1Kotor 2
Yeaaaaaah, I'm creative with titles.
Kreia
It's almost time. Time to mold the little Jedi. Build her, high as she can go... then tear her to shreds. Make her love me, then betray her.
Her body is healed. Now it's time. Come, Exile. Dance to my puppet strings. Awaken...
Liran
Awaken.
Can't hear. Floating. Where am I? Distorted glass, thick liquid pressing against my eyes. That awful smell. Know that smell...
Kolto. Yuck. It's smelly and slimy and warm, reminds me too much of the triage centers in the war.
Have to get out of this healing tank. I can't bear the sensory deprivation much longer.
Press my hands around the top (I think it's the top. No sense of up or down), feel for the switch. There it is. Whoosh, now I can pull my head into real air, not oxygenated goop.
Deep breath. At first it's the sweetest I've ever tasted, but then it's musty, stale, with that tang of kolto.
Pull myself out. Oh, forgot about the disorientation thing. I'm wobbling on the edge, the tank pressed into my stomach (unpleasant). If I can swing a leg over the side...
Splat. Ow. Oh sweet gravity, how I have missed thee. You knock me on my shebs, and I just keep coming back for more. I must be addicted.
Open my eyes. This isn't the Harbinger.
Okay, I'm splayed on the cold floor, in my skivvies(just noticed), no idea where I am, or how I got here. There's a great story to go with this.
If I'm lucky, it involves copious amounts of alcohol, not slavers.
Stand up. It's freezing in here.
At least it isn't quiet. Hate silence. Lots of beeping, humming and bubbling of kolto tanks, hissing equipment. Four other tanks, all occupied. I'm the only one awake. Good. Hate people seeing me in my underwear. I hate a lot of things: darkness, jedi robes.
Oh, clothes. Should probably get some, unless I plan on joining a 'natural' colony. I don't.
One door, it opens at my touch. Not slavers, then. They frown on the merchandise running around.
A medbay, like on a ship, but inefficient. I'm planetside then. No people to ask. Out here, no sound either. That's wrong.
Two doors. One's locked, so, as Vandar would say; to the lab, I go.
After ten minutes of searching, I'm fresh out of cool, calm, and collected, the medic's logs tell me nothing positive, and my legs are still feelin' the breeze. I did find my utility belt (minus credits. Shocker), looped it around my waist. Had this battered thing since the war.
Apparently, I'm not planetside. This is a mining station, hitched to the backside of Peragus II, and there is some spooky hokum going on. Work-related injuries, mining droids going berserk, mysterious explosions, malfunctions. Either mechanical gremlins decided to take over the place, or Peragus II has a saboteur aboard, Force knows why someone would bother with a pit like this.
Oh, it gets better. Someone pumped the kolto tanks with snooze juice, enough to kill a wookie. Everyone else died. I slept for three days. Saboteur was trying to wipe out the whole facility... or, if I want to be paranoid, knew about my talents and wanted me asleep for a while.
The exit to medbay is broken too. All I can unlock is the morgue. Walk in. Even colder in here.
Looting corpses? Yeah, real Kandosii. I'm not that desperate for clothes, but maybe there's something useful...
No empty beds. The morgue is full. All in uniform, except one, an old woman. Let her be, fixate on one extremely unfortunate fellow on the corner slab. Burn victim, didn't even drop his plasma torch. I could use that torch to breach the medbay lockdown. This is going to be icky.
Curl my fingers around the torch, brushing brittle, scorched bone. I've touched worse. I see why the miners let him keep it. He's very attached to this tool.
After a minute of tugging, I give up all pretenses of dignity(those I have left after looting corpses in my undies), brace my foot against the slab, and put my scrawny shebs into it. The fingers snap, fragments of bone pepper my face and chest. I fall back on aforementioned scrawny shebs. Gravity, I love you with all my heart, but we have to stop like this.
"Find what you're searching for amongst the dead?"
Scramble to my feet, brandish the recently liberated plasma torch, ready to strike at the-.
Hooded old woman smirking at me from her seat on a morgue slab.
"Who are you?" Need to talk out loud more. Starting to sound scratchy from disuse. A side effect of hermithood. Er, hermitism? Hermitry? Never mind.
"I am Kreia, and I am your rescuer, as you are mine. You smell of the kolto tank. How do you feel?"
Okay, she's willing to talk. Like a civilized, alive sentient. Lower the torch, kid. No reason to be twitchy. " I'm fine. You were dead." Great line, General Obvious.
"Not dead, but very close to it. Close enough to fool those who healed you." I'm having doubts about the competence of the Peragian medical staff. After I leave, better check that they didn't leave a scalpel in me or misplace a kidney. "Healing trances can be... immersive. You understand, Jedi."
"I'm not a..." Shut my mouth. How did she know?
"Your stance tells me." The control freaks taught us to stand the same. "Your walk is heavy. You carry a burden."
My burden is none of her concern. "We have more important things to worry about. What's going on?"
"I do not know." Kreia frowns, maybe not used to saying those words. Most Jedi aren't. "I was... sleeping."
Yes, her 'immersive' healing trance. Old people must sleep hard."Someone poisoned the kolto tanks. Any idea who?" That's right, I don't trust just any corpse who can hold a dialogue with me in an abandoned facility. I'm sensible like that.
"No. Why did they spare you?"
"They didn't."
"A result of your Jedi training, no doubt." Just can't leave that alone, huh? "Maybe they wished to sedate you."
"Maybe." I'll keep my theories to myself. Kreia of the undead might be involved.
"It is a mystery, to be sure. Do not be distracted by it. We must leave this place quickly." We?
"Why? Friends of yours planning to join the party?"
"You... could say that."
Wait, the medic's log said I arrived in a heavily damaged smuggler's ship called the Ebon Hawk, and there was an old woman and two droids aboard as well. Kreia must be that old woman. She knows how we got here, then. And who damaged the ship. Her 'friends', perhaps?
"We can discuss this later," Kreia interrupts, as if I speak aloud.
"Very well. I'll go find... something to help us escape your 'friends'. You can stay here." I don't need her tagging along. Don't need help cutting through the medbay door with my plasma torch. Besides, those pearly orbs she has for eyes? She's blind.
"You might wish to extend your search to some clothes, if only for proper first impressions."
Or not.
Kreia
I feel the Exile move through abandoned hallways, shards of surprise when she crosses a malfunctioning machine, bursts of adrenaline as she moves to destroy them with the blade she took from a corpse. Even without the Force, she is a capable warrior.
She's going through the security officer's records. Finds something exciting. I sense a definite goal in her mind now, a plan. Good. We may survive this yet.
Stretch my senses to the next room, sparks of moving machines. Too many. The Exile will be caught by surprise, at best. It is time.
She stands before the door, and I reach out...
"Exile, do you feel the danger?" I extend a strand of the Force to her, and her mind catches it, draws it hungrily into her void, where the Force was before Malachor. She staggers, fighting the connection. She's pushing me out, pushing the Force away.
Amazing.
"Do not fight. You need the Force to get through this place."
She is beyond rational thought, mind screaming. "I don't want it! Make it go away."
The Exile is too weak to resist much longer. Unexpected guilt slows my progress. She is exceptional. She broke from the Force, survived an addiction deadly to all. Now I'm making her take her bonds back.
It's necessary. And now it is done.
Her body is on the floor, she slowly rises.
"What? I can... feel again." such wonder in her thoughts.
"Yes." Must explain this, how to explain this? "While we were both unconscience, my mind may have reached out to you for assistance in healing. Perhaps you are feeling the Force again, through me."
A flash of doubt. Let a trickle of Force flow to her, increasing her 'dosage'. Her senses expand further. She calms. The screaming, the fear, the doubt is gone. She is happy. My guilt is back. One more dose, the deadly, enslaving drug, and she is chained again. Like everyone else.
But it's necessary. And now she can lead us all to freedom.
Atton
Bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored.
I'm hungry. Jaq again. He was quiet, for a while, but after I got sick of pazaak, he came back.
Shut up.
Make me.
I ram my fist into the energy barrier, he hisses in pain. The setting's low enough it doesn't do much damage, I watch the burn mark on my knuckles fade away.
Had enough?
Sadist.
No, that's you. Let me rot in peace.
Can't. Habits die hard. Remember when-
Opponent draws first, it's a 7. I draw a 4. He draws a 6, that makes 13. I get a 8, that's 12.
Jaq fades with an angry curse and feeble pull at my mind. Finish the game. I win. I always win.
It's like you aren't even trying anymore (He's still screaming). Watch it, she's your mother too.
I'm going to die here. With Jaq. Alone. How poetic. I should mule over the symbolism in my final days.
Hm...
Nah. Borrrrrrrrrrrred. Bored, bored, bor-
Is that blasterfire? Lean as close as I can to the prison door without singeing an ear. Yes. Someone's alive out there. Maybe I won't die. Oh well. Always tomorrow.
You have obligations. A woman's voice. The Empath. Jaq makes a fuss, he always does when she talks. Ignore him. She's coming. At last, she's coming.
Really? The 'she'? Four years, waiting, over?
Too good to be true. Probably just loopy from low blood sugar. Haven't eaten in two days. A wonder I'm not hallucinating already. Well, suppose I am now.
No blasterfire. The battle's over, or logic killed the dream. Leaning towards the second, but I'll get ready.
Just in case.
Liran
Having the Force back is great. Like I've been in a kolto tank for the last six year, and just surfaced, breathed in fresh air again. Stop my musing to skewer a droid on my sword.
Left foot on floor, right foot on chassis, yank. Pull the vibroblade out. Lather, rinse, repeat. Easy as uj cake. Hey, no more mining droids. Things look like giant spiders(shoot as well as 'em too). Fortunately, they're built to mine Peragian fuel, not me.
Still running around in the unmentionables. Looting corpses? No problem. Stripping corpses? Maybe after freezing a few toes off, but haven't sunk that low yet. Not like there's anyone to look, beside Kreia, who is (probably) blind. If she isn't, nothing she hasn't seen be- that's an image I want to unsee. Shudder.
Back to escaping. The chief of security (great at his job, by the way. His mother must be so proud) had a kill switch on the main console. Shuts down the droids, although I destroyed most of them. It also unlocks the prison. Better than searching a morgue. Maybe I'll find some confiscated weapons. Or armor. Drafty in here.
Flip the kill switch, prison's energy field goes down. Let's do some looting...
Behind this door someone yet lives. Sithspit! Is Kreia trying to scare me to death? Be careful. He may be useful, but his thoughts are difficult to read. Stalk, you mean? Jedi and their mind tricks.
Can't wait til I'm alone again. No one trying to kill me, no old ladies crawling in my head, no mysterious criminals. Maybe he won't talk as much as Kreia. Wave the door open.
"Are you an angel? No, that's the most awful pick-up line. Watch, some dumb kid will use it... Hey, nice outfit. The miners change their uniforms since I got here?"
Force forbid I meet someone normal.