When Eleena emerges from sedation after her medical treatment, she comes awake slowly. At first, she is only aware of sensations like touch and cold and wet. And sticky. She feels very sticky. After a time, she registers voices. They are talking about her.

Unconscious or sedated?

Sedated. We just pulled her from the tank.

Yeah, I saw her in there earlier. Did you see the chest on her?

We all did. That was something to see.

So . . . who is she? She's alien, so she's not one of ours.

She's some civilian accountant who used to work for Malgus. He rescued her along with a bunch of our men in custody on Ziost.

That must have been some rescue. Did you see this? Her records show she was pretty messed up. Four broken ribs. Internal bleeding. Concussion. Contusions everywhere. Two black eyes.

The guys who brought her in said some of our men were worse. They were all in Republic interrogation getting beaten because they refused to talk.

Why interrogate a civilian accountant?

I don't know. You tell me. Maybe because she is Lord Malgus' accountant?

Oh. I guess that makes sense. Sort of . . .

Did you hear? They got a Jedi on that mission.

I'm not surprised. Malgus always gets his man.

It was a woman. A lady Jedi.

Yeah?

And the story is that this here accountant was the one to kill her.

Really? Wow. I wouldn't have guessed.

Yep. And Ledbetter himself met her at the shuttle when she arrived back with the strike team.

The Captain was there? No shit?

No shit. And he doesn't come down from the bridge for just anyone.

This woman is not really an accountant, is she?

No, I don't think so.

Maybe she's a mercenary. Malgus hires mercenaries. And that would explain why the Republic would be interested in her.

I don't think she's a mercenary either.

Yeah? You don't suppose she's his . . .

His what?

You know . . . Maybe Lord Malgus likes 'em blue and thick with great tits.

Nah, I don't think so. Malgus is supposed to be a cold sonofabitch. Plus, he's not a Hutt. Even Malgus wouldn't keep a Twi'lek slave. Dark Lords are far too proud for that sort of thing.

She's a slave?

She wore a slave collar implant once. I saw the scar on her neck when we cleaned the bacta off her. The scar is fresh. This woman was a slave very recently.

Huh. Well, whoever she is, she's lucky to be alive and off Ziost. We're getting transfers of battlefield trauma cases starting tomorrow. I've already given orders to refresh and ready all our bacta tanks. This is the first wave of a lot of these sorts of cases we are going to get.

When do the transfers come in?

Tomorrow from fifteen hundred onward. It will give us something to do. Stationed this far out on the blockade, we're not going to see anything but medivac transfers.

Yeah, okay. So . . . do you think all those stories about Twi'leks are true?

What stories?

You know—how if you stroke their tentacles just the right way they will—

You've watched too much holonet porn.

Hey, I'm a single guy. And there are seven women on this ship and Ledbetter has forbidden us to even look at them.

There's eight women now.

She's an alien. She doesn't count.

Did you see what I saw in that bacta tank? Trust me, this blue gal counts.

Four days later, Eleena is released out of sickbay. She is assigned to her own private quarters on a lower deck alongside the non-commissioned officers. There she spends the day surfing the holonet and doing her rehabilitation exercises. It's a lot of ab exercises to help her healing ribs. With nothing else to do, Eleena does the exercises over and over again. At this rate, she's going to get a six-pack after all. Everyone else on the ship has a job to do and a place to be but her. Eleena has nothing to do but hang out and play fetch with Lord Malgus' dogs.

She knows no one on the Absolute. Eleena is not used to so much time alone. There were always people around at the Barrabas Logistics warehouses and plenty of work to do. And though Eleena was known to be a slave, she had daily responsibilities and, in certain situations, a degree of professional respect. Later at Lord Malgus' space station, the busy household staff always had friendly smiles and kind words. But here on the Absolute, Eleena is surrounded by people who are not exactly hostile, but they keep their distance. She is gawked at and whispered about in the hallways. Everyone, it seems, is suspicious of her.

Maybe it's because of the rumors she overheard in the sickbay. Maybe people are scared of her because she killed a Jedi. Or maybe they are intimidated because they think that she once worked on the mysterious new commander's personal staff. Or maybe it's just the Sith's famous prejudice for non-humans coming out. But Eleena tends to think that the issue is mostly because of her slave background. The Sith are a hierarchical society and the military itself is organized along a chain of command. As a civilian and a former slave, Eleena is separate and apart from all of that. It makes her self-conscious in a way she hasn't been before. As the days pass, Eleena worries that what she initially took for curiosity from afar is really a form of contempt. The only reason no one is completely upfront about their disdain, Eleena reasons, is likely the confusing messages sent by Captain Ledbetter and her bunk assignment equivalent to an NCO.

All this solitude gives Eleena time to think. Mostly, she thinks about Lord Malgus. She forgot to thank him. That slight weighs heavily on her mind. In their stolen moments alone at the top of the shuttle ramp, Eleena had been so confused by his hot-and-cold demeanor and hurt from her injuries that she had completely forgotten to express her gratitude. She feels terrible about that.

She also feels confused about what it means to be rescued by the Sith. For while Lord Malgus had promised her a second chance at freedom, that seems like a consolation prize. For standing there in his arms on the shuttle, all Eleena had wanted was him. Darth Malgus might be a warrior feared by his enemies and begrudgingly admired by his peers, but he is the only man who has never hurt her. And, yes, he is famous for his cold strategic mind and his intolerance for failure. And yet, he has only shown Eleena kindness and patience. They spent one glorious night of passion together and then went their separate ways. But still . . . Lord Malgus had come back to Zoist for her. Somehow, Eleena had known that her loyalty during her interrogation had not been misplaced. And true to form, Lord Malgus had come through big time.

But what does it mean? Probably nothing. Sith Lords do not have relationships with slave women. And despite their night together, Lord Malgus has never promised her anything but freedom and help for a fresh start. He thinks women are a distraction to fighting men and by now he might be a newlywed to aristocratic Lady Cassis. There is no room in Lord Malgus' life for Eleena Daru. She doesn't fit into his world and she will bring him nothing but further conflict and disdain. And that seems like a terrible way to repay all his kindness.

But still . . . the dreamer in Eleena imagines that the door will slide open one day to reveal the Sith Lord himself. Then he will take her in his arms for a kiss. But the realist in her understands that there is a reason why some junior lieutenant comes by every third day to knock to confirm that she is okay. Each time, the man asks her the same two perfunctory questions as he stands in the doorway looking annoyed with his task. Are you ill? Do you require any assistance? Eleena answers in the negative each time. Then the days drag on until the lieutenant appears again. She is being looked after at a minimum and at a distance. The clean break between her and Lord Malgus continues the same as before notwithstanding Ziost.

Eleena gets the message and exists very quietly on the Absolute, taking care to create minimal fuss. Things brighten a little when Jose Escriva begins sending her regular messages to check in. Jose sends her well wishes from everyone back at the space station. But she never hears from Lord Malgus. She didn't really expect to.

Eleena doesn't go looking for attention, after a few days she finds she gets it anyway. She is sitting one evening eating alone in the giant commissary. The regular one—not the officers' mess. Up walk three men to sit down uninvited in the empty seats that surround her. They are not threatening exactly, but they are not friendly either. Eleena is instantly uncomfortable.

"Hey, what's your name? We keep seeing you around. We thought we would introduce ourselves," says the boldest of the bunch. "You're on C Deck same as us NCO's." Then he says three names that Eleena promptly forgets.

"I'm Eleena Daru."

"You're out of uniform, Ms. Daru," the bold one says with a smile. He's fishing but not exactly rude. They both know that there are no female aliens in the Sith military.

"I am a civilian. I'm only here temporarily," she explains quietly.

"Yeah, we heard. You're the accountant woman who Malgus brought back from Ziost, right?" The man lets on that he's heard plenty about her.

Eleena just nods. "That's right."

"Your Basic has an accent," another man observes. And this is something new to Eleena. Back in the Republic Mid Rim, she sounded like everyone else. It was only once she lived among the Sith that Eleena realized that she speaks with a bit of an accent to their ears.

When she doesn't respond, the man says plainly. "You sound Republic."

The third man who turns out to be the most obnoxious of the group now speaks up. "Yeah, it's kinda sexy. Say something else, baby."

"I'm not Republic," Eleena says in a clipped, annoyed tone. "I am full citizen of the Empire," she bristles defensively.

"Yeah, yeah, we know you went through Republic interrogation," the first guy reveals more of his knowledge. "Look, we don't want to bother you. We just want to know what Malgus is like. We heard you used to work for our Sith Lord."

The second man chimes in, "We've never even seen Malgus up close."

The obnoxious one laughs. "That's fine by me. Even from a distance, he looks like one scary motherfucker." The man turns to Eleena. "While these guys are all looking for him, I'm looking for the girls. Until you came along, there were seven women on the Absolute. All of them officers. None of them pretty unless you like your women over fifty and by-the-book."

The first one ignores this. "So what's he like? Come on, you can tell us. There are no commissioned officers here to tattle. Tell us what you think, Ms. Daru."

And how does she answer? Eleena thinks a moment before deciding honestly, "He's nice."

"Nice?" the obnoxious guy parrots. "Come on, tell us the truth. Darth Malgus the New isn't nice. The man is a beast. Tough as nails. Merciless to the core. He killed his own Sith Master at Korriban. That's not nice."

"He's only ever been nice to me." The trio look so disappointed now that Eleena feels compelled to add, "I did see him execute a spy once at the space station."

"Yeah?"

Eleena nods. "He took the man's head off with his sword. It was at dinner," she recalls aloud. "No one was hungry after that."

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" the obnoxious guy crows. "Our Sith Lord is a killer. They say that in the Republic everyone knows his name. It's only here in the Empire that he gets short changed on glory. You know . . . because he's not pureblood."

"What else besides nice?" the first guy cross-examines Eleena. "Because that doesn't really sound right . . . "

"He's loyal," Eleena adds.

"Yeah, that fits," the first guy decides. "But what's with the dogs? Never heard of a Sith Lord who kept pets."

"Yeah?" his obnoxious friend chimes in. "Well, they are Dark Side dogs. Scary, aggressive, violent, biting dogs. Just like Malgus himself."

The dogs don't bite, Eleena thinks. At least, they have never bitten her. Neither has Malgus, for that matter.

"And the garden on A-deck beneath the bridge?" It's the first guy again. "That's odd too. If I didn't know better, I'd think our Sith Lord was a bit prissy. You know . . . maybe he's soft just like they say."

Eleena and everyone else blinks at that. But the obnoxious guy is the one to respond, of course. "Malgus prissy? Have you lost your mind?"

"You'll lose your head if that comment gets overheard," the quiet second man agrees.

Eleena feels compelled to explain a bit, so she reveals, "His villa on Dromund Kaas has gardens too and so does his space station. Lord Malgus likes natural beauty. And plants have the Force."

"They do?" All three men ask.

"Yes. Life creates the Force and makes it grow. Even plants."

"Lady, you sound like a Jedi," the first guy says derisively.

And the mostly quiet second man comes to her defense. "Hey—don't be rude to her—"

"I'm an accountant," Eleena informs them pointedly. "I don't have the Force. I'm just an ordinary person who got caught up in a war."

The first guy—the bold one—nods at this. Then he counters, "So how come you got rescued?"

"I was in the right place at the right time when Lord Malgus arrived to rescue the others," Eleena outright lies.

"So what were you doing in Republic custody in the first place?" the bold one follows up.

"I got caught out after curfew."

"And you get interrogated for that?"

Eleena doesn't really want to talk about her interrogation. She must look a bit stricken because now the obnoxious guy again inserts himself. "Sure, you do. Those Republic assholes will stoop to anything. You know that. They will ruin the galaxy if they win. There will be democracy and disorder everywhere you look."

"I'm asking her, not you—"

And now Eleena speaks for herself. "Look, I got picked up after curfew and they thought I had information for them. I escaped thanks to Lord Malgus. You know," she defends the ship's resident Dark Lord, "you could do a lot worse than him. He's fair and he's loyal and he usually wins. There's a reason men flocked to join his new command."

Her tone is a rebuke and now all three men look chastised. The first even manages a quasi-apology. "Yeah, okay. Look, we're glad you're back home on the good side, Ms. Daru. We're glad you're safe. We were just curious about the new commander, that's all. He's . . . uh . . . got quite a reputation, you know."

Eleena relaxes and now they do too. And that must embolden the men to get to the question they have been dying to ask. "Is it true you killed a Jedi?"

Eleena nods. "Yes." But she refuses to talk about it.

After two more similar conversations, Eleena realizes that she is provoking more questions than she is answering. She's only making herself more conspicuous and she's not succeeding at making friends. It's not that the crew are hostile or disrespectful. But they are curious and rather persistent. Eleena quickly tires of telling her story again and again. And so, she starts arriving to eat at odd times long after shift changes when there are not many people around. The rest of the day, she hangs out in her room or with the dogs everyone keeps their distance from.

It's best this way for her. There are people who go through life seeking the limelight. They like to be on display. It feeds a need deep within them to feel important or desired or special in some way. They blossom under all the attention and become their best, most vibrant self. See them laughing at a party or commanding all the eyes in the room at the meeting. These people are best before a crowd. Because when attention is withheld, they are diminished and self-conscious and feeling pushed aside.

And then, there are those people who would much prefer to blend in and not draw attention to themselves. Maybe that's because the attention they have garnered in the past has been negative or threatening. Or perhaps they want to be understood for something other than what is visually on display. Or sometimes it is a consequence of the fact that what people perceive about them is not who they truly are. Because the assumptions and judgements people project on them are false. These people are uncomfortable with being front and center. They fidget and look away. Eleena Daru is one of them.

She's a slave so it is her job to fade into the background. The problem is that Eleena has nowhere to hide on the Absolute. And, strangely enough, she has some nebulous status as well. No one is sure who she is or why she is here, but they know she merits a reception from the captain and she is rumored to have killed a Jedi. So, Eleena keeps to herself but strives to keep her head held high and her chin up in public. She thinks Lord Malgus would approve.

The days slip by slowly. One week becomes two weeks becomes three, as Eleena waits for what happens next. Her future is very uncertain. After what happened on Ziost, she cannot go back to a Republic world to begin a new life, even if she wanted to. She is now a wanted fugitive and suspected Sith agent. Even if her sympathies were not already with the Empire, she would support the Sith by default. But with the war at a turning point and the Republic in possession of a key Sith world, it's unclear which Imperial worlds are safe. So, for the meantime, Jose tells her to sit tight on the Absolute. The Master does not want to settle you on another world that ultimately will prove to be unsafe, he writes. Let's see how things unfold since it is early days in the counterattack still.

That's fine, but Eleena wants to get a message back to her supervisor and her colleagues at the accounting firm back on Ziost. That's not possible with the communications blackout, she is told by the junior lieutenant who comes around to check on her. But they'll I think I'm dead, Eleena protests. It's probably the other way around, she is told. And then, the lieutenant gives Eleena a peek at some newly received classified surveillance photographs from Ziost. She swipes through picture after picture showing New Adasta reduced to rubble. Just the first three weeks of the Sith counterattack have made the once cosmopolitan city an eerie ghost town of ruins.

Eleena swallows hard at what she sees. These aren't random pictures of others' misfortunes on the holonet. These are places she has been, and the dead and the missing probably include people she knows. Seeing the destruction brings tears to her eyes. The seige of Ziost is personal in a way Eleena cannot ignore.

"I hate the Republic," she says bleakly when she can't stop swiping through the carnage. If it's strange that Eleena has adopted the cause of a culture that does not fully accept her, she doesn't care. It's not like life in the Republic is all that great by comparison. There is unfairness and injustice and prejudice amid all peoples. At least the Sith are overt about it. "I hate the Republic," Eleena repeats as she pauses on a picture of a pile of debris that used to be a school.

"We all do, Ma'am," the lieutenant solemnly agrees.

Eleena knows that somewhere there is similar footage of death and destruction on a smaller scale at her old master Barrabas' villa and warehouses. Innocents died there too, only at the hands of the Empire. But at least that attack had some provocation and justification. Eleena sees no explanation for Ziost. There the Republic was the aggressor first.

Like most everyone who watches the newsfeeds, Eleena only knows the general gist of the issues at stake in the war. The conflict between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic dates back hundreds of years. You'd have to be a history professor to truly understand the twists and turns of the never-ending war. But Eleena strongly suspects that there are heroes and villains on both sides. Plus, this former slave is cynical about concepts of good and evil, right and wrong. Very little in life is sacrosanct and things depend very much on your point of view. And now, through an unexpected set of circumstances, her point of view is firmly Sith. Because sometimes you just have to pick a side and take the good with the bad.

"I hope Lord Malgus kills them all," Eleena says with a hardened heart as she hands the lieutenant back his datapad. "The Republic should pay for this." Especially those smug Jedi knights, she thinks.