Progeny of the Despised

[Darth Carnifex]

​

Bastion
Capital of the Sith Empire

Ravelin had transformed into a sprawling metropolis since the Sith returned to Bastion.

Spires of glittering steel and glass rose high into the sky to caress the clouds, and what had once been ruin and degradation was wiped away and reborn through the architectural genius of the Sith engineers. Their mark was left on the entire city as the structural designs gradually became more and more angular, symmetric, and wholly reflective of the ancient ruins found deep in the Stygian Caldera.

No structure was more glaringly Sith than the monolithic Palace of the Dark Side.

A massive edifice to the power of the Dark Side three kilometers tall, the Palace dominates Ravelin's skyline and can be seen from nearly every corner of the city. It is the home of the Dark Lord of the Sith and the highest administrative hierarchy of the Empire, with several thousand occupying its halls at any given time. The highest levels of the Palace were reserved for the Dark Lord, his family, and his apprentices.

That was where the Dark Lord awaited the arrival of his apprentice, [member="Calina Ovmar"], in one of the antechambers. Possible adventure awaited.

 

[Lina Djo]

The palace of the Dark side was testimony to the Dark Lord of the Sith and his ego. Like the majority of the sith, modesty was not at all in his nature, power was accentuated by glaring monuments, voluptuous displays of wealth and an overbearing arrogance. Calina had to hand it to them though, eyes tracing the lines of the city beneath her, Ravelin reflected the Empire and its achievements with a dark beauty.

"...The fact still remains that by shutting down these operations we are laying off hundreds of staff." Calina sighed looking back at the array of holoimages before her. Faces Anaya had put into power on Apoleia's board, faces that needed to be scoured from her future. "If you close these clubs we will lose billions in revenue." A rodian growled.

"No," she replied smoothly. "You, will lose billions in revenue. Billions that you have been scraping merrily off the top that Anaya was too blind to see because she didn't care, so long as she could waltz around like she owned every fething planet, what did it matter." the rodian spluttered but she cut across him. "I have evidence of it, any denials will only make you look worse." all the holograms shifted uncomfortably. "She turned back to the mon cal that had spoken of the staff. "I don't want to lay off the staff, people i can re-purpose. Have a manifest of all of those who are not working directly within the clubs made up, those who are working there will be sold on with the premises."

Outrage exploded from all of them then and Calina held up a hand to silence them as a knock rapped on the door. "Enter." she called. The door opened revealing one of Kaine's black guards. They didn't need to speak. She turned back to the conference. "We will reconvene later." Before any of them could make any more noise beyond the splutters of outrage, Calina terminated the call and collected her lightsaber from the desk clipping it to her belt.

Wordlessly she swept from the room, clicking the door closed behind her and following the guard the the antechamber the Dark Lord awaited her within. She knocked twice then entered. "Master," she bowed her head. "You wished to see me?"

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

His head turned to face [member="Calina Ovmar"] as she entered. "Indeed, apprentice."

There were several guards posted in the room, two for every doorway, and at his command they turned and left to leave the master and the apprentice alone together. Carnifex reached for a small holocommunicator clipped to his belt and held it up for Calina to see, though there was nothing overtly interesting about it physically. His thumb grazed the activation key and the device whirred to life before producing a small three-dimensional image of a Mandalorian warrior in gray-green armor with scraps of black cloth and lightsabers hanging from his person.

"This is a member of the Force Hunter cult, a fanatic warband of Mandalorians who have been a thorn in the Empire's side since before its formation. They despise the Force, especially the Sith, and have gone to great lengths to curtail our efforts in expanding west of the Braxant Run. For months we've been unable to pin them down in open battle, the cowards turn tail and run at the first sight of opposition and content themselves on targeting civilians and trade convoys. That changed today."

He pressed another button and a recording of a naval battle played out before Calina, with several Star Destroyers pounding a ragtag flotilla of frigates and cruisers into molten slag. "We managed to catch a raiding party off-guard near Borosk. The entire enemy fleet was reduced to scrap, but we still managed to acquire several prisoners for interrogation. They're being brought here... for you."

An interesting turn of events, but it was obvious that the Dark Lord intended to test his apprentice on her ability to extract information from unwilling and generally belligerent individuals. After that? It was impossible to say what Carnifex had in store for his pupil.

 

[Lina Djo]

The girl drew closer as the guards departed and Kaine produced a hologram of something she detested oh so very much. "I'm surprised they have time to assault us when they've force users amidst their own people. Isn't that what their Civil War is about? the desolation of their home world by a force user?" She smiled, not bothering to hide the fact that the mandalorians civil war pleased her immensely. She'd not forgotten her time in the mountain prison, nor would she forgive it anytime soon either. She watched with keen eyes as the recording of the battle played out before her, head tilting slightly, curious as to where this conversation was going.

Calina lifted her ice blue gaze to Kaine watching him intently as he outlined the purpose of all this. Fro a moment she said nothing, chewing the inside of her cheek in thought. She'd never interrogated anyone, never had the need. She had however inflicted pain through experiments, there was something oddly satisfying about pulling a person apart while they were breathing, learning which nerves produced the best reaction. But pain was not always the right tool, there were other ways she could glean information, gifts bestowed on her by her father, the ability to poke around in someone mind.

"If their fleet has been destroyed, then what information are you looking to gain from them?"

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"You would think. Some ran off to join Ra's renewed Crusade, but many others remained behind and decried Ra Viszla as a false prophet. These are the ones that pose the greatest danger to our Empire, renegades who are beholden onto to themselves and irrational beyond reason."

The far door opened and a pair of guards entered. Behind them were a group of four Imperial Dungeoneers escorting a mobile interrogation chair upon which the Mandalorian in question was restrained. Her helmet and armor was removed and her flesh already sported the scars of many battles, some of them sickeningly fresh. An IV drip was hooked up to her right arm, continuously pumping her full of mind addling agents and muscle relaxatives that kept her from forming coherent thoughts or moving her arms in her shackles.

"What you saw was a portion of their strength." The Force Hunters had taken many casualties from that engagement, but it was far from the crippling blow Carnifex wished to deal them. He still had no concrete idea where their main stronghold may lie, which is why he had insisted that any survivors from these skirmishes be brought in for intensive questioning. "Their true power lies beyond what we can see, their fortresses remain hidden. From what my sources have told me this particular individual may be the key to unlocking the location of these wretches, and through her may total victory be achieved. It would be all too easy for the Inquisitors to tear apart her mind and collate the contents of her shattered psyche, but if memory serves you had once suffered an indignity at the hands of the Mandalorians. Who better to help usher in the destruction of the Force Hunters than you, apprentice?"

[member="Calina Ovmar"]​

 

[Lina Djo]

A muscle in Calina's jaw twitched at the mention of her own troubles with the mandalorians and she swung her gaze to look at the prisoner. She understood action and consequence, but she had brought no action against the mandalorians and Ra himself had had her cast into a mountain prison, simply for being. Another thing she'd never forgiven Anaya for, leaving her to rot for months in any icy prison. It had been Velok the younger that had made a deal to get her out. Rage flashed across her eyes, enticing images of their destruction playing across her mind. How easy it would be to throttle this woman, to snuff her life out...

She blinked. Control was imperative for her survival and progression. She bottled her rage, battened down the hatches and moved forward towards the prisoner. Her eyes were glazed over, rolling occasionally into the back of her head muttering incoherently. For a long moment Calina simply observed, eyes tracing along fresh wounds, drinking in the details of her face. A hand reached behind Calina, pulling a chair towards her with the force and settling before the prisoner.

She reached forward, and stuck her thumb hard into a wound on the womans leg, the pain bringinging a scream from her lips, cutting through the drugs of the IV drip and making her look round to focus on Calina. "Hello." Calina said softly. "I'm going to give you one chance, and one chance only to tell me where your friends are hiding of your own free will," the womans eyes began to roll and Calinadug her thumb in deeper, drawing only moan of pain, but bringing her back from the effect of hedrugs all the same. "After that I will take it from you, through pain...or perhaps just by playing with your mind, I've not decided which will be more satisfying. Where are the rest of your force hiding?"

The mandalorian smiled. "Go to hell, dar'jetii." she slurred. Calina smirked in response, a blade sliding from her boot. A twi'lek dagger that had belonged to her mother. It flash upwards before slamming down into the top of the woman's thigh.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The Dark Lord took a backseat on this interrogation, lingering out of sight and out of mind as he observed Calina's work.

A scream was wrenched from the Mandalorian's throat as the Twi'lek dagger was driven deep into her thigh, dark blood welling up around the blade's edge before overflowing down her leg and onto the floor. It was quite a risk Calina wagered on such a maneuver, for her daggers slicing blade could knick any one of the important veins in the woman's leg and she'd bleed to death.

That wouldn't do at all.

Still, he had some confidence in her abilities to keep the subject alive for as long as possible. She was trained by him, after all.

The Mandalorian finally managed to quiet down, a low growl bubbling in her throat as her eyes stared daggers at her tormentor. "You'll get nothing out of me, tahla'ada. So do your worst. The blood of the Oya’karir beats loud in my breast, I will never succumb."

[member="Calina Ovmar"]​

 

[Lina Djo]

Calina watched the woman's face contort with pain, her scream ringing in her ears and felt her own heartbeat quicken, torn between the memories of her own pain and the revolt they brought with them, and the seemingly forbidden pleasure of causing pain to a mandalorian. She drew in a soft sharp breath head tilting, taking in every detail of her scream till it died to a gurgle in her throat. Calina's hand left the hilt of the blade, letting it rest where it was, blood running over the woman's thigh at a slow but steady pace.

Se ran her fingers through the blood and reached for the woman's face, smiling slightly at the way she jerked back, fingers painting red on her face, the fear was trembling beneath the surface of her defiance and Calina began to poke gently, easing her way between the cracks of her mental armour. "Yes you will." she whispered, hand returning to her new found paint as she decorated the woman's face with a mythosaur skull. "You will succumb because you're not stupid. Self preservation will always outweigh our desire to protect those we claim to love." Something in the woman's mind trembled a memory, a moment in history where self preservation prevailed, a choice between self sacrifice for the greater good and her own life. Calina seized it and yanked it to the forefront of her mind, feeling the shame and guilt that came with it.

"No? You don't want to do it this way? Very well. Let's see what happens when I play with what remains of your squad." A face swam in her mind, features similar to her own, young. Her child. Calina smile widened and she looked up to the inquisitors that had brought her along. "Bring me the youngest. Alert, if you will."

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The boy was no older than eleven, he couldn't have been.

Yet he wore the armor of a warrior, the histories of his forefathers singing through the reforged metal that hugged his tiny frame. It was often a great struggle for those who wished to fight against the Mandalorians, for even their children were considered warriors from a young age. The use of children as soldiers was seen as disgraceful and abhorrent, yet it was a common occurrence in the Outer Rim where the laws of rational men and women held no sway. Many could not bring themselves to end the life of a child, soldier or not.

The Dark Lord held no such reservations, and neither did his most ardent followers.

He was dragged in, shackled and weaponless, and made to stand before his mother and her tormentors. Defiance burned brightly in his youthful eyes, defiance tinged with adolescent fear. The woman's composure held for a moment, but it was close to breaking.

The bond between mother and son was strong, yet even it too could be made to serve another.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]​

 

[Lina Djo]

Calina felt a shiver of something run through her as the son was brought forward, was it hesitancy? Empathy for the pain he was about to endure for his mothers foolishness? It didn't manifest on her face, no Calina was too smart to allow that, especially under the keen gaze of the Dark Lord. The thought of him lurking and watching made her want to look round but she resisted, rising smoothly from her chair and towards the boy. She must act like he wasn't there, she must display only strength. She cupped his chin, smirking at the sound of rattled restraints as the woman struggled against them.

"You have your mother's eyes." she said softly, studying his face. His gaze was defiant, but his breathing heightened in fear. "I hope you are smarter than she though." She let go of his chin and began to circle him. "Where are the rest of your troublesome friends?" she asked. The boy stuck his chin out, kept his eyes fixed on his mother and said nothing. "If you don't tell me, I'm going to work my way through each of what remains of your squad and introduce them to suffering beyond there wildest imaginations."

"You don't scare me."

Calina laughed, stopping at his back. "Yes I do." she replied, stepping close behind him, hands sliding onto either side of his head, delving into his mind with the ease of a knife sliding through butter. She hammered him with pain, hauling memories of old wounds to the forefront of his mind and increasing the agony tenfold. Ice blue eyes fixed on the mother as her boy began to scream.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Predatory eyes watched with dark amusement.

Some would consider it cowardly to use one's own child against them, but the Dark Lord put little merit in their mewling. He wanted results, and if torturing the children of these wretched vermin in front of their own eyes was the price to pay to get what he wanted then he'd gladly do it a thousand times over.

Disregard the fact that he probably has.

"Better cave quickly, little Adiik be Manda'yaim. The more you resist, the greater his suffering." It was perhaps the only time that the Dark Lord would interject, his voice resonating over the anguished cries of the Mandalorian's child. Her gaze steeled, but her resolve was weakening bit by bit.

It wouldn't be long now.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]​

 

[Lina Djo]

Calian swallowed back bile as she wrenched at the boys mind, disgusted with herself, disgusted with the situation. More often than she liked she recognised her parents in herself and she loathed herself for it. But it was a necessary evil, she had to embrace and take what opportunities were placed before her, otherwise her plan would fail.

The Dark Lord's voice rose a shiver through her spine, but she did not relent. The boys legs gave way but Calina's attack did not relent. Eyes rolled into the back of his head. I'm going to shatter his mind, she thought, I'm going to break him.

"Your bases location. Now." Calina's voice sounded so cold. Like its and her body had taken up a life of its own in order to get through this moment. Pain was beginning to form behind her eyes. "Tell me."

The womans eyes flicked from her son, to Calina, to the Dark Lord and back again. He let out a piercing scream, pitching sideways twitching uncontrollably and Calina saw the resolve in his mother shatter, saw the terror envelop them. "Stop!" she shrieked. "I'll tell you, please stop!"

"The location first." Calina replied.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The mother breathed in deeply before exhaling in defeat, "Roviane, they're on Roviane."

Carnifex knew of the planet's location, it used to be part of the Primeval before that whole cult went belly-up following the Host Lord's death. It would be a trivial pursuit to dispatch a reconnaissance force to probe and see if the woman's claims proved true, but that could be done at a later date.

"There, that wasn't too hard was it?"

The Dark Lord loomed behind the Mandalorian child and pressed the emitter against the middle of his back, the fully ignited crimson blade skewering his torso and emerging out the front of his chest a moment later. The boy jerked forward, indescribable pain contorting his features as a gurgle of surprise bubbled past his lips, and then his eyes grew dim and he knew no more. The blade deactivated and the child slumped forward onto the floor, a small trickle of blood and spittle oozing from the corners of his mouth.

A scream tore itself free from the mother's throat, the woman rocking back and forth in the interrogation chair in both anger and grief as she rightly attempted to bust out of her restraints and throttle the Dark Lord where he stood.

Alas, the restraints held.

Carnifex only spared a mocking glance at the woman, "Take her back to the pits, she might still prove useful to me."

[member="Calina Ovmar"]​

 

[Lina Djo]

Calina relinquished her grasp on the boys mind, her own head throbbed horribly and blood trickled slowly from her nose. She felt the Dark Lord move forward, instinct made her step back, shrinking momentarily from centre stage and letting him take the proverbial podium. She caught the glitter of his lightsaber and cast her gaze away as the blade hissed to life punching a hole through the boys chest. Her chest tightened, the womans screams echoing in her ears, even as they hauled her from the chamber.

Calina's eyes settled on the corpse of they boy at the Dark Lord's feet, uncertainty coursing through her. Would she have done the same in his shoes? No. If the mandalorian proved to be lying, then they had lost their bargaining chip. Even if Calina worked her way through all of what remained of her squad there was no guarantee that by telling them the truth, her squad would live. So why would she bother?

Silence pressed upon her, reminding her she was not alone. A deep breath and Calina lifted her gaze to look at the Dark Lord, nose still bleeding freely. She made no move to wipe it away. Ice blue eyes could not hide their disapproval, she itched to speak up but she would only do so when she was invited. Perhaps this was part of his test, to see whether she'd learned to hold her tongue after all.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The molten cruelty of Carnifex's eyes locked with the icy disapproval of Calina's.

A chuckle broke the harsh silence, "You wear your feelings on your sleeve, Calina. The death of this insignificant child makes you uneasy, and in doing so you have failed the test I laid before you." Soon a pair of guards would come to collect the child's body, carelessly tugging it up by the arms and dragging it out of sight. "This challenge was never about the power of your mind, or your ability to coax information out of a captive. Your attachment to the lives of others was rested upon the scales of judgement, and you have been found wanting."

The Dark Lord turned to fully face her now, his lightsaber returning to its place at his side. "The woman's confession was inconsequential, I already know the location of her pitiful little band. I had known it for quite some time, their efforts to mask themselves has been woefully inadequate."

"Would you have killed the child if you were given the choice? Or would you have let weakness contaminate you?"

[member="Calina Ovmar"]​

 

[Lina Djo]

"Killing the child was an illogical move in my opinion and you call it weakness?"

Her voice was soft, eerily so despite the anger she could feel rising in her chest, spreading slowly like warmth from a fire. "I kill when it is necessary. To do so otherwise is a waste. That boy's mind could have been bent and broken to our will, a sleeper agent amidst the Force Hunters, hell even the Mandalorian Empire if we wanted too. That would have been more useful than him becoming a meat sack."

A hand reached to wipe the blood from her nose, before stepping closer. "If you had asked me to kill him. I would have, no questions asked, because who am I to deny the word of the Dark Lord?" Her utterance of his title was dangerously close to mockery "Had his fate been in my hands I would have made use of him and disposed of him when his usefulness had expired."

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

He scoffed, "The child was already broken, his mind enraptured by dogma and profane ideology. His death was necessary."

As if she knew anything about fate. The boy's thread ended here, he had seen it, heard it from the Oracle's mouth. There was nothing left in this world that he could have offered the Dark Lord, and so he had been discarded to oblivion. Many more would follow him, there would be a great convergence where the fate of many would end in blood and death. He too had seen that future, and he relished every moment that destiny hurtled towards the present.

"The Force Hunters will be rooted out and annihilated to every man, woman, and child within their ranks. Cancers such as theirs cannot be allowed to persist, for if even a single cell remained of the malignancy it would return to plague us yet again. And as for the Mandalorian Empire..." He smiled knowingly, "They will not be a concern, I have such matters taken care of."

[member="Calina Ovmar"]​

 

[Lina Djo]

Calina bit her tongue, eyes downcast an angry sigh passing through her nose. How was she expected to pass a test he'd designed for her to fail. Had she killed the not herself, she would have been punished for wasting his life. Or would she? Was that what Kaine wanted? A creature that killed without thought of question? A creature like her mother?

Whatever futile path that thought would take her down, his word regarding the Empire cut it short. She looked up, intrigue cutting through her anger. "With all due respect, My Lord, I prefer to view them as a large concern. Whatever it is you think you've done, whatever control you think you have cannot last. They've long memories and short tempers."

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Indeed, the Mandalorians have always been a concern to the Sith, but in ages past they were once allies and servants of the great Empires." That had been many thousands of years ago, but from what the surviving chronicles of the era detailed it had been the Mandalorians who served as the vanguard of the Sith Empire of Vitiate the Despoiler against the always hated Galactic Republic. The attack weakened the Republic for centuries, allowing the Empire to dominate them in their next war that culminated in the Sacking of Coruscant and the subsequent treaty.

"And with the return of Ra the Undying, the Mandalorians are now poised to strike fear into a galaxy that had forgotten what terror the name Mandalorian wrought across the stars. They will soon learn to know that resistance against the Dark Side will be utterly futile as the Light is eclipsed once and for all."

Everything was falling into place, with the puppet Ra Vizsla ruling over the Mandalorians with an iron fist and simultaneously wiping out all chance of someone discovering his manipulation there was nothing that could stop the machinations of the Sith.

[member="Calina Ovmar"]​

 

[Lina Djo]

"Ra hates us. Jedi and Sith alike."

Venom leaked into her voice, recollections of the cold dungeon cell rose goosebumps on her skin and she found irrational anger bubbling to close to the surface, irrational anger that let her tongue slip into old habits.

"What makes you so sure that he won't turn that terror against us?"

To question him, so aggressively, so openly could end in one of two ways. Praise for her boldness or punishment for thinking she could. But it was there now, hanging between them and Calina had so many more where it came from. "He's purging the force from his own people, what happens when he turns that cure on us...on you?"

[member="Darth Carnifex"]