The Republic had dropped off four technicians, two soldiers, and an officer at the site of the relay station. When questioned, the officer explained that they were there to conduct an inspection and any necessary repairs following an unauthorized use of the relay. When it was clear that he and his men were unwilling or unable to provide any further details, Visas had the assassins cut their throats.
Now she stood just outside the station's entrance, her head bowed in contemplation. The morning drizzle was a frigid one, but she resisted the urge to tune it out, instead letting the discomfort drive her deeper into the dark side's embrace. Things in the canyon were calm, but the wider landscape crackled with activity as braying, stomping, slithering, and gliding creatures went after their wants.
Leofel was inside with another assassin, working on slicing into the relay's computer. The rest had returned to the Celestus, which Atton had damaged before his flight from the Ord Lonesome system with a lucky turbolaser shot—
No, Visas corrected herself. Not lucky. There was no luck.
The blast had damaged the scout flyer's hyperdrive, and the jumps it had taken to reach Daluuj—following yet another belated alert from a spy satellite—had played further havoc with it. Making another jump before effecting repairs would be too dangerous. To compound their predicament, the Celestus' hyperwave transceiver was disabled as well, meaning they could not call for assistance—unless they managed to recalibrate the relay station, which would be more difficult than simply finding out what Atton had been using it for.
Cognizant as she was of their limitations, Visas had no distaste for machines in themselves. Even so, she could not help but be frustrated at the fact that so much should depend on them…
There had been talk among the assassins of disposing of the bodies by feeding them to the nearby lake worms, but Visas told them not to bother; repairing the Celestus was more important. Besides, she remembered how one of them on Dantooine had underestimated the laigreks and their Jedi handler and paid for it with his life. Daluuj's wildlife was certainly more dangerous, and hauling seven bodies over muddy slopes to the closest lake would be an unnecessary risk.
Meanwhile, the risk of failure was rising by the minute. Visas did not fear death, but she knew that her Master's penalty for failure would not be death, and this she knew well enough to fear. If Atton succeeded in escaping her grasp and warning the Republic of the invasion—and he may have done just that already—there would be no excuses, no deflections. Still, perhaps the Exile would also make Lord Silbus suffer for his obstruction.
And, she mused, perhaps the Exile herself would be made to suffer; she was, after all, responsible to the Empress, and Atton was supposed to have been completely under her thumb. The fact that he had betrayed the Sith at all had to have been an embarrassment for her; but Visas had been sent on her mission before she could see any of its consequences begin to play out.
Find Atton… Bring him back to me.
Standing there in the rain, listening, Visas knew to fear the consequences of failure. However, she was increasingly inclined to think that if she were to "fail" to bring Atton back alive, that price would be worth paying. And once she found out what he had been doing at the relay, exactly who he had been trying to contact and why, perhaps she would be able to find him again and begin to pay it.
Lord Silbus had had a busy day.
Individual days were hard to discern on Malachor V, but they passed away as assuredly as they did on any world—or no world—and he had been continuing his work, secure as his academy was secure. After enjoying a streak of glorious, uninterrupted productivity such that he had not experienced in years, he had actually found himself sated enough to leave Trayus Core of his own accord and to spend a day touring his domain, so as to see that all was well with it.
He met with Vosca Tyrnith and the other senior Beastkeepers and heard their reports. More foodstuff for the brutes had finally arrived. A few of the Wranglers had been duly reprimanded after being caught in the midst of a wasteful form of amusement involving a boma, a crate of adhesive grenades, and some idiot's kloo horn.
The Blademaster and lesser combat instructors reported the usual number of student injuries in the Proving Grounds—nothing too severe. While speaking with them, Silbus chanced to learn that Gorbus had continued practicing his Quey'tek, and he and Yaiban Retwin were both still alive.
The Chroniclers, Lorekeepers, Doctors, and Sages complained of the rate of attendance at their lectures before sidetracking into an argument about the authenticity of Karness Muur's Trialogue of the Elders of Ziost—a controversy which Silbus was all too happy to settle.
The Master Assassins fairly bored him to death in recounting the nature of the new infiltration training exercises they had been conducting.
Using his comlink, Silbus spoke briefly with the one in charge of Singularity Base, whose name he had recalled with considerable difficulty: Major Vasch. The Human reported that there were no problems with security or anything else, and Silbus left it at that.
The Headmaster even surprised himself by going to the transmission room to raise Admiral Varko, asking if he had heard anything from Marr about her pursuit of the Ebon Hawk. Varko answered that he hadn't, and for all he knew the chase could be over by now. Were that the case, Silbus mused, the Miraluka may well have slipped back up the Nagian Corridor, her departure as unannounced as her arrival had been. To leave without even bothering to return his assassins would be quite annoying, but even that was not enough to sour his mood for long.
Finally Silbus had taken dinner in his quarters alone, and with this done, he slouched into his library. The Force could enable him—and had so enabled him—to keep his body's demands for sleep at bay for days or even weeks. But at this hour, after having poured so much of himself into his beloved work, even the Force began to fail him at last, and his bones seemed to creak under the weight of his robes. His head-tendrils pained him as much as they ever had, but it was a dull, distant pain, and the appendages seemed too tired to squirm.
He absent-mindedly walked the length of his desk, skimming its surface with the fingers of one hand. His eyes wandered the room; after alighting briefly on the same sculpture of Tulak Hord that had caught his attention before, they rose, fixing upon a bronze plaque hanging from the wall. Tested by heat, scratched, and dented, it had lost its original luster and was the only memento of his former life. It read:
Trans-Sectorial University of Dagary Minor,
upon the recommendation of the Faculty and the Board of Trustees,
and by virtue of the power in them vested, have conferred upon
THORIEL QUINTAIN SILBUS
who has pursued the studies, passed the examinations and complied with all other requirements therefore, the degree of
DOCTOR OF XENOLINGUISTICS
with all rights, privileges, and honors thereunto pertaining.
An epoch ago, a grief-stricken professor had skinned his hands as he dug that plaque out of the small mountain of smoldering permacrete that had once been the campus where he had toiled for many thankless decades. A lifetime of scholarship, fellowships, professorships—many types of somethingships—blotted out in a single day by the onslaught of Darth Malak.
As occupying Sith forces poured into the city, the once-professor had fled neither to the bomb shelters nor to his home, for what did he have left after his career had met such an explosive end? Wives, offspring, relations in abundance, and all of them greedy, capricious, ungrateful, and worst of all indifferent to his genius. Thoriel had suffered them for a lifetime, solaced only by his work. Better to let them think he was dead and throw himself on the mercy of the Sith; contrary to the old Corellian maxim, he preferred the devils he didn't know to the devils he did.
He had managed to smuggle his precious plaque into the camp, knowing it would likely be the last great achievement of his life. The Human soldiers had treated him roughly and called him many things: vermin, alien scum, freak. Even then, he had found it rich that such creatures should think less of other species when they themselves couldn't even breathe underwater.
In any case, it had happened that Thoriel didn't languish for very long before one of the Dark Jedi—yet another Human—had him dragged to his office, where they had spoken privately. I hear you were a professor on this planet for many years, alien, the Dark Jedi had told him. Tell me, could you see yourself becoming a student again?
Battered, emaciated, embittered, and altogether quite ready to die, Thoriel hadn't understood at first, but kept an open mind. Before he knew it, he had found himself on a transport bound for Korriban, and the rest was history.
Coming back to himself, Lord Silbus nodded slowly at the plaque as it fulfilled its purpose: it reminded him to be grateful. In a way he owed Lord Malak a debt for invading Dagary Minor. By any mundane measure it had been the worst thing ever to happen to him, yet in the end he reaped unimaginable benefits from it.
His eyes turning dim, the Headmaster drifted from the library to his bedchamber. He was content to yield to the flesh for a time and give it a few hours' rest. But when he rose again, he would not cease until he was finished at last with Fulminius Graush.