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“Come on… just one game!”
“No.”
“Fine. If you don't want to play, that’s just fine. But you’ve got to tell me, because I’ve been wondering this for a while now. What do you do for fun?”
Though Arierra couldn’t see through his full face mask, she could feel that Darth Baras’ mild annoyance was melting away into surprised amusement. The silence, broken up only by the occasional beeping of machines monitoring vital signs, was going to drive her crazy. Naturally, she continued to prod him further.
“You must do something to entertain yourself in your off time.”
“I have precious little personal time, my ever curious former apprentice. Every moment is of the utmost importance, and every second of time that ticks by must be used efficiently as possible if I want my carefully constructed plans to succeed. I cannot rely on only one course of events. If something goes wrong — and it always does — I will have to be able to course correct swiftly. Plans within plans, apprentice.”
“Well, that certainly sounds like a lot of stress. No wonder you’re so cranky all the time. I think you’re in desperate need of a massage — not that I’m offering to give you one.”
Baras let out a sound that sounded suspiciously like it was a laugh.
“At least I still have your quick wit and silver tongue to amuse me again. I did miss it, in your absence. That Twi'lek slave I gifted you has been rubbing off on you far more than I expected. Even while she was our prisoner on Korriban she would always mouth off with jokes.”
Arierra tensed up at the word slave, but took a deep breath and let the moment pass. She tried to change the subject quickly.
“Isn’t it kind of hard to breathe in that helmet you always wear? And I must ask, why are you still wearing it? It’s just you and me here. Nobody else is coming for another —” she paused and looked at her chronometer — “sixteen hours and thirty nine minutes, if the Imperial Medical Service do their jobs correctly.”
Arierra sighed deeply as she looked around the sleek white walls and locked glass sliding doors that kept them contained. It would be a trivial matter for either of them to break out using the Force, but this was a chance to perhaps squeeze important information out of her former Master, and Arierra wasn’t a woman to waste a good opportunity.
“In all likelihood we haven’t been infected,” she continued. “Especially if we haven’t shown symptoms by now. But with the Rakghoul Plague being so easily spread, I don’t blame them for being overly cautious. Even if that means ignoring the orders of a Dark Council member.”
“Indeed. It’s irritating, but understandable. And as much as I’d like nothing more than to leave this place and get back to the task at hand, an outbreak throwing a wrench in my plans is the last thing I need. It’s far more efficient to waste the twenty-four hours waiting here than to deal with the unpleasantness of the Plague.”
He paused, turning slowly to look her square in the eye.
“As for your curiosity regarding my mask...”
He reached up with both hands, clicking on a release switch on the base, and removed his metallic helmet. Arierra wasn’t sure what she was expecting his face to look like, but it sure wasn’t this.
There was no saber scarring or lightning burns. The everyday plainess of his round, middle-aged, pale face took a few moments to compute. The only hair on his face were his bushy eyebrows, and his naked gaze burned through her with bright golden eyes as he regarded her reaction.
He set the helmet down onto the small desk beside his chair and he smiled. “Not quite what you imagined, apprentice?” His thick, deep, voice — unfiltered by the metallic transmission of his helmet — sent chills down her spine.
“You are correct, I don’t have to wear it around you any longer. I have no need to intimidate you into submission, and we don’t have to be as formal as we have been in the past, given our current situation.”
“I think we dropped any sort of formality when you dropped a mountain on top of me,” Arierra said with a smirk.
Baras’ eyes narrowed and he leaned forward in his chair, studying her closely. “I can feel your emotions, but I sense no trace of anger towards me. A little surprising, but not entirely unexpected. You always did have trouble letting your true feelings bubble to the surface. I thought that by now you’d have mastered your emotions, but you still cling to the lessons given by your Jedi mother.”
“Maybe I would’ve mastered it if you bothered to teach me!” That came out louder and fiercer than she had expected it to.
I’m stuck with him for now, I might as well give him an earful while I can.
“If you had taught me anything at all. I swear, my father has taught me more about the Force in this last month than you have the whole time that you were my Master! Apprentices are supposed to learn from their Masters. I was nothing but a nameless minion to you, something to be ordered around like an akk-dog playing fetch. No wonder you were so worried that I might rise up against you one day! Maybe if you treated your peers better, you might not be so damn paranoid!”
The walls of the clinic shook in response to Arierra’s anger. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She was standing up. She hadn’t even realized she’d gotten up to her feet during her shouting.
Baras lounged in his chair, amused by the outburst.
“You might have trouble bringing out your emotion, but once it’s out, you are a force to be reckoned with.” He looked down at his helmet, which was completely crumpled into a small scrap heap. Arierra frowned at that. She should never lose that much control.
Part of her wished that he would’ve still been wearing the helmet when she crushed it with the Force, but now was not the time.
Plans within plans. Destroy his power base, then destroy him. The Force has me waiting for a reason, and I will listen.
But for now…
She sat down and placed a deck of cards on her chair’s armrest.
“I swear, boredom will do a better job of killing me than you did. So please. Let me teach you how to play Sabacc.”