"They offered me power. I believe I reacted appropriately."
Ordinarily, spending eight hours getting your ears thoroughly waterlogged was not a pleasant experience, but Kolto had a way of shifting the balance a bit. Or a lot, for that matter. The adhesive patches had been torn off, the gauze extricated from my wounds, and now I was simply waiting for the miracle juice to accelerate my own natural healing abilities.
For eight hours.
With nothing to do except watch the horribly distorted world beyond the glass walls of my healing tank. No, that was a lie. I had plenty of time to practice moving a decorative vase around the room with the Force. Which, fun as it may sound, lost its novelty before the minute mark hit the double digits.
"I see you are awake, my lord," a reasonably pleasant voice interrupted my annoyed musings. Female, that much was obvious, though there was a distinctly tinny quality to it, a distortion. After a heartbeat, I realized that there was something pressing against my ears. Headphones of some sort, no doubt. Truth be told, I had lost track of all the things they had put on me, off me, and out of me in the rushed minutes before getting immersed in the magic juice. "Quite surprising; I was informed by the medical droids that the sedatives would not be out of your system for another half hour."
Wait, I had been sedated? No, of course, they had tried to sedate me; Why else would there be an intravenous line in my arm? Aside from the significant amounts of lost blood, at least. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to add a few drops of sedatives. Unfortunately for the poor soul who had come up with that plan, purging my blood of drugs had been one of the very first things I had learned to do with the Force.
Out of pure necessity rather than anything else.
"Allow me to bring you up to speed, my lord," the woman's voice continued, oblivious to the racing pace of my mind. "The explosion you were caught in was our doing. It was determined that the optimal means of disposing of Darth Thur, Lords Egatio and Elso, and Apprentices Hibal and Elcho, was to stage an airspeeder crash and pin the blame on a mechanic with pro-Republic loyalties. He has since been eliminated in a sufficiently suspicious way."
I'm sorry, what?
A public bombing had been their idea of corpse disposal? How many had been injured? How many had I not been able to save?
Waving my arms, I moved myself through the thick liquid until I was almost making contact with the glass walls of the tank. The harness that was suspending me in the tank and the mask that was supplying the oxygen tried to pull me back, but I managed to maintain my position. From there, I glared at the woman whose face was a blurry mess, unable to tell anything beyond her pale skin and red hair.
I wanted out.
I needed out.
"I take it you want out of the tank?" she asked.
Yeah, out of the tank. I could start with that. And end with getting out of this galaxy, one way or another.
"Vital signs nominal," an evenly modulated voice entered my ear. More than that, it was a synthesized voice. The kind a droid would have. "Extracting patient now."
The harness around my chest pushed against my chest as my whole world shifted upwards and a mechanical whine filled my ears. Beyond the walls of my healing tank, the world had already been blurry, but the movement had allowed it to reach complete incomprehensibility. For the briefest of moments, the ability to see coupled with the inability to see anything recognizable instilled a seed of panic.
But once I left the Kolto solution, that panic left; I could see, I could recognize, and I could feel that it was way colder outside the tank, put me back, please.
The cold air was soon joined by somehow even colder water as I was all but hosed down to get the remaining Kolto off me. Fortunately, I was provided a thick towel and a set of spare Sith robes almost immediately afterward. Unfortunately, I now had absolutely no excuse to avoid the person who had likely been involved in turning simple body disposal into an act of terror.
Because this was my life now.
I took the stairs down from the… decanting chamber, for lack of a better term, and joined the woman who had broken the news to me. She looked familiar, and I belatedly realized the pale woman had been part of the diplomatic entourage we had taken down to the surface of Chembau. But now, instead of wearing the uniform of the Diplomatic Service, she was clad in the far more military grey uniform of Imperial Intelligence.
"What's this about you arranging a terror attack?" I asked once I was back on level ground.
"Cadaver disposal, my lord," she corrected. Or attempted to, at any rate; I did not care too much. "With some political maneuvering to properly take advantage of the situation. It should be driving anti-Republic sentiment to a fever pitch shortly."
"You crashed an airspeeder into a city," I said.
"It was deemed the most expedient way of securing the planet, my lord," she said, as though that explained everything. "By pinning the deaths of five Sith and seven civilians on a man with misguided sympathies, we can paint the Empire as the more peaceful victimized party. With your words to the planetary regent to take carefully considered and decisive action, we could have an alliance on the table ready to be signed in time for lunch tomorrow."
Oh good, terrorism for the greater good. That excused everything.
"You crashed an airspeeder into a city," I repeated.
"My lord, I have a feeling that you disagree with this course of action," the intelligence agent said, her tone carefully measured.
"That is one way of describing it," I said. "And now I have to do my part to maintain this charade and support your little atrocity."
"As the ranking Sith on this expedition, my lord, that is the expectation," she answered.
Oh, and how could we forget that little bit of trivia? I was in charge now! Which meant that I had to give my implicit retroactive approval for this whole affair in the name of success. All so I could give galactic peace a few more hours of time on the life-support machine.
"If you would prefer, my lord, we can continue this briefing later," the intelligence drone offered. "Clearly, the materials I prepared would not be terribly conducive."
"Go," I ordered. "I'm certain you'll be able to find me once you're ready."
The intelligence agent did not linger. She turned smartly and left the room, no doubt to find or to 'find' some information that might make me more receptive to the current plans. I, however, had more important things to attend to. Getting dressed, mostly. Robes were comfortable, I had to admit, but they were not my style. After a quick jaunt over to the glorified broom closet that I had been assigned, plus a few minutes of time to get changed, I was back to my usual fashion: overdressed.
And more importantly, wearing that mask of mine.
Not having facial features to read was an advantage I quite liked having, thank you very much.
With nothing else to do except wait for Imperial Intelligence to present evidence that civilian casualties were fine, actually, I went to the one place I knew I would be able to enjoy: the hangar bay. Not out of some misguided mechanical inclination, mind you. No, my motivations were far more mundane than that.
It was far more simple than that.
Because from orbit, the planet of Chembau was stunning. Granted, most inhabited worlds had that effect on me. Not simply a pearl of blue and white suspended in the cosmos, there were streaks and layers and blankets of white and grey clouds roiling and shifting all across it.
I felt no shame in admitting that I wished I could have seen Earth from the same perspective, at least once.
Alas, that opportunity was lost to me. Forever, if I figured my odds right. Which meant that I had to appreciate what I had here and now instead of dwelling on that which was forever denied to me. Although, if I were forced to admit it, it was hard to deny that watching a foreign world through the magnetic field of the hangar bay of a Harrower-class star dreadnought was quite the experience.
"My lord," the voice of the intelligence drone from the med bay intruded into my carefully scheduled brooding time.
"I take it you have learned something?" I asked simply.
"More than that, my lord," she answered. "Reports from the cities are coming in."
"Let me guess: everything went as you planned?" I asked, my tone acidic.
"Slightly better, actually," she said.
"What, has the Regent already offered us an alliance?" I asked.
"Close," she answered. "He gave a speech denouncing pro-Republic actors, and the signs on the surface point towards the Republic pulling off of this world."
Of course.
Of course those methods had worked.
Because this galaxy officially hated me.
...
Hey guys I would really appreciate it if you could throw some power stones to help elevate the ranking.
...
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