Disclaimer: I don't own the Star Wars universe or Star Wars KOTOR, George
Lucas and Lucas Arts do. They also own all the Characters and Worlds
contained therein. The characters created by me for this story are all
that I own.
Cait McDonald is born
It took weeks to establish her history in her mind and establish files in the official records of her training. A planet attacked by the Sith was chosen for her naval training, this would explain the lack of complete records.
Cait had suffered a head wound which caused her to loose her memory, but recently she had regained all her memories of training and insisted that she must report to the Republic Fleet. Once she was medically cleared she reported in to Coruscant for further orders. The navy reviewed the records of her training, noted the amazing number of languages she knew and called her in for a briefing.
Ensign Cait McDonald reported as ordered to the Office of the Training Command. There she was asked if she would be interested in further training as a covert operations officer. She was warned the expected life span was short and there was a good chance she would die in combat, however she would be able to use her technical and linguistic skills to break into Sith bases, rescue captured Republic personnel, and assist local resistance movements with their fight against the Sith on occupied planets. Of course her answer was yes. She would attempt to complete the year long training.
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Computer slicing, security bypass methods, robotic repair and reprogramming were the technical skills they first began training them in; small unit tactics and movement, stealth combat, advanced close weapons and sniper techniques, comprised the initial physical training. The physical training was demanding but fun in many ways, grungy and muddy often as not but oddly enough Cait enjoyed it.
The Covert Ops school placed a strong emphasis on the mental stability of recruits due to the Sith defections following the Mandalorian Wars. They started the students with weekly ethics training. Those who displayed unacceptable responses to the ethics training at each phase would not be allowed to continue.
The ethics training was hard on all of them. Initially it involved watching interviews with those who had fought in the recent Mandalorian wars. It was difficult to watch the interviews of how the soldiers had felt as they were ordered to desert worlds deemed tactically unimportant leaving them defenseless to the Mandalorin onslaught in order that they might reinforce more tactically important worlds. People had screamed at them for leaving, some had pleaded with them to stay and protect them. It had broken the spirit of many to obey such orders. Some of the soldiers were former Sith, and they were very open and honest about why they had joined the Sith.
Looking on the war as a whole it was easy to see how the downward descent into darkness had occurred. The bitterest thing about the war was that the Republic had hailed every victory and had ignored the horrible things done to obtain it.
It was a lesson the instructors took every chance to reinforce. Victory over the enemy was empty if you sacrificed your honor and ideals to obtain it. If you did so you would become the enemy as the Sith had, as Revan and Malak had. They couldn't fall to the dark side as the Jedi, but their actions could lead them down dark paths to become willing Sith soldiers.
When the instructors had weeded out those incapable or unwilling to accept the lessons of the Mandalorian Wars they begin watching holo interrogations of captured Sith personnel. Since these were done for training the questions asked were more about how the person thought and felt about different things and were often done without any interrogation drugs. As with all the ethics training it was difficult, they had to figure out how and why the person they were watching had come to be whom they were. Not many nights went by without nightmares for many of them after some of these sessions.
For Cait it became clear that certain emotions seemed to dominate all of the Sith soldiers. Fear and hatred were common themes for some, for others it was a will for power and complete domination over others.
Some had ruthlessly killed the enemy out of hatred for what the enemy had done, and failed to realize they had become as evil as the enemy they fought. Others willing went to the Sith for power and the ability to force others to do their will. Some became Sith out of fear, fear that if they did not belong to the Sith and act as brutally as they could, that they would be one of the ones being brutilized. Those types turned her stomach; they were brutal because they thought that it would protect them from the brutality of their fellows. At least she could understand the ones who fell through hate.
Finally when the class size was down to around 30% of its original size and the obvious undesirables were weeded out the psychotherapy began for all of them. Cait had to grin at the rest of her classmates when they complained about having to go over and over and over their relationships with their parents, siblings etc etc etc.
She had felt sorry for herself that her memory never came back but in this case maybe it was a blessing. Her Twe'lik psychotherapist, Vaaya Maraa, had put her into deep memory regression hoping it would bring out some memories. The only thing that remained was the memory of being held when she was a child, by her mother they guessed. Cait suspected, her mother was dead and was sorry that she couldn't remember her mother's face. But she remembered being held, loved and comforted by her. There was a sense of peace about the memory and the strong sense of being safe and loved. It sustained Cait when she felt lost and alone, and she drew on the warmth of it to give herself strength when the training got difficult. Whenever she felt like she couldn't take another step, or when they were on night missions in the cold and wet that memory gave her the strength and courage to keep going.
She always felt like her mother was still watching over her, the Jedi said that everyone continued to exist in the Force so maybe her mother was watching over her. She resolved to herself that wherever her mother was she would make sure she could be proud of her daughter.
With the recommendation of Vaaya Maraa she added another training session to her daily routine. Musicianship and musical expression, where she decided to learn to play the mandovil. The instrument she was given was specialized and could be broken down into a very small unit for travel. It took forever to break down and put back together though. All of them were taking sessions in some type of art, whether it was music, drawing or sculpture. She now knew why there seemed to be so much art around the training complex. She proved to be rather good with the instrument and soon joined in with others of her training class to provide entertainment during the evenings.
The psychotherapists also helped them deal with their reactions to the interrogations sessions, specific case studies showed exactly how most of the subjects had become the person they were. Cait didn't really like it but she begin to see how the people in front of her were broken human beings, in pain and anger and in most cases, unable to see what they had become.
When she had to turn away during one of the interrogation holo's, the instructor had taken her to see her assigned therapist. Shuddering she explained what she had saw that caused her to feel such pity "she's torturing herself, with every evil act like she's slicing bits of herself away. She doesn't see it but she sees the distance that lies between her and us and she rages at us. I guess mostly because she can't see anyway to get back so she just continues on killing whatever is left of the humanity inside her. I guess eventually she will manage to destroy all of it unless she can be persuaded to stop."
The twe'lik therapist Vaaya Maraa smiled at her and hugged her. "You have a compassionate soul Cait that is exactly what I see in many of them. Why do you think she is doing that?" Cait struggled to try and understand the motivations of the mad woman that they had been interrogating. "Maybe she thinks the pain will stop if she continues long enough, I guess it will, she will no longer be capable of caring about what she does. There will be a human body but no soul left."
Vaaya said "Now a question for you.....", she paused and then continued. "Now that you have seen this do you think you can avoid doing the same thing to yourself?"
Cait paused and gave the matter serious thought, "my weakness will be anger and hatred. People that I care about being hurt would be where my weakness lies. I might be tempted to return some of that pain like for like." "Is it worth the cost though to yourself, "asked Vaaya, "if you become that which you hate would you not also hurt the people you care about?"
Cait quietly said "yes, I would hurt them if I became like that."
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In some ways those sessions at least were easier than the ones where they dealt with my feelings for other women. Heh, sometimes it felt like everyone was out to get me laid, it was an odd situation to be in. Vaaya Maraa thought I needed to come to terms with my sexuality before it became a self-esteem issue. My squad mates were trying to be helpful and introduce me to nice similarly interested women. I was starting to feel very hounded indeed.
Finally my squad mates bundled me off to the local hangout, promising they would 'protect' me from any unwanted advances. Of course the first woman that I showed the slightest interest in they insisted on almost shoving me in the woman's lap. My 'dear' friends seemed to think it highly hilarious that I caught myself in time to keep from falling on the petty brunette by stopping myself against the wall but in the process buried the woman's face in my chest.
I apologized profusely to the woman blushing deeply, only to have her say "Oh don't apologize for that, it was certainly enjoyable for me. But I really feel we should introduce ourselves after such a meeting." The woman's grin was wicked and I flushed further as my squad mates hooted and called 'helpful' encouragements out. I was so pleased they were getting so much enjoyment out of this situation; I would definitely have to devise several ways of paying them back. Something slightly short of killing them ... maybe.
"Names Maraya DeCalas, now who might you be beautiful?" I made the mistake of glancing down and noticed the dancing warmth of her grey eyes as she wrapped her arms around my waist and finished what my friends had started by pulling me down into her lap. I blushed again and shyly introduced myself "Cait McDonald" I looked up for my friends but they had all disappeared. Puzzled I looked around and Maraya said "Oh they left after some rather broad winks at me, I don't think I've ever had a woman literally thrown at me before it's a rather a nice experience."
Somehow I managed to garble out something about they thought I should loosen up and ah accept who I was interested in. Maraya had been looking very amused through out my entire halting attempt but at the last she stilled. "You mean you've never been with a woman before? You are sure about being attracted to women?" she asked. Mutely I nodded twice my voice seemed to have completely deserted me. "Have you ever been with anyone?" she asked. I pondered this and said "I don't think so but I can't remember anything from before a year ago." Maraya raised her eyebrows and replied "well if you can't remember it then it counts as a no. Would you like to dance?" she finished asking. "Ah sure, yes" I stuttered more than a bit flustered.
The dance Maraya was referring to was a slow one of course, and she would permit no space between the two of us. By the end of it I was sure this was some type of exquisite torture session, one designed to drive me crazy with longing for something. By the morning she had gently and quite thoroughly shown me what I had been longing for. Well I thought to myself quietly running a soothing hand along Maraya's bare back, no wonder the guys are always so intent on getting in a woman's pants. Maraya's dark hair hung in heavy bangs along side her face and the morning sunlight turned her body into a sculpture of golden lit highlights and shadows. Dreamily I watched my hand glide up and down watching the dust motes in the air dance and swirl.
"If you don't do something other than run your hand along my back, I'm going to bite you I swear." I snapped out of my reverie and glanced into Maraya's eyes, and was caught by the arousal I saw there. Tentatively I touched her, employing my recently acquired knowledge. Soon all my doubts melted away and there was only the desire left to return the pleasure she had given me last night.
"Some day I hope you have the same opportunity you just gave me, what a sweet mutual seduction that was," said Maraya much later. Puzzled I looked at her, she grinned at me and said "Oh yes, your shy looks your timid advances and retreats, were as intoxicating as anything I have ever experienced. I'm glad you gave in and let me seduce you or I would have been tied in knots of desire all day until I could persuade you to let me make love to you. Hmm, despoiler of fair maidens, has a nice ring to it would you said?" Maraya finished with a devilish grin.
Caught by the sense of bubbly laughter inside of her and the lighthearted irreverence of her I had to laugh, amazed at my own daring I said in a mock haughty tone "Well I don't know that I feel quite despoiled enough to grant you that title yet!" She blinked and started laughing, "Oh a challenge, shall I win the coveted title or no?"
We did stop for meals, and she did win her title and I knew the guys were not going to let it go that I had disappeared for and entire weekend with the first woman I had meet, but I didn't really care there was a lot of laughter, a lot of closeness and sharing and at the end of it we parted. She was a fighter pilot and I was due to graduate in a month from combat ops training. Neither of us knew where we would be posted next. In her case death was a constant companion; it would be my companion as well when I graduated.
I'll never forget her last words to me "don't break hearts if you can possibly avoid it, that's unkind. But take what bits of life you can when you can, you never know when your numbers going to be up. Maybe if we win this war we can think of futures, but for now you can honestly only promise today. Take care of yourself Cait McDonald." With that she gave me one last kiss and left to get ready for her combat mission.
I knew what was in store for me as I entered the squad's barracks, but I just sighed and resigned myself to accepting it. Heh, I was really too contented and well, drained to really care, it had been an extremely physically demanding weekend, hadn't I read somewhere that you used up more calories in that activity than in another? That would account for how drained I felt, I just wanted a shower and some actual sleep.
The guys in the squad reacted as expected with ribald comments but I sensed that they were happy for me. I remarked that they were just jealous and they had to laughingly agree. Ricco was teasing me about looking like the cat that had gotten the cream and the bird when the DI walked in. We all snapped to and waited for the briefing for tomorrow. DI Johnson glanced around and then looked at me and grinned and said "well its about damn time McDonald you took long enough to get that dealt with, go see your psyc evaluator so we can get that marked off. Ok ladies and gentlemen with that I suspect all of you will pass on to the next phase of your training. I was thinking McDonald would have to be held back but I suspect now she will be passed on with the rest of you. And don't stand over there blushing McDonald there is exactly nothing to be embarrassed about." He stared hard at me and I snapped out a "Yes, Sir" Oddly enough it did help, though I began to wonder if I now had a 'no longer a virgin' tattooed into my forehead.
When he left I stared at the guys and said "I was about to be held back, did you know?" They all nodded seriously. Ricco said "We were getting pretty desperate there Cait we didn't want to leave you behind, but boy were you stubborn. I guess we had better come clean, Maraya wasn't exactly a chance meeting we were pretty sure you would be attracted to her and we arranged the entire thing with her beforehand. You aren't gonna be sore with us for setting you up are you?" he asked and looked sheepish and pleading. "We really wanted to have you with us at graduation."
I stood stunned and tried to decide if I was 'sore' at them or not. The entire thing had been carefully planned, I felt like a fool but then realized how silly I was being, they had really gone to extreme measures to make sure that I hadn't gotten myself held back because of a psyc evaluation.
"I didn't realize it was so important, that they would hold me back if I couldn't deal with being a lesbian." They all smiled at me and cheered. I was flustered, then realized it was the first time I had said the word instead of dancing all around the subject. Their acceptance of me was warming and I gave them each a fierce hug and then reported as ordered to my therapist.
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The interview with Vaaya Maraa was short; I ended my commentary with a statement that seemed to please her. "I feel comfortable in my own skin" I had said and she had smiled at me.
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The next morning brought security briefings, reminders that all of our training was considered classified and under no circumstances were we to discuss it outside of the compound. We all stared at each other afterward and wondered what was about to happen next.
Classes were next, extensive lectures about how our metabolisms worked, they separated us by species and we received extensive training on exactly how our bodies reacted under stress. For those of us who were human we discussed mostly the effects of adrenal hormones. We learned their affects and the emotions people experienced when they were under their effect.
Effects included increased heart rate and pressure, greater airflow thought the lungs, break down of the body's fuel storage into sugars for use by the muscles; an increased metabolic rate for quicker muscle reactions, dilation of he pupils for better low light vision.
Most of us when exposed to these chemicals would experience strong emotions, such as anger or fear that was due to how our brains would process the bodily changes and assign a recognized emotional state to them.
After two days of classroom training we were taken to a new and different training room, it was more than a bit unsettling to note that the room was padded and that there were two guys wearing armor and holding stun batons. They were introduced to us as our "safeties".
We would learn how to handle ourselves under the effects of strong adrenal stimulants, too many people using them for the first time had went berserk and attacked everyone, enemy and friend alike. So, now anyone using the more powerful battle stimulants had to be trained how to react while under their influence. The two men were literally safeties; they would make sure we didn't hurt ourselves or others. With our unarmed combat training the stun batons were a necessity as was the armor they were wearing.
To my shame my first experience with the battle stimulants ended with me down on the mat stunned. The amount of anger I had felt frightened me. The only consolation was that I was not the only one to end up stunned on the mat. Needless to say we all went back to our daily therapy routines. It was hard for me; Vaaya finally resorted to hypno-therapy to get me to quit attempting to deal with my emotions by attempting an iron control of them, which was failing quite abysmally. I responded well to the therapy and finally realized she was right, my emotions didn't have to be controlled at all. I just had to control my responses to them.
I could let the fear and anger storm and rage as much as it wanted to and remain calm in the center of it unaffected by my body's attempts to get me to react as it thought I should. I knew there was no danger so I didn't need to react. Somehow it seemed to be a turning point for me, as soon as I was able to stop reacting to my emotions they seemed to loose their intensity and it was easier to remain calm under the effects of the adrenals.
Those that couldn't keep control while on the stimulants had their training ended and they were reassigned.
As soon as those of us who remained achieved mastery of dealing with our emotions while not under combat conditions we moved to the next stage, managing to maintain the same level of control while we were in combat conditions. Those of us who remained were all very determined to make it through the final stages of training. But dealing with the adrenals while we were in danger was a challenge.
My squad had managed to stick together through ought all of the training, all of us supporting each other through. We learned that we could depend on each other to pull us through when we were weak and lend our strength when one of us was faltering. Together we learned what our instructors wanted us to see, that we fought better when our minds were clear of anger or hate. We made better decisions all the way around and we made it through the training missions with fewer 'causalities'. It didn't take long for us to decide that giving into the hate and fear impulses made for a poor survival chance, and calm and rational thinking made for a much better survival chance.
At some point after this realization it became a lot easier for all of us to ignore the impulses our minds gibbered at us while under the adrenals, we recognized that our bodies knew we were in danger of dying, and our instincts were designed to get us out of danger. It was natural, and there was nothing wrong with it. But we were sentient beings not animals, and we had the choice of how we would act instead of letting ourselves be ruled by instinct. We were soldiers and we voluntarily went into danger, instinct would be accepted, but not acted upon and we would go about our mission with clear minds. It was the best chance we could give ourselves of coming back alive.
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Two months remained of training; we had a security briefing in an hour, all of us wondered what was the next thing that to be revealed. They had told us that a choice would be presented to us, if we choose not to accept it we would be given a chemical injection that caused short term memory loss and we would be accepted immediately into the regular Covert Ops forces. Those that refused the choice would believe that they had finished the training, and some of us had gone on for further training in our technical specialties.
The next hour we went into the briefing room, some of us agreed to the procedure that was outlined to us. Some of us for personal or religious reasons could not agree. They left in the care of the psyc techs, their memories of the briefing to be erased.
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My squad and I filed into our barracks to begin packing; we would be moved to another facility to complete the final two months of training. All of us were thinking about what we had learned but we remained silent. We were not permitted to speak of anything that we had been told.
I wasn't sure why the extreme secrecy surrounding what we had been told. I understood that many people had religious issues with what they were proposing, that might have something to do with it, and the Sith might be very interested in getting their hands on some of the new implants we were going to be receiving. All in all maybe it was a good idea we were being closed mouthed, it was probably mostly to protect us from the attentions of the enemy and the notice of some of the more conservative religious groups.
The next two months would be filled with three separate surgeries, rehabilitation and physical training to make sure the implants were accepted and we were completely adapted to them. I would be receiving some really useful implants. One to assist me with remembering schematics, diagrams and computer languages for my computer slicing, repair and security skills, I was excited about that one since I had never like rote memorization anyway.
The second implant would help me with my general dexterity and fine muscle control. The third implant was the one of the two highly secret newly developed ones; it would be placed in my chest cavity and would be able to synthesize a dose every hour of a new hyper battle stimulant. The new adrenal cocktail wouldn't be much different from the old but it should be gentler on our bodies, we would never run out of stimulant injections, never have to pause to inject ourselves, the battle advantage was obvious.
The last implant was the other of the highly secret newly developed implants, we were guinea pigs for it, but held too much promise to refuse receiving it. It was the new Navardan Regenerator implant, which would assist our bodies with healing and recuperation. That one implant by itself was worth a lot, it meant that we could survive injuries and wounds that would otherwise kill us.
And of course there was the one final trick; they would teach us a way to overload all the implants. This would result in severe convulsions and immediate death. It was a frightening ability, but we all knew that anyone would eventually break under torture. If we were ever faced with that breaking point we had the freedom to choose death rather than betray the Republic and ourselves. Sometimes life could be much worth than death I thought, and was oddly reassured by the fact that I would be able to make that final choice.
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I thought about tomorrow, while I picked up my dress uniform and made sure everything was perfectly in place on it. Tomorrow we would be graduating; my squad had amazingly made it through intact. Tomorrow we would also be promoted, no long Ensigns we would all be Junior Grade Lieutenants.
I thought about the year I had gone through and recognized with astonishment how different a person I was from the inexperienced woman who had entered training. It was not just the new abilities that came along with the implants but my whole outlook on life had changed. I felt old in some ways, all the interrogation sessions, all the heart and soul searching that had been necessary, the changes I had to make to deal with the stimulants. All of it had changed me.
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The Jedi had been concerned when Cait McDonald had started Covert Ops training; it had been an unexpected development. They kept as close an eye on her as possible, but it was difficult, for they didn't dare let the military realize they were interested in one particular recruit. They were able to find out about the unusual training the Covert Ops people were undergoing psychologically and were concerned about Cait being exposed to Sith, but the further she went in her training the more they realized that perhaps everything had turned out for the best.
Cait passed all the psychological testing the military could devise to make sure that only stable well adjusted trainees received the most advanced combat training. Then she dropped off the face of the earth as far as all records were concerned, all they could find out was that she was undergoing some type of advanced training that had the highest classification possible wrapped around it. Two months later she showed up again. She had been promoted to Lt. Jg and was a member of some type of specialist Covert Ops unit.
They decided to wait till she was assigned a unit and then send out a Jedi to make sure that all was still well with Cait McDonald, after all they still considered themselves responsible for her well being. Jedi Master Zhar came to Coruscant for a visit during which he was given an official tour of the base after expressing an interest in the Covert Ops training.
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"Dog and Pony show" I thought as they continued to show the Jedi Master around. My thoughts wandered to my plans for tonight, the tattoo artist was done with his concept work and was now ready to do the tattoo's we had commissioned for our squad. Crimson Panthers was the informal unit ID we had chosen, and we were all going to get tattoos of the Correlian Crimson Sand Panther over the next couple of nights. I was taking first turn and I wondered if I had made the correct choice in a full back tattoo, it would be expensive to get removed if I ever wanted to get rid of it.
We weren't supposed to get tattoos of course, as it made us more identifiable, but the Fleet turned a blind eye to the practice, quietly acknowledging it as a sign of unit cohesion. Anyway if we ever got caught it not like we can pass ourselves off as some type of local, I thought, not with all the hardware we are carrying inside us.
I would soon be off duty; I sighed quietly and tried to look politely interested in the discussion. I couldn't wait to be officially assigned to a Covert Ops unit; right now I was in limbo and thus attached for administrative purposes to the HQ unit. But later this week that would all change and I would finally get a chance to prove myself.
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He almost didn't recognize Cait McDonald she was so changed, she felt different and looked different. It was the way she moved now; very formal and erect in her bearing, very precise. She was perfectly military he realized, of course, he thought that makes sense, all she knows is being a soldier.
She was much more muscular than he could remember her ever being, yet despite the muscularity she moved gracefully. Physically and mentally she was very different, not only from what he remembered of Revan, but from the person they had inserted into the refugee camp. He extended his force sensitivity; there was no sense that her memories had returned no recognition of him at all.
There was something else though, and it startled him. She had a weak connection to the force, she could not touch it but it probably gave her an edge that others didn't have in awareness of the world around her. The amount of force sensitivity was small but it surprised him that it had come back at all; this development would have to be watched closely. If she developed any more force sensitivity they would have to consider what action to take. And he had not the slightest idea what that course should be.
When she was introduced as one of the recent top graduates from the Covert Ops training program she smiled politely at him and said "Pleased to meet you, sir." He could feel that she was annoyed at being shown off like this. Behind the public effort to seem polite and interested, her mind was else where thinking of other things. Beyond the vague annoyance, there was a calm thoughtfulness that surprised him. Calm and thoughtful had never really characterized Revan at all. But then this was not Revan in front of him, there was no escaping fact that the person in front of him had become her own self.
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Four months later I was over the need to prove myself, I had done well and had even been awarded a few medals for some of the missions.
The current mission however, had turned sour quickly. Ricco had been detected and captured during the infiltration and they were currently torturing him in an attempt to extract information on where the rest of the unit was. We had changed radio frequencies to avoid being detected from his combat suit but we were all sickly aware of what the Sith were probably doing to Ricco at this moment.
We were hiding in an empty room inside the base, while I was carefully breaking into the Sith security monitoring system in the hope that we could determine where Ricco was being held, if he was still alive, and whether or not it was possible to rescue him. I kept chanting to myself "hold on Ricco, hold on we haven't deserted you we are gonna get you out of this, and don't you dare use the implants to kill yourself before we can rescue you." I felt a bit odd as if I was actually able to reach out to Ricco and let him know we they were going to rescue him.
Finally, there it was, I was in. I started through the through the security camera feeds one by one till I found Ricco. There were three people in the room. A technician who was applying the electrical shocks they were using to torture the Ricco. The other two were a Sith soldier and a Sith intelligence officer from his uniform markings. The technician had a blank look on his face as he kept applying the shocks as ordered by the intelligence officer.
The Sith, predictably were enjoying the entire thing, they seemed to get as much amusement from torturing Ricco as they did in watching the technician. Something odd was going on there I thought, sick in my heart as I watched the Sith finally give up on the electrical device and move on to raw brute force.
I closed my eyes unable to watch and tried to tell Ricco to pass out, to faint anything to get the beating to stop for awhile. I forced my eyes open and looked again and sagged in relief, Ricco had passed out and the Sith trooper with one last punch left him hanging in his bonds. Ricco looked horrible, they had beaten him severely, the technician made a move toward him but the Sith officer said something that caused the man to flinch and follow them out of the room. I looked closely to make sure Ricco was still breathing and was grateful that we all had the regeneration implant, he would probably make it out of this ok if we could rescue him before he was hurt anymore.
I scrolled through the rest of the cameras and was puzzled by what I saw. They were keeping women and children penned up in one of the storage areas. I quickly ran through what I knew of the situation on this planet and decided that these were probably hostages for the good behavior of the technicians that were running the base. We had wondered why the technicians had stayed to work for the Sith, now I knew.
Damned Sith, I thought as I realized what they had been doing to the technician by forcing him to participate in torturing Ricco. Black hatred of what the Sith were doing to the technicians and their families washed over me, it was an abomination to use their love for one another to force them to serve the Sith. But very Sith like I had to admit, they enjoyed things like that, and remembered the look of pleasure on the Sith intelligence officers face. Thoughts of beating that face in hazed in front of my eyes.
In my mind I heard Vaaya asking me "and if you become that which you hate?" Suddenly I realized how dangerous my thought had become, and finished the statement to myself "I will hurt those that care for me."
I will not become a brute like they are I thought, I will not let my hate cause me to act in any way that I will be ashamed of later, if I do I will have betrayed myself.
I ran through the rest of the cameras and an idea began to form, we could rescue Ricco, and continue on with the mission to obtain information from the base computers. We could also rescue the hostages, and get the technicians away from the base. If we could do all of that it would put a big dent in the Sith occupation of this planet.
I started to look for a way to make it work and I thought I saw one. I turned back to my squad and went over my improvised battle plan. Would it work I asked them? We all saw how risky it was but if it worked we had the possibility of pulling off a major operation against the Sith in this sector. Everyone nodded to me, the plan was a go.
I turned back to the security console I had sliced and began to turn off the security systems. The Sith placed an over reliance on their droids, and if I could disable those most of their defenses would be gone. I made one final change in the droid commands. That should do it I thought, and went back through the operations to get to the cameras and verify that the security droids had been decommissioned, they were.
I signaled the squad to move out; we only had so long before someone noticed the droids were not working.
We paused; the next room from my camera reconnaissance earlier was occupied by several Sith troopers. We all tensed our muscles in the sequence that would release the battle stims from our implants and then stormed the room. The Sith troopers were cleaning their blaster pistols and rifles and barely had time to realize what was happening before we closed to close quarters and used our vibro short swords to good effect. Only a few rounds were even fired by the Sith, it had been almost a perfectly quiet operation. I quickly hacked into the terminal in the room and double checked the remaining guards; thankfully the few shots seemed to have gone unnoticed. This had been the major concentration of Sith personnel and the group I had been most concerned about when making my plans.
Pausing only briefly to regroup we moved out to clear the next area, this one would be a bit difficult, we would attempt to capture the Sith intelligence officer alive for Republic questioning. The stims were still in effect and we took advantage of the time we had left, quickly we entered the room in a rush, Deutery, John and Maphit took out the two troopers with quick efficiency while Robert Dusty and I took down the intelligence officer and administered the tranquilizing drug. Looking at the man I realized that he was not the officer I saw torturing Ricco. That meant there was a second intelligence officer still around unaccounted for.
We left the officer there while we went to secure the rest of the area. There were only ten Sith personnel left that I knew of and we would need to be quick about taking them down before any alarm could be raised. The good news was they were in separate areas and some of them could be taken out using the silenced sniper rifles we carried with us.
We moved through the rest of the base efficiently, the only injury was Robert who caught a blaster bolt mid section as he rushed one of the Sith troupers. His armor protected him but he needed to rest and allow the implant to repair the damage that had been done through the armor. We left him to rest in a protected position and moved onward to clear the last area. This was the trickiest part; we needed to take out the guards on the prisoners without any of them being hurt.
Silently, we moved into position, it would take precision work to storm the room and snap off sniper shots as quickly as possible. Hopefully none of the prisoners would be hurt. We tapped our supply of stims once more and then paused a moment to calm ourselves, these would need to be exact shots. I looked at each of them and waited, they nodded their readiness. I signaled go and we burst into the area quickly separating and firing on separate targets.
Movement, I focused trying to pick out whether or not it was another trooper or one of the prisoners. It was too dark to tell and I didn't want to risk accidentally firing on one of the prisoners. All the targets were down but I still didn't know what the movement I had seen was on the partial second floor balcony. I caught the eye of each of my squad mates and signaled in combat sign, 'see?' and pointed to the balcony. I saw their eyes move upward and a negative shake from all of them. Damn.
I scanned the upper balcony but could see nothing, taking a chance I moved to cover beneath it, moving quickly through all the prisoners who where huddled on the floor. "Down, stay down!" I heard Dusty yell behind me and blessed him for his quick thinking. The last thing we needed was the women and children milling around before we knew the situation was secure. I glanced at the floor above me and noticed that there was a gap along the back wall between the upper balcony and the wall. It looked just thick enough for me to squeeze through even in my combat armor. I took out a line pistol and looked for a good place to hook an anchor. Some pipes in the roof caught my eye and I fired the silenced weapon. A line whipped up and attached itself to the pipes adhering to its own self and forming a solid rope for me to use. I engaged the pistol in rappel mode and let it pull me up. Slowing as I reached the top I cautiously raised myself above the floor of the upper balcony. It wouldn't do for me to get my head blown off as I got up there after all. I quickly spotted the source of the movement I had seen, the intelligence officer who had been in the interrogation room. And he had one of the children, a young girl as a hostage.
He yelled down that he would kill the girl if they didn't let him leave, but I noticed a panel on the wall that he was moving towards. The bastard, if he reached that he could call down reinforcements from the city on them. There is a way to move silently in Covert Ops combat armor, but it takes a lot of dexterity to move both silently and quickly in it. Fortunately I had excellent dexterity thanks to my implant and I was able to cross the distance between me and the back of the officer in a few seconds. I paused a moment thinking of what to do, finally I grabbed his knife in one hand removing it from threatening the girl as I injected a tranquilizer into the man with my other hand. I didn't need to kill him, and if I had I knew it would be a reaction to what he had done to Ricco, besides he might have useful information.
"Clear," I yelled down, "Dusty, Deutery, and John go secure Ricco." "Maphit with me, we need to find the technicians." I turned and said to the frozen girl, "its ok we are Republic soldiers and we are here to help you." The girls face crumpled and she began crying, there was a woman coming up the stairs crying out "Mary!" and the girl ran to her.
"Pardon me madam but I need to get by you to find the technicians" I said politely to the woman. The woman stared at me for a second and then moved away from the stairs with her daughter and I bounded down them meeting up with Maphit. "They should be held to the southeast if I'm correct about the base layout." We moved out and headed southeast; at the end of the hallway we surprised a single guard, quickly dispatched him and opened the door he had been guarding. Within were the technicians I had expected.
"Republic Army here to free you, we have already secured the women and children and we need to get you out of this base quickly." I said quickly to the startled men then jumped out of the way as they ran to find their wives and children. One man did not move however, and I recognized him. He had this look of dread on his face as if he expected us to kill him. I went over and said "Don't you have a spouse to find?" He nodded shaking and I said as I pulled him up "then let's go find her."
"I ..I "he started and then started shaking. I sighed and said "I know, I watched the interrogation through the security system." The man started violently "You don't need to fear reprisal from us, we aren't Sith, we are Republic soldiers and we don't do that. Now let's go and find your wife."
Maphit inclined his head curiously toward me, and I said through the headset, "The Sith found it amusing to make him participate in Ricco's torture session, you know how they like to break down people." I could see his mouth twist in revulsion through his faceplate and he nodded.
We led the technician back to where the hostages were and to my surprise the woman and girl I have saved came running toward him. "Henry" the woman cried and hugged him. Hesitantly he returned the embrace and started to weep. She looked at me accusingly but Henry said "No it's not their fault they have been very kind considering the terrible things I did to their friend." I shook my head at him and corrected "The things the Sith forced you to do, I'm sure you would have never done something like that of your own free will."
Over the general din I shouted "Ok we need to get some information from the Sith computers, I don't suppose any of you have the passcodes?" Henry looked up and said "I have those I can get into most of the computer functions, I programmed the base computer initially and I never gave them all the codes into it. I just acted like another programmer. There is one more thing, one thing I complained about because it was a safety problem but I know how to get the base reactor core to explode. We would only have 30 min to get safely away from the area though once I started the sequence."
Maphit and I stared at him and then I started to chuckle "Oh that would be very nice" I said. "Lets get the information we need first, get everyone ready to get out of here and then start that reactor sequence."
I turned and saw Dusty, Deurty and John come in supporting a weakly grinning Ricco. "Hey Cait" he said through his split lip. "I swear I could hear you talking to me that you were gonna come and get me and for me not to do anything stupid." I went over and hugged him gently and said "Yea, just shows you how well you know me, that's exactly what I was thinking. I'm damn glad you decided to listen to me for once" and I grinned up at him "Lets get some healing kits in you and get out of this place."
We recovered the two intelligence officers and gave them a second tranquilizer dose and restrained them. I had a moment with Henry where he wanted to kill the one intelligence officer but managed to get him to see that he didn't want to become as brutal as they were. Thanks to Henry's passwords we got all the information we came for and more. We cleared the base with all the technicians and their dependents and began the sequence in the computer that would cause the base reactor to overload and explode.
I took advantage of the confusion I knew the explosion would cause to call up support and see if they could send extra transports for all the technicians, their wives and children. Luckily, there were free transport ships nearby and everyone was rescued.
Cait McDonald is born
It took weeks to establish her history in her mind and establish files in the official records of her training. A planet attacked by the Sith was chosen for her naval training, this would explain the lack of complete records.
Cait had suffered a head wound which caused her to loose her memory, but recently she had regained all her memories of training and insisted that she must report to the Republic Fleet. Once she was medically cleared she reported in to Coruscant for further orders. The navy reviewed the records of her training, noted the amazing number of languages she knew and called her in for a briefing.
Ensign Cait McDonald reported as ordered to the Office of the Training Command. There she was asked if she would be interested in further training as a covert operations officer. She was warned the expected life span was short and there was a good chance she would die in combat, however she would be able to use her technical and linguistic skills to break into Sith bases, rescue captured Republic personnel, and assist local resistance movements with their fight against the Sith on occupied planets. Of course her answer was yes. She would attempt to complete the year long training.
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Computer slicing, security bypass methods, robotic repair and reprogramming were the technical skills they first began training them in; small unit tactics and movement, stealth combat, advanced close weapons and sniper techniques, comprised the initial physical training. The physical training was demanding but fun in many ways, grungy and muddy often as not but oddly enough Cait enjoyed it.
The Covert Ops school placed a strong emphasis on the mental stability of recruits due to the Sith defections following the Mandalorian Wars. They started the students with weekly ethics training. Those who displayed unacceptable responses to the ethics training at each phase would not be allowed to continue.
The ethics training was hard on all of them. Initially it involved watching interviews with those who had fought in the recent Mandalorian wars. It was difficult to watch the interviews of how the soldiers had felt as they were ordered to desert worlds deemed tactically unimportant leaving them defenseless to the Mandalorin onslaught in order that they might reinforce more tactically important worlds. People had screamed at them for leaving, some had pleaded with them to stay and protect them. It had broken the spirit of many to obey such orders. Some of the soldiers were former Sith, and they were very open and honest about why they had joined the Sith.
Looking on the war as a whole it was easy to see how the downward descent into darkness had occurred. The bitterest thing about the war was that the Republic had hailed every victory and had ignored the horrible things done to obtain it.
It was a lesson the instructors took every chance to reinforce. Victory over the enemy was empty if you sacrificed your honor and ideals to obtain it. If you did so you would become the enemy as the Sith had, as Revan and Malak had. They couldn't fall to the dark side as the Jedi, but their actions could lead them down dark paths to become willing Sith soldiers.
When the instructors had weeded out those incapable or unwilling to accept the lessons of the Mandalorian Wars they begin watching holo interrogations of captured Sith personnel. Since these were done for training the questions asked were more about how the person thought and felt about different things and were often done without any interrogation drugs. As with all the ethics training it was difficult, they had to figure out how and why the person they were watching had come to be whom they were. Not many nights went by without nightmares for many of them after some of these sessions.
For Cait it became clear that certain emotions seemed to dominate all of the Sith soldiers. Fear and hatred were common themes for some, for others it was a will for power and complete domination over others.
Some had ruthlessly killed the enemy out of hatred for what the enemy had done, and failed to realize they had become as evil as the enemy they fought. Others willing went to the Sith for power and the ability to force others to do their will. Some became Sith out of fear, fear that if they did not belong to the Sith and act as brutally as they could, that they would be one of the ones being brutilized. Those types turned her stomach; they were brutal because they thought that it would protect them from the brutality of their fellows. At least she could understand the ones who fell through hate.
Finally when the class size was down to around 30% of its original size and the obvious undesirables were weeded out the psychotherapy began for all of them. Cait had to grin at the rest of her classmates when they complained about having to go over and over and over their relationships with their parents, siblings etc etc etc.
She had felt sorry for herself that her memory never came back but in this case maybe it was a blessing. Her Twe'lik psychotherapist, Vaaya Maraa, had put her into deep memory regression hoping it would bring out some memories. The only thing that remained was the memory of being held when she was a child, by her mother they guessed. Cait suspected, her mother was dead and was sorry that she couldn't remember her mother's face. But she remembered being held, loved and comforted by her. There was a sense of peace about the memory and the strong sense of being safe and loved. It sustained Cait when she felt lost and alone, and she drew on the warmth of it to give herself strength when the training got difficult. Whenever she felt like she couldn't take another step, or when they were on night missions in the cold and wet that memory gave her the strength and courage to keep going.
She always felt like her mother was still watching over her, the Jedi said that everyone continued to exist in the Force so maybe her mother was watching over her. She resolved to herself that wherever her mother was she would make sure she could be proud of her daughter.
With the recommendation of Vaaya Maraa she added another training session to her daily routine. Musicianship and musical expression, where she decided to learn to play the mandovil. The instrument she was given was specialized and could be broken down into a very small unit for travel. It took forever to break down and put back together though. All of them were taking sessions in some type of art, whether it was music, drawing or sculpture. She now knew why there seemed to be so much art around the training complex. She proved to be rather good with the instrument and soon joined in with others of her training class to provide entertainment during the evenings.
The psychotherapists also helped them deal with their reactions to the interrogations sessions, specific case studies showed exactly how most of the subjects had become the person they were. Cait didn't really like it but she begin to see how the people in front of her were broken human beings, in pain and anger and in most cases, unable to see what they had become.
When she had to turn away during one of the interrogation holo's, the instructor had taken her to see her assigned therapist. Shuddering she explained what she had saw that caused her to feel such pity "she's torturing herself, with every evil act like she's slicing bits of herself away. She doesn't see it but she sees the distance that lies between her and us and she rages at us. I guess mostly because she can't see anyway to get back so she just continues on killing whatever is left of the humanity inside her. I guess eventually she will manage to destroy all of it unless she can be persuaded to stop."
The twe'lik therapist Vaaya Maraa smiled at her and hugged her. "You have a compassionate soul Cait that is exactly what I see in many of them. Why do you think she is doing that?" Cait struggled to try and understand the motivations of the mad woman that they had been interrogating. "Maybe she thinks the pain will stop if she continues long enough, I guess it will, she will no longer be capable of caring about what she does. There will be a human body but no soul left."
Vaaya said "Now a question for you.....", she paused and then continued. "Now that you have seen this do you think you can avoid doing the same thing to yourself?"
Cait paused and gave the matter serious thought, "my weakness will be anger and hatred. People that I care about being hurt would be where my weakness lies. I might be tempted to return some of that pain like for like." "Is it worth the cost though to yourself, "asked Vaaya, "if you become that which you hate would you not also hurt the people you care about?"
Cait quietly said "yes, I would hurt them if I became like that."
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In some ways those sessions at least were easier than the ones where they dealt with my feelings for other women. Heh, sometimes it felt like everyone was out to get me laid, it was an odd situation to be in. Vaaya Maraa thought I needed to come to terms with my sexuality before it became a self-esteem issue. My squad mates were trying to be helpful and introduce me to nice similarly interested women. I was starting to feel very hounded indeed.
Finally my squad mates bundled me off to the local hangout, promising they would 'protect' me from any unwanted advances. Of course the first woman that I showed the slightest interest in they insisted on almost shoving me in the woman's lap. My 'dear' friends seemed to think it highly hilarious that I caught myself in time to keep from falling on the petty brunette by stopping myself against the wall but in the process buried the woman's face in my chest.
I apologized profusely to the woman blushing deeply, only to have her say "Oh don't apologize for that, it was certainly enjoyable for me. But I really feel we should introduce ourselves after such a meeting." The woman's grin was wicked and I flushed further as my squad mates hooted and called 'helpful' encouragements out. I was so pleased they were getting so much enjoyment out of this situation; I would definitely have to devise several ways of paying them back. Something slightly short of killing them ... maybe.
"Names Maraya DeCalas, now who might you be beautiful?" I made the mistake of glancing down and noticed the dancing warmth of her grey eyes as she wrapped her arms around my waist and finished what my friends had started by pulling me down into her lap. I blushed again and shyly introduced myself "Cait McDonald" I looked up for my friends but they had all disappeared. Puzzled I looked around and Maraya said "Oh they left after some rather broad winks at me, I don't think I've ever had a woman literally thrown at me before it's a rather a nice experience."
Somehow I managed to garble out something about they thought I should loosen up and ah accept who I was interested in. Maraya had been looking very amused through out my entire halting attempt but at the last she stilled. "You mean you've never been with a woman before? You are sure about being attracted to women?" she asked. Mutely I nodded twice my voice seemed to have completely deserted me. "Have you ever been with anyone?" she asked. I pondered this and said "I don't think so but I can't remember anything from before a year ago." Maraya raised her eyebrows and replied "well if you can't remember it then it counts as a no. Would you like to dance?" she finished asking. "Ah sure, yes" I stuttered more than a bit flustered.
The dance Maraya was referring to was a slow one of course, and she would permit no space between the two of us. By the end of it I was sure this was some type of exquisite torture session, one designed to drive me crazy with longing for something. By the morning she had gently and quite thoroughly shown me what I had been longing for. Well I thought to myself quietly running a soothing hand along Maraya's bare back, no wonder the guys are always so intent on getting in a woman's pants. Maraya's dark hair hung in heavy bangs along side her face and the morning sunlight turned her body into a sculpture of golden lit highlights and shadows. Dreamily I watched my hand glide up and down watching the dust motes in the air dance and swirl.
"If you don't do something other than run your hand along my back, I'm going to bite you I swear." I snapped out of my reverie and glanced into Maraya's eyes, and was caught by the arousal I saw there. Tentatively I touched her, employing my recently acquired knowledge. Soon all my doubts melted away and there was only the desire left to return the pleasure she had given me last night.
"Some day I hope you have the same opportunity you just gave me, what a sweet mutual seduction that was," said Maraya much later. Puzzled I looked at her, she grinned at me and said "Oh yes, your shy looks your timid advances and retreats, were as intoxicating as anything I have ever experienced. I'm glad you gave in and let me seduce you or I would have been tied in knots of desire all day until I could persuade you to let me make love to you. Hmm, despoiler of fair maidens, has a nice ring to it would you said?" Maraya finished with a devilish grin.
Caught by the sense of bubbly laughter inside of her and the lighthearted irreverence of her I had to laugh, amazed at my own daring I said in a mock haughty tone "Well I don't know that I feel quite despoiled enough to grant you that title yet!" She blinked and started laughing, "Oh a challenge, shall I win the coveted title or no?"
We did stop for meals, and she did win her title and I knew the guys were not going to let it go that I had disappeared for and entire weekend with the first woman I had meet, but I didn't really care there was a lot of laughter, a lot of closeness and sharing and at the end of it we parted. She was a fighter pilot and I was due to graduate in a month from combat ops training. Neither of us knew where we would be posted next. In her case death was a constant companion; it would be my companion as well when I graduated.
I'll never forget her last words to me "don't break hearts if you can possibly avoid it, that's unkind. But take what bits of life you can when you can, you never know when your numbers going to be up. Maybe if we win this war we can think of futures, but for now you can honestly only promise today. Take care of yourself Cait McDonald." With that she gave me one last kiss and left to get ready for her combat mission.
I knew what was in store for me as I entered the squad's barracks, but I just sighed and resigned myself to accepting it. Heh, I was really too contented and well, drained to really care, it had been an extremely physically demanding weekend, hadn't I read somewhere that you used up more calories in that activity than in another? That would account for how drained I felt, I just wanted a shower and some actual sleep.
The guys in the squad reacted as expected with ribald comments but I sensed that they were happy for me. I remarked that they were just jealous and they had to laughingly agree. Ricco was teasing me about looking like the cat that had gotten the cream and the bird when the DI walked in. We all snapped to and waited for the briefing for tomorrow. DI Johnson glanced around and then looked at me and grinned and said "well its about damn time McDonald you took long enough to get that dealt with, go see your psyc evaluator so we can get that marked off. Ok ladies and gentlemen with that I suspect all of you will pass on to the next phase of your training. I was thinking McDonald would have to be held back but I suspect now she will be passed on with the rest of you. And don't stand over there blushing McDonald there is exactly nothing to be embarrassed about." He stared hard at me and I snapped out a "Yes, Sir" Oddly enough it did help, though I began to wonder if I now had a 'no longer a virgin' tattooed into my forehead.
When he left I stared at the guys and said "I was about to be held back, did you know?" They all nodded seriously. Ricco said "We were getting pretty desperate there Cait we didn't want to leave you behind, but boy were you stubborn. I guess we had better come clean, Maraya wasn't exactly a chance meeting we were pretty sure you would be attracted to her and we arranged the entire thing with her beforehand. You aren't gonna be sore with us for setting you up are you?" he asked and looked sheepish and pleading. "We really wanted to have you with us at graduation."
I stood stunned and tried to decide if I was 'sore' at them or not. The entire thing had been carefully planned, I felt like a fool but then realized how silly I was being, they had really gone to extreme measures to make sure that I hadn't gotten myself held back because of a psyc evaluation.
"I didn't realize it was so important, that they would hold me back if I couldn't deal with being a lesbian." They all smiled at me and cheered. I was flustered, then realized it was the first time I had said the word instead of dancing all around the subject. Their acceptance of me was warming and I gave them each a fierce hug and then reported as ordered to my therapist.
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The interview with Vaaya Maraa was short; I ended my commentary with a statement that seemed to please her. "I feel comfortable in my own skin" I had said and she had smiled at me.
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The next morning brought security briefings, reminders that all of our training was considered classified and under no circumstances were we to discuss it outside of the compound. We all stared at each other afterward and wondered what was about to happen next.
Classes were next, extensive lectures about how our metabolisms worked, they separated us by species and we received extensive training on exactly how our bodies reacted under stress. For those of us who were human we discussed mostly the effects of adrenal hormones. We learned their affects and the emotions people experienced when they were under their effect.
Effects included increased heart rate and pressure, greater airflow thought the lungs, break down of the body's fuel storage into sugars for use by the muscles; an increased metabolic rate for quicker muscle reactions, dilation of he pupils for better low light vision.
Most of us when exposed to these chemicals would experience strong emotions, such as anger or fear that was due to how our brains would process the bodily changes and assign a recognized emotional state to them.
After two days of classroom training we were taken to a new and different training room, it was more than a bit unsettling to note that the room was padded and that there were two guys wearing armor and holding stun batons. They were introduced to us as our "safeties".
We would learn how to handle ourselves under the effects of strong adrenal stimulants, too many people using them for the first time had went berserk and attacked everyone, enemy and friend alike. So, now anyone using the more powerful battle stimulants had to be trained how to react while under their influence. The two men were literally safeties; they would make sure we didn't hurt ourselves or others. With our unarmed combat training the stun batons were a necessity as was the armor they were wearing.
To my shame my first experience with the battle stimulants ended with me down on the mat stunned. The amount of anger I had felt frightened me. The only consolation was that I was not the only one to end up stunned on the mat. Needless to say we all went back to our daily therapy routines. It was hard for me; Vaaya finally resorted to hypno-therapy to get me to quit attempting to deal with my emotions by attempting an iron control of them, which was failing quite abysmally. I responded well to the therapy and finally realized she was right, my emotions didn't have to be controlled at all. I just had to control my responses to them.
I could let the fear and anger storm and rage as much as it wanted to and remain calm in the center of it unaffected by my body's attempts to get me to react as it thought I should. I knew there was no danger so I didn't need to react. Somehow it seemed to be a turning point for me, as soon as I was able to stop reacting to my emotions they seemed to loose their intensity and it was easier to remain calm under the effects of the adrenals.
Those that couldn't keep control while on the stimulants had their training ended and they were reassigned.
As soon as those of us who remained achieved mastery of dealing with our emotions while not under combat conditions we moved to the next stage, managing to maintain the same level of control while we were in combat conditions. Those of us who remained were all very determined to make it through the final stages of training. But dealing with the adrenals while we were in danger was a challenge.
My squad had managed to stick together through ought all of the training, all of us supporting each other through. We learned that we could depend on each other to pull us through when we were weak and lend our strength when one of us was faltering. Together we learned what our instructors wanted us to see, that we fought better when our minds were clear of anger or hate. We made better decisions all the way around and we made it through the training missions with fewer 'causalities'. It didn't take long for us to decide that giving into the hate and fear impulses made for a poor survival chance, and calm and rational thinking made for a much better survival chance.
At some point after this realization it became a lot easier for all of us to ignore the impulses our minds gibbered at us while under the adrenals, we recognized that our bodies knew we were in danger of dying, and our instincts were designed to get us out of danger. It was natural, and there was nothing wrong with it. But we were sentient beings not animals, and we had the choice of how we would act instead of letting ourselves be ruled by instinct. We were soldiers and we voluntarily went into danger, instinct would be accepted, but not acted upon and we would go about our mission with clear minds. It was the best chance we could give ourselves of coming back alive.
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Two months remained of training; we had a security briefing in an hour, all of us wondered what was the next thing that to be revealed. They had told us that a choice would be presented to us, if we choose not to accept it we would be given a chemical injection that caused short term memory loss and we would be accepted immediately into the regular Covert Ops forces. Those that refused the choice would believe that they had finished the training, and some of us had gone on for further training in our technical specialties.
The next hour we went into the briefing room, some of us agreed to the procedure that was outlined to us. Some of us for personal or religious reasons could not agree. They left in the care of the psyc techs, their memories of the briefing to be erased.
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My squad and I filed into our barracks to begin packing; we would be moved to another facility to complete the final two months of training. All of us were thinking about what we had learned but we remained silent. We were not permitted to speak of anything that we had been told.
I wasn't sure why the extreme secrecy surrounding what we had been told. I understood that many people had religious issues with what they were proposing, that might have something to do with it, and the Sith might be very interested in getting their hands on some of the new implants we were going to be receiving. All in all maybe it was a good idea we were being closed mouthed, it was probably mostly to protect us from the attentions of the enemy and the notice of some of the more conservative religious groups.
The next two months would be filled with three separate surgeries, rehabilitation and physical training to make sure the implants were accepted and we were completely adapted to them. I would be receiving some really useful implants. One to assist me with remembering schematics, diagrams and computer languages for my computer slicing, repair and security skills, I was excited about that one since I had never like rote memorization anyway.
The second implant would help me with my general dexterity and fine muscle control. The third implant was the one of the two highly secret newly developed ones; it would be placed in my chest cavity and would be able to synthesize a dose every hour of a new hyper battle stimulant. The new adrenal cocktail wouldn't be much different from the old but it should be gentler on our bodies, we would never run out of stimulant injections, never have to pause to inject ourselves, the battle advantage was obvious.
The last implant was the other of the highly secret newly developed implants, we were guinea pigs for it, but held too much promise to refuse receiving it. It was the new Navardan Regenerator implant, which would assist our bodies with healing and recuperation. That one implant by itself was worth a lot, it meant that we could survive injuries and wounds that would otherwise kill us.
And of course there was the one final trick; they would teach us a way to overload all the implants. This would result in severe convulsions and immediate death. It was a frightening ability, but we all knew that anyone would eventually break under torture. If we were ever faced with that breaking point we had the freedom to choose death rather than betray the Republic and ourselves. Sometimes life could be much worth than death I thought, and was oddly reassured by the fact that I would be able to make that final choice.
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I thought about tomorrow, while I picked up my dress uniform and made sure everything was perfectly in place on it. Tomorrow we would be graduating; my squad had amazingly made it through intact. Tomorrow we would also be promoted, no long Ensigns we would all be Junior Grade Lieutenants.
I thought about the year I had gone through and recognized with astonishment how different a person I was from the inexperienced woman who had entered training. It was not just the new abilities that came along with the implants but my whole outlook on life had changed. I felt old in some ways, all the interrogation sessions, all the heart and soul searching that had been necessary, the changes I had to make to deal with the stimulants. All of it had changed me.
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The Jedi had been concerned when Cait McDonald had started Covert Ops training; it had been an unexpected development. They kept as close an eye on her as possible, but it was difficult, for they didn't dare let the military realize they were interested in one particular recruit. They were able to find out about the unusual training the Covert Ops people were undergoing psychologically and were concerned about Cait being exposed to Sith, but the further she went in her training the more they realized that perhaps everything had turned out for the best.
Cait passed all the psychological testing the military could devise to make sure that only stable well adjusted trainees received the most advanced combat training. Then she dropped off the face of the earth as far as all records were concerned, all they could find out was that she was undergoing some type of advanced training that had the highest classification possible wrapped around it. Two months later she showed up again. She had been promoted to Lt. Jg and was a member of some type of specialist Covert Ops unit.
They decided to wait till she was assigned a unit and then send out a Jedi to make sure that all was still well with Cait McDonald, after all they still considered themselves responsible for her well being. Jedi Master Zhar came to Coruscant for a visit during which he was given an official tour of the base after expressing an interest in the Covert Ops training.
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"Dog and Pony show" I thought as they continued to show the Jedi Master around. My thoughts wandered to my plans for tonight, the tattoo artist was done with his concept work and was now ready to do the tattoo's we had commissioned for our squad. Crimson Panthers was the informal unit ID we had chosen, and we were all going to get tattoos of the Correlian Crimson Sand Panther over the next couple of nights. I was taking first turn and I wondered if I had made the correct choice in a full back tattoo, it would be expensive to get removed if I ever wanted to get rid of it.
We weren't supposed to get tattoos of course, as it made us more identifiable, but the Fleet turned a blind eye to the practice, quietly acknowledging it as a sign of unit cohesion. Anyway if we ever got caught it not like we can pass ourselves off as some type of local, I thought, not with all the hardware we are carrying inside us.
I would soon be off duty; I sighed quietly and tried to look politely interested in the discussion. I couldn't wait to be officially assigned to a Covert Ops unit; right now I was in limbo and thus attached for administrative purposes to the HQ unit. But later this week that would all change and I would finally get a chance to prove myself.
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He almost didn't recognize Cait McDonald she was so changed, she felt different and looked different. It was the way she moved now; very formal and erect in her bearing, very precise. She was perfectly military he realized, of course, he thought that makes sense, all she knows is being a soldier.
She was much more muscular than he could remember her ever being, yet despite the muscularity she moved gracefully. Physically and mentally she was very different, not only from what he remembered of Revan, but from the person they had inserted into the refugee camp. He extended his force sensitivity; there was no sense that her memories had returned no recognition of him at all.
There was something else though, and it startled him. She had a weak connection to the force, she could not touch it but it probably gave her an edge that others didn't have in awareness of the world around her. The amount of force sensitivity was small but it surprised him that it had come back at all; this development would have to be watched closely. If she developed any more force sensitivity they would have to consider what action to take. And he had not the slightest idea what that course should be.
When she was introduced as one of the recent top graduates from the Covert Ops training program she smiled politely at him and said "Pleased to meet you, sir." He could feel that she was annoyed at being shown off like this. Behind the public effort to seem polite and interested, her mind was else where thinking of other things. Beyond the vague annoyance, there was a calm thoughtfulness that surprised him. Calm and thoughtful had never really characterized Revan at all. But then this was not Revan in front of him, there was no escaping fact that the person in front of him had become her own self.
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Four months later I was over the need to prove myself, I had done well and had even been awarded a few medals for some of the missions.
The current mission however, had turned sour quickly. Ricco had been detected and captured during the infiltration and they were currently torturing him in an attempt to extract information on where the rest of the unit was. We had changed radio frequencies to avoid being detected from his combat suit but we were all sickly aware of what the Sith were probably doing to Ricco at this moment.
We were hiding in an empty room inside the base, while I was carefully breaking into the Sith security monitoring system in the hope that we could determine where Ricco was being held, if he was still alive, and whether or not it was possible to rescue him. I kept chanting to myself "hold on Ricco, hold on we haven't deserted you we are gonna get you out of this, and don't you dare use the implants to kill yourself before we can rescue you." I felt a bit odd as if I was actually able to reach out to Ricco and let him know we they were going to rescue him.
Finally, there it was, I was in. I started through the through the security camera feeds one by one till I found Ricco. There were three people in the room. A technician who was applying the electrical shocks they were using to torture the Ricco. The other two were a Sith soldier and a Sith intelligence officer from his uniform markings. The technician had a blank look on his face as he kept applying the shocks as ordered by the intelligence officer.
The Sith, predictably were enjoying the entire thing, they seemed to get as much amusement from torturing Ricco as they did in watching the technician. Something odd was going on there I thought, sick in my heart as I watched the Sith finally give up on the electrical device and move on to raw brute force.
I closed my eyes unable to watch and tried to tell Ricco to pass out, to faint anything to get the beating to stop for awhile. I forced my eyes open and looked again and sagged in relief, Ricco had passed out and the Sith trooper with one last punch left him hanging in his bonds. Ricco looked horrible, they had beaten him severely, the technician made a move toward him but the Sith officer said something that caused the man to flinch and follow them out of the room. I looked closely to make sure Ricco was still breathing and was grateful that we all had the regeneration implant, he would probably make it out of this ok if we could rescue him before he was hurt anymore.
I scrolled through the rest of the cameras and was puzzled by what I saw. They were keeping women and children penned up in one of the storage areas. I quickly ran through what I knew of the situation on this planet and decided that these were probably hostages for the good behavior of the technicians that were running the base. We had wondered why the technicians had stayed to work for the Sith, now I knew.
Damned Sith, I thought as I realized what they had been doing to the technician by forcing him to participate in torturing Ricco. Black hatred of what the Sith were doing to the technicians and their families washed over me, it was an abomination to use their love for one another to force them to serve the Sith. But very Sith like I had to admit, they enjoyed things like that, and remembered the look of pleasure on the Sith intelligence officers face. Thoughts of beating that face in hazed in front of my eyes.
In my mind I heard Vaaya asking me "and if you become that which you hate?" Suddenly I realized how dangerous my thought had become, and finished the statement to myself "I will hurt those that care for me."
I will not become a brute like they are I thought, I will not let my hate cause me to act in any way that I will be ashamed of later, if I do I will have betrayed myself.
I ran through the rest of the cameras and an idea began to form, we could rescue Ricco, and continue on with the mission to obtain information from the base computers. We could also rescue the hostages, and get the technicians away from the base. If we could do all of that it would put a big dent in the Sith occupation of this planet.
I started to look for a way to make it work and I thought I saw one. I turned back to my squad and went over my improvised battle plan. Would it work I asked them? We all saw how risky it was but if it worked we had the possibility of pulling off a major operation against the Sith in this sector. Everyone nodded to me, the plan was a go.
I turned back to the security console I had sliced and began to turn off the security systems. The Sith placed an over reliance on their droids, and if I could disable those most of their defenses would be gone. I made one final change in the droid commands. That should do it I thought, and went back through the operations to get to the cameras and verify that the security droids had been decommissioned, they were.
I signaled the squad to move out; we only had so long before someone noticed the droids were not working.
We paused; the next room from my camera reconnaissance earlier was occupied by several Sith troopers. We all tensed our muscles in the sequence that would release the battle stims from our implants and then stormed the room. The Sith troopers were cleaning their blaster pistols and rifles and barely had time to realize what was happening before we closed to close quarters and used our vibro short swords to good effect. Only a few rounds were even fired by the Sith, it had been almost a perfectly quiet operation. I quickly hacked into the terminal in the room and double checked the remaining guards; thankfully the few shots seemed to have gone unnoticed. This had been the major concentration of Sith personnel and the group I had been most concerned about when making my plans.
Pausing only briefly to regroup we moved out to clear the next area, this one would be a bit difficult, we would attempt to capture the Sith intelligence officer alive for Republic questioning. The stims were still in effect and we took advantage of the time we had left, quickly we entered the room in a rush, Deutery, John and Maphit took out the two troopers with quick efficiency while Robert Dusty and I took down the intelligence officer and administered the tranquilizing drug. Looking at the man I realized that he was not the officer I saw torturing Ricco. That meant there was a second intelligence officer still around unaccounted for.
We left the officer there while we went to secure the rest of the area. There were only ten Sith personnel left that I knew of and we would need to be quick about taking them down before any alarm could be raised. The good news was they were in separate areas and some of them could be taken out using the silenced sniper rifles we carried with us.
We moved through the rest of the base efficiently, the only injury was Robert who caught a blaster bolt mid section as he rushed one of the Sith troupers. His armor protected him but he needed to rest and allow the implant to repair the damage that had been done through the armor. We left him to rest in a protected position and moved onward to clear the last area. This was the trickiest part; we needed to take out the guards on the prisoners without any of them being hurt.
Silently, we moved into position, it would take precision work to storm the room and snap off sniper shots as quickly as possible. Hopefully none of the prisoners would be hurt. We tapped our supply of stims once more and then paused a moment to calm ourselves, these would need to be exact shots. I looked at each of them and waited, they nodded their readiness. I signaled go and we burst into the area quickly separating and firing on separate targets.
Movement, I focused trying to pick out whether or not it was another trooper or one of the prisoners. It was too dark to tell and I didn't want to risk accidentally firing on one of the prisoners. All the targets were down but I still didn't know what the movement I had seen was on the partial second floor balcony. I caught the eye of each of my squad mates and signaled in combat sign, 'see?' and pointed to the balcony. I saw their eyes move upward and a negative shake from all of them. Damn.
I scanned the upper balcony but could see nothing, taking a chance I moved to cover beneath it, moving quickly through all the prisoners who where huddled on the floor. "Down, stay down!" I heard Dusty yell behind me and blessed him for his quick thinking. The last thing we needed was the women and children milling around before we knew the situation was secure. I glanced at the floor above me and noticed that there was a gap along the back wall between the upper balcony and the wall. It looked just thick enough for me to squeeze through even in my combat armor. I took out a line pistol and looked for a good place to hook an anchor. Some pipes in the roof caught my eye and I fired the silenced weapon. A line whipped up and attached itself to the pipes adhering to its own self and forming a solid rope for me to use. I engaged the pistol in rappel mode and let it pull me up. Slowing as I reached the top I cautiously raised myself above the floor of the upper balcony. It wouldn't do for me to get my head blown off as I got up there after all. I quickly spotted the source of the movement I had seen, the intelligence officer who had been in the interrogation room. And he had one of the children, a young girl as a hostage.
He yelled down that he would kill the girl if they didn't let him leave, but I noticed a panel on the wall that he was moving towards. The bastard, if he reached that he could call down reinforcements from the city on them. There is a way to move silently in Covert Ops combat armor, but it takes a lot of dexterity to move both silently and quickly in it. Fortunately I had excellent dexterity thanks to my implant and I was able to cross the distance between me and the back of the officer in a few seconds. I paused a moment thinking of what to do, finally I grabbed his knife in one hand removing it from threatening the girl as I injected a tranquilizer into the man with my other hand. I didn't need to kill him, and if I had I knew it would be a reaction to what he had done to Ricco, besides he might have useful information.
"Clear," I yelled down, "Dusty, Deutery, and John go secure Ricco." "Maphit with me, we need to find the technicians." I turned and said to the frozen girl, "its ok we are Republic soldiers and we are here to help you." The girls face crumpled and she began crying, there was a woman coming up the stairs crying out "Mary!" and the girl ran to her.
"Pardon me madam but I need to get by you to find the technicians" I said politely to the woman. The woman stared at me for a second and then moved away from the stairs with her daughter and I bounded down them meeting up with Maphit. "They should be held to the southeast if I'm correct about the base layout." We moved out and headed southeast; at the end of the hallway we surprised a single guard, quickly dispatched him and opened the door he had been guarding. Within were the technicians I had expected.
"Republic Army here to free you, we have already secured the women and children and we need to get you out of this base quickly." I said quickly to the startled men then jumped out of the way as they ran to find their wives and children. One man did not move however, and I recognized him. He had this look of dread on his face as if he expected us to kill him. I went over and said "Don't you have a spouse to find?" He nodded shaking and I said as I pulled him up "then let's go find her."
"I ..I "he started and then started shaking. I sighed and said "I know, I watched the interrogation through the security system." The man started violently "You don't need to fear reprisal from us, we aren't Sith, we are Republic soldiers and we don't do that. Now let's go and find your wife."
Maphit inclined his head curiously toward me, and I said through the headset, "The Sith found it amusing to make him participate in Ricco's torture session, you know how they like to break down people." I could see his mouth twist in revulsion through his faceplate and he nodded.
We led the technician back to where the hostages were and to my surprise the woman and girl I have saved came running toward him. "Henry" the woman cried and hugged him. Hesitantly he returned the embrace and started to weep. She looked at me accusingly but Henry said "No it's not their fault they have been very kind considering the terrible things I did to their friend." I shook my head at him and corrected "The things the Sith forced you to do, I'm sure you would have never done something like that of your own free will."
Over the general din I shouted "Ok we need to get some information from the Sith computers, I don't suppose any of you have the passcodes?" Henry looked up and said "I have those I can get into most of the computer functions, I programmed the base computer initially and I never gave them all the codes into it. I just acted like another programmer. There is one more thing, one thing I complained about because it was a safety problem but I know how to get the base reactor core to explode. We would only have 30 min to get safely away from the area though once I started the sequence."
Maphit and I stared at him and then I started to chuckle "Oh that would be very nice" I said. "Lets get the information we need first, get everyone ready to get out of here and then start that reactor sequence."
I turned and saw Dusty, Deurty and John come in supporting a weakly grinning Ricco. "Hey Cait" he said through his split lip. "I swear I could hear you talking to me that you were gonna come and get me and for me not to do anything stupid." I went over and hugged him gently and said "Yea, just shows you how well you know me, that's exactly what I was thinking. I'm damn glad you decided to listen to me for once" and I grinned up at him "Lets get some healing kits in you and get out of this place."
We recovered the two intelligence officers and gave them a second tranquilizer dose and restrained them. I had a moment with Henry where he wanted to kill the one intelligence officer but managed to get him to see that he didn't want to become as brutal as they were. Thanks to Henry's passwords we got all the information we came for and more. We cleared the base with all the technicians and their dependents and began the sequence in the computer that would cause the base reactor to overload and explode.
I took advantage of the confusion I knew the explosion would cause to call up support and see if they could send extra transports for all the technicians, their wives and children. Luckily, there were free transport ships nearby and everyone was rescued.