Revenge of the Jedi/Part 5

Wine and laughter flowed freely, shared with a generosity seldom seen aboard the Kiss of Death, but Celop Faro struggled to find an appetite for either. He drank when wine was poured in his glass; smiled when his comrades congratulated him on his masterful concealment of his mistress's plans; even brought his foremost Acolyte, Jaigan Mazkazato, into the conversation when an opportunity presented itself, for each Sith Lord on Lady Gasald's council had been invited to bring a favored subordinate to this fete. Droids laid choice wines and succulent meats before them, while choice Republic prisoners and succulent slaves awaited their various torments and pleasures when the gathering was done; few Sith the galaxy over outdid Vedya Gasald when she chose to reward her Lords, as Celop had reason to know. But the bittersweet memory of that knowing turned even the galaxy's finest fare sour in his mouth.

She sat at the only end of the semioval table, dressed in a form-fitting black gown for the occasion, her cleavage covered with enough fabric to leave the best to the imagination but more than enough lace to stimulate it. Four White Guards stood behind her, silent statues with scarlet capes, observing the festivities without partaking. Lady Gasald had piled her white hair up into elegant curls for the occasion, and her skin was smooth and soft as unblemished snow save for the stylized marks on her face. Celop had seen that snowy skin flush to cream, those dark-painted lips gleaming with red from where she had bitten his shoulder…he took another swallow of wine, squirming.

Lady Gasald was there for all to see, but too far away for him to touch, for Darth Kra'all sat between them. Celop did not begrudge the hulking Togorian his place at their mistress's side; Kra'all might not have Karzded's shrewdness or Darth Vaszas's tactical gifts, but it was his command skill that had delivered the Sith their victory over the Seventy-Second. Overwhelming numbers might have been enough to smash the Republic either way, but only skill had kept Sith casualties so few. There was always another battle that would demand an intact fleet to meet it; Kra'all was worth Lady Gasald's attention—and not a competitor for the favors Celop wanted of her anyway.

But the chair at Lady Gasald's left hand was occupied too, her newest toy sharing her quiet asides and enjoying her attention. The S'kytri Darshkére, who months ago would have been labeled yet another worthless pretender to the glorious name of the Sith, now sat at a Sith Overlord's side, eating her food, drinking her wine, laughing at her jokes…and, if the rumors were true, sharing her bed more often than not these past nights since Eriadu. The sharp lines of his cheekbones still bore the healing cuts of his anointing, and Lord Darshkére smiled with easy confidence among the lifelong Sith who had considered his master too trivial for the killing since Lakalt had fled from them at Milagro.

And why shouldn't he smile? The Republic battle group that had hounded Zirist Lakalt from one backwater to the next was reduced to space debris, and Darshkére could lord over his fief unchecked. True, it had come at the price of submission to Lady Gasald, but his dowry for their unholy marriage had been the deaths of hundreds of Jedi and a new means of pressing her war on the Core and punishing Milagro for its defiance, gifts so precious that she had opened her arms and her legs to him both. Bile rose in Celop's throat as he realized the winged alien had gone to his knees for Lady Gasald only for her to go to hers for him.

And, almost as precious, he was anointed now, as much a Sith as those who had labored for decades for an Overlord's favor, and protected by the Council of Five and the shadow of the Furies from any who might envy him his favored status, his quick forgiveness for past independence, his enjoyment of Lady Gasald's rewards…

Celop hated everything about him—the black and purple toga that bared his powerful arms and hinted at the muscle on his chest; his defined jaw and bright eyes; the tuft of white hair crowning his blue-skinned head; the leathery wings tucked to his back, his excuse for wearing the wrap that flaunted his build. He bore no open weapons, but the Sith around the table knew he carried a lightsaber secreted upon his person. No being could say with certainty what kind of fighter or Force wielder Darshkére might be, but apart from the cuts of anointing, no wounds or marks marred his good looks—if he had conquered Zirist Lakalt in some sort of struggle, he had done it without difficulty.

Most of all, Celop hated his smile. Not because it made him even more handsome, although even Celop had to admit it did, but because not even a hint of unease tightened his eyes. Every compliment to Darth Kra'all's military skill, every quip in repartee with Lord Besnasc, every studied inquiry into the training of this or that Acolyte, and every damn one of those kriffing smiles said the same thing: ''I am one of you. I belong.''

He didn't even have the decency to make it a gloating smirk—because he didn't have to. Why should I gloat? Celop imagined him thinking. I have nothing to prove to my peers.

The Crescentia and her Jedi might have burned at Eriadu, but this was Darshkére's true victory.

"A toast, my Lords," Lady Gasald cooed, and every being raised a glass or seized one nearby. "To a first taste of final victory, and our first deep drink of Jedi blood."

Cheers, appreciative growls, and a strange ululation from Darth Nyewlk'ek echoed around the room, and Celop mustered up a hurrah for his master. They all drank, and then Darth Kra'all added, "To Lord Darshkére, for delivering us such a prize."

No Sith Lord worthy of his anointing would betray his feelings to a rival or enemy, especially not in public, and so Celop raised his glass and drank, but inside he pondered. Why would Kra'all praise Darshkére? Was some alliance brewing between them? Darshkére was not even a Darth…

"And to Darth Kra'all," Darshkére answered in his deep baritone, tucking his wings and bowing his head; at his full height, only Kra'all was taller. "For masterful command of a brilliant victory."

Celop felt his hand raised the glass to his lips, but he did not even taste the wine. Was Darshkére courting the alliance with Kra'all? Celop had hoped to work alongside the Togorian himself—to reverse what rumors said was the dynamic between Darth Hokhtan and Lord Rhutizh, and pair command of intelligence networks with mastery of war to make an unstoppable duo. Together they could crush all resistance facing their master's progress toward the Core, and when the Republic and the Jedi were finally toppled and Darth Kra'all was King of Corellia, Lady Gasald could be enthroned as queen of the southern galaxy…with a faithful consort by her side, alert for any threats to her rule, rewarded with her favors and her affections…

But if Kra'all and Darshkére allied instead? It might be much the same dynamic—it just wouldn't require Celop. He tried not to break the glass in his hand.

Darshkére's chosen guest—a near-Human named Bregin Bymar, whom Celop understood had enjoyed a brief position as Darshkére's apprentice before the winged interloper had thrust himself into Celop's pursuit of Lady Gasald's affections—hurrahed as loud as any. Now given the rank of Sith Acolyte, Bregin was either ignorant of the ineffable mercy Lady Gasald had bestowed on him and his master both, or else indifferent to it; he had traded apprenticeship to a non-entity for service to an anointed lord and yet he joked and chatted with the other Acolytes and lords like he had been born to be one of them. Celop thought of the years he had struggled on Bosthirda, fighting to outwit or overmatch every other Sith aspirant, and fought the temptation to leap across the table and bury his lightsaber blade in Bregin's face.

Scrambling to find a toast he could add to those given—the tip of his tongue curled on a panegyric to Lady Gasald; it would be insufferably sycophantic—Celop lost the moment, and as his fellows sat and returned to their meals and conversation, he had no choice but to join them and stew in silence. He sensed Jaigan watching him—was his de facto apprentice concerned for his master's abstraction, or observing a vulnerability to be exploited at some opportune moment in the future? Did Jaigan lust after Lady Gasald, as so many lesser beings did? Celop finished off his third glass of wine with a scowl at the thought, perturbed by the realization of how many of his colleagues wanted no more than to savor Lady Gasald's charms without the purity of passion he offered her…

As the celebration wore on, Celop found himself devoting more time to both drinking and observing Darshkére. So it was, as he kept Darshkére in his peripheral vision while feigning interest in Lord Aldelkeugh's diatribe on the military shortcomings of the Republic, that Celop saw Bregin Bymar take his comlink from his belt, hold it to his ear, and adopt an expression suitable to a man being informed that his entire family had been found dead while he was away on holiday. Bymar excused himself from the table, and Celop tried to pick up the tedious threads of Aldelkeugh's conversation until the near-Human returned. Bymar spoke into Darshkére's ear, and at last that hateful smile faded.

The two conversed for a moment before Darshkére turned to Lady Gasald, who Celop saw at a glance had not missed the exchange. Darshkére bowed from the neck and said, "Forgive me, Master, but I've just received some unpleasant news from Eriadu."

Lady Gasald—Vedya, Celop thought, with twinges in his chest and his groin at once—leaned back in her chair, swishing the wine in her glass and raising a pale eyebrow. "Indeed, my lord? Tell me."

"As you know, my lady, a great number of bounty hunters responded to our contract on survivors." Darshkére produced an imagecaster from somewhere in the folds of his toga. "Some of the scavengers on Docharvee claim to have been in pursuit of a Jedi when a ship rescued the being in question and escaped our cordon."

Lady Gasald's expression did not change, but the hand swilling her wine glass stilled. "A Jedi, my lord?"

"So they say, Master. My people have been scouring the system for survivors of the battle, of course, but if any being was to evade their pursuit—"

"—it would be a Jedi," she finished for him. By now every other being around the table had fallen silent, watching the exchange and waiting for their master's wrath to fall. Lady Gasald rocked her wine glass once; Celop watched the maroon liquid slosh. "And?"

Darshkére conferred with Bregin for a moment, then produced a holo. "Some of my fighters went in pursuit, obviously. The survivors recorded this image."

Lady Gasald studied the holo with only a thoughtful expression, but Celop sat forward so abruptly that wine sloshed onto his hand. He flicked the drops onto the table, noticing belatedly that Darth Kra'all had leaned forward too, his lips peeled back from his long fangs. Feeling, as he always did, his master's eyes on him, Celop tore his eyes away from the holo to behold Lady Gasald looking from him to Darth Kra'all and back. "You recognize this ship, my lords?"

"Yes Master," Celop blurted out, anxious to capture her attention before Darth Kra'all could wrest it away too. Some part of him knew the wine was blurring his perceptions, but he was confident in his verdict as he declared, "It's the Second Chance—Kal-Di and Rican's ship."

"Or at least a ship of the same model," Kra'all growled.

Celop restrained a growl of his own—could Kra'all permit him nothing? was he in cahoots with Darshkére after all?—but Lady Gasald shook her head. "Who else could evade pursuit so easily?  Kal-Di and Rican…"

She trailed off, and as Celop watched her, longing to ease the concerns lining her face, she laid a hand at the hollow of her throat. Even as Celop's eyes drifted down past her neck, he clung to sobriety enough to realize her movement had not been altogether voluntary.

"They were bound north, Master," Darshkére said. "Along the Rimma, my people think."

"Can you catch them at Sullust?" Lady Gasald asked at once.

Darshkére shook his head. "They'll be past it already."

Celop waited for it—Darshkére could not have handed her better proof of his own incompetence—but Lady Gasald just made a face. "If they make it to Republic territory—"

"They'll have saved one Jedi," Darshkére said. "Let them revel in their 'victory'."

He laughed, and several Sith Lords along the table laughed with him. Celop did not, and so Vedya's indulgent smile vexed him all the more. "Nonetheless…this development troubles me, Lord Darshkére."

Darshkére's chuckle died off. "I think it's unlikely that the miners and colonists on Docharvee assisted this…Jedi in escaping our pursuit, Master. But if you want the moon purged, my fleet will move in at once."

Lady Gasald looked down a moment, then around the table. Darth Nyewlk'ek clicked and said, "It would send a message."

Lord Besnasc rolled his eyes. "The message being 'I'd rather be frightening than smart'. If Darshkére's right and the inhabitants weren't aiding the Jedi, we'll accomplish nothing but killing people who would've been more useful to us alive."

"We need Eriadu's resources," Lord Aldelkeugh added. "If we cripple their production, we're right back where we were with Milagro."

Lady Gasald made a face, and Celop could see the logic working on her; she had not gone to Darshkére's aid, won his battle for him, and opened the arms of the Empire to him out of charity. Worse, when he separated Darshkére from the equation, Celop was forced to agree. Darth Kra'all nodded in agreement, and when Lady Gasald looked at him in turn, Celop made himself nod too. "It may serve our ends to have one or two Jedi survive; they won't make so great a difference to the war effort, and their stories will create fear in the Republic."

"Every living Jedi is a threat and a slight," Lady Gasald snapped, but as Celop winced, she sighed and shrugged. "But what's done is done. I won't have our operations slowed down by misdirected wrath.  But whichever of your commanders was responsible for security—"

"—will not be one of my commanders much longer," Darshkére assured her. "Or among the living."

Several beings tensed—interrupting a Sith Overlord was bad form even in ideal circumstances, and Lady Gasald was not as tolerant as some of her colleagues—and Celop prayed that Darshkére had finally misstepped, but Lady Gasald nodded, her full lips hinting at a smile. "From my mind to your lips, my lord."

Darshkére wiped his lips with his napkin, stood, stretched his wings—each was nearly as wide as he was tall—and snapped his fingers at Bregin, who gathered up their things. "I'll leave now, Master."

She lifted a colorless eyebrow and set her glass down. "You're going personally, my lord?"

Was that mere surprise at his failure to delegate, or a hint of disappointment—even longing? Celop stewed in impotent rage.

"If this was Kal-Di and Rican, and they did manage to save another Jedi besides, they may believe Eriadu is vulnerable. If the Jedi return in force, I'd enjoy showing them the error of their thinking myself."

Lady Gasald mused on it a moment more, then nodded. "I wish you good hunting, then. Secure your sectors and ensure that any other survivors are dealt with—one Jedi survivor spreads fear of our conquest, but more than one waters it down."

"Yes, Master. I won't disappoint you."

"If recent experience is any indication, I've no doubt of that," she purred, extending a hand. Darshkére bowed low enough to press her hand to his lips without so much as a tug on her wrist; as he bent over her, he caressed her forearm with the talon on one wing. Then he swept away in a whirl of wings, Bregin bowed to Lady Gasald, and they were gone.

Many Sith Lords watched Darshkére go, but Celop's gaze lingered on Vedya Gasald; she studied the nails of one hand until the door hissed closed, then snatched her wine glass and downed it in one swallow. She licked a drop of wine from her upper lip, tongue lingering there, eyes half-closed…Celop bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if she would ache from the departure of her newest pet, if she would require consolation…

Her eyes opened, and she got to her feet. Her attendant lords hurried to rise, but she forestalled them with a flick of her fingers. "Continue, my lords, and enjoy yourselves tonight. Tomorrow we have work to do."

She snapped, and the towering forms of her White Guards unfroze and shielded her from view. Celop caught a glimpse of her buxom figure before the five of them vanished through the door.

Lord Aldelkeugh cut himself a generous portion of braised bruallki and finished off his third Menkooro whiskey. "Anyway, Lord Faro, as I was saying…"

Years studying under ponderous old Sith philosophers had armed Celop with the ability to draw himself out of his immediate settings and reroute his thoughts to more useful avenues, all while feigning attention and backtracking five seconds in the Force if his conversational captor required some response. And so, as Aldelkeugh droned on, Celop ran his anger and longing through cold Sith reasoning and boiled the situation down to its hard truths.

Lady Gasald rewarded her favored lords; Celop had not been so blinded by infatuation as to believe he was unique. Darshkére had delivered her a great victory and been rewarded greatly, but he had already peaked in delivering her the Seventy-Second; there was no way for him to reach that height twice—not quickly, anyway—and the escaped Jedi showed how flaccid he had allowed his security to become when Eriadu should have been most secure. When he failed to rise to the occasion and provide her further victories, Vedya would tire of him.

That was the interloper dealt with, then. Celop still needed to wrest her attention back, but in making him her lord of intelligence, she had all but handed him the code cylinder that would unlock her heart. She did not want Darshkére's paltry systems, just as she did not really want the Seventy-Second, or the Jedi on the Crescentia, or even Milagro. She wanted the Core, and she was left with only Darth Kra'all to win it for her—Kra'all, who for all his valor and personal battle prowess was still not Darth Vaszas, let alone Darth Hokhtan or Nicodeme. Animal ferocity would not win through to the Corellian sector or seize Coruscant before some other ambitious Overlord could get there.

Only the proper intelligence could do that. It was a tall order, but for a prize like Vedya Gasald, none but the greatest achievement would suffice—nothing short of the galaxy itself.

Celop found it in himself to show Aldelkeugh a pleasant smile. He had his work cut out for him, but the struggle of the labor only made the prize sweeter in the end.