Wait a minute…
Was he trying to intimidate me?
He was doing a shit job of it if it took me this long to realize it.
...
"If you must know, I promised her a share of the glory," I admitted readily enough. Thirst for glory was hardly the rarest vice among the Sith. What was the harm in admitting it? "Though the precise methods need not concern you."
"I think they do." Bybon crossed his arms to punctuate his thoughts, but that was fine by me. He wanted to make himself look even broader and closed off? If it kept his hands away from his weapon, that was perfectly acceptable.
"I think I'm not going to reveal my ally's weaknesses at the drop of the hat," I shot back.
"She's my ally, too," he pointed out.
"Among the Sith, I've found that means surprisingly little," I said acidly.
"Then why keep it a secret?"
"Betrayal is bad for business," I said simply. "People aren't inclined to make a deal with someone who breaks their word the instant someone asks."
"But you will disappear for days at a time with a Jedi Shadow who, for reasons which have not been disclosed, wants you alive."
"... I'll teach you when you're older?" I offered, causing the overly buff Sith Apprentice to exhale heavily. No words, just a long exhalation, and then he left, shaking his head. That... I was going to call that a win. I'd need to keep an eye on him in the future. A bit of curiosity and willingness to betray his ally hardly counted as a betrayal.
Given how long it was taking to get Natia that share of glory I had promised her, I owed her that much.
I regretted that mental choice of words mere moments later, however, as a pair of guards in Thul purple, their ornamental breastplates bearing that odd circular crest of their liege's house. Between them walked a tall man with a pinched expression, also dressed like a Thul. Tall Man's clothes were a lot nicer, though. Quite similar to the fashion worn by the Thul delegate back at Mount Sendoth.
Even to me, it was clear what was happening.
The Lady of House Thul had tired of waiting for me to come to her.
...
Nestor's mental scream of frustration was all the proof Lia needed that everything was going just fine without her around to babysit him. He was hardly the kind of man to scream, mentally or verbally, when things were going truly poorly. All this meant was that he was a bit uncomfortable. Given what they had already established what the short apprentice had offered to Lady Thul, it was easy to imagine what was happening.
Clearly, the Little Sith was a bit of a prude.
The very idea almost made her laugh.
Nestor. A Sith Lord. As prudish as the average Jedi Master!
Oh, how she lamented that she could not be there to witness whatever had caused this reaction. Then again, her presence probably would have prevented Lady Thul from acting as she was now, so Lia had to be satisfied with the combination of embarrassment and gibberish that Nestor was so generously distributing.
But the misery of the galaxy's least insane Sith Lord, as amusing as it was, was not the highest priority item on her radar right then. After all, there was another Jedi Knight around, one who had been in contact with the orbital team that was monitoring the orbital satellite laser that Darth Angral's goons were trying to seize.
Pure idiocy, that.
It was an orbital satellite. No thrusters, no hyperdrive, nothing to help it move through space. Darth Angral was a fool to ever think it could be taken.
"Knight Lia," the almost familiar tones of the Hero of Tython dragged her back to the present. On cue, a head popped up above a line of perfectly manicured hedges. Naturally, it belonged to the man leading the Jedi half of this hunt for superweapons. He stood just tall enough to be able to look over the top of the hedges. Not unlike Nestor, really… "I was hoping to speak with you."
"Then you should have called ahead," she said, her tone studiously neutral. Despite this, she ducked into the side garden once she verified that nobody was around to bear witness. "I take it something important happened?"
"Someone tried to take control of the Death Mark," he revealed. That was… significant news. It meant that Lord Nefarid had been making progress over the past three days. It meant that Lord Nefarid had all but signed his own death warrant. Leaving the planet, or simply disabling the orbital satellite laser, was no longer feasible. Not while there was a Sith who knew the details of the project. "I can only assume it was Lord Nefarid or someone aligned with him."
"Most likely," she agreed. "Have you told the Sith?"
"Not yet," he said, shaking his head. "The news came a few hours ago, but I was waiting for Lord Nestor's return so we could coordinate more effectively. Levin said he was moving, so I hoped he would be here soon. I would have thought he would be meeting with his fellow Sith as soon as possible."
Levin, huh? That boy was unnervingly sensitive to matters of the mind. After all, whenever Nestor was at his most unbalanced, Levin was the one most affected. If it ever came down to open fighting between Jedi and Sith on this mission, he would have to die first. Who knew what kind of secrets he could tear out of her mind?
Best he died quickly.
"Nestor is otherwise engaged," she revealed. "He should be back in an hour at the latest, but we have time to plan this properly."
"Otherwise engaged?"
"Judging by the timbre of his mental screaming, he is severely uncomfortable," she said. "But in no mortal danger."
"You can tell that much?" There was no accusation in his tone. Despite this, Lia felt herself instinctively shifting to the defensive.
"Spend enough time with someone, and you learn a few things about them," she said, refusing to elaborate. Nestor was… well, she knew him well enough to know that his death would not be a good thing. "Why haven't you told the other Sith yet?"
"It's complicated."
"You don't trust them."
"Okay, maybe it isn't complicated," he admitted. "Nestor is an oddity. He's willing to trust and take risks based on that trust. Heck, he trusts me to run around the compound of an Imperial ally unsupervised with a droid whose capabilities he doesn't know! He keeps a Jedi Shadow around in hostile territory! His allies… don't."
"They are not like Nestor," she said.
"You say that like it explains anything," he muttered, unaware of just how wrong he was. Well, who was she to let Nestor's secrets become public knowledge? "You said Nestor was otherwise engaged? How long until he returns?"
"It should not be long," she assured him, unable to entirely suppress the quirk of her lips into an amused smirk. "Nestor tends to be rather fast. But we can hardly wait around here waiting for Nestor to finish."
"What's the alternative?" he asked. "Trust the apprentices to react rationally?"
"Consider it the choices we have. We can tell them, or we cannot. They will react rationally, or they will not. What happens if we tell them and they react rationally?"
"They will start planning a strike mission," he answered. "Nothing too complex. We just wait for Nestor to join us and then grab a speeder and head out."
"And if not?"
"They will start arguing. Until someone comes along to give them the necessary focus."
"Meaning Nestor," she said. "And if we don't tell them?"
"They will sit on their hands…" the other Jedi trailed off. "Are you telling me that whether or not we tell them will make no difference?"
"I'm telling you that nothing we can do can change anything. The other Sith will listen to Nestor, if only grudgingly. Of course, that is assuming you want to make this a joint strike."
"Of course." The Jedi made it seem like even considering the possibility was unfathomable.
The droid chose that moment to chime in, the combination of whistles and beeps making it clear that it considered Nestor one of the good ones. Worrying implications of the droid's choice of words aside, it was clear what needed to be done.
...
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