Alright so chapter five had a good release and I even got my first review on this story - much appreciated - and I am quite excited for season seven of Clone Wars after that latest trailer. I am still not sure what exactly I will be writing after this story, but if I decide that I don't want to start anything new and it ends up between this and Berserkers, I will probably choose this, unless of course there are real fans of Berserkers who show me that the story deserves act one sooner rather than later. Anyway, now lets move on to this chapter. There will be a bounty hunter in this chapter and it will be an OC, I toyed around with making it a canon bounty hunter but, while I don't think we will see much of the bounty hunters in season seven, I don't want to write something only for it to be shot down half a month later by canon. With that, here we go with chapter six.
Secrets of The Outer Rim.
Act I.
The Last Days of The Jedi Order.
Chapter VI.
Peacekeepers and Slavers.
The rest of our leave had thankfully been much less eventful. I found myself becoming somewhat of a friend to Thonna and I was beginning to enjoy the violet-skinned Twi'Lek's company. I also managed to spend the rest of my leave without being contacted by Phanza through the Force, something which I suppose was both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it meant that I didn't have to put up with the Sith and her attempts to convert me to the Dark Side, on the other hand, it meant that I didn't have a chance to try and refine my abilities through the link in order to find Lady Attam and thus find Taaszon, the homeworld of this particular group of Sith. In any case, it seems I would have to figure that out on my own time because, now that our leave was over, Master Avdune and I were being summoned in front of the Jedi Council, no doubt for another assignment.
"Any idea where we're going? I hope it's not Felucia again..." I asked my master. I understood that no matte where we were going to get sent we would see the horrors of war or the detrimental effect this war has even on populations that have nothing to do with the fighting itself, but Felucia is different. Worlds like Felucia, Saleucami, and Ryloth have felt the brunt of this cursed war and have the scars to prove it. Truly heartbreaking things have happened on other planets, but there is nothing quite as gut-wrenching as leading a battalion of clones through a battlefield where their brothers' corpses are literally covered in the overgrowth of alien plants. Felucia has been a battleground for far too long and it seems it will be until this war finally ends...if it ends that is.
"I don't know apprentice, though I will say that I don't want to be on Felucia either. Now, let's find out just what the Council has in mind for us." Master Avdune smiled before we entered the Council Chamber. I wondered if Ullara was up to something, she has been opening up to me more lately but she also seems quite strict when it comes to questioning the Jedi. I think she does legitimately like me and she is happy to have me as her Padawan, but she doesn't quite know how to teach - after all, that would be consistent with the fact that I know she's inexperienced - so she isn't quite sure how to react to me questioning the Jedi. The truth is, I don't know if Ullara has been a part of the Jedi Order for long enough to know the answers to some of the questions I've asked her. Ullara doesn't want me to question the Jedi because she is not equipped to guide me through it as a master. She is an excellent teacher and mentor when it comes to battle and even with the Force, but with Jedi scripture? She doesn't have the answers I want and confronting that will only make Master Avdune feel inadequate - I'm not quite sure what I want to accomplish by questioning the Jedi other than an ambition to improve the Order - but I know that making my master feel inadequate is certainly not my intention. I shook those thoughts away and focused on the Council in front of us. It seemed that Master Windu would be speaking.
"Master Avdune, Padawan Vyvan." Master Windu greeted "You have performed admirably at Felucia and your experiences on the Sith worlds has given us a valuable insight on a potential ally...and a potential enemy. We were going to send you and your clones back into battle but, given your shortened leave and valiant service, we have found a better solution. The 1204th Clone Battalion will remain on leave here on Coruscant while the two of you accompany Master Towaan and his apprentice, Padawan Ai'sunn on a special mission."
"Very well, what is this mission?" Master Avdune asked. Padawan Ai'sunn was Thonna Ai'sunn, my newfound friend. I suspected that her master told her that they were going on a special assignment and required another pair of Jedi, Thonna then recommended us. I was hardly mad, in fact, I was glad to see that the clones were getting some more much needed rest. That being said, Thonna told me that Master Towaan was our diplomat to the Hutts, I had to say that I wasn't exactly eager to see the Hutts. They were responsible for so much pain and suffering throughout the galaxy and, not only were we turning a blind eye to it, we were pretty much sanctioning it due to our alliance with the Hutts. The fact that the Hutts still owned Thonna's mother - assuming she's still alive that is - only made my opinion of them worse. The Hutts were cruel monsters and I had to imagine meeting with them would be less than pleasant.
"A bounty hunter, Exiim Abarghe, has long worked with Count Dooku and has intimate knowledge of the separatists command structure. His links run deeper than even the likes of Cad Bane - Exiim wasn't at the Box - but it seems that they have had a falling out. He approached the Hutts for sanctuary in neutral space and he's been hiding ever since. His knowledge of the separatist cause could be invaluable to ending this war." Master Kenobi explained, apparently his bounty hunter was bad news and he worked closely with the upper echelons of separatist leadership. I definitely understood why the Republic wanted to capture him. One thing I did not understand, however, is that the Hutts agreed to protect him. If we are allies with the Hutts, then surely they are obligated to let us know when they have the chance to influence events directly involved in the war. There is no way that the Hutts were unaware of Exiim's past links to the separatists and surely they would realize that we wanted the bounty hunter for questioning if nothing else. This alliance seemed very lopsided.
"Meet Master Master Towaan you will. In orbit over Nar Shaddaa, he is." Master Yoda told us. Nar Shaddaa was a moon over the Hutt capital word of Nal Hutta. Hutta being a vile swamp world full of the heavy industrial facilities that made the Hutts so rich to begin with, tends to not be very welcoming of visitors. Nar Shaddaa, the city-moon of Hutta, presents a superficially more welcoming face. In reality, Nar Shaddaa is a cesspit of excess, depravity, and vice. The moon was a world of gambling, slavery, prostitution, spice trading, and crimes I don't even want to know about. Nar Shaddaa was the public face of the Hutts, but it wasn't exactly a good one - though given how eager the Republic and the Jedi are to humor the Hutts, perhaps they didn't feel the need to present a good public face to begin with. This was not exactly a pleasant task, but perhaps, being far away from the battlefield and having Thonna along with Master Avdune for company will make all of this that much more bearable. I could only hope so.
"Very well Masters, we shall depart at once." Master Avdune and I bowed our heads before leaving the Council Chamber. We had our new assignment and we had a trip to Hutt Space ahead of us.
A red, matte black, and purple Delta 7B Aethersprite-class Jedi Interceptor sat in front of me in the Jedi Temple Hanger. Next to it was my master's fighter. Another Delta 7B, hers was primarily a dark green with white and lighter green trim. We were taking these ships to Nar Shaddaa. There was no sense in dragging out the Sage just to bring a pair of Jedi to a distant world. Of course, there were two other components necessary to fly these all the way to Hutt Space. The first of these was a hyperdrive ring. These rings, currently in orbit around Coruscant, allowed our ships to retain hyperspace capability without sacrificing compact size of maneuverability. The second component was an astromech droid. The original Delta 7 could not accommodate a traditional astromech, instead using a bespoke model, however, the 7B is designed to take a standard, factory line droid.
"Hello R9!" I greeted my droid. R9-W3 was a purple and white astromech and an honorary member of the 1204's W Squadron. He was a good little droid and an excellent pilot - certainly a lot better than I was - if I ever ended up getting involved in a space battle, there is no droid I would want more. R9 beeped merrily in reply, greeting my master and I. I knelt down in front of him before continuing on "We have a mission to Nar Shaddaa, just my master and I. I need you to fly me there and then back here once we're done? Can you do that?"
R9 beeped in the affirmative before using his rockets to propel himself up in the air. The astromech slowly deactivated his thrusters to gently lower himself down into his socket directly in front of the cockpit. I followed his lead and sat down in the pilot's seat. I watched first as Ullara and her droid lifted off and left the hanger before R9 took control. I strapped in as we flew out of the hanger and into the skies of Coruscant. We caught up with my master before the two of us flied off to space together. I was comfortable enough on ships but being in the pilot's seat felt different. I knew that R9 was in control but at any moment I could jerk the wheel and slam into Master Avdune's fighter. She would go crashing out of control while I would careen through the skies as my damage ship searched for a piece of ground to crash into. The fact that I could take control frightened me. That meant that, whatever happened to this ship, I was responsible for it.
Fortunately and perhaps expectedly, nothing had gone wrong on the Republic homeworld and we reached orbit without incident. I eased my fighter into the matching red, black, and purple ring and felt it clamp down securely on my little winglets. The hyperspace rings were circular devices with an engine on either side. They were compatible with both versions of the Delta 7 fighter as well as the slightly newer Eta-2 Actic-class Jedi Interceptor. Once Master Avdune and I were securely in our rings, our droids punched in the coordinates for Nal Hutta and we journeyed deep into Hutt Space. We were going to the Hutts' core system itself and, on the moon of Nar Shaddaa, we would be as close to the heart of the Hutt criminal empire as our hyperspace rings were to Coruscant.
R9 punched in the coordinates and I watched as the lightspeed lever automatically moved forward. I felt the sudden jerk as we were launched into hyperspace. I watched as the many stars all around the galaxy were distorted into flowing blue light, a result of us travelling faster than the light. Suddenly, the journey from Coruscant to Nal Hutta, a journey across the galaxy, could be done with incredible speed. The galaxy has so much technology and so much potential, yet all we choose to do with that technology and potential is squander it all on war. The separatists have legions of easily programmed machines that could be converted to manual labor - it would eliminate galactic slavery in a day and give the likes of the Trade Federation and the Techno Union a new market to exploit, meanwhile, the Republic and the Kaminoans have found the secret to creating life. Clones could have massive potential and yet we use those clones as disposable warriors. It all felt so wrong and so unfair. Perhaps it wasn't the Jedi who lost their war, perhaps the whole damn galaxy did.
We left our hyperspace rings in orbit over Nar Shaddaa as our ships flew down to the surface of the city-planet. R9 controlled the ship and fallowed Master Avdune as she led us to the landing pad where we would meet Master Towaan and Padawan Ai'sunn. All around us were towering monoliths and colorful holographic billboards. A garish thirty-story screen showing a Twi'Lek dancing in silhouette filled my view only to be replaced by a Huttese pleasure yacht hovering across our path. Master Avdune and I stopped abruptly to allow the pleasure yacht to pass. The rules on Nar Shaddaa were simple - the Hutts got their way, always. They would not have stopped for us and the Hutts would be more concerned with the scratches to their yacht than the pair of the destroyed Jedi fighters flung to the ground far, far below. Once the floating barge of sin passed, R9 brought me in for my final landing.
We touched down next to a pair of Eta-2 starfighters and found the other pair of Jedi. The violet-skinned Twi'Lek Jedi smiled at me. Thonna was dressed in a dark brown robe with a bluish-white tunic below. She had a single-bladed lightsaber on her hip. Next to her, stood a tall Ithorian male with a mechanical translator attached to either side of his head. Ithorians were a rather alien race and they couldn't speak Basic. Though I would not be surprised if the translation device was more to humor the Hutts and their clientele rather than for Master Towaan's fellow Jedi. The Jedi understood that we recruited children from thousands of different species spread across countless cultures and countless worlds. Not every Jedi was able to speak Basic and many were downright physically unable to do so due to their alien physiology. Nevertheless, I was grateful that Master Towaan had the translator, I did not understand the Ithorian language and I did not want to have to waste time by asking Thonna or Ullara to translate for me.
"Greetings to you Master Avdune and to you Padawan Vyvan. My name is Master Samo olhe Towaan and this is my Padawan Ai'sunn. I am told that our Padawans have become friends already." the Ithorian greeted. His speech mannerisms were a bit distorted by the translator but I found him rather easy to understand. I bowed before Master Towaan and then gave Thonna a quick hug to greet her. The hug was kept very short, I considered her a friend already and I did like to comfort her, however, I did not want our masters to think we were forming an attachment. I told my Master about my urges and Thonna definitely was an attractive girl, I didn't want a relationship, I was a Jedi after all, but I knew that too much affection could be misconstrued as something romantic. Some particularly pious Jedi would say that even friendship is a form of attachment. I doubted that Master Avdune would do anything to stop our friendship but I didn't know about Master Towaan. In any case, the hug was short and both the masters seemed not to notice anything strange. We got straight down to business. This bounty hunter Exiim Abarghe had knowledge that could end this war and the Hutts knew exactly where he was. We had a job to do.
"Hello Master Towaan. What's the situation?" Master Avdune asked. The Mirialan and the Ithorian began discussing while the two of us stood there quietly and obediently. We were two Padawans in the presence of two masters. It didn't matter if our two masters personally didn't care if we talked, but the Jedi Order taught us that, when our masters were speaking, we were to only speak when spoken to. I already broke that rule once recently when meeting with the Council and that was because I felt strongly about helping Phanza and her people, I was not going to break that rule just to chit-chat with Thonna while we were on a mission. I didn't like it when Master Avdune had to play the disciplinarian role and it didn't go well last time on the bridge of the Sage, therefore, I certainly wasn't going to give her a reason to discipline me, especially not when we were just now meeting Master Towaan.
"I spoke with several Hutt clan leaders but they were not very forthcoming. The best I was able to get is an audience with Dalenda, a minor Hutt lieutenant. Dalenda controls the several of the rackets for gambling and bounty contracts in this sector. I am told that he knows Exiim Abarghe and that he has means of contacting him. I am confident that being confronted by four Jedi will make Dalenda speak, but I am just as confident that Dalenda will warn Exiim Abarghe the moment we leave. We will be walking into a trap." Master Towaan informed us. He was well aware of the Hutts' true nature - he knew that they were cowardly, that they were dishonest, and that they would easily sell out their allies - this was the man in charge of our relations with the Hutts. Master Towaan knew exactly who he was dealing with and yet the Jedi still found ourselves in an alliance with these creatures for no reason other than to wage war against the separatists on more and more innocent worlds. This alliance ultimately exists solely for the hyperspace lanes controlled by the Hutts. Count Dooku wished to use them against the Republic but we stopped his scheme and took them for ourselves...if we use the same plots and resources as our enemies, for how much longer will we really be able to claim that we have any real moral high ground over them? This war is only making the divide between Jedi and Sith smaller and smaller.
When we finally entered Dalenda's office meanwhile, we found that this war was only making the Hutt Empire larger and larger. Dalenda the Hutt sat on a mighty thrown, his dark bluish-green hide stained by whatever vile meal he was just eating and a collection of slave girls chained up at the foot of his throne. A black haired, beige-skinned Zabrak girl seemed like the youngest of the group, she was clearly inexperienced and very uncomfortable. Through the Force I could feel fear radiating off of her and, when she saw us Jedi, she felt hope. It broke my heart to see that hope fade away when she realized that this wasn't some sort of rescue mission - we were not here to free her and, based on what happened with Thonna's mother, Master Towaan was either unwilling or, more likely, unable to get any slave girls free without offending the Hutts. In the middle, there was a pale skinned human girl, she seemed entirely broken. She did not even look at us or even show any signs of noticing us. I suspected that she may be heavily and constantly drugged. The last one was a red-skinned Twi'Lek. This one looked experienced, hardened. She had seen every horrible Hutt and perverted monster there was and faced them all. She was numb to it.
I wondered if Thonna's mother was like that now. Just one of countless Twi'Lek slave girls who were completely and utterly empty after all the Hutts did to them. I hoped not. I had to hope that the mother of this poor girl who became a Jedi and my friend at least had an ounce of humanity left in her, that she wasn't reduced to a barely sentient object but these horrible Hutts and there equally horrible associates. I saw Master Avdune shoot a quick, worried glance at me. There were no words but I understood what she meant. I looked away from the slave girls and the Hutt and tried to quell my anger. It was unlike me. Jedi should never become angry, we have too much power for that. The combination of anger with so much power is a recipe that only leads to the Dark Side. The Jedi have fought so hard to eliminate anger that they have had to wage a war against emotion itself. It was better for Jedi to be the stoic and mysterious defenders of the galaxy than to follow their emotions down a dark path. The very dark path that Phanza Attam wanted me to follow. I felt chills when an image of Lady Attam smirking ran through my mind. I wasn't sure if that was my own reaction or Phanza tapping into our link somehow, no matter what it was, it snapped me completely out of my anger. These Hutts were disgusting and terrible but becoming like Phanza and her Sith was far, far worse.
I noticed something was amiss when there was no translator droid. Dalenda wanted to make this as hard on us as possible. That didn't seem to deter Master Towaan in the slightest though. The Ithorian used his translation device to communicate effortless in Huttese. I couldn't understand it but it definitely seemed that he was grilling the Hutt rather aggressively. Master Towaan seemed borderline angry and threatening when he was talking with the Hutts, however, I didn't actually sense any strong emotions coming off of him. I figured that this was all an act, the Ithorian was going what he needed to do in order to make these slugs speak. The Hutts liked to think that we were pacifists who would never actually attack them, but Towaan's act reminded them of the power we wielded. That seemed like the kind of thing a Sith would do. It didn't bother me as much as it should have, after all, the Hutts were slimy creatures and the Jedi was getting results.
Dalenda seemed to panic and hastily admitted something. Master Towaan seemed to ease off then, becoming downright affable. The Ithorian and a rather shocked Hutt Lieutenant exchanged goodbyes before Master Towaan turned around and left. Master Avdune followed him and then Thonna and I followed their lead. We understood that we were here to play a role. A role which, so far, amounted to intimidation. We ignore the Hutts' criminal activity and then we come around here occasionally and have to all but force them to give only a basic favor in return. Not only was this alliance unfair, but it was very befitting of the Jedi. We were allowing atrocities and we were resorting to threats, this certainly wasn't the way of peacekeepers.
"Exiim Abarghe has been hidden here on Nar Shaddaa in a Hutt safe house, they were waiting for the right time to move them. We must hurry, Dalenda will be notifying him now." Master Towaan explained as we rushed to our fighters. I got into him and relayed the situation to R9 while Thonna boarded to blue, silver, and purple Eta-2 Actic fighter while Master Towaan got into the white and brown fighter. The Ithorian in his starfighter lead the way as the four of us rushed across the skies of Nar Shaddaa. We dodged towers, walkways, tunnels, speeders, and starships as we attempted to catch Exiim Abarghe before he could escape the moon. There is no telling where he would go once he got off this planet. The Hutts probably had an idea of where they wanted to send him, but that isn't very helpful. First of all, getting that information out of the Hutts would be like pulling teeth, second of all, even if we did get that information out of the Hutts, they would no doubt inform Exiim just like Dalenda just did, finally, there's no telling if Exiim would even trust the Hutts after they already sold him out once. Abarghe was smart enough to escape the wrath of Count Dooku, I wouldn't be surprised if he decided to never trust the Hutts again.
"Master Towaan, you and Thonna take the right entrance, we'll take the left. We'll box Abarghe in." Master Avdune decided as we split into two groups. I followed my master as we landed on a pad on the left. I looked over to the other pad where the other Jedi landed. The wide entrance to the hanger separated us. The hanger was currently shut and that suggested we had a chance. The hanger was shut and we had Jedi on both of the landing pads. We didn't know how this hanger was configured, but we had to imagine that we were leaving the bounty hunter with very few opportunities to escape. My master grabbed her lightsaber but did not ignite it - she wanted to be ready for whatever trap Exiim Abarghe had waiting for us. I followed her lead and held my double-bladed lightsaber at the ready. We gathered at the door and prepared to enter when my Mirialan master turned to me for just a moment.
"Bounty Hunters are a dangerous lot. Exiim Abarghe will try and kill you. You must not stoop to his level - his information will be invaluable and you know as well as I do that killing him is not the Jedi way. We must be vigilant and we must be careful." Master Avdune warned and I nodded. With that, she opened the door and lit her lightsaber when she realized the hallway was empty and the lights were deactivated. She bathed the hallway in green light as well followed it into the hanger. There were no traps in this hallway and I figured that, with the lights off and no trap to be found yet, the bounty hunter had something waiting for us in the hanger itself. We went down a staircase and around a ninety degree bend to the right before finding ourselves in a large hanger. The lights were still off but we could tell that there was a ship in the distance and an armored man standing in front of it. I felt that there was something in the shadows against the wall but I couldn't identify it quite yet. I activated my double-bladed purple lightsaber and soon felt comforted when a pair of blue lightsabers activated on the opposite end of the room - Master Towaan and Padawan Ai'sunn joined us.
We decided to join the other pair of Jedi before approaching Exiim Abarghe. The darkness, the strange feeling in the shadows, and Master Towaan's prediction meant that we were well aware that we were walking into a trap. We felt a lot more comfortable walking into a trap as four Jedi rather than as two groups who could be separated and isolated. The shadowed figure that we assumed was Exiim Abarghe slowly raised his arm and pressed something on his wrist. Suddenly, the lights came on and the hanger door started to open, meanwhile, the ship behind him roared to life, ready to fly off at a moment's notice. The lights revealed Exiim Abarghe in a full set of green body armor broken up by a black wrap-around visor where his eyes would be. Along the walls of the room were ten Super Battle Droids on either side, all of them painted the same shade of green and reprogrammed. It seems that the bounty hunter took some parting gifts from the separatists. The bounty hunter lowered his arm and reached for the pistol at his hip. There were still four Jedi here, but we didn't quite have the advantage we wanted to have given that we were confronted with twenty elite droids and an armed and armored bounty hunter ready to escape at a moment's notice.
"We do not have to fight Exiim. We are not here to kill you." Master Towaan tried to reason to the bounty hunter, I doubted it was going to work. Abarghe didn't even react but the Ithorian decided to try once more "We know that you and the separatists are no longer allied together. The fact that these droids are reprogrammed is proof enough of that. All we want is your knowledge of the separatists. Surely you would be willing to inform us on your former employers given this bad blood. Especially if the Republic was willing to pay a premium for good information!"
"You are not in a position to bargain. I am leaving this moon Jedi." Exiim replied simple before firing one shot in the air, that seemed to be a signal for his battle droids. The twenty of them opened fire and we could barely even damage to repel their fire. All four of us were far too distracted to do anything about the bounty hunter even though we could all see that he has getting away. We had a more pressing matter on our hands.
I redirected a laser bolt at one of the droids and that gave me an opening to Force push another one into the wall behind him. The impact was enough to deactivate the droid and it compromised their line. Thonna and I focused on one half of the droids while our masters took on the other. We ran towards the remaining eight droids on our side, blocking laser bolts as we ran when Master Avdune gave her Ithorian counterpart an opening. She was using the Force to hold a group of battle droids in the air, giving Master Towaan a chance to throw a long range tracker on the bounty hunter's ship. Exiim Abarghe then flew away, released a blast from his afterburners that knocked us all off balance. Master Avdune stumbled and dropped the droids she was hold while Thonna and I fell from our run onto the ground. I spun to the right and got into a kneeling position as quickly as I could, bringing up both blades of my lightsaber to cover me. Padawan Ai'sunn, however, pulled herself back into a run, taking advantage of the fact that most of the droids opted to focus on me when I got into my new position. I deflected bolts and distracted the droids while Thonna began to cut them down.
Two droids fell before these reprogrammed Super Battle Droids realized what was going on. One unit turned to confront the violet-skinned Twi'Lek but, in doing so, he left himself vulnerable to me. I threw that droid against the hanger wall before rushing into the fray. I swung the upper purple blade throw another droid's torso while using my right leg to kick another, staggering the robot. I then used the upper blade again to cut its legs out from under it before killing it with my lower blade. I then plunged my weapon into the chest of a third droid, killing it. Thonna meanwhile used the Force to throw a droid's arm off target, causing the B2 to accidentally shoot its companion dead. The Twi'Lek Padawan's lightsaber then chopped the droid's arm off entirely before cutting its torso in half horizontally, bringing the droid down. That brought an end to our side of the hanger and we turned around only to see Master Avdune and Master Towaan wrapping up their side. We all turned off our lightsabers and gathered in the center of the room. The Ithorian pulled out a datapad to check what his tracker was seeing.
"Exiim Abarghe is in hyperspace, I cannot establish an effective connection with the tracker. We will have to wait until he emerges." Master Towaan explained. Our trackers were good but they could not actually track a ship in hyperspace, we could only find one again once it was out of hyperspace, meaning that we would have to make the journey ourselves. That meant that we would arrive hours behind our prey who very well may have made a second jump in that time. Nevertheless, no ship could keep going forever and we would find the bounty hunter again eventually. His information on the separatists could be invaluable to ending this war. Something we could have done far earlier had Dalenda the Hutt not warned Exiim immediately. This alliance, an alliance very much misguided to begin with, was now actively interfering with our ability to create peace in this galaxy once more. We could only hope that Dalenda selling out Abarghe to begin with will make the bounty hunter distrustful of the Hutts, at least that way, we won't have to put up with their double-dealing and dishonesty for any longer. A bounty hunter had got away and we would leave Nar Shaddaa empty-handed, all the while, the Hutt Lieutenant who caused all of this was still sitting in his office, surrounded by his slaves. Dalenda sent four Jedi into a trap and he would feel no repercussions for it.
Our four starfighters were refueling at a Republic space station near the border with Hutt Space when I heard Phanza's evil silk voice in my head once again. The Sith appeared in my vision, this time, she was meditating on-board the Ultimate.
You could have killed that Hutt and freed his slaves. Think about how grateful they would have been, think about how many girls you would have saved from a life of slavery. Girls just like you or I. Of course Lady Attam would want me to kill the Hutt, she knew that such a murder would not only be against the Jedi way but also harmful to the Republic. I also knew that she was wrong. Killing a single Hutt, especially not a mere Lieutenant, would not end slavery in the galaxy. I knew these thoughts were wrong, but what scared me is that I had been thinking them before Lady Attam reached out to me.
I shook my head, this wasn't like me. I didn't like war and I certainly didn't like vengeance. The Hutt was a vile creature but it was not my place to kill him. Killing him was what Phanza wanted - killing him would be a step towards the Dark Side. I let those thoughts fade away, glad that I wouldn't ever see Dalenda again. It was easier not to dwell on these thoughts when I knew they would never confront me again.
Alright, hope you enjoyed chapter six!
