After the Faux Harla dropped out of hyperspace in the Rishi system, Jag looked at his wife in confusion. "I thought we were continuing to the Reo system," he pointed out.
"We are," Jaina answered. "We just need to make a little stop to meet up with Talon Karrde."
"What for?" Jag asked.
"If the Sith knew about what we intended to do with Ghent, then it's likely that they somehow figured out from within Karrde's organization," Jaina said before she opened up a transmission for Karrde's personal comm.
Seconds later, the old smuggler's face appeared on the Harla's cockpit console. "Jaina, Jag, what's going on?" Karrde asked. "Shouldn't you be tracking down the missing Jedi?"
"That's kinda the thing, Talon," Jaina said. "You see, we went to meet up with Ghent, but unfortunately, he was already killed and replaced by a Sith imposter who had some backup."
"Ghent's dead?!" Karrde exclaimed in shock.
"I'm sorry, Talon, but it's true," Jaina said. "Fortunately, Jag and I managed to escape Coruscant, and we now believe that if the Sith figured out what we were doing with Ghent, then they must have a spy in your organization."
"A spy, eh?" Karrde replied worriedly. "I shouldn't be surprised; though, honestly, I did think I'd be more careful with who I hired."
"Sith can be pretty sneaky," Jaina said. "Even you can be fooled by them, and they don't even need to wave a hand for a mind trick."
"And to think I didn't need to worry about anything since the Yuuzhan Vong," Karrde said.
"Do you know who could have been aware of the operation with Ghent?" Jaina asked.
"Actually, yes, I do," Karrde said. "There's..." He trailed off as the sound of a door opening was heard, and Karrde looked over view of the comm with a curious expression. "What?" Then a scorching hole in the man's head followed a bare millisecond after the firing of a blaster out of view.
Jaina and Jag looked on in shock before the view dissolved to static, most likely because Karrde's comm had been blasted by the same gun that ended his life.
"We gotta get down there and stop the Sith responsible for this," Jaina said.
"Shouldn't we continue to the Reo system?" Jag asked.
"And leave Karrde's people to take on the Sith?" Jaina countered. "They won't stand a chance." With that, she throttled her ship forward for Rishi.
.
"C'mon, Ben, you gotta admit," Vestara said as she leaned over his still-strapped, still-naked form on the medbay table of the ship they were traveling aboard. "You liked that as much as I did." Unlike the bare Jedi before her, Vestara was fully clothed as she nibbled at his ear sensually.
But Ben didn't appear to share the Sith's enthusiasm; his expression was limned in trauma and anger over being outright violated. "Where are you taking me?" he managed to ask in a relatively calm manner in spite of his predicament.
Vestara sighed in mock-frustration. "Oh, Ben, ever the loyal, straight-to-business, practical Jedi, you are," she said before she climbed on him again. "You shouldn't have to worry about that, you know. Wouldn't you like to just spend time with me and not make this such a big deal?"
"You just raped me, Vestara," he said, tears forming at his eyes. He then shouted, "Do you really think I shouldn't make this into a big deal?!" He managed to move his body just enough, in the heat of his anger, to coerce Vestara to move off of him instinctively.
The young Sith looked back at him with a look of concern and something close to regret. "Ben, I... I thought you would like it."
Ben ground his teeth as he hissed, "Just as you thought I'd like your constant betrayals of my trust, my dad's trust, the Jedi Order's trust?! Hmm? You thought I'd appreciate the fact that you nearly ended my cousin's life just to save your skin?!"
"I didn't intend to kill Allana!" Vestara replied defensively, all traces of what could be interpreted as regret for raping Ben having just evaporated. "I deliberately spared her when I threw that thermal detonator at your uncle's ship! I saved her, don't you see?!"
"And you nearly killed my uncle!" Ben pointed out. "And you risked Allana's life anyway when the rest of your kind went after her, blowing her cover as Amelia even after she survived! Do you have any idea how devastated she was after she lost her friend, Bazel Warv?"
"I had no choice, Ben!" Vestara countered. "They were going to kill me for betraying them! If I didn't give them that information about Allana being the Jedi queen-"
"If you didn't give them that information about Allana being the Jedi queen, she wouldn't be hunted by the Sith, right now, would she?" Ben interrupted.
"And I'd be dead, don't forget," Vestara said.
"So much the better," Ben scoffed.
"You wouldn't be saying that if I did allow the Sith to kill me and spare Allana her secrecy," Vestara argued. "By now, you'd still probably be grieving over my death."
"I've dealt with grief before," Ben said. "I think I could have handled yours. It's much better than living with the knowledge that you could never be with me anyway."
"You'd rather live with the delusion that I could be like you, huh, Ben?" Vestara asked.
"What do you think?" Ben retorted.
Vestara didn't answer. Instead, she simply walked over to a cabinet nearby the table that Ben lay upon, took up a bowl of water, and pressed it near his lips. At first, Ben tried to resist, but she managed to calm him down by saying, "It's just water, trust me."
Ben hissed. "Like I could do that ever again."
"You really have no choice, you know," Vestara said, any note of sympathy or empathy in her tone gone. "Now drink or you'll dehydrate."
Ben sighed but acquiesced as he drank from the bowl.
"See?" Vestara asked. "Just water." She then replaced the bowl on the cabinet and left the medbay.
