"My idiocy hasn't killed me yet. Why ruin a streak?"
In a move that should not have come as a surprise to anybody, the Sith Empire had managed to assign a specific value to a human life. And a specific value to an alliance with a reasonably developed independent system, for that matter. The specific credit value did not matter to me, but the existence of this bit of callous arithmetic very much did.
For the record, the value of a human life was less than one-seventh of an advantageous alliance. Seven innocents had died in the 'disposal' incident, and it was from there that they had derived the fraction. The five Sith who had died and whose had been disposed of did not factor into this calculus. As intelligence had informed me, they had already been dead. A sunk cost, so to speak.
Had I mentioned yet how much I hated being part of this nation? Yes? Good.
Because there was no way for me to leave without endangering galactic peace.
Yay me.
"My lord, the airspeeder is ready."
The voice of the intelligence drone dragged me back to the present. Back to the ready room in the palace on Chembau. Back to where I was sitting with a cup of local not-quite-tea. A fragrant and local herbal stimulant in liquid form, certainly, but not strictly speaking tea.
"Any changes?" I asked.
"No, my lord," she answered. "Everything is set to proceed according to the itinerary."
"Good," I lied. That was it, then. Job done. No reason to linger. "Very good. Time to leave, then?"
"You are expected at the northern landing, my lord," she confirmed. "Your escort is waiting."
Ah yes, my 'escort'. Being trusted to walk around without a pair of lightly armed naval troopers in combat armor had apparently fallen out of fashion after the deaths of five Sith. Not even the same two troopers at all times, either. They switched off at seemingly random intervals, but this time they were two men of vaguely lean builds.
The pair followed me closely as the rest of the imperial delegation finished their preparations for leaving the world. They would be taking less conspicuous routes back to the ship. I, however, did not have that luxury. No, I got to ride with the other notables.
Other notables which would all be packed into the same airspeeder, which meant that I had to get to the northern landing area of the fortress-palace. It was identical to the one I had landed at when I first arrived. Same open square, same pretty herringbone paving stones, same overwatch positions ready to turn this place into a kill zone at a moment's notice.
And perhaps just as threatening, the Little Jedi was there, too. The Little Jedi and none of the rest of her order. Plenty of assorted hangers-on and high-ranking members of the Republic delegation were present, as were those of the imperial delegation, but only one Jedi. All to match the one Sith.
Not that it was surprising; Any fool could have realized which direction the political winds were blowing on Chembau. With an alliance to the Empire secured, or all but guaranteed, it would have been a PR nightmare to keep trained Jedi on a planet with a single Sith.
But not all of them could leave, no, not all at once. That would be an insult, and would only galvanize the pro-Empire populace further while demoralizing the pro-Republic populace. Which was why one Jedi got to stick around to formally say goodbye.
She… looked about as she usually did in these situations. Aloof, standing out like a thumb in those plain green robes, and glaring at me. Yes, she had every reason to distrust me, and I had no way of explaining how things had gone so poorly for her.
The closest thing I had to an ally, and I had managed to get on her bad side. Well, worse side.
Still, once the Regent had given his farewell address and we had all made the appropriate noises of gratitude, we were off. Republic and Empire alike, both leaving from the same part of the fortress-palace at the same time.
But still in different speeders. There were limits to the kind of show we could put on.
It was a peaceful ride in the airspeeder, all things considered. Nothing blew up. Nothing shot at us. Nobody threw rotting produce let alone rocks at us. We just flew sedately down the broad avenue in an open-topped speeder. Said avenue was lined with imperial banners. Many were the crisp and precisely made banners available for sale at any Empire-aligned importer, but a fair share were cruder homemade articles. In a way, they conveyed the sentiment far better.
Many people here wanted the Empire.
After all, the Republic had inspired only an act of terrorism. The Empire had helped respond to said act of terrorism. With the aid of one Jedi, of course, but that was a detail that could easily be forgotten. Actually, forgetting about the Little Jedi was the best-case scenario. The scummiest of the media outlets had opted to spin it as evidence of some sort of galaxy-spanning romance, a forbidden love between representatives of two diametrically opposed nations coming together to save lives.
For what it was worth, I did not hate that particular spin if only for its propaganda purposes.
Except for its complete misrepresentation of the truth.
Alas, the speeder eventually came to a halt. From there, it was a simple trip back to orbit in a shuttle. That something as incredible and resource-intensive as spacetravel had become so casual was still something I could not fully grok. I knew I was going back to space, I knew it was an easy process here, but that did not make it any easier to accept.
Still, the quick flight gave me plenty of time to just wait for the rest of my entourage to pull off Chembau.
And as I stood in the hangar bay of this particular Harrower, a thought occurred. I did not need to get back to Dromund Kaas right this second. Heck, it would quite probably be very good for my health to not be anywhere near that planet. Given my lack of a master, I lacked even the slimmest layer of protection.
Perhaps more importantly, I was still undertrained by the standards of your average Sith Acolyte. With the murder of my master, and the unfortunate demise of two other high-ranking Sith, I was poised to take the mantle of Sith Lord. There was a rather unfortunate discrepancy in the level of power between those two titles. And this ship was going to deposit me right in the middle of what I could only assume to be an internal power struggle for the remnants of Lord Egatio's power base.
Yeah, I did not want to be anywhere near that. Best to arrive late, if at all. Let the worst of the blood spill itself.
"Deck officer," I addressed the man in the technical uniform overseeing one of the broadly triangular shuttles aboard the ship. "Have one of the shuttles readied for take-off."
"Of course, my lord," the man responded dutifully. He asked no questions about whether or not I would be aboard the ship for the journey, if only because a lifetime with the Sith had no doubt drilled absolute obedience towards the Sith into his very bones. This was very much to my benefit, sparing me the hassle of having to arrange a launch through ordinary channels. "Shuttle 4 is ready for launch at your discretion."
"Excellent," I said, striding off towards the entirely standard shuttle. The body had a wide triangular cross-section, promising more than enough space for me on the upcoming journey, though the wings had been swung up to stand vertically upon the peak of the shuttle's body. Suffice it to say, it was a distinctive design, but ubiquitous inside imperial space. It would serve.
Once inside the shuttle, it was the work of a few button presses to retract the ramp, seal the hatch, and power up the drives. Status lights lit up as the minutes passed; Reactor, shields, drives, repulsor lifts, life support… each indicator had a solid dot of green telling me that everything was working as intended. Including the comms, which were alive with chatter and questions and demands.
Naturally, as the ranking (read: only) Sith aboard the ship, I ignored their requests.
The controls of the shuttle were a relatively simple two-stick affair; one was the throttle, the other steering. A pair of pedals on the floor controlled the yaw of the ship. With their help, and the use of a lever that switched the controls to repulsor-only, I soon managed to get myself into a launch position.
"Shuttle 4, launching," I declared.
"Shuttle 4, identify yourself," the imperious tones of the ship's captain ordered.
"Oh, my apologies," I said, my voice still steady. "This is Nestor, Sith Apprentice. I'm taking the shuttle for an alternate route. Safety precautions and all that. You know how it is."
"I do not." The words were spoken with ice. "But you are acknowledged, my lord. Fly safely."
"The same to you, captain," I said. "Shuttle 4 out."
My shuttle rocketed out of the launch bay, shuddering slightly as it passed through the magnetic containment field that kept the air inside the hangar. Gently tugging on the control yoke, the starfield on the other side of the cockpit spun until the Harrower-class came into view. Another tug and I reversed course as I came alongside the massive warship. The warship which, with a flicker of pseudomotion, suddenly disappeared.
Right.
What now?
This had seemed like a clever idea while aboard the ship, but now that I had left… Eh, I'd figure something out.
It was slow work going through the navi-computer, only partly because I was unfamiliar with the system. Reading these runes that passed for letters was still a challenge. Still, I managed to program a route to Dromund Kaas, just significantly slower than the warship.
Pulling the control yoke again, I adjusted my vector to match the one supplied by the navi-computer. Double-checking the numbers, I reached over to the control lever for the hyperdrive. Triple-checking the numbers, I pulled the lever. The tiny pinpricks of light from the stars blurred to lines, the black of deep space changed to pale blue, and I was away.
Faster than light.
For an hour. Then the blue and mottled white tunnel collapsed, sending me back to reality in an empty and uninhabited system. Wait, that was a ship on sensors. Was this not an empty system? I checked the on-board computer to verify that yes, this was indeed uninhabited.
Unfortunately, the rather large ship speeding towards me had not gotten the memo.
And the bright red streaks shooting past me seemed far from inviting.
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Hey guys I would really appreciate it if you could throw some power stones to help elevate the ranking.
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