Knight of Nothing

Holocrons and Heresies

"What an evening!" you exclaim, shooting up from your chair and cutting Shassanis off mid-sentence. With an exaggerated yawn you push your chair in, then motion for one of the Twi'leks standing off at the far end of the room. "I've got an early morning tomorrow. Upawa will show you to your room."

Shassanis rises from his chair with an uneasy wobble, looking very confused and somewhat disappointed.

"Early morning?" he says. "The city's under martial law." You hear him loud and clear, but you're already walking away, giving an incoherent mumble and wave as a response. The moment you're out of the room you steady the exaggerated drunken walk you were putting on and lengthen your stride, eager to retreat to your room and put tonight behind you. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe it was the Falleen's pheromones, but you had considered it. Emperor help you, you had considered it.

That night, your sleep is shallow and filled with fevered dreams. You're back in the Fury's training room, beating a prostrate Kalyan with a practice saber. She looks up at you, and with a smile asks if you wish she were your mother instead. You try to strike her again, but find that your saber has turned into a limp whip-sword that refuses to go rigid. When you look up, Sebuk is standing behind Kalyan, laughing hysterically. A furious rage wells within you, and you're vaguely aware that back in reality, you're kicking the baseboard of your bed. Back in the dream world, a tap on your shoulder causes you to turn around, where a frowning Shassanis stands ready to take you by the hand.

"We don't need them," he says. You follow him from the training room and its infuriating laughter, and as you step over the door's threshold you awaken, filled with greater certainty than ever that you need to meet a woman. Normal ones, with whom you can have a casual physical relationship untainted by complications of clonehood or bodily possession.

You meet Shassanis for breakfast in the manor's central courtyard, praying that he has forgotten the night you couldn't manage to push from your mind. All seems well and normal, until the strained casual conversation grows silent and Shassanis looks up at you from his plate with a strange intensity.

"You left last night before I could say what I came here to say," he says. Every muscle in your body goes rigid, your fork frozen midway between the table and your open mouth with a chunk of meat hanging from the end. "As I mentioned, I was posted in the Outer Rim until a few weeks ago."

"Right." You nod, giving him a confused look as the terrified grip on your heart eases somewhat.

"I bring a message from your Master, Lord Veredious. He says that number nine will be kept too busy to bother you... and that he'll look into the girl."

Your hesitant expression darkens, and you sit back in your chair. "You didn't think I'd want to hear this first thing after you arrived?"

He gives a mischievous smile. "I wanted to see where the night took us."

You close your eyes, holding back a disgusted groan as you ignore the Falleen for a moment and consider your Master's words. 'Number nine' must be referring to the Chiss agent, Cipher Nine. And the girl would be your unknown assailant on Sriluur.

"He didn't say more than that?" you ask Shassanis.

He shakes his head and continues eating, clearly very eager to drop the matter there - as are you, once you realize that you've been fraternizing with a fellow conspirator. There is a reason Veredious didn't simply send this message over electronic channels, after all. For one reason or another, he didn't want to risk it being read. The revelation that your Master is taking your concerns seriously is something of a relief, but that relief is tempered by the question of just what exactly you've done to earn this freedom he's given you by leaving you his position.