Virtual Voyages

I don't care who tries to tell you what about Taris, stay away from it. It's a rakghoul infested cesspit and I don't want to have to come smuggle your ass off it because you fell for the brochures and now Governor Asshole won't let you leave.  I mean it.  There is nothing there except swamp, rakghouls, pirates and toxic waste.  And people who fell for the brochures.

The customs official's a jerk, the governor just cares what it looks like to the people back home, and the soldiers have been stuck there so long they're losing it.  The damn planet needs warning beacons, not resettlement.

Seriously, I don't care if your great-great-great-great grandwhatever had land there, it's not worth it. 

Not than anybody'll listen to me.

Damn being an upstanding citizen.

I'm now a full fledged Jedi, although I still have so many questions I'm not sure I'm worthy of that title, yet.  Master Yuon is gravely ill, and I'm accompanying her to Coruscant, where surely they can save her.  Qyzen is here, too.  Not only is he worried about Master Yuon, but he's decided I'm the Herald of the Scorekeeper - the Trandoshan goddess.

I don't know how I feel about that.  I'm flattered, though I shouldn't be, but Qyzen has seen and done so much that it means a lot for him to think so highly of me.  And it seems even more arrogant to be sure he's wrong.  Perhaps a young Jedi could gain the favor of his goddess, maybe even as a way for her to help him.  Poor Qyzen felt so dishonored by being captured alive by Nalan, I was really worried about him for a while.  Being captured alive is the worst thing that can happen to a Trandoshan.  But now, he feels he can regain his honor - his points - by accompanying me.  I can't actually think of a better guide and teacher, now, than Master Yuon herself, if she recovers.  No, she must recover.  She's too wise and too important.  And I like her.

Though something of a Jedi can remain after death.  I spoke to Rajivari.  To his...his force ghost.  He wasn't what I expected.  He helped me to stop Nalan, and he gave me a lot to think about.

I've done so much.  The Council agreed to help Nalan, and the pilgrims, and even, in a way, the Flesh Raiders.  And yet, there's still so much I don't know and so many things I don't quite understand.  But with the Force and Qyzen to guide me, maybe I can be everything I'd hoped a Jedi could be.

It'd make me feel all charitable if Coruscant hadn't turned out to be such a dung heap.  And if that lying thieving traitor Skavak hadn't gotten away.  Now he thinks he's hunting me.  I can't wait for him to catch up.  If all the other people he's conned don't catch up to him first.  He was even trading with the Empire!  What an idiot.

He left me another of his girlfriends on my ship.  She seems to think she can order me around just because she's got a line on some dead guy's fortune.  It must be pretty good or Skavak wouldn't have put up with her.  I'll work with her, but if she keeps acting like I'm the hired help, I'm dropping her on the next planet and she can sell her pretty jewelry to get home.

Between her and Corso, I'm thinking about buying ear plugs.

I'd rather work with those crazy droids the Republic's trying to ally with.  They were even starting to make sense.  Or poor Miel.  You know it says something when I'd actually think about teaming up with a cop.  Damn Skavak.  That's another dead guy he's responsible for.  If Skavak does catch up to me, I'll get revenge for him.  Nicest cop I ever met.

I rescued a hacker from... actually, I don't even know where to begin on the situation here.  Coruscant is just as corrupt and messed up as Ord Mantell.  Maybe worse.  Everything's all sparkly if you've got money, but if you're a refugee, forget about you.  This is why I just do my thing.  The Republic's a crock.

So, I rescued a hacker.  Skavak had paid her to make his past go away.  I got her to put his past back, and then some.  Now he won't be able to walk past a checkpoint without being jumped by the Republic.  And he can't go to his underworld contacts because Kixi also fixed it so he looks like a snitch, or worse.

That'll drive him out.  Then I just have to nab him before somebody else does.  Or find my ship and steal it back while he's busy being a tug of war rope.

As long as he pays and I get my ship back, it's all good.

I arrived on Tython today to begin my training as a Jedi.  I'm so excited, it's all I can do not to go around grinning.  I must try to remember that passion is not the Jedi way.  But it's so hard.  This is what I've wanted, all my life.  And I'm finally here!

The planet is beautiful and Master Yuon Par seems very nice.  I think I'll like training with her.  The only bad thing is that there are savages here, called Flesh Raiders, who are a threat to the temple and us students.  We're safe enough in groups or with our masters, but alone it can be dangerous.

Still, I'm so happy to be here!  No, I must remember that I will be a Jedi.  I must meditate and learn to remain calm, no matter how happy I am.  There is no passion, there is serenity.

Congratulations.  If you're reading this, you've broken all of my encryption, and that is no mean feat.  I almost wish I'd met you.  Though, I fear if I had, one of us would be dead.  I much prefer to think that I'm on a sandy beach somewhere, sipping a drink and enjoying my retirement.  Somewhere the Empire will never find me.

A man in my position would have to be a fool to leave a journal, even one as heavily encrypted as this one, but I suspect I'm already a traitor twice over and I'm fairly certain they can't execute me more than once.  Though, with the Sith, one never knows.  I have no intention of ever finding out; I suspect the Sith have incredibly nasty forms of execution.  I also very much doubt that I'll stop at two treacheries.  They might well find a way to spend the next hundred years executing me by the time I've finished.

My first mission took me to Hutta, with the plan of seducing one of the Hutt crime lords to the Empire.  (In the metaphoric sense, that is.  There are things man was not meant to know, and Hutt mating rituals are one of them.)  Aiding his business and sabotaging his competitor would - and did - do the trick nicely.

I had no difficulty winning over one of Nem'ro's trusted lieutenants as "The Red Blade", though in the future, I will try to avoid using cover identities that belong to actual people.  It leads to complications.  Not that those complications interfered with bringing Nem'ro to the Empire.  In that, I succeeded admirably, by anyone's standards.

However, I suspect that Keeper would be less than pleased that I allowed a Force sensitive boy to escape the Empire with his father.  The fact that his father has no love for the Republic, either, would hardly help his case, or mine.  But I am not fond of the Sith, and it would take a cold man to kill a boy's father in front of him.  I'm clever and composed, not heartless.

Which is why, when Keeper ordered me to kill Javis, the lieutenant I'd won over, (After a Sith attacked his sons, ruining our attempt to bring him to Imperial allegiance.  Have I mentioned my distaste for the Sith?) I urged him to leave the planet, instead.  Keeper must suspect, since Javis rescued his surviving son and, as the message from Keeper noted, he's the only one who would have taken that risk.  Either Keeper doesn't care, or my success is more important than the fine details, such as whether or not I follow orders to the letter.

I'd like to say I'll be careful, but I won't.  I will count on being too skillful and too valuable to kill without airtight evidence that I've gone against the Empire's supposed interests. Which means I will have to keep my new partner happy and entertained.  That she's an assassin and has no apparent love for the Empire works nicely to my advantage.  I should point out that I am, in fact, loyal to the Empire, though not to all factions within the Empire.  But anything that Keeper offers Kaliyo will be tainted by her dislike of the Empire, which puts him at a disadvantage.  I seem to amuse her enough to outweigh the fact that I, too, am Imperial.  If Keeper hopes she'll rein me in, he's sadly mistaken.

Keeper may also be playing an even more dangerous game than I am.  And I'm sharing rooms with an assassin not known for remaining with any employer for long.

I do love my work.