"A game of chicken with the actively suicidal is a lose-lose proposition."
The light freighter sat rather comfortably in remarkably dry Hangar 19 at the Dromund Kaas Spaceport with its ventral cargo bay deployed. Row upon row of crates sat jammed next to each other, almost all of them with a warning label of some sort. Explosive, volatile, fragile, flammable, corrosive, and a whole bunch more I could only guess at.
And I was messing with an explosive device whose manual I was still in the process of reading. Well, skimming. The local alphabet was still something that gave me some trouble.
"It's like you're competing with every other Sith about who gets to kill you first," my only company commented.
Even the droids and ground crew that usually infested the hangars were absent, but that was probably because the ship had been secured and the hangar cleaned. Leaving me only with Natia, the cheerfully stereotypical young Sith. And also my only real ally on this planet. There were others in the galaxy whom I trusted more, but I suspected they did not share that sentiment. "And you are intent on taking the gold."
Ah, crap, I made myself depressed again.
No, Nestor, bad thoughts. Focus on the positive. Like how there was a decent chance I would have something approximating freedom in just a little while. Or eternal freedom if I screwed up with this detonator.
"You're just mad that you won't get the honor of doing it yourself," I said lightly, concentrating on hooking up a partially disassembled grenade to a radio transmitter. Fortunately, I was not trying to turn an actual radio into a detonator; That would have been prime idiocy.
This was a purpose-built detonator, just one that happened to use radio waves to trigger the explosives. It was hard to come up with a safer way of rigging up a bomb. Perhaps from a distance with a sniper rifle, but I lacked the weapon, the available range, and the skill of a marksman.
"I'll have you know that I came to terms with it before I offered you this alliance," she retorted haughtily. "Like how I resigned myself to hearing gibberish songs on an eternal loop every time we meet."
"Those gibberish songs are treasured pieces of my people's culture."
"And they sound like gibberish."
"Only to your untrained ears, so unfamiliar with the language of poets and thinkers."
"They sound like gibberish to my mind, too," she countered. "And calling it the language of future slaves would be more apt."
"You make it difficult to be polite," I said with a sigh, checking the connection between the remote and the detonator. A flashing blue light indicated that the two had indeed been paired, and I promptly dumped the device into the crate full of blaster rifle power packs. I could count on that one going up quite brilliantly.
That made three pieces of leverage. I was first, being the metaphorical key that two Sith Lords wanted to secure their ascent to the title of Darth. The second was the multi-kiloton bomb I had assembled in this hangar.
"And you make it difficult to hear my own thoughts," the third piece of leverage countered from her perch atop a freight cart, idly swinging her legs. I hoped that having her around meant that the rival lords were less inclined to act with violence lest they earn the displeasure of her master Darth Skotia. "Think of it like giving each other the opportunity to train; I would call that a fair bargain."
The sound of the turbolift's chime cut through the otherwise still air of the hangar. The door whispered shut and the dull hum of machinery signaled that the platform inside was moving.
"Here we go," I said softly, pushing the button to retract the cargo bay back into the belly of the ship. Just something to keep my plan a bit of a secret for a little while. Long enough to negotiate in my favor without giving the other parties a chance to figure out where the bomb was hidden. "Showtime."
The hum of the turbolift cut off suddenly, only to resume five seconds later.
I fiddled with my looted lightsaber for a moment, just making sure it was secured to my belt, before taking up position in front of the freighter. Standing tall and straight, it was imperative that I did not come as a supplicant. As someone who had to be persuaded to join, not someone who could be cowed.
For the second time, the turbolift fell silent, and the doors whispered open to reveal a single figure.
A new figure strode confidently into the hangar. He was dressed in the red robes of the Sith, with obnoxiously oversized pauldrons that correlated directly to his sense of self-importance. A long lightsaber – quite possibly two-sided – swayed from a belt on his hip. The man's surprisingly youthful face contrasted sharply with the streaks of gray that shot through his hair. Had I not studied the org chart for my department of the Sith Empire, I would have struggled to tell if this man was twenty-five or fifty-two.
"You must be Nestor," he greeted me, his tone pleasantly warm.
"Lord Lega," I greeted him in turn. "Thank you for joining me so promptly."
"It is simply the proper way to do things," he said before his gaze drifted over to my companion. "And who might this be?"
"That is Natia, apprentice to Darth Skotia," I said. "She is here to ensure this meeting remains cordial."
"A pleasure," she said, suddenly very capable of being polite. Mentally, I swore we would have words about this later. If we survived for that long. Or cared about it by the time I was done here.
"And you this expect this cordiality to be temporary?"
"I was broadcasting a very open invitation to this meeting, my lord," I said. "I fully expected you or your rival to arrive through a hole in the wall accompanied by a platoon of soldiers. Your rival might still choose to do so, as a matter of fact."
"Clever," he admitted. "If you were expecting this, what exactly was your plan?"
"Beyond the witness?" I asked, holding up the cylindrical detonator remote I had hooked up to the grenade currently seated snugly between two power packs deep within my ship's cargo hold. "It involves a ship with an almost full tank of fuel, a cargo bay full of munitions, and this bomb I wired up about two minutes ago."
The Sith Lord's carefully schooled features broke for just a moment. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline, and his smile turned ever so slightly brittle. His hands remained folded behind his back, but I could see a twitch spasm through his right shoulder for a bare moment.
"You- your plan was to take yourself hostage," Lord Lega said, his tone finally shifting from pleasantly warm to disbelieving for the briefest of moments. Tragically, it shifted to amusement in time for the next sentence. "That is adorable."
"Thank you," I allowed, giving a shallow bow. "Negotiations are always a dreadful affair, so I tried to streamline matters a bit."
"Which turned this from negotiations to extortion," Lega observed.
"I prefer the term 'unilateral bargaining,' thank you very much," I corrected him.
"State your terms, Nestor," the Sith Lord said, amusement twinkling in his eyes. "Then we can move on with destroying Lord Onis."
"That would certainly resolve this matter quickly," I allowed. "Or we could wait for him to arrive so we can resolve this matter peacefully."
"I thought you said a diplomatic solution wasn't possible." Natia's voice carried accusing tones that I chose to ignore.
"I never said it was impossible, I merely implied it was unlikely," I countered. It was much the same with maintaining galactic peace. A Sisyphean endeavor, in all likelihood, and one I was going to approach with the same attitude. "At the very least, I have to try."
"You just want to have two Sith Lords to get into a bidding war over your allegiance," she said. Truth be told, that one stung a bit.
"Is it really so hard to believe that I am merely an idealist?" I asked.
Any further argument was cut off by an explosion behind me. The blast wave slammed into my back, sending me sprawling to the floor and the remote detonator skidded across the floor. My ears ringing, I fought my way to my feet. Casting about, I found the detonator and recalled it to my hands with the Force before realizing that maybe I should have taken the time to figure out what had blown up.
I knew it had not been the ship. Had that bomb gone off, I would have died then and there.
Unfortunately, the alternative was a lot worse.
The doors to the hangar had been blown open, revealing a horde of soldiers with blaster rifles leveled. In their midst stood a short man in heavy armor, carrying a lit lightsaber. His helmeted head twitched in my direction for the briefest of moments before turning to someone behind me. To Lord Lega.
"Lega!" A static-laced voice called out, the hallmark of having his voice broadcasted through his helmet's speakers. "What a surprise running into you here. Trying to poach my rightful subordinates from me."
"Onis," the still serene Sith Lord answered calmly. "You have an odd way of choosing to submit to your rightful master."
"My lords, please restrain yourselves," I called out to them both. "We have a third party here that I would hate to have injured."
"Don't you coddle me," muttered said third party, having been tossed from her crate to land halfway across the hangar and even now still struggling to bring herself to her feet.
"Stay out of this, Nestor," said the armored Sith. "Unless you intend to declare for your rightful master."
"With all due respect, my lord," I said, holding up the detonator for all to see, "unless you wish to test the rating of your armor, I strongly suggest hearing out my proposal."
Behind me, Lord Lega began to chuckle softly. Within seconds, however, that chuckle became a proper laugh that caused the other Sith to whip his head back and forth between us, trying to find out what was so funny.
"So you've got a bomb hidden somewhere here?" he asked. "Aboard your ship, no doubt."
"Aboard my ship?" I asked rhetorically. "Thanks to the mostly full tank of fuel, my ship is now part of the bomb. Does that recontextualize matters?"
"Oh. Oh dear." the armored Sith appeared to have realized just how great his blunder had been. "This… I appear to have miscalculated my chances."
"After that sorry display, is your loyalty still up for sale?" asked Lord Lega, having gotten his laughter under control. I did notice, however, that his lightsaber was now in his hand instead of on his belt.
"My loyalty? No," I answered. Suffice it to say, it was clear which Sith I would rather work for. "Though I would like to negotiate my reward for bringing you both to the negotiating table without unnecessary bloodshed."
"Nothing is keeping me from leaving," warned Lord Onis.
"Except for your reputation," countered Lord Lega. "Ambushing your rival with overwhelming odds and somehow still failing? You've lost, you just need to admit it. As for you, Nestor, let's hear what you want."
Beneath my mask, it took all of my willpower to suppress a wolfish grin.
Oh, I had some truly grand plans I could put into motion.
...
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