The Sith Apprentice had very deliberately chosen to lurk as far from her injured allies as possible while still being inside the medical bay. In other words, the corner to the right of the entrance was hers. And she was looking at a cheap datapad that was little more than a translucent display screen. In other words, a holozine.
Oh no.
...
I needed a distraction.
Immediately.
"More importantly, why are you complaining about getting more Sith killed?" I asked.
"Because if I kill too many of your kind, they're going to make me a master, and that's about as boring as it gets," she countered. "Turn around. Your shoulder's as good as I can get it without a Kolto bath."
"Not a fan of Kolto baths," I muttered, spinning myself around on the stool. Did I mind spending hours in a heated tank of what was basically just very thick water? No. Did I appreciate having the smell of antiseptic gunk lingering in my sinuses for a week? Hell no.
"You'll need one," the Little Jedi informed me. "Or stitches."
"I will take the stitches."
"Of course you would prefer getting stabbed."
"Of course you would take an obscene interest in a Sith Lord's well-being," I countered.
"I don't think we should be here for this," Razma commented, her eyes wide.
"Nothing's going to happen, kid," Natia countered. "They've been doing this for as long as they've known each other. The tabloids refuse to shut up about it."
Natia, no.
"Tabloids?"
NATIA, NO!
"You haven't heard?" Natia asked. She stole a glance in my direction before a startlingly broad grin broke out on her face.
"Mother doesn't approve of me reading rubbish," Razma said.
"Please do not corrupt the child," I told my ally.
"That's your job," the Little Jedi shot back.
"I thought I was supposed to be corrupting you."
"I thought you were busy bleeding out."
"Aren't you supposed to stop that?"
"Should I?" she asked.
"Search your feelings," I said, making my voice as ominously possible. "You know it to be true."
"Kira, could you fetch some salt from the galley?" the Little Jedi asked.
"Kira, could you fetch some painkillers from my bags?" I asked. In response, the Little Jedi was just a little bit less gentle when she jammed some more gauze into my chest wounds. Yeah, my request just went from mere needling to a genuine request. "Or maybe ask the fleet to start recovery operations? There were a lot of escape pods on sensors, last I checked."
"Will do," the padawan said, slipping out of the medbay. Now, which one had she agreed to? Eh, I'd find out soon enough.
"... I need a mask," I managed to say after the Little Jedi filled in a second chest wound. "A Harrower has too many people aboard for me to be spotted bareheaded. My face is too valuable to be revealed quite yet."
"Order your ships to maintain their assault, and no one else will know," Razma pointed out. "Except for everyone here, of course."
"And what would that cost?" I asked my apprentice. Even if her straightforward nature, unburdened by the context known to more experienced Sith, was helpful, I was still her teacher. Thus, I had to do my best to teach her.
"A heavy cruiser?" she guessed. "The kind of which the Empire has thousands?"
"It's not just a heavy cruiser, kid," Natia chimed in. "It's the heavy cruiser of a leading Sith Lord. If Nestor shows up in command of the Oppressor, supported by other Sith, he could make a very real bid to become Darth Angral's successor. Especially since we just spent the past two weeks killing everyone the man had ever trained."
"And that's ignoring the intelligence within the ship's computer banks," I added. "Like how it made it to Tython in record time. A system in the famously hard-to-navigate Deep Core. A system which sees minimal trade and whose location is supposed to be a closely guarded secret, even if it was settled by some non-Jedi. Retrieving that data would be in the interest of both the Republic and the Empire.
"Damn it, not again," the Little Jedi muttered, and I got a distinct impression of annoyance radiating from her. Unfortunately, that annoyance also meant that the last of my chest wounds was patched up with a touch less care than the others. Naturally, it hurt a fair bit more than the others.
"Am I missing something?" Razma asked, looking confused.
By then, the Little Jedi was satisfied that I wasn't about to bleed out on the deck of a Jedi ship and took a step back. "Nestor's just made the course of action directly benefiting the Empire seem like a reasonable idea. Again."
"Call it a gift," I said glibly, standing up from my seat and calling on the Force to bring my clothes to my hands. The undershirt was, naturally, a loss. It had soaked up a lot of blood, after all. The red button-up was fine since the blood hadn't dried yet. The black vest was even better, though the coat was looking more than a little ragged.
Showing up in a ragged coat was a non-starter. It would make me seem injured and vulnerable. Showing up without a coat would invite questions and rumors. That was the kind of thing that lent weight to my name, made me more influential. Even if the press were not present, word of mouth would eventually reach them.
Business casual it was: Red button up and black vest. Sleeves rolled up. Black tie. It would serve.
"I still think armor would suit him better," Bybon commented to no one in particular.
"I don't think your opinion matters much to him," Natia countered.
"My lack of a mask is a bigger concern," I said. The crew of a Harrower-class heavy cruiser numbered 2,400 people. After a lengthy battle, that number was almost certainly lower, but it was still far more people than I was comfortable knowing what I looked like. "Which means I require a disguise."
"We're fresh out of wigs and fake beards, I'm afraid," the Little Jedi said, cleaning the blood from her hands.
"Colored contact lenses?" I asked.
"Why would we have those?"
"... make-up?" I ventured. That was a last resort, mostly because I had no desire to accidentally turn myself into a clown in an attempt to disguise myself.
"As a matter of fact…" Natia said, a grin on her face.
"Why do I say things?" I asked with a soul-crushing sigh.
Five minutes later, my face was a slightly different color and my features suitably warped by cosmetics. Five minutes after that, the corvette settled on its landing gear in the main docking bay of the Oppressor, and I strode out to meet, to my great surprise, not a firing squad. No, instead, the woman in charge of the ship had arranged for an honor guard of all things. Two lines of troopers in their distinctive black armor faced each other on either side of the corvette's boarding ramp. And at the far end, a red-headed woman in the distinctive gray uniform of an imperial officer.
Except that I recognized this woman.
That woman was an imperial intelligence agent, the same one who had decided that a car bomb was the optimal way of disposing of bodies back on Chembau.
So why was she on Darth Angral's Harrower?
That woman was an imperial intelligence agent, the same one who had decided that a car bomb was the optimal way of disposing of bodies back on Chembau.
So why was she on Darth Angral's Harrower?
I did not say anything as I disembarked. I did not say anything as I walked past my honor guard. I did not say anything as the intelligence agent masquerading as a naval officer greeted us with a crisp salute and guided us to a turbolift and ushered us inside.
As soon as the doors whispered shut and we were in motion, the Little Jedi drew her lightsaber, though she kept the weapon extinguished. So she had picked up on my suspicion. Good.
"Agent," I said. "I see you've moved up from corpse disposal."
"We must all grow beyond the basics," she said, clearly unbothered by the presence of three Jedi and one slightly antagonistic Sith Lord. A few seconds later, the turbo lift chimed gently and came to a halt. The doors slid open to reveal a bridge devoid of life.
Not empty. Anything but empty.
The entire bridge crew lay at their duty stations. Fire control, communications, shields… every console aboard the bridge from the crew pits to the forward viewport, each was accompanied by a body. Faces blue, eyes rolled back, some of them still clutching at throats.
I could not sense a single living creature aboard the bridge.
...
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