Chapter 25 (Patreon)

By evening, I was already itching to go looking for adven— uh... to get acquainted with this planet!

Knight Chatak had kindly warned me not to poke around the capital’s middle levels, and especially not the lower ones—supposedly, they were crawling with criminal scum. I desperately wanted to ignore her advice. In a place this densely populated and, more importantly, this diverse, you could find almost every race and species imaginable! And to hell with vivisection. Just by scattering diagnostic and analysis spells around, I could gather enough data to keep me busy for years!

Of course, I’d already gathered plenty of data on Tatooine, and along the way I’d occasionally cast diagnostic spells on interesting life-forms, but there was simply too much unusual stuff around me here. And going down for a little “night hunting” to yank the souls out of assorted scum sounded like a fine and worthwhile use of time too. While I was at it, I could clean out the nest eggs of a gang or two. The pirates had already shown me that crooks and bandits tended to have credits tucked away, and I was planning to buy myself a bigger ship someday. I’d grown very fond of having my own cabin, complete with a shower and a bed big enough to sleep sprawled out like a starfish.

And I will go! I’ll just wait for my fighters, then off I go. Not that I’m scared or anything, but suppose some thugs decide to start something and it turns into a brawl. Who knows what might happen in the process? I’ve seen more than one mass sacrifice begin exactly that way. Then come all the unnecessary questions and investigations: “Why did you brutally kill three hundred sentients? So what if they had blasters? The fact that you were wearing nothing but parachute-sized briefs doesn’t mean anything,” and all that nonsense. A planned operation is another matter entirely—one where I’m the one starting it, fully prepared. And I can put the guys through their paces at the same time.

By sheer accident, I’d managed to get on fairly good terms with the Jed-eyes here, so why ruin perfectly decent relations with some high-profile incident? But with Arvik sealed up in armor and Koit and Romri armed to the teeth, we could probably scare off most of the local lowlifes without much trouble. Although... Romri, I think, would have the opposite effect and attract them. Young as she was, the girl was gorgeous—no two ways about it. Ah, where are my three hundred years...

As for the ones with me now... Ras is just as much of a barbarian as I am—he doesn’t know his way around Coruscant either. Emthree is a droid and a bore. Shmi and Suti are former slaves. By the way, Skywalker gave me a letter for her son. I’ll try to pass it along officially—through Windu, for example. The Jedi may practice the harsh school of child-rearing by tearing kids away from their mother’s teat, but inner peace matters to them.

Let the boy know that his mother isn’t still enslaved somewhere on a planet where you could slap a “wanted by the authorities” notice under the portraits of ninety percent of the population, but instead has a perfectly respectable job—even if it is out in the sticks—and gets paid for it. That should definitely give him a little more peace of mind. So I think I can talk the Korun into it. And passing back whatever they tell me about her son can’t possibly interfere with Jedi business, can it? Maybe I’ll even talk to the boy’s teacher and take a look at the kid himself. My employee’s peace of mind matters to me too.

There is one downside to Coruscant, though: everything is very, very expensive! I rented a small apartment—only seven bedrooms—but the price... I will never tell Romri how much it cost. She’d eat me alive purely out of love for money! I understand that Coruscant is the capital, but the building is only ranked five hundredth. For comparison, my mansion—the one Alto transferred into my name and finally had demined—is fourth! And, as it turned out, I pay laughably little for it! But here? Not in the top ten, not even in the top hundred! The Republic Five Hundred. I even asked whether they had anything better, but they looked at me like I was an idiot. Well, fair enough—some barbarian from godsforsaken Jabiim, and he’s already aiming higher.*

The neighbors, though... pretentious beyond words. Well, I’d seen plenty of their kind in imperial capitals. They come in from some backwater of their own and then go out of their way to show everyone around them just how civilized they are. I even found myself wishing I’d rented somewhere in the thousandth-ranked building, where more or less normal working people without airs settled down. At least you could have a proper conversation with them. Instead, I met this one human here.

He seemed normal enough at first, even had a beard almost like mine, but when I introduced Suti to him, the face he made... In short, I didn’t like that Alderaanian. I read up on his world afterward—prosperous, relatively wealthy. That explained a lot. He had no problem talking to me, a free Jabiimite, but started turning up his nose at Suti. When we got back from a short walk around the building, I even had to calm the girl down. I sat with her for a while and told her a couple of stories. Then I took a look at one of her study assignments; as it happened, it was about keeping your composure. We worked through it together, and I even got into it myself.

The girl, by the way, is doing great. She makes a point of dressing modestly and doesn’t act provocatively—quite the opposite. She’s my constant companion, my secretary. The little Twi’lek is busting her ass. Frankly, she works harder than most people know how to. That’s why I’m trying not to load her down too much for now. Mostly just representative duties, so she can watch, absorb things, and gain experience. Her courses alone take up five hours a day in lectures, and then there are assignments she has to complete and turn in.

Suti had also gotten quite good at handling Emthree. Honestly, I’d already been thinking about replacing him: the droid was incredibly tedious, incredibly clumsy, and painfully slow. But he knew a great many languages, and his memory held an enormous amount of information on military technology, including the Hammerhead, which had helped us quite a bit in dealing with the ancient cruiser. The pirates still weren’t people we could trust completely... When I started thinking aloud about Emthree’s future, the Twi’lek cautiously pointed out how useful the droid was to her studies, and that settled the metal idiot’s fate. He was under her command now.

Shmi had taken over the kitchen, marveling at the quality of the ingredients and cookware. Her cooking had improved too, by the way. Still not Maria’s level, but getting close. The woman had blossomed after being bought out of slavery and escaping Tatooine’s scorching sun. I helped a little, of course: made a couple of creams, put her through the diagnostic seal, fixed a few minor defects in her body. So now Shmi looks about five years younger than her actual age and acts far more lively as well. She and Suti get along well too. They often talk whenever they both have some free time.

My thoughts were interrupted by a call on the comlink. It was that same Korun from the Jedi Council. We didn’t talk for long: we discussed my visit to the Temple tomorrow and an invitation to the opera. The Supreme Chancellor himself had invited me to attend with Windu. Of course, I agreed. Better not to refuse gentlemen of that rank, especially over something so trivial. Besides, I rather liked Palpatine. Judging by his actions—at least as far as I could tell without knowing much about the Republic’s inner workings—he seemed like a proper politician. He kept corruption within reasonable limits and pushed through fairly sensible reforms. He probably skimmed some for himself, of course, but show me an honest politician and I’ll show you either an idealist like Alto or a blessed fool.

I spent the rest of the day scratching my research itch by making a small gift for the Jedi Order from the JMG. Yes, yes, I want to butter up the local paladins a little—why not? I’d accidentally made connections at the very top; I’d have to be an idiot not to take advantage of the opportunity to strengthen those ties. If only so that, should trouble arise, I could contact that same Master Windu and ask him for help directly, as an acquaintance.

By the waaay. There’s also the Chancellor. I should give him something like that too. Though why overthink it? He’s our anti-corruption crusader and reformer. People like that have an unfortunate habit of getting assassinated from time to time. So I’ll make him an amulet. A good one, almost like my own. No surprises, either. Sooner or later our mages are going to spread out across the galaxy, some artifact-making specialist will take a look at it and find a listening construct woven into the thing—or some other little feature dreamed up by my brilliant mind. Better not. That would get awkward afterward, and I’d be putting Alto in a bad position too. Besides, Palpatine has an appreciation for culture, so I’ll also give him two or three of my favorite novels, with the explanatory notes I adapted for our libraries.

I showed up alone for my meeting with the Jedi in a rented airspeeder. Ras, acting as my pilot, stayed with the vehicle and had already buried himself in a datapad, settling in for a long wait.

At the entrance to the Temple grounds, the familiar bald Korun was waiting for me, accompanied by two female Jedi—an adult and a teenager.

“Master Windu, I’m glad we can finally meet in person,” I said. By now, I’d developed the habit of trying not to smile when meeting someone for the first time.

“Master Siith, how are you finding Coruscant?” The Jedi, like me, showed no sign of a smile. Maybe he had the same problem? That would explain the sternness.

“Impressive. Astonishing, even.”

“I sense the Force,” the man said, nodding toward the small wooden case in my hands and giving me a suspicious look. The handmade case held the gifts, which I had deliberately left unshielded so the Jedi could sense the residual mana charge within them.

“Gifts. I was always taught not to visit someone empty-handed, but I don’t drink alcohol myself, and I’ve heard the Jedi don’t exactly approve of it either. So I decided to bring something useful instead.”

“That wasn’t necessary.”

“If you don’t like them, throw them away,” I said with a shrug. The dark-skinned man studied me in doubtful silence for a couple of seconds, then finally introduced his companions.

“Master Luminara Unduli,” the Korun said, gesturing toward a pleasant young green-skinned woman in somewhat unusual attire that reminded me of the followers of one of the goddesses from my world.

She had deep blue eyes, almost black lips, and several diamond-shaped tattoos beneath her lower lip. In my opinion, the tattoos spoiled her looks a little; the slightly broad nose, though, was simply a matter of taste.

“And her Padawan, Barriss Offee.” She was a rather cute girl of about fourteen or fifteen, the same species as her Master. The older woman carried herself calmly, greeting me with an unhurried nod and a faint smile, while the girl was visibly tense, watching me warily and giving a short, abrupt nod.

“A pleasure to meet you, lovely ladies.” I gave them a shallow but respectful bow. Then I glanced at the youngster, who was still eyeing me warily, and winked at her with a perfectly straight face. “Don’t be afraid, Padawan. I only look scary.”

The girl merely lowered her eyes in embarrassment, giving me a sudden rush of fondness. You’d never think such a cute, shy little thing could actually be a genuine brain-eating monster. And I’m convinced that all children over twelve are exactly that. Though this one really was kind of adorable... probably. I had to remember that some of them were very good at disguising it!

“We’re pleased to meet you as well, Master Siith. Barriss is a little shy.”

“Sweet child,” I said, unable to keep from smiling; the way the girl’s cheeks darkened was simply too endearing. My smile clearly made all three of them tense, though, and Unduli even rested a hand on the hilt of her lightsaber. I continued with a heavy, resigned sigh. “I have a younger ward back home. Though modesty is hardly a word anyone would use for young Karray. We’ve spoiled her.”

“You have an apprentice?” the Korun asked impassively, pretending nothing had happened. He gestured for us to continue toward the Temple. He walked on my right, while Master Unduli fell into step on my left, her Padawan beside her.

“I have apprentices too. But Karray is my personal ward. I started teaching her when she was five—an excellent age to begin learning the sorcerous arts. Young children are more receptive, and it’s easier to teach them the right way to perceive magic. Adults, unfortunately, have a harder time believing in miracles. Though I took her from an orphanage. The girl had been starved for attention, and she desperately dreamed of having a mother and father...” I smiled warmly at the memory. Imagine that, I already missed the little whirlwind. My companions tensed again, though not as much this time—they were getting used to me. “So she got far too attached to me. Even calls me Daddy.”

“How many apprentices do you have?” Master Unduli asked.

“There were five mages. Now only one remains; the other four have gone out into the world. Karina, the one who stayed, is currently teaching the basics to a new batch of young spellcasters. And then there’s Karray—my ward and a sorceress.”

“Master Siith, I’m a little confused by the variety of terms. Mage, spellcaster, sorcerer? Could you clarify the distinction?”

“Of course, Master Windu. Spellcaster is the general term for anyone who works magic. A mage is a sentient being capable of casting spells. A sorcerer is essentially the same thing, except that a sorcerer can sense magic and generate it personally. That means sorcerers can cast spells even in areas with no ambient magical field, and they also learn considerably faster than mages. Then there’s wizard. Strictly speaking, it’s just a common folk term for spellcasters, but less educated commoners tend to use it to mean some sort of miracle-worker: blows on something, spits, waves his hands around—and whatever he wanted gets magicked into existence.”

I chuckled, remembering just how much study it took before you could start building magical weaves on your own instead of relying on memorized patterns.

Meanwhile, we reached the entrance: an enormous gateway set into an equally enormous building. Masked Jedi stood on either side, and the doors themselves were slightly ajar. Well, “slightly.” The four of us could have walked through that “little gap” shoulder to shoulder.

At that point, I stopped and heaved a weary sigh. I had no idea what this Great Force of theirs actually was—some kind of deity or not—but common courtesy was still common courtesy. I had no desire to have my head blown apart by some offended something-or-other. I unclipped the sheathed knife and bowed my head respectfully.

“Beneath this Temple’s shelter I enter, a guest by invitation, bearing no ill intent. Unarmed I come, and armor I lay aside,” I intoned, deactivating the mechanisms in my robe and medallion before holding out my own weapon—mostly ceremonial, perhaps, but still very real—to the Korun.

For several seconds, Windu stared at me in surprise, then shifted his gaze to the knife in my palm, nodded solemnly, and took it in his right hand. Well, at least it wasn’t his left. Properly speaking, he should have taken it with both hands, but how was he supposed to know that?

“You can clip it to your belt. The mount is universal,” I murmured to the dark-skinned man as if sharing a secret, giving him a conspiratorial wink. The corners of his mouth lifted in a faint, appreciative smile, and he fastened the dagger to his belt.

“Tradition?” the Master asked with undisguised warmth.

“Yep. I’ve had a couple of incidents involving Temples, so now I try to observe proper protocol. As for your customs, frankly, I couldn’t find anything particularly definite, so I went with a middle-of-the-road version from my homeland. Without the kneeling.”

“Yes, we don’t practice anything like that,” Master Unduli said with an open smile. “You feel strange. There’s a very high concentration of the Force around you, but it has no coloration at all, and it feels... yes, almost as though there’s a hint of mathematics to it.”

The woman allowed herself a quiet, good-natured chuckle, while her Padawan stared at me wide-eyed.

“Master, how...” The girl apparently couldn’t quite put the question into words and merely turned her piercing blue eyes toward the woman in confusion.

“Something like Force Concealment, only it feels different,” the green-skinned woman said, her voice brimming with warmth toward her Padawan. Not motherly care, but... hmm... sisterly concern? Something along those lines. The girl, meanwhile, looked at her mentor with genuine respect, nodding in understanding.

I merely sighed. I’m not particularly good at teaching. Or so I think... My belt making the acquaintance of a student’s backside is a fairly common way of getting my point across. Or a sharp zap to the backside, if the student has no intention of taking the punishment with dignity and decides to make a run for it.

“You look a little down all of a sudden,” Luminara said, noticing my sour expression. “Is something wrong?”

“Envy, Master,” I admitted honestly, meeting her eyes. “I’m not a very good teacher, unfortunately.”

“And yet you’ve trained more students than some Masters,” the woman replied with a neutral smile as we finally stepped inside the Temple.

And then I realized that the Jedi and I had at least one thing in common: we liked our space. A vast hall with soaring ceilings! Beyond it, I could see corridors that were just as roomy, nothing like the cramped little passageways you found on most ships. Everything was furnished modestly, but with taste—no gaudy excess, yet without sliding into dreary austerity either.

“Impressive,” I said with genuine admiration, looking around. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught something almost unbelievable: stern Master Windu was smiling—and genuinely, at that. Both Jedi women were smiling too. Well, of course. It’s always nice to hear someone praise your home.

“But a Jedi can only have one Padawan,” the girl finally spoke up. It seemed her fear had eased a little, even despite my smiles, but the question of apprentices clearly still bothered her.

“Everyone has their own traditions,” I said with a shrug. “I’d like to have only one apprentice too. Truth be told, even that feels like more than enough. As the ancient sorcerer Rung once wrote of young spellcasters: ‘Children are the flowers of life. On the graves of Mentors.’”

A faintly sibilant laugh sounded nearby. One of the three sentients heading our way had clearly caught my last words and appreciated the wisdom of the ancient sorcerer. The one laughing looked almost like a nag, except his face was downright terrifying and, for some reason, completely covered in hair. Completely. The only bare patches were around his mouth, nose, and eyes. First time in my life I’d ever seen a hairy nag. Tell anyone back home and they’d never believe me.

“Very apt words, this Rung spoke,” commented the little old goblin, leaning on his gnarled cane.

“One Padawan I remember. A thorn under his tail he had, longer than the tail itself,” another goblin woman chimed in, backing up the old fellow—only she was young. At a glance, I would have put her at around twenty. Practically the prime of life for their short-lived species.

“Padawans...” the pair sighed in unison, while the naga merely snorted and gave his tail a small twitch.

“Master Siith, welcome to the Temple. Yoda I am. Yaddle and Oppo Rancisis, these are. Masters, we are.”

For a few seconds, I was genuinely taken aback. Were these green ones actually trying to mess with me? Hmm, hmm... A game for two, this can be. Three, rather, I think.

“A pleasure to meet you, Masters,” I said, inclining my head with a faint smile—more of a deep nod than a bow. To the credit of both goblins, neither so much as twitched an ear, though their whole species seemed to grin like that anyway. The naga took the introduction just as calmly, merely raising his brows; with all that hair, though, the entire upper half of his hairdo rose with them. “Allow me to admire your home. The Temple is, without question, as wondrous as the faces of the fair maidens who dwell within it.”

The maidens, incidentally, seemed to appreciate it. Unduli’s lips curled up ever so slightly, while a faint flush darkened Barriss’s cheeks. Yaddle, on the other hand, smiled openly and brightly, then shot Yoda a distinctly triumphant look. The naga let out a short, quiet hiss that sounded remarkably like a snort. Only Master Windu remained a monument to Stern Impassivity.

It was Windu who suggested we move out onto the terrace, where we could talk in peace, but not before sending Padawan Offee off to “meditate.” I still couldn’t quite figure out why they’d brought her along in the first place. Maybe to let her get a look at a representative of another organization of gifted individuals, or maybe to put me at ease—something along the lines of, “We’ve got a child with us, so we’re not going to attack you on sight.” Hmm... That would also explain the girl’s wariness, especially if they’d warned her there might be trouble.

Author’s Note:

500 Republica is one of the most luxurious residential buildings on Coruscant, the kind of place where the galaxy’s big shots rent apartments—Palpatine, Amidala, and so on. Siith still hasn’t bothered to look into the peculiarities of address numbering in this world; to him, it simply isn’t important enough to care about. Back home, a residence number tells you more than just the street address—it also reflects the prestige of the place. As for how Siith managed to get an apartment there, that was thanks to the documents Alto provided, which made it quite clear that he was no ordinary Jabiimite.