"Oh look, a change of topic! Let's do that!"
I left the governor to preen about her master plan to keep a recovering mad scientist cooped up behind seven layers of security. She would no doubt begin to regret it when he turned the access panel to his door into an improvised explosive device out of sheer boredom. Hopefully, this new guest Saresh was looking forward to entertaining would arrive sooner rather than later, but that was a problem for the insurance company.
Unlike those bureaucratic drones, I had actual work to do beyond trying to figure out if IEDs were covered by a standard government insurance policy. What was this work, you may ask?
Tax evasion.
Sales tax evasion, specifically.
Hutt Space didn't have a sales tax, only organized crime. It was a beautiful system. Or it would have been if it didn't make me want to subject every planet in it to sustained orbital bombardment. Not because of the tax policy or the organized crime, no. It was because the entire polity was morally abhorrent.
But that was a problem for when I had solved all the other problems in the galaxy. Until then, I had to play nice with the narco-slave-state. But first: I had to get there.
This ship was not my usual light freighter I used as Nestor. While I could have used a transponder overlay to disguise its identity, it was generally better to not bring the same vessel into opposing nations. Besides, arranging for someone to create that transponder overlay would have been another loose end. Can't have that.
No, instead, I was using a bulk freighter I had legally acquired on Taris. Turns out, even a planet as small as this had an impound lot. And dead pirates. Point is, I had a safe way to get my goods to Nar Shaddaa and from there to imperial space. And from imperial space to Taris. All thanks to the Hutt desire to avoid any kind of nonessential infrastructure.
Like traffic control.
I was torn from my musing by the proximity alarm on my ship's boarding ramp. The security camera revealed a familiar figure: dark hair, fair skin, and a green robe… a robe that disappeared as the figure neared the entry hatch, being too short for the security camera.
The Little Jedi, here for her talk no doubt.
Before the bell on the hatchway had a chance to chime, I triggered the appropriate switch on my vast control board. With a clunk that resounded through the entire frame of the oversized freighter, the door retracted. Once the Little Jedi was aboard once more, I closed the door again, resuming my pre-flight checklist.
I had almost made it through by the time she joined me in the cockpit.
"Seriously, how does a man who has been stabbed in the back as often as you still remain so trusting?" I did not turn to face her voice. Mostly because I knew perfectly well that she didn't plan on hurting me. Also because this chair didn't swivel. Since I usually traveled alone, that was usually a nonissue. "One would think you would be a bit more careful."
"Darth Thur and his cronies have been dealt with," I said simply, continuing with my pre-flight checklist. Fuel pressure: good. Coolant pressure: good. Artificial gravity: good. Communications: functional. Lucky charms: in my other ship. Eh, I could cope. "Why be suspicious of people who have not earned my mistrust?"
"Nestor, I've seen the scar on your back. The old scar. The incident on Chembau was not the first time you've been stabbed in the back."
"Technically, it was a laceration from a thrown gardening tool. That doesn't count as being stabbed." I began to feed power to the repulsorlifts and watched the indicators jump into the green in less than a second. "Oh, and strap yourself into the jump seat; I'm still not a very good pilot, so this might be rough."
"A gardening tool," the Little Jedi commented, her voice flat. No, not flat; There was a note of something else in her voice... but I couldn't tell what it was. From the back of the cockpit, I could hear the creak of the jump seat being unfolded and the click of a seatbelt. "To the back."
"Childhood misadventures," I said by way of explanation, my voice cheerful, before throwing the switch to activate the repulsorlifts. "You know how it is."
"I most certainly do not!" she protested as the freighter lifted with a shudder. "Unlike the Sith, the sane parts of the galaxy do not consider that part of a normal childhood."
"Sounds boring," I commented idly. Throwing power to the drives, I sent the freighter on an exit course from Taris. Until we were free of any potential incoming traffic, I kept my focus on keep the ship flying instead of plotting the course to Nar Shaddaa. "But… uh… You wanted to talk?"
"I had some questions."
"And you want them answered," I said. "Otherwise known as a talk."
"Or an interrogation."
"Don't threaten me with a good time," I commented. "But… go ahead."
"That accent of yours. Is it your real one?"
"In this language," I allowed.
"It's a Republic accent," she pointed out. "From the Inner Rim, if I had to judge."
"Your guess is as good as mine. If you could tell me what planet I came from…" I began to speak, but I cut myself off. What would I do? If I knew how to get home, what would I do? Go back? Abandon this galaxy to an immediate future of bloodshed and death? Run away from my responsibilities? "…I would be grateful. Of course, you've already saved my life, so I'm not sure how I could repay you."
Before long, I made my way out of the gravity well of Taris and set about programming the hyperspace jump. Naturally, the jump point was on an entirely different vector.
"So how did you end up part of the Taris reclamation effort?"
"After Chembau, I did a very smart thing and tried to get to Dromund Kaas after everyone else," I explained. Behind me, the Little Jedi gave a strangled snort of amusement. "Inheritance squabbles are always a nightmare, so I wanted to avoid the messiest part. Unfortunately, I ran into some pirates. Fortunately, there were enough prisoners for me to stage a jailbreak, and the closest safe harbor was Taris."
"You're helping rebuild a Republic world out of… what, gratitude?"
"No," I scoffed. By then, the freighter had gotten lined up with the exit vector and the hyperdrive was charging up. "My fellow escapees stuck around because it was decent work for a noble cause. I stuck around because I had gotten invested in them and told them I would. Next thing I knew, I was draining a swamp because Doctor Godera wanted to filter out the hfredium for another round of government subsidies so we could get the colony another step closer to self-sufficiency."
"Wow. You fumbled your way into a massive breach of galactic security by being a decent person," she deadpanned. "That's a new one."
"It's also a great place to hide when I inevitably find myself in a situation I cannot sweet-talk my way out of." I pulled a lever to engage the hyperdrive, and the starfield turned to lines of light and then into a blue and white tunnel. On my control board, a timer began to count down until I arrived at my destination. "Is this the part where you arrest me for subverting Republic authority?"
Silence reigned inside the cockpit for a moment.
"This is the part where I'm pretty sure I will regret what happens next," she muttered. "The High Council is putting together a task force for hunting down Darth Angral. Your participation would be… politically advantageous."
"Is this invitation from you or from the High Council?" I asked. The former would be flattering. The latter meant I could do some good in the galaxy.
"From the High Council," she confirmed.
"Can I bring my allies?" I asked. Well, it was just the one ally and whomever she had managed to con into joining in, but I was willing to be very liberal in my definitions. When it benefitted me, of course.
"I would be disappointed if you didn't."
Ignoring the temptation to disappoint her was great. Blessedly, I was made of sterner stuff.
"I'm in," I said simply.
A few hours later, we arrived at the capital system of Hutt Space. Cruising in from the outer edges of the solar system, I ignored the planet of Nal Hutta in favor of its moon. Unlike the underdeveloped polluted swampland that was the primary, the satellite hosted a sprawling city on every inch of the surface. If there had once been oceans and seas, they had long since become obscured by blocks of skyscrapers and mazes of walkways.
It was a familiar world, and I put down in the heart of the Nikto territory without difficulty. And, far more importantly, without having had to deal with traffic control.
Unfortunately, I could not immediately disembark. No, I had to do something very important first: change into more appropriate clothing. But once that was done and the Little Jedi had placed her call with her bosses?
We disembarked together, making for a rather odd sight. I was, as usual, dressed in my imperial outfit: a glorified three-piece suit in red and black, my head completely covered in a blank black mask that gave the impression of amicability at all times, with a bronze-hilted lightsaber swinging at my waist. To my right, the Little Jedi wore a set of green robes, her dark hair gathered in a severe braid. Between us, at the Jedi's belt, swung another lightsaber.
If you knew what to look for, one of us was in a perfect position to gut the other.
And I was the gut-ee instead of the gut-er.
"Lord Nestor!" the Nikto gangster on guard almost fell over himself as he tried to greet me with what he thought was an appropriate level of respect. In truth, it did more to amuse me than satisfy any misplaced sense of pride. "You have guests in your hideout. They had the right codes, but I just thought you deserved a… heads-up…"
His voice trailed off as he registered the presence of the Little Jedi.
"Excellent, thank you, Jain," I said, giving him a light pat on the shoulder. Already, I had slipped back into my imperial voice the moment I had slipped on my mask. "Have the crew start unloading the ship. We've got a buyer coming in the morning, so you can take it easy if you get done early."
"Yes, of course!"
The gangster scampered off to do as ordered, and I felt myself frown beneath my mask. The deference was nice and all, but it never stopped making me feel absolutely filthy. The fear instilled in them by the anonymous Sith who had borrowed a ship of theirs (read: me) had clearly left an impact, one which made them very quick to agree to work with the Sith who had returned their ship and help up the other Sith's bargain (read: also me).
Yes, it was useful.
No, it did not make me feel any better about the deception.
"Other guests?" the Little Jedi asked as we made out way into the warehouse complex. I waited until we were inside the turbolift to the rooftop apartments I had claimed as my hideout before answering. "Those allies of yours?"
"Indeed," I said.
The doors whispered open, revealing four Sith apprentices sitting around a conference table. Well, arguing around a table, but that stopped the moment they acknowledged our presence.
And that was when the lightsabers came out.
A side effect of having too many homicidal women in my life, no doubt.
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release, you can join my p atreon :
p atreon.com/Darkness013