Chapter 42: Final Preparations

Tylo considers the question for a long moment and considers Bo-Katan Kryze at the same exact time. The Mandalorian Woman is a warrior. A weapon, in some ways. But she’s also her own being. In truth, she’s no more a weapon than he or any other Jedi is, despite what people out in the galaxy might think. Still, he can’t help but go with the honest truth. “I want you with me at my side on Kamino, of course. But I also know that I have no real claim to you.” Bo-Katan hums at that, continuing to look at him lazily. Her thoughts, however, are anything but. Tylo won’t lie… he’s definitely cheating right now, reading her thoughts. Oh? Where’s the Padawan going with this? He really is smarter than I gave him credit for. … Yes, it’s something like navigating a minefield, really. “I know that you have your own life, Bo-Katan. That you are a bounty hunter first and foremost and must be able to take jobs and ply your trade… especially in these currently tumultuous times. That said, I would ask you to make Kamino your home base once more, for the time being. To be close at hand, if I have need of your services.” There. That was diplomatically said, wasn’t it? Bo-Katan certainly seems to think so, as she rises from her back and up onto her knees, moving to slap a hand upon his cock. Her eyes twinkle as she licks her lips for a moment, before giving his dick a long lick as well. Mm, my services… or my services? Still, he’s certainly being careful with me. Good. If he’d tried to order me about, I would have had to retaliate in some way. “… I suppose I could be convinced to entertain such a notion. So long as the Kaminoans are willing to continue giving me room and board for free, mind you. Or, I suppose your Order could foot the bill, if it came down to it.” Tylo grunts, nodding in agreement as the red-haired Mandalorian swirls her tongue around his cockhead for a moment, before descending down his length. Hm… who was doing the convincing here, exactly? Still, he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth… especially not when Bo-Katan’s mouth was so hot, wet, and slick, her tongue sliding along his cock length back and forth. Negotiations… negotiations would be fraught with peril, it seemed. It was going to take all of his skill, all of his know-how to come out on top here! But Tylo wasn’t going to be bested, no sir. Not when he had the advantage of knowing what Bo-Katan was REALLY thinking regardless of what she actually said. -x-X-x- After securing Bo-Katan’s agreement through various… persuasive methods, Tylo had gone about getting some other errands done. He’d checked in with Aayla to find out that Master Shaak Ti had already… requisitioned them, so to speak. Apparently, it had caused a tiny bit of a stir, because having two Jedi Masters stationed on one planet in the middle of a galactic war where each Jedi Master was also a General of the new Grand Army of the Republic, was seen as… slightly frivolous. However, when the one planet in question was also the location where the Grand Army’s new recruits were being produced and trained, it became a much easier argument to make. While it might have been the intention of the Jedi High Council for Shaak Ti and Maris Brood to be stationed at Kamino alone, Shaak Ti wasn’t just a Jedi Master, she was a member of that very same High Council. They hadn’t assigned her and her apprentice to Kamino. Rather, they’d given her overall command of the planet and its defenses, at least as far as the Order was concerned. This gave the Togruta Jedi Master the authority to requisition all sorts of things… like another Master-Padawan pair, for instance. Of course, when Tylo became a Jedi Knight in the next few months, which Aayla had assured him he almost certainly would, things would change. He would no longer be Aayla’s apprentice and thus no longer be glued to her side. In fact, given the state of the galaxy at the moment, he would almost certainly be expected to take up his own Command and be sent elsewhere in the galaxy. But they would cross that bridge when they got there. For now, they had only a couple of days before they shipped out to Kamino. Apparently, the Clone Troops that were going to be assigned to Aayla had been about to leave the planet and make their way to Coruscant to meet with her and her padawan… but now they were waiting on Kamino, an additional force added to the garrison. There were too many clones and not nearly enough Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights for Aayla NOT to be given a Command, apparently. And for the time being, that Command would be stationed on Kamino along with the planet’s other defensive garrisons. It made sense to Tylo, he supposed. Though he still wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about going back into the predator’s den, so to speak. Kamino had to be a trap of some sort… but by a similar vein, he couldn’t stand the thought of sending Shaak Ti without him and Aayla. They needed to stick together and get to the bottom of everything that was happening… preferably BEFORE he was expected to become a Jedi Knight. To that end, Tylo had his errands. First and foremost was a visit to Padme. She and Annie had come back with him from Naboo, with Annie rejoining Obi-Wan and the Master-Padawan pair almost immediately racing off-planet with their new Clone Commands to start fighting the numerous fires cropping up all over the galaxy. Meanwhile, Padme had stayed closer to home. She was the Nabooian Senator, of course, and so her place was in the Galactic Senate… where she had almost immediately taken a soft anti-war stance. She was probably the only Senator in the entire galaxy who could get away with it right now, truth be told. The whole of the Republic was up in arms about what had happened on Geonosis. But in Padme’s defense, she was in the THICK of what happened on Geonosis. She had barely survived with her life, and if anyone had cause for complaint regarding the Separatists, it was her. Padme definitely wanted the Separatists brought to justice for their crimes too. But she had already given a couple of speeches on the perils of war, and even questioned the judgment of turning the Jedi into soldiers, into Generals and Commanders as they had. She was questioning a lot of things that very powerful people probably didn’t want questioned… but she wouldn’t be Padme, if she didn’t. Still, Tylo was happy to get some alone time with her in her apartment. It was too bad that Annie couldn’t be there with them, but they made the most of their short time together anyways. And then, Tylo had very deliberately… not told Padme everything. He’d told her some things. He’d told her to be careful. He’d told her what the Jedi Order itself was aware of, that there was more to this war than met the eye. He didn’t come out and tell her about the Sith, or about the Kaminoans, or about himself, however. Telling Aayla everything had been a huge weight off his shoulders, but he still didn’t feel as though he could just go around blabbing his secret to everyone… even to those closest to him. Tylo also wasn’t stupid. Padme was the kind of gal who would one hundred percent go and get herself in trouble if he actually gave her the full, unvarnished truth. As it was, while their meeting had been physically satisfying, it had also been mentally taxing, because even giving Padme just that much fuel had been enough to send the Nabooian Senator’s thoughts racing. Tylo had been trying to steer her to making less inflammatory speeches. He’d tried to ‘negotiate’ with her like he had Bo-Katan, only to discover something very important. In terms of… negotiations, the Mandalorian Woman was actually remarkably straight forward when compared to Padme Amidala. In the end, it felt like two steps forward, three steps back. While Padme had paid lip service to keeping her head down a bit more when Tylo had warned her to be careful, in her mind, he had read plans of tackling things from different angles. She might stop the inflammatory speeches on the Senate Floor for a time, but she’d still be making trouble, just from a different direction. Still… she wouldn’t be Padme if she wasn’t finding some way to step on the toes of the vile and powerful, now, would she? After that visit to Padme, his next stop had been the Jedi Archives. While he was sure he would have a connection to the Holonet while he and Aayla were stationed on Kamino, nothing said it would be a secure one. And truth be told, Tylo had no clue how dangerous Kamino would be. Hell, it could even end up being boring. So he’d gone to the Archives and downloaded a few choice texts under the watchful gaze of the ever-present Jocasta Nu. The Master Archivist, or as she preferred to be called, Madame Librarian, was a little too old for Tylo’s taste… which was probably just as well, because he didn’t detect a lick of inappropriate thought from the Jedi Master while he was making his selections. She was laser-focused on her purpose as Chief Librarian, her Force Presence spread throughout the library so she could ‘watch’ everyone as once and make sure no one was messing around. Tylo had gone in, got what he needed, and left. Mostly, he’d picked up some texts on Mandalorians and their culture, wanting to get to know not only Bo-Katan a bit better, but also get a little bit of a finger on the pulse of the Clone Army they’d be working alongside for the foreseeable future as well. As Bo-Katan had explained it, the Clones had their own form of culture in their ranks, despite all attempts by the Kaminoans to stamp it out. She’d called it a bastardized form of Mandalorian Culture. As well, Tylo had grabbed some texts on ancient history. He’d done this for a specific reason… each of the texts he’d grabbed had mentions of the Ancient Sith in them. He didn’t dare go for texts that were ALL about the Sith, concerned about just who might be watching, even in the Temple Archives. To be fair, most of the serious shit was locked away in the Holocron Vault anyways. As a Jedi Padawan, he didn’t have access to any of that. Still, know thy enemy and all that. He’d grabbed what he could, and only time would tell if any of it would be useful. Probably not, given the Ancient Sith had empires and armies of their own, rather than working from the shadows like they currently were, but… you never knew. Finally, Tylo had one last stop to make. The Temple Infirmary. He couldn’t help it. Janga Fett was his responsibility, even if no one would agree with him on that. She’d died after he’d made her surrender by Force Choking her on her ship. Tylo couldn’t necessarily bring himself to regret it, to be honest. If he hadn’t, they would all be dead right now. Him, Aayla, Bo-Katan, Boba, and Janga herself. Instead, they had convinced her to surrender… and it had cost the bounty hunter her life. Now, standing outside of the cordoned off room where it had happened, Tylo just stares, grimacing a bit. The room’s been sealed off, but he can see through the window into it that it was blasted to hell. No one could have survived that. Still… why? Was it the Sith assassinating her? Did she even know there was a bomb? Answers to those questions would have to wait. But they would be answered someday. That, Tylo swore. For the time being… well, the site of Janga Fett’s murder wasn’t the only reason he’d come down here, to the Medical Bay. Everyone had been talking about it… the injured, brought back from Geonosis. Some were Clones, some were Jedi. Geonosis… Geonosis was a slaughter, to say the least. A Jedi Massacre the Order had not faced in many, many years. Hundreds, even. And yet… even from that massacre, there were survivors. No one that Tylo knew personally. Or rather, no one he knew personally was in the Temple Infirmary still recovering. He’d gotten lucky in that regard, though he couldn’t say he got completely lucky. Annie had still lost an arm, after all. That she was up and about so quickly was a testament to her connection to the Force… and her love for him and Padme. For other Jedi, as well as some of the brave Clones who had fought to save those Jedi on Geonosis, recovery would take… longer. And Tylo… Tylo felt like he had to face them. To confront what had happened and recognize what he was fighting for. Because he doesn’t actually have anyone to personally visit, he stays out of the way. But he does look in on them all, taking in the misery, the heartache. He soaks it all in… and then lets it all back out into the Force. He does his best to suck it up out of the air in fact and push good and positive Force Energy back into the area in response. It’s a common enough meditation technique, though admittedly the Infirmary is filled with enough melancholy to make it somewhat harder to practice. But Tylo doesn’t stop. He- “What are you doing?” This is Tylo Vondin, isn’t it? Of course it is. Blinking his eyes open, Tylo looks to see who has ‘snuck up’ on him so to speak. The Mirialan is young… about as old as he is, in fact. Definitely not Luminara Unduli, which actually makes her easier to identify. Her knowing who he is, only confirms it. “I’m meditating. Trying to help in my own way. Barriss Offee, I presume?” She stiffens at the sound of her own name, before slowly nodding. She looks at him searchingly for a moment, before letting out a low sigh. “Yes. Your meditation… is appreciated. Though I’m sure you have more important things to be doing.” Please have more important things to be doing. Curious. She recognized the good that he was performing and looked almost loath to ask him to stop. And yet… in her inner most thoughts, she selfishly wanted him to go away. Tylo couldn’t imagine why. What problem did Barriss Offee of all people have with him? More importantly… was it his place to question her about it?