I barely managed to shake off those idiotic thoughts when I had a real shock.
I never expected the sender to be a Wookiee.
I had a very hard time picturing those big guys as businessmen.
The giant, with his sleek, well-groomed fur, was accompanied by a protocol droid.
Logical, given the peculiarities of their larynx structure.
Wookiees can’t speak Galactic Basic.
Though they understand it perfectly.
Well, their hearing is only slightly worse than ours.
Still, in a forest, especially one as dense as the one covering their homeworld, eyes aren’t the best organ for orientation.
The guest growled a greeting, the robot immediately translated, and I responded with a bow and a brief introduction.
Just to clear up any questions right away about who I was and what I was doing there.
Because there had already been a recent incident — “kid, go get an adult” ugh.
Anyway, a couple of minutes for this and that, and then the “fun” began.
Yep, the most routine loading procedure possible.
I didn’t get a chance to chat with the client, due to circumstances.
The Wookiee simply went and sat inside the grav-platform’s cab.
He was sleeping in there, the furry pest.
Rightly so — why bother when you have a protocol droid to supervise everything.
The big guy only climbed out at the very end of the hold loading, to personally cast an eye over the results of our labor.
That’s when I got into his head.
To my surprise, I found out the Wookiee was just a middleman who had made a very nice profit by taking advantage of our dumping prices for cargo transport services.
The client waiting for the shipment of parts was paying almost the standard rate, the discount was minimal.
In principle, this didn’t concern me at all, but I still felt a certain desire to restore justice and make characters like that share some of their ill-gotten gains.
Due to a lack of money, or rather due to the peculiarities of his worldview, the teacher hadn’t gone beyond the port district.
Obviously, he hadn’t seen anything particularly interesting wandering between the warehouses, storage facilities, and standard box-houses where the workers lived.
But he did have what he thought was a brilliant idea.
In short, the sensei walked into a cantina, ordered himself a non-alcoholic cocktail, sat down at a table, and pricked up his ears.
Supposedly, he was gathering information.
Rumors, gossip, all that.
A kind of training exercise before the main mission.
About halfway through his third glass, he got interested in the story of a pilot who’d flown in from a neighboring sector.
The pilot was complaining about pirates.
He cursed the Justicars who covered for the bad guys, and was just generally very emotional when he talked about the Republic.
That’s when the blood started singing in the sensei’s veins.
Because here they were — adventures.
The chance to dispense justice and do some good.
Alas, no one had canceled the cargo delivery job — that stupid treasury mission to run the route as fast as possible.
Still, that didn’t particularly faze the master.
He could find out the details and report them to his brethren, and they would…
Absolutely, certainly, definitely send someone to deal with the evil.
How could they not?!
That was bound to happen.
In short, my teacher couldn’t think of anything better than to sit down next to the talker and…
try to get him drunk so he’d share his sacred knowledge.
The pilot, no fool, didn’t turn down free drinks and was ready to sing like a nightingale until morning.
It all ended predictably.
Nemak made it back to the ship barely, practically on all fours.
I didn’t even immediately realize what was wrong with him when I saw him staggering across the spaceport field.
He was walking, I must say, in a very wide zigzag.
Weaving nearly five meters to the left, then to the right, but the Force guided him.
And in the end, it brought him here.
“Ah, hic, my, p-padawan,” this miracle slurred, once it managed to identify the spot standing before it.
All I could do was grit my teeth and wonder if there was any description on a holodisc of a Force technique or ability that could replace a gas mask.
My poor sense of smell.
Earplugs were fine, but I had no idea what to make filters for my nose out of.
“Master, are you all right?” I asked a rather stupid question, but I had to say something.
“O-o-of course!
I’m a k-k-knight,” Nemak said and giggled.
“A r-real J-Jedi!” the little teacher laughed again.
“Uh-huh, great and mighty.”
“Exactly! Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Y-you understand, right,” this wonder nodded, then just hung there with its head drooping.
“Sensei, do you need help getting to your cabin?” I immediately showed concern for the teacher, clearly understanding that if he passed out right now, I’d have to drag him myself one way or another.
“Of course not!” the teacher immediately perked up — well, of course, someone had doubted his Jedi-hood.
“We need to contact the Council immediately!
We can’t delay…”
“The galaxy is in danger!” I exclaimed pathetically, trying to derail Nemak’s clearly idiotic impulse.
He might just crawl to the bridge and actually call the masters on the emergency channel.
No, I valued my hide too much for that.
“Wh-why?” the teacher, thrown off his train of thought, couldn’t understand, so he decided to clarify.
“Because cabbage, dammit.”
“What does cabbage have to do with dumplings?” the sensei was completely lost.
“They’re the ones to blame!”
“And I thought it was the Sith,” Nemak puzzled, trying to focus his eyes.
“Uh-huh, Master.
They created them.
A terrible weapon, a product of darkness and their damned alchemy.”
“A-ah,” the master said meaningfully, having completely lost the urge to urgently report anything to anyone.
“So, shall I walk you to your cabin, Master?”
“What for?”
Looks like I overdid it.
The poor sensei was stuck.
“You were going to try lying-down meditation.
You said that way…”
“Yes!
I completely forgot!
That’s right!
Let’s go!” Nemak blurted out and lunged forward.
If we were having a race among injured turtles here, he’d unquestionably have a shot at winning, definitely in the top three — I thought, leisurely walking behind my master, who was impersonating a billiard ball.
Thud — left side of the corridor.
Boom — right side.
Thump — left side.
Tap — right side.
Crash — floor.
No, the designers definitely made a mistake putting that threshold there.
I understand them, of course, safety, concern for sentient beings, isolated compartments, and all that, but…
Thud.
Still, a durasteel floor isn’t that hard.
You know, joke aside, I felt genuine pride that my teacher turned out to be tougher than he looked.
Pardon the pun.
In short, despite all the treachery of gravity and the elaborate traps set by the sadist designers who’d built the ship, he managed to overcome and even prevail.
And the way he climbed onto his bunk was beyond words.
I even suspected he’d either been practicing or had real experience.
“I will meditate,” the sensei mumbled into the pillow, still unable to get his right leg up.
“Of course, Master.
Should I cover you up?”
“Zzzzz,” was my answer.
I thought for a couple of seconds about using some medical technique on the teacher to cleanse his body, then decided that experiencing the delights of a hangover would be good for him.
This was clearly his first time getting drunk, so let him suffer.
There should be a pedagogical effect.
I laid Nemak fully on the bunk — he might slide off onto the floor, catch a cold, get sore lying on his side — that wouldn’t be good, not right.
In short, having put the master to sleep it off, I went to the bridge.
I gave the AI the command to take off.
No point wasting time; we were still on a schedule.
I pulled a datapad over with telekinesis.
The captain’s chair was more comfortable, and the view was better.
So, according to my plans, I had six hours of self-study, then lightsaber practice, and then I could meditate a bit.
The very idea of getting information by getting the person who has it drunk is far from new, but that doesn’t make it any less effective.
The main thing is not to get drunk yourself beyond measure.
That’s unprofessional and, frankly, harmful.
Jedi are undoubtedly a tough bunch, but far from omnipotent.
Generally speaking, you shouldn’t use this method of gathering information without a certain amount of training and preparation, and without knowing the Force techniques for body purification.
Liver cirrhosis is still liver cirrhosis, even in a galaxy far, far away.
“Something’s not reading,” I complained, either out loud or to the ship.
“You’re worried about Jedi Knight Nemak,” answered Pif-Paf.
“Apparently,” I twitched an ear and put the datapad aside.
“I didn’t expect such a surprise from him.”
“According to my data, his behavior is atypical for a Jedi, but fits perfectly within the framework of an ordinary person engaged in cargo transportation.”
“Hm.”
“Heh-heh-heh, fur-purrr,” he laughed somewhat hysterically at that answer.
“And tell me, my crystalline friend, where exactly did you get this information?”
“Mostly from the HoloNet.”
“Aha, that’s what I figured.
What does a space wolf, a hardened long-haul star trucker, do when he arrives in port?”
“He goes to a cantina.”
“Where he inevitably gets drunk, picks a fight, and meets the love of his life — who has a dark past, a murky present, and vague prospects for the future.”
“I’ve already learned to distinguish fiction from holo-dramas,” Pif-Paf protested.
“Actually, I was joking.”
“Is that what they call trolling?”
“No, sarcasm.
But what I said was friendly teasing.”
“Understood.
I will contemplate this concept.”
“Uh-huh.
So, how’s your technical status?” he decided to change the subject and show concern for their ship.
“Everything is in order.
No complaints or issues.
Thank you,” the AI added after a pause.
“If anything comes up, don’t be shy — tell me right away.
It’s better to do extra preventive maintenance and fix small problems immediately than to let things go until your notification protocols kick in.
It’ll be cheaper and simpler.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Alright, like it or not, time to get to work,” he sighed, yawned, and picked up his datapad.
The teacher, unfortunately, woke up from his sleep in a particularly bad way — by the time he did, I was just about to go to sleep myself.
I probably should have waited for him; then he definitely wouldn’t have started drinking again out of sheer stupidity.
And it was all Pif-Paf’s fault!
Who asked him to take initiative when the hungover Jedi was mumbling the eternal question “what to do” out loud?
Some advisor he turned out to be.
Anyway, as they say, “careless hangover cure leads to a prolonged bender.” The teacher “treated” himself so thoroughly that he got completely drunk and passed out again.
Thank the Force he didn’t try calling anyone this time.
In the end, we both woke up at the same time, about thirty to forty minutes before the final stretch — that is, the end of the journey.
“May I help, Master?
I know some medical techniques.
My mentors even praised me for my success in using them.”
“Uh-huh,” replied the teacher, suffering from a brutal hangover.
I concentrate.
Slip into a light trance.
I change the light of the Force flowing through me to a greenish hue.
It’s actually much more complicated than that, but visualizing it this way somehow makes it easier.
Though it’s different for everyone.
Some people warm things up, others change a flavor, so to speak — I prefer working through colors.
I start moving my paws around the teacher’s aching head.
Right before my eyes, he transforms from a pale-gray something into a rosy-cheeked corpse with gorgeous bags under his eyes.
He looked like a lemur, not a Jedi Knight.
In short, the sensei came to life and even started smiling.
Apparently, my praise wasn’t undeserved.
“How are you feeling, Master?”
“Much better, thank you.”
“After poisoning, if the body has recovered enough and Force healing techniques have been used, it’s recommended to eat something hot.
Preferably something fatty.
Shall I make you some meat broth?”
“No, thank you, you’ve helped enough,” the teacher waved him off, clearly embarrassed by the care, wracked with remorse, and simply not knowing how to act.
“I can order broth myself,” the mentor finished somewhat irritably.
“As you say, Sensei,” I shrugged, habitually mirroring the emotions expressed by my tail’s movement.