Chapter Thirty-Three

Asajj suspected that if people could hear her thoughts, they might well be surprised at how patient she could be.

It was something of a lingering gift from her first teacher, the ability to set things aside and wait for the opportune moment to strike. Not to say that she didn’t recognize that she was occasionally impulsive, or that she didn’t know that her own anger could push her to act sometimes.

But she was a sith, and that same anger that pushed her to move would also empower her. And it was always hard to tell when she was acting on impulse or if it was a nudge from the force that was telling her to move.

In either case, she was entirely capable of stalking prey, thank-you-very-much.

That’s what she was doing, stalking. Though really, she was waiting for the prey to show up at all.

Antar Five had a number of spaceports, but the woman she was meant to meet had been directed to this specific one. One of the busier ports, where incoming ships frequently loaded up on the produce made planet-side, or came to drop off raw materials to be processed. The traffic was already being used to mask all sorts of illicit activity, one more ship coming in wouldn’t raise any alarms.

That was something she had to worry about, at least a little. Dooku’s newest... pet, had her face plastered on a few holonews channels. There wasn’t much there about her, just graining holograms of her with terrible lighting, but her little presentation with the Czerka CEO had grabbed some attention. The fallout from the company crumbling apart in that sector was also newsworthy, though it didn’t make much of a splash in the galactic centre where a million such controversies were spawned every month.

The likelihood of someone seeing the woman’s face and tying it back to her last activities were non-zero.

The space port was an open space, with large hexagonal landing pads connected by long corridors that led into the main terminal, and from there into the rest of the city via hovering, high speed transportation lines, both civilian and commercial.

Asajj wore a loose-fitting robe, hood pulled up to mask her face and with the front open just enough to allow her easy reach to her sabres. It was nondescript enough clothes that as she mulled about and waited next to a fountain by an intersection, no one saw fit to bother her.

She wrapped the force in tight around herself, all the better not to draw attention her way, and then she waited.

A beep from a device on her belt told her that the ship, the Atlas had landed.

Soon.

Very soon, in fact.

The woman came out of a long corridor with a small retinue. A tall-enough woman, human if Asajj were to guess, with a worn face that made her seem a little older, and a mechanical arm. She couldn’t be older than twenty standard years, but her bearing spoke of someone older.

The droids around her were a little strange. The same cheap battle droids Dooku had working around him whenever she paid him a visit. Cheap things, though these were painted in black and wearing clothes. Bizarre. Who dressed a droid?

It did take her longer than it should have to notice the weapons on their backs. Maybe that was the purpose of the disguise?

Two of the droids were carrying large packs as well. Something to take note of for later, perhaps.

The only droids that were really different were a protocol droid and a little astromech that rolled along next to the woman.

It was a unique procession, but not one that stood out all that much. A wealthy merchant with some guard droids.

They breezed past the automated security checkpoint then moved around a corner.

Asajj took a moment to push herself up. She batted a small insect aside and followed into the main concourse. The woman and her droids were keeping some distance from most others. The Gotal that made up most of the population here were clever enough to avoid anyone walking about with so many guards.

The group moved on through the crowds and around another intersection, then they climbed aboard one of the hoverlifts that would bring them down to street level.

Asajj tsked to herself as she waited for another lift to return. Soon she was on the same level as they were, but they had moved on a way.

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She jogged just a little to keep up. Still, she kept out of sight.

Asajj hadn’t given the woman any coordinates on where to meet except for the city. If she was really a Darth, then Asajj doubted the woman would have any difficulty actually finding her. But then, she was having her doubts.

She wasn’t as attuned to the force as some, but she couldn’t feel much about the woman. A threatening aura, maybe, but faint. No more than Asajj would expect to feel from a particularly talented bounty hunter.

Dooku had been just as glib and non-specific as usual when he told Asajj to take care of the Antar problem. It was a simple enough assignment. Find the people that were causing trouble, blow them up. She could do that in her sleep.

She didn’t expect him to assign her mission to someone else. Asajj’s impression was that the woman wasn’t even aware of the change though. A trick from Dooku? Was he trying to put her in her place?

Her teeth ground together. If the old man thought she could be replaced by...

Her eyes narrowed.

The woman was missing.

The droids were moving along at a slow, careful pace, but the woman was no longer in their group. One of the other droids had moved up and was wearing her coat, a hood up to disguise it better. From afar...

She swore under her breath. When had that happened? The lift? Right after? No, she’d seen her then. Or had she?

She sensed something behind her and jumped, spinning mid-leap even as her lightsabers snapped into her hands.

The woman was standing there, half a dozen paces away and eyeing Asajj the way a tooka might eye an injured swamp turkey. “You knew I was here,” Asajj said.

The woman tilted her head, then spoke with some of the very worst basic Asajj had ever heard. “You knew I was here too.”

She raised herself out of her stance and carefully tucked away her sabres. “Well, I suppose that I’ve been outplayed. Well done. You must be quite proud of yourself,” Asajj said as she started to walk closer to the woman.

The woman stepped back, keeping roughly the same distance between them. Was she nervous? Asajj licked her lips as she considered it. Maybe the would-be-darth had been trying to get to Asajj from stealth. Perhaps she didn’t have the skills to take her on from up close in a fair fight?

“Please don’t come any closer,” the woman said. “Or you will be in my... space.”

“Are you very particular about that?” Asajj asked. “You don’t need to worry. I’d never hurt you,” she lied.

The woman rolled her eyes. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. It was a plain enough statement that Asajj had no difficulty reading the truth there. “If you come closer I will... take your body. Sorry, I don’t know the words to explain how I use meatbags.”

Asajj tilted her head. Then she took two quick steps forward.

The force blared a warning, but she pressed on anyway. She had come this far by sharpening her skills against others, there were times when throwing caution to the wind was preferable than living in fear.

Her steps faltered and she came to a stop. No, it wasn’t her that came to a stop. She wanted to keep moving, but she couldn’t. She tried to move, but there was nothing. She was in her own skin but had no control over it. Not a twitch, not a blink, not a deep swallow. Her breathing didn’t even hitch.

The force settled around her, still there, still listening. It was the only thing that staved off something akin to panic.

Asajj’s head turned to look right into the woman’s eyes, and she spoke the woman’s words from her own lips. “We haven’t met well yet. I am Darth Khepri. Listen to my warnings if you don’t want to have amusing dismemberments or big explosions happen to you.”

Asajj carefully walked backwards until, finally, she was back in control of her own body.

She blinked, hands rising just to feel the motion again.

“Now that we’ve met,” Darth Khepri said, still in that terrible, broken basic. “I was told by Dooku that you know things that I need to know so that I can make the politics in this place the way I want them to be.” She tilted her head to the side, a strange, insectile gesture that pinged something in the force that Asajj couldn’t quite comprehend. “Will you help me, Asajj Ventress?”

***

Fuck it, gap moe Ventress. I’m doing it. Fuck the haters.