Old Dogs

[ADAR]

It was an office that had once seen so much activity. It had seen days of high activity punctuated by days of quiet. Days of chaos and days of order. Days of frustration and days of the strange sort of contentment that was found in tasks and duties completed until the next inevitable day. It was an office that now looked so much the same as it had before her departure. Each manual and technical booklet, each and every parts binder. They sat unused and arranged along the shelving units that covered one entire wall.

The small sidetable, with the tray resting atop, and the decantur of spiced Ithorian rum.

The desk itself, with the leather chair pushed in. The glossy surface was free and clear of any amount of the normal clutter that had once covered its' surface, and instead revealed to all the pristine surface that had so often been hidden by datapads, flimsies, and hardcopies.

The few personal items that had once graced the thin wall shelving on the far wall were gone, their owner taking them with her upon her unannounced departure.

But she did leave something behind. Something that now stood like a silent sentinel in one of the back corners of the darkened office. If any were to look at it, they would have sworn that it was a statue, brought in to satisfy the eccentric tastes of Loklorien s'Ilancy.

And perhaps they would be correct, but only to a point. Beyond that was so much more.

Standing mostly dormant, the mobile mainframe unit that'd been salvaged and saved from the wreckage of its' larger half gave no outward appearance of activity.

It waited. It had been told to wait.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen swore under his breath as his cycloptic lack of depth perception made his hand miss the door control. The hexagonal bottle of Corellian whisky clutched in it's fingers didn't help much either; nor did the fact that it was considerably less full than it had been when he'd retrieved it from the shelf in his quarters hours ago.

He tried again, this time succeeding in jamming a digit into the appropriate button. The door whisked aside, and the Commodore staggered in. His uniform jacket hung open from throat to waist, held in place only by the way it was tucked into his belt; exposing white vest underneath and curls of silver hair escaping from beneath the collar. He looked a mess. It was the sort of complete lack of respect for self and uniform that would have earned his ire had it been committed by anyone else aboard. Right now, he didn't care.

He snarled at the darkness that lay within the unsealed office, his accusing eye blaming it for what had happened. That was the word they'd used: darkness. Such a ridiculous concept, when you thought about it. Darkness was merely an absense, and yet the Jedi spoke of it as if it was an infectious plague; something that had diseased the heart of his closest friend.

Loklorien s'Ilancy has fallen into darkness.

The snarl turned into a roar; the stagger turned into a charge, and an arm snapped out, whisky bottle hurled towards the distant wall where it exploded into a shower of shattered glass and wasted booze.

Suddenly stationary, and far enough inside the room for the motion sensors to notice his absense, the door hissed closed. Darkness descended around him. It was coming for him too.

A growl escaped his throat. "Lights!"

Darkness fled in abject fear, retreating into the far corners of Loklorien s'Ilancy's office. He looked around it, and his anger didn't lessen. It was abandoned yes, but abandoned with intent: things had been taken and tidied by someone who knew she wasn't coming back.

His gaze settled on the decantur and he found himself drawn towards it, his memory conjuring visions of the drinks they'd shared, reminiscing over old times. "Lies," his voice squeezed out from his raw throat: there was no greater curse or insult in his mind. His hand grabbed a glass; grabbed the bottle; poured a more than generous helping. He chugged it back, glass slamming back onto the table top with a force that it barely survived.

His voice changed; not for lack of anger, but for presence of sorrow instead. "You lying, frakking bitch."

[ADAR]

With the flood of illumination washing over the office's interior came an awakening of a sort. What once had been dormant now woke.

Internal processors registered the sound of a voice, running it through the identifying codes that it had been instructed to look for. Inflections, vocal patterns, a certain timbre - all needed to unlock the creature waiting in silence.

The voice matched each ebb and flow of the necessary vocal requirements, and in the instant of their verification, the single optical 'eye' blinked into life.

It stood for a precious few seconds to take stock of the new addition to its' surroundings.

Vansen Tyree.

He was the one. His voice had brought the droid from its' dormancy.

Tyree. Vansen. Commodore. Other information unnecessary to elaborate upon. Assignment - Challenger. Current location - office of Commodore Loklorien s'Ilancy.

The unit took a step away from its' resting place, seemingly standing imperceptibly taller as it moved. It stopped at the sidetable, its' ocular turning to the glass that'd been slammed down, then returned to the Commodore.

I had expected you sooner.

And sober.

[Vansen Tyree]

This frakking can knows my name.

That was perhaps the most unsettling thing of all. Robots didn't startle him; even when they turned out to not be the sculptures you initially dismissed them as. Droids were harmless for the most part; aside from a few notable exceptions. And those notable exceptions were particularly dangerous when they happened to be able to identify you by name. That rarely turned out well for anyone involved.

What was this, then? An assassin droid left by s'Ilancy? Some final act of darkness, lying in wait to ambush the one man in the Alliance who she knew would damn well be leading the charge when they came to hunt her down?

Vansen's hand strayed instinctively to his side; but the blaster he'd always worn there during his time as a pilot was absent, saccrificed by uniform codes and dress regulations. His good eye quickly swept his surroundings for anything that could be improvised as a weapon, but he found nothing; nothing that would break what looked to be a fairly robust shell on the automaton, at any point.

He fired back with a glare and a snarl instead, his lip curling as he spoke. "Identify yourself," he demanded. There was no patience in his tone: just the anger of a man who was tired of withheld answers. "What is your designation, origin, and purpose for being aboard this vessel?"

[ADAR]

The unit gave the man a critical stare - or at least what could have been the droid equivalent of one. It was an odd first meeting, but his mistress had made sure to stress that the nature of what would happen was nowhere near the realm of what could be considered normal. She had given him explicit instructions, given him the necessary information. Given him everything. Like some ancient relic he'd been brought back, given purpose once more.

I am ADAR. She said that you are from Rendili, and would appreciate the sentiment.

I have no designation that you would understand, but I have been told that you have a passing knowledge of the old ways. I am what remains of my larger half, left to rot long ago on Schwartzweld.

His optics registered the slight dilation in the Commodore's eye. Good.

Yes. You know that world.

Both hands seemed to flex, as the unit tested its' age-old extremities. Upgrades had been made of course, and joints moved smoothly. It was as if he had never been abandoned.

I am here to assist you, Commodore.

[Vansen Tyree]

Vansen hoped that he was unconscious in his office - that he'd drunk too much, and was currently faceplanted on his desk again, roaming his subconscious with a flimsy stuck to his cheek. He hoped that, because if it weren't true - if this was real - the universe must have finally lost it's sanity.

"ADAR."

He echoed the words and revelations back in turn, his mind slowly shuffling each one into order, connecting with memories that seemed vaguely relevant. Adar Tallon. Battle of Rendili. Starfighter savant. An inspiration to Vansen. A friend. Dead now though. He'd talked about him with s'Ilancy over drinks, far too many years ago to be specific about their exact number. She'd remembered, after all these years. Damn her.

"Schwartzweld."

It had taken years before she had admitted to Vansen where home really was. Even after all this time she had still told him only the vaguest of details. Maybe it was too personal or too painful to tell. Or maybe being a secretive jackass was a canine thing, like those asshole Bothans. He remembered something - a snatched memory of a vague reference, maybe - about Lupine ships and their artificial intelligences: a vessel that could think and act for itself, given a body to interact with the crew. It sounded like the premise of some sort of ridiculous science fiction series. The idea unsettled Vansen greatly - starships had enough personality and annoying quirks already, without being given the ability to talk back.

His gaze scrutinised the android before him. It was unlike any construct that Vansen had ever seen, and yet a little like all of them. The long snouted headpiece hinted at a Confederate battle droid, but the eyepiece that twitched every time it focused on him was more like one of those irritating jabbering eye-stalk droids that the Hutts made use of. It's limbs weren't in the humanoid proportions that so many galactic races shared: the hind limbs were stretched and jointed more like the legs of a pouncing beast. It's hulking frame was formidable, and might perhaps have been intimidating, had Vansen been sober enough to retain his full faculties.

The finger thrust towards ADAR's ocular cluster proved that he clearly wasn't.

"Why would that backstabbing witch want you to help me?"

[ADAR]

There was a pause as the single optical port constricted its' outer covering until only a pinprick of pale green could be seen. Moments later it widened, and ADAR took a step forward to further tower over the man before him. With a chorus of whining servos accompanying the motion of his frame straightening even more, the droid looked down at the Commodore with a decidedly terse hue in the green of his single 'eye'.

If she had wanted you dead, you would have ceased to breath the moment you stepped in this office.

Without waiting for that information to sink in, he went on.

Instead, I have been tasked with keeping you alive - something that I am 1.73 nanoseconds away from becoming regretful of.

Spoken with just the right amount of twinged annoyance, ADAR's metallic voice had seemed to take on the hint of a galaxy-weary old man given the most unenviable of jobs.

I have a message for you, from her. I would prefer you less inebriated however. I would recommend caf.

[Vansen Tyree]

"No one asked for your recommendation," Vansen fired back, with such ferrocity that the effort of speaking made him sway a little on his feet. Now he considered it, the droid was probably on to something with the caf, but Vansen was far too busy feeling enraged and confused to follow through on that.

His head swam, disconnected thoughts trying to grab hold of each other as they passed. While it made perfect sense to him that s'Ilancy would want him dead, it seemed strange that she would put effort into the opposite. That implied that Vansen was somehow in danger; and unless Loklorien was so sick and twisted that she wanted to make sure there was a challenge when she tried to assassinate the Commodore, Vansen couldn't see what might possibly prove a threat to him here, aboard a Rebel warship in the heart of the Alliance's most secret fleet.

He negotiated his way towards a waiting couch, selecting the leftmost cushion - prior experience had taught him that the alternative had lost a little too much integrity to be an appropriate place for a man of his age to sit, if they intended to be able to stand up again with any kind of grace and dignity intact. He landed a little heavier than intended; the droid clearly noticed.

Vansen turned his expression into a glower. "I'm sober enough," he grunted. An appended "Damn droid," escaped beneath his breath in a mumbled grunt. "Play the damned message."

[ADAR]

ADAR watched in silence, this drunkard as he sat. His processors worked at dizzying speeds to put together into some semblance of coherent and logical conclusions as to why his mistress had chosen this man to carry her needs to fruition. He was a wreck. A drunken, angry wreck. Such men rarely performed to their utmost, but then in this moment, perhaps it was simply a singularity - a finite moment of emotional release. The mistress did say that the Commodore would not treat her departure with mostly-quiet calm.

Looking down at Vansen Tyree, ADAR gave the droid equivelant of a grunt before taking a half-step back, angling his body so that his optic port was directed to a point just in front of the Commodore.

The green of his ocular blinked out to be replaced by a soft blue, and in the same instant a body appeared as if from the aether.

She wore a uniform rather than the normal robes of a Jedi, and her hands were clasped at the small of her back. The image flickered for only a second before settling into the nominal framerate of all holograms.

Her hands moved to clasp at her front, and her head bowed.

There is always so much to say at times like these, yet never the time to say it. I'll not pretend to be unaware of how you feel right now, nor will I attempt to beg your forgiveness. People like you and I do what needs to be done and look for absolution after we have taken action.

And that is what I do now. I have known for so many years the fate that awaited me, and as such I took the necessary steps to hopefully end it all when the time comes. But it is not something that I can hope to do alone. I need help. No one can turn back the Dark by themselves, but with numbers it can be done.

I only ask that you forgive me for the crimes I have yet to commit; the Darkness consumes everything after a long enough period of time, and my time has drawn to its' close.

Her voice dropped to a whisper as her head angled to the side, features soft and pleading.

You are one of my two oldest friends, Vansen Tyree.

And the her voice intoned something he had said so many years past. The wording certainly not the same, but the meaning identical.

Step 1: I infiltrate the Separatist ship. Step 2: You rescue the Jedi.

[Vansen Tyree]

Damn those words.

Of all the things that woman could have said, she chose to use those words. Damn that woman, and damned those words. The memories flooded back, faded and cracked over time perhaps, but still vivid enough for a faint sting to be recalled across his cheek. Back then had been their beginning: the first time that their paths through life had intersected. Now they had reached their end perhaps: the last time that they would part. At first - and many times after - their relationship had been defined by anger and conflict; but every time they had parted, they had parted as friends.

It was a confirmation of everything the Alliance had told him, and yet at the same time it was a rebuttal. Intelligence reports painted her as the villain, but Vansen could hear from her words and the unspoken fluxuations in her voice that she was just as much the victim.

A faint, bitter smile flickered on his features as more memories drifted through his mind. "This is what it feels like to be wrong," he paraphrased, quiet but aloud. "You should get used to that."

With slow, steady purpose, Vansen heaved his tired and aching frame from the couch, protesting joints stretched until he reached his full height. A hand meticulously restored the composure of his uniform, refastening buttons, and smothing out creases. His breathing slowed and steadied, the fog of intoxication slowly rolling back from his mind; it's weight shed, he stood taller.

Finally, his eye turned it's gaze on the droid - on ADAR, he corrected mentally; on the gift from a friend that he would not allow his withered old misery to disrespect again. A growling cough cleared his throat, and shrugged off the slurring that had addled his voice.

"I have a mission to perform." There was no question: it was a statement; a proclaimation. His one good eye was alive with determination as it pierced into ADAR's ocular sensors. "Tell me everything I need to know."