“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” Rumi
Detective Ronce sighed. He was clearly not happy with his assignment, which was communicated in a variety of subtle messages, like rolling his eyes at the camera, heavy sighs, and an occasional, ‘please, just shoot me!’ look. He wondered if his associate on the other side of the camera, viewing the recording in real time were amused, or busy watching the computer’s dynamic metric as it looked for those ‘invisible to the human eye’ tells that gave away a liar’s true intent. Very few criminals ever got past the “puter,” but those who came close were true sociopaths. “Let’s start again. What’s your name?”
“Daphne,” she said. “Full name,” Ronce said.
“Daph-ne,” Daphne said, slowly like talking to an idiot.
“That’s two names? Daph and Knee?”
“No!” she answered, rubbing her forehead and offering the same pleading to be shot look, only hers was directed into the Force, somewhere towards G.
“What’s your sir name?”
“I don’t have one,” Daphne said. “Everyone has one,” Ronce said.
“Oh, well, then, in that case, I would like to report a theft,” Daphne said.
“Because someone took mine.”
“I have the authority…”
“To make my life miserable. I get it. Charge me with a crime or let me go,” Daphne said.
“You’re lucky no citizens were killed today! It’s against the law to fly between buildings,” Ronce said.
“It happens so often you had to pass a law?” Daphne said.
“The vehicle you were flying was registered to Darth Torlin,” Ronce said. “Do you work for him?”
“No,” Daphne said, leaning onto the desk.
“But your lightsaber was red, which denotes you’re a Sith or an apprenticed Sith,” Ronce said.
“My brother loaned it to me,” Daphne said.
“Seriously, we’ve already been over this.”
“And we are going to keep going over this until I get some answers I like,” Ronce insisted.
Daphne rolled her head so she could look at him. “So, what you’re saying is, even if I’ve told you the truth, if you don’t like it, we have to keep going over it?”
“Do you work for Torlin?” Ronce asked again.
“Ah, I must have died in the crash and this is the first level of hell,” Daphne lamented into the desk.
Ronce kicked the seat between her legs and made her sit up. He pointed at her. “Cooperate, and this will go easier for you.”
“I don’t believe you,” Daphne said. “Who was chasing you?” Ronce asked.
“Kidnappers,” Daphne said.
“And why did they want you?” Ronce asked.
“They didn’t. The Bloodhunters wanted to capture or kill my brother, and they were using me for bait,” Daphne iterated for the umpteenth time.
“Again with the Bloodhunters?! You expect me to believe that fictional robots that parents use to frighten their children into behaving are real?” Ronce asked.
“They are. And they’re really scary and deadly and it would be in your best interest not to keep me here,” Daphne said.
“What’s your brother’s name?” Ronce asked. “G,” Daphne said.
“G?” Ronce said, turning off his personal electronics and leaning back.
“Preston G Waycaster,” Daphne said.
“Saint Waycaster?”
“Oh, hell no. He isn’t a saint,” Daphne assured him.
“Of course he isn’t! If I had half a credit for every self-made, Jedi want-to-be guru, I wouldn’t be a detective. So, you’re saying you’re not part of his sex cult? What are you, then, one of his disenfranchised wives?”
“I’m not his wife!”
“Maybe you’re just one of his scouts, recruiting women for his harem,” Ronce pushed. “He is not running a harem. He isn’t like that,” Daphne said.
“What is he like?” Ronce said.
“Why don’t you go find out for yourself,” Daphne said.
“Why can’t you just tell me?” Ronce asked.
“I don’t want to talk about him,” Daphne insisted.
Ronce reactivated his display device. He put in the name and scanned. First level of search found nothing, so the next level started. He looked skeptically at his prisoner. “Rumor has it he is taking in kids from orphanages and turning them into slaves.”
“That’s Corissa, not him, and they’re not slaves, they’re genuine benevolent rescues” Daphne said.
“All benevolence is predicated on use. Who is Corissa? Another Waycaster? Another ‘sister,’ perhaps?”
“No, she is not a Waycaster. And I am not a Waycaster. Technically, neither is he, because that’s the name he gave himself,” Daphne said.
“So, you and he have so many legal issues you have had to create aliases?” Ronce surmised out loud.
“No,” Daphne said, putting her head in her hand.
“Where were you born?” Ronce asked.
“Is it relevant?” Daphne asked. “It could be,” Ronce said.
“I was born in Shade Hutt’s palace,” Daphne said, sighing.
Ronce got up and left, leaving the door open. She heard him telling the guards outside to return her to her cell. She went with them without struggle. Her cell was not big enough to lay down in, but she could sit, and look out through the force field that kept her from fleeing. She could see the control panel that kept her in, and she had been able to memorize the panels around the room in sections as the guard on duty shifted from time to time. The other cells were empty, suggesting a slow crime week. The scene was so static that eventually she could recreate the room in minute detail in her head, eyes closed. Within the confines of that memory, she could walk around and examine things, but it was not true astral traveling, like her brother did. The monotony was broken when two officers entered dragging a creature she had never seen before. It was shorter than a human with sickly pale skin, a pot belly, and long, curving ears. It had whiskers coming from its ears, nose, and neck.
The creature howled and twisted and pleaded and fought. The guard left his duty station to assist and in the process got bit. When the creature’s eyes landed on Daphne he ceased struggling.
“Ohhh! Put me in the cell with her!” it said in a squeaky voice.
The three Officers threw the creature in the opposing cell and turned on the field. All three were scratched up, but only after examining the guard’s bite wounds did they all decide that going to the infirmary was a must. They departed without waiting for backup. Daphne stood up and moved as close to the cell door as she could without touching it.
“Ohh, miss, I want to play with you,” the creature said, gyrating and thrusting provocatively.
“You’re disgusting,” Daphne said.
“Yay, you noticed me,” it said, almost singing in elation. “Let me notice you, from inside your clothes.”
“Shut up, I’m trying to concentrate,” Daphne said.
“Yay, I am distracting you,” it said, licking its entire face with its own tongue. “Oh, let me distract you with my…”
Using the Force, Daphne manipulated the control that opened her cell. “Ohh, take me with you,” it pleaded. “I promise I will make you happy.”
“Good luck,” Daphne said, turning to the door to flee. A tremor in the Force made her pause. She touched the door, making herself ignore the creature who pleaded to be allowed to serve her. People outside the doors were dying. She was certain she heard blaster fire and the signature sounds of lightsabers in motion. They were just outside the door. She spied the lockbox where her lightsaber was.
Daphne ran back to the cell and turned the field back on using the Force. If the guards entered now, she didn’t need them knowing she could escape. It wasn’t the guards that entered, though. A shaped charge blew a hole in the door and three people entered. The shield imprisoning her likely saved her life from projectile debris. The creature in the other cell across from her started jumping, clearly excited to be re-united with ‘family.’
“Ahhh, master. You promised you would release me,” the creature said.
Presumably, ‘the master,’ was the one that opened the cage. He was human, his friends were not. He petted the creature, almost lovingly. “I did. And I always keep my promise. I said if you got captured, I would release you,” the human said. His lightsaber activated and he severed the creature in half. Before the creature even realized it was dead, it was falling to the floor, reaching up towards its master’s face with a loving gesture.
The three watched as the creatures remains shriveled up, as if instantly dehydrating and mummifying. Some of it became dust, but mostly it was a flaky, skin covered skeleton, or better, as if the whole thing had been an animated Paper Mache, stained with herbs and left over brew grounds.
“Interesting,” the female said. She was wafer thin, with frail arms, and a basic humanoid frame, with an easy blend of human flesh tones, tapering to the dark tan of animal hide. She wore a thin, simple, single piece dress that fell to her mid-thigh, which resembled a human thigh down to the knees, but as you followed down the leg towards where the ankle should be, the leg articulated backwards, literally flipped, and flowed into a hoof. Had her leg ended in a normal human foot, as opposed to having this second backward knee that made it practically impossible to stare at, she would have been considered short for a human, but this extra length gave her a sudden, unexpected height when she stood tall, straightening the entire limb. She did this and cocked her head as if she had heard something in the distance, then quieted to focus on the scene around them. The oddity of her fawn like stance almost distracted from her long, fleshy tail. Her hair was bobbed and wild, as if toweled dried and full of static electricity, almost concealing the horns. Her ears were super long and thin, like twin flames, and they blushed, and might have been mistaken for horns, except occasionally the ears flexed and pointed, whereas the tiny, smooth horn bumps did not. “It didn’t completely evaporate this time.”
The ‘master’ acknowledged her statement with a hug, as if reassuring her. Large doe eyes blinked, then she returned the affection by licking the side of his face, her tail hugging his hip.
The master looked to his other companion, which was a short, fat Besalisk. He was so stout that it was easy to imagine his four arms were tree limbs, not capable of bending at the elbow, until you saw him do so. He crossed all four arms in front of his chest and stared at Daphne, his waffle going from green to a slight pink as it expanded. The ‘master’ became amused and turned to his friend’s apparent love interest, and was instantly stuck along the same vein.
He approached the cell. “You,” he said, pointing at her. “Are quite lovely to look at it. My friend and I are attracted to you.”
Daphne cringed. What the hell, she thought. Until G, she had never experienced so many randy people in her life. Was she changed or did he just open a part of her brain that she been repressing? But how did that explain people like these cretins? Was she just drawing smut to her?
“Instant attraction means something,” he explained, leaning in against the side of the cell, careful not to touch the shield, meaning to disarm her with his charm first. “It’s as if the Force wants us to be together. But what is it about you, exactly, that is sucking me in? Oh, don’t try to answer. Allow me to root this out. Cheeka. Read her,”
“Boss? This is a prison,” the female complained, her height shrinking as she folded her legs. “They bring bad people here. The residue leaves a taint on the walls and in the air.”
“They do bring some bad people here. They also bring good people here. Mostly, they bring average people here who are just having trouble complying with small laws and unpaid fines,” he said. He turned to Daphne. “What is your story? Are you fighting tyranny in all its forms? Are you teaching society that if they go one whole full day without breaking the law, civilization would collapse because it is kept functioning through the administration of fees for noncompliance issues surrounding nonsense rules?” Again, he put a finger in the air to indicate he didn’t want her to speak. “Now, Cheeka, read her.” Again, the faun like girl hesitated. “Read her!” he said, his voice quiet and intense, as if he had given a Force command.
Cheeka traced Daphne with her eyes and shivered. “She believes her dad is an ass.”
“Umm. Well, who’s to judge. He may be,” the ‘master’ said. “Read on.”
Cheeka frowned, flicked her tail, but scanned Daphne with her eyes again. It was palpable and more intimate than a casual glance. Daphne stepped backed, but the wall prevented her from reaching her comfort zone. The look Cheeka gave her suggested an intimacy that would only come from years of association, or that might come from the drunken stares of men hovering around a pole dancer chained in place.
“She hates her mother, too,” Cheeka said.
“I don’t hate my mother,” Daphne protested.
“Still, not useful, Cheeka,” he said, ignoring Daphne’s complaint. “Most people end up hating their parents for a while. Read on.”
“This isn’t necessary,” Daphne said. “I will answer any question truthfully.”
He laughed, actually covered his mouth politely, but then spun it as humorous compassion. “No one on this plane of existence can tell a hundred percent of the truth a hundred percent of the time. That statement alone makes you untrustworthy. You’re too busy lying to yourself to even remotely access truth. Cheeka.”
“I am a Jedi. I do not lie,” Daphne stated reverently.
He laughed again. “And again, from a certain point of view, that might appear to be true,” he said, but then he became more serious. “But quite frankly, I have known too many Jedi, and I think I will hold my own counsel as to whether or not I can trust you. How did you come to be here?” He raised a finger for her to be silent and prodded his companion.
Cheeka’s tail folded around herself, pulling her loose dress tight around her waist, as if it were a belt. The action caused her dress to rise up, revealing more thigh. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, pushing her breast together. She shivered, but her eyes stayed on Daphne. Her breathing deepened. It was a surrendering to the process. It almost looked pornographic, like watching the subtle pained expressions that follow intense concentration that suddenly open into smiling relief. Daphne crossed her arms in front of her chest, too, but didn’t reveal as much cleavage. It was likely that Cheeka wore the dress simply to appease human custom and would rather be free of clothing.
“She loves her brother,” Cheeka said.
“Again, not useful,” the ‘master’ said, clearly becoming agitated. “No, she loves her brother,” Cheeka insisted.
“Good for her. And not useful,” he said, his tone showing his patience was wearing thin.
“Tryst, she had sex with her brother, and wants to keep doing it,” Cheeka snapped, clearly equally impatient with the impatient tone the ‘master’ was giving her.
“Oh,” Tryst said. He smiled at Daphne. “She really loves her brother.”
“That’s fucked up,” the other party member said, the pink fading from his waffle.
“Don’t judge, Crusher,” Tryst said. “We all fall into this Universe, and in this Universe we fall further, from where, who can say, but the job is to find our way back.”
“Well, that’s why I prefer aliens,” Crusher says. “No way to accidentally fuck family.” Tryst turned off the cell’s force field. “You will come with us.”
“No, thank you,” Daphne said, holding firm.
Tryst stepped closer and put his hand out. “You are lost and you’re trying to find your way. We are Pathfinders. You will come with us, not because I am telling you to, but because you know you have to. Quiet your mind, still your emotions, do your little Jedi trick, and you will know that our meeting is not an accident. This is your way out.”
“No,” Daphne said, but not as forceful.
“Look. We’ve all fucked up. Even me,” Tryst said. “But I have been called by someone greater. She has given me hope of something better. I can offer that to you. I can’t heal your wounds, I can’t promise you will feel better, but I can promise that you won’t have to walk this path alone. Take my hand. Come with me.”
Tryst held his hand, unwavering. Patient. This was the level of patience that comes with silently taming a wild animal. The longer they stayed, the longer they risk encountering reinforcements, but Tryst showed no fear, no impatience. Daphne touched on the idea of a temporary alliance, just long enough to get out, but doing so required her to take his hand.
Daphne took his hand. Cheeka made a subtle noise, as if the intimacy had moved her up one more notched. Tryst didn’t pull Daphne out. He gently and slowly increased his pull on her until he found just the right amount of pressure that she walked on her own accord. Once she was outside the cell, he nodded.
“Now, what is your name?” Tryst said. “Daphne,” she said.
Lestelle Re greeted Nolasco with a hug before inviting him in to her home. Her home was a luxury, loft apartment with expansive glass windows that met at the North West corner and gave her an excellent view of the city scape. Since she was at the top two floors, she indeed had the best of views. She adjusted the window tint to reduce the brightness pouring in to the room, allowing Nolasco to take off his shades. She invited him to sit.
“So, what brings you to my home world, Uncle?” Lestelle asked.
He held a finger up, asking to have a moment. He placed an electronic device in the center of the room and activated it. It swept the area with a beam and pushed a holographic boundary. He stepped inside the boundary and motioned for her to join him.
“Is a silence envelope necessary?” Lestelle asked.
“Probably not. Though there were no bugs detected, you never know if someone is bouncing a laser off your window to listen or map the inside with acoustic feedback tech,” Nolasco said.
“You’re that worried,” Lestelle said. “I am,” he said.
“There are over a dozen ethical reasons as to why I can’t be your legal advisor any longer,” Lestelle said. She found it strange how inside the envelope the ambient noise changed, as if the real world had its own flavored tone that was suddenly silenced.
“I know,” Nolasco said. “And I’m still bringing this to you. You good?”
“Don’t know yet,” Lestelle said. “Tell me what you got?”
“What’s the statute of limitations on war crimes?” Nolasco asked.
“What did you do?” Lestelle asked, already feeling weary.
“Well, it’s complicated, and there are levels to this, some of which predate me, but I have recently discovered some things, and I don’t know how to begin to make it right and I don’t even know if it’s possible, but the fall out will be huge,” Nolasco said.
Lestelle sighed. “Just say it.”
“My company was complicit in destroying the ecology of several planets in order to decrease their food production capabilities to increase their reliance on imports and make them more subservient to the Empire. This happened during Palpatine’s reign in the midst of the Clone Wars, before he became the Emperor. It only got worse from there. My company has been profiting directly and indirectly through a variety of tech, such as atmosphere scrubbers, food tech, and the sale of bio-engineered organisms to help planets regain marginal ecological stability. I personally sold insect tech to Jordeen’s mother, before Jordeen was even on my radar. That tech has a built in fail code that if the patent isn’t renewed, the insects will die, making it a huge setback for their world. That patent is volume specific, so the greater the proliferation of the inserted species, the larger the sum that has to be paid, which usually means the planet’s government has to get involved because one family isn’t going to be able to cover the costs.”
“Well, disable the fail code without charging them,” Lestelle said.
“I can’t just arbitrarily do that without revealing how the company is complicit,” Nolasco said.
“So, do it anyway,” Lestelle said.
“Look, this isn’t just me protecting the company or my ass. I could care less if the
company fails, and if I go to jail or am executed for war crimes, well, that’s justice, right?” Nolasco said. “But this goes deeper than just the company or me. There are family systems and bureaucracies that are still in power because of this, who are equally complicit in the destruction of their own environment to gain political control. The true scope of the parties involved could send the galaxy back to war.”
“Then don’t tell,” Lestelle said.
“That’s not an option. This is too big to keep secret indefinitely. On the last mission I participated in, the one where I failed and was kicked out of service, several fighters deviated from our designated targets. I went chasing after them but was told to ignore the errant fighters and focus on my mission objectives, which was in short, a distraction. That mission was an attempt to cover up evidence that might have changed the outcome of the war at that time. I didn’t know that then, but now, with the evidence I have discovered, it is all fitting together. My brother is complicit in destroying environments for his own end. I’m complicit in maintaining the status quo. And though you and G don’t have anything to do with it, publically, you are going to be affected by this. You will be treated as if you’re complicit. Jordeen’s family was the first to re-introduce pollinators, which is coincidental but will be seen otherwise given we’re all related. Even if they weren’t biologically related to me, they’d still be fucked, but being related, yeah, one more nail in their coffin. I need the truth to be known, I want the company to be held responsible for its part, but this is so much bigger than me I don’t know how to make the decision, and I can’t do it alone.”
“Why is it every time I think things are going to be okay, something more happens?” Lestelle demanded. “I am so sick and tired of this family’s fucking drama!” He seemed apologetic, but she held up a hand. “No, really, you guys suck. I only thought my family sucked, but you guys take suck to a whole new level.”
“I don’t know what to say,” he said.
“I might be worried if you did,” Lestelle said, and left the silence boundary to sit in her favorite chair. She stared out into the ‘glow of a billion suns,’ which was one of the many terms to describe day on a planet this close to the galactic core. Though it was mostly blue sky due to the primary, even in the heart of day other stars were visible, and when the primary went down, the sky’s hues varied from blues to indigo, sometimes oranges and reds, but never black. She pulled her legs up into the chair, put her fist to her mouth, and sulked over the problem.
Nolasco emerged from the silent boundary and sat in an adjacent chair. “How many employees in your company know?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How likely is it you’re being set up to take the fall?” she asked.
He gave a subtle hand signal, close to his chest, which suggested it was very likely. If his present level of paranoia was any indicator, she shouldn’t have asked the question.
“I’m going to have to speak with Favelle,” Lestelle said. “There is evidence he is complicit,” Nolasco said.
“No. That’s impossible,” Lestelle said, shaking her head, refusing to accept it.
“His firm is on all the affected planets,” Nolasco pointed out. “On all the planets we operate. They’re our firm. That’s not a coincidence.”
“It has to be,” Lestelle said.
“Favelle is beyond ethical reproach. He is the epitome of social justice.”
“Yeah, I think the Emperor took that stance. Sorry. Maybe he has nothing to do with it.
But someone in his company does. This is not just a one company affair. This is a group of corporations and the one thing they all have in common is the Firm and BioEnc,” Nolasco explained.
“I’m going to speak to him anyway,” Lestelle said.
“Worse-case scenario, if you’re wrong about him, he will kill you,” Nolasco said. “Best case scenario is you’re right, and the parties that are involved will kill you and him. Look, all I ask is you delay in telling him. If you’re right about him, he will understand. Read the data files I have, help me gather more intel on the corporations and let’s see if we can find more concrete evidence, instead of this generalized data set that leads back to Bio Enc or me or family.”
“Alright.” Lestelle asked. “We should ask G to help us investigate.”
“No. I want to keep him out of it. If this goes bad, which it will eventually, it is my intent to take on all the fire. I really want to keep all of you out of it, but I need you and your legal expertise, your investigating skills, and your moral compass. I trust you.”
“G also has a moral compass and an uncanny way of going places he needs to go to get at the truth of something,” Lestelle said.
“I know he gets results, but it’s also random and messy and the results are not always what we want, and it comes across as collateral accidental outcomes, rather than intentional, surgical precise,” Nolasco said. “Basically, he has a tendency to blow things up. I want to diffuse this.”
“You seem to be forgetting one thing,” Lestelle said. “And what’s that?”
“We are Waycasters,” she said. “G and I are entangled. If you and I tangle, he is going to have his heart strings tugged. It might be impossible to completely exclude him.”
“We’ll have to find a way to distract him, then,” Nolasco said.
In the dream, G was floating his half-sisters the same way he would float boulders during a meditation exercise. They orbited him, slowly, turning, each in a different meditation pose.
One was lying. One was in the lotus position. One was standing, prayer hands and the left foot against the right thigh, bent knee pointing left. Daphne began to fall. He broke his pose to reach for her, and suddenly the floor was miles away. He was still reaching for her as she fell below him, his other three sisters started to drift away from their orbit and from each other. He hesitated, not sure if he should bring them back. Daphne accelerated away. He dove for her.
Jordeen, Lestelle, and Priya broke their poses and reached for him, but the distance was too great.
He awoke and found Freya spooning with him on the couch. He thought about getting up, but the dream was more prominent in the moment. He closed his eyes and took inventory of the sensations around him. His room was quiet, free of even the general harmonics of electrical flows and miscellaneous computer functioning. Freya was warm against his body, the couch neutral against his back. Freya was so well constructed that it was impossible to discern she was a Droid from mere touch alone. He wondered if she was aware that he had waken, but if she was, she remained quiet. He felt an inner warmth rising, tingling in his fingers and toes, a sound as loud as an engine pushing a ship into space roared in his ears and he felt a vibration go from head to the base of his spine, and then he was suddenly miles away.
Priya was sitting in the window, looking out into space. It was a large circular window, with a wide enough sill that allowed her to bring her whole body in. Her knees were up, her shoes were off, her skirt rode higher than she would have allowed it if she knew she had company. Her eyes focused on the reflection that became her brother as he fully materialized. She left the space and greeted him with a hug.
“I’ve missed you,” Priya said. Her head against his, she closed her eyes. Her room was Spartan and nothing of interest to focus on. She had learned to keep few treasure and she was not likely to change that.
“And I you,” he assured her. “How is silent running?”
“Silent,” she said.
“Any word?” G asked.
“From the resistance? Yeah. They don’t trust me. Apparently, changing my name is insufficient to erase my bad deeds,” Priya said, with an effort to make it humorous. “They have no reason to trust me, but they’ve not fully dismissed me yet. I’m in a holding pattern.”
“That’s hopeful,” G said.
“We’ll see. Meanwhile, the First Order has been trying to recruit me,” Priya said. “And who are they?” G asked.
“Seriously?” Priya asked, searching his eyes for any hint of gest. “You really should keep up with history and politics. It tends to repeat itself if you don’t.”
“It tends to repeat itself whether you know it or not,” G said. “All the players do is upgrade their names. I mean, what does ‘First Order’ allude to? There is no order, there is no first, that’s all illusion. An