Sure, there was an interview with J'Meson, but that was under embargo until we had a solid win in hand for the sake of momentum. Angral could not have found out about that unless he had been spying on me from the start.
A muffled voice reached my ears, but I paid it no mind.
...
Darth Angral had had no reason to keep an eye on me. The only people who knew about my efforts to oppose him were Darth Lega and Natia, and I had contacted them directly. With a communicator provided through my master. By Imperial Intelligence. Which Darth Angral helped run.
And my master's last assignment for me had been one for which I had been uniquely unsuited.
Something warm pressed against my hand. I didn't know what it was, but it felt comforting, reassuring. Almost immediately, it dragged my mind to the present.
"There we go," the Little Jedi whispered, her hand on mine. I drew in a ragged breath, sending another stab of pain through my chest at the sudden movement, but the Little Jedi kept her hand in place. "Happy thoughts. No more spiraling."
"Outside," I managed to say, my arm twitching slightly. Taking the hint, the Little Jedi backed away. For my part, I stormed towards the exit. "Now."
She complied without arguing, saving her questions until we stood in the hangar with the ship locked up behind us.
"Going to explain what's going on?"
"Either the communicator aboard my ship is compromised, or my master is scheming against me," I revealed, letting out a shallow breath. Now that I stopped to think, this was far from an impossible situation. "I can deal with both, but not on my own."
All it required was the usual Nestor Magic.
"Oh?" The Little Jedi got a particularly smug look on her face. "Going to ask for help, are we?"
"Ask?" My tone grew just a bit more mocking. "Little Jedi, I already have the help of the Republic. The formalities have merely been delayed a bit."
The smug vanished, replaced by a flat glare. A win, in my book.
"Why do you have to choose to be clever now of all times?" she muttered.
"Painkillers and a misfiring fight-or-flight instinct," I answered. Truth be told, my tongue worked on autopilot most of the time. Fortunately, that was a feature, not a bug. And those painkillers were kicking in properly by then. "You can thank Lord Sadic's corpse for that."
We chose to wait in silence until an over-crowded airspeeder pulled up to disgorge its cargo of gangsters and Sith Apprentices. Unsurprisingly, Loa was one of them. Natia was not the kind of person to dispose of allies without hesitation. Otherwise, she would never have drafted me as a replacement for Hibal.
Levin, however, was absent.
"Levin's scoping out locations for a celebration," Natia announced by way of greeting, answering the question I hadn't bothered to voice. "Something about only wanting his own voice in his head while sober."
"Acceptable," I offered, choosing not to comment on Loa's presence. Bringing up Natia's decision not to eject her or kill would only have undermined her position as the leader among the apprentices, and I needed her satisfied with her place and in control of her allies. "The good news is that our part on Nar Shaddaa is done."
"Done?" Natia asked. "You mean that Sith Lord was Lord Sadic?"
"You mean he was expecting us?" Bybon asked.
"I suspect my master slipped a hint to Darth Angral," I admitted. Silence reigned in response. "Unless you found a mention of a surveillance program focused on me?"
"No, nothing of the sort," Natia said, shaking her head. "A lot of it was contacts and sources and protocols. The projects they were running and supporting were pretty standard. Providing muscle to the Hutt Cartel, keeping tabs on a Sith-run cult, keeping an experimental extermination factory hidden, cultivating assets, funding gang wars, running spice labs, directing local law enforcement, trafficking drugs, that kind of thing."
Excuse me, what?
"Extermination factory?" I asked, my tone icily calm. That had better not be what it was. Otherwise, I might find myself committing something pretty close to treason.
"Mass executions of some local aliens," Bybon explained. Oh, so it was exactly what I had thought it was. My mind was filled with old images. Of people, reduced to skin and bone, dressed in rags. Of corpses, piled into heaps and waiting to be thrown into an incinerator. Of how little brass plaques set into the pavement, putting a name to the people who once lived there only to be hunted down.
The very idea of it made my blood boil, turned my stomach, and had my pulse racing in my ears like I had just finished a marathon, all because some imperial decided they didn't have enough of a lead in the race to be the worst person in the galaxy.
Treason it was, then. Chance of war be damned, the man in charge of this would die.
"The list, Natia," I ordered, my voice a low growl. All around me, the apprentices flinched as though someone had just surprised them with a sudden loud noise. My ally almost dropped the datapad, but managed to hand it over.
"By all the stars, what is…" she began to ask, but I cut her off.
"I have to take care of something," I said, giving the project description a very careful read. They had been rounding up Evocii from all across Nar Shaddaa, going sector by sector to ensure they got everyone before moving on. Nothing was said about methods of execution, but I had my suspicions. "Lia, I'm sure you have things to do on your end. Natia, Bybon, Loa, make sure Levin doesn't in too much trouble."
The Empire was committing genocide on Nar Shaddaa.
My people were committing genocide on Nar Shaddaa.
I did not bother calling the Boss Kajain'sa before borrowing another speeder and taking off for the industrial district where the Empire had hidden this little operation. Just another factory hidden among thousands just like it. Just another factory receiving countless shipments each day.
Except that this one was guarded by imperial troops. Landing in front of it was easy enough; The autopilot had brought me that far, and it could do that last bit too.
"You." When I landed, I had approached the guarding imperial troops and reacted like any absolutely livid diplomat would. "I'm heading in. Follow me, if you would be so kind."
Some of the troopers hesitated. Of course, this was to be expected; no doubt they had very specific orders to keep on guard. They exchanged glances between each other, probably to talk on a private channel, before a speaker clicked on softly.
"Yes, my lord," one of the troopers said. The one in charge, no doubt. He and the nine other men and women in his command fell in behind me.
Reaching out with my mind, I got a general grasp of the facility. It was… easy. Startingly so. The bubbling rage at the mere existence of this place, combined with the anger at the now-dulled pain caused by the damn bugs scrabbling and tearing at the flesh of my shoulder and chest, must have done something to my connection to the Force, because I could sense where everyone was. Every soldier guarding the halls at regular intervals. Every officer manning a console. Every cluster of innocent souls crammed into far too small a space.
I knew where I had to go.
Along the way, I ordered every single soldier and officer I could find to join my party. No matter what they were doing. No matter their rank. No matter if they were armed or not.
"You. Follow me, if you would be so kind."
Eventually, I reached my destination: the holding pens.
My first impression was that it smelled worse than any farmyard I had ever had the misfortune of visiting. Unwashed masses of people, no plumbing to speak of, and who knew what else in a space housing hundreds of aliens all crowded into tiny prison cells all along a narrow hallway.
Each of those cells reminded me of prison cells. Not so much separated from the other cells by walls as much as by bars. The holding cells aboard the pirate ship I had liberated had been set up similarly, in retrospect. Except back then, my fellow prisoners and I had had a bit more room. And were wearing shock collars.
These people were just crammed into a cell until it could fit no more.
For a moment, I merely stood there, taking in what I was seeing. Seeing the large door at the far end of the hallway. No doubt it led somewhere heinous.
But… perhaps I was overreacting? Perhaps something called an extermination factory was… not at all what it sounded like? Maybe they were exterminating disease? Homelessness? Unemployment? Poverty?
"Call your commander," I told no one in particular, my voice icily calm. "I would like to have words with him. But stay here. I will have need of you."
...
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