"If there is nothing else, then."

She would like to get back to her desk, too.

Pradnakt stops at a comm station on her way back and asks Daisy and Nine to meet her on the Nightfall Spectrum, where she gives Tim an appreciative pat and flops on the couch in the lounge as they come in.

    Is everything all right? Daisy is the first to ask.

Yeah - with the Darth, yeah. We're - she was serious about it being a choice, to be here - I want to stay, I think. That's not what's bothering me.

    Do you want a minute?

I don't think it'll help. Maybe.

        Is there something we should do?

I - maybe? Not - there was another droid, I'm - not sure if this should be your problem, now that I think about it. But she startled me.

        What happened?

She was - I'm not even really sure how to describe it, actually - she was clearly older, she had opinions, but she was... worse? about... not about being a person, but...

    All the things you taught me about seeming to be one?

Yeah, something like that. I hope I didn't upset her, I panicked about it a little.

    Daisy gives her hand a squeeze. It sounds like she was fine other than that, though?

As far as I could tell. And this is one of the Darth's head staff, I think. She wasn't treating her like she was damaged.

    She's probably not, then. I do think that could work fine, for some of us.

Pradnakt sits up and gives her a concerned, assessing look.

    I'm fine.

You seem awfully sure about how well that'd work.

    It's just speculation. I did used to wonder what it would have been like if you'd wanted less of this from me. But I don't regret what happened.

This gets a frown. All right. If I did wrong by you I want to know about it, though.

    I don't think you did. I think the other way would have been fine for me, but this way is fine too, and we're closer this way, and I want that.

I suppose I can't argue with that.

        You're mad that she missed out on it, I think? But if you'd let her do that she'd be missing out on this.

Yeah.

    And you don't like being the reason I have to make choices like that. But that's part of having a friend who's a person, that they have needs and opinions and things.

That gets a grin and a chuckle from Pradnakt. Well, when you put it that way...

    Yes, ma'am, and she inclines her head in a return grin.

Oh, there is plenty of fondness shared between Opelia Vaudall (known to many as Darth Kalbetis) and L5-C3.  (Their mutual interest in interesting science permits nothing less.)  But as much as she would be an enthusiastic participant in the discussion if she was there to know about it, she isn't.

(She was, to an extent, playing up the refusal to behave by conventions of personhood in that conversation, to be honest.)

Regardless, there is much to do.  There always is.  And she is in the thick of it, exactly where she wishes to be, smoothing the way for her lady.

There is other business - even this project is not her only focus.  But soon, she finds herself in the out-of-the-way system of Uusodal, deployed on one of the satellite ships of the By Other Means.

The Carrot is rather used to playing bait, seeming a typical, under-armed, if rather heavily shielded, luxury ship until the boarders arrive and meet her astromech complement.

(They're devious little shits on an institutional level, even before equipping themselves appropriately for pitched battle.)

(The Bigger Stick, on the other hand - commonly deployed with her in the field, in case of surprises - is very much a warship.)

The presence of Darth Kalbetis and her personal staff make a relatively routine sort of mission for these ships' crews even more of a curbstomp, the Darth seamlessly spearheading the counterboarding operation to seize the pirate fleet's navicomps and tracing them to the base she needs to find a Padawan's lost lightsaber at.

(Sure, she could have pulled the numbers for it out of the Force, and she has, in fact, prepared the crew for the planetary environment - but it makes an impression to out-pirate the pirates and use their ships to raid their base.)

The part of this visible to Lord Pradnakt is Darth Kalbetis' summons, nominally 'to discuss your ongoing project', and the lightsaber laid out on her desk once she arrives.

Pradnakt comes when summoned, with a few freshly embroidered things tucked under her arm to drop off with Elsie while she's there. It's usually not obvious at all that she's using her Force senses, but this time there's something subtly off about her body language that suggests she's quite distracted by the out-of-place 'saber.

(L5-C3 seems faintly amused by Lord Pradnakt attempting to drop the embroidery off with her, when Darth Kalbetis is the one that actually cares about aesthetics in normal circumstances - but very specifically hands them back with a specific one on top and a knowing tilt of the head, as well as her apologies for the communications failure.  She knows her lady's tastes well.)

"Good afternoon, Lord Pradnakt.  Your cover-project is lovely.  This is the lightsaber of a, nominal, Padawan Rafiik Vidarra.  I do believe I briefed you on him, at the beginning of our acquaintance.  My information suggests that you can find a way to reunite it with its creator, which we rather do need to accomplish, because an actual legwork-powered search never works.  He moves on too quickly, such that by the time we could reach him from reports of him, given our basing, he will have moved on somewhere else, especially because he'll notice that concerted sort of intent and assume the worst - ...which is honestly quite rational of him given we're Sith - and slicing the spacelanes won't work either.  ...I'm not looking too closely at what he's using to get passage, there's really little point - but it isn't often credits."

(She's rather leaning into the Force right now herself, to know all these things, so it's not like she can throw stones at Lord Pradnakt's distraction in the Force.)

"Thank you. We'll need someone with enough astronavigation skill to figure potential destinations out from a direction and rough distance; Daisy can do it if you'd like."

"I am, not particularly by choice, a half-decent astronavigator myself, but if she'd like to, that would be a help."

She's gotten ahold of a portable communicator by this point; it doesn't take long for Daisy to join them, and from there it's a matter of a minute's meditation for Pradnakt to give them a rough heading.

With Darth Kalbetis' own assistance sufficing to narrow down which of a couple planets it is, it is a matter of determining in which ship the pursuit shall occur.  She has planned on flying the Cloak, which is essentially a custom-built docking frame for hyperspace travel and life-support (though not neglecting its own defense because that would be stupid), supporting two Dagger-class assault ships - those being an optimal choice for their small complement of required crew even before the astromechs let loose, but large transport capacity.  (It's usually for assault and boarding, but equally capable of performing extractions under hostile conditions.)

On the other hand, should they catch up to Padawan Vidarra before they catch up to Lord Tuscias, she would really rather prefer to not meet him in an avowed warship.  It would send...  Impressions she'd rather not imply at first glance.

That said, she doesn't quite have better options, unless Lord Pradnakt is willing to lend the Nightfall Spectrum to the mission.

"I find myself rather in a logistical and diplomatic knot that I believe you may be well-positioned to cut through.

"I have aerospace assets that don't scream 'warship', but, aurek, they're not in position to play courier for us - most of them are working on internal matters - and besh, we're going to need a warship to handle Lord Tuscias.  But on the third hand, if we go haring after Padawan Vidarra in a warship, he'll rather take offense.

"The Nightfall Spectrum seems well-positioned to solve these problems, if the Cloak plots a parallel course - but it's your ship, and I do not wish to presume upon it."

"How many of your people would we be carrying, if I agreed?"

"Not many - I would want to have Medea close at hand, and my divination will benefit from establishing myself in proximity to you and your divination, but Elcie will be quite busy performing administrative duties which the Nightfall Spectrum is not secured for, and we will likely be RVing with the Cloak occasionally in any case should we require specific capabilities on hand that neither of us otherwise have."

"We can make that work; Nine should be fine to clear out of the third cabin if he hasn't already and the fourth is already free."

"Medea will likely prefer to set up in your medbay rather than take up cabin space, so that's likely quite sufficient."

"All right," she nods. "I'll have to check on the state of our supplies but we should be ready within an hour."

"Indeed.  ...If you want a better class of hyperdrive for your trouble, I believe I recall picking up a spare recently that will save us a bit more travel time than we lose by waiting to install it, but it's a thin enough margin that it shouldn't matter too much."

"One second." How do you think that'll go with Tim? she signs to Daisy.

    She has to think about it for a moment. I should be able to get him to a yes by the time they're ready to start putting it in.

Thanks. "We'd appreciate it, thank you."

"I'll let engineering know, then."  Or rather, she'll let Elsie know, who'll let engineering know.

"Anything else?  I can let logistics know to send someone to help with your stocktake, if you'd like, but I can imagine why you might not want that."

"We'll be fine without, thank you." And she gets up to go.

Kalbetis has seen the Spectrum's lounge, decorated in an understatedly Sithy style with the metal trim blackened and the seating upholstered in a roiling ash and carmine pattern fabric. The cabin Pradnakt shows her to is similar, with the bed made up in plain grey linens with a silvery sheen, a small tray with a handful of datadiscs that turn out to contain a variety of poetry and short stories on the bedside table, and a single piece of art on the wall, a hand-calligraphed poem in silver ink on black paper:

the dream of the quiet year

to be joy

to be the sunlight on the leaves

to not know fear

to wear fear like a pair of sturdy boots

to leave them muddied at the door

to rest by the fire

to rest—to open your eyes to a new day

to carry a new day in your bones

to breathe in the cold air

to turn breath to song

to see the irises reach up

to reach up

to reach up

to reach

[source]

The medbay, on the other hand, is a tiny closet off the lounge, with the space freed up by the downgrade having been used to expand the kitchen into the other part of that corner. Medea can fit into it, barely, and Daisy says that she's welcome to either that or the other cabin, or to stay in the lounge, as she prefers.

What an apt piece.

Medea takes a third option to resolve the problem of not having a medbay worth mentioning to terrorize quite firmly metaphorically install herself in - she'll just stand watch over Darth Kalbetis, instead.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  (Not to mention, L5-C3 will appreciate it, being as she cannot do that herself like she normally would in the field.)