From A Titan To A Sith

[Alric Kuhn]

There was a great deal of unease in him as he stepped onto the boarding ramp of his shuttle, his shoes making that typical echoing clunking noise, though he hardly heard it. His thoughts were preoccupied, so occupied that he didn't notice one of the Shapers following after him onto the boarding ramp, stepping up right behind him and reaching out to touch him.

“Lord Kuhn.”

The voice made Alric jump half a foot into the air, the creatures touch did equally so and Alric nearly turned on him and clocked him in the face.

No doubt the Yuuzhan Vong could have killed him in half a heart beat, even their Shapers were fierce fighters. Yet it was an automatic reaction from a man who entered bar fights on a weekly basis. His head shook off the impulse, and Alric rounded on the Shaper that had spoken to him.

“Yes?” His voice was steady, though he had to force it to be so.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

The Yuuzhan Vong stared at him for a moment.

As was to be expected the thing was ugly enough to silence any more enticing thoughts that he had had only moments before. Its skin was peeled back, its mouth was held open by some sort of crab like creature, and its eyelids had been carved off so the whites of its eyes were brightly showing.

The things face was enough to make him want to hurl, an option that would have been far more likely had Alric actually eaten anything in the last day. Instead he simply bit in more smoke from the cigarillo, letting the taste roll across his tongue.

“The Shapers do not wish you to go to Copero. They are uneasy....”

He raised and eyebrow, expecting the vong to speak further.

“Progress on the ship has been...slow.”

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Ah.

Well that certainly explained a lot.

So the Shapers weren't trying to hide anything save for their failures. That was not expected of them. Usually they were pretty candid, it must have been serious if they were trying to actively steer him away from the vessel. Alric's eyes passed over the Shaper in front of him, shifting towards the pack that was slowly leaving the hangar bay, casting a glance or two back towards Alric.

“I see.” He said quietly. “I assume you're telling me this in order to reap some reward or garner my favor.”

The creatures eyes went wide. Clearly it had not expected him to be so candid. That was another thing about the Yuuzhan Vong that he hated, they were never direct, never forward with their intent. They always had to be cryptic, they always had to talk in circles. It was obnoxious. “You will receive neither. Loyalty inspires trust, and you have shown neither.”

With that, Alric turned away from the creature and boarded his shuttle, thoughts returning to the heat of flesh.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

The Yuuzhan Vong seemed stunned into silence, or at the very least he did not follow Alric or try to argue with him. That was good. Argument very likely would have ended with the alien getting killed, or worse. Now his only punishment would be judgment from his fellow Shapers, at the very least this way Alric would be able to keep him alive.

He moved into the center of the ship, passing one of his attendants, a droid of course. There was only one other living being aboard this ship, and he was the pilot.

Alric liked his silence, and he found that the less living beings were around him, the more silence he received. This trip would be a time to think, a time to contemplate what had happened, and hopefully a time to plan his next move.

If his mind would stop fixating.

“Tell the pilot to take off. Copero.” Of course the destination would already be in the flight log, but Alric wanted to reiterate the flight path. The droid nodded, and then shuffled towards the cockpit of the Lambda-Class shuttle.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

The shuttle shook as its repulsor-lifts activated, pressing it into the air.

Alric moved into the center of the room, and then simply allowed himself to drop like a brick onto the acceleration couch. The sofa made a slightly huffing noise as air was pressed out of it, something that caused a small, almost childish, smile to fall on Alrics lips only to dissipate seconds later when an overactive mind began to take hold once more.

The game had always been relatively straightforward.

There was a single objective, one that he had set for himself at the age of sixteen. That objective was well underway to being complete, and until lately nothing had been able to stand in his way to completing it.

He took a drag of his cigarillo.

Now however, something began to stand in the way. Three somethings really, each one posing a different kind of threat, with one in particularly having the power to absolutely ruin him, or at least set back the game by a decade worth of work.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

That was his trouble.

It had been his decision of course, his play in the game, but it had perhaps been a foolish one. He had already been pressed into a corner by two women, and for some strange reason Alric had simply decided to make it a third.

Or had the decision been made for him?

That was what troubled him the most, that was what had him worried. There had been something about her, an air. At first it had been fear, the push of an odd aura around her, a bite to the air that made him want to take a step back. Yet as she had come closer, as the two of them had become embroiled in conversation, that illusion had quickly disappeared.

Replaced by something else, by an eagerness almost.

It had been so enticing, so enthralling. Alric had simply gone for it.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Without thought, rhyme, nor reason, Alric had rolled the dice. He had always argued that at times that was what needed to be done, that was what kept the game fresh and fun, that was what kept things interesting. Yet this time, this time he might have miss stepped.

This time the game had risks far greater than any other.

With the woman that mocked Alric had a measure of control. She had cleverness, skill, and seduction on her side, yet he had resources. She was smart, but his pocket was endless and those he could bring to his side were dangerous.

Dangerous enough to mitigate the threat that she posed, dangerous enough to allow him a measure of security.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

With the woman that swayed he had no control.

She was a force of nature. She was something else, something he could not quite describe. A woman hidden behind a porcelain mask, one that seemed unbreakable to most and more realistic than a flesh and blood clone. Yet he had smashed it to bits.

He had taken the step and moved against her, revealed her for what she really was. He had seen the face behind the mask, he had seen the freckles on her skin and the look in her eyes, the fierce determination that so few had seen before. Alric had seen everything that the swaying woman had wanted to hide...or so he thought.

Yet with her, there was only the danger that he put himself in.

She would avoid him like the plague, she would stay far away from him and keep their business apart. The woman that swayed played the game almost as well as He, and she knew what was at stake.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Then there was the woman that sang. The one that had enticed him so without even an attempt. The one that had him worried, the one that made him feel a fool. Of the three, she was the most dangerous. Of the three, she was the one that could utterly destroy them.

She did not even know his real name, nor did she know his past or his intended future.

Yet she knew enough.

Within her was the strength to not only kill him, but ruin him utterly. With the position of authority she held over him, and the power that she held within herself, the songbird could tear him apart in a moments notice. A blink would have been enough to send Titan Industries into a crumble, and with it, Alric Kuhn.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

And yet he didn't care.

That was the strangest thing. That was the oddity, the mystery thumbing in his skull. Of the three, the songbird was the most dangerous, yet of the three she was the one that he found most enticing.

The air that had been around her, the smile on her lips, the predatory look in her eyes that seemed to follow him even across a room. It was bewildering, perplexing. It was a new twist to the game, like a man cheating in pazaak with a hidden card in his sleeve. It was something that he could not control, something that he could not define.

Something that he found utterly unfair.

Alric's hands came to his face, burying and hiding it from view.

He let out a loud sigh of exasperation, smoke covering his for for a few seconds as the cigarillo burnt down to its very end. With a carelessness, he plucked it from between his lips, examining the smoldering ash as it burned.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Had it been her manner?

Had it been her voice?

Or had it simply been the way he had been with her? The lust within the two of them, the touch, the feeling of one another. How she had...His head shook, his fingers rolling the end of the cigarillo around. Some of the ash fell onto the acceleration couch, but he hardly cared. He began to feel a singing burn on his thumb, pain scalding through him.

He shifted, thoughts going back to her, to her face, the look in her eyes, the way she had stared and the look upon her face when he had taken what had been offered. She had been magnanimous.

It was the only way to describe what had happened, and Alric had loved every moment of it.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

That was the trouble of course. His own reaction to her, the way he was compromised, the way she had so easily convinced him to create this little project that he was on his way to view. His lips turned into a frown, and he leaned forward, stamping the stub of cigarillo down into the ash-tray nailed onto the table.

Smoke still rose from the little nub, and Alric eyed it wearily.

Of course, it wasn't the cigarillo he was thinking about.

“I need...” He trailed off, speaking to one of the droids that he knew to be standing in the corner of the room. “I need the schematics to the ship. The skeletal structure, the outer layer, the growth rates, yaret-krinra designs and anything else...especially that chamber she wanted put in.”

He would busy himself with work, forget her for now.

For now.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“Right away Mr. Kuhn.”

The droid answered him, using his real name.

It was programmed to do just that, but only without the presents of others. It knew that Alric had several identities, one being for Titan Industries and the One Sith, another being for Kuhn Consolidated, and yet another being for his back alleyway brawls. It wasn't hard for him, carrying on three lives at once.

It wasn't like he had a family to lie to or a lover to manipulate. It was easy keeping track of it all, business was business. He leaned back, his eyes closing again as he rested the back of his head against the sofa.

Pictures drifted across the abyss, pictures and memories.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

The droid came back promptly, holding only a single holo-projector. It moved with that strange whirring noise that all droids moved with, placing the projector onto the table in front of Alric it stared at him, waiting for another command.

Alric sat in place for a few more moments, allowing pleasant memories of a song to drift over him. It was easier to simply picture the past, easier to view events that had happened then think about ones that might happen in the future. Alric had always preferred the past to the present, it had always seemed much easier in the end.

Slowly his eyes fell open, turning towards the droid.

Briefly he thought of another droid that he held in his possession. He would have to return it eventually, he knew that, though keeping it amused him for now, mostly because of the task he had set it to. Alric smiled slightly, feeling a bit of mirth flowing through him.

She was an excellent maid.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“Turn it on.” Alric told the droid in a flat tone.

The command was met with immediate response, and the sound of a holo-projector activating resounded within the luxury room. Alric turned his head towards it, swiveling to the floating image of a massive fleshy Star Destroyer. He watched it, analyzing every part and piece of it. Several lines of texts floated around the Destroyer, shifting and scrolling down as he read.

Alric Kuhn was by no means an engineer, but when you ran a corporation like Titan Industries it helped to know a little bit about everything it did.

Ship building was no exception.

This vessel itself was unique. Unlike almost everything else that Titan Industries produced it would not be made again and again. Instead it would be created only once, for one persons use.

The songbird that enticed Alric so.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Another few lines of information scrolled by in Aurabesh. Alric's eyes scanned to the right and then down, over and over again, taking in design specifications, notes, and anything else that the creators of the ship had thought relevant for him.

Eventually he stopped on a line about the Yaret-Krinra.

He reached out and touched the line, bringing up another holographic display besides the ship. Alric reached for it and then enlarged it, sliding his fingers open until the displayed image was larger than his head. The Yaret-Krina, the new Yuuzhan Vong weapon that had been designed as a thought experiment.

The gun was the equivalent of a Hypervelocity cannon, coming about as a jealous endeavor of the Master Shaper.

Alric smiled for a moment, bemused, then swiped away the image, returning to the view of the ship.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“The meditation chamber?” Alric asked, noting that there were no specifications for it within this display. “Where is the designs for that?”

A look cast to the droid made it scamper away.

Odd.

Usually the droid was on top of things, but this time it seemed that it was lagging behind. He waited for a few moments, and then the droid finally came back. It held a smaller holographic projector, tiny compared to the one in front of him.

“These are the designs Mr. Kuhn. They are more...private in nature. Lady Vitium requested we maintain the utmost secrecy.”

Alric raised an eyebrow. Secrecy? What for? It was just another room wasn't it?

 

[Alric Kuhn]

The droid removed the first of the projectors, taking its weight and moving it to another section of the room. It then shifted towards the table again, placing the new projector into the center of the table and activating it.

What was displayed was...boring.

To Alric, it appeared to be simply another room aboard a ship. Oh there was interesting architecture, interesting design, and it surely was a bit fancier than one would expect of a meditation chamber, but in the end it was simply another place upon a ship. Alric examined it, then began to fiddle with the projector, trying to get more information out of it.

An error noise occurred, and he frowned.

Was that really all there was? Some architectural designs?

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“She can't possibly be this particular about a room for sitting. This thing doesn't even have a chair for force sakes!” He was exasperated and confused.

This was because Alric Kuhn knew nothing about the force.

Although he worked alongside Sith, had made love to a Sith, and by all accounts knew more about the general mindset of Sith than many others in the galaxy, he had never actually looked into what made the Sith so special. He of course knew about the force, he knew what it could do in regards to killing, but he did not know much more than that.

The thought of a meditation chamber was completely lost on him.

“Mr. Kuhn.”

The droid spoke, causing him to lift and eyebrow and look towards it.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“I believe the room is meant as a meditation chamber. A place where Lady Vitium may concentrate and increase her utilization of the force.”

Alric eyed the thing.

“Well yes. I knew that.” He wasn't a complete idiot after all. “My question is why? It's a room. It doesn't have a view, doesn't have a chair. I mean...it will probably look creepy as feth when done, but thats about the only advantage that I can see in it.”

Of course, Alric didn't know that the room she had designed was special. He didn't know that it was based off of the ancient Sith Meditation Sphere constructed by Naga Sadow. He didn't know that it would allow his little Songbird to tear apart the minds of men and monsters alike. He didn't know that this would allow her to dominate the field of battle like no other.

How could he?

Alric Kuhn was simply another fool.