Blackmail, White Lies

Sleep is overrated.

They'd planned on a few hours' rest between packing up and heading out to the shuttle- it wouldn't be enough but they were used to running on fumes and triple-strength caf these days- but never quite managed it. The bath had gone cool when they finally left it and even then she'd barely closed her fingers around a towel before he'd lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom.

When the alarm went off they hadn't slept at all, the pillow beneath her head a sodden mess from her hair and a few new bruises on both of their bodies, and they took a frantic few minutes for a quick application of kolto (more for her than for Theron- he never minded if she marked him so long as they were hidden, but she's got to fight in an hour and her shoulder still aches, never mind her wrists and the side of her throat and her back where the edge of the bath-

Well.)

Kolto first. Then two stims, one in each thigh, and then her armor, her still-damp hair pulled back and pinned up as Theron shoves the rest of their belongings into their duffel bags. It doesn't really matter what goes where since they'll travel together back to Odessen, the two of them and Lana and Miot in the shuttle, and there isn't anything in her bag that she minds if he sees. After Taris, after her seizure and how he'd had to clean her up afterward, her body holds few secrets from him; if his new trousers end up mixed in with her knickers she doubts very much that Theron would care.

As he tugs the zipper shut on his bag she gestures, catching his attention, and flips a stim toward him.

"Last one's yours," she says over the sudden sounds of grinding and hissing steam from the kitchen as the maintenance droid starts on the caf. Oh, she'd missed that droid. Too bad its protocols were program-locked to the apartment- that wretched Cee-Two unit would be on the scrap heap otherwise. "I think it'd be better if you're awake to talk us through."

Theron catches the stim one-handed and flips the cap back, injecting into his opposite arm. "That'd probably help, yeah. I-" he winces as the needle bites in- "I should have let you sleep-"

"If I'd wanted you to stop, I'd have pushed you off the bed."

He grins and reaches for his jacket. "Hard to push me without your hands free."

"You underestimate my ability to work around restraints." Only her boots remain; she pulls one on, then the other. "Though if that's what I get when you're trying to get me to change my mind-"

"I know you won't." She'd meant it as a tease but they weren't so far past it as that, apparently, and Theron's voice turns suddenly serious. Nudging both bags toward the door, he slides down off the edge of the bed to check beneath it one last time. "And I know you're right, Nine. I just- don't tell me what happens. I don't think I want to know."

"How about this? I'll only tell you if he won't call off the mark." She crouches down beside him as he settles back onto his heels, empty-handed. Turning to look at her, he mouths another silent apology and reaches for her collar to flip it up against her neck. "Because if that's the case, we're going to need a game plan assuming not everyone in SIS black ops is a complete incompetent."

(They aren't. She knows that well enough, fought and killed enough of them in the time before her years in carbonite to know precisely what they're capable of. None of them stood a chance against her- it's not a boast and she isn't proud of it, all the blood on her hands- but the SIS had its knives in the dark, too.

And for Theron some of them would have been friends, once upon a time. He's not naive and in the abstract he knows as well as her that old friendships don't mean anything when orders come down, but a moment's hesitation would be all it would take. He'd be-

He'd be-

It could happen in a thousand different ways. Before she can push Valkorion out of her thoughts, in the few seconds she needs to gather focus and put up her wall and ignore the voice saying useless girl, stupid girl, you can't shut out what's inside your head- he shows her twenty.)

She misses Theron's reply beneath the whine that slips out of her mouth from between her clenched teeth, not quite choking back the noise because her head hurts, oh stars it hurts so badly and she keeps seeing him die, again and again and again, and that hurts so much more. He holds her face between his hands, his thumb wiping away the blood trickling from her nose just as she realizes that it's there.

"Don't tell me," he says again, a whisper, his forehead resting against hers, rocking slowly back and forth with her until the pain recedes and she can hold onto him too. "I don't think I want to know."

Three quick knocks rattle against the bedroom door and they both look toward it when the handle turns. "Nine? Theron?" Lana calls out softly, her face a shadow in the space between door and frame. "We've got ten minutes. Are you almost ready to-"

When she sees them beside the bed Lana stops, lip twitching and eyes narrowed, and then pulls off her gloves. The armor plates clatter against the floor on impact but Lana's already across the room beside them by the time the echo fades; she presses two fingers to the bridge of Nine's nose.

"Valkorion?"

Theron nods. "I think so. We're all packed up and then it just-" He shifts his hand but doesn't let go of her as he adjusts around Lana.

"I'm fine." It would probably have sounded more convincing if she didn't have to hang on to Theron to keep herself upright, if her hands weren't trembling, if she hadn't had to swallow between words to clear the blood from her throat. "Another damned nosebleed, that's all."

"Did anyone ever tell you-" Lana's hand is warm against her face, energy prickling against her skin. Is that what the Force would feel like all the time, she wonders, if she wasn't blind to it?- "that you're an awful liar?"

She closes her eyes. "No. Never."

They descend, one leftward bend after another- even Zakuul's architecture ran contrary to the Empire's- in a layout they know by heart now. All the Star Fortresses are the same, built to template just like the machine-made soldiers they contain. It makes it too easy to be lulled into complacency.

They run into the first of the cloaked skytroopers on the fourth level down and she can see how Lana missed it last night. The Zakuulan stealth tech's strange, too, shimmering mirage-like at the margins; in the heat around the shield generator it would have looked like thermal bleed. When she points Lana's on the scout like a hunting nexu, springing from their hiding place with lightsaber blazing, and takes the thing's head off at the shoulders before its shield even drops.

"Much better," Lana growls as the skytrooper falls. Its companions advance and her rifle shot takes the second through the chest as a neatly aimed lightning bolt knocks the third over the railing and down into the energy core below. "If I'd seen it yesterday-"

She clicks her tongue in disagreement and crouches down besides its head, reaching in around the sparking wires. "Don't second-guess. You did well, and this thing's-" she closes her fingers around an oblong metal piece she doesn't remember from their previous skytrooper dissections; that must be the stealth module- "fucking weird. You saw it this time, though?"

"Yes." Lana picks off a fourth and fifth droid with a wave of her hand, sending them flying. "But-"

The piece comes free when she yanks. She shoves it into a pouch for later study, hiding the subtle tremor creeping into her hand- too many fucking stims again. She should know better. "We'll take this back to the lab and let Oggurobb poke over it. But I need you on your game right now. Yesterday was difficult for all of us and we'll talk about it later, but after this morning I-"

With a sigh, Lana reaches up to mute her earpiece. "Yes, I'd noticed. What were you two arguing about last night?"

The last wave of skytroopers clears the corner of the ramp and she almost misses her first shot, pulling wide before she can rein herself back in. Their conversations hadn't been anywhere close to loud enough to be overheard, not with Lana in the far bedroom when they'd come in, which only means-

She switches her comm to receive-only. Theron's been quiet on the channel- with no complications to speak of so he hasn't had to talk them through beyond slicing the security system and the turrets- and she doesn't think he'll notice if she goes silent for a minute or two. "Lana, I didn't think I needed to ask you to stay out of my head."

"I wasn't- I wouldn't. You should know me better than that. You just-" Lana frowns. A maintenance tech's half-hidden at the back of the pack, tucked in behind a crate; fist clenched, she lifts the woman into the air and throws her hard down the ramp until her body thuds against the durasteel wall and goes limp. "I can't explain it in a way you'd understand, but you both feel very loudly. Theron especially."

"And volume somehow implies permission to eavesdrop?" They need to keep moving. Every minute they linger here's another minute that the shuttle's vulnerable and so they keep pushing on and down past the droids and the now-still technician, down one last empty corridor until the final door glows golden and she can feel the Sun Generator beyond, searing heat licking at her face.

Lana stops a few paces behind her, turning back to check again for any stragglers on their tail, then clips her saber to her belt. "Of course not. I only thought that you might want to talk about it. I seem to recall you saying something once along the lines of it's better to have it all out in the open."

"And how is Koth, then?"

Eyes narrowed, teeth gritted, Lana just looks at her, then sighs and wipes her face with the tail of her scarf. "You didn't sleep, did you?"

"Did you listen in on all that, too? No, I didn't, but I'm fine."

"You're not fine. And don't be vulgar- you just like to pick fights," Lana mutters, "when you're tired."

"I do not. Don't be ridiculous."

Over the roar of the miniature star, she can just barely hear a single, very irritated snort.

"All right." Lana's right, of course. That was never one of her more admirable traits- after two straight caf-fueled days of data analysis on Rishi she'd once threatened to shave stripes into Jakarro's fur after he criticised her decryption technique. In fairness, he'd also been right. His shortcut would have saved her an hour, at least. Theron had still offered to help her hold him down. "Maybe I do. But that has nothing to do with anything."

Stepping forward to draw back even with her, just at the edge of the platform, Lana rests one hand on her shoulder- a gentle gesture on its surface but her armored glove is heavy, her grip firm and her voice half concern and half warning. "Let me finish."

(She forgets sometimes what hides beneath Lana's calm, seeing it as a bright-polished mirror, smooth and shatterproof, instead of what it really is: a pool, dark and deep as a Kaasi lake and hiding just as many deadly things beneath its surface. Challenging a Sith is never wise. She learned that lesson long ago, and while she knows Lana wouldn't dare bring her to heel with that particular chain-

Void knows there must be times where she's tempted.)

"If it gives Valkorion more ways to hurt you it has everything to do with everything." Lana looks across to the far side of the chamber, head tilted. The Exarch must be coming. "All I meant to say was that it's hard for me to filter things when I'm meditating. When I leave myself open to the Force, sometimes-" She holds up her other hand before Nine can even start to protest. "Yes, I know you can't sense it, but that doesn't mean you aren't present in it."

She nods slowly. "And we were... feeling loudly. In the Force."

"Screaming at each other, metaphysically speaking. Enough that I almost got up to check on you two before I realized you'd, ah-" Lana clears her throat- "apparently sorted things out. What happened last night after Kaliyo and I left the meeting-place?"

That's-

She wipes the beading sweat from her forehead, considering. That question goes far too deep to even begin to answer without Theron as a part of the conversation. After a long night's discussion after he'd fled Coruscant they'd agreed on an abridged version of events that left Jace's name out entirely; he hadn't been ready for that to come to light, not yet- he couldn't go back to Coruscant for the foreseeable future and the inner circle needed to know that, if only for operation planning. But what his father had said was a wound that hadn't healed, then or now, and Theron wasn't ready to bare it to the world.

She understood that, of course. She understood that far better than even he knows.

So they'd lied. It was a small lie compared to thousands of others she's told over the span of her career. An inconsequential lie. An omission, really, hurting no one.

They were going to have to tell Lana eventually. Whether Trant backs down or not, it's going to burn every bridge they might have had to the SIS except maybe for Jonas if they're lucky; if he won't back down it might mean war.

(Trant will cave. He has to. The SIS hasn't got the manpower for a war of attrition any more than the Alliance does.

Do they? Void, she hopes not. If he thinks she's bluffing it might kill them all.)

They were going to have to tell Lana eventually.

She takes a deep breath. In that moment the Exarch's personal guard. for once a welcome distraction, burst through the door of the nearest monitoring chamber, and she opens her transmitter back up. "Here they come. Let's move."

"Nine, please-"

She raises the grapple and lets it fly.

"There you are," Theron says over the channel as she hits the ground on the far side of the gap. "I was just about to check the channel. You both went quiet for a minute there."

She draws her rifle as Lana arcs through the air behind her. "You didn't miss anything, don't worry. Starting generator overload now."

Ten minutes later the Exarch staggers on the edge of the high platform, dropping to one knee. She levels for the killshot, lines it up-

The gash along his upper chest stops bleeding, ragged flesh beneath armor sliced away by Lana's ferocious attacks suddenly knitting itself back together before her eyes. Zakuulans don't use Force healing, she'd thought; Senya had said as much on the Gravestone. None of the other Exarchs she'd fought ever had. But this one stands back up, grip tightening around the handle of his lightsaber, and throws half a shattered console straight at her with a wave of one hand.

Shit, shit, shit-

She ought to have dodged. Instead she steadies herself and takes the shot; it glances off his blade and ricochets to one side, shattering one of the glass panels ringing the platform. With the radiation already at dangerous levels the heat's unbearable with the shielding gone and she's got to move but she can't go left and she can't go back and so she tries to roll beneath the console before it hits her.

Ducking down, diving forward, she fires off one more round. It hits the Exarch in the throat, in the gap between helmet and chestplate, and he falls like a stone to the floor and all the floating debris around them falls too, straight down out of the air. Lana, somewhere behind her, shouts a warning she halfway hears as a gust of wind rushes past her, carrying most of the metal scrap and shards of glass away-

Most.

The console must have been too heavy- it half-spins but keeps falling and with her rifle still in hand and her momentum carrying her forward she can't adjust her own trajectory fast enough to avoid it completely. It plummets down toward the platform and slams into the back of her head, knocking her off-balance and pinning her left arm flat against the floor, its base coming down just where her bracer meets her glove.

She screams as she feels her wrist shatter.

She can't get free. Rolling onto her side awkwardly, she pushes at the machine with her other hand but it doesn't budge- maybe if she curls up tighter she can get both feet on it, kick it free- no. That means she'd need to turn her arm and she can't- oh, it hurts-

Her vision swims.

"Nine? Nine, what- Lana, is she okay?" Theron's voice goes up half an octave. "The core's destabilized. I don't think I can-"

As Theron keeps talking Lana's running from the far side of the platform, footsteps ringing on the metal floor. She skids to a stop beside her, dropping to her knees, hand on her forehead keeping her still. "I know," Lana says. "I know. I've got her."

"I want to hear it from her. Nine, talk to me."

She sinks her teeth hard into her lower lip, redirecting the pain somewhere she can manage it. "I'm fine." It probably sounds about as convincing as it did this morning, she thinks. Possibly less. "Broken wrist. I just-" motherfuck- "get it off of me, damn it-"

"Lana-"

"I know," Lana snarls, reaching across to the pouch on her belt that holds the autoinjectors. She pulls one free, snaps the cap back. "Painkiller first. Don't move."

"Not-" one hand on her forehead again, turning her face away and exposing her throat and then the needle sinks home with a soft hiss that mimics the noise she makes. This, at least, is a familiar kind of pain- "funny."

And then Lana stands again and she could swear in that moment the whole platform gets ten degrees colder when, with her gesture, the console lifts three meters into the air and launches itself straight into the molten core of the ever-enlarging Sun Generator. The blood flows back into her fingers. The world blurs, red-tinged agony at its edges, then restabilizes.

"Three minutes to shield collapse. Tell me you're moving."

She gets herself up to her knees, arm clutched against her chest, panting. "We're moving. Tell me you're-" one foot beneath her, then the other, as Lana bends over the fallen Exarch, ripping the seal from his belt- "at the extraction point."

"Ramp down, engines running." Is he pacing? Theron sounds as out of breath as she feels. "Should I call Nightshrike? If you need the medbay-"

"Let's just start," she says- Lana wraps her arm around her shoulders to keep her upright as they start toward the exit, a quiet reassurance with every step; I've got you, Lana murmurs, we're nearly there, I'm sorry- "by getting out of here."

She only half-remembers the rendezvous.

She remembers the cot on the shuttle, Lana unfastening her bracer and Theron ever so gently pulling off her glove as Miot pilots them away from the exploding orbital station and she tries very very hard not to scream. Her hand and wrist are swollen already- when the glove finally comes free her first three fingers are puffy, tips tingling- and he presses, careful, to check her pulses and makes a face and ah-

-she opens her eyes and turns her head and she's sleepy, so sleepy, sedative dancing through her bloodstream and lulling her back into unconsciousness and Theron's hand stroking her hair and Lana talking, somewhere she can't see. She needs the medbay. Doctor Lokin thinks that by the time we get to Odessen it might-

-it's okay, sweetheart, he says softly into her ear, here, and she reaches up to push the needle away because she's slept too long and there's too much to be done and she doesn't want more drugs, she can handle a little pain and she must have said all of that out loud because Theron sighs and puts the syringe down-

-half an hour to Daalang, Miot calls back. Miss Djannis just sent the landing coordinates. It should be secure. She wants to laugh- no one ever called 'liyo Miss - but it hurts to make noise-

-dizzy. Dizzy, dizzy, the shuttle spinning when she tries to stand and Theron picks her up, her good arm around his neck and the other in its sling, heavy in a makeshift splint. When the ramp opens the light hurts her eyes; she buries her face in his chest, whining, as they cross the clearing. What the fuck happened up there? Kaliyo snaps-

-the kolto fills her mouth, her throat, her lungs, and it always feels like drowning right up until the moment when she remembers to keep breathing. The scanner screen across the room's still lit up like a Life Day tree, indicators flashing. Concussion. Distal radial fracture. Radioulnar ligament tear, partial. Median nerve- she blinks; she tries to fight the tank every time but it always wins- compression. Radial arte-

(-you're going to say no, Watcher X says- or the illusion of Watcher X, too many damned people in her head nowadays and it's gotten hard to keep track- his voice a prickle like electricity up the length of her spine and into her arm. So I am going to do this regardless. Thank me later.)

Nine breathes, spits out a mouthful of kolto, and then breathes again. As the tank drains down below her waist she wiggles her fingers experimentally. Her hand feels-

Good, actually.

Too good. She can't have been in there more than a few hours but the throbbing ache's gone out of her hand and her head, her wrist barely protesting when she flexes it. By Cipher standards she'd usually been lucky as injuries go; still. she's no stranger to head injuries or broken bones and she knows how long her body takes to heal. If Watcher X did something- if Watcher X is capable of doing something-

The glass surround of the tank slides open and Lana uncurls from a chair tucked into the corner, a datapad sliding down into her lap from its balanced perch on her knees. "You look better. How are you feeling?"

"Better enough." The display above the door reads half past ten, later than she'd thought, but- wait. "The chrono needs resyncing, though. It says it's the twelfth."

Lana glances down at her screen. "No, that's right. On our current course we'll reach Odessen on the fourteenth."

"You're serious?"

"I can't exactly change the flow of time."

She frowns. "You're telling me you left me in the tank for-" it takes a moment to do the math, her brain slow to shake off the kolto, and she holds on carefully to the side of the tank to keep her balance- "three days? We can't afford that kind of downtime. Whose brilliant idea was that?" A set of clean undergarments and neatly folded training clothes lay on the examination table just out of reach; she steps over the lip of the tank as Lana gets up abruptly and the datapad hits the ground.

"Everyone's. We sent your scans on to Odessen and the consensus was-"

She pulls on her underwear and that's what finally sets her wrist off so she gets them up the rest of the way one-handed, swearing, the waistband askew on her hips. "You realize Oggurobb's not actually a medical doctor, correct? And since when does the Alliance consensus not include me?" The bra's an impossibility. Pushing it aside after a half a minute's fumbling, she slips the shirt over her head.

"The orders came from Doctor Lokin." When her head clears the shirt Lana's beside her, holding the trousers out ready for her to step into them. "Oggurobb agreed with him, but I'm well aware that he's the only one of us you'll actually listen to when it comes to your health."

"And he told you to tank me for half a week." Force help her, she needs to call Ioana back and get the Eclipse Squad files from SCORPIO and half a dozen other urgent messages she'd meant to reply to on the way back and- oh, what were they thinking?

"A full week, actually. The kolto needs changing, so you get a brief reprieve."

The minute her trousers are on- she swats Lana away and does up the drawstring herself, badly- she starts toward the door to the main room. "Absolutely not. I've got work to do. I'll spend a few hours in it tomorrow if I must, but-"

Lana's faster than her, reflexes undulled, and ducks into the doorframe to bar her way with arms folded across her chest. "No. Theron and I- and Kaliyo, if necessary- can split your workload. This isn't up for debate."

"Get out of my way, Lana. I'm fine. Where's Theron?"

When Lana frowns she can almost feel it, energy bleeding into the metal edging around the door like a primed shock trap, and she takes a step back out of reflex. "Theron is finally sleeping, and no," Lana says again, "you aren't fine. I couldn't keep that thing from landing on you but I won't sit by and risk you crippling yourself through sheer stubborn idiocy."

She holds up her hand, moving her fingers- carefully, still, but they all move just as they ought to. Hardly crippled. "A bump on the head and a broken wrist? I've had worse. I'll be in fighting trim in a week or two at most."

"Your nerves were damaged. Crushed. Look at the report yourself if you won't take my word for it-" Lana gestures toward the scanner, readout still scrolling across its screen in bold text- "but Lokin felt the safest course was to keep you in suspension as much as possible until he could examine you properly. If the bone moved too much-"

She reads the report through once and then again as Lana trails off into silence. It's all there on the screen, yes, everything Lana said, but that's- that can't be right. That can't possibly be right.

(Corellia had hurt. The bruises healed first. A few days after that the cuts and burns started to fade and, more slowly, the broken bones mended. Her nerves healed slowest of all, months of pain, months of tripping over her own feet and clumsy fumbling over her console even with their full arsenal of stims and infusions and therapies and nights lost to the oblivion of the kolto tank. Three days in kolto was about two days and twenty-three hours longer than she could spare. But looking at the report, following the scrolling words with a finger that should be numb and unmoving if she believes the words on the screen, she knows three days shouldn't have been anywhere close to long enough.

That might have pleased her, once, as a limitation overcome. She might have believed the scan was wrong, once. Now she only wonders. She knows who- or what- is it a what, not quite alive?- and she thinks she knows how. But she is afraid to ask the price.)

She rests her forehead against the machine.

She should tell her. She should tell both of them.

"All right," she says instead, turning to look at Lana. "All right. I'll go back in the fucking tank on two conditions."

Lana nods and takes a step toward her and then another, reaching out cautiously until her hand just brushes her shoulder. "No promises," she murmurs, "but go ahead."

"First, I need the secure holotable. It won't take long-" she can see her already formulating an objection and so she tilts her head to one side, her cheek against the back of Lana's hand in a silent reassurance. In the first days on Zakuul she used to to do that, in the days when she could barely speak from carbonite sickness. I'm okay, the gesture meant. Don't worry about me- "but there are a few things too sensitive for 'net messages that I can't delegate."

"And the second?"

"Put a pot of caf on before I go wake Theron." She closes her eyes. "The three of us need to talk."

The projection of SCORPIO blinks, inscrutable as always, when she asks for the Eclipse Squad recordings.

(Of course she still had them. She suspects that even the things she ordered SCORPIO to purge from memory entirely were still somewhere inside that metal shell.)

Of course, Commander. A subtle pause, a moment's recalibration. Access code?

She rattles off the sequence, a jumble of letters and numbers long ago committed to memory.

Access granted. The droid's eyes flash crimson, then back to yellow. Black level clearance. Additional verification required.

That's a code she'll never forget. "Black level clearance requested. Passcode-" she swallows hard, digs her nails into her palms and her wrist screams protest even in the splint Lana made her wear. She needs the kolto after all, it seems. "Passcode: onomatophobia."

Clearance granted. Transferring files now.

"Don't take this badly, darling," Ioana Rist says, "but you look awful."

She's getting dizzy again. Pulling out one of the chairs ringing the conference table, she sits down carefully. "A few scratches. You know how Nar Shaddaa can be."

"So that was you." Io must have been getting ready for bed when she called, hair pulled back and a grey-brown layer of what looks like Alderaanian clay covering her face above the green silk of her robe. "I'd wondered. Those dreadful satellites do look rather better on fire, don't they?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Mm-hm."

She leans forward, elbows on the table. "Apropos of nothing, you don't happen to know of any poisons that interfere with healing, by any chance?" None of her usual ones had made a difference against that Exarch. If anyone would know, a Rist would, and Io knew her arsenal better than most.

"The usual sort of healing, or-" a wiggle of fingers, the old Intelligence shorthand for Sith shit- "something extra?"

She returns the gesture.

"Hm. The Tears, of course, but Mother'd murder me in my sleep if I let that one outside the House. I'm sure I could cobble something together that'd do in a pinch." The clay mask cracks across her forehead as Io considers. "You've got a chemist?"

"Some of my old team."

"I'll experiment tomorrow and see what I can come up with. We caught a Zakuulan patrol on the grounds last week, so I might even have a test subject or two."

Now that's a lovely thought. (Theron would have frowned, would shake his head in disapproval, but Theron is a better person than she is.) "I'd appreciate it. But back to why I called- you said you had news for me?"

"I do. As it turns out, that estate isn't technically Rist property any longer."

She sighs. Of course it isn't- that would have been far too easy, wouldn't it? If it fell to the Ulgos, or- Void, not the Organas, that'll never work in a thousand years-

"If you'd let me finish, you grump-" Io rolls her eyes and the mask cracks a little more- "I was about to explain. It used to belong to Mother's second cousin Asenath. She and her husband died during a family squabble and everything went to their children, but then they both died as well. I only half-remember the story. I was just a schoolgirl then."

"But wouldn't it default back to the main House in that case?"

"Not quite. Her daughter'd married an Imperial and unlike dear cousin Asenath, she kept her paperwork tidy. Every last credit, the house in town and the entire hilltop estate ended up with her widower." She's scrolling through a datapad now, looking through a file as she keeps talking. "I don't know him well- he was a liaison to Imperial Intelligence but our paths rarely crossed during my contract time, and he only comes to family parties once or twice a year. But he's-"

(She hadn't known about the hilltop house.

But she knew the rest of it. He'd told her, two months in, when she'd finally been bold enough to ask how he managed it- the parties, the apartment, the pretty trinkets he'd give her to keep when she'd done especially well, all the trappings of keeping up the carefully crafted front he hid behind- on a military pension and an Intelligence stipend. She'd half-expected him to say he was skimming off the discretionary fund.

My wife, he'd said. All the money was hers.)

It might have been easier, she thinks, if it had been the Ulgos after all. "Ruana. Major Galen Ruana. His wife's name was Amalia."

Io blinks. "It's Colonel Ruana, now- do you know him? I didn't realize you worked with military intelligence, Cipher. That never seemed quite your style."

"It wasn't." It wasn't his, either, but that's a secret she swore long ago she'd keep. "He was my patron during my last year of training."

One eyebrow raised, another subtle crack in the clay. "He… oh. Well, then. You shouldn't have too difficult a time asking for a favor, hm?" The subtext lingers past the words; everyone all knew what patron had meant in those days: favor bought, favor sold. Suddenly a chime sounds in the background and, shaking her head, Io stands. "I've got to go, darling, or this mask's going to take my skin off with it. Promise me you'll visit when you come to Alderaan."

"Cross my heart. I owe you brandy, don't I, since it seems I'll be headed to Dromund Kaas in any case." She forces a smile, tone light, but- that's going to be a problem. The whole damned thing's going to be a problem.

"Excellent memory as always, but you didn't let me finish earlier. The Rist Gala's next month- perfect for business deals and he's already marked as attending. I'll furnish the invitations. Just bring your party dress -" Io winks- "and my brandy, and I'll get working on your poison project in the morning. Talk soon?"

"Talk soon."

The projection fades; she rests her head in her hands. There must be something he'd want. Something besides-

Two knocks on the War Room door.

Theron. Lana always knocks three times.

"Come in." She doesn't look up at the sound of the door sliding open and he slips in behind her chair, arms wrapping close around her shoulders and his face nuzzled into the side of her neck.

"You should be resting," Theron says. "Your scans-"

She sighs. "I know. I will."

"This doesn't look like resting."

"I had work to do." She turns her head to kiss his temple. "You should be resting, too. Lana said you were sleeping."

"I tried." He holds her tighter. "I kept hearing you calling out. I mean- rationally I know you were in kolto, but- hold on. Tell me you didn't already-"

Shaking her head seems unwise, as likely to make her dizzy again as to get her point across, so she stays still instead. "No. There are a few contingencies we need to put into place beforehand, but if I'm going back into the tank I need you and Lana to help me with that. And that means Lana needs to know what's going on, and that means-"

"We need to talk about Coruscant."

"Yes."

Author's Note: process updates on my writing (along with a good degree of other nonsense) can always be found at inyri dot tumblr dot com.

Next chapter coming soon.