Private Where Darksiders Have Lease

[Meliant]

CORUSCANT ORBIT
THE SEPULCHRE - DORMITORIES

Meliant entered the dormitories, wandering around without particular aim until he saw where Casi was sleeping. He proceeded straight to her cot and gave it a nasty kick, rattling the whole structure spectacularly.​

​

"Rise and shine, princess elite," he crooned mockingly, then kicked the cot again for good measure - irrespective of whether she had become responsive or not.​

​

He looked down at her. Meliant's head was cocked to one side, in the unthinking way of people who were regarding something curious or amusing. Or both. In this case, there was no gauging an exact emotion from that blank and pitiless armor.​

​

The armor was hollow. That was common enough knowledge by now.​

​

"The Emperor has work that needs doing. There's a shuttle waiting in the hangar for us. Get presentable; I'll be waiting."​

​

Something approaching mirth was in his voice. Excitement? He was already walking away. If Casi didn't follow him now, she'd find Meliant leaning languidly against a wall in the hallway, waiting as he said he would be.​

Casi Braste ​

 

[Casi Braste]

Meliant

Casi awoke to the disturbance laying on her stomach, craning her neck to look up at the knight looming over her. When she had joined the Elite, she had been afraid of the black knight. Now he just annoyed her. The taunting, the teasing, the pestering. Case in point. Unlike in the Jedi Temple though, aboard the Sepulchre they could, and would, end up killing one another if she pressed him on his bullshit. All was permitted to prove oneself to the Emperor.

"Rise and shine, princess elite,"

Casi gave him an exaggerated fake smile as she laid there, unmoving.

"Yes, well get the hell out and I'll get decent." she said only half awake. When he was gone she roused herself from the bed and threw on her black Jedi robes. Something simple. After a once-through on her hair with a brush, and pulling it into a long, austere ponytail, she reached under her pillow for her two lightsabers. They clanged together as she grabbed them by their belt clips with one hand and made for the door, pulling on long, black jackboots. She clipped one saber to her belt and held firm the other one.

She stepped out of the room to find him lurking in the hallway.

"Meliant. Do you spend much time harassing sleeping women?" she sarcastically jabbed.

"Who's the enemy today?" she sighed, like it was just another routine boring day. As though their days were not filled with slaying dissidents, and back-breaking training programs. As always, she was using her sarcasm to hide the rage, which she tried so hard to suppress with her Jedi training. Even now, an observant Meliant would notice her white-knuckling the lightsaber hilt in her hand...

 

[Meliant]

Casi Braste

"Meliant. Do you spend much time harassing sleeping women?"​

​

"Pah, no. Haven't you checked the top roster?" He snickered, already amused with the sound of his own voice. "The only other woman around here is Sahar, and I don't think she sleeps much."​

​

Or if she did, Meliant never saw her. Maybe getting inducted into the Emperor's closed circle of "New Sith" entitled you to a private dormitory. Not that Meliant would envy such a thing. He couldn't sleep anyway. Sometimes he'd meditate, though in fact it was closer to seething.​

​

Meliant could do that for hours on end.​

​

He peeled himself off the wall and led her out from the Sepulchre's dark core, through twisting corridors of unadorned or scarred durasteel. Their orbital home was not exactly the lap of luxury.​

​

"Who's the enemy today?"​

​

If he noticed her barely constrained rage, Meliant didn't comment on it. There would be time for that later.​

​

"It's our friends in the Coruscant Guard; the colonels are taking advantage of the Emperor's good name." He made a noise as if clicking his tongue. Yes, I know. Who could even imagine doing such a thing?"​

​

He went on to explain, "They're involved in their own little conspiracy, spice, bribes, cover-ups. Probably ties back to those fools in the Syndicate. We need to collect them for questioning. Quickly."​

​

It sounded almost personal when he mentioned the Syndicate, but there were soon other things to think about.​

​

They arrived at one of the Sepulchre's ventral hangars. Two distinctly ISB-branded tactical shuttles were waiting for them, along with a small team of armed tactical troopers. There was something funny about them: they stood stone-still, and their eyes were unfocused. Not a one of them stirred at their arrival.​

​

"Don't mind the help. I selected them personally."​

 

[Casi Braste]

Casi looked over the ISB agents in their rigid stance and starched-stiff white uniforms. As she stepped past, she stopped in front of one. Her eyes met his, the stone-cold, thousand yard stare. Was it discipline, or fear, she wondered? She stepped closer to him, a hand reached up, a finger gently running along the man's jaw, her eyes seeking for an answer. She had to stifle a laugh as the man tensed up, his eyes diliating with terror at the thought of showing any ounce of reaction.

But the man remained rigid, controlling his breathing. Casi smiled at him, then cocked her heard to Meliant .

"You chose well," she remarked. She turned and boarded the shuttle.

"The Guard. Are they still harbouring Alliance sympathizers?"

 

[Meliant]

Casi Braste

Meliant watched, displeased, as Casi toyed with one of the tactical troopers. He was less upset at the act itself and more with the victim's reaction, though not for the reasons she might guess. Meliant waved them off when Casi was through. ​

​

They turned simultaneously and marched aboard the second shuttle. Their movements seemed synchronized, stiff. Like marionettes tied to the same control bar. That wasn't natural either.​

​

The other shuttle, it seemed, was just for the two Elite. Meliant shrugged at her question and pounded the bulkhead two times with a closed fist. The pilot must have heard him - the boarding ramp began to shut behind them and the engines blared to life.​

​

"I don't even think the Jedi harbor Alliance sympathizers any more. Nobody believes in that crap. They can't. Not after how it all fell down." He cackled softly and went away, towards the cockpit but ultimately stopping to plant himself in one of the jump seats. "And really, who'd know better than you? No, they're out for themselves now."​

​

There was a soft rumble as the craft departed the hangar. Meliant stuck his hands behind his head, elbows out, apparently as relaxed as if he were on a luxury cruise.​

​

"Colonel Finbarr is at the opera. Fancy box seats. We'll take him before it gets to intermission. Aren't you keen on that kind of fancy crap?"​

 

[Casi Braste]

"I don't even think the Jedi harbor Alliance sympathizers any more. Nobody believes in that crap. They can't. Not after how it all fell down." He cackled softly and went away, towards the cockpit but ultimately stopping to plant himself in one of the jump seats. "And really, who'd know better than you? No, they're out for themselves now."

Who indeed, she thought. She had jumped the sinking ship of the Alliance, and betrayed the Jedi. A living, breathing reminder of the failure, and of the changes that had come in it's wake. It might not have been Casi's choice to serve the Empire, but it had spared her life, and it really had put her out for herself, and only herself. Survival meant adapting.

But Meliant was right, she still had a soft-spot for the finer things. She had no shame in that. Some said it had made her a bad Jedi, but the Empire indulged her in some kind of strange consolation for the torture they put her through.

"That fancy crap is galactic high art. I wouldn't expect you or any of the other brutes to understand it." she retorted. At the mention of the opera, she knew quite well exactly what they were getting themselves into, because she had been trying to find time to go anyway. Being on the front line of a civilizational war was... restrictive. Tonight was the start of the second week of the hit new opera show The Fall of Fel, an epic, tragic dramatization of the Empire's decline into warlordism after the death of Rurik Fel. The reviews were rave. The politics were charged. The acting was superb. So they said. There weren't many dissenters left in the deep core who would openly criticize the obvious propaganda piece and it's jingoistic, even pseudo-religious themes that suggested the second coming of Darth Solipsis was always a bygone fate for the ailing old Empire. She seriously wondered if the Colonel would be seeing that.

"A good show, one with passion, and a nice glass of wine... has a transcendent quality to it." she mused. The Jedi weren't forbidden from the opera, but they certainly disagreed with her philosophy about it. Now, in the Dark Side Elite, she was surrounded by people she wasn't sure drank anything but the blood of their enemies.

"Can you even drink wine?"

Meliant