Shreya watches all this happen with rapt attention.

Her brain has not completely processed the whole ‘lying to a dragon’ thing yet, but now it’s additionally grinding away at ‘wow, she pilots my SLAYER better than I do’?

Deskyl slips over to offer Shreya a hug.

    "Are you all right, Ma'am?" DZ relays quietly.

Shreya likes hugs, yes. She’ll lean into Deskyl and sort of rub her face against the sith’s shoulder if allowed to?

“I don’t know what Culamine would want me to do, here.”

Deskyl is a very snuggly Sith, and it takes a bit for her to have a hand free to sign with.

    "Culamine cares quite a bit about peoples' wellbeing, Deskyl says, and she doesn't think she'll mind being lied to if it doesn't hurt anything. She thinks everyone can come out ahead, here."

Yes that sounds correct to her? And the snuggles feel correct. And snuggles should not factor into her decision making process but she’s pretty sure she would agree with Deskyl even if not currently getting scritched behind the ear in that one place she really likes?

“You’re right. She’d want that.” And she’d want Shreya to continue Being Her Best. “So... the rest of the plan hasn’t changed?”

    "It might change, if Deskyl sees an opportunity to do better than she's expecting. But she's been honest with you about what she's planning, yes."

“Yes Ma’am.”

Shreya will play her part as best she can!

As will Devika.

She stays focused on the task at hand, trusting Deskyl and the secessionist to reach an understanding without her input.

The cockpit levels out a bit after she finishes threading between a couple of larger debris fragments and emerges into a relatively clear stretch of orbital volume.

Deskyl takes the opportunity to meditate, to check whether they've been noticed.

They’ve been noticed.

She relays this to her companions.

“I don’t have her position anymore, but that doesn’t mean she can’t still get ours. The scanner array on her DEUS platform is way better than what this SLAYER’s got.”

    "Deskyl can't do anything about that directly. But she can't stop us, no matter what she knows, she says."

"Okay, then I'll--"

An unexpected plasma bloom erupts ahead: not an immediate threat to life and limb, but enough to disrupt their SLAYER's circuitry if the biomech continues its current course into the ensuing ion cloud?

Devika deploys a flash plate. They hurtle sidelong, skirting the edge of the expanding environmental hazard.

- that's not good. Deskyl drops into a trance again to check just how bad it is.

The SLAYER is in pain. The nerve endings along its right side are all lit up with sensation, though its flesh remains intact. Some of its inorganic components--an autocannon targeting system, a couple of ammunition-trackers, and its right-hip grappling tether winch--have gone numb.

Devika's link to it remains crisp, though. The biomech maneuvers in smooth concert with her mental instructions, coasting long enough to escape the remainder of the plasma bloom and then decelerating and anchoring itself to the nearest EM-inactive dysofrag.

She sets up an anti-pain aura, not removing the sensation entirely, but reducing it substantially, and then turns her attention outward to check for new observers.

She gets a vague sense-of-being-multiply-watched but does not detect the presence of any lifeforms but herself, those traveling with her, and--as a barely-distinct mote in the distance--Veda Kaur.

"She's trying to hail us," Devika says. "But the plasma bloom is interfering with the transmission."

Deskyl comes out of it for a moment to sign to DZ, and closes her eyes again; the bloom and its source begin separating into shreds.

    "We're being watched, Ma'am, and not just by your friend. That plasma bloom may have been an attack."

"I see."

She punches the SLAYER's fist through what looks like a dead solar array on the dysofrag they cling to and tears loose the machinery underneath.

"I'm not detecting any anomalous electromagnetic effects. I think this one's safe."

She fires a few autocannon rounds into the debris fragment's interior, just to be extra sure.

"Oh. The transmission's clearing up. Should I put Veda on screen or stay dark?"

The Sith replies without waiting for DZ's translation, this time.

    "How do you think she'll react to what we're doing, Ma'am?"

“I don’t know.”

(Emotion Read: Veda is good, Veda is my friend)

    "How secure are your comms?"

"At this distance, with this SLAYER?" (Her own biomech would be better suited for this particular task. She misses it.) "Not very, Ma'am."