Lenora's eyes blinked open. She recognized the inside of Nezi's ship. The drugs had left her groggy but the effects were fading. It felt like only a few minutes had passed since she lost consciousness. There was no way to be sure. She tried to move her arms and realized they were bound together behind her back. She was lying on a hard surface like a workbench. She looked around and saw her lightsaber on a table across the room.

"She's awake, Ril," a female voice said.

Lenora managed to raise her head and saw a middle aged woman standing in the doorway. Lenora couldn't place the accent. The hunter stepped into the room behind the woman. He was still in his armor but had ditched the helmet and shoulder cannon. His face was a veil of scars with an artificial implant where his right eye should have been indicating a long and violent career.

"Well, so she is," he acknowledged in a loud raspy voice as he chewed. He carried a bowl of bite sized pieces of some food item she couldn't identify and impaled them one by one with a small knife shoving them into his face. Lenora didn't say anything. She was surprised to still be alive.

"Hope you don't mind my eating," he continued. "I like to celebrate a victory. Do you want one?"

Lenora took a deep breath before answering.

"No."

"Suit yourself," he answered as he took a seat in front of Lenora and stabbed another. "You were out for a quite a few hours there. I must have overestimated your resistance to poisons. Either that, or you breathed in more than I realized. I was afraid you might not wake up at all."

Lenora tried to center herself. She didn't feel like the ship was moving and was pretty sure she was still on Kote. She could still smell terrestrial air. The effect of the drug was fading fast and her mind cleared enough to control the Force. She stretched out to feel her surroundings. A burning pain pierced her skull. She stopped but the pain continued to grow. The hunter watched her face scrunch up in agony and laughed. She had to let a brief cry out before the pain finally started to fade.

"I guess she noticed that device on her head," he said to his companion. The two laughed together.

She did notice a weight and pressure around her head, something foreign like she was wearing a headband.

"No clue how that works but it does. I acquired it some years back. The guy says it basically cuts you off from the Force. Kind of levels the playing field a little bit."

Lenora started to panic. She was cut off. She felt hollow and silent like never before. She tried to pull her hands apart but she couldn't break the metal bands. She kept trying to pull and thrashed around on the bench in a flurry of panicked energy.

"What do you want?" she asked as calmly as she could after settling down.

Rilkor took another bite.

"I want you to die, so I can get paid."

"I can pay you. I have money."

"You can't afford me. Besides, I always complete my contracts. Now if you want me to kill the guy who put a bounty on you, I'll take that contract too. You'll have to pay in advance, of course."

"Then why haven't you killed me already?"

"Anxious to die?"

Lenora took another try at breaking the bonds.

"You see," Rilkor continued, handing his bowl to his companion, "I'm paid to kill you but it doesn't matter how you die or how long it takes. Nezi told me there would be a whole load of raw Aurodium waiting for us. I was thinking I'd wait for that shipment as a nice little bonus. I saw the mine coming in but it didn't seem ready. Maybe she lied about the day. I'll deal with her later."

The bounty hunter worked one glove off.

"You see, I kind of specialize in you Force sensitive types. Very lucrative contracts. Not a lot of competition out there. Some will go after a Jedi figuring if they fail they can always surrender. It takes someone special to go after a Sith. It's win or die.
"People don't realize, when it comes to killing the Force users, it's not as hard as you'd think, which is good for me. Now I have to admit, I really thought you had me there for a second."

He pointed a blackened shoulder at Lenora.

"I mean that's about as close to death as I've ever been. That's Mandalorian Iron. Almost went all the way through with one strike. And before that, when you threw that saber at me, I've never seen a lightsaber travel so fast. I never even saw it until it shorted out my shield. All I saw was the hilt hit the ground. I'm ashamed to say it, but if that net missed I think you would have beat me. It was that close. You have my respect."

Rilkor stood and grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her into a sitting position. She turned facing him with her feet over the side of the table. She finally looked down and noticed the bloody mess the grenade had made of her legs. Rilkor loosened the clasp holding the voicebox over her throat.

"Now, let's see what we have here," he said as he found the correct corner that would release the mask and let it fall onto her tattered lap and slide onto the floor. He held her by the chin and turned her head side to side.

"Well look at that. You got one side all pretty and the other side all ugly looking. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's things being all uneven."

His hand slid to the back of her head and gripped her by the hair. With his still armored fist he punched her in the face repeatedly on the side opposite her scar. The hits were not hard but the joints in the metal glove around his knuckles and fingers cut into her skin with every impact. She squeezed her eye tight to protect it as best she could and just waited until he was satisfied with the damage he was doing.

He stopped hitting her and turned her head side to side again admiring his work. Lenora partially opened her eye and tried to blink the blood out of it enough to see.

"There. Now both sides are pretty."

Rilkor and his companion laughed together. Then he sat back in his chair and took his bowl back and started eating again.

"I bet you're feeling pretty helpless right about now."

She squirmed on the table trying to work her hands free or at least feel if there was any give in her restraints. There wasn't.

"Good. I want you to feel that. That's how most people feel in your presence. Not a good feeling, is it?"

Lenora took another look around the room. Her eyes fell on her lightsaber. She thought to give the Force another try. Rilkor leaned closer to Norah Kae and slapped her hard with a bloodstained armored hand.

"Answer me!"

The impact opened another gash on her face and knocked her back flat on the bench. She shook the hair from her face.

"No, it isn't," she managed to say with a weak voice.

"Better. Now sit up again."

She pulled herself back up into a sitting position.

"Let me tell you why I hate the Sith so much."

"Oh boy, this again. I'll see you later," Rilkor's companion said as she left for the cockpit.

"I was in your place a long time ago. So I know exactly what you're feeling. But there's worse. There was this Sith I did a job for. It didn't go as planned. Turns out torturing me wasn't punishment enough for him. Made me sit there and watch as he tortured my son to death. Then my wife. He left me alive so I could relive that every day of my life. I thought about killing myself for a while but I decided I had to at least try for my revenge. I hunted this Sith across the galaxy. It took me years but I found him. And I killed him. I didn't know what to do after that. Well, word got around about it and before you know it I was getting unbelievable offers to kill other Sith. Money that you can't imagine. The irony is, most of my clients are Sith. Do you believe it? The money is great and everything. Truth is, I'd do it for free. I killed my first one too fast. I'll never make that mistake again."

"I understand how you feel," Lenora answered calmly in her normal accent.

"Do you?" Rilkor asked incredulously.

"I hate the Sith also. But I'm not a Sith. I'm a Jedi."

Rilkor laughed out loud.

"Do I sound Imperial? The mask and voicebox are a disguise."

"It's a lousy Republic accent. You'll have to work on it."

"It's not fake. This is how I sound."

"I have to admit, this is a new one. I like to hear the bargains and the begging before you all die. I could write a book with the whoppers I heard. You get an A for originality."

"My name is Lenora Cyntesa. I'm pretending to be a Sith. I've never killed anyone except Sith and a few Imperial soldiers. I certainly never tortured anyone."

"Lenora, huh?"

"Yes," she said as calmly as she could.

"Well stand up, Lenora."

She carefully slid off the bench onto her feet.

"Stand in the corner right there and face me."

Lenora took the few steps and turned around.

"I can help you," she offered him.

"Yes?"

Rilkor dropped his knife into the bowl and in one smooth motion grabbed the pistol from his hip, fired a shot into her midsection and returned the pistol to his side. The blaster bolt ripped into Lenora's abdomen with an explosion of plasma and light. She doubled over and fell onto her knees and then over into the fetal position except for her arms still bound behind her. She couldn't breathe. The pain was tolerable but she knew she was hurt, bad. The panic returned with abandon.

"Let me see," Rilkor said, standing over her. She was afraid to straighten out, that her position was the only thing keeping her organs inside. Rilkor pulled her onto her back and she slowly let her legs drop. She couldn't believe the size of the hole in her stomach.

"That's not good," he said.

Lenora fell down flat gasping for air.

"You must of flinched. I was trying to catch you on the other side. We call that in the business a 'kill shot.' That's gonna kill you too quick. That's a bummer."

"Listen," she said between shallow breaths. "It's not too late. You can get me to a medbay. I swear I am a Jedi. We can still fix this."

Rilkor took his seat again and continued eating.

"I don't know," he said. "Looks pretty bad to me. I don't think you're gonna make it."

"Please, just take me back to the base."

"I can't cash in without your body, now can I? You're out of luck, kiddo. You sure you don't want a piece? This is really good."