Sorry, that's probably her fault.  With the Emperor now gone, nothing's really stopping her from giving the Hutts a really bad month until the Jedi (and their new Sith-disappearing tricks) manage to catch up with her.

(Unfortunately, she is pretty sure it's going to be more of a when than an if; there's too many traceable things she still has to be seen doing to keep other things from blowing up, and she's pretty sure someone else beat her to backstabbing the Emperor and that that someone will be able to find her.  There is a notably not-yet-known-missing Dark Councilor.)

It does occur to Pradnakt to wonder, briefly, what's happening with the Council. It doesn't occur to her to actually try to find out, though; any information she could get without putting herself at risk would be too unreliable to bother with.

The house gets packed up into a new spaceship; the goat goes to a family in town that Daisy is fond of, and the chickens to the feed store to be resold to whoever might want them. Marisel gets a grant big enough to keep the library running for a few years, hopefully long enough for the town to figure out how to support it themselves. Pradnakt and Daisy write up a guide to the art they've constructed out in the desert. Nine spends a long weekend completing an acidwashing piece he's been wanting to try; there won't be space for it offplanet. The Force tolerates all of this, unsettled but not alarmed; it's not even a week, all told, until the three of them agree that they've done everything they need to here.

It's been a few decades since Pradnakt has had anything to do with the Hutts, but they aren't hard to find, even if the Force wasn't opinionated about their route.

There's a Sith in this spaceport.

Great. Lovely. Perfect.

They don't actually need to go offship; they can pay extra to have the supplies they need delivered.

There is, however begrudgingly of the Force as it insists that she reach out here, also a note in with those supplies - handwritten, and clearly in a rush at that.

The Force is insistent that my plans for the ~month I have before the Hutts figure out that the thing that's trying to bring down the foundations of their empire-in-all-but-name is the last charge of a Sith trying to do something positive before they get vanished and convince/coerce the Jedi to do something about it should include you in some capacity.

I've a schedule to keep, and nothing telling me to stay longer than was already necessary, so I assume the Force is going to arrange another coincidence whether either of us like that or not if we don't meet now.  I leave that question up to you; I wouldn't be sending this at all if the Force wasn't positively giving me a migraine the minute I try to commit to doing otherwise.

-- Kalbetis

Also attached are the docking bay codes for two ships; by their manifests they are the Defiant Purpose and the Forgotten Hope, a medical ship and an - allegedly - decommissioned troop transport turned freight and passenger transport, respectively.

...yeah, that's a thing that could happen.

How many biologicals are on that troop transport, while it's right here docked at the same station?

It's at approximately two-thirds of its nominal complement at the moment, assuming that everyone aboard is a soldier - quite a few of the signatures are muffled in a way that's characteristic of Mandalorians in full armor, but many others are not.  The Sith is amongst them, and if Pradnakt listens closely she might be able to pick up a struggle-resignation-dread in their presence, lurking beneath more prosaic surface feelings.

She doesn't really want to walk into all that. It does seem maybe worth looking into, though; she's not sure what the Force is up to but she's never regretted just finding out.

She leaves Daisy with the ship, and has Nine take an only implicitly threatening posture behind her when she goes to inquire at the Forgotten Hope's dock.

There is a moment, as Pradnakt approaches with Nine, where the most visible guard tenses, but that passes before she gets to the ship.  "Please wait a moment, someone will be here shortly."

...She'll just be out in a minute, assuming that that doesn't cause her guest to bolt.

She doesn't run; she knew what she was getting into.

"Kalbetis," she acknowledges when the other Sith arrives. "Lord Pradnakt. Do you have any ideas about what this all might be about?"

"No, but perhaps I have more no idea than you do.  But as much as I want nothing more than to get the Force to stop breathing down my neck about this, I can't have that conversation out here."

"There are conference rooms available to rent on level three and five, if that'll be sufficient for you." This isn't going quite well enough for her to invite her home, yet.

"...I suppose they're the best available option for neutral ground, but that doesn't make them a good one.  Too visible in all the wrong ways, especially if the bugs go dead.  Encrypted comm?"

She signs possible? to Nine, who rumbles an affirmative after a moment and produces a datachip with the relevant codes, which she floats from his hand to Kalbetis's.

She accepts them gracefully, and returns the information Pradnakt will need to comm her on a similar chip.

(Technically, it is Kalbetis' protocol droid who holds the encryption keys, but she is perfectly happy to blend in this situation.)

"I'll await your comm, then."

"I won't be long." And indeed the call comes before she's even quite back to her ship, so that she's just settling into the seat when the initial confirmation is done and the camera comes on.

"Right.  Hello again."

"I have some information on the state of the galaxy," she says, "that I doubt many in our position would, with the Empire going to pieces - but precious little clue on what exactly the Force could possibly mean to accomplish with this.  I'm on a doomed crusade against the Hutts with what resources I can spare from enacting continuity of governance plans and winding up things that will do no-one any good without me helming them, for the inevitable point when I get removed from the board by a strike team of teleporting Jedi; I don't know why the Force is pushing us together when there's -"  She winces.

"When, if there's a way to avoid our exile, I do not yet see it.  The best plan I have is fleeing the galaxy, and that's just not right at all.  It's the same exile in a funny hat."

"I'd take fleeing the galaxy over some of the other possibilities here," she shrugs. "It's possible the Force just wants me to have the information I need to do that - teleporting Jedi?"

There is a protocol droid in view behind Kalbetis, and it takes the very uncharacteristic action (for the class, though seemingly not this particular droid given Kalbetis' exasperated non-reaction) of speaking up unprompted at this point.

"Would you like to review the strategic briefing you ordered with our guest, Mistress?"

"...At this time it would be quite inappropriate to share operational details."

"However, it would," she regrets letting come out of her mouth, "be appropriate to share at least the threat profile."

Huh. She doesn't let it show on her face but she's definitely noticed the unusual relationship between the other Sith and her droid. Kalbetis must be really slipping, to let it show. (Daisy herself is offscreen altogether, the better to keep their situation secret.)

It'd be weird of her to express appreciation for the information, so she doesn't.

There is a moment that Kalbetis takes, to retrieve a datapad, that lasts perhaps longer than is strictly necessary to retrieve and navigate a datapad to the appropriate section.  She seems rather frayed.

"Let us begin with the timeline so far.

"The problem begins one-hundred and sixty-five days ago, when there is a disturbance.  It is a small disturbance, compared to the current state of the Force, visible to but a select few precognitives - but it is a disturbance nonetheless, and I believe it is directly the cause of our current trouble.  Information was introduced to the universe from an outside source.

"Interestingly, it is my considered belief that the first beneficiary of this is the Dark Councillor responsible for the Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge, and not the Jedi Order.  There was a mobilization of their favored archaeologists in a relative hurry.

"It seems, however, that this source of extrauniversal knowledge - and power - quite rapidly figured out that they would rather work with the Jedi, instead.

"...Considering what has since been unleashed, I would not have trusted the Sith Empire with it either.  The galaxy may not have survived.  But it seems that their Sith contact, whoever they were, kept this to themself - and considering that they may have just successfully backstabbed the Emperor, may he rest in peace, I can't blame them.

"The next things we observe from the Jedi Order are the following: An offplanet construction contract - sourced from Coruscant - that does not have any transport offplanet associated therewith, and a crash-tempo cycling of Knights and Masters to the Jedi temple at Tython for very short periods of time before they redeployed.

"I believe that certain battlefield objectives the Jedi undertook during that timeframe are related to the overarching project, but in truth I don't know what they would have wanted a live-captured Sith for when that Sith had almost nothing to do with anything in particular, even as that's why I'm almost sure it was related.  Possibly analysis, given the extrauniversal powers, but I'm speculating.  No evidence is available, given that they were likely one of the first people to have...  Whatever happens after you're disappeared by this teleportation effect...  To happen to them.

"The battlefield disappearances start picking up after that.  Field reports and records show that it is but a matter of contact with an affected Jedi, including their lightsabers - including contact that a Sith initiates - that disappears people.  As yet we do not know if there is a way to distinguish affected Jedi from not.

"Command elements of the Empire's forces did not want to believe that this was happening.  This did not stop it from continuing anyway.

"There is also an influx of refugees at Coruscant that occurs too quickly for them to have been transported by a normal ship when they were rescued from Hutt captivity.  There are a couple mentions of teleportation, in various media, as those few who had lives to go back to resumed them.  ...The act is admirable, but as of yet not likely to be effective in toppling the cartels; the Hutts can buy more than our interloper is stealing in a given timeframe, and I think they're going to, as a power play.

"That said, I do not believe they are going to be the only sapient with the capacity to teleport arbitrarily forever, and it's entirely possible that it's the receiving logistics that are the bottleneck of that operation.

"The escalation of Sith disappearances, meanwhile, continues straight up the chain of command.  Most of the Dark Council disappears.  The Emperor, as well; I'm sure you felt that.  The Archives on Dromund Kaas are the only thing that is not severely disrupted in normal function by the loss of their Councilor, and the resulting power scramble, which leads me to believe that they may in fact have not lost that Councilor - but the Archives have always been quite hard to get information out of to begin with, under their present head, so I can't say for sure either way, and I doubt I'd like the result of coming to their attention at the moment - which is itself indicative, I suppose.

"I went over this in the middle of things, but I shall take a moment to specifically reiterate that you will be teleported somewhere else if you and a Jedi make contact.  I don't know how they're making that happen, because it only happens for Sith, but it very definitely does happen.

"This concludes the briefing."

"Huh."

"I can probably figure out how to detect an affected Jedi without getting into melee range, though I'm not sure how useful that might be. You're precognitive, or did you have a separate source for that?"

"I was not the only one to notice, I think, but I was one of the ones who noticed, yes."

She nods. "I'm thinking it might be possible to relearn the danger sense to account for teleporting Jedi, once we know what that looks like. I don't know how plausible that is from the precognitive side, though, my master was of the school of thought that learning too much precognition is destabilizing." She says the last part neutrally; it's not her business whether Kalbetis is sane.

She shrugs.  "I like to imagine I've managed to keep an even keel, but I certainly wouldn't recommend attempting to develop something that hasn't already proven itself.  As far as whether it's possible to precog the existence of this effect...  I'm hesitantly positive on the question.  I've been too busy to test it except from distances great enough that I'm not sure my projection isn't just running out, but I think the discontinuity is distinct and distinctive."

Another nod. "I'm a sensory specialist, myself; it wouldn't surprise me if I turned out to be able to detect it at planetary range. Though I'm not hearing that investigating that is necessarily our best option. Is there more that I should know about your plans?"

...That question looks like it hurt.

"...I cannot say, as of yet, that I have decided on anything that it would be worth your while to hear."

"Mm." She pauses for a moment, then raises an eyebrow at Elcie. "What do you think?"

The droid looks back at her, consideringly.

"...Oh, I couldn't possibly comment on the number of viable plans for managing this situation that do not involve Darth Kalbetis self-destructing out of a misguided sense of guilt that we have available, Lord Pradnakt."

"..."

"...I can't put my people at risk to protect myself.  That is the exact opposite of the point."

She'd thought Kalbetis was a Darth, yeah. Declining to claim the title suggests a whole mess, over there, though, as becomes even more obvious a moment later.

"I don't know about your people, but mine will be at at least as much risk without me as they will with me." She looks back to the droid, briefly, inviting her to contribute again.

"...It is not inaccurate to say that those at the sharp end of the most viable plans for seeking alternate resolutions to our current predicament will be exposed to some risk, to some danger - but there is nothing that is truly safe.

"It is also not inaccurate to say that most of them would absolutely do it if they were but asked.  That most of them would think it immensely worthwhile to pay the prices that might be asked of them, especially if they are equipped appropriately, which we can ensure.

"Furthermore, the impact of the sudden removal of Darth Kalbetis upon the stability and prosperity of territory held in her name will not, by most projections, be positive, whether it comes from emboldened corporate vultures, bad replacement governance installed because the existing structure was tarred with having been established by a Sith, or people kicking up a fuss at the occupation forces in the hopes that they can get her back, however unlikely that is to produce results."

"I remain unconvinced that there is anything that could get the Jedi Order to cease classifying me as an inherently untrustworthy enemy combatant.  Even having arranged for some truly despicable people to meet their ends prematurely is hardly evidence of my motives."

Pradnakt looks past the camera for a long moment, thoughtfully.

"I might have something. I don't know if it'll work, or if you'll be able to learn it. It might - I'll want to discuss the options with my crew before I say more, actually."

"Of course."

The next call that comes in has the routing code for intership logistics, a droid-to-droid call not intended to involve the ships' biological crew.

Oh?

Yep. Is LC able and willing to keep secrets from her biologicals?

Able, certainly.  Willing, it might depend upon the nature of the secret - though she suspects that this will not come up; she does not expect this secret to be likely to harm Kalbetis on priors.

She can affirm that the secret isn't dangerous to the Darth or anyone else aboard her ship, yes.

Then she can affirm that she will not disclose it without permission unless that becomes false.

The secret is as follows: Lord Pradnakt is aware of her droids' sentience and prioritizes their wellbeing. She suspects that Darth Kalbetis has a similar awareness of her droids. If the latter is true and Kalbetis has a plan for her droids' wellbeing that can be modified to include Pradnakt's, that opens up several avenues for Pradnakt to consider taking risks on Kalbetis' behalf.

That was well deduced.  The contingencies for Kalbetis' untimely demise do include as much as can reasonably be managed to preserve the continued sapience and maintenance of droids that work for her, given the inherent uncertainties of something actually killing Kalbetis, and they have plenty of room.

They should discuss the issue via more official channels, then.

The next call that comes in shows the Astral Wanderer's cockpit: Daisy in the pilot's seat, Pradnakt in the copilot's, Nine folded down to fit onscreen behind them.

Elcie promptly stops pretending to be a decorative fixture,

, which confuses Kalbetis for all of five seconds for approximately one second.

Cute.

"We've agreed that the best way forward is to put all our cards on the table," Pradnakt starts. "These are Daisy and Nine, my crew."

"...Elcie, you've been scheming, haven't you?"

"...Now whatever could have given you that impression, Mistress?"

"I can't think of anything I could have done to get them to trust me in the last five minutes."

"...Nonetheless, I do hope that I will prove worth the risk."

"I hope so too. We never had much of a land holding and we've already wrapped that up, so our primary goal now is just making sure as many of us come through this all right as possible; I suspect you can help with their part of that. For our part," she nods indicatively at the other Sith, then stops herself: "or, for your part, rather - I don't get the impression that the galaxy would be better off if the Jedi got you, or the Hutts. Does that need discussing?"

She.

Blinks.

"I...  Do not immediately think so.  Though I will...  Be considering whether it should be."

"I'm certainly not going to just let the Hutts get me.  Even if they try to get a Jedi to do it."

"...Mistress, I hope you will forgive my saying this right now, but you really, really need to stop blaming yourself for not making a miracle occur sooner by sheer force of will."

"They made it out like we were the ones with all the power but that was never really true," she nods. "It's a whole new world with the Empire dissolving."

"The truly unfortunate thing is that I know that.  Some of the worst victims of the Sith Empire were, themselves, the Sith of the Empire.  But - now that it is all coming apart, it still feels like I wasn't good enough."

She - exhales, frustration evident in her voice - and in the Force, if Pradnakt is paying attention.  "It's not really fair to me to try to compare my efforts to those of a literal outside context problem, but -"

She seems to contemplate something for a moment.

"You don't know anything about me, do you?

"I suppose it's better that way, no preconceptions based off of the rather intentionally misleading public image I had to put up to keep the rest of the Empire from deciding I was exhibiting too much compassion.

"But - well.  There's the crux of it.

"Someone was powerful enough to stop it.  And I wasn't.  I've failed in the one blasted goal I've had ever since the Academy by default.

"...at least the Empire's been stopped.  It's cold comfort.  But part of me just can't stop thinking that I didn't do enough.  That I made too many compromises.  That I let too much pass because I was afraid that stopping it would get me killed.  That...

"That too much of me became entangled in the power structure to let me escape blame for everything it carried out, I suppose.  Even as I only engaged with that structure because that was the only way it looked like I could tear it down.

"It's a funny piece of history, you know, that the Sith Code was forged in a slave revolt.  And then, the Sith, the species before they were the religion - they threw off the yoke of the Dark Jedi, only to learn nothing and promptly forge new chains for themselves."

"I don't know anything about you, no - I've been a hermit for most of the last twenty years. If you've been trying at all that's better than I ever managed."

"...I'd call that a success too.  You got out."

...That looks like a good sign.  Perhaps even this is why the Force was insisting on this contact so much, though she'll likely never know.

...She's not going to disturb the fragile equilibrium she now has by attempting to put words to any of that.  But it's likely that Pradnakt can feel her relief-resolve from all the way over there.

"It's a little more complicated than that but ultimately a success, yes." She drums her fingers on the armrest for a moment, considering. "As to how we might come to terms with the Jedi - I'm a healing prodigy, with all that implies."

"...I'll just show you mine, shall I?"

Kalbetis' Force presence... shifts, as if it's rotating along an axis not known to be perceptible to mortals, as if there is a guard she has been keeping up the whole time from habit and instinct and she is now bringing it down, and...

She still feels like a Sith.  Her presence is like a riptide, dragging the universe in its wake, not the placid oneness of a Jedi.  But her presence, as much as it carries the indelible mark of a heavy, weeping Darkness, is now shot through with a flickering, resurgent Light.

"...I was one of the few of us who could reliably insinuate ourselves behind enemy lines, as was, for all that I never dared test myself against Tython, but...  I suppose I have my pride, too.  I can't stop being a Sith, whatever that means in the Empire's ashes."

"I have to say, it's rare to see the Force get something this right. I suspect we have a lot to teach each other. And, yes - I can't really imagine what it would be, to not be a Sith. But that's not the only thing either of us is, is it."

"If anything, I might hold that I am many of the things I am - chain-breaker, leader, visionary; someone who looks at the world and thinks it could be better and sets out to make it so - because I am a Sith, more than despite it or as a distinction from that part of my nature.  Then again, I'm pretty sure that I am so full of heresy that I could make someone who had really bought into the Empire's teachings on things like rule through fear and backstabbing spontaneously combust from sheer indignance if they were forced to sit through a polemic articulating everything I believe."  She permits herself a small, interstital chuckle.  "But yes.  There are more things than Sith that we are, and I daresay that there are many things we can learn from eachother, Lord Pradnakt.  I look forward to it."

Her presence shines brightly with hope-hope-HOPE.

Oh, thank the Force.

(Quite literally, in fact.)

"...That was well done.  Should we perhaps discuss the options we have to open channels, then?  Being as it is finally resolved that we should?"

"I don't have any resources a random mundane wouldn't, as far as contacting Jedi. I'm not sure we want to jump right into that, either. I may be able to pass more thoroughly than you can but I can't do it for long."

"It was before my time, but I am reliably informed that on one occasion my mistress kept up a guise for several weeks due to various mission complications.  Regardless.  We do not wish to expose either of yourselves directly to the Jedi until much later in this process - when we have established that they will not stab first and ask questions never.  The matter in question at this moment is in what contexts we arrange for evidence to be found of you two - or, of how you would like to present the tale of yourselves - or if we would rather send an envoy to Tython directly - metonymically or actually - without laying particular background impressions first.  There are reasons it might be preferable to avoid telling tales, that mostly become a matter of how paranoid we expect the Jedi to be - if presenting ourselves with good intentions would introduce more doubt."

"Yes, I can - shift the Darkness - inside, away, however you wish to think of it - as much as I can the Light, though it is heavier to bear - but we already did game out a lot of this, though under the assumption that it would be only myself in contention, and - with my resources, it is approximately never our best play to personally announce ourselves to the Jedi.  Only if we stumble upon an ongoing galactic disaster of the sort where everyone with sense will work to stop it is outright breaking what is approximately our 'cover' a reasonable play, and I don't see any of those looming.  The question is more - of what means we use to ensure they find out about us, in a way that gives them time to get used to it before we risk personal contact."

"I'm not certain we want to try for personal contact at all. You know more about them than I do, what do you think, would they come investigate if they heard of a couple of unaligned lightsiders minding their own business on a planet somewhere? Or - I suppose the real question there is what you want to avoid about exile, I don't know that I'd mind it if it meant we were safe."

"Well.  I don't rightly plan to be doing anything remotely resembling minding my own business while the galaxy still has things like the Hutt cartels in it.  But I don't imagine they'd come bother a hypothetical you-but-Light that was minding her own business somewhere remote unless the rumors were very loud, or the rumors were of Sith, or a Jedi was already quite close for other reasons, or, I suppose, if the Force poked them."

"The other problem, and one that is likely a problem for you as well as myself, is that they only exile Sith, so far.  Nobody else.  And we both have people we've made promises to, here."

"The promise I've made to mine is that I'll do my best to keep them safe and free, but they'd rather I stick around, yes. What kind of situation would you and yours be happy with?"

There is a moment where Elcie and Kalbetis just look at eachother.

"...I would not be happy, separated from them."

"Nor I from my mistress.  I chose this."

"...I cannot just abandon them.  Not if I can help it.  And, well.  Now my head's screwed back on well enough that I can see how stupid I was being by trying to convince myself it was for the best that I let myself be taken, however begrudging I had been planning to be of the taking.  ...Too many would grieve me, I think, and I would forever regret leaving them bereft."

"Reasonable," cute, "but it doesn't tell me what you do want to do. I think that's our main operational constraint, aside from the Jedi."

"All that I have ever done, I think, has been in service of making the galaxy - or at least those portions of it I can affect - a better place to live in."

"Nothing I know of says we couldn't do that in the outer rim, or hunt slavers or something."

"And forever have the specter of touching the wrong person and vanishing hanging over us?  The Jedi do go out there, just not as much as they'd like."

"That, and I don't, actually, trust the Jedi nor the Republic to handle my holdings well.  That could go badly."

"...Mistress, she knows nothing about you."

"...Right.  I think that if they fuck things up in the transition from what I've done to things over the last couple decades that the impact could be felt over a multiple-digit number of star systems."

"...I do not intend to oblige you to care about that, at all.  But it is a factor in my plans, that I and mine have found ourselves responsible for worlds, and given that that's how things are, I'm going to need to take the risk of talking to the Jedi - too much could go wrong if I do not.  And I feel as though I should offer you the opportunity to benefit from that, especially after you have - convinced me I should do it."

"We'll want some time to think about it before we commit to anything long-term but we don't have conflicting plans, at least. I think it might make the most sense, if that's something you're set on, for you to take point on it and not tell them about me until you have a better idea of how they'll take it. If that goes badly any of your staff who do want to leave can come with us to the outer rim, we can at least contribute that much. Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Yes."

"...I think that's more people than you think you're offering to - host, though we do have evacuation plans - but I truly don't expect this to go so disastrously as to need to protect my staff from the Jedi, so it...  Should be moot.  And, yes, I'll keep the idea of there being another hopefully-nonhostile Sith out of things until they've at least accepted me."

Huh.

"I want to be non-hostile, at least. I shouldn't commit to that until I know that whatever they're doing isn't worse than death."

"...Yes, that rather is the question, isn't it.  I don't suspect that they would try to do such a thing intentionally.  Ninety-nine point seven percent of the time.  Jedi like their moral high ground.  But then there's things like whatever they ended up doing to Darth Revan, in that point-three percent of times where Jedi go and do something screwy.

"...I don't think this is going to be one of those times.  By all accounts that needed the entire High Council, to give false memories to one Sith.  It doesn't scale.  But I'd like to get an idea of the things you would consider fates worse than death.

"And I suppose there's always the thought that they could be teleporting all the Sith into a volcano or something, but that doesn't explain the construction projects."

She doesn't like being asked what she considers worse than death, and wasn't on guard enough to seamlessly hide that fact. "I wouldn't want to try to make a list, there's always some asshole out there getting creative. I don't think I have especially unusual tastes that way, anyway. And I don't think we know what they can and can't scale, anymore; I would've answered wrong about the teleportation, a year ago."

...She winces at the wince.  Pradnakt may in fact perceive her thinking 'Oh damn it all why did I ask that'.  "...Let's just agree that I was not in fact stupid enough to have seriously gone and asked that particular question, anyway.  Goodness knows I've seen - more than enough of the people who were pushing ...new and exciting... fates worse than death in my time.  ...Moving on.

"The teleportation is very likely our outside-context problem's doing, and I think most of our outside-context problem's thing is likely 'doing teleportation'.  I don't, actually, think that the Jedi had it in a distributable form at the time they launched this whole operation.  You would have seen a much different pattern if they could just distribute a technique like that.  But no, everyone cycled through the Temple, as if there was something they were protecting, or something critical to the process, there.  I'm not sure if they've since made it distributable, but it's not like I can walk in there and ask."

"I'm not sure we should be assuming that they only have one outside context thing, though, or that they can't teleport off and get more somehow. Maybe not, but I don't want to underestimate them."

"I think the current outside context thing is likely their limiting factor on importing more outside context things, but...

"There is also a limit to what we can plan for, and 'the Jedi Order is going to sprout several additional novel capabilities after months of having this one and not doing that' seems, to me, to be stretching things a bit much.  Still, there was that one instance of mysteriously-appearing archaeology, so they might have something else available if it wasn't just...  Teleportation cleverly applied.  I don't know the rules this plays by.  Clearly some of it requires person-to-person contact, and I think we can assume that there is a requirement to know where it is you're going if you wish to go somewhere specific...

"But if the Jedi do have some other outside-context capability, it doesn't actually look like they're using it - if they had truly reliable non-Force pericognition, precognition, postcognition, or even sufficiently complex prognostication, they should likely have found us by now - which leads me to believe that it's either not actually available, or not actually useful in what they're currently trying to accomplish.  Which is, I think, a good sign for them continuing to not have new things."

"Mm. I think we have differing underlying assumptions - I don't think the teleportation is happening via the Force, it wouldn't be this confused if it was. Which means we know less about it than we do about most things - if they have six out of context things and the other five have limitations that a Force technique wouldn't so that they're not useful ninety-nine percent of the time, I don't want to find out the hard way about the other one percent."

"...That is not false, and - well, I have been being more cautious than I already was, myself - but I don't know how the idea that I was assuming that the teleportation was Force-mediated arose; it surely can't be, or we would see more teleporting Jedi.  Which we don't.

"But...  What threat is left, really?  What things could yet lurk in ways that meaningfully pose a threat?  Where could some disastrous consequence arise?  There's not..."

"Oh.  Right.  You don't have my intelligence reports.

"I just can't find where the Jedi would have the time to have new, secret ways of fucking with things with which one should not fuck.  They're too busy with the teleportation already, and I haven't seen any other major diversions of resources - which they would almost certainly be doing if they had something else like teleportation, or even just some scalable edge.  ...That doesn't necessarily speak to the longer future, but - for the next six months, I'm not expecting any big surprises beyond the one we already have, and I expect our strategic situation to be very different by then regardless.

"I do suppose there could be some sort of niche where the possible divination is outsizedly useful, but...  Well.  It seems to have so far been of use only to archaeology."

She's still skeptical, but coming around. "Say more about that last part?"

"...Elcie, if you would?"

"Yes, of course.  Much of this is speculative in part, as, if anything, the Dark Council is a lot more dangerous to poke into the affairs of, compared to Jedi - Jedi will not take pleasure in inventing new and horrible ways to die - but even as impenetrable a fief as the Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge has been under the present Councillor's tenure, you do find that people talk around the edges - and sometimes, things not happening is as big a sign as things happening.

"It is the considered belief of our analysts that the behavior of certain contractors that are favored by the Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge indicates a disruption in their usual patterns that is not prefaced by concurrent environmental disruption such as a Sith Temple appearing from under a landslide, but some other sort of discovery - the sort that would normally follow from, say, finding a star map in another ancient ruin...  Except that, to the best of our knowledge, there wasn't anything relevantly pending at the time - the last big temple find was a while ago - and the actual dig would not have been scrambled into existence so hastily, judging by the billing, if anyone had been even suspecting that secrets necessary for Ancient Lore were to be had.  It's as if a key to knowledge fell out of the sky and landed in the Councilor's lap."

Hm. "I could see that being the teleportation, places I can see but not see how to get to aren't common but a Temple would be the sort of place that would have one and that could have gotten them a new map. The real question there is how the Councilor got access to the teleportation or anything like it."

"At the moment we think that the Councilor in question was quite literally the first local person our teleporter encountered, and that - well.  We don't know why there wasn't a more serious attempt to press the teleporter into the Empire's service, but if we were so pressed...  I suspect the Councilor didn't actually give one single damn about the Empire except instrumentally, in retrospect, because if that's the case, then that explains some other things."

"That is a disadvantage to the Emperor's approach, yes," she says, clearly amused. "I still wonder how it happened that the Councilor and the Jedi both got the teleportation, that seems odd from any angle, either of them would want to stop the other. Unless the Councilor had a way to know that this would happen and wanted to be the biggest fish by far on this side of the pond, but even then I have trouble imagining the Jedi playing along."

"I'm not sure that matters to us directly - I'm certainly not interested in coming to a Councilor's attention - but if we can figure anything out about it maybe we can take a similar route."

"My present hypothesis is that neither the Jedi nor the Councilor actually have the teleportation, yet - that the uses we are seeing and have seen are still mediated by our singular outside-context actor.  I...Hm."

"If I had to speculate about how this could happen...

"Our teleporter - lands in the Pyramid's domain, somehow.  The Councillor, somehow, leaves a positive impression despite...  Everything that would seem to indicate that that shouldn't have been possible, but - outside context problem, outside context morality, possibly.

"Quite likely, even.  The Force is rather a heavy factor in our lives.

"Then...

"Well.  If you are travelling to a new world, you do not just ask the first person you meet there what it's like and be done with it, and I assume that our visitor did some research and decided they liked the Jedi much better, institutionally speaking....

"...but, nonetheless, probably didn't stop liking that Councilor, because - the Pyramid alone still stands, of all the spheres of power.  And I just can't see how that could have come to pass without agreement with the Jedi... that only our teleporter could possibly have pressed.  Only the teleporter would have leverage to get them both to the negotiating table.  Only the teleporter could be a reasonably external third party, for that matter.  One without sufficient historical ties to either side and thus the best option available, even if, you know, it's clear who our visitor favors, of Jedi and Sith.

"If I could get someone who only somewhat favored the Jedi to ensure they didn't stab me on sight while I tried to talk them into continuing that policy, I'd go for that."

"Yeah. And I don't know anything about the Councilor but I can't imagine we have a worse case to make for being left alone - I am a little worried about what happens if the Councilor finds out the offer has been extended to other Sith, though."

"...I can't rule that out, but that seems like it's a consequence of things already going quite well.  I don't think either of us are going to want to displace them from the Archives, either, and - well, if there's one thing that definitely matters to them, that is it."

"If the Jedi agree to leave us alone but the Councilor wants to hunt us in particular down I'm not sure that's any better than the current situation. I suspect that's an easier issue to address than most of the others, though, it seems reasonably likely that we'll have an opportunity to find out more about the Councilor in the process of setting things up to talk to the Jedi and we're already going to want to wait until as late as possible in that process to start limiting our alternatives, I'm sure, or if that doesn't get us the right kind of opportunity we might be able to find or make one of our own, with fewer unknown unknowns lurking everywhere."

She nods.  "I think that any Councilor that is capable of making a peace with literally our ancient enemies who have undoubtedly tried to kill them is not going to bat an eye at living and letting live with a few more people who haven't personally attempted to kill them and don't have any plans to.

"Though I don't imagine that being of too much positive interest will necessarily be good for our health, either.  Depending on their motivations."

"Anyway...  Yes.  That sounds about right."

"That is true," she says thoughtfully. "If they can make peace with the Jedi they can probably make peace with us. It occurs to me that we could try going to them and asking to be under their protection, but I don't want to, I want the Empire to be fallen not just in general but for myself and my crew in particular and that's not that."

She nods.

"Honestly, it is going to be interesting, figuring out what it means to be a Sith beyond the Empire."

"It is," she nods. "I have - some experience with that, I wasn't completely isolated in my hermitage, but hopefully it'll be different with the Empire gone altogether."

"...I think it would be very different, to be a hermit somewhere now that the Empire can't hurt anyone anymore."

"It might. They'll still have plenty of reason to be afraid of us, though, if we're living openly as Sith."

"I suppose so.  But - if we are some of the only Sith remaining, we can make it mean something better."

"Mm. Maybe."

"I think it would have been possible, if you'd started out differently. Shall I-" she nods indicatively at Kalbetis.

"I trust your judgement."

"She'd Fallen, killing her master. She's better now."

A soft 'oh', more a noise than a word.

Then, a nod.

"You got out.  And then you clawed yourself back out of the depths of the Dark that you'd been driven to."

"Much of what I could say here would no doubt seem trite, but please know that you have my utmost respect for this accomplishment."

"Yes."

"And they won't need to know that that's a possibility, with such a negligible chance of it coming up for them."

"Yes, all right."

"It really is none of their business, yes."

"Mmn. Any other constraints on our ultimate goals here? We have some preferences but I think we're flexible enough for almost anything reasonable."

"I can't think of anything in particular that I haven't already mentioned, but I do rather have a habit of getting so far into my own head that I forget the rest of the universe isn't in here with me."

"I would like to be somewhere where I don't have to pretend to have a restraining bolt," Nine puts in.

"I hate those things.  There are certainly options."

"Thank you."

"...We hate those things.  It's not any less slavery when the mind you're forcing to follow your orders is silicon and circuitry rather than meat and chemicals."

"Absolutely. The first thing I did when he joined us was take it out. - the planet we were on, biological slavery is illegal but all class four droids are required to have a restraining bolt, fortunately nobody ever tried to bother us about it."

"...Quite.  I would probably draw weapons on someone who was... Insistent, about trying to do that to Elcie, and I know they can't do anything to her, on both hardware and software levels."

"I'd be interested in hearing more about that, some other time - I'm not bad with hardware but I've never gotten into software, and I don't know enough about droids in particular to be comfortable making functional modifications on my own."

"You'll probably want to direct that to Elcie, actually.  I wouldn't trust me to do brain surgery on a droid that already exists.  Elcie, on the other hand, translates skillpacks as a preferred downtime activity."

"It is honestly more a matter of simply excising some rather obvious malicious code, but it is true that my mistress has approached her experiences with droid software from entirely the wrong direction to know where it all would be."

"Better to defer to the expert, yes. So where were we, before we got sidetracked - deciding on preparations before we get in touch with the Jedi, I think?"

"Yes, we were doing that.  Deciding on - if, and what kind of, groundwork it would be appropriate to lay as evidence of our nonmaliciousness."

She nods. "You'd know better than I would what sorts of things the Jedi might find compelling, there."

"...Do you wish to be a healer?  It would be compelling, but presenting you that way would rather place expectations."

"Mmm. In theory, maybe? I can't do a blended state, in order to heal I have to switch to Light entirely, and it's... a lot. Maybe it'd be more sustainable with training. The healing itself -" she gestures vaguely. "The reputation prodigies have for getting skills that suit them is accurate at least for me."

"...Depending upon how it troubles you, we may have advice."

"I imagine Jedi are trained to keep hold of... themselves, in the face of all that? And I haven't gotten that training."

"...Hm."

"In what way does it overwhelm you?"

"I don't know that overwhelming is the right word. The way I know how to do it... it's not something I figured out, it came to me all at once, I assume it's the way that's most natural to the Force - I have to let go of everything, or almost everything, to reach that state. I don't want things. I'm just a conduit."

"Ah."

"...Unfortunately, the Jedi are not quite going to recognize that problem as as much of a problem as it should be considered, but...

"Hm.

"I might have something, nonetheless.  Not...  So much a particular technique, as a way of thinking about the same thing differently.

"...You are part of the Force, as much as it is part of you.  It cannot be the universe entire if its will excludes yours.  It cannot be part of you if you are not part of it - and it is part of you as it flows through you.

"...I'll see if I can compile something more useful on Light meditations, but I hope that that might help somewhat."

"-huh. I could see that working, yes."

She nods, and - seems, insofar as her presence reveals, uncomplicatedly glad of having been of help.

"...There is some small part of me that aspires, someday, to teach, if I do not mistake my feelings in this moment," she muses, distantly.  "I never could take an apprentice, before.  The sort of person I wanted for an apprentice, I couldn't have risked associating with myself, in either direction."

"Though, that is not a matter for now, I don't think.  Just...  A thought."

"I'd want to offer an apprentice more stability than we have right now, yes. But if we're going to be a new kind of Sith, it'd be a shame for that to die with us."

"It really would."

She's hit by a sudden, and absurd, thought, and allows the chuckle, and the thought, to slip out.  "I wonder which one of us left that this would make the alleged Sith'ari.  Never held much stock in that so-called prophecy, anyway.  It seemed more like wishful thinking."

Pradnakt replies with an amused scoff of her own. "Between a Councilor, a prodigy, and your thing, there's plenty for future generations to debate about it, I guess. Doesn't seem like our problem though."

"No, it does not," she declares, still amused.

"Anyway - you would, in principle, like to - be, present yourself as, a healer?"

She considers the idea for a moment.

"Not solely, I think that's just as bad an idea now as it was last year. Primarily, maybe, once I know more about what we'll be doing. I'm also an artist, and twenty years ago I was a rising star of a lightsaber engineer; I don't know if there'll be call for the latter anymore but I intend to stick with the former."

"Artist and healer...  I think that could really do something for you, in terms of - sympathy and acceptance."

"Yeah, I think so too. We could go back and get-" she half-turns to address Daisy before remembering what she's doing. "I built a lot of sculptures during my hermitage; not all of them are movable but some of them are. Nine has some work out there too. - actually I wonder what ever happened to - it's got to be long gone by now, though. A piece I left in my master's compound."

"The one that was over your bed? You could recreate it."

"Nah, it wouldn't be the same."

"...Where would that piece have been, anyway?  For all I know I took over that territory after you left.  But - no, I think let them see your work in situ.  It will hit harder to see how long you were - in exile."

"I'm not sure Jedi are the right audience for all of it, but there's only one or two pieces I'd want to take down, and you're right that the rest tell the story. We actually wrote up a guide before we left, Daisy can send you a copy. The other - it was Pritruth's compound; Grauzatis was his more famous apprentice and I assume took the credit for him. The piece was a relief, the sky coming into sunset, stone and gems."

"...Grauzatis did not survive Pritruth by very much time at all, as it happens.  Months, at best, depending on how long they were able to keep up a façade."

She seems - satisfied to be making this declaration.

"He died of a sudden and overwhelming structural failure, that just so happened to also destroy both his, and one so-called Lord Ocnem's, alleged 'research'."

"I'm not sure your artwork survived, but I'm not sure it didn't, either."

"Good. What was wrong with Ocnem, I don't know much about what he was doing."

...shit.

She looks to Elcie.

Why are you looking at me, she doesn't say at Kalbetis' inquiry, I don't have detailed enough modelling to be better than your instincts yet!

She looks at Daisy for a go/no-go, not that she necessarily expects this to work.

(Her Force presence is very subdued all of a sudden.)

Well she doesn't know what's going on either. "We can speak privately for a minute if you'd like."

"That may be wise."

"Sure." She pats Nine's shoulder on her way out and he unfolds to follow her.

"Yes ma'am?"

"...Lord Pradnakt doesn't know much about Ocnem's research because she was one of the primary subjects of it.  Would she want to know this."

"Ah, In the year leading up to Pritruth's death? She'll want to know but the details should wait until the end of the conversation, she'll want some time to herself afterward. I can tell her, if you'd like."

"...I feel as though -

"I'm the bearer of the bad news.  I shouldn't fob it off to you; she'll likely need your support, and hearing it from you might make that harder."

"We've done things that way before and been fine, but if you'd like to tell her yourself I don't expect any problems with that."

"...Honestly, I would much rather leave this judgement call up to someone who has known her longer than I have."

"Yes ma'am. Tell me more about Ocnem?"

"...He was rather clever.  That is not a compliment.

"Aside from making some contraption that used other people as a sink for his Force backlash - the technique he favored built off of battle meditation, technically speaking, but turned it into a more direct battlefield control tool - well, he wasn't so foolish as to write his schemes down himself, but Pritruth's records say that his having a lightsaber-related 'accident' was the final straw in convincing him to allow Ocnem to test that blasted thing on Deskyl, after the tests on non-Sensitives kept killing them in instants.  ...If we are speaking about the time where she was going by Deskyl, would she prefer that we use that name or her current moniker to refer to her past self, actually?"

"She does prefer her old name in that context, it feels like a meaningful separation to her. And, yes, that does track with our experiences. She'll appreciate knowing about it, thank you; I'll tell her myself after we're done, she'll prefer to have it presented in context of what she knows."

"...Thank you.  I...  Did not want to tell her about this.

"...I would have.  She deserves to know.  But I am not...

"The person I have had to be does not permit me much practice in handling delicate situations such as this."

"Yes ma'am. It's not an imposition at all, I appreciate the opportunity to do this for her, and for you as well."

"That does not stop the little voice inside my head that thinks that everything must have been possible if only I was better than I am, but.  Well.  I do know it's lying to me.  ...I think we can have everyone back in, now, if you know what we're going to tell her and not tell her about Ocnem for now."

"Yes ma'am." She comms the back to let Pradnakt know, and the Sith and the other droid return.

"It appears that Lord Ocnem was behind Lord Pritruth's decision to incapacitate you," she explains when Pradnakt has settled back into her seat. "We don't have many details but we do have a few; I'll share those later when you can devote the appropriate level of attention to them."

"Ah. Well. Thank you," she directs at Kalbetis. "We've been wondering about that for a long time."

"I...  Am glad that I can at least give you closure," she murmurs.

"...Where were we?"

"Discussing how to present ourselves to the Jedi; we're going to leave most of my hermitage art in place and invite them to see it. If you think they'll take that invitation, anyway, I wouldn't've assumed so."

She blinks.

"Lord Pradnakt, I am a specialist in espionage and misdirection, whyever would you think I would do something so straightforward as invite them to an art viewing when I can instead make them think it was their own idea to go looking and their own conclusions that they're coming to when they're done?"  She's almost amused, as much as she is definitely bemused - though her Force presence is leaking a bit of consternation-concern beneath it.  She didn't expect this much of - an inferential gap.

"...Yes, I'm literally planning to send them a letter on the other hand, I know, but - well.  I could go on for hours about playing the game of 'I know you know I know', here, about signalling and countersignalling, about all the ways you can trick a mind without even a whisper of the Force, but - while I don't intend to let them get anywhere close to us while they could still prove a danger, I do think we want them to think they're uncovering a secret when it comes to you, rather than being invited inside a confidence they have no reason to trust.  They'll believe it better that way, even if and as we tell them we did it afterwards.  ...We are still their ancient enemy, right now.  Better we turn their suspicion against itself - better that they think they're not trusting us, even when they kind of are."

"That wouldn't work for me because there are so many reasons that not second-guessing literally everything I do half to death would be utterly absurd - even as someone observing and analyzing my actions will actually occasionally come to a correct conclusion, they would actively run away from the idea if it looked like I was at all leading them to it.  I've staked too much on my mask; I'm a public figure.  The Jedi have their own Shadows, and like recognizes like.  But you're not a spy, you're not some spider weaving a web across the Empire for purposes unknown, like I inevitably look to their view.  You're an artist.  You lived in the middle of nowhere for twenty years because you wanted absolutely nothing to do with all of this Empire nonsense.  We just need them to see that.

"...Still if that's not something you'd feel comfortable with, we won't be doing that.  I'm still reasonably confident in my options for diplomacy."

"I did intend to rejoin Sith society when I was done, to be clear, but that's not particularly reflected in my work, it was just that I didn't expect to have an alternative if I didn't want to be a hermit forever. Anyway, I don't doubt that you can get them physically there; getting them there in the right mindset to think about what they're seeing sounds harder, but you do know more about Jedi than I do. I have no objection to that plan."

"I do think I know how to get them thinking."

"Good, all right. And I assume I'm the bait and you're the switch, so to speak, do we need to do any setup for your part?"

"I believe most of that is on my end to handle, though there are some things I want to arrange between us - mostly that, if you can access the Light without subsuming yourself, soon, it would be -

"I don't want to say 'useful', here, but useful is perhaps the best word I have available at present -

"It would tie things together, better, for you to be in on the action while I'm causing problems for the Hutts."

"Yes. Give me..." she pauses and glances at Daisy. "A few weeks, let's say, to see if that insight is enough for me to get it. It's possible I'll know sooner but I can't guarantee it."

She nods.  "We have time enough for that; there's about that much time remaining before most of my plans hit anyway, though earlier news would be better."

"Of course. Anything else before we go?"

"I can't think of anything in particular elsewise."

"All right. We'll be back in touch soon."

She nods, and disconnects the comm call.

Operational planning requires only a few nudges to more effectively affect their current goals.  If their goal is a lasting campaign, not just an overwhelming single strike and hopefully some recovery operations, the targeting priorities are slightly different.

The existing operations are cutting off the flow of raw materials, somewhat.

She will be targeting their cashflow, their infrastructure, and equally importantly, their pleasures.

The things that, to a certain horrible sort of mind, make slaves worth the usually-horribly-inefficient effort to have.

L5-C3 steps down from DEFCON 5 to approximately 2.7: Substantially elevated, but not substantial, risk of Kalbetis trying to do something Unwise and needing her people to sit on her til she stops doing that.

Daisy, meanwhile, talks to Pradnakt about Ocnem, and they're both glad that they picked a ship with a big enough cargo hold for Pradnakt to comfortably do katas in to calm herself back down afterward.

The next day, in the afternoon, Pradnakt feels ready to try the new approach to light side meditation; the results are promising, though she'll need some practice in order to get the most out of the technique.

Daisy sends this news to Kalbetis, along with the promised copy of the art guide, annotated to note which pieces they think should be removed and which might require some additional explanation for the Jedi.

That's wonderful news, and the art guide will be useful; the people who are working on setting the trail will appreciate all this.  There might be a few followup questions from the agent that's laying the hook for the Jedi, once they've gotten a chance to read it.

Also here's something from Kalbetis that isn't business-related.

Kalbetis thought that Pradnakt might appreciate the blueprints for a mechanism that is, as far as she is aware, unique to her saber - she can ~hotswap which of the crystals in it provides the primary resonance, and therefore which one colors the blade most strongly.  She had to forge her crystals by hand for this to work, rather than get them ready-made from the great kyber-forges of the Empire, but she does find material alchemy an engaging hobby on occasion.

(It's useful to avoid being too easily associated with oneself, when one is in a precarious enough position.  She's somewhat visually distinctive, and establishing that she didn't even have the same color saber as her alter ego across the lines has gone a surprising amount of distance in the past.)

(...Nobody else in her cohort, if not the whole intelligence apparatus, was so - well, absolutely insane, she will admit - as to plan to pretend to be a Jedi near enough an actual Jedi that they might need to have a response to that question, she supposes - but it worked well enough.)

Delightful. She knew she'd kept hold of her favorite crystals from her old workshop all this time for a reason. Not all of them will work, and she doesn't have anything that'll give her a blue or green 'saber, but she does have a rather nice purple, and - is it too on the nose to go around calling herself Dusk with a purple and orange lightsaber? Too bad, she's already set the orange one up to grow.

Would Lord Pradnakt care to make known her opinions on the most effective and/or most preferable ways she could be involved in this operation, by the way?  There's one last strategy meeting to be had.

She'll want to sit in on that, yeah; her powers are generally most useful when they're planned for.

Would she prefer to be physically present or utilize the comm again?

They should probably spend some time around each other if they're going to be working together in person; that doesn't have to be now but this seems like as good an opportunity as any for it.

Then here is the time, and here is the briefing packet.  Please be sure to read through it before you arrive.

She brings Daisy with her, leaving Nine to watch the ship. She's still dressing like a Sith, but more casually, and she's found time to expand the range of colors in the embroidery embellishing her outfits to include silver, purple, and dark blue in addition to the red, orange, gold and black that made it up before.

"This way, if you please."

The conference room isn't all that large, as these things go; it probably couldn't fit more than two dozen without very careful holocomm callin planning.  It doesn't need to do that today, though about a third of the people in this meeting are only present here via comm projection.

"Lord Pradnakt, hello, good to see you."

It's always intimidating, being in the seat of another Sith's power surrounded by their staff, but she handles it well. "Thank you, it's good to be here."