.9 The leader of the ‘revolution’ as he called it was named Kole Datchin. As it happened, he trusted the Jedi less then he seemed to permit in front of his men. Five minutes after their ‘negotiations’ started, he moved them down into the ruined encampment below. The Jedi Knights Ikeeriot and Anduil were bound and carried while the Jedi Masters went of their own free will, deactivating their lightsabers and clipping them to their belts. Kole didn’t waste any time making sure the Jedi were in the dark though—he told everyone of his men to turn off their comm radios and speak not a word. They didn’t stop in the encampment either—there was a narrow opening on the opposite side of the circular camp and they took it, walking through the passage in haste. "Better watch your step Jedi," Kole said gruffly, passing by them and taking up the head of the line before they went in. "Our little canyon oasis ain’t much, and if you take a spill down there it would be a shame to have to redecorate what we already have going on down there." Alec looked to Orsin and mouthed in question, canyon oasis? Orsin Beserek squared his shoulders in a furry wookie shrug. The narrow path tunneled through the rock wall and out onto the other side of the jungle’s barrier to the encampment they’d just exited and expanded out into a rocky path that was overgrown with weeds and yellow grass. The ground sloped upward into a slant of yellowish gray clay path. The path was flanked by two red-bricked walls. There were faces in the walls, but the Jedi Masters hardly took notice. At the top of the path there was a doorway above them to the left, but no connecting ramp to pass up to it. On the other side of that doorway there was a dark durosteel catwalk that stretched out for about fifty yards, then it made an abrupt left turn and headed back to land the land. The Jedi Masters passed through the pathway in front of them and continued to walk on the yellow clay-ish ground. The canyon was boxed in, but to the left side of the catwalks there were yawning, seemingly bottomless caverns. The wind moaned upward and out of them. To the right of the catwalk and now which was in front of them, there was the pool of water. It was clear water, incredibly clear, considering the surfaces that encapsulated the water was the red bricks they’d seen before. Red bricked pillars held up the catwalks all around the square pool. "It’s beautiful." Alec mumbled, looking around. "So open, but at the same time it’s—." "Closed. I know. It’s one of the reasons we picked it as our base of operations." Kole said cooly. "Now you were saying something about you thinking we should negotiation with that nerfherder?" "It’s true that we’ve seen things that point to your thinking Darchind is a Sith might be true, but as of now, we want to at least try and go ahead with negotiations. We could always draft a contingency, if it would make things better for you." Alec said. "A contingency? Look, Jedi, you are the Republic’s contingency and if you can’t see what’s so blatantly in front of your eyes, then we’ll just storm the capitol without you!" Kole exclaimed. All around there were men and women, some swimming the pool, but other grabbing their guns and shifting their gazes to one another uneasily. Alec frowned."We’re not a contingency. We keep the peace and make sure that justice is carried out. As for you storming the capitol, I’d advise against it. I’ve sent for reinforcements—." The Wookie Orsin Beserek yowled something in his own language that Kole wouldn’t have made out, but Alec knew it was a protest. "Our reinforcements should be here by nightfall." Alec finished. "Good." Kole said. "We’ll need all the help we can get to take the capitol." "No." Alec said. "I don’t think you understand. We’re under orders to bring peace to this argument, not to take sides. We want to start negotiations." "I’ve read a lot about your kind." Kole started. "You’re enemies with the Sith. Why are you just shrugging this off like it’s nothing—?" "The Sith have been extinct for a long while, Kole Datchin." Alec said sharply. "The fight you might have witnessed that I was engaged in was one with something we call a Fallen Jedi." "Right. A Sith." Kole said. Alec was starting to lose patience with the man when Orsin muttered something in a low growl. Anduil and Ikeeriot were awaking. "Are you alright?" Alec called back. "Of all the underhanded, dirty tricks—." Ikeeriot started up. "That’s a yes." Beserek muttered. "My—ugh—my head." Anduil mumbled. "Where is my lightsaber?" "Right here, pup." Kole sneered. "Oldest trick in the womp rattin’ book and you fell for it boy." "Excuse me if I’m not as seasoned and exaggeratedly experienced as someone of your stature!" Anduil snapped back. "Dry as Corellian ale." Kole said. "Now are we going to be able to come to some kind of agreement or am I going to have to personally put a blaster hole in each of your heads?" He said, a man stating a reasonable question, he obviously thought. "If the Lord Darchind is a Sith, then you quite frankly already have too much work cut out for you anyway." Ikeeriot said. "You’ve just given away your position if they are Sith. Sith would track Jedi. If they are Sith, they’ve tracked us here, to your self-proclaimed base of operations. You’re down on the dueling circle without a lightsaber." "Shut up, pup!" Kole spat. He looked at Alec. "Is what he said true?" Alec shrugged. "Only theoretically speaking. If they are Sith I’m sure they would have just killed me when I met with them alone first." "You met with him alone?" Kole asked. "Jedi are either brave or legend or insane." "I tend to prefer a little of both." Alec said dryly. Kole considered. "If you want these so-called negotiations to start, then you’ll need a representative to come with you. I’ll be the one." Astonished, Alec tried to keep it out of his face. "You’ll come then?" "My people will stay behind us all the way. I come only if your reinforcements really come." Kole amended. "Fine." Alec said. He turned and started to walk back to the camp site. "Where do you think you’re going?" Kole cried after him, leveling his gun at the Jedi Master’s turned back. "I gave them the coordinates to land. The coordinates were on top of that ruined camp. By the way, what seemed to provoke that one?" Alec asked. "If you’re referring to the one who destroyed our camp then I can honestly say I don’t know. Sent by the Sith." Kole said. "If they’re Sith." Alec repeated. "They are." Kole said. "Then why go with us?" Alec asked, turning to him. "Insurance." Kole muttered. "This is turning out to be a fun day after all." Anduil grumbled. "Does anyone mind if I have my weapon back please? Or do I have to take it away." "Enough." Beserek scolded in a growl. Anduil smirked. "Only kidding." "Here." Kole threw the two lightsabers into the air behind him. "Take them. For what good they do ya. I’ve seen blasters take down Jedi once today. That’s enough to tickle my funny bone for another three centuries." "It was a stun bolt." Ikeeriot said. They moved up into the camp site and waited. A few hours passed in relative silence. Ikeeriot reexamined his lightsaber and took it back apart once. There were a few things wrong with it that he could see, and found the several hours with nothing to do easy to get along with as he fiddled with the circuitry inside of the lightsaber as carefully as he could. Anduil Siron paced back and forth between Beserek and Ikeeriot and Alec meditated silently. At last there was the distant hum of engines and finally two dots out on the horizon. The Paladins. The shuttles were nondescript military shuttles, enough for about forty people on each, however when Alec looked at how easily the ships were settling down to the ground about twenty feet away he knew there were less. I’ll be thankful for any, Alec thought calmly. The capsule shaped shuttles sunk their landing teeth into the ground and almost at once the door on the back of each of the shuttles swung wide open. There were fourteen Jedi in all, seven on each ship. All were Knights in their own right, only one, a female Ishi Tib named Lorata Ashatyne who was a Jedi Master. "It is an honor to be able to help you in settling the conflict here, Master Uban." She spoke softly when she walked up to talk with him. She seemed unsettled by their onlookers, but said to him nonetheless, "Although I fear this may seem a bit unconventional, to bring them." "Not all of them." Alec shook his head. "Only the leader, Kole. What are your thoughts on this governor being a Sith?" "Impossible." The Ishi Tib said, shaking her green head. The fleshy almost triangularly placed stalks on her head shook, her eyes closed in silent but quick deliberation. "They’ve been dead far too long . .and to reappear back here? On a planet only vaguely known to the Republic?" "It doesn’t make sense." Alec agreed. "Perhaps there is much we don’t understand about the Sith though." Lorata started but still shook her head. "We know more then them. They are the ones who do not understand the ways of the Force. When are we to leave?" "For the capitol?" Alec asked. "Not for another few hours at least. I’ve called the Warriors-for-Justice. Some are on their way. Justice is with them." Lorata’s eyes bulged in realization. "This concern of yours is more then curiosity, I take it then? You really think that the Sith may be emerging once more?" "The Force is clouded here." Alec noted calmly. "I simply feel it is better for us to be here now rather then later. If this man’s claims and what we’ve been able to theorize are true, this place could be a breeding ground for the Dark Side." Lorata nodded and looked around the camp. She told her Paladin members to take a seat and that they would be there for a while longer. "Your learner?" "No longer." Alec said. "I’ve elevated him—he did. Ikeeriot is a Knight now." "I don’t think the council would approve of a field Knighthood Trial." Lorata tried. "No matter." Alec said patiently. "He is my padawan, not the Council’s." The Ishi Tib nodded soundlessly. For a moment it stayed that way. "If they are Sith?" Alec frowned and looked at Lorata closely. There was something about this place alright—whatever was on Xolatis brought out the anxieties in people. "I don’t think I’ll have to remind you of our duties." Lorata seemed to smile a bit, "We would defeat them in combat then?" Alec nodded silently; purposefully. "We would have no choice. They are a threat to the galaxy and a threat to the Jedi. We protect those in the Republic and that encompasses the people in the capitol. If they are under Sith rule, it is one masked in democracy so thin that only these freedom fighters know it is tyranny. I must stress if Lord Darchind is a Sith." Lorata nodded eagerly. "Have you meditated on it?" "All too much." Alec said, wrinkling his forehead and furrowing his brow. "I cannot tell if the Dark Side here is due to Sith or the conflict between these two peoples. Something is here." Changing the subject, Lorata asked, "Any news on the war?" Alec shook his head. "This place is basically communication free with our holonet. I haven’t heard anything since I left Coruscant." "I haven’t heard anything either. I have a bad feeling about that fact, Master Uban." Lorata remarked. "Look to the Force, Master Ashatyne." Nightfall came and the jungle grew cool. Everyone in the camp became restless but it was soon swayed and pushed away by the arrival of the Warriors-for-Justice. They came in two more shuttles. Four Jedi in one shuttle and another eight on the other. There were thirty Jedi in all now, more then Ikeeriot or Anduil had ever seen assembled outside the comforting walls of the temple that now seemed so far away from them. Alec immediately went to ‘Justice’ and shook hands with the man. Justice had once been Alec’s padawan once upon a time and now that they were reunited and on another mission after all that time, Ikeeriot could see their genuine love for the Jedi Order sparkle in the moon’s distant purplish hue. "We’re not here to fight, just remember that, Justice." Alec said. Justice was tall, he had long brown hair and a beard too. His eyes were beads of cold blue light in the night. "As a last resort though—if they are Sith, then we have to." "Agreed." Alec said. Beserek greeted Justice with a hearty Wookie crushing-hug. Beserek woofed in mighty amusement as Justice tried to get his breath back. "Always had a flair for dramatics." Beserek said. "Yeah, you always had a flair for the ability to nearly crush my lungs without the use of the Force." Justice fired back playfully. "Good to see you again, Orsin." Finally they assembled, Alec, Justice, Jorata and Orsin at the front of the group with Kole behind them, muttering something into his comm radio. "We’ll only need a few of us to go into negotiations, but if we need the rest of you, we’ll call for you." Alec said to the small crowd. "You’ll be right outside the door. If there’s anything going on, you will know so through the Force. If all goes well though—peace will be achieved and we’ll have a unified planet in our Republic in the morning." There were a few claps for this, but most of them wore concentrated faces. "Let’s go." Alec said. Ikeeriot and Anduil were filing into the transport that Alec and Orsin were taking but Alec held them back for a moment. "You’ll be going in the other transport." He said. "You’re going to be our backup, just in case anything does happen." "I don’t think you going in there alone is such a good idea—." Ikeeriot said. "I am not alone, Ikeeriot. Orsin, Justice and Jorata are with me." Alec replied. Ikeeriot frowned and looked down at the ground for a moment but finally nodded it away. Anduil shook Orsin’s and Alec’s hands without knowing why he was doing it. Before Ikeeriot and Anduil had to step back from the loading door of the transport, Anduil bowed before the two familiar Jedi Masters and nodded to the others. "May the Force be with you." The doors shut and the shuttle snapped back into the air. Ikeeriot and Anduil hurried over to the second transport and filed in with the rest of the Knights and Padawans from the hodge-podged group of Paladins and Warriors-for-Justice. It only took them about half an hour to get to the administrations building, which was more like a castle made from blue stone. Upon filing out of the transport with his friend Anduil Siron, Ikeeriot said in awe, "May the Force be with us all."