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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 4207435" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 582: A New WorldWhile Coruscant was a truly amazing planet, Tobias was glad to be away from it. He could only handle so much of the endless city and the millions of speeders and ships and the fake trees before he just felt uncomfortable. Visiting the planet for a short time was alright, though, and as he and Master Ral left the planet, Tobias couldn’t help but wonder when he would get to see the surface of it again.    But it was gone now, lightyears behind them.    Now, Tobias stood on a world far removed from both Coruscant and Alraxia. There was no endless city and there was also no green. All around Tobias were browns and tans and other muted tones that seemed almost as alien to him as the metals of Coruscant had. There were buildings, but they were the same colours, blending into the environment as if they were simply a part of it and had always been rather than structures build to hold back the planet’s natural forces.    Before standing there, his boots in the sand that was apparently a street, Tobias had only ever known Tatooine as the place Luke Skywalker had grown up. But everyone seemed to know that, especially Jedi. Beyond that, however, Tobias knew nothing at all. In the few short minutes that Tobias had been on the planet, he had learned a surprising amount about it. The first, and most obvious beyond the colours, was the fact that it was hot. Not just any kind of heat, either...Tobias was Alraxian, and he liked heat, but this was a dry heat. Alraxia was humid and there was water in the air and even as a human Tobias felt comfortable in it. But this desert planet was just simply hot...hot, and so dry that already Tobias felt uncomfortable.    Beyond that, what Tobias learned about Tatooine came from Master Ral. With Hutt Space lost, it was the desert planet, far behind the lines of battle, that the remaining Hutts had set up a home. They were everywhere, Hutts of all sizes and ages. And with them were just as many species as Tobias had seen on Coruscant, if not more. In fact, there was no direct sign of the Vong on the planet, no feeling of the their threatening presence in the galaxy. It almost seemed like everyone walking the streets of the old Imperial captial of Bestine didn’t even know about the invasion.    But the Yuuzhan Vong was why he and Master Ral were there.    According to Master Ral, three Jedi had disappeared on Tatooine within the last two weeks. Two of them had been working together, a husband and wife actually there to talk the Hutts into helping in the war effort. They had, of course, failed as they Hutts had instead threatened to turn them over to the Vong. But then something had happened, and the two Jedi Knights had simply dropped off of the surface of the planet. That is, until another Jedi Knight was sent to investigate and found them dead. They had not been killed by the Hutts, but by something else. The report had been that it reminded the Jedi Knight of an amphistaff wound, but larger and much more gruesome.    And then he, too, disappeared.    That had been two days prior.    Now Tobias stood with Master Ral in the streets of Bestine, the very city that all three Jedi Knights had last reported back from. It was unnerving, to say the least. But there was something fighting that in Tobias. He knew that he wouldn’t be on the planet in such an obviously dangerous situation where they knew so little about what was happening if Master Ral didn’t believe he could handle it. Where before, Tobias had felt like he was simply tagging along wherever his master went, this felt different. For the first time, it truly felt like he was there because Master Ral saw him as more than just a student.    “I still do not understand why you insist on wearing that jacket,” Master Ral spoke in his usual serene tone, but there was a hint of a joke in that. It was an odd thing to hear, but Tobias had noticed more and more slight changes like that from Master Ral over the last few days.    Tobias smiled and looked to the Jedi Master. The Omwati was wearing something akin to the classic Jedi robes, though they were trimmed a bit shorter to accommodate a bit more easy of movement and also likely meant to keep him a bit cooler. Tobias also wondered if it had something to do with making him look less like a Jedi, as even Master Ral’s lightsaber was hidden from view. Glancing then to the jacket he wore, Tobias shrugged, “Its comfortable.”    And it reminds me of Jyren.    He didn’t say the last part. In fact, he didn’t really even think it. But it was there, in the back of his head. Tobias was becoming more and more his own person as every day went by, but some things didn’t change. In some way, Tobias would always want to be just like his father. That, and it was comfortable, of course.    Master Ral seemed to accept that answer and idly looked off down the street to their left. A speeder was coming by, an older model one with a closed top and that had, at one time, probably been black rather than grey and lacking in paint. After a few moments of just looking off into that direction as the planet’s twin suns sat high above in the sky, the Omwati turned back to Tobias, “Barrin’s last communication put him here in Bestine, on the south side of the city.”    “This is a city...?” Tobias couldn’t help the question, as it was bothering him. Even the Palace on Alraxia looked more like a city than these huts.    A slight smile formed at the corner of Master Ral’s long features and he nodded once, but went on, “It is possible the Hutts will help us if only to remove themselves from suspicion, though I believe we would be better served looking into this ourselves before we reach out to others.”    Tobias found himself watching some wait-high robed creatures babbling on in some odd language to one another as they walked past. Somehow, though, he kept his main attention on Master Ral’s words, “Why not take the help if we can get it?”    “Three Jedi have been killed already, Tobias. At this point, we cannot risk drawing attention to ourselves as ones looking into the deaths of those Jedi,” Master Ral finished that sentence, waited a beat, then started walking without any word at all.    Out of habit, Tobias easily fell into step next to his Master, knowing that there was a reason he decided to start walking then, “Do you really think this is connected to that new Vong creature you heard about?”    There was something surprisingly worrying in the fact that Master Ral did not immediately respond to that. He was thinking, of course, and also taking in everything around them just as Tobias was trying to do. But then, when Master Ral finally did speak, it ended up worrying Tobias even more than the silence had, “It does fit the profile of the other reports...but I suspect we shall find out for ourselves.”</blockquote>

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