Quoted By:
Rubbing at the sore flesh of your throat, you cough out: “Gotta say, I get being jumpy and paranoid, but that isn’t how you treat people looking for friends.”
Sia-Lan scowls. “I didn’t get this far or survive Order 66 by being gullible.”
…you decide to ignore the otherwise scathing rebuke that hovers on the tip of your tongue. Instead, you opt for a wary sigh. “Point taken. But if you still have doubts…reach out with the Force. I have no intention of harming you.”
“Quite the opposite, actually,” opines Ma’kis.
The guardian’s lips curl into a thin, flat line. “…then say your piece, Knight…?”
“Gaelle,” you answer, gesturing for everyone to take a seat. Once you settle in, you continue: “Farren Gaelle, Jedi Shadow and uninvited guest. But I’m here to tell you that I’m not the only walk-in to Potkin’s powwow with a different invitation than the one you got…”
The good news is that it doesn’t take too long for her to believe you. With the Nikto adding his own observation and notes to the debriefing, she believes it faster than he did. Even if she had to probe your mind with the Force, but nothing more than sensing for any falsehoods or obfuscations.
The bad news is Sia-Lan takes it worse than Ma’kis did. Her eyes go wide, and her mouth falls open in horror as you sketch out Potkin’s plot and the depths of her deception. Luring in other Jedi with the promise of a conclave to discuss the plans going forward. Deliberately leaking an invitation that said that Master Kenobi would be among them, drawing not only the eye of the Emperor, but his new enforcer Darth Vader. Tomorrow, the Dark Lord would make planetfall, with the entirety of the 501st Legion as his own plus one to the conclave.
“No,” she whispers, face pale and drawn. “…she lied to us?”
“Technically not,” grouses Ma’kis. “She did invite us to discuss the future of the Jedi…although said immediate future involved fighting a Sith Lord.”
“She was using you all as bait,” you elaborate with a grimace. “A conclave of high-ranking Jedi who’d survived Order 66, so long as she got a shot at luring Vader out into a confrontation.”
Sia-Lan looks ill, but a spur of dejection voices itself. “But if it was just Vader…”
“…it could go either way,” you say truthfully, “But you’d take heavily losses – he killed Masters Nu and Drallig when the temple fell, all without the aid of the 501st…who, even as we speak, are hot on Vader’s heels and en-route to Kessel.”
Ma’kis nods. “But beyond what Gaelle is offering, the fact remains that Master Potkin deliberately engineered a confrontation with the Sith without our knowledge or consent. I will have no part of any scheme this recklessly callous with the lives of our brother and sister Jedi.”
The guardian hesitates, and you can see the gears visibly turning in her head. “I don’t understand.”
(cont.)