Whatever doubts Lorash might have had about Eso's skill, watching him erased them. "We have to burn low and slow to evade the imps," he explained as his fingers danced across the control, expression focused and yet undeniably relaxed. It was almost meditative and part of Lorash wondered if he was accessing the Force without even realizing it. She felt no power from him, but perhaps that was her own inexperience.

Lights flashed across the display as the ancient defenses awoke. Lost in the forest, camouflaged by the centuries, batteries of incredible power suddenly surged with energy far beyond what Lorash expected. For things that had been here so long, dying by inches, they seemed incredibly dangerous. The first blasts weren't even close to their ship, yet each one sent a shockwave that buffeted them about.

Eso didn't startle at a single one, carefully correcting for the interference with a few small motions of his right hand while he kept his left flicking from switch to switch to adjust levels. After a few seconds, he seemed satisfied. "They don't, uh, make drives like this one anymore. They won't catch us."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded. "The engines are unpredictable to most pilots, but, uh, I've been flying this one so long that I know every pulse. You can, uh, harness the little quirks."

Lorash settled more comfortably into the copilot's chair, well aware that Seia was still pacing behind them. "I hope so."

Eso flashed them a quick smile before being absorbed back into his task. "You should take a, uh, seat, Miss Seia. We'll hit a pretty big lurch as we punch to hyperspace."

The sith settled into the gunner's seat behind them. "This seems like a ship that requires a crew."

"Mostly just, uh, if you're going to fight in her. Me and R1-E3 do pretty good otherwise," he said, slowly adding power to the engines. They ghosted out beneath the barrage as the Imperial ship started to descend. It would only be a moment before the cruiser returned fire against the batteries, making it a very dangerous place to be. "If we're careful, they won't even flag us as a ship, uh, just an energy signature coming from the batteries. Let's go."

The power of the ship's engines hit in a roar, perfectly timed with the next blast from the planetary defenses. They streaked past the Imperial ship under the cover of plasma, hitting full acceleration just as they left atmosphere. There was no ping or any indication that the Empire's ship had even seen them.

"Well done," Seia praised over the roar of the engines.

"Uh, thanks," Eso said absentmindedly, hitting the hyperspace drive into action. The stars around them streaked and the ship lurched violently, like it was about to shatter apart. The sudden lurch in force slammed Lorash back into her seat hard. "We'll need to refuel and get some repairs done before Naboo. My last passengers, they, uh, did some damage to the controls. With my face."

"Where are we going?" Lorash asked nervously.

Their pilot smiled faintly, letting the automated maneuvering take over based on the course he'd plotted. "Well, it's an old model, even if it is a class one hyperdrive. Best mechanic for us I know is on Hutta."

Seia's lip curled in distaste. "Wonderful. I hope it has improved since my last visit, though that seems unlikely."

The young mirialan chuckled at that. "I don't think it knows the meaning of the word, Miss."

"I've never been," Lorash admitted. "Vori always kept us out of Hutt Space. He said it was too dangerous and unpredictable."

"He's not wrong," Eso admitted. "Yyrfhojarrr is good people, though. Real good mechanic, plus he's his own lift crew. Just, uh, don't try to stiff him or he'll rip your arms off."

"He sounds like a wookie," Lorash said with a smile.

"Probably, uh, because he is one." The pilot turned in his seat to face them. "Might see if we can convince him to come along, though I'll need to have you wave that pearl in his face, Miss Seia. That thing's worth enough credits to get anyone's attention. Bit of a mercenary bastard, Yyrfhojarrr, but worth every bit of it."

"If you wish to split your reward with him, it makes no difference to me," Seia said, leaning back into her seat and putting her feet up on the control panel in front of her. She seemed able to lounge like a hunting cat, comfortable in any position.

Eso drummed his fingers against the control panel. "So, uh, is this a no questions voyage or can I ask what, uh, is going on?" He gestured to the pair of them.

"Ask what you wish," Seia said with surprising indifference. Lorash had expected a demand for secrecy. "If it is something I do not wish to divulge, I will not answer."

He looked over at Lorash expectantly. "Same for you?"

Lorash supposed she had more to risk than the sith did. "I suppose," she said hesitantly.

"So you're an archaeologist, Miss Lorash?"

"Just a student," she admitted freely. Lorash combed her fingers through her hair to soothe her own nerves. However friendly Eso seemed, he also had ties to people in Hutt Space, which made him much more dangerous than he appeared. He could mean well, but his connections would likely have no problem if it came to selling her to the Empire. "All we thought was down on that planet was a ruin."

"So, uh, the imps were a surprise to you?" Eso said, ruffling his dark green hair. His eyes were hazel, looking something like sunflowers in the light. It gave him an image of softness in Lorash's perception through the Force. There were hard edges to Eso, no doubt, if he had survived in dangerous places, but she didn't see them now.

Lorash nodded.

The pilot looked over at Seia, more apprehension in his face. "Were you surprised, Miss Seia?"

Their sith shrugged, examining her fingernails for chips and breaks. They seemed surprisingly undamaged for how hard she had hit some of those mercenaries in the face. "Those who hunt for power often seek ancient sources. Your former employers were the ones working with them. Surely they said something."

"Well, uh, like I said, they told Jezar there was some kind of old weapon here, buried. There was some kinda...agent...uh, with them," Eso said. "Dressed out of uniform, but he was always 'sir', you know?"

Lorash thought back to the man she'd leaped down on when she smashed Vori's datapad to protect their identities. "I think I saw him."

"He made a holocall to somebody else when we touched down. Mentioned…" Eso cleared his throat. "...something about the Dark Side here."

Where Lorash expected a smug smile from the sith, she received a sudden flash of a scowl. Seia let out a sharp breath of displeasure. "No one should have known anything about that," she growled, hands clenching into fists.

"Uh…" Eso blinked rapidly. "Sorry, bad topic?"

The simmering rage inside the sith seemed to calm after a moment, like the stirring of a hurricane caught within her. "It is mere frustration. The jedi do not keep secrets even half as well as they claim."

Lorash felt defensive for a moment, but let it go and relaxed before giving it voice. For one, it would make her look suspicious. Instead, she shifted, rubbing at the bruising across her shoulder and thigh from some of her collisions in combat. "Do you know anything else about what they wanted, Eso?"

"Nope. I, uh, try to keep my head down. Secrets like that, they'll get you killed real quick. Types like him, they, uh, they do like their house cleaning." Eso gestured like he was shooting himself in the head with a blaster.

"I suppose it is gratifying to hear the Empire hasn't changed in that regard," Seia commented, letting her eyes drift half closed. "At least I know what I may expect when I come to cross purposes."

"You, uh, aren't a fan?"

Seia shrugged. "I have never enjoyed being told what to do."

Eso laughed at that, relaxing visibly. He pushed himself up out of his chair. "Well, you're, uh, on the right ship. Since Jezar and his idiots aren't crowding up the place, let's get you both a cabin. You, uh, might have to clean up the place, though. What's mine is yours."

Lorash smiled, picking up her staff as she rose to her feet. Her stomach growled as she did so, reminding her acutely that she hadn't eaten since before Master Vori had piloted them down onto the planet.

Eso flashed her a grin. "I'm, uh, not a cook, but there are supplies in the kitchen."

"You have a kitchen?" Seia said as she followed them, a faint interest in her voice. "I will have to see what your stores contain."

Lorash's eyes widened. "You cook?"

The sith gave her a shark-like smile of amusement, shrugging off her outer robe as they walked through the cargo bay back towards the living quarters. "I have to eat. Would you prefer me gnawing on a chunk of raw meat?"

"I...suppose not." She wasn't about to admit that eating uncooked flesh seemed far more in character with the Dark Side than anything as domestic as cooking.

Seia's smirk widened at that, clearly reading the unsaid. It made Lorash scowl slightly, which only pleased the sith warrior more. Still, instead of pressing her advantage, Seia looked back at Eso. "I would like a room to myself. Solitary retreat makes it easier to...collect my thoughts."

"Sure," their pilot said with a nod, swinging to the starboard side. Overlooking the cargo bay were four rooms. "You can set your own codes. The mercs were mostly using the bay, just Jezar and the imp had rooms like mine. Not big, but, uh, pretty comfy."

Lorash wrinkled her nose slightly as she opened one door. There were clothes and spare pieces of blaster thrown everywhere, none of it neat and plenty of it smelling of sweat. "Not the clean type, those mercs."

Eso scrambled into the room and collected everything up, slinging it out into the cargo bay. "I'll, uh, burn that all later, Miss Lorash."

She appreciated the gesture. Everything about the pilot was faintly awkward, but always seemed to be well-meaning. "Thanks, Eso. Also, you can just call me Lorash."

He flashed her a grin. "No problem."

Seia opened the second door, barren and unused. There was barely a hint of comfort to the foam mattress on the bunk and the closet was empty. She stepped in and dropped her armored robe on the bed. Lorash studied the sith for a moment. The clothing beneath that Seia wore revealed her arms, iron-muscled and covered in scars. There was no way to look at the formidable woman and not see a warrior. When she glanced over at Eso, she saw a similar realization on his face.

"This will do," Seia said even as she prowled through the room, searching it thoroughly. "I take it this was where the agent stayed?"

"Yup."

She disassembled the light fixture quickly and produced a small chip. Lorash felt a flash of power as Seia crushed it in her hand, using the Force to utterly destroy it. "We may wish to search the rest of the ship for similar listening devices."

"He bugged his own room?" Lorash said, surprised.

"He no doubt anticipated people would search and perhaps reveal themselves in his absence. We should assume he did likewise everywhere else."

Eso frowned and tapped the intercom. "R1, do a sweep for any outgoing communication devices inside the ship."

A few chirps answered back and a holo-display opened on the cargo bay's terminal, displaying various placements in the ship.

"Guess I've, uh, got a new project," Eso muttered darkly. "I'm going to disable the rest of those."

Seia gave him a nod and let the pilot scurry past her.

"Think my room is bugged?" Lorash said.

The sith shrugged. "I doubt the smell would put off such a vulture. May I?"

"I think that's the first time you've asked me permission for anything since I've met you," the jedi padawan said thoughtfully. "Go ahead."

Seia made no reply other than stepping in. The sith closed her eyes, focusing in the Force. Even to that there was an intensity that Lorash had never seen before. It looked natural, effortless, but for the padawan, there was a sense of that conflicted and tumultuous power just beneath the surface. She couldn't even imagine how Seia was able to connect with anything over that tempest.

"It is far easier than you surmise," Seia commented as she opened a side panel and pulled out a chip identical to the first one she'd destroyed. It shattered in her open hand, the sith no longer disguising her power without Eso's attention.

Lorash knew she'd been thinking a little too loudly. "Your grasp of sense is...impressive," she admitted.

The sith laughed. Even her voice had that color of darkness to its tone. "This is child's play. Combat is far more interesting. Perhaps some day I can show you."

"Is that a threat?"

Seia turned to face her. "Would you like it to be?" she offered with amusement.

Lorash remembered the way the sith had ripped through the mercenaries far too well, the roaring inferno of bleeding kyber announcing her in the darkness. "Not particularly," she said as evenly as she could with that brief pulse of fear arising. She calmed it immediately, but the reaction was unavoidable. She wasn't certain that even Master Vori would be able to deal with Seia when the sith descended into madness.

"Your reflexes had some honing to them. As I said, you have potential. Perhaps enough to consider properly training them." Seia studied the jedi padawan thoughtfully. "Better than many young apprentices on Korriban."

There was something deeply disturbing to the sith's fascination. "I would rather not be schooled into a weapon." Lorash knew nothing of Korriban, but from context, she could surmise that it was not a good place.

"A shame. You would make a fine jedi knight." The backhandedness Lorash expected in the compliment didn't materialize. Instead, Seia checked over the room again and then stepped out into the hall. "It might need a bit of scrubbing, but there are no more listening devices there."

"Well that's something. I'd prefer not to broadcast what I am to the Empire," Lorash said to ease her own nerves, following in Seia's wake.

"Enjoy your secrecy while it lasts. I promise you that every gain you make in power will draw you closer and closer to their attention." Seia turned to face her, stepping close enough that Lorash could smell steel and smoke. "Light always calls to dark. For many sith I knew, corrupting jedi was a special pleasure."

"And what about you?"

Seia shrugged, grey eyes dark in the flickering ambient light of the cargo bay's balcony. "Many of the mind games played by those I knew, I found tiresome. Why squander my attention on the weak?"

"Weak sith or weak jedi?" Lorash asked, struggling to find her calm.

The sith smiled slyly at her. "Yes." She stepped back, opening distance between them. "I intend to explore the kitchen next, if you require me."

Lorash nodded, gripping the wall as Seia breezed past her towards deeper in the living quarters. The jedi padawan found herself immensely grateful for the fact she now had a space of her own where she could collect her thoughts, no matter how much like an arms locker it reeked. She opened the door quickly and stepped inside, focusing her thoughts on cleaning to ease some of her nerves.

This voyage was going to be much, much more dangerous than any that had come before it. With every hour that passed without Seia murdering her, the more she began to question if anything short of combat with the sith was a good idea.