ABOARD THE MALACHOR , 40 YEARS ABE:
The bridge of The Malachor was a model of Imperial efficiency and conformity: gray uniforms bustling around gray deckplates, working on gray consoles, exchanging gray datasticks with gray salutes, all suffused with an eerie homogeneity of species-humans, every last one of them. For a woman raised in the bustling and colorful galactIc melting pot of Coruscant, it was like something out of a dream...or a nightmare , the same nightmare her mother had been fighting since she was younger than Breha.
The only things that didn't fit the prim, stiff gray mold were Breha herself and her immediate captors: Darth Revan and his chrome-plated head trooper, Phasma. Revan led their little party onto the bridge, Phasma walking rear guard in stoic silence with a large blaster carbine held easily across her hips. Between them marched ten stark-white stormtroopers in neat two-columned lockstep, four ahead and four behind with two in the middle dragging Breha Organa-Solo between them.
Revan's black cloak and gleaming black helmet swooped into the scene like a great black bird of prey. The Sith Lord was physically dwarfed by the towering stormtrooper commander but while Phasma was merely large the sense of menace radiated by Revan was infinite, its tendrils coiling off into every corner of the pristine Super Star Destroyer. Shadows unspooled like smoke, tipping the soft grays of Imperial design into darkness. Something like Revan had no place here, in this world of clean edges and firm lines and flat grays...except that wasn't true, was it? There had not been a Sith, a true Sith Lord, in the Empire in Breha's lifetime, but it was by Sith that the Empire had first been founded. Having Revan on this bridge was a return to Imperial roots.
Breha, by contrast, did not belong at all. Her eye-smarting orange dress uniform blazed like a bonfire in the center of the subdued and streamlined bridge, but it was a small fire-solitary. Surrounded by grays and blacks and whites, smothered by the colorless Imperial shades. Smothered...but never subdued.
"Jedi can sense fear too, you know," she observed, speaking loudly so that her voice would carry to the brisk officers working away dutifully as their motley little group marched past. "So that just leaves the question of whether these stormies here are more scared of you, or of me." Breha was more being dragged than she was walking, her upper arms gripped tight by a pair of stormtroopers and her polished dress boots sliding and stumbling across the smooth gray deckplates. Most of her weight was being supported by the stormtroopers, not her own feet; otherwise she would have dug her heels in already.
Her lower arms were encased in a more elaborate set of binders than any Breha had ever seen. They pinched her arms together at the wrists then separated to cover them separately almost up to her elbows. The bright white plasteel surface seemed to be made of the same material as stormtrooper armor, but it was supplemented by coiled wires and blinking diodes. Every few seconds at randomized intervals they released a mild electrical charge, shocking Breha-breaking her concentration enough to prevent her from using the Force. She had to assume that that was the purpose for which they had been designed, and tried not to shudder at the thought of an Imperial storeroom full of the things, waiting to be clamped around the frontal appendages of every Jedi in the New Republic.
She wondered if Imperial homogeneity extended to prisoner restraints; did they only have Force Binders designed for humanoids, or could Imperial engineering take other species into account as long as it was for purposes of subjugation? Either way, it wasn't a comforting thought.
To assuage her own fears, she poked at the stormtroopers' instead.
"It's a pretty sad state of affairs when a helpless prisoner in chains is enough to get your big tough soldiers quaking in their little white booties," she taunted. "You sure you should trust them with me, Revan? I might shout 'boo' and send them running for an escape pod."
The stormtroopers did not visibly react to Breha's mockery, although the one on her right tightened his grip slightly. The other seemed to be trembling under her armor-but that might have been wishful thinking on Breha's part; it was hard to distinguish motion that small from the regular rumble of ship's engines under their feet. Breha wondered what would happen if she gave them a quick Force shove-but then the cuffs on her wrists sparked, sending current through her blood and making her body twitch. She grunted in discomfort that didn't quite cross into the realm of pain, but came very close.
Revan didn't turn around to look at her. "They will do as they are commanded." The Sith Lord sounded amused. "As, eventually, will you."
Breha barked a laugh. "Small chance of that. You know they don't call us Rogue Squadron because of how good we are at following orders, right?"
Revan shrugged. "It hardly matters. Rogue Squadron is no more. And soon, your Republic will follow."
Breha opened her mouth for a sharp retort but just then her escort jerked her to a stop at the front of the bridge. She could see the city-covered world below through the Super Star Destroyer's large viewport. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at the battle filling the skies above Coruscant. "The Fleet!" she cried softly to herself, hope welling in her breast. "Jaen made it-or Lesso. Someone." A crooked, cocky grin spread over her face and she raised her voice again.
"You're in for it now, your Sithiness," she crowed.
