Hailey awoke slowly to a room that was completely unfamiliar to her and blurred figures that were strangers to her eyes. She couldn't feel much through the force and it was as if someone or something, was restraining her from using it. Although her vision wasn't good either and being that she was a hybrid miraluka with instead of being completely blind, she was incredibly near sighted. Although a feeling in her wrists, ankles and the general overall bad atmosphere vibe that circled her, she knew that the place she was in wasn't the Black Pearl.
"Ah, the miraluka finally wakes up to us," a mellow voice said.
"Where am I," questioned the miraluka whilst pulling at her chains, trying to find someway to break free from her captors' imprisonment.
"Where you are is not important but what you know is. So I will make this as simple as I can: Give us the location of your rebel base or your friends will be hailed upon like a planetary bombard," explained the mellow voice.
The mysterious voice gave her a bone-chilling feeling throughout her body after he said that and she realized that the Empire had her. Who else would be threatening her to reveal where the rebel base would be? She held firm and kept silence as to not reveal nor say anything anymore.
"That's a pity. Do it," the mellow said.
Before she could think on what he meant, a jolt of a strong electrical energy coursed throughout her body. Her response to this was a loud, ear piercing scream before she bit her lip and stifled her voice so as to not give her torturer any satisfaction. She couldn't deny that the pain was absolutely excruciating. If her screaming wouldn't happen, then this individual was probably satisfied with her pained facial expressions that she gave as she tried to hide the pain.
After awhile, the electricity stopped coursing throughout her body and the mellow voice came back to her ringing ears, saying, "See what most captors don't know that when gaining information my protege is that you have to be quite patient. Your patience will reward you in the end. Not all battles are won through quick, swift decisions but calculated strikes."
What came after was another voice but this voice sounded much more familiar but the pain she was masking made it hard for her to assign a name to the familiar voice. While mentally multitasking, she felt another jolt of electricity course throughout her body and she had to stifle another ear-piercing scream as to not give into her captors. She had to admit, she was glad that the first thing Karus taught her was how to focus her aura into a shield of fortitude that could allow her to resist such barbaric tactics.
If there wasn't a better view of what the rebel known as Hailey looked like, then he didn't know how it could get better without it getting too personal. Short brown hair that draped past her ears along side with pale golden eyes that were usually covered, her body and build was incredibly slim but muscular for a woman of small stature with her arm muscles flexing against the restraints.
He had only learned her name when Thrawn had done his research on the young adult female and told him that her name is Hailey Polis and suspected that she could be part of the De la Franca Royal family but had no concrete evidence of this of course.
Her torture went on for hours with her being electrocuted multiple times alongside with several new lacerations across her body which ranged from deep to grazes across her pearly white skin. Riser expected for Thrawn to start getting irritated by the lack of results but he stood there, expressionless, as the Inquisitor known as Brother 1 continued the torture on her. It absolutely baffled the agent how he could hold such a straight face but I guess you don't become the Grand Admiral by being a "human-being" still. Sometimes he wondered if the Grand Admiral had emotions at all but knew that was a stupid question to ask. Couple more minutes passed before Thrawn sighed and said, "Bring out the Mask."
Wait mask? What mask was Thrawn talking about? As if his answers were being answered, the Inquisitor left and then came back seconds later with a grey hood that had two eye holes that allowed the wearer to see out through the holes. The grey-skinned inquisitor walked up to Hailey and forcibly put the mask, well more like hood, over her face until it was tightly secured onto her head. Once it was tightly secured, Hailey screamed. Riser had no clue why she was screaming nor why once they had put the mask on, all fortitude to keep herself steeled had just been broken down like a house of cards.
"Grand Admiral. What does that mask do," inquired the younger agent.
"Ah Riser, that right there is a secret that you're not authorized to know yet because you still have so much to learn about this Empire and you're not ready for this secret yet. Let's just say that force-sensitive individuals are extremely susceptible to this mask."
Riser didn't need anymore information then that. Not understanding why, he felt the pure evil from the mask, this made him rather uneasy, augmented his fear for unknown reason of why this mask felt evil and it frightened him.
Back at the Black Pearl, tensions were still high because of the loss of Hailey. Fera Mack by this point had been intercepted by Captain Junos' rebellion fleet to be debriefed on the mission. Although out of everyone in the crew, Tania was extremely livid at Karus for leaving behind Hailey and though she didn't display a very open display of it, through the force Karus could tell she wanted to scream, kick, and yell at Karus. He had to commend her for trying to hold back her emotions and keep a level-head so that they may plan a strategic plan to rescue the miraluka.
As Karus and Fera made their way out of the Dathomir system, a long silence filled the space shuttle they were occupied in. Karus felt through the force that Fera had an apologetic aura around her as if she wanted to say sorry about what happened to Hailey.
"It's ok Fera, it was her choice to do this but although I am not happy about it," responding to her aura.
"I know, I know. I just feel responsible for this. I saw my son also," Fera mumbled, "and I don't think he couldn't believe that I was alive."
"It's sad your son has been consumed by the Empires' ideals and customs. Unfortunately it seems as if he's being trained-"
"By Grand Admiral Thrawn, I know Karus," finishing his assumption for him, "and he's his 'protege'," saying while clearly mocking those last words.
"It's all my fault he turned out like that because if only I had known sooner about Onderon, maybe things could've been different," Fera added with clear sadness in her voice, "maybe my husband wouldn't be dead either…"
"Your husband sacrificed his life so that you could escape, if not for him, the rebels would have been destroyed. Well that's what Senator Organa tells me rather," Karus affirmed to her.
Fera embraced the young master and even though she was older than him, she certainly had some feelings for Karus but knew that he was a firm believer in the old ways of the Jedi. After all, it had been 7 years since her husband's death: Shouldn't had she moved on by now?
As the Imperial shuttle intercepted with the Black Pearl, they tried to contact the ship.
"BP, This is FR 1, We got the rebellion's VIP and requesting for docking."
Static filled the room before a voice broke the silence with, "FR 1 this is FR 5, we see you, celebration party will be there to greet you," enthusiastically the voice said back.
Unbeknownst to the Freedom Ringers, they were missing a member.
While everyone was in their respected rooms, Ulysses called over the intercom and with his squealing voice said, "Everyone come to the cockpit, I have established a connection with Juno *snort* and she wants to speak to you all."
Everyone made their way towards the cockpit of the ship and were met with a hologram of Juno Eclipse. Once everyone settled into the Cockpit, they noticed that Fera Mack's hologram was also there and with that, the meeting commenced.
"Hello FR crew. I am Vice Admiral Fera Mack and joined with me is Captain Juno Eclipse, I know that we have met you all but I thought formalities were still in order. I have informed the other rebellion cells about your lost crew member and we've collectively came to the decision that we, unfortunately and sadly, can't risk the safety of this rebellion on one member."
Isslarok was the first one to respond and he was not happy with this decision, at all, "NO, We don't jusssst leave one of our own behind, I am not sssssory but I can't accept your decisssssion!"
Karus quickly calmed the trandoshan down before he went on a rampage and inquired, "Why has the rebellion made this decision Admiral?"
Karus knew Tania wanted to break the admiral's neck right there and then but told her to calm down through their connection.
"Unfortunately there were startling reports that were reported after you had escaped the prison with Fera a couple days ago," said the captain.
Tania couldn't contain her angrier any longer and angrily shouted, "WHAT DAMN REPORTS OF YOURS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR FRIEND DAMMIT!"
"Tania, Calm now! Captain Juno, please continue and tell us what has developed currently?"
"Thank you Karus," saying coldly, "We have confirmed reports that Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Seventh fleet is stationed there as of now alongside the Jedi Traitors known as Twin zabrak brothers Jul and Jol and are led by Sith Warrior Fashadda."
Karus's face when he heard the name of the Sith Warrior's name sent him into a wave of confusion and disbelief.
Fashadda, his apprentice, was alive? How? He assumed that she died when trying to face Darth Vader?
He had to know if this was his apprentice Fasha or some fake, "You mean ex-Jedi Padawan Fashadda? The Mon Calamarian?"
Fera sighed and gave him the words he never wanted to hear, "Yes, I am sorry to inform you about this Karus: It is, in-fact, your former Jedi Padawan. She has fallen to the dark side unfortunately."
He honestly had heard rumours of her that she still lived but he didn't want to believe them at all because they spoke ill about her, saying that she became a sith warrior for the Empire but it looked like ignorance wasn't an option no more. He had to make a decision he knew that the crew wouldn't like, especially Tania, "Ok, we'll get out of range of the Dathomir system for now. We'll stay a bit longer unless you have other orders for us currently?"
"As of now Karus, we currently don't have orders for you but we'll authorize permission for you to stay a couple more days near the Dathomir system but remember to stay out-of-range of their radars. We'll have something for your crew to do afterwards. Fera out," and with that, the holograms dissipated and Tania just stormed out of the cockpit back to her room. He could sense her anger and it was something to be alarmed over but before Karus could follow her, Ulysses spoke up and said, "I think it is best if we leave her to her own devices. It is a lot to take in *snort* for her Karus."
As much as he didn't want her to fall to the dark side, he knew that her heart was a force of good, she valued her friends and connections with the people she cared about. This was just a lesson for her to learn that sometimes you can't save everyone.
Hailey hung there in the torture room, alone and the only thing else that occupied her was her own thoughts. Although her thoughts were very few because of the amount of pain she was in. She had several lacerations across her body and legs alongside with a deep gouge on her right thigh, face flushed white with the amount of blood she lost during the torture, with one of her eyes beaten black and purple and with the sith mask that had majorly psychologically damaged her mind to a point where she just wanted to die. Despite all of the psychological and physical damage she had received, they didn't gain any information after a couple days. She could be happy about that at least: they hadn't broken her mind completely to a point where she'd spill. She would rather die with her secrets than jeopardize her friends safety.
She was alone with her thoughts and satisfactory success on saying "a big screw you" to Thrawn until she heard faint footsteps in the background. Hailey stifled her smirk and steeled herself for the oncoming torture or worse: execution. As the footsteps got louder and louder, she noticed that it was only one set of feet that were walking towards her cell and was surprised to see Riser walk into her cell without Thrawn. This confused her and waited to see why the agent was here alone.
He typed in a code on the jail terminal that remained on the inside of her cell and noticed that after he was done, the cameras in the room were turned off and what she would hear next would surprise her.
"I am sorry."
Did she hear him correctly? Did he just apologize to her?
Trying to find the air in her lungs to speak, "Wh….wh..what…," followed after with a coughing fit and she spat out blood.
"I am sorry for what they did to you. That mask. That mask felt evil…," the agent said.
"Wh...why..ar..are….yo...you….ap...ap...apolo...apologizing...," she managed to get out of her mouth.
"I always believed that the Empire was a fighting force of good. That you rebels were rebelling because you wanted the old ways back. You know, the old ways that I have been taught were so evil but if this is how the new way is going to be: torturing prisoners to unnecessarily extreme lengths, then I want nothing of it."
Wait had Riser just been simply manipulated by the Empire? What other things did they teach him.
Although now that hailey had a chance to collect her thoughts whilst trying to push back her physical pain and prejudice, Riser's aura didn't seem evil at all, just fanatically and passionate. It all made sense now why Riser hadn't kill Tania all those weeks ago: he had more than an opportune chance to end her life back on Felucia but he didn't, alongside with the time on Polis Massa with Isslarok and with the recent time being on Dathomir. He had multiple chances to end their lives, presently and past, to destroy them but he didn't. He always tried to arrest them before resorting to violence and even so, he wouldn't try to strike killing blows, only trying to stun them.
"Wh...What...ar...areee...yo...you… go..goin..goingg..t..to...do...now," questioned hailey.
"This," after he said that, he went back to the terminal, pressed a button which released her from her chains and fell on the ground but before she could, she found herself in the arms of the agent.
"You alright? Did hit the floor too hard," questioned the agent with a certain softness in his voice. This was completely to what everything that had encountered him with. The times they had met him in the battlefield he was cold, heartless and seem to have no compassion for them but now here: he was like a completely different person. Despite her excruciating pain that she was experiencing, she couldn't help but blush a little: This Riser was much more charming.
He handed her a few stimpacks and bandages and she proceeded to inject them into her veins and felt a rushing wave of warmth and healing throughout her body as the medicine went to work on her more excruciating wounds to dull their pain. All the while, she patched her lacerations with the bandages.
"Take sectors 2F and 4Y, avoid everything else except those and you'll end up in hanger 3. That hanger is my personal hanger and no-one should be there. Take my personal shuttle and head to these coordinates, they should be out of the range of the Empire's radars. Don't worry about the Empire asking questions when you leave, they already know "I am" supposed to leave soon."
"Wh..what a..bout...you," Hailey asked.
"I still need time, I want to find out what happened on Onderon first before I make a decision to leave the Empire but I'll do my best to remain a front and act like I am still with the Empire. Now go."
With that, Hailey exited the torture room but not before turning her head back to the agent and replying to his kindness with,
"Thank you."
"HEY HEY HEY SKULLY THE STORY SEEMS LIKE RISER'S CHARACTER IS PROGRESSING TO FAST!" Do not fret readers, these upcoming 2 chapters ( after chapter 7, which will be a chapter revealing something about a certain character ) will be flashbacks into his last missions with the pesky Freedom Ringers. I have planned accordingly so get ready for these upcoming chapters! Also I know this chapter wasn't released on the scheduled day but I finished early so I thought I would release it today!
Also replying to reviews.
Redsword12 on Chapter 3:
I totally get that Thrawn tolerates failure and understand he hates incompetence my good friend. I knew someone would point this out sooner or later and let me reply with this: There's a reason why I am making him like this for now. I always figured him for someone who would test authorities loyalty to the cause. After all, he doesn't want imcompetent people to have power. I don't want to reveal much on the story but I do hope you stay tuned into the story my friend!
Regards,
~Sskully