Thace stepped back from Katora, his heart pounding in his chest. "What did you say?" He asked his hand drifting towards his biter on his left hip. Of all people, how was she the one to find out? He shook his head, he could ponder the question later.
She chuckled and slid the file she had been messing with earlier towards him. She nodded towards it, encouraging him to open it. He complied, and what he saw made his heart drop. It was a file on him and Thace. Documentation that he was sure that his mother had destroyed. Birth records, DNA samples, heritage, School and Military identification. It was all in there.
"Where did you get this?" He asked as Katora pulled the file out of his grasp. That file could not only ruin him but Vace as well. He needed to know whatever Katora was planning to do with it.
"I like to do a little research here and there on the people I work for." She winked at him, and stepped away from him. "I will say I was quite surprised when I discovered your connection to Vace." She reached for the file fingers tapping along the surface in a taunting dance.
Thace frowned his grip on his blaster tightening. "Surely you don't gain anything from this information. A brotherly connection? So what? If anything it makes us a force to be reckoned with."
Katora flicked up her eyes. They were filled with a knowing look, a look that made Thace's blood ran cold. Gone was the warmth that had originally filled him when he saw Katora, in its place was a side he had never seen before.
"I may just be a lab technician, but from the information I've gathered-" she smoothed her hand over the file, as if it was a precious treasure- "It will be enough to destroy you both."
"There's nothing that you could know that would destroy the both of us." Even as the sentence left his mouth his heart quickened in pace.
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," Katora said as she scooped up the file and stalked towards the door, "But either way if you help me, I'll help you."
With that the door slid closed behind her.
She knows. The Blade of Marmora. My connection to them. She knows everything.
It had been weeks since Thace had last seen Katora. More and more of his time was spent at his brother's side as he worked to uncover the location of the blade, and he worked twice as hard to leave his brother astray. And each day his brother grew more and more frustrated with the lack of progress made.
Then the day came when he finally caught a glimpse of Katora disappearing down a corridor, a brief glance over her shoulder encouraged him to follow. Down several more corridors he finally ducked into a lab, one he had never seen before.
"I like to keep this one for my more sensitive projects." Katora said from behind him. Thace spun hand going for his blaster. "Relax." Katora said walking past him, "I've given you time to think about the offer. Are you willing to accept? I hear that Vace is getting frustrated with every dead end he hits, I can only imagine what you have to go through to keep him off the right trail."
"So you do know." Thace said mostly for his confirmation, but she answered anyway.
"Of course I know." She threw her hands up in the air, "What else would I be holding over your head."
"Fair enough."
"Do we have a deal?"
Thace narrowed his eyes at Katora. How many more deals did she have with other people on this ship? How many others does she have dirt on? But how much longer could he divert his brother's path? Each day he grew more and more desperate for a lead and each day. Thace was running out of places to lead his brother without drawing suspicion, and now right in front of him was a chance to buy himself some more time so he could come up with a better plan.
"The longer you take to respond the more I'm thinking about taking back my offer."
He didn't like it but he didn't have much of an option.
"Deal."