along those lines.

"It's a Potter trait, James was the same way," Lily said with a chuckle shaking her head and smiling slightly at Fay.

Harry smiled. Despite the fact that Harry felt the man might have been a bit of a prat for most of his life, he still enjoyed hearing stories about his father occasionally, and liked the idea he shared some physical traits with his father. "Please?" he asked. "You know I can handle myself."

"I know you can handle yourself, I'm just wondering if it is the best idea to yet let any young boy your age out on his own." Fay fretted slightly. "The amount of times you younglings got into some kind of trouble or complication was quite high after all."

Harry gave her a deadpan look, and Fay rolled her eyes. "Very well you can go to the market, the five nearest to the palace mind, nothing out in the rural areas."

"Five will be more than enough to compare prices Master. After all, I'm not so interested in looking at the sights, just the foods. We can go sightseeing after you've spanked everyone and sent them to bed without any supper until they start acting like rational adults rather than greedy children."

"Not the most diplomatic way of putting it, but possibly the most accurate in some cases," Master Fay replied shaking her head with a faint laugh.

The next day, Harry spent the morning talking via Hypercom with Aayla, the girl having the entire morning off to recover from an injury to her upper thigh during lightsaber practice. She regaled Harry with tales of her training and he replied with stories of the worlds he had visited with Master Fay.

Eventually however as it always did they simply sat looking at one another for a time. Aayla spoke first, shaking her head. "I miss you. It's just not the same without you and Mistress Lily here. And for all the exercises here push my body, they don't push my imagination as much. Trying to keep from, showing off isn't easy. Though at least the rest of the clan is in the same position."

Aayla and Harry knew they shouldn't talk about the things they could do over the Hypercom. The masters on Coruscant could, if they desired, listen in on messages like this, and personal messages of this nature were frowned upon in any case. Master Yoda had given Aayla permission to send or receive these messages, but even so, there were other masters who claimed it was favoritism and might listen in. Or worse, enabling an emotional connection, which even between Jedi was against the Order's oaths despite Yoda's best efforts to slowly change opinion on the matter.

"I miss you too, a lot. But from what Master Fay passes on, Yoda still doesn't want me on Coruscant. You know I'm not good at reading the future like that, but Master Fay says it would still lead to some kind of disaster." Harry sighed then replied as he had several few times before. "You could join me out here."

"You know that's not happening just yet. The Order might be willing to let you be trained by Master Fay alone before completing your initiate years, but I'm still an initiate, and I don't have your ability." Aayla said, though she smiled as she did it.

"You have most of them though." Harry replied, though he knew that was wrong, they both did. Aayla had come along magnificently with a lot of the skills he had created with his mother's help over the years spent on the Explorer, but she wasn't close to his own level in terms of her ability to mold the Force into 'spells', and they both knew it.

Transfiguration beyond small things eluded her entirely, as did conjuration, though her shields were almost as good as his, which was one of the reasons why they had been separated in the first place. Of all the clan, only Aayla had any luck in trying to teach other younglings how to create shields, which was one of the main skills Yoda wanted to see spread throughout the Order. She also could change her skin color and even eyes, something even Harry had trouble with outside of controlling his hair for short amounts of time.

"That's nice of you to say Harry, even if it isn't true." Aayla said, her eyes locked on Harry's own for a few silent moments. After over a year separated, Harry was now able to get a bit more information out of the bond than he had before, as was Aayla, though her studies hadn't helped her as much as his with Master Fay had.

They could now feel if one another was having fun, in distress, or pain, so long as they were concentrating on the bond. But that wasn't much, not in comparison to what they had.

There was so much they wanted to say, so much Harry wanted to share with Aayla. About his ongoing training, about how much he missed her. But they couldn't, not over the Hypercom, and their ability to send information that far over their link wasn't up to it.

He suddenly laughed, though it was a more sorrowful sound than a happy one. When Aayla's image cocked its head quizzically Harry tapped his forehead meaningfully "When we meet up again in person we're going to have to spend weeks talking to really get one another up to speed."

Aayla laughed too, shaking her head. "Definitely!"

Then she blinked as Harry's smile suddenly turned into a smirk, getting a feeling if impish amusement from him through their link for a second. "And you'll have to tell me about those classes you just started taking about combating, what did Master Saa call it, 'the natural chaotic thoughts brought about by the changing of your physical body', something like that anyway. I could feel your embarrassment last week when those started."

Looking away Aayla felt her face flush. Those lessons were one on one sessions with one of the five masters on the Council of First Knowledge. The lessons were part meditation, part physical exercise, part biology lesson, and part what Lily and even Fay agreed amounted to subtle brainwashing. The Master downplayed the importance of the new thoughts and feelings even as they forced the initiate to organize his thoughts in such a way that the new urges were never given precedence, always under firm control or locked away in their minds.

They were easily the most embarrassing thing that Aayla had ever dealt with, and in a way frightening. Finding out what her breasts were supposed to be for was one thing, finding out what people might use slaves like she had been, outside of dancing, for another thing entirely.

And the master she had been assigned for them was worse, a dry, bookish elderly human woman who was among those who disapproved of the time the clan was trying her best to either wash Aayla out of the Order or to force her into the normal Order's mold. It wasn't working, but the classes were still ongoing.

"Don't make fun of me Harry please," Aayla said, shaking her head. "Those lessons are hard enough as it is."

Then she smirked, and Harry had a brief moment to feel a spurt of anticipation through their link before she turned the tables on him. "On the other hand, I think I've got a really good idea about what those pink crystals were really about. Heh… oh yes, I am definitely looking forward to our time talking."

Now it was Harry's turn to blush, breaking eye contact with the now smirking Aayla with some difficulty. "Who the bloody heck do you think features in those crystals the most huh…" he muttered, trying to push out a feeling of affection towards Aayla through their link. A lot of it was still lost due to their distance, but enough got through to reach her.

Aayla's eyes shown with amusement and a bit of happiness at that. If Lily had been in the room she would have taken one look and laughed aloud knowing that here at least the Order's brainwashing against forming attachments had never had a chance. "Good."

Then she looked to the side, sighing, her eyes losing some of the happy gleam they had whenever the two of them talked. "Look, I have to go. Look out for yourself alright Harry, we'll talk again soon." Harry nodded, and the com cut off.

Shaking his head, Harry pushed away from the communication table, determined to find something else to concentrate on rather than the gaping void by his side where his best friend should be. With that in mind he quickly left Fay's ship on his own, moving towards the nearest market shown on his map, checking the street signs occasionally to make sure he wasn't getting lost. Not that it was all that difficult to hear the sounds of the market ahead of him after a while.

That first market wasn't much to look at, but it was noisy as heck, with several thousand people all trying to squish into a few stores, with long lines and not a lot welcome or enjoyment being shown in the actual shopping. People just wanted to get their purchases and leave quickly there was no haggling, advertising or taste-testing as there should have been. Harry stood watching from the end of the street then shook his head and moved to the next one on his list.

This one was much more his kind of thing, open-air markets were always fun, and this one was very open-air. It was set into a gigantic area almost as large as an amphitheater in size, with a light purple and yellow canopy tied to large poles along one side of the area. It was rolled back now, but presumably there to cover the area in case of rain. The flags and pendants of the planet flew on poles on the opposite side from the rolled up canopy, and the entire space was filled with stalls, with hundreds of local vendors selling their wares, shouting over one another to be heard through the tumult of the crowd.

Harry moved through the crowd, sniffing occasionally, sampling here, listening to cooks explain how to cook this or that local delicacy, filing it all away in his mental cabinet marked cooking. Only occasionally did he purchase things and ordering them to be delivered to the ship later on.

He was having so much fun, that it took Harry a while to feel the change in the atmosphere of the crowd, and here the voice shouted over the hubbub. Someone was using a megaphone or something similar to be heard, but it still took a few moments for his words to register. "This is what we are, local grown, local owned! Say no to the Republic!"

As Harry zeroed in on the voice he saw a local man, his age indeterminate standing on a series of crates. He held a simple megaphone to his mouth as he exhorted the local crowd, most of whom ignored the rabble-rouser. Others simply nodded along to his words, and there was a crowd around him of around 20 people that seemed to be taking in his words avidly.

"The governor and Baroness must be removed!" The man shouted. "We cannot allow them to ruin us, cannot allow them to ruin our way of life! The Republic is well and good, but not here, not like this!"

Harry shrugged, turning away. Having looked at some of the things Master Fay was looking into for this problem he understood the man's point. He didn't know that he agreed with the man that this was the right medium for it, after all it was sort of preaching to the choir in this area. Harry hadn't seen a single product that wasn't local.

Shrugging his shoulders and deciding to leave the man to it, Harry went back to his fun for a few moments. He nodded to a group of women, of all ages including one his own age, who seems to be enjoying themselves just as much as he was. Moving up to the one who seemed in charge he asked, "Excuse me, but do you know the difference between this kind of meat and this one? I've heard about six different answers from the locals so I thought to get another perspective."

"I'm afraid not young one," the woman said, shrugging her shoulders in ignorance. "I do know that this one is quite tasty, and expensive," she said pointing to one of the meats that Harry had indicated on the tray in front of them. "While this one is an unknown to me though looks much the same."

Harry frowned thoughtfully and decided to order small supplies of both, saying aloud, "After all, I'll simply see which one tastes better myself. It's always more fun that way."

The woman, a rather fat jolly sort, chuckled while the others in her party rolled her eyes at her attitude. Most of them wore clothing that was quite a bit more formal than hers, including the young girl of around six or so by Harry's estimate who was staring at him with startlingly purple eyes, a small sneer appearing on her face as she spotted his padawan braid, which Fay had told him to grow.

Harry nodded to her, and she seems to sniff, looking away for a moment. Harry shrugged his shoulders, turning back to his work.

Then he heard another voice over the crowd. "This is an illegal gathering. By order of the Baron and Baroness, all locally grown foodstuffs must pass through Lord Vetnine's properties. This market is therefore shut down! Disburse to your homes or you will be arrested."

Harry gaped, staring towards the speaker. He was a tallish individual apparently, clad in black form fitting armor from head to toe including a helmet with a wide visor for his eyes. He had a riot shield on one arm, and around him were several other men arrayed in black clad armor and helmets and carrying stun sticks, some kind of large-barreled gun, hopefully some kind of crowd dispersal weapon.

The man's voice emanated from his helmet once more, louder than before as the crowd quieted in reply. "Disburse immediately or we will take action and disperse you ourselves."

Harry scowled and was about to move forward intent on stopping the man when someone in the crowd lobbed a piece of local fish or produce at him with surprising accuracy, the fish splattering against the officer's helmet. "No more off world influence!" shouted the man with the megaphone, and that was when it was all went to hell.

The weapons on those troopers' shoulders were shock cannons rather than blasters set on stun. The difference was that one simply sent out of stun bolt, able to knock individuals unconscious relatively painlessly. At least from the bolt itself, someone could still hurt themselves badly falling down after all. Shock cannons however were something else, area affect weapons that shot out arcs of electricity, electrocuting individuals until they fell unconscious.

In response to the attack on their commander two of the men in black lowered their cannons from their shoulders firing into the crowd, sending the crowd into shrieks of agony and pain. Then the others, around 50 men all wearing the same outfits moved forward, there stun batons swiftly smashing out at anyone in their way as they formed a shield wall.

Harry had been out range of the shock cannons, and simply stood there for a stunned moment, appalled. Then he looked on in shock as some of the locals began to fire back against the troopers. The locals however didn't have blaster weapons they had slug shooters like the guns back on Earth. Most of the bullets bounced off the attacker's armor or shields, but one man went down at a lucky shot through the faceplate.

"They've got weapons!" said the man who with the splattered facemask from where he had stepped back behind his men. Now he moved forward to join the line raising his riot shield. "Lethal Force is authorized!"

Harry had no time to wonder if this was something the group had come expecting or hoping for, or if the man had simply panicked. The end result would've been the same, a lot of dead people, and Harry wasn't about to stand for that. Reaching forward with the Force, Harry tried to push the crowd backwards away from the advancing troopers as their weapons began to fire in lethal earnest.

He tried to pull several of their weapons out of their hands, the fire going above the crowd rather than into it, but he couldn't see through the crowd all around him to concentrate on the weapons. "Get down!" he shouted, "All of you get down! I am a Jedi! Get down, and let me handle this!"

That was the first time Harry had actually called himself a Jedi in public, but he at least looked the part of a padawan, with his padawan braid, the only neat thing about his hair, and his clothing which was simple and workmanlike, complete with robe. Even so, despite amplifying his voice via the Force the crowd was in no mind to pay any attention, firing back at the police as they advanced and the crowd, killing several of the crowd now.

Abruptly Harry realized that the group of foreigners he had been talking to earlier was now near the front of the crowd facing the troopers with weapons trained on them. One of the foreigners had raised a communicator to her lips and was screaming into it frantically, while the young girl had taken up a gun and was actually firing back with a holdout blaster at the oncoming police with much more accuracy than the locals could.

That wouldn't have saved her though since she had no place to hide as the rest of the crowd retreated around them or tried to hide under stall and behind crates of food. The blaster bolts came on quickly, and Harry gritted his teeth, muttering an apology to his mum and Master Fay before he reached forward once again with Force.

A protective shield of pure Force power suddenly encompassed the entire front of the crowd, protecting first and then growing away from the girl and out towards the edges, catching all of the blaster bolts as they came. The police continued to hammer at the shield, but Harry kept it up, scowling angrily at them not even feeling the strain now he had so much practice with this technique. "I am Jedi padawan Harry Potter! Lower your weapons! This is an unlawful and unjust attack on your own citizens, lower your weapons, now!"

When they didn't, Harry, now able to see them all as the crowd around him had finally dropped to their knees gestured violently with one hand. His power lashed out, pulling their weapons, shock sticks, blasters cannons, and shield out of their hands with a single wrench of the Force. He held the weapons in the air far above their heads glaring at the troopers while he let the protective shield between the troopers and the crowd fall.

He turned to one of the locals, a big tough looking man who quickly got to his feet grinning at the youngster who had saved them all. "Take these men into custody Sir, I am, what is the term, breveting you to constable? Something like that."

"That'll do lad," the man said still smiling as he moved forward. A few of the police tried to put up a fight, but they were outnumbered heavily by the locals, and by the time reinforcements arrived, the entire market had been barricaded around the edges, and all of the troops tied up.

Harry moved out of the entrance to the market, staring at the police who had arrived along with what looked like a small tank of some kind. "Master Fay is not going to like this…"

Master Fay arrived on the scene a few moments later along with the Baron and Baroness and the local opposition leaders. Hearing what had happened both firsthand and from a lot of sources, the Baron and Baroness were forced by Master Fay to stand that their troops down ordering them back to their barracks.

"Needless to say Fay, this does not look good to me." said Fay staring at both rulers in turn. "You had promised me that your crackdown of the opposition would not escalate again into violence, yet you cannot control your own people? Or it are those orders are so ingrained that they have become blasé now? Regardless, this has gone on far enough. We will solve this issue today, this very hour."

"It is worse than that," said one of the foreigners who Harry had been talking to, while Harry manfully tried to ignore his mother, who was ruffling his hair affectionately shaking her head and saying something about Potter luck.

Master Fay of course heard Lily's voice and made a note of it. While disdaining the term luck in general, the Force might well guide Harry far more subtly than Fay's own abilities could match. Still she turned to the foreign woman looking at her quizzically. "May I ask your name?"

The woman scowled at her, looking between her and the boy who had saved them all, her scowl somewhat softening. Despite his heroism however, the boy was still a Jedi, and dislike of them was handed down almost as much is the isolationist views of the Hapes Cluster itself.

"I am Ambassador Crandall," the woman said, hesitating a moment as she looked at the little girl, whose eyes had remained fixed on Harry since the moment he revealed his powers before turning away to look at Fay and the locals a small sneer on her face. "And this attack would've seen me murdered! I was on the comlink with our embassy as the battle began to escalate and I have no doubt that by this time my government's response is on the way."

One of the Baron's hangers-on was a man wearing a helmet communicator, and he paled as something came through it. "She's right Your Highness, system security reports two Hapan Heruc-class battlecruisers and four squads of starfighters, unknown type, just jumped out of hyperspace. They are demanding to know if their ambassador is all right, and threatening to bombard the planet if they don't speak to her within the next 15 minutes!"

While Vena was a rich planet it didn't have the planetary shields that most Core worlds took for granted. Those installations were massive, expensive and time-consuming, the work of decades which consumed large portions of the most planets GDP. Outside of the Core Worlds they were somewhat rare because of this. That meant of course, that Vena was susceptible to orbital bombardment. And worse, two Hapan battlecruisers with four squadrons of starfighters outnumbered the local defenders two to one in terms of firepower and possibly in quality as well.

"Enough!" Master Fay said, gesturing to the woman. "Tell them you are well, we will escort you back to your embassy. From there we will continue our discussions."

Those discussions ended with both the Baron and Baroness being removed from power in order to stave off civil war, and shipped off-world to pay for crimes against humanity. It turned out that the crackdown on their opposition had been worse than had ever reached the Republic's ears, and with a Jedi on hand and with aid from Hapes in orbit, dozens of people came forward with evidence of that fact.

Master Fay spent three months on planet cleaning up afterwards, helping to install a new government that wouldn't be seen as a Republic puppet, which had some legitimacy in the local's eyes. Other Jedi might not have stayed to help that process along, but Master Fay was not another Jedi, she would only leave if the Force called her away or if she felt the job was done.

It would be some time before Harry learned that that little girl was not as he had thought at the time, and continued to think for years later, the ambassador's daughter. No, she was the daughter of far more august and powerful ally.