Crown of Slaves 037

Getting into Grathan’s compound was actually quite easy, thanks to all the intel we’d gathered and the equipment we had on hand. Better still, we managed to avoid drawing any immediate attention from any of the active patrols, and what Sith I could sense in my range -paradoxically limited by the incredible weight of the Dark Side on this planet- all seemed distracted leading the defense during the current ongoing skirmish. Something I was deeply grateful for, because I was pretty damn sure that I already had my name at the very top of Baras’ shit list -outside of Nomen Karr and the as-yet-unknown Jaesa Wilsaam- and I really didn’t want to make things worse by killing the apprentice that he had infiltrating this place.

The last thing I wanted was for the guy to assume that I was deliberately going out of my way to cause him problems or undermine his powerbase so that his eventual attempt at a coup would be doomed to spectacular failure, leaving Vitiate vulnerable and -hopefully- trapped in his Voice on Voss while I kept putting things into place in the rest of the galaxy so that I could avoid the bastard going around eating planets.

And fuck, but I needed to do something about Vaylin. The girl was being tortured and mind-fucked into genuine, broken insanity right now, something that was painfully time-sensitive, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. God, maybe I just got my hands on Revan early and packed him off to his many-times-great-granddaughter with some firm words about trauma and the knowledge of where to find Senya Tirall. The two of them could bond over being manipulated and tortured by the bastard and help untangle the three kiddoes heads.

…hmm, that wasn’t a bad idea, actually. I hadn’t included the knowledge of where to find Revan in the initial dispatch of information I’d sent along with Fay, well aware it would both seem painfully suspicious and also result in things too-quickly spiralling out of control, but I could easily get that information to them quickly. It would be easy to have my cult pass things along on Nar Shadaa, something that they wouldn’t question for even a moment, and no one would think twice of illicit information being passed back and forth on The Smuggler’s Moon of all places. Hopefully, that would prevent the entire fiasco with The Foundry and cripple the Eternal Empire at the same time.

Or, at least, cripple it enough that it would be too busy keeping itself stable to do anything particularly aggressive until Senya and her stabalized children could return and take the throne for themselves, making the Eternal Empire a powerful ally and a third polity to force the peace to remain in place between the Sith and the Republic for as long as was humanely possible.

I was under no illusions, after all, that it could remain indefinitely.

“I think the best thing to do is leave Iisa’s mission to the last. Hauling around someone in carbonite will be a difficult enough task as it is, doing it for longer than is strictly necessay sounds like a great way to get us all killed.” Mako suggested, eyeing her companion for a moment with a bit of guilt in her expression and her presence, before frowning slightly. “Unless you guys think that we can just…chuck her over the cliff? Once we freeze her? It’s not like anything could eat her, or that she could run away…”

I considered the idea for a moment, weighing the practicalities against the sheer absurdity of the mental image. Freezing someone in carbonite and then lobbing them off a cliff was, admittedly, hilarious in a grim sort of way. But it also felt needlessly cruel, and I’d learned the hard way that unnecessary cruelty had a nasty habit of coming back to bite you in ways you couldn’t predict.

Especially since, if I recalled correctly, the target in Grathan’s estate was a young woman in over her head that needed some sense smacked back into her. In fact, from what I remembered, that was the entire reason the contract had been taken out, because her father was worried about her and wanted her brought safely back to him. Or something like that. As much as I’d enjoyed the whole ‘be a Mandalorian (eventually)’ thing from the Bounty Hunter story, the story itself hadn’t exactly been breathtaking or awe-inspiring. Compared to certain other stories, it just wasn’t very memorable.

“No cliff-tossing. I don’t think she could break or anything like that, especially not if we lower her carefully, but I’d really rather not take the risk. Force knows that surviving carbonite can be a roll of the dice at times in and of itself. We’ll have to either pick her up on the way out, or stash her somewhere and retrieve her.” I finally denied, shaking my head with a somewhat amusing edge of disappointment, disappointment that was apparently shared by a couple of the others. Glancing at Iisa, I arched a brow. “Any particular preference, fire-top?”

The look she gave me in response was, even through her helmet, obviously both amused and mildly annoyed. Unsurprising, people probably commented on her hair-color on the regular, and I wasn’t naive enough to assume all of that commentary was positive. I mean, I loved redheads -just look at my harem, and the girls I intended to add to it, Iisa included if I could manage it- but I was equally aware of the fact that people messed with them on the regular.

“We’ll stash her. If we haul her around and something goes wrong, it will be a pain in the ass to deal with, and less than spectacular for my reputation. Besides, it will be a nice way to stick it to Blood. Mouthy prick has always been fond of running his mouth, and while I normally wouldn’t care, I would like to see his face when Mako and I stroll in, with everyone knowing we captured a Sith alive in the middle of a warzone and walked out without a scratch.” she said aloud, apparently deciding not to respond to my teasing, or at least not at the current moment. Which was probably the right thing for her to do, given that we were in the middle of infiltrating an enemy compound that was on high alert.

“Fair enough, fair enough.” I conceded, and I couldn’t quite keep the grin off my face at the mental image of the smug, cowardly little fuck choking on it. Even if I’d rather see him choking on his namesake. “Reputation’s worth its weight in credits, after all, especially for a mando’ade. Or blaster bolts. Whatever the metaphor suits you best, I suppose.”

Mako snorted, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “It’s credits. Definitely credits. Nobody’s ever heard of anybody paying you in blaster bolts.”

“Depends on the client, but you’re still a bit sheltered, so I can understand the lack of experience.” Iisa muttered, audibly rolling her eyes right back at the less experienced of their pair and receiving a huff and pout in response.

The banter, brief and light-hearted as it was, was a nice distraction from the tension of the onrushing conflict, because Force knew that we had no chance at all of doing any of this shit without at least two or three fights. Between me getting the anti-Skotia weapon, Iisa extracting her target, Vriska interrogating her target, mercy-killing the droid soldiers…we were going to be crawling all over this compound for a long time, more likely than not.

Which reminded me, I thought as we started to move towards the droid soldiers -the nearest of our objectives- as quietly and carefully as possible, I needed to reach out to Marr. I needed to make sure that he saved the people worth saving from Jadus ‘brilliant’ little plan, or even put a stop to the plot as a whole. I’d let him worry about the details, thank you ever so kindly. Trying to control everything was an exercise in insane futility, and as confident as I was in my ability to take the knowledge that I possessed and plan ahead, dealing with Jadus’ bullshit was well out of my wheelhouse.

If nothing else, Marr would probably take offense to the unnecessary loss of an entire Harrower and it’s crew. He was a pragmatic sort, and he put the Empire as a whole far above his own personal ambitions, ruthlessly and loyally. Something that set him far apart from the rest of the Dark Council -save, perhaps, Vowrawn. He’d always been a pretty cool dude.- and, frankly, most Sith in general.

“There.” I said suddenly, cutting my own train of thought off, when the right building finally came into view, broad and utilitarian and looking more like some sort of garage or vehicle bay than anything else. “That’s where ‘The Duchesses’ soldiers are being helped. Set them free and we’ll have some additional help on the inside here. Hells, we might be able to make heroes of ourselves and finish this whole sorry affair for the Council while we’re at it.”

Frankly, I doubted that it was actually possible, they’d all had their brains ripped out and stuffed into droids at this point, but Vriska and Mako together might be able to find some sort of control method. At which point, we would disable it, let them fight one last time, and then let them say their goodbyes to their beloved commander before we…let them go, just the way they’d wanted in the game.

Which was sad, really, and maybe the girls would find the information needed to reverse the process, but if I was going to be honest…well, I -like they- couldn’t see the Empire as it was now using the intel to reverse it rather than using it to create even more droid soldiers. Human minds, human ingenuity, human asymmetrical thinking, but combined with the durability and endurance of a droid. They could take more damage, operate in worse conditions, operate for longer, carry more equipment…frankly, it would be insane of the Empire not to do it. Hell, they could probably argue -rightly, if one looked at things from a certain point of view- that it would actually lower casualties on both sides. And if I believed for even a moment that the Empire -or the Republic, quite frankly- would only perform the procedure on volunteers and would leave their free will wholly intact, I might be inclined to keep the information around.

But they wouldn’t. Neither of them would, neither of them could be trust with a tool like this, and so neither of them would be trusted with it.

The closer we got to the building, the more I could sense those inside through the planet’s haze, and the more disturbed I began. Because I could sense those soldiers, those droids, and the way they Felt had my skin crawling beneath my armor. They were muddled, wrong. Covered in static, like a bad connection over the comms or distortion in a holofilm. Like an old VHS back home, when the tape started to go.

I was smart enough to understand the implications. The soldiers were literally caught halfway between living and dead. Halfway between droid and human. Neither returned to the Force nor able to experience being alive. My stomach twisted, I felt like I was going to throw up.

These poor bastards…

And here I was, coming to make them work for my purposes.

Not the best feeling in the world, as a matter of fact it felt pretty shitty -and I’m sure it would feel worse, pretty soon-, but I took a slim comfort from the fact that this was the least shitty option amongst a large number of very shitty options.

That…didn’t help as much as I would have hoped that it would. Of course, nothing ever really did when it came to choices like these, did it? ‘The burden of command’, one might say. The dark mirror to the power and the respect and the prestige, these things that kept you up at night.

I huffed out a soft sigh as we slipped in through one of the entrances, shaking my head in an effort to banish thoughts like that far to the back of my mind.

The time for introspection was, for the time being, over. Now was the time to go to work.

Though, perhaps our droid friends could help us another way…?

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“I cannot believe you convinced me to try this. You’re insane, genuinely and unambiguously insane.” Mako hissed from behind me, trying to make herself look as small and insignificant as possible, all in an effort to hide and avoid attention, while simultaneously trying as hard as she could to not look like she was trying to hide and avoid attention.

“Relax, Mako. You’re more likely to get us shot at by acting the way you are then if you calmed down and went with it.” Iisa informed her, strolling along, hips swaying and rolling beneath her armor, exuding confidence and casual aloofness with every step. Glancing at me, I could feel the smirk in her words as she continued. “Maybe I should have expected something like this from you, but I didn’t. Not bad, Khai.”

“Not exactly how I prefer to do things either, but I suppose there is something to be said for taking refuege in audacity, purely because no one will think that their enemies will simply stroll around their compound in plain sight.” Vriska wasn’t quite complaining, not like Mako was, but she certainly didn’t sound entirely happy either, even if she looked entirely composed to the eye.

“There was a saying that I heard once. ‘You can get nearly anywhere by wearing a high-viz vest and carrying a clipboard.’” I responded, mindful of Khem’s heavy footsteps on my heels, and those of the mechanized soldiers dutifully following along behind us all. “Which means, essentially, that so long as you don’t look out of place and aren’t acting anxious, most people will assume that you belong there. Those that question it will generally assume that it’s someone else’s problem. The key is to avoid overcoming that presumption with behavior odd enough that they feel compelled to confront you. Everyone here knows we can’t have broken in through the front door, and surely infiltrators wouldn’t be walking around so boldly and casually in the open, so therefore we must be allies of Grathan. Therefore, we’re not their problem. Use people’s biases and assumptions against them, girls. Its not hard to get away with things if they’re doing half the work for you.”

“And if someone does confront us? What then?” Mako muttered, though I could feel the way her posture had loosened, just a fraction, at my words. Good. She was learning. The sweet thing would never be a hardened operator, but unless she was willing to become a pillow pet that stayed safely at home, she needed to be a little bit less…squishy, I supposed, at the very least.

“Then Khem eats them and we improvise.” I said cheerfully, which earned me a low, rumbling chuckle from the dashade in question and a strangled noise of alarm from the young slicer. “Relax, I’m joking. Mostly. With these boys,” I jerked my thumb behind me, indicating our not-quite-undead cohorts, whose chassis quite prominently bore the emblem of not the Empire, but Grathan’s house. “Following us around the way that they are, not to mention everything else, no one short of a Sith or a very important Imperial under Grathan is going to start anything with us. We radiate the fact that we are well above the paygrade of anyone else.”

“And if there’s a Sith?” Vriska pressed, her voice pitched low enough that I was reasonably sure only I could hear it through the ambient noise of the compound around us and the distant, muffled thunder of the ongoing firefight. “Because I sincerely doubt we’ll make it through this entire endeavor without running into at least one of Grathan’s apprentices. This place is crawling with them, no matter how distracted they might be at the moment.”

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? I let out a slow breath, painfully aware of the weight of my lightsaber against my hip and the ever-present warmth of the Force where it lay coiled and ready beneath my skin.

“Then we deal with it. But I doubt it will come to that unless we’re very unlucky, or very stupid.” I kept my own tone light, casual, projecting the sort of easy confidence that I hoped would rub off on my companions. Or, failing that, at least keep them from doing anything precipitous. And by them, I mostly meant Mako, who was by far the most nervous and least experienced out of all of us. “Besides, it won’t be terribly difficult to overwhelm an apprentice with the amount of firepower we have here. I had to kill more than a few to get off of Korriban, you know, and I didn’t even have anyone else along for the vast majority of that. Handling a couple of scientists and one baby Sith is well within our grasp.”

Especially since I didn’t plan on killing Dorostech. He was a genius that specialized in making anti-droid/anti-cyborg weaponry, which means that he’d be very important when any possible conflict with the fruits of The Foundry, not to mention the Skytroopers of the Eternal Empire. Getting him out of Grathan’s compound and safely into House Luwian’s rather more tender grasp was a simple but likely potent long-term investment. Samara’s dad, whose name I didn’t remember because he was completely irrelevant -in fact, I only remembered her name because you could fuck her in the game, and because she was named after a spectacular, blue-skinned milf in Mass Effect- wasn’t someone that needed or wanted saving. In fact, he probably didn’t deserve saving, but that was Vriska’s decision to make and I, quite frankly, didn’t have any good cause to skew her opinion on this particular matter.

“Don’t worry, miss Mako. We’ll die to make sure that your mistress and companions make it out safely.” OHK-99, or rather Ensign Tholver Shan of the Imperial Naval Marines -I had no idea why the Marines were involved in assaulting Grathan’s estate, instead of the Army, but there you are- promised as earnestly as he could with that robotic flange to every word. Every sincere word, because somehow the man and his fellows had bonded with the girl, most likely do to her gentle nature and the pity she had shown them when she’d realized their plight.

Or it could have been her and Vriska teaming up to hack their control console, giving them back full control of themselves and blocking the over-rides that Grathan had implanted into their minds. I felt like it was reasonable to assume that such a thing might make an impression on the poor bastards. And I couldn’t even protest his wording because…well, I’d already had that particular internal argument and monologue earlier today, hadn’t I?

“Alright, boys and girls. We’ll deal with Vriska’s target first. Extracting mine won’t be the hardest thing to do, we’re just escorting him to another section of the compound, obviously.” there was a sardonic edge to that last word, but I didn’t regret that fact and no one seemed to mind overmuch. “But carrying around one of his apprentices as a block of carbonite isn’t remotely subtle. Though we might be able to excuse that as a punishment for misbehavior or something of the sort, on Grathan’s orders, I wouldn’t like to rely on too much cleverness.”

“Maybe not, but it’s better to have a story ready just in case we need to actually use it. And as much as I can appreciate the appeal of us picking a fight inside the defenses to let the loyalist forces finally put an end to this siege, I’m not sure it’s the wisest plan.” Vriska remarked sounding somewhat reluctant, perhaps unsurprisingly, given she probably qualified as the most ‘Empire-loyal’ out of our little group. Minus the droids, of course, but I didn’t think it was terrible fair to count them. Then she smirked, dark lips curling up at and crimson eyes gleaming. “That being said, a bit of sabotage might not be out of line, would it?”

“Sabotage.” I repeated the word slowly, letting it roll around on my tongue. There was a certain appeal to it, I had to admit, appealing to both my patriotism -such as it was- and ever so sweet in the direction of vengeance on behalf of the ‘good guys’. It would certainly be a quieter and less immediate way to help the loyalists without the sort of pitched, screaming chaos that would inevitably draw every Sith on the grounds down on our heads like a swarm of angry hornets. “Mmh. You know, I like the way that you think, Vriska. Nothing too flashy though, nothing that would be easily found or raise the alarm, just...enough to tip the scales when the loyalists make their next push.”

“Exactly.” Her smirk widened, and I could feel a flicker of dark anticipation pulse through her. Turning her attention to Tholver, she continued. “Oh Ensign~? I don’t suppose that you have access to maps that would show particularly vulnerable locations within the compound? Ones that some judicious use of explosives could cause some particular problems for?”

“Yes, ma’am. We were intended to act as guards for Grathan, so we have full schematics of the entire compound, and many access codes. The traitor probably thought, rightly, that we wouldn’t have been able to do anything with the controls he implanted into us. Since you and miss Mako removed those, there is nothing preventing us from making use of those schematics however you see fit.” he responded promptly, sounding at first intrigued, and then darkly satisfied with the very idea. Not even the vocoder he was speaking through could entirely filter out those emotions.

“Well hot damn. Should have asked about that earlier. I mean, I knew having you boys and girls with us would add some legitimacy, but I didn’t think about any of the implications outside of that.” I muttered to myself, possibilities flitting and flickering through my mind. “Vriska, once we deal with your target, you and Mako will take half of our new friends and get started on that while Iisa and I do our own tasks and see what mischief we can lay the foundations for. Unless anyone has any objections?”

There were none, or at least not any that were voiced -and Iisa, at least, could be counted on to voice objections if she thought that they were called for-, and we kept moving. Kept moving, kept talking quietly, and kept avoiding interest from anyone and anything that existed in the compound. It was remarkable, really ,the way that people would hardly glance at us before hurrying away. The way that they would avert their eyes and genuinely go out of their way to avoid being noticed or drawing our attention.

That was the power, the privilege, and in many ways the curse, of the Empire. You stayed in your lane, because while you could reach astonishing heights by proving yourself clever or capable or creative…you could also get yourself, your family, and everyone you’ve ever known crushed like ants because someone took offense to what you did, or because they were in a bad mood that particular day and you just so happened to draw their eyes in that moment.

“We’re at my target. I’ll handle this, the rest of you wait for me out here.” Vriska announced quietly and quite suddenly, eyeing a nearby doorway with a grimly-determined expression -or what passed for one, with someone as emotionally reserved as she was- and resting her hand on the butt of her holstered pistol. “I’ll try to keep it quiet, but try to keep people from getting to close.”

“Yeah, no problem. Just don’t take too long, we can only hang out in front doing nothing for just so long before it starts to stand out.” I nodded in confirmation, and she was already moving, slipping through the door with the kind of fluid, predatory grace that quite frankly made me a bit jealous. The panel hissed shut behind her, and I turned my attention outward, letting my senses spread as far as the miasmic atmosphere would allow.

Which wasn’t nearly as far as I would hope, nor were they able to see quite so ‘deeply’ within that range as I might otherwise have hoped. But it would, hopefully, be plenty sufficient to keep me at least moderatly forewarned if anyone started to sniff around, and…oh, never mind. Samara’s dad had just been executed, I’d felt his presence in the Force get snuffed out. Well, Vriska certainly hadn’t wasted any time in dealing with that, had she?

A moment later, she was standing at my side again, looking entirely unbothered by what she’d done, and just as immaculate as she had been when she’d entered the building. Not that I’d expected the guy to put up much of a fight, but damn, it looked like he hadn’t managed to put up any fight at all. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, besides glad that Vriska wasn’t hurt and that we were going to be able to move on quickly.

To Dorostech, who was nothing short of thrilled to see me.

Well, “thrilled” might have been putting it a bit strongly, but there was certainly an eagerness in the way the man surged to his feet the moment I stepped through the doorway, his eyes -pale and slightly bloodshot, the eyes of a man who spent far too much time squinting at schematics and a workbench and not nearly enough time sleeping- darting between me and Khem with an expression that was equal parts hope, terror, and desperate calculation.

“You’re not one of Grathan’s, I don’t recognize you. You must be Apprentice Khai! Lord Zash told me to expect you, the last time I was able to receive word from her! You’re here to take me out of this awful place?” he damn near cheered, though it was much a grovel as it was an exhultation, and I nodded.

“That’s right. I’m here for the weapon, and for you. Your brilliance in regards to designing anti-mechanical weapons is far too valuable to leave squandering in Grathan’s hands, or to risk losing when his little rebellion comes to an end. Which means your days of design haven’t yet come to an end, I’m afraid, but I promise that your next laboratory will be infinitely more pleasant than this one. Brighter and less rainy as well.” I responded, every word an honest one, and he nodded rapidly in agreement.

“Excellent, excellent! Oh, this is wonderful news, truly! You have no idea what it’s been like, working under that traitorous lunatic! Everything I’ve built, everything I’ve refined, all held hostage to his little insurrection, and me barely allowed to sleep for fear he’d decide I was working too slowly and have me flayed!” Dorostech babbled, already darting about the cramped, cluttered laboratory to gather up various items with the frantic energy of a man who’d been given a chance at salvation and intended to seize it with both hands.

“Why do we bother with this mouse, Little Kallig? Fight your enemy directly, without trickery and weakness.” Khem rumbled behind me, not bothering to lower his voice in the least, and I felt an spike of unkind amusement as Dorostech squeaked like the mouse my shadow had named him and started moving even faster than he already had been.

“One, because only a fool fights an enemy without every advantage they can hold.” I responded, glancing at the hulking alien, painfully aware that this was likely yet another test from an ancient mind that could, at any point, decide I wasn’t worthy of his service…and therefore was not worthy of continuing to breath. “Secondly, I’m not nearly stupid enough nor arrogant enough to believe that I can fight a Darth on equal footing as I am. I’m powerful, Khem, and decently trained, but the gap between me and a man like Skotia is still more than large enough to swallow me whole without even noticing it. I would have to retire entirely on you to win that fight for me, and that is hardly acceptable, is it?”

“Hmm.” his grunted response was brief and less than effusive, but it was complimentary, in that he didn’t say anything contemptuous or try to eat me. I tried not to let out a noticeable breath of relief, nor allow my emotions to flow too strongly into the Force. I’d passed for the moment, then, or at least not failed spectacularly. God, this was much more stressful when he wasn’t programmed to put up with my shit no matter what…and when I couldn’t bribe him into liking me by spamming vendor gifts in his direction.

“I…I’m ready to go, my lord!” the man anxiously announced, quailing instantly and looking very much like he wished he hadn’t said a word as both of us turned our attention back to him. Nervous fellow, wasn’t he? But then, I couldn’t blame him for that, under the circumstances he was in now and -most especially- under the circumstances he’d been under for however long it had been since he’d been procured by Grathan.

It really said something about the other Sith that this man new virtually nothing about me, and probably very little about Zash, but he was nothing short of relieved at the very idea of being pulled into our service long-term. Barely a flicker of disappointment or resentment at his lack of true freedom, though given how anxious he was, the idea of complete freedom -or, more accurately, the lack of the security that would come from being in service to a Lord- was probably far more frightening.

And what did that say about the state of the universe, hmm?

Nothing good, which went without saying. But it wasn’t a problem I could solve today, nor even in the next several years -if ever, people were people, and nothing could ever change that-, and dwelling on it would accomplish literally nothing positive.

“Then let’s not spend any more time here than we need to. Fall in behind Khem, stay close, and keep your mouth shut unless I tell you otherwise.” I instructed him, jerking my head toward the door. “As far as anyone who asks needs to know, you’re being transferred on Grathan’s orders. Look scared and put-upon and you’ll fit right in.”

“That...won’t be difficult, my lord.” he muttered, and I couldn’t quite stop the snort of laughter that burst from my lips, inappropriate as it was. He flushed, instantly, radiating embarrassment, but settled as I waved a hand, still chuckling.

“I don’t blame you for feeling out of sorts, my friend. This is a hell of a situation that you’ve found yourself in, but you’re well on your way out of it now, and with the help of my self and my companions, out is exactly what you’ll be.” I reassured him as we made our way back outside. “And just think! Soon enough, I’ll have used this device of yours to have killed a Darth! Quite the feather in your cap, wouldn’t you say?”

Oddly enough, he was not particularly thrilled by the idea of having his name attached to such a deed.

How very strange…