The ship's pilot was jerked from almost complete inattention to absolute focus remarkably fast as the ship itself went from calm to screaming alerts. Aayla looked over at the ship's captain (not Captain Argyus, who was in charge of the prisoner and the transfer). "Captain?"
"Pilot?"
"We've lost hyperdrive, sir, I don't know why."
"Comms are down too, sir,' the communications tech said.
"Tech Alid?"
"Uncertain sir, I think—that f—tinn—the spy's droid sir. It's in our system."
Argyus lifted his own comm to his lips, "Bail, Viren, shut down the tinny—"
"Sir, multiple contacts, closing fast. Reads as a squadron of Vultures and Drochs. Time to intercept, four minutes," the copilot put in.
"That can't be!" Alid said, lips white with panic. "Drochs don't have hyperdrives!"
"Must have been modified," the copilot said blandly.
"Increase speed to full," the captain snapped and turned to Aayla. "We need hyperdrive. Even with the Charger c70 retrofit, we're no match for that many ships and we can't outrun them."
"Bail, Viren, report!" Argyus snapped into his comm.
"Aayla," Leo's voice came through her comm. "The ship has been sabotaged—"
"Where are my men?" Argyus bellowed, reaching out a hand for Aayla's comm. A glare stopped him in his tracks.
"Report, agent," Aayla said, voice crisp as silence fell. Everyone wanted to hear this.
"SIS noticed sabotage on the hyperdrive. She managed to delay it from taking effect for—"
"Thirty seven milliseconds," SIS's voice put in drily.
"Which carried us out of the immediate danger zone. However, primary and secondary hyperdrives are fried."
"How are we supposed to believe that?" Argyus snapped. Aayla's glare turned up in intensity, but he didn't wilt under it.
"If I wanted Tambor dead, I wouldn't do it in a way that traps me in the middle of a space battle. I'd just poison his food and let him drop dead in a few days."
"My men?" Argyus asked after a moment.
"They're fine. SIS will even give back their weapons if you countermand your order and they apologize for shooting at her."
"Do it, I have to secure the prisoner," Argyus said, retreating from the bridge.
Aayla moved off with him. "Do you trust the spy?" Argyus asked.
"On this? Yes."
"How? He's a liar. He has no honor and relies on a droid to do his fighting for him."
Aayla could feel the fear underlying the contempt the other man felt. "Leo, SIS, meet us at the brig. Tambor must reach Coruscant."
"On our way," Leo said.
The benefit of a small ship was that they all met up a few moments later. The off-duty Guards were still pulling on their armor, but they were all physically present outside Tambor's cell. The shielding let him see the troops assembling and he smiled.
"It would appear that Count Dooku still has need of my genius. It would be best if you let me leave."
Leo had quietly joined the group, which was impressive since SIS was with him. "Watch them," he whispered as he moved past Aayla.
"It appears to me that if we blew your head off, this attack might end," Argyus snapped angrily.
"No, they would simply destroy your vessel out of hand," Tambor countered.
Argyus was preparing his response to that when he fell to the ground, unconscious. The reason for that was the blaster in Leo's hand. It had been set on stun, which, in turn, redeemed the trust Aayla had given him in not reacting when she saw him drawing the weapon. Instead she kept her eyes on the others.
Their reactions were exactly what she would expect. Shock, anger and trained muscle all resulted in the same thing, blasters coming around to target Leo, whose hands were spread wide and whose pistol was pointed at the air.
"Well?" he asked the air.
"No one else involved, as far as I can tell. Though, assuming Agryus was involved, I didn't notice that either," she said, a hint of embarrassment in her voice.
"He was. SIS, play the holo, if you please."
The nearest holo-camera showed Argyus, his singular massive pauldron clearly identifying him in what was clearly engineering, working on what was equally clearly, the hyperdrive.
"He timed it perfectly. No one else was around. If we'd had our usual security net set up we could have caught him at the time, but with the one we were able to set up despite interference from Argyus, SIS only got the visual barely in time and all she could do was delay it from burning out our systems long enough to give us a chance to fight back. Unfortunately, she couldn't even do that for the communication system."
"It was set to fry that first, it was already in progress by the time I received word of what was happening," SIS put in.
"Toss him in the other cell," Aayla ordered. "After you take all his gear," she added when the Guards moved, rather slowly, to obey her orders. She moved over to Leo and SIS. "The boarding ships mean they want Tambor alive, which also means they must have hyperdrives. We endure the first wave, then steal a ship and take Tambor. It won't be a comfortable ride, but it should be doable."
"Seems like our only option," Leo agreed. "But they'll almost certainly try to kill Tambor before they let him escape. If it were me, I'd have rigged up every boarding ship with an explosive to avoid exactly what we're proposing."
"I can handle that," SIS said. "But the boarding craft will be small for organics. Minimal life support too. Each one could support no more than four all the way to Coruscant."
Aayla glanced around at the rather more than four people crowding into defensive positions about the brig and remembered the crew as well, which was now filling the bridge. "We'll take as many pods as we need, but I fear casualties will limit the number that are necessary. I do worry about the crew, however."
SIS frowned over at Leo, "Etherlin Maneuver?"
"Their best chance, suggest it to the captain," he agreed.
Aayla gave him a curious glance. "The Etherlin was a large freighter boarded in a manner not dissimilar to what's going to happen to us. The captain set everything up then jumped in the lifepod, launched and switched the shields to contain, then blew the self-destruct. The shields lasted long enough to mostly protect him, but the invaders were destroyed and the lifepod was just another floating piece of debris, until he reactivated the emergency beacon," Leo glossed.
"Lucky."
"Not really. This was deep in the Outer Rim. No one stopped to pick him up until he'd been dead for eight months."
"Hang on, what about the beacon on our lifepod?" Aayla asked.
"SIS?"
"Crew's already checked, it's fried as well. I didn't see him," she waved a limb at Argyus in his cage, because I couldn't get any security on the bridge, whereas they gave him a guided tour so he'd know where to take Tambor in an emergency."
"What about Argyus?" the captain's lieutenant asked. She could only make out part of his face under the full helmet, but his concern was obvious. The man must have been a good captain once. Then she caught the suspicion directed at Leo and realized the Guards didn't trust what they'd been told, or shown. Which wasn't actually crazy, given the potential for editing, but she found she had no suspicion in her.
"He may have useful intelligence," Leo offered.
"We'll try," Aayla agreed to the obvious relief of the Guards who pulled their mostly naked captain out of the cell as another pair pulled out the protesting Tambor. With four of their force tied up carrying prisoners, and another who needed to be literally tied up (as she pointed out, stun shots last variable amounts of time) that left them with ten guards, herself, Leo and SIS.
"General, the Separatist forces will be entering dorsal weapon range in twenty seconds. Which ships should I target?"
Usually the answer would have been the boarding pods, but if by some miracle they took those out, the fighters would undoubtedly destroy them rather than let them carry off Tambor, which made the right answer, "The fighters. We'll deal with any boarders."
"Yes, General," the ship's captain replied and the ship began to thrum as laser fire poured out of it and its deflector's spooled up to full power to deflect the incoming fire.
"Can you tell where they boarding ships are targeting?"
"Looks like about mid-ship. If I had to guess, I'd say they're aiming for the mess hall. Multiple exits and enough room to deploy quit a few droids—"
She heard cheering in the background as the weapons officer took out another fighter.
"And they don't want to risk accidentally killing the man they're here to save," Aayla muttered.
"Sorry, General, what was that?"
"Nothing. Time to intercept?"
"Two minutes," the captain said. The Separatist ships were faster than the Republic cruiser, but the full thrust had bought them time before they were overtaken.
Aayla maneuvered the Guards into position around the mess hall. Then froze. Something was coming. Something that wasn't a bunch of droids. For a moment she considered who Count Dooku would trust with this mission and focused. Darkness and fury swirled aboard the second boarding craft. "Asajj," she whispered to herself. Her plan would not work.
This was confirmed a moment later when the captain contacted her again, "Two of the pods are preparing to shift angles, one will be heading for us, one for the crew quarters," which were right by the brig.
"Secure the controls and then yourselves in the lifepod," Aayla ordered.
"Yes, General."
She focused. If Asajj was in the one heading for brig, then maybe her plan could still work. For the past few years it had been so hard, but here, in the middle of nowhere, far from any star, or any other people, she could finally see clearly and Asajj was still coming for them. Their current deployment would be a disaster against the Sith assassin, allowing her to shelter behind the droids and strike down the dispersed Guards at will, but that left the one at the brig as minimally defended.
"Withdraw to the brig," Aayla ordered. "SIS, seal the doors as we go. We'll take the one coming in back there."
The run back was quick, then it was just a matter of waiting as automated systems fired relentlessly and then she ship shook as the crew quarters were breached and continued to shake as the other boarding pods slammed into the ship moments later. Aayla was already moving towards the first impact however, entering the room even as the first set of four B-2 super battle droids dropped into the room. She was in amongst them, slicing them apart even as they landed and then leapt up into it as the racks shifted internally to bring forward the second row of droids and cut them in half vertically. The top half of the droids was released a moment later, only to land on the ground. They still lifted their wrist-mounted blasters, but, being unable to move were easy prey for the Guards following along behind her.
Aayla moved for the pilot's compartment and was slicing through the door when she felt the tremor in the Force and dove back out with a Force jump.
The explosion as the pod self-destructed just singed her feet as she flew backwards and tried to roll free. It wasn't quite enough, but it got her within reach of a light fixture that was welded to the wall and could provide a hand-hold as the chamber depressurized through the hole the self-destructing pod had left in the hull.
The Guards who'd followed her in were less observant and had their hands full of blaster rifles and so almost took a trip into space. Holding on with one hand, Aayla Force pulled them back towards her against the riptide wind of the depressurization. She only had to hold for a few moments until the hardening foams and air-shields activated to block off the hole and they all fell to the ground.
Aayla punched the door open, almost running into the second team of Guards who were trying to get it open, despite the automated locks blocking access to areas which were exposed to vacuum. SIS was bringing up the rear, shields active, with Leo standing by the prisoners.
"It self-destructed. No luck. We'll have to try to punch through to the ones in the mess hall," Aayla said. She'd have preferred to circle around to the one at the bridge, but that wasn't an option. The ship was too small to have sufficient parallel corridors for that to be feasible.
Leo closed his eyes for a moment. "How important is it that Tambor makes it back to Coruscant?"
Aayla gave him a hard look, trying to figure whether he was going to suggest negotiation or threats. "Tambor must make it back to Coruscant. Alive and able to stand trial."
"I see. SIS, join us."
The droid trundled through their lines as the Guards spread out a bit more, establishing a perimeter. "SIS, you will take Tambor over the hull to one of the breaching pods. You will disable the self-destruct and any other explosives. You will take him to Coruscant and you will deliver him to the Jedi Temple. Don't get blown up by Separatists, or by the Coruscant defenses."
"What?" SIS said, which was almost exactly the same thing Aayla said.
But the Jedi continued. "His pressure suit doesn't have any air supply."
"It doesn't need one," Leo said. "SIS's interior can be pressurized.
"No, frell that. If anyone's getting out of here, it's you and me, not me and that asshole Tambor," SIS said.
Leo's voice was ice. "You have mistaken my words for a request. They are not. You have your orders, SIS and you will carry them out. Immediately."
Lights flashed behind SIS's many eyes and her head spun, facets flashing, then the armored top retracted and stuff began to fly out. Weapons, some tools, caf, a canteen, paint and brushes, emergency food supplies, some ashes of what must have been hardcopy papers, some vials of ashes of what must have once been people they really wanted to ensure were dead, they all piled up around the droid. SIS then picked up the still-protesting Tambor with one limb and folded him neatly inside its almost empty interior.
"By your command," it said, voice entirely robotic and moved towards the crew quarters where it could access the hull without going through an airlock.
"That simplifies things," Aayla said. "Though I also don't know how we disable the explosives in order to make out own escape, without SIS."
Leo frowned slightly. "Don't worr—"
Aayla cut him off by sprinting towards the perimeter, lightsaber springing to life as the first droids rounded the corner and dropped to fire from the Guards who were in cover and had their shots lined up. The next pair however were right behind and the shots weren't as carefully aimed, rebounding off armor, instead of taking the droids clean through the primary sensor. Both sides sprayed fire at each other for a moment before Aayla's lightsaber took them apart. "Defend the brig!" she yelled.
Leo ordered the Guards still carrying the unconscious Argyus to dump him back in the cell and join the firing line. At the same time, he picked up the sniper rifle SIS had shat out and took up position in the brig, at the end of the long corridor and began picking off droids.
With Aayla and the Guards forming a solid bulwark, they were more than holding their own in the main corridor. There were two side corridors, also flooded with droids, which the Guards were trying to hold on their own. The narrower nature of the side corridors helped, but the super battle droids heavy armor and heavy blasters told and they were being pushed back, even before Asajj burst from hiding on the portside corridor and cut them apart, breaching the line instantly and racing for the brig. Leo spun backwards, flicking a grenade at her, which she sliced in half.
The muted explosion gave her a moment's pause as Leo retreated to one of the other cells and sealed the door (which he really should not have been able to do from inside).
Aayla dove into the room and attacked Asajj from behind, but the assassin was ready for the blow, deflecting it with one crimson blade as her other struck towards the Jedi Master's head. Aayla twisted aside and was back on the attack in an instant, but behind her she could hear the Guards dying. Hard and not alone, but with their perimeter breached and more and more droids pouring in, they didn't stand a chance.
The shield on Leo's cell went down and the barrel of the sniper rifle he was using emerged, without any of him being visible and he fired at Asajj's unprotected back. Sensing the strike coming, she twisted, one blade twisting behind her back to deflect it as the other sought Aayla's throat.
The Jedi ducked and used her free hand to Force push the assassin backwards, towards the cell Leo was hiding in, but she only flew back a step before she turned it into a roll and was diving back at Aayla. She did give herself a slight cut on the back from her own blade though. It might have gone on like that, with the two about evenly matched and Leo interfering (for all that the man suddenly regretted giving SIS the lightsaber disrupter after he revealed all his body vaults to Aayla and regretted even more SIS's absence and regretted even more than that the fact that Aayla hadn't told anyone that Asajj was coming).
Unfortunately, the droids began pouring in and pouring fire on Aayla. Trying to deflect the blaster fire and the assassin was simply not possible. Leo took out three of the super droids with overpowered shots from his sniper rifle, but then a shot got through heading towards Aayla's shoulder, she spun away, but that left her off balance, letting Asajj kick the lightsaber free of her hand and bringing both blades to rest on Aayla's shoulders.
"Where is Tambor?" she yelled as Leo retreated back into his cell, bringing the shield back up.
"You know I will not tell you that," Aayla said as she forced the pain from her mind and tried to see where her lightsaber had ended up.
"You will tell me, or you will die!" Asajj hissed, the crimson light of her lightsabers reflecting off the pale skin of her bald head in a disturbing fashion.
"Then I will die," Aayla said calmly.
One blade drew back then spun and smashed through the shield generator on the cell Leo was hiding in. His blaster came out first, but Asajj blocked the shot, right back down at the weapon, which broke under the impact. Aayla started to move, but the other blade twisted to touch her neck.
"Come out, come out, little man. I can sense your fear, your hate. You don't want her to die. Not for a worm like Tambor. Just tell me where he is and I'll let you go. No, I'll let you both go," Asajj purred.
Leo straightened his clothing and stepped out towards her, hands widespread and far from all (well, most) of his weapons.
"Don't say anything," Aayla ordered him.
Asajj's blade dug into the flesh of Aayla's neck, but she didn't even twitch. "Well, well, well, what do we have here? You aren't a clone, or a Senate Guard. But I can feel your fear, ah, for her." Aayla could feel it too, it was so powerful it clawed at her self-control. "I wonder," Asajj clenched the hand that was still outstretched towards Leo and he lifted off the ground, choking, hands rising to grab at the invisible hands that were choking him. Aayla's own fear spiked. "And now I feel your fear for him. How delightful. The question becomes, who is going to speak first?"
"I will tell you nothing," Aayla said.
Leo gasped out a word, which Asajj interpreted as 'me.' Her grip loosened, but he remained off the ground and he choked out a handful of barely audible words. Asajj took a step towards him, but her blade could still reach Aayla's throat.
"What was that? Speak up, if you want me not to kill her."
He choked something out and Asajj pulled him towards her and turned her head to face him and therefore was looking directly into his face when his cybernetic back left molar cracked open and spewed out poison gas, which he breathed directly into her face.
She lost focus and Leo fell to the ground and started to retch as the portion of the poison he'd breathed in burnt his throat and lungs and his body tried to expel it. Asajj's hands rose to her face as her eyes and lungs alike began to scream. A moment later, she screamed in agony. Aayla's hand flashed out, retrieving her lightsaber and struck a massive blow towards the half-blinded, poisoned Asajj. Asajj got her one blade up to block, in accordance with the warning the Force gave her, but the grip and angle wasn't quite right and the blade jarred out of her hand, falling backwards and went through her other wrist.
Asajj's screams, formerly completely inarticulate turned into a command for the droids to kill them and she kicked back into the swarm of advancing droids and fled, leaving one blade still in her severed hand, though the other flew back to her. As she retreated, her screams echoed through the halls of the ship. Oddly, after a few moments, Aayla could feel the pain lessening, but the screams grew no quieter, as pain was replaced with fury and hatred.
Leo rolled himself back into the cell, scrambling for his blaster as he waited for his own vision to clear. Aayla struck the droids hard, cutting them apart. Leo finally stuck his head out, and added a few shots. "We need to get out of here," Aayla agreed as one hand summoning Asajj's abandoned lightsaber.
"SIS disabled the explosives on one of the breaching pods in the mess hall before she took over the one in the bridge," Leo said, still coughing.
"Let's go," Aayla said, leading the way as Leo was still partially incapacitated. And because she was by far the stronger fighter of the two. "Did SIS make it out?"
"Got the all clear a bit ago," Leo said.
"General," the captains voice came through, apparently hiding in the life pod had worked well enough. "Another pod is detaching, is that you?"
"No, we're heading out now," Aayla said, remembering the plan was to blow the ship up once they were off it.
"Huh. Then who's in it? The droids are firing on it."
"Don't worry about it. Get ready, we're almost out," Aayla said.
"Standing by."
"How did SIS get out?" Aayla asked as they moved into the mess hall.
"Ship's tumbling and the droids are in close. Waited until the ship was between her and them, then disconnected and made a microjump to buy time, then calculated the jump to Coruscant. At least that was the plan. She's so pissed—Oh thank frell, the Sith didn't take it," Leo led them to one of the dozen boarding craft and climbed up the metal beak which had punched through their hull.
"Whoever that was, they've jumped. The Vultures are coming back!" the captain interrupted.
Leo climbed into the cockpit, where the pilot had been neatly shot through the viewscreen, which was now flickering and partially filled with foam. After dumping the droid pilot out, he sat down. "Hmm…engaging thrusters now."
"We're still attached!" Aayla pointed out as the breaching beak closed.
"I know, I'm turning the ship to get it between us and the fighters. Captain, we'll need to time this just right."
"I see what you're going for. I've got my finger on the button. You'll need to detach in twelve seconds if this is going to work."
"That's what my computer says too. Detaching now."
"Launching now."
The lifepod and breaching pod shoved themselves away from the damaged vessel and therefore shoved the cruiser towards the advancing fighters and then exploded, without any attempt to use the shields to contain the explosion. Instead it engulfed the swarming fighters.
After a moment, the captain contacted them again, "I'm reading us as clear."
"As am I," Leo agreed. "I'm starting calculations for the jump to Coruscant. It's going to take a while, this ship had one preprogrammed course and one route back. Everything else we'll have to make-up as we go."
"Where were they dropping Tambor off?" Aayla asked.
"Looks like he was heading for Serenno. I guess they didn't want him to just given him back to the Techno Union. Computer is calculating. It's just a matter of waiting," he said, pushing out of the seat and joining her in the back. Aayla was sitting in the back, though it had to be on the ground as there were no chairs or anything. Leo took a seat opposite her.
"What was that?"
"Poison gas in the tooth. I really though the cybernetics that neutralized poisons in food and drink would do better with poison gas, but not so much," Leo said, kicking his feet up. "Well, poison may not be entirely correct. More toxic, as it does damage the eyes and tissues."
"You're lucky she was so distracted, or it probably wouldn't have worked."
"People are often distracted when they're choking the life out of me and stabbing you" Leo said as he almost magically produced a medpac and tossed it to her. "You know how to use that?" he asked as he took a drink from the canteen he'd grabbed out of the pile of stuff SIS dumped.
"Yes, but, the angle's a bit tricky, do you mind?" Aayla asked, turning around, so he could see the small burns on her shoulders and neck.
Leo applied the bacta-bandages quickly and professionally, then sat back down.
"Do you know why the droids would have been firing on the Sith as she retreated?"
"Sounds like Dooku wasn't pleased with his apprentice's failure."
"I guess she must have known how to disable the explosives. Still, that's a deeply stupid solution to defeat. I'm surprised no one has blown him up yet."
"We're working on that."
"Sorry, I mean I'm surprised none of his subordinates have blown him up."
"The Force makes that trickier than it might otherwise be," Aayla pointed out.
"True enough," Leo leaned back and closed his eyes.
"You know, I'm struggling to think of a scenario besides when you're being force choked as part of an interrogation where a poison gas tooth would be a useful tool," Aayla fished.
"If you think of any, let me know."
"You has a poison gas tooth installed just in case you ran into Sith?"
"Yeah, because that was a stretch, given my life choices."
"Was that your only cybernetic enhancement for dealing with Sith?"
"No. And I'm planning some others. That business with Dooku was pretty scary."
"I wouldn't have let him kill you."
"Thank you," the words were simply, but the emotion behind them was complex. Gratitude, layered in a warm protected glow of safety, with a mild leavening of sarcastic cynicism.
"You're welcome. How pissed is SIS going to be?"
"Extraordinarily pissed. I'm going to be paying for this for a long time."
"Why'd you do it?" Aayla asked.
"Send Tambor off with SIS? I'm a vindictive little shit. If someone's going to kill me, they're going to suffer for it."
"Right, but they wouldn't have killed you if you'd taken her up on her suggestion and fled," Aayla pointed out.
"That's a point. I don't know—lots of reasons."
"Such as?"
"Lots of reasons. Why'd you grab the Sith's lightsaber?" the subject change was blatant, but given that he'd chosen to remain behind with her, rather than run, she let it go.
"To try to heal the kyber crystal within," Aayla said.
"What?" Leo blinked, clearly confused.
"The kyber crystal within the lightsaber gives it its color and power. It is…alive, sort of. The Sith can corrupt it the way the Dark Side corrupts the Sith themselves. But it can be healed, just as the Sith themselves can, if they so choose."
"Interesting. I didn't lie."
"About?"
"I did it for lots of reasons. But one of those reasons is that I'm very, very interested in you and didn't want you to fail and didn't want to leave you to die alone. I've been telling myself I wasn't interested, but that was a lie. So I guess I did lie, if mostly to myself. I know you're not interested, so I'll keep it on a leash. If you start seeing any signs of unprofessional behavior, let me know and I'll either correct it, or get myself reassigned."
Aayla paused for a moment, evaluating her own feelings. The fear that had come when Asajj threatened him, his own reaction to the threat to her and her decision not to give up Tambor, despite her threats. "If the tooth hadn't worked, were you going to give up Tambor?"
"No. She would have killed us anyway, and I'm a vindictive little shit."
"If she would have kept her deal?"
"Sure," Leo shrugged. "SIS was already out of the system. No way to catch her."
"I didn't tell her anything, despite what she was doing to you."
"That was the right call," Leo said, though his expression was confused, as were his emotions.
Aayla considered for a moment. "You're incorrect, I am indeed interested. And despite that, I didn't tell her anything when she had you by the throat and we had no way out. I didn't tell her anything for a lot of reasons, but one was I didn't want you to see me give in. That was a lot of droids, even for me, but I didn't want to let them hurt you. I'm already attached. Despite the Code. I am attached and you were right, as was I, that it can make me stronger. Better. Here's my proposal. We'll be in Coruscant by tonight. I'll be back in my quarters in the Temple. Come see me and let's see where the night takes us."
She could feel the shock that came with that like, well, like a shock leaping from him to her. Over the last months she'd seen a lot smiles on Leo's face, murderous, mocking, even a few that didn't start with 'm', but she knew this was the first genuine one she'd gotten from him. Confidence that this would not be the last time she saw that smile filled her.
"Definitely," he paused for a moment. "Ah, should I try to be quiet about it?"
"Don't send up signal flares or anything, but no. This isn't a secret. If the Council has a problem, I'll deal with it. I'm not going to hide like a misbehaving youngling."
That had definitely been the right answer. "Well then, I'll see you tonight. Actually, given that we're trapped in a tiny boarding ship, I'll see you a lot of times between now and tonight. I'll try very hard not to be thinking about tonight every time I see you until tonight." She could feel a spike of arousal and attraction from him.
"You don't seem to be succeeding," she noted, though she could feel warmth rising in her as well.
"No. I also wasn't actually trying very hard," Leo admitted.
XXX
Asajj had retreated. She couldn't call it anything else, even in her own mind. The memory of her own lightsaber, the one she had made with a crystal pulled from the blade of a Jedi she killed, cutting through her own arm played over and over again. How had that happened? She'd won. The Jedi had been on the ground, her little pet cowering in a cell and then everything had gone wrong in an instant.
And then, when she reported in, Dooku had turned on her. This was her last failure. The droids who had served her, fired on her. The betrayal stung. It shouldn't have. She knew what Dooku was. She knew what the Sith were. Loyalty was not a part of their relationship. Betrayal had to be expected. But this, this wasn't a betrayal. This was no long planned thing. He hadn't even thought to detonate the self-destruct, until she was already in hyperspace, giving her plenty of time to disarm it.
Instead he'd just told her she'd failed, then ordered the droids to kill her. He hadn't even switched channels. This was no betrayal. It was disposing of garbage. And he would regret having failed even to betray her properly.
Her one remaining hand twitched towards her lightsaber, but she forced it back into the guts of the pod and yanked out the tracking device. Focusing her hatred, the delicate electronics crumpled in on themselves. Dumping the abstract art piece which had once been a tracking device in the back, Asajj took the pilot's seat again. The viewscreen showed the random patch of empty space which was all her blind jump had managed to get her too. After rewrapping the cauterized stump of her left hand, she set the computer working on getting her a course to the one world left to her.
Dathomir.
XXX
The computer finally beeped, announcing the course to Coruscant was calculated. Leo got up and moved towards it.
"Shit!" Aayla said.
"What?" Leo turned back, concern written all over him.
"We forgot Captain Argyus in his cell."
"Oh. Right. Shit. Well, he's very dead now."
"That's going to be embarrassing to explain to the Council."
"I doubt we could have carried him and gotten out. I could barely walk. You had to defend us both," Leo pointed out.
"Still, it probably should have been a deliberate choice rather than us just forgetting the traitor existed."
"True."