Private Hole in the Wall

[Soldane Talon]

Echnos City​

Echnos​

905 ABY​

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The Noontide screeched through the air as atmosphere metal metal friction. Soldane sat in his chair, quietly pressing buttons as the beast within the ship stirred, growling, hungry to fire its cannons at the city. Soldane offered it nothing more than a frown as he finished inputting the authorization keys that marked him as an agent of the Sepulchral. In the Sith Order, there was no security clearance higher unless you were on the Dark Council - so it would make a statement. He needed the the Governor to understand that he was not just a kid with ambition, but someone already sitting at the table.​

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Besides, they weren't his real authorization keys anyway - just the ones he used for keeping the Sepulchral from actually knowing his plans.​

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The docking clearance came back clear, as expected, and he maneuvered the beast of a ship to its platform on Infra-Hub 301C. It settled itself like a horse collapsing, and he nearly bit his tongue as it finally sat still. These ships were a nuisance anytime they weren't fighting, and he quietly wished he'd work on the binding restrains to turn the damned thing to sleep once and a while. A few more buttons presses, the dawning of a pack, and the Son of the Emperor strode down the gangplank to mark his arrival on Echnos.​

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"Welcome, Agent of the Church.", a greasy, balding man said with a bit of food left on his cheek. No doubt Soldane's arrival forced him to quit dinner early.​

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"Is there anything you require of me?", he said in a sickening sycophantic tone.​

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Soldane cringed at it, looking to the man with disgust before being forced to look towards the rest of the docking bay, and the massive city before him.​

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"Inform the Governor I require a meeting."​

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The man, with a bead of sweat mixed with chicken grease, nodded and began to jog towards his communication array to let the relevant parties know. Soldane would simply wait for Kaila Irons to respond to the meeting from an anonymous 'Sepulchral Agent'.​

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress
Tag: Soldane Talon

::I am aware:: came a voice from the other end of the comm.

Feminine, stoic, deceptively aristocratic.

Darth Anathemous saw everything in her city. Cameras, probe droids, security in this city was paramount because it served as one of two entry points into the Blackwall. Local defense forces and the Black Fleet kept a tight grip, and the more fingers she controlled? the more she could get away with.

It had started the moment his clearance codes were uttered, but her curiosity settled on grainy images of his starfighter.

A class she was becoming intimately familiar with.

A class reserved for Sith of great will.

::Standby::

Kaila dismissed the hardlight feed with a swipe of her finger then, taking only the shortest pause to ponder.

"Why was I not informed of this?"

She intoned to the floating figure beside her. A sepulchral "advisor", whom she refused to look at.

"A question we share." it rasped.

Only then did she glance in it's direction, uncertainty brewing.

. . .​

Minutes passed before Anathemous arrived in person, lacking any sort of bodyguard nor servant in attendance, even though soldiers were lining up for inspection at checkpoints across the city. Her amazonian figure was veiled in black silks and bladed shoulders which parted her golden mane, the kind of dress only a Sith would wear.

But despite her unarmored appearance, the governor of Echnos made heavy footfalls against the metal floor, perhaps too much so for a woman of her size.

"Greetings, agent of the church." she inclined her chin.

"I am Darth Anathemous, lord of Echnos."

"What does the priesthood require of my city?"

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[Soldane Talon]

As Kaila Irons entered the dock, Riven took a moment to glance towards the cameras nearby. He had been trained in Mechu Deru, just like his father before him, so the sensation of technology was no different to him than the sensation of a living, breathing soul only a few feet from him. Their electric buzz was a proverbial gnat in his ear.​

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"I am not here for the Church.", he said flatly.​

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Where Kaila was Amazonian, there was something androgyneous about the Sepulchral Agent. He was male, that was mostly clear, but his face was far too youthful, far too untouched, unmarred, unburnt for a Sith to fly a ship like the Noontide. His appearence was beautiful, but that only served as a distraction from the most immediate discomfort of his presence - his very aura was corrupted. Not as the Dark Side might, but synthetically manipulated into something worse than it should have been. Within the Force, she could see sigils, rituals, imprints, burns, into a soul too young to have carried such corruption - it spoke to her in whispers she couldn't understand, but its progenitor was clear.​

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The Sepulchral twisted this boy, and his aura felt like oil on the skin. Heavy, suffocating, sickening.​

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"We should speak somewhere more private."​

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Kaila Irons​

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Dress
Tag: Soldane Talon

Not here for the church?

Kaila's brow rose the barest inch but she said nothing.

His presence... spoke enough for the both of them. Twisted, powerful, wrong. A far cry from her own in that moment, kept small as though she were but an insect to the force. But still she did not shy away from it, she'd served in the shadows of too many Gods and Emperors to do such a thing.

"Very well."

She turned without a word, gloved fingers laced behind her back whilst the pair strolled through the halls of that labyrinthine structure. The "manor" was not far and by design. Many essential buildings were found near the top of the dome city, near the open landing pads and airlocks. They passed hospitals and housing which had been refurbished with new blast doors and shiny durasteel, lines of workers receiving rations from the city government, but in larger packaging than some Sith worlds. One could almost forget that this world was once invaded by Alliance soldiers that fateful day, if not for the lingering effects of the Phobis device on the periphery of their senses.

Echnos prospered under her rule, but it was very much Sith.

So too did they pass Eternalist holo-propaganda and recruitment officers, even a Sith chapel under construction, before at last reaching her residence, identifiable by the tiny hedgerows which flanked the door, along with the guards and banners.

There were many doors in those halls, most guarded by strange droids kept from the public eye, but Kaila took him through one more unassuming then that.

It was a library of sorts, a quiet place with no cameras and many cases of holobooks.

But that wasn't the extent of the privacy they required.

With a flick of her wrist, one of the shelves slide aside, and Anathemous walked through the empty wall behind, which flickered digitally as she passed through.

Only once they were both inside did she seal the door behind them, locking them in a room lined with nullification resin.

Their connection to the force was not severed, only isolated. Not even the Sepulchral could peer inside.

"...I don't show this room to many people, agent..."

Another flick of her wrist, and candles all around began to light the darkness.

"I trust I'll not regret this, yes?"

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[Soldane Talon]

"I'm sure you have a few more like it.", he offered haphazardly, with disregard. It wasn't assurance he was here for ill intent, only a quick change of subject.​

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Soldane moved to find a seat, crossing his legs when he was finally comfortable. He pulled a holo-puck from his robes and laid it on the table before them, letting it ignite to show a Sith Wayfinder, one specifically marked with the Sepulchral's insignia. He didn't need to explain what it was for her to know, but he did so anyway;​

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"I need a Wayfinder. A way past the Blackwall. I require free passage inside and outside of the Empire, and a Merchant Lord seems the best chance I have of getting one."​

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Kaila Irons​