Chapter Thirty

Taylor still had plans for Anoat. Taking apart the financial side of the industry supported by slaves was not going to be enough to improve everything. That would require time, time that the people below would spend in miserable conditions.

She couldn’t imagine the people responsible for the slaves caring all that much when the company paying them folded and their paycheques bounced.

In a way things were about to get a lot worse, and it was entirely her fault.

She felt... very little guilt about it.

She knew she was causing some great suffering, but it was like lancing a boil. Suffering now in order to bring relief later.

Taylor and her crew gathered in the Atlas. Skarsk Nek, Qarrry, Xarly, HK-47, and the newest member, R3-C2. The mess was just large enough that Taylor could sit on the kitchen counter and the more organic members of the crew could be outside of her range if they sat on the far end of the dining table.

“HK, want to translate, please?”

“Acquiescence: Certainly, mistress. I will translate so that the meaning of what you say is properly conveyed to these wasteful meatbags.”

“No funny translations,” Taylor warned. “Save that for non-mission-critical stuff.”

The droid nodded his head. “Statement: I would never jeopardize an amusing mission for such petty fun.”

“Cute,” Taylor said.

Her crew had spent the day after the attack on the CEO resting in the Atlas. Every droid onboard the ship was ready to deploy, and every gun was a moment away from blasting anything that entered their docking pad, but nothing had shown up.

That meant that either they were facing an enemy that was actually clever and was waiting to ambush them, or the system’s security force hadn’t figured out who had attacked the Czerka headquarters.

She was hoping it was one, and banking on it being the other.

“So what do you want to talk about, boss?” Xarly asked.

“Anoat,” Taylor said once HK-47 finished dutifully translating. She had understood most of that sentence. It probably helped that Basic wasn’t all that complicated a language to learn. Clearly, someone had put some thought into creating it. “We need to decide what to do while we’re here. Tattletail uncovered a lot of important data, but we only have a limited time to act on it. We also need to decide on a course of action that won’t negatively impact the slave population of the world.”

“We’re going to free them, right?” Qarry asked.

Taylor nodded. “I hope we’ll be able to. That’s the reason we’re here. But... I think if we act too quickly, we might make things worse for them.” There was something... a niggling at the back of her mind that told her she wasn’t needed here yet. An instinct, maybe?

“Worse than being a slave?” Xarly asked.

The trandoshan hissed. “Things can always be worse.”

A beeping sounded out across the room.

Taylor glanced up at HK-47 and spoke in English. “I want you to check the room for listening devices. That kind of timing seems purposeful.”

“Explanation: That is the ship’s communication’s system warning you about an incoming transmission. R3-C2 should be able to play it without having us relocate to the bridge.”

“Who’s it from?” Taylor asked R3-C2.

The astromech warbled and shifted, then a few panels slid open on its chassis and a blue projection leapt up before it.

Taylor didn’t recognize the person. She was a young woman, lithe and fit. Taylor couldn’t tell if she was human or not, but if she wasn’t, then she wasn’t far from it. The woman glanced around and then locked eyes with Taylor. She said something. The tone suggested it wasn’t a compliment.

Taylor glanced at HK-47. “Translation: I thought you would be taller.”

Taylor chuckled. “That’s a new one. How did you get this, ah, number?”

The woman started to pace, her foot-tall hologram moving left and right. It reminded Taylor of a cat on the prowl. “Dooku gave me your contact information. He has a mission for you.”

“You don’t sound happy about it,” Taylor said.

“Dooku has said that there’s a troop of Jedi heading to Anoat. They want to interrogate you. I would love to see that. But he doesn’t want his precious new toy lost to a few upstart Jedi.”

Taylor leaned back against a wall, her arms crossing. “Jedi, huh?” She could feel the saber pressing into her side. One of their weapons. “I don’t know if I want to deal with them either. But I can’t just leave the system. There’s a lot more work to do here.”

The woman grimaced. “Dooku has decided that Anoat will become a... symbol. I don’t pretend to care about his political games, but it’s a place where the Republic has failed, and he wants to make his side look good by rubbing their faces in that failure.”

Taylor nodded slowly. “Which means that we can expect his faction to help. Or at least try to look like they’re helping.”

“Oh, he’ll actually do it. Dooku doesn’t take half-measures,” the woman said. “You have a new mission now.”

“I don’t answer to Dooku,” Taylor said. “Nor, for that matter, do I answer to you.”

HK-47 turned to her before the woman could say anything more. “Observation: She has a pair of lightsabers. She is likely either a Jedi, or a Sith. The latter is more likely if she’s allied with Dooku.”

“Does that make her more trust-worthy?” Taylor asked.

“Statement: Quite the opposite.”

The woman glanced between Taylor and HK-47, then scowled. “I’m just the messenger. If you want to fail Dooku, then I will be glad to relay that back to him.”

“What’s the mission?” Taylor asked.

The woman grimaced. “Antar Four. It’s some backwater near the Inner Rim. Not too far from the Galactic Core. The people there are starting to break from the chains of the Republic, but the Republic isn’t pleased about it. Dooku wants us to... assist the locals to find their freedom.”

“It sounds like you’re leaving out a lot,” Taylor said.

“Of course I am. Antar Four’s problems have been brewing for a long time. I’m not here to hold your hand through all of this.”

“Then what are you here for? What’s the actual mission?” Taylor asked.

The woman crossed her own arms. “Dooku wants us to help. He was rather open about how.”

“Us?” Taylor asked.

She glared. “Yes. Us. He said that perhaps I could learn from you. I doubt it, though.”

Taylor weighed her options. She had some ideas on how to help the people of Anoat, but they were all complex, the sorts of things that would take weeks or months to even begin to implement. If Dooku was planning on turning the world into a massive PR stunt, then that would mean saving all the people here while smiling for the cameras. It was probably more than she could do at the moment.

“What’s the actual issue on Antar Four?” Taylor asked.

“I explained it to you already,” the woman said, her voice turning into a growl.

Taylor sighed and let her arms drop. “Fine. I guess I’ll figure it out on my own. Did you have a place where you wanted to meet?”

“Prindaar system. Antar Five,” the woman said.

“Close to our objective, then,” Taylor said.

“Antar Five has nothing but a few mines and industrial sectors. It’s barely worthy of note. Come in looking like a freighter from the Trade Federation and no one will bother you. You can figure that much out, can’t you?”

“I’ll manage,” Taylor said. “See you soon.”

“Yes, I suppose you will,” she said.

Taylor had the distinct impression that this woman was going to try to kill her. She didn’t like working with villains, which begged the question, why was Dooku working with her. Was he? She made a note to ask him before they left to fly into a possible trap.

The woman reached for something to the side.

“Wait,” Taylor said.

“What?”

“You never gave me your name.”

She scoffed. “You never gave me yours.”

Taylor smiled, though she wasn’t entirely amused. It was more of a show of teeth. “Darth Khepri.”

The woman hesitated. “Asajj Ventress,” she said a moment before her hologram disappeared.

“She seems nice,” Xarly said.

“Observation: She seems to be the sort of Sith who is ruled by the dark side,” HK-47 said.

“What’s that mean?”

The droid turned her way. “It means that, unlike you, the dark side controls her. She does not control it. It makes her dangerous.”

“To us, or to herself?”

“Affirmation: Yes.”

Taylor chuckled. “Right. Tattletail, get me what information you can about this Antar Four place, and can you send a message to Dooku? Ask him if he actually works with this Asajj woman.”

Taylor felt as if things were starting to get exciting again.

***