Private My Heart is a Hollow Plain

[Onrai]

“Then I suppose one of said curated list of individuals will have to do.” Vanessa was visibly frustrated, but unwilling to attempt to project her frustrations halfway across the galaxy and crush the technologically advanced glass jar the brain was in, she simply terminated the conversation. Two thoughts flickered through her mind - the first was that she could get in touch with the Emperor, whose position ensured he would be able to get Adrian in contact with Vanessa and confirm whether this was an impostor or not. The alternate thought that ran through her mind was to contact the Inquisition, and see whether or not one of them could get the necessary point of contact made.

This however soon fell by the wayside as she heard more clearly the words routed through the bloodtroopers’ audio receptors in their encompassing helmets.

I think you know that you could do better than what she has to offer.

A Force-enhanced fist would shatter the transparisteel some several dozen stories up from the hangar floor as her anger flared, reaching a poimt she had not experienced in years. Neither the treachery of Ayra, nor getting baked alive in an oven by Gilamar Skirata, nor being humiliated by Rave Merrill, nor even spending decades surviving against the monsters and abominations of the Unknown Regions in shame had incited a level of anger like what she just felt. It was that same anger which brought the Darkwhip to her hand as she leapt from the shattered vestibule, falling from a significant height before coming to a firm landing whose clang resonated loudly throughout the hangar.

“How dare you.”

She began to slowly walk towards the pair, veins of her neck engorged with the heated blood of her frustration. “How dare you have the audacity to stand in front of my apprentice - the apprentice I have done my damnedest to mold into the best Sith I can produce in my image - and tell her that she can do better than what I have to offer.” Soon the bloodtroopers, visibly shocked at her actions, stepped aside as she stood before the duo.

”Take your ship, take your bodyguards, take your amulets and charms, and leave. Do not linger in the system, do not double back to the hangar. Leave. You are not welcome in this sector of space. Emperor’s wrath come down on me for saying this to a Dark Councilor, but I will not allow someone who spits in my face and attempts to steal my best apprentice, or any of my apprentices, to remain in this star system.”

Her eyes gleamed yellow, the first time Inanna would have ever seen such from her master, as she readied herself to activate the Darkwhip. She was more than prepared to at least try to cut down “Adrian,” his guards, and whatever else was alive on that ship if he so much as attempted to resist.

Inanna Harth

 

[Inanna Harth]

Onrai

Sensing her master’s fury, Inanna whirled around to face Vanessa as she landed in the hangar. Adrian stood at her back, coolly observing the enraged woman as she ordered him to leave.

“Moulded in your image?” he echoed, scoffing. It was sorely tempting to add, Why, now I have to save her!, but he refrained from utilizing Vandiir’s abrasive Corellian sense of humor. Instead he replied, “Not to worry, Triumvir. I had no intention of staying here to begin with. What your apprentice decides to do matters little to me.”

With that, he turned and headed back aboard his ship, the two bodyguards falling into step behind him as he ascended the ramp. Inanna’s gaze flicked uncertainly between him and her master.

“...if I wanted to leave, would you even let me go?” she asked Vanessa. Though her gaunt, pallid features hadn’t changed, in that moment she seemed to regress back into the waifish child-woman she had been, an image reinforced by the white fluff of Elfangor cradled in her arms.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted two figures entering the hangar bay. Ayreon marched forward with a lawman’s swagger, while Hal Yomin, an overflowing box of books and electronics in his hands, stepped carefully over the shards of broken transparisteel leftover from Vanessa’s grand re-entrance. As Ayreon met Inanna’s eyes, she realized the identity of the “concerned friend” who had supposedly contacted Adrian Vandiir. She had confided everything in him, the loyal machine—every shred and scrap of information she learned about her master, from the experiments that put even Arrius Messala to shame, to Vanessa's frightful longevity and seemingly limitless power and resources, to the violent “breaking” and subsequent poisoning Inanna was subjected to on her very first day of training. Inanna’s regret, her guilt, her fear and loathing and bitterness were all stored away in his memory banks. Yet she had never expected that he would not only talk without being ordered to, but labor behind her back to save her.

She assumed she had no friends of that caliber. How wrong she was.

"We are ready to leave when you are," Ayreon said.

 

[Onrai]

Once the apparent Sith Lord had returned to the interior of his ship, Vanessa looked at Inanna, her rage slowly but surely subsiding even as it continued to simmer under her flesh. Her eyes returned to their natural color as she opened her lips, speaking quietly. "That's not Vandiir." She said, quiet enough that only Inanna would likely be able to hear her. "I don't know what this is, but this is some attempt to try and convince you to go with these people. Don't."

In response to Inanna's inquiry, Vanessa again thought for a moment, and prepared to respond, only for Ayreon's arrival to alter her own point of attention to him. "No." She said. "You're not going with him." She looked at Inanna. "It would be incredibly irresponsible for me to allow you as your master to walk into what is almost certainly some sort of trap. If I believed you were yet at the level of training to defend yourself from whatever his predations could have been, I would let you go after telling you what that was." She replied.

She sighed. "Tell me you aren't going to abandon me and render all I have done to help develop you worthless. Please."

Inanna Harth

 

[Inanna Harth]

Onrai

It wasn’t Vandiir?

Inanna liked to think that she wasn’t naive. She certainly didn’t think that she had reached a point of desperation so lowly and pathetic that she believed only what she wanted to believe. Even she had to admit that Adrian’s motives and methods seemed strange and suspicious. At the same time, she had doubts about her doubts. She didn’t know Vandiir that well, after all. This behavior could be perfectly within his character.

Vanessa didn’t know him all that well, either. If she had, she most likely wouldn’t have felt the need to confirm his identity through other channels. She would have known immediately that this wasn’t him and blasted the impostor out of the airlock.

But suppose it was an impersonator. Who, then? What person would go through all this trouble?

She glanced at Ayreon. “Is it true?” she asked. “Is that not Adrian Vandiir?” After all, he had masterminded the entire affair.

He shrugged. “I’ll tell you everything I know after we leave,” he replied.

To his mind, Inanna’s decision was a foregone conclusion. She wasn’t going to stay here. She couldn’t. His psychology protocols had judged the master-apprentice relationship between her and Vanessa to be unhealthy and unbalanced. He was simply acting in his owner’s best interests.

"Tell me you aren't going to abandon me and render all I have done to help develop you worthless. Please."

Inanna hated being forced to decide. She could never be sure which choice was the right one, and she frequently wondered afterwards how things might have been different if she had picked a different option, walked another path, gone with someone else. The Jedi at the Temple on Coruscant had told her to “search her feelings” in order to reach self-understanding, and yet she had struggled even with that.

But now she opened herself to the Force, felt the eddy and flow of energies around and within. There was Elfangor curled up against her chest, a little beast of instinct dominating primitive thought; Vanessa before her, her Dark rage faded but still lingering; the living presence of Hal and the mechanical void of Ayreon. Inside the ship there was Adrian, a bright light that gave off no warmth. And beside him…

Inanna’s eyes widened. She turned and ran up the ramp without saying another word. Her mind was occupied not with thoughts of escaping the station, but of laying eyes on the presence she had felt and confirming that it really was—

All eyes fell upon her as she burst into the interior of the yacht. She was caught off guard by how many were familiar faces. People she had known and worked with over the years. Friends and a few acquaintances. But her gaze was focused on the little girl with dark eyes and a mane of unruly curls. She had grown in the two years since Inanna had last seen her, but she recognized Miri’s Force aura from the weeks they had spent together on the Scintilla, waiting for the girl’s father to return. Her small hand was resting on Adrian’s arm as if she was trying to reassure him.

Inanna blinked. The picture before her was impossible. The spell had been broken. She knew what was really going on... and she had made her decision.

“Get us the hell out of here,” she said.

The pilot immediately turned away, looking at the console before her as she primed the engines. “Adrian” breathed a sigh of relief. Inanna promptly marched over to the captain’s chair and slapped him across the face with enough force that he saw stars.

“That’s for getting my hopes up,” she snapped. Then, straightening, she asked, “Wait for Hal and Ayreon. I won’t leave without them.”

"They're not coming with us," Nimdok replied, still wearing Adrian's guise. "Someone has to pilot your ship, remember?"

 

[Ayreon]

Onrai

Ayreon had remained where he stood, watching as Inanna ran inside the yacht, before Hal’s voice reached his ears.

“Hey, you bucket of bolts! Let’s get the hell out of here! I need somebody who knows how to pilot this thing!”

Ayreon turned to find that the Zeltron had already run to the other end of the hangar, where Inanna’s courier was parked. The HRD blinked, remotely causing the courier’s doors to unlock with a cheerful chirping sound that echoed in the vast space. Hal practically dove inside, throwing his box of office supplies and books in ahead of his body.

As the yacht’s engines roared to life, Ayreon finally headed for the courier on his own—though he kept a photoreceptor out for in case Vanessa decided to make him the target of her fury.

He fully expected deactivation and dismemberment in his near future, if not total destruction. After all, his plan had involved stealing the private property of AMCO and helping someone else pretend to be him. Once Vandiir discovered this plot, the HRD's days would be numbered.

At this point, he simply preferred not to cease functioning at the hands of the woman who had caused Inanna Hoole such emotional turmoil.

 

[Onrai]

"No, It's not." Vanessa responded after the droid answered her. This was clearly some sort of setup as Vanessa had seen, such confirmed by the automaton's shifty response to her own apprentice. However, she did not expect her apprentice to run off into the ship. With but a motion of her hand, one of the bloodtroopers would use the discharge capacitors in his suit to mimic Force Lightning, moving to electrocute the human replica droid as the other threw his now activated lightsaber at the engines of the courier. The ship would not be leaving the hangar. The deck officer in the control room, seeing the activation of weapons, immediately set the entire station on alert, and weapons exterior and hangar-based were primed in preparation to destroy both vessels were they to attempt to escape the complex. Phase Zero Assault Troopers soon exited the door with orders from their sergeant to fire on the starships' engines were they to attempt to take off.

Vanessa herself had set off through the still-unclosed boarding ramp into the ship, Darkwhip still in her hand. She pursued her apprentice past others she did not know, ready to gouge their face with her fingernails or lash them across their cheek with the barbs of the still-inactive Dark Side weapon. She stopped upon catching the sight of Inanna, the imposter Adrian, and a young girl who she felt was a source of the unusual and artificially generated Force presence on board. Still she had not yet activated her weapon as she focused on dominating the mind of the pilot, her words clearly dictating the actions she was attempting to influence him to do.

"Vent all fuel from this ship and disable the cockpit controls." Such would not only ensure the ship could not take off, but would also ensure no one could simply head to the cockpit and attempt to override the venting process. She looked at the fake Adrian. "You son of a schutta, what have you done to my apprentice?" She angrily waved the whip in his direction. "And who are you? You're not Adrian Vandiir..."

Inanna Harth

 

[Ayreon]

Gear: Ayreon’s jumpsuit | Last Whisper suppressed blaster | SH-9 slugthrower pistol

Engaging: Onrai ‘s bloodtroopers and Phase Zero Assault Troopers

As lightning arced toward him, Ayreon thanked the maker that he had thought to purchase an electricity-resistant jumpsuit for just such an occasion. The lightning glanced off the armor and he was able to dive into cover behind some storage crates before he absorbed too much of the discharge.

Hal felt the courier rattle as the thrown lightsaber sliced through the engines. He considered staying where he was and hoping he didn’t get killed. “Fething hell,” he muttered, opening the door and taking his box with him as he exited the vehicle.

Ayreon glimpsed the door opening out of the corner of his eye. “Get down!” he ordered, not sure if the troopers pouring into the hangar would start shooting at them. Hal immediately flattened on his stomach, his eyes darting uncertainly, before he scrambled into cover beside Ayreon, abandoning his box.

“You should have stayed in the courier, Hal,” the HRD muttered as he unholstered his slugthrower pistol. Holding the weapon in his hand, he was reminded of why he was so loyal to his current owner; Inanna Hoole had unlocked his combat subroutines. “Keep very, very still and don’t make a sound.”

Hal did as he was told. With reflexes that rivaled that of a Jedi, Ayreon took aim at the bloodtrooper who had tried to electrocute him and opened fire, shooting at his chest in a rapid burst of silenced slugs. After emptying his cartridge, he darted back into cover to reload, hearing a satisfying pair of thuds as the bloodtrooper and one of his comrades hit the ground.

 

[Inanna Harth]

Onrai

The pilot looked Vanessa up and down as she attempted to command her via the Force, then snorted. “You crazy sarlacc, do you really think I’m gonna take off as long as you’re aboard? You’ll kill us all before we get past the asteroid field!”

“Bithia!” Nimdok hissed. “Don’t provoke her!”

The pilot rolled her eyes. She had no aura to speak of—in fact, she manifested as almost a complete blank in the Force. While she could be hit by telekinetic attacks, she was certainly immune to Dominate Mind.

Inanna stepped forward, perhaps intending to protect the others. “Vanessa, please,” she said, trying to reason with her former master. “These are all old friends of mine. I trust them. They only tricked you because... well..."

"Because you left us no choice," Nimdok explained, his manner of speaking his own even as he continued to use Vandiir's form and voice. "Since Inanna feared how you would react if she asked to end her apprenticeship, our plan was to trick you into believing Inanna had chosen another master, Adrian Vandiir—someone you would have reason not to openly attack. As you are currently proving her fears were not unfounded, I'd say our treachery was wholly justified."

"Let us go peacefully," Inanna pleaded. "My friends have done nothing to you except wound your pride.”

 

[Onrai]

Outside, the two bloodtroopers got up, chest armor dented by the impact of the slugthrower on their torsos. The two, combining their repulsors which mimicked the use of Force Push, shoved against the crates. It was a good deal of Force, equivalent to a pair of Knight-level Force users shoving against the crates, which in theory would send the crates - and likely those hiding behind them - into the far wall. More Dark Troopers, both cyborg and fully machine, were flooding into the hangar now, including the dreaded Oppressor-15s were ready to unload upon the duo with their heavy repeating blasters. A squad of Dark Troopers headed to the courier itself, moving to enter it and ensure the vessel would be secured.

-

"You're damn right I will. Shut this thing off! Now!" She yelled back at the pilot, her hostility nearly bubbling into outright anger as small sparks were emitted from the end of the Darkwhip, her drawing upon the Dark Side involuntarily nearly activating the weapon without her even focusing on doing such.

Vanessa listened as Nimdok babbled on before she responded. "I left you no choice? I went through methods I have only used to help one other person to give Inanna the power to free herself from her most potent addiction, to force her body to reject that which has worn away at her detrimentally for Gods know how long. Over the last few months I have done my best to turn her from an easily pushed around, frail woman into someone I am proud to call my apprentice." She said, a bit of bile in her mouth swallowed. "If you thought I would be unwilling to fight and kill a Dark Councilor just because he outranked me, you would be wrong. Inanna has no reason to fear me - I am her master, not her warden or her torturer."

She looked over at Inanna with a pained expression on her face, clearly hurt by the woman's apparent duplicity. "I know you had no idea what was going on until that droid of yours senselessly went into "save my owner" routines. But I can't let your friends leave. Your associate's piss-poor presentation of himself as Adrian, shall we say, persuaded me to get in touch with the real Adrian Vandiir." She said. "I have no doubt that he'll want to find out who it was that duplicated the identification codes for his personal yacht and was able to mimic his Force presence. And of course if I let your friends go, that puts him in a position to interfere with my affairs." She sighed. "Which means I now have to keep all of you here in order to protect myself." She said. "That, or I have to come up with a plan where your friends can survive while I provide Adrian with the necessary evidence to ensure the case of impersonation is suitably closed."

She looked at Nimdok. "I highly recommend you pick the path of cooperation if you want this to end on a positive note."

Inanna Harth

 

[Ayreon]

Gear: Ayreon’s jumpsuit | Last Whisper suppressed blaster | SH-9 slugthrower pistol

Engaging: Onrai ‘s bloodtroopers and Phase Zero Assault Troopers

Having reloaded, Ayreon detected a ripple in the air as he stepped out of cover, imperceptible to the naked human eye, but perfectly visible to his photoreceptors. He grabbed Hal with one arm and carried the Zeltron away, the two barely missing the crates that would have squashed them against the wall if they had moved but a second later.

More troops were pouring into the hangar. If they were going to escape, it would have to be now. Direction was key—Ayreon had headed not toward the courier, but toward the yacht. Their position was now such that they were facing a group of dark troopers at the bottom of the ramp... who were already engaged in battle with the two armed guards who had flanked "Adrian" earlier on.

Seeking to take advantage of the distraction, Ayreon pressed toward them, the stunned Hal thrown over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. He barreled through, leaping on top of the ramp at a bizarre angle, holding Hal away from the blaster fire raining down on them. Though he couldn't feel pain, warnings flashed across his vision; he had sustained several direct hits and was badly in need of repairs. But as long as he could still run, he would keep going.

He burst into the vessel and set Hal down on a luxurious couch. The Zeltron was covered in sweat and on the verge of hyperventilating. "That's... we... we're alive?..."

But Ayreon's eyes were trained on the bridge, where he could hear the voices of Vanessa, Inanna, and "Adrian" arguing. He wirelessly connected to the ship, scanning it, looking for shields, weapons, anything he could use to their advantage... and discovered the presence of a fellow droid.

The pilot was of a wholly alien make and unknown design, but he was able to establish a crude remote connection between his mind and hers. The two began conversing rapidly, and through her he learned just how much danger they were still in...

 

[Inanna Harth]

Onrai

Nimdok guffawed. “‘Piss-poor’, eh? I thought my impersonation was quite authentic.”

“I’ll go to Adrian myself!” Inanna blurted, still trying to salvage the situation. “I’ll tell him what happened and take whatever punishment he metes out. After all, this was all done for my sake. You can tell him we managed to get away—surely it’s not impossible to believe that? Or… or lie and say that you dealt with us, and in the meantime let us go?”

Swallowing, she gathered her courage and her wits about her, then stood her ground. “I don’t want to be your apprentice anymore, Vanessa. This whole thing has convinced me fully. I have no more doubts. I’m grateful to you for what you've given me, but I can’t go on living like this.” She clutched the black velvet folds of her robes in her clenched fists. “Whatever you’re trying to mold me into—this isn’t who I am. I’m not happy here. If I was, Ayreon wouldn’t have tried to save me. You haven’t helped me become stronger—you’ve only taught me a few more tricks. I’m just as weak and timid as I always was… maybe even a bit more now that you’ve broken me.”

She hadn’t intended to subject Vanessa to an entire speech, but everything that had been building up inside her these past months was overflowing. Unable to stop herself, she kept going.

“You didn’t know that I had a close friend and colleague who happened to be a Zeltron when you subjected me to that tank of poison. You didn’t know that I had a droid companion with psychology programming and free rein to act on his own. You didn’t know that I had friends and people who cared about me—or if you did, you preferred to focus on the bad. To degrade me and defile me, violate my mind and break my spirit and try to change my very identity as you saw fit—who gave you the fething right to do that? I put my trust in you, and you trampled it the first chance you got!” She paused and shook her head, trying to keep her cool. It was difficult now, with the poison coursing through her veins making her quick to anger. When next she spoke, it was with cold assertion and defiance. “Nothing you say can make me come back to you. I’d rather die here and now than keep being your apprentice.”

“...What would be the terms of our surrender?”

Inanna whirled, glaring at Nimdok. He shrugged, one eyebrow raised. “I don’t gamble with lives other than my own. There's a ship full of people at stake here. Besides, I’d like to hear what the Triumvir is willing to offer.”

Neither noticed Bithia sitting in her chair, a strange expression on her face as she silently communicated with Ayreon. If worse came to worst, she wanted to be able to join in the fight, but someone had to mind the ship’s controls. Could Ayreon manage it while she launched herself into the fray?

 

[Onrai]

"Your impersonation was as authentic as a plastic squid." Vanessa snapped back before listening to her apprentice. Her heart unironically shattered at the words of Inanna, but soon she would respond.

"No. I have to come up with an amicable solution." She said. "That solution does not necessarily require anyone's death." She responded, growing more exacerbated in response to Inanna's statements.

"Then let me adapt how things have been going. You are as close to becoming a Sith Knight, or whatever our analogue is of Jedi Knight, as you can be. I don't want you to leave incomplete." She pleaded. "Your droid acted of its own volition in an attempt to save you from a danger that does not exist. I have taught you how to no longer wallow in a need for drink and instead drive yourself towards a goal - towards the pursuit of becoming someone instead of being no one. You are not weak and timid, Inanna - you are strong and studious. Your defiance, ironically, is more than a sign of that."

It was her next words that really pierced Vanessa's heart. "Your friends and people who cared about you let you wander into a Sith apprentice audition drunk off your fething rocker getting on stage and playing with stones like a child. I saw the potential you didn't see in yourself. I took drastic measures, which I in no way am proud to have had to use, in order to purge your ailments. Since the day I did what I had to do to stop you from being an inebriate, I have tried my absolute best to build you up. I have not degraded and defiled you. Anything I have heard from your mind was spat out by the noise of your own thoughts. Your spirit had to be broken or at least pressured for you to change from what you were into what you are now." She looked at Inanna. "I trampled nothing. I hated everything I had to do, the extremes I had to reach in order to be not half sure, not three quarters sure, but completely sure your demons would be purged. When the time was right, the effects of the bath would be dealt with and you would be able to... imbibe. Though I wouldn't recommend it."

The last words angered her. "Then if you are going to betray me, you are no better than the last apprentice I had before you who betrayed me as well. And I wholly expect you to betray more people in your lifetime with no regard for whether they've cared for you or not." She said, before turning to Nimdok.

"First..." She snapped her fingers. Immediately every single console in the cockpit of the yacht, as well as the control sticks, throttles, and every bell and whistle, were ripped out of their mountings, strewn across the floor. At least one or two would potentially whack Bithia as they were dislodged. Seeing damage to the cockpit, the two bloodtroopers put their lightsabers to use on the yacht's engines as they had with the courier, ensuring there would be no way for the craft to leave the hangar now. "Just had to make sure. As for terms of your surrender, it's quite simple: you surrender to me. All of you." She said, eyes, wandering to Inanna. "All of you will be taken to cell blocks. and remain there for the evening until these ships are cleared from the hangar bay. Tomorrow I will meet with you and we will determine where to go from there - whether I leave you to Adrian, whether I attempt to provide him something else, or whatever else happens."

She looked over at the frightened Miri. "Oh... and one other thing. I know about Miri. From Inanna's shotgunned spread of thoughts, I know that this Sith named Messala has apparently experimented on... your daughter, I believe it was? Disgusting, experimenting on a child... It might surprise you to know I share the same distaste for this man's actions you and Innana do. There are two courses of action I can take, one of which I will take depending on what you want. Either I can use some of my older experimental work to stabilize her artificially imbued Force powers, as I once did with an old partner of mine, or I can work on finding a means of eliminating her powers somehow - such will take time, but is theoretically feasible. Which do you want?"

The Darktroopers would begin to make their way into the yacht, weapons at the ready.

Inanna Harth

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

Onrai

Sensing the ripple of energy in the Force, Nimdok instinctively pulled Miri closer to him. The girl cried out in fear as the consoles exploded around them. Bithia cringed as bits of metal and wire and sparks struck her skin, but not so much from pain as from frustration and anger. She stood up in her chair, picking pieces of shrapnel out of her already regenerating flesh, and moved to stand with the rest of the group as Vanessa named her terms.

Inanna’s situation would not change. She would proceed to knighthood. This she supposed she could bear a little while longer, though the relationship between her and Vanessa was damaged beyond repair.

Bithia and Ayreon were machines. She harbored a human soul, true, but her own possible physical destruction wasn’t something she minded. All of her concern was focused on Nimdok and Miri, her former husband and daughter. Ayreon, leaking blue coolant from his wounds, recognized that he could no longer be of any assistance to Inanna. Hal, who still couldn’t believe he had survived this long, figured his role in all this was small enough that he would get by all right.

It was Nimdok who stood with the most to lose. He had a history with Adrian Vandiir—nothing as complicated as Inanna’s, but the two had encountered each other some years ago on a far-flung planet in the Outer Rim, when Adrian was only a Knight and Miri wasn’t even in the picture yet. He would prefer not to have to deal with Vandiir again, but part of him wondered if he was better off hedging his bets on the Dark Councilor rather than the unknown temperament and uncertain motives of the Triumvir.

Merely hearing the Sith woman say his daughter’s name was enough to make his skin crawl. Of all the terms she could have offered, meddling with his little girl was the most intolerable of them all. At least Vanessa’s intentions were good… on paper, anyway.

“You claim to be disgusted by Messala’s actions, yet you want to experiment on Miri again?” he retorted. “And why should I trust a Sith? How do I know this isn’t a ploy to corrupt or curse my daughter with the Dark Side? I want to know everything this ‘older experimental work’ of yours will do to her.” He wanted to get them out of there as soon as possible, but if he had to wait in order to avoid tainting Miri with the Dark, he would rather have her powers removed entirely than subject her to Sith treachery.

Meanwhile, the two bodyguards who had given Ayreon and Hal a chance to escape succumbed to battle. Inanna felt them die, but there was no time to mourn.

She became aware of the presence of at least six others on the ship, hidden in the bedroom suite. They were there purely for show—posing as Adrian Vandiir’s concubines and other servants should the need arise. (Ayreon had certainly done his research when it came to Vandiir’s lifestyle…) After the engines exploded and the electronics in the ship were ripped out, they deserted their hiding place, fearing the vessel was about to be destroyed.

The first familiar face Inanna beheld exiting the suite was that of Tahiri Levine, one of her former employers. A middle-aged woman holding back the years with cosmetic treatments and blonde hair dye, she led this late group of non-combatants out and into the open. “Just what the hell is going on here?” she demanded, her Coruscanti accent thick.

“We’re surrendering,” Inanna replied miserably. “Don’t worry, they’ll probably go easy on you.”

 

[Onrai]

Vanessa looked as everyone got together, determining just what exactly was going to occur next. She looked over each of them and soon settled down, in preparation for what Vanessa would be doing next. “I wasn’t the one who experimented on your daughter in the first place, Nimdok.” Now that she knew he was Miri’s father, the name was placed even as the visage had not changed. “However I have some experience in these matters and know what happens when inferior experimentation, especially on those who are developing physically, is incomplete. Her instability in the Force will harm herself or others, and such a chance increases the longer she is left in this state.” Vanessa replied, loathing that Messala had experimented so sloppily that he had allowed this to occur - though she did feel pity for the girl as well.

“I’m going to put her in the Reborn machine. It’s a machine that uses the power from the Force Nexus of Malachor V within the Trayus Laboratory to, in concert with certain special crystal types, imbue an individual with power in the Force artificially. There’s a reason she feels “wrong” in the Force. Theoretically, this device should effectively “overwrite” the results of Messala’s experimentation and leave your daughter in a stable state. It unironically takes a few minutes compared to however long such torments were pushed on her.”

she looked at the other woman who had come out. “What Inanna said. Surrender is happening. And if there is more I can do to fix the... idiosyncrasies that have been occurring, such will be more visible tomorrow when I don’t have the risk of a Dark Councilor breathing down my back as the first thing in my mind.”

Inanna Harth

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

Onrai

Nimdok knew of the Reborn. They were all Dark Sided, though he and all the experts had long theorized their alignment had more to do with their being members of a Sith cult. No, the Dark was simply a manifestation of one’s inner darkness… and he felt no such taint within Miri.

He looked down at the girl, gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and met Vanessa’s gaze. “If you try anything else, you will regret it. In this life or the next.”

With that, he grasped the talisman hanging around his neck, yanked it off, and tossed it at Vanessa, assuming she would catch it. His form shifted into that of a pointy-eared man who was shorter, lankier, and less pleasing to the eye than Vandiir—Nimdok, who had once been described as looking like “everyone’s accountant”, now stood on the bridge in his typical guise. Had she not already learned his name from probing Inanna’s thoughts, he would have stayed in Adrian’s form for as long as possible, hiding his true identity from everyone. Which would have been… interesting, to say the least, but now it was no longer practical to keep up the masquerade.

Perhaps now, without the talisman to obscure his aura, Vanessa could sense the two souls inhabiting his body, separate and yet interlinked. Or perhaps not—he tended to keep his mind quite guarded, his willpower on par with that of the real Vandiir.

“I officially declare this operation a failure,” Nimdok said. “We surrender to you, Triumvir.”

 

[Onrai]

Vanessa smiled at the capitulation of the Shi’ido. She ignored the man’s idle threats and simply enjoyed her victory - her treacherous apprentice and her merry band of friends had been stopped and appropriately dealt with. The Darktroopers would begin to lead the group out of the yacht and to the elevator, taking them to the prison level for processing. Vanessa took the amulet and nodded - this would certainly be one piece of the puzzle that she could more effectively utilize. Now the question was what else to do - so many of them were broken or twisted. There were a great many things she could do in order to appropriately resolve the situation. Once the prisoners were all in their individual cells - with the exception of Miri, who shared Nimdok’s cell -

Inanna however would not be taken by the prisoners. Instead Vanessa offered her hand to the wayward apprentice, a legitimate tear forming at the corner of her eye. “Even after all you’ve said and done, and even after this entire convoluted plan to ‘liberate’ you from nothing, I am still willing to let bygones be bygones and continue your training. You have no idea how much you’ve hurt me with your words and actions, but at this stage in your training, things are going to be getting a lot more... esoteric.” She replied.

A lot more esoteric indeed.

Inanna Harth

 

[Inanna Harth]

Onrai

Inanna stared back at Vanessa. She was still angry and frustrated, but for the sake of her friends’ lives, going along with Vanessa’s wishes seemed to be her only option.

She took her master’s hand. There was no genuine warmth in the gesture—Vanessa would see that if she looked into Inanna’s mind—but it was a gesture of cooperation nonetheless.

“I will finish my training,” she replied. “Enough to become a Knight, since you say I’m close to that point.” After that, she would leave Vanessa’s apprenticeship of her own free will. She wouldn’t let anything or anyone stop her.

For now, the foolishness of Ayreon and Nimdok’s failed masquerade had to be dealt with. If Vanessa wanted Inanna to stay on and finish her training, she would do well to treat her friends fairly.

 

[Onrai]

Vanessa would soon release the hand of her wayward apprentice, a sigh crossing her lips. “Once you become a Knight, you are out of my hands.” She said. “I will have done what I can. All you will be accountable to is the Emperor - and he is much less gracious than I am.”

She would direct Inanna to follow her as her associates were taken elsewhere. There they would eat a meal in silence before each retiring to their quarters.

-

The next morning, before Inanna had awoken, her associates would hear the sound of the door to the holding cells open, Vanessa herself striding in seemingly pepped and happy. “Good morning, everyone. It’s time to begin the... appropriate dealing of the situations.” She would initially point at Ayreon’s cell, the damaged droid finding himself motioned out by Vanessa, who would lead him to another room.

“You were the architect behind this, so I’m going to have to deal with you directly.” Vanessa would focus her talents of Mechu Deru upon the automaton, seeking to disconnect him from the control circuits for his arms and legs and essentially leave him a quadriplegic machine. “You won’t be able to resist at this point. I’m going to be extracting your digitized personality and putting it in an isolated computer core. Inanna will be able to upload you into a new body down the line, preferably one better than this.”

Inanna Harth

 

[Ayreon]

Onrai

Ayreon didn’t struggle as he was dragged out of his cell. Vanessa needn’t have bothered using the Force to restrain him; the damage done to his body last night had escalated to the point where he could hardly move. He had lost too much coolant and was reduced to low power mode.

As Vanessa spoke to him, he managed to raise his head. He wasn't going to wind up in the scrap heap? This was unexpected. He had thought this would be the end of him. Since he had no emotions, he couldn’t feel fear or discomfort at the idea of being transferred to an isolated computer core. It was simply another place of residence for his consciousness, so to speak. He supposed he might grow bored with nothing to do in there, but that couldn’t be helped.

The HRD submitted to the transferral without a hint of defiance, certain that he had no true personality to risk losing even if Vanessa was lying. Losing his memories would be regrettable, but an eventual memory wipe was inevitable anyway. His only regret was being interrupted before his priority mission was completed…

//////////EXTRACTION INITIATED
////…
///…
/////////EXTRACTION COMPLETE
/////SHUTDOWN IMMINENT...

 

[Inanna Harth]

Onrai

Moments after Vanessa disappeared into the other room with Ayreon, Inanna crept into the holding area. Judging from her tired, unkempt appearance, she hadn’t slept at all during the night. She walked past the cells, checking to make sure everyone was accounted for and safe.

The first one she passed held Tahiri Levine. Her arms crossed over her chest, the bleached blonde regarded Inanna with a look of bland boredom. “I hear the girls and I are gonna get fined,” she remarked. “Maybe even sued. Lucky I thought to get us all Sith-Imperial citizenship in advance, or else we’d just be fodder for their research programs. Fething bastards.”

Inanna didn’t offer a reply as she headed past her. The next cell held Bithia, who was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. “I’m sure I could get us out of here,” she said, speaking quietly to Inanna through the barrier. “But to have the strength to do it, I’ll need to feed soon.”

“What do you eat?” Inanna asked.

“Thoughts and memories.” She pressed as close to the wall of energy as she could. “Doesn’t matter whose. If you really want to help us…”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Inanna replied, already moving on.

She reached Nimdok, who was holding vigil over a sleeping Miri. Sensing Inanna’s presence, he turned around and stood up, walking over to face her. “What are they doing with your droid?”

“Transferring him into a computer core,” she replied. “His body is too badly damaged, and Vanessa insists it isn’t ideal anyway. He’ll be alright—he can’t feel pain or suffer.”

“Hmmm,” he rumbled, stroking his jaw. Raising his eyes again, he gave her a thin smile. “Was my impersonation of Vandiir really that bad?”

“You certainly had me fooled for a little while,” she said with a snort. Her mirth quickly faded. “But then I’m everyone’s fool.”

Nimdok sighed. “Your mind being open to the Triumvir’s scrutiny meant you had to be kept in the dark. We couldn’t tell you anything, or our whole plan would’ve been discovered prior to launch.” His brow furrowed as he scrutinized her. “If it truly had been Adrian Vandiir who came to see you yesterday, would you have gone with him?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Ayreon said you were obsessed with him. He was the one who suggested I pretend to be him.”

She hesitated. “Why wouldn’t I be a little bit obsessed? I ruined my own life because of him.”

Looking at her with pity in his eyes, Nimdok said, “I’ve spoken with your family, Inanna. Your father may still be angry and upset about what you did, but he understands why you did it. Your mother and your brothers have been looking for you…”

“Don’t,” she whispered, swallowing the lump forming in her throat. “It’s too late for that now.” Taking a step away from the cell barrier, she added, “I spoke to Vanessa earlier. She wanted to do much worse to you, but I think I managed to talk her down. I intend to… speak to Adrian Vandiir soon, and try to convince him to let this matter go.”

“Will he listen to you?”

She shook her head. “It will depend on what I have to offer him. Like I said, I’m already in his debt…”

“What are you going to offer him?” Nimdok pressed.

“Whatever he asks for.” She took another step backwards, then nodded to Miri, who was starting to wake up. “I will never understand why you insist upon bringing her everywhere with you, including dangerous missions.”

“I don’t have much of a choice.” He pointed in the direction of Bithia’s cell. “If anything happens to me, make sure Bithia gets Miri out of here. I’m sure she’ll do a better job keeping her safe than I ever did.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” Inanna promised, before slipping away into the shadows.