"I've heard stories about Nar Shaddaa," Talen began as we all settled into the ship. He was sitting cross-legged across from Grek and me on one of the bench seats. "Is it really as bad as they say?"

"You have no idea," Red replied from beside him, making the Jedi get a look of resigned terror on his face as he sank back into his seat.

Nar Shaddaa was known for being a blight of a world full of every form of crime and filled to the grim with the scum of the galaxy who were the slaves to any vice you could imagine. the very fact the place existed made me angry, but when it orbits a Hutt world, there was little the Senate or the Republic as a whole could do about it without disrupting the damnable dance of politics.

All of us had dressed down in civilian garb with the exception of Talen, but the long robe he wore was darker than his usual ones and he kept it pulled tight around him, obscuring the rest of his Jedi attire. he still wouldn't be hard to spot, but few were willing to risk getting into an altercation with a Jedi, especially since their skills were more than a little legendary.

"Don't worry, sir," Tor interjected with a resolute nod. "You won't have to worry about anything with us."

"Tor," Talen looked to him with a smile and a crisp roll of the 'R' in his name, "you don't have to keep calling me that..."

Tor looked almost scandalized at the idea of not addressing him as anything short of "Master Jedi". "I... I can't do that, sir! It's against regula-"

"Forget I said anything," Talen waved him off with a chuckle and rested his hands on his knees before he turned to Red. "Is he always like that?"

Red's eye roll was his reply, but it made the kid laugh all the same, which seemed to be the idiot's end goal. I just crossed my arms and watched them banter back and forth before even Grek had leaned forward on his knees and was chatting it up with our small Jedi. They ran through all sorts of topics as we began our voyage to Nar Shaddaa.

What was Kamino like?

What was it like training there?

What was Jedi training like?

"What's the temple like?" Red finally asked, and even that made me look up from counting the rivets in the floor of the ship. "We've... obviously never been there."

Talen looked at the wall, fussing his lip with his canines for a while until he nodded quickly, "There's a lot to describe, but... I'll try. It's enormous. And beautiful. There are massive columns of polished metals and walkways made of shining stone, great arching windows that let the light in at dawn and twilight. They paint the walls and floors brilliant shades of color. At twilight it looks as though you're walking on fire, and at dawn as if you're walking on planes of pure light. My favorite place is the library. There are records from every era in Republic history there, and the books..." He let out a dreamy sigh. "I couldn't read all of them in a single lifetime if I even wanted to. There's also the training grounds. They're so peaceful that you likely wouldn't know that was what they were used for if you hadn't heard the lightsabers. Their hum is soothing in its own way. There's a peace there unlike anything I had ever known until I set foot there when I was..." He paused and furrowed his brow, "Three, I believe. I was little when I arrived. I never lost that sense of awe I had when I first arrived there."

The way he spoke of it made it sound so... well, beautiful. There was a look about him when he talked, almost like some wistful magic that seemed to be invoked when he remembered the sights, the sounds of it all. I could almost picture it in my mind, and I half wondered if he was projecting it out and trying to let us see what he saw - let us see something we would never get to see. The other three sat there, eyes wide and listening to him talk like little kids gathered around the knees of a parent at storytime.

"That sounds amazing," Red piped up and sounded almost like some awestruck kid. Not that I could blame him as even I found myself listening in.

"It is," Talen nodded almost sagely. he paused for a second and a grin came to his face as he excitedly looked between the four of us, "I'll take you there when we get back!"

"Won't your masters get fussy about having us Clones in the Temple?" Grek asked as he smiled at Talen's enthusiasm.

"They can't deny me my team while working on an official investigation... and if we do, I say we see as much as we can before we get thrown out," he said the whole thing so nonchalantly that it made each and every one of us brust out laughing.

"Okay, equally serious question: how long could we stay while riding a speeder through the Temple? For science?"

"Twenty-six seconds. I tried."

Red and Grek looked at him with admiring eyes and stupid grins as I saw tor look like he was having a coronary. I, on the other hand, was fighting back the urge to laugh at the idea of Talen, the seemingly perfect Padawan, jumping on a speeder and riding it through the halls.

*

We decided to split up into two teams to look for this guy. Tor remained back on the ship, hunting for any holonet traces of our sought after weapon's broker while Talen and I went in search of cantina dives near the guy's last known location. Finding a togruta amid the mess didn't seem like too difficult of a task. Unlike the twi'leks, there were fewer of these lekku sporting fellows sprinting across the galaxy.

We had gone through maybe five or six dusty cantinas until we finally landed in one at the end of a back alley where, as if fortune herself had smiled down on us, right there in the center of the bar stood a tall, purple togruta. He matched the description we had on file of him from our interview with the Rodian.

"Kid," I put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back as he tried to make his approach. "Maybe we shouldn't just walk up and ask him."

Talen glanced up at me for a second before he looked around the cantina. I almost didn't need to ask him what he was thinking as I followed his gaze with my own. No one else in here was going to lend us a hand. It was going to be an uphill battle regardless of what we chose, and the kid was already getting looks as the denizens of the cantina dive began to recognzie his robes. Some were staring at him like he was some mythical creature while others were looking closer to shooting him than anything else. It made my trigger finger itch.

"So much for low-profile," he muttered and pulled his hood up closer over his head. He made his way over to the bar with me in tow, and we both pulled up a seat beside the Togruta in question as Talen ordered a drink from the Toydarian bartender in fluent Huttese before he glanced over at the alien beside him. "Excuse me," Talen spoke up, and the Togruta finally turned to face him. The alien eyed him up and down appraisingly and finally settled his face into a disinterested frown. "I'm looking for Wassay. Would you happen to know where I could find him?"

The Togruta's eyes widened and he scowled at the boy, "No, and if you know what's good for you, you'll stop asking questions, Jedi."

"I assure you, I only want to ask him a few questions," as he spoke, the kid had a look in his eye. He was a whole lot more cunning than most people gave him credit for - myself included - if that glint in his eye meant anything.

Talen searched his face for a moment, and I saw his eyes get that look - one that radiated pure concentration. It was the one he got when he was using his weird Force powers, and I instantly knew what he was doing. Wassay's own eyes slowly widened as a small smile came across Talen's face, "A pleasure to meet you, Wassay."

There was a beat of silence at that bar for a heartbeat. Everything seemed to freeze as the two locked eyes right before he jumped down from his barstool and backed past a table with the two men on the other side of him. Talen followed suit, his hand going instinctively to his lightsaber as I stepped in beside him. The Togruta shouted something in Huttese to the men behind him, and before long we found ourselves in a ring of rather well-armed thugs.

Talen snapped his lightsaber out in time to deflect several blaster bolts as the Togruta turned over the table between us and bolted for the door as several goons lined up between us and both exits. He and I stood back to back as his green lightsaber took out any will for a hand-to-hand fight from the thugs. He had one hand out defensively in front of him while the saber was held defensively in a reverse grip, "So much for peaceful negotiations."

"Warned you," one of the thugs finally decided to start firing as I replied.

Talen was impressive in a fight. He was wheeling around us and deflecting blaster bolts left and right while I was trying to find some way to shoot through dejarik tables. I saw the table shudder and suddenly launch out of the way as Talen flicked his hand, allowing me to get two of the thugs in cover before he vaulted off of my shoulder and landed behind another overturned table and dealt with the thugs there.

"Red, Grek - Wassay got away. We think he's heading towards the spaceport."

"Already tailing him, alor'ad. Tor's waiting for him and we're on our way. You and the kid get here soon."

I always could count on Red to have my back. Talen looked up at me as he slipped his lightsaber back onto his belt, "Let's go, kid."

*

We were sprinting off down the streets of Nar Shaddaa, following the points and shouts from startled bypassers as we ran after our mark. What we hadn't expected was to catch up to Wassay just in time to see Grek round the corner and clothesline the alien, sending him coughing and sprawling to the ground as Red kicked his own blaster away from him.

It didn't take me long to step in and heft the Tigruta up by the collar of his jacket and slam him against the wall. "Talk," I jammed my DC-17 up under the Togruta's chin and he made a yelping sound before pleadingly turning his eyes to Talen.

"Kind Master Jedi, please..."

Talen and I glanced at one another and in that quick look we decided that the best way to play him was to do a good cop-bad cop routine. He walked forward and rested a hand on my arm, "Release him just a tad, Captain. Let's see what he has to say."

Wassay heaved a sigh of relief and looked to Talen gratefully, "I swear to you that I have no idea at all who sent me to buy this. I'm a middle-man. It's my job. I got to various sellers and pay the tab sent to me by my client to acquire illicit goods. All I know is that the last routing of the payments came from Hosnian. The man has a network."

"Man?"

Wassay nodded frantically and kept looking at me like I was going to just haul off and shoot him. "Yes! Yes! The person who contacted me mentioned some "he's" in there. I don't know much else. I was contacted by someone who represented my client. It's not an unusual practice."

I glanced at Talen, who looked back at me. "Very well. Thank you. Captain, let him go."

I turned to him and dropped the Togruta, "Sir, he tried to kill us."

Wassay looked at me and huffed as he dusted himself off, "Sorry and all that. All I know is that whoever this is has killed Jedi. That sort of crime looks bad with loose ends." He gave us a knowing look as he headed for his ship, rubbing beneath his chin at the spot where the barrel of my blaster had been jammed at one point.

-

"You handled yourself pretty well in that Cantina fight back there," I begrudgingly admitted when the rest of the boys were out of earshot, and the kid snapped his head to me looking absolutely amazed. "You're better with that lightsaber than you admit."

"Just..." He dropped his eyes to his boots again. "Just defensively. I got lucky none of them had any melee weapons or I would have been in trouble." He looked back up at me with a grin and those big eyes sparkling, "You were awesome! The-the way you threw that guy and then the way you broke the table with the other guy- it was so cool!"

Sometimes, I forgot that I was dealing with an actual child.

Then he'd do something like that and remind me.

I blinked down at him for a second before I rubbed the back of my neck with an uncomfortable cough, "Ah... Thanks, kid... I think."

When we finally caught up with the others, Red fell back beside me and smiled at me, "He's growing on you."

I turned to him and slapped him upside the head with a roll of my eyes, "No. Not in a million years."

He just chuckled and gave me a shove, "You're a terrible liar, vod."

Tor and Grek had two while Talen ran up the ramp onto this ship, leaving us all walking several yards behind, "Admit it," Grek elbowed me, "you're starting to like him."

"I'd rather eat roast Toydarian."

Tor sighed, "Leave the alor'ad alone." He paused for a moment before he looked at me, "But they're right."

"Oh for the love of-!"

"The sooner you admit it, vod, the better it will be for everyone."

"I'm stunning each and every one of you and leaving you on this armpit of a planet."

As we were about to board, we heard Wassay's ship rev itself up in the distance. We all stopped to watch it take off, but just as it looked like it had cleared the spaceport, there was a deafening explosion as the ship broke apart in a massive ball of fire and smoke. We watched the debris fall down onto the landing pads several ships down as the groundcrew went about screaming across the spaceport for help. "I think we better go," Red supplied and grabbed Grek by the arm to haul him quickly up onto the ship as Tor and I watched the carnage from afar.

It hadn't been a rocket or a grenade. Someone had deliberately sabotaged that ship. I flipped down my scanner and looked around for anyone who may have been our culprit with a detonator, but with the insane bustle of the spaceport, no one stood out to me. I flipped it back up in frustration and turned to Tor, "What do you think?"

"Deliberate. Short-range detonator, I'll bet. No way we'll find anyone in this mess," he frowned and wrinkled his nose. "Smell that, though?"

"Yeah. Tibanna. You thinking fuel-line sabotaging?"

"Definitely. Might wanna give us a once over before we go."

Probably the smartest decision we made that day as we made our way back to Coruscant. We had our first real lead, and we knew if we didn't start making headway soon that there would be seven different kinds of hell to pay for it.