Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“So,” Vette put her feet up on the dash of the Fury, since Quinn wasn’t in the cockpit to tell her it was improper, and grinned over at Vopenir, who merely twitched her lips in response to the gesture. “What’s the deal then?” she asked. “Marriage for sith doesn’t mean the same thing as it is for the rest of us, or what?"

Vopenir’s smile widened a little and she put the datapad she’d been examining aside, facing Vette and leaning forward. “I’ll assume you’re referring to Agent Shan,” she said.

“Well yeah,” Vette made a frustrated noise. “I saw you two smooching today over near that black beach, an SIS Agent? Seriously, my lord.”

“An SIS Agent who also happens to be the son of the current Grand Master of the Jedi,” Vopenir pointed out.

“Oooooh, oh! So you’re doing this for political reasons then.” That at least, Vette could understand. That was manipulative and horrible and very, very sith.

“Partly,” Vopenir sighed, looking away and out the windows at the Rishi landscape. They’d been stuck here for days now, and while Vette had certainly been on nastier planets, she was beginning to get a little sick of pirates and weird bird people and, most of all, Revanites. “I won’t deny, however, that Agent Shan and I have a connection.”

“And Quinn doesn’t know about it?”

“Doesn’t know about what, Vette?” The captain in question had walked onto the bridge, meticulously neat in his uniform despite having spent the last few hours out in the village heat attempting to coordinate with the Imperials who had deserted the Revanite cause but were still stuck on planet.

Vopenir’s face didn’t change, exactly, but she went very still, and her voice, when she spoke, was clipped and cold.

“Does not know that Agent Shan and I are currently sleeping together, Captain. Whenever it’s convenient. Sometimes when it isn’t.”

Vette suddenly very much wanted to be anywhere else but in the same room as the two of them. Vopenir’s stillness had been matched by Quinn’s, but where she was cold, he looked trapped -- like a hunted animal.

“Indeed,” he said, voice hoarse. “I was not aware.”

Vopenir’s chin lifted and she faced her husband. “Indeed,” she said. There was a long, tense moment, where they looked at each other. Or rather, Vopenir looked at Quinn, and Quinn looked at his shoes, at the displays, at the roof -- anywhere but at his wife. Finally, Vopenir shrugged and looked back at Vette, giving her a wink. “It’s all right, Vette, I am certain he doesn’t mind.”

Vette was even more confused now. It was abundantly clear, from the brittle way Quinn shook his head, from the pain etched in lines around his eyes, that he did mind.

“It is not my place to question you, my lord,” he said.

Vette blinked. “She’s your wife,” she said.

“Vette,” Vopenir didn’t sound angry exactly, but there was a strong suggestion in that tone of voice that she not continue to question her.

“Screw this,” Vette said. “I don’t know about humans or Mirialan but it’s pretty explicitly stated in a Twi’lek marriage ceremony that you don’t go off and betray each other whenever you feel like it.”

Vopenir barked out a short, sharp laugh and Quinn winced, looking away. If Vette didn’t know better she would have sworn she saw tears in his eyes.

“Yes,” Vopenir said, and her voice was triumphant. “My people hold the same view.”

“My lord,” Quinn’s voice was strained, pleading. 

“Is it an appropriate time, do you think, Malavai, to explain to the crew the nature of betrayal?”

He shut his eyes, fists clenched. “Please,” he whispered, and Vopenir, to Vette’s horror, started to laugh.

It was a low laugh, deep and rueful, with very little humanity in it. Vette, who had, before Corellia, known her lord to laugh with the freedom and openness of a young girl, was nauseated by it.

“You sound like a sith,” Vette said, getting to her feet. “You sound like Baras.” Vopenir’s head whipped round and she fixed Vette with a smouldering glare.

“Have a care, Vette,” she said.

“My lord,” Quinn came forward, laying a hand on Vopenir’s shoulder. “Do not. She does not understand.”

“You’re damned right I don’t,” Vette said. “You two are creepy and weird and you probably deserve each other. I’m going.”

“No,” Quinn took a deep breath. “No, Vette. It is probably time you did understand.”

Vopenir’s snarl died on her lips and she looked up at Quinn, surprised. “Really, Quinn?” she said.

Quinn swallowed. Raised a hand to his collar and adjusted it, then swallowed.

“Yes, my lord,” he said. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to gather the rest of the crew.” 

Chapter Text

Vette was too angry to talk to either of them for days. Just as well. The Imperial fleet and the Republic chose (or didn’t choose, had Revan manipulate them into) that time to duke it out in the space above Rishi, not caring that they were probably going to crash starships into the bird villages and kill thousands of innocent people in their crossfire.

They were like that. The republic and the empire were just as bad as each other when it came to their stupid wars. 

Quinn was directing the remnants of the Imperial troops with Pierce, doing cleanup and containment of the traitors that Theron’s list had revealed and trying to find out how far the corruption had spread.

Vopenir, on the other hand, was spending a great deal of time with Agent Shan, and Vette wasn’t sure how to feel about that at all.

Despite the fact that they could all now, easily, see the change in Quinn and Vopenir’s behaviour towards each other, a lot of other things about the relationship hadn’t changed. They still shared a cabin. That cabin still wasn’t properly sound proofed.

Vette really didn’t want to think about how those negotiations had proceeded.

They were getting ready to leave Rishi when Vette walked into the straw hut they were using as an operations centre to find Agent Shan.

Since his sojourn in the company of Revan’s torturers, Shan had looked even more dishevelled than usual. Stark bruises stood out against his implants and along his forearms, and Vette was familiar enough with the look of electrical damage from shock weapons. Humans and twi’leks, despite the different colours of their skin, burned in much the same way. 

She rubbed the back of her neck, free of a collar now, but never completely free of the memory of it.

Theron looked up as she entered, raising an eyebrow. “Hey,” he said. “Haven’t seen you around much the past few days. Ready for Yavin 4?”

Vette truly wasn’t sure about Agent Shan. There were twi’leks she knew who were gung-ho about the republic. She knew the current Grand Chancellor was one, although no one Vette had ever known, and not from a family that had anything to do with hers. Personally, she figured one master was pretty much the same as another, and the Empire at least didn’t pretend to give a crap about her people. So she preferred to give the agent a wide berth.

Doubly so now.

“Yeah,” she said, backing up. “All good. We’ll get there before you guys in our ship, probably.”

“Depends on if Jakarro’s stays together this time,” he said, giving a rueful smile, then wincing. Vette felt herself wince in sympathy. “Yeah I know, I look like hell.”

Great, now she looked like an asshole. “No, you look fine. I mean. You look like you’ve been through hell, but you wear it well.” Now he probably thought she was flirting. “I’ve got to go. Uh. My lord is probably waiting…”

Theron’s face changed so abruptly at the mention of Vopenir that Vette really wondered how the hell he’d ever made it as an SIS agent. He had it bad.

The worst thing was, she’d seen that exact same expression on Quinn’s face, back when the two of them had been dancing around each other. Or at least, Quinn had been dancing around. Vopenir had been doing everything but force throw him into her bed and the idiot hadn’t taken any of the hints. So fucking repressed.

Shan was a nice guy. He didn’t deserve this… this thing. Whatever it was going on between Quinn and Vopenir, she was being a shit and an innocent guy was going to get hurt.

She knew what Jaesa would do in this position.

“Well okay,” Vette said to herself.

Shan looked puzzled. “Okay what?” he said. “Vette you’re not making a whole lot of sense today.”

“Welcome to my life,” she muttered. “Look, I know about you and… my lord. Vopenir.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Oh?” he said.

She sighed and sat down. Vopenir was her friend. Her weird, powerful, violent friend. She did nice things for her, like taking off her slave shock collar… and helping her murder her mother’s killer.

She shuddered.

“You’ve got to know it’s dangerous right?” she said. “Hooking up with a sith lord?”

“You travel with her,” Shan pointed out.

“Well yeah. Uh. There are reasons for that. I mean. She’s my friend and she’s…”

Shan’s expression softened and Vette cursed herself. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to do. “It’s dangerous though, right? I mean, apart from all the weird force stuff she’s a little bit…”

He was smiling a little now, but there was a tightness behind his eyes. “Unpredictable?” he said. “Infuriating?”

“Uh…” Vette scrunched up her eyes. Please don’t let Vopenir kill me for this. “Married. Actually.”

The look on his face was so comical Vette couldn’t stop herself from snorting.

“Ah… okay?” he said.

“Look, all right, I probably shouldn’t have told you that but as I said you seem like a pretty nice guy and you’re also … uh… pretty … into my boss…”

He coughed. Vette really, really didn’t want to know why he was blushing like that. “Any way there’s stuff going on with her husband and it’s pretty intense and …”

“Hold up, hold up. Let’s go back to the bit where she’s married.”

“Yeah. To Quinn. And…”

“Captain Quinn? The guy with the….” Shan made a gesture that nearly made Vette snort again. “And the…?”

She liked Shan. If she was going to be honest she liked Shan a lot more than she liked Quinn.

Vopenir would eat him alive.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling a little. “The guy with the, and the.”

Shan closed his eyes and shook his head. “May the force help him,” he said.

Vette chuckled. “You need to know what happened, Agent Shan.”

By the end of the story, Theron was tight lipped and angry, angry in a simple, refreshing way, angry in a way that Vette could understand.

“So this whole thing. It was just… revenge for her then? How very Sith.”

“No!” Vette shook her head. “No she’s… she’s not like that. Not like other sith. She wouldn’t … she wouldn’t be with you if she didn’t care about you she’s a good person. Really.”

“The Emperor's Wrath. A dark lord of the Sith. But a good person?”

“Hey, I’m not the one who’s sleeping with her.”

Shan groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I know. I know. Just call me a disaster, everyone else does.”

“She cares about you,” Vette said again. “I just. She’s not like other sith, but she’s still sith. She takes what she wants and most of the time she doesn’t think about how that’s going to hurt other people. It’s not her fault! She was raised like that.”

“Look, Vette,” Shan said. “I appreciate you telling me all this, and I’ll be sure not to antagonise the Captain at all next time I see him, but we all know this thing wasn’t going to last any way. I’ll just… I’ll keep my distance. Finish it.”

Vette fidgeted, tugging on her tchun. “Uh…”

He grinned. “I won’t tell her you told me,” he said. 

“Thanks.”

Shan looked away, and she felt bad for him. He looked sad. Disappointed. In Vopenir, or himself, she wasn’t sure.

“Do you think she’ll forgive him?” he asked.

“Quinn?” Vette asked. “I’m pretty sure she already has. The rest of us all want to punch him though.”

“I kind of do too.”

“Well, you might be comforted to know that he had to spend two days in a bacta tank after he betrayed her. She threw him against a wall and nearly force choked him to death.”

Shan’s eyes widened and his face turned slightly green. “Uh… that’s… nice.”

Sometimes Vette forgot that Vopenir’s behaviour was a little extreme, at least to non sith.

“She let him live,” she said hastily.

“Yeah,” Shan said. 

She stood up, checking her blasters automatically. “Well. Uh. Sorry I had to be the one to give you bad news,” she said. 

Shan shrugged. “I’m good at bad news,” he said.

She opened her mouth and blurted out the next question without thinking. “Do you love her?”

Shan barked out a shocked laugh. “Oh force help me,” he said. “I hope not.”

Then he looked away. And Vette felt more sorry for him than ever.

Chapter Text

Theron could keep it together relatively well when he was in pain, it was something the SIS taught, obviously, and Theron had always had a high pain tolerance. But there was a limit to how much he could do with a cracked rib and burns in places that were doubtless going to get infected. especially when he was living with the possibility of said rib puncturing a lung. His mother had been looking at him with keen, suspicious and force sensitive eyes since she got to Rishi and she would probably take any opportunity she could to keep him out of the fight on Yavin 4, not because she was being maternal, no, he would never be stupid enough to attribute those sorts of feelings to Satele, but because she was being scrupulously, maddeningly fair minded.

So he couldn’t go to a republic medic to get himself fixed up. Not now most of the fleet were here. Things got back to his mother, she had ears everywhere, or at least a sixth sense (ha, who was he kidding, the force) that told her when he’d been interacting with the men and women under his command. If he went to the republic medics and demanded the sort of treatment he knew he needed she’d find out about it.

Sleeping with Vopenir had its advantages other than pleasure, it meant he could come and go in the Imperial camps without much more than a cursory glance. It was well known that should he come to harm there Vopenir would take offence, and Imperials were hard wired not to offend Sith, not if they valued their skins. 

He couldn’t say he was actually pleased about their relationship becoming common knowledge, especially given Vette’s recent revelations about Vopenir’s… domestic arrangements, but he wasn’t above taking advantage of them to make sure he didn’t miss out on the upcoming fight against Revan.

There was a medical supply tent set up quite close to the bay where Vopenir’s ship was landed, and he let himself inside and started rummaging through kolto packs and bacta patches, pulling what he needed out and setting them aside.

“An an enlisted soldier caught stealing from Imperial supplies would face immediate suspension, pending court martial,” a voice from behind him said. “But you are an agent of the Republic, and shooting you in the back would not be questioned at all.”

Malavai Quinn.

Theron put on his most charming smile and turned to face the Captain, hands in the air. “Come on, Malavai,” he said. “You’d much rather shoot me from the front.”

“This is true,” Quinn said. “I would derive a great deal of pleasure from watching your face as you died.”

“I’m only sorry that I’d then have to miss your face as Vopenir killed you for doing it.”

The skin around Quinn’s lips went white and although he didn’t move, exactly, Theron had a very strong sense of how close he was to pulling the trigger on his blaster.

One day, Theron was going to have to stop encouraging people to kill him.

“Do not,” Quinn said softly, “speak her name.”

“Vopenir?” Theron said, raising one eyebrow. “It is her name isn’t it? Don’t you call her that?”

“Be silent or I will kill you,” Quinn took a step forward, and while Theron wasn’t generally threatened by the man as a rule, he suddenly got a sense of exactly why he was part of Vopenir’s crew.

He was tightly controlled, utterly repressed, but bubbling underneath was enough passion to drown a person. He wondered if that was what had attracted Vopenir to him in the first place. You would have been wasted as a Jedi. All this passion needs an outlet.

Theron opened his mouth to answer, then shut it and shrugged. If Quinn wanted him to be silent, he wasn’t going to argue, except that Quinn hadn’t lowered the blaster, and Theron still needed supplies to fix his injuries. Finally he made an impatient sound. “So,” he said. 

“I told you to be silent. I am debating what to do with you.”

“How about you let me go? It really is the only option.”

“Vopenir need not know it was I who killed you,” Quinn said. “There are several junior officers to whom the act could be assigned."

Vopenir would almost certainly kill whoever took that blame, Theron had to admit it. No matter how much he… liked her, and he did like her, that sort of thing wasn’t going to go unpunished. 

“So you’d lie to her about it, would you?” Theron said. “I don’t know why that surprises me at all.”

“You know nothing of us,” Quinn said violently. Ah. Hit a nerve there.

“Come on, Quinn. None of this really has anything to do with me and you know it. You have to sort it out with her. I’m just… the tool she’s using to get back at you. You know. For trying to kill her.”

Theron thought he looked pained. 

“She told you about it,” he said.

Saying yes would hurt the man, that was clear enough. But Theron wasn’t out to hurt Quinn, at least not individually. As a member of the empire  he could go fuck himself and have fun doing it, but this business with Vopenir wasn’t an Imperial entanglement, it was just… a great kriffing mess of typical Shan proportions.

“No. She didn’t.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow, confused, then made a disgusted sound. “Vette,” he spat out.

“The fact that your sith lord attracts the occasional decent hearted person should tell you a little bit more about how compassion and understanding perhaps aren’t the evils that the rest of you empire types seem to think they are.”

“She is a fool.”

“She was doing it to help you,” Theron said. “Rightly figured that if I found out the woman I was fucking was actually married I might hesitate before doing it again.”

Quinn winced at the language. Stars, could the man be any more repressed. “And yet you continue to…”

“Look, I’m trying here. She’s enthusiastic and it’s difficult to get a quiet moment to break it off with Revan trying to end the damned universe. Also there’s the slight chance that she’ll choke me to death when I try, forgive me for being a little attached to my life.”

“You don’t want to break it off with her,” Quinn said. “Otherwise you would have done it already.”

Theron rubbed the back of his neck. Vopenir was unpredictable, frustrating and cruel. Yet she fought as hard as anyone he’d ever met against the chaos that Revan represented. She did not slaughter innocents, merely killed whenever it was practical.

Theron didn’t want to admit how often that could be. Didn’t want to admit that he killed when it was practical as well. That he felt bad about it wasn’t necessarily something to be proud of. Vopenir didn’t feel bad about it, because she recognised it was necessary.

She’d called him hypocritical.

“If you feel bad about it,” she’d said. “Don’t do it.”

He wasn’t entirely sure if that helped.

“Okay. So maybe I don’t. Maybe I think she deserves better than someone who puts the needs of the Empire above her life, who makes promises to her and breaks them because they’re no longer convenient. I’ll be gone, when this business is finished, when I’m back with the Republic and you go off to do weird and horrible shit to races who’ve done nothing to you, make it up to her then, in the meantime maybe I’ll convince her that she’s better off somewhere she won’t be stabbed in the back the first time it’s convenient by her own husband…”

“You don’t understand her at all,” Quinn said, smiling slightly now, but his eyes were cold and his voice shook. 

Theron thought of her skin,and the brush of her fingertips over his lips, the smile in her eyes and the sound of her voice as she came apart under his hands. He didn’t try to hide the expressions that those thoughts prompted on his face, and he smirked.

“Oh, I think I understand her well enough,” he drawled.

Quinn’s face didn’t change at all as he shot him in the leg. 

Theron collapsed. “Fucking… Imps!” he managed not to scream, but it was a close run thing. 

“Help yourself to my supplies,” Quinn said, as Theron (managing not to cry out — what was one more injury on top of all the others he’d sustained at the hands of Revan and his torturers) crawled his way back up to the bench, panting. “And pray I never see you again.”

“Great,” Theron ground out. “Thanks.”

The Captain spun on his heel and left, and Theron let himself scream once he was sure the man was out of earshot.

You’re a fucking idiot, Theron Shan, he said to himself as he limped to a chair and started stripping his pants away from the wound. Quinn had been considerate and missed the artery, but he was still bleeding through the smoked flesh and it still hurt like fucking hell. He was going to have to come up with a story as to why he had a new blaster wound, too, to explain this to Vopenir, something other than “your lunatic husband shot me”. And then he was going to have to find some way to say “we need to stop sleeping together” that didn’t end in him being force choked to death. 

Right now, he figured he’d rather face Revan.

Chapter Text

Bacta and kolto only did so much, and there was a particular haze that Theron was all too familiar with after a heavy dose of either. Luckily he was pretty good at covering the effects. He didn’t like to boast about the number of times he’d been drugged and interrogated. Half of the implants in his head were there to mute the worse effects.

Being shot in the leg was pretty heavy duty, though, and getting around without an obvious limp was difficult. So he moved slowly and stopped when he needed to, hoping people wouldn’t need him too much in the rush to get to Yavin 4.

That’s why he couldn’t run when his mother found him.

“Theron,” her voice shouldn’t have been so familiar. It certainly shouldn’t make him feel things. She was a shadowy figure, a tall, dark and mysterious person who checked in on him and Master Zho for no reason he’d been able to work out until he’d learned the truth. She wasn’t his mother. Not in any of the ways that mattered.

“Hello Master Satele,” he said, not setting the data pad he’d been studying down, not even looking up.

Not even a little bit.

“Theron I need to talk to you before we leave,” she sat opposite him, and he forced himself to look up and meet her eyes.

She looked the way she always looked. He didn’t know why he expected her to look otherwise.

“I’m here,” he said. “Talk away.”

“There’s been… talk. In the camp. About you and the Commander.”

Great.

“That’s what everyone’s calling her now, is it?” he put the pad down. If there had been a ranked list of what conversations he didn’t want to have with his mother this one would be at the top.

“She earned the title, apparently. Darth Marr seems very confident in her abilities, and we’ve all seen what she can accomplish.”

Theron’s hormones weren’t under perfect control at the moment, so he blamed them for the sudden vision he had of Vopenir’s green, strong fingers, wrapped around his dick as she smirked at him.

Not the kind of thing he needed to be thinking about, not when his leg was currently throbbing from a blaster bolt delivered by said Commander’s husband. Not while his mother was sitting across from him with that look on her face.

“That we have,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “So what have people been saying?”

“That you’re sleeping with her,” Satele said.

Theron didn’t know why he’d expected her to be circumspect about it. She was only his mother after all.

“Okay, yeah. So what’s that got to do with you?”

“Theron I know you know that Jedi aren’t supposed to form attachments...:”

“Last I knew I wasn’t a jedi.”

“No, no of course you’re not,” of course I’m not a jedi “and I don’t have any right to tell you what to do with…”

He stood up. Winced. Covered it. Hopefully.

“No,” he said. “You don’t.”

She looked chagrined, a little, but she stood and faced him, because that was how she was. She didn’t back down. She didn’t apologise for what she was, or what she did. That wasn’t her way. “Theron I’m not trying to tell you what to do, I just… want you to be careful.”

“I really don’t think you need to be giving advice about my personal life,” he said. 

“She’s a sith, Theron.”

“I’m aware.”

“They use emotions for…”

“I know mother. I really do.” He could count on his fingers the conversations he’d had with his parents. So many of them involved his personal life. If he knew anyone with normal parents he could ask him if that was the way it went all the time.

“You need to be careful,” she said. “She’s going to try to manipulate you.” He could remember the precise taste of her lips on his tongue. “She’ll use you for her own ends.” The curve of her hips under his hands, the way her legs hooked around his as he buried himself in her depths. “Passion is a tool for them and they’ll exploit it.”

You would have been wasted as a Jedi.

“Are you done?” Theron asked. He was grateful for the datapad he had picked up, since he was suddenly, very much in need of a shield in the crotch area.

Satele’s brows drew together and she sighed. “I wish you’d be more careful,” she said.

“I think it’s time we got to Yavin 4, don’t you?” he said.

She turned away. “Of course.”

He left, making his way out of the command tent, totally not intentionally heading towards Vopenir’s ship. He hoped Satele wasn’t watching. In case she was, he made sure not to limp.

He paid for it after.

Of course.

Chapter Text

Part something. I’ll go through and catalogue these properly at some point I promise.

Theron prided himself on being able to think on his feet, years of service in the SIS, years of operations meticulously planned going wrong (sometimes in the first few seconds of their execution) meant he never truly needed to know what he was doing at any given moment. You bounced, from one situation to another, you saw opportunities, you took them, you hoped they weren’t disastrous, you rolled with it when they were.

Right now thinking on his feet was way less painful than actually being on them, which was the major reason he ended up leaning against the hull of a certain sith lord’s ship trying to catch his breath instead of striding inside like… some sort of conquering hero, the way he’d wanted to when he’d stormed off from the conversation with his mother.

In his head, the plan had been simple. Storm away from Satele and her advice about his relationships, stride up the gangway into the ship of the most powerful sith lord in the galaxy, sweep her into his arms, kiss her… and possibly do other things as well since we’re talking about kissing.

Heroic. Dramatic.

Here he was, though, both hands against the metal of the ship’s hull, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come and trying to stop himself from puking his guts up all over the nice, shiny floor of the ship of the woman he…

...the woman he…

“Shan, you look like shit.”

“Hi, Vette.”

“Also you’re showing weakness in front of an entire campful of Imperials. They’re going to come for your blood, you know that right?” Strong blue hands took his arm and gently guided him inside. He could forgive Vette a lot of things. She was the only one on Vopenir’s ship who’d always been unconditionally kind to him, for one thing.

Including Vopenir.

“I’m mending,” he said.

“Tell it to a wampa, spy man,” Vette said. “You look like shit and you’re full of it.”

“I like you too.”

She led him to the galley, helping him slide into a booth and fetching him a cup of caf which smelled a shipload better than any of the supplies he had back on his ship. “There’s drugs in that,” she said, after he took the first sip. He hesitated, then shrugged and took a bigger gulp. A few painkillers wouldn’t kill him.

“You actually look worse than you did when I saw you earlier. What happened?”

“Blaster bolt to the leg,” he said.

Vette tipped her head and her lekku made one of those complicated movements that he would recognise more easily if he wasn’t half drugged and half dead. Amusement of some sort. Twi’leks were the most sarcastic race in the galaxy, if you knew how to read them, and the SIS were big on making sure their spies knew all the different variants. Of course he’d learned a lot from Tiff’th, too. There was a twi’lek who knew her way around a physical insult.

“We stopped fighting the Revanites two days ago,” Vette said. “Who did you piss off?” He gave her a look and she rolled her eyes. “Goddess you fucking idiot,” she said. “Don’t tell…”

“Don’t tell Vopenir. It’s okay I’m not going to.” He glanced about, a little hopefully. “Is she here?”

“She’s in the medbay with Jaesa. We’re prepping to leave in two hours. Don’t you have a ship to be on?”

“I…” he shut his eyes, then sighed and stood up. “Yeah. I do. Tell her I’m…”

“I can sense when you’re on board, Theron,” the woman in question walked into the galley, “tell me what?” Vette shot Theron a grin before slipping out without another word. He probably should have been worried that other more violent members of the crew might be hanging around, waiting to shoot him in his other leg, but it was difficult to think when Vopenir was in the room.

She crowded everything out.

“Tell her I’m looking forward to Yavin 4,” he said brightly, smiling what he hoped was his most charming smile. Then he blanched.

“You’re not well,” she said, reaching out to him, sliding one hand across his shoulders and letting it rest on his neck, strong, calloused fingers gently massaging the skin there.

It was all he could not to let out a groan.

“I’ve been better,” he said.

“I thought you were going to get patched up after that last fight,” she said, then leaned down and took both of his hands in hers, pulling him upright. “Come with me and I’ll…”

He really should have done something about his leg. Something better about it. Because it gave out when he tried to walk and he stumbled and crashed against the wall, pinning her up against it.

Accidental.

Totally.

“Theron Shan,” she said, amusement and affection heavy in her voice. His face was buried in her neck and his leg was throbbing with six different drugs and five different types of pain, but the feel of her next to him was enough for him to consider this particular disaster less than disastrous. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were trying to seduce me.”

He breathed in her ear, then threw caution to the winds and nibbled on the lobe. “Really?” he said. “I thought I’d already managed that.”

Her soft laughter did things to him. He used his face to nudge hers up towards him and kissed her, twining his fingers with hers and leaning into it.

Less than five hours ago he’d promised her husband he was going to end this… this thing. Whatever it was they were doing. Right now he couldn’t think beyond how soft and pliable her lips were under his. They’d kissed many, many times, over the past few days… weeks… he wasn’t even sure how long it had been, but those kisses had always been rushed, hasty moments of passion, stolen between violence. This… this was different.

He took his time, exploring her mouth, reaching up one hand to cup her face and tilt it so he had better access, pulling back and mouthing along her chin as his thumb stroked the skin of her cheek, and his hand moved to cup the back of her neck. He moved back to her mouth, kissing her again, surprised that she hadn’t taken control yet, hadn’t given way to passion and need and whatever it had been that had driven her to seek him out like this in the first place.

He had a few ideas about that, now. He wouldn’t pretend she was here for him, not precisely not in the way he wanted. But he’d take what she was willing to give, when it felt like this. How could he not?

When he pulled back she was uncharacteristically silent, blinking up at him with wide, dark eyes. Contemplative.

“Speechless?” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “Malavai is in our quarters,” she said.

He wanted to pretend the sudden drop in his stomach was not because of disappointment. “I should go,” he said, stepping back, letting his hand fall from her face.

“Theron,” she said.

“No, this is stupid,” he said. “I knew it was stupid when it started. I’m sorry I…”

Her low chuckle surprised him with its bitterness. “Do not apologise to me,” she said. “That would presuppose anything that has happened has been out of my control. Be absolutely certain, Agent, NOTHING that has occurred here has done so without my explicit consent.”

He clenched his jaw. “You wanted him to find out.”

Her lip curled and whatever softness he’d seen in her expression was gone as though it had never been. “He deserves far more pain than this,” she said.

“Did you think that I might perhaps want a say in it?” he was angry now. “I don’t like to make a habit of fucking other men’s wives… If I’d known about it before...”

She shoved him back, snarling. “I am not his anything. Any more than I am yours.”

He caught his balance against the djarik table, breathing heavily. This… this wasn’t according to the plan. Not at all.

“You still love him,” he heard himself say.

She made a disgusted sound throwing up her hands. “My feelings are still valid even when they are utterly...” Her shoulders slumped. “Utterly stupid.”

Why did his heart hurt for her so much?

“I need… I need to go,” he said, finally. She put her hands on her hips, glaring at him. He wasn’t going anywhere, he realised. He was standing there like an idiot. “I really should.”

“What if I ask you not to?”

He hated that his heart thumped so hard against his chest at those words. “Then… I wouldn’t?” he said

She crossed the small distance between them, using both her hands to pull his head down and kiss him. At first it was familiar, the way he remembered, the passion, the violence.

Then she pulled back, looking at him for a moment. A tiny shake of the head. Her fingers spread outwards on the back of his head, gently exerting pressure to pull him closer to her again. She opened her mouth and pressed it to his, kissing softly and slowly.

Desire had always come in sharp, undeniable stabs when he’d been with her before now, but as they kissed this time, it was slow, an inevitable build. She tugged him backwards, directing him with careful hands and, he suspected, nudges from the force, until they were in a darker room, away from the common areas of the ship. A cargo hold, he figured, from the space and the crates piled everywhere. She keyed the lock on the door before pushing him into the room, kissing him again, running her hands over his shoulders and his stomach.

“We need to finish this,” he said, kissing her neck, moving his hands to undo her loose robe.

“No,” she said, settling back onto a crate, opening the robe at her neck and letting it fall around her waist. He let out a small groan at the sight of her breasts, the dip of her waist and the flare of her hips. “We don’t need to finish anything.”

He got rid of his jacket and pants as quickly as he could manage, while she watched, naked from the crate. “You’re injured far more badly than you’re letting on,” she said. “I can help, if you’ll let me.”

“There’s really only one way I’m looking for help from you right now,” he said roughly, reaching for her.

She smirked. “It will help that as well,” she said, taking his reaching hand and pressing it to her, guiding it over her skin and lower until his fingers were between her legs.

He knew full well what to do with them, there, and took a great deal of pride in the way she gasped as he moved.

He’d been healed by force users before. Master Zho had despaired of him ever managing to get through a day’s training without some sort of injury, and when it got down to it, it was easier to heal a squalling kid with the force than to make them take a bacta patch somewhere they didn’t want it.

This didn’t feel like the warmth of Master Zho’s touch at all. This was like fire, settling in his core and moving outwards, always just on this side of pain, always with the possibility of tipping over.

She was more gentle with him than she’d been in the past, slower and more thorough. It came to him, when he was gasping under her, close to the edge, the pain in his leg and his implants fading to insignificance, that she was saying goodbye. Giving him a gift -- aside from the healing -- of a part of herself that he’d never seen before, and probably wouldn’t see again.

The force liked to play with his life, throwing him this way and that ever since the day he’d been born. It would be a cosmic joke, to realise right now that he did love her, and that there was a possibility, however slight, that she loved him, too.

Good thing he wasn’t going to do that.

Yep. Very good thing.

Chapter Text

He was allowed in his lord’s quarters -- that much had been made clear very shortly after the… incident. After his betrayal. Indeed, she had ordered him, imperiously, to stop, on the day he’d returned from the bacta tank, as he’d attempted to gather his belongings and move back to the crew quarters. Do you want everyone to know what you’ve done, this soon, Malavai? she’d said, one perfect eyebrow arched over one luminous purple eye. He’d dropped his things and stammered out a reply, expecting to be ordered to sleep on the floor.

He’d done worse, in his service. He would endure it.

She’d pushed him down onto the bed when he’d tried. Curled up beside him and slept the night -- somehow -- while he’d lain there with eyes wide open, wondering what she had planned for him.

He loved her, but he did not doubt she had some kind of revenge planned. He knew her too well.

Yet life had continued almost normally for months. It was the fourth night away from the tank when she’d sighed impatiently and pulled him to her, using her hands and her mouth to bring him to the peak of desire before taking her own pleasure from him. He’d nearly sobbed with relief when they’d finished, burying his head in her familiar scent, mouthing her skin and stroking her hair as she slept. He had dared to hope that they would be what they had been before, that his betrayal had been an unfortunate blip in the path of their lives that could be forgotten.

Of course he had been wrong.

He was in the final stages of stocktake and calibration, seated on their shared bed with a datapad in his hand. He could not be off Rishi soon enough, and the only hesitation he had was that they were leaving for another... joint mission... with Theron Shan and his entourage of republic goons and incompetents.

He wished, wholeheartedly, that he’d shot the man in the heart.

“My love, we’re almost ready for departure,” he said absently as she returned, not looking up, finishing his final calculations.

“Excellent,” she said. He wasn’t sure what it was about her voice that made him look up, but he wished he hadn’t when he did.

The sleeping robe she wore, usually only when they were in transit, was mussed around her shoulders, creased in places, and the neat bun of her long dark hair was equally disrupted. Full lips were kiss bitten and swollen a deep, dark green and the flush under her cheeks was unmistakable.

“Brush my hair, Malavai,” she said, tugging the tie out and letting dark waves cascade over her shoulders. “I fear it has become tangled.”

It was very difficult to see anything other than red.

“As you wish, my lord,” he said, setting aside the datapad. He padded to the fresher and collected her hairbrush with a hand that shook only slightly.

When he returned she was lying on her stomach on the bed, completely naked, idly flipping through his work with one finger.

“We are short on medical supplies for this run, Malavai,” she said.

“I wonder why that could be,” he said under his breath. She looked over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow raised, and he clenched his teeth and sat on the bed next to her. She wriggled closer in ways that were more than distracting so he could reach her -- a familiar position, comforting and domestic, and he started to work the bristles through the long, coarse strands of her hair.

She had always loved this, reacting to his fingers and the brush in her hair like a pet being stroked, although he’d always likened her more to an ice cat, purring and quiet until she chose to turn and pounce.

Before his betrayal, he had looked forward to those pounces. They had led to some of the most pleasurable moments of his life. Now… they did not.

She reached out a hand and idly stroked his thigh as he worked, still flipping through his calculations with her other one, resting on one elbow. He shifted, trying to ignore his rising arousal. She was sated -- undoubtedly Shan had… satisfied her in their encounter, she would not be looking for more from him. This was calculated, to make him ache for her, to make him wish he had never betrayed her.

As though he could ever wish for that more.

“Your work is, as always, impeccable, Malavai,” she said finally, pushing the datapad away and lying fully on her back, stretching her arms above her head. He momentarily closed his eyes against the glory that was revealed, before carefully placing her brush on the sidetable and nodding.

“You have my thanks my lord,” he said stiffly, standing. “It is, as always, a pleasure to be appreciated.”

A low chuckle, then, at a frequency that made a small, fragile thing inside him snap. He stopped, at the doorway, looked back at her. Her eyes were heavy lidded, her hands idly resting behind her head. She was hard muscled and scarred, his lord, though small, but he knew every inch of that green skin, had tasted it, had heard her cries of desire as he brought her to the brink and beyond pleasure. He could remember exactly how it felt to be buried in her depths, to know precisely what it was to be owned by someone willingly, to love to the point of being consumed.

And he had known all of that before he had willingly attempted to take her life.

“I believe it is time I moved back into crew quarters, my lord,” he blurted out.

She cocked her head, shifting up onto her elbows to look at him. It took him a moment to gather courage enough to look into her eyes, and when he did he saw something in them that he’d never seen before.

“You would leave me now, Quinn?” she said. “Have I finally driven you away?”

His lip curled, anger tightening in his belly. “Have you not been trying?”

She was silent at that, and he took it for assent. He shut his eyes, looking down and breathing deeply through his nostrils. There was nothing more to it, and he turned to go.  

A strong hand took hold of his elbow and turned him to face her. He had not even heard her stand or come towards him. She could be stealthy when she chose, although as a rule she preferred brute force.

She was a good deal shorter than he, but the strength of her grip was enough to crush windpipes and fracture bone, with the dark side behind her and the power of the force --  he was nothing but dust in her wake.

“Do you love me, Quinn?” she asked, searching his face with her eyes. He was imagining the vulnerability in that question, wanting to see something that was not there. The answer did not matter to her.

It did matter to him.

“More than life,” he said softly. She nodded, solemn faced, and pulled his head down and kissed him. It was soft and sweet and full of things he’d never sought from her, never even known he might desire. He moaned and moved closer, intending to gather her into his arms, push her back onto the bed, kiss away all the hurt he had dealt her, but she pulled back and shook her head.

“Know that I love you also,” she said, one hand reaching up to cup his face. “But I can never forgive you. And everything that we are will be coloured by that, from now until the day you die. So it is your choice, Quinn, as it has always been your choice. You may love me, but do you hate yourself enough to stay?”

He didn’t trust his voice, it wanted to beg, to plead, but for what? She had given her terms, and they were more cruel than anything he could have imagined, any vision he could have concocted of her entwined in the arms of the republic spy. She would leave this decision to him. She would make him the arbiter of his own misery.

“My lord…” he choked out.

“I will never send you from my side,” she continued, “this will always, and forever, be your choice. You must choose yourself over me, Malavai Quinn, if you want this to end, and know that if you do I will not stand in your way.”

She dropped her hand and waited. His own hands clenched and unclenched beside him. “My lord..” he said again, the hot shame of tears on his cheeks. “Vopenir…”

“You are strong enough for this, Malavai,” she said, and she put her hand on his chest, pushing him backwards and out through the door. “As am I.”

She keyed the door shut.

Chapter Text

He’d thought she’d be fine - he’d seen her take on entire squadrons of revanite soldiers with nothing but her lightsaber and a whole lot of luck, it seemed ridiculous that one man could inflict so much damage on her - on all of them, to be honest. Marr was limping, Shae Visla had coolant fluid leaking out of parts of her armor he was sure shouldn’t need it in the first place, even Jakarro was subdued and had no objections to Lana bandaging particularly nasty burn on his forearm. Satele had been knocked about pretty badly, especially near the end, but she was on her feet by virtue of the force, he guessed.

Once Revan had merged and gone off to do whatever it was force ghosts did with their time he turned to her, grinning, expecting a smile in return, something. She’d been different since they’d got to Yavin 4. Distant. He’d seen no sign of the rest of her crew, either, Quinn and Vette and Pierce and the others, all of them were engaged elsewhere - her ship had simply dropped her off with a small amount of supplies and flown away.

The mission had taken all of their time up until just before the fight with Revan. He’d… tried to say something to her then. Tried to let her know that there were feelings he wasn’t dealing with in any sensible way.

When he was on the job he was good at words. It really didn’t translate into his personal life.

Now Revan was gone and the Emperor was probably floating around somewhere incorporeal plotting all of their deaths and turning to Vopenir, wanting something from her that might make this whole day better, he was the first to see her blanch and fall.

He wasn’t fast enough to catch her, of course he wasn’t. Darth Marr was the one who stopped her fall, with the force, before crossing the distance between the two of them swiftly and scooping her in his arms.

There was the unmistakable smell of charred flesh.

“Quickly,” Marr said. “The shuttle. She needs healing.”

Satele was there before Theron had even taken two steps, and the three of them rushed to the shuttle, no one else questioning that they took priority. Theron slid into the pilot’s seat, starting her up. “Which camp?” he asked shortly.

“Ours,” Satele said, earning a sharp look from Marr. She raised an eyebrow. “I am a force healer of the highest calibre, Darth Marr. You will find no one else on this moon to match me.”

“Acknowleged,” Marr said, and Theron’s estimation of the man went up a notch. “You will not mind if I accompany you? Leaving the Grand Master of the Jedi Order alone with a such a prominent Sith would be foolish.”

“She’s hardly in a position to hurt anyone,” Theron said.

Marr chuckled and Theron put that sound up with the four most creepy things he’d ever heard in his life. “Believe me, I am more worried for Darth Vopenir in this case.”

“I am not so shortsighted Marr,” Satele said. “We need her. The Emperor is still out there somewhere.”

It was like being stuck in a speeder with squabbling parents. Or at least what he imagined that must be like.

Just when he thought things couldn’t get any more creepy his brain had to throw that image up at him.

He guided the shuttle down to the landing pad, unbuckling himself with hands that were shaking, slightly. Marr scooped her unconscious form into his arms again and moved with the sort of speed Theron would have associated with a much younger man, not that he was exactly sure how old Marr was, and Satele followed close behind, her face oddly blank in that way that Theron had come to recognise as someone drawing on the force. He followed, determined not to let Vopenir wake up to the two of them, to have a friendly face and not a blank mask or her greatest enemy to reassure her.

They ignored him until Vopenir was laid out on a medical cot. Satele had one hand on her shoulder, eyes closed, while Marr gave orders to the flustered medical staff.

“She’s taken a saber wound to the side,” Marr said gruffly. “See that she lives, or face my wrath.”

“Darth Marr,” Satele said, chiding, still with her eyes closed. “You will frighten them.”

“That was precisely my intention,” he said, standing near the tent’s entrance with his arms folded over his chest.

A medic moved next to Satele, examining Vopenir’s side, surprisingly undaunted by Darth Marr’s threats. “We’ll need to strip her clothes, some of the cloth is fused to the wound,” she said, and Theron raised an eyebrow. She spoke with the precise accent of an Imperial, one born on Dromund Kaas no less, despite wearing the colours of… oh yes, of course, Havoc Squad.

It was a fucking family affair all around. “We’ll need a dissolving agent,” the medic continued, waving a hand at another trooper, who started to rummage through supplies.

“Yes, Captain Dorne,” one of the other medics said, and rushed to do her bidding.

“You,” the Captain… Dorne, said, pointing at Theron, “help me strip her.”

Theron didn’t like to acknowledge how familiar he was with that particular task, and it was hardly the time to dwell, so he simply followed orders, ignoring the slight raise of Satele’s eyebrow (her eyes were still fucking closed) as he did so.

Vopenir was out so thoroughly that for the first time Theron found the space to be actually frightened, not just objectively worried. There was a tinge to her green skin he’d never seen, and the wound that was revealed once her tunic was stripped from her torso was worse than anything he’d seen someone survive before now.

It was a miracle she was still alive.

Dorne sucked in a breath once the burn was visible, and shoved Theron out of the way. Satele spoke then, low and soft, while Dorne listened with a skeptical tilt to her head, obviously not used to working with a Jedi healer, but his mother had a way with people, and before long Dorne was nodding, gathering equipment, efficient and professional in ways that let Theron’s heart, which up until then had been suspended in his throat, start beating again, hard and fast in his chest.

She was going to be all right. She had to be all right.

“You and I can do nothing here,” Marr said, one hand on his shoulder. Theron hadn’t even heard him approach, and resented being touched, but he had to acknowledge the man was right, and let himself be backed out of the tent, breathing hard.

“Where are her crew?” he asked. “They need to know she’s been injured.”

“Indisposed,” Marr said shortly. “I have them completing a different mission. In the Outer Rim.”

Theron frowned, glancing at Marr, not bothering to hide his suspicions.

“Lord Vopenir requested it,” he said. “She wished them to be far away from the current difficulties. She is… fond of them.”

Pierce would have objected at being kept away from the fight, Theron had met the man and seen enough like him to know that. Broonmark was the same, terrifying in a battle like most of his species.

Who knew what Jaesa thought. The only times he’d ever seen Vopenir’s apprentice she’d glowered at him like the most frightening of Sith, and he’d never heard her speak a word. He’d thought it best to avoid her, just as he knew it was better to avoid Quinn, although that hadn’t gone so great for him, back on Rishi.

Still, Theron was glad for Vette, who wasn’t a fighter, whose heart was too good and too true to be stuck on that ship with so many people steeped in the dark side. He’d seen more of Vette -- or at least, exchanged more words with her -- than he had of Vopenir, and he sometimes thought that his own picture of Vopenir was in part painted by a naive blue hand who could only see the woman who set her free. Perhaps he was just as much at fault, there. He could admit that he wanted to see that part of Vopenir -- the part that cared about innocent lives lost and what was right and fair -- rather than the other parts.

Of course these days he was willing to admit (in a dark quiet spot where he kept most of his self reflection) that when he’d first kissed Vopenir, back on Manaan, however long ago, ninety percent of his reasoning was “this will really piss off my mother”, even if he’d managed to convince himself at the time that he was just… passing the time. Amusing himself. He sighed and rubbed the area around his implants.

Healthy, stable, loving relationships. They were a Theron Shan specialty all right.

“Your feelings are a turmoil,” Marr said. Theron had been trying very hard to forget that he was there.

“Oh yeah?” he said. “It’s a good thing you’re here to tell me these things. I hadn’t noticed.”

“You are glib. And you are utterly unaware of what it means to be involved with Sith. Yet she values you.”

“Who, Vopenir?”

“It is obvious to any of us strong in the force. There is a connection between you.”

Theron bit his lip on a reply that would have bordered on cheeky. He settled for an uncomfortable “mm hmmm” instead. Darth Marr’s expressions were impossible to read, of course, behind that mask, but Theron thought he could hear an eye roll in his reply. “Your mother does, also, although I understand she wishes most fervently for me not to be aware of your biological attachment.”

“Yeah she’s kind of like that with everyone.”

Marr chuckled. “In my case I believe she thinks I will use you against her. Which is, of course, a possibility.”

“You know, you’re really creepy, and I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to make me do or feel right now so if you could just... go away that would be nice.”

“As a courtesy,” Marr said, and Theron could have sworn he was smirking now, “I am delivering you a warning, Agent Shan. Right now you are a pawn in a bigger game, and threads stretch to you from far too many powerful people for the force to ignore. You are in danger, not because of your skills, which are… debatable. But because of who cares for you.”

Theron had never really considered himself to have an over-abundance of affection in his life. Once Master Zho had passed he’d resigned himself to being… tolerated. Sometimes. If he was lucky. He wasn’t even sure that Satele or Jace liked him that much, too caught up in what he meant to their relationship rather than who he was as a person. Darth Marr’s assertion -- that he mattered  -- was difficult to process. “Wait… you think… I’m…” he stopped, looking up into the expressionless planes of Darth Marr’s mask. “I honestly think you’re vastly overestimating my importance.”

That chuckle again. It was getting less creepy, or Theron was just too confused to be frightened by it. “Do not pretend not to be flattered, Agent Shan. And be sure to attend to Darth Vopenir’s needs when she awakens. I believe she has things she wishes to say to you.”

Theron threw up his hands. “Do any of you stay in your own heads? Ever?”

“When you know your own mind, Agent Shan, it is far easier to see the motivations of others.” The leader of the dark council stalked away towards the shuttle, on some errand of his own that was beyond Theron.

He had a witty remark on his tongue but shouting after the retreating back of a sith lord would be undignified, and a hand on his arm -- Captain Dorne’s hand he realised -- stopped him from embarrassing himself any more than he already had that day.

“Agent Shan,” Dorne said. “She’s awake. And she’s asking for you.”

Chapter Text

Captain Dorne led him into the medical tent, all brisk efficiency and military armour. “We don’t have enough kolto tanks free,” she said, “although she really should be in one, she’s insisting she doesn’t want it. Master Satele has done an excellent job, however, she is past all danger. Just weary.” Theron nodded, swallowing. “Don’t tire her,” Dorne said. “And… “ she glanced at him “be careful, Agent Shan. Sith are dangerous.”

Theron resisted the urge to roll his eyes, Dorne was very earnest and possibly spoke from experience, given her accent. But the sort of danger that Vopenir represented to him was very different from the sort of danger that he knew Dorne was imagining. Or at least, he figured when Dorne thought “Dangerous Sith Lord” she wasn’t trying to work out ways to have sex with them in the back room of their ship while their husband was still onboard.

Unless he’d read Dorne completely wrong.

He really need to get his head screwed on properly.

“All these republic medics think I’m going to force choke them if they try to help me,” Vopenir said as he walked in.

“Are you?” he asked.

“Very funny,” she was sitting up, propped on regulation pillows that Theron was sure were needed elsewhere. He guessed that the republic medics were trying to make sure she had nothing to complain about.

Despite the extras, she was still off colour, the luminous green of her skin dulled, hollows under her eyes, the hands on the coverlet of the bed looking thin and stretched.

Still, she wouldn’t be joking like that unless she felt better, and just seeing her there, conscious, after the wound she’d taken, made him grin.

“Great great grandad really did a number on you, didn’t he,” he said.

The breath she let out was both exasperated and fond. “Your family needs some schooling in etiquette when dealing with someone of my position, certainly.’

He slid into the camp chair next to her cot and hesitantly reached out a hand. She grabbed it, with surprising strength and brought it to her lips, before letting his hand, and hers, drop into her lap.

“Your ship isn’t here,” he said.

She frowned. “No.”

“Darth Marr seemed to think they were otherwise occupied but I can get them a message with the code you gave me…”

She shook her head. “No. They’ll be here to pick me up soon enough.”

“Tell me they weren’t on a mission to wipe out the SIS,” he said, only half joking.

She chuckled, but coughed in the middle of it until he was worried, before she shook her head again. “No. Nothing so exciting.” Her eyes shut for a moment then focused on him. “We needed the services of a lawyer.”

“What, you were going to sue Revan? I’m not sure that would work he’s not even…”

“No,” she said, laughing a little, exasperated. “Not for Revan. For…” she looked at him, steadily, then let out a breath. “For divorce proceedings.”

His heart stopped. Then it started again, then stopped again as he parsed exactly what she said. “You’re…”

“Quinn and I have reached an agreement.”

Panic nearly made him stand up and run. “Vopenir…”

“You know I don’t think you’ve ever used my name before,” she said mildly. “Or is it the painkillers making me hallucinate…?”

“Stars, no, tell me…”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

You are in danger because of the people who care about you.

“Tell me you’re not doing this because of me.”

“What if I were?”

“We can’t… you’ve gotta know this can’t go anywhere. You’re a Sith lord, I’m a republic SIS agent… we’re…”

“Incompatible?” she said.

“Kinda, sorta, fucking yes, actually. If you had a list of people in the galaxy who were less compatible with each other you and I would top it. I mean, unless you were wildly attracted to my mother which…”

Vopenir tilted her head. “She is very attractive for a woman her age.”

“You are not taking this seriously.” She grinned at him and he clenched his teeth. She’d never lacked for humour, Vopenir, whatever other scary things she did. He didn’t know if it was better or worse that sometimes said scary things were accompanied by a laugh. “It’s not because of me, is it,” he said.

Her grin turned sly. “Theron, I’m Sith but I’m not stupid. Unless I was planning to kidnap you away with me I was fully aware that this thing between us would not last. Much as I… enjoy your company.”

There was an awkward pause.

“I… like you too,” he said, finally. There were so many better ways to say it. But would any of them not hurt?

Her head fell back against the pillow and she shut her eyes. “That’s... nice to hear. But no. What we have done was something of a catalyst, I will not deny it, but Malavai and I have been on this path for a long time. He needs to be somewhere where I am not, and I need him to be gone so I don’t accidentally put a lightsaber through his middle while he’s sleeping.”

“Accidentally?”

She opened one eye enough to wink at him. It wasn’t at all comforting.

“Darth Marr seemed to think you had something particular to say to me,” he said, after a while.

She sighed and opened her eyes fully again. “Do you need me to say the actual words? You know we will only be… frustrated.”

“I spend a lot of my life like that,” he said. Then he smiled and shook his head. “I don’t need you to say anything.”

“No,” she said, shutting her eyes again, then reaching out a hand to clasp his. “Who needs words?”

He laced his fingers with hers, admiring the way the green of her skin seemed to fit with the brown of his own. He tried to frame a reply that wasn’t cheesy or awful, tried to thank her for their time together, tried to make it work, somehow, make it mean something that they probably wouldn’t ever see each other again  -- but the words wouldn’t come and when he looked up, willing to admit defeat…

...she was asleep.

He detangled her fingers from his, with a little difficulty. She was gripping them tightly, even in rest. Gently, he put her hand back on her stomach. Resisted the urge to lean over and kiss her cheek. Turned and left the tent.

She didn’t wake up.

It was probably for the best.

Chapter Text

She climbed the ramp to the ship with no sign of effort, determined not to let Quinn see her pain. It would take a few weeks, at least, to recover from the wound that Revan had dealt her, but she would be damned before she showed any more weakness in front of him. Theron and the rest of the Republic forces had left at her insistence -- Yavin 4 was a Sith World, always had been, and they had no business here now that Revan was gone. The Imperial forces, under Lana’s direction, would complete the clean up and salvage operations, and she was aware there was a push for an archaeolgical team to study the ruins.

Good luck to them. She would be happy never to see the moon again.

Vette met her on the ramp, arms crossed over her chest, looking concerned. “Jaesa is fretting,” she said. “She didn’t want to leave you here, and neither did I and look what it got you -- a hole through the side.”

“It didn’t go all the way through,” she said, smiling a little.
“Where’s your republic boy?”

“Gone,” Vopenir pushed past her, thankful to be back on the ship. “For good, most likely.” She didn’t ask where Quinn was. Wouldn’t.

Didn’t have to, as it turned out. He was waiting in the corridor at parade rest. He gave a smart salute as she came into view and she quashed an urge to kill him on the spot. “My lord, everything is in order, but I require you in the medical bay.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Your report says you were attended by republic medics.”

“And?”

Quinn gave an exasperated sigh and Vette shoved her in the side, gently. “Come on, my lord. You know what the problem is. What if they dosed you with something? Or put a bomb in your chest cavity? We are still at war with them, last I checked.”

Vopenir shut her eyes. “You do not think I would have been able to tell?” she said.

“One must be certain of these things, my lord,” Quinn said. She gritted her teeth, but acknowledged that they had a point, and made her way to the medical bay.

She settled onto the cot, more weary than she was willing to admit, and Quinn scanned her.

It felt normal. Familiar.

That couldn’t be allowed.

“Do you have documents for me to sign, Malavai?” she asked him, trying for her sweetest tone. But even she had to acknowledge that it came out sounding more weary.

He didn’t wince. She was proud of him for that. “I do, my lord. But they can wait until you are recovered.”

“I’m recovered enough,” she snapped. “Better to finish this now.”

He did wince then. Turned away to try to cover it. Whatever else he’d destroyed in himself -- whatever else she’d helped him destroy -- the pride was still there. “They’re in my quarters,” he said. “All is in order, as per our arrangements. Vette spoke very eloquently on your behalf when it came to the division of assets.”
“I told you the only possession I cared for was the ship.”

“We must be fair about these things, my lord,” he said.

He moved to the medical station, calling up the data from the scan and reading it rapidly. His eyes widened when he realised the full extent of her injury and he caught his lip between his teeth for a split second -- signs of emotional turmoil which she could feel through the force connection.

“You should be in a bacta tank,” he muttered.

She shook her head. “Rest,” she said. “That’s all I need. I refuse to be cut off from the galaxy like some prized possession.”

“I…” he turned back to her. “You’re clear. The Republic medic did good work, you should make a full recovery in time.” He put the scanner down.

“Am I dismissed, then, Captain?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

He looked down. “I shall have the documents delivered to your quarters.”

“Please do that.”

She slid off the cot, making for the doors.

“My lord,” Quinn said, and she turned back.

“Yes, Captain?” she asked. If they were going to do formal, she would do it to the letter.

“There are… is another matter. Somewhat delicate.”

She crossed her arms and waited. When finally he spoke the words fled from his mouth like roaches scattering under light. “I do not exactly require your approval to request a transfer, but I do believe that with your signature the process will be expedited. If you… if you would be…”

She had a sudden vision of him, in the cockpit, consumed by need, straining against the ridiculous bounds of propriety he’d set upon himself.

He had yearned so much for her, then. It had gone against every instinct he had, to break that restraint, and the passion that had been unleashed when he had finally succumbed had been sweet and nourishing in ways that she did not think she would ever experience again.

“Make the arrangements,” she said softly. “And send me those documents as well.”

His face fell. “What is it?” she said.

“You truly wish me to go,” he said.

“Do not seek to renegotiate our terms, Malavai,” she said. “I told you that this was your choice.”

“No. No my lord I… no. Of course not.” He swallowed. “Thank you, my lord.”

“I shall see to it that your career does not suffer from your time with me, Malavai.”

“It is more than I deserve, my lord.”

She allowed herself a small smile, then. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

Chapter Text

Vopenir had been born on Ziost. She didn’t like to think she was sentimental about the place. Mirialans on one of the most populated and cosmopolitan Empire worlds weren’t exactly welcome, no matter how powerful they were.

There was little chance any of the possessed citizens would happen to remember her. She’d been a tiny, wide eyed child when they’d led her away on the shuttle, her parents grim faced and clasping each other’s hands tightly as they watched her go. Vopenir couldn’t remember their names, or even if they’d been upset or supportive of her sudden change in fortune.

She supposed it was for the best.

“You’re still as lethal as ever with that thing,” Theron said as she snapped her saber shut. Lana was unconscious, so was Master Surro, hopefully free of the Emperor’s influence. So much for the vaunted Jedi strength of will. Vopenir wasn’t medically trained beyond her rudimentary force healing skills but Theron seemed to know what he was doing as he tugged supplies from the pack he’d brought and examined both of them. “We probably don’t have a whole lot of time,” he said. “The Emperor isn’t just going to sit back and let this slide. You should get off planet, keep the evacuation going, at least get the civilians out…”
“Lana had all of that arranged,” Vopenir said. “You should concentrate on getting your own people out.”

He clamped his lips shut. “Suresh is still convinced they have to stay. Strike a blow against the empire, or something. That woman is going to be the death of us.”

“The republic still favours fools, I see.” She took a breath. She’d never been to this particular building when she was a child, of course she hadn’t, but it felt familiar. There was a whispering at the back of her mind that also had the tinge of the known -- the Emperor, no doubt, reaching out to his Wrath. She’d made the decision, back on Yavin 4, never to be his tool again, and she shook her head, cursing, wanting to dislodge the last vestiges of his influence.

A surge of anger, then. Perhaps he was having a little bit of trouble… adjusting to her rejection.

“You seem distracted,” Theron said.

“I used to live here,” she said, without looking back at him. She heard him take in a sharp breath, and turned.

“Your family?”

She shrugged, shook her head. “I cannot remember their names. I suspect they are still on world, somewhere. Mirialans in the Empire do not tend to be very mobile, save in cases such as mine.”

“Surely Lana or Marr could look for…”

She shook her head. “I told you I do not remember them. If they were on planet when the evacuation started, no doubt they will make their way to the shuttles. If not… there is nothing I can do. Even should I care to.”

“I’ve been here myself, before,” he said. “Never did like it much.”

“It’s not a good place,” she said, a breath of cold ghosting across her shoulders. She shivered and he stood, crossing to her quickly. He’d made Lana and Master Surro as comfortable as possible. Reinforcements would come for the Jedi, she had no doubt, and Lana… well she could manage to carry the woman down to the shuttle if she needed to, Lana wasn’t exactly a large woman and the force was Vopenir’s ally.

She suspected Lana wouldn’t appreciate the blow to her dignity, though, and keyed her comm. “Vette, can you bring a shuttle to these coordinates, Master Beniko needs medical attention.”

“Sure thing boss,” Vette’s voice came back, reassuring and competent.

She felt Theron place a gentle hand on her arm, and was shocked at the jolt of feeling it shot through her. She hadn’t… hadn’t been touched like that. Not since before Quinn had left.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

She turned her head to look into his eyes, the bruises around his implants stark against his dark skin. Warmth flooded her. “I didn’t think we were ever going to see each other again,” she said.

His mouth lifted in sad smile and he leaned in a little closer, his other hand creeping to her waist. “Yeah, well. We’re both very busy and important people. Gotta keep moving.”

“Away from each other,” she said, lifting slightly on her heels, breathing in his scent.

“Definitely,” he said, voice rough, breath touching her lips. “Should be doing that. Right now in fact.”

Then he kissed her.

It wasn’t passionate, not at first, but his fingers splayed across her back and lifted her closer to him and suddenly she remembered what it could be like and how it used to feel and she was gasping into his mouth hungrily, hands catching at the back of his head, trying to get more of him… more of this feeling… yes remember the passion remember the power...

Of course he’d just been all but knocked unconscious and she’d just battled a possessed Jedi Master, so when her knee buckled he wasn’t fast enough to catch her, or himself. They fell on the metal floor of the platform, Theron’s head tucked into her neck, huffing with laughter.

“Ow… ow… ow,” he said, “… oh… that was… That wasn’t part of the plan.”

She twined her fingers in the hairs at the back of his neck, sharing his smile. They weren’t exactly in a comfortable position, but she was reluctant to move, his weight was pleasant against her and when she got up there were too many things she’d have to attend to. The passion of that initial kiss had fled, and she missed it, but curiously its absence wasn’t an emptiness.

Theron’s presence was enough.

“No, please, don’t mind me,” Lana said from where she had managed to sit upright against a pylon. “I’ll just sit here and enjoy the show.”

Theron scrambled up and cursed. “Wonderful,” he said. “You’re awake.”

“I can go back to sleep if you’d prefer, but I fear staying here for any length of time is dangerous for all of us.”

Master Surro stirred as well, and Theron moved to her, helping her stand upright. She was babbling about the Emperor, tears wetting her cheeks, and Vopenir felt a sudden surge of empathy.

The whine of Vette’s shuttle interrupted them and Vopenir nodded to Lana. The two of them moved to take Master Surro, but Theron shook his head. “No,” he said. “She stays with me.”

Lana looked like she was going to argue, but Vopenir, seeing the look in Theron’s eyes, shook her head. “We’re not kidnapping a Jedi Master, Lana. Not today.”

“Foolish,” Lana spat. “What is Theron going to do with her… heal her? He’ll make it impossible for us to discover how the Emperor even managed that level of control…”

“He’s the Emperor,” Vopenir said.

Lana made an impatient gesture. “We can learn from her. Prevent this from happening again.”

“You’re not taking her anywhere,” Theron said. “She’s sick and needs treatment, not probes and questions and more pain…”

“You…” Lana threw her hand at him, “you would wish what happened here on countless other worlds with your ridiculous, impractical…”

“Lana!” Vopenir said. “Enough. Master Surro goes with Theron.”

“Lord Wrath!”

Vopenir growled, letting force energy flow through her, and Lana pressed her lips together. She probably outranked Vopenir now, Minister of Intelligence up against fist of a mad Emperor who had betrayed his subjects, but Vopenir was confident that if it came to blows, especially with Lana in her current state, she would win out.

Not that she wanted it to come to blows. Lana was a valuable ally, and Vopenir had come to regard her as a friend.

“As you wish,” Lana said, ducking her head in almost deference. “But you are making a mistake.”  

“Let it be my first, then,” Vopenir said, and Lana’s lip twitched. She turned back to Theron, who had one arm protectively over Surro’s shoulders. “Theron if you come with us I promise Lana will let you leave with Surro, I do not wish for her to suffer any further.”

He shook his head. “That would be a little stupid, considering the number of Republic troops about to pour out of that lift. Probably think I was adding defection to all my other disastrous decisions today.”

She reached out, caught his free hand in hers. He squeezed her fingers, but gently pulled away. “We couldn’t have done this without you,” Vopenir said. Lana crossed her arms over her chest, but, scrupulously fair as always, she nodded her head.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you, Theron.”

“It wouldn’t have been nearly as bad without me, either,” he said, mouth twisting. “Go. I wouldn’t put it past Suresh to try to detain you for questioning. I’ll be fine.”

“Theron…”

“We need to leave, Lord Wrath,” Lana said.

“Tell me about it,” Vette shouted from the cockpit. “Hovering like this is killing the fuel cells.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Theron said. Lana had made her way into the shuttle, limping slightly, and Vopenir hesitated, words unsaid on her lips. “Go on,” he said, more softly now, “it’s not the time.”

She nodded.

As the shuttle climbed into orbit, leaving him behind, she wondered if it ever would be.

Chapter Text

They both felt it, the surge of power and hatred from the surface. When the citizens of Ziost began to die, Lana sat, heavily, in the empty co pilot’s chair, as Vopenir leaned against the control panel.

“Fuck,” Vette said, but her voice shook. “That emperor huh? Crazy as a rabid wamp rat.”

“All those people,” Lana breathed.

Vopenir swallowed. “Get us to the fleet, Vette,” she said hoarsely.

“Sure thing boss,” Vette said, starting to punch in coordinates.

“Lord Wrath…?” Lana looked up at her, confused for a few seconds until she realised. Vopenir backed away, hating the sympathy that crowded into those yellow eyes. “I’ll be in my quarters,” she ground out, fleeing the bridge, eyes stinging.

Her room still, against all logic, smelled of Quinn. She had a sudden, powerful urge to contact him, to hear his voice and know that at least he still lived, but she quashed it, clenching her fists and kneeling in her customary meditation position.

The Emperor had killed Theron.

Dealing with Suresh on a good day wasn’t Theron’s idea of a fun time, and this was definitely not a good day by any stretch of the imagination.

“Give me one good reason why you shouldn’t be drummed out of the SIS for life Shan,” she said.

“We had no way of predicting how powerful the Emperor would be,” Shan said. “If we hadn’t intervened on Ziost he might have hit a republic world next and we would have had no idea how to stop the possessions… we’re not going into this ignorant now…”

Suresh sucked a breath in through her teeth and Theron dared to hope that maybe she’d see some reason.

“I’m in touch with director Trant, Theron, he’s not happy with you…”

Not happy that you’ve found out about The Sixth Line, more like. Theron wished he could afford to shut his eyes and let Suresh’s words flow over him.  There really wasn’t anything that could go more wrong today, he didn’t think.

At least she’d finally ordered the troops offworld. When it became obvious that they were simply going to be possessed again (even the little trick he’d pulled with Lana and Vopenir’s help hadn’t ended up being permanent) she’d given the order to withdraw, and the troops were following that order as quickly as they could manage. It was a mess, though, and he couldn’t help but wince every time more casualty reports came in. Seasoned Lieutenants turning on their own men just as Surro had turned on her jedi, civilians throwing themselves in front of blaster rifles with nothing but claws and fingers, being mowed down like cattle to the slaughter.

It would take years for some of the troops down there to recover from the trauma of this, if they recovered at all. The war effort would suffer immeasurably.

And it was all his fault.

Theron liked to think that the republic were less institutionalised when it came to panic, but the flashing red lights and klaxons of a ship wide alert were no less nerve jangling than any he’d experienced on Imperial ships in his time (and yes he’d been on a few). Suresh turned impatiently to the trooper who was desperately trying to get her attention, but she needn’t have bothered.

Captain Uarhthu’s voice came over comm. “Chancellor the surface of the planet!” he said. “We’ve got some sort of cataclysmic event beginning… power levels are off the charts… I don’t even… we don’t even know how to begin to understand what’s going on down there….”

Suresh made an impatient gesture at one of the techs, who called up a holo of the planet. Theron felt his jaw drop as he watched destruction sweep over the surface of the world he’d only recently been standing on.

“What in all the…” Suresh’s voice shook, but she grabbed the nearest comm and started making calls. The uncertainty left her voice as soon as she made contact with the first of her Commanders, and Theron took a moment to admire that, at least, before he was ushered out of the room.

There was a reason she’d risen so rapidly to the Supreme Chancellorship.

They’d arranged transport back to Coruscant, naturally, and while Theron hadn’t exactly been placed in detention, there was a very strong sense that he needed to ask permission to do… pretty much anything. Reports started coming in before they even jumped to hyperspace -- all life on the world had been extinguished in a matter of minutes. Casualty lists were appalling, even with the evacuation order.

He sat on his bunk -- where he’d been unceremoniously ordered to stay by one of Suresh’s people -- and tried to stop himself from being sick. So many dead. So quickly. It was a planet killing weapon -- something like the weapon they’d stopped Revan from using on Yavin 4 -- but Ziost was a population centre of the Empire -- a world that could have been a capital. Theron tried to remember exactly how many people he’d seen on the streets during the Spear mission -- it had been easily as populated as Nar Shadaa, even if the population were far more rigid and controlled.

There had been children, he remembered. Of all species.

He lost the battle with his stomach, lunging for the tiny bathroom attached to his cabin, retching far past the point where there was nothing left to get rid of. Another few hours on the surface and it would have been him, sucked dry for whatever purpose the Emperor had in mind. Another few hours and it might have been Vopenir.

Fuck. He rested his head against the sink, shutting his eyes. Vopenir. She would be thinking he was still down there -- whatever was left of him in any case -- and she had no way of getting in touch with him, no way of finding out if she was wrong. He could conceivably pull a few strings and use some contacts to get in touch with Lana again but the codes she’d given him to contact the Fury after Rishi weren’t current any longer. Not to mention that if he started sending coded transmission to Imperial ships right now he would be in even deeper shit than he was already.

Maybe… and he hesitated to even think it… maybe she’d know he wasn’t dead. Through the force. Or whatever it was they’d shared. His parentage must count for something, surely? The force was with him, even if he couldn’t use it, that’s what they’d tried to make him believe, back when they’d discovered he took after his father.

It was small comfort, right now. As if she’d needed any more of his problems shoved on her, now she was going to think he was dead on top of everything else and whatever time they’d spent together would… mean nothing.

He rinsed out his mouth, feeling worse than he’d felt for years, truly. Not even after the torture on Rishi had he felt like this -- empty and full at the same time. Despairing.

He made his way back into the cabin and collapsed on the bunk, hoping to find some sort of relief in sleep.

It was a long time coming.

Chapter Text

She’d brought Broonmark with her down to the ruins of Ziost -- Jaesa had recoiled from the residual dark side energy permeating the planet (it could be sensed from orbit) and Vette was her most capable pilot now that Quinn was gone. She was considering asking for a replacement for him, actually, Darth Marr had intimated that a former Imperial Intelligence officer would be interested in the position -- she was reluctant, however, to have any new people on board the ship, despite Jaesa feeling the strain of having to deal with logistics and supply. She refused to put Pierce onto the kind of paperwork that Quinn had loved so much -- he was wasted in administrative roles and tended to cut corners, and Vette was terrible at it. Jaesa did a good job. Not as good as Quinn had done, no, but it would be difficult to match his ridiculous eye for detail, and quite frankly, being Sith, she had no need for the level of accountability to which he had held their ship.

Standards were slipping in the Empire in any case. She didn’t have to be trained in logistics to be able to see it. No. She did not need a replacement for Quinn -- not his administrative duties, in any case.

As for his other duties...

She told herself she wasn’t searching for any sign of Theron’s remains. Picking through the dust and destruction on Ziost wasn’t some sort of bizarre mourning ritual. No, she was here at the request of Darth Marr, gathering information as to the methods used to drain the life from the planet.

Broonmark was soothing company. He spoke only when spoken to, and only about the mission at hand. She gathered data from disintegrated plant life and collected the cores of crashed probes mechanically.

When they reached the ruins of the People’s Tower she stopped, reaching out with the force to see if she could feel any sense of Theron’s presence. There was nothing but the overwhelming terror and despair she could sense throughout the rest of the planet. If he had died here, he had died like the rest of them -- unable to defend himself, helpless in the face of the Emperor’s desire for more life. There was nothing distinctive about the force signatures that had been left here, no sign of any particular bond, no connection. Just death.

She force threw the remains of a speeder against a crumbling wall.

Broonmark did not comment.

***

There were a few things in life he liked less than meeting his father for drinks, but it was funny how he could never exactly call them to mind in the moments just prior to one of their semi-regular meet ups.

This time it was on Coruscant, in a nice, neutral bar. They weren’t going to eat, not after last time, and Theron really wasn’t hungry. At odd moments, randomly, his thoughts would turn to what had happened on Ziost. The empty, sick feeling that had started on his way back to Coruscant hadn’t faded -- had, in fact, gotten worse when it became obvious he wasn’t going to be able to contact Vopenir. Lana had gone silent, and his Imperial contacts had dried up after the hearing.

He ordered a drink, thinking Jace wouldn’t begrudge him starting early, not after the week he’d had, and sat, cradling it in his hands. Normally he’d have a datapad with him -- work to catch up on, something to distract him from his own thoughts but now there was nothing.

Administrative leave.

His father’s voice was friendly and hopeful like it always was. “Theron, I don’t like to be negative, but you look like you could use a break.”

Theron sighed, motioning to the stool beside him and shook his head. “Yeah,” he said. “Good news on that front is that it looks like I’m getting one whether I want it or not.”

His father was dressed in subdued civilian clothes, probably trying to be incognito. Difficult, when he was more than six feet of solid muscle and scar tissue, and one of the most decorated war heroes in the republic.

“That’s part of why I’m here,” Jace said. “Look, I know you don’t want hand outs or help from me, or from your mother for that matter, but I think I can find you some work to do while you’re on leave. If you’re interested.”

Theron snorted. “Republic Military wants to hire an SIS agent? That sort of team up never goes well.”

“Let’s just say I’m not exactly ordering this one on the books.”

Theron sat back and looked at his father, mouth pursing. “I’m on the outs,” he said. “Suresh practically wanted to banish me from Republic space. You start an op with me at its head and….”

Jace smiled, holding up a hand. “Hey, uh… sorry. But you’re not going to be in command. You’ll be providing a skillset we don’t have, that’s all.”

“So you already have a team?”

“Yes,” he looked behind him and waved to a twi’lek woman sitting in the corner. She nodded, putting down her (untouched) drink and stood. And stoooood. Theron blinked. She was a big woman -- bigger than any Theron had seen of her species -- all hard muscle and competence. She overshadowed the cathar who had been sitting in the booth with her, only a shade shorter than her but no less bulky. They were dressed in civilian clothing, but Theron knew enough about the Republic’s top squad to recognise who they were without the tell tale insignia on their uniform.

“Havoc squad?” Theron turned to his father, one eyebrow raised. “You want me to run with Havoc squad?”

“No not run with them. Just… work with them.”

“Does mother know about this?”

“I’m not… this isn’t… Theron this isn’t about us. Or about her. There’s a new threat to the republic, one that no one is taking seriously. Everyone is too focused on the Empire, too focused on the aftermath of Yavin 4 and Ziost -- they think the cooperation we had was just a ruse. Look at how Suresh reacted on Ziost. You know she was sniffing for blood -- the first sign of weakness. Well it turns out that’s exactly what someone else is doing as well.”

“Someone else?”

The twi’lek -- Major Brilleln -- was close enough to hear them now. She stopped herself from snapping out a sharp salute, although Theron figured it was a close run thing. The cathar was positioned a half step behind his CO, scanning the crowd for threats, pretty much ready to take down anything that looked at her wrong. Theron half expected him to growl when he nodded to them both cordially, but he jerked a nod in acknowledgement instead, then went back to scanning the crowd.

“Commander,” the Major said, and her voice was rich and dark, something else unusual from a woman of her species. “You said you’d found us a promising candidate.”

“This is Theron Shan,” Jace said. “He’s going to help you discover everything you need to know about Wild Space.”

Theron opened his mouth to protest, but then realised he was going to do nothing of the sort. What were his choices? Go back to his apartment and fret about Vopenir, worry about the shambles that his career had become? Take up professional Djarik and while away the rest of the war stuck in a bar, useless, doing nothing to help?

He gave his father a look. Jace was… looking kind of pathetically hopeful, actually. Theron didn’t want the man to start thinking this was the beginning of some sort of father/son bonding exercise. Getting him a job wasn’t the same as bringing him up, although he knew Jace hadn’t exactly been given a choice about that, he still didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

He’d have to have words about it. Later. For now, though, the chance to get back into the thick of things? It was too good to pass up.

“Hi,” he said, sticking out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Major.”

He liked the Major. Wasn’t so sure about her Captain -- Jorgan hadn’t given any indication of experiencing emotion at all during their impromptu briefing, merely glowered and gave one word answers whenever he was consulted. They arranged to meet again -- in five days -- and Jace and Theron made their way back to the bar. With everything, Theron had only managed to have one drink, and Jace ordered them another round, expensive whiskey, the sort that Theron wouldn’t be able to afford now that he was off a regular salary.

They both knocked back their drinks too quickly, probably, and Jace motioned for another two. Theron wasn’t going to argue, but he sipped the second, mulling over asking Jace for the favour he was about to.

“Look, you got me, this team seems like a good idea, and I won’t deny I’m interested in whatever Wild Space has in store for us. But…”

“But?”

He took a breath. “I need a favour, if you can manage it. All my contacts are dried up. I know you. I know you’ll have ways to get in touch with the other side.”

“The other side?”

“Imperials.”

Jace sat back, raising an eyebrow at him. Theron could read his expression pretty well, even with the scars. “Who do you need to contact?”

“Satele would have told you about the Sith we worked with on Yavin 4.”

“Darth Marr.” Jace’s mouth twisted and he took a big gulp of his whiskey. “She seemed very impressed with him.”

“Not Marr,” Theron said. “The Mirialan. Vopenir. She’s… she was the Emperor’s Wrath. I need to get a message to her.” Jace’s expression turned curious and Theron waved a hand. “Look, we worked together on Ziost and there was a lot of confusion -- she’s going to think I’m dead and I want…”

“You want to reassure her?”

Theron really didn’t want to be admitting this to his father of all people. “Yeah. I guess.”

Jace nodded. “I can arrange something. Do you want a specific message or just a…”

Theron shook his head, quickly. “No. No, just a… just an ‘I’m alive’ is all I need. She has enough troubles I just… want to take that particular one off her shoulders.”

“Consider it done.”

They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Theron was almost comfortable. This side of his father he could admire, like even. Since the turn around during the Spear mission he was at least partially sure his father was a good man.

“A Sith lord, eh?” Jace said finally.

Partially sure.

“Don’t even think about starting, dad.”

Jace chuckled and took another sip of his drink. “No, no. I guess I’m not one to judge. Just…”

“Just what?”

His father smirked. “Use protection.

“Kriff,” Theron downed the rest of his drink and stood up. “I’m leaving.”

Jace grinned. “Sure, fine. I guess I deserved that.”

Theron hesitated. Then thrust out a hand. Jace looked surprised, but took it, almost automatically. His shake was firm and he let go a little reluctantly. “Thanks,” Theron said. 

Chapter Text

Her Dromund Kaas apartment had taken some time to grow on her, back when she and Quinn had first made the purchase. It was larger than anything she’d ever thought she would need, back when she was an apprentice, and while she was cogent of the necessity for Sith of her stature to keep up appearances, she had been happy enough to hire staff to furnish and equip it for her.

Lucky, really, that it had such an impersonal touch. When she stayed there these days, she felt a little like she was a guest, even though everything belonged to her. She’d started sneaking some personal touches into the rooms she used most -- her office, the training room, but her bedroom still remained stubbornly bare, and she much preferred to sleep on the ship when she had the opportunity.

Unfortunately after her investigations on Ziost, Marr had ordered her to remain on Dromund Kaas for an indefinite period so he could call her to him when he needed her. There was a disturbance in the force, he said. She was the centre of a maelstrom, he said. The Emperor was not going to leave her to herself, not when he was so determined to involve her in whatever other plans he had for the Galaxy.

If she was honest enough with herself, she knew that he was right. There were shifts and changes -- something big was brewing and the force wished her to be aware of it. She did her best to ignore it, however, and spent her time training and helping Jaesa with her studies. It was… pleasant, she supposed, to have no pressing matters to attend to.

She would not admit to anyone that she felt lonely.

She was training alone in her personal gym when her holocom chimed. Tempting as it was to let it go, she was expecting word from Marr, and he did not like to be kept waiting. She didn’t bother to towel herself down, simply went to the terminal in the corner and punched to answer.

The man who appeared was familiar to her, somehow, although she couldn’t place him. He had a military bearing and an impressive collection of scars over the left side of his face. She reached up a hand, unthinking, to touch the saber slash across her own left eye, and wondered exactly what had happened to him. Her own scar had been simple stupidity on her part -- a lesson well learned in the press of young sith vying for the attention of a master to train them.

He coughed. “Uh. I’m sorry. I’m interrupting…?”

A republic accent. Military. The scars, then, were probably earned in battle.

“I have no idea who you are or how you got this frequency,” Vopenir said. “I suggest you start explaining yourself before I have the call traced and you executed for wasting my time.”

The man chuckled. “You might have a little difficulty with that, since I’m calling from Coruscant. You are Lord Vopenir, right? I’m going to be really angry with Captain Dorne if she’s managed to put me in contact with the wrong Sith…”
She would cut him off, right now, except that she was intrigued. This was hardly the kind of prank call she would expect, and the codes he had used to get through to her private account were extremely difficult to get. “Who are you? Now.”

“Commander Jace Malcolm,” the man said, and Vopenir raised an eyebrow. The Supreme Commander of the republic armed forces. Was calling her on her personal holo.

She was a lucky woman.

“I can’t possibly think of anything you’d want to say to me, Commander,” Vopenir said, but she smiled a little. “Although I am intrigued that you would go to so much trouble to contact me. Is this in regards to our alliance on Yavin 4? I am reliably informed that it is at an end. Decidedly so, in fact, after the Chancellor’s intervention on Ziost...”

“It is… related. Yes. I am… ah… a friend of one of your associates. Theron Shan. He wanted me to deliver a message.”

She caught her breath. Swallowed. “From beyond the grave?” she asked, proud of how light her voice sounded. “That seems a little melodramatic.” She paused. “Even for Theron.”

Malcolm chuckled a little nervously. “No, that’s the message,” he said. “He’s still alive. He knew you would think he was on Ziost when… when the disaster struck, but he was in orbit. Had no way of getting in touch with you afterwards, which is where I come in…”

She tried very hard to ignore the sudden rapid increase in her heart rate. “And how did you get this frequency, exactly, Commander? Under what circumstances would I be inclined to believe anything that you told me? Why are you the one delivering me the message and not…” not Theron.

Malcolm hesitated. “He’s not really in a position to be able to make coded transmissions to Imperial space. The aftermath of Ziost was a little strained for him. I on the other hand, am a little more… above reproach.”

“I am certain there have been republic officers of your calibre who have been charged with treason in the past, Commander.”

“They would need more than a holocall to convict me, Lord Vopenir. Unless you were willing to testify against me should it come to trial?”

“I have done more dangerous things. And this does not explain why you would risk contacting me for a third party.”

“I… have a vested interest in keeping Theron… happy.”

She snorted. “Does he owe you money, Commander?”

“No.”

“Then forgive me if I choose not to believe anything you say. I can’t begin to think of the motives behind trying to convince me that he is alive, but you will get no joy here,” she moved to cut the connection, but Malcolm held up his hands.

“Wait, wait he asked me to contact you as a favour. There was a member of Havoc Squad who defected from the Empire, she had a few contacts that were open to something this… minor. That’s how I found you.”

“Not good enough,” Vopenir said, and moved again.

Malcolm snarled a few basic curses. “Fine. FINE. He’s my son. Theron Shan is my son, and he was worried about you. There.”

Vopenir blinked, hand halfway towards the cut off, looking at the holo of the man. She bit her lip, traced the shape of his face. Theron favoured his mother, she’d known that, but if she looked closely… yes, there, in the shape of his nose, the way he held his jaw when he spoke…

She laughed. She couldn’t have stopped herself if she’d tried. Theron Shan, son of Satele Shan and Commander Jace Malcolm.

Oh, Theron I miss you.

Jace Malcolm looked like the Supreme Commander of uncomfortable when she finally controlled herself enough to pay attention to him again. She wondered how long the call would remain untraced, then dismissed the concern. No one would believe it was real, even if they did manage to tap it. And if they did, what would they say? Marr already knew about her affair with Theron, he’d intimated that it would be good for the Empire if she maintained the liaison. She’d informed him of Theron’s death, naturally, and Marr had seemed… sympathetic. As much as he could be, in any case. But otherwise completely uninterested.

The rest of the Dark Council -- and the Sith in general, she was increasingly coming to believe, could amuse itself however it felt fit with details of her private life. It was far less salacious and entertaining than most of what they got up to.

“Forgive me, Supreme Commander,” she said finally. “It has been some time since I’ve had cause to laugh.”

“I’m pleased to provide you with entertainment,” he said, dryly. “Shall I take it that you believe me now?” he asked.

“Oh most certainly, Commander,” she said, running a hand through her sweaty and dishevelled hair. “I… am pleased. It is good news, and I have precious little of that.”

He looked contemplative for a moment. “You were involved then?” he asked finally. “May I ask…” he stopped. Embarrassed, obviously. These citizens of the republic and their ridiculous obsession with propriety.

“Showing concern for your son’s choice of lovers is a fatherly trait, or so I’ve been told,” she said, examining her fingernails. “You may ask me whatever you wish. But I may not answer.”

“Was it serious? IS it serious?”

She remembered the first time they had kissed, in the clinical whiteness of that room on Manaan, the feel of his hands on her waist and his breath at her throat.

She remembered the sense of triumph and bitterness that had coursed through her when she realised she had found the perfect avenue to get revenge on Quinn.

She remembered the look in his eyes as she’d left him on Ziost, the urge to run back, bring him with her and damn the differences between them.
She remembered how she’d felt, the moment she’d been certain that he was dead.
Her voice wasn’t as steady as it should have been, when she finally replied. “Perhaps that would be a question best posed to your son, Commander.”

The holo wasn’t good at showing the subtleties of expression, but she could see his eyes searching her face as he considered his reply, before he smiled -- a little sadly. “Yes. Yes you’re right about that. In any case I’m glad you’re pleased. He’s a good man, my son. He deserves…”

She raised an eyebrow. “Better?” she said.

“Better than I had,” he said finally. “Perhaps you can give him that. Only time will tell.”

She hardly thought Satele and the Commander had continued the liaison much past Satele’s pregnancy, but confirmation that Malcolm, at least, would have liked it not to end was interesting, and she tucked that fact away for possible later use.

“Thank you for the message,” she said then. “I appreciate that it cost you some pride to deliver.”

“Did you want me to tell him anything?”

She considered for a moment. “Tell him his parentage is ridiculous,” she said.

“I don’t need to tell him that,” Malcolm muttered. She grinned. It seemed it was impossible to stop herself from grinning, right now, and she would need to meditate on the implications of that. “You may also tell him…” she pondered the exact words. Finally she smiled. “You may also tell him that I look forward to the day the Empire conquers the republic.”

“Uh… okay?”

She held up a hand. “I haven’t finished. I look forward to the day the Empire conquers the republic, so that we may meet again.”

The Commander raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “We really know how to pick them,” he said softly.

“I believe the picking was on my side, in this case, Commander. Are you absolutely certain this line is secure?”

“As certain as I can possibly be.”

She leaned over, well aware of the view it would afford him, and made a transmission to him. “I’m going to transmit my personal holonet address to you, Commander. It does not use Imperial frequencies, and Theron can use it without fear of reprimand from his people. I would appreciate it if you passed it along with my message to Theron. Next time he can contact me himself, and we can avoid this… awkwardness.”

“I’ll be sure to do that, Lord Vopenir.”

“Thank you again, Commander,” she cut off the transmission and sat back on her heels. Her heart had settled a little, but she knew it would be some time before she stopped smiling.

A good thing, then, that she was alone.

She picked up her lightsaber and went back to training.

Chapter Text

They were somewhere in the middle of uncharted wild space when his father contacted him. “Personal holo for you, Agent Shan,” Captain Jorgan’s voice over comm came, startling Theron out of some calculations he’d been making in the crew quarters in a rare, quiet moment. Population distribution out here was turning out to be less than logical, at least by Republic models -- a lot of the settled planets were full of refugees from the Empire, and in some cases the Republic, and none of them were ever very happy to see visitors they didn’t recognise. On top of that, habitable planets were on the sparse side and those planets that did support life were often hostile -- full of aggressive wildlife and sometimes more hostile humanoids.

They’d been out here for a few weeks, seen very little combat and Theron knew for a fact that the members of Havoc Squad were bored out of their brains.

Well. Some of them were. The Gand and the Droid didn’t actually seem capable of boredom. More luck to them. As for Theron, he had too much to do.

“On my way, Captain,” he said, putting down the datapad.

“Come to the Major’s quarters,” Jorgan said. “You’ll probably want some privacy.”

Theron did as he was told, following Jorgan through the ship to where the Major was waiting for him, talking to Jace Malcolm.

The ex-commander of Havoc squad -- the man who gave the squad it’s name, spoke to the current commander with a different tone of voice and manner than what Theron was used to seeing from his father. Brilleln herself stood at parade rest, seemingly perfectly at ease talking to her superior -- no hint that she might be intimidated by him or feel she somehow had to fill his shoes. Theron wasn’t really surprised at that -- there was a quiet confidence to the woman that set him at ease, she rarely raised her voice and her squad worked seamlessly together in the field to the point where Theron wasn’t even sure how she gave them orders. He waited, casting his eyes around the room, mainly to avoid looking at his father and giving anything away. While his mother’s identity was common knowledge these days across the republic (or at least, common knowledge amongst those in high command) very few people actually knew that Jace was his father and he wanted to keep it that way. There was enough family awkwardness in his life already.

The Major’s quarters were predictably perfectly neat, and her holo terminal was on a desk that held nothing else but a picture of herself and Jorgan on their wedding day. She wore a simple twi’lek gown, with flowers twined around her lekku, and looked no less like she’d be able to kill him with one finger if she felt inclined than she did in full durasteel armor. Next to her, Jorgan looked like a totally different cathar, to the point where Theron wondered if he’d dosed himself with nipcatarin before the ceremony -- he was almost certain the Captain was not capable of that level of relaxation without an outside influence.

They were a matched pair, those two. Theron had only found out they were married when he realised that Jorgan wasn’t bunked in crew quarters with the others, nothing they did on the field would have indicated it otherwise. The level of discretion and professionalism there would have put a Jedi to shame.

He became aware that Brilleln was sketching a brief update on their progress, but she’d noticed his arrival and started wrapping up. “This will all be in my report, sir,” she said, and Jace nodded.

“As you were, Major,” Jace said, turning to Theron.

“Jace,” Theron said. “You wanted to talk.” Jorgan’s head snapped around at the familiar way he addressed Jace, but there was no way in a Corellian hell Theron was going to call him “dad” and Commander felt too formal for what was apparently going to be a personal call. Brilleln put a hand on Jorgan’s, quelling his curiosity, and led him from the room. The door slid shut behind them, and while Theron felt a little guilty for forcing them out of their only private space, he couldn’t deny that he was a relieved to be alone for the first time in the weeks since he’d come on board.

“Theron,” Jace said, warmly. Well. Alone except for his father. “I thought I’d contact you personally -- let you know that I delivered your message for you.”

He’d found Vopenir. Theron had known he’d be able to, but wasn’t entirely sure that Jace would make the effort. He supposed he should have realised that Jace would think of anything he asked him to do as an indication that he valued the relationship -- which he did -- in his own way. Just. Possibly not the way that Jace wanted.

“I appreciate it,” Theron said. “We went through a lot together I just didn’t want…”

“She’s an interesting woman,” Jace continued. “And I can definitely see what you see in her, I’m just curious how you decided that a Sith would…”

Theron blinked, Jace’s words only registering after a short delay. “Wait. What? You delivered the message personally? What did you do, visit Dromund Kaas and knock on her door?”

Jace rubbed the back of his neck and looked down. “No, we managed to get her personal holo. I enlisted a few of our top slicers, managed to get an encrypted transmission through -- not that her personal address was protected too much by Intelligence....”

Theron pressed his palms into his eyes. “You spoke to her?”

Jace paused. “I did. I’m thinking you would rather I hadn’t?”

“No, no I didn’t... I didn’t…” he sighed, “think at all obviously.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I should have --”

“Look I’m --”

They both stopped and Theron bit his lip. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be upset it’s just that you…” got to speak to her and I didn’t…

“It’s all right. I should have explained. There aren’t many people in the republic right now who can get away with sending transmissions to Dromund Kaas, this just seemed… the safest way to go about things.”

“And you wanted to see her.”

“I’m not going to deny there was a fair bit of curiosity involved, no.” I’m not going to ask what he thought of her I’m not going to ask what he… “She’s… very… Sith.” Jace said. Oh kriff. “And she asked me to give you a message back.”

Theron blinked. He hadn’t anticipated getting word back from her. He’d just wanted her not to worry. Wanted her… to be happy, he supposed. Not that he was even sure she’d be glad to hear he was alive, just… it was a loose end. An uncertainty.

Who was he kidding? Everything about her was unpredictable and uncertain. Maybe this whole message was some sort of effort on his part to ground himself and had nothing to do with her at all. “Oh?” he said.

Jace chuckled nervously. “She asked me to tell you she looked forward to the day the Empire conquered the Republic.” Theron raised an eyebrow. “So she could see you again.”

Stars, Vopenir. Way to impress the parents. “Well, that’s… nice of her.”

Jace’s expression made Theron almost certain of the exact expression she’d had on her face when she’d said that to him and he couldn’t help but smile a little. He missed her. So much. “She seemed happy you were alive, at least,” Jace said, grudgingly. “Also asked me to give you an address you can reach her personally.”

Theron’s heart thumped, hard. Ridiculous, that something so simple could make him feel like a teenager again, but Vopenir had had that effect on him way back when they’d first met on Manaan. He remembered the sound of her voice over comms as he’d tried to talk her through the fight with the cyborg, remembered how surprised he’d been, once they were face to face, that something so low and sensuous could come from so small a person.

He’d been intrigued by her the moment they’d spoken, no matter how much he’d tried to deny it, and she’d scented his interest like a wampa smelled blood.

Jace transmitted the address and Theron downloaded it to his datapad, wondering what he would do with it. Send her a letter? Call her? Kriff after all the times they’d had sex he didn’t actually recall any point where they’d sat down and had a proper conversation, unless you counted the one where he’d told her they had to stop seeing each other or the one where he’d accused her of still loving her husband or the one where…

He repressed a groan. This whole thing was a mess. It was a good thing blushes didn’t translate well over holo, because he could feel the redness sweeping up over his face like an inferno as he tucked the datapad back into his pocket.

It sat there, almost burning a hole through the cloth.

“So, uh, wild space is treating you well?” Jace asked.

Thank the force, no more talk about Vopenir. “It’s interesting. Seems like the rumours you heard have some truth to them, although we’re no closer to actually discovering where this new power is based, we definitely know it exists.”

“I’ve spoken to Satele,” Jace said. “She seems to think there’s something important coming. A lot of the Jedi are having visions of the Emperor and she wants you to meet with one of them as soon as you’re finished in your current sector.”

“We’ll be done here in a week. Only one more inhabited planet in range.”

“Good. I’ll let Satele and the Battlemaster know.”

There was another awkward pause, while Theron tried to think of something else to say.

“Uh… thanks --”

“I’ll talk to you --”

They both chuckled. “See you,” Theron said.

Jace nodded, and smiled. “Take care.”

***

Outside he found Brilleln and Jorgan talking in low voices over some steaming caf. They both looked up at him with identical expressions on faces that couldn’t be more different. How the hell did a Twi’lek and a Cathar even… he stopped himself and shook his head -- he’d been so good at avoiding speculating on that up to now, and he cursed himself even as he slid into the booth. Jorgan passed him a third cup and he poured while the two Havoc members studied him over theirs.

“What did the Commander have to say?” Brilleln finally asked.

“Had some news from an old friend,” he said. Brilleln’s lekku twitched and Theron ducked his head, not willing to let her know how well he could read Twi’lek visual language. “And he wants us back in republic space after we’ve scouted the next planet. Something about meeting with the Jedi battlemaster.”

Jorgan made a noncommittal huffing sound.

“Master Rahn,” Brilleln said.

Theron had heard of her, of course. Rumour had it she was the one who had killed the Emperor, or at least the last incarnation of him. “You’ve met?”

“Operation on Corellia,” Brilleln said. “Couple of Jedi coordinated a bunch of us for a strike in one of the occupied sectors. Usually I’m not one for Jedi having military rank but she and the Barsen’thor are at least competent.”

“They should leave soldiering to those of us who are actually trained,” Jorgan muttered. “But yeah, there are worse Commanders out there than Rahn. She earned that title. And Master Ra has been doing good work on the Council, from what I’ve heard.”

“Isn’t Iresso stationed with her now?” Brilleln said, and Jorgan nodded, going off into discussions of his old squadmates that Theron couldn’t even begin to follow. He took his caf and excused himself back to the crew quarters, leaving them to talk over old friends and past missions, frowning to himself.

For all intents and purposes, this mission should have been SIS only -- it was reconnaissance and very little combat, and Havoc squad’s involvement when the war was still ongoing was suspicious at the very least.

Satele’s influence. It had to be. And probably Jace’s as well. He tried not to be resentful that they were probably both doing it for him, tried not to think that they were babying him (huh! babying!) but his brain wasn’t being very cooperative. Besides he had a datapad burning a hole in his pocket and a message to write to a woman who had just told his father she hoped he would lose the war he’d spent the last forty years of his life trying to win.

Oh well. Best get to work then.

Chapter Text

I got this address from Jace Malcolm. I don’t know if he told you he’s my father, although I’m kind of guessing he did, considering you gave him that message to give to me. Messing with my parents is up there with things that I kind of like about you, so I’m not going to lecture you about, you know, not pissing off a decorated Republic war hero. You’re Sith, after all. Even if you’re not the Emperor’s biggest fan, you can have a bit of leeway when you’re talking to people who are doing their best to kill you.

Not that you’re not doing your best to do the same to them.

Any way it didn’t exactly piss him off, just made him like you a bit more, which probably tells you a lot about the kind of people my family likes to get involved with.

This was meant to be a quick message. I’m bad at quick messages.

I’m going to be on Nar Shadaa in two weeks, at this apartment [coordinates attached]. Without divulging Secret Republic Intelligence, basically we’ve been scouting lately and I’ve only got a short window before I have to get back to it, and I know you can’t really be seen on a Republic world, and there’s no way I can go to an Imperial one. You can’t reach me at this address, and I’m sorry about that, but everything is really hush hush right now for reasons that I’m hoping your people will find out. In any case, I want to see you. I hope you want to see me.

I’ll be waiting. If you don’t show I’ll understand, I just want to make that clear, but if you do I don’t know. Maybe then we can talk.

Theron.

***

She despised Nar Shadaa. Everything about it was disorderly and reeked of hutts and their decadence. The flashing signs of half naked twi’leks, the constant blabbering in huttese through loudspeakers, the noise and the press of bodies everywhere made her hand twitch towards her lightsaber.

They gave Sith a wide berth, even here, or perhaps it was Pierce’s looming presence next to her as they stalked through the streets. Neutral worlds were few and far between these days. If only Theron had been sensible and defected to the Empire after Yavin 4, none of this nonsense would be necessary.

Marr had only given her leave to be off Dromund Kaas for two weeks. Things were cut very very fine, but Vopenir had pushed the engines of the Fury further than was strictly within safety margins to get here in time to meet him.

The things one did for…

“My lord, I’ll guard the door for you,” Pierce said, setting himself up in front of the apartment block.

She grinned. “Don’t loom like that, Pierce,” she said. “You’ll frighten off the residents as well as anyone who wants to kill me.”

“Well and good, my lord,” he said. “They’re all filthy any way. Don’t see why they should be allowed in the same building with someone of your status.”

She was certain Pierce included Theron in that assessment, and chuckled. He at least preferred the SIS agent to Quinn -- the ship was even peaceful these days without those two constantly strutting at each other in some sort of bizarre human male attempt at dominance.

She missed it, sometimes. It had been an excellent way to provoke Quinn’s blushes, and occasional bursts of rage. Anything that made him lose grip on his iron control had excited her, and she’d thrived on the conflict.

These days she thought back on it with a little discomfort, wondering if she’d been pushing him away even before his betrayal -- treating him as a source of… amusement rather than as a person.

She was not, however, here to see Quinn.

The apartment was less dingy than she’d feared, and the door opened to the code she’d been given. Inside Theron was sitting on a dusty looking couch, leaning forward over a coffee table that was spread with datapads, dressed in rolled up shirtsleeves and loose pants, his hair mussed to one side.

She’d made the two day window, somewhere in the middle, although time zones across planets were always difficult when hyperspace was part of the equation. She’d not even been sure she’d get there in time, and the relief when she saw him was…

More intense than she’d want to admit.

He stood up as she entered, scattering a few datapads which he tried unsuccessfully to catch, swearing under his breath.

“You’re… you’re here,” he said, pushing the datapads back into a pile which teetered precariously on the edge of the table. She resisted a sudden impulse to force push them off, just to see him more flustered. “I didn’t expect you today I thought…”

“The Fury is fast when I need her to be,” she said, smiling. She didn’t quite know why she’d stopped just inside the door, suddenly hesitant to move closer to him. He wasn’t moving either, and she could see his chest moving up and down -- breath coming faster than it should be, the shirt he was wearing half unbuttoned so she could see skin and a dusting of dark hair on his chest.

He swallowed. “So. You wanted her to be fast? To get here. To… see me.”

She shrugged. “I thought you were dead,” she said, taking a step. “It was nice to be told otherwise.”

He rubbed the back of his head, his shirt riding up to reveal his hipbone above the low slung pants. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I didn’t think Jace would actually call you himself… it must have been…” she took another step towards him, “... awkward.”

“You seem nervous,” she said.

He gave a small, desperate laugh. “No. Not me. Not. Nervous. Why would I…” he shut his eyes and gave a small sigh. “Okay I’m really nervous, I don’t know why exactly it’s just that… wait… did you come here alone? It’s not exactly safe in this neighbourhood and I…”

She was close enough now to put one finger on his chest, lightly, just above the first done-up button. “I brought Pierce with me,” she said, walking her fingers up to his collarbone. Humans ran hotter than mirialans -- she’d found that out with Quinn and she liked it. She wondered if her fingers felt cold against Theron, wondered if that was what caused his slight shiver as she laid her palm flat on his skin.

“Oh?” he looked over her shoulder, as though he expected Pierce to walk in behind her. She shook her head.

“He’s standing guard outside. Keeping me safe in this… unsafe neighbourhood of yours.”

“I’m sorry about the apartment, it’s just that the last time I was on Nar Shadaa I kind of… made a mess. I try to keep a low profile whenever I come back.”

“What sort of mess?” she asked, sliding her other hand down the front of his shirt, to that gap that had so tantalised her before. She deftly lifted the shirt until her fingers found skin, and traced the line of his muscle from the top of his pants around to his waist.

Theron’s breath picked up even more as she moved her hand. “Explosions,” he said. “Mainly. Uh…” she lifted up on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to the hollow between his neck and his collarbone. “Ah… what was I…” she pulled his hips flush to her stomach, dipping her hand under the waistband of his pants and cupping his ass. “Uh… hello! Hello there... unnf…”

She chuckled, pulled his head down, and kissed him.

His hands came up to cup her face, and he stepped forward, bumping the table and scattering the datapads everywhere.

She hadn’t even needed to use the force.

***

Theron’s kisses were different to Quinn’s.

Theron was gentle. Up to a point, any way. He was hesitant, too, he would trace a pattern on her face with a finger, he would brush his lips to hers before he opened his mouth and pressed close, he would wait until she showed passion before he matched it.

But he wasn’t afraid of asking for what he wanted, and he never held back when she coaxed sensations from him, he didn’t think he was somehow made lesser by enjoying sex, there was no such thing as submission from him when everything he was was willingly given.

She loved it.

They were noisy together to the point where there was a thump on the wall of the apartment next door. Theron laughed, buried deep inside her on the bed (which was less dingy and dusty than the couch had been, thank the force) and she felt suddenly wild. Quinn would never have laughed during sex, Quinn would never have felt so comfortable with her that he could even contemplate it.

She thumped him on the back and he got back to work, although the moment and the passion was… not broken exactly… just changed. Changed to something she wasn’t certain she was ready for.

Their climax was less noisy, even though Vopenir wouldn’t admit that she was being considerate of her neighbours (that would hardly be Sith of her) and in the aftermath Theron supported his weight on one elbow while he trailed kisses down her neck, his other hand at her waist. “You’re beautiful,” he said against her skin. “I missed you.”

She reached up and caressed his cheek.

“Next time we need to find better accommodation,” she said.

“I’m a working man,” he said, flopping over onto his back, utterly relaxed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t provide what you needed.”

She smoothed a hand down his chest, nuzzling against his arm. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “I’m only being difficult.” She breathed in his scent, shut her eyes, feeling… at peace.

Just having you here is enough.

Chapter Text

The call came in the middle of the night. Both of their comms, at almost exactly the same time. Vopenir had sent Pierce away, assuring him that they could handle any rowdy neighbours, and Theron was on his own here, left by the Thunderclap for his two days of personal leave while they all did their own business before Coruscant.

Vopenir rolled out of bed, completely naked, the tattoos down her back stark against the green of her skin as she cupped her comm. He wondered if Darth Marr was used to seeing her respond to her holos naked, and as his own comm chimed and he saw the familiar face of the Havoc squad commander, he wondered if Brilleln cared that he was doing the same.

“Emergency transmission from close to wild space,” Brilleln said. “Sorry to cut your leave short, Shan, but it looks like we’re at war. Uh. With someone other than the Empire.”

He at least managed to cover himself with a sheet. “Who?” he asked.

“We don’t know. A massive force just hit an outlying settlement. Led by jedi, or at least that’s what the survivors are saying.”

“Jedi?”

“Force users. Sith I guess, although the general populace usually don’t really give a kriff when it comes to force users, you know how it is.”

Theron did know. For all the jedi were meant to be protectors there were too many times when they were on the field during military ops and seen as the bad guys. There were just some things a regular person couldn’t see and accept. “When will you be back to pick me up?” he asked.

“ETA is three hours, right now. Get to the spaceport and get yourself back through customs…”
Theron looked up to see Vopenir in the doorway, obviously Marr wasn’t wasting time on details.

“I’ll be at the spaceport before you,” Theron said to Brilleln and she nodded, signing off.

He put the transmitter down.

“They hit two settlements in Imperial space,” she said softly. “Marr has ordered me back to Dromund Kaas.”

“They’ve hit us too,” he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, massaging the skin around his implants. She came over to him, scooped up her pants from the floor and started dressing. He did the same after a slight hesitation. There really was no point in delaying. Three hours was barely enough time to get to the spaceport from this sector -- he should really be out the door right now.

“This seems like as good a time as any to suggest a team up again,” he said. “Maybe if you speak to Marr…?”

She nodded. “I was considering it. He’s been assembling people for some time, getting ready for something like this, but if they’re going to attack both of us it would make sense for us to… cooperate. Again.”

He stood up, looking around the room for his shirt, and she stood next to him, one hand touching his arm. He looked down at her, swallowing. “So… perhaps this won’t be goodbye for as long,” he said. “Which is... nice. Right?”

Her fingers toyed with the hair on his arm, gently tugging. He really needed to find his shirt but he was… very keen on not moving away from her again. “We must be cautious,” she said, smiling a little. “All these joint operations are almost making me think the Republic does not need to be utterly crushed.”

He grinned, reaching up and tucking a lock of dark hair (delightfully tousled from their earlier exertions) behind her ear. “You kinda liked some of us, didn’t you?”

“Some of you were almost tolerable,” she conceded. “And I will admit that it vexes me to think you might be enslaved should certain members of the Imperium to come to power. I shall have to work on conquering my own people to ensure that yours are treated in the manner they deserve.”

Theron blinked. “Are you… trying to tell me something in particular there?”

She rolled her eyes, then reached up and tweaked his nose. “No,” she said, “what could I possibly have to tell you, Theron Shan?” He caught her hand and pressed it to his mouth, kissing the palm, feeling her cool fingers curl against the stubble on his chin.

They’d only been together for three hours. Longer than most of their other meetings -- sure, but it wasn’t long enough and he didn’t want to say goodbye. Not yet.

She watched his lips and mouth as he kissed down to her wrist, shivered when he used his other hand to trail down the curve of her neck.

His heart picked up again and other parts of him started thinking that there was actually quite a lot of time, really, to get to the spaceport and through customs and…

No. They didn’t have time. There was never enough time.

Her hand spread out on his arm and she stepped closer to him. “Look…” he said, mouth suddenly dry, trying to find words -- words that would work for him for once and not make him look like an idiot. “I’m… I’m not good at talking about…”

She reached up and put a finger on his lips, shaking her head, then smoothed her thumb across them, over to his chin, cupping it and pulling his face down to hers to kiss. He wasn’t sure if he should be grateful or not, that she’d stopped him from saying it -- that the thing between them, whatever it was, whatever she felt, he, at least, had a word for it now.

But if they only had a little more time, well… probably best not to waste it on things like words.

Right?

***

Kaas city had two types of weather -- rain and mist, depending on the season, sometimes a combination of the two. On the rare occasions when sunlight filtered down through the thick cloud cover it glistened on the buildings like tiny jewels, reflecting light into the eyes of passing sith and imperial citizens who invariably flinched away from its unfamiliar, harsh touch.

Today it was rain, though, and Vopenir stood in Darth Marr’s operation room trying not to show her boredom, lulled almost into sleep by the steady drumming of water on glass and steel.

He’d gathered together quite the team. In one corner, Imperial Intelligence (or what was left of it) was represented, with Lana (naturally) standing next to a tall Chiss woman and a kilik joiner. In another corner, of all things, a miralukan bounty hunter, her force sensitivity almost non-existent for one of her kind, possibly the reason she had resorted to the truly worrying array of weaponry strapped to various parts of her body. And standing with Marr, Darth Imperius, the newest member of the dark Council, an enormous woman with extensive scarring across one side of her face, augmented with cyborg enhancements. Vopenir had heard rumours of her rise through the ranks -- the deaths of numerous Darths attributed to her but never definitively proven. The force was strong with her -- perhaps as strong as it was with Marr -- but despite her size she was a small presence in a room that held so many other people of note.

“We must show a united front,” Marr was saying. “Yet I do not wish to expose all of you to the Republic. Minister Beniko and Agent Sia will be our covert operatives, once the fleet is assembled -- you will communicate to us through Captain Yannada and her crew. Darth Imperius will remain on Dromund Kaas and direct her fleet in the defense of our settlements, while the Wrath and I travel to wild space in search of the Emperor.”

“You are certain the Emperor is behind this somehow?” Darth Imperius asked. “We have all felt the ripples he is leaving in the force, but the twins who attacked Lothal were not Sith and did not reek of his influence.”

“We are certain,” Marr said. “He is no stranger to masking his presence, but I know him too well to be mistaken.”
“So you’re baiting a trap,” Imperius said, frowning and crossing her arms over her chest. Her dark eyes were shrewd and calculating. If for whatever reason Marr and Vopenir did not make it back her the support of her fleet could turn into a bid for her own power over the Empire. She would be a fool not to realise that Marr was handing her an opportunity to be rid of him, and of Vopenir -- an opportunity to control the council completely.

Marr must have trusted her more than Vopenir had at first thought, to leave her behind with so much at her disposal.

Or, and Vopenir drew in a breath as she followed the threads of politics, he was making contingency plans, attempting to make the Empire as strong as possible, should they fail.

Vopenir frowned. She did not like the idea that Marr might be considering they not make it back.

Marr nodded. “While the Wrath and I together may not be enough to draw his attention, with the Jedi battlemaster also present he will not be able to resist.”

“I don’t know that it’s a great idea to have miss high and mighty Jedi on your flagship, Marr,” Yannada, the miralukan Bounty Hunter, didn’t seem too fussed at honorifics, and only those who knew Marr well would have caught that his shoulders stiffened at the familiar way she addressed him. A canny and skilled hunter, though, Vopenir had heard of her and even considered using her services on a few notable occasions. She’d left most of her crew on her ship, but brought a Devarronian with a broken horn who seemed to be trying his best to sink into the wall behind him, hood pulled close over his face as though he was afraid of being recognised.

“Grand Master Shan and her prodigee have agreed to strict terms,” Marr said. “Having the Wrath and the woman who killed his last body together in the same ship should be sufficient to gain his attention.”

“Are we certain the fleet will be strong enough to resist him, should he or this other power attack?” Agent Sia had a soft, low voice, even for one of her kind. “The force on Lothal was brutal and efficient. They destroyed an entire kilik hive in under an hour.” Her companion, Vector Hyllus, shifted next to her.

“Our song has been lessened,” he said, sounding mournful. “We would join the fight with you, Darth Marr, if you would allow it.”

“Your people’s help has been invaluable, Ambassador Hyllus, but I would wish that the kilik alliance remain as secret as possible for now.”

“There is unrest among the hive,” he said. “But we will acquiesce for now.”

“You and your people have my thanks.”

Vopenir tapped a foot, impatient. “The Jedi Battlemaster,” she said. “When does she arrive?”

“We’ll be meeting with her ship on the edge of wild space,” Darth Marr said. “In six days.”

Vopenir nodded. “There seems to be nothing more to discuss?” she said, looking around the room.

“No,” Marr said. “You all have your assignments. Dismissed.”

***

“You can’t leave me here!” Theron stalked after his mother, more furious than he could ever remember being with her, and he’d been pretty furious before now, that wasn’t a secret to anyone.

“Theron you know we value you, we appreciate the work you’ve been doing but there really isn’t a role for you on this mission. Master Rahn has to do this by herself, or the bait won’t work.”

“You’re really going to send her on to an Imperial ship alone? Your prized student?” Theron hadn’t even met the lauded Jedi Battlemaster, although of course he’d heard of her before now.

“Theron…”

“No. No I’m not going to sit back here and watch everything from the sidelines the SIS have tried that before and I always find a way to get back…”

He hadn’t been paying attention to where they were walking, of course he hadn’t. Satele had been attempting to shake him for the last ten minutes, after their briefing in the council chambers, and of course she was going towards her own offices. He’d not stopped talking while she’d keyed the lock to get inside, and he didn’t stop once he was inside with her, not until there was a small, delicate cough from the room he’d barged into, still yelling at the top of his lungs at his mother.

“Theron,” Satele said, exasperated. “I really do not want to have this discussion with you. Not now.”

He stopped, mainly because he hadn’t expected the office to be occupied. A woman sat, hands folded neatly in her lap, in front of Satele’s desk, looking up with an intrigued smile on her face. Behind her, a dark haired man with an impressive moustache had his hand protectively on the back of the woman’s chair, also looking up at them. His expression was less intrigued and more… lewd.

“Hel-lo,” he said. “Master Shan, it’s been entirely too long.”
His mother had her back to him, but he knew her well enough to know that she was stopping herself from rolling her eyes. “Dr Kimble,” she said. “Master Rahn. Thank you for responding so quickly.”

Reilli Rahn was a small, curvy woman with a dusting of freckles across her cheekbones and an entirely too cheerful face for someone who had apparently faced down an incarnation of the Emperor and lived to tell the tale. Her eyes lit up with interest at seeing him, and they moved between him and Satele with a little bit too much intelligence for his liking.

It wasn’t a secret any more, but it was a little bit embarrassing to look so much like his mother that he didn’t have anonymity any more.

She stood, holding out a hand. “You must be Theron Shan,” she said, and her voice was warm. He was too polite not to take the hand and did so, trying to repress the irritation he was feeling with the whole situation. Not fair to take it out on her. She wasn’t the reason he was angry.

“Theron,” Satele said. “You can see that I have business.”

“Yeah,” Dr Kimble said. “They have business. Why don’t you and I let them get to it, secret agent man? All this Jedi stuff can get pret-ty boring after a while, I can tell you.”

He found himself hustled out of the room by the doctor without the ability to even blink, and wondered exactly why it was that after being practically brought up by jedi he could never, ever catch a break from the force and it’s utterly tedious, interfering ways.

“Friend, they’ve made up their minds,” the doctor said, patting him on the shoulder as he led him out of the room. “Believe me I tried to talk her out of it as well, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re faced down by the power of the force.”

“Uh… thanks. Doctor…”

“Call me Doc,” Doc said. “They’re going to be a while, they always are. What say you and me go hit a bar? I could use a drink after the day I’ve had.”

Theron wasn’t even sure he liked this man, but a drink sounded appealing. If he was going to be shoved here and there at the whims of jedi and kept away from the front lines because he wasn’t useful enough, there was absolutely no reason why he had to do it sober.

He clapped Doc on the shoulder. “Fine by me,” he said. “What’s your poison?”

Doc grinned. “Depends what’s on the top shelf,” he said, striding out towards the Coruscant night. “And if you’re buying, well. You and me, Agent? We’re gonna get along just fine.” 

Chapter Text

Reilli Rahn was infuriating. Vopenir hadn’t exactly expected to like the woman -- she was jedi to the core, calm and unflappable and poised and… irritating. So very irritating. Grand Master Shan had introduced her with the kind of exuberant praise Vopenir would have expected from the parent of a favoured child (she remembered when she’d first seen the woman in the same room with Theron and wondered how much truth there might have been to that assessment) and waxed lyrical about her achievements, most of which involved killing her enemies, or worse, converting her sith compatriots to the light. Satele seemed to dwell on those particular achievements more lovingly, and Vopenir daydreamed of ways to make her suffer that wouldn’t upset Theron.

A pity Theron was so… nice really. Vopenir suspected he would actually feel a lot better if Satele was made to feel as uncomfortable as she seemed to delight in making her son. Rahn listened respectfully to Satele with a modest expression on her face, and when the Grand Master was finished she gave Vopenir a deep bow of respect.

Vopenir gave her a curt nod in reply, earning a scowl from Master Shan before she retreated back onto her flagship to make the jump back to Republic space. Vopenir wondered if Satele had come to drop her off because she was scared they wouldn’t look after her properly -- an anxious, over-protective parent to a woman who had singlehandedly defeated the most powerful sith in the galaxy.

Jedi were strange.

She took the time to examine Rahn as they walked up to the bridge. Shorter than Vopenir, with a kind, broad smile and freckles, she was wearing her combat gear, showing off solidly muscled arms dotted here and there with scars. She carried two lightsabers -- a practitioner of Ataru or Niman, probably. Vopenir found those forms showy and dangerous, usually, although she grudgingly decided that Rahn was probably competent with two sabers, given her history.

“You’re very quiet,” Rahn said as they walked.

“I am channeling my anger,” Vopenir replied. Rahn raised her eyebrows and Vopenir winked.

Her expression looked very similar to Satele’s. A mini-Grand Master in the making. Significantly mini, actually. Satele would tower over this woman.

She briefly wondered what Theron had thought of her, then dismissed the thought with an internal snarl. That sort of thinking would get her nowhere. Unless there was a battle coming up, in which case she might well take advantage of a little bit of jealousy to fuel the dark side.

She could feel light touches from the force, Rahn attempting to get a read on her, trying to see her weaknesses, no doubt.

“You are a whirl of emotion,” Rahn said. “So very strong in the force, yet I cannot keep track of the changes in your mood.”

“Good,” Vopenir said.

The soft whuff of breath from Rahn could have been exasperation or amusement. Vopenir really didn’t care which.

Republic troops snapped to attention as Rahn passed. Vopenir did her best glower at them as they did so. Rahn did not react to Imperials doing the same for Vopenir, and she admitted to herself that she was probably being petty.

Sometimes petty was satisfying.

“I felt your arrival, Master Rahn,” Marr said as they entered.

“Grand Master Shan sends her regards, Darth Marr,” Rahn replied, giving him the same deep bow of respect she had given Vopenir. Marr grunted, motioning for them to join him at the bridge control station. Vopenir reached out with the force and could feel, at the edge of her awareness, a presence.

The Emperor, or a shadow of him. Of his intent.

“I know you both feel it too,” Marr said. “He has his hands in this, in these attacks on us. Whether it is himself in person, or an agent of his who acts without knowledge, I intend to find out.”

On that, at least, Vopenir knew they all agreed.

***

Trant didn’t look happy with him, but then Trant rarely did look happy with him, not since Nar Shadaa really. Never mind that Theron’s quick thinking had pretty much guaranteed the success of the Spear mission, Ziost was always going to be a massive black mark on his record.

“Commander Malcolm had you on a covert mission, jedi and military funded, and he didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me about it before he asked you.”

Theron sighed. “If you remember, Director, I was on leave. Unpaid administrative leave at that. It wasn’t as though you actually wanted me around.”

Trant gritted his teeth. “Theron an entire world was destroyed and most of the republic troops on that world wouldn’t even have been there if…”

“If the SIS contact I placed in Lana’s service had actually been my operative and not one of Suresh’s…”

“Kovac was killed on Ziost, as you well know, and he was working for the republic which is what you should be doing for us…”

Theron threw up his hands. “You know what? I don’t want to have this conversation. If you’re going to fire me completely you could have done it via holo…”

If Trant’s assistant hadn’t come into the room to draw his attention to his persistently beeping comm, the argument might have ended Theron’s career. As it was, he managed to stop himself from actually saying the words “I quit” and looked up with some curiosity.

“The Supreme Commander is on holo for you, Director,” she said.

“I’m in the middle of something here,” Trant said.

“It’s flagged highest priority, Director,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Trant growled something under his breath, then pointed at Theron.

“This isn’t over, Shan,” he said. “We’re going to sort this out and then you’re going to get back in the field and start doing your job. For us, not your damned parents.”

“Am I dismissed?”

“Yes. Yes you’re dismissed. But come back tomorrow.”

Theron slipped out. That could have gone better. But it could have gone worse as well. He hailed a cab outside the office, intending to go back to his apartment and… well, and probably have a drink if he was honest with himself. He’d spent so little time there lately that it probably needed a clean, he had laundry that needed doing and a list of people to contact who probably thought he was dead.

He was settled in the back of the cab when his own personal holo chimed. He answered it, expecting it to be Miot, but his mother’s image popped up instead, and her face was grave.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Marr’s ship,” she said. Vopenir.

His heart tried to climb out of his throat. “What about it?”

“I’m so sorry, Theron,” weird, seeing compassion, feeling on that face. He couldn’t remember seeing it directed towards him before. Not ever. “It was destroyed.”

***

In battle, Vopenir was willing to let go of all her animosity towards Rahn. She was a force practitioner better than the best of the Dark Council, her saber forms were precise and beautiful, and she burned with purpose that was the closest thing she’d ever seen in a Jedi to true passion.

If she were to fall to the dark side, Vopenir would not hesitate to pledge service to her.

Between the two of them, they cleared deck after deck of the invaders, but the onslaught did not stop.

The ship was lost. She knew that, she’d known it from the moment they were boarded. At the docking clamps, Marr called urgently for assistance, and Rahn, desperate to free her ship (Vette and the Fury had run as soon as the attack commenced) looked once towards it, then took in a breath and started towards the engineering deck. Vopenir caught her arm. “I’ll go,” she said. “Free your people. Help the others abandon ship.”

“I can help you and Marr…”

Vopenir shook her head. “You can help the rest of the crew. This ship is doomed, Marr and I will take as many of them with us as we can. But the Grand Master will not forgive me if I let you and your people perish here.”

Rahn cocked an eyebrow. “Do you care what she thinks?” she asked.

Vopenir hissed, her eyes narrowing. “Of course I don’t,” she said, then waved a hand when Rahn opened her mouth to speak again. “People are dying. You know. Innocent people. Go save them like a good jedi. None of my people will stick their necks out for them, of that you can be certain.”

Rahn pressed her lips into a line, stubborn and resolute. Why was it so hard for her to see the right thing to do? On the one hand, there was Marr and Vopenir, on the other, lots of innocent republic… beings. Jedi were supposed to know these things. “GO!” Vopenir said, putting force behind her words, even though she knew Rahn would be impervious to it. Rahn didn’t argue further, and ran in the direction of her ship. Vopenir trusted that she would coordinate an evacuation, get as many people out as possible. If she knew Marr at all, getting the crew off ship was not going to be part of whatever he was planning.

She was right about that.

There was a slow inevitability about this particular death. Ships out of hyperspace were cumbersome things, inertia took time and anything bigger than the Fury had little or no dexterity. Marr’s ship was a crude, blunt instrument, relying on brute force and power to do its job. In the end, it was just a tool, shove it in the right direction and it would cause enough chaos, hurt enough people, that perhaps someone, somewhere, would remember its passing.

Theron you’d best be impressed.

Chapter Text

Year One

You care for him more than you will admit to yourself, yet you are stuck in a prison of your own making, unable to speak lest you contradict what you see as your nature. Foolish. You are terrified of another betrayal and he will slip through your fingers, be forgotten and forget.

These attachments -- they are fleeting. You are capable of so much more if you would only accept my help.

“Theron being out there is dangerous, you know that. The Eternal Fleet has enough power to take a ship like that apart in seconds,” Satele was as distraught as he’d ever seen her -- the past six months had taken its toll on everyone, and she was worried about the jedi, worried about the republic…

… worried about him. Strange how that felt… nice.

“The Eternal Fleet isn’t here any more, Satele, you know that as well as I do. They’re too busy attacking us everywhere else.”

“It’s been weeks, Theron. If she was there you would have found her by now. Come back to Coruscant.”

“If you could find Rahn and her crew, I can find Vopenir,” Theron said, gritting his teeth. He wasn’t going to have that argument with her again, wasn’t going to accuse her of prioritising her protegee over the woman he loved. Satele had done the right thing. Darth Marr’s ship had exploded into a million fragments, taking three other ships with it. The only logical conclusion anyone could come to was that she’d died with it.

Yet Rahn had been certain she still lived.

“There’s nothing for me back on Coruscant,” he said. “I’d just get in the way.”

Satele sighed. “Trant fired you, didn’t he?”

Of course she knew. It had been in the wind since Ziost, and he was only grateful he’d had the opportunity to have the last word there.

“No, actually. I quit. I’m done with the SIS. It’s falling apart anyway, you know that. The whole damned republic is self imploding and they’re going to come for the jedi next.”

“Theron…”

“I don’t want to talk about it! You have your own problems. Let me deal with this one.” Please, I have to do something.

“I didn’t tell you,” Satele said then. “I thought you’d take it badly, considering… but Theron, Darth Marr is dead, I felt it and there’s no reason to believe that she would survive when he...”

Theron wasn’t going to let that one stand. “You liked Marr a lot more than you liked Vopenir, mother, don’t deny it.”

She hissed out a breath through her teeth. “Theron it doesn’t work that way.”

“Well I wouldn’t know would I?”

“This isn’t about…”

“Goodbye, mother. The Fury can find her, and Miot and I have enough tricks up our sleeves to get through this. Look after your jedi.” You always did, and you always do.

“Theron...”

He cut her off.

***

Year Two

He still loves you, or he thinks he does. He cleaves to strength and brute force because he is terrified of being powerless, always searching for a way to climb above his contemporaries, certain that his own mediocrity is the work of outsiders, never able to accept the blame for his own actions that he so richly deserves. You hurt him and he comes running back to you for more. He diminished you, yet you still crave him. Let go of him. You do not need him, even though he thinks he needs you.

Quinn despised the press and hum of so many sentients in one spot, it reminded him of the bad times on Balmorra, it reminded him of Port Nowhere and dealing with people who were not worthy to kiss the ground on which his lord trod. She’d always despised Nar Shadaa and it was no different under the thumb of the Eternal Empire. The least Arcann could have done was remove the Hutt’s influence.

As it was he was forced to step through the dust and rats to reach the address he’d found. Tracking Theron Shan had been more difficult than he’d anticipated, without the engine of the Empire behind him Quinn was forced to work outside official channels in his brief spare time. His duties were suffering, as was his career. He found he did not care.

The apartment block was sparsely populated by thugs and aliens. Quinn quelled the disgust he felt at thinking of her spending any time here at all as he sliced the lock on the door, pushing it open.

The apartment was empty, of course it was. He took out scanning equipment and set to work, attempting to find any trace of them. Either of them. He refused to believe she was dead. And he knew that Shan would know something of her whereabouts.

Find Shan, and Shan will lead you back to her. It was a litany that had run through his head for the past year and a half, all through his searching.

And underneath that, the cringing, shameful admission.

You weren’t there for her. You should never have left.

***

Year Three

She searches. She knows your power. She understands you are the only one to ever match me. She has plans that do not involve her lovers, she thinks in the long term, of a time where perhaps she could rule in your name. Ambition, desire, power. Of all of your allies, she is the one who will be the most dangerous when she betrays you.

They will all betray you, save me. You are foolish to resist.

“I don’t want to lose you to this, Lana,” Ill’issia and Vector tried again to convince her, as they did every time they met, not to pursue this search. Their time together was precious, as it always was, but Koth had a new lead, and the beginnings of a plan to get Vopenir out, and Lana knew that this time they had a chance to succeed.

She took the hands of her Chiss lover, while Vector stood silently beside her. They didn’t need Lana, truly, not when they had each other. The Empire was collapsing and its titles were meaningless, but these two were used to roaming the galaxy under their own power, backed by the fierce protection and love of the kilik hives.

They would be strong, a force against Arcann, but only Vopenir, only the Wrath had the pulling power she needed to form a proper, workable alliance.

“I will return. Or you will return to me,” Lana said, leaning forward to kiss her. Vector reached out a hand to cup Lana’s cheek.

“We will miss your song, Minister,” he said.

“And I’ll miss you,” she said. “But I have work to do.”

***

Year Four

She was the one who first taught you compassion, and you think she is your friend. She believes the same, save for late nights when she wakes, remembering that you made her a murderer, and that she will never be the same again.

“You worry too much,” Jaesa said, one hand gently stroking over her lekku. “We will find her. Lord Vopenir is true of heart and determined, and I would have felt her death.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry, Jae, it’s just… it’d be nice to have the force too, you know? So I could know for sure, the way you do.”

“My certainty is not enough?”

Vette looked up into her eyes, wondering how, after everything they’d done, everything they’d seen Vopenir do, she could still be so trusting. “It’s nice,” she said. “But I’m sorry, love. I don’t have your faith.”

Jaesa leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “At least she will have the Fury when she comes back.”

“Theron better look after it,” Vette growled. “Stupid spy, can’t fly for shit.”

Jaesa laughed.

***

Year Five

They are coming for you and you will not be strong enough without me.

“We need you here,” Lana said to him. “You’re the only one who has the contacts, the only one who can coordinate this.”

“I seem to remember you used to be the Minister for Intelligence,” Theron said, raising one eyebrow.

She gave him a knowing smile. “Would it surprise you to know that I hated every minute of it?” she said.

Theron chuckled. “I’m not one to be happy about being stuck with paperwork when you want to be out in the field, I know how you feel.”

“You’re better at this than I am,” Lana said. “You always have been.”

“And you’re the one who has the relationship with Koth. He’ll be glad to get away from me, I can at least tell that.”

Lana gave an exasperated sigh. “It really is impossible for you to see that people like you, isn’t it, Theron?”

“I…”

“And our relationship is strictly professional.”

He held up his hands. “Hey, I’m not judging here. I hardly… have the right to in that regard.” He looked away, taking a shaky breath, and Lana’s heart went out to him. He hadn’t been the same, since she’d been gone. 

“We’ll get her back, Theron,” she said. “I promise.”

I’ll repay you for what happened on Rishi. I’m sorry.

“I trust you, Lana,” Theron said.

“Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”

***

Wake up.

***

The carbonite seeped into her bloodstream, she could feel it, moving sluggishly under her skin. An infection that her body struggled to purge, just as her mind tried desperately to free itself from Vitiate’s incessant jabbering.

I do not need you. I never needed you. From the time they took me as a child I was groomed to believe I could only find power through others, find a master, kill the master, claim their power, repeat.

You were all wrong. My power is my own, and I do not need to take it from anyone. When I wake the galaxy will quake, worlds will cower, and most of all, dearest Emperor…

...you will die.

Chapter Text

She wished she wasn’t so familiar with the feeling of a lightsaber going through her middle, but she supposed if she didn’t want it happening on a semi-regular basis she should have made different life choices.

In the back of her mind, as they staggered and stumbled towards the Gravestone, Vopenir could hear Valkorian’s amusement.

If you’d taken my power you would not be suffering now, he said.

I remember what I felt like after I saved Lana, she responded. I will never use your power again. Is that what it will take to get you out?

There was no reply but a dull chuckle, and she shut her eyes against the pain. Each step was an echo of the thought, get out, get out, get out, get out. She had served him once, she would not serve him again.

Get out.

Stumbling into the bridge, she knew Valkorian was helping her in other ways. Apparently asking permission was only necessary when he was attempting to kill his children, saving her life was allowed. She would cheerfully reject his healing as well but had no idea how to dispel him, and if she died she... would lose. She wasn’t yet certain that killing him was worth her own death. It might come to that, of course. She knew that Lana, at least, had considered it a future possibility.

The roiling hatred and disgust she felt at his presence, kept her putting one foot in front of the other until they reached the bridge of the Gravestone.

She couldn’t remember going into hyperspace, or what Scorpio and Koth had been saying to each other as they fled.

Get out, she felt herself straining towards consciousness, determined not to fall into another of his dreams. Damn you to all the Corellian hells, get out of my mind.

Oh my wrath, I am never leaving you again.

***

When she woke Lana and Koth were talking quietly at the far end of the medbay. The equipment was as ancient as the rest of the ship, but she was surprisingly comfortable, and her sleep had been free of dreams.

“We’re nearly at Odessan, just… just let her rest for now…” Koth had been more concerned with her wellbeing since he’d found out about Valkorian. Most of her good feelings towards him had fled as a result. If he wouldn’t accept what Valkorian had been, then she did not trust him.

“There are so many things I want to know…”

“We need her to make this work,” Lana said. “I won’t risk her again. We nearly lost her back there it’s a miracle she’s alive at all…”

“She can answer questions that we’ve…”

“Keep those questions to yourself, Koth,” Vopenir said. “Your Emperor is an unwelcome guest in my head and I intend to kill him as soon as I can. For good this time.”

Koth frowned at her. “You don’t get it,” he said.

“I get that he prioritised your people over mine for centuries. Would you like me to stack up his murders next to your peace and prosperity? The bodies would crush you under their weight…”

“Vopenir, please,” Lana said. “He doesn’t understand.”

She snarled. “Perhaps I should make him. How would he feel if he stood on a world that was empty of all life because of his precious Emperor, sucked dry to the very soil, Koth, with nothing but monstrosities of his making wandering the wastelands, picking through the bones of millions of dead…”

Koth held up his hands, stepping away from the bed and shaking his head. “I don’t…”

“He wasn’t there,” Lana said. “Lord Wrath he doesn’t…”

“Set a course for Ziost,” Vopenir said. “We can show him.”

“We can’t,” Lana said. “You’re needed, Lord Wrath.”

“No,” she said, swinging her legs over the side of the cot, surging to her feet. She was powerful, too powerful. She wanted to murder Koth only slightly less than she wanted to murder Valkorian. “We have time for this. If I can convince one of these idiots that their Emperor was not the man they think he was then perhaps I can convince the rest of them as well.”

“Theron is waiting on Odessan,” Lana said, and Vopenir felt the name like another saber to the gut. She glared at Lana, letting her know she knew how dirty that particular trick was. Lana was smiling, slightly, eyes knowing. “Valkorian should not take every joy from you, Vopenir,” she said. “You should remind yourself why we’re fighting.”

“Convince this fool that he worships a mass murderer,” Vopenir said, waving her hand at Koth. “And I will fight anyone you put in my path.”

“My Lord, I have a hard enough time convincing you not to normally,” Lana said. “But Koth is my friend.”

“Aaaand I think that’s my cue to leave,” Koth said.

“Took you long enough to take the hint,” Vopenir muttered, but Koth, blessedly, made himself scarce.

“He saved your life,” Lana chided.

“He thinks Vitiate is a kindly grandfather,” Vopenir said.

Lana sighed and shook her head. “Maybe so. But it helps if you think of him as a favored grandson,” she handed Vopenir a nutrient packet and some water. Vopenir was suddenly ravenous and tore open the first, biting into one of the tasteless rations they’d been subsisting on since they left Zakuul. “He has been given every toy, coddled and loved, for thirty years. He does not know that his benefactor used his other hand to throttle his siblings.”

“What family I had died on Ziost, Lana,” Vopenir said. “Perhaps you can explain that to Koth as well.”

Lana looked down. “I know you were born there,” she said. “Although I did not, at the time.”

“I do not remember them,” Vopenir said. “So it is of no import, truly. I was just... being difficult.” She chewed and swallowed, chasing it down with water. “So. Theron is on Odessan?”

Lana nodded. “He had some contacts to brief, and a loose end to tie up, but yes, he should be there by the time we land. He’s… missed you. A great deal.”

“It’s been five years,” she said. “I’m surprised you all tried so hard, for so long.”

“Some people are irreplacable,” Lana said, and her smile was more fond than Vopenir could ever remember seeing from her. “For Theron’s sake, and mine, rest until we get to Odessan. Koth will understand in time. So will Senya.”

“I am tired of compensating for their lack of intelligence,” Vopenir muttered, but she allowed herself to be pushed back onto the cot.

“You need more kolto,” Lana said. “Will you let me tend to you?”

“As you will, Lana,” Vopenir said.

Theron was waiting on Odessan.

That was a comforting thought, and Vitiate, for once, had nothing to add to it.

***

“How many more delays are there going to be, Miot? We should have been on Odessan five days ago.”

The Sullustan couldn’t exactly roll his eyes, but he could convey expression with tone of voice, and his reply was curt enough that Theron was a little embarrassed.

“You stop pushing the engines on every trip and we wouldn’t have stalled out here in the first place. If you can get me a replacement fuel cell and fix that junction we’ll be back in hyperspace in ten minutes, or however long it takes you to actually fix something and not just complain about it not working.”

Theron grumbled, but did as he was told. Lana had been in touch from the Gravestone, and Theron had felt like there were insects under his skin ever since. Vopenir was alive, and she was free. She was alive and she was whole.

She was alive and she had Vitiate stuck in her head, which was something that he was trying very hard not to dwell on right now. He needed to see her. He’d know, if there was something different, he was sure he’d be able to tell if Vitiate had corrupted her somehow.

He was too distracted. It took him longer than ten minutes to fix the junction, but when it was done and they were in hyperspace he had nothing left to occupy his hands and he took to pacing the cockpit.

“Go away, Theron,” Miot said finally, and firmly.

Theron went.

Odessan was an odd world in a lot of ways. For Theron, it felt blank. There were no people here to give it colour, aside from those they’d brought. He could appreciate nature from a distance, but his work and his life revolved around the interaction of language and power and politics. Plants and animals didn’t have any use for a spy.

But she was here.

He’d expected her to change at least a little bit. He wasn’t prepared for the way she stood, one fist on her hip, head on one side and a smile on her lips as though he’d been in the next room for a few moments, not roaming the galaxy for five damned years. Wasn’t prepared for the twinkle in her eye as she flirted with him straight away or the exact timbre of her voice, pitched low enough to make him shift a little in sudden discomfort even though they were standing in full view of at least fifty other people. Five fucking years. He felt like a man dying of thirst, trying to drink an entire ocean of water at once.

“Hey spy-man,” Koth said, pointing at the corner of his mouth with his little finger, as they watched her walk off towards the Fury. “There’s a little drool, right there.” 

“Shut up, Koth,” he said, but he was smiling. Damn but her hips… looked good from behind. Just like he remembered.

Koth followed his gaze, then shook his head, tutting. “I dunno, man. Didn’t she shoot you once?”

“That was her husband, actually.”

“Lana was vague on the details.”

“Lana wasn’t there,” Theron said. “To be fair, he was probably justified.”

“Sounds like he was an asshole.”

“She liked him.”

“Maybe she has a type.”

Theron realised he hadn’t stopped looking in the direction Vopenir had gone, despite the fact that she’d disappeared from sight a good thirty seconds ago. He frowned at Koth. “Don’t you have stuff to do?”

Koth chuckled, patting him on the shoulder. “Better you than me, man,” he said. “Better you than me.”

On that, at least, Theron wholeheartedly agreed. 

Chapter Text

There was no time to see Theron properly, not after he’d found her ship, not after they’d laid out the various enclaves for their specialists. Building and arranging and supplies and logistics and the sort of things that would have delighted Quinn and seen him buried in datapads and numbers for happy weeks simply served as a source of frustration.

Of varying kinds.

“When do I get to see you alone?” she asked him, amidst the chaos of the operations room, with fifty soldiers and jedi and sith milling around with common purposes. She’d never thought she would have lived to see anything like it.

“We’ll talk soon,” he said, and he did genuinely look sorry. “I promise.”

Five years hadn’t changed him, not much, but there were extra lines around his eyes and a difference to the way he carried himself that hurt, deep in her chest. None of them were the same.

Valkorian’s evident amusement at the surge of feeling she’d felt when she’d first seen him didn’t help. I told you that love fades, he said, chuckling.

She threw back his own reaction to Senya and he’d fallen silent at that. If she was going to be forced to share headspace with him she was not above playing dirty.

Speeches, new responsibilities. She’d not looked for this power but she would take it, because Lana believed she could, because it aligned with her wants. She wanted Arcann dead. She wanted to make him pay for the years of her life that he had stolen. And she would would ruin the Emperor’s toys and take pleasure in every thing of his that she crushed underfoot in the journey to that end. If the people he had used and tossed aside for centuries would have a new world afterwards through her efforts, then let them have it. It could be a world in which she would do her best to make them utterly and completely forget him.

Immortality he may have, but she would see him irrelevant.

At the Cantina, afterwards, Theron sat in a corner with his datapad, and Vopenir stood at the bar with an untouched drink, frowning at him.

“He’s afraid,” Lana said.

“Of what?”

“That you won’t feel the same. That he’s different now. That you and he weren’t ever what he thought you were.”

What did he think we were?

“When did you become an expert on relationships, Lana?”

She chuckled, but there was a faint flush across her pale cheeks, and Vopenir was suddenly intrigued. “I have not sat idly while these years have past.”

“And here I thought you’d devoted all your energy to rescuing me,” Vopenir said. “Had you not wasted time on your personal life perhaps five years could have been two? Or three?”

Lana shook her head, then pushed her slightly towards Theron. “Go,” she said. “Make him remember.”

She took a step, then hesitated and looked back at Lana. “What about Vitiate?” she said.

Lana’s eyes were more knowing than Vopenir could have guessed.

“He invaded your space, Lord Wrath. Do not be inconvenienced by him, he does not deserve so much consideration.”

Vopenir chuckled under her breath, enjoying Valkorian’s surge of anger. “He doesn’t like that at all,” she said.

“Let’s give him many other things not to like, shall we?” she said.

***

Theron looked up to see Vopenir standing in front of him, fists on her hips. “Were you planning on talking to me at all, or were you just going to order me to give speeches to improve morale for the rest of our time here.”

He swallowed. “There’s… a lot… to…”

“A lot to do?”

He put the datapad on the table in front of him and stood up. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He glanced over at the bar to see Koth and Lana looking their way, and let out a breath. “Come on,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her towards one of the cantina’s back rooms. He made a cursory check to see if it was empty before he turned back to her...

Only to be shoved off balance onto a lounge while she practically crawled into his lap “You may begin by telling me how much you missed me,” she said, trailing kisses along his jaw. His head was spinning, the scent and weight of her, here, now after so long, made him breathless. He rested her hands on her hips as she continued to talk, voice low and melodious in his ear, kissing those parts of him she could reach in between words, lips soft and cool against his skin. “I would not object to flowery language and melodramatic professions of your torment in my absence. Please include any sighs of longing and detail your attempts at finding joy in a life that has lost all meaning.”

“Vopenir…” he said, not sure if he should be laughing or trying to do as she asked. She took the lobe of his ear in her lips and tugged gently, hot breath and a hint of teeth making him buck his hips into hers. Oh he remembered her, he remembered this and it took a lot of control to pull his head back enough to talk. “Unngh... kriff… we’re in a cantina I…” she covered his mouth with hers then, and kissed him with the kind of passion she’d exhibited in their first few times together on Rishi -- desperate and all consuming. Force but they’d been reckless and carefree then, fucking anywhere they found enough space and privacy, sometimes even when there wasn’t enough. 

Those memories certainly did nothing to discourage him from kissing her back, matching her passion with his own.

Five years. She’d spent five years frozen and dreaming while he searched for her and tried to fight back against an enemy that had them hopelessly outclassed, and all she wanted to do right now was… have sex in the back room of a cantina.

Obviously.

He forced himself to pull back from the kiss, and she tried to chase his lips, he laughed, to show he wasn’t turning her down no not exactly, just… she needed to take a step back, they both had reputations and positions and much as he’d like to throw those to the wind and do precisely what he wanted right now -- he liked to think he’d matured a little bit in the past five years.

He looked up into her face, trying to find the words to articulate everything he was thinking, and stopped. She was looking down at him, biting her lower lip, and her eyes were full, close to spilling over. He blinked, thinking that he was seeing things, but as she tried again to kiss him a tear fell, splashing on his cheek.

What...

She made an angry snarling sound and leapt backwards off him, turning as if to run from the room.

“Vopenir!” he lunged forward, awkwardly, and managed to catch her arm before he tripped on a table and she turned, supporting him, probably unthinkingly, strong arm across his waist. He steadied himself on her shoulder, standing up as she twisted back out of his grip. “Don’t… don’t run off now, we’ve only just…”

Her shoulders were shaking. He took a step towards her, slowly, afraid to spook her further. She was looking down at the floor, fists clenched, trying desperately for control. He swallowed, reaching out a hand to her shoulder, smoothing over it. She leaned into the touch, and he risked putting his other arm out, gently tugging her into his embrace.

He felt her breath slow, then calm completely, felt dampness on his shirt from her tears. He tangled one hand in her hair and leaned down, kissing the top of her head, waiting.

“If another Sith saw me like this I would have them killed on the spot,” she said, muffled by his shirt.

He would laugh, but he had kind of gotten used to her way of expressing affection. “Good thing I’m not Sith then, right?” he said instead.

“A very good thing,” she said. More tension leaked out of her and she squeezed him once, before pulling back and wiping her eyes angrily with the back of her hand.

“You missed a spot,” he said softly, reaching out to brush moisture from one cheek, letting his thumb linger on her cheekbone. She shut her eyes, looking suddenly infinitely weary. “I missed you,” she said.

“I missed you too,” he said. “I could write a poem or something about five years of longing, if that’s what you…”

“Many stanzas,” she said nodding. “Appropriate scansion please. Do not be afraid to use the phrase ‘tragically beautiful.’”

He smiled and sat down, holding one of her hands, lacing his fingers with hers. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head. “Time,” she said. “I’ve lost too much of it to people and things who do not care for me.”

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. Her head tilted, and he saw her eyes fill again, even as she swore under her breath. “Hey,” he tugged her gently back towards him. She sank into his lap with a sigh, knees either side of his hips, arms coming around his neck, and rested her forehead against his. “It’s okay. I’m here now. You’re here. It’ll be all right.”

She kissed his forehead, then each of his eyes, pulling back to look at him. One hand came up to trace his lips with a finger, and he felt his own throat close with sudden emotion.

Five years.

She kissed him thoroughly, then, without the urgency of before, but with enough passion that his heart rate sped up and his brain started liking the idea of back-room-cantina-sex despite the strenuous objections of his common sense, but she pulled away from him eventually, one hand carding through his hair, a soft smile on her face.

“We should go back out to the party,” he said. She settled against him, head tucked into his neck, real and whole and here.

“In a little while,” she said.

He wasn’t going to argue with that.

Chapter Text

Evidently more time had passed than either of them had accounted for, or the people he was working with were older and worse at continuing a party than he’d ever been, because the cantina was virtually empty, aside from Koth and Lana and, of all the damned people, Nico Fucking Okarr, or at least someone who looked very like him.

Theron didn’t have much time to consider how he had ended up here (he knew damned well HE hadn’t recruited him) and there was a bit of chit chat between Lana and Koth and the other new people they’d recruited before Vopenir slipped away.

He figured he knew where she’d go, and he wasn’t exactly being stealthy when he followed. He let himself finish one last drink -- brandy that reminded him of his father, and not necessarily in a good way -- then bid his goodbyes to Lana and Koth, who seemed determined to outdo each other somehow, although the particulars of the argument were beyond his somewhat drink addled brain.

Odessan was pleasant at night, and the walk out towards the Fury did a lot to clear his head. He climbed the ramp feeling a little bit like he’d gone back in time -- still familiar -- even after five years. He almost expected to see Vette or Broonmark scurrying from room to room (avoiding him, usually). But there was a silence that was more than just a ship at rest, something that was only ever that quiet when it was landed. Easy enough, then, for Theron’s implant assisted hearing to pick up the tread of boots on plating and work out which direction he needed to go to find Vopenir.

She was in her quarters, the one room on the ship he’d spent very little time in at all. He would have thought she was meditating, except that she was simply looking at the wall, where a particularly dark and foreboding landscape of a planet he assumed was Dromund Kaas hung. Rain fell on dark foliage and looming buildings -- very sith like architecture and generally far more gloomy than the kind of art Theron himself favoured, not that he’d ever had the opportunity to spend his credits on things like art.

“Thank you,” she said as he entered. “For finding my ship. I’d missed her.”

He leaned against the doorframe, smiling as he studied her. Of course, she hadn’t changed at all -- five years in carbonite freeze had some advantages, at least once you’d gotten to Theron’s age. There was an ache in his shoulder that flared up during cold weather and his implants itched whenever it was hot, and some days he made a noise that sounded suspiciously like an old-man grunt when he got out of bed in the morning.

She wouldn’t have any of that, of course. The force would help too, but there was a bigger gap now between them than there had been when they’d first met.

“Least I could do,” he said. “Only sorry I couldn’t find your crew as well.”

She gave him an amused smile then, looking up with a tilt to her chin that was girlish, almost. “Vette spoke of you, often. I do believe she had something of a crush.”

“Ha,” Theron said, sitting next to her on the bed, which was soft, and perfectly made. “Vette likes girls. You telling me you didn’t know that?”

Vopenir chuckled, reaching a hand out and clasping his, a gesture so… normal and affectionate… so unlike anything he’d ever had from her before, that he was suddenly frightened. “That doesn’t preclude her liking the occasional boy as well, you know,” she said.

“Well no, I’m hardly one to…” he was silenced, suddenly, by her mouth on his.

Theron had his own quarters on Odessan -- perk of being high in the chain of command, but he wouldn’t deny that Vopenir’s quarters were far more comfortable and luxurious than his own mattress, and it’d been some time since he’d felt so relaxed. As a result he was surprised at how suddenly and thoroughly he fell asleep in her bed, and when he woke his implants informed him he’d been asleep for more than six hours.

He didn’t think he’d slept that long since she’d first been captured.

He blinked, groggily, looking around, trying to work out exactly where he was for a few seconds, reaching for a blaster, and instead saw Vopenir sitting on the bed next to him, examining a datapad. She was wrapped in a robe he thought he recognised -- when he’d first found the Fury he’d cursorily opened her cupboards and checking that all her belongings were still present, but this one he was sure she’d worn on Rishi, and she had a soft smile on her face.

She turned to see him stirring, the smile widening into a grin that was positively mischievous. “You wrote me a letter,” she said, waving the datapad.

He scrambled upright, trying to snatch the pad from her but she giggled and lithely wriggled away, backing against the wall of the cabin and holding the pad up again as though she were an orator “I want you to know that whatever’s between us…” she started, he swore and lunged forward, trying to steal the datapad away, but she was too fast for him “I care about you. A lot…” she stopped, peaking at him over the top of the pad, her grin so wide he was surprised her cheeks didn’t split. “Theron, you softy.”

“Hey I didn’t think you’d ever get to read that…” he said, weakly.

“Why, then you shouldn’t have sent it,” she said. He flopped back on the bed, shaking his head and chuckling under his breath.

“I… well. I needed something. Wanted to…” she climbed into the bed next to him, snuggling up against his shoulder, datapad in hand. He sighed, breathing in her scent. “I wanted to reach out. Thought somehow… you might hear.”

She stilled for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you,” she said.

“How are you getting those messages any way?” He asked.

“Oh, Vette fixed it so all my private correspondence was routed through a server on Dromund Kaas and filtered by a droid. You’d be surprised how often I got requests to be the Wrath at children’s parties. Put the fear of the Emperor into them, they’ll grow up to be good little sith…” he must have looked incredulous, because she grinned and kissed his nose. “There was a datadump waiting for me as soon as I got on board, all I needed were my personal codes.” She was distracted again, flicking through whatever else was on the datapad. “Lots of boring council panic about Zakuul, message from Darth Antaric, another from whatever’s left of Imperial Intelligence… and…” her hand stilled suddenly and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. He had a sudden urge to kiss that lip and moved forward, intending to distract her from business that was years old, at least, but she stiffened and pulled away, standing upright and pacing the room as she read whatever she’d found.

Her entire demeanor had changed in a matter of seconds. “What is it?” he asked.

She stopped, looked up at him, her brows drawn together. “Bad news, I’m guessing,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. He felt prickles on his skin, hackles rising, all his instincts screaming danger.

“A letter from… from Quinn,” she said. She looked confused, glancing down at the pad, then back up at Theron. “I suppose you weren’t the only one sending thoughts out into the void in the hope that they’d reach me.” She shut her eyes then, and tilted her head, that frown creasing her face again.

Theron swallowed. What does it say…? The question died on his lips. There was no way in all the galaxy it was his business what the letter said.

“Are you all right?” he asked instead.

She shook her head, slowly at first, then more rapidly, and Theron got up, crossing the room to her. Before he could get there, though, she threw the datapad at the wall with force enough to shatter it, following it with a scream that drove his ears into his skull and rattled his bones.

He was no jedi, but he could recognise the dark side when he saw it, the black tendrils of power creeping up around her fists and the yellow flash of her eyes when she opened them.

Darth Karrid had looked like that, right before she’d done her level best to kill him. Theron shuddered, not just at the memory of what she’d done, but at what he’d had to do to stop her. Even if the Ascendant Spear hadn’t disintegrated in space there would not have been enough of Karrid to satisfy even the most frugal of burial customs.

Vopenir wasn’t Karrid though. She’d never… he’d never seen her like this before and perhaps he was foolish to believe that she’d never hurt him, but he’d never claimed to be anything less. He threw one arm over her shoulders and she spun to face him, panting, mouth open, to look him in the face.

“Vopenir,” he said, as calmly as he could manage. “Hey. It’s me.”

She sucked in a breath, clenched her teeth, then threw her arms out to either side with a grunt he normally only heard from her in combat. Pure force energy made his ears pop from pressure as it rushed outwards away from him and hit the walls of the room, the bedclothes giving a gentle whump as they resettled, the lights above them flickering.

“You okay?” he asked, softly.

“I should have killed him,” she said. “I should have killed him when I realised. No one would have cared. Everyone would have understood.”

His thumbs moved on her shoulders, soothing, gentle, trying to bring her back. “It’s okay,” he said again, meaningless words. “You’re here now. Everything’s okay.”

“I was weak,” she said.

“Saving someone’s life is never weakness,” he said. She barked a laugh out and looked at him, then, with eyes that actually saw him and not whatever murder she was wishing on her ex-husband.

Ex… well she’d said they were no longer together. Whether they’d ever actually formalised the divorce proceedings Theron had never bothered to check. Whatever the case there, though, his words seemed to have brought her out of the murderously uncontrollable part of her rage, which was something of a relief.

“You learned a great many Jedi platitudes when you were too young to question them, Theron,” she said, with a touch of her usual dry humour. She moved to the corner of the room where the remains of the datapad were scattered, made a tching sound and started to gather them up.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked.

She looked up at him. “Why didn’t I what?”
“Why…” he licked his lips, “why didn’t you kill him?”

She looked surprised. “Do you truly want to know?”
“You loved him and he betrayed you. From what I know of Sith, that’s…. kind of… endgame.”

She chuckled. “Can you imagine Darth Marr doing something like that? Or Lana?.”

“I didn’t think Darth Marr was married.”

“Oh I do believe he was, at least once. And in any case he would have had affairs. Sith have, after all, notorious appetites and he is… was a handsome man.”

There was something in her voice that made him narrow his eyes. “How do you know?”

She grinned. “He didn’t always wear the mask.”

On the increasing list of questions he had today, that one didn’t need to be bumped to the top. “I didn’t much like him but he didn’t seem the sort to do things… on a whim.”

“Exactly. You and your jedi friends have a very skewed idea of how the dark side works. If we sith went around killing people for fun all the time the empire would never have forced the treaty of Coruscant.” She looked frustrated. “Of course, there are always a few who do, and that was one of the things that Darth Marr was trying to mitigate before the Emperor killed him.”

“In this case though…”

“In this case I was faced with a man who had betrayed me and attempted to murder me, killing him would have been completely justified and not the actions of a mad, revenge driven sith?” she finished for him.

“Yes. What made you hold back?”

She dropped the pieces of the datapad and sat on the floor, leaning back against the wall and looking up at the ceiling. “I didn’t exactly hold back, Theron.”

“Vette said he was in a bacta tank for days.”

“I probably left him in there for longer than he needed,” she said. “Killing Baras… was… After Baras was gone it seemed….” She stopped and shut her eyes.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be asking this.”

She blinked at him. “I haven’t talked about it. Not with anyone else.”

“If you want to tell me…”

“He… he said he’d programmed the battle droids he set to kill me with all of my skills, everything he knew about me from years of fighting by my side.” She fixed him with a keen stare. “You may not have liked him, but Malavai was… is an extremely intelligent man. Focused. Driven. The data he gathered was impeccable -- I know because I salvaged one of the droid cores. I should have been killed in seconds, but after I discovered his betrayal…” she shook her head. “They were gone almost before he had a chance to…” she took a shuddering breath. “I’ve never felt so much power.” She looked up at him, and he thought he saw a tinge of yellow in her eyes again. Her voice, though, was flat and cold. “If I killed him, the source of that power would be gone.” Her lip curled. “There is little hatred or passion to channel in grief.”

Theron took a step back. “You let him live so you could…”

“I let him live so my feelings would remain in turmoil. I let him live to hurt me. I used his betrayal in much the same way I had been using his passion before it. To make me stronger.”

There weren’t words to describe how acutely uncomfortable this conversation was making him feel. “That’s…”

“Evil? Despicable?” her mouth twisted bitterly.

“Not the words I was looking for,” he said.

“How about practical? Lana would say I was practical. ‘It’s the logical course’…” she even sounded like Lana. He’d never thought she was one for impressions before. “In any case I never would have defeated Darth Baras without what he did. Baras was… far more powerful than I’d anticipated. I understood -- after I’d killed him -- why Quinn was so terrified of defying him.”

Theron sat on the bed, looking at her. He didn’t know how to process it. It was weird and it was sith and it didn’t make any sense.

“You’re very quiet,” she said, finally. “Do I frighten you?”

She’d always frightened him, but not in the way she thought. And there was a very different kind of fear in his belly now, after what she’d told him. About them. About what relationships actually meant for Sith. His mother had tried to warn him, of course, but he didn’t think even she could comprehend this. “Is that what… is that what you’re using me for as well?”

Her lips tightened and she looked away. “I used you to get back at him,” she said. “I’m certain you worked that out quickly enough, especially after he shot you on Rishi…”

He rubbed his leg. “You knew about that?”

She shrugged. “We have a connection through the force. I felt your pain. And his... satisfaction.”

He shuddered. “It… changed though,” he said. “Didn’t it?” Stars please, tell him he wasn’t wrong about that.

She got up and moved to him, hesitantly. He thought about drawing back, but there was something in her expression… not vulnerability, no never that… but… an unspoken question.

“Yes,” she said. “It changed.” She sat, not close enough to him to touch, both hands on the bed next to her hips and her eyes returned to the painting on the wall. “On Rishi. After you were captured. Despite that what Lana said I felt… I was terrified you were permanently hurt. You had become… you meant more to me than I’d anticipated.”

Turn about was fair play, he guessed. He’d never expected to care for her, either, beyond… whatever it was he’d thought when he’d first kissed her.

“So...ah… you don’t use… what we do you don’t use it for…”

She raised a hand and the fractured remains of the datapad lifted from where they were scattered in the corner and floated across the room, arranging themselves in front of her. It looked like she was trying to fit them back together, although there was no hope of it ever functioning again. “I don’t need to use you at all, Theron,” she said. “Sometimes passion does not have to be a tool.” Her brows drew together and her eyes narrowed, and the pieces of the datapad collapsed in on each other until she was holding nothing but a rough edged, round metal ball. She smiled at it. Tossed it from hand to hand. It was very solid. “In any case it seems Malavai still makes me angry enough to maintain my prowess on the battlefield.” She threw the ball at the waste unit in the corner of the room with deadly accuracy, the thunk as it hit the back of the opening loud in the otherwise quiet room. “I shall have to thank him when he finally finds me.”

She turned back to him and shrugged again. “You may leave if you wish,” she said. “I understand that this must be difficult for you to accept. I can be grateful our reunion was sweet… even for such a short time.”

“Okay okay hang on, I didn’t say I was going to… I didn’t say this meant…” he stammered to a stop and shut his eyes, shaking his head. “This isn’t easy for me to understand, but it doesn’t mean I like you any less.”

“Really?”

He sighed. “I knew you were a Sith when we first started this thing… I didn’t expect you to be… I wasn’t expecting you to actually care about people…” She made a small, amused sound. Fuck, Shan, you are an asshole. “I’m bad at words. I mean I didn’t think you’d be… you certainly weren’t ever supposed to care about me either and… the order always painted you as mindless, rampaging murderers and I knew that wasn’t true but you and Lana and…”

She shifted closer to him, hand sliding down his arm to find his. If he thought she was going to end his torment and interrupt his clumsy attempt at explaining himself he was wrong, though, she simply held his hand and waited for him to dig this particular hole deeper.

“However… odd the whole business with your husband is, the point is that you didn’t kill him, you showed mercy. You’re… you’re…”

She lifted her other hand and put a finger on his lips. “Do not, Theron Shan, say that I’m a good person. Or I will be forced to laugh.”

He groaned and caught her hand in his free one shaking his head at her and leaning forward. “You’re impossible,” he said, kissing her, gently pushing her until she was lying back on the bed. He settled over her, kissed her again. “And laugh if you have to but you are a good person it’s just that… good has a lot of different definitions.”

She laughed, just as promised. “I am not a good person by anyone’s definition, Theron,” she said. She reached up and tangled a hand in his hair, pulling him down to kiss him again. “But I can appreciate that you are.”

Chapter Text

She woke more relaxed than she could remember being since coming out of the carbonite -- in her own bed, surrounded by the familiar. Save for the presence of Theron sleeping beside her she might almost have believed she was still pursuing Baras across the galaxy, before Malavai’s betrayal, before Revan, with the only pressing matters on her mind her own quest for power enough to defeat her master.

It was not the same, however, and she could not be sure if she was grateful for that, or resentful.

In truth, she’d not expected to sleep again. Four or five hours a night was what she’d come to rely on, since her rescue, but his presence, and their exertions, had led them both back into slumber.

She propped herself on an elbow and studied his face. Younger, in sleep, the lines she’d noticed he’d gained during her absence were less noticeable. The flesh around his implants showing signs of irritation, raised and red, and she wondered if he’d had them checked lately. Probably not. They had cybernetic experts here, on Odessan, but most of them were busy with artificial limbs and strength and endurance enhancements to their soldiers. She supposed that implants like Theron’s were more specialised, although she knew almost nothing of cybernetics herself. Useful, probably, to someone like Theron, who had made his living with his wits and not his blade. He was not an instrument of force, to be wielded against an enemy head on, smashing through their defenses with strength and determination and brutality. No, Theron was someone to set loose so he could find his own way to the heart of a problem and dismantle it from within.

She reached out a hand, touching the side of his face lightly, letting her fingers run down to the stubble on his chin, leaned in to press her lips to his forehead.

He shifted in his sleep and she pulled back before her lips made contact, frowning, swallowing. She had felt no sense of Vitiate the night before, not all through her discussions with Theron about Quinn, through their lovemaking afterwards, but now, for some reason, the dark presence within her stirred, and she felt nauseous with the renewed understanding that he was there.

She would not speak to him. But the moment, which until then had felt… important, was spoiled, and she got up without bothering to be quiet, moving to the fresher.

She was letting water run over her face when she heard a hesitant knock at the door. “Come in, Theron,” she said.

He poked his head around, hair mussed out of its regular style and flat on one side. “Just making sure you were here. I can use the crew quarters if you…”

“Come in Theron,” she said, sighing.

He grinned and did as she asked. The quarters were close, and in the end she finished her own shower before he started his, not without a few opportune kisses before she managed to let herself out and begin dressing. He was efficient, once she left, and came out just as she was buttoning her vest, starting to hunt for his own clothes which were strewn across the floor of the bedroom, left precisely where they’d fallen the night before.

She frowned as he moved to put them on. “I swear you have not changed your jacket in five years,” she said.

He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t like my jacket?”

“I like it fine. But you don’t have to go back to the war room in wrinkled clothes.” She nodded to the closet in the corner. “Help yourself.”

“I’m not going to dress up in an Imperial uniform for you, Vopenir. At least, not unless we’re staying here all day…”

She threw one of his dirty socks at his head. “Malavai did wear civilian clothes sometimes Theron. And you’ve lost weight since I last saw you, I’m sure they’ll fit.”

He hesitated, then shrugged. None of the clothes in the closet were clothes that Malavai had ever worn, if the truth was to be known. She’d bought them for him, back when they’d first been married, thinking that perhaps he would wear them when he was off duty.

She’d been foolish, of course, to think that he was ever off duty.

Theron found a pair of pants and a grey tunic -- far more formal and Imperial than anything she had seen him wear before, and pulled on his boots. She surveyed him critically -- he had lost weight -- although the tunic was probably tight across his shoulders otherwise the clothes fit almost perfectly. He reached down and pulled his old jacket on over the tunic and she rolled her eyes.

He noticed. “Eh, I’m not wearing any of those,” he said, jerking his head back towards the closet, and she had to agree he was probably right. Capes really were not his style.

“I shall have to suffer it,” she said, reaching up to adjust his collar. When she looked up to meet his eyes there was a frown between them and he opened his mouth as if to say something, but she dropped her hands and quickly scooped up her lightsaber belt, buckling it in place before he could get the words out.

Lana and Koth were already in the war room, studying charts and bickering with friendly familiarity. They glanced up as she entered, a sparkle in Lana’s eye and a raised eyebrow from Koth more than enough indication that they both knew where Theron had spent the night. She quashed a surge of irritation at their delight -- her private life was obviously going to be far less than private here -- and gave her attention to the tactical display in the centre of the room.

She had not had time to fully analyse the extent of Zakuul’s influence over the core worlds since they’d come to Odessan, far more concerned with making sure they had enough supplies to support the troops and specialists who were even now flocking to their base. Vague assertions from Lana about Acina and the council, evasive words from Theron when she asked about the Republic and the Jedi order, had prepared her a little, she’d thought, for how bad it was.

She’d thought.

Coruscant and Dromund Kaas were completely trade locked -- blockaded by portions of the eternal fleet. Core agricultural worlds were left mostly untouched -- supplies into and out of main population centres were hardly slowed -- but core mining operations were another matter.

Raw materials -- metals, minerals, even fibres, were being diverted to Zakuul space in staggering quantities. Those worlds that depended on industry for their livelihood -- Balmorra, Nar Shadaa -- even Tatooine and Talos IV, were barely able to function any longer -- they had no raw materials with which to work.

Vopenir was no expert in such matters -- as the Emperor’s Wrath she was there as an enforcer, not as an administrator, but even she could see that the Galactic Economy was poised on the brink of a catastrophic collapse. Zakuul was sucking the core worlds dry.

“How have they done this, in so little time?” she asked.

Theron, standing beside her, let out a sigh. “They’re bigger, better and faster than we are,” he said. “The usual reasons, I guess.”

“Where are our allies? Where is the Empire? The Republic?”

“As I said, Lord Wrath,” Lana said. “The Empire and the Republic have seen this as an opportunity to settle old rivalries. They fight each other, believing that once they have a victory over one they can use their captured resources to fight back against Zakuul. Neither realise that the other have nothing.” She looked as though she wanted to comfort Vopenir, somehow, but Vopenir scowled at her. “Without Darth Marr to unite them the Dark Council fell to infighting and politicking. Not even Darth Vowrawn was able to unite them.”
“Imperius?” Vopenir said. “She had a fleet. Support throughout the underclasses. An insufferably arrogant attitude.”

Lana glanced at Theron. “She fell pregnant shortly after your disappearance,” she said. “And left Dromund Kaas directly before the blockade. No one has heard from her since.”

Vopenir felt her hand clench into a fist. “What about your people,” she shot at Theron. “Where’s your mother and her precious Battlemaster?”

Theron’s nostrils flared and she saw his hand twitch. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Have you asked?”

“Lord Wrath…”

“This is ridiculous. I can believe that the council would abdicate responsibility for the worlds under its care but I had come to think that perhaps your precious republic would not be so....”

“Hey,” Koth came between them, hands out. “ Hey. I don’t want to make assumptions here, but it sounds a bit like you’re getting angry at the wrong people. Theron and Lana are here aren’t they? It’s not their fault their people aren’t.”

Lana let out a sigh, putting one hand on his arm. “No, Koth,” she said, then turned to Vopenir. “You’re not entirely wrong, my lord. We have been scrambling ever since the first attack on Korriban and we have never truly recovered from your capture and Darth Marr’s death. The Empire…” she stopped, looking down. “The Empire has not proven strong enough.”

Vopenir almost felt sorry for her.

“The Republic has been fraying at the edges for years,” Theron said. “There’s corruption in the highest ranks. We lost sight of who was fighting our war, the reason for fighting it in the first place.” He turned away from them. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Vitiate chose to act when he did.”

Of course it wasn’t.

“Shut up,” she said. Theron glanced at her in puzzled offense, and she gestured to her head. “Not you. An annoying insect, injecting his inconsequentialities into my mind.”

“Vitiate,” Lana said.

Theron’s eyes widened. “He talks to you?”

She felt her lip curl in a snarl. “No. He buzzes at me , making inane comments and wallowing in his inadequacies …” a sharp, stabbing pain through her middle cut her off, right where Arcann’s lightsaber had pierced her flesh, making her double over. Theron was there, in a second, one hand on her arm.

“Vopenir…”

“Lord Wrath…” Lana sounded alarmed, more alarmed than Theron, but then she understood the danger far more readily. “You should not anger him.”

“His anger cannot harm me,” she spat, and the pain came again, worse this time, so that she couldn’t stop herself from crying out.

“He was the one who healed you,” Lana said, on the other side of her now, as Theron’s warm hands supported her weight, and the pain increased. “Surely hurting you would be less complicated.”

“If he kills me he kills himself. Let him do it.” At that moment, with the pain searing through her gut and his malicious glee in her mind, she meant it.

Theron hissed, his hands tightening on her arm. She could feel the thrum of his pulse through his fingers, sense the tight panic in his chest. “ Not gonna happen,” he ground out.

“Besides,” Lana said, “if you die who is to say where he will jump next? My lord, I sympathise, but letting him destroy you is really not practical.”

“Like a hook-wasp,” Koth said. “Better we know where he is, at least then he’s not going to turn up and sting us without warning.”

I would never kill you, Valkorian said. You have not yet fulfilled our purpose.

“I do not share a purpose with you!” she shouted. Her voice echoed through the chamber, and the pain ebbed, suddenly and completely, leaving her gasping with relief, held up only by Theron’s supporting arms.

She snarled, shoving shoving him aside, nearly doing the same to Lana but for the other sith’s quick backstep, and all but ran from the room.

Chapter Text

She came to herself leaning heavily on the railings of the walkway across to the Fury, the muggy air of Odessan catching in her lungs as she struggled for breath. The pain had faded, but she was clutching at her stomach with one hand, vividly remembering the feel of Arcann’s saber as it had sunk into her flesh.

Vitiate was silent for now, but she felt like a prisoner hiding in the corners of her own mind, terrified of when he would decide to interject again, wanting him to so she could goad him into revealing his plans for her before he was ready.

“He was never receptive to opinions other than his own,” Senya’s voice -- low and melodious, interrupted her seething, and she turned to see the older woman standing some way away from her. Her eyes were narrow, looking at Vopenir keenly, probably trying to find a trace of the husband she’d once loved.

She would squash him if he tried to speak, deny him any words to his former wife. She suspected he could talk to her, if he wanted. She suspected that if he wished it, he could take control of her body as he had so many others and do as he pleased, murder her friends, destroy everything she was trying to build.

The fact that he hadn’t meant that he didn’t want to, and that was possibly the most frightening thing of all.

“We were taught that his opinions were the only ones that mattered,” Vopenir said. She did not trust Senya. Arcann was not the only one of her children who had tried to kill her. “It was drummed into us from the time we were children. Every one of us, in the Empire, believed that his word was law.” She shook her head. “Yet he never spoke, and so we fell to interpreting his silence instead.”

“Something your Dark Council did admirably, from what I have read.”

“Marr had the right of it,” Vopenir said. “We listened to nothing for centuries, and it got us nowhere. Marr dared to suggest that we should rule ourselves. And so your husband killed him.”

“He has not been my husband for some time,” Senya said. “And he was consistent in how he wished to be perceived, at least. The Immortal God Emperor, Valkorian.”

Vopenir bared her teeth. “If he calls himself immortal often enough he can pretend he is not terrified of his own end.”

Senya’s eyes widened in alarm and she stepped forward, but Vitiate did not retaliate. Perhaps he wanted Senya to think him compassionate. “I would have thought you’d be more careful how you spoke of him, after what happened in the war room.”

“He’s made it very clear he does not wish to kill me,” she said, turning from Senya. She had fled the war room when there was still work to be done. She needed to go back, and show them that she was at least on her feet, if not composed. “If it comes to that, I suspect the rest of you will have to do the job for him. Lana, at least, I know will not hesitate if it becomes necessary to kill me.” Theron had best not try to stop her.  “In the meantime, I can handle pain.”

“Your sith training prepared you for it?” Senya asked.

“Those of us who cannot handle pain are very quickly weeded out, yes.”

Senya looked thoughtful. “What is it?” Vopenir asked.

“Valkorian gave our children very little training in the ways of the force,” she said. “Discipline, fighting, these were taught rigidly, but he never tamed Arcann’s temper or did anything to control Vaylin’s outbursts other than put blocks in her mind.”

Vopenir gave a low chuckle. “He left them untrained because he knew they would try to kill him in the end.”

“When your father is immortal you are unlikely to ever move from prince to King,” Senya agreed. “I had hoped to train them to something different - but he wanted them close to him at all times - and they always listened to him rather than to me.”

“You should have taken them with you when you left,” Vopenir said. “Vitiate is a terrible parent.”

“So Lana informs me. Although I do not believe these “emperor’s children” she spoke of are quite the same as Arcann and Vaylin.”

“What of Thexan?” Vopenir asked. Senya stiffened, her hand moving to rest on the hilt of her lightsaber.

“Thexan was always different,” she said. “More gentle. Even as a baby.”

“Sith training would have done him little good, then. There is no room for gentleness. He would have died far more quickly were Baras his master.”

“Perhaps Sana Rae could have helped him,” Senya said.

“A grophet will fly, if you toss it hard enough. Why are you asking me about this?”

Senya stopped, her hands resting on her belt, not looking directly at Vopenir, but rather out over the jungle that surrounded them. “Your enclave - the Voss woman who runs it - she could do nothing for Vaylin or Arcann, and Thexan is dead. Your sith path, however - that I believe is something that could help my daughter.”

“Not Arcann?”

Senya raised an eyebrow. “You would help him? After what he has done to you?”

Vopenir laughed. “No,” she said. “I would not.”

“But Vaylin…”

She’d not told anyone of Vaylin’s words, in her dream state. There was a connection there that she needed to tease out, a possibility that she could feel through the force was important. But for now, she would keep it to herself.

“Vaylin would have murdered an entire city of her own people, just to stop me from escaping,” Vopenir said, instead. “She is more like Vitiate than her brother.”

“I see.”

“It is not my job to fix your wayward children, Senya. Traditionally that is a role fulfilled by their parents.”

Senya’s face hardened. “True,” she said. “However if the time comes and you happened to feel grateful for my help in your fight, perhaps you could consider …”

Theron stood at the end of the walkway, looking at them, his face open and worried and Vopenir felt a tug under her breastbone - a sudden surge of feeling that made her swallow.

“You okay?” He asked, ignoring Senya, whose hand lightly touched her arm.

“Please,” she said. “I only ask that you consider it.”

Vopenir waved a hand and Senya slid past Theron and away. One more thing to put on the list of things she must worry about -- when the time came and it was necessary to kill Arcann Vopenir hardly thought his sister would step aside and allow herself to be redeemed, not if the fight she’d had with her mother on Asylum indicated anything about their relationship at all.

“Does it still hurt?” Theron asked, reaching one hand to her side. She shook her head.

“No. My apologies for the outburst. If it happens again I’ll be sure to leave the room before I start arguing with him.”

“You don’t have to do that…”

She half smiled. “You think it’s good for morale for the troops to see me shouting at something that only exists in my head?”

“I didn’t mean…”

She shook her head and pushed past him, heading back towards the war room. “We still have the problem of allies, Theron,” she said. “What I was saying before Vitiate decided to be an ass is relevant. I can’t believe you have no idea where your mother is, or your father. Either would help our cause immensely.”

He fell into step beside her and she could feel his uncertainty. And grief. “We had a falling out. Right after your disappearance. And then Zakuul blockaded Coruscant and I kind of lost her frequency, you know? Just a war going on. Nothing big.”

“You have theories, though,” she said.

“A few, yeah. And a few leads that haven’t dried completely up. Look I’m not saying we’re without resources, here, Vopenir, we just need to reach out to the right people and that takes time.”

She stopped. “I was in carbonite for five years, Theron.”

“Most of these people wouldn’t even consider talking to us without you,” Theron said, teeth clenched. “Lana and me, we didn’t have the pull, we didn’t have the connections, not after the SIS and Imperial Intelligence threw us both out on our ears for suggesting that we actually try to work together for a change. You’re here for a reason. We rescued you for a reason.”

She nodded. “Of course you did.”

She increased her speed so he fell behind, stalking ahead to Aygo’s hanger bay. Ships and speeders in various states of repair lay strewn around, personnel weaving between the debris, laughing and talking and working together. She was angry with herself, trying to hold back tears, wondering why she so desperately wanted to give into them.

“Wait,” she could hear him trotting after her and it took a real effort not to force hurl him back against the railing. “Vopenir, what? What did I say? What is it?”  

“Did none of you stop to ask whether I wanted this?”

“To be rescued?”

“Do not be obtuse Theron! You have a brain will you not use it?”

He stopped, hands out in front of him, that line between his eyebrows deepening. “I would have…” he stopped again, took a deep breath in. “I tried to find you. After the Terminus went down I went back -- Vette and Pierce and Broonmark and Miot and me, we looked for weeks for any sign but we can’t track Arcann’s ships and we didn’t even know where Zakuul was and I couldn’t… I didn’t…”

She shut her eyes. Heard him draw in a shaky breath. “There was a war on. I wasn’t old enough to understand it when my parents fought at Coruscant but Zakuul was worse, they didn’t even care, they didn’t even know us and they wanted to kill us and the Republic was sitting on its hands and looking for ways to push its advantage against the Empire and none of them could see what the threat was, none of them knew that it didn’t fucking matter that the Sith Empire controlled Balmorra when Balmorra was going to fall to skytroopers the week after they’d taken a city, no one cared that Lothal was being just as plundered as Ryloth -- it was all factions and advantage and fucking bureaucracy and whatever… whatever I felt wasn’t as important as that, and it never could have been. So I stopped looking for you and started trying to do something to help the rest of the galaxy instead.”

It hurt. By the force, that hurt . “You stopped…”

He fisted his hands in his hair, letting out a groan and shaking his head. “What did you want me to do? Honestly? Did you want me to abandon everything and spend all my time tracking you down? I wanted to. I just. I don’t do what I want. Not all the time. Because sometimes what I want isn’t…”

“Important?”

He stepped forward, two long strides and took her wrist in his hand, lightly. “No. What I want isn’t important, not now. That’s… kind of the point isn’t it? Of what I’ve been doing all my life.”

She twisted her wrist in his hand until their palms met. He laced his fingers through hers and she felt herself leaning forward, until she could feel the heat of his body, feel the puff of his breath against her hair. “I have come to believe that the only true tenant in Jedi training is that you make yourself as miserable as possible,” she muttered.

He laughed, a short desperate sound, and his other hand came up to cup her cheek. “Finding you was important but it was only important to me at first.”

She jabbed a finger into his chest. “And you think you don’t matter,” she said.

He shrugged. “Of course I matter,” he said. “Just not to the war.”

“You’re an idiot,” she said. “And you matter to me.”

He grinned, a wide, sudden happy thing that hit her right in her stomach. “I do?”

She kicked him gently in the shin. “Yes.”

“Well since you matter so much I must matter by association?”

“That word is ceasing to have any meaning at all,” she said, tugging him forward so she could kiss him.

He pulled her close up against him, moved his hand down her neck and shoulder to her hip, hooking her arm around his waist, and that could have gone on for a lot longer if Koth hadn’t turned up behind Theron and given a very loud, very awkward cough.

“Theron we need to talk,” he said. Theron broke off the kiss and they both turned to Koth, who was practically vibrating with tension. He held a datapad in one hand, and his eyes were narrow. “What’s this I’m hearing about you wanting to recruit Firebrand?”

Chapter Text

Firing high impact weaponry in enclosed spaces had always seemed like lunacy to Vopenir, and falling masonry had particularly unpleasant connotations in her brain considering her experiences on Quesh. As such she was a little concerned with the structural integrity of the rail station in which they had until recently been conducting a firefight and missed the exact moment at which Lana recognised Firebrand.

The other woman was small, wiry, and rattataki, sporting a large blaster rifle as well as at least one professional and expensive looking blaster pistol, which she drew as soon as she heard Lana’s voice.

“Djannis,” Lana said.

“No way,” Firebrand raised the blaster, looking for all the world like she’d seen a ghost. “No fucking way,” the blaster was pointed unerringly right between Lana’s eyes. Vopenir, intrigued enough to want to find out why the appearance of Lana could evoke such strong emotion (Lana had always been so very controlled around her) was nevertheless keen for her not to get shot, and waved a hand, force pulling Firebrand’s pistol into it.

Firebrand spun, growling under her breath, as Vopenir lightly jumped over the last of the rubble to stand beside Lana, holding the blaster awkwardly in one hand.

Seeing her, Firebrand bared her teeth. “I’ve got plenty of guns, sith lady, and I’m willing to use them all on you if you...”

She didn’t get time to finish, as she was hit first with the force, then with a whirling vortex of anger that was Lana, pushing her up against a wall in a display of emotion so utterly out of character that Vopenir was momentarily unable to react.

“Where are they?” Lana said, her elbow firmly planted under Firebrand’s chin, other hand on her saber, ready to ignite it at the slightest provocation. “Where did you abandon them?”

Firebrand shoved at Lana with one hand. “Get off me, you fucking sith lunatic, I don’t know where they are! Off doing fucking bug stuff somewhere, what do I even care?”

“Are they alive?”

“Sheesh, Beniko. Yeah, they were alive when I left them. They were alive when you left them too you…”

Lana raised her fist as if to hit and Vopenir batted her arm back with the force. The last thing they needed to do was make an enemy of Firebrand, although it seemed that Lana had managed that before they’d even met her.

“Lana,” Vopenir said. “Stand down.”

Lana breathed out through her nostrils and nodded, relaxing her grip and standing back. “I should have known Scorpio wanted me to come on this mission for a reason,” she said.

“Scorpio?” Firebrand said. Lana smoothed her hands down the folds of her robe and adjusted her collar.

“You’re not the first of our former crew that I’ve run into,” Lana said. “Certainly not the most looked for.” She turned to Vopenir and gave a short nod. “My apologies, lord Wrath. I forgot myself.”

Vopenir folded her arms. “Apology accepted, Lana,” she said. “But this is fascinating, I take it the two of you know each other?”

Firebrand cracked her neck, checking her holster and narrowing her eyes at the blaster that Vopenir still held loosely in one hand. “Ran around together for a bit before the war got bad,” she said. “Before she took off on some mission of great importance or some other shit.” She sneered at Lana, folding her arms across her chest. “Remember that Beniko? You left before I did, don’t go shoving your guilt in my face just because…”

The surge of anger from Lana was so strong it sent ripples through the force surrounding them. Vopenir was even more intrigued. “I will end you, Kaliyo,” Lana said.

“Sure,” the rattataki drawled, before running her eyes over Vopenir. “Huh. I’m guessing you’re the Outlander.”

“Apparently,” Vopenir said.

“I’m Kaliyo. Also known as Firebrand. I take it you want something from me? Because I’m kind of busy and if you want it now you’re gonna have to tag along on a job first.”

“We don’t exactly have time for your childish games, Kaliyo,” Lana said.

“What’s childish?” Kaliyo said. “I’m striking a blow for freedom in Zakuul, me.”

“Who’s paying you?” Lana said.

Kaliyo made a face. “I’m doing it out of the goodness of my hearrrrrt Beniko.”

Lana made a disgusted sound and Kaliyo put a fist on her hip. “Look I’m going, but I need my blaster. Kind of fond of it. Lissia gave it to me back on Nar Shadaa after she and I…”

Lana hissed again and made a move towards Kaliyo, hand raising as if to choke her with the force. Vopenir laid a hand on the arm that was raised and shook her head.

“Tch tch, Lana. This isn’t like you at all.”

Lana rolled her eyes. “No. And you need not sound so delighted about that, Lord Wrath.”

“There’s obviously a juicy story here and I want every single detail.”

“We don’t have time.”

Kaliyo was tapping her foot on the metal floor, right next to the smoking carcass of a skytrooper. “No, we don’t. Look, lady, I’d love to tell you everything, but I’ve got places to be and I need my damn blaster back…”

Vopenir held her hand out letting the blaster float in front of them and raising an eyebrow at Kaliyo. “This blaster?”

Kaliyo’s eyes narrowed, but she obviously knew that lunging for it would be a mistake. Whatever else she was, she was familiar with force users.

Strong willed, well equipped and her very presence was enough to make Lana lose her normal tight control. Vopenir had rarely been so intrigued. “You can have it back if you agree to listen to what I have to say,” she said.

“Ugh,” Kaliyo said. “Sure fine, whatever. But can you hurry up? I’m on a timetable. We can talk and walk.”

Lana touched Vopenir’s arm as she let the blaster settle back into her hand. “Normally I am more inclined to believe Koth’s warnings of unsavoury characters come from his naivety,” she said softly. “But Kaliyo is duplicitous. You should not trust her.”

“We do not need to trust her,” Vopenir said, then smirked, glancing back over at the other woman. “Personally I find her quiet charming.”

Kaliyo winked. “You’re waaaay more fun than she is,” she said. “Come with me and we can talk business. Leave stick up her ass behind.”

“I’m not leaving you with her, my lord,” Lana said.

Kaliyo threw up her arms. “Well then neither of you are coming. Keep the damned blaster I’ve got to go now.”

Vopenir squeezed Lana’s arm. “We need her, Lana. I will be fine.”

Lana shook her head and stepped away. “I’m going to holo Theron. Let him know where you are so he can pull you out of whatever mess she gets you into after he’s done with his contact. And you can reach me, when you need me.”

“You never did understand me, Beniko,” Kaliyo said, turning her back and making her way to the elevator. “I’m in it for the fun and the money. Hurting your Outlander gets me neither. So relax.”

“Be careful,” Lana said, ignoring Kaliyo with obvious effort.

Vopenir gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m always careful, Lana.”

Her skeptic snort sounded almost like her normal self.

He remembered when they’d first decided that the best course of action was to find Vopenir, how he’d been in the same room with Lana. His implants meant that he didn’t need to be sitting at a data station to do his work, not if he had a data pad handy, and sometimes not even then (he didn’t disclose to other people exactly how much modification he’d had done, some people were still weird about cyborg implants) so he could coordinate shipments and send mail without even touching a keypad.

He’d paced.

Paced back and forth across the floor of whatever shitty little apartment they’d decided to meet in this time -- on Alderaan, in office slums on Nar Shadaa, in burnt out Czerka office blocks still smoking from the destruction of homicidal droids. He’d worn tracks into soft carpets on Dromund Kaas and Coruscant, kicked up splinters in wooden boards in huts on Rishi, gotten sand in his socks on Tatooine. Pacing, pacing and pacing until Lana would tell him to sit down, or Bobbi would drag him off to drown his sorrows, or Koth would tell him to go work out or something just stop the incessant pacing please…

He was beginning to see why Lana had been so upset with him.

“She’ll call if she needs us,” he said. The safe house on Zakuul was a little more luxurious than most of the other places they’d been forced to wait for contacts in the past, but Lana was oblivious to anything he’d tried to offer her to reduce her tension. “I’m beginning to see your point,” he said, trying a different tactic.

“What point?” Lana asked, starting another round of the living area, hands clasped behind her back.

“You threatened to tie me to a chair, back when we first started looking for Vopenir. I’m beginning to understand why.”

Lana looked up at him, her yellow eyes piercing and hard, before her expression softened and she shook her head slightly. “I apologise, Theron. I can leave and let you get some work…”

“No. I’d rather you let me in on why this mission has you so worked up. You knew Firebrand? Before she was Firebrand.”

Lana waved a hand. “Years ago,” she said. “It’s in the past.”

“Well, no it’s not really. Not any more, since she’s back and running around with Vopenir. What did you say her name was again?”

“Kaliyo. Kaliyo Djannis.”

Theron accessed his implants, did a little hunting in his files. This far away from republic space he didn’t have access to the full holonet, but their ship in orbit had databanks on a lot of people of interest.

There was nothing.

Nothing at all.

He blinked, looking up at Lana who was smiling wryly. “You won’t find anything on her. Not in any of our databases. Lissia was… is one of the Empire’s best kept secrets.”

Theron blinked. “Lissia?”

“Churek’ill’issia,” Lana corrected, and the way her mouth formed her name made Theron raise an eyebrow. “She would be upset with me if I mangled her name.”

“Chiss?” He guessed.

Lana nodded. “She was very senior in Intelligence, before Darth Marr appointed me. He believed we would work well together.” Lana looked down at her hands, smiling a little. “He was right on that account.”

“And Djannis was part of her crew? Seems odd, that a ranking member of Imperial intelligence would get to drag along someone so volatile. I can’t imagine she’s great at stealth either.”

“Intelligence has always been willing to enlist the help of citizens,” Lana said. “And Djannis has a valuable skillset. Lissia was always too trusting of her, always willing to take her explanations and excuses.” Lana sighed. “I sometimes think she just wanted a friend.”

“She’s is important to you,” Theron said.

“She and her husband are the most important people in my life, Theron,” Lana gave him a sad smile. “But they are gone. The last communication I had from Vector was nearly three years ago. I suppose Kaliyo left them some time after I did. I should not have expected better from her.”

“What was the communication?” Theron asked, curious now.

“Vector had to return to the hive,” she said.

“Hold up a minute. The hive? What….?”

“Vector Hyllus, Dawn Herald of the Oroboro nest,” Lana said. “Lissia’s husband is a kilik joiner.”

There was a slight rumble underneath them, and the lights cut out. Theron cursed, getting to his feet and moving to the windows. Lana moved to a data station and started punching in commands.

“There’s no power at all.”
Theron pulled out his holo and called Vopenir’s frequency, but it rang through with no answer. “This is got to be Firebrand’s work,” he said.

“I suspect so,” Lana said, moving to the window and looking out at the city. “The power is out for several blocks. There are no maintenance droids anywhere.”

Theron rubbed the skin around his implants. “Should we go out and try to find her?”

Lana bit her lip, then shook her head. “We don’t know where to begin looking for her, and it’ll be chaos out there. We should trust that she’ll find her way back to us.”

It was Theron’s turn to be tense. Waiting for Vopenir wasn’t his favourite thing in the world to do, and not being able to contact her was more worrying than he was willing to admit. He was tempted to join Lana in her pacing, but knew that wouldn’t help anyone. Instead, he sat back down.

“We’ve got time,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me about this Dawn Herald and Super Imperial Spy of yours.”

An hour later, maybe two, and there was noise at the apartment door. Lana and Theron nodded to each other and set up position on either side, waiting for it to open. When it did, a disgruntled looking rattataki woman Theron assumed was Firebrand was shoved through followed by Vopenir, who was grinning.

Theron holstered his blaster and Lana folded her arms over her chest.

“I’m guessing the power outage was something to do with the two of you?” He said.

“Your Wrath friend is less fun that Lissia ever was,” Kaliyo said to Lana. “Wouldn’t let me teach Zakuul the lesson it needed.”
“There is no point in a lesson falling on dead ears, Firebrand,” Vopenir said. “The power outage and the droid disruption will do nicely for our purposes. Wild, uncontrolled strikes only make Arcann angry.”

“Yeah, well, that’s kind of the point of them, isn’t it?”

“You will get your chance for violence,” Vopenir said. “I guarantee it.”

“So,” Theron said, “I take it we have a new recruit?”

Kaliyo winked at him. “I’m thinking I’ll stick around, yeah.”

Lana sighed.

Chapter Text

Odessan’s Cantina was definitely not Vopenir’s first choice for an eating establishment, but it did sport a kitchen and it did cook food that was relatively fresh -- some of it even tilled from the small hydroponics facilities they’d set up when they first arrived on planet. Their population wasn’t big enough yet to attempt to farm the surrounding land, although Vopenir was certain that eventually they would have to consider it. Supplies were short, and every trip they made to procure them put them in danger of being discovered. If they were to remain here, they would have to become self sufficient, at least for those troops and specialists who remained on Odessan permanently.

She picked at the wilted leaves of the salad she had ordered, thinking longingly of the cosmopolitan restaurants of Dromund Kaas.

“You eat that stuff?” Theron pulled up a stool next to her.

“Only when forced,” she said. He ordered a drink and something complicated and human for himself to eat. Humans seemed to like things fried, she’d found. Fried or roasted or covered with sauce so strong tasting that it completely eclipsed the flavour of the meat or vegetable it was swimming in. Theron’s preference seemed to be for one of the spicier sauces -- filled with flecks of a red vegetable that she was convinced was poisonous to Mirialans. Why else would it burn her mouth like that?

“Next time we’re on Zakuul we should go to a restaurant and eat something that hasn’t been freeze dried or grown in a lab,” Theron said. If she hadn’t been so unimpressed with her current meal she would have been flattered that he was suggesting… a night out, she supposed. The kind of thing she would have done with Malavai, in an expensive gown, him in his dress uniform. Rooms full of rich socialites would stop and stare as they entered -- the Emperor’s Wrath needed no reservations and the best tables were miraculously cleared of other guests before she even asked.

And the food…. Well. The food would be delicious and catered precisely to her own particular tastes.

“Vitiate would recommend somewhere expensive, I suspect,” she said. Theron winced. “Or we could ask Senya.”

“Gotta get you a better disguise than a cloak first. If there were more Mirialans on Zakuul you wouldn’t have as much trouble but you’re pretty distinctive.”

She wondered what those rooms full of Dromund Kaas elite would say of her now. She had not worn a gown since going into the carbonite, doubted that she could scrape together cosmetics enough to take the edge of her scar, let alone deal with her chapped lips and battle dry hands.

Her lip twitched as she imagined walking into one of those restaurants as she was dressed now -- armor and combat boots, lightsaber (that she had constructed herself, with natural crystals in much the same manner as a jedi -- scandalous in of itself) worn openly at her waist, Theron, who miraculously had no visible bruises right now but still wore the same red jacket she’d first seen him in and had not shaved… or had shaved but in that peculiar human male fashion had sprouted stubble almost immediately afterwards, in the place that had been Malavai’s.

He was so very republic, the way he walked, the way he spoke, the easy attitude that could spark into confrontation at a moment’s notice.

She’d found it refreshing, when she’d first worked with him, not recognising that there were other things that made him uniquely Theron.

She prodded at her salad again, filled with a sudden, fierce desire to take him to one of those restaurants one day and force choke anyone in the place that dared to look at them wrong.

The bartender plopped a plate of some unidentifiable deep fried meat in front of Theron and he proceeded to dip it in sauce. She made a mental note to give him a strong drink of Mirialan brandy before he tried to kiss her later.

“Your letter about Kaliyo reached me,” she said. “I take it she hasn’t attempted to seduce anyone else on Odessan?”

“She seems more interested in our explosive supplies,” he said. “Has Koth on edge, he wants to keep his eyes on Senya and on Kaliyo at all times. Poor guy needs to relax.”

“We should take him with us on our next mission,” she said.

“Might be a good idea. Speaking of which, I’ve been in contact with the SIS, and I think I have another lead.”

“Your mother?”

“No such luck. But possibly more useful. Remember back when we met on Nar Shadaa? When I was doing scouting with Havoc Squad?”

Vopenir let Theron fly the Fury to the rendevous point in the outer rim. He had some ideas why Havoc wanted to meet him out here -- rumours had reached his ears through old republic contacts and Admiral Aygo. They were only a few hours away from Belsavis when they dropped out of hyperspace in a system with two white dwarf stars, circling each other and passing matter and energy back and forth in an ages long dance that would end in them merging into one. Beautiful, in its own way, with the added advantage that the gravitational waves emitted by the twin stars would make their ships difficult to detect.

The Thunderclap and the Fury docked, without much difficulty, and Vopenir and Theron left their strike team on board to go and talk to Aric and his crew directly.

Havoc squad consisted of six members of various ethnicities and specialties. If Vopenir had ever had cause to come up against them in battle she wouldn’t have recognised any of them, however. Files had listed only one of the original members of the crew being still on board -- the current Major.

Havoc had changed, since Vopenir had last heard of them. Those members who had been on Yavin 4 during the fight with Revan (including Captain Dorne, the medic who had attended her after Revan nearly killed her) were all reassigned or MIA.

Which was part of the problem, Theron said.

“Aric’s good people, if a little bit uptight,” he said, as they waited for the two ship’s atmospheres to stabilise, “and he’s doing a damned fine job as Havoc Squad’s Major, but his old CO was the best. Never seen a tactical mind like hers, not in all my years in the SIS. Never seen anyone command so much loyalty from their soldiers, either, she had a way with her....” Vopenir crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t,” Theron said, smiling a little. “She and Aric are married.” She raised an eyebrow. “Married married, not… you know…”

She chuckled, which was a relief. “Not like I was married, you mean,” she said.

“Very much not like that in any way, no. Any way she’s gone missing, or at least, she’s not in command any more and I’m pretty sure Aric knows why. There’ve been rumours flying around ever since Suresh took her “back seat” in the council, rumours that she’s becoming more and more… dictatorial. And Aygo said he’d gotten a report of a squad of high end military types trying to arrest her on corruption charges. My guess? Brill was part of that squad.”

“So you think she was court martialed?”

“Would make sense. Would also make sense, if I know Brill, that she’d try to shield her team from the repercussions.” He shook his head, breathing out through his teeth. “I would not want to have been there when she convinced Aric to let her take that fall. I’m pretty sure there would have been claws and growling.”

Vopenir tilted her head, looking… alien. It wasn’t that she was Mirialan. Theron had grown up with Mirialans, force sensitives and children with the potential for the force, and when they were young they held onto their culture because they wanted to remember that they belonged to something. In the end, they became Jedi, and while he knew the Jedi didn’t believe in erasing the culture of those who were knighted, it was so all consuming, so bright and strong and entire, that in the end the Jedi was all that mattered.

No, when Vopenir felt alien to him, it was because she came from the Empire. There was a basic, confused inability to understand the way the republic worked. “The republic would do that? Let one person take the fall for many? It’s obvious that all of them were at fault. If there is evidence...”

Theron dropped his eyes. He suspected, in the Sith Empire, the entire of Havoc squad would have been sentenced to death. He doubted they would have even gotten a trial. But there was no way Brill’s team would follow orders blindly. They were culpable, and according to the rules, they should have been punished.

At what point did you trade freedom for accountability?

“The republic is more concerned with making examples than punishing individuals,” Theron said.

She blinked, frowning. “Punishing individuals is making an example,” she said.

Impeccable. Imperial. Logic.

Sometimes he wondered why he loved her.

They were led onto the Thunderclap by a green skinned twi’lek woman and a short, cheerful Zabrak man. In the operations room, Major Jorgan stood, with his arms crossed over his chest and a gigantic sniper rifle strapped to his back. He was flanked by his Captain - a large human woman, and a Kel Dor man almost as tall as he was. Not exactly the most welcoming of receptions.

“Theron,” Aric Jorgan was big, by her standards. Not necessarily by those of his people. She had fought Cathar on Taris that were nearly a head taller than this man, with his pale, gold and black mottled fur, and his deep yellow eyes. Cathar were unnerving, and she knew she wasn’t alone in feeling uneasy in their presence. When he talked, she could catch glimpses of his canine teeth -- long and sharper than daggers, capable of tearing through flesh and sinew, crippling an opponent even when completely unarmed. On their entrance, the Major let out a low growl that she was half sure wasn’t even conscious, a sound specifically tuned to trigger the flight reflexes of any person in the room made, as she was, essentially of meat.

Cathar were very rare in the sith order, despite being as likely to be force sensitive as humans or mirialans or twi’leks and the few she’d known had been fierce warriors, aloof and powerful. They’d disappeared into the ranks of sith in the Empire, swallowed up by a system that was brutal towards any alien who didn’t have the sponsorship she’d had.

No matter how much she despised Darth Baras and gloried in his demise, she could recognise that she was the exception to the rule. An alien, and a sith lord allowed to take part in deep councils.

It is because you have a destiny, Vitiate said.

I thought you and I were above destiny, she replied, and he chuckled, and she cursed herself for giving into the temptation to acknowledge his existence.

She would forge her own destiny.

In any case, she wondered at how easily Theron seemed to relax in the company of Major Jorgan. This was a predator, and Vopenir, while she could appreciate his power, would never be easy in its presence.

“Aric,” Theron said. “This is Vopenir Aloni.”

Aric’s eyes bored into hers and she tilted her chin. She would meet threat with threat. It was the way she’d been trained.

“The Emperor’s chief murderer,” he said. “I won’t lie, when I heard Theron had taken up with you I figured he was being coerced.”

She lifted her lip in a sneer. “Would you have come to rescue him if that had been the case?” she said.

Jorgan chuckled. “Wouldn’t be the first time Havoc squad had pulled his ass out of the fire,” he said, then took a step closer to her. Her head barely came up to his chest, and it was hard to keep eye contact. “Was a time I’d have sold my soul for the opportunity to take one of your kind down. A service to the galaxy, it would have been. And now, here you are, on my ship, surrounded by republic forces.” His eyes gleamed. “Interesting.”

“Hey,” Theron stepped forward, but Vopenir thrust out an arm, stopping him. Her other hand rested on her saber hilt. There was a sudden movement, and every gun in the room trained on her.

“Hey,” Theron said again.

“Do you really believe you could kill me?” She said.

“Killed a lot of sith in my time,” Jorgan said. “What makes you special?”

In her mind, Vitiate roiled. She had no doubt if she asked, he would provide enough power to obliterate every living being on this ship in a second. She pushed him down.

That was not why they were here.

“A number of things,” she said. “Chief among them, that you have made it through this conversation still breathing.”

He smirked, showing fangs, then lifted a hand. The weapons dropped and the rest of Havoc squad slunk away, leaving them alone in the conference room.

“Sheesh,” Theron said. “Could we lighten up a bit in here?”

Jorgan turned to Theron, and Vopenir could see that while he did not trust her, there was something different with Theron. They knew each other -- respected each other probably. She didn’t know precisely why that made her angry. “Theron,” Jorgan said. “I usually trust your judgement but in this case you could be leading us all into disaster.”

“Go big or go home,” Theron said, shrugging, but he didn’t lean back and he moved so he was a little more in front of her than he had been before. “She’s the only one with the influence we need, she’s done more than enough to warrant all our trust, so I suggest you back the hell off, Major, and let us help you with your problem.”

Jorgan snorted, his eyes sliding back to Vopenir, and she knew he was taking in the way Theron was standing, the protective tone of his voice. This man was intelligent. Perceptive.

And very dangerous. “Sit down,” he said finally. “Let me explain what I need.”

Belsavis was hardly Vopenir’s favourite planet. Theron’s quest to get rid of the star fortresses had so far come up mostly blank -- a few contacts here and there, a few half hearted plans for stealth teams. Any plan they came up with would have to be executed simultaneously, and they simply didn’t have the resources to commit to such a large undertaking.

Part of the reason they were so desperate for recruits, right now, and part of the reason they were on this mission in the first place.

“Jorgan seems competent,” Vopenir said to Theron in the hyperspace jump to the prison planet. “I don’t see why we need his old CO as well.”

“Jorgan won’t come to us unless we help him free Brill,” Theron said.

“He puts his personal feelings above the needs of the Alliance,” Vopenir said.

“Yeah,” Theron said. “Well, that’s not something that Brill will do. Ever. So getting her back will help us coming and going.”

“You like her,” she said.

“She represents exactly what the republic should be. What I fought for when I joined up -- that… that sort of idealism is something we could use an injection of right now.”

She frowned, turning away, and Theron wondered again at her motives. She cared about the Alliance, that much was certain. She ran it with brutal efficiency, and the troops and specialists respected her. She handled Koth and Senya’s bickering, even Scorpio’s arrogance seemed to leave her unfazed, but her end goal…

“What do you think will happen, once we get rid of Arcann?” he asked.

“Presumably Zakuul will stop trying to kill us,” she said. “Isn’t that the general idea?”

“I guess,” he said. “But we have to do something with what’s left.”

She turned, tilting her head. “We?”

“You fancy being a God Emperor?”

Her eyes widened. “Stars, no I do not. Although I’ve no doubt that’s what Vitiate thinks I should do. Odds on that are as soon as I sat on the throne he would do his best to banish me from my own flesh and rule in my stead.”

He blinked. “You think…”

“He’s not riding around in my head waiting for me to go into retirement, Theron.”

“So why hasn’t he taken over yet?” Theron said, mouth suddenly dry. The thought of Vopenir… not being Vopenir… the thought of looking into her eyes and having Vitiate look out through them...

She snorted and folded her arms across her chest. “Then he would have to work,” she said. “No, much better to let me do the killing and the organising while he watches. Then he can sit on his throne and ignore his people the way he did with us for centuries…” she stopped, wincing and Theron reached out a hand.

“Easy,” he said.

She swallowed, breathing hard. “He dislikes it when I tell truths,” she said.

He cupped her jaw, running a thumb over her cheek. “Maybe start lying a bit, then, hey?”

She looked up at him, and her eyes were flat. “We find a way to get him out,” she said. “Kill Senya’s wayward children or hand them over to someone who knows what to do with them. After that, the Empire, the Republic, Zakuul? They can do whatever they wish. Without me.”

Her voice was bleak, and Theron wondered if she even believed it was possible to banish Vitiate from her mind without killing her.

She reached up and touched the hand that he still held against her face and he leaned down -- awkwardly given their positions, to kiss her.

The atmosphere was charged with something -- maybe it was the force, maybe it was just a realisation that there had to be an after for both of them, but the kiss turned passionate more quickly than usual and suddenly she was pulling at him until he dropped to his knees in front of the chair and she slid to its edge, thighs’ on either side of his waist, gripping him with all her strength.

He mouthed at her neck, and slid his hand up her tunic to cup a breast as she held his head to her, one hand reaching for his belt. Inadvisable, so close to their drop point, but right now he wasn’t thinking straight, and he helped her unbutton his pants as his other hand hooked into the small of her back, arching her up so she could shimmy out of her own leggings.

“Theron,” she gasped against his lips as he slid forward, pushing into her and letting out a groan. She was wet and tight around him as he began to move, quickly. There was no subtlety to this, she urged him on with short, sharp cries and he obliged, a quick, desperate act of passion that went some way to filling the void that the future had opened in front of them.

She let out a gasp as she clenched around him, and that was enough for him to spill into her, collapsing against the chair where she was still awkwardly perched. Her leggings were caught on one of her boots, and his belt had snapped -- twisted around the arm of the chair in their haste to pull it off.

He panted against her for a moment, embarrassed, but sated, and she twined fingers in his hair, breathing hard. He lifted his head to look at her, and she smiled lazily at him, the haunted blankness gone from her eyes, at least for now.

He kissed her cheek and down her jaw, then pulled back, and out of her, frowning at the mess they’d made. “Good thing I packed a spare belt,” he said, standing up and buttoning his pants. She untangled her leggings from her boot, and stood, holding them loosely in one hand.

“We’re coming up on Belsavis,” she said, nodding at the dash as she headed back into the ship. “I’ll be in the shower.”

Star trails streaked the sky outside the cockpit as Theron stood, his broken belt in his hand, wondering where the fuck they’d left the tissues.

Chapter Text

Deviation from canon here -- Kishodak Frane isn’t in the Disavowed expansion, but is part of Havoc Squad in my continuity (my male trooper, who joins Havoc after the original members are scattered for various reasons). He’s a communications/infiltration expert.

For the past three years Aric Jorgan had lived life feeling like he had insects crawling under his pelt.

They’d come to their Coruscant apartment - a modest place, by most people’s standards, enough for the two of them to relax in the rare bouts of R&R they racked up when the republic was officially at war, and they’d arrested her. Not him, just her. She’d given him a look, the kind of look that he’d come to hate over the years, the kind of look that he’d schooled himself not to react to. It was a look that said “this mission could be our last” it was a look that said “you do what I say, even if you hate it” it was a look that came from the part of her that was his CO and he knew how much it cost her to push down the part of her that was his wife and he wondered if she knew how much her having to do that at all hurt him…

They’d arrested her, and they’d left him standing in the doorway, utterly incapable of doing anything to stop it.

He’d tried to speak at her trial, but they’d denied him the right.

They’d wiped 4X’s memory files before he could even get to them.

Yuun and Vik were discharged. Elara was deported back to the Empire.

And they’d given him Havoc.

As if giving him something he’d wanted his entire life could possibly make up for taking her away from him.

“Coming up on Belsavis now, sir,” Kanner said. He was pacing behind the pilot’s chair, and he knew he was pacing and he knew he needed to stop, but all he could think of was that she was down there, and she didn’t know he was coming to get him.

“Sir, you’ll wear out the deckplates,” Dengril said.

Aric stopped. For about a minute.

“Can’t believe we’re actually going to find the Colonel,” Frane said.

She isn’t a colonel… the words died in his throat. They’d declared her one, “posthumously.”

They’d paraded him in front of a memorial service and he’d been forced to stand there and look sad instead of fucking furious. You don’t want her name to be dragged through the mud, Jorgan. We understand that this was a momentary lapse of judgement, Jorgan. The republic is at war, Jorgan, morale is important to us.

They could all go to hell, but Brill had told him to play the game, wait for his chance, and so he’d done it. He’d done it because she wanted him to.

Seemed there was a limit to how much he was willing to do, even for her.

“I didn’t even know this place existed,” Dengril said. “A secret prison planet? What sort of… what sort of government does that to people?”

“Ours,” Xaban said flatly. Aric gritted his teeth. Not ours any more, he thought.

He looked down at the green and white sweep of Belsavis' atmosphere, remembering when they’d last been here. Remembered a disgraced starfighter unit, a collapsed prison cell.

The sound of her voice and the feel of her skin.

He wanted to believe that it was balance, that she’d ended up here, where they began. He wasn’t a religious man, but there was a logic to it that appealed.

“Set us down at the agreed coordinates, Kanner,” he said.

Theron and his sith met them in K’krohl’s bunker. The whiphid immediately appealed to Aric, reminded him of his old sergeant at basic training, although that sergeant had had his sense of humour surgically removed, and K'krohl wasn't above the occasional joke. K’krohl had the same ramrod stance, the same expectation of compliance. Aric knew he was an inmate -- a criminal by republic standards, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a good man. In any case, he’d spent enough years sizing up recruits to know talent when he saw it, and he knew that sometimes talent didn’t come with a completely clean record.

Aric wondered, in passing, whether he would react differently to Vik now, if he was presented with him. Seven years and a lot of cynicism later he thought he could understand his former squadmate’s selfishness.

He didn’t think he’d ever like the guy, that was a given, but he could at least see where his attitude came from.

“Your wife is in Section X,” K’krohl said. “We’ve been in contact the last year or so, since things went really bad. I send her inmates with military training, or the ones that have gotten to a point where they’re good in a fight rather than just likely to shank someone over a ration bar. She’s got a lot of people to protect over there.”

“Why aren’t you together?” Theron asked.

“It’s my job to weed out the assholes,” K’krohl said. “I’m not letting some of them near the people your wife attracts. Somehow she’s managed to find every person on Belsavis who shouldn’t have ever been here in the first place.”

Aric grunted and shifted. That sounded like Brill. Chances are half of them had been assholes before they met her and she’d believed them when they’d told her they could reform.

Chances are they were doing good without realising it in a few weeks.

She made you want to be more than what you were.

Ancestors he missed her so much.

“How do we get to Section X?” The sith asked.

“You can’t fly,” K’krohl said. He led them to a tactical map he had set up in the corner of the room, and brought up a holo of the area. “Inmates in low security have taken anti aircraft artillery and they shoot anything that comes near them. You have to go overland.”

Aric shook his head. “No we don’t,” he said.  Theron and the sith looked at him, he shrugged. “There’s a tunnel network,” he pointed to the map, drew a line where the tunnels started. “Unless they’ve been collapsed since I was last here. Brill would know about them. My guess is she hasn’t told you because she wants a secure way in and out of section X.”

“How do you know about them?” Theron said.

“Been here before,” Aric said, shouldering his rifle.

K’krohl nodded. “I thought she might have a secret way,” he said. “Not my place to ask. She takes her role as protector very seriously, and it gives some of my people hope.”

“Some?”

“Some of them want to kill her,” he said. “They get big plans, talk about the supplies she must have, want to go raiding to make their putrid lives a tiny bit better. Doesn’t bother us, any of them that go after her and her people don’t come back.”

“She’s hard to kill,” Aric said. The insects under his pelt had started to chew at his insides. He wasn’t sure when he’d last been able to choke down more than a protein bar, but eating something while his stomach was roiling with nerves and anticipation was an exercise in horror. He was so close.

Be safe till I get there, he thought. Please be safe.

“Let’s go.”

Theron and his sith fought well together, Aric had to grudgingly admit. The former SIS agent had improved his aim, or gotten better blasters, or maybe he was just seeing more action now that he wasn’t doing undercover ops where his main job was getting the shit beat out of him for information. In any case he’d had to hold back the squad when the first wave of inmates attacked them near K’krohl’s bunker -- the sith -- Vopenir -- had snapped on her saber and leapt -- landing directly in the centre of a throng of heavily armed Rhodians. Theron had his blasters in his hands before she’d even landed, and was picking off Rhodians who were being thrown back from the whirling maelstrom that was the sith with pretty good accuracy. He gave the signal for the squad to start doing the same, raising his own rifle and looking down its sights, but in the end they needed to do very little -- the sith had obliterated nearly twenty foes in less than two minutes.

She came back, flicking off her saber as she walked and smoothing a hand over her hair. She stopped by Theron and put a hand on his arm, checking to see that he was all right, as though she hadn’t just hurled herself into the path of certain death. Theron grinned and shrugged and she pulled him down to kiss him, in full view of all of Havoc squad.

Aric coughed and looked away, checking that his own squad was in line, even though Xaban and Dengril were openly staring at Vopenir and Frane looked a bit like he was in love. Kanner cuffed Frane over the back of the head and Aric glanced back, to see that Theron was smiling and rubbing his neck while Vopenir smirked. He looked up and caught Aric’s eye, flushing red under his implants. Aric snorted, shaking his head, and gave the signal to the rest of the squad to move, a little less concerned about their chances of getting to Brill alive and more concerned about the possibility of Theron’s tame sith deciding to turn on them at some later date. He didn’t trust her, not yet, and Theron was doing nothing to dispel his suspicions that his judgement was... impaired when it came to the new Commander of the Alliance.

The tunnel network was intact -- its entrance concealed behind vegetation and carefully placed rockfalls that Brill had obviously sculpted to keep it secret. They were constructed with ancient rakata masonry -- more sturdy than a lot of the buildings in Coruscant, certainly older. As they passed inside, into the darkness and the slight smell of dead things and dust, he had brief, intense flashback to the moment Brill had collapsed the entrance to the cavern six years ago, that moment of intense panic, the knowledge that they were trapped in the dark with no way out -- but years of similar flashbacks meant he didn’t miss a step, just took in a breath and kept walking, gripping his rifle more tightly to hide the shaking of his hands.

Near the end of the tunnels he saw Vopenir hold up a hand. She was scouting ahead, her force sensitivity, Aric grudgingly acknowledged, meant she could tell if there were any lifeforms likely to be aggressive in the tunnels. That they were secret from the other inmates did not mean they were safe from the mookla, lurkers and kretch that infested the rest of the prison. He'd met a kretch, last time he'd been here, and had no desire to ever meet one again.

He motioned for Havoc to get down, then made his way to her, his ears twitching as he realised what it was that had made the sith stop.

“Looks like someone else got here before us,” Vopenir said. Aric swallowed, the sounds of blaster fire and fighting were too distinctive to be mistaken. He took two steps forward before her hand was on his arm. “You will do her no favours by getting killed,” she said.

He felt his lip twist in a snarl and took a deep breath. She was right, but there was no reason to let her know that. He turned, ordered Frane and Xaban to scout ahead, even as Kanner dropped down next to him and they started sorting through their gear.

Frane and Xaban came back a few minutes later, sketched a brief map of the terrain. “Could you see her?” he asked. Couldn’t stop himself. Cursed himself for letting them see his weakness.

Frane glanced at Xaban.

“There was a woman of my people there, yes,” Xaban said.

“They’ve got a good position, sir,” Frane said, reassuring. “They need relief, but they’re holding firm. It’s going to be much worse for us, coming up out of this hole -- we’ve got no cover even though they’re not going to be expecting us.”

Vopenir grinned at the Zabrak, who ducked his head and blushed under his tattoos. Kid was nearly thirty, Aric thought, and still a complete idiot. “Indeed," the sith said. "They are most definitely not expecting me.”

She got to her feet and sprang out of the tunnel.

“Shit,” Frane said, lunging forward, but Aric grabbed his arm and held him back.

“Don’t worry,” Theron said, drawing his blasters and following. “She’ll be fine.”

Frane looked up at Aric, who shook his head at him. “She’s a sith, Frane,” he said.

Frane grinned. “I like dangerous women,” he said.

“She’s with Theron,” Aric said.

“Obviously she has problems with her judgement…”

“Save it Frane,” Kanner said. "We've got a job to do."

Aric took a deep breath. “Okay Havoc,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

Whatever else she was, Vopenir was extremely effective as a distraction. While she stormed the backs of the attacking forces Aric had time to swing up onto a ruined wall overlooking the battlefield where his rifle could be used to full effect, and Havoc spread out, threading themselves into positions that would deal the most damage in the least time. A lot of the attacking forces didn’t even know they were dead by the time his people hit them, just as he liked it.

From his vantage point it was obvious from the outset that the defenders were better organised, better lead than the attackers and the only reason the attackers were getting anywhere was the weight of numbers. The defenders were spread out amidst rough terrain, broken buildings and old artillery, no doubt used to keep the prison population in check now served as vantage points and cover for snipers and ranged defenders to attack the mass of prisoners pressing against them. Aric swept his rifle across the field, taking down those who his trained eye told him were the most dangerous, until he passed his sight over a section in front of a collapsed communications tower, in a hollow shadowed by heavy foliage.

There were about six fighters, all frenzied and focused on a small group of defenders. In the centre, a huge pureblood sith was laying about him with a vibrosword in much the same way Vopenir was culling those around her with her lightsaber. Next to the pureblood, Aric caught a glimpse of blue and caught his breath, the length of a tchin with distinctive black markings, the swing of a massive red plasma cannon. Stars. She moved the same way she’d always moved, he would recognise it anywhere. She was fierce and utterly beautiful, her back up against the pureblood, a snarl on her face as she kicked a rhodian in the face and turned to blast another in the stomach. There was another twi’lek aiming for her with a vibroknife and Aric didn’t hesitate, aimed and fired through the man’s skull and Brill’s head shot up, looking in the direction his bolt had come from with an expression on her face that...

… there was no time.

All he wanted to do was look at her, drink her in, but there were more people trying to kill her and Kanner was shouting directions to the rest of the squad and he had a job and he was good at it and when they’d finished…

Then…

Then…

He climbed down from his vantage point, walking towards her, every step feeling like he had weights in his boots. He felt like he had the biggest furball in history lodged in his throat, he was damned sure he didn’t have control of basic any more and any words that managed to crowd their way out of his mouth would make no sense to human, twi’lek or cathar. She was standing, next to the enormous pureblood sith, relaxed and in command as she talked. The white and red of the Havoc Squad fatigues she’d been wearing when they’d led her from the courtroom were replaced with smooth black leather, metal buckles, the tunic showing off the slight curve of her breasts and cutting off just at a point where he could run his eyes over the precise definition of her abs.

She was thinner than he remembered. There was no curve of flesh below those abs, he could catch glimpses of rib as she turned to give an order (always the commander) to one of the ragged band of criminals and misfits of which she’d (of course) ended up in charge.

His eyes climbed to her face again, in sudden worry, and yes, they’d been on missions when rations had been short, so he’d seen that gleam in her eyes before, the hollowness to her cheek, the tight lipped control of someone who hadn’t seen a proper meal in days, weeks, who didn’t know if there’d ever be another one, desperation and hunger twin devils tempting the best of them to do the worst.

The republic had put her here.

The republic had put her here and he’d allowed it.

He’d not thought the slow burning rage he’d carried for so long could get any hotter.

She nodded to him as he approached, all efficiency and command. Stars why had they ever thought he could take her place?

“I don’t know what you’re doing here, soldier,” she said, “but I’m more than grateful that you and your squad chose to turn up when we needed you most. K’krohl sent me a communication a few days ago, are you the people he was talking about?’

“Brilleln,” Aric took a step forward. She blinked, tilting her head. He still had his helmet on. Ancestors, once upon a time she would have known him even then, once upon a time she would be able to recognise his voice even through the distortions of comm, across a battlefield… across a fucking galaxy…

She took a step back. “Do I know you… soldier?” she said.

“Major,” he said then, taking another step. Her eyes widened, her lip caught between her teeth.

She did remember.

She drew in a sharp breath. “Aric?”

He fumbled with the clasps on his helmet, damned if he was going to keep that shitty thing on when she was two feet away from him, threw it to the side, even as she stood there, with her cannon half cocked and her mouth open.

“Aric I told you not to come for me…”

He didn’t listen, didn’t care, just ran towards her and pulled her into his arms. “With all due respect, Major,” he hissed, as he felt her familiar scent and her strong arms pulled him closer, closer not close enough. “Shut the fuck up.”

She buried her face in the fur of his neck, gripped the back of his head with strong, familiar fingers, used her other hand to pull his body up against her.

“Goddess,” she breathed into his ear. “I should order you the fuck away right now but it’s so good to see you.”

He was desperately regretting not shedding his gauntlets as well as his helmet, the amount of skin she was showing was totally inappropriate for a battlefield and absolutely against regulation but he could feel it give under his grip and how long had it been.

He had a squad looking up to him now.

Not to mention a sith and a pushy SIS agent.

“Major..”

Both of them looked up, and into the earnest eyes of Shan. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

She smiled. “Theron,” she said. “Good to see you too.”

“Once the Commander gets back you can show us your set up,” Theron said. “And we can make our offer.”

“You have an offer to make?” Brill said, looking back at Aric with an expression that made him flush all the way down to his boots. Thank the stars for fur.

“We’re getting you out of here, sir,” Aric said. “It’s well past time.”

She took a breath, as though she was going to argue, but Aric shook his head. Theron was looking over their men, trying to find Vopenir, probably, and Havoc was checking their gear. Brill raised an eyebrow at him, then shrugged. “Okay,” she said. “We’ve got a base over the next ridge, I sent my lieutenant on ahead. Come convince me.”

He coughed. “Got a few methods for that,” he said, under his breath, and she grinned, eyes lighting up, before leaning down to scoop up his helmet.

“Come on,” she said.

He fell into step at her left side, moving automatically, the rest of Havoc forming up behind. This was where he was supposed to be. This was home.
Damned if he was going to leave it again.

Chapter Text

It was obviously a heartfelt reunion, and Vopenir resisted the urge to roll her eyes as Jorgan and his wife... ? former commander? some sort of complicated republic entanglement that was almost certainly against their regulations any way, embraced. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, she was too far back, sweeping her eyes over the field, looking for any remaining enemies. The other members of Havoc were doing the same and she approved of their professionalism. It was obvious they were a tight unit, with complete loyalty to their Commander.

She had never seen a Twi’lek as tall as the Major -- her people did tend towards the small and willowy as a general rule. Their force sensitives who ended up at the sith academy either wilted in days or because powerhouses of force might, with a depth of rage to them that Vopenir had always found impressive. The plight of their people -- the constant raiding of Ryloth and the assumptions made about them across the galaxy were all excellent fuel for the dark side, and had Vopenir’s own power in the Empire been long lived she would have gone out of her way to recruit more of them, stealing them from under the nose of the Jedi who repressed that rage and taught them to fold under their oppressors rather than strike back.

Major Brilleln, on the other hand, looked like she could lift Jorgan in one hand and Theron in the other, her face was striped with scars and ancestral tattoos that spread down her lekku and she hefted a looted plasma cannon under one hand that Vopenir suspected she’d have trouble lifting with two. Intimidating.

She looked up as Vopenir dropped down next to Theron, her eyes narrowing as she took in her lightsaber. She glanced at Theron, then at Aric, then back at Theron, who gave an exasperated sigh that Vopenir found endearing.

“Brilleln Jorgan, this is Vopenir Aloni,” he said. “Commander of the Alliance. And before you ask, yes I am sure about this. You of all people know that the Sith Empire was not made up completely of homicidal idiots.”

Brilleln raised an eyebrow at that, but nodded to Vopenir. “I’m certain you’ll forgive me being a little bit hesitant,” she said. “The last time I faced a sith they tried to gut me.”

“Fair,” Vopenir said. “The last time I faced a republic war hero, I did gut him.”

Theron shut his eyes. “Not helping.”

She grinned at him.

“I sent my lieutenant ahead. We need to clear a route for the wounded back to the barracks.”

“Your lieutenant?” Jorgan said. “You’ve been building another Havoc here.”

Brillel gave him a small, reassuring smile. “They needed structure and purpose, and my training kicked in pretty quick once the situation escalated. Hagoch is good at following orders, if a little lacking in imagination.”

“Hagoch?” Vopenir said.

“He was a sith too. Once. Imprisoned here by the republic not long after the battle of Corellia.”

“Interesting.”

“Do you know him?”

“Contrary to popular republic belief, Theron, sith do not all know each other, nor do we enjoy each others’ company overmuch if we do. I was acquainted with a Hagoch during the war. I highly doubt it is the same man.”

“He’s a good man,” Brilleln said. “Would have made a better Jedi than a Sith, I suspect.”

Vopenir snorted. “How far are the barracks?”

“Not more than an hour,” Brilleln said. “There’s food and medicine for your wounded, although not much.”

“We have our own supplies,” Jorgan said quickly. “Just somewhere to use them is all we need.”

She nodded, relieved, Vopenir thought. It must be tight down here. Brilleln motioned to the men and women behind her with a complicated series of miltiary gestures. Half of them disappeared back over the pile of rubble and wire that had once been the entrance to section X, the rest melted into the foliage.

“There’s no law here at all any more,” Brilleln said as they walked towards the bunker. “The wardens were taken by skytroopers or mobbed by prisoners. Nothing we could do to stop that, at least not everywhere. Managed to save one or two but they’re so unpopular with the inmates that most of them stay in a cordoned off sector close to the Eshkar.”

“I remember them from my mission here,” Vopenir said. “Curious how those in command of large numbers of criminals take on the traits of those criminals.”

“You were on Belsavis?” Theron asked.

“A long time ago,” Vopenir answered, her lip curling. “Baras’s sister was imprisoned here.”

“Was?”

Vopenir looked at him, and he swallowed. “Ah.”

They walked in relative silence for an hour, Jorgan and his people forming up behind Brilleln with the ease of long military training. Vopenir felt like an outsider here, in more ways than one, and fell into musings about Arcann and Valkorian until she felt a hand on her arm.

“Credit for your thoughts,” Theron said softly.

“They’re not worth that much,” she said, but managed a smile.

The bunker defended by much mended turrets, manned by four or five ex-prisoners. Brilleln gave a signal and they walked through into a cavern much like the tunnels they’d traversed to get here from K’krohl’s encampment. Vopenir could see corridors branching off into what were obviously sleeping quarters. The main room held a bank of surveillance and technical equipment, as well as an armory.

“Food is the main problem,” Brill said. “Those prisoners who were tasked with tending the crops have long since run, and protecting the fields takes too many soldiers for us to do it ourselves. There are emergency rations, but we haven’t found many caches and…”

“We have supplies,” Theron said. “K’krohl mentioned your people were short.”

“K’krohl’s people are doing better than we are in a lot of ways, Section X is just a little bit more difficult to defend, too much wildlife. Plus the Sith who escaped started doing experiments on them -- biological hazards everywhere. If we could move to one of the minimum security sectors we’d be better off, but they’re well defended by the worst of the prisoners.”

“We’ll get you off Belsavis,” Jorgan said. “That’s the idea.”

Brilleln’s eyes slid away from them, but she nodded. “There are a few families here, looking for resettlement on a planet a little less crowded with criminals.”

“Families?” Theron asked. She knew full well it had been years since Theron believed that the moral superiority the Republic touted was anything but hypocritical, but there were still some things that were capable of shocking him, it seemed.

Brilleln’s jaw worked. “The Republic had some questionable policies when it came to Belsavis,” she said. “You can’t keep an entire planet a secret if the children of prisoners are allowed back into society.”

“They kept children here?” Theron said.

“Still do,” Brilleln said. “Of course fraternisation was forbidden between prisoners but when did that sort of regulation ever stop anyone…”

Kishodak chuckled and Jorgan shot him a look. The Zabrak didn’t bother to wipe the grin off his face and Vopenir heard Jorgan give a low growl.

“Families might find living difficult on Odessan,” Vopenir said.

“But if we give them housing and they successfully settle, it might draw more troops and specialists -- not many people want to join a cause if they can’t have a life outside of it.”

Vopenir raised an eyebrow at Theron, who colored faintly and looked away. “Not in my experience any way.”

Brilleln nodded, and Vopenir noticed her shoulders drop a little. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say. There aren’t many -- most are teenagers who are willing to enter into military or scientific training -- you can’t tell me that wouldn’t be a good thing for your alliance.”

Vopenir shrugged. “If they are young enough to learn, we are able to teach them.”

“There are a few force sensitives as well.”

“Sana Rae will be delighted. If she would just agree to let them channel more of their rage…”

Jorgan was watching Brilleln with narrow eyes, and he sat forward. “Brill…” The Major looked away, biting her lip, and Jorgan tilted his head. “Brill what is it?”

She rubbed at her forehead, sighing. “You’re talking about defecting, Aric” she said. “You’ve brought Havoc squad over to the Alliance, that means you’ve given up hope on the Republic.”

“I gave up on them when they sent you here,” Aric growled.

“Not everyone in the republic is like Suresh,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter if they’re like her or not, if they follow her orders,” Aric said.

“She had to do something after I tried…”

“What you did was completely legal under the constitution, Brill, her arresting you was the act of treason not…”

“Guys, come on,” Theron said.

Jorgan sucked in a breath. “The republic we fought for is dead, Brill. It’s been dead for years. I don’t know if the Alliance is any better, but at least it’s trying to stop Arcann.”

“You’re willing to give up Havoc squad? Your career?”

“I was willing to give it up three damned years ago and you wouldn’t let me.”

“Havoc Squad isn’t going anywhere other than with the Major,” Kanner said. “He’s not giving us up. And we’re not giving up on him, either.”

“You will simply work for a different power,” Vopenir said. “One that is focused on freeing the galaxy of Arcann.”

“Benefits might not be so great,” Theron said. “But we’ve got good holonet access.”

“Beats the alternative, tajr,” Brilleln looked up at that, her eyes softening. Jorgan held her gaze. “I’m not leaving you here again.”

She smiled. “I’m not exactly campaigning to stay,” she said, “I just… this is your life.” She looked at the other members of Havoc. “It’s all of your lives. You can leave now and the Republic will take you back. They won’t know you’ve been here, they don’t pay any attention to Belsavis any longer. You’ve got to be… certain of this. All of you.”

Vopenir stopped herself from heaving an impatient sigh but it was a close run thing. She glanced at Theron, who was smirking at her.

“Sir, we’re not going back to the republic,” Kanner said. “They’ve been using us as enforcers, putting us on missions against our own people. That’s not the service I joined up for, and I know I speak for the rest of the squad when I say that.”

“Major Jorgan explained our options,” Xaban said. “I for one will not do the bidding of the otaf’alkin who calls herself one of my people any longer.”

There were general nods and sounds of agreement from the rest of Havoc.

Brilleln took a deep breath. “Okay then,” she said. “It’ll take us about thirty six hours to get everything and everyone ready for extraction. We’re low on food but we have a good stock of weapons -- a lot of them aren’t charged but I’m guessing you have facilities for that back on Odessan. Most of the population are skilled in some form of labour, but as I said we’ve got a teenage and infant population that might…”

“Wait a second…” Theron said. “How many people are we talking about exactly?”

Brill glanced at Aric.

“Last count we had about… three hundred,” she said.

Theron whistled.

“That’s not even close to the number of others on Belsavis, but those of us in this encampment are… mostly law abiding, or rehabilitated. I know that K’krohl has been accepting more violent types in low security, but I offered protection to those who were less able to take care of themselves…”

“K’krohl seems to think that his people will be good additions to our fighting force,” Vopenir said.

“I don’t doubt they would,” Brilleln said, but her voice was hard. “You’ll need to watch them though. As I said, Belsavis has been pretty much lawless for years, we’ve done… a lot of questionable things. Just to survive.”

“I should have come to get you sooner,” Jorgan said.

“No,” she said softly. Jorgan opened his mouth and Brill shook her head more firmly. “If you want to fight with me about this you can do it when we’re alone, okay?”

The Cathar dipped his head, although Vopenir could feel the anger and frustration boiling off him in waves.

“Yes sir,” Jorgan he said.

Brill stood up. “Are our numbers going to be a problem?” she asked.

Theron shook his head. “No. We weren’t anticipating that many, but we have a ship that can transport you back. I’ll need to make a secure call do you have…”

“That could be difficult,” Brill said. “Communications off planet are monitored by the Republic, even though nothing else is. And there’s the Sky Fortress.”

“We’ve got technology that can shield us from Arcann, at least,” Theron said. “I won’t make any mention of you or of Havoc. If the republic want to come and try to stop us they’re welcome to try.”

“I wouldn’t put it past Suresh,” Jorgan said.

“She’s too busy trying to find new ways to destroy the sith,” Brilleln said.

“And too stupid to realise that we have already done that to ourselves,” Vopenir said.

“I need to get my people ready,” Brilleln said. “I have to thank you, Theron, for coming when you did, even if you weren’t exactly looked for.”

“Aric insisted,” Theron said. “And if I’d known I would have come sooner. I’m only sorry it took us so long.”

“Not your fault,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me?”

She turned and headed in the direction of the sleeping quarters. Jorgan looked after her for a moment, then glanced back at Theron.

“Force and stars, man,” Vopenir spat. “Go with her.”

He ducked his head, hiding a smile, and followed, the rest of Havoc scattered, checking their gear, doing whatever it was that soldiers did when they had spare time. It had always been a mystery to her.

Vopenir turned back to Theron and threw up her hands. “This is why we are taught to recognise our passions,” she said.

“And give in to them?” he said, smiling.

“Whenever possible,” she said, leaning forward.

Chapter Text

He was standing in the doorway when she looked up from her packing, frustrated and a little saddened by the small number of possessions she’d manage to accumulate here. Three years on Belsavis -- a tiny fraction of the time spent here by ninety percent of the inmates, and she’d salvaged a plasma cannon -- some power cores -- a few pieces of armour that didn’t match and didn’t fit and she never wore any way.

They’d not even let her take a picture of her husband with her when she’d gone.

“I know what you want to say,” she said. “But I stand by my decision, Aric. It wasn’t time for you to leave.”

“I couldn’t have any way,” he said, low and soft. “It took me a long time to realise that. I could replay it any way I wanted in my head, but it always ended up the same, they would have locked me up too -- then who would have come to rescue you?”

She smiled. “Maybe Theron would have made it here without your influence,” she said.

Aric shrugged, looking troubled.

“He wanted Havoc,” he said. “I told him he couldn’t have Havoc without you.”

“The squad… it looks great. You’re a great CO. It should have been yours -- after Tavus.”

“Yeah, I know,” he smirked when her eyes opened wide at that, then shrugged. “I’m good, but I’m better when you’re with me. We both are, and Theron knows that. Glad he could get that sith of his to understand it enough to approve the mission.”

“She seems interesting,” Brill said.

“Not exactly the word I would use. I don’t trust her, but she’s got the Alliance moving in the right direction, so I guess we’ll go with it for now. When she gets too big for her boots you can always arrest her.”

She let out a short laugh. “Yeah that’ll go down great,” she said. She wanted him to come inside, more than anything. She wanted to touch him, to breathe him in. But she couldn’t bring herself to ask. “Theron’s got good judgement,” she said instead. “In people, at least. If he trusts her then…”

“Well fine,” he took a step into the room, hesitated. “He does usually have okay judgement for that at least. But I’m not turning my back on the sith and I’m not sure she hasn’t done some force thing to his head…”

“We’d know,” Brill said. “I’m pretty sure. He’s still the same person.”

She didn’t know, why it had been so easy to embrace him out there -- on the battlefield. Maybe because it had felt like nothing had changed. They were fighting an enemy, surrounded by soldiers. He was where he was supposed to be and it was natural to fall back into habits that they’d made and shared for nearly ten years.

But she’d made him let her go, and she knew she’d hurt him, and now she didn’t know how to make it better.

“I…” he started,

“You…”

They both stopped, and she looked down at her hands, trying to find words. Then he was right in front of her, taking her hands in his and rubbing the pads of his thumbs over their backs. “Brill I have to ask,” he said, softly. “You and me. Are we still good?”

She felt tears pricking at the back of her eyes.  “You’re asking me?” she said.

“It’s been three years, tajr,” he said. “I know twi’leks aren’t the same as cathar I knew that before I married you if you need a way out…”

She reached up and touched his face. “Goddess, Aric, I’m so sorry. Of course we’re good. We’ll always be good. I’ve missed you so much…”

His arms came around her and she felt him breathe in, and then out again, tension relaxing all along his shoulders. She kissed his cheek, his neck, and buried her fingers in the fur of his scalp as his hands slid down her arms to the buckles that kept her gauntlets in place. “I like your new uniform,” he said, low and soft by her ear cone and she let out a breathless laugh.

“Cobbled together from bits and pieces,” she said. “Yours is nice too. Green suits you.”

“Better than red and white?”

“You always look best in nothing at all,” she said, and felt it all the way to her toes when he growled in response, pulling her closer to him and nipping at the side of her neck with sharp teeth.

She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have him this close, except on dark nights when she could steal a few moments alone, always afraid of interruptions. It didn’t help that they were on Belsavis -- a planet that reeked of him in so many ways. To be stuck here without him close by had been a daily torture, and not even one she was certain would end.

“Wait for the right time,” she’d said. “Suresh will be out of office, someone will listen.”

No one had.

She tightened her arms around him as the tears spilled over.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry we missed so much time and…”

“Shhh,” he said, and she felt wetness on her tchun, looked up to see he was crying as well. “We’ll make up for it,” he said. “Starting right now.”

“Koth says the Gravestone can be in the outer system in twenty two hours,” Theron said. They’d found a corner of the operations room that wasn’t teeming with criminals and soldiers, and Theron had even managed to find a few cups of dreadful instant caf. “No interruptions in our communications,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean the republic weren’t listening. To be honest it’d be good if they showed up before he did -- the sky fortress can take pot shots at Suresh’s forces while we get Brill’s people off planet…”

“This was not what I anticipated when I agreed to help Jorgan find his wife,” Vopenir said. “We are effectively taking on refugees.”

“Not the first time,” Theron said. “You brought those folks from Zakuul, as I recall.”

She blew on her caf, then set it aside, apparently deciding that she wasn’t thirsty enough to deal with its flavour right now. “They were right there, and so was the ship. This is going to take time and resources I’m not sure we have.”

“We’ll fit them in,” Theron said. “You were the one complaining that we didn’t have enough people…”

She sucked her teeth. “Children and criminals,” Vopenir said. “Not precisely the recruits I had in mind.”

“We don’t really get to be picky.”

“Lord Wrath?” Theron looked up at the voice, blinking. It was deep, and booming, and filled the room, in much the same way the giant pureblood sith man did.

Vopenir looked very much like she wanted to swear. He wondered if she swore in Mirialan, he’d never heard her do it in basic. “Hagoch,” she said.

The pureblood sith from the battlefield.

“You do know him then?” Theron said. Vopenir shot him a murderous look.

“Yes,” she said.

Indeed, Hagoch would be difficult to forget. The sith stood at least a foot taller than Theron, broad at the shoulders, tapering to slim hips. The man looked like he could take on an entire squadron of SIS and laugh while he did it.

“You have finally decided to openly follow the ways of the light!” Hagoch said, striding towards them and grinning. “Master Willsaam was certain that once you were found you would embrace the jedi path completely. You are no longer tied to the remnants of the hateful Sith Empire, you are your own woman, and ready to embrace your true nature!”

“Hagoch you are as delusional as always,” Vopenir said, sighing. Hagoch, for his part, didn’t seem to hear Vopenir’s words and Theron… well. He didn’t know where to start.

He started with the most outrageous part he could grasp. “Wait,” he said. “What. Jaesa Willsaam?”

“Master Willsaam, yes,” Hagoch said. “She contacted me and several others like me when I was still an apprentice on Korriban. Has not the Lord Wrath informed you? Of course she hasn’t! Master Willsaam’s work is deathly secret, or at least it was before the Eternal Empire decided to wage its unjust war against both our peoples.”

“Both our peoples?” Vopenir said softly, but Hagoch ignored -- or didn’t hear her.

“Master Willsaam has been working tirelessly for years, finding those of us who despise the dark side and yet were trapped by the cruel practices of our masters into ignoring the light.” The big Sith grinned at Vopenir and dipped his head in a respectful bow. “And she did all this, sponsored by the Wrath, who kept her safe and secret from those who would destroy her and her good works.”

Theron looked at Vopenir, who hand both her hands pressed to her eyes. “Please stop talking,” she said.

“No, this is fascinating,” Theron said. “If you’re on the side of the light, Hagoch, I must ask, why are you in a republic prison?”

“I was discovered by republic forces on Tatooine, two years ago,” Hagoch said. “They arrested me, convinced I was a sith infiltrator. I willingly submitted to their justice, as Master Willsaam would have wanted. Obviously the force was guiding my hand, for it has brought the two of us together once again!”

Theron put his chin on his fist on the table in front of him, watching Vopenir’s face as Hagoch talked. It was like a holodrama. He was pretty sure he was dreaming, but if he was he didn’t want to forget that particular look she had on her face right now… the look that was half murderous, half exasperated, and he certainly didn’t want to forget the darker flush of green under her tattoos that told him she was blushing.

It was too much to take in, but he was damned well going to try.

“I do not suppose you know where your Master is at present?” Vopenir said, dropping her hands from her eyes and looking up at Hagoch, whose face seemed permanently stuck in an expression of good natured concern.

“She and her wife are in the outer rim, I do believe,” Hagoch said.

“Her wife?” Theron asked.

“The lady Vette and she married a short time before my arrest,” Hagoch said. “Her last communication mentioned it. But I have not seen her since, for obvious reasons.”

Vopenir sat up a little straighter at that, and Theron could not help but raise his eyebrows in interest. “Do you have a way of contacting her?” Vopenir asked.

“Alas, no,” Hagoch said. “Her last communication was to do with assuring us that her work would continue, in Zakuul as well as on the core worlds. We know our duty, and we trust in the force.”

Vopenir’s face turned calculating. “What about your other light sided sith?” she asked.

“Scattered, although I will do my best to get word to them, my lord. They will be just as keen as I to join in the fight against Arcann and his nefarious knights as I am.”

Theron was trying very very hard not to laugh and Vopenir kicked him under the table.

“Well, I’m glad you’re safe and have found a place, Hagoch,” she said. The sith bowed again, hands pressed together in what looked remarkably like a jedi gesture of respect. He hesitated, however, unwilling, it seemed to leave.

“What is it, Hagoch?” Vopenir said.

“Your companion… am I right in assuming that is Theron Shan?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Yes?” she said.

Hagoch beamed and turned at once to Theron, who nearly reeled back at the force of his honest regard. “Sir have you any idea of the whereabouts of your esteemed mother? Master Willsaam was most concerned that she was missing in the aftermath of the blockade of Coruscant.”

“I don’t, no, sorry,” Theron said. “But hey, I’m sure she’s working tirelessly to…” another kick from Vopenir under the table, kriff but the man’s way of talking was contagious… “sure she’s doing her best from where ever she is to help the republic and the jedi, but she hasn’t been in contact.”

“That is a great shame,” Hagoch said. “I’ve wanted to meet her ever since Master Willsaam told me of her.”

“I bet she’d be real happy to meet you too, Hagoch,” Theron said.

“That’s Satele for you,” Vopenir said, with a fake smile plastered to her face. “Always keen to redeem.”

This time he kicked her under the table.

“I am saddened,” Hagoch said, then gave a short bow to them both. “If you will excuse me, I have work to do organising our people for departure. A pleasure, Lord Wrath, Theron Shan. I shall look forward to our inevitable victories together.”

He left the room and Vopenir slumped forwards onto the table, groaning.

Theron pursed his lips. “Well. He seems. Nice.”

“I will force choke you,” she said, without moving her head.

“I don’t know, that doesn’t sound like something someone who was secretly following the path of the light would do…”

She didn’t force choke him, but she did make a gesture with one hand and he felt a short, sharp, shove at his chest that nearly unbalanced him from his seat. “I was doing nothing of the sort. I. am. Sith,” she punctuated each word with a short thump of her head on the table, then slid back into her chair, staring at the ceiling. “Jaesa was… she was lost and likely to be killed by Baras for nothing more than being talented in a way that was inconvenient for him. I trained her and kept her for use against him. Nothing more.”

“And she somehow started a network of light sided sith that spans the known galaxy?”

“She’s talented,” Vopenir said, looking at him. “And I let her do what she wanted so she would not get overly anxious about me murdering dozens of Jedi in the course of my duties as the Emperor’s Wrath.”

He shifted, unable to hold her gaze, and he heard her huff out a small breath and stand up. He stood, reached for her arm, half expecting her to throw it off, but she didn’t, she stopped and looked up at him, eyes narrow. “I am not beyond finding the situation amusing,” she said. “And I do not regret that Jaesa has found success, and happiness, at least partially through me. But…” she sighed and shook her head.

“But?” he said.

“You should not try to make me into something I am not. Past or present, Theron. I am a sith, and a murderer, many times over, and I do not regret any of those deaths the way you think I should.”

“How do I think you should?” he asked.

She threw up her hands. “However you republic types think of lives lost. Your indoctrinations are very thorough when it comes to killing, from what I hear..”

His lip twisted. “So, you’d kill them again if you had the chance?”

“Bah! I would never be put in the same position again! I killed because it was necessary for my own survival. And I will not apologise for existing. Not when so many people have tried to make sure I do not.”

“Vitiate kills for his own survival,” Theron said.

Her eyebrows drew together. “It’s not the same,” she said.

He folded his arms across his chest. “Really?”

“The people he killed on Ziost weren’t actively trying to kill him,” she said, but he noticed that her eyes were haunted. “He wasn’t hurled at other people’s enemies like a plasma bolt and forced to burn through them or fizzle out.” He waited, and she clenched her teeth. “Well?” She said.

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to tell me we always have a choice?”

“I think you know that already.”

“So do you think I should have made different ones?”

He shook his head. “No. But… some people would have.”

She sneered. “And they would be dead, and that would be an end to it.”

“Vopenir…”

“This conversation is pointless, Theron,” she said. “You dwell on what was and what could have been and ignore what is…”

So what is? He wanted to ask. But it was a meaningless question, really. What is… us?

“I…” he started, then shook his head. Not yet, Theron. Not now. He took a breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t know that much about you, from before. We didn’t exactly have a lot of time to get to know each other.”

She bit her lip, looking at him. “True,” she said, then smiled slightly, her eyes sparkling. “And a lot of that time we used in more productive ways than talking about our pasts. Now for the sake of all our sanity, let’s find some decent caf, yes? We’re stuck here for another day at least.”

He nodded. Smiled as she stalked towards their gear. Shut his eyes and asked himself for the ten thousandth time what in the Galaxy was he thinking when he’d...

“Are you coming, Theron?”

He shook his head to clear it. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

Chapter Text

They didn’t have enough time, of course, not with the evacuation happening, not with hundreds of people to organise and pack and prepare for a hyperspace journey on a space ship that was until recently buried in a swamp.

One brief conversation, an embrace, a promise, and Brill was called away by someone to fix something or help someone and Aric watched her go with a great deal of regret and not a little sexual frustration -- three years was a very long time with just his hand for company after all.

But they had a job to do, and he was going to help her do it, and then once they were on Odessan and ready for the mission on Zakuul -- well. After that he planned on doing this reunion thing properly.

“Captain Jorgan?” A young voice, one he didn’t recognise. Strange that they’d be calling him Captain -- he hadn’t been one since Brill left -- the promotion had come along with all the other things he’d thought he’d wanted.

“Yes?” He looked up from his datapad to see a young cathar girl, no more than thirteen, head tilted on one side as she looked at him. Her fur was a deep, dark red -- almost brown, and her eyes were green -- and she’d obviously been born on this shithole of a planet or else she wouldn’t be here at all.

Thirteen years. You didn’t get that much time for murder, these days. He took a deep breath through his nose, forcing himself calm. “It’s Major now, actually,” he said, setting the datapad aside. “But you don’t have to call me that, you’re not military. Jorgan is enough.”

“Ma… Brilleln talked about you. She said you were cathar, like me.”

“That’s right,” he said. He hadn’t seen any other cathar amongst the refugees, but she was too young to be on her own. “Your parents?”

She shook her head. “Gone,” she said. “Two years ago. They died trying to get to the Major’s camp.”

If he ever saw Suresh again he was going to murder her. Slowly.

“What’s your name?”

“Diwari,” she said. “Diwari Nun.”

“Well I’m pretty sure you’re all meant to be getting ready to leave. Do you have your things?”

She shrugged. “Don’t have any things. Really.”

His nostrils flared. “You been given a job to do?”

She shook her head, her eyes sliding away. “The other kids are at lessons,” she said. “I finished early.”

He cocked his head. “So either you’re smart, or you’re rushing.”

Her eyes flashed. “Smart, sir,” she said.

He smiled. “Really. Well. If you’re smart we can probably use your help getting some of this stuff moving. Want to come?”

She straightened, and Aric wondered at that, the crisp military way she held herself was very familiar.

***

Brilleln found Aric loading the shuttles with the rest of Havoc, and was almost not surprised to see the slight, quick figure of Diwari with him. Of course she’d sought him out. Brill approached, taking a deep breath and wondering how she was going to explain herself.

Aric heard her (of course he did) and turned around, shouting a few orders at the big Kel Dor sergeant -- Abbeth -- who was moving armaments on a gravity sled. Abbeth shouted something a bit too crude in response.

“There are children here, Sergeant. Watch your damned mouth.”

“Sorry sir.”

Diwari saw Brill and ducked away out of sight so quickly that Brill sighed.

“So,” Aric said as she approached. “Are you looking for me or for something else you’ve lost?”

“You, mainly,” she said. “Although there’s a…”

“...cathar girl you’re sort of responsible for that you’d also like to find?”

Her shoulders slumped. “Uh. Yes.”

He folded his arms across his chest. Then smiled, shaking his head. “You know, when we talked about adopting kids, I always kind of figured they’d be younger. Also I kind of figured it’d be a joint decision.”

She swallowed. “Did she tell you?”

“Not in so many words, no. Kind of obvious though. She even stands like you do.”

“She was only ten when her parents died. Guess a couple of years is enough to start picking up mannerisms.”

“Got any brothers or sisters that I don’t know about?”

Brill laughed a bit nervously and shook her head. “No. Diwari was the first of the children we took in -- and the only orphan. The rest of them all have one or two of their parents to look after them.”

He made an odd movement of his head, then, mouth opening and she felt pressure around her ear cones. A second or two later Diwari poked her head around a crate, looking at the two of them with her ears pricked forward.

“What was that?” Brill asked.

“Cathar don’t have the same range of hearing as you do,” Aric said. “It’s a… call. Basically. Warning sound but not. Parents use it to get their kids to come back when they’ve run off these days, although I’m pretty sure it meant something different when we were all running around murdering each other on the homeworld.”

Diwari was frowning. “Sir?” she asked.

“Come on out, Diwari,” Brill said. “We’re not angry.” The girl slithered up in front of them, not meeting Brill’s eyes. “I mean it,” she said. “I’m not angry. You were curious, there’s nothing bad about that.”

“I skipped out on lessons,” Diwari said.

“I know you know most of them already,” Brill said. “Doesn’t mean it’s an excuse, mind. Just. Special circumstances, today.”

“I just…”

“You wanted to meet the Major. I understand.”

“I’m sorry, Brill.”

Aric stepped forward then, and knelt so he was eye to eye with the cathar girl.

“Hey, ha’tan . It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Diwari’s eyes shone. Brill knew a few catharese words -- it had taken years before Aric had let himself use his native language in front of her -- but she didn’t recognise what he’d called Diwari. The girl wouldn’t have heard anything in that language for two years and Brill felt her throat close up in sudden grief. She knew she was tired and on the edge and hungry, but she didn’t seem to have the capacity to hold back her feelings right now.

Not professional of her at all.

“You were meant to be helping, right?” Aric said, and Diwari nodded. “Xaban’s packing the plasma charges, she’ll need a couple of these sleds. Can you take them too her?”

“Yes sir,” she said.

“You don’t mind?” Brill said as Diwari ran to help the twi’lek woman.

He stood up, shaking his head. “You didn’t exactly have a choice.”

“I could have asked someone else. She’s got a friend -- Meeran. She’s a good kid and her parents are both alive. No reason it had to be me.”

“You wanted to,” Aric said. “That’s enough for me. Besides, no one else would look after her as well as you.”

“That’s up for debate,” Brill said, smoothing a hand over her tchun. “I won’t lie, Aric. She was like a link to you… it felt like fate or something. There aren’t a lot of cathar on Belsavis and the ones who are there don’t have it good. I wanted something better for her. So did her parents.”

“Come here,” he said, pulling her close, tucking his head against her tchun in a gesture that was so familiar, so Aric, that she let out a sigh. “You forget that I get you, Brill. She’s gonna do fine, and we’ll do fine with her. I just hope she likes me.”

Brill chuckled. “Too late. Started hero worshipping you the first moment I told her about you.”

“Kriff, tajr now I’m going to have to live up to whatever made up shit you’ve told her…”

“None of it was made up,” she said. “And who says all of it was positive?”

“Shush, you.”

***

Winter had gripped Odessan in the days since they’d been gone. Vopenir, whose only lengthy planetary residence was on Dromund Kaas, picked her way through snowdrifts that had built up on the gangplank to the Fury with a critical eye. The base was located as close to the equator as the landmasses would allow -- but apparently not close enough to escape the nasty stuff from falling occasionally.

She felt a hand on her back and looked up to see Theron. “You okay?” He asked.

“Snow is inconvenient and will hamper our ability to look after refugees.”

“I’ll let whoever is in charge know you’re displeased,” he said.

She glared at him.

“We’ll only be here for a few days,” Theron said. “The mission is priority.”

“On Zakuul,” she said.

“On Zakuul.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s involved?”

“Aric has all the details,” he said. “As soon as his people are settled we’ll be able to get started.”

She could see the refugees beginning to file into the base, being greeted by Aygo’s soldiers. Aygo himself was deep in conversation with Jorgan and Brilleln. She frowned, seeing a young cathar girl standing next to Brilleln, who had one hand on her shoulder in an unmistakably protective pose.

“Huh,” Theron said. “She didn’t mention she’d taken on one of the kids herself.”

“One perfect, happy family,” Vopenir said dryly. Theron gave her a sharp look. “Aygo looks more relaxed than he’s ever been,” she continued, ignoring him. “Maybe he’ll stop demanding I fetch him supplies.”

“You okay?” Theron asked again, and she couldn’t stop the surge of irritation that he kept asking .

“I’m fine,” she said.

***

They showed them to a barracks. Havoc would be bunking with the rest of the soldiers and the refugees were in the process of setting up their own semi-permanent accommodation a ways away from the main base. The snow was hampering them somewhat, but most of them were used to Belsavis weather and a lot less resources, so the general mood of the group was cheerful.

With Hagoch doing most of the organising, of course, it was difficult for them to be anything otherwise.

“We can settle the little one with you but we don’t have separate rooms for all the kids as yet,” Aygo said.

“I can bunk with Meeran,” Diwari said, bristling at being called little. “That’s what we did back on Belsavis any way.”

Brill nodded. “So long as Meeran’s parents are okay with that.”

“I’ll try to get you a bigger allotment, but we’re still building here. The Commander and the advisors all have their own workspaces but most of us just sleep wherever there’s a bed.”

“It’s all right,” Aric said. “We’ve got the Thunderclap if we need privacy.”

“Building should go a little bit faster once we’re all settled in,” Brill said. “My people aren’t without skills, and I’ve made up a list of what everyone can do. You should get a lot more help than hindrance out of us, I promise.”

“That’s good to hear, and I won’t lie, we’re shorthanded everywhere so your people are already more of a help than not, no matter what the Commander says.”

“She’s not happy?” Brill asked.

Aygo shrugged. “Far as I can tell she’s not happy with anything ever,” he said. “But she’s sith, so I guess we just have to live with that. She gets the job done, though, and that’s what’s important in the end.”

“Sometimes the way you get the job done matters,” Aric said.

“If you’ve got a problem with the Commander, Major, you’ll have to take it up with her. And I mean that, if you don’t take it up with her she’ll take it up with you.”

“I’ve heard about what sith do to people who disagree with them,” Aric growled.

“She’d doesn’t… she’s not like that,” Aygo said. “She just isn’t afraid of telling you what she thinks of you, especially if she thinks you’re a fool. Some of the republic types weren’t very happy about that at first. But we got used to it.”

“Well that’s something at least,” Brilleln said.

“If she hurts any of my people she’ll have to answer to me,” Aric said.

Aygo stopped, shaking his head. “She won’t. She’s got the full support of my men. They respect her and she lets them do their job. It’s just… different. But from what I’ve heard about Suresh and what’s going on at high command different is just about what you want, Major.” Aric let out a breath, then nodded sharply. Aygo turned to Brill. “She wanted me to tell you that the people you brought from Belsavis are your responsibility,” he said.

“I was going to request that any way,” Brill said.

“I thought you might. She’s not military herself but she’s also not a politician, disputes amongst the masses will distract her from the mission, and none of us want that.”

“I took responsibility for these people three years ago, Admiral,” Brill said. “I’m not giving it up now.”

“Good.”

She followed Aygo out to the grounds they’d started work on preparing -- mobile shelters that were sturdy enough to keep out the worst of the cold, better equipment than they’d seen in years, a promise of no more night attacks from the other prisoners -- it wasn’t surprising that her people were working with smiles on their faces. They had a future now, whatever else happened. She felt a weight she’d been carrying for three years lift, and let out a sigh, even as Aric’s arm found her waist. Diwari had scampered off, probably spotting Meeran among the refugees, and Aygo took his leave, needing to get back to his men.

“You did good, Brill,” Aric said. “Not that I should be surprised about that.”

“It was worth it, just to get them here,” she said.

“Wish it hadn’t been the only way,” he said. She reached up and buried her fingers in the fur on the back of his head and he made a pleased rumbling sound, not quite a purr, but close. The republic might not be what they needed any more. That fight -- the fight she’d dedicated her life to from the day they’d recruited her on Nar Shadaa -- that fight was done.

Chapter Text

She hesitated before stepping out of the shuttle in the swamps of Zakuul. The planet’s   atmosphere was heavy with Vitiate’s presence whenever she was in the grip of its gravity he felt closer to the surface of her mind -- things were familiar that should not have been, people and faces and force signatures all with the telltale imprint of his influence.

They had been foolish, the Dark Council, the Empire, to think that Imperial space retained anything of him aside from his malice and his unconcern. A voice here, a push there, all to lull them into thinking they were something other than fodder for his ultimate ends. Vitiate had been dead for them for centuries.

In comparison, Zakuul reeked of his living essence, and she hated it.

Theron touched her arm in concern and she resisted the urge to shake it off -- there was something going unsaid there, something that she knew they would have to sort through soon if whatever it was they were doing was going to mean anything. She shied away from those thoughts, almost as much as she shied away from those of Vitiate.

In many ways she felt as though she was still frozen in carbonite -- nothing she did was making any difference, she was stuck and couldn’t make any headway, and the frustration was boiling inside her, building pressure that was almost certainly going to burst.

“Rendezvous is this way,” Theron said. “Havoc and the others have already set up camp. We’re going to get this wiretap in and be off Zakuul before tomorrow.”

She shivered. Tried to cover it by cracking her neck, but Theron’s sharp eyes were on her again and she pushed past him. “Let’s go.”

***

When the skytroopers attacked she couldn’t help feeling like it was some kind of sign. Vitiate’s presence was bubbling under her skin and she had to almost constantly push him down, something that was interfering with her fighting. Sure, she was most definitely more competent than the ridiculous droids Arcann believed were programmed effectively, but she could feel herself being hampered, restricted, held back in every way to a point where she was snarling at herself in anger when the final walker toppled.

Jorgan and Brilleln fired off orders with the long habit of command and the rest of Havoc peeled off to search for any remaining skytroopers in this section of the jungle, leaving her, Theron, Brilleln and Jorgan together.

“I need a good vantage point,” Jorgan said. Vopenir nodded towards what looked like a ridge on the other side of the swamp, and they started towards it. Brilleln and the Major fell into easy military step, Theron and she followed. She felt like an apprentice again

Jorgan reminded her of Pierce, military to the core, hyper alert at all times. Pierce had been less uptight, more inclined to joke (or in Quinn’s case, criticise) and Vopenir had been able to relax around him, especially once Quinn had left the ship. Aric had not an ounce of humour in him. Neither did his wife, really, although why it should surprise her that two of the republic’s top military personnel weren’t able to take a joke she wasn’t sure.

Still, even Jace Malcolm had managed to crack a smile back when he’d been trying to discover if she was going to eat his son alive on a whim one morning. Maybe for Republic Military types humour came with age.

She was grateful Theron had been trained by the SIS.

As they made their way towards the ridge, she took time to study Brilleln. There were differences of race, of course, and Brilleln had been on Belsavis for years past her posting as Havoc’s Commander, but there was a difference in the way she carried herself. Jorgan was by the book. Brilleln…

“You didn’t grow up on Coruscant,” Vopenir said.

The twi’lek shot her a look. She hadn’t changed her armor, still wearing the black leather she had been wearing on Belsavis, but her belt was heavy with extra supplies and the looted plasma cannon was gone, replaced with something a lot more high tech, if no smaller.

“Nar Shadaa,” she said shortly. “Recruited off the streets, actually. Not a lot of ways to make a living on that planet if you’re like I was.”

“Like you were?”

She touched her face, where the sharp lines of four scars ran down her cheek. “Marred,” she said. “Too big for dancing work. Not pretty enough. Basically.”

Jorgan snorted.

“You were taken by slavers?” Vopenir asked.

“From Ryloth, yes. I got loose on Nar Shadaa to fend for myself when they realised I was no use to them.”

“They couldn’t sell you?”

“I was four. They sold me to the mines, thinking I was older. Always been big for my age. Any way a four year old can’t do shit in a mine except get themselves killed, even if they’re as tall as a ten year old, and it wasn’t worth their money to feed me for the trip out there. So they left me.”

“And you survived?”

“People found me. Helped me for a few years. I paid them back by helping others. It worked out.”

“And then the republic saved you,” Vopenir said.

Brilleln glanced at Theron, then back at Vopenir. “Eventually,” she said.

So she grew up fending for herself, never knowing if people were friends or foes. It would explain the way she moved, the wariness in her step. It could also explain why the criminals of Belsavis were so willing to follow her orders -- if she had her feet in both camps, if she knew what it was like to be one of them as well as one of the elite.

Those were skills that Vopenir could admit she didn’t have. Koth was the only one who really had that sort of connection with their people on Odessan, and Koth was an outsider to Imperials and Republic Citizens alike. She was beginning to see why Theron had been so willing to save this woman.

“Here’s good,” Jorgan said, dropping down to site through his rifle at the surrounding terrain. Brilleln took up position behind him with the ease of familiarity, and Theron and Vopenir kept watch behind.

“Been meaning to ask, since you’ve gotten a closer look,” Aric said as he searched. “What’s your take on Arcann, Commander?”

“Power hungry, short sighted, petulant.” Vopenir said, crossing her arms. “Very much like his father actually.”

“I’d hardly call Vitiate short sighted,” Theron said.

“He didn’t predict getting a lightsaber through his middle,” Vopenir pointed out.

“True.”

“Arcann’s a victim of Vitiate,” Brileln said. “Just like the rest of us.”

Vopenir raised an eyebrow at her. “Just because he has a reason for being terrible doesn’t excuse him from the consequences,” she said.

Brilleln shrugged. “I never said he shouldn’t suffer any consequences.”

“Whatever else he’s done, he exposed the republic for what it’s become,” Aric said. “I don’t know whether to thank him or hate him for that.”

“Go with hate,” Vopenir said, flashing a smile at Aric’s back. He grunted.

“You would say that. Comes to it, though, I don’t have any trouble hating him. What he’s done to the core worlds is enough for that.” He fell silent for a minute, and Vopenir could feel Vitiate’s amusement at Jorgan’s assessment of his son.

He wanted to shine, like his brother. Wanted to be my favourite, like his sister. Perhaps one day he will want something for himself.

Not if I kill him first.

“We’ve got movement,” Jorgan said. “Civilians and skytroopers.” He let off a couple of shots, downing the skytroopers he could see. “Blast it,” he said. “There’s a whole squad of them.”

Vopenir snapped on her lightsaber and moved next to Aric, looking down into the gully. The skytroopers were massing on a group of five or six civilians, rifles out. It didn’t look like they were trying to round them up, the first skytrooper was aiming to kill. “Are you an idiot?” Jorgan spat out. “Get down they can…” A blaster bolt sped towards her and she deflected it easily into the body of a second skytrooper.

“See me?” she said.

“Krifing… sith…”

The rest of the skytroopers swung their rifles upwards and she felt a fierce grin spread over her face, calling on the force, leaping down into their midst. The civilians scattered, which was part of her plan -- the skytroopers would be programmed to take out the biggest threat before they continued with their mission. She was dimly aware of Aric shouting, of his sniper rifle taking down some of her opponents, but for the first time since landing on Zakuul she felt invigorated and she took unbridled joy in letting the force loose. One trooper went down, then two -- she plunged her lightsaber into the chest cavity of a third and force shouted a fifth into the side of the hill where it was hit by another sniper shot.

Suddenly, there were no more left.

She caught her breath, looking around to see Brilleln kneeling next to the closest of the civilians with a kolto pack out. She moved towards her but stopped when the solid wall of Aric Jorgan’s chest loomed in her line of sight.

She frowned. Looked up into golden eyes that were narrow and hard.

“You want to tell me what that was, Commander?” Jorgan said, and his voice was low and dangerous.

She still had her lightsaber ignited. She flipped it, the sweep of its dark blade flying close to the man’s head, before she switched it off and hung it at her belt. He didn’t flinch. She could respect that.

“Your job,” she said sweetly. “Only more efficiently.”

“In my job we follow orders, or at least wait until they’ve been given to decide that they’re not worth following at all.”

“Aric,” Brilleln’s soft voice was chiding, although she didn’t look up from where she was attending the civilian’s injuries.

“I prefer to assume, on that count. At least in the present company.”

“Vopenir,” Theron said.

“There are more of them,” the woman standing next to Brilleln’s patient had her arms wrapped around her middle, and she was shivering. “Please. There’s a settlement. They’re burning it down. You’ve got to help us.”

She sighed, then looked at Jorgan. “Want to give me some orders, Major?”

“Let’s go help them,” he said.

***

After the debriefing on Odessan (he really should have predicted Aric’s reaction to Scorpio, given his own reaction was pretty much the same) Theron made his way to the cantina. Vopenir had disappeared somewhere, muttering about her current armor being scorched from too many skytrooper blaster bolts, and Theron figured it was best to let her have some alone time. He wasn’t sure what was going on, right now, with her moods. He suspected it had something to do with Vitiate -- wasn’t quite up to asking her to explain them considering any mention of the former Emperor led to snappishness at best and outright violence at worst.

He made a note to talk to Lana about it at some point. He knew she was working on ways to get Vitiate out of Vopenir’s head. He wondered if his mother would be able to help with that. Perhaps the Jedi would do a better job of it, if Vopenir could be convinced to let them.

Therein lay another problem.

He bought himself a drink and sat at the bar, contemplating food, a datapad in his hand as he sipped. The place was bustling -- Brill’s refugees had already started making themselves at home, and it felt… better somehow. Like they were working towards something rather than just accumulating resources for some unknown strike that may or may not ever eventuate.

“You still work and drink?” Aric said, pulling up a stool next to him and waving to the bartender.

Theron grinned. “This isn’t work,” he said, indicating the datapad.

“Ah. Fantasy huttball again?”

“I don’t know where that rumour started but it’s boundless and hurts my feelings,” Theron said. Then he tossed the datapad on the bar, shrugging. “Anyway we’re not on the right network in this sector I’ve had to let that slide.”

Aric gave a small snort -- his equivalent of a chuckle -- as his drink arrived. “Been looking for you,” he said.

“Where’s Brill?”

“Sorting out childcare options for while we’re away on missions,” Aric said.

“Oh hey, so you’re... “

“A dad now. Yeah. I guess so.”

“You okay with that?”

“It was always part of the plan,” Aric said, shrugging. “So yeah, I’m okay with it. Brill’s happy and that’s what matters, in the end.”

Theron blinked. “You guys have a... plan?”

Aric rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Theron. We do. Part of being in a relationship long term, although I guess you’re still working those bits out, huh.”

“Belsavis wasn’t part of the plan.”

Aric growled and took a longer sip of his drink. “No. Belsavis was not part of the plan. But we knew trying to take down Suresh could go wrong. We’re soldiers, every time we went on a mission we knew we might not come back. Kids were meant to happen… later. When we were on desk duty or medical discharge. But a good plan’ll adjust with circumstances. Or at least it will if you’re planning with the right person.”

Aric shot him a look with that and Theron heaved a sigh. “You’re going to tell me I’m being an idiot,” he said.

“Looks like I don’t have to tell you.”

“Not when so many other people are lining up to do it for you, no.”

Aric turned so he was facing Theron on his stool, face serious. “I’m going to be straight with you, Theron. I don’t like it. I think you’re making a mistake and I think she’s going to end up hurting you. Brill and I both care about you -- we’ve been friends for years now, gotten each other out of a few scrapes, had each other’s backs...”

“I appreciate that you’re looking out for me, Aric but…”

“She’s a sith,” Aric said bluntly. “And she’s spent most of her life murdering people -- our people.’

Theron scowled. “Who exactly are our people now, Aric? The people who put Brill on a prison planet? The Republic? You said yourself it’s all but gone.”

Aric looked at his drink. “Doesn’t excuse what she did.”

“She did exactly what you were doing to the Imperials,” Theron said. “We were at war.”

“She’s not a soldier.”

“Depends on your definition of soldier,” Theron said. “She was given orders and followed them, same as you.”

“Not the same. How many sith have you come across, Theron? Have you seen….”

“I brought down the Ascendant Spear,” Theron interrupted. “I saw the aftermath of sith torturers -- hell I was Revan’s special guest for days, and not the happy go lucky force ghost grandpa we all know and love. I know sith, okay? I saw Darth Karrid at her worst, I’ve seen what the force can do to the minds of the weak, and the minds of the strong.” He swallowed, grabbed his drink, took a gulp and put the glass back on the bar, empty. “Vopenir’s not like that.”

Aric tilted his head, watching him silently as he ranted. Theron forced himself to look back up and into his eyes, his breath coming faster and his heart was hammering against his ribs. He knew a lot of people found cathar frightening, on a bone deep level, but he’d never felt threatened by Aric before, not even when they’d first started working together and the then Captain had barely said three words to him in a month. Right now, though, he felt a little bit like he was facing down Master Zho -- Being told he wasn’t force sensitive, or being fired by Trant at the SIS.

Being told he didn’t have a place.

He did have a place, and that was here. With her.

“Well I’m not going to tell you who to fall in love with,” Aric said, finally. “Never does any damned good what you tell yourself in those cases any way. Brill thinks you’re good at judging character but your Commander… she’s volatile, she’s unpredictable, and I don’t want to see you get yourself killed or your heart broken because you rushed into something without any warnings.”

“It’s been nearly seven years, Aric,” Theron said. “I’m hardly rushing into anything.”

“She was frozen for five of those,” Aric pointed out. “And the two years before it you saw her what… four times? For a couple of days at a time? You don’t know her. You don’t know what she’s capable of, and I bet you don’t even know how she feels about you.”

“I…”

“Have you asked her? Told her how you feel?”

“Not in so many words…”

Aric shook his head and Theron wondered when he’d decided to take it upon himself to be his dad too. Maybe fatherhood spread, like a plague. “Do me a favour, Theron. Sort out what it is you want out of this. Make yourself a plan, even if you can’t make one with her. You’ll be better off if you have some sort of contingency for when it all goes to hell.”

“Thanks for your confidence,” Theron said.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence in you doing what’s right for the rest of us,” Aric said. “Just not so much what’s good for you. And I think your girl will take down Arcann. She’s got the power, she’s got the influence and she’s got the determination. I just don’t want to see her use you to get there.”

“She’s not using me,” Theron said.

“You sure about that?”

Theron felt his fist clench, forced it open, laid his hand palm flat on the bar. “Yes, I’m sure about that, Aric.”

Aric nodded, then stood up. “Okay,” he said. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

Theron looked up at him. “Really?”

“You’re my friend,” Aric coughed, and Theron could have sworn that he was embarrassed.  “At least I like to think of you as one. So it’s my job to make sure you’re not being an idiot, but it’s also my job to trust you when you say you know whatever shit you’re doing is going to turn out okay. I don’t have to like your girlfriend, but I can respect that you do. Just…”

“Just what?”

“Know that we’ve got your back, okay?”

Theron took a breath. He felt like he should be angry but was surprised -- pleasantly -- that he wasn’t. He was just grateful.

“That… means a lot, Aric. Thank you.”

The Major quirked his lip in a grin. “You’re welcome.”

Chapter Text

Mission briefing was standard, and Aric, far more relaxed than he had been in months -- years to be honest -- standing at parade rest while his new Commander outlined what they wanted to do on Zakuul. It was sloppy, he couldn’t deny it, but it was the best they could do with the resources they had at hand, and he knew that Brill, at least, would find a way to make it work.

Glancing towards her, however, he realised something he had been lying to himself about since they left Belsavis.

Brill wasn’t well.

She stood, all intents and purposes perfectly normally, while she listened to Theron attempt to make some sense out of the intel he had at his hands (the guy needed training on how to break down missions to grunts, he was way, way too used to talking to people he thought were just as smart as he was, and that meant that anyone who wasn’t -- read pretty much everyone, Aric was willing to admit -- got left behind). Her eyes were focused on the back wall and he could almost convince himself that she was bored, but it wasn’t that, and when she swayed, once, twice, he swore like the trooper he was and rushed to her side to support her as she fell.

“Brill?” Theron was by his side in a second, so was the sith, as Aric lowered her considerable weight to the ground and cursed that he’d been such a fucking idiot not to realise how badly off she was. She was like that, she’d hide it until she got back to base, hide it until everyone else was cared for, because the rest of the squad was always more important.

But it was his job -- had been his job -- to make sure she didn’t do that, and he’d failed in that job because he’d been too long away from her.

“What’s the matter with her?” The Commander said, and Aric had to give her credit, she actually sounded concerned.

Brill was still conscious, and her eyes slid towards Vopenir. “At a guess,” she said, then wet her lips with her tongue, “malnutrition. Probably a bit more than borderline. Been running on short rations for months now… just… catching up with me.”

“You’re a medic?” Vopenir said.

“Field trained,” Brill said.

“Well that would be comforting if it also wasn’t stupidly inconvenient. I want your squad on Zakuul and you cannot very well lead them if you’re half starved and delirious.”

“Understood, sir,” Brill said. “XO perfectly capable. Doing it for years.”

“Brill…” Aric said.

“Your squad any way, Aric,” she said. “You know them better.”

Aric didn’t have an answer to that, and Vopenir nodded, satisfied. “Get her to Dr Oggerub’s,” she said, nodding curtly to Aric and Theron. “Don’t let him experiment on her. She’s a medic she can fill in the gaps that Drelik has in his training. At some point we really need a properly trained doctor on base and not all these half-sane archaeologists and hutts. Once she’s settled both of you need to get back here to finish the briefing. Jorgan you’ll be one less for your mission, I take it that will be workable?”

He swallowed. Then nodded. There was no way he was letting Brill go into the field like this. And the mission was critical. But his heart ached and he didn’t want to leave her here, with strangers, especially not when he was going to be heading in the heart of enemy territory.

They usually did that together.

Brill wasn’t a small woman and Aric had never really been able to lift her for more than a minute or two, but she insisted, once they’d got her on her feet, on walking rather than being carried. “How many others of your people are we going to expect to be collapsing like this?” Theron asked.

She clenched her jaw. “I set those who were most affected on rest,” she said. “Or light duties. They won’t.”

“You didn’t think to do the same for yourself?” Aric growled.

She waved a hand. “War going on,” she said, breath coming short.

“You haven’t changed a damned bit,” Aric said.

Dr Oggerub was a hutt. Aric probably shouldn’t have been surprised by that, considering all the other shit that was going on in this base, but he was. That the hutt spoke basic was also a bit of a mind spin -- hearing basic come out of that enormous mouth was more than a little creepy. In any case he was relieved when the massive tattooed alien didn’t try to attend to Brill himself, instead a small, middle aged Imperial man fussed over her on the cot.

“Oh dear,” he said. “This is quite a problem, I can see. You poor thing, trapped on that horrible planet for so long. I visited it once, with my old master. Quite apart from how many terrible people are imprisoned there, the history is absolutely fascinating. Did you know the Rakata once tried to seed all planets with specific genetic material so as to…”

“Dr Drelik,” Theron said. “The Major needs attention, not lectures.”

Drelik smiled with perfect good nature up at Theron and nodded. “Quite so, quite so, my apologies, Agent Shan. She mainly needs rest, and an IV of nutrients to get her strength back up again. Regular meals and less strenuous activity should help. If Dr Lokin weren’t so busy with his rakghoul research he could probably advise better than I…”

“You have a medical doctor?” Aric asked Theron,

“We have an abundance of doctors, Aric,” Theron said, sighing. “Just… most of them are more interested in other things. Talos here, likes old sith artefacts. Dr Lokin is a little more… uh… specialised. Don’t get me started on Oggerub.”

“Dr Lokin has a project currently underway that I have no doubt will give fascinating results!” Drelik said. “But probably should not be brought into a sick room.”

“Give me the IV and I’ll look after myself,” Brill said, between clenched teeth.

“I couldn’t possibly give something that delicate to someone…”

“She has the training,” Aric said. “And you’re... obviously busy.”

“Oh! A field medic! How delightful. And useful to you as well, no doubt. Well, let me just get this set up for you and you should be able to monitor your own condition and tell me when you need anything. I’m quite close by, and very willing to help.”

Drelik busied himself with setting Brill up with what she needed, and Aric was pleased to see that despite his distraction he obviously knew what he was doing. He chattered to Brill the entire time, and he could see Brill relaxing into it, the way she would in a briefing when she knew more than the brass trying to give her orders.

“It’s okay,” Theron said, touching his arm. “Drelik takes some getting used to but he knows what he’s doing.”

“I’m sure,” Aric growled.

Theron gave him a look.

“This is my fault. I should have realised the state she was in. That’s my job.”
“Aric it’s not…”

“We have a mission to complete, Theron,” he said shortly. “And I’d like a moment with my wife, if you don’t mind, before we leave.”

Theron sighed, then shrugged. “Sure. Go ahead.”

Theron took himself off and Drelik finished with the IV. Aric took Brill’s hand and smoothed his other over her lekku.

“Do me a favour, huh? Don’t scare me like that again.”

She sighed, but there was a smile around her lips as she did so. “Nice to be taken care of,” she said.

“Been too long since you’ve had someone looking out for you,” Aric said. “We’re gonna change that, okay? Soon as this mission’s over. I’m coming back and we’re having a week off. Fancy dinners. Massages. Rest. The whole thing.”

“Gonna take me to Alderaan and pamper me like a noble, huh?”

“Fuck yes,” Aric said.

“Sounds great.” Her voice was lowering and he could see she was dropping off to sleep. He took a deep breath, then leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead, turned to get back to the war room and nearly tripped as a small, dark red bundle of fur and bone slammed into his chest.

“Is she all right? Is she going to be okay? What happened?”

He put his hands on Diwari’s shoulders, smiling a little. “You got here fast,” he said.

“What happened? Gertan said that Bares said that he heard Yawth saw you and that weird cyborg guy carrying her across the base…”

“It’s all right, ha’tan, she’s all right. Just been pushing herself too hard for a while. Needs some rest.”

He stepped aside so she could see Brill, very firmly asleep now, looking better.

Diwari’s eyes widened and she swallowed. “Why has she got the…”

“The IV is for nutrients. She hasn’t been eating enough.”

“Oh. Yeah right, she’s been teaching me field medicine I should have…” Diwari stepped forward, put a hesitant hand on Brill’s arm, and Aric felt something in his chest start to hurt.

“Hey,” he touched her shoulder, turned her to face him, hunkered down a bit so she could look straight into his eyes. “Can you do me a favour? I’ve gotta go on this mission…”

Her eyes slid away and she rubbed her arm. “Yeah. I heard.”

Aric’s ears twitched. It looked a bit like the kids on the base were hearing a fair bit too much -- Theron would need to crack down on security.

“Gonna be gone for a couple of days. Maybe a week. So I need you to look after her, all right? Make sure she takes care of herself, while she’s taking care of you.”

Diwari nodded. “I can do that!”

“Course you can,” he said, swallowing. “I’ll let Drelik know you’re going to be here for a bit, looking out for her. Meeran and her parents too. It’ll be a weight off me, knowing you’re here when I can’t be.”

“Yes sir,” she said.

He ruffled the fur on the top of her head and she ducked out of the way, ears flattening. “You don’t have to call me sir, all right?”

“Okay. Uh. Aric?”

“Aric’s good,” he said. “I’ll go talk to Meeran’s parents. Stay here for me?”

He stood up and moved to go, but felt her small hand on his wrist. “Uh,” she tugged a little, then stopped. “Can you… will you…”

“Spit it out, ha’tan .”

“Please be careful,” she said. “On your mission?”

He nodded. “We’re Havoc,” he said. “We’ll get the job done.”

***

Vopenir stalked towards the outer doors, irritation seething under her skin. She didn’t like to admit it, but the loss of Brilleln was niggling at her in ways she couldn’t articulate. The mission felt too rushed, she felt as though she was missing something crucial, some piece of a puzzle that would somehow make everything coherent. Lana’s suggestion, that she talk to Valkorian, as though it wasn’t the one thing she’d rather die than do, made sense. But she refused to talk to him anywhere where Theron or the others might be able to hear, or see the helplessness that enveloped her whenever she contemplated his ongoing occupation of her mind.

Outside, Odessen’s air was heavy and winter’s grip seemed to be lessened somewhat -- perhaps the snowfall that had greeted them on their return from Zakuul was unseasonable. In any case she wore her thickest clothes, despite being far more suited to the colder temperatures than her human friends, as she walked out into the darkness, taking a deep breath and feeling a little less conflicted, just from the simple act of walking away from her responsibilities.

It had been a long time, she realised, since she had been alone. As she picked her way along the rough path, wondering exactly what Lana had wanted from Valkorian, to send her away so soon before a crucial mission, she felt his presence.

“Lana wanted me to consult you,” she said, under her breath. “That does not give you leave to shove yourself in my face.”

He chuckled, and she was surprised to see the white outline of him appear before her in the darkness.

“Lana Beniko,” he said, and the name dripped with scorn. Vopenir, who had never particularly liked Lana so much as admired her competence, felt a sudden surge of rage at his dismissal, and her lip curled. “She wishes for you to take advantage of my power, but does not wish you to use it. Destiny is fickle. Perhaps it should have chosen her rather than you. Perhaps I should have.”

She snorted. “Destiny did not choose either of us,” she said. “You brought me to Zakuul. You allowed your son to use me to kill you.”

“You think that I did not anticipate his actions? You are a fool.”

“Perhaps. But I’m the fool walking around in a body while you…”

He snarled and threw lightning towards her. She staggered back, shocked that he could use power against her here. “You waste my time,” he said. “You have always wasted it. Let me show you your destiny, my wrath, let me show you how wrong you are and how wrong you will always be.”

***

“Where’s Vopenir?”

“I sent her away to talk to Valkorian,” Lana said.

Theron stopped. “Alone?”

“Valkorian is hardly going to give her vital information in the presence of the entire base, Theron.”

The clench of panic in his chest was to tight to ignore. “Where did you send her?”

“I assume she went to the Fury,” Lana said. “Relax, the Commander can take care of herself.”

“Yeah, right up to the point where Valkorian decides to make her relive being stabbed through the middle with a lightsaber again. How long has she been gone?”

Lana glanced at her datapad, a slight frown creasing her brow as she did so. “Nearly two hours,” she said.

Theron swore. “Okay I’m going to find her.”

“We have an operation about to start…”

“Brilleln can handle it from here.”

“I don’t know her and she’s half delirious in med bay and…”

“I do know her, and I trust her to do what’s right. Stars know she’s less of a disaster when she’s missing most of her blood supply than I am on a regular day. Vopenir is missing and she has Valkorion in her head and that’s a little bit more worrying to me right now, okay?”

Lana stood and took three, quick strides towards him. “Theron, she’ll be all right. I would feel if she was in danger. The force…”

He let out an explosive breath. “Don’t talk to me about the force!”

She laid a hand on his arm. “You’re worried. You’re allowed to be worried. But trust that we have enough of a connection to feel if she were in danger.”

“At this point I trust the force about as far as I can spit it. And it’s… you know, intangible so spitting it isn’t really an option, Lana.”

Lana sighed, rubbing her hand over her eyes. “She’ll be back soon, and hopefully she’ll have intel that will help us on the mission. I don’t want both of you wondering around lost at such a critical time.”

His nostrils flared and he gritted his teeth. She was right. Of course she was right. But it didn’t make it any easier and it didn’t make him happy.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll give it another hour, Lana, but after that we need to find her. Not just because I’m worried, but because of the mission.”

***

She hurt all over. That particular kind of hurt that came of being repeatedly shocked with force lightning -- bone deep and draining and interfering with her ability to connect to the force.

It was warm, though, and she was tired. So tired. Tempting to just roll over and try to ignore the pain enough to sleep, but there was something else, something different that made her blink her eyes open.

Valkorian. Vitiate.

He was gone.

She sat up.

She was in a small room, that looked a lot like the room of a starship, and the hum of a generator made her think at first that they were in space. But there was a scent to the air that was too rich to be recycled air, and beyond the hum of the generator she could hear the sounds of wildlife.

Still on Odessen, she figured, standing up. She was wearing nothing but her underwear, but a quick search of the room revealed a set of clothes with pants that were a little too long for her and her own boots. She dressed, quickly, meaning to get herself back to the war room as soon as she could, stuffing the extra material into her boots. That was going to be uncomfortable later, but right now she was more concerned with staying warm. She looked around for her lightsaber but couldn’t see it. Frowning, wondering if she was a prisoner, she made her way out of the room into the rest of the ship.

There was a familiarity about it that she couldn’t quite place. It was most definitely a republic model, smaller than the ones she’d seen in the Alliance. Meant to be crewed by two, probably three people. A tiny kitchenette, fresher, and on the bridge, a pilot and co-pilot chair.

It felt lived in, and she was certain it hadn’t left it’s current spot in years. Malfunction, or design, she wasn’t sure. Turning from the astrogation charts she caught a glimpse of something golden in the corner and bent to examine a thin, delicate chain, a locket caught on it, slightly ajar. She flicked it all the way open, absently and was greeted by the holo of a young boy -- probably fourteen or fifteen years old.

She recognised him. Snapped the locket shut and put it back where it was.

She had a pretty good idea whose ship this was now, and the anger roiling in her gut was going to be difficult to control.

Where in all the galaxy have you been?

Outside, the air was not as cold as it had been on the base, and she could make out the flickering of firelight in the distance and a faint smell of something cooking.

She had no comm, no idea where she was, and no other options but to find the owner of the camp.

Taking a deep breath, she made her way towards the firelight.

Chapter Text

Satele Shan, Vopenir thought spitefully as she approached the camp, looked older. Her once neatly coiffed hair fell in loose braids down her back and her eyes were tired when she looked up from the meal she was cooking over the open fire.

Vopenir wondered why she bothered, out here, when the ship had a functional kitchen, but she supposed it built focus or resilience or some other jedi quality to rough it like a savage in the wilderness when it was perfectly possible to act with a modicum of civilisation.

“Lord Wrath,” Satele said, standing up and brushing her hands over the long robe she wore. “It is good to see you are well.”

Vopenir crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s up for debate,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting,” she said. “For a sign from the force. We’ve been here for some time.”

She clenched her teeth. “Really. Who’s we?”

“Darth Marr and I.”

Vopenir felt her eyebrows raise. “Darth Marr?”

“His… presence has been with me since I came here.”

“Force ghosts,” she snorted. “More Imperius’ game than mine. Does he show himself or just give you cryptic advice every now and then? Try to possess you? Tell you everything you know about the force is wrong?”

Satele smiled slightly. “He’ll be along presently,” she said. “But he cannot eat. It would be rude for us to do so in front of him.”

“Marr always was a stickler for manners.” She sniffed. The stew that Satele was preparing smelt… wholesome, and she felt her stomach rumble. “How long was I unconscious? We have a mission to complete and your son is waiting for me.”

Satele’s gaze slid away from hers and she leaned down to check the stew. Obviously deciding it was ready she picked up a bowl and ladled a serving into it, passing it to Vopenir who took it and sat on a crate opposite the fire. A spoon followed, and Vopenir didn’t hesitate to take a mouthful.

It was spicy. Very spicy.

Eyes watering, she forced herself to swallow, vowing death on every human in the galaxy who thought it was acceptable to murder flavour.

Satele, she was certain, had a smile on her face, hidden by a curtain of her hair. “Not long,” she said. “You are surprisingly resilient.”

“A lot of people have tried to kill me,” she agreed, proud that she managed to keep her voice even despite the burning in her mouth. She stubbornly took another spoonful of stew. She was hungry, and she assumed Satele wasn’t trying to poison her.

Although given the way her mouth continued to burn, she began to wonder.

“Why am I here and not back at the base?” she said.

“You have things to learn,” Satele said. “If we are to defeat Arcann you need to reach your full potential in the force, and outside of it.”

Vopenir closed her eyes. “That’s what Vitiate said as well, is he chatting to you as well as me? Please tell me your methods of teaching don’t include shocking me with lightning.”

Satele shook her head, chuckling a little. Obviously her time in the wilderness had loosened her a little -- she couldn’t remember ever seeing the Grand Master smile in her time on Rishi. “Please believe me, Lord Aloni, when I say I will never employ the same methods as your former master. The force may not be everything I believed it to be when I was the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, but pain serves no one. Especially not in this case.”

“That’s something of a relief.”  There was silence as Vopenir attempted to eat as much as she could of the stew before setting it aside. Her stomach didn’t seem to object to the food, no matter what her mouth was telling her, but it was probably wise for her not to over eat. She stretched out with the force, attempting to find Lana -- or Sana Rae, or any of the other force sensitives back at the base, but her senses were stubbornly clouded, as they had been since Vitiate’s attack.

“You haven’t asked about your son,” she said then.

Satele shook her head. “I would know if he were unwell.”

“Really?” Vopenir said. “He doesn’t know that you aren’t.”

“I… after the jedi were defeated I needed to…”

“Take some time to reflect on your mistakes?”

Satele was very good at hiding her emotions -- another Jedi trait that Vopenir found irritating, but there was no mistaking the surge of guilt and shame that Vopenir could feel in the force surrounding her. At another time, she might feel sympathy for her. Not today, however. “Maybe he’d like to know you’re alive. Had you thought of that, sitting here, so close to him? He’s been worried about you.”

“He need not worry about me,” Satele said. “He owes me nothing.”

“In my experience you worry about someone when you care about them whether you need to or not,” Vopenir said. “Obviously my experience is different to yours.”

“In most things,” Satele said. “Which is one of the reasons you are here. Speaking of which, we do not have a great deal of time.”

Vopenir sighed. “Very well,” she said. “It seems I will be dragged along this path regardless of my wishes. Where is Marr? Shall we get it done?”

Satele stood, and Vopenir did the same.

“Come with me,” she said.

Brill woke feeling more refreshed than she had in years, but she still panicked when she didn’t recognise the ceiling above her. Not the gentle shipboard lights of the Thunderclap, no sleeping Aric next to her. Not the strangely patterned roof of the rakata tunnels on Belsavis, either, no, this was a rough stone roof, dotted with lights, and the strong smell of kolto and antiseptic.

She’d woken up in a hospital often enough to recognise the signs, and memory came back with hazy fragility, making her wince at her stupidity.

“Ahh, so you’re awake. Marvellous.” She blinked, turning her head to see a grey haired man standing next to her, scanner in hand. He was probably in his mid to late fifties, she guessed, with the kind of instantly likable face that a lot of older male humans had. She’d learned to mistrust those types on Nar Shadaa from a very early age, and frowned.

“You weren’t the doctor who attended me,” she said.

His lips twitched in an almost smile. “No, indeed, I was not. Dr Drelik was called away -- some sort of emergency on Yavin 4, or Manaan, or one of the other many planets he has his archealogical fingers wedged into. I’m a humble medical doctor without such distractions, free to attend to you as much as you need.”

“I’m fine,” she said, sitting up, pleased that she wasn’t woozy. The IV they’d given her had obviously done a lot for her while she’d been sleeping. She knew enough not to break free and start running marathons around the base, but her body felt a little like it was singing with all the extra nutrients.

“With respect to your obviously peak physical condition, Major, you are not entirely fine. You have luckily avoided any irreversible organ damage but going for so long on so little nutrition will have long term consequences should you not…”

“I’m not planning on leaving this lab and starving myself again, Dr…?”

“Lokin. Formerly Imperial Intelligence. A pleasure to meet you in the flesh, Major Jorgan. I believe we were on Corellia around the same time, although obviously on different sides. My former employer was intrigued at the efficiency and skill of Havoc Squad.”

“Former employer?”

“Alas, yes. She has moved on to more pressing matters. Although I do anticipate she will join us here eventually. Odessan does seem to be bringing everyone together. One could almost believe it was the force.”

“You believe the force can manipulate us like that, Doctor?”

“Coincidence can only go so far,” Lokin said. “Although it’s never a pleasant thing to contemplate -- the fact that there are others out there with the power to alter fate.”

Brill had never been a fan of the force. She’d fought enough sith, seen enough idealistic young people believe they could be jedi and fail, to look on it as anything other than an inconvenience. Perhaps when you were running the galaxy you would see it as something else, but as a soldier, it was trouble, and that was the end of it. “You’ve got a pretty interesting bedside manner, Dr Lokin,” she said.

“My apologies. To be honest your friend has been attending you for most of your time here, I have simply come to be certain you are properly treated. Agent Shan seems quite insistent that you be well looked after. And I am a little starved for intelligent conversation that isn’t entirely based around genetics and science. Please forgive my nattering.”

“First time anyone’s called my conversation intelligent,” Brill said, smiling a little. “And… my friend?”

Lokin nodded, and moved a little so she could see the cot next to her. Diwari lay on her side, facing Brill, and fast asleep with her tongue poking through her teeth, making a perfect pink blip in the centre of her face.

Cathar rigorously denied that they did this, to the extent that Brill could remember Aric attempting to gut Vik in the crew quarters for even daring to hint that perhaps he might have done it once when he was off duty and asleep in his bunk. Brill suspected that a lot of incidents of inter-species violence involving cathar came about because they fell asleep in the company of other species. No one was prepared for the fact that a six foot tall wall of muscle and teeth could look so darned cute.

Diwari must have heard something of Lokin and Brill’s conversation, because her eyelids fluttered, and in a second or two she was awake, sitting upright, looking concerned.

“Easy, Di,” Brill said.

She jumped down from her cot and rushed to Brill’s side. “I fell asleep,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“I have no idea what time it is,” she said. “But I was asleep too, until a second ago, so you’re totally allowed. Although I’ve gotta ask why you’re here in the first place, aren’t you supposed to be with Meeran?”

“Aric… the Major. He asked me to look after you. While he was gone.”

Her stomach dropped in sudden worry. She’d known he’d have to go on the mission. She supposed it was selfish of her to hope that he could postpone it until she was awake. “He’s gone then?”

“Left about six hours ago. You’ve been asleep for aaaages, but the Doctor said you needed it and you definitely look better than you did. He was real mad.”

“The doctor was mad?”

“No, Aric. Said you didn’t take care of yourself properly. Said that he needed to do his job better.”

She smiled and sat up a little. “Yeah well. He gets worried about me.”
“I like him,” Diwari said.

“I figured you would,” Brill said.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Lokin said. “You’re more than capable of assessing your own condition, Major. Minister Beniko asked to be informed when you were awake, you don’t mind if I…?”

“Please tell her,” Brill said, wondering what the sith could want with her right now. Lokin left, and Diwari started chattering about what Aric had said before he left. Six hours ago. That would put him a quarter of the way to Zakuul. Halfway to the seat of power of a mad man who was determined to kill them all.

She’d thought three years without him was bad enough, this gut churning worry of him being on a mission without her though, this was new.

Brill talked Diwari through the readouts that were up on the medical monitor, pleased that the girl was remembering her lessons -- she’d acted as Brill’s nurse on Belsavis, helping with injured and was remarkably good at it, better than Brill remembered being when she was going through her own training. Diwari’s education was patchy and based largely on whatever the other inmates knew, but Brill was confident at least that she’d have a skillset that was transferrable in her medical knowledge.

She was in the middle of explaining exactly the reasons behind the high concentration of saline in her IV when Theron walked in. He looked… if possible, more agitated than normal, tension evident in the lines around his mouth and she noticed there were streaks of grey in his hair now that hadn’t been there three years ago. The situation was taking its toll on everyone, she guessed.

“Hey, Brill,” he said, managing a smile for her. “And.. uh.. Hey. Um. I’ve forgotten your name. I’m sorry.”

Diwari scowled at Theron, crossing her arms over her chest. Brill had to look away to hide her smile. There was a pretty big chance Theron had just made an enemy for life and he’d never, ever understand why.

“It’s Diwari,” she said, and Theron’s eyebrow quirked. Brill was relieved to see he was smart enough not to let Diwari see him smile, but she knew him well enough to know that he wanted to. “Diwari Nun.”

“Theron Shan,” he said.

“Yeah,” Diwari said. “I know.”

Theron looked away, rubbing the back of his head, and seemed relieved that Koth Vortena -- Brill had made a point of knowing all the key members of the alliance before she’d inconveniently collapsed -- and Lana Beniko entered.

“Well everyone’s here,” Theron said.

Koth nodded to her. “Major Jorgan. And Diwari, hey there, you looking after the Major for us?”

Brill saw Diwari’s chest puff out and had to cover her mouth to hide her smile. Theron was looking at Koth like he was a piece of code that had suddenly gotten up and started walking around, but Koth simply had a good natured smile all over his -- admittedly very handsome -- face. “Yes sir, I am sir,” Diwari said.

Koth grinned at her. “Nice job,” he said. “She looks a whole lot better than she did a few hours ago. And a good thing too, since it seems like we’re gonna need her.”

“Nothing’s gone wrong with the mission, has it?” Brill asked, suddenly frightened. They hadn’t even landed yet. Surely Aric was still safe.

Theron shook his head, touching Brill’s arm in reassurance. “No. They’re all okay, it’s okay, Brill. Really.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem isn’t with your husband or with our dearest Firebrand,” Lana Beniko said, looking like she’d eaten something decidedly sour with her afternoon tea. “It’s with the Commander. She’s been missing for nearly sixteen hours, and we need someone to oversee the mission on Zakuul. Someone that Havoc will listen to.”

Theron patted her arm again. “Guess who the lucky candidate for that is, Brill?” he said brightly.

Brill rolled her eyes, but secretly she was pleased. The closer she could get to the mission, the more like it would feel she was there with Aric. Some sort of control over what happened to him was better than none. “Get me the mission files,” she said. “And patch me through to operations. Or get me a wheelchair and roll me there. It’s not time for the IV to come out yet.”

Theron handed her a datapad, obviously having come prepared for her to ask those very questions, and then looked around at Lana and Koth, with a somewhat smug expression on his face.

Koth grinned. “Okay, I owe you a drink,” he said.

“I know my friends,” Theron said. “Brill was born up to this.”

Brill felt herself flush, even as she started paging through the mission plans. She’d been present, of course, during the briefing, but she’d be the first to acknowledge that she hadn’t been tracking desperately well before she’d passed out. “Want to get everyone else out of here?” she said, low voiced, to Theron. “I kind of need some quiet.”

She didn’t see him shoo everyone out, but she did hear Diwari’s voice excitedly chattering and Koth answer her before the room fell silent. Theron had stayed, but he’d always been easy company, even back on the Thunderclap during their mission in wild space he’d been able to sit in a room with someone and do his own thing. A valuable skill, when you were a soldier or a spy. She wondered sometimes if he was so good at it because of his jedi training.

“You okay?” she asked, even as she was looking through the data. The plan was as solid as it could be, she guessed, although she knew that Aric would have chafed at not being sent in to destroy the relay. Giving the Commander control of the Eternal Fleet was definitely not on the list of things that Aric would want to do, and she really couldn’t help but agree with him on that.

“Sure,” Theron said.

“Lana said the Commander was missing,” she said.

He shrugged. “She does that a lot.”

“Aric said he had a word with you the other night…”

“Yeah, look, I’m not really wanting to have another heart to heart about it, Aric going all dad on me was weird enough.”

Brill grinned. “He’s just looking out for you, Theron.”

“And I appreciate it,” Theron said. “Really. Not like I’ve got anyone else to do that for me.”

She set the datapad aside as one of the lab assistants came in with a wheelchair for her. It wasn’t the first time she’d been off her feet during mission critical times, but she was still annoyed at her body’s frailty as Theron helped her into it. His hands were gentle on her arms and he squeezed her shoulder once she was settled and the IV was in place in its stand. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She felt her lekku twitch involuntary. Theron was good at reading twi’lek language. She’d always meant to ask him where he’d learned it -- not from that old Jedi Master who’d brought him up, that was for sure.

“Hard, not being there with him,” she said.

Theron nodded. “I know,” he said.

“Let’s get this done then,” she said, sitting up straighter in the chair as Theron moved behind her to push it. “And get him home.”

Chapter Text

She had no idea how long she’d been gone. It looked to be about the same time of day it had been when she’d come out to confront Valkorian, but that didn’t mean anything much -- it could easily have been a week later. She hadn’t thought to ask Satele for exactly how long she’d been unconscious, and her training and the subsequent construction of her saber had been almost dream like. She didn’t think she’d been gone longer than forty-eight hours. She hoped she hadn’t.

The droid guarding the lift access didn’t acknowledge her as she keyed the code to the lock, and the personnel in the cantina barely looked her way. She didn’t think she was carrying herself any differently to normal, but it felt like her presence was negligible.

That was a feeling that didn’t dispel when she walked into the war room and saw the backs of Theron, Lana, Koth and Senya as they leaned over the holo communicator.

“It really is remarkably easy to kill someone when they’re surprised,” she said.

Theron’s head whipped around and Lana looked like she was about to explode, but there wasn’t time, there never was any time for anything, not when everything was determined to fall apart, and before she even knew what was happening…

She could acknowledge that she hadn’t been there, she could accept responsibility for missing the mission window, even though the world and the galaxy and the thrice damned force were the ones who kept getting in the way of her doing her job, but the least she could expect, she had thought, was for her orders to be obeyed.

“I warned you this would happen,” Jorgan said. “We’re going in.”

“No,” Vopenir could see the entire plan falling apart, could see Kaliyo killing this man simply for looking at him wrong, could see them losing both teams and being right back where they’d started before they’d recruited Firebrand, down two sets of hard won allies because the damned Cathar couldn’t control his temper. “You’re not doing anything until we know…” Vopenir leaned forward and she saw the Major’s eyes narrow as he bared his teeth.

“Not your call,” he said, bluntly. “You abandoned your post.”

Vopenir drew in her breath in a hiss and shot a look at Brilleln -- in a wheelchair, jaw set. “Order your husband to stay where he is,” she said.

Brilleln, to give her credit, opened her mouth to do just that, but before she could get the words out the comms cut off.

“Shit,” Brill said.

“Did he cut us off deliberately?” Vopenir said.

“No way to tell,” Theron said, although his eyes slid away. Brilleln sighed, rubbing her temple with one hand.

“I’m sorry Commander,” she said.

“You need to control your husband better,” she snarled at her.

Theron put a hand on her arm and she shook it off, glancing at him to see hurt in his eyes. She swallowed. She didn’t want to hurt him, couldn’t seem to stop herself from it, these days.

“Aric knows what he’s doing,” Theron said. “If Kaliyo’s in danger he’ll pull her out, salvage the mission. If she isn’t… he’s smart enough to make the right call.”

“Not smart enough not to disobey a direct order from me,” she said.

“He was right, though,” Lana said softly. “You weren’t here.”

Vopenir spun and glared at the sith woman, but Lana simply raised an eyebrow. Of all the people in this room, she was the most familiar with the whims of sith, and the least fazed by displays of temper.

Vopenir was grateful for that at least. Lana knew she wasn’t likely to force choke people, or torture them. Or kill them, even, without good reason.

She let out a breath. “If you hadn’t decided I needed to talk to Valkorian I would never have left the base,” she said.

Lana held up her hands, smiling slightly. “I will admit I probably should have told you to talk to him in your quarters rather than going outside so you were at the mercy of wild animals. Did it bear any fruit at least? Why were you gone so long?”

She glanced at Theron. “It’s… complicated,” she said.

“Well we’re not going to get anything done here,” Theron said.

“I’ll stay,” Brill said softly. “Let you know if we hear anything.”

Theron’s face softened. “Are you okay? You need anything?”

She shook her head. “Should be fine. Send Diwari in if you see her she’ll make sure I don’t go hungry or anything. And I have a comm.”

Theron leaned forward and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said, so softly that Vopenir figured he thought no one else could hear.

“Not your fault,” Brilleln said. “Part of the job.”

“We’ll get him back.”

Brilleln waved him away, and Theron made his way to Vopenir’s side. “So you going to tell us where you were?” he said, lightly, and Vopenir realised how desperately he was trying to hide his relief.

He’d been worried.

She must have been gone for longer than she’d thought.

“How long?” she asked.

“Fifty-two hours,” Lana said, and Vopenir cursed.

“Next time I see Grand Master Shan I am going to kill her,” she said.

Theron shot her a look and she opened her mouth to explain, but was interrupted by a somewhat smug looking Hylo Visz.

“Commander?” she said.

“I’m busy right now, Hylo.”

She smirked. “Not too busy for this,” she said.

She’d done this before. There’d been missions he’d gone on, even in Havoc Squad, by himself. There’d been firefights she’d faced on her own, missions that were suited to his sniping skills and didn’t have room for a medic or a combat specialist, hell sometimes Garza had ordered them apart for weeks at a time to sort out this mess or another, but somehow this time it didn’t feel the same.

It didn’t help that she wasn’t entirely ready for the possibility that the years spent apart had changed him so much that he’d be willing to disobey a direct order from her. That he’d cut the comms off -- and she was sure he’d done that deliberately -- meant he wasn’t sure if he could either and didn’t want to give her the chance. Disobeying Vopenir was bad enough, though, and she shuddered to think of what the consequences might be.

She’d seemed reasonable. She had the loyalty of her people, the affection of Theron.

But she was sith.

There was a small touch at her arm and she looked up to see Diwari there, holding a tray. She wasn’t hungry -- that was part of the problem -- going for so long on short rations appetite was one of the first things to go -- but she knew she had to eat and she knew Diwari knew it too and so she took the tray, attaching it to her chair in the slot that was meant for it and started picking at the salad vegetables.

“That’s the biggest holo projector I’ve ever seen,” Diwari said, plonking down cross legged next to Brill’s chair, and Brill grinned. She had her own sandwich in one hand -- one thing she’d always been good at even on Belsavis was looking after her own food.

“Could get some good huttball matches on it, I’m sure,” Brill said. “If it wasn’t dedicated to the war effort.”

They sat munching in silence for a few minutes, before Diwari looked up at her, gold eyes wide. “Is he going to call soon?” she asked.

Brill gave her a nod and a smile. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Real soon.”

Yannada Sila’s ship was called the Guaranteed Profit, and it was, at first glance, an unpleasant hulking mass of mismatched metal. The interior, at least the public areas, were similarly unimpressive, although Vopenir could see that it was clean and well maintained. It smelled familiar, as well, and it wasn’t until she saw the small figure scurrying past loaded with equipment and tools that she realised it reminded her of Tatooine -- there was a very distinctive and not unpleasant odor of Jawa.

She’d recognised Gault as soon as Hylo had introduced them, and he’d eyed her with a touch of suspicion that had turned into recognition.

“You’re the Emperor’s Wrath,” he said. “You look… shorter, than you did, back on Dromund Kaas.”

Vopenir raised an eyebrow. “I do not think that losing height is a side effect of carbonite freezing,” she said.

“Do you think they’d dock our pay if we delivered our bounties lacking a few inches?” Gault said to Yannada. Yannada, whose arms were crossed over her chest, shrugged.

“She’s the same height, Gault, you’re just getting old and blind,” she said. Gault spluttered, and Vopenir smiled. Yannada nodded, her own lips twitching. “Good to know you’re still alive,” she said. “A lot of us came out of that mess the worse for wear.”

“You and your crew seem okay,” Vopenir said.

“Most of us,” Yannada said darkly. “Ended up doing a few clean up jobs for your sith council. There were a lot of credits in smuggling people off Dromund Kaas for a while there.”

Vopenir raised an eyebrow. “I might be interested in getting into contact with some of those people, if you’re willing to negotiate a price,” she said.

Yannada shrugged. “Some of them were powerful enough for me not to risk it,” she said. “You can take his room for the trip. It’s only a few hours, but you might as well get comfortable. Hylo says you haven’t really had a chance to stop since you woke up.”

“There’s no need…” Vopenir started, but Theron stepped in front of her.

“That’d be great, thanks,” he said, a little hastily, and Yannada chuckled.

“Hang on, why are you giving them my cabin?” Gault said.

“Because you haven’t used it in years you bastard,” Yannada said, turning to the cockpit. “And maybe if they sort out whatever’s bothering them the force will stop fucking bothering me…”

“She has the force?” Theron said, as the ship’s droid led them to what was apparently Gault’s room.

“Miralukan,” Vopenir said shortly. “They all do. She doesn’t have much of it, though, which is why she’s a Bounty Hunter and not a sith.”

“Huh. Hard to tell with that mask she has on.”

“I think that’s the point.”

The droid left them at the door and Vopenir turned to key it shut. “Want to tell me why you were so keen to get a…” she turned, only to find Theron right there, pushing her against the wall and kissing her, hard.

She hadn’t expected it from him. Usually spontaneous displays of affection like this were something she initiated. Theron, while not nearly as repressed as Quinn had been, was mostly controlled -- hesitant about expressing himself. Although he was happy enough that people know they were together he didn’t go out of his way to show it unless they were alone.

She respected it with him. She was coming to realise that she hadn’t, with Quinn. His wishes had always seemed secondary to hers.

In any case she was surprised, and, after a few moments of his mouth insistent and determined on hers, his hands gripping her hips and pulling her against him as he ground into her -- more than a little aroused. When he pulled back only to trail more kisses down her neck she let out a gasp that was half laugh.

“Hello,” she said.

“You were gone,” he said, still mouthing at her skin, hands moving… everywhere over her hips and her stomach, sliding down her thighs. “I’m getting a bit of a complex about you leaving and not coming back, you know.”

She opened her mouth to say something -- something that would comfort him, an empty promise that it wouldn’t happen again, but words failed her and he didn’t give her the time to formulate them in any case, his lips finding hers again and kissing her thoroughly until words seemed unimportant.

His hand ended up between her legs, cupping her through her pants and squeezing until she gasped. She shifted a little, to give him better access, moving her own thigh to rub against his cock, hard and hot against her.

“You missed me,” she said, smiling.

“Stars yes,” he said, voice hoarse. He slipped his hand inside her waistband, reaching downwards. “Thought I’d lost you.”

This was a new Theron, one she had only caught glimpses of in the past, and as his fingers found their mark she shut her eyes, head thumping back against the wall as she struggled for breath. “I should… I should go away more often…”

He shook his head, fiercely, pulling her away from the wall. “No,” he said. “You really shouldn’t.”

He backed her towards the bed -- a luxurious double that looked out of place in the otherwise austere room, and pushed her down onto it gently.

“I want you,” he said, shucking off his jacket. “You okay with that?”

She grinned. “Most definitely,” she said, reaching down to pull of her boots. He grinned back, pulling his shirt over his head and kicking his own boots off.

She watched hungrily as he pulled off his pants -- he was hard and flushed and obviously ready. He leaned forward and helped her with hers, breathing hard as he peeled them from her legs, pressing kisses to the inside of her thigh and her shin.

When they were gone he kissed up the inside of her leg, then didn’t hesitate, but buried his head between her thighs. She tipped her head back, crying out at the suddenness and overwhelming passion of him, one hand tangling in his hair for a moment as he worked his tongue against her.

It wasn’t what she wanted though, not right now, so she touched his shoulder, urging him upwards, wanting to feel him inside her.

“You should know something,” she managed to gasp out as he settled between her legs, lining himself up to push into her.

“Right now?” he asked.

She smirked, then gasped a little as she felt him against her. “Val.. Valkorian is gone,” she said. “He left me, on Odessen.”

“I’m…” he sank a little into her and groaned. “Oh I’m going to want to discuss that with you.” He slid all the way in, slowly, buried his head in her neck, breathing hard, then kissing her. “Not…. not right now though.”

She laughed, as breathless as he was, then moaned as he drew back and slid home again.

“Fuck,” he said. “You’re so beautiful… you feel so good. I can’t… I….” he cradled her head in his hand and kissed her again, as he started to move more quickly, thrusting into her with firm, long strokes until she was lifting her hips to meet him, gasping his name, urging him to go faster.

She felt him grow harder inside her, heard him let out a strangled cry as he thrust deeper, and that was enough to bring her over, lifting a leg to hook it over his back and tipping her head back as she shuddered with her release.

He rested on her for a second, panting and she wove her fingers through his hair, feeling his lips still gently mouthing her neck.

“I love you,” he breathed against her skin. “Please don’t disappear again.”

She blinked, unsure for a moment what she’d heard. Pleasure still throbbed through her, and they were tangled in a strange bed bathed in sweat and smelling of sex and there had been a second there, a moment where she could have responded in kind. I love you too. The words were there. They were ready to be said.

The moment passed and Theron lifted his head to kiss her mouth again, slowly and gently, and maybe she was imagining his disappointment in her lack of response or perhaps she was just trying to hide that the one who was truly disappointed with it was her.

Chapter Text

She must have fallen asleep -- possibly a side effect of having spent three days in the wilderness on Odessen, or perhaps the relaxation from Theron’s attentions, in any case when she opened her eyes Theron was sitting up, fully clothed on the bed, picking through a datapad. He smiled at her as she blinked. “You seemed to need it,” he said. She sat up, bleary eyed, trying to shake the cobwebs from her mind.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Got another hour before show time.” He swallowed. Smiled. She wanted to touch him, to reassure him somehow.

Blurting out words she still wasn’t entirely sure about wouldn’t do anything to help the situation.

“We probably should have talked,” he was saying, “before… we…”

She smiled. “No. That was far more necessary,” she said, and he chuckled.

“Won’t argue with that. You okay to tell me what happened out there? You said… Vitiate was gone?”

She swallowed. “Theron your mother was there,” she said. “With Darth Marr.”

He frowned.

She explained as well as she could while she cleaned up and dressed, Theron standing in the doorway of the fresher, the frown not leaving his face the entire time.

“I wondered where the new saber had come from,” he said. She rested her hand on the hilt of the weapon, feeling its quiet power. She’d had some practice, constructing her own lightsabers since the one she had earned so long ago on Korriban had been lost in the fight with Arcann, and this one resonated to her in a way that the ancient saber had never managed.

She had no desire to admit that the jedi tradition of constructing their own lightsabers may have merit, but Theron didn’t seem as interested in it as he was about the rest of her encounter.

“She really left?” he said, sounding disgusted.

“I asked her to come and at least see you,” she said. “The force was calling her away, apparently.”

“Huh,” he said, looking away. “Convenient.”

She squeezed his arm. He shook his head, shrugging. “It’s okay,” he said. “Not like it’s the first time. I’m just… eh. I’m glad she’s all right, I guess.”

She opened her mouth to tell him about the locket she’d found, then closed it again, leaning forward and brushing hair away from his temple. He leaned into her hand, smiling sadly. “Funny how the force never calls her anywhere convenient for the rest of us,” she said.

“Obviously where she goes is convenient to the force,” he said. “Weird how Marr told you it has a will.”

She hummed in agreement. “It has tossed us all around,” she said. “And I must say, I’m unwilling to admit that what it wants is the best for the galaxy.”

“It wants you to take the Eternal Throne.”

She smirked. “A fairly strong indication that I am right to doubt its judgement.”

He folded his arms, leaning against the doorway. “You don’t want to be Emperor of the Galaxy?” he asked.

She walked her fingers along his arm. “Would you be my Empress-Consort?” she said. He let out a short, disbelieving laugh and she raised her eyebrows at him

“What, you’re serious?”

“It’s a large throne,” she said. “Certainly too big for only me.”

“I don’t… I’m not… I thought you didn’t want to be Empress you said…”

She leaned up and kissed him, soft and gentle, then pulled back. “I don’t,” she said. “But I must admit the thought of you in formal wear standing at my elbow while I rule with a fist of durasteel is a pleasant one. Should keep me entertained and cheerful the next time we’re separated.”

He coughed, flushing a little, but she could tell he was amused. “That still leaves us with the problem of who should sit on the throne, so long as you agree that Satele and Marrr are wrong and the Galaxy falls into chaos if you don’t.”

“I can sit on it for five minutes,” she said, waving a hand. “Prophecy and destiny can be technically fulfilled -- the histories are full of loopholes and ways to get around fate. But the Eternal Throne should go to someone from Zakuul. Not an outsider -- not an outlander.”

“Well, we don’t know any people from Zakuul,” Theron said.

“Except Koth,” she said. “And we are left with the knowledge that whoever takes the throne has the fleet at their disposal, unless we take it ourselves or destroy it. A crippled Zakuul would still be a formidable enemy. If we do not seize the Empire -- even if we do -- we’re still left with a three way struggle. I doubt the Empire and the Republic will calmly stand by as the Alliance takes Arcann’s place.”

Theron looked uneasy. “I suspect if you took the throne the Empire would fall into line under your leadership,” he said. “Major Pierce has already shown that most of the military believe the current regime is nothing more than a farce.”

“Which would leave the Republic at my mercy,” she said.

“Aric and Brill have shown that there’s very little faith in the Republic at the moment either,” Theron pointed out. “But there’s no way they’re going to fall into line behind a sith -- uh… no offense.”

“None taken,” Vopenir said. “And I no longer wish to crush the Republic. If I take the throne and they attack, however, I will have little choice.”

“If they’re sensible they’ll surrender,” Theron said, although he was looking more and more uncomfortable at the direction of their discussion. “Unfortunately the day that Saresh is sensible when it comes to Sith and the Empire is the day tauntauns have the force.”

She pulled away from him, picking up her boots and sitting down on the bed to put them on. “We’re looking at conflict for a long time, even considering we do defeat Arcann,” she said as she slid her foot home.

He sighed and sat next to her. “Still, you’re sounding like the only sensible option for this, Vopenir.”

“Pfft,” she said. “I shall start picking out Empress Consort outfits for you if you suggest that again.”

“Something in green,” he said. “To match my eyes.”

She leaned over and kissed his nose.

The comm chimed, and Gault’s voice interrupted them. “We’re here,” he said. “Hope you’ve sorted out your shit.”

Seeing Vette’s face was like a punch to the gut, a rush of feeling so intense she nearly doubled over with surprise. She’d thought the voice was familiar, the cadences of its teasing playing havoc with her mind and throwing up images from the past that seemed incongruous until her blue head poked over the top of the missile and everything slotted into place.

And then she was gone and Vopenir was left gaping after her as Gault all but dragged her away. The fight against Arcann, the job they were about to perform, the logistics they had to work out, fell into the background and she stood, watching Vette, so at ease and comfortable in her new company, so confident and beautiful…

This was what she always had the capacity to be -- someone who saw the best and did her best and put everyone around her to shame because of it. Vopenir found herself grinning, tears pricking at the back of her eyes as she watched her, and as the others filed out of the room, Theron touching her arm and squeezing in understanding as he went, Vette laced her fingers together and shrugged at her.

“We looked for you,” Vopenir blurted out. “At least, Theron did. And what’s this I hear about you getting married? Is Jaesa all right with you wandering the galaxy in the company of notorious criminals?”

Vette rolled her eyes, but she was blushing under that blue skin. “Jaesa doesn’t… exactly know what I’m doing… or at least, who I’m doing it with,” she said. “I mean. Not the details any way. She knows I look for antiquities to return to the Twi’leks, but…”

“I’m guessing she’s not using her power on you because she knows she won’t like what she sees,” Vopenir said, smiling.

“Don’t worry, I haven’t taken any pages out of yo ur marriage vows,” Vette said, then clamped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, shitting kriff, Vope, I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

Vopenir laughed. She hadn’t heard that nickname in so long. It seemed to take shape, sitting in her heart, making it uncomfortably full. “It’s all right Vette,” she said. “I am fully aware that my experience with long term commitment isn’t a shining example for others.”

“Yet Shan is still around making goo-goo eyes at you. That’s pretty long term if you ask me.”

“I don’t know that five years in carbonite counts as successful monogamy Vette.”

They paused, looking at each other.

“It’s good to see you,” Vopenir said, finally. Vette rolled her eyes and grabbed her arm, pulling her into a fierce hug.

Vopenir blinked for a moment, then brought her arms up and leaned into the embrace. It was astonishing how good it felt, how much having Vette there brought something back that she hadn’t even known she’d been missing.

“I missed you,” Vette said, giving her one last squeeze before pulling back and giving her a shrewd look. “But you’re not going to ask about him, are you?”

She knew precisely who Vette was talking about.

“He wrote to me,” Vopenir said. “Told me the crew had broken up. I assumed you wouldn’t know where he was.”

Vette’s eyes turned shrewd. “That’s all he said?”

Vopenir raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” she said. “Should there have been more?”

Vette shrugged. “Not for me to say,” she said. “And I don’t know where he is. Not exactly. But… um… well I’m pretty sure I could find him, if you want. We saw him a couple of years ago and…”

Vopenir shook her head. “He is better off without me,” she said, and Vette’s eyes slid away, reaching one hand up to tug at her tchun. Vopenir knew her well enough to know that she was keeping something back, although she knew she would tell her if Quinn was dead, at least.

She found she didn’t want to press, on this issue. Quinn’s absence, much as his presence had been, was a constant ache, something she couldn’t stop herself from prodding like a loose tooth or a scab that wanted picking. Better that absence, though, than the complications and feelings that would inevitably arise were he near.

“Are you okay with me trying to let him know you’re alive, at least?” Vette asked. “They.. he’ll be happy. About that. At least.”

“I have no objection to you letting him know I am well,” she said. “But do not go out of your way.”

Vette nodded. “I’ll tell Jase to put out a few feelers.”

“Is she well? Are you…”

“You two done catching up?” Theron said, poking his head into the room. “Scorpio and Senya are ready. Time to rob Arcann.”

***

She left the war room, eventually. Thirty-six hours, now, he’d been AWOL, and she ate automatically when food was offered and she took Diwari through her lessons and she consulted with Aygo about troop movements (adjusted the insane schedule that Aric had set so it wasn’t quite so punishing).

There were updates from the Commander of the progression of their mission. Diwari and Koth kept track of those -- the Zakuulan seemed to be flattered by Diwari rather than bothered by her obvious crush, and Brill was grateful for his cheeful presence.

It was a lot harder for Brill to smile right now.

After forty-eight hours she went back to the Thunderclap to get some sleep that wasn’t in the med bay. She was free of the IV now, at least, able to tend to her own nutrition. Appetite was coming back, not that the food available was a flavour sensation, but she’d never been fussy about what went into her four stomachs, not even when she’d had access to some of the best restaurants on Coruscant and the pay grade to enjoy them. Aric had used to joke that fancy dinners were wasted on both of them -- Cathar food prep was more about texture than taste -- the different ways to cook meat so it was either a challenge to eat or a delight that melted in the mouth.

In any case the sandwiches and protein and plain vegetables that she could get from Hylo’s people or Aygo’s were still better than she’d been forced to eat on Belsavis, and she consulted with Lokin about the possibility of going back into training. Punching bags or running might help some with this constant, insects under the skin frustration she felt at not knowing where Aric was, or if he was alive. Lokin put his foot down, though, and said anything other than walking was right out.

She walked, then. And nearly passed out when she walked too far, which was how she ended up back on the Thunderclap, head spinning and dizzy with the need to rest.

So she was asleep when the Commander’s shuttle returned, and close by the communicator when Aric contacted her.

They had arranged to have a comm line as secure as they could make it, on the trip from Belsavis to Odessen, and she had always slept with a comm in their quarters -- there were communications from command that sometimes needed to be secure, especially when you had someone like Tanno Vik on the crew whose propensity to blab about top secret missions to anyone who would give him credits had lead to some interesting negotiations in his time with Havoc.

When it beeped and she answered it blearily from her bed to see Aric there she was disoriented enough to briefly think it was eight years ago and he was calling to give her an update on the battle for Corellia.

His face, when it came into focus on the holo, was far too tired and ragged for that, and she was sure she caught a glimpse of blood on his neck that made her heart skip a few beats and the reality of the present crowd in on her with sudden, overwhelming fear.

“Goddess, Aric are you…”
“I’m… I’m fine,” he held up a hand, trying to reassure her. It wasn’t working. “I’m sorry, Brill. I’m all right. The rest of us… fuck …” He took a long, shuddering breath and Brill felt her chest tighten, even as she saw his expression soften. “Stars, Brill, it’s good to see your face.”

She swallowed. “Yours too,” she said. “But this is a private call and the Commander…”

“I screwed up,” he said. “I screwed up and I don’t know how it’s going to go. This channel. I can’t keep it open long, Kaliyo…”

“Is she all right…?”

He snarled. “Yeah. She’s fine. I can’t. They’re coming to check I just had to let you know…”

“Aric…”

“We’ll be in system in three hours. I love you, okay?”

“Aric!”

The channel went dead.

Chapter Text

Vopenir was surprisingly light hearted as they stepped off the shuttle, successful reunions and ridiculously large numbers of credits could do that to a woman, she supposed. Even Theron’s hesitant look when she’d woken up beside him couldn’t shake her good mood -- she’d kissed it away, determined not to make his confession and her lack of response mean anything had changed about their relationship.

It hadn’t, of course. The words being said did not affect the feelings behind them, and there was nothing she could say or do to convince Theron otherwise. He would just have to live with it.

For now.

In any case the addition of Gault and Vette and Yannada to the base’s assets, for once caused her no extra stress. There were no worries about refugees or concerns that any of them would become too volatile to control, she doubted even Koth could be upset that they’d manage to rob Arcann so thoroughly (promising to give at least some of the profits back to the people had mollified him somewhat, Vopenir was beginning to think in another life he had been a Jedi).

Her good mood, however, fell away as they walked into Aygo’s hangar and she saw Jorgan, Kaliyo and a large number of coffins. Brilleln was also there, in a heated discussion, it seemed.

The coffins had republic flags draped over them.

Brilleln was standing with one hand on Aric’s arm, talking earnestly to him as Kaliyo sneered at the two of them, arms crossed over her chest, and Vopenir’s world suddenly went red.

She felt Theron’s hand on her arm, but she shook it off as she stormed to where they were standing.

“Major you have a large amount of explaining to do,” she said.

Jorgan looked up, eyes red rimmed, but to give him credit he didn’t back down, and his voice was low with repressed anger when he spoke.
“Your pet anarchist got my men killed,” he said.

“I didn’t get them killed,” Kaliyo said mildly. “If Major Misfire here hadn’t barged into the middle of a delicate negotiation…”

Jorgan spun and the snarl that came from his lips was loud enough and menacing enough that even Kaliyo took a step back. “You were captured. About to be killed. My people saved your twice cursed fucking life and you repaid them by…”

Kaliyo stepped up close to him and her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t shoot your damned men,” she said. “But I’m starting to wish I fucking well had.”

Brilleln stepped between them, one hand firmly shoving her husband back from Kaliyo. “Aric won’t rip your throat out with his teeth,” she said mildly. “But keep on like that and I just might.”

“Woah, woah, Brill, no one needs to rip anyone’s…” Theron started, but Vopenir wasn’t having it.

“I see no reason why I shouldn’t imprison you both,” she snarled. “This was a farce of a mission from start to finish.”

“You weren’t there,” Jorgan said. “The plan had to be altered and it fell apart at the start because…”

“Last I checked you were a Major in the republic army. It’s no wonder you crumbled so easily on Coruscant if all your officers were so woefully inadequate at adapting…”

Aric’s snarl turned into a roar and he started to stride towards her, Brill grabbed his arm and pulled him back with considerable strength for someone who had recently been in a wheelchair and Kaliyo gave a delighted, malicious laugh.

“Enough!” Lana put the force behind her words and it echoed through the hangar bay. Aric stopped, although Vopenir noted that his claws were out and his teeth were bared. Kaliyo closed her mouth and hugged her arms tighter over her chest.

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence, then Lana took a deep breath. “Commander, Major Jorgan lost four of his men, he is understandably upset.”

“If he hadn’t…”

“Stop. The mission was not a complete failure. Kaliyo managed to salvage data from the Spire that will help on our next mission. Those who could return, have returned, and despite one mission’s failure you have managed to triumph.” Vopenir let out a breath and Lana held her gaze steadily. “It is this bickering that will hand Arcann victory,” she said, “and we are above it, or at least, we should be.”

Vopenir swallowed, gut still roiling in anger and Jorgan sucked in a breath through his nose. “You’re right,” he said.

Vopenir shrugged, angry, but willing to admit that much. “Yes,” she said. Lana sighed in relief and Brilleln squeezed her husband’s shoulder.

“We’re all equally at fault here,” Brilleln said. “And we lost good people because of it. We should let it be a lesson to us. And we should move on.”

“An extra voice of reason is always appreciated,” Lana muttered, and Brilleln gave her a warm smile.

“I need to write some letters,” Jorgan said, his shoulders slumping, then turning to Vopenir. “Permission to leave, Commander?” he said. Vopenir inclined her head and he turned on his heel, followed closely by Brilleln who shot her a grateful look.

Kaliyo muttered something about going to get cleaned up and Vopenir didn’t stop her, just stood, breathing deeply.

“Commander?” Lana said.

“Sometimes I wonder why you are not leading this Alliance, Lana,” she said.

She chuckled. “I am not so foolish as to want it,” she said. “And I lack your… charisma.” Vopenir snorted, wondering where Lana got the idea that charisma was something she had in abundance. Lana gave her a shrewd look, then glanced at the others who had come back from Gault’s successful robbery. “We need to debrief, there hasn’t been enough time to rest lately. I see you’ve found a friend?”

Vette grinned at Lana, putting a fist on her hip. “Hey,” she said. “I like your new outfit.”

“My thanks, Vette,” Lana said, then inclined her head at Yannada. “Hunter, I have heard news of you in the past few years, it is good to know you are well.”

“Hylo didn’t mention me?” Yannada said. “I’m offended.”

“She’s been busy.”

“It certainly feels like we’re accumulating a lot of powerful people,” Theron said. “Arcann should be worried.”

“And a lot poorer, after today,” Gault said, grinning.

“If you’re all planning on staying we’ll have to get you sorted with quarters and supplies,” Theron said. “That’s… kind of my division, sometimes, so why don’t you…”

Theron led the bulk of the people away and Lana and Vopenir were left with Xaban and Kanner, who were arranging to have the coffins transported back to republic space. That would be an expense that Vopenir would normally have chafed at, but considering they had a cargo hold full of Arcann’s money she figured it was fair to let Aric ship his people home. Lana indicated that they should walk, and Vopenir followed her back towards the cantina. “I need to apologise,” Lana said. “For suggesting you talk to Valkorian. It seems that was the catalyst for everything that went wrong on Jorgan’s mission.”

“You are not responsible for his actions,” Vopenir said. “And it may have led to our erstwhile Emperor’s decision to leave.”

“Wait,” Lana stopped in the corridor. “He’s gone? I thought… I hadn’t sensed any…” she stopped for a moment, closing her eyes. “You’re right. He has gone. But he’s… left something behind.”

“Power,” Vopenir said. “I think. My strength in the force has increased.”

Lana looked troubled. “Then you are even more formidable. Can you tell where your own power ends and his begins?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“That is very… disturbing.”

“I want to find a way to stop him from coming back,” Vopenir said. “I want Sana-Rae and the rest of the force enclave to start working on it.”

“That is a very good idea, I do believe,” Lana said. She tapped her lips with one finger. “You know that it might be an idea to attempt to locate the Jedi Battlemaster for assistance in that regard. She was once mind controlled by Vitiate and managed to break free.”

Vopenir blinked. “Imperial Intelligence is better than I thought,” she said. “I had heard no rumours of this, only that she managed to destroy his body.”

“It was not generally known in Imperial Intelligence,” Lana said. “I only discovered it through… another source.” Vopenir raised her eyebrow. “Churek’ill’issia -- former Cipher Nine. She has… avenues of intelligence that most do not.”

“It sounds as though we should be recruiting her, not the Battlemaster, then,” Vopenir said.

“Would that we could,” Lana said. “But I’m afraid I have not been able to locate her for some time. I had hoped that Kaliyo or Scorpio might have news but…”

“They were formerly of her crew, yes?”

Lana nodded.

They reached the cantina, and Vopenir, who had not eaten since before they’d made the jump to Odessen, ordered a salad. “She expressed a desire to withdraw from Imperial affairs shortly after your disappearance,” Lana said. “I could understand why. There were… questionable practices in Intelligence before I took command and she was very much a victim of them.”

Vopenir raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly. “I do not believe there was any aspect of the Empire that was free of questionable practices, Lana.”

“Usually mind control is left to the sith, however,” she said, darkly, and Vopenir blinked.

“Sustained mind control is something only fools toil with,” she said.

“Fools, and Vitiate, it seems. I’ll see if Theron has any more leads on the battlemaster’s whereabouts. She travelled with several companions who might be easier to track, if she herself does not want to be found. Teeseven completely refuses to speak of her at all, and any information he might have had when we first recruited him would no longer be current in any case.”

“I will take any way of keeping Vitiate out of my head for good, Lana,” Vopenir said. “You must be thinking that he hopes for me to take the throne -- and in doing so leave a way open to possess me entirely.”

Lana shuddered. “Yes,” she said. “We have always had that as a worst case scenario, Lord Wrath.”

“I hope you have always had a contingency plan for it as well.”

Lana looked down. “I did not like to speak of it.”

“Just so long as there is one in place. You might assign the final blow to Major Jorgan -- I suspect he’d take some pleasure in executing that command.”

Lana smiled. “These republic soldiers and their damnably rigid ideals,” she said. “I suppose you’re glad that Theron is at least slightly flexible in that regard.”

“Imperials have been just as rigid,” Vopenir said as her salad arrived. She picked at it, suddenly not hungry.

“Is there something else troubling you?” Lana asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing more than the usual,” Vopenir said.

“Then I’ll take my leave. Congratulations on a successful mission, Commander. We can only hope that there will be a brief respite before Arcann’s next move.”

Vopenir sighed. “We can only hope,” she agreed.

***

On the Thunderclap, Brill stood in the doorway of their quarters as Aric moved to the terminal. She’d never seen him like this. Or well, that wasn’t quite true. Back on Ord Mantell, just after he’d been demoted, she’d caught a glimpse of it -- the fatalism, the droop in his shoulders. But on Ord Mantell he’d straightened up under it, he’d focused on Tavus and on Havoc and he’d worked through it to the point where he was the logical choice for XO -- she’d not hesitated, known that it wasn’t her growing attraction to him that had lead to it -- he’d had her back and kept her going in more ways than any other soldier in her career.

Now, though. He sat at their desk in the Thunderclap with his hands resting on the console, staring at the screen, not writing anything down.

She sighed. Moved up behind him Smoothed her hands along his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“They were good men,” Aric said. “They didn’t deserve this.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know… I didn’t…” he too a deep breath. “When they gave me command I took it because I knew you’d want me to. Because I knew I’d be good at it.” He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the wall. “And I’d be damned if they gave it to someone else who would just go out there and drag your name through the mud. Havoc was yours and I wanted to make you proud.”

“You did good, Aric,” she said. “Your squad is the best, just like ours was.”

“My squad is four good men down because I chose Djannis over them,” he said bluntly, turning his head up to meet her eyes. His face was bleak.

“No,” she said, kneeling next to his chair and taking his hands in hers. “You chose the mission. That’s what we do. They know that just as well as I do.”

He squeezed her fingers in his. “I wish I could believe that,” he said.

“Hey,” she chucked him under his chin, then leaned forward and rested her head against his. “I believe it. That’s what’s important right now, okay? Trust me, like you used to.”

“I never stopped trusting you, tajr,” he said.

“And I’ll never stop trusting you.” She lifted her head, put both hands on the sides of his face. “You made the right call. The Commander was wrong to try to keep you back -- if you’d followed that order we wouldn’t even have gotten what we did from that mission and you know it.”

“She should have sent Havoc in first,” he said.

“Yes. She should have. And she didn’t. And maybe she’ll learn something from that or maybe she won’t but this isn’t the republic, Aric, you don’t have to dance to Saresh’s tune any more. If it gets too bad? If you think we’re on the wrong side? We leave. We take Havoc with us. We find another way to fight against Arcann.”

“If the Commander can’t pull this off I don’t know if there will be another way, Brill,” Aric said. “That’s why we’re here.”

“Well then,” she said.

He took a deep breath. Then nodded. “Okay.”

She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. He ran a hand down her tchin, then pulled her in for a closer embrace and she sighed against him.

“Kriff,” he said. “I never even asked how you’re doing.”

She shook her head, squeezing him a little tighter. “I’m fine. Shouldn’t be going any rounds against a sith for a while but I’m set for a full recovery.”

“Still. You should rest,” he said, pushing her back and cupping her cheek with one hand.  “Bed right there. Go lie down, I’ll finish these letters and then I’ll join you.”

She smiled at him. “Do that,” she said.

Chapter Text

Vette had spent time in worse places than the base on Odessen. Many worse places, she thought, as she rubbed the back of her neck. So she had a positive attitude even though a lot of the place was left unfinished -- and while a lot of the people looked worried and harried, but there was a bustling activity to this place that she liked, a throng of people going about their business with not exactly optimism, but definite purpose.

“You going to be okay on your own here, Vette?” Gault asked her. She was familiar with how things usually went when Gault caught up with Hylo, she didn’t think she’d end up seeing him for a couple of days at least, not that she wanted to think about the details of that particular arrangement -- she liked being able to keep food in her stomach.

“Sure,” she said. “Just like old times.”

“Huh. You could have mentioned you knew the Emperor’s Wrath, you know.”

“What, so you could try to steal credits from her? I don’t like you much, Gault, but you’re kind of useful to have around with your head attached.”

“I love you too, kid,” he said. “See you later.”

Vette shook her head, resisting the urge to kick him in the shins before he sauntered off. They’d given her a bunk in the unofficial twi’lek section of the compound (there hadn’t been any formal segregation, but from what she could see, as usual in these kinds of arrangements, different races had instinctively clumped together) and she dumped her stuff there, deciding it would be a good idea to get an idea of the layout of the place, just in case she needed to make a quick exit.

She’d been on military bases often enough to know the drill, avoiding the more obvious groups of soldier types and an especially rowdy group in the cantina. She never liked cantinas much -- too many opportunities to be mistaken for staff, too much alcohol, too many old memories. Still this one was kind of nice -- and the crowd didn’t have the same sort of feel as some on Nar Shadaa or even Dromund Kaas. People were eating here, as well as drinking, and there was a group of twi’lek dancers who were not staff, they were just having a good time. She thought she recognised some of the steps and felt a sudden longing to join them, see if she’d learned them right, but it wasn’t the time and she shook her head, sighing before turning to explore the rest of the base.

And slammed right into a military looking breastplate.

“Oooops. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…” she looked up to see who she’d managed to barrel into and saw a face that was, for a minute achingly familiar.

“Easy,” the woman said -- and she was a woman -- a giant woman -- a giant twi’lek woman. “Didn’t see you there.”

“I’m sorry,” Vette said, then blinked up at her. Took in the Havoc Squad insignia on her shoulder.

“Vette,” she hadn’t even seen Theron Shan behind the bulk of the woman but his voice was cheerful if, like always, slightly tinged with sarcasm. She sometimes thought he had been born sarcastic, wondered if he’d come out of the womb crying ironically. Knowing who his parents were, she wouldn’t be surprised. “Causing trouble already?”

“Ha kriffing ha, Shan,” she said, leaning around so she could see him properly. “This your bodyguard? My lord wants you safe and sound I hear.”

“Funny,” he said. “I don’t need a bodyguard, and she’s Havoc Squad anyway, couldn’t afford her even if I did.”

“We don’t work for credits, Theron,” the woman said. “We’re not mercenaries.”

“You mean he’s not paying you?” Vette said. “I’d re-negotiate that contract if I were you.”

The woman smirked and gave Theron a fond look. Old friends, that look said. Old republic friends. This place was weird.

“Major Brilleln Jorgan, meet Vette. She was on Vopenir’s crew before the whole carbonite thing. Vette, Brill’s a republic military legend, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of her.”

Vette waved a hand. “Oh, I don’t bother reading up names and numbers of the people we were supposed to kill, that was Quinn’s favourite past time. Or one of them.”

Theron winced at the mention of Quinn’s name and Vette made a face. She really needed to watch herself, especially now, when it came to Malavai Quinn.

Brill gave Theron a shrewd look, then shrugged. “I’ll leave you two to catch up,” she said, heading towards the bar. Theron rubbed the back of his head and shrugged.

“Was here to get a drink, if you want to join me,” he said. “You can fill me in on how you ended up with Gault Rennow of all people.”

Vette grinned. “He’s an asshole but he knows talent when he meets it.”

“And what does Jaesa think about that?” “How come everyone knows I’m married now? Was there some sort of holonet announcement? We didn’t even send out invites.”

“Oh, we ran into someone you know. Hagoch. Big guy. Used to be sith? He was very enthusiastic about your wife.”

Vette rolled her eyes. “Oh, you ran into one of the turncoat brigade,” she said.

“Light sided sith. Really?”

“Jase has a vision. And it’s a pretty good one, all told. I’m all for light sided sith over the dark ones, that’s for sure.” She shuddered, remembering Baras, remembering the sith she’d seen on Korriban in the tombs, the ones who had come to see her in the prison cell, the ones who hadn’t come to see her at all, but had instead come to deal with their own problems, or just take them out on the prisoners they’d captured.

She had nightmare fuel for a lifetime, and so much of it came from that place.

“Hey I’m not complaining. Hagoch is good in a fight and doesn’t force choke anyone, so it’s a plus as far as I’m concerned.”

He waved to a stool at the bar and then ordered something complicated and human. Vette ordered a blue milk, which came relatively quickly, and she sat nursing it in two hands while she studied the former spy.

He looked the same, if not for a bit of grey in his hair and an air of… cheerfulness, she guessed. Vopenir must be good for him -- maybe she’d finally convinced him to relax a little.

“You look less beat up than usual,” she said. “Is she keeping you in a soft lined box so you don’t break?”

Theron chuckled. “No. I’m just more administration these days, rather than, you know, shooting stuff.”

“They dragged you here to do their paperwork, didn’t they?”

“Rather be doing paperwork here than getting shot at for the SIS. And I get to take my blasters out every now and then. We’re not so overstaffed that I get to sit on my backside for too long at a time.”

She sipped her blue milk. “So tell me,” she said. “You think we’ve got a chance at pulling this off? Or is it a famous last stand situation?”

Theron looked away, a small shrug of his shoulders telling her all that she needed to know about his idea of their chances. “Vopenir’s got enough determination to do anything,” he said. “I’m not discounting us.”

Vette sighed. There had been an option, to stay safe and hidden with Jaesa, live out their lives away from all of this. But neither of them were built for that. None of them were, she thought, looking at Theron, thinking of him beat up and tired and sad on Rishi when she’d realised how hard he’d fallen for Vopenir. They all had their reasons for wanting Arcann gone.

All they could do was try.

***

He’d thought Captain Yannada Sila would put his teeth on edge. The Champion of the Great Hunt, adopted by the clan of Mandalore himself -- Aric had steeled himself to react strongly to her presence. And at first he’d felt justified in that attitude, when she’d shown up she looked every inch the Mandalorian -- the armor, the weaponry, the facelessness of her mask.

But none of the bullshit rhetoric about honour came out of her mouth and he had to hand it to her, anyone who spent that much time around Gault Rennow and Hylo Visz probably wasn’t going to go out of their way to die honorably in battle.

So he’d grudgingly accepted her help with some of the more technical drills they were using with Alliance troops. She’d proven something of a wizard with tech of all kinds, modifying weapons with the help of the tiny Jawa who followed her everywhere.

“Blizz is the expert,” she said, at the firing range while Aric ran the remaining Havoc Squad members through marksmanship drills. “But he’s been teaching me.” “Never thought I’d be using weapon modifications from a Jawa,” Aric said. The latest upgrades Blizz had managed for their sniper rifles gave him at least six percent more power without any degradation to accuracy. It was quite frankly, the kind of thing the republic would sell their own mothers to get their hands on, and it gave them advantages even against the might of the Zakuul infantry.

“Pubs and Imps think Jawas are stupid,” Yannada said. “As if half the tech on Tatooine hasn’t been taken apart and put back together by them a thousand times. Stuff there works for a reason. You should see how much more efficient the engines of my ship are since Blizz joined the crew. Could buy a house for the money he’s saved me on fuel and he uses everything.”

Despite the fact that he couldn’t see her eyes, he could feel her watching him. The force, he guessed, although she’d been quick to tell him she had nowhere near the power of a jedi.

“What?”

“You want to ask me something,” she said.

He swallowed. “You can tell that?”

She shrugged. “The force is a bitch, and it’s not my bitch, but sometimes it even bothers to give me nudges, fucked if I know why since it’s never done me any of the favours I could have done with when I was a kid. But it wants us to get along, and we’re not going to until you ask me.”

He sighed. “The Great Hunt. Your adoption. You have… loyalty to the Mandos? Or did you just take what they offered you?” She leaned against the wall, turning her head away (not that it made any difference to whether she could “see” him or not).

“I’m a bounty hunter,” she said. “I’m in it for the credits.”

“A lot of Mandos are bounty hunters,” Aric said. “Like trandoshians. It’s a way of getting points for them. For mandos it’s…”

“Honour and glory, huh?” she shook her head. “I’m not like that.”

“So why the Great Hunt?”

“A favour to a friend,” she said. “And lots of credits. Look, I know what they did to Cathar, Major, I don’t condone firebombing a planet just because there’s a chance they’ll give you a good fight. Most mandos don’t either. They’re dumb and loyal and they’ve done good by me, that’s all.”

Aric breathed a sigh of relief, but Yannada wasn’t finished. “You should probably know though,” she said. “Your pal Shan has asked me to get in touch with them.”

Aric felt the breath hiss in through his nostrils. “He did, huh.”

Yannada’s mouth twisted. “You’re hurting for help here,” she said. “I’m not a general or even a Major, but I can see that you don’t have enough firepower to take on Arcann. If there’s one thing mandalorians are good at, it’s hurling themselves at an enemy until the enemy breaks.”

“I’m aware,” he said, teeth clenched. “Have you contacted them yet?” “I’ve sent out a few feelers,” Yannada said. “This gonna be a problem for you?”

He pressed his lips together in a thin line. Three hundred years, since his people had been butchered by the Mandolorians, since Cathar had become the smoking ruin it was today. His people had yet to recover, even with the sperm banks and the adoption programs they were teetering on the edge of extinction.

“Not unless they make it one,” he said.

***

Vopenir didn’t spend a large amount of time doing nothing these days. When she wasn’t on mission she tried to spend time with Theron, or trained, or talked to Lana and tried to strategise. But Theron had muttered something about talking to contacts, Lana was busy coordinating something with the sith enclave and for once she had down time where she was supposed to be catching up on five years of galactic history.

It didn’t seem relevant to her. The current situation was what needed to be dealt with, learning the context for it was unnecessary. She flicked through holo recordings of republic speeches and dark council meetings increasingly irritated with the entire process until finally flicking it off. The pile of datapads on her desk hadn’t gotten any smaller and it was a lot of effort not to force crush them and pretend she’d gone through them all afterwards.

She was almost certain Lana wouldn’t attempt to quiz her on what she’d managed to retain. Almost.

She picked up the next datadisc on the pile and slid it into the console, flicking through and correlating data. This one was about Satele Shan and the Jedi push towards Zakuul -- by all accounts a massive failure and one that she was sure she would only be depressed going into in any detail. She flicked through files, randomly clicking on links while her eyes glazed at the banality of it all, until they lighted on a filename that caught her attention.

Theron Shan. Rishi Interrogation Record.

She sat up.

Theron had been captured by Revan, of course he had, she remembered the sinking feeling in her stomach when Lana had told her he was gone, remembered the rush of pure anger she’d felt when she’d discovered it had been orchestrated on purpose, despite the knowledge that what Lana had done was justified. She remembered the rush of relief she’d felt when she’d seen him, bloody and battered, but free.

Revan had held him for days. She’d known that Theron’s implants were specifically designed to help him resist interrogation and torture, what she hadn’t also known was that they were also set to record the entire session, and like a dutiful SIS agent, he’d handed over the recording to his superiors with the addendum in case I missed anything that might help against him.

Revan was dead. Twice over. Merged into some sort of force ghost like Marr who was never around to give advice or actually help at all. There was no need to watch the record, find out what had happened to him. It would be a gross violation of his privacy for one. The thought that he’d handed it over to the SIS and let them watch it, though… in case I missed anything. The SIS who’d tossed him out on his ear for trying to help on Ziost, for taking initiative and standing up to Saresh.

She shut the file down, shoved her chair back from the desk and stalked from the room.

***

“So, anyway, it was a pretty eventful few years, even taking into account the invasion and the rest of it.”

“Vope must have been pissed to miss so much.”

Theron took a large drink of what he now realised was his third whiskey and nodded. “You could say that,” he said. “But you know how she is. She…”

Vette smirked at him, eyes twinkling. “Copes?”

“Yeah,” he said, setting the glass down a little too hard, perhaps, tracing patterns on the sides of it with his fingers.

It was stupid of him, to be upset. He knew that. He knew that saying how he felt to her shouldn’t have made any difference -- didn’t make any difference -- to what they had. Knew that with five thousand other things on her mind the last thing she needed was him slamming commitment (stars that’s what he was trying for wasn’t it?) on top of everything.

Knew that she had history with a man whom she’d not been able to trust. History with an… organisation (could you call the sith an organisation? Was it a cult? A religion? Who fucking knew really when it got down to it?) that taught her to feed from the emotions of others.

He’d thought maybe they’d gotten far enough for those things not to matter.

He picked up the glass again and downed the rest of it, only then remembering that Vette was still there, looking at him with those disconcertingly intelligent purple eyes of hers.

“Got it bad, huh,” she said.

“You,” he said gruffly, “should have been a spy.”

She grinned. “Don’t have the patience for it. Or the implants for that matter.” She punched his arm lightly. “You know she really does care about you, right?”

“You told me that on Rishi.”

“Yeah, and then she divorced Quinn and faced down the Emperor for you. Do you think she’d even be bothering with this alliance if you weren’t part of the deal? Last thing in the galaxy she wants is to rule anyone.”

“Kriff, none of us want to rule the fucking galaxy, Vette. It’s just that there aren’t a lot of candidates out there for it right now. Better her than Vitiate. Or Arcann.”

“Maybe we don’t need ruling at all,” Vette said, and he was surprised at the bitterness in her voice.

He pushed his hands through his hair. “Maybe not,” he said. “But it’d be nice to have a choice.”

***

The war room was empty when Vopenir got there and she frowned, pacing in front of the holoprojector and trying to pinpoint the exact source of her unease. When she turned to see Scorpio standing behind her, she figured that would account for at least seventy percent of it, and folded her arms across her chest.

“You could announce when you enter a room,” she said shortly. Scorpio didn’t deign to give a response to that, simply moved beside her and started entering data.

“You will want to call the others,” she said shortly. “I have important news.”

Chapter Text

Captain Yannada Sila was busy strapping on her armor with a large array of crates that Vopenir assumed were full of weapons laid out in front of her. Vopenir wondered why she felt the need to arm up completely before she even boarded the ship, then figured she’d been fighting in the war with Zakuul for as many years as Vopenir had ever fought the republic. More, since most of her time during the war years were spent attempting to kill Baras.

“Fair warning,” Yannada said.

“Fair warning?” Vopenir responded, eyebrows raised.

Yannada shot her a grin. “Some of the Mandalorians don’t like me very much. Had a few try to kill me over the years.”

“We have that in common, at least,” Vopenir said, running a hand lightly over what looked like grenades, wondering what exactly they would do if she chose to throw one down into the hangar bay. A soft brown hand stopped her, and she looked up to see Yannada smirking at her, head shaking slightly. “You really don’t want to touch those,” she said, picking up three and tucking them into various containers at her belt.

“As you wish,” Vopenir said.

“You say you worked with Shae Viszla, on Yavin 4?”

“Yes.” “Well,” Yannada seemed intrigued. “She’s more sensible than most of them. Clan Vizsla has always been less likely to charge in guns blazing without at least thinking for a few minutes first.”

Aric and Brilleln stood talking in low voices a ways away from Vopenir and Yannada. It was difficult to tell with the Cathar -- since his expression never shifted away from stone faced disapproval, but Vopenir thought he looked less tense, interesting considering they were about to head to a camp full of the people who had destroyed his homeworld. Vopenir was still uneasy in his presence, after the mission with Kaliyo, despite Theron’s continual reassurances that he was worth their time and valuable to the Alliance, she sometimes wondered if it wouldn’t have been better had he died on Zakuul.

“He won’t be any trouble,” Yannada said, and Vopenir looked back at her, eyebrow raised. For someone who claimed to have so little force sensitivity she was remarkably observant. “Oh?” she said. “And you know that how?”

“Had a talk with him earlier. Figured he might have a problem with me. A lot of Cathar do -- can’t blame them, they look at the armor and figure me for a Mandalorian. I’m not, by the way. Never was and never will be. Their honour costs too much and I like my credits where they are.”

Vopenir pursed her lips at the other woman. Yannada was around the same height -- maybe a touch taller if you counted her amazing hair, but much rounder in the hips and breasts than Vopenir, not that it was easy to tell where the armor and weaponry ended and the person underneath it began. Her visor looked enough like a cybernetic enhancement that most people wouldn’t even realise that she was miralukan -- an advantage Vopenir was sure was deliberate. Most interesting, though, was her presence in the force. It glimmered and flickered -- like that of a force sensitive child, and a weak one at that. Amongst miralukans she must have been considered almost deformed, or stunted.

Little wonder she had chosen to leave her homeworld, although bounty hunting seemed an incongruous choice of career, fraught with danger, especially given her standing and reputation in the empire.

“I thought Vette was my morale officer,” Vopenir said, and Yannada grinned.

“She’s good at that. Keeps Gault on his toes, which he needs at his age. Gotta thank you for freeing her, back when you did. Doesn’t deserve to be a slave. No one does.”

Vopenir remembered Vette, then, in her cell on Korriban. Caged like a bird, but never cowed.

“On that, I suspect we agree.”

Yannada slotted what looked like small incendiary missiles into an arm launcher and there was a dull hiss and click as she pushed the chamber closed. A strangely satisfying sound, and from the small smile on Yannada’s face she felt the same. “Odd point of view, for a sith.” Vopenir crossed her arms over her chest. “One grows up an alien in the Empire with a different perspective on these things.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Yannada said, chuckling. A final tally of what she had strapped to her armor seemed to satisfy her and she sighed, straightening her shoulders. Vopenir briefly wondered how much extra weight she was carrying in all of those weapons and was suddenly grateful for the compact nature of her lightsaber. “Anyways, the Mandos should get this job of yours done without too much trouble. You’re after a robot or something?”

“Or something,” Vopenir said, smiling slightly.

“Not my business, I guess,” she said. “Just gives us the job, and we’ll get it done.” She flashed her teeth in a wide grin. “Of course we’ll work extra hard for you now that we know you’ve got the credits to pay.”

Vopenir sighed. “Of course you will,” she said.

Yannada would fly the Profit to Darvannis, and Aric was taking the Thunderclap, along with the most promising of the new recruits they had been training up to replace those of Havoc Squad lost on Zakuul. The base was being left in Lana’s more than capable hands, with Brilleln to molify those from the republic who still balked at the idea of two sith in authority over them.

Theron and Vopenir were in the Fury -- alone for once, with the prospect of at least a few hours in hyperspace where they would be completely uninterrupted. The thought was making him a little tense, he wasn’t going to deny it, and he felt as if she was as well -- more tense than usual, any way, at least for someone who in his experience teetered between about to burst into flames and utterly, completely relaxed.

Once they were off Odessan’s surface he started plotting the course for Darvannis, very much aware of Vopenir the entire time. Not a pilot herself, although she was capable of flying the Fury if pressed, she stood behind his chair with her arms crossed over her chest, occasionally tapping her foot.

He finished his calculations and just had to steer the ship into jump range, something he could technically do on autopilot. That, however, would involve being free to look her in the face and he wasn’t sure he was ready to do that, not in the mood she was in currently. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” he asked, without turning.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Okay then,” he said. “Good to know.”

There was a pause. He checked on his proximity to the Thunderclap and the Profit -- he knew that Yannada’s ship was faster but he wasn’t certain about the Thunderclap -- she was an older model and although he’d flown in it he’d never been in the pilot’s chair himself. He could hear Vopenir’s breath in the still air of the bridge, and he was certain her eyes were boring holes in the back of his jacket.

But he wasn’t going to push her. Not on this.

“We can get some rest on the flight,” he said. “From what I can gather it’s pretty much a war zone on Darvannis we’re not going to …”

“Why did you hand over the recording of Revan’s interrogation to the SIS?” she blurted. He’d just resolved to set the ship to autopilot and hit the fresher, damn whatever the hell it was that was making her loom like that...

He blinked.

“What?”

“Why,” she said, more distinctly, “did you give a tape of yourself being tortured to that sarlacc pit full of idiots you used to work for?”

Screw this. His fingers flew over the console and the engines hummed as the Fury started looking after itself, swiveling the chair to look back at her standing glowering at him fiercely enough that he could be forgiven for thinking she wanted to run her own interrogation.

“How did you know I did that?”

She waved a hand. “Lana gave me a copy of the datadisc. As part of my ongoing education about the state of the galaxy.”

“Where did she get it from…?” he asked, then shook his head, that wasn’t important, not when there was a possibility that… “did you watch it?”

She looked away. “Of course I didn’t watch it.”

He liked to think he knew her well enough to tell when she was lying. It wasn’t as though she’d been trained to be deceitful. No. That was his specialty.

So she hadn’t watched it. That... was something of a relief.

“I sent it off before Yavin 4,” he said. “There was a pretty big chance none of us were going to come back from that mission, if you remember. If Revan had pulled it off… if he’d managed to kill us all? Well. Someone else would have had to do something about it.”

Maybe someone else wouldn’t have lead the Sixth Line to madness and death. Maybe someone else could have saved Ziost.

She snorted. “And you thought the SIS was right for that?”

“I didn’t have the Grand Moff’s frequency,” he said drily. “Or I would have given him a copy too.”

She took a long breath in through her nose. He got the impression that she was trying to calm herself down, and tilted his head, studying her.

“What is it?”

“I don’t like that you think so little of yourself,” she said.

“How is that… what… I don’t think…”

“That tape should have been burned before you gave it to anyone at all, Theron. Or you should have shared it with someone who… helps. Aren’t there doctors among your Jedi? It wasn’t something to be passed around your office like some sort of holodrama…”

“I’m pretty sure Director Trant didn’t do that,” he said. “He didn’t like me much by the end but he wouldn’t…”

“You’re not listening to me.”

He shook his head. “It was a question of… look. Revan said a lot of stuff… made a lot of promises. Told me a lot of his plans. If I’d died… if we’d died... that information would have died with us. Or did you forget that both Marr and my mother acted on Yavin 4 without the sanctions of their respective governments?”

“That’s…” she made a frustrated sound, nostrils flaring. “That’s not what I mean.”

He rested his hands on his knees, leaning forward. “So. What is that you do mean?”

She bared her teeth at him. She was like a lothcat, backed into a corner, ready to lash out, and on a basic level he knew what it meant, to see her this frustrated with him -- with them.

“You’re insufferable,” she said.

Something slotted into place, deep in his chest, that had been hurting and out of alignment since she got back. He’d been hung up on words, on things that she’d never been particularly good at, at least not when they meant expressing feelings. It was the whole sith thing again. You didn’t have to tell someone how you felt when it was expressed through the force. He’d almost understood that once, when he’d been training with Master Zho, when he’d talked with his mother, when he’d spent time with the Barsen’thor and with Lana.

It wasn’t important, what she said, when it got down to it, when her feelings were so obvious to someone who knew her.

“Hey,” he said, standing up, hands out, conciliatory. “I don’t try to be. Just so you know.”

She took a step forward, reached out and took one of his hands. Laced her fingers with his. “I am not used to it,” she said softly. “To this… drive. Putting a cause above yourself isn’t logical.”

“You think saving the galaxy is a cause? We live in the galaxy, you know. If it goes boom so do we.”

She shrugged, looking down but smiling a little. “There are other galaxies.”

“They’re a long way away,” he said, brushing her cheek with one hand. “Don’t know if we have a fast enough ship.”

“So what you’re saying,” she said, looking up now, meeting his eyes with hers, “is that you want to save this galaxy because you’re too lazy to find a way out of it.”

He shrugged. “All my stuff is in this one,” he said. She breathed in, then out, stepped closer, hooked one hand a little hesitantly around his waist.

He pulled her gently against him, kissing the top of her head, smoothing his hand down her back. “I suppose if you put it that way,” she said, somewhat muffled against his jacket. “We should probably do something about Arcann.”

“We’ve got at least an hour before Darvannis,” he said, lips not quite leaving the top of her head. “Let’s do something for us first.”

Yannada had never felt comfortable with Mandalorians. Even after years on the ship with Torian he’d set her teeth on edge -- his straight down the line morality reminded her too much of Jedi although she knew full well any Mandalorian would resent the comparison. Possibly to the point where they shot her, which was one of the reasons why she’d never mentioned it to anyone but Gault.

Gault went further than just feeling uncomfortable with them, to the point of actively hating them (although he was at least discreet about it and didn’t tend to rant about it in her hearing). She supposed being hunted down by every bounty hunter in the galaxy coloured his opinion, especially when so many of her kind were Mandalorian as well.

The past five years, though, had hurt the clans just as much, if not more than they had hurt everyone else, and she could sense it, as they walked through the camp on Darvannis. The forced cheers. The slumped shoulders, quickly straightened when they saw her and her companions pass. The heavy weight of multiple defeats.

Shae wasn’t any different. Yannada could sense her weariness, her worry, and she guessed the sith next to her could sense a whole lot more than that.

There were two other mandalorians standing with Shae -- an older man she didn’t recognise, and a younger one who felt… familiar.

“Mandalore, huh?” Yannada said, before Vopenir could talk. “Bet you didn’t ask for that one.”

Shae chuckled. “Grand Champion,” she said, drily. “Thought you were done consorting with the likes of us.”

Yannada shrugged. “You know me, I like being owed favours.”

“Still, you were never one to consort with dar’jetti,” the younger mandalorian said. She’d not recognised him, not until he spoke. “At least, not when you were given a choice.”

“Torian,” she said.

“Su’cuy, Yannada,” he said. “I’m thinking we have a war to fight.”

Vopenir moved forward, and Yannada could feel the purpose in her stride. “That’s right,” she said. “We do.”

Chapter Text

She was tired. That’s what she told herself, her hands on the controls of the shuttle, staring at the display, knowing that a few shots could take Arcann and Senya out of the sky, and out of her life.

But her fingers wouldn’t obey her instructions, and the ship flew further and further away, and she knew she wasn’t going to.

She told herself she was too tired, ( it is your destiny to take the throne) tired from the dust and winds of Darvannis, ( you must be beyond light and dark) tired from the ridiculous betrayals of Scorpio, ( only you can defeat him) tired of her home being targeted and invaded on the whims of men who were determined to make her into something she wasn’t.

Is that what my father told you?

He’s a liar.

Koth’s voice over comm was getting increasingly hysterical. “What are you doing? Take the shot!”

Her hands dropped from the controls.

“Vopenir?” Theron’s voice. “Vopenir are you all right?”

She took a breath. “May the force serve you, Senya,” she said, and she banked the shuttle back around towards the Gravestone, not waiting for an answer or for the shuttle to jump to hyperspace. She didn’t want to know that they’d gone.

She just wanted to rest.