Checking In

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Holonet access was non-existent on missions and limited when on Bothawui, but De'Ville finally found a spare moment to contact Callidus in her small planetside apartment. It was part of a warren of enlisted housing, and she was lucky not to have a roommate. Well, she had had a roommate at one point, but the woman had moved out after a week and hadn't been replaced. She'd found it... uncomfortable to live with Lilaena, but couldn't put her finger on why, and had ended up washing out of SpecOps entirely shortly afterward. Housing had never assigned another roommate, due to a bureaucratic oversight.

She activated the little bit of tech that allowed her to make a secure transmission without fear of the Alliance eavesdropping, and punched in Callidus' commlink number. Hopefully he wasn't deeply involved with anything at the moment...like with Anxia, for instance. De'Ville felt a stab of jealousy at the thought, but quickly dismissed it. Her hair had grown longer than she had used to keep it when she lived on Onderon, and was tied loosely over one shoulder which she only noticed because the holographic transmission showed her what she looked like while waiting for the connection to be made.

Lilaena pulled lightly on the ends of her hair, and then sat up straight as her image disappeared, replaced with the visage of her master. "Darth Callidus," she said, "Apologies for my long silence. My last mission took a great deal longer than was intended. There was an incursion of a new saurian alien species from the Unknown Regions, and I was drawn into the battle against them. They called themselves the Ssi-Ruuk."

[Salem Ave]

Lilaena's screen displayed an image of her master alone, sitting in what appeared to be an office. It was dark, late in the evening on... whichever planet he was currently visiting. The décor and his outfit – a simple white shirt with a dark blazer over it – suggested that he wasn't entertaining any delegates from the Consortium. He reclined as Lilaena spoke, listening dispassionately.

She was right. It had been a long silence. The very last words he'd said to her, as she'd left Terephon, were an assurance that he would be with the Alliance soon. Soon had been something of an.. over-estimation on his part. They had both been fighting battles: Lilaena with lizards, and Salem with the Hapans. A cynical part of him wondered if the former wasn't preferable to the latter.

“Tell me more about this mission and these... Ssi-Ruuk.”

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The transmission lagged for a bit, and Lilanea wondered if the connection was frelled. Then Salem's static image moved, and he spoke. She sent him a data file, with what biological information on the Ssi-Ruuk they'd been able to cobble together from dead bodies. There was another file alongside the first, with technical readouts on what they'd come to know as the entechment tables.

"They are a warlike race, constantly expanding their territory within their sector of the Unknown Regions. We believe they used to subjugate a secondary species from their system, a similar, but mentally lesser saurian race. Using what they call 'entechment' the Ssi-Ruuk strip the soul, or energy from a body and store it in machines and droids as fuel." Her lips curled in disgust and revulsion, despite her efforts to keep her face smooth and stick to the facts.

"The beings thus used pilot their fighters and energize every aspect of their technology. The lesser race was used in this way, but when the Ssi-Ruuk explored into Imperial space they found that human life energy, Force energy, was ideal and did not degrade as quickly as their sister species."

[Salem Ave]

With a keystroke, Salem opened the data-files that Lilaena had compiled. There were paragraphs and paragraphs of text: first hand combat reports, technical dossiers, preliminary examinations of the Ssi-Ruuk physiology. There were images too. Salem paused scrolling at a grainy picture, seemingly taken from a helmet camera. It showed the body of a lizard that had to be at least two meters tall, clutching a rifle in its talons. Salem lifted an eyebrow and shifted his focus back to the video-feed of Lilaena.

“The entechment technology, it could strip and store the Force energy from a human target? Were any of your.. comrades affected?”

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She regarded him silently, her lips a tight line, and she shook her head. "None I am directly responsible for, but there were some..." De'Ville's gaze hardened a bit. "The first we knew of this invasion, an entire planet had been enteched by these aliens. Millions of humans, and other species. The Ssi-Ruuk pressed on, targeting other planets in the same sector for wholesale destruction in their desire for this greater source of energy."

She knew the footage from Karallon was included in the data package, from her squad encountering the fields of the dead, and the abandoned entechment table. "The Force energy harnessed by the aliens - the beings remained conscious throughout the process, until their energy was at last expended."

[Salem Ave]

The arched eyebrow remained. Millions enslaved, civilisations destroyed, and not a word of it had reached the public? Salem had apparently given the Alliance spin machine less credit than it deserved. Either that, or the Ssi-Ruuk had been so... efficient that there'd not be a chance for word to get out regardless. Pressing the knuckles of one hand to his lips, Salem considered in silence the implications of Lilaena's findings. They were concerning, to say the least, on many accounts. A long moment passed before he spoke again.

“Could you.. sense the energy, once it was harnessed?”

[Lilaena De'Ville]

"Yes," she said. "I could feel them screaming. Entechment, it seems, is very unpleasant. The living energy ..." Lilaena shuddered. "As I said, they appeared to be conscious on some level, and in pain. A Jedi who was with the Novgorod, Morgan Evanar, threw up all over the bridge when he touched the minds with the Force."

She took a breath. "I understood the feeling. We followed the Ssi-Ruuk fleet and the Alliance commander, Raurrssaatta, a Cizerack male, ended up making a short term treaty with an Imperial fleet who was investigating the invasion. The saurians moved very quickly and efficiently - by the time anyone knew something was wrong they had already emptied one planet, destroyed an Imperial patrol fleet, and were moving on to other targets.

"We caught up with part of their invasion force in space, where they used their entechment controlled droid fighters and we realized exactly what it was we were dealing with. The Novgorod got in front of the main force and tried to help a planet they were going to target." Lilaena shrugged. "It didn't exactly go well. Several special ops personnel got caught up in the Ssi-Ruuk sweeps, including myself. I got my team out, but in doing so I revealed my abilities to them."

She looked squarely at her master. "I allowed myself to feel sentiment, rather than leave them to die while I saved myself. I have not decided if that is a good thing, or not. But for now they have sworn to keep the secret, mostly because of misplaced loyalty to me because I saved their lives."

[Salem Ave]

There was a slight wrinkling at the edges of Salem's eyes, the faintest frown pinching his brow. His head canted a fraction to one side.

“You have become... attached to these people?”

[Lilaena De'Ville]

She sat silently for a moment, and then shrugged. "A bond forms between soldiers in war. I feel attached, but I have perspective still."

[Salem Ave]

Perspective. Salem bowed his head for a moment, clawed fingertips pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Your team, are they being provided with time to... recover from this encounter?”

[Lilaena De'Ville]

"We are on leave for the moment, since the debriefing."

The silence between them stretched on, and she began to feel uncomfortable.

[Salem Ave]

Salem closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself the rare luxury of stretching his senses outward into the Force. An opportunity had presented itself and he needed to be certain that it was prudent to seize it.

“You will leave Bothawui,” he said at last, eyes opening as he looked back up at the image of Lilaena, “and travel core-ward to the Luire System, at the edge of the Expansion Region.”

[Lilaena De'Ville]

"The Luire System," she repeated, trying to remember where it was. Mid Rim? "As you command."

De'Ville hesitated, then added, "I have a report from my apprentice among the Jedi as well. She says the convoy is rife with rumors of Sith in the Rebellion, and that the Wheel was actually attacked by one, then put on lockdown and has been traveling randomly and avoiding contact with any outside forces. The name attached to the rumors, she says a friend of a friend," Lilaena shrugged a bit, "said the Jedi Council mentioned Loklorien s'Ilancy as the Sith. I hesitate to bring such an unsubstantiated rumor to your ears, but you can decide what to do about it, if anything."