The Alderaanian Incident

Unknown Quantities

Talon Teral was propped up on a throne-like chair at the far end of the room. She resembled a doll that had been carefully arranged, Kaliana noted as she examined the Noblewoman. That was strange and it felt...wrong. The Jedi shuddered. This whole room felt wrong, now that she thought about it. She'd be very glad when this operation was over and she had the comfort of a Lightsaber on her belt again.

"Dear Sister, do come closer!" A voice exclaimed, making her jump, "I've been waiting for you so long!"

Kaliana began to approach slowly before she ground to a halt, nervous now. That wasn't normal. She wasn't Talon's real sister, to whom Talon was close by all accounts, and so surely the other woman would see through her disguise? She'd been prepared for that. In fact, it had been a part of the plan...

The voice laughed gleefully, and the observant Jedi noted a total lack of movement in Lady Teral's face. "Good to know that you do, in fact, have a brain. You caught on. Of course, if you were truly clever, you wouldn't have come here."

There was a soft hissing sound behind her and Kaliana spun around just in time to see the blast doors swing shut and seal themselves. Whoever she was dealing had access to Thul's security system as well as the Palace, then. And Talon Teral...wasn't moving. She didn't even blink at the goings on in the room. Suspecting the worse, the Jedi reached out through her Force powers.

For a moment, there was stillness, marred only by her gently fluttering eyelids as she shut her eyes to concentrate, and silence, broken only as she jumped back, her eyes snapping open.

Then there was fear reflected very clearly in them. Kaliana usually had no problem keeping calm, but she also usually had her Lightsaber by her side and wasn't sealed in a room with a corpse and...That.

"Something wrong, Sis?" The unseen voice continued to taunt. Kaliana gritted her teeth. Whoever this was was really getting under her skin now. She could hear their consistent tormenting and stupid references to her fake identity, but worse than all that, she could feel them now. Something close, dark and oddly familiar...

"Who are you?! Show yourself!" She demanded to the room, which remained seemingly devoid of any other life.

"You should know me. At any rate, you soon will. Now, why don't you take a seat while we get better acquainted?"

Her unknown enemy was being irritatingly polite about the whole situation, but Kaliana knew sinister when she felt it. And as Jedi, she had encountered the Dark Side often enough in her opponents to recognise when she was sensing there. She slipped her Holocomm from her belt and began to hurriedly contact Alina.

There was a disgruntled sigh. "So rude. I expected better from a Jedi."  The unknown voice's owner sneered at her, as though 'Jedi' was some kind of insult to them. She ignored them as she impatiently awaited a response from Alina.

Eventually, a Holographic image of the Zabrak appeared before her and she got a sense of something on the cusp of hearing, like a hurried conversation being conducted in a whisper. She tried to push it from her mind and focus as her colleague looked at her, unusually serious. "You alright, Kali? You look you've seen a ghost!" She exclaimed as she took in Kaliana's unusually pale face and uneasy expression. "You sick? I can send the healer over if you need her? Or...There's a problem with the mission?"

Kaliana sighed. The Iridonian seemed to be babbling now. "Alina, I don't have time for all these questions! Lady Teral is dead and I'm stuck in her quarters! Not to mention the fact I have reason to believe there is a Sith on the premises."

The Human Jedi caught a flash on fangs as her fellow Jedi gritted her sharp, pointed teeth. "Sith, eh? Right. Time for plan C!" She declared determinedly. "Hang in there, Kali. We're on our way." She added, just before the communication fizzled out.

"Adorable! Your little friends are coming to play! Well, I have a friend with me too and we are looking forward to meeting them." The smug-toned invisible voice continued. "My companion has a...special interest in the spiky one. But the agent...she could be fun too. And as for you, well, where were again, before you got all confrontational?"

Kaliana felt a pang of nervous guilt. If this mysterious Sith's 'friend' was out to get Alina, then perhaps she shouldn't have called for her to come to where the danger seemed to be. Assuming that by 'the spiky one', the voice was referencing the Zabrak horns that adorned Alina's head. And she had been directly addressed. What they would make of Litaari, she didn't--

Wait, what agent?!