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Star Wars: Love Thy Aliens Ch.5
🕑 Added 2023-01-09 18:52:02 +0000 UTC“Slowly now…” Ari cautioned, looking over Haro’s shoulder. “There’s no shame in backing out if you think you’ll get made.”
Haro heard her but didn’t respond. He let a tiny bit of the Force leak into his datapad. Giving himself over to the flow of the world, Haro could feel the electrical signals his pad was sending and receiving. The small, isolated terminal he was jacked into buzzed once as Haro started his infiltration.
True to her word, Ari had been teaching Haro how to slice for the past couple of weeks. He had picked it up quickly. Back in the Temple, he had always been good with tinkering and machinery. It wasn’t that hard to transfer his skills in those areas and apply them to slicing.
He had taken to heavily relying on the Force to feel out the systems he sliced into. Learning to interpret the signals and electrical impulses had been interesting for Haro. After he had successfully sliced through one of Ari’s homemade firewalls, she had deemed him ready to try something real.
None of the Masters in the Temple talked about using the Force this way. He knew Jedi Sentinels were rumored to do something similar, but information about them was scarce. He felt like he needed to know more. That desire and a subtle pull in the Force was why he decided to try and find a backdoor into the Jedi Temple’s systems.
Slicing into the Temple remotely would have been nearly impossible for someone of his skill level. So Ari had located an isolated terminal on the lower levels that was connected to the Temple’s systems and Haro decided to try his hand at entering from there. The newly formed Empire had focused on locking down the upper levels of the Jedi Temple. The Temple extended deep though. Possibly even to the very surface of Coruscant. They couldn’t secure everything in the short time they had been working, leaving an opening for Haro and Ari to exploit.
To Haro, slicing felt a lot like trying to perform surgery with a pair of chopsticks. Except with the Force, Haro could feel through those chopsticks like they were his fingers. It still felt like walking a tightrope, but for a Jedi, walking a tightrope was the same as walking across solid ground.
“And… That should do it…” Haro said as the terminal dinged and reset.
Ari laid a congratulatory kiss on his cheek, “Good job, Haro. You left it a little slim on the margin for error, but I guess with the Force, you can do that.”
Haro smiled, “The Force certainly helps. Welcome to the Jedi Archives, Ari. Or at least, the backrooms of the Archives. I’m sure Palpatine will have people watching for more blatant intrusion attempts. As long as we stick to the least tread paths, we should be fine.”
“So what was it you wanted to look up here?”
“Jedi Sentinels. The Jedi were separated into two main classes: Guardian and Consular. The Sentinels were a third class that was kept an open secret. People know they exist but there isn’t much readily available information on them.”
Ari draped herself over Haro’s shoulders as he began to surf the Archives. He didn’t go into the main directory or articles, instead using links and references to navigate. Of course, he was listening to the subtle pull of the Force like always. The Force led him through a dozen articles until he landed on a very old directory.
The directory was referring to a single lost Holocron. The Holocron had been lost sometime during the Sith Empire’s Sacking of Coruscant. According to the Archives, it contained the personality imprints of Jedi who had fallen to the dark side and returned to the light. Something about that description resonated with Haro.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of the information about the Holocron and its creators was redacted. The only lead Haro had to go off of was that it was last seen in the hands of a criminal gang, the Justicars. He didn’t even know if the Justicars still existed, but the Force seemed to be pulling him in the direction of Coruscant’s lowest levels.
“Ari… How do you feel about going on a little quest?” Haro asked.
“~A quest?” Ari purred, rubbing against Haro’s cheek like a cat. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
“We’ll be going to the lowest levels of Coruscant,” Haro warned, not wanting her to back out but feeling like he owed her an explanation.
“That just means we get to bring the big guns~” Ari said in a singsong voice.
Haro sighed, “… You know you don’t have to do this for me, right?”
“Of course. But I’m a bit of an adventure gal myself and I’d follow you anywhere.”
Ari squeaked as Haro used Force telekinesis to hug her without moving his hands from his datapad, “Thank you, Ari. Should we bring Lu’la as well?”
“You know how much she’ll pout if we don’t… Plus she’s a decent shot with a blaster thanks to all her mods. It never hurts to have some additional backup.”
Haro chewed his lip, considering his options, “You’re right. She really will be insufferable if we leave her behind. I can always just fuck the brat out of her after we get back, but in this case, it may be easier to just take her along.”
“I know you’ll keep her safe, baby. Trust in yourself,” Ari said, kissing his cheek.
Haro sighed, “Yeah… We should get going though. There’s a lot we’ll have to do to prepare for this quest.”
Ari reluctantly disengaged herself from Haro’s body. She stood and stretched, exposing a bit more tantalizing pink skin to Haro’s eyes. Haro enjoyed the little show as he left himself a backdoor into the Temple’s systems. There was no telling when he would have to come back for more information. It paid to be prepared for the inevitable.
They packed up their things, hopped back in Ari’s speeder, and made their way back to the apartment. The trip back up through the undercity access shafts was quiet and comfortable. It wasn’t long before they were walking through the door to their shared home.
They found Lu’la sprawling out lazily on the couch as they entered the apartment. Ari’s Tooka, Switty, slept on her chest. She perked up when she saw them, but couldn’t move because she was stuck under what was essentially a cat.
“Didn’t I tell you to clean the apartment while we were gone?” Haro chided.
Lu’la smiled a butter-wouldn’t-melt smile as Switty got up to greet Ari, “I did. See?”
Haro looked around, seeing everything exactly the way it was when he and Ari left. He could see into the bedroom; not even their bed had been made. He raised a questioning eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
Lu’la pouted, “Cleaning is boring. I want to go on an adventure.”
Haro sighed, sitting down and patting his lap, “Over my knee.”
She slowly got up, faking reluctance to hide her excitement. She really did think cleaning was boring, but that wasn’t the real reason she disobeyed her master. Haro’s punishments were divine. They made Lu’la feel loved and ashamed and aroused and submissive all at the same time. The fact that he cared enough to reprimand her for her little fits of rebellion made butterflies flutter in her stomach.
“You’re in luck,” Haro said, shifting Lu’la into position and pulling her skimpy shorts down to reveal her pert, blue ass. “It seems like you’ll get the adventure you want. We’re going down to near the planet’s surface to search for something.”
Lu’la’s eyes lit up, “When?!”
Haro didn’t immediately reply. His right hand gently caressed Lu’la’s ass, sending shivers up her spine. Drawing his hand back, Haro brought it down sharply on her asscheek. Lu’la bit her lip to muffle a squeak. Her hips wiggled back against his hand.
“Whenever we’re ready,” Haro finally said, gently rubbing the spot his hand had just struck.
Lu’la moaned as he gave her ass another swat, “W-What are we looking for?”
“A Holocron… I think…”
A breathy gasp was pulled from Lu’la’s lips by Haro’s next spank. The pleasurable punishment made it hard for her to nod her understanding. Haro had revealed his Jedi origins to Lu’la when she woke up the morning after their first fuck. It had been a surprise, to say the least, but she had quickly come to accept it. There had been no reason for Haro to keep his origins a secret from her. She belonged to him now and nothing was going to change that.
A slow drip of feminine juices wet Haro’s knee. Lu’la’s spanking brought her so close to the edge of orgasm. Her asscheeks were colored with light purple handprints. She writhed over Haro’s lap, trying to grind her crotch against anything she could find to push herself over the edge.
Haro didn’t allow her easy release. He squeezed her ass one last time before pulling her shorts up and standing her on her feet. Lu’la’s pout went nuclear, but she didn’t protest his actions. She got more from the denial play than she would have from an actual climax.
“What will we need to bring if we want to do this right?” Haro asked, addressing Ari.
Ari tapped her lip, “A means of transportation to start, but we can just use the speeder… Plenty of firepower as well. You never know what you’ll find down there. Rations, extra ammo, meds, and other normal things like that of course. A lifeform scanner and some of my slicing gear. Exposure suits-“
“Right, a bunch of things,” Haro interrupted. “Can you make a list while I see about getting what you’ve already mentioned?”
Ari nodded, “Sure, Lu’la can help me.”
“Great, I’ll take the speeder then.”
“Don’t crash~”
Haro rolled his eyes, giving both his girls pecks on the lips as he left. He got in the speeder and started it up. His first stop was the nearest spaceport to buy three exposure suits. He could feel the Force practically vibrating with excitement as he took off.
The next day, the trio had everything packed and ready for their expedition to Coruscant’s lowest levels. They loaded everything up into the speeder and headed for one of the undercity access shafts. Anticipation was palpable within the repulsorcraft. Even the most worldly of them, Ari, had only gone down to level 1000 or so. Lu’la was itching for adventure and Haro was just focused on the call of the Force.
As they began to descend into the gigantic open-air pit that connected Coruscant’s surface to its depths, Ari did one more check of their equipment. They had a good supply of meds and food in case the worst happened. She had her gear and an additional scanner to help them navigate the compact tunnels of the lower levels. And they were all wearing airtight exposure suits that would keep them safe from the environmental hazards that they were bound to encounter down in the darkness.
Since they were trusting Haro’s intuition to guide them to their prize, Haro was driving. He fell into an almost trance-like state as they began to descend through the undercity portal. The access shaft was large enough for a capital ship to fly through and busy enough that Haro had to enhance his reaction time to guarantee safe passage.
The traffic died down as they went lower and lower. Their surroundings were cast into eternal twilight this far from the surface. They heard a low shriek as a Hawkbat swooped past their speeder. Lu’la clung to Haro’s shoulder, her nerves just now starting to get to her.
“Don’t worry, darling,” Ari comforted her. “Stick close, stay calm, and you’ll be fine.”
Lu’la nodded, fingering her new blaster. She was glad Haro had taken her advantages into account when picking it out for her. He had bought her a Pulse Cannon that had been built off the frame of a DLT-20A blaster rifle. The light, long-barreled rifle fit perfectly in her hands. It was exceptionally powerful for its size and designed for long-range engagements.
The slavers who had previously owned her had modified her body in many ways. Most of the modifications were to make her a better pleasure slave. At one point, they increased the nerve density throughout her body so she would be easier for future clients to mind break. This modification had the unintended side effect of upgrading her reaction time and hand-eye coordination.
Lu’la had the aim of a sharpshooter with none of the experience to back it up. Her task for this little adventure was to keep enemies at a distance and not get herself killed. She was mainly playing a supporting role in their trio, opposite to Ari and Haro’s more front-line roles.
Haro had gotten Ari a big ol’ scatterblaster. She may or may not have squealed in delight when she saw the glorified plasma shotgun. Even if she didn’t use them often, Ari knew her way around a blaster. And the SX-21 pump-action fit her preferred style of in-your-face combat to a tee.
Haro himself hadn’t actually upgraded his weapons for this ‘mission’. He felt his WESTAR-35 would be more than enough to take care of threats when combined with the Force and his vibroblade. The Mandalorian-style pistol still packed a hefty punch and Haro had been working on his accuracy, both with and without the help of the Force.
Lu’la took a deep breath as they descended into the twisting tunnels of the lower levels. In places, the maze of tunnels was only wide enough for a single person to walk through. Haro ignored the decrepit denizens and wildlife that inhabited these depths, speeding through corridors with bare inches to spare on either side.
Something huge leaped at them from the darkness of a side alley. Lu’la and Ari only caught a glimpse of it. The creature looked like a large, mutated rat, more than two meters in length, with a sharp tusk poking out from its upper lip. The Hive Rat opened its mouth in a snarl before it impacted something surrounding the speeder and disappeared in a flash of light.
The Force barrier around the speeder flickered out, leaving what remained of the Hive Rat behind as Haro continued flying. He didn’t even acknowledge the beast that attacked them. Their pace slowed as the pull Haro felt in the Force grew stronger and more direct.
“We go on foot from here,” Haro said, pulling the speeder into an alcove dark enough to conceal it.
“I-Is it far?” Lu’la nervously asked.
Haro shook his head, “I don’t think so. Maybe an hour’s walk away.”
“Let’s get moving,” Ari said, readying her scatterblaster. “The less time we spend down here, the better.”
Lu’la took a fortifying breath, “R-Right… I’m ready.”
“Stay between us,” Haro ordered.
Ari took point as they left the speeder. Haro was guarding the rear with Lu’la between them in the middle. Ari kept her head on a swivel, eyeing every patch of shadow for mutants or other dangerous creatures. Haro gave himself almost completely to the Force, projecting his sense out around them. He could feel little things scampering about in the darkness, but nothing was brazen enough to attack them like the Hive Rat from earlier.
Even through their exposure suits, a strong scent of trash and sewage entered the trio’s noses. The tunnel around them slowly transformed into something more industrial as they walked. The faint clanging of machinery could be heard in the distance. A dim light appeared at the end of their tunnel.
They walked through the light and onto a narrow metal catwalk. Just beneath them, a seemingly endless sea of trash stretched into the distance. The scale of the garbage sea was awe-inspiring in a way. It truly seemed to have no end and none of them could guess how deep it was. There were even waves rolling across its surface.
Lu’la suddenly jumped, zeroing in on a flicker of movement in the sea below them with her rifle. A single large eye on a fleshy stalk extended from beneath the waves like a periscope. The eye swiveled left and right, scanning the top of the ‘water’ for something.
It turned upward abruptly, seeing the trio on the catwalk. A long tentacle slithered out of the water and waved at them. Lu’la gave the creature a hesitant wave back. The eye squinted, crinkling like a Human’s would when they smiled.
Before the eye could descend back below the trash water, something else emerged from the sea, something much bigger. A colossal worm-like creature arced out of the water. Its glassy scales glinted in the low light. The worm’s leap out of the water easily reached a hundred meters into the air, scraping along the bottom side of the catwalk.
It came down right on top of the periscopic eye. The eye barely had time to widen before it became prey. The front of the worm morphed, splitting open to form a mouth that hadn’t been there seconds before. The water parted as the worm dove back beneath the waves with the eye creature in its mouth. It took another couple of seconds for the rest of the 200-plus-meter worm to follow its head under the water.
To say the scene left the three of them unsettled was an understatement. They had all known that things lived down here, but there was a difference between knowing and seeing the ecosystem in action.
Haro shook off the shock quickly, “Let’s keep going.”
His unwaning determination helped inspire confidence in Ari and Lu’la. They pushed the giant worm below them to the back of their mind and continued walking across the catwalk. About halfway across the bridge, there was a loud noise behind them.
A series of high-pitched screams echoed from the tunnel they had come from. Half a dozen pale, hound-like creatures loped out of the darkness and onto the bridge. The high-pitched screams were quickly revealed to be a form of echolocation, seeing as the mutant dogs had no eyes. They seemed to be making a beeline for the trio. Lu’la raised her Pulse Cannon to fire, but before she could, there was another series of noises.
These noises were lower, but no less loud. Incoherent hollering and jibbering that resembled a primitive language rang out from the darkness, preceding another group of beasts. This group of beasts was roughly humanoid in shape but mutated beyond recognition. Their skin was pale, clammy, and decaying in places. Thin flaps of skin had grown over the creatures’ eyes and they wore scraps of cloth as makeshift loincloths. They jumped about, chasing the group of mutant dogs.
“Cthon,” Ari said, her pink skin going pale as she recognized the troglodytes chasing the ghoulish hounds.
“Blast them,” Haro’s order startled Lu’la out of her shock.
Lu’la’s rifle barked as a concentrated bolt of plasma sped from its barrel. The streak of purple struck the head Cthon directly, vaporizing it instantly. The next Cthon in line panicked, but couldn’t dodge Lu’la’s follow-up shot. Haro joined the shooting with his blaster as well.
A volley of ionized particle beams began to shoot over the heads of the pack of hounds. The hounds seemed confused, cautiously staying where they were instead of charging at their pursuers or saviors. The confusion of the Cthon wasn’t much better. With nowhere to run, they were quickly taken care of by Haro and Lu’la’s precise fire. One of the Cthon even jumped over the catwalk’s railing in an effort to avoid blaster fire.
A criminally casual shot from Lu’la drilled a charred hole in the chest of the last Cthon. Luckily, this wasn’t a big pack of the underworld-dwelling humanoids. Horror stories about the Cthon were told in the undercity. Supposedly, they used to be Humans. Thousands of years of exile from the surface and even the undercity had mutated the former Humans into zombie-like creatures with a craving for living flesh.
The hound-ghouls sniffed the air curiously, obviously smelling the death of their hunters. One of them approached the corpses of the Cthon. It let out a new shriek, signaling the rest of the pack of a feast. As the pack swarmed the corpses, one of the hounds stopped and turned its head in Ari, Lu’la, and Haro’s direction. It sniffed the air, approaching Haro. It gave a little whine as Haro hesitantly pet its head before turning to join its pack.
“Did you make a friend?” Ari teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“… Yes,” Haro admitted quietly, much to the surprise of Ari and Lu’la. “I… I could feel him. He was thankful for our help. I don’t think they’ll be bothering us further though.”
“You could feel him? Does this have something to do with the Force or something?”
“There is a Force power called Animal Bond…” Haro said before trailing off. “It doesn’t matter right now. We should keep moving.”
Ari shrugged off his explanation, but Lu’la started looking at Haro with a strange sense of awe. She had no experience with the Force and no real idea of what it could do. She vowed to herself that she would take more of an interest in Haro’s life and his powers in the future.
The group continued, eventually stepping off the bridge and into another tunnel. Other than Haro occasionally speaking up to give Ari directions, their journey through the maze of tunnels was eerily silent. Even Ari’s lifeform scanner had gone quiet. Like everything living had long since vacated the area.
They soon came upon the source of the pull. A large hangar opened up in front of them. Its grandness had long since fallen into disrepair. Like the tunnels leading up to it, the hangar was eerily devoid of life. They did find the remains of the creatures who once lived here though.
Piles upon piles of skeletal remains decorated the hangar floor. Bones were twisted from the mutated cruelty of nature. Some of the skulls were humanoid, others… not so much. In the center of the hangar, a ship was sitting on a mound of bones.
It must have been thousands of years old, but Haro recognized the ship as a Phantom of the Sith Empire. He had learned about the Sith Empire during his time as a Temple youngling and despite its origins, Haro had always liked the X-70B-Phantom. The lines of its profile were sleek and elegant even with the wings partially sheared off. It looked to be close to a hundred meters in width and length, a little wider than it was long. It was a beautiful ship even if it was used for the evils of the Sith.
“How did it even get down here?” Lu’la asked, pointing out the concrete wall that lay just outside the doors of the hangar.
“The hangar must have been built over sometime after the ship was abandoned,” Haro said.
“But why even abandon it in the first place? It looks like an expensive ship.”
Haro shrugged, “Who knows? Maybe the owner ran into some trouble.”
Ari’s scanner dinged as it registered movement within the ship, “Uh, I don’t think we should go in there. Something caused all of this death after all.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Haro said, shaking his head. “The Holocron is in there… I can feel it.”
Ari started to object before stopping herself. Her face set in a mask of determination, “… Fine, but I’m coming with you. Lu’la, keep guard from outside.”
“Y-Yes, ma’am!” Lu’la stuttered.
Haro shook his head but didn’t protest against Ari coming with him. His mind delved into the Force, sensing out the inside of the ship. There was a great light in the Force near the cockpit of the ship. But there was also something cruel and malicious guarding it.
He and Ari crept onto the ship. Haro did his best to muffle their presence in the Force. The ship’s hallways were decrepit, but still retained some of their former elegance. Blaster burn marks and blood painted the walls near the cockpit.
Haro peeked his head through the cockpit’s entrance. He immediately recoiled at what he saw. A hulking monstrosity sat in one of the pilot’s chairs, chewing on the torn-off leg of some creature. It was easily 8 to 10 feet tall and almost the same in width. Patchy hair and grotesque muscles covered the beast’s humanoid frame. The cockpit was covered in old gore and blood, hinting at this being the Coruscani ogre’s main lair.
“Ogre,” Haro whispered to Ari.
Ari’s eyes widened and her grip on her shotgun tightened, “What should we do?”
Haro peeked into the cockpit again. He could sense the Holocron. It was buried under the long-dead skeleton that occupied the co-pilot’s seat.
“… We fight it in there so it can’t use its full reach and power,” Haro said after considering for a while. “You shoot first. I’ll sneak around behind it and get its attention before it can charge you.”
Ari nodded, “Ready?”
Haro nodded as well, pulling the Force tight around himself like a cloak. At Haro’s signal, Ari stepped into the cockpit’s doorway, leveling her scatter blaster at the beast and squeezing the trigger. The loud bang startled the ogre, confusing it as plasma buckshot burned into its thick hide.
Haro stepped around Ari, disappearing from sight. Ari pumped her shotgun and fired again. The ogre roared as another volley of blaster bolts sizzled against its skin. The cockpit quickly filled with the toxic scent of burnt fur and skin. The beast lumbered to its feet, almost stumbling as its now wounded leg almost gave out on it.
“Meat,” it snarled in barely passable Basic.
The ogre’s speech was surprising, but Ari didn’t stop shooting. A third blast of buckshot splashed against the beast’s face. It roared in pain, clutching its eyes with an enormous clawed hand. Haro’s vibroblade sang through the air as he dropped his cloak and used the Force to enhance his body.
The blade bit deep, vibrating apart the molecules in its path. A large gash from shoulder to waist opened up on the ogre’s back, but almost a foot of dense muscle protected its vital organs. The ogre whirled around, lashing out with vicious claws.
Haro had already moved, leaping onto the wall of the cockpit and jumping off toward the giant. In one hand, his pistol barked, sending a blaster bolt straight into the ogre’s open mouth. It gagged as plasma burnt out its vocal cords. Haro’s sword hand came up, Force pushing the ogre through the aged Transparisteel cockpit window.
Haro’s momentum carried him forward out of the window as well. He landed in a roll just past the prone form of the ogre. Lu’la squeaked in surprise from the other side of the hangar. The ogre got to its feet with speed that didn’t fit its size, only to be rocked on its feet by a powerful bolt from Lu’la’s Pulse Cannon.
The ogre’s left arm hung on by a thread. The beast glared at Haro, radiating hatred and predatory cruelty in the Force. Haro snapped off a quick shot at its eyes. When the ogre’s eyes closed to block the shot, Haro darted in low. His blade flashed out, hamstringing the mutated giant.
A gurgling roar escaped the ogre’s burnt throat as one of its legs gave out. It fell to one knee as another Force push from Haro blew its barely connected arm off. Sharp fangs gnashed and claws scraped the floor as the beast writhed in pain. Another flex of the Force stunned the ogre and dampened its agony.
As Haro walked up behind the beast like a silent executioner, his heart was calm. He bore no malice toward the man-eating creature. It may have been a violent, semi-intelligent apex predator of the underworld, but that did nothing to change its current situation. The simple fact was its time had come.
The world calmed and time seemed to stand still as Haro said a quick prayer for the ogre, “May the Force be with you.”
His blade plunged deep into the base of the ogre’s skull. Its body spasmed a little before going utterly still as the severing of its brainstem registered. The fresh corpse fell forward when Haro removed his blade.
Lu’la followed Haro as he walked back into the ship. Ari was still waiting in the cockpit. She had watched the rest of the fight from the now-open window. She turned when Haro and Lu’la entered and gave them a small, tired smile.
“Let’s get what we came for,” she said, obviously wanting to get back to the relative safety of the undercity.
“You know, I almost feel bad for the ogre,” Lu’la commented.
“Don’t,” Haro advised, digging through the humanoid remains in the co-pilot’s chair to get to the Holocron. “It may have seemed intelligent, but it wasn’t sentient. It knew only rage and hunger.”
Lu’la blushed at the slight admonishment, “Yes, Master.”
Haro stood, pulling the Holocron out of the pile of bones. It was a small cube of metal about the size of Haro’s palm. The corners had been flattened and the Holocron glowed with a turquoise light that seemed to be coming from inside. It radiated an odd mix of light and dark side Force energy.
Haro reached out for the cube with a metaphysical finger. Cupped in his hands, the Holocron glowed brighter. He felt something within the cube slowly begin to stir. The Holocron unfurled like an intricate puzzle, the pieces coming to orbit the center.
A small hologram appeared in the center of the deconstructed cube. The woman who appeared was Human. Her hair was cut short, stopping at her chin, and her features were angular and attractive. The woman examined Haro closely. He could feel the Holocron itself probe him in the Force before the woman nodded, seemingly satisfied.
“Greetings, Learner,” the woman said. “I am Bastila Shan, keeper of the Noetikon of Secrets. In your hands, you hold the collected experiences of three Jedi Masters who fell to the dark and returned to the light. I hope you will use our knowledge properly…”
