This is my last time, she said
As she faded away
It’s hard to imagine but
One day you’ll end up like me  
‘Get Out Alive’ - Three Days Grace

Somewhere behind them, a shattered terminal sparked.  The lights flickered briefly, but Achai hardly needed to see in order to place a bootheel on the hand of the Jedi at his feet.  She gasped, weakly attempted to grasp at the hilt of the lightsaber just out of her reach.  He smirked at her and bent over to scoop it up.  

“Caught the apprentice before he could get to the airlock,” Vith called as he rounded the bend to join the Miraluka.  ”What, she ain’t dead yet?  Come on, ‘Chai, there’s no time for this.”

In most circumstances, Vith never dared refer to the Sith by the shortened, pet version of his name.  But there was no one else here to witness their banter, except the Jedi Achai knew would be dead soon.  

 ”She will be soon, don’t fret,” he replied and held the Jedi’s lightsaber hilt out to the bounty hunter.  Vith took it gingerly, staring at it as if it were a viper that might bite him if he held it in the wrong place.  ”You can’t activate it that way, Vith.  Just hold onto it for me.”

He knelt, pressing a knee into the Jedi’s chest painfully, and reached to grasp her hood, yanking it back to reveal the wizened face.  For a moment, he swore he knew her from somewhere, and he delayed choking her just a second longer to figure out how.  

“Yes, Sith, I know your brother,” she whispered.

“‘Chai…” Vith cautioned, but Achai shook his head.  

The Jedi mouthed something briefly, then stopped and took a moment to find the breath to speak.  ”You… will not… the Sene Seekers…”

Achai had heard more than enough and clenched his fist tightly. The Jedi stopped speaking all together, mouth working soundlessly as the pressure against her windpipe increased until finally her eyes closed and she slumped in death.  

He kicked her viciously, anger welling up in him so swiftly he lifted her body into the air and threw it violently down the hallway.   Vith watched quietly, pulling the helm off his head, tucking it under his arm.  His questions were written clearly on his countenance.   But Achai shook his head, hand lifting to still the Chiss’ tongue for now.  

“Her padawan is dead?”

“Yes. What are Sene Seekers?”

Achai growled, “It’s nothing.  She’s making idle threats.”

In public, they were Sith Lord and bounty hunter.  Vith was part of Darth Invecti’s growing powerbase, his strong arm in matters that required the use of brute force.  In public Vith always deferred to his Sith master.  In public he would never have lifted a hand against a darth.

But a drifting ship with an entirely dead crew was no longer public.  In private, they were confidants and lovers and Vith was getting tired of being kept in the dark.  Despite the danger an angry Sith was when provoked, he grabbed Achai’s hood and slammed him up against the wall, pinning him there.  ”Pardon me your lordship but I’m kriffin’ tired of you not telling me things.”

“Vith, don’t,” Achai warned.  Already the Force flowed through him, an angry torrent, an aura that glowed red around him.  

“Or what? You think a few more scars are gonna scare me off?”  He grabbed a ridge on Achai’s rebreather mask, as if that might force him to focus on his face.  ”What’s a Sene Seeker?  How’m I gonna keep you safe if ya don’t tell me what’s goin’ on?”

“It’s… they’re not going to find me in Imperial territory.”  

“Oh maker, Svik’achai tell me what the kriff is a spaced Sene Seeker?”

It was the use of his married name that stilled the Sith.  The anger drained out of him so swiftly that he started laughing.  ”You sound like my mother when she caught me stealing cookies in the kitchen right before dinner.”

The Chiss blinked a few times, staring as if his lover had just grown a second head.  ”This… isn’t funn— dammit, ‘Chai.”

Achai took advantage of his confusion, tore the rebreather off of his face and grabbed the Chiss by his suit’s power conduit, reeling him in to capture his mouth in a brutal kiss.  The Chiss responded eagerly, breaking it a few heartbeats later, resting his forehead against the Miraluka’s.

“Don’t think you’ve gotten out of explaining this to me.”  Then he donned his helm again, securing it to the rest of his suit.  ”And that was a dirty damn trick, distracting me like that.”

Pushing away from the wall, Achai grinned at him.  ”Mission accomplished here.  Let’s extract the holocrons and get back to our ship.”

“Achai…”

“Fine,” the Sith huffed, refitting the rebreather over the lower portion of his face. “You’ll get your explanation.  When we’re well away from here.”

Axhale waited with a Jedi’s patience.  He knew Achai had landed hours ago, and that he would arrive soon.  He couldn’t help himself, drawn to his twin brother by a power greater than either of them.  

Sure enough, he spotted the speeder in the distance, winding along the Alderaanian roads.  He pulled up next to Axhale’s small encampment and cut the engine, stepping off the machine before leaning against it.  

The contrast between them still boggled Axhale.   Achai wore the darkness he served on him like a shroud, all black and gray attire and the rebreather that turned his voice mechanical when finally he spoke.  

“I have business here, brother.  And I don’t have a lot of time to bother with you.”

Dusting his hands off, Axhale rose from where he’d been meditating.  ”I came to warn you, Achai.  The Luka Sene—”

Achai laughed, cutting him off mid-sentence.  ”You think I’m not aware they’ve sent seekers out to find me?  Don’t be an idiot, Axhale.  Every Miraluka who turns to the dark side risks their dogged pursuit.  Do you know how many of us there are now serving the Empire?  Not even our people, so peaceful and gentle, can avoid the power of the dark side.”

“Dammit, Achai this is serious. Would you stop posturing for one moment to actually listen to me?”  Axhale frowned deeply and took a deep breath to stem the tide of anger he felt rising.  

In return, he expected more taunting from Achai, more mockery.  Yet the Sith just stood there, staring at his twin brother in contemplation.  For a moment, Axhale swore he saw the old Achai. The brother he had known in their childhood.  It was only a split second, and then he sneered.  

“You have nothing to say that I wish to hear.  Why are you even bothering to warn me? Why should you even care? If they manage to subdue me, you win.  Because they will not capture me, Axhale. I’ll die before I let them take me back to Alpheridies.”

Axhale believed him, even if it were the darkness in him talking.  Through Force sight he could see the dark tendrils wafting off of him like so much black smoke.  For so long he’d been steeped in it that Axhale might have given up completely, were it not for the little things.  The way Achai hesitated sometimes, or felt a brief stab of remorse that he swiftly buried beneath bravado.

“Because there is still good in you, Achai,” he sighed, “And I will never give up on you.  And you know as well as I that if you won’t let them take you, they’ll just as soon destroy you.”

Achai snorted, the sound distorted through his rebreather mask.  Swinging a leg around the body of the speeder, he started the engine and revved it.  ”Thank you for the warning, Axhale.  But I belong to Bogan.  The Luka Sene will find that out if they ever get close enough to me to try anything.”

Axhale exhaled softly and nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself until Achai was long gone, disappearing over a ridge.   “May they bring you back to Ashla, brother. Someday.”

(I just felt like writing about them. >.> )

“It was once said that love is giving someone the ability to destroy you, but trusting them not to.” 
-Unknown 

“‘Chai, wait,” Vith’alor said, grabbing Achai’s wrist and tugging him back.  He drew his weapon in the opposite hand and descended the gangplank while gesturing for the Sith to stay there.

It took only a brief moment of concentration for Achai to extend his Force sight and realize why the bounty hunter suddenly took point.  Their ship was surrounded by a number of armed guards.  Cyborgs most of them, wearing the parts on their faces as if painted with tattoos.  Their leader stood toward the base of the plank, arms folded over his chest and lips quirked to the left in a semi-smirk.  

Achai sighed to himself and muttered something about Nar Shaddaa.  Every time he ran into an issue, it was always the moment he touched down here. 

“Hello boys,” Vith said as he paused at the end of the gangplank. “Somethin’ tells me this ain’t the Hutt welcoming committee.  So what do you all want, hmm?”

Their leader rubbed his nose absently, and when he spoke his voice vibrated.  ”Got no qualms with you, hunter. We’re just here for the Sith.  My employer wants to have a few words with him, yanno?  You’re surrounded, we know how to take out Sith, too.  Just make this easy yeah?  My employer even said he’d throw some creds at you to back off and let us do our job.”

Achai chuckled quietly to himself, echoing Vith’alor’s laughter.  ”Are you kidding me? There’s a reason why I’m Darth Invecti’s personal bodyguard, boys.  As in, you can’t pay me enough to betray him.”

He descended the gangplank then, not even drawing his lightsabers yet.  ”Hunter, it appears we have unwanted guests.  You know what we do with the uninvited.”

Vith’alor grinned, “There’s seven of ‘em, boss.  Plus the guy they have over there pointing a sniper blaster at ya.”

The sweet, electric hum of lightsabers hissed to life as he pulled them from his belt and ignited them.  The Force flowed through him in an instant, fueled by the sudden flare of hatred.  He hated all of them, he realized.  And whoever had the audacity to hire them.  To think that a group of Force blind bounty hunters, regardless of their supposed training, could capture or kill him.

He could taste their nervousness.  Several of them glanced toward the leader, who still had his hand raised to still them.  It would only take one trigger finger getting a little too tight, one nervous twitch, one small step forward to start everything.  And the cyborg who controlled them knew it from the look of him.  One eye had been covered by a cybernetic scanner, the other narrowed slightly and a bead of sweat forming against his temple. 

“Keep their leader alive,” Achai ordered, “I want to know who hired him.”

Vith’alor nodded, the grin vanishing, “As you wish, my lord.”

“Take ‘em out boys!” 

The sniper gave out a choked sound immediately, Vith’alor wasting no time in removing him from the equation with a well placed shot to the man’s throat.  Achai deflected several blaster bolts aimed at him.  Then rocketed forward to slash one man’s arm off completely before turning a lightsaber on his partner, slicing his chest open.   Even as that one folded over to the ground, he was on the next assailant.   

The entire event folded out in front of him, able to see Vith’alor behind him, a blaster bolt twanging off the armored plating of his forearm as he blasted the guy practically right in the face.

By the time the dust settled, Achai had to take a deep breath and stand back.  He’d taken a hit to a shoulder that now began to ache.  Vith’alor’s armor had taken a beating, but held true.  

“I’m afraid he kinda took a hit to the head, boss,” Vith’alor said, toeing the cyborg’s corpse with his boot.  ”So much for knowing how to subdue a Sith lord.”

“The ones who brag about that usually regret it shortly thereafter.”

Vith’alor grabbed Achai’s arm, turning him around as he noticed the blistered synthweave on his shoulder.  ”Kriff, one of them actually had decent aim. Lemme get a kolto pack.”

He grabbed Vith’s hand and shook his head.  ”Not yet, we’re about to have company again.”

Houk guards appeared in the hangar, drawn there by the rumor of violence in a Nar Shaddaa spaceport.   Somewhere, a Hutt would soon demand answers for this, answers Achai himself wanted.  Who dared make an attempt to capture or kill him?

“We’ll take care of it later.  Right now, I need to go yell at a Hutt about their lax security.”

Vith’alor smirked at him, “Leavin’ that up to you, boss. Hutts can kiss my blue ass.”

“No one kisses you there but me,” Achai replied before swiftly stepping off the gangplank to confront the Houks.  

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”
—Marcel Proust  

“You are Miraluka, aren’t you?”  Arannek’s lightsaber had turned off by this point, replaced on his belt as he turned toward the viewscreen.  

Achai rolled over onto his side, reaching for one of his fallen weapons.  His hand barely closed over it, fingers still aching.  Everything hurt after a rigorous training session. Everything.  The question of his species came up occasionally, usually meant to remind him he was alien.  An insult to rile him, anger him, make him hate his master so much he struck blindly rather than with precision.  

“Yes, Master,” he answered dutifully, too exhausted to bother letting it anger him again.

Arannek nodded thoughtfully, pressing a few keys on the screens to bring up a map of the greater known galaxy.  ”Past the Veil.  No trading routes there.  Your people live in general seclusion, don’t they.”

Achai sat up, pressing his back against a wall.  He found the second lightsaber and pulled it to himself with the Force.  ”Yes, Master.  We still have … had traders pass through, just not many.”

“Fascinating.”  

He toyed with the computer while Achai continued to pull himself off the floor.  Once finally standing, able to remain steady, Arannek gestured for him to join him at the terminal.  Achai sensed something was projected, but he couldn’t actually see it.  ”You know I can’t see holoprojections, Master.”

A hand immediately struck him against his temple, a warning to mind his mouth.  He ducked his head, muttering an apology.  But Arannek had already dismissed it, tapping the keys on the terminal to change whatever projection he stared at.  ”A red dwarf star.  No wonder your kind lost their sight.  How in the world are you able to exist there?”

Achai shrugged his shoulders, then rolled his head to try stretching some of his sore muscles a bit.  ”It’s an agricultural planet, at least where I lived it was.  Farms everywhere, and everything imbued with the Force.”

Arannek grunted, only half paying attention to him.  Achai’s mind already wandered back to scenes from his memory.  The house with the wide picture windows that looked over vast fields of grain and vegetables able to survive in the dim infrared lighting.  The machinery by the barn and the silos, tall against the horizon and one of the few structures higher than the squat buildings and barns.  Something inside of him longed to return there, one last glance at the place where he grew up. 

“Apprentice,” Arannek interrupted his thoughts with the sharp whip of his voice.  He had turned the terminal off, and now held his lightsaber in one hand, though not ignited yet.  ”Did I tell you we were done yet?”

“Not yet, Master.”

The lightsaber flicked on, then, humming with violet light.  ”Then draw your weapons.  This time you had better learn to block me.”

He watches them on the monitor, Sith and bounty hunter together and fast asleep.  Achai’s head against Vith’s shoulder, Vith’s temple resting atop Achai’s head.  If one knew nothing about them, they might come to innocuous conclusions.   

But Axhale knew better.  Understood the rage and hatred that consumed his twin brother.  But this he had a hard time comprehending.  Who was this bounty hunter to him?  Why did his chest tighten the moment they brought the recordings up, it wasn’t the Sith way to remain unattached necessarily.   That his brother had a lover shouldn’t have surprised him.

“That’s how they’ve been for hours now,” the trooper said, “Not even tried to escape.”

“They know there’s nothing they can do right now,” Axhale said.  Moving them would be tricky, even with the bindings that made it difficult, if not impossible, for Achai to use the Force.  

“I need to talk to the bounty hunter. Alone.”

Sometimes at night, stretched out beside his lover in the quiet hull of the ship, Achai’s Force sight drifted.  Through the darkness of space his mind traveled, to the familiar territory of Alpheridies, remembering rows of crop growing within the strange light of the red dwarf star.  The houses that dotted the landscape between plowed fields.  

Fingers moved while he focused there, drifting over the smooth skin of his lover’s face, tracing along the curve of his jaw.  In a time before Korriban, before the Empire and the Sith and the dark side of the Force, he remembered the kinship and camaraderie of his own people.  Yearned to feel the kisses planted to his forehead by family.  The laughter of cousins running around the gardens despite resigned parents telling them to avoid trampling the vegetables.

Vith stirred, murmuring something Achai couldn’t understand.  His concentration broke, bringing him back from the fields and family to the reality of a cool, dark ship docked at the spaceport on Dromund Kaas.  His hands paused, fingers stilled.  

But the Chiss never woke.  

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”
-Anatole France

****************

Setekh, I do believe, resents me.  Jealous of me, and of my standing with our master.  Of course, he’s also tried to kill me once and been plotting against me for quite some time.  Anything to get rid of the spoon fed Sith.  I see the way he looks at me, I see how he mutters beneath his breath when I think I’m not looking.

I see everything, Setekh. You have no idea.  I like keeping you ignorant about it.  You and Aegnas, both.  So go ahead, think I have never had to work for my position.

There’s an irony to this. The irony is that I am a Republic born Sith, an alien even if my appearance suggests human if one has no idea there is nothing behind my mask.  I have had to work ten times harder than my peers for recognition. And yet my master’s newer apprentices view me as the spoiled and overindulged favorite.

Let them believe that. Let them think me so indulged that it weakens me.  However, there is some truth that my master has too much power over me.  This was fine while I was an apprentice, and even a lord.  But he’s had me promoted to Darth at this point, and I most certainly did earn that title.  Already there are others studying me, looking for ways to either subvert me to their cause or destroy me to further their own power.  A young Darth without any support is waiting to die.

I have a presence not many of them know of.  I keep an ear to the holonet, slice into various frequencies to listen in on conversations people believe are private.  The exchange of information has netted me quite a few credits, which I keep stored in accounts under false names.  I let my master, and others, believe I am financially dependent on him.  

This has also netted me a number of contacts, people who have no idea who I really am.  (Some of them are unknown to me as well, though not all.)  I have enough of a following now, my competence speaks better than my abilities with the Force ever could, that I’ve begun putting out feelers for particular things.  And it has finally become fruitful.  

I may need to involve one of the agents on this, to verify some of the information for me.  Anything that seems too good to be true invariably isn’t.  The trouble is in knowing which ones to trust.  Two of them are bound to me by blood, but the older is wary of me.  Perhaps the younger could be useful.  There is also Obisen, and Lord Ixor’semo who travels with him.   But Bi’ev seems to keep the two of them occupied with his business.  And that is the one Darth I prefer not to upset.

Ixor’semo makes me laugh.  I don’t really want to involve him in the serious business of Sith politics.  I rarely meet someone who isn’t throat deep in it by now.

And then there is Vith’s brother.  What a contrast between them, if they didn’t look alike you wouldn’t know they were brothers at all.   But I doubt he’d be willing to trust me.  He can’t even stand being near me.  

Vith is another story.  I trust him more than I do anyone else. Perhaps a bit too much.

“My lord, we’ve barely been here but half the day. Are you wanting to leave so soon?” The officer had been exasperated with Achai since their departure from Fleet, still not at all understanding what kind of game was afoot.  All he knew is that they’d just gotten settled and the Sith wanted to leave again already.

“I didn’t think you’d mind leaving here, I’ve never heard you speak kindly of Tatooine,” Achai replied.  

The officer had no argument against that, it was completely true.  Still, even as he had nothing to say, his lips were a firm line of disapproval.  Finally, he bowed shallowly and muttered something about preparing the ship for departure.  Achai stared briefly at the ceiling to the bed chamber in his safehouse, and then ordered the door shut and locked.   Part of him wondered just what Vith thought when he found his little consolation prizes behind on Alderaan.  

He set the holorecorder down on the bedside table and turned it on to record.   A tease, one of his lovers had once called him, and all too good at it.  Vith would discover the truth of it eventually, if he managed to catch the Sith.  Achai hadn’t really considered what he’d do if he won.  Disappointment, for certain.  But, he’d already gotten reports that the bounty hunter had managed to follow his trail to the Alderaanian safehouse.  

It was only a matter of time before he landed on Tatooine.  

He took his time removing his clothing, making sure the holocorder captured his every move.   Gloves and boots first, set down on the table, then the facemask and bracers. He shimmied out of the robe slowly, leaving him in nothing but tight, velvety black pants.  Stretching out on the bed, he turned his head toward the holocorder and reached for his eyeshades.  Just sliding them upward, about to reveal what was behind them—-

“End recording.”

An hour later, the ship rocketed away from the Tatooine space station.  But left behind on the bed in the safehouse just recently abandoned was the holorecording, resting right beside a pair of spare eyeshades on the bedside table.

The perfect bait to keep the hunter keen on finding his prey.

“It is only in love and murder that we still remain sincere.”
-Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Achai boarded his ship and snapped his fingers.  The crew sprung to life, having already prepared to lift off as soon as their lord was on board and ready to go.  The ship’s coordinates were already set for one particular planet, though that was simply a ruse.  The moment they came out of hyperspace, the plan was to go right back into it to another star system.  A few jumps like that and Achai felt reasonably certain Vith would be kept busy tracking him.

The ship came online, all systems functional.  They had extra fuel and supplies stocked.  The crew had done well to obey his commands, which meant a reward later on, once all was said and done.  He had no idea how long Vith would wait before beginning pursuit.  But he planned to be as far away as possible, already thinking two or three steps ahead of his next move.  

“My lord, coordinates are set, we’ve been given permission by Fleet to depart at your command,” the ship’s captain came out from the bridge to announce.  

“By all means, let us be on our way.”

“May I speak freely sir?”

Achai lifted a brow over the edge of his shades.  ”Very well.”

The captain adjusted his collar slightly, as if he feared a good choking would be in order soon.  ”The crew and I are a bit confused as to what is going on.  Darth Arannek has made no mention of you being in danger.”

Throwing back his head, Achai laughed.  ”Danger? Oh captain, you need not be concerned for my welfare.  This is a game, and it’s just now begun.”

The captain blinked at him a few times, clearly not quite understanding the meaning of anything Achai was doing.  Finally he decided that it wasn’t his concern and he was probably better off following orders.  He bowed deeply.  ”Of course, my lord.  We’ll be taking off in twenty minutes.”

Once he vanished back to the bridge, Achai sprawled out over the couch.  The taste of Vith’s mouth still lingered, along with the memory of that sudden, demanding kiss.  Tempting as it was to submit right then and there, ultimately the hunt would be far more fun.  There was a chance for disappointment, that the bounty hunter wouldn’t actually be able to track him down.  But Vith proved himself capable.

An afterthought occurred to him once they were in orbit and the ship rocked briefly as they entered hyperspace.  Pulling out his holocom, he opened the frequency for one of the Division agents and left a brief, undetailed message.  Better to leave it with Intelligence, who were far more guarded with their communications, than with his own master. 

It was only a matter of time before he and Vith met again, and he allowed the Chiss to claim the real prize.  The very thought of it had him grinning up at the ship’s ceiling and dreaming about it when finally he slept.

To live in desire is to play with fire 
That burns within our every cell 
Dying eternal, love infernal
Just one kiss to feel the spell 
‘Love Infernal’ - Poisonblack

 Achai turned his holocomm off and set it on the table beside him.  For a long silent moment, his mind puzzled out just how deep this had gone, and how fast.  Not even twenty-four standard hours after he had met the bounty hunter in the Fleet cantina and the man had tracked his quarry to a completely different planet.  Which meant he’d return soon, a job well done and his payment earned and then some.

Which brought to mind the method of payment.  No credits, not for this particular mission.  The bargain, sparked over the scent of alcohol and the din of conversation and nasalized laughter, included something less mundane than a simple monetary sum.  Vith wanted one thing of his specification, which of course he kept coyly secret, and a hunt, specifically to hunt Achai.    

There was no question that the bounty hunter had earned his reward, and Achai had too much of his own personal honor to renege on the deal.  

Rising from his seat, he picked the holocom back up, dialing a frequency back to the estate on Dromund Kaas.  The slender form of Vaath’azar appeared, bowing low to her lord.  ”Vaath, I have safe houses on several different planets.  See to it they’re prepared in short order.”

The twi’lek lifted an eyeridge but she nodded, “As you wish, my lord.”

“And Vaath, this should be done quietly.  Involve only who needs to be involved, make sure they know the locations and any preparations are to be kept secret.  If anyone fails me on this, they risk my anger.”

She bowed again and then her figure vanished as he turned off the holocom.  Yes, Vith would get his hunt.  But, Achai wasn’t about to make it easy or quick.