Star Wars: Love Thy Aliens Ch.7 (Patreon)

“It’s… nice,” Haro hesitantly said.

“She may not be the prettiest ship around,” Ari replied, ignoring Lu’la’s giggles. “But it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Plus she’ll pack a mean punch for anyone who tries to mess with us.”

Haro, Ari, and Lu’la were standing in a private hangar of one of Coruscant’s many spaceports, examining their new ship. As Ari said, the ship wasn’t classically beautiful. It had a certain charm to it, but it wouldn’t be winning any contests based on its looks. And even if someone couldn’t see the ship, the name would have clued someone in that this ship wasn’t built with beauty in mind.

Their new YV-929 Armed Freighter was named ’The Scarab’. It was 22 meters long and a bit more than half as wide. The lines of its profile were blocky and rigid. The only things that kept it from completely looking like a flying brick were the rounded ‘belly’ that sat under the cockpit and the small wing struts toward the back of the craft.

A veritable arsenal of guns decorated the Scarab’s hull. A dual Turbolaser was mounted on each of the ship’s ‘shoulders’, just behind the cockpit. A dual Ion Cannon was placed on a turret beneath the cockpit. Triple blasters were positioned on the Scarab’s wing struts. And there were even four Concussion Missile Launchers, two facing forward for attack and two facing backward for defense, mounted along the bottom of the ship.

“C’mon,” Ari said, waving for Haro and Lu’la to follow. “They should be done with renovations inside.”

Haro left the loading of their belongings onto the ship to a pair of general-purpose labor droids employed by the spaceport. The trio had brought all of their stuff to their new ship in one trip. Even Ari’s Tooka, Switty, was there, looking around the hangar from its perch on Ari’s shoulder.

It had been trivial to purchase the rest of the supplies they needed for travel at the spaceport. Once everything was loaded, they’d finally be able to get off Coruscant. Haro could feel the wider galaxy calling out to him. He was practically aching to get out into the stars.

Lu’la and Haro followed Ari up a small open ramp underneath the ship. The interior of the Scarab was surprisingly clean and classy, if boring. The ship’s entryway was a semi-short hallway, about 8 meters long, with a pair of doors on each side of the hall. At the end of the hallway, there was a lift off to one side and another door on the other. Switty hopped off Ari’s shoulder and disappeared into the ship to explore.

Ari clapped, “Alright! The door behind us should lead to the engine room. The lift goes to the upper deck and the door right beside it goes to the lounge. The ship’s bunks are on either side of us, but two of these cabins should have been merged to form our newly renovated captain’s quarters. Which is obviously where we’ll be sleeping!”

“We should probably buy an Astromech for repairs and stuff,” Haro absently commented, taking a peek into the engine room.

Ari grinned, “Already taken care of! The R2z I ordered should be here soon.”

“Good,” Lu’la scoffed. “You couldn’t catch me dead on my hands and knees poking around in starship guts.”

Haro smirked, “You’d rather be on your hands and knees for another reason?”

Lu’la turned her nose up, sniffing imperiously, “As a matter of fact, yes. A delicate lady like me deserves tender loving, not backbreaking machine maintenance.”

“You’re just lucky you’re cute.”

“Indeed,” Lu’la said with her patented ‘praise-me-more’ smile on her face.

Haro patted her head as the three of them stepped into the lift and made their way to the upper deck. The upper deck mainly consisted of the ship’s cargo hold. The cargo hold was arranged in an octagon that was split in half by the central hallway of the ship. The cargo ramp at the back of the ship was open and they watched the droids loading the Scarab for a couple of seconds.

The cockpit itself was a thing of beauty. It wasn’t physically beautiful, but what it represented couldn’t be matched in Haro’s mind. He had spent hundreds of hours in the Temple, imagining himself sitting in the cockpit of his own ship with the freedom to roam the galaxy at his fingertips. As he sat down in the pilot’s chair, he realized the flight simulators didn’t do the feeling justice at all.

Even though the ship was only idling, he could feel it thrumming with life and energy beneath him. It was like riding atop a storm. In his mind’s eye, the drab doors of the hangar transformed into an endless expanse of stars. As he gripped the ship’s throttle and control stick, he could practically feel the ship meeting his anticipation and excitement.

“How’s it feel, ~Captain~?” Ari asked with a smirk in her voice.

“Amazing… I’ve dreamt of this moment for almost a decade now. Thank you, Ari, for making it a reality. I can’t wait to get her into space.”

“Well, you won’t have to wait for much longer. I’m pretty sure the droids have finished up. Now we’re just waiting on the R2z to be delivered.”

As if on cue, a series of whirs and beeps sounded out from the Scarab’s cargo ramp. A squat Astromech droid rolled itself up to the cockpit. It looked like a normal R2 unit in many ways, but its head and body were more angular and sharp. It whistled a greeting to its three new owners.

“Nice to meet you too. What’s your name, little guy?” Ari crouched down to ask, patting the R2z’s head.

A series of slightly rude-sounding beeps made her raise an eyebrow, “Not a ‘little guy’, huh? Alright, big boy, what’s your name?”

The R2z’s single whistle response made Ari laugh, “R2z-BD? So your name is ‘Buddy’?”

Buddy’s beeping reply seemed to say, “And put some respect on it!”

“Are all R2z’s as sassy as you?” Haro asked.

“It’s a feature, not a bug!” Buddy whirred.

Haro rolled his eyes, leaving Ari to deal with their new droid. He sat down in the pilot’s chair. Lu’la followed him. Her head peeked over his shoulder as he began going through pre-flight checks.

“You seem to know your way around the ship already, Master,” Lu’la said, resting her head on Haro’s shoulder.

“I did some research on the YV-929 after you and Ari went to bed last night. With everything loaded and the droid here, we should be ready to go. I’m a bit eager to get moving.”

Haro hit a button on the ship’s comm system, sending a flight plan request off to the spaceport’s control tower. He got a response pretty quickly in the form of a holding position in the departure queue. Two switches were flicked by Haro, closing up the Scarab’s entry ramps. The ship’s repulsorlifts spooled up, lifting the ship into the air, and Haro closed the landing gear.

The hangar’s doors slid apart and Haro carefully guided the Scarab through the gap. The ship slowly emerged into a wide, vertical shaft. The spaceport’s main access shaft was a lot like the access shafts that went down into Coruscant’s underworld. It was easily more than a mile in diameter, with ships of almost every size buzzing around like bees and a tall spiraling tower in the center directing everyone’s movements.

The traffic here was much more orderly than the traffic in Coruscant’s underworld shafts. It was simple for Haro to fly the ship into the holding pattern queue, positioning it so they were hovering a few dozen meters behind the ship ahead of them in line. Haro couldn’t help but give the Scarab an approving nod for how it handled. It was surprisingly compact and maneuverable for a ship of its build.

It didn’t take long for it to be their turn in the queue. The comm system dinged as the ship received clearance from the control tower. Haro angled the ship straight up and they began to rapidly ascend. Once they were clear of the spaceport, Haro really opened up the Scarab’s ion drive.

The ship’s speed quickly doubled, then tripled, and soon enough they were punching through Coruscant’s atmosphere and into the vastness of space. Ships, stations, and other orbital structures blurred out of focus and disappeared as the Scarab sped past them. They cleared Coruscant’s gravity well in a matter of minutes.

“Ari,” Haro called out once they were well away from any of the Coruscant system’s gravity wells. “Bring Buddy up here to help me plot our jump.”

Ari paused her teasing of their newest crew member to comply. Buddy rolled himself into the cockpit, stopping on the other side of Haro from Lu’la. He plugged himself into the ship and beeped. Haro brought up the navigation computer and plotted a general path along the Perlemian Trade Route that Buddy could polish up and make safe.

Buddy did just that. According to the call Haro felt in the Force, they’d be riding the Perlemian all the way to the Outer Rim. Luckily, it was a straight shot to their still unknown destination. They’d get off the hyperspace route just past Felucia and then have to take the metaphorical backroads from there.

Haro did a quick check over Buddy’s work after he had finished. Nodding to himself, he locked the jump in. A flick of a switch activated the ship’s autopilot and they were soon making their first jump into hyperspace. Stars blurred in straight lines outside the cockpit’s windows as they accelerated past the speed of light and dropped down a dimension.

Haro relaxed back in his seat, content to watch the beauty of hyperspace as they zoomed through it at impossible speeds. Lu’la, however, quickly got bored of the roiling blue tunnel outside the window. She grabbed the back of her master’s head and pulled him into a needy kiss.

“Let’s go break in our new bed~,” she offered, already pulling him along behind her without waiting for a response.

Ari giggled and hurried after them. Clothes were already getting stripped off and tossed away to decorate the hallway of the new ship. Haro almost protested, but the tantalizing dichotomy of pink and blue skin quickly shut him up.

“Thirsty meatbags,” Buddy whistled to himself as his new owners left in a horny hurry.

Haro finally freed himself from his girls’ grasp three hours later. Judging by the currently unconscious state of Ari and Lu’la, they had succeeded in ‘breaking in’ the new bed. The bed itself was a huge, double king that took up a significant amount of the combined cabins’ space. Other than the bed, the room was pretty barren. Haro assumed the girls would take care of that when they woke up.

Haro stood and walked out of the cabin, not bothering to get dressed. He enjoyed the freedom of being naked and, judging by Ari and Lu’la’s reactions to his body, he certainly didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about. When he stepped off the lift to the upper deck, he could see Buddy still holding down the fort in the cockpit.

Seeing that nothing had changed or needed his attention, Haro changed direction. He walked into the cargo hold for the first time. It was nowhere near full, only holding their stuff and about three months’ worth of supplies. He summoned Bastila’s Holocron from his belongings.

The Holocron floated in front of him for a moment before blooming to life. Bastila flickered into existence as the Holocron split open. A single questioning raised eyebrow was the only reaction she showed to Haro’s nude state. Haro ignored the unspoken question to give his Master a shallow bow.

“Master,” Haro greeted. “We are currently on course to the call I felt in the Force. It shouldn’t take us more than a few days to arrive.”

Seeing that Haro wasn’t acknowledging his nakedness, Bastila didn’t either, “Good. And I assume you wish to use this time to train?”

“I don’t know what we’ll find when we reach the call. I want to be prepared in case there’s any danger.”

“Very well. The first ability I shall teach you will be perhaps the most important ability you learn from me. Battle Meditation is a potent neutral ability, neither light nor dark yet powerful all the same. I used this ability to great effect during my time as both a Jedi and Sith.

“To properly utilize Battle Meditation, one must understand the very nature of conflict itself. One must truly comprehend what it means to fight, to win, and to lose. This technique can be applied to battles of any scale, from clashing armies to two individuals dueling.

“Ill-suited or untalented users of this technique believe it can only be used when one is in deep concentration. You will not fall into that trap. As my Padawan, I expect you to be able to use Battle Meditation even during a life-or-death duel.

“To start, we will be training your senses. You need to be able to sense the universe around you as deeply as if you were in isolated meditation at all times. I will be giving you a series of katas to run through while you train to force you to keep one foot in the physical world. Remember, open yourself to the Force, but do not lose yourself.”

Excitement blossomed in Haro’s mind when Bastila said she would be teaching him Battle Meditation: an ability of legends that had fallen somewhat out of favor during the Republic’s thousand years of peace. He felt a series of motions being transferred into his mind by Bastila. His body seemed to naturally fall into the first kata.

He opened himself up to the Force as his body moved. Bastila watched him with approval. A map of the Scarab began to draw itself before his mind’s eye. He could feel the sassy void in the Force that was Buddy in the cockpit. He could feel his Master’s calming, watchful presence right in front of him. He could feel his girls stirring just beneath him.

As Bastila had instructed, Haro did his best to keep himself grounded in the physical world. The moving mediation helped and he kept his eyes open so he wasn’t completely submerging himself within the sea of the Force. It still felt slightly strange though. Like he was trying to watch two screens at once.

The active meditation continued for a while. Ari and Lu’la eventually woke up and came to enjoy the show. Watching Haro’s naked muscles flex under a thin sheen of sweat certainly made for an entertaining view for the two Alien girls.

Slowly but surely, the range of Haro’s awareness increased. His internal map of the ship grew more detailed and complex. He could feel everything from the moving parts of the engine to the various displays of the cockpit. And then his awareness grew further. A part of his mind delved into the hyperspace tunnel they were traveling through. From there, he began to feel the fabric of real space as well.

Bastila stopped him before he could overextend himself, “You’ve done very well for a first attempt, Padawan. Take a break and after you return, I will start teaching you the basis for Force Alter.”

A day and a half later, the Scarab dropped out of hyperspace to make a course adjustment. This adjustment took them away from the major hyperspace route and toward their final destination. Haro had essentially input the jump coordinates by feel, relying on the Force to take him where he needed to be. Buddy double-checked his work, calculating their final destination to be a planet known as Spintir.

The final jump didn’t take that long, only a matter of hours before they were dropping out of hyperspace once again. Other than Spintir itself, the system was devoid of life. With seemingly only one point of interest, Haro set the Scarab on a course for Spintir. A connection to the Holonet showed that Spintir was sparsely inhabited outside its capital city, Reles, and the call in the Force Haro could feel wasn’t coming from Reles.

Instead of Reles, Haro’s senses directed him to a remote area of the planet. He flew the ship down to the planet, purposefully avoiding the population centers as he followed the call. A snowy mountain soon appeared on the horizon.

As the Scarab circled the mountain, Haro could make out two structures. One structure was a compound or temple of some kind and the other was a small village. Trusting his gut, Haro took them in to land at the temple.

An icy wind hit Ari, Lu’la, and Haro in the face when they descended the Scarab’s ramp. Lu’la cuddled close to Haro for warmth. As they approached the temple, the wind died down. It was like the world and the Force was trying to tell them that they were safe here. That this place was a sanctuary for those who had lost their way.

From what Haro could tell, the temple had been abandoned, but not for very long. He saw the symbol of the Order carved into the archway above the temple’s entrance. Haro had never heard of a Jedi Temple on Spintir and when he asked Bastila, she said the same.

“Hello?” Haro called out as they walked through the open temple doors.

There was no immediate response. A thin layer of snow had blown in to cover the temple’s floor. The entrance hall was lined with three statues that Haro didn’t recognize. Judging by the robes and the stoic demeanor the statues were depicted with, they were all Jedi of some renown. But that idea just made it stranger that Haro didn’t recognize any of them.

Before they could walk deeper into the temple, three figures blinked into existence in front of the statues. The holograms were each a reflection of the statue they appeared in front of. Each hologram was projected with different colored light and the three figures all bore unique appearances from one another.

“Welcome, young travelers, to the Dawn Temple,” said the middle hologram. “I am the Curator. I am responsible for the care of this temple and its visitors.”

The Curator was an old Cerean man. His hologram was projected with silvery-blue light and he wore standard Jedi robes. His large conical head was wrinkled and leathery, while his face was clean-shaven and unassuming.

The hologram on the left spoke next, “I am the Warden. My responsibility is the defense of the temple and combat training for its inhabitants.”

The Warden appeared to be a young female Zabrak. Her hologram was golden and she wore armored robes that hinted at her more martial purpose. A long lightsaber staff hung from her waist. Bird-like markings sprawled over both sides of her face and a long topknot ponytail stuck up from a crown of horns atop her head.

“I am the Jailor,” the last hologram said. “My duty coincides with the true purpose of this temple. I oversee the rehabilitation and redemption of Jedi who have lost their way.”

The Jailor was shorter and more humanoid than his two companions. He was an elderly Miraluka man made of pure white light. His eyes were covered like most others of his species and he wore plain robes.

Haro bowed once the three holograms were finished, introducing himself and his companions, “Greetings, Masters. My name is Haro. My two companions are Ari and Lu’la. They are not Jedi like me, but I still consider them valuable allies. The Force has brought us here before you, but I do not know the reason why.”

The Jailor was the one to reply, “How curious… You have not yet lost your way, young Haro. Still, you have found your way here…”

“Perhaps, for once,” the Warden said, almost rolling her eyes at her older colleague. “A visitor is not intended for you, old man. Maybe the Force brought him before me instead.”

Instead of getting annoyed, the Jailor just chuckled, “Indeed, Warden. There is a first for everything. If he has not fallen to the dark, he might just be here for another reason.”

“Welcome, young travelers, to the Dawn Temple. I am the Curator. I am responsible for the care of this temple and its visitors,” the Curator said, repeating himself word for word from his introduction.

The Warden face palmed, “He’s kriffing bugged again! I swear we should just deactivate him at this point.”

The Jailor’s smile was bittersweet as he spoke, “I mostly just keep him around for nostalgia now. I wish I could hope for him to get better, but the prospect that his spirit imprint has been corrupted seems more and more likely each day.”

“Uh, I could take a look at him, if you want,” Ari offered.

Both functioning holograms turned to look at Ari when she spoke. The Jailor gave a grandfatherly smile that was a little condescending, but not cruel or malicious. The Warden acted like she was seeing Ari and Lu’la for the first time. Even though Haro had introduced them, she raised an eyebrow at their presence, trying to figure out why they were with Haro.

After a few moments, something seemed to click for the female Zabrak Master. She smiled a knowing smile, her eyes darting back and forth between the exotic Alien women and the prime specimen of a Human they were accompanying. Haro and the Jailor were oblivious to the little byplay that passed between the three Human-loving Alien women.

“Oh, you believe you can fix a Holocron?” the Jailor asked.

Ari shrugged, “Maybe, maybe not. I’m a pretty good slicer so it doesn’t hurt to let me try.”

“She has a point, Jailor. How about you take her to see the Curator’s Holocron while I get to know our wayward Jedi some more? He looks like he could use some ~hands-on training~,” the Warden suggested with a hidden sultry note to her voice.

Haro was a bit confused, but the chance to train with a Jedi Battlemaster wouldn’t come around often these days. Maybe she’d even help him construct his lightsaber. Lu’la and Ari giggled at how dense he was being, following after the Jailor’s hologram while wondering what it would be like to fuck what was essentially a ghost.

The Warden leered down at Haro, “~Now, let’s see what I have to work with~…”