Revenge of the Jedi/Part 40

"Who are you signaling?" Amaani asked Jarkun as the Devaronian fiddled with what looked like a modified Jedi beacon transceiver.

"Master Z'dar," Jarkun replied. "He wanted to know when we were en route."

Amaani made a face, though he had taken Jarkun's arrival in better stride than his father and Kobold, who had exchanged more than one dark glance. Jarkun either failed to notice or didn't care as he adjusted one of the extra outfits they had for him. He draped his hood so it hung on the tips of his horns and asked, "How do I look?"

"Convincing," Zaella told him, which was more than she could say for some of the others. Of course, that was the purpose of the masks.

"Any questions about the plan?"

It was strange hearing Tirien's voice through a lacquered wood mask that resembled nothing so much as a mutilated lylek. Similar visages glared and snarled at Zaella from all sides, concealing both the abundance of Humans and the ones like Tirien and Narasi, who were too well-known among the Sith; fake tattoos might have gotten Tirien by among the unwashed hordes on Allanteen Shipyards, but they all suspected at least someone aboard the Kiss of Death would be a little more savvy…and it would take only one.

Zaella, by contrast, would be barefaced at the point with Lord Brascel; she had taken off her headdress to expose the Sith tattoos around the bases of her lekku and lend her some credibility, and she was actually wearing a mix of her late master Izkara's clothes and her own.

"Negative," Jarkun said. "Seems pretty straightforward."

"You ready?" Harshee asked Jirdo.

"Yeah…" His teeth-bared rancor mask snarled down at her, but Zaella felt his unease. "Are you sure—"

"Only way," Harshee said, clapping her hands. "Just don't zap me too much."

Despite her light tone, Zaella knew Jirdo was not the only Jedi with mixed feelings. They had considered trying to pass Harshee off as a Sith, but even in the non-Human-friendly Empire, her tiny stature made it hard for a Twi'lek-sized being to take her seriously. Harshee herself was the one who had come up with the solution—rather than try the bluff, she had chosen to blend in with the "Sith" entourage the only other possible way. Her clothes were drab, easy to miss or forget if noticed, but the shock collar around her neck gleamed.

Zaella had not complained, because she recognized that Harshee's plan was sound, but it made her uneasy too. She had never had a problem with slavery; on Ryloth, she had been a senior enough apprentice that she'd had slaves of her own. She hadn't thought much of them then or at all since leaving Ryloth, but seeing the familiar slave collar on Harshee—a being she'd eaten and trained and talked with, and one of the few who'd taken Tirien's vouching for her as the final word on the matter—was…different, somehow. The sight twisted Zaella's stomach a little; it made her wonder what her slaves on Ryloth might have said if she'd ever talked to them for any reason but to give them commands.

And she thought of Qieran, dead these long years…the man who had refined her sketch work in so many ways, for no reason other than shared passion for art…the one slave on Ryloth she had always called "him", and not "it"…

"Docking in about forty-five seconds," Yan called.

"Narasi, get out here and get ready," Tirien called back.

As Narasi appeared and put on her mask, Tirien leaned in to speak to Jirdo. Jirdo shifted his weight, but nodded; Tirien looked down at Harshee, but she nodded as well before she turned to watch Narasi, who donned a krayt dragon mask and pulled her hood far forward so her ears didn't show.

"Any final questions?" Tirien asked. When no one had any, he said, "Then we're in character from now on."

Yan announced that they were in the hangar bay, and Harshee nickered. "We can do this, everybody."

Jirdo shocked her, and as she cried out in pain, he snapped, "I didn't give you leave to speak, worm."

Narasi snarled and lurched forward, but she only got one step before Tirien grabbed one sleeve, checking her charge and jerking her off-balance.

"That is the kind of mistake that will get us all killed," he said icily; the hideous mask added extra ferocity. "This was your one chance to make it without consequence; don't do it twice."

Narasi's shoulders hunched, and though her mask and hood shrouded her Zygerrian features, Zaella knew her well enough by now to imagine the way her ears were backing and her eyes widening. "I'm sorry, Master…"

"Don't be sorry, get it right."

"Yes…my lord."

Lord Brascel used his walking stick to push through them toward the boarding ramp as the ship trembled from docking. "Stand aside; the time has come to treat with these scum."

Zaella and Jarkun bracketed him, and Jarkun hit the button to drop the ramp.

I'm back on Ryloth, Zaella told herself as she strode down into the Kiss of Death ' s hangar bay. ''I'm a Sith apprentice—no, Acolyte—and one day I'll be a lord in my own right. Own it.''

She was surprised how much it felt like getting into a character, but when she saw a group of soldiers jogging toward them with palpable wariness, a lot of it came rushing back. She bared her teeth as the soldier in the lead held out a hand and commanded, "Identify yourselves."

Crack. Lord Brascel's walking stick splintered the soldier's gauntlet just above his wrist, and, judging by the way the man cried out and clutched his arm, fractured one of the bones beneath. Lord Brascel said, "I am the man who will rrrip your tongue frrrom your mouth if you speak to me in that tone again, cur."

At Inimă Eserzennae, surrounded by happy little trees and the trappings of high society, Brascel's quasi-Core accent and ever-rolling Rs seemed just one of the many plummy affectations, but here, in the heart of darkness, they fit a Sith Lord's condescension so well Zaella caught herself intending to bow. Some of the soldiers half-raised their rifles, and Zaella seized the opportunity to draw her blade. "Give me a reason."

As they hesitated, the next step of Tirien's plan clicked into place; among their attire, Brascel's attitude, and Zaella's scarlet blade, any common soldier would be forgiven for thinking them Sith. And in the Sith Empire, as in the Empire of Ryloth, common, Forceless beings did not treat with Sith; their only role in the presence of a dark sider was to obey. When Zaella menaced them with her blade, and Jarkun brushed his heavy robe back to clear his lightsaber hilt as well, they found that native obedience and knelt, first one-by-one, then all in a rush. Even the man Brascel had maimed dropped to his knees, still holding his arm to his chest.

The others filed out of the shuttle, cracking knuckles, gripping belts beside lightsaber hilts, and glowering at the kneeling soldiers. Zaella knew Raven only because Bernius hovered at his shoulder. Jirdo lurked in the middle of the pack, and Harshee stood in his shadow, head bowed, elbows tucked to her body and hands folded. Jirdo wore her lightsaber on his belt like a shoto; he was a pitiful swordsman even with one blade, but Zaella had to admit it ruined the image somewhat if Harshee kept it.

The clash had drawn the attention of those nearby, but most kept their distance. Zaella used the soldiers' fear to keep herself focused and the dark side channeled, lest she gaze in wonder around herself. The Kiss of Death was the largest ship she had ever seen; its main hangar bay housed a wing of starfighters and landing craft large enough to transport whole battalions. Here, the truth of the Jedi taunts was undeniable—the New Sith Empire let Lady Hadan live merely because she was too insignificant to waste resources killing. The Kiss of Death was the pride of her fleet, but if even half this armada descended on Ryloth with this monster at the tip of the spear, Hadan's fleet would burn, and the turbolasers would slag Ryloth's desert sands to glass.

Zaella hated the feeling of vulnerability, and that helped her focus too.

A Jarvan Twi'lek wearing a black flight suit and a double-bladed lightsaber hilt on his belt drifted over, analyzing the kneeling soldiers and the masked and hooded ensemble. His eyes lingered on Zaella, who conjured up a look of mild interest for him; she had seen far more appealing Twi'leks, even with that hideous pallor, but if he was the representative they'd deal with, she was in a unique position to keep him off-balance. He smiled at her—his teeth were still sharp, unlike hers—then stopped a few meters away and faced Brascel.

"We weren't told to expect special guests." His voice made up for his face somewhat—a rich, fruity baritone. Zaella could have listened to him read a holo directory, but instead of that, he said, "I have the honor to be Kydo Telsan, Acolyte of the Sith, and of Lord Nirrakin, who sits in council with Lady Gasald. And yourselves?"

"I am Lord Hezahzin," Lord Brascel said. "These are my Acolytes. I am sent here by my lord, Trayvin Osydro, to resolve certain…discrepancies that have arisen in your master's reimbursements to us.  Lord Osydro came to Lady Gasald's aid in her time of greatest need; he finds the feeling of being forgotten most…disagreeable."

It was perfect, Zaella thought—the casual arrogance, like Brascel had taken his normal Tapani routine and cranked it up to maximum; the condescending tone, as an anointed Sith Lord addressing a mere Acolyte; and the subtle threat in disagreeable, like it could mean anything from "this needs to be resolved at once" to "I will cut off your skin and make it into a fancy hat". Even the way he neglected to name any of his "Acolytes" fit a Sith Lord's focus first on himself, with those who served him an afterthought, when they were thought of at all.

Kydo Telsan frowned. "Lord Nirrakin is master of logistics for Lady Gasald; he's told me of no such discrepancies."

Zaella kept her cool, but inside she tensed. Tirien and Raven had decided Osydro was the best cover; he'd been supplying Gasald since Darakhan conquered Milagro, so the cover lie was seeded with truth, and none of the other Overlords seemed to like him very much, so the Jedi thought it reasonable that other Sith wouldn't bother learning the names of Osydro's Sith Lords. It was just their luck they'd stumbled into an Acolyte who worked for the only person who was likely to know all of Osydro's Sith…

"Perhaps Lord Nirrakin does not see fit to share with you matters beyond your ken," Brascel replied, a bite of impatience in his tone. He sniffed and flicked a dismissive hand. "Regardless of your ignorance of the subject, I am not here to treat with servants. Where are Nirrakin and Lady Gasald?"

Zaella knew from the twitches in Kydo's lekku that he was both startled and offended, but he didn't seem suspicious. Zaella knew a private moment of pride in Lord Brascel for heeding her advice: When in doubt, be a jerk. Every Sith on Ryloth was accustomed to being commanded by her seniors, from the lowliest apprentices all the way up to the Sith Lords who advised Lady Hadan, and it seemed the principle held true across faction lines.

"He…my lord, Lady Gasald has called him to her throne room," Kydo said. "On a matter of some importance, I'm given to understand. I'm not certain interrupting them just now would be wise."

"Are you in the habit of giving unsolicited advice to Sith Lords?" Jarkun asked. He snorted and glanced at Zaella. "Is this what passes for Sith discipline down here? No wonder Lady Gasald can't—"

"That will do," Lord Brascel cut him off. Kydo was angry now, but Zaella thought that might be for the best; he was still working on reining it in, and until he did, he was likely to make mistakes. Zaella's Sith training was coming back now, and she felt confident they would succeed.

When Kydo took longer than a few seconds to speak, Lord Brascel hinted, "Are you capable of taking us there, or is that beyond your competence as well?"

Kydo swallowed, and the lek he had wrapped around his neck coiled, but he said, "If you'll follow me, my lord. You soldiers, form an honor guard for our…guests."

The soldier with the broken arm asked, "Do you want me to go to medbay, sir, or…?"

"It's an honor guard, not an actual guard," Kydo said. "I think even you are unlikely to fail at walking. If it hurts, then don't speak out of turn to a Sith Lord next time.  Let's go."

They followed Kydo out of the hangar as the soldiers formed up in columns on either side. Bernius, Jirdo, and Harshee hung to the rear, while Narasi kept close to Tirien. Zaella couldn't tell all the Tapani apart, although the bulge around Lord Wisté's waist gave him away, but she had memorized Tirien's lylek mask, and, apart from Harshee, Narasi was the shortest being in the group.

Half a day of travel hadn't done much to ease the tension between them—mostly because they hadn't spoken to each other on the way—so Zaella slipped up alongside Kydo and asked in Ryl, "How long have you been with Lord Nirrakin?"

"About six years," he answered. "And you?"

"I've served Lord Hezahzin for three. It'll be four this year." That was a lesson Izkara had managed to teach Zaella—it was possible for a cover or a lie to be too perfect, too polished. If Zaella couldn't instantly call up every detail of her actual life on command, why should she be able to do it for a cover? Real people had verbal tics; people who never made mistakes came across like droids, and that was suspicious.

"How'd the Empire come by you?"

"That witch on Ryloth had her people sell me offworld." Zaella didn't have to feign her cold tone, though contempt took a little work. "Idiots didn't know what they had. I got passed around a few planets until I wound up in Lord Osydro's territory."

"So much the better for us," Kydo said with a smile; somehow his voice had become even smoother. "Were you trained at Korriban?"

Here Zaella's cover failed her; even Tirien, Raven, and Yan knew precious little about Sith training in the well-guarded Stygian Caldera. But Tirien had warned her against claiming training at Korriban—it could be a setup, since so many Sith were trained there, and even if it wasn't, a Sith might ask about people or places a real Korriban trainee should know. No Jedi had set foot in the Valley of the Dark Lords in centuries, nor had any Sith trained there defected and spilled the details to Republic Intelligence, so there was no way to bluff.

Lord Brascel came to her rescue. He turned and pointed to Jirdo with his walking stick. "Go and see to our accommodations."

"Yes, my lord," Jirdo said, bowing his head. He beckoned to Harshee and Bernius, which Zaella thought was a mistake; a real slaveholder would expect his slave to follow without having to be told.

Fortunately, Kydo seemed to miss the slip. "You'll be staying aboard, my lord?"

"Briefly." Lord Brascel sniffed. "Our journey has been tiresome."

Kydo nodded, then pointed out two soldiers. "You two, show them to the dormitory wing."

Jirdo followed the soldiers away, Harshee trotting after him with her head bowed. Zaella worried, but Bernius did not give them away; he trailed after Jirdo without complaint or hesitation. There were still close to a dozen soldiers around them, plus Kydo; that could be a problem eventually.

The problem came sooner than Zaella expected; only two corridors after they'd gotten rid of Jirdo, a muted horn started honking from overhead speakers. Swirling the tip of tchin to signal curiosity, Zaella asked, "What's that?"

"Battle assembly," Kydo said, frowning. "What…?"

He patted his belt, and Zaella saw his comlink beside his lightsaber. Thinking quickly, she wrapped her arm in his, nuzzling his biceps up against her breast. "We'll be all right, won't we?"

"Er…of course." His free hand stopped reaching for a second. "This fleet's invincible; with the Jedi battle group destroyed, the Republic has nothing to challenge us with. It's probably some local collective.  I'll find out…"

He reached for his comlink, and now Zaella seized his other hand, reaching across her own body to do it. Kydo's eyes narrowed, so she gave him her huskiest voice to ask, "Promise you'll keep me safe?"

She pouted her full lips and swirled the tips of her lekku, and for just a few seconds Kydo lost focus. He put what Zaella thought was supposed to be a seductive smile on that pasty, craggy face, and said, "Of…course I will. It'd be my pleasure to keep you—"

Snap-hiss. Kydo gasped as a lightsaber blade erupted from his chest; for a second Zaella thought it was Sith scarlet until she realized it had just been a mist of blood around an orange blade. Jarkun was still wrenching his blade free when Zaella dropped Kydo's twitching arms, drew her own lightsaber, and whirled to decapitate the nearest soldier.

Within two seconds the corridor was a firestorm of lightsaber blades; the Jedi cut the soldiers down before any of them could get off a shot. The one with the broken arm held up his free hand as if to surrender, but Jarkun cut him down for good measure. Five seconds after Jarkun stabbed Kydo, all the soldiers were dead.

"About damn time!" Zaella complained in Basic. "I thought you all were gonna make me make out with him."

"Sorry," Jarkun said with a grin. "Took me a minute to get around everybody."

"I'd have been there not a heartbeat after, my dear," Gaeb added. "Simply to observe it, noble sacrifice though it was, was torment for me…"

Tirien deactivated his lightsaber; for all their preparations, trying to forge a batch of synthetic red crystals and re-set all their lightsabers had been too much, so the Jedi green was a dead giveaway. As the others followed suit, he said pointed to a hatch and said, "Narasi, get that door open. Get the bodies out of the corridor.  Zaella, what's the alarm?"

It took her a second to remember not everyone spoke Ryl. "Uh…he said it's battle assembly."

"Battle…?" He shook his head. "It can't be helped. Move."

Once Narasi hotwired the door, they dragged the dead into what turned out to be a briefing room; Zaella enjoyed a moment of morbid humor as she imagined seating all the corpses at the table, but the Jedi just piled them by the door. Jarkun broke open a soldier's helmet and extracted the comlink, tying it around his own ear, while Zaella filched Kydo's code cylinder and tossed it to Tirien.

He caught it and bent over his imagecaster, studying the Kiss of Death ' s schematics, and Zaella was about to join him when she heard a faint, wet rasp. Kydo's eyes were open, staring at her, his lips trembling as he tried and failed to frame words. His lekku twitched unintelligibly—death throes rather than words—but Zaella felt his pain and confusion. She thought Jarkun's stab had speared Kydo's spinal cord but not quite hit his heart.

She reached for her vibroblade, but she could not cut his throat; spattered blood all over her sleeves would be a little obvious even on a Sith cruiser. But she couldn't leave him alive, either; what if someone found him before he finally died and they lifted the truth out of his head? She knelt beside him, knife in hand and undecided, and she found something more than logic staying her hand. She knew he had to die, but she felt her ribs squeezing her lungs…

"Zaella, let's move," Tirien called.

Grimacing, Zaella nodded, rolled Kydo onto his side, and plunged her knife into the base of his skull. He shuddered a second before he died, but even as she wiped her blade off on his tunic, the pressure around her chest constricted instead of loosening. She stood automatically, sheathing her knife as she stared at the dead man. Leaving him alive would have been a tactical error—more than that, it would have endangered them all. So why did doing the obvious thing feel so…so…

"Zaella!"

There was no time for reflection; she darted back to the group.

They followed Tirien's directions toward Gasald's throne room at a jog, and though they passed groups of crewers, soldiers, and droids, no one questioned them; indeed, their Sith attire earned them a wide berth. With the Kiss of Death on battle assembly, Zaella figured that a group of running Sith wasn't as strange as it might otherwise be.

As they turned a corridor, Zaella started to feel cold. On Ryloth, Tarni Hadan's presence had been an inferno in the Force, like standing just out of reach of a flame while convection cooked her alive. She had braced herself for the same sensation here—if Vedya Gasald was as powerful as everyone said, she was probably in the same league as Hadan—but instead all Zaella felt was the chill. It wasn't even the biting, unshakeable cold of Chelshgodru Brokkodd's tomb on Guudria. She imagined this was what snowfall was like—not a blizzard, just a gentle fall of snow. The cold was all around her, but not enough to do her harm.

They stopped at a double door; Tirien checked his map and nodded. "This is it—brace yourselves. She knew we were coming, so she's probably not alone.  Remember the battle plan."

"Stick to your targets, no matter what happens," Yan said.

"Above all else," Sir Amaani said, "we can not let her escape."

Zaella felt someone take her hand; she glanced at the Massassi mask that hid Gaebrean's face. Giving him a sly smile, she squeezed back.

"May the Force be with us all," said Lord Brascel.

As Narasi positioned herself at the access plate, Tirien said, "Here we go."