Electric work, what a shock!

[Radiwalker]

Jaina had finally decided it was time to take up a mission for the jedi order and what better way to do that than to take her padawan- Tarkov - along. Of course, there was the matter of some other padawan coming along, one that went by the name of Kiara Sunquest. Jaina had never met, nor heard of that girl before, but she was glad to have more people along for the mission.

They should encounter any trouble during the mission. After all they were only supposed to help out with repairs after a natural disaster. But then Jaina wondered. What if the people weren't well receptive of the jedi? What if everyone blamed the jedi for abandoning them in the darkest hour? What if the jedi were dreaded more than the sith?

But that couldn't be true! There was still resistance. Good people standing up and fighting for their freedom and for the freedom of those whom they love. They set an example and their efforts and victories echo through the Galaxy giving hope to every living being, that is being oppressed by the rule of the Empire and the Sith, hope that a day will come when liberty and peace are restored to the Galaxy and the evil of the sith is undone, while they themselves are purged from the Galaxy.

Such thoughts bring a smile onto Jaina's face, thoughts of hope, of a brighter future and a better tomorrow. She keeps that smile as she waits for the two padawan to show up in the hanger, where she is waiting for them, dressed in her jedi cloak, her lightsaber hanging visibly from her belt, although she hopes she wouldn't have to use it, as she would prefer a peaceful solution to any problem, even if it meant making a compromise, rather than fighting pointlessly and spilling innocent blood in the process of waging an everlasting war...

 

[Rogue Girl]

Kiara was running late. "C'mon Gambit we got to go." she said to her R-9 Astromech droid, who was whirring and beeping away. "Boop...boop...beep...beep." Kiara looked at Gambit and replied back to him. "Of course I got everything." she looked around to make sure then sighed as she saw her training saber over on the bed. "Thanks Gambit, I don't know what I would do without you." She grabbed her lightsaber and clipped it on to her utility belt, then looked around once more before she left.

She was walking fast with Gambit right behind her. Her long dark blonde hair that went up to her ankles was swaying back and forth as she walked. She passed other Jedi on her way to the hangar. She didn't know most of them cause she was relatively new to the temple. In fact she never even met the Jedi Knight that was leading this mission. She had indeed met Tarkov briefly in the temple. Kiara was often shy when it came to meeting new people. It took sometime before she could get used to them.

This mission would allow her to ease up a bit and not be so nervous. Though that was easier said than done. From what she learned this was only a mission to repair homes that had been damaged from a natural disaster. Kiara never fixed a house before, but she knew about wiring from repairing Gambit. She looked behind her to see if the little droid was still following her. She smiled when she saw him.

"The hangar is just around the corner." She told the astromech droid. He beeped his approval and rolled on after her. When she finally enter the hangar she wasn't sure where to go. There were many ships docked and a small crew who looked after the ships. Her ice blue eyes peered to each section of the hangar until it rested upon a human female with black hair and red bangs.

She walked over to the Jedi Knight and introduced herself. "Greetings I am Padawan Kiara Sunquest. It's a pleasure to meet you." She said to the smaller female bowing with a smile. "This is Gambit." she motioned her hand to her droid. "Looks like I wasn't late for I don't see Tarkov yet. I'm sure he'll be along shortly." she said with a polite smile.

 

[druchi]

Being fashionably late had gone out in the Galaxy some hundred years ago but Tarkov had never quite grasped the concept, he was rushing down the gangplanks towards the hanger having slept in - all the training he had been doing recently had exhausted him to the point he could barely form sentences without thinking and straining his head about them for a while.

Of course when Kiara said shortly what really happened was that the galaxy made a few revolutions when Tarkov finally appeared bag packed scuppering around and holding onto all sorts of tools he had brought along he thought they might need at last minute. Of course he had neglected to inform the workshops of their temporarily borrowed tools and was in rather a rush to get off planet.

"Sorry master was a bit caught up in uhh negotiations with the workshops, they said we could have these tools to help us." He presented the tools to Jaina when he noticed Kiara, he had not seen the little jedi for quite some time and felt vaguely protective of her. "Hey Kiara what are you doing here? Great to see you coming to help us both out sport." he was rather fond of her and ruffled her head a little and passed her a fuse torch which was used to singe electric networks together. "Ever seen one of those? Top grade equipment that, sometimes I don't think we are as poorly equipped as we think."

Of course he was getting rather disapproving vibes from his lateness.

"So yeah sorry about! Let's get heading shall we before the workshop changes their mind about some of this stuff."

 

[Rogue Girl]

They were waiting for quite a bit but finally in a running sprint Tarkov came carrying a bag of what looked like tools. Tarkov showed the tools to Jaina and then turned his attention to Kiara. "Hi Tarkov, glad you can make it. " she said in half joking kind of way. Tarkov ruffled her hair which sort of annoyed her a bit.

"What am I doing here? Well haven't you heard I'm Jaina's Padawan too. So that makes us siblings. We'll be going on missions together for now on. So you better get used to me." She said with a big smile on her face.

She liked Tarkov he was nice to her and made her feel like she was welcomed. She wasn't used to it and it made her feel like she belonged. After being alone with only Gambit by her side for so long it was nice to have friends.

She turned to Gambit, so not to forget him. "Hey Gambit you can use some of those tools too. turning her attention back to the others. "Yeah let's hit the road. "

 

[Radiwalker]

Jaina was initially uncertain about how her padawan would cope, but clearly they wouldn't have a hard time working together, moreover they seemed to be acquainted and in good terms, so she was glad to have them both aboard for the mission. What she disliked was Tarkov's lateness, but she didn't say anything, knowing that her silence would speak enough to him.

She gave a nod at both propositions to get going and walked into the ship, while waving for the padawan to follow her, expecting that they would bring up the tools Tarkov had acquired... at least he had managed to do something good and by means of negotiations too, perhaps his lateness was excusable.

The knight took the pilot seat and set the course, then she turned to the padawan, making sure they were making themselves comfortable. "Now, before we reach our destination, lets go over a plan of action." she shifted her eyes between the two padawan. "Do either of you have any suggestions." she had devised a plan already, but wanted to get the inputs of the two padawan, to see how they used their minds and to prepare them for the many missions they would undertake on their own in the near future.

 

[druchi]

"Kiara it'll be great to have you along looking forward to training some more with you haha, lets see where this rust bucket takes us then?"

Jaina had probably figured this out meticulously he thought but still an obvious suggestion was better than no suggestion.

"Well I think our first step should be to check out the locals and figure out the cause of their issue." He gave a slight shrug. "Always helps to get some local intel might also help us find any other parts we need."

Tarkov struggled a bit more with the safety belt but eventually settled in place, he adored flying a ship but being a passenger was not something he enjoyed putting your life into the hands of someone else in space seemed natural to many who had grown up with much travel but to Tarkov he would rather trust a Tusken at the latest iBot show. Still made sense in his head, get the locals involved make it a community project help the locals out and give them the abilities to do it for themselves autonomously in the future.

"But sure what's your plan?"

 

[Rogue Girl]

Kiara was happy that Tarkov was going. He always made her smile. She entered the ship and sat down next to Tarkov while Jaina sat in the pilot's seat. She was strapping herself in when Jaina asked what they should do first. Tarkov spoke first and Kiara nodded as he talked. "Yeah I agree we should make an assessment of the situation find out where we are needed most and start from there."

Gambit beeped an agreement as he strolled to a safety spot on the ship for himself.

She was happy to be able to give some input for no one has ever valued her opinion for quite awhile. She suppose this was her new life as a Jedi. She knew she would be better for it in the long run.

Kiara wondered if she would get a chance to pilot the ship. She had some knowledge of piloting but she could improve on it some more.

She looked at Jaina to see if she was going to answer Tarkov's question on the plan of action they should take. Though Kiara thought both she and Tarkov answered correctly.

 

[Radiwalker]

A fine suggestion was made, to first access the situation and then find the best place to focus their efforts. There were, however, other matters that had to be taken into account. "Should we stick together, hopefully doing more work as a team, than when split up, or should we split up to cover more ground? And what about aftermaths of the crisis? What if there are a lot of mentally displaced people? How will they fit into our mission?" There was, of course, the matter of people not liking jedi, for leaving them to be conquered by the sith, for retreating and not taking part in the fight against the sith, whilst speaking of peace and protection. Still she hoped that such people wouldn't be encountered during this mission, so she didn't feel like bringing them up, for after all she didn't want to scare the padawans, only get them engaged in the mission, or rather what to expect of it.

 

[Rogue Girl]

There was more to it than just assessing the situation Kiara thought. She contemplated for awhile then gave an answer. "We should split up to cover more ground. All the mentally displaced people can be taken to a setup shelter. She said passionately. Then she thought about something that was on her mind.

"First we must gain their trust and know that we are here to help them. Hopefully they will see by our actions if not words that we mean well." She remembered when she was on her own and heard some disgruntle refugees talk about the Jedi during the war. She hoped that thoughts have changed but just to make sure she knew they had to try.

 

[druchi]

"She's right you know. A lot of people might not trust us so what we say won't matter what we do is how were going to solve this but if it's all the same to you I think we should stick fairly close at first just to see what it's like then we can split up."

He tapped in some coordinates to the nav computer and gave the thumbs up to Jaina they were ready to go now and there was quite a bit of work to be done. Still they might be desperate enough to take their help. They would just have to find out when they got there but it might just be hitting the ground feet first.

 

[Radiwalker]

Jaina smiled at the suggestions, but did not answer them, she did not display a plan of action, for she didn't know what to expect, in fact the whole conversation was to only get the padawans ready for the situation and constantly thinking of ways to resolve problems, that might come up. Still, nothing would be enough to prepare them for what was actually on the planet. As soon as the ship landed and Jaina walked out of it, she was greeted with nervous, frightened and even angry looks. Nobody dared come close to the jedi, or the ship. It was clear that people weren't well receptive of visitors, or perhaps of these particular visitors. Some were working to rebuild, but most seemed to be hanging around, some drunk, others depressed and third sick.

The damage to the city was great, but not beyond repair, there was another problem, however, and it was a more significant one... Jaina could already guess it, but didn't want to admit it to herself. "What are ye doin herr ya stinkin jedis?" a man walked towards the knight, he was accompanied by a few tall, wide fellas. "We're here to help rebuild." Jaina's tone was full of compassion, but it may have been misjudged by the man. "What is that? Herr to rebuild ya says? Well what does it matter to ye if we die of hunger and sickness, or suffer in the hands of the sith? Ye abandoned the galaxy, let it take its course... don't try to remedy for yer mistakes... its too late now... nothin ye can do, except prolong our sufferings... just get back in yer fancy ship and go some place else... yer not welcome herr... stinkin jedis." with that the man turned around and walked off, followed by his assumed guards.

Jaina waited until the man was far enough, then turned to the padawan. "What do you two make of this?"

 

[Rogue Girl]

Kiara wondered if their plans that she and Tarkov mentioned would be enough to suffice. She kept trying to think of different plans but the first ideas kept coming up. Now that they finally arrived She was excited to get started. She wondered what the people were like and if they would accept them. It didn't take long before Kiara found out.

Her senses risen up to a high when she got off the ship. She could feel the pain, sadness and anger all around. It was almost nauseating The city was damaged but not a total loss they can rebuild. Kiara grabbed her bag that Gambit brought off the ship.

Just then a man started yelling in the face of Jaina. He was so angry and hurt that he blamed the Jedi for it. The man walked away after finishing his rant. Jaina looked at Tarkov and Kiara and asked what they thought about the situation.

"I sense alot of fear in him. He has been hurt and were easy to blame. Heck maybe we are to blame. Anyway we definitely should help them. Maybe then they will see us in a new light."

 

[druchi]

"Just ignore him. With goons around him he's probably making a bit of money off this, whenever there is a crisis and people need help there is always someone to exploit them."

Tarkov had seen enough of the aftereffects of war and poverty to know that there would be people here who did not want to the Jedi to interfere with things. Still though he wandered off a bit to get a map and figure out where they were and where they should be going. If he was honest he had never seen a map set out so awfully it seemed to be some sort of cultural thing but even checking his Galactic Codex only turned up that the people here had really terrible maps.

"Well that was useful."

He handed Jaina the map to see if she could make something out of it. He took a moment to take in the town. Hobbled together shacks, some out of rusted ship parts. He could see the wealthier houses away from the space port up on the hillside a couple of blue and orange marble houses built into the hillside on large supporting white marble struts. A few other ships pulled in to the dockyard. One of them seemed to be a freighter carrying spices and other well to do goods. He could see the ship captain swagger off and a swarm of child pickpockets move around them, skillfully dodging passing blows and and filtering through every pocket in a manner of moments. One of the smugglers even aimed a punch but it hit nothing but air as the kids moved on with their game to the next crew. He wondered why they had not targeted the Jedi briefly. He motioned to Kiara and pointed at them.

"Any clues as to why they didn't try to mark us?"

 

[Radiwalker]

Helping the natives seemed like a good idea, but if the help was forced upon them, they would not take it kindly, so the trio had to thread lightly. Jaina could not make anything out of the map, taking a note to herself that that was something to help with. She didn't pay much attention to the smugglers as they didn't pay attention to the jedi. It was obvious that they were either making a delivery, or this was a meeting point for them, perhaps making use of the poor state of the place, which was a horrible thought, but for now Jaina could not be concerned with simple criminals, when the lives of the people living about were at stake.

"Lets take a stroll through the city. Perhaps someone will ask for our help." but no one did. They walked round and round and all they got were scared and angry looks thrown their way. Finally the knight brought the group to a stop back to where they had landed. Just when she was about to speak, to try and figure something out, an incident occurred. One of the nearby building began crumbling. The knight sprung into action, quickly covering the distance between herself and the building, lifting her hands and using the force to sustain the structure for long enough for everyone to get out of it. Meanwhile several other structures began doing the same. Jaina managed to take one more that was close to her, but the other two were too far away, so she threw a look at the two padawan. It was time for them to shine.

 

[Rogue Girl]

Kiara glanced as the smugglers were busy with their delivery. They walked around to see if anyone wanted their help. The trust was gone from the citizens for they wanted no help from them. Kiara thought it was sad she could sense the hurt inside that the people felt.

Then something happened that changed. It appeared that one of the buildings started to crumble. Kiara could sense the fear from people. Jaina quickly ran and used the force to stop the building from falling. As she did that three more buildings started to crumble. Jaina took the second one as well. Kiara nodded to Tarkov knowing that they would have to take care of the the other buildings.

Kiara used force speed to hurry up toward the building she picked. Concentrating through the force she raised her hands as if lifting. She had not done this for such a large object but size did not matter. She wondered if Tarkov was succeeding with the building he was going to. Kiara breathed in and out keeping her focus on the building.

 

[druchi]

He really wasn't but he shouted at some people to move. The shopping crowd below the small market building was fleeing in every direction. He couldn't keep it up it was straining him. He had barely been able to lift small rocks let a lone a building. The best he could do was slow it. He could feel it collapsing and slipping away rockrete brick by rockrete brick it was collapisng. Tiles and raingutters clattered to the earth.

"I can't hold this!"

With a final jump of energy he felt the force pulse through him and he tossed most of the collapsing building to the side thankfully the street was empty as people had bolted as far away from this as possible. The rest of the building crashed down in front of it and stones skipped towards him. Again thankfully no injuries... although he turned a thought to if anyone had been inside the building he really hoped not. He turned to look at the others who had managed to keep the damn things up. Three buildings three jedi, he tried to quell the anger he was feeling and failed rather miserably. He was in control of his facial expression which appeared calm but he stomped over to the building that had collapsed... this could not just have been an accident could it have? He had never seen a building just collapse on it's own... or could this place really be that poor? the building had collapsed like it had been slashed as the front of the building still stood but the back had bene the part that mostly tipped over. It rather resembled the craters on his home planets moon with all the dust and smooth edges.

"You two ok?"

 

[Radiwalker]

"It would seem so." Jaina nodded to the two padawan as she rejoined them. Although the buildings had not been sustained, the people were saved and that was what was important. Some seemed grateful, but most were still reluctant to even look at the jedi. It seemed that they would have to do a lot more to be accepted, let alone appreciated. A different approach was required, one not so direct.

She remembered the smugglers and how the children did not stray from them, but acted as if they were used to the presence of such people and their walk, it was as if they owned the place. Given the state of the city and its population, it was very likely that it was a smuggler heaven. Fortunately Jaina thought of a way to use that to their advantage, or rather use it to help the people, without antagonizing them.

She spoke to her companions, but more quietly, so only they could hear her. "I need you two to create a distraction, or rather draw attention to yourselves, so that people are drawn to the square and more importantly, so that the smugglers come to the square, once that happens I will approach them and speak to them in private, whilst you two maintain the distraction." she smiled. It was a hard task, but if carried out well, it would solve their problems. "Don't do anything drastic, perhaps a speech would be sufficient." she herself was uncertain of what would draw attention and yet not in the bad way, but she was confident in the diplomatic capabilities of her companions. After giving them those last instructions, she faded away to the side of the square, hoping the two would manage to cope on their own.

 

[Rogue Girl]

Kiara let go of the falling chunks of the building and caught her breath. That was harder than she thought it was going to be. She didn't do too bad but there was no way of saving the building. At least no one was hurt and that was the most important thing. It seemed that helping the people with the falling buildings was not enough to win their trust. Kiara knew it would take time before that would happen.

Jaina asked them to cause a distraction especially for the smugglers. She mentioned a speech would be suffice but Kiara was no speech giver. She was very shy and it was hard enough to make friends let alone making a speech in front of people she didn't know. She hoped that Tarkov could make the speech though she didn't know how good he was with talking in public. She had no idea what they could talk about other than coming to help the people in need.

"Master....what should we say?"