31. We have no friends but the mountains. Kurdish proverb; Additional prompt of Jacen Solo
* Death challenge draw: Corran Horn, death by starvation
Alone in the Mountains
We have no friends but the mountains. ~ Kurdish proverb
In what seemed like another lifetime, one could say that the Jedi Knight Jacen Solo, a prominent scion of the Skywalker-Solo family, would never be able to conceive of the idea of torturing another being wantonly. He had even at one point been very reluctant to use the Force unless severely pressed to do so. But that had been many years ago and that young, idealistic man no longer existed.
That was not to say that he was really dead. His body still lived on- breathed, ate and slept, along with every other vital process of humanoid life. But when one looked into his eyes, they were struck by two things. First, the lively spark of life that had been there were gone. Any who now looked in his eyes now would say that they looked dead, utterly lacking in life. Second, they were an unnatural colour when he became angry. They turned to sulphuric yellow from their natural brown.
But it was his behaviour that had taken the marked turn for the worse. His men in the Galactic Alliance Guard, who were somewhat feared themselves, in many cases were severely disturbed by what they had seen him do in the pursuit of the insurrectionists against the GA. He had come on missions beside them and took part in everything they did- at first they appreciated it.
It was a sign that he cared for his men and was willing to be in the field with them as if he were an ordinary soldier. Just like his grandfather, Vader. He went to lengths beyond what a Jedi would deem appropriate to protect them and the state- the ends justified the means and any solution would be considered. Even the most amoral, the imprisonment and torture of a former instructor and colleague was to be considered.
Captain Lon Shevu saw this. He knew what Col. Solo was doing was wrong. Imprisoning a man for sedition and subversion was one thing, but starving and beating him for it was quite another. After the evacuation of Endor, the Galactic Alliance Guard had somehow managed to capture the Jedi Master Corran Horn.
Shevu had no idea how they had captured the wily Corellian or why. Remembering his time supervising young Ben Skywalker when he was in the GA, he knew that Jedi did what they did for good reasons- even if they weren't reasons that he agreed with such as the training of children. Horn had to know what it was that he could be facing if he allowed himself to be captured and yet, he seemed to have allowed it to happen anyways.
And so he had been forced to watch helplessly as the Corellian was beaten daily and given barely enough food to live. He had little water too- just enough to hold on a little longer. And Shevu longed to do something about it but he couldn't. One wrong move and he could end up sharing Horn's fate.
But eventually, his conscience wouldn't let him do nothing.
He would help the man escape.
Shevu waited to try his luck at helping the unfortunate Jedi Master until Colonel Solo went off on another Jedi hunting trip with the bulk of the guard not dedicated to security on Coruscant. He kept a look on the watch, made that his timing would be just so and concealed extra supplements to build up the starving man's strength. It wouldn't do if he were to expire before he was strong enough to escape.
He volunteered for late night duty a few times before he took advantage of two of his colleagues going on vacation to set to his work. That night, he began to smuggle in the vials and directions for administering them and made sure they were all there.
Please don't be dead, please don't be dead. You have to be alive. I've gone to a lot of trouble and I'd rather not die for nothing. He thought to himself as he entered the Jedi's cell.
The Jedi had been beaten again- welts and bruises of deep purple and black covering his now fragile body. His bones were easily visible, his skin neatly stretched over them and covered with further signs of extreme malnutrition and torture. His ruddy-brown hair, now greying, was laying flat and greasy against his head. His brilliant green eyes, typically bright in concentration and full of life, now were listless. But Shevu noted something hopeful- shallow breathing.
The man was alive, albeit barely.
"Why are you here? You know that if he catches you that he's going to do this to you if not outright kill you." He rasped, in a hoarse voice just barely above a whisper.
"There's law, and there's justice, and sometimes they're not the same thing." Shevu replied as he rolled out the vials of nutrients and supplements from his bag to attempt to treat the man to save his life.
The Corellian nodded at this, accepting Shevu's words as truth. But not in any way that indicated that he cared much. Shevu started worrying that he was too late. That he had waited too long and that what he was going to attempt was going to do nothing for him. But he had to try- he had to give it a shot.
"You're right you know." Horn laughed somewhat as Shevu set about administering the first of the supplements he had brought with him.
"About what?" he asked.
"Law and justice- they aren't the same things sometimes. But to a Sith, they're interchangeable. At least how the interpret things they are. They classify things as black and white. And because of that, I'm doubly damned."
Shevu was stunned at this admission. He knew that the Jedi no longer trusted Solo and that they were resisting him, openly rebelling against his control of the Galactic Alliance. He wasn't too pleased either and had told Ben Skywalker the last time that he had spoken with him that he would do whatever he could to help the Jedi. He even knew that it would likely cost him his life but he was willing to do it anyways.
"Because you're a Corellian and a Jedi?" he said at last.
The Corellian nodded and his shallow breathing continued as he watched Shevu continue his work. His pulse was thready- Shevu kept checking his carotid artery every time he saw the man twitch for fear that he might soon expire. But somehow, the man was still alive, albeit barely.
Shevu had nearly finished when the man took a turn for the worse. And using every bit of first aid he knew- a required section of training that he had undergone to enter the Coruscant Security Force- he tried to keep the weakened Jedi Master alive. But it seemed that no matter what Shevu tried, he just couldn't make his knowledge go far enough. The training that he was using had focused on reviving a suspect who was experiencing a cardiac episode, not trying to revive a man who had been starved to the point of death and beaten to boot.
His breathing started to fail, his pulse began to skip in its thready way and he became pale as death itself. Time seemed to slow down, making Shevu's frantic attempts as a medic slow down in time even further as they failed. Shevu could almost see each failure pile up like neatly stalked pile of flimsi as he did what he could.
In the end, it wasn't enough. He had failed and what he had done wasn't enough.
Horn's last words were: "Tell my wife I love her."
And Shevu couldn't help but think of the old Coruscanti proverb that captured Horn's predicament before his death and his own divided loyalties as he transitioned himself into the role of informer for the Jedi.
We have no friends but the mountains.
Fin