-Hella-
The slash General Gesselle's knife left across my belly ached and burned by turns, the flesh pulling uncomfortably with evert twist or contortion combat required. I sucked up the pain as best I could, knowing that if Quinn pointed out that an abbreviated vest was not a tactically sound wardrobe choice for someone like me I was going to throw a hissy fit because A) he was probably right and B) I didn't want to damage him. My one bit of luck was his ability as a medic: the wound wasn't bleeding all over the place which was, perhaps, why it pulled and tugged so much.
I did feel a bit disappointed that the General had to die, however. Maybe, in a way, I didn't begrudge her the monument carved into my flesh the way I would have were it someone else who left it there. The only aristocrat on this foul planet worth the air she was breathing and she just had to be on the wrong side of me.
I hate this planet: Alderaan is just Nar Shaddaa with frilly clothes, frilly food and attempts at frilly manners. They're bloated decorative fish pretending at being sharks with no one present to or capable of contradicting them.
I didn't bother sparing myself the theatrics. When I reached the last door between me and my quarry, I used the Force to blast it open. The doors hung cockeyed on their great hinges, the violence of the entrance seeming to have taken even the Jedi protector off his guard. An ugly silence fell in the wake of the crashing of those doors, a silence so profound the only sound for a few moments was the tap-tap of Quinn's and my boots against the sparklingly clean floor.
One Jedi. Against me. I'm disappointed on a personal level but it plays into my hands, this lack of proper security. The goons with their guns did not bother me at all. When I kill Jaesa's parents, she'll find out—sooner or later—that Nomen Karr thought them worth only one Jedi Knight. Big and strapping he may be—that seems to be the desirable mold among Jedi these days—but my kill count is not unimpressive.
Wounds stinging as sweat trickled into them, I found myself almost growling, rage pulsing around me. I hope this concludes soon. I'm growing weary of stupidity and half-baked gestures.
I will freely admit that, on Dromund Kaas, I indulged in sharpening my claws on those less able than myself. Among socialites, such is the game that is played and, as an accomplished player, I found few to be my equal. It's like they're not even trying which, while working to further my own goals, is rather insulting.
I looked at the room's two older occupants. They stood close together, behind and to the right of the Jedi, partially screened from view. The woman seemed stonily terrified, her husband liquefying with fear. Jaesa's parents, then. Right where they should be.
I gave my main-hand lightsaber a twirl, watching as the Jedi's eyes followed the red blade's progress. "Well," I noted into the silence, "here we all are. At long last."
The Jedi glared, his aura strangely flat and unpleasant in its flatness. It reminded me of Master YOnlach, but inferior to that master's. Clearly someone needs practice.
Jaesa's parents, however, made up for his reserve. Their fear and anguish roiled around the room, thick and oily, sliding against my perceptions unpleasantly.
Jaesa's father gaped at me past his protector's shoulder. "I didn't think one assailant…" he looked around as if trying to calculate how many people I had to kill to get here, with only one major wound—already treated and clearly predating my incursion—to show for it. And even that wound didn't do much more than make me angry.
I immersed myself in the anger, let the oily slide of fear glance off of it.
The Jedi raised his lightsaber as I began prowling a line across part of the room. "I warn you, Sith, you will not harm Parvan and Gregor Willsaam. I have sworn it." He sounded so sure that this piddly little oath actually meant something in the grand scheme of things that I wanted to laugh humorlessly.
"And your oaths have what to do with me?" I asked, not bothering to mask my crankiness. I wanted this over with. I was so thoroughly sick of Jedi by this point that if I had to listen to one more speech or grand gesture from one I was going to give way to behavior unbecoming.
"Please, wait," Jaesa's father intervened.
His Jedi meat-shield turned to give him his attention, but the Jedi didn't take his eyes off me. A wise course of action, overall. "Go ahead."
"If we are really the cause of all this death I-I want to know why," the old man bleated.
The Jedi glared at me.
"Surely you've told them?" I inquired of him, ignoring Jaesa's father. His quavering tone grated on my ears and, as a result, on my fraying patience. And after this foolishness, there's another conversation with Duke Kendoh and his horsey laugh.
I despise this planet. And when my business in Castle Organa is concluded, I'm going to find a reason to test Baras' repeated promises of impunity in how I deal with enemies and allies. I'm sure I can find a reason to kill that foul little man and I doubt his Sith 'protectors' will lift a finger on his behalf.
"So it is about Jaesa," Jaesa's mother addressed the Jedi, confirming that he hadn't told them much about what was happening.
"Very much so," I answered as neutrally as I could. I watched the Jedi's lightsaber for a moment longer before igniting one of mine.
The Willsaams flinched, though the Jedi stood his ground, content at the moment to menace and be menaced.
The fastest way to kill them is to snap their necks, as I did with Yul-Li. This cocky Jedi is so busy watching me for cues of physical attack—a spring, a leap, a thrown lightsaber—that he's not expecting anything else.
"Please, no more bloodshed!" Jaesa's father continued to bleat, "If there's something you want from us, I'm willing to listen!"
Jaesa's mother was wiser by far. "Gregor. The only thing this Sith wants from us is our lives."
"Give the woman a prize," I purred, "It must be you from whom Jaesa gets her Force sensitivity."
I listened impassively as Jaesa's mother began to babble, the plans they'd had for their daughter, the plans they'd so nobly given up to allow her to join the ranks of the Jedi. I certainly felt no upwelling of sympathy, though the information was useful in its way. It unlocked a little the kind of life Jaesa led.
She's used to being treated as a commodity: first as a servant, then as a means for her parents to elevate their status, then as Nomen Karr's magic baton for finding out Sith. She's been in someone else's power all her life, had her decisions made for her. However gracefully she may have bent to these circumstances, surely she's tired of the loop in which she's caught.
"We were told we'd probably never see her again," Jaesa's father concluded. "What else could you possibly want from us?"
Clearly he wasn't listening to his wife.
I had just opened my mouth to speak when my holocommunicator off. The sound was oddly cheerful in the thick air. I ignored it as best I could, a new vein of rage—this one fueled by embarrassment—surging up, hot and sickening in my chest.
"You're not going to get that?" the Jedi asked, mock solicitously.
The list of people who tried calling me was short. "It will keep," I gritted out.
The list of people who tried calling me with that amount of persistence was shorter.
"Are you certain? It sounds important and I can wait."
I ignored the Jedi's jeering and activated the comm. To my inward horror, none other than Darth Baras was on the line. "Apprentice. So kind of you to take my call," he declared testily.
"Forgive me, my master, but I shall have to call you back." He's going to go ballistic over this. I just know it. Thank goodness I'm about a minute away from completing his objective—he's too pragmatic to stay angry as long as I do my job. I hope he is.
It was this knowledge, coupled with the Jedi's smug expression and the pain burning along my belly, that fueled the savage attack that left both the Willsaams dead before the Jedi even realized I'd moved against them.
-Jaesa-
I lurched violently, as if someone had just stabbed me in the guts, once, twice, over and over again. The pain only lasted seconds of reality, but for me, it was forever. I came back to myself in tears, kneeling in the shower, aware that I'd thrown up everything I'd ever eaten, and still trying to dry heave.
I didn't need to see The Sith to know what she'd done.
My parents were…dead.
I should never have let Master Karr talk me out of meeting with The Sith. If I'd gone to her…I felt so sure she'd want to talk to me, that if I'd just come out of hiding that she wouldn't have felt compelled to go after my parents.
This…this was my fault.
I thought Master Karr had them protected…and I had to wonder whether he really cared at all about me…because all this time it's been about not letting precious Jaesa's precious power fall into the evil clutches of Darth Baras.
What about poor Jaesa being picked apart at the seams until there's nothing left to hold her together?
I should have been there. If I couldn't stop her, the least I could do would be to throw myself on her lightsaber…no one else, myself included, would have to suffer, that way.
I stayed in the shower until the water ran cold, until I shook with it, trying to fight off the dark thoughts and slimy fears trying to claw their way to the surface of my mind. It wasn't until Master Karr banged on the door, demanding to know if I was hurt that I reacted, without thinking.
"They're dead!" I screamed. "They're dead and it's your fault! It was Hirosho and that station all over again! Just-just leave me alone!" I choked down a more personal comment to that effect, but only because I burst into tears all over again.
To his credit, Master Karr did just that.
Author's Note: for those wondering, Gesselle tried to knife Hella, using that 'oh, Blenks, my love!' dialogue to present a show of weakness in hopes of getting a blow in if the Sith decided on death-by-lightsaber. One last, praiseworthy attempt to stop the Sith even though everyone else was already dead.
