Obscured: The Switch

[Jared Thule]

"If I ever catch you alone after this, sonnyboy, you're dead meat, you know tha---aaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAARGH!"

That damned old hag just wouldn't shut up. Jared had lost count of how many times he'd used the zapper on her, but judging by the dark bruise that was slowly discolouring to a nasty shade of purple yellow on her shoulder, it couldn't have been less than 20.

At least now we're home, he thought, and grinned. The grin quickly into a lopsided frown, since he remembered what that meant, as well: having to confront Isard again.

Well, at least his mission had gone as planned. Find Moranda Savich, follow her, and bring her back when commanded - and he had done just that. No one had said anything to him about helping her in whatever she had to do, or being nice to her afterwards. Still, it had almost not been worth it - even only the past 36 hours trapped on the same ship with that foul-mouth of a woman was bad enough to turn a mission that had been more of a paid holiday, sour. Very sour.

He zapped her again, just because it made him feel better.

"AAAAAAAAargh! You damn bastard, I didn't even say anything! You deserve no less than...."

He drowned out her words from his consciousness, and walked on. Closer... all the time closer to Isard.... closer to finishing this assignment and never having to hear another word of Moranda Savich or get another glimpse of her sour-faced sneer again...

Heaven...

[Ysanne Isard]

Somewhat unorthodox, maybe, but not entirely unsuccessful. Still, it won't do - he will have to be punished...

A very stimulating thought.

At least so it was to Ysanne Isard, as she watched the arrival of her last remaining loyal agent - loyal, because she had brought him with her from Krake's, where he had not shown any interest in following Tondry into service on Coruscant. Thule was perhaps not the brightest and most promising of the small group remaining to her, yet he was one she could rely on to carry out her orders without any argument.

It was frustrating in itself, to have to realise that the once so proud Empire could not offer better men than agent Thule - that dissension would eat at the ranks of the remaining faithful until none would be left that could longer be trusted. It was frustrating - and it was utterly, utterly irritating to her - that the standard of recruitment would have sunk so low as to afford no better than these unthinking, unoriginal, unchallenging men and women that she now had to deal with every day.

And yet, necessity could still cause improvement. It seemed as if at least this agent had begun to have at least a few creative thoughts of his own. And yet, she would have preferred him the way he had been - this change bode ill, at least in her eyes.

As she watched him walking up to her office, she alerted her guards to his presence, and gave them leave to let him and his prisoner enter. It puzzled her, that he would have the daring to treat his prisoner in such a way, in these surroundings. It was something he would have lacked the courage to do, if this had still been the old days. Maybe it had not been safe to let him look after the Savich woman; that one could corrupt even Jedi if she had enough time.

Thinking of her now, letting her name fill her mind... it brought forth associations, images of a future she had yet to fill. When had a mortal, ordinary human being ever felt such power at her hands as at this hour? Life and death had often before been at her disposal, yet it seemed different now - not only was it life and death, but an entire life at her command.

The sharp metallic taste of blood filled her mouth - she realised that she had bit her own lip; such was the degree of her excitement at the closeness of the fullfillment of her plans. It would not be much longer until someone other than her would fill the seat she now inhabited, until she would be gone. Everything she had worked for during the last few months, every little detail of her plans had driven her towards this point; and now she was so close that only hours were still separating her from the new future.

This was the beginning of the end; the end of the beginning. With an eagerness that animated her face to a level she rarely exhibited, Ysanne ceremoneously wiped over her uniform, brushing away a few flecks of dust as well as the tension that was in her body. Her mismatched eyes gleamed feverishly in the lamp-light; red like the fire-sparks flying from a furnace, blue like the azure sky on the coldest day.

Yet seconds before the door was about to open, the fire died again, the sky turned grey; a cold and almost dull serenity returned to the face of Ysanne Isard. This was her game, she was pulling the strings - and there was still some playing to do.

She smiled.

[Moranda Savich]

She really didn't know what else she could have expected - puppets, nothing but puppets they were, of that damned witch of a woman. It stood to reason that her agents would be no better than her in their behaviour. Well, she'd not made it easy for that lecherous brute, anyway. She hadn't liked the look of him from the start - should have known that he'd be one of her toadies.

She should have known that they'd send someone after her, after that botched affair with the De'Ville woman. Twice, they had tried, and both times by some totally idiotic streak of luck, the woman had gotten away.

It made her furious to think that Isard had had her watched; had had every movement of hers shadowed. Wasn't it enough that she'd been put on her pay-list in such a ruthless way?

Moranda's left foot got caught in a piece of the cheap-looking carpet that covered the centerpart of the corridor they were walking through, and she stumbled. Which immediately got her another jolt of electricity through her shoulder.

She was about to hiss another curse at him, when her eyes caught the sight of two uncomfortably stiff-looking guards of the type of the old Royal Guard. It sent a small shudder down her spine and increased the tingle she still felt from the zapping. She'd had a run-in with a Royal Guard once... had resulted in a few broken bones and a nasty time on Kessel. She'd hoped they'd died along with the Emperor, but apparently not if two of their breed were still haunting this place.

So her hiss turned instead into a sharp intake of air. Only then did she remember to curse at her captor. She'd be damned if she'd show any sign of being intimidated by any of this - not to him, anyway.

The guards stepped aside as they approached, and Moranda took great pains - indeed greater pains than usual, since her spine hurt somewhat dreadfully from all this zapping - to walk with all the grace and dignity she possessed past them. If she had to be led like a lamb to the slaughter, she would at least look like it had been her own choice. Even if that was a stupid kind of thing to do.


That damned witch was sitting inside, and she grinned - which sent another shudder down Moranda's spine. Isard grinning was anything but pleasant, as she had noted the last time she'd encountered her.

Moranda decided there and then that she wasn't going to play any of the mind-games her hostess seemed to love so much, and jumped directly to the point.

"Right, now that I'm here can we get to the dying part? No need to discuss the funeral arrangements or anything - and I don't want to know which method you'll be using to dispense of me, either. So let's just leave all that and come to the point this time, without all those big words."

If there was anything that would still have shocked her now, Moranda would certainly not have counted on Isard's laughter. But yet, the woman laughed. And then said in a surprisingly gentle voice,

"Oh but you're wrong - the only funeral arrangements about which I wished to talk with you were those of Ysanne Isard. I can guarantee you, that Moranda Savich is going to live a long and fruitful life from hereon."