Last time: Oppie trained with Sasha and Viran for the first time in a while and learned of their relationship.

Now: How do Cien and Kopesh currently fair?

Chapter 5- Cien's Power, Kopesh's Freedom

Cien glanced around the small conference that she held at the projection table. The commander of her forces, General Varden, regarded her behind stern, unyielding eyes. She caught a faint whisper of emotion from him, a mixture of annoyance and dark humor at their meeting, but he said nothing. He was loyal to her, a true soldier only interested in serving his commander, and quite glad to be serving a commander who wasn't a psychotic monster that would waste his men - a true rarity in service to the Sith Empire, and that made him eternally loyal to her. Moff Jiardon continued his briefing without a pause, he was the target of Varden's emotions.

"So you're saying," she cut him off, "your forces were held back from securing the position and obeying my orders and providing me support because a single man held them back?" She growled.

"My Lady," He began deferentially, "I have only the reports of my commanders on the scene, and they reported that this person, a Mandalorian apparently, delayed them for only a short time as they moved to secure the site."

"Your men secured nothing." She bit back, "they provided me no support and I faced three Jedi alone while your forces were held up by one man because he had a scary helmet on." She spit the words out. When she mentioned taking three Jedi on herself, he briefly raised his eyebrows as if impressed.

"My Lady, I apologize but they took heavy casualties, and it was not just the one Mandalorian. While he accounted for," he consulted his data pad, "288 casualties, and destroyed multiple flights of fighters and bombers, that was before they had backup which arrived in force, and apparently crippled both Star Destroyers."

She was vaguely impressed that a non-Force user had racked up such a kill count. "Becuase your commander was stupid enough to pull them in atmosphere and turn his shields off." She sneered at him. "Moff Jiardon, we stand on the cusp of trying to take over the Empire, and I count you as my ally, but what faith should I have in the forces you commit to my efforts if two of your vaunted Star Destroyers, and the supposedly invincible ground forces thereof, are held off single handedly by some lunatic in a costume? The only comfort this provides me is that if this is representative of the Empire as a whole, the army of thousands I have in my personal command could apparently take on the entirety of the Empire by itself."

General Varden held back a smile as she finished her tirade, which for him was akin to rolling on the floor laughing until he ran out of breath. It had been generally agreed by all aboard the Bloodstorm that, while the Empire was a greatly supplied machine, as a military fighting force they were laughable. They had no enemy to prepare against, no actual war to fight, no enemies they had to counter. The Clone Wars, the only major conflict in the past millennium, had proven how badly a thousand years of peace had debilitated the war fighting spirit, experience, and capabilities in the galaxy. The Empire was a parade army, only meant to look scary, but had never been battle tested or hardened. As opposed to the Bloodstorm, which was manned with a crew of incredibly experienced, veteran troops that had been engaged in a vicious war against the Old Republic up until their unfortunate freeze that had brought them to this time. It was well thought on the ship, as a matter of fact, that since so many of the best forces of the Sith had been committed to the Bloodstorm that it was a good chance their absence was a deciding factor in why that war had ended in defeat for the Sith Empire.

Moff Jiardon was appropriately chastised and was glaring back at her across the holo projection as he gritted his teeth. "I assure you my forces are the most competent in the galaxy, though if you deem them insufficient I may return to serving the Empire, if that is your will my lady." He said pointedly.

She raised an eyebrow, threatening her with revealing her to the Emperor? She had to stop herself from rolling her eyes at such a droll threat, and also suppressed a sigh. "I have no wish to lose your services, Moff Jiardon. Though I remind you that if you let the Emperor know about the Bloodstorm, then I will gladly let the Emperor know that one of his Moffs was double dealing. I am fully confident in my ability to handle Palpatine's attention, I would be curious if you have the same confidence in yourself?" She asked with venom in her voice, as they took one more step along the tightrope of mutual blackmail that stretched before them whenever they butted heads like this. Before he could respond, she continued, "this bickering is pointless, however. Our goal is still before us and our work together still stands. This incident," She said, choosing that word instead of 'failure' to placate his fragile ego, "is in the past and has no bearing on the plans we wished to discuss today."

The hologram of Jiardon sulked for a moment across the lightyears of communication, before he finally recovered himself and pushed forward. "Indeed." He purposely omitted the usual 'my lady' he might have otherwise inserted there. "Darth Vader. We are not sure where he came from. He emerged at the end of the Clone Wars as The Emperor's personal servant, or some such, being sent to trouble spots to handle them. Quite brutally if I may say."

Cien already knew this. They had spent the last several years learning what they could about this Palpatine and his acolyte, Vader. When Dracul had revealed to her and Kopesh this idea from a Darth Bane, this 'Rule of Two', that had apparently commanded what little remained of the once proud Sith Order for the last millenia, all three of them had shared a burst of laughter at such an imbecilic idea, it stood out in her memory as the only moment of genuine mirth Dracul, Kopesh and she had ever shared. The only thing that vexed her, considering the idea as Jiardon droned on, trying to pad out what little he and the galaxy actually knew about Vader, was how, for a thousand years, two Sith at a time had been able to continue the chain unbroken. It must have been an incredible stroke of luck, or intervention from the Dark Side itself, that kept the myriad possibilities for such an incredibly fragile 'order' from fading into obscurity from one of thousands of possibilities of failure.

"I am not particularly concerned with Vader." She cut in. She had, of course, never met this so-called Dark Lord, but she had met many other Dark Lords, all of them were dead. She herself could easily be considered a Dark Lord of the Sith if she wanted to bother with titles. She was not a fool, she had learned the lessons of war well and was not a simpleton to dismiss her enemies as idiots. She respected her enemies greatly, far more greatly than any of her allies for that matter. But all the reports, all the information she had on this Vader character, were the usual catalog of Sith powers. Impressive, to be sure, especially to a galaxy that had long forgotten what a Sith, a true Sith was. But nothing that would have made him particularly special if he was sent to Korriban back in her time for training and assessment. Strong in the Force, strong in the Dark Side, but nothing that greatly worried her. In the back of her mind, this Vader kind of reminded her of what Dracul might have been like in his first century of life. If he survived another six hundred years, then he might be a force to reckon with as Dracul had been, but not as he stood now.

Moff Jiardon, however, did not agree with her dismissal of this Dark Lord. He regarded her with his mouth slightly agape, and it looked like he fumbled between being startled, thinking she was a fool, admiring her posturing, wondering if it was posturing and standing in awe of her if she actually felt such a lack of concern for Darth Vader. "My Lady," he said, respectfully, returning to his role as a contrite servant. "Darth Vader is not an opponent to be taken lightly." He ventured to suggest.

General Varden looked from the Moffs hologram to his Empress, a slight smirk on his face.

"You misunderstand. I do not take him lightly, but I also do not fear his tricks as you do." She responded, stopping another eye roll.

"My Lady, his powers are well-" He cut off as he felt a constriction of his throat and started gasping for breath.

"I know of his powers, I wield them. Do not forget why you have made this arrangement with me Moff. Let my presence before you stand testament to the fact that I have faced others, no, many others like him before, and I am not concerned with the outcome of trying to remove Vader from my path." She let his throat go, and he staggered, drawing breath as he looked at her from the hologram with newfound admiration and terror. "We will lay a trap for him, we will kill him, and then we will move on to defeat his master, Palpatine." She said with the utmost confidence and certainty.

The Moff recovered himself, still clutching his throat, "Yes - Yes, My Lady." He said between ragged breaths.

Kopesh tore his eyes away from the pretty Twi'lek and Zabrak girls that were at the far end of the bar to look back at his underling, annoyedly.

"I'm sorry what?" He said.

"They said they lost the shipment due to an Imperial patrol." The rough looking kid, Gorsek, repeated, the disdain dripping from his voice. "That's like the second time in four months, boss." Kopesh was kind of impressed the kid could count up to four, though he supposed he had at least that many digits. When he got up to eleven then he might actually be impressed.

"Well then deal with it, do you need me to take care of every little thing?" He sneered.

"No boss, I was just wondering if you wanted to make an example of 'em. You know, all personal like." The kid replied, blinking in confusion.

Kopesh mulled it over. Taking care of a smuggler crew could be fun, but he glanced at the other end of the bar where the Twi' and the Zabrak were eyeing him back. He could easily imagine more fun ways to spend the evening as he eyed their curves.

"Nah, you deal with it, I have other business tonight." He slammed back another shot of corellian whiskey and gestured for another. The staff at the night club moved to fill his order immediately, as he lounged back into the overly soft cushions of the booth. It gave him a nice view of the rest of the club, especially all the other patrons, especially the ones of a female persuasion, but kept him in a nice dark seclusion. He owned the gang that owned the bar, so this was his palace.

He loved Nar Shaddaa, and the place hadn't changed in over ten millennia, much less the last three. If anything it just became more itself, which was a strange statement, but somehow fitting. For thousands of years, no matter who ruled over the galaxy, the Hutts stayed in tight control over the underworld and its beating heart was right here, on this city moon of their homeworld. Every seedy gangster, every slimy smuggler, every brutish thug was drawn to this place as their own capital, like Coruscant was the capital of the galaxy at large.

After Cien had left him to die on that dust ball after Dracul had been blown up, he'd sent up a distress signal, and was picked up by some crew or other. He'd commandeered their ship, sending their remains out the airlock, and he had made his way here immediately. If there was one place he could trust, it was Nar Shaddaa, and his faith was rewarded richly. In under two weeks he had figured which of the gangs was the most powerful. In a month he had worked his way in. In four months he had killed, bribed, plotted, schemed, murdered, tortured, adulterated, and every other kind of '-ed' you could think of, up the chain and now he was at the top. Some Hutt ultimately oversaw it, but so long as he didn't rock the boat, he could sit here, night after night, with his gang, in his club, in his town, and rake in the credits, and enjoy whatever company he pleased.

Which he would do this evening. He made a gesture with his hands, and one of the other thugs at the table stepped away to go talk with the Zabrak and the Twi' on his behalf. He looked back up at Gorsek, and used another gesture to bring him in closer. "And make sure it ain't pretty." He added, referring to the smugglers.

Gorsek nodded, with a smirk. "Got it boss." He then hurried off to spend the night torturing the smugglers to death. Kopesh took another slug of whiskey and enjoyed the warm glow of how good his life was.

His comlink buzzed. Not his usual one, his old one, the one he kept hidden even from the gang he now owned. He brought it up to listen to the message that played from the small speaker, so quiet only he could hear.

That brought him up short. He recognized the voice instantly. His eyes flashed wide as he tried to think of what to do, and his anger flared at the summons. He could ignore it and keep to the good life here. He liked being the boss.

But this could be his ticket back aboard the Bloodstorm. That meant he had a chance to watch Cien die. Horribly. And that in and of itself would be worth it, just to see her suffer.

Huh.

He considered it for a few moments. And then started moving. His thug body guards started moving as well. He got up, out of the booth and started making for the bank of elevators to go up to his suite. He was brought up short as the two girls were brought to him, they'd slipped his mind. He waved his hand, dismissing them, and the guard made it clear they had to buzz off. He looked at them admiringly as they left. They really were gorgeous. Then he turned to the bank of elevators, and summoned his second to come over. He'd need him to watch the shop for a while.

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