Battle Scars
By the time the Gravestone (an ominous name for a ship if she ever heard one) nears Odessen, Cipher Nine's come up with nineteen different ways to kill Arcann and the hole in her belly's nearly closed.
There's only so much kolto to go around; they'd meant to repair the ship and to resupply on Asylum, but Arcann and Vaylin's unexpected visit put a stop to that and with so many others wounded in the fight she refuses to jeopardize what few supplies remain. Lana and Senya take turns at her bedside, pouring Force energy through her body in a coursing arc between the wounds on her stomach and back. She'll have scars, to be sure, but the lingering damage is all internal, and sometimes when she dozes she hears them arguing.
"I'm sorry, Senya, but I don't have any better idea than you how to deal with something like this. Sith philosophy's rather light on healing arts, and quite frankly she-"
"-should have died, yes." The knight's beside her, perched on the edge of a chair- Senya's somehow never quite still, even at rest, her body a weapon in perpetual motion- with fingertips terribly cold against the bare skin beneath her unbuttoned jacket. (Or perhaps it's her skin that's hot? It's so hard to tell, and she's so tired.) "She still might, if this bleeding won't stop, but I'm not sure how much more I can manage. It's difficult to track it. Lift her up."
She cracks one eyelid open. "I can hear you, you know."
(One thing they have plenty of is drugs; several of Koth's crew had done some recreational shopping during their time on Asylum, and when Lana made the rounds looking for painkillers she ended up with four different kinds of spice.
They only had two doses of anesthetic. Len and Ralo got those, and she made do with a generous noseful of glitterstim.
Glitterstim's a shitty painkiller, honestly, but she's pretty sure she can hear colors now, so at least she's distracted.)
"Good. Think healing thoughts, then, since you seem to be keeping yourself alive through force of will." One hand slipping under her back, Lana tips her gently onto her left side.
"I just spent five years in carbonite. I'm not dying now just because some little shit with daddy issues decided to shove a lightsaber through my liver." It doesn't hurt quite as much to move as it did a few hours ago, but when she sees the look on Lana's face and laughs- oh, that hurts. "No offense."
"None taken. That's…" Senya shrugs, "a fair assessment of my son, though I've never heard it put quite so bluntly."
"I'd imagine not. No one likes to tell a mother her babies are ugly."
Senya looks to Lana with a wry grin. "You were right, you know. She does sound like me."
"Do I?" she says, her body balanced between their hands. "Interesting, coming from the woman who disagreed with the Immortal Emperor. He must really have been different back then, if that's what made him love you."
Something like a cloud passes over the knight's face, the lines at the corners of her eyes deepening for a moment before she speaks. "What makes you say that?"
"He let Arcann do this. He wants me to let him in, but I won't, so he keeps…" she tries to find the right words for it, for the feeling when time stops and she feels him pushing, trying to shunt her into the back of her own mind. "He's hurting me to prove a point- I doubt I could die if I wanted to. But you? You walked away."
"Without my children."
"But he let you go. He called it a mistake-" Senya flinches- "but he let you go. D'you know what happened the first time I got in his way?" It's been five years and she remembers it like it was yesterday. "He killed a planet."
Senya's quiet, her jaw clenched.
"He's tried to manipulate you before, Cipher? Since he's been-" Lana's still at the end of her bed, still holding her on her side, and gestures with her free hand, fingers circling level with her head.
She nods. "Three times, so far."
"Show me?"
Skin against skin, palm pressed against her back, their breathing synchronizes and she lets Lana read her, lets the memories play back like a holorecording.
(They both had so many questions in the first hours after the rescue, but too much time in carbonite left her muscles weak and atrophied and her brain moving a thousand times faster than her sluggish tongue. She tries, again and again, to explain what happened at that first encounter with Valkorion, and finally when they've fled deep enough in the forest to rest she sits on the stump of a fallen tree and looks up with a frustrated huff.
"I can't… ugh. Stupid body." Head tilted, she considers her words again. "Can think it, and you can see?"
"If you're willing, yes, I can do that." Lana reaches out toward her, nearly touching her before she stops short. "I'm sorry- I really ought to ask, shouldn't I? It's… easier with contact, but I can manage without if-"
"'s okay." She leans forward into Lana's outstretched hand.)
She remembers; Lana narrates, quietly, for Senya's benefit.
She remembers his first intrusion, trapped in her own thoughts by illusory pain and an imaginary monster- it must have been imaginary, since she knows from experience that blasters and blades can't kill a Monolith- and his second, walled off from her companions but laughing in Valkorion's face at his empty threat, at the idea that taking away her weapon makes a Sith Lord any less lethal.
Lana's hand shifts on her back at that, just the faintest tightening of her fingers in the arm that'd been injured that day, that bore the consequence of her refusal.
"Didn't mean for you to get hurt," she mutters. "But I don't want him in my head."
"Shh. I know." The connection remains.
She remembers the third time, her body pulled across the platform toward Arcann's lightsaber, fear giving way to searing agony- do you feel that, Father?- and all the time the Emperor's voice echoing over her own screams.
You cannot defeat my son without my help, little Cipher. You need me, and if I must break you before you see reason-
"-so be it." Lana gasps out the words, pulling her hand back and bracing herself against the bed. "Oh, Force, that hurts."
His threat hangs heavy in the air around them; she exhales, pushing the memory away with the breath that leaves her lungs. "You wanted to see. Now do you understand?"
"No. I don't." Senya shakes her head, fists clenched so hard her knuckles crack. "He was different by the time I left him, yes, but cold, distant- he'd turned his back on me, on our children. But that..."
"I told you. I told you what he is, what he's done. He's a monster." Lana's behind her, still leaning against the edge of the bed, her voice unsteady. "But you refused to hear it, you and Koth both."
She tries to push herself upright, but she can't quite manage without help- she needs her muscles to sit and even now every cough, every flinch is like a blade through her all over again- and, their hands withdrawn, she starts to fall. Senya springs to her feet and catches her, left hand cradling the small of her back, guiding her back down into her side.
"Koth still worships the memory of a god he never actually knew, but I heard you. Scyva knows, I heard you." Eyes closed, the knight bows her head, a faint halo building around her; she can't tell, looking, whether the glitterstim's to blame or if the glow is real. "See if the tank is ready for her yet. I'm going to try again."
"You're exhausted. She can wait-"
Real or imagined, the light around Senya's blinding now. It's hard to see the rest of the room.
"No, Lana, she can't. I'm going to try again."
She closes her eyes, too, against the brightness and the heat in her belly that blossoms outward like a dying star, and when she lapses out of consciousness she does not dream.
When she opens her eyes again she's floating.
Not frozen, not in carbonite this time- she can feel her hair drifting against her face, can feel resistance as she spreads her fingers, moves them experimentally. She inhales, or tries to; her mouth and lungs are already full, the smell of kolto in her nose and the taste of it heavy on the back of her tongue.
Oh. Kolto tank.
Not dead, then. That's good.
(She ignores the mocking laughter in the back of her mind, slots another stone into the wall she is building around the place where he lives.)
Her boots hit the floor of the tank as the kolto drains and, blinking and coughing, she looks down at herself (dressed, but for belt and gloves- she doesn't remember that, and this isn't her jacket; hers has a hole through it now) and then out through the glass. They must be close to Odessen, wherever that is, judging by the activity level on the bridge- how did she get to the bridge? She can't remember that, either- and Koth strapped into the pilot's chair with SCORPIO, arms folded, looking on disapprovingly. With a hiss, the tank's seals decompress and the front hinges open. She takes a few wobbly steps forward.
Lana's nestled into a far corner, legs curled beneath her and gaze locked on the floor, lips moving in a silent recitation of the Sith Code. When she reaches the end of the litany she begins again, making her way through a second time before she looks up.
"'The Force shall free me,' hm?" She grins. "Technically true, I suppose. I just had to wait for a Sith Lord, seeing as how the Force doesn't see fit to talk to me."
"It should have been sooner. I-"
"That was a thank you." When she says it Lana smiles, her expression relaxed for the first time in weeks. "I don't think I've said it properly yet, which… I'd still be decorating Arcann's vault if not for you, so I owe you that at the very least. Where's Senya?"
"Sleeping. Her last attempt knocked you both out cold, and I couldn't bring myself to wake her." Rolling her shoulders backward, she stretches, unlinks her folded hands. "She's had a terrible day. So have you, to be fair, but she blames herself- for her children, for getting the Scions involved, for Heskal bringing Arcann to Asylum. All our plans almost ruined by one idiot priest." Lana shakes her head, her expression darkening for a moment. "If you'd died-"
"But I didn't." One hand under her ribs, she prods her belly tentatively. "Nor do I plan on it any time soon. Not until I feed Arcann that lightsaber of his, at minimum."
At that, Lana grins, pushing herself up off the ground as the ship veers hard to starboard. "Bloodthirsty as ever, I see."
"He stole five years from me, let alone what he took from all of you, and he doesn't even care. I don't mean anything to him at all except that I'm the puppet shell his father's riding around in." Her lip curls; the thought of it's infuriating. "I want my life back. If I have to kill him to do it, so be it."
"I'm not sure that's entirely true. You know what they call you on Zakuul, yes? The Outlander?"
She latches onto a nearby console with both hands at another hard turn. "I've heard the term."
"You feature heavily in Arcann's speeches," Lana says. "I'll send you the files, but suffice it to say there are quite a few. It was my first hint that you might have survived, actually."
"How so?"
"Using you as propaganda made sense at first. You'd killed the Emperor-" Lana's fingers move in mock quotation marks- "insofar as he can be killed- so it was easy justification for their war. The Outlander was the perfect scapegoat. Then he kept it up, though, speech after speech, which made me wonder. So I started digging."
She nods. "I can't have been high priority."
"You'd be surprised. But I spent too long begging favors from the Dark Council, and then the war took them all anyway- years of wasted time. With fighting on two fronts, it took three years to make enough inroads on Zakuul to confirm you were still alive." The other woman sighs, her smile fading again. "Some Minister of Sith Intelligence I turned out to be."
"You always did hate titles."
"Yes, well, that's one I'm well rid of."
This time, it almost doesn't hurt when she laughs. "Swapped one for another, then? You seem to be more or less in charge of this lot."
"Not exactly, and this was just the rescue party- you'll meet the rest of the Alliance soon." The way Lana says it emphasizes the capital A, makes it sound like a title rather than a description. "The majority of them are here on Odessen trying to fashion us some sort of base. I only wish I could have found more of your old team- finding SCORPIO was a lucky accident, frankly, and Theron's working on a lead on Doctor Lokin, but-" she pauses at yet another hard shift, this time to port, that sends them staggering into each other- "Koth, is all this lurching about really necessary?"
Koth doesn't look back, his attention focused on the terrain ahead of them. "Whose brilliant idea was it to put the docking station at the bottom of a canyon? The Gravestone moves just fine, but it's like threading a needle with a turbocannon."
"If your skills are inadequate, Mr. Vortena, I would be more than willing to assume control." SCORPIO's expression doesn't change, but she's heard that tone often enough to catch the subtext. The if's an interesting new addition, though. It would seem this current iteration picked up some diplomatic skills along the way.
"You can pry the controls from my cold dead fingers, droid. We'll be on the ground in five," Koth says; the ship's trajectory stabilizes. "Also, that wasn't an offer, just so we're clear."
Lana rolls her eyes as they untangle themselves. "Just like old times, hm?"
"Very nearly. You mentioned Theron was working on something- you'll have to tell me how you managed to convince him. Is he still with the SIS?" She slides the question in like an afterthought.
(It isn't one. She's wanted to ask what happened to him all along; a part of her was afraid of the answer. She saw him dead in her dreams so many times, and she still doesn't know how much of that was real and how much was Valkorion's lies, but working on implies present tense, which implies alive, which at least is something.)
"No. He quit, believe it or not."
She blinks. "He did what? When?"
"I contacted him when I found out you were still alive. It'd been years, and with the war… I didn't think he'd even answer. But as near as I can tell, he resigned from the SIS five minutes after the call disconnected." Lana's looking out the window, now, at the walls of the vast canyon looming up around the ship. "He met me on Asylum a week later."
"Now I really do need to hear the story." It sounds impossible, so it must be true. Five years ago she would have said the Republic was his anchor. It must have been a hell of a war.
"You can ask him yourself, if you like. He ought to be here, unless he's still off chasing after-" Lana cuts herself off abruptly. "Never mind. We're docking, I think. Are you ready to meet the rest of the Alliance, Commander?"
"Yes, I-"
It takes a moment for the title to register.
"Wait. What?"
Theron wasn't on Odessen, in point of fact, but when she finally gets to a secure terminal she's got a message waiting from him- two years old and half-rambling to a degree she almost wonders if it was dictated rather than typed.
She reads it again and again and again.
Doctor Oggurobb releases her from the infirmary after three days, though the Hutt seems decidedly put out by her ongoing refusal to allow any further study of her brain- when I'm well and truly dead and not a moment before being her final answer- but Lana and Senya still treat her as though she's made of glass.
She can't afford to look weak, not when this fragile thing they're calling an Alliance only survives by believing she's strong. She has to be indestructible. She has to be smarter and tougher and scarier than Arcann, because there are only two ways to end this war and they both involve her boot on his throat, the variable being whether he's alive or not when she brings her heel down.
(They don't talk about the third way the war could end. Her newest scars are enough of a reminder.
She hides them carefully, though she doesn't mind them in the abstract. She has so many already that it seems strange to focus on these, though her midriff-baring days are likely over- as they should be, she supposes, at the advanced age of twenty-sev-
No.
Thirty-two.)
She pushes herself harder, despite their cautions. It takes her another three days of ruined undershirts, of splitting her healing scabs every time she tries to help with the construction projects, before she admits that maybe she should take it easy after all.
So instead she runs laps around the base, learning names and faces as she goes. There are so many of them, more arriving every day, Imperials and Zakuulans and Republicans alike, and they all call her Commander. She meets the transports when they come in, smiles and shakes their hands and gets the new recruits sorted out between the divisions. She was never meant to be a diplomat, never meant to lead (she was meant to be the blade, not the hand that wields it), but she is trying.
And then, on the nineteenth day, she's crossing the walkway between the war room and the docking platforms when she sees him.
The shuttle's just landed; Theron's standing at the top of the boarding ramp, behind two soldiers and a nervous-looking girl with a lightsaber on her hip. When he finally disembarks he turns to the left, rests his hands on the railing, looking outward toward the valley below. His implant- the one she gave him- glitters on his temple. Even his jacket's the same, down to the scorch mark on the collar.
Five years, and he's still wearing the same damned jacket.
She can't help it. She cuts across the path toward him.
"Theron?"
He looks back over his shoulder at the sound of her footsteps, and she'd know his smile from a thousand meters away. "I wasn't sure you'd remember me. It's been a long time."
"Not so long as that, and you're not so easy to forget. Give yourself a little more credit." She steps up to the railing beside him.
"A lot's happened between then and now." Theron turns toward her. "Though you look… you look the same."
She shrugs, curls her fingers over the rail. "The unexpected benefits of five years in carbonite." He wasn't quite so lucky, it seems- he's got a new scar along the line of his chin, at least a year old to judge by its fading, and a few grey hairs scattered at his temples. It suits him. "But you've managed to get better-looking, so you'll have to tell me your secret. I suspect I'll need it once time catches up with me."
"Liar." If his grin's any indication, he doesn't mind. His comm chimes. "And perfect timing, as usual. You're ruining your own surprise."
She arches a brow.
"I found something of yours that I thought you might want back." Theron raises his hand to his ear. "Go ahead, Tora. Bring her around."
"What did you-"
When she hears the roar of the engines she claps her hands together in delight, and when her ship- her ship, not the great monster Gravestone that carried her here but her sleek, stealthy Nightshrike- comes speeding across the horizon she grabs his sleeve, nearly throwing her own arms around his neck before she remembers how many people are watching.
He reaches up, rests his other hand over hers. "Welcome back, Nine."