"I'm not small, I'm perfectly average. On Sullust."
"Touchdown in seven minutes, Master Jedi," came an emotionless voice over the shuttle intercom. Not a droid's voice; This was the pure professionalism of an expertly trained pilot. One of the many who had risen to replace the cataclysmic losses from the war in the decade of relative peace of the Cold War.
Lia did not rise from her meditative pose, cross-legged on the floor. Reaching out with the Force, she flicked the intercom on and off twice in a row, transmitting a burst of mild static. Was it necessary to continue with covert communication procedures? No. Was it good to maintain a habit? Absolutely.
True to the pilot's word, the ship came to a complete rest precisely seven minutes after the announcement, and she disembarked onto the surface of Corellia for the first time in several months. She had always reported to a station or a fleet muster or a satellite academy between missions since… it had to be before she had gotten uncomfortably well acquainted with Outer Rim tabloid culture.
Savoring the fresh air of her home world, mixed with the considerably less fresh fumes coming from starship exhausts, she strode off towards the exit of her launch bay. At least, that was what it looked like. In truth, she was plotting a direct course for the aging Jedi lounging in the shaded gap between storage tubs that stood beside the exit doors.
Could she see him? No, but she did not need to when she could sense him perfectly well.
"You need a new hiding place, Master," she said by way of greeting. Well, she said it in passing. That she had to wait for the door to unlock and slide open turned it into a greeting. "You've used that same spot in every bay since I became a padawan."
"I will have you know, I have used it since long before then," the old man's wizened voice corrected as he stepped into the sunlight. Old by Jedi standards, his craggy face bore the mark of long years spent beneath the sun. It made for a rather disarming sight when combined with the fact that the only hair on his face was concentrated in his eyebrows. Old Master Elb had not changed a bit since she last saw him. "You just haven't been around for long enough."
Did he just pre-empt her calling him old?
"Point," she conceded, choosing not to dwell on the point. "What brings you here? Don't the younglings need your sage guidance?"
"They will manage to avoid killing themselves in new and creative ways for all of five minutes," Elb said with all the wisdom of a learned master, chuckling lightly as he strode through the now-open door into the sparsely occupied spaceport. No, calling it a spaceport was a misnomer. This was one of the private landing bays at the compound of the Green Jedi of Corellia. "I'm supposed to get you to your debriefing."
"I already submitted my report," she pointed out but followed the old master nonetheless. "Did the council have further questions?"
"Our council did not," he answered. "But the high council did."
Ah.
The Jedi High Council on the ancient Jedi homeworld of Tython. Lia knew that the Jedi of Corellia were technically subordinate to their ancestral order, but that linkage was tenuous at the best of times. The people of Corellia were a fiercely independent people, and their Jedi were no exception. They listened and obeyed, but only because they chose to do so.
"To which part of my report did they object?" Lia asked as she followed the meandering pace down one of the mostly empty hallways. Some cleaning droids trundled around, emitting a constant pleasant chime in an attempt to avoid ending up underfoot.
"They did not object to any of it. They wanted a bit more information."
"About?"
"You should know by now," he said, cryptically. At her raised eyebrow the old master continued. "This Lord Nestor you seem to have grown so very fond of."
"He is an asset," was her defense. An honest defense, too. Nestor was an asset, to those who knew how to use him. Unfortunately, that list was dangerously short.
"He is a Sith."
"He is imperial," she corrected. "A Lord of the Sith, but not Sith himself."
"Oh?" he asked. "You will have to explain the difference to me."
"If you were ever in the same room as him, you would know," she muttered before refocusing himself. Nestor and his open mind made for easy listening. True, the words were utter nonsense, but feelings were feelings. "He is… he is his own creature, twisted, unusual, and uncommitted."
But above all, Nestor was trusting. In a way few people were, especially those who had been stabbed in the back.
"High praise from you," the old master commented.
"It is a simple observation," she said.
"Of course," Old Elb allowed. "The high praise is that he's still alive."
Shit, he had a point.
"Like I said, he is an asset."
"Sure he is." Old Master Elb's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "That's why he has cost the Republic a potential ally in Chembau."
"The only thing we lost was a few million credits. The Empire lost five Sith. We gained an asset that I have already been able to use, they gained an allied world that will need a bit more work to integrate into the Empire. I would consider that a fair trade."
"It is fortunate that the Green Council and High Council both agree," the old master said, coming to a halt in front of one of the many holo-conference rooms in the Green Jedi Compound. "But they still want to know more about Nestor."
The door whispered open, but Master Elb made no attempt to enter. No surprise there; The concept of 'need to know' was quite deeply embedded in both of them.
Stepping into the small room, the door whispered shut behind Lia. Unsurprisingly, the room was windowless and only dimly lit. Furnishings were minimal, with only a padded stool placed opposite a small table that had been built to house a holoprojector.
All in all, it was sufficient for its purposes.
Lia ignored the stool, taking a standing position in front of the table and activated the holoprojector. Its lights flared as it came online and was set to the standby mode. As soon as the other person was ready to start, they could connect to this projector, and this meeting could get off the ground.
Mere seconds later, the projector jumped to life. A vaguely human figure appeared before resolving into a more defined figure. Wait, one figure? Wasn't this meeting with the High Council? Why was there only one figure?
The mystery was resolved as soon as the figure came into focus. The humanoid projection of pure light was still taller than Lia herself, even after accounting for the added height from the table, being a one-to-one representation of the Grand Master of the Jedi Order herself. Middle aged, with dark hair and pale blue eyes, Grand Master Satele Shan wore her age as well as most middle-aged Force-users did.
"Knight Lia," the hologram commented, oblivious to her inner thoughts. "Thank you for your time."
"It is no great hassle, Grand Master," she answered. "I was told you had some further questions about a certain Sith?"
"I do," came the answer. "Do not mistake this for a reprimand; I merely wish to know more about a potential asset before I try to make use of it."
"Certainly," she said. "Was there anything you wished to know in particular, or should I break him down?"
"Rest assured, I did take the time to prepare some questions ahead of time, Lia," the Grand Master told her. "I would not wish to waste your time. Could you explain how you managed to earn Lord Nestor's apparent trust in such a short amount of time?"
"I can assure you, it was not my intention," she prefaced her explanation. "When I first met him, Nestor's thoughts were entirely unguarded and on full display. I was deliberately brusque in an attempt to worsen his already unbalanced mental state and try to cause a slip-up we could exploit. Unfortunately, I did not anticipate that this would end up being the most positive bit of interaction Nestor had had in months."
"This feat is not easily replicable, then?"
… honestly, it was hard to say. Nestor was in a far better place mentally than when she had first met him. His thoughts were quieter and encoded in that unknown language of his. Getting on his good side for would require a novel approach, should it be attempted.
"Not as I did, no," Lia answered after a moment's pause, shaking her head. "Trying to read his mind is not much more difficult, but the thoughts are encoded in a language I do not recognize. Attempting to identify it with the assistance of protocol droids has not succeeded. His mental state has also stabilized. No, repeating my process would only alienate him, and I am hesitant to recommend any sort of predictive process regarding him."
"This is related to your inability to identify a planet of origin for Lord Nestor, correct?"
Being reminded of Nestor's title almost made her wince. The idiot was actually politically relevant, best not to forget mentioning that.
Hold on, this was supposed to be reprimand-free!
"Yes," she admitted. "As I mentioned earlier, attempting to identify his native language using snippets of thought from his mind has failed. His current accent is an attempt at the Tapani-derived imperial accent, but far from perfect. His gait is too stiff to be natural, likely the result of his too-short training. Recovered samples of his DNA reveal genetic markers that do not match any known planetary profile. Trying to match him to any known cultural behavior blueprint is impossible."
"Which ultimately means that predicting him relies on analyzing previous patterns of behavior, for which we lack sufficient data," Grand Master Shan surmised. "But you believe it to be possible?"
"Predicting him?" Lia did not wait for an answer. "No."
"And gaining his trust?"
"Avoid cloak-and-dagger schemes, treat him fairly, and don't betray him," she said. "In other words, treat him like an ordinary man."
"That is one way to put it, yes," the Grand Master allowed, pausing before asking her next question. Or more likely, moving on to the next line of inquiry. This topic was just about exhausted. "Are you familiar with what Lord Nestor has planned in response to Darth Angral's declaration?"
"Last I heard he was going to try to handle things from the imperial side," she answered. "I have yet to reach out to him."
Naturally, she had passed along Nestor's holo-frequency in her report.
"He put out a press statement and promptly disappeared approximately 48 hours ago," she revealed.
"I see…" Lia commented, though only to fill the silence. "Is that why you wished to discuss him? To see if there was a way to track him down?"
"In a sense," she answered. "The high council is putting together a task force to hunt down Darth Angral. Having a Sith there, if only as a symbol of cooperation, would be invaluable in gathering support and weakening the Empire. But until we can find him, we need to start to deal with Darth Angral. To that end, you will be going to Taris to secure Doctor Nasan Godera until the rest of our team can get be assembled. We will have further instructions for you once that is done."
Taris?
That bombed-out swamp?
Taris?
"I see," Lia declared.
Taris.
At least it would be a nice change of pace. Get in, grab the doctor, and hole up until they could get out. Nice and easy, as far as missions went.
It was a notion that lasted until she landed in the middle of a firefight.
...
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