The wintry woman flowed behind the much taller Illyrian King whilst he led the way back toward the front of the bridge. The vague feeling of contentment that emanated within told her that the quiet promise of fealty and strength had held the desired effect.
Darth Metus
had taught her well. They were strong individually, but always, they were stronger together. She could feel the security that settled around the Sith Lord. He could smile.
She could not. Not that it would surprise him. Srina had never been overly emotional to begin with. Some confused her with an HRD or some new fancy piece of tech the Confederacy had developed. In truth…The desperation that she had sensed within the Capital Dome on Ryloth had crept into her blood. Into the very center of her being.
As much as it turned her ice-cold will into a burning fire, in truth, the memory was sobering.
It brought focus and precision.
”Adron Malvern” said:
"We haven't had any significant reports from Talay yet, but Locke is a competent man. He'll handle the front there and we will handle Rodia."
“You are more optimistic than I remember, m'a umoze. [My friend.]”
The fact that his imperious words seemed like a demand rolled off of her shoulders like water. Srina had long ago realized that his noble birth often colored his tone. Perhaps if he was dealing with a group that he considered to be lower life forms, he may have intended to impress that he was far superior, but to her, it was nothing of the sort. He meant no more offense than he had by touching her cheek, drawing near, nor tearing her through the void from one system to the next. His optimism was refreshing.
Srina
wished she could feel it.
The fair-skinned Exarch had witnessed with a front-row seat the lengths of which the Agents were willing to go through to make their point. There was nothing so life-changing as watching their people throw away their own lives for nothing. She had thought she would never recover from Kuat. That wasn’t true. Ryloth had taken its place. To that end—She expected this fight to take everything the Confederacy had to give.
Everything.
Haltingly; Srina paused. Her elegant brow creased for a moment.
Aries. His son. Her godson.
The thought of never seeing his cherubic face, complete with rosy cheeks and fat, stubby little fingers, caused an unexpectedly sharp pain to snap through her chest. It was the same feeling that echoed through her being at the thought of never seeing
Eira Talon again. Her breathing stopped. Then continued. A brief glance toward Adron would contain only the smallest vestiges of the sentiment she truly held. Her ghostly, beautiful features, were made all the more otherworldly when sadness managed to make itself known.
“If we survive with sanity intact…I will venture to Illyria.”
A pregnant pause.
“I have missed him too.”
Almost too soft to hear. Among the bustle of the droid personnel that moved this way and that with clinical precision it very well may have been lost. Srina breathed deeply, once, and exhaled slowly through her nose. That was it. No more.
No more.
While they prepared to make the jump into Hyperspace the young woman waited with what seemed to be infinite patience. Mercurial eyes glued themselves to the transparisteel viewports while she silently affirmed that the end, in this case, would justify the means. The evacuations. The time, credits, tears, suffering, and effort spent to ensure that their people would be far from harm's way. In what felt like a span of seconds realspace began to stretch before it burst into a kaleidoscope of color.
Adron was watching her.
The Dread Queen didn’t acknowledge it and instead walked toward the command throne of the Veil while her countenance schooled itself into an impenetrable wall of ice. Her slender form barely took half the seat, even, hampered by light armor. White hair drifted down like loose silk while she settled as if she belonged nowhere else. It was
his ship.
Her throne.
It wasn’t as if he liked to sit down
anyway.
“My informants confirmed before I left Geonosis that Talay is still transmitting that damnable signal back to the relay. In the immediate bedlam that ensued in the skies above—Our enemies have yet to take note.”
That sounded much more like the Exarch that the Confederacy knew. Quick. Cold, decisive. As she changed gears and fell into the role that her position within the Southern Systems dictated everything else fell to the wayside. They could both agree that
John Locke
and the rest of their naval experts were more than capable of handling themselves. They would turn their eyes toward the enemy combatants that were falling upon the sovereign system of Rodia like locusts to the pyre.
As they returned to realspace once more Srina found herself appreciative of the way the Veil moved through the vacuum. It was smooth. Like a sharp blade cleaving through soft flesh bereft of bone. The droids made their reports. Their complements had arrived intact and seemingly unnoticed. They were immediately beset with the visage of a large fleet intending on accosting Grand Marshal
Amelia von Sorenn
. Srina had her own thoughts, however, there was one captain to the Veil. It was not she.
Adron passed his orders and she nodded her head in the affirmative.
The longer they remained hidden the greater chance they had of damaging the enemy fleet utilizing the element of surprise. It was an age-old tactic; but it was one that worked.
Especially, when they hadn’t announced throughout public broadcasts that they were coming.
Srina fell silent while the Veil drew into the optimal range. Rather than to waste time, lavender lids fell shut over gray eyes, and quietly, she began to meditate. She was limited in functionality until the opportunity to destroy the enemy presented itself. Firstly, the Echani began to reach through the Force toward those she held a familiar tether. To see through their eyes. To hear what they heard. Her signature stayed low by design. So low that it
should be missed, or dismissed, as there were hundreds of force users littering the area. It would be simply to become lost in the crowd. The Exarch ran a gentle sweep of Rodia. Her head tilted to the side while she found
Luna Terrik
. The words that the War Marshal spoke were repeated hauntingly from Srina’s lips.
“Commence with operation Nightfall.”
“Make it known to all ground forces. Unless the Rodian’s they encounter are wearing are colors, they are to be treated as plainclothes enemies. We know that the entire populace was taken away from this place. They are to use stunning tactics if at all possible, but do not let these dogs use people as meat shields again.”
A pause. Her eyes fluttered, but still, she remained focused. A terribly strong sense of hatred pulled her toward
Daegon Corvinus
.
“None of them are to remain alive.”
He was close to none other than
Muad Dib
who was doing something...Something that Adron did not need to know about. Srina would file it beneath creatively gathering intelligence.
Something new caught her attention. It was not a person so much as it was a thing. She could feel it in the way a cloud cast shadow as it blotted out the sun. Srina had felt it before. Where. When? It caused the hair on the back of her neck to slowly stand on end at sensing a blighted absence. Were it not for her intent to meditate and provide what intelligence she could glean—It was distant enough that she would have missed it.
Ysalamiri.
Mandalorians.
Her eyes fell open and a soft gasp escaped her as if cold water had been dashed over her head.
Mandalorians—And not the ones she had come to look fondly upon. She knew some who allied with the Confederacy that utilized the loathsome creatures, such as
Shuklaar Kyrdol
, but his forces were reported to have
already made landfall. They couldn't be in both places. If was a fact that not all Mandalorians were created equal, not all were cut from the same grand cloth, and these…
These did not belong. Her first thought was
K
Kaine Australis
. Where blood, fire, and devastation reigned supreme under the flimsiest of excuses the aging warrior would not be far behind. He had been present at Ryloth. Her senses were already withdrawing and she couldn’t get past the damnable lizards to find the truth.
She did know one thing for certain. From the bridge of the E'care Shukur to the crew quarters—
Something was not quite as it should be. Silver eyes pulled toward
Adron Malvern
and the flat tone would tell him that she had seen something unintended. She focused past him on a distant point through the blaster-proof viewports. A rather ugly ship, certainly not Confederate, seemed to have positioned itself above the E'care Shukur. How it got there?
Unimportant. Dealing with the issue at hand was all that mattered.
Srina nodded her head sharply toward it.
“...Amelia may require our assistance.”
Athena
Damsy Callat
|
Tien Ulinesque
|
Ciri Jade
