Odessen
War Room

Scowling at datapads seemed to be all Zolah did anymore. She missed the days of her youth, the thrill of danger as she crept closer to a target, the heart-stopping lies that led her deeper behind enemy lines. In the space of a few years, Zolah's job had morphed from dismantling secretive organizations as an infamous ghost, to reviewing water usage reports and casualty numbers. No longer a cipher, Zolah was a Watcher.

"Well fuck," Zolah grumbled under her breath. She shouldn't complain. She was good at numbers and it made sense to apply her skillset in an administrative setting, but Zolah missed the intrigue of a good puzzle. She couldn't remember the last time that her heart pounded with adrenaline, or her implants had been forced to work beyond capacity. Overall, Zolah's life had become one of drudgery and routine.

A flurry of activity announced the arrival of the troops from Voss. They'd suffered injuries, but no more than expected when considering their adversary. The medical wing had been prepped for battlefield triage, and Yuun had prepared a protocol for staging those who were deemed non-critical. Medical personnel littered the dock around the Gravestone's ramp, waiting for it to lower enough to swarm aboard and extract those who couldn't move under their own power.

Zolah leaned against the railing next to Vector. She planned to stay back until the ship was unloaded, then find someone to fill in the gaps in Theron's report. She sighed with the reminder that he wouldn't be disembarking. Theron's unplanned detour to Dromund Kaas sparked a flurry of homesickness that Zolah hadn't expected. Odessen wasn't home, just another stop in a lifetime of movement. Dromund Kaas held a sentimental attachment that no amount of training could destroy.

Troops filed off of the Gravestone first, parting like water around the stones of triage nurses. The ones with minor injuries first, then slower individuals with comrades' arms slung across their shoulders. Solish flounced down the ramp amid the walking wounded, teeth bared in a mad grin. Vector tensed at Zolah's side, an almost imperceptible movement, but one she knew well. He still hadn't forgiven the Sith for her unending propositions on the way to locate Doctor Lokin, not for himself, but for making Theron so uneasy.

"Love," Zolah began without taking her eyes off the approaching Cathar. "Would you see to our wounded and get a report from Master Vaa and Darth Kozen?"

Vector's black eyes settled on Zolah, weighing the wisdom of leaving his wife alone with such an unstable Sith. "I believe you'll find them in the Force Enclave with the other minor injuries," she added with a nod. That should keep him out of Solish's path for a while.

"Very well," Vector conceded, but he whispered a rescue signal in Zolah's ear before leaving. Few people trusted Darth Nox enough to remain with her without an open commlink. Though Zolah had yet to see the Sith act out, she was the kind of eccentric that carried a reputation for debauchery. A Sith who had embraced the Dark Side like a lover and laughed while it consumed her mind.

Vector kissed Zolah's cheek and turned towards the base. He paused to speak with one of the returning soldiers, his back to Solish until she was clear of him. Zolah suppressed a smirk, watching her clever husband vanish into the throng. "Darth Nox," she said, pulling her attention back to the Cathar. "You look well."

"I missed all of the action," Solish pouted, sharp teeth peeking between black lips. There was madness in her without doubt, but cold logic too. It was hidden beneath layers of chaos, but Zolah saw it in those keen, golden eyes that saw everything.

"I heard that we took losses." Zolah started towards the base, not waiting for Solish to catch up. The Cathar did, of course, slinking alongside with the gait of her wilder ancestors.

Solish dragged her claws across the stone walls leading to the lift. The sound made Zolah's teeth hurt, but she knew better than to react. A glance revealed deep furrows in the rock. A reminder that she was not to be trifled with, or perhaps marking her territory. "Vaylin fragged the whole fucking planet and Arcann got away," Solsh complained, slamming her fist into the down key. Zolah was relieved by the lack of sparks. "It was a wasted trip."

Zolah sighed. "Any news on the major's injuries?" Theron had reported that, of course, but he only had one part of the battle. They'd spread members of the War Council throughout the killing field to gain a better understanding of Vaylin's tactics, which appeared to be geared more towards destruction than power. A child pitching a tantrum, indeed.

"He looks good in an eye patch," Solish offered without the standard sultry trill. Her early attempts at distracting the commander's husband had been met with open hostility. It was the first and only time that Zolah had seen the infamous Darth Nox back down. She'd given Jorgan a wide berth since then. Zolah assumed it was a Cathar thing, something she couldn't possibly understand, so she didn't waste her time when so much else required her attention.

Zolah lifted a brow, hands clasped behind her back while she waited for the Sith to continue. Solish shrugged. "I wasn't close enough to get an idea of the damage, but I got the impression that the physician wasn't worried."

"Good. A sniper shouldn't be without his eyesight," Zolah answered, shuddering. Few things made her squirm, but losing her rifle proficiency ranked among her worst nightmares. Though she and Aric Jorgan were not friends, they bore professional respect for one another. "What of Senya?"

Solish snorted, eyes like smoldering embers rolling towards the ceiling. "The stupid woman nearly killed herself to save that bastard son of hers." Senya had been Solish's mission, one she wasn't pleased by the outcome of. Solish flapped a dismissive hand as they boarded the lift. "She's been unresponsive to stimuli since the ritual. She's not faking, I checked."

"You didn't—" Zolah stopped when Solish flashed her fangs. "You electrocuted a woman in critical condition?"

"It was just a little zap," Solish protested without a hint of remorse. "I thought it was worth the risk. We don't need any more surprises."

Zolah sighed, but didn't pursue the topic of Senya's treatment while in their care. The woman would soon be under guard in the medical wing where she could be kept safe from herself and curious Sith. When the lift came to a stop, Zolah stepped off and signaled for one of her aids. The young woman hurried forward, stumbling slightly when Solish appeared. Zolah pretended not to notice. "Call a council meeting for two hours from now."

The woman nodded, flashed another glance at Solish, then hurried away. When Zolah turned to speak with the Cathar, it was to find her standing too close again. "Two hours?" Solish asked with an almost childlike tilt of her head.

"Should I make it sooner?" Zolah countered, putting the proper amount of space between them. It had been too long since she guarded her tongue around a Sith. The Alliance brought a measure of equality that didn't exist anywhere else in the galaxy. It was one more fact for Zolah to file under the proof that she wouldn't be able to return to the Empire once this war was over. One wrong step there and she'd get more than a sharp glare.

Solish clicked her tongue. "Two hours should be sufficient...unless." She tapped her chin with one, long claw. "Are both Andronikos and Kaliyo in residence?" Zolah nodded, the latter having returned that morning.

Solish grinned. "Better make it three."

Dromund Kaas
Upper Jungle Expanse

Fynta dragged herself off of the ground with a curse. The sodden earth squelched beneath her hands and feet, raising memories that she never let fully solidify. "Acina?" Fynta coughed on the acrid stench of burning wires and thermaplast casings, blinked through the trail of smoke in search of her companion.

"Here." The Empress stood not four meters away, arms crossed over her chest. Acina's scowl spoke more of disapproval than Sith wrath while she gazed on the swath of destroyed jungle that her shuttle had left. Fynta staggered towards the older woman, mentally ticking off muscles that would be stiff tomorrow. Thankfully, nothing felt seriously damaged.

When Fynta stopped, the Empress sighed. "I spent nearly two hundred thousand credits on that thing." Orange shadows danced in the distance, casting demons that stretched towards them.

Fynta shook the mental image away. "Was it insured?" A spark ignited somewhere within and created another small explosion that died in the heavy air.

"Of course." Acina's tone carried the weight of a lifetime of assassination attempts, enough that something as insignificant as shuttle sabotage barely ranked more than a huff of irritation. "But, I really liked that one."

When Acina turned, her amber eyes caught on something above Fynta's head. With a click of her tongue, she picked a twig with little red berries still attached out of Fynta's hair. "Are you hale and whole?"

Fynta flexed her shoulder, noting the grind but nothing suggested that it had popped out of socket again. "More or less. Hell of a tour you offer." Aric's going to kill me. The thought skittered through the back of her mind now that the adrenaline from the crash was beginning to wear off.

Acina tossed the branch away. "I thought you might enjoy the more rugged view." Acina's tone was drier than the Tatooine desert, but Fynta laughed anyway. Two shuttles downed in almost as many days left her with the notion that she was either the luckiest woman in the galaxy or cursed by some bored god. The thought made Fynta laugh harder.

"You are a strange one," Acina commented, brow furrowed in that way Lana had when she was trying to get into Fynta's head. That had bothered Fynta once, until she realized that she no longer had any secrets worth keeping. If someone wanted to root around in the dark recesses of Fynta's minds, she hoped they were made of sturdy stuff.

Fynta winked at the empress, then tried her comm. She wished that she could be surprised when static answered, but that seemed to be the way things went lately. "Aric is going to kill me," she mumbled. Saying it out loud didn't make it feel like any less of a disaster.

The comment wasn't meant for anyone in particular, but Acina latched onto it. "Jealous lover?"

"Something like that." The swirling clouds overhead caught Fynta's attention. They boiled like water, with flashes illuminating the background and creating ominous shadows. "Fretful husband." How long until they realized that the shuttle had gone down? How long until Aric started tearing through Acina's guards in an attempt to reach her? I should have made him go back to Odessen.

"I supposed congratulations are in order, your pre-carbonite file listed you as unattached." Acina tugged on Fynta's gauntlet and nodded towards the crash site. "I have an emergency beacon in my shuttle, come on."

Fynta followed the empress, impressed by how little regard she showed for dragging those fancy jacket tails through the mud. The sticky mush coated anything it touched, grabbing for boots and legs as they cut through the swampy jungle. Fynta made a mental note to never visit this jungle again.

"Ten years," Fynta called while clambering up a rockslide with less grace than the Sith that she followed. Fynta didn't know why she was telling Acina about her marriage other than she was tired of it being a secret. That, and it was something to take her mind off this osikla weather. "We kept a lid on it to make life less complicated."

Acina stopped at the top and turned to offer Fynta a hand up. "How fascinating. Your commanding officer? Subordinate?" She grunted under Fynta's weight, neglecting the Force's aid for reasons that Fynta couldn't fathom. When they were both standing again, the empress offered a maternal smile. "How chivalrous of him to have remained true for so long."

Fynta knew a probing statement when she heard one, but Acina couldn't harm either of them with the knowledge. Fynta was tired of pretending to be anything other than what she was. "He's Cathar." And, currently sitting on your dias, Fynta through with a wry grin that she couldn't show.

The surprised lift of Acina's brows felt vindicating. The empress tilted her head to one side, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips in a way that reminded Fynta of Lana. "A Cathar and a Mandalorian, the stuff of bedtime stories. You're more interesting than I could have hoped."

Fynta huffed a laugh as she peeked over the side of their cliff at the burning wreckage below. "Finally. Now we can get out of this jungle."

"Careful." Acina's hand pressed Fynta back. "Deadly predators stalk these wilds."

Fynta looked through the dazzling light of the fire, spying the gleam of curious eyes edging closer to the crash site. Lana had warned Fynta about the wildlife on Dromund Kaas. They were used to pirates and Sith, not easily deterred once on the scent of prey. She'd gotten the feeling that her old friend hadn't been talking specifically about the jungle animals. "You could say the same thing about your cities."

Acina chuckled. "City predators won't eat our remains." She paused and cast a sideways glance at Fynta. "Usually."

"You know." Fynta offered a wide grin and unholstered her Verpine. "In another life, I might have enjoyed your town."

"In another life, you could have ruled it," Acina called as she picked her way down the hill towards the wreckage. Thunder rumbled overhead, and Acina stopped to frown at the sky. "Terrible timing. We must hurry."

Fynta started after her, eyes on the uneven ground that squished and shifted beneath her boots. Wind rushed between the trees without warning, followed by driving rain. "Is this sort of thing norm-" Fynta's sentence ended with a grunt. Pressure spread through her chest, throwing her back into the mud a second before the air exploded. Blinding light and sound reverberated through her entire body, shocking her system into motionlessness.

It was over in a blink, then Acina was there, words muted through the ringing in Fynta's ears. It took her addled senses too long to clear for Acina's liking and she yanked Fynta upright. "This storm is bad, worse than I've seen in a while. We'll need to find shelter."

Acina dragged Fynta behind her with a firm grin on her pauldron. Lightning struck a tree half a klick to the east and Fynta finally understood. "Fierfek. That was lightning that knocked me on my shebs?" Her neck ached, but she patted Acina's arm to let the woman know that she was good to walk on her own.

"No," Acina called back over the wind. "That was me. The lightning would have killed you."

"Thanks, I think." Fynta wished that she had her helmet, and silently vowed to do no more meetings without it. The humidity on Dromund Kaas made her armor feel heavier without the ability to seal herself inside an environmentally controlled suit. Not to mention, protection of planetary, Dark Side storms.

The rain swelled around Fynta's boots, unable to soak into the already saturated dirt. She'd just freed one foot from the mud when Acina held up a hand to stop Fynta. If the pelting rain bothered the older woman as she crouched, she hid it well. "Does that look like a hunting party to you?"

Fynta joined her, squinting down the hill to where dark shapes ambled in the dimming light of the flames. Soon, the rain would extinguish the shuttle altogether. Fynta swiped her dripping bangs out of her face. "Well, I haven't had an attempt on my life in about an hour. Should we go say hi?"

The high pitched snap of an igniting lightsaber made the hair on the back of Fynta's neck stand on end. Acina's rueful smile looked sinister in the purple light. "It would be rude not to."

Dromund Kaas
Sith Citadel
Guest Quarters

"What do you mean, gone?" Jorgan ripped his helmet off to snarl at the miniature holo of Saresh. "What did you do?"

"Surely, you don't believe that I had anything to do with this." Saresh's tone sounded affronted at the thought, but Aric had known one of the men on her arrest detail. He'd vanished to some hole of a prison and no amount of inquiry had gotten Jorgan a location. "I've got spies everywhere, Major. You'd do well to remember that."

Aric ignored the threat and focused on breathing through the pain radiating from his injured eye through his skull. Stress throbbed with each pulse of his heart. Jorgan shoved it all away to concentrate on the more pressing matter.

Saresh was a snake, but there had always been a grain of truth to her lies. He held his collapsing world together with the sheer, stubborn faith that he hadn't just gotten his wife back to lose her again. Fynta was out there, somewhere; she wasn't dead.

The Twi'lek clasped her hands and managed a sympathetic sigh. "Acina's shuttle went down in the jungle. My agents say that it was completely destroyed with no survivors. You have my condolences."

"You'll forgive us if we don't take your word on it," Theron chimed in, easing between Jorgan and the former chancellor. Aric stalked away from the console, one hand scrubbing vigorously over his head while he tried to formulate a plan of action.

"Naturally, you'll want to step in and fill the void." Theron spoke in the cool manner of spies, displaying zero emotion about the possibility of Fynta being trapped in the volatile jungle with a Sith Lord.

Saresh tipped her head. "Losing your commander leaves a dangerous power vacuum, one that must be filled by someone strong enough to make hard choices."

"You have experience in such matters," Lana added, mirroring Theron's calm. "A figurehead with a reputation for ruthless negotiations."

Jorgan knew that there was something else going on, that these two who had championed Fynta for years wouldn't so easily hand the Alliance over to a woman like Saresh. Perhaps if his thoughts hadn't been clouded by images of his wife bleeding out in some ditch while they played word games, he could have figured it out.

The din of voices from the comms console wore on Jorgan's frayed nerves. He spun, jabbing one finger at Saresh and bared his teeth. "I'll find her, and then, I'll find you." Without waiting for the Twi'lek's reply, he turned on his heel and started for the door.

"We'll get back to you." Theron palmed the disconnect and jogged after Jorgan. "Aric. Major Jorgan!"

Theron caught Jorgan at the door to their suite and almost grabbed his arm. Aric wished that he had. "Where do you think you're going?" Theron settled for blocking Jorgan's path with hands on hips. The spy was shorter than him by a few inches, with broad shoulders and a wide stance, but Aric knew that he'd win if it came to a fight.

"To find my wife," Jorgan answered as he stepped to one side. He didn't care about the plans or plots of the War Council. The Alliance no longer mattered, nor did the insignificant human trying to fill the space in front of him. Only Fynta mattered. He'd find her and leave all of this. They'd settle somewhere far away from the people who wanted her to save the galaxy so that they could go on destroying it on their own terms.

Theron darted in front of Jorgan to cut him off again, hands lifted in placation. "That's a terrible idea. What happens if you get lost out there, or injured? Do you have any idea what Fynta would do to me if some Imp mistook you for a runaway slave?" Jorgan lifted a brow and Theron sighed. "Look, the Republic won't back us, and Fynta's determined to turn Malcom into an enemy. We need the Empire, fuck, I never thought I'd hear myself say that."

Jorgan started around Theron for the last time. If the spy blocked him again, he'd go through him. "I'll be fine." He wouldn't sit back while she dealt with it alone, not again.

"Don't make me do this," Theron called, raising his voice louder than necessary. Aric spared the spy a backward glance, then reached for the door panel. "Major Jorgan, I'm ordering you to stand down."

Every nerve in Aric's body sparked to life, muscles quivering with the strain of holding his temper in check. Jorgan turned slowly to pin Theron with a hate filled snarl. "You don't have that authority." The words came out as a low, barely audible growl.

"I do," Theron answered, voice carrying through the doors that Jorgan knew had guards posted on the other side. Lana came to stand by Theron, silent but obvious in her support. The spy held Jorgan's gaze, conveying some message that Fynta would have understood. "In the commander's absence, Lana and I run the Alliance."

Jorgan's fingers curled into a fist. He could already feel Theron's nose crunching beneath the weight of it. "If we are to be of any help to Fynta, there is no time for this." Lana's fingers twitched in his peripheral, likely preparing to pin him to a wall.

Jorgan's lips slid back to display sharp teeth. "This isn't over, Shan."

"Of course, not," Theron answered, closing the gap to snatch Jorgan's helmet from his hands, pausing momentarily to glance at the patch covering his right eye. Averting his gaze, Theron slammed the helmet over Aric's head. "You can kill me later. Lana?"

The Sith had moved to the door, hands raised with fingers splayed as if gripping the edges of something heavy. "If we're going to move, now would be the time."

"Good." Theron shoved Jorgan towards the door and unholstered his blaster. "Let's make some noise."