Fellowship of the Dice

Uri gets cut off when a woman walks out of the brush toward him and Janos. Janos' cordiality affects him in turn, and reluctantly, he answers, "Same. I'm Uri. I... they picked me up, too." He squints a little, and adds, "Wile said his friend is a 'he'. Who are you?"

Just a second ago, he looked troubled.

As the group begins to talk, a rodian comes to the top of the loading ramp. Hearing the others, the rodian says, "He said he had another person with him. And last time we talked, he said he was a bit busy with blaster fire. Who's your friend and let's see if we're both friends with the same person?"

Shoshannah thinks for a moment and asks, "If I tell you the friend's first name is Manh, can you tell me his last name?"

"Toisao. Yep, that's Manh alright. I guess you're the other pickup he mentioned." The rodian responds to Shoshannah. He begins to say something else as another starship passes over them and then pauses. A YT-1760 small transport circles overhead and begins it's landing sequence alongside the YT-2400.

"Friends of yours?" Wile finally asks as he makes his way back towards the cockpit in case they need a hasty departure.

"No," says Shoshannah in alarm. "Hedala!" Shoshannah calls out, "it's safe to come out now! We're getting on this ship." She turns back to the strangers. "I'm Shoshannah Nadeel, Jedi Service Corps member. This girl is a Force sensitive orphan I've taken under my care. Manh won't be coming with us--he's staying here to see what help he can offer." Once Hedala comes out, Shoshannah takes her by the hand and leads her up the ramp into the ship. "I was hoping to have time to explore that destroyed facility. They were doing experiments there that have led to sickness in the population here and I was hoping to find information on a treatment. But if that new ship is hostile ..."

Uri looks up at the transport ship. "Definitely, bring her on." He backs up to the side of the ramp for them.

"Quickly. They probably just want to know why we're here, but if they find out that the girl's Force Sensitive, they'll want to take her away."

"Uri is right; we've lost enough Jedi already," Janos urges the others. "And I do not trust the spaceport control to not investigate our landing outside the spaceport."

Shoshannah sighs heavily. "Let's not chance it. Let's take off--if the other ship minds it's own business, we can always land again so I can search the ruins." She pauses, collecting herself, then says, "And thank you for coming to pick us up. I'm not really sure what's happened but it's obviously bad and you were taking a risk by coming here."

From the tree line, a young girl emerges and rushes forward to greet the others. "Hi! I'm Hedala. Are you..." She is cut off as the others begin talking about the newly arriving ship. Looking up at the ship, her quiet voice says "More friends are coming." Her words talked over by the others.

As the ship's landing gear deploys and the ship nears the ground, the Jedi feel a familiar and calming presence in the Force. "Calm young ones, we are friends seeking friends."

Janos pauses in his movement toward their ship and instead looks toward the other vessel. He hooks his lightsaber on his belt, but this time leaves it readily accessible.