Chapter 2: Something's Different
Andromeda had always considered herself as a woman of taste. Her favorite color was dark blue, like the night sky, so she often wore things that reflected that lovely shade. As she smiled into her juice, she caught the Padawan staring at her curiously. Something's different about her. That's what the princess picked up. She read in his thoughts that he found her attire - a black halter top under a silver satin top, dark blue boot-cut jeans, and black boots, all of it topped of with a kyber-crystal-studded necklace that cost well over 10,000 credits - to be decadent, yet cute. The princess blushed, before calling to him in her mind to come closer.
The young man came slowly, as if in a trance. "Sit." the girl said when the stood at her table. She could sense concern and a hint of fear coming from his master. "You have something on your mind, boy," she said. "What troubles you?"
He scoffed. "Why should I tell an Imperial like you?" he asked.
"Do not act so high and mighty in front of me, young man," Andromeda said, still in that gentle voice. "I may hate the Empire I was born into, but I do not hesitate to abuse my political power. I speak freely with you because you rebel against my Father and his cronies. I admire rebels, as my late boyfriend was one. Now, what, aside from my presence, is troubling you? Could it be that Empire Day troubles you? Just as it troubles me? Today is your birthday, too?" she was really abusing her succubus powers of mind-reading, now. "Your parents were taken away from you, too? By the Empire for rebelling?"
"Wait, how do you know what I'm thinking?" the boy asked, suddenly feeling a weird buzzing in his skull. "What are you doing to me?"
"Don't get your boxers in a twist, Ezra Bridger," Andromeda said, plucking his name from his mind. "All your secrets are safe with me. I hate the Empire too, but only because it's my Father who runs it. Once I take it over, all that's been lost will be returned. I promise you that. Rebels like you are already helping me do that. Thus, I owe you and your friends a great thanks. Disrupt the parade that's been commissioned for today, and you will be greatly rewarded. Go, now. Your Master is calling you." She waved him away, a clear sign of dismissal. Ezra stood and returned to his Master.
"What the Force were you thinking?!" the Jedi scolded. "Andromeda's an Imperial, just like the ones she shot down."
"No, she's different," Ezra sad quietly. "Her contempt is only towards other Imperials."
Jedi, come speak with me for a moment, Andromeda called in the Jedi's mind. Suspicious yet curious, he came to sit down with her.
"What brings the most notorious Sith in the Galaxy to Lothal?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know," Andromeda joked. "Other than reports of a rebel cell on Lothal, nothing really. I'm simply trying to avoid that insipid parade that bimbo, Governor Pryce has commissioned. Especially since I'd have to wear that ugly uniform and share the stage with that pathetic Minister Malketh Tua. But my main reason is a bit more shallow and selfish. You see, the Imperial shipyards of this world have resently assembled a new kind of TIE starfighter. It's a true work of art, but when I learned its maiden flight would be carried out by that fool, Baron Valen Rudor, and not by me, as today is my 15th birthday, I was furious. Therefore if a certain group of were to, say, blow it to smitherines, I might be obligated to not report seeing them here."
The Princess grinned knowingly as the Jedi's head spun at her proposition. Andromeda's a rebel, too?!
