Chapter 7: Research

Summary: Hovering over the university planet of Yabol Opa, Izuku and Aayla do some research, while Aayla deals with the side effects of both purging the Glitterstim from her system and slowly recovering memories that may complicate her life...

Chapter 7: Research

The first several days of the purge cocktail had been moderately miserable for Aayla. Though she admitted, with more than a little bit of embarrassment, that it actually would have been a lot worse without her current…predicament. Locked up as she was, 'waste' removal was taken care of by the technology in her chastity belt. Something that hadn't previously occurred to Izuku as an issue and which he very much wasn't interested in knowing the exact details of. However it worked, it had apparently actually reduced the nastiness of the purging process somewhat. Not entirely, unfortunately. She'd still been constantly sweating out oily gunk that she'd scrubbed off three times a day in the 'fresher. Not to mention experiencing quite a bit of general exhaustion as her body ran wild, almost like it would have had she been ill and feverish.

Still, for the most part, Aayla had been lucky enough to sleep through the worst of it. Which had, in turn, actually given Izuku some uninterrupted time to focus on general galactic knowledge. What the Republic was, how it had been founded and functioned, a general overview of rights and laws, and a solid-but-confusing overview of its wildly erratic technology levels. He'd been awed by the size and age of the Republic, then depressed by its current state in turn. As a true outsider looking in, he could see some massive issues with the system that currently existed. Not the least of which was the utterly bizarre idea of giving megacorps actual seats in the Republic's Senate. That, when he'd discovered it, had probably been the single most insane thing he'd read so far. Corporations couldn't, generally, even be trusted not to manipulate governments via bribes and lobbying. Skipping right past any form of control on them and making them part of the government was, as the Americans back on Earth might have phrased it, batshit crazy. It also didn't seem to be working out very well, as much of the ongoing decline he'd seen evidence of seemed to have started when that particular insanity was let in.

Of course, in his efforts to learn about Galactic history, he'd also run across the Jedi. They seemed to be, if anything, even older than the Republic. Unfortunately, even at a center of learning like this planet, the information on them seemed to be wildly varying. So much so that he'd almost immediately given up trying to sort out which sources were real and which wild speculation. Instead, he'd set all but the most basic of the sources he'd found aside for Aayla, hoping they'd help with her memories. The fact that the basic information he did read fully included their basic ranking system, and said ranking system seemed to use 'Master' as one of their titles, did make him hopeful that they weren't slavers at least. Though the information in the same basic resources that indicated they took in initiates as infants and toddlers was much more alarming. With even those basic facts seeming to say two different things about them, he'd given up on it quickly, in favor of general galactic history and politics.

Even there, he'd only had the time to get the most basic of outlines before Aayla recovered enough to start looking through the data he'd set aside for her. She would be on the purging drugs for weeks, but the initial rough period the droid had warned them of was past. Now, he tried to concentrate of some information he'd managed to find about The Wheel…and mostly failed and he watched her go through the information on the Jedi, frowning, occasionally wincing in pain, and periodically going blank-eyed as a memory surfaced. Finally, after several hours, she put the latest reference article down and leaned back to rub the bridge of her nose, eyes closed against a migraine.

"Well, I can say with absolute certainty that I was a Jedi. Quite a few memories of learning some of this as a kid popped into my head when I was going through articles. Unfortunately, it was all background. I can remember parts of the Jedi Temple now, as well as bits and pieces of lessons on The Force. Even a fair bit about fighting with a lightsaber. But everything past the age of…ten maybe? Is still mostly blank. And even the time before that age is full of holes."

Izuku was very carefully neutral as he asked the important question.

"Does that mean you want to get in touch with them? If they trained you, they can probably tell you more about…you."

Aayla's head instantly shook firmly, though she groaned a moment later, rubbing her temples. Apparently, that motion hadn't done her headache any favors.

"No. Not yet. Maybe eventually? But…there were some things in those memories that concern me. And while I don't remember much yet about my former master, I have a strong impression that he didn't actually like the Jedi leadership. Worse, I think the feeling was mutual. I have no idea how they'd react to me showing up without him and…in my current circumstances. Or to you, for that matter. You clearly have some connection to the Force and I don't know how they'd react to it."

Izuku blinked at that last bit. The rest of it was somewhat relieving. He'd have let her go, even helped her go, if she'd wanted to. But if they separated him from her, he'd be in a lot worse shape than he was now. Even a half-blind guide was still better than no guide at all. The fact that he was coming to care for her when all else he'd cared for was lost to him, made the idea even more unpalatable. That last bit, though…

"I have a connection to the Force? Is that the…entity that's been helping me?"

Aayla finally looked directly at him, forcing her eyes open to meet his and biting her lip for a moment before answering.

"I…think so? The problem is that your connection doesn't match what I remember. And…mine doesn't either."

What? Before he could express that question, the answer was already spilling out of his companion in a rush.

"That's another reason I don't want to go back to them yet. The bond you made with me, that lets us both feel and even mentally hear each other somewhat? That's some sort of Force thing. But I don't know what. Whatever it is…it feels a lot more light than anything from my memories! Hell, I tried to 'reach out to the Force' like one of the classes I remember taught us, and it was just there. Like I barely had to reach out at all! Like it wanted to rush into me! And it was so, so, emotive. Like a person? Sort of? But not really?"

Groaning in obvious frustration, Aayla sunk back in her chair again, tugging weakly at her lekku.

"I don't know. But it doesn't feel the same. Yet it also feels more right than it did. Like somehow, before, I was getting it through some sort of oily filter! And I just know, like it's screaming it in my ear, that the link you forged is the reason. I don't want them to fuck with that!"

Okay, the whole thing was obviously stressing her out horribly. He really wanted to know more about his connection to this Force. Not to mention more about the Force in general. But not at the cost of Aayla's mental health. Time for an intervention. Izuku stood up, moved over to Aayla…and boldly lifted her off the chair. She squeaked in surprise, then oofed as he sat where she had been and plopped her down in front of him on the ship's deck. She sighed in contentment a moment later as he leaned forward and used the height difference to start working on her shoulders with his best massage. She leaned into it, letting him work his magic, for a good ten minutes. Then he broke the silence.

"Okay. No more Jedi stuff for now. Let the purging drugs keep working and you can try for more memories later. For now, we focus on The Wheel. We can still go after the Box, if we get the chance. If nothing else, the Jedi might appreciate us recovering it. But even if we don't do that, The Wheel is a good place to fulfill several of our other needs. So how about this…"

... ...

Well Aayla wasn't able to entirely prevent herself from looking over more information on the Jedi, she did take Izuku's advice and kept it down to a minimum for their remaining three days over the University Planet. Instead, she put her skills at digging up less official sources of information to use in learning about their target, while Izuku stuck to the more ordinary channels. In testament either to some of her memories slowly returning, or the academics of Yabol Opa simply not being all that interested in an infamous gambling den, it was Aayla that produced the more useful information for them. As such, she started them off when they sat down to compare notes.

"So, first off, I was right about the place being run by a crime lord. Specifically, a J'feh crime lord and Count of Cheelit named Skijid Vrescot."

Aayla threw up a display of the…man? He was some sort of cephalopod, floating in a hover-globe. He might be a male of his species, but 'man' seemed like a bit of a weird descriptor in this instance.

"The station's previous reputation as mostly a high-stakes place to gamble has gotten a bit darker since he bought it from Doffen Gaitag, the original builder. Apparently, Vrescot runs a large amount of Tirefin spice through the station and into the outer rim. That business has brought in a lot of other criminal types, including slavers that are all-to-eager to take advantage of people that ran out of luck at the casinos. Or people that have gotten addicted to the spice."

Aayla scowled at that, it hitting close to home for a good reason, given her recent experiences with both slavery and spice.

"It's scared off some of the higher-stakes, legitimate gambling, but made it a more attractive location for covert exchanges. For obvious reasons, Vrescot keeps the Republic off his station. That lack of any Republic presence, or any law enforcement beyond The Wheel's own internal security, is likely why it was picked as a place for the Jebble Box deal. I've also got a few names of the nastier types you might be interested in doing your vigilante routine on, but otherwise that's the general overview."

Izuku nodded, taking over the holo-display and shifting it to show an image of The Wheel itself.

"What I've found is mostly technical. But it's still useful in highlighting what our two biggest issues are going to be. The first is the sheer size of this thing. It's a couple of dozen kilometers around the ring, with an estimated population of around 300,000 at any given time. A lot of those are transients, of course. But the crew of the station is estimated to number 10,000 all by themselves, and there's a large security presence in addition to those workers. That last is the second point, by the way. There are thousands of security on the station itself…and at least ten light cruisers and accompanying smaller vessels that patrol the space around the station for security."

Izuku leaned back with a frown, considering one of the details he'd discovered about the current state of the Republic. Slowly, he added another observation.

"I think, in this case, the Republic is turning a blind eye to the station and what goes on there might not be entirely because of internal corruption, but because they can't do anything about it. Oh, I have no doubt Vrescot paid a lot of people to look the other way. But, add in the guns on the station itself, and I'm not actually sure the Republic Sector Fleet could realistically take that station. From what I saw when I was trying to get a grasp on the Republic as a whole, they've pretty much neutered the Judiciary Forces. Not all at once, but systematically over the last thousand years or so. It would be hard for them to pull together a fleet powerful enough to take out those security ships, let alone the ground forces to take and hold the station afterwards."

Aayla had a frown of her own as she considered that. She tapped a few queries into her datapad, still connected to the University's systems, and chewed on her lower lip as she looked over some of the same data he likely had. After several minutes, she shook her head in disbelief.

"When you said that, I vaguely remembered something about a conflict called the Stark Hyperspace War. A collective of smugglers and mercenaries actually managed to put together a force strong enough to resist the Judicial Diplomatic Fleet in the Outer Rim. The whole mess only ended because a Jedi managed to convince one of the key people, Iaco Stark himself, to defect. The Senate was legitimately considering surrender to a force small enough to be chewed up and spit out by the local defense forces of planets like Kuat. All because the Republic's own navy is basically non-existent."

Izuku looked at her with utter incredulity.

"Are you serious? The Republic has hundreds of thousands of worlds, right? And the Senate considered surrendering to a bunch of mercs?"

Aayla shrugged.

"I doubt they'd have surrendered the entire Republic or anything, but there's a lot of disregard for the Outer Rim in the Senate. And Stark had used some sort of navicomputer virus to throw the local trade fleets into chaos, so the Senate had other major issues. It's entirely plausible they would have surrendered several sectors of the Outer Rim to him. I mean, the Hutts are an independent Empire and have something like 500 worlds. What's a few hundred more outer rim worlds to the Senate?"

Izuku shook his head in utter disbelief, his opinion of the Republic falling still further. His stomach knotted a bit as he realized, in the long term, he wasn't sure what to do with that information. Forcing himself to focus on the now, Izuku dragged their focus back to The Wheel.

"Right. Well…here's what I'm thinking. Since we have a decent number of credits, we can just…"

... ... ... ...

A/N: So, Aayla starts to get her memory back, while Izuku finally gets at least some grasp of just how vast the galaxy he's been dropped into is...and just how many problems it has, too. It will be a while before Aayla remembers everything, and not just for the plot. Right now, even if she doesn't realize it, she doesn't WANT to remember everything. She actually cared for her Quinlan Voss and acknowledging his death is going to hurt a lot...