Power

"Well, she didn't say no." Nine spins around in her chair as the call disconnects, turning back to Lana and Theron still sitting on the couch. "Not that I fault her lack of enthusiasm. We are going to blow the roof off the place, after all."

Theron shrugs. "It's Nar Shaddaa, and we'll be thirty floors up from the access point. Hook up some backup generators and I doubt anyone'll notice beyond the power flicker."

"We'll work out the details once we're there. Lana, you're still all right with leading the drop team? I've got a feeling you'll work better with Veeroa and her people than Theron."

"You're not wrong," Lana says, attention still on the datapad on her lap. "Korriban taught her all its worst lessons, but I'm quite familiar with the type. Properly aimed, she'll be useful. You're sure we can trust this Sia'hla, though?"

She stands up, licking her lips. Her throat's dry from so much talking; she could use a drink. "I'm sure. We go back a long way, she and I."

"Is this her- with you?" When Lana holds up the datapad she can't really see it at this distance, takes a few steps toward the couch as Theron turns his head to look and-

Oh, Void, that got on to the Holonet?

"Years and years ago, but yes. She's a dancer, though I assume she's largely retired now if she's running her own place," she says, watching herself on the little screen, the two of them draped artfully over each other, spinning circles around the pole in the center of the stage. Was she really ever that young? That was- oh, stars, that was right before Hunter. "She knew what I was- it was unavoidable, given how we met. I'd use her as a reference for undercover work, like here." She points at the audience, sitting in shadow. "That Devaronian in the front row was about two hours away from the business end of my knife."

"You had way more fun on the job than I used to," Theron murmurs. "Ex of yours, I'm guessing?"

"What? No. That would have been- she would have felt obligated. The last thing she needed back then was someone else taking advantage of her."

Both of them raise eyebrows at that, but Theron's the only one who responds. "You know I don't care, right? It was just a question."

"I know."

(They've been honest with each other on that front. Not in detail- neither of them were much for jealousy and that sort of comparison was vulgar, frankly; she may be many things but vulgar isn't one- but what's the point in lying? It's all in the past, in any case.)

"What kind of leverage do you have on her?" Lana sets the pad down on the table. "She kept your identity secret this long, apparently, but if she goes running to the Hutts- or worse, the Zakuulans-"

"It's not as though she's sitting there with my dossier in hand. She never even knew my real name- stars, Kaliyo never even knew my real name. We always used aliases, even back then. But she's not going to nark on us."

Rubbing her temples, Lana leans back into the cushions. "I know she's a friend, Nine-"

"Force, I thought I was paranoid." She perches on the back of the couch, just in between them, as Theron nods agreement and she nudges her elbow lightly into his neck; he makes a face at her. "She won't. Trust me."

"You're that certain?"

She sighs. "Did your family have slaves, Lana? When you were a child, before you went to Korriban?"

"Droids, mostly. But yes, a few- though I don't really remember them. I had a nanny. She was the one who told my parents when she found me floating my schoolbooks across the room to my desk." Lana lowers her hands. "Why?"

"What about later?"

"I was a research strategist, Nine, before I was Arkous' advisor- hardly wealthy. And even if I could have afforded slaves, do you honestly think I would have wanted them?"

With a tilt of her head, she tucks her feet up beneath her, carefully balanced, while Theron shifts his silent attention back and forth between them. "No, I suppose not. But your masters all had them, and their masters."

"Yes, they did. All of them. It was just-" Lana pauses, glances down and then back up, chewing on her lower lip. "The system was what it was. You know that better than most."

"Oh, I know. Believe me, I know- and all bought from Hutt space, of course. One can't simply force the conquered into servitude any longer, so we have the syndicates to do our dirty work for us. Have you ever visited the slave market on Nar Shaddaa?"

Theron makes a noise, low and angry in his throat- he's been there, then- but Lana only shakes her head. "No. Never. What's your point?"

"I spent a lot of time there-" she turns a little more toward her- "in the early years of my career. No monitoring permitted, so it was one of the best places to work a first meeting with an informant assuming you don't mind watching crying children being sold for the cost of a decent meal."

Lana shifts, uneasy, as her hands curl into tight fists.

"Sia'hla was a slave when I met her. Belan, her owner, ran a cantina-slash-whorehouse as a front for the Hutt cartel, but he'd been feeding us intel on the side for years. I took over as his handler on my first tour there- back before I was made Cipher." She remembers that posting far too well; those were memories she would have gladly let the Empire take if they had wanted them. "He was scum. I'd have put a round through his head if it were up to me, but my orders were to keep him talking."

"I had a few contacts like that," Theron says quietly, "down in the undercity. Lots of things that are illegal in Republic space get a little less so when you stop seeing daylight."

She looks toward him for a moment, a tiny little nod. "And Sia was his favorite, which just meant that he used her by turns as a dancer, a bedslave and a punching bag depending on his mood. The bruises were fairly hard to miss."

"She shot him, she said? Sounds like he more than deserved it." Theron again. Lana's still silent, still listening.

"He got greedy- started skimming credits off our take, and unlike my predecessor I actually audited his books. When I showed up at his place to call him out on it I think he knew what was coming. He was beating the shit out of her, and I couldn't-" she frowns. She had, though. All of them had, over and over again, all pretending one good deed could somehow make up for thousands of old sins- "I couldn't just stand there and watch her die. I pulled him off, but he hit me with a stunner and I woke up an hour later in a cell, collared, bound, and bleeding."

Theron's hand rests against her back, a small comfort; she leans into his touch.

Lip curling into a scowl, Lana finally speaks. "Did he really think he'd get away with it? Greed's one thing, but trying to sell an Imperial agent into slavery? He wouldn't have survived the week."

"I don't know whether he planned to sell me or just have a bit of sport and then kill me, but thankfully I didn't have to find out. When I missed my check-in with Kaliyo she came searching. She found him with a hole through his back and Sia, shaking like a leaf, holding my rifle."

"Good for her."

"I paid out her contract on the spot with the money we were going to recoup from him. I bought all of their contracts, all ten of his girls. 'liyo and I pulled the collars off their necks and got them the fuck out of that place. The oldest one was twenty, I think. Sia'hla was seventeen." She pushes up off the couch, back onto her feet, restless, needing to pace, to drown out the memory of their fear with the sounds of her footsteps. She'd given them the rest of the money, too- her handler'd been pissed and it wasn't enough, not by a long shot, but what more could she have done? Taking them back to the Empire would have gotten them all sold again at best and shot at worst. "She'd worn that collar since she was eleven years old. She still has the scars from it under that expensive dress you just saw. And you know why she finally worked up the nerve to turn on him?"

Lana closes her eyes, presses her fingertips to the bridge of her nose. "Because you made him stop."

"Because I made him stop. Because I was the only one, out of every single person who set foot in that place, who ever did. So my point, since you asked, is that we can trust her. It's got nothing to do with leverage. It's-"

She stops, then, in the middle of the room. Theron's watching her with something like pride in his eyes when Lana lets her hands fall and rises, stepping around the edge of the sitting area to meet her where she stands.

"Yes," Lana says, "I understand. I'll let Veeroa know we're ready to move. When do you want to leave?"

"Tomorrow morning. I've still got an apartment there we can use as a staging area and we'll take Nightshrike. It'll only be five of us traveling: Theron climbing with me, you with the topside team, Kaliyo on demolitions and for slicing- Tee-Seven, I suppose? SCORPIO's still on that Gravestone project. That'll leave Senya and Koth-" typing a quick message on her comm while she talks, she sends it on its way to both of them- "to take over command duties while we're gone, and they'll need a briefing. And I ought to eat something at some point, but-"

"I'll grab food and meet you in the War Room." Theron hops over the back of the couch. He never did like to go the long way 'round. "And caf, yeah?"

"And caf. See you there."

He taps at the door panel, barely waiting for it to open before he's gone into the hallway.

"Can I ask you a strange question, Nine?" Lana's datapad's still sitting on the table and she leans far across to retrieve it, looking down at the screen again. When she cranes her neck to look, too, the video's paused; in that frozen moment the two of them are turned in profile to the camera, backs arched until her hair and Sia'hla's lekku brush the stage floor, held upright only by the counterweight of their bodies wound around each other. "All that horror- and she stayed on Nar Shaddaa, dancing. Why didn't she leave?"

"I asked her that, too… it was what she knew how to do, she said. At first it was- therapeutic. Familiar. I didn't quite understand it at the time but it seemed to keep her calm, so-" she shrugs. She understands it now, of course. Oh, Void, does she understand it now. "And she was good at it. We made ten thousand credits in tips on that dance alone, but that wasn't even the point. Every eye in that room was on her. In that world, that's power, and you hold on to power when you find it."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"You're Sith. Of course you don't."

Lana frowns. "That's unfair, Nine. You honestly think that being Sith means I don't know what it means to be afraid? To feel powerless?"

"Not afraid. We all know afraid. But powerless... you could bounce me off the ceiling with a wave of your hand, Lana. You could have called me into your office five years ago and lopped my head off and not a single person there would dare meet your eye- the only question you'd have been asked was who was going to get my job. Call it relative, if you like, but compared to the rest of us you started out a hundred paces ahead." She reaches out toward the screen. "A thousand ahead of someone like her."

"Is that what you want, too? Power?"

(For a moment the world goes still and silent and she can feel Valkorion in the back of head, a dull throb that reminds her of nothing so much as the impatient tap tap tap of a finger on a tabletop, waiting, waiting-

Is it?)

When she blinks he's gone.

"Back then I would have said yes."

"What about now?"

"Power's only useful when you're playing the game," she says, "and I'm so tired of games. But I don't have much choice, do I?"

Lana tucks the datapad away and, wordless, rests her other hand carefully on her shoulder. At first she thinks she's trying to read her, but no- there's nothing, not even a whisper of pressure, only silence. They've never been very good at apologizing, her or Lana; sometimes the quiet's as close as they get.

She understands, though. None of them had a choice this time around, not when the other options were yield or die.

"Did you ever think about what you'd do when you retired?" Changing the subject, letting her go, Lana starts to move toward the door. They've got meetings, still, and packing and planning, before the morning comes. "Before all this happened, I mean."

"Not really, no. I always assumed I wouldn't live that long."

She'll need to do some shopping once they get to Nar Shaddaa, but by half past one in the morning her bag is packed and ready and she sets it by the door. Time to sleep, then. With any luck she'll manage four or five hours before their planned departure.

Twenty minutes later she sits up in bed, sweating and shaky, gasping for breath.

Only a dream, she tells herself. It was only a dream.

When she tries to settle herself, though, closing her eyes again, she's right back in the moment: her fingernails scrabbling desperately on gloved hands as they tighten, digging into her exposed throat- this was supposed to be a training exercise i haven't even got a weapon oh i can't breathe it hurts i can't - and she does the only thing she can, whips her head back hard until she feels something behind her give way with a sharp crunch and-

She throws off the blankets and springs out of bed.

"Fuck off, old man." Her voice comes out a rasp in the darkness. "I've lived through worse than you. If you really want me to let you help, you need to work on your people skills."

Valkorion doesn't respond.

Rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand, she stoops to pick up her shirt and trousers from the floor, dresses quickly, steps into her shoes. No sleep? Fine. She'll get some more caf and read through the operational plan again. May as well do something useful.

The lower living quarters are quiet when she steps off the lift, doors shut and lights dimmed; she pads softly down the hallway toward the mess, finding that similarly empty save a few guards eating before morning watch begins. Nodding to them, she searches the shelf for an empty carafe- forget cups, she's going to need more than that- and fills it to the brim.

She makes it halfway back down the corridor before a door slides open behind her. She turns out of reflex, looking back over her shoulder as a shadow-outlined figure leans against the doorframe-

"I thought you were going to sleep," Theron says, barefoot in sleeping clothes, frowning down at her hands still clutching the carafe. "That doesn't look like sleeping to me."

"Yes, well-" still hoarse. So much for just a dream. She clears her throat, once and then again- "someone had other ideas. I'll nap tomorrow."

He sighs. "Another nightmare?"

"Another memory. A very old one. And I thought you were going to sleep."

"I've been packing." He gestures back toward his room. "But I might need to shop when we get there. I forgot my only other jacket's got a hole through it, and I'm pretty sure you're not going to let me wear my red one."

She smiles a little, trying not to laugh. He never did like armor, but stars, the man's attached to that damned thing. "You would be correct. We'll go together- I need to pick up a couple of things, too."

"Okay. But back to my original point: you need to sleep. You look-" a pause. Whatever he was going to say, he thought better of it. Instead, he takes her by the wrist and pulls her gently through the doorway; she doesn't resist. "It didn't seem this bad the last few nights."

"It wasn't. A few nightmares, but-"

Compared to the corridor his room's so bright, the lights still on and his bag sitting half-full on his still-made bed, and she has to squint against the glare. When she can see properly again, Theron's staring at her, mouth half-open.

"What the hell?" He lets go of her arm, raises his fingertips to her throat as she pulls away reflexively. "Your neck-"

"What are you talking about?"

These rooms really are small- she's spent so little time in his quarters, or Lana's, that she's never realized it before, but it only takes them three steps to make it across to the 'fresher cubicle and he slides the door open, turns her to face the mirror above the sink and-

She blanches and that only makes the bruises stand out more, two handprints fanned out in livid purple on her skin, and when she lifts her own hand to the marks they match, precise, down to the shallow scratches left by her nails.

(For a moment she isn't sure if that's better or worse.

Worse, she thinks.)

"It was a dream," she whispers. "It was-"

He takes the caf pot from her grip, sets it down on the sink and then wraps both arms around her, just holding on tight.

"We should talk to Lana. Or Senya, or somebody- but this is crazy, Nine. I didn't think he could do this."

"Let them rest, for now. A few hours won't matter." Eyes closed, she sags back against him, fatigue finally crashing over her like so many waves. "I doubt there's anything we can do, in any case."

"There has to be something." He turns her around and she rises onto tiptoes as he lifts her, her head resting on his shoulder, his arms around her waist. "You can't not sleep."

No, she supposes she can't.

A few steps take them back out into the little room; Theron sets her down on the bed. Shoving a few pieces of kit into his bag before he digs into a side pocket, he moves it onto the floor and then sits, too, flipping the cap off a tube of bacta gel with a loud click. "Let's at least get something on those bruises."

"I'm fine." It's a lie, of course, and he knows it as well as she does- he doesn't even say anything, just coats both palms in the gel and starts to work it slowly into her skin, careful not to use both hands at once, careful not to curl too tightly around her neck. Even so she has to fight her instincts, forcing herself to stay still, to not push him away.

He's helping. He's helping.

She breathes.

"That should help a little." The last of the bacta absorbed into the bruises, Theron wipes his hands on the blanket as the tightness in her throat eases. "You want me to walk you back up to your room?"

Instead of answering she flops over backward, staring up at the ceiling. "After Corellia," she says, counting the tiles above their heads- one, two, three, four. She used to do the same thing in her cabin. It had twenty-five and one-third tiles in four rows, wall to wall, an imprecision that always irritated her- "I had nightmares for months. Lokin made me take medication so I'd sleep. I hated it… have you ever used ryll?"

He nods, hand on her hair, smoothing it down with gentle strokes. "Once, when I was a lot younger. Didn't agree with me."

"Me either. The meds made me feel the same way- slow, stupid, half-floating. Like me, with all the edges filed off. But I didn't dream."

"That doesn't sound like an answer," Theron says.

More tiles- five, six, seven. She keeps counting; there's a false sort of peace in mindless tasks, but a false peace is better than nothing. "It's a bad answer. But if he can get to me that easily when I'm dreaming-"

"We'll find another way."

"Maybe."

"We will. C'mere." He slips one arm beneath her shoulders, lifting her slightly until he can slide into the space between her head and the wall. "He wants at you, he's going to have to get through me first."

She thinks of Ziost, then, and flinches. "Don't say that. He'll get ideas. And I should get up- people will talk come morning, if-"

"Let 'em."

"You say that now."

Despite his caution his knee nudges into her upper back and she shifts position as he mumbles an apology. "Pretty sure we're not breaking any rules, are we?"

"No. But-"

Theron takes one of her hands in his, presses his mouth against the back of it, a kiss and a guidance both, pulling her up and along the bed. "Don't worry about them, okay? Just try to sleep. If you start thrashing around too much, I'll wake up and shake you out of it."

"So neither of us sleep? That's not much of an answer, either."

"You didn't dream as much the last few nights, right? It's better than nothing."

"True." Theron's settled back onto the bed, wedging pillows behind him; she curls her knees into her body, turning, until she's stretched out beside him with her head against his chest. "Although I think I like my bed better."

"More room, definitely. If you want, we can still go-"

She closes her eyes. "No. This is good."

(The rest of the night passes, lulled into sleep by the rhythm of their breathing and the sound of his heart, and she does not dream.

It's something.)

They're a day out from landing- not that it matters, with an entire file full of false identities he can use; it's not like any of them will be clearing customs with their real names- when she finally remembers to ask.

"So." She spins around in the copilot's chair, turning toward him, hands folded in her lap. "Theron, what exactly did you do to get yourself barred from Nar Shaddaa?"

He looks up from plotting their last few jumps with a shrug and a teasing grin. "Guess."

"Public nudity- no, done that one, doesn't merit a ban. Tried to carve a chunk out of Karagga's statue?"

"Gold's not my color," he says. "Try again."

"Sliced the slot machines at Club Vertica?"

Theron yawns. "There are way easier ways to make money that don't involve getting your kneecaps broken by a very large Gamorrean. Nope."

"Frankly, I've got no idea." She stretches out one leg, taps the toe of her shoe against his thigh until he grabs at her foot, pinning it against the arm of the chair. "I've broken about every law on that trash heap of a moon, which is to say all three of them, and the most I ever had to do was send a gift basket full of credits. Tell me."

"It's way more fun making you guess."

"I hate guessing-games."

He tugs at one end of her shoelace. "Public nudity? Really?"

"It made for a very memorable alibi. I'm not ticklish, by the way, so don't get any ideas." That makes him stop, knot halfway undone, and she winks.

"You really want to know?" Abandoning the shoelace, he wraps his hand around her ankle, runs his thumb along the curve of her calf instead.

"I'm also-" she stretches out her other leg, batting at his hand- "not that easily distracted. Tell me."

"Back in the SIS we used to swap ident cards sometime- it was easier to remember a name you knew, so we'd just transpose pictures. If someone got caught, you could prove you were off-planet pretty easily- the card must be a forgery, right? Give another false card as backup and everyone gets out easy."

She tilts her head. Makes sense, but- "Your excuse is that someone else got busted using your ident as a cover?"

"I've been running on fakes since I left the SIS, so I didn't even realize it'd happened until the other week. I was checking how much damage my fath-" he catches himself- "Jace had done to my clearances when it came up on the report."

"Do you know who it was?"

Theron rolls his eyes. "Three guesses."

"That little shit." The minute he said it she knew exactly who it had to be- she doesn't know that many other SIS agents by name and most of the ones she did are ones she's killed- and when he grins she knows she's right.

"It was a couple years ago, to be fair. Everyone was running scared back then, even after the surrender, and I'd already split for Wild Space. I can't blame him that much."

He does have a point. "Okay, then, what did Balkar do to get you kicked out of Hutt Space?"

"Vandalism."

"No, seriously. What did he-" she flicks her feet again, perched on the edge of her chair, spanning the gap between them, and then yelps as he reaches forward off his seat and grabs her behind both knees. She pushes off, launching herself across, laughing, and when she lands on him he's laughing, too.

"When you crash a pleasure barge into a moon," Theron says, muffled against her chest, "apparently they consider that vandalism."

Their first day on Nar Shaddaa is a surprise in three ways.

Her apartment's untouched, first of all, her clothes still in the closets and even the maintenance droid still waiting patiently at the front entrance when they all pile out of the hovercab. She hadn't expected that. She wasn't paying rent on it, granted (the benefits of winning one's housing), and the paperwork was under an alias- one couldn't exactly sign contracts as Cipher Nine and not expect to attract attention- but she thought someone would have noticed she hadn't set foot in the place in years.

It's wartime, though. There must be a great many apartments sitting empty nowadays.

Second, Theron's far less fussy than she'd thought he'd be when they go shopping. He draws the line at a printed shirt, but she talks him into new trousers, shirts and, miracle of miracles, a sleek black jacket.

("I don't even look like myself," he says, turning in front of the mirror. "Are you sure about this one?"

"That's rather the point." She considers a moment, then turns to the salesgirl. "Though I'd go a size down on the jacket, don't you think? Oversized seems to be the style, but-"

She could roll the girl's tongue back up into her mouth, probably. Quite right- he looks delicious in proper clothing. "Oh, yes. That one's definitely too big. Let me check in back.")

It doesn't take her long to dress for the evening. Half her old outfits will have to go, of course; the saber scar makes that much clear. But most of them still fit, and after a few minutes she's doing up the back of a high-necked minidress and slipping her feet into her second-favorite pair of heels.

"If you're not wearing that blue one," Kaliyo says from across the room, "can I have it?"

She throws it backward over her shoulder. "All yours, if you think it'll still fit you. It's been a while since you've borrowed my clothes."

"It got over that ass of yours. It'll work just fine on me." Kaliyo snaps back, teasing, and it's just like the old days for a second; she smiles to herself as she pulls a pair of earrings out of their box. "Come zip me, yeah?"

Lana speaks up from somewhere deep inside the larger closet. "I still don't see why I have to change at all. My robes are fine."

"For a nightclub? We're walking in the front door: we've got to blend in. What would you normally wear?"

"You say that as though you're assuming I normally go out. It's a planning meeting tonight, not a party." Accompanied by the sound of hangers clattering, she can barely see yellow eyes behind a row of dresses. "Don't you own any trousers, Nine?"

"Of course I own trousers. Look to your left." She points for emphasis.

More clattering, rather a lot of hopping, and a disgusted sigh- "How do you even- ugh. Never mind. Hold on."

Kaliyo's standing in front of the mirror on the far side of the room, the dress hanging loose around her chest until Nine goes across to her, drawing the zipper up along her spine. "If you want us to pick something out for you-"

"Oh, honestly. I can dress myself." Lana steps out from between the shelves, and-

"Well, damn." Kaliyo whistles. "Look at the legs on you, Beniko."

Now that's a surprise.

Rolling her eyes, a pair of shoes dangling from her fingertips, Lana gestures toward the door. "We're going to be late. Let's go."

Author's Note: Another one gone to weird places on me, hence the change of title.

A difficult few weeks, life-wise, and some of that probably bled in here. Hopefully back in the groove now for the next chapter?