Chapter 22: Of Two Minds
Paqs Patra saw Commander Horn for just a moment before Lord Vader moved between them, and the Sith's black mask turned to regard the double-being with expressionless menace. A blaster prodded against Patra's back, reminder of a stormtrooper escort, but Patra didn't move. Anger kept them there, a primal deep anger that made the trooper contingent with its metal and plastic guns as insufficient as insects.
Another self endlessly repeated...why did they have to leave us alive?
A trooper prodded their back again, and this time Patra moved obediently along, past the bridge of the Bitter Heart with its expansive viewport and the stars in a sky black as the cave-air ringing glowing blibauls in the warm caverns of home. Such a sour reminder!
They let us live. They killed our people, and left us alive to be tortured for information we don't have and for us to tell the galaxy of the great might of the Empire!
Oh, we'll tell them!
The entourage turned a corner into an empty plasteel hallway, their destination the hanger holding Patra's ship. The troopers' security was lax; they had only bound Patra's sets of hands. The voices of the Imperials on the bridge could be heard only as soft buzz.
Patra planted their feet and pivoted, and two of the four troopers clattered to the ground when Patra's tail collided with the armored bodies. The second group brought their blasters up--close but clumsy--Patra flared one golden wing, dropped the other and watched with their head-mind the standing group back away from this prisoner that had become a beast.
The short fingers of Patra's wing closed over a rising trooper's blaster hand, and the man yowled and dropped the gun. Patra stepped back, brought the blaster up and clumsily turned and fired.
They got caught with one bolt through the left wing membrane, but it wasn't important. A fallen commlink crackled and an Imperial voice spoke from among the bodies;
"Hello? What's going on down there?"
Patra placed a talon on the commlink then leaned down and snapped, "Nothing wrong." Verbal battle was not their strong point, and they knew it. Then they stamped down on the commlink, imagining the satisfying crunch to be the ripping apart of Vader's own birth world. Vape whatever planet spawned that monster!
But the mission at hand was information. They must reach the Rebels, hear the Imperials, make the change quickly!
Vader's powers are supernatural, but they can be resisted. The brain housed in Patra's winged flesh thought. Already their body was backtracking, the voices getting louder in their ears.
"You've found something?" Vader's bass-tech rumble.
"It's a weak signal, sir, but something's down there." Horn's voice.
The small-mind calmed then, cleared, folded the body's wings beside itself and took their physical presence as all it needed. This was old discipline--shut down.
The head-mind for a moment panicked. But claws against the floor, that was all it needed, and there in the back was still the sense of we. Listen!
"My lord, worlds like Hoth hold many uncharted settlements. It could be smugglers, it could be--"
"That's it. The Rebels are there, and Skywalker is with them. Prepare the attack."
"Yes my lord."
Hoth. Needed information.
Paqs Patra turned and ran, claws clicking the hallways. The hanger would be nearby--prisoners like him were not taken long distances with a guard of four. Minds meshed again and were comfortable. And in the bridge, Vader turned for a moment and in the space of a machine-breath wondered why that tiny presence had somehow rung familiar with the prisoner even now being lead away.