Desperate Times/Part 8

Nevya kept her expression cool to convey total control, but, out of sight, she worried a piece of stone with her hand to siphon off nervous energy. "You're certain they were intelligence?"

"Certainly I'm certain," Katrijan replied. The holo was noisy, but still clear enough to convey his disdainful expression. "I've been in the Brotherhood long eno…..recognize a tail, I think."

And yet not long enough to avoid picking one up, Nevya would have dearly liked to say, but she held her tongue. Katrijan was light years away, well beyond her ability to chastise. "Whose intelligence?"

"I couldn't say," Katrijan said, sounding bored; he brushed at a speck of dirt on his shoulder as the holo wavered. "If I hunt them…..sure I could find out before I fed on them."

"No," Nevya commanded at once. "If they're Sith we mustn't touch them."

"Of course. Far be it from me to make trouble for…..aster."

Nevya's jaw tightened; she could not be sure whether Katrijan had said our or your. "If you can get close to the planetary governor, find a way to do so. If not, position yourself where you can be of best use and wait for my command."

"You mean Darth Alecto's command."

"Obviously that's what I meant."

"Obviously." Katrijan smiled that smile he had stolen from Azeroth. "Farewell."

Nevya swore once the connection derezzed. She had promised herself she would remain unflappable, and yet Katrijan had gotten under her skin. Nor did she believe he had checked in merely to report having been spied upon. The brethren were used to operating within enemy territory—though the enemy varied mission to mission—and the presence of intelligence agents was not news. She was sure Katrijan had called just to highlight Darth Alecto's continuing absence, and how precarious her own position of leadership was.

Or had he? Had Katrijan simply called in a report and been snide because it was his nature? Was Nevya seeing in his words no more than what was haunting her inside? The more she wondered, the less sure she became.

"What did he want?" asked Ikkyn when she emerged from the comms chamber.

"He picked up a tail when he arrived." Nevya added no more, testing his reaction.

"Idiot," Ikkyn sneered. "Sith or Republic?"

Which was a far cry from assurance that Katrijan was working to sabotage her. She tried to keep her sabacc face. "He didn't know."

Ikkyn shook his head in disgust, but added no more. Nevya's tension would allow her to stand idle no longer, so she set off down the stone hall, Ikkyn limping at her side like a reanimated skeleton. "How is your hip?"

"Mending," Ikkyn rasped. "Another week or two."

"More if you overexert it." When Ikkyn turned those cold, psychopathic eyes on her, Nevya lowered her voice to growl, "And I need you in fighting shape sooner rather than later."

Ikkyn's eyes tightened, but after a moment he nodded. "I take your meaning."

Nevya was reassured, at least, that he did. They walked on through the dark halls, but no sooner had they reached the Hall of the Brethren than a young Anzat, barely a century old, ran up behind them. Nevya recognized him as one who had passed through the first level of the Abattoir and, content to be counted among the brethren, had quit there rather than dare the perils beyond.

He knelt at her feet. "Lady Khiyali, there—"

"Stand up, fool," she snapped. "I'm not Darth Alecto, and I'm not Azeroth; kneel to our master, none other."

He rose, looking contrite. "Yes, Lady Khiyali. There is a holo call."

"Which of the brethren?"

"Not one of our signals, my lady. It originated within Sith territory."

Nevya frowned before she could stop herself. She had not sent the brethren into Sith territory… "Thank you." When he had bowed and departed, Nevya glanced at Ikkyn. "With me."

"Did you give Darth Alecto our code signal?"

"Of course I did!"

"Then why didn't she register as one of us?"

Nevya wondered until they returned to the holo chamber; Ikkyn hesitated, but Nevya waved him inside. She knelt while he keyed up the transmission, but when the holo resolved itself, it was not the blue-white ghost of Darth Alecto.

"Nevya."

Surprise propelled Nevya back to her feet and injected anger into her tone. "Rogu! How dare you use this frequency?"

"I don't have time for your pride, and neither do you," the Ubese snapped. Ikkyn hissed from one side of the room, and Nevya actually bared her teeth in fury, reaching for an invective sufficiently strong to cow the Sith Acolyte. Then Zeff Rogu spoke again.

"Where is Darth Alecto?"

That stopped her cold.

Nevya's anger evaporated, leaving a shocked hollow in its wake. She looked at Ikkyn; she could not stop herself. His lips were still peeled back from his teeth, but his dark eyes glittered strangely in the holo's light. Looking back, she managed, "What?"

"Where is Darth Alecto?!" he hissed. His helmeted face turned down and Nevya heard typing before he looked back up. "I don't know how long I'll have, they're watching me!"

"Who is?"

"The Sith!"

"The Sith? You're one of them!"

Zeff waved a hand; Nevya could not see his face, but she could read his impatience and agitation in the gesture. "I don't have time to explain the intricacies of Sith politics to you. Where is she?!"

Ice was filling up the hollow inside Nevya. "We thought she was with you."

Zeff's silent, unmoving helmet spoke volumes. The silence stretched horribly on and on until, just as Nevya drew breath to speak, Zeff looked back down and typed once more. The connection derezzed.

Nevya looked at Ikkyn, and she was at last rewarded with a break in that icy demeanor as he mirrored her look of dread.

"If she's not with them," he said, "then where…?"

Nevya ran over the short conversation in her head. "'I don't have time for your pride, and neither do you ' ," she repeated. "If the Sith don't know where she is, and they believe she's here, they may come here looking for her."

"We can—"

"We could do nothing but take some of them with us," Nevya said with finality, anticipating him. Her brethren were lethal, and they could consume many Sith soldiers in the shifting mists that blanketed the Temple of Shadows night and day, but she had no illusions that they would prevail in the end. She had been in Darth Saleej's presence, inhaled the scent of his luck for herself, and she knew that she herself could try to bring him down and die for the trying. And many of the Sith who sat on his council smelled nearly as deadly as Darth Alecto. It had been all she could do to keep her composure and not moan with desire before them, but later, out of their presence, she had been humbled by a newfound understanding that not every Sith Lord was a fool whose lightsaber might one day hang over the mantle.

"And I don't want them here," she added. "Darth Alecto is our master, but our secrets and our rites are not for all the Sith to know."

"What, then?" Ikkyn asked. "She isn't here, but they'll never believe that."

That much was true. There was a slim, fractional chance that Darth Saleej himself might believe her, but he would never condescend to accept her call, and Zeff Rogu ranked barely higher in his eyes than she did. More likely some haughty middleman would be sent to demand answers; likelier still, they would receive no warning until the troop carriers descended.

And all the while, if no one knew where Darth Alecto was, and the Jedi were hunting her…

"How many of the brethren can be counted on? Truly counted on, do you understand?"

Ikkyn had recovered his normal, unsettling expression. "I understand. Still here…at least a dozen, I'd say."

"I won't need more than six."

"For what?"

"I'm leaving."

"What?!"

"I'm going after Darth Alecto," she explained. "We need her, the Brotherhood won't hold together much longer without her presence. Besides, if the Sith are spying on Rogu, they may mean her ill; we can not allow them to find her first, to say nothing of the Jedi."

Ikkyn hissed, but nodded. "Fine, I'll get my knives."

"You're staying here. No, listen !" she snarled, because Ikkyn had narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to argue. "If anyone asks you, Darth Alecto called me, but she commanded me to go to her rather than give commands over an unsecure line."

Those eyes could be unnerving even to her; Ikkyn stared and stared without respite. "You would have me lie to our brethren. Even our older brother, should he ask?  Are you serving our master, or merely yourself?"

Nevya glared, trying not to let self-doubt drag her down. "Darth Alecto saved your life; now she made need us to save hers."

Nevya watched Ikkyn's awareness of her manipulation war with his personal loyalty to Darth Alecto. Unconsciously, it seemed, he laid a hand on his half-healed hip, the fingers of the other hand curling into claws. After an interminable moment he hissed savagely. "Go. I'll control things here as long as I can."

"Thank you."

"It's not for you. And what if the Sith come snooping?"

Nevya weighed it. On the one hand, they were theoretically her master's comrades, or at least on her side. Then again, so were the brethren.

I don't have time for your pride, and neither do you.

"If it's Rogu, capture him. Otherwise, kill them," she commanded. "But choose reliable people; this absolutely mustn't be traced to us."

"Aliens do not live long on Anzat, whoever they are," Ikkyn observed darkly. Nevya considered it close enough and turned, already choosing a strike team in her head. After only a few steps, though, she felt those dangerous eyes on her and turned back.

"I'll lie for you once, Nevya, to save her, but I'll give you only one chance. Come back with our master, or don't come back."