They called him a guest but by now Zekk was pretty sure he was prisoner. On the way to what they'd generously called his 'living quarters' he and Harn had passed a half-dozen beings of various species, none of whom looked him in the eye. Then he was shown into a room barely big enough for him to lay down in. Harn closed the door and left him there, and when he'd tried to use the panel by the door to operate the comm or even open the door, it was utterly nonresponsive.

So, in short, he was trapped in a box.

He couldn't see any obvious cameras but he decided to act as though there were. He spent a few hours on the bed reviewing the information Harn had presented him with, and despite his anxiety he found them to be shocking reading. As Harn had said, Jacen Solo, the Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance- the one who'd called himself Darth Caedus- was dead, killed by his sister aboard Anakin Solo. It was hard to feel satis-faction from that, but at least Jaina was safe.

The rest of it, though, was even more troubling. According to the files, which certainly seemed to be legitimate reports from legitimate news-nets, the Alliance and the separatists had quickly agreed to peace talks with Jacen out of the way. He would have felt cheered by that, but it said that Natasi Daala, former Imperial Admiral, war criminal, and general mad nexu, had been chosen the replace Jacen, and had declared her main priority to be reining in 'dangerous Jedi and their destructive impulses.'

It was enough to make him think that Harn was playing some really weird joke on him, but the other bit of information made his heart drop into his gut. According to multiple reports, and Imperial attack on the Hapan flagship had killed hundreds of people with a nanovirus, including Queen Tenel Ka's daughter.

The very thought made Zekk feel disgusted with himself. Tenel Ka was one of his oldest friends, but she'd had a child years ago and Zekk hadn't seen her or learned anything about her. He'd barely made the effort; passing years had taken their lives in different directions. Old friends from Yavin 4 had become further apart than ever.

He'd only seen Allana once, shortly before the final battle against Caedus; the girl's bright red hair had suggested her mother, but in the face he'd seen echoes of Jacen Solo. He hadn't been able to bring himself to ask Tenel Ka about Allana's father, and now- even if he managed to escape this ship, whatever it was- he knew he never would.

It filled him with an oppressive feeling of failure that burdened him for hours, but as time went by he realized that that feeling wouldn't simply go away, and that he was still stuck in this so-called living quarters with no way out.

It all made him restless. He'd been willing to humor his captors, to wait them out, but he simply couldn't stand being trapped like this, doing nothing, relying on other people to decide his fate for him.

Of all things, he found himself reminded of the time after Jaina's other brother had died. She'd been wracked by grief and eager to avenge Anakin, and Zekk had found himself frightened of what Jaina, the girl who'd been the bright light of his troubled youth for years, was becoming. When he'd been trained at the Shadow Academy, Jaina had been brave enough to step in his way and stop him from falling fully into the dark. When the time had come for him to return the favor he'd found himself weak and had slunk away, leaving Jaina to battle her inner dark with the help of others.

It wasn't a period he liked to think about. In some ways, he knew, he'd latched onto Jaina after the Vong War as a way of making up for that cowardice. He'd hoped he could repair their relations, maybe even win back her old affection, and because of that he'd allowed himself to be drawn after her even when it was doing neither of them any good. He could see now that he'd already lost her all those years ago and had adamantly refused to admit it.

Some mistakes could never be rectified, and it did harm to try. But this was different. Instead of cowering in weakness or indecision here could act, right here and right now, and take his fate into his own hands.

He put the datapad aside and sat upright in the bed. He set himself into a Jedi meditative post and began stretching out with the Force, beyond the walls of his cell. He sensed a mass of life in all directions, beings of all shapes and sizes and temperaments that made of this vessel's crew. He had no way of knowing for sure, but he guessed the crew complement was well over one hundred.

That meant it was going to be hard to locate the captain. He tried to find Harn amidst all those teeming lives but got nothing; Baragwin were, after all, hard to read in the Force. There were other options, of course. He could try o find the bridge, or the captain's quarters. Either would require access to some information node, but if he escaped this cell one of those wouldn't be too hard to find.

He narrowed his focus and found the Force-signatures of two anonymous beings standing on the other side of the door. Guards, probably. He sensed that they were tired or bored, and wondered when the ship's next sleep-cycle was going to be. He remembered lights dimming and raising when he was in the bacta tank, but that was no guarantee the lights in his cell would follow the same pattern.

Still, it was something. He wanted to break from this cell right now, knock out the guards, and ransack this ship until he found the captain and got some answers, but he forced himself to be calm. He would wait a little longer, until the guards changed or the ship enter sleep-cycle. He would sense the crew laying down to rest in the Force, and then he would know to make his move.

The door was locked but it was only a door, simple and un-armored. It would be easy to get through. He could take care of the guards too if he caught them by surprise.

So Zekk stayed in his meditation pose, back straight and eyes closed. He waited for his chance. He felt it was coming soon.

-{}-

The Jedi gave no indication that he could see the pinpoint holo-cam lens placed in the upper corner of his cel, but most like likely acting on the assumption it was there. Whatever else you could say about his kind, they weren't stupid.

Chazdrul Harn wished he could say the same about himself. When they'd found the Jedi floating in the Transitory Mists he'd recommended they leave him there, but Captain Praelyx had insisted otherwise, and that meant Wayward Soldier had what was potentially an extremely dangerous weapon waiting to go off at any moment.

Harn wasn't opposed to taking risks necessarily- otherwise he'd never become what he was: a privateer, smuggler, sometimes-pirate, and first office of a combat-ready mercenary gunship. He just wanted to know his potential gains as well as he knew his potential losses.

As he watched the holo-cam feed from the Jedi's cell in a quiet corner of Wayward Soldier's command deck, the Baragwin could see a lot of ways this Jedi could be the end of them and few ways it would turn out for their benefit.

"He looks harmless, doesn't he?" grunted the Rodian beside him. Right now, the Jedi was sitting cross-legged on his bed in some kind of meditation pose.

Harn glanced at Neevo. "Yes. Looks."

"You ever seen a Jedi before?" asked the Rodian.

Harn shook his heavy head. "Never really wanted to."

"I have. Back during the Vong War."

Neevo, he knew, had been part of the Peace Brigade then, the band who had aligned themselves with the invaders in hopes of saving their own necks. Peace Brigaders had gone down in infamy as traitors to civilization since then, but Harn didn't blame Neevo for it. He'd done his own stint with the Brigade too. It had seemed the practical choice at the time.

Harn had never handed over Jedi, though, so he asked, "Did you capture one of them for the Vong?"

Neevo nodded. "I was running with Tavira's crew then. Got a pretty young Twi'lek thing. Captured her and dropped her on a moon for the Vong warmaster to pick up. Funny, I can't remember her name."

It probably didn't matter. Whoever the Twi'lek had been she'd surely died in agony.

"These Jedi," Harn said, "Can they really read minds?"

"A little." Neevo paused, then added, "I wouldn't think too much about old jobs when I'm around him, if I were you."

"I definitely won't," Harn growled.

"I just wish I knew what the captain wanted with him," Neevo said under his breath.

"The captain thinks he can use him."

"The captain should know better," Neevo said. He'd been on this ship four years and knew Praelyx's past as much as Harn did.

"I already told him that. Do you know what he said?"

"What?"

"Fortune favors the bold."

Neevo grunted and shook his head. "So I've heard. We're about to find out, aren't we?"