Part Four: Hypocrite

Chapter 10

The whirring roar of a jetpack sent Tosin ducking to hide behind a power converter atop the building just across from the ruins of Vandal Pike's warehouse. Someone had come, someone had finally arrived to survey the scene of his crime. He prayed it was Pike, crossed his fingers that it would not be another incompetent Imperial investigator or worse - looters and scavengers.

He felt disgusted with himself, like a dog luring its owner back to a pile of its own excrement dropped in the middle of the living room, unabashed and brazen. This was not how a Sith did battle.

That he was forced to such desperate measures proved how dangerous Vandal Pike really was. Twice he had faced the bounty hunter now, and twice he had failed to defeat him. There was no longer room for error. Darth Siphon had made that perfectly clear.

Tosin debated contacting Hallie for a moment, before deciding it would be better not to risk losing Pike again. He would have good news to report the next time he contacted Twinspire Keep.

He pushed himself forward to glance downward over the edge of the roof, careful to not allow himself to be seen. The figure of Vandal Pike paced restlessly before the rubble that was once his property. It was him. It had to be: the armor, the equipment … the lightsaber that hung from his belt. Somehow, Tosin wasn't surprised the bounty hunter had already managed to replace the blade. This one was curved, with the trappings of a Sith weapon.

Tosin made a silent promise that he would claim the lightsaber off Vandal Pike's corpse: the last corpse the bounty hunter would ever leave behind.

He inhaled sharply, preparing to strike.

Then, his portable com went off in his ear. "Lord Rend. You have new orders. Return to Twinspire immediately."

It was Siphon.

"Master, I finally have Vandal Pike in my sights," he whispered urgently into his comlink. "I am about to -"

"Forget the bounty hunter! I have bigger concerns now."

Bigger concerns? He balked. "My lord?"

"Lord Andora and Agent Quen have proven themselves traitors. Andora is dead. Quen is still on the run. I want her corpse brought back to me, now."

Rend stood flabbergasted. Hallian and Andora, traitors? It wasn't possible … "My lord, there must be some has to be some plot by Orthas to turn us against each-"

"Do not question me! Return to Twinspire, now."

The line went dead. Lord Rend glanced down one last time to see Vandal Pike rummaging through the wreckage and debris. He felt his chance at revenge, his opportunity for vindication against Pike, slip out of his grasp. Even so, that was nothing compared to the sense of loss he felt. He had come to like Agent Quen, had come to rely on her even, to trust her instincts and her skills. They had fought alongside each other against Pike; she had been instrumental in saving Lord Lethe's life. For her to have betrayed them all …

Loss gave way to anger. Had she and Andora made a fool out of him? Had they been traitors all along, or had they decided Siphon's cause was hopeless and turned against him?

Whatever the reason, only Quen could reveal the truth now. Rend had his orders; he would return to Twinspire.

He would make the traitors pay.

5 Years Prior

Tosin attacked.

His lightsaber moved awkwardly and with little precision or power. Even he could sense it. His master batted the blade out of his hand easily.

"Too conventional." Masked and robed, his master moved with preternatural grace. "Ataru demands innovation, demands raw aggression, demands the extreme. Come, again. Again!"

Tosin picked up his blade from where it had landed and then twisted into a backwards leap meant to catch his master by surprise, saber thrumming as he soared through the air. Siphon parried the blow easily and then slammed her free hand downward, invoking the Force to duplicate the motion with Tosin's whole body.

"Where is the fire in your attacks? Where is your passion?!"

He picked himself up, but this time he did not attack right away. He took in his surroundings - the ritual chamber, the banners that stretched from floor to ceiling in a circle around them, the raised dais and the pillars supporting the stone roof above them. The fountains that encircled the chamber, filling the room with the sound of rain.

An idea formed in his mind.

He launched himself into the air, letting momentum guide his spinning strike. His master's saber clashed with his own, but Tosin was ready. He flipped backwards and summoned the Force; the Imperial banners all around them began to flutter about wildly, as though caught in an artificial maelstrom. The crimson cloth danced in the air, obscuring Tosin's view of his master but providing him ample cover from being seen as well.

"Excellent … use your surroundings. Make them your weapons!" said Siphon.

Tosin shimmied up a pillar with Force-empowered strides of his legs. His muscles cried out with pain and exhaustion but he steeled his resolve. From the top of the column, he searched for his master; impossible to be seen, but that meant his master wouldn't be able to see him either. Drawing from the reserves of his strength, he tore a fountain from its very foundation and then slammed it downwards, dashing its contents all across the floor.

"What are you planning, apprentice?"

His only response was to jut out his arm, sending a torrent of Force lightning into the water; the electricity rippled across the water's surface and he heard his master cry out in pain. He'd done it! He launched himself off the stone pillar, saber humming as he dove towards the source of the scream.

Mid-air, he felt the weight of a mountain collide with him from all sides.

Tosin expected to fall, expected to collapse into the water he had electrified but moments earlier, but the descent never came. Instead, his feet struggled to find purchase against only air as he felt his chest tighten and compress, victim to his master's crushing Force. He wanted to speak, but only meaningless gasps and grunts escaped his lips.

"Cleverness is no substitute for raw power, apprentice. Not when your deceptions are so easily unraveled."

And then, the strain was gone. His body collapsed into the shallow pool of water, too weak to move or to resist.

He still had so much to learn.

"Remember these lessons, apprentice … or you will not have any hope of surviving the last of your trials."

"But … I failed," said Tosin. Even the effort of those three words seemed almost beyond him.

"You didn't defeat me, yes. But that was never the task that I set upon you." Siphon paused for a moment. "I want you to be among my most powerful servants. I know you have the potential, but something holds you back."

"Whatever it is … cast it aside," Siphon continued. "The Sith have no use for morality or for inhibition … and I have no use for an apprentice that still ascribes to such naive notions."

Slowly, his strength returned to him. Tosin pushed himself up. "I understand, master."

A cold snicker emitted from behind Siphon's mask. "We shall see, won't we?"

3637 BBY

Hallie ached all over, both mind and body on the verge of collapse. She hadn't had a moment's sleep in over twenty-four hours now. Adrenaline had pushed her to escape the canyon and steal a hoverbike into New Adasta. Now, presented with the opportunity to catch her breath, exhaustion began to set in.

"Mmpph!"

Hallie hovered over a computer console in a Czerka Arms security station nestled deep in the slums of Ziost's capital city. Behind her, two guards struggled uselessly to free themselves from the durasteel stun-cuffs binding their feet together and their hands behind their backs. Outside their hole in the wall, the slums' marketplace bustled with seedy and questionable patrons of illicit merchandise; Hallie watched through one-way tinted glass as mercenaries mingled with beggars and the destitute, unaware that they had a one-woman audience.

Her mind raced in a desperate attempt to process what had transpired over the last night. Siphon had tried to kill her. If it wasn't for Andora, Hallie might already be dead. Based on their last exchange, Hallie felt certain the Darth would not be content to let her escape.

Part of her wished she could go back. To find some way and fight alongside Andora. In her gut, she knew the twi'lek was dead; how horribly she had misjudged him. He gave his life for hers. And now … a storm of emotions threatened to overwhelm her focus: regret, at having not stayed to offer aid; shame, at having judged the twi'lek Sith so poorly in both character and intelligence; guilt, at having brought Siphon's wrath upon him.

Clearly, she had stumbled onto something Siphon hadn't wanted anyone to know: her gut told her it was the Darth's history. Somewhere in those lost files was a secret Siphon didn't want anyone to know … and Hallie was beginning to suspect it was also the reason Darth Orthas' apprentice had lost her life.

She wouldn't let her feelings overtake her. If she wanted to survive, she had only one option: discover the nature of Siphon's secret and threaten to reveal it to the galaxy if anything should happen to her. It was her only choice: fight to survive.

She had no illusions about being able to fend off Siphon indefinitely, and she had no intention of slinking into obscurity to live in hiding like any common criminal. Besides, leveraging information was her specialty.

This isn't any different than a dozen missions I've executed over the years, she told herself.

Of course, none of those operations involved blackmailing her own Sith Lord employer ...

"Czerka HQ to Station Three, status?"

****. Czerka Security. Fingers tap-dancing over the computer's keyboard with uncanny precision, Hallie pulled up the audio file she had manipulated after incapacitating the guards.

"Station Three reports all clear." The sound of one of her captive guard's voices emitted from the console's speakers over muffled objections in the background. It hadn't been hard to tap into the audio recordings taken by the station's datalogs, but pulling one over on Czerka was the easy part.

"Good," came the reply from over the com. "And Beckett, you really oughtta get that cold checked out."

Hallie recognized the name of one of the guards she had incapacitated. She pulled up another file, and played a short response: "Yes, sir."

There was no further coms activity. Hallie sighed with relief. The last thing she needed was Czerka Corporation security chasing her down too.

"RRrrmphh!"

Pausing for a moment, Hallie considered the situation. The guards' efforts might've been futile, but their incessant sniveling might still attract unwanted attention. "Sorry, boys. But you're starting to get a little rowdy, and I'd really rather not have to tie more of you up."

She injected the pair with sleeping agents, knocking them out cold. For a moment, she envied them their sleep, how good it would feel to escape the troubles of a conscious mind ...

But there was still work to do - and she would only have a few hours before the next Czerka duty shift arrived to relieve her prisoners. She still had to slice the terminals and initiate remote access into the one place she hadn't already searched for Siphon's records: Imperial Intelligence archives.

This particular security station had once been an Imperial Intelligence outpost; it was why she chose it. Czerka coopted the structure for their own purposes after Imperial Intelligence was disbanded by the Dark Council, but the data and archival architecture of her old employer could still be accessed here.

If she wanted to uncover Siphon's secret, there was no time to lose. She had a piece of the puzzle: Siphon's name from before her rise. Tallis Fell. The archives gave her a chance to bring everything her treacherous master wanted to hide into the light.

Rest was a luxury she could not afford.