12 ATC
Talos Drellik felt a moment of hesitation over entering Lord Kallig's room. It lasted about 0.7 seconds. Not coincidentally, this was the amount of time it took him to process the room's contents.
Datapads and artifacts everywhere, covering every surface. There was a trail through the datapads where nothing obstructed the path but sheets of flimsiplast. It led to the bed, which was also half-covered in flimsiplast pages. There was also a set of shelves, all filled with artifacts, and a closet. Talos wondered whether it held clothes or particularly delicate artifacts.
It was an utter, cluttered mess, in direct contrast with everything he'd ever seen from Lord Kallig.
Kallig pointed to a corner of the room, whereupon a stack of datapads picked themselves up and floated aside. Stack after stack followed suit, until there was a second path through the room to an unoccupied corner. It didn't take the decades Talos had spent crawling around Sith tombs to guess that meant a secret compartment.
Kallig gestured towards the bed, then closed the door behind them and walked towards the corner. Talos did as told and went to sit down on the bed.
The shudder that ran through Lord Kallig's body, from her lekku down to her her robe, almost caused her to knock over several stacks of pads.
The shaking and twitching had been getting stronger for months. After that fight with Darth Thanaton… almost as long as Talos had known her.
She ignored it, pretended it hadn't happened. She just walked to the wall and placed her hand on it, then swiped her hand in the same way as a Sith dismissing a servant – something Talos realized he'd never seen Lord Kallig do.
A square in the wall depressed and shifted aside.
"Oh, marvelous," Talos blurted, "a Force-activated lat-"
He cut off as Lord Kallig raised a finger to her lips. She turned back towards him languidly, though the effect was spoiled by a momentary grimace of pain.
"I'd prefer you and I be the only ones who know about this, Lieutenant."
Talos shrank back as Kallig returned to the hidden safe. She didn't call him by his rank lightly. Perhaps he ought to be more cautious in the future. Maybe Lord Kallig would accept a few suggested improvements to her safe as an apology?
Before he could say anything, Lord Kallig spoke, still facing the wall. "I have several things I need to show you. I think you're the only one who might appreciate them. You know Naga Sadow was never my… favourite… Sith, but I never told you who was."
She turned around with something unimaginable in her hands.
It was a plain thing. Grey, with a slit visor and red accents tracing a T along the transparisteel and down its center. Still, even if he hadn't recognized it, Talos would have been awed by the power the Mandalorian iron held.
"Darth Revan's mask," he breathed, leaning forward for a better look.
"It also belonged to Revan, and the Revanchist," Lord Kallig added, walking towards him through a new path in the cluttered room.
Talos met her eyes, hoping for clarification, and the tattoos on Lord Kallig's face lost some of their sinister cast as she smiled incrementally. She handed the mask to him carefully, letting him take it fully in practiced and steady hands before she let it slip from her grasp. "Revan's identities were more than pseudonyms, Talos. Let me show you the rest of my meager collection. Then I will explain."
She turned back to her safe.
Talos slowly inspected the mask, picking out the lightsaber scars and blaster burns. He lamented at how poorly preserved it had been. At least Lord Kallig seemed to be keeping it properly.
"I owe its acquisition to subterfuge rather than any skill in archaeology," Lord Kallig admitted quietly to her safe. "Lord Grathan probably never even missed it."
She cut Talos' potential reply off when she turned around with another artifact. Talos looked closely at the round nugget of metal in his Lord's hands, trying to discern what it was. He could feel its power, like a hum beneath his skin, but hadn't any idea what it could be.
"Yes, the mask was stolen." She handed the nugget over to him with only slightly less care than the mask. "Whether the I stole the Infinity Seed is, I suppose, up for debate."
Talos' fingers traced the outside of the seed, and intricate work of etching or circuitry. "I can't even hazard a guess at what this might be."
Lord Kallig reached out her hand and placed one finger on the seed. Then her hand sparked with lightning, and the electricity flowed into the seed.
Then her hand spasmed, and the lightning struck Talos. It lasted for only a second, but the pain was excruciating nonetheless. His hand clenched involuntarily over the seed, and in the same instant the pain disappeared. Half a second later, the lightning stopped.
Talos opened his eyes to Lord Kallig's look of horror, which vanished so quickly he thought he might have imagined it. She reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, looking into his eyes.
"Are you alright?"
When he didn't respond for a second, she prompted him, "Talos."
He managed a nod. "I suspect the Infinity Seed absorbed most of the lightning. But it was… very surprising."
Lord Kallig was stone-faced for a while. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. "I suppose there's no point pretending. It's obvious why I'm showing you this."
She returned again to the safe and, this time, returned with a Sith Holocron. There was no mistaking the red and black pyramid or the power that emanated from it. She placed it down beside him, just out of reach. He made no move to touch it.
"The ghosts are making progress quickly," Kallig whispered, moving to sit beside Talos. "Every day, I feel less like the person I need to be. The decisions I made on Belsavis… There is a chance I will be able to fix them, but..."
She trailed off. Talos waited patiently as she sorted her thoughts. She hadn't planned this, that much was obvious. He'd figured out by now how badly his Lord dealt with surprises. It was best to give her time.
Eventually, after one more violent spasm, she opened her eyes again. Grey-blue eyes sparked within the black tattoos that surrounded them. "These are important to me. I know they're important to you. You're the only person who can understand. The Empire doesn't need these. It would waste or destroy them. I need to know that if..."
"I will keep them safe," Talos promised to the Sith Lord who could not meet his eyes, "if the time comes for me to take charge of them."
"That's not exactly-" Lord Kallig twitched, hard, "-what I want. This holocron, it is far less dangerous than most you have ever come across. If the ghosts win, you must open it. The Sith inside has instructions for you. For everything. There are datapads in this room that will be needed, instructions for the crew, and… things… that have nothing to do with your expertise. Some of the instructions will seem insane. I assure you I made them in sound mind. No matter what, for the sake of yourself, the crew… for the sake of an Empire I willingly die for, I need you to follow them."
Talos thought about it. He wasn't ashamed to admit that. Sith were not famed for making decisions in sound mind. Any instructions that a Sith deemed insane might be beyond Talos' imagination.
Looking into Lord Kallig's eyes, though, he saw the war she fought with every fiber of her being. And he thought about the woman who was asking him to carry on her legacy.
She was an explorer. A scientist and archaeologist, like him. A brilliant woman who he'd seen smile on only a couple of occasions, both while uncovering secrets of ancient peoples. They hadn't been the subdued or secretive smiles she sometimes offered her crew or her peers. Those two times, in the icy tombs of Hoth and the stunningly ancient cells of Belsavis, had been smiles like Talos had felt so often in his life. The smile that came from the uncomplicated joy of saving that which was once thought lost forever.
It was a part of Lord Kallig none of her crew understood. None except Talos. Something pure that had nothing to do with her being a Sith or an alien or an Imperial. And she was asking him to save it, if worse came to worst.
"I will do as you ask, my Lord. I hope you understand that I'd prefer if it weren't necessary, of course."
He gave a smile that she only returned with the barest flicker of her own. Then she moved on.
She picked up Revan's mask again, meeting its empty gaze with a somber one of her own. "Would you like to hear what I've learned about Revan?". There was a hint of hope in her voice.
Talos nodded enthusiastically. How well he knew the rarity of an opportunity to talk about his passions. Most cut him off before he ever got the chance, and so few ever truly understood.
As Lord Kallig started on what promised to be a very long explanation, however, he saw the tension in her shoulders lessen a bit. Even under assault in her own mind, she found comfort in the things she loved.
Watching her, listening to her, it occurred to Talos what sort of people they both traveled with. A pirate, a monster, a Sith, and a Jedi. It was possible, perhaps, that Lord Kallig had another reason to come to him about preserving that which she held dear. On this ship and - if Lord Kallig were as unfortunate as many Sith - perhaps in the whole galaxy, it was possible nobody knew her better than he did.