CHAPTER THREE
"You sleemo!" Cresta yelled, and spit on the body of a human male, close to her in age.
The male body's jaw had been cut open the mouth slit from ear to ear perking a gory smile. Crimson lipstick graced across his top and bottom lips, matching that upon Cresta's lips. Blood had begun to form rivers upon the countenance of the male as whines of waning life and breath pulsed from the mouth, body shaking and fingers twitching as the victim clung to his remaining time. She squatted down; spread her legs across the dying man's face. Her violet locks embraced her petite shoulders; cerulean pants covered her nether-regions as tears welled in the dying man's eyes.
"You cheated on me, kark-face. I'll see you in Hell!"
On her words, both hands clutched a vibroblade, violently forcing it betwixt the man's eyes. Her stern beauty, the last vision the man saw as his final breathes muttered for a mercy she never allowed. She raised herself from straddling the dead man, Tera gracing her raven nails across Cresta's shoulders.
"Did you love him?" Tera requested.
"He deserved death for breaking my heart."
"That is the destiny of the Sith, you must remove yourself from those you love to fully embrace the dark powers that await you. That is what my Master teaches. You loved him and you had to sacrifice him for your greater good."
Cresta glided across the durasteel floor of the small apartment she had shared with the deceased. Her months of living with the man only compounded with his late nights at cantinas indulged in drink and women. He would never return home as he had promised, and for that he had to die. Cresta had only loved the one man, the only man she had physically known. Her heart and her body belonged to him only to be torn from her soul.
"He was your only lover, Cresta?"
"Yes, Tera, yes he was." Cresta's face billowed in physical reaction to cry.
"Now, Cresta give yourself to another lover; the One True Sith."
Cresta hesitated in her thoughts. She concentrated to devote her next phrase as best she could. Any signs of fear and those who commanded her to kill her lover would certainly reject her from their cause and possibly turn her over to the Galactic Alliance Guard. Cresta buried her emotions deep within focusing on the sinister methods her new friends have begun to teach her in secret. Tera welcomed her as one of her own, but Cresta had one last test to prove herself to their cause.
"I devote myself to your teachings, Tera."
Cresta kneeled upon one knee, bowing her head in reverence, a lock of violet-dyed hair lowered from her shoulders. Tera outreached her pale, raven-tipped hands to lift Cresta from the durasteel floor. Tera's hands became a welcomed embrace after her trials. Cresta felt no remorse, no fear, and no doubts. What she had accomplished was for her, and her alone. The death of one she loved proved herself to Tera.
"Come, Cresta, we must find our fourth sister and complete our coven."
Harsh footsteps punctuated Cresta's knee high, stiletto-heeled boots. As each agonizing wade through the forest continued, her pains graduated with anxious fury. Trees of decay and rot encompassed the path of the four women as they advanced toward their destination. The rot permeated the senses of the females of decaying flesh and bark. The forest canopy reached hundreds of feet into the sky, swirling clouds of putrid, pale miasma blanketed the higher branches in a soup of sulfuric acid.
The powers of the dark side gave them strength, the ability to breathe the toxic air that would have required the aid of a life-suit. The Force, however, could not stop the physical toll the arduous journey would havoc on their muscles and limbs. Hol'en was visibly lagging the tail end of the entourage, Cresta managed to help her catch up while Mandin and Tera led the way.
"Tera," Cresta shouted, "we need to rest."
Tera stopped and turned around to the disturbance.
"What do you mean, rest?" She shouted in anger. Her eyes briefly glazed over in an off-yellow tint.
"Hol'en. She's tired. We should stop and catch our breath. Make sure we are still in the right direction."
"The dark side guides us, my sister," Mandin comforted, walking back toward her companions, her shapely form out of place in this dangerous world.
Cresta kicked her boots into the red soils. Clumps of dust disturbed upward, only to evaporate as they kissed the atmosphere. Even the soils of solid ground could not survive the harsh climate. Cresta clutched her chest, her lungs seared with a small pain. She held her hand up to her mouth, as a small chunk of blood evacuated her orifice. She wiped the blood from her mouth, her white teeth stained with vermillion.
"This is what happens when we stop, Cresta." Mandin reminded, "So long as we keep walking, the dark side will protect us. Otherwise, we die here."
Cresta leaned against one of the rotting trees of the forest. The burning sensation inside her chest angered her; pain caused the dark side to swell inside her cells. In anger, she ripped apart the bark she held to. The decay crumbled into her hands as quickly as sugar dissolves in water. An odd red, liquid spewed from the wound. She pulled out more, a larger chunk as if she was tearing meat from a fresh kill. More liquid gushed from the tree onto her face, engulfing it in a scarlet splatter.
"Mandin, Tera, what the hell is this?"
Cresta fingered the gaping wound, a feeling of cold, lifeless flesh squished between her fingers as the blood spill slowed to a slight trickle. Hol'en walked over to another tree to verify their claim. The second tree exhibited the same behavior. Tera and Mandin grew concerned. To stop now, would cause the powers that protected them to vanish resulting in their own deaths from the caustic atmosphere. As each piece of bark was removed, a sudden chill ran through the Force.
Moans and cries of suffering souls echoed across the valley. Each one crying in agony as the two women molested the trees. Of the four, Tera was the only one to feel the Force echoes.
"Stop it!" She yelled. "These trees, they're attuned to the Force!"
The abused trees continued to flow a dark, soupy blood as if human flesh had been gored from the torso, the trees themselves screaming within the confines of the Force. A mixture of flesh and darkened blood plopped out of one of the holes that Cresta had made. She jumped back in a reaction similar if she had gutted a live animal. She glanced over her hands in astonishment at what she had discovered. Her hands had been covered in the bloody goo that escaped from the foliage. The fragments of blood hardened inside her violet hair.
"We must go," Tera ordered, clutching her large book beneath her left arm, "before our protection wears off."
Zayne toiled away in the passenger compartment, looking for any clues the girls may have left behind as to their purpose. He scoured under the couches, in the locker and cargo bins, every nook and cranny did not go unnoticed. He had to know why he was risking his life on some mere pilgrimage. See-ThreeQue Eight entered from the cockpit. He had been monitoring the ship's functions since touchdown.
"Sir, we are at fifty percent shields, our passengers had been gone for about one hour."
"That's great. We're left here to die, while the sithspawn frolic in the woods. Have you found anything useful about this place?"
"Sir, I cross-referenced every known record, tracing back to the days of the Old Republic, around the time of the Jedi Civil War. This was the time that the Sith Lord, Darth Revan discovered the Rakatan planet after thousands of years of dormancy of the species."
"Spare me the introductions, what are you getting at?" Zayne requested, drawing a sigh.
"Nothing exists about this planet. Other planets in the deep core, Had Abbadon, Prakith and others exist on all records."
"And who would go through the trouble of making sure nothing is known about a planet that holds some sort of relevance to a band of Sith wannabes with a giant book? Do we have access to the Holonet here?"
"Sir, I'm afraid not. The closest system with a Holonet transmitter is Had Abbadon, and that transmitter is ancient at best, not routed on the main network. We are several light years from the system. For all intents and purposes to the Galactic Republic, we are ghosts. Besides, due to our proximity to the Galactic Black Hole, any transmissions may likely be lost."
"Comforting," Zayne plopped down onto the fitted couch that lined a wall of the passenger compartment.
"We're going to die on a planet no one except these women has ever heard of. Wake me when we die." Zayne implied, and nodded off to sleep.
See-ThreeQue Eight hesitantly retreated toward the cockpit on his master's words. Droids could never understand the state of death, to them they only shut down. See-ThreeQue Eight had experienced death twice on this journey, but each time came back online. Would he experience true death; never coming back online. Droids never pondered such possibilities. They served their function and when time to recycle, they had no choice but to accept the inevitable.
See-ThreeQue Eight seated himself in the co-pilot seat and returned to monitoring the ship's functions. The shield gauges continued to flicker strength percentiles. As a scientific being, he could not doubt their readings, but, he wondered if the anomalies of the planet could cause the meters to be miscalculating. Without warning, lights flickered and dimmed; stuttering to darkness within the cockpit. See-ThreeQue Eight glanced around; displays flickered in static, briefly returning to normal then moving to white noise again. This repeated for a few moments when a heavy groan echoed from behind him, then an eerie silence amidst the still and darkened craft.
See-ThreeQue Eight heard his servos running, and the electrons flowing through his processing core. Minute thoughts of processing vibrated throughout his circuitry, each one of them administered by a simple flow of electrons across his wiring. Binary thought processes digitized as ones and zeros comprehended two states; on or off. Humans could only be on or off in his mind. Emotions existed as a gray area of which his processes were limited in programming. He existed more as a service droid than a true protocol droid. The restraining bolt on his chest managed that to which only Zordo knew the encryption key to turn it off. All life forms, organic or inorganic, exist to reach the ultimate state of off.
As a droid, he could not understand what was occurring. Was this the toxic mixture distorting the ship's readings or his own computations? Could the ship be fading out of life with the caustic interference? He twisted in his seat to glance behind him and noticed a flicker of a humanoid form seemed to dissolve into the door leading to the passenger chambers. See-ThreeQue Eight arose, following the apparition. The door slid open, curious he continued toward the chamber where Zayne rested.
There, he saw a movement in the shadows. His robotic eyes could not discern the reality of the occurrence. A whimpering cry echoed from the source of the shadow, like a small child who broke his favorite toy. As See-ThreeQue Eight walked over to the source of the noise, he noticed another flicker of a humanoid form appear and disappear from in front of the sleeping Zayne. In a static flurry of white and blue, the being hovered; half torso at first and with each sputter more came into being. Head, arms, torso, legs staggered into existence. The being; dressed in an ancient war regalia harkening back to the days of the Hyperspace Wars, flourished and hung about the ship as the stench of rotting flesh followed it.
Fading between the physical and spiritual planes, See-ThreeQue Eight grew curious of the ghost. His android brain could not decipher what was occurring. The being flickered as if it were being switched between his two states on or off. See-ThreeQue Eight staggered toward the last known presence of the apparition, only for it to disappear again. His metal footsteps clamoring on the durasteel floor awoke Zayne, who questioned what See-ThreeQue Eight was doing.
As Zayne awoke, the ancient being flickered into existence again, this time hovering across the compartment chambers from Zayne's resting place. Zayne briefly caught a glimpse of the ghost and noticed the ancient armor. Two tentacle-like appendages draped down from the being's chin which Zayne recognized to be of the ancient Sith species he'd read in his history books. The specter opened its mouth, only for its existence to become a face and unleashed a flurry of parasitic insects toward Zayne. Zayne cowered into the fetal position, feeling every stinging, poisonous prick of proboscis upon his flesh. His entire body succumbed to the attack as if there was no separation of him and the insect onslaught.
See-ThreeQue Eight gazed upon his master, who appeared to cower and fear in a prone position screaming to get the insects off of him, where See-ThreeQue Eight saw none.
"Master, what insects?" See-ThreeQue Eight queried.
"They're biting me, infecting me! Get them off!"
"Sir, there's nothing on you. I do not know what you are talking about."
Zayne snapped out of his hallucination, regained composure and glanced at his exposed hands and felt his neck. He swapped at his skin, inspected both sides of his hands and arms. Not a single prick or drop of blood left his body.
"I was just attacked. Some sort of monster, or ghost appeared over there," he pointed toward the opposite end of the room close to the egress hatch.
"Sir, I saw nothing. I heard a faint noise coming from the passenger chambers and thought it was you."
See-ThreeQue Eight could not comprehend the existence of the ethereal, and calculated the ghost was a distortion of his ocular sensors due to the sulfuric atmosphere.
"No, there was something there…" Zayne stopped, and realized he was talking to a droid, a being without a soul who could not comprehend what he just witnessed. See-ThreeQue Eight was a being that existed with a binary thought process. Should the droid comprehend the number two as an alternate state of being, perhaps one day droids could wield the Force. He laughed a bit inside.
He had broken out into a cold sweat as he relaxed from his horror. Could Tera have sent this apparition? No, this being attacked him. He determined that Tera's powers could not have manifested this fright. This was Roth playing mind games with him. The pure dark side energies on this planet would terrorize the non-Force sensitives with its dark promises and deceit. Zayne experienced the raw, unadulterated power of the dark side.