Victory was the feel of the sun on his skin and his prize clutched tightly in his hand. All doubt was gone from his mind. He had made it across enemy lines to an occupied planet, discovered what they were doing, and recovered kyber crystal. He challenged any Jedi to do better than that.

Sure, a Jedi Master wouldn't have been chased by a nerf, wouldn't have struggled to get over a fence, or be bleeding from a stab to the ribs from a strange, insectoid creature.

Oh, right, he was still bleeding. And his med kit had been in his pack that he'd lost, along with his long-range communicator. He took the tattered rags that was left of his shirt and tied it around his middle to slow the bleeding, then started walking. His job wasn't over until he reported everything he'd found back to Master Na-Meh.

The return trip started out fairly uneventful. Getting over the fence was harder than it had been the first time, and took him a couple tries. And as he walked, the kilometers seemed to stretch out endlessly in front of him. Crickets sang an endless song in the corn-fields. The sun crept high into the sky. He had no water. He was pretty sure he was going in the right direction.

At last there was a road. That road would lead somewhere, if he could only remember which way he was supposed to go. He'd gone north to avoid the droid roadblock, so now he needed to go south. Which way was south? He started off.

A haze appeared on the horizon, a glint that marked a break in the endless sea of corn. He stumbled, and got back to his feet. The wound in his ribs was still slowly oozing blood, the shirt bandage was soaked through. That shouldn't still be bleeding, should it?

A wall, a town. Buildings. And B1 battle droids. B1s were stupid. What was that name the old man had used?

"Daro Lux," Jayce said when the B1s questioned him.

"Does that match the record?" the first asked.

"Roger roger," the other replied.

And they let him through.

Jayce was vaguely aware that he was drawing eyes as he stumbled down the road. Some part of him told him that was dangerous, but the rest of him didn't care. He needed water, he needed rest, he needed a blasted long-range communicator.

A red swoop bike was parked outside the cantina.

"Sylvia," Jayce muttered. Everything was a little blurry, but he was pretty sure that was Val's bike. It took almost all his strength just to open the cantina door and step inside.

Heads turned his way, eyes widened at the sight of him dusty, sweaty, bloody, and shirtless, scrapped to hell and barely able to stay on his feet.

"Damn, Horns!" a familiar voice called. "You look awful!"

Jayce opened his mouth to reply, but instead collapsed to the ground.

The bed was soft, the pillow plush and comfortable, and whatever drugs were being pumped through the needle in his arm had Jayce's full recommendation. Despite all this, he did eventually sit up and look about. He was in a small, gray room on a narrow bed. A medical droid hung in the air beside him.

The door slid open just as he was swinging his feet over the side of the bed, and a twi'lek walked in.

"Take it easy," the twi'lek doctor said. "You're still recovering."

"Where am I?" Jayce asked.

"You're at the Garang clinic, of course. That's where you get carried when you fall unconscious in the middle of the cantina. I'm Doctor Zhur'vena, I'll have you back to doing whatever stupid stuff you were doing soon enough."

"Thanks, Doc," Jayce said. "But I just was a bit dehydrated. Maybe lost a little blood, but that's all."

The twi'lek's lekku bobbed as he shook his head. "It was worse than that. You were poisoned."

Jayce frowned. "What?"

"Mind telling me how you were foolish enough to get attacked by kinrath? Their stings can be quite deadly if left untreated."

"I, uh..." Jayce stopped. It was coming back to him. The cave, the crystal. It was missing, along with his blaster. "Where's my stuff?"

"You came in with nothing but the clothes on your back, and precious little of that."

Jayce forced himself to his feet. He was unsteady for a moment, but stayed upright. "Who brought me here? I need to find them!"

"I don't think that's wise..."

The door slid open again. Val leaned against the doorframe. "Hey, Horns." She looked him up and down with a wide grin on her face. and he suddenly realized just how little he was wearing. He grabbed the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around himself.

"Where's my stuff?" he asked.

"No 'thank you' for dragging you here?" She shook her head sorrowfully. "Your stuff is mine, now, and only a tiny fraction of what you owe me for wrecking my ship. All you had was a broken comm unit, a blaster pistol, and some weird crystal. Not even any credits."

"And you owe me for your treatment," the twi'lek put in.

Jayce ignored him and glared at Val. "I didn't wreck your ship. Perhaps if you were a better pilot, we wouldn't have crashed."

Her eyes went wide with anger. "Right, that's it, next time you collapse in front of me I'm leaving you to die." She pivoted on one foot and stormed down the hall.

"Wait!" Jayce shouted. She didn't. He hurried after her, dragging bedding along the floor.

"Hold up! Who's gonna pay for this! Ah..." the twi'lek doctor grumbled.

Jayce caught up with Val in the entryway, which was thankfully empty so there was no one to witness the odd scene. "I'm sorry, okay!" he said. "Stop!"

She turned at the door to glare back at him. "What?"

"What if I told you I could get you another ship?" he said quickly. It was an idea he'd been mulling around in his head since leaving the Matale-Sandral house. Now it seemed the only reasonable way forward.

She snorted in disbelief.

"I'm serious!" he said.

"And how are you going to do that? I would say you've got nothing but the shirt on your back, but you don't even have that!"

Jayce swallowed nervously and glanced around to double check the place was empty. The doctor was still in the back, and no one else was in the clinic. "Well... we steal it."

Val's eyes narrowed. But she didn't leave, and Jayce took that as a good sign. "How?"

"I know where it is, I know the layout of the estate, the security, even did a little recon. You see, the truth is," he lowered his voice to a whisper, "I'm a thief, okay? A damn good one, too. But I got in a little trouble in the core, so decided to come out here." He was a little surprised how easily and convincingly the lies came. "You give me my stuff back, help me get some clothes, and I'll get you a brand new ship of your own."

"And you have the security codes for the ship?"

"No," Jayce admitted. "But I can get them."

Val chewed her bottom lip as she considered, then finally shook her head. "Sorry, but no. I got no reason to think you could pull that off."

"It's an Astaris class luxury yacht."

"I'm in."

Finally things seemed to be working in Jayce's favor. Val got him some clothes and gave him back his blaster, though she insisted on keeping the crystal until she had her new ship. More importantly, he was able to use the comms on the crashed HWK-290 to contact Master Na-Me and update her on the situation.

And like Jayce expected, the news that Separatists were digging for ancient jedi artifacts definitely caught her attention. It caught the council's attention as well, apparently, as within the hour Master Na-Me informed him that a Republic task force was on its way, led by none other than Master Windu himself. They were not messing about.

Jayce was also able to provide details about forces and deployment that would be invaluable to Master Windu. He had hoped to give the report to Master Windu himself, but Master Na-Me thought it better that he not. And given how Jayce's last interaction with the man had gone, he had to concede she had a point.

The rest of Jayce's plan was going to be trickier. It all centered around the governor and the Matale-Sandral family. If Windu's forces showed up right then, Governor Zapal would load up whatever artifacts he'd found in his yacht, along with several Matale-Sandral hostages for good measure, and flee the system. Jayce was determined not to allow that.

It was less than an hour until Windu's scheduled arrival, and night had fallen once more when Jayce and Val arrived at the Matale-Sandral estate. Now that he knew what they'd be facing, he'd packed a rope. It took a few tries and some figuring out, but it worked well enough to lasso over the top of one of the perimeter fence uprights and climb over. Though next time, Jayce was definitely going to have to find room in the budget for ascension cables. Jayce also knew enough now to avoid the nerf herds, and soon they were in sight of the main estate.

"Any sign of intruders?" the B1 voice called out.

"I hate these things," Val whispered. "They really didn't want to let me into town."

Jayce nodded his agreement, even though they could barely see each other in the moonless dark. He waited until the droids had passed, and hurried across to the back of the house and over the low garden wall. They snuck in the same way Jayce had snuck out the night before.

It was a nice garden, especially for their purposes. The hedge rows and flowering bushes provided lots of shadows from the lights leaking from the house's windows. Jayce led the way around to the side and pointed to the dark shape sitting on the lawn.

"By the stars, it is an Astaris!" Val breathed. "That thing is so fast, you'll leave even jedi starfighters in your wake!"

"Get it ready," Jayce whispered. "I'll go get us the launch codes."

He watched her hurry off towards the ship, then went back around to the balcony. His trick with the security door wasn't likely to work on the much more complicated navicomputer of a top-tier starship. But stealing a ride off of Dantooine wasn't the real objective anyway. After all, Jayce just needed to wait for Master Windu to arrive and kick the Separatists out of the system, and he'd have a free, easy ride out. The real objective was Governor Zapal.

He scaled the side of the building up to the balcony and carefully approached the window to Lady Matale-Sandral's room. It was dark inside. He tapped quietly on the glass. Movement, and then the balcony door opened and the elderly Lady Matale-Sandral stood in the opening in a night gown.

"You're back, young spy," she said. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes," Jayce said. "Thank you for your help. In return I wanted to help you, get rid of a problem of yours. The Republic is on its way, but your family is in danger as long as Governor Zapal is here."

Her eyes wrinkled into a squint. "Are you looking to become an assassin as well?"

"No. Just get him out of the way for a while. But I need to know where he sleeps."

"He's well guarded," she warned. "Those damn battle droids at his door all the time. And even if he wasn't, I wouldn't like your odds. He's no simple administrator."

"Thank you, but I think I can handle myself."

"Very well. You'll find him in the west wing, the master bedroom. It's the largest balcony on that side, if that's the path you plan to take. But be careful, there are droids on the roof as well."

Jayce smiled. "Thank you, again. And... may the Force be with you."

She closed the door, and Jayce turned away. He scaled up to the roof and peaked over the rim. Two super battle droids stood guard. They faced outwards, backs towards each other, keeping vigil over the surrounding area and not the roof itself. Jayce carefully and quietly pulled himself the rest of the way up and crept across, right behind both of them, then lowered himself down on the balcony to the master bedroom.

The interior was barely lit with a soft, directionless glow that allowed only the shadows of furniture. Nothing moved. Jayce tried the door. It was locked, but with the help of the Force it was persuaded to open. He drew his blaster and started across the room towards the bed.

A step away from the bed, he realized it was empty. A voice sounded from the darkness behind him. A voice that was almost, but not quite, organic.

"Hmm..." the governor said in a half growl. "So you're the one who's been sneaking about."

Jayce spun. He aimed the gun at the dark corner of the room, only for a strong hand to knock it from his grasp. A second hand emerged from the shadows and grabbed his throat. Governor Zapal leaned in close, and it became apparent why his voice sounded strange.

The side of his face from the right brow down to the jaw was gone. A synthetic eye stared out of a metal socket. Synthetic skin covered a reconstructed cheek, and when he spoke, servos worked that side of his jaw.

"Now, who are you?"