7 Days Before The Fall of Judecca
Silent Death Citadel
Caina

The pristine silence of the Citadel was shattered by a resounding crash - BOOM! - the doors to the Battlemaster’s personal office forced open by an unknown, sprawling form. Wood splintered under his weight as he came to a final resting spot on the cold stone floor. Shadow peered up over her datapad, an eyebrow raised, as she patiently awaited a following act. Not until her charges - Kylex, Derek, and Katyusha - entered through the door did she remove her hand from the lightsaber at her side.

“Madam,” Kylex flourished brazenly, “I believe we have completed the assignment you gave us. We have captured this poodoo-swizzler responsible for the recent Inquisitor activity in the Cocytus System.” To confirm his domination over the captured man, he snatched him by the neck and roughly tossed him in the direction of a nearby wall. The Inquisitor stumbled and tripped over his own inertia before crashing violently into the wall. He slid down the surface and collapsed into a crumpled heap once more.

“Nice work.” The Battlemaster, and leader of Tacitus Athanasius, commented dryly. She nonchalantly rose from her chair and approached the captive on the floor. She regarded his obvious Inquisitor attire and pondered on why the Grand Master’s lapdogs would operate so openly. “Thank you,” she turned to the trio before her, “everyone.” She put enough meaning behind the words with the Force to reinforce her satisfaction with the work they had accomplished at her bequest. “Kat, Derek,” both raised their heads and focused their attention at her command, “you may leave.”

Obediently, Derek and Katyusha bowed their heads in confirmation of their orders and spun on their heels towards the door. They departed in silence. If they questioned why Kylex was able to remain at her side, they would not voice an opinion so boldly before their leader. She knew, though, they desperately wanted her respect and favor. They would press harder in their training for such a reward. Kylex watched it all from across the room. His back leaned against the wall with his arms crossed against his chest, his interest obviously piqued to see what would transpire next. With a flick of her wrist, Shadow forced the Inquisitor’s head to snap towards her.

She gazed over the man without emotion, her observations detached and calculating. The Inquisitor raised himself up onto his hands and knees. Then in an act of resistance, he narrowed his eyes and spat his own blood at her feet. Kylex moved as if to teach the man to respect his leader, but Shadow halted his motion with an outstretched hand. The half-Sephi was unphased.

“I don’t take kindly to rats snooping around where they do not belong,” Shadow stated plainly. “Especially when they come with ill intent. Why are you here?”

“I won’t tell you anything, you Imperial scum,” the captive sneered. “I answer only to those with power.”

“Is that so?” The Battle Team Leader smiled coyly. “Well, I guess you leave me no choice.”

The Sith kicked him in the midsection and sent him sprawling once more. Then she grabbed him roughly and pushed him to a sitting position against the wall he first crashed into. Crouching down, Shadow looked him in the eye and reached out to his mind through the Force. Black tendrils, pulsing shadows of smoke and mist roiled forth and sunk their teeth into his mind. The lifelike tendrils latched onto his conscious mind and she felt instantly connected to the man. She could feel his resistance, but his attempts - in his weakened and broken state - were no match for the Equite. He was a pathetic excuse for a man, doubly so for an Inquisitor of the Iron Throne. Chills ran down his spine as his already dilated pupils grew bigger. He physically thrashed in a subconscious understanding of his fate - a desperate bid to escape her clutches.

“Now,” she breathed, “tell me why you are in the Cocytus System. Who else came with you and how long you’ve been snooping around?” Shadow ordered as she maintained her domination of the man’s mind.

“I-I won’t te-tell you a-anything,” he stuttered as he tried to fight off her hold on his mind. Had he been a higher ranked Inquisitor, he would have received training that could deny even a Grand Master from extracting his secrets. This man, however, had no such power.

“Wrong answer, Inquisitor.” Shadow strengthened her grip over his fear. She let her heart grow cold and her resolve tighten. “Tell me what I wish to know.”

Cold sweat ran down the back of his neck. The prisoner closed his eyes in a futile effort to keep calm, but the half-Sephi’s grasp was too strong. “N-no!”

His defiance only fueled Shadow’s growing hostility. Without warning, the Sith grasped her hunting knife and was upon the Inquisitor. She straddled the man with her weapon bare. The man did not even see the blade coming, but he felt it as the blade tip of her knife plunged into his shoulder. He screamed in both agony and surprise.

“Oh? Did you want to say something?” Shadow asked coolly as she applied more pressure to the knife and twisted it.

“No!” he shouted in pained defiance.

“You sure?” the Shadow Wolf slowly pulled the knife towards his chest, tearing open his flesh slowly as he let out another scream. “I can do this all day, but can you?”

The Inquisitor clenched his fists tightly. “I will not talk!”

“Alright then. Kylex, hold out his arm for me, please. Loki, come here.”

Kylex did as he was told as a resting Loki perked up his head. The anooba came as Shadow ordered, and let out a low growl at the Inquisitor as he showed off the giant fang protruding from his bottom lip. The Inquisitor tried to hide his fear, but the beast had already sensed it. With a nod from Shadow, Loki dug his teeth into the man’s fingers, and shook his head violently until all that was left was a mangled stump. The helpless prisoner screamed in horror and pain as Loki dropped the clump of bone and flesh on the floor.

Shadow patted Loki on the back for his efforts before she got up from the prisoner. “Still not talking, Inquisitor?”

The Inquisitor sneered, refusing to give her satisfaction. “No.”

“I have to admit, you have guts for trying to pull this off on your own.”

To Shadow’s interest, he suddenly began laughing, insanity becoming apparent in his eyes. “Alone!? I was never alone!”

Kylex grabbed hold of the fiend by the collar of his robes and pulled him up to eye level. His lightsaber snapped to life snap-hiss!. Before Shadow could stop him, Kylex threw the man down and decapitated him with his saber in a lethal flourish. He spat on the corpse with disgust. A wildness in his eyes that Shadow saw for only a moment.

“Well, so much for that,” Shadow sighed as she shook her head.

“He wasn’t going to talk,” the Knight stated as he looked at her without regret. “It was pointless to continue trying to get anything out of him.”

“Perhaps you are right. All we know is that there are more out there in the system on the same mission as him. Gather the others. It’s time we report what we’ve found.”

6 Days Before the Fall of Judecca
ISI Base of Operations
Counterintelligence Branch

It was an odd sight to behold, so many of the Force Users in close proximity. The personnel below did their best to advert their eyes from the higher deck that held the cloaked figures - pretending to be busy at their stations. The deliberate restraint to look up gave away the deception that the meeting between the Executor and the Shadow Wolf was going unnoticed. Braecen catalogued the fact that many of these men and women would have to die if security protocol was breached.

A redhead, recently elevated by his hand, approached the group hesitantly. “Lord Kaeth,” she whispered, “I have the reports you ordered.” The Corellian waved her forward and took the information without a second look at her. She breathed a relieved sigh at being ignored by the Executor and attempted to make her escape.

“Hold on, Danialla.” His voice commanded obedience with an unspoken ‘or else’ at the end of every sentence. He unnerved her to her core, but she could not put a finger on what exactly it was about the man. “I’ve recently discovered that the Venture is not wholly outfitted with a proper command crew. Have you ever considered becoming a commissioned officer overseeing Logistics?”

She held her breath. A feeling of both dread and enthusiasm gripping her heart. Just a week ago, she had been elevated from a Junior Analyst to an Analyst assigned to help the Counterintelligence Division’s Commanding Officer. Now, she was being given the chance to fulfill her wildest dreams and become an Officer of the Empire. “I would be honored, Sir.”

Braecen turned to a hulking man at his side. “Xan, see to it that Lieutenant Danialla is transferred to the Venture immediately. I want her aboard before Alara debarks on that mission.”

“Which one was that, again?” The Obelisk adherent was a brutal warrior in the field, but did not have the bureaucratic mind of his student.

Rasilvenaira stepped forward dutifully from the shadows. Danialla flinched. She was not sure she had even noticed the lethal looking woman standing there before she revealed herself. “Master,” her voice was even toned, “Aedile Deathbane was assigned to take a junior member of Tacitus Athanasius with her to establish a working relationship with the mercenaries of a nearby system.”

“The ones that stole part of our last shipment?” The large man growled in obvious frustration and disgust. “I’d open negotiations with them.”

The StormRaven looked from her Master to Braecen in obvious amusement. Some things were handed down from Master to Apprentice without any teaching. Based on the look on Braecen’s face, he would also like to aggressively negotiate a contract with them. “Perhaps it is best that the new Aedile is tackling this task. Alone.”

Shadow watched the exchange in its entirety. Her only response was the heightening of a single eyebrow as she recorded every detail. Xan motioned for the newly minted Lieutenant to follow him as he fulfilled the orders of the Executor. She turned her attention back to Rasilvenaira, but was momentarily alarmed when her target had disappeared once more. Even for the leader of a group of assassins, Rasilvenaira’s apparent ease of disappearing unnerved the Battle Team Leader.

The Quaestor turned to her with a knowing grin. “The information you provided about the Inquisitor was troublesome, but the utterance that he was not working alone…” His voice trailed off and left a deafening silence between them. “Truly,” he whispered, “it was a revealing moment. That Analyst, she used this information to review data for the past week. She believes there could be as many as twenty cells operating in the Cocytus System.”

Shadow sucked in a quick breath. It betrayed her thoughts, but the Dark Adept only nodded in agreement. “Why so many? And why so boldly operate in the open?” A myriad of questions poured through her mind as she desperately attempted to work the puzzle out.

“It is a valid question, Shadow.” He raised his datapad and tapped it on his chin in thought. “The Grand Master is not the only individual who directs the Inquisitorius. We may have other enemies we do not know of. I’d like to discuss consolidating the resources of your Citadel. There is too much history, too much valuable information stored there to leave unprotected.”

The half-Sephi grinned. She had already deduced the same thing in her previous thoughts. Before the Quaestor, even. She beamed at the thought. Elder of the Brotherhood or not, she knew that he was not all knowing and could be outmaneuvered, if the need arose. “Let me tell you about Project Legacy, Lord Kaeth.”

20 Hours Before the Fall of Judecca
Excidium Headquarters
Daemon, Caina

The datapad chirped. Irritatingly. beep-beep-beep The racket was enough to unnerve a man, but this incessant ruckus moved a mountain. Archangel unfolded his gigantic form from his bunk and rolled towards the sound. As his hand moved towards the device a sudden sense of dread poured into him through the Force . His hand wavered for a moment before he viciously snatched the device and silenced it. Relief flooded through his mind, but he could not shake the sense of malevolence. It stuck to his mind and bones.

He opened a priority message from the Proconsul. His eyes, purely white, darted left and right as he took in the words before him. It was an order to evacuate with only the most important assets. Correction he thought. It is a drill to test our preparedness level for an evacuation. The Warlord groaned in protest. His deep voice rumbled with enough power to rattle a smaller man’s teeth. This was not going to be an easy day.

Archangel crossed his room to the refresher station and splashed water onto his face. The act sobered him enough that he could properly function until he located some proper caf. He knew it would be a busy day assisting the Executor with the drill. The Dark Adept’s ill temper with wasting time was well known, he figured most of his day would be spent urging the man to see the logical value of following the orders. To resist would simply waste more time. Assured with his battle strategy, he marched forth from his room to enact the Proconsul’s will.

As he exited the room, he bumped into a bronze skinned, athletic Kiffar. “Jorm,” he greeted. The other man nodded in response. The Kiffar’s yellow eyes were glazed over with sleepiness too. Archangel shrugged his mountainous form in an apology. “Orders are orders,” he concluded. Whether Jorm agreed or not, the Warlord never got a chance to ascertain.

“Fwec!” The Dark Adept had apparently gotten the order, as well. “Of all the ill-timed, inconsiderate acts-” the words devolved into rumbling, unintelligible grunts before clarity and volume came together in a crescendo “-and at this hour!” The son of Palpatine shook his head and dutifully marched in the direction of the Quaestor’s shouts.

It was going to be a long day. A tragic day.

The story continues in Hellfire