Electricity seared through Five’s body, endless unnatural shocks that set his heart racing and his muscles spasming, tearing a cry from his throat that was utterly unbecoming. When it passed, lights still flashed in his field of view and behind his eyes, and he rocked forward in his seat, panting roughly, nothing in him able to rally enough to struggle against the bonds that held him fast.
He was given a blessed moment to catch his breath and clear his vision, but every nerve was still on edge when he lifted his battered face, puffed a bang out of his black eye, and grinned recklessly up at the Sith.
“If you don’t like what I’ve done with my hair, you could have just said so.”
A silent snarl twisted Ulfran’s lips as he drew upon the Force once more to cast a twisted arc of lightning at the former Watcher.
—
The sanctum was finally ahead of them, the end of an arduous overland journey skirting every civilised convenience after a dangerous flight in and an illegal landing with a stolen, unregistered ship.
Ulfran had become a particularly dangerous, volatile Sith, but his unique skills with bending people’s memories left him woefully short at actually making connections through the Force, at seeking out, sensing, recognising Life in all its forms throughout the galaxy. And so, to protect what was his, he had something of an over-reliance on technology, on tracking and surveillance the regular way, compared to any of his peers. He loathed this shortcoming, but was paranoid enough that he would not do without it.
So while keeping them shrouded from any Force probing Ulfran might have been attempting was child’s play to Ahuska, Five had warned her that getting in close unnoticed might still pose a challenge.
They had long since ditched anything that might send or bounce a signal, and Five had fitted a state of the art displacement field to his cybernetic arm. He had a stealth field generator on hand but powered down, and more than a couple of tricks to disguise life signs from a variety of scanners and sensors.
Ahuska made them invisible to the eye; Five did everything he could to keep them from technological detection.
Still, neither of them were entirely sure what they were walking into, and Crow had yet to contact them with any success in his hunt for Koth, their one hope of getting some insight before actually reaching the fortress. They were, at this stage, going in blind, and it made their progress painfully cautious and slow.
“Stop-!” Five hissed with abrupt alarm, pulling back a step and holding out an arm.
Ahuska was not foolish enough to disregard him, though there was judgement in her stare as she held herself still. What is it.
“There, do you see?” He gestured at the eastern facing side of the complex, and a structure mounted on the inner wall.
The giant cooling fan?
Five couldn’t help but smirk. “Yes. That. I’ve seen something rather like that in action before. It’s a sonic disruptor.”
The wolf twitched.
“If he has one at the ready, he almost certainly has more.”
Ahuska narrowed her eyes and felt her hackles lift.
“You know this means he’s preparing for you to come.”
He’d be a bigger fool than I thought if he wasn’t preparing for both of us. And then some.
“But he knows this is a way to compromise you. Ahuska, he’s likely planning on forcing you into a shape that’s easier to deal with…”
The wolf curled her lips and flicked back her ears. I’d like to see him try.
“I wouldn’t,” Five interrupted quietly. “And I won’t let you just walk into this until we have a better idea of what we’re in for.”
One sad, lonely, miserable little Sith, her voice growled straight into Five’s mind.
He shivered.
“I should go ahead.”
Like hell you will.
“Listen to me. He doesn’t know me, not really. He never cared to have much to do with me and I certainly never let him in. But you… he’s studied you. He’s worked with you. He was a Jedi, once upon a time, so he understands the way you’ve been taught. He can prepare for you in ways he can’t for me. So let me go in. Let me find a way in on my own. Even if I can’t disable anything discreetly at least I can search out what sort of controls are accessible when we go in together. I can get us the heads up we don’t have…”
Or we could both wait here, for Crow. He’ll be here.
Five’s lips pinched tight. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes as he stared at the imposing structure on the near horizon. “I don’t think I can wait, when we’re so close.”
Ahuska’s eyes flashed. You think I want to?
“I know, I know,” he lifted his hands placatingly, dropping his gaze. “I know. But we’re going to need you at your best. Thirteen needs you at your best. And… after everything I’ve put you through, this time, I can take the risk for you. Let me do this. Let me protect you, this time.”
Ahuska stared at him long and hard. Her nostrils flared as she drew a slow breath and huffed it out. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. No matter what you find in there.
Five’s lips tweaked in almost a smile. “I’m Intelligence, right down to my bones. I know what I’m doing. If the old man catches me, it’s because I wanted him to.”
—
“What loyalty do you have for her?” Ulfran seethed, pacing in front of Five, bound and battered but somehow still sniggering as he sagged in his seat. “Why would you want to allow them back together?”
“Why would I deny them?” the former agent said, before spitting out blood.
“You didn’t see them. You don’t know what they’re like together. What they’d be capable of. The way the Force whirls in him, a nexus for change and possibility like no other being. The fact that she can see it, can sense it, can turn it to her own purpose… they could be a force like the galaxy has never seen. Unstoppable. Terrifyingly so.”
Five narrowed his eyes in thought. “Is that why you broke them apart? Because you’re afraid of them?”
Ulfran paused, his fiery gaze taking on a stark and icy quality. “You do not seem to appreciate what we would be dealing with if they were to reconnect in earnest.”
Five blinked, briefly incredulous. His black eye ached, blood clogged one nostril and dribbled down his chin from a split lip. Hair stuck to the side of his face, and everything ached, his heart still giving little fits and spurts.
But he laughed.
He laughed, in the Sith’s face.
“What, am I supposed to be afraid? Am I supposed to be surprised? The one being in all the galaxy who can soothe me, and the one being in all the galaxy that has bested me? Of course there is nothing like them out there. And you think I have any interest in working against them? Lord Ulfran, my good Sith, I thought you were weak when I first met you, but you are more miserable than I ever would have imagin-”
The room flashed bright with an electric burst from Ulfran’s fingertips, and Five’s words once again dissolved into a harsh and painful cry.
