Dark Shadows

The room slowly came back into focus. Nelkf found, to her surprise, that she neither on a lab table or back in the cell she had originally been put in. She was now confined, in all extremes, in an entirely plasteel box. There were no repulsor cots. She guessed that was how Jax had gotten out in the first place. Jax...She was alone. In a blind panic, her imagination began to run away with her. What if I'm in some other body or something? She did a quick check. Unless they had found another green-eyed Sklinthi body, she was still herself. Did they implant me with one of those devices they put in Jax's brain? Maybe. What if I've been cloned? If I have, how can I tell if I'm the real me, or the cloned me? Where's Jax? Did they kill him? Unlikely, I killed more Imps then he did. Where am I?

She heard footsteps in the hallway. She drew back against the wall and began breath silently. The steps neared, and she could hear the gentle hum of the maglock coming undone. She balled her hands into fists, ready to attack whoever thought they could get in here. If it were a stormtrooper, she could steal his blaster and break out of the prison.

Instead of the white monster she expected, the stormtrooper hurled a limp body carelessly into the cell alongside the door. Nelkf identified the form at once and ran to aid the smuggler.

"Jax! Jax! You're alive!"

Jax coughed and Nelkf saw some hastily patched scars on his face. Jax looked confused as if he had amnesia.

"Necho chee!" Nelkf exclaimed in her own language, "What the Sith did they do to you? Are you dying?" there had been enough death in Nelkf's life. She didn't need to face more.

Jax shook his head gingerly, afraid of any pain a hard shake might cause. He squinted at Nelkf, trying to remember her. The torture had been horrible.

Nelkf became very frightened. "Jax? What's wrong? They didn't brainwash you, did they? If they did," Her eyes glowed intensely in anger as she imagined how good it would feel when she tore out Rakson's liver and fed it to him.

Jax seemed to remember her. He sat up and forced a grin. "It's okay," he said, his voice thick with pain. "Not brainwashed, not dying," he coughed, "Just punished. Don't worry."

"How? How did they punish you? Maybe we could use it to-"

"No," Jax shook his head a little harder this time. He was making a quick recovery. That was good. "Nothing we could use. Science stuff."

"But the scars..."

"Scars?" Jax struggled to remember, "Poison or something. Eats you up from the inside out."

Nelkf whistled. Man, those Imps had all that stuff down pat! "Jax, can I help?" she asked, "Do you need to get up or something?"

"No," Jax looked as if he had just faced off with a rancor. "Just sleep. That's all," he glanced at her and shook his head. "You should have run."

"No way, Smuggler. You got me this far. No way I would ditch you now," she grinned at him, finally accepting their friendship. She turned on her heels and went back to her own side of the room. That's all we are. Friends.

Jax's eyes caught a mischievous glint. A grin began to spread across his face. "Oh course, Nelkf, I might be cold."

Nelkf stopped cold in her tracks and turned to glare at him. "You're lucky I'm pretending that's fear talking, or you might wind up floating in a bacta tank."

Jax laughed. "We're locked up. That doesn't make any sense."

Nelkf shrugged. "Sklinths seldom do."