Chapter 39 (Patreon)

“Oh, woe is me. Why didn’t I die in my cradle?” I practically collapsed into the chair, and a couple of seconds later felt my assistant’s gentle but surprisingly strong hands begin kneading my shoulders.

“Thanks, Suti. What would I do without you?” I groaned, closing my eyes. Four days without sleep. Yeah, it had been a long time since I’d buried myself in work this completely, but it had been worth it. Now all that remained was to run a series of tests... Yeah. Right. “All that remained.” Pfft. The tests would uncover a whole pile of flaws, and then it would be right back to work again. Sigh...

“I honestly don’t know, Boss,” the Twi’lek said, and I could practically feel her smiling behind me. “You’d find another assistant?”

“Nah...” I drawled blissfully as she worked the tension out of muscles that had gone rock-hard. I could’ve used magic, but this was much nicer. “You, my dear, are irreplaceable! Where else am I going to find someone smart, beautiful, dependable, hardworking—and who can dance, too? Just remember one thing: you’re the best!”

“Thank you.” Suti’s soft voice rang with delight. Everyone liked having their efforts acknowledged. I tried not to miss opportunities like that and actually say it aloud, because that sort of thing mattered to loyal people close to you. I had read about—and seen—far too many supposedly devoted sentients betray their patron simply because they no longer felt valued in his eyes.

“So, you said something about a proposal from one of the students?”

“Yes, Boss. Sev’rance and I went into town about a week ago—to a café, for sweets and a chat. Anyway, she asked me to pass along that her employer would be happy to speak with you about the ‘Void Hide.’”

“Hmm...” I fell silent. The project was secret. As secret as anything could be under the circumstances, with only one small dock and outside personnel involved. The Stratuses were doing their best, but things still leaked. And I trusted Suti’s discretion. The girl wouldn’t have blabbed about something like this. We’d worked through far too many lessons on a patron’s confidentiality together for that. “So why didn’t she come to me herself?”

“Saving her quota,” Suti giggled, and I snorted too. Personal meetings with me, as head of the Guild, were limited to one audience per year. Anything beyond that had to go through the secretariat in writing. The rule existed because, during the first year, I’d been absolutely buried in business proposals. That was the downside of having students who were far from nobodies on their own worlds or within their organizations.

I had no desire to deal with anyone outside Jabiim either. I’d had enough of them too. The only exceptions I made were for the Jedi Order and the Chancellor’s office. Neither abused the privilege, though. And talking to Palpatine himself, when he once decided to contact me personally, had actually been quite enjoyable. A very charismatic man and an interesting conversationalist.

“Reasonable, though a little petty... Ooooh... Yes, yes, yes! Harder right there! Mmm... Perfect...” I nearly grunted with pleasure. “Set up a meeting with her for next week. Pick a time in my schedule and remind me the day before, all right? And tell Tann I’d be very interested to know where she got her information about the ‘Hide.’”

“I’ll do it,” the Twi’lek replied, and I could hear the delight in her voice.

Suti, for all her lovely personality, was rather reserved and shy whenever she wasn’t dancing, and she hardly spent any time on herself. There was always too much work, and her studies ate into what little free time she had. So she didn’t have many friends. I just hoped that blue-skinned girl with the pretty eyes wasn’t taking advantage of my assistant’s fondness for her. Otherwise, I might have to curse someone.

“Would you like caf or an herbal brew?”

“Let’s go with the herbal brew. I’ll drink something hot and grab a couple of hours of sleep,” I decided, but then I glanced at the message that had just popped up on my datapad and changed my mind. “Actually, no. Suti, bring me a stimulant, please. Blue vial, third shelf in the bar. The Jedi have finally arrived.”

I sent a reply to the comms staff, and they routed the call from our long-awaited guests to my workstation. A hologram appeared above the desk, showing a fairly young Jedi with a short beard and the Order’s traditional robes.

“Master Dziha, greetings,” he said. Despite his attempt at the usual Jedi composure, it was obvious the man was nervous. “I’m Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Council should have informed you about us.”

“Greetings, Knight Kenobi. Everything’s been arranged. Bring the patient to me—we’re ready to get started.”

“Thank you,” the Jedi replied, obvious relief entering his voice as his whole posture relaxed. “We’re already coming in to land.”

“I’ll be waiting.” I nodded to the hologram, which vanished a moment later, and headed for the office door, downing the vial Suti had handed me as I went. Chimerology or no chimerology, the body still needed certain substances to function at its best.

“Wait.” I stopped by the door. “Kenobi... He’s the one training Shmi’s son, isn’t he?” At Suti’s puzzled look, I just shook my head. Talking to myself.

I called Skywalker on the comlink.

“Shmi, hi! Listen, I just had an idea. Gather the older kids and bring them to the Academy. We’ll give them a tour—just make sure you bring one of the caregivers with you. Yes, I need you here too. Great. I’ll make sure someone meets you when you arrive.”

I turned to my assistant.

“Suti, find a free instructor and have them organize an unscheduled tour for the kids. Just make sure they don’t half-ass it—tell them to stretch it out for a while. Have them take the children to the dining hall for lunch, walk them through the classrooms, show them the animal enclosures too, but carefully. The last thing we need is those little monsters tormenting our animals.”

Once the Twi’lek nodded and pulled up the class schedule to find someone suitable, I called in the next elemental force of chaos.

“Karray, my joy, I need your unparalleled acting skills... What?! You little— Have some shame, you pint-sized version of that greedy Togruta! Where am I supposed to put a sarlacc for you?! And that’s way too much for ten minutes of hamming it up! A chocolate cake! Fine, two—but your greed is starting to scare me! Are you sure Romri hasn’t bitten you? All right, all right, listen carefully...”

“Knight Kenobi.” I nodded to the man. Behind him floated a repulsor stretcher carrying the patient, followed by a young Padawan and a scowling Twi’lek.

“Master Dziha,” the Jedi said with a slightly strained smile. “It’s good to finally meet you in person. Allow me to—”

“I’m Master Healer Vokara Che. This is Anakin Skywalker, Padawan,” the Twi’lek cut him off rather brusquely, gesturing toward the boy, who shot her an annoyed look. “Now, to business.”

“Business it is, then.” I nodded, letting the delegation into my private workshop. “Pillkin, let’s get to work.”

While the droids transferred the patient, I layered on a cascade of diagnostic spells and activated the necessary modules of the artifact complex built into the “workbench.” Judging by the way the Jedi kept turning their heads uneasily, they could sense the magical constructs moving, but aside from a certain wariness, they showed no reaction.

The door slammed behind me...

“Dad! You’ve got a patient, and you didn’t call me?!” There was so much surprise, disbelief, hurt, sadness, and disappointment in little Karray’s voice... A born actress, no question. And the best part was, every bit of it was genuine.

Some Jedi could sense an outright lie with ease. Useful, sure—but people had learned how to fool them a very long time ago. Even on the HoloNet, on certain sites, you could find thousands of articles along the lines of “How to Fool a Jedi.” Almost all of it was garbage, but hey. Anyone with a functioning brain understood that if you couldn’t lie, then you simply had to tell the right truth. So that was exactly what Karray and I were going to do—serve up the truth, seasoned with genuine emotion.

“Sweetheart,” I began, playing the part of someone caught red-handed. “This is a very difficult case. I’m not even sure I can pull it off myself, so you’d only be a distraction.”

“But... but...” The sniffing behind me made it clear just how “deeply” I had wounded my ward.

“Karray, my joy...” There was a slap as a new, fully charged amulet landed beside the old stasis amulet. I turned to the girl, tears already running down her cheeks. I caught the boy giving me a hostile look and chuckled inwardly. Perceptive kid. I liked him already. I crouched down and looked into the eyes of my “hurt” little ward. “This is a very serious case of poisoning. The patient literally died just as she was being placed in stasis. Please...”

Then I “suddenly noticed” Skywalker. He had softened a little, but was still clearly upset. The teenager cast a look full of pain and hope toward the table where the patient lay, then lowered his head with a heavy sigh.

“Please, Karray, show Anakin around our Academy. He’s a real Jedi.” The boy clearly started to object, then thought better of it, lifting his chin slightly and giving his Padawan braid a little toss. “And he can tell you all about the Order. You’d like to hear what real Jedi are actually like, wouldn’t you?”

“Really?” The girl’s eyes lit up with wide-eyed admiration as she looked at him, and the boy visibly straightened his shoulders before giving her an important little nod.

“Kenobi...” the Master Healer said impatiently, looking at the boy’s teacher.

“Yes, ahem... Anakin, go take the tour. Master Rancisis said there are plenty of interesting things to see here.”

Skywalker gave Obi-Wan a slightly wounded, accusing look, then glanced back at the patient’s body, sighed again, and gave my ward a genuinely pleasant smile.

“Want to go? Jedi life isn’t all that exciting. But if you want, I can tell you about a couple of missions where I had to save my Master from some pretty difficult situations...”

I nearly laughed under my breath. From the look of things, the two of them had a pretty good relationship if the boy listened to his Master but wasn’t afraid to throw in his own two credits. Kenobi’s long-suffering expression was pretty funny too.

“Back to business,” the blue-skinned Twi’lek practically growled, fixing me with a demanding stare. Then, after a long exhale, she bowed her head apologetically. “Forgive me, Master. It is difficult for me to see Master Yaddle in this condition.”

“I understand completely.” I nodded gravely as I approached the workbench. “There’s no need to worry. The job is difficult, certainly, but not impossible. I recently had to regrow a student’s torso—now that was a pain. Deadman lived up to his nickname yet again...”

Muttering under my breath, I had already brought up an illusion of the dead goblin woman’s body in front of us. Whatever had happened to the Jedi, they had at least managed to get a stasis amulet onto Yaddle in time when the lethal dose of toxins killed her. The Jedi had very quickly come to appreciate just how useful those artifacts were. So much so that Alto and I were starting to consider raiding pirates ourselves, because the sort who specialized in robbery and slave-taking had become rather scarce visitors lately.

Anakin walked beside Dziha’s ward, listening to her chatter and answering her questions, but he was a little distracted. The teenager was worried about Yaddle. The kind, wise, and sometimes amusing Master had quite literally sacrificed her life, using a Force technique to draw all the lethal poison the villains had released into herself. She had saved everyone else at the cost of her own life.

“And then, after all that, my Master says to me...” Anakin smiled softly as he told the amusing story he had promised about one of his adventures with Obi-Wan. Even as he talked, his thoughts kept drifting back to their frantic journey to Coruscant, to the healers throwing up their hands in the Healing Halls, and to how Vokara Che herself—who had recently put Master Vos through endless tests and examinations and was none too trusting of the sorcerers from Jabiim—had ultimately been the one to suggest contacting Master Siith.

The boy was glad his Master had volunteered to accompany Master Che and Master Yaddle to Jabiim, and he had flatly refused to stay behind at the Temple to rest. There was little he could actually do, but Skywalker felt that coming with them was the right thing. No, it wasn’t the Force whispering to him. It was his conscience. He needed to be there for the one who had died so that he could live.

“And these are our little ones,” Karray’s bright voice broke the brief silence that had followed Anakin’s story. Some of the children in the group—about twenty of them altogether—looked roughly the same age as the sorcerer’s ward, which made her dismissive “little ones” rather amusing. “Some of them might become mages too, if they want to! Hi, Shmi! How are you?”

“Oh, Karray.” The woman, who had been standing with her back to them a short distance from the group of children, turned toward Anakin and the young witch. “Do you know where Bo—”

She froze, staring at the Padawan and completely forgetting what she had meant to ask Karray. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then began looking around frantically, perhaps searching for the other Jedi. Her gaze flicked over the sorcerer’s student before returning to her son’s face, which she stared at in disbelief.

“Ani...” she whispered, barely audible, taking one small, hesitant step forward. Then she stopped.

Anakin had no idea how long he stood there motionless, staring at the painfully familiar features of his mother’s face. His mother, whom he had left behind on Tatooine. Whom he had abandoned in slavery. Force, how many hours had he spent blaming himself for leaving with the Jedi? How many times had he begged the elders to save her? And how happy had he been when that letter finally came... He would be lying if he said he had flown here for her. But saying he hadn’t expected to see her would be a lie too.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no...” the girl beside him suddenly wailed in a very unconvincing voice, wearing a strangely bright, sad little smile. “I just remembered! I haven’t fed my rancor! I have to go right now! Shmi, could you please show the Jedi around the Academy? I’m really, really late! Pancake gets grumpy if he doesn’t eat!”

“What... Ooooh...” the teenager drawled as realization finally dawned on him.

“Yeeeep,” the little menace said with a cheerful grin, giving the Padawan a roguish wink. She took a couple of steps, stopped, then turned back again. “There aren’t any classes in the north wing today, Shmi. Oh, and just so you know—I like chocolate cake!”

By then, the girl had already put enough distance between herself and the Skywalkers that they couldn’t hear her giggling to herself and counting her winnings.

“At least four cakes! Two from Dad, and Shmi will definitely give me two more. And if that boy isn’t as stingy as the rest of the Jedi, he’ll cough up another cake or two! Then I’ll invite Romri over to help me eat all the goodies!”

Yaddle thought she was dead. Those were the first thoughts that came to her when awareness returned. The one thing arguing against death—and dissolving into the Force—was just how utterly awful she felt. Everything hurt. Literally everything, right down to the tips of her ears. She was badly nauseous too, and there was such a fierce ringing inside her skull that she couldn’t hear anything else.

The moment she opened her eyes, she regretted it. The blurry ceiling seemed to have a life of its own, performing some kind of insane dance. Oh, this felt awful...

The Master remembered how, a very, very long time ago, just after earning the rank of Knight, she had made a mistake in a cantina and drunk quite a lot of something sweet that had turned out to be alcoholic. Fortunately, she hadn’t had a Padawan at the time. A vomiting Master was a poor example for a student.

“So I survived,” she didn’t so much whisper as breathe out softly, closing her eyes again. The mad dance of her surroundings threatened to have some very unpleasant consequences.

She had no idea how long she spent fighting the nausea. Maybe a minute. Maybe a couple of hours. It was hard to focus on anything. But then, in one beautiful, glorious moment, a soft, gentle warmth enveloped her mind. The pain began to fade. The nausea receded. Even the vile high-pitched ringing in her head slowly died away.

“Ooooh...” she heard a vaguely familiar male voice, tinged with respect and admiration. “So that’s what Force healing is like! What finesse, Grand Master! I’m impressed!”

“I’m a Master,” came a voice Yaddle knew very well. Vokara Che—the stern Twi’lek, senior healer of the Medical Corps, and a good friend of hers.

“Swinging sticks around and shoving people with the Force doesn’t take much brains!” the man spoke again. “But your skill—that’s practically a divine miracle! Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

“You don’t need to flatter me. And besides, Master Siith, I need to concentrate. Could you perhaps...” Vokara fell silent, but Yaddle could practically hear the unspoken request for him to kindly fuck off to Sith-knows-where. She smiled faintly. The Twi’lek rarely bothered choosing her words when someone got in the way of her work.

“Understood, Grand Master. I’ll be quiet,” the man said. Yaddle was certain that if she opened her eyes again, she would see that terrifying but cheerful smile on the Jabiim sorcerer’s face.

After that, she lay in relative silence, washed over by waves of gentle, healing Force. Somewhere in the background, she could hear the sorcerer speaking softly, heaping praise on the Jedi art of healing. Knight Kenobi answered him in the same hushed tone. It was obvious that the young but very talented Jedi appreciated the praise. Even Vokara, standing nearby, radiated a quiet sense of approval.

“Yaddle, how are you feeling?” the Twi’lek suddenly asked.

The Jedi Master risked opening her eyes again. The result pleased her: the ceiling was barely swaying now. Granted, Master Che seemed to have four eyes and an extra lekku, which made the diminutive Jedi break into a rather silly smile.

“Better than before,” she replied quietly, feeling her tongue stumble over the words. Only three words, yet saying them had exhausted her so much that she could feel herself rapidly slipping into sleep... Or was Vokara working her magic again?

The Temple’s finest healer let out a relieved breath. Master Yaddle’s life was no longer in danger. Praise the Force. The woman allowed herself a quick glance at the sorcerer standing nearby and, catching his questioning look, gave him a grateful smile.

“Master Siith, would you mind if we stayed here for a couple of days?” Truthfully, she would have preferred to return to the Temple, but Yaddle would be better off resting for a while. Space was unpredictable—and dangerous.

“Of course.” The sorcerer smiled faintly, sending a small herd of goosebumps racing between Vokara’s shoulder blades. “I was actually going to suggest the same thing. To be honest, right up until the very end I wasn’t sure it would work. Master Yaddle was literally saturated with that filth. Yes, Master Che, if it hadn’t been for your help...”

The presumably human man gave a sealed jar of black-and-red sludge a shake—only for Knight Kenobi to immediately take it away from him.

“I’m a Master,” the Twi’lek said wearily, shaking her head with a faint smile and giving Obi-Wan a small nod. “And I can say the same to you: without your method of removing the toxins, the stasis, and the ability to work on each organ separately... The Force may be all-powerful, but I am not.”

“Well, I’m not a Master either,” the sorcerer snorted, glancing toward the young bearded Jedi, who was tucking the jar beneath his robe while wearing an expression of complete innocence. “And since you Jedi insist on calling me by that title, I’m now honor-bound to exact terrible revenge, Grand Master!”

“Indeed,” Kenobi said with a smile as he closed his robe over the jar. “A truly devious revenge. And if I understood correctly...”

The man glanced questioningly toward the sleeping Yaddle. Master Che closed her eyes in satisfaction.

“Everything went well. We’ll keep her under observation for a couple of days together with...” The healer gave the head of the JMG an exaggeratedly vindictive smile. “Together with Master Siith. After that, we should be able to fly back to Coruscant.”

The sorcerer was smiling cheerfully, which made both Jedi a little uneasy, though by now they were almost used to it. Almost. Master Rancisis hadn’t spent all that time briefing them before departure for nothing. The Thisspiasian had lamented over comms that he couldn’t accompany Che and Kenobi himself, but he had done his best to prepare them for meeting the Jabiim sorcerer.

“Then, my dear guests, would you honor my household by allowing me to host you at my manor for these two days?”