"Master Jedi," he said in a startingly calm and smooth voice, choosing not to rise from his seat. "I suppose I should not have been surprised to see you collaborating so closely with one of my own. Lord Nestor, my thanks for coming so quickly."
"Your man had his orders," I said simply. "It was only polite to oblige him. I take it you wanted to discuss something with us beyond your immediate surrender?"
...
"So blunt and to the point. Here I thought you were a diplomat. Perhaps we can discuss it over a cup of tea?" The Sith indicated the table set with six other dainty teacups set up on the side opposite him. In the center of the table, a large teapot sat swathed in a vivid red cozy. Personally, I gave it even odds that its contents were poisoned. "It's a delightful local blend."
"Why are you here?" the Jedi Knight asked. "It's clearly not to turn yourself in."
"If you must know, I am taking a brief break from cultivating the loyalty of House Thul," he answered. "I have a soiree planned this evening with a Lady Elana Thul, and I would prefer my mind to be free of distractions when dining with a lady."
"Lord Praven, please do not play the fool," I said. Off to the side, I got the distinct impression of amusement, but I chose to ignore the distraction. "Last I heard, Darth Angral had you combing the desert of Tatooine in search of some superweapon to destroy a planet. Why are you on Alderaan?"
"His priorities have shifted," he freely admitted.
"In response to his failures?" the Little Jedi asked from behind Lord Praven.
"In response to strategic changes," he corrected. To his credit, the Sith remained as calm as before, only barely turning his head to answer her. He must have known just how many Sith Lords the Little Jedi had killed by then. I had personally fed her three of them.
"You aren't answering the question," I pointed out. "Why are you here? Why did you ask for me to come here?"
"Lord Nestor, you continue to frustrate the analysts trying to construct a profile of you," the Sith Lord said, still refusing to answer the damn question. "On the one hand, a loyal member of the Empire. On the other hand, willing to collaborate with the Jedi. On the one hand, ready and willing to bring worlds into the imperial fold despite being critical of the methods being used. On the other hand, willing to risk an alliance in the making by wiping out an imperial installation."
"I have standards," I deadpanned, not sure if he was referring to the Intelligence Outpost or the extermination factory. The former was something that had simply happened. The latter was a point of pride.
"Oh, that was never in doubt," he said. "In fact, we are not dissimilar, you and I."
"Lia," I announced, directing my masked gaze at the diminutive Jedi waiting behind the Sith Lord. "If Lord Praven does not answer my question in the next sixty seconds, please kill him."
For several long moments, the Sith Lord paused to gaze straight at me. Not a single ounce of his attention was directed the Jedi Shadow in prime position to cut him in half from behind while his haze bored into me as though he were trying to get to my thoughts. Truth be told, he was welcome to it; the only thing behind these eyes was the result of tabloids and lax libel laws.
"I wished to talk to you," he said at last. Forty seconds after I had given my statement, I noted. "It is rare that I get to speak with another pragmatic idealist, after all."
Oh, I did not like this.
"Really? Me?" I asked. "Not the man who killed your apprentice? The man who killed your master's son? I'm the one who has earned your interest? You flatter me, Lord Praven, but you're not my type."
"Try being shorter," Bybon muttered, but I chose to pay him no mind. "Also female."
"You cannot pretend that you have not felt it, Lord Nestor," he said calmly, wrapping both of his hands around the dainty teacup in front of him. "We are both men of conviction, Lord Nestor. Convictions we have both set aside in the name of a greater goal. Convictions we have both set aside in the name of following orders."
Excuse me?
"Yeah, no," I hissed, lightsaber flying from my belt and into my hand. All around me, five other lightsabers sprung to life – two blue, three red – but Lord Praven did not reciprocate. He released his dainty cup and brought both hands up, palms down, fingers pointing at me.
Lightning began to crackle around his fingers, but never fully materialized as a triplet of blue toroidal energy bolts slammed into his side. Stun bolts, I realized, as the Sith Lord collapsed onto the table. The delicately arranged teacups were either shattered or scattered, but it hardly mattered; they had not been about to see any real use.
From behind me, an electronic warble of triumph played out.
I suppose I had told the droid to wait for my signal.
"Levin," I addressed the apprentice with the vulnerable mind. "You're quite good at telepathy, aren't you?"
"I have a talent for it," he admitted. "Why?"
"Because Lord Praven has proven singularly unhelpful while conscious," I said. "You have five minutes to get what you can from his mind before I use him as a bargaining chip."
"A bargaining chip?" the Jedi Knight asked.
"From what I have been able to tell, Bouris Ulgo has an enduring and unabashed hatred for the Sith and the Empire," I said before gesturing to the unconscious Sith Lord. "This is my ticket to speak with him and not get killed in the bargain."
...
Ordinarily, an airspeeder occupied by a Jedi Shadow, a poorly trained dimensionally transplanted Sith Lord, and an unconscious aspiring war criminal would be a solid opening for a road trip movie. Unfortunately, that kind of setup became a lot less funny when you were living it.
Doubly so when the bugs with their legs buried in your chest and shoulder were making their presence noted once again.
Digging my fingers beneath my mask, I pulled the bottom section up a bit to free my mouth. Rooting around in my pockets, I produced an orange tube of pain medications. Almost familiar, that. I upended the contained into my hand, emptying the contained of its last few tablets. Not even bothering to count them, I shoved them into my mouth and swallowed immediately, trying not to dwell on the chalky taste for too long.
Of course, the taste lingered anyway.
Pulling the mask back down, I returned my attention to our flight path. Naturally, I was not flying the speeder. As a good citizen, I knew perfectly well not to operate heavy machinery after taking pain medication. More importantly, this meant that the Little Jedi didn't have the opportunity to murder the unconscious form of Lord Praven before Bouris Ulgo had the chance to do so.
"Wasn't that supposed to be a two-week supply?" the Little Jedi asked, not taking her eyes off the… well, not road. She was taking the speeder along a delightfully picturesque route featuring rolling hills, snow-capped mountains, beautiful streams, and who knows how many different shades of greens. Apparently, taking the direct route to Ulgo lands was an elaborate way of committing suicide.
"For normal patients," I allowed. Already, I could feel the precision-engineered cocktail of drugs taking effect, reinforcing the comfortable numbness that blocked out whatever the bugs were trying to pump into my body. "Please remember that I am anything but normal."
"This is hardly the time for jokes," she said, eyes narrowing at the path ahead of us. The carefully manicured forest we were currently speeding past did look suspiciously capable of hiding people intent on ambushing some perfectly innocent travelers, true, but we were in a single speeder some distance from the current front lines. Relatively safe, as far as I was concerned.
Relatively.
"Is it really that serious?" I asked.
"We're flying off to meet with a man who started a civil war because nobody else on the planet was interested in throwing out an Empire-aligned noble house, and you're taking painkillers like they're your favorite kind of candy," she pointed out. "Yes, it's really that serious."
"… is this a bad time to mention that I haven't slept since arriving on Nar Shaddaa?" I asked, and the Little Jedi slowly turned her head to look at me. As we were currently in the middle of a banking turn to get around an annoyingly tall mountain, it was more than a little concerning.
"You're mentioning this now?" she asked. "Right before you need to be at your best and not sleep-deprived and drugged out of your mind?"
"Look, it's not like I've been pulling all-nighters voluntarily," I said, indignation beginning to creep into my voice. "If I cannot fall asleep, then I cannot fall asleep. Simple as that."
"For almost an entire week?" she asked.
"So maybe there is an underlying condition," I said. "Nothing we can do about it now."
"The bugs?" the Little Jedi guessed, returning her eyes to the path ahead of us as we sped along some flower-studded hills.
"What else could it be?" I asked. "We already know they're doing something to me, and the painkillers just block out the worst of it. Who knows what kind of junk those things are pumping into me as we speak?"
"Then why were you so intent on speeding off towards the next high-stakes negotiation instead of finding a medical droid?"
"Because I don't trust the medical droids to keep whatever the results of those tests under wraps," I said.
"And if it ever becomes public knowledge that I am unfit to handle the responsibility of leading the saner half of the galaxy against Darth Angral, this whole venture will come down around our heads. None of the people I managed to drag into this from the Empire came entirely voluntarily."
...
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