"I speak to you now because the galaxy is once again weak. The Empire is failing; the Sith unchained by the Emperor's demise and divided against themselves by petty grudges. The Republic is weak, ruled by spineless bureaucrats acting only in their own interest. What the Jedi have in unity, they lack in will to action. I would forge for us a new path, free of the shackles of ignorance that have too long held us back."

Oh, here we go. Another doomed galactic conquest Sith. Buddy, Revan has been there, and you're not going to like how it turns out.

No use scoffing at him, though. Malgus isn't betting his entire conquest on Revan's involvement; he'd opened with how he thought the reports had been mistaken. He'll do whatever he's doing with or without Revan. Getting the assistance of a famous centuries old Sith Lord would do a lot to legitimize him, but it's icing on the cake, not the cake itself. Much better to pretend to be interested.

"I have noticed that the galaxy is a bit of a mess," he acknowledges. "What's your plan for it?"

"A New Empire, led in strength and not beholden to the short-sighted exclusionary policies of the old."

Hm, if his read on this guy is right -

"A worthy goal. But many Sith talk of strength and power, few back it up with any substance. You want my help, show me why you're worthy of it."

"In the weeks to come, you, and the rest of the galaxy, will see. When you decide that you are convinced, I shall welcome you with open arms."

Revan nods, imperiously.

"I presume you can figure out a way to contact me again later, considering your timing?" he drawls. "Keep me updated as the situation allows. We'll see how you do."

Yeah it's going to be a huge mess, isn't it.

"So we shall. For now, I suggest you leave this facility with due haste." The holo winks out.

And alarms start going off.

Ugh.

What's the state of the facility, is that a 'we have an intruder' alarm, did something break without him, or what?

"You there?" he wonders into his comlink.

"-there you are. That was strange. Uh, I'm seeing a lot of alarms, here."

"Yep, things happened. Tell you about it later, I'm about to be very busy."

Okay, first of all - that important part in the belt? Yeah he's just going to start that catastrophic cascade of destruction now. Looks like that'll be the distraction that covers his escape.

More alarms!

Also bad people are coming up to his room and intend on hurting him.

Siiiiiigh.

He retrieves and pockets the Republic transmitter - might as well cover his tracks, try to make this look more plausibly like a Sith is going rogue - then ignites his crimson lightsaber and sees about making that escape.

It's not very difficult.

Not terribly, no.

And back to base for debrief.

"Well. That didn't go exactly smoothly."

"It could have gone worse," he says thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up on the desk. "I got a call from Darth Malgus, offering to recruit me. Had this whole pitch about how the Empire and the Republic are weak and he will make something better. He looked ready to make a move. Do we have intel on what forces are loyal to him?"

"No. We didn't, in fact, know he was even planning something like this."

"Oh. Well. He's planning something like this. And I pretended to bite."

"Did he give any details, contacts?"

"No. I basically said, 'if you're such hot stuff, prove it,' and told him to call me. Since his timing was so perfect. I didn't want to get involved in the ground floor of what's going to be an even bigger shit show than the rest of Ilum. Ruins the mystery of 'centuries old ex-Sith Lord,' and I didn't want to push too much and make him suspect anything. He said 'in the coming weeks,' so he's going to move soon."

He has a look on his face that Legate might recognize. It's the 'I want to give you tactical advice but recognize that I'm not in charge of anything' face.

"You have thoughts here?"

"We need to figure out who Malgus's supporters are, fast. At least the really obvious ones, anyway. Then we need to leave them alone. The Sith getting into a pissing match over who's supposed to be Emperor is only going to help us. I don't want to accidentally sabotage Malgus's supporters when they're going to be doing our work for us. We sit back with popcorn, keep Ilum from falling apart into pieces while they fight, and we mop up. I can even accept Malgus's kind offer to join him, and help it disintegrate just a little bit faster."

"Agreed. I'll get to work on it, and pass word to my superiors."

"Thanks. Uh, fair warning, if I 'accept' Malgus's offer, I am absolutely going to take credit for the Republic leaving his people alone, so maybe try to make that look plausible to Malgus. Without letting on to the rest of the Empire that something's up. You know, super confusing convoluted spy stuff. I hear that's your jurisdiction."

"I'll see what I can do on that front."

"Thank you! Uh - continuing the debriefing, after Malgus finished his pitch he set off an alarm like a prick. I sabotaged the main mining belt in a way that would take some time to fix, killed some people, and left. Did you actually get to access the databanks?"