One Big Ol' Rescue - Again.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Routine is one hell of a bastard thing. Kinda sets on a person and hovers over them and makes time become a not-real thing. Days are either kept track of or not, depending on how it goes. Time spent earning a keep as a hunter, spent keeping watch for the Boss of all things Cloud City even if no one figured it out yet, bits and pieces of trying to become something a bit better than a rogue force user son of a bitch (or daughter as was the proper case with this particular once-lost soul), even long sessions of trying to decipher some infuriating data chip given by an uncle so a girl could go and properly track down her wayward mum.

All in all, same ol' dren - different days.

Not that it got a gal like Sadie's spirits all down, probably exact opposite really. Funny how having folks that well and truly give a damn about you could change an outlook. Oh, not that all days were sunshine and rainbows or none of that - and truth be told a fair lot more of them than should started the day off with a bottle of something that weren't exactly caffeinated and left a body more inebriated than they were when they first cracked eyes open. Still, things were, better, you reckon? Far might better than they had been.

Maybe that was why Sadie didn't go and get herself worked up over the fact that life had gotten a touch on the boring side as of late. The verse kept turning whether you did your darndest at trying to stay stationary or no.

Course it was when you went and got comfortable with that blasted routine that life always decides to come round and frak things up sideways. Least that's how some of the sayings go and how Sadie really thought things worked if genuinely asked about such a thing.

She'd been doing one of the usual things: sitting down in the Underworld part of Elysium, boots propped up alongside a console as her head took in more than her sight did as she watched the idle little lives of folks about Bespin. Bottle of something better than terrible courtesy of Boss and Uncle in hand, swigs downed as she gave the occasional look over to the data stream that was working overtime on tracking down one Ms Captain Elira Asael. As infuriating as an enigma the woman had been when Sadie knew nothing about her, she'd become downright a pain in the back of the head that refused to go away now that Sid knew more about the broad that she was supposed to call Mum. Somehow at some point in her life the good Captain had seen fit to up and vanish like the dust of an asteroid after it collided with something far bigger. That particular metaphor didn't exactly make her feel none the better as Sadie had started guessing that it might have been a bit too spot on. Info she got she kept to herself, no need to get Atton riled up over his sister or see that weird look on Inyos' face whenever the dame was mentioned. Not without no real info anyhow.

Was the beep from the console with the stream that went and threw a big ol error code into her humdrum life. Weren't the normal "yeah bitch, 'm processin' over here" beeps that went on from time to time, but rather one of them big 'ol "I'd be an alarm klaxon 'cept that might make Nen wet his pants if he were here" bleeps that got right under your skin. Enough of a difference for Sadie to half-choke on the illicit Corellian booze she was swilling.

"Kriffin' sonoffa..." Curse was more on account of the unexpected burning going down her throat and the slight waste that was having to be wiped from her chin.

"Got y' now, Ms. Oh So Sneaky." Sadie mumbled with a half smirk of victory forming on her lips that died before it fully came into being.

Course that would have been too damned easy. Nope, naturally it weren't that easy. Though, if Sadie were honest, if it'd been as simple as a Oh hi, here I am, hidin' in plain sight situation she would have found Captain Asael quite some time ago. Instead, she got stuck staring down a prisoner transfer order that would have made her blood run cold if it'd made any sense. Looked Imperial, but not any sort of Imperial she was used to. That was never a good thing. Hells, if one were to look at it on it's lonesome they wouldn't even probably be able to guess who it was for and Sadie guessed there was a bit of Force-Damned Luck to thank for her system to even catch it. Then again... way her life was, weren't The Force she had to thank for a lot of things so much as a skeevy sort that was a far better man than he'd like to let the verse know about.

Sadie eyed the comm button that she knew would connect her straight to the man himself. She didn't like making too much use of it, but it was there. One way hotline to Atton Kira with all his too-much-wisdom. She weren't positive it was his doing that this little tidbit had come her way, but either way, if there was anyone who was gonna be able to make heads or tails of political dren of this sort... well... sometimes you went with the devil y' knew... and were related to.

First thing was first though. A quick message was sent off elsewhere, to the person she was probably most comfortable with having her back out of the lot that had appeared willing to do so. After all, partners didn't keep things from each other and if anyone would understand the significance of the short I found something she whisked away, it would be Vittore Montegue.

[Vittore Montegue]

Routine was one hell of a bastard thing. Routine was the kind of thing that Vittore was hard-coded to pick up on, the kind of habits and patterns that made a target easy to stalk, and a hit easy to pull off. Sure, there were a few common sense routines like preflights and weapons care that made life go a mite smoother, but for the most part they were a noose that you wore around your neck like a tie, waiting for some opportunistic bastard to grab hold and hang you with them.

That was why Vittore had always lived the way he had: not on the run, but near enough. Constantly moving. Never overstaying his welcome. Never falling into the habit of ordering take-out from the same diners, or landing at the same familiar starports when the job circled him back to a world he'd seen before. Vittore told himself that it was good practice. A lot of bounty targets knew that danger might be coming their way, so the harder you were to predict and notice, the less likely they were to see them coming. Deep down though, Vittore knew something else - someone else - was to blame. This was the life he'd grown up with: the way of existing drilled into him by a father who was always looking over his shoulder. A lack of routine had become a habit; constantly running from nothing had become a noose all of it's own.

Maybe this was good, then. Maybe this new routine was breaking that bad habit. Unpredictably predictable. Avoiding notice by acting like a regular member of society. He was employed now. Regular wages. A proper, normal person job. Well, ish. A familiar set of voices feeding him the details of each new bounty. Reliable sources of intel. Okay sure, so some of the jobs that Shadowstar threw his way weren't exactly standard bounty hunter fare. Despite her assertions to the contrary, it didn't really count as a bounty if you were hunting down stuff and things instead of people and monsters. Hell, some of the jobs hadn't been illegal, which would have been boring as hell if it hadn't wound up turning into a glorified romantic get-away with Sadie.

And then there was Sadie. To call her a routine... well, Vittore had started bar brawls over that sort of insult. She was definitely a pattern, though. A beautiful, intricate, complicated pattern that he was absolutely tangled up in. Someone whose presence he'd come to depend on. Someone whose absense hurt like a wound. Someone who he could come home to. Home. When had that happened? When had he become someone who had not a base, or a lair, but a home to come back to - one where his heart was, to boot, living up to all the sayings and stereotypes.

So okay, maybe routines weren't so terrible. Maybe it wasn't so bad that he'd spent enough time here on Cloud City to know exactly where in the down-below parts of the city you could get the best breakfast tacos. Maybe it wasn't so bad that the teller at the store on the corner back there said Hi to him every time he passed, ever since he'd stopped those two dumb Rodian kids trying to rob the place with a cargeless blaster. Maybe it wasn't so bad that he could autopilot his way from place to place, getting where he needed to be without needing to look where he was going. Hell, if nothing else, it made it a damn sight easier to eat a tasty tac-fast - trademark pending - before the cheese and the pulled nerf had cooled and congealed into a stodgy lump of -

A curse snuck from Vittore's lips as the comlink in his pocket buzzed, and an overzealous bite squeezed a globule of greeze into a kamakaze plunge onto his clean - well, ish - shirt. A thumb scooped up the errant gelatinous deliciousness and deposited it into his mouth, before being sucked clean and making a few futile efforts to scrub the stain into invisibility. Twisting his wrist awkwardly to hold the breakfast taco aloft, he fished around in his pants pocket for the comlink, fumbling a little longer to flip the device into a non upsidedown position, and unlock the screen. Miss Shadowstar had insisted her new employee needed one of the gizmos so she could stay in contact - and keep tabs on him, most likely - and Sadie found it endlessly amusing how much he struggled. He didn't get it, though. What was wrong with a regular comlink that just played people's spoken words instead of all this data messaging and calendar reminders and weird little 'fresher games? The galaxy had survived just fine with pretty much the same technology for ten thousand years. Why was he the one that had to embrace all this damn change?

Whatever mental tirade had begun, it stopped in an instant as soon as the gizmo informed him that the message was from Sadie. A smile tried to sneak it's way onto his features, but he managed to kill it before it caught the attention of any witnesses. There was only one person allowed to know that sort of thing happened every time Sadie popped into his mind, and she wasn't here. She was in the -

Vittore was moving before his eyes had even finished their next blink. His legs kicked into autopilot - a little faster this time - weaving him through the largely non-human crowds on the familiar path to Shadowstar's nightclub, Elysium. At the last minute he deviated slightly, ducking down an access corridor and punching in his employee code to a keypad that was considerably newer and more sophisticated than the surrounding rusted pipework. He wasn't a club employee per se, but Shadowstar's businesses had something of a one-staff-fits-all policy. On the downside, it meant that Vittore had to work security shifts at the club from time to time; on the up, it made it far easier for her employees to explain why they were in the places she wanted them to be without too much undue scrutiny.

Vittore was through the stock room, past the several layers of covert security, and half way down the stairs into the Underworld before he realised just how hasty his pace was. It had started off as urgency to respond to the summons from his hunting partner - something that cryptic could have been anything from an Anzati in need of shooting to an adorable video about lothcats - but somewhere along the way it had morphed into a chest-clenching desire to hurry the hell up and be in the same room as her. That was bad. Deadly exploitable weakness bad. Right now though, surrounded by all this safety, with a rich broad, a spymaster, a few Jedi, a Mandalorian, and Force knows what else watching his back? It was a risk that felt worth it; and he sure as hell wasn't planning on bailing, not when Sadie still hadn't grown tired of him yet.

Slowing from an eager scamper into something a little more befitting a bounty hunter of his suaveness and composure, Vittore descended the rest of the way into the intel network's central hub, pacing across the shadowy space to where Sadie was sitting. An urge to lean down and wrap his arms around her overtook him, but he stopped himself midway. Things were complicated between them for obvious reasons, and he'd been adopting a strict follow-her-lead policy when it came to things that were physical and/or affectionate. Instead, he brandished his taco in her direction, wincing slightly at the conspicuous bite missing from the corner.

"Bought y' breakfast," he muttered as casually as he could manage, stretching out behind him to hook a chair with his foot and scootch it over. "Y' got somethin' to show me on those fancy screens a' yours?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Damned fool she was, having that grin take shape the second Sadie'd heard those familiar footfalls coming down the stairway. Oh, she'd managed to get it under order a bit before Vitt actually made his apperance, but it didn't hush the part of her that was scolding for acting like some drunk heart-eyed idiot. She figured it would stop on it's own accord in time, when things weren't so... whatever they were.

The questionable food choice he offered was waved off with a halfhearted "Nah, 'm good", leaving the liquid breakfast unmentioned. No reason to give worry when there weren't cause for none.

That left only the real questions and reasons behind and as much as Sadie wanted to just shoot the breeze with Vitt and act like her world weren't suddenly upset once again, sometimes you just had to go and face reality head on and get the frak over it.

A few quick movements of fingertips brought up the guilty parties on one of the larger screens. The prisoner document first and foremost with it's secretive dren and rather nondescript descriptions. Sadie nodded a head towards it with a hand waving a bit to follow suit.

"It's her. At least, 'm thinkin' it is. My..." Word was harder to say out loud and made her face scrunch up in a mix of one of them looks like there was a bad smell or she was thinking too hard. "Atton's sister."

Not the best, but it got the point across without her actually having to claim direct linkage to the individual.

"Doc itself don't give much as y' can tell. Not that I'd expect it t' have her name all plastered on it or nothin' but the little bit statin' it's a female and such matches right. By it's lonesome it ain't much, 'cept there was another thing linked to this one. Well, not direct like. Kinda more footnote or reference hidden in the background of the actual file that I had to dig for but that..."

Another quick motion and the prisoner transfer paperwork was pushed back in favor of another bland looking, though far more typical Imperial sort of datasheet.

"Impound and destruction order for a ship. VCX-100... which was what she was flyin' accordin' t' the data Atton gave me, and somethin' Inyos mentioned. Ain't a rare bird, but th' two t'gether..."

Sadie let her voice fade off as she leaned back in her seat and cast a glance at the bottle she'd been nursing earlier. When you went and looked at it with fresh eyes, as Vitt was, the lead seemed downright nonexistent. They wouldn't go after anything with this pittance. The ship could have belonged to any broad in the verse who got on the wrong side of the Empire, but as Sadie changed the view so both docs were side by side, the flat weirdness of the prisoner data and it's non-Imperial Imperialness stuck out and practically shouted at her in ways she couldn't pin.

A sigh that told of her frustration was let loose as Sadie went and dragged her hand down the right side of her face as if wiping it down would somehow make more sense of what was in front of her. Course, she weren't all that versed in things like this, neither. People didn't exactly pay her to save folks or look for 'em most days. She was getting more experience with that sort of thing since teaming up with Vitt, but Sadie weren't even closed to the seasoned hunter he was.

"Kriffin waste of time..." she muttered in some form of apology for dragging Vitt down here, but the damned thing refused to lie.

Another gesture was given to the prisoner transport log. Weren't exactly with hope that she asked, more of please don't let me look like a ruttin' incompetent dumbskrag. "Don't s'pose y've seen somethin' like this b'fore?"

[Vittore Montegue]

Atton's sister. Of all the things Vittore might have guessed the mystery summons was about, Sadie's mother barely made the list. Okay sure, it was no secret - not between the two of them, at least - that their frustrating data broker benefactor had garnered Sadie with a few scraps that she was using to rummage around the holonet for momma dearest. But it was a seemingly futile search, and not a wholeheartedly eager one, either. Vittore could understand that. He knew what it was like to have a mother you'd dread finding; and when it came to reluctant searches for asshole parents, Hugo Montegue made sure that base was firmly covered for him as well. Dad had a habit of dropping off the radar without a word, and by this point Vittore had given up even trying to look. Sadie wasn't there yet, though. What might happen when she actually found her mother was an unanswered - maybe even undecided - mystery, but there were still plenty of steps before that even needed considering.

Vittore's impulse was to admit he knew nothing. Sure, he'd seen a few Imperial format prison transfers in his time, but all this fancy analysis reading stuff wasn't exactly his area of expertise. Cambrio had always been the one with the flair for nerd stuff between them, and since his paternal-style vanishment, Vittore had been relying pretty heavily on Sleazy for that sort of thing. If there was some hidden correlation, some snippet of code or hidden data to be gleaned, some reference number who identified a specific shady Imperial officer that they could hunt down and extract information from at acid-coated knife-point, Vittore was most definitely not the person that would -

"Huh."

Vittore cocked his head to the side, squinting slightly, as if the effort would somehow bring the vague incling in his gut into sharper focus. He took a step closer, peering at the faint twinges of recognition within the bland and generic Imperial prose. A finger reached out, wafting towards a standard format set of spatial coordinates, and the rather dull-sounding name of the prison transport designated for the rendezvous. There was something familiar about them, and yet not. Something in the back of his head; one of those one of these things is not like the others feelings. He'd come to rely on those sorts of instincts over the years; although in his line of work, it usually meant that someone was about to start shooting at him.

"Can y' plug into th' mainframe on th' Tide?" he asked, already knowing it was a stupid question. He was sure there were a bunch of things that Sadie couldn't do, but as yet he hadn't managed to stumble across any of them. Hell, Sadie was already complying before his thoughts had even finished fully forming and tumbling out of his mouth. "Find the' research that Sleazy has been compilin' for me on -" Vittore grimaced as he felt the word brewing at the back of his throat: the shadowy entity or kabal that he'd stumbled across trying to have Emelie Shadowstar killed, landing them all in this weird set of circumstances in the first place. "- Sarlacc. Run the name of that prisoner transport, see if it..."

He didn't get to finish his sentence before results started blinking on the screen. Anathema. He knew that weird-ass name looked familiar. There it was, popping up in a transit report they'd dredged up after their visit to Ubrikkia to find the man who'd hired the psycho to kill Emelie, apparently on someone else's behalf. There though it was listed as a Bulk Cruiser, not a prisoner transport, and not one of Imperial origin either. And there it was again - or at least, an Imperial shuttle registered to the Anathema - showing up in the dock manifest at the resort where Chir'daki's shapeshifter minion had tried to kill Emelie wearing Vittore's face. The way things felt, Vittore wouldn't be surprised to find it there on Nar Shaddaa when he'd rescued Sadie from her former bandmates, or on any of the worlds where he and Sadie had worked together since.

"Same name," Vittore mused, watching as Sadie squeezed all the information she could out of her uncle's spy network. Civilian registries for bulk cruisers named Anathema. Three different Imperial ships of that name. A Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser from the old Republic Navy records. A disparate assortment of like-named ships. Different classes, different specifications, different owners and deployments. And yet, as Vittore watched, correlations began to be flagged. The same listed dimensions. The same manufacturing date. Matching values for benign criteria like cargo capacity, crew capacity, and hyperdrive speed. Routine servicing conducted at the same third party shipyards. A flicker of a triumphant smile graced Vittore's lips. "Same ship."

Nothing on those coordinates though. That realisation dragged his brow into a frown. A non-descript area of deep space on the rimward side of Hutt territory, a few parsecs from Kessel. Why did that area feel so familiar? More importantly, why the hell was a supposedly Imperial prison transport shipping a seemingly non-descript female smuggler to Kessel? Ever since the Starkiller Treaty had cut the galaxy in half, the Empire had been driven out of that side of the galaxy. The new Alliance of Free Planets blocked their avenues to the region, and a mix of Hutts and other underworld types had swarmed in to reclaim what had once been theirs. Kessel still operated as a prison world, it's new owners buying and selling prisoners to and from every gangster, corrupt politician, and dysfunctional sicko they could find. Kessel was not a place a sane person sent their worst enemy, let alone sat back and let their lady's mother wind up there.

But then, it wasn't his call, was it? Vittore had plenty of parental resentment, sure, but Elira Asael was in a league of her own. At least his father had been there to teach him the skills he needed to survive, instead of just abandoning him in the deadly crime-infested depths of Nar Shaddaa to fend for himself. For all Hugo's flaws and failings, at least he'd been there. At least he'd tried. Maybe being left to rot on Kessel for a lifetime was exactly what Sadie's mother deserved. What goes around comes around, and all that.

Still not his call though; not his decision to make. He placed a hand gently on Sadie's shoulder - a breach of his rules about not forcing her into physical contact, but it felt appropriate given the circumstances. "Looks like maybe you found her," he said quietly, trying to keep his voice as balanced and neutral as he could. "We gonna sit back an' let her get what's comin' to her, or did Elysian just find itself with a new target to acquire?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

What's comin' to her. There were times when Sadie thought that way, when bitterness replaced the usual mild curiosity mixed with apathy that she felt regarding her parents. All in all though, she'd long since decided that everything that'd gone down weren't their fault, not really. Kids were left behind by their folks all the time in this mixed up verse, sometimes with good reason, sometimes not; either way not a whole lot of them ended up like she had. True, a fair amount, but not all. If she wanted to start getting mad at that sort of thing, she'd have to look at herself and a fair amount of questionable decisions she'd gone and made throughout history first and Sadie'd had about enough self-loathing for a time to go down that road.

Besides, her curiosity had been poked at near enough that it was raw now and only ending all this skag was gonna mend it back to typical indifference. Then there was the matter of putting the effort in the first place towards finding the lady - what was the point if there was no follow through? It weren't like this was a hobby of hers or nothing.

"Well, if it's all blue skies and starlight with you, Cap'n, I'd say we should probably get Sleazy to start preppin' th' Tide."

The small bit of a smile that had gone and made an appearance faded a twinge as Sadie looked back at some of the specifications of the ship they were gonna be hunting down.

"Think I'm gonna let th' others know what we're on, see if they got any sorta words of wisdom or such." She tapped at a few of the entries Vitt had pulled off the Tide for emphasis. "Feelin' like this is gonna concern more than just me an' you an' the lady we're fixin' t' pull outta there."

[Vittore Montegue]

Vittore wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. Usually he would have already planned seven steps ahead, but when it came to Sadie, waiting for her decisions had become a sort of impasse. It wasn't that Sadie was ever problematic. It wasn't that he couldn't necessarily guess what she might want to do in a given situation, or at least have contingencies in place based on a few likely options. It just felt wrong somehow. It felt wrong to expect, or assume, or hope one way or another. So it was only now, when Sadie gave the go ahead for this entire situation, that the ramifications began to shift into focus in Vittore's mind.

Raiding an Imperial prison transport was no small thing. True, it wasn't as dangerous as saving a pink-haired damsel from a murderous shapeshifter and his psychotic Force-wielding back up. It wasn't as dangerous as storming the seedier districts of Nar Shaddaa based on sketchy intel to rescue a total stranger. It wasn't fighting Anzati, or krayt dragons, or howlrunners, or Jedi fugitives, or any of the other crazy things that he'd been paid to do over the years. It wasn't even the first time that Vittore had gone and deliberately swiped someone from under the Empire's nose. But that didn't exactly make this trivial. In a galaxy full of people having bad feelings about things, apparently it was Vittore's turn to take center stage.

He scrubbed a hand across his mouth, pondering the possibilities. "Yeah," he muttered, in quiet agreement with Sadie's sentiment. "I've got a feelin' your uncle is gonna have a thing or two t' say about this."

[Atton Kira]

"Absolutely bloody not!"

It hadn't taken long for Atton Kira to reach the Underworld from his modest but comfortable apartment. It was hardly the lap of luxury, but the situation necessitated it: Atton's cover here on Cloud City was as the manager of the Elysium nightclub on Miss Shadowstar's behalf. That justified something considerably less seedy than some of the places his lifestyle had led him to live over the years, but it was a far cry from the kind of comfort that a man of his means - his true means, rather than the carefully constructed fabrication he presented to the rest of the galaxy - should have been able to obtain. It was comfortable enough at least that being awoken by Sadie's message had been met with a certain amount of short-lived annoyance; but as soon as his mind had processed the sender, and the subject, he'd left for the Underworld with as much urgency as he could muster.

Now that he was here, the urgency had deepened, transforming into a sense of panic that Atton carefully disguised as anger.

"You're telling me that you suspect that my sister might - might! - have got herself snatched up by the very same shadowy cabal that has tried to kill members of our cosy little business arrangement on several occasions, and your plan is to rush in blindly and, what, ask the crew of an alleged Imperial prison transport if they'd kindly hand her over?"

There was more to say, clawing at the back of Atton's throat, begging to springboard off his tongue if he was willing to give it even half a chance. Most of it was selfish, and he bitterly resented himself for that, but there was at least a little validity to it. After a lifetime forced to watch his sister's daughter from a far, finally she was here, finally he could forge some kind of relationship with her without all the deception and subterfuge; and here she was, all too willing to throw away the family she'd found on a pipe dream to locate the mother who had abandoned her. If Elira really was in danger, then Atton perhaps more than anyone would do everything in his power to ensure her liberation and safety - but did the prospect of an absent mother outweigh a caring uncle to such an extent that she'd risk everything on a suicidal one-in-a-billion chance? Let me handle it, is what he wanted to say. Or at least, Let your expendable boyfriend handle it - that was what they paid Captain Montegue for, after all.

But he couldn't say such things. He didn't know how to, and hadn't earned the right to. He was the brother of Sadie's mother, but the debt he owed to her for the life he'd allowed her to live was too far in deficit for him to presume to treat her as an uncle would treat a niece. Not now; perhaps not ever. But that was not all he was. Familial connection or not, he was still her employer of a sort, and that opened up an alternative path for him to express his objection to her poorly conceived notions. Even so, he chose to aim his ire mostly at the bounty hunter rather than the slicer: it was just easier that way.

"Is madness contagious with you two, or has convergent evolution just coincidentally turned you both into the pinnacle of human stupidity?"

[Sadie K'Vesh]

This was the part of having family and a steady employer that Sadie still hadn't gotten the full grip of. Sure, maybe Atton had been running the brunt of her life all secret from the shadows, but Sadie had felt damn sure that she had made most of the choices in what she did, where she went, and other such dren. Folks didn't tell Sadie what she couldn't do, they got the hell out of her way and let her do her damn job and paid her credits and that was the end. This new deal was starting to remind her of them Rebellion types she'd attached to for a spell. They hadn't exactly commanded her to help save the verse and all, but their rhetoric was enough for an entire lifetime and she had no desire to let other people start calling the shots on her life then and certainly wasn't too keen on it now. Never mind that she was conveniently forgetting the fact she'd let Bog tell her no plenty, but that was more on account of what could happen if you told him to go frak himself otherwise, a phantom twinge around her midsection was enough of a reminder to bring her back to senses before she spouted off some obscenity at Atton.

"That ain't fair." She managed to make it sound more accusatory than petulant. "Don't go thinkin' y' kin just call this all off on account that you don't like th' situation. Yeah, it's bad but we ain't stupid, Uncle."

Sadie had started learning how to use the familial title as a weapon, it seemed. She was right sure none would be proud of that particular pickup.

"Ain't gonna go flyin' in blind, th' jump t' Kessel is more than 'nuff time f' me t' get more info on the place and it ain't like Vitt don't know how to do this proper like. Yeah, sure, we could use ourselves a sort that's good in covert dren, but pretty sure Vitt and I can manage to not set off every alarm in the entire system. I've done my fair share o' breakin' in an' gettin' outta places an' this ain't no diff'rent, 'cept nabbin' a person instead of a thing."

Her arms crossed as Sadie didn't exactly glare at Atton, but she was standing her ground, sure as anything.

"This weren't askin' for permission. This was me tellin' y' what was goin' down so nobody goes an' has a fit when me an' Vitt head off and maybe get some gorram help from folks I figured would be all for givin' it. She's your frakkin, sister, Atton, my mum. All maybe bad blood aside, y' can't just expect me t' go an' leave her to a fate that might end up all similar t' m' own. I went through all th' hells an' only came back 'cause of you an' Vitt an' Em. Don't you dare ask me t' let m' mum go without that sort of savin'."

[Atton Kira]

The muscles bunched along Atton's jawline, teeth clenched hard against each other. It was good to focus on anger and annoyance; made it easier to hide just how much it stung to have those kinds of accusations hurled in his direction. Perhaps this was the real reason he'd watched from a distance for so long. He told himself, and her, that it had all been for her safety, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was himself that he was shielding, from having a vulnerability that could be so effortlessly exploited.

"Don't you dare."

His voice was quiet, little more than a whisper. His eyes moved slowly to hers, purposefully, as if the utmost concentration and restraint was required to constrain his actions to only that.

"Don't you dare."

There was a faint quiver in his voice as a sliver of anger crept through, but something all together different had painted itself across his eyes and brow. His arms stayed by his sides, muscles clenched tight to prevent him from mirroring Sadie's stance. There was something all to familiar about this, and about her: something at the genetic level, some resemblances that couldn't be scrubbed away no matter what environmental factors were involved. If this were Elira, there'd be roughly three seconds before the shouting match began, accusation countered with accusation, until they had strayed so far from how it began that neither could remember what they were fighting about, and nothing worthwhile or truthful had been said. It's how siblings were supposed to be, allegedly, but in all the years since Atton had regretted nothing more: regretted never saying what needed to be said, and needed to be heard. Not now, though. That mistake would not be repeated for another generation.

"You think I don't care?" There was a hiss of bitterness in Atton's words, a scrunched up frown on his features as he picked apart Sadie's accusations. "You think a woman you've never met, never known, would never even recognise if you walked past her on the street, somehow means more to you than she does to her own flesh and blood? You think that after all the years I spent trying to watch over you, it doesn't tear my heart in half to think that she's about to spend the short remainder of her days in a hell hole like Kessel? You think that I wont do anything, and everything, to find her and keep her safe? You think that data chit of information, everything I've ever learned from keeping tabs on her your entire life, you think I have that because she's meaningless and I don't give a damn?"

He took a lurching step closer, but any sense of threat quickly morphed and faded. Tense shoulders slumped, clenched muscles slackened, eyes that had been trying to glare through Saidra finally coming into focus on her gaze. A single hand reached out, a faint fleeting contact taking hold of Sadie just above her elbow.

"After all these years, I finally got to meet you. I finally get to know you."

His eyes and his hand fell away.

"I don't want to lose that. Please. There must be another way."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

His little tirade wanted to be ignored, brushed off like it rightly should have been not all that long ago; instead it stuck in like a badly thrown dart across a bar. He had her on some points, like how it was wrong to go acting like Atton didn't care none, or even that Sadie cared more. She did care, though, 'bout some woman she'd never even met save once in her life when she was just entering it; and Atton had a point there too - maybe not entirely one he meant to make, but it was there all the same. Elira Asael didn't have a damn thing to do with her kid, she wouldn't know Sadie from any other girl in the verse and in a way that kinda made her the anonymous sort that most people didn't give a dren about. No matter how hard the rational side of her was saying that that wasn't how it really was, there was still that nagging voice in the back of her head now asking why it was that Sadie gave a damn about a mother who didn't give a damn about her.

The irksome line of thinking was only slightly hushed as Atton went on and rounded out the truth of it. He didn't want her to go because he was... well... being selfish. Maybe not in an undeserving way but the man had a point, if Sadie were to run off on her onsies to go save her mum there was no guarantees that Atton would get either one of them back. Kira wasn't a gambler, it seemed. Not wanting to risk what he had in favour of the possibility of more. Sadie couldn't blame him none for that. Couldn't blame him on pointing that obvious fact out none either.

"Y' really have such lil faith in me an' Vitt?" The question came out soft like, not really expecting an answer. "I ain't plannin' on not comin' back. I ain't plannin' on not spendin' time with y' if she's around. I mean, 'm s'posed t' gripe about my mum bein' a hardass at times t' someone, yeah? Pro'ly best t' do that with someone who knows how it is."

The downcast visage that had taken hold lightened just enough as Sadie tried to crack a smile, tried to revert back to being all surefire and firm in her decision - even if it was wavering a bit.

"I know y' don't wanna risk nothin', I know y' care - 'bout me an' her. But... Y'know me. The stuff I've helped do... the stuff I ain't proud of. People I've gone an' hurt, lives I've gone an' undone... Even if she weren't my mum... Even if she was jus' someone this family knows... I gotta do somethin'. I can't just sit back an' let somethin' bad happen if I know I can fix it. I've gone into worse than this, you should know that and if y' don't, then when this is over me an' you are gonna have one long talk about big ugly lizards, savy?" Another one of them smiles was attempted but failed as Sadie got the feelin' she was getting downright nowhere with this line of argument.

"An' it ain't just gonna be me. I've got Vitt..."

A brief pause was taken to cast an uncertain smile towards her partner. Being around him made her feel damn near invincible somedays, but Sadie knew that effect was only for her benefit and she couldn't go and expect anyone else to buy into the whole feeling like the two of them could take on the entire galaxy. Sobering thought in a way, and it made her turn back to Atton.

"I asked th' others for help too... But I asked you first. You're sayin' there's gotta be another way... so, offer somethin' up. If we've got options we're damn blind to, make 'em known. If there's favours you can call in..."

The sigh that left her weren't quite defeated like, but it was edging close.

"Look, I ain't asked you for nothin' - not that y've exactly left me wantin' none since I got here but... This is me, askin' y'. Please. We gotta do somethin'."

[Atton Kira]

I asked you first.

What reaction could their possibly be to that, other than surrender? The context didn't help, either: not a reckless, self-destructive urge, but a desperate desire to act, to help, to somehow have done something. Atton knew the burden of inaction, knew the weight of that kind of guilt and regret, knew the sleeplessness of wondering how things might have been if you'd made even a single choice differently. It was the one notion that united every sentient being in the galaxy, the one emotion that every form of life could feel. If there had been no other reason, wanting to act to avoid the regret of not acting might almost have been enough.

Atton was prepared to throw every resource he had at Elira's rescue. Enough time, enough money, and enough lubricated palms could solve almost any problem, in his experience. A little effort on a false identity, and he could strut into Kessel as a potential buyer, taking Elira off their hands the quasi-legitimate way. There were enough disenfranchised former Rebels floating around the galaxy that a strike team for hire wasn't out of the question, if it came down to a full raid on the prison complex. But there was an urgency in Saidra's eyes, a desire to act now - and perhaps that was not unfounded. If this source indeed pointed to Elira, and if their suspicions of Sarlacc's involvement were correct, then Elira's capture was hardly trivial. This was not one of the myriad times that Atton had bailed her out of lock up, or worked his legal finesse to exonerate her from whatever trouble she'd found herself in. This was serious. This was dubious. This was a prison where captives went to die. This was at the behest of a group who had made a habit of endangering Atton's associates. Was this the next step? Was this a trap, a lure, a sign that they had uncovered Atton's hidden involvement, or Saidra's true identity, and planned to use Elira's capture - real or fake - to draw them out?

That thought alone was unnerving. That thought alone should have been enough to discourage rash action. But this was Sadie K'Vesh, multiplied to the power of Vittore Montegue. Patience and strategy was not their forte: action and improvisation was. And, like it or not: this was his niece, and she'd said please.

"Of course there's favours I can call in," he countered, surprised to find a slight hint of a smile on his lips. It might even have been pride, aimed in Saidra's direction. An odd feeling, that. One he had very little experience with. "I'm Atton bloody Kira, I'm made of favours."

Atton shook his head.

"Faith though? That's something I don't deal in. You and Captain Montegue are perfectly competant at what you do, but this is not that. The two of you, alone, against opposition we only have the sketchiest of information about? A ship we don't know, forces we have no data on, motives we can't discern - those are bad odds. It's a bad bet. You might not plan on dying, but that seldom stops it from happening."

He let out a faint sigh of his own, almost a perfect mirror of Sadie's.

"But you are very much your mother's daughter, and if you've made your mind up about this, I'd have better luck winning an argument with a black hole. Which I suppose means I have no choice but to help you, if I have any desire to see you survive past the end of the week."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

It wasn't the first time someone had done gone and compared Sadie to her mother - maybe that was another reason she had some actual interest in meeting her - and Sadie weren't quite sure if it was to be considered a compliment or not. Still she had the answer she rightly wanted and if Sadie had been any girl but her there probably would have been some sort of gleeful reaction at gettin' her way that might end with some squealing and hugging.

As it just so happened though, Sadie was still herself and while she did feel a might bit of satisfaction at having talked Atton out of his flat refusal, she still held stuff close enough that the most Atton got was a seriously heartfelt "Thank you," that came with some uncomfortable shuffling and a slight reach out as if she weren't sure if she should shake his hand orwhatnot. Though, if the man claimed to know her half as well as he said he did, he'd figure out how sincere she was; something about the way her features softened and her eyes didn't leave his for a tick or two.

That same appreciation was turned on Vittore next, on account of him letting her fight this one on her own, trusting her to do so. There had been no doubt that if push came to shove that Vitt could have gotten Kira involved whether he liked it or not. Thankfully it hadn't come to that.

"Right then..." Sadie snagged a datapad from where it was sitting and nodded to herself as she looked it over. "Well, Boss Lady already said that she'd help however she can, though not sure what all that means. Nen I think will be down, even if he's probably gonna hate us all a bit for it on th' temp'rary, an' Vhi said he's willin' to come if we need him - though called us a buncha suicidal morons for our trouble, an' Inyos... well... I haven't heard back yet."

[Inyos Aamoran]

The security doorway at the top of the stairs to the Underworld swung open, a beige jacketed shoulder in hot pursuit, dragging a lurching figure behind it. A quick stumbled series of steps was taken before Inyos Aamoran managed to catch himself, brushing a hand down the front of his outfit in an attempt to restore his composure. From the way that attention in the room had shifted, it was clear that his not exactly stealthy entrance had not gone unnoticed; Inyos didn't let the attention phase him, descending the stairway as casually as he could manage given the circumstances, and also pretty much everything about him as a person.

"I believe the security door may be in need of some maintenance," he explained, gesturing over his shoulder with a thumb in case there was any confusion as to which security door he might be referring. His head cocked slightly to one side by a fraction of a degree, a beat of silence following before he explained further. "It required a little more encouragement to open than is usual."

Satisfied that he had provided an appropriate amount of explanation, he let his words hang in the air for a moment of quiet consideration, before turning his attention to Saidra directly.

"I recieved your message, and came as quickly as I could. From the lack of punctuation and the spelling errors, it seemed quite urgent."

[Sadie K'Vesh]

"Like I kriffin know how t' spell Padawan..." Sadie grumbled quietly in defense. Girl could code and slice just about anything but personal correspondence could get... messy. Especially when you sent out varied messages to different people because one big blanket Found Mom, Need Help seemed cold and disgenuine. A person could only be expected to explain the situation so many ways so many times and keep composure and by the time she'd gotten to Inyos it had been rather vague and more like one of those infuriating one lined Spacebook posts if Sadie were honest with herself... Frak it.

Well, there was no sugar coating anything from the Jedi, that was for damn sure and the other two knew the full score so trying to make it sound nice just wasn't gonna happen - he'd know better.

"Guessin' y' got no objections t' helpin' th' lot of us free m' mum from an Imperial Prisoner Transport that may or may not actually be run by Imperials b'fore it actually gets itself to Kessel and we gotta then try an' plan a proper prison break into one of th' bleakest places in th' verse?"

[Inyos Aamoran]

"You are my Padawan, and Elira was -"

He trailed off, feeling an uncomfortable twist in his gut. Elira was from his past, back before the dark side had reached out across the stars, lured him into it's inescapable embrace, and used his psyche as a plaything for a decade. She had been there, back when Inyos still clung to the notion that the Jedi were something that might survive and endure. She had been there when Inyos had still been the man he once was, back when to save and protect had been his driving impulse instead of the mere hidden survival that had taken hold these past years. Elira had been his Captain. She had plucked Inyos and Mandan from their fugitive flight across the galaxy. She had been there as Inyos broke, wounded by the loss of his first Padawan. He did not know the correct adjective, but she and her ship had been home once. Undeniably, she had saved Inyos from the fate that had befallen so many of his fellow Jedi, and now the opportunity presented to repay that long overdue debt.

"- a friend," he settled upon, an appropriately simple descriptor given the circumstances. "If she requires rescuing, and you wish for my assistance, I will not stray from your side until she is safe."

[Vittore Montegue]

"Well then."

Vittore rocked a little on his feet, smiling with his eyebrows at the group. Well, at Atton and Sadie, at least. Things were still a little wonky and weird having the Jedi guy around. Being around any kind of Jedi was a pretty odd experience, with all his dad's rhetoric and hatred still rattling around in his head, not to mention all the Force User bounties he'd cashed in over the years - not exactly a proud moment, especially not nowadays. It was weirder still that it was this Jedi, the same one that he, and Dad, and Cambrio had accidentally-on-purpose freed from some creepy ghost-infested nightmare planet a few years back. That was a long, weird story; one that Vittore preferred not to talk about, think about, accidentally dream about after eating too much junk food - y'know, the usual best left forgotten sort of thing.

Still, Sadie was this guy's Padawhatsit or something now. That was an important part of who she was now, and Vittore respected that - and by virtue of secondary transfer, he respected this Inyos guy. Or at least, he was trying to. Struggling to. But trying. That seemed like a pretty appropriately Jedi thing to do, right? Even if you don't succeed, it's best to at least try?

Vittore shrugged the thoughts off, and reinforced his smile, fixing Atton Kira with a look. A hand clapped their co-benefactor enthusiastically on the shoulder. "Ain't just the two of us, now there's -" Vittore hesitated for a moment, silently counting up the names that Sadie had already mentioned he gave up at five, and embraced vagueness instead. "- a whole buttload a' folks involved. Odds are already startin' to look up, huh?"

[Atton Kira]

"Oh yes," Atton replied, a liberal dose of sarcasm injected into his words. "Two amoral reprobates, a day-drunk floozy, Cloud City's foremost slicer and her idiot sidekick, and this washed-up excuse for a Jedi."

A slight swell of anger and frustration surfaced out of nowhere, a frustrated gesture of his arm thrown in Inyos' direction. He struggled hard to bury it down, not to dwell on the fact that he resented the Jedi for being the only other would-be rescuer to have ever actually known Elira Asael. There was more to it than that, but it twisted like a knife in his gut, the value of his participation slowly diminishing. It was a petty, selfish thought, and one he hated having: the more people involved, the more diluted his contribution would become, and the further he would get from being the one who reunited parent and child. As soon as Elira and Saidra met, one of two things would happen, as far as he could foresee; and both involved his sister's anger and ire for breaking his promise to leave her daughter well enough alone.

Their odds of survival might have increased, albeit slightly, but Atton's expectations of a happy outcome at the end of all this faded moment by moment.

"Far be it from me to place a damper on all this self-sacrificial enthusiasm, but before we all march off to our deaths, I don't suppose we could pause for a moment and try to conceive an actual bloody plan?"

[Inyos Aamoran]

A few Parsecs from Kessel

The blunted, bulbous spear of a Dreadnaught Heavy Cruiser pierced into the inky blackness of space. Normally, a field of pinprick stars would have acted as a backdrop for the aging vessel, but out here so close to the galaxy's outer edge, that familiar sight was all but absent. Instead, the rimward view was an eerie vacant void; and towards the core, countless thousands of stars formed together into a bulging, pale golden cloud. It was a strange spectacle, and one that many often found haunting. For those out here on the galactic rim, the civilized segments of space were something distant, and other; something to be stared at, slicing across the horizon on cold clear nights, a gentle reminder of just how far removed they were from any one or anything that mattered.

Against that swirling curtain of coreward stars, three tiny pinpricks shimmered into being - unnoticed - as hyperspace rippled and catapulted three starships back into reality. Such a sight might have been graceful, even majestic under certain circumstances, but not today. The instant their sublights bit against hard, familiar vacuum, the three modest-style craft surged into life. At the forefront, a Delta-7 peeled away from the triad, it's hull juddering and shuddering as magnetic clamps liberated it from the hyperspace ring that had conveyed it thus far. A few quick bursts of thrust, and the antique Jedi Starfighter surged out from within the ring's embrace, leaving it tumbling slowly in it's ion wake. A Baudo yacht chased after, slower but no less majestic, sweeping through the stellar void like some graceful creature from the depths of an alien ocean. It loomed over the Syliure-31, a glowing rectangular maw opening on the craft's ventral surface, the gravitational influence of a tractor beam reaching out to snare the hyperspace ring and draw it in tight. Last of the three crimson-hulled vessels came the stocky form of a BTL-B Y-Wing; smaller than the Baudo, but not by much, her hull still clad in the pristine hull plating of last generation's war, not stripped and laid bare like the derelict cousins flown by the Rebel Alliance. Her progress was slow and steady, banking out from her ruddy-skinned counterparts, the threesome loosening their formation as they advanced upon the Dreadnaught.

Behind the controls of the Delta-7, Inyos spurred a little more speed from the ion drives, pulling out ahead of the other ships. Once, a Jedi Starfighter such as this would have been one of the fastest ships in the Republic, and without the excess weight of hyperdrive systems and fuel there to slow it down, it certainly outstripped the star bomber and the pleasure yacht. How it would fare against whatever defenses the Dreadnaught Anathema could muster was another question entirely; but it was a familiar question, one faced by the Jedi Knights when they'd first clashed with the Confederacy's droid fighters. Inyos took some comfort in that, and in this. Racing across the stars, towards a starship once used by Republic and Separatists alike, in a starship that was as much of an antique as he was? For the first time in a long time, Inyos felt like a familiar person. A clear mission. A clear purpose. Someone to save. Safely tucked away from the observing eyes of anyone that might witness his uncharacteristic display of emotion, Inyos couldn't help but smile.

He only permitted his enjoyment to last a few seconds however, flipping off the distracting emotions with the same simple effort it took to charge the fighter's blasters. P-Thirteen did his part, modifying the fighter's tactical display with a simplified view of the Dreadnaught ahead, and the Elysian advance towards it. Inyos watched as a dozen pinpricks of red bled from beneath the Anathema's holographic representation, forming themselves into a jagged line lancing ominously in his direction.

"Dreadnaught has launched fighters," Inyos announced aloud, knowing that his words would be snatched up by the fighter's communications array, and beamed to the other ships via a complex encryption that Saidra had explained in words he understood roughly three percent of. Fortunately, that three percent was the most important part: something about a compression algorithm that could only be decrypted if you had one of the only three droids in the cosmos fitted with the appropriate decoder. Given that those three droids all shared the perilous trait of being on a ship that had a high likelihood of exploding before capture, that all added up to a reassuring level of privacy on comms.

Not that Inyos Aamoran was capable of relaxing his cautious, war-trained radio habits, of course.

"Deploying countermeasures."

A heartbeat after he uttered those words, Inyos' fingers depressed the trigger on the fighter's control yoke, two projectiles lurching forth from the Delta-7's torpedo tubes in response. Rather than the trailing glow of a proton torpedo however, the missiles glinted with odd surfaces and non-standard additions. Half a second and a few hundred meters out, the projectiles veered sharply off course as P-Thirteen seized control of their guidance systems. Jammers and transponders sparked into life, the tactical display flickering as the unseen missiles magically transformed into a pair of pirate starfighters. Inyos watched as the other ships deployed countermeasures of their own, three insignificant craft suddenly transformed into an imposing force of raiders, approaching from all directions as the decoys moved into their intended positions.

A crunch of static preceded a faintly distorted voice over the comms. "The Dreadnaught just tried to send a distress call," the voice explained; exactly as Atton had predicted, between bouts of complaints and criticisms that Inyos saw for what they were - deflections to hide how important this rescue was. "We're jamming, for now, but you can bet it won't take long before they spool up the hyperdrives and jump out of here."

Inyos' mouth narrowed into a thin line; a hand reached out to siphon a little power from his aft shields and inject it into his engines, adding a few micro-units of much needed expediency.

"Moving into position to draw their fire," Inyos replied, hauling back hard on the stick, his fighter tumbling into an elegant spiral that aligned it along the Dreadnaught's longitudinal axis. It didn't take long for the Imperial crew - Atton's efforts and contacts had managed to uncover frustratingly little about the ship and it's operators, but they had at least been able to confirm that they were indeed Imperial; or at least had been, before the galaxy split in half - to confirm that Inyos' efforts were working as intended, viridian javelins of turbolaser fire spewing from the Dreadnaught in his direction, dodged thanks to a mix of inherent inaccuracy and the Force's precognitive input on Inyos' flying. "Now would be a good time to begin your attack run, Captain."

A moment of hesitation drifted through Inyos' mind. He almost didn't say it.

"May the Force be with you."

[Vittore Montegue]

Force damn it. The asshat just had to go and say it, didn't he?

"Way to jinx us," Vittore muttered, safe in the knowledge that Katie had learned to screen his messages before transmitting, and filter out the ones that weren't actually meant to be sent. It was one of the unsung services that made the little ginger-topped droid such a valuable companion; little actions that spoke of familiarity and insight that had earned her Vittore's total trust.

Vittore's manoeuvre into position was less graceful than the one Inyos had performed, but was no less effective. While Inyos in his nimble Jedi Starfighter - which frankly was cool as hell, and when this was all over Vittore was determined to get the thing in a hanger and run his hands all over that sleek and sexy little minx of a thing - had swung around to approach the Dreadnaught from her bow, Vittore and Sadie had banked out wide, coming at the heavy cruiser from below and behind. There were probably a hundred different inappropriate jokes Vittore could have drawn on in that moment; but the simple fact was that, whether you were hunting a Dreadnaught, a krayt dragon, or just about anything else, behind and below was a pretty damned effective place to be.

"Force my ass," Vittore continued to grumble, leaning forward to reach the stabilizer controls, body straining against the safety harness that held him secure into the pilot's seat. "Only thing I need with me is raw talent and awesomeness."

A fraction of a second passed before Vittore leaned back in his seat, cocking his head over his shoulder slightly to aim his voice at his gunner. It didn't make a damned bit of difference - on this breed of Y-Wing, the pilot and the gunner were safe and snug in their own airtight private little bubbles, and the ship's intercom relayed speech from one to the other no matter which way you were facing, but it was one of those weird habits, y'know? Felt like the right thing to do, so you did.

"An' you as well, o'course, babe," he added, just in case Sadie had been listening in on his mutterings.

He drew in a slow breath, fidgeting slightly in his seat as the Dreadnaught's engine array loomed ahead, letting the gas seep gradually from his lungs as the range to target indicator slowly ticked down. "Might wanna hold on t' your lunch back there," he warned, fingers stretching out one after the other as he adjusted his grip on the controls. "Stuff's about to get fun."

With a rapid snap of the control stick, and a finger jammed down hard on a pre-programmed string of thrust commands for the manoeuvering jets, the Y-Wing suddenly lurched into a rapid, jerking roll, inverting itself in a split second to reorientate the Dreadnaught beneath them. Vittore jerked the opposite way on the stick, a quick surge of opposite inertia compensating for the roll that had turned out slightly more zealous than intended. Another minor course correction aimed the Y-Wing's nose guns a little further down towards the Dreadnaught's hull. "Light 'em up, Katie," Vittore instructed, and in an instant a series of slowly twitching target reticules appeared on the heads up display, the waving line of a projected course connecting a path through each of the Dreadnaught hyperdrive's external vulnerabilities.

An anxious warble from Katie immediately grabbed Vittore's attention. "Balls," he hissed with a wince, watching as two angry-looking dots appeared at the edge of the Y-Wing's targeting range. "Looks like our decoys ain't decoyin' so good," he mused, making a mental note to give Nen an earful about his fancy little useless gizmos later. "Got three TIEs inbound, Sadie; five o'clock high. Ain't got time t' do this the easy way, though. Keep our ass covered. I'm takin' us in."

[Mal'achi Ath-Thu'ban]

Aboard the Dreadnaught Anathema

"You know, I have never prided myself on foresight, not in the literal sense, but still one can't help but attempt to predict the outcome of things - sentient nature, I suppose. Still, out of everything I have mused regarding this... this I did not expect."

There was an almost wistful manner in which Mal'achi spoke, and perhaps it wasn't entirely false as he watched the antiquated Jedi Starfighter in particular. For being aboard a ship that was currently under assault though, he seemed calm, comfortable almost; hands clasped behind is back as he watched the proceedings as if simply gazing out at the diminished starlight. His head turned, just enough to address the individual behind him, a fleeting look of sympathy crossing his face at their current situation.

"They say the former Emperor was gifted with such things, that he would assure his underlings that everything was proceeding according to his visions." Mal'achi paused as his eyes left the other person and returned to the scene unfolding before them outside the viewport. "I wonder then, did he see his own demise? Was that part of his great plan?"

The end sounded almost mocking, verging on contempt but filled with the haughty sureness that nothing ill would come of such a statement that was once taboo.

"Ah, but here I am rambling on when clearly we must prepare you for your..." Mal'achi spun on his heel slowly, his mouth curving into a cruel smile as he stepped towards the dark haired woman strapped to the torture chair. "Do you even have any friends anymore? I would have figured you would have alienated them all long ago, Lady Asael."

If a look alone could convey a swift biting retort, then surely it would look akin to the way the woman's features changed just then. Mal'achi could only answer with another grin, satisfied that he at least had the mind to take away the woman's ability to actually voice her scathing remarks. Captain Elira Asael was known for her usage of words as weapons, and there was no way that he would let her continue to be armed for the duration of her stay. Besides, he wasn't exactly attempting to retrieve information from her. Not yet anyway, someone else was going to have that pleasure.

"Asael," he repeated, treating the word as if it carrying a displeasing taste. "I'll never understand why you chose that ridiculous surname as your own when you had access to a fair more respectable one. After all, it's not as if you and father were exactly close, now is it?"