Chapter Thirty-Eight: Checkmate

There are few things more delightful than watching an old enemy fall to pieces.

It starts as it always does: a crease at the corner of one eye, a flickering pulse at the edge of a shirt collar, the tap-tap-tap of a fingernail on a polished wood desktop. Trant sits staring as the video plays, jaw clenched so tightly she can see the muscles in his cheek twitch, and she wonders whether he's angrier at her or at Garza's carelessness. He'd clearly known about Eclipse Squad- likely far better than she did given the look on his face when she'd first mentioned it; he didn't strike her as the type to offer no-strings-attached favors, ex-wife or not.

Probably especially not an ex-wife. He had at least two that her own intel knew about, not to mention his charming little habit of getting up the skirts of most of his secretaries. She doesn't fault the man a divorce or four: getting married in their line of work was a lousy idea and staying that way seemed impossible unless one didn't mind lying about every single detail of one's life. But fucking the support staff? That suggested quite a lot about a man, none of it good-

-and those poor fired secretaries had so very many interesting things to say after a few Starshine Surprises.

Eclipse Squad hadn't stood a chance, not with Rakata tech in their heads and Havoc hunting them. The Republic should have known better than to play with anything the Rakata'd left behind but they always were idiots when it came to pushing the boundaries of science, even after the lessons they should have learned on Tatooine and Belsavis and now Manaan- she knows they knew, she saw their research teams prowling around even as her own crew evacuated- and Garza must have been desperate for new blood once Havoc was unmasked after Corellia. (That had been Chancellor Saresh's fuckup, probably; the Republic did love its parades. Meanwhile the Empire's embedded observers managed dozens of high-definition holos of every squad member, right down to the whiskers on the XO's face.) In any case, with their best SpecForce team out in the open there must have been a lot riding on the program's success.

Those poor stupid soldiers. It was the sort of thing she would have expected from her own masters once upon a time, though in Science Division's hands they would have ended up in Shadow Town under a microscope instead of skar'kla food on Rishi. One learns from one's failures.

Waste not, et cetera.

(Deep in the back of her mind there is a flicker of static, a faint pressure on the crown of her head like pats from a vaguely condescending hand, there and gone again in a moment.

She was stupid once, too. More than once.)

She has to hand it to Havoc Squad, though: even bugfuck crazy the Eclipse soldiers fought hard and Major Janasim and her team cut them down like paper targets, bodies stashed and confirmation holos of each kill in proper professional fashion. Very tidy. Almost admirable, if the woman didn't seem like such a trigger-happy psychopath. It's understandable, too, why she'd let Garza walk- favors make the galaxy go 'round, after all, and it sounds like Havoc must have owed their general more than a few.

Not that it'll keep her from using it against all of them.

If Trant wants to turn this into a shadow war with Theron as collateral, she'll bring the SIS down around his ears and as much of the Republic as she can drag into the wreckage. That probably isn't proper. That probably isn't what a Commander ought to do. Then again, she never wanted to run this Alliance in the first place.

Oh, well. Waste not, et cetera.

She turns her attention back to the holo.

"-but I have some pull with the SIS director," Garza said thoughtfully, cupping her chin with one gloved hand. "Say goodbye to the uniform, but I'd be back running ops within the year."

The major still had blood on her face, a wide spatter across one high cheekbone and the riveted patch where her left eye should have been. They never did get footage of what exactly she'd done to Corovani- the cameras in that sector were pointed in just the wrong direction, not that it mattered much with Garza's precious safehouse bugged to the rafters- but she can guess. "Those spies are in for a shock." Her lips curled into a smirk. "They could use a little SpecForce training."

Trant taps his fingertips on the desktop one last time before resting his palms flat against the surface. His shoulders rise and fall, a breath drawn in and out with a whistle on the exhale like air out of a balloon; a single sharp click registers in her right ear and for a second she thinks he's patched someone else into the call until she sees a panel light blinking on the far wall. Second light from the top. The bridge.

Oh, Theron. She pulls her focus back to the recording as it freezes on its last frame, forces her body to relax and her face to maintain its perfect smiling mask. However long he's been listening he won't like what he hears, but that's not her problem now. You never do follow orders worth a damn, do you?

"I went to her funeral, you know." Trant leans back in his chair. "Janasim. She died on a siege attempt on some Zakuulan outpost- saved the rest of the squad before they got her. Hero to the end and all that. Elin always liked her." He picks up a stylus and traces two circles in the air where the projection sits in front of him, one around each woman's face. "Now I see why. Two peas in the same bitch pod."

Charming to the end, this one. She lets it go. "Personal feelings aside, you have to admit the footage is damning. Science experiments gone wrong, a whole fort massacred and the military covering it all up? Media catnip."

"You're still assuming I care." He's going to break a tooth if he doesn't unclench his jaw. "Ex-wife, Cipher Nine. If that's your leverage-"

"Oh, Marcus. You're missing the obvious connection."

One eyebrow lifts, his eyes narrowing.

"I don't fault you for not caring what happens to her," she says. He cares. She can tell. But that isn't the point. "But how much do you think she cares about what happens to you? You've got a war criminal running your ops division and when this gets out the reporters will come running. It's only a matter of time before the Senate follows, and who knows what they'll dig up?"

"I hate to break it to you, but by most definitions we're all war criminals- you and Agent Shan included. So one op went bad? It happens. It'll blow over."

She laughs; his gaze flickers back to the still-paused holovid. Nearly there. Nearly. "I never said I wasn't. And this is just an aperitif. Do you think they'd like to hear about Ardun Kothe- how a high-and-mighty Jedi let his team torture a poor little defector? Or should we go back further? I'm sure the Cathar would love to know what really happened to Prince Shange. Or Ralltiir, perhaps. Messy. Very messy."

Trant blanches.

(A particularly nasty little mission, Ralltiir, even by wartime standards. He wasn't even Bureau Chief back then according to the Black Codex, let alone Director, so it's not entirely fair play. Too bad for him. He lost the right to fair play when he called in the mark.)

"You wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't I?" She sits up just a little straighter. "I can keep going, if you like. But you're a clever man. Surely you can see where this ends."

The stylus cracks in half as his hand spasms; its tip bounces once, twice along the desktop and then lies still.

"Or we settle this like civilized people." Deactivating the recording, she extends one hand toward him with fingers uncurled. "Everyone's dirty little secrets stay secret, starting with these. All it takes is one message to your people, Director Trant. Call it off. Now."

The other half of the stylus falls, resting alongside its mate. "You realize it'll take you down too? If you do this-"

"It might. I'll risk it."

He sits in silence for the better part of a minute, eyes half-closed, lost to thought, and she waits. These things take time. He isn't wrong, either- if this mess goes that deep it'll be hard to avoid. But he doesn't have proof, not with her dossier wiped for all those years, and she's never pretended to be a model of virtue. All of his name-calling aside, her people know what she is- was-

Is?

She doesn't know any more.

Let him try. Better that than Theron running, looking back over his shoulder for the rest of their lives. Better that than-

"All right. I'll call them." Voice hollow, he stares flatly into the camera. "I always liked Theron, you know. He was a good kid. A good agent, until you got your claws into him."

"He still is. But you know that."

The war's been hard on all of them and Marcus Trant isn't a young man; he must be seventy by now, or close to it, and in that moment he looks every single one of those years. He reaches out slowly, one fingertip hovering over the disconnect switch of his holoprojector.

"I don't understand you," she says quietly. "You fought the Empire at every step, even during peacetime. You fought for your Republic as hard as any frontline soldier, and now you're content to sit and let Zakuul strangle you? Every Star Fortress barricading your planets, every new factory-"

"I know war." He glances off to one side, out a window by the way the light slants across his face. "I know war enough to know when my side can't win. They're strangling all of us- but those last few breaths last longer if you don't struggle, don't they? You'll figure that out soon enough. Now get off my line."

He flips the switch; the projection cuts off.

When she's certain the channel's closed, she sags forward in her chair and rests her head in her shaking hands.

Fully five minutes pass before she settles herself and she still can't quite push away the feeling that something isn't right.

She needs to talk Theron.

When she rises from her chair her body's exhausted, as though she's been running for hours. Is she that out of practice? The idea's absurd. She hadn't even needed to push Trant that hard before he'd buckled, which-

No. No, he said he'd make the call. He- what if-

She needs to talk to Theron. Catching up her datapad, she unlocks the door and heads to the front of the ship.

He looks up when she crosses the threshold, seemingly startled; she knows it's a lie, of course. In the silent ship he would have heard her coming all the way down the corridor, heavy dress boots echoing on the floor.

"That bad?"

She shrugs and reaches past him to flip the comm switch, closing the still-open link between the war room and the bridge, and Theron flinches ever so slightly. There's no point in arguing over it- he knows she knows and that's enough, and they were neither of them any good at keeping their noses where they didn't belong. That was too hard a habit to break. "You tell me. You worked for Marcus Trant for years: is he telling the truth, or not?"

"I don't- hang on." The navicomputer's active and he swivels his chair toward it, locking in the last set of jump calculations to Voss. "It's hard to be sure, but I think he is. If it was just Garza on the hook he might have risked standing his ground, but he's been fighting to keep ops reports out of the Senate's hands for decades. If I'd known that was your bluff-"

"You think I was bluffing?" Leaning against the center console, she folds her arms across her chest. "If Trant hadn't balked, or if he'd hung up on me, the Coruscant Sun was about to get the tip of a lifetime- and about two dozen other newsrooms after that, depending on how long it took him to come around. And I knew you weren't going to like it, which is why you weren't supposed to hear it."

Theron blinks, shuts down the navicomputer, and then sits back in his chair with a deep sigh and a shake of his head. "I didn't ask you to protect me. I definitely didn't ask you to offer to throw yourself to the wolves to do it."

"I'm supposed to be in charge of this mess, Theron. That's my job, and if that's what it takes-"

"No. Absolutely not."

It's her turn to blink now, head tilted, at the vehemence in his voice. "I'm sorry," she says carefully, "but that's not up to you. I understand that you feel you owe him and-"

He cuts her off again, sharper. "Yeah, I do, but that's not what I meant. I meant that I don't need you to-" wrinkling his nose, he rephrases- "I don't want you to throw yourself in front of my problems. It made sense for you to be the one to make the call, sure, but I won't watch you get hurt by this. I just- I won't, okay?"

That's-

Oh. An old wound, but still a deep one; as she looks down at him he exhales and lets go of the armrests, deep half-circles marks from his nails embedded in the padding. But who?

(Not his father, certainly not his mother. An old friend or an ops partner, maybe- he liked to work alone, but-

And then she wonders, just for a moment, how Ngani Zho died. She knows where and when it happened- during the mission that destroyed the Sun Razer in the Vesla system- from her brief glimpse at the archive file-

She thinks she might know how, too. Poor Theron.)

"I-" She sighs. Theron reaches out to wrap both hands around her forearms, pulling her away from the console; she lets herself relax and be led, takes a step forward until they're toe to toe. "I know. I know. But I won't, either, and I will do what I have to if this doesn't go the way we think."

His grip shifts, arms around her waist now, and he leans forward to rest his forehead against her stomach. "Did anyone ever tell you," he says, half-muffled, "that you're impossible?"

"Frequently. Not so much when I'm trying to keep them alive-" she bends, kissing the top of his head as the same time he makes an irritated noise and pinches her ass, which she'll take; at least he knows she's trying to lighten the mood, even if he's still angry which- well, it's fair, isn't it? "In any case, it's over. I hope. If you thought I was bluffing, he might too, and we won't know that until the hammer falls."

"No, you're right. Marcus doesn't know you like I do. You threw him completely off his game, better than anyone I've ever seen- he can't predict you. He's got no reason to doubt you'll do exactly as you say."

"But you do?"

Theron sighs again and pulls her in tighter. "I know you're more than your dossier. I know you aren't-"

He trails off, then; when she glances down he's already looking up at her with tired eyes. She should have kept him further out of this, shouldn't she? He's too close to it, too tethered by his history to ever be able to pull himself completely free (and that he'd left the SIS at all was her fault, he'd said as much that first morning when they woke- he hadn't said fault and he never would and they could blame it on the war all they wanted but they both know the truth of it, deep down). "Hm?"

"Who was Shange?" he says, apropos of nothing. "The name's familiar, but I feel like I can't remember why."

"Before our time, technically speaking. He was a Cathar prince from back during the Great War who opposed their alliance with the Republic- apparently he amassed quite a following. The SIS scooped up the the lot of them and shipped them off to Belsavis." There had been a lot of things in the Tomb that belonged there, sithspawn and their masters and worse. But not those Cathar. "Slapped them in indefinite stasis and let the rumor spread around that they'd all been killed in battle."

"And then?"

She shrugs. "SCORPIO wasn't the only thing I dug up on my first run through that place. His temper hadn't improved after twenty years, and if word of his survival hasn't spread in the Core Worlds I can only assume it's because someone's been working very hard to keep it quiet."

"Probably a safe guess. And Ralltiir?"

Carefully, she pushes a stray piece of hair from where it's falling over his implant. "You don't want to know about Ralltiir. Trust me."

"But you're more than happy to publicize it?" Theron goes still for a moment, then turns his head sharply away from her hand. "That isn't fair and you know it."

"Fair to whom? None of this is fair!" she snaps. Even looking away he's still holding on to her and she squirms away, takes a step back toward the console. Damn it all, why'd he have to eavesdrop and not leave well enough alone? "And of course I'm not happy about it. Believe it or not, I'm not trying to start a fight with the man- he's been eyes-deep in war since long before either of us were born. On one level I respect that-" Theron starts to say something but she keeps going- "and if he keeps his fucking word it's all bluster in any case. But if he doesn't-"

"He will." Suddenly plaintive, half-standing, he pulls her back in nearer. "He will. I'm sure of that much, I just- please, I'm sorry. Marcus just-"

Poor Theron. He's got her wrapped up close again and she doesn't resist, doesn't have the heart to, not with the look on his face. Instead she tidies his hair again and this time he leans into it with a little shudder that might have been anger or grief or resignation or all of that wrapped up together.

"I would have thought he'd understand," he finally says. "Out of everyone, I thought he'd get it. Or that all the years we worked together would count for enough to balance out how much he seems to hate you."

"I suppose I rather deserve it, all things considered."

Forehead scrunched, he mutters something she can't quite hear. "You had your orders back then, just like me. Whatever you did- just do what you have to now, Nine. I know you won't pull punches and I'm not asking you to, but I also know that you'll take this as far as it needs to go and no further."

"And if it has to go that far?" He always thinks the best of her and she wishes he wouldn't. There were so many things he didn't know, shouldn't know, that- well. (He never saw her with Hunter, at the end. He's heard the story, but-)

"Then I trust your judgment. It's gotten us here, hasn't it?"

When she laughs he moves with her; she lets her fingers tangle up in the crease of his collar. "I think you forgot the part where I ended up frozen in carbonite for five years with a ghost in my head."

"You know what I meant."

"Do I?"

"Force, you really are impossible." Theron leans back once more, sharp and sudden and pulling her up and off her feet until she has to let him go to catch herself against the back of the chair. "Come here and let me say I'm sorry properly. You're hauling my idiot ass out of the fire and there I go, questioning. You'd think I'd learn by now."

The bridge seats really aren't meant for two. "That isn't necessary. Honestly."

"I thought you liked my apologies." He shifts his hands and- that is rather nice, actually. A little groveling never did any harm, did it?

She considers. "Hm. We really ought to go and pack, you know. For tomorrow."

"You can pack in three minutes. I've watched you."

"Might need a uniform for Voss-" and he'd better not pop the fastenings on this one; she taps his already-busy fingers as a gentle warning. Normally she doesn't mind a lost button or three but she won't have time to mend it before morning, not at this rate. "Leave me at least five."

They've got hours to pack yet, even after they drag themselves back to the mess hall for dinner; her stomach's been tied up in nervous knots all day and the little midday meal she'd forced herself to eat burned off quickly in the wake of Theron's apologetic attentions. (They were both adrenaline junkies and she'd known that for ages, all the way back to Rishi, but it'd taken her far longer to realize as as often as he swore he didn't want her to put herself on the front lines of things he was particularly enthusiastic when she did.

Not that she minds- she's always had a thing for competence herself, just another of the ways they were too alike for their own good. They'll run Odessen out of spare zippers before the war's end at this rate.)

She leaves him in the hallway outside the mess. He hadn't moved everything upstairs yet, only what he'd had in his gear when they came back from the last op, and he'd needed to make a stop at his own quarters to pick up a few more things before their last planning meeting with Lana- "I'll be fine," he'd said, nudging her shoulder as they finished up their caf. "I think I can handle a few steps down the hallway on my own."

He's right, of course. It's only her paranoia getting the better of her. It does that too often nowadays, not quite as badly as it did in the old days with Hunter where every word, every action was a thing to be second-guessed but very nearly; she's not quite sure, now, whether that gnawing doubt's her own tendency to overthink or Valkorion's meddling. Source notwithstanding she's still alive, so she'll let that question sit unconsidered for now. The less she thinks about him the quieter he stays.

As she rounds the corner toward her room she scans through her comm: half an hour until the meeting yet and a few messages from Oggurobb and Sana-Rae and one from Doctor Lokin- she's got yet another treatment on the books, it seems, before he'll sign off on a field mission. Damned overbearing old man; if she never sees the inside of that infirmary again it'll be too soon-

The door to her quarters slides open in response to her code.

"Hello, Commander." SCORPIO's sitting in the dark, balanced almost primly on the nearer edge of the couch. Her head turns until the orange glow of her eyes illuminates that corner of the room, the sharp outlines of her chassis barely visible. "I've detected a security issue that requires your attention."

"You might have sent a message." Resisting the urge to turn and run- not that she'd really ever had reason to since that first meeting, but still, she doubts any of her protective programming made it past a few iterations- she taps the panel at her left to secure the room. "I like messages. I don't like unexpected visitors."

Was that an eyeroll? It's hard to tell. "Messages can be intercepted. As you see." One arm extended, SCORPIO gestures toward her commpad. "Given your failure to request that I transmit the data, I can only assume your negotiations went well?"

Ignoring the question as her wrist chimes, she scans the text as it loads and then looks up with one eyebrow raised. What is this? If they've got a contraband problem it's the first she's heard of it- and whoever the sender is, why's he sending it to Theron instead of to Hylo or-

Ah.

Of course.

"It's worth investigating. However-" clearing the screen, she folds her arms across her chest- "we agreed on limited access to the security network, if I recall correctly. I certainly don't remember telling you to intercept personal memoranda."

"You expressly permitted monitoring of the common area surveillance systems. If you've forgotten, I can replay our discussion."

"No. I do remember that. But that doesn't explain-"

"The version you read is the last of twelve drafts. Given that its author disabled the alarm in the sub-basement storage area and has been sequestered there for the last-" her eyes flick upward, barely perceptibly- "thirty-six minutes and eight seconds, I considered the deviation from our set parameters acceptable."

It might be nothing. They've found their SIS infiltrator, almost certainly (or at least one of them, Void knows there might be more), but he might just want out of the transport lockdown and frankly if that's all he wants they can work with that and he can fuck back off to Coruscant. It might even be legitimate. With as many new arrivals as the Alliance has had it's not implausible that they've picked up a smuggler or two operating outside of Hylo's oversight.

It might be nothing.

It's probably something. "Theron hasn't seen this?"

"Not yet. I will, of course, defer to your orders." Head tilted, SCORPIO focuses on her once again. "Intercept? Or transmit?"

He ought to know about this. If this is what she thinks it is he ought to have a say in how it's handled. But if his faith in Trant was misplaced after all, if she sends him walking straight into a trap and stars, if it's someone he knows and he hesitates-

No. She won't risk it. She can't.

"Intercept." Lifting her tactical belt from its place on the armor stand, she fastens it around her hips, slips her knife into its sheath and checks the little blaster already holstered in her waistband. "No reply, but do not let him see that message. And make sure he gets to the War Room safely- find some excuse or send an escort. I'm sure you'll think of something."

"Yes, Commander." SCORPIO rises, swift and silent. "Anything else?"

She shakes her head. "I've got a mole to hunt."

The second sublevel ought to be deserted.

They haven't quite finished it, the dormitory building beside the docking bay not yet at full capacity and the storage on the first floor still enough for their purposes. In another month or two that might change, but for now only the largest storeroom's in use at all. Whoever's down here now, he shouldn't be. The room's unsecured too, the keypad dark with a thin rim of space around it that shouldn't be there either. Sloppy, then, or not afraid of being detected.

Probably the latter. She isn't sure if that makes her more or less nervous.

One hand on her vibroknife, Nine pushes the door open slowly. Overhead, the light flickers; she looks for movement in the shadows cast by the stacks of crates. Nothing. She takes a step into the room and then another, lets her steps be heard-

And then she sees it, too late, and as the door snaps abruptly shut she can't quite get her hands up before the garotte bites into her throat.

Author's Note: Still alive. Really. Since our last update, I have: officially gotten my new job (I start in July), put our house up for sale, finished a costume despite being ever-increasingly pregnant, gone to Star Wars Celebration, fought off two weeks of con crud, and become an aunt- in no particular order. As I suspect you can guess, what was lacking in that time span was... time, really. But here we are, back in the swing of things at last.

Up next: Extinction Burst. Play bitch games, win bitch prizes.