Final Destination [Paqualis III]

[Rugs]

Rain greeted Nieraan as he stepped onto the landing pad from the shuttle’s boarding ramp. He zipped his jacket and pulled his hood up over his head with an annoyed grunt. He still stood beneath the back end of the shuttle, keeping the rain away, but he wouldn’t linger for long.

He took in his surroundings while waiting on Elar to emerge from the shuttle. Paqualis III was a heavily populated, urbanized world. It was like his homeworld, in that respect — though he couldn’t recall it ever raining on Metellos. They were close to the border with Republic space, but still comfortably on the Sith side of it.

That was fortunate for them. This kind of work wasn’t impossible over the line, but it had the potential to get much, much messier.

In Imperial space, this was just a matter of housekeeping.

Nieraan folded his arms across his chest. He could’ve handled the job alone, but bringing Elar along was at least a chance to see another Sith in action. It was also a failsafe. Two hands were more capable than one, and their target was of particularly high value.

Rysen Fal was a Sephi Sith Knight who’d disappeared from the Order some months ago. Sith later found her and came to the conclusion that she was making a meandering line for Republic space, and she wasn’t doing it to further the Empire’s goals.

Quite the opposite.

It was a pity, really. At near a century, she was older than the two Sith after her combined, and quite powerful. She would have made a fine Lord, given time to continue integrating into the Order. But she had a soft heart that couldn’t handle the truths of life in the Empire.

So she defected.

Nieraan had been given the assignment to bring her back or kill her. He’d briefed Elar on the details on the way over. They had an idea of where Rysen spent her time these days, in this particular sector on Paqualis III. Now they just had to find her.

“Kill her or capture her — I don’t care which,” Nieraan said as he felt Elar approaching. “She cannot leave this world on her own.”

[Harukei]

Her eyes perused once more through the details that had been provided to her, a rent glint taking over the iris as she considered what was at stake, as the thrill of the hunt and the excitement of encountering someone that could be more powerful than her washed over her, becoming a fan that slowly bur surely stoked the burning embers of her power. She could comprehend, however why she was here, what would seem like a chance for glory it was as less of a test and more as a fail safe, if for some reason Aurelius skill was not enough, she would be there like a net, in the best of cases to completely stop the traitor Sith and in the worst of situations to simply detain her long enough for the Dark Lord to swing the executioner's blade. 

Syrin had to admit, there was some shrewdness of that decision. Other lesser Sith so sure of themselves might have come to this world, they might had an army behind them, and burn the planet down until its surface was but glass. But this Dark Lord preferred to keep things quiet, contained so the news of a renegade Sith Knight would not escape. When the ship finally made touch down the would be Sith assassin would reach out through the Force, her mind attempting to grasp the threads of the future and understand them, but her sight provided little but the blurred images of shadows and the distant echoes of future sunrises. It was little to work with. 

Once the shuttle's systems whined down to a halt and the hydraulics finished with the hissing protests of weight upon them, Syrin stepped down. Her hood provided shelter as the peppering sheets of rain descended mercilessly on the pair of Sith. Her jaw and lips were not spare as she felt the cold trickle of droplets buffeting the smooth surface around her lips. She took a cold breath of air, and allowed a hissing steam to escape her lips as Aurelius spoke once more, her boots splashing on the accumulated puddles of the landing pad as a lightning sheered through the dark clouds, forcing and disappearing in an instant. She kept her counsel when the words kill her or capture her escaped the Dark Lord's lips. She would not take a bait to claim that she would. There was simply no use to sell the Kath-Hound's skin without first catching it. She opted to find as much information as she could first. 

"Do we know where she resides?" She replied in flat tone. "Has the local militia set up guard on space ports, military or otherwise my lord?"

[Rugs]

“We have an idea,” Nieraan said as Syrin joined him. He fished around in his jacket pocket for a moment and retried a small data chip, which he held up in the palm of his gloved hand. A small holo projector hummed to life, splashing to life a flickering blue map that was a bit wider than his hand. The map started with their location, highlighted in blue, then zoomed a few kilometers west.

“People who are passing through Paquallis tend to congregate in this sector. They call it the Transients’ Quarter. This part specifically,” a few buildings were now highlighted in red, “is where she’s been spotted most often.”

The map flashed away as Nieraan closed his hand and stuffed the chip back into his pocket. He pulled his hood up over his shaggy-haired head and stepped out from under the ship into the cool rain. His breath misted in front of his face as he walked. “We have some security presence keeping an eye on her. She bought transit here, and we believe she’s been staying in a hotel while collecting enough money for the next leg of her journey.”

A guard at the edge of the landing pad bowed deeply as the Darth and Sith Lady approached. Nieraan led Elar through a small gate and along a sidewalk that ended with a speeder waiting for them. “We’re keeping an eye out for her, yes. A few extra guards here, some increased security there. Ships that are leaving are subject to more rigorous inspections.” He turned to regard her from the corner of a golden eye.

“Don’t want her getting too spooked. I'm sure you understand.”

The speeder doors hissed open. Nieraan motioned for Syrin to get in as he looked at the city stretching beyond them. Lightning flashed off in the distance, followed by the low boom of thunder. He inhaled deeply, letting the cool, damp air fill his lungs as he drew deeply on the Force.

There was something more to this than a runaway Knight seeking refuge in the Republic. He could feel it. But what?

He stepped into the speeder as the doors closed and the vehicle rose to take them off to the Transients’ Quarter. “What do you feel, Elar?”

[Harukei]

"I understand." She replied with a flat, deadpan tone, as she moved closer to the speeder. 

It was a sound plan after all. If the rogue Sith had managed to get here so far, it was not out of mere luck, but also the chances to grasp into the future, to reach out to her surroundings and predict any trap or snare laid for her. This was no mere prey. Out of custom she leaned against her seat and observed the landscape below, as city blocks slowly dispersed the center, the glittering downtown with its spires that were only ever blinded by the forking lightning. 

Her thoughts suddenly were disrupted, the words of the Dark Lord seated next to her interrupting her thoughts and pondering as he beckoned a response, an answer of if there was anything, anything at all that she could feel. The planet wasn't particularly strong with the Force, the Dark Side barely noticeable if it were to be compared with bastions that were Korribon, Ziost and Drommund Kaas itself. There was not much that could be said with just a mere glimpse. She would need more, more proof, more insight and she closed her eyes. 

The warmth inside the cockpit of the speeder vanished. It wasn't either the cold of the rain that had pelted her and that had managed to pierce through the layers of fabric that had acted as a shield. The motion that came from the movement and repulsion of the machines faded and then it was nothing until she felt a void. It took her some time, precious seconds as she felt how that darkness received her, crawling underneath her skin as it seemingly began to divide her to the smallest and more insignificant atom of her own being. But there was no scream of pain, no lash of agony, nothing but a serenity as she walked deeper on the currents of energy that were the Force itself. 

Syrin finally reached it, and grasped the threads of fate, nebulous as they were, there were whispers, some distant and hollow and other clearer as if she had been standing there. Around her, all that was not tethered softly levitated and her closed lids pressed strongly against each other as she was sensing what she needed to sense, to foresee. The vision ended and she gasped, a hand reaching against the glove box, and another wiping the cold sweat that had accumulated. She drew air in short and ragged gasps and looked at the Dark Lord once more. 

"She is here... I... She's not using commercial transports..." The Sith said as she recollected and pieced everything together she drew a breath and concentrated. "The grey quarter, she is going there. A transport is likely waiting to take her off world."

[Rugs]

Lightning flashed outside the grimy window.

A flash of illumination, suddenly here and gone just as soon, seared a bright-white light into the cramped hotel room before it plunged back to darkness. A woman, hunched in a chair with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, put cautious fingertips to the grimy window.

The window fogged where her warm breath met it, briefly hiding the rivulets of raindrops flowing down the other side.

They’re here.

Thunder rolled across the sky.

Rysen knew this day would come. The Sith were not ones to allow an escape from their club so easily. Honestly, she was surprised she had made it so far without being found.

Another flash of lightning seared across the sky. It was dimmer this time. Farther away.

Her hand rose to her chest, clutching a beaded necklace with a small shell in its center. They’ll come for you, she told herself, her own thoughts whispering and scattered in her head. Kill you. Torture you. Punish.

Did they know she knew? How could she not, with such darkness descending upon the city-world?

Thunder rumbled. Soft. Distant.

How could she not, when the Sith so boldly advertised what happened to anyone who dared leave the order without their blessing? She cast a nervous glance to the lightsaber on the table.

Fight? No. This darkness is too strong. She shook her head, squeezing her eyes together. She’d seen this moment coming, in those damnable dreams that haunted her.

Threads of fate, lines of chance, will of the Force — the future had many names. She’d seen this path--seen the terror that could befall her if she walked it.

Yet, she’d seen horror that would befall them all if she didn’t. The Sith wouldn’t listen, not to the ramblings of a seer that only seemed halfway there at times. They wouldn’t listen to her plea for cooperation beyond their blasted Empire. The Republic, though...

If she could simply reach them.

I have to go. Rysen stood suddenly. Her lightsaber floated to her belt, hooking to a magnetic clip while she dropped the blanket and pulled on her rain cloak.

Her ship wasn’t due to be ready for another two hours. But maybe if she gave the captain some extra credits...

Lightning struck again, a block away as she turned and left her tiny room.

---

“The Grey Quarter, hm?” That district bordered the Transient’s Quarter. It was, as the name implied, very grey — all unassuming metal without the flashing lights or splashes of culture that dotted other districts. Its populace tended to be poorer.

Nieraan could empathize with them.

“We’ll set down on the border of the two districts,” Nieraan said, both to Elar and the officer piloting their speeder. “In the meantime I want ment at every spaceport in both quarters. If I a single ship takes off without authorization, we’re gonna have a problem. Got it?”

“Yes sir,” the officer said, a bit too stiffly.

“And you, Elar,” Nieraan said as the speeder turned, adjusting its path for his new instructions. “I looked over your file on the way over. Impressive.” He glanced at the woman as the speeder began to slow and descend. “How much experience do you have hunting down targets of Fal’s strength? Don’t let her rank fool you. She’s a tougher mark than that fat jackass on Kaas.”

[Harukei]

"I have slain plenty a Jedi before."

Syrin said simply, to the point, her mind and body still recovering from the strain of tapping into the Darkside of the Force to gain enough clarity for her visions to occur. The matter that the answer had come as fast as the question had being poised was just speaking a fact. She had faced Jedi and she had slain them, mostly were Knights of her level and with some preparation she had faced and defeated Masters as well, which was one of the reasons of why she had become a Sith Lady. While other Sith did rejoice in the chance of fighting their former Jedi brethern, for her it had been more a question of doing what she had to do to keep her goals at hand's reach. 

"I would not call Rod and his greasy knuckles a warm-up. I will be ready for her."

As the speeder began its descent she reflected on that fight with possibly the fattest Sith Knight ever, that would give a bloated hutt a run for their credits when it came to compare their rotundness. She had been done with wondering how a being like him had managed to become trained and remain with that physique. She had assumed that fighting someone like Rysen was fighting someone on a different level, with a gap as big as the stretch between the depths of this world and the stormy skies above. 

"Lord Aurelius, I never take an opponent likely."

The Sith said as her hand went down into the hilt of her lightsaber and she closed her eyes, her mind reading and soothing with the soft and ephemeral waves of the Darkside. It was likely she knew they were coming for her, and that they had a fight in their hands whether they liked it or not. 

[Rugs]

The speeder set down on a landing pad with a momentary shudder that settled to silence. Nieraan studied Syrin for a moment, from the corner of a golden eye. “Good,” he said. “You’d do well not to take her lightly.”

The door beside him raised with a sharp hiss. He stepped into the cold rain, pulling his jacket hood up over his shaggy blue-streaked-black hair. Thunder rolled after some distant lightning crack as he surveyed the city scape around them. To their west lay the Grey Quarter, home to Force only knew how much squallor. The Transients’ Quarter sprawled out to the east, all flashing lights and bright signs to catch the eye of the travelers passing through.

“We’ve secured nearby spaceports, my Lord,” the officer reported with a deep bow. “We have more teams deploying to monitor the streets.”

Nieraan waved him off. “Keep me posted.” The officer meant well, but he tried too hard to impress Darth Aurelius. No one believed a handful of Sith army grunts would capture a powerful Force user, even if they found her. Otherwise, his presence and Elar’s would be a waste.

With a beckon for Elar to follow, Nieraan walked to the edge of the landing pad, which offered a better view of the surrounding city. The difference between the two quarters was impressive in its starkness.

“Her prowess isn’t the only thing to be wary of, Elar,” he said, glancing at her again. “She’s a seer. Kinda like you. But not all there.” He folded his arms across his chest. “We don’t like it if people run off, but some losses, like that Lancer guy, we can tolerate. But we cannot let her take her vision to the Republic.”

Nieraan looked again to the city, spreading his senses wide. It would be hard to find Rysen, on a world so choked with people. But there, far in the distance... He narrowed his eyes. Is that you? It was hard to tell.

“She will say things about what she’s seen,” he said. “Threaten you. Try to make you doubt. I’d hope you’re able to ignore the ramblings of a mad woman.”

Lightning flashed again. “But, if you knew you were being chased, and you knew where you might be found,” he said, thoughtful, “would you face it head on, or seek another route?”

[Harukei]

Syrin listened attentively and wondered whether that policy of not liking people to leave applied to renegade members of the Inner Sanctum of the Empire if that were to happen. One of the ruling Lords of the Empire and a Sith Lady seemed to be just enough, but she had to imagine in a hypothetical case that should one of Lord Aurelius brethren became a turnclok, the measures would turn into overkill. Putting the hypothetical aside she focused on the matter at hand and pondered for a brief moment. All force sensitives had access to levels of precognition depending on the level of their training, they all had the abilities and reflexes given by the Force, but only a select few would be able to gaze unto the ever shifting tides of the future. 

For two seers to face each other had to be as rare as a solar eclipse and it would be as difficult as observing one. Her crimson gaze rested on the quarters, so different from each other at a mere glance, the contrast of squalor versus the opulence was visible, the suffering of those that lived in the grey quarters becoming a fog as she sharpened her senses to make a decision. They were beneath her notice, if they would not help themselves, then they deserved to be where they were at the moment. Ah, I understand. They were a cover for her to move. 

Her eyes closed and she took a brief look, another distant whisper that felt hollow and cryptic as the Dark Side of the Force afforded her little to empower her visions to full clarity, but having given her enough to make a decision.  The question that Lord Aurelius had given her was a complicated one, the future wasn't a stationary thing, an action created a new outcome, where not making the action created an entirely new outcome. But if she saw a particular future that would bring danger, then she would take an alternate, safer route. And Rysen would do just that, look for something that was safer that would give her time to hunker down or prepare and ambush. 

"If I were running from a Dark Lord, I would seek another route. Survival is her main goal, fighting us is a detriment to escaping alive and she knows it."

Syrin explained, another flash of lightning and roar of thunder appeared. She took a moment to ponder on the words about threats and ramblings of her future that the seer could provide. If her sight worked in the same fashion that hers did, then it would be nothing more than just an empty gesture. The future is a weapon hard to use against someone that can peer into its currents after all. 

"She may attempt to take a long way back into the ports and steal a transport for her gains."

[Rugs]

If I were running from a Dark Lord and knew they’d find me, I would try something else, Nieraan mulled silently. Would that do any good, though? Was the future, as a seer saw it, prone to change, or set, no matter the viewer’s actions? His eyes narrowed slightly in thought.

Then he shrugged to himself. The future, as he saw it, was his own to make, prophecies be damned. If others saw differently, that was their problem.

“Alright,” he said. “We’ll cut her off.” Nieraan began to move toward a covered walkway they led inside and to a turbolift down from their landing pad. Sith soldiers saluted him, as he walked by and held the gesture until Syrin passed by them. “We’ll have to be quick.”

The Sith could establish a blocked of sorts in the air. It’d be easy to monitor any air traffic attempting to slip out of the search area. But covering every point of egress from the Transients Quarter or Grey Quarter to another, without a massive ground force, would be impossible.

“I don’t intend on chasing this damn woman across the Galaxy,” he said as the turbolift doors slid shut.

---

Some time later...

Rain fell in fat, heavy drops outside. Rysen waited in a dim room, watching. Fitting that the storm would break now, as the wolves closed in. She had, for what felt like an eternity, tried to escape. Several times, she’d nearly broken away, but the Force’s currents had always shifted just so before she found her way to freedom.

With every shift, with every change of plans and route closed off, she could almost see the darkness closing in around her. Suffocating. Relentless. Rysen never expected an escape from the Sith to be easy, but she hadn’t counted on such dogged pursuit.

Eventually, the clear paths out become fainter, and those threads she could follow to the end were convoluted, twisting affairs that would surely be knotted to futility before she could get away. So she changed her strategy. With escape impossible, confrontational became inevitable. She found a place, an abandoned warehouse in the heart of the Grey Quarter’s squalor, that would serve as a suitable waiting place.

It was large enough to make her feel she had some control as the walls closed in on her, and importantly, empty, for if they came to blows.

Not if, she corrected herself with a slight tilt of the head, when. It was a shame the Sith were so predictable in that way. Their straightforward thinking might doom them in the coming crisis. But even she couldn’t read the future’s winds that far.

The two presences approaching were impossible to ignore. Twisted, tainted things, and powerful. She reached out through the Force, seeking their minds with a light touch. If this was going to happen, she wouldn’t be found like some whimpering pup backed into a corner.

”A pair of such powerful Sith,” she said telepathically before they entered. ”And just for me? Is the mighty Empire so afraid of one runaway lamb?” Rysen smiled to herself and pulled her cloak tighter about her shoulders, feeling a small comfort in the temporary show of defiance.

Nothing else to do but wait. She sighed, listening to the rain fall against the metal roof. She only regretted the warehouse didn'thave windows through which to watch the storm.

[Harukei]

The ethereal voice that echoed in her mind came, and with it mild shivers traversed down her spine as the all too familiar energies of the dark side began to pulse through every fiber of her being. It wasn't fear that Keres felt. Fear had been an emotion she had used in her past, and it had served her well, but fear was the source of power that only a novice held too. As much as an academic and seer as she was, the Sith Lady never shied away from a fight, a confrontation was always the ripe moment to test how far had the measure of her vessel advanced. 

She took for shield her mind from more intrusions, pondering on the veiled thread that Rysen had provided for the two of them. If that was her attempt for Dun Möch then she had to say that even Rod would do a better job to rail her and take her concentration away from her. Keres continued to walk at level with Lord Aurelius, pulling the wet hood and allowing her raven hair to fall down to her shoulders. Her boots crunched with the debris on the permacrete. Pebbles, broken glass, bones from vermin that had dried up before feeling the rain again. Red eyes focused ahead. 

Why a place far away? She thought as her fingers slipped around the curved hilt of her lightsaber, her thumb sliding over the activation stud of her weapon that felt as it itched to have its sanguine blade activated. Had she wanted, it would have been easier to fight and slip away with civilians around. Or at least the cold practicality told her so. But then again, she supposed that the Jedi and the Republic would not take it so kindly to know that she had murdered two dozen civilians to escape from Sith. 

Keres concentrated for a brief second, not attempting to see the threads of fate. Such would be difficult now and stillness and patience when there was a traitor to capture was not something she possessed. But she could track where the voice had come from. Rysen had not being subtle about it. She had wanted them to come and that was something that Aurelius probably knew as well. Her sight shifted to the entrance of the abandoned and dilapidated warehouse, were the spider spun her web. 

"She wants us to go there."

The Sith Lady said as a puff of mist escaped her lips and the pelting rain intensified. 

"On your command, my Lord."

[Rugs]

“Go then,” Nieraan said as the great warehouse doors creaked slowly open. Lightning split the sky behind them, throwing sharp shadows across the floor that were here and gone in an instant. “Bring this runaway lamb back to the fold.”

Once confronted, the runaway seemed to have little in the way of conversation. A few wasted taunts that fell on deaf ears, calling the empire “fools, heedless of the storm to come” and her Sith pursuers “blinded by their own ambition.”

The confrontation that inevitably followed was a brief, brutal affair. Nieraan took one of his sabers in hand unlit, but held back, allowing Syrin to take the lead. He had, after all, brought the Sith Lord along to see how she performed when something truly tested her mettle.

If his sole objective were merely to kill or subdue Rysen, well, he was quite capable of doing that alone.

The battle swung back and forth for a time — Rysen was no slouch — but Syrin steadily gained an upper hand. Each of Rysen’s attempts to pull back, each attempt to rally against the jaws of fate snapping shut around her, fell progressively weaker until Aurelius, deciding to make his presence felt, loosed a powerful blast of the the Force that sent her careening headlong through some old, rotting shelves and into the wall.

Rysen’s lightsaber clattered to the ground, blades dying as it fell where the push slammed into her. “End this,” Nieraan said to Syrin as he scooped the hilt from the ground. “We’ll take her alive.”

---

The downpour continued a short while later, as Nieraan stood outside the warehouse with his hood up. An Imperial shuttle was blasting off to orbit, where it would dock with the Charybdis to take Rysen — who was unconscious and now missing a limb--to Dromund Kaas.

“Good job,” he said to Syrin. Their own shuttle was en route from the landing pad. “She talked a big game, but in the end,” he shrugged, “she fell like all the rest.”

“I’m sure the Empress will be pleased with your work,” he went on, holding Rysen’s saber out for Syrin. A trophy, if she wanted it. The lightsaber was of little use to him otherwise.

“I may put in a good word for you,” he said, glancing skyward as another fork of lightning seared the sky. The Order rewarded competence -- his own ascension was proof of that. And Syrin had proven her own in this task. “Maybe a greater position awaits you.”

Note: Summary post completed with Harukei's consent