Chapter 24 (Patreon)

I could say, “We entered the atmosphere and landed,” but...

Coruscant... It amazed me. Sure, there were less printable ways to put it, but I was so impressed I didn’t even bother coming up with any. A city-planet. But Dozdronogul take it, not merely a city-planet—which was already staggering enough in scale—but a planet-sized, multilevel city. An ecumenopolis! A trillion inhabitants! That... honestly, that was simply impossible to comprehend! Just looking through the shuttle cockpit windows at a conglomeration of artificial structures stretching from horizon to horizon was incredible!

Somewhere in the background, I could practically hear all the elves of my world howling in grief, lamenting Coruscant’s dead nature. And right next to them, the dwarves were roaring their approval and raising mugs of beer, because the inhabitants of this planet had turned their own home into a wonder of their own making: an insanely complex and beautiful masterpiece!

Our little ship descended lower, and I began to make out more detail: buildings and streets, and gaping chasms in the body of the city that looked like deep wounds, plunging down to colossal depths. The veins and arteries crisscrossing that colossus became visible as well: pedestrian streets where sentients seemed to stroll unhurriedly about their business, and high-speed thoroughfares for every kind of air traffic, carrying those tiny figures wherever they were headed.

For a moment, I even smiled at the comparison—sentients really were the blood of this gigantic, monstrous organism. Living and synthetic alike, they carried everything it needed to survive. They maintained it, repaired it. Vast numbers of living sentients and droids worked day and night to keep this colossal machine alive and prevent it from collapsing under its own weight, turning its multilevel residential districts into a graveyard of unimaginable proportions.

“First time on Coruscant?” the Jedi Knight’s calm voice sounded beside me. I glanced at her and caught a faint shadow of understanding in her eyes, along with a touch of indulgent amusement. In fact, I was becoming more and more convinced that the words “calm,” “a little,” and “just the slightest bit” described this girl remarkably well.

Bol was calm in the deepest sense of the word. She almost never lost her composure. Even during our first conversation, though she was ready for a fight, she kept herself perfectly under control. The only time I saw her truly flustered was during the massage Suti gave her after her shower. No, the Twi’lek girl didn’t allow herself anything improper; I don’t think the thought even crossed her mind. It was just that no matter how she gave a massage, it always came out erotic, and the Jedi had no idea. So for a while I enjoyed the sight of two beautiful girls—and watched one of them turn redder by the second.

It’s not like I was deliberately peeping. I just tapped into the concealed surveillance spell and happened to catch such a delightfully compromising moment. I watched for barely a minute and disconnected. Though I certainly didn’t deny myself the pleasure of teasing the Zabrak about it afterward. A couple of times I offered to send Suti over to give her another massage, and each time I was rewarded with an embarrassed Jedi and a slightly flustered refusal. Amusing. Shame that by the second time, there was barely any reaction left...

“I think that’s pretty obvious,” I snorted with a broad grin. “But the view really is impressive.”

“Good thing I’ll reach the Temple before you do,” the Zabrak sighed with a slight shudder. She’d already stopped putting a hand on the hilt of her glow-stick whenever I smiled, but she still hadn’t quite gotten used to it.

Our Romri was another matter entirely—she was already baring her teeth at pirates right alongside me. Wonderful girl. And the way she wrung money and hidden-stash locations out of those bandits... All I had to do was tell her that ten percent of everything she honestly beat out of them would go to the aid fund for a certain Togruta named Tano, and she started terrifying them with her grin almost as well as I did. Give her another fifty or hundred years and I think she’ll surpass me. Meanwhile, I ended up two hundred thousand credits richer, and our little Red called me the team’s lucky star and the best employer ever when she thought I couldn’t hear her.

“Prepare your brothers and sisters in the Order for my arrival, you will, hmm?” I couldn’t resist, once again laughing to myself as I watched the girl’s face fall. For some reason, Jedi reacted very amusingly to that manner of speech. I’d noticed it with Tholme and Secura too. The main thing was not to overdo it, or they’d get used to it.

Chatak recovered quickly, though, and gave a quiet snort as she turned her gaze back to the views of Coruscant.

“Exactly, Master Siith.”

That made me grimace slightly. Somehow... Hmm... It just didn’t sound natural. “Boss” from the mercenaries felt right, “sir” from Suti was sincere, and so was “Master” from Emthree. But this particular “Master” grated on my ears. A faint, slightly mocking smile was visible on the Zabrak’s face.

“And teasing old men doesn’t lead to the Dark Side?” I raised an eyebrow, watching the girl with ironic amusement.

“Definitely not,” the Knight replied with perfect composure. “My Master told me so.”

** Hammerhead Bridge **

“What do you think?” Arvik was sprawled in the captain’s chair on the Hammerhead’s bridge. The ship had the boring name Valiant. And really, it would be hard to come up with a less fitting name for a pirate vessel. Maybe only something like Merciful or Honest would be worse.

“What do you mean?” the Togruta asked, raising her eyebrows as she munched on something from the galley stores in the pilot’s chair.

“Arvik, he talking about Boss-sa, though,” the Gungan explained. He had dragged a mattress in from somewhere and was shamelessly sprawled out right on the floor. All the pirates were confined to their cabins, with a pair of dead men stationed outside each one under orders to eat anyone who tried to come out, so the mercenaries quite literally had nothing to do.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked the girl, who had done quite nicely for herself financially. “He’s a generous employer. Promised us a bonus for the prize, feeds us well, takes us to cantinas, gives us useful magical gadgets, talks to us with respect.”

“Yeeees,” Koit drawled. “‘Romri, my aurodium darling,’ ‘my beautiful little Togruta,’ ‘dear Lady.’ Boss-sa knows plenty about respect, though.”

The Gungan laughed merrily when he saw the girl turn an even brighter shade and puff up in indignation. The Naboo spearman knew his companions well enough to see that she actually liked the sorcerer’s words.

But he could also see that their Boss treated the Togruta much the same way his uncle had treated his little niece. Admired her, stroked her ears, carried her around in his arms. Little Mirla had adored her uncle, but Romri was no little girl and took the sorcerer’s compliments... somewhat differently. And combined with the man’s generosity... someone might just end up developing a crush on her employer. Their beauty was already bristling at Suti. After all, it was their friend who had “helped” the Twi’lek pick out her wardrobe. And by some strange coincidence, the clothes Boss’s slave wore now could only be described as “far too modest.”

“He’s powerful,” the thoughtful Mandalorian said, not sharing in the amusement. “Powerful enough that he doesn’t need us. Not every Jedi could capture a cruiser single-handedly. I think even if we hadn’t been here, it would only have made things slightly more difficult for him. He could’ve turned the entire crew into obedient undead; he’d just have had to spend more time on the navigators and pilots. I don’t understand why he needs us. And I’m worried about what happens when our contract runs out.”

His companions looked at the Mando. Koit wore a slightly uncertain smile. The Gungan had already been thinking along similar lines, though he was more interested in whether he might be able to sign on with the sorcerer permanently. The pay was good, the work relatively easy, and they were even getting unique gear out of it. The spearman respected commanders who looked after their people. The Togruta thoughtfully rubbed a finger along her right montral.

“You think Siith won’t want us talking about some of his abilities and methods?”

“Oh, that’s for damn sure. He hid those dead men of his from the Jedi girl and told all of us not to say a word to her about them. He outright threatened the pirates: ‘Anyone who talks too much will stop talking forever—and there won’t be anyone around to talk to anyway. I’ll leave you hanging in space for eternity.’ When he gave that little speech, even I got chills down my spine.”

“Well... if I were in his place, I wouldn’t want people talking about it either. But remember, he did say that sooner or later all those tricks of his would become known anyway, right?” Koit nodded in agreement with the Togruta’s words, half-closing his eyes.

“And another thing, Arvik: he was planning to drill us together as the fighters in his spellcaster support group. Me, I think Boss-sa is training us little-little. Telling us about himself, about his sorcery, though. And Romri was right—he’s generous. Too generous even, you understand, Mando? I see two possibilities: either he does us in when the contract ends, or he asks us to stay with him.”

“Do we even want that? The second option, I mean,” the Mandalorian clarified with a crooked grin.

“And why not, though?” the Gungan said, narrowing his eyes with a pleased smile. “Boss-sa big shot back home. Talked with big Boss of Jabiim like friend. Called him by name, joked with him. And this Alto, he treats Boss-sa well too—not like soldier, more like fellow officer. Me, I know. Spent plenty time waving spear in army. You know too—you Mandos, almost all like that.”

The Togruta puffed up, a little offended at not being included among the veteran-soldier crowd, but after a moment’s thought she let it go. Romri really had only taken up the blaster as a way to make a living relatively recently. Koit, meanwhile, kept talking.

“And if he big shot, means he can set his people up too, you understand, though? You said yourself: we got no home, no place of our own. What so bad about having one? We could start families, have somewhere to come back to. For you, makes no difference anyway—Mandalore, Coruscant, Jabiim. Mandalorian home is where his clan is, where his family is. You were the one cursing those idiots from Death Watch, hmm?”

“You’ve already been thinking about this, haven’t you?” Arvik smiled faintly. Their friend had seemed like a funny fool when they first met, but his manner of speech was actually misleading. The Gungan was smart, quick to fight, and just ruthless enough. And his comical appearance only made those who didn’t know him lower their guard.

“Me, I thought about it little-little, yeah,” he said, shaking his head and making his ears flap comically. “And read about Jabiim. Lots of water there, though. Climate good too. Gungan do just fine there. And me, if I go back to Naboo, easy to gather friends who don’t like this friendship with Naboo humans. We get together and move. Plenty of water—Gungans can be useful lots of places, though.”

Koit closed his eyes and smacked his lips dreamily.

“I’ll find me a woman. Pretty one, with big ears, beautiful eyes, little mouth, thin lips. Ask Suti teach her dancing little-little. And when kids come, I send one to train as mage. Boss-sa, when I asked, said better to start teaching from childhood.”

“Did Boss pay you to advertise for him or something?” the Togruta giggled, looking cheerfully at the Gungan sprawled out like a starfish.

“Tch, nah. Why pay? Me, I thought of it myself. You got talent for money, though, and me, I think good about home and family. A man should think little-little about family, find good place where woman be safe, where kids live well. Boss-sa, course, doesn’t believe in Oma-Oma*, but he got good goddess too. She respects knowledge. And if people back home believe in her, education there gonna be good. Logic, though.”

All three fell silent for a while. The Mandalorian rubbed a finger over a small dent in his helmet. Once, it had been a hit from a powerful stationary blaster that had only grazed him. Now, whenever he got lost in thought, he would take the helmet off and rub that dent—a habit, and a reminder. The Togruta finished chewing her snack, staring intently at the control panel, while the Gungan simply lay there with his eyes closed. It seemed Koit was already somewhere on Jabiim in his imagination, in the new home of his future family.

“I wouldn’t mind steady work either,” the Togruta said suddenly. “We’ll see what happens next, of course. But so far, I like everything. I get to fly ships, I get to shoot things. And overall, Boss is all right. At first those smiles of his were pretty unnerving, but I’ve kind of gotten used to them.”

“You bare your teeth just like him now,” the Mandalorian snorted. “Last time you did it, I actually started wondering whether I owed you money!”

Koit laughed in agreement and slapped his flat belly; he’d noticed that distinctive grin on the Togruta too. In response, the girl gave both of them an obscene hand gesture and popped the last piece of food into her mouth.

“All right,” Arvik exhaled. “Honestly, I wouldn’t mind either, as long as nothing... like that comes to light. Like, I don’t know, if he starts cutting up babies with a rusty knife... I don’t feel sorry for those dead pirates we dropped off on that planet. I hope nobody thinks they’re still alive down there?”

Both the Gungan and the Togruta merely snorted at their commander’s question. Arvik had told them about the bunch of jokers from Tatooine who had died the very same day they decided to laugh at Boss. Nobody doubted that the pirates who knew too much had either suffocated by now or puked themselves to death.

“Well then, Romri, closer to the end of the contract, if we haven’t changed our minds, you’ll be the one to talk to Boss,” the Mandalorian concluded.

“Hey, why am I the one who has to talk to him?!”

“You got talent for money, woman,” the Gungan snorted. “And besides, you ‘Romri, my aurodium darling.’ Heh-heh-heh... Ow! Crazy Togruta, though!!!”

Romri bared her teeth in Siith’s style as she stared at the cursing Gungan, wondering how she was going to get her boot back after using it as a projectile.

Arvik, meanwhile, put his helmet on and fell into thought. Come to think of it, he really was the last one left of what had once been a large clan. Maybe it was time to start thinking about raising a new generation of Mandalorians? Jabiim was a backwater, sure, but if children were going to grow up and learn to wield weapons, they needed a safe haven. And having a “big shot” for an employer could provide exactly that...

“Thank you very much, Chancellor. You’ve been a great help,” the hologram of the Korun said, giving Palpatine a respectful nod. “We wouldn’t have bothered you over such a minor matter, but this sentient has already helped members of the Order twice.”

“It was nothing, Master Windu,” the dignified-looking man said with a dismissive wave and a smile that immediately brightened his face, making it warm and approachable. “The Jedi do a great deal for the Republic, and merely hurrying our bureaucratic quagmire along was no great difficulty for me. Though I must admit, I was somewhat surprised that this Force-sensitive of yours managed to capture an entire cruiser, even if it is a rather old one.”

“He used the Force,” the Jedi Council member explained impassively. “Besides, he had mercenaries fighting alongside him, including a Mandalorian. We also don’t yet know the finer points of how representatives of their guild work with the Force, but so far we’ve observed nothing threatening. Knight Chatak sensed no presence of the Dark Side. And this... Siith, on the contrary, seems quite well disposed toward the Order and, as I already mentioned, has helped us twice. Master Yoda intends to speak with him.”

“Forgive me, what did you say his name was?” the Chancellor asked in surprise, raising his eyebrows.

“Siith. Two i’s. We ourselves were”—the Korun allowed himself a faint smile—“a little puzzled at first, but the galaxy is vast and there are many languages. Stranger coincidences have happened.”

“Well then, I should get back to work. I still need to see if I can free up this weekend...” Palpatine hesitated for a moment, rubbed his chin, and looked up at the Jedi. “Master Windu, what would you say to joining me at the opera this weekend? You could invite that mage as well. To be frank, I’m curious to meet him.”

“Sorcerer,” the Jedi corrected the Chancellor.

“Excuse me?”

“He insists that he’s a sorcerer, but we don’t have the details yet. As for the opera—I don’t mind, but I need to speak with our guest first.”

“Oh, of course. Just contact me once you have an answer.” The Supreme Chancellor smiled amiably and, after receiving a nod from the Jedi, ended the call.

Leaning back in his chair, the man frowned. An outside observer might have marveled at how quickly the genial expression vanished from his face. Now, seated in the chair of the head of the Republic Senate, was a ruler who was no longer young but not yet old, his face shadowed by serious thought.

“Siith,” he said aloud. “A Force-sensitive named Siith... Coincidences... No, sometimes I truly do not understand these Jedi... I wonder, if I burst into their Council chamber with an ignited lightsaber glowing scarlet, will they start asking me where I found it?!”

Author’s Note:

*Oma-Oma—the deity who created Gungan life.