Probably enough to help revitalize the Republic economy, but I was not so rude as to say that much out loud. No doubt the ten years of continuous decline in Gross Domestic Product were a sore subject to ordinary people in the Republic.
That, and the Little Jedi gave me a warning glare.
No trust here. None at all!
...
"I, for one, would be honored to store a superweapon aboard my personal ship," I said dryly. "It would do wonders the next time I have to hold myself hostage."
Doctor Godera gave me a withering glance in response, the kind only a very annoyed pensioner could give.
"You may destroy it if no other option presents itself," he ground out. "But simply killing the Sith hunting for it would be ideal."
"I will take that under advisement," I said. "But we cannot just leave you here alone in case Darth Angral finds you. Any volunteers?"
Levin began to raise his hand, only for the good doctor to scoff.
"Most certainly not. I'd rather jump in a pool of Tarisian swamp water than trust my safety to a Sith."
… one of these days, I was going to take my mask off in front of him. It would be hilarious, if not for the minor detail that Godera would probably try to kill me or blow up my little venture on Taris in retaliation.
"What about a Jedi?" Asked the Little Jedi.
"Offering to stay behind, are we?" asked Natia, earning a glare from the Little Jedi. Not the kind she usually sent my way; those tended to be flat glares of annoyance. This one was a lot more aggressive.
"I have the best record of killing Sith Lords," she stated flatly. Honestly, I probably should have been concerned, but it was fine. She was on my side, after all. "I am going down to the surface."
"That leaves… Padawan Carsen," I said, turning to the red-headed padawan, taking a second to remember her name. She wore robes colored blue and cream, with what could only be a double-saber swinging from her belt. "I really do hate to have to ask this, but…"
"Don't worry, I'll keep the doctor safe," she assured me, her expression serious.
"Anybody else want to stay behind?" I asked. "Or do we all want to head down?"
"Levin, Bybon, Loa, are you in?" Natia asked, barely turning to look at her allies.
"Yeah." Loa was resolute.
"Of course." Bybon appeared to consider the implication that he would sit this one out a personal insult.
Levin just nodded. Perhaps he preferred listening to a constant stream of thoughts in German to waiting around with a Jedi Padawan and a man who was willing to develop superweapons to him and his kind out by the thousands. Or maybe he was just smart enough to know where he was and was not welcome.
"We're all going," Natia proudly declared.
"Five Sith, two Jedi…" I mused, weighing the potential fallout. The uneven sides made for an obvious power disparity. Even numbers of equally ranked Sith and Jedi would have been ideal. At present, the diplomatic arithmetic valued one Jedi Knight at four Sith Apprentices. One-to-two would have been more to my liking, but I could do nothing to change that without antagonizing Doctor Godera. His continued cooperation, limited though it was, was important. "It will have to do."
"You have no objections to leaving your ship in Jedi hands?" The Jedi Knight asked.
"We need to keep Doctor Godera safe," I said. "And I trust you and yours not to betray me."
"… Are you sure you're a Sith?" he asked lightly. It was a valid question, in all fairness, but one I really did not want to answer in my present company.
"Don't bother trying to recruit him," the Little Jedi said. "He'll find a suitably noble reason to stick with the Empire."
"If we're done figuring out who is babysitting the old man, perhaps we can get down to more serious matters?" Natia asked. "What our actual plan is, for starters?"
"Land in House Thul territory and see if anybody has been in contact with Lord Nefarid," I said, earning a wince from each of the Sith Apprentices. The Little Jedi, by contrast, kept her features studiously neutral.
"Just walk in the front door? The last time you did that, we got ambushed," Natia pointed out.
"Yes, and Lord Sadic got killed," I reminded her. "And the time before that, I managed to strongarm the apprentice of then-Lord Zash into helping me get the supplies to successfully negotiate my promotion. And before that, it helped get the Empire and entire planet."
"That last one also got every other Sith on the planet killed," the Little Jedi pointed out. Granted, she had been the one who killed the other four Sith on the planet.
"So you're in favor then?" I guessed.
"We need better a plan," she stressed. "A better plan than 'walk in and hope they didn't put frag charges in the walls.' I'm with your ally on this one. I have no desire to get lured into a trap again, especially when the enemy knows what we can do."
"We need to make contact with House Thul anyway," I countered. "As imperial allies, they are the natural point of contact for a Sith Lord. More importantly, they cannot refuse our presence, not if I make my presence known. They are too reliant on imperial support to risk offending a Sith Lord."
"I'm sorry, didn't the Jedi just say we weren't going to charge in blindly?" Natia asked.
"The alternative is… what, exactly?" I asked. "Organa or Ulgo? The former will be very suspicious if they don't outright refuse us. The latter will shoot us out of the sky the moment they get us on their sensors."
"And House Thul will not be suspicious?" The Knight asked.
"Easily resolved," I said. "If anyone asks, you're all my apprentices. It's not my fault if you fail out of my incredibly rigorous process as soon as we're done on Alderaan."
"That not a plan," the Little Jedi pointed out. "This is rushing headlong into danger. Again."
"Do you have an alternative?" I asked. None of them did.
"… Lord Nestor has a point," the Jedi Knight conceded, earning an incredulous glare from the Little Jedi and a chuckle from of the Sith Apprentices. "The lack of true imperial combat forces on the planet limits what Lord Nefarid can do."
"Master Orgus won't be happy about you posing as Sith Apprentice," the padawan pointed out from across the room. Already, her workstation display had been taken over by what looked like a sensor readout.
"Master Orgus?" I asked. The name was familiar, of course, but a lot of the details of my new home had gotten rather less clear as time went by and I had more pressing concerns on my hands.
"My former master," the Knight explained. "He's on Alderaan investigating some leads on Lord Nefarid. Since he's in the middle of the Organa camp, we can compare notes between the factions."
"Does he know about your collaboration with a Sith Lord?" I asked. A Jedi Master showing up to ask one of my allies what he was doing would be… inconvenient.
"If he's been listening to the news, then yes," he answered. "If he disapproves, no doubt he would have called me already."
"So that's allies in two camps…" I muttered, my gaze drifting to the sensor readout at the workstation. There were quite a few blips on the screen. Some of them were rather distressingly large. "Padawan Carsen, what are those large contacts on sensors?"
"The house fleets," she said calmly. "Panteer, Rist, Ulgo, Thul, Organa… they're maintaining their orbit of the moon."
"The houses have fleets?" I asked, furrowing my brows. "And they aren't using them? I thought they were at war with each other."
"No doubt they're afraid to damage that oversized nature park they call a planet," Natia observed. "Foolishness. It's an advantage they could use to force a victory, even just by blockading the planet."
"The word you're looking for is patriotism, young lady," the old doctor corrected, his tone condescending. "Just because they are at war with each other doesn't make Alderaan any less their home."
Oh.
Oh this could work perfectly in my favor.
"… I have a plan," I said after a moment's pause.
"Is it another frontal assault?" the Little Jedi asked.
"No, it's a solution to our lack of naval strength," I said.
"Oh, for the love of-" she broke off her sentence to let out a frustrated sigh. "We are not stealing a fleet!"
"No, no, that's the best part," I said. "We won't need to."
"Make this incredibly good," she said.
"It's rather simple," I said. "We put an end to the civil war. All for the low, low price of the cooperation of the house fleets in our righteous crusade against Darth Angral."
Silence reigned in the room.
"Dare I ask how?" the Little Jedi asked.
"How else? I'm a diplomat," I said. "I'm going to have a chat with the usurper. After we deal with Darth Angral's goons, of course."
...
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