They take him in with a full strike team, and one of the snipers, joining Uldren and his jailers at the extraction point, looks him full in the eyes, like he's asking a question. A tall man with a long rifle. Narrow intelligent eyes. Handsome. Is he… did Uldren want something from him, once? Something important? Uldren absently rubs his eyes as he stares at him. He frowns. But he can't figure it out.

They take him to a discreet landing dock on one of the lower levels of the Prison of Elders. When his containment unit hisses open, the glow and the mist silhouette an Exo with glowing blue eyes and a woman with her weapon drawn. Petra herself.

She stands there in silence. He knows she wants to kill him. He knows she wishes him to say, "You've done well."

"She speaks to you?" Her words are curt and direct. "What does she say?"

Uldren closes his eyes and lets Mara's voice wash through him. He is here in the heart of Petra's strength, in the prison she has so carefully tended as everything else falls apart. He is weak and he is bound. These are the strengths his sister never possessed: the endurance of humiliation, the survival of defeat.

"She says…" He lifts his head to meet her gaze and watches her flinch. She holds him in her weapon's sights as she withdraws, step by careful step. The Exo steps forward to hood him with a black bag. "She says…"

"Free me."