Summary: Return of Anash! Oh, wait, her and Mei in the same place...

Warning! Chapters 24-28 were all released back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any!

Chapter 27: Retracing Steps

Izuku and Aayla had, after several fun days exploring the new step taken in their relationship, finally arrived at Esseles. They'd made it a point to avoid their previous landing site, though they did risk sticking to the same city as they felt Anash was their best bet for another ship. Many of her custom jobs had been geared more for Mid and Outer Rim work, rather than heading in toward the more secure Core. Which wouldn't be the case in many of the other cities around the planet. Esseles was a Core World itself, after all, even if it was toward the edge of such. Only the unusual combination of its position on the Perlemian Trade Route, possession of the only pod racing circuit track in the Core, and the presence of a decently sized shipbuilding industry, gave it the right sort of market for ships that would suit them. They'd picked it out for that reason in the first place, back when they'd visited before, and it remained true now.

Of course, they didn't go straight to Anash's. Despite her newness to the galaxy, Mei's experimentation with the Infinite Engine meant it was better to have her on hand when picking out a ship. The fact that said ship would ultimately be in use by Celeste, who would arrive with Mei, only made waiting for their arrival make even more sense. So, instead, they'd spent the handful of additional days before the duo's arrival working through the list of other things they'd needed to do. They'd had a considerable cargo to sell, even holding a few crates back for possible trade with Anash, and then they'd needed to track down a number of other items to bring Ossus up to spec as a temporary base of operations.

A few basic pre-fab units, a suitable droid to serve as a template for more, to help Master Bnar with the ruins of the Great Library. A power generator, computer equipment, consumables, and so on. Despite much of it being items they could and would duplicate with the Infinite Engine, they still half filled their cargo bay and spent a solid 50,000 credits in the process. Of course, they'd ended up selling their cargo for upwards of five and a half million, so the expenses were a drop in the proverbial bucket in comparison. But acquiring it all was a bit of a grueling grind either way. Even if they did also manage to sneak a couple of simple 'dates' in during the process…

Of course, eventually Mei and Celeste had arrived, with shiny new identities, bank accounts they quickly transferred a decent chunk of credits into, and a mission to complete. Which meant all of them were headed to Anash's used shipyard. They'd sent a message ahead two days ago, indicating they were extremely happy with their previous purchase and were hoping for Anash to help them with more. Said message meant that they were happily greeted by the Cathar in question the moment they arrived.

"Ah! Now isn't this a surprise! Ships are a big enough purchase that I rarely get repeat customers! And you said you were happy with the Wandering Fate, yes?"

Izuku smiled at the enthusiastic greeting, already anticipating the whirlwind what was about to occur.

"Quite pleased. So much so we thought to recommend you to our companions here. It just so happens that a friend of ours was in need of a new ship…and a friend of hers was looking for something to tinker with." He fed Anash the line they'd decided on, pointing at Celeste a moment later. "This is Celeste Morne, who needs a transport capable of operating safely in the Outer Rim. Next to her, with the pink hair, is Mei Hatsume. She's a bit of an inventor and tinkerer that's looking to branch out to ships and wants something to tear apart and put back together as a learning tool."

Anash had nodding knowingly at the mention of a 'transport capable of operating safely in the Outer Rim,' but her eyes practically lit up at Mei's introduction. Even knowing that Celeste was theoretically the more lucrative customer, the Cathar immediately pounced on Mei, asking all sorts of questions with increasing enthusiasm as Mei's own manic energy responded in kind.

Izuku grinned, enjoying the baffled looks of the two Jedi with him. He'd suspected this would happen, with Anash having reminded him so much of Mei when they first met. Of course, with only three weeks to tear into the tech of this galaxy, Mei wasn't even close to fully conversant in the technology. Genuis that she might be, even she wasn't that fast a learner. Yet, she was fast enough to come across as exactly what Izuku had introduced her as, an enthusiastic and capable inventor who was stepping beyond her previous specialty to learn about ships. As the two built up a head of steam and prepared to charge off into the shipyard, he made a point to remind them that Celeste needed a ship. Far from derailing them, the duo simply glommed onto the confused and disoriented Jedi and towed her after them into their whirlwind of words…

... ...

The normally unflappable Celeste Morne was looking a little…frayed…around the edges when Anash and Mei inevitably lost the plot and wandered off to do things best not spoken of for fear of possible war crime charges. Thankfully, they had narrowed their search based on the few words Celeste had managed to get in edgewise. Equally luckily, Anash had left behind one of her people before haring off with Mei, and the reason the older human had been left with them had become obvious the moment he'd opened his mouth. Even Izuku, who hadn't exactly been around the galactic block very many times, recognized the strong hints of a Corellian accent when he did so.

"So, the boss said a CEC model would fit what you're looking for best. No surprise there, Corellia still makes the best ships in the galaxy after all. Which is the whole reason the boss keeps me around. I'm an expert on CEC models…and about a quarter of our ships are built by them."

Celeste was actually looking somewhat soothed by the man's little speech, something which was explained to Aayla and Izuku a few moments later as she spoke.

"Yes, it is hard to argue with the record of a company that's been around and active for thousands of years. Indeed, it's been around since before the Great Sith Wars, if I recall correctly."

The man looked almost as surprised as Aayla and Izuku felt. The Corellian Engineering Corporation was so old it had been around before Celeste went into stasis? No wonder she was suddenly looking more comfortable. The man, not knowing why Celeste knew that, actually got over his surprise before they did.

"Huh. Haven't heard that particular brag since I worked on the production lines at CEC. It was part of their internal image propaganda. It is actually true, though. Not sure if it's literally the oldest continuously operating business in the Republic like they also claimed. But if it's not, I'd wager it's probably close."

There was a clear tone of pride in the Corellian's voice at the statement, but that was honestly fair enough. And he quickly shook the distraction off and got back to business.

"Regardless of that, they make damn good ships. Extremely robust from the starting line and built with moddibility kept firmly in mind. Makes even the older models still popular, even if they often have so many internal changes you can barely call 'em the same ship anymore. At the moment, I think the best ones we have in stock and ready are a HWK-290, YT-1210, and an older YG-4210 that's had a lot of good mods done to her…"

The next hour and a half was a much more low-key, pleasant affair than the chaotic whirlwind that Anash and Mei had created. The man, who had finally introduced himself as Kes Rarku, was clearly confident in the quality of the trio of ships. He kept to the facts of each one, showing off where they'd done rebuilds, made improvements, or streamlined existing modifications that the ships had arrived with. Per their initial comments to Anash at needing a transport for the Outer Rim, all three were armed. The HWK-290 the most lightly so, but making up for that somewhat in maneuverability, the YG series vessel the most heavily so but far older.

In the end, it was the HWK-290 that they'd settled on. While the YG-4210 had been extremely tempting for its firepower, it was the oldest of the ships by several decades, with its design being well over a century out of date. It had been rebuilt and upgraded several times…but a quiet discussion between the three of them had resulted in an agreement that it would poorly suit Mei's need to have a more modern ship example to work from. The HWK-290 design was only a couple of decades old, practically new by galactic standards, and its better maneuverability would suit a Jedi pilot extremely well. Indeed, the only downside was a relative lack of cargo space. That might be a problem in the future, if they intended to duplicate the ship for other uses, but for the moment it fit Celeste's preferences and likely needs better than the YG model would have. The Force, this time, had not seemed to particularly care, leaving such personal considerations as their primary guide for making the purchase.

It was thus that they shelled out the 60,000 credits for the vessel, plus a few thousand for some extras in the same vein as they'd added to the Wandering Fate. That included a full stock of missiles, plus spares, for the concussion missile launcher that had been added, along with a software upgrade for the equally add-on blaster cannon turret that allowed it to be operated more easily by the pilot. They'd held off on any astromechs or pilot droids, as Mei had already used the Infinite Engine to duplicate the ones they had.

Of course, once the deal was done…they had to track down Mei again. Celeste stayed behind to get familiar with the newly christened Shades of the Past, while Aayla and Izuku went to track down the errant inventor. They eventually found her proudly standing in front of a purchase of her own.

"You actually found a starfighter?"

Aayla's tone was surprised, and for good reason. They'd expected to have to do some serious shopping around to locate a decent starfighter. While not nearly as restricted as capital ships or heavy armaments for freighters, the sort of military-grade starfighter that Mei had wanted to get her hands on wasn't exactly easy to find on civilian markets.

"Yep! Anash here took this baby as part of a Hutt's payment for a bad pod racing bet! It's not the sort of thing she normally deals in, but she figured she could sell it easy enough. And it's perfect for me to get a handle on modern military designs. The Z-95 is the latest from Incom-Subpro! Anash says they make some of the best fighters out there, so taking it apart will teach me lots."

Izuku nodded at that. It made sense, even if it wasn't necessarily immediately useful. Aayla was the only one of them who had training with a starfighter. Hell, he barely knew the basics of how to fly the Wandering Fate at this point. Still, Mei's argument from the start had been that it would give her a good idea where modern military tech was at, as opposed to the robust but still civilian designs of their transports. It had been a sound argument when she made it, and it was still sound now.

"What else did you find?"

Mei waved at…a rather large pile of equipment and parts that Izuku hadn't realized was all stuff she wanted, rather than random junk Anash had sitting in the hangar the Z-95 had been stored in.

"Modern Quad laser and Turbolaser installations. This interesting multi-generator shield design from a Mon Calmari freighter. Samples of armor alloys salvaged from capital ships. A pair of class one hyperdrives from different manufacturers…"

Mei kept reeling off her list, even as Izuku and Aayla's eyes began to glaze over. Eventually, when Mei started talking about parts that he suspected she didn't even know what they were for yet, he interrupted by asking how much it was all going to cost.

"The Z-95 is 70,000 credits. Even used, they are a bitch to find on the civilian market, so that's completely fair. The rest of it totals out to around another 125,000. Plus those coils and motivators you kept back from the earlier sales. Anash was super interested in those. Knocked quite a bit off the price in trade for them."

Izuku…actually didn't wince. Part of him wanted too, but the truth was that even with both ships, the parts, and the extras they'd bought for base-building…they were going to have made over ten times more profit than expenses on this trip. There was one concern, though.

"It will all fit? We bought the HWK-290 and only have about half the Wandering Fate's cargo capacity left…"

Mei shrugged.

"It'll be a tight fit, but I'll make it work! Worst case, we attached the Z-Baby to the external docking port of the Fate rather than stow it aboard."

Izuku blinked and looked at Aayla for assurances that they could actually do that. When she nodded, he shrugged and turned to Anash.

"Alright then, we'll take the lot. Who knows, we might even have more business for you in the future…"

Anash grinned, practically bouncing from the chance to nerd out with Mei. Which didn't mean she wasn't quick to take their credits too. Those credits exchanging hands only made her happier, and it took some time to pry her and Mei apart. After doing so, stowing the starfighter aboard Celeste's new ship, and arranging what wouldn't fit alongside it to be transported to their own ship, they headed back to the Wandering Fate.

As Izuku, Aayla and Mei arrived, the former two stumbled to a halt at the presence of two unexpected people. Mei, having noticed Fay was one of them, seemed unconcerned…at least until she noticed her two companions had come to an abrupt halt. Aayla in particular looked uneasy, even as Izuku was eyeing the lightsaber at the older man's belt. He heard her swallow, before she managed an almost normal sounding greeting a moment later.

"Hello, Master Tholme…"

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A/N: Gasp! Oh no! The Jedi have caught up to them!

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Yeah, no. Don't worry, just read on ;-). Credit to Vimesenthusiast for reminding me that Tholme is a person that exists. He is basically the perfect solution to what I needed to have happen. Until I was reminded of his existence my plans were far more convoluted, even if it would have ended in a similar result. Being reminded about Tholme cut out a lot of the complication...as you'll see going forward ;-).