Chapter Seven: Only the Beginning

Cipher Nine smiled wistfully as Zarek Voss snored loudly beside her. He shifted position in the bed, mumbling unintelligibly before returning to his heartful snoring.

For such a large being, he had proved a surprisingly gentle lover. For a short while, she had been able to put Darth Jadus, Darth Baras and his apprentice, and all of their Sith games out of her mind.

Ideally, she would have fallen into a sleep similar to Zarek's. But her implants had wakened her, alerted her to new matters. Ever since her confrontation with "The General" on the Brentaal Star, she had set her security augments to work continuously in the background at encryptions of all files related to him. A risk, one that might prove fatal if she was detected, but she had been unable to ignore his words.

An hour ago, one of those files had finally unlocked. Its contents confirmed his dying declaration. Worse, based on the many ancillary files that she still had not accessed, she suspected this was only the beginning.

She was in no position to act on the information, not as long as she was stuck in the capital. Fortunately, she had made a contact who could act.

She slipped on a robe, checking to make sure Zarek remained asleep. She communicated with the door, making a quick adjustment so that it opened and closed noiselessly, then engaged the lock behind her. If Zarek woke and found the door locked, he would be furious - but the alternative, him stumbling out into her conversation, would be far worse.

Once the door was secured, she relaxed. The ceiling, floor, and all the walls of her apartment were soundproof; she had seen to that herself. She had checked that no alterations had been made in her absence. No one would overhear.

She performed a high-intensity security sweep. There were several listening devices, of course. Most were from Imperial Intelligence. Those were easily hacked to loop the ambient noise, so that their transmission would be uninterrupted while at the same time they recorded nothing.

More surprising was the device she identified as Republic SIS. The Republic wasn't even supposed to know where Dromund Kaas was. She mentally tipped her hat to whatever Republic agent had managed to get a device here. She would let Keeper know about it tomorrow, so that Intelligence could start sweeping for similar hardware. Fortunately, it proved easy to jailbreak, and then she just repeated the same process she had used for the Imperial bugs.

The last devices were ones she could not identify. Doubtless planted on Darth Baras's orders. Accessing their systems proved more complicated. Once she was in, however, looping the background sounds was entirely straightforward.

After a moment's hesitation, she cycled back through the devices, disabling their ability to even passively record voice patterns. This tampering could be detected, if anyone thought to look for it. But leaving them alone was a greater risk, particularly for Baras's devices. Their structure was too new to her to discount the possibility of a secondary recording protocol.

Another sweep, carefully checking the room in meter-square sections, yielded two more devices that had been carefully camouflaged. One was from Intelligence, the other from the source she suspected was Baras. The same treatment rendered them similarly harmless.

Now satisfied, she used a secure long-distance transmission channel to make her call.

She sat on the floor, crossing her legs, and waited. Even traveling at several times the speed of light, the transmission beam would take roughly 70 minutes to reach Tython. Once the contact was established, the conversation would be in real time, or would at least appear that way to both participants. But that contact was not instantaneous. As was so often true in her line of work, patience was a requirement.

She sat in an almost meditative state. To a casual observer, she would have appeared to be dozing. Still, she came alert the instant the holographic image of Jedi Grandmaster Satele Shan appeared before her.

"I'm surprised you reached out so quickly," Satele said.

"Me too," Cipher admitted. "I came across information that calls for immediate action."

"Are you trying to make me your agent?"

There was a trace of humor in Satele's voice, but her wariness was genuine. Cipher couldn't blame her. If Satele was foolish enough not to doubt her, then she would be too foolish to actually be useful.

"Trust takes time," Cipher acknowledged. "Unfortunately, we don't have time. I unlocked information today on a weapon your Republic has been secretly working on."

"I already know of this and have taken steps to deal with it."

"It might already be too late."

Satele frowned. "Explain."

"I'm aware of the weapon because the Empire is aware," Cipher pointed out. "I haven't unlocked all the related files, but I can tell you there are several of them – and the file names correspond with protocols the Sith use in top-level operations. I would bet a substantial sum that Sith forces are plotting to take control of the weapon."

"The Sith have no presence on Coruscant."

"Don't be naïve, Grandmaster. The Empire has spies everywhere, just as you do. You have to consider this an active threat."

To her credit, Satele processed this quickly, wasting no time with denial or arguments.

"You're right, of course," she said. "I won't pretend that I trust you, but I can't ignore this. I'll send someone to Coruscant immediately, someone ready to take definitive action."

"That's all I ask," Cipher said.

"One question," Satele said. "You claim to be loyal to your Empire. Why tell me this, when remaining silent might give your side a tremendous advantage?"

A test, Cipher realized. Too blasé a reply would break whatever fragile confidence she hoped to build with the Jedi.

She chose her words carefully, speaking honestly but guarding as much as she could. "The Sith have many factions. Some want to maintain the status quo. Some want to finish what we started at Coruscant. Still others…" She thought of Jadus and his words to her this afternoon. "Well, they just want to spread terror for its own sake. I don't know which faction is going after your weapon. But if it's the wrong one, they'll use it. I want the Empire to be strong, but I also want it to be at peace."

Satele seemed to consider this adequate. "I hope you're telling me the truth," she said. "Be careful, Cipher Nine."

The transmission ended.

Cipher removed the lock from the bedroom door. She checked each of the listening devices in turn, deep scanning to make sure nothing of her conversation had been recorded. Then she reversed her tampering and let them return to their work.

When she returned to the bed, Zarek was still asleep. She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of him beside her. Tomorrow would bring new problems, she knew. She was a pawn in a game between two Sith; as Arkarix Krell had noted, that was not a safe position to be in. She was playing her own dangerous game with the Jedi Grandmaster; if uncovered, she would be executed on the spot.

But for tonight, she wasn't alone. And for tonight, at least, that was enough.

NEXT: THE PRICE OF RITUAL