I'll only do the pronunciation for a few names, because there are so many. You can work out the rest. (Spanish/Japanese vowels, usually accented on the second-to-last syllable, except, for some reason, Lasir and Mibir.)

Akite: Ah-kee-tay (Wow, I have written that so many times by now! This is her fifth story. But don't worry if you haven't read the rest. This should stand alone.)

Jiimo: Jee-moh

Okutu: Oh-koo-too

Disclaimer: All characters (except a few very recognizable canon characters that are mentioned) are my own creation, along with Okutu and the species Mibir, Hssak, Shinsayama, and Paifei (later chapter). Zabrak and Iridonia are canon, of course.

I think it's completely ridiculous to have a disclaimer saying that I don't own Star Wars or have any permission to write about it. I mean, if I did, why would I be wasting my time on a site for fanfiction? I would be making money with books that could be SOLD. Not to mention that, if I was George Lucas, I would never have ruined the Force with midi-chlorians, I would have found a better actor for Anakin in Episode I, and I would have strangled anyone who suggested making Carrie Fisher wear that outfit in Episode VI. I just want to make clear what I did and did not invent.

I'm posting this from France. We'll be here for a month. I don't know where we'll be on any given day because my dad is working and my mom and I may or may not go somewhere on weekdays. I can't swear that I'll update every Friday (I didn't manage this one because we had just come), but I'm going to try. I've written this whole story already, so I can do that.

Bloodrain

Two years after the Battle of Geonosis

1

"There's no way this can be an easy mission," my master warned me as we left Coruscant. "We have more Jedi on Okutu than any other planet right now, and they keep adding more." She smiled grimly.

Our ship jumped to hyperspace, and Coruscant disappeared in a blaze of light. I sighed and looked away from the window. "Why, though?" I asked. "Okutu doesn't have a big population – it's nothing compared to Coruscant or something – and it's not in any strategic location. Why would the Separatists want it?"

"They don't," my master stated. "That's the thing. They don't want it any more than they want any other planet, and neither do we. It's not the Separatists we'll be fighting. It's the people, and it's mostly one city – Kebro, which is sort of the second capital of the planet."

I gave her a blank look. The Council hadn't told us this. They hadn't told us much of anything, really, as if they trusted us to know what to do. At least one of us did.

"You really need a lesson on Okutu, don't you?" my master asked, laughing. "Okay. Let's see…"

My master is Moyek Yasi, a notoriously hardheaded Zabrak Jedi Master and a semi-legendary lightsaber duelist. She has light gold skin and black eyes. Her particular race of Zabrak doesn't have hair, and her horns are small and high on her head. She is from Iridonia, our homeworld, and she has Iridonian coming-of-age tattoos across her cheeks and chin. We get along fairly well, but she's very strict. Iridonian Zabrak tend to be fiercer than those from colonial worlds.

My name is Akite Chairu. I'm a Zabrak, too, but I'm from one of the colonial worlds and a different race than Moyek. My horn pattern is different from hers, and I have shoulder-length black hair. I have dark brown skin, and I don't have tattoos. The community I was born in doesn't do that, and I've never wanted to leave the Jedi even for a few months to learn the ways of the Zabrak and come of age by their standards. I'm fine with the Jedi's standards. I'm fifteen and have been Moyek's apprentice for about two years, since my first master, the knight Oreti Alo, died in the Battle of Geonosis.

Okutu is one of the middle worlds. We had an eight-hour flight through hyperspace, so I had plenty of time to learn about the planet.

Okutu is a pieced-together sort of planet. There are no native sentient species, so no one had a proper claim on it. Now, however, there are four major species besides the omnipresent Humans (what is it about them that makes them so much better than the rest of us?), two of which have communities nowhere else in the galaxy. One of the groups is the Zabrak, which Moyek says is why we were sent there.

The first of these species to settle, the Hssak, arrived two thousand years ago. The last, the Mibir, were sent there fifteen hundred years ago. Since the Republic is only a thousand years old, the various species had centuries to clash before anyone effectively controlled them. They had taken their first chance to start fighting again and were completely out of control.

The government on Okutu wouldn't allow clones on the planet. The battle droids and mass destruction that the troops have been trained to fight against wasn't occurring there, anyway. The people fight on the streets. The Hssak and Zabrak have warrior traditions on their homeworlds and the Mibir had learned well. There are police on the planet, but they aren't trained well enough to handle everything. There is a militia, too, but they are new, just formed and only for Kebro, and even worse at this.

It wasn't all species against species, though. There could be members of the same species fighting each other or members of different species fighting on one side. Nobody knew which factions have leaders and which just like to fight, and nobody knew whether Separatists are involved and trying to tie up the Jedi.

It was a mess. We were sent to help.

Sounded like fun.

Sounded like a Jedi's life.

"At least I might get to see Jiimo or Fang," I sighed once Moyek finished telling me about the planet. That seemed to be the one possible bright point. Jiimo and Fang are two of my friends, and I hadn't seen Jiimo more than once in the past year.

"Don't count on it," Moyek warned. "There are so many Jedi there. You never know who you'll see or in what sort of situation."

That was true, and I knew it. "I'm just amazed that three of us will be in the same city at once. Especially Jiimo."

Moyek laughed. "His master seems to like to be in the thick of things. He would never forgive the Council if he didn't get some time on Okutu. Not that the Council would or should care. And don't," she added sharply, "delude yourself by thinking that they planned you three to be together. They aren't like that."

"I know. Fang always seems to show up where I am, though." When I was stuck in the Temple after the Battle of Geonosis, he was called there because we didn't have enough healers and his master is a healer as well as a knight. This pattern has repeated twice, plus this time, and we run into each other a lot.

Thinking of Jiimo and Fang made me think of my other friends. The journey was long, so I had plenty of time for that.

There used to be five of us. I'm not sure how many there are now. One of us, Dorn, died in the Battle of Geonosis. My best friend, Zefel, was captured by the Separatists and hasn't been herself since.

Her farewell to me stuck in my head. "It's not going to matter in the end, you know. We'll all die, and it won't matter."

She's been like that since she came back, but it's been worse lately. The Council has her master working on Coruscant so he and Zefel have to come back to the Temple every day. That way, the masters can keep an eye on her.

"But it does matter, right?" I asked Moyek as we traveled.

"I don't know what your friend has been seeing when she meditates, but her vision is limited," Moyek told me. "Even if we lose the war and all die, it will matter eventually. Everything we do has an impact in the long term."

"Zefel keeps saying that the Jedi will all be dead soon," I added worriedly. "All of us. And people do say that she has visions. They always have."

Moyek gave me a searching look. "The present is what matters, Akite. If we're all gone next week, I'm sorry, but we're going to do our best to end the violence while we can.

"Besides," she added, "Time is relative. 'Soon' can be a thousand years from now. That's a short period from the Force's perspective. Don't let Zefel's pessimism get to you. We have a lot of work to do."

Yes, we did.