The Saga of Aayla Secura

[Damselbinder]

What up y'all. What follows is the first in a series of stories about Aayla Secura that I planned with fellow author Bunglebing. I wrote this story, but it was collaboratively concepted and planned. The next entry in the series will be written by him, I'll write the one after, and so on and so on. Basically this is OUR take on the character of Aayla Secura from Star Wars, so we'll be making some changes to established lore here and there regarding her personal history, the history of her race and planet, and her relationships with other characters. The world is largely as you know it outside of that, however. Enjoy - and maybe let me know your thoughts, you rascally lurkers, you.

When the Naboo Crisis happened, in the final year of the chancellorship of Finis Valorum, no-one had heard of the planet Ginlam-Beta. It was small, low in mineral yield, and while its atmosphere could support most sapients in the Galactic Republic, it was on the farthest edge of what one might consider reasonably inhabitable. Its most distinguishing feature was a series of deep canyons in its southern hemisphere, carved out by now-dry rivers. It was in these canyons that the war for Ginlam-Beta was being principally fought.


The planet had come to galactic attention the year after the Naboo Crisis. Levied with crippling fines for its blockade, the Trade Federation had been desperate to offload any assets they could to stay solvent. It just so happened that Ginlam-Beta was such an asset, and when the Dugs offered them two-thirds of what they’d originally paid for it, they agreed with little negotiation. The Dugs then - quite by chance - discovered that Ginlam-Beta was right on top of a new hyperspace lane that connected up about fifteen of the richest mid-rim worlds; the transit fees alone would earn the Dugs billions of credits every solar cycle.


As one might imagine, the Trade Federation was not best pleased. As one might imagine, the Trade Federation tried to find ways to challenge the sale legally. As one might imagine, they - and their allies in the CIS - gleefully annexed it once the Clone Wars started.


Twice before the Republic had tried to take it back. The first time they had woefully underestimated just how much the CIS wanted it. The second time had been a pyrrhic victory: defeating the CIS’ orbital defences, but leaving the Republic attack force far too depleted to invade the planet before reinforcements arrived. This third offensive, coming just as the war reached its third year, was to be the last. If the third offensive failed, it was doubtful there would be enough resources for a fourth.


War above; war below. Chaos in orbit as fighters twisted around each other; as warships lumbered slowly in a jagged, three-dimensional dance; formations on both sides crumbling under their enemy’s mutual savagery. Chaos on the ground, as Republic mobile infantry hurtled down the winding canyons, throwing themselves against column after column of skeletal battle-droids, crashing like waves on the defences of the CIS’ fortress, the source of the planetary shield that was preventing the Republic from just bombarding them from orbit. It was an ugly, messy, brutal conflict, and the most pompous of commanders would have found no glory in it.


Some of the more senior clone troopers, commanders with splashes of gold on their armour, knew what the stakes were, knew the strategic value of Ginlam-Beta. But the average grunt in the white-and-brown of the 7th legion had been given very little information at all. It wasn’t supposed that they needed it. They were clones: born to fight the Republic’s battles. Bred and trained to take orders, to kill, and to die, without question. And their commanders were mostly right. They did as they were told and they did it without question. But as their tanks were ripped asunder by mines; as brothers that they’d known since infancy were shot, burned, blasted and crushed; as their enemy marched ever onward at them no matter how many droids they destroyed - through all that conditioning and all that programming, some of them wondered if Ginlam-Beta could possibly be worth all this.


Visibility was getting poorer and poorer. Evening was drawing on, and the canyon was filled with smoke from burning tanks and gunships; dust from the trampling of the two armies, swirling endlessly around the canyon, unable to escape. The troopers’ helmets protected their eyes, but they could still barely see anything. A few of the recon boys with the fancier helmets had it a little better, but even their visibility was hardly more than a hundred metres. So no-one could see when their enemy’s general took the field. But they all heard him.


A whooping cackle booming down the canyons, shaking clone and droid alike. No words; no commands to his minions - just a shout of bloodthirsty joy. That strange, singing laughter of a Kaleesh hunter had become a source of dread for all the sons of Kamino; and many more besides. Grievous was here.


Every single trooper, from the lowliest infantryman to the most grizzled commander, felt a shiver cut right through their armour at the sound of his voice. In their barracks or their dropships they mocked him: mocked his voice; his manner; his name; mocked the man who led the CIS’ droids for being half-droid himself. It was easy to make fun, unless you were actually fighting him. Orders were bellowed for snipers to take positions, for heavy munitions to be brought out. An AT-TE - a kind of walking tank - directed its firepower away from the CIS fortifications as its gunners hunted for Grievous on their scopes.


The canyon grew quiet. The clanking of the droids’ endless advance ceased. Their blaster-fire fell silent. No gunships swooped overhead, no artillery barraged the battered 7th Legion. They were clearing the way for Grievous to have his fun, and they were chilling the hearts of the Republic army. The clones waited for more laughter. Waited for the pinpricks of blue and green light to appear in the dust.


CT-8080 (‘Fourscore’ to his chums) was probably in the best place to spot Grievous; mostly hidden by the wreckage of a CIS troop transport, on which he had perched the end of his rifle. His eyes peered down his scope, and though he was rattled to know that Grievous had taken the field, it did not overpower his training; his conditioning; his breeding. He just waited, knowing that Grievous would betray his position eventually, that the moment he ignited his weapons, Fourscore and the other snipers would hammer him. So professional was Fourscore that, when he heard the movement behind him, he realised immediately that he was already dead.


In the dust and the smoke, it looked to Fourscore as though there were a great skeleton behind him, its grisly spine unfurling as it rose above him. He saw two yellow eyes peering down at him, saw clawed fingers of long hands twirling with glee. They were empty of weapons, empty of the sign that all the clones had searched for - for he needed no weapons to kill a clone. For a moment the two just looked at each other, some relic from Fourscore’s five-year childhood making him hope that if he just didn’t move the monster that emerged from his bed would just leave him alone.
“Little man,” the monster said. “Little man grown in a pod. Born to follow orders and die, marching in formation. Reach for your gun, little pod-man. Be good sport for me, at least!”
Fourscore was glad of his helmet. It did not protect him when Grievous’ clawed foot stamped down on his head and crushed his skull. But it hid his face. Grievous did not see his terror.


The next sniper hoping for a glimpse of Grievous fared no better. But this one had a spotter, and though he too fell to Grievous without firing a shot, he at least got to his radio, and with a gurgled scream raised the hue and cry. But it was too late. Grievous erupted into the clones’ ranks, appearing like white shadow from the dust. And no longer was he unarmed.


In each skeletal hand, Grievous clasped a lightsabre, the weapon of a Jedi Knight, the virtuous, priestly guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. Grievous had stolen these weapons; plundered them from corpses of Jedi that he had killed. In his left hand the glowing, softly humming blade was blue, taken from some anonymous padawan in a battle Grievous could no longer remember. But in his right, Grievous wielded a personal treasure, an orange-bladed sabre taken from a Jedi Master. But though he coveted the orange sabre more, the blue one was every bit its equal, which Grievous proved by merrily slicing through a clone lieutenant’s neck.


Only now did Grievous’ droid legions resume their advance, and with their general sowing chaos in the Republic’s frontlines, that advance was swift and brutal. That AT-TE which had seemed such a bulwark to the men behind it came under a withering barrage of rocket-fire, and its sturdy frame buckled, bent and, finally, burned. It exploded with terrible force, killing far more clones than just those who’d been inside, and punching a decisive hole in their already collapsing lines. A column of B1-droids forced their way through, and they were well on their way to forcing a total rout.


Grievous could hardly have been happier. His enemies were driven screaming before him; his army was at his back, and every time his arm struck out, another man fell. What little resistance there was he swatted aside, what laser fire challenged him he sent right back at whoever dared to shoot. Though he had no ability in the Force, the energy which gave a jedi her power, he could move in ways no pure-organic could, and when necessary he used his sabres as twirling shields, spinning them like glowing buzzsaws to protect - or to bisect.
“Why run?!” he bellowed. “You are not men! You are things! I do not murder - I merely break! Can things know fear? Come back! I am not sated! More! MORE!!”


And then he noticed something. His eyes were one part of him that was still organic, but they were sharper than a human’s, so his vision pierced the dust and smoke. Above him, on the ridges of the canyon, he saw more clones. Another of the Republic troop-ships must have been able to punch through the blockade, to reinforce their beleaguered allies. These new troops fired down into the canyon, into the ranks at Grievous’ back, and the surprise attack immediately halted the droid’s advance as their simple brains - built and programmed by the lowest bidder - adjusted badly to the new situation.
“Bah!” Grievous shouted. “What’s a few more clones, anyway!”
But they were not clones.


Somewhere on each of these new soldiers’ clothes, someone had hastily slapped some kind of Republic regalia in a concession to some military formality, but they were not even really members of the Republic military. They were mercenaries; soldiers-for-hire out of Malastare, the Dug homeworld. Some of them were Dugs; some human; most were Rodian. They weren’t as skilled or as professional as the clones, but they were well-armed, and they knew what they were doing.


In a vacuum, the clone troopers in the canyon would probably have had mixed feelings about being rescued by such a band. They were taught to distrust outsiders, to look down on fighters that were not born for battle as they were. But these clones knew what it meant that they were here. They knew which of their generals would be leading such a force.
Grievous knew too. That’s why he was no longer laughing.


She approached him from behind. This was not an attempt at stealth: when she had scaled the canyon wall, it had been in the middle of the CIS lines, and she had been fighting her way through them ever since. For as many clones were dead at Grievous’ hand, double that for the number of droids she had slain. She stepped out of the dust, weapon drawn, eyes already fixed on her enemy. Grievous turned, and saw her, and let out a strange, rattling bellow - a Kaleesh expression of martial ambivalence. Here at last was a foe that could threaten him, and Grievous guarded his life quite jealously. But here, too, was a real fight. Here, too, was a real challenge. Here, at last, was a real Jedi, and her name was Aayla Secura.

She was vigorously beautiful. Her body was lithe, and fit. Though she had a slender, feminine build, her strength was obvious; her body always alive with the energy, the promise of motion. Her limbs were slim, but hard and tight with tone from a way of life that demanded flawless physical conditioning. Her features were intelligent, piercing, and feminine, with large, brown eyes, a fine jaw, and soft, red lips. Her skin was a cool, cerulean blue: she was a Twi’lek.


In most respects Twi’leks looked human, but for their colouring, their ears, and the ‘lekku’ that gave the race their name, two tendrils that sat atop their heads in place of hair. They could be moved, but they were not appendages - rather, they were extensions of a Twi’lek’s mind. Aayla wore hers bound with practical, brown straps, and a kind of simple headdress covering much of her forehead, and acting as a sort of chinstrap, to keep her lekku comfortable as she moved.


Indeed, all of Aayla’s clothing was practical, as it was with all Jedi. Tight, brown trousers hugging the curves of her legs and the perky firmness of her backside. A simple brown top, sleeved on only one arm, supporting her heavy, womanly bosom, a bosom which the cut of her top did not do much to hide. It left her midriff completely on show, too: proudly displaying the vigorous hardness of her abdominal muscles, the trimness of her waist, and the dramatic, feminine sweep of her hips. It was, perhaps, a somewhat more… sensuous ensemble than was typical for a Jedi. But Aayla was Twi’lek, as well as Jedi. That was…
…well, if you’d asked her about it, that would have been the only answer she could have given.


“Secura!” Grievous shouted, twirling his sabres. “The general without an army!” He advanced on her, impressing on her the crushing power of his limbs with every step.
“Funny,” Aayla replied. “Doesn’t seem like you've much of an army either.” Between her mercenary company, the restored spirits of the clones, and Aayla’s own efforts, his contingent of droids had been reduced to double digits.
“Pah!” Grievous gave another whooping, ululating laugh. “If I lose this battle - if I lose this planet - it matters little to me… as long as I kill you.”
“My my, General, with strategic thinking like that, I simply cannot imagine why the CIS isn’t already running the galaxy.”
If Grievous had a wittier retort, Aayla wouldn’t get to hear it, because he snarled at her in Kaleesh, and then charged.


The first lesson of a Jedi, the first lesson of any who would attune themselves to the Force, was awareness. Awareness of body: the means through which a Jedi’s spirit entwined with the world of the Living Force. Awareness of mind: of your own fears, your own excitement, your own confusion - awareness of your own awareness, and all its rippling consequences. Awareness of the living world about you: for Aayla, now, this was the rock beneath her, and around her; the dry air; the shadow of water that had once flowed here; the absence of life; and not to resent that life had been and gone, not to wish for it to be more beautiful or in any way other than what it was: simply to see it, acknowledge it, and pass on. Awareness of all that formed part of the moment that you occupied. From awareness came understanding, even if incomplete. And from understanding - response.


Aayla lifted her lightsabre, its blade a cool, deep blue. If you had never held a lightsabre, it would not be possible to understand the power that lay within it. To wield a lightsabre without feeling the force flow through you was all but impossible. Without a Jedi’s heightened awareness it was extremely dangerous; for a lightsabre’s blade had no counterweight to its hilt, and the slightest wrong movement could make the wielder cut herself apart. Even if you accommodated for that, if you were not attuned to the energies that poured forth from the emitter every moment, it would be like trying to wield a starship’s thruster as a weapon. Grievous, who had been given the strength and precision of the machine in exchange for three-quarters of his body, was a rare exception. And even then - there were things he simply could not do.


Their blades hardly clashed. For only an instant was there that unmistakable, crackling hiss as two sabres met, so that it hardly looked as if Aayla had done anything at all, that Grievous had just missed. With mechanical exactness Grievous’ arrested his arm’s momentum, then with both arms swiped inward to cut Aayla in half. But she was no longer there to be cut. From a standing start, she had vaulted over Grievous’ head. And as she leaped, she struck, leaving a deep gash in Grievous’ right shoulder.


“Yaaa-de-de-de-de!!” Grievous chattered, spinning his waist around 180 degrees, slashing with both blades at empty air. When these blows missed as well, he locked his neck and his waist into place, and begin rotating his torso relative to them, spinning it faster and faster and faster until his two blades were a blur that even Aayla’s eye struggled to follow.
But she did not watch his blades.


The Force was a path to many abilities. There were Jedi that could read your inmost thoughts, could tell you what you felt or what you wished long before you knew yourself. Certainly, any Jedi - Aayla included - could feel enough of Grievous’ mind to sense his hostility, his braggart’s pride, and his overflowing malice. More than that, however… Aayla could not see. Not with the Force. Others’ minds were not open to her as they were to her comrades. Yet she read Grievous all the same. Her clairvoyance could not tell her when Grievous was about to strike - but his eyes could. At the last moment, at the very last instant before he struck, the inner corners of his eyes tensed.


He lunged forward. He moved so quickly, and with such violence, that had Aayla not been able to read him, even her Jedi reflexes would not have saved her. But both blades passed either side of Aayla’s body, and she struck at his right arm - severing it at the elbow.
“AGGHHH!!” Grievous cried, in humiliated fury, as his limb and his favourite prize fell away from him together. “Jedi scum!”
“Oh dear,” Aayla said. “Did I cut your wit from you as well as your arm?”


At this Grievous gave a savage roar, and closed in again. Artlessly, wildly, he swung at Aayla with his remaining sabre. This was the first time their weapons had met directly, and Aayla was astonished by the sheer force Grievous had at his command, even with only one arm. Sparks flew as their blades met, Aayla’s skill and agility keeping her from the full measure of his wrath.


At one moment, though, he did surprise her. During a swing at her midsection, his right arm split into two down the middle. As the upper half continued the blow, the lower half reached back to Grievous’ cloak, and drew a third sabre from it. As Aayla parried the first blow, this new arm ignited its weapon in a flash of green, and stabbed right at her. Yet this, too, Aayla blocked, the Force flowing through her arms, strengthening them to match Grievous. She struck back, cutting a deep channel through one of his hips. He retaliated, but Aayla danced between his swords. But his swords were not all he had; and with the stump of his severed arm, Grievous struck her in the side.


“AUGHH!”
Aayla’s slim body was sent flying. She landed hard on bare rock, leaving tears on her trousers, and dust all over her skin. She was dazed, too, for when she had landed, one of her lekku had been under her back when she fell. It contained enough neural tissue that the blow was disorienting, and dizzying. By the time she had restored herself, and climbed back to her feet, Grievous’ massive frame was already looming over her, and his sabres were already cutting through the air at her. She dodged them, but she was still slower than she should have been, and he kicked her, square in the midriff, sending her rolling and sprawling over the ground, clutching her stomach in pain. He leapt at her again, and from this attack she would not get away with mere bruises. She had only one response. She had only one choice.


“Unhh!”
There was no subtlety in what Aayla did next. Stillness and focus, of a sort, but no grace. Aayla summoned up the Living Force within herself, and with a wave of her hand, directed it as a weapon - a bludgeon - against her enemy. There was an audible ripple as the energy discharged itself into Grievous’ centre-mass, distorting the air around it, and pushing Grievous back.


But not that far back. The steel claws of Grievous’ feet dug into the stone, preventing him from being pushed more than two metres. When the energy was spent, he looked, at worst, inconvenienced.
“Was that all? Was that all the energy you could muster, Jedi?”
Aayla did not answer.
“I barely felt it! Your… sorcery is the one advantage you have, but I’ve taken blows from padawans that had more kick than that!”
Again, Ayla said nothing. She just reached out, with an open palm in a silent threat.
“Bah! What are you going to do? Nudge me again?” He made a strange sound; a lyrical, complex insult in his own language; wordless mockery to Aayla’s ears. This time, she deigned to answer.
“No, General. I’m not going to nudge you. I’m not going to do anything to you at all.”


There was that same quiet ripple as she discharged the Force from her body. She had not lied: Grievous felt no attack against him. But his cybernetically enhanced hearing picked something up - something behind him. He stepped out of the way just as it would have hit him, and it was moving too quickly for him to see what it was. But it stopped in Aayla’s left hand.
“Come then, General,” she said, and ignited the lightsabre she had snatched from his severed hand. Its orange blade illuminated her face. It illuminated her smile.


“That is mine!!” Gripped by thoughtless avarice, Grievous charged, covering the distance between them with two mighty strides, his claws tearing great chunks out of the rock as he leapt at her. He spun his two hands like buzzsaws, intending to cut Aayla into so many pieces that her superiors wouldn’t be sure she had ever been on Ginlam-Beta at all.


But his wrath blinded him. As he went for the kill, Aayla melted from his grasp like mercury. With her own sabre she sliced off one of Grievous’ feet. With the one she’d taken from Grievous, she carved deep into his back. He roared in pain, and when he tried to turn to attack, a rain of sparks flew out of the gash Aayla had cut, and parts of his cybernetic body seized up. But he was still standing, and with fury in his eyes he raised his weapons. And then he looked up.


Above the two warriors, though the battle in Ginlam-Beta’s skies still raged, the tide had turned in the Republic’s favour. And that tide would not be reversed: the Providence-class Neimoidia’s Spear was in flames, and it was hurtling towards the planet. It would land a hundred miles away from where Aayla and Grievous fought, but it seemed to be bearing down straight at them. The sight of his command ship burning and the agony in his body were enough to convince Grievous that the situation had taken a turn not necessarily to his advantage.
“Enjoy your petty victory, Secura,” he spat. “One day - one day I swear I will stand atop the ruin of your temple - with you dead at my feet!”
“There are quite a few steps between that lovely dream and where you are now, no?” Aayla replied. “For starters… who says you’ll be leaving this battlefield at all?”
“Don’t push your luck! I’m sparing you this time - and be glad that I am!”


Aayla was ready to engage him again; but the will of the Force was ever strange. At that moment, responding to its master’s urgent summons, one of the CIS’ droid fighters ducked into the canyon, the whine of its engines alerting Aayla to its presence only just before it opened fire. As she leapt for cover, Grievous leapt for the droid, magnetising his remaining foot to its anterior surface, cackling as it bore him to safety.
“Until next time, Jedi scum!” he shouted.
“Until next time, cackling lunatic,” Aayla muttered.


The battle for Ginlam-Beta was not yet over. The CIS navy was not yet utterly routed, and neighbouring canyons were still being fought over by ground troops. But it would have taken a spectacular reversal of fortune for the Republic to lose now. Besides that, Aayla was tired, bruised, and injured and so, nursing the half-victory she had won over General Grievous, she found the most comfortable looking rock within a reasonable distance from her, and sat down.


She got about two-and-a-half minutes to breathe before the war found her again. Three clone troopers came upon her; two lieutenants and a major, distinct by the red livery of his armour.
“General Secura,” he said, snapping to attention. He sounded surprised to find her, and his men hesitated slightly before matching their superior’s salute. She did not match their gesture, though, and she gave them a strange, long look. Had they known her better, they would have seen a sort of wall go up.
“At ease, major.” Wait. Three stripes on his shoulder, not four. “Oh sorry: at ease, captain. Unless you’d like a promotion?” she added, with a sly half smile.
The captain, who had spent his entire life in the company of his batch-brothers and the inhuman Kaminoans, noticed that he was being smiled at by a beautiful Twi’lek woman, a beautiful Twi’lek woman who was breathing hard and glistening with sweat. He took a moment to gather his composure.


“Ma’am; the planetary shield facility has been seized. The remaining CIS forces on the ground are completely routed. It’s just a cleanup operation now.”
“Superb. What about in orbit?”
“Last report from the High Adventure was that the CIS formations are in shambles, but…”
“But they’re not surrendering.” Aayla looked up. She closed her eyes, and tried to sense what she could of the battle above them. Had the ships just been parked above the planet, Aayla probably wouldn’t have been able to sense a thing; but death - violent death - was ‘bright’, like good contrast-dye for a medical scan. It helped her to pick out details she’d otherwise have been blind to. Even so, she came away with the vaguest of impressions.
“I… think they know they can’t win. They’re not trying to defeat us anymore. They’re trying to make this victory as bitter for us as possible. Ah-?” She sensed something; a bright ‘flash’ as Living Force sublimed violently into Cosmic Force. In an instant, hundreds had died.


Just before Aayla could confirm if her senses told truly or not, she heard a crackle from the captain’s communicator. She couldn’t hear it, nor could she very well sense the captain’s emotions. But from the sudden stillness in his hands, the subtle sinking of his shoulders, she knew that he’d just received very bad news.
“One of the CIS cruisers rammed the Provost. Its reactor had been set to critical… both ships were completely destroyed.”
“Casualties?”
“… About four-and-a-half thousand, General.”
What had Aayla said to herself before? Half a victory over Grievous? No. Not even quite that.
____________________________________________________________________________


As the CIS had hoped, the victory tasted fairly bitter. For its strategic value Ginlam-Beta was a worthy prize, but it didn’t feel like much of a morale boost. The victory’s benefits would be seen gradually, over the course of many years. It would all sink into the great cost-benefit analysis formulae in Coruscant’s supercomputers, and the war would grind on as though the battle had never happened. With thousands of planets, and trillions upon trillions of people on the line, any victory and any defeat faded into the incomprehensibility of the war’s scale. Given the vast wealth of resources available to both sides of the Clone Wars, there was every possibility that the war could go on for decades.


Such were Aayla’s thoughts as she inspected the shield-generator complex. A Jedi’s powers had many uses; at that moment Aayla was putting hers to work at minesweeping. It was dangerous, but for the extended, meditative focus it required, it was almost relaxing. So much so that Aayla’s mind drifted a little. She was aware of this drift, aware that her tutors would probably have scolded her for not keeping her mind on the present, but she allowed it to happen anyway.


By the standard galactic calendar, Aayla was twenty-two years old; roughly forty by the swift Ryloth year. A young woman, certainly. She could expect to live to seventy-five if she maintained her health; perhaps more, given her attunement to the Living Force. She wondered how much of that lifespan would be devoted to waging this war. She thought back to her long training, her apprenticeship under Quinlan Vos and… afterwards under Master Windu. At no point had it ever been suggested to her that the Jedi would be generals in the largest war in the galaxy’s living memory.


But not everyone was as gloomy as she. The band of mercenaries that she had led into battle were delighted with the victory, with the handsome - and for once, legal! - fee that the Republic had promised them for their services. As Aayla finished her sweep, and began to return to the base’s command centre, she passed a couple of bawdy Dugs, leg-in-leg, singing merry songs about how they had fooled the Trade Federation once again.
“Eyy, yoka!” one of them yelled at Aayla as she passed them. “Chicka luben to marapte chouwa!”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Aayla replied.
“Eyyy! Gongadan, Neimodia!”
“Gongadan, Neimoidia!”
“Eyyyyy!”
“Eyyyyyyyyyyy!”
“Houpla, Jedi! Houpla General Secura!”
“Houplaaaaaa!”
“Houplaaaaaaaaaa!”


Aayla couldn’t help smiling. While she was sure that these mercenaries were far from being pillars of moral virtue, there was something about their rough, raucous manner that she liked. She liked interacting with people who had a bit of… colour. People sometimes thought of Jedi as silent, dull monks, cloistered away in temples. But a Jedi Knight saw more of the galaxy and its people than the most cosmopolitan Corellian. She had had many adventures on many worlds with the roughest sorts - often as enemies, sometimes not. Even that, though, was being taken away from her by the war. When the blaster bolts were flying and men were dying by the score, one planet was very much like another.


“Oi, Secura!” Another mercenary approached her: a human male named Bristow. He was the leader of the company, and he was the one that Aayla had first approached. “Hell of a fight!” His portly face was messy with oil spilled from one of the many droids he’d shot that day. He was obviously very pleased with himself.
“You and your people did well, Bristow,” Aayla said.
“Got your money’s worff! I told you my boys were the best!”
Aayla very slightly arched an eyebrow.
“Okay, well, you know. Maybe not the best. But - you know, pretty good, huh?”
“I’ve no complaints,” Aayla replied. “As agreed - you’ll get the second half of the payment now. Just speak to the finance officer on the Provost and -” She paused. “...Speak to the finance officer on the Boss Borot. He’ll ensure you get what’s coming to you.”
Oddly, Bristow looked startled by this, and raised his hands defensively to his face.
“Oh wait,” he said, sheepishly lowering his hands. “You - you mean I’ll actually get what’s coming to me? Like… the money, right?”
“Er… yes?”
“Oh, er, okay. Good. Har har! Still not used to dealing wif Jedi, y’know? In my line o’work people only ever say ‘He’ll ensure you get what’s coming to you’ as a veiled or ironic threat!” He put his hand to his chin, shook his head sagely. “Straaaange times we’re livin’ in.”


He sauntered off, and from his gait Aayla could tell he was not, perhaps, absolutely sober. The battle was over and his work was done, so it was more amusing than anything else, but it did make Aayla wonder how badly things might have gone wrong. She’d worked with these mercenaries - and others - many times before, but never so many, and never in such a large battle. If this battle hadn’t been so important, and the Republic’s resources so stretched, the Council would never have permitted them to take part.



Aayla sensed something. A faint glimmer of… something. Some emotion. She couldn’t tell what it was, but she could just about sense where it was coming from. There was a clone trooper, unhelmeted, standing guard by the door to the command centre. When he saw Aayla was looking at him he glanced back, then looked away. She saw the bottom corners of his mouth move slightly. She saw his pupils dilate very, very slightly when he glanced at her a second time.
“My helmet was shot to pieces in the battle, ma’am,” he said, suddenly.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s why I’m out of uniform, ma’am. Apologies.”
Aayla felt oddly disturbed by what he said, and it took her a moment to realise why. It turned out to be because, a year and a half earlier, she had had the exact same exchange with another clone. His choice of words, his inflections - everything about the way he addressed her had been completely identical. No - not identical. That first trooper had been genuinely sheepish. This one was… from the stiffness of his shoulders and the way he positioned his chin, he was irritated.


“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No ma’am, of course not,” the clone replied, a little too quickly.
“Do you have a name? Not that… awful number they give you. I mean… what do your brothers call you?”
“...Eyeball, ma’am.”
“In that case, Eyeball, I am ordering you to speak your mind and tell me what the problem is.” Slightly more softly she added. “I’m not the best at sensing people’s emotions. That I felt anything from you at all means something’s seriously wrong.”


Eyeball squirmed for a moment, then reluctantly answered.
“I… I just can’t believe you’ll work with the likes of those mercs!”
“Ah.” Aayla had heard this plenty of times.
“They’re not professionals. They’re not as skilled as us. They only care about… money! They have no loyalty to the Republic. They’d happily fight for the Confederacy if they got offered a bigger paycheque.”
“You’re not wrong,” Aayla replied. “They’re certainly not anywhere near as good as you.”
“But you won’t fight with us. You don’t think we’re people, is that it? Think we’re freaks? Think we’re not real - men.” He’d been working up to a real yell, but he halfway lost his nerve; saying all he meant to say, but mumbling the last sentence as he found an unpleasant colour in his anger. But, to his surprise, Eyeball found sympathy in Aayla’s dark eyes.
“It’s all exactly the opposite from what you say. I don’t think you’re freaks. I do think you’re people - and I do think you’re men,” she added, quietly, with a soft smile. “I think... I think that you, and all your millions of brothers, are slaves. I will not command slaves.” She did not say it with anger. She stated it as one might state an equation of geometry - as fact. She grasped his shoulder, in a gesture of compassion, and for a moment their eyes met.
“I know ways to comfort a wounded soldier…”


Like she’d been electrified, Aayla pulled away.
“Excuse me,” she said, and moved quickly to - to somewhere else, leaving poor Eyeball rather bewildered.


The thought had not been her own; not exactly. Even if she were not a Jedi, Aayla would never have been so crass or shortsighted. It was a ‘glimmer’. A Twi’leks tendrils, their ‘lekku, contained in their neural tissue a kind of heightened genetic memory. Aayla could feel, to some extent, the lives of her ancestors, especially her female ancestors. Nothing specific - no images or events - but a long sense of her people’s history, reaching all the way back to before Ryloth knew it was but one planet among many. She could feel the shocking number of her ancestors who had been slaves or ‘comfort women’ to Ryloth’s many, many conquerors. The worst of it was that, because of the genetic memory of the lekku, once servility had been made habitual for one generation, it influenced the next; and the next; and the next.


It was not all that her species had given her: they’d given her adaptability, steeled her against hardship, made her stubborn - made her sensitive to others too, sensitive to their emotions, despite her weak clairvoyance. She liked those things. She’d even have been happy to accept the… unsavoury parts as important reminders of her people’s unhappy history. The problem was that Aayla was force-sensitive, and sometimes her lekku did not just hint or imply. Sometimes they whispered; and Aayla would feel foreign thoughts, foreign words at inopportune moments. They were rare now, for self-mastery was the first lesson of any youngling. But, sometimes, when her guard was down, they did happen, and it was always confusing, and embarrassing. A little voice in the back of her head tempting her to throw away all that she was, all that she had gained, for the shallowest and most worthless of rewards.


By the time that Aayla returned to her ship, an Eta-2 Interceptor, the moment had passed, and she was back in control of herself. The embarrassment, such as it had been, was internal. As her fightercraft cleared Ginlam-Beta’s atmosphere, she was already thinking about her next mission. There was a renewed offensive in the space around Polis Massa, and Aayla was being dispatched to assist Master Rutledge’s task force. This was how it had been for Aayla for some time - bouncing from one frontline to another.


But as she docked with her hyperspace ring, hidden behind one of Ginlam-Beta’s dreary, lumpy moons, her comm panel lit up; the secure line that only other Jedi used. Curious, Aayla answered.
“Secura here.”
“Ah, Aayla, you can hear me? Yes, splendid, splendid…” The voice belonged to Master Ki-Adi Mundi; the overall commander of the Ginlam-Beta offensive. Aayla didn’t know him well, but had garnered a faint impression that he was something of an oddball.
“How can I be of assistance, Master Mundi?”
“Ah, uh, yes, well… I’ve been reporting to the Council, you see… and I had just finished discussing… your contributions.”
Aayla stiffened.
“Yes, Master?”
“Well, the council… would like to speak with you. In person.”
“...Yes, Master.”
There was a brief silence.
“Oh. Oh! Yes, that’s all. Er… Mundi… out.” Aayla heard some fumbling, what she thought was a Cerean swear word, and then the curt crackle of the connection cutting.


Aayla patched into her ship’s astromech droid, R4-118; a model designed to perform astronavigational calculations for smaller ships without onboard supercomputers.
“118? Set a new course. We’re going back to Coruscant.”
A message back from 118 appeared on her screens:
Were we sometimes needing to be resembling?
“Um… could be.” Aayla had been meaning to get 118’s language circuits repaired for some weeks now. “Have you set the course?”
It’s over there.
“...Thank you, 118.”


The hyperdrive kicked into gear, the stars extending into dazzling white streaks as her ship accelerated. It would be several hours before Aayla reached Coruscant; indeed she’d have to stop at Dorin to shift hyperspace lanes and refuel her small craft. But long travel meant time for rest; for meditation. Time also for Aayla to indulge a little vice: a series of Twi’lek holonovels called Two Women on Kamino. Such melodrama probably wasn’t appropriate for a Jedi Knight, but every Jedi found harmless little exceptions to the code here and there.


As Aayla set out, largely looking forward to the break that travel would allow her, she felt… not nerves, exactly. A Jedi knight was meant to be above such things. But Jedi or not, every sapient felt a little nervous to be hauled before their bosses…
____________________________________________________________________________


When Aayla had been scouted as a Jedi, she had been a little older than most younglings, nearly seven standard years old. The knight who had been sent to persuade her parents had been given bad information, and had thought that she was much younger. When she’d seen how old Aayla really was, she’d almost abandoned her mission on the spot. But, in a strange reversal of fortune, it was the parents who had persuaded her. Ryloth was poor, and their part of Ryloth even poorer than the norm. Their daughter was high-spirited, clever and adventurous - and they wanted her to stay that way. A life of abject poverty would be bad enough but… well even then it was obvious that Aayla was going to grow up to be very pretty. Her parents had already received… offers for her. Such was the way on Ryloth.


Even Aayla had pretty much understood why her parents wanted her gone; and she was old enough that she roughly understood what a Jedi was. She did not cry when she left. She did not cry when she was told by that ambivalent knight that she would be expected not to see her parents again, at least not until her adulthood. She cried only when their ship came out of hyperspace over Coruscant. The knight had sensed her anguish, could feel that it was not just homesickness, or all the normal, comprehensible fears that a little girl might have - but a deeper, truer horror.
“My, my!” she’d said, quite forgetting herself, and taking the child on her knee as an aunt might. “Whatever’s the matter? What could be upsetting you so?”
Through her bawling, and her as-yet poor grasp of Galactic Basic, Aayla had only been able to explain her tears by pointing at the viewscreen and screaming:
“No trees!!”


Aayla didn’t remember this moment particularly, for her childhood on Ryloth and her recruitment were all rather a blur. But every time she came out of hyperspace over Coruscant, something of that old horror still stirred in her. Coruscant was a ‘city-world’; completely built up; not a drop of ocean or countryside anywhere on the entire planet. It was kept inhabitable only by huge and expensive weather-control generators, and by mass import of food and water. Most planets needed other planets for something - for their industry, for the more lucrative parts of their economy, for rare earths or metals - but Coruscant was one of the few worlds in the Republic which needed its neighbours simply to be able to breathe. But it was the centre of galactic politics, the seat of the senate and the office of the Chancellor, as well as the Republic’s largest single economy. That was why the Jedi had built their Great Temple there - in a place that seemed about as disconnected from the Living Force as was possible for a life-bearing world.


When Aayla’s ship landed in the Temple’s main hangar, and she hopped lightly from its confines, there was already a Temple Guardian waiting for her, a Pau’an male.
“Greetings,” Aayla said, with a friendly bow.
“...Hello,” he replied, pronouncing the word about as slowly as one could while still rendering it intelligible. “The council… requests your presence.”
“Right at this moment? I’ve been in a pretty small cockpit for the last fourteen hours. I wouldn’t want to offend the council with any unpleasant odours.”
The guardian looked at her with withering scorn.
“Your odours, pleasant or otherwise, are immaterial. When the council summons you, you answer.”
Why were all the Temple Guardians such jobsworths?
“Well alright, but if anyone complains, I’m blaming you.”
The guardian seemed to take this completely seriously.
“Do what you must,” he replied, with great profundity.


Infuriatingly, he escorted her all the way to the council chambers, right up to the doors, even. He rapped on the door with great solemnity, then opened the door for Aayla.
“Thanks,” she said, trying to sound genuinely polite.
“Goodbye,” he replied, making no such effort.


The irritating incident had distracted Aayla from the reason she was there; and when she actually stepped inside the chambers, it took her a little by surprise. She’d been inside before many times: she was a successful and respected knight, and the council had often given her missions personally. But it was still a bit intimidating to stand before the heads of her order; the wisest and mightiest of all of them; grave with power and understanding. Any Jedi could sense when the council was assembled - they were like a beacon. It was awesome; but comforting - it was difficult to imagine that any problem was insoluble; that any enemy could not be vanquished. That impression had only been very slightly dented by the war.


Not too many of the Council were actually present. Ki-Adi-Mundi, still orbiting Ginlam-Beta in his flagship, was there by hologram. Oppo Rancisis; Depa Billaba; Plo Koon and their newest member Agen Kolar were there in person. They - and the one who had called the meeting, the most senior member present; the human Mace Windu. A grave presence, and a warrior of incredible power, Master Windu was the council’s unyielding backbone. Before joining the council, he’d gained a reputation as being a sort of nuclear option for the Order - when they absolutely, positively, had to get something done with no possibility of failure, Mace was the one that they would send. His forbidding manner had led him to train fewer apprentices than most masters of his age. Aayla was one of those few. When she came in, there was a trace of motion in his upper lip - about as close as Mace ever got to a smile.


“Welcome, Aayla,” Plo said, in a low, harmonious voice. “I understand you are to be lauded for your actions on Ginlam-Beta.”
“Indeed,” Ki-Adi Mundi chimed in. “Without you and your, ah… associates… we’d have likely never taken the planetary defence complex.”
“Thank you, masters,” Aayla said.
“I understand you duelled with General Grievous,” Mace said. “And that you beat him.” He said this with a degree of satisfaction. Aayla had been his pupil: it was pleasing to know that his lessons had stuck.


Aayla’s eyes dropped.
“I drove him off, Master Windu. I wouldn’t say I ‘beat’ him. Oh, but…” She reached for her belt. “I managed to take this from him. Master Teegan’s lightsabre.”
Plo Koon extended his hand. “May I?”
“Of course, master.”
He reached out with the Force, plucked the sabre from Aayla’s hand, and drew it to his own. “Yes… yes, this is Finn’s. Thank you, Aayla. Master Teegan was a good friend. It pleases me to know Grievous no longer has his… trophy.” There was a moment of respectful silence for their fallen ally. Then, as was the way with Jedi, they carried on.


“Uh, masters… may I ask why I’m here?” Aayla said. There was something a little odd about the atmosphere in the council chamber.
“We’re here,” Plo said, “to discuss your… future, shall we say.”
“Oh, hell,” Aayla thought.


“I know you’ve got opinions about this war, Aayla,” Mace said. “I know what you think about the clones. I know what you think about the order’s role in this conflict altogether. I also know that you understand that the Jedi Order exists - first and foremost - to protect innocent people. To protect the Republic.”
“Indeed, Master Windu,” Aayla replied. “I do know this.”
“We also know,” Ki-Adi interjected, a little more gently, “the difficult… ah, shall we say, balancing act? Yes, the balancing act that you have been performing between your sense of, ah, ethics and your duties.”
“Your use of mercenaries, however… the kinds of people that you associate with…”
“There have been some complaints. From clones; from Republic officers… even from some others in the Order.”
“As I see it,” Aayla replied, “it’s better than the alternative.”

There was a momentary pause.
“Aayla, we share your… misgivings about the clone army. But we must accept the reality that we have found ourselves in. The CIS created a massive war; and we have no army but the clones with which to fight it. Save defeat, the sundering of the Republic, and the surrender of hundreds of worlds to the Confederacy’s butchery - there is no alternative.”
“Respectfully, masters, I don’t agree.”


There was an uneasy silence. Eventually, Mace broke it.
“Up until now, Aayla, the council has never ordered you to work with clones.”
“...Are you about to?”
“Yes,” Mace replied, bluntly.
“In which case-” Aayla began, with every intention of finishing the sentence with ‘I must resign from the Jedi order’. Had she not feared this conversation would happen as often as she had, had she not so often rehearsed it in her mind, the words would not have risen so easily to her throat.


But just as she was about to say them, a voice rang in her mind. Not an expression of her ambivalence, not a sudden change of heart, not even the voice of her ancestors from her lekku. But the voice of Mace Windu in her mind, projected telepathically.
“Don’t,” he said. Then: “Trust me, Aayla.”


The others had not heard. Mace had directed his thoughts to Aayla, and to Aayla only. The others still awaited her to finish her sentence.
“Um, in which case,” Aayla resumed, “I obey, of course.”
“Then the matter is settled.”
Mace rose, then the others rose after him. Ki-Adi Mundi’s hologram flickered away, and the council filed out. They moved quickly; all of them had a great deal to do. None of them spoke to Aayla as they left; except for Plo Koon, who thanked her again; and Mace, who told her to meet him immediately in his private chambers.
____________________________________________________________________________

“Before you blow a gasket at me,” Mace said, taking his seat on a low chair, “you knew this was going to happen someday. We can’t really have one of our knights consorting with lowlifes the way you do.”
“They’re not all bad,” Aayla muttered. “And you know that’s not the point. They’re free men, fighting out of their own choice.”
“The clones want to fight too.”
“They’re bred to want to fight. They can’t help it. If a clone ever wanted to resign, could they?”


Mace tented his fingers.
“You know that I know that you’re in the right. You also know that it doesn’t matter that you’re in the right. We all woke up one morning and found this war raging; found these soldiers… popping up out of the ground, and found ourselves all appointed its generals. It’s a sorry situation, but it’s the one that we’re in. We can’t help that. The clones exist, now. They’re there. They want to fight, and they’ll fight better with us leading them.” He looked Aayla in the eye. “You were going to resign, weren’t you? Before I stopped you.”
“Yes.”
“You could have asked for reassignment. As a temple guardian; or in the archives. Something. You know there’s plenty of Jedi that’ll probably never even see action in this war. You could be one of them.”


Aayla sat down opposite her old master.
“I’m what you made me, Mace. A warrior. Order me to guard the temple and I’ll do it; but it’ll be a waste.”
“I know.” He frowned. “I know, Aayla.” Mace kept himself completely still in the Force. Even Master Yoda would have been hard pressed to sense anything but total serenity from him. Yet Jedi, while trained to hide their presences in the Force or their emotions from prying minds, were not explicitly trained to hide such things as Aayla looked for: little hints that the person themselves might not notice even if they looked at their own reflection. Conmen and magicians called them ‘tells’. Psychologists called them ‘microexpressions’ - and Aayla had learned to hunt for them. So she could see, just by the slight crinkling of his forehead, where he chose to rest his eyes and where he chose not to, a great amount of what he was thinking.


“This doesn’t come from you, does it?” Aayla said. “Was it Master Yoda?”
“Yoda? No way. If anything, he agrees with your perspective more than anyone else on the Council. It was the Chancellor.”
The Chancellor, currently a man named Sheev Palpatine, was the executive of the Republic - a sort of president. Aayla was astonished that he would have taken an interest one way or the other in the martial habits of one lowly knight; and that the Council had actually yielded to his influence. But with the Jedi now acting as generals in the Republic army, and the Chancellor being the commander-in-chief of that army, his poking his nose in was not so unthinkable now as it once was.


“Mace,” Aayla said. “I - they’re slaves. You know I - I can’t -”
“I told you trust me. I meant it. I’m not just gonna stick you on a Star Destroyer and give you ten thousand men to command. I don’t think you’d know what to do with them.” He smiled, very, very slightly. “You’re a fine warrior, but we both know you’re no general.”
“No arguments there.”
“So, yeah, I’m saddling you with some clones, just like the Chancellor asked. But just a handful. And I’m sweetening the deal: you’ll be given you the authority to choose your own missions; to go where you think you’re needed. If that’s a frontline, fine. If that’s recon, fine. If that’s infiltration - fine. I want you agile. I’ve got plenty of generals. What I need out of you is an operative.”
“Thank you, Master Windu,” Aayla said, a little put out by her mentor’s generosity.
“And one more thing.”
“Mm?”
“I want you to have authority. Let you requisition what you need, when you need it; within reason. I’ve already cleared it with the council.”
For a moment, Aayla didn’t understand what he meant. When she twigged, her ears twitched in surprise.
“Wait - you mean -?”


Mace stood. Aayla stood as well.
“Aayla Secura,” he said, “you’ve raised a padawan to knighthood. You’ve served your order, and the Republic, with distinction. You’re a powerful warrior, and a wise woman. As deputy-head of the High Council of the Jedi Order, I grant you the rank of master - with all the rights and privileges that entails.”
There was no higher honour that Windu could bestow. It was not an honour Aayla ever expected. She was weaker in the Force than most Jedi; she was incapable of much that came naturally even to half-trained padawans. She was not… not as serene as she perceived most other Jedi to be. But once Mace Windu had made a decision, it was engraved in stone. She knew better than to argue.
“I… I humbly accept, Master Windu.”
“Glad to hear it, Master Secura.”


She walked out of Windu’s chambers with a blush purpling her chest and her cheeks: a sign of any powerful emotion in a Twi’lek, rather than embarrassment specifically as it was for humans. It was unseemly for a Jedi, especially for a newly appointed master - but it was all so sudden that Aayla didn’t know what to make of it. Being able to respond to the war - or to the many other problems the galaxy faced - in the way that she wished, was a privilege even most masters didn’t get. But - she was working with clones. Commanding born-and-bred slaves.


She wondered. She wondered if this sudden elevation was a way to dazzle her into accepting what she so reviled. She wondered if the council, if her mentor, would be so manipulative. She wondered why Chancellor Palpatine would care one way or the other if she had clones working with her. Perhaps it was inevitable that she would eventually have had to relent.

As she walked away, she realised there was something she’d wanted to mention to Mace. Her ‘glimmer’ - the surge of race memory she’d experienced with that clone on Ginlam-Beta. Had she still been a knight, she might have gone back, and asked her old mentor for his advice, his assistance. But she was a Jedi Master now, and Jedi Masters were expected not to have these sorts of failings.


Someone, somewhere, Aayla thought, had made a mistake.
____________________________________________________________________________


It took a couple of days for everything to be pulled together. Aayla spent those days training. Master Drallig found a moment to spar with her; and aside from that she spent the time trying, and not altogether succeeding, in expanding her powers. Her aim was at least to be able to lift more than her own body weight with the Force. But with her fullest efforts she still couldn’t manage it before her orders came through.


To Aayla’s surprise, she had been assigned a ship. Not her little one-man fighter; a real ship. It was an H-type diplomatic barge, a Nabooan ship used by their politicians and ambassadors. A little outdated, but a hell of a lot better than cruising around the galaxy in a fightercraft that didn’t even have an onboard toilet. It was about thirty metres long, and seventy metres across, with much of its bulk taken up by two ‘wings’ which housed the engine assemblies and the cargo space. It was sleek, and elegant, like all Nabooan ships, painted in a shimmering chrome. A bit flashy for a Jedi’s ship, but perhaps that was the point: it wasn’t meant to look like a Jedi’s ship.

As she approached the gangway, she spotted someone waiting for her. Not a clone, as she had expected, but a young human woman. She had light-brown skin; thick, curly brown hair, tied back in a bun and friendly, hazel eyes. Medium-height, slim - attractive, if one were disposed to notice that sort of thing. She was dressed in a trim, black uniform, with a small cap: the uniform of a Republic Navy pilot. When she saw Aayla, she snapped to attention.
“General Secura! Junior-lieutenant Adalé Cam reporting for duty, ma’am!”
“At ease, Lieutenant,” Aayla said, suppressing a smile. A Jedi was no stranger to duty or discipline, but the military manner had always seemed a little silly to Aayla. Twi’leks had warriors, but did not organize militaries as other races did, so it was strange to her cultural memory as well. “So this is my ship, huh? What’s it called?”
Lt. Cam hesitated before answering.
“At the moment? Um… Gooberfish, ma’am. It’s a Nabooan animal; I think the last owner thought they were very funny. I’d assumed you’d probably want to change the name.”
“Not at all,” Aayla said. “Only someone brimming with confidence would show up somewhere in a ship named Gooberfish. Everyone will take us much more seriously, trust me.”
Lt. Cam smiled, warmly and prettily.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, ma’am but… you’re not exactly what I imagined from a Jedi Master.”
“No? Hm. Well, I was only just promoted. Perhaps in a few weeks I’ll be wearing heavy robes and chanting all day.”



Lt. Cam led Aayla inside, gave her a swift tour of the Gooberfish’s facilities. The sleeping quarters - pretty nice, thanks to the ship’s type - for a crew of ten: the nicest for Aayla, one for Lt. Cam, the others doubling up. There was a fairly decent bathroom, and even a small recreation area. But, as Lt. Cam led Aayla through the ship’s port wing, Aayla discovered that most of the cargo space had been filled in with some kind of machinery she didn’t recognize.
“Oh, General Windu asked us to install these when the order acquired this ship. They’re for baffling sensors and jamming enemy comms.”
“Baffling sensors? Like a stealth drive?”
“Oh, no, nothing as fancy as that - we’ll be harder to spot than most ships; and guidance systems will have a bit of trouble locking onto us, but we won’t be undetectable or anything like that. I doubt that the jammers would work on anything with a proper comms system; but it’d do okay with a fighter or a light shuttle or something.”
“Still useful. Thanks, lieutenant.” Then, stiffening slightly, she asked Lt. Cam when the rest of the crew was arriving.
“Uh… they were due to arrive fifteen minutes ago. I’m not sure where they are.”


As they waited, Lt. Cam showed Aayla the cockpit, familiarising her with the controls in case Aayla ever needed to take the helm. While she lacked powers that other Jedi had, one talent that Aayla did possess was a preternatural talent for learning new skills - after five minutes she already knew enough to fly the ship to a reasonable degree of competence. Aayla was just about to ask a little more about her pilot, when the two of them heard a terrible din coming from the ship’s gangway.


“No, no! I’m not having it, okay? You can roll your eyes as much as you want, that’s no substitute for accurate argumentation!”
“I’m just saying-”
“No, mate, you’re not saying anything! Nothing worth listening to, anyway. Do you know how important those little guys are to the operations of a capital ship? Try running a Venator-class or a Victory-class without them.”
“No, see, your problem is, you don’t listen. I’m not saying their role isn’t important. Carrying messages and data packets around a large ship or installation is very important. No-one’s denying that. What I’m saying is that they’re crap at that role and could be easily replaced with something better.”
“Yeah, he’s right, Tomcat. They’re fine and everything but… I mean they look pretty cheap, don’t they?”
“Not gonna lie, Tomcat, they do look a bit cheap.”
“They look bloody cheap! Like children’s toys. And if they fall over - which they do all the time, they can’t even pick themselves back up.”
“Hey, that’s an endearing quality! It brings moments of much needed levity to the lives of embattled troops in this protracted and demoralising conflict, and I’ll point at you and call you a liar if you say that picking them up and listening to their delightful chirps of gratitude doesn’t bring a smile to your day!!”
“Well it doesn’t, but leaving them on their sides and walking off is very funny.”
“You’re a sick man, T.D., a sick man! I’ll-”


The interlocutors found themselves observed by a somewhat curious and largely baffled Twi’lek.
“I take it,” she said, “that you’re the clone troopers that have been assigned to me?”
“Yes ma’am!” one of them said, snapping to attention along with his comrades. “Troopers CT-1032, CT-1035, CT-9901 and CT-7007 reporting for duty, General Secura!”
“There’s no need to be quite so formal,” Aayla said. She tried to remind herself that her antipathy towards the use of cloned soldiers was not antipathy towards the clones themselves. “This is an unusual assignment. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable, but you don’t need to address me as ‘General’.”
“Uh, yes ma’am,” the clone replied.


The clones, standing at attention, in identical white armour, in identical positions, with identical heights and identical builds, had a surreal quality. They could have been statues or - or droids. It was creepy. Aayla had once heard Master Yoda say that clones, despite appearances, had very different presences in the Force. Perhaps she just wasn’t as sensitive to such things as he - in fact she definitely wasn’t - but… to her senses, their presence in the Force was pretty much the same.
“Could you please take off your helmets?”


Without an instant’s hesitation, the clones obeyed. Things improved a little then - one of the clones was visibly older than the others; one of them had a shaved head; one of them had a great big scar right across his face; and one of them… well one of them looked like he’d just walked out of the cloning facility on Kamino. But at least he looked different from the others he was with.
“I can’t call you by those numbers, either. I’ll never remember them, for starters.”
“Oh, sure thing ma’am,” the shaved one said. “Uh, I go by Tomcat. This here’s Mirror, that’s Ironsights, and scarface over there is T.D.”
“T.D.?”
“‘Thermal Detonator’,” T.D. replied. “I’m a demolition expert,” he explained, with obvious relish.
“Wait, wait,” Aayla said. “Mirror, you’re… 7007, right? That’s why you’re called ‘Mirror’?”
“No, no!” Tomcat interjected. “I’m 7007. He’s called Mirror because - like… no, but like it’s really cool, eh?” He broke ranks, put his face right up to Mirror’s. “Don’t you see?”
Aside from the fact that Tomcat had a shaved head, and that Mirror looked increasingly downcast the longer that Tomcat was standing next to him, Aayla saw no difference at all.
“I’m… backwards,” Mirror said, if only to end it all sooner.
“What do you mean ‘backwards’?”
“There was an error when I was synthesised. I’m… flipped. So my features are on the wrong side. My internal organs and stuff, too - like, my heart’s on the right.”
“Mine too,” Aayla said. “We can be oddballs together.” She smiled. She was forcing it a little, but she was forcing it well.


“Well, uh, men,” Aayla said, “thank you for introducing yourselves. I’m sure we’ll… you know. Do great.” Clones or otherwise, she wasn’t used to commanding soldiers. “Why don’t you go settle into your quarters?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ironsights replied. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Oh, before you go…” Aayla hesitated. She had a question, but given the… odd manner of these clones, part of her feared to know the answer. “What were the four of you arguing about when you were boarding?”


Mirror, Ironsights and T.D. turned their heads with accusatory slowness at Tomcat, whose lower lip squirmed over its counterpart as he sought for some way to make it sound less bad than it would, inevitably, sound.
“...Mouse droids, ma’am?”
“Mouse droids?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“The little square-ish things that run around capital ships delivering messages?”
“The ones that squeak?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Why were you arguing about them?”
“Well, I… I think mouse droids are wizard. And they… they think mouse droids are crik!”
“...Oh,” Aayla replied. “Well, I… can’t say I have strong feelings one way or the other about… whether mouse droids are wizard… or crik.” It was a sentence that, at its conclusion, Aayla hoped very strongly would never have to be uttered by another sapient being. “...Carry on.”


“Great work, Tomcat,” said Ironsights in a low and weary voice. “We’ve been assigned to General Secura for five minutes and she already thinks we’re freaks.”
“Eh, eh, eh, she’s a Jedi, isn’t she? It’s fine: they don’t experience emotions.”
“Yes they do, you halfwit. They just have greater self-control.”
“Hey, uhh…” Mirror scratched the back of his head. “I thought General Secura didn’t like clones.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame her,” T.D. growled. “D’you know how many LAATs I’ve seen with Twi’lek girls in their underwear painted on the noses? She must think we’re all a bunch of pervy little weirdos.” But then Tomcat smiled, smiled in a way that T.D. had come to dread, a smile that said ‘the thing I’m about to say is going to make you suffer’.
“She can’t possibly think we’re pervy little weirdos,” he said. “We’re all somewhat taller than she is.”
“Tomcat,” T.D. replied, “if in the near future you were to commit a crime which got you executed, I would really appreciate it.”


Aayla returned to the cockpit, sat down in the navigator’s seat in silence.
“Master Secura?” Lt. Cam was worried that something had happened. “Is everything alright with the troopers?”
“I suppose you could say that,” Aayla replied. They were not what she had expected. She’d had no idea that clones could be such… eccentrics. She wondered if Mace, or someone on his behalf, had assigned them deliberately - troopers who would seem as much as possible like people. “No. They’re all people.” She felt a little ashamed at the internal slip, but in a way it was confirmation of what she believed. All of them: the Jedi, the Senate, the citizens of the Republic - they had all been conditioned to think of the clones as commodities. Even Aayla herself.


But time for pondering later. She had a ship; she had a crew; she was a Jedi Master and there was much to be done.
“I have our first destination, Lieutenant.”
“Of course, ma’am. Where to?”
Over the two days since she’d arrived on Coruscant, Aayla had given this quite some thought. Independence was a fine thing - but the galaxy was a large place, and as the war raged, there was an infinity of need. She’d considered a few options - but in the end, when Aayla had made her decision, she sensed the hand of the Force guiding her, for it felt distinctly like she could have made no other choice.
“Ryloth,” she answered. “Take us to Ryloth.”
________________________________________________________________________


The vastness of the work required to run a truly galactic polity could not easily be calculated. The progress of its political aims, if there was progress, was not so much glacial as continental. Major changes, like the plotting and charting of new hyperspace lanes; or making serious alterations to corporation tax, would more often than not take decades. Serious controversies, which successive Chancellors would support or suppress as their own inclinations struck them, would sometimes take a hundred years or more to resolve. The Cantonica-Scipio crisis had ground on for nearly two-centuries before the matter was generally considered completely settled by the galaxy at large. So, because new cases kept arising, because other issues kept distracting new chancellors and senators, and because the majority of the galactic population considered it a decidedly niche issue, in its 25,000 year history, the Republic had never passed a clear law on how to make first contact with pre-spaceflight civilisations. Ryloth was one of the first, and one of the chiefest victims of this legacy of paralysis.


A Corellian survey corporation had discovered it, and sold the location of Ryloth to the Hutts, a race largely ruled by kleptocratic gangster-lords. They came upon a planet in varying states of technological development, but with none of Ryloth’s nations yet advanced enough to have attempted even the most primitive space-flight. The planet’s thick jungles, broad deserts, and other regions dominated by staggeringly dangerous wildlife, meant that the population was scattered; with many of even the larger townships or Ryloth’s few city-states completely unaware of even relatively close neighbours. It meant that there was never any chance of the Hutts being resisted by a united race. Twi’lek wasn’t even a Twi’lek word. It was just what the Hutts had started calling them, and since all Twi’lek populations eventually had some… encounters with the Hutts, it became a word common to all Twi’lek languages.


Huge numbers of them were taken off-world as slaves, for Twi’lek - Twi’lek women especially - swiftly gained a reputation for beauty, and for licentiousness. By the time of the Clone Wars, this had happened so much, for so many thousands of years, that Twi’lek were the tenth most populous race in the entire Republic; with a vast diaspora never having seen their homeworld. But through their brutality, the Hutts eventually gave the Twi’lek the quality for lack of which they had been exploited - awareness of their numbers. In a bloody rebellion some 20,000 years past, the Hutts were driven off Ryloth.


Ryloth was never truly reconquered, or at least it was not controlled in the way that the Hutts had controlled it. But there were, for the rest of Ryloth’s history, a legion of raiders, pirates, mercenaries and gangsters who had continue to rob, exploit, and enslave the sons and daughters of Ryloth. And there had been warlords who had, for a century here, a millennium there, controlled whole countries, or even continents. It kept the planet in such a state of disorganisation that it had never had a planetary government as most Republic worlds understood it. For this reason, it had a reputation for lawless barbarity which was largely unwarranted. But that it was a hard and dangerous planet on which to live was quite true. Most native Twi’lek were what Aayla’s parents had been: subsistence farmers; farmers who benefited only very slightly from technological advances in the rest of the galaxy.


Ryloth had been a front in the Clone Wars in the conflict’s first and second year. The CIS had launched a serious offensive to take the planet, and Republic strategists were not entirely sure why. Their best guess was that the CIS were thinking long term, that they wanted to strip Ryloth’s forests and jungles, and turn it into an agri-world: its rich, deep soils would have made it a very productive one. The Confederacy had no true breadbasket among its worlds, and Ryloth would perhaps have filled that role. But it was moot: they had failed. The Republic’s victory over them had been its first great triumph since the war started, and had been a costly disaster for the CIS.


But all was not well on Ryloth. The Republic had had to establish an occupying force on the planet to keep it held, and the Twi’lek were not all happy to exchange one occupier for another, however well-intentioned. Besides that, the CIS had left thousands of droids when their ships had left; and these droids had proved a deadly and destructive insurgency - avoiding the larger population centres which Republic soldiers defended, and attacking homesteads; rural villages; inciting a wave of terror in the planet’s population; inciting dissatisfaction in the Twi’lek with their supposed defenders.


It was for this reason that Aayla had decided to come to Ryloth. She was not particularly interested in mollifying the populace with respect to the Republic; but rather with the keeping of a promise. The Republic had told the Twi’lek that with the CIS defeated they were safe. Aayla was a Jedi - a guardian and representative of that Republic, and she wanted to make sure that promise was kept.


She had made contact with a cell of Cham Syndulla’s freedom fighters, a group known as the ‘Nepeth Cell’ after the region in which they operated. More than any other of the resistance fighters, this cell was duking it out with the droid insurgency. While she was on Coruscant, Aayla had had Jedi Intelligence prepare a dossier for her on the cell, so she knew a fair bit about them now. Their leader was a man named Alden Hillen, a protegé of Syndulla’s, and something of a local hero. His exploits, the dossier had noted drily, had been exaggerated, but not actually invented. Aside from Syndulla himself, Alden was the name that came up most often when one talked about the leaders of a future Ryloth.


The Gooberfish had no hangar-deck, but Aayla’s Actis-II was small enough that it could just be clamped to the ventral airlock. It was to this airlock that Aayla proceeded as soon as the Gooberfish emerged from hyperspace. She had hoped to leave the ship swiftly, and without fuss - but alas, someone was waiting for her.


“General Secura.” It took Aayla a couple of seconds to remember that this was Ironsights. “Will you be requiring us on this mission, ma’am.”
“Uh… no, not this time, Ironsights. It’s a fairly sensitive operation.”
The trooper opened his mouth, but quickly closed it again.
“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry! It’s Mirror, isn’t it? Oh, that was stupid of me.”
“It’s alright, ma’am.”
“No, it’s not. You shouldn’t have to… well, you understand.”
“Uh… may I speak freely?”
“Please.”
Mirror’s face relaxed slightly. “We are clones of each other, ma’am. We’d have to be pretty touchy to get annoyed if people can’t tell us apart sometimes. We know we’re not… a normal form of life. I remember something this general I served under said: ‘a Jedi’s first lesson is just to see things as they are’.” He shrugged. “That’s what I try to do, I suppose.”
“That’s a very wise attitude. It’s what I try to do as well.” She smiled. “It seems our hearts really are on the same side.”
Mirror looked down at his feet, scratched the back of his neck.
“You sure you don’t want us to come with you?” he said, partly just to have something to say.
“I’m sure,” Aayla said. It was partly for the reason she had actually given - she doubted the Ryloth resistance would react well to a quartet of clones showing up at their door. And it was partly because she couldn’t bring herself to bring them into a potentially dangerous situation. They all looked older than Aayla - but in standard years the oldest of them, Ironsights, was only twelve.


Fifteen minutes later, Aayla was in the skies of her homeworld for the first time in seven years. She had come back once before since being taken from her parents: her first master, Quinlan Vos, had thought it was important that she go to Ryloth at least once in her adult life, so that it was not hanging over her head. Coming back now, she supposed he had been right. It wasn’t nerve-wracking or distressing to come here. There was a tinge of… something. A sense of nostalgia. But she did not allow it to affect her much. She acknowledged it, and passed on.


She came in for landing somewhere in the middle of the Nepeth region. It was part of the Westernmost continent in Ryloth’s southern hemisphere. It was the other side of the planet from where she had been born, and it was as unfamiliar to her as any obscure outer-rim world would have been. Ryloth was famous for its jungles, but Nepeth was dominated by tall, boreal forests. The winters were hard, dry and bitterly cold, but Aayla had arrived in early autumn, when the air was pleasantly cool to a Twi’lek’s tastes.


Aayla had assumed that Alden’s cell would be difficult to find, for they hadn’t given her exact co-ordinates. But as she flew over Nepeth, she spotted another ship; a small freighter, apparently heading into orbit. She asked 118 to calculate its trajectory, and plotted a course. But after flying for another couple of minutes, she had a sudden, and immediate sense of personal danger. A moment later, a warning appeared on her instruments that her ship had been locked onto by a missile tracking system. She was about to reach for her comms, but they contacted her first.
“Unidentified Republic fighter, leave this airspace immediately, or you will be fired upon.”
“Negative,” Aayla replied. “I assume this is the headquarters of the Nepeth Cell? I am Jedi Master Aayla Secura. I travel with diplomatic privilege - and I am expected. I’m here to speak with Alden Hillen.”
“Don’t use that name on an open channel!”
“Well then don’t threaten to shoot at me on an open channel.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“...Republic fighter, you have permission to land.”
“Much obliged.”


Aayla was directed to a clearing in the forest, a clearing which turned out to be a pretty respectable airfield. She saw a couple of freighters of the same type as the one she’d spotted earlier; a repurposed commercial shuttle; and six or seven aftermarket fightercraft of various models. Most were outdated Incom Corporation ships bought second or third hand, but there was one Z-80 - about as powerful a fighter as you were ever likely to see in a planetary militia. Aayla landed near the other fighters: her little interceptor didn’t need much space.
“Stay here, 118,” she instructed. “Keep the engines warm.”
“Warmth is great ” 118 replied.


Aayla stepped out of her ship, her feet touching the ground of her homeworld for the first time in many years. She breathed in the cool, fragrant air, and found it calming. Even though this part of the planet was totally unfamiliar, she could feel that it was where she had come from. The Force that flowed through her flowed in and out of the stones; the water; the sky. Had Ryloth been stripped of life, Aayla would still have been able to sense this. But there was something more subtle than what her powers let her sense. Any being could tell if they were on their homeworld: knowing that the composition of the air, the gravity, the atmospheric pressure were those in which their race had evolved. Even if slightly lower gravity or slightly higher oxygen concentrations were more comfortable - there was a feeling of fit. Ryloth gladly and gratefully welcomed its prodigal daughter. Her siblings, however, were less accommodating.


“Hey. You’re the Jedi?” A large man approached her, holding a rifle that he’d taken from a battle droid. He had a single lek wrapped around his neck like a scarf, and light green skin that was typical to the Twi’lek on this continent.
“That’s right,” Aayla replied, courteously. “I’m Aayla Secura.”
“Pren Hellon,” the man replied. Then, without making any attempt at disguising what he was doing, he looked her slowly up and down. He was ogling her, and wanted her to realise it.
“Excuse me,” Aayla said, sharply, switching to the Twi’lek lingua franca, Ryl. “Were you asleep when your mother tried to teach you manners?”
Pren was startled to hear Ryl, and more startled to hear such an idiomatic response to offence from an aristh - a foreign-born Twi’lek. Embarrassed, if not exactly chastened, he mumbled a request for Aayla to follow him.


He took Aayla inside a low bunker, half-buried in a small hill and Aayla was surprised at how well-equipped the facility was. All the militiamen had up-to-date, if not exactly bleeding edge, weaponry, and there were more of them than Aayla had expected. There was a great deal of work going on, too. She saw engineers installing some kind of communication equipment, saw technicians programming some fairly sophisticated sensors, and she saw a surprising amount of freight going in and out.


As she was escorted, every single Twi’lek she passed took a moment to stop and look at her. There was some innocent curiosity at seeing their visitor; some reasonable suspicion at an outsider being let into their headquarters. Some even recognised Aayla specifically, for there weren’t many Twi’lek Jedi, and her exploits had occasionally appeared in Republic propaganda, which was always hungry for a photogenic champion to laud.


But most of the gazers - most of the male gazers, anyway - were more like Pren. There was no catcalling, no whistling or any Twi’lek equivalent. But they stared, and they wanted her to see that they were staring. Thousands of years of the galaxy fetishising their women as promiscuous slaves had had a predictably poisonous effect on Twi’lek culture. The very fact that Aayla was a Jedi, a warrior far more powerful than any of them, would probably strike many of these fighters as offensive. Aayla could even feel, distantly, a race-memory from her lekku, a conditioned instinct to bow her head and meekly allow the males to inspect her. It was a repulsive legacy.


“Here,” Pren said, directing Aayla to a reinforced door. “Wait.” Then he said something in Nepethi, a language Aayla did not speak, and she heard laughter from some of the others. Then the door slid open, and Aayla was directed inside.


It was a fairly comfortable looking, if distinctly military, office. A wooden desk was arrayed with monitors and communication equipment; there were racks of rifles and bladed weapons on the walls. And, right at the centre of the back wall, where everyone would have to look at it, were mounted the heads of four B1 droids - and one Neimoidian. Seated directly beneath this head, was a slim, wiry Twi’lek male. He had pale, green skin, four lekku bound in an elaborate, red headdress, and small, cunning eyes.
“Master Secura,” he said, in Galactic Basic. “Is that the correct form of address?”
“It’ll do,” Aayla replied, in Ryl. “Alden Hillen, I presume?”



He smiled, rose, and shook Aayla’s hand. The gesture did not seem altogether sincere, for he had a kind of half-sneer on his face as he did it. But his expressions suggested that it was distaste for outsiders, rather than sexism, which motivated his disapprobation. The way his eyes flickered uncomfortably at Aayla’s hilted lightsabre supported this impression.


He sat back down. There was no seat for Aayla to take.
“We are always delighted,” he said, “to entertain our Republic guests, Master Secura. But might I be so bold as to ask why you took the trouble to reach out to our backwoods outpost? Surely a Jedi master has grander concerns than us.”
“I’m here to offer my help,” Aayla replied. “I know that the droid insurgency has been terrorising the villages and homesteads on this continent, and I wanted to offer my assistance.”
Alden didn’t immediately reply.
“That’s very generous, Master Secura,” he eventually said. “Did the Republic send you, deliberately?”
“Not exactly. I have a certain freedom in my assignments. I sent myself.”
“Hm.”


He looked at one of his monitors.
“I’m guessing that you were surprised at what you found here.”
“I was. Your ‘outpost’, as you call it, is very impressive. Very well-equipped.”
“This is the future, Master Secura. In time we’ll have hundreds of these outposts. We’ll be able to defend our own world. We won’t need outsiders to fight our battles for us. That said,” he added, “I’m not ungrateful to the Republic for their help against the Confederacy. Some of my allies say there’s no difference, but - well the Confederacy enslaved our people in large numbers, and the Republic didn’t. At least, they haven’t yet.”
“They’re not going to. For all its flaws, the Republic isn’t in the business of enslaving people.”
“True. When the Republic wants slaves, it just breeds them.”


Alden met Aayla’s eyes properly for the first time. He kept his face very still, betrayed very little besides the obvious things like his distrust of Aayla, even bemusement by her.
“You’re Rutian,” he said. This was a reference to Aayla’s colouring, her ethnicity. “Did you grow up in Rutoyah?”
“I was born there, yes,” Aayla replied. “I grew up on Coruscant. Most Jedi do.”
“Aha. A long way away.” He folded his arms. “I’ll be blunt, Master Secura. The droid insurgency is largely contained. They are little more than a nuisance now. My cell already has more than enough resources to destroy them.”
“I’m pleased to hear that,” Aayla replied. “But you’re still building up this outpost.”
“We need to think ahead. Ryloth is still vulnerable. If the Republic left and the CIS came back, or if the Republic decided to be less… virtuous than it is right now, we’d be reconquered in a month. We need military infrastructure. We need weapons. We need munitions. We need starships and planetary defence cannons. Eventually we’ll need to start building them ourselves, but for now we need to buy them.” There was a kind of weariness in him. He did not seem to contemplate the militarisation of Ryloth with any relish, accomplished warrior though he was. It was just grim necessity.


“Alden,” Aayla said, “when I reached out your cell, I did say what my intention was in coming here. If the insurgency is no real threat, why didn’t you tell me to mind my own business?”
“Because there’s other ways you can help us,” Alden replied. “The future we need to achieve will not be reached easily. We need every resource we can get.”
The door to his office, to which Aayla still had her back, opened. She did not quite turn quickly enough to see that it was Pren, and that he was holding a strange looking weapon. Not before he fired it.


As it travelled through the air, the projectile looked like a large, square grid of glowing, golden energy, about a metre and a half high, and two metres across. When it struck Aayla, however, it revealed itself as more than insubstantial energy. It was a net.


“What?!” With sudden speed it struck her, its glowing cords twisting around her body, swiftly ensnaring her. From her ankles to her chest it wrapped about her, sheathing her. The mesh wrapped around her, enfolding her feminine figure in its confines, instantly and totally restraining her. It seemed to mould to her body, getting tighter and tighter as it adjusted to her womanly contours. It slammed together her trim, tight thighs, immobilising her legs. It forced her arms against her round hips, palms flat, her sabre only an inch from her right hand, but completely inaccessible.


Bound! Her whole body was bound - in an instant! She looked down at herself, saw the net capturing her limbs, overpowering her body’s lithe strength. And she hadn’t sensed it. Hadn’t had any idea what they intended for her - that she had delivered herself, alone, to men who’d plotted to - to what? Abduct her? Hold her hostage? And the net - it felt so strange, almost buzzing against her skin like she was bound by a lightning bolt. But it was solid enough - solid enough to restrain her. Her slinky, serpentine hips wriggled against it, her slim shoulders squirming and writhing, pushed in against her body by the restraint around her arms; her bosom, pushed up and exaggerated by the upper border of the net, strained as Aayla pushed in vain against her captivity. Even the Force was no help. What power Aayla could summon wasn’t enough to free her. All she could do was stop herself from falling over.


“Ungh! Nghh! Wh- what’s the meaning of this? Let me go at once!” She kept struggling, bucking and thrashing with humiliated fury, her lekku swinging about as she shook her head this way and that. “Release me!!”
Alden stood. Approached his captive - at a safe distance.
“I won’t ask for forgiveness. I won’t pretend to deserve it. I am about to do something evil, Master Secura. I am going to do to you what people have been doing to Ryloth for millennia. But I won’t lose any sleep. You are a resource that I can exploit for Ryloth’s benefit.”
“What do you mean ‘exploit’? What are you talking about, you bastard?!”
“‘Bastard’? Not very serene of you, Master Jedi. What I mean is that you are a Jedi. You are a general in the Republic. You are a Twi’lek. And you are truly beautiful. Such a prize will command dizzying prices.”
“... You’re… you’re going to sell me? You claim to fight for Ryloth’s freedom but you’ll sell one of its people for profit?!”
“You were born on this planet, Master Jedi, but you are not one of its people. You are like the Republic itself. Another foreign presence that Ryloth would be much better off without.”
And, before Aayla could reply to this insult, her sheath revealed another function.


It was instantaneous. The soft buzzing that Aayla felt where the net touched her skin suddenly became something far more powerful.
“Auuuhhh… AAHHHHH!!!” Aayla cried, as the energy surged through her body in a dazzling display of golden light. Her back and her legs went completely straight, her head thrown back, exposing her smooth, slim throat. Her body juddered and shook as the net discharged its energy into her, her bosoms and her lekku jumping as her body was forced into this helpless dance. “Aaahhhh! N-no! You - you can’t… do this! I - AHHHHH…!” It wasn’t even painful, exactly - but like everything inside her was being jumbled and disrupted. She couldn’t think, couldn’t draw on the Force to protect herself, couldn’t move.


Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the light faded. A heavy silence filled the air. Aayla was still. Alden and Pren were still. Aayla seemed frozen - suspended. And then the net gave one last, tiny jolt, and she fell.
“Ohhhhhhh…” As she fell, she swooned, eyes rolling back as her limp legs gave way beneath her. At once her body was relaxed, loose, and her head fell from one shoulder to the other as she dropped. The net didn’t have enough give for legs to bend at the knee, so she fell on her right side with a heavy ‘thump’ against the stone floor, her bosom shaking loosely in her low cut top as she landed. She rolled onto her back, her head falling to the side, her expression blank. She was still, barely, conscious, though thoughtless and hardly aware of anything. Her eyelids quivered as they settled, her mouth slightly open, her shoulders relaxing, sinking as her body yielded to the knockout pulse.


She heard movement near her, though it was on the other side of her body from where her eyes were looking, and she couldn’t move to look at it. But a hand clutched her delicate chin, turned it; a thumb lightly stroked her soft, red lips. She heard a voice saying ‘damned Jedi - she deserves it’, but it was too distant to the person touching her. That person did speak, though.
“Do you know,” he said, “the most obscene part of all this? I feel in my lekku a satisfaction in doing this to you. In… lowering you. How wretched we are.” He touched her face. “Sleep now, Master Jedi. Sleep now, Aayla.”
As her eyelids finally faded shut, and the last embers of consciousness departed, Aayla felt something in her own lekku. They quivered - and Aayla obediently surrendered to sleep.