Star Wars: The Last Inquisitor (Patreon)

The New Republic Detention Facility on Dagorrah hadn’t seen much change since it’d the Imperial Detention Facility on Dagorrah. As far as Kon’an could tell, it’d literally only been given a fresh coat of paint.

He’d had plenty of time to examine it. Since being caught last year, he hadn’t seen the outside of the place. No trial—but then, he would’ve been disappointed if there had been. He didn’t give this New Republic much chance of succeeding where the last had failed, but at least they knew enough to see he was guilty.

Then one day, the ghastly shade of yellow that was supposed to be so much better and more friendly than the old antiseptic white parted and he had a visitor. A Twi’lek, which always got his cock hard. Especially this one.

Not a Lethan—beggars couldn’t be choosers, of course—but still beautiful. Pretty face, ripened with age, slightly matronly but still young. Rounded hips. Full buttocks. Robust breasts and lekku, twitching slightly, just itching to be manipulated, he’d wager.

And like all Twi’leks, she dressed to accentuate what she had to offer. A skintight pair of sand-colored pants—struggling so much to contain the big moon of her ass that they were just starting to wear thin along the lowermost slopes of her buttocks—and a tunic that, sadly, he didn’t get very much of a look at. She wore a flight jacket over it. Playing at respectability. She probably felt obliged to, with those general’s pips on her breast.

But as good as her assets were, the best was her face. Girlish despite her maturity. A wicked gleam coming naturally to her blue-green eyes—like an accentuation of the bottle-green color of her skin. And a sweet smile, no matter how sardonically she wore it… greeting him with a sarcastic friendliness that seemed to come natural to Rebels.

Say what you will about the Empire, but when they hated your guts, you knew it.

Kon’an stood up for her, fastidiously straightening his incarceration togs for her viewing pleasure. “On program,” he quipped.

“That’s not funny,” she replied. Terse. Trying to be serious. Twi’leks always worked too hard at it.

“Neither is pretending to send me a dancing girl. If it were my birthday, I might’ve believed you. But it’s not. Substandard prank. And absolutely bottom-of-the-barrel torture.”

She blinked coolly at him. “I’m here with an offer. You can shut up and hear me out or you can play games. I understand the impulse to play games—stars know there isn’t much else to do around here—but if I can’t use you, I’m gone.”

Kon’an seated himself on his bunk. “You can use me, I’m sure.” He gestured to the fresher. “You’re welcome to take a load off. Or.” He patted the bunk next to him.

There wasn’t anywhere else to sit in his eight by eight feet existence.

“I’ll stand,” she said. “You know who I am?”

He shrugged. “I don’t spend a lot of time looking at Twi’leks’ faces.”

“My name is General Hera Syndulla, New Republic Peacekeeping Force.”

Kon’an worked his nostrils. “How’s that going for you? ‘Keeping the peace’?”

“It’s going. No thanks to you, Inquisitor.”

“And you’d like to change that?”

Hera leaned against the wall next to his door. It was still open. Like a treat in front of a Scour-hound, seeing if it was well-trained enough to wait until it’d been given the order to eat.

“You would,” Hera said. “If you want out of here.”

Kon’an scoffed. “You want me to work with you?”

“For me,” Hera corrected. “I’ve read your file. You’re one of the few who bothers to cooperate with the psychologist.”

Kon’an’s shoulders worked up and down. “It’s free flavor and the rations could use it.”

“You know what it says?”

He smiled at her. “Now, do you want me not to play games or do you want to give me openings like that?”

Hera ignored his leer. “It says you’re a sociopath. Total amorality. Motivated entirely by your own gratification, with a bare minimum of sentiment—mostly pride in your work, which you characterize as honor, but most rational individuals would call smugness. You don’t believe in the Empire, you never did, but working for them handed you wealth and power, so you murdered and terrorized—”

Kon’an laughed, shaking his broad chest. “You got to be a general without ever taking any lives? Causing any terror?”

“I was on the right side.”

“Really? And who elected Mon Mothma? Or Garm Bel Iblis or Borsk Fey'lya or any of the others? Palpatine was duly elected Chancellor.”

“Until he seized power to declare himself Emperor.”

“And how did your bunch get power? Asking nicely for it?”

Hera shook her head. “I’m not here to have a debate. You don’t care about the Empire. You’re a glorified mercenary. The tribunal probably would’ve accepted your decommission if you’d surrendered—”

“Surrendered? I was on the Outer Rim, enjoying my retirement, when your shock troopers blasted down my door.”

“Your retirement with two Twi’lek body slaves.” Hera smiled humorlessly. “Should I be flattered?”

“Not really. I couldn’t afford any Theelins.” Kon’an leaned back until he was touching the wall his bunk was set against. “But let’s cut the Bantha fodder. The reason I wasn’t decommissioned is the same reason I couldn’t surrender, the same reason I’m in here—the same reason you’re here, I’m betting.” He drew his lower lip between his teeth. “I used to be a Jedi.”

“Padawan. I’ve known Jedi—real Jedi.”

“Couldn’t find any of them?” Kon’an asked, mock-sympathetically. “I do hear the rumors. Skywalker out canvassing for new apprentices, Tano still obsessed with finding the apprentice she did have… and lost… your government needs lightsabers. And the people you need them for don’t care if they’re red or blue.”

“There is one other thing in your file I should note before you run down Luke Skywalker in my presence—he said he encountered you on Phulonos, shortly before the Empire fell.”

“Really?” Kon’an asked sarcastically. “I don’t recall the guy. He must just have one of those faces—”

“He said the two of you were stranded together in the middle of a hostile biosphere. He made a deal with you to put hostilities on hold until you’d both escaped.” Hera fixed him with a stare. Those baby blues seeming bluer than ever at the moment. “You kept your bargain. You could’ve killed him after, but you let him go.”

Kon’an’s lips pinched together. “Does that impress you?”

“It tells me I might be able to work with you. That there is something to your ‘code of honor’ besides just you flattering yourself. Or that you’re too much of a coward to risk your neck against a green lightsaber. Either way—you can be put to use.”

“I’ll take it.” Kon’an came to his feet. Hera didn’t wince, but her eyes betrayed a flash of fear.

Of course, she was one of those hero-types. They got off on facing their fears. Kon’an was more efficient than that. He simply didn’t have any in the first place.

“What are your terms?” he added.

“Amnesty, for one.”

Kon’an blew air through his lips. “Life as an ex-Imperial in your brave new world? I might as well stay in prison.”

Hera crossed her arms. “Do you know how much of a limb I’m out on already, letting the last surviving Inquisitor out of his cage? Half the Senate thinks I’m crazy, it’ll be the whole damn thing if I hold my hat out asking for credits.”

“I’ll settle for returning my stolen property to me.”

“Your seized property was auctioned off to pay for reclamation efforts on New Alderaan.”

“Even the pleasure slaves?”

“They were returned to Ryloth.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to do.”

Hera’s lips grew taut. “Do what?”

“What do you think?” Kon’an moved slowly toward her, unbuttoning his jumpsuit. “What are cute little Twi’leks good for… when there’s a lonely human man in need?”

A tremor went through Hera. Especially her lekku. “That’s not going to happen,” she assured him. “I can leave you in here, right now, for the rest of your miserable life!”

Kon’an grinned. She’d overstepped. Bluffed, and it was obvious. And if she needed to bluff, it was because she had a weak hand. “If you’re desperate enough to come to me, you’re desperate enough to give me whatever I want.”

“We’ll get you to a Leisure Zone before we leave…” But her voice was timorous—not at all as confident as it’d been even a moment ago.

“What are the odds I find a girl I like when you’re sending perfectly good Twi’leks back to Ryloth?” Kon’an shucked the top of his jumpsuit down his torso—baring to Hera’s gaze first his superbly firmed pectoral muscles, then the hair that bristled over his cobblestone abs. “No. You. Besides, I’d hate to make you jealous, going for someone else—”