Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, the corridors of the Luwian Estate mansion were playing host to the sounds of passionate, relentless, extremely creative sex. The staff, servants and slaves -those that had survived, either in life or in employment- the purge that had taken place when the young miss Luwian had taken the reins of the family in the wake of the…shake-up that had taken place, were now more than familiar with that sound.
In fact, they’d arguably been more than familiar already, but ever since Vestara Khai had stopped being a slave -in effect, if not legally, though that had certainly come quickly enough- the sounds of fucking had been commonplace in Asmu-Nikal’s wing of the estate. The fact that there were now rather more voices involved in such orgies was the only true change, and more than one of the voyeurs shuddered in sympathetic need and arousal as they went about their duties.
Inside the largest room of that wing, a room that had been redesigned into a fetishistic palace playpen, Kory watched with hunger as her owner and Asmu-Nikal worked together to shatter Kory’s fellow slave. Well, all of them were slave to Vestara Khai and her magnificent cock, but Kela was a slave in truth and fact as much as she was in spirit, and she was every bit as responsive and masochistic as Kory herself was.
The way that Kela writhed and sobbed against the cushions, her wrists bound above her head and her thighs spread wide between Vestara’s hands, sent a fresh pulse of want crawling low through Kory’s belly. She shifted where she knelt beside Yashia, pressing her thighs together in a desperate attempt to relieve some of the ache that had been building since the moment she’d been told -ordered, really, in that low and amused tone that always made her shiver- to watch and wait her turn.
To watch and wait, while Vestara and Nicky took Kela apart piece by piece.
It wasn’t fair, Kory thought, biting her lip and glancing -without moving her head, of course- at the woman kneeling at her side, seeing that the once-sentry was in no better shape than she was. And from the looks of Vaenia on Yashia’s far side, the Ensign was much the same. It wasn’t fair that they had to sit and wait. Even if they couldn’t service Vestara, or even Asmu-Nikal, they could at least pleasure one another. Force, they could at least pleasure themselves! But that was forbidden to them, even the meanest of physical pleasures locked away by the will of the woman who owned them entirely, and it felt so fucking good.
To be denied even that small mercy, to be made to kneel here aching and dripping while Kela got to fall apart -get taken apart- so beautifully…it was nothing short of a torment, and Kory loved every agonizing second of it.
She watched as Vestara leaned down over Kela, that silver hair falling like a curtain to brush against the bound woman’s flushed cheeks. Whatever their owner whispered, Kory couldn’t hear it over the wet, rhythmic sounds and Kela’s broken pleading, but she saw the effect of it. Saw the way Kela’s spine arched, the way her hips bucked desperately upward against the slow, deliberate thrusts, saw the way that she was on the very edge of cumming around Vestara’s length.
And then, just as Kela’s whole body started to draw tense for that final moment of explosive bliss, Vestara stopped.
Kory bit back a whimper of pure sympathy as Vestara pulled her hips back, withdrawing entirely, leaving Kela clenching desperately around nothing but empty air. The sob that tore from the bound woman’s throat was a ragged, broken, pleading thing, and Kory couldn’t help but resonate with it sharply, her thighs pressing tighter still as a fresh wave of slick heat threatened to spill down them.
“Please~!” Kela gasped, her dark hair plastered to her flushed face, her whole body shivering violently as she was held back from the brink for perhaps the dozenth time tonight. “Please, please, please, I’ll do anything, I’ll be so good, just let me~!” Kela’s words dissolved into a sound that was barely a word at all, a high and desperate keening that made Kory’s own cunt clench again in sympathy and desire.
Vestara only smiled. That wicked, sly, knowing smile that Kory had come to crave more than anything else in this entire damned galaxy, and trailed a single fingertip down the trembling line of Kela’s heaving stomach. Slow. Cruel. Adoring.
“Anything?” Vestara murmured, the word low enough that Kory had to strain to catch it now that Kela’s pleading had quieted to wordless whines and whimpers, the words wrapping around Kela’s throat just as much as the two dominant women’s hands had been earlier. “Such a dangerous thing to promise, pet. Nicky, did you hear her? This little whore says she’ll do anything.”
Kory watched Nicky shift into view, the scarlet-skinned Sith trailing her own near-clawed fingertips along the inside of Kela’s bound thigh, leaving faint white lines that faded almost as soon as they appeared. There was a cruel sort of delight in the curve of Nicky’s mouth, the kind that made Kory’s stomach swoop and her pulse hammer against the hollow of her throat. She could feel herself reacting to it, almost as strongly as she did Vestara, and she marveled for a moment that this woman -who had, not so long ago- been in a position no different than the one Kela was in now could so easily and naturally exude dominance nearly equal to that of their mutual mistress.
“I did, my love.” Nicky purred, the sound of it sending another shiver and whimper tearing through every submissive in the room. “Though I rather doubt she means it. They always say ‘anything’, when they’re like this. When they’re so far gone that they’d promise their souls just for the chance to come.”
Kela’s hips rolled upward again, seeking, desperate, and Vestara’s hand pressed her back down to the cushions with an almost lazy ease. There was something about the casual strength of it, the way the silver-haired woman could pin another grown woman with nothing more than two fingers splayed against her stomach, that never grew old to experience or witness.
“Mmm.” Vestara hummed, considering, her index finger idly toying with the bound slave’s belly button. “I think she might mean it tonight, love. Look at her. She’s so far past pretending. Aren’t you, pet?”
Kela nodded frantically, her throat working around another desperate whine, and Kory felt her own breath catch in sympathetic longing. She knew that headspace, had come to know it very intimately indeed ever since she became Vestara’s. The way the world narrowed down to nothing but the ache and the need and the desperate hope that mercy might come if only you were good enough, obedient enough, begged sweetly enough.
“What do you girls think we should do, hmm? You’ve been kneeling there, watching, behaving yourselves and obeying us while we use your sister-slave however we see fit. So do you think that we should make her cum, or should we make her wait like you have and use one of you instead?” Vestara asked, turning her attention to Kory and her two fellows, and Kory’s throat bobbed in a harsh swallow. It wa a trap, she could sense it, with and without the Force. Not a malicious one, she wouldn’t be cast out or hurt or abandoned for the wrong answer, but she didn’t doubt something wicked would be done to her.
Of course, something wicked would probably happen one way or the other.
She could sense the confusion and fear of her two companions, though, still unused to their mistress as they were, and she steadied herself to take the lead. To show them what it was that they were meant to do in their service.
“Make her cum, mistress. Use her until she cannot take anything more. She has been without you for so long, and she has been so good for you tonight. She should be rewarded.” she declared, surprise spiking sharply from Yashia, Kela, and Vaenia…but not from either of their betters. Vestara and Asmu-Nikal had both expected her to respond in such a way, and she was deeply flattered by that fact.
Vestara’s smile widened, intoxicating approval radiating through the Force in a way that made Kory’s chest swell with a warmth that had nothing to do with the heat between her thighs, but certainly seemed to enhance it.
“Such a good girl.” The words were directed at her, and Kory nearly melted on the spot, her spine straightening with pride even as her cunt clenched.. “You see, Nicky? This is why I keep her. She understands.”
“Mmm. She does at that. You did a good job with her, though it seems she has some natural talent as well.” Nicky’s golden eyes flicked toward Kory, sharp and assessing, and Kory felt the weight of that gaze like a physical caress, like fingertips dragging along her spine. In fact, thanks to her Force sensitivity, she knew that her body and soul were being caressed by the gorgeous pureblood. Then her gaze moved over to Vaenia, and her lips curved into a smirk. “Finish playing with Kela, my love. I’ve a mind to help you break in your newest conquest. That way, I can play with her and Kory while you and the others are busy traipsing about Grathan’s estate.”
Vaenia’s subsequent whimper of nervous desire was a thing of sweet beauty, as was the full body shudder that accompanied it, and Kory kept an amused -and somewhat sympathetic- eye on her as Vestara plunged herself back into Kela and set a punishing pace, driving the girl towards the edge once again. The other girl was incredibly inexperienced, she knew, and extremely sensitive physically as well. After all, she’d been helping train the ensign as much as she had Yashia, and she’d seen the way that Vaenia had gone to pieces near-instantly when anyone had started to play with her.
A little while later, she and her fellow lovers-of-Vestara were gathered around the bed watching as their mistress slowly, gently, pressed her cockhead against Vaenia’s soaked virgin folds. The room was quiet, save for Vaenia’s excited, nervous breaths, each of them watching as another girl was carefully introduced to the width and breadth -and length!- of what it meant to belong to the silver-haired young woman that had saved so many of them.
Because that, Kory knew without a shred of a doubt as she watched Vestara pause at what had to be Vaenia’s hymen, was exactly what Vestara had done. Her own near-guranteed fate aside -not that she would ever forget the efforts her mistress had expended nor the danger the once-slave had put herself in to save her on Korriban- for the moment, Vaenia’s death at the hands of the Republic or a wrathful Grand Moff had been no less assured. And Yashia? A low-ranking guardswoman on Korriban? Even odds between her being raped to death, murdered by an acolyte, or driven insane by the tombs like so many of her comrades. A reflection she’d had many times before, and would doubtlessly have many times again. Why wouldn’t she? It was a near-mantra of gratitude, a reminder that she was where she was because of the woman she loved.
Even Asmu-Nikal and Kela were alive because of Vestara, spared -by their own admission- death at the hands of Lord Kallig’s rage over Vestara’s treatment only by their loyalty to and love for his scion.
Vestara’s hips snapped forward, filling Vaenia’s cunt completely and taking away her ‘innocence’, as laughably strange as that word was for a woman born in the Empire, and Kory joined everyone woman present in comforting her as she cried out and clutched at Vestara’s shoulders in pain.
For many long moments, no one moved to do anything but soothe the freshly-deflowered young woman. Kory pressed her lips to the curve of Vaenia’s trembling shoulder, murmuring soft nothings against sweat-damp skin while Yashia stroked the ensign’s hair back from her flushed forehead. She could feel the way the smaller woman shook, could taste the salt-tang of her tears where they tracked down toward the corner of her mouth, and something in Kory’s chest ached with a sympathy that was as genuine as it was tinged with envy.
She remembered her own first time, after all. Remembered the burning stretch and the bright flash of pain, but unlike Vaenia, she hadn’t had a doting owner when she’d first been taken. It had been a guardsman, an officer, in the service of her old master. A particularly brutal and effective man, who’d been given a reward and opted to forcefully claim every hole that she’d had for nearly a week, before she’d been dumped back outside to work as a common laborer. At the time, she’d been unable to decide if she preferred being a fuck-slave or doing hard labor, in spite of how brutal he’d been, but she’d quickly decided the latter was preferable to the former.
How different her life had become since then, and all because of one woman with silver hair and a wicked smile.
But Vaenia would never know that brutality, never have to wonder which fate was worse, and Kory found herself fiercely glad of it even through the dull pain of her past and the warm, aching, happy need of the present. The ensign’s first time would be a thing of care and patience, of soft words and gentle hands, of being cherished even as she was claimed. It was more than most slaves -most people- in the Empire could hope for, more than Kory herself had ever expected to receive before fate had thrown her into Vestara’s path.
“There you are.” Vestara’s voice was soft and low, tender even, as she addressed her newest lover. “Breathe for me, sweetheart. That’s it. The worst of it’s already past.”
Kory watched as Vaenia’s breathing slowly evened out, the tension bleeding from her trembling frame bit by bit. The ensign’s eyes had gone glassy and wide, fixed on Vestara’s face with an expression that Kory recognized all too well. That dawning, helpless adoration. The realization that this woman who had just claimed her so completely was also the woman who would care for her, protect her, treasure her, instead of hurt her and use her up until there was nothing left.
It was a heady thing, that realization, it really was. How could it not be?
It was everything she’d been raised not to expect.
As Vestara slowly started to thrust, as Vaenia’s lingering pain and anxiety bled entirely out of her as pleasure -of body and soul both- built instead, Kory half-closed her eyes and reached out in the Force, soaking in the lust, the happiness, the satisfaction, and the love that was radiating out into the ether from the women around her. She luxuriated in it, basked in it, she hungered for it.
This was how she would spend the rest of her life, and she couldn’t be happier.
######################################################################################################
I was still feeling rather smug when I -with Khem Val in tow, of course- met Iisa, Mako, and Vriska outside of Grathan’s estate, each and every one of us fully equipped and ready for the coming fights. Of them, Iisa was the first to greet me, sealing her helmet with a sharp hiss as I approached, the polished and painted beskar catching what little ambient light filtered through the perpetual cloud-cover overhead. Her presence in the Force was muted by the armor, but the easy set of her shoulders told me clearly enough that she was relaxed, ready, and -if I knew her at all by now, which I rather thought I did- more than a little amused.
“You look like a woman who got exactly what she wanted last night.” Her voice came out modulated through the helmet’s vocoder, the faint mechanical echo it added to everything not quite hiding the laughter underneath. “Or perhaps gave exactly what she wanted? I notice that Yashia isn’t with you. Feeling a bit under the weather, is she?”
“Yashia is resting, yes, at least in a manner of speaking. Though I wouldn’t call her unwell, necessarily, of course. A bit sore, perhaps, and she might have pulled something. Certainly she’ll have trouble walking for the next day or so, as will one or two of the others, but I have it on rather good authority that no one minds all that much.” I responded quite cheerfully, smirking in abject and unashamed satisfaction.
Mako snorted, her cybernetics catching the dim light as she shook her head, though there was a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah, yeah, we get it, you’re a sex god. Can we maybe focus on the part where we’re about to break into a fortress full of people who’d love nothing more than to put a blaster bolt through our heads? At best?”
“Spoilsport.” I sighed dramatically, but I let the levity drain out of my tone all the same, because she had a point. Smug satisfaction was all well and good, but it wouldn’t stop a thermal detonator or a lightsaber…probably. Depended on how much I could get the other person to like me. And now I was thinking about that old Arnold movie, Commando… I shook my head. “Alright. Let’s go over the layout one last time before we commit to anything stupid.”
Iisa crouched down, the heavy thunk of her armor settling against the loamy earth barely audible over the distant crackle of blaster fire that drifted through the trees. Well, that would be a fucking pain, if the loyalists were giving Grathan’s people trouble and getting their dander up. She pulled out a small holoprojector from one of her belt pouches, the device flickering to life with a soft blue glow that played rather dramatically across her helmet, and a wireframe rendering of Grathan’s estate sprang up between the four of us.
“Right.” Her gloved finger traced through the projection, dismissing several segments with practiced ease. “The loyalist forces are, as you can probably hear, skirmishing with Grathan’s guards again. Fortunately, in this case, that works for us. Their patrols are stretched thin along the eastern wall, focusing most of their attention on the gates and the firing lines. That means the western approach -here,” she tapped a spot where the wireframe rendering showed a stretch of wall butted up against a sheer rock face, “is barely covered. Two guards on rotation, maybe three if Grathan’s gotten paranoid, which he probably has, given that the Dark Council is busy chewing through his front door.”
“Thanks to the Minders at Imperial Intelligence, I’ve managed to acquire some useful equipment.” Vriska chimed in, displaying a large satchel. “These auto-ascenders aren’t as good as Iisa’s jetpack or your Force jumps, but they’ll be good enough to get us inside. Getting out might not be as easy, but that will come down to how much damage we can do…or, for that matter, how quiet that we can be. Frankly, I wouldn’t object too strenuously if we’re able to complete our missions here without drawing too much attention.”
“Quiet would be ideal.” I nodded, studying the projection and committing the patrol routes to memory as best I could, though I was honest enough to admit to myself I’d probably be relying on the Force and my companions to avoid them. “Though I have to admit, I don’t have much faith in things staying quiet for long. They never seem to, no matter how careful I am. Murphy’s a vindictive bastard.”
“Murphy?” Mako tilted her head, the question clear in the angle of her brow even before she voiced it, and I gave a short snort as I realized what I’d said.
“Old saying from... somewhere. ‘Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.’” I waved a hand dismissively, hoping she’d let it drop. The last thing I needed was to explain the concept of a fictional deity from an alternate universe where the world all of were inhabiting was also fictional. “Anyway, the last thing we want is to confront Grathan or his apprentices. I don’t know how good they are in comparison to me, and while I’m not afraid to find out, I’m going to go out of my way to do so either. Especially not if several of them show up at once.”
“You’ll get no argument from me. I’m no coward, but I’m not particularly interested in fighting with a crowd of Force-users and their soldier friends if it’s avoidable. Fights like that tend to escalate, and I tend to be something of a pragmatist when it comes to warfare. Heroic last stands are all well and good when they’re necessary and unavoidable. Otherwise, they’re a display of incompetence, piss-poor planning, and bad leadership.”
“Heh. Pragmatic and quotable. I knew there was a reason I liked you.” I flashed her a grin, before returning my attention to the projection. “Alright. So we go in through the west, quiet as we can manage. Vriska, you’re our way in and our way out, so you take point on the ascenders. Iisa, you and Mako sweep ahead and clear any guards we can’t avoid. Khem and I will handle anything that gets...messier.”
“Messier meaning Sith?” Mako asked, her voice carrying that particular note of dread that I’d come to recognize. The one that said she’d seen what ‘messy’ could be. Then again, that was no surprise, given her background and how she’d grown up. Nar Shadaa was bad enough, but a young, pretty female orphan? Even what I knew about canonically was bad enough, and the game had obviously toned things down, but it had still talked about the orphanage she lived in trying to sell her when she was still a child.
“Yeah, messier meaning Sith. I don’t know how many apprentices Grathan has, Zash wasn’t exactly a font of information. Understandingly, I suppose, Sith being what they are. But a Lord of his rank and position has to have at least two or three.” I confirmed, running a hand through my hair and tugging on a handful of strands thoughtfully. “Khem and I should be able to handle them. He’s killed far more dangerous enemies, I’m likely to be able to handle myself just fine, and I could probably rely on them to get into one another’s way just as much as my own if more than one comes at us at a time.”
“Provided you don’t get cocky.” Iisa’s vocoder did nothing to soften the dryness in her tone, nor the warning beneath that dryness. “I’ve watched more than one Force-user die because they walked into a room assuming their enemy would conveniently trip over each other. Sometimes they coordinate. Sometimes the master’s trained his apprentices to fight as a unit precisely because he knows other Sith expect them to squabble. Or because they’ll settle for teaming up to kill you, then turn on eachother for the credit. You know as well as I do that that’s hardly rare.”
I winced, because she had a point, and it was a point I’d half-forgotten in my certainty about how these things tended to play out. The game had taught me to expect a certain kind of Sith, the kind that backstabbed and betrayed as easy as breathing. And I knew that Baal -or however his name was spelled- was a treacherous little bastard, given he’d tried to get the Sith Warrior killed. But he wasn’t an idiot, and while Grathan had always struck me as a…less than spectacular planner of the long-term consequences, I shouldn’t rely on that for anyone else either.
“Alright, that’s fair enough. I’ll keep my eyes open.” I conceeded willingly, dipping my head in acknowledgement, and Iisa’s helm tilted slightly in what I could only assume was her armored version of a satisfied nod. “If they fight as a unit, I’ll adjust accordingly. Worst case scenario, I let Khem Val do whatever he damn well pleases with them. He’s been a bit cross ever since the Brentaal Star, and while I was worried about kicking off a war with unnecessary casualties there, I'm not terribly worried about Grathan trying to get revenge after this. He can’t be long for this world. Eventually, the Dark Council is going to stop being amused by his shit and just crush him.”
“They can’t afford to do anything else, really.” Vriska agreed, eyeing Khem a bit cautiously as he grunted an amused, hungry chuckle of satisfaction and agreement at my words. “If they let him successfully rebel against their authority like this for too much longer than they already have, it will start to give other Sith ideas. I don’t think anyone wants that happening.”
“No, I don’t suppose they would.” I chuckled without much in the way of humor. It was the same reason that the Empire couldn’t tolerate the slave revolts that plagued it, even though they happened with depressing regularity. It wasn’t about the lives lost, or even the resources. It was about the precedent. About what it would mean if the lesson stuck, if too many people started believing that defiance could go unpunished.
I knew a little something about that, didn’t I? Though God knew that I was the outlier.
“Right.” I clapped my hands together once, the sound muffled by my gloves, and looked around at my companions. “Then it seems our first priority is to carefully make our way around to this cliff face, and then even more carefully make our way up it. And then, after that…”
“Wait, let me guess. Make our way into Grathan’s estate most carefully of all?” Iisa drawled, Mako giggling softly in response, and I grinned at them both.
############################################################################
“Please, go right on up, Grand Master. The General is waiting for you.” said the secretary of Senator Kriv Dakkeron, who just so happened to look remarkably like Lieutenant Colonel Thadth Dodonna of the Republic Army (Retired), waved to two security guards nearby -who also looked remarkably like hardened veterans- who very specifically didn’t salute as they stood aside to allow Satele and her two children to pass them by and reach the turbolift behind them.
A quiet, polite nod was the only response Satele gave as she stepped through with her children flanking her, the doors sliding shut with a soft pneumatic sigh that seemed almost to quiet for the weight of what was about to unfold.
Not, as it might appear to outside eyes, a simple friendly dinner between two veterans of the Great War with their children alongside. As much as that sort of thing had happened in the past, and would doubtlessly happen again in the future, Satele knew that there was more to it. She knew that there was a greater plan unfolding behind the old man’s ‘casual’ invitation. Her children knew it just as well as she did, and she took a glance at them.
Theron stood with his arms crossed, his expression carefully neutral in that way he’d perfected over years of working with the SIS, though she could read the tension in the set of his shoulders. Fay, on the other hand, made no effort whatsoever to hide her curiosity, practically vibrating with barely-contained energy beside her twin.
So much like her father in that regard. Satele suppressed a fond smile. She and Jace had become lovers more from necessity and the passion of the moment, of survival, than any deep and profound emotional connection, and their relationship hadn’t lasted. But their friendship and respect for one another had endured, and it was a wonderful thing to see him in their children.
The lift accelerated, carrying them higher still than they’d already been, and Satele considered what the old general was planning. He’d ended that hearing bluntly, if skillfully, and swiftly at that. She’d felt it in the Force, as well, the way that his presence had sharpened and focused when they had discussed Vestara Khai, and the way he had steered the committee away from her just as quickly to bring things to a close.
What had the old soldier seen and heard, she wondered, that had made him so eager to close the door on that particular line of inquiry? Why open it in the first place if that had been his intention? What games was he playing, because he surely was Up To Something.
She had her suspicions, of course, knowledge that something important was so very close at hand. The Force whispered to her of patterns half-glimpsed, of threads converging toward something she couldn’t yet name, but suspicions were not certainties, and she had learned long ago not to mistake the one for the other. So she let the matter rest, confident that everything would be revealed in due time, and let herself settle into the tranquil waters that was the Light Side of the Force.
The lift finally slowed, then stopped, the doors parting to reveal a modest office that spoke of a man with little patience for ostentation. No gilded furnishings, no expensive art, no trophies displayed for the admiration of visitors. Just a few simple chairs, a wide table already set with steaming dishes that filled the room with the rich, savory scent of Kuati spice-roast, and a single broad window looking out over the endless glittering sprawl of Coruscant’s nightside.
Kriv Dakkeron stood at that window, his hands clasped behind his back, the durasteel cover over his ruined eye catching the city-light. It was an imposing image, an impressive one. One that she’d seen many times before, and for a moment she could see the image of a far-younger Kriv standing in his uniform -or his battle-armor- waiting to brief her and Jace, as he had so many times before.Then he turned to face them, and the image was gone, replaced by his broad smile.
“Satele! You’ve barely aged!” he greeted her jovially, gesturing her forward, glancing at the twins. “And Theron and Fay! Force, but you’ve grown since I saw you at your graduations! I would have mentioned it at the hearing, ladies, but I was afraid it would be rather gauche. You make an old man feel positively ancient. Come, sit! It’s been far too long since we’ve had a meal together, and while I’ve been watching your respective careers with great interest, it’s not quite the same when it’s done at a distance.”
“Thank you, Kriv. You’re as gracious a host as ever, and as poor a liar.” Satele allowed herself a small smile as she crossed to the indicated chair, settling into it with the unhurried grace of a woman who had long ago made peace with the rhythms of formality, even if she had little fondness for pomp and circumstance. “Though I confess, I’m rather more interested in the reason for this dinner than the dinner itself. I have known you long enough to know there was some greater purpose at play here.”
The old general chuckled, lowering himself into his own seat with a faint grunt of effort that betrayed the wear and tear on his body that wasn’t readily apparent at first glance.
“Always jumping feet first into things, for all that you project the serene patience of your Order. Then again, you Shans have never had the most sterling record for Jedi detatchment and tranquility, have you?” he returned, shaking his head in fond amusement as he reached for a goblet of wine. “Not that I consider that a bad thing, of course. Mmh.” He sipped briefly, before putting the goblet back down and grabbing his napkin. “Come, my dears, eat! Before the meal grows cold. We can talk while we eat.”
There was a murmur of acceptance and thanks, muted though it was from all three of them, and once they were settled he nodded in satisfaction and reached for his silverware. As he started to cut into his first serving of the roast, he spoke again.
“Now, the first thing I would like to discuss is dear Fay, and how it was that Vestara Khai helped her escape Korriban unharmed by the Sith. Better still, why don’t you tell me about that intelligence that she gave you in regards to the Sith in the bowels of your very temple?”