Hoth: Blood and Ice

[Layne Hoshin]

"I know nothing of this new empire," she said, her voice now seemingly devoid of emotion again, though it didn't take much to tell it was all merely pushed back down to just below the surface.

"When I last knew it, it was run by an absent emperor. Baras used me to imprison that emperor's Voice, and usurp that role for himself. I 'died' before I could come to see what that meant. I could not be there to see him get his comeuppance when the Emperor returned, only to be disappointed he'd get away with it somehow, even profit. And I was forced to watch from far away as my efforts to kill the Emperor were taken on by others, failing in victory."

She pressed a few buttons, her head dipping lower to let her absently watch the control panel lit up as she directed the ship to right itself into a more stable position and orientation.

"That was a long time ago. I want to know how things have changed since."

[Luth Khalan]

"It's... more mystical, I suppose. They're doing a lot with sorcery and alchemy and whatnot. Exploring the mysteries of the Dark Side or the 'Unknowable Dark' or whatever. The military has been separated from the Sith quite a bit... They can't just walk in and say, "Hey, this ship is mine." That was all Syl," she said, sitting down in one of the seats nearby. "Baras, as always, knew which way the wind was blowing, so he ingratiated himself to the new regime and didn't lose much from the change. And anyone who might've had issues with that tended to stop showing up to their posts."

[Layne Hoshin]

"The Korriz witch's doing, yes? I did not interact much with her; the overbearing mysticism was hard to suffer even back then. But no surprise of course, that Baras would worm his way into the new regime."

She continued to press more buttons; making sure all the systems were functional, slowly bringing them online one by one. She was no pilot herself, nor ship's technician. But she'd had this ship for long enough to at least know her way around its systems for the most part.

"...he named me his apprentice again today."

[Luth Khalan]

Luth frowned, but it was the facial equivalent of her penchant for understatement. Anger, then dimming as confusion rose.

Why did that annoy her? Was she...? No. That was impossible. Fortunately, there was something else to focus on rather than the possibility of... that.

Luth checked over the controls. She'd gotten more used to ships as time went on. "That... makes sense. That spiral of self-recrimination ends in his hands." There was a long moment of silence as she stared hard out the window, like Hoth's barren landscape might reveal some truth. "It's a path I know too well not to recognize it."

[Layne Hoshin]

"It was not his doing, he merely provided the means. He may take credit, but the one plotting this course was I, and I alone. And I plotted it because it is *necessary*."

A final series of button presses, and the ship's auto-pilot kicked in, lifting the Sunset Dawn up out of the snow and beginning the trek back to base. Whatever awaited her there, well, she didn't know. She'd dreaded having to face that music; but she was dreading it less and less. There was nothing left to do now but to let things take their course; both figuratively and literally.

"...I knew where it would lead. What it would involve. Not the specifics, maybe, but still... I knew. What it would take me back to."

[Luth Khalan]

"Necessary is a funny thing," she mused. "I thought that, too."

After a moment, she shrugged. "What's the Republic like now? How is everyone?"

[Layne Hoshin]

"No offense Luth," she said, "But I think the necessity you're referring to was of a rather different scale than mine. Not that I'm diminishing yours, of course. Nor denying the possibility that I am entirely wrong about all of this, and that the seats you and I take around the table of need and moral responsibility have switched completely because of it... the Force seems to enjoy such cruel poetry, after all."

The ship no doubt creaked and moaned a little during the flight, misaligned internal plating or hull segments having bent to whatever extent the crash might've caused.

"The Republic... well... I'd like to say they've improved. Here and there they even have. And here and there they've done the exact opposite. It is hard to maintain a lofty view of the Republic when so many Core Worlds maintained their wealthy and luxurious ways while doing everything they could to keep from having to share their worlds with refugees far less fortunate."

She shrugged. "Of course, it's not as bad as sacrificing billions, the way the Empire's done."

[Luth Khalan]

"It's fine. I recognize that I'm nothing in this galaxy. A slave that's still nothing more than that. The mindset is just similar."

Her tone was dead when she said it. It was like listening to a corpse talk.

"Good to know."

[Layne Hoshin]

"You are not nothing," she said, "merely little compared to the entire sum of sentient life in the galaxy. As goes for all of us."

Again it sprung to mind; the sacrifice of who she wanted to be, versus who she must become.

"You don't approve of what I'm doing," she stated; making an observation. "You want to leave that life, as I did. Seeing the one who once offered you that chance now turn back to this path must not be what you wanted to see."

She did sympathize. There were lots of things Layne hadn't wanted to see either.

"We can always come back, though. Nothing is forever static."

[Luth Khalan]

"Which you have balanced solely on your shoulders?"

She shrugged. "It's a bit sad, but it is what it is. Your mind is made up."

[Layne Hoshin]

"...Do you want to leave the Sith, Luth?"

She turned to look at her more closely.

"Despite what I'm doing, I could still help you accomplish it. Now would be the perfect time, even."

[Luth Khalan]

"Leave the Sith and do what?" She concentrated on the landscape outside... such as it was.

[Layne Hoshin]

"What is it you *want* to do?" She asked, not wanting to ruin things by assuming too much.

[Luth Khalan]

"I don't know. There would be no place for me anywhere. Not after everything." She shook her head and actually laughed softly. "I apologize for earlier. With such a vague attitude, I'm in no position to apply my values to other people."

[Layne Hoshin]

"You are mistaken, Luth," her tone softened.

"I thought the same thing once. I had killed so many people, after all. And I was so angry all the time. *Hated* everything and everyone. Especially myself... even more so than I do now. And unlike you I couldn't even smile at or speak to anyone without throwing a string of expletives at them and finding some way to piss them off..."

A pause.

"...The Jedi *still* took me in..."

And then another, shorter one.

"...It is their way. They will help you no matter what, even if you choose not to join them or follow their ways. They will do whatever they can to help you break free from the Sith and do for you what I could not. You just have to let them. I could make the introduction. A final act by which I might do some good in all this."

She turned around again, to look out the window once more for a bit. "Now is the best chance you'll ever have. It is like Nar Shaddaa was for me. The Jedi are right there. You can simply go to them, and even Baras can not do anything about it under these circumstances. He is too pragmatic to take action under these circumstances. You and they will have time to plan to untangle you from his influence."

Layne turned back to face Luth again. "Especially if he can be made distracted, and focused on me instead of you. An old tool come back to him of her own free will, a Jedi turned back to the dark side. With the right words from someone he trusts, he won't be able to resist."

[Luth Khalan]

"That's a little bit ironic. You had a different experience with them than I did. You see, I've spoken to the Jedi before. Approached them on Nar Shaddaa, when I first discovered I was Force sensitive, introduced by Arali," she explained with a slightly wistful smile under her helmet. "I have the distinction of being rejected by Grandmaster Resmi Thun personally."

"They abandoned me to struggle with the visions by myself."

[Layne Hoshin]

She was quiet in response to that for a bit. Thinking on it.

"...I did not know that. Perhaps she sensed you weren't ready for one reason or another. Maybe part of you *did* want to join the sith, or feared too much what would happen, and she focused in on those parts. I can't say, not having heard her reasoning or what you said to her..."

And quiet some more.

"...Or then again... not many know the former Grandmaster kept certain secrets. She was kind and all the things a Jedi is supposed to be, and that was what most people saw. But she was also pragmatic. She understood the value of secrets and black-ops and intelligence operations. The necessity to sometimes do things that did not fully align with the Jedi code. I don't disagree with that mentality, clearly, though I think maybe she wasn't necessarily very good at the nuances."

After all, it was the Grandmaster who authorized the Sixth Line that Layne helped train.

"That may be why she rejected you, thinking you were too big a risk to be taken in, unable or unwilling to see where things could go from such rejection. A threat to security operations or what have you. With me, well, Baras had obviously framed me; even if I was still who I was, her pragmatism and concerns could have her trust I wasn't still secretly a spy for Baras at least."

She shrugged. "But she is not grandmaster anymore. And the new one isn't here, in any case. The one in charge here is Thy Yulani, and she does *not* do things the way other members of the council do, or the way Thun did them. She's had personal ties to the Sith herself, even. I know she is not going to simply dismiss you unless you truly have no intention of leaving the Sith behind."

[Luth Khalan]

"She just said that I was too old. I don't know if that's just a stand in for some other reason or what," she replied with a shrug. After a long moment, sigh let out a long breath. "I'll consider it. I don't just have myself to think about."

[Layne Hoshin]

"You are not that much older than I am," she said, shrugging, "It sounds like an excuse. One you should not have been given."

And another, more deliberate pause.

"I do not know the exact nature of your ties to Baras, and the difficulties you'd face untangling yourself from him. I am sure they are complex, and hard to imagine could be untangled at all. I am unsure if my network of smugglers could help with that, but I would offer it to you. And I'm sure, if you decide to do this, the other Jedi can help in other ways."

A sigh. "You will not have much time to decide before the first step, though. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the last opportunity before I do something from which I might not come back. If I am to introduce you to them and explain the situation, it must be some time tomorrow. And I am expecting it to be a... unpleasant encounter. At least for me. But if they have any sense whatsoever, they will not turn *you* away because of it."

And a second sigh.

"It may be difficult to keep Baras from knowing you'd have attended such a meeting, of course. But I am sure you could convince him that you were there to gloat at my fall from grace, or try and gain some sort of advantage."

"If you decide to do this, that is. I hope you do."

[Luth Khalan]

She nodded, silent for the moment, mulling it over in her head. "What are you planning?"

[Layne Hoshin]

"The threat we face is near insurmountable, but the Force guides our fate, always. There is something I must do, something that may not even help a damned thing. It is a desperate gamble, a tiny shred of hope, but, it is the clearest way forward for myself that I can see. The path I'm going down now is to keep from being utterly destroyed by it."

She sighed. "The Jedi will try to stop me. To save me. Like they can save you. But my destiny is to walk this path at this point in time, and for their own sake I can't let them stop me. Things are coming full circle. If they do not suspect anything yet, then introducing you will be simple. If they do, they will need some... convincing. I may end up saying or doing something from which I can't walk back. That is why it must be tomorrow, or I may not have the standing and opportunity anymore to convince them to help you."

[Luth Khalan]

"Is that your motivation?" She asked curiously. Not reaching for anything in particular but now... Just trying to understand this other person she was sharing the cockpit with. "Why do you do what you do?"

[Layne Hoshin]

"The Force showed me many failures last night," she said, "every single one of them from my time at Korriban to the ones I was making right up until coming here. Each one relived in perfect clarity."

She looked down to one of her hands, half-returning to some of those memories.

"It made me remember something I had always known, but thought I'd forgotten. That I was never going to be what the Jedi wanted me to be. Or rather, that I *shouldn't* be. That there were times when I had instincts that I should follow, take *action* where the Jedi would demand patience. Because every time I didn't move on those instincts, bad things tended to happen. I knew this on Nar Shaddaa when I joined the order, I knew it on Bankor, and I still knew it on Yavin."

"But then I thought, we'd done it. The Emperor was no more. The biggest threat imaginable was no more, I didn't need to shoulder it at all anymore. I didn't need to be so on edge all the time anymore. Always suspicious, always *moving*. I thought I could just give in. Lose myself in that feeling of peace. Finally relax and just let things take their course."

"And in that peace it became harder and harder to act on my instincts as I lost the fire. And that would've been okay, had I not relived all the failures caused by my inability to act. And had I not learned that the thing that made me think it was okay, was a lie. That the emperor still remains and all that effort and sacrifice had come to nothing."

The hand balled into a fist for a moment, before being released. "I guess I remembered my old self again because of it, and realized for all *her* faults, she was not without her merits. That there was a balance I should be striking."

She sighed.

"So, that's the context and motivation, I guess? To not let uncertainty or inaction decide what happens..."

"...that and not letting the galaxy get eaten by a ghost, I guess."

[Luth Khalan]

"I hope you can find that balance," she nodded. "Speaking of ghosts... Would you be willing to tell me more about what happened with the Emperor? I was... otherwise occupied. And not particularly comfortable with the Force back then."

[Layne Hoshin]

She looked at her for a moment or two, before nodding.

"The Emperor's had centuries to go beyond mere mastery of Sith Sorcery. There are ways to extend one's life, to draw power from the lifeforce of others, and strengthen one's connection to the Force at the same time. Darth Zash performed such a ritual on Korriban, but it wasn't anything near as powerful as the one the Emperor had developed. I learned about it shortly after Nar Shaddaa, through a souvenir I picked up from his Voice. He'd once drained an entire world of life and the force, to empower himself and become immortal. And that was just the imperfect trial run."

"Now, he had perfected it, or was about to. And he wanted to devour all life in the *entire* galaxy. Republic. Empire. Didn't matter. He would take it all for himself."

She looked away again, retracing the memories in her mind.

"The Emperor's Wrath had learned of this as well. He more than anyone knew the Emperor's plans. I met up with him on Bankor when he scoured an old research facility for clues on the ritual and how to stop it. And I met up with Zash there too, coming to pick over the bones herself. We clashed... people were lost that needn't have been because it didn't happen sooner... but eventually she came to realize her ambitions were nothing compared to the threat the Emperor posed."

"We came together then on Yavin, the Wrath and Zash both there. And the four of us, in secret from both the Sith and the Jedi, started to plan to destroy the emperor. Gathering the right allies, finding the right missing lore and artifacts, everything we'd need to ensure that not only would he be killed, it wouldn't end up with him just reconstituting himself elsewhere."

"But I wasn't there of course. I could hardly show up on Ziost, after all. So I was forced to piece it together from the loss I felt through the Force, and from what Jedi and republic intelligence could gather about what happened after the fact. The conspiracy had managed to come together to have enough people stand against him, and make sure they could be succseful."

"...everything *seemed* as if it had worked. But something must've gone wrong. Something we didn't account for."