Private Unanswered (Jairdain)

[Darth Carnifex]

Commenor, former Sith-Imperial Occupation Zone

Four great gears churned as the lift began its descent, one at each corner of the huge metal contraption. Once upon a time, it had been used to transport copious amounts of stone and ore from deep below Commenor's surface. Sith mining rigs had once wormed their way through the crust, exposing millions and millions of tonnes of rare earth minerals and other valuable raw material. Legions of slaves had been set to extract it by pain of the lash, and most of them remained buried there.

Now the lift bore not the spoils of exploit, but the architect of a new order. Darth Carnifex's eyes stared solemnly ahead as the lift careening down deeper into the earth, hundreds of feet of hewn rock passing by in the blink of an eye. Gradually, the lift slowed its descent and clanged loudly to a rest at the bottom of the vertical mine shaft. A reinforced blast door had been set into the excavated wall, the partition dividing into four segments as the Dark Lord approached. Sterile white light spilled out to greet Him, swallowing Him in its luminescence before the door shut tight behind Him.

Beyond was an exceedingly modern facility, common to any civilized world beyond the margins of Commenor's skies. This hadn't existed when the occupation was at its height, this had once all been unearthed tunnels and pits back then. Now it was sleek walls and bright lights. Many rooms branched away from the central corridor, children within each room undergoing various degrees of instruction from cold, emotionless automatons. Each child seemed to suffer the same malady, glassy-eyes and vacant expressions; their minds were sharp but it was clear that they weren't entirely themselves.

This was part of His grand vision. Generations of children raised in isolation, indoctrinated into loyal soldiers that would day be turned against their birth-worlds. When their time here had come to an end, they would be dispersed back into the wider galaxy to assume new lives. When the time came, they would heed their Master's call.

But that was not why He'd come here.

He'd come for a personal reason.

At the end of the hall was an isolated room, guarded by a pair of Dread Sentinels. The hulking horror's muscular bodies were concealed beneath flowing robes interwoven with metal plating, with heavy faceless masks to obscured their ghastly features. In each hand they bore aloft an axe imbued with ancient Sith magics. They stood silent as the grave as the Dark Lord approached, the door opening and closing as He passed through it. Inside was a state of the art medical chamber, the walls lined with advanced equipment, while at the center was a single bed.

In that bed was the pregnant Jairdain Ismet-Thio.

Darth Carnifex walked towards the bed, stopping only a few feet away from it. Jairdain had been restrained enough to prevent her from leaving the bed, but not enough to prevent her from moving on it. Whatever garment she'd worn had been taken away and replaced with a nondescript medical gown. All of the machines in the room beeped and hummed quietly, all of her vitals and those of the child within her constantly monitored.

"Settling in?" asked the Dark Lord, His tone even-keeled but nonetheless mocking in light of her situation.

Jairdain Ismet-Thio ​

 

[Jairdain Ismet-Thio]

Jairdain had been awake long before the door opened.

Sleep had come only in fragments since they brought her here, drifting in and out like shallow tides rather than settling into anything restorative. It was not the restraints or the sterile quiet of the room that kept her from rest, but the way the Force itself felt beneath the surface of Commenor. The weight of what had been done in these tunnels lingered like an old wound carved into the earth, and even through the thick walls of the chamber, she could feel the echo of it pressing faintly against her senses.

She lay slightly propped against the bed's incline, the thin medical gown gathered loosely around her frame. One hand rested instinctively across the curve of her stomach, her fingers spread in a quiet, protective gesture as she breathed slowly and evenly, grounding herself in the steady rhythm beneath her palm.

The restraints were firm, but not cruel.

He had taken care with that.

And that, perhaps more than anything else, unsettled her.

When the door finally opened, she felt him enter long before the sound reached her ears. The Force tightened around the threshold with the unmistakable gravity of his presence, a pressure that shifted the air itself. Darth Carnifex did not simply walk into a room; the space acknowledged him, reshaping its balance around the weight he carried.

Jairdain did not turn her head. She did not need to. His presence was a vast, cold shape in the Force, impossible to mistake and impossible to ignore.

His question came, calm and edged with mockery, settling into the room like a blade laid gently on a table.

For a moment, she simply breathed, letting the air move in and out of her lungs until her voice could follow it.

"I have known worse accommodations," she said at last, her tone steady and quiet, carrying the exhaustion of someone who had been holding herself together for far too long. It was not the voice of a broken prisoner, nor one attempting defiance. It was simply honest.

She turned her face slightly toward the sound of him, orienting herself by presence rather than sight.

"You did not bring me here for comfort," she continued, her voice soft but unwavering. "So I assume you are satisfied with the arrangements."

A faint thread of dry humor touched the words, though it faded almost immediately, swallowed by the sterile hum of the machines beside her bed. Their steady rhythm marked the pattern of two heartbeats: hers and the smaller, faster one beneath her hand.

Jairdain shifted slightly against the restraints, careful not to pull against them. The child moved beneath her palm, a small restless stir that she soothed with a gentle adjustment of her hand, her thumb brushing lightly across her abdomen.

"You have gone to considerable effort to keep us alive," she said after a moment, her tone neither accusing nor grateful, simply stating what she knew to be true.

Her blind eyes lifted toward the shape of his presence, unfocused but directed with intention.

"That suggests this is not simply cruelty."

She exhaled slowly, the breath carrying a quiet resignation.

"Which means you want something."

There was no demand for answers, no attempt to bargain or threaten. She simply acknowledged the truth with the calm, unflinching awareness of someone who had survived too much to waste energy on theatrics.

"Settling in is not really the question," Jairdain said softly, her voice steady even as something fragile moved beneath it.

"What matters is why you brought me here at all."

Her hand remained still over her abdomen, fingers curved protectively.

And beneath the discipline in her voice, beneath the composure she held with such deliberate care, something else lived quietly in the spaces between her words.

Fear. Not for herself. For the life she carried, and for the man she loved who would inevitably come looking for her, no matter the cost. She did not show that fear. But it was there, steady and sharp as a blade held close to the skin, hidden only by the strength of her will.

Darth Carnifex

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Of course I want something, everyone does. When I have what I want, I'll let you go without further discomfort. You'll be free to run back into the arms of my son, for as much comfort as that might bring you." Even as He spoke, the ceiling above Jairdain opened like a cavernous maw. From its shadowy confines emerged a spindly, spider-like apparatus with half a dozen manipulator arms, each ending with a different modular medical instrument.

One specific arm whirred to face the trapped woman, the tip cycling through multiple tools before finally settling on a long, narrow syringe. The other arms became further restraints as the whole device lowered itself down over the medical bed, a bright red scan-light enveloping Jairdain's pregnant belly in slow, roving pulses, mapping the shape of the womb, the position of the placenta, and the faint, steady motion of the child within. After a moment, the syringe descended and punctured through her abdominal wall, passing through into the uterus and into the amniotic sac with mechanical precision, guided by the machine's unblinking sensors.

As the needle withdrew, a small vial at the base had been filled with roughly twenty milliliters of amniotic fluid, the pale golden liquid swirling faintly as microscopic flecks of fetal cells drifted within it. It disappeared into the machine as a second needle, one far shorter in length, was swapped in. This one slipped cleanly into a vein in her arm, and drew forth blood before also retreating. When both samples had been acquired, the whole apparatus disappeared back into the ceiling, the chamber returning to its sterile quiet as if nothing at all had occurred.

Carnifex had watched the whole thing in total silence, arms crossed over His broad chest as the machine did its work. The only movement from Him had been the slow rise and fall of His breathing, His gaze fixed not on Jairdain herself, but on the shifting holographic scan that had briefly revealed the small form within her womb. After it had disappeared, He stepped forward to stand right beside the bed. For a moment His shadow fell across her abdomen where the scanner's light had moments before roamed.

"The child has enormous potential, I sensed it on Moorja. Even then it shone in the Force like a star trapped behind a veil. It would be a crime to allow such talent to pass into the hands of those unwilling and unable to envision it." His voice remained calm, almost thoughtful, as if discussing a rare artifact rather than a living life.

"As the child's grandfather, I will be seizing custody of the child upon birth." The words were spoken without threat or anger, merely as a statement of inevitability. In Carnifex's mind, the decision had already been made long before she had ever been brought to this room.

Jairdain Ismet-Thio ​

 

[Jairdain Ismet-Thio]

Jairdain remained still when the ceiling opened.

She had sensed the mechanism long before the panels separated, felt the faint stirring of machinery through the Force the way one might feel a storm gathering behind distant mountains. Even dulled as her senses were in this place, muted as though wrapped in thick cloth, she could still perceive the shift of metal and intention above her. The spindled apparatus descended with clinical precision, its segmented limbs unfolding like the legs of some cold, mechanical insect.

Her breathing slowed, controlled.

She did not struggle when the additional restraints settled into place. There was nowhere to go, and she knew it. Panic would only tighten the machines and make what followed sharper, deeper, more punishing.

The red scanning light swept across her abdomen in slow, deliberate pulses. She felt the child shift beneath her hand as the unfamiliar energy washed over them, a small, restless motion that made her thumb brush gently across her stomach in quiet reassurance. Even with the Force muffled around her, that tiny presence remained a steady ember, warm and bright against the cold.

"It's all right," she murmured, the words slipping out on instinct rather than intention.

Then the first needle descended.

The longer syringe pierced through skin and muscle with mechanical indifference. The pain was immediate, sharp enough to steal the air from her lungs in a sudden, involuntary breath. Her fingers curled against the sheet beneath her as the instrument pushed deeper, threading through layers of tissue with a precision that made the violation feel somehow worse.

She did not cry out.

But a small, involuntary sound escaped her throat when the needle breached deeper structures, her body tensing beneath the restraints while the machine harvested what it had come for. The Force around her flickered, thin and distant, but she clung to the one thread she could still feel clearly, the faint, unwavering bond that tied her to Jax. It pulsed softly at the edge of her awareness, a reminder that she was not entirely alone, even here.

When the needle finally withdrew, the tightness in her chest eased by degrees, and her breathing steadied again.

The second needle entered her arm moments later. Compared to the first, the sensation was almost trivial. She flinched slightly when the blood draw began, more reflex than pain, and then it was over.

The apparatus retracted into the ceiling with the same efficient indifference with which it had arrived.

Silence returned.

For several seconds, Jairdain simply breathed, letting the tremor in her muscles fade while the lingering ache in her abdomen dulled into something heavy and deep. Her hand returned to the gentle curve of her stomach, grounding herself in the small, steady presence there.

The child was still bright in the Force, still steady, still unmistakably alive beneath her palm.

Only then did she turn her head slightly toward Carnifex as he stepped closer, his shadow falling across her like a second restraint. She listened to him without interrupting, letting his words settle fully before responding. There was no anger in his tone, no heat, only the calm certainty of someone who had already decided the outcome of the conversation long before it began.

Jairdain let out a slow breath before speaking.

"Yes," she said quietly, her hand remaining where it was over the curve of her stomach. "The child does have enormous potential. Anyone with even the faintest sensitivity to the Force would have felt it on Moorja."

There was no pride in her voice, only acknowledgment of what he had already sensed for himself.

Her lips curved faintly, though the expression held little humor.

"If you are so interested in potential," she continued, her voice calm and steady despite the ache still lingering through her body, "you might examine mine and tell me what you see."

The words were not a challenge so much as an invitation he could not easily ignore. She shifted slightly against the restraints, careful of the soreness in her abdomen where the needle had passed moments earlier, then continued speaking with quiet certainty.

"If I am able to prevent you from taking your grandchild, I will."

There was no dramatic emphasis in the statement. No attempt to make it sound grander than it was. It was simply the truth, spoken plainly.

Her blind eyes turned fully toward him now, unflinching despite the exhaustion beginning to settle into her bones.

"And even if I could not," she added softly, "you should understand something about your son. Jax will never stop looking for me. You know that as well as I do."

A small breath passed through her before she continued.

"You say that once you have what you want, you will let me go," she said, the faintest trace of skepticism touching her expression as she lay there restrained beneath the sterile lights. "But you must understand why that is difficult for me to believe."

Her fingers brushed lightly across the fabric covering her stomach, instinctively protective even now.

"How do I know," she asked quietly, "that you would let me go at all?"

She did not raise her voice. She did not plead.

She simply lay there beneath the bright lights and the watchful machines, restrained and aching but still composed, one hand resting protectively over the life inside her while the muted Force pressed around her like fog.

Only one thread remained clear within it. The distant, steady connection to Jax. And she held onto it.

Darth Carnifex