Vol's eyes flashed open and he found himself floating in a bacta tank located in what was no doubt one of the medbays of the Shikkar's Edge. Naturally, he had a rebreather over his mouth and nose and the only other person in the 'bay was the ship's doctor, a female non-Force-sensitive Keshiri named Fehvas Lihk, sat in one corner of the room looking over some papers.
Vol asked, "How long was I out?" His voice reverberated through the speakers in the medbay, getting Lihk's attention.
The Keshiri looked up from her work and stood up immediately, as if she were a soldier standing at attention. "For only a day, My Lord."
"How much longer will I need to remain here for?"
"Two more days, My Lord. Although I imagine with your ability to use the Force to heal yourself, it may be sooner. Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that the damage you sustained to your face from that attack will leave permanent scarring."
Vol repressed his anger at hearing that. "Was the Millennium Falcon recaptured?"
Lihk shook her head. "I'm afraid they got away, My Lord."
"With Ben Skywalker, too?" He already knew the answer, but he thought he'd ask it anyway.
Lihk nodded.
"Call Captain Holpur here at once."
"Yes, My Lord."
A few minutes later, Captain Vyn Holpur entered the medbay, and after confirming what Lihk already told Vol, Holpur concluded with, "None of our ships were able to track them when they jumped into hyperspace, My Lord. There was too much interference from the gases of this nebula to get a usable read on their ion trail or anything else we could've used."
"Are we still in the nebula?" Vol asked.
"Yes, My Lord," Holpur answered dutifully.
"Then send out a fleetwide transmission to the rest of the Lost Tribe," Vol commanded. "We must disperse again; with the Millennium Falcon having escaped our clutches, they will no doubt alert their Galactic Alliance masters of our presence here."
"At once, My Lord. Will that be all?"
Vol was about to say, "Yes," when a sudden thought occurred to him. "Actually, no. I understand that Tyro Khai was injured prior to the Falcon's escape. How is her condition now?"
"She has healed up well, My Lord. In fact, her shoulder injury is all but gone and she is back to full fighting form."
"Then bring her here; I wish to see her at once. That is- Wait. What happened to the body of Kam Solusar?"
Holpur looked nervous then. "We... ejected his body out into space, My Lord."
Vol couldn't help but sigh. "Pity; I wished to see his body one more time so I could spit on it after what he did to me. Oh, well. Now that is all, Captain."
Minutes after Holpur's departure, Tyro Vestara Khai entered the medbay and genuflected before the bacta-encased Grand Lord.
"Arise, young Tyro, and look upon me," Vol intoned.
When Khai stood up to her full height, she levelled a neutral gaze up at Vol, though he could clearly feel her sense of guilt at seeing him like this. Indeed, Vol sensed that Khai felt as if she were at least partially responsible for the Grand Lord's current state; if only she had been stronger, if only she had been smarter, she could have overwhelmed the Falcon's party, killed them, made sure that Ben Skywalker remained with the Lost Tribe, and then maybe, just maybe, they could have aided their Grand Lord in eliminating Kam Solusar.
Good, Vol thought. While he knew that there was very little that young Khai could have done anyway at this stage in her life, strong though she was for someone her age, the Grand Lord appreciated that the girl knew her place; it effectively solidified her as an obedient Sith.
"Captain Holpur tells me that you have made a full recovery from your shoulder injury. Is that true, Tyro Khai?"
"It is, My Lord."
"I'm glad to hear it. Now about Ben Skywalker."
"I beg your forgiveness, My Lord. I should've-"
"Silence."
She obeyed without hesitation.
"You were the closest person to young Skywalker in the short time that he has been with us, closer than me even. Tell me, considering the fact that he was already so willing to turn his back on the Jedi in the first place, combined with how promising he was proving to be as a burgeoning Sith, how likely do you believe the Jedi would be able to convert him back to their side?"
"I find it highly unlikely, My Lord. As you have stated, Ben had been so willing to turn his back on the Jedi because of how jaded and cynical he had become thanks to his experiences with the Sith Lady Lumiya and what he had gone through on the world of Ziost. If anything, I would think that he would want nothing more than to come back to us."
"So there is no doubt in either your heart or mind that Ben could turn back to the light side of the Force, Tyro Khai?"
Khai looked like she wanted to answer confidently in the affirmative, only for both her body language and Force-presence to drop suddenly.
"Well?" Vol asked.
"There may be... some doubt, My Lord."
"Based on what, Tyro Khai?"
"As steeped in the dark side of the Force as Ben's spirit is, My Lord, there is... some room for his soul to be turned back to the light."
"What did you see or sense in him that would lead you to believe that?"
"Well... Ben lacks any real vindictiveness that would characterize a proper Sith, My Lord. He was distant from the other Tyros, both from Kesh and the ones taken from the Jedi, yes, but that was no different than what I saw from him when we were on Shedu Maad."
"Yes, I'm aware of Ben's surprising lack of conflict with any of the other Tyros. Even you have had more than a few clashes with your fellow students outside of the sparring mat, Tyro Khai."
Khai bowed her head in submissiveness. "I hope those actions do not reflect that poorly upon me, My Lord."
"They don't. But back to Ben. Is there anything else about his personality that would lead you to believe that he could be swayed back to being a Jedi?"
"Well, in the times when I was with him, he was generally a very pleasant, and I daresay even kind-hearted, person."
"Kind-hearted?" Vol's voice dripped with acid as he asked.
A look of dread settled over Khai's face and Force-presence. "Yes, My Lord," she replied hesitantly.
"Explain."
"Well... whenever I spoke to him, more often than not, he was... very nice to me. And when it came to other Tyros, the worst I ever saw from him was, again, just that sense of distance, as you already know. And at other times, he... he bared his feelings to me in... what can be said to be weakness."
"Weakness? How so?"
"He cried to me once."
Vol went silent for a long moment. "Go on," he commanded finally.
"It had been in regard to turning against his family. In fact, it had been when the Millennium Falcon was first being chased in this nebula, My Lord. He had regretted that he would have to turn his back on his aunt and uncle, who he liked, just to remain Sith."
"What was your response to this moment of weakness, Tyro Khai?" Vol intoned.
"I... I allowed him to hug me, My Lord," Khai answered with fear that spilled into her tone.
Again, Vol fell into a long silence that built up tension between himself and the little girl. When he finally spoke again, he asked with a low growl, "And you thought this was acceptable, Tyro Khai?"
"My Lord, I-"
She was cut off from saying anymore when Vol Force-flung her to the bulkhead behind her and pinned her there; to her credit, she didn't bother to struggle vainly in that invisible grasp. Dr. Lihk, meanwhile, stood still and silent in her corner of the room; Vol sensed only mild fear from her.
"Why did you think that embracing him in an act of comfort was something appropriate for a Sith, Tyro Khai?" the Grand Lord asked.
"I thought it was a suitable way of pulling him into our confidence, My Lord!" Khai answered with panic.
"How so?" He increased his Force-grip's pressure on her body.
"I..." Khai struggled to breathe now. "I understood his pain."
Vol lightened his grip immediately to let her resume speaking normally again.
"I still remember losing my mother, Grand Lord Vol. And I knew that Ben had lost his mother, too. So I knew the pain that he was going through in having to turn his back on other family members so that he could embrace us as his new family. If I had hurt him, I thought it would have made it even harder for him to turn to our side."
"A fine idea for someone just entering the Sith, Tyro Khai," Vol replied. "But not for someone like Ben who was already showing so much promise in the dark side. Yes, he was with us for only mere days, but by then, I would have expected him to have already embraced our ways fully. Especially with where he started before we took him from the Jedi."
"You expected him to be that much of a convert by then?" Lihk chimed in.
Vol narrowed a stern gaze at her. "What have you to say of the ways of the Force besides what a midi-chlorian count can allow?" he retorted.
Lihk bowed her head submissively and fell silent again as Vol returned his attention to Khai.
"Still," the Grand Lord said, "perhaps a healthy amount of... tenderness would not have hurt to have Ben remain loyal to us. We can only hope, though, that that act of kindness will tip Ben's allegiance to our favor."
With that, he released his invisible hold on Khai and allowed her to return to her feet.
"You are dismissed, Tyro Khai," Vol said. "But I remind you: should Ben ultimately turn his back on us when the time becomes critical, as I feel it may be soon, I will see to it personally that you will face the repercussions for it. Whatever those may be."
Only after another moment of silence came did Khai bow her head, turn, and exit the medbay without another word.
. . .
To Jaina, Brink Station's Red Ronto cantina was like so many other dive bars in the galaxy, with a mixture of humans and aliens drinking, smoking, and gambling just like every other low-life pirate or smuggler who frequented haunts like this in the Outer Rim. And the fact that there were aliens who belonged to species with which she was unfamiliar did nothing to curb the sense of familiarity that she had gained in the time between the Yuuzhan Vong War and the Killik Crisis when she was hunting down people like the Yaka pirate known as Redstar.
Of course, this time, Jaina was on the opposite side of the law, as she had stolen a ship from the same pirate/smuggler redoubt where she had left the Solo Quest II by charming—and mind-tricking—the male Twi'lek captain into making him think that she was, of all things, a smuggler groupie. Once he had taken her aboard his ship, a DF-122 light freighter known as the Small But Tough, it took her only a few minutes to learn that there was nothing special about the ship—no special codes, no security features—that she would have been worried about before she convinced him to leave ahead of collecting his full cargo of illegal Kessel spice.
And once they were well out of the redoubt's gravity well, she promptly killed him with a well-placed punch to the throat and ejected his corpse into the vacuum of space. From there, she simply took the Small But Tough into hyperspace for the Chiloon Rift, where she was now. But between then and now, she had made a call to someone who was on one of the bottom rungs of a certain corporate food chain who had been only mildly curious as to how she got his comm number, but otherwise didn't ask any questions about meeting her at her requested time and place.
Presently, though, she waited alone, by herself, drinking an inexpensive club soda at a table in the far corner of the cantina; she may have been a selfish, petty, and maybe even a narcissistic woman, but she had no intention of damaging her unborn son's fetal development with alcohol. And with some mild Force-waves into the minds of those who were mildly interested in her, combined with a stern glare, no one bothered her.
She had to wait for barely more than an hour before a short and stout blonde human male in expensive clothes that looked very much out of place in the Red Ronto walked into the cantina carrying a nondescript black briefcase. He was joined by two reptilian bipeds dressed in the uniform of the company for whom their human charge worked and who seemed to outdo Jaina's ability to intimidate people with their own stares.
The well-clothed man sat down on the opposite side of Jaina's table while his reptilian bodyguards stood off to the side, their eyes flickering every now and then as they stood on alert. Looking into his eyes and reading his Force-presence, she got no sense that the man recognized her for being the daughter of Han and Leia Solo, or even as a war hero in her own right.
That was alright with her. She had a strong feeling that, out here, most people probably didn't even know who Jaina Solo was, and may have had, at best, heard of the Vong War in passing. Still, while she didn't bother to dye her hair or wear a wig like she used to, she still had her face Force-smoothed out to look normal as she took on the moniker of Noonya Niazh once more.
"I hear you have a particular interest in an endeavor that my employers are pursuing within this nebula," the man said without preamble.
She nodded. "I know exactly what Marvid and Craitheous Qreph are after and I know how to get it. Now if you could contact whoever you have to contact, whether it's the brothers themselves or anyone in that corporate food chain that stands between you and-"
One of the reptilian bodyguards slammed both hands on the tabletop between Jaina and the man, and she couldn't help but jump a little in her seat.
"How do you know what our bosses are after, little miss?" the brute growled.
"Can you let me handle this?" the man intoned.
The reptilian gave Jaina another cold glare, which she returned with a glare of her own, before he stood back up to his full height and crossed his arms over his chest.
"We would appreciate it if you could tell us how you came across this information, Miss Niazh," the man said more diplomatically.
"If you're worried about whether or not your company has a leak, or if I'm trying to blackmail Galactic Exploitation Technologies, you can rest assured that neither is the case," Jaina said calmly. "However, I have to admit that if I told you how exactly I came across the information I know, you wouldn't believe me."
"Try us anyway," the reptilian who slammed his hands on the tabletop intoned.
The man looked at his guard with another annoyed glare before he returned his attention to Jaina.
"I looked into a magic pool in another plane of existence that allowed me to see where your bosses' primary base is," she said dryly.
"Oh, you think you're funny?" the same reptilian retorted threateningly.
"Qizak, will you please shut up?" the man asked. He then looked to the other reptilian and said, "Leeshak, if he speaks out of turn one more time, punch him out for me."
"Yes, sir," the second bodyguard answered evenly.
Qizak looked at his counterpart with visible betrayal before he settled back into stoic silence again.
The human man sighed. "Okay, let's table the discussion about how you came across this information in the first place. What do you want in exchange?"
"Well, first, let me elucidate that I know that it's located in the Bubble of the Lost, a place of time dilation," Jaina stated. "Where five years is about one year in standard galactic time, right?"
"Let's say it is," the man replied evenly. "What of it?"
"Help me out with a calculation, because you look like a calculating guy, Mr. Masat," Jaina said. "What's nine months inside the Bubble compared to the rest of the galaxy?"
"Why do you want to know?" Masat asked.
"If you tell me that, I'll tell you how exactly I can help your bosses enter the monolith that they've been trying to get inside."
Masat regarded Jaina warily for several heartbeats before he set his briefcase upon the tabletop. Qizak and Leeshak stood closer together as Masat opened the case to prevent any unwanted eyes from looking; after the human pulled out a calculator, he shut the case and the reptilians resumed their previous stances.
Several moments of calculating later, Masat looked back up at Jaina and said, "Somewhere between two to three months would pass outside the Bubble, if you want a general target, Miss Niazh."
"Fine with me," Jaina replied. "Now about how I'll help your employers..."
