[Legacy Of The Force] - 08(133)

Shevu looked at it quickly in a way that said he either didn’t want to read it, or had already done so, in detail. But he was a former CSF officer. He’d have read it.

“Do you want me to take action, sir?”

“If you’d asked me half an hour ago, I’d have said yes.”

“So you’d prefer to forget it. The allegations are pretty strong…. but then it’s a satirical holozine known for that kind of lurid story.”

“Oh, I’m not disputing the facts, Captain.” “Really?” Shevu flared a little in the Force, a white-hot burst of surprise. Caedus realized few of the man’s superiors could ever have been totally honest with him. “They would have to prove the accusations if you pressed the issue.

“It’s just that they don’t seem to understand why I took certain actions. They make me sound like a criminal.” Cae-dus clenched his fist in his lap and let out a breath before feeling in control again, back in his own skin and not watching himself from the outside. “They’re only saying what I hear crew whispering in the mess-saying that I’ve killed a lot of people, and that I wasn’t on duty when Mara Skywalker was killed, and that they wouldn’t put it past me to assassinate even my own aunt-like one of those lunatic inbred Irmenu emperors. That’s what they say, isn’t it?”

Shevu was never one to show apprehension. He sat with his hands clasped in his lap and met Caedus’s gaze straight on. “Does that worry you, sir?” “Do you think it should?”

“Well, they seem to have sources within the fleet and other departments.”

“I despise disloyalty, too, but is it worth chasing gossiping clerks when we have admirals handing battle plans to the Jedi Council?”

“Depends on the effect on morale, sir.” “You sound just like Niathal.”

“Command is all about harnessing the troops’ willingness to suspend sensible self-interest and put their lives on the line when everyone else is running the other way. That’s morale. You’re better placed than anyone to feel what your troops really think of you.”

A lesser man would have agreed frantically with a capri-cious superior, afraid of saying the wrong thing, but Shevu wasn’t intimidated. Caedus still sensed wariness, but also a powerful sense of certainty like a permacrete slab. This was a man who knew his own mind and wasn’t afraid to stand up and be counted, and as he hadn’t fled like Niathal, that meant he was here because he wanted to be on Caedus’s team.

He understood justice, too.

“Do you want to know how it happened?” Caedus asked.

Shevu pursed his lips as if embarrassed. “Do you think I need to know? After all, I was involved with Gejjen. It’s not like I’m going to be shocked by this.”

I’m not a lunatic or a common criminal. I didn’t kill Mara in cold blood, and I care what you think of me, because I see all reasonable, good beings when I look at you. You’re my gauge of how ordinary people see me.

“I’d like you to know, “Caedus said. Shevu might not have understood the complexities of Sith prophecy-if he did, Caedus suspected he was too rooted in the physical world to give it any credence-but he would see why Cae-dus had no choice. “If I’m not burdening you.”

“No, sir.”

“I knew that Mara or Luke would come after me sooner or later for… taking their precious son as my apprentice.” Caedus knew Shevu liked Ben. There was no point explaining why Caedus had once thought he might be forced to kill him. “Do you know what I mean by apprentice? I’m a Sith Lord.” Oh, it felt good and clean to be able to say that openly. Shevu didn’t recoil. “Do you know what a Sith is? We’re Force-users.”

“Is it like the old-fashioned wing of Jedi philosophy, sir?”

“That’s… an excellent description. Yes, we’re more inclined to bring law and order than the Jedi Council.”

Shevu’s expression said it was an academic point. “So did she come after you, sir?”

“She vowed to kill me in front of witnesses in the Senate lobby.” “Oh.”

“Two Bith Senators, H’aas and Ph’Olla. And she was as good as her word. I was leaving the Rapes Cluster when she ambushed me in her StealthX, and we ended up on Kavan, where she pursued me into the abandoned tunnels and tried to kill me. We brawled, actually brawled-she brought down the ceiling and she was like a madwoman. Complete blind rage. I had lightsaber, blaster, and crush injuries, and the only way I could stop her was to use the poison darts I keep as a last line of defense.”