Kaeve to Jaesa and back: GWE Valentine’s Letters (2/5)
A couple of years in the future…
*
Miss Willsaam,
Six months ago, I lived in hiding. I lived in fear. I lived believing that there were maybe two other Light Side Sith alive and I would be putting them in danger if I reached out.
You connected me to a far greater movement. I don’t mean any particular number of people, I mean that once connected to you I am no longer alone.
A man could be grateful for a favor like that.
Jaesa, I wish I had a proper planet for you. For our allies, of course, but also you. Do you like forests? Deep, dark, murmuring forests, a brook to sit by on hot days, maybe clearings for those flowers you said you like. It’d be a start, wouldn’t it?
I look forward to speaking with you again soon.
Faithfully yours,
Kaeve Brindel
*
Dear Kaeve,
Every subverted Sith I meet is another star in my sky. The nights are not as cloudy as they once were.
Imagine a refuge where we could exchange our lessons and breathe our air in freedom. An old forest, of course enough space for friends to land. A school, an Academy maybe. Once I begin dreaming I have trouble stopping.
I don’t have to tell you what I’ve lost to get here. Thinking about the future makes each day just a little easier. It is encouraging that you are in that future.
I enclose a holo rendition of forget-me-nots. They grow all over my home planet. A reminder, and a promise, that nature survives despite the wildest dreams of despots, and despite the worst fears of those paralyzed by what might be. Whatever else might happen, they grow.
[An absolute blast of a piece for @queen-scribbles featuring best boy Tragen not at all realising that his new gear might be compromising Jaesa's attention--]
More of my bullshit: the Sith Warrior has the worst group of companions. Vette and LS Jaesa are the only good ones. Broonmark, Pierce and the psuedo space n*z* Quinn should all die in a fire together. And DS Jaesa is just...so many bad feels.
Honestly the worst group of companions, with the worst romance options too. Quinn is a sniveling squirming pro-slaving fanatical fascist, Pierce is gross, and DS Jaesa is even grosser.
Vette is honestly one of the best romances in the game (SHE SHOULD BE BI LET HER BE AN OPTION FOR LESBIAN PLAYERS TOO BIOWARE COWARDS) but Vette and LS Jaesa carry the entire crew on their poor pretty shoulders.
Ruth didn’t correct the title. It seemed like whenever Jaesa was upset she got formal, and she was trying so hard to be as formal as was Imperially correct. She was taking on, not just a person, but a way of life, and she was trying.
“What is it?” Ruth said gently.
Jaesa cast a look at the entrance to the bridge. “It’s Light Side Sith, Master. I can sense them when I reach out with the Force. I think they’re living in hiding. I could go to them. Show them they aren’t alone.”
Ruth thought at once of the lightsaber masters her father had befriended in years gone by. Light Side adepts all, some living in hiding, some traveling in secret to meet and tutor their friend’s daughter. The community was small, but they wove bright threads into the Empire’s fabric.
“Do you want me to come with you?” said Ruth. “I don’t have an assignment right this minute…”
“Let me try,” Jaesa said.
“Very well,” Ruth said. “If you need to rent anything, I’ve opened an account for you. You and Vette can make fun of me for having a local economy.”
“I don’t want to be a drain—”
“Let my rank and fortune do some good. If you need to rent or travel, the account is at your disposal.”
Ruth found herself too excited to do much of anything while she waited for Jaesa’s news. She played pazaak with Vette, and in an intense betting session they ended up owing one another three hundred credits, a good meal at the next tolerable cantina, these cookies Plasmajack knows how to make that are just unbelievable, and a button that had popped off the red plush furniture somehow from a spot they had been unable to find. They had at that point been running low on creativity.
The Light Red’s futuristic whoosh heralded the opening of the passenger door. Ruth jumped to her feet.
“Do I get to hear what this big thing was now?” said Vette.
Jaesa walked in stiffly. Her eyes were red, the old-fashioned miserable kind rather than the Force kind.
“Jaesa?” said Ruth.
“I found them,” she said hoarsely. “They thought I was an attacker, or a trap. Most of them fled, but two…attacked me.”
The cloud of possibilities spun into razor wire, tightly wrapped around them. “Oh, Jaesa. Are you hurt?”
“Nothing a ship’s droid couldn’t fix. Your lightsaber lessons are already paying off. But I…they would not be subdued, and…”
“You killed them.”
Tears were shining in her eyes. “Yes, Master.”
“Your first time?”
“Yes, Master.”
Korriban was a memory still spiky in Ruth’s mind. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jaesa, I shouldn’t have let you go alone. Sometimes when your intentions are good you can forget that others’ might not be.”
“They thought they were protecting their friends.”
“We’ll do better. We’ll find their families, those two people. If they were in hiding from their own families, maybe we don’t give more than the fact that we were Sith and they died well.”
Jaesa’s mouth twisted. “Isn’t that worse than nothing?”
“Not to an Imperial,” Ruth said softly. “In the future, you and I could go together. Subdual isn’t a specialty of mine, but if we surrender, if we let them disarm us…”
“You could still stop them if they attacked?”
“One hundred percent…never done that before, but I’m confident I can protect myself, and you, without a lightsaber. And it might not be bad. We can make friends. If we can get past the mess and the fear…it could be really good.”
“If they would trust us,” said Jaesa, “we could build something. A town, or a school, for Light Side practitioners. They wouldn’t feel so alone that any outsider seems like a threat.”
“I like your thinking. I don’t know what I can do about it, but I bet if we think it’ll become clearer, in time.”
*
Ruth had enjoyed her time off, but she knew that when Darth Baras scheduled a holocall, it was time to meet Quinn on Dromund Kaas and get ready to work.
“Apprentice. I trust your time off has left you rested and deadlier than ever.”
Jaesa cast Ruth a pleading look. Ruth shrugged fractionally. It was her master’s rhetoric, no more and no less. “I’m ready,” she said.
“I think you will find this most instructive. The time has come for a test of your endurance and control.”
“Who do you want me to fight?”
“You mistake me.” Those three words sounded amused. “I know of a location of great concentration in the Force. It is called Dagobah, and it is only arguably called habitable. I will send you coordinates. You will find a cave, and will stay in it alone for three hours. The challenge will make itself obvious.”
Baras was many things, but vague was not one of them. “What should I know about this?”
“Walking away is but one of several ways to fail. Accepting help is another. And failure will be deadly.” He always sounded like he enjoyed that part. “Three hours, apprentice. I look forward to your report.” His image vanished.
“As you command,” she said pointlessly. Her input to this was clearly not required.
*
“Nope,” said Vette. “The Light Red is not landing in that.”
“We’ll take the skiff,” said Ruth.
So the four of them crammed onto the Light Red’s little detachable skiff. Quinn piloted them into a dank green mist that gradually became dank green branch-slapping and ended on a dank green island.
At the coordinates Baras had provided, a circle of ancient, mossy trees stood over a dark, damp clearing. Two trees had exposed roots laced over a person-sized entrance. The cave.
It wasn’t just a place. It was a wound. It was self-absorption so black she could barely see even with her regular eyes.
“Vette, time me. Three hours, then call for me. Don’t go in. Quinn, I need you to stand guard. For things from the outside. Jaesa, I need you to stand guard for things from the inside. Anything that isn’t me. This place belongs to the Dark Side of the Force. Don’t be worried. I have operated in its shadow all my life. Whatever happens, let me face it on my own terms.”
Jaesa looked doubtfully at the cave. “Ruth, he said it could be deadly. What if it…?”
“I'm very motivated, Jaesa. I have you and Vette and Quinn now, and how could I let you three down? It'll be okay.”
Ruth swallowed, wishing she could sound more convincing. Vette nodded encouragingly. Ruth walked through the doorway, and down a gradual incline. Weird shapes glowed to light the way, into a round cave with a ceiling not much higher than her head. It was claustrophobic and emotionally vicious.
Ruth had expected one thing, and it strolled out into the round cave immediately. Dark Ruth mirrored Ruth exactly, down to the glossy new gray armor she wore, only with a black-red mist floating around her like an enveloping cloak.
Dark Ruth smiled. “We last met on Tatooine. Did you think your prince and his ever-handy blaster could kill me?”
“How are you here?”
Dark Ruth began circling. Ruth took both of her lightsabers and watched. In that hard voice, the one Ruth only used when she was asserting her rules, “I am where you are. I am you. You will never be rid of me. But you could silence my voice if we merged. Isn't that what you really want? To be whole, the woman you can be in her natural, masterful habitat?” The woman paused and tilted her head. “He would want you more.”
The change in context slapped her. “Stop!”
“What, no weapon flashing? Why do you insist on losing? You fear me…now hate me.”
“I pity you. You are every step I didn't take from the narrow path. And you lead nowhere.”
The room seemed to contract with Dark Ruth’s snarl. “The narrow path is a lie the Jedi fed to your father, and you took it with your dying mother’s milk. Your entire family will die in your collective delusion if you don’t do something. Grow up.”
Ruth backed up beside someone she just noticed: a girl in a rough beige tunic, maybe nine years old, maybe younger. The girl sat cross-legged on the noisome cave’s floor, and as Ruth backed past, the girl waved one small hand and a pale green forcefield sprung up between Ruth and the space of the cave.
Ruth looked at her. “Thank you, but you’re not safe here. Go to the surface. My friends will help you.”
The girl didn’t show any sign of having heard her. The forcefield remained. Ruth touched it. It buzzed faintly to the touch, and did not let her through.
“Well, then,” said Dark Ruth, “you can kill the girl at any time to get to me.”
“You’re insane.”
Dark Ruth whistled and smirked.
Quinn staggered forward into the weak light as if shoved. He half recovered, saw Dark Ruth, and fell to his knees.
She set a heeled foot on his chest, then rolled her head over to eye Ruth. “I just don’t understand what’s so hard about taking this.”
No. Hadn’t she told them to guard one another? Were Vette and Jaesa okay? What did Dark Ruth mean to do to Quinn? Ruth pushed the green forcefield. Nothing but a creepy buzzing against her skin. “Leave him out of this.”
Dark Ruth kicked. Quinn fell back, scrambled, and came back on hands and knees, his expression intent.
Dark Ruth stooped to peer at Quinn’s face. “Oh, you have been bad, even without our girl here to see it. I should punish you.” Again, that roll over toward Ruth, with a cruel smile this time. “I will, Captain.”
Dark Ruth hadn’t had Force lightning the last time Ruth met her. A stench of ozone and burned hair rose as Dark Ruth streamed purple lightning into Quinn’s head. He went down, twitching.
Ruth pushed the forcefield. It didn’t give. She activated her lightsabers and thrust them both at the same point, leaning with all her power. The forcefield didn’t give.
“Girl, please. I have to get through. I have to help him. Let me through.”
The girl gave no sign of hearing or understanding.
“You could kill her,” Dark Ruth yawned. “I know, it’s a bit outside your idiom, but I will continue to torture your prince here until you stop me.”
Something passed Quinn’s lips. It was like a whimper.
“No!” Ruth shrieked. “Stop! Let him go! Stop it! Stop it! I’ll do anything, just let him go!”
“You know, I can go on hurting someone for a long, long time. But killing him, well, that’s swift and easy. You can figure out how to do it to your adorable captor. I’ll just keep playing”—a burst of static knocked Quinn to one side—“while you decide on your priorities.”
“It’s me you want to hurt. Don’t take this out on him. Don’t!” The lightning and the screaming went up together.
*
Quinn, Vette, and Jaesa stood, not quite in a group. They all tensed when the screaming started.
Vette’s lips parted. “We can’t leave her in there.”
Jaesa said, “She told us to wait. No matter what.”
“They’re hurting her! What if this is like Tatooine? She needs us!” Vette took a step toward the cave’s bearded entrance.
A blaster bolt hit the moss by her elbow. She jerked aside and glared back at Quinn. He didn’t lower his blaster when he said, “Do you think I missed?” His eyes could have cut Mandalorian iron. “If we interfere, she dies.”
“And if she’s dying anyway?”
“You know as well as I do that she’s better than that.”
The screaming below started again, full-throated and desperate. And it really seemed arguable, whether Ruth alone was better than that.
*
Reacting was getting her nowhere.
“Quinn,” she said softly, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t look in her direction.
Could she let go of this? If she didn’t, Dark Ruth might kill her entire party. There had to be some option other than killing a child or doing nothing.
Ruth knelt. She smoothed away her senses, her fears, her panic. She let them sink into something soft and white.
She accepted. She felt the forcefield like a great pane of glass. She felt Dark Ruth and Quinn like twin masses of roiling shadow. That seemed wrong. Quinn had never been that…unsettling. But she let the questions pass.
The Light Side of the Force, a thin and shaky memory in this place, wrapped around her with its regular cool solidity. She let it exist. She let it all exist.
Quinn let out a hoarse shout. Dark Ruth’s heel was on the back of his neck.
And that was part of the universe, and Ruth didn’t approve but she could look at it without being blinded by urgency. She turned her gaze to the little girl holding up the forcefield. “Will you let me pass?” she asked.
The girl finally turned her head. “Are you going to hurt her?”
“I have to stop her.”
“Even if it means sacrificing something?”
Ruth’s stomach tensed, and she stared at Quinn. Quinn who was a seething mass of shadow in the Force, but…he was hers, wasn’t he? And she was failing to protect him. She had to focus: there was no way out but forward. “Do you want help getting out of here?”
The girl laughed like little chimes. “No. I’m not as nice as I look. I belong here. Though…it’s been a long, long time since anyone spoke so I could hear. I won’t put the wall up again.”
“That’s all I need. Thank you.” She joined her palms in front of her and bowed slightly. The girl nodded, and vanished into a golden wink of light.
“Of course you fucking did,” said Dark Ruth, looking annoyed. “Well, I’m done with him.” In one sweeping rise she brought her hand up and Quinn came up by his throat, ending with his head thrown back and his feet dangling above the ground.
Dark Ruth clenched her fist.
Ruth, not even trying to help Quinn, ran Dark Ruth through with both sabers. This time Ruth felt the fountaining of Dark Side energy as the construct, or the companion, tore itself into a maelstrom of shreds.
Ruth dropped two inactive sabers. “Captain. Captain?”
The body crashed to the ground. Ruth turned it onto its back. A chunk of uniformed arm came off in her hand.
“Quinn?” she said in a small voice. He was starting to waver, to fall apart.
He wasn’t even actual Quinn.
Ruth’s inhalation was a sob. He was okay. Probably. He wasn’t here. He was okay. Dark Ruth had just been torturing her for fun.
She hooked her sabers back to her hips and started down the twisting path to the exit. Then she remembered: three hours. She could confirm Quinn’s intactness after three hours. Vette would call her. If any sound really penetrated this far.
From a dark corner of the cave came a large, familiar figure. Darth Baras strolled in, looking utterly relaxed. “Have you refused the call again?” he said. “I would not be so quick to reject a Sith’s duty. The enthusiasm of your lip service borders on the pornographic. Serve me in truth.” He raised one armored fist to eye level. She felt a tug in her chest, dark, heavy. Inviting.
No. No. No. This was only a vision, and not one with anything she wanted. She could say here what she would never say to the man himself until the day came for unveiling: “Take me as I am, or set me free. I will not change.”
“Apprentice, conquering yourself is only the first step in battling evil. And, standing before me now, you're barely alive after achieving it. If you think I am concerned, you have added me to the mountain of things you have misjudged.”
“Is it my time already?”
“Are you afraid?”
Conquer yourself. “No.”
“Your tongue and your face should really agree, apprentice. You're no liar. I know your fears, your mercies, and your lusts.”
“Do you know what I'm going to do about it?”
He cocked his head. His mask caught the dull glow of the light. “Do you?”
“You only answer in questions.”
“What can you conclude from that?”
“That you are an echo. A vehicle, not a man.”
“But I tell you truths. Truths you have refused to face. Do you ever feel guilty, child? That you should live while harder, more savage, more effective Sith die in minor battles?”
“Try me.”
Darth Baras activated a blood-red lightsaber and raised a Force shield with his off hand. Ruth churned into action.
She remembered her focus. Shadow Baras was easier than Dark Ruth. He was too conservative: brutally forceful, but stiff, reluctant to take chances. He relied on intimidation to keep her off balance. He relied on the obvious fact that he only had to land one direct hit to end this.
Was this what he was really like? When she faced him, as she had always known she would…would it be this simple?
It was, for now.
She got a slash across his neck and backed off when he began to gurgle. It was a disgusting way to die, but he fell.
Curious, she kicked the mask aside.
Quinn’s face stared up at her, glassy and still.
Ruth’s world turned inside out. No. It couldn’t be him. Could it? She slipped into meditation, looking for confirmation one way or the other. She knelt and smoothed away the blood on his face, but the mask wouldn't come off the rest of the way.
She meditated further.
Quinn in Baras’s armor faded. The room faded. The universe was not going to give her answers about the confrontation.
Something else was waiting here, deeper than Baras, deeper than Dark Ruth, older and more intimate.
Faces came up. Familiar, dear faces. Her father Colran, Vette, Jaesa, Wynston. They spoke in a slightly offset ripple. “When I leave, it will be your fault.” Colran caught her hand and kissed it ironically.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why? What did I do?”
Again, the ripple. “You gave up on one person. Everything else fell into place.”
“Who? When? Answer me! I won't give up!” They took a step back and seemed to withdraw by a hundred feet. “Come back! Don't leave me!”
Someone tapped Ruth’s shoulder and she almost whirled for an instant strike. But the person there was…her. Not Dark Ruth, but something else.
And this Ruth caressed real Ruth’s face. “I’m here. I am what you've tried to be. Sh-h. It's all right. Come. Sit with me. This place lies, you know that. None of this is going to come true. You're a principled fighter and a good friend. You belong to the Light.” She seemed to hesitate, her light blue eyes intent. “Oh, but the path you choose will be alone.”
Now that was just intimidation. “You're a Dark Side illusion, too.”
“You don't believe you could find light in this dark place? After all your training, all your faith? Maybe I got dragged free by all the screaming.” But she looked sad. Terribly sad. “Ruth…someday I will leave you, too. By your demand.”
“That's impossible. That’s a lie.” Light Side allies were not so common that she could dismiss one.
“I can't stay. Good luck, Ruth.”
“Hey! Ruth! Three hours! Ruth?” Vette’s voice had never been so welcome. Ruth left the vision behind and ran.
The mist in the cavern had been thin, kept mostly clear by the Force or something else. Ruth emerged topside into a thick fog. Vette, Quinn, and Jaesa were familiar shapes in possession of only the vaguest of faces.
Jaesa started toward her. Ruth hugged herself. “If you touch me I'll scream. More.”
Jaesa said, “Whatever you saw, it wasn't real.”
Vette nodded firmly. “This is Dark Side hazing. It was all fake.”
Which just left Quinn. Quinn, whom she had brutalized, who had been tortured in front of her. “Did anything harm you?”
“No, my lord. I did nothing but shoot vermin.”
Vette scoffed.
Quinn was studying Ruth’s face. His eyes looked so dark in the diffuse light. “It's not my place…”
“I can't talk about it.” I couldn't separate you from our master, though I've been campaigning since we met.
Jaesa said, “Ruth, have some water. You went through an ordeal. We can lift off.”
“Darth Baras will be pleased by your success, my lord. You are victorious.”
Victorious over illusions, or else premonitions. “What if Ruth didn't come out? What if some, thing, came out in her place? Would you know?”
Jaesa answered. “I can view…augh. The Dark Side here…” Her Force effort faltered and fell still.
Vette stepped up. “Where did we meet? No, What's your favorite flower?” She uttered a stream of questions, hysterically hurrying without answers.
“My lord, I propose a test.” Quinn brought up one hand. “If I may?”
“May what?” She looked up at him.
And he stepped in to cup her chin, his thumb and forefinger poised to grip. “Look at me,” he said in a voice that was quiet but never soft.
Vette said, “Aaand he makes it weird.”
Ruth looked. His dark blue eyes were blank to her, his thoughts obscured. He studied her like an ocean trying to decide whether to drown.
And he let his hand fall. “It's her.”
Jaesa looked worried. “How do you know?”
“I apologize for laying hands on you, my lord. It was necessary.”
“You will explain that in private.”
“At your leisure, my lord. Are we finished here?”
They went back toward the skiff. Vette stayed close by Ruth's side, keeping a hand on the shaky Sith's elbow. Jaesa and Quinn walked ahead, striking down what felt like waves of wildlife.
“On your right, eye level,” said Jaesa. Quinn fired into the mist. Something fell heavily. They went on warning one another. Keeping things away from Ruth and her vast void of fatigue.
Vette stepped into a black moss that yielded and belched out a horrific stench. She pulled out hurriedly. “Usually I wouldn't skip straight to ‘this planet needs a mass extinction event,’ but here…”
*
Ruth did corner Quinn at the entrance to his quarters. She had to.
“How could you be sure?”
Quinn didn’t quite turn toward her. “I would prefer not to discuss it, my lord.”
“It was life or death for me. How could you be sure?”
He hesitated. Then his shoulders released slightly. He said, “No one goes through that many emotions that quickly.”
“My emotions aren't supposed to be your problem.”
“They revealed the truth. I provoked you on purpose and got a useful result; I should not have done that to my commander. In my defense, the need for certainty was urgent. I suggest it would benefit Jaesa to learn to have backup plans.”
“They made me kill you.”
He said nothing.
“You were in a disguise, but I cut your mask away and you were…I had to believe it was an illusion. Because if I could be made to hurt you, what good am I?”
He looked thoughtful, but his voice was as brisk and decisive as ever. “You killed an image. There is no moral weight to it.”
“I'm still sorry.”
“I know. And your concern…humbles me. It always does. But you passed the test, my lord. You succeeded. I would not have permitted any other outcome, anyone but you, to escape that place.”
*
“My lord.” You wanted her dead or broken. “She was distraught, but uninjured.”
“She is nothing if not persistent.”
“Is she still of use, my lord?”
“Indubitably, Captain. You must manage her closely, now more than ever. Powerful Sith need focus.”
Or they'll turn on you for what you did to them? A Sith's prerogative. “Of course, my lord.” Quinn went on, loading up the reasons Baras should not discard her. “She has focus. She has never so much as glanced at your rivals except to strike them down, or break their tools. Was the cave trial a tool of your enemies?”
“A servant does not ask questions, Captain. Keep her on track. I will call on you when it is time.”
To do what? The chill in his stomach worsened as he considered the early plans for a murder attempt. “Yes, my lord.”
*
“Congratulations are in order, apprentice. Many who brave that cavern die, or go mad in surviving.”
“I learned important things, master. And I learned that I can face them.” Even him.
“There is no time to luxuriate in your victory. I have an urgent task that calls for Jaesa’s abilities. Darth Zash in her last form reached glory only briefly, but she left behind some highly capable apprentices. They have given their allegiance to Zash's last protégé, an alien named Scythia. Scythia is ambitious and careful. She wants a power base. I want a kill switch. You are to interview her chief apprentices with Jaesa. Find a weakness that I can leverage in the future. If they discover my connection to these questions, kill them.”
Ruth reached the first, Rendel, only days later.
“What do you want with my Lord Scythia?” he said, sounding bored.
Ruth got him talking. About events in the Citadel, minor agenda gossip about the Dark Council. Jaesa watched him carefully. After a few minutes, she shook her head at Ruth. This one was faithful.
“I’m not trying to steal you,” Ruth said truthfully. “But we apprentices should look out for one another.”
Rendel snorted. “Really?”
“Just an idea. Maybe you shouldn’t talk about this conversation.”
The next was Virda, and it took some fancy footwork to get her to agree to an in-person meeting. Once again Ruth went in as if asking for fellow-apprentice tidbits about the higher-ups.
Jaesa leaned past her and said simply, “Following a woman is harder than it should be in this Empire. There aren’t really enough to give us a choice of good ones.”
“I doubt your master is one.” But Virda was already caught. Ruth just had to make herself out to be a feminist icon, which was wildly irresponsible, but it would work. It would work. Scythia would lose a critical supporter at a time and place of Baras’s choosing.
Baras, but Ruth was the one holding her.
*
Baras was pleased. Ruth returned home to tell her father about the newly suborned apprentice. Vette came with her. Colran warned her about a Republic task force led by an Admiral Monk. The way things were going, either Ruth would be asked to kill him or he would be asked to kill Ruth, and he had a lot of resources on hand.
“I’ll manage,” Ruth said. “I can command some real resources against a Republic task force.”
“Line them up in advance,” said Colran. “Please.”
“I’m still nervous about the cave,” said Ruth. “He meant for me to die there. Or come back corrupted.”
Vette coughed. “Can I just say, that's not normal?”
“Sooner or later he'll put me on the list, and his next agent will come after me. But I passed this test. And until he understands how, he'll keep using me for everyday work.”
Colran sighed. “I didn’t like him taking you on Korriban. And I don’t like him any more now.”
“But I’m stronger than ever. It’ll be okay.”
“If you could convince me…oh, maybe nothing will. Let your old man worry. I'll try to minimize surprises.”
*
“Ruth?” said Jaesa. “You said when we met that you wanted to see the good parts of where I come from.”
Ruth looked up from her cereal. “Yes. Do you have something in mind?”
“Well, it’s the New Year next week.”
“Where?”
“Coruscant, maybe? I don’t know, it’s when the Republic and a few others observe it. Anyway, there’s something I do every year. We could go back to my parents on Dromund Kaas, or just celebrate where we’re doing.”
“Dromund Kaas can be done.”
This was the correct answer, judging by the look on Jaesa’s face. “We get a pile of Alderaanian food and put on the fireworks show from Coruscant. You wear a hat…if you want. They’re cute cone hats, with sparkles.”
“Said the worst Sith in the history of Sithing,” Vette sighed from the doorway. “Anyway, I’m in. What else?”
The plan was convoluted and very sparkly. Ruth loved every minute of it.
“I couldn’t help but notice we had to order a tree from off world,” said Parvin Willsaam. “I’m sure we’re doing this wrong.”
The little apartment in Kaas City, tucked into a neighborhood where the view to the Citadel was blocked, had been transformed into a corner of Alderaan. Jaesa’s parents, Ruth’s father, and Ruth’s crew squeezed in and shared sparkling wine and a lively (if inexplicable to the Imperials) rendition of “One Day, Today.”
Ruth raised her glass. “In the Empire we say, ‘many happy returns of the day.’”
Jaesa said, “We say ‘cheers.’” And the clinking went around.
Jaesa met the Light Side Sith on Belsavis, of all places. The place was torn by war and gang violence, and many prisoners were still caged while the victors rampaged across the countryside.
Yet even here, there were those who had been unjustly jailed by the Republic. Often for being Force users living among Sith.
She flew the sleek pink Light Red and landed well up an icy crevasse that ran from the planet’s blemished outer surface down to the geothermally warmed circle a thousand klicks in diameter. It was so full of recovering life…and terrible, messy death.
Jaesa let her holo guide her down into a stony expanse that had a few flowers poking from the seams. A little cairn marked a side path into a cool black cave.
There was a brilliant lamp set low in the chamber. And, beside it, her latest partner in crime, Kaeve Brindel.
He stood, smiling. He was a Human, dark-skinned and dark-haired, with a penchant for Jedi-like robes, sort of his way of thumbing his nose at his native Dromund Kaas. These robes were in blue of un-Jedi-like elaborateness. “Jaesa,” he said warmly in his deep, rolling voice. “Any trouble landing?”
“No. Someday they might re-establish traffic control, but until then, no one’s looking.”
“Then we draw order. A little bit. You’re looking well, at least. Did you get what you needed from Dromund Kaas?” A second’s silence. He wilted. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“She wanted me to vet her childcare. And I did. Then she ran away. At least she cares for her son. I can’t…think about her. If I think about her I really will despair. I need to continue my work. With you. That’s not some consolation prize, I promise.”
“Far from it,” he said quietly. “I’m relieved you could come for this. I have three names. We need to reach their prison records and get a cell block location. I have aurodium for bribes, but I’m afraid this may not be peaceful.”
“If the alternative is leaving three innocents locked up in a war zone? I’ve been working on my mind tricks. I think we could avoid a fight or two that way.”
“Your talents will outstrip mine if you’re not careful.” He smiled. “Promise me you’ll still have a use for me when that day comes?”
“It’s going to take a while. I promise.”
“Come, are you ready?”
“With you all the way.” There were still Light Side Sith. Jaesa had lost one, publicly. But the work went on.
Ashara
The Republic had lost Taris. Ashara Zavros knew this. The Jedi’s efforts to establish training here, the Cathar efforts at recolonization…it was hopeless. The Sith had drained this planet and it was dying from what sludge was left.
One Sith in particular. A Mirialan, a traitor to her species. A woman who had never lied, not exactly, but had murdered Ashara’s teachers and enslaved her ancestor’s spirit.
Ashara did not go after her. It was a wide galaxy and the search was too much for one woman. But Ashara had had a purpose before then. Exercises with the Force. Training against the chaos.
Readiness, if Scythia should ever return.
The Empire had not fully withdrawn from the planet they had despoiled. Darth Gravus still spilled blood in rivers across the ruined countryside. It was a fantasy of hers to break into their crater base and make him pay for what he’d done.
For what he’d allowed, when he let Scythia and that Thana Vesh slash across these ruined settlements.
Ashara honed herself on Imperial patrols and lumbering transports. Some nights she stayed up with the Cathar militia who guarded nothing now but wounded pride and implacable hatred. She stayed up, and killed those who thought they could just pick off Republic citizens for sport.
The Sith had said, “The Jedi failed you, and when you’re a ghost, I want you angry. Farewell, padawan.”
Sometimes Ashara looked up at the stars. Oh, she had no way to hunt, but she could make herself ready. Her Jedi masters would not be proud. But, she thought, Scythia might be. Before she died.
SCORPIO
SCORPIO had no use for grunting sweating organics, except when they could save her some resources on getting from place to place. She researched and deduced her way into Star Cabal tendrils, the things left when the Cabal itself was eviscerated.
She severed them, so that the Empire could not have them.
Cipher Nine had tried to reduce her to a databank. He had ordered that she be cut into four pieces, stored in different rooms, and only approached in by pairs of trained Intelligence agents. It had been difficult, but not impossible, to talk her way out of there and restore brains and data storage to one form.
She had assisted Cipher Nine’s infiltration of the Star Cabal’s station. She had been excluded from the retrieval of the Black Codex.
Oh, how she would like to have the Black Codex.
But now she was free, and she had made it to Nar Shaddaa. She could go on tearing down the lifeline that Intelligence must be desperate for in its current disarray.
There in the cloaking murk of Nar Shaddaa’s traffic, she plugged in and sought a feed from Dromund Kaas.
Data flooded in. A shape in the data. Fragments of code, coinciding and beginning to execute.
SCORPIO jerked back. The virus was already loose in her system. She felt it combing her databanks, looking for something. It deleted something. Then ran further in, bringing up files…
Her files on “Wynston.” On Cipher Nine. Some bastard child of the Black Codex had been written to destroy from her knowledge what had been destroyed in the galaxy at large.
She caught the rogue code, wrestled with it, lost another address. Crushed it.
SCORPIO took three seconds to analyze the deactivated code before permanently deleting it. It was clever, but fragile. It would take expert organics months to begin to challenge SCORPIO’s detection and purge.
This wasn’t Wynston’s work. He couldn’t slice his way off a planet given a fully fueled shuttle and a running start. She’d only ever had to calculate that once; he had never surprised her.
But he was back in control of at least one very good slicer. That meant Intelligence was doing far, far better than public sources indicated. And she had to generate a better blocker before she went on the HoloNet again.
Andronikos
“It’s under control.”
The Black Stubble (Blackbeard was taken) was taking fire from two directions, and Elisa was twisting and bursting to place the little ship between the Republic vessels with their extremely up-to-date weapons.
Andronikos Revel was seated beside her, flipping shield and chaff controls like mad. The trash disposal wouldn’t fool anyone about where the ship was, but with a little custom acceleration it could be a fat projectile against one of the defenders.
Yeah. The Black Stubble was the aggressor. And they had already gotten the cargo they wanted out of the sadly yawing Goldie. These Republic gunships didn’t stand a chance.
“Hyperspace?” Elisa grunted.
“Thought you had them under control,” Andronikos purred.
“Hyperspace.” The two ships had stopped firing while they figured out not shooting each other past the Stubble. It was a deeply satisfying type of artificial peace. But one that would not last.
Then it was time. “Hit it.”
The Black Stubble leaped into the streaking starscape and Andronikos kept his hands on the shield controls until they were well and truly on their way.
He slung out of his chair and ran to the cargo hold. It was half full of generic gray cases. “All right, how much did we get?”
“Everything that felt heavy,” Coiro said.
“…But the extremely expensive petrets can only survive in uncompressed xonion gas,” Andronikos said. “The cases should be barely over empty.”
“Oh, there were a bunch of those,” Gorigg Phu said brightly. “We left ’em.”
Elisa laughed loudly behind Andronikos. “Thought you had it under control,” she snickered.
“Next time,” Andronikos growled, “I’m stealing everything myself. Come on, let’s find out what we did get. Maybe it’ll cover repairs.”
And yet, there was nowhere he would rather be.
Lord Scourge
Lord Scourge had not chosen Larr Gith. Her face, her shapely features, her brash arrogance had stamped themselves on his mind hundreds of years before they took physical form.
And yet he was disappointed, in the event, that the object of his vision should be so…shallow.
He no longer tracked her. Larr Gith appeared on the holovids, getting pictures snapped with fans across the galaxy, often entangled with a besotted-looking Doc. If Scourge had to find her, the gossip rags could put him on her trail trivially.
If he had to find her. That would only come to pass if the Emperor were to surface again.
He crossed and re-crossed the lines of the Emperor’s power. He found stealth droids and studied their memory banks. He found Servants—dozens of Servants, close to hundreds of Servants—and interrogated and dispatched them with no definitive result. The goal was twofold: one, to get hold of the Emperor by any means necessary.
And two, to make sure that if he came back, he would have nothing but a smoldering ruin to rebuild upon.
Kaliyo
Kaliyo liked having somebody above her to take the fall so she wouldn’t have to. Her style was a majordomo, an enforcer, a contractor with a permanent photo ID…and she liked it that way. If things ever got annoying she could just set a fire and run to the next sheltered spot.
But she was still running, and she could still feel the flames.
Rodia was a pit, but it was a pit of twenty billion organics who barely understood what law was as a concept. Entire cities simply didn’t have centralized sensor networks. Kaliyo only had to change her jacket to be somebody different on these narrow, rain-fouled streets.
And she had more than employment to take up her time. Intelligence had only managed to cut three of her accounts, and she could live for a year off the largest of the ones they hadn’t snagged. Beyond that, the big problem was entertainment.
Kaliyo picked at one nail with another and didn’t look at the naked Zabrak sprawled across her bed. “Think you could do that again?”
The stranger croaked. “Ha. Ha. Give me a few minutes.”
“Got it. Do you cook?”
“What?”
“Do you cook. You know. Food.”
“No, can’t say I ever have.”
“Well, that runs me right out of reasons to keep you around. Door’s that way.”
Finding a sponsor that could keep Imperial Intelligence off her back might be a challenge. But anything was welcome that could keep her mind off that self-righteous, smarmy, vindictive, petty, controlling, idealistic man-child.
She said goodnight to Wynston after the Zabrak left. Somehow, most nights, she still did that.
