Theron had no intention of endangering someone else on such a risky mission, already excluding the glaring issues of how in Force’s name he’d swing it to the rest of the Order. The Alliance could live without Theron Shan, washed up spy, traitor to the cause, but its Outlander? Absolutely not. 

He flatly refused.

Eight hadn’t so much as budged. Take me with you, he’d repeated with not an ounce of doubt or uncertainty, I need to leave the Alliance. 

Now that had raised Theron’s brows past his hairline. 

They’d argued about it, if one could call quiet tenacity a type of arguing, until Eight interrupted his tirade about how he wasn’t going to smuggle him off Odessen no matter how bad this looked with a stern glance and tilt of his snow capped head towards Theron’s holocom buzzing in his pocket. 

“This is an SIS matter now,” He declared, and the statement knocked the wind out of Theron’s stomach. Their Eight, ever-so Imperial, loyal Eight, …was a double-agent for the Republic. Not that he had any right to call him out for it, being caught red-handed in the middle of traitorous activities.

“By whose authorization?” Theron asked testily.

-/-/-/-/-/-

ODESSEN, PRIVATE ROOM

“This is a surprise,” Theron said, schooling his features back into impenetrable stoicism. “Ardun Kothe.”

“In the flesh,” The former spymaster gave a professional smile- one that didn't reach past the crow’s feet of his wizened eyes. “Or not quite.” He chuckled, the flickering blue holo-figure of his form pacing back and forth in the palm of Theron’s hand. 

Theron observed him with thinly veiled wariness. 

SIS spymaster. Former Jedi. Failed leader of a resistance cell whose movements went mysteriously unchecked and wiped from the system. Theron had been well on his way to joining him in a similar fashion– then Ziost happened. 

All the less to trust the man before him. “So what's this about? I thought the SIS cut ties with me by now, but clearly-” He gesticulated around the bare room, shifting uncomfortably. “-that's not the case.”

Ardun nodded curtly to Eight in the background, who mirrored the same gesture to his former cell leader. He turned back to Theron. “Not a pleasure call, that's for certain.” He gave pause. “I take it you're familiar with the Empire's experiments in brainwashing– says here you've done a bit of work in attaining samples– and you've met our Cipher.”

A knot of unease formed above Theron’s brow. He glanced askance at Eight, who still masked his expression with the same unflappable look he always wore. “...Where are you going with this?” 

“I’m contacting you now because Director Trant believes in you.” Ardun continued, words rolling off the timbre of his steady voice. “Between the two of us, Agent Shan, all this talk of traitors and who’s betraying who- that's all a cover.” 

Theron’s jaw tightened. “It's really not.” The reply came out shorter than intended.

Kothe shrugged. “Maybe so. But can you say you're not acting in the best interests of the Republic even now? That you’ve left your old home behind for good? You're short of allies, and you’ve cut yourself loose. Don’t be afraid to know where help is– where it always was. You'll need it in the coming days. I’m offering you a way back in. Saresh is gone, and Marcus needs your skills back where they belong.”

The help doesn't usually punish me for trying to save lives, but sure, he mused bitterly, recalling Saresh’s interference and grounding of his work. 

So. The SIS was trying to make a back deal now that he’d exonerated himself from Alliance services officially. He couldn't say he didn't miss the Republic or the feeling of being on familiar ground, and he’d be lying if the prospect of returning to his old job and undoing all of the damage Saresh had done during her career didn't spark more than interest in him, but…

Theron fell silent. “No. This is something I have to do on my own.”

Ardun didn't seem surprised. “I understand. The SIS will respect whatever decision you choose, Agent. But this isn't just from the SIS; it comes from inside the house. Whatever you plan to do…we want you to succeed.” 

The old ex-Jedi winked over his shoulder at him. “We’re leaving you with a little favor, off the books and off-record; use it wisely.” Ardun clasped his hands behind his back, gaze flinty and uncompromising. “Keyword: Onomatophobia. Thesh protocol, phase one.”

Behind Theron, Eight fell to one knee. His expression looked like he’d been struck.

Theron whirled around. “Eight–? Whoa, what's wrong?” 

Eight failed to answer him. “Thesh protocol engaged. Shutting down.” He repeated robotically. The light faded from the other agent’s eyes– then nothing. 

“Eight?”

No answer. 

“Hey. Wake up.” He grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him slightly. Eight didn't respond, limp in his arms like a lifeless doll. No. This was wrong. He needed to get Lana, Eight was–

Horror dawned on Theron’s features as he took a furtive step back, expression quickly morphing from confusion, to open shock, then finally to white hot anger. 

Eight had repeated Ardun’s words like a pre-programmed droid. Eight wasn't waking up. There was a keyword–

Brainwashing. Brainwashing. That was what he meant. That was what he’d been alluding to this entire time. The cold pit of his stomach opened up to icy bone-cutting dread, and he turned on Ardun with a blazing fury. 

“What have you done, Kothe?!” He shouted, voice echoing off the walls. 

The spymaster only smiled, wan and thin. “He’ll be susceptible to commands after he awakens. Use them wisely,” Ardun reminded him, his holo-figure warping as it lost connection.

“No,” He enunciated, hard and low and angry, “No! Don't you dare hang up- Kothe! KOTHE!” The holocall cut out. Theron yelled, slamming his fist where the holo had been. Crunch. 

His hand came back covered in broken communicator parts. He stared at it, then hung his head. Theron punched the table again, this time much weaker, all the fight having left his body with no one to direct it at it. 

Eight was still asleep, and he was alone, with no help coming and an ever-growing list of betrayals that he’d signed off on. 

“Dammit,” He covered his face with his hands. A slight tremor ran through them. “Damn it all to hell.”

-/-/-/-/-/-

The flight after was filled with stony silence. 

The first words Eight had uttered upon awakening had been “awaiting orders”. 

Theron promptly shut the pilot’s door on him. 

He felt bad about it, sure, but his head felt fit to burst with the conflicting emotions and sheer range of thoughts all coalescing into one throbbing headache that made him want to scream. He thanked the stars he still kept a spare bottle of n’etra gal around, a gift from his father around the time of the Ascendancy Spear, yet he never dreamed he’d be popping it open for reasons like this. 

It took about half of the bottle and their flight time for Theron to feel ready to address the bantha in the room again, and even then he wanted to avoid it like the rakghoul plague. 

Sure enough, on the other side of the cabin door was Eight, a deeply apologetic look on his face, hands fisted in the comforter as he meekly muttered “awaiting orders,” as if that were the only phrase in his vocabulary. 

The spy eyed him with condolences. “So,” Theron sighed, plopping down on the other side of the bed next to him, “How does this work? You can’t do anything until I tell you to, or…” He waved dismissively, letting his hands fall back down to his thighs. 

Eight considered this in deep thought. He shrugged. “Awaiting orders,” Eight said.

“Yeah… I got that part.”

Kothe hadn’t been lying about his instructions at the very least, but Theron wished he had. Gift my ass, he inwardly swore. You stuck both of us with a ticking time bomb and no way to defuse it except to take it far, far away. 

Who knew if Kothe had already pre-programmed Eight all this time to act as an unwilling mole? 

Either way, Theron couldn’t leave him behind in the Alliance. As long as Eight was compromised, he needed to be extracted. Any number of their enemies could take advantage of his fragile mental state, and Theron was not going to hand their best fighter to them on a silver platter… nor would he subject a long-time ally to something so heinous. 

He slid a hand down his unshaved face, half-expecting to feel stress wrinkles forming beneath his fingertips. Eight looked at him with worry across the bed.

This was the SIS’ game: saddle Theron with a liability he couldn’t get rid of so easily, and if he did, completely undermine the Alliance from within with it. Not a bad play, ruining their Outlander like that. 

But Theron wasn’t so easily done in; as far as he was concerned, nothing had changed save for a slight wrinkle in the plan. Vinn Atrius still needed to be stopped, and the Alliance was still in danger. Eight being his unintended and unwilling partner-in-crime didn’t steer them off course, although he had to make some serious adjustments.

He’d just have to wing the part about both of them joining the Order of Zildrog.

“Well, if I have to give you orders…”

-/-/-/-/-/-

NATHEMA

“We had a deal, Theron.” Vinn Atrius’ voice took on an edge– the man himself glared daggers at Theron, as if imagining crushing the other into a flattened pancake beneath his heel. 

“I know, I know, just–” Theron put his hands up placatingly. “Hear me out. He’s on our side. We both didn’t like how the Alliance was being run–”

“What sort of fool do you take me for, Shan?” Vinn hissed, the air around him crackling with suppressed fury. The hairs on Theron’s arm stood on end. “Did you really think I would believe two of the Alliance’s top founders would defect, much less their hunting dog?” He threw a disgusted glare at Eight, who feigned ignorance in the corner of the barren base.

Vinn crowded further into Theron’s space, a hulking mass of boiling rage. “Your arrogance knows no bounds; I should kill the both of you right here and now!” He shouted into the spy’s face, finger stabbing into his chest with each spat syllable. 

“Whoa, whoa, easy there, big guy,” Theron fought to maintain his composure, even as he backed up until his spine met the wall. Vinn’s massive frame loomed over him. “That hunting dog is tired of being under the Alliance’s yoke. You don’t know this, but it wasn’t his decision to fight for them. He owes them his life. Just as he owes me.” 

“And? Am I supposed to be convinced that he won’t slaughter us all in our sleep?” Vinn scowled. “You speak of disillusion, yet this man murdered our Emperor– our entire royal lineage without a second thought.” The knight slammed his fist into the moss-covered wall beside Theron’s head. “He is responsible for all of it!”

“If you want someone to blame, blame Arcann!” Theron rebutted, eyes flashing. He balled his fists. “He’s the one who started all this. The rest of us were caught in the crossfire of your family conflict, remember?” Theron straightened to his full height in the face of Vinn’s rage, unwilling to be cowed. “The Outlander was framed for everything Arcann did, including the assassination of your beloved Emperor. Arcann and the Alliance used him to eliminate their enemies. He has more reason than any of us to be here–!”

“Know your place, fool!” Vinn roared, igniting his polesaber. 

Theron fell silent, realizing he’d gone a step too far. 

“If you remain so intent on proving his innocence…” 

Vinn suddenly faced Eight, who reacted with alarm; the knight formed a claw with his dominant hand and pulled. Eight dug his heels into the ground and resisted, but he was no match for the Force without a shield. He zipped to the knight unceremoniously. 

As soon as he was in reach, Vinn caught him by the wrist and violently yanked it upward. Surprise morphed into one of pain as Vinn hyperextended his arm well above his head, gripping hard enough to bruise. His feet dangled; Atrius was a much larger opponent in both width and height. Even in such a position, Eight withheld a cry of pain, unwilling to give Vinn the satisfaction of sadism. He bared his teeth at the knight. 

Vinn decided he didn’t like the look, and tightened his grip on Eight’s wrist, hard enough to purple the skin. His polesaber ignited beside them with a hum, bathing Eight’s pained expression in a militant blue. Theron’s eyes widened to saucers as Vinn raised his saber hand to strike.

“WAIT!”

Theron hadn’t realized the shout came from his own throat, desperate as it was. 

Vinn’s saber stopped inches away from contact. Eight didn’t move.

“Wait,” He repeated, this time, far hoarser, “You don’t have to hurt him. There’s collateral.” A trickle of sweat rolled down his cheek. 

“Speak,” Vinn said imperiously.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. His eyes met with Eight’s, who appeared as unsteady as he felt. And yet, the other operative must have read his intentions, for the light of understanding entered the void of his gaze. Hesitant, yet barely noticeable, he nodded to Theron.

He wet his parched and cracked lips.

Vinn’s lightsaber still hovered, pulsing with blue light.

“We took...countermeasures. Insurance. There’s…a codeword that ensures obedience.” Vinn frowned, but Theron noticed the gleam of ambition in his gaze. He quickened the pace. “If I tell him not to betray us, he has to obey. He’s not a threat. I promise.” 

Sure enough, Eight hung uselessly in Vinn’s hold, not a hint of hostility to be found. Were this any other situation, the ex-Cipher would have attacked him by now– had Theron not taken that into account.

Perfectly aware of his record for lethality, Theron had briefed him prior to the meeting to let him handle the Order at all costs. Granted, it left the other unable to defend himself, but Eight understood that the matter was too delicate to do it the usual asskicking way, and Theron had been working this case for months. It had sounded like common sense at the time.

Now he slightly regretted that decision, knowing what it sowed.

The fact that he trusted him still even at the current threat of injury…Theron had to spare him any amount of suffering. Yet sharing the secret of Eight’s susceptibility was playing exactly into their hands, and he didn’t know how to stop the sinking feeling that he was trading one evil for another, staining his tarnished record black– except it would be Eight paying the price, not him. His skin turned clammy.

“A codeword,” Vinn echoed, almost reverent. He de-ignited his polesaber.  “How very like you outlanders, to be as backstabbing and manipulative as you claim.”

“Yeah.” Theron pressed his lips together into a thin, bloodless line. “So let go of him.”

The Zakuulan arched an unimpressed brow.

“Please.” He added, quieter.

Vinn examined Eight with a newfound curiosity, then released him from his grasp. 

Eight rubbed his wrist and glanced upwards at Vinn with a mixed expression. Theron didn’t let him entertain any vengeful thoughts of violence, as much as he himself wanted to blast Vinn to bits. He lunged forward and yanked the other spy to his side well out of Vinn’s reach. The knight’s eyes tracked him all the way behind Theron.

“If we’re done chopping arms off, can we get back to business?” Theron asked tentatively, hiding the sheer discomfort he felt lingering in the air like a caustic smog. His fingers tapped nervously on Eight’s wrist, still holding onto where Vinn had squeezed dark bruising into his skin. 

Eight peered warily over his shoulder at the Zakuulan knight, though Theron could feel his eyes boring a questioning look into his back every few glances. 

Vinn Atrius folded his impressive arms over his chestplate. “...Very well.” He turned with a dramatic swish of his cape. “The Adegan crystals. You know what to do.” 

“They’re yours,” Theron answered all-too quickly, wanting nothing more than to put a close to this disastrous meeting. 

“One last thing, Shan.”

“One last–?” 

“Leave the Outlander here.”

Theron tensed. “No.”

“I am not so foolish as to allow both of you in the field. He will be monitored.” Vinn stared at him with disdain through his nose. Theron glared back. 

Vinn scoffed. “It’s that or the codeword. Unlike you savage outlanders, I can spare your friend the humiliation of what Lady Vaylin suffered–” He looked balefully upon Eight. “--though he deserves it. Make your priorities clear, Theron, or I’ll make all your decisions for you and him.”

Theron floundered for a mental foothold. A thousand bad scenarios raced through his mind. Neither of these were options, they were ultimatums. Ones he had no control over, no guarantee of safety. Leaving Eight alone with the enemy was tantamount to killing him with his own hands. Giving him the codeword even moreso. 

Atrius tapped his foot impatiently.

He doubted his intentions enough as it was, but Theron couldn’t give him leverage. A hostage, of all things. Who was playing who? Now Theron was caught by the tail in both the Order and the SIS. There was no winning if he agreed. Yet the longer he let hesitation take hold, the more he could sense the suspicion growing from the former Horizon Guard, who looked ready to take Eight away from him by force any second now. 

A sharp tug on his sleeve pulled him out of his anxiety-riddled thoughts. Eight wore a non-expression that gave little away, irises as dark as the black sand beaches of Rishi. 

Theron’s brows steepled quizzically. He felt his heart rate lowering looking at the serene canvas that Eight’s countenance was. Always unflappable, calm, strong. How many times had they come to rely on his detachedness? His ability to face any threat with nigh a hint of fear in him? His eternal resilience, with the scars to prove it?

Theron gripped his chest. The fabric crumpled between his fingers. He’d promised him he wouldn’t have to bear their burdens anymore, and he was already failing.

Eight let the silence hang between them until the panic in Theron’s chest subsided to a dull ache. Then, like a gust of fresh wind clearing the unbreathable miasma from the air, he spoke. 

“It’s alright.” He released his sleeve. “I can stay.”

Theron blinked at him, not comprehending. He shook his head vigorously. “I can’t let you-”

“He’s made his decision,” Vinn brusquely interrupted, muscling between them. Theron was shoved aside, tripping backwards on his heels as Vinn obscured Eight behind the curtain of his humongous cape.  “Now make yours.” He glowered. “I have no time for dogs who come to lick the scraps from my heels.” 

Theron grit his teeth. They ground against each other. He felt like a wounded hound who’d just been thrown out of the ring after a knockout. Screw you, asshole. 

“Wait. Just… let me say goodbye, at least.” He said quickly, clinging to the last chance they’d have at communication. 

The corner of Vinn’s lip curled upwards. Theron took his lack of objection as a yes. 

He scrambled to remove his jacket, internally apologizing to Eight for not washing it sooner and praying that it didn’t smell too bad. Eight’s gaze was bright and curious as Theron draped the classic red jacket over his shoulders.

“Keep it with you,” Theron ordered, hand stopping to rest over the familiar worn leather that now rested on Eight’s smaller frame, “Whatever you do, don’t lose it. Okay?”

Eight seemed to get the memo. He nodded, short and sharp.

Theron gave him a small pat, hand hovering for a moment before falling to his side. He stepped back. 

He was sure Eight was lost on why Theron was fawning over him like a lover– they were never what one could call “close” in the first place, and anything between them was more business than personal. Even the few moments they shared as partners in crime were distant at best, and Theron wasn’t going to lie about the emotional unavailability of their relationship. 

But staring at Eight now, he mostly felt regret. He knew next to nothing still about the ex-Imperial. Even yelled at him a couple times for actions he didn’t approve of (which he wished he could rescind, as Eight no longer ambushed his quieter moments out of mischief and had taken to interacting with him purely out of necessity after). But that didn’t mean he wanted the last time he ever saw him alive to be…like this. Theron drooped. 

No one had ever asked Eight’s reasons for fighting for them as their Outlander, him included. Turned out it wasn’t fair of them to ask everything of one person and give nothing in return but scathing remarks and more demands for the sake of their own lofty ideals.

When Eight killed the royal family of Zakuul, finally did the dirty deed and shed blood in their name, no one had been there. They’d turned their backs on him. A little bit of darkness, and the Alliance abandoned him completely in order to keep their shiny coats clean.

He had been their scapegoat, their hero, their alibi, and their sacrificial lamb all in one. 

Theron couldn’t even call him a friend. 

“We will contact you as soon as you have the crystals. Be ready by sundown.” Vinn carelessly tossed him a burner holocomm. “But know this: make one wrong move, and you forfeit your friend’s freedom. Betray us, and it will be his life. Is that clear?” Vinn’s voice was low, simmering with the threat. Eight, still in his grasp, flicked his uncertain gaze to the SIS agent. 

“...I understand.” He flexed his hands reflexively, wanting to act, do more than gawk like a moron while Vinn had his way. 

Vinn hauled Eight away by the bicep, the other forced to stumble awkwardly along due to the sheer height difference. He stopped just outside the entryway to the temporary hideout. “See that you do, Shan.” Eight’s pitying look followed him all the way until he and Atrius disappeared around the corner. Yet Vinn’s arrogant voice floated to him until they were out of earshot, ringing hollowly in his ears. “...See that you do.”

-/-/-/-/-/-

UMBARA

“The traitor’s just beyond that door.” 

Lana doggedly marched ahead of Theron, anticipation and eagerness rolling off her demeanor. 

Theron performed a simple sweep, carefully stalking behind the vulnerability of her open back. He had a wider area to cover today given the noticeable absence of their mutual friend, who ordinarily would be taking point adjacent to him. At the thought of Eight, a wrinkle formed in Theron’s brow.

Lana had chalked his missing status up to wanderlust, though it sparked no end to muttered threats about what an earful she would give him on his return. 

Theron knew better; Eight’s eccentric habits made it easy to spin a white lie about his whereabouts. The ex-Cipher had a tendency to avoid the Alliance and its “menial” tasks on his off-days, but as a result, made it difficult to locate him in order to avoid being saddled with the bureaucratic duties he and Lana shared simply because he had “no talent” for it, and only came into the base to head missions more relevant to his skills.

Ones that involved gratuitous amounts of violence, mostly. Any work past the bare listed minimum had Eight disappearing the moment their back was turned. Theron wished he could do that with his paperwork, but alas, he was not afforded such special treatment. 

“It’s as if he’s purposefully making our lives difficult,” Lana had thrown up her hands in frustration, paperwork scattering in the air as she slumped backwards in her chair when he gave her the news. “Just… tell me when he gets back. And no more of his excuses, do you hear me?”

It was almost cruel to obfuscate the truth from her.

The opening hiss of a pneumatic door signaled to him the trap was laid; Lana stepped inside, aghast. She lowered her lightsaber, glancing around the empty car with a muddled look on her ordinarily composed face. Not a soul inside. Her confident bloodlust dissipated into thin air, and with it, her only lead. The quarry was…gone?

“What-?” She asked aloud, failing to notice the traitor inching forward at her back.

It took a split-second. The Force screamed at her. She reacted, drawing her lightsaber in an instant. The blaster bolt deflected off the crimson edge and back at her attacker–

“Theron?!” She cried out, disbelieving. Yet she could only confirm the sordid truth as rayshielded walls fell around her, the blaster bolt dissipating uselessly against it. Theron Shan, her trusted ally turned traitor. Her golden eyes fell to the smoking blaster in his hand, pointed straight ahead. Her face fell. He’d attempted to shoot her. In the back. 

She forced down the humiliation that welled up in her for falling for something so obvious, even as he stared at her from the other side of the rayshield with a grim expression, his aura tainted with a nebulous feeling that twisted and roiled in the Force. 

How could he–? After all they’d been through…no, no– this made no sense. Lana controlled her breathing. She knew Theron. 

She needed an explanation, and she needed one now. 

“What in the blazes are you doing?” Lana hissed at him, saber thrumming with the anger that pulsed in her chest like a fractured kyber heart. Her tone bordered on electric, dancing with the imminent danger of her withheld wrath. 

Theron sighed and lowered his blaster. “Stalling you,” He explained, as if faced with an unsavory chore. “I’m sorry, Lana. I should’ve done this long ago. It’s past time we ended this.” He set his wrist comp’s internal clock. “In a few minutes, this train will collide with the side of the mountain, and I’ll be gone. For what it’s worth…” His expression grew sympathetic. “It's been an honor to fight by your side.” 

Lana stuttered. “I don’t– I don’t understand.” Hurt colored her pallid cheeks. “Theron, tell me what’s going on. We can talk about this.” 

Theron appeared pained at her words. He looked away, shifting uncomfortably. When he lifted his eyes to meet hers again, they were filled with an uncountable tiredness to them that Lana had not seen before. “...The Alliance, Lana. We can’t do this anymore. It has to end. That starts,” He narrowed his embittered eyes, “with you.”

Theron took Lana’s speechlessness as a cue to continue, a sudden zeal replacing the deep melancholy that had previously dominated his features. His tone picked up. 

“Our goal was Zakuul, but now that the real threat is gone, we’ve lost sight of who we are–and that isn’t the next galactic superpower.” He paced in front of her, the angry red of the rayshield casting him in a harsher light than Lana had ever seen before. “I won’t stand by and watch it turn into the next Empire, Lana. We’ve sacrificed too much to go on like this, and if the Alliance is another tool for grinding good men and women into dust…then it needs to be torn down.” 

“That’s not-”

“And with the way things are going, we’re destined to return to the status quo by the next cycle.” Theron pierced her with his steely gaze. “Am I wrong?”

Lana froze, grip tightening on the hilt of her uselessly hanging blade. Theron’s eyes bore into hers. She could sense no regret, no point of return from his words. Yet the longer he spoke, the colder the tendrils of despair seemed to become, winding themselves around her veins, chilling her to the bone with this sinking feeling. Betrayal. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lana tried, failing to understand. For all her eloquence, in this moment she was truly at a loss for words. It was as if her tongue weighed duracrete, locked down by an invisible force that choked her very lungs. 

Lana Beniko had never been trusting in the traditional sense, but it was Theron whom she shared more than one battle with. More than one war with. She’d thought…

Theron’s eyes widened, then lowered. “I…” He turned away, facing his back to her. Lana could see the visible slump in his broad shoulders, the way they hung like he carried the weight of the world. 

She’d seen that same back working tirelessly on those nights when they burned the midnight oil together monitoring operations, Lana’s other bastion within the Alliance besides Koth and their errant swordsman, the one who had brought them together in the first place. The irony was almost laughable. 

Theron a traitor, Eight a distant specter in their Alliance, and herself, saddled with the immeasurable burden of leadership…their little group was falling apart by the seams. 

Perhaps that was her own fault, for trusting them through shared history alone. How could she have been so foolish to assume they were anything but enemies waiting for their chance to strike once the specter of Zakuul had been removed? 

It was then Lana realized she’d overlooked a vital detail. A huge, glaring mistake, that she should have noticed sooner. 

Ardun nodded curtly to Eight in the background, who mirrored the same gesture to his former cell leader. He turned back to Theron. “Not a pleasure call, that's for certain.” He gave pause. “I take it you're familiar with the Empire's experiments in brainwashing– says here you've done a bit of work in attaining samples– and you've met our Cipher.”

A knot of unease formed above Theron’s brow. He glanced askance at Eight, who still masked his expression with the same unflappable look he always wore. “...Where are you going with this?”

“I’m contacting you now because Director Trant believes in you.” Ardun continued, words rolling off the timbre of his steady voice. “Between the two of us, Agent Shan, all this talk of traitors and who’s betraying who- that's all a cover.”

Theron’s jaw tightened. “It's really not.” The reply came out shorter than intended.

Kothe shrugged. “Maybe so. But can you say you're not acting in the best interests of the Republic even now? That you’ve left your old home behind for good? You're short of allies, and you’ve cut yourself loose. Don’t be afraid to know where help is– where it always was. You'll need it in the coming days. I’m offering you a way back in. Saresh is gone, and Marcus needs your skills back where they belong.”

The help doesn't usually punish me for trying to save lives, but sure, he mused bitterly, recalling Saresh’s interference and grounding of his work.

So. The SIS was trying to make a back deal now that he’d exonerated himself from Alliance services officially. He couldn't say he didn't miss the Republic or the feeling of being on familiar ground, and he’d be lying if the prospect of returning to his old job and undoing all of the damage Saresh had done during her career didn't spark more than interest in him, but…

Theron fell silent. “No. This is something I have to do on my own.”

Ardun didn't seem surprised. “I understand. The SIS will respect whatever decision you choose, Agent. But this isn't just from the SIS; it comes from inside the house. Whatever you plan to do…we want you to succeed.”

The old ex-Jedi winked over his shoulder at him. “We’re leaving you with a little favor, off the books and off-record; use it wisely.” Ardun clasped his hands behind his back, gaze flinty and uncompromising. “Keyword: Onomatophobia. Thesh protocol, phase one.”

Behind Theron, Eight fell to one knee. His expression looked like he’d been struck.

Theron whirled around. “Eight–? Whoa, what's wrong?”

Eight failed to answer him. “Thesh protocol engaged. Shutting down.” He repeated robotically. The light faded from the other agent’s eyes, and he became still.

“Eight?”

No answer.

“Hey. Wake up.” He grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him slightly. Eight didn't respond, limp in his arms like a lifeless doll. No. This was wrong. He needed to get Lana, Eight was–

Horror dawned on Theron’s features as he took a furtive step back, expression quickly morphing from confusion, to open shock, then finally to white hot anger.

Eight had repeated Ardun’s words like a pre-programmed droid. Eight wasn't waking up. There was a keyword–

Brainwashing. Brainwashing. That was what he meant. That was what he’d been alluding to this entire time. The cold pit of his stomach opened up to icy bone-cutting dread, and he turned on Ardun with a blazing fury.

“What have you done, Kothe?!” He shouted, voice echoing off the walls.

The spymaster only smiled, wan and thin. “He’ll be susceptible to commands after he awakens. Use them wisely,” Ardun reminded him, his holo-figure warping as it lost connection.

“No,” He enunciated, hard and low and angry, “No! Don't you dare hang up- Kothe! KOTHE!” The holocall cut out. Theron yelled, slamming his fist where the holo had been. Crunch.

His hand came back covered in broken communicator parts. He stared at it, then hung his head. Theron punched the table again, this time much weaker, all the fight having left his body with no one to direct it at it.

Eight was still asleep, and he was alone, with no help coming and an ever-growing list of betrayals that he’d signed off on.

Hunter seems to share his sentiments, judging by the slight disapproval in the fold of his arms and the impatience rooting his back foot to the ice floor. He’s at a crossroads for a decision, and Eight zeroes in on the words hanging off the thick of his lips. 

“Ardun Kothe’ll be happy,” He starts, his commander’s opinion relayed first, and Eight patiently waits for the relevant information that comes after the but. 

“But the girl…” There it was. “We agree that she needs to die, right?” Hm. Brutal as ever.

Not that he was complaining. They did agree on that. It was standard procedure; saw too much, heard too much, not useful enough to me, a liability– all judgements that usually ended with new blood buried somewhere deep underground. He knew it by experience and the intimate familiarity of being one such liability in a long age past. You’re a weakness, his mentor had said to him without an ounce of warmth in her voice, looking down on him wheezing for breath on the cutting board floor, unless you become a knife in my belt, I’ll leave you with all the rest.

She’d then extended a blue finger to the misshapen trash bags piled up along the wall, where the remains of her ex-lovers sat in neat little pieces, stinking of chemicals that stripped the hairs from one's nose.

He learned his lesson quickly.

People weren’t people to agents. They were loose ends. Trash to be discarded. Tools to be used. Mouths that talked too much, and eyes that watched too closely. It went the other way around, too.

Which was why Raina Temple could not suffer to live– yet against the voice of Nosta that lived eternally in the cracks of his soul, Eight found that he did not want to sink her body beneath the ice floes with rocks in her gutted stomach, a meal for the fish below.

“She’s not a threat,” He decided, not a retort, his words paced and even.

Hunter doesn’t look convinced. His fingers tighten on his forearm. There’s an unamused twitch in his second eyelid, and his shoulders are set square– relaxed from the outside, bordering on tense from within. Ready to act, while trying to play off that he is. More words stand to crawl from his throat, just above the bulbish shape that is a feature in his species. They called it an apple, like the fruit. Eight lingers over how much force he’d need to break the skin when biting it.

“She’s Imperial, she knows about the Starbreeze, she’s seen me, she’s seen you…” Hunter trails off, and Eight can see the metrics ticking in that wound brain. Eight wouldn’t call it nervousness, but Hunter…is cautious. Too cautious in all the ways he is not. Hunter skims just past paranoia and into the territory of bad faith; good for a classical agent, but too much fear begets no rewards– and jumping at shadows opens just as much room for mistakes as excessive trust.

“If she becomes a problem, I’ll take care of it,” Eight answers with a quirk of his brow, as if the danger she poses hardly warrants a second thought. To him, it doesn’t. She’d never last against him. No reason to send her back to Saganu in a body bag, and he suspects the Aristocra would be less than pleased if he did. 

Hunter’s eyes dance over his face, searching for the source of his confidence with pinpricks of wariness in the minute twitches of his face before he visibly relaxes, taut muscles released from their focus. Like a sigh, his readiness dissipates…but Eight is staring at the intent rolling up from his throat’s apple to his chin, resting on the bottom of his lower lip, weighed with purpose and a bit of that high that all with even a hint of power relish in before the utterance. Something animal in him rises to its hackles. It smells of the leash, the gentle tug before the pull. The freedom with which cruelty is spoken and the safety his prey finds in it. 

Eight has waited long enough.

“Just to be sure, though,

I’m putting a command in your brain. 

O n o-"

Eight lunges forward. The hut is small. The distance is laughable.

"M a"

He sees the shock bleed into Hunter’s eyes as he automatically falls backwards at his sudden advance. His back hits the wall, Eight’s hand fisting his collar.

"T o-"

He slams him against the slope of the hut. The impact rattles Hunter’s skull to an explosion of dancing stars, interrupting his verbage–it happened in the blink of an eye, and before he can so much as get another sound out, the Cipher’s moving again. A bit of spittle escapes Hunter’s mouth, mixed with blood. Too fast. Far too fast. What the hell?!

He’s not going to make it. No room to reach his blaster. Nowhere to get distance. The word, idiot! He tries again, fury welling up in his chest for being played a fool. 

Hunter blinks. Eight’s lips are on his, hotter than a molten star, softer than synth-silk.

His brain shuts off. He feels the other’s tongue slip through, wet, mixing with his saliva.

It takes him a second to register it probing the walls of his mouth, his senses overloaded with fever. He’s struggling to catch up, but he does, and a fierce hunger overtakes him as he claws at the Cipher agent’s back and pulls him closer into his space, their mouths battling for dominance, searching for just the right way to lock together as he eats him alive for more, more, more. His fingers trail down his nape as he bites his lower lip, tastes the wetness there and Eight moans into his mouth– the sound shooting straight down to his hidden pistol. Filthy like a whore.

Yeah. That’s more like it, Cipher. 

Just as he’s in the throes of kissing him senseless, the small part of his brain that has been screaming warnings at him breaks through the haze of his desire and he’s hit with remembering exactly what he’s here for.

The keyword! 

Hunter’s glazed eyes shoot open, the cold shock of recollection assaulting him like water dumped over his head. He shoves the agent away from him– did he really think he could seduce him out of a command? Cheap trick. He sneers.

…Only to find that the agent wasn’t budging.

Eight’s formerly closed eyes are wide open and staring straight at him. From here, he can see the wild glint in his eyes, light reflecting off the obsidian edge of his irises, dizzy with carnivorous desire and a gut-plunging intensity that makes Hunter think he’s been stabbed. Those dark eyes are the black rocks dotting the bay above a sea cliff, and he feels their pull keenly, the call of their void. 

It takes Hunter a moment to find out why.

A white-hot pain overtakes him. He tries to scream, but it doesn’t make a sound besides bouncing uselessly around in his throat. Iron, wet and heavy, gushes forth inside his mouth. The knee jerk reaction of pulling away from Eight sparks even more of that terrible pinch, the stretch of ruined flesh and his tongue alight with the kerosene of suffering– 

You bitch!

Eight’s cheeks are flushed now, and he can see the shy grin that extends from both sides of his face, painted with driblets of red.

He lets go after what feels like an eternity, taking one step back to admire his handiwork. Hunter falls to his knees, gagging and choking, blood leaking out of his ruined mouth. His tongue lolls, swelling with the inflicted bite mark of the other agent, flopping uselessly to the side as he tries to hurl swears at Eight but can only mush malformed invectives together that feel as mutated as his damaged digit.

His eyes spell of murder.

Eight wipes the runoff from his lips with the side of his hand, smearing it with red.

Amidst his rage, he hates himself for the arousal that emerges seeing him so bloodstained. The pool of want settles within the acid of his stomach.

He wants to kill him. He wants to kill the girl in front of him. He wants to have him choke on air for a week. He’s never wanted so badly to drag someone to a closet and lock them in there with him until they beg to do anything but know his touch. He still can’t say the word, and he wants to yell and scream for being in this position. 

Eight’s expression is orgasmic. 

“Mind your tongue,” Eight purrs with as much satisfaction as an overly-fed vine cat, “Minder Seventeen.”

—--------

Kothe confronts him about it later.

“Did you do that to Hunter?” It’s an innocent question, posed with that no-nonsense tone of a father trying to parse who took a cookie out of the jar. I’m not mad, just disappointed, says the stern set of his jaw. Eight doesn’t turn around to look at him from where he’s sitting crosslegged atop an empty weapons crate that Saber emptied. The spymaster waits for his answer.

He slurps a mouthful of instant MRE. Chews the noodles a little. “Dogs will bite if you pull the leash too many times.” He explains, in between a cascade of pasta falling from his mouth. Sluuuurp.

Ardun sighs. “I don’t understand why you boys are fighting, but I trusted Hunter with the codeword for a reason. If there’s a problem, I want you to tell me, Legate.” He says firmly, with a tired air to his stance. “We’re a team. We don’t hurt each other.”

“Already told’ya.”

Another sigh. “Because Hunter hasn’t talked to me either, I’ll let it go– but only this once." Ardun's tone is deadly serious. "I won’t tolerate dissension or hurting the other members of this cell. Time’s short and there’s too much at stake for in-fighting... I hoped you'd understand that. We’ll discuss this again another time.” Eight feels the air waft off the swish of Ardun’s cape as he exits the room, left alone with his lukewarm noodles.

Hm. He sips the broth thoughtfully. He didn’t use onomatophobia this time either. 

Out of the corner of his eyes, he spies something orange around the corner. He felt it before, staring at his lips. Eight smiles and wipes a stray bead of liquid from his mouth, smearing it across the back of his hand for his secret voyeur. 

The visitor quickly disappears. It’s fine, though.

Ingredients:

Giant Ikaynid

Ikaynid younglings

Filtered swamp water

Herbal swamp grass

Ginx Oil

Zakuulan Glowshrooms

ration seasoning to taste

Koth's unidentified alcohol from a flask ("hey!")

Directions:

Take a sharp vibroknife, preferably an armor-piercing variety and find an unclouded eye of your Giant Ikaynid. Stab down into the edges of the eyeball until you feel the cartilage pop loose. Continue sawing until you remove the hard layer that protects the Ikaynid eyeball: it should be as big as your average wok. Very sturdy! Can be used as rain covers or shields. Set aside once you have 2.

Separate your young Ikaynids by legs, thorax, and head. Remove eyeballs. Split the legs at the joints and crack, folding to remove the meat.

Flip the young Ikaynid thorax onto its back, and split the carapace into two. Pick out the cartilage and drain.

Trim the ends off your herbal swamp grass. Clean thoroughly with filtered swamp water to remove parasites. Chop into even sections with your vibroknife.

Grease your Ikaynid eyelid with Ginx Oil squeezed from the sacs of a fresh ginx. Place it over an open fire with the second eyelid over it as a pot lid. Wait for it to heat.

Wash your Zakuulan Glowshrooms; trim any inedible parts and gently clean off debris. If you've gathered excess, set half of them aside to dry for later usage. Chop into sizeable pieces.

Prepare your Ikaynid meat and sauté in your greased eyelid until it begins to dry. Add alcohol. Cover with the second eyelid and steam for 8-10 minutes over low heat.

Throw your Glowshrooms and swampgrass into the Ikaynid Eyelid pot. Remove your ration seasoning from the package and sprinkle generously. Sauté over medium until the desired moistness is achieved.

Serve to approx. 3-4 people in separate plates or eyelids.

The review:

"I'm not sure how I feel about eating something that tried to eat me a few minutes ago." Koth muttered, poking hesitantly at his dish with his utensils. The Ikaynid meat jiggled slightly at his provocations. Despite the captain's and Lana's open reluctance to eat the swamp predator's freshly cooked young, they had to admit...

Grumble. Lana and Koth glanced down in surprise at the sound reverberating from their stomachs, as if they didn't expect their own bellies to betray them. The mirth in Eight's eyes only glinted brighter in the darkness of their shelter, where he'd already begun sucking and shucking the meat out of boiled Ikaynid legs set aside for himself.

...It smelled good.

Lana glared at Eight, daring her agent to make fun of her as she grabbed an eyelid, scooping a small portion from the steamy makeshift pot into her makeshift plate. Somehow his innocuous chewing and innocent expression served to make her feel even more embarrassed, though one needed to throw away their pride when faced with situations such as these. Stars, how did she go from being Minister of Intelligence to eating spiders in a swamp?

No, if she thought any further down that road, she'd surely fall into greater depths of despair. Lana sat down with a thoroughly vexed expression on the nearest log picked clean of glowshrooms and stabbed the safest looking part of the dish to start with. Feeling eyes on her, she stopped bringing the morsel to her mouth and turned to spy Koth staring at her eagerly, his plate untouched.

She scowled darkly, prompting the captain to quickly look in another direction and begin whistling. So. Even her comrades had turned on her and were waiting for her to take the first poisonous bite. She would not be defeated so easily!

Mustering up her courage and her pride, Lana inhaled and bit the piping-hot section of ikaynid flesh and swampgrass, expecting the worst...

Her aureate eyes flew open. Juicy. A bit firm, like the stonefish she'd had on Manaan, but with its own distinct flavor that differed greatly from the awful smell she'd encountered wafting from its uncooked corpse. And what was this seasoning? Yes, very refined. The swampgrass' stems were hollow like reeds, allowing it to absorb much of the meaty juices and rich, aromatic flavor of the alcohol that combined with the grass' spry herbal flavor to make a sauce that contained sweet and bitter notes that tantalized the tongue.

She stabbed a plush slice of glowshroom, admiring its purple color. The mushroom was quite thick on its own and made a good meat substitute, but in this case, added an earthy undertone to the dish that cleansed the palate.

So lost in having a full meal the first nights since Korriban did she fail to notice the laser-focus her compatriots had gained watching her pick up speed at taking apart her dish; it was only until she'd cleaned it did she look up to increasingly wide grins.

Lana ignored them with a huff. She set down her plate. "It was very good. You would know that if you hadn't let your food grow cold, Koth."

The captain squawked and began digging in voraciously.

Lana set her piercing gaze on Eight, who seemed to be waiting too eagerly for her commentary.

She coughed into her sleeve. "I admit...I was wrong to pass up a meal. It would be a great boon if we could save on rations, wherever we could."

Eight continued to stare at her. Lana felt her professional demeanor slipping away by the second.

"And...I would not be opposed to having more."

There. 

Eight broke off from the chase to cut a diagonal path away from the Sith Hunter, who stopped dead in their tracks as he disappeared from sight into stealth.

Where…?

Their finger hovered above the de-cloaking device in their suit as they tried to search for the Cipher on their scanners. They didn’t have to search long. 

Eight dove at the assailant from above, using the tight architecture of Mek-Sha to his advantage to circle behind him as he slammed full-force into the Sith Hunter to knock them off the ledge.

The assassin threw a powerful punch at him– one that would surely decapitate at close range had he not dodged it, but he’d predicted their form long ago. The Echani agent grabbed their elbow and twisted them into a lock, guaranteeing no escape for his opponent as they fell off the roof together.

Normally, he would go for the finish here. Let the enemy absorb the full weight of the fall. Maybe break something on the way down.

Eight did nothing of the sort. He instead, smiled down at the Sith Hunter as the wind tore at their skin, delirious with adrenaline and relief in those shining dark eyes of his. Illuminated in the bloom of the asteroid, his hair glowed stark as moonlight.

“You were always bad at hiding from me, Ain.” 

He flipped them around midair, ignoring the Hunter’s protests of “you idi-” as he muffled them into his chest.

They hit the ground. 

Eight felt his comms unit and other tecno-paraphernalia crunch beneath him. Then came the full weight of pain as he turtled to minimize as much impact to the assassin in his arms. The thud was audible. It rattled every bone in his body and knocked the air from his lungs, like being hit with a sledgehammer to the chest. He felt something break– and a bit of iron burst forth from biting the inside of his cheek. 

The world went black for a few seconds.

When he came to, the Sith Hunter was yelling. He couldn’t make out the words with the ringing in his ears and well– the pain, but he thought he could see the formed vowels from the blue of his luscious lips. Wait. Lips? 

Eight looked down at the object grasped in his hands where the Sith Hunter used to be. A mask. 

“What were you thinking, pulling something like that?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?! Eight! Speak to me!”

Unmasked, with his worry and face on full display, kneeled Ain’res in the flesh. His Ain’res. 

The Cipher agent had gone missing after Darth Vistasis rose to power with every source telling him he’d died in action– some grand explosion, but he’d refused to accept it. The Seven he knew was too brilliant to go out in such a way, or so he’d told himself in the depths of icy, seething rage that had Keeper forcing him into solitary before he tried anything that guaranteed him an execution. 

He knew. He suspected. He wanted to burn down the world for him atop a pyre of Sith, but the loveless stars above hadn’t granted him that absolution. So he’d remained.

Then the Sith Hunter reappeared months later, and he’d never known peace since.

The Chiss’ indigo locks tickled Eight’s face as the other agent grabbed fistfuls of his shirt to pull him up, ranting all the while about how reckless and stupid he was for doing such a thing, concern bleeding off him like the rivulets running down Eight’s head. 

He couldn’t do anything but laugh, soft and fond.

The sound froze Ain’res to his core, who stopped and gazed at him with his round, crimson eyes in confusion. Eyes as warm as the heat of a reddening sunset, like flame-flower syrup in whiskey. 

“I knew you weren’t dead.” His knuckle reached to brush against a ringed braid that had come loose, the gesture remarkably delicate for hands that did nothing but kill. “I searched forever. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life looking for stars in a starless sky.” 

Ain’res eyes began to fill with unshed tears. “I’m so– I’m sorry,” He stammered out, the apologies flooding from his lips as the dam inside him broke, as if he weren’t already broken, “I’m tired, Eight. I’m so…” His grip tightened on his collar, trembling with grief. “I can’t lose anyone else. I’ve buried so many people that I’ve lost count. You have to understand, if I lost you too, I…”

He was never one to speak with words. Eight gazed into his eyes once more, memorizing every line and feature aching with hurt and rage and pain. Their breaths crossed one anothers. Moving in, slowly, imperceptibly, he pressed their mouths together into a kiss, where he tasted just how deep his sorrow was against the plush of his lips. He didn’t rush. They had all the time in the galaxy– time lost, time given up, time taken away. For now, this was theirs and theirs alone. 

A small noise escaped Ain’res throat, needy and wanting. Eight took this as a sign to pull away, where the ex-Cipher stared back with a renewed light in his eyes, every nerve in his body telling him he mourned the loss of warmth. His gaze flickered to the glove that cupped the side of his cheek, then back at Eight. 

Ain’res didn’t hesitate. He grabbed him by his lapels, yanking him back into an even fiercer reply, a battle of teeth and tongue that had Eight murmuring approval into his deep kiss, one where they fought for oxygen within one another as years of hidden longing rose to the surface and spilled forth until neither could differentiate who had fallen first.

Soft. Safe. Warm. All else faded into white noise, until all they knew was the taste of one another. 

Eventually they had to resurface to breathe, where Eight took the chance to wipe the saliva from the corner of his mouth, smirking. “I’m keeping this, by the way.”

Ain’res deadpanned at him, weakly swiping at it to steal it out of the taller agent’s reach. “I need that. Give it back.”

His weekly talks with the Cipher before him were something he secretly looked forward to, though the subject themselves varied from political headaches to anything as mundane as the weather. It was perhaps the only time he was allowed to parse the mystery of the man who called himself Eight- an agent who wore the moniker of a dead woman, and all that the title carried.

Very few were afforded such instances. Fewer still could keep up with his machinations or his mind. His method bred more enemies than friends, and Keeper often found himself assigning the minimum personnel to Eight on account of his difficult behavior.

Insights like these were a gift.

“If I didn't know any better, I would call you envious, Agent. Why the sudden interest?”

“Is it considered strange to be interested in our counterparts now?” Eight smiles at him.

Keeper finds it reminds him of the false face of a poisonous insect: permanently at ease, painted on, artificial, yet a warning and an invitation all at once. The smoke curls from his pipe, accentuating the silence in the air. 

“No. Perhaps not.” Keeper replies, his hands still clasped behind his back. 

“I'm not going to interfere, if that's what you're asking.” 

Keeper pinches his thin nose bridge, the inflection in Eight’s voice alerting him prematurely to what was heading into unpleasant conversational territory of the migraine kind. Eight always did know how to read between the lines, and years of dancing around one another had made him adept at knowing the old man’s silence better than his words. “Not directly. We wouldn't be having this conversation at all if you weren't. In fact, I’m ordering you as of right now to do nothing.” He locks eyes with him, leaving no room for argument in the steeliness of his gaze. They stare at each other until the younger gives in.

“Bah, you're no fun,” Eight whines, turning away from him like a petulant child. 

Keeper shakes his head. Eight was a handful and liked to make it everyone else's problem; it was how he was. Yet beneath that slacking attitude was a blade more sharply honed than any other, and woe befall those who failed to recognize its glint before it was too late. It made him effective. Impersonal. His instincts were good, if not better than any other in their division, and this made him as destructive as a precision-guided missile yet as accurate to his goals as a dart striking center. 

Something to do with his ecology, Keeper recalled, though the specifics escaped him; Eight was Near-Human, yet found the Empire's distaste for aliens a “waste of time” and so waved the human-passing card more often than not. 

His appearance was once again, a falsehood. His identity, a convenient lie. They spoke of him in dead-end rumors and baseless whispers that made him more of a ghost story inside Intelligence than a service member, the most prominent of these stories being that he had once been a Chiss woman who surgically altered her appearance to escape her previous life. 

Eight did nothing to discourage it.

He never was one to follow the rules amidst Imperial rigidity, bending them every chance he was given and otherwise. Keeper suspected this was why the higher-ups kept him most cycles on Dromund Kaas- fearing he’d stray far out of bounds the minute they gave him any length of leash. For that, he and Keeper came to know one another very well.

By the time he’d returned to the present outside of the quagmire of his mental dossier on the agent, Eight had ditched all decorum to lie flat on his back atop the durasteel table with his folded hands cushioning the back of his head. Getting bored, it seemed.

“Credit for your thoughts?” Keeper asks, surprised by his own pleasant tone amidst the emptiness. 

Eight exhales lungs full of smoke in reply. He removes one hand from behind his shock of white hair to hold his pipe between two fingers- “like a Red Light District whore,” some of the more…derogatory members of their branch had said. Said members had since been disciplined and lectured on their poor choice of verbage, but Keeper was inclined to agree that even the smallest of his habits were quite suggestive- no doubt intentional on his part. He made no effort to hide it. What was taught had become second nature, and in Eight’s case, he saw no division between his personal self and that of a Cipher.

He taps the ash from the thin pipe on the side of the table, extinguishing the thin trail of smoke that indicated their time was up.

“Let's make a deal,” Eight says, propping himself up on his elbows to twist around and look at Keeper with a heady light in his fawn eyes. It was routine. He’d propose a game, and they’d play accordingly. It was easier than arguing over mission specifics where Keeper knew Eight would force his own way regardless, and so he appealed to his penchant for gambling and let chance decide what path the agent chose to follow. 

“Go ahead.”

“If Nine doesn't kneel, transfer the investigation of Jadus to me.”

Keeper pauses, the words dying on his tongue as he looks at his agent with nothing short of bewilderment. “What are you asking of me, Eight?” What could you possibly want from a man like that? goes unsaid between them, but Eight hears it in the stressed twitch of his lower lip, and smiles still. 

His current fascination with Jadus was nothing new, but ever since he’d missed the debacle of the elusive Sith arriving at headquarters he’d been quiet. Moody, even. Planning something was an understatement- whatever was brewing in his head had been for weeks. Keeper almost didn't want to know.

Eight doesn't elaborate. That was how the game was played. Rules and rewards. No questions.

“If Nine doesn't kneel,” He repeats slowly, “I won't lift a finger.”

Keeper sticks him with a look that could wither water. “You are making me bet against the house.” 

Eight shrugs. “It was your call.”

Keeper sighs- a deep one that comes from the depths of his diaphragm. Loathe as he was to admit it, Eight was right: Nine shone as a figure free from the manipulative claws of the Sith. Officers respected them for keeping their head unbowed- their quiet dignity made them the pride of Intelligence and that of the Imperial military. Those who stood up to their superiors were few and far in-between, and Keeper made it a point that Nine’s autonomy was to be protected. He had made it his life’s work to keep them free of their influence, in the hopes that their Empire could grow beyond their reach. 

So why was Eight asking this of him?

“I don't want you anywhere near him.” Keeper shoots him down, the risk too great to be worth considering. He would not lose two Ciphers to a megalomaniac. 

“Keeper.” Eight’s tone takes on a deadly gravity, one that Keeper recognizes as the calm before the storm. 

“No, Eight.” Keeper holds his ground, his eyes stormy. He jabs an accusatory finger at the younger operative. “I bit my tongue when he came. I let him into our operations. He took our best- I will not give him more.”

Eight goes nonverbal. When he meets his unchallenged gaze again, there is darkness dawning in his eyes.

“A warrior protects his people from those who come from beyond the stars,” He speaks in the familiar purr of Cheunh, alien from the throat of one who lacked their blue skin, and Keeper sucks in a sharp intake of breath at the horror that overtakes him.

“Do not bring her into this!”

“To fight those who mean our way of life harm,” He continues, steady, like a mantra. His eyes bore into Keeper, seeing beyond him, digging beneath his skin and gently cutting him open layer by excruciating layer with all that they see in the twist of his aged features- all that he does not say. 

“Keeper.” He repeats, sitting upright with his legs dangling. One hand grips the edge of the table, the other- to Keeper’s surprise and dismay, is extending his pipe to him in an offering for peace. He lets it swivel on the balance of his finger around, the mouthpiece facing Keeper. All the while, the set resolution of his gaze never leaves him, and Keeper glares at the item as if it offends him grossly.

Not out of anger towards his agent, but towards these Force-damned circumstances and the games they must play.

Keeper bites back a swear, taking the pipe from Eight’s outstretched fingers and stuffing it hastily into his thinly pressed lips. He inhales with all the professionalism of one exposed to far too many questionable substances in his youth and the desperation of a man who needs it for the days to come.

“I will use him, as he will use me. But if we do not take this chance to earn his trust, we risk losing the most powerful of allies we could gain.” Eight speaks smooth and low, his voice as delicate as garrote wire and twice as cutting to Keeper. “I will join him. It matters not whether he cares to have me by his side- only if I can turn his power into ours. Nine will not have to give themselves up.”

Keeper ruminates, though he hardly needs to. When it comes to risk and beings of immense danger, no one is better suited. He saw the way Nine stiffened at Jadus’ selection, the way the pain and suffering of the rest of Intelligence affected them. Jadus would break them. 

Eight on the other hand, had nothing left inside to break. 

He spits out a stream of smoke through the corner of his mouth- quick and unpleasant, to show his dissatisfaction. Keeper turns the pipe back over to Eight. His eyes speak of regret. “Damn you. Damn you and him.”

“Curse me later,” Eight says, lighting a weak flame beneath his pipe, “you haven't even seen how the dice rolls.”

—-----------------

Nine limps out of Jadus’ office smelling of burnt fabric and ozone. Their pride is in tatters, for what good they did to preserve it. 

Eight watches from afar, hidden as blue collar personnel melted into the backdrop of the Sith sanctuary. 

He touches a finger to his private comm.

He felt the group hesitate. A visible thrum, a shuttering, the tightened reflexive amateur grip of vibroknives. He’d thrown them off their game. It would not last long; if they were as good as they claimed to be, he’d need to change his moves faster than they could adapt.

He felt the group hesitate. A visible thrum, a shuttering, the tightened reflexive amateur grip of vibroknives. He’d thrown them off their game. It would not last long; if they were as good as they claimed to be, he’d need to change his moves faster than they could adapt.

Fortunately for him, he was all but the compiled memory of a thousand and one deaths. This body was made for violence. It held naught else within.

“Cleverness won’t save you now, Cipher.” The Old Man shrugged off his initial hesitation, displaying his trump card in the open as his form took on that of the Cipher’s: leonine, graceful, not a step out of place. Two could play the copycat game. The young blood came with unpredictability, but his years of experience gave him the edge. He would enjoy taking the specimen before him apart. “You’ve been led into my trap.” The spy tracked his motions with those voidpool eyes of his, almost as empty as his companion’s. 

He was unsettling in a beautiful way, and the Old Man could see how it appealed to the base nature of the Sith. “Of course, we'd rather have captured you before you killed so many, but all in all, I'd call the plan a success.”

“Counting your gizka eggs before they hatch? Arrogant.”

His gaze was hypnotic with the hunger of the fight, yet soft with a terrible fondness that spoke of love where there was none to be found. When he spoke next, his voice was smooth and cutting like the tip of a cold knife trailing up a bare spine- and with the same effect. 

Eight beckoned with one free hand to him. 

They unsheathed their weapons simultaneously. 23 and counting blades glinted beneath the harsh spearing rays of the desert sun. Two exact faces, locked on one another. Orradiz inhaled the dust-choked air as if it were sweeter than perfume. He’d always wanted to give himself a second burial.

“Come, Old Man.” He pointed the knife at his own throat. “Let us see who replaces who.”

—----

Eight straddled the Old Man’s bucking body as he pinned all four of his limbs. He hummed a lullaby in Cheunh, one that mothers sang to their sons as they dreamt on her warm bosom. 

“Orradiz. Did you know I have a son around your age?” Nosta asked him, a flush on the blue of her skin as they camped out in the sniper’s nest together. He stared at her, not comprehending, then shook his head. 

“I do. His name is Veldekk. He looks so much like his father…I wonder if he’ll complain about that when he gets older. You know how boys are.” She laughed merrily, more cheery than Orradiz had ever seen her. She blew on her calloused knuckles and rubbed her hands; the chill of Hoth was difficult to bear even for a Chiss hailing from Csilla. 

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the sounds of their heartbeats and the frigid howling of the arctic wind overhead.

Nosta broke the ice, again. 

“Someday I’ll introduce you. To both of them. Saganu would love you; I know he’s always been fascinated by outsiders, but you’re as Chiss as any of us. You’ve been with me long enough.” She fidgeted with the scope of the planted sniper rifle, readjusting, peering through it to the white expanse and no signs of life. She sat back with a sigh. “I almost wish you were older, so you could have seen Veldekk when he was born. He was so small, Orre. I’ve never seen anything so fragile.”

Orradiz peered at her owlishly above his scarf. He had no idea what she was rambling about, but he could tell the importance it held for the Chiss woman was far more than she could put into his words. Every fiber of her being that she kept locked down for espionage, carefully controlled by years of training was now beaming with affection, and not for him.

She looked at him, not understanding, and smiled. “There’s a song I used to sing him to sleep with. Every night, he’d tug on my hair and look at me with his big eyes and wait for me to sing, or he refused to settle down. Shall I sing it for you?”

Quiet as he was, he could only nod.

“Alright then. Don’t fall asleep, or I’ll make you run laps in your underclothes…”

Eight wrapped his hands around the neck of his carbon-copy, and squeezed. He was reaching the end of the song. The Old Man- or his eyes bulged out of their sockets. Hands clawing, slapping at air. He watched himself die. 

The body went limp, and he let go. 

Funny. He thought he’d feel something, but it was just another corpse in the end.

Guess there really is no killing yourself after the first time, he mused dryly, kicking the dead body with his boot. He cut out the disguise implant from the base of the neck, shook off the fresh blood and bits of flesh. He held up the hunk of metal to the sun. The Old Man had an impressive display of face-changing. 

He could do better.

Mia Hawkins watched him finish his work with dual-parts resignation and wariness; she was always one to accept her own fate, and it drew Eight to her like the stink of lingering rot. But when she forced herself to look at him, there was naught but mercy in his bloodstained hand, and she took it. 

They embraced for a little while. She marveled at how someone so cold could feel so warm.

He put his lips to her ear and whispered, his tongue laden with someone else’s words. “Run. It’ll be hard. Your feet will bleed for all the miles you’ll need to walk. Make it a worthwhile chase, and you might just live to see the end of this war.”

He let her go. She swallowed thickly, then turned and ran. When she had put enough distance between them, she looked over her shoulder. He was still there: an immovable figure standing amidst a ghost village full of nameless bodies. A bead of sweat rolled into her eyes. She blinked.

Jadus himself gave no physical acknowledgment to his lackluster greeting, his imposing figure as passionless as a statue at the other end of the room and twice as towering.

“Come. Stand before me,” Jadus commanded, reticent, “and revel in the power of the Dark Council.”

Always straight to the chase, with no room for argument. Orradiz sighed inwardly. He had gone on nicer dates with even the stiffest of boards. Regardless, decorum was decorum, and their kindly Sith overlords were not to be kept waiting overlong.

Resisting the urge to make an expression, he obeyed, stopping a toe short of the minimal distance required to bask in the presence of one so glorious without grossly offending them. Jadus did not speak immediately, patient in his eerie way that was reminiscent to him of Firaxan sharks surrounding the final survivor of a downed vessel.

Perhaps the Sith had been one in his previous life.

The thought distracted him from the dreary atmosphere, but none divided their attention from the predator in front of them for long and lived to tell such tales. So, he waited for that next order, the next mundane command that saw him bouncing planet to planet on the whims of another force-user whose “great” and “powerful” mind could not possibly be “understood”.

It was not to be.

“Allow your body to betray you.”

Jadus’ next words snapped his focus back to him. His hairs stood up on end.

Betray?

Orradiz scarcely had a chance to pursue the questions whirling in his head, nor address the vice grip of warning apprehension that plunged his stomach into the cold pits of terror. A shock like lightning greased with the biting cold of frigid space tore itself up his spine, a silent scream with no sound traveling from the cage of his heart to his seizing muscles in the form of uncontrollable shaking. Something was wrong. His knee hit the dark marble tile. Get up, damn you! Move! Do something! Years of survival instincts went ignored, his body rebelling against the very notion that its master was anyone but the Sith Lord he prostrated before.

My head- I can't-

He swayed.

A light sheen of sweat gathered over his brow. What had once been a dull ache at the fore of his skull pulsed into a throb, then a feverish beat that knocked against the inside of his head like the steady bang of a nail driven into a coffin lid. The picture of the dim office lit by scarlet hue blinked in and out of focus. Jadus himself became three, then one, then two.

Ja-

He reached towards that multiplying figure whose form seemed to only swell within the rising darkness.

"Allow your blood to boil, and your heart to slow."

His fingers trembled from where they dug back into the floor. He fought against the encroaching black that closed around the corners of his vision, gasping, panting for breath as even the air escaped his closing lungs. The heat was inescapable, suffocating him, choking him. His clothes felt too tight, his skin a prison. Never before had he experienced such agony; the molten core of his heart threatened to cook him inside and out, and he cried out for one name to save him.

The sound echoed off the walls. The chime of a wedding bell. The death knell of a funeral. The shadows settled over him like a veil, obscuring his vision.

By the time he re-opened his eyes, he found himself kneeling at Jadus’ feet with no prior recollection of how he’d arrived. The Sith Lord’s hands hovered at the sides of his face, large enough to eclipse the spy’s smaller frame. black Orradiz’s eyes, darkened with fever and dulled with the burden of suffering, stared into the empty mask that now gazed into his soul.

“Everything that is not of the Dark Side will be purged…”

Jadus’ hands closed around the frame of his cheeks, caging him in. His touch was like a stone that had never met the heat of the sun. Orradiz hated himself for the pathetic gasp that escaped his lips at the sudden contact as the hazy veil of pain subsided into an afterthought, the relief so potent he could cry.

Yet he could not bear to look away. He could not. The swirl of disgust at his own weakness was but a drop in the ocean of thoughts, voices that were not his own, urges as calm as the surface of a frozen lake and ones as violent as a churning sea all crashing over him, taking him away with the tide as two became one. They merged together as stars did in the nexus: a burst of pain, a collision of consciousness, and soon he knew nothing at all.

"…or it will be tainted.”

In this dark universe, there was Jadus, and only Jadus.

Orradiz felt him there, in his mind (whose?), in his body. (mine?) His lips parted slightly in unknowing invitation to the one who had claimed him, body and soul. The moment grew pregnant with silence and the sound of his gentle breath, all background noise to the intertwined beat of their hearts, louder than thunder in the dead of the sanctuary of the Sith Lord.

The pad of Jadus’ thumb moved across his chin and upwards towards his mouth, carving a slow fire in the wake of his accepted destruction. Even the slightest touch tore him apart, his senses overloaded with the feeling of him in all his spaces. Orradiz stared at him as meek as a calf held to the butcher’s block, seconds before the knife came down.

Jadus’ thumb stopped at the corner of his lips, nudging them, pulling the soft flesh apart with the barest of effort as if amused by the very thought. He needed no force to know what he owned.

Orradiz gave it to him, weak in his embrace.

“This is inoculation, Agent. This is a sacred rite. You are privileged.” His voice was a steady timbre, lifeless in its tone yet a siren song to the one whose ears it was meant for.