Someone who is quite clearly dressed in another Sith's - uniform - approaches the periphery of her group almost expectantly, though giving the Sith Lord and especially the enamelled droid plenty of personal space; they are about as Force-sensitive as a brick, and seem to be unarmed, but they're clearly well-trained in shielding - or simply that unflappable, unfazed as they are by the nature of the people they are approaching.

"Ah, I regret the interruption, but I have a message for Lord Pradnakt?"

At the mention of the Sith's name, her hand goes to the lightsaber at her hip, and in the same moment the battle droid's shoulder cannon rises from its enclosure to point at the messenger.

Hold, she signs to the droid with her free hand, and spends a long moment examining the interloper before speaking. "Yes?"

To the messenger's credit, they do not flinch or quail, even as their heart races.

"I don't know the details, ma'am; I was merely given the missive, and where my Lady expected I'd find she to whom I was to deliver it.  If you wish to know more you would have to read what my Lady has to say.  You are Lord Pradnakt, then?"

"It's a name I answer to, yes."

"Then this is for you, and by your leave I sha'n't intrude further upon your outing."

The messenger produces a wax-sealed letter bearing an imprint that matches the symbol he wears, hand-addressed 'Lord Pradnakt' with no further details, and lays it upon the table, before he bows and moves to depart.  The letter has a feeling in the Force, oddly enough.  It bears her no ill-will, despite that being a thing that a letter cannot itself do.

She watches the letter for a moment, ignoring the messenger as they leave, and then uses telekinesis to pass it to the battle droid, signing to him to read it.

There is a note inside the envelope. as well as a second, smaller, envelope.

I first do wish to apologize for the distress I have caused by this means of reaching out, but I am rather trying to pick from the best of a set of bad options at this point.

My name is Darth Kalbetis, and the Force reliably informs me that there is a dangerous artifact I will soon encounter that Lord Pradnakt is uniquely suited to dealing with - and perhaps even willing to do so, depending upon my success in explaining the matter.

Further details are enclosed in the second letter, but I would advise against opening it in a public place, as while I have tried to maintain circumspection in the explanation thereof, it does rather involve certain private details that the Force was regrettably insistent upon my knowing.

I would swear to the harmlessness and uselessness (well, beyond communication -) of the psychometric impression I have amplified upon the outer envelope, but I have clearly already failed to persuade by that means, and my trustworthiness is inherently suspect because Sith are not usually trustworthy - doubly so any of my station - so it's rather moot.  Do with it as you will.

May the Force be with you.

--Darth Kalbetis

"I think it's safe," the droid reports first, and then at Pradnakt's prompting he reads it aloud, quietly, in the Sith language.

I don't like it, she reports. But if it's a trap they're going to a lot of trouble they don't need to. Thoughts?

   It almost has to be - the servant droid starts.

I know. That's why I don't like it. But if they know - and I bet they do, how did they know my name - this isn't what it would look like if they just wanted to kill me.

    We could just ignore it.

We could. 

    You don't want to.

I don't like any part of this, even that one. 

    Well, it's up to you, of course.

An hour later, back at their ship, Pradnakt teases the second letter out of its envelope with careful telekinesis and holds it up to read.

Let me begin by establishing that you and I have...  Something in common, Lord Pradnakt, in how we interact with the Force.  I am not as prodigious with it as you are - the Force has seen fit to gift or curse me with prophetic insights, but beyond that little else - but my studies of the Force's mysteries have taken me strange places in my relationship therewith and my own philosophical understanding of its purposes.

Mutual, and frankly pro forma, blackmail out of the way:

I am requesting your assistance because you are particularly suited to solving multiple problems that I rather cannot - I am neither a tracker, despite my ability to See, nor gifted in the...  biological, aspects, of Force Alchemy, and to properly resolve this requires that I first find a person who has custody of an artifact that has dangers they are unaware of, and earn the goodwill of its keeper to safely defuse it - safely, because otherwise the harmonic cascade of its powers turned upon itself, as its makers envisioned the final means to protect it from those who would use it for ill, could well rend the galaxy apart at its worst, or at least a goodly portion of a planet - but if you do not wish to help, I cannot - or rather will not - make you.  The Code says that the Force shall free us, after all.  I would be remiss in my dealings if I then turned around to enslave others, which all too many have forgotten, if they ever knew.

...But I digress.

I should, however, mention that this mission will likely involve Jedi.  They are not all as inflexible and unfeeling as the propaganda paints them, mind - I've rather made a study of them; I'd know - but the mission will take us through contested territory to begin with, to say nothing of the origins of the artifact I seek, or that the one who holds it is, despite having fled the Jedi, certainly not Sith.  (Well, not yet, at least, and the future is always in motion.)

 

I hope this suffices to inform you of the details, but if it does not satisfy your curiosity, I can be reached via comm or in person for additional information - or to confirm your interest or disinterest.

(The rest of the letter is contact information.)

They know, Pradnakt reports just a few sentences into the letter. But they're being nice about it.

I'm not sure why they think I can help with that, she muses a few moments later. But this is... reasonable... otherwise.

...on the other hand, Jedi.

I think we should at least go look. She adjusts the letter so the droids can see it, and a few minutes later the servant droid takes the comm while Pradnakt incinerates the letter with a bit of Force-generated fire.

The comm picks up in an instant, revealing a Falleen woman in a dark robe and rather imposing mask, and hints of esoteric devices at the edge of the holo's viewfield.  Despite her fashion sense, she seems to be surprisingly easygoing for a Sith, greeting the droid with an "Ah, hello there.  You would be with - or calling on behalf of - Lord Pradnakt, I presume?  This is Darth Kalbetis."

"Yes ma'am. My name is Daisy, and Lord Pradnakt is listening in."

"A pleasure to meet you, Daisy."  She steeples her hands.  "And the purpose of your call, then, if you would?"

"Lord Pradnakt is... curious," skeptical, "about why you think it would be reasonable for her to choose to interact with Jedi in this case."

"Well.  I don't have the skill necessary to undo some rather twisted alchemy with Force Healing myself, let alone guide others.  So it's not so much a matter of reason as necessity, given that short of that, there's few ways to prove good faith over the potentially world-destroying artifact."

Sufficiently Force-assisted hearing might catch a frustrated hiss in the background of Daisy's transmission as her posture changes to indicate that she's looking at something offscreen.

"She can't Heal anyone if she's dead, she says."

"Quite, and something I am rather keen on preventing.  I have not neglected planning to defuse the volatile tensions in the process of defusing the volatile artifact."

She seems almost a little offended by the idea that she would have left something as important as this to - chance, or something.  The Force helps those who help themselves, as too many seers have failed to learn.

"It's rather a layered defense, beyond my visions being rather convincing in their own right that this works.  Firstly, when the assistance of other Force-users is likely to be necessary, we've already found and failed to harm someone the Jedi rather thought was dead, and they're vouching for our lack of ill intent, as our opening gambit.  Secondly, there is precedent for even Sith and Jedi to cooperate in the face of galactic-scale destruction.  ...Admittedly, that's usually a Sith's fault, but it holds and I can cite to specific examples.  Thirdly, I can demonstrate not just a light-side-seeming Force presence but some actual skill with techniques that only the Light knows - they will get quite distracted by that before I even let them turn their attentions to you.  Fourthly, we would have medical privilege, under the rules of war the Jedi follow - and they cannot treat alchemical folly in the way we can; Healing may be the Light's domain, but alchemy is a Sith skill and best treated, well, Sithily, regardless of Force alignment.  ...Finally, they can't and won't stop us, should it despite all these precautions, and the Force's will, come to a fight.  I may have taken a diplomat's name, but that does not mean that I did not ascend to this position in rather the traditional fashion - and I have not let myself slacken, since.  If I have failed to adequately prepare this, they will nonetheless have to go through me to get to you.  ...If this turns out to be the mistake you fear it will become, that is the least I will owe."

"She says she'll want evidence of all that as we go, ma'am. Are you nearby?"

"I'd expect nothing less.

"As far as where I am, I won't be here long - I can be on Elsul in a week, or I can tell you where I'll be and you can arrange yourselves."

Nine?

    This sounds more important than the weapons museum.

Not that urgent, though.

        Are you sure you want to inconvenience a Darth? Daisy signs, her hands below the camera's view.

This one? Like this? Yeah, actually. If she sucks I want to know.

        Fair enough. "We have a few things to finish up here, ma'am, but if you give us your planned itinerary we can head out to you in a few days."

"Of course.  While this is sensitive, and important, it isn't urgent on the scale of days to weeks.  Perhaps months, though."  She follows up with a list of departure times and arrival places - some of them with strange warnings attached like 'Detour around Jarrus; there's some very annoying pirates'.  It seems that Darth Kalbetis' travels jig up from her current location towards Elsul, perhaps skirting something internal thereby, and then make a relatively straight line towards contested space, with the occasional zig and zag of 'running errands', or so the itinerary notes.

It only takes Daisy a moment to analyze Kalbetis' route once it's sent, so she responds promptly: "We'll meet you at Yaguscin III, ma'am, and I'll send you the details once we're docked there." It's one of the most obvious meeting places if they're optimizing for the least travel time for all involved rather than for meeting up with the Darth as quickly as possible, and a comfortable choice among the planets meeting that description, with a pleasant climate and a mixture of cities and wilderness.

"Very well.  Until then, I suppose, unless you've other questions?"  She rather figured that would be their choice, but far be it from her to not offer options.

"Lord Pradnakt would appreciate any information you feel comfortable sending us, but she has no specific questions at this time."

"Of course.  Expect that in the next few days."

The information arrives in four parts.

One is a series of intelligence reports on the base of one Lord Tuscias, a mildly important alchemist with a specialty noted in the biological side of the field.  (Darth Kalbetis, as seen through the holonet, seems to acclaim herself a specialist in alchemical materials and ritual crafts, in contrast.  Surprisingly inoffensive but iconically Sithy habits, perhaps taken up to veil heterodoxy.)

The second is a delicately sketched impression of a Jedi Padawan, his lightsaber - notably, drawn separate from the Padawan - and the artifact he's keeping (surprisingly unassuming in appearance, a small silvery sculpture that's rather abstract in its design for all that it clearly seems to invoke group meditation), presumably drawn in a vision trance based on the additional notes included: 'Master dies; Padawan cannot stay in the Order, too stifled - but holds to mission?  Deep wanderlust.  Preemption impossible; will foul vibes.'

The third is a series of investigations into piracy and smuggling in one area Darth Kalbetis has an 'errand: recovering tracking material' on her itinerary, closed by the sector government as 'not worth the trouble of rooting them out'.

The fourth is dossiers of a dozen Jedi who "might be in the area, depending on our choices and the Force's whims," with idiosyncratic notes of 'avoid' and 'attract' attached thereunto - presumably, ways to steer those possibilities.

It is on one hand not too surprising that Pradnakt would be tapped to counter alchemy; she's almost certainly the only person in the galaxy able to reverse it after the process has gotten past the initial stages. On the other hand, with the resources the Force is bringing to bear, it seems implausible that it couldn't've come up with something to stop the process in or before those initial stages. On the third hand, it's not surprising that it wouldn't bother, when it can instead contrive to make her use her healing. Which is to say that she's fairly annoyed, here.

She's less sure what to make of the young Jedi, who seems to have mostly ended up involved by chance. 'Cannot stay in the order' seems promising, maybe, but who knows what he'll actually be like; once she's determined the meaning of the Padawan title she's not especially worried, though, since she should be straightforwardly able to take him in a fight if it comes to one.

Retrieving the tracking material seems to be Kalbetis' problem rather than Pradnakt's, and is presumably only included as an explanation of her winding route to meet them; the dossiers are more interesting, and Pradnakt takes the time to familiarize herself with them as she and her entourage make their way to Yaguscin.

They arrive on the planet a few days before Kalbetis is due, and rent an artist's cottage on the edge of a towering forest to relax and let Pradnakt do some sculpture in while they wait.

The entry of 'recovering tracking material' is actually after Yaguscin, as it happens.  She could involve herself, if she felt any desire to do so.

...Darth Kalbetis shares her annoyance with the Force with Lord Pradnakt, if she's being honest with herself.  Someone was allowed to get away with malfeasance and child endangerment because the Force...wanted to arrange something over/via Lord Pradnakt, as far as she can gather from analysis.  (It's moments like these that the words 'Kriffing hells, Kreia was right' start echoing in her head from a tragic chorus of frustrated future selves.)  And yet - surely the Force knows something.  Has decided on this path for a reason, of the many and varied paths she sees.  ...She's still trying to figure out its angle.  'Make Pradnakt use Force Healing' seems like a rather small goal for this depth of...shenanigans - but it's not like the Force isn't an utter opportunist.  If it can toss something it wants into its 'defuse volatile Jedi artifact' plans, it will.  And she can't see how the Sith Empire could possibly be reconciled with the Jedi no matter how many individual Sith are proven to be less awful than the Jedi Order expects.

Darth Kalbetis arrives precisely when she means to, and directs the helm to orbit Yaguscin and take resupply of the things that need to be externally sourced - precious few of those exist, given that she has taken a hull large enough to comfortably host subsidiary spacecraft and outfitted it top-to-bottom with self-sufficiency and support functions in mind, but there's always something.  She, meanwhile, will be comming Lord Pradnakt.  She's sure that the other Sith likely knows she's arrived, but she may or may not know that that she knows is known, and so on.  Better to short-circuit that.

Pradnakt does indeed know that Kalbetis is there, and answers the comm herself, despite being covered in stone dust and generally clearly in the middle of her artistry. (Was Kalbetis able to connect her current identity to her old dossier? Would it stop her from knowing about Pradnakt's hobbies if she wasn't? Pradnakt's not going to ask.) "Daisy told you where we are, right? There's a ship park a couple miles west of us that you can touch down in; I have a speeder reserved at the stand there under the name Bemlu Lanrad if you want one."

"My thanks for the consideration, though somehow I don't expect the By Other Means will quite fit in any standard ship lot.  That said, there will be a shuttle down shortly; there's authentication codes you'll need to dock with her and I prefer to avoid transmitting such things if it can at all be helped."

Hmm.  To arrive as Darth Kalbetis, or to arrive 'undercover', as was...  Both could have interesting outcomes.  (The possibility of sending an agent is weighed and dismissed; it shows insufficient respect for her fellow Sith's decision to implicitly invite her.)

That said, part of her feels rather like showing off her range, just a bit.  'As' Bemlu Lanrad it is.

And so a perky young mechanic, nametag showing a seemingly-embroidered 'Bemlu Lanrad', pilots the shuttle down from the By Other Means, an astromech aboard to handle the return trip.  (Piloting on her own behalf is a rare indulgence, but a necessary one.  In those rare occasions when her home is called to battle, understanding the ships they pilot in her defense allows more of her attention to be on the Force tying them all together.)

It takes only a little time to travel to Pradnakt's present residence, with the speeder.  (...She really should do something nice for Lord Pradnakt; few do anything but play power games when they arrange local conveyances.)

Pradnakt's gotten a shower and changed into a differently-embroidered all-black outfit by the time Kalbetis arrives, and meets her at the door to lead her inside and to the sitting room. Nine stands just inside the door, looking only slightly out of place as a guard; Daisy isn't in attendance yet but has left a plate of citrus cookies and a pitcher of berry-infused iced tea sitting on the table for the two of them.

"Well, hello, Lord Pradnakt.  It's a pleasure to meet you, as one of the few Sith evidently still capable of prosociality."  She nods to Pradnakt, and then Nine.

"Well, you know, that gets us killed in a lot of contexts. It's nice to have the opportunity, anyway." She gestures for Kalbetis to take the nicer chair, and pours glasses of tea out for both of them before taking one of the cookies. Do you sign?

The comment about 'getting us killed in a lot of contexts' has her nodding with a wince.

Not as well as I'd like to, but I can manage.

Either is fine but I do prefer it, if you'd like the practice. She swallows her bite of cookie and takes a sip of tea. "It's so nice to have access to fruit again. Which - it does seem like the Force has given you a lot of information about me and mine, but did you have any questions before we get down to things?"

Perhaps not as much as you might think; it tells me what it thinks I need to know.  That's not often as much as I want to know, and when it's correct in volume it's often wrong in focus.  "It didn't say quite so much as I imagine you were worried it may have.  A name, a time, a place.  And the situation which it wished me to plan around your presence in.  The rest...  Deduction and legwork, both.  More deduction than legwork in this case; records of you," at least the ones the she didn't find the Force dragging her to and promptly circular file because there wasn't a good reason to know that, "simply don't go very far at all, Lord Pradnakt.  So, yes, I suppose I do have questions, because deduction can only take one so far before it becomes utterly speculative.  If it should come to a fight..."

I have the feeling you'd rather not involve yourself in combat if you can help it, not right now, but I won't say that out loud.  Still, if it does, a brief overview of your skills would be useful to have prepared.  I focus on group coordination through battle meditation most of the time, but I do keep myself in form should someone try my person.  II and VI, mostly - though I've eyes sharp enough that refusing to use blasters would be rather silly of me.

She, too, is helping herself to the cookies and tea.  "My compliments to the chef, by the by."

"I'm a little surprised there were any records at all under this name," she signs along as she speaks, "I dropped out of Sith society almost entirely when I took it. I suppose hiring my librarian would have left a trace, if you knew to look for one. I've been on Lapetcher where I hired her for the last ten years, give or take, and just left a month or two ago - I dipped too far into the Dark for my tastes, and it took a while to recover to my satisfaction. I do have some enemies from before that, but nobody I'd expect to be looking for me after all this time; that said if you happen to know anything about Lord - or perhaps Darth by now - Grauzatis, or any associates of his, I'd appreciate an update. With a 'saber I favor Djem So and Shien with some Juyo and Soresu, but you're right that I'd prefer not to get into any closely-matched fights until I have some live practice, it's been a decade since I've had a sparring partner. Fortunately my sensory specialization makes that pretty easy to avoid, if I want to, and I have a Force lightning aura technique that's good for defense and decent at scaring people off if I'm cornered. I'm good at maintaining techniques, too; I don't have much experience shooting a blaster but I can catch a bolt without too much fuss, that way, if I know to be prepared for one, which I usually will."

"Mostly that and rumor, yes."

"After the disappearance of one Apprentice Deskyl, and the unexplained death of his patron, the so-called Lord Grauzatis, without Pritruth smoothing his way, rapidly and seemingly terminally - little else can explain the sudden and eerily targeted building collapse - fell afoul of someone claiming the title Lord Sandara in their communications with him, over a dispute on the appropriate allocation and utilization of sapient resources.  I do believe a so-called Lord Ocnem also met a rather terminal fate for similar reasons, if that information interests you."

"And if you'd like to spar, to break the rust off, I certainly wouldn't mind the opportunity.  Most of those who would have been rather busy lately, and sparring against droids just isn't quite the same."

"Huh, I'm not sure I'm familiar with an Ocnem," she lies, on principle. "Though if he was an associate of Grauzatis' I expect he needed it. In any case, I'd be interested in sparring, certainly."

"...No, I suppose you wouldn't be.  But he certainly deserved what he got, in my opinion," she says, her own businesslike mask and iron control of her Force presence concealing that she is now recontextualizing several pieces of information.  There's very few people who'd have issues with Grauzatis but also no knowledge he's more than ten years dead, after all - and she's seen far more information than she'd like to have needed to see, on Ocnem's various....  Abominations unto the Force (and misappropriations of sapient resources.  She can't let herself be bowled over by the enormity of slavery until she's done dismantling it or she's dead of trying.)  "In any case, the By Other Means is well-equipped for such things.  If you're prepared to depart?"

"I can be packed within an hour," she nods. "My Nightfall Spectrum is a family-sized long-distance transport; do you have room to dock it or will we be flying alongside?"

"Oh, there's definitely room for you to dock."  She permits herself a small grin.  The By Other Means is by no means as large as some of the things she's seen - large to the point of impracticality, many of them - but even building rather luxuriously for spacers, she's got plenty of room.

"All right. I saw your shuttle go back up, I assume you'll be joining us for the trip back? If so I can have Daisy return your speeder when she picks up the Spectrum."

Once the logistics are worked out, she leaves Kalbetis in the sitting room to go pack, apologizing for not having a second servant available to stay with her while she does. It doesn't take long; she only has a few data discs and changes of clothes to pack, and then the statue to wrap back up and store in the ship's hold once it's touched down outside.

"I rather should have asked you if you'd mind, first, but yes - I do need to supply the authentication codes."

She waves off the apology - "Oh, nonsense, if I cared that much about being attended I would have brought someone to attend -" and takes a moment to fondly regard the statue, even as wrapped up as it is.

"...So few of us create for the sake of creation," she murmurs, almost to herself.  "And many who would otherwise try, create terrible things for the sake of terror.  But this, even hidden as it is, is a beautiful work.  It may not be my place to offer such words, but well done."

"Thanks. If you're interested in that sort of thing, you might want to stop by Lapetcher sometime, I left a lot of artwork in the desert there."

"If I can but find the time, I'm sure I'll enjoy it."

The By Other Means awaits in orbit, Darth Kalbetis - having taken a moment in the fresher to dress herself appropriately - directing them to the rear lower docking bay, for guests that she actually wishes to keep aboard, as distinguished from the forward suite - which has quite a view, but is isolated from the actual business of the ship despite nominal proximity to the bridge, and staffed entirely by crew that can recover from dismemberment.  "Welcome to my humble abode," she quips.  "The By Other Means serves as a mobile command center for my work, though I do maintain a planetary residence to anchor certain governmental functions.  If you'd like, the guest wing is open to you, or the Nightfall Spectrum can be connected to our systems if you'd prefer to stay in the vessel you're used to inhabiting."

Pradnakt's not sick of being confined to the ship yet but that's no reason to speed the process along, and she's confident enough that its astromech will keep it properly free of bugs and other interference. (Which is to say, not necessarily free of them at all, but there won't be any she doesn't know about.) "The guest wing sounds lovely, thank you."

"This way, then."  She sets off into the ship, hailing a lift from the docking bay to the guest wing.  She gets occasional salutes from passing crewmembers, which she acknowledges without breaking stride.  "You have a choice of rooms with a view or rooms that have direct access to green space; do you have a preference?"

"The latter, please," she answers without hesitation.

Then Darth Kalbetis leads the way to an inconspicuous door off of a botanical garden - albeit one that has been seamlessly woven into the functioning of the ship, given that there are (transparisteel-capped) banks of algae where one might normally place benches, and a variety of fruits and vegetables growing from soilless planters.  There's even one, heavily grafted and clearly specifically planned for, fruiting tree, in various stages of bloom.  (Darth Kalbetis eyes it for a moment and plucks an apple.)

She then produces a code cylinder from somewhere in her robes, inserting it into the door console, and tapping away at it for a minute before withdrawing a matching one from the console.  "This is for you - access to this suite, and the various amenities.  You'll also have free access to the central holotank under any condition less than yellow - it gets commandeered for combat planning.  ...There's a hardware lock set up for manual access on the inside, in addition to this one, which is important because during loss of power the electronic ones fail open.  ...I'll have someone run down some spares for the rest of your party; these have specific anti-slicing measures, so it's not dataport compatible.  The 'pad on the desk is for the ship network; there's a surprisingly vibrant collection of clubs and activities that there will be time for you to visit if you wish.  I don't often have the chance, myself; I'm rather busy on my best days."

(Pradnakt makes a bit of a face at the tree; someone who knows her well enough - which is to say Daisy, who's following a step behind her at the moment, and no one else - might guess that she's contemplating throwing some Healing at the poor thing.)

"Thank you," she says of the access cylinder, and then when Kalbetis is done, "will you want me somewhere at any particular time, do you know?"

"Yes, but not for a few days, yet - well, beyond sparring; I do my exercise at 0900 shipboard time in salle 3.  We'll be breaking off from the By Other Means for our mission at some point.  ...I imagine you're not interested in dealing with pirates," she says like it should be a question but isn't.

"Not especially, no. It might be useful for me to see how you operate but I can do that just as well from the reports, if you'll allow it. Salle 3, 0900, I'll be there."

"It would be remiss of me to leave an ally ill-informed.  You'll have the data.  ...In fact, if you wish to observe in real time, I can arrange for that, at least with the pirates."

"It would make things easier, if it's not an inconvenience."

"It's not; there's room in the holotank.  I'll send you the details."

If there's nothing else to be said, she will leave Lord Pradnakt to examining the guest suite, for the moment.

And examine it she does; she of course already had a sense of the layout of the suites in this section from three or four hallways away, but it does take her a few minutes of apparent poking around to determine where nearby amenities like the mess hall are and do a basic sweep for bugs. She chats with Daisy about logistics as she does - she's still not really feeling like going back to eating very much meat, but it's probably easier to come by than alternative proteins here despite the impressive hydroponics setup, so she's fine with her just doing the best she can in that regard - and then checks out the datapad, hoping to arrange to have her things brought from her ship. If she seems to have time when that's done, she'll check out the social scene: Nine wants to join a book club, Daisy might appreciate a cooking club if there is one, and all three are hoping to see a poetry night.

(There is, in fact, a way to use the datapad to get directions, and of course emergency maps.  Not all her guests are Force-sensitives.)

It is simple enough to contact ...a concierge service?  Apparently the Darth has modeled providing for guests rather like a hotel or a cruiseliner - for that delivery, if she so wishes.  A warning pops up that the said service is by order of Darth Kalbetis not to be responsible for various things, including 'transportation of Force artifacts, including holocrons', 'provision of 'comfort staff'', 'transportation of biological samples, whether living, dead, undead, or otherwise', 'transportation of energetically or chemically volatile materials or assemblies' - most having specific other contacts noted - but is otherwise responsible for assuring that the By Other Means' guests' needs are met.  (A further warning says that 'violent interaction with the concierge staff will be responded to with nothing less than revocation of access thereunto, especially if over their declining to assist with attempted violation of policy'.)

While Lord Pradnakt is looking at this, there is a beep from the interior door panel - observation through the door's peephole reveals a mouse droid, concurrent with a message arriving to the datapad.

Lord Pradnakt,

I believe the mouse droid with spare code cylinders should have arrived by now.  Key them to your door by inserting your cylinder into the secondary slot on the side, and the other into the normal access port, then selecting the 'register subordinate' option.

Additionally, it has occurred to me that I do have some free times to spar that are not at 0900 shipboard.  I have attached those blocks to this message, if you would rather use them.  More practice can only be good for me, anyway.

-- Darth Kalbetis

P.S. I realize that if we should pass in the halls it will be rather hard for you to confuse me with anyone else, but should you notice that I am 'dressed down', as was, do do me the favor of not blowing my 'cover'?  I rather suspect that most of the crew suspect or know, but, well.  It helps me stay grounded.

Daisy gets the door as Pradnakt checks the message, and then goes back to key the cylinders while the Sith looks over the sparring schedule, picking out a couple of options that will work with her sleep schedule as she gets used to the By Other Means' day cycle. These aren't maximally convenient for the Darth, but that's ultimately to the good; being deferential is just good sense but she isn't actually angling for her as a patron, here. Similarly she doesn't suggest setting up explicit coordination to allow her to recognize whether Kalbetis is undercover at a distance, as she would if she were intending to work with her in the long term, but just mentions in her reply that she'll be careful about it. (There's a pretty good chance she'll be able to tell, anyway, just from whether and how her lightsaber is carried.)

Oh, she's better at this sort of thing than to need to compromise on access to her lightsaber, even with it being slightly harder to conceal than a simple straight-hilted blade.  Still, it'll be rather obvious, she thinks.  (And it's rather been borne out, she believes.  Why, she's pretty sure that the one time she pulled on tan robes, she spawned rumors of a Jedi - off the ship, she means.  The crew know better than to gossip even if there's a real Jedi aboard.)

...She's trying to avoid treating Lord Pradnakt as someone under her patronage, for that matter.  That's not something one should do unilaterally.  No matter how much she wants to build strong ties with another somewhat reasonable Force-Sensitive in this horrible mess of an Empire.

Perhaps the sparring match she is about to fight will provide an opportunity to test the waters.  Despite knowing that all things come in their due time...  There's a part of her that can hardly wait.

Unfortunately, the only remotely consistent clue for whether a Darth is trying to court an underling is whether they're attempting to kill them, and even that one isn't a guarantee.

At any rate, sparring! Pradnakt has given herself a few hours to settle in, and has time to meditate and warm up before heading to the salle, with Nine tagging along to watch.

...To call this a simple salle was really something of a misnomer on her part, but to be fair to her past self, even with a shocking amount of self-consistency across time, her own actions are hard to account for.  And it is her own actions that have turned what was once a series of smaller practice spaces and a blaster range, to match the similar ones nearer the crew and guest quarters, into almost something of a ship entertainment, with a venue to match, in the self-proclaimed 'danger room'.  The sign welded over the door - which she could surely discover the origin of, but politely refrains from doing - draws wry amusement as she awaits Pradnakt's arrival outside its doors, along with a few Crew that have...rather more zeal for this fight than she.

"Welcome to training salle 3.  ...Please forgive the engineering crew's naming sense, and enthusiasm for what they've done with the place since we got it.  And, for that matter, myself, for enabling them.  We should discuss how we want to handle this fight, incidentally.  Not just which of its features we will be deploying, or not deploying, but -" - and perhaps this pause is slightly longer than normal, as Darth Kalbetis finds a future self ringing an alarm bell at something she might otherwise have said - "I rather prefer my sparring with a standard of not dealing more than superficial damage.  Sensible people in this Empire are rather few and far between, and worth preserving."

"Agreed. - 9P here can shoot nonlethally, if two on one sounds interesting."

"...As much as it would likely be a good or at least not-horrible idea were this a real fight, I can't say I'd want to risk it unless I know more than I expect you'd like to tell me about his hardware situation.  The droids we normally train with in here have specially hardened memory banks to survive me throwing them around, not to mention for protection against Ionize, or Force Lightning.  ...Plus," she seems almost chagrined, if wryly amused, "Elsie would likely surprise me if she wasn't invited to an 'and-staff' sort of spar."

"Not today, then, I'll have to get a little farther along on the upgrades I have planned for him before I subject him to all that. What else did you have in mind?"

"Well, there's the question of whether and what environments we would like to simulate - 'the floor is lava' is...an interesting complication, for example, despite its juvenility - and whether there should be other forces in the field - which, speaking of, you could request the assistance of a friendly droid if you wanted, though they wouldn't be 9P.  I think we have a few similar model chassis in the lot."

"Eh, it wouldn't be the same." She keeps the fondness out of her voice, and mostly manages to keep it out of her Force signature. "If you want to use the terrain to level the field a bit, the obvious thing would be something that breaks up our sightlines and is dynamic enough to distract Force senses."

"I quite understand the sentiment.  And, yes, we do have that setting.  'Spaceship with fluctuating inertaics', perhaps?  Getting a properly dynamic environment out of ground combat is rather difficult, though I suppose there's always the 'factory floor' settings...Or 'Sith Temple', though I could swear that design was more inspired by the Temple of Doom holo."

"All of those sound like fun. How realistic is the spaceship sim, will I be able to predict the fluctuations by sensing the machinery?"

"...Somewhat?  Not entirely like it would work if the machinery were within the spaceship, being as the 'spaceship' is effectively only projected forcefields, but there's still machinery involved, and that has translated well enough for myself."

She takes a quick moment to consider. "I still think I have a better chance with that one than the others."

"Then so shall it be.  ...Ah, would you prefer that this be a private spar?  The crew will be disappointed, but they'll live," she takes a moment to Have An Imposing Presence at the putative audience.

"It'd be another factor in my favor to skip the live audience; I don't care if you broadcast it, though."

"I think that it might be a good idea to be closer to normal environmental conditions, which don't include live audiences, so, go on, shoo," she turns to the no-longer-putative no-longer-audience.  "I'll make the recording available afterwards but we can't have you all watching and throwing everything off."

"...Would you yourself be good enough with systems to fix damaged inertial capacitors and the like?  Because I should explain how that part works, seeing as we don't actually, you know, break them."

"Hm. On one hand I'm not as good at ship maintenance as I'd like to be; on the other hand I wonder if I can't figure it out without the help." Okay, okay, she should probably not be showing off for the Darth she doesn't actually want to catch the eye of, but have you considered that showing off like this is fun.

She knows the feeling.  "Well, if you want, the 'tool rack' is over there; have at it."  (It's basically a series of differently-colored signal wands.)

"Sounds good. Are there any other considerations? I win if I get the capacitors back online, you win if you stop me, live sabers, pull strikes?" She's definitely not going to actually win, and the fact that she's not at all expecting to is obvious in the Force if one is looking, but she's in good spirits about it anyway.

"...Sounds fair.  Hmm.  Are you invading the ship or defending it?"

"Invading sounds like fun."

"So you're engaging in vigilante engineering.  Cute."  (Force, let that not be an overstep, she'd be quite upset with herself if she ruined all this progress with one small...thing she said.)

...yeah see this is why a smart Sith Lord doesn't go interacting with strange Darths. She can beat herself up about it later, though, she has work to do right now. "Let's say I'm getting the capacitors back online so the rest of my team can do their job, whatever that may be."

But she shouldn't!  If anything she's going to be being annoyed at herself over killing the mood - whatever mood it was, it was better than this all-business one - when this is done.

"Mm, that does make more sense, good thinking.  Though, would you rather be 'getting data off the holotank'?  It seems more...  Straightforward a plot."

"Sure. And it sounds like we're ready, then?"

"I suppose it does, unless you want to add additional objectives and/or complications for either of us.  For instance, crew."

Let's go with less rather than more initiative-taking, that's already gotten her into trouble the once. "If you'd like."

"...Mmm...Just a skeleton crew for the moment.  Adding additional hostile forces, even if they didn't like either of us, would be utterly overkill."  She moves to the datapad embedded in the wall, and taps away at it for a minute.  "And there we go."

The door hisses open, and she vanishes inside.  "It'll light up for your turn to enter."

(It takes only a couple minutes for that to happen.)

She stashes a set of signal wands on her belt, stretches out again, and plays her Force senses over the stage as it constructs itself.

The 'stage', as was, is set up in a flash, shields framing the walls of a ship that Pradnakt might recognize from seeing in the hangar bays- it's moving the props, the actors, and, of course, Darth Kalbetis into position - there's rather a lot of droids involved - that takes the rest of the time, though she doesn't seem to be able to sense Darth Kalbetis very well right now.

That's partially because she's drawn in her Force presence, partly because she's blended out her Force presence, and partially because her Force presence is that different when she brings other parts of herself to the fore.

She won't be keeping this image up - she's still wearing Darth Kalbetis' mask, and the crystal set at her breast is still weeping, even if she's switched out her usual black outer robe for a brown-and-tan 'Jedi' version - but the surprise of it is something she wants to introduce in controlled conditions.

At first.

Darth Kalbetis has taken position near the central holotank; it has good sightlines and means that even if the boarding party hits from a direction she can't see she will still know their location.  Lord Pradnakt's entry, meanwhile, is through the back - "taking advantage of blocked external sightlines" - the droid 'pilot' of the 'boarding shuttle' taking to their role of delivering exposition mostly for the camera's sake with aplomb.

(It seems that Darth Kalbetis is not the only competent actress aboard.)

The 'ship' shakes, tractor-pressors flaring in the machinery to do their best attempt at the rattling thump of being boarded.  And then the 'pilot' starts evasive maneuvers -

- even as Darth Kalbetis' lightsaber ignites, and her blaster - an elegant little pistol, but one that does not sacrifice power or precision - thwps into her other hand.

Feeling the presence of Lord Pradnakt below her, she dives for the door that will give her coverage of the lower levels with swiftness, but not haste, an unnerving calm in her aura.  "There you are."

She has to dive, because there's no gravity.  The ship is spinning - clockwise, if the 'head' of it is twelve, and also rotating around its axis - but that's not gravity in the ways that matter.  (The tractor-pressor system is doing a lot of work to simulate that happening.)

Sneaky sneaky! And Pradnakt always likes to see someone underestimating her, too. Though it is a little weird that Kalbetis is doing a robe change and not bothering with her mask? Well, she'll find out why in a minute.

She goes in with her 'saber lit and a blast-catching effect up; with their relative positions there's no way to avoid a confrontation with Kalbetis. She drops the blast catcher for a half second to accelerate as much as possible with telekinesis in the null gravity; it's risky, when she doesn't know yet how to predict the inertial changes, but being in close quarters with the Darth is in no way to her advantage and hitting a bulkhead won't hurt that much.

How about colliding with a box in midflight that should not have been flying that way?  Without even the telltale signs of a Sith throwing something as warning?

The blast-catcher effect isn't quite as good against solids but slows it enough that it's only a minor inconvenience; if she'd been aiming for a particular spot on the other side of the room it'd have been a bigger one, making her drop the effect again to adjust her trajectory after the collision, but as is she makes it just fine, deactivating her 'saber as she gets close, and starts heading for the door.

Your own momentum is just as much a weapon against you in zero-g environments, Lord Pradnakt.  In this case, with Darth Kalbetis hooking her foot under the stairwell/ramp and swinging herself towards you, lightsaber out, it's a rather minor one compared to the consequence of Sith Lord In Your Face With Lightsaber Out, but you did rather still hit the crate, didn't you?

Thankfully, gravity takes this moment to reassert itself, Darth Kalbetis recovering by ducking into a roll and ending up just about where Lord Pradnakt first entered.  She snaps off a few stun blasts as she forces herself to her feet, despite the suddenly trebled gravity 'from thrust'.

Yeah see most Sith would have to do things about blaster fire but for her it just hangs in the air for a moment before dissipating, it's a pretty good tradeoff for maneuverability under the circumstances. (Granted, the circumstances in question are 'lucky as shit', but hey, a win's a win.)

She doesn't bother getting to her feet, but rolls through the door and clambers into the cabin off the hallway behind it. Her plan from here was to lightsaber through the ceiling, but trebbeled gravity is the worst possible condition for that. She prepares instead to ambush Kalbetis as she comes through the door, keeping half a metaphorical eye on the machinery so she can be prepared to go for the ceiling when it changes again.

'As she comes through the door', you say.  Are you sure you didn't mean 'as you are nearly stabbed with a lightsaber through the wall'?

Stabbing a sensory specialist through a wall isn't going to work, she'll just see it coming and dodge, so yes!

Made you move, though.  And with how the gravity turns sideways instead of down and we're once again spinning, it's not a good time to be moving!

It's not a good time to be moving if you have an involuntary vestibular sense, but why in the world would she be limited like that? She goes for the ceiling.

Well, if you're not going to be on a ballistic trajectory, she supposes you could do that.  Good luck dealing with the everything that is freshly unsecured from the cabinets and thereby on a ballistic trajectory through your space, though!  At least it's not sharp and pointy anything.

Did she mention that that hole in the wall is perfect for shooting at you with?

She grabs one of the pieces of flotsam with her telekinesis and holds it against the hole, blocking a shot or two with her 'saber while the anti-blaster field is down, and goes back to cutting through the ceiling. It shouldn't take much longer.

...She puts her blaster away shortly after that fails.  She's pulling out the Bigger Gun for her next trick.  (By which she means Force Lightning.)

She throws herself on a slightly curving path as Pradnakt finishes her cut, saber quite ready to prove it could stab her if Pradnakt was about to leap through the ceiling that has just become the new floor.  If she catches on in time...  Well, Force Lightning.

Not hateful Force Lightning, but it's still lightning nonetheless.

She had been planning to go that way, but the time it takes Kalbetis to get there is more than enough for her to recalculate. She throws herself across the hall into the 'fresher room, first, and then starts using her telekinesis to mess with the ship's controls, basically at random - most Sith can't do telekinesis through walls like that, but it's not actually a matter of it being impossible, it's just that most Sith can't 'see' nonliving things through walls well enough to mess with them.

...Well, that's not going to do her any good.  Even though it is rather impressive as a feat of telekinesis, 'at random' is sufficiently less so for a precog of Darth Kalbetis' strength and skill that the time Pradnakt spends on this is time that she can use to close, using the bucking of the ship and a bit of augmentation to catapult herself through the hole Pradnakt made earlier and try to close.  (The engineering crew is going to be very smug about insisting on having a physical console for this.  She had prior rather expected that a basic simulation of it would be sufficient; actual piloting sims happen elsewhere.)

As soon as she starts moving so does Pradnakt, into the hallway and toward the cargo bay, to where she can jump to her objective. Whether she's fast enough to make it is anyone's guess; she's less impaired by the state of the ship than Kalbetis is, but not by that much. She keeps hitting buttons and flipping switches in the cockpit as she goes; her only real hope at this point is to get the ship into a state alarming enough that the other Sith has to go deal with it rather than staying on her.

...Yeah, 'less impaired by the state of the ship' rather depends on what you're measuring impairment by.  It certainly doesn't stop Kalbetis from throwing Force Lightning down the corridor whatsoever, an outstretched hand just barely clearing the doorframe but still clearing it well enough that she can let loose - and really, if Lord Pradnakt does, despite the lightning, get to the cargo bay, well, what goes up must come down, and Darth Kalbetis was already standing next to a hole in the floor.  Ceiling.  Floor-ceiling.  ...You know what she means.

Ow ow ow geez what kind of idiot Sith slings lightning in a tiny ship.

She does attempt to dodge, but in such close quarters she really had no chance. She drops to the floor and taps out.

This one, apparently, when her blaster bolts won't do.  (It helps that she has a facility with coherent light; ionizing a channel in the air as a strike-guide limits the collateral and spread.)

...The lightning is surprisingly Not Maximally Suffering-Inducing, but, yeah, that was about what she figured would happen.

(Not to mention what she precogged would happen.)

"Well fought, Lord Pradnakt."

She offers a hand up, as the room slowly settles them back down.

She visibly considers whether she wants to take the offered hand, but only for a quick moment before she reaches for it. "Thanks, you too. I haven't seen that thing with the box before, at the beginning." Nor a technique that makes lightning non-suicidal in an enclosed space, but asking about that would take way more familiarity than they have, and anyway she thinks she saw what happened there.

"It's a rather simple exercise, if you ask a Jedi - it's just that normally the thought of a Sith performing it has everyone I've asked screaming about anathema like a stampeding herd of banthas.  I rather prefer to be free from such preconceptions of Force use - if tranquility, or rather, serenity - is the most suitable emotion for invoking a specific Force effect, then I see no reason why I should limit myself to things derived from fear, anger, and hatred.  Though I think that part of my facility with this sort of thing is derived from my experiences with precognition, so in truth I'm not sure that the lesson is transferable."

Right, precogs have a reputation for a reason. She can take a no when she hears one, though. "Too bad, it looks useful."

"I didn't say I wouldn't be willing to try to explain it.  Just that it would sound rather insane and-or counterintuitive."

Precogs, reputation, etc. "I wouldn't mind trying anyway."

"Then, if you do wish to, the principle is as follows:

"You are one with the universe and the universe is one with you.  Having established this, you are one with the piece of whatever needs to be telekinetically emplaced, and it is one with the universe by the transitive property - and there is nothing, truly, that can move the entire universe, because everything to ever exist is merely part of the universe, after all."

-you know what, fair, she did say like a Jedi, not Light as such. Of course it's going to be easier to consider the sense in which something is part of you relevant if you aren't pissed off at it. "That does sound simple, once you have the trick of it. Which is the hard part, of course."

She almost seems a bit sheepish as she says "Quite.  Even with the nature of precognition and battle meditation both dealing with connectedness in their own ways, it took me a while til I got to the point where using this sort of technique was combat-viable.  Utterly handy for utility purposes, though, especially moving things around once you've got that trick stable.  Frustrated telekinesis is sloppy telekinesis, in my experience, and I have always rather prided myself on elegance and precision."

"Oh, of course. I use telekinesis in my embroidery," she holds up her arm to show off the planets and tiny, intricately detailed spaceships stitched around the cuff of her sleeve, "and - I mean, I can do it in all kinds of conditions, it wouldn't be useful practice if I couldn't, but it's definitely easier the calmer I am."

She seems to be rather distracted admiring the artwork, before her brain catches up.

"...Then I expect that's all I have to teach you on this particular bit of Force-work.  You've already got the state of mind; the rest is just...perspective."

"And practice," she nods, and when she speaks again it's in the Sith language. "The Light is something else again, though; you won't fool a Jedi if this is all you have."

She replies in the same tongue - "Who says that it is all I have?"  And then her Force presence...  Does something best analogized to rotating a hypercube along its previously invisible fourth dimension, bringing an entire other facet of itself - and thereby herself - to the surface.

(Kalbetis may not be the sort to pilot a ship herself, but she's a dab hand at astrogation out of sheer necessity of having to understand what she's doing.)

Bringing just the slightest glimmer of Light to life in an outstretched hand afterwards is, perhaps, needlessly dramatic.  Lord Pradnakt is a sensor.  But she is a rather inherently dramatic creature.  (It's why she took to the philosophy of passion surpassing all things and liberating like a duck to water, or a ship to the sky.)

Pradnakt has already taken a step back by the time Kalbetis manifests the Light, and begun gathering the Force around herself in a clearly Sithy way; she's not manifesting a detectable Dark aura, yet, or the lightning she's mentioned she's able to, but it's obviously a fairly near thing. Instead she peers at Kalbetis, tense and cautious.

"I see."

Oddly, Darth Kalbetis' presence is yet like a Sith's in some - perhaps even many or most - ways, despite being nominally Light-aspected.  Where a Jedi's Force presence, if and as Lord Pradnakt has ever seen one, is perhaps something that could be analogized to a truly placid lake, this Light-facing Darth Kalbetis is like a deceptively calm riptide, or, perhaps, the coruscating corona of a black hole.

A moment passes, Darth Kalbetis withdrawing her hand.  She speaks, still in the Sith tongue.  "Peace is a lie; there is only passion.  Through serenity I gain strength.  Through knowledge I gain power.  Through harmony I gain victory.  There is no death; the Force will free me."

Then she actually comes to her senses, the seeming of laminar flow starting to ripple with thoughts and emotions once more.  "Blasted...  the Force is perhaps more dramatic than I am.  What just happened?  Beyond the obvious."

The Light is an asshole, she signs. It - "it showed off what you can do and had you recite a variant of the Code - " peace is a lie there's only passion, serenity brings strength, knowledge brings power, harmony brings victory, there is no death the Force will free me. She leaves all poetry out of her movements, snapping out the signs like they've offended her, which isn't far from the truth.

"I did rather decide to show off on my own initiative, I believe.  Though I can't speak to the rest."

...Interesting, she signs, with a very deliberately drawn-out contemplativity.  (So it is, perhaps, better represented as Iiiiiiiiin-ter-est-ing.)  I was not quite aware that I was - would have - will be - putting that much thought into this, as to synthesize a whole novel Code that could define an Order or an Empire.  

But...it's perhaps wrong to ascribe this to The Light Side.  These things...  They happen in these in-between moments, in both directions.  I obviously can only speculate as to the etiology of them because looking too closely draws me back in, but...

I keep rather much of myself packed tightly away.  It's a survival strategy; it's one I suspect I'd have had to pursue no matter where I was born.  But in those moments between...

I think that's as close as I get to holistic immersion in the Force, and no matter how I think about that I can't decide if I should be terrified of it, or terrifying with it.

Won't catch me chasing that. It's the worst part, the way it happens for me. She shakes her head and lets the built-up Dark dissipate. "Anyway, I doubt that's what a Jedi looks like either, but it's far enough from Sith that I bet it'll give them pause. Not that I've met one."

"I've utilized more traditional Force stealth to get a closer look at them in the past, and I can confirm that they don't look like this whatsoever.  I mean, aside from the..."

"They do also have calm surfaces, if that makes sense as a sensory metaphor.  It's just that they also have calm everything else - they don't dig out hidden depths so much as spread themselves across more shallows."

"That tracks," she nods. "I expect that's what I look like, when -" yeah she's not going to say it.

"Mm.  When, if.  If the Force is really trying this hard, and it's not something you want to be involved in...

"It will probably be a very pointed headache if I try to get it to cough up what I'd need to do what was asked of you, but blast it all, this is not what it's supposed to be doing.  The Force shall free me.

"...What kind of Darth would I be if I didn't occasionally twist its arm, anyway?"

...wait, she actually meant that she wasn't going to force the issue?

"It's more complicated than that," she settles on, after a slightly-too-long pause, and winces internally at the vulnerability.

She's going to Force at the issue, not force the issue.

"Well, I rather imagine you don't want to talk about it with me.  But if that changes, you have my comm."

"I do, yes."

She's halfway back to her quarters before it occurs to her that just because the Darth is acting very strange doesn't mean she's being truthful; it's still entirely possible that she's lying, just in a more complex way - the Force effect would be hard to fake, but it doesn't necessarily mean what she implied it does. And she's definitely been away from Sith society for too long if it took her this long to realize that.

She summons Daisy and Nine back to the privacy of the Nightfall Spectrum and lays it out for them, and for the new astromech as well on principle. In many ways the simplest explanation would be that Kalbetis is what she's presenting herself as, some sort of vigilante half-Jedi operating under the banner of the Sith. In other ways that doesn't actually make sense - who does she answer to in the Sith hierarchy, and if she doesn't, how has noone noticed that yet? where does her funding come from? - and none of that answers the real question, which is how dangerous it is to be here, doing this.

Daisy points out that whatever else Kalbetis is she is a Darth, and they discuss the implications of that for a few minutes before Pradnakt observes that the whole topic is a red herring. She wasn't lying - or, not really - when she said that the question of whether to go along and contribute her skills here is more complicated than just a question of whether she's able to leave. Coming back to the Dark afterward may be unpleasant, but there's something about healing that speaks to her soul, and if she could do it safely - she wouldn't want to be coerced, of course, but she'd take the freedom to do it, if it was offered. And it may be being offered; leaving aside what Kalbetis is or what her motives may be, she does seem to have figured out how to do something along the lines of that. (Unless this is some kind of trap for heterodox Sith, but that truly doesn't make sense as a theory, there's no reason to go to this length when they could have killed her before even writing the first letter.)

She's not going to ask about this over the comm, but she can find Kalbetis in person.

Kalbetis is, in fact, findable rather easily, for a sensor of Pradnakt's caliber.  Well, when she's within the same planetary orbit.

Is Pradnakt actually willing to approach her in her office?

If she doesn't seem especially busy and doesn't have another visitor, yep.

She doesn't seem to be radiating an aura of busyness or anything, no.  The protocol droid at the door looks her up and down, presses a button, and directs her inside after the door opens, silently.

She may be bold enough to come but she's less inclined to directly interrupt a Darth; she'll wait to be acknowledged, at least to the degree of being looked at, before saying anything or moving away from the door.

"Thank goodness you're here; you've offered me a reprieve from getting buried in yet more flimsiwork.  Please, do come in."

"Anytime," she chuckles. "I had some questions I didn't think you'd appreciate getting over the comm."

"Right.  I imagined you might.  One moment..."

Lord Pradnakt can probably almost feel the process of Darth Kalbetis mustering her full attention - and certainly see the sequestration of any physical distractions.

"Alright, whenever you're ready, then."

'Almost'? lol.

"I'm mostly wondering how you're keeping yourself - us - safe, from other Sith. With the" - she gestures vaguely - "dangerous secrets."

"...Very carefully.  Some of my measures I cannot discuss.  But part of it is carefully constructed and entirely misleading truths.  For instance, that any right-thinking Sith would not stoop to being anything less than their whole self at all times, or that the 'false Light' technique is utterly beneath me.  I give the impression that I am a person who should hate to be tasked to dealing with Jedi, and most do not look beyond those preconceptions."

"I see how something like that could work but I'm hesitant to trust my safety to it, not knowing the details." She sighs, and continues apologetically: "This was much easier when I thought I didn't actually have a choice."

"Unfortunately so many things are easier when the choice to do them is taken from us, but I refuse to be a hypocrite and bind another thinking being.  As best as I'm aware, the very Code the Sith follow to this day was made by slaves who wanted to be freed from tyrannically apostate Dark 'Jedi', no matter how absurdly the situation turned around after the revolution hit."  There's a twist of wry self-deprecation to the humor in her Force presence.

"...I would not wish to trust that my methods would suffice to cover for you, regardless, in my professional opinion.  They weren't planned for hiding others under.  It requires far more constant public scrutiny than you'd like, in any case."

"Which is to say, it works because I draw attention, but shape it in very specific ways.  Whereas for yourself...

"I don't purport to know you, but my instinct is that we would be better off hiding you behind a different role if your presence is even to become known."

"Absolutely," she nods.

"My droids have manumission papers, by the way, if something does happen to me. I don't know what they'll want to do in that case but I intend them to be able to make their own choice about it."

"Of course.  Ideally it won't get to that point, for a good long while or perhaps ever, but it's good that you've prepared for it."

"...As best you can, at least.  There's no good structure for protecting a specific droid's independent choice short of putting them in armor and calling them Mandalorian - very few people will call that bluff, at least.  ...If it even is one; I'm fairly sure I've met someone using that strategy that sincerely practices their Resol'nare, though how sure I can be of that is 'not, without first, myself, converting'."

"An interesting strategy, but I don't think it would work for either of mine."

"...Unfortunate.  If you do die in my service, it's the least I could do for their loss to protect them, but even my power has limits.  ...And of course while they're nominally serving here our repair shops are open to them.  Maybe speak with Elsie about security measures; I rather intentionally keep myself sequestered from that information so I can't give it up."

Interesting. "I'll do that. But we've gotten distracted - it sounded like you've been thinking about how it'd work best for me to stay here in the longer run?"

"I have given it some thought, though I need input from you, at this point, to refine plans from those thoughts."

"Primarily, the question is whether my little trip planetside was related to Force business at all."

"Not that I know of. It seemed wise to meet first on neutral ground, that's all."

"Oh - no, no.  Not in terms of its significance for us.  I'm talking about what the wider galaxy hears about it."

"Ah. My servant handled our arrangements using a pseudonym and paid in cash, and there should be even fewer records of her than there are of me."

"Yes, the question is what record we want there to be if and when someone looks."

"You are an artist; I do try to patronize the arts when my budget is not hard-pressed to do much more needful things."  And sometimes as part of funneling credits where they're needed, not that she'll say that out loud just yet.

"I certainly wouldn't mind having that on my record."

"It will rather keep anyone who might look into a Sith from paying much attention to what you're doing here, if instead it is...  A 'civilian' artist who is present."

She nods. "There's a chance someone will recognize my style, I've been in the public eye for my art before, but I didn't have that much of a following and I've had enough thematic drift in the last ten years that I don't think it's a significant risk. Maybe avoid showing my work off to other Sith if you can help it, though."

"Of course.  It's a cover story, anyway; it doesn't even have to be your art.  Though I'll admit I have been finding myself trying to figure out whether you take commissions without causing a panic."

"Sure, it seems like I'll have time for something."

"I really quite like what you've done with your robes, to be honest.  And you will be fairly compensated for your work."

(All her work.  Including the healing.  But she's not going to bring that up.)

"As you like. I can send you some pictures of my other work, if you want to see more of what I can do."

"If you'd like to.  I'd certainly like to see more of your work, given the option."

"I'll take care of that as soon as I'm done here, then." Inconvenient how Daisy isn't here to radio the ship and have Tim send the files, but they shouldn't be seen to be attached at the hip, so it is what it is. "And I suspect you'll want to hear about - my expectations, what I'm looking for here?"

"I would appreciate that, yes."

This is where she dies, if Kalbetis is a normal Sith and somehow acting, and she's sure enough that she's not but that doesn't mean she's not on edge. "I'm not looking for a master, first thing. I know the common wisdom is that Sith can't live in close proximity without that kind of deference, but I know what it means that you're a Darth, and I think I can stay out of your way well enough, and if it turns out I can't I'd like the option to leave rather than whatever else it might take. I don't want assignments, of whatever type. I'll probably be interested in helping with projects or learning skills but I want the option to say no, every time. If you're worried about me pulling my weight we can set something up - paying me for my work and having me pay for food and lodging and things seems like the obvious way to do it - but, again, I want the option to walk away if it doesn't work out. And I want, for my..." it takes her a second to find her voice again... "For my healing. I can't - if the wrong person finds out, I can't keep myself safe. If you want that from me I'll need help with it." Which isn't what she wanted to say, but it'll have to do.

"...If it helps: I am titled Darth.  I do not think that my holding that title must be the whole of myself, or that I am obliged to uphold the stereotypes where it is so horribly inconvenient as, for example, requiring me to hold utterly unquestionable authority.  And there is no military authority held so sacrosanct as medical authority, anyway.  Yes, this is nonetheless in a sense my personal domain, but it is open to you by my own will, and I don't believe I shall have the slightest cause to regret that decision.

"...I'm glad to hear that my instinct that the idea of even a seeming of master/apprentice relations was ill-suited, was correct.

"And - of course you can leave.  I should hope it will not come to that, but trying to force you to stay kills me more often than it kills you, I think, and it's not even you that does it sometimes.  ...I haven't exactly spent much time on contemplating futures that will not come to pass because I refuse to be the slaver the Sith revolted against, but seriously, Elsie would kill me if I tried, and I'd probably let her if had any choice left in the matter."  ...She shudders.  Some of the things the current Emperor's done...

She has a healthy respect for the Mind Trick's capabilities, and dare she say an almost prodigious talent with it - which is why she doesn't touch it except in very clearly consenting cases or to counter others' malicious use thereof.  If she can't make her way out of something that would otherwise require a Mind Trick with social skills, cold reading, Force empathy, and literally seeing the future, she'd rather be honest and kill them with a blade.

The Emperor, though...  The Emperor has the exact opposite of respect for the Mind Trick, in her opinion.

She has met the Emperor once and still has no idea how she managed to survive that relatively-unscathed.  Managing to land the story about her present position just right has made sure she sha'n't have any future invitations she does not specifically arrange, at least.

"And, yes, I was thinking that if we are not doing this as diplomatic protocol - and we aren't seeming to do so - then it's an exchange of goods and services.  Rather in your favor, as it happens.  But...You don't need to buy my protection, such as it is, with your healing, for what that's worth.  Those of us who actually understand the value of life and freedom are few and far between and you'd have at least my silence just from what I already knew of you."

"I expect it to take more than that, if I'm using it where anyone can see. And I've never known a Sith to respect any authority but another Sith's ability to kill them."

(She'd give pretty good odds of the claim that she kills Kalbetis in half the timelines where she's trapped being a lie. Only pretty good odds, that's a situation she's strong in and she only has to get lucky once, but against a Darth and a precog it's still unlikely that she catches a break before she breaks. It's a weird thing to lie about, given how sincere she seems to be about the rest; it raises the question of whether Kalbetis is able to beat her sensory skills and lie to her in spite of them. She'll have to keep an eye on that.)

"Mm.  Yes, they do tend to do that, don't they?  But death isn't the only thing that can render someone a non-threat, and I'm good at that sort of manipulation.  Cutting supply lines, simple sabotage of the tools they'd need to pursue their vendettas, coöpting their nominal power base out from under them, simply watching them be devoured by the sharks because their masters decided their protection wasn't worth extending anymore after some carefully constructed truths...  ...And while I utterly refuse to do such a soul-defiling thing, the Emperor provides an example that those who have heard of certain skills of mine that I publicize much less will fear.  If I ever have to face the Emperor within the range they can work Force techniques," and Force help her, she doesn't want to talk about this, but she can tell there's a horrible misunderstanding brewing and this is a way to cut it off at the pass - "I am damn well going to come prepared to discorporate myself preemptively, because letting the Emperor even attempt to mindcrush me would be a disaster.  Most of the scenarios I wanted to plan for, backing those chances that I mentioned earlier...  They start from the Emperor deciding that they wish to - suppress - my 'ambitions' - because if the relevant Dark Councillor takes offense to me I'd be forced to defend myself and I'd say I have good odds of winning - and my personal security contingencies against that exact scenario failing, which...  At that point I expect I would welcome a swift death before I could see my body turned against my allies and my people.  ...I can't see inside her head like I can with other future selves, and I don't know if that's because she's such a divergent state as to no longer meaningfully be me or she's trying to protect me from something, but...  It really doesn't look like it'd go well for anyone.  I've never seen even the Force risk anything that threatens that, and I wouldn't dare presume to risk you that way.  You represent a strategic asset, and alienating you would be...  Ill-advised.  Medics know how to take people apart just as well as they know how to put them back together."

"That said, if 'where anyone can see' is the only problem you're expecting, it's not like I don't have a fully provisioned medical department.  Disguising your work as advancement in mundane or mundanely Force-assisted practices might not even be a lie in the longer term, if the doctors can get anything from watching you.  If you want to let them; that's your choice.  ...Regardless...

"If it came to having to make 'being a miracle healer' possible for myself, or letting the scrutiny fall on the you-shaped void in my fief by the absence of better narratives, I'd take the hit of having to learn, and be seen and known to be learning, biological alchemy.  There's worse secrets I keep.  ...I don't want to be that resource to the Empire-at-large, but at the point that rumor of a healer leaks I'll have become one anyway.  Better I be able to control the narrative."

She nods along. "If it comes to that I'd suggest Dark Healing over alchemy, it'll be easier to sell - it's obscure, I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it, and you won't like how it works. I don't know enough about it to teach it, either - I might be able to reinvent it but I'd need experimental subjects."

"...Mm, I have heard of using the Force to transfer injuries or directly siphon another's lifeforce.  The former...seems to be only practically useful for medical purposes in niche circumstances, considering that it only moves the wounds and they still need treating - unless you're capable of actually spreading out the wound across multiple recipients, I suppose.  ...The latter, letting the Empire know I'm learning about it would be ill-advised.  ...I'm rather confident that that Force power, implemented on a large scale - or possibly simply sufficiently covertly, but some of the things propaganda blames Jedi for don't seem right - is why the Emperor hasn't died of old age, and being seen to investigate that one now might read as a threat.  Bioalchemy is, despite most biology being as complicated and backstabby as Sith politics, something like a skill that stems from my existing known interests."

"Ah. You'd know best, of course. Anyway, having your doctors observe my work seems reasonable and I'd expect them to be able to learn from at least some of it."

"We can hope.  ...Hmm.  There's another thing we should figure out, actually, if we're going to do that - which is to say, what do we want to say the story is for your non-injured presence in medical, if someone starts asking?  'Classified' just won't do."

"Oh, I won't need to be there. I have a 60 foot range with it, meditating, and I should be able to double that with a few months of practice. Give me a workroom on the next floor and I'll be fine."

"Impressive."  Indeed, she seems genuinely impressed, judging by the ghosts of feelings even she can't quite hide behind a placid mask.  "That will likely suffice.  We should, however, introduce you...?"

She nods. "Not yet, I think? I'd rather have a few months between when you picked me up and when things start looking strange. But I'll want to be in communication with them to know what my patients want done and to let them know about any issues that come up."

...She seems almost surprised by something Pradnakt just said, given that it takes just slightly longer for her to respond again.  "I do quite agree vis-a-vis 'not starting immediately, for security purposes', but that doesn't mean that planning for three months from now can wait until that day.  Still, if that's the timeframe we're working in, it's not urgent - though I shall likely have to tell the CMO of a healer rather sooner than 'in three months', to explain the requisition of model organisms - goodness knows I'll need them, as much as I wish I could pluck skill out of nothing.  They're aware I want nothing to do with supersoldier programs."

"Even that should probably wait a couple months, but if you want your people to be able to start researching the best way to do what you want now and you're sure they can cover their tracks well enough, sure, I can meet them. I traveled from Lapetcher to Yaguscin under the name Canna Darst if we want to use a pseudonym with a bit of a record behind it."

"My medical staff is quite effective at maintaining confidentiality, yes."

"...That might help, depending on various details - and you're already used to the name, I would suppose?"

"Not to the point where it has a major advantage over a fresh one. I expect to be fine answering to what I'm supposed to in either case." That's one of the advantages of supplementing her language processing with the Force.

She nods.  "We'll get back to you on that, then, when the cover's properly laid.  ...Mm, and if you will be here for a longer span of time, it would likely be a good idea to get your medical history on file in case it's needed, at least to the degree of 'do you have any allergies'; I'm sure you can take care of yourself if necessary, but that hardly means you should have to.  Which provides a quite natural excuse."

"I keep myself in much better shape than to have allergies, but yes, that makes sense."

She holds her poker face for far longer than she thought herself capable of, but she can't quite stop the ghost of a delighted giggle at that turn of phrase.  "Well said, and well done.  I had to turn to autobioalchemy the once, for... personal reasons, but I'm rather glad it wasn't over allergies.  The common implementations of that system are a mess, and one not lightly meddled with."

"It is one of the more complicated ones but you might be underestimating what it means that I'm a prodigy."

"On the contrary, I'd hope I rather do have an idea if anyone does, by virtue of personal experience with the sheer effort it takes to mimic even a fraction of that power without the Force aiding and abetting."  She shakes her head, seemingly at herself.  "But I digress.  If there's nothing further you'd like to discuss or ask of me, then we may as well make our way to medical forthwith."  Assuming there are no such surprises, then she shall stand and make her way to an innocuous patch of wall that turns out to have an elevator within it.  (Well.  Innocuous if you are not a sensor par excellence.)

Yeah, she's not remotely surprised. She follows along. "Is your team familiar with the protocol for a hibernating Sith?"

Her panic room, on the other hand, is well-hidden behind the room full of Force-warping miscellany and holocrons.

"I'm certain they've been supplied with the appropriate reference material, but I know I've never given them cause to reference it prior.  I can hardly afford it."

"It's pretty simple: You put the hibernating Sith somewhere quiet and don't bother them. Passive scans are fine but anything that could trigger their danger sense is liable to wake them, and they won't be oriented, and nobody wants that. In my case you should let my droids stay with me if they want to; they know how to handle themselves. It's unusually likely to come up, for me - I have a habitual effect that blocks poisons and drugs from affecting me unless I let them, so if I'm too badly injured to let a medic do their job hibernation is the only real option."

She nods.  "You'd want to tell your doctor that, not me, but I do think we will be able to make that happen.  ...Though about that anti-poison - what about kolto, if the injuries are bad enough that it would be warranted?  It's sorely rationed, but we do have some supply."

"In a fair portion of the situations where it came up I'd expect you to be there," she shrugs, "and it changes the first response situation, too. But kolto works fine, if the cost/benefit analysis works out."

She nods.  "It would, yes.  I don't know if I'd know how it might, or how you'd prefer I handle that."  (The secret elevator has arrived at its destination, by now, but one of the benefits of it being secret is that it doesn't need to serve other passengers and can just stay there until people are ready to leave.)

"If I'm alert enough to follow a simple conversation I'll be alert enough to suppress the effect; if I'm too far gone for that don't waste your supplies. Beyond that it depends on the details of the situation - if I do go into hibernation it'll be two or three days, depending on the extent of my injuries, and you can move me with a stretcher if you need to, just be careful - I have my danger sense set up pretty normally, mundanes trying to carry me over rough terrain could set it off if they drop me or bang me on something. And in the other direction I don't mind pain that much, if it'd be a problem for me to hibernate it's fine to suggest I not. I'd give - maybe seventy or eighty percent chance that I'd take your advice on that, if it came up, in either direction."

She nods.  "I strongly prefer to avoid unnecessary suffering.  ...Regardless, most of this really is information that the medical professionals ought to know, and we've arrived - so, shall we?  The hallway's clear."

"Of course." She'll let Kalbetis take point explaining her to the medics.

Kalbetis would really rather not take point in explaining anything beyond the basic premise, out of respect for Lord Pradnakt's privacy - though that doesn't stop her from deferring to Lord Pradnakt's deference as she gives the initial introduction of "Lord Pradnakt, who will be travelling with us under pseudonym once CI's gotten things set the rest of the way up.  ...It's rather important that I remain the only Sith suspected to be in residence, but you need to know this in case it's medically relevant; notably, she has mastered a poison-filtering technique to a subconscious level which will affect most medicines - kolto notably excluded, but anesthetics are affected - nonetheless, the technique can be suppressed with de minimis lucidity.  Problems are most likely to arise concomitant with need for intensive healing, and you know the usual protocols on not disturbing sleeping Sith Lords lest they awaken disoriented and Happen to people.  ...This may become medically relevant."  She seems frustrated by the admission, by her lack of leverage over the uncertain futures looming, "But Force help me if things get that bad.

"...Unrelatedly, I'm going to need your help studying, in the near future."

"Lord Pradnakt, this is my personal physician, Medea, with whose care I hope you will also be satisfied should it become necessary.  ...She does field work, if you were, wondering."  And if anyone official-looking asks, that she has an office under that name is because somehow some of the crew have decided they want her, specifically, to handle their care, and the common appointment-management software requires a name that does not have numerical characters in it.  (It's even true, no matter that the By Other Means isn't using that software and is in fact using software (and even certain purpose-built hardware) that was designed by someone who both knew what they were doing and was significantly more paranoid about data breaches.)  Medea's chassis - for she is a droid, originally designed M3-D3-eXperimental - is surprisingly...deadly-looking, all spindly multi-limbs and sharp pointy objects where she's not hiding the chemical fabber, while still affecting a surprising softness - she seem to have devoted one of her utility pouches to sweets, presumably for bribery rewarding patients.  "Medea, could you go fetch the CMO, please - while I'm already down here.  There's department-scale business that needs to be addressed."  Discreetly, but that goes without saying, because it would have been an appointment, or especially a simple message, if it could have been.

As Medea pads out, she turns to Pradnakt.  "You do not need to stay, if you'd rather not yet be known to be involved whatsoever.  Your identity rather constitutes need-to-know information, and while it's vastly likely that I'll need to read the CMO in on that there is-will-be a Force Healer...  Well, with how much of a distance you've said you can work at, the medical staff do not need to know it's you.  Fieldwork might necessitate reading some of them in, but for now?  This disclosure is your prerogative, as it is your interpersonal relations and security in the balance of it."

She's only a little awkward with Medea; she'll have to get some advice from Daisy about how to approach interacting with with class two droids of uncertain age when she gets back to the room.

"I expect they'll put it together, but I can imagine cases where plausible deniability might matter, and I don't think it'll be especially inconvenient for them not to know who I am if they have ways to contact me without knowing."

She nods.  "They will.  Elsie will get your end set up.  Alright, then, you know where the elevator is if you wish to wait there and leave via my office.  I'd recommend that plan, but I do make a habit of mysteriously appearing even when it's not necessary, myself, so you could simply walk out the front door and blame me for it."  There's a faint grin visible in her Force presence, if not on her face.

Pradnakt grins back, but follows up with "it's politer to your receptionist to leave the way I came in, I think," and heads back the way she came.

That line about it being politer to her receptionist just has her more amused.  Elsie is in on it.  "Perhaps so," she nonetheless (seems to) verbally concede.

"I sha'n't be overlong.  See you shortly."

And so she does.  A short briefing to the CMO, that she will soon be bringing a Force-sensitive healer aboard, but the said healer will be being covered for by her own exploration of bioalchemy - said cover is necessary, the Empire will want what it can't have if there's rumor of a miraculous healer - despite the supersoldier problems, and that information will be delivered shortly about lines of contact, but they will likely be the usual quiet channels, passes in an equally short timeframe.

"It went well."

"Good. - It occurs to me that I could start helping with diagnosis right away, or at least as soon as my workshop and the communication are set up, that will be much less obvious."

"If such an intractable problem presents itself, certainly.  I rather prefer to not let our medical needs get to that point."  There's not been any complex cases lately, but who knows what fate may bring?  (...Her.  It's her.  If somebody's making untreatable bioweapons or something that the doctors can't handle, she will find out.  And put a stop to it, if she can.  Really, that's rather what she's doing with Lord Pradnakt, albeit in the field, rather than aboard, so...  The offer makes more sense, looking at it that way.)  "...I'm not sure it would be a time savings, or even a savings of net effort, given the covertness - but I'm sure there's bound to be something medically interesting soon enough, just by the law of large numbers."

"I expect it'll only take one instance of them knowing someone's coming in with a heart attack before they walk through the doors for it to be worth it. Or the harder-to-detect cancers or autoimmune things. I'm not sure how common those are in the general population, though." She shrugs.

"Mmm, 'there's someone having a heart attack over there' is more an emergency response duty, than simply diagnostics.  But I'll make sure you're set up for that, too.  I do much the same myself - handling preventative maintenance as well.  ...Incidentally, do you know how to defibrillate?  ...Do you need to, come to think of it...  Well, it could be useful for a nested 'I can't be a healing prodigy, I have to do this the hard way' cover, I suppose, and I do have practice dummies from when I felt it would be a good idea for me to learn somewhere..."

"I don't, and I could see that being useful; I can't access Light powers on the fly, it takes forty minutes of meditation for me to switch over." She gives an uncomfortable half-shrug. 

"I'll dig up my notes, then.  You should have useful points of similarity, I believe you mentioned a lightning shroud technique?"

"Mmhmm. And I'm familiar with adding other effects to lightning, too."

She nods.  "Useful, if somewhat in the opposite direction of what I suspect you might need to do - if you draw on emotions for the necessary power when working with Force Lightning, all but a select few possible emotions will rather get in the way of using it with finesse sufficient to restart a stopped heart."

She chuckles and raises her hand, making an abortive Force-motion toward starting her lightning technique to make sure the Darth won't be startled when she shrouds the back of her hand in sparks a moment later. After a moment of that, she shifts the hue of the effect to blue, then green, then orange, holding each for a few seconds to let Kalbetis watch what she's doing in the Force to produce the effect: it's nearly the same technique as adding pain or kinetic effects to Force lightning, and both the basic technique and the color show are tricky, detailed effects to produce. "I can't do this when I'm enraged, but I don't think I'll have trouble with defibrillation in most cases."

Did Pradnakt forget she's a precog?

"...An impressive display of control.  Many of our ...nominal colleagues... would not know where to begin, or why one might want to.  I expect it sha'n't take you very long at all, indeed, given this proficiency.  ...Is there aught else that you'd like to discuss before this meeting's done with?"

No, she's just going to take responsibility for her own safety regardless, thanks.

"I don't think our current story will cover shipwide diagnostic monitoring and wasn't planning on doing it; that was everything I had for today, though." She drops the lightning effect, letting the last few sparks ground against her knuckles before dropping her hand.

Wise.

"Mm, nor did I expect that of you.  It's a big ship.  Even I am hard-pressed to keep up with her, and I am very much cheating like haran.  Just keep an eye out near you, I suppose, and the rest will settle itself as it must.  ...Expect a holocron in about a cycle."

She nods, "I will," and leaves.

She pauses outside the door to talk to the droid monitoring it. "Excuse me; Darth Kalbetis suggested that I talk to an Elsie about something, can you tell me how to get in touch with her?"

The droid swivels to look at her.

"You have done so.  This droid has been given to respond to 'Elsie' or 'Elcie' as acceptable short-forms of its designation L5-C3.  One moment please."

She puts up an 'Out To Lunch' sign, and apparently summons backup to cover her absence - a mouse droid, of all things, rolls onto the desk and breebles proudly.  She rests a slender hand upon it for a moment, then stands.

"...They really are ingenious little creatures, mouse droids.  Despite their lack of sufficient hardware to possess truly general intelligence, this droid has seen many do quite clever things.  ...This droid will admit to a fondness for them, when pressed.  Regardless - it would likely be appropriate to adjourn to the secondary office."  A door that leads to a small 'bump' in Darth Kalbetis' own office space airlocks open.  "If you would?"

What. What. What.

(Daisy would notice Pradnakt's minor existential crisis immediately. Can Elsie? She hopes not. Mostly.) "Of course." In she goes. "Do I have your pronoun right?"

"It/she, preferentially she in the mouths of others, ma'am."

The door irises shut, and the other side opens.  It's a small space, and L5-C3 busies herself about the security features before speaking.

"Milady has not disclosed much to her secretary as of yet, as to why you might need to speak to this droid.  She did mention your retinue, briefly, and make certain comments about medical alerts."

"It's about the droids traveling with me; she suggested we talk to you about security measures for them. I might have them talk to you directly, though; I have a pretty good idea of their opinions but not a perfect one."

"Ah.  Yes, ensuring that the staff of the By Other Means cannot be subverted by means of memory wipes or restraining bolts is my duty, amonst others - and you are welcome guests.  Such facilities are open to your people.  ....Ah, and as per orders arising from your recent excursion," she says as she pulls a small transmitter out of a locked cabinet, sticking (a built-in datajack in) the tip of a finger into the port to update its configuration, "this is to be issued to you.  It is connected to shipboard emergency dispatch with priority, and the maintenance queue.  Misuse will result in consequences, though my lady does not fear that such will occur.  A note: if it is ever removed from the By Other Means, it will permanently cease functioning.  Please avoid this."

"I will. Should I have Daisy and Nine talk to you directly about their security situation, or is there someplace they should go for it?"

"Any droid-staffed maintenance station will suffice; much of it is software updates, anyway, and those can be transmitted peer to peer."

"I'll let them know, thank you." Time to go?

"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.)

Tim cedes the helm to Daisy at her suggestion that he might prefer to monitor the new hyperdrive during its maiden voyage, and once everyone is settled, away they go.

Meanwhile, elsewhere:

He should go back. He knows it. There's no excuse not to give a proper report on Master Chenk's final days, or to put off turning the artifact they were picking up over to the archivists. It's just that every time he makes his way to the space station to get a ticket to Coruscant, it gets harder. There are so many other places he could go, and he's seen so few of them. Surely one more won't hurt anything. Next time he'll go back. One more, and surely the ache in his gut will be satiated, and he'll go back to being a well-behaved Jedi Padawan, only going where he's told, never really getting to see any of it.

Next time.

Surely.

It doesn't take long after Rafiik boards his ship for the wall comm in Kalbetis' room to chime.

He's moving, I'll have a new heading shortly.

I'll let our backup know what you'll find.

Every planet is a marvel, if only you look at it the right way, and Nexora is no different. Rafiik follows his intuition and some seedy-looking locals to find a cheap hostel, where he uses nearly all of his money to book a bed for a week; the rest will have to cover a few meals while he scopes out the area and finds out how best to make some money here. So far that hasn't been hard, and he doesn't expect it to be long before he's going on the culinary tour advertised in the pamphlet that convinced him to come here or heading out to see the ruins north of the city.

Something seems...  Wrong, though.  Subtly, but undeniably off.  In the Force and in the people.  The longer-term residents of this place, they're wary - they go nowhere alone.

After the first night there he awakens to a note left by his bedside: 

You're not going to trust me.  But it's not like I trust you, either, stranger.  Still...  Somebody's gotta look out for us desperate folks, especially younglings.  The government sure ain't.

...Watch your back.  People are disappearing around here, and whatever you're hiding, whatever you're running from, I guarantee you don't want them to find it.  Or find you.  Be careful.

So that's creepy. But whatever distractions he might've gotten lost in, he's still a Jedi, and the kind of thing the letter warns of is still his job to look into. (And he's already got a bit of money; it's really not hard, if you're willing to keep late nights.) He'll just unpack his 'saber...

...or not. He's genuinely unsure where he lost it; he's been traveling incognito, and hasn't unpacked it in half a dozen planets. The artifact is still safe, thank the Force - he was a little more cautious about packing it - so this is only a minor crisis. He'll just have to be very careful investigating the disappearances, and then actually go back and report on everything and take whatever chewing out the loss gets him.

So, what does the Force have to say about the locals' discomfort?

It's that way.

...There's something strange in the Floating Markets.  Something hidden beneath the surface of the tourist attraction.

There's also reports of a Sith Lord ...visiting, if he looks - someone spotting a ship recurring near the water-washed crystal caverns, and someone very bold getting a picture of its passengers disembarking, spotting the black robes and the saber, even if from a great distance.

(What are you looking at her for, she's still a week out.)

That's bad! And more urgent than can wait for him to make the trip back to Coruscant.

He puts out a priority call for nearby Jedi to come and help. (There's an emergency fund for such things, of course.) Even the nearest Jedi are unlikely to be very close, though - he's been careful not to wander into Empire territory proper, but not every part of the contested zone is equally hotly contested, and he's been wisely wandering deeper and deeper into the calmer backwaters. He estimates based on the space maps that it'll be maybe a week and a half before anyone shows up.

The smart thing to do would be to tap the emergency fund again and get off-planet; it's not likely he'll be able to do anything to help without backup, and he'll be in even more trouble than the locals if a Sith Lord spots him. Instead, he goes to the Floating Markets; even without being able to do anything maybe he can gather some intel.

There is intel to gather, yes, and, for that matter, the markets to admire.

It seems, after a few days' investigation, that the Sith is quite literally hiding something beneath the surface - a cheap tourist attraction amongst cheap tourist attractions is hiding a submarine(!) full of kidnapped kids-his-age beneath the surface.  ...Did that guy just say something about "the specimens"?

...Did that guy notice him - shit, he'd better run!

Shit! He runs!

Maybe the guy just doesn't like being watched, and his cover isn't actually blown? Maybe? He'll stick to physically plausible maneuvers for now just in case but if it comes to it Force Parkour is his favorite.

"Thief!  Thief!  Stop that boy!"

Oh, his cover is definitely blown, or at least horribly deflated.  A blaster bolt - stun, whether thankfully or not - sears past his ear the first time he tries to go up and over the crowd.

Thank the Force for danger sense, that was way too close!

He doesn't have much choice but to try the upward route again a few moments later, though; the crowd isn't so thick as to be completely hopeless to move through, but it's close, and he doesn't trust the Sith or his people not to hurt bystanders to get to him if he stays in it.

The Sith does have some understanding of strategy, but Rafiik is quite right about the lack of care for collateral damage.  (The hue and cry he's raising sure aren't helping, either.)  But as the stun-bolts fly towards his silhouette and all Rafiik can do is think is 'I wish I had my lightsaber', it's really quite cold comfort that the bystanders will be alright.

A few hours later, Pradnakt abruptly looks up from her lunch and raises a hand to stop Nine in the middle of the story he's telling. "Our guy's in trouble. I can't tell how at this range but I'd bet it's the alchemist."

"...Force save us all from impetuous teenagers.  He sent an alert, you can tell by the ship movements - normally Jedi in the field rarely converge like that - but no, he just had to go investigate Tuscias himself.  Kriff, what did he do with the artifact?"  (A rather rhetorical question.  They'll find it when they get there, anyway.)  "We're not too far off from Nexora.  I'll see if I can speed us along any, and alert the Cloak we're going after Tuscias afterwards.  We'll need their support to force the issue."

Hmm.  What a report.  An experimental subject with high M-count.  Likely not a Jedi, even, having no lightsaber.  He shall retrieve them at once - Force-sensitives can be very slippery, and he'd know.

The planet of Nexora does not want to have a Sith Lord on it, but neither can they stop him.  The Force renders him above such petty bureaucrats, and the planet has no good response - not wishing to hide behind the Republic's skirts, even if they could, earns something of a grudging respect from a (so-called) self-made man, but it doesn't stop him from throwing his weight around to get access to certain otherwise restricted sites, like the caverns.  (Unfortunately they were not, themselves, of particular interest to him - the 'glow' of the crystals is produced by a bioluminescent microflora, not by the Force or some other means like radioactivity.  Still, he's made do with what he has.)

Lord Tuscias orders the boy sent to the receiving room aboard his ship, transferring him from the cargo hold that holds the rest of his "won't-be-missed" experimental subjects...and there, he waits.

Rafiik is secured in Force binders, but the truth of it is that they're already in hyperspace - there's nowhere he could run for long.  (Well, without seizing the ship, and Tuscias is rather confident that his mercenaries will outfight children.)

Rafiik's first instinct when he comes to is to pretend he hasn't. He doesn't seem to be in immediate danger, as much as he doesn't like the binders, and someone finding out he's awake might change that, so, how about not.

"You cannot fool me, boy.  I can see you.  I can see many things that others couldn't dream of.  And one of the things I can see is that you're special.  Very few qualify for me to spend my time speaking to them personally.  Wouldn't you like to know why?  Because if you are going to be recalcitrant...  You can always be put where I had you brought from."

Jedi or not, he's pretty terrified right now; calming exercises can only do so much. "Why?" he mostly manages not to squeak.

"You, and I, have something in common, boy, that sets us a step above the unwashed masses.

"You want to seize your future.  Your instincts led you here.  That ambition brought you to me, if I might regret that it started with such an impression.  You will, I'm sure, have plenty of opportunity to repay what has been done, regardless.

"Now, boy - what do you know about the Force?"

He paid a reasonable amount of attention in 'how to deal with Sith' class but all he can remember right now is that you can only get away with lying to them sometimes. "N... nothing?"

Given how terror clouds the mind, it may even be true at the moment, and his biological expertise does not yet extend to decoding the brain anyway.  The lie passes without notice.

"Hmph.  A great failure of Nexora, to not teach you even that much.

"The Force is a power beyond your comprehension.  It turns armies, shapes worlds, it can even cheat death.  And you, boy, have the potential to use it."

Oh good, it worked, now all he has to do is string this guy along for a week or so. "Yeah?"

The Sith's mood turns in an instant at the sight of Rafiik's seeming relief, and the Force blares danger! as Tuscias' hand anchors a noxious swirl of energies that is slammed directly into his gut and his self.

"That is yes, my Lord, boy.  Your first lesson: Within you is the seed of a technique that turns men into monsters.  Survive.  Perhaps I'll deign to teach you more, afterwards."

He's too busy retching and choking and fighting off the rising feeling of horror to answer, for a few minutes.

Tuscias has gestured to his guards and had the boy hauled off to the sparse chamber he was once assigned by his Master, with nothing but stark and nearly absent fixtures and the Sith Code etched into the walls, before Rafiik can think of trying to speak again.

He doesn't resist.

Later, when the nausea has passed, he lies on the sleeping mat and attempts to meditate, trying to ignore the fading pain and the stench of his lost breakfast to wrestle his terror back under control. It works, on one hand, better than it has any right to; on the other hand that's a low, low bar, for a Padawan captured alone by a Sith Lord who's clearly made some unknown modification to their body and hauled them into space - he didn't fail to notice that they walked him farther than would be plausible on any submarine that would fit into any body of water near the Floating Markets - without even his lightsaber. The advice to young Jedi - and not so young Jedi - is to never let a Sith take you alive. He's not looking forward to finding out why that's the given advice.

He curls up and cries, after some twenty minutes of getting himself into the best shape he can.

The interruptions will come later.  Right now, 'that ungrateful Nexoran Force-Sensitive' Tuscias thinks he's picked up has been left to stew.

Darth Kalbetis, meanwhile, is heading directly towards the Force artifact they need to recover from Nexora, deep brown Jedi robes paired with a Sith's mask and a soldier's heavy blaster rifle peeking over her shoulder simply confusing the shit out of anyone who might think to interrupt her course based on her being any one of those things alone.  She doesn't have time to be diverted from her search, especially with Tuscias being so quick to secure what he thinks is his prize.  He must have already been quite close.

When she arrives at the hostel, or rather, as she gets close to the hostel, the blaster rifle and the mask vanish from her person, no matter how naked she feels maskless - she doesn't quite have room for two and the carbine's sheer volume no matter how well-tailored these robes are for pocket space.  She wants the Jedi to think one of their own has beaten them there, even if they were too late, and the mask...  Stands out enough to question.  There's no time for that.

"Excuse me, I'm so sorry, but there's someone who was staying here recently who has gotten himself in terrible danger and I need to retrieve his things before I can go help him, the Force says -" a simple empathic projection of her sincerity ought to do, but if needs must, she is prepared to use a subtle Mind Trick, "He looks like this," a picture, "and he might have given his name as Rafiik if he gave one at all; I'm not sure how much he was trying to hide at the time but he's a Jedi Padawan and he found something that made him send a distress signal despite having let the Order prior think he was dead, and please tell me you can help me help him."

The clerk seems overwhelmed by what's happening, giving in to the not-quite-a-request regardless of what the hostel's protocol might say on the matter, but --

-- her scene has drawn the attention of someone else in the room, who draws a huff of his vape - 'for medical purposes', he cheerfully lies when asked - and breathes out a fragrant cloud of frustration.  "Damn.  I knew there was somethin' not quite - alright - with that kid when he showed up -" an expansive, plaintive gesture comes with the line, born of sadness, not suspicion - "but that's bigger'n I thought it'd be.  I warned him 'bout the kidnappings, and now I'm wonderin' if I just set this whole thing off.  But you're gonna put a stop to it, Miss Jedi?"

"...As best I can.  There's little time to bust the immediate problem when the Sith who set it up is busy doing his worst.  ...There will be others, coming here after me.  Let them know which way I've gone, will you?"  She pulls out a piece of flimsiplast and sketches a hyperspace route towards Tuscias' domain, pressing it upon the concerned bystander like a mission.  "I'm sure I'll try to be out of Empire territory, with a Padawan in my care, but this mess...  Might take some very firm cleaning."

"...'Course I will.  You gotta help people, or what's the point?"

"...What's the point indeed.  Wise words."  She finishes bundling Rafiik's stuff up, and leaves just as intently as she arrived.

Pradnakt receives a comm, shortly.

Recovered what we need.  On my way back to your ship; warm up the engines?

On it.

Rafiik cries himself out, eventually.

He stares at the ceiling, for a little while.

He reads the first two lines of the Sith Code before realizing what it must be; he doesn't read on past that.

He sings to himself, eventually, quietly humming the wordless tunes sometimes played in the evening back on Tython.

Lord Tuscias, of course, is not going to leave him there forever.

No, he summons Rafiik to dinner - a delicious-smelling, but, if Rafiik's senses can be trusted, quite poisonous, feast.

"Do eat.  I had this prepared specially for you," for all that he, himself, seems ready to also eat it.

...

The food probably won't kill him; this monster wouldn't make it that easy. The harder question is whether he'll regret eating it more or less than he'll regret what will happen if he doesn't. (That the Sith seems ready to eat it himself means nothing; presumably he's taken an antidote or something.)

Not wanting to let on that his Force senses are trained enough to notice the problem is what ultimately decides it for him, and he nibbles on the nearest thing to hand, his attention still on Tuscias.

(He's actually filtering the poisons out as he eats them, but, same difference.)

"...Nonsense, boy, you will need these nutrients.  You're growing, after all."  He seems quite ready to force the issue.

He's always had trouble eating when he's anxious, so the hunger he feels now is worrying in its own right, even without Tuscias' words. It's helpful, though; as much as he expects to regret eating, enraging the Sith and then being forced to eat anyway is clearly not the winning strategy here. He takes bigger - but still cautious - bites.

Tuscias seems... not dis-satisfied with that.

Not happy.  It's uncertain whether he feels that emotion.  But not actively displeased.

"You have surely seen the Code of the Sith," he says, as their plates empty.  "Recite it."

Ah, fuck.

"Peace is a lie, there is only, uh, power? Through power I gain... uh... I'm sorry, my Lord." This is going to hurt.

"You do yourself quite a disservice," he hisses, "turning your mind away from what precious knowledge you have been given.  Perhaps I shall give you an object lesson.

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion," he declaims, as lightning made of pain sears Rafiik's skin.

"Through passion, I gain strength." Another painful strike.

"Through strength, I gain power."  And a third.

"Through power I gain victory."  Another.

"The Force shall free me."

"Repeat it."

He's honestly not sure he can talk at all, right now - he's not in the chair anymore, but slumped at the base of the wall behind it, panting heavily. "Peace is," gasp, "a lie," gasp, "there's only," gasp, "passion," gasp.

Being zapped with electricity is not actually conducive to learning, though. He barely makes it through the next line before he makes a mistake.

Lord Tuscias does not, in fact, care about the quality of his pedagogy.

He gets zapped again.  And again, when he fails a second time.

"...Enough of this.  You'll learn."  Or else, he doesn't need to say.  "Guards.  Escort him.

"I expect better performance, next time."

The tangle of Dark energies churns unsettlingly in his gut.

He would kind of like to die now, maybe.

He doesn't bother trying to meditate; he's in no state for it. He just lays where they've dumped him and tries not to cry in a way that jostles anything too much.

...The Force curls around him reassuringly.  Help is coming, it whispers, in a voice Tuscias can't hear.  Rafiik just has to hold on til then.

(Darth Kalbetis is busy trying to calculate whether she can actually amplify a hyperdrive's magnitude with the Force, as a form of last-minute fretting as they and the Cloak dock.  Lord Pradnakt's reports are not pleasant, and...  The sheer lack of care people have for eachother in the Empire has always, always hit her hard, no matter how good she's gotten at hiding it.  Which is very good indeed, and equally horrible for the necessity.)

Pradnakt knows some things about applying the Force to hyperdrives! She was up on the state of the art, fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, the state of the art fifteen years ago was 'it's maybe hypothetically possible by one of these three routes, all of which have a chance of breaking the drive'. On the other hand, they do have a precog...

...If she doesn't have to hold up the whole technique by herself, she just might be able to precog it.  Would Lord Pradnakt like to try?

Please, she cannot ask, for it is not her place.

Pradnakt isn't liking the state of her reports either. Let's do this thing.

The joint meditation is useful practice, for that matter.

Let it be so.

They jump.

Elcie hails the ground and Lord Tuscias, who has just barely finished transporting his ...subjects, off his ship.

"This droid has been given the honor of conveying the words of Darth Kalbetis to your ears, Lord Tuscias, for her mistress is busy with important matters."  Like launching an insertion aboard a Dagger-class assault ship while Lord Tuscias is distracted by this very message.

"As the woman responsible for dealing with problems that saboteurs have caused the Empire's internal affairs, it disappoints her that you have chosen to become a mess for her to clean up with your sloppy external operations.  If you surrender, you will die quickly.  If you fight, you will die tired.  Make your choice, Lord Tuscias.  Make it quickly and make it well.  You will not get another.

"To the forces of Lord Tuscias: You have been given the option to surrender or die.  Darth Kalbetis advises the former, but if you wish for the latter so dearly, she will oblige you.

"This message now repeats."

How dare she.  He'll fight her to the last monster.

Hmm, no, they're still vulnerable to certain chemicals, and to exploiting certain facets of biological realities.  Impressive oversight, really.  Or perhaps he thought he's the only one who could deliver those formulae, or divine the correct places to strike their twisted anatomies - but Darth Kalbetis equips her people very well.

"Lord Tuscias.  You have chosen...  Poorly."

A dramatic confrontation will keep him distracted from attempting to perform asset denial, and Lord Pradnakt, supporting, or supported by, one of her handpicked strike teams (and Nine, of course, if he wants to), will surely be sufficient to handle anyone else who tries.

Pradnakt shouldn't get into a serious fight when they're about to need her to go Light, but that doesn't mean she can't lightsaber any mooks who're under the mistaken impression that a Sith might deserve their loyalty. She gets to the kids, gives them a moment under calming and pain relieving and anti-poison effects to pull themselves together, and signals for the group to make its way back to Kalbetis' ship - and the sooner they get back the sooner she can meet up with the Darth to go get their Jedi.

...Right.  Let's do this.

She ignites her own lightsaber - which is, strangely, a slightly different color than it was last time Pradnakt saw it, with more of a violet edge than a magenta - as well as Rafiik's, and calmly slices the heavy durasteel door - normally operated via winch - wide open.  (Possibly with Pradnakt's 'saber lending a hand as well, but she didn't plan that.)

...It's not that she needs them as breaching tools.  It's the look of it.  She's here for a rescue, not a theft.  (She's taken a moment to swap her mask for one that's much less ominous-looking than the Sith-black one she normally wears, speaking of.  A simple silver piece, that goes well with her change of almost-white tan robes, and her Force presence doing the utterly absurd thing it does.)

"Padawan Rafiik Vidarra.  This is a rescue.  Please don't mind my shadow.  She's here to help, too."

(Implying that Lord Pradnakt is an undercover agent...

...Is something she can spin all kinds of ways, really.  It'll be fine.)

Rafiik has hauled himself to the mat by this point, but overall he's not actually sure things have improved at all; he still hurts all over, especially in his gut, where something seems to be very, very wrong.

The pain disappears as Kalbetis finishes speaking, though, along with the sense of wrongness. "Got the poison. Keep him close to me," Pradnakt hisses, and then his lightsaber presses itself into his hand followed quickly by firm but careful telekinesis pulling him to his feet.

Even with the pain gone, he's staggered, obviously not thinking clearly. His lightsaber is steadying, though, and he knows what Kalbetis' robes mean, and totters toward them.

"...Damn Tuscias to his own hell," she hisses back.  "Copy that."  She'll keep him close.  She physically supports him, even - if it would work better, she can maybe get him onto a hoverstretcher.  ...If he'll let go of her.  He might...well...not.  He doesn't... seem to be doing that.  And...she's inclined to humor him.  The boy's been through more than enough.

(This is what Nine is here for, actually, not that Kalbetis has been read in on the fact. Rafiik is limpetting onto her pretty good, though. He'll just stay close in case she needs to pass him off in a hurry.)

In Pradnakt's professional opinion he shouldn't really be walking unsupported, but between his hold on Kalbetis and her own telekinesis he'll be fine. She signals for them to head out, taking up a position behind the Kalbetis, Raafik, and Nine as they go - Rafiik hasn't registered her presence yet and hopefully they can make it back to the ship before he does.

...She seems to have started humming the poor kid a half-remembered lullaby.  She'll be just fine carrying him outright.

...Even if some idiot thinks he has a chance of trying to ambush them in 'revenge'.  Rafiik doesn't even jostle as the man turns a corner into her blaster-bolt.

The ambush does startle Rafiik back to himself, a little. "The... Sith Lord...?"

"Will not be troubling anyone further.  Rest, Padawan."

He has questions, but he wants so badly for this not to be his problem anymore.

He rests.

There we go.  That's much better.  It calms the knot of Darkness entangled with his body, too, that he's not pushing.

"...He's asleep, thank goodness."

She speeds up a little bit, wanting to get off this planet and back to the Cloak and her well-equipped medbay before some new complication arises.