The Fog of War/Part 14

Alecto shifted her weight to lie more comfortably on a park bench, put one hand under her head, and said, "Pull."

One of Lady Gasald's seemingly-bottomless pool of Acolytes launched the metal head of a statue into the air with the Force; Alecto followed it with her violet eyes for a second, then raised her free hand and unleashed a tangle of Force lightning. One bolt grounded itself on the bronze, which blackened under the assault. When the head struck the ground, the grass around it crisped in the lingering heat.

"Another?" Zeff Rogu asked. A masked Ubese, he had been given over to Alecto's service during the final push against Lakalt and managed to survive the ensuing bloodbath.

Alecto considered it, then sighed and rocked up to her feet. "No, don't bother. I'm going to see if Darth Hokhtan has orders for me.  Don't let us be disturbed."

"Yes, my lady."

What Alecto actually meant was, I'm going to check on Darth Hokhtan, but she could hardly say that aloud. Even if Hokhtan wouldn't resent it—and he would—Zeff might be a dutiful lackey, but he was Gasald's creature still. Since the fiasco at the landing strip Alecto had come to understand just how far Vedya Gasald and Halicon Karzded were willing to go to undercut Darth Saleej, and she was painfully aware that being an anointed Sith did not prevent her from being a piece on someone's dejarik board; she was just a more valuable piece, and all the more tempting a capture.

Vexed by her own bottled anger, she entered the library Darth Hokhtan had commandeered as his headquarters. An Acolyte was working to restore damaged shelves of databooks; he and some of his troops had set to vandalizing the place until Hokhtan had discovered what they were doing, reassigned the soldiers to guarding a waste treatment facility, slapped the Acolyte, and tasked him to repair what Hokhtan called his 'ignorant destruction of potentially valuable information'. The Acolyte wore a hostile glower, and Alecto knew they had made yet another enemy among Gasald's Sith, but when he met her eyes, his defiance lasted only a second before he lowered his gaze to his work, muttering darkly.

Darth Hokhtan had established a command center in the highest floor of the library, a comfortably-appointed reading room with a glass wall overlooking the lobby eight stories below. Naked to the waist, he still had his left arm in a sling and bacta patches stretched over the burns on his chest. A stubble of beard had started over his jaw, but the scars and pockmarks on his face were still visible, and the overall effect was somehow more intimidating than usual.

The Human glanced at her, then at the medical and protocol droids lurking behind him. "Leave us."

When they were gone Alecto waved the door shut and stepped forward. "Still no…directives from Lady Gasald?"

She caught herself from saying 'orders', but Hokhtan did not seem appeased. "I told you I would call for you when you were needed, Alecto," he said coolly. "Have I called for you?"

"No, but—"

"That is because you aren't needed," he cut her off.

Alecto gritted her teeth. Precarious position, she reminded herself. Hokhtan and Vandak were her only allies onworld. Zeff would serve her needs devoutly right until Lord Karzded ordered him to stab her in the back, and even Vandak's personal army of Anzati could not be relied upon; they seemed loyal enough to Vandak himself, but they would serve her interests only insofar as that served Vandak's.

Her comlink buzzed. "If you'll excuse me, my lord…?"

Hokhtan waved in dismissal, and Alecto took the comlink in her hand. Her anger leaked into her voice as she snapped, "What is it?"

"Darth Vandak, my lady," Zeff's voice came back, mechanized through his helmet. "I informed him of your instructions, but he, ah…insisted upon disturbing you."

Alecto flipped the comlink off, casting Hokhtan an inquisitive look. His eyes tightened beneath his craggy brow. "Remain."

She stepped closer to Hokhtan, though leaving a deferential distance between them. She was sure he could sense the black fury in the Force as she could, and they both turned to the door just before Vandak kicked it open. He had one of his underlings on either side of him, wearing gray to his black, though all three wore eerily similar expressions of fury. Without a word Vandak threw something at them.

The head rolled across the floor; Alecto stopped it with the toe of her boot, swallowing her disgust before it touched her face. Vandak's minions all ran together for her somewhat, though it was not the red-robed, silent creature she took for Vandak's second-in-command. But the proboscises half-extended from the cavities beside the broad nose clearly identified the head as an Anzat's, and as Alecto turned the head with her foot, she recognized the burns along the neck, too.

She met Vandak's malevolent gaze. "A lightsaber."

Hokhtan studied the head, then looked over Vandak's shoulders. "Out."

One of the Anzati bared his teeth. "I serve Vandak, Human, not you."

"We will have justice for this betrayal," the other insisted.

Alecto felt the dark side coil in Darth Hokhtan, and he slowly laid his hand on the pommel of the lightsaber at his belt, one finger after another. The Anzati tensed in preparation, and Alecto gave Vandak a prod in the Force until he looked at her. She stared at him urgently. Alone on a hostile world, surrounded by 'allies' who would abandon them at Halicon Karzded's whim…if they began fighting now…

Vandak snarled in the back of his throat. "Darth Hokhtan told you to get out. So get out."

The two Anzati traded looks, but then bowed and stormed from the room; one flung a glare at Hokhtan before the door slammed shut behind them.

Hokhtan took his hand from his lightsaber, but his expression was not generous. "You've given your pets a long leash, Vandak."

"They can not create the terror Lord Karzded so desires if they slink meekly in my shadow like dogs," Vandak retorted. His lips peeled back from his teeth. "But we are done answering Karzded's commands."

Hokhtan looked at the head again. "You have proof one of Lady Gasald's Sith did this?"

"Who else?!" Vandak demanded. "Did you kill him, my lord? Or you?"

"Of course not," Alecto answered, "but we can't just accuse—"

"I don't mean to accuse," Vandak cut her off. "I mean to punish."

Hokhtan's expression hardened. "Strike at a fellow Sith and your life is forfeit, along with all your…brothers. That is the Council's law.  Break it and I will swing the blade myself."

Vandak glared, but said, "A fellow anointed Sith. Let Karzded cower on the Kiss of Death; he's been kind enough to leave plentiful Acolytes here on Milagro."

"The Council will not look kindly on a massacre, anointed or not," Hokhtan said. "If there is punishment to be dealt out, it must be done properly."

"Does it seem to you, my lord, that my brothers will concern themselves with propriety?" Vandak asked scathingly.

"Are you their master or not?" Hokhtan demanded. "Master them."

"And there's still no proof," Alecto pointed out. "Lakalt might have abandoned some of his people here. For all we know, it could be Jedi."

They both looked at her, and Alecto braced herself against the judgment in their eyes. They were nearly of a height and similarly built; Hokhtan's age showed in the lines of his face, but though Vandak's broad features were ageless, somewhere in the depths of his cold blue eyes Alecto could see the centuries of battle and murder that had made him the master he was. I'm a Sith Lord too, and a Darth, she told herself, but under their scrutiny she felt disconcertingly young.

"Milagro is not a Republic world," Hokhtan noted. "The Jedi can't protect the worlds they do hold. Why waste their efforts on Milagro?"

"The same reasons Lady Gasald wants it," Alecto answered. "Denon, Byblos, Loronar. Corellia.  If the Jedi know of our attack, it would serve their interests to interfere."

"Lord Rhutizh's spies on Coruscant gave no indication that the Jedi planned to intervene," Hokhtan said. "And I suspect even Halicon Karzded might see fit to drop us a holo if a Republic fleet had decanted."

"Counterattacking in force opens them up elsewhere," Alecto argued. "Better to send in a Jedi strike team. It's what I'd do."

"Fantasy and speculation," Vandak scoffed. "If they know, and if they run the blockade, and if they could hope to defeat my brothers. Do you think my warriors are unequal to Jedi?  Do you imagine every one of my brothers on Milagro has not already tasted Jedi soup?"

Alecto was sure Vandak would take umbrage if she wrinkled her nose in distaste—or slapped him for his arrogance, as she was sorely tempted to do. "Gasald being behind this is just speculation too."

Vandak growled, but Hokhtan said with finality, "No movement against Gasald's people until I say otherwise."

The Anzat snarled and stormed from the room. Alecto looked at Darth Hokhtan and saw tightness around his eyes…from anger? Suspicion? Disquiet, even? Jerking her head toward the door, she ventured, "Should I…?"

"Are you insinuating that I can not control my subordinates, Alecto?" Hokhtan asked quietly. "Were it you, would you defy me?"

Alecto's every instinct screamed of danger, though she found a second to spare for annoyance. Males; they were the same in every species. Like Darth Saleej, Darth Hokhtan rarely seemed to feel the need to remind them all how deadly his lightsaber was, but that just made those rare occasions all the more problematic.

She conjured up a suitably deferential tone to answer, "Of course not, my lord. But if he is right and we have enemies on all sides, all the more reason for us to present a united front.  And it wouldn't do for you to chase after him just to drive home the point in front of his brothers."

She had meant to appeal to his arrogance—why run after Vandak when he could send a junior Sith to deliver the message?—but the moment the words were past her lips Alecto recognized the error. If the inevitable competitiveness of the dark side urged on his momentary machismo, he might do that very thing to reduce Vandak's standing still further. And Vandak, no model of humility himself, would have to find some way to assure his minions that he was not Hokhtan's lapdog, coming when called…

Be a Sith, not just a man, Alecto implored in her mind, and either the will of the dark side or kismet hearkened to her, for Hokhtan's eyes narrowed in thought before he waved a hand. "Go, then."

She went, but being the most junior Sith with the most level head vexed her, and by the time she caught up with Vandak and his assassins her temper was close to the surface. "Vandak. We need to talk."

One of the gray-garbed Anzati turned to her with a sneer and stopped her cold with a palm on her chest. "Mind your place, woman."

Alecto had had enough. She thrust out a hand, teeth bared, and the Anzat flew back, slamming into a wall. She tightened her open hand into a fist and the assassin rose off the ground, clutching at his throat as his snarls turned to wheezes. The other Anzat drew the long knives from his belt and started toward her, and Alecto raised her free hand, the dark side answering her summons instantly as lightning crackled around her fingertips, but Vandak restrained him with a hand across his chest.

"We are all very impressed, Alecto," he said coolly. "Let him go, and perhaps we can have a conversation that does not end with your death."

Crush him, the dark side urged. You're a Sith, Sith do not bow to threats. She could snap the first Anzat's neck like a twig, and her lightning could scald the second down to ash…and then Vandak would draw his twin blades, and that would be the end of her. Sucking a breath in through her gritted teeth, Alecto opened her hand, and the Anzat dropped from the wall to the floor. He clutched his throat with one hand, glaring at her as his other hand went to the pistol on his belt.

"Contact Azeroth," Vandak ordered, raising a hand. "Tell him I wish to confer with him at once."

Though clearly not happy about it, the Anzati retreated down the hall, sneering at Alecto for good measure. She returned the expression, and Vandak laughed as he closed the distance between them. "Have you come to demonstrate the virtues of patience and considered reflection?"

His snide laugh shamed her, but she was not fool enough to unleash her anger on Vandak as she had on his lackeys, so she restrained herself from replying at all. The Anzat nodded as if he understood. "It calls to you, doesn't it?" he crooned; his accent made even a soft tone threatening. "All that power and nowhere to unleash it, burning you from the inside out."

The words hit too close to home, and Alecto replied in an overcontrolled voice, "All the more reason to think before acting."

Vandak snorted. "You've come to bid me bow before Darth Hokhtan, then? Is he my master, as Darth Saleej is?"

Darth Saleej had bade them obey Hokhtan, especially under the specious guidance of Lady Gasald, but Alecto thought this was not the right time to remind Vandak of that order. "We're all on the same side, Vandak," she answered. She stretched out her perceptions and sensed no one in earshot, but furtive caution lowered her tone nonetheless as she added, "If Lady Gasald is conspiring against us, we have to be on the same side."

"'If'," Vandak mocked. "Who else?"

"Who at all?" Alecto retorted. "If your 'brothers' are so skillful, who's a match for them? Vaszas has been sacking the capital, Karzded's still in orbit, Kra'all's on another continent…"

Vandak frowned, glanced over his shoulder, and then said, "My brothers are hardened killers all, but they are skillful, not invincible. And not all Acolytes are disposable fodder for Jedi.  You weren't."

Was there praise in that, Alecto wondered, or just a refusal to see any possibility but betrayal by the enemy within? "If you strike and you're wrong you die, Vandak. We all die."

"The unbiased reasoning of self-interest," the Anzat mocked her.

Alecto gritted her teeth against his smirk and snapped, "I admit it, Vandak, I've grown attached to not being murdered. And you're more useful to me alive than dead; I hope you think the same of me."

"Why else would I allow you to manhandle my brothers without punishment?" Vandak asked. Then his expression darkened, his heavy brow shadowing his dark eyes as he said, "But be careful of your anger, Alecto, or I may decide my brothers are more useful to me than you."

Alecto resisted the urge to rise to the threat. "If you kill a fellow Sith—"

"If Halicon Karzded and Lady Gasald think they can veil their crimes in the Council's shadow, they're greatly mistaken," Vandak cut her off confidently. Glowering, he added, "Don't fear for your own neck too much, Alecto. Do you think we can't kill with stealth?"

"Do you think your brothers can resist drinking the soup from Sith Acolytes?" Alecto challenged. "And you only need one of them to fail, Vandak, just one who isn't up to the challenge. One more, anyway."

A hint of fire flashed through Vandak's dark eyes, and Alecto's fingers curled into claws on reflex; she was losing him. Desperate to buy some concession, she pressed, "You risk all of them, and us too, on a theory. Be sure, Vandak."

The Anzat's teeth were bared, his powerful hands squeezed into fists so tight Alecto could see the bone whitening his knuckles, but his narrowed eyes tightened further to slits. "What are you proposing?"

Hope came back to life; Alecto throttled it down before it could weaken her focus. Thinking fast, she asked, "Where was he killed? What was he doing?"

"Hunting strays in one of the suburbs," Vandak replied. "Ideally placed for an ambush by Gasald's Acolytes."

"Or by Lakalt's leftovers," Alecto countered. "And if there were Jedi here, they'd be trying to protect the citizens."

"Your illusory Jedi," Vandak sneered, but Alecto refused to be derailed.

"It's only a theory," she allowed, "but it's worth ruling out. If there are Jedi here, we can draw them out.  And if I'm wrong, maybe we can bait Gasald's people into tipping their hand."

Vandak scowled, crossing his arms over his chest. "What do you have in mind?"