A Jaunt on Ord Mantell

The Dearg Due ghosted into the Bright Jewel system. Despite being known for the world of Ord Mantell, the system itself took its name from the glorious primary star at its center. Darth Gladiolus viewed the name as a quaint tradition and nothing more, content to instead gaze upon the former industrial world as her shuttle approached. Ord Mantell reminded her almost painfully of Earth. Had her homeworld not possessed its greenery, Earth could have been mistaken as Ord Mantell's twin. As it stood, though, the worlds were merely similar and nothing more.

Gladiolus activated her shuttle's transponder as she approached the world. Despite her sneaky entry into the Bright Jewel system, she knew trying to hide from local authorities risked drawing more attention compared to merely masking her true nature. Based on what she gathered from Niem and his crew before their parting, Ord Mantell maintained its economic influence through a great wealth of black market traders and bounty hunters. While she found both to be crude and thus prime for destruction under her Sith regime, she understood their utility to the people in this part of the Mid Rim.

How typical of the Jedi to permit rot of this nature to fester and grow, she thought with a sneer. Once they are cast down, I shall cleanse the galaxy of the ills they let expand and poison those under their 'protection'.

She could not fathom possessing the power the Jedi had and not wielding it with supreme authority. Were they content to be the lapdogs of the Senate? Or did they not care about the galaxy beyond their temple? Both options left her filled with disgust. If her faith in the Sith and the dark side had not guided her toward opposing the Jedi, witnessing a galaxy left to their stewardship would have convinced her of that position.

The planetary defense network pinged the moment it detected the Dearg Due. She sensed surprise among the men maintaining the system. They had failed to notice her arrival, leaving them hilariously shocked by her sudden approach.

"Ord Mantell Security to unidentified shuttle. Transmit transponder codes or face impounding."

"Transmitting codes now," Gladiolus replied, flicking a switch.

Seconds passed before the voice responded. "Thank you. Dearg Due cleared for landing at Morro Spaceport. Enjoy your stay on Ord Mantell."

"Understood." Gladiolus deactivated the comm as she sneered. She had no plans to enjoy her time on a wastrel world like Ord Mantell. She would acquire what she needed and plot out her route either north, chasing after the dark side energies she felt more strongly than ever before, or east toward Sith Space. Either option should serve her well. The Force remained murky about which direction to pursue. Such feelings left her troubled, wondering if the Sith who remained after Ruusan knew of her existence.

If they knew of her, then the Jedi might as well. But given the shroud of the dark side cast over Coruscant, they remained blind to the presence of the Sith. That shroud protected her as well.

How strange, she thought, descending into Or Mantell's atmosphere, that they would permit themselves to be deceived so.

The Dearg Due settled into Bay 29-D at Morro Spaceport. Gladiolus relaxed in her seat as her shuttle powered down. While en route to the spaceport, she managed to find and pull up schematics of the spaceport, specifically the area around the specific bay her shuttle had landed in. She was pleasantly surprised to find a trio of small rooms, along with a refresher, set aside for her use. She suspected the bay in question was often used by single passengers traveling through Ord Mantell, pursuing interests similar to her own. Plenty had business either on the planet itself, elsewhere in the region, or somewhere deeper into the Outer Rim. Given Ord Mantell's economic influence and its thriving black market, those who had cause to travel alone remained vital to the operation of Morro Spaceport.

Gladiolus eventually rose from the cockpit seat. She drifted through the Dearg Due's interior, heading first to her quarters aboard to snatch a pack of clothes. She would use the amenities provided, though how she would pay for them remained uncertain. No bill had been sent her way yet, but she knew the spaceport authorities would charge her before departure. While she had a vault of gold rotting beneath London, that was several thousand light-years away on a world she could not contact. She barely understood distances across the galaxy, though she imagined with a map and measurements she could determine how far she traveled.

She quickly gathered anything else she might require while on Ord Mantell. Gladiolus took care to hide her lightsaber beneath her robe before disembarking. She used a careful twist of her right wrist to lock her shuttle, seeking to fool any security that might be watching; it would be suspect to openly use the Force to ensure any capable thief slinking around the spaceport could not board her vessel.

Gladiolus deposited her bag in the room supplied for her. She undressed, cleaned up in the refresher, and redressed in a tunic and trouser set provided by a woman on Niem's crew. With the addition of a belt and some boots along with the application of more make-up than she liked on her face, the Sith Lord transformed into a normal spacer woman. She belted on a holster and slipped an awkwardly shaped blaster into it. The blaster was a fake, for she had attached a false grip and sights to her lightsaber. Only her burning sulfuric eyes betrayed the truth of what she was to the wandering eye. But she feared not any so distant from the Core would recognize what her sulfuric eyes meant.

She left the spaceport, stepping out onto the busy streets of Worlport. Speeders drove past in their special wide lane while people wandered the streets with just enough haste to confirm that Worlport truly was a busy hub of activity and commerce. Her gaze wandered the buildings closest to the spaceport; few lacked dusty, once colorful domes. oObelisksrose high at varying intervals. Every building bore a fancy façade, proclaiming their inheritance of the history and culture that fashioned Ord Mantell into the world it became. She wondered which Core world—this world had to have been settled by those of the Core—had buildings like these, ancient and unyielding before the continual onslaught of time.

One day, she would walk the world that colonized Ord Mantell. Until then, she would content herself with the cultured architecture of their colony.

Gladiolus entered and followed a stream of people. Nobody gave her a second look. Not even the strange figures with odd coloration or peculiar growths. She spotted a pack of green-skinned figures with a pair of tentacles growing from their skulls speaking amongst themselves in a strangely accented Basic. She barely understood the few words she managed to make out as they walked the other way.

I have much to learn still, she thought, almost frustrated by Zeta-Aleph's failure at instruction. Though when Gladiolus considered what could happen in a thousand years, she guessed the language could evolve enough to be barely disguisable to what she had been taught.

Yet the staff of Ord Mantell, along with the Chiss, spoke Basic near enough to how I do. My inability to understand their speech must be due to whatever species they are with their strange head-tentacles.

With great care, she reached out with the Force as she continued following the crowd. She learned of many species from those around her; their appearances, their names, and just about anything she would wish to know about them. The green-skinned aliens she attempted to eavesdrop on were Twi'leks, native to the world of Ryloth in the southeastern stretches of the Outer Rim. And their head-tentacles, as she learned, were called lekku.

And then Gladiolus's Force-probes brushed the mind of a slaver. Her gaze shot to a woman with a crooked smile and black eyes. She followed the Twi'leks Gladiolus attempted to eavesdrop on. For a moment, the Sith Lord nearly allowed herself to be carried along by the flow of the crowd around her. But then Gladiolus remembered Edelweiss Potter and the tragedies that befell her. That girl may have never been chained and collared like Twi'leks across the galaxy, but she understood a slave's pain. The despair, the hopelessness; they had driven Edelweiss Potter to sacrifice all she had once been to the dark side of the Force. Those memories, simmering in her power in the dark side, propelled that girl to become the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Gladiolus followed the slaver from the spaceport and past a complex that had to be for governmental purposes, surrounded by a pair of squat casinos with neon lights deactivated to not burn out in the middle of the sunny day. The Twi'leks remained ahead, still talking and moving without any urgency. The Sith Lord wondered if they suspected a slaver would pursue them on Ord Mantell. It was meant to be a Republic world, despite the fact it remained a haven for bounty hunters and black market profiteers.

Her lips twitched slightly. My kind of folk, Gladiolus thought with dark amusement. She would employ as many of their kind as she could and set them to hunting and destroying every slaver betrayed to her by Niem Ganbohr's fear. She hoped he found success in his efforts on Namadii—and that he would remain true to his promise to remain away from the slave trade.

Else she would seek him out and destroy him. That would disappoint her, but Gladiolus had no patience for those who disappointed her—or worse, dared betray her.

They continued along past several more casinos. They walked and walked, passing speeders as a salty breeze began to flow over them. Only once it came in force did the Sith Lord realize where they might be heading. Gladiolus had not minded the geography as she descended into Worlport. She found herself unsurprised the capital of Ord Mantell sat on a sea, and both impressed and concerned a slaver dared operate on this world.

They passed through several districts—little more than small neighborhoods—which struck Gladiolus as British-esque. One even possessed the same cookie-cutter nostalgia of Privet Drive, though distinctly foreign enough the comparison fled as soon as it came.

Thanks to the sun hanging just beyond her sight, Gladiolus knew that hours passed by the time they finally reached a squat, crowded district of massive warehouses and shouting men. Whomever the slaver Gladiolus followed either worked with people in this area or she was remarkably patient. Odds were the truth was a combination of both. After all, the slaver woman had gone to great lengths to ensure whatever plotting and planning she had been up to would not be foiled by the Republic and their security forces.

She smiled maliciously. While she had not dressed in her Sith garb, she did have her lightsaber with her. Gladiolus laid a hand on her 'blaster' and continued following the slaver. She only needed to be patient. The confrontation would come soon enough.

Marcos Taelym watched from a security office as Cezrynn Mooren trailed a family of Twi'leks. They had been 'scouted' for a well-paying job further out in the Rim that was, in reality, a front for his slaving operation on Ord Mantell. He rubbed his jaw as he scanned the family, his mind already running the figures. They would turn a tidy profit on this family, especially once they were broken up. The man and woman would earn a fair bit of credits in Hutt slave markets. But it was the children that would fetch the greatest bounty. The eldest girl would be a prime dancing girl in a couple years time, which would be the perfect amount to ensure she was properly trained and broken. The younger girl had years before she would be ready, but there were a few senators who aided in his operation who enjoyed child-flesh. He would gift the girl to them and let his accountant know to wait before paying the next bribe.

And then there was the boy. Oh, that boy. In a dozen years, he would either be a bounty hunter or a gladiator. Marcos knew not which course the boy would follow, but it was clear he would be perfect for something violent and dangerous. And should he not survive to see five years, then what did it matter to him? Half the young slaves turned into soldiers or warriors ended up dead within three. Everyone understood the risk, for the reward was profitable enough.

As his gaze drifted back to Cezrynn, he noticed something odd. Marcos leaned forward, nearly pushing his bulbous nose against his monitor as he tried to make sense of what his instincts had immediately picked up.

A spacer woman was following Cezrynn—or so it appeared. Marcos would wait until after Cezrynn turned the next corner. He waited. He watched. Cezrynn turned the corner.

And the spacer woman followed.

He blinked. The spacer woman—a spacer with golden eyes, how queer, he thought, his mind still wrapped in numbers and deals—remained on Cezrynn's tail, even as the Twi'leks neared the warehouse where they would be meeting their "recruiter". He saw nothing out of the ordinary about the space beyond her eyes. But something about her—about those eyes and the peculiar weapon he now spotted on her hip—held Marcos's attention. He knew—he just knew—that something was wrong.

"Dammit," Marcos snarled. He thumbed his comm and murmured in Huttese, "Don't turn around, Cezrynn, but know you got a tail. Some spacer woman."

Cezrynn sniffed, even as her image on Marcos's monitor remained unchanging. "Let her follow. We can blast her while we tag the Twi'leks."

Marcos grimaced. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Shame. We're nearly there, so anything you might be able to pull will have to wait until the merchandise is secured."

Marcos sighed as he leaned back. He waited a few seconds, tapping a finger against the panel beside his monitor. He wanted to command Cezrynn to confront the spacer woman. Cezrynn was no longer required for the operation. Her role had been to follow the family from Morro Spaceport until it was ensured they would reach their destination. He knew she would chafe at being commanded to confront the spacer, especially since she had already made it clear she would not follow that order. She would hold to her assignment until the end, no matter how useless she became.

"…just don't sell this operation down a Sarlacc, Cezrynn. If that space proves to be a problem, then it'll be on your head. Worse comes to worse, you join that family as merchandise."

She scoffed. "Spacer's nothin' to worry over, Marcos. You're just paranoid. And old."

He huffed, unable to argue against both claims. He had seen over forty years, which was a long time for anyone in the smuggling business—especially if they decided to peddle slaves within Republic Space. Yet Marcos's paranoia had never led him astray.

"My paranoia has kept me in business this long—and it has kept you safe, as well. Don't forget that business on Obroa-skai. I almost allowed those worthless academics to catch you slicing their databases."

Cezrynn fell silent. He watched on his monitor as the Twi'lek family finally reached the warehouse where they would be captured and enslaved. Marcos smiled when Cezrynn followed them in, and then grimaced as the spacer followed suit.

Kriffing twelve hells! That cursed space is going to be a problem. Marcos sighed as he rose from his seat. He nodded to the two others working near his station and limped to the door. If you want things done right, then you gotta do it yourself.

Darth Gladiolus slipped into a shadow after following the slaver into a nondescript warehouse. She had been surprised the two wide, open doors had not immediately closed behind the slaver. If whoever ran this operation would be foolishly sloppy, then she would guarantee their efforts ruined. And the more slavers she killed this day, then the fewer she would need to kill in the future. And if she killed them all, nobody would know the one responsible for crushing their little cabal at work on Ord Mantell.

She rested her right hand on the false blaster at her hip. Gladiolus toyed with whether or not she should remove her lightsaber from the construct. While she could yank her lightsaber from the construction with the Force, she would feel more at ease holding her weapon in hand. But using her lightsaber risked drawing the attention of the Jedi. She could not draw their attention to her yet. A confrontation with them was inevitable, but that did not mean she could not manipulate the where and when.

The Force should be enough against these miscreants.

Determined, Gladiolus glided through the shadows before her. For whatever reason, the slavers had deactivated most of the lights. Given the disturbed and distressed feelings rippling from the Twi'leks, the Sith Lord suspected the slavers were so confident about their success that they had forgotten any fear of discovery and the consequences it would bring down upon them. Her jaw clenched. These cretins should feel fear. It mattered not if the fear they felt was of the Republic or a monster like her. Their foul ways could not be tolerated.

And if it required a Sith Lord to put fear in the hearts and minds of slavers, then so be it. She would bring order and justice to the galaxy. Her will would remold it into something greater, respectable, desired by all sentients.

Faint voices carried toward her. Gladiolus followed them, taking care as she pressed forward. She spotted a few patrolling security forces. They failed to spot her. They would be disposed of by the time she finished. But for now, it would be counterproductive to kill them. While she planned to kill them all, a corpse could be discovered.

Corpses, however, were another matter entirely.

Darth Gladiolus caught a whisper on the air. She followed it towards the source, grinning as the voices slowly grew louder. She eventually reached a set of open blast doors. She approached the doors at a slow creep, finally managing to make out their words.

"…do you want?" the Twi'lek man said as he stared down the barrel of a blaster pistol. Gladiolus scanned the chamber, taking note of the slavers gathered. Ten stood around the Twi'lek family, though only four had weapons drawn. The other six still had theirs holstered, for they instead held binders. The Sith Lord was almost impressed they resisted using chains or rope. Only the most rank of creatures would wield those foul tools of enslavement, especially amongst the advanced technological societies as discovered beyond Earth.

"It's very simple," said the man holding the Twi'leks at blaster point. "You are all now the property of the Hutt Cartel. You will be split up, properly sanctioned, and sold off to the highest bidder in Hutt Space. Your lives as 'free sentients' is now at an end."

"You will be found out!" the Twi'lek hissed, shifting his family so they cowered behind him. The children stood between their parents, quivering and quailing whenever they noticed the sneering humans around them. "The Republic's anti-slavery laws—"

"What laws?" the man asked. "You cannot be so foolish as to believe their 'legislation', written so far from this system, has any real influence out here. Why, there's barely a Republic to begin with on Ord Mantell. One only needs to look at the failure of the Jedi to maintain their presence here."

"The Jedi—"

"Are not here," the man declared. "Now, will you come peacefully? Or must we stun you all?"

His fellow slavers chuckled. They had planned this moment.

It sickened Gladiolus. Her rage bloomed alive, filling her with the dark side's might. Her right hand itched where it rested. So that is their true nature. Such filth cannot be permitted to live, and I will take no chances with them. They will all die, no matter how.

She slipped through the doorway, keeping to the shadows. Gladiolus resisted the temptation to make a game of how long she could remain undetected. Eventually, she would be detected. But events would play out tremendously different if the moment of detection occurred with several feet between her and the Twi'leks or if she was nearly upon the slavers when they learned she was among them.

The Twi'lek man glanced between the slavers and his family. Gladiolus sensed the wall he was against; his willpower could only hold out so long before he would break. She sensed the realization within him: these people would not grant him any opportunity to reclaim his liberty without fighting. Yet if he fought, then he risked his family. He was trapped between options.

Thankfully for him, I am here for them.

Gladiolus flexed her hand, removing the grip and sight from her lightsaber, before taking it in hand. She thumbed the ignition as she snuck up behind two of the four slavers holding blasters. She could swiftly halve their instant fighting force before carving through most of the rest before they could draw and fire on her.

Perhaps if I am exceptionally fortunate, people will believe a rather daring Jedi acted instead of a Sith Lord. She clicked her tongue at the thought. To think the Jedi could take credit for my work. Though perhaps it will aid my—

The conversation suddenly halted. Gladiolus reached out with her senses while continuing to stalk forward. She knew what was about to happen, so she—

"Kriffing hell, Cezrynn!" a man bellowed. "That blasted spacer—!"

—thumbed the ignition of her lightsaber as she shot forward with a Force-boosted burst of speed. Darth Gladiolus swung through her targets, bisecting them at the waist. They released soft gasps as they split apart.

And then the air between her and the slavers opened with blaster fire. Gladiolus grimaced as she dodged and weaved through the barrage. She regretted her lack of training with deflecting blaster bolts. The Twi'leks made the sensible choice to flatten against the ground, hands over their heads. She nearly nodded approvingly as the parents made certain to cover their children with their bodies.

"Watch your shots!" a woman cried out as Gladiolus closed on a trio of dusky-skinned humans drawing blaster pistols. She could taste their fear and hear their hammering hearts. The Force was with her, filling her with mighty power. "The merchandise is still out there!"

The Sith Lord sliced through their weapons, through their arms, and finally through their necks. Something repulsed fluttered within her. Gladiolus suppressed the sensation. She had a task before her, and she would see her task through to the end.

Marcos growled in the back of his throat as the spacer, revealed to be a rather nasty brand of Jedi, carved through his men. He kneeled behind a barricade several meters from the heat of battle, trying to determine how he could make it out alive. The spacer's bloody red blade sliced and weaved through his men, leaving only slaughter in her wake. A sniper from the kill team he summoned while heading to the warehouse took her shot.

The Jedi dove preternaturally under the sniper bolt. She then rolled across the ground, sliced through one of Cezrynn's legs—serves the bitch right, Marcos thought with a snarl—and sprung into a high somersault. She flew over the men brave enough to draw vibroblades against a Jedi. She landed behind them, deflecting the bolt from his other sniper with a twirling swing. Before his men with vibroblades could turn, they were dead. Her blade moved too swiftly.

Marcos turned to the pale-skinned Twi'lek beside him. "We should run now. She'll kill us all."

"She's only Jedi," the Twi'lek snarled. Marcos had made a point of never learning the filthy alien's name. He was a repulsive, slithering thing that deserved a death by lightsaber. "She'll wish to take prisoners once weapons are tossed down and surrenders offered."

Marcos shot the Twi'lek a dubious scowl as he surveyed the warehouse floor below. The five Twi'lek meant for merchandise remained alive, though they had not moved from where they collapsed to the floor. Around them was a plethora of corpses; the ten sent down to take them into custody had been joined by almost a dozen more. While he thanked his foresight to bring extra forces, it was turning out to have been for naught. They died just as easily as the scum recruited to go through with the foul task of putting free sentients into chains.

"I doubt she'll be interested in prisoners," Marcos confessed. "Though it makes sense how she managed to follow Cezrynn here." He glanced at the woman, who was now dragging herself across the floor toward the merchandise. The Jedi peered over her shoulder at the woman. With a sudden, violent clench of her free hand, Cezrynn burst apart. Her limbs and head flew from her body, leaving wet bloody trails behind them.

Miraculously, not a single one neared the merchandise.

"Still think she'll be taking prisoners?" Marcos asked the Twi'lek, turning to face him.

The pale-skinned Twi'lek growled something in Huttese too low for Marcos to understand. He limited himself to being solely conversational in that wretched tongue. Was it truly so difficult for Hutts to learn Basic? Every other world, civilized or not, had made Basic their lingua franca. What was the point of a common galactic language when an ancient civilization refused to speak it?

Marcos returned his attention to the Jedi. She approached the last four mercenaries—including the sniper who missed—for they had all tossed down their weapons. The Jedi neared them when she suddenly deactivated her lightsaber. She connected it to her belt awkwardly before raising her hands, fingers pointed toward the four surrendering.

He flinched as a bright, indigo light filled the warehouse. Crackling bolts of lightning streaked from the Jedi's pointed fingers to the four surrendering. For a split second, Marcos swore the lightning exposed the skeletal structures within their bodies.

And then the four collapsed, smoking like freshly blasted corpses.

"…what foul spawn is she?" Marcos wondered aloud. "No Jedi acts that way."

"She must be Sith," the Twi'lek snarled, shocking Marcos with his butchered Basic. "They are… Jedi enemies of long past. Centuries, maybe even millennia. They used red lightsabers. Like her."

"Have the Hutts had dealings with them?" Marcos asked.

The Twi'lek grinned at the implied proposition she acted on behalf of the Hutts, revealing angled rows of needle-sharp teeth. Marcos shivered at the sight. Despite the mountain of corpses left at the feet of that Jedi-Sith woman, he somehow found the Twi'lek's smile to be more threatening.

And then the smile vanished. The Twi'lek scurried away from where Marcos knelt, a terror in his eyes that proclaimed only a single truth:

The Sith woman had found them.

"Just kill me and be done with it," he hissed to her, not troubling to turn and look. Marcos knew she loomed over him. "Make it quick. I didn't live this long to die from torture."

"If that is what you wish," the woman replied with a peculiar accent. It was Coreworlder, but not. He could not place it, and he knew his galactic accents.

Marcos felt heat beside his neck for a moment before the lightsaber blade drew away from his flesh. A heartbeat passed, and then his world became nothing. He did not feel his death.

Darth Gladiolus kicked the older man's head toward the cowering pale-skinned Twi'lek. He quailed as she took a step forward. He began babbling in some foreign tongue, waving his hands as though that would be enough to pacify her wrath. She sensed that he recognized what she truly was and that he hated her for crushing an opportunity to profit off the suffering and misfortune of other Twi'leks.

She haphazardly waved her lightsaber before her, taunting the Twi'lek with his death. He witnessed her slaughter of the other slavers. Certainly, he understood her intentions.

His babbling came faster, remaining in whatever mongrel tongue he used.

"Speak civilized or speak not at all," Gladiolus demanded. She backed the Twi'lek into a wall with no means of escape. "You must know what awaits you."

"E chu ta, Sith! Hutts will know what happened—"

Gladiolus severed his head with a swift backhanded slice. His lekku parted as well. She spat on his body, sneering as her lightsaber deactivated. She then returned it to her belt, grimacing at how poorly the fake holster held her weapon without the extra components. The Sith Lord huffed; her life would be easier if her belt was all that troubled her.

So some still recognize the Sith, Gladiolus thought with a sneer. Did he recognize me by the color of my lightsaber? By the Force techniques I used? Or was it my eyes? Did he stare into—?

"Um, madam?" a weak voice called out. "Are we safe? Have the slavers been dealt with?"

Gladiolus turned to find the Twi'lek man peeking up from where he and his wife sheltered their children. They watched her warily, yet without an explicit feeling of fear. The awe she desired from them was there, along with something uncertain. They understood, thanks to what they witnessed, that she was no Jedi. She was something different, though they had not heard the slaver Twi'lek call her a Sith.

"They've been dealt with," declared Darth Gladiolus. She leaped over the barricade the cowardly old man had hidden behind and landed on the floor where the Twi'leks waited, surrounded by slaver corpses. "You are all free to go."

"…so are you a Jedi, or are you something different?" the man asked. "I've heard horror stories about Jedi, but not ones where they have golden eyes and crimson blades." He paused. Something dawned upon him. "There are ones where there were Jedi-but-not with those eyes and blades. They were fiends, monsters that could not be trusted."

"I might share similarities to the fiends of those tales, good sir, but I am not one of them. Would they have risked everything to follow a single slaver halfway across a city? Would they have destroyed these slavers? Or would they have become the slavers instead?"

The man considered her words thoughtfully. His wife reeked of suspicion; she knew the same stories and managed to peer past the lies and misdirection peddled to her husband.

"…they would not. Yet the other signs are present in you, ma'am."

Gladiolus shrugged. "I would hesitate to place heavy stock on old tales. Perhaps they once held a great deal of wisdom. But how old are they? Five hundred years? A millennia? Older?"

He grimaced. "Older than the current Republic. Maybe two or three thousand years old."

The Sith Lord hummed, struggling to not smirk upon hearing the admission. "Then how can you trust they've remained fully intact? Were these stories written down and carefully preserved over that immense expanse of time? Or have they only been passed down orally, left to warp and decay as generation after generation fades from memory into mere legend?"

His grimace grew stronger. Gladiolus sensed a sway within the wife. She was not completely convinced, but she recognized the gap in the logic she and her husband used to suspect Gladiolus as a character of ill intent.

She was of ill character, for she was a Sith Lord.

But when it came to slavers and slavery, she would never compromise. They would only face destruction from her.

"While I appreciate witnessing me grant justice to these wretched creatures reminded you of legends told amongst your people, I must be off," Gladiolus said. She started for the door she entered through. "I would ask that you say nothing of me to the authorities. I have my reasons for wishing to remain unknown."

They exchanged a dubious look while their children stared at the corpses around them. "We…" the man began as he turned back to Gladiolus. "We will do what we can since you saved us. But someone will notice. An operation on this scale requires the involvement of Ord Mantell's security forces or civil administration."

"I confess myself disappointed. I had thought, given their history, that Ord Mantell might prove less… pathetic." Gladiolus allowed her gaze to wander as though she had thought deeply on the matter. All she would comment on was the obvious. "On a world like Ord Mantell where slavers can act in secret, I would expect their 'justice' to inquire after how any perish." The Sith Lord then snorted. "A shame it takes the death of slavers to inquire after any crime related to its practice. What justice is there for their victims, the ones forced into permanent servitude?"

"None," the man said. In his heart beat the belief that Gladiolus's cause against slavers was truly just. His wife did not agree yet, but time would wear away the arguments and defenses against the Sith Lord's influence. She believed that much. "Perhaps… Perhaps we were fortunate to be the first saved by you…"

"Lord Gladiolus." She smiled wryly. "Calling me a lord will convince the investigators that I am a man and not a woman. That lone deception will make it easier for me to further act against the slave trade. I know even those who would approve of slavers being stopped will not look kindly upon my methods."

They nodded. Content with the conversation, the Twi'leks turned their attention to their traumatized children. Gladiolus watched them for a few seconds before leaving them. They would find their way back to the civilized sections of Ord Mantell. Someone else would eventually find her handiwork. They would presume a rogue Jedi had destroyed the slaver cabal operating on Ord Mantell. The authorities might be furious over the Jedi keeping them out of the know, but what else should they expect? The Jedi had their way of operating—and that included, based on all she knew of them, a high degree of independence from any standardized institution that otherwise restricted the actions and choices of regular citizens.

She slipped from the warehouse and headed for the main thoroughfare back to the spaceport. She would acquire everything she needed, and then she would leave Ord Mantell.

Her work on this world was completed, for now.

Twenty-nine hours after she destroyed the slavers of Worlport, Gladiolus departed Ord Mantell as though nothing happened. She returned to the Celanon Spur and followed it to the Outer Rim world of Agamar. It resided at the intersection of hyperspace lanes leading both eastward to Sith Space and northward to the source of dark side energies she sensed. While Gladiolus understood she could follow the Entralla Route directly from Ord Mantell to the source instead of needing to backtrack along another route, she did not know if she should risk seeking it out so early into her galactic venture. The specter of the dark side in that distant place had turned cold against her; no longer could Gladiolus expect a kind welcome from these other Sith. They would seek to destroy her once granted the opportunity, just as she would seek to destroy them.

Wandering directly to them would likely lead to her destruction, not theirs. They would have the advantage, and she did not know who they were yet.

(It pained Gladiolus to realize, but her ascension to her full powers as a Sith Lord had sent powerful ripples through the Force, alerting any aware of the dark side just who had become a Sith Lord. They would know her name, and they might even know her face.)

She slept through half her journey to Agamar and spent the other half checking over the supplies brought aboard before she departed from Ord Mantell. She had prioritized foodstuff and gear to replace the filtering in both the air and water scrubber systems. Gladiolus had wielded the Force to first acquire funds in the form of Republic Credits before then manipulating sellers to agree to below market rates. Someone might eventually notice her economic meddling, but she was less concerned about being accused of counterfeit and fraud than the Jedi learning she was a Sith Lord before she was ready.

Gladiolus had bathed and eaten by the time the Dearg Due reverted to real space in the Agamar system. She slipped into her seat as the local authority hailed her.

"Unidentified shuttle, this Agamar Space Authority. Power down for boarding."

"May I not send identification codes instead?" she asked, flexing her gauntleted hands. Gladiolus had dressed in her Sith garb, uncertain whether she should trouble with landing on the world before her. "I am appalled you would forcibly demand to board my vessel in lieu of requesting codes like a civilized person."

"You will power down and permit boarding, or we will seize your vessel by force."

The sensors beeped. Gladiolus glanced at them and watched as a pair of signals bore her way. She saw nothing through the viewport, but then Agamar was a few hundred thousand kilometers from her position. It would take some time before they would reach her.

"You are welcome to make your attempt," Gladiolus responded. "Once I have dealt with your attack, you will welcome me onto your world without issue."

The authorities did not reply. They did not cut the comm channel either, which surprised Gladiolus. She expected her defiance to infuriate them beyond reason. Instead, she sensed a degree of arrogance unsuited to the pittance she had stumbled upon. Despite its placement, the world before her appeared pathetic compared to Ord Mantell or even Csilla. Not even Kinoss disappointed her as Agamar did.

Several minutes passed before the signals drew near enough that the Dearg Due's sensors identified them as snubfighters. Specific details did not come up, though the sensors did detect an absence of shields and hyperspace motivators. They were bound to the Agamar system, and they would fall to a single blast of lasers or a direct hit from a photon torpedo.

Which should I use… Which should I use… Gladiolus suddenly smirked. She toggled the Dearg Due's torpedo launcher and the targeting computer. While she did not require a targeting computer to eliminate the incoming snubfighters, she wanted them to know of their coming destruction and that it would not be avoided.

She waited until the snubfighters drew within ten kilometers before activating the targeting system. The archaic systems of the Dearg Due took almost two minutes before they locked onto both snubfighters. She fired two torpedoes in swift succession once the fighters drew within a kilometer. Gladiolus watched as they streaked across the black expanse toward the enemy snubfighters. They broke off their approach, seeking to run from her countering attack.

It mattered not. Each torpedo struck home, slamming into their pitiful engine chassis. Each exploded violently before disappearing into nothing.

"Hostile shuttle. You will turn and depart the Agamar system, or you will face greater force."

Gladiolus scoffed. "You are welcome to try and attack me if you wish. I only ventured your way because it served as a suitable crossroad. Clearly, I was wrong."

The authorities remained silent long enough Gladiolus suspected they had begun to rethink their approach. Her sensors failed to detect any new sources of aggression, though she did detect a larger ship drawing away from the planet. It headed for the hyperspace lane leading northward, past Mygeeto to Dantooine or Sernpidal or even Muunilinst, which sat—

Muunilinst, Gladiolus thought with sudden clarity. That is where those dark side energies are thickest. That is where I will find signs of the Sith.

Perhaps I can find one of these Sith Lords and test their mettle.

An impulse struck her abruptly. Darth Gladiolus turned from Agamar and headed for the same jump point that other ship was heading for. She ignored the confused demands of the authorities. She plugged in the coordinates for Muunilinst, waited on the navigation computer to finish its calculations, and then made the jump to lightspeed.

Here I come, Sith Lord. Take my measure, and know my worthiness. And should you truly make an enemy of me, face your destruction by my hand.