The door opens, and a silver robot pauses on the threshold, cleaning supplies in hand. The view behind her is of an opulent black-and-red bedroom. "Excuse me, sir," she asks someone at a nearby table, "can you tell me what happened here?"

A minute later, she tucks the cleaning supplies away behind the door and approaches the bar.

"First time here?" she asks.

"Yes Ma'am."

She has a carefully friendly smile on her face as she says, "I'm Mikoto. This is Milliways, interdimensional bar apparently outside time. First drink - or equivalent I'd suppose - is free. Bar's intelligent, and she communicates with suddenly appearing napkins, which seem to startle some people, so, fair warning."

"Yes Ma'am, thank you."

A napkin appears, and she reads it. "Thank you, but I'll pass for now - may I ask questions about this place?"

Another napkin. "Thank you, Ma'am. Can I bring my master in? How long can she stay?"

Napkin. "Thank you, Ma'am."

"Your master?"

"Yes Ma'am. Sith Apprentice Deskyl."

"I'm not sure what a 'Sith' is, and unfortunately the translation effect seems to prioritize ease over nuance - how would you define 'master'?"

"The person I've been assigned to serve, in this case, Ma'am. Her master is my owner."

"Thinking beings should not be owned." Her tone's a bit more vehement than she usually allows - it's a sore spot, given her own history, and Marcus has been wearing on her. "Is this common where you're from?"

"Yes, Ma'am?"

She bites down her first few comments. "It's not like that, many places. Though, admittedly, my own homeworld has its failings - the rights of created beings aren't always upheld."

"Deskyl will be pleased to hear it, Ma'am, even if it isn't perfectly implemented."

"What's she like?"

"She's very calm, for a Sith, and unusually benevolent - Sith aren't, generally, caring about others is considered a weakness, but she's stubborn about it. And she was considered one of the Empire's best lightsaber engineers, a year ago; she's too badly injured to work, right now."

"The Sith sound like some of the people I've known. I'm what's known in the modern day as an Augment. A human, as much as some argue we aren't, created artificially and engineered to be better at many measures. Many of my kind have taken that a step too far. Why was she injured? What's a lightsaber? - Forgive me if I'm being too nosy, curiosity is one of my faults."

"It's all right, Ma'am. Lightsabers are the signature weapon of Sith and Jedi; they're swordlike plasma weapons that require telekinesis to wield safely. We don't have much information about her injury, but I'm hopeful that if she can stay here for a few months, she'll recover enough to remember what was done to her."

"The infirmary here's good. I don't know how well they handle old injuries, but they were able to remove the tracking chip on me safer than I could've on my own. Is telekinesis common where you're from?"

"Telekinesis is universal among Sith, but only about one in a trillion people have enough Force-sensitivity to be trained as Sith."

"Your world must have a large population, then. I'm assuming you're interstellar? Does it vary, among species, assuming there are multiple?"

"Yes Ma'am, our entire galaxy is inhabited, more or less. And Force-sensitivity does vary: humans are unusually likely to be Force-sensitive, though it's still quite rare for them, and many sapient species have no Force-sensitive members at all."

"Interesting. There's a great many species in our galaxy, but we haven't explored the whole thing, yet, and we're not as densely populated as 'entirely inhabited' implies. I haven't heard of the Force by that name, but it's also possible there's been few enough humans or potentials that it's merely been unlikely."

"It wouldn't be very hard to miss, without trained Force-sensitives around to notice untrained ones," she nods.

"Still, it is possible that's something we lack - many universes seems to have different magics..." She shakes her head, recognizing that she's gotten distracted. "What role do the Sith play in society?" she asks. It's one way to angle towards 'you shouldn't be owned,' and perhaps a more gentle one.

"Most Sith are in the military, Ma'am, either as soldiers or officers; they also run the Empire, and even the newest Sith Acolyte outranks any non-Sith."

"Most of the Augment nations were like that, ruled by the most powerful, and I believe some planets are. The Federation, and at least most of its constituent planets, are currently democracies."

She nods. "Some planets are democracies."

"Are there any other factions than the Sith Empire?"

She nods. "The most significant one is the Republic, which the Sith Empire is at war with; the Jedi live there."

"Are the Jedi like the Sith? Does the Republic also permit ownership of sapients?"

"Jedi are also Force-users, but they use different training techniques and are weaker in general. I don't have very reliable information about Republic laws, but my understanding is that they don't allow slavery but do allow ownership of droids."

"I would define ownership of any sapient as slavery."

"Yes Ma'am."

"I'm curious if you have an opinion on this?"

"Not especially, Ma'am? Droids are different than biologicals; I don't think it's the same for us."

"How so? And then what's the difference between a created droid and a created biological?"

"Droids are designed for our jobs. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I didn't have someone to tell me."

"There's biologicals with that problem, too. Most find a solution that doesn't involve anyone owning anyone else. And what of droids that dislike their purpose? I wasn't too fond of mine, myself."

"That doesn't happen, Ma'am. We're designed to be satisfied with our jobs."

"Even with incompetent designers, or cruel masters, or pointless tasks?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"That doesn't seem wholly likely to me, but I am nonnative to your world."

"Droids have very different psychology than biological people, Ma'am."

"What are droids like? Are there types?"

"Yes, Ma'am, there are five main categories, based on which kind of work we're made for: math and theoretical science, engineering and applied science, interaction with biological sentients, fighting, or manual labor. Our traits are decided based on the specific job we're made for; for example, my line is designed to work with Sith, so we're especially defferential and have a wider variety of skills than most servant droids."

"Hm. What sorts?"

"We're able to learn languages from exposure very quickly, and we're programmed for first aid and diplomacy."

She'll ask a few more questions - mostly about the Sith - and expresses a willingness to exchange information about her own homeworld.

And what's her homeworld like?

They don't have magic, or the Force, to her knowledge. She wouldn't be surprised if there's nothing. They're a space-faring civilization, currently occupying only about one sector of the galaxy. The Federation is the polity she belongs to; it's a loose association of worlds with a council and democratically elected leader. Starfleet is the exploratory, scientific, and sometimes military arm of the Federation. There's many types of aliens - she can describe a few - and she has an intimate familiarity with how their faster than light travel works (nothing like hyperdrives).

She's able to go into tangents easily, and clearly knows a lot about just about any subject she's ever found relevant - and lately her focus has been on politics, sociology, diplomacy, computer programming, and communications technology, in addition to her mandated focus on weapons and ship engineering.

DZ doesn't know enough about hyperdrives to determine that the Federation's tech is different; she does know enough about Force-sensitives to say that it's possible that they do have them and just don't know about it, since they're very rare and easy to miss without pre-existing trained ones around. Overall Mikoto's civilization sounds relatively similar to hers; they've focused on different tech, and they're perhaps a little more similar to the Republic than the Empire socially - both stemming from less focus on military endeavors - but in broad strokes, they have more in common than not.

After a while, she excuses herself to bring her master in.

Deskyl is a young woman, though perhaps older than would be inferred from her 'apprentice' title, wearing an embroidered black outfit that's otherwise plain and comfortable enough that it might be nightclothes. She peers around the room, hand resting on an object on her belt that her posture makes clear is a weapon, before nodding to the droid and letting her lead her to a booth near the corner of the room.

Mikoto is curious about her, and will make her desire to approach fairly clear through body language, but won't impose herself right away.

Deskyl notices quickly and gives her a curious, slightly suspicious look.

She'll approach. "Hello. I'm Mikoto Nakano. I spoke to DZ for a while, out of curiosity about your world."

She looks back to DZ.

   She's all right, Ma'am, she was very polite. She agrees with you about droids.

Good, Deskyl signs, emphatically.

    May she sit with us?

Deskyl shrugs.

" - The translation effect appears to work for sign, so you know. Do you prefer communication in that?"

Yeah.

She'll sign, then, after sitting down. "I apologize for any rudeness, but I've been trying to gather resources, separately from my own curiosity - and your world seems to have very different and possibly more advanced technology than mine."

Huh. Project?

"Someone is trying to threaten me into designing weapons for him. He has hostages. He is not as clever as he thinks. I am trying to unseat him with minimal collateral damage. Moderately separately, being responsible for interdimensional first contact, or at least introducing new forms of technology, would be a benefit to me."

Too bad I'm useless right now, she signs wryly. Sounds like he could use killing.

"I can trade help for help. I also plan to be in Milliways a while. And, quite frankly, book recommendations would be more help than most people have given. Bar can lend or sell me anything that's ever been openly published in any world she's connected to, but there's no way to search for or index titles that I can tell."

- get my datapad? she signs to DZ.

    I'll need you to hold the door, Ma'am.

Deskyl gets up, DZ tells Mikoto that they'll be back in a minute, and soon they're back with a bulky pad displaying a long, searchable list of engineering manuals.

"Thank you."

She reads the entire list, so quickly that she's on each screen just barely long enough for human eyes to register the image as distinct.

There's a good selection, from basic to advanced and even a smattering of works on cutting-edge theoretical developments, on a variety of topics - there's a noticeable focus on lightsabers, but everything from materials engineering through energy shields and blasters to hyperdrive design is covered.

She'll need to analyze the works thoroughly, work through the math to simulate if it's likely to cooperate with her world's physics, but she's done with the list quickly, and hands back the data-pad.

"Thank you," she signs. "I can furnish a similar list, if you'd like."

Less likely useful. The Force.

    "Sith are mildly precognitive; a new kind of weapon won't help very much with catching her master off guard."

"Entirely new magic might help, especially given little enough warning. But powerful magic, especially as is useful for instant assassinations, isn't something I've gotten a hold of yet."

Huh. Yes.

Mostly just need to recover, though.

"Here's good for that, yes. I can pay for a room for you, as repayment for the help, if you'd like."

Bag?

    Yes, Ma'am, if you hold the door again.

We're okay. Nobody should be stuck like that.

"Thank you again. If I find any applicable magics, I'll try to send them your way. Do you have any questions of me, even just curiosity?"

Droids - agree how?

"Sapients should have the freedom - legal, social, financial, and so on - to do as they wish, with legal limits only applying to limiting violent crimes. Droids appear relevantly sapient to me. Non-sapients with qualia should have rights to what rounds off to 'a comfortable life,' as much as can be arranged. Obviously, we don't live in perfect universes and sacrifices must sometimes be made, but there is an ideal to strive for."

Yeah.

"You have good priorities, I think."

Well, Sith.

    "...Ma'am?"

Deskyl has to think for a second about how to explain herself. Important things are where the power is.

    "Yes Ma'am."

"Is it common, for Sith to have your priorities?"

That startles a laugh out of her, a creaky sound, as if she hasn't used her voice in months. No. Caring about people is a weakness, for most of us.

"I have found it a strength, for me."

Sith are kinda fucked up.

"It does sound - toxic. Like it eats its own." 

Yeah. We'll be free of it soon enough, though.

"Good."

She nods. I just need to sleep for like. A month. But we'll be okay.

"Milliways is good for that."

Yeah. Maybe if you're still here, your jackass can be a warm-up for mine.

"Heh. That'd be convenient. Milliways does time weirdly, so who knows?"

Yeah.

Love, do you want to stay out here?

DZ doesn't respond immediately; from Deskyl's bearing, it seems like she expects her to take a minute.

Mikoto will give them their minute, then, as she returns to checking through the list.

    Once you're asleep, yes Ma'am, comes the eventual reply.

All right. Not yet.

"What's the plan?"

Recover; kill my jackass; go into hiding until the other apprentices give up on killing me back. Maybe take out one or two before I go, if I think I can do it. See how I feel about dealing with the Empire, after - we can hide forever, but it's pretty limiting.

"A good plan. There's magic that helps with hiding, and with freedom of movement - interplanetary teleports seem rare, but they exist, and if my faster than light technology works in your world I've been working on a technological solution."

Would be handy, definitely.

    I'll watch for it while you sleep, Ma'am.

Thank you.

"I'll try and see if the principles underlying our technology is compatible enough for my solution to carry over, too."