Taves was told to take the diplomat to Antilles office with Doren for debriefing. Antilles wasn't yet back from his talk with Resei so there was a Lieutenant in the room. Taves gave a bow "Sir, the Captain told us to come here for debriefing. We have the diplomat here." Taves said motioning to him. Taves was still a little bit on edge after meeting up with Resei though he hoped he didn't show it

The Lieutenant nodded, and stood up. He suddenly became blurry, and disappeared altogether. If Taves would be looking at the diplomat next to him, he'd notice a small device in the man's hand that was aimed at the hologram, and... the lieutenant again?

- "What, thought you were the only Clawdite in the Royal Guard?" :)

He walked towards Captain Antilles' desk, taking place behind it as he looked at Taves and Doren. He leaned forward a bit, his elbows resting on the table as he looked at both trainees in turn with interest.

- "Name's lieutenant Var'keth, i'm in charge of the academy when the Captain's unavailable... Right, let's hear that mission briefing of yours now."

Doren felt like letting Taves handle the debriefing. This mission was boring enough to him already without having to give a report. After shaking himself out of the initial daze from seeing a fellow Clawdite he began. "Well Sir the mission was relatively smooth no attempts on anyone's lives as I believe you know. There was a bit of grudge work standing next to people and night shifts, but for the most part it was uneventful." If there was more the lieutenant wanted to hear Taves had no idea what it was.

Var'keth nodded, grinning at the boredom seeping through into Taves' voice. A surprising amount of recruits invariably became bored to tears after their first uneventful mission, and these two were apparently no exception. His eyebrows went up when he heard something though, and raised a hand for them to be quiet for a second.

- "Right... Captain Antilles'll be here in a bit for the official speech, but first i'd need to talk to Taves a bit. Doren, if you don't mind waiting outside for a bit..."

'And if you DO mind, you still get to wait outside'

He grinned at the afterthought as he waited for Doren to leave. For his rank, he never could quite get people to stop thinking of him as a trickster of some kind, but he just used to jokingly blame it on his race as a whole. Not now though, as his face turned serious after the doors had closed behind Doren.

- "Okay, there's this person called Resei who wants to talk to you, something about how you quit your last job? Anyway, he's not here to drag you back or kill you, so you can either meet him or talk to him on a console, whichever you prefer."

Taves thought about it. He was no coward, and in his experience Resei tended to be a man of his word. Despite the obvious lies any bounty hunter might have to tell once in a while.

Taves stood there thinking about what either action could produce. Considering Resei had disarmed himself Taves felt it wouldn't be a great risk to meet him in person. He also knew Resei probably wouldn't stop unless he had met Taves in person.

"Alright, I've decided. I'll meet him in person. Is there anything you need to say or know before I go?"

- "Only that you don't have to leave the room. This is Captain Antilles' office, remember?" ;)

Giving Taves a wide grin, he leaned back again, stretching out a bit before getting up. Temporarily being the person in charge was all good and well, but it would be another thing entirely to have his CO see him with his proverbial feet on the desk.

-----

Captain Antilles entered the room, acknowledging Var'keths casual salute with a nod of his own. The two would stand on either side of the room between Taves and Resei just in case, though they were just being on the safe side what with the number of Sith they had run into over the past month.

He had given Resei the key to the security locker he had stashed his gear in as a sign of trust, knowing all too well how much a bounty hunter hated the possibility of people potentially messing with their equipment as well as counterbalancing the amount of trust he had put in them in return.

Resei and Antilles entered the room together, Antilles a few steps before Resei.
He motioned Resei over to Taves, and took his position.
The conversation could begin.

"Well, Taves. We meet again." He made an apologetic smile.
“I am only here to find out if you are alive or death, and what happened to you. Why did you quit? Or, most important, you red-haired Corellian (he winked cleverly, having now understood how things had happened, confirming his suspicions): are you still alive?”

He grinned at Taves, hoping there would be no problems during the conversation.

Taves was sure now that Resei didn't want trouble. However he refused to keep his guard down knowing that Resei like him was trained to kill.

"Well" said Taves waving his hands up and down "if I seem dead it's news to me." He gave a little bit of a smile. "As far as why I left all I can say is I couldn't take it. Being a bounty hunter was going against my grain. Doubts always came during missions. When I killed that Tusken on Tatooine I saw his children in his tent as I killed him. All so a man could get the land for his own gain. When I was hunting Jin-Ho I had to interrogate a man. The mere prescence of Demagol and seeing what he had done to that man made me want to tear my eyes out. However, I think it all came together during my last mission. I returned what turned out to be a lightsaber to some old Jedi. His compassion he had for me even though he never met me took away all doubts. I quit that day thank the Force."

Taves was interested at his praise of the Force at the end. That was something he was never prone to. It seemed almost involuntary.

Resei smiled, his eyes somewhere distant, in his chaldhoods streets of Coruscant. He was looking into the eyes of a man who had just saved him from a really good beating.
Then it was over.

"Don't tell any one, but sometimes I feel like that myself. I met a Jedi once, too... And by the way a beggar in a side street watched you and the Jedi, so I knew already.
And I am to become a Jedi hunter if everything works out as planned."

A faint tear could be seen in his eyes.

"I hope there will be more Sith to hunt than Jedi... I have also tortured a man, and met Demagol... It was terrible. I had to think of all those whom I hated, and still hate, to manage it... What I'm trying to say is- I understand you, and the Guild held no grudge, neither do I. Now my mission is finished, and I shall leave you. You won't hear from us again- unless you get a really big, tasty bounty on your head. Then you better run." He smiled, nodded to Anilles and turned to leave for his equipment. His rough clothes were cold...

"You might want to get rid of that hatred. It could help you sleep better at night. And Just so you know if you succeed to be a Jedi Hunter we may meet sooner than you think."

Taves wondered if there was any truth to that statement. As lewy left he raised his hand in goodbye. With that he hoped his past was gone. He hoped.

Though he didn't move a muscle during the entire conversation, it would have been foolish to claim that the tall man had not been listening. Taves being the person that had been sent to track down Jin-ho was... interesting, and all the more ironic if he ever found out she'd be his superior.

- "Lieutenant, go and pick up Doren now, please. Time to finish up on this mission."

As Var'keth left again, he turned to Taves, using the time they had between the two of them to cover some of the personal things Resei had mentioned.

- "Rest assured Taves, none of what was said here will leave this room unless you choose to. While i admit some of the things have come as a surprise to me, i am not the type of person to misuse what i know."

Taves slumped a little bit. He was almost to the point of shedding tears. His words finally came out "I'm sorry Sir. You've done nothing but help me since I've come, and I couldn't tell you. P-Please forgive me. I frankly have no more real secrets left, so I have no more reason to hide anything from you." Taves hoped this little event wouldn't send him away from his new home.

Captain Antilles raised his hand, the smile on his face a genuinely comforting one.

- "No need to worry about that, everyone's entitled to having their secrets if they choose to. Even i have things i'd rather not know, yet it's how we deal with it that matters in the end. As long as you keep learning from your mistakes, things aren't as bad as you'd think."

Taves cracked a smile. He was glad he wouldn't have to leave Alderaan. It had become his one place of peace since he left the bounty hunters. "Well Sir, maybe some day we'll be able to have no secrets between us, (Taves was referring to Antilles knowledge of the Rebellion which he knew would probably come in time) but some things must remain sacred."

Taves' and Antilles' conversation was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of Doren and the lieutenant. "Well, if you need the account of the mission I can give it again. Is there anything other than that that you need to know or should I return to my training?"

Captain Antilles moved from one stance into the other flawlessly, as if he had been waiting on the two of them all along.

- "You two will probably wonder why i sent you on that mission. Absolutely nothing happened, and i suspect you'd have been bored to tears about halfway through. That, in fact, would be the exact reason you were sent out."

He started pacing up and down his office, turning to face the two of them as he talked.

- "From the perspective of Protection Services, that mission was a complete success. Since it focuses on protection, the main goals it sets is to avoid bringing down unwanted attention on yourselves, and to have nothing out of the ordinary happen that could potentially put your protectee in danger. Elite troops like myself get to guard members of the Royal Family, and even though the risk is much higher, this basic goal of Protection Services remains true."

He stopped walking now, sitting on the edge of his desk, while keeping his arms crossed.

- "Boredom is both your greatest ally as well as your enemy. Ally, because it means you are doing a good job. Enemy, because it can lead to casualness. One of the most important things to learn in this line of work is the ability to keep yourself busy while keeping yourself focused on your mission. Var'keth, rook to E-4."

Var'keth perked up, thought for a second or two, then replied.

- "Ahh, nice move, hadn't expected that one. Pawn to F-3."

Captain Antilles grinned as he turned back to Taves and Doren.

- "As for Lieutenant Var'keth and myself, we've taken to memorising an ancient game called chess. By memorising the placement, we have surpassed the need for the actual pieces and board, and we can use it to keep ourselves focused by keeping ourselves busy. As for you, you will one day find something else."

- "'Now that you have witnessed firsthand what your first number of missions under Protection Services are going to be like, i will ask you whether or not you wish to continue. I'll be honest though, the first set of missions for relatively green troops will be low-risk, partially for their own sake, and until you find something to keep your minds occupied with things are going to be tough, mentally."

Both him and Var'keth were waiting on the reply from the two trainees now. Would they continue studying under Protection Services... or would they choose Security in general, or perhaps even the Army. Though the latter didn't have a lot of action either, Alderaan being a peaceful planet.

Taves thought about it. Even though he did he knew that there was one answer and one alone. "Well, I'm sure of where I'm going. I'm staying here. I figure I've done enough in the way of death recently. I think I'm going to repay my debt. I'm sticking to protection." "Well in that case" said Doren "I'm going to stay in protection too."

Taves was struck by this. "Really? I figured you'd want to go into the military. More action, you know?" "Ya" replied Doren "but you seem to get into trouble, and who's going to save your sorry backside when your in it?"

Taves smiled. It was a comfort that Doren was going to stick with him. "Well" he said adressing Antilles again "looks like you have two new protection agents on your hands. What are your orders Sir?" He and Doren snapped into attention. Both had wide smiles on their faces.

Captain Antilles was pleased, noting the enthousiasm of both of his students even after having been confronted with the downsides of the profession they had chosen for themselves. He stood up and walked over to Taves and Doren, a somewhat secretive smile on his face, as if he knew something they didn't.

- "In that case... Taves Sarfell, Doren Kelgarn, i am proud to promote you two to full Royal Guards, having just passed the exam on Delaya. With the promotion comes a week of leave, which is generally used to orientate onself, and become familiar with the new regulations they have to keep mindful of. Congratulations."

He saluted to each of them in turn, all the while Var'keth was still leaning against the wall, silently chuckling at some inner joke. Doren noticed, and the lieutenant anticipated him by answering before he'd had the chance to ask about it... in his own usual way, of course.

- "What, you guys thought they'd send lieutenants out for fun?" ^_^

He walked over to congratulate them, saluting them much like Captain Antilles had. After that however, he'd place his hands on a shoulder of each of them, and leaned down to whisper something to the both of them at once.

- "...Though next time, try to hurry up with the coffee, allright?" ;)

Taves and Doren were ecstatic. Taves was happy he had finallly passed the test. He was going to be a Royal Guard.

He was only able to contain his joy long enough to ask Antilles a question that was burning in his mind. "Is there anything else we need to know before we begin?" He was ready to start, but he remembered what Antilles had told him about eagerness and how it could lead to uneccesary risks. However he felt he deserved a little bit of leeway in this case.

A thousand thoughts buzzed through his head. Did this mean he was closer to being a Rebel? Did the old Jedi know what just happened? Would he see Jin-Ho ever again? This final question confused him like his recent talk of the Force had. It had popped out of nowhere. Why was he interested in seeing Jin-Ho? Was it because he wanted to finally see her face to face after she had eluded him so long.

He tried to tear away from these thoughts at the moment. He felt if he continued he might leave this plain of existence forever for one of endless thought.

Captain Antilles shook his head in response to Taves' question, and looked at Var'keth, who gave him a nod in return before the Clawdite gave the answer.

- "Not really, your lessons should've taught you everything you need to know already. Just use that week of leave to get used to the idea of being in the Guard, we need level-headed people on missions, remember!" ;)

Taves and Doren would find themselves ushered out of the office within a few seconds, the lieutenant telling them to 'enjoy their leave' and 'knock themselves out' before the door closed behind them.

"Well" said Taves "what should we do first?" "I'll tell you what we need to do" replied Doren. "We need to go out on the town tonight. Drinks, women, the works." "You can go with the women" said Taves "but I'm gonna steer clear. You know what you could contract from the women skulking around the underworld of Aldera." "Good point" replied Doren "but you know what I mean anyway. Kinda like that night we had on Delaya except without the nasty night shift immediately afterward." "Alright" said Taves "I could go for a drink right now." With that the two friends headed off toward Aldera and the bars that it contained.