In the end, the ambush I had planned proved to be thornier than I anticipated.
First, I had found the Quarren I had transacted with earlier, from whom I had purchased that fake medallion when I first arrived at Dreshdae. I persuaded him to introduce me to the owner of the fine establishment we were drinking in; then the owner had a few words with the bartender, and the next drink the brothers imbibed had some trace amount of Dozoisan snark venom, a small enough amount that it would not kill but would likely incapacitate.
This had taken nearly all the credits we had. I would not have attempted it had I not sensed that proceeding this way would result in success, for nothing was stopping any of these people from double crossing us. As a bonus, the owner threw in a couple of vibroblades of dubious quality. No matter: we only needed them for one battle.
Reader, remember that to enter the Sith academy, one needs one of the medallions the instructors give out in Dreshdae. It doesn't matter how you obtained it, whether by impressing one of the Sith, or by taking it from the corpse of someone else. Either counts as proof of mettle.
I anticipated that both of the brothers would be keeled over. We had agreed that the bartender would then call a hostel to take them in for the night and we would ambush them on the way. If everything went according to plan, they would be utterly defenseless. Unfortunately, only one of the brothers was out cold. The bigger one, the one who had been admitted to the academy, seemed only a little unsteady on his feet.
Force sensitives are resistant to poisons; I knew that, of course. Still, it's hard to plan for that. The dose of poison needed to be sufficiently small so that none of the brothers would die, which would likely result in a call to whatever passed for the law in Dreshdae. My guess for the right dose turned out to be too low. With one brother still conscious, I had to revert to Plan B.
The brother still on his feet hired a pair of Bothans to carry his sibling on a stretcher, presumably to whatever lodgings they procured. Turning out of the cantina, they made it down a couple of corridors when we attacked. As expected, the Bothans scampered as soon as I fired the first shot.
I should step back and say that my drinking companions had taken some heavy persuading to get to this point, their earlier bravado throughout the evening notwithstanding. They had eagerly signed on to the plan when they thought both brothers would be incapacitated. But with the more powerful brother alive, they were ready to bolt. I had pointed out that it would be five against one; that we would have blasters, vibroblades, and, most importantly, the element of surprise; and that the main brother was affected by the poison and likely at a fraction of his true strength. And then, once we took the medallion from his dead body, one of us could get into the academy on the next day.
I had avoided discussing who, exactly, would get the medallion.
Sitting across from me in the cantina, they wavered; I could see the mixture of ambition and fear on their faces. Nervously, they tried to cast quick glances in the direction of the brothers, as if another look would let them understand if they could prevail. Finally, the decisive break had occurred.
"Kriff it, I'm in," Lashowe said, taking a big gulp of her drink.
The rest of them looked at each other. Afraid as they were, they were not about to let themselves be bested by a girl. One by one, they indicated their assent.
And here we were, not a half-hour later, Lashowe and two boys with vibroblades rushing forward, me and the one of our number with a blaster shooting from the back.
Unfortunately, the blaster wielders among us, myself included, proved to be little more than a distraction. Had we some more expensive weapons, maybe we could have done some real damage. But the dirt-cheap blasters I and the other boy were using had a dispersion bigger than a flock of Banthas. After unloading several rounds, I saw that neither one of us had come close to a hit.
Nor did we benefit much from the element of surprise. It was as if the brother had been waiting for something like this the moment his sibling passed out. Upon seeing us, he had immediately pulled out a blade from his scabbard; and, even inebriated, even incapacitated with a dose of Dozoisan venom, he was still stronger and quicker than any of us.
Fortunately, he did not attempt to use the force, for if he was able to shoot out tendrils of force lightning, I suspect all of us would have quickly turned into lumps of charred flesh. At the very least, the venom likely diluted his strength, and perhaps he had already been exhausted from the display earlier in front of the overseer. But he was still frighteningly fast, force powers or no.
Seeing himself rushed by three blade-wielding assailants, he dodged quickly, ran towards the end of the corridor, away from us; and then stopped abruptly and drove his blade into the ribs of one of the boys on his tail, who in turn fell to the floor clutching his side. One glance at the poor sod was enough to determine that he would not survive the hour.
I moved closer. The brother had dodged a few hits from Lashowe and the other blade-wielding boy. He was so kriffing quick. He had wisely ignored both me and the other blaster wielder, who kept firing, all the shots wildly off the mark. Meanwhile, looking for an opportunity, I stopped shooting and began creeping closer.
My chance came soon enough. The brother's back was toward me. He had parried all of Lashowe's thrusts, and, when the other boy with the blade had sought to swing at him, he simply stepped aside and let the poor sod fall forward, running his blade through the assailant's body. One more of us had been killed - this was going very poorly indeed, except for one thing, which is that his back, his back was turned to me.
And so I made my move. I had been creeping closer until I was almost at this side - a risky move, for a simple slash of his blade would easily separate my head from my body, and I had no weapon to counter it - but, before he could turn in my direction, I fired my shot, straight at his back. There was no missing that, no matter how poor the blaster. Then I fired again, and again, and again. I kept pulling the trigger until my blaster was out of energy, though the brother had long thumped to the floor.
I turned him over and started rummaging through his pockets when I felt Lashowe's blade at my throat.
"And now, you'll give me the medallion," she said, a little smile on her face.
I nodded.
"Take it," I said, handing it to her. "It's not worth my life."
She turned the shiny trinket over in her hands. Still keeping her blade at my throat, she turned to the other boy still alive, the blaster wielder who remained in the back.
"You want to make an issue of it?"
He gulped, no doubt mindful of all his misses during the fight, and shook his head.
"Lovely," she said, pocketing the medallion. "Pleasure working with you." Keeping her vibroblade in front of her, she slowly backed off to the end of the corridor before disappearing.