SithLore

Neive walked back and forth in front of the 5 soldiers in front of him. They were the elite, the best that the Alliance could spare. The ones that rose above all others.

And they barely made it through Neive's training.

Pathetic, Neive thought. Even in his days from the sith, he had better students than those who stood before him. They lacked conviction, they didn't have the motivation that he saw in the sith's students... they were only here to go through the motions. They didn't care about the empire, they didn't have a drive to victory, and that was the one thing that Neive wanted out of soldiers.

"Let me ask you something. Each one of you... why are you here?"
The five looked at each other for a moment, before the one who had done the best in the courses and tests, both physical and written, that led up to this place.
"I think I speak for the five of us when I say we're here to take the fight to the empire."
Neive could only laugh for a moment before staring the man dead in the eyes.
"And why... do you want to fight the empire?"
"Well, they've done so much bad to people, they..."
Neive narrowed his eyes at the man.
"You only want a paycheck from the Alliance, that's what it is. You don't have a fire against the empire. You expected to be placed in a cruiser, in the middle of a huge fleet that the empire wouldn't dare be stupid enough to attack. You have no purpose."
With that, a quick swipe of his arm and the man fell to the ground, Neive's quick backhand almost breaking the man's cheekbone.
"You are of no use to me if you don't have a purpose. The archives hold much information on me, but the one thing they don't know is why I have such a passion for the empire's destruction. My family was killed when the third death star destroyed Dathomir. Since then, I have tried many different ways of taking my fight back to them. But the alliance is the one I call home, however much I must hold back when around others."
"Hold back... how was that holding back?" The man said from the ground.
"If i had not held back, you wouldn't be alive right now."
The man looked down, holding his quickly-forming bruise.

The man beside him looked to Neive, the second-placing student.
"Um, permission to speak freely, sir?"
Neive looked to the man for a moment, before sighing. "granted"
"Before you came to the Alliance, who did you serve under?"
Neive seemed interested by the question. He crossed his arms. "I served under Darth Tormentous, as an acolyte of the sith. However, that was long ago."
"So, when you were there... did you train others as well?"
Neive nodded. "I did indeed. However, it was different than here. I would get a group of 12 young souls, ready to become full-fledged sith,
and only 1 made it out alive."

The men in front of him avoided looking at him for a moment.
"Wait, so... did you meet the hammer?"
Neive laughed for a minute, walking towards him. "Young one, I conducted his test into the sith. Had it been not for me killing another student instead of him, the hammer would have never existed."

The man looked at him, amazed. Neive walked back a bit, looking at the 5 in front of him as the man he had struck stood again.

"Well... at least one of you are eager to begin. As for the rest of you... I'll change your attitudes quickly."

The cigarra rolled from one side of Norongachi's mouth to the other, his arms resting on the railing that ran around the upper level. This gave him a perfect view of the goings on not a dozen feet below and every word reached him, drawing a lopsided smile as the drivel continued to pour from whichever trumped up Officer felt the need to big himself up while putting others -firmly- down.

"I met a guy called hydrospanner once," He called out as the tirade ended, his voiced carried clearly across the short distance and he saw the eyes of the soldiers flicker up for the briefest of seconds before returning to face front, lest they suffer another bollocking. "He was a raving spice head mind you." With that he gave a shrug, and began the walk down the steps to the floor below. They hugged the supporting walls of the second floor and he let one hand skip across the banister as he descended. His other held the cigarra and he flicked it onto the hard stone steps below his feet. "I have zero clue who you are, which means you were a nobody in the echelons of the Sith, so chaps," he waved his cigarra at the five men. "I wouldn't take a word this guy has to say on the matter, I've been spilling Sith blood, Imperial blood -Rebel blood, to be sure- and Pirate for over a decade and I'll let you into a secret; If you were a Sith Trooper, that guy next to you would be shiv'ing the guy next to him, while you threw the last into on-coming laser fire in the heat of a fire fight. Is that what you want to be? So crippled by petty jealousy and self advancement that you'd sooner knife you're buddy than have him watch your back? If so, listen to that guy, or become a politician." he was now on the same level as them, a foot or so away.

"One other thing to remember;" he looked the Officer square in the eyes. "There's a lot of confusion on the battlefield, accidents happen."

Neive looked up as the man came down, listening to his words completely before replying.
"My apologies, I didn't hear you enter."
Neive thought for a second.
"Although I didn't make a widely-known name within the sith, nonetheless I know how they work. Especially how they recruit."

Neive looked back at the 5 men before him, before turning back to the man.
"Although, those accidents aren't always incidental. One thing you have to remember about war is to always watch your back, something I learned as a sith. But these soldiers I have been tasked with looking over seem not to know just how the enemy is. You are correct on all fronts, the sith aim to kill each other just as much as anyone else, but when they focus on something, that something tends to not exist for very long after. That's why These soldiers need to prepare for the worst on the battlefield. Anything I can do that doesn't violate civil rights pales in comparison to what the sith can do."
Neive sighed as he crossed his arms in front of him.
"Now, with that aside, How may I help you?"

Although Neive didn't recognize the man, had never seen or heard of him before, he knew that anyone who was around Neive's operation wasn't someone to trifle with... or enrage.

Dark brows rose and then fell and he drew another lungful of death into his body, expelled it to the side and then dumped ash on the floor. "Just poking around, I'm no one important." he waved away that conversation like it was trivial and then returned to the topic at hand. "Soldier," Sal began nodding his head toward one of the men, middle aged with a lattice-work of scaring on the right side of his face that could only have come from a narrowly avoided grenade. "how many years have you served?"

The man answered immediately, whatever authority for command Norongachi still possessed in his tone made it kneejerk. "Seven years, sir."

"How many people have you killed?" The question brought an entirely different atmosphere to the room and faces of those gathered, something in the eyes changed, like whatever brightness lay behind them dimmed as ghosts rose from their memories. "What about you? And you? You?...You?" he went down the line addressing each but gave them no time to respond, they didn't have to. He had so many ghosts of his own that like knew like.

"Don't you ever tell me these men don't know the enemy, or know their jobs. Thats the difference between what these men do and what the Sith do; They kill because they must and carry it with them, The Sith kill because they can and brag about it." He took one last, long drag of his smoke and then dropped it to his feet as a cloud of smoke roiled from his lips. "As for the Sith crushing everything they put their mind to? What flag do you see flying up there? It isn't Sith, now is it?"

Neive looked down, sighing. Frustration grew, but he put it aside. He hated it when the authority he had been given was ridiculed. It seemed to be something of a pattern in the galaxy... never could Neive have one single moment of any sort of power.
"Don't tell me these men don't know their enemy or their job..."
Neive kept his patience as the man spoke, but knew that the job they had now been assigned to... they had no idea what they were in for.
"I may have been a sith in the past, but I do not follow them now. I hold the death just as much as they do. But for the task at hand, any hesitation from traumatic stress, fear, or otherwise can get not only themselves killed but possibly the others. I do not ask them to act as sith, but I believe that they have certain traits that could be of value to these 5. And as for the flag... I know who I work for. And it's not the Sith by any means."
Neive looked to the men, reading their faces for a moment. He could tell they've seen battle, but they were in a battlefield with plenty of others. Large-scale battles... nothing like the future battles they will be in, if they serve under Neive.

"Lighten up, would ya?" Norongachi said, bursting into a smile and slapping the officer on the shoulder. "Just remember where you're loyalties lie and the oaths you took and I'm sure it'll all turn out peachy." with that, he turned and made his way back to the stairs, his hand rummaging around in his jacket pocket until it extracted another cigarra. "Hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast gentlemen." was all he called back with the same smile and then when his back was turned it fell, like a snake shedding skin, and his face was a mask.

He set the cigarra between his teeth and a thought ignited its end while his footfalls took him out of the hall and into the corridor beyond. You had to wonder, he thought as he tried to smother the rancid taste in his mouth with cancerous vapor, how the entire Alliance hadn't rotted from the inside out already. A right turn at corridors end, one hand stuffed in his trouser pocket. Then again, the train continued, you're walking these hallways.

His ear-com buzzed and he pressed a finger to it, connecting the call. "Observation only." then he was done, and the shuttle bay was fast approaching.

Neive nodded as the man jested, not seeing how such a change in attitude was even possible. He looked to the man in front of him, before looking back to the man as he walked.
"Yes sir."
He hated it when people doubted his loyalty to the Alliance. If he wasn't loyal, would he be here with these men, leading them against a force that they know almost nothing about, almost blindly running into combat?
wait...


yes.


He sighed, before beckoning the 5 to follow him as he walked towards the cargo bay.
"Let's suit up, I'll brief you on our main objective as well as possible assignments once you're ready. Piece of advice, get something that'll cover your face. Our enemies don't forget faces, and if they recognize you, even a bit, they'll come after you."
Neive looked back up to the man as he left the room, thinking. He didn't put much hostility towards the man, as even though the alliance was barely holding together... those that were still here had to stick together.

With allies like this, who needs enemies... that was what he had always thought in the sith.
But when the time was right, and he needed assistance, he could rely on them to help him, most of the time.
...

He just hoped he could say the same about the men following his lead now.