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"…Not if they've got in the way of what we have now," Harry replied honestly after looking back at her silently, their emotions traveling between them without words.
Zule was fiery and aggressive, but also caring and warm once you got to know her. She was also Aayla's closest friend within the clan, and Harry had seen both the good and the bad from her during their time on the Explorer. While he couldn't say he knew the young woman Zule had become during her time at the Temple, Aayla did and had shared her memories of their times together, so that really didn't matter much.
Padme, in contrast, was calm, controlled, and desperately needed an outlet from her normal life as queen, time to simply be a girl. That need, as well as how fiercely intelligent she was, how certain she could be, and how friendly she was, called out to him, though her being two years younger than Harry did make him a little leery.
He couldn't deny that both were attractive in body and mind, but Harry would no sooner act on that then he would cut his own throat. His relationship with Aayla was far too important for that kind of thing. She was the center of his universe, right up there with his mothers in importance.
Tasting the truth of those thoughts, Aayla nearly gushed, her astral image conjuring a chair and pushing Harry into it before sitting down on Harry's astral image and kissing him ardently. "You are my rock, Harry Potter! It goes you, the Order, and the people within it. Those are my loyalties; those are my priorities. I love you, never doubt that."
"I love you, Aayla'secura," Harry said a little breathlessly, then he pulled Aayla's astral form into another kiss, and for a time the two of them were a little too busy to think deep thoughts. But this would not be the last time they had this conversation.
Of course, just because they were helping to teach the students did not mean that Aayla and Harry stopped their own training. Master Fay continued to train them in the mental arts every evening, though neither of them had as much inclination towards them as she did. Lily continued to teach Harry and Aayla how to use runes, with Giiett and Shaak Ti quickly catching up to them. The Togrutan Jedi Knight and the council member had blown through the starter lessons for the runic arrays quickly, despite a number of mishaps.
Master Dooku and Quinlan continued their lightsaber training, even pushing them both harder to make up for the lack of time per day. Dooku continued to teach them politics and even began to push them to actually interact with the Council of Counts once a week to see how politics were played on a daily basis. That this helped both of them build up a rapport with the local leaders was a secondary goal that all the other Jedi missed.
On top of these continuing lessons, piloting was added to their daily regimen. While Aayla and Harry had both had piloting lessons before, of course, those had all been on merchant vessels or Master Fay's yacht. Now they learned starfighter piloting and combat, and it was a whole different ballgame.
Despite that, Both Aayla and Harry proved to be excellent starfighter pilots, and were requested by the Serenno Starfighter Brigade to help them test their new starfighter design, the first version of which finished construction two months after the training center opened for its first class.
It was a little larger than most starfighters, with wings which first swept backwards than forwards and a central body like a slightly squashed diamond shape, much like a Sprite, with twin lasers jutting from the sides of the diamond very slightly. The wings had forward jutting blasters with a reinforced almost shield-like structure on the outer edge of the blaster, connecting and holding the two lasers. The wings also housed the two normal-space engines. The back of the main body of the starfighter contained the hyperspace engine and the fuel tank.
To either side, situated on the wings in the built up section connecting the wings to the main body, were two proton torpedo launchers. Between these two launchers, and slightly aftward so as to not be in danger of any backwash from their launch, was a place for an astromech droid.
As Harry and Aayla walked around it, the Nabooan native who had led the design team pointed out aspects of it, smiling happily at its design. The astromech droid, he explained, was a necessity for this starfighter to help in three areas. First, it saved space which would have been needed to house a computer capable of hyperspace jumps. This space was then used for its proton torpedoes. The second reason for the astromech unit was, of course, maintenance. This design had proven to be a maintenance heavy machine, which may or may not actually force the Serenno government to discontinue it.
"And the third reason?" Harry asked politely.
"Oh, there is a bit of a surprise. Several of the pilots who came back from working with you Jedi to get our people back were impressed by the trick that Master Vos pulled on the pirate dreadnought. The astromech units have been given a program to interact together like a dedicated network system. We call it the integrated targeting network. The droids will all automatically take targeting telemetry from one another when ordered, which will let squadrons of starfighters perform the same trick Master Vos did and even work in a defensive net to help take out incoming missiles or possibly other starfighters."
"How good are the shields on this?" Aayla asked, having hopped up to one of the wings and looked down at the shield emitter.
The man grimaced. "It…well, that aspect isn't as good as we could've hoped. They're…okay, but they're not up to say, those of the N-1 or the Sprites."
Hearing that Harry blanched, realizing that that was a very dangerous weakness. "What if you took the two blasters that are in the body of the starfighter here and replaced them with another generator back here?" he asked, looking at the body of the starfighter from underneath.
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