// LOCATION // En Route To
Nirauan //
Hand Of Thrawn
// TIMELINE // Following the Congregation
// THEMATIC // LINK
Aboard the Imperial Force Corps HQ Command Ship The Nobilissimus
Sat crossed-legged and stripped down to body hugging tank top and trousers made from the same reinforced fabrics as a stormtrooper’s black armorweave body suit, the Chiss commander of the New Imperial Order’s Force Corps, hung her head down and panted heavy sighs. The exhales that fell from her dark blue lips were slow, methodically delayed, and purposely elongated to drag the strain and stress out of her body. Her long black hair dangled over her face in a thick curtain.
Beads of perspiration wept from her brow and trickle down to her chin before plummeting onto dark durasteel tiles, leaving a pattern of speckled botches in gap between her folded legs. The Chiss took in a long final breath and held it for a moment. Her eyes still closed, she suppressed the air in her lungs, denying them egress. The pressure made her body tense and she used it to steel her body, brutalizing it into a disciplined calm. Centered, she pursed her lips and let the compressed breath slither out in a silent expulsion.
She opened her eyes, and crimson surrounding bright red irises beamed from between the gaps of her dark locks. The panting subsided into silent breathing and she raised her head, straightening her back and rolling back her shoulders to loom erect over the space around her. Head high she took in one last inspection of the carnage she had created around her. The short-circuited mechanical corpses of five combat training droids lay strewn about the training chamber’s floor.
Their chest chassis crushed with a singular precise saber wound accompanying the cavity created. Their deaths were atypical compared to the other lightsaber force forms present in the galaxy, not as merciful as the Jedi, nor violently unwieldy like the Sith. It was clean, devoid of emotion, and tactically motivated. The Chiss made note of the minute details of self-criticism in her brutal work and quietly chastised herself with her thoughts.
Pressing her palms against her unfolding knees, she stood up onto her feet. While she did so, a Prowler Droid hovered to her side and bleated a series of digitized audio notes. She turned her head and shook it slowly at the reconnaissance and subterfuge droid companion.
“No,” she said,
“I will review the recording later Screech.”
“You may power down and rest.”
The droid bobbed in the air, mimicking a nod, and floated off to dock with its charging station tucked inside a cubicle at the far wall of the training chamber. Looking away, the Chiss walked to a cubicle beside the droid’s slumbering nook and retrieved her uniform. Folding it beneath her arm she exited the training chamber and made her way to the Xenodochium Ward, a hospice and recovery center. There she partook in a Bacta Tank bath.
In the Bacta bath, she removed her bronzium gilded cyberarm and detached the gold plating around the cybernetic gorget prosthetic that had replaced her organic throat and neck. Removed her cybernetic and bio-plant attachments, she once again returned the form of the mutilated remnant that she once was after her rebellion against the Sith Master that had enslaved her as his apprentice. Floating in the healing solution she felt the stumps of her missing arm and the concave unnatural bend of her throat. Permanent lamentations for her to meditate and reconcile with, lest she allowed them to brood hatred and infect her with the temptation of falling.
After the bath, she returned the armor that made her whole and donned her uniform. The broken Chiss rebel, transformed into High Knight Marshal Zovesa of the New Imperial Order’s Imperial Force Corps. Her tunic was adorned with golden accents and dark blue patterns. While a heavy coat draped over her shoulders. Exiting the hospice ward, Zovesa travelled to a repulsorlift elevator that carried higher into the upper bridges that straddled terraced central structure aboard the Imperial Force Corps headquarters command battlecruiser The Nobilissimus. The elevator delivered her to a tertiary bridge, below the combat-information-center bridge under the main astrogation and command bridge.
The tertiary bridge was a wide empty space, with a panoramic display wall that could be fed any video link feed from the cameras that kept their vigil on the open space around the battlecruiser. Stepping into the bridge, Zovesa’s presence activated the motion sensing light controls. The subroutines built into the bridge’s functions turned on the rows of lights in the ceiling, suddenly drenching the bridge in white lights and illuminating its grey and white durasteel walls and floors.
Crossing her arms against her chest, Zovesa spoke to the automated computer assistance personality that controlled the bridge.
“Astrogation telemetry,” Zovesa said, continuing,
“Main Monitor, display.”
The central, of the three sections of the panoramic monitor, blinked from darkness and projected the image of a stylized map showing the progress of the battlecruiser on its hyperspace jump to Nirauan. Zovesa’s red eyes narrowed as the focused on the astrogation data projecting estimated time of arrival and sublight exit location. During her internal calculations, the actuators of the bridge’s doors hissed the announcement of a new person entering. Zovesa turned around to find a
Miraluka dressed in a white robe and veil over a white Imperial tunic. His dress was a contradicting combination of Imperial austere uniform and the religious garb of someone from the ancient remnants of the
Guardian of the Whills. The Miraluka approached Zovesa with a soft smile.
“You’ve been training again I see,” he said.
Zovesa replied,
“Do not Empathomance me, Arch Asklepior. What is it?”
The Force Scientist and Chief Doctor, or Arch Asklepior of the Imperial Force Corps, tapped the metallic visor that covered his eyeless sockets.
“I can never turn it off High Knight Marshal, such is the nature of my species,” Dr. Saav Kalassa apologized.
Zovesa blinked her gaze away. Dr. Kalassa was a powerful empath and healer, he could see the minute and intricate vibrations of the Force in a person. None could hide their nature from him. An ounce of darkness, a solace of deviation from balanced discipline in the Force, and he could see it. Such was the reason why he was the Arch Asklepior. Sometimes known as the Judex, as it was his judgement that condemned a Force User as Crestfallen – irredeemable from the Darkside, or A Hopeful – one that could be rehabilitated to balance. It was he who helped bring Zovesa back from the brink of ruin after she rebelled against her Sith overlord, brought her mind and body back from that abyssal depths of uncontrolled chaos.
“I came here because the Head Nurse Healer spoke to me about your time in the Bacta,” Dr. Kalassa began again.
“And?” said Zovesa.
“She informed me you have been pushing yourself too hard again,” said Dr. Kalassa.
Zovesa slowly turned her head to the side to flash a red shot of her eyes.
“You’re still overcompensating for your past, High Knight Marshal,” said Dr. Kalassa, going on,
“There is a such a thing as over treating. Fixate on this Darkness that once gripped you and you will plunge right back into it.”
Zovesa scoffed,
“I thank you for your concern, Kalassa.”
A claxon shrieked, interrupting the tense silence that stat between the Arch Asklepior and the High Knight Marshal. Zovesa commanded the monitor to shut down and spun on her heel to march past Dr. Kalassa. She did not stop or pause to acknowledge him, showing her irritation at his begrudgingly astute analysis.
“We are exiting hyperspace; I suggest your return to the Xenodochium. Doctor,” Zovesa threatened.
“Aye, High Knight Marshal,” replied Dr. Kalassa.
Reaching the main command bridge, Zovesa entered just as the blue maelstrom of hyperspace snapped away for the oncoming black void of realspace and the blooming ochre and blue sphere of Nirauan. An astrogation officer greeted her and reported their arrival. Zovesa relayed commands to contact
Irveric Tavlar
and the planetary command at refurbished fortress, Hand of Thrawn. Leaving them to their tasks, she took a final elevator ride down into the bowels of the Nobilissimus and one of her hangars. A protocol droid accommodated her approach to one of the shuttles.
“Call the other Knights,” she said,
“We are touching down to meet with the Sovereign Imperator.”
[
Khyron Zharost
]