For Theron and Xaja: ❝ keep your eyes on me— just focus on me. we’re gonna be okay. ❞
The first thing Xaja was aware of was pain. Her head throbbed like a bantha was trodding all over it, and the rest of her body didn’t feel much better. She was sitting vaguely upright, she realized as she started to take stock of her battered self, trying to remember what had happened. One moment she and Theron had been walking down an alley on Nar Shaddaa – in hindsight, not their wisest move – and the next, they’d been swarmed by gangsters, too many for a pair of blasters and two lightsabers to deal with. Xaja groaned and tried to move her hands enough to wipe what felt like dried blood away from her forehead, and immediately felt panic rising in her chest when she realized her hands were bound behind her. “Shit,” she whispered, fighting down a whimper of pure terror.
There was a grunt from a few feet away, and then what felt like a booted foot nudged her shin. “Xaja?” Oh, thank the stars, Theron was here, and he sounded relatively okay. “You with me, babe?”
Xaja forced her eyes open, squinting in the dim light of the makeshift holding cell that she and Theron currently occupied. Slouched on the other side of the cell, his own arms behind his back, Theron looked awful – his hair was messy, jacket slashed up, and dried blood stained both his nose and his temple around his implants. When Xaja focused, she could see one of his shoulders looked to be painfully dislocated.
The worried expression around his eyes seemed to ease slightly when he realized Xaja was conscious. “Talk to me, Xaja,” he coaxed, making an effort to keep his voice level and relatively relaxed. “You okay? They hurt you anywhere?”
“... Not as bad as you,” Xaja finally said, swallowing back her fear as she gingerly tried to straighten her back against the wall. Pain and fear waged a war in her mind for dominance – for a moment, fear won out as she tried to pull her hands free of the binder cuffs holding her wrists immobile. The metal devices cut cruelly into her skin, tight enough that she didn’t have a hope of wiggling free. “Where… where are we?”
“As far as I can tell, still on-world,” Theron quietly said, frowning. “I don’t think these are Zakuulans who caught us – there’s too many aliens in the crew. Must be just ordinary slavers.”
“Could be taking Zakuulan credits if they figured out who we are,” Xaja finally answered, squirming despite the pain it caused her. “It… it wouldn’t take much for them to find Arcann’s bounty posting.”
Theron scowled. “All hyperlanes do wind up leading back to Zakuul,” he grumbled. “Can you sense anything outside this cell?”
Xaja closed her eyes and tried to reach out with the Force. A second later, her eyes flew open again as panic choked her voice into nothingness. Now she could register the collar on the back of her neck, suppressing her connection to the Force. And most Force-inhibitors could double as shock collars, in her painful past experience… She couldn’t stop the terrified whimper at the memory of her previous capture on Bandomeer, only a few short months ago.
“Xaja?” Theron sounded worried. “What’s wrong? Is it that bad out there?”
“I can’t… I can’t tell,” Xaja finally gasped out, fighting back a terrified sob. “They put a collar on me. I can’t… it’s blocking me…”
Theron swore in a language Xaja didn’t recognize. “Hate it when they’re smart enough to use Force-inhibitors. It’s okay, we’ll… we’ll figure something out.” He paused for a moment. “Xaja? Look at me, baby. Please?”
Xaja forced herself to register looking in Theron’s direction, panicked jade eyes briefly meeting worried amber before squeezing closed again. Every moment of Xaja’s lifetime of Jedi training seemed to desert her, leaving her panicking and vulnerable, in this dark cell, with her wounded boyfriend bound across from her, and with her access to the Force cut away from her. A little voice inside her head insisted that she needed to focus, to get her composure together and figure out a plan of escape, like any competent Jedi Master could do – but how, when she herself was bound so painfully tight, and when she couldn’t sense the Force at all?
“Come on, Xaja. Keep your eyes on me – just focus on me,” Theron’s voice cut through the cacophony of panicked noises in Xaja’s mind. “We’re gonna be okay.” She forced her eyes open again, frantically seeking out Theron’s gaze in the dim light. “There’s my girl,” Theron murmured in approval. “There’s my brave girl. Stay with me, okay? Just focus on me. Sorand and Lana know where we were, and Korin or your dad have probably already sliced into this sector’s security cameras to find out where we were taken. They’ll come for us. Just please don’t panic, babe. I know you hate being tied up and Force-blind, but stay with me. We’ll be okay.”
“I’m…” Xaja shakily inhaled. “I’m glad you’re confident,” she finally managed to whisper.
Theron seemingly forced himself to chuckle. “Hey, I’ve gotten into, and out of, way worse situations than this,” he said, shrugging his good shoulder. “If my arm wasn’t dislocated, I’d probably already be out of these binders and working on getting you free. Hell, we’d probably be halfway to fighting our way out of here already.”
But his arm was dislocated, and instead of freeing himself, Theron was occupied trying to calm a panicking Jedi Master who, frankly, should not have been so panicked in the first place at being bound, and in this dark, cramped cell, and cut off from the Force… Shame managed to cut through the panic enough for Xaja to take a shuddery breath, trying to force herself to focus. “We need a plan,” she finally said.
“Well, good news is, I’ve got a rough idea for a plan already, in case Sorand and Lana decide to take their sweet time in getting here,” Theron announced. "I have a lockpick in the top of my boot. I just need to… get it…" He grunted in pain as he tried to squirm his way to the hidden lockpick.
"And it's on your right side, isn't it?" Xaja asked, frowning in concern. "Your hurt side?"
"Naturally," Theron confirmed with a hiss of pain. "Fuck, that hurts!" He struggled for a minute longer, then groaned and sagged, seemingly taking a minute to focus on his breathing. "Okay… new plan. Can you dislocate your thumbs?"
"I…" Xaja frowned. "I can't say I've ever tried."
"Okay." Theron groaned and straightened back up as much as he could. "This was so not how I wanted you to learn how to escape binders. Do you have any give on your wrists at all?"
"Not really," Xaja admitted, trying to rotate her wrists as best she could. "They're too tight. I can't even rotate my wrists without it chafing."
Theron muttered a colourful-sounding expletive. "Dammit. It'll be really hard to talk you through it when you can't move much." He sighed. "Okay. Hang tight, I'll… figure something out."
"You're injured pretty badly, and I'm cut off from the Force and fending off a panic attack…" Xaja bitterly laughed. "We're kriffed."
"Not yet, we're not," Theron quickly said. "Besides, being the pessimist is my job. We'll be fine–"
The door to the cell slid open, and Xaja felt herself pale when she saw the four gang members standing in the doorway. Two of them wielded blasters, the third had a wicked-looking vibroknife, and the fourth had what looked suspiciously like the controls for her shock collar in his hand.
"... Never mind, you were right," Theron muttered.
—---------------------
"Wish that bounty from Arcann had been for me alive and in good shape," Xaja groaned several hours later, her voice hoarse from her agonized screams. The gang members had been very interested in seeing what a Jedi's pain tolerance looked like, and had taken their anger out on Theron when he'd tried to intervene.
He looked even worse now; Xaja wasn't sure how he was conscious. But he still looked up when Xaja spoke and offered a small smirk. "Downsides of having the galaxy's biggest dead-or-alive posting on you." He groaned and tried to shift into a less painful position, an all but impossible task. "Lana needs to hurry the kriff up."
Xaja nodded her agreement, then let her head fall back against the durasteel wall. Her neck hurt, and she could still feel the aftershocks of electricity running through her bound limbs. Her fear of the Force-inhibitor doubling as a shock collar was accurate, as she had painfully found out. "How's the leg?" The gangsters had decided that simply beating Theron for snarking at them hadn't been enough, and one of them had seen fit to shoot him in the thigh. The odour of burned fabric and flesh still lingered in the air.
"... Ow." Theron groaned again. "This would be a great time for someone on our side to show up. I'd even be happy to see your father right about now."
"As long as they have kolto, painkillers, and lockpicks?" Xaja asked with a weak laugh. She tried again to squirm her hands free of the binders, to no avail. "Shit. I'm losing feeling in my hands."
Theron muttered something uncomplimentary about their hosts. "I wish I couldn't feel my leg right about now. If Lana was gonna show up with a rescue, two hours ago would have been nice…"
"Now would be good too," Xaja agreed. "Hells, if they–" She paused, frowning. "Do you hear blaster fire?"
Theron grunted as he tilted his head toward the door. "... I think so," he murmured. "Think the calvary finally arrived. Took 'em long enough."
"Hope it's not a rival gang," Xaja quietly said as she slouched against the wall and anxiously watched the door. It didn't take long, although it felt like hours before the sounds of blaster fire ceased. Red and yellow light suddenly blazed from the edge of the door, running from top to bottom before it vanished, leaving a trail of molten durasteel in its wake.
The door was forced open, and two figures appeared in the opening, one wearing green beskar'gam, and one carrying a red lightsaber. "You two look like osik," Shara announced as she hurried to Xaja's side; behind her, Sorand rushed to free Theron. "What the nine hells did they do to you two?"
"Just about everything they could think of," Theron said with a groan. "What took so long?"
"You know how hard it is to find one gang on this damned moon?" Sorand retorted. The saber flashed, and Theron groaned again as his bonds were cut. "You need a hand getting Xaja out, Shar'ika?"
"Nah, I got this. I can put people in binders an' collars, an' I can get 'em out again just about as easy." Shara fumbled with the collar on Xaja's neck for a moment before the cruel device fell harmlessly to the floor; the binders followed them a minute after. "Let's get you outta here, jetii," the Mandalorian said as she hauled Xaja's arm across her shoulders and stood up, bringing the Jedi with her. "I'll let you get the spyboy, cyar'ika." Sorand grunted in acknowledgment, too busy healing Theron's wounds for a verbal answer.
"Hells it's good to see you," Xaja groaned as she was lifted to her feet. Her legs didn't want to support her weight, and she found she needed Shara’s help to escape the cell, struggling to keep up with the much-taller Mandalorian woman.
"Never been so happy to see a live jetii in my life as you," Shara said; Xaja suspected her sister-in-law was grinning under her helmet. "Sor'ika's got Theron in good hands. We'll get both of you into medical on the way back home. Just hang tight. There's kolto with your name on it on my ship, an' Lana will be bitching for an update on you. You're safe now."
Safe… She and Theron were both safe with the Mandalorian and the Sith who'd come to rescue them. Xaja sighed in relief and let Shara haul her out of the gang's base and to the safety of her ship. The sooner they were away from Nar Shaddaa and flying back home to Odessen, the better.
Xaja and Broken Glass for that mini prompt thing :D
Featuring @corey-067 's brainspawn Jakar, Xaja's bestie and the Taerich-verse Barsen'thor.
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Monster. Demon. Traitor. Broken.
“Shut up,” Xaja desperately whispered as she paced through her cabin on the Serenity. The voices in the back of her mind just laughed and continued their mantra that the Jedi couldn’t escape.
Sith. Traitor. The whispers followed her around the small ship, followed her onto planetary surfaces whenever she disembarked, haunted her every moment, both awake and asleep. Murderer.
“I’m not--!” Xaja clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her agonized sounds. She couldn’t deny the voices, not when the fragments of memories she still had confirmed them. Master Orgus, while he had been able to drive the Emperor out of her head, couldn’t have soothed the scars left behind. Xaja doubted even the best Jedi mind healers could have. But she didn’t deserve healing, did she? Traitors didn’t deserve to be spared pain. “Shut up,” she whispered to the empty cabin.
Broken. Monster. Sith. The voices refused to heed her pleading for silence. Weak. Demon.
“Stop,” Xaja pleaded, heedless of the tear escaping her squeezed-shut eyes and trickling down her cheek. “Please, stop...”
Sith. Monster. Demon. Failure.
“Shut up!” Xaja blindly lashed out with her right hand, as though she could hit away the monsters plaguing her mind. All she made contact with was the mirror, the sound of glass shattering temporarily drowning out the voices.
She hissed as she felt the shards of broken glass bite into her hand, blood appearing on her too-pale skin. With an effort, she forced her eyes open to assess the damage to her hand. She couldn’t go to Doc; he would just give her that sad, disappointed look while healing the wounds that she deserved. Maybe she could just wrap her hand in a towel until the bleeding stopped?
Her gaze travelled to the mirror’s remains despite her best efforts. The haunted eyes that stared back at her were green, not sulphuric yellow. But that didn’t mean anything, did it? A monster lurked under her skin, one that Master Orgus couldn’t have saved her from.
Footsteps outside the cabin door warned Xaja that the sound of the glass shattering hadn’t gone unnoticed. Shit. She looked down at her hand as the door slid open, the footsteps approaching her from behind, then stepping around her. She just saw the hem of a dark green robe, then felt two larger hands carefully lift her injured limb for inspection. When the hells had Jakar arrived on the Serenity? Then again, she was still docked on the Voss orbital station. Perhaps he had been around?
“Come on, short stuff,” the Barsen’thor finally said, scarred face drawn with worry as he stood back up and gave Xaja’s arm a tug. “You’re scaring me as much as you are the rest of your crew.”
Xaja shook her head minutely as she was pulled to her feet. “I’m fine--” she tried to say.
“No, you’re not. You need more than a medic, kid, no matter how good Doc is.” Jakar had to be upset if he’d resorted to calling Xaja ‘kid’ again. “We’re going to Corellia. Essi’s waiting for you at the Enclave.”
He’s in his apartment on Coruscant -- a place he hasn’t set foot in for almost a year. This feeling of warm comfort, of languidly rolling over in his bed, is one that he’s almost forgotten about entirely. He frowns -- why does this feel so strange?
But then he sees her in his bed next to him, curled up on her side, gazing up at him through her eyelashes. He smiles and leans in to nuzzle her nose, and for a second, everything feels perfect -- or almost perfect, anyway. “Hey,” he murmurs, his voice low and gentle.
“Theron.” How does her voice make his name sound so good? She smiles at his caresses, all but purring. “I miss this.”
“I miss you,” Theron whispers, and wonders where that thought came from. How could something be wrong in this moment of blissful comfort?
Xaja shifts slightly, her smile fading. Theron can feel the tendrils of dark, painful grief snaking back into this moment before she speaks again. “I need you, Theron. Please…”
“How could you need me?” Theron reaches to caress her cheek, frowning. “You’re--” You’re dead, floats through his mind, and now he remembers why this doesn’t feel right, and he wishes he could forget it again.
Fear flickers through Xaja’s eyes as she seems to shrink under his hand. “Theron, hurry, please. He’s… he’s hurting me again...”
“What? Who’s hurting you?” Theron tries to grab her shoulder, and panics when his hand goes right through her like she’s made of mist. “Where are you?”
“I don’t know…” Her voice is quiet, but he can’t tell if that’s because she’s fading away from him, or if it’s due to the tears he can hear her trying to hold back. He desperately reaches for her again as she cries out for him, as the apartment around them suddenly grows dark and terrible. He can hear a cruel laugh in the background, one that reminds him too vividly of Yavin IV and Ziost. “Theron, help me, please!”
With a ragged gasp, Theron jerked himself upward, for a second panicking until he recognized his surroundings. This wasn’t Coruscant… this was the sketchy back-alley hovel he’d taken up residence in on Zakuul, deep in the Old World where the Knights weren’t likely to look for an offworld spy. The narrow bed he laid on was cold, sheets strewn in all directions from his restless movements. And when he reached his hand out to where Xaja should have been at his side, he felt nothing but a hard mattress and a cold, painful grief.
“Fuck,” he whispered as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and dropped his head into his hands. Over two years after Xaja’s murder at Zakuul’s hands, and the grief hadn’t eased at all. If anything, his nightmares about her were getting more and more vivid. He wasn’t sure yet if this was better or worse than the ones he’d been having previously, the ones where his overactive brain decided to imagine what her final moments alone before her death had been like.
At least being alone in the dark as he was, with only Tee-Seven for company, there was no one to witness the tears on his unshaven cheeks, or the shuddering of his hunched shoulders as he tried to smother the grief again. He balefully frowned at the chronometer on his ocular display -- two in the morning, local time. He had a feeling he wouldn't be going back to sleep tonight, not with the lingering fear and grief drowning him.
"These dreams of you are gonna drive me mad," he finally mumbled as he wiped a hand over his eyes and took a shaky breath. He'd all but given up meditating, given how the Force seemed to have drop kicked him over the last couple of years, but maybe trying again now would calm him down after the nightmare. Leaving the bed, he knelt in front of the window that looked out over the Eternal Swamp beyond the city walls. He then closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing as he tried settling into the patterns Master Zho had taught him. In, and out… in, and out… in, and out--
Help me, Theron. Please!
Theron swore and flopped onto his back as Xaja's voice whispered in the back of his mind. "Never mind," he groaned, "I've already gone mad." When he had said he would have done anything to hear Xaja speak to him again, he hadn't meant being haunted into insanity by dreams of her. It shouldn't have been you. It should never have been you…
"Fuck, I miss you," he brokenly whispered to the empty air above him. "I want you back." He bitterly snorted. "Why can't I hallucinate you lying beside me where you belonged?" If this was the Force's way of giving her back to him in some form, it was a cruel comfort. He was pretty sure this counted as proof that the Force hated him personally.
"I'm sorry," he finally mumbled, squeezing his eyes closed as he felt tears trickling down his skin again. A low hum emitted from the corner -- no doubt Tee-Seven offering his concern -- but he couldn’t respond. He could only shake his head. "I need you back, Xaja. Never should’ve let you go to begin with. This just... hurts too much without you." He took in a shuddering breath. "I don't know what to do without you here."
So much for not getting attached, he thought with a snort of sarcastic amusement. He tried to tell himself to not risk it with the pretty Jedi during their time together on Rishi or Yavin IV, and that was even during happier times when she had still lived, a bright spot in his galaxy. He clenched his jaw in an attempt to smother down his grief and tried to think about something else… anything that had the hope of getting his mind off of Xaja, his dreams of her, and the regrets he carried with him.
Hours later, as he was sipping a mug of lukewarm caf and scowling at his datapad, he gave a start at Tee-Seven’s sudden beep of warning. The droid’s sensors had picked up someone walking down the alley toward Theron’s cramped residence -- someone walking quietly, but not exactly sneaking about. Frowning, Theron got to his feet, setting the caf down and reaching for his blaster. No one should have known he was here; no one had reason to be knocking on his door, the raps echoing in the stillness of the apartment.
Cautiously, Theron cracked the door open -- and a second later, wasn’t sure if he was relieved his visitor wasn’t one of Marcus’ operatives coming to track him down, or more uneasy that this was an Imperial asset looking him in the eye. “Nine,” he sighed, easing his grip on his blaster. Cipher Nine might be a notorious sociopath and an infamous Imperial spy, but Theron was at least reasonably sure that the old man wasn’t here to end him. If Reanden Taerich had wanted him dead, he could have killed him easily enough on Nar Shaddaa last year.
“You’re a pain in the ass to track down, you know that?” Reanden dryly said by way of greeting, shifting his hands into his jacket pockets. The older spy’s hair had gotten more grey in the last three years, and there were new lines on his face, but those calculating dark eyes were still as sharp and piercing as ever.
“Apparently still too easy,” Theron grumbled. He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. What the blazes had Cipher-kriffing-Nine been looking for him for? He settled for a direct approach. “What brings you out here?”
Reanden paused, dark eyes glancing to the alley for a moment. “That’s a conversion best not had out here,” he finally said, his voice low. “You mind?”
Barely keeping from rolling his eyes, Theron stepped back to allow the old man inside. His tone was acerbic as he gestured to the shabby room. "Make yourself at home." The door was secured behind him.
Turning, he watched Reanden survey the one-room apartment with its scarce furnishings, lazily shrugging one shoulder. "I've seen worse," the old spy as he sat in the one chair in the room. Somewhat surprised to not hear a snarky comment from the old timer, Theron found himself sitting on the bed as Tee-Seven started happily beeping upon recognizing their visitor. Even more surprising, he watched as the elder man patted the droid’s chassis with something approaching affection. "So this is where you ended up."
"Busted him off Coruscant when I left," Theron shrugged casually. "He was being wasted in a military hangar."
"Same time you took the Serenity?" Reanden offered a tired smirk as Theron started. "Heard about that through the vine."
"... Xaja would have hated her ship being left to rust in a hangar," Theron protested, for a second certain that the old man was ready to tear him a new one for stealing -- no, liberating -- his late daughter’s starship.
"She would have," Reanden agreed, his voice quiet, sombre, and definitely not the verbal fight Theron had been expecting. “Definitely the Corellian in her.”
Theron frowned as the old spy looked down at his hands, the normal snarky demeanour fading into a familiar heartache. “You didn’t sneak onto Zakuul for a social call, old timer,” he finally said. “And you definitely didn’t drop in to catch up with me.”
“Bite me, kid,” Reanden muttered, glaring up at Theron for a second before seemingly standing down and sighing. “There’s a lot of people searching for your hide in particular, but, no, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here on unrelated business -- only just figured out you were onworld about two hours ago.”
“And you tracked me down because…?”
“Because I figured you’d have a personal interest in this.” Reanden unflinchingly met Theron’s gaze when the younger spy frowned in confusion at him. “Sorand… has a theory that he’s asked me to look into, and I believe Lana will only be a couple of steps behind me on this.”
A personal interest for Theron that Cipher Nine would be involved with… and on Zakuul…? Maybe, he thought, the old man had an idea to kill Arcann directly for what he’d done to Xaja. And Darth Imperius was clever, with his own reasons to hate Zakuul -- perhaps father and son had figured out a plan. Or had Korin gotten into something? “What’s up? You find some sort of a vulnerability in that half-metallic bastard?”
“Not yet.” Reanden opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, paused, then shook his head. “What do you know about Force bonds, kid?”
Theron frowned in confusion. This was not where he’d expected this conversation to go. “Not a lot. Connections that form between Force-users, usually people close to each other.”
“Like a student and their teacher; a parent and child,” Reanden slowly agreed, “or siblings.” Theron felt his frown deepen as the older man looked at him. “Sorand had... formed a bond with Xaja, presumably some time during the Revanite incident. He’s been having intermittent dreams since…well, since the attack; they’ve been getting more intense over the past few months.” He sighed and raked a hand through his hair, an uncharacteristic sign of anxiety that Theron wasn’t used to seeing from him. The next statement left in a rush: “He believes there’s a chance that Xaja might have survived the attack. He suspects that if she's still alive, she’s probably on Zakuul, and she's in some sort of danger that he can't identify.”
For a second, Theron felt hope flare within his chest, his heart in his throat -- then reality kicked back in, and he felt his shoulders slump. “Dreams? If dreams were real, Taerich, I’d be piloting a Hutt pleasure barge overrun with gizka. The only dreams coming true now are nightmares.” He blindly gestured with one hand toward the wall, and the Spire beyond it, as if to prove his point. "You saw those reports of what happened to Marr’s fleet. There's no chance she made it."
"He swears up and down that he can feel her, or at least feel something where his bond with her was -- and he says it feels nothing like the broken bond he had with his mum.” Reanden grimaced, shifting forward in the seat. He rested his elbows on his thighs, fingers interlaced over his knees. “Look, I'm about as Force-sensitive as you and have no idea what a bond is supposed to feel like, but I trust my kid. He wouldn’t… offer hope where there isn’t any. He’s not that cruel." He shrugged. "At the least, I promised him I would do some snooping. Figured you'd be interested."
Sorand was a pretty sane, reasonable Sith, Theron knew. Unless the siege on Dromund Kaas had driven him completely insane… but Reanden, even with his clear biases toward his surviving children, should have been able to recognize that. So if Cipher Nine thought Imperius' hunch concerning a long-dead Jedi was worth investigating…
But if they're wrong? Theron raked a hand down his face as he stood up and paced to the window, then back again. "I can't do this," he heard himself whisper. "Getting my hopes up, and then finding out it was a false hope… I can't do that and lose her again." He had done that enough with the first reports of the infamous Outlander assassin, whispers of whom indicated they matched Xaja's description, unless there were other tiny, feisty redheaded women with blazing green eyes and blue lightsabers. Nothing had come out of that.
"What makes you think I can?" When Theron glanced over, he was struck by the tangible grief in Reanden's dark eyes, the sorrow making itself evident in the stoop of his shoulders. This wasn’t the Cipher Nine of legend, infamous saboteur and assassin -- this was a grief-stricken father. "My children mean everything to me, my daughter included. I need a confirmation, one way or another."
"Fuck," Theron muttered as he stared out the window for a moment longer, then finally looked back at Reanden. "If he's wrong and we're chasing a false hope, and she's still de-- still gone…"
"And if he's right, and Xaja's alive and in some sort of distress? Could you live with yourself if you didn't even try to help her?"
Help me, please…
Theron groaned and sat back down on the bed, the mattress creaking under his weight. Weird coincidence that Nine would show up with this new theory after last night's dream, he thought, and felt himself frown. The Force didn't operate in coincidences like this, did it? He wished he had Master Zho's guidance right then -- or Hells, even his mother. Somehow, he felt like Satele would at least offer some sort of advice. And he would take any answers he could get right now.
"I... dreamed about her last night," he heard himself admit quietly, before his brain quite caught up to his mouth. "It was different than the normal nightmares about her. She was… she was scared, and kept saying 'he's hurting me'. She didn't say who 'he' was, but…" He bitterly laughed and raked his hand through his hair. "And now I'm hearing her voice in the back of my head. I think I'm losing it."
When he finally looked back at Reanden, the older man was frowning in thought, clearly considering what Theron said. "Sorand thinks he felt her fear too," he added at length. "Said he could feel pain and cold -- thinks they might have been from her end of the bond. He didn't say anything about her being hurt by anyone though. I haven't been in contact with Korin, so I don't know if he's having dreams too."
"And you haven't…?"
"Pfft. Do I look like the type of person to have dreams from the Force?"
"You're as likely as me, old timer."
"One of us didn't get thirteen years of Jedi mind training as a kid." Reanden shrugged. "Not to mention you've been onworld longer. If Sorand's right, and Xaja's here, proximity probably can't hurt."
The idea that maybe, just maybe, Xaja was somewhere on this damned rock turned the spark of hope into a tiny flame in his chest. Theron closed his eyes against the sudden desperate yearning to have her in his arms right then, and for a moment was grateful Reanden couldn't sense his feelings. "You've got some sort of plan for looking, right?"
"I've got about forty percent of a plan," Reanden acknowledged. "You and Tee-Seven share what you've turned up so far, and we might have more of a plan before Lana turns up."
"Forty percent isn't much of a plan," Theron dubiously pointed out, not mentioning he was pretty sure he only had about five percent of a plan to search for Xaja himself… and only thirty percent of a plan to kill Arcann, which was rapidly being bumped down the priority list.
"This coming from the guy who blew up a Sith warship in his underwear."
"Never gonna live that down, am I?" Theron asked with a sigh as he made his way to the computer console, ignoring Reanden's smirk. "I've been doing recon around the Spire for the last few months…"
Out of every single high-stress, high-risk mission that Reanden had ever taken or been assigned to, this self-assigned posting on the Emperor’s Fortress had to be the worst. It wasn’t the high security of the station that made more of his hair go grey; he knew enough workarounds to get past that. It wasn’t the numbers of Sith roaming the corridors. It wasn’t even the Wrath lurking about, a crimson shadow who Reanden feared would learn the true purpose of his mission here.
It was watching the captured Jedi-turned-Acolytes, who had valiantly but foolishly attempted to capture the Emperor. And the worst part of it all was watching the young redhead who had his late wife’s face, but with sulphuric yellow eyes instead of green.
Your mother would cry if she could see this, Reanden thought as he watched Xaja, fighting to keep his own grief hidden. The Acolyte -- no, captured and involuntarily turned Jedi, he insisted on telling himself. Acolyte felt too permanent, too much of a conscious choice that Xaja had made. -- shared Airna’s face and slim build; and when he watched her combat training sessions, the lightsaber skills she demonstrated were an eerie echo of his wife’s talents. But that was where the similarity ended. Airna had never been so emotionless, or cruel -- and she certainly had never been lightning-happy like this, or able to torture her friends and crewmates under the guise of ‘interrogation’. (Hells, he wasn’t usually the type to torture, and he had spent years establishing his reputation of being a sociopath!)
He had read Xaja’s dossier the minute he’d gotten his hands on it, over a year ago while she and Darth Angral had been trying to kill each other. Both the SIS’s records and Imperial Intelligence’s intel had indicated that his daughter was feisty, and stubborn, and so, so loyal to the Republic and the Jedi Order. She had a reputation of her own, one of being fiercely protective, and brave, and gentle when she didn’t need to be fighting -- even if she was a little firecracker who seemed to have no problems goading her opponents into a fight and coming up with creative insults mid-battle. That dossier described a girl who could very easily have been Airna’s child, or his own. But this… the Sith walking into an interrogation room and toward one of her friends on the rack, accompanied by the overseer ‘re-educating’ her and a few low-ranked grunt soldiers, didn’t fit that profile at all.
She’s not a Sith, Reanden tried to tell himself as he glanced down at a datapad in his hand -- the current official record for her progress in being retrained to serve the Emperor. Your baby girl is not a Sith. She’s a Jedi, she has to still be in there somewhere… He didn’t know if the Force listened to any of the pleas it heard, and was pretty sure that if it did, it had made a point of ignoring him entirely, but it still couldn’t hurt to try. Please… she has to still be in there…
He looked back up from the datapad, and nearly dropped it in surprise when he saw bright green eyes instead of yellow looking out from under the shorn red hair. Instead of the cold anger he had grown too accustomed to seeing, he could now see confusion and fear as her gaze darted around the room, taking in her surroundings. He could all but see the gears in her mind turning as she tried to figure out what was going on; her eyes landed on her friend on the rack, and she seemed to make a split-second decision.
One lightsaber flew from her belt with a flick of her wrist; the blade activated in mid-air as it sliced through the controls for the torture rack. Xaja was already spinning around as shouts of alarm were raised from the soldiers and real Sith, her other lightsaber coming to her hand as blasters were raised at her; Reanden ducked out of harm’s way, knowing she would only see him as an Imperial captor should she try to fight her way out. “Doc, run!” she shouted, in a voice that definitely didn’t belong to the Acolyte who had walked into the chamber only minutes ago, as the second lightsaber ignited in her hand; she raised the weapon to deflect blaster shots away, but seemed to hesitate when she registered the red colour of the blade instead of the blue she had been carrying when she was captured.
She quickly shook her head and turned her mind back to the fight, but her split-second of hesitation had cost her. The overseer, who’d ducked behind a crate when the lightsaber came flying to release the would-be torture victim, got back up with a murderous look in his eyes, and a remote in his hand. Xaja started to whirl back around as she sensed the new threat behind her, and for a second, terror showed in her eyes when she recognized the remote in the overseer’s hand --
The overseer hit a control on the remote, and Xaja dropped with a scream of pain that at once made Reanden’s heart break for his daughter and made his blood boil with rage. How had he not registered the shock collar on her neck, hiding under what was left of her shorn hair? This had to be how the Sith were keeping her quiet and under their control, through a method every bit as torturous as the Castellan restraints. The overseer seemed to be in a sour mood, and kept Xaja writhing in agony for several long minutes before he finally seemed to be satisfied with the punishment he’d doled out. “Get up,” he snarled, still holding the remote threateningly.
Xaja slowly got back to her feet, once again the submissive, emotionless Sith Acolyte, if one ignored the trembling in her hands and how her shoulders seemed to shake with lingering aftershocks. The overseer marched up to her, staring at her for a moment until he seemed satisfied that she wasn’t going to turn Jedi on him again, then backhanded her across the face. “You’re lucky the Wrath wants you alive, you little bitch,” he hissed as Xaja straightened back up to face him, seemingly ignoring the blood trickling out of her nose and the bruise forming on her cheek. “You’re going to wish he didn’t by the time I’m done with you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Overseer.” Xaja’s voice was a flat monotone, once again a far cry from the fiery little Jedi she was. She was shoved back out of the room by the overseer, and Reanden found himself tasked with taking the other prisoner back to the holding cells. The man (Archiban Kimble, according to the dossiers) still appeared shaken, both by his brush with torture and from seeing Xaja both try to fight her way free and being subdued again.
Patience, Reanden reminded himself, as he pushed Kimble back into one of the holding cages; as he left, he could hear the doctor telling the gruff soldier, the anxious Padawan, and the fretting astromech droid that “Red” was still in there. All that the old spy wanted to do right then was break his daughter out of captivity and personally feed the overseer alive to a pack of rabid bogstalkers. But if he tried that now, it would only get himself, Xaja, and her crew killed. At least now, knowing that his daughter wasn’t a lost cause yet, he could bide his time and wait for the opportune moment to help her escape. Keep fighting, baby girl. I’m not leaving you in here.
Even if he couldn’t find her brothers, he could at least do his best to make sure his daughter escaped back to safety.
Reanden had always been trained to keep an ear open to his surroundings. And this visit to Dromund Kaas was no exception. Even while tracking down the dissidents plotting against the Empire (and good for them, he thought, even if he couldn’t actually help them without getting himself killed), he was listening. Darth Baras plotting things that weren’t half as much of a secret from Imperial Intelligence as he thought -- that was par for the course. The Great Hunt over in the Mandalorian enclave was well underway -- so far, there seemed to be a couple of Mandos vying for the top rank. Lord Zash, up to her scheming ways again, and this time with a new apprentice she’d plucked off of Korriban -- one from the first batch of Force Sensitive slaves to be sent for training, reportedly.
About as normal as one could expect for Kaas City, he supposed.
The old spy typically tried to keep clear of Kaas City’s shenanigans, especially where the Sith were concerned -- and yet, still was unlucky enough to somehow attract Darth Jadus’ attention. As he was making his way out of the Dark Lord’s chambers in the Citadel and trying to not obviously limp (one day, he would learn to not snark off to touchy Sith Lords. He’d been telling himself that for years now, eventually one day it would kick in.), he caught sight of a hulking mass lumbering into the Sith sanctum behind Lord Zash and her newest pet apprentice. His first thought was of a Houk… but a Houk didn’t have sharp teeth he could see at twenty paces off, and a Houk didn’t make the typical haughty Sith Lord back away with a horrified expression (well, not often). Honestly, he was kind of impressed that Zash and her apprentice seemed rather nonchalant about it.
“The fuck is that thing?!” Kaliyo hissed, sounding startled for perhaps the first time that Reanden could recall.
“Some sort of ancient Sith monster,” he muttered, wracking his brain for the research he’d done on Sith history over the years. It was a lot harder to focus with his head still pounding in protest at his insistence on snarking off at a member of the Dark Council. “Looks like a Dashade, but I thought those went the way of the Rakata eons ago.”
“... Which means what?”
“Extinct.”
“Yeah, well, guess not.” Kaliyo edged around until she was on Reanden’s other side from the Sith and their pet monster, all but using the agent as a human shield. “Can we get out of here before that thing decides it’s hungry?”
“What, didn’t want to stick around and admire the Sith aesthetic?” Reanden muttered distractedly as he looked back at Zash and her apprentice. The new Sith student was tall and humanoid, but had a hood up that covered their face. Yet something kept drawing his eyes back to the student (a male, if he had to guess by the stance and height, depending on what species they were). Something about that stride hinted at familiarity, nagging at his memory. While he wasn’t a stranger to slave trade circles, he hardly had any familiarity with any slaves -- or former slaves, if the rumours about this Sith apprentice were true.
Your son wound up a slave, whispered a voice in the back of his mind cruelly -- one that made him scowl to hide his despair and grief. He’d failed to rescue Sorand, and now Force only knew where the boy had wound up while his father had floated in a kolto tank after being shot. If the slavers hadn’t killed him outright, they would have unloaded him onto the first prospective buyer, and this time Reanden had no chance of finding a lead as to where his youngest son was now. Sorand was gone, as untraceable now as Korin was, and none of his extensive contacts in Imperial Intelligence, or the SIS, or the criminal underworld, could turn up any sign of two missing teenage boys. Hells, if anything happened to his secret daughter, hidden away with the Jedi, he wasn’t sure what he would do…
“Nine?” He was brought out of his despairing thoughts by Kaliyo nudging his arm, looking confused, and perhaps a bit concerned. “You high on something? You ain’t the type to zone out like that…”
“... It’s nothing,” Reanden quietly said, sharply turning his head away from Zash, and the Sith monstrosity, and the quiet hooded student behind their master. “Let’s get moving -- that insurgent plan isn’t going to foil itself.”
“Damn,” Kaliyo muttered as she followed the spy out of the Citadel, glancing over her shoulder once as if to see what had gotten Cipher Nine’s attention so fully. She finally shrugged, chalked up her boss’s distraction to the creepy monster behind the Sith, and hurried after him. Really better to make sure she was far away when the beast eventually decided it was hungry. If nothing else, Sith could find weirder and creepier pets than any Hutt she’d ever worked for. Right now, she wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
Something in the Force flickered. With a quick glance to see if Zash was watching him (she wasn’t, her attention given to chatting with another Sith Lord), Sorand slowly turned his head, as though idly surveying his surroundings. Khem Val growled behind him, but seemingly had nothing of value to say right now, letting his master look around.
For any other Sith, the human man walking out of the Citadel with the Rattataki woman beside him wouldn’t have so much as raised an eyebrow, unless perhaps questioning why a Force-blind man was in the Sith sanctum, or cautiously wondering what Cipher Nine’s business here was. Sorand hadn’t been a respectable Imperial citizen long enough to have heard the exploits of the legendary Intelligence asset, but still found his eyes drawn to the older human, completely ignoring the Rattataki woman.
His heart skipped a beat, and he had to fight to not cry out for a second -- he still made a soft little gasp that almost went completely unheard, unconsciously taking a step toward the stranger. In the dim lighting of the sanctum, from several metres away, the man looked like his father, enough that Sorand desperately wanted to call out to him. Dad! If only that man were to turn his head, so Sorand could see more than just the profile of his face --
What good would that do? asked the bitter little voice of reason in the back of his mind, one that shattered Sorand’s hope as much as his heart. Dad’s dead. You saw them shoot him. There’s no way it’s him. If his mother, a fully trained Jedi and strong in the Force, couldn’t keep herself alive in the final duel that had claimed her life, there was no way in the Nine Hells that his Force-blind father could have survived that shot. Force knew he still had nightmares where all he could see was that smoking hole from a blaster in his father’s chest. If only Sorand had been a Sith sooner, perhaps he could have kept both of his parents alive…
But he hadn’t been, and his parents were both dead, and he was pretty sure that at this point, his older brother had to be dead too. The Force wasn’t the benevolent, saving power like his mother had told him. It was cold, and cruel, and wouldn’t cut him a break by miraculously giving him one of his parents back. Would you even have been able to save them?
“Apprentice?” Zash had wrapped up her conversation and was frowning at him. “What is it?”
“... It’s nothing, my lord,” Sorand quietly said, turning away as the man who couldn’t be his father vanished into the shadows. He’d learned over the years in the slave pens how to keep his face still and emotions hidden, and he was pretty sure this was his greatest test, to keep his freshly-renewed grief for his father pushed down to where it couldn’t be felt. Sith didn’t cry. Sith absolutely did not cry, not for their murdered parents and siblings, and certainly not in front of their masters. “I thought I saw someone I knew.”
“Hmm. A former associate from Korriban, or your life before, perhaps? This won’t be a distraction, I trust?” Zash’s dark eyes glinted in the dim light -- calculating, analyzing, seeking a weakness.
“No, my lord.”
“Good.” Seemingly satisfied with her apprentice’s answer, Zash nodded and turned back around, resuming her stroll to her chambers. “Come along -- we still have to discuss your strategy for dealing with Skotia.”
Swallowing down the knot in his throat, Sorand fell into step behind his latest master, trying to forget the man he’d seen, and the wild, desperate hope that made the grief hurt all the worse. If he threw himself into Zash’s scheme to kill Darth Skotia, perhaps he could keep himself distracted enough to get through the pain.
He still found himself looking at every older human man who even vaguely resembled Reanden Taerich for the remainder of his time on Dromund Kaas, searching for the one who looked too much like his father.
"Keep your true nature secret." Master Orgus' voice still echoed in Xaja's mind as she opened her eyes, curled up tightly on her side on a bunk in a cell that only seemed vaguely familiar. "Find a way out. Your dark allies will help."
She didn't know who or what to trust, besides the memory of her dead Master. Dark images flickered through her memory, with fragments of screams and the smell of blood. Pain echoed through her entire body, focusing on her hands and her neck, like she had been electrocuted. She could feel a tight shock collar on her neck and tried to force down her terror, feeling like she was going to throw up. She definitely remembered that agony, always hitting right as she had started to feel like her thoughts were clearing, and instinctively braced herself for a renewal of the pain. Have to get out of here. Master Orgus said I’m still on the Emperor’s Fortress? Where's my crew?
The door to her cell hissed open, and a uniformed Imperial officer strode in, seemingly ignoring her as he marched to the console opposite the hard bunk. The door slid closed again, and Xaja watched him with her heart in her mouth, slowly reaching for a lightsaber (a terrible Sith-designed weapon, one that she just knew it hurt to wield. Where were her own lightsabers?). Not a Sith or an armoured soldier, just an officer with a blaster pistol -- and an older-looking human man at that. If she could take him down without raising an alarm--
The officer turned to face her directly as though he could sense her thoughts, looking her dead in the eyes. His own widened slightly before he subtly raised his hand and shook his head, a warning to not move. Frowning, Xaja watched as he blinked a few times, as though interacting with implants she couldn't see, before he spoke, his voice a low whisper. "Do you know who you are?"
"I'm--" Xaja looked down with disgust at her Sith garb, then back at the officer, feeling defiance spark within her. "I'm a Jedi Knight, not a blasted--"
"Shh!" The officer shot her a hard look as he glanced toward the door, then whispered again. "I've uploaded a recorded feed into the security cams in this room to hide our movements, but you can still be heard through the door if you speak loudly enough. Do you know where you are?"
"What…?" Xaja shook her head in confusion. "Imp space… the Emperor's Fortress…" She felt herself pale. "Hells, my team-!"
"Worry about them later, Jedi," the officer whispered as he pulled a small container out of his pocket. "Can you wear contact lenses?"
Xaja frowned, growing more confused by the moment. "I… yes?"
"Good. Put these in. They'll hide your eye colour." The package was set in her hands as the officer stepped away, dark eyes glinting in the light. "If you want to get out of here alive, do exactly as I tell you. Do you understand?"
Xaja looked at him as she opened up the package and pulled out one contact, a fearsome yellow shade that made her feel sick. That was a colour that belonged in a Sith’s eyes. "Why are you doing this?" she whispered.
"I have my reasons, Jedi. Today, if you don't mind." The officer impatiently gestured for Xaja to hurry up with the contacts. "The second the Sith suspect you're not under their control anymore, they'll break you again, and I won't be able to help you. This is our only shot to get you out."
Still utterly perplexed, Xaja obediently blinked in both contacts, anxiously watching her apparent rescuer. Maybe he was SIS? But no, how could a Republic spy make it here? "Who are you?" she softly asked as she stood up, feeling her hands shake. Honestly, it was a miracle the contacts were in right.
"A friend. That's all you need to know right now. Hold still." The officer reached for Xaja's neck, pausing when she flinched out of fear. "I'm not going to hurt you. Trust me. I'm disabling the collar."
"Wh-- can't you take it off?" Xaja pleaded, right now uncaring of how weak she sounded, feeling the collar like a vice on her neck.
"Not yet. It'll alert them that something's up." The officer squeezed her shoulder reassuringly as he fumbled with the collar, before Xaja heard a soft click. "There. It's disabled. Don't give them a reason to want to use it and they shouldn't catch on. You'll be able to remove it when you're out of here." He stepped back and pushed a heavy dark robe in her arms. "Put that on, and quickly. The recorded feed is about to run out."
Xaja shrugged the black fabric over her shoulders, frowning at the officer. "You're Imperial," she hissed. "Why are you helping me? What do you get out of this?"
The officer paused, looking at her for a moment before finally sighing. "My wife and I gave a child to the Jedi years ago," he quietly said, ignoring how Xaja's eyes widened in surprise. "Be about your age now. I want assurance that my kid is alive and safe."
How the blazes… a Jedi child?... Xaja shook her head to clear her thoughts. Checking on someone's Jedi child was a small price to pay for escaping this hell, even if the child's parents were Imperial. "What's their name?" she whispered.
The officer hesitated, then shook his head. "It’s not safe here," he whispered. "I'll tell you when we get you to your ship."
Xaja nodded and followed her rescuer as he opened the cell door, and immediately fought the urge to flinch when she saw the Pureblood looming in the corridor. The Wrath, her mind supplied, as he spoke to the officer, paying her no heed. "Her status?"
"Perfectly stable and compliant, my lord," the officer answered, his voice the same cool, even tone that Xaja was used to hearing from Imperials. "No problems at all."
"Good." The Wrath nodded and turned to walk off. "Escort her to the interrogation chambers for her training session. Tell the overseer I want an appraisal as to her progress from you directly."
"Yes, my lord." The officer saluted and started walking in another direction, Xaja trailing a step behind, her heart in her mouth. The Wrath hadn't acted like he suspect anything… was it a trap? A pair of contacts and a robe shouldn't have been enough to fool him. Was the officer working directly for him?
Focus, she heard Master Orgus whisper in the back of her mind. She shuddered and quickened her pace to fall into step beside the officer. Was this what Master Orgus has been talking about?
"The Wrath ordered me to give him an analysis of her status, Overseer. Directly."
The overseer scowled. "She's mine to break and train! The Wrath should trust my judgement, as should you."
"With all due respect, Overseer, I'm more afraid of the Wrath than I am of you." The officer didn't sound scared in the slightest. "He is the one who speaks for the Emperor, after all."
"Fine," the overseer finally snarled. "But stay out of the way. I will not have you causing a distraction." He turned to Xaja, then pointed at the rack. "Today, we test your ability to extract information from the enemy. One of the scum you arrived with awaits interrogation. You’ll conduct it while I watch. You will use the tormentor device for this."
Xaja wanted to kill the overseer with her bare hands for that, or to plead for mercy for Kira on the rack. But over the overseer's shoulder, she saw the officer minutely shake his head, and resigned herself to this. "Yes, Overseer," she quietly said; apparently he was satisfied with that, and let her approach the console and the victim on the torture rack, not seeing how her hands trembled. Oh, hells, Kira, she silently cried out as she saw her Padawan, what have they done to you? What have I done to you?
“Good,” the overseer said as he followed Xaja to the console. “It’s a simple device. Three inducement settings, each inflicting greater pain on the subject. The tormentor monitors the subject’s vital signs...” Xaja had to tune him out at that, lest she strangle him. But she couldn’t look directly at Kira’s eyes either, not without the guilt crashing down on her for what she had presumably done. Master Orgus had said this wasn’t her fault, but...
"Come on," Kira frantically pleaded as Xaja stepped up to the controls, "I know you're in there. You’re not one of them! If I beat him, you can too!" Hells, Xaja couldn't remember ever hearing her Padawan sound that scared, or that desperate. Fragments of blurry memories made her feel nauseous. Had she been made to torture her Padawan and her friends while in this hell? She was afraid of the answer being yes.
She set her hands on the control console, fighting to keep quiet as she heard the overseer’s instruction to start on the lowest pain settings. Don't draw attention or suspicion, the officer had said. But hells, she couldn't torture Kira! But if the overseer realized that the Jedi wasn't under the Emperor’s mind control…she could see the control for the shock collar at his belt. He would use it if he suspected she had broken free.
An idea glimmered in Xaja's mind, and she jumped on it. "I'm sorry, Overseer," she said as she made a show of pressing buttons on the console and tried to not let her voice shake. "There appears to be a problem with the controls."
The overseer snarled and marched up to the console. "Blasted technicians," he muttered, scowling. "Step aside, I’ll have a look." He knelt to access the cables running under the control panel, and Xaja saw her chance. Her foot flew up in a kick before the Sith saw the attack coming, striking him hard enough in the neck that she felt bones snapping under her boot. He fell in a limp heap, and Xaja frantically fumbled to find the release controls for the rack beside her.
"... Well, it’s about time," Kira shakily said, her voice higher-pitched with relief. Oh, that was Kira, trying to make a joke even in this hellhole. “Get me out of this thing, will you-- who is that?” she added, giving the officer a suspicious look as he approached the console.
"He's a friend," Xaja quickly answered as she disabled the restraints on the rack, letting Kira escape the device. "He helped me get this far. Are you all right?"
“I am now,” Kira nodded as she gave Xaja a hug, one tight enough to make the redhead's ribs ache. “I knew you’d come back. You’ve been fighting him enough…”
"We're not done yet, ladies," the officer interrupted as he opened a supply cabinet and pulled out another robe, holding it to Kira. "Get that on and keep your head down. The hangar isn't too far away. The rest of the Sith here don’t know that you’re back to normal, but that won’t last forever."
"What about the rest of my crew?" Xaja asked, worriedly looking at him. "... they're still here, right? They aren't…" I haven't killed them? Force, please…
"Still in the docking bay, locked in cages. We’ll get them out and get the lot of you on your way." The officer waited for Kira to pull the hood over her head, then opened the cell door and looked out. "Coast is clear for the moment. Hurry, before someone finds that psychopath."
Of all the sounds Xaja had expected to hear as they approached the hangar, blaster fire was not one she had anticipated. "What's going on?" she hissed.
"I'm not sure," the officer whispered, drawing his blaster pistol. "Stay behind me. You," he added to Kira, "duck. Your saberstaff is on the ship."
Xaja grimly nodded and tightened her hand on the Sith saber she carried. It felt so different from her right lightsaber, too bulky and jagged in her hand; but it would do to defend her unarmed Padawan. She rounded the corner after the officer, took a look at the commotion in the hangar bay, and for a second felt panic when she saw the Wrath, and a few Imperial soldiers, some of whom were already dead on the ground, and oh no, Doc and Rusk and T7 all on the ramp of the ship, wielding blasters…
The Wrath held his hand up, and the remaining Imperial soldiers were raised up by their necks, struggling and gasping until Xaja felt their life forces blink out, letting silence descend on the hangar. The Pureblood looked up as the officer entered with his charges, eyes widening minutely in surprise. When Xaja looked over to the officer, he appeared equally startled, both by the Wrath’s presence and the unexpected turning on other Imperial assets, and seemed to be deciding whether or not to shoot the Sith.
The Pureblood finally inclined his head in an understanding nod, which the officer returned as he holstered his weapon. "The alarm will be raised in minutes, Jedi," he said, sounding like this was a perfectly reasonable situation to be found in. "More guards will come, besides the ones I killed freeing your crew. Shall we go before they arrive?"
Xaja’s eyes narrowed as she considered the scene in front of her. The Wrath turning on his own faction to save her crew, aiding and abetting their escape… but he was the fucking Emperor’s Wrath! And she still didn’t trust her own mind or judgement. “Free Master Tol Braga and the rest of my strike team, and I’ll consider it,” she snapped, and ignored the officer’s quiet groan of exasperation beside her.
“If they were here, Jedi,” the Wrath answered as he turned to face her, “I would have liberated them as well.” Xaja tried hard to not reveal her intimidation as he stepped up to her, towering over her petite frame, forcing her to tilt her head up to look him in the eye and trying to ignore the ache in her neck. “Had I wanted, I could have killed you on Quesh. Did you never wonder why I hesitated?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I have waited over three hundred years to see the face that came to me in a vision. Your face.”
“... I’m never going to understand Sith,” the officer muttered under his breath, sounding as perplexed as Xaja felt.
Xaja shook her head firmly, trying to clear her mind. How the blazes had she shown up in a vision three centuries ago? “You might have mentioned this on Quesh, or in your master’s fortress.”
“I needed to be sure the time had come,” the Wrath answered with a small shrug. “Now I know. There are only a few beings who have ever broken the Emperor’s domination. You and that girl are special,” he added, nodding at Kira.
“Thanks,” Xaja dryly answered, and for a moment felt confused when she sensed a tiny spurt of pride mingled with worry through the Force, not her own emotions. That couldn’t have been from the officer, could it? “And we have the power to destroy your master.”
“Not yet,” the Sith corrected. “Not without my help.” He seemed to sense the confused looks everyone else was giving him. “Though the Emperor conceals his true plans, I have seen them, and that vision has driven me to this.” He didn’t hesitate as he knelt in front of Xaja, ignoring the way her jaw dropped, or how the officer seemed to put his arm out instinctively as though to protect her. “I pledge my loyalty to you. Take me to your Jedi Council on Tython, and I’ll reveal why.”
“What the blazes…” Xaja frowned. “How do I know this isn’t a trap? You’re the bloody Wrath!”
“And I seek to save this galaxy from annihilation.” The Sith sighed when Xaja didn’t seem swayed. “And without my help, your ship will never escape. I can guide you to freedom.”
“... He may have a point,” the officer finally said, his voice low as he spoke to Xaja. “He’ll have codes to get out of this station’s security that not even I have. And not that it might matter to you, but nobody has ever seen him kneel to anyone else over those three hundred years. Even the Emperor himself is questionable.”
… Shit. Xaja sighed and fixed the Wrath with a hard look. “If you’re coming to the Jedi homeworld with us, you’ll be under guard at all times. Don’t attempt anything.” She could sense Rusk sharply nodding his agreement to her left.
“Your flattery is pointless,” the Wrath dryly said as he stood back up, offering the officer a small nod. “I do not seek your people’s deaths -- only their cooperation. But time is a luxury we no longer possess. We must go -- now. I will navigate us through the defense grid.”
I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m bringing the Emperor’s fucking Wrath on my ship and back to Tython. But if I don’t… if he’s right about the defense grid… Xaja frowned, then offered her crew a terse nod. “Load up. He’s right about needing to leave five minutes ago.”
“I really hope you know what you’re doing, Red…” Doc muttered as he joined Rusk and Kira in running up the Serenity’s ramp, T7 close behind. The Wrath followed, at what was probably to him a leisurely pace, at a stride that Xaja would have almost had to run to keep up with.
Xaja made to follow the Sith into her ship, but paused on the ramp when she realized the officer hadn’t made to join them. "Are you not coming with us?" she asked, turning back to face him. "What if they find out you helped me?"
He shook his head and offered her a small, tight smile. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I have a cover to maintain here, and I’ll be able to slip away in the chaos of the Wrath vanishing. Get going. Don't stop until you're back on Tython."
"Wait--" Xaja hesitated as he paused in the middle of stepping away from the ship. "... Our deal? You said you had a child in the Order you wanted kept safe? Who am I looking for?"
The officer sighed heavily and finally turned to face Xaja fully. "Yes… yes, I did give my only daughter to the Order as a child." To Xaja's surprise, he smiled, even if the gesture was bittersweet. "You get back to Tython safely, and I’ll consider our deal met. That will be enough for me."
What?... Xaja felt her mouth fall open in shock as she tried to process the officer's words. Impossible! He isn't… he's your… how?...
The officer -- her father? -- smiled as he stepped back toward her, setting his hand on her arm and gently squeezing, his eyes soft and kind like she would have never expected to see from an Imperial officer. "You look just like your mum," he quietly said. "She would have been so proud of y--"
An alarm started blaring, ruining the moment. The officer sharply looked back at the hangar entrance, then gave Xaja a firm push up the ramp, his gentle touch vanishing with sudden urgency. "Go!" he sharply whispered, quickly stepping back off the ramp and reaching for his belt. Xaja heard the flick of a stealth generator as she tried to reach back for her resc-- her father, and barely saw his wink before he had completely vanished. His presence in the Force disappeared like he had never been there, and Xaja hesitated for a long moment. How had--
"Red!" That was Doc's yell from up the ramp. "Let's go!"
Xaja shook her head and ran back up into her ship, lingering for one moment longer as the ramp drew up, trying to get one last glimpse of the man who claimed to be her father. Did you know who he was, Master? she silently asked Master Orgus' spirit, and got no answer. If-- when she got back to the Republic, she would have to try and find the identities of her parents, the nebulous father and mother she had never really thought about before. My father's Imperial? Am I Imperial? Why did he save me then -- or give me to the Jedi in the first place? Is he with the SIS? What about my mother? Why did he sound like my mother is dead?
She had to push her questions down as Rusk piloted the Serenity out of the station with the Wrath navigating -- no, Scourge, as he insisted on being referred to -- and into hyperspace at a speed that could be called reckless. And she had to focus on her questioning of Scourge and why he insisted on leaving the Empire with them -- and no, he said he hadn't known who the officer was. And he wouldn't give her any details as to why he had left with them, which frustrated her. But she didn't have it in her to argue more with the Sith who had helped her escape. She would have to get her answers with the Council's briefing.
The questions about her father came rushing back when she finally staggered into her quarters and threw the terrible Sith lightsabers into a corner, planning to shower until she had scrubbed the touch of the Empire from her skin. The Imperials wouldn't have raided her ship and taken her Jedi clothing, would they? She would burn the robes and lightsabers she had now when she got to Tytho--
Two lightsabers she had never seen before rested on her bed, neatly side by side. They looked to be worn, yet well-maintained, with old signs of weathering distorting some of the decorative engravings in the silver hilt. Xaja cautiously picked one up and ignited it, and felt relief when the blade was bright blue, not crimson. These weren't her old lightsabers (and who knew where those were now. Odds are the Imps would have destroyed them.), but they were still Jedi weapons that would work just fine for her. Better than the Sith ones she had thrown into the corner, at any rate. The one she was holding felt perfect in her hand, as though it had been made specifically for her -- their crystals seemed to resonate with her as though she had chosen them herself on Ilum.
Then she saw the note on the flimsi sheet under the sabers, in someone's strong, neat handwriting. Her heart in her throat, she deactivated the lightsaber in her hand and picked up the note.
These used to be your mother's. She wanted to pass them down to you, if she ever had the chance. I've been holding onto them since she passed in case I got the chance she never had. I wish it had been under better circumstances.
She would be so proud of you, and the Jedi you've become, if she could meet you. I'm proud enough for both of us. Stay safe, little one.
Dad
Xaja felt herself crumple to the floor, holding her mother's lightsaber in one hand and the note from her father in the other, tears making the letters in his handwriting blurry until she couldn't read it anymore. For a long moment, grief welled up beside her lingering fear and trauma -- grief for the mother she would never meet, and grief for the lost chance to know her father. Odds were she would never get to meet her father again, or thank him for saving her life. How did one of her parents, who hadn't seen her since she had been a baby, manage to track her down as an adult and rescue her? Why would her father have cared about the child he had given to the Order so long ago?
And if the lightsabers, so obviously not Sith in design, had been her mother's… was her mother a Jedi? Then why had nobody on Tython ever mentioned it?
Filled with more questions than answers, Xaja curled up in a tight ball, holding the only two tokens from her parents she had ever held. I hope he didn't get caught, she silently pleaded to the Force. Please, let my… let my father have gotten out of there safely, please…
The message from Marcus himself came in a week later -- which was a nice change from the last few messages that all seemed to centre around telling Reanden off for putting official galaxy-altering missions on hold for personal pet projects that had a high risk of getting him killed. "Fine, you did a nice job jailbreaking. The Council is happy to have their star back... even with a hell of a stowaway. My point still stands: you’re still a dick."
Reanden wearily smiled and hid the encrypted message in his personal files as he piloted the Shadow toward Belsavis. One of his children was safe, even if her brothers were still unaccounted for. He would have to be satisfied with that for the time being, even if he knew the odds were that he would probably never be able to meet his daughter again in-person. As long as she was safe, he could deal with that. Stay safe, baby girl.
31. "You haven't lost me" for the Angst/Fluff prompt
Oh, look at me answering prompts months after the fact!
Xaja blinked as she started awake, staring into the dim lighting of the bedroom and frowning in confusion. She wasn’t sure precisely what time it was, but it had to be stupidly early on Odessen, far earlier than she liked to be awake. The hells had –
A stifled gasp came from the other side of the bed, earning Xaja’s full attention. Frowning, she rolled over, only to see Theron’s face twisted in a pained grimace. “Theron?” she whispered, carefully touching his shoulder.
The spy didn’t respond to her touch or whisper, too lost in his dreams to notice her. No, not dreams, Xaja realized as Theron turned his head with another groan – a nightmare. “No…”
“Theron, it’s okay.” Xaja gently shook his shoulder, mindful to not jostle him too much with his still-healing abdominal wound. “You’re okay, love. Wake up.” She leaned in to brush a kiss over his sweat-dampened forehead, and frowned when he didn’t react to her touch. “Theron?”
“Please…” Theron begged whoever was in his nightmare. Xaja felt her heart break at his next words. “Not her, please…”
“Theron!” Sitting fully upright, Xaja shook his shoulder as hard as she dared with his wound, her own fear starting to rear its head. “Please wake up. It’s okay, we’re safe. I’m here, Theron. I’m right here–”
Theron’s eyes snapped open, terror filling his hazel gaze. A strangled cry escaped him as he tried to lunge upward despite Xaja’s hand on his shoulder; a different cry escaped him as his wound made itself known again, making him curl up as best he could. Agony mingled with the fear in his unseeing gaze as he stared at monsters only visible to him. “Xaja, no!”
“I’m here, Theron.” Xaja rested her hand against his cheek, cradling his face as her other hand rubbed his shoulder. “I’m here, love. We’re okay. You’re safe, you’re safe…” She kept talking to him as she finally started to see awareness in his eyes, finally sensed the nightmare loosening its hold on him. “That’s it, love. You’re okay. We’re on Odessen, and we’re both okay. You’re safe with me, sweetheart.”
Theron’s hand finally raised to grab her wrist as his eyes sought out her own, the panic finally lessening. “Xaja?” he whispered, as though he couldn’t quite believe that she was there.
“Yes, it’s me.” Xaja leaned down to kiss Theron’s forehead, feeling his other hand reach up to touch her hair, then her cheek. “I’m right here, Theron, and I’m not going anywhere. You were having a nightma–”
She yelped as Theron suddenly grabbed her, pulling her close enough to him that she could feel the bandages around his stomach pressing into her own skin. He buried his face in her shoulder; she could feel him shaking. “They had you,” he whispered. “They were… stars, I couldn’t…”
“Shhh.” Xaja raked her fingers through the lines of hair growing back over Theron’s scalp. “You haven’t lost me, Theron. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.” She kissed his hair again as she settled back down in the pillows, soothingly stroking Theron’s ragged hair and kissing him until she felt him calm down again. “It’s okay. We’re both okay.”
Theron finally took a shaky breath, microscopically loosening his tight grip on Xaja. “Sorry,” he whispered, pulling back just enough to look her in the eyes. Xaja felt her heart shatter again when she saw the haunted look in his gaze. “For… for waking you up.”
“It’s okay,” Xaja murmured as she gently kissed his lips. “Better me waking up than you stuck in that nightmare.” She felt Theron hesitantly nod, and stayed quiet for another minute, brushing her fingers over his stubble-clad cheeks and feeling his breathing synchronize with hers at last. “Do you need another dose of the pain meds?” she finally asked.
Theron quickly shook his head, despite the pain flaring in the Force around him. “Not the meds,” he quickly said before hesitating; fear coloured the Force again. “I… I can’t wake up,” he quietly confessed, his voice almost inaudible. “I can’t…”
“Oh, Theron,” Xaja whispered, her heart twisting at his openly fearful expression. Whatever demons he had faced in his nightmare, the monsters he had encountered in the Order of Zildrog, they had to rival her worst dreams of Valkorion to scare him that badly. “C’mere.” She drew Theron back down to snuggle, guiding his head to rest over her chest where he could hear her heartbeat. Her hand reached down to just touch the bandages; Xaja stifled a hiss as she drew on the Force, transferring some of Theron’s pain to herself. Hells, she had hoped to never feel this type of pain again, even if second-hand; but it wasn’t like they had more options.
He frowned, looking up at her as he felt her tense instinctively. “Xaja, what are you–?”
“It’s okay.” Xaja managed a smile for Theron as she kissed his forehead. “Nothing I can’t handle.” Stars knew she was considered one of the experts on being stabbed with lightsabers and surviving to tell the tale. She stroked her fingers soothingly through Theron’s hair, just along his temples like she knew he loved. “Sleep, Theron.”
“But…” Theron frowned, fighting off the drowsiness that already threatened to take him over again. “You can’t… not for…” His grip on her tightened. “I don’t wanna lose you…”
“You’re not going to lose me.” With an effort, Xaja drew more of the pain into herself. Her discomfort was well worth seeing Theron’s face visibly relax as the tension in his body eased. “I’m going to be right here when you wake up, love. I promise.” She kissed his hair again as his eyes closed; he snuggled into her chest, his breathing finally steadying in the slow currents of sleep. Xaja didn’t dare move until she saw the lines in his forehead vanish, his mouth slightly falling open, his Force-signature relaxed and calm.
Yet she remained awake for the rest of the night, guarding him from the pain and the demons he had picked up during his months undercover.
