Myriad Reckonings

He listened intently, absorbing all of her words. This was the Saro that Tarkin had spoken of. She certainly seemed to be a powerful sorceress from all accounts, but it still did not answer the question as to what she did that turned the wrath of the Empire on her people. He recollected back to Tarkin's side of the story to attempt to place these events on the proper timeline.

"The empire knows no boundaries when it comes to their iron rule." He said, his tone veiling bitterness.

"No," Tris agreed. "But this worked in Saro's favor. She was able to unite the factions against the larger threat. But she balked at the prospect of having to share power--it had been her goal to lead the factions herself rather than recreate the oligarchy that had fractured so long ago. Nevertheless, she ruled alongside the other priests for two years before a young admiral descended from his ship to negotiate." Her lip curled. "He was concerned about the cost of life, you see. Cities--countless cities--had already been flattened on his orders. Children butchered, the elderly pulled from their beds or buried under rubble. This man--not much more than a boy; he couldn't have been much older than twenty--came before the council and made a case for their surrender.
"By near-unanimous vote, the council turned him away. We are a proud people, as I have said, and we would rather have died than turn our planet over to these savages. Saro saw something in this admiral that the others apparently failed to see, though, and she spoke with him long after the rest of the council left. He returned to his ship shortly thereafter, but they met several times more after that. I was there for one of these occasions, as Saro's old mentor. She brought him to me and asked that I bless him, that he was repentant." Tris sat back, rubbing her cane thoughtfully. "I looked into that boy's mind and saw that he was lost, looking for a light in the darkness. He was vulnerable, slow to trust but hopeful. I blessed him and told Saro to advise him to retreat, that both sides would lose more people if we continued fighting. She ignored me, and a week later she disappeared along with some of her loyal supporters. Reports from our spies signaled that the young admiral had also gone missing. Conclusions were drawn by the council that the pair had an agenda of their own, and Saro was labeled a traitor to our species."

Spoiler

the plot thickens and im here for every single ounce of it

Sirejj kept his face and his mind still, but in the hidden corners of his consciousness, his thoughts were spinning. So it was true. Garoche had shown some sort of sympathy towards these people. He had indeed failed as the ruthless steel hand his father had raised him to be. Sirejj had only seen into Garoche's mind from a very far distance and only through the thoughts he'd left behind, but his own findings were consistent with the words of Lady Tris. The pieces were beginning to make more sense.

"And they weren't seen again?" He asked, knowing that was not the case. The fact that Garoche had known Saro for some time before they'd both been killed was entirely new information.

"They most certainly were." Her voice turned cold. "Saro was, at least. She was a ghost for six months--nobody could find her. Then came the warrior in dark armor wielding a red blade. He brought destruction the likes of which we had never seen in all the years the imposters had been attacking us. He could do the work of three armies with a few sweeps of his hand.
"And all of a sudden, mere days after his arrival, the council drops dead one by one, targeted by the warrior. Who should my daughter Raia see at his side but Lady Saro?" She thumped her cane on the floor. "Lady Saro, the high priestess of Ochor, pointing a hand and directing that whirlwind of fury and hate toward her own people."

This he was surprised to hear. Any story could and would be tainted by the emotion of the talebearer, but this was a vastly different situation to what he'd been told before.

"She...sided with him?" He was a little shaken by that. Sirejj felt a coldness creeping over him. He knew of the monster she'd described. In the depths of Atoa he'd been able to distance himself from that fear that followed him, but the mention of Vader brought some of it slinking back. To hear Saro had at least at one point stood beside the Sith was startling information.

His people had made the same mistake, siding with the Sith. It had been short-lived and had led to their ultimate downfall.

"I expect he was a convenient means of securing her place as sole authority over all Atoans," Tris said with effort. It was clear the revelation had taken a heavy toll on her. "Her political rivals stood no chance. With her guiding the warrior on his path of devastation, only her insurgents had the means to take on the imposters. And they simply didn't. Not at first..." She sighed. "There were rumblings of disorder not too long after. Those of us that hadn't taken part in the fighting kept an ear out for any goings-on, and we heard one of the warrior's cohorts had disappeared. That made two high-ranking officers that were suddenly mysteriously absent, and the warrior had become distressed." She sighed. "And here is where things are no longer clear to me. Two more days passed with no news, and then there was a crack like thunder to the east of our hideaway. One of the great cathedrals had fallen, taking Saro with it." Tris closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again after several moments. "We learned later from one of her loyalists that she and the young admiral intended to lure the warrior into a trap. It is my belief that she brought the cathedral down on him and the admiral as a last resort, which would have crippled the enemy severely and completely cleared the way for her rise to power. She did not survive, of course. Though...." Her brow furrowed. "This does not explain the loyalist's insistence that Saro and the admiral were solidly allied with one another...he seemed to think they could not do each other harm.
"Whatever the case, the enemy recovered the warrior from the rubble. I do not know if he lived or died, though I feel he must have survived it. There was a man with them." She glanced upward, blinking. "There was a man," she said again, "and from where we stood watching the proceedings I felt a chill like I have never felt and will never feel again. There was a vision that came with it--the end times, darkness and weeping for months upon months.
"It was he who dragged the admiral from under the stones, and it was he who returned less than a month afterwards with a half dozen ships and thousands of soldiers to wipe us from the face of our own planet." Tris's face was flushed, and she took a breath. "I felt him when I looked into his son's mind, and I felt him again when you met us in our home."

Sirejj's blood ran cold for a moment and he cursed himself for it inwardly. He'd thought he'd hidden his secret motives well, but somehow she'd still sensed a trace of Tarkin's presence in his own. Still, she may not know he planned to return to him specifically.

"The warrior of which you speak...this is not the first world his kind has ravaged. It was his sect, the Sith, who were responsible for the burning of my own homeworld." This entire conversation was beginning to make him feel uneasy, but he drove that to the furthest corners of his mind. "There are many of them, but they all share the same purpose. To do to the galaxy what was done here."

"Then the people who razed this land have allied themselves with a very powerful being indeed," Tris said grimly. "Nobody in this galaxy has tried to stop them?"

"No organized force. Only the scattered few, and they end up like us. Those who are sensitive to the force...or the spirits of their worlds, are hunted across the galaxy and either killed or enslaved by these dark lords." He frowned. "Atoa is only one of many broken worlds. The galaxy is riddled with them."

He mulled over what information he'd been given. There was still a few questions left, but he was unsure how he'd find the answers if the only three people to witness the fall of the cathedral were either dead or the enemy.

Lady Tris sighed heavily and looked back to the doorway, where Raia remained. "See me back to my room, child," she said, and stretched out her hand. Raia came forward, expressionless, and helped her mother to her feet. Tris leaned on her and looked back at Sirejj.

"I hope this information is of use to you and the others you tell," she said. "Be prudent in your use of it, Sirejj." She hobbled out of the room, supported by Raia. Raia glanced back at Sirejj with a small bewildered frown.

"I thank you, My Lady." He nodded his head to her as they left, catching Raia's glance. His own mind was almost equally as bewildered. While Lady Tris' information had revealed a massive portion of the untold story, the exact circumstances of Garoche's death were still unknown. He agreed- Saro bringing down the cathedral had not made sense. And he wondered why Lady Tris had made no mention of Saro being with child, unless she was not aware. His mind glanced over one absurd possibility, but that did not quite fit the story yet either.

When they had left he crept from the room and made his way towards his chamber. He would spend some time to sort through the thoughts in his mind and the visions he'd seen to straighten the timeline. There were still questions to be answered, but he was unsure if any of these survivors could provide the information he needed.

It was like waiting in a fox hole, Tarkin reasoned, lying on his cot at the back of the ship. Or in a prison cell.

That had been the worst part of war for him. Not the torture, not losing comrades--it was being bored and confined, counting how many seconds it took for mud to leak through your supposedly military regulation boots that cramped so badly that you had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from saying something out loud. It was less dull when there was someone in the hole with you, granted, but Tarkin remembered days when the droids had sprung up without warning and everybody had scrambled for cover. He'd gone one direction and everyone else had gone another, and then he pressed into a dirt or stone or mud wall for ten hours all by himself. Drawing pictures in the dust could only entertain him so long.

At least in a fox hole there was the anticipation of an attack to keep you on your toes. You had your men to worry about, and yourself. What if a stray laser managed to graze you? What then? What if the whole place was carpet-bombed?

Up here, though, on his beloved and incredibly expensive corvette, there was nothing to anticipate but Sirejj's return, and that brought its own set of frustrations. Sirejj had approximated no rendezvous date, which meant there were no days or hours that Tarkin could count. He had also been radio silent, which meant no matter how many time Tarkin clicked the button on the comm, he wasn't going to answer. The information Sirejj would divulge when he returned--if he returned--did offer some stimulation, but Tarkin's mind could only stray so far into that territory before he started speculating about unsavory possibilities. No, he wouldn't think of Atoa at all.

And so his mind wandered, and exercised, and he slept, then his mind wandered, he exercised, perhaps ate a little food, and slept again.
It wasn't much like a fox hole at all, he decided. It was more like how some religions described limbo.

Sirejj reached his chamber, but there was no rest for his mind. He mulled over again and again what Lady Tris had told him and what he had seen. Most of it made sense up until the conflict at the cathedral with Vader. It certainly did not sound as if Saro was entirely responsible for its destruction, though maybe partially.

He found it odd that nobody seemed to mention the priestess was with child. He also found it odd that Lady Tris had shown some masked suspicion when discussing the disappearance of Saro and Garoche. He felt that there was more to the story than either of them knew at this point. The solution that presented itself was insane, but he supposed it was possible that the two had either been plotting something or that there were more layers to their relationship than anyone was led to believe.

But Vader. How he survived and another powerful force wielder did not was plausible, but just from his small time spent with the Atoans, Sirejj did not believe that one of them, especially one to the caliber Saro was said to be, would be so easily destroyed, especially by their own doing. Especially when they were with child. Especially alongside one of their allies.

He paced his room, idly fiddling with his staff as he did. His mind was darkened to the events of the cathedral. When he had been there before, he'd sensed the heavy presence of the dark side. He had a feeling that is where his final answer lay.

Tarkin clicked the comm button a few times in quick succession, closing his eyes. He'd thought about calling Thalassa a once or twice, but every time he had gotten close he'd stopped himself. She wouldn't want an update until he had information to share, and he had nothing. They were long past the point in their marriage where they could just call each other to chat. That particular aspect of their relationship had fizzled out around a month after Garoche was born, after the argument about the Carrion.

He wondered what she was up to now, though. Perhaps she was conducting business on Phelarion, or maybe she'd gone to Coruscant for a meeting with legitimate investors. She was probably in her element if that was the case--her charisma was astounding. Tarkin was lucky to be married to her, he had to admit. Even estranged, she was a powerful ally and an imposing presence in any room. Together, the two of them formed a potent presence that drew every eye to them.
He smiled despite himself; they should show up at one of those galas Krennic was always throwing. He could talk her into it, he was sure, and she liked to show off how she looked in the latest fashions.

Sirejj debated for a while if he should stay, but he doubted he would learn much more from Kurra at this point. He made up his mind that his time for departure was now.

He took up his cloak. Everything else was in the pouches he carried. He wondered if there was an easier way to the surface. He might see if Raia could show him the way out, for travelling back through those narrow passages was something he'd been dreading since he first escaped them. He placed his staff on his back. With almost silent footsteps he stepped from his chamber. He'd learned the general direction of the tunnels that ran beneath the moon's entire surface, but he had to go back and unearth the cache he'd hidden of his other supplies.