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“YOU!”
Jocasta, robes and hair totally encrusted with dirt and cobwebs, pointed accusingly at a very familiar and equally dirty armoured figure.
Said figure, also known as Mand’alor Jaster Mereel, stood there like a takk-deer in headlights.
“Quick Jo! He’s trying to steal our records!”, Yan Dooku, currently trying to untangle his cape from some of the jagged lava stone edges of the opening they had used to enter this derelict temple, shouted.
A sound of protest came from the Mand’alor.
“Uhm, Head Archivist, what-“, Knight Purshee Izleze, a promising member of the exploracorps and newest addition to Jocasta’s Documents for the Archive Retrieval and Collection team (colloquially known as ‘DARC’) (yes, there were jokes about knights joining her turning to the ‘darc side’).
Jocasta made a dismissive gesture. “Oh, don’t worry about this idiot. Focus on getting those records he’s holding.”
The togruta knight didn’t look convinced.
“What?! I was here first! Finder’s keepers!” Jaster shouted, whilst clutching his treasures closer and acting scandalised.
“Please, what are you even going to do with holocrons? Stare at them real hard?”
“I’ll have you know,” Jaster protested while his posture became more defiant,” that I very well know how to open a holocron. Your order of space monks doesn’t have a monopoly on that.”
And wasn’t that an interesting bit of information. Jocasta and Yan shot each other meaningful looks. They’d have to bring up in the next Council Meeting. Yoda wasn’t going to be thrilled about this though, but who really cared what the old frog liked.
Then, in a cloud of dust and pebbles, a second Mandalorian skidded down from one of the partially collapsed half floors. Both Yan and Jocasta immediately zoomed in on the ancient looking data-disc they held in one hand.
“You were right buir, there-“, the mandalorian started, but cut off the moment they spotted the three dirty jedi standing on the other end of the hall.
“Don’t move, Jango,” Jaster deadpanned, “They can only see movement.”
Knight Izleze looked like she had several questions.
Meanwhile Yan murmured to himself. “Oh so it was him that started that ridiculous rumour.”
The Mandalorian, Jango, looked back and forth between Jaster and the Jedi, then cocked his head slightly to the side. “Wait.” Jocasta felt like she was being scanned up and down from behind that expressionless visor. “Don’t tell me those are…!” Jango’s head snapped back to face Jaster.
The Mand’alor shrugged apologetically.
“Do you have ANY idea how difficult it was getting his ship back?!” The teen shouted.
They, in fact, did not.
“I am going to request financial compensation for the emotional damage I had to take!”
Yan frowned concernedly. Whether it was concern for the young Mandalorian or concern for the Order’s finances stayed unclear.
“Oh don’t be dramatic Jango,” Jaster clapped his ad’s shoulder, “it wasn’t that bad. Let me tell you about the time my armour got-“
“I DON’T WANT TO KNOW!”, the young one shouted and slapped his buirs hand away.
That was the moment that Yan reached out with the Force and called the holocrons the Mand’alor had been clutching towards him. Yan let out an undiginified yelp as the force behind the tug made him stumble a bit and almost loose his footing on the loose rubble that overed the slightly sloped part of the floor he’d been standing on.
“Oh no you don’t!” Jaster shouted as he caught himself and immediately dived towards Yan who, finally ripping free from the jagged rock, moved to catch the holocrons.
Out of instinct and meticulously trained reflexes, the dark Jedi, faced with an armed and armoured opponent approaching fast in his general direction, drew his saber. For a split second time seemed to almost stay still as the Mand’alr seemingly found himself on a jetpack-fuelled, immediate collision course with the glowing blue blade.
“Bu-!”, Jango shouted.
Then there was a weird, reverberating sound and Yan yelped as the impact ent them both tumbling over the floor.
“Aw shucks!”, Jaster exclaimed as he caught himself, “Now I’ve got pebbles in my beskar’gam!”
A sigh of relief escaped Jango, whilst Yan and Jocasta simultaneously exclaimed.
“What?!”
“What the kark is that?
Jaster glanced down on the dark gleaming saber he’d held in his hand. “Oh this? Neat thing, right?” He grinned and scratched his head with the pommel as he reached to collect his buy’ce that had flown off in the tumble. “After our last meeting I remembered that this sat in the vaults, and I figured it would come in handy.” He laughed proudly.
All three Jedi stared wordlessly at the Darksaber.
“What. The. Kark.” Jocasta finally vocalised their collective feeling.
“You had the Darksaber?!”, Jango ripped off his own buy’ce to stare more effectively at Jaster.
The accused just shrugged. “Eh, we found it a bit ago in a kyr’tsad raid. Didn’t want to make a big thing out of it ‘cuz Clan Vizsla had it and you know how they are… But you know, pretty lucky that I’ve had it on me now, right?”
Jango just stared.
Meanwhile, Yan had collected himself and pointed his still lit saber accusingly at the Mand’alor. “Explain.” He demanded. “Why do you have a light(?) saber? And why does it sound like it’s special.”
Jocasta crossed her arms and nodded furiously.
Purshee used the confusion to slowly tease the now scattered on the floor holocrons towards her. After all, she had a job here and that was acquiring and securing items for the Archives.
“Oh you know,” Jaster said while stepping swiftly on the closest of the holocrons that were threatening to make themselves independent, “It’s one of the symbols of the Mand’alor actually. Came from our first one actually, Mand’alor the Great, Tarre Vizsla. He dabbled a bit in jetii things if I remember correctly.” Well, more than dabble really, but no need to spoil everything for his two favourite jettiise. “Feel free to visit my library again if you’d like, we have the records there,” He added with a blinding smile.
The holocron under his foot vibrated as the togruta Knight janked at it harder. Jaster put some more weight on that leg.
“A jedi Mandalorian? I’ve never heard of that,” Jocasta said, suspicion colouring her voice.
Yan inclined his head. “Me neither, and one should assume something this… scandalous would have been recorded in the Order’s records, don’t you think so?”
But the moment he’d said that, he reconsidered. Yan and Jo shot each other meaningful glances and Jo made a little ‘so-so’ move with her hand and mouther ‘Eh…’ towards her companion. After all, they both were aware that there had been several instances where the Order’s Archives had taken hits.
Otherwise they wouldn’t be here hunting for stuff now, wouldn’t they.
Jaster used their momentaneous distraction to quickly reach down and grab the holocron he’d managed to prevent from flying off. He knew when to cut his losses. And he was certain that there would be ample opportunity to snag some other records off the Jedi’s hands in the future.
With a grin he saluted towards the slightly growling Jedi Knight that had snagged the other two holocrons, then turned back towards Yan and Jo who eyed him warily.
Discreetly, he signed Jango to prepare for immediate departure, whilst bowing lightly towards his two favourite Jedi Librarians and occasional nemeses. “I hate to cut this truly riveting get-together short, but I have places to be and I suppose so do you. Mereel out.”
And with that, he started his jetpack,…
… and completely misjudged the location of one of the giant, cracked stone columns that hung over him.
Stone column versus Mand’alor.
The stone column won.
And Jango had to rush forward to catch his rapidly descending father while Yan almost ruptured his spleen trying to supress the urge to laugh out loud.