The rest of the Council finally disconnected. It was past midnight on Coruscant, the war raged on, and Mace still had datawork to do. He pulled out the datapad he'd brought in.
Master Yoda stared at him discerningly. “Working late, you are.”
Mace sighed. “I have reports to approve and acquisition forms to sign off on. I tried requesting a secretary, but apparently we don't have the budget.”
“Hmm.” Master Yoda frowned, then shuffled closer to thwack Mace in the shins. “Overworking yourself, you are. A sprint, life is not,” he scolded. “Relax, you should. Signing up for HelloVaré, I would suggest.”
“HelloVaré?” Mace had never heard of it.
“A way to find companionship, it is. Of all kinds.” Master Yoda winked. “Now, sleep, you should. Delegate the tasks to your Clone Commanders, you can.”
“But they don't have the authorization-” Mace cut himself off as Master Yoda cheerfully exited the room without any response to Mace's words. He sighed. Neyo really didn't have the rank to authorize or sign off on anything, but if Master Yoda suggested it, well, maybe Mace could see about offloading some of the less critical ones to Neyo or other senior clones.
First, however, he would rest. He put the datapad down on the desk and went off to bed.
A few days later, he recalled Master Yoda's recommendation and looked up HelloVaré. It was some sort of dating site. As he'd been lonely recently due to all his usual companions being deployed on different schedules to him, he decided to see what it was about.
After some basic biographical information, he was presented with a truly stunning array of sexual preferences. He ticked every species and gender sexually compatible with humans – some people had preferences; he did not – and pressed Next.
He was confronted with an array of questions on what type of relationship he wanted. He ticked being okay with one-night stands and casual dating and vetoed marriage, then set a Human-equivalent age range, answered a few odd questions about his personality, and was off. He'd probably not get as many hits as he might, given the lack of images, but this was Coruscant with its billions of inhabitants and Mace Windu, Jedi Master and General of the Grand Army of the Republic, being on a dating site might be an embarrassing news item while Mace, 51, was just another person one might encounter.
Clicking through the profiles was a surprisingly good time-waster. Mace looked at the pictures, yes, but mostly he based his decisions on the profile text and questions. Half an hour later, he was happily chatting with Aldai, 48, who boasted an impressive sex toy collection and a doctorate in genomics.
Just before Mace could press send on the message suggesting a meeting, he got orders to assault Sarka. He sighed and informed Aldai he'd just had a work emergency that would take some time to resolve.
When he returned from Sarka, a tenday later, bruised, slightly battered, and definitely in need of a good, hard fuck, he discovered Aldai had unmatched him. As his Jedi friends were still deployed to the ends of the galaxy, he went back to HelloVaré and browsed through profiles.
New match with Ezalie, 46. Mace opened the chat and sent a greeting.
Are you General Grievous? Ezalie immediately replied.
Mace stared at the screen for a moment. What? No, he eventually typed, baffled.
Ezalie unmatched him. “I don't think General Grievous would be findable from Coruscant, even if he were on HelloVaré,” Mace said out loud, despite the fact Ezalie wasn't there to hear.
He didn't get any new matches that evening, which he chalked up to happenstance. Even Coruscant slept occasionally, and not everyone was into Human men of his age.
Three days later, he still hadn't gotten any matches. Perhaps there simply weren't that many Human-attracted sentients between ages 46 and 56 who didn't wish to get married. He went and tinkered with his age range, setting the minimum to be a year older than Depa – if she was also on HelloVaré, Mace did not want to know – and put his maximum to infinity. If he encountered Master Yoda, he'd simply decline the match and hope Master Yoda hadn't led with any sexy pictures.
The site calculated for a moment before spitting out a new set of profiles for him to look at. Cyslin, 68, was a Mirialan woman posing with a flogger and a smirk. Mace sighed as he pressed the decline button under his old Master's image.
After declining potential matches with Jocasta Nu (Jocasta, 84), Ki-Adi-Mundi (Ki-Adi, 72), and Master Yoda (Yoda, NaN), he was finally shown a new profile some days later. Irva, 45, was a human who looked boring enough to work for Intelligence. He immediately accepted the potential match and was rewarded a few hours later when she, too, accepted. Mace sent his standard greeting.
Hello! came the immediate reply. Sorry if Im slow replying. The Jedis burned down my dads house on Alderaan and Im looking at insurance.
Mace stared at the message. Jedi? Burning something down? He abused his privileges to scan through the active field duty assignments. As he suspected, no-one was currently on Alderaan, nor had they been there for almost a year. Are you sure it was the Jedi? They're a bit busy fighting a war currently, he wrote Irva.
Actually the war is fake and the media is LYING to you, Irva replied. Tjhe Jedis have been in control of the government for DECADES and are using MIND CONTROL RAYS to CONTROL THE SENATE. Thats why the Chancellor has all those powers now. Its easier for the Jedis to control ONE person so theyre making him the dictator so they can FIRE the Senate.
The Head of the Order was not a position that allowed much pettiness. Mace drew out his entire year's quota, replied to Irva with I wish, and unmatched her. Life was too short to deal with someone who did not commune with reality.
Mace spent the next few days doing datawork, teaching youngling classes, and going through HelloVaré profiles. As this batch consisted of people looking for board game playing company, Mace declined the matches. He had played Settlers of Ketakis with Master Yoda, once, and that had been one time too many.
Dlann, 58, on the other hand, had several pictures of exotic flora and a profile that spoke of a love of theater and deep literature. Mace would happily spend a few hours with them. He hadn't really hoped for anything but a one-night stand, but someone who to take on casual dates to the theater? That sounded good.
Dlann must've thought the same thing, because the site informed him of a match. As he didn't have that many fans of theater to chat with, Mace immediately opened the chat, even if he was in a public corridor.
The Chancellor is a Sit Lord, Dlann wrote before Mace could get out so much as a Hello.
Mace stared at the screen. Another conspiracy theorist? What had he done to deserve this? He asked Dlann what their favorite play was in an effort to derail whatever bantha poodoo was about to happen.
Dlann, alas, ignored him, and lengthily explained that a “Sit Lord” was an evil Force user like Dooku, and this descent into evilness happened to all Force sensitives who lived outside the Jedi Temple, which was why the Jedi recruited all Force sensitive children. It was, perhaps, heartening that someone had read the original briefing where the Jedi described Dooku as a Sith Lord and gave a brief description on what that meant, but on the other hand, the other stuff was easily disprovable based on things available on the common HoloNet. Mace dug out the Order's publicly available page on youngling acquisition and linked it to Dlann.
It did not stop their roll. They continued on a long rant about how Dooku was behind the invasion of Naboo which had made Palpatine Chancellor. While the invasion was probably a Sith plot, well- Mace watched Dlann roll on to an elaborate explanation of why living outside the Jedi Temple made Force sensitives evil.
Actually, it doesn't work like that, Mace couldn't help but reply. He slid down the wall and sat on the ground, furiously typing up an actual explanation of how the Force worked.
He had just hit send when he realized he should probably find some publicly available source for his explanation, in case Dlann was a remarkably creative honeypot from the Separatists. He should've just matched with Ki-Adi-Mundi. At least Ki-Adi didn't think the Chancellor was a Sith Lord.
A throat was cleared next to him. “Master Windu? Are you busy?”
Mace turned to see Anakin Skywalker looking down at him. He didn't think any reports of Anakin's were in his queue, so this was some unrelated matter.
He glanced at his datapad. Dlann had ignored most of his reply and written instead something about how Palpatine's late friend Hego Damask had a stake in the Trade Federation's droid production subcorporation, which meant that Palpatine was behind the current war. “Are you familiar with HelloVaré?” he asked.
Anakin blinked. “It's named after a legendary Nabooan matchmaker?”
“Are you perhaps aware of a feature to exclusively match to conspiracy theorists?” On his screen, Dlann wrote a paragraph about the Kaminoans working for the Techno Union. “I appear to have ticked it by accident.”
“I haven't used it, sorry.” Anakin took a half-step forward, interest obviously piqued. “How bad is it?”
“One person unmatched me when I told her I wasn't General Grievous, one thinks the Jedi are mind controlling the Senate, and my current match believes that the Chancellor is a Sit Lord in league with the Trade Federation.” Mace sighed and rubbed his face.
“I guess he does have a nice chair?” Anakin offered. He shifted nervously on his feet. “Uh, so you want to find someone?”
“I would appreciate companionship, yes.” Mace looked at the newest paragraph Dlann had written and closed his datapad without reading it. “I do not have preferences in gender or species, merely that whomever it is be at least forty human-equivalent.”
Anakin lit up. “I know someone who fits! May I give him your comm code?”
“Go ahead,” Mace said. He didn't seem to be getting anywhere with HelloVaré. At least whomever Anakin had to recommend would probably not think the Chancellor was a mind controlled puppet.
“But I originally wanted to ask about teaching schedules,” Anakin continued. “I was supposed to teach the ten-year-olds' lightsaber class next Benduday, but that's the only timeslot Ahsoka has free so I was wondering whether I could swap with someone?”
Mace turned his datapad back on and didn't even pretend to skim Dlann's five pages of missive. “I'll check the schedules and comm you,” he promised.
“Thanks!” Anakin bowed and skittered off.
Mace turned his datapad over in his hands. He had half a mind to delete his HelloVaré profile, but perhaps he should ask Master Yoda for assistance first. Hopefully whomever Anakin's friend was, it would work out.
It was Wilhuff Tarkin. Mace stared at the message proclaiming the sender's identity. He supposed he should be glad Anakin hadn't set him up with the Chancellor.
With a great sigh, Mace pushed aside all of Even's complaints about the man and suggested a meeting. At least Tarkin wouldn't rant at him about conspiracy theories, unmatch him once he realized he wasn't Grievous, or believe that the war was faked. He'd even understand being called away last-minute by duty. Mace suggested a hole in the wall restaurant in an hour.
Perhaps the real match was the lowering of standards he'd done along the way. He popped into the fresher for a quick shower and hoped Tarkin would be worth it.