Disclaimer: Star Wars is owned by George Lucas and LucasArts so all the main concepts are owned by him as are most of the characters in the story. The original characters that I made upare based off an RPG I GMed on JCC.
Author's Note: Chapter 1 is set during the Bantam era, just after the end of Dark Empire but Chapter 2 is post-NJO and will be based off NJO and the post-NJO storylines.
"It's useless sir," the sensors operator told him, "we're outnumbered and surrounded and penned between the Interdictor and the planet."
"I know," the reply, terse, came from Captain Dermayil, "we are outnumbered at least five to one, there is no use in launching the fighters, I would not waste lives in a futile battle that will end only in our destruction." Motioning for his second-in-command Lieutenant Dagon to come over, he whispered to her, "To keep all the crew together you will defect to the Rebels and take me prisoner, this is an order not a request," he whispered to keep her from protesting, "you will most likely be promoted to Captain and most of the crew will stay, most likely they will only assign a few officers of their own. Serve them well, then when you get the chance, kill them and take your ship back to the base in Imperial Territory."
She looked slightly apprehensive but she replied, "But sir, the Rebels will do unspeakable things to you, they will torture you all day and night and then kill you, I cannot let you…" he hushed her, knowing that even though they loved one another, that to him, the ship and its crews' survival came first.
"I will bear it, the work we are doing is most important and the Rebels must never find out. They will search for you but they will never find you. Look, it is the only way. You will take some of the other senior officers into your confidence but that is all, now hurry, I think we are going to be fired upon soon." She hurried away to find the other officers
"Sir, the Rebels are calling on us to surrender," the communications ensign called out, as he saw Lieutenant Dagon hurriedly filling in the other senior officers. Captain Dermayil composed himself, and waited for a moment, it was now or never, time to put that plan into action, he gave Lieutenant Dagon a small wink, raised himself out of the Captain's chair and shouted through the communications channel, "The Captain of the Dark Avatar, would never surrender to you Rebel scum, prepare to die!" The last phrase reverberated through the whole command centre as he signalled to Ensign Coros to keep the lines open, "Shields up. Batteries…" all was going along to plan, as he saw in his peripheral vision, Lieutenant Dagon, his XO fire a blue stun blast at him, as she said, "I can't allow you to sacrifice people in this way." The blue stun blast took him and he faded into unconsciousness.
Jori signalled their surrender to the Rebels as their security chief, Captain Orton bound Captain Dermayil in stun cuffs, and awaited the arrival of the Rebel boarding team, whom took the Captain into their custody. The Rebels commanding officer, acknowledged their said that the planet that they were guarding could apply for entry to the New Republic. Little did they know that this planet was only a stop on Dark Avatar's supply run. "The offer is accepted then, the outpost will have to agree as well, but think that the young Major in charge will come around to our position quite easily," Jori responded, in her soft silky voice, indicating nothing but agreement in it, even though her mind was elsewhere. "We will transmit the application soon," she called out as the Rebel Officers left the ship. Now all we have to do is wait for them to leave.
Kroder awoke to the cold confines of a cell on board some ship. Surprisingly, the cuffs were gone. A small dread crept through his body as he recalled what had been taught to him about the Rebels, by his master, the now dead Emperor, his liege. They will leave you alone for a while, while your fear and dread grows, then they will come and inflict on you endless pain as they interrogate through day and through night until you break and confess all your secrets, and then they will torture you some more for fun, for it is a pleasure to them to see pain inflicted on one of law-abiding people, then and only then, when you are reduced to a shadow of a man will they kill you. He sat brooding, trying to calm himself as he put those thoughts away. I will not tell them anything.
The door to the cell slid open and two security guards led him out, into another room, blank with four walls like his cell. An officer entered, by his look, he would be the interrogator. They will get nothing from me, Kroder thought as he steeled himself. The office spoke, "Captain Dermayil, I am here to ask you some questions." My mouth will remain shut to you. The officer asked his first question. No answer came from Kroder, he said nothing, just sat there in his chair. The officer repeated his question, no reply was forthcoming. The officer reiterated his question yet again, and again there was no response. After fifteen minutes of nothing, the officer frustrated, rose and motioned for the guards to lock him back into the cell. The torture will begin soon, Kroder mused to himself as they led him back into the cell. He lay down on the cot and drifted off to sleep.
When he woke, he saw that he was gagged and strapped to a chair in the same interrogation room. He smiled to himself as he heard the officer shout, "Where did the ship go, you planned this didn't you. Commander Rak has given permission for more persuasive techniques to be used to get your cooperation. Begin with phase one." A probe droid floated down and attached itself to his body. Suddenly, pain flared in his body, as all his pain receptors were activated by the probe. His guttural scream echoed through the room as his body jerked and writhed under the restraints, yet he held his tongue and said nothing. I will not say anything. The interrogation progressed through pain to heat and cold and then all of the three at the same time. Feeling throughout his body was shot, he twitched and squirmed uncontrollably, but yet he held his tongue.
After an inordinate amount of time, the torture stopped and he heard, "This is useless, he won't do anything but scream. We'll need to get someone else to interrogate him or we'll have to use other means." The guards then dragged him out of the room and back into his cell, where he slumped onto the cot. The pain still ruled his body as he drifted into unconsciousness.
Again, when he awoke, he was in a different place, a cell again, but this had a window. Looking out he saw the pitch black of space. He settled down and awaited the second round of torture to begin. He resolved to himself that he would not say anything. The ship approached a planet and descended where he was passed onto some other people, "He has a tolerance for pain and won't talk. Perhaps you can help us obtain the information needed, contact us when you are done," the Rebel Commander said as he led away to his new prison.
"I've been told that you have something the Rebels want to know. They may know some ways to make you talk, but we will make you talk," his new interrogator told him. The interrogator ordered him to be stripped of his clothes as he was thrown into his new cell and the door sealed behind him. He looked around and saw the ventilators turn on, blowing out cold air. So this is it, the second phase, they will try to reduce me to a husk by cold. His body shivered as he huddled in the corner, trying to keep body heat in the cold surrounds. But the air grew colder and colder, his teeth were chattering, when the voice came over, "I can stop this anytime you are ready to talk," offering so much yet Kroder knew he would say nothing. Soon his fingers were turning blue from the cold, and he was suffering from frostbite, his whole body numb, he sank into a black oblivion.
The next time he felt anything, he was floating in a vertical bacta tank. Except this one had been modified. So the next round begins. Electricity shot through the tank of bacta shocking him making him flail uncontrollably as much as the restraints allowed him to. No one could hear his muffled cries, the current was stopped and his body was allowed to heal, and then the process was repeated. After ten repetitions, the interrogator asked if he would speak. He didn't say anything and so he was put in the tank for another ten cycles. And so time wore on, the cycle of endless pain.
Each round increased the pain; the interrogators took turns in applying the maximum pain. Apparently, when they had heard that the prisoner had been close to the Emperor they had decided to take their frustrations out on him. Each interrogator had their favourite method of punishment; each tried their sugar-coated words or bald faced threats, but none worked. They didn't get any information, but they did get the pleasure of torturing him. Each alien would take their turn, as reprisal for the Emperor's actions. The Wookie was brutal; the Bothan inflicted maximum pain with minimum energy.
Weeks later, there had still been no result, the interrogators were becoming frustrated, and they decided to revert to other means. Within a few days another ship had arrived carrying Mara Jade. They intended to use Jedi powers on him, to pry into his mind. As she sat opposite him he mused to himself, they think that a Jedi could get the information. The Emperor taught me this trick to avoid mind probes. He thought of an endless deep black hole, nothing but a blank ocean of black which sucked the probe into nothingness.
Mara was totally surprised as she tried her fledgling Jedi powers on this prisoner. He's keeping me out, I'll have to push harder. Mara drew deeper into the Force, as she shot another probe into Kroder's mind. Still nothingness. How is this possible? Unless. "Is he an Imperial by any chance?" she asked. Upon receiving confirmation she knew what she was dealing with. I see, he's been taught by the Emperor how to block Jedi probes. This must make him quite important, perhaps a high-level recognition code would work where mind probes don't. "Alpha, Naboo, Sith, seven, nine," she stated, a high-level code that indicated that the subject was to report his mission to her, as the Emperor's Hand.
Kroder did not blink when he heard the high level code, instead he acted as if he was oblivious to the code, to cause further confusion. Nothing happened, but Mara waited for his reply which wasn't forthcoming. She got up in disgust and slapped him hard on the face. She put stun cuffs on him and indicated to the others that she would take him away. One of the guards clubbed him over the head, but all he heard was a name, Skywalker.
Heading towards Yavin 4, Mara cursed furiously as she tried to work out the identity of the prisoner. He's obviously close to the Emperor, but he didn't blink when I gave him the code, so either he must be higher up or…Anyway I'm sure Skywalker should be able to break through. She landed her ship in the courtyard as Luke Skywalker came out to greet her.
After a short time spent catching up, Mara invited Luke onto her ship. "I need your help, the Smuggler's Alliance has recently come into possession of a prisoner, but we don't know anything about him, I tried to Force probe his mind, but all I ever see is a black hole, an endless nothingness, but I don't feel any use of the Force." She and Luke walked over the where Kroder was being kept. She continued, "All Karrde managed to find out is that his name is Kroder Dermayil and that he's from Kuat and captain of the Dark Avatar, an Impstar Deuce. There's no information on his assignments or even how old he is." Luke sat down opposite the slumped down Kroder, as Mara watched. "I'll see what I can do," Luke stated serenely, as he drew on the Force, except he used a different technique, in his mind, a box appeared surrounding Kroder's body and it shrunk and shrunk until it was a perfect mould, and then using the Force he launched an attack, reveal your secrets, it launched but he saw it being drawn into a black hole.
Kroder struggled with keeping the mental battering ram from unlocking his mind. It had come close to breaking his concentration. He knew he could not sustain his defence for long, after all it was Skywalker who was working against him, the most powerful Jedi left and the one who had faced the Emperor, not once but twice. Kroder was running out of options, he would have to do something drastic, he could feel the black hole he had created in his mind crumble, he knew he had to take action. He had to draw on the Force and attack and hopefully escape but that would require revealing his mastery over the Force and they would know that he had been trained with the Emperor either way. He did not get the chance to decide, as Luke's powerful attack shattered his mind's defences. And suddenly, he could feel Luke probe deep into his mind. He had no choice but to reveal his mind even though he could throw Luke's probe out.
Luke allowed himself a small thought of triumph as he smashed the prisoner's defences, but he was not prepared for what he found out. "He's barely twenty years old, but some his memory seems to hold out, we should link our powers to probe there." Mara added her effort to Luke's and they broke through, they were utterly unprepared for what they saw.
A young boy five, given to the Emperor. The relentless drills and exercises everyday since youth. Working with the Force, persistently. Being punished when he got it wrong. Later some memories about the Imperial Academy at Carida, where he graduated a few years ago. And then…Kroder his knee bent as the Emperor looked down upon him and spoke "You are chosen as the Emperor's Shadow, you will be my eyes and ears in the fleet." Both Luke and Mara were shocked at this revelation.
"You've ruined everything," he screamed out, breaking his silence, "You blithering idiots have ruined my whole life. You've raped my mind; even Vader would not have done that," he continued to rant as tears flowed from his deep blue eyes, getting caught on bangs of his corn-yellow hair. Steeling himself, he blustered on, shouting some very obscene profanities at Mara and Luke, who still sat shocked at the revelation and the reaction.
"You thrice-cursed Emperor's Hand, you have willingly betrayed him. I will not," the tirade continued onwards, as the tears kept flowing freely, like a torrent down his now red cheeks. He strained against his restraints as he tried to attack Luke and Mara, but all he succeeded in doing was to hurt his wrists and receive a stunning zap from the cuffs. He slumped onto the floor, stunned and then unconscious. Luke and Mara took some time to digest what had just happened.
"Luke, he's dangerous, I remember him now, he was a child when I last saw him following the Emperor on Byss, when I visited there, once," Mara warned, slightly wistful at the memories that were dredged up from the recesses of her mind, those that should have been long buried, "whatever he is, we can't let him go." He insulted me, but I know that he's dangerous; anyone hanging around Palpantine as close as he was is definitively dangerous.
"But, Mara, the Emperor's long gone and dead, all his clones are dead as well. He's of no consequence, he can't harm anyone imprisoned anyway," Luke replied, hoping that he was right. "I suppose that now we know who he is, we can have Intelligence look into his activities and mission, I think in some ways he's right, we did violate his mind without his permission."
"But Luke, he's the enemy, the information there might be vital to the war," Mara half-heartedly complained. "Whatever information we can get will benefit the Smuggler's Alliance and the Republic."
"No, violating his mind is something that the Emperor and his dark Jedi would have done, I was already prematurely hasty and I fear what we do may border on Dark Side," Luke reflected, "After serving the Emperor Reborn, I really think that we have to be really careful about how close we stray to the Dark Side, lest we ever fall over."
Mara gave up and assented to Luke's decision. Soon Mara blasted off, and headed back to offload her prisoner. Kroder was kept unconscious by droid throughout the whole trip, and when he awoke he was in a small cell, all alone in the dark. He thought to himself, the third phase of breaking begins…