Chapter Text
The last time Chester had been on shore leave had been before the Battle of Betazed—Vulcan, for a fencing tournament, and also to get dumped. To say it had been a bit of a disappointment would have been putting it mildly.
This hardly counted as shore leave. But landing on a planet to do something insanely stupid certainly felt like a shore leave to her, and at this point, she was happy enough to take it.
Chenowei was exactly the sort of place they were looking for, a haven for people who didn’t want to be remembered. It also had a lot of amenities for people who’d spent way too much time crammed in a little metal tube with subpar facilities. While the solar sailer had been designed to cater to every whim, it wasn’t designed for the demands of seven people, and they’d all been treating it a little delicately in hopes of avoiding a catastrophic failure. Namely, of the plumbing.
“We’re here for the showers, supplies, and a change of clothes,” Chester heard Garter growling at the others while she combed her hair into some semblance of order. Dooku seemed to be one of those people who expected all his toiletries to be packaged up, like a hotel, but the downside was there were no accommodations for longer hair here. “And for the Commander to do…whatever she’s planning to get Ventress off our trail.” His voice dropped into a confiding but venomous hiss. “That means you will keep your hands and any other body parts to yourselves. Am I clear? ”
The response to that was a chorus of muted, “yes, sir”s from the men with sense, and a muttered, “shouldn’t someone tell the Commander that,” from those without, presumably Joyride. This was followed with a thwap , as of a disapproving hand meeting a clueless skull.
Chester carefully didn’t laugh and finished knotting her hair at the back of her head, with the help of a stiletto she’d found in the closet—apparently someone liked to have an extra knife in his boot. Fortunately, there was a sheath included, so she wouldn’t accidentally stab herself. It was miles better than just braiding the whole thing again, and it wasn’t the worst substitute for a hairstick she’d ever encountered. It also added a certain je ne sais quoi to her style that, say, the microspanner wouldn’t.
She stepped out of the little rest cubicle at the back of the ship, pretending not to notice how Chert and Lingo were more or less sitting on Joyride, and Lens was standing in a corner wishing he was squadmates with literally anyone else in the universe. “All right, ready to go?”
“I’m staying with you, Commander,” said Lingo. “Garter will take the rest of the boys for supplies.”
Ah, so they were concerned about her fucking around. “Good,” she said. “I think I’ll need some help figuring out this currency thing, anyway.”
“Right,” said Chert. “Because you don’t have money where you come from.” He traded a look with the others; obviously, no one really believed this, and they were all wondering how long it would take before she got tired of the bit.
“Exactly,” she said, and smiled.
It was a hot dry grassy little planet, with rolling hills stretching away into the distance. Blue skies, a little hazy, and a pale crescent moon hovering about 40 degrees up from the horizon. It instantly reminded her of California and home, even down to the smell and the buzz of flies.
Well, sort of flies; these had too many legs. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to be the biting kind.
The bar where she was meeting Ventress was a short walk from the landing pad, just a few minutes into town. The rest of the clones split off—not without nervous looks, and one of the shinies limping in the ill-fitting boots they’d liberated from the one closet aboard—and Chester turned and went into the saloon, which may as well have been ripped straight from an Ancient West holoprogram.
People glanced up, glanced away without much interest—human all in black, seen that before—and Ventress uncurled herself from the bar with a wide and predatory smile. She was quite tall, armed with two lightsabers, and quite attractive if you were into women capable of ripping your head off━which Chester definitely was, dammit.
“I wasn’t expecting you to show up,” Ventress said, her pale eyes glinting.
“If I hadn’t, I’m reasonably sure you would have caught up with me,” said Chester, matching the smile. “It’s a distinctive little ship. Nice to meet you in person.” She slid onto the adjacent seat and returned the assessing look Ventress swept over her, one that, with any luck, would lead to a mutual conclusion that they could kick each other’s asses.
“Force-Sensitive,” commented Ventress. “Presumably not trained.”
“Not in the slightest,” said Chester. “I’m not from around here, you see.”
Ventress let out a little huff of amusement. “Obviously . Do you know how many bounties you’ve got on your head, right now?”
“At least two,” said Chester, and motioned to catch the bartender’s attention. She waited for Ventress to order, then made sure to get the same. Lingo got something pink, with bubbles. He looked suspiciously at it, then took a sip. His dark eyes widened. He took another, bigger sip.
“The Republic doesn’t seem to like you very much either,” said Ventress. She sized Chester up again. “What in the hells have you been doing ?”
Unspoken: you don’t actually look like that much trouble.
Chester smiled what she hoped was an enigmatic smile as she sipped the alcohol, which tasted like industrial-grade disinfectant. “Aurra Sing mistook me for an AWOL Jedi and kidnapped me from my own galaxy,” she said. “It seems like you folks do things differently around here.”
Ventress sniffed, her thin lips twitching in a little smile “Oh, sure, because that’s believable.”
“Sure it is,” said Chester. Apparently Ventress hadn’t heard of the wormholes. “I’m from a socialist utopia a couple of galaxies over. They brought me back through the Abbaji wormfield, apparently, but I was unconscious for that part.”
“A socialist utopia ,” started Ventress, with enormous disdain, and then paused again. It was clear to Chester that Ventress had some fairly strong ideas on interactions, probably shaped by being an unstoppable killing machine, or at least trying to be one, and that she was feeling this one had gone distinctly off-book. “So what the fuck are you, anyway? The Republic hates you, you told Dooku to go fuck himself… clearly your socialist utopia here isn’t selecting for much common sense.”
“Starfleet,” said Chester. “Starfleet’s the United Federation of Planets’ exploration service, and yes, it doesn’t tend to select for much common sense at all. Commander Diane Chester, first officer of the Federation Starship Bedivere , at your service, ma’am.” She bowed a little, and saluted Ventress with her glass.
Ventress looked at it, at her, then raised her glass in return. “Asajj Ventress. Bounty hunter,” she purred. “Tell me, Chester, how exactly did you elude my former Master?”
Chester told her, in a bald just-the-facts account. She rather suspected anything more elaborate would just piss Ventress off or make her doubt her honesty—the last thing she wanted. She was all too aware that from Ventress’s point of view, killing all of them and taking the ship was absolutely on the table. Their survival was almost entirely dependent on how entertaining Chester could be. And on their mutual hatred of Dooku, which helped.
“You’re an idiot,” Ventress said at the end of the tale, but it was in an amazed and somewhat amused tone. Chester decided to take that as a good sign. “Tyranus is going to kill you. Actually, I don’t think he’s going to stop at killing you.”
“Fair enough,” said Chester. “He’ll have to get in line.” She took a sip of her drink and cocked an eyebrow at Ventress as she did. “Are you going to want to kill me?”
She laughed freely. “Why should I bother? You’re not going to live out the week. And this way, I get some free drinks.”
Chester let out a mental breath of relief, but didn’t let it show. Instead, she leaned against the bar as if she had all the time in the world. “Glad that’s settled. So tell me, how’d you fall in with Dooku in the first place?”
Ventress made a face. “Slave fighting ring. I fought my way out. Earned his… interest. ”
“Eugh,” said Chester. “Forgot this galaxy had that.”
Ventress raised an eyebrow, expression sour. “And I suppose this socialist utopia of yours doesn’t?”
“Not anywhere the Federation’s got a say.” Chester drained her drink, signaled the bartender, and went for one of Lingo’s pink bubbly things. Ventress stuck with the apparent-cleaning-fluid. “And that’s a lot of places.”
“Look at you, slumming it with the neighbors.” Ventress leaned forward into her space, practically a challenge–definitely so, with the way she was looking at her. Chester gave her a slow look from under her lashes. Well, if Ventress’s species kissed like humans, she was doing a pretty good setup for it.
Ventress beckoned her in with a finger, a hand reaching for her shoulder; Chester figured if the woman wanted her dead, she was doomed anyway, and leaned in.
“Good,” said Ventress, a throaty murmur. “Also, there’s a pirate in the doorway. Looking for you, I believe.”
Chester didn’t turn to look. “Pirates sound like they come in multiples,” she said quietly, and under cover of reaching for Ventress’s waist, palmed some of the currency into the other woman’s beltpouch. “The men and I are going to need a way out.”
“Well, for that price,” said Ventress, “you’ve got one.” Her fingers cupped the back of Chester’s skull, seeking, and then she freed the blade from Chester’s hair with a sharp jerk and hurled the little dagger with horrible accuracy. There was a scream and a wet, meaty thud. “FUCK OFF, HONDO, THIS ONE’S MINE.”
Wincing a little from the shout directly into her ear, and with hair now everywhere— the stiletto scabbard wasn’t doing shit in the absence of the knife—Chester turned on the barstool, drink in hand, and hurled the heavy little glass at the next pirate through the door, sending him staggering back through the door howling as the highly alcoholic mixture went into his eyes. She considered drawing her lightsaber briefly, but decided against it, and went for another glass to throw, before piling in with her bare fists. A utopia the Federation might be, but they still had barfights. And Starfleet officers got into a lot of them—there were definitely places where the uniform wasn’t exactly welcome.
Ventress flashed past, a lightsaber in each hand, caught sight of Chester laying about her with an entire barstool. “Why the fuck aren’t you using your lightsaber?”
“Because it fucking hates me! ” Chester roared back.
Ventress made a rude gesture, which then turned into stabbing an unlucky attacker. “It’s a lightsaber, get over it!”
Chester growled, bowled over the pirates with the stool, grabbed the lightsaber and ignited it. “Lingo! Round up everyone else, we’re blowing this popsicle stand. Meet at the ship.”
Lingo had made it all the way to the end of the bar, his pink drink clutched carefully in his hands. He glared suspiciously at Ventress–at which point Diane noticed that he’d acquired a second pink drink from unknown sources—but went without argument, which was better than she’d expected. It also meant they didn’t need to worry about him.
And it was an opportunity.
The pirates cleared out fast after Chester’s lightsaber came out. “This way,” said Ventress. “I won’t take you back to the Republic, but I can get you out of here.”
“Noted and appreciated,” said Chester. They ducked out of the saloon, and as they passed an alley, she pulled Ventress aside. “There’s another thing, though. I may need your help in the future. Dooku isn’t my only enemy.”
Ventress tilted her head with a get on with it expression.
“Republic Intelligence,” Chester said. “Whether or not I’m the Jedi I resemble doesn’t matter–if they do believe me about where I come from, it’s very likely they’ll want to interrogate me. And I will not be compromising my people’s safety that way.”
“So in case your hero’s welcome wears out, you might need another rescue.” Ventress smiled wickedly. “Are you intending to make a habit of running to me for help?”
“Well, with such a charming hero, how could I not?”
“Oh, you must really think you’re cute.”
“Look,” said Chester quietly, going serious, “there’s every chance that Republic Intelligence might still manage to winkle me out of Jedi protection, and frankly I don’t much care for the notion of their hospitality. Regard this as payment up front for you getting me back out.” She fumbled the rest of the bag into Ventress’s hands; she had a few others on her person, tucked away in inconspicuous spots, and she suspected she wasn’t going to be doing much shopping on this stop. Ventress looked inside, and came back up looking like she thought Chester was entirely mad.
“Do you realize how much this is—of course you don’t. Why would you trust me to get you out and not just take the money and run?”
“Because whoever I piss off is someone you also want to piss off,” said Chester. “Also because,” she leaned slowly in, eyes twinkling; saw Ventress lean in as a reflexive response, “I’m really good company. ”
Ventress’s eyelids lowered, and that assessing look was back, like she was waiting for Chester to be the one to take this further. Chester returned the look, held it for a long will-she-or-won’t-she moment, then gave her a cheeky grin, and slid around her. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get these men home. You’ve got my comm frequency!”
The silence after Chester stopped talking acquired a new quality. It was a very interesting one.
“You. What. With Ventress,” said Obi-Wan. All the color had drained out of his face but he was also clearly trying not to laugh. Beside him, Anakin slumped over the holotable, his head in his hands.
“Clearly, Starfleet and Jedi procedures differ considerably,” said Mace. His face was as if it had been carved from stone.
“Indeed,” said Chester, totally bland. “Do I need to fill out an expense report?”
There was a very faint chortling in the background.
“I think it would be best not to look too carefully at your expenses, Commander,” said Obi-Wan, still not quite out of the vicinity of hysterical.
Chester looked around the assembled Council, taking stock. Eight of ten hologram figures sat dead still, some of them visibly struggling with their reactions. The ninth—Master Yoda—was openly laughing. The tenth was Master Fisto, who had slipped silently out of his chair as she was talking and was now only visible as a sliver of a lump right on the emitter of the holotable. Judging by the way it quivered, he too was laughing.
Mace at last moved, rubbing both hands over his face. “I concur. I would prefer not to sign off on that.”
“How did you get rid of Hondo?” asked Depa Billaba, blinking somewhat rapidly. “As I recall, he is a persistent man.”
“I threw money at his men until they went away,” said Chester.
The first bag of neatly counted credits, a mix of Separatist and Republic, nailed the pirate right between the eyes and dropped him like a rock. The bag, loosely tied, bounced off and spilled its contents all over the dusty ground.
The credit chips within were color-coded. Chester hadn’t the faintest clue what each one meant, but the sight of vivid purple, magenta, and electric blue stopped the fighting dead.
The most vicious lolly scramble of all time ensued.
The ragged, stinky blacks and bare feet seemed to have rendered Lingo near invisible. He clutched his pink drinks to his chest as he made his way back to the landing pad, sidling along under the wide eaves of the buildings. Pirates and other scoundrels went rushing by, brandishing a number of dangerous weapons. Not one chanced a look at him.
Lingo paused at an alley, and chugged the second drink down to halfway. Then he carefully secured the glasses between one hand and his chest, and licked his other hand clean. There’d been a splash down his side as he squeezed out the saloon door, and he was extremely tempted to try licking that clean as well, but the chorused voices of all the medics he’d ever seen in his life sounded off in the back of his head at that point, and he realised he might be thinking a little bit irrationally.
There was a very large ship out on the pad, looming over the roofs of outlying buildings. Distinctly circular.
He slipped down through the alley, nursing the drinks.
Something grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the shadows under a run-down verandah. “Pirates,” hissed Lieutenant Garter in his ear. “They have the ship.”
“We could steal another one?” suggested Joyride. His voice was muffled; Lingo wondered idly if he was being sat on again.
“We’re going to have to,” said Chert. “That solar sailer’s worth at least six hundred thousand credits. Probably more, since it’s Dooku’s. ”
Garter pulled Lingo up onto the walled-in verandah. He and the others were dressed in what looked like simple workmen’s clothing, pants in a stiff blue material that rustled when they moved and dark loose shirts. Joyride’s longer hair clung damply to his face. (He was indeed being sat on.)
Chert shoved a set of the same clothes into Lingo’s arms. Lingo fumbled with them, setting his drink down on the boarded deck. He glared at them all until they got the message, and stripped down, changing clothes in record time.
“Careful with the zipper,” said Fin, helpfully. “You don’t want to get it stuck in anything.”
There was something missing from the pile. “Did you absolute doorknobs forget underwear?” Lingo demanded.
“We didn’t forget, they just didn’t have any.” Chert sounded dead inside, but that was nothing new. “Devo, vod.”
“Devo,” Joyride agreed. “Been chafing ever since. Hey, where’s the Commander?”
Lingo finished buttoning his shirt and tipped his head in the direction of the town. Shouting and the occasional gunshot drifted through the summery air. “Somewhere around there.”
Garter rounded on him with a furious expression. “You left her alone?”
“The lightsabers came out. She told me to come find you lot, so I did. What help was I gonna be?”
The Lieutenant took a deep breath. “Ventress?”
Lingo shook his head. “Ventress was… helping. I think. For a value of helping. There were pirates. They started a barfight.”
“Here she comes,” said Lens from the run-down steps that led into the street. “I don’t see anyone following her.”
Lingo knew better. He snatched the pink drinks up and immediately began chugging.
There was one really persistent bastard still after her, shouting at his men to regroup. Chester hefted another bag and paused with her feet braced on the bottom step of another of the endless fucking staircases, rummaged through the remaining few bags of currency, and selected a heavy one. There was a loose brick in the wall. She stuffed it in there, too.
The Captain in charge of Deep Space Nine was really keen on the almost extinct old Earth sport of baseball. A lot of the junior officers, trying to curry favor, had tried to learn its rules. Most got deeply bored and gave up, even with Captain Sisko’s enthusiasm. Chester had been pulled in a little out of curiosity–some of the lieutenants had wanted someone to practice with–then decided it wasn’t her thing. No sharp edges, for example.
This had been to the chagrin of the lieutenants. In the few weeks they’d had her on the very confused and deeply incompetent Bedivere Baseball Team (they named things as well as they played), they’d discovered that Commander Chester made a mean southpaw pitcher.
She eyeballed the lead pirate. He was wearing what looked like a tricorn hat and on his shoulder there was a horrible beaked thing like a monkey and a parrot had had a collision with industrial strength fluorescent paint. He looked pissed off.
This made two of them. She hefted the bag of currency plus brick in one hand, narrowed her eyes, wound up and threw .
It nailed him in the head, but the hat saved him; he grabbed at the bag as he overbalanced and went down on his back with an expression of pure bliss, and the few men still following him got one glimpse of the credit chips within and dogpiled him, scrabbling for the money.
Chester shook her head. Money. How impractical. Then she turned and sprinted into the alley.
“And that was… that was Hondo Ohnaka,” said Lens, a little queasily. “She just dropped Hondo fucking Ohnaka.”
“With what?”
“A bag of more credits then we’re ever gonna see in our lives again. And a brick, I think.”
“Little gods.”
Chester scrambled up the stairs past Lens. “All right, let’s get back to our ship. Asajj is covering for us.”
“Asajj?!” said Garter, a little shrill. But she was already running straight past them. “Hold up, Commander, the pirates—”
Didn’t have the ship anymore. A bunch of them didn’t have heads or limbs either. Ventress was leaned up against the little solar sailer, looking incredibly smug.
“So,” she said, “what do I get?”
“Hm,” said Chester, and sidled up; Lingo knew what was coming and averted his face with the easy excuse of draining the very last of the pink drinks. “Well, I did pay you, but I think we could work out a bonus.”
Oh no, that’s as cheesy as it gets. A glance over his shoulder showed that Ventress’s expression, instead of going furious, had gotten even more smug.
“Last time, you lost your nerve,” said Ventress, smirking, and also leaning in.
“Last time, we got interrupted by pirates. Did you get my dagger back?”
Ventress rummaged at her belt and withdrew the stiletto Chester had taken with her. “Cleaned the eyeballs off it and everything.”
“You say the sweetest things,” said Chester, and leaned up to– nope, nope, not looking, the audio was bad enough . “Thanks, darling. I owe you one.”
(“Gross,” muttered Joyride in the background.)
(“Oh, Ventress was helping , was she,” muttered Garter under his breath, very snide.)
Ventress looked mildly concussed as Chester disengaged and swung up into the solar sailer; Lingo drained the second drink and hurried after her before Ventress could see him and remember how she usually interacted with clones (ie, killing them).
“Is that also standard Starfleet procedure?” Garter was asking Chester, sotto voce , when Lingo climbed into the cabin. She looked awfully pleased with herself, which probably had something to do with how Ventress was still just standing there.
Chester considered this question as they lifted off, seeming to give it some thought, and then shrugged. “Yeah. Basically. If you go off the original Enterprise logs.”
Enterprise logs or no Enterprise logs, whatever the kark those were, one thing was for certain. Lingo was not gonna be the clone to tell Commander Wolffe about this.
“So you seduced Ventress.”
“Well, not seduced,” said Chester. “I do not feel ‘seduced’ is accurate. We found strong common ground, namely a belief that Dooku deserved to be kicked in the testicles very hard and more than once. And also that fighting pirates is extremely entertaining.”
“You know what,” said Anakin, pushing himself upright, “I’m done. I am done. My brain is not working anymore, I am just going to—excuse me, Master.” He sidled past between Garter and Plo and went out the tentflap at some speed.
Kenobi turned to Chester, smiling beatifically. “I am so pleased that you and the men made it home safely after that adventure, and that Anakin now knows what it is like for us to listen to his own post-mission reports. For that alone, you have my heartfelt thanks.”
Mace’s hologram nodded. “Kenobi has a point. I for one am going to enjoy passing this along to Republic Intelligence.”
Chester made a face. “Please leave the flirting out of that one. A lady doesn’t kiss and tell—at least, doesn’t tell Tarkin .”
“I notice you phrased it rather delicately in the report,” said Obi-Wan, eyebrows arched.
“Lots of experience,” said Chester.
“Let’s just move on,” said Ki-Adi-Mundi, somewhat tightly. The sentiment was echoed by several other Councillors, though the effect was somewhat undercut by a quick burst of laughter from Master Yoda. At his fellow Councillors, Chester suspected.
Plo made a noise that might have been a meaningful cough—it came out somewhat metallic through his mask. “I understand, Commander, that you were able to make contact with the GAR shortly after this encounter.”
Chester nodded. “Yes. That was when we came close enough to friendly space to risk the transmission.”
Commander Wolffe made eye contact with Chester across the holotable, as the briefing wound up. He had the oddest expression on his face.
She just raised her eyebrows at him. What else was a Starfleet officer to do?