I Want to be Your Knight -- Chapter 19

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Awareness came slowly, and with it the knowledge that I was surrounded by warm softness. I could smell Jys' shampoo, a light scent that seemed to tickle my nose. Additionally, I could feel both her Force presence and Seha's close by. Really close. Sensations filtered through my mind, and I realized that I was settled in the bed, a girl tucked in tight under each arm; each of them had a hand on my chest in almost matching poses, heads laying on my shoulders.

Slowly, I opened my eyes, and lifted my head to look down. All I could see was a mass of black and red hair, with an occasional hint of skin peeking through it. I blinked twice, and then squeezed my eyes shut tight. I prayed to the Force that this was all a dream.

Opening them again, I realized that that sea of hair wasn't a dream and a single word echoed in my head, Kriff.

I knew, knew without a doubt, that this was going to hurt when the girls woke up. I chewed at my lip for a moment, wondering how I could extricate myself from this position before either of them woke up.

I was betrayed.

My mind abandoned me in my time of need.

I couldn't think of anything but how nice both of them felt.

Every time I tried to drag my mind back to the problem of getting out of the bed without losing a limb, I was rewarded by the thought of how comfortably they fit in my arms.

An idle thought flickered through my head; one wondering which Jedi Master out there would want to skewer me first for this, Valin or Kyp.

I sighed, and felt Jysella begin to stir. I could feel awareness flickering through her Force presence as she climbed up out of her healing trance.

Suddenly she tensed, and her hand spasmed, sending her fingernails digging into my flesh.

Slowly, she lifted her head, and looked towards the foot of the bed. "That better not be who I think it is under me. And where the kriff do you think your hand is?"

She turned towards me, anger flashing brightly in her eyes. To be safe, I slid my hand up her body until it rested on her waist.

Then she sat up, and looked around, her lips pressed down into a tight line, her eyes narrowed dangerously, she tucked her legs up under herself, her knees resting on one of my legs, pining it down. She turned towards me. "Where are we?"

I chuckled, and grinned at her, then blinking twice, I painted the best confused look on my face that I could. "Why, we're at home, Mrs. Skywalker."

The Force warned me. It did. I can't blame it. Yet, there was nothing I could do. Jys had one of my legs pinned with her knees, and the entire left side of my body had Seha wrapped around it.

After the first quick whack in the eye, she pulled her hand back to do it again, and I quickly raised my own hand, hoping that would be enough to forestall another hit.

"Sorry, Jys, I couldn't help it. We're in some ratty hotel room. Do you remember us getting jumped as we left the starship?"

She chewed on her lip for a moment, and then nodded her head.

"Well, during the scuffle, you were stunned," I explained. "After we escaped, we fled until we got here. You were out, I had a blaster wound, so we both collapsed. Why Seha's sleeping, I'm not sure."

"Seha's sleeping," Seha replied, without lifting her head from my chest. "Because the two of you have been asleep for nearly twenty hours, and as you may or may not have noticed, there's not a whole lot of other things to do in this room." She pushed herself up off me, pressing hard against my chest as she frowned down at it. "You're not a very soft pillow, Ben."

I snickered. "Oh sure, now that the two of you are awake, I'm not good enough to sleep on." Ignoring the looks that both of the girls gave me, I straightened up as best I could in the bed, and looked around, scratching at my head. Finally, I sighed and then said, "So, who has any bright ideas?"

Jysella snickered. "How did I know that was coming."

I shrugged my shoulders, and gave up trying to sit up. "Hey, I'm just the pillow here."

Seha slid off the bed, and walked over to the window. Lifting the curtain slightly, she looked out for a moment. Then she let the curtain drop back into place as she turned back towards us. "Well, we've still got our mission to complete. We're on task to provide security to the trade conference, but we also have to determine how compromised out situation is, as someone obviously knows we are Jedi."

Jys frowned as she watched the red head. "Did you try to contact the Council?"

Seha nodded her head slowly. "I tried, but got shunted off to a waiting queue. After we had been here about an hour, an announcement came over the holonet that off-world communications had been terminated due to three terrorists sneaking into Corellia aboard the Twilight Princess."

I sighed and scrubbed at my face with one of my hands. "Yeah, I wonder what three folks who came in under false names they're talking about."

Jysella slapped her hand down onto my chest. Hard. "This is not the time to be sarcastic, Ben."

I arched an eyebrow as I looked up at her. "When is the time to be sarcastic?"

She looked down at me, and smiled sweetly. "When I'm being sarcastic. Now, unless you have something useful to say, just lay there and look pretty."

Smirking, I snorted a laugh. "So, I'm pretty now."

Jysella blushed bright red, and with a growl, pushed herself up off the bed, finally getting up off of my leg.

Smiling, I looked over at Seha to notice the frown on her face as she watched us. "What's wrong Seha?"

Her features quickly schooled themselves as she shook her head. "N-nothing. Nothing at all Ben. I was just wondering how someone would know we were coming."

My eyes flicked between the two of them, and then I shook my head. "I don't know, but someone had to have told them."

"But who knew we were coming? Master Durron? The rest of the Council?" Seha asked.

Jysella snorted in amusement. "It's a bureaucracy, Seha. The Council knew, plus their staff, plus the team that built the logistics package, plus the team that gathered our information packets, plus accounting because we hired passage on a ship."

I nodded my head. "Jys is right. Our mission was based on secrecy and we assumed that our source of information was secure. Which we really shouldn't have done, I should have known better."

"Then what should we have done different, oh great and wise Skywalker?" Jys muttered.

"It's time to be sarcastic, huh?"

Jys smiled at me sweetly, and I smirked at her in return.

"Frankly," I began as an answer to her question. "The first thing I would have done is traded in our tickets on the Twilight Princess and bought steerage class tickets on another liner. That way, only we would have known which ship we were taking into Corellia. Actually, I would have the cash for the tickets and bought us all fake IDs and passports and then taken the Scion, and used one of her fake transponder ID's to sneak us into Corellia."

Jys frowned at me, as she slowly nodded her head.

"So, what now?" Seha asked.

Jysella and I shared a look, then I began speaking again, "Now, we start treating this like an intelligence mission where our cover has been blown. We have a day and a half or so until the conference starts, so we have that long to get new IDs and find a way to sneak or steal entry into the conference." Seeing the nod of acceptance from Jysella bolstered my self-confidence slightly, and I smiled at her. "And I say we start by getting in touch with Uncle Wedge."

Jysella smiled brightly at that. "That sounds like one of the better things you've ever said, Skywalker."

I smirked at her again. "So happy that you approve."

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