The Force Shall Free Me
Chapter Four
Myka Bering has always been a stellar student.
Even in her early childhood in the excellent education system on Alderaan, Myka had excelled as a pupil. Her teachers praised her ability to retain information, and her ravenous pursuit of it. Learning came naturally to her – the daughter of the administrator of the Royal Library should have a natural and unquenchable thirst for information.
At least, that's what her father always told her.
But even before she started training as a Jedi, Myka had learned what it meant to be a disappointment. Her teachers may have raved about her…but it never seemed to be enough for her parents. She was a lonely child, even at seven when the Jedi identified her as Force-sensitive and asked her to study at the Jedi Temple.
Moving to Coruscant, training to be a Jedi, there was no higher praise to be sought. She worked hard, studied hard, and it had paid off in results – there were few, if any, that could best her in saber combat, and there were few, if any, as aware of the history of the Jedi Order as she was. She studied and meditated upon the Jedi Code daily, trying hard to perfect it within herself. Excellence made for a lonely life, however – her dedication rubbed off as arrogance to other padawans, and the only person she could trust in her early life became her master, a young human knight named Sam Martino.
It made her happy to serve the Republic, and she was grateful for his leadership and friendship. She learned so much from him, and his kindness and patience were traits she could aspire to. And like any master and padawan, they had shared a special bond.
She had been days away from completing her trials, days away from becoming a knight, when a mission went sideways and Sam was killed. A miscommunication, apparently, between two people who rarely misunderstood each other. Myka blamed herself for so many reasons, but beyond the guilt she shouldered over the death of someone she held in the highest regard, she'd also lost her only friend in the galaxy.
The council saw fit to grant her knighthood after the incident, but she didn't feel like she deserved it. She felt like that frightened, lonely seven year old that had arrived on Coruscant so long ago.
At nearly thirty years of age, a knight for several years and on her way to mastery, Myka was at a point in her life where that loneliness was abated by the family she'd found at the Warehouse. She cared for and relied on each of the agents, and they cared for and relied on her, in turn. It healed something in her she hadn't realized was broken.
The first line of the Jedi Code read, "there is no emotion, there is peace." Emotion was something she had struggled against for most of her life. Her life on Alderaan had been…painful, as had her life as a padawan before being given over to Sam for training. Losing him was even harder.
Her need to be the best Jedi she could be had forced all that pain down, buried it deep enough she didn't even know it was there most of the time. She could keep her emotions in check. She could be excellent.
But lately, it took everything inside her to keep that hard-won control. Her headaches had become more frequent in the past few days, and she'd become…moody.
And in the days that went by, so had their Sith guest.
Myka visited the woman in the cell three times a day, delivering her every meal, and was met with little more than a curt thank you each time. She did not volunteer information, she did not engage in conversation, and her continued distrust of her Jedi keepers steadily became more and more apparent.
It was frustrating, but the sharp and seething thrum of something greater that inexplicably lanced through her every time was decidedly more sinister.
And where Myka Bering had faced greater challenges than one obstinate woman, her ability to control her emotions was eroding more and more as time ticked by, and no amount of meditation could shake the feeling that something was…
Not really wrong, and not just off.
Missing, maybe. A tether, an inner strength that she'd been able to draw upon in her moments of conflict before that was simply nowhere to be found. And without it, she felt vulnerable in a way she hadn't felt since she was a child.
She reasoned that it had to be a result of some kind of ill-seated sympathy for their guest. She reasoned that, perhaps, there was a detail she was missing, and maybe her tenuous state was just the Force reaching out to her and telling her to look harder for the answers she sought.
There were times that she would walk down the hallway and catch the sith reading, but she couldn't be sure what. It might have been history, it might have been literature…and the second, given their last conversation, was unlikely. She tried to engage the woman, to draw her into discourse about whatever it was.
It failed, of course.
"So…how is the crazy lady in the room with a view?"
Myka sighed. "Silent," she replied. "And be nice, Pete."
"Me? I'm always nice."
The man plopped down next to her on the cozy sofa in their small study. It wasn't much – a window at the far wall over a small wooden writing desk, and a wall of bookshelves across from a two-seat couch on the opposite wall, a far cry from the massive libraries elsewhere…including the one in the warehouse itself.
And yet, it was Myka's preferred retreat when her mind was at odds with itself, because no one else ever used the space.
"You're nice when you're fed."
Her partner made a noise that sounded a bit like a laugh, and the rest like a snort. "And we all know I like me some grub, so I'm nice most of the time."
Myka lifted a thumb to the bridge of her nose and pressed inward. "She's not crazy, Pete."
"Fine. Evil. Whatever."
"That's not true, either. Stop it."
"What? Mykes, her eyes get all fiery and scary when you try to talk to her. I mean, I like to think I'm a pretty charming guy, but she has all the charm of a rancor…and maybe the fangs, I'm scared to check."
The description of this woman – quiet and surly, yes, but certainly not as openly hostile as Pete effused – gave her pause.
"She has manners. She says please, thank you..."
"...and curse you, and I'll fry you in a Force Storm if you don't let me out..."
Myka frowned. "She says that to you? Really?"
He shrugged. "Occasionally. No. Maybe. She's a little...bipolar, you know?"
"She's also not used to being social anymore...and you know what? After that much time alone, Pete, you'd forget how to be gracious, too."
Pete reared back immediately and held up his arms. "Whoa, Mykes! Stand down! I'm just making an observation!"
"And so am I, Pete. You're being insensitive. Stop it."
The man shrugged. "Maybe it's just men."
Myka was tempted to give that idea some credence, but dismissed it.
"She's not evil," she reasserted. "You have to think about it, Pete. She's been alone, trapped inside her mind, for four thousand years. How lonely must that have been? How painful?"
"Oh, man…you know, I'd be bored in a week, probably less. I'd be so desperate in two days I'd be willing to play Holochess with a wookie just for the company."
Myka stood suddenly, startling her companion.
"Whoa, Mykes! I wasn't serious! I'd never do that! I mean, come on….what's the fun in letting the wookie win?"
"No…no, you just reminded me..." She walked into the main hallway, to a battered chest in the corner, and looked through the items on its shelves until coming free with a round, silver and black contraption.
"Oh, man, Mykes…that's pretty cruel. And where are you gonna get a wookie?"
"I'm the wookie, Pete."
She walked toward the green door and through it as her partner called out something about her having the right color hair, but not enough of it.
She studiously ignored his next comment about her temperament suiting the role as the door slid shut behind her.
The Sith looked up as Myka neared the cell, her expression carefully neutral. Myka's gaze – constantly gathering data for her mind to catalog and store – took note of the way the woman's already-unnatural pallor had progressed, but if she bore any discomfort, those symptoms were well-hidden beneath an air of defiance.
But her eyes seemed to express at least a mild curiosity at Myka's new tactic.
"What's this, then?"
Myka smiled. It was the first question she had asked in days. Without answering, she hefted the thing onto the shelf, pressed the keypad, and shoved it through to the other side.
"It's a holochess table. I…I completely forgot that I told you I would bring it. I thought it would be a good thing to pass some time…with…"
But the other woman's attention was on the game board. She moved it from the shelf first, then placed it on the floor and activated it, watching the holographic characters with a strange and eerie sense of awe.
Myka got the distinct feeling that there was something...personal...about the game.
As the holographic creatures flickered to life, each in their designated starting spaces, Helena ran her hands through their images. The chesspieces protested, whirling intangible weapons to hit the offending appendage, and the other woman's stoic mask finally cracked.
"I had a daughter," she started, drawing her brow together. "Christina. I left her in the care of an old teacher of mine. She was brilliant...beautiful..."
She shook her head in that subtle and slow way that always seems to accompany regret. "But she was a liability. I had to keep her a secret, or she would have been used against me."
A slender finger trailed across the surface of the board, and the pieces finally settled down again.
"My old teacher, Chaturanga, loved holochess. It was his obsession. He was the one who taught me how to play, and I taught Christina. It was her favorite game, as well..."
Like the endless tides on the ocean world of Manaan, understanding washed over Myka at once. The solemn-looking woman before her had very explicitly stated that the choices presented to her four thousand years ago – to obey a command from her Emperor and leave for Republic space with Revan, or to stay behind and be killed for her insolence - had been complicated.
"You left Dromund Kaas to prove yourself, because proving yourself and gaining power was the best way to ensure her safety."
Helena's face was soft, almost mournful, when her finger found the power button and turned the board off with a sharp stab. "Now you understand, Jedi, that not all beings in the universe are granted the luxury of choice." The woman took one last, long look at the holochess board before turning her back on it, on her Jedi visitor, and returned to her bed.
"I…I'm sorry." Myka offered, not sure what else to say.
"I don't need your pity."
The woman beyond the barrier was silent for a long time, and Myka was almost certain that the conversation was at an end, that she had failed in what might have been her last, best hope at getting the woman to talk.
But she reached to the bedside table and picked up a datapad.
"I was wrong."
Half-turned to walk away in defeat when the words reached her ears, Myka turned with a confused expression on her face. "What do you mean?"
The Sith sighed. "Your Republic's literature. It's…not so bad. I've even found some remnants of the literature we once kept dear in the Empire. I found…"
The woman lifted her eyes upward, toward the ceiling, and for the briefest of moments, Myka could swear she saw tears pooling in her dark eyes.
"Imagine my surprise when I even came across one of my own works in your collection."
The Jedi could do nothing to disguise the astonishment in her voice. "You…you wrote?"
"Voraciously. I wrote stories to my Christina about adventure and triumph, about discovery and victory. I wrote one tale…"
She cast her eyes downward, perhaps deciding how much to confide in a woman she clearly didn't trust over the space of a heartbeat, before lifting her gaze to meet that of her jailer.
"I wrote one to her, just before I departed, about a scientist that was imprisoned for thousands of years and awoke to a very different world." Helena shook her head. "How could I have known I was writing my own future?"
Myka's keen memory was quick to recall that the literature available to her Sith guest was all hand-picked, and of all the plots available…"Wait…a story about a…a time traveler?"
"Yes. I called it The Chronic Argonauts."
The puzzle pieces fell together, and Myka gasped in shock. "You're…you're Edward Prendick?"
"One in the same."
"Oh…my…"
Her father was a harsh man, a perfectionist, a curator of facts and stories. He had never lived any of them, though he lived in them all the time, and Myka had never really understood her father in the time they had together.
But he had, when she was girl, managed to find one thing in common with his daughter.
"My father would read those stories to me when I was little."
It was the only thing the pair of them had ever bonded over.
The dark brown gaze on the other side of the field shifted, and some quickly-squelched emotion flickered within it. Myka thought it might have been a shade of the same realization she'd come to: that through space and time, she had shared something remarkable with this woman's daughter.
"I'm sorry about your little girl," she offered.
"Your sympathy is not warranted. You did not steal me away from her."
"No, but…" Myka had certainly given time to contemplating the predicament of the woman before her in the last few days, and she had realized long ago that the demands they were placing on her were…harsh. After so long locked in her own mind with only the Force to keep her company, they had essentially restored her body but robbed her of the thing that had been her only companion for far too long to fathom. And it had disturbed her…maybe it had been part of what had been bothering her for days.
And before she could stop herself, before she even realized what she was doing, she had crossed to the control pad and let her fingers brush over and press the primary button.
In the space between them, a blue field flickered, then died, and at once that nagging worry began to ease itself. In its place came a certainty, a rightness, as if the Force itself approved of this course of events.
And Helena closed her eyes, perhaps as her familiar companion came rushing back to her. At once the pallor that she'd contracted began to ease, bringing the skin on her face back to a suitably lively color, if still unnaturally pale.
"I have something to show you," the Jedi offered, and still at her spot by the wall, she held out her hand for the other woman to take. And she eyed it suspiciously, as any caged and battered animal might distrust a sudden offer of mercy.
"This is dangerous for you," she replied. "Is it not folly to allow your enemy access to her greatest weapon?"
"We are not enemies, Helena," Myka replied. "I wish you would believe that."
The Sith did not reply, but neither did she refute the assertion. Instead, she gingerly placed her hand in the one offered.
"Lead on, Jedi," she responded.
She led them down the long corridor and back through the green door, then through the house. They didn't linger, though it occurred to Myka that this was the first civilized dwelling the other woman had seen in millenia, and she wondered what the word 'civilized' meant on Dromund Kaas four thousand years ago. She had in her hands a treasure trove of living history, and the scholar in her wanted little more than to sit her down and pick that brilliant brain clean.
But first, she wanted only to show her companion through the back door.
Ossus's lush jungles were inhospitable, filled with unnaturally fierce predators thanks to the strong connection the planet enjoyed with the Force, and perhaps the overwhelming presence of the artifacts within the confines of the massive warehouse. But Leena had managed to carve out and tame a spacious grotto for the purpose of planting a garden, and in the years since the place had become a paradise.
The outer walls were covered in fruit-bearing vine, and were lush with produce of deep red and dark purple, and the interior was arranged in a pattern with planters that held trees and shrubs and vegetables of all colors from all over the galaxy.
And in the middle, serving as an irrigation system as well as one of the most beautiful features of the grotto, stood a round, flowing fountain.
The newcomer inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly.
"What is it?" Myka asked.
"It…it smells familiar. I hadn't expected it. We had this fruit on Dromund Kaas called an apple…it smells like apples here."
"Well then, I hope you like them."
A dark head nodded. "This is lovely," Helena whispered.
Myka stopped at a nearby tree, filled with giant leaves the color of the sunset in her childhood home, and plucked a plump, deep purple fruit from a low-hanging branch before handing it to the other woman.
The sith's dark eyes scrutinized the fruit carefully, as if still trying to decide once again if Myka meant to poison her. The Jedi sighed.
"You hold such disdain for my order, and yet you do not trust us to follow those tenants which you hate so much. Why would I kill you now?"
"Because we both breathe," Helena replied, "and it is the nature of all living things to covet the air."
"It is the nature of the Jedi to share it." And to illustrate her point, she bit into the fruit, revealing a juicy, bright pink core, and swallowed her bite before offering it once again.
A tightness in the Sith's shouldered eased, a nearly imperceptible change that Myka couldn't help but pick up, and at last a slender, pale hand reached out to take the fruit and lift it to another set of lips.
It was a wonder to watch Helena as she tasted it. It was a tart sweetness, and one of Myka's favorites, and so she could imagine the unfamiliar flavor as it rolled across the tongue and invaded the senses. The other woman's eyes closed, and for the first time her face relaxed into less rigid, almost pleasured lines.
And in that moment, Myka Bering was made to witness how stunningly beautiful Helena Wells truly was.
"Not bad, huh?"
The other woman genuinely smiled, and Myka was amazed by how beautiful a sight it was. "I'm certain I have never tasted anything like it. What is it called?"
"It's called a kavasa fruit, from Correlia. Leena has somehow, pretty much miraculously cultivated plants from each of our homeworlds and...and they actually grow. She's a miracle-worker."
"Are you from Correlia, then? The engineering capitol?"
Myka laughed. "No...that's Pete. I'm from Alderaan."
"Ah, I've heard of that world, as well. Highly regarded for its noble people, mountainous but lush and beautiful. Revan spoke of it often...I confess, I have long wished to visit it."
For all the poor memories of her childhood, the Jedi did miss the open landscape and refined terrain of her homeworld. "Maybe you'll get that chance one day."
They wandered the grotto, and Myka was happy to see the pale woman pause and examine plants with an expression that spoke of curiosity rather than the malice she had clung to, and of ease where there had been so much distrust. And beyond the visible, beyond the tangible, she could feel the way the Force flowed into her and through her, as if she were a catalyst for some important event yet to be determined.
And Myka could feel the way it wrapped around her own presence and connected them, as if the woman beside her was actually most important to her own destiny.
Myka had no idea what to do with that, but it was completely forgotten when Helena looked up into the sky and smiled.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "I have missed this feeling."
"Of being connected to the Force?"
The low chuckle indicated a private joke, but once again the Sith opened her eyes, gaze directed at the clouds high above.
"The sky. Trees. Sunlight. I've been in space for so long, and when we arrived..."
The Jedi hadn't really considered that. The focus had been on...other things. Protection. Staying hidden. "I wish there was a way to keep you safe without keeping you sequestered like that."
And to Myka's surprise, there was no smug or snide reply on the other woman's lips.
"What if I attempt escape? No...I have been wretched to you, and as your prisoner this is an opportunity you could not strategically allow. I should not be out here at the moment no matter what the circumstances."
"It's fair to be wary. I'm sorry…you've had no reason to trust us beyond our word."
The Sith shook her head. "No. and yet, I find myself inclined to trust you, at least, despite my continued captivity. For now."
"Helena, do not consider yourself a prisoner of the Jedi, or a prisoner at all."
The dark gaze finally returned to earth, returned to pierce Myka with their depth and intensity. "I am quite familiar with the feeling of imprisonment. You may call it what you wish, and justify it however you care to. The result is the same. I am kept behind a barrier, cut off from the Force, for your protection."
"It is not just for our protection…it is for yours."
Seated beside the fountain, secured in privacy by the tall rock walls that spilled and filtered the water for their secluded paradise, Myka sighed.
"We've picked up some ping from the Republic's Strategic Information Service. James MacPherson is hunting us...and, for some reason, is determined to find you specifically. Whatever he thought he could find in the Leviathan, it's still important to him. He wants his artifact. And he wants us, too."
"Let him come," the Sith spat. "I'll meet him at the end of a saber."
Myka had to respect the woman's independence. "It's not so simple. We think he's a Separatist. He'll come with an army, and he'll stop at nothing."
Understanding dawned on Helena's face. "And this place must remain secret."
"If they found it...if they used the artifacts here to help wage their war against the Republic..."
Myka stopped as a cool hand brushed across her own, as her heart quickened and the breath left her chest.
"You must return me to my cell. I am a liability as long as I can be detected."
"Helena-"
But the other woman stood, and Myka felt the absence of her touch. Without guidance or escort, she made her way back through the grotto and into the house. The Jedi followed, struggling to keep up with the rapid clip of the other woman's stride through the living area, back through the green door, and down the long hallway. When she caught up, the Sith stood still in the center of her cell, and Myka could tell why.
In her absence, Leena had apparently taken it upon herself to freshen the place up. There were small plants scattered across the shelves, and a short but beautiful arrangement of cut flowers on the small table beside the bed.
And to the side, on a proper desk instead of the small, plain table that had been there before, sat a bowl overflowing with fruit.
"It has been a long time since I have been shown kindness," Helena whispered, so low that Myka could scarcely hear it.
"We will find MacPherson," she swore, "and then..."
"You will not set me free."
Myka was silent for a long time, because the truth was she wasn't sure what would happen. "And yet we can't keep you here forever."
The sight gave a short, mirthless laugh. "You would be surprised the many ways one might become a slave."
"It's not like that. The Jedi don't enslave people."
"You are a slave to your own Jedi Code, my dear. I can feel it below the surface of your mind. Your struggle against your emotions. I feel it now, your anger and pain pushing against the carefully-constructed barrier. And perhaps something else." The other woman turned from the interior of the cell. "As I said, I am quite familiar with imprisonment...and you most certainly carry the look of a woman trapped."
Myka clenched her jaw. In a sense, she could see Artie's point in that moment, that with a silver tongue and quick mind, the Sith was another dangerous artifact to be kept. But her heart – and the part of her head that didn't fear that the Sith was right - were at odds with that sentiment. The statement was made without malice, even though its impact was meant to sting. It was indecent to keep the other woman confined after her safety was guaranteed...and there was a kinship, an affection for the woman that left Myka inclined to believe in her.
"Some of us do care about your future, you know," she said, "But you were once a part of the greatest invading force this galaxy has seen. It's fair to expect – to allow for yourself – a period of readjustment. Would you rather that be here, where at least you may have something to do separate of the Order? Or would you prefer Coruscant, at the temple?"
"Bondage in either case," came the remark.
"With the hope of redemption..and despite what you are and what you claim to be, Helena, I do believe in you. Just..." She sighed and shook her head. "Just think it over."
She was reluctant to activate the barrier, to trap the other woman away from the Force again, but what time she had spent beyond the cell was already a risk. She lowered the forcefield and, with a sigh, turned, meaning to leave the Sith to think.
But she had her own questions to reason out. Why was she was so willing to walk back into that cell if she considered it imprisonment? The familiar ill-ease began to creep back upon her as she contemplated it.
She'd barely taken a step when the soft voice of the Sith lord stopped her.
"Myka...in all honesty, I thank you. You, who have shown me the most kindness. You, above all, which I do not wish to endanger."
The words struck her as powerfully as anything else that afternoon had, and the woman had answered the Jedi's own silent questions as if she were still connected to the Force, and somehow to her.
And despite the way Helena's soft voice and solemn words knocked her off balance, the keen mind behind emerald eyes had picked up one tiny detail that made all the difference.
For the first time since finding the other woman on the relic Leviathan, Helena had addressed Myka by name.
/
That night was dark – deep clouds covered the stars and obscured the night sky, and the still, heavy air muted the sounds of the jungle. In her bed, listless in the humidity and sleepless once again, Myka shifted to get comfortable.
She replayed the events of the afternoon in her head, remembered the peace she felt strolling through the garden with Helena at her side, and relived the relief it had brought. For the first time since they had arrived home, she felt the Force as it should be, as a harmony in her soul as opposed to a discordant note.
But now that flat note was back, and she knew something wasn't right.
The lightning of a coming storm lit her quarters up just a bit, followed shortly after by distant thunder. Or, not so distant as it was closely followed, but the dense blanket of water vapor served to muffle its roar.
Her studies of Jedi history were littered with instances where the force began to feel different to a user. She recalled few of such cases ending well, always resulting in a breach of the Jedi Code one way or another. And she didn't feel fear – no, she refused to allow such a dangerous feeling to take root - but to say she was concerned was a vast understatement.
But there was something about the strange symptoms, something familiar and oh so close…
The thunder rolled once more as she thought, remembered, tried to find the thread of memory and pull it back together…
…But then Pete burst into her room as another flash of lightning made the walls glow, and she saw the alarm in his eyes as he yelled for everyone to wake up.
"Pete?"
Her partner turned to look at her with an emotion that skirted the very thing she was trying not to feel.
"Vibe. " he rasped.
And no sooner had he said it than a loud crash and a bright flash filled the room once more.
The crash was not thunder, and the flash was not lightning.
