What Beauty There is in a Machine

[Nan'eth'illa]

Rhen Var had taught her things. The lesson was dear, and her ambition only grew. Yet, all things had not yet aligned. She had not found what she had hoped to find in the fortress of Darth Mekhis: She had not found the holocron.

However, there were clues. Aggressively, she scrolled through the floating text of her datapad. Not Ambria, not Korriban, Thule, Lorrd, Ruusan, not Rhen Var, Coruscant was too risky. Where, where where? Around her, the ship was hovering over Bastion, a mere speck compared to the vast warships in dock and the luxurious yachts taking in the sights. The Chiss put down the datapad forcefully and stood up from her seat, hands running over her head in frustration.

"I am missing something. Some clue. Some-"

She stopped.

"The Umbaran."

It was a stretch, but that might just be what she was looking for. If only she could find the clue she was missing, the clue that bad been burned with the Core years ago. Filiae cursed shortsightedness, then stopped when she remembered who had done it and why. Yet, she was bitter. Perhaps this would all would have been easier if they had just.. Her anger refocused.

"Umbara"

Nethil jumped into the pilot's seat and threw the navicomputer into gear. The Erudite turned its nose and gathered speed. Her metal hand clamped down on the hyperdrive lever as the navicomputer calculated, prepared, declared them ready to leave.

"It's something."

And with a phantom boom, the ship shot into hyperspace, headed down the Braxant Run to the Inner Rim. Filiae closed her eyes, delving into the Force and bending all her will to wishing it so. She would find it. The Holocron of Darth Mekhis, her secrets of Mechu Deru, they would be hers to wield.

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]

A man walked into the cockpit.

He didn't have a shirt on.

"You know your caf maker is lea-" Head tilted as Itash brushed away some of the water from his wrists with a tissue. "You busy? I can come back later." It wasn't wise to interrupt a Sith, when they were being all mysterious and... Sithy with closed eyes and all. After their exploits in Chiss space Filiae had requested his assistance with a different sort of job.

Tracking down some kind of mystical artifact.

Well, Itash had been a grave robber, before he had turned himself into a mercenary captain so that worked out rather well. He didn't mention the existence of his holocron though.

It probably wouldn't be useful anyway.

By the sounds of it the one she was looking had been actively moved in the last couple of years, while his was focused on more... ancient pursuits.

"Got a lead then?" By the blinding starlight out in the viewport Tash assumed that was the case. She hadn't said anything over the comms, but that was another thing that he was learning when it came to Sith. Even a Knight of the Sith... they weren't good at communicating things. Especially the Chiss. She had a tendency to be both forward and retracted at the same time.

It was odd if he was being honest.

 

[Nan'eth'illa]

Nan'eth'illa stiffened for a second when she heard his voice. In her moment of fervent action she had forgotten he was there, and that her caf machine was leaking. It was a little embarrassing really: Darth Filiae, master of machines, mistress of the mechanical! -Has a broken caf maker.

"It's just a bit worn, you have to wiggle it in place."

She answered the caf machine statement first, hoping it would buy her a few moments of thinking time. Her fingers ran over the ship's controls in practised motions, stabilising the jump and adjusting the ship's heat. She did not want to turn around and get skewered on the result of a cold cockpit.

She really had to turn and face him, didn't she?

"Yes, I found something." She wiggled her hand a bit. "Well I remembered something and it might just change everything."

She swivelled her chair around to face him, her fingers steepled and her legs quickly crossing.

"I initally assumed the Holocron had remained largely untouched through the centuries, or that Mekhis' followers had tried to restore her fortress." She shrugged "I should have known better." "Someone else had their hands on the holocron, and he was Umbaran. They are good at keeping secrets."

It was difficult to tell the difference between a rattataki and an umbaran. But Filiae, she knew the Rattataki traits better than most, and she had felt the draw to Umbara. The trail felt right.

Her eyes went across Itash's bare chest, her eyebrow perked.

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]

"You know, I don't mind being admired, but if you want to have a conversation then I will need your eyes up here." The tips of his two fingers went down and then up to his eyes to signify just what he meant with that. Once her eyes crossed his face, she would notice the smirk playing on his lips. There were men who knew they were handsome and flaunted it.

But Itash was a different level.

The amount of confidence he displayed would be more home in the holo-novels. Of a particular sort. His body shifted as he leaned against the doorpost. It was cold steel and it did little to help with Filiae's distraction.

"Then again, the trip to Umbara might take us a while. I think you have some more cybernetics you could show me?" It was clear that Itash wasn't talking about her cybernetics this time around. Though, by his fascination when they had been working in Chiss Space together... it might be a little bit of both. Who could really know when Itash was involved.

 

[Nan'eth'illa]

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

Kudos for being able to tell where her near monocrhomatic eyes were pointed. She looked up, eyes narrowing in displeasure. Still, she could not stop the hint of a smile creeping up the side of her cheek. Some would say one could hear the wood in her face creaking as it was twisted in the unusual position of smiling, as opposed to frowning and scowling. He did indeed look like he had walked straight out of one of the holo-novels she found in the library on Mindabaal, the ones the csen'ai used to light fires.

In the back of her mind she could feel her master saying 'weak. He is weakness. Shed him.' In her raspy, witchy voice.

"Oh, I have much to show you yet."

A wickedness coloured her grin and the voice in the back of her mind was drowned out entirely. On her cybernetic hand, its metal brushed and shiny, she ran the thumb along the tips of her fingers. Sparks arced and spat as metal touched metal.

She rose up from her chair and strode towards him with matching confidence. Though hers was less in her looks and more in terms of self-importance. In either case, it was convincing, inside and out.

"I'll have to measure you for fit."

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]

Now *that* was new and fascinating.

He watched her run her thumb against the tip of her fingers with keen interest. Electrocution had never been part of his... experiments, but right now Tash was wondering why that was. It seemed a rather obvious option to him now that she showed it.

"Mm, the more you show, the more our possibilities expand." He watched her stride with appreciation. The coy girl of before was gone.

She was more confident now, in the moment, prepared and poised.

Which one was the lie? That was something Itash was interested in finding out, eventually. As she stepped up, Tash smiled one of his smiles. "Rather than offer promises, I will simply..." before she could finish her stride, Itash stepped in and his arm already wrapped around her waist.

Pulling her in and against him.

Control, that was what excited him to a degree. His lips would meet hers and the kiss would be long, deep and hard.

The hunger deepening with the kiss, before Tash broke it.

"...let my actions speak." Control refined and poised. He cherished it.

 

[Nan'eth'illa]

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

Coy, yes she could seem that way. Reserved would perhaps be a better word. Adaptable would be another. Itash has changed her situation, so as a good student of the Pale, she adapted to her new surroundings and made the most of it. Even though the Csen'ai would deem weakness.

"There is a world of possibilities I have yet to show you."

Nethil fell into his grasp, allowed his action. It was comfortable, in a sense. He drew her in deep, his lips hard on hers, hungry. His arms were strong, warm, hairy. The hair was weird to her. She had shaved her head for so long, first in admiration, then for practicality. His beard was coarse against her, no matter how well he groomed it, like the pine trees of a mountain path: Fresh, cold but for the sun's warmth, tiring, but rewarding. Magnetic.

"Then let them speak volumes."

She put her hands on his chest, for a moment playing coy as her head turned down. Her feet rearranged, and suddenly her weight shifted. Funnelling the Force through her, Filiae pushed him with both hands and in-humanoid strength, carried from her feet, her core, and her toned arms. She pushed him back and into her chamber, and followed after with a run and jump.

Coyness entirely gone.

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]

Hours.

They passed fast and were extended far, before they broke their touch. Tash slowly rose from the bed and stretched lazily. Her marks were on him, but vice versa he had left his on hers. Running his fingers through his hair the tips ended at his jawline.

Sensitive.

"Didn't know is prosthetic had that many uses." Then Tash settled himself back on the edge of the bed and wrapped some of the blankets around him, stealing them inch by inch from her.

Another stretch.

He suppressed the urge to groan.

Oh, every piece of his body was aching. Some of it in the pleasant way of exertion, other in the more... extended way of pain. All of it with a purpose though, with an aim and a destination. There were lies around this one and she interested him.

"Tell me of this artifact we seek."

 

[Nan'eth'illa]

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

She did not care about the covers, once he tried to steal them she tossed the rest his way. Her hands traced up over her face to behind her head, back arched with a subtle pop from her spine before she deflated. Scars crossed her blue skin, some from surgery, some from battle, some from her master. To the trained eye, they told that there was perhaps more metal in her than what met the eye.

"When a machine breaks, you make it better. When I lost my arm, my eye, my leg." The foot of her cybernetic leg swivelled "I made better ones." She pulled her heel to her, bending the knee up in a peak. "Prosthesis suggests weakness. These are my weapons and my armour." "They are me."

She tipped her leg to the side and used the weight of it to swing herself out of the bed and to her feet. Her hands grabbed a robe and threw it around her shoulders with practised motions, it was closed and tied before one knew it was there.

"The item I seek is one that will let me perfect that very art." "It contains the accumulated knowledge of one who shares- shared? -shares my vision, and who had many years to refine it."

Filiae let her fingers hover over a number of sealed containers before picking one up.

"Here, this will help against the cuts."

The following throw was rather nonchalant, but the cream did indeed help against various cuts, burns and bruises - Once you got over the initial burning sensation, that is.

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]

Tash caught it just as he rose, just as casual.

He made his approach to her slowly while taking a whiff from the container and not even bothering to suppress the slight upturn of his nose. It did smell grotesque, but if it helped with the cuts that was that then. "Oh, there is nothing weak about you, Lady Filiae." Taking her hand and guiding it to him, a kiss on a knuckle bruised from their... fight, before moving onto the next. "That much I know."

Pulling her in firm again and her lips were next.

They had played like that- giving and taking control, pushing boundaries, seeing just how far the other was willing to go before a limit was reached. It had been pleasant in all the right ways.

"A holocron then," As he released her and stepped up towards the mirror to watch and inspect his cuts, his bruises. "Which ancient Sith Lord are you after?"

Still nothing about his holocron.

"And how do you imagine you will find it on Umbara?"

 

[Nan'eth'illa]

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

He was being distracting again. She wanted to give in to it, but her desire to continue on with her search was stronger. Yet, she let him do as he wished at the moment, the kiss on her hand, the holding, the kisses were good. Very good. Suppose humans did have something going for them. Take that Ardeth Zun.

"Work now, play later."

He kept pushing her boundaries, she kept pushing back. Had she truly opposed it then she knew the electrocution would have been of a slightly different nature. Somehow, Itash knew just when to stop.

"In my research I found something. Not a mention of the item, but knowledge I know belongs to it."

He asked many questions, and she dodged a few of them. After all, pleasant as he was, she was not sure how much she could trust Itash. She knew he was far too intelligent to not use any information she gave him, one way or another.

"-Force wielders grafted into machine bodies." The words lit her eyes with ambitions. "Controlled by an Umbaran Sith Lord whose name I could not confirm" "And yet, the Force tells me-"

Her head suddenly turned as something pinged in her brain. Filiae quickly slipped out of his arms and jogged out into the ship cockpit. They would have to prepare to revert to realspace. Filiae would not stand for an awkward landing in her own ship, and jumped into the piloting seat. Her hands ran over the controls, adjusting for reversion. Normally, it would be very awkward without a co-pilot, but her skills in Mechu Deru and familiarity with the ship helped her.

The light of hyperspace travel faded into a map of stars as the ship slowed down. Dark Umbara monopolised the view, with its shadowcast landscape speckled with iridescent urban centres.

"It is here, I can feel it."

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]

Force wielders grafted into machine bodies.

Interesting.

It wasn't exactly his forte, but that didn't really matter much. If this was so valuable to Filiae then Itash would ensure she got it. Not out of the goodness of his heart, but to keep underlining that every time they cooperated on something there was success. He liked the Chiss, enjoyed her even and there was something interested about pushing her boundaries, watching her react to it.

Different from Cassandra... but Cass had the same sickness as he had, it made the challenge different, but equally appetizing.

"How can you feel it?" Tash asked curiously while leaning against the pilot chair and watching Umbara grow closer by the moment. That made him realize they were both quite unprepared to actually get out there.

"Not that I don't want to see you dance around there in just a kimono, but might be time to change wardrobes."

A soft brush of a finger down her ear and Tash skipped off himself, back into her bedroom to figure out what to wear. It would be dangerous, yes, but how much armor was enough armor for this thing?

 

[Nan'eth'illa]

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

She did not look back at him, but saw his reflection in the transparisteel. Her eyes were hard now, set, determined like a the fervent lords of the Sith when they sought death and destruction. Though her goal was knowledge.

"Because it is my destiny. It knows."

Half a smile crept on her lips as she felt his finger on her ear, but her shoulder lifted to shrug him off. There was a time and a place, and her mind was far from carnal pleasures at the moment. Though he was right, it was time to get ready. Her fingers clicked buttons, moved switches as easily as if she was speaking to the ship in their native tongue, then she got up.

The simple robe fell off her shoulders but was caught with her hand, balled up, then thrown aside. Filiae had no question of how armoured she needed be. Then again, she was never one to armour heavily to begin with. Her armour of choice was of simple armourweave and leather reinforcements, fitted, simple, but with her silvery arm on display. She also took a moment to connect the arm to a power-source, recharging the batteries previously expended.

Who knew, she might need that shock glove for less pleasurable means soon.

"Dress for speed. There will likely be more obstacles than enemies, and the enemies we face will probably be armed to fight Jedi. Medium armours will likely be shredded, heavy armours will slow us down."

Nethil picked up her lightsabre and inspected the two handed hilt. Her fingers curled around it tightly, then loosened.

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]

Tash tilted his head to listen and then nodded once, punctual.

"Very well." He started gearing up- armor-weave, duraplast, his lightsaber, bracers and necklace. Then the miniature cloaking device they had liberated from the hands of the experimental Chiss labs a few weeks ago. That last bit Tash had reverse engineered by his engineers at Didact. Very solid addition to his usual get-up and allowed him to use his voice for other means.

Whispering the entire time to stay invisible got old at some point.

Soon enough both of them were outfitted. He kept pushing her gently here and there, a look, a glance, brushes, but Tash kept it right on that edge between annoying and desirable.

He knew when to pull out to maximize the effect.

They exited the ship together.

The landing place was desolate, dark, nothing- wait. Tash blinked and increased the fidelity of his low-light filter. The scanning equipment was encountering metal, lots of it, but overgrown. "There." Carefully the Tapani got closer, now that they were practically on top of it they could see. Durasteel overgrown by vegetation and more, this facility was old.

 

[Nan'eth'illa]

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

Filiae had her own stealth device; it was not one of the new ones, nor the Imperial ones. No, this was an old, but true design she had gotten from her csen'ai's secret order. It was far more refined than the one they had designed for the Empire, but outmatched by the design she was currently developing based on the blueprints stolen from Chiss space.

"I see it."

She crept up closer, crouching over to avoid being seen. Her footfalls were light and her body naturally swayed away from obstacles that would call attention to her as she approached the first signs of the structure. The closer she came, the larger she saw it actually was.

What had simply looked like clusters of trees cast in shadow and jutting formations of rock turned out to be the tops of support beams that once upon a time held a much larger roof structure up. The walls remained, thick durasteel, now rusted and jagged. There was a gap in front of them where doors had once stood, leading through the walls. Filiae stepped inside carefully.

Nothing happened. Nothing that was seen, in any case.

She took another step, and another. Her eyes surveyed the terrain. Saplings of Umbara's self-fluorescent trees were climbing up along the inside of the walls, competing vines for the sparse earthen space. Up ahead, another opening stood. It looked bold now that their eyes had a reference and could read the man-made structures versus the growing plant life. The door ahead stood boldly open, though, upon closer inspection they would see clearly that it had been blasted apart many years ago.

Inside, the darkness became even more oppressive.

"Careful steps. There might be traps."

Earth crumbled behind them as she said it, something buried under layers of moss and leaves began to stir.

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]

At first Itash didn't hear the crumbling rumble of earth rising behind them.

Soft enough at first to be obfuscated by the crunch of their boots, their voices and the attention spend on the oppressive darkness, but then the first limbs started to break through the dirt. Pale, but black lines tracing through skin and broken nails black. Itash looked over his shoulder- "...Filiae, I don't suppose you know why corpses are currently doing their best to claw their way out of the dirt?" One of them had managed to escape and was already breaking into a half-sluggish run to attack.

A white light suddenly shone bright as the Tapani ignited his sabre.

It cut through the torso and the 'zombie' collapsed to the ground. Rather than being disabled, both parts started to crawl through the dirt to get at them again though.

Others were starting to rise in the first one's wake. "You know, I think we should go." He pulled her with, through the opening where the doors had been shattered, while behind them the air was filled with the wailing and gnashing of the techno-zombies. It was one thing to fight against people, but Itash drew the line at these... things. They could survive being cut in half for feth's sake and something told him they didn't want to be bitten by them.

"Didn't realize I was signing up to tackle zombies."

 

[Nan'eth'illa]

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

If he had to pull her along, then it was because the moment she saw the zombies, she was fascinated. This went over and beyond anything she had thought it would be. Filiae was not afraid of them as they came shambling, rather, she wanted to study them. She wanted to figure out how they worked, and maybe even recreate them under her own rule.

"No, the sources indicated the guardians would be living, not undead."

Once he had tugged her arm, she followed along voluntarily, her bloodshine blade igniting in her hand.

"This is fascinating."

She swiped her blade at a hand as it burst forth from the side of the wall. The body it belonged to was trapped, but the pointed fingers scraped against the metal of her arm pointlessly. Her blade severed the limb lengthwise. And as Nethil moved the glowing blade, she could see the bodies strewn around them: These were far more fresh, and their clothes were quite distinct: Cream robes under brown cloaks.

"These were Jedi."

Their eyes were hollow and their mummified faces frozen in a desperate yell. Their fingers clutched on to the ground. Filiae made sure to stomp on the heads of those she could. The more she saw, the more their surroundings began to make sense to her. The zombies scrambled over the bodies of the dead Jedi, waking them from their slumber in the process. The one Filiae had stomped rose up with only a lower jaw and a few strips of skin left of its head.

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]


"Oh, now you made that one angry, great." Tash complained, but Filiae might notice the tease in the tone. It seemed that even though part of her companion was worried, it was more about being surprised than the actual undead. The last time Mecetti had started to see the benefits of plans, of planning things out and being ready for almost every opportunity that could come around.

Together with his natural luck?

It made him amazingly competent at turning a situation into his advantage.

His lightsaber was out, it cut again and it swiped three undead down crumbling, where they followed the lead of their other collapsed siblings. They just kept crawling with their severed limbs.

It was... troubling.

"Can you- there." In the corner of the corridor, a dark alcove that moved into a set of stairs, cut into stone and digging downward. There was a point of light deep within that shadow once they approached it. A torch in the distance? Light? Who could know until they got there. Seeing as the rest of the corridor was filling up with the undead Tash didn't think there was a different option.

They'd take it, the moment they got through the alcove his lightsaber lashed out and cut a slab of duracrete out.

It would fall down and keep those things out.

...part of it fell on top of an undead, cutting of their arm. The severed limb kept crawling as well. Great. "Souvenir?"

 

[Nan'eth'illa]

If there was one thing Filiae had learned, it was that when it came to the Force, all the well-laid plans of mice, men and peacocks well apart as quickly as some changed socks. Alas, when it came to such artefacts, it was best to do one's research and trust in one's senses.

Right now, they told her to bloody run.

She found no objection in his direction and went for it immediately. Stone crashed behind them as his white blade carved the alcove, and for a moment she thought they would be buried beneath a collapsing roof. Filiae threw herself to the wall, hand up to protect her head, but she saw how local the collapse was.

The hand, however, made a very clear reference in her mind, and it was quite creepy.

"Vah run ch'acacah ch'eo csen'ai"

She did not know if he spoke Cheunh, a part of her hoped he did not. Her sabre flashed and cut the fingers off the severed hand as she turned and started walking down the stairs towards the light. The Force had given them one way to go, so they better traverse it.

The stairs carried on deeper than one thought they ought, then connected to a hallway, lit continuously, but somehow twisting and winding so one could not see the end. On either side, doors led of to the sides. They were covered in rust, but one could see the slits where food could be moved through: This was a prison. Filiae was not sure its prisoners were dead. Her footfalls were quiet, falling deaf beneath the sound of water drip, drip, dripping in the distance. It seemed like the light ignited just in time for them to see it, and then extinguished where they did not look.

Following the dripping, the hallway came to an end, and the room before them grew vast and lit up like a life-day celebration.

[member="Itash Mecetti"]

 

[Itash Mecetti]

[member="Darth Filiae"]

The scene spread out before them was like that of some kind of holo-movie.

[member="Cassandra Paige"] had remarked more than once that ever since they had met, that her life had become like one of those holo dramas popular in the Core. It had never really hit home to him until today. Because being in a large, dark room with a Sith lover, the corners of the hall dark while floating orbs radiating green flames pushed back against that darkness? Well, that was a new height of drama. "You know, sometimes I worry that none of this is rea-"

Before Itash could continue that line of thought the ground under their fleet rumbled.

The reflection of the green flames made him notice the sudden appearance of figures. Humanoid, rusted armored pieces, faces with bright red eyes. Where had those come from?

Not that it mattered. "Guessing we are in the right place." The Tapani murmured while igniting his sabre once more, putting himself in the classical Makashi stance. It was all about footwork, all about elegance and grace, it was all about Itash Mecetti. The Sith Knights revealed their own weapons, electro-staffs, before they suddenly blurred- their speed enough to make Tash take three steps back, just before one of them dashed into the place where he had just been.

No time for wit.

He parried the second slash.