Chapter 12: Tatooine
Two ships suddenly entered the Tatooine orbit, this was Connor and his new master, Plo Koon. "Padawan, here's the landing coordinates, we'll convene and see what information we can gather and see about procuring a couple of land vehicles", Plo Koon told his padawan. Connor agreed and their fighter detached from their hyperspace transport ring and flew towards the surface of Tatooine.
The ships then landed at the space port and both Connor and Plo Koon exited and stepped onto the sandy terrain. "Although this planet is mostly controlled by the Hutt cartel, the Senate was still somehow able to station an ambassador here. That should be out first stop, padawan.", Plo Koon instructed. "Yes, Master", Connor replied. Plo Koon and Connor began the slow walk towards the Republic embassy.
"I don't think I have had the privilege of examining your lightsaber just yet, young padawan", Plo Koon mentioned after about five minutes into their travel towards the embassy. "Please go ahead, master", Connor responded and handed the gold embellished black hilt to Plo Koon. Plo Koon merely stared at the hilt for a couple minutes then spoke "Impressive choice of material, durite and haysian smelt, both durable and beautiful", Plo Koon commented, "To make such an intricate design, requires some knowledge of metal working, my padawan is sure full of surprises", Plo Koon continued, "What was your inspiration for such a design?", he then asked. "Well, I'm not sure if you are aware but a few years ago I had a mishap during training and received quite a number of training shots since then the rest of my clan gave me a nickname 'fool's gold'. I decided to emboss my lightsaber with haysian smelt which is a fool's gold almost on its own and I figured the dark colored durite would compliment it well", Connor mentioned.
"That is impressive, padawan.", Plo Koon commented. "Few people at such a young age are able to embrace their past mistakes so easily", he added. "Thank you, master", Connor replied. Plo Koon then suddenly activated the lightsaber and it came to life with a "psshew". A couple of seconds later, Plo Koon deactivated the lightsaber and handed back to Connor. "Overall, a very impressive blade, padawan.", Plo Koon said. Connor thanked his master hen turned to look at the building in front of them. They had arrived at the embassy.
They made their way through the doors of the embassy where a couple of Republican guards greeted them with a salute; Plo Koon simply nodded back at them and continued his way forward.
"Jedi Master Plo Koon, it's good to see you. Did you accept a padawan?", a medium sized man greeted Plo Koon. If Connor were back on earth, he would have guessed that this man was of some sort of Asian descent but in here in this galaxy, he had no idea. "I just accepted him as a padawan before coming to Tatooine", Plo Koon explained. "Well, I am Jedi Knight Wingwei and I have been assigned as the ambassador on this dead planet.", Wingwei bluntly said. "Please, try to have an open mind, your efforts here could help to establish a legitimate government which can then be brought into the Senate.", Plo Koon explained. "Let's not talk about this any further, let's go to the assembly room where I can debrief you on the current situation", Jedi Knight Wingwei motioned towards the direction of the room.
Once all the jedi present had entered the room Wingwei began to discuss his knowledge on the capture of the diplomat. "I was tasked with escorting the convoy to meeting they had with the Hutt Cartel for negotiations concerning the current state of Tatooine. My speeder was separated from the others when a tribe of tusken raiders attacked. My speeder was disabled, and I was only able to call for help but it was too late, the convoy had long disappeared into those savages' hands. ", Wingwei finally finished. "You were lucky you the communications on your speeder were still intact", Connor interjected in. Wingwei simply nodded.
"Which direction is the site of this incident?", Plo Koon asked. "About 50 miles southeast of here", Wingwei answered. and continued, "I should be able to get you both some speeders if you want to see for yourself.", Plo Koon accepted Wingwei's suggestion and in the next 15 minutes, Both speeders had made their way to just outside the embassy.
The vehicles in question were two 74-Z speeder bikes, standard issue, these came with one with one thing in mind, speed. No firepower was equipped, and it offered very little in the way of protection. They were simply from getting someone from point A to point B as quickly as possible which suited the needs of Connor and Plo Koon just fine for now. "I hope you two will be able to solve this troubling matter swiftly", Wingwei sent the two off with a bow. Connor then turned on the speeder and along with is master made his way southeast.
The speeder bike sure earned their reputation. Connor was currently cruising at a speed of 240 MPH; at this rate they would make it to the place where the convoy had been attacked in no time. Connor could not stress enough the adrenaline he felt at this moment, the speed at which he was moving was faster than any thing he had ever ridden in his past life. He truly felt completely alive.
The Jedi had arrived at the scene of the attack and this was mad obvious by the parts of the speeder they found. "Master, these scorch marks on this speeder are most peculiar, what do you think this means?", Connor asked while staring at the current heap of scrap metal. "This means there must be more to the story then we know", Plo Koon answered. Connor nodded then as he looked into the distance, a light reflected into his eyes. 'That almost looks like a…', Connor's eyes then widen as he shouted, "Get Down!"