From A Titan To A Sith

[Alric Kuhn]

Thought a fool he may have been, Alric decided that the meditation chamber was not to be altered or changed in anyway from how she had dictated it to be. That would transcribe disaster.

He had a feeling that the songbird would be vindictive.

No.

This ship had to be exactly as specified, it had to be perfect, it had to be just the way that she wanted. Alric did not want to earn her ire, for more reasons than because of what she was. For some strange reason he found himself craving her, wanting her, needing to please her. It was an odd feeling, and one that made him sure that his mind had been played with.

“How long until we arrive?” Alric wasn't sure how long had passed.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“We arrive in ten minutes Mr. Kuhn.”

Alrics eyes nearly fell out of his head. Had that long really passed? Had it been that many hours? The Lambda-Class Shuttle had one of the most expensive hyperdrives in the galaxy. The thing was faster than most shuttle craft and leaps and bounds quicker than a Star Destroyer, but he could not believe that so many hours had passed in so little time.

“You were very focused.”

The droid had seen the confusion on his face.

Alric remained quiet for a few moments, concerned again. Had this thoughts been so filled that he hadn't noticed the passage of time? Had the rules changed so much that he hadn't even noticed. Alric looked down at the holo-projector on the table, unease filling him, biting at him.

His head shook.

He had to control himself.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

That was it. He had to control himself more. He had to control her. It was the only option. She was a force of nature, a storm that was constantly brewing, but something told him, something hinted, that he could do it.

Perhaps it had been the way she was, the manner in which she had pulled him in.

Alric didn't know.

Yet the pit deep in his stomach told him truth. It told him what she was capable of, what he was capable of, and what would happen if the two of them came together. He frowned slightly, together, that word made him cringe more than the Vong ever could, more than their mutilations or their hissing voices, more than their creepy little creatures.

His knuckles hit the edge of the desk in a poignant strike of frustration.

“Show me the ship as soon as we leave hyperspace.” He barked at the droid, not sure what else to say.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

He had come all this way to see the ship.

He had come all this way to ensure that her project was finished. That she received what she had wanted, what she had so easily twisted him to create. He would see it done, he would see the work done, and then he would...

What would he do?

Songbird she might have been. Beautiful, enticing, bewitching as she was, she wasn't his Songbird. She was a force of Nature. A storm that many would say could never be tamed. Yet the feeling in the pit of his stomach was there, that slow gnawing that told him he wanted her, that told him he wanted to tame her.

It was not a relationship he thought of, not love, or anything of the sort.

It was an extension of the game, but a new facet of it that Alric had never before experienced.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

Slowly his eyes began to open, he began to see what this was, what he was doing, where his mind was taking him. His gaze fell on his hands, hands that had gripped her, held her. They opened and closed, though Alric did not seem aware of his own command to do so, it only felt naturally.

A slight abrasion ran on the crook of his index and thumb, a wound that had nearly healed.

He touched it with the pad of his index finger, running gently across it as though he were tracing a painting. A flash of memory pulled across his sight. A picture of lips closing down upon flesh. The pad of his index reached the end of the scab, and Alric blinked away the image that had been summoned from his mind.

Alric remembered well what she had done to control herself.

His hands balled into fists again, and suddenly he felt the lurch of hyperspace, his stomach turning upside down.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

“Mr. Kuhn. An image of the vessel is now available.”

The droid spoke to him in that flat monotone once again, though for now he ignored it. He was lost in his own thoughts, in what he was able to do, in what he wanted to do. His lips turned into a frown, his mind racing towards every possible end scenario of this new game.

He found a dead end each time.

This was a game that he did not understand. It was wrought with challenges, options, and variables that he simply could not fathom.

The moment she had moved towards him, the second that she had given herself to him, the board had changed. It was no longer about winning or losing, it was about something else. He understood that, his time within the desert had helped him with that.

Would she reap the benefits?

 

[Alric Kuhn]

More importantly...would she want to? Would she care for it?

Alric found himself terrified by that question, something that made him jump up from the acceleration couch and immediately move towards the observation room. It was as if he was trying to run away, his mind emptying of all thoughts and ideas, his brain wildly scrambling for something else to think about.

Yet as he stepped into the observation room and saw the massive ship before him, they only came crashing back to her.

The songbird.

The woman that had come to him.

The woman that had twisted him around her finger and offered herself in return.

His thoughts stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes focusing on the ridges of the vessel. The huge Yuuzhan Vong Ship stretched through one portion of the shipyard, grown fully and half covered in Durasteel plates. The thing seemed to stretch for an eternity, looming over the comparatively tiny Lambda-Class Shuttle like it was about to blow it out of space.

It looked terrifying.

It looked incomplete.

It looked beautiful.

 

[Alric Kuhn]

In that moment a decision was made. A click in Alrics head, a familiar one that brought him back to his office on Coruscant, back to the day that he had made his foolish decision. He frowned slightly, turning away from the viewscreen and back to the small observation deck.

There in the center of the room lay a holo-projector.

For a few moments the Chief Executive Officer of Titan Industries loomed over it. The man within the Titan, the mortal that ran an Empire.

The idiot chasing a Songbird.

Alric looked down at the small remote that had somehow appeared within his hand, numbers and several other buttons appearing across it. Unconsciously he began to click. Soft presses of keys that were met with an almost inaudible blacking. Seventeen numbers were entered, and then a green button was pressed.

The projector thrummed to life only seconds later, a figure draped in hues of blue appeared.

Alric said but one word. “Silara.”