Chapter Twenty-One

“That was something,” Xarly said. He was leaning back in the cantina bench, arms folded behind his head as he stretched his legs out under the table.

“Something? That’s all you have to say about it?” Qarry asked. She was nursing a drink, something orange that bubbled in a tall glass.

Skarsk Nek eyed the two Falleen for a moment and returned to cutting into his meat. The food onboard the Trade Federation flagship was leagues better than anything he had eaten in some time, and he wasn’t about to miss the opportunity. Having a fully stocked cantina onboard a ship was a waste, but then again, this was more of a diplomatic vessel than one built for combat. He supposed that some dignitaries would appreciate the luxury, and he was certainly profiting from it now.

“Yeah, something,” Xarly said. “Like, this is the kind of stuff I’ll be able to tell my kids about, you know?”

“You’re assuming someone will sleep with you and I think that’s a very bold assumption to make,” the female Falleen said. She sipped at her drink while her partner acted flustered.

Skarsk finished chewing on his bite and looked down at the rest of his steak. He was growing increasingly sure that it was actual meat, from a dead animal, as opposed to recombinant proteins. Truly there was no limits to the waste aboard this vessel.

“What about you, lizard man, what’re you going to do now?”

Skarsk looked up from his inspection to see the two Falleen looking at him with interest. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Xarly gestured all around them. “I mean, this. We’re done. We won. Fought against all the odds in the galaxy and came out on top.”

“Wow, you do not know how odds work.”

“Shut up. What I mean is, we made it. Now what? You know. Like, I guess I could go back to work as a ship’s navigator now. But it’ll be so... flat.”

“The only thing flat around here will be your pulse if you tell me to shut up again,” Qarry growled and the boy winced away from her. “But the idiot is right. I don’t think I could go back to just... work again.”

Skarsk shrugged one shoulder. “My contract is complete. I will find another.”

“Another that’s as exciting as the last one?” Xarly asked. There was a familiar spark of interest in his eyes.

“Few of the missions I have taken were so... exciting, as you put it,” Skarsk admitted. “That might be for the best.”

“Ah, but wouldn’t you rather stick around?”

“Xarly,” Qarry said. “What are you on about?”

“I mean Khepri’s not just going to sit back and retire. People like her are always in the thick of things. I... kind of want to be near that too. Make a name for myself, explore the darker reaches of the galaxy and blow up the monsters hiding there. And, you know, be the hero all the space babes wanna cuddle with.”

That last part earned him an elbow to the ribs courtesy of Qarry. “Nerf herder.”

Skarsk hissed with laughter before shoving another piece of meat into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. The couple across from him were fighting in their strange mating ritual, but he could ignore that easily enough.

Xarly’s words repeated themselves in his mind. To explore, to make a name for himself, to fight and adventure. Things that made his blood boil and his mind wander, things that his Trandoshan heritage demanded that he try.

The voyage to Tatooine had been a dull affair, but the return, the battles in space, those had awakened his hunger for action, for the hunt.

He wanted more.

“We should join her,” he said.

It shut the two up, both looking across the table to him was he cut another strip of meat and began tearing into it.

“Join her? Khepri?” Xarly said. A smile blossomed across his face. “Yeah! I’d be down for that.”

“You absolute moron,” Qarry said. “She’s not the type who would hire an imbecile like you.”

“Maybe not, but no one who doesn’t know her would join her crew, not after the stories spread, which means there’s plenty of room for someone like me.”

Skarsk began to reconsider his latest revelation. Travelling the galaxy to right wrongs and murder villains was all well and good, but not if he had to spend that time with idiots of Xarly’s calibre.

***

Taylor lowered herself into the seat carefully. It was plush, soft, and swivelled on a well-oiled mechanism that had just enough resistance on it to make it feel luxurious. It was the same as everything else in the ship.

Up until then, her view of life in space, as strange as that was already, was quite simple. Sure, there were spaceships with strange artificial gravity, talking robots, and the ability to go faster than light, but all of this was with a sort of... cobbled together aesthetic.

The magic of space travel was there, sure, but it was made mundane. The ships were mass produced and ill maintained, they reminded her more of her dad’s old pickup than of the sleek starships she had imagined humanity taking to the stars.

The room Count Dooku brought her too went in the opposite direction. It was huge, huge in a ship where every inch was probably valuable. There were fishtanks against one wall, the fish within already under her control. Another wall was filled with a window that gave them a gorgeous view of a green jewel of a planet hanging in space and slowly rotating below them.

HK47 clunked over to her side, standing just a step behind her like a towering guard. He stuck out in the room like a sore thumb. “HK47,” she began, making sure all the while not to meet the eyes of the man sitting at the other end of the table. The fact that he was still out of her range said much about the size of the piece of furniture. It was also made from a single piece of wood. “Do try and be accurate today. I don’t mind your little games but this is important.”

“Astonishment: Master, I am both surprised that you noticed my prevarications and hurt that you would accuse me of such.”

Taylor snorted. “Yeah, yeah. I’m scary, but people don’t usually start shaking at the knees when I ask for the washroom. Now, translate properly and I’ll see if we can find someone to fix you up a bit later, you’re starting to squeak when you walk.”

“Comment: All the better to warn the meatbags that I am approaching to kill them.”

She shook her head and after making sure that that had been HK47’sw last quip, sat up and met Count Dooku’s eyes.

“I have some questions,” the older gentleman said, his words immediately translated by her droid friend. “If you do not mind me asking them, of course.”

“I am your guest here,” Taylor said. “By all means ask away.”

The Count nodded. “Very well then. Let me begin first by thanking you. The freeing of slaves, any slaves, is admirable, but those you saved from captivity were of the Falleen, the race that inhabit this system. The Confederation of Independent systems have been negotiating with them for some time and the release of so many of their copatriots from slavery is a great victory. In these troubled times such good news ought to be cherished and heroic actions rewarded.”

“You’re welcome, I suppose. Though I was only just doing what I thought was right.”

“Indeed. Even if that is the case, you have my sincere thanks.” He moved his arms onto the table, elbows resting on its surface while his fingers interwove themselves before his jaw. “Now, you have done the Confederation a favour by assisting our allies. What can we do for you?”

Taylor hesitated to answer. She didn’t know what she wanted, not really. Helping people was well and good but she had done it for selfish reasons too. That, and the man sitting across from her was shrewd, his eyes calculating. She didn’t doubt that her answer would be dissected and analysed. “I only wish to help,” she said. “If that means cultivating a reputation as a saver of slaves then that’s only for the best.”

The Count hummed. “You held off an assault by some pirates, which while noteworthy isn’t uncommon. You also captured a Republic vessel in doing so. A corrupt one, if the reports I’ve read were correct. Do you know much about the state of the galaxy?”

“Assume that I know very little,” Taylor said.

She felt his eyes on her before he nodded and leaned back into his throne-like chair. She would have judged him for the seat, except hers was the same. “The Republic was a good idea. A system by which a central government could distribute assistance and aid to millions of systems and where grievances could be aired out before the senate in order to keep the galaxy safe and secure. But it has failed. Systems such as this one,” he gestured to the planet outside. “Have been left to solve their own problems without aid while the Republic still demands exorbitant taxes from them. Corruption is rife, and issues such as the Hutt slave trade are left unchecked because the Senators at the top don’t care enough to try and stop them.”

Taylor nodded. “It sounds like most empires and large governments,” she said.

“Indeed,” Dooku agreed easily. “In recent times things have grown only more contentious. The Republic’s bias becomes more obvious by the day. Anyone that isn’t from a core world race is considered a second class citizen. Issues on mid-rim worlds are ignored. The Galaxy is fracturing and the Republic is doing nothing about it. That is why the Confederacy of Independent Systems has come to be.”

“You’re a rebellion?” she asked.

“No, not a rebellion. That implies unlawful action. We are a group of worlds from across the galaxy who wish to break off from the machinations of the Republic. We have ill-will towards the old establishment, yes, but not so much as to want to fight them. We merely have ideological differences that have proven irreconcilable.”

Taylor frowned a little. It sounded as if they just wanted to be left alone, but she doubted any large group would just let part of itself drift off without doing something about it. She was also going to have to find another source of information. For all she knew Dooku was lying to her, though doing so about things that should be so easy to research would be foolish.

“This Confederacy of yours, what are its goals, beyond separating from the Republic?” she asked.

“Peace, security, and the ability to assist each other more fairly. The Republic’s blatant corruption has left entire civilisations to flounder as they are besieged by pirates and rebellions and civil wars. The Republic refuses, or is incapable, of helping. We want to change that, to pool our resources and lend assistance to as many worlds that require it as we can. Our motives aren’t all altruistic, I won’t hide it, we also wish to avoid the ludicrous taxation of the Republic and some of the corporate laws must be changed if we are to prosper.”

Taylor raised a hand as soon as he was done. “Alright. Let’s say you’ve convinced me that you’re the good guys,” she said. “Where do I come in? I’m just someone who got caught up in a bit of trouble that ended up assisting you a little.”

Dooku smiled, it was surprisingly grandfatherly. “Ah, but Darth Khepri, you are an opportunity. The Hutts are not the only threat we face. Piracy, both legal and not, is a vast threat to our fledgling Confederacy. If you are so inclined, I think I would want to hire your services as something of a... contractor to rid us of adversaries that put us at risk. Mostly pirates and slavers for now. Though this may change if the Republic takes a more adversarial stance against us.”

“That’s a lot of trust you’re putting in me,” Taylor said.

“A little trust,” Dooku admitted. “But if ever there was a time to take risks it is now.”

***