The Spear of Akrulta: Plotting and Scheming

Lissewa yawned, rubbing some more of the sleep for her eyes. "I don't know about any meditating going on, but I slept like a baby."

With some surprise, she stared at Hawke. She hadn't noticed it yesterday in the confusion, but she did this time. "Hold on now. When did you start using names? What in the world did they do to you yesterday?"

Tajanna woke up groggily as her datapad's alarm buzzed in the early afternoon. She yawned, flicked her wrist to turn her holographic costume into a facsimile of her perfectly-ironed Sith military uniform, and then sauntered over to the lounge room to get some breakfast.

"'Morning, everyone. Or 'afternoon, technically."

Tajanna walked over to the autochef, and served herself a bowl of soup, and then sat down at the table to eat and discuss plans with the crew.

Everyone's up bright and early. I suppose I should set my alarm back half-an-hour or so if I'm to be up and ready when they are.

Since we are all here, it's time to decide our course of action. I agree that we should use Nash to the extent of his power and influence can take us. I hate to be old fashioned about this, but let's take a vote on it, here and now. So if in favor say so now. Hold any arguments till after the vote. If we are all in agreement at the end i suggest we make arrangements to meet Nash again.

This appears to be no better time and place for such action. Everyone is present and at least semi alert. Perhaps he should pass out some more coffee before the actual vote. One way or other a course of action needs to be settled immediately. Of course once the issue of Nash is settled, he will bring up a new vote of getting in contact with Fleshcrawler as well.

Ignoring Lissewa's question for the moment, Hawke looked at Krosus while considering the proposal. Seeing no reason not to, he shrugged before casting his vote, I saw that we utilize Nash's contacts and influence for now. Should he become a problem, we can deal with him then.

Turning to the twi'lek, he decided to answer her question.

Quite simply, I was playing a joke when I first called the lot of you by your position on the ship. It simply ended up being more fun than I anticipated when no one saw through such a transparent joke. But the current situation does not allow for prank based irritation to potentially compromise the mission.

Lexi sipped from her caf slowly, savoring the bitter liquid. It would be unwise to turn down such an eager puppet. So long as we keep him in check, I vote we use him for what we can get now. she said, nodding to the others.

Yes. When he becomes a problem, we will deal with him. Quickly. First order after this is that we contact Nash and find out what he can offer about Fleshcrawler. That contact is a loose thread that cannot continue to exist.

"Well, he is the asset that I acquired . I'm not rightly going to turn him away without getting some use out of him."

Lissewa was surprised that they had all gone along with the idea so easily. Clearly they intended simply to use him like a tool and not a partner but perhaps they weren't aware of that stipulation yet.

"Just be aware that he is not to be underestimated. He is as cunning as any Sith I have met and he is expecting us to come through on lure end of the deal. He sees this as a partnership and until such time that he is no longer useful, we should treat it as such. Just understand he will likely see us the same way if we prove to be dishonest."

Which this lot most certainly are being. She was going to have her work cut out for her keeping the peace between the groups. This was why she was here after all.

"Well, if we're going to be dishonest with him, it's not like we'll be telling him that. If he begins to suspect dishonesty before we're ready to dispose of him, that would be an unacceptable failing on our part. And to get the formalities out of the way, I vote in favour of allying with Nash, at least temporarily."

Tajanna took out her datapad and placed it on the table beside her bowl of soup, and began idly tapping down notes in between spoonfuls.

It looks like some rest allowed some of us here to place the success of the mission above a personal dislike of Nash. Killing him right now would be a massive waste, one that we could scarcely afford even if our mission was proceeding smoothly. Now we just need to come up with a more actionable plan than 'use Nash', and we'll be ready to progress towards the completion of our mission in earnest.

Lexi smiled, happy that they all were in agreement on a course.

Now, for the painful part of this all. Good painful.

So, Lissewa, now that we've agreed to use your contact for this and back you on the play, we should all have a bit of a chat. It's time you came clean about your interactions with the man. For the moment, I will assume you were being devious to manipulate Nash. However, he's not here now. Fill us in on your true escapades once we went our separate ways. Lexi said, leaning forward in her seat, eyes boring into Lissewa.

Lissewa had been waiting for this. She had a feeling that at least one of them would guess she might be lying about her encounter with Nash. She had hoped to avoid speaking about this but she couldn't move forward without admitting her mistake.

"I'll start by saying that I wasn't trying to hide anything from Nash. I have been up front with him as much as possible, and after hearing what I have to say, you may understand why, or you won't and I suppose we'll have a problem. The lie was a selfish one, primarily to avoid embarrassment and to avoid the messiness that might have resulted had I told you the truth while Nash was present."

Lissewa gave them a moment to process what she had said. With a final sigh, she began to recount the true tale of her time away from them. She watched them carefully as she did, looking for their reactions to the events that took place. She was watching to look for anger, in order to best find a way to prevent any lashing out from them. When she had finished, she crossed her fingers and waited patiently.

"And that is what happened."

Thank you for coming clean with us Lissewa. If we are to succeed in our mission here, we must be able to work and communicate well. Honestly, for awhile i was convinced you had sabotaged the holo-transmitter. After finding no proof, i admit to placing you in the wrong. However this does not ease my mind to the fact that it is highly improbable that the transmitter was not working when we left Sith space. I have no doubt that the force will guide me to the person or persons responsible. Today though we must discuss Nash. Since you've had the most interaction with the man, how do you think we should proceed with him? I still want us to delay in moving hangers, I think we should try to rent our own space. Also I think we should press Nash into helping us obtain the parts to fix our transmitter.

Hopefully his apology comes across as genuine, even though he still has his doubts about her. Hell in truth he has un-trust toward all of his crew mates. That was the unfortunate side effects of being a dark side disciple. Ambition, greed and power were all selfish desires that drove them.

Leaning back against the edge of the doorway, Hawke considered the story that Lissewa told them. A few details cleared up some questions he had, but the most pressing one remained: What to do next?

"Any thoughts on how to move forward? I would prefer to not rely solely on one source of information on the environment, but what options lay before us? Thoughts?"

Tajanna took the opportunity presented by Lissi's storytelling to fully finish her soup, and was thus ready to get moving by the time Lissi's story finished.

"I think we should find out definitively what happened to Fleshcrawler, although given our current information it's very likely that he's gone rogue in the Bonadan underworld. If that proves to be true, we will have to eliminate him to preserve what little operational security we have left, and to pave the way for Nash to ascend to his former position."

Fleshcrawler's rogue state is troubling, both for the immediate success of our mission, and for the overall state of Sith military security, if it lets its crucial operatives slip loose so easily. Of course, it's possible that Fleshcrawler is still in properly undercover, awaiting our contact, and the individual Nash mentioned as the usurper of his position is someone else entirely, but that seems improbable. Either way, we need to get our holonet transceiver up and running as soon as possible, both to attempt contact of Fleshcrawler, for the chance that he hasn't gone rogue, and to update STRAT-COM on our current situation.

At least there is some agreement about getting the transmitter fixed. In his opinion it would be unwise to proceed with Nash without getting in contact first. Also he highly doubted that Flesh Crawler had gone rogue, otherwise he would have let the gangs kill them when they first arrived. It was possible though that flesh crawler was operating solo or in hiding.

I think Lissewa should make contact with Nash and invite him back over to the ship. We listen to his plans and go from there. Hopefully Lissewa can convince him to help us acquire the parts we need. If that fails though I suggest our next course of action is to find flesh cralwer before aiding in whatever task Nash want's us to accomplish.

If they are to maintain control of this person, Nash, they needed to make some more allies. Especially allies of other rivals. After all, sometimes the best position to be in, is right smack in the middle of things; or as his teacher would have told him, be the spider in the center of the web. Be aware of everything going on around, until your enemy has ensnared itself deeply and cannot escape.

"Agreed, we need more than one source of data. In any event, I believe that from here on out we should travel in pairs at minimum. Lissewa's initial meeting with Nash showed a flaw in our division of labor. If Nashe were less ambitious, we would be out a diplomat. In any event, now that I am fully rested, I want to take another look at the communicator."

His opinion on moving forward given, Hawke left the lounge to pick up his tools in Engineering, the comm. terminal his next destination.

Lexi nodded as Hawke doled out some very sound advice.

Fully agreed. If we have Lissewa get in contact with Nash, we can also see if he can procure us the components Hawke may need to get our comm back up to snuff. Without Nash present, we should try contacting Flesh Crawler, once we have our systems back. I'd like a chance to at least make a determination on his status to the Sith. Perhaps allowing us to open several avenues of success.

Also, if we find that he's less malleable or has truly gone rogue, we can eliminate him and his knowledge. It will feel marvelous to revel in the glory of the Progenitor as a traitor's life fades from his eyes in front of me. Truly a way to feel alive.