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Fay smiled slightly, shaking her head. "Harry you know Force Precognition takes a lot of work to get to any useable level. But that is only a small sample of the skill needed to reach through the Force from one system to another to feel out a specific item. Your connection, consider it like a rope, tying the two of you together. Up close it is a thick rope, easily seen and usable. But at this distance it has become unraveled to a single thread, still connecting you but hard to use, and harder to find among the waves of the Unifying Force."
Shuddering lightly Harry nodded, pushing himself gently out of Fay's arms to smile up at her. "Like how you can feel where the Force wants you to go?"
"Exactly. I will teach you Harry, and I promise that you will be able to reach out and connect with Aayla in time even from this distance." Fay replied looking up at Lily once more who smiled in thanks at her.
Harry nodded as well, leaning back into the copilot's chair, shaking his head and deliberately concentrating on something else for the moment. "So, where do we go from here?"
Those first few weeks away were a trial for both Harry and Aayla. Thankfully they each had a good support structure in place to help them through it. in Aayla's case, Shaak Ti, Zule and the rest of the clan helped her immensely, never leaving her alone to brood and always there with a shoulder to cry on. In Harry's case Fay became far more touchy-feely than she normally was, touching his hair or hugging him whenever she or Lily thought he might start brooding.
Despite this personal issue, life had to continue. Since Master Fay had described how she was guided to her various missions, neither of her two companions questioned her about what they were doing, which was to the good, since it took them several small jumps to get to their next target, something that slowed them down noticeably. And overall, Master Fay was pleased how the first two missions with them went. Both of them were diplomatic missions which were Fay's forte for one thing.
The first was on the planet of the Ikotchi or rather the gas giant the Ikotchi's home planet, a moon, orbited. The conflict, which was between them and the Techno Union about mining rights, was threatening to become violent. The Techno Union of course had a huge industrial and technological base, as well as several dozen bought senators in the Senate, so if it had come to a true bargaining table, the Ikotchi would have lost. Their Senator was not well thought of, they didn't have the money or resources that their opponents had, and they were not nearly as ruthless as exploiting the bureaucratic maze of the Republic's ruling body.
Master Fay however was able to calm things down, moving them away from formally demanding a Senate hearing on this issue, and get both sides to agree that they each had points that the other could benefit from. Eventually, the Techno Union agreed to a partnership for the mining rights of certain gases from the moon, provided they used plants on the Ikotchi homeworld to refine them, providing jobs and a major monetary boost to the planet's economy. The profit wasn't nearly as great this way, but both sides still made some, which was the important thing.
Throughout this entire process Master Fay continued to teach Harry about the Force, about how it could be used in situations like this, and about politics in general. She already knew however that whatever Harry was going to be, he would not be a Consular. He was extremely charismatic in a way for a young boy, people seemed to gravitate to him, and he was extremely intelligent. But the minutiae of diplomacy held no interest for him.
Lily was much the same way to Fay's surprise. She just didn't have enough patience to hear everyone else out on any given issue if she thought they were being arrogant or willfully blind. On the other hand her ability to go anywhere unseen by anyone or anything beyond another Force sensitive was a major boon.
For Lily, the second mission was much more of an eye-opener than the first. She'd gone on a few sort-of diplomatic missions for the Order of the Phoenix, and had seen the kind of back-and-forth that politicians so loved. But the second intervention was of a different sort entirely.
Their ship had made its slow way around the Outer Rim Territories, only heading into the Mid Rim Territories a few times, and once to the Colony region to take a hyperspace lane back out and away towards Galactic North and East. Why they had gone out of their way to do this Master Fay couldn't explain, only that the Force was telling her to move in that direction. This meant several weeks cramped inside the ship, but that was fine, considering all the enhancements Fay and Lily had done to this particular ship.
The second mission turned out to be a series of pirate raids on the planet Tenaab. Tenaab was an agrarian colony, a major exporter of foodstuffs, but in no way a rich planet. It did however sit in a nexus of space that was almost cut off from trade routes, making it a target for pirates since they did not have to fear reprisals from the more advanced worlds which had their own defense forces.
In fact a raid was in progress when Master Fay's ship arrived in system. A dozen ramshackle vessels of various sizes were moving towards the planet, destroying what few defensive satellites the planet owned in their wake.
These satellites were small things, almost like stationary space fighters, armed with a single turbolaser or Quad laser and shield coupled to a very basic computer program. Only in massive numbers were they any real threat to anything larger than a single starfighter, and even then, they weren't worth much, a few Core Worlds had devised them more as an efficient way to scam money out of Outer Rim worlds than actual defenses.
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