Pazaak – Interrupted journey – The discussion

"Jolee, you're not even trying!"

"Patience, young one. I'm not quite as sharp as I used to be, you know. Now, let's see, how many cards do I start with again?"

"Four."

"Oh, it appears I have too many," the elder ex-Jedi said, passing some back to Mission.

"No, no, you have to select the four you want from the deck you already have."

"Oh, okay… I guess I'll take these four."

"You didn't even look!"

"I thought you weren't supposed to?"

"You're not supposed to look at the cards I'll deal out. But that's your deck; you can look at those all you want."

"But it's not mine, it's yours. You gave these to me, remember?"

"Yes, but… Bastila! Bastila!"

She cringed inside… she'd tried to slip through as quickly as possible through the shadows at the edges of the central room of the Ebon Hawk, but the sharp-eyed Twi'lek had still spotted her. And now that she'd instinctively stopped, it was too late to deny she hadn't heard… "Yes, Mission?" she replied, sighing inside as she approached the two sitting across from each other at a table.

"Care to join us in a little game of Pazaak?" Mission asked.

"Ah, I'd love to, Mission, but I'm quite busy right now. Perhaps some other time, thanks," she said, smiling politely.

"Busy doing what?" Jolee asked. "Walking a rut back and forth through the hallway?"

She blinked. "Uh… no… I have some things I need to meditate on, Elder…"

"Elder? Please! Save the titles for someone who cares. Besides, meditation's an old man's game." He rose. "And I just so happen to be that old man. So I'd say we should switch places. I'll go meditate, you keep this one occupied. What were you going to meditate on?"

"What?"

"You already know how to play, right Bas?"

Bas? Since when had she become Bas?

"What were you going to meditate on? I'll do it for you."

"I mean, I'm only assuming, since you've watched a lot of Enosh's Pazaak games already."

Was he teasing her? "It.. it doesn't quite work that way," she replied to Jolee with a polite smile, while desperately trying to catch up to what the Twi'lek girl was babbling about.

"Personally, I just can't get into watching other people's games, not unless I'm studying up on their strategy or something, but you're obviously showing an interest in it."

"Why not? You, me… as long as someone's meditating on it, it'll get done."

"Or maybe you're interested in something besides the Pazaak, hmmm?"

"Because the whole point… that is… it's who, not what… you can't just… what?!"

Jolee smiled at her, a twinkle in his eyes. He patted her on the shoulder, gently helping her to his seat despite her weak protests. "If you'll excuse me, ladies, I need to meditate on some very," here he glanced at Bastila's serious demeanor, and added, "very serious Jedi matters."

Mission's adroit fingers soon had Pazaak cards flying through the air like acrobats.

"That's not good."

Enosh looked up from the datapad he'd been reading. "What is it?"

Carth started flipping switches. "Hang on, we're going to have to come out of hyperspace real quick!"

Enosh was barely able to brace himself in his chair before the shimmering, swirling lights of hyperspace outside suddenly and abruptly reformed themselves into a starfield.

There was a tremendous crash and clatter coming up from midship. Indistinct voices started complaining.

"Sorry about that!" yelled Carth back down the corridor.

"Carth, what is it?" Enosh asked, bringing up displays on the consoles in front of him.

There came the sound of footsteps from the corridor, and Enosh turned to see Bastila and Mission running up. "What happened?" Bastila asked.

"Some sort of damping field out there," Carth replied. "Right across the hyperspace lanes. If I hadn't just dropped us out of hyperspace, it might have shaken the ship apart!"

"What's something like that doing across a well-established line like the Kashyyyk-Tatooine line?" Bastila asked, moving past Enosh to take the co-pilot's seat.

He spotted something fall out of her hair and onto the floor.

"Guess it was just our unlucky day," Carth replied.

Reaching down, Enosh picked up a Pazaak card. He looked at Mission questioningly.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I was bored."

He turned to look at Bastila, but she was busy looking at the ship's scanners, trying to help out Carth. "And?" he asked Mission.

Her eyes twinkled. "She's terrible," she whispered with a smile.

They gathered around the midship holoprojector table.

Carth punched a button on the edge of the table, dimming the lights and bringing the display to life. "Our scanners have found what looks to be a derelict freighter right at the heart of the damping field," he said, as the a tiny pinprick of light in the center of a glowing bubble suddenly magnified into the form of a ship. "I can only guess that it must have just recently drifted into the lines, blocking this particular region. I took the liberty of dropping a beacon to divert oncoming spacecraft away, but we're stuck here for the time being."

"Stuck?" asked Juhani.

"Well, not literally," Carth said. "Sub-light is fine, but it'll take a day or two to get out of the region at sub-light speeds."

Mission groaned.

"Patience, Mission," Jolee said. She rolled her eyes.

Enosh coughed, hiding a smile. "How long would it take for us to reach this derelict ship?" he asked.

"Probably four hours. We already plowed well into its field on the way in."

"Do you think a little expedition might be in order?" Canderous asked.

"Opinion: Stimulation would be a most welcome exercise, Master," HK-47 chimed in.

"Exercise? We don't have time for this!" Bastila protested. "We've already done what we can to alert others about the hazard; we should be on our way. Carth, what would happen if we went ahead and jumped into hyperspace from here?"

"From here? With the densest part of the field before us? It'd be a very bumpy ride. Perhaps fatally so, although the Hawk does seem to be a relatively well-built ship; she might be able to take it."

"That's settled, then," Canderous said. "Who's up for a little exploration?"

"It most certainly is not!" Bastila replied, glaring at HK-47 as he raised his arm. "That's a risk we'll just have to take."

"What?!" growled Canderous.

"I said…"

"Yeah, I know what you said, Princess. Since when have you started deciding what risks we are taking? Look, you can just stay here, nice and safe on the Hawk, while the rest of us figure out what's going on. Okay?"

She was visibly flustered. "I am no coward, sir, and this is a Jedi mission which you chose to join," she replied in clipped tones. "And I'll thank you not to call me that again."

Canderous laughed. "Or what? Are you going to strike an innocent man down, Padawan?"

"Innocent?!" she sputtered. "Hardly that!"

"Enough," Enosh interrupted. "Canderous, tone it down, will you?"

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered darkly. "You're the boss."

"And Bastila… we're not in that much of a hurry. A four hour delay isn't going to kill us."

She stared at him furiously, visibly took a moment to compose herself, then nodded curtly.

"Good. Take us in, Carth," Enosh said.

"You got it."