"Chief Daala, I cannot in good conscience agree to this," Chief Bwua'tu said. "As a civilian, you have no place endangering yourself in this upcoming invasion."
From her seat in one of the guest chairs of Bwua'tu's office aboard the Star Destroyer Admiral Ackbar, Daala glared at the Bothan.
"You forget, Chief," Daala said, "that I was a military officer just like you. I am perfectly capable of handling myself in situations like these."
"Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is is that you are a civilian now. Moreover, I do not have the authority to give you back your commission because you served as an Imperial officer, not as a New Republic or Galactic Alliance one. Therefore, it would go against my duty to bring you into a war zone even by your direct command."
Daala then waved her hand. "You will allow me to come to the Hapes Consortium."
Bwua'tu looked at her in askance. "You are not a Force-sensitive, Chief Daala," he said earnestly; had she been of a lower rank than him, it was obvious that he would have been more snide with her. "And even if you did, my species is incapable of being persuaded by mind-tricks. Also, at any rate, I just told you I cannot in good conscience-"
Daala repeated the motion. "You will allow me to come to the Hapes Consortium."
This time, Bwua'tu felt a slight tingle in the back of his head. "No, I cannot-"
Another wave of her hand came and went. "You will allow me to come to the Consortium."
The tingle traveled to the foremost part of Bwua'tu's mind. "Chief Daala, I must insist that you-"
"You will not insist anything, Nek. You will allow me to come with you to the Hapes Consortium." Another wave of her hand followed.
The tingle in Bwua'tu's mind became more of a dull ache. "Chief Daala, you..."
"Let me come." Another hand motion from her followed.
The ache became much more pronounced; Bwua'tu had to grasp at his temples in pain as he looked down upon the desktop.
"You cannot overcome my authority, Nek. You will do as I say; my word is law. Now let me come with you to the Hapes Consortium."
Bwua'tu hissed as the pain in his head seemed to reach its apex; he was on the verge of screaming when it promptly disappeared.
But when it did, he looked back at Daala, as if nothing happened at all, and said, "Of course, Chief Daala. I was wrong to even attempt to subvert your authority."
Daala grinned maliciously. "Good, Nek, good. That's a good Bothan." She even reached over and patted him on the head as if he were a docile dog; indeed, Bwua'tu responded with a satisfied growl.
. . .
Tahiri didn't know what exactly she was drinking as she sat at the counter in the Mos Eisley cantina; she had only asked the bartender to give her some of his best stuff, and he replied by giving her several shots of something fiery yet satisfyingly intoxicating.
That was just fine by her.
But while her senses were dulled, Tahiri still had the wherewithal to look around the cantina, expecting someone—whether it'd be a Mandalorian, a Jedi, or even a stormtrooper or two—to suddenly appear and take her in for all she had done, if not outright kill her.
She had a feeling that this was going to be her life from this point on; always looking over her shoulder even when she allowed herself to get inebriated like this. Tahiri knew that a part of her wished that someone would just come on by and either shoot or stab her in the back and end it all; she wondered why that part of her didn't just allow her do the deed herself instead of waste time on alcoholism.
Before she could come up with even a half-baked answer to that question, the bartender changed the channel on the viewscreen that was positioned just above his station; the image went from the end of grav-ball match to that of a news report from The Perre Needmo Newshour.
What Needmo reported brought Tahiri most of the way out of her inebriation as her attention became arrested upon the viewscreen.
"In a shocking turn of events in the war between the Imperial Remnant and the nation of Mandalore," Needmo stated, "Head of State Jagged Fel has issued this announcement."
The image cut from Needmo to Jag on a podium, with the Imperial Capital Building behind him, as he spoke.
"A day ago, I was contacted by the Mandalorian mercenary Belok Rhal, who has sought asylum, along with all of his fellow soldiers, from the tyrannical leadership of Mirta Gev. According to Mr. Rhal, Mandalore Gev's grief for her grandfather has driven her so insane that she has become paranoid, claiming that many of her own soldiers have conspired against her to undermine her fiefdom and somehow tarnish the legacy of Boba Fett. As a result, many Mandalorians were summarily executed without a fair trial under Gev's iron fist, prompting Mr. Rhal and his forces to splinter from her and assist our brave stormtroopers and TIE pilots in our war against the mainstream Mandalorians."
During this brief speech, Tahiri really looked at Jag—the way he spoke and his stoic facial and body expressions—and saw that while it was typical of him, there was something eerily droid-like in his delivery this time around.
As if he wasn't really in control of his own faculties.
That, and the fact that the evidence that Tahiri, Jaina, and Partner had been investigating pointed at Rhal as the shadow instigator of the war between the Remnant and the Mandos. So, clearly, something was very terribly wrong.
Sifting through the disorganization of her drunken mind, Tahiri tried to make sense of why Jag was making such a bold, and quite frankly stupid, decision.
Then, as Perre Needmo's report went on in greater detail, it struck Tahiri; how she was freed from Bastion would explain a lot of things.
Not long after she had been incarcerated in that prison for killing Velias and for nearly killing Partner, Tahiri was visited in her cell by someone who looked almost exactly like her and who happened to be wearing the same prison uniform that she had worn, with the same serial number above her left breast.
The guard had allowed this near-lookalike into the cell, and Tahiri had stood up from her cot and asked her, "Who are you supposed to be? My biggest fan? The dye job's pretty nice."
The other woman regarded Tahiri with an amused smirk. "Why, thank you; it was really quite easy to get this color. But, obviously, that's not important right now. What is important is that you need to get back to doing whatever it was you were doing before that Mando brought you here as soon as possible. You have a ship waiting for you at these coordinates; it's pretty fast, probably faster than whatever that bounty hunter's Firespray is equipped with." The woman tossed Tahiri a datapad from within the shirt of her prison uniform, which the former Jedi caught. "I assume you remember where you were going before you were brought here?"
Tahiri looked at her apparent savior in askance. "As a matter of fact, yes. But you didn't answer my question: who are you? And, more importantly, why are you helping me?"
"If I said I was your biggest fan, would that answer your questions?"
Tahiri was silent for a contemplative moment before she said, "I guess it'll have to do."
Moments after that discussion had ended, it was very easy for Tahiri to escape the prison with her Force-powers returned to her; the security feeds were scrambled without any problems, and the guards all seemed to be persuaded to forget her passing with a few simple hand gestures. Tahiri also managed to make it to the coordinates of her waiting Imperial ship with a similar level of ease, and at that point managed to make it to the Mandalorian R&R station just an hour ahead of Jaina and Partner.
Now she was here, in a cantina on Tatooine, remembering those events.
Whoever that person was who freed her, it was obvious that her reasons for freeing Tahiri from prison and allowing her to rejoin Partner and Jaina, temporary though that might have been, were far from selfless.
Tahiri had a feeling as if she was going to regret this in the future, but when she paid her tab, she left the cantina with no intention of coming back and every intention of learning what that near-lookalike had to do with Jag's alliance with Rhal.