Private The Unbearable Weight of Sin: Part One

[Bronwyn Rees]

Dagon Kaze

Commander Thelos had mustered out of the Galactic Alliance military and re-entered civilian service in the Coruscant Security Forces. It was a move he had chosen to give his family more stability in the wake of the escalating conflict with the Brotherhood of the Maw. He had served over twenty years proudly, and he was hired right away without many questions asked or interviews needed. His experience alone was touted to be a boon to their abilities to stifle the criminal elements on the metropole world, and so he was welcomed publicly by his peers and community. Even as he thanked the welcoming he received, someone had been stalking him, and had finally found their chance to strike.

Thelos was a decorated man. He was an expert in the applicable uses of military intelligence, as well as a skilled combatant which had been owed to his years of serving in active duty situations and dangerous theaters of combat. None of that seemed to matter anymore though, as he shuffled into the civilian world to presumably disappear into the background. For all of his knowledge and skill, he earned one of the most fitting rewards, a peaceful retirement. Unfortunately, peace is a lie.

It was perhaps why the undercurrent of terror had swept the more rookie members of Coruscant Security when it was discovered that Thelos, along with his entire family, had been brutally mauled in their own home. In spite of their best efforts, the media knew as quickly as they had about the vicious attack against one of the Alliance's own celebrated war heroes. Immediately the community began to panic at the very thought of such violent crime becoming common place, but after the Brotherhood's first attack on Coruscant it was a very real prospect to many of those crowded around the cordoned off home.

Investigators worked tirelessly to collect any evidence they could find, but struggled to maintain optimism regarding the scarcity of physical remnants. All that could be discerned from the bodies was that the attack was very similar to those seen as a result of Sithspawn from the undercity. Nobody was spared the brutality. The family had been left where they were slain, and the investigators were waiting for further instructions from their leadership. Even the notion that a Sithspawn had attacked something so far above the undercity was enough for them to reach out to the Jedi to either confirm or deny the suspicions.

The scene was pure anarchy. From the wounds on the deceased it looked as if they had been clawed apart. Each body lay in varying states of dismemberment and disembowelment, faces frozen in agony and horror. Whomever...or whatever, had done this, was truly terrifying. Commander Thelos had been left alive, though in much worse shape than he may well have wanted to have been in. His senses were denied to him, as the culprit of this heinous act took his eyes, ears, and tongue, making it nearly impossible to interview him regarding the identity of his assailant. Left with him in his bound state, were five individual holorecorders that had been filled. None of the authorities had yet to activate any of them, and they seemed reluctant to do so as they removed Thelos from the apartment complex and ferried him to intensive care.

 

[Dagon Kaze]

It should've rained today. Like it usually does when a hero falls; for what remained of decorated war hero Commander Thelos could in no way be considered alive.

It should've rained today; to sweep the blood of a family into the gutters that cycled the lifeline of Coruscant. The skies should've wept for the unjust tragedy that had befallen a man, his wife, and children. But the heavens did not split open and cry. The lazy afternoon sun, meandering above the orange hue of burned tibanna gas, baked the asphalt streets that found no shelter under the shadows of skyscrapers. Its torrid heat brought out the smell of death and decay, of filth that one would only find in the underbelly of the ecumenopolis.

But today the gutters were filled up with blood, overflowing from the seedy undercity and through the drains of the high rises. Today, those who basked in the comfort and safety of the upper levels, frantically swam in the same currents of fear and horror those below daily did. Terror was a plague. Its contagion spread across the bewildered eyes of the crowd growing around the sealed-off home.

Today was one of those days when even a Jedi seemed powerless to soothe the masses.

"Dagon Kaze...?! My, you've, uh... grown a lot." a chirpy feminine voice that sounded so off-place made him halt as a slender lady about his age materialized on his way to the house. She fixed the glasses on her eyes to conceal the blush dying her cheeks red. The raven-haired Knight faintly rose an eyebrow seeking to place a name on the face.

"Oh, I'm Sk--"

"Skye Tanau...!" right on the money.

"Wow, uhh, you remember me?" how could he not? In his teenage years, as a padawan, Dagon had been fighting crime across the lower levels of Coruscant. A large part of his area of operations was under the jurisdiction of the business district's police department where Skye had been a forensics intern and by far the youngest person in a grizzled crew of cops. A year or two his senior, if he recalled right.

"It's, uhh... nice to see--"

"Really not the time to be rekindling old flames, is it now, Tanau?" a coarse, heavy voice grumbled from the side. Detective Brandes, a round man with a cigarette plucked in his lips and a long trenchcoat running down his short legs. Far more grey hairs on his crown than before but still the same irritated facade plastered on his face.

"Sir, I wasn--"

"Let's go, kid." he pushed the woman to the side, gesturing for the Jedi to follow him into the house. "Things here we haven't seen since the Sacking." Brandes shook his head as they entered the house.

"You think it's a spawn?"

"You tell me, kid -- you're the Jedi." the door to the living room slid open and the detective gestured at the remains of what once was a human on the couch. The opulence of furniture, tiles, walls, and decorations would've been far more noticeable had they not been smeared in gore. His blue gaze scanned the area until it locked onto the eyes of the mutilated wife. Eyes in a stupor of terror and pain.

"The Commander?"

"Forget about it -- only alive cause his heart is still pounding. Wish he wasn't, tsk -- the poor bastard."

Dagon faintly sighed before he slowly approached the massacred wife to inspect her wounds. The empyrean surged through his fingers as they traced the clawed remains without physically touching them. "Hmm."

"What?"

"I don't sense it."

"Sense what?"

"Sith alchemy -- spawns leave behind a very... I don't know how to explain -- distinguishable sensation."

"You... sure?"

"Positive."

"So--"

"Crime of passion?" he guessed the detective's thoughts. "No, too... savage. That urge usually dissipates the moment they've done the deed... and this here -- they've taken their time. Any psychosis cases in the area recently?"

Bronwyn Rees ​

 

[Bronwyn Rees]

Bronwyn had set up the holorecorders so that they would begin a repeat message of what the Commander had done to earn his just punishment. In her mind it was only fair to treat him in much the same way. The voice of the Commander shot up from the embedded piece, showing him tied to a seat and speaking in hushed terror. "My name is Commander Thelos, and this is my confession. For years I served in Krayt Squadron as their commander, and I personally selected each and every member. It was my right and privilege and I took it seriously. When I was assigned a new recruit during a buereaucratic bottleneck, that I was not allowed to perssonally review, I took it as a personal slight to me. I put a plan into motion. The rest of the team and support staff were informed that the new assignee was to be treated as a co-worker at best, and nothing more. She was not who I chose, and so I could not let her in the squadron fully. My hope was that she would quit after everyone started to ostracize her but she just doubled down on her effort. In reality she was an excellent soldier, but my ego did not alllow me to reconcile that with command staff going over my head and forcing a new soldier into my squad. When she did not quit, the only way to get rid of her was to find a way to get her killed in action. Several engagements she was ordered into dangerous positions where she was to cover the retreat or withdraw, but she survived each one. It was the Brotherhood of the Maw's attack on Coruscant that gave me the out that I needed. She finally fell in battle. Corporal Rees was dead and she would not be a thorn in my side anymore. At least that was what I thought. The retreat was ordered from the Undercity and she was overwhelmed in her position. Sithspawn mauled her, and the men just ignored the chance they had to save her like I ordered. I had killed her and could not possibly be implicated in her death as anything more than death during wartime. I was wrong..."

And with that Commander Thelos' holorecording buzzed out of life and went silent. In the interminable silence between another shot up, this time another man was tied to a chair and being filmed. "My name is Lieutenant Ganat. I was assigned to Krayt Squadron's actions on Epoch in support of the Galactric Alliance's actions against the Brotherhood of the Maw. My detachment had been activated to infiltrate and provide support for cilvilian uprisings across the planet and so we were not officially there as per clandestine operation rules. Command wanted plausible deniability, and so we just went with it. I played a part in Commander Thelos' operations from the start. Corporal Rees was a model soldier, but she was not part of the club. I confess, that I enjoyed the underhanded nature of the Commander's plan. We were a tight knit group of hand-picked players for every part the squadron needed, and she was the unwanted interloper. I helped to set up the communication errors that led to Corporal Rees being assigned to the most forward position regardless of the danger. When she got overrun that was when I knew the plan worked, but something felt wrong about it. I have to admit after the fact I had second thoughts, but it was far too late for me to turn those into action. I was just as guilty..."

There was an ordered pattern, and a third one came to life, another military figure that was strapped in for the ride. "My name is Staff Sergeant Rill, and I was in charge of logistics on Epoch and during the Brotherhood's sack of Coruscant. It was my responsibility to ensure that ammunitions stores were low for Corporal Rees and I did that job gladly. She was a good soldier, and and good lay, but she didn't belong so I strung her along all the while hiding my affair from my wife and family. When the time came to cut her off, it happened just as Commander Thelos planned. She charged up to provide cover fire with her SSW, and ran dry. The ammo pack I had given her was one of the ones that had been filled with rations instead of blaster cartridges. Rees was immediately overwhelmed when she ran out, and we fell back after we saw her mauled by the Sithspawn that were terrorizing the undercity. I used my position and rank to exploit a trusting young woman and my crimes must be known..."

Rill's holorecorder was the last one set to play on interval. There was a creeping silence interrupted only by the rare sound of dripping and the breathing of those present. The officers looked at one another and then back to the Jedi. If all of what was said in these holorecorders was true then the conspiracy ran through the entirety of Krayt Squadron from top to bottom. All just to get rid of one woman because the Commander had his ego challenged by his superior officers. This was far deeper than some random act of brutalty, it was a pointed strike with a direct message to those involved at this point.

Dagon Kaze

 

[Dagon Kaze]

One of the stories they would never tell you about. And how could they? As cynical as it was, the Alliance's morale standards were slightly less idealistic than the Jedi. Politicians couldn't, or wouldn't rather, dare to paint anything but a perfect picture of the Defense Force -- they were heroes for fighting the evil that was the Sith. And yet even among this band of heroes, many of which had bled and died for a greater cause, many of which Dagon had known personally, there still remained a vile fringe on the edges.

Or so the holorecordings sought to indicate.

The Jedi pondered, careful not to take the recordings at face value. Preconceptions were a sin in investigations. They led a detective down a road of building a case on selective evidence that would skew the outcome in favor of such preconception. Who was to say these admissions were not merely faux, enforced with violence and blood by the perpetrator?

One thing was clear -- this was no random massacre but a target string of murders of Krayt Squadron. A message delivered in gallons of blood.

Dagon breathed in loudly, clearing his mind from the savagery surrounding him.

"Detective, you need to send security details to any remaining soldiers of Krayt Squadron. Immediately. If they're off-world, get in touch with the Marshalls and make sure you tell them I'm on the case." he sighed. How many steps was the murderer ahead of them already? And was it Rees as the recordings pointed to? A serial killer brought back from the dead and motivated by vengeance and clearly... he glanced at the remains of the Commander's wife... clearly well armed and dangerous. "Give me all the info on this Corporal Rees, please."

He had to find her next target before she did.

Bronwyn Rees ​

 

[Bronwyn Rees]

There were no words to describe the unmitigated horror of the first responders that found the eviscerated remains of two Alliance soldiers. Most frightening to those nearby was the violence of the attack. There were wild animals on Tython that could tear a body asunder but this was different. These men were draped and displayed from a large tree like a grim art piece. Suspended by their intestines they had faces of frozen terror. The call had come in too late, and the response sent back to Coruscant was not good. The investigators described the victims, as if they were torn apart by a vicious beast. They had collected two holorecorders but they remain unactivated and had thus far been left deactivated as they collected evidence at the scene.

---

Communication to Empress Teta had been hard to come by of late, but the Alliance had been victorious over the world and had managed to pull the Brotherhood out of their entrenched position so deeply into the Core. That was the perfect distraction for what was left behind to discover. Military authorities reported the casualties within two days of the communique from Coruscant, but the members of Krayt Squadron had been brutalized in much the same way as those on the captial world and Tython. They too had recordings left on the bodies, and agreed to send them back to Coruscant for examination as well. Bodies were piling up without answers, and interviews turned up no witnesses to the deed. The death toll had now risen to nine total members of Krayt Sqaudron, leaving only one living member left.

---

The Coruscanti police were at their wit's end when a tip had come in from an anonymous source that the last member of Krayt Squadron was alive there on the core planet. General Hayson was the last one on the list of potential victims and the final word in command for the special forces team. As the last member left and the highest ranking officer he now had it put to him to select an entirely new squad out of the possible candidates. It was an unimaginable thing to him, but all of his soldiers had been massacred without any sign of who had performed the act. He doubted that it was Corporal Rees, as all reports indicated she had been mauled by Sithspawn. The surveillance footage being broadcast across all of Coruscant showed otherwise...

"Welcome home...General Hayson." Bronwyn said, seated near the entry of his luxurious abode. The gore in the room was revealed as the lights were powered on, and the General's dismay and shock showed.

He pointed, "You, you're dead. They told me Sithspawn mauled you."

"You would like that to be true, wouldn't you?" she said getting up from her seat and walking toward him slowly. Several blaster bolts were deflected by an energy buckler that emitted from her arm until she was upon him. She threw him across the room and into the chair she had taken as her own. There was no sense of urgency in her movement as he scrawled through the doorway and started running down the halls. The clawed fingers on her hands scratched deeply into the wall as she followed him, "You put me in Krayt Squad, General. It was an honor. But that honor came at a cost. Your ignorance of your commanders let them do as they pleased."

The footage continued into another room, where he threw a chair at her. It was caught and thrown back at the man with the Force, sending him tumbling down yet again. "I'm a general, it isn't my job to keep track of every little thing. I tell people what to do, I get paid!" he said, admitting his lackadaisical approach to leadership for the whole of the world to see.

"You throw men and women into the war machine. You have zero regard for us, and now look at what you have wrought. I am your creation now, general, and I will not stop until the Alliance burns for what it did to me, for what you did to me." Bronwyn said with no hint of emotion in her voice. Her signature in the Force though, roiled with hatred and anger. The Dark Side channeled through her and she snapped his left leg with a violent wrenching motion that pulled him back to her. He fell with a hard thump on the bloodslick floor. His whole family had been slaughtered in his absence and he lay face to face with his wife only for a moment. Another violent wrench and she threw him into the opposite wall with the Force.

"The Alliance likes to pride itself on moral superiority. A voice for everyone, and justice for all. The notions are quaint at best, but I have a feeling the people of the Alliance know that their lives mean nothing to those who rule them. The Senate does not care, the Chancellor does not care, and military command certainly does not care. We the people, are merely pawns for you to play. You throw us at a war you know you cannot win, so you force stalemates by building piles of bodies high enough that your enemies get tired of climbing them." she said, laying out a personal manifesto of sorts. As she approached his sputtering form the clawed hands dug firmly into his back and through his flesh. Bronwyn had become physically strong to the point of terrifying some of those witnessing the broadcast. "And to think you ordered your bodyguards to leave you alone..."

Bronwyn tore his ribcage open from behind, and pulled on his lungs where she left them without the possibility of compression. The general was now slowly suffocating and had precious little time. "We have to make sacrifices..."

That word, that sentence, it was all she ever heard from high command. It infuriated her and so she lashed out yet again, pulling his head upright and plucking his eyes out with brutal efficiency. His screaming became labored as his lungs emptied, leaving him wheezing and silent on the floor. His final moments were dark, painful, and agonizing. He knew the face of his killer, and as she left the broadcast running on his dying body she left the room. The deed was done. All of Krayt Squad had been destroyed and she yet remained.

Dagon Kaze