Chapter 3:
Antares couldn't remember where she began and the others ended. There was just a long line of pain and fear. Some of the fears were hers, recalled from childhood. Her fear of heights. The one she'd struggled for months with to perform the first dance to have the players climb upside down to the stage. Of course, the climb had been from two hundred feet in the air. That was an old, familiar trouble. One that she could and had on numerous occasions pushed through. It was strange, having that fear change and thrown back at her.
Then there was others. Someone had a fear of drowning. The initial fear drug, Mordonine, she later learned, was mixed with glitterstim. The hallucinogenic made all the fears real, vivid. So many times, she would wake to the feeling of water filling her throat, coating her lungs. She would gasp and cough, trying to escape the drowning.
Another time, she would see a Trandoshan, a man she'd never met before and could not tell any his name. But she would see him killed...by blaster fire...by incineration by thermal detonator...by a lightsaber and she would weep uncontrollably for hours. Fear quickly turning to grief, despair.
The drugs turned her stomach and made it difficult to hold what little food she was given. And she wasn't the only one. The sickness, reverberated, rebounded on each of them. At the direst moment, she felt the death throes of one of her fellow captives. Her mind stretched and snapped as it believed it was dying only to live breath to breath.
For a long time there was darkness. Sweet utter black. And silence. That was the more satisfying. The quiet. No one elses' thoughts and feelings become alive in her own. She could rest for the first time in what had felt like a season.
Once again she woke to the white room. This time, a blanket had been draped over her. Her muscles were sore from trembling, from clenching in fear. But as she moved, they were not as painful as they'd been before. Her writs and ankles had been released from the bindings and bandaged. They no longer felt fevered from infection. The unexpected kindness brought tears to her eyes. She laughed at the fact that she could cry at all.
Tentatively, she swung her legs over the edge of the medical bed. The cool tile welcomed her thin feet. She stood for the first time and waited for this one luxury to be pulled away from her. Her legs wobbled like a newborn Saun colt. The simple action threatened to drain her fragile energy reserves but she continued to stand and to observe. It had been too long since she'd acted and thought for herself.
Antares, walked towards the wall with awkward steps. She, a dancer who'd been instructed since she could form sentences longer than two words, had trouble putting one foot in front of the other. It seemed unreal. A nightmare she could not shake in her waking hours. She took solace that at least it belonged to her and her alone.
Vaguely, she wondered what had happened to the others. Those she had shared her ordeal with. She'd felt one die. A brother or sister she had never known but was imbedded in her heart. Should she mourn? Her mind told her yes, but her heart yearned for another emotion, anything other than the dread of the last terrible days.
As she waited in the silence, it settled on hope. Perhaps the Republic had found her captors, that the Falleen and the Count would finally be held accountable for their crimes. She liked to think that even now they were being taken into custody and in a few minutes the door would swish open, this time inviting her freedom. She tried not to think of her own culpability. They'd used her. And a being was dead.
But she was being allowed to walk, to think, and to be alone. Antares by nature was a social person, almost needing to be in a group of others, dancing, collaborating, interacting. She never though she would appreciate being alone.
She reached the door and it swished open at her presence. She paused, half frightened, half exhausted. She hated for this to be a trick. A new form of torture. A promise of hope to be dashed away in mental and physical imprisonment.
On the precipice of decision, she took a timid step forward. She stood on the threshold now. The waiting place. Neither in her prison but not quite free of it either. It pressed upon her back, pushing and pulling. Another ungainly step forward and she was in a corridor. The building was unfamiliar. It almost had the utilitarian aspect of a warehouse, but there was a precision, a solemnity that didn't mark the lazy patience of a warehouse.
Her stomach made its abuse known and she yearned for nerf steak in muja sauce. Flatbread and Taccati fish. The continued quiet, though still very welcome, began to feel weighted. As though the hall had ears and was listening for her. She followed down the hall, using the wall as a crutch. Even this little walk was draining muscles that had atrophied from disuse.
This time another fear struck her heart. What if she could never dance? In her more lucid moments, she'd known that the galactic troupe had most definitely moved on. That her dream had passed away probably never to return. But the thought of never dancing again. That was a fate worse than death. She had to get away.
There were rooms down the hall, rooms like hers. But they were empty, abandoned. Cold light reaching out to her in translucent, bony fingers of ghosts long gone. She shuddered, the cold pervasive, soaking to her very marrow. She longed to be free, to once again feel the rays of the sun heat her face. She missed her brothers' smiles, the way her mother ran fingers through her hair, Endrex's arms around her, the rise and fall of a sweet melody. She had a feeling that she would never know them again.
The hope flickered and guttered like a storm ridden torch.
Antares began to believe she was the only one that remained. The others had died or possibly gone mad with the sensations of death. She'd been on the brink herself. She'd felt the madness, had seen it as a comfort and escape of its own. She wasn't sure what had saved her. Perhaps she was merely too valuable to give up to the prolonged testing. The others…the others were gone. If she could leave now then there wouldn't have to be anyone else hurt by this ability that was somehow going to save the galaxy.
She heard footsteps and paused, her breath coming in and out in tiny gasps that sounded too loudly in her ears. In a hurried panic, I glanced around the corridor and dodged into one of the rooms. The soft hiss of the door opening and closing the only mark of her departure. She dropped below the view window. Pressing her back to the door, careful not to shift her weight and signal it open. She closed her eyes, cocking her head to the side and willing her ears to hear every potential threat. She almost scoffed at her own foolishness. Dooku had been a Jedi. Didn't they have some powers of omniscience? How long could she really hide if he was hunting her?
She waited with baited breath, she could imagine the vibration of the footsteps as they came and went passed her.
"It won't be long before the droids will be here," a gruff voice said. "We've begun unloading the weapons in sector twelve."
Weapons? Droids?
Antares eyes flickered around the sterile room. What was this place? And what did it have to do with her? Unless Dooku wished to destroy an entire galaxy or else drive it to madness. Tears pricked her eyes. She let them fall silently. What had once been her greatest gift had been turned to such ugliness and darkness. Maybe it would have been better to give in to death. She didn't want to be a tool of destruction.
The hope was wearing thin the longer she walked the halls, the more labyrinth her prison became. She wasn't even sure if she was on Serenno or some other land holding of the Count's.
It was a while before she felt safe enough to continue roaming the halls. She found shipping containers and wondered if she had moved into sector 12. She touched a one of the shipping crates, wondered if she were strong enough to pry it open. She'd never held a blaster before, though she knew her father had carried one once they'd left Alderaan.
For several minutes, she pressed the keypad glyphs, hoping to stumble across the right access code. A red light flashed after eight keys, so it had to at least be eight digits. Nine keys, eight digits, she would be here forever.
She put a shaking hand to her forehead. Everything was too hot and sticky. Was she on a jungle planet? She'd spent a season with a troupe in Car Sean that had the most dripping atmosphere. She felt as though she were constantly drowning on water. The thought brought back another unpleasant memory. Drowning. A fear she'd never had until now.
Without thinking, she coughed, as though she were once again emerged in a tank she could not escape. She shook her head. With an effort she focused her eyes back on the key pad. Her mind had lost its precision focus, it wondered too easily, distracted by too many dark memories. Endrex's company had dealt in shipping. Why had she not paid more attention?
Vaguely, she recalled him mentioning something about wiping shipping crates to reset the locking mechanism. But if he'd explained, she had not fully understood and had tuned it out. She looked around. Shipping crates were made durable, but were notorious for overuse. She could carry one of the smaller ones, climb somewhere high and push it over the edge. If she was lucky, she'd have a blaster or a least something that could be used to distract everyone. She could slip out the front door, once she found it.
It was the first steps towards hope and that climb was always the hardest.
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Larego had shown her the choreography and she had nearly lost her lunch. She was still on the stage, looking at the intricate netting, rising high into the air. Antares swallowed the lump in her throat. She started the basic movements on the stage, getting down on hands and toes. It was a dance from Archano that had been adapted and adopted by millions of worlds. The Leg Dance. She'd seen it performed by humans before but eventually it was criticized as lacking the articulation and fluidity of the original. Archanoans had eight appendages, each with series of segmented joints that were not limited to the single mechanics of a human.
She paused, trying to figure how a human body could flip from the crouched position she was currently on and land with her face and belly to the ceiling. She tried it once, throwing her weight on her right hand and foot and pushing away with her left. As she arched over in the air she changed the direction of her right hand, twisting it so that her palm was flat against the floor. Landing her left, she did the same, her midsection bowing outward to the ceiling.
With a huff, she dropped to the ground. She didn't need to see the recording to know that the maneuver hadn't looked beautiful or effortless. Nor had it evoked the stealthy silence of the Archanoans. Her green eyes darted to the netting again. Despite her deep fear, she could see how it would be easier to make such a movement in the air.
"Why are you lying on the floor?" Endrex asked with a laugh. His steps echoed through the empty stage. "You're supposed to be in the air."
"Why don't you do it?" she snapped. It was unfair, they'd only known each other for less than a season; he couldn't possibly understand how much this filled her with dread.
Endrex's smirk faded away. He held his hand up in surrender. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?" His blue eyes flickered to the mesh above. "Did you fall?" He rushed forward, kneeling by her side.
She put a hand to his cheek. "No, I didn't fall. I would have to actually make the climb to fall. And…I'm terrified."
"Afraid of heights? Good to know. I won't be taking you to the Cliffs of Keskeedan any time soon."
She sat up, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on the tops of her knees. "Maybe you should. One quick scare. I don't know how I'm going to do this. Just the thought of it makes me freeze."
Abruptly, he leaped to his feet and offered her a hand. She eyed his hand wearily. He had that mischevious glint in his eye that always promised and adventure. It was one of the reasons she was becoming enamored with him. She'd held herself to such an exact standard, that Endrex's easy-going mischief made her feel alive, happy and free. "What are you doing?"
"Come on. I may not have your grace, lovey, but I have had plenty of climbing experience. I'll be with you every step of the way. Everything is easier when faced together."
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Antares was alone now, the painstaking climb only endured for the promise of what lay curled in at her side. The shipping loader was an ancient piece of machinery, used to load the heavier crates and equipment that had come into what Antares now thought of as the compound. She'd rigged a makeshift satchel out of cello tape and had affixed the smaller shipping crate to her side. But it was not an easy climb.
It was basically one lever balanced by a column built into the compounds receiving bay. The column did not have a lot of hand holds and her muscles had already taken more than a beating. But determination and adrenalin can do much and she was adept at using both. She was half way up when her palms began to cramp. Her legs trembled with the effort, her toes digging into the centimeters high grove.
She looked behind her. If she fell from this height, she would not survive. She had a choice to make. Try to go forward and hopefully make it to the top or head back down before she lost her grip and her life. Antares had not reached her goals in life by backing down when things became difficult. She pulled herself up to the next groove.
Sweat stung her eyes, made her slim purchase on the column even more precarious. If only she'd had the chalk she used before she danced, keeping the grime of the dance from her. The top was in sight, she could see it, a couple meters ahead. It wouldn't take much at all. But her body didn't have much to give.
A strained sob echoed through the bay as she struggled to keep her hold. Her muscles, her body, her trusted friend, gave out and she fell. Wildly, she reached for the column, felt the promises of bruises as she fell to face to get a grip on it again. She was going to die and it wasn't the terrible thing she'd thought it would be. It was a different type of escape, one that would end this pain and misery. An escape that would save others from the madness and death. An escape that would end whatever Count Dooku was planning.
But the unruly plummet began to slow, the high pitched whistle of wind running past her ear dimming to a dull whisper. When she hit the ground it was as though an unseen, clumsy dance partner had dropped her during a routine.
"It would seem she did not fall the madness as you had feared, Master," a sultry alto voice said. Antares didn't recognize it. Her face was pale and white, her head hairless. There were tattooed markings on her forehead, eyes and mouth. She seemed more alien then the Archano that Antares had been thinking about, though she was clearly humanoid.
"She has shown surprising resilience," Dooku agreed. "Tell Cethlos that I wish to proceed with experiments."
Shaking her head, tears streaming freely from her eyes, Antares was not above begging. "Please, my lord, no. I cannot…more will die…I'm not sure if…," her pleadings turned quickly to groans and screams as the pale woman grabbed her by an arm and hefted her to her feet. A gesture brought a droid supporting Antares other side.
"Please," she moaned. "Please."
At that moment, she felt that brief light of hope extinguish. Dooku touched her cheek, his calloused hands matching the emptiness in his face. "Lady San now you know the true nature of the Dark Side. You are almost ready."
She screamed as they dragged her away, continued to scream as they left her alone once again in that cell. The cuffs, familiar and cold, slapped her back into place. She longed for the oblivion of unconsciousness but even in that she was shown no kindness.