It is possible, theoretically, to manipulate matter on the molecular level. It's just advanced Healing Arts.

Ashkhen skewered the empty cup with a piercing look, narrowing her eyes in concentration.

Nahdar made it look so easy!

It was a reasonable assumption that calculated arrangement of hydrogen and oxygen atoms would yield water. Ashkhen, however, had no experience in creating closed systems for experiments with nothing but the Force, and she didn't exactly have complete trust in her own abilities. Playing with chemistry and accidentally blowing up the entire CSF headquarters seemed a more realistic outcome.

Goggles would be nice.

The prospect of going blind for the second time within three years curbed Ashkhen's enthusiasm for the challenge. She had been glaring at the small, standard water cooler plastoid cup on the desk in front of her for over two hours. Who in the Force had the time to fill that twenty times a day to cover their water intake? No wonder police staff gave off tired and crabby vibes.

The door opened with a hiss, two officers entered. Only one of them was attired in his uniform, a stout, black haired human in his early fifties. His features were hard, but not unkind. Ashkhen glanced at his shoulder plate as he sat—Captain.

Oh, boy.

The other man in civilian clothes, about ten years the Captain's junior, was the Lieutenant. He seemed, without a doubt, the more dehydrated of the pair. He spoke first.

"If you need to use the bathroom, give us a heads up. A female officer can escort you."

"I'm good, thanks."

"You sure?" He pointed at the security cam in the corner. "'Cause that's the face I make when I'm about to push out a Jawa-sized turd."

"Whoa!" A shiver ran down her spine. "No, I was just… may I have another four glasses of water, please?"

The Lieutenant's mouth curled into a mirthless smile. Fishpeople hung in the air, unsaid. "In exchange for a confession, you may."

The Captain cleared his throat.

"Right. This is Captain Jaller Obrim, head of the Anti-Terrorism Unit, Coruscant Security Force. I'm Detective Lieutenant Athavul Doushan. We're conducting an investigation on the bank robbery that took place earlier this day."

"Cool," Ashkhen said, looking from the detective to the Captain, then back. Doushan leaned on the table with both hands.

"You were arrested at the crime scene under probable cause. I suggest you take this a little more seriously. Who are you?"

"Dakiis, Ashkhen. That's a dorn, aurek, krill double isk and senth."

"That we already know. What are you?"

"A citizen of the Republic." The summary answer didn't bring forth the sense of conclusion she expected. Ashkhen continued, a little dispirited. "A Nautolan female? A bartender? Umm… A new client of the Allied Jalor Savings and Loan Association? Anything specific you have in mind?"

Doushan started pacing up and down behind the Captain's chair with his arms folded across his chest. "Why target a branch of the Allied Jalor? Is there something brewing in the sector?" He gave her a sideways glance. "That's Glee Anselm, isn't it?"

Ashkhen spread her hands as far as the handcuffs let her. "Oh no, you got me, master Detective. Wonder what gave it away!"

"What's your agenda?"

"My agenda? I'm a bartender, sir. I tend bar."

Doushan squared his shoulders in a way that amply conveyed that he had the security clearance to view, edit and delete CCTV footage. His stance made him look like the pistol-whip type of man.

Captain Obrim's datapad pinged, breaking the tension of the moment.

"Hm. A pleasant surprise," he said, glancing at his screen.

"Captain?"

"Contrary to my previous belief, the guys over at Intelligence aren't just twiddling their thumbs between paycheques." Obrim cleared his throat, then started reading aloud from his screen. "Originally from Vevirion, Glee Anselm, daughter of Arkoum and Amira Dakiis, youngest of three children. Taken to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant at the age of four, later apprenticed to a certain Jedi Master Sarkis Balian for nine and a half years."

Doushan threw her an incredulous look. "Shut up! You're Jedi?"

"…Left the Order at the age of twenty," Obrim continued.

The detective gave a chortle. "Is that a euphemism for getting booted?"

"Left the Order is a compendious way of saying that I left the Order," Ashkhen said.

"That's exactly what someone who was kicked out would say."

"No records of employment since," Obrim finished and looked up from the datapad.

"So you're a deadbeat ex-Jedi who's turned to bank robbery," Doushan concluded. "Were you even eligible for welfare? No, I'm serious, how much further can anchorites possibly retire from work?"

"The Jedi Order has been serving the Republic for twenty-five thousand years, maintaining peace and order in the galaxy and helping those who cannot help themselves. You're welcome."

"Ah, the hard labor of lighting candles and thinking hard about peace," Doushan sneered.

"I'm not unemployed," Ashkhen said. "I work in a nightclub called Irigo's" —she threw a challenging look at the Lieutenant—"I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but I'm a bartender, actually."

Doushan's nostrils flared, but Obrim took over the questioning.

"Do you have a contract to support that claim?"

"Well... not in writing, to be honest." She clenched and unclenched her cybernetic fingers. Restoring power to her left hand had been a nice gesture of the police. If only they hadn't stopped there and did something about the persistent thirst, too! "But Imos will vouch for me."

Obrim leaned forward, steepling his fingers on the table.

"Why don't you tell us what happened?"

"I already did, about four times!" Ashkhen's head dropped back and she let out a long sigh. "The EMP grenade went off when I entered the restroom. Took cover in the waiting lounge upstairs and waited for the perpetrators to separate as soon as I learned how heavily armed they were. I apprehended the three who came to the back of the facility, one at a time. Two in the vault antechamber, one at the top of the service stairs."

She paused for a little while to make sure she worded her account in a way that didn't sound like bragging. Also, it was never a good idea to expect laypeople to fully buy into the whole Force premonition thing upon first hearing.

"I had... a feeling the situation could spiral out of control any minute, so I took the deceased guard's weapon, and neutralized the hostage taker."

Doushan, arms still folded, tilted his head to the side.

"Is it normal for you to grab a gun and start shooting whenever you have a bad feeling?There's medication for that, you know. And inpatient care."

Askhen opened her mouth in protest, but the Lieutenant continued before she could have voiced her retort.

"Now, why don't I tell you what happened?" He leaned well into Ashkhen's personal space, placing a hand on the backrest of her seat. "You took the commissioned Security Officer's weapon. That's felony number one. You knowingly discharged a firearm in public. That's felony number two. But wait, there's more. By discharging the firearm, you caused great bodily harm to the victim during a robbery. Felony number three. Do you know what that means?"

Ashkhen glanced at the Captain. His eyes, same as his aura, were devoid of emotion.

"A really, really kriffing long time in prison."

Ashkhen's nervous laughter died down as soon as she realized neither of the policemen had joined in. She swallowed, looking from one detective to the other. "Listen, I mean… come on!"

"This is criminal law, not staring at a pond and reciting five Our Bogans and six Hail Ashlas."

"Yeah, uh, no." A grin split Ashkhen's face. "It's super cool that you have heard those words, but you see, Bogan is like—"

"I don't kriffing care." He leaned so close, Ashkhen was glad that she lacked an external ear, for his mouth surely would have grazed it. "You shot someone in the head, that's twenty-five to life. If it turns out you're a Seppie terrorist, you face the firing squad."

"Objection!" Ashkhen swivelled to the side so quickly, she almost headbutted him. "I shot him in the eyestalk. On purpose. He's amphibian! It's gonna grow back, duh!"

Doushan and Obrim exchanged glances—that particular fact had been overlooked. The Captain leaned back in his chair and asked with genuine curiosity, "What's happened to your arm, then?"

"Bones are tough." Ashkhen gave him an rueful half-shrug. "The best we can do is cartilage."

"So his eye…?"

"Give it a few weeks, tops."

"Most illuminating." Doushan resumed his pacing up and down behind the Captain's chair. "Let us discuss the charges you're facing. Aggravated assault."

"People were in imminent danger!" Ashkhen ground the words out. "They are safe and uninjured because I acted on instinct."

The Lieutenant shook his head. "All they saw was you popping up out of nowhere, firing with abandon, and gunning down Mr. Viril without warning."

"Going into epic monologuing while you have the assilant at gunpoint is a surefire way to get shot," Ashkhen said.

"One of the witnesses testified that prior to the attack, you were seen agitating an infant," Obrim said, scrolling slowly on his datapad.

"Agit—? Oh, for stars' sake, I played with him for like, a minute and a half!"

"I don't blame her," Doushan interjected. "I wouldn't trust Jedi near little kids, either."

"Jedi don't just randomly abduct children!" Ashkhen let out an exasperated sigh. Someone really should have started working on the public image back at the Temple a long time ago. "There's a separate division within the Order, whose members are tasked with seeking out Force-sen—"

Doushan cut her short with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Oh, but you're digressing again. You opened fire in a room full of civilians."

"To save them!" Ashkhen's voice rose to match her temper. "And I would do it again in a third of a heartbeat, no matter the consequences."

Captain Obrim pulled up another report on his datapad. He slowly scrolled through the list of the weapons recovered at the crime scene.

"Why would you take the guard's weapon?" he asked. "All three assilants who had gone upstairs carried blasters with much better range and accuracy."

"My kinsfolk are being killed with the very same weapons on the front lines," Ashkhen said. "Baktoid Industries released those models not a few months ago. If they are so easily available on the black market on Coruscant then those four clowns playing bandits won't be your biggest problem."

Obrim leaned back in his chair, lost in thought. Doushan tsk-tsked.

"You're awfully cavalier about dropping pointers like that for someone who's trying to weasel their way out of prison."

Prompted by a sudden idea, Ashkhen raised a hand. "You don't want to send me to prison," she said, encompassing both Obrim and Doushan in a slow wave. The motion was a sharp reminder of just how uncomfortable it was to be handcuffed to a table.

The two detectives froze for a moment, looking mildly surprised. Obrim stared at the datapad still in his hands, Doushan turned towards Ashkhen, bewilderment in his eyes.

"I don't... want to"—he casually reached across to his underarm holster—"do the paperwork… that comes with the detainee going belly up mid-questioning."

The interrogation room depressurized. Strangely enough, Ashkhen was the only one of the three people present having problems breathing.

"We've worked with your kind before. The Captain and I have our tinfoil hats on." Doushan slowly circled around the table. "That was a terribly stupid thing to do. Mind tricks on police officers? Are you shooting for back-to-back life sentences?"

Ashkhen wished her command of the Force encompassed the unraveling and reweaving of the tapestry of time. She traced back the series of bad decisions that had lead to the present moment, and concluded that the biggest mistake she ever made had been poking her head through the membrane of her egg.

"I don't think you're a bad kid," Captain Obrim said after a long while. His voice conveyed more weariness than anger. A but still hung in the air like a vibrosword, however. "You just need an outlet for all that zip. Taking matters into your own hands like that won't do."

Ashkhen had been on the receiving end of one too many lectures for misconduct to know exactly when to keep absolutely silent. In her extensive experience of getting reamed out by authority figures, a crescendo of sentiments usually signalled the impending resolution. Ashkhen followed his words in a guarded manner. On a tangential note, she imagined Captain Obrim, without a doubt, had children who were going, or recently had gone through puberty.

"Should we contact this"—Obrim glanced at the datapad—"Sarkis Balian for you?"

Ashkhen's complexion went from common limestone to Ilum glacier to curdled bantha milk in the span of three seconds at the mention of her former Master's name.

"Th-that's okay," Ashkhen exhaled. "You needn't bother." The thought of Master Balian getting a call from the CSF on account of his former charge made her hands and feet go numb.

The string of questions had stopped, but she was still handcuffed to the table. Neither of the policemen showed any signs of inclination to remedy that, and in a sense, it was a lot more discomforting than getting arrested in the first place had been. Still reeling from the absurdity of hearing Master Balian's name being mentioned in such a context, Ashkhen focused on keeping her breathing even.

Obrim stroke his chin, sizing her up with shrewd eyes.

"Bartender at Irigo's was it?"

The Nautolan-shaped tibanna cloud nodded.

"And you talk to a lot of people from all walks of life."

Obrim sat in silence for a short while. The quiver of cunning in his aura amplified into a full blown air of conniving, highly unexpected for a police officer of his rank and reputation. Doushan stopped in his tracks.

"I know that look, Captain, talk to me."

Obrim reached across the table and undid the restraints. Ashkhen sensed a bunch of strings attach themselves in their place, trussing her up immediately.

Doushan looked from Obrim to Ashkhen, then turned back towards his superior.

"That's your plan?" he asked. "Throw this one back in the water?"

Ashkhen rubbed her right wrist. "Not cool," she muttered. Doushan raised a warning hand.

Captain Obrim stood with a scheme formulated before his mind's eye, and bestowed a portending smile upon his arrestee.

"The best part about mistakes is when we get to make up for them."

••• ••• •••

Ashkhen all but dragged her feet through her front door which, unfailingly, got stuck halfway. She eyed her own elongated shadow in that strip of light the hallway lights cast onto the floor. Nothing like coming home after a stressful and draining day, and having a bad feeling about entering one's own, to all appearances, empty apartment.

"Nice of you to finally drop by," she said aloud. "What do you want?"

He was very good. The masterful shrouding of his presence made him practically invisible. Ashkhen glanced around—the shadows in the corners seemed unnaturally dark and thick. She closed her eyes to sweep the apartment with Force sight—nothing.

"I'd offer you a drink if I wasn't fresh out of everything," she said, taking a few steps, then turning back towards the entrance. Nothing there, either. "But you probably know that already, given the fastidious care you've been taking to go through my trash these past six months or so."

A faint ripple of irritation brushed against her senses. Did his adamantine shields just shift for a moment? Ashkhen inched towards the kitchenette, peering into the darkness. There was nowhere to hide in there. He could mask his presence in the Force all he wanted, but for her, the subtle changes in his mood would be still easy to detect.

Ashkhen's mouth pulled into a mischievous smile—nettled enough, his control would slip again. And ticking people off was her speciality.

"Your shielding is impeccable, I can't see you. But I can smell your animosity. Like a stale fart."

The Sentinel standing right behind her materialized out of thin air.

"The Shadows are keeping tabs on me? I'm flattered."

"Trouble is as trouble does."

She turned around to face her interlocutor, only to take an involuntary step backwards, bumping into the kitchen counter. Another handbreadth and The Chagrian Jedi's horns would have scraped against the ceiling of her apartment. Ashkhen had seen him in the Temple Archives a few times, and had pegged him as someone very skilled at picking records off of the highest shelves without using the Force. That was a long time ago however, and there wasn't even a trace of camaraderie in his demeanor now.

"Does Master Balian know about this?"

"General Balian keeps his mind in the present moment, looking after his promising, bright and talented young Padawan."

Ashkhen took a controlled breath, but didn't rise to the bait. The Sentinel was a big guy, getting him too riled up didn't seem such a great idea anymore.

"It's not that I'm not thrilled to entertain a Jedi guest at this hour at night, but you've been prowling around for a while. What makes today a special occasion?"

"What did the CSF want from you?"

"I'm afraid that's classified."

The Sentinel stepped closer, right into Ashkhen's personal space. "You can either lower your shields and tell me, or I can probe you. But in case of the latter, you will live with the consequences for the rest of your life."

"Are you threatening me?"

"I'm cautioning you."

So that's how you want to play this?

"What would the Council say about subjecting a fellow Jedi to psychological torture?" she asked, folding her arms.

A shadow of a smile appeared on his face for the first time. He placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. "Ah, but you're not a fellow Jedi anymore."

Ashkhen shrugged his hand off. She did not care for his intimidation tactics.

"You haven't answered my question," she said. "Why contact me now?"

"I want to know what the CSF wanted from you and take the necessary measures accordingly." he said. "We don't need a Force sensitive vigilante wreaking havoc in the Coruscant underworld."

"Duly noted," Ashkhen said. "I'll let you guys know if I see one."

Necessary measures sounded way more menacing at half past one in the morning, coming from a member of the most recondite division of the Order. For the second time that same day, the phantom weight pulling on her belt reminded Ashkhen just how sorely missed her long lost lightsaber was. It also would have been nice to have the option to continue the conversation someplace less private. Her stalker creep alarm segued into overzealous psychopath alarm in no time.

"The amount of work the CSF does to keep the streets of the capital safe is commendable," the Sentinel continued, "But we can't have their investigations get in the way of ours. So I'm asking you one more time: what did they need of you?"

Ashkhen dashed past him, vaulted over the table and ran flat out towards the entrance. She gave a mental pat on past-self's shoulder for her foresight, and aimed for that narrow space left between the door and the jamb, just enough for one desperate Nautolan to slip through.

Impeccable timing and superior Force control on the Chagrian Jedi's part—the door thrust back into place the very moment Ashkhen reached it. She crashed into the closed door at full speed. The force of the collision threw her back, nearly knocking her out.

The Sentinel circled around the table at a leisurely pace. Squatting down next to her head, he offered a derisive snort in comfort. "Was that an attempt to make a run for it?"

"That was very poor judgement on my part," Ashkhen mumbled through both hands covering her nose. It was certainly broken and hurt like kriffing hell, making her eyes water up. "It won't happen again."

"That was a terribly stupid thing to do."

"So I keep being told," Ashkhen said. A profound second-guessing of her capabilities in decision making ensued. Trying to ditch out on a full fledged Jedi Knight? That indeed wasn't very well thought through.

The rest of her face went numb. Ashkhen vaguely recalled a koan about running away from, and running towards things Master Balian had brought up time to time, but she didn't have nearly enough mental capacity to remember how it went, especially after barrelling into a thick durasteel plate headfirst.

"Come on, get up off the floor, you might catch a cold."

"…or a boot to the face," Ashkhen mumbled, clambering to her feet.

"You insult me! I would never stoop to kick your teeth down your throat. We both know breaking down your psyche would be much more painful." He walked back to the table and pulled out a chair. "Sit. We're not finished."

Ashkhen reached up to wipe away at her nose. Her hand came away bloody. "Evidently not."

Being ordered to sit in her own home rubbed her very much up the wrong way, but it was neither the time nor the place to start splitting hairs about etiquette and proprieties. Her focus shifted to keeping the negotiations from turning hostile and keeping her face from being repeatedly smashed into hard and flat surfaces, vertical and horizontal alike.

"As you may remember from your more"—his gaze swept across the aparment—"civilized days within the Order, Shadows are willing to go any lengths necessary to gather intelligence. Darkness festers right at the heart of the Republic. We're determined to find its source and destroy it."

Ashkhen sniffed to keep the trickle of blood from reaching her upper lip. "Do continue," she said in a small voice. "You have my undivided attention."

The Sentinel paced around the small garzonka, noting the huge chunk of missing plaster on the wall, and raising an eyebrow over the abundance of clothes—by Jedi standards, anyways—hanging on the closet organizer. In all fairness, Ashkhen's best friend came from a culture of giving and sharing; everytime she hung out at Tilla's place, she left with at least three shirts or a jacket.

As the Sentinel turned around, the hilt of his double-bladed lightsaber caught Ashkhen's eyes. She prayed to never, ever find out whether it was blue or green.

"Shadows don't universally agree on whether Jedi who have left the Order are past their useful life. If relegated members refuse to join the Service Corps, Shadows have to tie up one eye keeping a watch on them, and that we can't spare. A Force user without supervision and guidance is one misstep away from the Dark Side, after all."

A rumour had been going around the Padawan dorms once, that Sentinels carried yellow blades, but no one knew for sure, because no one who had ever seen one ignited lived to tell. Ashkhen made it top priority to be the living embodiment of cooperation.

"Given that you're not rotting in a windowless cell, pumped full of Force-inhibiting drugs, I can only conclude the CSF thinks you're useful in some capacity." He turned to face her square on. "Are you useful, Ashkhen Dakiis?"

Ashkhen swallowed hard; it seemed safer than spitting out the blood in his presence. "There are drugs like that?"

"In the experimental phase. Unreliable, subjects may develop a certain level of tolerance," he said. He regarded Ashkhen with a potential test subject gleam in his eyes. "Sentintels prefer permanent solutions. The majority of us believes the safest option is to save ourselves the future trouble and permanently sever one's connection to the Force."

Ashkhen went rigid with fear. "You can… lobotomize Force users?"

"Please," he smiled, "we merely defuse them, if you will. We don't turn them into vegetables. As long as they cooperate, that is," he added. "So coming back to my original question, what did the CSF want from you?"

"Just information, nothing else."

"What kind of information?"

Ashkhen remained silent. She gave Captain Obrim her word that she wouldn't tell anyone about the arrangement. The Sentinel's gaze shifted to the middle of her forehead, then the inner corner of her right eye, as though looking for the perfect spot to Force-drive in an orbitoclast.

"You're not cooperating."

Obrim most likely never factored in kriffing Shadows.

"Arms trafficking," she exhaled.

"Anything specific?"

"Nothing, just to keep my eyes open."

"Don't lie to me."

"An entirely new category of illegal weapons appeared on the black market," she hurried to elaborate. "Captain Obrim wants to find the source and the channel these weapons are coming through."

"And he sends you out to sniff around, play his little Jedi detective?"

"Force, no!" Ashkhen shook her head. "I am only to report if I hear anything worth investigating."

The Sentinel's eyes narrowed. "Where would you come across intel like that? Do you frequent those parts of the underlevels?"

"No, no, no, I don't. But some people occasionally do, and they frequent Irigo's and have a habit of using my bar as a confessional."

The Sentinel resumed his pacing around the room. "Why the sudden interest in gunrunners?"

"The Anti-Terrorism part in their title is pretty self-explanatory, one would think."

Ashkhen's propensity for reticence had hardly met the Order's standards. Locking eyes with the Sentinel now made it abundantly clear that Master Balian had been the only Jedi ever who brushed it off as an endearing idiosyncrasy and not something to be brought under control with fire and sword.

"The blasters they've confiscated at the bank today were all trademark weapons of the Confederacy," she added. "New models. And it wasn't the first incident. Captain Obrim believes someone is following the Clone Wars closely and keeping a supply route open between those scavenging the battlefields and arms dealers in the Core."

"That's his theory?"

"In essence, yes."

"What else did you discuss?"

Ashkhen was being pushed into a position she resisted with every fiber of her being—the present interrogation about the previous interrogation grew progressively uncomfortable, for she had a feeling this would turn into a repeat occurrence.

"I won't ask you again."

The Sentinel's gaze bore into hers once more. 'You've got three seconds before I rend your mind to shreds,' his eyes conveyed. Ashkhen let out a sigh of defeat—there was simply no way to be smart about narking on the very people who had charged her with narking in the first place.

"Obrim has... agents planted in a lot of places," she said. "But their investigations were inconclusive. His main concern is the scope. We're not looking at your regular weekend smugglers getting lucky. Someone with a lot of power and influence is facilitating the operation."

"Anyone specific in mind?"

"Someone who is deeply invested in keeping the war going on as long as possible. There's greed and corruption, and profiting off the masses' misfortune. He believes everything points to the Galactic Senate."

"Corruption in the Senate is a tale as old as the Republic itself." He didn't wave the idea away, however, but skewered Ashkhen with a frown instead. "And how are you supposed to gather intel on Senate members?"

"Some of them became regulars at Irigo's a while ago," she said.

"And they sit at the bar, cordially discussing work related problem with lowly you?"

"Of course not." Lucky for Ashkhen, he turned away to resume his pacing and missed her eye-roll. "They use a private suite."

"Can it be bugged?"

Ashkhen shook her head. "They bring their own security. Imos has access to the footage from the cameras, but they just sit and talk, anyways."

The Sentinel turned around and took a few steps towards the table. "A war is raging across the Galaxy. Our troopers are dying by the thousands as we speak. And you play the pronoun game."

"Listen, I fix drinks by table, waitstaff handle matching orders to face, we don't really ask for names!"

"Yet somehow I feel your meddlesome temperament must have gotten the best of you."

She cleared her throat. "There's, uh… A whole bunch of Neimoidians came together once, including Senator Dod himself, but he doesn't come around in person anymore. His secretary or aid, or whatever his title is, turns up every other week with his girlfriend. Well, his friend, who happens to be a girl, but if she can hold her integrity as well as her liquor, I don't think he's gonn—"

For plain black, his eyes were mighty expressive.

"Moving on. There's this old guy I recognize from the Techno Union." A tiny shudder ran across her features. "Gume Saam. He hits us up a lot more often with his own group of friends, and always has the Emerald suite reserved." The Sentinel's stare prompted further explanation. "It's where you can organize super private meetings with Rix."

"Can this Rix person be used in gathering intelligence?"

With him asking that in earnest, Ashkhen couldn't contain her merriment. "You want to put wire on a stripper? Her clothes come off faster than Master Fisto's hit by briny breezes!"

It took her a second to remember her current company, rate her own comment as grave foot-in-mouth on the scale of slip to famous last words, and panic.

Definitely gonna be kriffing yellow!

Her head stayed firmly attached to her neck—The Chagrian Jedi, preoccupied with collating her account with the intel he had gathered previously, didn't notice or didn't care. Uninterested in Senator Saam's exploits, he pressed on. "Who else is attending these get-togethers?"

Ashkhen, trying her damndest, gave descriptions of the ten or so people who rotated on those biweekly meetings. The Sentinel's expression remained unreadable, making her feel very much like an Initiate being tested on her attention to detail, memory and skills of deduction.

Unfortunately, she only ever saw them for brief moments from behind the bar, and had always found them entirely unremarkable. Obnoxious flaunting of wealth hardly counted as a unique detail for people working in those cirlcles. Unlike the everyday clientele of Irigo's, none of them sported fluorescent mohawks, had gone under extreme body modifications or had distinctive facial tattoos. Well, nearly no one.

"Rush Clovis is arranging meetings with the Trade Federation?" The Sentinel spun around genuinely surprised—a welcome change from his overbearing aggravation churning and undulating, which made the air heavy between the two of them.

"Yeah, well…" Ashkhen strained to prove as helpful as possible. "It's mostly his secretary coming. He's got what resembles Scipioan chin markings, but his aren't nearly as nicely done as Clovis's, so I dunno, he could be some random dude who just had face-planted into a strip of fresh road paint at some point."

The Chagrian Jedi darkened his aura with the ease of popping on a polarising filter. Ashkhen hit the kill switch on her audio signal output.

How truly different Jedi were! The ruminative stroking of the chin, the slow pacing, the furrow deepening between eyebrows—those were the exact same mannerisms she had seen time and time again, as Master Balian had pondered the different sides. With her former Master, it had always meant a warm invitation to dialogue, to share her insight, and discuss the best possible course of action. And Master Balian would always listen. The Sentinel's presence felt about as friendly as a giant spool of barbed wire rolling back and forth, emanating the sentiment, children should neither be seen nor heard.

"How do you know about this… Darkness controlling the Senate?" Ashkhen prompted, just managing to bite back the 'it's the creepy blue Vice Chair dude with the dead eyes, isn't it?' in the last minute.

"That doesn't concern civilians." The Sentinel turned to face Ashkhen. "Should anything interesting come up, you report to me first, then I'll tell you what to convey to the CSF. I don't mind them chasing gunrunners, but we can't have our targets suspect they're under surveillance."

Ashkhen shifted in her seat. "I don't feel comfortable double-crossing Captain Obrim. I don't want to betray his trust."

"Get in my way and you'll feel a lot more uncomfortable. "

She winced at the mental image. As the Sentinel turned to leave, the door opened wide without a sound.

"I'll come checking in from time to time," he said, waving the door open for himself. "Remember to keep your eyes open, ears alert, mouth shut and nose out of Jedi business. Speaking of which—"

He turned back abruptly, right hand shot forward faster than lightning. Ashkhen's nose realigned itself with a sickening crack. It took her a second to realize that it just as well could have been her neck.

The wheezing sound finally stopped, but the nosebleed intensified. A warm stain slowly spread on the front of her shirt. Ashkhen stared at the leaving Jedi, white-knuckling the edge of her seat. It finally clicked—his presence was familiar because he was one of the five Jedi who had attended her mind probe after the Trials. His name was Morrdul and he didn't kriff around last time, either. Ashkhen remained at the table for a long while, in dire need of guidance, support and a sympathetic ear.

No good deed ever goes unpunished!

Finally she stood, and walked to the door to close and lock that Sith-forsaken kriffing piece of shit.