[font=Times New Roman][font=Times New Roman]Orbit over Rattatak[/font]
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[font=Times New Roman]The ship moved silently through the emptiness of space.

[/font][font=Times New Roman]Like a predator. [/font]

[font=Times New Roman]From the bridge of star cruiser, Rattatak looked like a bloody pearl. Mikel wondred to himself what significance this planet could have to the coalition. As far as Mikel knew the planet did not have an abundance of any type of rescources, and was a pit of a planet. He did not think they even had a good amount of ships or even if they had any at all would surprise him. He did know however that the race there were warriors, he had read that in the archives. Mikel decided that it would probably be best if he went down alone and tried to win their trust by showing off against their warriors. So, Mikel got aboard one of the x-wings and started to speed off towards what looked like a city.[/font]


[font=Times New Roman]The surface of Rattatak[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]Once near what looked like the edge of the city he landed his ship, making sure to check on the weapons he had brought. He brought a standard blaster, and a common steel longsword. Walking down the street, He looked at the shops that lined the streets. After a few minutes of looking around he decided that he should ask where their gladiatioral games were. He went up to the first person he could find.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"Excuse me, where are the gladiator games?"[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"Well, you just keep going up the road and it is just sitting there."[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"Thank you kind sir."[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"I AM A WOMAN!" she screamed out[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"Oh, sorry about that, well, fare well." Mikel said blushing.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]Mikel then went on his way to find the arena, not stopping on the way to talk to anyone just to make sure he didn't say something wrong and offend anyone else. When he finally got to the arena area, he was greeted by a couple of large guards. [/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"What do you want?" One of the guards said seemingly annoyed.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"I was hoping you could tell me who exactly rules over this pleasant little planet." Mikel said as calm and polite as he could.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"What do you want to see her for?" The other guard asked twice as rude as the first guard.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]" I am here to talk to her about politics, you probably wouldn't understand." Mikel said in a slightly annoyed tone.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"Well, I have no choince but to let you pass then. Just don't start any trouble or I will have to deal with it. Oh, and our leader is that way." The first guard said pointing to a flight of stairs to the left of the enterance.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]"I didn't plan on it." Mikel said as he started to walk towards the stairs. Once he got to the top he met with more guards, still explaining the same reason why he was there. But these guards did not let him through until he told them he was with the galactic coaliton and explained what exactly that was.[/font]

[font=Times New Roman]When he got to their leader he looked at her. He then decided to take a seat beside her and try to talk buisness with her.[/font]

When Mikel took the seat, the leader looked straight at him.

"What buisness do you have with me?" she asked as if annoyed with his presence.

"Well, I was hoping that we could talk about you foreign policy or lack thereof." Mikel said as diplomatic sounding as he could while thinking how he wasn't a politician and should' be in this situation.

"I do what is best for the people, and fighting a war against other civilizations is not exactly helpful to anybody." She replied quickly as if trying to quickly close the subject.

" There are ways to do things that are not war at all. The galactic coalition is not involved in any war at this time, nor do we plan to start any. All the coalition does is form an alliance so that some empire doesn't single out planets without having to deal with its allies." Mikel said trying to convince her to at least listen to what he was saying.

"Really? What makes you think I would just join you like that? For all I know this would be a one sided alliance. What makes you worthy?" She snapped back at him as if trying to provoke him into a fight.

But Mikel knew he had to keep his temper in check if this planet would join the coalition. "How exactly would I prove myself and my cause to you?

She looked up in thought. "If you could win our games I might think about it.It all depends on how good you do. Oh, and this is a fight to the death using your long sword if you would like.."

Mikel just kind of smiled at that. "So, if I fight and win then you will listen fully to what I have to say? Oh, and what may I call you."

She laughed when he asked her name. "Well, you can call me anything you want to. But I would like it if you called me Queen Asajj 3rd. There are several rounds of fighting just so you know. Oh, and just walk down the stairs and into the hall near the front, then talk to the fighter there, he will get you ready."

"Okay queen, I will do this fighting, but when I win I hope you will uphold your end." Mikel said as he got up and walked towards down the stairs and towards guy he had been told to talk to. He just looked up, then back don at the papers he was filling out.

"Well, you are smaller than I expected you to be. I heard that you coalition people have that wonder drug. Ha, a wonder drug, you must be weak to have to take that. All strong people just have regular medicine not cure-alls.Anyway give me your blaster. I know you have it, you can't hide it from me. But aside from that you good to go. Just follow down this hall and you will be in the arena."



Mikel walked down the hall and exited in a large arena. All around there was a mix of reactions to an outsider being there., mostly people booing that he was ther but there were a few people glad he was there. He walked to the center of the ring and yelled out,"WHY DO YOU HATE ME?" There was a loud outroar from the crowd and Mikel thought that they were going to enter and rip him apart limb from limb. But they soon calmed down and Mikel let out a little sigh of relief.

Then a few gladiators came out armed with broadswords. Mikel unsceathed his longsword and charged the group hoping to cath them off guard. Luckily for him most thought he was insane for charging while a few put up their guard, but mikel knew that they were beginners now and just hacked through them as they tried their best to try and defend themselves. Mikel could easily see a weakness in their guards on the legs where he would slash and then as they went down hw ould stab them in the heart.

Then he got to the last person who seemed to be a veteran. He parried Mikels attempt at his leg and attempted at Mikels leg. Luckily for Mikel, he was ablt to quickly bring his sword down to block his enemies attack. After a few attempts to strike got him nowhere but on the defensive Mikel quickly got angry. He then took all the rage he had built up and struck at his opponents jugualr. His opponent tried to block this but it just shattered both swords. mikel quickly took what was left of his sword and stabbed his opponent with the still sharp edge. After he had finished off the last opponent in the first round he went around and got two broadsword to fight with.

The next rond cam swift with around six people with broadswords and six with longswords. Mikel had a few allies this time. For his allies he had 3 braodswordsmen, 3 longswordsmen, and 3 people using axes. the battle started out to go good for Mikel, Using the first sword to parry, and the second to stab his opponents worked well for a while. He took out 2 broadswrodsmen and 1 longswordsmen this way. But his allies were not faring as well. The broadswordsmen were quickly taken out by the longswordsmen without killing a single enemy. while the longswordmen were able to kill off 3 of the broadswordsmen before they all died. The axemen did even better taking out the last broadswordsman and 2 longswordsmen before they died off. Now it was Mikle versus 3 longswordsmen. He knew he could not defeat them in a straight out swordfight, there were three and he was just one person.So, he decide that the first theing he should do is try and even the odds by throwing his broadsword into one of their stomachs and picking up a longsword nearby. He then charged them hoping that they would scare as well. They didn't but one of them charged back and Mikeldove stabbing up into the opponents stomach. The other one put up more of a fight. They kept striking at each other, and the other would parry. Most of Mikels strikes were either at the legs or the neck. Once agin Mikel let his rage get the best of him and he destroyed pair of longswords, but this time he had his broadsword and sliced off the man's head.

Mikel quickly dropped his broadsword to run and grap a longsword and an axe. He then looked up at the queen who was clapping. She then looked at him.

"Well, this is shaping up to be quite fun. I just hope you don't die too quickly, I am starting to enjoy watching you kill, rather exilirating."

Mikel just gave out a small sigh as he thought about how enthusiased he had been about this fight. Now, he just wanted it to end soon. He looked at his next opponent. Only 3 people came out but they were twice his size and carried swords that were bigger than both his arms together. Mikel thought to himself about how hard this was probably going to be but quickly shook the idea out of his head. he knew he had to be confident if he was going to win. He kept psyching himself up. When Mikel finally got his courage back he looked at one of them. "You are twice my size, why do you need to team up against me as well? Are you all to afraid to take me on one at a time?" Mikel asked them in a condescending manner.

This got one of them mad and when his teammates tried to calm him down he just hit one of them on the head with the hilt of his sword, knocking one out, the other just backing down and letting him fight on his own. The angry opponent started to charge at Mikel and slashed down, faster than Mikel had expected he could and with more force than Mikel would have liked. Barely dodging the strike Mikel quickly tried to slash at the giant's legs and his sword bounced off. The giant laughed and struck again but Mikel knew the speed of the strike and this time was able to dodge it, jumping up and cutting his wrist off. Mikel now knew that the only point where he could even barely cut was their joints. With the giant only having one hand he was no longer able to hold his sword and resorted to trying to crush his smaller foe. But, as he was larger he was slower and he couldn't hit Mikel. Then after Mikel dodged one of the punches he saw another of the giants running towards him and he got an idea. He just kept dodging the punches not paying attention to the other. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other giant strike straight down at Mikel. His plan was working, he dodged, letting the one handed giant get stabbed in the foot by the incoming blade. That caused extreme abger and the on-handed giant proceeded to take the other and start to choke him. Not to let this good situation go to waist Mikel cut off one of the one-handed giant's feet at the ankle.But the giant went on, choking his would-be ally, until the giant who was being choked decided to chop off his head with his sword. The giant fell down gasping for air, not thinking that he had just killed his only ally. Mikel didn't wait for long before he tried to cut the other giant's head off, which was surprisingly easy.



Thinking to himself about how easy it was for their size and congratulating himself he looked over to the one that had been knocked unconscious. It was just getting up. It shook its head and charged at Mikel, not knowing what exactly had happened to his bretheren but in a rage after seeing their dead bodies. Taking advantage over his rage Mikel quickly set up a few of the giatn's swords to try and get the giant to trip over on the fall, which would allor Mikel to go up and slice off its head. However, when the giant got to th swords it just stumbled a little and regained balance. Determined not to die here Mikel charged to giant to try and pass while cutting off both ankles. Since he didn't concetrate his strength though both ankles were only slit allowing the giant to just stuble a little. Mikel thought the giant couldn't keep up and decided to try the same thing again howere this time to try for his right ankle only. It work due to the fact that the giant could barely stand up let alone do a counter-attack. Once the giant was down, Mikel quickly decapitated it.

The entire crowd cheerd. For the first time Mikel srated to actually feel welcome. He looked up with a wide smile on his face. He thought to himself that maybe it was going to be a little easier than he origionally thought. Once the crowd died down Mikel took all the strength he had laeft and started to try and wield the sword the giants had used. He could barely wield them and it was a clumsy wielding at best. Mikel knew that he could not wield it good, and dropped it, gathering 2 longswords to try and fight if there were any more opponents.

Mikel looked up at the queen and yelled out. "Now, will you listen." And a voice came down, "You are almost done but not yet, this last fight will not be to the death but it will still be one of the most difficult you will have to do. if you win this one we will start negotiating for what you were talking about."

Mikel kind os let out a sigh of relief as he yelled up asking who the opponent would be. When the queen said that she would be his last opponent he kind of laughed. Mikel thought to himself how he had never fought a girl. But when the queen jumped down and landed perfectly on her feet, Mikel let his jaw drop down.

"You will finde me tougher than you would ever know." The queen told Mikel as she tooke out a pair of matching longswords laced with silver. She charged at Mikel and struck at his abdomen, Mikel barely rolling to the side and lunging towards her leg. Mikel was going to strike her at her stomance but could not bring himself to do it. He didn't know why.

"You are good." Mikel said astonished that she was doing this good. He then noticed something he hadn't been allowed to see before. The queen was beautiful and he told her of that.

"Flattery will not work on me." The queen relied as she knocked Mikel's linge away and attempted to stab him in the leg as well.

"Well, I was just stating a fat." Mikel said as he attempted to dodge the strike, which grazed his leg as he stubled afterwards trying to get his balance again

The queen didn't let up on her assult each strike leading into the next quicker and quicker until Mikel could barely keep up. Mikel then got and idea, and took one of his swords and

quickly stabbed it into the ground, which got him an odd stare for the queen. H etook this chance to try and knock one of her weapons away with a kick to one of he wrists. Once the first weapon was gone he quickly did his best to try the same with the other weapon. Unfortunately while knocking away her other weapon he had both of his weapons knocked away. Mikel and the queen the decided to just fist-fight it out, punching each other in the jaw and knocking both of them out.

A few days later

Mikel found himself on a bed, his wounds all patched up. He expected to be dead but obviously was still very much alive. He looked up to find the queen looking over at him.

"You did good. Nobody ever knocks me out." She said to him as if congratulating him. "I thought about kinning you but then I just couldn't, I don't know why but every time I looked at you while you were asleep, I felt overjoyed."

"i don't pretend to be an expert on feelings but that sounds a lot like love. I felt pretty much the same thing while we were fighting. Maybe we should get to know more about each other so we can figure out what is causing us to feel this way. Over then next few hours they talked about themselves. Mikel learned as much as he could about the queen and did his best to tell the queen everything about him.

Over the time that Mikel got to know the queen he started to like being around her more. She was all he could think about after a little while. The he admitted it to himself, he had fallen in love with her. His main hope turned away from getting this planet to join and started being that she loved him as well. But Mikel was shy and could not get up the courage to tell her. he waited hoping that he would sometime be able to get courage to tell her.

A few days later

Mikel had been recovering nicely. What made it even better was that the entire time he was recovering he was around Asajj. To him she was the greatest. At that point he would do anything for her. But as he was sitting in bed he was thinking to himself and got up the courage to finally tell her how he felt. At first, she took his declaration of love with surprise, dropping what she had in her hands.

Then after the few minutes of shockwore off she looked stright into his eyes. "I love you too. I didn't want to admit it to myself, but it is true. I can't hide it anymore. But unfortunately it will never work. I am a queen and you are part of the galactic coalition. We could never be together."

"But it could work. Think about it this way, if you joined then you would be part of the galactic coalition and then we could be together. But even if you don't join the coalition, I will still be able to come here a lot. And when two people love each other then they should be with each other not push each other away."

"Well, how would this work?" She asked him still wondering how it could work.

"Okay there are a couple of ways that this could work. One way is that you join the galactic coalition and we are together due to that fact. I could just come around a lot if you don't. I just got another idea. Why don't you abdicate the throne. If you did we could be together forever. You could form a democratic government and then we could try to get them into the coalition."

"Why should I give up everything? Why don't you just quit the coalition and join me as my king?"

"Well, I am not just a member of the coalition, I am also a jedi apprentice. I just didn't want to tell you yet. I heard this whole planet hates jedi."

"I judge on the basis of who a person is, not what a person is. I just wish that you would have told me sooner." She told him trying to assure him she wasn't like most of her people

"Well, I might abdicate but I must say that I should get the planet into the coalition and then abdicate making that my last wish before I leave. The people support the last wish of a queen about to abdicate."

"But before we do any of that I want to marry you. I love you and I know you love me. The normal thing for two people to do when they are in love is to marry." Mikel got one knee. "I don't have a ring yet, but Asajj will you marry me?"

Her face lit up with intense joy. Mikel suspected she was going to say yes and they were going to get married until she started to talk. "I will marry you after we at least get to know each other fully. And don't tell we know everything about each other because I only know about what has happened recently. I want to know what happened to you earlier, maybe you childhood and I will tell you the same about me." So, over the next few hours they both did their best to remember what had happened during their childhood.

After their little session of sharing, Mikel and Asajj loved each other even more. They had more respect for what the other had gone through as they both went through at least one traumatic even happen to them. Mikel thought to himself about how it could go. Hee thought he should probably do something romantic but couldn't think of anything. The he looked at her. "How do you know that you love me?" He asked her in a cheerful voice.

She thought about it for a second, getting her thoughts into words. "I just like being around you. So, how do you know you love me?" She asked back to him trying to see if he could think on his toes as well.

He also thought as he attempted to put his feelings into words." I just know. When I am around you I feel one thoudsand times more alive, more complete."

"Well, now that we know everyhting about each other I will start to set up the wedding. Maybe we should just have something small, just somebody to recognize us as married and that is it." She said as she looked up in thought aas if trying to get this perfect.

"That sounds great, how fast can we get married." Mikel asked hoping for a very short amount of time.

"Well, I can have somebody here this afternoon." She told him politely.

"Once agin this is great. I will just make sure I am completely ready as in cleaned." Mikel told her as he started to go and get ready to get washed up for the wedding.

That afternoon

The priest got there and Mikel Goff and Queen Asajj the 3rd got married in a small wedding with only them and a witness. Afterwards they just sat there and talked about what would happen with the rest of their lives. Mikel reminded her of her plan on how to get her people to join and for them to be able to be together. But, even though that would take little actual planning, getting that many people gathered would be difficult.

So, they started to tell everyone that there would be an announcement a few days later from the queen that was of grave importance, which took them around 9 hours to do with both of them going around telling people. Not only did they tell people but they hit into a HUGE gossiper and she spread it around quicker than both of them combined. Without her it would have taken an extra 2 days. Hearing that it was of grave importance would cause a lot of people to come but Asajj also had to have a way to say what she wanted to say. Getting the words together took more time than it took to tell everyone one that there was going. She was going to tell her people many things. She was going to tell them that she was going to abdicate and that was a cause for a big speech. But also, she was going to give her last wish and tell everyone about her marriage. It took her around a week to get the words to where she felt they were right.

A week later

Everyone in the whole city had gathered to hear the queen talk. Or at least that is what it looked like from up on top of the balcony. Mikel smiled to himself and was a little glad that he didn't have to make any speech as he knew he wasn't much of a public speaker from the little speech he had given in the training simulator. When the queen first looked over the large crown she started to lose her nerve, but she looked over at Mikel and smiled knowing she could do this with him beside her. So, she called him over from beside the door leading into the building, assuring him that it would be alright. He walked over and a few people chhered and a few booed Mikel due to the performance he had given at the gladiator games. But everyone knew that the queen had something important to say so they all got quiet when they started to hear her talk.

"Many years I have been your queen. I could not wish for better years." A loud outburst of applause as the people listened to her praise them. "As you all know, this is Mikel, who played in the gladiator games. "Another large outburst came from the crowd. This time it was a mix of anger and joy. Mikel and Asajj both looked at each other as if to tell each other that this was going to take along time. "What you might not know is that we got married this weeked. Because I love him that much that nothing will keep us apart. But now we have a problem. What you might not know is that he is part of the galctic coalition and trying to become a jedi." This time there was an even greater outburst of anger and hatred against jedi and Mikel could feel this hatred but the queen continued. "I know you hate jedi, for the longest time so did I. But Mikel showed me that jedi can be what we expect them to be or they can be like Mikel. They can be nice, caring, and overall good people. They are just people, however arrogant they may seem. Now you know about how we married but that is not all." The crowd hushed as if in expectation of what comes next. " The next thing comes in two parts. The first thing is that I am planning to abdicate the throne but I am not sure. I have to know that my wishes will happen." From the crowd you could hear the audience telling her not to abdicate and that if she was then they would gladly do anything that she asked before she left. "I would like you to join the galactic coalition. I know that is the reason I am leaving and you would probably not like them. Truthfully I really didn't even think about joining. I was thinking that the coalition was no good. That they were just going to drag us down. But then I thought about how much we need to help everyone in the galaxy. We need to not just think of ourselves but we need to be there when people need us. We are great warriors but still we only fight each other for fun. How much good do you think we could do if we committed ourselves to some greater cause. As great as we are we could easily help the galactic coatition. I think that we should join so what do you say." A huge outcray as everyone almost as if on cue gave out a 'we support your idea'.

Both Mikel and Asajj smiled to each other as they knew this was great news. Then they gave each other a hug and kissed each other not paying attention to anyone else there. They could both be with each other forever.

Aftermath

Many great thing happened beause of Mikel going to Rattatak. He had met Asajj and fallen in love with her. Afterwards he had married her. Also there was the simple fact that he had completed his mission and helped two civilizations. He had helped the coalition by getting another planet to join. And second he helped Rattatak by getting them to join the coaliton which allowed trade to stimulate the economy and allow them to be ablt to say that they were great warriors as they could finally prove themselves against other foes that they would not be able to fight without joining the coalition.