"These intrusive thoughts have no right to work out as well as they do."
The people of Chembau were, as I should have been able to tell from the cultural evaluation included in the dossier I had slogged through, culturally inclined towards extremism. Towards zealotry, really, though that term was misleading. At least, that was what the dossier had claimed. Personally, it hardly seemed any more intense than seeing some local celebrities passing through.
"Lord Sith! A moment of your time?" Our little group of three had walked down the Salvation Promenade for no more than five minutes before we had been called out to for the first time. By now, almost two full hours later, it had been expected and routine. Naturally, we had a plan for dealing with it.
And there was no prize for guessing whose turn it was to enact the plan.
"Always," I said, my barely forced smile coloring the words. On instinct, my right hand was already extended in greeting. "Nestor, apprentice to Lord Egatio of the Sith Empire."
"Mithy," the man, smiling nervously, took my hand with clear enthusiasm. "An.. I mean… it's an honor to have you on my world. On this world, I mean."
"The honor is all mine, Mithy," I said. "It is a beautiful place to visit. A shame I cannot stay here long enough to truly appreciate it."
"A great shame indeed," the man said, still clearly jittery. He fiddled with something on his belt, sending a brief spike of paranoia racing through my skin, but he only retrieved a small camera. At least, what I thought was a camera. One of these days, I promised myself, I will find myself find a tech catalogue to browse through just to figure out what is what. "I… I don't suppose I could get a holo?"
"By all means," I agreed without hesitation.
Within a few moments, Mithy had gotten his picture, I had gotten a ludicrous amount of needless thanks, and I rejoined my procession. Well, part of it; Hibal had broken off to chat with a local at one of the stalls. A local pastry maker, if I were a judge of things. The many colorful signs, the scent of sugar in the air, and the rows of pastry on display made it easy to guess.
The other apprentice, Elcho, seemed happy enough just waving to the crowds.
"Well done." The apprentice did not waste a lot of time on words as we maintained our pace. A moment later, the third member of our party rejoined us, now armed with a bag full of what looked like balls of sugar. Or deep-fried dough balls. I really couldn't tell, but that wasn't too important.
"Nestor," Hibal greeted me, using the Force to let his food float by his face. "The next right is yours."
Ah.
Yes.
I had a job to do. Namely, go somewhere and be a distraction. And, if I had fully understood that briefing, find the Little Jedi, all in the hope that I would keep her too busy to murder any of the honest citizens preaching to the masses about how the Empire was a great place to be.
Probably. Most of that briefing had been shrouded in euphemisms and double-speak and subtext, so I was only mostly sure about what my actual objectives were.
Still, as I peeled off from the other two apprentices to walk down the unimaginatively name Main Street, I could not help but notice how quickly the atmosphere changed. Gone were the festivities of Salvation Avenue, gone were the countless stalls and booths full of locals showcasing whatever it is that let them put food on the table. In their place, small clumps of people bearing signs and placards stood at every lopsided intersection.
Every man had a belief they would die to protect, and they wanted you – specifically you – to know exactly what that belief was. Brochures were handed out liberally, fliers were given away, and as I walked past a particularly well-dressed clump of proselytizers, I was handed more than one business card, of all things.
They received my thanks, as all people of this world did, before I moved on.
This state of affairs lasted for three blocks.
For three blocks, the general adulation I had waded through as I had walked down Salvation Promenade continued as though nothing had changed. But after passing the third block west, one key difference made itself quite clearly felt:
The popularity of the Empire was significantly lower here. I was stopped for handshakes and pictures far less frequently. People stopped asking for signatures or for me to take a flier, even as the number of speakers on every street corner remained steady.
By the fifth block, the requests for my attention had abated entirely. People still noticed me. People still took pictures. But people no longer approached me. This was, as far as I could tell, neutral territory. Personally, I did not mind. As much as I enjoyed what was effectively a promotion from go-fer to brand ambassador, it was good to have a break.
After two hours of work.
Yeah, I changed my mind. This break did not feel earned.
Eventually, I reached what I could only describe as the main square of the city. Which, given that I was walking down Main Street, should not have come as a surprise. The size of an entire city block that had been bulldozed flat, the center dominated by a single pillar atop a fountain, topped with a person atop a… horse? A person riding an animal of sort, in a clearly heroic pose. No doubt they had some sort of relation to motley assortment of banners hanging from the light poles that ringed the square.
Part of me wanted to take a closer look, but that would have left me sticking out in the sea of people circulating through the square. Or rather, it would have left me standing out against the sea of people moving in a completely different manner. Thus, I joined the pattern.
"Do not allow yourself to be deceived, my brothers and sisters!" A disheveled looking man in a featureless grey robe proclaimed. Despite his rather haggard appearance, I recognized his face. A local political agitator, one not on any government's payroll. He was clearly popular enough, but I wasn't too certain about his level of influence. "The Empire only seeks to feed you to the machine that will fuel their war!"
Of course, there was a good reason why people were circulating in their pattern. All around the massive fountain, men and women stood atop their boxes, preaching whatever it is that they felt so strongly about. Like this gentleman here, whose opinion on the Empire was all too easy to identify.
It was an opinion that was actually not too far removed from reality.
But alarmingly for my employers, it was not an opinion held by the fringe of society on this world. No, if anything, this was one of the more popular speakers arrayed around the fountain. The audience reached so far back, pedestrian traffic around the square was limited to no more than four lanes. And, perhaps more seriously, the listeners seemed interested.
And not in a 'free entertainment' kind of listening, no. That kind of environment I knew quite well from my college days and would have been a pleasantly nostalgic distraction from my current situation. The listeners here, however, paying rapt attention.
Most of them, at least. The back ranks tended to move around a bit more, usually join the audience in front of another speaker.
"Let's be honest here: a decade of peace, and still an economic recession?" Like, for example, this far more neatly dressed woman. She, too, had been included in the briefing dossier. Not on the imperial payroll, but a firm believer in imperial propaganda. A useful patsy for the Empire. "A decade of spent rebuilding, and the Republic economy is still shrinking year after year? And we want those utter incompetents to rule over us? Have we gone mad?"
She brought up some good points. Of course, I was not an expert on interstellar economic recovery programs, so maybe the Republic economy was doing as well as could be expected. But I had no way of knowing that.
And the laymen in the audience were much the same.
Something buzzed at my waist, putting a premature end to my contemplation. The culprit was, predictably, the commlink I had liberated from one of the people in our delegation. Since I was supposed to be easily reachable, I had taken a bit of initiative and equipped myself properly. I checked the built-in screen and was faced, rather predictably, with yet more doublespeak.
That attraction I mentioned is open.
No doubt they referred to the 'other activity' from the briefing. It was good to know that the cream of the intelligence community could figure out who had taken the commlink. Now, if only they could have been a bit clearer about what, exactly, the 'attraction' was.
Main square? I sent after spending far too much time hunting for the letters on the abominably small keyboard.
Correct. You can't miss it.
Can't miss it? They underestimated the depths of my idiocy, clearly.
I looked back up, watching the woman speak about the fall of the millennia-old galactic institution that had managed to survive far worse events was inevitable. Assuming I had not managed to get catastrophically lost, then there was something important here. Or, more likely, someone. Unless I had managed to completely misread the subtext and hidden meanings.
Refusing to go down that particular rabbit hole of panic, I forced myself to move. Dressed as I was, it was impossible to mistake me for anything other than a Sith, giving me all the elbow room I needed to get back into the pedestrian traffic. From there... well, I supposed I would know what I was looking for when I found...
A familiar diminutive figure, standing at the corner of a side street just ahead of me, blue eyes narrowed slightly in concentration. Some people walked around her, no doubt part of the everyday traffic through the square, but none of them paid her any mind.
The Little Jedi.
No sooner had the term entered my head did hers slowly turn to face me. Oh good, she knew I was here. Of course, that should not have come as a surprise; I still had no clue how I was broadcasting my thoughts at all times, and the people I worked with had every incentive not to tell me.
The Jedi's eyes lingered for a moment before her head jerked back briefly, indicating the small side street. I was reasonably certain she was telling me to follow her. Or to expose my neck to give her an easier target. One of the two. Luckily, we were in public, so the only thing I had to fear was being spotted by someone with a camera.
Still, this was a bad idea draped in red flags.
How could I resist?
=================
AN :
And it's the triumphant return of worst girl so far, on her quest to find out what she did to deserve this.
And also stab people. Mostly stab people.
...
Hey guys I would really appreciate it if you could throw some power stones to help elevate the ranking.
...
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