The Rebel Faction

Kamon stood on naboo. The familiar but unfamiliar habitat was something he enjoyed. Plant life was always welcome.

The gentle flow of the Force put a warm feeling in him. Normally that was something only Whisper could do. He missed her already.

He had only been gone from Tholatin for a few hours. It wasn't that far away, but he still felt like he shouldn't have left her.

He was preparing to move to take two more planets. Planets the coalition needed. The imperial factioin were already moving fast. He needed planets and ships.

Walking up to the top of a hill, he took a seat. He moved into a meditative position and relaxed. It was time to think.

Noise broke the silence, from a distance away. Music flooded into the air, as the sounds of one of the up and coming dance acts from the lower levels of Coruscant pulsed out of a stereos speaker. The beat was euphoric, and a soothing female voice sung simplistic lyrics over the top of the melody. The amazingly small unit was placed on top of a rock, by which there stood a woman dressed in what looked like work out clothes.

She readied herself before beginning to slowly motion her hands in front of her body, closing her eyes as the Force began to slowly ebb into her being. As a Jedi she felt a oneness with the nature around her, but unlike most she could not meditate and practice in silence – she needed an active workout, one that would good her heart pulsing and adrenaline flowing.

With a rush of air Arriana struck a balled fist through the air, before continuing on in a repetitive yet fluid motion of kicks, punches and guards…

Sitting outside in the sun, Damalis rested while she waited for her ship to be put through preflight diagnostics. She paid to have it done, since it was above her electronics knowledge. It was why she'd spent extra on a ship with a good autopilot and stuck to the shipping lanes when she went anywhere. Damalis could program it and could, if forced, pilot the ship, but she wasn't anticipating anything going wrong where she had to do so. A business trip like this one should prove to just routine, or at least, the tall blond hoped this would be the routine.

This being her first actual business trip Damalis was hoping for the best. She'd finally decided it was time to expand her smaller ventures and get active in the process of doing so. Right now she made enough money to live nicely off of the patents she already held, but Damalis was feeling a little pressure from the clock. She was only twenty-two but still, she felt as if some people wouldn't see her as doing well and thought about the future. What if her company folded? Or she lost her patents? Things were so unsure in the world today, with so many things happening lately, she felt it was time to jump while things were hot, instead of letting interest wane in her product, then trying to make it.

Here on Naboo was a perfect market, as well. There was enough good families and people of moderately good means that she'd found more than one person willing to carry her product. Several boutiques in some of the larger cities now carried her fabrics and textiles, which had really given her a boost. Now she not only had a thriving business but she now had actual employees. Not many, one or two good ones, but it gave her hope for the future.

Damalis was good with clothes. It was the one area of interest to her that she was certain of herself in. That's why when she'd gotten the idea for a new synthetic fabric, she'd gone to the right authorities, gotten it patented and then sent about getting it produced. She was now in the fashion business and had a good success at it. Oh, she wasn't a great name like some people, but those people? The really big people? They used her fabrics. And that was good enough for Damalis.

So now she sat waiting for her ship to be finished, feeling good about herself, and looking like anyone's idea of a young fresh business woman. She'd toned down her normal wild outfits, this one colored a light gray that was shot through with dark blues here and there, her ankle length skirt and tailored jacket spoke of the utmost quality, but it was definitely a far cry from Damalis' normal leanings for brighter colors, yellows, pinks, even rainbows and such strung together. She looked lovely as always, but a lot less flighty, which had been the idea. The last time she'd been on Naboo, Damalis had just gotten rid of her apprentice robes, quite gladly too. Trying jedi training had seemed like a good idea at the time, but the longer she worked at it, the more Damalis found it not right for her.

Oh, she could do the training, well, everything except the lightsaber, but the entire lifestyle just grated on her. The whole apprentice robes thing had really hung on her like a dark cloud. Damalis was a bright creature, lovely in a way that she full well knew but never abused, and she craved bright things that matched her. Plus, she hadn't been able to bring herself to face the fact that Jedi's DO fight. They'd rather not but they do end up fighting simply because of the people who seek them out, and Damalis didn't want that. She didn't want to fight at all. If she was the woman who squealed and ran for cover, then so be it. Personally she couldn't stand to be the woman who ran someone through with a singing lightsaber. She'd made peace with that herself, dropped out of her training, and then moved on to other things. Damalis still heard the call of the Force at times, but that usually came in the form of precognitive visions that most of the time took her awhile to decipher anyway. They had come in handy a time or two, but they were too random for her to rely on them any.

It was in this frame of mind, remembering her times on this planet before, that Damalis waited on Naboo. Things had changed around her, and still were, but the tall lovely blond was what she'd always been. A bright spot even in the dark that still sparkled no matter how colorless the wrapping.

L’ahout stood in the shadows, watching everyone who walked by. He was a careful man, always taking things slow, and with much forethought. He had to, especially on a planet like Naboo.

L’ahout wasn’t your normal human. Actually, he wasn’t human at all. He had dark grey skin, and black hair with streaks of grey. He was a Mar’hute, of the sect B’lai – the craftsman sect. He was one of the three Mar’hute to have left the planet of Vandelhiem on the probing mission.
With the Alm’Pu’ti missing again, Pu’Ti Marcus had decided it was time to send a few scouts out. L’ahout did not know how the other two scouts had fared, but his progress had not been the greatest.

L'ahout studied the people moving about with his coal black eyes, looking for someone whom he could approach to question about where one could find a so called Jedi Master. He knew there was a school somewhere on this planet, but he really did not wish to go walking through a school full of babbling jaul’Kron. L'ahout choked, the thought of the Jedi being jaul’Kron almost made him chuckle, his chest heaved with silent laughter. He had seen only one other person who was capable of using what the Jedi called the Force, and the man had obviously only been in the jaul’Kron school for twenty or so years. He had at least a century to go before he reached significant enough strength to be considered for graduation. Untrained as they may be, someone in a gaggle of jaul’Kron might be able to sense him, even while he was stifling his seventh sense. And everyone knew how much jaul’Kron talked. This mission was one of stealth, and information gathering – not an advertisement of where to find his people.

A flicker of light caught L'ahout’s left eye, a splash of gold. At almost the same time he felt the presence of an untrained ability. Peering through the crowd L'ahout examined the woman. After a few minutes he returned to his observations of the crowd. The golden haired woman would not be able to help him – she was so untrained she probably couldn’t tell if the grass was green.

I couldn't sit anymore, my legs were beginning to fall asleep and my mind was gooing to follow suit fairly soon. I diodn't know how long I had been sitting there on the hill, maybe a day, maybe only a few minutes, that was how it was with Jedi meditation, you never know what to expect. With a short pull from protestiong muscles, and a quiet moan as I stretched out the kinks ion my neck, I began to walk back towards the city.

I had rented a hotel in one of the up-scale joints, and I was really looking forward to laying down on the bed, and letting my mind take over. I need to sleep, badly. The warm breeze was slightly colder now, and it helped to keep me awake, but it wouldn't last forever. Soon, my knees would buckle, and I would end up sleeping in an alley. I passed a few of the lower scale hotels, wincing as I did so.

Oh, if had gone to this one, I would be there already. But no!

I shook my thoughts away, and I continued through the busy streets, weaving through peoples of ever different race and size. The smell of a thousand different sweats was almost sicking, but it too made it difficult to want to sleep.

My hotel was drawing closer on the horizon, and I let a small smile cross my lips and a sigh to escape them. I rolled my shoulders back, trying for the umpteenth time to crack the tiredness out of them. The pressed the door open, and started towards the room that was mine on the thirteenth floor. I needed sleep, even more so now!

Maybe I'll go check out the marketplace afterwards.:rolleyes