The shadows descended upon her, icy tendrils of pure black eating away at her flesh and driving away her sanity. She could hear her heart pounding faster and faster in her ears as the darkness engulfed her.
It was too strong, too powerful, too knowing of her fear. Steadily, the pressure against her windpipe increased. The black, bitter nothingness crushed her senses and drew the air from her lungs. Her heart rate slowed. She would die.
The darkness spoke to her in a voice of charcoal:Awake.:
She felt the Bacta drain away from her body and the warmth was replaced by the cold, sterile floor of… someplace. The room was simple and circular, filled with powder-blue kolto tanks and hygienic metal paneling.
"Where—" Racking coughs shook Mærin as her body rid her lungs of excess kolto. She left the transparent blue mess on the floor of what she supposed was the medical bay. Willing her aching body to stand up, she noticed others in the kolto tanks. Their features were peaceful, but they showed no signs of movement. There were vaguely familiar, but Mærin couldn't understand why. She turned away from kolto tanks, and her thoughts of the serene individuals were pushed into the corner of her mind.
She felt as if a rancor had sat on her and covered her body with tender purple bruises even though her skin was unmarked. A pitiful hobble was all she could manage to get herself into the next room, where a man lay on a hygienic metal table. His skin was drawn and pale, and his eyes no longer held light.
"May the Force keep you as this life could not." she whispered, bidding his spirit farewell and took his weapon as politely as one could steal from a corpse. She turned to walk into the hall when another body caught her eye. It was a woman, her face was lined with age and her long, braided hair shaded silver. A worn brown cloak hid the rest of the body from Mærin's sight, but she had no wish to disturb the dead any longer.
Mærin turned toward the computer with her newly acquired shock stick in hand and accessed the mainframe, turning the machine's blank screen into a welcoming ultramarine. She poured through files, searching for information.
"Peragus Mining Station…" she murmured, brushing her short-layered hair out of her eyes before plunging into the camera database. The woman frowned. There had been no organic movement recorded in any of the main rooms and hallways for three days.
Only mining droids… But on the administration level? She called up the monitor of the prison and drew a sharp intake of breath. A person. Secluded in a small room, he held pazaak cards in his hands as he sat, cross-legged, on the metal floor of his containment cell. His dark brown eyes, partially covered by unruly hair, displayed pure boredom. His practical clothes were disheveled, but through their rumpled state Mærin could detect a muscular build. Admiring men through a camera… I've stooped to a new low.
The computer offered no new information and the woman was left with no choice but to search for the lone pazaak player. She looked wistfully back at her empty kolto tank and wished she was still floating within it, healed and unworried.
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