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Obi-Wan folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at the four intruders.
“And who, may I ask, are you four?”
“And what are you?” Anakin asked, looking somewhat bemused.
The smallest of them shuffled his feet and gulped, before pausing.
“Don’t say anything, Private.”
Two Jedi gazes swivelled to land on the barrel shaped individual who was staring back through narrowed eyes.
“Wasn’t going to, Skipper!”
Obi-Wan’s eyebrow rose further. “Skipper,” he said. “I assume that you would be the leader, then?”
“I’m not telling you anything, Mister.”
“It would be in your best interests to do so.”
“Says who?”
“Says the owner,” Anakin interjected, a touch irritably. “Of the Star Destroyer that you somehow hijacked, flew halfway across the galaxy, and crashed into Dooku’s castle!”
It was unclear whether this irritability was driven by annoyance at the loss of a ship, or sheer jealousy that he hadn’t done it himself. And all of this was leavened by a heaping dose of incredulity that this had been managed by four creatures the size of tookas with no opposable thumbs.
This was met with several unblinking, and as it became increasingly apparent, puzzled stares.
“Who-do?”
“Dooku,” Obi-Wan corrected, hand rising to stroke his beard and in no way concealing a smile.
Skipper stared at him for a moment, before, without looking away, leaning over to one of his companions.
“Kowalski. Do we know a Dooku?”
“That name is unknown, sir. As is everything else around here.” There was a pause as the taller creature’s gaze swept their surroundings a little uneasily, and he coughed. “This certainly isn’t Dublin, sir.”
The leader turned, slowly, tone turning ominous, squinting. “Are you implying that my navigational skills are in doubt, Kowalski?”
The other paused, eyed the squint, then, once again, their surroundings. “… no, sir. Given what we have witnessed so far, I can only conclude that a spontaneous event in space and time has sent us to a galaxy far, far away.”
The leader considered this, and when he spoke, did so in a tone that made Obi-Wan somewhat worried. The fact that it was decidedly reminiscent of Hondo Ohnaka at his most anticipatory was just part of it.
“A galaxy far, far away… and a land of opportunity!” A flipper snapped out. “You. Hairy biped. What is a Dooku?”
Anakin’s own hand clapped itself to his mouth, not even trying to pretend he wasn’t laughing. Obi-Wan, for his part, drew in a deep breath and gathered his dignity.
“My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“Don’t split hairs with me, Only One. And don’t change the subject. What is a Dooku?”
“A bad guy,” Anakin interjected, half giggling. “Tall, grey hair, pale, bad attitude, biped…” He grinned and jerked a thumb at Obi-Wan. “Even hairier than him.”
“With a red lightsabre,” Obi-Wan added. “Which we’d quite like to know the whereabouts of, by the way.”
“A what?”
“Laser sword,” Anakin explained.
Skipper regarded him and nodded.
“Concise, to the point, and thorough,” he said briskly. “We could use a man like you on this team.” He jabbed the flipper at Obi-Wan. “You. Hairy biped. Learn from him. No one likes a talker.”
Obi-Wan’s jaw had dropped. Anakin, irritability gone, looked like he was having the best day of his life.
“We may know this Dooku,” Skipper went on. “What’s it to you?”
“We’re fighting a war against him.”
Skipper nodded. “Understood,” he said. “Kowalski. Tactical report – what did we do with the hairier biped after he electrocuted himself?”
“We pushed him into the sewers, sir.”
“The sewers,” Obi-Wan said flatly.
Anakin wasn’t even pretending that he wasn’t laughing any more.
“And his lightsabre?” Obi-Wan added, before sighing, and correcting himself. “Excuse me, his laser sword?”
Skipper moved, quicker than Obi-Wan would have credited him with. A red glow bathed the operations room. A chunk of Obi-Wan’s beard drifted, curling in the heat, to the floor.
“Finders keepers, Mister."