The Price of Failure

[General Dan]

All of her sound and fury, and yet Dan waited to get to the heart of the matter.

"I chose you for a purpose, Loklorien s'Ilancy. I have no doubt you have nurtured your position among our enemies to strike at them decisively. So then tell me, how do you plan twist that knife? The time for that strike is now. You are my apprentice, and I have taught you many things, and you've taken my teachings and embraced them."

The General arched an eyebrow.

"So tell me, how will you strike?"

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

She stared at him for long moments, as if to allow her small outburst to settle fully into his mind. Would he truly understand what heights she had just risen to? Her awareness filled his office, spreading outward to wash over her surroundings.

Finally, she spoke, her voice deceptively gentle and soothing, yet with an undercurrent of unmistakeable malevolence.

"You speak of the Jedi dispersing; I will tell you now that even if they do, you will find them. I have placed in your hands the means to find them wherever they go - there is a tracker, hidden aboard Whaladon. When they hide, you will know where... when they run, you will know where they run to."

From an inner pocket of her uniform jacket, s'Il pulled out a small datachip. She held it up.

"The frequency is here."

And without warning she closed her fingers around the chip, once more taking it from his sight.

"But more than that. I have killed for you - younglings, whose lightsabres are now yours as trophies. Of course they are as you say - a prelude to the true intentions of your will. To that end I have taken a man of my own blood who is as much machine as he is beast."

Did her Master know of Vega? s'Il had not explicitly hidden the Van-Derveld Lupine, but she had not outwardly spoken of him either, and Dan himself had never pried.

"This is the man that I have chosen to set upon the masters. To wipe them from existence and send them to the Gate of Souls."

[General Dan]

"Ah yes, Van Derveld."

Dan mulled over her strategy. His agents had informed him of Lok's pet attack dog. It was a liberty he was comfortable with her taking. It clearly wasn't suitable to be an apprentice, and it would be both dangerous and disposable.

"Good."

Of course, her plan still assumed the Jedi would cower in the convoy and not go to ground. It involved much risk and assumption, but it was an asset that could be useful if others dried up.

"I approve. You've acted with foresight of our coming war."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

s'Il took in his words with her scowl remaining, and rising to stand the Lupine looked down at him with a cautionary glare. The chip was tossed angrily at him.

"Then do not accuse me of failure."

[General Dan]

He caught the chip, his attention not wavering in the slightest.

"Just see to it this task is done."

He wouldn't abide this tantrum. She would purchase her vindication with success, not recrimination.

"We'll talk later."

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

"Of that I have no doubt."

She looked down at him a moment longer, her feelings and emotions pushing the barriers that she held them so carefully in check with. She had gone past the first barrier of his control, past her notion that the two were meant to coexist within the sphere of power that he had spent so many centuries coveting. Yet, even despite this revelation, and after her outburst, s'Il took pains to quell the swell of resistance and indignant anger that had risen up. If he was not careful he would find himself challenged with increasingly more frequency. Unless her Master reasserted himself once more over this new creature that he had chosen as his own, he would be used and then cast aside.

"Unless there is anything else you wish to accuse me of, I will take my leave."