Kinship

Even with Nightshrike running at full engine and their plotted route hewing close to the precarious edge of the Deep Core, the trip from Odessen to Alderaan takes six days.

A little more than halfway there, Nine's barely drafted a working operational plan. It took a full day to get things settled at the base (they're even shorter-staffed, now, with Theron landed on Coruscant and her off on what might turn out to be a wild rakghoul chase, but Lana took over without complaint) and en route, despite combing over every image Theron sent from the Alderaan cameras, the only thing she's thought of so far is 'drive out to the complex and knock.'

That leaves two more days to come up with a better idea. She'll manage something.

Probably.

It's not exactly an emergency, of course. Doctor Lokin's been there for the better part of a year with not so much as a word on the Holonet since she came out of carbonite- maybe he really does just want out of the game. She wouldn't blame him. Well into his sixties at their first meeting on Taris though she would never have questioned his ability or his capacity to work, he'd have been forced out of active service by now were they still allegiant to the Empire. If-

Kaliyo calls back from the bridge, breaking her out of her reverie. "Hey. Time for shift change."

"Is it?" It seems like she just sat down to read through files, but if her datapad's settings are right then so is Kaliyo. "Hold on. I'll be right there."

"Wish we'd brought the Lady of Pain with us." Kaliyo unfolds herself from the pilot's chair as she steps through the door to the bridge. "She knows the old man too, and three in the rota's always better. More sleep for me."

"Lady of Sorrows. And that was just her Zakuulan cover, but you know that." With a chuckle, she slips past her into the seat. "Firebrand."

Middle fingers raised, reaching over Nine's head to grab the half-full glass perched on the console, Kaliyo grumbles. "Whatever. Still can't believe I spent six months trying to slice into their files and SCORPIO kept breaking my programs just to fuck with me."

"Maybe she didn't know it was you."

"Oh, she knew. She told me so when I got to Odessen." Her face scrunches, the tattooed lines down her forehead drawing together. "'You should be thankful,' she said. 'My counterprogramming improved your skillset by a factor of seven.' Threatened to scrap her shiny ass."

Nine snorts. "How'd that go over?"

"Apparently I'm welcome to try. Throw in a few Killiks, Doctor Rakghoul, and Temple rolling her eyes and muttering and it's just like the good old days, huh?"

"We had our moments." It's quiet on the bridge, stars whipping past the window so quickly they blur into long bright lines and curling spirals, the rest of the ship empty and silent and still. "SCORPIO's helping with some codebreaking. We finally have enough samples of Zakuulan encryptions that she thinks she can replicate their key. She offered to come with us, actually, but I asked her to stay behind and keep working."

"Oh. Well, good for her." Kaliyo turns toward the doorway. "I'm going to sleep. Catch you in six."

She nods; Kaliyo slips out quietly. The bridge now empty, she kicks her feet up on the console, settling back and reactivating her datapad. If she can get through all of Hylo's requisition forms in the next two hours- hm. Maybe she should grab a mug of caf before she-

Her commpad chimes.

are you alone?

Theron's ID, but an odd question: they just spoke at breakfast, and he knows perfectly well she's shipboard where privacy's relative. When they talked he used Nightshrike' s address, its signal more reliable than her pocket holo, and she'd transfer the call to her cabin if Kaliyo seemed likely to eavesdrop (which was basically always. The woman had ears like a hawkbat.).

More or less. She taps out her reply. Something up?

need to call you. encrypt your holo.

That's… not good. Datapad shoved back into her pocket, she slams her fist down on the door lock controls; it slides shut behind her with a soft pneumatic hiss, latches clicking into place. What's wrong?

NOW

She pulls her holo out, flips two switches- encryption first, then location masking to boot. It'll mean perhaps a second's delay in transmission time, as fast as the ship's moving, but something's got Theron spooked and she knows better than to second-guess his instincts. He's barely been on Coruscant a day. How had his plans gone awry this fast?

She knew this was a bad idea.

When the holo starts ringing she lets it connect. The picture lags behind the sound but when the signal locks in Theron's mid-sentence, words sharp as gunshots and his tone brimming with barely suppressed fury. It barely sounds like him- she doesn't think she's ever heard him this angry, not even on Rishi.

"-telling you she had nothing to do with this. Why would I lie?"

"A few years ago I would have believed you." She can't place the other voice- older, male, the accent a hodgepodge of standard Coruscanti, middle-class Alderaanian and the distinctive cadence of the Republic military- and the image still hasn't come into focus. This must be Theron's contact. But who is it? "But then you went AWOL in the middle of a war to play at this alliance of yours and break a regicide- a Void-damned Cipher, no less- out of prison. I think I have plenty of reason to question your motives."

"I resigned," Theron snaps, "as you're well aware. I'm not AWOL. And I thought you'd want to help, given all the time you spent on Alderaan. Clearly I was wrong, but-"

Finally, the holoprojector activates. Theron must be holding his own device; she can't see him at all, the camera pointed away from him at the other speaker, a tall, broad-shouldered man in middle age, his face a web of old scars over brown skin-

She didn't know his voice, but she certainly knows him by sight: he was at the top of their high-value target list at headquarters, right beside Saresh.

Jace Malcom, Supreme Commander of the Republic Military, stares flatly at her with his arms folded across his chest. "And here she is: the Ghost of the Empire. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Theron, what did you do?

Theron thought he'd run through every possible way that this could go.

Best case, obviously, he gets what he came for. He's been watching Nine pace back and forth for weeks staring at photos of a dead-end canyon on Alderaan and in a spate of caf-flavored delirium he thinks he figured out a way around the problem. True, Jace hasn't been stationed on Alderaan for years, but the garrison's still under his command- stars, the whole damn Republic army's under his command- and he's got a soft spot for the place. He even ordered the gorak again at dinner. To get the shield generator's turrets down would be a matter of a few relocated artillery emplacements; the Alliance could manage the rest with help from the local resistance.

Worst case, he'd thought, Jace would refuse. He'd be out the cost of the fuel but he'd have a day to resupply (his shopping list was short but meant four or five different stops, including the one place on the planet that sold the fancy face cream Nine likes so much; he almost choked on a ration bar when he saw the price of the tiny little jar but he loves the smell of it, sweet almonds and roses, and he saw she was running low the other night while trying to find the toothpaste in her 'fresher cabinet) before their meeting and his return trip. Besides that, it would be good to see his father again. Maybe they could still salvage something of what they'd been trying to build before this newest war.

But this? This was way worse than the worst case scenario.

All during dinner he couldn't shake the feeling someone was watching him. Just his security detail, he kept telling himself. Too long on the run, Shan. You're getting paranoid. It was an uneventful hour- all small talk in public, of course, but no laser dot on his forehead, and the food really was good.

But then, back at Jace's apartment, Theron didn't even get three sentences into his spiel (he'd rehearsed it half a dozen times for Tee-Seven, which pronounced itself duly convinced) before the old man was on his feet.

He'd thought Theron wanted to defect back to the Republic, for fuck's sake.

It devolved quickly after that, hard words on both sides that they'd have thought better of in the sober hours of morning, until finally he turned and pointed out the window at the column of cold blue light slicing upward into the sky.

"You look at that every single day. How can you stand here and tell me with a straight face that fighting the Empire is still more important than fighting back against Zakuul?"
"You dare- " Jace takes a deep breath. "I see. Is that what your Alliance wants? For us to stop fighting the Empire?"

He sighs. "That's not what I said. Two mobile cannons, Dad, and Alderaan's free. We know our technique for the Fortresses is sound- it's worked already on Belsavis, Hoth, Tatooine. You've seen it. It could work here, for that matter. But you won't-"

"I saw what happened on Bothawui, too. The moment the Eternal Throne so much as suspects we acted against them, they will strike without mercy. It's a risk we can't afford."

"But throwing your troops into a dead-end war against the Empire's fine?" Theron turns away from the window in frustration. Nine was right. He should never have come here. "That's what Arcann wants, and you all just keep playing his game."

He turns quiet, then. Dangerously quiet. "That is it, isn't it? Stop us fighting the Imps, or draw us into an attack that breaks our treaty with Zakuul- either way, the Empire benefits." Jace looks at him, unblinking, head tilted to one side in a way that might just have been the scars on his neck pulled tight by tension. "Your Commander put you up to this."

"Leave her out of it. The only thing she knows is that I'm on Coruscant. This was all my idea."

"And I'm supposed to believe that." He doesn't, clearly, to judge by his tone.

Oh, Force, this was a huge mistake. That's not a question; there's no right answer to it, and no matter what he says he's digging himself deeper into the morass of Jace's paranoia.

(He never knew exactly why Satele left his father- he'd never had a conversation with his mother more than ten minutes long that wasn't about work- but he'd asked Master Zho that question once, and the answer he got made no sense.

She saw what your father would become, Zho had said, and in leaving, she sought to change that fate.

Was she right? he'd asked, sitting cross-legged on the cave floor.

What do you think, boy? Are our destinies malleable? Or by seeking to alter them, are we merely creating a new path to a fixed destination?

He hadn't understood it then. He thinks, now, maybe he understands.)

"Call your Commander," Jace says abruptly. "Now."

Theron blinks. "What? Why? Your answer's no, I get it. I'll just go." Even as he says it, though, he clasps his hands behind his back, opening a channel via his implant and typing carefully onto his commpad in a way he hopes Jace can't see. (are you alone?)

Her reply comes back at the same time Jace starts to speak again. "I'd like to hear what she has to say. War or not, you're still my son- but if you're here on behalf of Cipher Nine-" (More or less, she replies. Something up?) - "we're going to have an issue."

"How do you figure?" (need to call you. encrypt your holo.)

"You don't work for the Republic any more, Theron. That can change. Just say the word and you're back in the SIS, back fighting the good fight. But you know what the consequences are for an enemy agent-" he curls one massive hand into a fist and opens it again- "caught in our territory. Call her. I won't ask again." (What's wrong?)

No. He wouldn't dare-

He might. He really, actually might. Shit. He types one last message behind his back (NOW) before he pulls his portable holo from his jacket pocket, switches on the encryption before dialing in Nine's frequency.

"I can't promise she'll even answer. But I'm telling you-"

The call connects.

She blinks twice before she manages to settle herself.

"I'm afraid I don't use that particular name now." Resisting the urge to cross her own arms, she settles for feet apart and hands interlaced at waist height. A neutral posture. "My current title is Commander of the Alliance Against the Eternal Throne, but I'll settle for 'Commander' as well. Appropriate to equals, don't you think?"

Malcom scowls. "Was that supposed to be a joke?"

"I'm not laughing," she says, "and I appear to have missed your original question. What, precisely, am I meant to be explaining?"

"Theron Shan works for you. True or false?"

"Technically speaking his involvement in the Alliance predates mine. But you already know that, or we wouldn't be having this conversation." The camera angle shifts- he must have set the holo down. "Do continue."

Slipping into frame behind the other man, Theron shakes his head slightly; before he can speak, though, Malcom's talking again. "And you sent him to Coruscant to try to manipulate me into acting against Zakuul."

The ridiculousness of it would make her laugh if he didn't look lethally serious. "Don't be absurd. Commander. Your well-publicized opinions on working with Imperials- even former Imperials- notwithstanding, if I was desperate enough to come begging the Republic military for favors I have more appropriate liaisons than Theron. To be perfectly frank, I wasn't aware he'd ever met you."

Theron winces.

She's missed something, clearly. In the split second that marks Jace Malcom's inhaled breath she looks back and forth between him and Theron, trying to get a better sense of the dynamic of the room.

"Like I keep saying-" his tone is a warning but she doesn't know why; damn it all, Theron- "she has nothing to do with why I'm here. She doesn't know-"

"You weren't aware he'd met me. I expected a better caliber of lie out of you, Cipher." Malcom's face contorts in anger, his right eye nearly closed under layers of heavy scarring. "Like you wouldn't maintain dossiers on every one of your subordinates. You sent my own son to-"

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

So that's why he wouldn't tell her anything about Coruscant.

Theron watches her eyes dart back and forth between him and Jace and can pinpoint the exact moment when she sees it- in his skin tone and the bow of his upper lip, the shape of his chin and of his eyes. (He looked for himself in his father's face for the better part of a month, only half-believing him after that first awkward conversation. He looks more like his mother, he thinks, his height and his build and the way he moves, but still, it's there.)

Nine's mouth falls open, just for a second; she's so much better at keeping a straight face than him but a bombshell like that-

"Your son," she says, rolling the word around her tongue in the way that she does when she's trying to buy herself a few seconds to think, "as I suspect you know, is very good at keeping secrets. Whatever it was that he asked you, which I gather had something to do with Alderaan, he did not do it with my knowledge or at my behest. Now, is he free to leave, or do we have a problem?"

I'm sorry, he signs at waist height as Jace stays fixed on her image.

She doesn't reply. Her eyes soften a little, maybe, but that might be wishful thinking.

"That depends on him." Jace turns toward him as Nine's brows arch. "It was a serious offer, son." (A low blow, that one. He can count on one hand the number of times he's called him that, and he'd bet it won't get any higher after tonight.) "Come back to the Republic. The SIS needs you."

"I know where I'm needed." He sidesteps away, moving closer to the holo. "It isn't here."

"Theron-"

He picks it up off the table. "This was obviously a mistake. Thank you again for dinner, but I think I'd better go." Turning the device in his hand until the camera refocuses- mostly on him, but keeping Jace in the picture- he looks at her expressionless face, a picture of calm worthy of a Jedi except for the slightest, subtlest flare of her nostrils. "Ni- Commander. I'll call you when I'm shipboard, okay?"

She shakes her head. "Maintain this connection until you're at safe distance. That's an order."

"Understood."

He's already started toward the entryway when Jace calls out to him. "Theron, please. You can't seriously tell me you're choosing this… this-" he pauses. "Yes, you worked together once, but you know what she is. The head of your Alliance is a liar and a murderer and she will use you and spit you out. How much damage did she do to the Republic? How many of your friends died at her hand?"

"I know what she was-" her figure shifts from side to side in the palm of his hand as he speaks; she's heard far worse than that before, he's sure, and some of it was true, once- "better than most. But what she is now is the best hope this entire galaxy has at defeating Arcann, and I trust her with my life."

Jace sighs, shoulders slouching forward, a break in his perfect posture. "Then Force help you, because I won't. I just wish you'd come to me years ago. I know you were frustrated by the war, but leaving the way you did- I don't understand it."

"Do you remember, Dad," he says, hand on the door panel as it slides open, "the last time we had dinner together?"

"You'd just come home from Yavin. I do remember."

"You asked me whether there was anyone special waiting." (He'd choked on a sip of whiskey. It wasn't exactly a question he could answer, then.) He takes a step into the hallway, looking back over his shoulder. "There was. Waiting just wasn't the right word."

Long before he knew who his father was, Theron had heard recordings of his speeches. Jace's had a long career, a successful career as measured by the calculus of war; there have been many battles won and lost, many speeches, victorious and otherwise. He expects to hear one now.

When he leaves the apartment, though, the only sounds that follow are his own footsteps, the hiss of a closing door, and the muffled angry thump of a bare fist striking hard against a wall.

Nine stays silent all the way through the long ride down the turbolift.

When he finally moves from the foyer into the street (past a woman he'd bet good credits is undercover SpecOps- she raises one hand discreetly to her ear as Theron approaches but doesn't stir from her perch on a well-padded chair) he goes about a block down before ducking into a narrow gap between two buildings.

"So," he says by way of opening, "um. Let me exp-"

She unclenches her hands, raising one finger in front of her in the universal gesture of shut up and let me speak, and he quiets as she starts to pace back and forth across the length of the bridge. Uh-oh. "Get back to your ship, then explain. This isn't the right place for that kind of conversation. He still might send someone after you-" she can probably see a little ways behind him in the holo, judging by the way she's craning her neck to look- "and- stars, just get to the spaceport. Get airborne, get clear, and call me back."

"He's not going to send someone after me. He-"

"You don't know that. One hour, starting now. Go."

The connection terminates.

He can't exactly run all the way back to his ship; while this isn't the fanciest neighborhood on Coruscant by any means, it'd still look pretty damn odd to be sprinting down the walkway at eleven o'clock at night. Instead, he snakes through the alleyways for another few blocks (just in case), snags a taxi in front of a still-bustling restaurant, and lets it carry him to the spaceport.

She keeps pacing.

Back and forth, back and forth, her anger builds with every passing minute. She's not sure, really, what she thought his plan was, but- oh, Theron. You idiot .

It had probably sounded like a good idea. With a connection like that to leverage- his father, for stars' sake, can't imagine why he wouldn't have mentioned that before; oh, yes, my mother, the Grand Master of the Jedi Order and my father, the Supreme Commander: he could have been the fucking Chancellor in another life instead of abandoned in a cave- it could easily have succeeded, whatever it was he'd meant to do, and he'd have come back to Odessen ever so pleased-

Void take the Republic. She'd hoped they'd only pretended to roll over and play dead when Arcann put his teeth to their throat, that maybe Saresh (definitely still in charge despite their current Chancellor's claims otherwise) and Malcom had some sort of plan to lull Zakuul into complacency before they finally struck to kill. But no. They were still on their backs, flashing their soft bellies to the sky.

Cowards.

She keeps pacing.

He's up above the atmospheric threshold and about to jump to hyperspace with six minutes to spare- Tython first, he thinks, to set a false trail; he'd been sure no one was following him at first but the passenger in the taxi behind his had looked awfully familiar when they both disembarked at the spaceport- when he looks down at his commpad and he's got half a dozen messages waiting.

Not from her. They're on his public Alliance account, to start with, not the private channel they set up between themselves, and the address isn't familiar. He sits down to read them as the engine kicks on.

what the kriffing fuck did you do

seriously spyboy what did you DO

i am trying to SLEEP and I can hear her swearing all the way across the ship

(Only one person that could be. He marks the address as Kaliyo's; for a moment he thought it might have been Teff'ith, but the spelling's too good.)

ok now she's swearing in Huttese and none of that is anatomically possible

((file attached: toldyoushe'smad-audio))

After a quick scan and despite his better judgment, he opens the file and realizes three things in rapid succession: one, that Nine's way better at languages than him; two, that she is well and truly furious; and three, that Kaliyo was right. None of that is anatomically possible.

With two minutes to go and her rage mostly vented, she's tired of pacing and starting to get genuinely nervous when Theron finally calls back.

"Are you safe?" She slides back down into the pilot's chair, suddenly exhausted.

She's not sure what he was expecting her to say but that must not have been it; he rubs his eyes and looks at her as Tee-Seven chirps, unseen, in the background. "I'm fine. I promise. Also, before you say anything, I bought an entire sack of caf beans yesterday and I'm fully prepared to use it to bribe you with. I know you're angry-"

"I'm not that angry." (She got most of that out of her system over the last hour. Most of it.)

"So you didn't threaten to-" he glances down at something- "okay, I don't know that word, but something about my implants something something Huttese poetry?"

Wait. How did he- she blinks.

"You were keeping Kaliyo awake, apparently. She sent audio."

She sighs. She ought to glue 'liyo's ears shut one of these days; it'd serve her right. "I'm not that angry. You're sure you're safe?"

"I'm sure. I'm diverting a little bit, and I might have had a tail to the spaceport, but I'm okay. Should I meet you on Alderaan? I know we won't be ready to run on the shield generator, but I can come help with Lokin if you want." He smiles, sheepish, and sinks lower into his own chair. "And I can explain properly."

"I told you he might send someone after you. Did you really think he was going to let you just walk out of there? I half-expected to have to break you out of one of the black cells down underneath the Senate complex."

"There aren't any cells underneath the-" Theron starts to say, then wrinkles his forehead. "There totally are, aren't there?"

"Yes. Military, not SIS. Plausible deniability, et cetera."

"And you've probably broken people out of them before?"

She nods. "Twice, actually, and the escape route goes through the sewers so it's particularly unpleasant. I still would have come to get you, but I-" her neck's gone sore from so much tension and she digs her knuckles into the muscles cording along either side of her spine. "Why didn't you tell me, Theron?"

"I knew you'd think it was too much of a risk, but I was sure he'd-" ah, stars, he looks so sad, a flicker of raw grief passing over his face before it disappears into his usual wry half-smile. "I mean, you'd think you could ask your own father for a favor, right?"

One would think. One would think a great many things that turn out not to be true.

(She tries to picture them together, Satele Shan and Jace Malcom, for a moment; she'd always thought Theron's father must have been another Jedi. Why else would Satele have been certain enough to commit him to a Jedi's life from birth?

So self-righteous, Grand Master Shan. So calm, so controlled, always playing by the rules.

Such a hypocrite.

It makes her like her rather more, to be honest.)

"Come to Alderaan," she says quietly. "You know the coordinates. But I want to hear the whole story."

"You will."

Two days later she settles Nightshrike into a clearing on the far edge of the ranch, just outside an electrified fence that she suspects was built more to keep things in than out. Theron's a day away still, slingshotted around Tython to head back in their direction; she and Kaliyo spend a few hours prowling around the perimeter but the whole place is quiet, not a single rakghoul in sight.

She doesn't like it.

The main gate's latched but unsecured, swinging open once unfastened with a gentle push. She likes that even less.

"Come on." She starts down the gravel path toward the low building in the far distance, beckoning to Kaliyo before she tosses her backup stealth device in her direction. "Something's wrong. Watch my six."

They flicker into invisibility together as Kaliyo draws her pistol and falls back into position. Further down the road there are more signs of life, feeding troughs (empty) and water troughs (full) and a smaller structure, full of-

Oh, stars.

A dozen cages line either side of the building, each holding a single rakghoul- still alive, all of them, but starved-looking and avidly sniffing at the air in their direction when they peer through the doorway.

Kaliyo wrinkles her nose. "They haven't been fed in a week, I bet. That's not like the old man at all."

"Let's keep going. If Lokin's skipped out, we'll have to figure out what to do with them-" please let him still be here; the creatures are pathetic, practically tame despite their hunger, and she really, really doesn't want to have to shoot them but there are too many to transport safely- "but we still need to check the main complex."

There are cameras in the trees, at least, when they close within a few hundred meters of the house, and three trip wires running at angles across the entryway; she disables them all and scans the intercom carefully before she presses the button.

No answer.

A minute later she's got the locks cracked and the door swinging open and something's charging at them in the dim light of the front room, panting, and she raises her blade and-

"Hey, Scritchy!" Kaliyo's flat on her back, tackled by a remarkably happy-appearing rakghoul- she'd swear it's smiling, assuming rakghouls actually smile. That is Scritchy, when she looks closer. Doctor Lokin must still be here. Sentiment aside, Scritchy was his gene stock, a necessity for most of his research. "I'm all out of womp rat bits, you stinky little shit. Get off."

Scritchy does as he's told, scampering off toward the back rooms of the building; she looks after the creature for a moment, then follows.

The back rooms are windowless, even darker than the front of the house with the lights out- a lab room, still and silent but for a few indicator lights flashing in the dark, a storage area and last, a bedroom, the air heavy and antiseptic-smelling.

She almost misses the shape on the floor beside the bed until she hears the shotgun cocking, both barrels pointed squarely at her belly.

"Don't come any closer. I assure you," Lokin says, voice barely a whisper, "I will shoot."

"Five years, and that's the sort of hello I get? And here I thought-" she squints down at him in the darkness until her eyes adjust, sheathing her knife, holding her hands up in a placating gesture; he looks-

Oh.

Oh. Kaliyo, drawn to the room by their voices and the sound of the gun, stops short in the doorway, one hand over her mouth. At her heels, the rakghoul whines.

"Cipher." He can barely hold the gun steady, and she reaches out to take it before it slips from his shaking hands. "Cipher. They told me you'd- they told me-"

"You know me better than that." Crouching, she loops her arms beneath his even as he tries to push her away and he's skin and bones beneath her hands. "I'm not so easy to kill. Come on. Let's get you off the ground."

Lokin shakes his head. "Use your eyes, my girl. If I could walk, do you think I'd be sitting down here?"

"I thought we'd start with moving you up to bed," she says, lifting him, "and negotiate onward from there. Unless you'd rather stay on the floor."

His laugh's half-wheeze and half-howl. "Stubborn. Always stubborn."

"Always."