Chapter 24 dark design
The rescue operation was mostly over. Alyth’s crew took on the bulk of the work, while the Myamar crew assisted their endeavor. Alyth personaly approved many of the Kilmore’s crew to supplement the Immanence’s crew, just in case there happened to be an additional skirmish.
When Commander Rosh was brought to the conference room, he had bowed to Alyth.
“I was surprised you came, considering our history,” Rosh said.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Can I assume Preston put you in charge?” Alyth asked.
“He did,” Rosh said, choosing not to explain what had happened to Hosper.
“He explained the mission parameters and gave us a choice.”
“Sit down, Commander,” Alyth said.
Togther, they reviewed the data logs of the battle. There was a clear record that Preston had boarded the Chiliad via an extendable space bridge. No sooner than he had signed he was on board, the Kilmore began its attack. It was not known if the Chiliad had expected duplicity, but it had definitely been prepared for the contingency. Commander Rosh said it was pure luck that they had managed to take out the Chiliad’s hyperdrive. The moment they did, the Chiliad had turned on them with a fierceness they hadn’t expected, like a wounded animal fighting for its life. At some point in the battle, the Bloodhunters all stopped dead in their tracks and self destructed. Thousands of anti-matter Droid bombs, scattered throughout the asteroid ring simultaneously detonated, taking with them anything within their sphere of influence, including many of their sister Droids and half the Kilmore’s tiefighters. What was difficult was that many of the Fighters would have been completely annihilated so it was difficult to account for them all, but there was still an ongoing search effort to make sure there were no fighters at the edge of the blast radius that were simply crippled, with pilots hoping to be rescued.
One single ship launched from the Chiliad before it finally succumbed to the Kilmore’s experienced crew. It jumped to hyperspace and was gone, presumbably with Preston on board.
The agonizing silence in the conference room was palpable. Rosh was not privy to much of what was discussed prior to his admittance. Alyth, Daphne, Jordeen, and Lestelle Re were all confirmed to be half sisters. No one else who was present at the conference and who had been intimate with Preston were biologically related, which included Corissa, Isho, Shade, and Keena. Daphne nearly bolted when she had seen her mother raise her hand when someone asked, “So, who else has been intimate with him?” Alyth had put a hand on Daphne’s hand. She sat back down and endured silently. Corissa also endured her pain silently. She had refused to explain her connection to Orlov. All that was known was that they both served together on this ship.
“Maybe we should focus on the problem at hand, which is finding Preston,” Nolasco said.
“If the Bloodhunters want his mother, there would have to be a trail for her to find him. If we can find that trail, we can rescue him.”
“Why don’t you sibling meditate and allow the Force to draw you to him?” Shade asked.
“It’s not our talent,” Alyth explained.
“I’ve tried, but I’m not getting through,” Jordeen said.
“It’s as if this is a Force challenge necessary for our growth, a test that we’ve all agreed to take together...”
“I didn’t agree to any of this,” Daphne snapped.
“Jordeen is right,” Alyth said.
“We have all been drawn together by the Force. This is not an accident. The significance of our solution will affect all of us profoundly.”
“But what’s the solution?” Lestelle Re asked.
“I have one. Why don’t we put a tracker on Orlov and find a Bloodhunter to give him to,” Daphne said.
“The droid takes him and we follow. There is bound to be at least one Droid floating out there that we can reassemble.”
“We are not giving my brother to a Bloodhunter,” Nolasco said.
“Oh come on, they won’t kill him. They will just make him wish he was dead,” Daphne said.
“You agree with me, don’t you, Corissa? Corissa?!”
Corissa dialed her eyes back into focus, present to here and now.
“What?”
“You and Orlov had a relationship, right? He broke yor heart?” Daphne asked.
“No,” Corissa said. She pushed her chair away from the table and stood up.
“Please, excuse me.”
There was an uncomfortable silence as Corissa crossed over to the egress. She paused before departing the room. She returned to the table, approaching Nolasco while simultaneously drawing her weapon from its holsters. The Angels leaning against the wall went to attention, but they didn’t draw as Corissa simply laid the weapon in front of him.
“I am a mother and I have daughter to raise. I will no longer be a combatant in this war. Whatever you decide, I will accept,” Corissa said, and she left.
♫♪►
There were guards outside Corissa’s door and Freya was inside the room. She nodded politely to the Droid. The Droid acknowledged her. Corissa touched the Droid kindly before heading into the bedroom, her first expression of kindness towards her. Corissa found Ten sleeping, fetal position, facing the exterior wall and window bay. She gently eased up next to her and lay down, putting her arm over her. Before long, her breathing had deepened, and she felt herself slipping into sleep. Part of her resisted, wanting to stay alert, but pure exhaustion took her down faster than she imagined could happen.
She found herself in a nondescript corridor of the Immanence. Preston was there, trying to hide a hole in the wall by hanging a picture.
“That’s not going work,” Corissa said.
“I will still know there is a hole there.”
“So, what should we do about it?” Preston asked.
“There is nothing to do about it. I’m broken,” Corissa said. She leaned on him, laid her head on his shoulder.
“I am so broken.”
“Oh,” he replied softly. He separated from her, gently lifted her chin till their eyes met.
“We all are. That’s how the Light gets in.”
Corissa seemed confused.
“You’re not broken.”
“Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean that I am not. But I think being broken doesn’t mean what you think it means. With each level of education we feel incomplete and so we set additional goals and we struggle to arrive, and yet, with each new layer, we discover there is always another level, another challenge, so if you imagine that I have no flaws or that everything is just peachy with me, it’s only because you presently lack the altitude to see the interrelatedness of all things. I see you and I know you are safe, you are loved. By extension, I am convicted that I am equally safe and loved, even when I can’t see the solution.”
“You see me?” Corissa asked, tears rolling.
“I see you,” he affirmed.
“And you still love me?” Corissa asked.
“I will always love you, Corissa Fite,” Preston said.
“And, what is your solution?” Corissa asked.
“The same as it is for you,” Preston said.
“Love.”
Corissa was awakened from the dream when Ten suddenly sat up, crying out.
“What’s wrong?” Corissa asked, embracing her.
Ten cried, holding her tight.
“Shhhh, I am with you,” Corissa assured her.
Ten laid back down, facing Corissa.
“I’m so tired of these nightmares.” Corissa held her hands.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“Not yet,” Ten said.
“When you’re ready then,” Corissa said.
“When you’re ready.”
♫♪►
Corissa had not ben able to return to sleep. Once Ten had drifted, Corissa decided it was time. If she was going to help Ten with her nghtmares, then she was going to have to face hers. She got up and went straight to the brig. Orlov and Jesser were in separate cells, illuminated by the forcefield that kept them imprisoned. Orlov was sleeping on a hard slab that extended from the wall. Corissa stared at him, wondering how he slept at nights. Jesser was sitting on the floor. She got up and approached the forcefield.
“I remember you,” Jesser said.
“Good for you,” Corissa said, otherwise ignoring her.
“Wow, some things never change. You were a screw up then, and you’ve obviously aligned yourself with a whole crew of screwups. You probably still cling to the lie that it was an accident,” Jesser said.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Corissa admitted.
“I knew it! We should have executed you for attempted desertion,” Jesser said.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Corissa admitted, but her eyes met Jesser’s “But it wasn’t desertion, either. I was stunned, raped, and jettisoned like so much garbage.”
“And why should I believe that version over the previous version you shared?” Jesser asked.
“I’m not asking you to believe. You know as well as I do that military courts never serve the victim. At best, I risked humiliation and discharge, at worse, I risked being found guilty of lying, gang raped and then executed,” Corissa said.
“You are so full of excuses. You are weak. You are a coward,” Jesser said.
“I have acted cowardly,” Corissa said, nodding with agreement.
“In hindsight, I wish I had said something, even if it had led to a military tribunal. I know I would not have won, but I would have not spent the rest of my life running in fear. The officer that raped me was by my side from the moment I was recovered to the moment the spore induced psychosis wore off. He was responsible for the delay in our schedule and the search effort, though I doubt he really expected me to be found. Still, he was going to push that delay till Byrne had had enough and called it quits. He came off as a hero. That would have made accusing him all the more difficult. But the bigger battle was overcoming my fear, the fear that he put in my heart. Every night as I lay there in medical, he would whisper in my ear, ‘if you ever turn me down again, it won’t be a life pod in which I jettison you.’ Execution might have been better than the subsequent submissions, the ongoing physical and emotional abuse. But then the discharge orders came. And I was free.”
“Even if your story is remotely true, you joined a service primarily of men, fighting men, and you don’t have the sense enough to use your femininity to make alliances, to control others? You didnt learn how to fight in basic training? You’re a loser. A huge crybaby. Poor you, everyone takes advantage of you,”Jesser said.
“Yeah. I have lived with those sort thoughts in my head for a long time. That language started in basic, and ran my entire military career. I’m sure the intentions were to make me stronger, to make everyone stronger, goal oriented, subservient, but I’m beginning to believe there might be a better way. The way of forgiving, the way of letting go, the way of love. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m getting better. I’m moving in the right direction, actually have been moving in the right direction since being dischareged from service, but it has been small steps. And if I get through the day today without killing anyone, well, I will have made a huge leap forward in my progress,” Corissa said.
“Whatever, loser,” Jesser said. She went and sat down, drawing her feet up on the wall bench and hugging her knees.
“You should hear your own lies. Your new story doesn’t even make sense. I remember what happened very well. Orlov was responsible for your rescue. Orlov was responsible for influencing the decision to not have you court martial and executed for incompetence. Orlov was there…”
“Yeah,” Corissa said.
“I know.”
♫♪►
Nolasco arrived at medical, looking for who might have summoned him “Hello, Commander,” Fixit said.
Nolasco seemed surprised.
“You summoned me?”
“I did,” Fixt it said.
“I have an ethical dilemma that requires a human participant to resolve.”
“Explain,” Nolasco said.
“Both Alyth and Daphne have asked if there are any ship records that might indicate the number of children Orlov fathered, who their mothers are, and if so, if they could have the names and locations,” Fixit said.
“So, what’s the problem?” Nolasco asked, leaning against a med table.
“I have access to all the files requested, even the most recently updated,” Fixit said.
“So, provide it to them,” Nolasco said.
“Therein lies the problem. These are medical files. I have duty to secure confidentiality,” Fixit said.
“However, if I was to surrender the files to the highest ranking officer in my charge, and that human dispersed the information, well, then, I would not have broken protocols.”
“Then, why did you call me?”
“Because you are the highest ranking officer in my working memory,” Fixit said.
“I am no longer an officer,” Nolasco corrected.
“Perhaps, but you are the only one I can confirm was an officer at the time of my service, and who is not presently in the Brig, or is not complicit in creating the situation we are discussing,” Fixit said.
“I don’t seem to recall working with a Fixit Droid,” Nolasco mused.
“Most humans fail to remember Droids in their service, especially when they are unconscious at the time services are rendered,” Fixit said.
“You’re the Droid that patched me up?” Nolasco asked, standing up.
“I owe you my life.”
“It was my programmin, Commander,” Fixit said.
“Okay, well, fine. Just transfer the files to my reader,” Nolasco said, turning to leave.
“Well, I have one other ethical dilemma I need help sorting first,” Fixit said.
“Of course, you do,” Nolasco sighed.
“What can I do to help?”
“I need to know if you are prone to impulsive behaviors or are quick to anger,” Fixit said.
“Alright, enough of the games. Track to the bottom of this dialogue and tell me what you’re presently dancing around,” Nolasco demanded.
“Your wife and kid’s name are on the list,” Fixit said. Nolasco blinked.
“Excuse me.”
“Per the DNA evidence I have on file, you have been raising your brother’s biological children,” Fixit said.
“That’s impossible,” Nolasco said.
“There were only two times he ever visited me at my home and that…”
Nolasco trailed off, turned and exited medical without saying another word. He practically marched all the way to the Brig, playing in his head all the things he was going to say to his brother. Corissa was exiting the Brig as he arrived.
She hesitated, as if getting caught doing something wrong.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I am ready to speak with you, if you are willing to listen,” Corissa said.
“You want to speak to me alone or with family?” Nolasco asked.
“Family?” Corissa asked.
“Look, I know you aren’t married to Preston, but you share custody of Ten, and he is my nephew, and though I have come to consider us friends, it seems to me that we have surpassed that and become family,” Nolasco said.
“And knowing what we already know about my family, I don’t see any reasons to keep any more family secrets.”
Corissa deliberated over the offer.
“Alright,” Corissa said.
♫♪►
Corissa told her story starting with the initial sexual assault, followed by her ejection in a life pod. She included the details of her first encounter with Preston, who in ghost form had healed her and rallied her to a discovery point where she was subsequently rescued and returned to her crew, and the nightmare of the daily continued assaults that went on for a period of several months before her on the job performance had deterioerated so much that her colleagues could no longer tolerate her presence. It was sheer luck that she was not executed. She was declared mentally unfit for duty and discharged from service, without pay or benefits. They even kept all her previously earned credits, leaving her to fend for herself.
After about a week on Axilla, she found herself on the lowest levels, eating spoiled food out of rubbish cans, when the director of the orphanage took pity on her. In exchange for room and board, she would cook and clean. She found a modicum of health returning as she served, repairing Droids and anything else at the orphanage that required fixing. The director noticed her aptitude for repairing things and got her a job placement at Bio Enc as a mechanic, but she continued to serve at the orphanage until the day she met Preston and her world turned upside down.
“You’re conflicted?” Lestelle Re asked.
“Is that why you excused yourself from the deliberation?”
“No, there is no conflict,” Corissa said.
“I am completely bias and unwilling to contribute to either Orlov’s loss or gain in any manner.”
“Indecision in itself is a decision,” Daphne said.
“Recusing herself was not indecision,” Jordeen said.
“It is actually a mature, loving response.”
“It was ethical,” Lestelle Re agreed.
“What did he say when you faced him?” Nolasco asked.
“He was sleeping,” Corissa said.
“I still haven’t faced him. I don’t know what my response should be, but I know I can’t decide his fate.”
Nolasco had been listening intently, his elbow on the arm of his chair, his mouth against his fist. He lowered his hand.
“I can’t apologize for the pain my brother has caused you, Corissa, but I am willing to do anything that’s in my power to help you heal.”
Ten entered the room.
“I know where Preston is,” Ten said.
“How do you know?” Alyth said.
“He told me,” Ten said.
“Why didn’t he tell us?” Daphne asked, clearly perturbed that this child got the message instead of her.
“I’m paraphrasing, but basically he says you guys are too emotionally charged to hear anything outside of yourselves, but that he sends his love, and by the way, if it’s not too inconvenient, would you mind coming to rescue him,” Ten said.
“That sounds like him,” Corissa said.
Nolasco got the coordinates from Ten and entered it into the computer. A holographic image of the sector appeared above the conference room table. There were no known inhabitable planets in the system. The survey came from the time of the Old Republic, and it had been deemed as having no intrinsic value. If the information was accurate, it appeared they would find Preston on the fourth planet from a red giant star. It was an hour away at best speed.
“What do you think?” Nolasco asked Alyth.
“Even if he’s there, we can assume it’s meant to be a trap for his mother,” Alyth said.
“I’m going.”
“We’re all going,” Corissa said.
If anyone disagreed, it was not verbalized.
“Corissa, were you aware that the Fixit Droid that was on the Dargon’s Wake was the one that raised Preston?” Ten asked.
“No, I wasn’t. Is it important?” Corissa asked.
“Preston requests that we bring him,” Ten said.
♫♪►
Preston arrived outside the Chiliad wearing a pressure suit. Entering the sequence opened the door as expected. When the door opened, he expected the pressure in the air tube to be greater than that on the Chiliad, but there was no movement of air and he wasn’t swept inside the ship. He looked back down the narrow length of spacebridge to the Kilmore and saluted the troopers that were watching. He saluted and stepped inside the Chiliad. The door closed automatically. As expected, he lost the ability to communicate with the Kilmore, but it didn’t matter, as the signal to execute the attack was the salute. He proceeded along the corridor, wondering why the Droid ship had kept the ship pressurized with breatheable air.
He noticed Bloodhunters watching, but they didn’t advance.
There was a rumbling through the ship. No doubt, the war was on. According to the meter on his wrist, the ship depressurized, whether by design or because of the battle was hard to say, but Preston was glad he had the suit on. He picked up the pace. The Bloodhunters attacked. It took more effort than he imagined, but using his and Torlin’s lightsabers, he made it to one of the designated computer consoles and activated a forcefield. Outside the field, more and more Bloodhunters gathered, each firing at the Forcefield, trying to bring it down.
The audio in his helmet kicked on.
“You can not win, human,” came a voice.
“Hello, Chiliad,” Preston said, placing his key onto the terminal.
The terminal came to life. He removed the glove from his right hand. His hand tingled in the vacuum, but the pain was tolerable. The sleeve tightened around the wrist to prevent the suit from venting air. There was a small aperture, in which a bar could be seen. Preston reached in and took hold of the bar, knowing full well that it would either cut him or stick a needed in him to collect the required blood. He didn’t expect the electric like shock that forced the muscles in his hands to lock in the closed position. He also didn’t expect the aperture to close up to his wrist. He was pretty sure it hadn’t cut his hand off, but only because he assumed if his hand had been removed it wouldn’t hurt as badly as it did.
“Preston G Waycaster, son of Admiral Alarna Byrnes,” the Chiliad said.
“Tell me where your mother is.”
“She died a long time ago,” Preston lied, using his free hand to punch in commands on the computer terminal.
“You do understand that you can not remove your name from the registry. That was a rumor I personally designed to ensnare the fools who thought they could beat us,” Chiliad said.
“I think you’re lying,” Preston said, searching through the command list.
“You know why I think that? I believe if that were true, you would have shut down the terminal and forcefield and captured me already.”
“You are already captured. All interaction from this point is part of the interrogation process,” the Chiliad said.
“To minimize your own suffering, I recommend you cooperate. Where is your mother?”
“I don’t know. I never met her,” Preston said.
“Assuming you are telling the truth about the registry, and this being part of a process and all, you wouldn’t be willing to negotiate, would you?”
“No negotiations,” the Chiliad said.
“You will eventually give us what we want. All organics eventually succumb. Your ship and your crew will soon be destroyed and you will suffer for your insolence.”
“I’m sorry we couldn’t come to an agreement,” Preston said.
“I’m rather fond of intelligent Droids. I was raised by one. I even have a Droid girlfriend.”
“That is a distraction. Human and Droid are incompatible,” the Chiliad said.
“Distraction? And I thought I was already captured,” Preston said.
“You are,” the Chiliad had insited.
“Where is your mother?”
Preston selected hyperspace communications and saw that all the Bloodhunters in this solar system were already in conference mode with the Chiliad, which explained how they were coordinating their defense. He hijacked the conference call and sent a Force command to the Droids, verbally convincing them they had been caught while simultaneously sending an abort signal that would immediately cease any physical mechanism which added to the illusion they had indeed been subdued by a superior force. Ninety percent of Bloodhunters followed through with their protocol for not being captured alive and self destructed. The remaining had somehow realized the information had been false and avoided the self destruct.
Chiliad screamed as if it had been mortally wounded. It had not been lying to Preston that he was indeed caught. No longer wanting to play, it increased the energy going into Preston’s hand. Completely incompacitated, Preston fell to the console and slid off. His hand still locked in the aperture, he hung there, unconscious. The shields eventually did fail, due to the Kilmore’s continued bombardment. When they did, several functioning Bloodhunters swooped in and took Preston hostage, taking all the precautions necessary to secure a Jedi Master. Not only was he drugged, he was hobbled and cuffed with active energy currents, and then speckled with tech that pushed through his suit and inbedded in his body. The inserts would spike energy into various muscle groups, causing them contract and spasm. Had he been conscious, he would have been in severe pain, completely subdued by his own muscles.
He was quickly escorted to a ship and was launched.
♫♪►
“Oh, hello, my boy. Finally awake?”
Preston found himself quite unable to move, bound physically at the wrists and ankles, as well as immersed in an energy field. The room he was in was as dark as Lord Kilmore’s room had been, with no differentiation in the shadows to even guess at the architecture. The man in front of him laughed. It was evil.
“Do you know who I am?”
Preston weighed the dangers of speaking to his host. Communicating with him would allow more pathways into his psyche. On the flipside, the presence in his psyche was already there and interaction would ease some immediate frustrations. He knew of no way to effectively block hearing, so either way, there would be a slow trickle into his brain. Should he hold out or open the faucet, he wondered, so to speak, and allow the conversation and simply deal with the fallout?
Fixit’s voice was clear: “Change is inevitable. Resistance to change will never preserve what was, it’s already gone.”
“I know who you appear to be,” Preston said, committing. He was no longer who he was.
“Not appears. I am Emperor Palpatine,” he said.
“You’re looking pretty good for someone your age,” Preston said.
“This is how I want you to see me,” Palpatine said.
Preston considered his thoughts outloud.
“On the Astral Plane, regardless of physical age, most beings appear as they feel, so your projected age would make sense, except, I’m confident that I’m presently on the Physical Plane, so your explanation does not correlate with my experience.”
“Yeah, I can certainly see Fixit’s influence on you,” Palpatine said.
“Umm, perhaps you can give me insight to the Droid. He has not always delivered. No matter how many times I’ve had technicians insert instructions, it was always hit or miss. I assumed your mother kept reprogramming it, but I get the sense from you there was more to it.”
Preston focused on Palpatine’s intuition as opposed to the answer to Palpatine’s musing.
“Yeah, I’m not sure how you’re sensing. I don’t feel Force probing. There is a pressure gradient to get in, but it’s not telepathy. It’s nothing like what I experienced when Lord Kilmore tried to insert himself into my mind.”
Palpatine’s anger shook the foundations of his face, bringing out scars and malformities.
“Kilmore was a fool! His selfish petulance and indulgence in self gratification limited his usefulness.”
“Really? It sounds just like you,” Preston observed.
Palpatine flung his hands out and poured energy into Preston, racking him with pain.
“I brought order to this galaxy!”
“You brought pain,” Preston said, after recovering from a multitude of muscle spasms.
“I brought peace,” Palpatine said.
“A peace that I can provide you.”
“At what cost?”
“No cost. This is not a negotiation. You will give me what I want because I already own you, just like I owned your mother,” Palpatine said, holding up one hand to give him a sampling.
Preston revulsed over the forced imagery. It was accompanied by a multitude of physical sensations, as well as emotional textures, and imagery. He relived his mother’s suffering, as perceived by Palpatine. Though it was just a sampling, a recording played back at only a tenth of the normal volume, it was amplified by the Emperor’s imagination, as opposed to being flat, direct stimulus. That did not invalidate what his mother suffered. What his mother endured at the hands of the Emperor would have driven most people to madness.
Palpatine laughed at physical reaction to the onslaught of imagery.
“I see I got a reaction from you, boy. Or should I call you a man.”
“It doesn’t mean what you think it does,” Preston said, finding it hard to breathe.
“All you’ve done is stimilualted a particular nerve complex that resulted in an automatic reaction while simultaneously providing physical stimulus. It does not mean the stimulus was