Nar Shaddaa — The Slums

What was the guy's name again? Lootra. He couldn't stop talking, and neither could his wife, about how wonderful Meetra had been to bring them back together. How brave and how generous and how noble she was. Of course, she had a million other good qualities as well, and so did her intrepid and daring companions.

Meetra looked as embarrassed by the couple's oozing gratitude as Atton felt. Over and over she kept saying things like, I had to help you and It was the least I could do. The sort of bantha snot that every do-gooder with a guilty conscience said whenever they got the chance.

It was a relief when their little group finally said their goodbyes and started retracing their steps back through the confined, labyrinthine hellhole of the slums, out toward the wide-open, airy hellhole of the docks. Ostensibly, the T3 unit was taking point, but the reality was that no would-be assailant was going to shoot the moving trash can first, so it was really Atton who was in front.

It was the least I could do, Meetra had said. Starting a kriffing gang war with the local Exchange underboss and the neighboring Serroco so that one woman could get out of the Refugee Sector and back to her husband—that was the least four people and two droids could do. Yeah, right.

Atton knew better than to be upset, or even surprised, about Meetra getting him into insanely dangerous situations. He knew his days were numbered. What didn't sit well with him was how she didn't always have the best reasons for getting him into those situations.

So they'd all gotten through it alive, somehow, and managed to solve some random guy's problem. And for all their trouble? They'd managed to make sure they were on the Exchange's bad side now, and learned nothing about where Jedi Master What's-his-name could be.

An infuriating voice broke through Atton's thoughts like a brick going through a window. It wasn't addressing him, though. "What good have you done this man, saving him from his struggles? Did you not say you would consider my warning last time?"

"Not this again," Meetra sighed.

Atton stole a glance over his shoulder, past Bao-Dur and the Remote. Already at the rear of the group, the ex-Jedi and Kreia were lagging behind a bit. Side by side, they made an odd pair. There was the robed and shrouded hag cocking her head pointedly toward her victim, looking every bit the witch that she was. And then there was Meetra: in her nondescript spacer's pants, boots, and jacket, she looked like just another nobody on the Smuggler's Moon, though the shirt from the Peragus miner's uniform made her garb a touch more professional. With her businesslike ponytail and the sheathed vibroblade at her belt—too long to conceal—she could have passed for an amateur bounty hunter, maybe.

"For every step you take in this city, its lost souls cling to your heels, and you take their burdens upon yourself," Kreia went on. "But you are not helping these people; you are hurting them. When you act out in virtue so that they do not have to, you weaken them."

"You keep saying that—saying I'm weakening them. But they're already weak, and leaving them alone isn't going to change that. Lootra's not a soldier. What was he supposed to do, fight his way through all those Exchange guards? There's no way he could've gotten Aaida back himself. We barely did it."

Listening with one ear to the argument, Atton was disappointed to find himself on Kreia's side of it. Roughly speaking, of course—he could've done without the philosophy lecture. But he was pretty much sick of playing bodyguard for Meetra just so she could help every luckless sod who crossed her path on Nar Shaddaa. He felt like he was sharing drinking chits with an alcoholic Gand.

Even more frustrating, when it came to the people who had a few credits to rub together—in other words, people who were able to offer a reward for assistance—whether Meetra cared about their problems at all was practically a credcoin-toss. Only the useless victims hit the sweet spot for her every time.

But there was more to her than a straightforward case of charity addiction, and Atton wanted to figure her out. For a Jedi, even an ex-Jedi, Meetra was surprisingly willing to start a fight with little or no hand-wringing. For instance, when it came to Saquesh's goons in the Refugee Sector, she hadn't even bothered with any of the typical Jedi bumblefluff about diplomacy or negotiations. Soon as it had occurred to her that they were going to be in Aaida's way, out came the vibroblade.

Kreia went in for the kill. "Indeed? Now it is you who makes presumptions. How do you know what he could've done by himself? He was in a moment of crisis. It is only in such trials, when the odds are insurmountable—only then do beings find their limits, and in the struggle they see what they are truly capable of. But you stole the struggle from that man. By simply giving him its reward, you cheapened it. So he still does not know whether he truly loves his wife, and now, thanks to your charity, he may never learn."

"No, thanks to me, now he has something worth having in his miserable life—someone to care about. You really do sicken me sometimes." As far as Atton had seen, Meetra was generally about as expressive as a Peragus repair drone. So when a normal person would be shouting, or someone like Atton would be offering an appropriate hand gesture, she raised her voice slightly.

"Someone to care about," the old woman echoed scornfully. "If you cared for such people, truly desired what was best for them, then you would recognize the value in letting them fight their own battles. You would let them learn to rely on themselves, and…"

Still walking along, Atton did his best to tune the argument out by counting down the doors that were left between them and the slum's exit. He didn't like seeing Meetra upset, but involving himself would get him nothing except an earful of Be silent, you fool. Besides, he was a little wound up himself.

That damn, condescending Jedi routine. Atton had always hated it, but hearing Meetra talk that way made him want to turn a random corner and just disappear into the Vertical City, Kreia and her threats be damned. Oh, I feel so sorry for you poor, helpless, little normal people who don't have the Force… Well, at least we're here to take care of you. That was exactly how Meetra had seen Lootra, the beggars, and all the refugees. Was that how she would have seen Atton, had they met back when he was one of them?

The thought was infuriating beyond words, and Atton snuffed it out before it could grow on him. As the Jedi and the witch continued their spat, he told himself that this wasn't really Meetra, that under the surface she was different.

Atton would see for himself. He would figure her out.