| [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] | [member="Deneve Verd"] | [member="Charlyra Araano"] | [member="Draco Vereen"] |
The journey between Chandrila and Tython was relatively short in comparison to the Indispensable's route from Mandalorian space. It was one of the other reasons why Alicia had selected her homeworld as the place in which she had set up the lie that would cover her tracks. Since she had been a child, Alicia had enjoyed the pseudonym two birds, but with one stone and had applied that logic to mostly everything she had done since beginning her journey to becoming the Dark Lord of the Sith. Not only had she set up the lie that covered their activities on Tython, but she had also managed to save time. She was in a rush to get the translations of the Jal Shey for Draco Vereen as soon as possible, before the Mandalorian warlord decided to sell the holocron that- ultimately- belonged to her in the first place.
As the Initium flew through one of the three realms of known space, Alicia thought about Vereen and her objectives on Tython. It was an eerily familiar feeling of doing the bidding of another, as it had been beneath Darth Pandeima. When she had murdered her master and finally realized her path to power, she had been certain that she would serve no other man or woman again. Instead, she would make others enter service to her. She was the Sith Master now of the fabled Rule of Two, walking in the footsteps of Bane and all that he had accomplished through the Order of the Sith Lords. If she was fulfill the promise of the Sith and bring about the end of the Jedi, then it made no sense that someone like her would ever do the bidding of an egomaniac such as Vereen. And yet here she was, sitting in the cockpit of her prototype shuttle, en route to Tython to fetch translations for him. Combined with the parasites that were gnawing away at her flesh and power, Alicia had never felt more angry, blurring the tapestry that kept the lives of Darth Ayra and Alicia Drey separated.
Appeasing Vereen's self interest made logical sense. In return for the Jal Shey translations, Vereen would pass along Darth Vectivus' holocron, whose creator she now knew to be one of the Sith Lords that had followed Darth Bane and his Rule of Two. On top of returning the holocron to it's rightful owner- the Sith Lord that had inherited the teachings of Bane and had once again brought them to fruition in the galaxy- Alicia would also gain her own translation of the Jal Shey. Who or whatever the Jal Shey had been, Alicia could deduce this much: that if Vereen was willing to part ways with a Sith holocron in return for Jal Shey knowledge, then it either meant that what the Jal Shey knew was on par or surpassed what Vectivus had stored on in his holocron. Before she would give Vereen his translation, Alicia would keep her own version for herself, meaning that at the end of their business, she would be leaving with both in hand.
On the other hand, it placed Alicia at a disadvantageous position. Having dealt with varying businessmen and women in the past twenty years, she knew that went entering a negotiation, it was always the aim to be entering one with all the cards. But that hadn't been the case with Vereen. When the two had met on Taris, it appeared that it was Vereen who held all the cards. If Alicia did not comply to his demands in return for the holocron, then she would not get it, regardless of how many credits or other offers that had come to her mind. Furthermore, the deliberate threat that the Mandalorian had made against her life was obvious. I could kill you right here, right now if I wanted to. That was what Alicia had actually heard in between the lines, as Vereen elaborated on what he wanted in return for Vectivus's greatest creation.
Knowing her own powers in the dark side, Alicia was certain that if it had come down to a confrontation like that between her and Vereen, she would have come out of that tower with his head, or at the very least, escaped it and Taris with her life. Alicia doubted that any man or woman could kill her today, irregardless of their beliefs, affiliations or species. It was only because there were other Sith alive in the galaxy, such as the One Sith or the whispers of a triumvirate on Ruusan, that meant she was not the true Dark Lord of the Sith. As Bane had done before her, she knew that in the end the Old were replaced by the New, and as the Sith had done during Bane's time, they had done the same in hers. That whilst there were Sith who claimed to own an Empire and raised militarizes to serve them in their conquests, then there was no-way that the Rule of Two could fully be realized until all the two were destroyed save two: a master and an apprentice, as it should have always been.
As the scenario of her and Vereen battling each other on Taris played out, Alicia was sure that such a confrontation would have revealed that she was in-fact a Sith Lord. It was ultimately because of the subtly and secrecy required for her work that Alicia had chosen to retrieve the Jal Shey teachings for Vereen. She would have murdered him, the subordinate he had with him in the room and every single soul in that tower with her very hands if not for the subtly required for the Grand Plan. Darth Ayra was many things- scholar, teacher, murderer, politician, businesswoman, architect- but not a conqueror, warrior or fool, who in one foolish move, revealed the existence of a Sith Order that had long since been lost during the Four-Hundred Year Darkness. No, it was better to venture to Tython, navigate the silent desert and follow the coordinates she had procured from her contacts in the Black Tie Syndicate to retrieve the Jal Shey teachings, so as to maintain her identity, story and image to her allies, affiliates and enemies.
When the time came, Alicia would kill Vereen because a man like that was too dangerous to be left alive. The likelihood that he had learned from Darth Vectivus' holocron was so high that it was near certain that he knew it's contents. He was also a man who had recently liberated an entire world from the Galactic Republic, and if she was right in believing some of the whispers that had filtered through, was keeping the One Sith from annexing the Alderaan system, as they had done to the dozen or so Republic systems that had fallen in the past seven years of war. It was also likely that Vereen would be a direct rival for Mand'alor the Reclaimer, and whilst she understood the necessity for the element of challenge as a Sith Lord, Alicia would never allow someone like Vereen to oppose and possibly kill Isley Verd before his Empire came about. After all, Darth Ayra would need the means to which she would see the Jedi and Sith die. The war that she envisioned, resulting in the death of all Jedi and Sith, would span the entire galaxy, and a culture bred for war for the exact tools that the Sith Lord would require to see it done. Draco Vereen's days were truly numbered now, and after the Jal Shey manuscripts were conferred for the Vectivus holocron, Darth Ayra would begin to see through to the fall of the Dragon, once and for all.
Head bowed in her left hand, Alicia sat in the confines of her chair in a state of semi-consciousness. She was there and then... She was not. It had been several months- close to a year- since the Orbalisks had attack her and Justiciara on Dxun. When the infestation begun, her body had been limited to three of the creatures, who had managed to find a way past her Lightsaber and onto her body, sinking their teeth into her skin and never ceasing their insatiable appetite since. Now, almost a year later, the infestation now covered most of her body. Her skin and flesh had given way to the rock hard, granite surface of the parasites. Alicia had observed that as they fed on her daily, the creatures had been undergoing a type of metamorphosis that was being fueled by her powers in the dark side of the Force. Their quest to consume her, relentless in their machinations, was almost admirable to the Sith, if not for the obvious risk that they posed. She wondered how long she had left until they completely consumed her body, and when sleep- so rare now, under the confines of constant, agonizing pain- claimed her, Alicia had been played nightmares of the creatures finally climbing off her, leaving only behind a husk of what had been her body.
Sleep deprivation showed itself during these times of lull. When Alicia was not meeting with her allies, affiliates and enemies or seeing to the training of her Sith Apprentice, she found herself slipping in and out consciousness, as she was now en route to Tython. She was aware that she was sat inside the Initium's cockpit; and that it was on auto-pilot, on course to the Tython system. But then she felt like she was asleep at the same time. It was closest thing to sleep she could get beside the times the pain became too much to bear and she collapsed, only to eventually regain consciousness. The Human body was not built for this type of torture, she knew. The answers to her plight laid in the hands of a certain Jedi Master, who she had felt in the tomb of Freedon Nadd on the eve of her greatest suffering. Suddenly, thoughts of murdering Draco Vereen gave away to a more prevalent and obvious target. No, [member="Taeli Raaf"] was the real enemy. She had taken Freedon Nadd's holocron before Alicia had- perhaps days or weeks before her arrival on Dxun- and as a consequence, the Jedi now held Alicia's only lead to saving herself from being devoured completely by Freedon Nadd's most terrifying trap.
Despite the parasites feeding on her body and powers, Alicia had noted that there were some curious side-effects of the infestation. During her training exercise with Justiciara inside Sojourn's forest, Alicia had felt herself exhilarated by battle on a level that she had never experienced before. She had fought the Galactic Republic's forces on Kashyyyk, in the heat of battle against Jedi and soldiers alike, yet, during a simple spar with her own apprentice, Alicia had felt the blows and swings of her Lightsaber fueled by a unadulterated hate and rage that not even she had felt before. It came to a point during the exercise that Alicia had to literally physically force herself to stop attacking Justiciara, less she destroy her prodigy before the time was right. But the physical augments of the Orbalisks were not the only side-effect she had noted. During the spar, none of Justiciara's blows had managed to make any impact on Alicia's body. She could attribute this to the fact that they were using a training Lightsaber at the time, but even so, the pelko bug spores that lined the blade should have injected her with a toxin that would leave her body in agony for several hours, during which the parts that had been hit becoming paralyzed and useless until the toxin had been exercised from her body. It seemed that the Orbalisk's outer shells could not be penetrated. Did this leave Alicia invulnerable to attack?
Beep, beep, beep. The sound of the navigational computer's alarm brought Alicia out of her slumber. Lifting her brow out of her manicured fingers and up out of the shade of her palm into the light, she was met with the sight of an astronomical object that had baffled the Sith for centuries. The Tython system was filled with varying black holes and other objects that made it and the other systems in the Deep Core perilous to travel at best. The navigational computer was telling Alicia that it had brought the Initium out of hyperspace before her and the ship were caught in the hole's gravitational pull. Alicia had read once that when someone or something was caught in a black hole, then time for that person and everyone else changed. She imagined being caught in the hole for mere minutes, only to somehow escape it and find that the galaxy had aged years since. There was only the gravity well of the hole that would tear the Initium into tiny fragments, taking Alicia with it. Leaning over, Alicia shut the computer's alarm off and then reclined back in her seat to think.
By no means was she a Jorus Merrill, who was said to be able to navigate a ship through the Force alone. She had once seen Rave Merrill perform a maneuver with her personal ship- the Bullet Time- that had allowed her to elude a Star Destroyer's sensors above Eclipstica, as she and Alicia searched for the long lost Bogan's Beauty. Despite this, Alicia was left with no other alternatives. Technology had only gotten her this far, and now, it was up to her abilities in the Force to successful guide herself and the Initium to Tython. Grabbing hold of the controls, Alicia concentrated on the Force, and as she did, she felt the Orbalisk's on her body respond in kind, hastening their bites and in-turn fueling Alicia and her powers in the dark side. Bringing her ship beyond the black hole, Alicia begun to navigate the other astronomical objects in the Tython system, setting herself on course for the planet's surface.
