“Cantik,” Sonnas said. He reached for her chin, trying to get a look at her expression probably, and she snapped at his fingers.

“Yours or mine?” she repeated.

“Cantik,” Sonnas sighed. “I can tell something is wrong.” He’d been startled by her sudden attachment to him, but now he wrapped his arms around her. Cantik shuddered in his grip involuntarily, and hoped he wouldn’t notice. It was a futile hope, she knew; Sonnas noticed everything. Normally she liked that about him. He really paid attention to her.

She didn’t want anyone looking at her right now.

“Are you going to take me to your ship and screw me if I ask nicely?” she said plaintively.

“Tell me what’s wrong, first,” he said. “Then we’ll see how you feel.”

He wasn’t going to drop it. He never did. He cared too much to let Cantik get away with glossing over her emotions.

But she’d never done something this awful before.

“I killed a padawan today,” she admitted quietly. Sonnas’ arms went slack around her for a moment as he stopped breathing. Cantik winced, waiting for him to pull back entirely.

“What happened?” He pulled her a little closer. Cantik couldn’t respond for a moment, with the relief sitting so large and painful in her throat.

“She wouldn’t listen,” Cantik said. “She kept – her master was – he was suffering like Yuon. He kidnapped her, and she bought into the crazy shit he was spouting and she wouldn’t fucking listen to me!”

Cantik had been told she was lucky she couldn’t cry. She didn’t think that was true, because the lack of eyes for tears left her with nothing but dry, heaving sobs in her chest. It was loud and painful and embarrassing and now she was doing it directly into Sonnas’ robes no matter how she tried to bite it back.

“Oh, Cantik,” Sonnas sighed. “What hangar are you in?”

“What?” Was he seriously going to take her up on her proposition now?

“Doesn’t seem like now is a good time to introduce you to Kira,” he said. “And we should talk in private. I’m sorry I made you tell me out here in the spaceport. That’s… awful.”

Cantik swallowed, her horrible sobs fading to hiccups. “Yeah.” This wasn’t how she’d wanted him to make her feel better, but maybe it was. She knew what Sonnas was like. She knew what he would do for her. He always put effort into the ugliest of feelings, and Cantik couldn’t deny that was part of what she loved about him.

“She was such a good kid,” Cantik murmured as she pulled out of Sonnas’ arms to lead him back to her ship. “She and her master were close. Like you and yours.”

Sonnas knew how jealous Cantik was of the years he’d spent with his master. Nobody ever passed him around like a piece of junk they didn’t know what to do with. Typically, he didn’t say anything, just hummed sympathetically.

“I told her it was stupid. That nothing Tykan was saying made sense. She wasn’t an idiot. Why didn’t she listen to me?”

“I don’t know,” Sonnas said. “It wasn’t your fault. You tried everything you could. She made her choice.”

That was what Cantik had said to the soldier who’d wanted her to kill Tykan. She clenched a fist thinking about him. He was so angry she’d let Tykan live, when it was never his fault this happened, but he’d been broken up over the girl who heard Tykan spout nonsense and still thought he was worth fighting for? How was that fair?

“Cantik?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Look, if we’re not going to sleep together, you don’t have to come with me. Not much left to talk about. I told you everything.”

“I have a little time,” Sonnas said. “My ship needs maintenance before we can leave. I’ll stay.”

“Great,” Cantik muttered. “Just great.” At least Qyzen would have already tucked himself away in the depths of the ship like always. He was reliable like that.

“It’s obviously bothering you,” Sonnas said quietly, stopping Cantik just before she stabbed her finger at the button that would take them down to the hangar. To her embarrassment, he reached out and tapped the button below the one she’d aimed for. She’d been so caught up in herself she hadn’t been paying attention. Stupid up and down arrows, always painted on and never textured. “I don’t want to walk away until I know you’ll be all right.”

“What if you have to? What if your ship gets fixed and they need you somewhere right away?”

There was a flicker of guilt in Sonnas’ Force presence. Cantik pounced on it.

“You do have somewhere to be. What are you doing with me?”

“I can’t go anywhere until my ship is fixed, so I might as well help my best friend,” Sonnas said firmly. “Yes. I should go as soon as I can. But I can’t right now, so I’m here.”

She wished just an ounce of that care was because he loved her the way she loved him. Then again, she was bad enough at being a Jedi in most people’s eyes, for all that she followed the code and tried to do everything right. Clearly she hadn’t been Jedi enough to convince Aris…

Ruth was an obvious candidate. It wasn’t often a woman stayed on speaking terms with him after marrying someone else, but Ruth was still warm. Friendly, genuine, trustworthy. Unavailable, but that didn’t matter so much. She still brought out the best in him. She was everything Kaliyo wasn’t. And maybe a hands-off kind of girl would do him some good.

He called and she answered quickly, coming up in an imposing set of black armor. That was a switch.

“Wynston,” she said. She didn’t smile.

“Ruth,” he said cordially. “I’ve finally had time to come up for air. I thought I’d call in, see how things are going with you.”

“Busy,” she said.

“Busy where, exactly?” he asked. Something felt off.

“Corellia.” There was a defiant sound to it. “You can tell your masters if you like.”

That would be a reference to the chunk of Imperial Intelligence that had been handed to her former master Darth Baras. Surprising that she thought he would accept Baras’s leadership. Very surprising that she thought he would inform on her. “I wasn’t planning on it. You know, I was on Corellia not long ago.” He tried a smile. “It seems we just missed each other.”

“Yes. Great timing, you calling now. What do you want?”

Giving the usual glib line about simply wanting to see her would be either well received or…disastrously not, given the brittle sound of her. He had never seen her like this. He liked to follow a woman’s moods, map out what she wanted, provide what he could, at least until the job called him elsewhere. It was fun, even with the crazy ones. It was rewarding. It was…hard, when someone gave him a turnaround like this. He decided to give her the truth. “I’d like to catch up. I’m between jobs. Things have been eventful, things I can talk about for once.”

“Oh?” she said warily.

“Crew shakeups, mostly. You may be glad to know that Kaliyo’s gone.”

Somewhere in there, Ruth flinched. “Crew shakeups,” she repeated quietly. “Um, Kaliyo. I’m sorry. I know you were fond of her.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry too much. We all knew it was coming sometime.” He pushed away the thoughts of every kind of trouble she could wreak due to his having been unprepared when the time did come.

“Yes,” said Ruth. “Yes, at least you saw it coming.” For a second her mouth just hung open; then her jaw clenched convulsively and, after a quick breath, she moved on. “I’m afraid there’s not much I can do about it.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to. But I would like to see you, if you have the time.”

“I don’t,” she said coldly. “Sorry.”

Upset wasn’t a good look for her. “Ruth…what’s happening? What did happen?”

“I told you, I’m busy. For once it’s me who can’t give you details, I’m sure you understand.”

“No, I don’t. Is there anything I can do?”

“No.” Her lip curled in a decidedly unnatural way. “It’s nice that you’re newly single and so very anxious to help with such amazing timing. You can just keep fighting the good fight wherever you are.”

“Something’s obviously gone wrong where you are. I’d like to do whatever I can, just tell me plainly what the matter is.”

“Plainly?” She lifted her chin in that way she had when she was reminding herself to be commanding. And she was commanding, regal in a chilling way. A familiar way, but familiar from others, never from the pretty idealist of Dromund Kaas. “I don’t want you anywhere near me, agent.”

The Sith Lord cut the signal.

Of all possible reactions to his call, Wynston hadn’t even imagined that one. Even if he couldn’t get her alone for a tête-a-tête, he had hoped for some work or some favor-working to take his mind off things just then, something constructive, something good. But evidently his favorite partner for these things, his only regular one outside his own crew, was busy.

Why?

One answer had the right leverage: Quinn. Wynston’s suspicion, which he had voluntarily shelved after Ruth got upset at the allegation, had been right. And Ruth had survived the discovery.

As if Wynston were in a position to criticize people for their taste in lovers.

Not allowed to drink, sacrificed by the military, tortured by the Star Cabal, psychoanalyzed by Hunter, betrayed by Kaliyo, abandoned by Ruth…he needed something constructive to think about.

He brought up the console. He did have a disguise generator to figure out. It took less than an hour to sort out the tool that would let him select a face. Human, he thought. He’d never been Human before. It would change everything about Imperial space.

A soft beep indicated a holo coming in. Wynston answered and was relieved to see the person he still thought of as Watcher Two. Just what he needed: something to take his mind off actual women.

He remembered the correct title when he spoke. “Keeper, I could kiss you right now.”

“You really couldn’t, Cipher,” she said with her familiar refrigerated disdain.

At least someone was reacting as expected today. “Well then, what can I do for you?”

“Something’s come up and I think we should have that talk about what you can do for Imperial Intelligence in your new capacity sooner rather than later.”

“Certainly. By the way, you should cut Kaliyo Djannis’s accounts as soon as possible.”

“What?” She started forward, then shook her head and consciously relaxed. “Finally. She beat all projections we set on her in terms of useful life. I suppose we had you to thank for that, if ‘thank’ is the word.” Her brows knit together. “I don’t suppose you can remove her once and for all?”

“She got away.”

“Understood. That’s quite unfortunate...and, something of a surprise.”

“You don’t have to finish that analysis.” By raw capability, Keeper was right; Wynston would never have lost. It was the motivation that had failed. The last thing he needed now was his former boss lecturing him on the weakness he had cultivated.

She did her superior eyebrow raise. “The analysis from your new information is already done. But it seems a little late to berate you over it.”

“That’s very kind of you. As for a meeting, just give me a time and place and I’ll be there.”

“Will you be ready to work?”

“Absolutely. And just think, this time you’ll have my full attention.”

Her voice was exasperated but her half-smile was tolerant. “You’ll never change, will you, Cipher?”

“Not if I can help it.” So long as he had one or two familiar stars left, however distant, he could steer things back to course. He hadn’t been alone in quite some time, but he was pretty sure he remembered how it worked.

*

When Wynston entered the conference room on the vessel Tenebrous, the Minister of Intelligence was already there, pacing with his hands behind his back, examining the walls as if determined to find a security problem in this ship he hadn’t personally designed. Watcher Two—no, Keeper—was at the table console; she looked up and smiled when Wynston came in.

It was the Minister who spoke first, turning to face Wynston in a rigid pose. “Agent,” he said coolly with the barest of nods. This was the distant mentor Wynston knew. Knew, and admired for his determination and skill.

“Please, call me Cipher. For old times’ sake.” Admiration notwithstanding, Wynston had stopped the formalities with his commander long ago; flippancy was just so tempting.

“Hm,” said the Minister.

“We’re glad you came,” said Keeper. “There is a great deal to do, and the two of us have considerable demands on our time from the Sith and the military as they attempt to reconstitute some kind of Intelligence puppet.”

“I’m sorry.” He meant it, too. Keeper could deal with anything, but it was still a bad situation, and the Minister had worked too hard for too long to be reduced to this kind of squabbling. They deserved better.

“It is what it is,” the Minister said sharply. “The fact is, the Dark Council is rapidly destabilizing and it is making an effort to bring Intelligence and half the military with it. The loose ends left by the Star Cabal are almost too many to name and we must seize as many as we can before they go to waste or are detected and taken by the Republic or the cartels. We have transferred what resources we can to these efforts without drawing the attention of our masters, but we can’t do everything at once.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” It was good to be needed somewhere.

The Minister nodded. “I expect much of your time in the immediate future may be occupied by administrative work here, but your attention should also be on Corellia. Much of the Dark Council has made the planet its battlefield; Darth Thanaton has declared a bloodbath with a minor Lord and the new Emperor’s Wrath just killed Darth Baras, leaving what it pains me to call the relatively moderate Darth Vowrawn. The Wrath’s attention could be tremendously useful.”

“Yes, it could be.”

“This is no time to play coy, agent,” snapped the Minister. “She is your friend. I want her talking to Vowrawn if you think she can influence his views, and I want her on our side while we work to stabilize the rest of the situation.”

“I have reason to believe that may be complicated, but I’ll do what I can.”

“This is no time to start hiding behind ‘complications.’”

A long time ago Wynston would have been intimidated by the Minister’s impatience, shamed by the mere fact of it. Now he was old and self-supporting enough to simply answer. “I spoke with her just recently on a personal matter. The situation may be complicated. Nevertheless, I’ll try to calm her down. I’m certain she’s closing on the Vowrawn issue, if nothing else.” And as soon as he found a way to help, he would.

“The longer game is just as important. Having the Emperor’s Wrath in any capacity will be as great a boon as any Star Cabal position we’ve been able to identify.”

“Agreed. I believe she’ll come around.” The accusations she hadn’t quite thrown at him indicated problems with her friends, not with her overall pro-Empire goals. He hoped. He dearly hoped.

“Good,” said the Minister.

Keeper spoke up. “While we’re busy on Dromund Kaas, we’d like you to take command of the Tenebrous. Keep her out of sight while you build up the resources you’ll need for operations.”

“Certainly,” said Wynston. “I’ve put some thought into it.” They had laid out their requirements; time to lay out his. “I’ll receive full records on any staff you send my way. There are a handful of specific agents I know I can use if you can spare them; keep me informed. I and I alone have discretion over the use of the Black Codex. You will keep me apprised of the research and development surrounding the Old Man’s disguise technology as well as anything we scrounged from Belsavis and anywhere else for that matter. I’ll do what I can to render the operation self-sufficient; the last thing I want is to hamper your work. Give me this much and a little time and I’ll build you the finest intelligence apparatus this galaxy has ever seen.” He set his hands wide on the table and leaned forward. “We’ll see that the Empire stays where she needs to be, in spite of every effort her leadership throws at her.”

Funny galaxy he lived in, where Keeper’s smile was the warmest reward the workplace had to offer. “I knew we could count on you,” she said.

The Minister of Intelligence cleared his throat. “Thank you, Keeper, you’re dismissed.” He looked at the floor in a direction that let him track her from the corner of his eye until she left. Then he turned to Wynston. “There remains the matter of Kaliyo Djannis; Keeper reports that you and she had a falling-out and she has since fled Nal Hutta. Furthermore I am given to understand that you will not be disposing of her.” He scowled. “Rest assured, the matter will be handled.”

Something unfamiliar tightened in Wynston’s insides. Then again, someone had to do it. “Acknowledged and understood,” he said quietly.

“The experience is never comfortable,” said the Minister. “But it is necessary.”

The experience of sitting still while somebody else handled the job he hadn’t had the nerve for? Or the experience of losing a lover who had managed to mean something by the end? “I know.” It led to an interesting thought, anyway. “Minister?”

“Yes?”

“As I stand here contemplating the fact that you’re going out of your way to tell me about a kill that we both already knew you’ve arranged, it occurs to me that I may sometimes be more motivated after some discomfort, not to say pain. More focused. Perhaps more effective, it’s difficult for me to tell.”

“You are. Your record amply demonstrates that, if you know what to look for.”

Wynston reminded himself who he was talking to. He thought along the useful lines, not the sentimental ones. “You could’ve chosen a less rampantly destructive irritant than Kaliyo.”

“Could we have?” The Minister cocked an eyebrow. “Would you have tolerated any other irritant for so long? She appealed to your vice enough for you to stay with her and your virtue enough for you to keep trying to make up for her. She was a calculated risk; it turned out to be one of the more productive partnerships I’ve ever arranged.”

For all that he had spent his whole association with Kaliyo thinking of ways to use her, this particular application and the fact that he hadn’t been informed of it galled. “She’s still out there. Did you calculate that?”

The older man’s mouth thinned further for a second. “It wasn’t the eventuality we would have chosen,” he said. “But all may not be lost. She hasn’t started trying to sell what she knows yet.”

“I’ll make a note to take comfort in that.”

“All things considered, she was worth what we paid for her.”

“The money, I can agree.” This was the job. “But if you were orchestrating matters to that degree you must have had some say over the information she gleaned for her side jobs, selling secrets to her terrorist friends. You could have controlled what she found to sell. She was worth the money. Was she worth the blood?”

“You tell me. Just look at the workmanlike but frankly ordinary career you led before she was assigned to you. Compare it with everything you accomplished once you had her alternately supporting and driving you. Finding and taking down the Star Cabal? I would pay a few dozen lives on Brentaal for that.”

“Next time you want me to work miracles, try just asking nicely.”

“If I thought that would work, I would have done it.”

“You know, the organization I build here may try the least twisted approach first on some matters, just for novelty’s sake. Minister, I have the utmost respect for you, but I am glad I won’t be working for you anymore.”

“Not coincidentally, Cipher, I’m glad I am no longer formally responsible for your behavior.” His frown cleared a little, and something like a sad acknowledgment gathered in his grey eyes. “You’re about to take the weight of the Empire on your shoulders. I no longer have to pressure you.”

They watched each other for a long moment.

“So. The mission?” prompted the Minister.

The part that mattered, in the end. “Ordinarily I would insist on kissing and making up before work continues, but I’ll let it slide this once.” Wynston grinned at the Minister’s expression. “The mission goes on. I’ll see what I can do about the Wrath. And I’ll get you your start here.”

“Good.”

So certain. “Out of curiosity, what if I couldn’t handle all this? Or if I had lost to Kaliyo much earlier. I would die young and you would just look for someone more durable, is that right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Your theory of management is undeniably effective, but I’m coming to appreciate why you don’t print it in the recruitment pamphlets.”

After a flicker of irritation the…not kindness, not quite sympathy, but the clear knowledge…came back to the Minister’s eyes. “This isn’t glamorous work. I told you that.”

“I remember.” Wynston considered, then nodded. “Thank you. You’ve been a great help, and I intend to make sure the new organization lives up the vision you once held. Just one more question. You’ve referred to your wife once or twice, always in situations where you might just have been making banal conversation as cover noise. Did you ever actually have one?”

The human expression in the Minister of Intelligence’s aspect vanished. He walked away without answering.

Wynston lingered alone in the dark conference room. Soon he would build this place up into every good thing Intelligence had been – he hoped – and everything it should be. He would take his place as an equal to the professionals who had brought him this far, and he would get back to helping people, even the ones who would never see him, even the ones who would never know his name. He would get out to the field when he could, because he did prefer to do some rescuing in person. A moment’s gratitude was easier and safer than anything else he could hope to earn from others. Might as well earn as many of them as possible.

This was something that would never stop needing him. This was opportunity. And, whatever else was happening, whatever else was going to happen, that felt good.

*

“Lady and gentleman, I have some heavy planning to do to coordinate with the new Imperial Intelligence.” Or rather, the Sith-controlled shell of it that the Minister had been unable to free.  Wynston addressed Temple and Vector. “I’m going to go ahead and give you a few days off, I’ll be in touch when I know more.” Wynston took a deep breath. “Thank you both for your dedication in this effort. The Cabal’s madness had to be stopped, and the work, the pain it cost us, it’s all worth it to end that threat. Take a break. You’ve earned it.” With that he walked past them and down the hallway into his quarters.

He couldn’t write down his plans. He was still trying to wrap his brain around them. No one should know. No one could know.

Yes, he would rebuild Imperial Intelligence. But he would be a ghost for it. A ghost, indefinitely.

He walked to Vector’s quarters first. Vector appeared in the doorway, looking at him.

Looking at him. With gray Human eyes.

“Vector?”

“Wynston. I can explain. Please, come in.”

Wynston complied. Vector’s quarters were clean but always slightly rumpled, as if the Killik mind preferred uneven surfaces and small crannies. Wynston made a vanishingly small mental note and reserved his attention for the Joiner. “Are you all right?”

“I have…suppressed…the Killik link. It was always a theoretical possibility. I have learned how to sustain it. For limited times. Enough for a private conversation.”

Wynston flailed, looking into eyes that were even less like his than usual. “What bloody conversation could be that important?”

“Whatever you are planning, that you think you have to do alone?”

“Don’t make this about me. Your senses, your fingerlings. Isn't this place dark and, I don’t know, unscented without them?”

“I stand in near darkness. But it was all I knew, once. I am not losing, only returning.”

Vector was capable of anything. The demonstration still came with a faint tang of...“Tell me I never made you feel obligated.”

“You never told me to do this. You have never treated me as anything other than a man with a man's loyalties. I am simply illustrating my abilities for your reference.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Good. Pain is no way to start off a new venture. Vector, I came here to tell you you should take another post with the Killiks.”

“I surmised as much. Do you think you have to handle the Tenebrous alone?”

“It’s not that. It’s what I’m planning behind the Tenebrous. For me, not Intelligence. Are you interested?”

“I am intrigued.”

“I’m leaving Imperial Intelligence, Vector. I’m building them a shadow organization to get work done clear of the Sith. But I’m making myself a new face and I’m preparing my own operation, hidden within theirs. I can’t leave our fate in Sith hands. I’ll serve the worlds of the Empire to my dying breath but I won’t take the interpretation of the Empire’s good that those maniacs offer. I want safety for our people. I want the hope of peace. Perhaps someday I can even tackle the vision the Cabal had in its earlier incarnations, the vision of a galaxy where we aren’t slaves to the accidents of Force power. I respect the rule of strength but it has to be tempered with—with something more than the Sith will ever offer. So I’m leaving the bounds of Intelligence. And you and the others can’t follow me.”

“I want to help.”

Wynston said, “We're going to steal a ship. And then we're going to protect people with it. These are capital crimes in the Empire. Are you in?” 

“Of course,” Vector said. 

“You're a good man, you shouldn't be slumming it with me.” He smiled crookedly. “Fine, then. I have two.”

“Temple makes three, but you know that.”

“I always feel like we want slightly different things, Temple and me.”

“Give her the chance.” Vector’s eyes squeezed shut. “Ah. I believe my time is up.”

“Will you remember this?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Will they?”

“No.”

Stars. He’d done all that, for…what? For Wynston? He should always have his songs. “I…thank you. For trying.”

“I can do it again, if need be.”

“I’ll leave it to your discretion. A second in command should have the freedom of arranging these things. And…so should a friend, you poor sod.”

*

On the bridge, Raina Temple looked away from the console and slipped a hand to the holster at her hip.

Wynston, secure in his red-haired Human disguise, smirked. “Well, that tells me all I need to know.”

Raina blinked. “It's so lifelike, sir. Even when you talk. I only know it's you by process of elimination.”

“And the accent, surely.”

“Yes. You only change that when you absolutely have to.”

“If I look like this, indefinitely, is this a face you could follow?”

“First I need to know the brain behind it, sir.”

“Don't you by now?”

“You said yourself you've always been busy. I don't quite know how to separate you from the Empire’s crises. But if you're rescuing a part of Imperial Intelligence from the Sith, I'll back you up, one hundred percent.”

“I need a larger team.” He thought out loud: “Or a much smaller one.”

“Larger, sir.”

“Ensign, I... don't deserve enthusiasm. But I'll take your advice.” She smiled winsomely, and he went on. “I need your military credentials. Because we aren't just building a shadow Intelligence. We’re building a shadow’s shadow. One to present for the Minister of Intelligence. And one to do the real work.”

Raina cracked a smile. “When do we start?”

“Well, I’ve already deleted Cipher Nine. We’ll talk about next steps.”

*

His attention is drawn back to the jedi at his side - his jedi. She waits ever so patiently, never judging or pushing him. His gut instinct is to be irritated with her jedi calm. She is the one that needlessly dragged him out to this neutral water planet in the middle of nowhere. Now even the sky pesters him with its harmless attacks.

His fondness for her wins out instead.

"I have not felt the rain for over three hundred years," he admits quietly. "Not like this, at the very least."

She softens, her big dark nautolan eyes squinting just slightly in affection. He hadn't realized he had catalogued such body language until they were reunited and he found her expressions locked in his memory like puzzle pieces.

"Let's move off the landing platform," Dira suggests. "Then we can take a moment to enjoy it."

"I'm not sure 'enjoy' is the right phrasing," Scourge grumbles, but he takes the hand she offers him anyways.

She pulls him along the walkways until they are out of the way of the bustle of the landing pads and Dira turns her head up to the sky. She seems so alive in the salt air, a small smile on her face and her eyes alight. He can already understand why she wanted to share this place with him. He has seen her miserable and dehydrated on Tatooine. He has seen her bundled up and irritable on Hoth. He has even seen her ill on Quesh - the toxic atmosphere punishing to a species that breathes through its skin.

Just being on Manaan brings her joy, and that's a joy that she clearly wants to share with him.

They stand for a few minutes just taking in the rain. Dhaidira seems content just holding his hand and feeling everything alongside him. It settles him as much as it stokes the warmth in his chest.

"Come on," Dira says. "I want to show you something."

Instead of elaborating she leads him to the planetary shuttles. A speeder ride later they arrive at a private facility, white and gray like the rest of the plain structures.

"Do you know how to swim?" Dira asks.

"Of course I know how to swim."

"I spent a lot of time here while you were gone so I invested in a stronghold," she confesses. "There isn't much except basic facilities but that's not why I like it. I like it for the swimming."

He follows her down a set of stairs onto a lower platform, the water lapping at it's edges.

He considers his next words for a moment. "Why swimming?"

"I had never been in the ocean before I came to Manaan," she explains. "It was like nothing I've ever experienced. The wildlife, the plants, the water… It felt like coming home and then I realized the only thing missing was you. I want to share this with you, if you'll join me?"

Curse this jedi and the way she makes him feel.

"No laughing if I make a fool of myself," he sighs reluctantly. "I haven't had reason to swim in a very long time."

"Don't worry, I wouldn't let you drown." Her happiness rings through their bond and echoes through him until he finds himself returning her smile. She taps his armor. "You'll have to take this off though." He rolls his eyes.

They disrobe. He can't decide if he's surprised or not that she goes entirely nude. He's aware in general of alien physiology (it's an important thing to know when you need to know how to kill anyone at a moment's notice) but he never considered that nautolans' concealed genitalia meant they would have no social taboos about nudity. He always figured it was something the Jedi would condemn, considering the Order's stance on sex and attachment.

She flashes him a grin and then takes a running Force-assisted leap off of the deck, diving into the water so gracefully she barely even leaves a ripple behind. He huffs and shakes his head at her antics. It's moments like this that remind him just how young she is.

Not one to be outdone, he strips down to nothing and joins her - albeit more slowly - in the water. There's a ladder off of the side of the platform that he uses to ease himself down carefully. He can't remember the last time he was submerged in water like this. The closest he recalls is being submerged in a kolto tank as the Emperor's Wrath.

Dira swims back over once he's submerged up to his chest, using the ladder to gain his bearings. She radiates concern-question-care through the bond and he brushes it off.

"I'm fine," he asserts out loud. "I will hardly be bested by an oversized body of water, Jedi."

She sinks back into the water up to her cheeks but it does nothing to hide the mix of amusement and fondness that fills the Force.

It takes him a minute to get comfortable enough to release the ladder and unevenly tread water. Dira, to her credit, leaves him be despite how much she clearly wants to steady him. Once she's confident in his ability not to drown she ducks under the water and swims away again. He watches the way her green form twists and spins under the water, even more agile than she is on land. The water is clear enough that he can see the vague shapes of plants and fish deep on the ocean floor.

He takes a deep breath and submerges his head. He's left floating in the water's embrace. It's freeing in a way. It reminds him of the moment of free fall before slowing his descent with the Force. After so many years he's forgotten the way water sounds, the soft hush of water moving around him and distant noises of creatures sending ripples around them.

He senses Dira nearby and blinks open his eyes, ignoring the sting of salt. She looks truly otherworldly in the water. Her clear set of eyelids make her wide eyes look paler than usual and her unbound tresses float freely around her head. Something learned in him urges him to beware the alien in its natural environment. Then she smiles with all her sharp teeth and waves cheerfully and the immense affection he feels for her overtakes his fears. The feeling is as dangerous as it is heady.

He goes back up for air. Dira joins him, blinking back her clear set of eyelids. It's strange how she doesn't gasp for breath like he has to. Another difference he's never considered.

"Do you want to go deeper?" she asks him.

He nods and they dive together. It gets darker the deeper they go but it doesn't take long for Dira to hold up a hand for him to stop. She closes her second set of eyelids and extends herself in the Force. Through the bond he feels her make a connection and his own senses pick up a group of tiny living things heading towards them. He turns towards the signature and watches a group of colorful fish swirl around them.

Dira opens her second set of eyelids and smiles at the fish, holding out a hand. One of the tiny fish pecks at her fingertips. Another creeps annoyingly close to his chin tendrils and he shoos it away. He offers his own hand instead and jumps when the fish nips at it. It's not painful but certainly feels strange.

Dira laughs next to him, the sound muffled underwater. His heart swells with her laughter.

They return to the surface, Dira somehow speeding up their rise. He couldn't say if it's the Force or her natural affinity for water. He waves her off and returns to the ladder, hooking an arm through the ladder rung to relax and watch her.

Three hundred years of bottled up hope all wrapped up in one jedi. His feelings for her run so deep and are so complex that he still can't untangle them after months of her help. Watching her, he unveils another layer of his emotions for her.

She's beautiful.

Her green skin, the dark mottled stripes down her tresses, her big round eyes, the deceptively lithe muscles that shape her figure. Everything about her is beautiful.

His appreciation for her physical form has always been based in her skill and her poise. When he sees her across the battlefield she is the striking powerful figure from his vision - the one that cut down the Emperor time and time again. He knows well the admiration he has for the weapon she has molded herself into. This feeling is not that.

He doesn't see the galaxy's savior who's face he had three hundred years to memorize. All he sees is the person he wants to spend the rest of his mortal life with.

"Dira," he calls the next time she pops her head out of the water.

She must feel his intention because she swims right over to him and is happily reeled in for a kiss. Dira's lack of experience and Scourge's sensory overwhelm means their kisses are usually more affectionate than exploratory. Today Scourge just wants to know the parts of her that he's never gotten to experience before.

Her skin is smooth and hairless against his. He finds he doesn't miss the softness of human breasts, their flat chests pressed together and his nipples pressed into her padded muscles. He keeps a hand on the ladder to anchor them and an arm around her waist to keep her close. It feels like no time passes before she makes a surprised noise and pulls away.

"Sorry," she says breathlessly. (And how funny it is that she's out of breath now only after kissing him.)

"For what?" he asks.

"My uh, my teeth caught your lip," she informs him sheepishly.

He licks his lips and tastes blood. He can't help but laugh.

"I don't mind," he promises. This time she kisses him and he gets to taste her smile.

"Thank you for humoring me today," she says. "I'm sure this wouldn't be your first choice for your day off."

"There is nowhere I would rather be than by your side," Scourge reminds her. "The rest of it wasn't objectionable."

Dira giggles at his attitude and he stops talking for a moment to admire her fondly.

"This place is important to you and I am… honored to see it," Scourge admits. "I would come back again to see you happy."

"Thank you, Scourge," she replies quietly. "That means a lot to me."

Larr felt gratified when she got into the chamber of the Jedi High Council. Everyone was there. Every surviving member of the Council not recently under the control of the Emperor was there, in person, sitting in their comically large circle.

“Master Satele,” Larr said, projecting like an actress. “Master Kiwiiks. Nikil. Wens. Giffis. Kaedan. Gnost-Dural. Feels like it’s been weeks.”

Satele stood, looking like she would rather be in the refresher. “Larr Gith. Master Tebbith. Welcome home.”

“I come with news,” Larr said. “The Sith Emperor is dead. I saw to the destruction of his Presence personally.”

Jaric Kaedan openly assessed her. “Then a great shadow has been lifted from the galaxy.”

“So. A medal, I assume? Is Praven here? Tol Braga? Master Syo?”

Satele said, “We can never thank you enough.” 

“I know.”

“Master Satele.” It was Gnost-Dural speaking, for once. “She has weathered her ordeal and saved lives. We should bestow it.”

Larr leaned forward. Yep. Whatever was getting bestowed, she deserved it.

Satele canted her head slightly. “If not now, then when? Larr Gith, I grant you the title of Jedi Master. Remember your service.”

“Thanks,” Larr Gith said. “I mean, took you long enough, but thanks.”

Tebbith touched her shoulder. “Congratulations,” he said sincerely.

“Hey, I had to catch up sooner or later.” She beamed at him before returning her attention to the older Masters. “I am completely ready to celebrate.” 

Bela Kiwiiks leaned forward. “But you should not rush back into your fame.”

Master Kiwiiks had always been friendly, but she looked different now. Older, and too serious. “What does that even mean?” said Larr Gith. 

Wens Aleusis nodded at his colleague. “It's time you took some time off here. In the quiet.”

Quiet? What the heck kind of reward was that? “I’m not like you. I need to be out there, being amazing.”

“You have survived the carving-out of an opponent’s heart,” said Satele. “Some healing must occur before you go back.”

The win-win hit Larr like a sack of bricks, or the way she imagined a sack of bricks might if no obliging gentleman swept it out of the way for her. “I have the perfect solution.”

Kiwiiks nodded. “Then you’ll stay?”

“As a member of the Jedi Council? I'd love to, thanks.”

The room was silent. 

Jaric Kaedan cleared his throat. “What?” 

“I saved the galaxy. I destroyed the Emperor. And Master Syo won't be reprising his role any time soon. You could use me. Teb, too.”

She reached back to get Tebbith’s hand and he provided it. But he said, “Larr…”

“They can't stop us. They can't do anything without us. Come on, it'll be fun. Look at what I just did. I saved us. I can do it more from one of those fine chairs.”

“This isn’t even under question,” Gnost-Dural intoned.

“I deserve this.” 

“Larr,” and Kiwiiks did look dangerous. “Membership on the Jedi Council is not a reward for impressive behavior.”

“What, like saving your life and Tatooine? Or saving Coruscant, or Nar Shaddaa? For saving Tython? If you assigned me one letter of the job description for every planet Teb and I have saved from total destruction, for every ten billion people Teb and I rescued, I’d be on the Council thirty times over.”

Satele seemed to pass the squinting stage and get into outright hostility. “You lack the maturity to lead on this Council. Furthermore, if you are to continue as a Jedi Master in good standing, you must abandon your emotional link to Master Tebbith. Your bond has cost lives, and you now have time to reflect on the lessons learned from that.”

“Wait, is that a choice you’re giving me? Be a Master or be Teb’s friend?”

“In so many words,” Kiwiiks said.

“Fine. Bye.” She squeezed Tebbith’s hand and let it go when she walked out.

He was with her, big, hurried, anxious. Larr stopped him in the hallway outside the Council’s chambers. “Teb, don’t. I’ve thought about this moment. I’ve thought about almost nothing else since we saw each other on Belsavis. And I have to tell you, you should go back.”

Tebbith’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“I know what you gave up for me, and I'm grateful. You burned so much of yourself trying to light my way home. But if we just nope off into the sunset, everything you did would be for nothing. We would just be at square one. You belong here, Teb. They need you. They don’t know they need you, because they’re idiots. But they need someone who’s smart and educated in more ways than one. They need someone who has seen the enemies out there and come back home. They need you. And if they want to separate us, fine. I’ve got adventures in mind. I will always love you, and they will never tear you down. Got that?”

His brown eyes seemed to understand everything. “Is asking me to let you go a test?”

Yes, he always understood. “Not a subtle one, I know, but you can’t fail it to me. They’re the ones itching to fail you. The Council will look for the same answer. A little distance. A tiny distance. Enough to prove that we won't break like this again. You are my best friend and my favorite person. That's never gonna change. Now go where you can do the most good.”

“Where will you go?”

“I’m gonna meet some grateful people and they’ll buy me dinner.” She flashed her brightest smile. “I want to party, Teb. After everything, don’t I deserve that?”

“Of course you do.”

“And then we’ll come home and tell tall tales about our adventures.”

“Speaking of tests, if I stay, will that bother you?”

Her smile got misty. “If you stay you'll make me proud. But, you know, like a Jedi.”

It was the right thing to do. Heal with the Order. Find peace again, and then worry about the galaxy. His heart yearned for that peace.

And Larr was right. It was the right thing to do. “I love you, Larr. That's never going to change. And when we meet again, we'll be that much better for our time apart.”

“You talk good, old man. Now, one of us has to leave.”

They both turned around, away from one another, and started walking. Tebbith went back toward the Council chambers. That’s what was best for him, for now.  For a little while. For both of them.

*

Master Tebbith’s interview with the assembled Jedi High Council was brief but illuminating. They granted Larr Gith her mastery, reasoning that she could make a public relations nightmare if she chose to, and she really had saved the galaxy.

After Tebbith left, the Jedi looked at one another.

“He is nearly ready,” said Jaric Kaedan. “If he doesn’t follow her.”

“A year,” Kiwiiks said firmly. “At least a year.”

“He didn’t know, when he saved the Noetikon of Secrets for us, that he would face the same void himself.” Satele sighed. “A year. Then, if he does well, he can sit among us.”

*

Balmorra. It felt right, that the celebrations should start on Balmorra.

Larr Gith brushed her bad mood, and most of her crew, aside. The Jedi were idiots, all but Teb. They didn’t understand people who went out and did stuff. Heck, the last time Master Kiwiiks tried to do something off Tython it ended with a planet almost blowing up. A situation, not to belabor the point, that Larr had fixed.

The view from the shuttle to Bugtown was cheerful. The sick nesting formations of the colicoids had been pushed into some lowlands a mile or more away from the bunker. The blasted soil had been evened out, and green things were growing in rows. A fat cluster of potted flowering plants stood shading the entrance. The scattered patrolling droids were colored in a hectic combination of clean factory lines and graffiti stickers, a lively change from dingy Imperial tools.

Larr greeted the staff inside cheerfully, and at least half of them remembered her and greeted her back. Not perfect, but people had been pretty busy the last time she came through. Maybe it helped that she had Doc at her side.

They reached the public holo in the cavernous bunker center. “Okay, Doc, start holoing.”

They got the Hawkeyes, and Numen Brock, and two squads of infantry, all converging on where Larr sat at the Bugtown bar. She greeted them all cheerfully and announced the Emperor’s death. Then the drinks started flowing.

She leaned toward Doc. “I can’t help but notice these are all men?”

Doc cleared his throat. “The women who want to see me don’t want to see you.”

“That’s sweet. I think.” She kissed his ear.

And Iain Sarkus of the Hawkeyes sighed loudly. “You’re killing me, Doc.”

“Getting plucked out of obscurity is pretty strenuous, Iian. You have to be really sure you want it.” He tapped Larr’s upper arm and she silently wished he wouldn’t get more territorial than that.

He didn’t. He bought a round for everyone. Everyone bought a round for everyone. The Hawkeyes told her all about sweeping the Empire off Balmorra and turning the tortured land to native-made industry and growing places. They had done smashingly for themselves since she’d left them. She kissed Iain’s cheek between drinks, and Numen made a perfectly reasonable argument for kisses all around. Doc laughed and didn’t stop her. Larr laughed and felt everyone’s relief and happiness. It was a great evening.

And they were swept off afterwards to Sobrik, which had transformed from prefab buildings and Sith patrols to organic construction and one very nice hotel. Larr and Doc took their leave and stumbled, laughing, to a plush room with a great view of the mural-sprayed spaceport.

She pulled the curtains shut. “Finally, we’re alone. Please take my clothes off.”

Doc laughed, a low, slow laugh. “You are drunk.”

“So are you.”

“Yes, but I’m supposed to…what’s the word…object.”

“Come onnn. Please. It's not like you're taking advantage of me, if anything, I'm taking advantage of you.” She pouted. “So lemme take.” 

“Larr, my gorgeous…”

“Yes yes yes? Yess!”

After, she lay on her back with her lekku pulled in front of her shoulders. “Dear Diary: Best sex of my life. You? Mm?”

Doc was also laying on his back. His arms were on the sheets over his head, his hands relaxed against the white. He murmured, “I don't…unnerstand…'m not complaining.” That seemed to exhaust his verbal ability.

“You wonderful man.” She had to laugh. “All right, we sleep.”

She woke when he sat up on the edge of the bed, looking at the sunny glow around the edges of the curtain. He twisted to face her and grinned. “Are you lost, young lady? Shouldn't you be leading a parade somewhere? Teasing some photographers? Arresting evildoers?”

“I need some water. Don't get dressed.” She slid off the bed and scampered to the cooler.

“That matter to you?” he murmured. 

“Don’t be silly,” she commanded, searching the cupboards for a glass. “You’re the prettiest person I’ve met in my life and you know it.”

“Doesn’t hurt to hear you say it, gorgeous.”

She brought him a glass already sweating and kept one for herself. “Here. How would you like to do this another thousand times across the galaxy?”

*

Doc sipped the fruity drink and grinned at the circle of rapt women. “So outside the Dark Temple are these statues, right? Thirty feet tall, men in chains. The Emperor was high on Aesthetic when he had these built. Well, we’re fighting six squads of the Empire’s finest, and my blaster’s getting close to overheat. So I took an ion grenade and rolled it right between all those gunmen. Scored a direct hit on one of those tall, skinny slave statues. The Imps never knew what hit ’em. And I'm confident of that because it would've been deeply irresponsible to be looking behind them while shooting at me.”

He paused for the laughter, and looked across the cantina at where Larr Gith was rhapsodizing on her own work for a circle of men. Their eyes met like magnets, and then they spun off into their respective circles of admiration again. Come tonight, he knew who she would be going home with.

*

Larr Gith was sitting up when Doc woke. It was still nighttime. The curtains were closed, and the hotel’s bridal suite had mirrors on all walls and ceiling. In all those images, Larr Gith didn’t move.

“Everything all right, gorgeous?”

“Lord Scourge didn’t have to say all that before he left.”

“Lord Scourge is an idiot. Next?”

“How long do you think Rusk will last with Kira?”

“About six hours.”

“You think Teeseven is okay on his own on the Prodigy?”

“He’s doing fine.”

“It’s just…once, we were all we had. Do you remember…on the Emperor’s station…that time they almost let me go. Almost let you go.”

Doc reached out to touch her warm, smooth leg. Memories deserved to be chased out. “I don’t remember a word of it, except that we got out.”

“I could almost reach you…and it wouldn’t let me. Did you…um.”

“Don’t think about it.”

“But I just feel—”

That way lay madness. “I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to feel about it. It never happened. We're just two people. You're the Hero of karking Tython and I'm just a guy. Just a very lucky guy. And we're safe. And alone together. And you truly are the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on. What do you think of that scenario?”

He could tell she was tilting her head because her lekku shifted against his forehead. She purred, “I think you're right about me.”

“Go back to sleep. We’re hopping planets tomorrow, unless there’s a local press release you want to blow up.”

“Mm. We’ll decide in the morning. ’S been a good day, lover.”

“And more to come,” he mumbled, already most of the way back to sleep.

*

Tebbith sat on a blanket in the flower-spangled grass near the Holes, where he had taken a little cell carved into the mountainside. Nadia had taken the cell next to his, but she was off at combat practice, an exercise Tebbith preferred to leave to others.

Someone came. These days, every day, someone came.

Tebbith looked up and smiled. “Master Syo.”

Syo Bakarn nodded gravely. “Master Tebbith.”

“My efforts at being a hermit seem to be wasted.”

“Yet you're smiling.” He hefted a brightly colored cube. “I brought you tuber salad.”

“Come, eat with me.”

Tebbith stood from his blanket and picked it up to unfold it to picnic size. He had learned that it was best to be ready to do that at any time.

Syo knelt and peered at the holo among the flowers. “What are you reading?”

“Ronald the Abstemious. I believe that if he were linked to more modern phrasing, his ideas could be quite popular.”

Syo smiled slyly. “Did that work for your friend?”

“Larr? I didn't have an adaptation ready. She finds his ideas unrealistic, the ones she could parse from the original text, anyway.”

“‘Be satisfied by nature. Live simply.’”

“Appealing if applicable. But I wonder. Is not fear natural? And if fear, then anger? And if anger, then hate? To live with nature is to experience these, or at least to pass within sight of them. It makes me think of the ancient code: ‘emotion, yet peace.’”

Syo was grinning. “You're treading close to heresy, my friend.”

“‘Ignorance, Master Jedi. Yet knowledge.’” The next line of that heresy. They both laughed. “I seek more modern guidance. At times I think that perhaps there is no forgiveness, that I should not have come back. But you cannot treat a diseased liver by removing it...I don't know. What do you think?”

Syo seemed to remember he was carrying food. Hurriedly he uncapped the cube and handed Tebbith a fork. “Here. What do I think? I look at the thing within me and I know that if you, Barsen'thor, did not forgive, I would have perished, and perhaps deserved it. Yet here we sit. Surely some lawful person would have stopped us if stopping us were really the right thing to do.”

“These meditations are self-serving. But they have to be, if we are to understand.”

Syo finally got a mouthful of salad. He nodded thoughtfully. “Where’s Nadia?”

“Training at the Temple. She's most of the way to unionizing the younglings.”

“Mm. A Jedi Master may choose to shield the galaxy from his prodigies.”

“What? They never told me that.”

“It becomes a habit, if your name isn't Orgus Din.” He addressed the ether. “I say that with the utmost admiration, Master Orgus.”

Tebbith ate. “In any case, thank you for the meal. I seem to have built a very good rotation of friends to feed me.” Praven, Duras Fain, Sajar, sometimes others. People he had seen at their worst, coming now to steer him toward the better.

Syo just said, “Nothing less will do for the Barsen’thor.”

“I feel I broke that title as soon as I earned it. I should…I should be turning away, Syo. There is still so much I have to do within before I’m fit to deal with the galaxy. I should tell the others. I should tell Nadia.”

“She admires you.”

“She’s the only clean thing that chose to stay with me. Qyzen and I still have differences, Zenith and Tharan too, and Felix was assigned.” Unpleasant thoughts followed that.

“Felix?” Syo prompted gently. “Is there an issue?”

“Only an issue of a young man with no self-control.” Tebbith sighed. “Me, not him. I would send him away, Syo, only, I can’t be the one to send him away again for something he can’t help. I must give him a space where he can serve his vocation. It’s just that I shouldn’t want to be in the center of that space.”

“A heartfelt confession. For what it’s worth, nobody else around here is talking about it.”

“Ah. That’s a comfort.”

“Where are the others these days?”

“I believe Zenith is hate reading the entire Jedi Archives. He comes to me with counterarguments at least once a week. His mind is incisive far beyond what his childhood education could adequately cultivate.”

“His mind and his tongue both. What about the scientist?”

“Tharan and Holiday are working on a box Kira brought from Belsavis. So far it flashes when switched on, but Tharan is convinced there is more to it. A working, decoded Rakata artifact would get him a place in any symposium in the Core Worlds.”

“My goodness. Did he try to marry Kira at any point during this?”

Tebbith huffed a laugh. “She turned him down. Within Holiday’s earshot, which seems to have cut some time off the retribution period. And Qyzen Fess…is here.”

The Trandoshan in question was loping up the mountain path, not from the direction of the Temple, but from further into the wilds. “Herald! Herald!” He ran right up. His great electroblade was activated and bare. “Master Syo. Herald. I bring news. Something has turned the uxibeasts to the north into killing monsters.”

“No uxibeast has ever harmed a Jedi except by accident,” Syo said firmly. “Do you want me to investigate with you?”

There was a tension to it. Syo Bakarn was taut with the possibility of conflict. He had not touched a lightsaber since his rescue from Corellia. Since everyone understood that a Presence in him had made him, however temporarily, a monster.

Tebbith didn’t have to make a show of sparing him. “Qyzen? Will we two be enough?”

But another showed up. Nadia strolled up the path from the temple, and upon seeing the group she trotted as gracefully as anyone ever trots.

“Master,” she said. “Master Syo. Qyzen. Why is your weapon drawn?”

“Monsters walk,” said Qyzen. “We three will face them.”

“Nadia, do you have your lightsaber?”

Nadia gave Tebbith a long-suffering look. “If there’s one thing I learned traveling with you, it’s that avoiding conflict is best handled by preparing for conflict.”

“I’m sure I never said that.”

“Repeated battles with surprise bodysnatching opponents taught me that one. C’mon, Qyzen, where are we going?”

Tebbith smiled and shrugged. Syo covered the salad and gave Tebbith and the others a last cordial nod.

Qyzen Fess could easily run across several klicks and not think about using a vehicle. Tebbith and Nadia had the Force. They went down and up and down on the green laps of the ancient brown mountains. The flowers here were the flowers of spring, spires and whorls of yellow and violet around the copses of little trees, and the air breathing from the valleys was warm, with no particular agenda.

Animals burst from the grasses and bushes as they passed, at first. But the mountainside got quieter. Fewer creatures made any noise at all, much less moved.

Qyzen Fess came to a standstill and raised one arm to stop the Jedi. He half crouched and walked slowly to the nearest cluster of white-boled, fringe-leaved trees.

Tebbith saw it before they reached cover. An uxibeast just a couple of hundred paces away was stamping and pawing at a tangle of flowers, shredding them under massive hooves. Its small eyes were lined in vivid red, the smallest color in a brown body the size of a courier’s shuttle. As Tebbith watched, a smaller uxibeast lumbered out of nowhere to attack the larger. The impact shook the ground. They began to strain and stamp at one another, twisting to rattle skull against skull.

“They will attack as soon as we show ourselves,” Qyzen said. “Are you prepared?”

“Why are they like this? What happened? Does anyone else know?”

“They are my only answers,” Qyzen said. “Let us hunt, and learn.”

“Just tell me when,” Tebbith said.

The animals were circling and crashing together, giving off groans like a ship coming apart in atmosphere. Qyzen raised his blade and gave a clacking war cry.

Which caused both beasts to back away from one another and look at him.

They stamped and charged.

“Nadia, right,” Tebbith said calmly, and raised one hand. A charging uxibeast had the momentum of an atmospheric takeoff, but the Force was his ally, and the larger beast rose into the air, its legs still working wildly. A strain, but well within the realm of probability.

Nadia’s hand was out, too. Her uxibeast tossed its head and kept charging. She spoke with difficulty. “It’s…big, Master.”

“Then the Force fills it that much more fully. Do not struggle. It simply is, and you simply are, and it is rising above the ground.”

The smaller uxibeast seemed to hop, very slightly, and then returned to the ground full speed. A second time it hopped, and lost speed that time.

Qyzen Fess was there with his vibroblade. He sidestepped the small hard head with its red hateful eyes and cut neatly through the back of its neck. The legs worked once more and stilled.

Nadia let her hand drop. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s the best I could do.”

“It worked,” Tebbith said, still holding the larger uxibeast in the air. “Qyzen?”

The uxibeast’s head fell away from its body. “Done,” he said. “I am prepared.”

Tebbbith altered his grip and the larger uxibeast’s legs stopped, trammeled in a loop of the Force. He let the animal down. Qyzen repeated the neck-chopping.

“We cannot dress it now,” Qyzen said. “The source is further along.”

So the three of them hurried onward, from the green lap of the mountains to a narrow pass working up among brown stones under a distant and narrow sky. In small flat-ish tiers here and there, they killed more mad uxibeasts. Nadia got over her flusterment, even though her control remained imperfect. Then they came to a cave entrance.

Qyzen was already prepared with a lantern. “May I lead, Herald?”

“There is life in there. Let us avoid lethal force.” Nadia nodded as if that were directed at her, and stowed her lightsaber at her side.

The cave led back to a small laboratory, hung with white cloth to give it the impression of being someplace clean and indoors. Behind a desk there sat a rounded Human with her hands on a pile of flimsi plans.

“They were supposed to stop you,” she said in a strained alto.

“Friend,” said Tebbith. She shone in the Force. She might be gifted herself. A runaway from the Temple? He didn’t recognize her.

“You, Jedi. You don’t understand.” Her dark eyes were wide in darker shadows. “These beasts? They’re just the beginning.”

“You caused them great harm, and they have harmed one another. Why did you change them?”

“You think the Sith aren’t changing their animals? Nonono. I’ve seen the tuk’ata on Korriban. Raised and altered to be larger, more vicious. We must keep up. We must find weapons where they grow.”

“They’re innocent animals,” Nadia said stiffly. “They’re not weapons.”

“If it can cause harm, it will cause harm, sooner or later. In someone else’s hands if not ours.”

Tebbith had to clear his throat. “Are you from the Temple, friend? We were just on our way there.”

“The Temple won’t see! They stopped Bengel Morr’s work with the Flesh Raiders! They’ll stop this, too!”

Tebbith remembered the tragedy of Bengel Morr. One of the ones that he couldn’t talk down. Larr Gith had killed him in self-defense. “You are wounded at heart, I can see that. Come with us. Rest.”

Qyzen Fess stepped forward. “The Herald and I can kill every one of your creatures. They will never see battle in the defense of Tython, or anywhere.”

The woman looked wounded. “Why would you kill them? For being what they were turned into? Save it for our enemies.”

“We do not store weapons on Tython,” Tebbith said gently. “I invite you. You can rest in a safe place. Then we can talk more.”

Nadia stamped and didn’t seem to realize she’d done so. “You heard her. She learned from Korriban. We should take her back in chains.”

The woman gave a sardonic smile. “Listen to the girl. I am not your tame rescuee.”

“Chains never healed a wound,” Tebbith said. “I invite you to come with us. Your test subjects are mostly dead. The defense of the Tython comes to the Jedi, not to weapons programs.”

“Lightsabers stopped the Desolator from destroying Tython.”

“No. My friend did. Larr Gith would never want to harm animals to make weapons.”

The woman’s eyes were a melting brown. “Larr Gith? Was…your friend?”

“She still is, to my knowledge.”

“So you’d better not get ideas,” Nadia said firmly. Tebbith didn’t fight her. She was excited, and defensive, and they would talk about that in time.

“Where is she? Is Tython…safe?”

“We are not without defenses. Will you come with us? The Temple offers shelter to all who need it.”

“I will surrender, if you tell me…where is Larr Gith?”

“Meeting people of good will, and training to defend the Jedi and the Republic. And everybody else, too, she never lacked for scope.”

*

“What’d you think of those Bakuran bitters?” Doc said, coming up to rest a hand on Larr Gith’s bare shoulder.

She was staring out at three colored moons. “Delicious. We should stock up before we leave.”

He laughed softly. “Your suggestion is my command.”

“I wonder where Teb is?” she said. “I mean, Tython, obviously, but is he living in the Temple? Did he go back to the Holes? Is he frolicking down the mountainside? Would he like me to send him an assortment of personally vetted twinks?”

“Holo him.”

“Not while the Jedi Council is watching. We have to play it cool for a while. I would do anything to keep them from picking on him. Even shut up.” She sniffed. “Their loss.”

Doc nuzzled the backs of her lekku, giving a sensation he very well knew she liked. “Come on, let’s get some sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy.” She looked down at her satin chemise as if surprised she had dressed for bed. “Hey, let’s go out again. The night is barely into middle age.”

*

It was late at night when Qyzen Fess, Tebbith, and Nadia got out of the Temple. Rora Bin, the half-deranged Human experimenter, had been left speaking earnestly with a healer.

The stars shone purely, not like the smudged glow of Coruscant or Corellia. Tebbith didn’t realize he had stopped until Nadia touched his arm. “Beautiful,” she said, “isn’t it?”

He thought about his life, his pallet in the Holes. He compared it with the streaks of hyperspace, the questions of a new world. “I won’t ever get tired of it,” he admitted.

“We made a difference today. We're going back out there for more, someday. Right, Master?”

“Nadia…” He felt the call. Of course he did. He had experienced a lifetime in three years and part of him ached for more. He had tried to bury that part in meditation and philosophy, but it still hurt. “It’s irresponsible to wish some compelling reason would come along.” That was what he had used to silence himself.

“Maybe not compelling,” Nadia said softly. “Just, good enough. You won’t hold back, right? If there’s a reason good enough?”

“I would never hold you back,” he said.

She didn’t press. Maybe because she was letting her assumptions frame his response. He didn’t know.

He would never hold her back. Holding himself…well, he would have to see.

*

“Hm?” said Larr Gith. “You’re up early.”

Doc was sitting up in bed, holding his silenced holo. “Research, gorgeous. Not the most glamorous weekend activity, but I was thinking of some things, and, well, ol’ Doc needs recent intelligence.”

“About what?” She framed her breasts with her arms while she twinkled up at him.

His voice was business but his eyes paid homage. “I figure if I can make a name for myself as a doctor, I…well, I’ll be a little more impressive on your arm, you know?”

Things were quiet.

Larr Gith painstakingly thought this through. If it mattered to Doc, it mattered to her. “You want to be something that isn’t just my plus-one.”

“Right to the point. You get it, though, right?”

“No. I don’t understand at all.  But if you want it we’ll get it. What do you need to research?”

“Horrible and as yet uncured diseases.”

“Wow. You can do that yourself.”

Doc chuckled. “I will.”

*

“Tebbith! Master! Master Tebbith!”

Someone was kneeling at Tebbith’s pallet’s side, shaking his shoulder violently. He caught the hand in a pouch of the Force and sat up.

His attacker was no one other than Nadia Grell.

“Nadia?” he said blearily, releasing her hand. “What’s wrong?”

She knelt at his side. “Karyet Vord took Parliament and they made him Prime Minister and he’s taken over the royal authority and the king and queen’s cousins are under arrest and he’s picking the new Senator to the Republic and he’s a jerk he’s the biggest jerk and Karyet is trying to erase what my family did for Sarkhai and he’s just in charge of the planet now and it’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair.” Her face was red and mottled, her voice scratchy. “We have to do something!”

Tebbith sat up and groaned. He felt like he had slept on rocks. Nadia’s urgency suffused the Force, turning it red and stifling. He took a deep breath. “All right. A man named Karyet Vord, on Sarkhai, has been elected Prime Minister, and controls Parliament, and he is assuming matters of royal authority while silencing every survivor of the Royal Family, and he now effectively rules the planet.”

Nadia didn’t bother affirming or correcting his interpretation. “We have to stop him.”

“Has he started wars? Is he hurting some population?”

“He’s hurting everybody! He’s telling lies about my father! He doesn’t deserve the seat his ass is in! I knew he was a snake, but he’s worse than I could’ve guessed!” She leaned to tug at his shoulder. “Come on. We have to do something.”

He sat up and she leaned back, giving him space to stand and go lay down the law. “Is that the Jedi speaking, my friend?”

“The Jedi help people. And nobody needs help more than the ones getting squashed by Karyet Vord’s puppet government.”

“The Jedi can send an envoy to assess Sarkhai’s responsibilities to the Republic,” Tebbith said. “But I do not think they should send you.”

“No other Jedi knows Vord like I do.” She took a promisingly steady breath. “You and I should go. We can stop him.”

“You are not hearing me, Nadia. You cannot go, not for justice and not for revenge.”

“Why?” she said defiantly.

“Because this is a matter of the heart, and of priorities. We cannot go on as we’ve been, not if you go on a personal matter. If you go back to Sarkhai, I will not follow you. I will no longer be your Jedi Master. I cannot train you, I cannot tell you what to do and I cannot be directed by you in the interest of one planet. I don’t say this to hurt you. But I must say it to inform your choice.”

Nadia’s lips worked. Finally she said, “Does not doing anything always feel like this?”

“A better man might say it becomes easy. But I still have a few connections. And not doing anything chafes like a choke collar. I could remove that collar at any time. But then I would not be Jedi. And so far, that choice hasn’t justified itself.”

Nadia looked like she might explode if she didn’t do or say something. Fortunately, she was never at a loss for things to say. “I can't do nothing. I just can’t give up. But…if we send another Jedi…I could warn that Jedi. Maybe…I could not go myself.”

“That is selfless. And, I think, wise.”

Nadia squirmed. “I can...I can give up Sarkhai, but I can't sit here and not help anybody else, either. Master, I’ve tried to stay quiet, but people need us! Right now! Everywhere!”

The perception of a young person. “You should have been Larr Gith's padawan.”

The effect on Nadia was instant and shattering. She looked stunned. After a few seconds of nobody being very articulate she said, in a small voice, “You mean it?”

This was all wrong. “Not in a bad way.” He struggled to express the similarity. “She has your energy. Star energy.”

“But I want to be like you,” Nadia said. “You've worked for everything you have. You're patient, and kind, and grounded. People can rely on you. You don't believe all people are either perfect or pitiful.”

Oh. “How wise I sound.”

“Are you in touch with her?”

Tebbith slumped. “No,” he said truthfully. “And, for what it’s worth, I lost Corellia to the Empire. I could hurl myself against that until it killed me and it wouldn’t bring back the planet I knew in my childhood. Even when I go back there, I remain a Jedi instead of seeking revenge. Only you can decide that for yourself. I’m sorry.”

Nadia’s forehead had scrunched hard. “Master, you…you never said a word.”

“It didn’t matter. Until we reached this question.”

“Then I can…I can stay with you. If you’ll let me.”

Resting? Eating tuber salad?

Hiding?

She was right to be concerned about the galaxy. Perhaps he should be educating her himself instead of leaving it to the staff at the Temple.

“We should find something constructive to do,” he said. “If you wish to travel with me.”

Nadia scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “I know people need you,” she said. “I know that, even when it’s hard.”

“I need to tell someone we’re leaving. Come, let us walk together.”

She did, faithfully, all the way to the Temple’s landing pads and beyond.

*

Phae stares for a long time at the pair of small gloves that he holds in his hands.

They're far too small for his own hands to wear, he eclipses them in comparison, and they're barely worn — almost new if not for the break in the artificial leathris denoting that they'd been donned only once since a few months ago. Frilled around the wrists, just as he'd figured their owner would like because they felt feminine in a way that he hadn't quite thought she'd been able to indulge in recently. They're a basic brown, nothing too fancy because he figured they'd be grown out of too soon to invest into a pair that would last a long time, but they were more meant to protect than to be of great value.

Meant to protect delicate hands against scars and tears, as well as calluses that would come in too early while working on small projects here and there. They weren't exactly fortified for the work that Phae himself was doing — they didn't need to hold up against power tools or blaster fire, but it was one more barrier between their wearer and the world. They were soft and insulated on the inside, furthering the fact that even if they weren't quite the luxury item, they were practical.

Not that she ever really wanted to wear them. Refusing at every single turn because they felt unnecessary and entirely unfashionable because they went with nothing that she owned (as if she wore anything other than Fiero's oversized jacket).They made her hands sweaty and gross. The material was all wrong. She couldn't move her fingers right when she had to wear them all during a job. They made her itchy sometimes and caused a terrible noise whenever she was using the touchscreen of her datapad. An absolute miss in the gift department apparently but it wasn't like Phae was exactly the man of the year there. She needed them, he went to find the least offensive pair that seemed to also somehow be the reminder that he was vastly out of touch with the things she needed and wanted.

He tried though. Had spent ages deciding between styles with the little money he had left over and surprised her with them because she wanted to help him more around the ship. Even if she disliked it, it was a show of effort on his part. When even that reasoning didn't work, he went further. Put them on her himself a few times while she whined out of annoyance about the necessity of them on a colder planet or when they were doing maintenenace on the Songstress. Then frowned at him for the rest of the time she was forced to wear them. And then slipped them off not ten minutes later, tucked into the waistband of her pants.

It was all he ever did when it came to her. Trying. New things and old things and everything in between. This was just one of those trying things that kept him on his toes, and he had to admit that it was a failure, even if he really didn't want to. Phae hated admitting to himself that he didn't know his daughter as well as he thought he did —and with her only growing older and more independent, this felt like a grand showing of writing on the wall. After quite a few attempts to get her to keep them on during speeder rides and whenever he was showing her how to work the innards of the Songstress, he'd mostly given up on keeping them on her. If she didn't want to wear them, then he couldn't force her to, even if he felt he was right.

Phae couldn't keep the galaxy from her even if he really wanted to. And he did. He very much did. Every single minute of his life he wanted to shelter and protect her from it. Her gloves, a gift for her birthday among other things, were just one of those mini shields that put his mind at ease. Or, eased it as much as it could be.

He rubs his thumb against the embroided aurebesh on the inside wrist of the left glove. Originally meant to be there so she wouldn't lose the pair while she was out and about, and get them returned if they fell somewhere at the school he'd picked out for the upcoming semester … and now it just dries his eyes out and makes his chest hurt.

They were meant to keep her safe when he couldn't.

Where was she now? Somewhere that she would need them? Somewhere where, hopefully, she wouldn't?

Gianna, his daughter, had argued up down and center that she refused to wear them today when she had nowhere to go on Ord Mantell. There was no reason to, and she didn't want to get off the ship anyway. She didn't want to help with the shipments, she didn't want to talk to anyone and she certainly didn't want to be seen around with him right then. So, she'd stay aboard the Songstress and park herself right in the captain's chair while she waited for him to come back. Some invisible slight against her had been dealt, and Phae didn't understand what had caused it. He'd already been running late, and with their hot entry to the wartorn planet, he didn't have time to argue with her.

He'd been upset that morning, perhaps more upset and irritable than he usually was because of the circumstances. Had found that she hadn't been attending the digital classes that she said she was, and was falling behind in school. Her grades had slipped clearly, which he thought the threat of a physical boarding school back on Coruscant would alleviate. If she wanted to stay on the Songstress with him and not her grandparents, then she would have to do the work. Now she wasn't.

It'd slipped out before he could take it back, that he didn't know why he put so much effort into her freedom as a child if she wasn't willing to work with him. That Fiero might've had more patience with her. That she was constantly testing his boundaries and wasn't going to be happy until there were actual consequences — as well as the fact that he'd already put down the payment for a semester at the prepatory academy. Her cerulean eyes had gone wide, and then narrowed into anger. They'd yelled back and forth about things that mattered and the ones that didn't. Why was he so overbearing? Why did she refuse to listen? Why couldn't he just be normal about this? Why couldn't she show some initiative? Why did he have to drag her everywhere? Why couldn't she just be less argumentative all the time?

Why couldn't he just leave her alone?

Phae squeezes the gloves like he would her hand. Her smaller hand, tinier hand in his when she was younger and would thread her fingers through his while they were walking around towns and markets.

It doesn't do anything to calm the storm in his head because she isn't there to fill them.

He had left her alone.

This one time, he had left her on the ship by herself. It was something he never did, perhaps out of paranoia, perhaps because the thought scared him too much even if the ship droid was there to watch her. But this time he had. Because the cargo was too important and he couldn't keep the buyer waiting any longer. Because he knew that getting back off the planet would be an endeavour and a half that would just fry his nerves even more than they were now. Because he just needed to duck in and out for barely twenty minutes to sign everything over and finish the job. Because he needed multiple minutes to not be in her presence and explode like he always did.

Phae had shoved the gloves into his pocket after he'd taken her datapad as punishment and left her stewing in the cockpit with her arms crossed over her chest and an I hate you! thrown over her shoulder. He'd muttered a few expletives of his own on his way out, rubbing the bridge of his nose out of frustration. Phae would have to talk to her later, and decipher where exactly she'd picked up all of the attitude to talk to him like that.

Like that, as if she hadn't always been that way since she was old enough to form words. She spoke her mind, if nothing else, and he clearly had never done enough work to curb that instinct. His mother would say they were the exact same way, and he would ignore her again like he always did when she brought up judgement he really didn't need in his life.

Gianna wasn't supposed to be anything like him. He would say that, and then his mother would tsk her tongue at him and say that was what happened when a child was raising a child. Which somehow only made him angrier, at himself, at his mother, at Fiero for leaving him with her. Frustrated, never angry, but frustrated with Gianna not seeing the path in front of her laid out so neatly and forsaking it anyway.

He just couldn't understand it. But he had a job to do, and put on his typical work expression to get down to business with his buyer.

Twenty minutes had turned into two hours, between having to take the aircraft guns down and making it back to the spaceport. The break he so desperately needed started to gnarl itself around him like a branch threatening to suffocate him. Every minute away from her, he'd become more and more stressed. Felt a pit in his stomach he couldn't explain and dread creeping up his spine. He'd chalked it up to the separatists getting into his head, and just how bad things were in the village. Usually, he refused to get involved in local politics because they bogged down delivery times and he generally had no interest in being a hero. The sounds of bombs going off and ships being shot down, surely that was all it was. Not the first time the Songstress had been in rockier waters, but certainly not a place he wanted to be when he had far more precious cargo to look after in the process.

He figured, surely she would've cooled down by the time he got back. And if not, he'd find some of the fruit they'd gotten from Rishi the last time they were there, and leave it for her to snack on until she was. They argued and fought sometimes, but their problems were small in comparison to the ones that he faced out in the field. It felt inconsequential at least. No kid wanted to go to school, stars knew he never did, but he wanted better for her than the cards that he was dealt. The cards he, admittedly, had a hand in choosing, but ones he didn't want to have her pull no matter the cost. Surely she'd see that for what it was eventually, once she was a little older.

Eventually.

The empty spaceport had turned him over on his head. No Skavak. Just droids left behind with the Songstress gone. His stupid, threatening voice over the holocommunicator and his choice not to put Gianna on the frequency. His refusal to, when Phae had asked. When Phae had nearly begged to be able to know that she was still alive. He'd demanded to see his daughter, had cursed the man out in four separate languages only for him to laugh in his face.

To have the audacity to laugh, Phae had quickly decided that he would be putting a bullet directly through his skull when he saw him next. Multiple, perhaps. He'd been so offhanded about his concern, stating that he had no interest in a little girl but if Phae wanted her back so bad that was on him.

On him.

On him.

He can't not blame himself for this. There's no way around it. If he hadn't been so hasty, if he'd sat down to talk to her for a minute instead of losing his temper again, if he'd just dragged her out damning the gloves and the jacket and the schoolwork, if he'd done anything else but walking off the ship without her, things would be different. They may have still been without their home, their ship, but he would have his daughter by his side. He would have Gianna with him, and he would be able to face the road ahead of him without being terrified for her life.

His eyes water staring at those gloves. He'd made such a big deal of them earlier in the day and now they felt so small in the grand scheme of things. Had he sealed her fate because he couldn't get over himself? Because, like always he felt, he was looking at the wrong things and giving them far too much importance?

Phae hadn't tried hard enough, clearly, and now Gianna was paying the price. He had no idea where she was, had no idea where the ship was, and was stuck on a backwater planet with only his blasters and half a mind to find the local kingpin to catch a ride out of town. He rubs hus thumbs against the palm of the gloves, wishing at least she still had them on. Maybe she would've been less scared then. Was she scared? He doesn't know. He hates the thought of thinking of her terrified, and alone, in those big, soft blue eyes filling with tears —

"Hey, captain—" A knock at the door of the tiny cantina room that feels more like a closet and costs him more than a left arm in the Fort, it knocks him out of his thoughts and nearly clean on his ass when he snaps his head up. The boy's voice. Riggs, if he remembers right, "Sounds like Viidu might have us a lead. Says he'll meet us in the morning if we're up to it. Sound good?"

Phae inhales, his breath shaky when he opens his mouth to exhale. He can't do anything from here as long as he's wilting away in a Fort with no answers. He's a Matriti. They weren't built to sit around and do nothing. He wasn't. If he wanted answers, he wasn't going to sit around and wait for them. He gets up from where he was sitting on the edge of a poor excuse for a mattress, and opens the door to a startled farm boy who looks to him with a questioning gaze.

Once they had found the Commander it quickly became apparent he was no longer in control of his mind or body. Instead of an Imperial officer they were speaking to the ‘great Lord Barel-Slathborn’ who would not recognize that he was dead or inhabiting another man’s body. After a roundabout conversation with the man, Mako had noticed the ID badge sticking out of one of his pockets. When she asked about it, trying to point out that if he was this great Sith Lord it was odd he had an Imperial Intelligence ID, he instead offered it to her as a ‘token’ of their visit if they would just leave him alone. 

Never one to look a gift orbak in the mouth, she accepted it and they left before the ‘Sith’ lost patience with them. 

Then it had just been a matter of carefully making their way out of the temple and the grounds, avoiding the possessed imperials and slaves loitering throughout the space, and back to expedition the base camp. The large turret mounted gates outside the camp had just come into view when Mako gasped. 

Noara stopped walking, looking around to see what had elicited the reaction. “What’s wrong?”

Mako had a perplexed look on her face as she dug out her datapad from her bag. After tapping on it a few times she looked up at Noara. “How long do you think we were in there?”

Frowning at the question, Noara looked at the sky. It wasn’t a great indicator of time with the thick cloud coverage, but it was still light enough to make it daytime. They had gotten an early start that morning, much to Mako’s chagrin, so it couldn’t be much later than mid afternoon. “I guess 10 hours or so?”

Mako shook her head. “Something felt off there, and my implants were constantly reporting errors. We are finally clear enough to hook up back to the holonet and we were in there for almost thirty four hours.”

That couldn’t be right. Noara pulled out her own data pad to check the time and date. Sure enough it was a day and a half later than when they had set out from the city. “But if we were in there that long, wouldn’t we have noticed?” Noara asked, struggling to wrap her mind around it. “We should be exhausted and hungry.” It reminded her about the musing she had done about how the possessed survived. 

A thought appeared in the back of her mind, a dark, disturbing thought. The temple, even more so than the rest of the world, was a nexus of highly concentrated Force aura that was dark and tainted. In her studies she had learned about Force Sustenance, the ability to consume the Force and replace the need for food, water, rest, even oxygen. Her already churning gut clenched.

“What?” Mako asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously, “you know something about this, don’t you?”

Noara shook her head, “I don’t think you want to know right now. Let’s put some space between us and that cruk-hole and if you are still curious I will tell you.” She gestured for them to start walking again and, after a moment, Mako did but she had an amused smile on her face. 

“What’s the smile for?”

“I can’t believe you said cruk-hole.”

Feeling her face flush with embarrassment, Noara kept walking. It wasn’t that she didn’t know vulgar language, but she had never gone through the same phase many of her peers did, using swear words to excess. Harsh language like that just did not feel natural to her. “Aren’t we a little pressed for time now?” she asked, hoping to change the subject.

Mako cursed under her breath, with a much harsher curse than Noara had uttered, and started walking faster. “You’re right, we have about three hours until the Grand Melee starts. Whether we are there or not.”

They had just barely entered the expedition base camp, heading directly toward the taxi hub, when Lord Alaric stepped into their direct path. 

“Finally, you’re back. Did you do it? I hope you sealed the chambers of the ancients? Kel'eth Ur's chamber especially.” The pale man visibly shuddered, “I'm terrified to think what would happen if Kel'eth Ur and his crazed ideas were to re-emerge!”

Noara thought about the dark, disturbing and unsettling Sith presences inside the temple and how Kel'eth Ur was by far the last intimidating one they encountered, and couldn't help herself from being partially truthful. “Kel’eth Ur left behind a hologram message, sharing his beliefs. Is a Sith who turned Light really something to fear?”

Alaric’s eyes widened and he stepped toward her, “you spoke to his image? Take care not to let his words lead you astray young Sith. Do not underestimate the power of the light, which eternally seeks to destroy us. Did you seal his tomb so no one else can be manipulated by him?”

Mako poked her elbow into Noara’s side, reminding her they were now on a tight schedule. “We sealed his tomb, and all the others. No one going into that place will be able to speak to Kel’eth Ur again.” It was the truth, his holocrom was safely tucked into her bag. She hadn’t been sure what she was going to do with it until this moment, when she knew it would be wrong to hand it over to the Sith. 

“Good, good,” Aleric said with a nod, handing Noara a small metal token. “Kel'eth Ur's secrets have been contained, along with the other ancients. You have done well. Tell your master that you have earned my favor. That token is your proof that you have done a great service to the Empire.” Then, without another word, he turned on his heel and marched away from them. 

Noara chuckled, turning the token over in her hand and thinking over his words. She never got the traditional Master/Padawan dynamic but the idea of telling her any of her masters that she had earned a Sith Lord’s favor was amusing. Mako grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the taxi hub. 

“C’mon we need to get going,” she said. “As long as we can get in to see Medle quickly we should be able to make it.”

Luck was on their side and there was a taxi already at the hub waiting for passengers. Mako took care of scheduling the route while Noara climbed into the back seat. Once she was sitting she started to become aware of how dirty she was. The temple hadn’t been abandoned, but it hadn’t seen any upkeep in probably centuries. Dust, cobwebs and just general grime coated her clothing and probably her hair too. 

As Mako got into the taxi and it started to drive, Noara pulled out her hair tie and worked on combing out some of the tangles and dust. 

“We need to talk,” Mako said after she had finished turning off the droid’s audio receptors, “about the melee.”

“What about it?”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you never kill a target if you can help it, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Mako added quickly when Noara shot her a look. “It’s kind of a misconception about Bounty Hunting, it isn’t always about killing others. Lots of bounties are for bringing in a target alive, those sometimes even pay more because it’s harder to contain some beings than just killing them.”

Noara hummed thoughtfully as she worked on pulling her hair back up. “I am starting to see that, and I would prefer it if I didn’t have to kill targets like Altaca. His only crime was being gullible.”

“That and his taste in women,” Mako said with a laugh before her expression sobered again. “But that doesn’t mean you can always avoid it. Some targets will require it and the melee definitely will. The other hunters are going to be desperate to continue, and they will kill you if you hesitate or try to show mercy.”

Noara waited until she was done tightening her pony tail and brushing her bangs so they swept to the side the way she liked before she turned to give Mako her full attention. “You’re right, both that I’d prefer to avoid it and that sometimes I won’t be able to. I promise I am prepared to do what needs to be done in the melee.”

“Good,” Mako replied with a grin as she leaned back in her seat. “I’m just getting used to having a space monk watch my back, I’d hate it if you died now. Now I sent a message to Medle’s office that we are on our way but I haven’t gotten a response yet. Hopefully he gets the message and can meet us there.”

Noara pulled a couple protein bars out of her bag and handed one to Mako. “These don’t taste the best but they are a good meal replacement. The uh… circumstances that kept us from being hungry in the temple should wear off soon.”

Frowning as she took the bar, Mako said, “you know I’m starting to think I might never want to know what has you so freaked out about that.”

“Probably a good idea.”

It seemed Captain Medle had not gotten Mako’s message before their arrival at Imperial Intelligence. The receptionist, a very stern woman who was not interested in being helpful, kept insisting they would need to come back during regular business hours. Noara gave up trying to reason with the woman and decided to make her cooperate with them. 

“You will contact Captain Medle and inform him he needs to return to his office immediately,” she ordered, pushing the compulsion to comply through the Force. Once the woman had sent the message, Noara joined Mako where she was standing by the wall tapping on her datapad. 

“We don’t have much time,” Mako said, “he better hurry. I don’t dare slice into their security system to find him here. It’s too risky.”

It took almost fifteen minutes for the Captain to arrive, barging into the room with a demand to know what the emergency was until he noticed them. 

“You’re back!” Medle exclaimed, “but I was told… nevermind, come into my office.” 

They followed him into his private office. He did not address them until he had shut the door behind them and was sitting at his desk. “Did you get the commander’s ID?”

Mako handed the card over and Medle took it quickly, inspecting it closely. “That's Commander Gargun's, all right,” he said after a long moment.

“Of course it is,” Mako said. “Now we are running short on time, we need you to mark the job done now.”

Medle looked up at them, ignoring Mako’s words and asking, “what was it like in the Dark Temple? I've yet to hear anything that didn't sound like pure raving.”

“Dusty and filled with unlucky souls that have been possessed by the spirits that roam free there. Those reports are raving for good reason.”

He nodded. “I had a feeling that was the case. Still wish I could have gone in myself. Would have saved me some unpleasantness. Listen to me, "unpleasantness." I'm even starting to talk like a spy.” Medle stood and walked around his desk to stand in front of Noara, “remember when I said Sith didn't want anyone in the Dark Temple?”

Noara could feel a sudden warning from the Force, a bad feeling in her gut that had nothing to do with the planet’s dark energy. She put a hand up, “stop Captain. I know what you are about to do and it will only end with you and any guards you call in dead.”

“You don’t understand, I can't risk the Sith ever finding out you went into their precious Dark Temple--which means you're now a liability.”

Noara scoffed, “a Sith sent me on an errand into that temple! Lord Alaric was quite pleased to have our aid there.” For good measure she pulled out the token the Sith had given her and held it up for the man to see.

“Lord Alaric is a lesser Sith Lord, but he works for one of the most powerful members of the Dark Council,” Medle said. “If Darth Marr is aware that you were sent to the temple and did not order your termination for the trespass…” His voice trailed off as she heaved a sigh of relief, “I might not be cut out for this work, I don’t have the stomach for it.”

“Not wanting to kill someone is not a failing,” Noara said, making him laugh. 

“In this industry it is.” He shook his head and turned back to his desk, retrieving a small disk and a credit chit. “Here's your writ. It tells the Mandalorians you did your job. And here's your pay.”

“Thank you Captain,” Noara said sincerely, taking the items from him. “You made the right choice today.”

“I hope it’s one I can live with. Now you better hurry, I hear the Melee is meant to start soon. Good luck.”

Noara nodded at his words and turned on her heel to leave the room, feeling Mako at her back. “How are we on time?” she asked as they exited the Intelligence offices and stepped back into the constant rain. 

“It’s close, if we hurry we might make it.”

“Then we better hurry,” Noara said, increasing her pace as they walked toward the Mandalorian Enclave. 

Jurr was out of the taxi like a shot the moment it started parking on the landing platform in front of the Mandalorian Enclave. Torian watched her hustle down the ramp, her long red braid swinging behind her before she spun around and shot him a look with her mismatched eyes. One was her natural warm, golden brown and the other a brighter, artificial yellow gold that almost glowed in the dim mid-day light of Dromund Kaas. The cybernetic eye was a recent addition to the already impressive array of implants she had on the left side of her head. 

It had been entertaining watching her relearn how to navigate the world she had previously only known with a single eye. Of course no one was more entertained than Jurr herself. Some people might find living with her disabilities a burden, and on some level he was sure she did, but she was always the first to crack a joke about her shotty memory. Hell, she got out of the shitter assignments in their hunting camp by pretending her memory core had reset again - even when Torian knew for a fact it had not. 

“Hurry up, Torian!” She snapped impatiently. “The melee is starting soon!”

“We’ve got time Ge’tal’ika,” he replied, following her down the ramp at a much more casual pace. 

Jurr scowled, both at his pace and the nickname. She usually replied to it with her insistence that her vibrant hair was the least interesting thing about herself. That she didn’t was a testament to how excited she was. 

“All the best seats are going to be gone!”

“Jurr, you have a built-in scope now, you will be able to see perfectly no matter where we end up.”

She stopped abruptly and frowned, turning his words over in her mind before speaking. “But you won’t be able to see.”

Torian smiled at the uncertainty in her tone. He wasn’t sure if she was really that concerned with his view of the fight or simply forgot how much her sight has improved since her surgery. Odds were good it was a bit of both. 

He grabbed her armored bicep and propelled her forward, “you’re right, I need a good spot.”

They joined the jostling crowd of Mandalorians making their way into the arena. It was a sea of armored bodies, all painted in different colors and patterns. Most were wearing their helmets but Jurr and Torian weren’t the only ones not sporting theirs. They had finally made it into the tiered seats that were around the stage when a voice called out their names. 

“Torian! Jurr! Get over here!”

Turning toward the voice, Torian was surprised to see Corridan Ordo. He had grown up like brothers with the man, and they were brothers in every way except blood. They made their way over to where he had snagged a few prime seats right at the front. 

“Now this is what I am talking about!” Jurr crowed, immediately securing herself a prime spot as close to the barrier as possible. 

“Didn’t expect to see you here vod,” Torian said, slapping Corridan on the back. The other man had been on an extended assignment offworld for the last few months.

“And miss the first Great Hunt in 10  years? Never!” He nodded at the stage, where a few of the hopeful entrants already stood. “It’s been even longer since one generated enough interest to require a Grand Melee.”

Torian looked out at the stage. It was elevated from the arena floor and sat only slightly below where they sat. He would have a very good view of the show from here. There were a variety of races on the platform. Human, Rodian, Gamorrean, Mirilian. Even a Trandoshen, who were famed hunters due to its significance in their religion. Each hunter wore a variety of armor styles and was heavily armed. 

They had come here to fight, hopefully it would be a good show. 

“Heard anything about these hunters? Any good prospects?” Torian asked. He and Jurr had been in the jungle all week and hadn’t heard much about the competition. 

“Partogg is a clear favorite but there are some interesting rumours about an all-girl duo.” Corridan was always good about keeping himself in the loop so Torian wasn’t surprised he had an answer. “No idea if they made it this far but I hope so.”

“What kind of rumors?” Jurr asked, her face glowing with excitement. 

“Well for one, the hunter in that team uses light sabers. Holonet says she killed a Master Jedi for ‘em.”

“Really?” Jurr’s eyes were wide in surprise, “a run of the mill hunter killed a Jedi?” While Jedi and Sith were not impossible to kill, they were generally a pain in the ass. If it was true, it was certainly impressive. 

“That’s what they say.”

Jurr leaned around Torian and gave Corridan a pointed look, “you think it’s a lie?”

Corridan grinned, “I guess we will find out, won’t we?”

“Well I hope she made it,” Jurr said, settling back into her spot. “I think Mom’s her guide. She told me this morning the all girl due she was mentoring had gotten some shitty bounties for the preliminary competition. She suspected a Mandalorian with some pull had a grudge against them.”

“Some run of the mill hunter has a Mandalorian gunning for them?” Corridan asked, “that’s even harder to believe than that she killed a Jedi.”

Jurr shrugged, “mom said it was the only explanation for her getting marks from Imperial Intelligence and an officer.”

“Welcome to the Grand Melee!” An amplified voice called out, and they all turned their attention to where Huntmaster Assistant Lek striding into the center of the stage. “Five hunters have made it this far and now we will all get to see what you are really made of! It’s a straight forward fight, take out your competition and the last hunter standing joins the Great Hunt! Simple as that! Now-”

He was interrupted as Crysta Markon, Jurr’s mother, strode on to the platform toward him. He muffled the microphone as they exchanged words. 

“What’s going on?” Torian asked. 

“If mom’s here her team must have shown up,” Jurr said standing up and looking toward the competitor entrance. “There! Do you see them down there?”

Torian looked where she was pointing and immediately spotted the two women standing near the entrance. They were talking and it looked intense, the slightly taller woman gesturing as she spoke. The shorter woman had her back to him and he wondered if she was the hunter in the group. The easy posture and way she held herself spoke of confidence but if so her attire was unconventional.

“Well looks like we are in for a treat today!” Lek said, his microphone turned back on. Torian turned back to the stage and saw Crysta heading back to her team. “One of our hunters who was reported dead has arrived making this a six way melee.” He gestured toward the ramp. Torian was surprised to see that he was right, the smaller of the two women had left the other woman with Crysta to head into the arena.

He studied her closely as she reached the edge of the stage. Unlike the other hunters who wore an assortment of armor pieces and utility items, she wore a simple black sleeveless cropped top and matching snug leggings. Nothing that would protect her from any blows or blaster bolts. Nothing that would stop the pierce of a blade. While wholly impractical, top did showcase the impressive tone of her bare arms and abdomen. Even while confused by her lack of protective gear Torian couldn’t help but take notice. The woman was an alluring combination of petite and curvy, the kind of woman who looked like she knew she looked good and used it to her advantage. 

The most dangerous kind of woman. 

And the most attractive.

Added to his surprise was the fact she actually did have two lightsaber hilts hanging off her belt. From the murmur of the crowd around them he was not the only one who noticed.

“Is that-” Jurr asked, voicing the same thoughts Torian had, “she actually has lightsabers!”

“Damn, she does.” Corridan agreed. 

“Nice of you to join us,” Lek said sarcastically. The woman replied with a bright smile but her words were too soft to carry to the stands or be picked up by his microphone. She spoke for a moment to the man, her hands moving along with her words. After a moment she stepped away and Lek addressed the crowd again. “Now that we are all here I can finish my instructions. Six hunters. Only one can move on to the Great Hunt. And for an added bonus, we have a special rule to make this more exciting.”

The wave of surprise that went through both the crowd and the hunters on the stage was palpable. Torian could hear whispers from behind them, wondering aloud what the special rule could possibly be.

Lek gestured to a group of armored Mandalorians stationed at the entrance to the arena and they ascended the stage. 

“My friends here are going to relieve you of your blasters.” Lek said with a grin, “yes that’s right. No blasters will be permitted in this melee. You have to prove your ability to fight, and win, by other means.”

Voices rose from all around the arena. No one saw this coming. Torian was shocked, unable to tear his eyes away from where the Mandalorians Lek had summoned were going around the arena relieving each hunter of their blasters. Some even went as far as patting down the hunters to make sure there were no hidden blasters on their person. Torian tracked their every move as one approached the hunter Crysta was assisting, accepting the single blaster she handed over with another smile, when Jurr grabbed his arm. 

“They aren’t taking her sabers,” she whispered, leaning in so Corridan could hear her as well. “Are they really going to let her use them?”

“Maybe,” Corridan said, “unless they don’t think she can use them.”

“She can use them.” Torian said. “Look at her, she isn’t phased. She’s smiling, like this is going her way.” 

Jurr grinned. “I think this is going to be good.”

Noara had never made a bigger gamble than this. It was bold, reckless even, to attempt to influence the Assistant Huntmaster in front of all the eyes watching. Her saving grace was that no one else was close enough to hear her words as she planted the idea for true melee. She couldn’t help but smile at the grumbling complaints of the other hunters on the platform. It was obvious only she liked the idea. 

Rolling her shoulders to limber up before the fight, Noara took a calculating look at her opponents. Save one human male, the rest were all aliens. A Rodian, Gamorrean, Trandoshen, and a Mirilian made up the rest of the half dozen to qualify for the melee. Before her entrance the fight had been odd numbers, that all but guaranteed that someone would be attacked by two hunters. She had evened things out, making it less likely that more than one hunter would focus on her to start so really they should thank her for turning up.

Unless her late entrance had seriously pissed them off. Hopefully none of them suspected she was responsible for the Mandalorians walking around the platform confiscating their blasters, though from the way the Gamorrean across from her was glaring her way she wasn’t sure it mattered. When one of the blue armor clad figures stopped in front of her Noara was quick to hand over her blaster. There was a slight hesitation in the man’s body language when she confirmed it was her only ranged weapon but he brushed it off after a moment. 

Noticing that the Gamorrean was not the only one giving her an angry look, Noara was reminded of Mako’s final whispered words before they parted. 

“Remember what we talked about in the taxi,” she had hurriedly whispered while Noara was taking off her bag and overtunic. It was sodden from the rain and she was wearing a cropped athletic top underneath that would be easier to maneuver in. “This time there is no getting around killing them, if you don’t they will kill you.”

And she was right of course. Braden had told her it would be necessary to take lives during this mission and she had taken a few. Now she would have to again. It wasn’t that Jedi were opposed to killing their enemies, it just felt a little frivolous for anyone to die for the sake of a competition. Like many things had felt lately, it was out of her hands.

As the mandalorians and Lek started walking off the platform Noara drew both of her sabers. All around the platform the others had also drawn their weapons, two wicked looking daggers for the Rodian; a pulsing vibrosword for the human; the Gamorrean had what looked to just have a large club that had been strapped to his back; the Trandoshen had a bladed polearm - the kind that’s shaft retracted when not in use; and standing closest to Noara was the only other female, the Mirialan, had a metal sword. From the peculiar shine of the metal and the smug look she was directing at Noara she suspected it was at least partly cortosis - one of the few substances that could withstand a lightsaber blade for at least several strikes. 

“Enough bellyaching!” Lex said, his voice amplified by the microphone he was wearing, effectively cutting off the remaining grumbling from the human man standing to Noara’s left. “You hunters are the best that the galaxy's goons and thuglords could send us. Now show us which one of you will join the Great Hunt. Fight!”

Noara burst into motion. Instead of heading for the Mirialan who obviously intended to engage her, she darted for the Trandoshen. Igniting her sabers as she ran, Noara ducked to avoid a wide sweep of the polearm’s blade, flicking her offhand saber up to cut the shaft in half as it fanned over her. Before he could recover from the surprise of his weapon coming apart in his hands, she popped up to her feet and drove her main saber into his mid section, not quite bisecting his body but dealing enough damage to be fatal. He collapsed and didn’t rise again.

One down. 

Sensing movement behind her, Noara side stepped and just barely missed the Mirialan’s sword slicing through where she had just stood. Turning to face her, Noara raked her gaze over the platform to take stock of who was still in the fight. The Rodian was down, his daggers lying on the ground near his still body. The other two were locked in a fierce back and forth as they traded blows but the Gamorrean was visibly overpowering the human.

The Mirialan swung her sword again, forcing Noara to block with one of her sabers. She had expected it but was still surprised when the blade did not give. Definitely cortosis, or something similar. She shot Noara a fierce grin, “not so unstoppable now are you?”

Adjusting her grip on her offhand saber, Noara thrust it toward her opponent’s leg. She quickly stepped away and Noara followed, raining down a series of blows that were blocked frantically. The Mirialan hunter was obviously skilled with her sword but she was at a disadvantage with only one weapon. She also had too much faith in her weapon, unless it was made of beskar or ultrachrome it wasn’t actually insusceptible to her weapon, just resistant. 

Sure enough Noara could see the blade starting to chip and crack with each strike. 

Noara sensed the incoming blow with only a second’s warning to duck, rolling out of the way of the Gamorrean’s club that chopped through where she had just been, colliding heavily with the platform. Bits of stone chipped and shot out in all directions from the impact. A sharp piece hit Noara’s cheek and she could feel warm blood starting to run down her face. 

Taking a quick scan of the platform, she saw that the human male also down, leaving only the three of them still in the fight. 

Given a brief reprieve as the Mirialan was dodging blows from the Gamorean, scoring multiple blows on the larger male but not doing much damage through his armor, Noara stayed down for a moment to get a few deep breaths. It had been a long, grueling time in the temple and the lack of rest was starting to catch up to her. She really needed to try and finish this quickly, it was likely her competitors had been able to rest before the fight.

As she was still Noara noticed she had rolled near where the Rodian had died. Two wicked looking daggers were lying next to the body where he had dropped them. Inspired, she quickly returned her sabers to her belt and snatched up one of the daggers. Popping back up to her feet, Noara felt the weight of the dagger in her hand. It was heavier than she was used to but felt well balanced. 

No sooner had she gotten to her feet when several things happened at once. The Gamorrean caught the Mirialan in the head with the heavy weapon with a sickening sounding blow. As she went down like a sack of tubers Noara threw the dagger. She’d practiced throwing knives before and knew she could hit her target most of the time but still reached for the Force to direct the dagger and give it some extra oomph. It landed in the Gamorrean’s neck, digging deep into the artery there. Noara knew her anatomy well and her aim had been perfect. Blood spurted out from the wound and she could feel warm droplets of it landing on her skin. 

As the Gamorrean collapsed on the platform, still twitching as the spurts of his lifeblood slowed, Noara became aware of the sound of raucous applause. Another person might revel in that, in the victory, but she found herself unable to look away from the blood. Sabers as a rule didn’t cause much bleeding, they cauterized wounds as they cut, and she had never seen so much blood. It was… shocking. And more than a little horrifying, especially knowing that she was responsible for it. 

“The melee is over! One Hunter remains!” Lek proclaimed, his words startling her out of her shock. 

Suddenly Noara was very aware that countless eyes were on her and she was most decidedly not acting like a hardened hunter. Trying to put a bit of swagger into her steps, Noara walked over to the Gamorrean and knelt down. Be one with the force hunter, she thought, not daring to even whisper the words aloud, as she grabbed the dagger and pulled it out. It made the most unnerving squelch as it pulled free and she had to fight to keep the disgust off her face as she wiped the blade on the hunter’s sleeve. Once the blade was clean enough for the moment, she slipped it into her boot. 

Taking trophies was a hunter thing. At least she thought so. She’d have to check with Mako if that had been a good idea or not. 

As if summoned by her thoughts, Mako was at her side and she hadn’t even noticed the woman approaching. She threw her arms around Noara’s shoulders. “You did it! We are in the hunt!” Mako stepped back and lifted one of her arms, gesturing at the crowd, “and you definitely made an impression. Look at them.”

Noara finally looked up at the stands, filled to the brim with people. Most wore mandalorian armor but almost all had their hands up, cheering and clapping. It was strange to have so many people’s attention, let alone their approval, but Noara found that she didn’t hate it at the moment. Later she would probably be disconcerted with all of it but for now she was just relieved this part of the mission was over. 

Mando’a Translations

Ge’tal’ika : Little Red