Loyalty/Part 5

Studying a mirror, Dolre Thyle tried to decide on an appropriate hair length before he settled on a ponytail. Grimacing, he embraced the pain at the roots of his hair as he lengthened the locks until they brushed his shoulder blades, then tied it up and back.

Once the ten Sith had been settled on Lisal in earnest, Darth Alecto had taken the time to test Dolre's shapeshifting abilities, putting him through increasingly extreme transformations until he was panting with exhaustion and shivering with pain. Whether because she appreciated his potential, or just to get back at him for appearing in Near-Human guise when they first met—probably both, he thought; it's always both with her—she had commanded him to put work into expanding his capabilities. Having expended considerable effort over his life just to get this far, it had not been the most pleasant prospect, but somehow she had known how to motivate him.

Right now you have talent, Dolre, she had said, ''but most Sith are talented. I served with talented Acolytes and watched them die around me for years. You need to be exceptional to move up. With time and training, you could be a better spy than Varriben, and a better assassin than Nevya. Whether you achieve that is up to you''.

Dolre would never be as skilled a fighter as Zurgharjhen, perhaps; the big, brutal Irrukiine was just too strong. And even the dark side might not arm him with telepathy to match Megaera's, particularly because it sounded like further Sith training was going to amplify Megaera's natural abilities. But Dolre had a gift none of his comrades shared, and that gift could enable him to succeed where even a juggernaut warrior or a telepath might fail.

Gritting his teeth, he turned his skin lilac. He was going for true purple, but lilac alone made him feel like he had developed an instantaneous sunburn. He might have pushed it anyway, but he could not be late. Checking his weapons and giving his appearance a final glance, he stepped out of his cell and into the night.

The construction droids labored night and day, but their drone had become background noise; one night, Darth Alecto had stopped them all just to see how many of her trainees came to investigate. The other adepts knelt in a loose crescent around Darth Alecto and Nevya Khiyali beside the Scourge, and Dolre jogged to join them; long-armed Lukurt Kreen loped over at the same moment, and Darth Alecto nodded.

"We've been given a mission," she said. Her tattoos made her look sinister in the light from the construction droids, while all the edges on Lady Khiyali's face sharpened. "Handed down from the Council of Five themselves."

All the adepts looked at one another; no one spoke, though Megaera nodded at Nillan, and Dolre suspected there was half a conversation going on there. Zeff Rogu alone did not take his eyes off their master, and after a moment they all turned back to her.

"We've been tasked with assassinating a group of diplomats. This won't just be 'walk in and murder everyone'," she warned, with a look at Zurgharjhen, who had crossed his arms. "They'll be protected by Jedi Knights."

Dolre felt the ripple of excitement and enthusiasm among his colleagues, but Lukurt asked, "How many Jedi, Master?"

Even as a reptilian himself—in his true form, anyway—Dolre had no sense of how old Lukurt might be, and the Phindian had not offered the information. Surely he was the eldest of them all; apart from the young outliers Megaera and Nillan, most of the group were in their late teens or early twenties, but there was far too much experience in Lukurt's face and voice for that. Other than Darth Alecto and the Anzati, only Lukurt, Rewz, and Zurgharjhen had slain Jedi. Zurgharjhen was vocal about his service in Darth Relteus's army, but Lukurt's background—and Rewz's, for that matter—was something of a mystery.

"Unknown," said Darth Alecto. "Possibly even undecided; this is a few weeks out. We'll get better intelligence as the time approaches; until then, our training is going to focus on the requirements of this mission."

"What does the mission require, Master?" Zeff asked.

"To succeed, the team will need to be subtle and keep their presence in the Force minimized until they're within striking distance. Once they're there, though, they'll need the combat skills to take on Jedi, plus whatever other guards might be present, all without letting the targets escape." When a few people looked daunted, Darth Alecto crossed her arms and shrugged. "You all want to be Sith Lords someday? This is what it's like.  It's not enough to be a master at one thing if you're a disaster at everything else; the ranks are full of adepts and Acolytes who can do one thing well, but a Sith Lord needs to be well-rounded."

No one replied, and Dolre thought he knew why. Many of them had their niches—Zurgharjhen was a warrior, Megaera had her telepathy, Nillan knew a variety of military skills, and Fruuna was a skilled tracker—but outside those specialties they struggled. The others were the living equivalents of Form VI—no major weaknesses, but also no real strengths. Zeff Rogu was the best of them overall, but Dolre didn't think the Ubese could really be considered a master of anything either.

"We'll begin training tomorrow," Darth Alecto said. "Nillan, Megaera, I'll use you in running drills and training scenarios."

"We can't be on the team?" Nillan blurted out.

Dolre bit his tongue so he wouldn't laugh, but he traded smirks with Crile Craetor, and some of the others didn't even hold that much in. Amidst the laughs, Zurgharjhen thundered, "You think you can kill a Jedi Knight, puny soldier boy?"

Nillan narrowed his eyes, but Darth Alecto said, "Many of you won't be equal to that kind of fight yet, and I suspect I'll find out who soon. I can eliminate Megaera and Nillan now because you're too young; you'll look out of place."

Megaera bowed her head, and Nillan sighed. "Yes, Master."

"Get some sleep," Darth Alecto commanded. "You'll need it."

As ever, her threat was not idle. The next weeks were not overly demanding physically, but Dolre still went to bed exhausted every night; the diversity of skills required wore them all down.

Every morning and afternoon they scaled the sheerest face of the plateau's cliffs, climbing and rappelling first by rope, then, when they had mastered those skills, by hand. They spent hours in lightsaber and hand-to-hand sparring, but also learning a variety of other weapons. Nevya taught them to throw knives, while Darth Alecto sat to one side and used Force lightning on anyone who corrected his aim with the Force. Darth Alecto imported another of her Anzati—a gaunt, wild-eyed creature called Ikkyn, whom Megaera took one hard look at and moved away from—to teach them knife fighting as well. Most of them had rarely fought at close range, and even Zurgharjhen's colossal strength and four arms only served him so well; he could brutalize his opponents, but he often wound up with slashes on his wrists that might have been lethal had the knives not been half-blunted. Ikkyn never took a single blow, though he sparred with all of them; even Darth Alecto could only spar him to a draw.

Darth Alecto had her droids rig a shooting range, after which they began marksmanship training. Although many of the Sith hopefuls were surprised and perhaps a bit humbled—and thus resentful—Dolre thought it made sense that the second-best marksman, after Darth Alecto herself, was Nillan Deys'lro. He was skilled with a pistol and better with a rifle, even from hundreds of meters away. Once he had demonstrated his skill, Darth Alecto set him to walking among those lying on the firing line, correcting their technique and giving them pointers; he gave Dolre several good tips, but Dolre privately thought Darth Alecto could have given the same advice and just enjoyed galling Zurgharjhen and Shrizzzqadl, both of whom gritted their teeth every time Nillan smirked and issued another correction.

The droids set up a rudimentary kill house, in which the adepts and Zeff practiced close-quarters blaster technique individually, in pairs, and in teams. After that, Darth Alecto had them stalk one another through the forests. Their blasters were dialed down below killing intensity, but every bolt left serious burns. Once, Darth Alecto took Nillan and Megaera out of the mix, then split the remaining adepts into trios and announced they would each face an Anzat team comprised of Nevya Khiyali and the lovers, Rosyit and Rhyna.

"If any team defeats Nevya's team, I'll send you on the mission," she promised.

None of them won the right to go, as Dolre was sure Darth Alecto had expected. The closest anyone got was a single burn on Rosyit's shoulder; Rosyit hesitated while Dolre morphed himself into something resembling Darth Alecto's appearance, and Varriben landed the glancing shot, but the Anzati peppered them with shots the next second. Darth Alecto clicked her tongue as Dolre, Varriben, and Crile limped out of the forest.

As if mastering a host of close-range weapons wasn't enough, Darth Alecto had them all train to improvise weapons as well. Stocking the kill house with so many odds and ends that it looked almost inhabited, she had them fight in various rooms; Dolre bludgeoned Rewz with a lamp, broke a Corellian ale bottle over Zurgharjhen's head and slashed his forearm as he howled, and almost impaled Nillan with a curtain rod, and suffered a spate of blows and wounds just as odd himself.

None of them could be stealthy around one another; even with Dolre's shapeshifting, they had learned to recognize one another by sight, scent, and distinctive mental patterns. Instead, Darth Alecto unleashed them on the cities of Lisal, sending them around with objectives like gathering information or infiltrating various locations. Crile, who was Human, and Dolre, who could be with a moment's concentration, did the best gleaning information on majority-Human Lisal, though Zeff completed all his challenges and Shrizzzqadl fared surprisingly well for a two-meter-plus-tall Muun skeleton of a man.

Intelligence trickled in over the weeks of preparation, some of which Darth Alecto shared with them. The targets would be traveling to Commenor—from where Darth Alecto did not say, but she concluded it would be safest to target them at the destination, not the point of origin. The number of Jedi varied, but eventually settled on two Knights and a Padawan, as well as at least a dozen Forceless bodyguards.

"How are we to reach them, Master?" Rewz asked one evening.

Darth Alecto lifted an eyebrow. "After all your training on infiltration, still you need me to guide you?"

Rewz shook her head. "I meant, how are we to reach Commenor, Master?"

Darth Alecto glanced at the ships at one end of the plateau—her own Scourge, and a handful of Anzat craft. Once Rewz pointed it out, Dolre had no idea how he had missed it—there were no ships for the adepts to take on any missions Darth Alecto might assign them. Darth Alecto seemed to perceive the same deficit, because she frowned in thought for a moment before she answered.

"I'll work on that. We still have time."

Darth Alecto's intelligence contacts had given her a hard date as well: the seventh day of the second month. Dolre didn't understand why the mission had taken so long from conception to execution, but it worked in their favor; they still had a little over two weeks to prepare. Darth Alecto had hinted she was close to choosing the strike team, and Dolre hoped his talent for disguise would be enough to compensate for his decidedly average combat skills. After all, if a heavy hitter like Zurgharjhen or Shrizzzqadl drew attention—and, really, how could either of them not?—he could always slip behind a distracted Jedi and slit his throat. Although that begged the question…

"Master," he said, "if it was possible to eliminate the targets without killing the Jedi…what I mean to say is, are the Jedi targets as well, or only the diplomats?"

Zurgharjhen snorted and Nevya Khiyali picked up her head from where she lay on an inert backhoe, but Darth Alecto frowned in thought. Brushing a lock of red hair behind one ear, she said, "All Jedi are always targets, but the diplomats are the reason for this mission. If circumstances permitted you to eliminate all the diplomats without engaging all of the Jedi, I would expect you to withdraw rather than risk losing a team member killing Jedi for sport."

Some of the Sith disciples looked at each other, and Nevya sat up to frown down on them. "We do not choose our targets. If we have to kill others to reach them, that is as it is, but fighting unnecessary battles serves no one.  If you die unnecessarily on one mission, you aren't available for the next."

Dolre knew better than protest that a non-Sith had no business lecturing them—that might be so under other Lords' commands, but Darth Alecto made clear she considered Lady Khiyali at least equivalent to Zeff, and rather higher than the adepts. Besides, she was a more seasoned assassin than any of them. Dolre wondered if any of his colleagues might argue, but Zurgharjhen squeezed the hand that was missing a finger into a fist and said nothing, and several of the others nodded.

"The mission comes first," Darth Alecto agreed. "Darth Hokhtan and the Council of Five have no use for skillful, even powerful Sith if they can't follow orders. Obedience to our master is why the Sith are finally about to crush the Republic; there's no way but the Council's way."

Dolre knew no one would argue that. Crile started to speak, but stopped when it was clear Darth Alecto wasn't paying attention. Eyes narrowed, she looked around the plateau as her left hand clasped the butt of her lightsaber. A few of the adepts muttered, but Zeff got to his feet, and Nevya slipped down off the backhoe, drew her short sword, and said something in Anzat.

Darth Alecto shook her head. "A disturbance in the Force."

Dolre grasped at once the significance of her replying in Basic, not Anzat. Several of the adepts took their own lightsaber hilts in hand, Fruuna sniffed the air, and Zurgharjhen and Shrizzzqadl stood to look over everyone else's heads. Dolre slipped closer to Megaera and asked, "Do you hear any thoughts you can't place?"

She squeezed her eyes shut tight as Dolre felt her reaching into the Force, but in the end, she shook her head. "No, just us."

An Anzat came running from the direction of the communications module—Rhyna, Dolre thought. She bowed to Darth Alecto before they had a brisk back-and-forth in Anzat. Darth Alecto finished it off by giving what Dolre could tell was a command, then turning to the adepts.

"There's a Sith ship inbound."

"To Cundassa?" Crile asked.

"Here."

Everyone was on their feet now, lightsabers and blasters in hand. Darth Alecto considered them, then said, "Zurgharjhen, Zeff, with me. The rest of you, spread out in pairs and keep an eye on the forest.  Nevya, put them in tactical positions; Nillan, help her.  Move."

They all scattered. Dolre saw Crile coming his way, but if they were about to come under attack by a Sith force, he preferred a bit more firepower on his team. Shrizzzqadl was watching Darth Alecto, Zeff, and Zurgharjhen go—wondering why he had not been chosen, perhaps—but he turned his head as Dolre approached.

"Shall we?" Dolre asked. He reverted to his natural Clawdite form; he suspected the sharp lines of his sunken cheeks and his bright reptilian eyes might inspire a bit more confidence than lilac skin and a ponytail.

Shrizzzqadl rasped through his teeth, but nodded his long head and started away. Dolre had to jog to keep up with the taller man's steps, but even as he did, he glanced skyward and saw a glimmer of moving light—too slow to be a satellite, too close to be bound for Cundassa. A Sith ship indeed, descending on the plateau.