"Ryla!" Anakin yelled before moving quickly to hug her. As they embraced the togrutan jedi collapsed against Anakin out of exhaustion. "Whoa there." Anakin said as he steadied them both. "What happened to you?"
"It's nothing," Ryla tried to brush it off. "Just a scratch."
"I wouldn't classify a Nexu attack as a mere scratch." Erith commented looking guilty.
"A Nexu!" Master Obi Wan was shocked. Himself and Anakin flashing back to their memories of their own encounter with a Nexu on Geonosis.
"Everything is fine, my master exaggerates too much." Ryla slurred as she swayed again. "Or maybe not." She tried and failed to steady herself.
At this Captain Tags stepped forward ready to catch her. "Allow me, General Skywalker." Anakin nodded and let Tags guide his Commander to a near by chair to rest.
"You're too stubborn for your own good." Erith scolded, crossing his arms and glancing down at her.
She smirked making her facial markings raise. "I learned from the best Master." Came her snarky reply.
Erith just grunted out a response in his native tounge.
The female Jedi laughed and returned a comment in the same language.
Master Obi Wan coughed, successfully interrupting their little spat. "So back to this Nexu attack; what happened?"
Erith's face darkened. "We were following up after your assignment on Sygeria. Your only objective was to free the missing people of Kiros, but we were sent in to take down the entire slave empire." He answered as he pulled up a holo projection, and it showed the crowded streets of Sygeria. Vendors and slavers crowded the streets, selling anything and everything, and in the middle of the hectic mess was a dais shrouded in exotic silk carried on the backs of...
"Are those clones?" Ahsoka blurted out.
"Yes Padawan Tano." Erith replied. "I refused to allow it at first, but some of my men volunteered themselves because there was no other way to gain the respect and attention of the people."
"What do you mean?" Obi-wan questioned.
"Well after you're successful retrieval of the people of Kiros. Sygeria was, how do I put this, definitely not pro jedi." Ryla joked, "I had been in deep cover for a few years, as the wife of a separatist diplomat. He killed by cloned over a year ago, so it was the perfect cover if I had clones as slaves."
"Wait hold on!" Anakin interrupted. "You were married! Let alone to a separatist!"
Erith quickly intervened between the pair. "Calm down Anakin, the council approved of this plan. It was the best way to get someone behind enemy lines, and for years we had a solid source of intelligence inside the separatist parliament."
"How can I be calm when you were associating with those traitors!" Anakin fumed.
"Anakin!" "Master!" Obi-wan and Ahsoka scolded. Anakin glared at them but stayed quiet.
"Anyways," Ryla continued, "during the day I built good relations with the slavers and in the evenings mysterious renegades freed slaves from their transports."
"We were wreaking havoc on the Sygeria slave trade over only a few months, but then it all went wrong." Erith grumbled, crossing his arms and looking at the floor.
"What happened?" Ahsoka asked walking closer to the holo projection.
"I'll show you Commander." Tags spoke for the first time.
"Tags, you don't have to. I can do it." Ryla laid her hand on her Captain's shoulder, trying to hold him back and pull herslef up at the same time.
"No, Commander." Tags gently refused, placing her hand back in her lap before pulling out a data disk and inserting it into the table. "This is the data from my personal video feed of what happened." He took a deep breath before accessing the video feed.
