I quickly snapped out of my forgetfulness. Intending to create a distraction, I feigned panic and began shooting wildly with my blaster pistol. All it really did was make the older police officer disarm and lecture me. That definitely wasn’t the best course of action. Still, I was concerned and wanted to give us every advantage we could get. I thought it was notable that the man wasn’t stymied by Kira’s lightsaber. What had he put this Officer Larson through?

The rest of the group was making distractions of their own. I’d heard something about a friend of Kira’s being kidnapped on our comms. Clearly Kira was in trouble. There were still more bounty hunters disguised as police coming. With my pistol confiscated, I wasn’t going to be of any use. So I slipped away from the growing riot and found Shipwreck. He was a master sensor operator. Surely he could trace this Dorothy Glithe, and I was right. She was currently a few levels up in this Crevasse City. (Interestingly, it’s the opposite of Coruscant. The poor live atop the cliffs. This did not bode well for us.)

The comm remained incredibly busy. Kira was delivering an ultimatum of sorts to the Republic forces, being just intimidating enough to draw them on him. Was he trying to distract the authorities so we could save his friend? I didn’t have too much time to think. Handell was remotely sending the Nightraptor to retrieve us. For someone who apparently went into customs drunk, he was a deft pilot, twisting the ship through Crevasse City’s narrow canyons. Jarik joined us, pulled up by Khadim, who has very strange ideas about human interaction.

Defying the local traffic control orders, Handell steered the Nightraptor into a nearby parking garage. Jarik stayed behind while Shipwreck and I continued to trace the signal. Eventually we came upon an apartment house. To all appearances, there was a party. Even a noble like me knows that few poor people’s parties have a guard at the door! Shipwreck went to deal with him. I sneaked around the back of the building. A quick look through the windows revealed bounty hunters observing communication signals. So that was how they were hoodwinking the police! That was highly illegal, and apparently they had Ms. Glithe too! Even unarmed, I had to deal with it.

I have no idea how no one noticed my brightly-glittering costume, but I made it through the back door unnoticed. I nearly made it upstairs. Unfortunately, one of the bounty hunters looked up at the wrong time and saw me. They asked me what I was doing. Well, I was unarmed and in a flashy costume. I said I was the entertainment. Why am I not surprised that they took me for a prostitute? At least they just told me to stand aside until they finished what they were doing. It gave me time to send a discreet message to the Republic forces.

Suddenly, an explosive device sailed into the room, interrupting their “work.” They scattered out of the building. I nearly followed, but then a bloodied Shipwreck came through the door, yelling that it was fake. Where did he get that? There wasn’t too much time to think. We had to find Kira’s friend.

Upstairs, we came upon a suspicious room. I knocked on the door. A guard answered, and Shipwreck quickly disabled him with a flash-bang. Inside was Ms. Glithe. She was apparently asleep and unharmed. With her was another woman. Shipwreck approached her. Before I could even blink, she punched him across the room! He held onto consciousness long enough to throw me his holdout blaster pistol. A good thing, too! She was heading my way! I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. The only shot I got off went wide. Then her fist collided with me and everything went black . . .

I woke up to see Jarvik tending me, and a lot of Republic soldiers surrounding us. They interrogated us, of course. I gave the best description of that woman I could (stupid mask and costume). Fortunately for her, Ms. Glithe seemed ignorant of the danger she had avoided; she was nursing a hangover.

The Republic took all of us except Handell in (he was on another world in the system). Other than fining Shipwreck for his explosive antics and pegging us as trouble magnets, they really didn’t do that much to us. I was definitely relieved.

Even the news that Ben and Lazlo were both Sith bioweapons didn’t faze me. I knew Lazlo wasn’t a Sith bioweapon at all, just a Felis bodyguard with dodgy modifications. Ben, on the other hand, was a bit more intriguing. A secret Sith bioweapons lab breeding precognitives? Apparently on Alderaan? That was something you didn’t see on the holos.

Well, I’m sure my family won’t be happy when they hear about any of this. Involvement with sapient Sith bioweapons? Pretending to be a prostitute to sneak into a bounty hunter front? Making a public nuisance of myself? This isn’t the Rim, after all; Alderaan is a center of Galactic civilization. I suppose I should feel more guilty. Now’s not really the time for propriety, though. Not only is there a war on, we’re fighting an enemy willing to use whatever means necessary. I fear even Coruscant may be under threat. Oh well. At least the blockade they’ve started will give me time to think about explanations.