Prologue - Part 1

Cold wrapped itself around me in a cadaverous embrace. It hungered for me like an insistent lover, clutching at the crevices between my limbs, stealing the breath from my lungs, sapping the spark of flame that drove my heart to beat. I could no more escape it than I could flee my own shadow. I could no more deny it than I could refute my own existence.

As my eyelids flipped open, cool liquid surged forward to drown my sight, except … no. Not just my eyes. It was everywhere, all around me. Death had indeed come for me after all; I was going to drown. I was going to die. Every moment that passed stole from me precious oxygen. Every second I had left screamed questions that I could not answer. What was this place? How did I get here? Who had done this to -

"Calm down, Lord Andora. You're in a kolto tank. You were injured; we had to bring you to this facility to recover."

Andora. I recognized my own name, at least. I knew who I was.

Sith.

Small details ignited in my memory, like jolts of electricity highlighting all the significant events of the last few decades. My home on Ziost, its place within the Empire. The battles that spanned decades. A Kaggath that pitted me against another Sith … his name slipped my recollection, but the battles I fought against his underlings had not faded. I was powerful. I was strong.

I knew what a kolto tank was. It took me a few seconds to realize I was, in fact, breathing quite normally. It took another few to realize my lekku had not been detached from the back of my but were simply suspended within the same liquid that kept the rest of my body afloat, submerged, but alive.

The knowledge I hadn't awakened to a watery grave did little to appease the questions that followed, nor the disquiet that still permeated every bone in my body.

How had I come to be here?

I did not remember being injured, did not remember how I had been brought to this location. I did not know the aged voice that now rang into my ears, amplified by a loudspeaker but distorted through the kolto. Everything was fuzzy. Murky. Opaque. Trying to remember felt like watching a holovid through a stranger's spectacles.

Suddenly, the liquid drained from the tank. The cylindrical glass before me swiveled open and I found myself stumbling forward. The muscles in my legs felt weak. Beyond weak, even. Unfamiliar. As if even the simple act of standing was now a new experience to them. Had I been stuck in that tank for so long that I had forgotten even this?

Before me, a large, mostly empty room with a single entrance stood in silence save for the still-churning echoes of the kolto tank I escaped. The windowless walls were pristine durasteel, kept in meticulous condition. Cameras with loudspeakers beneath them hung in all corners of the room. A single mirror dominated the landscape of the wall directly before me. I watched my reflection teeter on the soles of its feet, naked, lekku dangling behind me, scarlet flesh painted in splotches of veridian kolto.

A young togruta girl rushed forward to wrap a blanket around me before retreating to retrieve a durasteel chair that was clearly too heavy for her to lift. She struggled to keep its legs from rasping against the floor; I wanted to help her, started to do so even, but attempting a step caused me to fall to my knees. My bones cried out as they smacked against the plasteel floor and pain followed the sound in disjointed succession.

Just what had they done to me?

"What do you remember, my lord?"

The voice repeated questions over a loudspeaker that I could not answer for myself, much less for anyone else. I struggled to communicate my confusion, my doubt, my anger … to no avail. The girl had her arms around me now, pulling me into the chair she had somehow managed to bring into the center of the diagnostic chamber. All the while, she remained silent, eyes averted in a clear effort to avoid meeting my own. I lifted my arm to grab her, to force her to answer, but before I could, the loudspeaker rang out again.

"I know it must be difficult, but you must answer my questions."

The voice grated on my ears. It reeked of a man who had long since forgotten how to distinguish sympathy from sycophancy. I was neither an intellectual, nor a philosopher, but voices sparked my intuition. Subtle intonations, cadence, lilt and inflection, rhythm and pacing … they said as much as the words they carried. Often more.

This one's voice spoke of a man defeated, a man who had come to know the heel of a boot well and often.

"Where am I?" I managed. The words came slow and obstinate; my tongue had to work to push them out.

"My research facility. I am Doctor Magaro … and I'm here to help you."

I chuckled humorlessly. It was more difficult than I remembered. Did my laughter always sound so stilted?

"Did I say something amusing?" asked Magaro over the loudspeaker, his question more curious than affronted.

"Your accent. It's Imperial."

"It is."

The words came easier the more I spoke. "I'm still in the Empire. There is no charity to be found here. You want something from me."

The voice didn't respond.

"What is it then?" I pressed. "What is it you think you can get from me? Wealth? Influence? A Sith's favor?"

The loudspeaker sounded out again, but it no longer addressed me.

"Tava, secure the patient."

In a flash, the meek togruta girl seized my wrists with surprising precision and strapped them into the chair's armrests. My ankles followed suit despite my best efforts to resist. I didn't understand how my reflexes had slowed to such pathetic straits, why my muscles seemed to process every one of my commands with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Once, I was a champion among my master's apprentices. Now …

It hit me then like a pail of ice water. Darth Siphon, my master; her golden mask gleamed against the light of Ziost's moons as she advanced on Hallie. Hallie, my beloved. My arm and weapon shot out to deflect Siphon's blade from running Hallie through. It was a move that surprised even myself. Instinct had taken over. I shouted at Hallie to run, to flee. To save herself while I sacrificed … everything.

"You're remembering something," said Magaro. "Tell me."

"You work for her," I replied. A guess, but the only one that made any sense.

"Who?"

"Darth Siphon. My master."

The voice changed. The false empathy evaporated, replaced by genuine giddiness. "You remember her. Good. Excellent! What else? What else?"

My mouth answered before I could think to stop myself. "I … was trying to save Hallie. Siphon was going to kill her … I had to stop her. She got away, but …I don't know what happened next. It's all a blur … all empty."

"Agent Hallian Quen. That's right. Very good. Last I heard -"

The voice paused. It was deliberate. The tempo of his words was too calculated for their sudden cessation to have been anything but a precisely-timed piece of theater.

I didn't care. The desperate need to know what had befallen Hallie overwhelmed any curiosity at the purpose behind Magaro's theatrics. "What happened to her! Tell me!"

The voice over the megaphone ignored me. "Tava, please place the test object and then exit the chamber."

The togruta girl - Tava - did as she was told. Gently, she set a drab pillow down upon the floor before me. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second as she looked back up, but they fled as quickly as her feet carried her from the room. Moments later, I was once more alone, strapped into a heavy chair in a room where my only visible company was the reflection of my body staring back at me. That, and a pillow.

I had no doubt the mirror was two-way. Magaro had to be on the other side, observing his patient from behind it. Why? Did he fear that I would use the Force against him? Did he think the mirror would protect him?

The questions continued unabated in my mind, but my heart allowed for only one. "Tell me what happened to Hallie."

"I will, my lord. But I must beg your indulgence. There are some tests I need to run. Your cooperation would be most appreciated."

"What sort of tests?"

"Simple ones, ideally. Please, reach into the Force. Use it to move that pillow."

I blinked in disbelief. " … you insult me with this trivial task. I am Sith."

"You are, my lord. Even so, please ... humor me."

Against my better judgment, I acquiesced. My hand reached before me; it felt like lifting lead, but I needed no physical strength to access the Force. I still remembered its quirks and its vagaries. They were as fresh in my mind as anything else.

I reached into the Force and willed the pillow to motion, to lift off the ground, in defiance of gravity, compelled by my power.

Nothing happened. An eternity passed in breathless anticipation - expectation, even - and still, the silken cushion moved not a single centimeter.

" … I feared as much." The disappointment in the doctor's voice was clear even despite his attempts to hide it.

I shook my head and tried again. When the second attempt failed, I could not stop myself from screaming at the man behind the mirror. "What did you do to me!?"

"I'm afraid this is not our doing. This is simply how you are."

I didn't believe him. I couldn't. To be denied access to the Force, to be cut off from its connection ... it felt like I had just been told my limbs had been amputated. I lost something more precious than I had ever thought, something I did not know to cherish until it was -

An image of Hallie flashed before me in defiance of those thoughts. Memories of what it was like to lie beside her, to hold her in my arms, to be joined to her as one … they flooded back to me in a deluge of overwhelming emotion. She was the true treasure. Not the Force. It was her.

"Hallie." I turned my attention once more to the loudspeaker above, doing my best not to betray how desperately I needed to know of my beloved's fate. "I did as you asked. Tell me what happened to her."

A pause followed the answer. "She's alive. She escaped with one of your former allies. Lord Rend. Tell me … what do you remember of him?"

Rend. That imperious snake that cared only for pleasing their master. Why would Hallie have escaped with him? "I don't understand."

"You've missed a lot while you were resting, my lord."

My voice filled with cold fury. I had had enough of being toyed with. "Tell me. N-"

But a sudden jolt of agony coursed through me and stole what remained of my frustration from my tongue. I felt my bones ablaze, as though someone had doused them in oil and sparked a match overhead. Anguished cries flooded my ears; it took me more than a few seconds to realize they were my own.

When at last the torment ended and only echoes of searing pain were left, I finally managed to speak once more. " … what have you done to me?"

"I told you, my lord. You're not well."

"What is it?" I pressed. "What's going to happen to me?"

A harrowing pause followed, too long to be deliberate. Even in this pathetic state, I still knew that much at least. The man behind the intercom was struggling to decide what to tell me. The silence spoke volumes, even absent any words.

When at last he spoke, my ears filled with the resounding reply of a man admitting truth in the face of imminent failure.

"You're dying, my lord ... and only I can save you."