The blinding white light of hyperspace buffeted the cockpit's viewport. It rendered the dim blue lights inside all but useless, and threatened to sear Fell's eyes just the same. The Sith who had accompanied his master to Malastare, the one his master called Bestia, reclined in the seat beside him. Slim of shoulder and woven of high-pointed bones hungry to break from her skin, she was shorter and smaller still than even Cinder. Her feet dangled aimless just shy of touching the floor. Every now and then she would kick gently at the air.
"Lord Fell?" The two had sat in silence for some time, ever since Bestia returned from Cinder's quarters. Her limpid voice was pretty enough, he supposed, but Fell couldn't help but feel as if it concealed a more sinister design.
Regardless, he would take any excuse to turn away from the scorching sea of white. "Yes?" he said, perhaps a bit more sharp than he meant. He cringed at that, then forced herself to look at her face, into her eyes. Raisins in a sea of cream. They almost matched the color of the markings that patterned across her brow and nose, that looked so woefully incomplete. Perhaps they are. The white light from the viewport caught the side of her head, setting alight a freshly sprouting field of blonde wheat.
"How did you come to be in Lady Cinder's service?"
Must I tell everyone I meet? His conversation with Mandalore had left him bitter. Or was it the fact that it had borne no fruit? It did not matter; cunning as it was, the ploy would never have been successful. He swallowed and answered her. "She saved me from a slavedriver on Ord Mantell." It was true from a certain point of view, though not necessarily his own. Shipwright Paulo Ghintee had never been cruel, but he had always been demanding. A boy of thirteen could never have been expected to tell the difference. "That was several years ago and doesn't matter."
"Of course it does." She pursed her black lips together and bobbed her head as if out of habit, to clear nonexistent hair from her eyes. "It matters a fair deal why the Dark Lady would have chosen someone like you."
"Like me?" Fell cocked his head. "If you wish to take my place, perhaps that can be arranged." He felt his hand drift towards his lightsaber.
"So tense." She smiled, her lips stretching as narrow as they could. "Don't play at guessing intentions you don't understand." Her own lightsaber dangled from a buckle on her left hip, catching more light as she a brought a knee up against her breast. The hilt was a short, stunted little thing, maybe half the size of his own. He wondered if the blade would be dwarfed just the same. "It would not be the first time a master has had two apprentices. My own master had five, among them yours."
He recalled the lecture Cinder gave him on Ossus when they forged their new lightsabers. The Tale of Darth Traya, he remembered. "No good would come of such an arrangement." The Sith Triumvirate of old turned against one another and died together, their all too brief Jedi purge quickly undone. Cinder also once told him ought of the various Sith Lords that presided over a conflict centuries-long Jedi historians had called the "Cold War", and of their various legions of apprentices and supplicants. Like the rest of the galaxy, he remembered very little of the whole affair. "Our way is treachery. The more of us there are, the more of us end up dead."
Bestia snickered. "Astute. You do know that we are all that remains, right? The rest of Ruin's apprentices are dead." Her smile left her and her face paled, turning the color of bile. "I assume the rest of Korriban was wiped clean, as well? Lady Cinder will not speak of it."
"Picked to the bone." He thought of the Jedi woman that his master cut down in the hangar. He wished she had fought them all like that, with him by her side. But she slapped him senseless when he brought up that thought to her on the way to Nar Shaddaa, and she was no more keen to speak on that particular knightess. Perhaps they had a history; he remembered the Qel-Droma epics well enough from his master's lectures. Maybe they were two nemeses, much like the heroes of old. He heard Bestia speak his name again and snapped back to reality. "Yes, all dead."
Bestia gave him a look of befuddlement, then shrugged. "What a shame." Her tone suggested she had more to say, but she kept silent. She slid her legs down, her boots hitting the floor, and thrust herself upright. "No matter. We'll rebuild after he's dead." She started walking to the door, but stopped just short right behind his chair. Fell craned his head over his shoulder to look at her, though he did not have to look up. Even seated, he was still of a height with her. Though the seat is set pretty high. "You never knew him, did you Lord Fell?" Her lip quivered ever so slightly.
"Lady Cinder kept me far away from the old man in his tower." That had always been her nickname for the Dark Lord, "him in his tower." Ruin never left it, so Fell had been told.
"Count yourself lucky." Her nostrils flared and she showed herself out, her black cloak trailing behind her.
He was almost ready to lean back in the chair and get some more much-needed rest when the sharp clattering stomps of HK-47 rang in his ears and kept him lucid. Out of the corner of a weary eye, he watched the rust-red droid stand in front of the co-pilot's chair, squat, and lower itself into the seat. Its ancient servos and motors whined and creaked as its joints moved. It sat upright, rigid as a steel rod, and its head swiveled to face him.
"Statement: The Master affirmed that she will only join you in the cockpit when she made herself ready." The droid's deadpan demeanor annoyed him to no end, though he did find himself growing less frustrated by its presence. As far as Fell was concerned, the antique had proven itself more than capable on the Invictus when it fought Mandalore head-on, and again when it stormed the bridge with him. "Consolation: I did inform her of the perceived urgency of your request, meatbag. Admission: Her numbness to it brought a certain joy to my computer core."
"So be it," Fell said. He chuckled. "Not much for her to look at anyway, unless she wants to go blind."
"Commentary: A master without eyes would be most useless. That being said, I did serve a blind man at one point in my... illustrious career. Query: Would the meatbag like to hear of it?"
"I'll hear of it if you stop calling me 'meatbag.'" He and the droid exchanged a long, hard look.
"Challenge: Change my programming yourself then. Unless your fleshy extremities are as clumsy and fickle as they look."
"I'll ignore that. Tell the story, we've got time to kill."
The droid regaled him with the lengthy tale of a blind man who lived in a mountain fortress, though in truth he cared little enough to listen. He caught the gist sure enough, but the finer details went in one ear and out the other. When HK got to the manner of this master's death, Fell heard a noise come from the central terminus of the ship.
"...the noble fell to his death after leaning over a balustrade that simply wasn't there. The maids, of course, blamed me, even though I was standing deactivated in the corner of his chambers. His foremost vassal secured a restraining bolt to my armor plating and sent me on a scrap barge bound for Raxus Prime. Cliffhanger: Naturally I did not end up being scrapped."
"Quiet," Fell said, raising his hand. There was a soft, rhythmic pounding. Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound was similar to flesh on metal, but he thought that was nonsense. "Do you hear that?" Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound echoed in his head.
"Diagnostic: Tuning aural receptors." The droid stiffly swiveled his head from side to side as if in calibration. He turned to face Fell again after the fourth set of turns. "Answer: Yes, I'm picking up unusual aural activity in the underbelly of the ship."
The underbelly? There was nothing but support beams and wiring down there. The gaps were tiny, though not too small for someone to fit inside, though small they would have to be themselves. Cinder had crawled through the underworks once herself in pursuit of a mynock that had gotten itself stuck, almost getting herself stuck with it. Then he remembered.
"Come, droid. Let's go find our stowaway."
Fell heard the droid grab a rifle as it followed him out into the terminus, towards the supply closet wherein it once sat. He produced his lightsaber and ignited the silver blade. He paused for a moment and studied it. One day I'll make you truly mine, he thought as he stared into the silver beam. He was about to plunge it into the center of the door when...
"Lord Fell." Cinder's voice stopped him in his tracks. On instinct, he brought the blade to his side.
"Yes, master?" He turned to face her and was glad to see her condition had improved. She was back in same Jedi disguise she had worn on Nar Shaddaa, a cream tunic shrouded in a hempen brown robe. Her gilded hair shone in the artificial light, neatly bound at the back in a clasp of auburn metal. Her pale skin glowed much the same, scrubbed clean of the blood and grime of battle.
Bestia approached from behind Cinder, stepping to her right. She stretched out a hand towards Cinder, who nudged it away. The hum of Fell's lightsaber finally caught his ears. "Oh," he thought aloud, and switched it off at once.
"I sense it too, boy." She stepped closer and he heard HK step away, slinking off towards the cockpit. "But to have your sword out on my ship without my leave is foolishness."
"Sorry master." Fell's face went pink. "Pardon me, I thought you indisposed. I meant to seize initiative." He heard rattling beneath him, accompanied by more of that blasted thumping. Cinder heard it too and looked down with him.
"No need. I felt it when I first woke." She turned to Bestia. "Go to the cockpit with the droid. I want to be alone with my apprentice." The Mirialan nodded and walked away with a scowl.
"Come with me, boy." She began walking towards the engine room. He followed without a word.
The engine room itself was little more than a fat, spartan box. Both of its "walls" were a series of rods: two large, long, and fat on top and bottom, with two more slender beams between them. The dull thrumming of the engines emanated from these rods in a ceaseless echo. Cinder reached out after Fell entered, sealing the door behind him with the Force. The thrumming grew louder for a moment, but eventually he tuned it out well enough to hear her.
"Why here?" Fell asked her. There were several other alcoves on the ship for them to speak privily, all much less likely to cost one their hearing.
"If the room were quiet, we would not be truly alone," she said. "I have been plagued by dreams. Terrors. I found a holocron on Ossus, and of it I have said naught to you." She reached into her cloak and pulled the tiny pyramid from a pocket, cupping it in both hands as she held it before him. "It was my intention to keep you safe from the evil within."
"Evil?" He raised an eyebrow. "It's a Sith holocron. Isn't this one of ours?"
"We are a new kind of Sith, just as my master was," she said as she returned the holocron to her pocket. "This is the holocron of Darth Phobos, one who called herself Dark Lord of the Sith in the interim between the Cold War and Lord Ruin's ascension. She calls herself Lady of Fear, and used it in great measure to assemble a cult of five-thousand banners to her will. She is dead, but her scions lie scattered."
"And Darth Ruin never found this lost tribe, is that what you're telling me?" Fell was apprehensive. Why now?
"He and I never knew to look," Cinder said. "But, in time, they shall be the first banners drawn to our reconstituted empire."
"After Ruin's death." Fell snorted. "A long way to go for that still, master. Don't you agree?"
"Do not think to lecture me, my apprentice. We've a long road ahead of us, and it is best we prepare now." She sighed for a moment, collecting herself. "I've come into the knowledge that Ruin has an ally, one that is powerful beyond all measure, beyond all our understanding of the Force." She raised her hand, sensing he was about to speak. "I felt a great disturbance in the Force when we were first on Nar Shaddaa, accompanying the presence of Lord Kaos. Our Dark Lord has unleashed something."
His mind went straight to her lecture on Ossus. "A wound, you think?"
She nodded and half-smiled. "Ruin has gone to Rhen Var, if Lady Bestia's word is good." She clasped her hands together. "But it is not so simple a task that we can divert course and go there now. We still need Kregg, loathe as I am to step foot in that corpulent worm's palace again. We need the navigator, as a sacrifice if nothing else."
"Don't you think there'd be a better choice than someone like him?"
"Rhen Var is shrouded in malignant Force winds," she said, paying Fell no mind. "It's been severed from the hyperspace lanes for centuries. If we had known Ruin was so close..." She grumbled under her breath and a plasteel crate began lifting off the ground behind her. It smacked back into the floor soon after, warbling. Cinder sighed. "No matter, the past is done. We must make plans for our audience with Durgulla the Hutt."
"We have what he wants." As long as our stowaway isn't trying to make off with it.
"He will break our fool's bargain." Her glare showed Fell she still begrudged him.
"Surely he won't think of crossing us when we toss Mandalore's head at his tail?" Fell smiled, thinking of the look that would surely come across the Hutt's face.
"This one has an arrogance that puts his kin to shame. You saw his palace. No kajidic banners to be seen." She stepped past Fell towards the door. "Did you see his shoulder, boy?"
"Which one?"
"A 'no' would have sufficed. Nothing is more important to the Hutts than their clans, their families. Durgulla's arm, where it is not suet and slime, should wear a kajidic crest. It has been carved away."
"I apologize, master, but if you recall I was to his left. How could I have possibly seen this?"
She stepped towards him. "It is not a matter of that specific detail, Lord Fell. The lesson here is that you must be more mindful of your surroundings, more observant, more... particular in what you notice and with whom you interact.
"Had you not been so busy digging us into a hole in the Hutt's palace, perhaps you would have noticed more than just the prize at the end of the tunnel. You would have seen his scar, the way he paid us no mind once his slaves were brought in, and..."
"The way his newest consort bears no love for him?" Fell cut Cinder off and earned her scowl in return. "The Twi'lek girl is no slave."
"There are some things you notice, then." Cinder's scowl turned to a wry smile. "Tell me, apprentice, how did you come to this conclusion?"
Now that lost him. There was no "why" to it, he could just tell, but she would never accept base intuition as an answer. "She enjoys her role too much, even for a peasant who's spent her life starved half to death." He was uncertain of his answer, but the look in his master's eye said she agreed well enough.
"The girl is no peasant for true," Cinder said. "She carries herself too highly." She changed the subject. "Kregg told us the other Hutts were forced from Nar Shaddaa. What did you make of that?"
"No one forces the Hutts to do anything," Fell said, all confidence. "We dealt with their emissaries enough on Ord Mantell. Anything they wanted, we'd bend over backwards for them."
"'The only thing worse than an unhappy Jedi is an unhappy Hutt, but I'd sooner settle for neither,'" Cinder said with a smirk. That was what old Paulo Ghintee had told her when she asked to take Fell. "I see where he was coming from now."
Fell sighed. "What's our move?"
Cinder opened the door and moved out into the hallway, beckoning for Fell to follow her. He was thankful; the engine room was fearsome hot, and he had almost sweat his tunic through.
"We'll discuss that with the others," Cinder said as the two of them walked towards the cockpit. The sight that greeted them when they got there was not the field of white they expected, however.
Nar Shaddaa loomed in the distance, a great orb of gold. Nal Hutta poked out behind it, like a shy girl afraid to show her face. But the Hutt worlds were not what drew their eyes. It was the swarm of brown ships, thick of body and long of nose, surrounding the moon from all angles. Several squadrons of ratty patchwork snub fighters flanked each warship. There had to have been thousands of vessels.
"Statement: Master, the meatbag was about to have me fetch you," HK-47 said as he turned to face the two of them.
"I don't think any amount of observation would have been predicted this," Fell said with a snort.
Cinder ignored the quip. "Ignore this show." She bid Bestia out of the pilot's chair and took it herself. "HK, pinpoint a good LZ."
Bestia stood next to Fell as he watched Cinder and the droid plot a course through the unrelenting tide of ships. They were speeding towards the moon's surface. He couldn't help but smile; he always enjoyed when his master pushed The Ashen One to her limits.
"Let the Hutts have their little war," Cinder said as they broke Nar Shaddaa's atmosphere. "We have business but with one."