Chapter 9: Questions in the Dark
Rayna Tocklebee's eyes snapped open, and met absolute darkness. She frantically looked to her left, then to her right, in hope of finding a light. Any light. Not even a faintly illuminated commlink or alarm bulb presented itself to her. She struggled with the idea that her eyes were open, but she could see nothing.
"Where am I?" She spat aloud.
As if in response to her question, a low, mechanical breath cut through the pitch-black ink around her.
"Who's there? Who are you? Please…" She fought the tears that welled around her eyes from falling, and angrily growled the rest of her sentence, "…let me out of here."
Again, the rhythmic intake of breath followed by the slow, wheezing expulsion of carbon dioxide. Rayna tried to imagine why someone would need a respirator in a room so obviously full of breathable air.
"Look, I don't know what you want, but I have friends that will be looking for me. They'll – "
The voice she had hoped to hear, the voice proving that there was indeed someone else in the room, was so loud and full of malice that Rayna Tocklebee's tears finally fell onto her lap. She found her throat muscles constrict as her tormentor's words echoed around her.
"They'll do nothing. They believe you are dead. They left you to me."
There had been no question, so Rayna remained silent. Instead, she wiped away the salty liquid from her cheeks and cursed herself for having perhaps shown the owner of the frightening voice that she was very scared. More scared than she had been when she had learned of her parents' deaths four years ago at the age of sixteen. More scared than he had been when she had been arrested by the Bakuran forces for a crime she hadn't committed but simply because she opposed their authority. More scared than she believed humanly possible, and all because of the tone of those horrible statements her jailor had uttered.
"You'll answer my questions, or you'll suffer. Is that clear?"
Rayna remained silent, but rubbed aimlessly at a persistent kink in her right shoulder; a fruitless attempt to look unafraid.
Abruptly, there was a whoosh of air to Rayna's left, but before she could turn her head, she felt a vice-like grip about her neck without the sensation of fingers that usually accompanied the panicked feeling of being choked.
"Is? That? Clear?" Each word a question all on its own. The vice had loosened a bit, and Rayna found her voice weak and hushed as she answered affirmatively.
"Good. Very good."
Rayna slumped into her chair that, she realized for the first time, had no constraints attached to it. She was, quite literally, free to move about the darkened room, but for some reason, she chose not to. Instead, she waited impatiently for the impending first question. It took minutes before the voice spoke again. The horrible breathing, however, was constant. It made Rayna fidget in her seat and sweat profusely. The expanding moisture tickled her back, and she moved absently about without ever leaving her seat, even more.
"Have you ever heard of a man, a Jedi, by the name of Mace Windu?"
Rayna's blue eyes widened slightly, before she caught herself, at the mention of Master Windu's name. How did this man know about Master Windu? She quickly decided to lie as much as possible so that she would not be responsible for supplying her captor with information he could use against Deredith's Memory.
"I don't know who you're talking about," she hissed confidently hoping the strength of her voice would convince her interrogator that she did, indeed, know no one by that name.
"You're lying." The brief but fearless statement shook Rayna. The abruptness and certainty of those words convinced the woman to work harder to make her lies more believable…somehow. She decided to go on the offensive.
"Look, if you're going to accuse me of lying every time I say something you don't want to hear, then maybe you should just kill me now because I've got nothing else to say. So why don't you take that back to your superior officer, you joke."
There was a long, awkward moment of silence that followed Rayna's angry outburst.
"Lights."
Instantly, dim lights flickered to life above Rayna's head, and the prisoner was forced to shut her eyes at the sudden assault on her pupils. She lifted her head, facing the newly lit bulbs with her eyes still shut, and swallowed visibly. She then exhaled loudly, and brought her face down to confront her tormentor. She winced and her eyes became mere slits as she caught sight of the black-clad behemoth before her. She unwittingly shook her head while a soft, mewling whimper escaped her open mouth.
"Do you know Mace Windu? Is he part of your pitiful band of troublemakers?" The monster leaned forward, as if he needed to in order to better hear her response, and placed his hands on his hips in anticipation. He was close enough to Rayna's face that she almost believed she could see into the great, black lenses of his mask and make out a corroded visage. She was horrified when she came to the realization that it was her own twisted reflection she saw in the Sith Lord's facemask.
Rayna Tocklebee shrunk back in her chair in revulsion. She couldn't answer his questions, even if she wanted to. She had heard of this man. This machine. She knew he was the Empire's greatest assassin and the most devastating force the universe had, quite possibly, ever known. He was the Dark Lord, Darth Vader.
To be absolutely sure, she sputtered, "You're Darth Vader. You…you kill…everybody. You're evil. The personification of evil."
Vader turned slightly, pleased his name instilled fear in those that heard it even here on a backwater planet like Bakura, a planet he had yet to set foot on. He pressed his newfound advantage.
"I am." His words, unlike everything else he'd said until this point, sounded almost content. They sounded like he took great pride in the knowledge that she knew who he was, and that she recognized him for what he was.
A monster.
"I'm sure you know too that I can break every bone in your body." Rayna groaned as a bone in her index finger snapped audibly as Vader lifted his own towards her. "One by one. It will be quite painful, I'm afraid. You will scream for mercy, but I'll offer none…" He let the word hang in the stuffy air for a second. "…unless you answer my questions truthfully." A second bone, this one farther up her arm, splintered, and through the pain, Rayna Tocklebee slowly nodded her head. She was no warrior, she thought, and she was not meant to endure this sort of pain, but she would not give up what she knew about Mace Windu and Deredith's Memory without forcing Vader to snap a few more of her bones. She grit her teeth, and looked up defiantly at the most feared man in the galaxy when suddenly the lights above her fizzled, crackled, and died. While the darkness enveloped her again, the growing seed of defeat in the pit of her stomach flowered.
As the hours passed, and Rayna Tocklebee's issued her last words, the athletic young Bakuran, and dedicated member of Deredith's Memory, finally discovered that her falling tears were cathartic. They allowed her a sort of absolution as she thought briefly, for the last time, of the men and women she had surely, and unwantedly, betrayed.