The following is a final vignette focusing on characters from Plagueis before the events of Code: Dread. You can find the complete series here.

CR90 Corvette Respite

Unknown Regions - Open Space

37 ABY

Kel Zar was getting antsy.

She had just received a transmission from her superior, Ghafa Ordam - a mixed one. On the one hand, the Collective had managed to capture the Deputy Grand Master of the Brotherhood, Evant Taelyan, and now could weaken the hierarchy of the organization. On the other, the Principate had caved to the whims of the Brotherhood and declared an alliance between the Iron Throne and the Triumvirate, so that wasn’t exactly stellar.

Still, something stung more to her, even a year later. The Zabrak had not forgotten her failure in the Aliso system to free the slaves of the Ascendant Clan. She herself, though she didn’t like to talk about it, was a former slave, and she had thought that the Principate would be disillusioned by Plagueis’s support of such an atrocious system. But they had overlooked it, allowed the political correctness game to play out and worn blinders. Kel Zar knew that Sevrin Arce had been a fool, but she was not done yet with the wretched Plagueians.

So she had pulled together a Collective splinter cell. Ugh. Splinter. She hated the term. Remnant wasn’t much better. It was a motley crew, far too weak to take the Ascendant Navy head on...but it was something. It could cause chaos, if that.

Her spies had also been on the move, including those Principate mutineers she had managed to keep on her side. If they could sway enough of the Alisoan masses, perhaps an inside campaign could actually work. This time, with more competent actors.

Moving to the control panel of the Respite, Kel Zar keyed in a transmission to one of her most prominent operatives. When all she got was dead air, she frowned and tried another one. The sound of static filled the cockpit of the CR90 corvette - then, a fit of coughing.

“Uveq! Pull yourself together!”

“Sorry, boss,” wheezed the Weequay over the transmission, his wobbly hologram standing out starkly. “Bad time to call. Corellian ale is not for breathing.”

“Where are you?”

“Local bar. Drowning my sorrows. We lost another one, Kel.”

The Zabrak’s eyes widened. “Not...not Anchon.”

“‘Fraid so. Decapitated. Well...head not cut off, per se, but - ”

Uveq’s mumbling was interrupted by Kel Zar’s fist, as she slammed it down, hard, against the panel, causing buttons to light up.

“I have one requirement for you imbeciles - do your job and don’t get killed! Why is that so hard?!”

“You wanna come down here and try it! They’re Sith, boss! They’re good at murdering people!”

“Never mind,” growled Kel Zar. “You’re the head operative now. Get me a full report on Plagueis’s movement so we can figure out where to go from there.”

“That’s another thing, boss...they’re moving, all right. And fast.”

“The kriff you talking about?”

“What I’m saying,” muttered Uveq, before slurping more ale, “is that you may want to bail out of the system. Now.”

“What are you…?”

But then the hologram disappeared, the transmission cut off, as another signal beeped on the panel. Kel Zar blinked. She did not recognize the source. Gingerly, she opened the call.

“Who is this?”

A cool, calm voice emerged from the console. A voice of the enemy.

“Kel Zar, this is Khryso Mallus of Clan Plagueis, speaking to you from the Anchorage. We have ships coming your way. Do you stand down, or do you fight?”

The bastards. They were coming for her.

“Bring it on,” the Zabrak snarled, her lips stretched thin and turning very, very white.