Jedi Voyage #5 - The Academy Of Fright

Chapter Eight

  Marit's friends sat together on the athletic field outside. They seemed to be expecting Anakin. He noted one friend looking him over carefully, from the top of his head to his boots. The student, a Bothan, stood as soon as they came up.
  "So this is the one," he said. He was short, shorter than Marit, and the curling hair down to his shoulders gave him a soft look that was undercut by his shrewd gaze. This was clearly not someone to underestimate.
  "This is Anakin," Marit said. "Anakin, meet Rolai Frac. And this is Tulah, and Hurana, and Ze."
  "Have you ever ridden a swoop?" Ze asked. He was a humanoid, short and plump, with close-set green eyes and two pigtails that hung down his back. He seemed eager for action.
  "A couple of times," Anakin said.
  "We were going to have a swoop race," Tulah said. Anakin recognized the elongated head and pale skin of a native of Muunilinst. Tulah was tall and skinny, with a shock of bright yellow hair that stuck straight up from his head. His voice was all business. "Do you want to join us?"
  "Just once around the school grounds," Marit said.
  "Sounds like fun," Anakin said.
  "The only thing is, it's technically against the rules," Hurana said. She gave him a shy smile, but he could tell he was being tested. "You're going to have to avoid the roving surveillance droids."
  "Sounds even better," Anakin said.
  Marit pointed to a nearby swoop with her chin. "That's yours, then. Watch out for professors and security cameras. Let's go."
  Marit and her friends slung their legs over their swoops, Anakin followed. He took a moment to get used to the swoop controls and was a few seconds behind them. He wasn't worried. He knew how to fly a swoop faster than anyone.
  He took off after them, streaking across the gray sky. Ahead was a security checkpoint. Anakin could see the camera lenses revolving. Marit gunned her motor and flipped her swoop sideways to avoid being tracked. A second later, Hurana dipped below it, missing it by only a fraction. Anakin saw he grin and knew she had timed it that way. The others followed expertly.
  Anakin was impressed. He increased his speed, timing his approach with the revolving camera lenses. He pulled the swoop up and then down quickly, missing the lens by a comfortable half second.
  He pushed the engine to maximum and quickly caught up to the others. He didn't slow down but zoomed by them. He saw Rolai's surprised face, but Marit looked worried.
  He saw why. Below him a group of professors had paused on the stairs outside one of the academic buildings, talking. Any moment they would see him.
  He turned the swoop to the left and headed for the dense branches of an enormous tree. Behind him, he saw Marit pull her swoop up and circle out of range of the professors.
  Anakin could hover in the branches, but he was too impatient. He dipped below one branch and zoomed up to skim above another. He snaked in and out of the thick branches, leaning his body first one way, then the other. He did not make even one leaf tremble. The professors continued to talk, completely unaware of the swoop above them.
  The others skirted the trees, looping around to avoid the professors and adding crucial minutes to their times.
  He cleared the grove of trees out of sight of the professors, as well as Marit and her friends. A surveillance droid revolved ahead, surprising him for only an instant. Anakin pulled the swoop to a hard right, avoiding the rotating sensors. Then he dove beneath the droid and zoomed on.
  Grinning, Anakin leaned over the handlebars and gunned the motor. He skirted a security camera and dove beneath a tractor beam. This was child's play for him.
  The others were in sight again but still well behind him as he cleared a rooftop and did a quick triple loop dive to avoid being seen by a class of students playing laserball below. Then he dropped from the sky and landed in the same precise spot he had left from. He sat down and crossed his legs in a leisurely fashion.
  A short two minutes later, Marit and the others pulled up. Anakin was surprised at their speed. They were almost half as fast as a Jedi on a swoop. Marit swung off her swoop and strode toward him, tossing her braid behind her shoulder.
  "Okay, hotshot," she said. "You win."
  "What do I win?" Anakin asked. "If it's the chance to break out of here," he joked, "count me in." He spoke lightly, but he could feel how close he was to being accepted. He didn't need the Force to pick up on the humming energy among the group of friends. Something was definitely up. Had he found the secret squad the Jedi High Council spoke of?
  "You see?" Marit said to Rolai. "I told you he could fly."
  "He can fly," Rolai agreed.
  "He's almost as good as me," Hurana said. Her pale gold eyes held a new respect.
  "We have a sort of club," Marit said. "Not a school club. A serious club. Are you interested?"
  "I'm not sure yet," Anakin said. "Why don't you tell me about it?"
  "We take on assignments from outsiders. Beings who need a little help. We use our skills to aid them. If my friends and I have one thing in common, we don't like to see others get kicked around. I think you're that way, too."
  "I am," Anakin said. "What exactly do you do? Rescue fluffkits from trees?"
  Rolai looked annoyed. "This isn't a joke. Two weeks ago on Tierell, we changed the course of a planet's history."
  "And made a bundle of credits," Tulah said. "Don't forget that."
  "We do whatever is needed," Marit said quickly. She gave Rolai a warning glance, as if he'd said too much. "You'll learn more if you join us. Look, I told you how it works here. They only run the scholarship program so that they'll look good. They don't care about us. They won't help us. No one will. We have to help ourselves. Why should we wait around to get passed over for good jobs when we can start our lives now?"
  "I agree," Anakin said. "But how do you get off campus? You'd have to violate security."
  Marit shook her head. "We're able to conduct the missions on our free days. We have permission to leave. We just have to be back in time. And there are ways to trick security." She grinned at Rolai. "Rolai is our security expert and financial officer. Ze handles communication."
  Ze nodded. "Comlinks, datapads, holo transmissions. Traces and countertraces. There are plenty of frequencies to hide in, if you know how."
  Anakin was impressed. Even if he didn't know how to navigate the complicated process of concealing a transmission origin.
  "I'm transportation," Hurana said. "I get us in and out, and fast."
  Tulah lifted a finger. "I'm battle strategy. But mostly I'm comic relief."
  Tulah spoke lightly, but something in his face told Anakin that his joking was a pose to hide a serious purpose.
  "And I research the proposals," Marit said. "I'm the galactic politics expert."
  "So what am I?" Anakin asked.
  "We need someone who knows something about sophisticated air transport like starfighters," Hurana said. "I know some, but Marit has been watching you, and she says you know more."
  "I don't know about that," Anakin said. "But I did grow up fixing engines. So how do you decide what you're going to do?"
  "We consider proposals and vote on them," Hurana said. "Everyone's vote is equal."
  "And every decision is unanimous," Tulah said. "If one of us doesn't want to take an assignment, we pass on it. You'd get an equal vote, too, fly-guy. Just try to vote with me."
  Unlike the others, Rolai's look was cool. Anakin had the feeling that he would have to prove himself to the Bothan before he welcomed him. It didn't bother him. He might feel that way himself with an outsider.
  "The kind of assignments we take on are important," Marit said. "We're just starting, but already what we can do has spread to the right beings. We're on the side of justice in the galaxy. The powerful exploit the weak. We try to tip the balance. In one of our last missions we broke into the records of a company that was dumping its toxic garbage on a neighboring planet's moon. We exposed them and got paid for it. We can get away with a lot because adults tend not to notice kids. They underestimate us."
  Rolai grinned. "Big mistake."
  To his surprise, Anakin found himself liking what he was hearing. It was almost like being a Jedi, but without Masters. No one told the squad what to do. They picked their own missions and were responsible only to themselves.
  "Count me in," he said.