It's not Occlus.

"Hello, Epic. Am I interrupting anything important?"

"No, I can terraform while I talk. Who are you?"

"An interested party. Your mentor would know me as Cipher Nine, but I doubt you will have come across reference to me."

"Probably not. Interested in what?"

"The future of my galaxy. I try to make a habit of keeping tabs on anyone with the capability and willingness to significantly affect it. Your arrival was most unexpected. I'll need to adapt my plans."

"...okay. What do you want the galaxy to look like? I might just end up putting people who disagree on that in really distant ones."

"What I want is an end to the Sith and the Jedi, an end to the petty religious bickering that has been the cause of every major war for the last five thousand years. A galaxy where common beings can live in peace and safety, without having their lives and choices overshadowed by the whims of those who think their modicum of luck grants them an unassailable right to rule."

"Okay, that sounds pretty nice."

"I'm glad you think so. Now, I ask the same of you. What is your goal?"

"I want everybody to live forever and want for nothing and have total freedom of movement so they can arrange themselves into the kinds of societies they'd like best, and I want to save at least thirty-five billion lives because that's the record and she didn't even have magic."

"Ambitious. Who's she and what did she do?"

"Her name was T'Mir and her dimension had this tremendously powerful organization that was post-scarcity and had really great technology and a rule against sharing it with anyone who hadn't developed faster-than-light travel yet, so she went around to planets that didn't have it and nudged them along into ones that could be embraced by the galaxy."

"I like her style. And yours. It seems our aims are not dissimilar. Will you accept my help?"

"Maybe. I'm not good at telling if people are lying to me. Do you have a reason I can trust you?"

"My access to arbitrary information is nearly as good as yours. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have sent a memo to the Dark Council pointing out the corporation supposedly representing you was formed only three hours before Occlus presented its proposal in session, by Occlus herself, and that she is planning to use you to destabilize the Empire enough that when she leaves, no one will chase her."

"She's helping me get what I want. Don't bother her."

"I have no intention of doing so. I'm actually rather impressed that she is doing so much. She has been still for so long, after such an... exciting climb to her current position. I had almost begun to think her satisfied."

"As a show of good faith, let me inform you of the existence of a substance called bacta. It's slightly less effective than kolto, but has been created in a lab setting. The relevant papers were written by Iknoito Fithis, of the University of Alderaan."

He tries making it.

It goes. It's sort of a blue goopy substance. Smells kinda weird.

...he tries cutting open his arm and smearing the goop on it.

The goop numbs the pain and seems to be accelerating the clotting process.

Okay. "I don't suppose you would be okay with me reading your mind?" he says to the person on the other end of the tablet.

"It's something I'd prefer to avoid. But if you really must."

"I can let you read mine in return if you want."

"How invasive is it?"