Vodo inclined his head slightly, as he always did when he was teaching, "You desired to learn control. I taught you that. The Force will help you to see now. But the technique I use for my walking stick... that requires a mastery of the Force that you will not attain without years of study."

Vodo pointed to Esias's jacket, where the holocron was safely stored away, "I learned the basic method myself from a holocron similar to that one. But it took me quite some time and a great deal of practice for me to get it right."

Vodo leaned on his stick heavily, letting it support his weight. If Tir could see, he would have seen a very tired looking Jedi Master.

"I suggest you practice your new techniques. Master them first, before we move on to more difficult ones."

Tir chuckled once.

Vodo had asked him what he wanted to learn and he had replied. Then the Jedi Master had admonsihed him for his answer. Still, he knew that truth rang int he Jedi's words. It was highly likely that his control over the force was not yet great enough to learn such a technique. Of course, Vodo could be lying, because of the implications knowing such a technique might hold. Even if he was, it didn't matter. He was the teacher, and he controled the subject matter.

"That would be a wise course of action, Master Jedi. Perhaps my request was hasty."

Tir Esais couldn't see Vodo's fatigue, but that didn't mean he couldn't tell. His other senses were sharper, and paid much more attention to them than his sight-blessed fellows. He could hear the subtle difference in Vodo's breathing. It was more labored than before.

"However, I believe that I can practice these techniques on my own. If you wish, I can lead you to your quarters, and you can rest until our next session."

"Very well." Vodo said.

He walked in silence as Tir Esias led him to his room, which Vodo found to be quite large and spacious. With an elaborate bed, expensive fixtures, and plush chairs.

Without a word, he stepped into the room and examined it carefully.

It was quite a far cry from his quarters back in the Jedi temple: small, bare, without a bed or any ornamentation. He slept on a small bed of simple blankets in the corner, and when he did sleep, it was only for a few hours.

He turned back to his host, "I will see you in the morning."

Tir left Vodo in his quarters. He wondered for a moment if the Jedi Master was really as tired as he seemed. Contemplating on it for a moment, he was willing to hedge a bet that some of Vodo's fatigue had been an act. Tir knew that meant that Vodo wasn't likely to lie down on the comfortable bed he had been provided with and sleep. No, he was bound to do something significantly more Jedi-esque, like sneak out of his room and go galavanting around the ISD causing havoc in an attempt to determing exactly who Tir Esias was, and how he got his power.

So as he walked away from Vodo's quarters he considered his options. He thought about assigning a pair of guards to stand at his door and offer to "escort" the Jedi Master around if he decided on taking a stroll, but he figured they would be too easily incapacited, or confounded by one of the famous "Jedi Mind Tricks." His next option were the necrotroopers..... but for them to be truely effective he would have to maintain a mental link with them, which would make it difficult to practice his new techniques. Momentarily perplexed, Tir Esias raised a hand to his face, stroking his chin in a very cliched motion of thought.

Then it came to him. He clicked down his cane for emphasis and stopped. Tapping a small button on the top of the cane, he activated a com-link embedded in handle of the crutch. He spoke for a moment and then cut the connection. He could practice his force techniques with peace of mind.

He had just finished giving orders to Qive.

"You don't want to call the soldiers." Vodo Baas said in an even tone to the engineer at his terminal.

"I don't want to call the soldiers." The engineer said, looking completely relaxed.

Vodo kept his Force-hold on the man's mind, whom he had run into while sneaking out of his quarters and toward the engineering section of the Star Destroyer. He was a little rusty on the layout of such vessels, and had accidentally managed to get lost somewhere near the aft of the vessel (where the engineers worked to keep the engines in top-notch), a good half-hour walk back to his room.

Vodo smiled, "You want to tell me who this ship belongs to, don't you?"

"The ship belongs to... Esias..."

Vodo sighed to himself. That, he already knew.


"Who does Tir Esias work for?" He asked, putting the weight of the Force behind his words.

"I...I...don't know...." The engineer replied, as if in a daze. Vodo was tightening his grip on the man's mind in his frustration. The engineer was probably starting to weaken.

"Someone bigger?" The Jedi Master asked.

"Someone bigger. And someone worse..." The engineer said, "Thats...all....I....know..."

Vodo probed the engineer's mind, searching for deceit, which he found none.

But now Vodo could sense something else approaching, much bigger, and very angry. It was a presence he had seen before.

He sighed and turned around after releasing his mental grip on the poor engineer, "Hello..."


"...Qive."

Qive's hulking figure dominated the hallway he emerged out of as he entered the Noir Soleil's engineering section. The look on his face was hard to read, and he walked with no apparent sense of urgency. But his stoic facade did not mean that Qive was not an emotionless machine, an oversized battledroid. Because at the moment, one emotion was dominating the Gen'Dai's thoughts:

Frustration.

He had responded immediately to Tir Esias's order to stand guard at Vodo Bass's quarters. Racing from his own, personalized room that he had been given on the Noir Soleil , he had arrived at the Jedi Masters door only to discover that Bass had wasted no time in making his escape.

He had then spent the better part of a half-hour sitting in a security control room, squinting at tiny feeds from around the ship, hoping to catch a glimpse of his quarry. But Bass had not shown up on any camera. Qive thought his luck had turned when a camera near the ship's computer core suddenly lost its feed. Assuming the Jedi had disabled the camera, he trekked over to the computer core, only to discover that the camera had simply blown a fuse and was being worked on by a maintenance unit.

Incensed, Qive had returned to the security room, only to find that another camera had gone out. Thinking ahead, he used the ship's comm system to contact engineering department, inquiring if that camera was scheduled for maintenance.

He had gotten no answer. Which didn't make any sense. A quick check on a security computer confirmed that the man on duty in engineering had just left his shift, and thus, Qive reasoned, someone else had replaced him. And he couldn't be taking a break right after getting on shift.

And then it clicked.

If the man supposed to take the next shift wasn't there..... then he must have been detained. Which meant Vodo Baas was nearby. And so rushing off to the aft section of the ship, led Qive to the Jedi Master.

"Hello... Qive."

Vodo had turned to face him, and Qive had stopped about ten feet from the Jedi.

"Master Jedi, I did not fancy finding you here. From what Tir Esias told me, you were ready to retire for the night.."

Qive gave an odd smile, his mouth sliding into a curved slit, yet not revealing his teeth.

"Tir Esias has asked me to escort you around this vessel as you require. There will be no need for dominating the mind of a hapless soul simply to derive the location of the lavatory."

At the present moment, Qive would have rather bashed Vodo into the bulkhead, but since the Jedi had agreed to instruct Esias in the ways of the Force, he was forced to restrain the urge.

"I can guide you back to your room if you would like."

Vodo leaned on his walking stick and stared up at the towering Gen'Dai with a look of both amusement and annoyance. He was very close to getting more out of the engineer, and he didn't have time for the tall brute to try and use his bland intimidation tactics on him.

The engineer slunk back away from the two and inched his way toward the door, but a look from, Qive stopped him in his tracks, about three or four meters behind Vodo.

"I really have no desire to go back to my quarters." Vodo said flatly, tired of being polite with Qive. He had had enough of being pushed around.

He tapped his stick on the ground and set his feet apart slightly.

"Tell Esias thank you, but I do not desire eny escort at this time."

And with that, he turned his back On Qive and headed toward the door, daring the Gen'Dai to stop him.

"I really have no desire to go back to my quarters."

Vodo had dropped his pretenses of politeness, and his defiance was irritating. Qive felt his hand drop toward one of the 434 Merr-Sonn "Deathhammer" blaster pistols holstered on his belt. It took all his powers of restraint to stop from raising the lethal blaster and blowing a smoking hole in the diminutive alien.

"Tell Esias thank you, but I do not desire any escort at this time."

Qive watched as the Jedi turned his back, and started walking away. The urge to pull his blaster was irresistible, and so he did. Raising the deadly weapon, he pointed it in the direction of Vodo... but raised it above the short Jedi to rest on level with the engineer.

"Jedi."

The respect that had formerly been attached to the word was as long gone as the honorific master. Qive heard the venom he had laced into the word, and made an effort to calm his voice.

He had his orders. He had to try and comply with them. Baas was more important alive than dead.

"I'm going to give you two options,"

Vodo kept walking slowly.

"Option one: you walk continue walking away from me. I will not follow you.... but I will shoot your friend here in the head."

The engineer's eyes suddenly doubled in size. He started to speak, but no words came out of his mouth.

"Option two: you turn around and follow me back to your quarters. Tir Esias has provided me with a datapad whose contents you might find very intriguing.

The choice is yours."

The lightsaber in Vodo's sleeve twitched as the Master turned around slowly to fix Qive with his most disspassionate stare.

He could feel the fear in the man through the Force. It was filling the entire room like water in a cup. He could also feel the open, unbridled malice within Qive that was directed now at him.

Normally, Vodo would have done as requested, but a part of him was not feeling cooperative. He desperately wanted - needed even - to find out who Esias was working for, and Qive was standing in the way of that.

Vodo found himself unable to control his annoyance at the situation. The fact that anyone would actually consider harming someone just to get what they wanted was...appaling.

Perhaps this Gen'Dai needed to be taught a lesson?


No. Vodo thought, I am a Jedi.

But then he saw the terror in the engineer's eyes, and the fear through the Force.

He made his decision.

"What say you, Jedi?" Qive spat the last word out like it was poison.

"I choose the third option." Vodo said and reaching out with the Force, he gave Qive's massive finger a tug.

The blaster fired straight at the horrified engineer, who screamed.

The shot never went close, instead it deflected easily off the blade of Vodo's green lightsaber.

"That was foolish." Vodo said, reaching out to the Force and gathering it to him, "If you want to fight...."


He guestured.

"By all means."

wrong thread

my bad