Disclaimer: All non-original characters and ideas mentioned here is SW material, not owned by me. Like countless others, I'm just playing in the Lucas Universe, inspired by Episode 3. The five Forgotten characters, Sedriq Uso, andRolan Weskwere created by me, along with the planets Ichosar and Whrede.
-
Five: In Darkest Knight-
Sedriq Uso had not expected a second run-in with the man in black armor. At the same time, he had secretly hoped for it.
There was something about the way that man had shown up, he had realized after finishing his shift, which had become the one special event of a very boring day on the job. Lord… Valer, was it? Whatever his name had been, he was clearly not a faceless bureaucrat, nor a thuggish bodyguard to some greater authority figure. He was unique, his own man of power.
Then there was that freakish similarity he had to one of the oldest Chandrilan legends- the black knight of justice. Having never left his home planet, Sedriq knew the details of it better than most; A figure in black armor that eclipsed even their face and identity, wielding a blade that could only hurt the wicked. Was this some kind of weird public-relations campaign by the Imperial Senate?
Whatever the cause, he couldn't get the man off his mind. So his reaction when he first found the very same figure walking down the ferrocrete road near where he'd just finished his shift was not one of complete shock.
"Hey!" Sedriq shouted out to the armored figure, at least trying to come across a bit less of a dreamer than last time. "Did you find what you wanted?"
The man turned, his helmet now looking a bit more gruesome than before in the shadows of the afternoon sun. "Did I…?"
Threatening as the respirator-accentuated tone remained, it seemed to have lost a great deal of its bite since their last encounter. The black knight faced Sedriq, his cape billowing behind him. "You know me."
Immediately confused, the youth tried to stammer out an appropriate response while the larger man continued. "Then who am I?"
"Are you saying you don't know?"
He nodded, embarrassed to admit this sudden vulnerability. "My head… I sense I have been in an incident… a battle, most likely."
Rather than encourage exploitation or anything of the sort, this admission only deepened Sedriq's ardor. He walked a few steps closer, looking into that black mask that, under any other circumstance, would have been terrifying. He, on the other hand, felt none of it.
"I'm Sedriq Uso. We met only once, briefly. I… come with me to my home, and I'll see what I can do to help you. Do you at least remember your name?"
That massive helmet gazed up at the orange sky as if trying to pluck the answer from there. "I do not remember if it is mine, but I remember an important name. Anakin. Anakin Skywalker. That is all."
Sedriq blinked, trying to hide a rush of giddy excitement inside him. "That'll do for now. Come with me, Anakin, and we'll see if we can't fix you up."
-
Trasshk plucked the last shred of raw Nerf from his jaws none too gently, and scowled at more than just the aftertaste. "You said he would be here by now."
He knew that even across this distance, Lon would be able to sense his frusturation and impatience for something else to kill. He could convey that with the calmness of his expression or the contemplative arch of his claws, but none of these motions had succeeded in calming his partner down. Saying the word 'patience' would be an invitation to disaster.
Instead, the aging Schintian spread both wings and feigned an expression of innocence. "I have realized this, Trasshk. Believe me, I have spent the past hours searching for him through the Force. I have not sensed the slightest surge, except for Palpatine's own dark meditations."
The massive Trandoshan crooked one jagged claw at the holo-link as if gouging someone he disliked. "I don't buy it. No way Reyne could have killed Vader. What if he's hiding? That's just what I'd expect a little human to do once he learned he had to fight me."
Again struggling to contain any number of witty deadpan rebukes, Lon opened his eye slits wide. "It is a possibility, but an unlikely one. Why would the assassin cease to draw upon the Force and stop all their activities after killing our young Camassi friend? Have you kept the public space lanes running?"
"Around the clock", Trasshk snarled back. "A nuisance if you ask me. But that didn't stop him from killing Gonak and Zurxix."
Silence from the other end. Trasshk smiled cruelly. "That bothers you, eh?"
Lon made no movement with his head, but simply folded both leathery wings protectively around his body. "Our mutual ally agrees with me that it makes sense. Even a Class 1 Hyperdrive could not deliver our assassin to Whrede within four hours of departure from Chandrila. The only solution I can think of is that there are two of them. This Sith Lord Vader we have learned of, and one other."
"And both of them too afraid to come knocking on my door", Trasshk grumbled. "Well if Vader is too cowardly to come to me, I'll just have to pay Chandrila a visit instead. Find out who and where the other one is, Lon- I'll kill them as well."
"And then on to Palpatine?", the smaller alien jested mockingly, no longer able to sit and humour his ally. "I am not your data sifter droid- I do as I please. Moreover, you have responsibilities- our friend is coming with you once we are finished creating a plan to resolve this conflict with us on top."
This stopped the Trandoshan's dreaming of the carnage to come just for a moment. As much distaste as he had for the strange new agent that had contacted them weeks beforehand, Lon's wording intrigued him. "On top? As in…?"
Lon allowed himself a quick smile, closing his weary eyes to hide their triumph. "Yes. As in victory, and rulership of the galaxy."
-
Outside, staring inwards at the wide glass panel that framed the family room, Sedriq knew his home wouldn't be much for a Republic or Imperial higher-up to look at. His residence was actually the bottom layer of one of Chandrila's stark white apartments, two rooms bought out for lack of any real housing- one would have been cheaper, but even his mother admitted that was too small a space for four occupants.
Five, now. The amnesiac he'd found who bore the armor of Chandrilan legend had not spoken to anyone besides him yet, sitting off in the side room Sedriq's father had made his workshop, trying to regain some shred of what or who he had been.
He frowned at that memory. Using his father's equipment, he'd already put the man through several scans, checking out his cybernetic components as well as the flesh beneath. The scanner had indicated severe burn damage, but nothing that could cause a total blanking of a person's memory. The damage he's taken, he thought grimly, as well as the power he controls, is something beyond what my dad's old stuff can detect.
Noticing he had less than ten minutes before he would have to explain the new presence in their home to his parents, he sighed and breezed back into the workshop, found the man standing upright near the bench as if rooted to that spot.
The aura that surrounded this man- whoever he was- served a better deterrent than his foreboding armor. Sedriq took three drawn-out lungfuls of air before walking the full way in, trying his hardest to look his guest directly in the round black lenses. "How do you feel, um, my lord?"
A sharp note of anger flashed through the big man's concentration, and Sedriq took a moment to realize that this was not directed at him, but at whatever circumstances had reduced him to this state. "Lost. There is so much here I can barely grasp. Little emotion, except for anger."
It was more than just words. Just as he had felt the aura of anger, Sedriq could almost see the limits of his attempts at recollection. There were images of people and places and things the man did not know the names for, dancing just out of his reach like forbidden fruit.
Just like that, they would vanish whenever he tried to open them up. Sedriq finally pulled himself out of the furious concentration of effort, looking closer at the black armor. "Your medical scans just checked in. Now I get why you wear that helmet. Your lungs are completely toasted- without it, you'd be dead. The same goes for half your cybernetics- they, at least, are in perfect shape."
The other man nodded, knowing Sedriq was only babbling on like this to try and help him remember things. "It was not technology that did this to me. It was the Force. Of that much, I am sure."
"The Force? You mean, like a Jedi?"
Again, the man tensed. Had he stumbled upon a new memory?
"Possibly", he said at last. "But I do not think a Jedi would be trapped this way."
Closing his eyes with regret, Sedriq shook his head. "You give them too much credit- from what I've heard, they're all gone now. Something about an attempt to assassinate the chancellor, but that's a crock of nerf dung. I didn't believe it for a second."
He'd said too much, babbling as he usually did when he got nervous around someone. The black helmet stared back at its reflection in one of the panels carefully, giving that reflection back in its eye lenses. "Then you, my friend, are smarter than most. I am not a Jedi… Sedriq. But I know I am a man of power. When my memory returns to me, the Empire will compensate you for your assistance."
He acted as though he hadn't heard him, still idly toying with a hydrospanner. "Not a Jedi. A knight, maybe?"
The man shifted his stance, bringing Sedriq's nervous reflection into the two round lenses. "I know what it is you want me to be- I sense your feelings."
For the first time, the young man did not flinch away from that dark mask in the slightest, this time staring into the two lenses knowing that the older man's gaze could sense his emotions before he himself understood them. "Well you have to be something", he finally choked out. "My family is coming home any minute, and they won't keep a amnesiac cripple even if he does have special powers." The moment he realized the possibility, his tone turned serious. "And as much as I'm impressed by you and your powers, I won't let you harm them."
Two more hollow breaths of contemplation were his answer. Impossible to tell whether this man of darkness was scorned, contemplating, or amused by the notion that Sedriq would let him do anything.
"Then for now, at least", he finally said. "I will be that which your people perceive me as. We have a deal."
Having overcome the fear of the helmet and mask, he had no trouble clasping his hand into a bulky black glove, and shaking on it.
-
The jungles of Whrede were crying today. They mourned the passing of the Gand that had lived there for weeks at a time, and Zurxix's pet cried along with it.
Asaajj Ventress lay knelt in the middle of the rain, atop the peak from which she had finally spotted her craft half-sunk in the mud and muck. Even a raised hill such as this one was being weathered down by the beating rain. Asaajj knelt in the storm but did not give way like the rest of the earth around her.
She'd had a few days to reflect on the knowledge Zurxix had desperately droven into her bare skull at the moment of his death- his final request, as it were. The threat he'd sensed, no matter how distant it was… she knew it was real.
More droplets trickled down her closed eyelids, tickling them as though inviting them to open and see the plantlife that, even soaked with rainwater, remained beautiful in the departure of the planet's shroud of ammonia mist.
Her natural response to the request had been one of base anger. She hadn't signed on for this, hadn't signed on for anything of the sort. Just a simple mission, then peace on a world of her choice, far, far away from Count Dooku, the Sith, treachery, and intergalactic war.
One thing after another. Master Narec always said there was a balance to the Force beyond Light and Dark, so when is it going to turn in my favor? When will the battle end? When will this accursed galaxy let me rest?
Beyond words for the moment, she settled for a scream of pure feral anger at the jungle around her, loosening the moisture cupped in the ferns. Didn't help. All this life was still there around her, taunting her with its brevity. Fifty years down the road, this jungle would no longer exist, unless she did something about the threat.
One damned soul, not even a full-fledged Sith. I don't want this, I don't need this. Let Lord Sidious and his cronies handle it-
-Except for the fact that Sidious didn't know. Too wound up in his own dark medititations to replenish his own power, he had not caught the slightest glimpse of the coming threat. He might not ever, until it was too late.
Lord Sidious would never listen to her, an anger-driven survivor from the losing side of the Clone Wars. But he would listen to Skywalker, the man he had twisted into his most devoted servant.
Both eyes drew wide. That was it, then. Pass the knowledge onto Skywalker, let him and his Empire deal with it. Anyone else but her. She could still feel Skywalker's prescence out there, an entity of hatred nearly as strong as she, although dimished. His encounter with Reyne A'kla must have really drained him, she decided. Serves him right. He's not going to be able to rest on Chandrila for long.
Then she closed her eyes once again, and felt the texture of her simple snub craft, lifting it from the bog inch by inch.
-
Rolan Wesk sipped his drink and shivered, letting it soak his beard and skin. However many thousands of years ago some guy developed caf, he must have been thinking about nights like this.
Not that Chandrila was necessarily a cold planet. The planet had not seen snow since long before it's settlement into one of the major population centers in the Inner Rim. In fact, astronomers had had every reason to predict that it would get warmer as the galaxy aged, positioned as it was near it's star, far closer than Ichosar.
Nights like these, though, made up for their rarity with strangely ferocious winds. The rare winds- nightingales, some called them, since they only occurred in the dead of night- could whistle up Chandrilan civilian dress and set a man's legs quaking before they heard it gathering in the dark. Rolan was extremely grateful for any kind of shelter no matter who provided.
Give it one or two millennia, and the heat of the sun would make these rapid nightingales nothing more than a pleasant summer breeze. Give it ten millennia, and Chandrila might become a desert world as sparse as Tatoonie. But that really wasn't the sort of thing a man in Rolan Wesk's position thought about too much, even when lookout duty gave him the opportunity to look at the stars.
What he really preferred to think about was how to keep his hands steady while holding his mug out in the freezing cold wind outside the warehouse. He knew he wasn't much to look at physically- a worn jacket and ripped pants that was all he could afford, a mangy beard that matched his hair when it wasn't soaked in blissfully warm caf such as now. But he took some consolation in knowing the guys inside the warehouse were pretty much in the same boat.
Which, of course, was what had brought them to work for Boss Lars.
Another thing he'd tried not to think about too much. Every time he caught a glimpse of the only well-dressed man of this outfit, he had to keep his mind from wandering off, wondering what exactly Boss Lars had been doing since his last visit. He knew Lars ran Spice- that was usually what they were carrying in the shipments- as well as a number of similar illegal stimulants. You didn't get as well connected as he was with just that trick, though, Rolan knew that much.
He'd even heard rumours that Lars himself had come off some grubby moisture farm on Tatoonie- it just went to show how far connections and a complete lack of conscience could get you. Which is why I'm not there yet, he decided with a mix of resignation and contempt. I like to think at the heart, I'm still a decent guy.
And look at what that had got him, native son of Chandrila: poverty on a planet with record lows for it, a job working under a man he secretly loathed, and lookout duty outside the warehouse with the blisteringly fast nightingales, while the others loaded crates on the haulers and tried to look busy and stay warm inside corrugated metal.
A deep breathing sound interrupted this train of thought, and Rolan looked up. He'd never heard a sound like it before- a sort of heavy, rhythmic breathing noise. He had just nailed it down to the noise of respirator when another noise overtook it- a level hum like the engines on their haulers at low power.
Roland checked both sides of the gate, certain he would find one of the guys holding a mechanical respirator boosted from the hospital, cracking up with laughter. "That's a pretty pathetic joke, guys", he said gruffly into the darkness, swinging the gate over to check behind the first hauler. "Can't you come up with-"
No one there, and he couldn't pin down the respirator's sound direction. Then it occurred to him the importance of the noises that he couldn't hear anymore. More specifically, the lack of men and one motley cargo droid straining to lift heavy crates and move them onto the haulers. The sound of old crate metal, of men sweating to do their job… none of it was there.
Rolan took a few steps further into the warehouse. "Guys?"
At that moment, the respirator noise returned, louder than before. Likewise for the hum, the location of which he placed too late to stop. Something behind him, massive, too big to be human…!
Instantly, his lungs failed him. The figure crouched behind the gate hadn't been there a moment ago, but now a red beam of light reflected off the polished black plating that coated his entire frame.
That was all he saw, before learning that there were indeed things faster and more lethal than a nightingale.
-
M: Only two months overdue! A winner is me!
Seriously though, the only real excuse I can offer for being so late is that I had problems getting the disparate sections to click. Even after a month of revision, I think this is the weakest of my chapters so far, a trend that will (hopefully) change in the more battle-oriented sixth chapter. Spare time is a rare commodity indeed nowadays, but I will do what I can to stay on schedule.
Thanks and apologies to all reviewers!