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.
...
Half a heartbeat later, the agent lifted off the ground. The woman, in the grasp of the Force, floated up to my eye-level and met my glare with an even gaze, and I was very tempted to throw her across the bridge.
The Little Jedi's hand grabbed at my arm, restraining me.
Right. I had just about lost my cool there. But, since none of us were dead yet, it appeared that the air aboard the bridge wasn't poisoned. Or at least, it wasn't poisoned any longer.
Still, I devoted a bit more focus to cleansing my bloodstream of poisons and corruption before striding out onto the bridge. I let the agent fall, and she managed to land with en enviable level of grace, seemingly unbothered.
"My lord, I have a feeling that you disagree with this course of action," she managed to say, echoing the words she had spoken to me back on Chembau.
"Something like that," I growled. "What the Hell is this?"
"This used to be the bridge crew of the Oppressor," she said. "Once it was clear that Darth Angral had no intention of winning this battle, I took the necessary steps to ensure we would survive to share essential knowledge with the rest of the Empire."
"So you killed… what, three dozen people? Four?" I guessed.
"Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made."
"Then why are you not among them?" I asked. "Or must these sacrifices be done by people whose deaths mean nothing to you?"
"We all knew what we were signing up for when we swore out oaths of service," the agent countered, undaunted. "Death in the line of duty is nothing to fear."
Snivelry. Cowardice. They knew the risks? And that gave someone the right to sell their lives without a care in the world?
I was very tempted to add a second name to my kill-count. It would have been easy. A push of a button and a flick of the wrist. A single thought that would command the Force to block off her airflow.
A wave of concern flowed through my mind and stayed my hand.
Right.
She wasn't worth it.
"Get a relief crew up here," I ordered. "And then get out of here."
"Your will be done, my lord," the intelligence drone said. She strode off confidently and calmly, speaking some orders into a comm-link, and I turned back to my team who had opted not to stand by my immediate side.
"Find a terminal," I said. "Once we've scraped the databanks for useful data and confirmed that this thing can move, we can return to Alderaan. We'll hold a press conference, declare victory, dissolve our coalition, and show the galaxy that peace is possible."
"You make it sound easy," the Jedi Knight said but offered no dissent.
"You're fine with this plan?" I asked.
"Honestly, it's worked out far better than I could have hoped," he said, walking towards the front of the bridge to the elevated dais and the forward viewport. I opted to join him. Around us, I heard and felt the others walking to different parts of the bridge. Except for two: Razma and the Knight's padawan who followed us at a respectful distance. "I was afraid Darth Angral would have gotten his hands on at least one of the super weapons and turned it on the Republic. A single cruiser is nothing in comparison."
"The cruiser is a nice side benefit," I commented. Through the forward viewport, I could see fourteen silver daggers in the distance. The ships of my fleet, arrayed directly in front of me, but I could not tell if they were pointed towards me or away from me. "The true prize is a galaxy that's not about to tear itself apart quite so quickly."
"Yes," he agreed. "Quite a success."
Naturally, that was when things went a bit wrong.
I could feel something behind me shift in the Force. Razma went flying just before the barely familiar sense of Kira Carsen, the Jedi Knight's padawan, warped and changed to something unrecognizable.
If Natia was a constant simmering pot of anger, spite, and suppressed rage beneath a veneer of good cheer and utter cheek, then this was a fusion reactor in the shape of a person. A constant, unceasing mass of energy and barely shackled fury and hatred that was straining against the body it contained, threatening to burst forth in a flood of violence and destruction.
"Curse this vessel," a new voice called out. It was a deep bassy growl, sounding like its owner gargled gravel as a hobby. But I knew that nobody like that existed in this group. "Denying me an easy victory."
Whirling around, I looked to see what had happened.
Kira Carsen, the Jedi Knight's padawan, stood with her feet planted broadly in a stance of unimaginable confidence with a scowl on her face. It was unlike anything I had ever seen out of the young woman.
At the far corners of the bridge, I saw each of my allies reacting differently. Natia was on guard, her weapon up and in a middle guard position, facing the other people in our party. Loa had not bothered with a guard, keeping her weapon off the side and rocking it in her hand nervously, anxiously waiting to strike. The Little Jedi looked as calm as she always did, the weapon in her hands unlit, but I still felt the worry radiating off of her.
And Razma lay sprawled on the ground, halfway to the turbolift but far from anyone else.
"Kira?" the Jedi Knight asked. He looked about as confused as I did, and for good reason. A sudden shift in personality was a good reason to be cautious among normal people. A sudden and impossible change to the voice could only mean some nonsense with the Force was underway.
But whatever the padawan had become, it did not care enough to listen to the Jedi Knight's concerns. I had expected the creature to either launch into an attack on us, or to begin monologuing as all good villains worthy of the term would do, but it did neither.
It extended a slender arm to the side, and a lightsaber flew into its hand. Not the one belonging to Kira Carsen; That one had been destroyed on Tython. No, this was the battlefield trophy bestowed upon Razma. The girl was only now starting to get back on her feet.
With one smooth motion and a victorious smirk, the silvery cylinder was brought to the padawan's chest… and nothing happened. The padawan's hand twitched repeatedly, no doubt from repeatedly jabbing the activator stud, but nothing happened. No plasma blade appeared. The weapon remained inert.
The creature wearing the padawan's skin narrowed its eyes as it swept its gaze around the bridge. It did not speak again, instead raising its arms in my direction with the palms facing down before unleashing a torrent of lightning.
I didn't have enough time to breathe out and brace myself, let alone draw my lightsaber and adopt a guard.
Blue-white lightning slammed into my chest and sent me flying back. Every single muscle above my waist contracted as the electric currents raced across them, sending fire racing along my nerves. My arms folded into my chest like a pitiful self-hug while I doubled over.
Fortunately, that pain soon came to an end.
Unfortunately, it was because I slammed into the viewport behind me, and I got to add blunt-force trauma to the head and back to my list of injuries. Both of which made the pain worse.
Sometime between hitting my head hard enough to see stars and regaining control over my limbs, the roiling ball of anger that had taken over Kira Carsen disappeared. I had no doubt that the padawan was physically fine.
Mentally? Yeah, I had my doubts.
"Status report?" I asked, projecting my voice to the best of my abilities to make sure everyone heard me. As it turned out, the shouting had been unnecessary. While I attempted to drag myself to a semblance of standing up, a deceptively well-muscled arm threaded its way underneath my shoulders and heaved me up.
"Quit your shouting," the Little Jedi grumbled as she kept me on my feet. All around me, I noticed the rest of my party and joined us. Razma too, despite her having been thrown farther than me.
"Everyone's fine, then?" I asked, but the Little Jedi did not need to answer; the wave of reassurance she al but radiated was all the answer I needed. A few seconds later, I got a good look at my companions. My apprentice was looking a bit ragged, but that was to be expected after having been thrown a fair distance. Loa and Natia were unharmed, as expected. Kira Carsen looked crestfallen, and the Jedi Knight looked perfectly fine. "Wait, why aren't you hurt? Didn't you take a blast of lightning, too?"
"I got my lightsaber up in time," he said like it had been just that easy.
"Good for you," I grumbled, shrugging my way out of the Little Jedi's support. To assuage her doubts, I did my best to send reassuring thoughts her way. "Carsen. You doing alright?"
"Yeah, I'll… yeah. I'll manage," she said, clearly not wanting to say anything else to the topic, and I found myself at a crossroads.
See, I knew exactly what had happened. The Sith Emperor had a nasty habit of turning infants and children into sleeper agents before having their parents defect to the Republic. And those sleeper agents could be reactivated whenever the Emperor so chose, taking control of otherwise loyal citizens of the Republic. The Children of the Emperor, cast aside and disowned until they were in a position to be of use to him.
Which is exactly what had happened here.
"We both know that's a lie," I said. I could have revealed all of what I knew about the project right then and there. The knowledge would have inspired strife and conflict among the Jedi Knight's party and spread through the Republic from there, unless the intelligence arm of the Republic opted to go full Thought Police.
It would be the wrong thing to do.
"You know something we don't?" the Jedi Knight asked.
"Always," I confirmed. "But that's not for me to tell you. Padawan Carsen, please bring your master up to speed at your earliest convenience. Preferably somewhere private. We don't all need to know about your upbringing."
"Y-yes, of course," she managed to say.
"As for the rest of you," I said, turning to the three Sith Apprentices that were part of the group. "Forget you saw anything regarding this."
"Nestor, you can't expect us to…" Natia began to protest, but I interrupted her.
"This is far above your pay grade," I said, my tone deathly serious. "If you choose to investigate this, you will die and nobody will be able to avenge you."
"You're going to investigate this, aren't you?" the Little Jedi asked.
"Are you kidding me? This has the potential to start a war," I said. "I'm going to get you everything I can. Charges of treason be damned."
...
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