I could probably pester him more, but… Not with him like that. I’ve got plenty of questions, but I’ll wait until the morning. Or never. I’m not sure yet.

This does, however, tell me quite a bit. And most of it is just-, well…

Nothing he said was outright against Jedi. Sure, he said plenty about killing Secura and how Jedi are evil, but he never said a bad thing about any individual Jedi. In fact, he was almost praising that Skywalker guy. That might just be since Skywalker was like, a really good commander, but it almost seemed like he was a good Jedi, too. Considering that Jedi are supposed to be “evil space wizards”, that means that this Skywalker guy is either a really evil space wizard, or that some Jedi are good.

Or, since he said he was the “greatest” Jedi he’d ever seen, quite a few Jedi might be good. Maybe. I don’t know, I’ve never met any, so I can’t know.

Oh, right, I should have asked him about the Sith! I don’t think he’ll know anything, but just on the off-chance that he might, I should ask him.

...Tomorrow. Waking people up in the middle of the night is rude unless you planned to do so in advance.

Still, this whole Clone Wars business seems mighty complicated. The Jedi are still, to no one’s real surprise, a mystery. I have no idea what to make of them anymore. I can’t honestly say I think they’re completely evil, but to say that they’re good would renounce everything Typhin and the Empire has told me so far. I don’t want to do that. Partially because I don’t want Typhin to be a liar and partially because that would mean I’ve sworn alliance to, like, evil people.

Or maybe there’s no binary here and the Empire is the lesser of two evils. Haah. This is way too complicated.

Maybe I should jettison myself and pretend to be space-coral? No thoughts needed.

...But I’d be so lonely!

Shoot. What a bind.

Okay, so, let’s review what we know.

Jedi: maybe evil but probably somewhat good.

Sith: ??? Force-people.

Empire: (hopefully) good, maybe a little bad.

Emperor Palpatine: smart guy but a bit suspicious.

Killing people: bad.

Making friends: good.

Alright, that’s a pretty thorough run-down of it. I feel like that covers almost all bases. Oh, no, wait, I think I missed one point.

Space pirates: cool.

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Back in my bed, I gently close my eyes. Time for some thoughtless consumption!

In the blink of an eye, what little remained of the night passed. Terrifyingly enough, Atte and Charge and the two brothers all got up at the same time. Six o’ clock.

I kind of wanted to get up at the same time as them, and it’s not like I had technically slept or anything, but after about five seconds of staring groggily at the ceiling I just decided to take a late morning. But since it wasn’t as though I actually slept or anything, in the end, I just switched to my smallest body and kept an eye out for when Typhin started stirring, which he did at around 7.

So, I got up, dressed myself, and joined Typhin for breakfast at precisely the time he got to the cafeteria. The look on his face was a bit off, but breakfast was tasty! Mostly. I kind of ate a small fruit-looking thing that melted the inside of my head and throat. Luckily, I neither cried nor screamed in pain, so nobody noticed I wanted to die.

When I asked Fern about what I just ate, he said it was a piece of dried mon calamarian underwater fruit. Fruit.

So, no fruit and no milk. Hrm.

The thing is; it was dried, right? It wasn’t watery at all, but it still just ate away at my insides like nothing else. I almost think it was even stronger than the milk.

Milk and fruit… What the hell is the common denominator here? It’s clearly not the water, or the fibre, or anything like that, so…

...Is it the sugar? No, that can’t be, can it? I mean, it’d be a really stupid thing to die from, right?

...Alright, let’s try it.

That’s what has led me here. To the kitchen, that is. I got permission from Typhin, so it isn’t like I’m intruding or anything, but it still feels wrong to be here. Lots of activity going around. The most crucial, I guess, would be that there isn’t a lot of traditional cooking going on. No stoves or anything like that. Though, there are quite a lot of what seem to be ovens. I say seem since there’s no real proof that’s what they are. When I asked one of the cooks (one of only three), he told me they were rehydration chambers or something.

Apparently, most of the food they served is months or even years old. Largely inedible until treated right.

“Most of the rations get packaged in pretty large containers, but since we get the rations from so many systems, the diet still gets pretty varied.” The cook I’m speaking to right now is called AT-something something. “Most of what we got here right now is from the Mon Calamari system. Not sure if they were too happy we grabbed this stuff, but it’s good dining.”

As an addendum, this is the only cook who’ll talk to me. Nice fella. “Cool! You don’t happen to have any individual ingredients, though?”

He scratches his bald head. “Well, we’ve got plenty of water if that’s what you need?”

“Ah, no, nothing like that.” Imagine I just went and took a gulp and died right there. That’d be a right pretty sight. “I mean like flour or eggs or sugar.” Specifically, the last one.

“A couple of months back we used to eat these fish eggs but we ran out pretty quick. Neither of the other, though.”

Alright. That’s an issue. “Hmm… What’s the sweetest thing you have?”

“We’ve got a small container of powder we can use for a sweetened kind of porridge. That any good for you?”

“Yeah! If you don’t mind?”

He smiles warmly, his eyes crinkling. “Not at all! Why, it’s the least any one of us can do for the ship’s saviour and all. I didn’t see it myself or anything, too busy in here, but from what I heard it was a true close call there.” Looking at his coworkers, they don’t quite agree with his enthusiasm. But I'll take whatever I can get.

“Thank you, sir!”

He chuckles and tells me ‘sir’ is way too formal for him. Does only Typhin like that form of addressal? No, wait, the Lieutenant probably likes it, too. I want to be able to decide just to call everyone with a rank higher than mine ‘sir,’ but I can’t even tell who those are!

Would an octopus call the chief of a state they don’t reside in ‘sir’? Would an octopus call just any human ‘sir’? I don’t know! I’m not even used to calling people ‘sir’ at all!

Man, this language stuff is hard. Anyway, to the porridge powder!

Apparently, it really is just a small container of powder. It’s about a meter tall and half that thickness. So, enough for a human to hide in if he really squeezes. I’m only barely taller than it.

Well. Here’s the test of courage. I gulp.

I shove my hand in the barrell. When I take it out again, it’s gone. My whole hand is just gone.

Oh, god, this is just burning. This is. A very strong pain. I’m holding my breath. If I didn’t, I’d probably scream. No, not probably, definitely. Okay, let’s think about something other than this pain! Frogs. Frogs hopping on lilies. Haha, fat frogs. Very fat. Fat fat fat. Oh god why won’t my hand recover faster? this is seriously taking like a fraction of the time it normally would. If even that.

Okay, fuck it, I can’t bear this anymore.

I bite off my stump. This makes the wound recover at super fast speeds, with the cost being that now my face is melting instead. Great! Just great.

Frogs. Think about frogs. Fat, fat, FUCKING frogs.

…

...Okay, it’s over. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, it’s sugar. I have no idea how or why but I think questioning my body at this point will just leave me confused and disturbed so I’d better not!

Man. I hope I didn’t contaminate the porridge. It doesn’t seem like it, but you never know.

Anyway, I quickly thank the cook for his time and head to the computer room. Yup. Right back to it.