"What is more righteous? To leave an evil system or to try and change it?"
We landed on the balcony outside the Sith apartments with all the grace one might expect from a professional space-wizard killer and some guy who was working an office job less than half a year ago.
That is to say, the Little Jedi landed without as much as a sound while I landed with a proud thud of wooden-soled dress shoes on stone. Beyond the jagged hole in the transparisteel panel that was once part of a sliding door, I saw nothing. Well, not nothing, merely an absence of the apprentices that had tried and failed to kill me.
Which was funny in its own way. But pointing that out would have been counterproductive. Talking at all would have been counterproductive, truth be told. Left with nothing else to do, I waltzed into the lounge as though I owned the place, not caring how much noise my footsteps made. In fact, I welcome the noise; All the better to announce my presence.
But that nobody was there to receive me was… unexpected. Troublesome, even. Detrimental to my plans, in fact.
Blessedly, that disappointment lasted only a few seconds. Barely long enough for me to grab a mostly full bottle from the still liberally stocked bar that dominated the far wall of the lounge. Judging by the dark color of the liquid within, it had to be some kind of liquor. Something for later, I told myself.
"Nestor," a familiar voice interrupted my musings. "Fancy seeing you here."
Turning ever so slightly to my left, I saw Hibal sauntering over. There was something in his hand with a metallic shimmer- a lightsaber, no doubt, just not activated. No doubt Elcho was sneaking up behind me similarly equipped, ready to activate his lightsaber once the emitter was just behind my heart. A glance to my right revealed that yes, Elcho had entered the room and had indeed been drawing closer.
But I could not leave my spot quite yet.
"Very illogical for me to return to the place where I was nearly killed, I know," I said lightly, casting a searching glance around me for some kind of glass. But no, there was not a single one kept around; No doubt they were in a cabinet somewhere. That really should not have come as a surprise; What kind of lunatic kept glasses out on open display? "But I felt like celebrating not dying. Call it a foolish impulse."
"Suicidal, more like," Elcho spat. "Anything else you wa-"
Tragically, that was all he could say before a shard of transparisteel sped through his neck. A thin red line appeared across his throat, traced from carotid to jugular to jugular to carotid. The second smile split open in a fraction of a second in a spurt of bright red arterial blood as the apprentice collapsed to the ground.
On my other side, Hibal shared a similar fate. No, an identical fate, with his throat purging his lifeblood at a record-breaking pace. He twitched like mad, groping for the armchair he had collapsed beside. A pale grand clenched around an armrest, the attached arm tensing and the body moving up fractionally before collapsing back to the ground.
Dead, or close to it.
"I was expecting a lightsaber," I observed, trying not to react too much to the scene before me. By any measure, I had never been a killer. A pacifist, really, for most of my twenty-four years of life. To have a pair of lives extinguished before me without hesitation was… not something I had been prepared for. Truth be told, I was about ready to empty my stomach at the sight of it.
"Which is why I didn't use one," the Little Jedi countered, nodding to one of the corpses. "Grab one of their lightsabers; It'll do you more good than your prop."
Naturally, I had told her ahead of time that my lightsaber didn't actually function. While that had resulted in one of my gaping wounds being packed a little more roughly than necessary, it had been an important bit of information. And now, I had the chance to correct that shortcoming.
The pair of apprentices had been carrying their weapons in their hands, as one might have expected. Now, they were resting on the impressively plush carpet. Just beyond the thick red soup rapidly spreading around the still twitching bodies. Reaching out with the Force, Hibal's leather-wrapped weapon flew into my hand.
A ruby-red blade sprang to life in front of me, and a smile grew on my masked face. A lightsaber, a functional lightsaber, in my hand! Oh, what child hadn't fantasized about exactly this? Well, perhaps without the imminent threat to one's life, but still.
"Contact, 10 and 2," the Little Jedi tore my thoughts back to the present. True to her words, the senior surviving Sith of my delegation had appeared in the doorways. Darth Thur on the left, Lord Elcho on the right. The former was closest to me, and I snapped to my ready stance without so much as a thought.
"An alliance with a Jedi? To think your generation had fallen so low disgusts me." Being on the other side of Darth Thur's overly dramatic tone was hardly any better than merely being a bystander. If anything, it was significantly less amusing, if only because I was reasonably sure he could back up his bluster.
I, on the other hand, was another story.
"The term is pragmatism, my lord," I said by of explanation, but it was too little too late. The senior Sith had his lightsaber ignited and was leaping to attack me before I had a chance to more thoroughly explain that I had no choice. Of course, I had not had a choice entirely due to the Sith's actions.
Red blades clashed as I gave ground again and again.
For reasons that I hope are obvious, I was reluctant to take advantage of any opportunity to riposte. No matter how much my mind screamed at me that I could not hope to win without attacking, I was less than eager to lose a limb to a foolish move.
But as I tripped over an armchair, I began to feel frustrated. Though I managed to roll away and regain my footing, I did not appreciate the feeling of helplessness. When I found my back to the wall, when I stumbled, when I struggled, when I barely turned a blow that would have taken off my arm, when I fell, I fully expected to not see the next minute.
Had this been a rational universe, I would have died at the feet of Darth Thur.
Had this fight continued for another five minutes, I most certainly would have.
It was the strangled cry of someone in a lot of pain for not a lot of time that changed my fate. The strangled cry, and the sudden sensation of something missing. Whatever could have caused this, I did not bother investigating too closely. Darth Thur, by contrast, whipped his head to the side to look at something… behind me? Eh, a problem for later.
Something tugged at my belt, and I felt a small weight leave me. My 'lightsaber', I realized as I saw the glimmer of shining metal move into position on Darth Thur's other side. As was to be expected, the Sith Lord had noticed it as well. Naturally, seeing a lightsaber float into position on his unguarded side, he tried to get rid of it.
But something stopped his blade from reaching it. No, not something; Me. I did. Red met red as I interposed my blade, keeping the false lightsaber from being destroyed. The latter was an ancillary benefit, as I discovered moments later; The fact that the Sith's weapon was kept occupied was more important.
A fact I realized as a bright blue blade scythed through his arm, chest, collarbone, and part of his neck. And then his head.
Twice.
The remains of Darth Thur collapsed to the ground, his weapon extinguishing itself within seconds.
Holy shit.
It was done.
The other Sith were dead; I was alive.
Five dead, and I still lived.
And I… and I…
And I could not leave. If I left now, it left behind five dead Sith. It was as easy a spin job as one could hope to get. If I left now, the Imperial Intelligence agents left inside the delegation would turn this into a cause for war before the hour was out. Over the course of a single day, I would have made the entire galaxy objectively worse.
How could I prevent that?
For a start, I needed to get Imperial Intelligence to spin this the right way. To spin this my way. To do that, I needed to be an indisputable part of the Empire. To do that, I needed to be perceived as loyal to the Empire. So in order to maintain peace…
"Fuck." The word escaping my lips was spoken with unexpectedly soft tones. I tore off my mask again, pulling ozone-heavy and blood-soaked air into my lungs as my thoughts shifted gear.
To my side, the Little Jedi shot me a curious glance. Had she figured something out? Or was she simply calculating if she could get away with adding another Sith to her list of kills? Wait, no, she had spent the better part of our little planning session to patch me up. She had no reason to want to kill me.
"Your thoughts are getting louder, Little Sith," she warned me. "Something wrong?"
"Lots of things," I admitted. "But there is a way out. Four steps, and we can make it out without consigning the galaxy to another generation of war."
"Go on." She was listening, which was a start.
"First, I call Imperial Intelligence," I said, using the Force to grab the commlink from Darth Thur's belt. "Don't give me that look, we both know each of our intelligence communities is paying extra close attention to this world. Hopefully, I can convince mine to spin this in a way that doesn't get billions of people killed."
"Does that mean I should tell my master he doesn't need to complete the deserter welcoming packet he's been filling out?"
"Step two, I get changed," I said, ignoring what she just said. I had had to get back into my ruined outfit with all of its tears, holes, and bloodstains. Hardly the kind of thing I could wear in public. "Everything except my socks has been soaked in my own blood. I can hardly go out like this."
"A tenth of your back consists of gauze and adhesive patches," she pointed out. "The only place you should be going is a hospital."
"No time for that," I said, already moving to the room I had been assigned. My luggage should have been stored there. "We need an alibi while my people cover his up like a zit on prom night. Half the galaxy thinks we're involved already; if we feed into that delusion while the bodies are officially discovered, we can mitigate any potential fallout. And undercut any attempts from Imperial Intelligence to ignore my instructions. Hence, step three."
"And step four?" she asked, following me to the doorway. And thankfully no further.
"Get into character," I said, slipping the mask on, but still leaving my face exposed. "The galaxy only knows me as Nestor, Sith Apprentice. Can't let them see the real me quite yet."
"Ah, yes, that most important part of this plan," she deadpanned.
"I knew you'd understand," I said, already pulling up the relevant contact information on Darth Thur's commlink. "But, in case I don't have a chance to say it later… thank you, Lia. Genuinely."
The mask came down fully and the call connected, but I still heard the Little Jedi's response.
"Who said you could use that name?" she asked. "But you're welcome."
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