Hearing the pilot announce that they were approaching the planet made Lya nervous.
“Fifteen minutes, Master Jedi,” he added. The woman sitting next to Lya acknowledged him, kindly.
“You’re going to do fine, okay?” She turned to Lya. “You’re ready for this. Just remember your training and follow my lead.” Lya wasn.’t all that comforted by her master’s words, but the woman’s voice had a soothing aura to it. Still, Lya couldn’t help the anxious feelings. This was her first mission, after all.
The young girl fidgeted with her lightsaber to calm herself. She was glad she’d been able to upgrade it with the new Kyber Christal her master had given her before they left.
“Do you think I’ll have to use it?” Lya looked up at Master Takari inquisitively. The older woman looked down and saw the girl toying with the weapon.
“We must be prepared for any possibility, my young apprentice,” the woman replied. “If you do, just remember to relax and allow the force to guide you. This is only a diplomatic survey mission, though, so with any luck, we won’t need to resort to such drastic measures.”
The thought of having to use her lightsaber in a real battle was both scary and exciting to Lya. She was the best swords-woman of her age. And she had a connection with the force that the jedi council had not seen from a youngling in decades. That was the very reason Takari had chosen her to be her padawan. She felt that the girl’s natural ability would be allowed flourish best outside of the temple walls. Indeed, Master Takari was looking forward to guiding the young girl toward becoming a successful Jedi Knight.
Their ship began to shake as it entered the Pokoczek’s atmosphere. In short order, they would be landing in he capitol city. The planet of Pokoczek was on the fast-track toward becoming a full-fledged member of the republic. Prior to that, it was notorious as a hotbed for all sorts of criminal activity.
Master Takari and young Lya were tasked with surveying how the planet’s security measures were keeping up in order to prevent the sort of organized crime the planet had once been known for. And they were to make recommendations as to whether the planet required additional republic aide to keep the peace. Since it was Master Takari herself that first helped oversee the planet’s transition toward joining the republic, she was the natural choice to lead the planet’s survey along with her new padawan learner.
Lya fiddled with her braided pigtails and flattened out her tunic as she felt the ship make contact with the landing pad. The engines made a noise, then descended several octaves from their once steady rumble as the pilot powered the ship down before lowering the ramp.
“Here we are,” the pilot said. Master Takari thanked the pilot and stood to exit the ship. Following her master, Lya descended the ramp to the ship and they were greeted by a human male on the platform who was accompanied by a small entourage.
“Zaq, it’s great to see you again,” Master Takari greeted him with a smile and open arms.
“Likewise, I was so glad when I heard you were available to come back,” the man was soft spoken. “And who do we have here?” He leaned down toward Lya.
“This is Lya, my brand new apprentice,” Takari announced proudly.
“Pleasure, young lady,” he took her hand. “I love your little hairdo!” He complemented.
“Thank you,” the young jedi apprentice answered. The girl’s blonde hair was done in two braids and she had two small buns on top of her head on either side.
“Lya, this is Security Minister Zaq,” Master Takari introduced him. “He is in charge of security on the planet.” After greeting the rest of his entourage, the jedi were shown to their quarters to settle in. Zaq had made all the arrangements and created the perfect itinerary to help the Jedi ensure that everything on the planet was in order.
The first few days were rather uneventful for the jedi. Lya enjoyed seeing all the sites the strange planet had to offer as they traveled around to survey every aspect of the planet’s security.
As for the survey itself, things were going well. It seemed that the planet had completely rid itself of any remanence of its former criminal past. Illegal exchanges, massive smuggling operations, human trafficking—all of it had completely vanished.
Much of this is to be expected, of course, with their access to the republic’s vast resources. However, Master Takari didn’t have to use her jedi training to know that some things just seemed a little too perfect. Every invoice, every shipping manifest, every ship’s docking request all had perfect paperwork without even the slightest error. Even the best run facilities in the republic had minor inconsistencies. While the Minister of Security had been their guide for the jedi’s visit, Master Tekari decided to do some digging on her own.
It was early in the afternoon when Takari and Lya left the capitol for Pokoczek’s southern-most shipping port. The jedi master ensured that they would be arriving completely unannounced and didn’t even tell her friend, Zaq about their excursion, or her misgivings about the planet’s survey, thus far.
As she had planned, their arrival at the busy shipping port went largely unnoticed. Master Takari flashed her credentials and they were let in without a fuss. However, there was a heavy feeling in the force, so strong that even Lya could feel it with her much less focused abilities.
“Is that what something from the dark side really feels like?” Lya asked her master. “It feels really weird here.” Lya had been trained to feel such things, but this was her first time experiencing it in such an uncontrolled environment.
“Indeed it is,” her master replied. “Best keep close.”
Regardless of their feelings, everything about the port appeared above board. They found droids sorting fresh fruit and meat from Malistare and crates of Pekoczek’s exotic meats were being loaded into a shipping container to be flown off-world.
Once they got deeper into the port, though, things began to change. It was Lya who noticed the first sign of illicit activity. Through a small crack in a line of containers, she saw a line of young children being corralled onto a small ship. Their hands were bound and none of them looked particularly happy to be there.
“Hey, what are they doing?” Lya tugged at her Master’s tunic. Getting to her knees, Takari looked just in time to see the final few children loaded on.
“Well if that isn’t human smuggling, I don’t know what is?” She said as a guard kicked one of the children who wasn't cooperating.
“Where are they taking them?” Lya asked, suddenly worried about all those poor kids.
Takari took a deep breath, “To a slave exchange, most likely. Most will probably end up in brothels.”
“Isn’t that where people pay to have sex?”
“Yes, Lya, it is,” Takari answered with weight.
“Are we going to go help them?” Lya was concerned and had already moved toward her lightsaber.
“We could, but that’s not our job,” the master replied. “Even if we tried, I can see ten armed guards from here and there’s likely to be a lot more. A jedi should do whatever he can to keep the peace, but that doesn’t mean we can run into every bad situation foolishly in hopes that we can pull off a miracle.” Lya nodded.
“I’ll page the security minister, he might be able to keep the ship from taking off.” Takari reached for her comm and quickly called in. After the jedi’s brief explanation, Zaq sounded appalled, though he was also very surprised that his friend hadn’t told him she was doing an inspection that wasn’t a part of his itinerary
“I will send several security detachments down there at once, not to worry,” Zaq assured. “I’m sure this has to be an isolated incident, we will get this sorted right away.” Lya heard the man's voice reply to her master.
“Come, Lya,” her master said once she disconnected the call. “We need to return to the capitol at once.” They turned to leave, but only made it through a few rows of shipping crates before they were stopped in their tracks.
“Hold it right there,” a man’s voice instructed. Takari turned to see a man with several implants pointing a gun at her. Just then, other security personnel ran up and joined him.
“What is the problem here? I am Jedi Master Amila Takari, serving as Coruscant’s security ambassador to Pokoczek.” Both jedi had their hands on their lightsabers.
“This is a secure area, you both need to come with us,” he replied. Just then, Takari sensed that someone who had just ran up behind them, wasn’t so patient.
“Lya, now,” she instructed. The girl understood and grabbed her lightsaber. Before she could ignite the blade, a blaster went off behind them and Master Takari, with her lightsaber already ignited, moved swiftly to deflect it in time. She then lunged back, slashing at the woman who had fired.
Out if the corner of her eye, Lya could see her master’s green blade swirling around, blocking blaster fire and slicing through anything in its path. Lya had joined in as well, maneuvering her blue blade with care and precision, just as she’d been taught.
In the moment, there was no time to stop and think, Lya simply had to act. She had successfully blocked blaster fire from the man with the implants and he jumped back just in time to avoid losing a hand.
She followed him forward, however, ensuring he wasn’t so lucky. The man let out a high pitch scream when he felt Lya’s blade pushing into his groin, wishing now that he'd let her cut off his hand instead. He immediately fell to the ground, gasping as the lightsaber cut him up to his stomach before Lya pulled it away. The girl’s confidence grew as she successfully blocked more blaster bolts and sliced the arm off of yet another assailant. She went on to hack off another man’s leg, using her small stature to her advantage and flipped back to put her blade right into the gut of another man who keeled over in pain.
As Lya continued to block and dodge blaster fire, someone suddenly came up to her and caught her off guard. A boot landed right on her shoulder and kicked her to the ground. The swift motion had caused her to let go of her lightsaber. It flew clear across the room, far out of the girls reach. And suddenly, she was defenseless.
“Get back!” Lya heard someone yell, abruptly. She looked over to see a thermal detonator being hurled toward her master. The skilled Jedi force jumped, easily dodging the initial blast. But the shock send the woman flying through the air, over several rows of shipping crates. Lya watched the jedi slam into a row of crates and knock them down when she landed. There, the woman lay motionless, a pool of blood visible around her head.
“Make sure she’s dead,” the man standing over Lya said. “I know just what to do with this one.” He had his boot right in the middle of her flat chest. She thought to use the force to reach for her lightsaber, but even if she had, there was nothing she could do against a dozen armed men without her master to fight by her side. Instead, the young jedi started to cry.
The man grabbed her by the front of her tunic and ignored her kicks and struggles to get away. He dragged her past rows of supply crates with the small child kicking and screaming the whole way. When she saw the man was taking her to the shuttle where she and her master had earlier, the began to panic.
“No, let me go!” she screamed, kicking her legs furiously. Unfazed, the man continued dragging her with ease. She tried to reach out with the force, but couldn’t calm herself enough to feel it.
“Have room for one more?” He knocked on the shuttle. The ramp opened up and someone who was a species Lya didn’t recognize walked out.
“What was all the ruckus out here?” He asked.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Lya’s captive replied. “It turned out to be worthwhile, too. This was one of the intruders.” He lifted the crying Lya up higher, still holding her by the front of her tunic, nearly ripping it as he did.
“Well, well, ain’t that something? Yeah, I’ll squeeze her in just fine.”
“Let me go!” Lya pleaded, trying to twist out of the man’s grasp.
“Shut up, kid,” the other man grabbed her arm and yanked her into the ship. Lya continued wriggling in an futile attempt to free herself, as the man dragged her further into the ship. When he turned the corner, Lya could see a hallway with small cells off to one side. The force field of each cell was active keeping a row of young captives in their cells. Continuing her struggle, she spotted a young boy behind the first forcefield.
Despite trying to step on the alien’s foot, Lya was dragged up to the next brig where the alien lowered the forcefield and easily tossed her in. She fell onto the hard floor and heard the forcefield activate behind her.
The young jedi padawan lifted herself up and saw that she wasn't alone.
“Hi,” a girl about Lya’s age stood up from the only bed in the cell and knelt down next to her and held out her hand. “I’m Abby.”
“Lya,” she grabbed the girl’s hand, allowing her to help her to her feet. She was human and looked to be a little younger than Lya. Before the girls could make any additional pleasantries, however, the ship started to rumble as it left the hanger and headed into the sky.