Lorash gripped the controls tighter as the ship came into view. It was a light mercenary cruiser, probably barely big enough for all the mercs they had seen. The armaments were not active at the moment, but if that changed, it could blow their speeder to bits. She had to be ready to evade until they were at the ship's airlock. "How are we going to get inside?"

Seia opened the speeder hatch and jumped out. "I have some thoughts."

The jedi padawan hated the confidence the sith seemed to have at all times. It was unnerving—and sent a little pang of jealousy through her that she needed to quash immediately. She followed Seia out of the speeder, slinging her staff over one shoulder. She took the time to regain what calm she could and approached the airlock with a serenity she wasn't certain she actually felt.

Seia produced a battered comm, still spattered with the blood of its previous owner. She tapped on it a few times, hunting through the personal data stored within. "Their pilot is pressed into service. He owed their leader a significant amount of credits. It was this or being shot." She turned to face Lorash. "Fortunately, the lock sequence for the door is encoded on the comm. I hope you are prepared to be persuasive. We need him to lift and soon, with us instead of those he owes."

"You aren't going to menace him?" Lorash asked, surprised.

Seia smiled faintly as she punched in the door code. The airlock hissed open. "I will do what is necessary. I merely assumed you would prefer the alternative route." She gestured for Lorash to step through, following on the jedi's heels. "They likely still have a guard on the ship."

Lorash had a definite feeling that the guard's life expectancy had dropped decades now that Seia was past the front door. "You don't have to hurt him."

"That is more a reflection of his desires than our own," Seia said bluntly. "If he wishes to comply, then I have little reason to kill him. If he seeks to force the issue, I will crush him."

Lorash recalled the binding power the sith woman possessed and the ease with which she'd killed using it. She hated the idea of seeing that again.

"Intruders!" a man shouted from further in.

"We just want to talk!" Lorash called quickly, not waiting for Seia to retaliate towards the speaker.

"Talk quickly," the man barked. Both of them heard a safety flicking off on a heavy blaster rifle, though the echoing of the ship's confines hid his position.

Lorash felt Seia attune to the Force beside her. If she was even a fraction as skilled as she seemed, the sith would know the man's whereabouts instantly. "We need a way off this planet," the jedi padawan said calmly. She still had the bundle of credits Vori had given her for emergencies. Hopefully that would be enough. "We can pay."

"This isn't a cruiseliner, princess," the man said harshly. "You're interfering with our business. With Imperial business."

Lorash couldn't afford to back down. His life was depending on her. "I can pay you a thousand credits right now and double that in addition if we make it to a place I know. Imperial business is always more trouble than it's worth and clearly they aren't interested in relying on you if they've moved their own ship into system. They might not even pay you, knowing them."

"Or I could kill you and take the—" His voice was cut off by a sharp crash and a powerful zap.

Over the ship's intercom, a different male voice spoke nervously. "Uhh, ladies, you can proceed to the bridge. Don't mind him. I'd be happy to lend a helping hand, for that thousand credits."

Lorash looked over at Seia and asked quietly, "Did he kill him?"

Seia laughed. "Hardly." The sith led the way towards the pilot, stepping over the stunned and flex-cuffed body of a merc on the way. He was going to be in a rage when he awoke.

Waiting for them was a young, scrawny mirialian man in rough adventuring clothes. He rubbed at the geometric markings on the back of his green neck with one hand when he saw them, eyes wide and nervous. "Well, uh, you're not what I thought you'd be. You look a little…tougher." He studied Seia the longest, shifting nervously at the sight of armored robes. "Still, I'm happy to negotiate."

Lorash offered him a smile. She'd been expecting a hardened smuggler or merc, not a pilot younger than her and just as inexperienced. "I meant what I said. Is this your ship?"

"Basically." The mirialian approached and held out a hand. "I'm Eso."

"My name is Lorash," the jedi padawan said as she shook his hand. "The woman with me is Seia Zadar."

"Your friend is, uh, pretty intense," Eso said, shifting nervously under the sith's beskar stare. "So, about how we can help each other out. You need to leave, I assume without talking to the imps. I need to ditch the guys I'm with."

"The commander of the mercenary detachment here is dead," Seia rasped.

"O…oh." Eso seemed to mull that over for a long moment. "Well, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. That, uh, makes things easier." He brightened up. "Want to dump Benda off the ship for me? Then we'll get out of here."

Lorash looked back at the stunned merc who was slowly regaining his senses. "That one?"

"Yep!" Eso said, already taking his seat in the cockpit. "Gotta say, you ladies are really turning out to be a good luck charm."

Seia grabbed the stunned merc by the ankle and dragged him off. Lorash expected to hear a lethal crunch, but there was only the sound of the airlock opening and then closing.

"I don't know if we're that," Lorash said dubiously. "Do you know why the Empire is here?"

"Looking for an old weapon. They contracted Jezar and his heavies to recover it from the ruins. I could have told them it was a stupid idea: nothing's been on this rock since the Old Republic. Kinda a surprise to see you two here, to be honest. You don't seem like the imp type." For all his youth, Eso moved through powering the engines up like a master. Here, he was perfectly relaxed. "Well, maybe your friend is. Dunno."

"I was here to study the ruins with my family," Lorash said. She wasn't going to lie, but she definitely knew to adjust her explanations to draw less attention. "My adopted father is an archaeologist."

"We need to go pick him up?" Eso asked, scribbling a few things down on the checklist beside him. He seemed to be paying extra attention to the system diagnostics.

"No, they were picked up by a friend. I tried to stay behind to recover our droid and ended up losing them. I just need to meet up with them as soon as we're out of here," Lorash explained, taking a seat in the co-pilot's chair. "Can you really get us out of here without the Empire noticing?"

Eso grinned at her, looking away from the tasks at hand. "I think they're going to have their own, uh, problems as soon as they come in to land. See, there's nothing on this rock except old defenses. You've got to be a ship over a certain size to trigger them, but that imp cruiser is just, uh, big enough to have problems."

"Really?" Lorash asked, surprised. Neither Vori nor Merga had mentioned anything like that.

"It's, uh, a little obscure. But I've got a family heirloom, these really old star charts, that mention it. I always run any planets and star systems by those old things, just in case something might be left over."

Seia stepped back into the bridge, setting the merc's heavy blaster rifle to one side. Instead of sitting immediately, she approached Lorash from behind. "A wise decision, pilot," the sith said. "So we wait until they engage the old defenses?"

Eso nodded and leaned back in his seat. "That's the plan. Feel free to hand me those credits any time."

Lorash couldn't help her relief. "As soon as we make the jump to hyperspace."

"Sounds like a plan," Eso said with a nod of agreement. He stretched his whole body, a relief of his own settling in. "Thanks for choosing my ship. I hate those guys and it'll be great to ditch them. Where are we headed?"

"Naboo."

Seia's answer brooked no argument, but Lorash spoke up anyway. "I need to meet up with Vori and Merga. I'm not following you to Naboo."

The sith smiled at that, dark and challenging. "And what of the danger I pose that seemed to trouble you so?"

Lorash glared coolly. "Vori will know what to do about you."

"My destination is worth more than a thousand credits to me, Eso," Seia said.

He rotated in his seat to face the sith, clearly curious."You, uh, have my attention."

Seia pulled something out from inside her armor, a necklace she wore under her robes. It was a smooth, beautiful blue pearl that refracted the light ever so slightly. The stone itself was probably the size of a human's thumb, but perfectly spherical. "This was a gift from one close to me. I do not part with it thoughtlessly, but I am certain its value is unquestionable."

The pilot caught it and turned to the battered astromech droid beside him. "Hey buddy, do a mineral composition check on this pearl. I want to know where it's from."

Seia took a seat in the gunner's position. "A planet without an ocean."

His astromech droid, painted with the designation R1-E3, let out a shrill series of beeps as it scanned the pearl. It seemed to practically jump up and down with excitement. It displayed the staticky holo-image of a massive lizard.

Eso stared at it with his mouth hanging open. "Well, uh…"

"I will give you the pearl if you take us to Naboo."

"Right. Naboo, here we come!" Eso said, suddenly energized. He pressed the controls until they left the ground, moving into a suborbital holding pattern. They wouldn't try to leave the surface until the Imperial ship had its own problems, hiding in the storm to bide some time.

Lorash sighed. One way or another, the sith was going to her homeworld. The responsible thing to do was to at least ensure that Seia did no harm. "Fine. I presume this is to return the—" The jedi padawan cut herself off before she could mention the holocron.

Seia's amusement batted at her like a self-satisfied cat, reminding Lorash that her senses were still magnified through the Force. "You are correct."

Lorash let her heightened senses recede back to normal, allowing a wash of fatigue through her body. It at least made the sith's darkness less obvious, though that was a danger of its own. "We should probably talk about that."

Seia took back the pearl from the excited droid. "Let us know when we are leaving planet. Lorash and I have some things to discuss."

"Sure thing!"

Lorash followed the sith back down into the cargo hold, abandoning her rather comfortable seat. "What did you just bribe him with?"

"A small krayt dragon pearl. I was keeping it for the lightsaber of my apprentice, but I have no need of such a thing now." Despite the sith's general indifference, the rasp in her voice seemed more painful at the explanation.

Lorash tried to place herself in Seia's position. Betrayed by a friend, missing her apprentice, and now unsealed in a time she knew nothing of…it was no small thing that the sith endured. "I'm sorry."

"Do not insult me with your pity," Seia said harshly, the rebuke cutting enough to frighten Lorash for a moment. She paused and then continued more calmly. "You wished to know of the holocron."

Lorash nodded.

"It belonged to a master named Cen Lowsyk. He was unusual, to say the least," Seia said, taking a seat on a crate of spare blasters. "He studied both sides of the Force, the duality of light and dark. It cost him his status as a jedi when he began examining the Dark Side so closely. He understood the Sith Code as only few outsiders can."

"Why would a jedi master look to the Dark Side?"

The Sith laughed. "To understand more thoroughly than the ignorant suppositions of those who simply shut it out. He was a very conflicted man. Nabeila gave the holocron to me in the hopes it would spark a connection with the light. I doubt this is what she imagined was going to happen."

Lorash considered that carefully, sitting down as well. "You have yet to tell me who Nabeila is, other than a jedi."

"She was a sage of some power who crossed my path. A worthy foe, whom I spared for reasons that are my own. There were few jedi so committed to redemption in my time. Perhaps there are none now, if what you say of the order is true." Seia's lip curled slightly. "What a waste."

The jedi padawan struggled to comprehend the situation presented to her. Of course, the sith was probably lying, but she didn't know Seia well enough to know why she would or even which part was a lie without extreme focus. She was too drained to do anything of that nature now. "I'm going with you to Naboo," Lorash said. "I can't allow you to do harm."

"And what of your master?" Seia's question was almost taunting.

The padawan took a deep breath. "He will understand that I am needed elsewhere."

Seia leaned in, presence surging with the Dark Side's power. This time it was more alluring than frightening, beckoning to Lorash's doubts. "You are not afraid you might fail and fall?"

Lorash grounded herself in her own tenuous serenity. "There is no emotion, there is peace," she said calmly.

The sith smiled. "We will see about that."