Two days passed uneventfully. The soldiers were willing to let me wander the mansion unsupervised, so I took care of a few odds and ends while they weren't looking. I hid a few valuables in some of the hidden compartments around the house, including my credit chit and Lurek's blaster. It seemed to me that either might be taken from me upon arriving on Korriban; the credit chit to fund Imperial efforts and my blaster to bolster their armory. I did still intend to bring a blaster with me, but not Lurek's, as well as a few loose credits. Other than that, I hid a few things which might be stolen if the mansion were broken into while I was away for an indeterminate time. Sentimental, not monetary, value determined what I secreted away: Lurek's ashes, the letter he had written me when I was away during his final days, my mother's necklace. The art decorating the estate stayed where it was. I didn't much care if it was stolen for one, but the mansion also had extensive security systems.

By the third day, I was beginning to get more than antsy. I was eager to make my first kill as a Sith, then move on to Korriban to further my power. As such, I found myself pacing the halls of the mansion frequently. The soldiers, on the other hand, took advantage of the downtime. To them, I supposed, this had been an easy detail, so I often found them playing Pazaak and laughing with each other when it wasn't their turn to watch the dead drop. They certainly enjoyed the cushy beds and gourmet food. I only once had to blast Sergeant Zoluraz with lightning when he tried to enter Lurek's room; no other soldier made that mistake afterwards.

To my surprise, it didn't take long for them to warm up to me. After a day of awkward silences, Corporal Sherman, obviously the newest of the soldiers, struck up a conversation with me. He was smart enough to keep to extremely benign topics; he never asked about my past nor my future. Instead, he asked about the Lightstorm and how she handled, he mused on the current state of the Empire, and he told me a bit about himself. When the others learned of this, they started including me in their downtime activities. At first, they let me win at Pazaak, but they soon realized that I was reasonably skilled at the classic pastime of Nar Shaddaa. There were still tense moments when the soldiers went too far and had to be reminded of their place and times when I was too anxious to do anything but pace. In general, though, we got on fairly well considering.

Finally, on the third evening after arriving, footsteps sounded from the side door though no one had gone to relieve the current watch. I heard muffled yells and a curt "Keep moving!" as someone was shoved down the hall. This was it; the client was here. I skipped gleefully down the stairs to the main hall, meeting the rest of the soldiers on the way. They had donned their helms and retrieved their blasters, so when the watch came through the hall pushing a bound and gagged Cathar, the others stood at attention behind me.

"On your knees!" Sergeant Hopcroft demanded and when the Cathar was too slow to respond, she hit him with the butt of her rifle. He fell to the floor on his face and struggled to shift to a kneeling position with his hands cuffed. It was as he lifted his face from the floor that I realized my mistake.

"Dank farrik!" I hissed, spinning around to stalk out of the room. Lieutenant Lashkin followed me.

"What's wrong, my lord?" the lieutenant asked.

"This is the wrong Cathar," I seethed back. Lashkin fumbled through apologies while I considered what to do. It should have been obvious that this was a possibility. Anyone who drops two million credits on a bounty undoubtedly has employees they can send out to make the payment for them. And any employee trusted enough to be sent to deliver two million credits was not someone I could torture for information on the client himself. So, this Cathar was not even a useful captive. Unless…

I spun away toward Lurek's office, cutting off Lashkin's mumbling. He caught himself and followed me. "Secure the prisoner and set up a guard," I ordered. "Be sure to check him for weapons and comms. I'll be there shortly to question him."

"Yes, my lord." Lashkin rushed off, eager to have some way to make up for the failure.

In Lurek's office, I fired up his terminal and accessed the remote tracker I'd left on the client's speeder. It had been pinging its location once an hour since I'd activated it, so, with luck, I now had a sizable amount of information with which to formulate a plan. Fortunately, it seemed that the client had not located the tracker. Someone with that kind of money should really have invested in periodic security checks for his vehicles, especially if he was going to go around putting bounties on high-profile targets. In the flood of data, I noticed two locations that the tracker pinged frequently: one in a business district and one in a rich residential district. A quick search told me the business location was the offices of the Jhasu Corporation, one of the more successful metal suppliers of the sector. That meant the residential location was likely the home of their CEO, Ramuc Jhasu. The image of him supported that theory; his height and fur color were consistent with the Cathar I'd met. The article I found from a local tabloid speculating on the disappearance of the Jhasu heir, Husi, confirmed it. I grinned. He'd practically made it too easy. Now I just needed a way to get to him.

I thought about using my captive as bait. If he was the trusted employee I suspected him to be, perhaps Jhasu would feel compelled to try to save him. I quickly discarded that plan; there were too many variables in it. I didn't know enough about Jhasu to know if he was the sort of man who would risk his life for an employee. I'd certainly never met any employers who would do that. Even if he was willing to spend resources to mount a rescue, the odds that he would come himself were slim. Besides, the whole notion gave him too much warning, too much opportunity to create a plan. Right now, I had the advantage that he didn't know anyone was after him. If I revealed my hand, Jhasu would bolster his security and make my goal that much harder.

Perhaps, though, there was another way I could make use of the prisoner. I doubted I could make him tell me anything, but maybe I didn't need to. As the details of this plan coalesced in my mind, I strode off to find where the soldiers were holding him. If this was going to work, I needed to be quick.

I found that they had him in one of the guest room closets. It was a small room with no windows and nothing in it but a few shelves. They had cuffed him to one of the supports and Sergeants Norley and Zolurez were standing guard in the room, watching him closely. As I entered, they snapped to attention. "Give me some time alone to… talk to him," I ordered with a dark smile. Norley shivered and left the room without a word. Zolurez bowed and backed up to stand in the doorway.

Closing myself in the closet, I breathed out a quick sigh, then started pacing the small room nervously, muttering, "What am I going to do? What am I going to do?"

The prisoner let me continue for nearly a minute before he interrupted. "I won't tell you anything, so you might as well get this over with."

"What?" I blinked and looked over as if I'd just remembered he was there. "Oh! I'm sorry." I quickly unlocked his cuffs and went back to pacing.

Cautiously, he stood up and backed into the furthest corner, his body tensed to fight, but his face crinkled in confusion. At least, I think it was confusion; I haven't spent enough time around Cathar to be certain. "What's… going on here?" he finally asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I was jumped by these Imps and dragged here. I mean, they treat you like you're in charge, but here you are being…" He trailed off, gesturing at me unspecifically.

"Right, I'm sorry. I'm so busy panicking I forgot you have no idea what's going on."

"I can guess a few things. My boss had me delivering a bunch of credits to what was obviously a dead drop, so clearly he was involved in something shady, something that obviously involves the Empire."

"Yeah. I'm a bounty hunter. Jhasu hired me to take out a Sith. I failed."

The captive raised his eyebrows. "And you're still alive? I find that hard to believe."

"The Sith said he saw something in me," I laughed nervously, "the Force. I have no idea what he's talking about. I don't know anything about this 'Force'. But he wants me to go to training on Korriban. I've heard stories about that place. If I go there, I'll be killed faster than a womp rat in a krayt den. So, I've been playing along. I told them I could get to Jhasu, to kill him for offering up that bounty in the first place, hoping that I could slip away on Nar Shaddaa, but they've been watching me like Drayberian hawks." I cast a desperate look at him. "I think we can help each other. I have a plan."

The captive looked skeptical, but said, "I'm listening."

"You pretend I tortured you until you broke. Pretend to have agreed to help in exchange for your life. Come with us to the Jhasu estate. When we get there, I'll tell the soldiers to take up positions out of sight and be ready for some signal. You and I go in through a side door or a back door or something. Then, you can sound the alarm and tell security where to find the soldiers. I'll leave once the chaos dies down."

"That'd start a war between my boss and the Empire."

"The Hutts would side with Jhasu for killing some men sneaking around his property and the Empire would disavow those soldiers rather than start something with the Hutts; they're too busy dealing with the Republic for that."

"I don't know. I don't trust you."

"I don't trust you either, but there's no other way we're getting out of this!" I hissed. "They'll kill you because you're of no use to them and me shortly thereafter for failing to live up to my promise." I pinched the bridge of my nose and blew out a breath. "I… might be able to sneak you a weapon before we leave. Would that help?"

"It would," he allowed. He chewed on his lip for several seconds while I struggled to remain calm. If he didn't return quickly, Jhasu would wonder where he'd been and increase security. "Fine, I'll do it. But if I catch even a hint of treachery, I'll call out to the guards in front of the estate and we'll all die together."

I sighed in relief. "Thank you! Thank you. We might just get out of this alive after all."

"So, what's first?"

"Start screaming. I hope you're a good actor."

I gave the prisoner a few minutes to pretend I was torturing him, then cuffed him back up and left to tell the Imperials the plan. If they were skeptical, it didn't show. They took a few minutes to gear up, then retrieved the captive. Now clad in my black cloak, I followed them out the side door, taking the opportunity to shove the prisoner forward and slip him a vibroknife when no one was looking. The Jhasu estate was well more than walking distance from here, so we took a speeder most of the way, which also served the purpose of hiding that we were transporting a prisoner. We parked in a lot by a park near our destination. Jolurez folded the captive's coat over his hands to hide the cuffs and we left, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. We didn't succeed. Marching through a park in the rich district, we earned more than a few frightened looks from the upper class citizens enjoying the "nature". I could only hope that there wasn't enough time for word to reach the estate of the company of Imperials nearby.

When we reached the final approach to the Jhasu estate, I turned to the soldiers. "Spread out," I ordered them. "Take up positions where you can see the main entrance. When I give the signal, blast your way in."

"Yes, my lord," the lieutenant replied and spun to bark more detailed orders to the others.

I pushed the hood of my cloak down and shoved the captive ahead of me toward the estate. When we were out of earshot, I whispered, "Okay, we're almost there. Which way?"

"Left. There's a service entrance on the side of the building."

"Perfect. Just act natural and the Imps won't notice anything."

"Are you telling me or yourself?"

"A bit of both," I laughed.

We made it to the side door without incident. The Jhasu Corporation, it seemed, did not have enough enemies that Ramuc Jhasu felt the need to secure his estate that thoroughly. My captive pressed his finger to the scanner by the door, the light went green, and we slipped inside. Once inside, he closed the door and quickly stepped off toward a comm unit on the left wall. He didn't even ask me to uncuff him first. Well, if he was in such a hurry to die, so be it. He managed to hit the button, but couldn't get a word out before I reached out with the Force and cut off his air. He choked out a surprised sound and turned to face me. Squeezing harder, I gave him a sideways smile. "I appreciate all your help. It would have been much harder to get in here without you."

He fumbled for the vibroknife in his pocket, but I simply lifted him off the ground and he was helpless. The power that rushed through me was intoxicating. How could anyone without this connection to the Force ever think to oppose me? This power put me so far beyond them that they were bugs under my feet. I crushed his windpipe and he could do as much about it as a moon could fight its planet.

When the light in his eyes faded away, I tossed him over my shoulder and activated my stealth belt. My hands faded to a shimmering clear shadow before my eyes. I tossed the body in the first closet I found, then slunk down the halls searching for my prey. The estate, though it definitely qualified as a mansion, was not much larger than Lurek's place. It didn't take me long to find Jhasu. His office was upstairs overlooking the garden in the back and he sat at the desk, typing at his terminal without a care. Though I'd spotted several servants throughout the estate, the first guard I'd seen inside stood at the door to the office. He leaned against the doorjamb, fiddling with an old coin in his hands, not studiously watching for danger. I grinned to myself. Jhasu was still none-the-wiser about the danger. My plan had worked.

Keeping to the shadows, I pressed the call button on my comm unit and waited. Perhaps thirty seconds later, the sound of muffled explosions echoed down the hall. "Spivken," Jhasu ordered without looking up from his desk, "go see what that's about."

"Yes, sir." The guard trotted off, leaving his boss to die. I slipped into the office and clicked the lock behind me.

Jhasu's head whipped up at the quiet beep. "What are you…?" He broke off, looking around. He had yet to spot my near-invisible form near the door. "Who's there?" he demanded.

I tiptoed up and perched on the edge of his desk before deactivating my stealth belt. Yes, I have a bit of flair for the dramatic, but seeing Jhasu fall out of his chair in shock when I appeared was worth it. "Hello, Ramuc," I greeted cheerfully.

"Who are…? Wait, you're that bounty hunter! What are you doing here? I sent payment to the location you specified!"

"Oh, I know," I replied, absently twirling my lekku between my fingers, "but Tavrain made me a better offer."

Ramuc's eyes went wide. "Please," he begged, "I'll double whatever he gave you. I'll triple it! Just don't kill me."

"You don't have that kind of clout," I chuckled. "He offered me power." Reaching out my hand, I fired a stream of lightning at the Cathar. He pitched over out of his chair as his terminal exploded into sparks next to me. His screams echoed off the walls. In the distance, I could hear blaster fire, explosions, and more screams. Someone started banging on the office door.

I paused my deluge for a moment, leaving the Cathar a quivering heap on the floor. "Please," he muttered, "please spare me." With a cackle, I struck again, varying the voltage to cause jagged patterns to carve themselves down his arms.

"You put a price on the head of a Sith. The Empire doesn't take kindly to that."

"Please. I'll do anything I'll donate millions, billions to the Empire. Just please don't kill me!"

I clicked my tongue. "That would simply be greedy, good sir. We already have the two million credits. Now, a lesson must be taught about what happens to those who oppose the Empire." I electrocuted the Cathar again, altering the blast slightly so as not to allow any reprieve through familiarity. The sounds outside finally cut off and a soft knock came at the door just as Jhasu's screams morphed into whimpers.

"My lord?" the timid voice of Sergeant Norley came through. "The estate has been cleared."

"Excellent," I called back. "Tell Sergeant Hopcroft to bring the ship around."

"Yes, my lord."

"Now, where were we?" I turned back to Jhasu and sent another blast of lightning his way.

Finally, after a bolt that left him unable to move or scream, the Cathar breathed through the blood from his bitten tongue, "Please kill me."

"As you wish." I pulled my blaster pistol from my belt and shot him in the head. I left the office to find the Imperial soldiers, a little scuffed up, but uninjured.

"It's done," I said. "We leave for Korriban presently."

"Yes, my lord." They saluted me and marched toward the landing pad of the Jhasu estate. I followed, stepping around the corpses of guards and servants alike. Sergeant Hopcroft arrived within twenty minutes. I boarded eagerly, setting a course for Korriban and the next chapter of my life.