Private Admission Interview

[QS-022]

Location: Detention Blocks - ISD Resolute
Tag: Annie Scalora
Attire: Prisoner Jumpsuit

QS-022 was no longer a stormtrooper. She had been unceremoniously stripped of her armor, body glove and blaster only moments after arriving on the ISD Resolute, before being taken into custody. Within the hour, she found herself seated alone on a cold bench inside a detention block, draped in the white-and-orange jumpsuit of a criminal.

Or in her case, a deserter.

She was beginning to wonder whether she had made the right choice in leaving the outpost on Jabiim. Perhaps the logistics shuttle had simply been delayed. Maybe the lieutenant had returned with the help he had promised. She turned over those remote possibilities and yet more in her mind, before the memories surfaced of what the others in the small group she had stayed with had tried to tell during those last, desperate days at the outpost. No one was coming. The Imperial military could not spare the resources or risk to evacuate non-essential personnel from a distant frontier outpost.

It was not desertion for her to leave her post when the Imperator Corps no longer existed as a singular, functioning body.

So if she was no longer a stormtrooper, but was also not a deserter, then what was she?

QS-022 gazed down at the garish white-and-orange fabric of her jumpsuit. A single tear slipped from her left eye, tracing a slow, warm path down her cheek as the answer to that question slowly dawned on her awareness.

 

[Annie Scalora]

"There's a little fantasy people tell themselves. A young girl is saved by a charming prince and lives happily ever after. Perhaps the prince was simply too late. Perhaps the devil found her first." | Tags - QS-022

Queen of Pain.​

An interesting assignment had come down from the very top.

The Admiral himself. An "Empire of the Lost" stormtrooper—or at least someone who claimed the title—had been held aboard the Resolute for some time now. Annie Scalora had been tasked with determining whether the woman could be of any use to the Imperial Reclamation Authority, the true inheritor of the Imperial legacy in all its order, discipline, and glory.

A pleasant assignment, for Scalora so loved breaking people down, and today would be no exception.

A young soldier. Isolated. Frightened. Vulnerable. The best composition of instruments indeed.

Perhaps she believed her service entitled her to mercy. Perhaps she imagined her pretty face and tearful eyes would somehow shield her from judgment. Most people did. They convinced themselves that sincerity was a form of protection, that regret somehow erased consequences.

Such adorable little fantasies, she would enjoy correcting them.

The detention block was quiet when Annie arrived. Not silent, never silent. There was always the low hum of machinery. The distant vibration of engines. The occasional clang of metal somewhere deeper within the ship. The sounds of order, of civilization.

Her black boots echoed softly across the polished deck plating as she made her way through the corridor. Two naval security troopers accompanied her, though more for protocol than necessity. Annie doubted the prisoner would prove troublesome. People rarely caused trouble once they understood how completely powerless they truly were.

The blast door slid open with a mechanical hiss.

Annie stepped inside. The young ISB lieutenant folded her hands neatly behind her back as she approached the containment field, her pale eyes studied QS-022 with the same detached interest one might devote to an unusual specimen in a laboratory.

Then, finally, a smile appeared, oh so deeply wrong.

"QS-022."

Her voice was soft, almost kind.

"It must be terribly confusing." Annie tilted her head slightly. "You spent your entire life being told who you were. Stormtrooper, soldier, servant of the Empire."

A pause. "And now here you are." Her eyes drifted briefly toward the prisoner's jumpsuit before returning to her face. "With nothing but that pathetic jumpsuit."

The smile never left her lips.

"Tell me." She took another step forward. "When did you first realize nobody was coming for you?"

 

[QS-022]

Location: Detention Blocks - ISD Resolute
Tag: Annie Scalora
Attire: Prisoner Jumpsuit

QS-022 had been alone for two hours before she registered the familiar, thumping cadence of synth-leather boots. The blast door leading into her detention block slid open with a sharp mechanical hiss. She rose from the bench and snapped to attention, her conditioned stormtrooper instincts activating despite the garish white-and-orange jumpsuit that now covered her frame, which she had been ordered to wear by the Imperial fleet troopers.

A female ISB lieutenant stepped inside the block, accompanied by a pair of Imperial fleet troopers. Pale eyes fixated her for a few moments as the ex-stormtrooper held herself rigidly at attention. QS-022 did not return the stare. And yet, while her night-blind Hapan eyes struggled to pick out details in the dim light, she saw a smile appear on the lieutenant’s lips when she recited her operating number.

QS-022 thought that she should have been relieved. A smile was a good thing. Instead, a creeping sensation tracing down her spine as the lieutenant spoke, the smile never leaving her lips in the process.

She realized then that she felt fear.

Blood suddenly drained from QS-022’s cheeks, her features losing much of their color. However, that was the only outward sign she gave of her emotions as her conditioning kicked in, shunting the stress response into neural backchannels so that her mind and body remained functional. She stayed perfectly still, listening intently.

She understood then that the lieutenant had read her file prior to her visit.

“I was told, on at least four separate occasions, that nobody was coming to extract the remnants of my unit,” QS-022 said, her voice carrying soft and steady. “I did not listen until I woke up and realized that I was alone in the outpost.”