Bit disjointed, this chapter. Corellia is big. And I’m not so interested in the ‘plot’ as in these two emotionally unhealthy idiots. Actually, Baras’s Force-woman thing is completely ridiculous (why didn’t he ask her about Jaesa, for instance?) so that’s been scrapped. And replaced by a giant FF/DBZ style fight that I’m super excited about!!
EDIT: added a couple bits in which Vowrawn becomes Quinnkuliina’s couple’s counselor lol
Chapter 14: The Wrath of the Wrath
If she’d been distant and hard after Baras’s betrayal, she was remote and impenetrable now. He stayed on the ship, in the cockpit as much as he could, while she went to fight Baras and the Republic with Pierce, or Jaesa, or even Broonmark. A Talz was better company than him now, but that couldn’t hurt him more than the way she looked at him when they were around.
Why had she spared him, if only to kill him with looks? Why not transfer him – or kill him – and be done with it?
No, the worst part was when he left his customary monthly gift of peppernotes – he’d written down when her cycle was, and ever since Alderaan had been giving them to her at the appropriate time – and later found them in the refresher. A small thing, but it hurt.
He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. Well, he had only himself to blame. So he weathered it, in self-flagellation, until something would change.
She took a deep breath through her nose, fighting valiantly to hold on to her temper. “I just. Want. To talk. To Lord Vowrawn.” No one in this building believed her; she’d had to fight her way through three rounds of Sith just to reach the top floor. Not a good start for getting her potential ally to trust her. Or for her to trust him.
“We’ll kill you first!” A myriad of crimson lightsabers were brandished at her.
“Wait! You are no match for her,” said a new voice, an elderly voice, and the Sith apprentices faltered, making way for a dignified-looking pure-blood Sith with elaborate facial jewelry. “So, Baras has finally reached me. I concede; I only ask that I be spared the humiliation of decapitation.”
Akuliina sighed and put a hand to her forehead. “You’re very convincing, Lord Vowrawn. I almost feel like I should attack you.” She glared at him. All this doubt, though logical and expected, was highly irritating. “Will refraining from killing you prove that I am here to protect you, not assassinate you?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not.” He raised a skeptical eyebrow over an amused smile. “Why should I trust that you won’t turn on me later? Why else would you bring your apprentice?”
“Oh, I’d hardly expect you to be foolish,” she answered with a snort. “But I am the Emperor’s Wrath, not Baras’s apprentice, and while Baras lives, I need you alive.” And Jaesa was there to find the real assassin, the one who had slipped through Akuliina’s grasp in her sweep earlier.
“You’re very convincing, Lord Akuliina. I almost feel like I should trust you-”
“Master!” Jaesa cried. “There!”
A grenade bounced into the middle of the group of apprentices and exploded. Akuliina flung herself in front of Vowrawn, lightsabers crossed defensively, as a big alien came charging out of the room behind with a rocket launcher, roaring as it came. She braced herself. It was fast, and heavily armoured, and just big, and rocket launchers were nothing for even Sith to sneeze at. But she’d had some practice at that recently, she thought darkly.
When the dust had settled and all the explosions had finished, the assassin bounty hunter lay dead in the centre of the room, and all of Vowrawn’s minions were dead or dying. But Vowrawn himself was still alive, in the corner where she’d put him, and surveying the destruction thoughtfully.
“That was close,” he commented, taking a few steps forward. “It seems clear that without your intervention, I would have been hard put to it.”
“Do you trust me now?” she asked irritably. “Enough for the time being? I can and will protect you, but only if you let me.”
He eyed her calculatingly. She realized quite clearly that he could believe she set up the assassin solely to gain his trust. But he pursed his lips and nodded. “Very well. I will go with you. May I ask why you hate Baras so?”
“Baras is scum,” she growled. “He betrayed me – as Sith do,” and she shot a glance at Jaesa, who rolled her eyes. She still didn’t quite believe Jaesa’s repeated platitudes of undying loyalty. “But I’m not forgiving him for it. I hate him. And he is no Voice of the Emperor. I’ve met the true Voice. Baras is an infant compared to him. To imagine him in charge of the Empire is disgusting.”
“Yes, yes, quite. I agree fully. I, too, met the Voice a long time ago. Such an experience leaves its mark, something Baras struggles to do except through comedy. That’s not all, though, is it?”
She shot him a look and stomped towards the elevator. She wasn’t talking to him about Quinn.
Quinn was eating a lonely dinner late after the others when Lord Vowrawn entered the mess. He stood quickly and bowed. “My lord.”
“Sit, sit,” Vowrawn said amiably, sitting across from him. “I’m just getting to know you all. Lord Akuliina is certainly a wonderful young woman, isn’t she, Captain?”
“Yes, she is,” Quinn answered guardedly. Vowrawn was smiling serenely, as if to put him at ease, but he had no idea what Vowrawn really wanted. While it was unlikely that he would betray them while they were protecting him, Quinn still didn’t trust him. Not with personal issues.
“And your feelings for her are very strong.” Vowrawn leaned his cheek against his hand casually.
“I serve her and the Empire to the best of my ability,” Quinn said stiffly.
“Yes, of course, but you also love her, don’t you?” Vowrawn sighed cheerfully. “I don’t blame you, Captain. She’s passionate, strong, smart, and beautiful – a deadly combination. If I were a hundred years younger, I might be interested in her myself!” He chuckled.
Quinn remained silent, but his heart was not, despite his best efforts.
“Hmm?” Vowrawn tilted his head. “What’s this? There’s guilt in with that love. Something’s happened between you recently, not that such isn’t obvious just to look at you two. …Ah, you tried to kill her, and lived? Her feelings for you must be strong as well. I thought they were, but it was difficult to tell before. Now, why would you do a foolish thing like that?”
Vowrawn was reading his mind, wasn’t he? Having Jaesa do it was bad enough. “My lord, this is highly… I don’t wish to talk about it.” He made to get up and leave.
“Stay,” Vowrawn said, gently but firmly, before he had managed to stand, and Quinn found himself staying. “I can tell you don’t trust me, and that’s wise of you. But I’m not going to betray you while I’m under your protection.”
How did one say ‘this isn’t any of your business’ to a member of the Dark Council? “I believe that, my lord, but I prefer to work without being distracted by my personal issues.” It hadn’t worked on Akuliina, so he didn’t expect it to work on a lord much older than her, but he had to try.
“So you like living in denial, do you?”
“Yes. It’s efficient.” Until it blew up in his face. He didn’t know how to solve his feelings like he did a mechanical fault or a lazy soldier. He didn’t know what else to do.
Vowrawn snorted a laugh. “Sounds like you’ve been through this conversation before.”
With himself, many times.
“Well, well, tell me all about it anyway, young man. You’re here to help me, so I’m here to help you.” The Sith smiled disarmingly. It was awfully disconcerting.
But somehow Quinn found himself haltingly confessing to his crimes, his sins, while Vowrawn listened with no hint of judgement on his face, which confused him a great deal.
“So Baras threatened to kill you, did he? Have you mentioned that to her?”
Quinn stared at the table. “No, my lord. That’s no excuse.” And Lord Akuliina, for all of her strengths, was not blessed with an overabundance of empathy, certainly not now after the fact.
“True, you could have lied to him. You could have betrayed him, instead of her.”
Quinn lowered his head. He could have. “What’s done is done, my lord. I must live with that, and give thanks that I have even the smallest opportunity to repent – that I may continue to serve.”
“Your loyalty is undivided now, yes?”
“Completely and utterly. I will serve her to my death, Baras be hanged.”
“You’ll have to do something very impressive to convince her of your devotion and worthiness now, I fear. Hopefully not literally to your death, not yet – you seem quite competent, we could use more men like you in the Empire.”
“I know.” About doing something impressive.
“But she’s worth it, isn’t she?”
To see her shining in her power and confidence, her sexy arrogance, the most beautiful person in the galaxy… “She is the true future of the Empire.”
“A rather dry response for a man supposedly in love. But you’re not wrong.”
Quinn dared glance up. “Have… have you ever been in love, my lord?”
“Many times, Captain. Most recently, with power. But power is an elusive, cruel mistress – you’d be better off with women. Even if she tends to be elusive and cruel herself.”
“Understood, my lord.”
Vowrawn gave him a small smile and rose, leaving Quinn alone with the forgotten remains of his meal. What had that all been about? What was Vowrawn after? He couldn’t figure it out for the life of him, only the nagging feeling that he’d said too much.
She couldn’t sleep at nights, which only added to her crankiness during the day. Quinn was trying to stay out of her way, did his duty even more impeccably than before, which she wouldn’t have thought possible, only spoke when spoken to. She couldn’t finish this mission without him. And yet every time she looked at him, or thought of him, she shook with… she didn’t know what. And at night, she missed him, missed his touch, his whispered, breathless voice, the way he’d hold her while she fell asleep, the way she could hold him and lean her head against the broad expanse of his shoulders.
He’d tried to kill her. He might be trying to atone now, he might be sincere in his devotion, but he couldn’t erase the past. She should not be lying up thinking about him. …Yet she couldn’t sleep.
On the positive side, Darth Vowrawn was possibly the loveliest Sith on the Dark Council, the affable grandfather she’d never had, though she could feel the durasteel gauntlet veiled beneath his velvet glove. He was hiding on their ship while she went out to deal with Baras’s support on Corellia; the theory was he would be better hidden among a small group than among the might of Armageddon Battalion, who had more suitable targets to hit anyway.
She wasn’t sure who was playing host to whom; she was certainly hosting Vowrawn in that he was staying on her ship. But he also seemed to be trying to observe her mental state, to ferret out what her relationships with her crew were, in the hopes of playing psychiatrist or some such. And he was Sith, of course she didn’t trust him.
“Captain Quinn is a very impressive individual,” he said shortly after he arrived.
She shot him a glare. She still wasn’t interested in talking about Quinn. Normally, she’d gloat over having scored such a competent officer – or would, if that didn’t make him a target for poaching or elimination – but she didn’t need Vowrawn’s meddling now. “Yes, and?”
“I meant a compliment, my dear. It’s your good fortune he works for you.”
She knew all that. Quinn was a good part of the reason she’d been as successful to this point as she had been. But she wasn’t going to forgive him for what he did. But if she reacted wrong, Vowrawn would read weakness in her somewhere. Unconcern was probably her best bet. “It is indeed. And?”
Vowrawn’s smile was knowing and it made her uncomfortable. “Your feelings for him are strong, but take care not to break him before you’ve finished sorting them out.”
She snarled halfheartedly and turned away, accompanied by Vowrawn’s indulgent chuckle.
Vowrawn’s people were tracking down a Colonel Senks for her to go intimidate – or kill, if she felt like it. She had spent the day fighting the Republic instead, with some idiotic young politician. An idiotic, charming, handsome young man. She was drained of all feeling, dangerously apathetic; she almost didn’t have the spirit to sass him back whenever he said something dumb or flirtatious. This wasn’t good for a being whose fuel was emotion.
“Jaesa,” she asked dully, “how exactly do you go about catching a man? Temporarily, that is. It’s been a long time.”
“Ah, I know where to go. I thought you’d never have an interest! It’s great sport. Shall we have a girls’ night out, master? But not Vette. She doesn’t seem the type.”
“Nah, I’m good,” Vette said. “Have… fun, I guess?”
“We will,” Jaesa said smugly. Akuliina did not respond, but she got up and followed Jaesa.
As they left the ship, they passed Quinn, who was checking the landing gear. He glanced up and saw them. “Where-” he began, before choking the rest off. He knew it wasn’t any business of his where they were going, this late in the evening.
She glared at him. “Nowhere. I’m going for some R and R, while a major battle for Corellia rages. Anything else you’d like?”
“No, my lord.” He backed off and she could feel his wounded recognition of her reference. Oh, she wasn’t done punishing him yet. She didn’t care what Vowrawn said. Much.
When picking up soldiers at the bar proved insufficient to distract her, she and Jaesa went to one of the few still-operating brothels in Coronet City. It was busy, and she booked ten males. It was expensive. She didn’t care. She felt dead inside.
Surrounded by flesh, writhing, even convulsing in physical pleasure, yet still unsatisfied in her spirit, she finally realized – Quinn was the only one she wanted. Not for his physical charms or abilities, or at least not just for those, but because she’d gotten used to him. No, not that she’d gotten used to him. He had been different from all the others, and it would be well-nigh impossible to find another man who felt the same about her, who meant the same to her.
But she didn’t trust him. She hated him. Didn’t she? How could she want him and hate him at the same time? His very face (his handsome face) filled her with fury. But she also wanted things to go back the way they were because she wanted to kiss that face.
She would have to stop punishing him eventually, anyway, even if things didn’t go back. When? Soon. How soon?
When her heart stopped jabbing her with ice whenever she looked at him.
She smelled of alcohol and perfume when she returned to the ship later that night, moving slow and tired and sore, and he observed her from the cockpit dispassionately. He knew where she’d been.
He had to endure her tormenting. At least long enough that she’d grant him a transfer. Or else he was going to end up doing something rash.
The worst part was he still loved her.
It was a couple days later that Vette came in with a datapad, giggling madly. “Oh my goodness, Lina, you have to hear this. It was a message from that Colonel Senks guy you didn’t kill, and he sent this ‘for your entertainment’.”
Akuliina raised an eyebrow. “Oh? It must be good, from the way you’re reacting.”
“Well, I mean, listen to this!” Vette cleared her throat and began. “Voice of an Empire: The Memoirs of Darth Baras.”
“Oh, Force,” Jaesa said, cackling.
“Only the most powerful, well-respected and influential Sith stand a chance of becoming the Emperor’s Voice. I was the perfect candidate. But when the Emperor chose me, my apprentice grew jealous. In a fit of heretical treason, my former apprentice challenged me to a duel. Through me, the Emperor judged my apprentice unworthy. Humbled, my apprentice bowed to my superior power and accepted death. The next day, the Dark Council recognized me as the Voice of the Emperor.”
Vette finished, grinning, and Akuliina stared, uncertain whether to laugh or be angry. She was leaning towards furious indignation at Baras’s presumptions, but the others were enjoying it so much…
“Ha!” Vowrawn laughed from the corner he’d claimed. “Capital! Baras always had a bit too much of a taste for the theatrical. I can fairly hear him reading it aloud now.”
Akuliina gave in and laughed. “He certainly thinks he’s got it in the bag, if he’s already writing the future into his memoirs.”
Vowrawn beamed at her. “Won’t it be fun to dash that future?”
She clenched a fist. “I have been living for nothing more for a long time.”
The looming, half-mechanical, half-flesh monstrosity was stomping inexorably up the ramp. He’d sent Vette with Vowrawn up the hull access hatch while he, Jaesa, and Broonmark attempted to stop it here.
That wasn’t going to work. A crimson lightsaber flashed, and Jaesa was hurled backwards, her duel ended abruptly. She was getting back to her feet, but she looked unsteady, not in any shape to attack it again in the next couple seconds. And seconds were all they had.
If he could get close enough, he could fire his blaster right into the monster’s skull without it blocking. But it would probably kill him, or at least cut his arm off.
It was worth a shot. What did he have to lose? This was all for her.
The cyborg Sith stared into Quinn’s burning eyes and seemed to pause. Quinn didn’t hesitate, rising from his crouch and dashing forward, pistol raised to fire.
She exited the Jedi’s stronghold and pulled out her commlink, opening a line to Vowrawn’s field agent. “Come in, Shadow. Mission successful.”
“Shadow here. Dispatching Armageddon Battalion to secure the Jedi’s bunker. But there’s been an attack on Darth Vowrawn and your crew.”
“Put me through to them if at all possible,” she ordered.
“Yes, my lord.”
A few nervous moments of silence, then Vette’s voice came through, jostled, breathless. “So I guess you heard the news. Some super-fast, mega-potent baddie. With a lightsaber. We’re on the run now. Taking Vowrawn to a safe house in the Imperial Legislature. He wants you to meet us there.”
“Is the attacker still at large? You didn’t kill this one?”
“That’s a laugh. I don’t think we even scratched him. Get here soon, Lina, we need you.”
“I’ll be there as quickly as I can,” she promised, throwing a leg over her Amzab.
She marched into the Imperial Legislature and was met by Vette, who led her to a chamber in the back, almost a vault. Vowrawn turned to meet her, an exhilarated grin on his face. “Ah, you made it! This is heating up, isn’t it? Baras has taken off the sparring gloves. This assassin was the most lethal to date.”
“What happened?” she demanded.
“The attack was sudden and vicious. There was no panic, no confusion. To a man – er, and woman, and… alien – your people stared into the face of Death and did not flinch. Captain Quinn in particular must be commended. He took on the assailant with no mortal concern.”
Her lip curled derisively. “I’m sure he did. That doesn’t forgive him for what he did before. Where is he, by the way? Hiding?”
They all paused awkwardly, and she felt ice congeal in her gut.
“He’s in the hospital, down the hall,” Vette said finally. “He did take on some kind of Sith head-on-”
She whirled and was gone.
He was already floating in a kolto tank when she barged into his room, Force-shoving security out of her way. His eyes were closed peacefully, a massive bandage patched onto his side. He looked already dead. The doctor in attendance took one look at her, and tried to give her his medical report, no doubt surmising who she was. She waved it away. She could feel him through the Force, feel what had been done to him. He’d taken a lightsaber to the gut and somehow survived.
He was so still, breathing so faintly. The peep of the heartbeat monitor seemed so weak.
“You idiot!” she screamed at the kolto tank, and the others in the room took a big step away from her. “What did you do that for? Did you think I would forgive you if you got yourself killed? Killed fighting a foe out of your league?” She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to remain under some semblance of control in this public space. He said I have no control. “Well think again, Captain, because I’ll never forgive you! If you die, I’ll- I’ll get Murlesson to Force-bind your ghost to my spirit and you’ll be stuck with me for all eternity! So don’t you dare die, Captain! For your own good!”
She turned on her heel and stalked out, feeling all her fire reignite at once. She would get that assassin. She would get him good.
She didn’t have to wait long. An hour later, as she was brooding on the roof, sirens began going off all over the Legislature, piercing, urgent. She ran for the safe-room.
Vowrawn was observing the security footage of the entrance. “Why, there he is again. He’s certainly persistent, isn’t he?”
She took a look and her eyes blazed. “Vette, Jaesa, Pierce …Broonmark, get Vowrawn out of here. I’ll take the assassin.” The cyborg giant was laying waste to the Empire’s defenses, slashing turrets into scrap and men into meat. Lasers seemed to bounce off him. How like one of Baras’s pawns, to further his ambition regardless of the wounds to the Empire.
“Where are we going, my lord?” Pierce asked.
“What about Quinn?” Vette asked.
“He won’t have time to raid the hospital if he wants to catch you. Captain Quinn will be just fine. Head for the rocket train. Take it anywhere.” She bared her teeth. “Nothing matters except killing him.”
“The Force be with you,” Vowrawn said cheerfully as her group shepherded him out and down the hall to the back.
“Oh, it is,” she growled, smiling grimly, and strode down the hall in the other direction.
She waited at the top of the stairs; the assassin came into view momentarily. “Draahg. You keep returning like a bad credit.” She looked him over, at the implants that replaced his eyes, his jaw, at the seared flesh along his exposed scalp. “A really bad credit.”
He spread his hands. “I told you, Akuliina dear, I can’t be killed.” His voice was still resonant and melodious, but there was something metallic about it. He’d had to have had his throat replaced. “Best just to lay down your lightsabers now. Baras has already won, you know. There’s no reason to continue this pointless struggle. And I will kill you painfully if you resist.”
Her lightsabers sprang to life in her hands. “Not half as painfully as I will kill you just for getting in my way all the time.” She leaped towards him; he charged towards her; they met in the middle of the stairs, lightsabers sending sparks flying as they clashed again and again. He was driving her back up the stairs, though she held the high ground, and she let him – Vowrawn was no longer there to be threatened, but she had to feign that he was, had to tie up Draahg as long as she could so they could proceed to duel without distraction.
But Draahg was not so easily distracted from his mission; something in his armour beeped, his head tilted, and then he turned and ran for the entrance again.
“Coward!” she bellowed. “You run from me again?”
“Nice bluff, my dear, but your charge is getting away and I can’t allow that. Come after me if you dare!”
She growled and sprinted, leaping over his head and landing before him, assaulting him with one blade after another. Now she dug her feet in, resisted his weight, the pressure of his Force powers. But on he came, dauntless, and for all her speed and strength, she hadn’t broken through his guard yet, hadn’t touched him. Step by step, she fought him as he slowly pressed on towards the train station.
As they approached, she heard yelling, and saw the soldiers around the station in a flurry of activity – and she saw Broonmark just vanishing inside. Not good. She needed more time. Not to mention, keep collateral damage to a minimum. The soldiers began to open fire on her and Draahg, aiming at Draahg whenever they had a clear shot, but again, Draahg shrugged off their blasts.
“Get out of the way!” she yelled at the station guards, the soldiers manning the turrets. “He’ll kill you! Leave this to me!”
“My lord!” The hail of fire only increased.
They weren’t going to do it, were they. “That’s a frakking order! Get out of the frakking way!”
Draahg roared and swung his hand at her, taking her off guard and hurling her into the wall of the station, leaving a dent. The soldiers scattered, though a couple of unlucky ones were caught in the explosion of a turret as Draahg wrenched it from the ground with the Force and hurled it at her.
She slashed it to pieces before it could touch her; Draahg was right behind it, bearing down on her yet again, grabbing her wrists instead of locking blades again, holding her sabers away from him. She kicked forward, using him as a wall to walk up, with a kick in the face for good measure, and wrenched her wrists away with a flip, screaming her frustration and stabbing forward with both sabers.
Too late she realized she’d left the way clear for him to go up the ramps to the platforms. He parried her sabers into the ground and ran, heavy steps shaking the structure. She was after him, leaping up the stairs in a single bound, careening around corners, bouncing off walls in an effort to get ahead of him. He’d gone to the level above the trains, flinging his lightsaber casually at the safety force-field controls, and jumping, landing squarely on the departing train on which she could feel Vowrawn and her companions. The train shuddered with his impact.
“Get back here, you!” she shrieked, launching herself after him. In moments, Vowrawn might be dead. If she missed this jump… it was pulling away very quickly…
She made the jump, landing squarely before the armoured behemoth, lightsabers in guard position. The wind was already whistling around them, the train swaying back and forth beneath them, and it was only going to get faster. A tunnel was approaching rapidly, the roof low enough to knock them both from the train unless they got down in a hurry.
He twirled his lightsaber dramatically, preparing to stab down into the train compartment, to carve his way and slaughter all within. She flung out a hand, and he was blasted off the top of the train, bouncing, rolling along the tracks. It looked painful, she noted with glee. She jumped after him, lightsabers poised to strike. He sensed her coming, must have, and rolled once more at the last second; her impact left a small crater in the tracks and the rail shook on its repulsors.
“And now, Draahg dear,” she hissed venomously, “we fight.”
He was standing again, facing her, and his cybernetic face split in a malevolent grin. “If you truly wish to die first, I will be happy to oblige you.”
She sprinted forward to attack him again. She should have been exhausted by this point; instead, she only felt the adrenaline of combat in her veins. Her body throbbed with battle-lust, the desire to rend Draahg’s body to oblivion, for all he’d done to her – for trying to kill her, for supporting her hated enemy… for… trying to kill Quinn.
Draahg’s smile remained. “Where does your fire come from, my dear? Are you angry that I threaten your minions? Your loyalty to them is commendable… were it not born of the Light Side.”
“Shut up! Does this come from the Light?” she shrieked at him, hacking at his defenses.
“I saw his heart as he attacked me, you know. He loves you. And you love him. After all he’s done to you, and you want to do right by him? That only comes from the Light Side. You are pathetic, Akuliina Volkova. You can’t even be the Emperor’s Wrath correctly.”
He was goading her, trying to make her make a mistake in her anger. If that was what he wanted, he could keep doing it. She was well-acquainted with anger. She knew how to direct it, not control it, never control it, one did not control anger, the purest of dark passions; she knew how to let it burn her from the inside until all around her was caught up in her storm.
She screamed, hurling herself forward, casting herself into the inferno of the Force, and stabbed.
Draahg made a slight grunt of discomfort, took a step forward onto her saber as if to taunt her, never breaking eye contact, his saber lifted to cleave down on her.
She snarled horribly, pulled her lightsaber upwards with a roar, splitting him from sternum to skull.
He fell at her feet, nearly completely split in two.
She snarled at his body. “Let’s see you ‘not die’ from that!” He was still and silent, and she slowly sagged, feeling all her weariness settle on her like the weight of a planet, letting her guard down.
He still didn’t move, even as she let her shoulders slump and deactivated her lightsabers, returning them to her sides. He must really have been dead. She took deep breaths, gasping in air, so much she began to feel light-headed.
She heard applause and turned to see Vowrawn watching. “Well done, well done! Yes, you certainly have enough power to challenge Baras now.”
“What did you come back for?” she snapped at him, not all of her rage spent yet. “Were you planning to make it easier for him to kill you?”
Vowrawn chuckled. “I knew you would win. And if not, I would never be able to run far enough or fast to survive. If you couldn’t handle this, you would be of no use to the Emperor… or to me.”
True enough. “And now? Are we finished on Corellia?”
“Yes.” Vowrawn’s smile hardened. “Time to take the fight to Baras directly.”