It had been three days. Three days since she escaped the Collective. Three days since Marick gave her the ability to hunt down Siv. Since Savi and Mikhail had stumbled out of the same building. Since she had cut her way through more Children of Mortis than her body could bare.
Zuza had barely stumbled back out of the building, barely heard Zig’s words before letting herself collapse into her arms and ride home barely conscious and still seething. She was still now.
She shouldn’t really be out of the med ward on Selen. Her wounds were healed enough to manage the pain without direct aid and to move around without doing more damage. Even not fully healed there was never enough nurses to keep a trained infiltrator inside the building when she decided she was well enough. Nor were the guards focussed on keeping someone in. It had been easy to leave the hospital, only two days healed with arms and chest still bandaged in thick cloth, and find her ship to track down Marick.
The conversation had been surprisingly short and Zuza had come away with a name.
Kobign Settgré.
Somehow he was related to the kidnappings. To the Collective. How the kriff the Children had known to strike, she couldn’t guess, but a lead was a lead and she’d worry about that later.
The lead left her walking down an alley of Port Ol'Val in the early morning of that third day. She hadn’t slept since leaving the hospital. Zig was worried. Ruka was worried. She’d responded to both of their messages with short affirmations that she was ok but busy. She’d ignored any follow ups.
The cafe was innocuous enough. It closed in the early afternoon, only intended to serve the early risers and brunchers. It did a variety of teas and was a popular quiet spot in an otherwise hectic port. Zuza walked past the window, slowly, peering inside. It didn’t take long to spot him.
She waited, keeping him in her prehipheral vision until there was a sudden movement from the other Human. Then, brown eyes met hazel.
A moment passed and Zuza only let the gazes meet for that singular one before tilting her head towards the alley way she had just come from. Leaning her body with the tilt after, to make the motion look natural to the normal passer-by, she made her way down the alley.
There was a door into the storage room of the cafe. It wouldn’t be being accessed at this time of day and was a safer place to talk than most.
If.. he followed her.
For a brief moment there, he almost froze, locked onto that unexpected visage and stared until the barista would come over and have to repeat herself three times that ‘it was closing time, hun.’ This wasn’t the neighborhood for gentle arm touches and his roughed up appearance didn’t make him approachable – a couple bruises and cuts visible around his grey long-sleeve shirt, discoloration around his nose covered by concealer and a thin strip of adhesive across his bridge. But for that brief moment, when his shoulders tensed and a knot wedged into his throat, he didn’t freeze. Seeing the woman’s directing head tilt through the window, subtle, unnoticeable to most and if he had not thought of her a week ago he would have disregarded it.
She wanted to talk.
Of course she did, it was too karking perfect timing to be coincidental. .
The half-Selenian broke eye contact as she walked away and raised his mug, hovering over it in thought. He stared at a holoframe across the room that cycled through various galactic news articles ranging from sports, political, and conflict. Finishing the last dredges of caf and setting his cup down, he rested his hand over his mouth and flicked one last look at the screen – jaw locking at the sight of a familiar propaganda poster with its founding pillars. Who were they and where are they now? asked the journalist.
Never left, oh lady, they’ve never left…
A heavy sigh. Kobign shifted his seat back quietly and stood. He fished out his wallet and left a cred on the table. The woman’s double backing into the alleyway adjacent to right side of the cafe made him less inclined to follow from the street. The restrooms and back of the cafe were in that vicinity however. The near-human made his way towards the freshers, weaving around a couple tables and nodding with a small smile to one of the baristas passing through. With a quick subtle note of no one else seeking the washrooms behind him, Kobign slipped through the staff door. Keeping a purposeful gait, he quickly located a potential exit and slipped through the door, slowing to a halt when he stepped past the threshold–
Zuza Lottson.
Apparently, not in the alleyway.
He leaned back to eye a counter to his right and particularly a box stored beneath it. Meeting her gaze, he unfastened his cybernetic right hand and quietly set it aside, tucked in that crate out of sight. Taking a small breath, he entered the room and shut the door behind him with his organic left hand.
“Miss,” Settgre addressed with a short nod, keeping a couple meters away and allowing the human to make the first move, whatever she wished that to be.
Upon his entry, Zuza had looked to the still open door to access the alleyway. Shed assumed he’d come from that way, but this did make more sense in its own way. The Human used the moments he was hiding his cybernetic to close the door. Just in case.
Her own exhaustion was visible in her features, though not her expression. That was unusually serious for the rollmaster, who usually met people with a smile. A laugh. There was none of that there for now.
“Kobign.” Zuza responded, staying across the room, arms folded across her chest. Then the silence held. Awkwardly so. She swallowed back a sudden lump in her throat and started.
“You’re aware of what happened. Or ya wouldn’t have followed me. So, ill be as quick as I can. What the kriff is going on? I know you’re involved. I know that they didn’t just strike randomly. It was too organised. Too confident. They knew what they were doing and I’m real curious as ta why your name is the one I’ve been told to talk to about it.”
It ruffled her, that she’d been given the responsibility of heading the DIA, yet there was clearly a lack of trust simultaneously. From someone at least. She didn’t know who.
Running his hand over stubble, Kobign sighed and shoved his right wrist into his pocket. His name was given, by whom? Someone who at least deemed it best she spoke to him for more intel. Debating which Tyris or head of state – Jax wouldn’t – didn’t matter, he was just stalling a few seconds. Where the kark should he start? He shifted, a couple steps closer and to the side of the room. The movement jostled the id tags around his neck against a blue crystal pendant he couldn’t make himself break a week ago. And he paused, nodded once.
“You were sent to me…because I have knowledge on their movements, access to it.” The half-Selenian started, his gaze passing around lightly before meeting hers. “There’s a nest of eyes on Selen, and I’ve been trying to figure out who the past year or so, trying to keep them blind until I could remove them.”
“And how they knew?” He swallowed, clearing this throat. “I told them.”
Zuza was quiet. There was… something trying to click into place. He told them, but he was also working against them. He was aware of them, had access to their movements enough. But that didn’t make sense if he had plans to remove their agents.
Zuza’s hand twitched toward her hip, where her Beskad was sheathed, but didnt grasp the handle of the weapon. Collective or Arconan? One or the other or….
It took her a full minute, but eventually the pieces clicked into place and the clarity was visible in her eyes as they widened and refocussed on Kobign.
“There’s… no kriffing way that she would conceal a karking double agent plot. Surely..” Zuza walked toward the door, facing away from Kobign. It wasn’t like her and Socorra were close, but when she had stepped into the position after the Mando, she’d assumed that something important wouldn’t just… disapper into the kriffing cracks. This was BEYOND important. It was- what if- How could they even have-
She was glad her back was to Kobign, in that moment. It gave her time to recollect herself enough, though the anger which was barely tempered after finally having something of a lead to go off of was threatening to over spill again. Zuza had killed plenty of Collective agents and Mortis culstists a week ago, but the desire to find some more was burning. It showed in more subtle ways, there was no crease to her brow but the woman was tense. Her jaw, her hands, shoulders. Her posture wasn’t quite straight but more akin to someone on the verge of some kind of combative posture.
It took her another moment, to remind herself that Kobign wouldn’t have told her that if he was a double agent for the Collective at heart, rather than actually Arconan. Marick would have already killed him, if he was actually a Collective she-akk.
Eventually, she spoke again. “How many? And how much longer is there before they know about you?”
Kobign tracked her movements, watched as she seemed to process the information, weigh it and calculate. His shoulders tensed slightly as fingers twitched, only to relax when she stepped away, exposed her back – something the human likely wouldn’t have done if truly expecting him to make a move. The Selenian hybrid sighed and leaned back against a couple stacked crates. No sooner as his hand settled against wood that he noticed her returned posture. Slowly easing himself upright, the soldier ensured his hand was clear from his belt, wavering passively in sight while hazel eyes met hers again.
“Eight, that I’m certain of. Suspicious of fifteen total,” the half-Selenian replied, a no banthashit tone to his voice.
The second question was more difficult. He swallowed, taking a moment to consider the factors. How much time did his choice a week ago buy? The fiasco with Socorra? Hindrance or aid? It felt like the ticking chrono on the wall was running out of time, losing the hands on the clock…
“I don’t know. They thought they had, that’s why I had to tell them what I did,” he paused and shifted his weight slightly. “Depending on what happens? A few months at best, a couple realistically. The…recent attack would put the clan on edge, be reasonable for more quiet on the front a bit as they wait for another opening.”
Eight. So bad. But not as bad as it could have been.
Zuza’s mind raced with potential plans meshing together. She wasn’t really a planner, she never had been, but she knew people. They needed to identify as many as possible and kill them before it was too late. It’d have to be one sweep so none could escape.
Kriff. Kriff.
“We should work quickly then.” She sighed softly, “How much flexibility do you have, I’m going to need names at minimum. Schedules. Even if we can’t get all of them….”
Should she be saying this? Doubt flashed through, brighter than she’d ever known it. There.. was going to have to be some contingency. Something.
“I can’t just trust you though. You know that right?” Her voice was the softest it had been so far, the exhaustion audible.
In that moment, before him stood a woman who had gone through pain and torture, and escaped to find out worst had happened. That those in her ward had been put through the same. Taken, threatened, harmed. And the one source of intel to help prevent that from happening again, to take out the bastards that did it, was the one who them out in the first place. To trust that man, to trust him…
“I know…”
Kark, bloody kark, I know.
Kobign swallowed as he hunched and leaned back on the crate behind him. He pulled his gaze away, seeing the exhaustion across her features unbearable in that moment, and a ghost long gone behind her, disappointed and torn.
I’m sorry. I am. I just…
A sigh, heavy and shaking. The half-Selenian shook his head and raised his gaze to meet hers.
“I know,” he repeated.
Running his lone hand through salt and pepper curls, he considered what he could say to help assure. They needed each other to make this work. Play on her empathy? It wouldn’t be playing as much as hoping, he was about to put not just his life but many others in her hands.
“We want the same things. There’s…people I want to protect, who are at risk here.” Kobign paused, frowning lightly as his voice lowered and steady. “I didn’t give your name lightly. There’s an entire force that will drop everything to come save you. Civilians? No…already lost loved ones in a war with these folks, don’t need to lose their lives because some idiot with a bleeding heart got involved with them,” agitation at himself leeching into those final words.
The only thing Zuza could think of to do wasn’t the kindest path. It’d sound it on the outside but… Kriff. Kriff.
“I can offer them protection.” She said, before she thought about it too much. “Any of them, I can make sure they’re safe. Just as long as you stick to your part.”
The Human did her best to remain steady, to keep eye contact. She doubted she needed to weave a threat between the words she spoke, kriff she felt like an evil version of Cora at one of those noble partys on Kiast, but she had to protect her own too. She wouldn’t do anything to them. But Kobign… it’d be better if he thought it was possible. Just in case.
Just in case.
“I don’t want to see more bloodshed than there has to be.”
She hoped these words never left this room. They left a pressure behind, on the air, on her chest. Constricting. She felt sick. Not that there’d be anything to throw up. Zuza wasn’t exactly sure when she last ate since leaving the hospital.
Hazel eyes twitched, narrowing just slightly with the smallest raise of his head, shoulders squaring. His gaze scanned her features for the briefest moment, looking for any signs of a bluff. The typical reaction to a threat, muted under a thinly controlled visage.
He didn’t know her. He didn’t know how true the implication behind her words were. And he couldn’t afford to let himself, his remorse, ignore the fact she may do good by it. Socorra did, tortured her own Vod to get what she needed.
A nod, shared understanding.
“You want names?”
The half-Selenian shifted, brushing his thumb on his nose and wincing lightly at the raw healing fracture. Kobign crossed his arms and nodded slow, his tone once again a quiet rumble. It felt like an ingot of Neuranium had been strapped to his back.
“Everything I have is on a datachip. Names, occupations and positions, routines and residences of those I could get.” Settgré paused, and fixed his gaze on Zuza’s own. “It’s yours regardless of what you do. I don’t know what protection you can promise,” I promised them too, see how that’s going, “but…I’ll take your word, for them.”
Zuza hated the look he gave her. There was nothing in it that shouldn’t be expected but yet the nausea didn’t fade. It took everything she had to not break eye contact.
Yet she nodded, inhaling slowly and letting herself glance away, pacing once more.
“Do you have it on you? I’ll need the names of those you want protecting to. I won’t do anything for them yet. If I act now, it’ll tell ‘em what we’re up to. But if we’re close to the deadline, or about to make the hit, I’ll make sure they’re off world. Somewhere they usually aren’t. We have plenty of ships that can evade tracking, they’d just need to disappear long enough that the threat is.. as clear as it’s gonna be. If they seem restless-”
Zuza fumbled into her pocket, drawing out her comms device and offering it out once it was opened to where her code was. She doubted Qyeria would mind lending the DIA one of ship from the whole fleet for a few days at most. If she did… well. That’d be time to call in favours and make it happen with or without permission. Plan A was more desirable. She’d rather these people, espeically Jax, remained safe.
“-Then you can tell me and we can act a bit sooner.”
“No.”
The response was abrupt. Kobign shifted and unfolded his arms, shaking his head, “No ship. I…”
He realized a more reasonable excuse for not loading the families on a ship set to obit was needed than the gut reaction to keep them oblivious. To not drag them into the reality that their lives were in karking danger. Exhaling, he rubbed his face, stubble scratching palm.
“Any movement like that would catch their attention for sure,” the half-Selenian started. His hand fell and caught on the ID-tags. Glancing down, he picked up one between two fingers and considered it a moment. “The memorial. In a month. They’ve been gathering every year to remember and celebrate their loved ones that passed on Nancora. Could set it up somewhere we can set watches on, protect easier, and run our hit around it. And if any restlessness, I’ll inform you. If you lose touch with me? Well…”
He sighed, the tag clinking lightly after it slipped from his fingers. He didn’t feel like he had to spell out what losing touch of him meant. Hazel eyes glanced back to Zuza with a curt nod, not so subtly searching her features for any agreement or opinion on his proposed plan.
“I will get you their names, and the chip too. Don’t tend to carry that around with me – could tell you every detail on it, but you probably want a physical record, eh, Ma'am?”
Zuza nodded. A meeting made more sense. She noticed the sudden reaction to the idea of the families being shipped off. His idea was enough to not question it further. She didn’t need to and considering how she had just threatened them all, Zuza was understanding that her ships were likely some of the last ones he’d want to see them placed onto.
“Unless ya want to be repeating yourself a lot, it’s probably for the best.” She commented, “This.. is better than I was thinking it was going to go. I appreciate that. Just don’t lose touch. I’ll do my best by your family if it happens but I’d rather not need to. I imagine they’d feel the same.”
The woman shifted position again. If people were watching either of them, time was growing short.
“You should leave. I won’t for a while, just in case, but it’s probably best they don’t wonder where you got to.”
A small wince of a smile. Kobign couldn’t help but take note that she apparently rather his folks…the others didn’t suffer another loss. Who knows if it did happen whether they’d be free from repercussion. And if he was misreading her words, them being just another woven reminder of the earlier threat? Time would tell. He was tired and she was right, they had been here long enough, too long. Farther analysing this whole conversation, the situation, can happen later.
He nodded with a sigh. Stepping back towards the door to the cafe’s small kitchen, he paused and turned back as if to say something but the words stuck to his throat. Had he not already utter his remorse? Never felt like anything said would change that, it couldn’t. So, the half-Selenian merely dipped his head once more and slipped back out the way he came.
Two steps in, he halted and glanced to his left,staring for several seconds before he stopped to retrieve the blasted mechanical hand. The click as it locked back into place bringing with it equal sense of relief and dread. Full motion returned, yet he still didn’t trust there wasn’t some recording device fixed in it that he missed.
Just hoped they didn’t catch on to his removals.
Kobign shoved the appendage into his pocket and looked up to catch a barista staring at him with a weirded out and weary look. He swiped his nose, regretted it with a tinge of pain, and shrugged at them before taking his leave back to the luke warm caf waiting for him.