The population is wearing a weird amount of black for inhabitants of a desert planet.

Her brown-and-tans aren't too far out of place, at least. Probably not worth going back to change. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Anything else of immediate note?

Yes, there's still a lot of brown-and-tan. The other offworlders are a little tense, a little wary--and if she listens around at cantinas, the rumors of a murdered Cartel boss are either true or very oddly pervasive for a falsehood so close to the source. Apparently there was some kind of slave uprising.

How long ago, and where?

A few months ago. All over the planet, apparently--there were some holdouts, but it's pretty much gotten to the point where claiming to own another person isn't safe anymore.

If she cares to dig a little further she can probably find out there was supposedly at least one force user involved in all this (sources are confused as to whether it was a Jedi, a Sith, both or neither).

Probably not a Sith, with the whole freed slaves things. Jedi's more likely, but they don't usually go rogue like that.

A couple months is a long time, but she still wants to go check out the former Cartel headquarters. She rents a speeder.

The Cartel headquarters has been pretty thoroughly demolished. If her forensic skills are good enough she can probably discern lightning marks on a few pieces of rubble and lightsaber marks on more.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Is everything thoroughly demolished? No overlooked electronics still in one piece? Cameras, terminals, stray datapads?

She can find some of those. The demolition was more "vent rage against the oppressor" than "attempt to prevent forensics."

All right then. Let's see what she can find.

Not much out of the ordinary in the ledgers, visitor count looks stable... She flips to the security footage from just before the building collapsed.

The Hutts are apparently concerned about the slave uprisings! They've been trying to detonate transmitters but it keeps not working. There is apparently a mob approaching outside; the Hutts are mostly confident their guards can handle the rabble.

The guards can, apparently, handle the rabble, but not the woman dressed in black with a lightsaber in her hand and lightning at her fingertips.

Looks like a Sith to her. Trying to create a personal fiefdom, maybe? Play the liberating hero, bask in the adulation, set up as the new overlord. Depending on the Sith, that could be plausible.

She has half an answer. If she can find the Sith, she can get the rest.

The building remains intact for a while longer. Before it's been demolished, but after most of the inhabitants have died, a man in pale tan with a lightsaber on his hip shows up and starts healing rioters who were injured by the guards.

Huh. That's a thing.

Two are easier to find than one, assuming they're working together.

There isn't much more of interest in the files, unless she wants to study the Sith(?)'s fighting style.

Are there enough good angles on it?

Yes, actually.

What's the fight look like?

The Sith seems genuinely angry with the Hutts. On more than one occasion she offers to let a guard live if they step aside; on the occasions where they accept her offer she doesn't go back on it.

When the last of the Cartel is dead, she spits on the ground in front of the body and says something in an unfamiliar language.

She sees at least two exploitable systematic vulnerabilities in the Sith's style, quite aside from the parts where she lets people live.

The Sith's putting more effort than usual into appearing benevolent, and does seem genuinely angry at the Cartel. That she doesn't recognize the language is vaguely troublesome. It sounds like someone brewed a pot of Huttese tea, drained everything but the dregs, and threw that into a blender with a pile of rocks.

Any clues on which way she went afterwards?

After that she checks to make sure the guards she let live are out and comes out and says something dramatic to the crowd in the unfamiliar language, at which point there is cheering and then the building gets demolished.

Hmm. Her best bet seems to be going back into town and trying to pick up some more local gossip, if the Sith's as populist as appearances indicate.

Gathering gossip from the locals is somewhat impeded by the fact that a lot of it is in the unfamiliar language. Gossip in more familiar languages tends to mostly come from the subset of locals who weren't slaves or closely connected to any slaves before the uprising. From them, she can glean the fact that the figure in the light tan is a Jedi, or possibly ex-Jedi, and the woman in black claims not to be a Sith or a Jedi.

Claiming things is easy. She's more interested in the where than the what, though. Not that she'd say that in so many words, but she can poke and prod the conversation.

Also, are the locals talking with context such that she can start picking up the language?

Yeah, she probably can.

The ex-slave locals seem to be referring to the Sith as "Ekkreth" a lot.

Ekkreth, huh. No hits with the Jedi, but she still has Imperial databases. She can search for a Sith called Ekkreth.

Nope, nope, nope--wait, there.

A few decades ago a Sith called Darth Svahe found a force sensitive teenager named Ekkreth Ironstar on the planet Tatooine and took her as an apprentice; about a decade after that she killed him and became Darth Magnus. She's been missing for about a year now.

Sounds like a hit. She switches cantinas and starts prodding for recent sightings.

Recent sightings: exist. Some of them are probably false but not most of them; she isn't going to much of anything in the way of effort to hide. Or to set herself up as ruler of Tatooine, for some reason.

Well, once she has enough data to narrow down the location and/or plot a trajectory, she can go see for herself.

Narrowing down her location isn't terribly difficult. She's living in this other city over there. She may or may not have married the Jedi(?).

A trip for tomorrow, seeing as it's getting rather late.

If she's in the right place in the right time she can find Ekkreth walking down the street like a normal person, going to market and buying produce and things, with a baby in a sling on her front.

And quite by coincidence, here's another perfectly normal person doing perfectly normal people things in a fashion that just so happens to be a slightly offset version of Ekkreth's path.

Another person might be following with the expectation of finding Ekkreth's house or catching her alone, but not this person. This person has no intentions beyond doing their daily shopping.

Ekkreth speaks the still-mostly-unfamiliar language to people and buys food and affectionately addresses the baby as Amaleia.

Someone else might be eavesdropping. But this person has their own concerns, which have nothing to do with Ekkreth.

Apparently the baby is hers; at one point it starts crying and Ekkreth opens her robe to breastfeed.

Perfectly normal people doing perfectly normal people things. Apparently.

Another person, more familiar with the warlike nature of Sith and Jedi, might have been more surprised.

Ekkreth finishes buying things and goes home.

A shady person would take the opportunity as they walked past to case the place, looking for entrances and exits, structural vulnerabilities, and cues to interior layout. Such a person is, of course, not this one.

It's a pretty normal little house, actually.

Hm.

She returns to her ship, and pulls down all the information she can find on Darths Svahe and Magnus.

Darth Svahe was primarily research-focused; he did all kinds of nasty experiments into inducing Force sensitivity. Darth Magnus was better than average in terms of how she treated her subordinates, and otherwise--very much what one would expect a Sith of her rank to be. Too much so, almost; if one had reason one might almost think it was on purpose.

The next day, a perfectly normal person knocks on the perfectly normal door of Ekkreth's perfectly normal house.

The Jedi(?) opens the door. "Hello?"

"Hello! I'm a fan of your work with the Cartel. I was wondering if you had a moment to talk about it?"

"Ah. Yes."

"Can I come in?"

"Alright." He opens the door and steps aside.

"Thank you." She walks in.

Ekkreth walks out of a room and raises her eyebrow.

"Hi."

"Hello."

"I was just telling your- partner? that I liked how you dealt with the resident Hutts. Very stylish."

"Stylish?"

"All in black at the head of a mob of slaves, the bombs in their heads mysteriously nonfunctional. Quite the dashing figure you cut. And then you spit on the corpses and said- what was it again?" She replicates the phonemes and intonation.

"The skywalker always frees the slaves at the end of the story."

"Does that mean your story's over?"

"There are lots of stories. One of them just ended, sure, but that doesn't mean there won't be any others with me in them."

"That's a commendable spirit. But given how this one turned out, I'm afraid duty now compels me to inquire whether you have any specific stories in mind for the future."

"My mother was an escaped slave. I didn't forget who I was when Darth Svahe murdered her and took me. If anyone tries anything, I'll do whatever it takes to protect my people. But I was never the kind of Sith who believes the best defense is a good offense."

"Is that so?"

"Within reason."

"Of course. You're from here originally, then?"

"Here as in the planet or the city?"

"Either."

"Planet yes city no."

"Why come back?"

"Because my people were still in chains."

"After thirty years? Something changed."

"The Sith Empire is no fit place to raise children."

"Which is where he comes in?"

Snort. "He was certainly relevant to the process, but he came in a lot longer ago than that. He helped my kill my master."

"Oh?"

"I ran off, I ran into him, he was understandably sympathetic to the goal of taking down a Darth, we got attached to each other, he failed to talk me into fucking off back to Tatooine before I had gotten as much out of the Empire as I could."

"And what all was that?"

"That I think would be unstrategic to share widely."

"You never know. I might be able to help."

"You also might be able to hinder."

"More likely I'll step on your plans if I don't know what they are."

"Well, what are your plans?"

"I'm here on reconnaissance to work that out."

"Reconnaissance for whom?"

"Republic Strategic Intelligence Service." She bows. "Codename Legate, at your service."

Ekkreth glances back at Karzel.

"SIS, not the Jedi. They try to keep their distance from us."

Shrug. "I don't know from the Republic's internal workings."

"The Sith don't have a 'know your enemy' thing?"

"They do, but the Republic was never my real enemy."

"Must be nice if you can get away with it."

"Oh, I won't hesitate to defend my planet against them. But to the best of my knowledge their worst crime towards my planet was neglect."

"We are pretty deep into Hutt Space."

"Quite."

"So feel like sharing?"

"As you say, the Republic is unlikely to intervene this far into Hutt space."

"But I'm here now."

"True. What would you do with the information if you had it?"

"I have a vested interest in making the galaxy a better place, and a degree of operational freedom while I'm this far out."

"Pity you didn't show up sooner."

"I was a little busy a couple months ago."

"I'm sure."

"No one likes the Hutts. But it's hard to muster the will to oust them and the inevitably following economic turmoil while the Empire is staring at our throat."

"That doesn't surprise me."

"But if an opportunity were presented, perhaps like a slave uprising which requires only covert support and maybe an official statement of support... Well, that's easier to swallow."