The door opens, and a silver robot pauses on the threshold, cleaning supplies in hand. The view behind her is of an opulent black-and-red bedroom. "Excuse me, sir," she asks someone at a nearby table, "can you tell me what happened here?"

A minute later, she tucks the cleaning supplies away behind the door and approaches the bar.

"First time here?" she asks.

"Yes Ma'am."

She has a carefully friendly smile on her face as she says, "I'm Mikoto. This is Milliways, interdimensional bar apparently outside time. First drink - or equivalent I'd suppose - is free. Bar's intelligent, and she communicates with suddenly appearing napkins, which seem to startle some people, so, fair warning."

"Yes Ma'am, thank you."

A napkin appears, and she reads it. "Thank you, but I'll pass for now - may I ask questions about this place?"

Another napkin. "Thank you, Ma'am. Can I bring my master in? How long can she stay?"

Napkin. "Thank you, Ma'am."

"Your master?"

"Yes Ma'am. Sith Apprentice Deskyl."

"I'm not sure what a 'Sith' is, and unfortunately the translation effect seems to prioritize ease over nuance - how would you define 'master'?"

"The person I've been assigned to serve, in this case, Ma'am. Her master is my owner."

"Thinking beings should not be owned." Her tone's a bit more vehement than she usually allows - it's a sore spot, given her own history, and Marcus has been wearing on her. "Is this common where you're from?"

"Yes, Ma'am?"

She bites down her first few comments. "It's not like that, many places. Though, admittedly, my own homeworld has its failings - the rights of created beings aren't always upheld."

"Deskyl will be pleased to hear it, Ma'am, even if it isn't perfectly implemented."

"What's she like?"

"She's very calm, for a Sith, and unusually benevolent - Sith aren't, generally, caring about others is considered a weakness, but she's stubborn about it. And she was considered one of the Empire's best lightsaber engineers, a year ago; she's too badly injured to work, right now."

"The Sith sound like some of the people I've known. I'm what's known in the modern day as an Augment. A human, as much as some argue we aren't, created artificially and engineered to be better at many measures. Many of my kind have taken that a step too far. Why was she injured? What's a lightsaber? - Forgive me if I'm being too nosy, curiosity is one of my faults."

"It's all right, Ma'am. Lightsabers are the signature weapon of Sith and Jedi; they're swordlike plasma weapons that require telekinesis to wield safely. We don't have much information about her injury, but I'm hopeful that if she can stay here for a few months, she'll recover enough to remember what was done to her."

"The infirmary here's good. I don't know how well they handle old injuries, but they were able to remove the tracking chip on me safer than I could've on my own. Is telekinesis common where you're from?"

"Telekinesis is universal among Sith, but only about one in a trillion people have enough Force-sensitivity to be trained as Sith."

"Your world must have a large population, then. I'm assuming you're interstellar? Does it vary, among species, assuming there are multiple?"

"Yes Ma'am, our entire galaxy is inhabited, more or less. And Force-sensitivity does vary: humans are unusually likely to be Force-sensitive, though it's still quite rare for them, and many sapient species have no Force-sensitive members at all."

"Interesting. There's a great many species in our galaxy, but we haven't explored the whole thing, yet, and we're not as densely populated as 'entirely inhabited' implies. I haven't heard of the Force by that name, but it's also possible there's been few enough humans or potentials that it's merely been unlikely."

"It wouldn't be very hard to miss, without trained Force-sensitives around to notice untrained ones," she nods.

"Still, it is possible that's something we lack - many universes seems to have different magics..." She shakes her head, recognizing that she's gotten distracted. "What role do the Sith play in society?" she asks. It's one way to angle towards 'you shouldn't be owned,' and perhaps a more gentle one.

"Most Sith are in the military, Ma'am, either as soldiers or officers; they also run the Empire, and even the newest Sith Acolyte outranks any non-Sith."