"A Sith! No one fights like a Sith! My lord, a moment of your time!"

Lusiel sighed, turning to face the agitated soldier as the muck and dust of the field swirled angrily around her. The sound of blaster fire and artillery bursts was a constant refrain and everyone was forced to yell in order to be heard. The day had been composed of one shouting match after another with countless soldiers all the way from the base camp in the Sundari Flatlands where the shuttle deposited her and Vette to this very tired and dirty stop.

She glanced up just in time to see a blazing explosive sizzle its way across the sky en route to … heh, looked like a shot from a friendly gun, as the artillery shot hit squarely what looked like a Republic crawler. The thing exploded into a blazing inferno, complete with troopers scrambling out in a mad heaping rush. Not everyone made it, she noticed. Which added a particularly foul stench to the scene, too.

"My lord!"

Vette's lekku were trembling, Lusiel saw. Although she seemed to ignore her slave's discomfort and fear as she gave her full attention to the shouting man in front of her, and the officer noted the directness. Strength in that, he thought. He crouched down, hunkering in a depression some explosion had made in the ground a long time earlier. Lusiel could tell, only because the dirt was no longer a rich brown but a tired grey color, instead. But the hole worked to provide some sad cover now and she leaned closer to the Imperial officer and disregarding his sweat-stained, grimy frame. She only listened as he described the absolute horror the nearby Republic guns were reaping on the Empire's soldiers. Lusiel paid close attention as he pinpointed the location of the guns on her map and then she shot him a dark smile.

"You're right, you know. No one in the universe fights like a Sith. I will destroy the guns."

Vette followed her as they moved out of the cover the depression provided, approaching the long line of rebel defenses. Lusiel scanned the line, searching for the various targets the soldiers who'd directed her all day had described. She quickly discerned several immense battle droids, the correct number of artillery guns, and a host of enemy soldiers – all of them stood between her and the arms factory housing her targets, both Commander Rylon and now some idiot Darth Lachris had called Cheketta, a supposed Republic general who'd deserted to help defend the Balmorran resistance. Next to her, Vette unslung both her blasters, checking to ensure they were in working order, before slanting her a wicked smile. Lusiel was grateful the twi'lek didn't try to blare words of encouragement outloud, just to hide her anxious appraisal of the battlefield.

It was going to be a long day. Better not to jinx themselves, right?


Lieutenant Malavai Quinn had a very particular routine to his thoughts, as he did to his schedule. He would methodically organize his attention, dividing his thoughts into what seemed, to him, the rooms of a house where he moved through each space only as needed. When focused on any particular task, he mentally planted himself in that single room and firmly shut the doors leading away or apart from that particular place in his consideration. Today, however, one particular door refused to remain shut and every so often, it seemed that glimmers of light from that area of his mind would demand his attention.

Surely she had been only teasing him, prodding merely to see how it is he would react. Maybe it was a test of sorts, some effort she was making to ensure he was capable of keeping focused on the matters at hand. He was fairly certain he had not angered her, at least. She even smiled somewhat, seeming pleased and happy as she withdrew from his quarters. He was not so positive he had ably acquitted himself, felt more embarrassed still than personally impressed. Discomfiture was not a state Quinn was particularly familiar with, anyway, and he had only responded clumsily to her provocative overtures. Although he didn't believe he would be required to repeat the performance, either. She couldn't possibly be truly attracted to him. He paused, thinking. Could she?

"Sir! We have brief reports from patrols outside Sundari basecamp. They read, only, that Sith are arrived on the battlefield outside the Balmorran Arms Factory."

Quinn shut the mental door labeled "Lord Lusiel is a woman" and returned his attention to the more imperative room called "get the job done". And why was that particular mental exercise so difficult, he wondered. It was that particular Sith, he feared. He focused on the matter at hand. "They would want to agitate the rebels' fears, of course. That's why they're keeping the reports vague. But it does let us know she's there." Quinn examined the tracking devices he had targeting the Jedi agent chasing down Lord Lusiel's same target and felt assured the figure was not adversely threatening her current progress.

"Sir! Rebel communications reporting attacks on their defensive positions! Artillery positions are being destroyed, they're saying. One message cut off in mid-transmission indicates a Sith only just destroyed a heavy battle droid. On her own … Damn me, can you believe it?" Quinn heard distinct murmurs from several of his soldiers about the size and destructive power of those battle droids outside the arms factory. He smiled when he heard one soldier mutter in an aside, "Sounds like the droid being destroyed was the least of that fool's worries." There was reason to follow the Sith, he reminded himself. The powerful were made to lead he believed, as it only strengthened the whole.

Quinn had faithfully served Darth Baras directly over the several years since the Battle of Druckenwell. That service had preserved his career and, quite likely, his very life. No, the strength of even one Sith, to him, was well-proven and beyond measuring in value. He would not fail either of these Sith that he served. Not today.


Lusiel's innate sense of humor was flagging as she finally faced the whining figure of Grand Marshal Cheketta, leader of Balmorra's resistance. Perhaps it was the smoking corpses of the two Jedi he'd kept with him for a final pitiful defense. Not that she was overly upset the Republic was lying about its assistance to the resistance because, really, lying and being lied to was little more than business in the world of the Sith.

No, what truly bothered Lusiel was Cheketta's physical presence, guarded by two powerful figures and far from any line, whether offensive or defensive. He stood there, begging for lives he should have been leading, standing not in front of the ones he now asked be saved but far from them and, thus, utterly incapable of doing anything to defend them.

Cheketta failed at the most basic rule of leadership. The one that had you actually lead rather than run away. Lusiel was disgusted and she told him so, right before her lightsaber flashed crimson over his face. An Imperial soldier approached just as Cheketta's corpse joined those of his one-time Jedi guards. "My lord, we have the facility under control but pockets of fighting remain. We will work to solidify our hold."

"I'm seeking one of those pockets, actually. Tell me, where are you hardest pressed?"