For days, Plasma would drift aimlessly around the Outer Rim; engines off, just floating in infinite blackness, meditating, and reflecting. He would only land on occasional planets to resupply and refuel. Six weeks after being dismissed, Major Bradin Zhatt sent over his Proper Etiquette and Protocols Manual, was uploaded to the ship's mainframe. The young Sith spent a little over nine weeks poring over it, devouring its contents. Everything that Darth Komm'ett had not taught him were in those pages.
Bradin included diagrams, graphics, illustrations and fluxograms; the guide illustrated the Empire's power structure, the flow of authority – from the Emperor to the Sith Lords below, dripping over to lesser Sith and Acolytes, to the Imperial Military, and, finally, to the free citizens of the Empire. Bradin made a list of every known planet under Imperial control – mainly Dromund Kaas, Korriban, Ziost, Yavin-4, Taris, Oricon, Dantooine, Corellia – and of every alien species under Imperial rule, a list too long to memorize.
Plasma learned that him being Sith overcame him being an alien; Humans were the supreme species within the Empire, the true heirs of the Sith of old, but, nevertheless, every Sith belonged to a godlike caste. He learned of his privileges as a Sith Lord, his duties, and obligations. Common citizens were tools that should work for the glory and prosperity of the emperor. All were servants of the Sith.
It surprised him to learn that even an Acolyte could subjugate the authority of a commanding officer. The Major's guide was an educating and appalling experience.
Weeks passed; Plasma took that time to look within, to search his soul after completing his first, and most crucial, mission thus far. Killing his father had changed him in ways he was not aware yet. The Sith Lord wondered: if the Force flowed from and through living beings, what effect taking a life could have on it? That answer he would not find in any Sith Archive, and he made sure not to dawdle on it. There were more pressing matters.
Night after night, he would dream of his father. His life had changed dramatically after their encounter, and, after meeting Loo Puhrr, the hate he felt for Ma'va Puhrr, his mother, diminished. After seeing the true face of his father, Plasma understood why his mother had left. In a way, she kept the girls protected. But why couldn't she have taken her son too?
His desire of vengeance had been fulfilled with the death of his father. With his mother, however, above all he sought understanding. He craved for answers he believed only she would be able to provide. The more he meditated upon that, the more desperate he grew to finding them.
He did not know where to go and with whom to speak. His mother had most likely boarded a random freighter and could be literally anywhere in the galaxy. He spent long hours studying and reviewing what information he had. Komm'ett had taught him real problems were solved by thinking and planning.
He had to have missed something. Once again, he opened her corporate file. The filed said she had been born on planet Cathar, the home world of his species, and a planet the astrogation charts of his ship was unable to locate. It was almost impossible she had returned home.
The entry Last Known Location in her file had been redacted.
Plasma recalled something that his father had said. He gave her freedom. Freedom or her freedom, Plasma pondered. He needed solid intelligence, real clues that could point him in the right direction. Any trails he could follow. Perhaps an acquaintance, or a former employer. He scrolled through the file until he found the Work History tab.
Arrived from Nal Hutta with husband and newborn infant on a CZ-900T Freighter. Family allocated to apartment complex C on Section Ninety-Seven. Husband hired as excavator; wife hired for janitorial duties, including, but not limited to, sanitation, cleaning, maintenance, and recycling.
Worker dismissed due to pregnancy.
Plasma lit up with realization. The obvious had indeed eluded him, but he had found the answer. Nal Hutta, the planet where their parents had lived prior to the planetoid. Plasma quickly scrolled through his mother's file until he reached the Work History section. There was only one entry: waitress, Fat Hutt Cantina.
Plasma told R9 to scan through the database to confirm the cantina remained active on Nal Hutta, the capital of the Hutt Space, in the Y'Toub system of the Outer Rim. The droid beeped sadly. The cantina had closed years ago.
Determined, Plasma stubbornly dug deeper. Accessing the Imperial Database, he researched for hours, pulling intel on Nal Hutta's inhabitants, economy, and culture, attempting to locate whatever tidbit of information he could about the Fat Hutt Cantina.
Two hours later, he found a footnote on a document on the Huttese Slavery Market, in a bill of sale of a Twi'lek slave that had been purchased from a certain Tyylaakk'ta the Hutt. The document read:
The Fat Hutt Cantina was a notorious pleasure house, located in the Khidaba District of Nal Hutta's southern hemisphere. With a large selection of non-humanoid creatures and amorphous semi-sentient beings, the establishment, managed by the powerful Tyylaakk Family, even employed quasi-extinct races, but has been deactivated due to economic constraints.
Plasma threw his head back and laughed loudly. The clue he needed had hidden underneath his nose this whole time. Tapping R9-B9 attached to the astromech droid socket to the left of the pilot's chair, he said:
"R9, plot a course to Nal Hutta; no stops, major routes only."
The droid beeped and whistled. Shortly after, the ship yanked into hyperspace.
###
The Hutt Space existed as an independent area of the known space, just off the border of the Outer Rim. The Hutts, large slug-like creatures, prized their neutrality as much as they loved credits. Imperial contracts were very lucrative; thus, it was common for Hutt crime families to have close relationships with Imperial officers, and often with Sith Lords.
Through the OR-66 Hyperspace Route and the Nova-Sol Hypertunnel—both controlled by the Empire — the Grey Condor took sixty hours to arrive on the Y'Toub System, a few thousands of kilometers off Nal Hutta.
Nall-Hutta was a hot, swampy planet, known for its extensive and numerous bogs, and for its famous greasy rains. It had five moons, only one habitable: the infamous Nar Shaddaa. Simultaneously the last place anyone would ever wish to visit and the most likely place to find someone who did not wish to be found.
The Grey Condor rushed in maximum speed towards the planet – a spheroid painted with uneven spots and streaks of dark-green and brown. Its chaotic clouds were yellow as sulfur, but the planet possessed a Type-1 breathable atmosphere.
Approaching the surface, a command tower hailed the vessel.
"This Spaceport is privately-owned by Tyylaakk'ta the Hutt," a droid spoke. "To accept our standard fee of ten thousand credits per day, please proceed to landing pad twelve."
The Grey Condor slid down into the glades where a gigantic palace towered over a modest town. Swamps and bogs surrounded the township, spreading into the highlands; their muddy, brown waters slowly crawled along the plains, occasionally dotted with sickly trees, and wandering lizards.
The Condor landed onto an open pad. There was a small checkpoint on the way from the landing strip into the village, going through the starport. Plasma decided to pay for three days in advance. The fee of thirty thousand credits included routine inspections, simple repairs, and a full refuel.
Seeing the yellow-satin curtain of pollution from the sky, Plasma decided to wear a rebreather mask over his mouth and nose. It was delta-shaped, painted black, made of laminasteel-reinforced aluminum; two internal tubes connected the mask to his armor's life support system. Ignoring merchants, beggars and soliciting droids, Plasma marched straight toward the Hutt Palace, at the end of the road, bending to the north.
The palace had a huge, central cylindric structure, paired with two equally large towers. The castle overlooked the impoverished town. A platoon of armored and masked mercenaries guarded the palace's front gate, where groups of pauperized beggars gathered, despite threats of violence.
The mercenaries met Plasma with a respectful nod as he entered.
Lord Plasma quickly learned that the palace was more than a regular royal residence of a Hutt crime boss – it was, mainly, a pleasure complex. A wide lobby widened right after the entrance, two sets of winding stairs bending upwards, disappearing behind a colossal cylindrical pillar, bulging and ornate. The steps led to a mezzanine floor with a luxurious cantina, with thousands of tables, twelve individual bar counters, ten different environments, separated by transparisteel walls, and half a dozen live music stages, where droids played a harmonious and overlapping jizz song.
Cages dangled from the ceiling like fancy chandeliers, especially above the tables in the VIP area, where dancers of many alien species moved with spice-induced enthusiasm. The swarms of customers seemed to pay them no mind, as if they were commonplace. Organic and robotic waiters rolled around the carpeted floor, delivering orders and expensive, bioluminescent drinks.
A well-dressed concierge bowed at Plasma and opened the double glass doors to him.
From the main hall, near the eastern end, a group of off-duty Imperial soldiers celebrated, unaware of the Sith's presence. The concierge summoned a Twi'lek waitress to conduct Plasma to his table, in the enclosed VIP section.
As he followed her, his eyes scanned the environment; he looked for entrances, doors, windows; he paid attention to the faces of certain characters – mainly uniformed or armored mercenaries, and suspicious spice dealers. He wanted to find the type of people who could have had contact with his mother. Regardless, wither his mother had not been in that palace, of everyone was extremely good in hiding their surprise in seeing a Cathar.
The cantina's main floor was spacious, wide, with a ten-meter-high ceiling. It drew a perfect circle, from where eight corridors branched into the palace, from every direction; some were narrow and tight, others were wide, and one of them was locked shut by thick durasteel doors. There were also six different elevators scattered along the wall, and a pair of stairs that led to the upper levels.
"How long have you been working here?" Plasma asked the waitress, his voice robotically distorted by the respirator mask. The red-skinned Twi'lek seemed surprised and hesitated a moment before answering.
"My Lord," she whispered. "I am not allowed to talk to a VIP customer such as yourself."
Plasma smiled at her, gesturing to an opposing chair. The loud music sounded muffled behind the thick doors of the VIP section.
"I will pay for your time. Please, sit."
They sat at a small, circular table near the southeastern wall, close to the transparisteel doors. The Twi'lek complied nervously. She did not look at him and held her hands over her lap. Underneath her lekkus, the tentacle-like appendages on her head, Plasma noticed a slave shock collar had been attached to the nape of her neck.
Around them, Plasma observed that every other VIP customer had women – mostly Twi'lek, Zabrak and Togruta – on their laps.
"I just want to talk." Plasma reassured her. "What do you recommend? To drink, I mean."
"The… the purple Alderaniaan whisky is delicious," she said. A luminous menu projected on the table, the whisky entry blinked, highlighting its price: five thousand credits a bottle. Plasma let out an incredulous chuckle.
"Would you drink with me for a while?" Plasma asked calmly. The Twi'lek agreed. "My name is Lord Plasma; what is yours?"
"Gida Anu," she said, now looking at his eyes. "It means Desired Warrior in rylothean."
"That is a beautiful name," Plasma said honestly. "Are you a warrior?"
Gida shrunk on her seat, fidgeting with her fingers. She nervously looked around them, as if searching for something – or someone. Plasma pressed a button on the side of his rebreather; with a hiss, the mask's clasps unlocked, and the Sith Lord revealed his full, furry, and smiling face.
"You are in the company of a Sith Lord of the Empire," he said. "You will be safe."
Gida forced a smile back and took a deep breath. Speaking more confidently now, she answered his question.
"I was a warrior. They invaded my planet and attacked my village. My clan was exterminated, and I was taken as a slave."
"Who attacked you?' Plasma asked. "The Hutts?"
Shaking her head, but still staring at Plasma's red eyes, she simply said:
"The Empire."
Gida's eyes glistened with determination, and she did not look away when Plasma stared back at her. Many years ago, Plasma had felt like her, having to deal with – and work for – the people responsible for his misery. He did not know why, but he felt at ease with that woman, as if there was a connection between them. Around her, the Force felt warm. Unexpectedly, though, a crimson skinned, single-horned Devaronian stopped by the table. He wore a long, black overcoat, decorated with golden filigrees, and smiled with devilish perversion.
"Gida, little darling," he said. "There are other customers waiting."
Plasma gestured at Gida to remain seated, then he stood up. Komm'ett had taught him to never address an inferior being from below.
"You interrupt a Sith Lord of the Empire," he growled.
"Terribly sorry, my dear Lord," the Devaronian said smoothly. "It was not my intention; I am merely summoning my employee. She—"
"She is accompanying me." Plasma interrupted him. "Bill her time to me. You are dismissed."
The pointy-toothed Devaronian bowed exaggeratedly and stepped away. Gida let out a sigh of relief, thanking Plasma.
"How can I help you, my Lord?" she finally asked.
"I am looking for a woman, a Cathar like me. She worked for Tyylaakk'ta at another place, the Fat Hutt Cantina."
"I haven't seen an adult Cathar, sir," Gida said. "But I have heard of a valuable cub."
Plasma stared through her, with his ruby eyes vitreously entranced. With a breaking voice, he whispered a Cathar cub? and she nodded. Plasma's hands went numb, and the world went silent for a second.
"Was it… was it a girl?" Plasma asked teary-eyed. "With grey fur?".
A group of six mercenaries wearing full suits of metallic armor and rocket-mounted jetpacks approached the VIP area. They wore full helmets and carried long blaster rifles. Two of them stayed behind to guard the entrance while four of them approached Plasma.
"Are you Plasma?" an athletic woman asked. She had two extra pistols on her hip.
"It is Lord Plasma," he responded, standing up. The woman pressed the butt of her rifle on his shoulder, forcing him down.
"Sit down, sir," she said. Plasma's eyes lit up. He pushed her backwards with a subtle hand movement, then stood up fiercely. The mercenaries cocked their weapons and pointed them at Lord Plasma's head.
"You do not tell a Sith Lord to sit down," Plasma growled.
Gida glanced at him with concerned and uneasy eyes. They're Mandalorians, she muttered under her breath. The Hutt's personal guards.
"I will tell whoever I please to sit down," the Mandalorian said. "You will not want to fight us in here. Besides, the boss wants to see you."
The Mandalorians lowered their guns and gestured at Plasma to follow. They turned around and walked away. Plasma gave a last, puzzled look at Gida, who urged him to follow them.
Heavy boots stomped expensive Bordeaux carpets as the seven people crossed the palace. Tapestries, holographic paintings, and shimmering statues decorated the dark-green walls around them. The corridor curved slightly to the west, and then ended at another spacious, circular hall. An enormous, yellow-brown Hutt rested on a throne-like platform by the northern wall, surrounded by droids, servants, Mandalorians, and chained slaves.
Upon seeing Plasma, Tyylaakk'ta let out a booming laugh. He gestured his tiny arms as he spoke slowly in Huttese, a protocol droid simultaneously translating. Huttese sounded like cavernous moans and intelligible grunts.
"Another of your kind," the droid enunciated. "For a near extinct race you seem quite numerous. I learned that you have been asking lots of questions to my employees."
"Do you treat all your guests with disrespect?" Plasma asked.
"You are not my guest," the Hutt said. "Not yet."
There were at least twelve Mandalorians standing around the room. Four of them blocked the only way in. Plasma was surrounded and had gone there unprepared. He knew very little about Mandalorians; however, from the look of their armor and their air of confidence, he felt that even he would not be able to defeat so many of them by himself.
"And what am I," Plasma asked. "A prisoner? Or an enemy?"
The Hutt laughed loudly again.
"You are a potential friend," the droid said, then continued. "What I want to know is why the apprentice of Darth Komm'ett, the Conqueror of Coruscant, would come here unannounced and start hounding my employees with questions?"
Plasma raised an eyebrow. Knowing his master, he was unsure if her knowing the Hutt was a good or a bad thing. He might very well have walked into a trap, about to pay the price for something Komm'ett had done.
"I suppose I should have been respectful," he said, faking a smile. "And announced my arrival."
"The past is the past!" the droid threw his arms up, mimicking the Hutt. "Why did my good friend Komm'ett send her Apprentice to my palace without my knowledge?"
In an insightful instant, Plasma's mind lit up with an idea. A brilliant, improvised strategy, he would say. It could be a long shot but hearing the way the Hutt spoke about his master made him confident. He leaned in forward and whispered at the droid.
"Komm'ett sent me here on a special mission," he said. "Two, actually."
"Ah." the droid exclaimed robotically. "I love special missions. Knowing Lady Komm'ett's history as I do, I can certainly guess one of them."
Lord Plasma accepted a goblet of cyrstalcherry liquor from a slave but did not drink it. He gestured the glass at the Hutt.
"And you would be correct!" he chuckled. "However, the other mission is the more urgent one, the reason why I spoke with your employees."
The Hutt gestured at him to continue.
"Imperial Intelligence intercepted an encrypted transmission; there is an assassin coming to Nal Hutta for you."
Chatter filled the room and the Mandalorians glanced at each other. The Hutt's fabricated excitement turned into genuine concern. With a gesture, he sent his servants and slaves away. The Mandalorians approached him and Plasma.
"We have no such intel, sir," a broad-shouldered mercenary said. The Hutt sounded furious, now screaming in Basic.
"And I ask myself why, considering how much money I pay for your services!"
Plasma chimed in before the mercenaries could respond, building over his rapport.
"My crew is working on it, sir," Plasma whispered carefully. "My Master sent me here to intercept this assassin – as a gesture of gratitude for your profitable friendship."
It was hard to read the face of a Hutt; their slug-like features were too alien. Their buggy, droopy eyes and long, gaping mouth, over a neckless head. The Hutt's nose – two large, oval slits – flared up repeatedly as he stared at Plasma. That was a battle of wits. Plasma himself did not know how close his master actually was with that creature, and the Hutt did not know if Plasma spoke the truth.
As a seasoned crime lord, he had learned to tread carefully around the Sith, and filter their sweet promises through filters of paranoia. He and Plasma stared at each other, resiliently, as if expecting the other to falter. Finally, the Hutt's face distorted weirdly – into a smile, it seemed – and he pointed his tiny fingers to his mercenaries.
"Lord Plasma is my guest," he warned them. "You will give him the support he needs."
The air became heavy; Plasma could feel the Mandalorian's angered reluctancy, and hear their mumbled complaints from behind their helmets. They nodded in obedience, lowered their rifles, and retreated back to their posts. Half of the platoon left the throne room.
"To show my gratitude, I offer you to stay in my Presidential Suite," Tyylaakk'ta said. "From there, you can work unbothered, and my servants will provide you with everything you need."
"You are generous, Master Tyylaakk'ta." Plasma nodded subtly. "We will work diligently, and keep you posted of everything we discover."
They exchanged final pleasantries, then a tall, yellow-skinned Trandoshan escorted Plasma towards the end of the hall, into a private turbolift.
Alone, at last, Plasma breathed rapidly, anxiously; he sunk to a rubbery sofa, throwing his head back. It had worked, it seemed. However, even in his victory, the Hutt still maintained an upper hand. Plasma realized quickly that the Presidential Suite was not an advantage point. Thirty-six stories high, and accessible only through an independent turbolift, meant that Plasma was still a glorified prisoner. That would change.
Still, it was a comfortable change of scenery. The suite was exaggeratedly large and wide, a two-hundred square-meters open loft, with circular windows that reached over the high ceiling, bending upwards. Droid servants scampered around the room, bringing drinks and snacks back and forth. From up there, Plasma had a panoramic view of Nal Hutta.
It was utterly depressing. Nal Hutta reminded him of the planetoid.
The planet seemed rotten, covered in unnatural bogs, and wrapped in an amber curtain of pollution. Plasma saw specks of people – servants, slaves, and impoverished beggars – scattered around the streets and alleys. In the distance, beyond the plains, columns of thick, yellow smoke rose high into the sky, from chimneys of huge factories that covered most of the highlands.
The Suite's intercom buzzed. Plasma answered it, and a holoprojector mounted on a coffee table produced the silhouette of Gida Anu. The young Sith's face lit up as he saw her.
"Gida!" he exclaimed. "It's good to see you. Has something happened?"
"No, my Lord," she responded. She, too, seemed content, and spoke in a lighter tone. "I don't know what you did, but I have been told to be your private servant. Do you require anything?"
"Have you eaten?" he asked bluntly. To her shaking her head, he continued. "Bring dinner over, whatever you want to eat; we can eat together, if you want to. Then we can talk."
"As you wish, my Lord," she smiled. "As ordered: pan-searedblackfish, accompanied by a wine reduction of Corellian clam sauce, and a bottle of Alderaanian sweet liquor. Coming up in fifteen minutes."
Plasma's heart rushed – and he was unsure why – when the intercom buzzed again. The turbolift door slid open, and the red-skinned Twi'lek pushed a hovering cart inside the suite; a sizeable silver cloche covered the food, and the bottle sat inside an ice bucket on the side.
The Sith Lord grabbed the platter and set it on the table, gesturing at one of the chairs in front of him. Gida uncorked the bottle.
"There isn't any tableware in this room," Plasma said awkwardly. "We can share a plate, and drink from the bottle. How much does this cost, by the way?"
"Twenty-nine thousand credits, my Lord," Gida answered. Plasma did not disguise the shock on his face. They sat down to eat what actually seemed – and smelled – like a delicious meal.
"Twenty-nine thousand… I used to live with less than four credits a day when I was little," the Sith whispered ruefully. The food tasted more bitter now. Gida looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment and pity. "While there were people like this Tyylaakk'ta living like this."
The Twi'lek nodded. She did not have anything to add. She tried effortfully not to feel compassion for a Sith, someone who had caused her enslavement; however, there was something in Plasma, an air of vulnerability and, more importantly, sincerity, that she had not seen in any other Imperial. His openness lowered her guard.
"I am sorry to hear that, my Lord," she said. "I had a good life with my clan, until…."
"Until the Empire conquered you," he concluded. She nodded.
The air felt heavy for an awkward moment, until the Twi'lek spoke again, changing the subject.
"One moment you're being escorted by the Mandos, the next they are serving you," she chuckled. "What happened?"
"Turns out, the Hutt and my master are friends," he explained. "So, I improvised. I told him the reason I came here was to investigate an assassin who was coming for him."
"The ruse won't last long," Gida grimaced. "Is this about the person you're looking for?"
"Everything is about that," Plasma said aggressively.
That had been the most delicious meal Plasma had ever had, and only for the small price of a midrange-level landspeeder. Plasma bared his heart; he told Gida about his mission and his search for his long-lost family. After half an hour of conversation, Gida said:
"I asked around." Plasma's fur perked up. She continued. "Nobody in here seems to have worked at the Fat Hutt Cantina. But, like I said, I heard of a Cathar cub around here. She was the center of attention for a long time, until the Hutt sold her."
The Twi'lek noticed the trembling fists of the Sith Lord, and she appreciated him trying to control his anger. Whispering carefully, she added:
"I spoke with Mawle, one of the oldest here; she said she'd seen the cub and confirmed the description: a young girl with white-grey fur."
"Did she know what happened to the girl?!" Plasma asked desperately. Gida shook her head, disappointed. "Is there a way we can find out?"
"Yes, but it's risky."
The intercom buzzed again; the smooth voice of the Devaronian spoke.
"I am deeply sorry for disturbing you, my Lord, but is lovely Gida still there?"
Unexpectedly, Gida let out a load moan. Plasma stared at her bug-eyed, jaws dropped. The Devaronian cleared his throat, apologized again, and disconnected the call. Gida dismissed it with a shrug.
"The Hutt keeps records of his sales," she resumed as if nothing had happened. "There is definitely a record of the girl, where it came from, and to whom she was sold. Bookkeeping is a safety backup plan for these people. Everything can be used in a Republic courtroom."
"And how could I access these records?" Plasma asked.
"Any security terminal will do."