CHAPTER FOUR: THE BIG KAHUNA
JOHN
Tandin pulls me aside. "Mr. Bonteri, may I ask you a favor?"
"Of course."
"I need you to perform a cognitive interview on Steela."
I blink. "A cognitive interview? General, I'm just a prison guard."
"You work in interrogation, don't you?"
"Sometimes. I won't go near the torture chambers, but I will talk to people." I make a face. "Sometimes I need to nurse them, just so they can talk again. My commanding officer can go a bit overboard."
"I can relate," He says "I had to give Saw an energy drink so he could get his wits about him."
"But a cognitive interview? General Tandin, I've never done one before. According to the kids, you did one on Hero Calvert. You actually know what you're doing."
"Yes. But since I was at the crime scene, the interview would be biased. I would be unconsciously forcing my perception of the situation onto Steela. You weren't there." He replies. "Will you just try?"
I nod. "Alright. Where is she?"
"In your wife's office."
Good thing Mina's still out running errands. I make my way over to Mina's office, finding Steela in her wheelchair.
"Hey, John."
"Good afternoon, Steela. I take it you know why I'm in here?"
STEELA
I cast a glance at Tandin hovering outside the doorway. "You're interviewing me."
"Yes, but has Tandin told you that this is a different type of interview? It's not necessarily about what you saw, but everything that was going on at the time." I nod. "Okay, good. Now I want you to close your eyes, and go back to the first thing you remember after falling off the cliff."
I close my eyes, and concentrate.
"You don't know where you are," John says. "There's medical personnel around you. You're scared."
A memory of a cold, utter darkness presses into me.
"What do you hear?" John asks. "What do you smell?"
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Beeping. Servos whirring. I smell…antiseptic?"
"Are you in the hospital?" John asks.
There's something soft beneath me, and a thin blanket that smells of bleach. There's the cloying, too-clean smell, and a beeping of equipment.
"Yes."
"What do you see?"
Darkness.
"I can't. I think my eyes are closed."
"All right." John replies. "Is anyone in the room with you?"
Whirring servos, instruments tinkering with something on my arms.
"A medical droid."
A door whooshes.
"You will be impressed. She's very popular among the people."
"No. Wait. There are people talking, they just walked in."
"Tell me what they're saying," John orders.
"Truly, King Dendup? She's hardly more than a child." Someone else says in a clipped voice.
"She is a strong girl, I assure you. A born leader." Dendup replies.
"One of them is King Dendup. I don't know about the other."
"Keep talking." John says.
"Feel free to rouse her. She's heavily medicated; she won't remember a thing." Dendup chuckles, patting my shoulder.
Someone grabs my face, jerking it a little too hard.
My eyes open.
"He's got my face, and my eyes are opened."
"Focus on the strange man's face. What does he look like?"
A blurry image stares down at me, still holding my face.
"He's human. A male." I grimace. "I'm sorry, John. I was drugged, it's hard to remember."
"Focus. How old is he?"
The face leans closer to me, still fuzzy.
"Early thirties. He has brown hair. Light skin."
"Light like Mandalorian? Light like me?"
"Light like Mina! He's tall, too."
"What do you feel? How do you feel?"
Dendup smiles and squeezes my shoulder. "Hello, Miss Gerrera. Welcome back to the land of the living."
The other man releases my face. "Quite literally. You're sure she won't remember this?"
Dendup gestures to the IVs lining my arms. "With all this, and such injuries too? Why don't we ask her? She can't even raise her head! Will you remember us, Miss Gerrera?"
"Thirsty, heavy, lost…probably from the drugs. Scared."
Scared is an understatement. I am absolutely, mortally terrified.
"Remember they can't hurt you anymore. I'm right here with you. Concentrate on the memory."
The other man fixes me with a terrible, evil look. "You will do nicely, Miss Gerrera."
"Do you know how many people showed up to her funeral?" Dendup chuckles. "Nearly the whole city. If that's not influence, I don't know what is."
"Yes, do as you wish with her."
"Of course."
"The other guy left Dendup in charge of me." I squeeze my eyes shut. Come on Steela! Is it really that hard to concentrate on one singular memory?
"Don't worry, child. You will be well taken care of…for now." the man says, tugging on one of my curls before cuing the medical droid to approach my IVs.
"He pulled my hair. They're putting something in my IV."
And that's when I dissolve like a popsicle dropped in a volcano.
"John help me, please! They're going to kill me!"
Saw and Tandin come blasting into the room as John shakes me, hard.
"Snap out of it, kid! We're all done here." He says, handing me over to my brother.
"What the hell?" Saw demands.
"These things tend to happen during a cognitive interview." Tandin says, "Unfortunately, we forgot one of the side effects of nysillin withdrawal is paranoia."
"But it helped," John says. "Good job, Steela. We have some solid information now."
"Like what?" Saw asks.
"The man from her memory is more than likely the Big Kahuna. And he sounds an awful lot like my former commanding officer, Tor."
LUX
There are several types of drunk clones. First, we have drunks like Echo, who cried when Fives dropped a bottle because he was afraid its feelings would be hurt.
Then we have angry drunks, like Kix. We had to pull him off a shiny who apparently tried to ditch his vaccinations last week.
Next up are the hardcore drunks, like Still Guy. Ten beers? Not a problem.
And lastly are the silly drunks. They're the most annoying. Unfortunately for me, most of the people in my car are silly drunks.
Rex sits in my passenger seat. He's more buzzed then plastered like the others are.
In the backseat, Fives is leading Hardcase, and Jesse in an off-key rendition of "Beer Run."
"All you need is a ten and a five, your car key-."
"And a sober driver!" Hardcase sings, pointing at me. "Lux is the maaaaan!"
"Lux is so designated!" Jesse shrieks.
"Yeah, yeah." I mutter, pulling in to the supermarket parking lot. I have no desire to do the walk of shame into the store, so I turn to Rex and say "You're on your own. Get the beer."
"Why can't you go?" Jesse slurs.
"I'm not old enough, and no cashier in their right mind will sell to you." I reply, leaning back in my seat.
"We're gonna go buy beer!" Fives yells, and jumps out the door.
"Yeah!" the other two agree, and jump out of the car.
"No!" I beg, but they've already run into the store.
I sigh, unbuckle my seat belt, and run after them. If anyone asks, I'm their taxi driver. I decide.
I enter the supermarket just in time to see Rex approach the cash register with a case of beer in each hand. The others follow him, clutching candy bars as if their lives depend on it.
Suddenly, Jesse's eyes widen.
"Vod. Check it." He says, pointing at some other customers.
I follow his point, and my blood turns to slush.
Oh my Force. Oh, I'm not seeing this.
The clones are pointing at two young women standing by the diet energy drink aisle. But these young women are no normal young women.
The first one has long, shiny blonde hair that falls in perfect waves down her back. Her eyes are bright, sparkling sapphires, so lovely and deep you could get lost in them forever. Her body is anatomically perfect, and her skin is beautifully tanned to the point that it almost glows. She wears a white crop top with a single short sleeve, a pair of jean shorts, and high-heeled boots.
The second one scares me the worst, because I know her. The color-changing hair, the voice like music, the dittering speech…
It's Velvet Sparkles Kitty Giggles Rainbow Sprinkles Gerrera.
How is that even possible? How'd she get here?
Why do I even care? I've got to get the clones out of this place!
I run up to the clones standing in the line. "Come on, guys!" I say, prodding them over to self-checkout and scanning the cases of beer myself while they stare enraptured at the Sues.
When the attendant comes over, Rex doesn't even look at him to show his ID. He just gives him the card.
The machine takes our money, I shove the beer into Jesse's and Fives' arms, and herd them out of the store.
"Those girls were so pretty!" Hardcase gushes.
"Like the suns!" Fives agrees.
"They're Mary Sues." I mutter, but they don't hear me.
Oh well. They're so plastered, they won't remember it in the morning. And I can get back to helping with Ahsoka's trial.
We pull back into the barracks. As the guys get out with their beers, I call Sierra.
The phone rings for a while, and then Sierra picks up.
"This had better be the fastest phone call ever. Steela's distracting Mom."
"Sierra, tell Saw the Sues are here on Coruscant. They might have something to do with Ahsoka's trial."
"Or the Lazarus Project."
"True enough. I'm going to check it out in the morning. I'm going to call you tomorrow night. If I don't, I'm in trouble. Can you do that?"
"Yeah…oh great. Mom's coming! Talk to you later!" she says, and hangs up.
I close my eyes.
Now is the time to come up with a plan for how the heck you're going to take on Mary Sues.
VELVET SPARKLES
When the clones and Lux "Super-Hot" Bonteri leave, I squeal.
"That was them, Mary Perfect Sue!"
Mary Perfect Sue squeals, too. "I just knew they'd be coming in, Velvet Sparkles Kitty Giggles Rainbow Sprinkles Gerrera!"
"Now we have to follow them to get my totally justified revenge on my brother and sister, even if nobody else in the galaxy thinks it's justified!" I cheer.
Mary Perfect Sue buys some alcoholic drinks for us, even though we're too young. We don't even need a fake ID. The clerk just lets us buy them because we're so hot.
With the drinks in hand, we get into our totally inconspicuous luxury sports car and drive off after the clones.
(A/N: Cue the return of the Mary Sues! I almost missed making fun of them. Just in case you didn't see my disclaimer in "While Others Found Success," please realize that I'm not bashing any particular character except my own. I am simply bashing the concept of Mary Sue. So don't flame me.
Thank you again to starwarshobbitfics, Kasai1214, and StarwarsRulz for your reviews, as well as everyone who sent me get well soon messages. I feel a lot better now.
Please drop a review as you go. They mean a lot to me!)
