Before I left for Yavin, Karasuba wanted to meet me in Kaas City.

"So," I said, handing her a drink. The apartment I now had in Kaas City- it came with the job, I guess- was a penthouse, with a nice balcony and a lovely view of both the skyline and the wilderness beyond; Dromund Kaas was once absolutely covered in jungles, and while these days most of those had been slashed and burned to create farmland to feed the population, apparently someone important had pitched enough of a fit to keep some jungle near the city, because they wanted something pretty to look at.

It was the worst of both worlds, really. Environmental devastation where you can't see it, and which you won't care about because the jungle right outside your garden wall is insanely hostile to human life.

"What's next, for you?" I continued.

Karasuba sighed, swirling her drink in her mug- she'd really liked the hot chocolate back on Hoth, so I'd offered it to her again here.

"Well," Karasuba said, pausing to take a sip. "I'm currently wondering just how, precisely, I'd go about quitting my job as the Emperor's Wrath. Doesn't seem like the sort of thing I really can quit."

"I mean, the last guy did, didn't he?" I asked. "Went and joined the Jedi, who'll probably be a lot more understanding of you saying 'yeah, I'm done guys, I'm gonna go watch some TV and just chill for the rest of my life, call me if you need me, but try not to need me.'"

"True," Karasuba said, gesturing to me with her mug. "But... ugh. Don't wanna join the Jedi, either. I've got enough skill with the Light Side to do it, but..."

"You went Revanite too, huh?" I asked.

"Too?" Karasuba asked, turning to look at me. "Wh- no, I just... figured it out on my own- Rose, are you in the Cult of Revan?"

"Kinda-sorta, yeah," I said. "It's been a while since I paid my tithes, but I reckon if Darth Thanaton, Second of Her Name, writes a polite letter explaining her circumstances, they won't hold it against me."

"Don't tell me you believe all that Revan shit," Karasuba said.

"I do not," I said firmly. "However... eh, nevermind, that's a stupid idea, anyhow."

"Now that's an ominous thing to hear you say," Karasuba muttered, before draining her mug, and collapsing back into her seat, despondent, like an alcoholic who'd just polished off her beer and still couldn't make the bad thoughts go away.

I sighed, tipping my head forward.

"We made a mistake," Karasuba said quietly. "We made a selfish decision based on aesthetic preference, and now people are dead because of us- not just the ones who've died by our own hand."

"Oh, for sure," I said, lifting my head back up. "But, well... what are you going to do about it?"

Karasuba lifted her head up to meet my gaze, quirking a demanding eyebrow.

"See, the way I see it," I continued, holding her gaze, "You and I? We've got our moral compasses back. And now, we're on the fucking bridge. You think this ship's heading in the wrong direction, that the officers are all power-mad monsters?" I grinned. "Well, Iunno about you, babe, but I'm gonna fuckin' mutiny, that's what I'm gonna do about all those people I killed. I killed a lot of people to get here, Karasuba. To put myself on the Dark Council. So if I chicken out now?" I shrugged, and leaned back. "Well. Then they all died for nothing. Didn't they?"

Karasuba nodded, slowly at first, and then, gradually, collected herself, a bit of vigor coming back to her.

"Yeah," Karasuba nodded, quietly. "For me... I'm just the Emperor's hitman, but... that's still authority, isn't it?" She closed her eyes, and clenched the fist that wasn't full of ceramic mug. "I'm not walking away from this. Not until I've done what I can to fix it. Otherwise, everyone Baras ordered dead to further his plans? They all died for nothing, too."

"If Kazehana was here," I said with a lopsided smile, "she'd tell us this wasn't a great place to start, but it was still a start."

"Heh, yeah," Karasuba said, grinning wistfully, before the grin disappeared, and she sighed. "Fuck. I miss them. Remind me again why you didn't bring them with us?"

"Because in the rock paper scissors of my life," I said, "my moral compass beats my boner. But, well... Hey." She looked up, meeting my eyes again. "We've still got each other, and... well. Maybe we weren't ever close before, but... It's not nothing."

Karasuba nodded, gently. "It isn't," she agreed, a soft look developing in her eyes. "I may not know you as well as I'd like, but... I know I can trust you with this, after our first year." She grinned a little. "I mean, when you get down to it, what really is the difference between a medical company run by the world's chuuni-est forty five year old and the Sith Empire?"

"Dental insurance."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

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It was a nice evening, but the next morning, I got back on my ship, and I headed off to Yavin 4, while Karasuba hopped onto her own ship, saying she was heading back to Hoth to relax, where nobody would bother her.

"Now, obviously," I said, "while I've put you under Marr's command, ultimately you do still answer to me, which he kinda has to respect. He knows better than to poke this particular bear. So, if he's up to... pretty much, anything, that seems like it'd reveal the full capabilities of the Bioships, or claiming them for his own? Growl at him and remind him that your cooperation is a courtesy, and he'd best stop pushing boundaries."

"Understood, Admiral," Commodore Cho said, nodding.

"Oh, and tell him that any information on where all these ships came from is classified," I added. "The starfighters are the exception, we just made those with the on-board fabricators. That's not that weird, it happens all the time, it's just less efficient than getting them made in a real factory. Let him draw his own conclusions from there."

My communicator beeped at me.

"Alright, Commodore, I trust you to improvise everything else," I said. "Got another call coming in. Don't hesitate to call back if you need to, though."

"Aye, Admiral."

I hung up on Cho and answered the next call.

"The archaeology team is ready to go, my lord," Clover told me.

"Tell 'em to meet me at Yavin 4," I said. "And you know you don't have to call me 'my lord,' right?"

"Of course, my lord."

"Fuckin' brat."

"Proudly, my lord." Clover stuck out her tongue at me, and then hung up.

The things I put up with for good help...

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"Well," I said, planting my hands on my hips. "Who the fuck anticipated there being an entire ruined Sith civilization on this random-ass moon?"

"I wasn't," Darth Sulla said dryly.

I sighed deeply, shaking my head.

"It's certainly a good thing I've mobilized so much of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge to help me investigate, then," I said. "Isn't it?"

Darth Sulla grinned at me, and I rolled my eyes back at him.

The real reason I'd called upon so many of my nominal subordinates was because, after getting back in touch with the Cult of Revan, they were fucking ecstatic to have support from a Dark Councilor, and very enthusiastic about my plan to dethrone the Emperor- Revanite doctrine wasn't heretical just for its practice of the Light Side, but also for its belief that Revan was the true, rightful Emperor, and Vitiate was an elaborate fiction.

If I was being honest, I didn't have the right sort of Imperial Brainworms to understand their foundational myth as anything other than nonsense, but then, I actually didn't care about their beliefs, only their practices. They were Light-Side Sith, and therefore were capable of some fucking modicum of self-control, putting them head and shoulders above the typical Sith.

Anyhow. The Revanites worked alongside my archaeology team from Hoth, breaking bread and building bonds, and being slowly but surely talked around to my own heterodox interpretation of Revanite doctrine. They were also doing actual archaeology, thankfully enough; between the Revanites and my archaeologists, I had about two thousand people looking (very, very fucking carefully) through the wreckage and ruins for anything of interest. Naturally, an archaeologist is a lot more efficient with support staff, so the real population of my subordinates on this moon was closer to ten thousand, with the Revanites making up... what, eight hundred of them?

"You know," I said, looking at the photographs spread across my desk. "I can't help but wonder: did Vitiate somehow not know about all this shit being here? I can't imagine he didn't. It took us an hour to find the first temple, and that was when I was just scanning the surface from orbit on my own, waiting for everyone else to show up."

"He has his flaws," Sulla said, "but being incurious is hardly one of them."

"So... what are the options, here?" I wondered. "Option one, which we've ruled out: Vitiate didn't notice that there was interesting archaeology to do here, and built a ritual testing site here anyways, unaware there was anything to care about ruining."

"Option two," Sulla said, "he did notice the ruins, understood everything interesting about them, and then decided they weren't interesting enough to pick a different planet to test rituals on."

"I'm going to be honest," I said. "I don't think he was telling the full truth with the 'testing new rituals on uninhabited planets' thing. I think that was just his excuse for disappearing to outer space and coming back with some new bullshit trick up his sleeve."

"Entirely possible," Sulla admitted.

"So, option three," I continued, "these ruins were put here by him, as part of some ritual sinister enough that not even the other Sith would tolerate it."

"Mmmn," Sulla murmured.

My communicator rang, and I sighed, waving Sulla out of my office, an unspoken promise to finish the conversation later. I answered the communicator, and found myself face-to-face with... a Jedi?

"Darth Thanaton," the Jedi said calmly. "My name is Lucas Startreader, and I am a Jedi Knight."

"Hello, Lucas," I said. "To what do I owe this... thoroughly unexpected call?"

"You have a reputation among the Republic and the Jedi," Lucas said. "One for being eager to cooperate with us when the opportunity arises to get one over on the other Sith."

"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I was willing to help in other circumstances, would you?" I asked.

"I'm afraid that's not my call to make," Lucas said wryly. "But, I'm calling because one such opportunity has arisen, and I need your help."

I glanced out the window down at Yavin 4.

"I'm in the middle of something," I said. "If it isn't very, very good, then it'll have to wait."

"How would you like to help me stop Emperor Vitiate and save the Galaxy?"

I turned back to face Lucas, straightening up and folding my arms on the desk before me, leaning in.

"You have my attention."