The trip back to Ryloth had been quick and dull. Expecting a lengthier turn around on planet, Aayla found herself assigned to be part of Tambor's escort to Coruscant as part of the Republic's attempts to soothe the furious locals. Senator Taa and his powerful family were attempting to smooth things over and the rebuilding package currently being voted on was a powerful inducement to give the Senate what it wanted. The ashes of dozens of destroyed villages and towns was an equally powerful inducement to maintain control of Tambor.
Unfortunately, the simple fact was that the Republic wanted him and Republic fleets were still in orbit and Republic troops were still on the ground. Still, they were trying to do it nice and having Aayla in charge of the escort helped some. It was like he was still in Twi'lek custody, even if not really Rylothian, for all that they appeared to have adopted her.
So it was that she found herself, Leo and SIS essentially seconded to the Senate Guard, or they'd been seconded to her. The command structure was not entirely clear even on paper, but there were dozens of members of the Guard and it was their cruiser that she was on, so, but she was a Jedi and a General. And she had Leo, who could and might kill anyone on board and SIS who could and might take over the ship fairly easily.
Command was therefore unclear, except for the fact that Aayla didn't want it. After the last few days, she was ready to be done with bantha shit. In fact, she was actually looking forward to getting back to her boys and having a straightforwardly loyal army at her back, rather than Leo and his more confused and confusing loyalties. They had done great things in a short amount of time, but the man remained difficult to parse and difficult to trust, for all that he had lived up to it every time she burdened him with her trust.
Still, this trip should be swift and safe. A straightforward trip back to Coruscant, hand the traitor over to the courts for trial, rejoin Bly and see how the new recruits were doing, get set back up onboard the Reliable and abandon this clunky old cruiser to head back to Ryloth and pick Senator Taa up before he and Cham could actually come to blows.
A quiet, relaxing trip was just what the doctor ordered. Literally, in Leo's case, though the Force choke hadn't done any serious damage, they'd still told him to take it easy. And she could tell he'd been upset about having to send the Balls, commando heads and all off into the nearest star. Still, SIS was right, he'd never managed to even start cracking the encryption and he really didn't want anything around which tied him to the Black Sun. Especially given how successful their operation had been at pissing off the Separatists towards the Sun. She might not entirely approve of his methods, but, with communications jammed, the last word anyone in the entire Confederacy had from the Shipyard was Leo getting choked by Dooku, it really would look quite a lot like the Black Sun had taken revenge.
XXX
Internal Partition * HIGHEST SECURITY * Chat Log
Wrathbone: And how the frell are we supposed to do that?
SisterSays: The orders are nonspecific. This is what you get for telling command we'd be back on Ryloth after the mission. Though we didn't know about this assignment in time to tell them. Guess command has got another person or two somewhere in the Senate or military hierarchy, just not on Coruscant. Well, besides the obvious, but they don't have access to these types of orders…
Wrathbone: Stop trying to figure out where other agents are placed. Bad form. Start trying to figure out how the frell we're going to conduct a chemical interrogation of Tambor while he's in custody. The man's under constant guard.
SisterSays: There's only fifteen guards. We could just take the ship.
Wrathbone: And Aayla? Are you looking to be crushed like a tin can?
SisterSays: Fair point. How about a narcotic gas? Pump it in while she's sleeping, it puts everyone else down. We interrogate him while they're all out, wipe all records and pretend you were drugged too. I fix it. We might be able to pass it off as either a rescue attempt gone wrong or some sort of…something leak?
Wrathbone: Which I assume means you've checked and there's nothing onboard this ship which causes unconsciousness without also causing unfortunate side effects?
SisterSays: I don't usually think of death as a side effect, but it would certainly be unfortunate.
Wrathbone: All right, how about we fake his death? Surely the Separatists want him dead.
SisterSays: I don't have any drugs for that. I've got interrogation drugs and cleansers for afterwards, but nothing to fake his death.
Wrathbone: Besides, that still wouldn't give us a reason to have his body.
SisterSays: True.
Wrathbone: So maybe something which doesn't leave a body? Explosive decompression and you waiting outside to grab him and stuff him into a bubble, or into your hidey-hole?
SisterSays: No! One, there's no way to do it once he's in the cell, it's too far inside the ship. Two, there would be lots of casualties and/or witnesses if we did it anywhere else. Three, I don't want Tambor sliming up my insides. Man's a creep.
Wrathbone: I can't argue with that. Plus he's bigger than me, would he even fit?
SisterSays: I'd have to dump some nonessentials, but yes, but still no.
Wrathbone: Fine, fine. Do you have any better ideas?
SisterSays: The Separatists must have something planned. Maybe we wait for them to act?
Wrathbone: Then swing into action? Best I can think of that doesn't burn us pretty bad, but hard to do while we're in motion. Most likely they'll hit him after he's turned over. Nothing we can do about that though. There has to be a way…
SisterSays: I still want to know what Tambor knows that's worth all this.
Wrathbone: Don't the questions we're supposed to ask sort of give the game away?
SisterSays: Check again, they're still encrypted until we actually have access to Tambor.
Wrathbone: Shit. Well, I know we've got a lot of people in the Techno Union. Maybe Tambor knows something he shouldn't? Or we're planning something to do with the Techno Union? Damnit—
SisterSays: Ah, ah, ah, stop talking about other agents' placements, it's bad form.
Wrathbone: And frell you too little sister.
SisterSays: Love you, too, brother.
Wrathbone: Oh, since I didn't say it before, congratulations on your plans coming off. I was pretty hesitant about the third part.
SisterSays: Eh, as you always say, if we know we don't know something, might as well make use of our own ignorance.
Wrathbone: I don't think I've ever said that in my entire life.
SisterSays: Okay, always may have been an exaggeration. I'd have been happy if we could have taken the Shipyard Master's office as well, but given that I didn't even know there were two of them, that was always a pretty low probability option. We should have done more prep work with Aayla though. She almost fumbled that pass and missed the first good-guard, bad-guard invitation.
Wrathbone: True. And given that we'd have been confessing ignorance, the usual reasons we don't share don't really apply. Why didn't we give her a heads up?
SisterSays: We didn't want too many questions about our continual practice of sending valuable ships into 'stars'?
Wrathbone: Meh, that's a perfectly legitimate tactic for getting rid of incriminating ships.
SisterSays: Well, maybe you don't like Aayla seeing you use the same trick over and over again? Or don't like admitting ignorance in front of the pretty Jedi?
Wrathbone: For crying out loud, I thought we were done with these jokes.
SisterSays: Who's joking, brother?
Wrathbone: Seriously?
SisterSays: Quite seriously. Your trained and natural tendency towards secrecy is fighting your desire to show off for the—for Aayla. Can't blame you. She's an impressive woman. Less so on the last op than on the one before it, admittedly, but still. And we have surrounded ourselves with untrustworthy assholes for most of the last fifteen years. She's the first person you've met in years who is actually a sane and moral person. And she's, well, quite precisely your type, without being as frelling terrible as your type usually is.
Wrathbone: You know, I'm looking back over the transcript of this conversation and I still can't figure out how we got from 'how do we interrogate Tambor' to, 'do I have feelings for the Jedi.'
SisterSays: Well, first I said—
Wrathbone: I hate you.
SisterSays: I love you too. Anyway, in all seriousness, if you're holding back because of old grudges, or because you want my approval, don't bother and you've got it, respectively. And only like thirty percent because you're much more pleasant when you're getting laid on the regular.
Wrathbone: Thanks. I think. I also think you're still out of your mind. No Eye of the Bastion is getting involved with a Jedi as anything except cover. How are we doing for security?
SisterSays: Fairly shittily. The Senate Guard are being paranoid about it and following me around. I'm going to have to use subordinate bots and there's still a chance they'll spot them. I don't really want to reveal that capability.
Wrathbone: Okay, that's less than great. Does it strike you as odd that the Guards are all human? Coruscant is a lot more cosmopolitan than that.
SisterSays: The Supreme Chancellor's chair isn't.
Wrathbone: Nor were the Judicial Forces, I guess.
SisterSays: A real Coruscanti lowlander would have known that by the time they were twelve.
Wrathbone: Indeed. It's always the little things that trip you up.
SisterSays: Trip you up, maybe.
Wrathbone: Love you, too, sister. Well, if we can't trust the Senate Guard, who can we trust?
SisterSays: Yeah, I'll deploy subordinate bots.
Wrathbone: Don't get caught. I don't think the good captain much likes me.
XXX
Captain Argyus was a charming, intelligent, able man. He didn't make waves about her presence, or bristle at the implied slur on his abilities. Given that and the classically handsome features and figure under the blue Senate Guard armor, Aayla could not for the life of her figure out why the man made her skin crawl. The open contempt he showed for Leo wasn't the cause, it was a natural reaction of a soldier to a spy. Especially one still wearing the colors of his infiltration of the Black Sun when they'd first met (he'd since changed into clothes purchased in Lessu, preferring civilian clothing cut to permit easy concealment of weapons).
Aayla still nodded politely to him as she made her circuit through the small, Consular-class cruiser that was transporting Tambor back to his trial. It wasn't really a security sweep, as the only threat was Tambor and the man remained in his cell, though the Skakoan had at least been stripped out of his elaborate, highly-modified pressure suit and stuffed into one which definitely did not have any of the fancy bells-and-whistles, or hidden blasters, which his original had. It did however let her stretch her legs a little and after a few days trapped on a tiny freighter with six other people and a very large droid, she was glad of the space. The stopover on Ryloth had been little more than a drop-off and pick-up.
She would be even more glad to be in the vast open spaces of the Jedi Temple where she'd be able to actually stretch out her hands without brushing the ceiling. Still, she was back in her own clothes, with her lightsaber openly hanging from her belt and on the deck of a Republic ship. All was well in the galaxy. Actually, the galaxy was at war, but all was well on her ship.
That was, naturally, the moment everything went to shit. They fell out of hyperspace far earlier than they should have. But not quite when they shouldn't have, either, fortunately.