Chapter Text
“By the Fira of Shasha… you are strong…” The Selkath falls to the ground. The dark fog of her sorcery drains the last remnants of life leaving his body. The adrenaline amplifies the Force, sweet and devastating, and is still tingling on her fingertips.
She shakes her head as she checks the body for valuables. Ah, there it is. The codes to open the doors of Gorima’s lab. She doesn’t give a second look at the corpse as she leaves—a pity for them to fall into the wrong fights like this, really.
Kallig has what she needs, that’s all it takes for her to move on. She gives a tug to her earpiece.
“Lana I found the codes to Gorima’s lab–”
“Hi.” greats the voice and she stumbles. That voice… It doesn’t belong–
“You don’t know me, but I’m with Lana.” he continues, blighting the breath in her lungs and ramming her to the ground. Kallig tries to draw a breath as the panic delights in her chest, she must be hallucinating because there’s only one place that steady voice belongs– and she’s left that planet far behind.
She should’ve killed him back then.
Once she can speak, it comes as a growl. A different voice from hers. Thank the stars for holo-disguise.
“Get her back on the line. Now.”
“She is meditating,” he says, his displeasure is unmistakable even with the static, just like his voice. All this time and she can still picture the grimace forming on his face with frightening ease.
She hates it.
“...using her connection to Darth Arkous to pinpoint his location. She wanted you to know if I found anything and I did.”
“Ah.” she feigns ignorance. “I assume you’re our mysterious ally.”
The other side of the line goes silent for a moment. “I am, though I would rather not say more through the comm– You said you found the codes for Gorima’s lab, right? I got the energy readings. Rakata Technology’s firing up like crazy in there.”
She spawns a swear in Huttese. “Great. Any idea what I’ll be facing?”
“Interesting vocab you have there, but no.” She hears a sigh. “Don’t know for sure what’s going on but I can pretty much guarantee it’s got to be stopped. I’ll update you once I find anything.”
The comm goes silent and Kallig fixes her eyes on the ceiling, pondering for a moment if she should throw herself at the Giant Firaxan Shark. It would at least spare her the conversation she will have on the surface. Of all the people Beniko could’ve found…
The comm beeps again. “Hey, is there a reason you’re standing there like a statue?”
She really, really should’ve killed him.
***
She finds the Captain trapped in a force field, intact. Mostly. If their body has survived the ordeal, their dignity certainly hasn’t. Once their ally slices into the system and they go free, she knows it doesn’t matter. Dignity is easy to resurrect, a dead man isn’t.
Doctor Gorima is not dead yet, mind you. But if Pirate Captain Xiroh Myda has any say in this, he very soon will be. They grab the nearest blaster, unsure of whom they should point it to first. If she weighs the same as the degenerate doctor who imprisoned them, maybe she underestimated their hatred for the Sith.
Well, the pirate’s dossier has some really riveting remarks but they’re a person of reason. Kallig throws them a spare comm linked to the surface. If reason doesn’t come in handy, Spy Boy’s persuasion skills might be. She has other things to worry about.
The doctor tries, she has to give him credit. All the tricks in the book to hide his fear, barely separating his eyes from his subject sprawled on the lab table. It might’ve worked. If Kallig wasn’t accustomed to discerning fear from miles away. Her gaze meets with the dead eyes of the Selkath cadaver on the table. She’s read the files. What this man is doing is no simple performance-enhancing cybernetics. It seizes the mind, erodes the soul. Her mind reverts back to years before to Grathan’s Estate. A soldier, brain programmed inside a droid. A plight for death. She couldn’t sleep for a week back then.
That was before.
“You must be Gorima, time to talk.”
“How did you get in here?”
She activates her saber, making him take a step back. “The hard way.”
“So, you’re not here with my underwriters. No.” He measures her head to toe. “You’re something else entirely. You’re trouble.”
“Trouble?” she chuckles. Wouldn’t it be funny if Doctor had a taste of his own medicine? If he felt the agony his subjects wanted him to feel? “That would be putting it mildly. I am the thing that haunts you in your sleep.”
The voice over the comm vexes her once again. “Are you always this edgy?”
The smile, although none can see it, comes unbound just as the Force does. “You have no idea.”
***
She is not afraid.
Water fills her lungs, and her thoughts start to dim, and she makes haste to grab the only comm but it’s so far away and the currents underwater prove too strong. The water hurls her frame like a doll.
Another window of the facility goes down. Water cascading greedily.
Keeping her eyes open has no use. So she clams them shut if only to stop the burning. With the last crumbs of her consciousness, she tries to picture the laugh of her brother. She can’t choose how she dies but there’s a solace to find. She can choose what her last thoughts will be.
“Hey!” a voice pushes, sharp with stress, but it’s hard to hear underwater. “I don’t know what’s happened but you have to snap out of it! Now!”
“Do you hear me? That thing is serious– and it’s coming right at you!”
Before the voice can finish, a blast wave sends her flying, blacking her vision out. A razor-like pain tears down her ribs. The water does little to soften the landing.
A curse on her ear, barely audible with static. “Tell me you’re okay.”
“Tell me you’re okay.”
Kallig blinks several times to get the last of the water blurring her visage. His open concern greets her. Soaked and trembling with the cold acidic water of Kesir V as she is but he’s on his feet. His question is more surprising than the unpleasant memories as he offers his hand to pull her up.
“Spy Boy, why wouldn’t I be?” She cooks up a quick grin. “I even beat you to the shore from the facility sewers.”
He studies her for another moment and a part of her loathes how clever those eyes are. “If you say so.”
Spy Boy? She is about to ask. Then she remembers. She remembers where she is and... By the Force. She wills herself up.
“I am okay. I am okay.”
So is the enemy. A growing image at the side of her vision, preparing for another assault.
“Good. There he comes! Lana says you’re tough. C’mon, let’s see it!”
***
Kallig pulls her hood over her face before she dives into the streets of Manaan’s foreigners’ port. With her disguise broken and her strength drained out, that’s all she can manage. A piece of fabric for a refugee. Back to stage one.
Despite her injuries taking their toll, contempt fuels her swift movements. Contempt for her own weakness and her control slipping. How did this come to be? All of her training… All those ghosts and enemies picking all of her soul apart like she is nothing but a piece of paper and this is how she almost came undone.
And this is how she returns to her savior. Her doom.
Tell me you’re okay.
His face flashes in her eyes once again. She wouldn’t be. She won’t be. Her fingers tab the codes to the elevator that leads to the safe house regardless. A pact bound to the promise never to meet each other. A box safely packed and locked away never to be opened again. A box that will soon be crushed into pieces under the weight of the truth and war.
She was truly fooling herself.
The doors open to a spacious room with two figures standing against the overly bright exterior. Their heads turn towards her. So be it. Let her face her biggest, stupidest mistake.
Beniko welcomes her with a smile.
“Welcome back. Once again you’ve displayed skill and determination few possess.”
What Beniko thinks, she barely registers. The hood is still covering her face, but his focus burns through the fabric all the way to her being. Her hood falls back as she approaches them.
The shock of recognition is smothered in a flash. She lets his intense gaze tear her apart, going over every detail again and again and filing the differences. Eyes linger on the saber but it only takes a few seconds until those eyes melded to her own. He doesn’t keep back. Enmity. Repulsion. Anger. Even regret. One blink later, and it’s all gone. As expected.
“You know, you don’t have to go back to them.” The man murmurs, her head is on his lap and his hands are gently combing through her hair… that belongs to an illusion. The undercover identity she wears may be an illusion, but the pain razing through her soul is not. Cipher X’s corpse, abandoned in the cold ground of that facility is not. She knew she likely perished even before setting foot on this planet but…. Seeing is different. Hope dying in the bottom of her insides is different.
And there she weeps in the enemy’s arms. And there she is, way too tired to keep up the act. Cipher X’s voice rings in her ears. Telling her how stupidly dangerous letting her guard down is. To an SIS agent.
She can’t bring herself to care. So she thinks of what he’s just said… Only to distract herself from the grief.
You don’t have to go back to them.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t have to go back to the Empire.” She can’t see his face but his voice is soft and resolute at the same time. Kallig sighs, stubborn, stubborn man.
“Spy Boy–”
“You can defect. You’re a perfectly capable field agent. You’d fit perfectly into SIS.”
He’s right. Lea Moore, if she ever existed, would. Not Lord Kallig who belongs with the ravenous darkness and death. Not Darth Imperius. Her stomach turns. Would he ever offer this if he knew just who she was? Would he gently caress her hair while she grieves?
Why does she even care? She has no idea who he really is either.
“Do you even know what Imperius does to traitors?”
He tenses and his hands stop for a moment. “I– We can protect you from her.”
“You can’t. And I don’t want a way out, you know why I stay.”
It takes a few minutes of silence for him to answer, to an extent she thinks he’s given up.
“You really trust Darth Imperius that much?”
Irony creeps into her smile. “I have to.”
If she doesn’t, then she has nothing else.
“I suppose I should make proper introductions,” Lana steps in, sensing the tension. Kallig doesn’t tear her gaze from the spy. She owes him that much, to brace for the truth as they both lay it bare.
“I’m Theron Shan. Republic SIS and your new ally.”
Theron. Shan.
It’s a common surname, logic would say. She knows at least a dozen. But the memory of the Jedi who charges against Malgus blazes in her mind.
“That saber… I recognize it.” his voice is taunting as the Jedi launches at him, relentless at her offense, forcing Malgus to give ground. “So the lost daughter of Shans isn’t dead after all.”
Beren Lara Shan. Satele Shan. Theron Shan.
She quickly erases any trace of surprise from her features as the dismay starts to nibble her. Once she knows the truth, his resemblance to Satele Shan shines through.
"Theron Shan… Interesting. I assume you were the agent who was behind the scenes while Master Lara was wreaking havoc on Korriban.” Her grin starks against how she feels. “You must’ve put a lot of effort and hope into that. Don't like being deceived, don't you?"
"As much as you like, or we wouldn't be here, Lord...?"
That finally makes her turn to Lana. She had the balls to involve the blasted SIS in the mission she’s in but at least she’s had the discretion not to tell him everything. Bravo.
“I see you haven't told him.”
“I… Thought it would be better if you do the honors...”
A frown twists his face. Calculation and barely contained anger he doesn’t bother to hide, no. It’s there for her to see.
"Believe me, I'm not more comfortable than you, sharing my identity with two Sith lords, yet at least I realize how dire the situation we're in to be forthcoming enough,” he says. “Or do you think your anonymity matters more?"
Oh, it matters. On instinct, possible lies about her identity beacon in her thoughts. But something in Theron Shan’s eyes stops her from opening her mouth. Like he’s already entoiled her unsaid lies. Like she’s run at the fringes, powerless, and his blaster is trained on her. She grabs her saber, absently inspecting the details on the hilt. A sigh of acceptance falls through her lips before her eyes find Theron’s once again.
“I am Darth Imperius of the Dark Council. The current head of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge and Sphere of Law and Justice, though I also go by Lord Kallig.” She extends her hand. “ Pleasant to make your acquaintance, Agent Shan. I am your new ally.”
The emotions she thought she saw in him just now … They’re nothing compared to his raw feelings soaring to the Force in an instant. Enough for them to bleed through her own heart, hot as lava before his mental shields fire up. Is he cursing her? Is he cursing himself for all the times the things were just a little soft and intimate? For not seeing through her falsehoods? For seeing through but letting go? She needs to know, that even if it’s filtered and refined, she needs a reaction.
He grabs her extended hand just as she was about to take it back. His hold is firm and warm, her small hand disappears into his just as before. When she lets go, his gloved hand is smeared with her blood.
“You seem surprised, Agent Shan.”
“A Sith known for her devotion to her anonymity and caution shows up in the middle of this mess under a shabby disguise.” His scowl turns into a condescending smile with no humor. “And here I thought your power base wasn't that badly affected by Imperial Intelligence’s fall. What, short on field agents?”
What were you on Kesir V by yourself? What are you doing here?
“We both know the number of my field agents is fairly adequate. I’ve just decided this mess, as you say it, required my attention.”
His brows raise. “Attention and direct involvement are hardly the same when it comes to the Dark Council. Espionage is a whole other deal. Not very–”
“Typical?” She drawls. “I hardly qualify as typical… or predictable. It has served me well so far. As for my ‘shabby disguise’, I could not alert Arkous, I’m sure you understand.”
His gaze follows her as she passes by him to sit at the table beside them. A plate of berries is forgotten on it, and she digs in not caring a little bit about the bloody hands. Sugar… Just what she needs to not pass out.
“That’s why you’re officially still at Korriban, overseeing construction efforts.”
And now, the SIS knows she uses a double. Just how much essential intel they couldn’t wrangle out of her over the years that she’s willing to give up? Just like that?
“As I said, I couldn’t let my prey know I’m on his neck.”
It takes a while before he speaks. “Arkous really pissed you off, hasn’t he?”
Pissed her off? What an understatement… Korriban she could forgive, but stealing and weaponizing Isotope-5? Her painstaking efforts to keep the war-hungry hands off it had gone to waste. Her promise to the Makeb Coalition in their new planet had been violated. There’s no imagination vivid enough to guess what she’ll do to Arkous once she catches up with him. She smiles as she crushes a berry between her fingers before she reverts the question back to him.
“Humor me, Agent. Haven’t you also come here with all this secrecy leaving your rather rackety Jedi companion behind because of the same reason?”
It’s Lana, quiet as a rock until now, who answers.
“You’re right my lord. The way we were fooled by Arkous, the same happened to Theron’s team with Colonel Darok. And they were more involved than you ever were.”
At the edge of her vision, Theron leans on the other side of the table. “And between what you’ve found in that lab, and what Lana and I pieced together, I can tell you they’re both traitors.”
Lana adds, quietly. “And we don’t know if they have any other accomplices, who are involved, plotting against us.”
“No. we don’t. That means I can’t trust my own people, and you can’t trust yours.”
Something in Theron’s voice makes her risk a glance. His careful gaze is already on her. Traitors in high places. Two enemies teaming up on their trail… It all feels a little too familiar.
“And if these people are building an army of cyborgs…”
A battered breath passes through her teeth. Then they are in big trouble.
“We better start getting at the bottom of this mess.”
***
With Lana gone out scouting, Kallig's composure ravels out a bit, even though it shouldn't. Showing any weakness now would be giving another poisonous dart to Theron Shan. Memories of Kesir V flare up. He has more than enough already.
She can't afford to trust him with her vulnerabilities. Not ever again.
She chokes off the ache as she forces her legs to walk. Medbay. She needs to find the medbay. She has walked away from worse situations, in worse conditions. What's a little bit of–
“Just so you know, medbay isn’t in the west wing,” Theron says as he catches up and holds her arm to offer support, gently turning her way to the east wing.
She presses her lips as she does her best not to lean in his steady presence. “Had fifty-fifty chance. Anyways, I can take it from here-”
“There isn’t a med droid in the medbay.”
“It doesn’t matter I can take care of-”
“The giant cut wound in your back? Or your obviously fractured left leg? And how long is it gonna take?” He glares at her, eyes hard. “You’re not bad with computers. We need all hands on the desk with this data and we are one person short. But sure, take your sweet time.”
She opens her mouth but the protests die out in her throat. What would she say? No, because I don’t want to be close to you. I don’t want you treating my wounds like you did many times on that planet. I don’t want to get reminded of any of it.
She untangles her arm from his. And starts to limp beside him. So much for not showing any vulnerability.
***
He wasn’t kidding. Medbay, like it’s assembled by a kid, screams of sloppiness and haste. It’s apparent the need for security outweighed the possible need for medical attention when Shan found this place.
“Agent Shan, SIS really lowered its standards since the last time I visited one of their safehouses.” Leg grateful for the lack of pressure, she sinks into the medbay bed.
“It’s Theron.” He heads for the storage to get medpacs. “And this is not an SIS safe house. Found the place at the last minute. Didn’t think I would end up with a wounded Dark Councillor on my hands.”
She slowly, meticulously sheds her garments. The scab of the cut on her back peels off with her shirt, and drawing a hiss she quenches. Theron’s movements halt before he picks up the med equipment again.
“It was you who insisted on helping.” she snaps. “Don’t start complaining.”
“Out of necessity.” Anger tinges in his voice as well and he gets near the bed with an armful of med equipment. “Not because I want to. Now let’s see–”
He almost drops them as he takes in the situation of her body. Brows knitted with… concern?
“What the hell happened down there?”
The question is a jolt. A reaction. Kallig turns her head to the side while he gets to attend to her wounds. He is close, close enough that his breath breezes on her skin when he sighs. Close enough that she can observe the way his frowns pull at the implants. Hands are gentle. Attentive. Light. As if he’s forgotten who she is. When she inevitably winces, it’s too loud for the small excuse of this medbay.
“I’ll ask Lana to find a med droid just in case.” His words are no more than a whisper.
“Don’t bother.” she manages, not sure if her cracking voice helps with the argument. “It’s all superficial wounds.”
“Yeah, sure, you continue to tell yourself that. Turn back, let’s deal with that giant superficial cut.”
She does as he says. Instead of the blade she can’t help expecting, it’s his light touch and kolto needles at her shoulder blade. Vulnerable.
“You know,” she says, “I survived worse than this.”
“Yes, I do know. I’ve read your file before.” A brief pause. “Didn’t believe half of the things written there.”
Ah… The elephant in the room. Unsaid words stoke the tension as he continues to work on her wounds. Every silent moment adds another drop to a bottle that’s about to overflow.
“I trust you to not add anything new to that file for the time being?”
“It goes both ways,” he says. “I know you Sith are not familiar with the concept but that’s how a healthy alliance works.”
A mirthless laugh shakes her body, drawing his eyes once more. Is it the kolto that makes her so?
“There’s nothing healthy about this. An SIS agent and a Dark Councillor… What a joke. But I do honor my words.” You would know if I hadn’t, after Kesir V.
“As do I…” his words, hazy around her until now, suddenly get acute as shards. “But you already know that.”
Know what? What can she possibly know about him? What can she possibly trust about him? Theron Shan is a shifting shadow operating in the dark. She is the head of a giant machination, who sometimes slips out of the control room to play peek-a-boo. Seemingly high, mighty, and untouchable but oh so frail.
He has already a wire tangled around her feet. All he has to do is to pull it.
She plasters a smile on her face. There’s no need to alarm him while she untangles that wire without him noticing. Or bind him with it as well.