Shadows of Heroines and Heroes
.:The Eye in the Master's Heart:.
Padme stood up in her cell. Alison and her wore neural restraint collars around their necks, making it impossible for them to use the Force.
This was why Padme was so glad she'd grown up not relying on the Force like the old Jedi used to. Having grown up on Dxun, she'd often had to use her own physical strength and body to escape her foes, not the Force.
This meant that the so called Master had about as much chance of keeping her in the tiny stinking cell as Rick had of becoming Supreme Chancellor.
Smirking at the thought, she walked over to the bars of the cage, estimating how wide and high the gaps between the bars were. Then, with extreme care and skill, she used the flexibility of her body to its fullest, sliding through the gap in the bars by twisting, sliding and rolling.
Within minutes she was free of the cage. She looked at the guard, asleep on his shift. If she'd had the Force she would have fried him with Force lightning.
She'd just have to settle for strangling him with her bare hands, which she did immediately. Then she grabbed the small deactivator from his pocket and pressed the button, aiming the beam at the sensor on her collar. There was a beep and a click, and the collar snapped off.
She felt the Force rush back through her and breathed in, as if she was inhaling its power.
Then she waved her hand and ripped the door of the cell off of its hinges.
"Here." She said, levitating the deactivator over to Alison just for the sake of using the Force. Alison took it out of the air and pressed the button. There was a buzz, but nothing happened.
"What? Why won't it work?"
"You thought you could escape that easily?"
A voice said from a small microphone in a corner on the ceiling. Padme clenched her fists and closed her eyes in frustration.
"Only one of the Neural Collar deactivators is there! If you want the other one you'll have to find it! Since you don't know this place well, I'll give you a hint. It's in the Master's heart."
Padme's eyes opened.
"The eye in the master's heart." She whispered. She looked at her shadow. "Lead me to the Master's heart." She ordered in the deeper, darker voice she'd used earlier.
Some kind of shadowy form separated from Padme's shadow and began to move along the walls.
Padme turned to Alison.
"I'll be back." She said and Alison noticed that her voice was normal again. Then she turned and sprinted after the spectre.
"No, Padme, wait!" Alison tried to call out to the girl, but fell back on the pillow drained and as weak as before she had left the ship.
The spectre led her to a tall statue of a woman, made from dark stone. Padme walked over to the statue as the spectre rejoined her shadow.
And she saw, where the statues eyes were, there was an empty hole on one side, and a sky-blue gem in the other.
"Find the Eye in the Heart of the Master!" Padme said. There was a great scraping sound, like stone moving on stone, and something behind Padme moved. She turned and saw the wall that used to be behind was not there anymore.
But there was a staircase leading down to what Padme guessed was a labyrinth.
She walked down the stairs, and the wall began to close up again. Padme ignored it, continuing down the stairs.
Alison crawled out of the bed, fell onto the floor and pulled herself along the floor, slowly. She reached the guard's station and found a medical hover chair in its console besides the dead man. How long it took her to get up into the chair, sitting, Alison didn't know.
"I am never going to be able to live this down." She mumbled as she bucked up the strap across her waist and tapped in a few controls.
Alison lurched forward and zoomed out of the room, but she had a pretty good idea as to where Padme was going, she only hoped it wasn't too late.
A beeping noise from her boot caused her to curse as she grabbed the comm. link.
"HK, I told you not to contact me!" Alison swore as she turned sharply around one corner.
"Apology: Forgive me Master, but I was ordered by secondary Master Rain to tell you that the Ebon Hawk has been repaired and then we are on our way to save you and the horned meat-bag-"
Alison heard the snap-hiss of a lightsaber igniting. Then she heard Rick's voice.
"Kail, deactivate that now! Save your strength for the battle ahead."
Alison heard the humming of the saber stop. She'd suspected for a while the Padme had feelings for Kail, she wondered if it was possible that the feeling was mutual, just neither of them knew it.
"Okay, good. Put Rain on, then, HK." Alison said. A moment later, she heard Rain's voice.
"Where are you?" Rain demanded.
"In some kind of dark hallway, I think. It could be a corridor for all I know." Alison said. "Padme's run off, looking for a deactivator."
"What do you mean a deactivator?" Rain's voice was sharp and accusing as Alison slapped her forehead. She shouldn't have mentioned it, while talking to Rain.
"Well, er, I kind of have a neural restraint collar around my neck, as of right now." Alison said.
"HK, speed up the flight check!" Rain shouted. "Okay, we'll be there as soon as possible, for your sake and ours, Kail's driving us mad."
Alison laughed at that, and then found herself in front of a tall stone statue. She looked around; there was no sign of Padme, but this was the only hallway she's seen, and it ended in a dead end.
She was about to turn back when one of the walls began to lower down into the floor. Padme walked out, the deactivator in one hand and a blood-red stone in the other.
She handed Alison the deactivator, then walked over to the statue. While Alison deactivated and discarded the neural collar, Padme levitated the stone up into the air toward the empty hole that was one of the statues eyes.
As soon as the stone was inserted, the statue began to shake. Then the statue and the block of floor it was standing on fell backward, revealing-
"Stairs! Why is it always stairs!" Padme complained. Despite her complaints, she began walking down the stairs. Alison followed on her repulsor chair, still not entirely recovered even with the Force returned to her.
At the bottom of the stairs, they discovered several Sith Holocrons, a dozen archaic Sith lightsabers, and a large stone case holding hundreds of shining lightsaber crystals, all powerfully tuned into the Dark Side of the Force.
"We have found what we were seeking!" Padme's voice had become that of the Sith Lord again. "Gather what you can safely hide." She said, turning to Alison.
Alison sped around the room on her repulsor chair, taking two lightsabers, one of the Holocrons, and a handful of crystals.
Padme let the Force guide her hand toward a lightsaber hilt, one that was curved for extra manoeuvrability. She then grabbed a handful of crystals herself, and hid the both the saber and the crystals in a pouch at her belt.
She then grabbed a couple Holocrons, and then Padme walked back up the stairs, Alison following in her chair, both of them slightly weighed down by the power of the Dark Side they now held.
It was only the beginning of the nightmares to follow.