I couldn't sleep or eat for the rest of the day after Baras dug into my memories. He was a liar, a filthy animal, a monster. I seethed with my hatred for him and suddenly felt as if I knew a part of him that I hadn't before, as if I became aware of his whole self, which was far more disgusting and vile than even I could have imagined. I couldn't fathom a reason why I'd ever been loyal to him.

I paced in my cockpit, hands on my hips, hands on my eyes, hands writhing in and out of each other like they were making love. Something was building. I felt it now. Something I couldn't stop anymore.

I'd have to leave. Right away. She'd get back, I'd wish her well - I owed her that, at least - and maybe I'd go into hiding. Maybe I could serve in other ways, find a remote planet and sabotage the Republic. Maybe I could follow her crew wherever they went and serve from the shadows, get a glimpse of her daily as she went about her life...

Without me.

I began to formulate a plan, but all of it was half-hearted. Somehow, I felt like time stood still, and it didn't matter what I did to stop whatever was coming anymore. It was going to come, and I would have no choice. Like impending doom that I could see from around the corner, but just out of the corner of my eye, I felt like those hours tore at me from all sides. I felt dazed, but clear. Mad, but focused. Weak, but resigned.

It would come, and I couldn't stop it. This was how it went. I'd done it to others so many times. The more I tried to gather my thoughts, the more they unraveled. I felt like I wasn't myself. I was everywhere at once, but I knew it was coming. The sensation grew to such a deafening roar behind my eyes and I winced with pain, feeling a fever coming on.

I felt strange, and something was coming.

The night passed, but I couldn't sleep. I remained in the cockpit, shaking my head, trying to break free of the madness that had me in its clutches. After hours of trying to gather myself, I contemplated running away right now before whatever it was came upon me, thought of making a break for it, but the sensation of having nowhere to hide was all around me. The next day came and went just in the same way, and the feeling of doom only grew.

It was here, right here, inside of my head.

Vette checked on me once, knocked on the locked cockpit door. I flashed her a look through the window, a dangerous look, shook my head at her once, and turned my back on her.

I wanted to beg her to stay away, but I couldn't make my mouth call out to her. Part of me wished she could help me, but somehow all of this was beyond her now. I wanted her to be as far from me as she could possibly be.

Why did I want that?

Because something was coming.

It was only a matter of time.

Time stood still, and yet the next day passed on in eternity, as if the longer this sensation prevailed the slower time moved. But I was stuck here in a warp, time moving faster than I could feel it, but slow enough for me to sense the time wasted melting away from me. I checked my timer periodically, and hours would pass in the blink of an eye. It became evening, then late. Then, it was morning all at once, and still I paced. Then, I lost track of time after that, and still I paced. My legs never tired. The voices never stopped. I thought I might die.

Maybe I had died.

Was this eternity? Was I being punished? I'd done so many misdeeds, I'd wasted so much time.

Trapped in the unending wail of time and death, tears fell freely as I soaked in the insignificance of my unending doom. I'd wasted my life, wasted my career. I'd wasted it all because I had thrown in my weight with her.

Rage came as memories of her face, as if crawling through an eternity, entered my mind, unbidden.

No, it wasn't because of her.

Couldn't be, I told myself.

The pain spiked at this sensation, and I cried out.

What was this?

Was I ill?

What was this sensation?

The roaring intensified, and I cried out now, dropping to my knees, my clammy hands finding my forehead. It reached a peak until-

A ringing. The voices receded. The madness waned. All at once, there was the roar of the autopilot and the dull vacuum of space. There was just the ringing now, a blinking red light, an urgent message from a Sith lord. Everything was clear again. I was me...I think. But I wasn't sure.

Dimly, my mind pieced together that it couldn't be Zaya. She'd taken her cruiser. I knew not to call, and so did she. We were cloaked.

But maybe time had passed?

No.

This was an official message.

This was planned.

This had been coming.

I didn't hesitate once I pieced it together. Anything was better than the voices. Whatever came would keep them from coming back. From my knees, I slowly, deliberately, placed my hand over the receiver and pressed down, my head hung.

"Do you relent?" the voice asked immediately, an unfamiliar one.

I glanced up, feeling now that I was out of the voices how difficult it was to keep my head upright, how hard it was to focus my eyes. How long had it been?

"I...relent..." my voice provided, broken, small.

A boy's voice, foreign out of my mouth.

Coming into focus, the man crossed his arms. He was massively built with brown hair and tattoos that littered his forehead and chin. His sneer was formidable.

Part of me wasn't even angry - or surprised. How could I be now that Baras knew everything? Baras was going to use what he saw, as he always did. A quality I'd once admired.

Now, a sensation of unending despair took me, and I almost didn't know what to do.

All I knew was that Baras had caused it.

"What...is happening to me?" I whimpered out to my open palms before glancing back up at the man.

"Lord Baras sends his regards."

I couldn't reply. I realized now that I was exhausted.

"What...does he want...me to do? I can't control...what I felt...what I feel..."

"You cannot renounce her?"

I splayed my palms up before him.

"I do not pretend to be unconflicted, my lord, but I...I have served so loyally. Why am I being punished?"

The man scoffed above me, and I recoiled.

"Punished?" he repeated. "You're a fool. You have been chosen."

I remembered the eternity of torment I'd just endured, the agony. It had seemed like millennia had passed. I felt older. Tired.

So tired.

"Chosen by whom?"

"By the Voice of the Emperor, of course."

I just breathed. Sith politics. So petty and meaningless to me.

How had I gotten caught up in all of this?

"Who might that be...my lord?"

"Maker, have you not felt him all around you? His power...his might...I envy your inundation. That he has chosen you is a gift and you squander it with your ignorance!"

There it was. That insanity. I winced away from his voice, still somehow clinging to some semblance of desire to not die.

"My lord, I-"

"Lord Baras is the true Voice of the Emperor, and he has chosen you to carry out what will quite possibly be the most important mission of your pitiful career. Has he not revealed himself to you in these last few days?"

That was Lord Baras?

The blackness, the hate, the rage? It was all madness. Somewhere far off, in the echoes of my real memories, I thought of Zaya. Briefly, I made the connection that this was likely what she had endured at Baras' hands.

I felt all broken up now. Tears filled my eyes. It was more horrible than I could have ever imagined.

And he'd done it to her.

"Should I expect to survive?" I quipped, unable to hide the malice anymore.

"Probably not, no."

So honest. I clenched my eyes shut tight, somehow still numb from the eternity that I'd just endured. They planned for me to die.

I didn't want to die.

I didn't want to feel the voices again.

"What does he want?" I croaked out. "I beg...that he never does that again, and he shall have whatever he wants. I am his servant, and he is my master."

"Anything?"

I bowed my head, pressing my forehead into the metal beneath me that I'd just paced lines into.

"Anything," I vowed.

"Very good. But the severing of your connection to Lord Baras comes with a price."

This was it. The moment of truth. I was so glad I had so little to take that he didn't already have in a vice grip.

"What price?" I breathed out, still feeling anxious with anticipation.

"Lord Baras will call upon you to do a task to test your loyalty. It will challenge your feelings."

Confused, but too weak to move, I remained, working through what the man said slowly.

"I have done nothing to compromise my loyalty," I replied, feeling my chest loosen somewhat.

It would be easier than I feared.

"What is the task?" I asked.

The man didn't hesitate.

"When the time comes," he drawled, his words slow, deliberate, and clipped, "Lord Baras demands that you kill her. So you will kill her."

The words were vague, but it wasn't confusing. I knew what he meant.

Every muscle in my body recoiled away from this, as if the words were poison. They didn't even make sense in a sentence like that, strung together in such a vulgar and inconceivable fashion.

I shot upwards, staring at the man. My chest began to heave right away, as I stared at him, hoping I'd misheard.

"What did you say, my lord?"

"You know what I said."

My mouth opened wider. My hands felt numb. All thoughts of the eternity of suffering faded, and only now did I realize what they were trying to do.

I was a tool, an assassin. I'd done it before.

Never to a woman I loved.

Maybe because I'd never loved anybody the way I'd loved Zaya.

"Why?" I shouted abruptly.

"Do not question the Voice of the Emperor!" the man warned, but we were past rationality.

"Bullshit! Why does he want this? She is his servant, his apprentice, she's-"

"-a loose end, one that may need to be dealt with."

"Why me? Why can't he do it?"

"She'd never expect a man she loved to do it, and you are in a unique position to leverage that weakness against her. Which is what her love for you would be."

"That would be very convenient if she loved me, but she doesn't!"

The man crossed his arms, sneered.

"Then make her love you."

I sputtered in disbelief, feeling my chest pounding.

"So this is what it's all been about? That's why I'm here?"

"You've facilitated the deaths of other apprentices before. Lord Baras calls on your services to prove yourself yet again. This should be no different."

"But she's - this is different! He's using her to further his goals? She's done nothing but serve him loyally for years! After he beat her and tortured her! She has never wavered!"

"Until now," the man replied.

"What has she done that could possibly have compromised her so much?"

"That does not concern you. All you need to know is that she is a liability and a weak link for Lord Baras. Her usefulness may soon come to an end, and may pose a threat to his new rule. You must strike her down, but only once he has ascended and the time is right."

"So he would just kill her, just like that?"

"No, of course not, Captain. But you would."

My hands shook. I stared in the space between us, unseeing.

This couldn't be happening.

This wasn't happening.

This was worse than anything I could have ever imagined. She meant everything to me.

"What could possibly motivate me to do this? He..."

I hesitated, but figured I was already past the point of no return.

"He knows how I feel about her! Why is he making me do this? Why is he asking me to do this? I am loyal! I have proven my loyalty, but...but I-"

"Your feelings for her are not real," the man replied simply. "She's been using all along, just like Baras has. She's no different than the rest of us."

"That's a lie!"

"Why else do you feel so sick and weak around her? Why else do you think she strings you along by your dick? Do you think she'll actually fuck you? You're a weakling, Quinn, not one of us."

"You're lying!"

"With power like ours, pawns like you have their uses."

"A pawn? That's it? After all I've done for him, I'm just a pawn?"

"Of course, after all he's done for you, you're hardly in a position to complain, are you, Quinn?"

I hesitated now, scowling, my heart racing.

"What do you mean?" I ground out.

"You've been stationed under the command of a beautiful woman, been given an illustrious career full of victories, and you've been given honor after honor. You don't think you've earned those honors, have you?"

He was manipulating me.

It was working.

"Baras has given you everything and could take it away like that."

The man snapped.

"Would you risk the collapse of your entire life for a woman?"

I thought I'd vomit.

"She's not just a woman, she's...I don't know if I can do this."

"You must," the man replied, his tone sharpening. "If you don't, you'll go back to Lord Baras' eternity."

I shook to the core. The thought was too horrible to imagine, but this was almost worse.

Or maybe it was.

Now, I felt all turned around.

"I..." I tried, but words didn't come out.

"Lord Baras could always take her into his eternity too, a prison from which she could never escape. Is that what you want?"

"No!" I cried out, looking up at him.

Suddenly, I was pleading.

"No, not that. She's already done...she's been through enough."

"Then spare her that pain. Kill her, and you get to choose how quickly she dies."

Tears flowed out of my eyes now. Something broke inside of me, and everything came spilling out.

"But I don't want her to die!" I moaned. "Please, ask me to do anything else! Please! Let me talk to her! If I can just explain...I can protect her! She can go into hiding! She's not unreasonable, she's-"

"No," the man interrupted. "Lord Rowak will die. And you will do it. If not, someone else more qualified will step up to take your place, and who knows how they'd do it? Maybe poison, maybe suffocation, maybe impalement. Who knows?"

Despair permeated as I wept there on the ground, so dumbfounded by sorrow that I couldn't move.

I'd always just assumed that I'd die first. She'd outlive me. It was the way of things.

This?

"You will tell no one about any of this," the man threatened. "If you do, we'll know."

I couldn't move. His threats were empty because I was empty.

"When we contact you again, you'll know."

There was a silence. I felt broken. I couldn't move. Until,

"Who are you?"

"Lord Draagh," the man replied crisply. "Now clean yourself up and get it together. You've got a murder to plan."

Draagh ended the call.

I was left, alone, in the empty cockpit, broken, beaten, empty.

Sheer exhaustion forced me to my bed. I shoved a meal ration down my throat on the way and collapsed into restless, dreamless sleep. Part me of me felt numb to it, hiding something so profoundly shattering and painful that I knew I couldn't face it. The other part of me wondered if all of this was just a dream. Vette did come to check on me, told me she'd seen me pacing, that I'd seemed wild, sick, feverish. She thought I'd caught what she had.

Was that true?

Maybe it was all just a bad dream. None of it felt clear. It could have been a hallucination.

All I knew was...

I couldn't kill her.

And I had to leave her.

It was as simple as that.

I just couldn't take it anymore.