You just couldn’t get the informants these days. Jango had bribed people in the Kaminoan facility to be informed if anyone showed up asking after him, but he hadn’t managed to get them to realize that the arrival of a starship not long after he’d returned from Coruscant might be important.
And now he’d only found out that a Jedi was present when they’d actually asked to see the template for the clones.
“Boba,” he said. “We might have an unexpected guest. And we might need to leave – soon.”
“Got it, dad,” his son replied. “Now?”
“No, the Jedi’s coming this way,” Jango replied. “I’ll try and trick them, then we leave as soon as they’re not here. Is all my armour hidden?”
The attendance chime went, and Jango rolled his head back and forth slightly as Boba went to answer it.
“Boba?” he heard Taun We ask. “Is your father here?”
“Don’t worry about little old me,” a calm voice added. “Just here to visit.”
“May we see him?” Taun We added.
“...sure,” Boba said, after several seconds of silence. “Uh. Dad! Taun We’s here!”
Jango moved around the corner of the apartment, to look at the visiting Jedi, and nearly swallowed his tongue.
There was a kriffing Rancor standing behind Taun We. A Rancor wearing a utility belt, attached to which were two lightsabers – one about the size of a small claw, the other big enough that Taun We could have used it as a neck splint.
“Welcome back, Jango,” Taun We said. “Was your trip productive?”
Jango blinked several times.
“...why is there a Rancor behind you?” he asked.
“Hello,” the Rancor said, in that same calm voice. “My name is Knight Tosh. Can I come in?”
Jango was still staring.
“Isn’t it ‘may’?” Boba asked, in the tones of a child who was trying to notice something he could process.
“I’m not sure how big the hallway is,” Tosh explained. “If there’s a problem with my fitting in, that’s fine, I can sit out here and we can talk.”
Putting actions to words, she sat down.
Jango wasn’t sure exactly how he’d decided that the Rancor was a ‘she’, but he supposed they probably did have genders.
“...you’re a Rancor?” he said, still trying to get past that essential point.
“Yes,” Tosh agreed. “A proud daughter of Dathomir. I’m told I’m named for my grandmother, who was the first of us to learn to read and write.”
She steepled the fingers on her enormous clawed hands.
“Aide We,” she said, a little more formally. “I must inform you that I’m here for a number of reasons, not just one. You see, I’ve been looking into a recent assassination attempt on that nice Senator Amidala.”
“Oh, goodness!” Taun We said. “That is most worrying.”
“It is,” Tosh agreed, with a surprisingly kindly smile given that it was a Rancor smiling, something that Jango’s brain kept circling around to. “The assassin is dead, which is fortunate, and I believe that Jango here did us the favour of eliminating her. So I wanted to thank him personally, and also ask if he had any idea why that might have happened… why he might have been hired to kill that particular shapeshifter, that is.”
Then she frowned. “Oh – but where are my manners? We should really start with how it is that you came to be the template for the clone army! It must be a fascinating story. I assume your young son there is involved, somehow?”
“Thank you,” Obi-Wan said, taking the mug from Cliegg Lars. “I think that’ll be enough for us for now.”
“Not a problem,” Cliegg replied. “You and the other Jedi are the one who rescued Anakin from his old life, that’d be enough to make you kin here, even before all you’ve done for us so far.”
“We do our best,” Obi-Wan smiled, taking a sip of the drink. “Very nice. Thank you again, Cliegg.”
“I don’t know what I expected,” Anakin admitted. “I never really imagined what it would be like to have my mom actually marry someone, but… I think he’s nice.”
“It’s not something the Jedi have much experience with,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m just as lost as you are, Anakin.”
“Are you sure this is a good place to hide out, Obi-Wan? Ani?” Padme asked.
She frowned, and waved her hand. “I don’t mean… that it’s a bad idea to be here. We’ve only been here two days and we’ve already rescued your mother, Ani. But if someone comes looking for us… we’re hiding with the only relatives Anakin has in the entire galaxy.”
“I’m quite sure that nobody will find us,” Obi-Wan replied.
“Yeah, I agree with Master Kenobi,” Anakin nodded. “If I was looking for where a Jedi was hiding, I’d never even think of looking for their family. Jedi just don’t think about family. It’s not something we do.”
“But the people who are trying to hunt me down… they do think about family, don’t they?” Padme said. “Or they might, anyway…”
“In which case, fortunately, we are in a very large desert,” Obi-Wan said. “Mos Espa would have been a suitable enough place to hide out, but now we’re off in the desert. A planet is a very big place to hide someone, Senator – and if there’s anyone in the galaxy who wouldn’t try to betray us, it’s Anakin’s close family. Even before we rescued his mother.”
Padme looked conflicted.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “I just worry that we’re too easy to find here. I don’t know how rational that is, but the extent of the resources available to our enemies…”
“Where would you have preferred?” Obi-Wan asked. “If this isn’t where you’d have thought to hide, where would you have hidden?”
“I’d have gone to Naboo,” Padme replied. “Relatives of my family have a house up in the lakes, in the mountains. It’s wonderful and calm and nobody ever goes there.”
“Actually, I like the sound of that, Master,” Anakin said. “Are you sure we can’t change plans and go there, now? There’s a lake there.”
“We brought a lake with us, Anakin,” Obi-Wan replied, tossing his head to indicate the beaten-up old freighter they’d used to get to Tatooine. “Or a large swimming pool, at least.”
Beru Lars chuckled.
“You three are terrible at this,” she said, from over in the corner. “We’re grateful for your arrival, but… none of you know the first thing about hiding.”
“We don’t?” Anakin asked. “What do you mean?”
“ Tatooine is a planet with slavery, which means a planet with crime,” Beru told them. “If you’re going into hiding, you want to get a good balance between the support network and being impossible to trace back to your owners.”
“Of course,” Padme murmured. “It’s a shame the Republic hasn’t been able to do anything about the slavery out here.”
“That’s your department, isn’t it” Beru asked. “With your being a senator, that is.”
“Padme’s brought it up in the Senate a few times,” Anakin said, defending her. “It’s never gone far, though.”
“Part of the problem is that the Republic doesn’t have the ability to do much about it,” Padme admitted. “We have a navy, but no real army – and bombarding Tatooine to help end slavery seems like a bad idea.”
Beru inclined her head.
“That’s fair,” she conceded. “It’s easy enough to forget that, out here. And I’d bet it seems hard to remember there are people in chains, when you’re on glittering Coruscant.”
“We could be doing more than we are,” Padme allowed. “Once this is over, I’ll see what I can do.”
Darth Tyrannus looked at Jango, his gaze calm. Calm, in the way that the ground was calm, under a descending meteor.
He was extremely unimpressed.
“You told her everything?” he asked, his fingers drumming on his belt next to the handle of his lightsaber.
“Not everything, but… more than I think I should have,” Jango replied, somewhat embarrassed. “You weren’t there. It was… I’d like to see you concentrate on what your story is when there’s a Rancor staring at you. Complimenting you. Offering you tips on how to make tea.”
He shook his head. “Saying that she could smell Coruscant on your clothes. And that’s before the fact that she’s a Jedi.”
Dooku sniffed.
“I think that if I were confronted with a Rancor, and it pulled out a lightsaber, I would be relieved,” he said.
There was a sort of soft thump behind him, and Jango glanced up before going pale and holding up his hands.
“Good afternoon,” a pleasant voice said. “Dooku, it’s nice to meet you at last. Should I call you Count? Or do you prefer the name Darth Tyrannus?”
Dooku knew what he was going to see behind him.
He knew it.
But he had to turn around and look anyway, and so he did.
“Tosh,” he said, and this time he did take his lightsaber off his belt – though he didn’t light it. “How did you get here?”
“A tracking beacon, of course,” Tosh replied. “Well, actually two, one of them was in the fidget spinner I gave young Boba, but I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed so I stuck one to Mr. Fett’s ship as well. I must say, I do like the climate here. Pleasantly dry.”
She smiled, in a way that was somehow disarming until you refocused and remembered what the smile was attached to. “You know, we’re actually somewhat related! In the Jedi sense, at least. I’m not sure how you’ve kept up with master-student relationships in the Temple since you left, but that nice dear Yoda trained me for a few years.”
Dooku did his very best to contain a nervous swallow.
“I have surpassed my old Master,” he said. “I doubt even he could defeat me now.”
“Oh, that’s quite possible,” Tosh agreed, nodding. “Yoda’s always been sentimental, you know. He finds it so hard to fight seriously. It’s not something I’d call a character flaw, but it is what it is.”
She shrugged. “I’d very much appreciate it if we didn’t have to fight today, you know. Since I know you’re a Sith, what about if you give me information on your Master? I know that betrayal is the kind of thing the Sith like to do, and that way we don’t have to fight.”
Dooku evaluated his options.
All it would take for his plans to hold together would be for him to be confident in his ability to defeat this Jedi Knight. This mere… Jedi Knight.
This mere… Rancor… Jedi Knight…
The other option was looking appealing. It was difficult to deny that.
“It’s hard to believe,” Mace Windu admitted, leaning back in his chair.
It was a common posture in the Jedi Council whenever this particular Knight was reporting to them, and Mace felt a most un-Jedi-like pang of jealousy for Yarael Poof. Long-necked and calm, the Quermian Master was the only one able to look Tosh in the eye without either leaning back or standing up.
“Hmm,” Yoda mused. “Mistaken you are not, I assume?”
“Being mistaken is always a possibility, Master,” Tosh answered. “But the plan that Dooku told me does seem to make a good deal of sense… it’s one of those plans where the Sith would win no matter which side of the war was triumphant.”
She spread her massive hands. “It could all be a lie… but it does explain a few things, which leads me to think it might be true. I’d recommend at least testing it.”
“A good approach,” Ki-Adi-Mundi said, to nods from Plo Koon and Sasee Tiin.
“It ties into what Master Gallia has been discovering recently as well,” the latter said. “The Trade Federation’s involvement in this is unsurprising, but the Techno Union, Intergalactic Bank Clan… again, investigation is needed.”
A ripple of agreement ran around the Council.
“And what of the clone army?” Yoda asked. “Commissioned by us, the Kaminoans were told.”
“Oh, I thought the best thing to do was to send them to make sure that nice Senator Amidala was safe,” Tosh replied, with a pleasant smile.
Windu frowned, then looked over at Yoda.
“When was the last time we got an update from Kenobi and Skywalker?” he asked.
“It’s been… a while,” Yarael Poof said, doing his neck exercises. “Last contact was shortly after they reached Tatooine. They were going to avoid broadcasting to make sure they weren’t tracked down.”
Mace Windu activated a holocommunicator.
“Old Folks Home to Guiding Light,” he said. “Knight Kenobi. What is your situation?”
“Guiding Light copies,” a hazy image of Obi-Wan Kenobi replied. “Master Windu, I think we just liberated Tatooine by accident.”
“By accident?” Ki-Adi-Mundi replied. “How exactly did you-”
He stopped, remembering the missions that Kenobi and his Padawan had been on.
“Never mind, carry on,” he requested. “What happened?”
“Someone sent us an army,” Obi-Wan said. “We didn’t actually order them to do anything, but Senator Amidala gave some speeches and I think things sort of escalated from there…”
Did it hurt? When all the Niman practitioners died at Geonosis and it marked the end of an era? When the Jedi Order was never quite the same afterward? When the cultural impact of their loss low key shifted the way Anakin would turn out, and the galaxy's fate?
“For superior balance, use the Niman form. This form has no specific strengths, but no weaknesses either.”
Also known as The Diplomat’s Form, Form VI is mainly the Form of those who do not want to specialize to lightsaber combat.
However, it does not translate into weakness or been unwilling to fight.
Niman is not about offence or defence. It’s about both and neither. Instead of focusing on special ways of blocking, dodging or slashing, Form VI deals with easy to learn but still effective moves - while at the same time not being too restrained to them.
The main reason being that the Niman users intend to focus on their learning on the Force just as well.
That gives a boost to the practitioners, that can easily adapt their own fighting style into Niman, their own quirks and Force skills into the battle.
To compensate for the relaxed focus on bladework, Form VI encourages integrating Force powers into combat, like adding grabs, shoves, chokes and/or lightnings to one’s repertoire.
Also, Niman is the Form that most easily integrates dual lightsaber into its moves - meaning, it’s not the only style to use two lightsabers at the same time, but it is the one that makes it easier to learn from.
Positive Aspects: Form VI is focused on moderation, so, though it doesn’t grant any real advantage at first glance, it lacks the flaws most other Forms have, such as strike zones exposure or weaker lightsaber swings.
The practitioner’ skill was said to be his/her own limit. Niman’s success in combat was dependent on a practitioner’s intuition and creativity in combat, rather than the rote responses common to the other forms.
Negative Aspects: There’s an old saying, “ A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one”. Many view Form VI, though practical, lacking the subtleties of a more specialized array of moves.
Which, in a certain way, it is.
It is the most disadvantageous style in an open battlefield, lacking the practicality of Form I and the defensive stance of Form III.
Form VI, or Niman, was a lightsaber combat form. A general form, Niman combined the strengths of other lightsaber forms an adapted them, making it extremely flexible. Niman therefore had no significant strengths, but few weaknesses as well. Ahsoka Tano used Niman, as training with an off-hand shoto was often part of the form.
Source: Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force (Art: Tommy Lee Edwards; 2007)
First Appearance: Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace (1999)
Form VI (Niman, the Way of the Rancor, the Moderation Form, The diplomat’s form) was the sixth lightsaber form created for combat. Niman incorporates elements from all previous lightsaber forms, covering many of the basic moves. The result creates a fighting style that does not give a significant advantage, but does not have any significant drawbacks. Niman uses a fairly relaxed focus on bladework that could be mastered relatively easier compared to the other forms. This would allow Jedi to focus on other skills like studying and diplomacy. To compensate the lack of specialization in Niman, the incorporation of chaining Force-based attacks are encouraged. Another advantage practitioners would use was the study of dual-blades. Niman’s success was dependent on the user’s intuition and creativity in combat, rather than the root advantages brought by the other forms. Notable practitioners were Exar Kun, Revan, Starkiller, and General Grevious.
“The Jedi Council maintains that Form VI best suits the role of contemporary Jedi Knights. After all, a Jedi Knight who is overly trained in martial combat might be at a loss to resolve a complex conflict or a sensitive trade disagreement” - Cin Drallig
التَّدَرُّج
root: د-ر-ج / form V verbal noun / definition: gradual advance or progression
I’ve gone straight from floating to hitting the ground running. And between that landing and my approaching take-off, things have progressed unexpectedly quickly in the space of a week.
I could get used to this pace.
But Arabic’s form VI verbs remind me of the power contained in gradual progress and—I…
