Sesai was drawn out of sleep by a shiver running through the bed, only a slight dip down then up. Had it happened a few minutes later, once he was more thoroughly under, he might not have woken at all. He opened his eyes, the darkened room too shadowed and blurry to make anything out. A few blinks helped the latter, but as his vision got clearer the shadows only grew more prominent, more alive, shifting back and forth as light struck into the room at random, unpredictable angles. Even indirectly, light blue and white and violet playing against the wall and ceiling, he recognized the ineffable maelstrom of hyperspace.

Not that he'd expected to see anything else. There were all sorts of ridiculous superstitions surrounding space travel that had managed to persist through the millennia, one of the more widespread involving the chaotic colors and patterns of hyperspace. It was common knowledge that looking out into it for too long would drive a being insane — completely fictional knowledge, obviously, but people did enjoy their flights of fancy. Even those who didn't buy into that sort of thing often felt uncomfortable gazing out into hyperspace, something instinctual to most beings protesting as space twisted and broke apart in front of them, the plain wrongness of it instilling an eerie sense of unease.

Lesami, on the other hand, just thought it was pretty. When the Vindicta had been being retrofitted after the discovery of the Forge, Lesami had made sure the admiral's quarters — most often hers, being her favored flagship — had a tall, wide bay of windows looking out. Even in the bloody bedroom. The transparisteel could be made opaque with the push of a button, but she left it open more often than not, even slept under the dancing lights.

But she'd sort of been insane to begin with.

So he wasn't surprised at all to see her there, leaning against the frame, staring out into riotous nothingness. There was a subtle sense of exhaustion in the way she slumped there, arms crossed low over her stomach, head resting against the window.

And she hadn't bothered tracking down any clothes, the glow throwing her profile into sharp relief. Which was just cruel.

Sesai held back the first thing that occurred to him to say, too suggestive. Not that Lesami had a problem with suggestive, normally, she tended to enjoy him quite a lot (in multiple senses of the word), but there was a time for everything, and he knew this simply wasn't it.

And then he held back the second thing.

And the third.

...And the fourth.

"Can't sleep?"

Lesami shook her head, hair shuffling against her shoulders. He still thought long hair looked odd on her — all Jedi kept their hair short, barring a few exceptions here and there for one cultural reason or another. She hadn't started growing it out until after Malachor, after Csilla even, he still wasn't entirely used to it. She did have nice hair, of course, which she had to be aware of, and Lesami had never been entirely immune to vanity. (That was on the list of problems the Masters had had with her, in fact.) But, he remembered, back at the Temple, way back when they'd been children, she'd said longer hair was impractical, it just got in the way.

These days she took rather more care with her appearance in general, actually. He guessed that sort of thing was just expected of empresses.

"Don't let me keep you up. You have a busy day tomorrow."

Sesai snorted — that was one way of putting it, all right. The invasion of the Republic was starting tomorrow. They'd been in Republic space for nearly a week, actually, delicately paralleling hyperspace routes across half the galaxy. (That would be insanely dangerous, if they hadn't the Force to help them aim.) Around five in the morning — reckoned by local time at the Citadel, back on Dromund Kaas — they'd be dropping out of hyperspace within a short jump from Centares. Sesai, along with a plethora of other operatives and diplomats, would disembark there, slip into the Republic to pursue whatever their respective assignments were.

Sesai was to return to Coruscant and infiltrate the Republic bureaucracy, find a way to slip himself into the Senate and the Temple. He had a list of names he was to try to recruit, if at all possible. He had a separate list of names, all of whom Lesami wanted dead.

It was just like Lesami to call embarking on a dangerous mission of espionage and assassination a "busy day".

Of course, Lesami had a "busy day" too — immediately after dropping off Sesai and the others, the rest of the fleet would take two quick hops rimward along the Perlemian, to Columex. Where Lesami would command the opening battle of the war against the Republic. Really, her day would be far more draining than his. He'd just be slipping into the crowd and catching a transport coreward, really not that big of a deal.

He considered a few different comments again before finally picking one. "You know, you really don't do anyone any good if you're too exhausted to think straight."

There was a brief flare of something...something, he couldn't quite put words to it. Something heavy, almost suffocating. Lesami let out a brief sigh, the only external sigh she was feeling anything at all. "I know. I can always take an hour to meditate before the battle, it'll be fine."

That really wasn't a solution for the long term. But Lesami knew that just as well as he did, there was no point saying so. Latching on to the low-boiling discomfort shimmering in the air around her — Lesami had always been uneasy shouldering too much responsibility, which he guessed made her some kind of masochist — he decided to change the subject. Well, sort of. "I could help you get to sleep."

She turned away from the window. At this angle, it was hard to be sure, the way the shadows spilled across her face, but he was pretty sure she was giving him one of those flat, unimpressed looks of hers. "As I recall, you've already tried to wear me out twice tonight. Didn't get us anywhere, did it?"

"Well, you know what they say: try, try, try again."

With a snorted laugh, Lesami shook her head. "You are persistent, I'll give you that."

"That's what you pay me for."

"I don't pay you for that."

"Not for the sex." He smiled. "No, you just pay me to kill people you don't like. I'm good at that too."

The shadows crossing her face seemed to get darker. That same odd something radiated out from her, just for a second before she pushed it away again. Somewhat jerkily, she turned to gaze out the window again, her posture and her presence both as expressionless as the wall behind her.

"That was a joke." It wasn't, not really, and they both knew it. The willingness to kill whoever she told him to because she told him to, that's not a joke. He did trust her to choose the right people, of course — assassination was serious business, he didn't go around killing people just for fun — but honestly, when it came down to it, he didn't even really think about it. He didn't care why Lesami wanted someone dead, just that she did, and he was in a position to get her what she wanted.

Saying it quite that bluntly, though, that was a joke.

"Put my foot in it again, I know. You know me, Sami, I'm really bad at not doing that."

That, at least, had another rebellious laugh forcing its way out of her nose. It was rather thin and cold, but at least it was there. "I still don't know how you ever manage to maintain your cover. You can hardly get through a normal conversation without saying something idiotic."

"Most people are idiots." He shrugged. "Besides, nobody ever suspects the Zeltron."

Lesami matched his shrug, acknowledging the point. Sesai's people did have a reputation for being self-destructively short-sighted and pathologically hedonistic — generally speaking, people suspected Zeltrons were out to seduce practically everyone they met, but they were the last beings most would expect to be up to something nefarious. His "cover" usually involved just...acting like a stereotypical Zeltron. It was surprisingly effective.

Those stereotypes were completely accurate, of course, but that was neither here nor there.

But anyway, he figured that was enough distraction to actually get to the point. "So, are you going to tell me what's wrong this time?" It could go either way, really, Lesami being a rather private person she leaned toward not talking about what was going on in her head. Well, not about personal issues, anyway. Honestly, the tendency many other peoples had to, just, keep things to themselves was still baffling to him — he hadn't spent very much of his life on Zeltros, the Jedi had come for him when he'd been only five (standard) years old, but he'd still absorbed enough of the culture that certain things just didn't click. Zeltrosi were as a rule far more open, the impulse toward privacy many other beings had still felt strange.

Lesami let out a long sigh, sagging a bit against the frame. "How is it you put it? I'm surrendering to my impulse to think everything to death, and then keep tearing it apart until it's completely unrecognisable."

"Something like that." When he'd said it, he'd probably been a bit cruder about it, but the central idea sounded like the sort of thing he would have said. "What is it this time?"

"Does it matter?"

"If it's bothering you this much, obviously it does."

For a long moment, Lesami didn't respond, just stared out into hyperspace in perfect silence, hardly even seeming to breathe. Though maybe it was just hard to see, the swirling light throwing shifting shadows.

Sesai just waited. Either she'd decide to tell him, or she wouldn't, nothing he could say would sway her either way. He was nearly certain she would — he was in a rather privileged position when it came to this sort of thing. They had known each other for most of their lives, and he was, well, himself. He couldn't imagine anything that could be going on in there that he would ever...he didn't know, judge her for. Normal people were judgy sometimes, it got irritating. (Maybe that was why they kept so much to themselves, come to think of it.) That she was even considering it at all suggested she was leaning toward telling him. She still had to think about it, because Lesami was overcautious about this sort of thing, but he was pretty sure.

And he was proven right after a minute or so. "Do you ever wonder if we're doing the right thing?"

He blinked. "No."

Her shoulders jerked with a start, and she turned back to face him again. With her profile throwing shadows deep across her face, it was hard to tell for sure, but he suspected that was a confused frown. "No? You never think about it at all?"

"You know," Sesai said, an involuntary smile pulling at his lips, "it's a little odd to bother asking a question you very clearly expected a particular answer to."

That one was probably a glare. "Don't try to talk like Kreia. You're terrible at it."

Well, yeah, he suspected he would be. He didn't understand half the confusing shit that came out of Lesami's eccentric old master's mouth. Listening to the two of them talk just gave him a headache. "Mai-mai, not the point. Is that it? You're having second thoughts?"

"Sesai, we're trying to overthrow the Republic."

"More than trying, I hope. Would be rather embarrassing if all this work came out to nothing."

Lesami let out a low sound, somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff. "And that doesn't bother you at all? It wasn't that long ago we were fighting to defend the Republic."

"Maybe you were." He shrugged. "Well, fighting to defend the people of the Republic, anyway, that's not quite the same thing."

"What do you mean, maybe I was? You were there too, you might recall, as long as I was."

Sesai opened his mouth to answer on reflex — then cut himself off, hard enough his throat made a little gulping sound. He hesitated a moment, tongue working against his teeth, considering how exactly he should put it. Or whether he should put it at all. If he couldn't feel the subtle heat of Lesami's impatience against his skin, he might have chosen to say nothing. "I'm not sure you want to hear it, Sami."

She snorted. "If people only told me what I wanted to hear, we wouldn't be here."

That was certainly true. "Well, fine. Just don't get all...mopey."

"Mopey?" The single word came in that low, dangerous tone she'd developed during the war, but missing the frigid sense of danger that usually came with it. She felt more amused than anything.

"I suspect you're going to perfect brooding at this rate, all the practice you've gotten in lately."

"Sometimes I wonder if you're trying to annoy me."

"Only sometimes. Anyway, what I was saying. I didn't do all this for the reasons you did. I just, um..." He trailed off, biting his lip. They'd never talked about this, but somehow he just knew she was going to hate this, quite a lot. "Honestly, I wouldn't have left to fight the Mandalorians if it were anyone else suggesting it. I wouldn't be here now if it were anyone else. I don't think about whether we're doing the right thing, because..." He grasped for the right words for a second, couldn't find any he quite liked, shrugged it off. "I don't know. Worrying about that sort of thing is your job. I just do what you tell me."

She didn't like that. Her face was impossible to make out clearly, but he could feel the unease washing off of her, thick and dark and nauseating. He'd noticed this before, over the course of the war, as she gradually accumulated influence and power. Only all the more since she'd taken over and remade the Sith Empire. She hid it well, but Sesai knew her better than most people did. (Not to mention, Zeltron telepathy was sort of cheating.) She didn't trust herself with power. It terrified her.

Which was sort of hilarious, really, given she'd literally just usurped a throne not that long ago. But, as far as he was concerned, people who didn't like power were the ones best suited to have it. So he wasn't complaining, it was just kinda funny.

Quieter, hardly above a whisper, she said, "What if I'm wrong?"

He shrugged. "Wrong by who's definition? Right and wrong are a matter of opinion. I'm inclined to trust yours."

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that."

"Then don't ask next time."

Lesami let out a harsh huff, shaking her head to herself. "I did walk into that, I guess."

He smirked. "You do have a habit of walking into things. Blasterfire, mostly."

"I guess," she said, a hint of laughter bleeding into her voice, "at least I manage to make it out untouched most of the time."

"Only most of the time?" Sesai didn't remember Lesami ever being seriously injured — there had been a few near misses, but...

"One of those things I walk into is your bed."

Shaking with a low chuckle, he said, "There is that. I see you've gone back to punning. Does that mean I managed to help?"

"Not really." That was underselling it somewhat — again, Zeltron telepathy was cheating. That heavy cloud hanging over her, growing far too familiar these days, that was still there. But it had retreated somewhat, if only a little, leaving Lesami feeling softer, looser. If only a little, if only for the moment.

Sesai nearly said something about that, again, but bit his tongue. It really wasn't his place. More to the point, she wouldn't do anything about it anyway.

"But it'll do for now. Just..." Lesami fidgeted a little, her feet shuffling. "Just, don't... If you do ever think I'm going too far, say something about it."

He didn't think that particularly likely — Lesami was far better at managing her own worst impulses than he would be. But there was no use in arguing the point. "Sure, I can do that. You coming back to bed, then?"

"What, you're looking to help me get to sleep again?"

"I certainly wouldn't say no..."

Shaking her head to herself, Lesami pushed off the wall, started back for the bed. He couldn't tell for sure, but he thought that there might be an exasperated look. "You're incorrigible, you know."

Oh, he did. There wasn't a whole lot he could do about that, and he didn't really care to try.

Of course, given that Lesami was already straddling him ten seconds later, she probably didn't care too much either.

Cina lingered at the door, watching silently. She wasn't sure she'd be welcome.

After waking up from her little drug-assisted nap, things were...different. She meant, it hadn't really gone away. The Force stuff. It was still there. Everything was still there — she could feel the contours of the inside of the ship, every surface, all the fixtures, all around her, she could feel their shape and their texture as clearly as though she were actually touching it all, with the very tips of her fingers, all of it at once. It was a bit disorienting, really, too much to pay attention to at once. She tried to just ignore it.

And that wasn't the only knew thing she was trying to ignore. She could... She could feel the other people on the ship, Mission and Zaalbar, Asyr and Carth, Kandosa, bright spots of warmth among cold emptiness, hot on her not-fingers, bright enough she could feel them from across the ship. Throwing off sparks by the hundreds, thoughts and feelings flying off of them into nothingness, too much, far too much, it hurt to look at them too closely, emotion and memory not her own flooding her head. It made talking to any of them sort of tense and uncomfortable. Everyone except Shan anyway — she didn't throw off sparks at all, her warmth oddly shadowed — but talking to her had already been difficult for other reasons.

Or perhaps they were uncomfortable with her now, not the other way around. She had just pulled magic powers out of nowhere. She could see how that might make people uncomfortable.

By the time she woke up, Mission had already been holed up in the com suite for a while. Tinkering with the ship's computer systems, as far as she could tell, she hadn't actually explained. Kandosa wasn't certain she'd spoken at all since they'd left Taris. The girl was slumped there in the single chair in the tiny room, reddened eyes fixed unblinkingly on the bank of screens in front of her, tapping away at the complicated-looking control panel. A meal pack sat at the edge of the board, had been there for some hours by the look of it, barely picked at.

More than she could see it, Cina could feel it. The sparks flying from her were heavy and dark, the air around her thick with shadows and fire. Mission was trying to distract herself, focus on something other than the obliteration of Taris, the murder of her whole world, everything she'd ever known. According to Kandosa, she hadn't even cried. She was pushing it away, but she couldn't do that forever, eventually it would feel real, and...

Cina wanted to help, but... What the fuck could she possibly say? Everyone Mission had ever known was likely dead — no words existed that could make that better. She had no idea what to do.

Her eyes turned to Zaalbar, sitting behind Mission, taking up the little available floorspace in the room. He had a gadget of some kind in his lap, half-disassembled, wires and circuit boards bared to the air. Whatever that was, he'd paused in his work, looking up at her.

She opened her mouth to speak, then cut off, glancing at Mission. She used RSL instead, Mission knew it so Zaalbar had probably picked it up at some point too. Are you okay?

Zaalbar's eye widened slightly. He set the whatever-it-was down in his lap, freeing his hands to talk. All the fur made it a little hard to make out the hand-shapes, but he was clearly used to working around that, emphasising harder and holding longer than would be expected. I will be fine. Taris was not my world for true. Good point — he hadn't been there nearly as long as Mission, and she'd gotten the impression she was the only person he really talked to anyway. I am worried for her by one.

Me too. Find me if you need whatever?

He blinked at her for a second — surprised? — before nodding. Promise.

Alright, then. Nodding back, Cina turned and walked into the main body of the ship.

When it came down to it, the Ebon Hawk, the ship they'd managed to liberate from an Exchange crime lord, was a perfectly typical light freighter. Of course, "perfectly typical" meant someone had modded and tweaked the thing to their heart's content. Whoever Kang had doing his work had done a rather thorough job, Cina would be surprised if it even had any stock parts anymore.

It was a fairly ordinary light freighter at first glance, though with a few more luxuries than most. All the surfaces were done in gleaming black and gold, shimmering under blue argon lights — the effect was a bit more solemn than she'd expected, but pleasant all the same. Measuring at about twenty-five metres in every direction (best she could guess by sight), it had everything one would expect from a ship meant to ferry modest crew and cargo. The cockpit at the front (which Cina hadn't even set foot in), the com station just behind it, crew bunks to the front of the wings, larger and taller cargo holds toward the rear, the middle taken up with a wide, open space, seemingly a fusion of kitchen, mess, and workshop.

All typical, though rather unusual in the details. The beds were surprisingly comfortable, the plush lounges and sofas looked to be made of real leather, the kitchen was an actual kitchen, not just the reprocessors that were all most people bothered with. (Which made her wonder why Mission had just been given a pre-prepped meal pack, but that didn't really matter right now.) There was some pretty serious tech sitting around, just the contents of that central room had to run millions of credits added up. The cargo bays were half-full of crate after crate, though they hadn't found a manifest, so they weren't sure exactly what all was in there. Kandosa was poking through them — he'd found a lot of food and replacement parts so far — but at the pace he was going the inventory would take a few days.

Cina was slightly surprised, walking into the central room, to find Asyr and Carth at the holotable, in the middle of a game of chess (or some variant, couldn't tell from here). She'd only left two minutes ago, they started up fast. To be honest, she was a little surprised they even knew how to play — it was a rather archaic game, only known in certain subcultures these days. She didn't have anything better to do at the moment, so she drifted over, took one of the empty seats.

Carth tensed with her presence, just noticeably, Cina's skin itching with his anxiety. And here she'd thought they'd gotten over his suspicion of her back on Taris. Silly her.

She should leave it be. She really should. They'd be landing on Dantooine tomorrow, and chances where she'd never see Carth again. As soon as he made contact with his superiors, he'd be recalled and reassigned somewhere — the galaxy was a big place, they'd be unlikely to run into each other if they didn't make a conscious effort to do so. But it just... Those side-eye glances just irritated her, okay. She knew he was thinking something disapproving to himself, and that was irritating, because she'd solved all his bloody problems for him, and he was looking at her like she might snap and kill them all or something.

She was so tired of their shite — Carth, Shan, both of them.

"If you have a problem with me, Onasi, just come out and say it."

Her hand halfway across the board, Asyr froze, eyes flicking between the two of them. "Ah... Would you like me to leave the room?"

"That depends on him, I suppose."

He shot her a moody glare, shook his head. "It doesn't matter." Turning away, with every sense of dismissal, he made his move.

A move which happened to be a terrible tactical blunder — he was leaving his centre far too vulnerable from the right — but he probably wouldn't appreciate Cina pointing that out. She was sure Asyr would take advantage of it anyway, he'd learn by getting his arse kicked. "It matters to me."

"Why should it?" He sounded oddly resentful saying that. Which was just confusing.

"Because you've suddenly reverted to watching me like I'm going to stab you in the back, and I have no idea why. It's annoying."

Asyr winced. Apparently, whatever Carth's problem was he'd told Asyr about it. She leaned back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest, settling in to wait for Carth to focus on the game again.

Because he had turned away, facing Cina with a hard, incredulous glare. "No idea? You have no idea what you did?"

Glaring right back, Cina drawled, "I don't know, the only thing I remember doing to you lately is accomplishing your mission with sparing little help from you. Maybe I should just not help you next time, if you're going to be an arse about it."

That didn't seem to make him any less angry with her. "It's how you did it that's the problem."

"I know you thought my ideas were a little, well, insane, but—

"Not that. Hell," voice bouncing with a humourless laugh, "you don't even see what the problem is! It's nothing to you, is it, what you did to those men."

She frowned. "Which men?" Did he mean the ones she'd taken out with the plasma grenades? Sure, she'd killed a couple dozen people all at once, and the results had been a bit gruesome, but surely Carth had seen worse than that by now, he shouldn't be reacting this badly.

"The ones you crushed against the wall."

It took her a second to remember which he was talking about. She'd killed four people — three, technically, she was pretty sure one had already been hit — with Force magic nonsense, pushing them so hard bones had shattered and skin burst, covering the wall with blood and viscera. At least, that was the vague sense she had? Honestly, she barely remembered it. She was all but certain she hadn't even meant to do it at the time. Hadn't known she could do it — it had been instinctual, she wasn't certain she'd be able to even lightly shove anything if she tried again now. "Oh. Er...so? I don't get it." Really, he'd seen her kill far more than four people...

"I've fought with Jedi before, Cina," he said, voice dropped to a low, harsh hiss. "I've seen Sith fight before. What you did to those men, it..." Carth trailed off, turned to stare off to her right, eyes slightly unfocused.

Which was just...weird. She honestly couldn't see what was so bad about what she'd done. Those men would have died either way. If anything, killing them the way she had was a mercy. Unless the shots that took them were very well-aimed, it'd take some long moments of agony for them to die, assuming they didn't live to be slowly crushed or cooked in the bombardment. What she'd done to them would have been virtually instant. They might not even have realised what was happening before it was over. It had been messy, she guessed, but...

"You were Sith, weren't you? Before."

"I still don't remember any of it." Well, she had a few memories here and there, but they were broken and disjointed — the only ones she could really make sense of were from earlier in her life. "I asked Shan about it, though. I'm told I was a Jedi, until I joined the Revanchists and continued on into the Sith."

Asyr's eyes widened, stomach-shivering sparks bursting in the air. She thought that might be surprise (this mind-reading thing was fucking weird), which was odd, because with how Asyr had reacted earlier she'd clearly already known what Carth was going to say. Had she thought he was wrong? Eh, didn't really matter — Asyr relaxed a moment later, fixing her with a rather odd look, but not any more tense than she'd been a moment ago. It clearly didn't make much of a difference to her.

Carth, though, his face twisted with a scowl, eyes hot with anger. But it was more than that, something hard and sharp, like cold nails dragging across her skin, she couldn't quite suppress a shiver. (If she could remember how to turn off this Force empathy thing, that'd be great.) He might be trying to look like he was angry, but Cina was pretty sure that was pain of some kind. Betrayal, maybe? "I should have known. You're just insane enough to be Sith."

Taken aback by the venom suddenly appearing in his voice, it took Cina a couple seconds to find her own. "That's funny, it wasn't that long ago you were saying I'm just insane enough to be a Jedi."

"Oh, cute. Nice to know you're taking this seriously."

"I think I'm being exactly as serious as this nonsense deserves."

Okay, that — heat pressing against her, like standing too close to a fire, hundreds of tiny insects pinching at her skin — that was anger. "What, it doesn't even matter to you? Empire, Republic, who cares?"

Cina shrugged. "I really don't remember anything, but I realise we were fighting on opposite sides of a war. I don't see why that should mean—"

"It's not about opposite sides of—" Carth forced out a thick sigh, one hand coming up to run through his hair. "It's not so simple as sides, Cina. The Sith, they're, they're... They're just evil."

It was probably only going to make him angrier, but it had already happened before she could even try to stop herself — Cina rolled her eyes. That pinching heat did get worse, Cina spoke before he could say something likely inane. "Oh, honestly, Carth, are you a bloody child? That's what societies at war always say: the other side is cruel and depraved, we are good and virtuous. Every time, it's perfectly predictable. The Sith are evil, I mean, really, you realise there are tens of trillions of beings in the Empire? Shite, probably hundreds. And they're all evil, are they? I'm sure."

"I don't mean all the ordinary beings trapped under their heel—"

"Under whose heel? You do realise the Empire is a syndical democracy?"

"Hjanethe, you're showing your Imperial bias." That faint expression on Asyr's face, as hard to read as Bothans could be, looked like amusement. Through the weird synesthetic empathy thing Cina was trying to get used to, it felt more ambiguous, oddly...she didn't know, twitchy? Not entirely sure how to read that. "The Republic and the Empire use the word differently. When the Empire says 'Sith', it's a general term applied to all of their citizens. The Republic just uses it for their Jedi, and sometimes their military."

"Oh." Cina hadn't noticed that. That was, just, sort of silly, wasn't it? The Sith had been a single species, originally, the same term eventually extending to cover the whole of their multiracial society. Restricting the word to a much smaller organisation, who were and always had been a tiny minority was just...well, "silly" really was the best word for it.

His glare narrowing on Asyr now, Carth bit out, "Those monsters aren't Jedi."

Asyr's brow twitched, that tickling sense of amusement running along Cina's spine intensifying. "They have inexplicable magic powers and run about waving around lightsabers. Scan like Jedi to me."

"The Sith actually inherited the use of lightsabers from the Jedi," Cina said, almost without even meaning to. "A splinter sect of the Jedi, exiled from the Republic about three thousand years ago, stumbled across the Sith homeworld. The old Sith had their native traditions, of course, but the Jedi and the Sith seem so similar for a reason — they have common heritage. Of course, the most visible of the modern Sith were trained by the Order in the first place, so..."

With another burst of amusement, Asyr rumbled, "Thank you, Professor."

"Shush, you."

Carth clearly didn't think appreciate their joking around. His eyes only more venomous than they'd been a moment ago — though, for the moment, still focused on Asyr — he said, in something more like a low growl than a proper human voice, "I just can't believe you don't care at all. If it makes no difference to you, why are you fighting with us at all?"

"Obviously, it does make a difference to us." One of Asyr's shoulders rose in a languid shrug. (An imitated human gesture, Bothans didn't do that amongst themselves.) "I can't tell you why we decided to ally with you — I'm not privy to Council meetings. I know for a fact that the Empire offered an alliance as well, but we chose the Republic in the end. We must have thought fighting with you was in the best interests of the Bothan people. I don't know what that interest is, but I trust it is so.

"We don't see this as the black-and-white moral conflict you do. It is a war, and all wars are the same when you get down to it. Perhaps, since it is less personal to us, it is simply easier for us to see both Republic and Empire as they are."

"This isn't like other wars. The Sith have to be stopped."

"So every nation has always said of its foes."

"Other people don't kill whole planets!"

Asyr sniffed. "We're just forgetting the Kiirium Reaches ever existed, then."

That actually managed to break Carth's anger, if only for a moment. Blinking in mute confusion, he managed only, "The what?"

"You want to take this one, Professor?"

"I suppose I could." Cina tried not to smile — that would only make Carth annoyed again. "You probably know the Hutts fought a vicious defensive war against the Tionese over twenty thousand years ago. Some generations later, when the Tionese first made contact with the young Republic, the Hutts feared the two human-dominated powers would unite against them. So, in preparation for an invasion that never came, the Hutts attacked the Kiirium Reaches, along their border with the Tionese. The entire human population of every single one of those planets was annihilated with fission bombs and destroyed the hyperspace beacons, which were still necessary for interstellar travel at the time, reducing the entire area to an inhospitable, unnavigable wasteland. We don't know exactly how many Tionese-settled worlds there were in the region, but it had to be dozens."

In an overly casual drawl, Asyr said, "I'm not surprised it's not mentioned in the standard Republic history curriculum. It was so very long ago, and the Perlemian War followed soon after. Not to mention, the Kiirium Reaches were on the far rim, outside of the Republic and settled by enemies — why should your Republic care?"

"I'm from the rim, you know," Carth said through grit teeth.

"Yes, but you don't decide what history is taught in Republic schools."

Carth forced out a low grunt, as though reluctantly acknowledging the point. "I'm not saying the Sith have a monopoly on evil. The Hutts aren't as bad, but they're not far from it."

This time, the derisive laugh burst past Cina's lips before she could stop it. Carth turned a glare on her, but she managed to get control of herself before he could start yelling at her. "I'm sorry, Carth, but are you trying to suggest the Republic has never done anything equally as monstrous? I mean, even just speaking of the Tionese, do you remember how the Perlemian War actually ended? The Tionese offered an unconditional surrender. The Republic refused to accept it. Instead, they parked their fleet over Deservo, which was the Tionese capitol at the time, and levelled the entire planet. The death toll is estimated to be over forty billion, most of them innocent civilians. Twenty thousand years later, and Deservo has still never fully recovered, it remains a sparsely-developed ruin to this day.

"And that's hardly the last time the Republic did something reprehensible. The Coruscanti bombardment of Alsakan in the eleventh millennium killed billions and devastated the environment, it took a century of terraforming before the world was habitable again. The settlement of the rim is replete with innumerous atrocities — exterminations and enslavements of native civilisations, mostly. To this day, Republic owned and operated corporations still enslave billions on the rim. And, let's not forget the Pius Dea Crusades, a thousand years of constant war fought with the explicit intent of genocide. No, the Republic is hardly so noble and innocent as you pretend."

"What, because the Republic did something bad ten thousand years ago, it's perfectly fine if the Sith do the same thing now?"

Under her breath, Asyr started hissing in her native language. Curses often weren't directly translatable, but the general feel of it was about typical humans being self-righteous idiots. Not surprising, seeing as how the Bothans successfully managed to beat back assaults by the Pius Dea Republic multiple times, though not without losses. Losses deep enough the scars were still visible throughout much of their culture, thousands of years later — the Bothans hadn't been nearly so militant of a people as they were now before the Crusades had forced them to adapt to survive, and the war remained the primary reason they'd never actually joined the Republic.

Cina shrugged. "Seven thousand years ago, actually, and the Crusades were far worse than anything the Sith have done. Just ask the Dalinar, or the Teirasan, or the Marshak, or the Kwenni, or the Namlhta, or the Dras — oh wait, you can't, they don't exist anymore. But no, that's not what I'm saying. You're the one picking sides. I don't have any stake in this one way or the other."

"You were a Sith!"

"So Shan tells me. But I don't see what that has to do anything, it's not like I remember it. Honestly, I don't see why I should care which one comes out on top. I mean, you were just on a Sith planet — did daily life for average people really seem that different to you? Taris is a border world, and one with its own problems at that, but you can't honestly say it was any better under the Republic."

"They're all being murdered right this second!"

"Well, yes, but I'd bet you anything Alek ordered that. Everybody knows he's a homicidal maniac. They—"

"Malak."

Cina blinked at the interruption, raised an eyebrow at Asyr. "What?"

"You're showing your Imperial bias again. The Republic still uses his pseudonym from the Mandalorian War."

"Ah. I'm going to keep using his real name, thanks — 'Malak' just sounds silly. Anyway," she said, turning back to Carth, "as I was saying, they have lunatics like Alek, or Cariaga, or Talvon, or Voren, but they also have people like Nisotsa, Saul, Sesai, Yenish, Harna— Okay, what now?"

Asyr was chuckling, a low, harsh rumble, the tickling running across Cina's skin so strong it was distracting. "I'm sorry, but, do you even realize you're calling all these infamous Sith by their first names?"

The only answer Cina had for that was an exasperated roll of her eyes.

Carth entirely ignored the byplay. Frowning so hard his brow almost appeared physically thicker, eyes so intense they almost burned, he growled, "If you can think Saul Karath is a good man, you really are insane."

"Ah..." When it came down to it, Cina couldn't think of why she had such a positive opinion of Admiral Karath — all she knew of him was from Republic propaganda, cast as a hero in one war and a villain in the next. "Well, he does have something of a noble reputation, doesn't he?"

His glare only grew hotter, Cina's skin itched with it. "Maybe he did, before he murdered my entire homeworld."

She blinked. That sort of explained a lot — Carth did seem to be making this whole Sith thing strangely personal. If he was from Telos, well, she couldn't exactly blame him for being irrational about the Sith, could she? "Alek is responsible for Telos."

"What difference does that make?!"

Her mouth opened to answer, but she stopped, let it slowly fall closed again. No institution, especially one as complex as an interstellar government, was monolithic. They were composed of individual beings, with individual motives and interests. From an internal perspective, which faction was involved in specific endeavours, even which individual, that could become critically important. It could make all the difference.

(She could kill him for this. She should kill him for this—)

But to someone on the outside? What did such internal distinctions look like to them? Were they even visible at all? After a brief, uncomfortable silence, Cina finally said, "I suppose it doesn't. Just as it wouldn't make a difference to you if I said I'm all but positive I was one of Revan's people."

His lip curling, as though he'd just bit into something intolerably bitter, Carth slowly shook his head. "They're both traitors and murderers."

"As they are, so am I, and so I'll always be to you. So I guess we have nothing more to say to each other."

"No, I guess we don't." Shoving himself up to his feet, Carth flicked his king, the illusory game piece tipping over. "You were going to win, anyway." Then he stalked away, stomping off toward the right-side crew bunks.

Well. That could have gone better.

Somewhat reluctantly, Cina turned a questioning look back on Asyr. Switching languages, as she usually did when they were alone, she said, "We're not going to have a problem now, are we?"

Asyr let out a short, amused huff. "I fail to see why I should be angry with you for circumstances you have no control over and do not remember."

"I shouldn't think so, but there went Carth."

"The Captain is a loyal soldier." Asyr said it flatly, with a note of finality, as though that explained everything one might want to know, and there was no need to discuss it any further. Which, in a way, it did, and there wasn't. "Since I didn't get my game out of Onasi?"

Cina frowned down at the game board. It was very vague, far at the back of her head, too fuzzy to get a clear image, but a few impressions floated to the surface. A dusty room cast with slanted evening sunlight, the twining smells of exotic tisanes and tangy pastries, smooth ceramic against her fingers, a lined, laughing face framed with curling silver hair — Yuse, that was his name, her great-uncle Yuse. "Are you sure about that? I have a feeling I'm quite good."

"Let's find out, shall we?"

By the time dinner came around, they'd discovered "quite good" was something of an understatement.

"Shan, can I ask you something?"

While she did still tense at the sound of Cina's voice, she relaxed significantly quicker than she had before. At least, so long as Asyr wasn't around — Shan had stormed off to sleep in the common room last night, but not before making it very clear she didn't approve. Which had just been irritating. What Cina and Asyr might or might not got up to with each other was absolutely none of the snobby Jedi's business.

Not that Cina had complained about her leaving — with Mission still holed up in the coms station with Zaalbar she and Asyr had had the room to themselves.

When Shan turned to face her, her brow was just slightly lowered with irritation, as though she knew exactly what Cina had just been thinking. "What is it?"

"Do you feel that?"

The frown deepened slightly. "Feel what?"

"I don't know." She didn't really remember how this Force... This sixth-sense thing was very confusing, she guessed. She knew she should be able to control it, she just didn't remember how. Which essentially meant she'd regressed to the skills she'd had as a child — she had a vague feeling she'd always had this, but the Jedi had taught her how to control it. She didn't remember how to turn it off, nor how to focus it on a particular thing. It was just...there, like a thousand hands constantly touching everything around her.

Which could be rather disorienting at times, but not all bad — Asyr naked was rather more interesting now, for one thing.

"I think..." Cina trailed off, trying to figure out exactly what she thought. It was such a vague feeling she'd been getting, she wasn't even entirely certain it was there at all, she didn't know how to... "Do you... Do you ever have the feeling we're not alone on this ship?"

Shan stared at her for a moment, still and heavy. "I have not felt anything of the like. But you have?"

"I don't know. I just..." Cina had no idea. It was so subtle, like a distant echo hardly heard, quiet enough to suspect she'd never heard it at all. She'd only bothered asking Shan at all because she couldn't figure it out herself. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just imagining it."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. If the Force is trying to speak to you, it would be unwise to ignore it."

That was completely unhelpful. As usual.

Cina hadn't even had time to put the issue completely out of mind when it was whispering at her again. On the way toward the right-side cargo bay, where she was certain she could find Kandosa tinkering away, she jerked to a halt in the middle of the kitchen as something passed by her. Not something she could see, certainly, and not really anything she could feel either. It was as a breath of wind, weak, hardly strong enough to pick at a couple hairs, but not a physical wind, something more... She didn't know, she didn't have the language for this weird Force stuff. Something had just been there, anyway.

No, not something. Someone. She was sure of it now. She couldn't say how, but she knew. There was someone else here. Someone who'd remained perfectly hidden for a full day, even from a Jedi.

That...was unsettling.

Acting more on instinct than any real thought, Cina shuffled into motion, drifting across the common room. She followed the faintest scent on the air — though it wasn't a scent, really. More a subtle charge, the taste of a storm about to strike, lightning withheld, but thin, so thin, almost too little to follow. Cina thought she'd lost it more than once, but she kept finding it again, a bare thread drawing her deeper into the ship, further, step by step.

Into the left-side cargo bay. It led her between the towers of crates, down one row, across a column, then down another row...then back to the first one. She hadn't gotten lost, if anything she was getting closer, her quarry trying to lose her. And she was frightened now, this mystery person she was following. She felt it as phantom ice sliding against her spine, pins prickling at her skin, and she was closer now, whoever it was had nowhere to go, they both knew it.

When that something came again, not-wind brushing past her face, Cina's hand snapped out down and to her right without thought. It landed on something solid, the contact drawing the hidden person out into the light.

Cina frowned — it was a little girl. She couldn't be older than ten, if she was even that old, dressed in dirty tatters, grease smeared all over her skin, matted hair so filthy Cina couldn't be certain what colour it was supposed to be. Her legs and arms were scrawny, covered in nicks and scratches, thin enough Cina could make out every contour of the bones of her bare feet and ankles.

And she was so bright. Standing next to her was like standing too close to a furnace, looking too directly into a sun, but it didn't hurt, exactly. The effect was more like, like having too much caf in one sitting, the light making her twitchy, almost giddy. It was hard to believe, now, that neither she nor Shan had noticed this had been on the ship the whole time.

Of course, the girl's fear also exploded across her at the same time the rest did — that was far less pleasant, sharp and hot and nauseating. The girl screamed and flailed, tried to pull away from Cina, slapping at her arm. "No, don't — I'm sorry, I didn't mean — let me go, no—"

Cina snapped out of it in a couple seconds, tearing her metaphorical eyes away from what she instinctively knew was the girl's...whatever it was called. Jedi magic shite, all that, whatever. She lifted her hand away from the girl's shoulder, lifted them both up, palm-out. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay." It was only after she spoke that Cina realised the girl had been yelling in Mandoa.

The girl did stop yelling — instantly, like someone had hit her pause button — but she didn't seem to actually believe Cina. She had her back pressed against a nearby crate, bright green eyes fixed solidly on Cina's, still and sharp and unmoving. Waiting.

Forcing her voice low and gentle, the Mandoa sounding almost musical, Cina said, "You are very clever, to hide here so long. My name is Cina. What is yours?"

Her eyes narrowed into a suspicious glare. She searched Cina's face for something over long seconds, before finally deciding to answer. "Vesaise of Sulem."

Cina held back the urge to frown, not wanting to scare the girl any further. At the end of the War, Revan — who, having defeated the Mandalor in a formal duel, had technically been the new (interim) Mandalor — had ordered the clans to disperse, sending Mandoade society into a disorganised galaxy-wide diaspora. It hadn't gone perfectly smoothly: the Sulem, one of the more powerful clans of Jakelia, had been drawn into a running battle with a few of their traditional rivals. By the end, the Sulem had been a broken shadow of their former selves, limping out into obscurity in the wider galaxy.

Where exactly had she learned all this shite about Mandoade anyway? Okay, during the war, she guessed, but really...

The point was, she wouldn't expect to find a Sulem hidden away in a crime lord's personal ship. And by the look of her, she'd been here for some time. "It's an honour to stand with you, Sasha."

The girl twitched, some of the tension leaking out of her. She didn't say anything, just stared up at Cina with a crooked, peculiar sort of look on her face. Probably at the overly formal greeting she'd just used, which would never ordinarily be used with a child. Or maybe it was the improvised nickname — Mission would certainly make her own anyway — could be either one.

"How long have you been in here?"

Sasha stared at her for another long, tense moment. "I dunno."

"You don't know?"

"I was counting days, at first. But I was doing it by marking a box, and they moved it away, so I stopped." Talking that much at once, it was far more obvious she hadn't spoken in quite a while, her voice shaky and hoarse.

"How high did you count?"

"Two hundred fifty-nine."

Cina imagined the little girl counting up tally marks stitching across the inside of a crate, and felt her stomach twist. "How long ago was that?"

"Long. Less than before the box was gone, maybe, but long."

So she'd been on this ship, hiding away from slavers and murderers, living off of whatever she could steal, for probably a year and maybe more. That... Well, she was incredibly lucky she'd never been found, even to be alive. "How did you get here?"

"I hid."

Cina almost laughed at the flat delivery of the uninformative answer. But she held it in, because she had the feeling the full story was less than amusing. "Well, you don't have to hide anymore, Sasha. We stole this ship from the scumbags who had it before. We're not like them, none of us are going to hurt you. I can help you find your family again, if you like."

"They're dead." Sasha's face didn't even twitch.

Yeah, she'd thought they might be. "We'll figure something out, then. Right now—"

"What are you doing talking to yourself back here?"

With the smallest yelp of surprise, Sasha vanished. Instantly, without a trace, as though she'd never existed at all.

Even as Kandosa rounded the corner of the row, Cina met him with a glare. "Honestly, Kandosa, can your timing be any worse? The girl's terrified enough without a huge bloody warrior showing up out of nowhere."

Kandosa's scarred eyebrow ticked up his forehead. Matching her glare with a heavy, cold one of his own, he grumbled, "What girl?"

"Kang had a Mandoade stowaway. She's been doing Jedi things to hide on the ship for a year or more." Amusingly, 'do Jedi things' really was the best way there was to say it in Mandoa.

"You're fucking with me."

"That would make things simpler, wouldn't it?" Raising her voice a little, throwing it back into the softer register she'd been using a minute ago, "It's okay, Sasha. This is Kandosa of Ordo, he's a friend of mine. I know he looks hard as steel, but he's soft as spongecake on the inside."

Kandosa scowled. "I never should have made that joke. You'll never stop punishing me for it, will you?"

"That doesn't seem likely."

Faintly, from somewhere above her and to her left, Sasha's thin voice said, "I saw him." Kandosa jumped, wide eyes casting all around the room, even straight over their heads, trying to find her — apparently, he hadn't taken Cina's word for it. "He fights with the Ken."

Kandosa put that together more quickly than she did. "I don't work for that traitorous coward anymore. Cina here helped me kill him and take his ship. She cut him in half, it was hilarious."

Cina wasn't entirely sure if she should consider that a compliment or not. She certainly didn't see what was so funny about it — it'd been sort of anticlimactic, really.

There was another of Sasha's long, eerie silences. "Did she get Calo too?"

"Calo?"

"That was the other idiot you sliced up. Yeah, kid, Calo's dead too."

A few thin giggles bounced down from somewhere near the top of one of the stacks of crates. "Good."

For some inexplicable reason, Kandosa actually smiled at that, his eyes going uncharacteristically bright. Mandoade. "That shithead do something to piss you off?"

"He killed my mother," Sasha whispered, soft and cold. "And my uncles. And my brother. He took my sister, and took her to the Ken. I could hear them." She paused, for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was lower, at floor level behind Cina. "It's good he's dead."

For a few long seconds, Cina and Kandosa just silently stared at each other.

Finally, he muttered, "Have I ever mentioned how much I hated those Exchange slugs?"

Cina shrugged. "It's come up. I kind of regret that these two died so quickly now."

"Yeah, for some people a lasersword—" She held back a guffaw at the Mandoa portmanteau. "—is far too easy a way to go."

"It is a Jedi weapon, they are pansies like that."

"Yeah, no wonder you left."

She just smirked back — she had a feeling wanting to make people who deserved it suffer was actually rather low on the list of reasons she'd left the Jedi, but there was no need to linger on the point. "Right, then." Cina turned to look behind her. At some point Sasha had reappeared, standing a few steps away. There was a peculiar, curious sort of look on her face, bright eyes flicking between Cina and Kandosa. Trying to figure them out, she would guess. "Let's get you cleaned up, Sasha. I don't think we have any clothes that'll fit you though, we'll figure it out."

Kandosa snorted. "'We'? You're the one pulling mysterious children out of thin air. This looks like your problem to me."

"Fuck you, Kandosa."

He gave her a crooked grin, turned to walk away. Before slipping out of sight, he called over his shoulder, "Sure, you know where to find me."

Despite herself, Cina couldn't hold in a chuckle. Mandoade, honestly...

The disorganised chaos of hyperspace stuttered, like the framerate of a video abruptly dropping. Starting at a point directly ahead, spots of black opened up, extending to streak back around them, starting as narrow belts but quickly expanding, until the black was all there was, the only remnants of light tiny, static dots of white and blue and red.

The largest, brightest object in the sky was Dantooine itself. Asyr had plotted a safe, conservative course, placing them far enough away the planet only filled roughly half of the view, the curving arc of the day side brilliant against stellar night, the distant sun setting the brilliant white clouds painfully afire. From this distance, Dantooine appeared to be an ordinary CL-class world, if exceptionally undeveloped. Cina spotted great plains coloured yellowish-brown about the equator, the vegetation transitioning into a peculiar soft purple in the temperate belts, along the ocean shores and in a few places inland around lakes, in thin lines around rivers invisible from this distance, a muddy greenish-brownish colour, presumably forests of some kind. The seas were a deep, vibrant blue, a band of a lighter shade extending a finger's width above the horizon, without a hint of industrial haze. The planet looked virtually untouched, the native vegetation unbroken by urban development, no scars from industrial-scale mining, a world left untouched by the greater galaxy.

"Not untouched. Forgotten."

Her vision going fuzzy, colours and shapes blurring together, Cina's head swam, sending her first teetering against the back of Mission's chair, then to her knees, a rush of roaring black crashing over—

"The Dark Side is powerful in this place." It was a man's voice, coming thin and faded, as though from far away, his partially-suppressed rim drawl touched with mixed awe and unease.

"That's not darkness." This was a woman's, equally faded, the slightest hint of eager fascination brightening her meticulous, cultured core accent. "This place is very old, it remembers. That's mourning you feel."

"Are you sure you know what you're doing? The ancient Jedi must have sealed this all away for a reason."

"You're still too willing to take their good intentions on faith."

The woman reached out, not with a hand but something more intangible, yet all the more real for it. Something reached back, a blazing arch cast in life and intent etched into stone and steel, the land around them shuddering with sleeping potential, vestigial fingers reaching out for the stars.

"Besides, the Jedi didn't seal this, the Builders did."

"It's not too late, you know." Pleadingly but, affection frustrated, with no expectation to be affirmed. "Sami, we don't have to do this. We can still go away."

"We talked about this." Exasperation, resentment, impatience, affection strained. "You're not going to change my mind by pestering me about it."

"You can't blame a guy for trying."

Teasingly, sardonically, "I think you'll find, Alek, that I can do whatever I like."

The arch shivered, it sang, ancient symbols from a forgotten language flared, and the seam split, death and light and endless time spilling out into the Dantooine night.

With a sudden jolt, hard enough a groan jerked its way up her throat, Cina was released, leaving her shivering against the metal floor. Her vision was still blurred, her ears filled with a fuzzy warbling, but she knew, somehow, she was back in the cockpit of the Ebon Hawk, Mission and Zaalbar crouching over her, the air thick with voices raised in confusion and panic.

Also? Her head really fucking hurt.

Thankfully, she recovered quickly, in a few seconds coming back to herself enough she could sit up, with a little assistance from Mission, propped up against the wall under the main systems board. Even that much had her feeling hot and shaky, but that faded in a few seconds, strength gradually returning. "No, I don't have any idea what that was," she said, to a question from Mission she'd only heard the tail half of, her own voice sounding hoarse and unsteady to her own ears.

"A vision." Shan's voice sounded oddly weak too, a quick peek around the nearest seat showed the Jedi was looking exceptionally pale, a sheen of sweat across her forehead. Her eyes were a little out of focus, staring at nothing, hand kneading the side of her head. "Though a rather...unusual one. I cannot be entirely certain what, as it was too indistinct, but after the war Revan and Malak did something here that left an echo, of sorts."

Under the hot pounding that hadn't gotten much better, a peculiar tingle swept through her head. "You saw it too."

"Yes."

"Is that...normal? For two people to get the same vision at the same time?"

Shan went peculiarly still. For a long moment, she stared unblinkingly off into the middle distance, silently mulling over something — long enough Cina wasn't certain she would answer at all. Finally, "No, that is not normal."

Cina frowned. Shan really was bloody transparent — she wasn't telling her something, something important. Confronting her on it now wouldn't accomplish anything, so Cina made a quick mental note to research simultaneous visions at some point. That...was a thing she would be able to research, right? The Jedi down there would certainly have a library, and if anyone were to have anything on such an esoteric topic it would be them. That felt like a reasonable thing to believe, so, yes, that was probably correct.

She was starting to get the hang of this suppressed Jedi instincts thing, but it still felt very strange.

There was a click and a hiss, startling her enough she twitched, a voice slightly distorted by compression artifacts ringing through the cockpit. "Dinar Control to Imperial shuttle four-dorn mark cresh-four-nine-set: state your business in this system immediately or be determined hostile."

"Shit! The transponder! Sorry!" Mission jumped up to her feet, reached for one of the panels over Cina's head. Muttering a fluid stream of Huttese curses under her breath, she pulled the panel open, started fiddling with the innards of one system or another.

Her voice a low growl, Asyr said, "Any second now would be good, Mission."

"Just a second, I almost— There!" The panel clanged closed again, Mission's fingers typing in a command and flipping a couple switches so quickly Cina could hardly follow it. "Done."

"Good work." Asyr might not be very friendly, but at least she knew how to give praise when it was deserved — hacking the standard transponder signal was difficult enough, but setting up a system that could switch codes that quickly was a neat trick. (Take notes, Shan.) "Sorry about that, Control, we were just running a Sith blockade a couple days ago. Forgot to take the mask off."

Cina snorted — a transponder mask was far, far simpler than what Mission had actually done, but it was also far less illegal. Still illegal, of course, just a minor enough of an offense undeveloped rim worlds like Dantooine were unlikely to have any local authority who would make a fuss about it.

There was a short pause, Control sounding particularly unamused when he came back. "Forgive me if I'm hesitant to take your word for it, Ebon Hawk."

In her native language, Asyr muttered something that roughly translated to, "Idiot bureaucrat, I'll rip your proud tongue out if you don't roll over."

Cina snorted. "That might be hard to do from here."

"Allow me my fantasy, Hjanethe." Flicking the com back on, Asyr continued in Basic. "Control, my name is Asyr Lar'sym, a commissioned officer with Bothaw Combined. My copilot is Captain Carth Onasi, whom I'm certain you've heard of. Shoot us down, if you like, but you might find yourself the target of considerably uncomfortable questions in the coming days."

"Uuuhhhhhh..."

Wow, that's professional. Frontier planets, sometimes...

Before this farce could go on any longer, Shan pushed herself to her feet, leaning between Carth and Asyr to loom over the coms panel. "This is Jedi Bastila Shan. Forgive the confusion, Control, we've had a complicated trip. The Council already knows we're here — we'll be landing outside Dinar Enai."

"Oh, uh, of course, Master Jedi. Sorry. Uh. Thank you." The channel closed with a soft squelch.

"I think you made the kid nervous," Cina muttered. Not that that was entirely surprising — she might be rather young yet, but Shan had already managed to make herself a household name throughout the Republic.

Shan, though, assumed Cina was mocking her, and shot her a light glare. Couldn't blame her for that either, really.

The flight down to the surface was exceptionally smooth, Carth guiding the Hawk into the atmosphere as soft and light as a feather. By the time Cina felt steady enough to stand again, they were already only a few moments from landing, the viewport dominated by a sky turned pink and yellow from approaching sunset, rolling hills thick with long, waving grasses cast yellow and orange by the fading light. There was nothing but grass, for miles and miles, broken here and there by protruding granite, an occasional twisted, spiky tree. Pretty, but plain.

Even as the dull, blocky shapes of artificial structures started breaking over the horizon, a cold shiver ran up Cina's spine. Unbidden, her eyes turned to the side, staring at the metal of the cockpit a half metre from her face. But not seeing it, looking further, kilometres away, drawn to something she knew but could not see.

Somehow, she knew exactly where Lesami and Alek had gone.

As far as towns went, Dinar Enai was a rather pathetic example of one. A modest collection of little buildings formed of native stone, a ring of newer ones along the edge simple prefabs, Cina doubted it covered even a kilometre square. The largest feature was the Jedi complex itself, a permacrete building with multiple wings and a couple low towers, the whole thing composed of soft, curving lines, a sizeable courtyard cut out in the centre, surrounded by walkpaths and gardens. The rest of the town was only slightly larger, mostly humble houses, by the look of it a handful of stores and basic workshops.

The town was small enough it didn't even have a proper landing pad — a small collection of craft were clumped at the southeast fringe, near a small com tower and what looked like the crowns of industrial fuel pumps, the structure mostly buried. Carth just picked a patch of grass, no different than any other, and came to a gentle landing, the rocky soil firm enough to support the Hawk's weight.

They'd barely been on the ground for a minute before Shan was heading out, saying something about needing to report to the Council. On the way she gave Cina a lingering, anxious look, which she supposed was supposed to be subtle — Cina had the feeling she would feature heavily in that report. The rest of them gathered around the holotable, sitting in uncomfortable silence. Mission and Zaalbar were already fiddling away at their own projects, as they were almost every minute of every day, and by the look of it Carth and Asyr were working on tracking down the first shuttle that would get them back to civilisation.

Cina watched them all for a moment, wondering if she should be saying anything to any of them. She didn't think there was anything important she needed to be dealing with right now. Actually, there was one thing. Cina pulled out a datapad, queried the town's network for a directory. Not surprisingly, Cina hadn't found anything suitable on board for Sasha to wear — there were changes of clothes stashed away, but Carth was the only one any of them would actually fit.

She had managed to get Sasha cleaned up, not that that had gone very easily at all. Tempting her out of the cargo hold to the fresher had been difficult enough, the skittish girl disappearing (literally) at any unexpected noise or quick movement, but convincing her to take off her rags and get in the tub had taken even longer. (There actually was an oversized bathtub, with massage jets and everything, which was just absurd for a ship this size, but Kang had liked his luxuries.) Talking Sasha into it had proven to be simply impossible, and Cina knew without having to try that physically directing her would be a bad idea. In the end, Cina had undressed and gotten in first, but even then Sasha hadn't even started following for another five minutes, still temporarily vanishing from view every time Cina even slightly startled her.

It had become clear rather quickly that Sasha's hair was simply unrecoverable — she'd had to just cut most of it off. That hadn't been easy either, the traumatised girl reacting with predictable terror to Cina approaching her with something sharp. It'd taken quite a bit of convincing for Sasha to let her come close enough. Actually, once again, the talking hadn't done much good at all, she'd only managed it by leaving a knife out for Sasha to take and hold on to.

This kid was seriously messed up. It was impossible to not notice, but Cina tried to avoid thinking about it anyway.

She'd just picked the clothing store in town that sounded more promising (there were only two), when Kandosa walked into the room. "Right. This was fun. Everybody off my ship."

There was a bit of grumbling at that, mostly from Carth and Zaalbar, and a bit of shouting, entirely from Mission. Smiling to herself, Cina waited for it to die down a bit before cutting over her in Mandoa. "Your ship? I don't see that this is your ship, Kandosa. You couldn't have taken it without our help. You had the idea, but I did most of the killing, and Mission did all the tech work."

Her face coming closer to her familiar grin than it had in the last couple days, Mission yelled, "Yeah! What she said!"

Kandosa's lips twitched with what looked like an involuntary smile, just for an instant before he ruthlessly suppressed it, spearing Mission with a doubtful glare. "I know you don't speak Mandoa, ad'ika. You have no idea what she just said."

"Well, no, but I heard my name, so I assume she's saying we get to stay. Right?"

It could be her imagination, as stony as he could make himself, but Cina was pretty sure Kandosa was suppressing another expression far too soft for his reputation. Mission was adorable. Cina had to hide her own mocking smirk, that wouldn't make him any more agreeable. "Actually, I was saying this ship is just as much ours as his — arguably more, depending how you look at it."

"Oh, that, what she said, that's way better."

"You're welcome, Mission. On top of that," Cina said, turning back to Kandosa, "there's our little stowaway I found in the cargo hold. I distinctly recall you saying she's my problem. Well, I can't exactly take care of my problem if I'm not around, can I?"

Kandosa scowled. "I could always kick her off with you."

With a low snort of laughter, Cina said, "Good luck. I can hardly convince her to take ten steps out of that one damn room. And you can't force her out — if she doesn't want you to find her, you never will. Shan didn't even notice she was there."

"I could just leave her there. She doesn't get in the way."

"Like you would actually leave an orphaned Mandoade girl to rot alone."

Kandosa's scowl turned venomous.

"Look, how about this." Cina turned back to her datapad, in a few seconds had open the node for SRS's transfer service. A bit of fiddling, and she'd set up a weekly payment from her inexplicable fortune to the same private account Kandosa had had her pay into for his help on the rescue mission. "There. I presume you will find that acceptable."

For a few seconds, he stared at her in impassive confusion, before he started at a low beep — moving slowly, giving her a narrow-eyed look of suspicion, he pulled out his own pad. He stared at it for some seconds before finding his voice. "This is..."

Cina switched back to Mandoa. "A hundred thousand credits a week, yes."

He glanced up, blankly stared at her for long seconds. "And you realise this is five times what Davik was paying me." His voice came low, slow, sounding absolutely flabbergasted.

"Really? I didn't know that, actually. No wonder you were looking for outside work — that's far less than you're worth."

Face splitting with a toothy grin, Kandosa barked out a shocked laugh. "Woman, you're nuts, but you're my kind of nuts."

With a prim little smile, she said, "I suppose I'm meant to take that as a compliment." The overly-proper, dignified sort of tone she was trying for sounded plain strange in Mandoa.

"If you like." Still chuckling to himself, Kandosa started across the room; Cina pushed herself to her feet to meet him. Roughly clasping her forearm, he said in Basic (presumably for Mission's benefit), "We've got us a deal, Boss. But, if your credit dries up, we're going to have to continue our talk about the ship."

Cina nodded. "Understood." She really didn't think it'd be a problem — she had been able to withdraw twenty million credits all at once without any snags, if her account permissions allowed that a hundred thousand a week should be no problem at all.

Now that that was taken care of, Cina set off on her little errand. She made a token attempt at getting Sasha to come with her, but, predictably, that hardly went anywhere, the girl wouldn't even come as far as the ramp. Which, that was fine, her participation wasn't strictly necessary — Cina was pretty sure she could guess her size well enough by sight. She took a last lingering look at Mission on the way out, just in case. To prevent any possible snags, they'd been carrying only the necessities with them, so Mission and Zaalbar had been forced to leave virtually everything they owned behind. Cina had the feeling she didn't care about this sort of thing too much — since they'd met a couple weeks ago now, she'd only ever seen Mission wearing that one outfit — but if something jumped out at her, why not.

Though, buying clothes off the rack was probably very hit and miss for Twi'leks — their bone structure was different enough from humans' that the proportions would be wrong, and those lekku might make getting a lot of things on...awkward. Come to think of it, how did Mission even get that shirt over her head? The collar was clearly seamless all the way around, and it was hard to tell just looking but the fabric didn't seem very stretchy at all. Eh, not important.

Dinar Enai, as she was pretty sure she'd heard it called, was a simple, sleepy little town. This time of the evening, there was hardly anyone about, Cina virtually alone on the narrow, winding concrete roads. It was only a short walk to the clothing store she'd marked, where she found herself the only customer — the young human woman at the counter looked inordinately pleased to have anyone coming in at all. It was a tiny, simple place, quite utilitarian in their selection, really just the basic necessities.

But Sasha did need the basic necessities, so that wasn't a problem. Though, guessing exactly what the basic necessities were was somewhat more complicated. Cultural expectations so far as clothing went varied quite a lot, especially when considering peoples like the Mandoade, who had been comparatively isolated for most of their history. Even just keeping to Mandoade, what exactly was considered appropriate could be wildly different depending on the environment, locale, and the species being considered. Most had adapted the traditions of the Taung, the founder species of their culture, but not all of them.

Traditionally, she knew, if the environment permitted — which, since Mandoade preferred to settle the equatorial regions of C-class words, it generally did — prepubescent children often wore nothing at all. (Decency standards were more complicated for older individuals, but given Sasha's age that didn't really matter.) Though, this was usually only considered appropriate among Mandoade. In mixed groups it was a bit harder to predict, could be altered by all sorts of factors. A sort of loose frock was typical, for both girls and boys — by the look of what little was left, Sasha had been wearing something of the like when her family had been killed, though it was too dirty and decayed for Cina to guess much more than that.

Dresses and skirts were actually very common among Mandoade of all ages — and both sexes, in fact, which was sort of hilarious, given pangalactic human gender norms and the reputation Mandoade had. Trousers were meant to be worn under armor which, logically, was only expected to be worn by warriors, and the warrior caste only made up about a quarter of Mandoade society. Most outsiders tended to forget about that little detail.

But, okay, that was doable, there was a selection of dresses and such in suitable sizes. Though, she couldn't get anything too...well, pretty. Mandoade as a rule eschewed pointless frippery, it was quite possible Sasha would refuse to wear anything considered elaborate by their standards. Which narrowed the acceptable options considerably. Though, another problem, she honestly couldn't remember what Mandoade did for underclothes. Warriors, she remembered what they wore, but everyone else, children... Yeah, she was blanking on that. Oh well.

In the end, she grabbed an armful of loose dresses, skirts, and sleeveless tunics, in muted colours and as plain as she could find. (By the look of them, the tunics were probably intended to be worn as pinafores — that is, over something else — but she doubted Sasha would care.) She got some ordinary thins, though she honestly didn't know if Sasha would bother wearing them. After a brief moment of hesitation, Cina grabbed a few pairs of shorts too — it would certainly be unusual for a girl Sasha's age to wear something like this, but Sulem was a warrior clan, and Cina and Kandosa, the only people on the ship Sasha shared a language with, wore solely trousers, so she thought...

Well, she didn't know what she thought. She'd spent vanishingly little time around children (that she recalled, anyway). Seriously traumatised Mandoade orphan girls, yeah, this was not in her area of expertise. She was just rolling with it, really.

As long as she was here, she picked up some for herself too. She hadn't had a change of clothes for nearly two weeks, and she'd hardly had the opportunity to wash them — most modern materials could go quite a while without needing attention, but it was starting to get disgusting. She didn't go nuts, just got a few pairs of simple trousers and shirts — some of them were actually sized for men but, frustratingly, the fabric was more durable, she really did hate clothing manufacturers sometimes — and plenty of thins, because gross. After another brief moment of hesitation, she picked up a sundress for herself. She didn't normally wear this sort of thing very often, but it would be more comfortable lounging around the ship, so fuck it. A few more thins in her best guess at Mission's size and there, she was done.

The attendant looked bloody ecstatic to be selling all this at once. Given the size of the population on this world, and that a significant portion of those were Jedi, Cina rather doubted they saw this much business very often.

Laden with her bags, Cina started back for the ship...then immediately made a brief detour, stopping by a nearby corner shop. Kang's ship was rather well-stocked with food and the standard toiletries, but he clearly didn't have women along often. Cina would be getting her period in a few days, and Mission was more than old enough — Twi'leks actually started earlier than humans, on the average — so, yeah, stocking up was probably a good idea.

By the time she was making it back to the ship, awkwardly shuffling with too many bags slung over her shoulders, sunset had already passed, the western sky still afire with a lingering pink-orange glow but night swiftly approaching. Also, Shan was back, standing at the foot of the ramp, arms crossed, glaring out toward the eastern horizon with an air that couldn't quite be called moody. During her absence, she'd apparently taken the opportunity to change, shrouded in generic Jedi robes of white and brown — which Cina found slightly surprising, given the far more form-fighting getup Shan had been in when they'd met, but she guessed that nonsense right there would be hard to properly fight in. Multiple times, as Cina gradually approached, one foot would tap a couple times at the flattened and scorched ground of the landing field before seemingly catching itself. Shan was clearly impatient, and just as clearly failing to suppress it.

When Cina was still some metres away, she noticed Shan was looking directly toward where that vision had taken place. So, she could still feel it too. Cina had been mostly successful at ignoring it so far, it was unnerving.

"I didn't expect you back so soon."

Shan jumped, jerked around to face her. Then, amusingly, she blushed — just slightly, it was barely visible in the fading light, but it was there. Probably embarrassed she'd been out of it enough for Cina to get this close unnoticed. "Where have you been? The Council have asked to meet with you, I've been trying to find you for over ten minutes."

Brushing past Shan onto the ramp, Cina scoffed. "You couldn't have been trying very hard. It's not like I know how to hide from a Jedi."

"It is considered inappropriate to pinpoint someone's location by violating their mind and those of the people around them." By the slightly shifty, awkward tone on her voice, that was at least partially shite. (If Cina had to guess, she didn't actually need to intrude on people's thoughts to track them, she was just making excuses for not taking the initiative.) Stomping up the ramp after her, she said, what almost sounded like anger tightening her voice, "Didn't you hear me? We are expected."

"They'll just have to wait."

"You don't just make the—"

"Hey, Mission." The girl was still sitting where Cina had left her, on one of the low sofas in the central room next to Zaalbar, plugging away at...some electronic thing, Cina wasn't an expert. Before Mission could say anything, Cina dropped one of the smaller bags in her lap. She was about ninety per cent certain that was the right one. "I guessed your size, if I got it wrong tell me and I'll trade them in."

Mission stared up at her, those big reddish-brown eyes of her slowly blinking. "Uuuhhhh..."

"If you and Zaalbar need anything, just say the word. Since I'm apparently filthy rich." Without another word, Cina turned on her heel and walked off, Shan still tailing her like an anxious shadow.

While Cina was dropping off supplies in the fresher, Shan again decided to make a nuisance of herself, standing in the doorway and glaring at her. "The Masters are not accustomed to being made to wait. Your impertinence will not render you a favourable first impression."

Cina fought down a smirk at Shan's prim tone. She'd already noticed the uptight Jedi forced her voice into stilted, painfully meticulous Basic when she was uncomfortable — it was rather adorable, actually, but Shan would probably assume she was mocking her (not without reason). "Then perhaps I should have been told I might be called so soon. I might have chosen to put off my errands if I'd known." Cina walked out the door, forcing Shan to step back to get out of her way. "But, I wasn't warned, so they'll just have to wait until I'm ready."

In the cargo hold their stowaway had made her home — Cina suspected she slept in one of the boxes toward the top of one of the stacks in the back, but she'd intentionally not looked for it — she dropped the rest of the bags. She was sorting through them, laying out on the floor everything she'd bought for Sasha, when Shan caught up with her again. "This is a serious matter, Cina, you can't... What are you doing?"

"You didn't think I'd leave the poor girl in rags, did you?"

Shan's eyes narrowed into a considering, confused frown. So far, the only people who had actually seen Sasha were Kandosa and herself — while Mission had taken her word for it, even asking how she could help with her, Shan and Carth seemed uncertain whether to believe Sasha existed at all. Well, Carth had come right out and said they were all insane, Shan just gave her doubtful looks about it.

Which was...odd. Shouldn't Shan be able to feel her? In that odd magic sixth sense Jedi had, she meant. Cina could. Not very well, granted, at least not while she was hiding. When she let herself be seen, Sasha practically burned — Cina couldn't imagine how Shan could possibly miss her, even from the opposite end of the ship. Cina had been trained in the past, yes, but she didn't remember any of it, she'd think Shan should be much better at this.

Maybe Sasha was just that good, controlling her, her presence in the Force (was that how it was said?) enough it didn't get far enough for Shan to feel it. She could obviously mask it entirely, or almost entirely, maybe that was possible. Cina had no bloody clue.

Once all of Sasha's things were unloaded, Cina stood back up, called out into the hold in Mandoa. "These are for you, Sasha. Take what you want, go ahead and leave anything you don't like or that doesn't fit." Cina doubted Sasha would appear to respond with Shan standing there — she hadn't when Mission had tried to introduce herself, and there were few beings less physically imposing than a teenage Twi'lek girl — so she picked up her own new clothes and just walked out.

"Is that it, then? Will you come now?"

Dropping her bags on the bunk she'd claimed, Cina used the opportunity of her back being turned to roll her eyes. Honestly, she'd think Shan would get the message eventually. "One brief matter to attend to first." She turned to drop to a seat on her bed, starting pulling at the laces of her boots.

Shan was glaring at her again. "Tell me it isn't a nap."

"It isn't a nap." Once her boots were off, Cina got up to her feet again. One by one, she removed the pouches and holsters clipped to her belt — most of them she'd already emptied after waking up on the ship, but she needed to get rid of them before extricating the belt itself from the waistband of the rough, threadbare trousers she'd been wearing for weeks.

"What are you doing?"

"That can't be hard to guess. You changed into fresh clothes as soon as you could yourself." Cina pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it away, pushing down and stepping out of her trousers a moment later.

Shan, she noted at a glance with some amusement, was consciously looking away from her, eyes tipped up and to her left. "The Council will not appreciate time being wasted over such inanities."

"Did you change before meeting them, or after they told you to come get me?" Cina pulled her undershirt over her head; when she could see again, Shan had already turned her back, crossed arms forcing her shoulders rigidly set in mixed embarrassment and irritation. She couldn't quite repress a snort of laughter. True, she was completely nude now — she'd been pretty damn close to it a moment ago, her thins having gone with her trousers, but apparently her undershirt was long enough Shan hadn't noticed — but she would expect Jedi to be the last people to care. "I'm sorry, are you even allowed to be embarrassed? There is no emotion, and all that."

Her voice coming out a bit sharp, Shan said, "Jedi are to reject vanity."

Reaching for a new pair of knickers, Cina rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Jedi philosophy is so bloody stupid sometimes."

"You don't—"

"There is a critical difference between a lack of modesty and vanity." For a brief moment, Cina considered whether she should wear the dress she'd just bought, but decided against it — there was no point in thumbing her nose at the Jedi more than she had to, no matter how funny it might be. "Body modesty, fundamentally, is born out of shame, the kind of negative, harmful emotion I'd think you Jedi would try to avoid. You're not uncomfortable with nudity from a rejection of vanity, but an excess of prudishness. Prudishness is of pedantry, itself a form of self-righteousness born of arrogance. Shame and arrogance, you're obviously growing quite frustrated with me — you're not exactly demonstrating that supposed Jedi serenity right now, are you?"

Shan said nothing. She just stood there, her back turned, arms firmly crossed, posture so tense it was almost brittle.

Right, she'd had her fun, she'd needled Shan enough for the moment. She couldn't help it though, it was just so easy. After a bit of fumbling, Cina finally got the damn belt through the bloody loops, reached for the leather pouch her inherited lightsaber was in. She nearly hung it from her waist before rethinking it. She'd only hidden the thing like this because openly carrying a lightsaber on the streets of Taris would attract unwanted attention. Here on Dantooine, there was no reason she couldn't just clip it directly onto her belt. "Okay, I'm presentable again — your irrational sensibilities are no longer in danger of being violated." Okay, she was mostly done needling Shan...

The Jedi said nothing in response. Instead, she let out a slightly harsher breath, not quite intense enough to be considered a sigh. Then she simply started walking, leading the way out into the hall. Passing through the common room again, Cina lingered only long enough to explain where she was going and that she had no idea when she was going to be back, then continued on, following Shan down the ramp and out into the Dantooine night.

Toward the Council. The Jedi Masters who had originally requested her assistance in an archaeological project that probably didn't even exist. The same Masters who, she suspected, had mind-raped the person she'd once been into oblivion.

If her time on Taris hadn't proven she was quite good at pulling idiotic stunts and coming out alive, she might be more worried this was going to blow up in her face.

Zeltrons vs. Zeltrosi — Zeltrons are the near-human species native to Zeltros. Zeltrosi are Zeltrons plus the minority populations of the world (or members of off-world enclaves) that have integrated, adopting the native culture. This is a distinction only Zeltrosi (or people who are aware of the social situation on Zeltros, like Lesami) are likely to make. Generally, non-Zeltrosi would assume the Zeltrons consider the non-Zeltron inhabitants of their world to be...well, aliens. As far as Zeltrosi are considered, that indefinable something that makes a person one of them is more cultural than it is biological. Rather like Mandalorians in that way, actually.

Chess — Chess does exist in Star Wars canonically.

syndical democracy — In case anyone was wondering, this is not a real term (so far as I know). In politics, a "syndicate" is a group of people who have self-organised (usually democratically) to promote their own interests. Archetypal syndicates would be, like, trade unions, the laborers in a city or even a specific workplace, the farmers in a particular locality, that sort of thing. Anarcho-syndicalism is a leftist political system wherein syndicates cooperate to administrate a region/nation (so far as anarchists believe in administration). The anarchists in the Spanish Civil War were anarcho-syndicalists (not the Communists, many people forget that war had three sides), and a number of modern thinkers advocate for the idea to this day, Noam Chomsky being a prominent example.

The made-up term "syndical democracy" is meant to refer to a proportional representative democracy where the makeup of the parliamentary delegation is determined by the relative membership of self-organized syndicates instead of political parties. (Though, in this system, those "syndicates" would look more like labor unions or special interest groups, if more democratic than is typical irl.) There's far too much top-down direction and the central government is far too powerful for the Empire to be called properly anarcho-syndicalist, though there are similarities in the foundational principles.

Hutt genocide against the Tionese — Canon. See wiki entry for "Ash Worlds"

Perlemian War — Called the Tionese War in canon. The Republic really did reject their surrender and bomb Deservo into oblivion.

Bombing of Alsakan — Expanded from the canon Cleansing of Rucapar in the Third Alsakan Conflict.

Bothan culture — The Bothans really were a target of the Crusades, the rest is my headcanon.

[the Dalinar, or the Teirasan, or the Marshak, or the Kwenni, or the Namlhta, or the Dras] — Canon doesn't name any of the species successfully exterminated during the Crusades, with the exception of the Teirasan (though their ultimate fate wasn't specified), just vaguely says some were. So I made a few up.

Mandalor — Canon is "Mand'alor", but I think putting a syllable break there feels really awkward. Even if they were separate morphemes originally, it seems likely to me speakers would slur them together just to make it easier to say.

CL-class — Example from a completely made up planetary classification system. Due to the many different species around the galaxy, and their different environmental needs, these classes are based on direct comparison to a selection of important planets (which still leads to hundreds of distinct classes, because the galaxy is bloody huge). CL is technically a sub-category of C, which would be roughly equivalent to M-class planets in Star Trek, Earth-like. Because the size and brightness of the star is important for a litany of reasons, the C-class is broken up according to the class of the system's star. As examples, CR is Coruscant-like (stellar class *F6V), CL is Corellia-like (G2V, the same as our sun), and CZ is Zeltros-like (K7V).

*There is a serious problem in the canon involving Coruscant. It's strongly suggested to be the world humans originally evolved on; on Earth that process took roughly 4.6 billion years. Coruscant's sun is described as blue-white, which would suggest either A or B-class; let's say A, to prevent getting too much UV light (though even A would present issues). Problem there? The life-span of A-class stars is measured in the hundreds of MILLIONS of years, which isn't nearly long enough to allow life to evolve as it did on Earth. I kicked it down to a white F-class star, but that would still only last for a few billion years. This is...possible, I guess, but it does strain credulity a bit. It's more likely humans evolved somewhere else originally, and were later moved to Coruscant by the Celestials or the Rakata for one reason or another.

(On the other hand, Zeltros's sun being K-class is 100% believable. K7 might be starting to get too small, but I wanted the more orangish tone, and it's still far more plausible than Coruscant's sun being blue-white, seriously, what the fuck.)

thins — Semi-canon slang for underwear. It is somewhat euphemistic, would be like saying "smalls".

Wow, too many notes. I am nerd.

Yes, the Republic really did canonically commit all those atrocities in their history. Not to mention, their political system really can't be legitimately called democratic, and there are huge issues with poverty and organised crime. Really casts the canon conflicts in a different light.

And yes, Sasha has been reframed as a Mandalorian refugee, orphaned in one of Kang's more bloody backstabbings. There are reasons for that — mostly that I have issues with her canon background, and this means I can do more interesting things with her down the road.

Anyway, I'm done. Next chapter opens with Cina meeting the Council, which I'm sure will go perfectly smoothly.