SWTORpadawan

"Hey — Hold on a second, you three are hard to track down on a ship like this."

Zanya stiffens halfway up the ramp of the commandeered Hidden Chain's shuttle.

Her voice cuts through the maelstrom of his thoughts like an all too eager ship, unaware and likely to be capsized by the next wave that catches it in its sights. As much of a comfort as she had become, her appearing here, now, knocks him off course enough that he nearly stumbles over catching his boot on a piece of the metal walkway.

Not now.

Except it is now, and he doesn't have a choice on having to face her. Squeezing his eyes shut does nothing to remove her presence, as she feels her force signature reach out to him as it always does. A familiarity that he likens to a warm embrace finds him, and while it would've made him break out into hives years prior, he reluctantly opens himself enough to her to respond.

Zanya exchanges a glance with Lana before turning over his shoulder to where his sister stands in ship's bay.

She looks out of place on Vowrawn's destroyer. A Jedi walking about between the shadows of Sith and Imperial troopers alike should be terrified of the implications, and yet she blazes her own path forward. A lamb among wolves, even if she has enough battles beneath her belt to have set a very real fear in the troopers that had smartly avoided her earlier. In her soft white and tan clothing, the Jedi stands out as a beacon of what she surely believes to be their idea of peace, warmth radiating off her even here between these cold metal walls. There's a careful, pointed question to her force signature while she fastens her blade hilt to her belt, brushing up against Zanya's perception with a curious half-smile as her boots echo in the quiet.

He doesn't want to have this conversation. Rarely does he ever want to face confrontation head on with his sister, but this time he really hadn't desired to.

Zanya had thought that managing to dodge her earlier in the briefing room while she was discussing plans with Major Anri would mean that he would be on planet in all of the chaos before she could find him, out and away from her worries and queries while gently disentangling himself from her, but clearly that hadn't quite worked in the way that he thought it would.

She would always find him if she wanted to, no matter what, and that was the worst part of their relationship as it'd deepened over the years.

There was no hiding from the truth any longer, and there was no getting away from having to say the quiet part out loud that they both had been neatly ignoring for the past few weeks. The comfortable surety they'd been living with for quite a while was fraying at the ends, and it was beginning to wholly unravel his stability as more and more things began to pile on.

Now, he wasn't even sure about today.

It wasn't often that he ever made it a priority to do so, to keep things from her. He didn't live in fear of his sister and he was far more likely to be fully honest when it came to situations like this, but there were certainly times in more recent months that he felt an uncharacteristic need to protect her from what he was really doing. To gently pull the wool over her eyes and bring her some modicum of pseudo-peace, taking on the stresses of the galaxy's darker secrets himself.

A foolish notion, considering the fact Cele was more than capable of handling whatever reality they came into possession of, but much of it still felt like a responsibility that was deservedly weighing him down — not anyone else.

Zanya isn't blind enough to not notice the way the grey hairs had begun creeping along even the darkest parts of her roots. He's certainly not unaware enough to not realize where they were coming from either. There are enough that he could easily claim a few of them were because of him, and it makes an ugly feeling of guilt gnarl its way around his sore bones.

He worries his bottom lip, thinking of what he could even say at this moment that wouldn't turn it into an extended argument that he couldn't afford to have right now. They needed to be on-planet as soon as the Mandalorians arrived, lest they risk making the entire assault for naught. Cele was difficult on most days to convince otherwise from a plan that she had already assured herself she would be executing — today of all days was a massive demand that Zanya truthfully still isn't sure of. He hates not being sure of anything, but as of only seventy-two hours ago, he'd rifled through about sixteen different plans with none of them coming to full fruition.

To say he was already on edge would be the understatement of the millenia.

It wasn't as if he'd had much time to think all of this out. He'd barely slept more than a handful of scattered hours since Odessen had been locked down, and he barely feels fully confident that they would be able to wrestle the holocron from Heta and Jadus. With Malgus thrown into the fold and Shae somewhere in the periphery, there are too many moving pieces for him to have a solution ready made. He's flying blind, and has no idea what lies on the other edge of the cusp of change that looms over the galaxy.

He isn't sure that he would actually return from this harebrained scheme either, something that he had already long accepted, but had yet to be able to find a way to explain such a thing to those closest to him. Shaking off Theron and Lana had proved to be far harder, as they'd slotted themselves onto his ground team without a second question. Doing this alone wasn't an option, but doing it with the least amount of people that would topple the Alliance in his absence still was.

It's selfish, what he's about to do, but he thinks it's the most selfless thing he can do when it comes to the future of everything they've built.

Zanya turns over his shoulder to his aforementioned advisor and partner, trying to reschool his expression and calm his climbing heart rate when Theron furrows his brow in a question, "Both of you go ahead, I will be but a moment."

Theron hesitates, especially when he looks past Zanya to Cele's approaching form, but eventually follows after Lana without another word after Zanya waves him off. He'd have to talk to him later as well, though he's hoping to more cleanly manuever his way out of it in comparison to this one.

Something tells him that's also a far-flung desire that he's probably not going to get.

The pair of them disappear into the ship, and Zanya feels the blood rush in his ears as he nears Cele, who stops halfway to meet him when he steps off the ship's ramp.

She's clearly more dishevelled than usual, which is saying something considering how she usually chooses to present herself. If she had been awake for as long as he had been, then he really isn't all that surprised, but by her standards, about as off-centered as she could be given the situation. Her dark hair curls loosely around her ears, golden jewelry ever so slightly askew, and she looks almost out of breath, clearly from jogging, maybe even running all the way here, though she refuses to let it show to its full effect. Stress marrs her expression, wrinkling her usually kinder face, even if she softens seeing Zanya, "Krovos had to tell me the three of you were leaving. Sorry that I'm late."

"You are not."

"I'm not?" She raises a brow, confused, then nods to the ship. The half-smile she gives him makes the weight in his core threaten to take him down with it, "Looks to me like I am. You all were about to take off without me."

"Cele —" Zanya purses his lips. His voice comes out more strained and heavy than usual, and he mentally scolds himself for letting his emotions leak out in his tone. There was a time and place to acknowledge them. This was not one of those times or the places. He wouldn't let her wittle away at him like she always did, "You are not late because you were not meant to come as part of the ground infiltration team to begin with."

Cele tilts her head in the same way she does when she doesn't quite believe what someone is saying. Slightly to the left, because the pull of her shoulder in her right always makes her wince after the fall she'd taken on Iokath all those years ago. Her face falls, first into concern as her brows knit together searching Zanya's expression for anything that would make it easier to understand. When Zanya looks away from her for the briefest of moments, that is when it changes into dawning horror that makes her eyes widen when she steps closer and Zanya flinches away, "No-no, Zanya you're not going alone into this."

"I am not alone. Theron and Lana will be with me," He swallows thickly. That much is the truth, and easier to say, even if he's still thinking what the best contingency would be for them if things went truly south. So far, he still hasn't managed to find a way to protect his advisors yet that would keep them safe enough to return back to Odessen should things go wrong either, but he brushes the thought away while he tries to gather enough determination to stand resolute. He wouldn't falter against his sister, regardless of how strong-willed she was, "I need you to stay here."

Cele shakes her hands out, then balling them into fists at her side. The light metal of her cybernetics creaks with the stress — she hadn't slept then. She never does without oiling the joints. "No way. You're not sidelining me again. I accepted you going off to Jadus by yourself, accepted that there was nothing I could do there against a Sith lord, but this? Running off to a temple of what is probably only horrors with half of the people down there gunning for your head? Absolutely not. We face these things together, we're stronger when we're with each other. Right now, we need to be at our best as a united front."

Zanya hates that Cele's right. Hates that he feels the safest in the field when she's by his side. When she has his back. When he can depend on her to be there. The dance they've woven together over the previous few years makes it feel like he's near invincible when he has the Barsen'thor quick to jump in if he needs it. When he is able be there for her if she falters or is caught off-guard. To feel each other in the living force, and meld their very beings into something that feels like something new all together. Their force signatures merging together made them nearly unstoppable.

Truthfully, he is terrified to go into such a situation without her. It feels like leaving a part of his armor behind, a part of his soul even, as vulnerable as it sounds even in his head with only him as the witness.

Zanya squeezes his eyes shut, refusing to look at the desperate expression she wears with eyes that are his own staring back at him. Instead, the inky blackness only gives way to the nightmare Jadus had planted in his head of his sister warring against him, and he growls shaking that out of his mind. No rest for the wicked it seemed.

"I know. I am sorry to say as much that it has become a necessary concession to make. But this is my fight now. I allowed Jadus to come into possession of the holocron because of my oversight," Zanya grimaces, this was a fight that he'd started because he hadn't been aware enough to consider the consequences. It was so unlike him, to have let his guard down like that, especially around someone like Rivix. Now, his Alliance and the galaxy were paying the price, "I will end this."

Cele scowls. For such a paragon of the light side, it almost makes him feel like looking at himself in the mirror. She isn't making any effort to lid over her emotions right now either, and he feels the pinpricks of her annoyance on the corners of his perception, spilling into his own, "Rivix betraying you wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. That asshole dug his own grave, but you couldn't have seen that coming. You can't blame yourself because a Sith did what all Sith do."

Zanya wants to tell her that he should have. He wants to tell her that with so many of these textbook betrayals behind him, that seeing the writing on the wall should've made him stop halfway out the door to the shuttles while Rivix had lead him out like a lamb to the slaughter. That he had his suspicions months ago, but without proof, couldn't find reason to believe such a thing and cut their relationship with the Empire. That he was stressed, tired and overworked while dealing with the Mandalorians, and let Rivix's schemes slip by without acknowledgement. That he'd been played a fool for the umpteenth time, and now it truly did threaten everything he'd built in a very real way that they may never come back from, "I —"

Her voice is hard and uncharacteristically cold when she speaks again, "Zanya, I'm not about to send you off to die while I sit here and twiddle my thumbs because you're too proud to ask for help."

"I am not!" Zanya feels bile crawl up the back of his throat, frustration spiralling out of him to even his own surprise. It feels biting, maybe it is considering the way her eyes widen and she settles onto her back foot a moment later in reaction to his outburst. He'd had enough of people assuming things about him for too many days in a row, and it hurts the most have his sister presume as much about him. Doesn't she get it? Doesn't she understand that she's doing all of this for the things that they care about? "My pride has nothing to do with it."

"You're making it very difficult to believe that."

"You are free to believe what you like. It does not change the truth of the matter," Zanya dares for her to look away when he pins her down with his gaze, challenging her to say otherwise, "This is my burden to bear. I cannot allow for the consequences of my decisions to become the melody to the orchestra of our own destruction. I refuse it. This mission is easier with the three of us, we need to get in and get out, we do not have time for a drawn out assault with our forces the way they are now."

"Yes, but —"

"There is nothing to concede. You have a role here, one that I would not trust to anyone else. Coordinate our forces, we cannot afford to have them flying in the dark here."

She scoffs at that, "That's ridiculous, you know that I could be doing so much more groundside. There are more military advisors here than I can count, they wouldn't need me to be involved anyway. They aren't going to listen to me of all people."

"They will," Zanya had made sure of that, while Cele had been busy going over the infiltration plans with Theron. That changing of the guard had already been made, even as odd as it felt to not be holding the reins fully on this mission, but relaying to Krovos that if anything happened, if he fell out of contact and couldn't be reached for an extended period of time, to default Alliance communications to Cele, had been relieving in the most morbid of ways. The weight that had come off his shoulders when she had eventually relented was freeing in the moment. Less so now, when he's starting to realize he would have to actually inform her about it, "I have made sure of it."

Cele's eyes narrow at that. He can feel the ministrations over the edges of his mind, usually gentle, now quite pointed in trying to push the boundary between them to discover what lingers beneath — what he's hiding from her, "What does that mean? What did you do, Zanya?"

He lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in, stifling a cough all the while. Standing a modicum straighter, he nudges away her Force intrusion. She wouldn't need to search when he planned on being mostly honest with her, "The Imperials know to look to you for guidance if I am unable to be reached while planetside. You have the full authority that I would, and stars willing, they will acknowledge you the same way they would me. The rest of the council will be informed on a need to know basis."

"Authority? Zanya, I'm not a military leader. You're asking me to lead formations for factions I've never been part of, there's a reason I was never a battlemaster for the Republic. That isn't exactly my wheelhouse. It's yours."

Her tone comes out more desperate than he thinks she intends. To others, it would feel like a refusal of responsibility. A Jedi master had surely had experiences that were applicable. For as long as she had lead a portion of the Force Enclave, one would know that she certainly had the strategic know-how to be a useful addition nonetheless.

Zanya knows his sister too well to not recognize it for what it is. It's making him a necessary cog in their machine, she's attempting to make him important enough to reconsider his decision. Cele had never desired to be the commander, it's why in most discussions why she allowed Lana to be named second-in-command long before she was.

They didn't have that luxury of using that fault point anymore.

"You are quite capable of the near-and-entirely impossible, whether you believe such a thing or not. But I cannot send us both into the unknown. Not with these circumstances over our heads. We have no idea what Malgus or Jadus or Heta are truly capable of with that holocron in their hands. I need a fallback."

Cele mouths the word back at him and shakes her head, "A fallback? There is no fallback at this point. We can't back out when we've already set this course. We won't need to have a whole new plan if we have the guarantee of us being together and bringing all this all down in one fell swoop."

"And leave the Alliance leaderless, should things go sideways?"

"It won't go sideways if I'm with you."

"And if we were to both perish on Khar Shian, what then?"

"We won't."

"Your confidence in such an optimistic read of the situation is more concerning than reassuring."

"Do you even hear yourself?" Cele asks, exasperated, "You're assuming that things are going to turn for the worse without even considering that maybe we have a chance. That maybe things won't go the way that you're prophesizing they will. We've always been a force for change, we've always faced down what everyone said couldn't be done and returned successful. Why are you so quick to assume otherwise?"

Zanya pauses at that. The exhaustion has settled heavily over his consciousness, over his outlook the previous few months and it does not want to let up off of him. He can't afford to be nearly as doubtless as Cele is, not when he feels that he sees where this is going if he even briefly lets up off the feeling that his fate is in limbo. The rule of planning ahead is what had kept him alive all this time, and there was very little reason to do otherwise, especially now when there were no guarantees that he could prevent whatever catastrophe would come upon their heads were Jadus successful in unleashing Nul's holocron.

Her shoulders rise and fall with each and every breath she takes that comes quicker and quicker. Panic is starting to creep into her form, something that he's never liked seeing on her when he brings up something that she doesn't like pertaining to a mission.

Wishing he could do away with it would do nothing tangible, so he stays the course.

"Whether you like the circumstances or not, we stand on the precipice of something far bigger than ourselves. I do no know where it may lead us, should everything come crashing down in the way that I presume it will. I do not believe that you running headfirst into the fire alongside myself should be the way to solve that uncertainty."

He doesn't know what lies beyond today, what lies beyond the next few hours, and that's the scariest part of it all. That there is no playbook, there is nothing to say what might happen if they don't win.

But he doesn't have to lose everything all at once.

"Zanya —"

"The Alliance will always need a leader, it cannot stand on its own, regardless of how much we like to believe we are capable of withstanding everything," Zanya sets his mouth in a hard line, "No one else knows our operation like you do. I would trust the Alliance to very few others, and if there is anyone that I would relinquish my title and power to if I do not return—"

"No-!"

"It would be you."

It would be her. It had always been her, as soon as they'd formed the fledgling rebellion against the Eternal Throne. Really, it had taken years for him to believe that anyone wanted him at the helm, in comparison to his far more level-headed sister, the one who had always been a mental representation of progress and harmony. She had a mind for what was best for most, and was determined enough to work well with just about everyone regardless of the consequences. Certainly, she had caught him before he could make a mess of things quite a few times in the past. What she wanted versus who she really was, who she had become in the years afterwards, it felt as if it didn't matter in the moment. Likely because it didn't. It was the best thing that he could do for everyone involved, regardless of how much panic and indignation boils up and out of Cele's perception at the very idea, "I am saying this as an important contingency that we cannot simply ignore. I cannot afford to be foolish enough to believe that we may simply walk away from such a thing. The reality of the situation cannot play as a secondary objective."

"Reality or not you — you're going to come back. I know that you will. You've faced worse odds, maybe the worst by killing the Emperor himself twice over. A wayward Mandalorian and two mad Sith lords is nothing, for us," Cele is attempting to not seem like she's pleading, but she is, with how much closer she gets to him. She stresses her words with a sense of urgency that makes him want to turn away from her, even when she grasps his hands with her own, "We can do this together."

"I know," She threatens to break him, break his resolve, break the plan in his mind that he holds so tightly to that it nearly gives him a burn on his hands. Zanya has to be realistic, and years ago he never would've given this a second thought. But he does now, and stars does it hurt to leave her behind, "This is us taking the parameters of this mission on together. I need you to lead where I am unable to, and if you see any reason to bring down the temple —"

"Which I won't, not with you in it."

"Any reason, Cele. Especially if I give the order, you will make it happen. No questions asked."

Her voice hardens in that way that makes Zanya only more frustrated because he knows exactly what's running through her head when she squeezes his palms. He decides not to recoil when the metal of her ring and fifth finger dig into his skin with more force than he expected, "I won't be complicit in your self-destruction. You know that."

"Nul's holocron in their hands is far bigger than any concerns about myself."

"You can't create a fault tree where the hinge factor is you. Zanya, there are other options," Cele's eyes crinkle around the corners, "There are other ways to do this than presuming that you have to be the one to bear the weight of the galaxy alone."

Zanya's grim expression only causes Cele's frown to deepen. Realization is setting in, and it looks so terribly distressing on her face. He doesn't want to think about what he looks like when he rolls this thumbs over her gloved palms. Nor does he want to say as much that he had been wearing the fate of their very stars for nearly a decade now, and he had long lived past where he expected to with that worn mantle upon his soul.

Lana's voice calls from the ship, urgent and quite serious when the destroyer shudders under the pressure of ships flying past and the combat they can both see from just beyond the bay's shields. The fighting has already begun, and he can hear the communicator in his ear chattering with half a dozen orders and questions flying over the channel. Requests that he needs to answer, orders that he needs to give.

But for a long moment, they're both staring into the abyss of the galaxy, attention focused squarely on the navy blue planet below. In only a few hours, maybe shorter, things would be different regardless of whether he liked it or not. Regardless of whether he wanted to set things onto a separate course or not. And all of it depended on whether he could actually do what was demanded of him.

He's out of options. He's out of time.

"Whether I am or not, I have a responsibility to the millions of lives that look to us for guidance. For once, I am making this request of you. You have always said you would be here for me, regardless of what I might need," Zanya responds, exhaling sharply when he turns back to his sister, "This is the moment and place that I need you. I would like to believe this is a routine outing, that we will be back victorious how our Alliance always is —"

He stumbles, when Cele wraps her arms around him a split second later. The feeling of her warmth envelops him when she pulls him in tightly to her, allowing their shared Force bond to merge nearly seamlessly for just a moment. Long enough for it to feel like it's only them there, as the rest of the stars disappear when he folds his arms around her as well, letting himself rest his head in the crook of her neck. Affection floods through her signature, worry and terror alongside it in an almost nauseating collection of everything that she's feeling all at once, and yet he leans into anyway. Loops his own emotions into her's, threads their understandings together into something metaphysical that calms his racing heart, if even for a moment.

"I can't lose you," Her whisper is barely loud enough to be heard over every other noise that assaults his senses, far too loud and large for how open he is right then in his awareness. Still, he leans into it, into her for a few seconds. He doesn't bother to pull away when he feels her natural soothing nature seep into his perception, when the scent of Tythonian jasmine stings his nose. Instead, he allows it to wash over him like a tidal wave, "Don't make me have to do this on my own."

He despises making promises that he doesn't know if he can keep. It's too close to making a liar out of him, and letting the truth fall by the wayside especially when its as important as this is far too heavy of an ask. Worrying at his bottom lip, he simply subtly nods instead.

The newest crimelord on the block finally gets art! I surprised myself with this one lol I was not expecting it to come out this well (I have been avoiding drawing droids for a While)

The decision Idona makes at the end of the class story is to pillage both the Imperial and the Republic fleets. Idona does not particularly hold loyalties to the Republic, but it has collected many republic-aligned contacts and generally keeps it's distance from the slave trade so it doesn't tangle with Imperial employers too often.

In a plot which I have not at all worked out the details of, Idona's operation gradually expands from its headquarters at port nowhere, dealing in both legal and illegal trades. If you need something moved, or if you need something 'acquired', the Voidhound should be your first port of call.

I'm imagining here loose arrangements of contractors/pirates/smugglers. Only a few with a definite loyalty to Idona and the rest working on the basis of "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours". But this operation in the shadows comes to resemble the early days Alliance in size and resources. Scrappy, but not to be sniffed at.