Chapter 70: Hunted in the Dark
Warning: Terrible things happening to terrible people.
"Find whoever the hell it is and KILL THEM!"
The roar echoed through the dirty run-down factory floor in one of Krayn's many facilities on Nar Shaddaa. The fearful glances thrown his way and shudders from the slave trash working the plant did little to soothe the anger burning through his veins. As a T'surr, he stood towering over most. Incredibly tough blue flesh, double sets of red eyes giving him better vision than most. He preferred to keep his top half bare save for a pair of pauldrons on his shoulders, showing off his impressive muscles. He generally wore shorts, and bands around his ankles and wrists. All in all, he was a towering wall of muscle that most knew better than to get in the way of.
Shame these slaves were slow in realizing that, especially when he was enraged.
He snarled and grabs the nearest one, lifting it by its throat and slamming into the wall before throwing it across the damn room, enjoying the way the body hit and crumpled. The act edges the worst of the desire to kill away and he reasserts control. Lessons in discipline were good and all, kept the merchandise in line. Killing them randomly cut into his bottom line, and too much fear could make the slaves sloppy, which would affect the merchandise they themselves made which would hurt his profits more. Not to mention it could incite the filth if it got too out of hand.
The last slave revolt a few years back might have failed in the end, but it had taught him lessons and cost him a kriff-ton of money to clean up the mess and buy replacement slaves. New slaves had to be broken in, and sometimes they'd get that one defiant slave that had to be made an example of. But in general, slaves were simple creatures, they expected cruelty, expected to be worked hard, but they did not outright expect to be killed unless they did something to cause it. So his early methods might have caused a few long term problem. He'd been more concerned about the Hutts breathing down his neck than a few hundred dead slaves. But still, lesson learned.
That, however, didn't matter as of the moment. He didn't believe this was the work of a slave, no, it was to... neat. To unexplained. Too many deaths without evidence or clues. At first, he hadn't made much of it. One of his officers ended up dead, shit happens on Nar Shaddaa, there were a million ways to die here. The second had been an annoyance, because while there were many who would enjoy sliding into a position of authority in his organization, not many were actually good at their jobs. So hiring a potential slacker or at least training someone new to their role was irritating. The third death had been an exasperation. It hadn't been until the fifth that he actually started getting suspicious. Because really, who would be foolish enough to target him and his organization? They owned Nar Shaddaa!
But they were on their estimated sixty-fifth death in not even half as many days. It wasn't just officers anymore, anyone in his organization was fair game it seemed.
"Hmm, have I come at a bad time?" came mocking female voice.
Krayn snarled and turned, sizing up a an orange haired yellowed eye woman with diamond tattoos encompassing her eyes, dressed in a rather revealing red and black jumpsuit, a blaster-rifle strapped to her back, being escorted into the room. "Who the hell are you?"
She raises a single eyebrow, raising a hand to brush aside her hair-
That ring on her hand!
That was a Black Sun Vigo Ring.
"And after Lex decided to take you up on your request too," she mused, "Sending little ol' me to take a look at your operations. Such a warm welcome."
Did she just... did she just call Alexi Garyn, the Underlord of the Black Sun, Lex?! Was this woman close with him? Oh he had to do this carefully, had to make a good impression. While his position was strong, he was the true power of Nar Shaddaa, that was where his path to power ended under the Hutts, and he wanted so much more. They would never let him grow powerful enough to challenge them. But if he were to join the Black Sun, work his way up to Vigo, eventually usurp and become the Underlord...
Krayn cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders, giving a 'charming' smile full of teeth. "My apologies miss...?"
"Zora."
"My apologies Lady Zora," he offered, "We've been having... difficulties."
"So I heard on the way here," she said, smiling nastily, "Sounds like you really pissed someone off."
His nostrils flared, but he reigned himself in. For the time being, this woman was untouchable, no matter how irritating she was. "We have yet to figure out it is a lone enemy or a group."
"Hmm," she mused, "What have you discovered so far?"
Very little, which speaks a lot. "They're clever. They cover their tracks damn well. To the point where even our camera's arn't catching anything."
"Which suggests...?"
"They can hack into and erase footage, or they've got stealth field generators," he grits out.
"Either would certainly make things difficult," mused Zora, "Bantha shit like this is why Lex went mobile. Nobody can mess with him if they can't ever find or get to him. A command ship, or well yacht, is an amazing thing."
The idea is certainly tempting. "Slaving Ships are one thing, but the Hutts would unfortunately never authorize such an expenditure."
Not for anyone but themselves anyway.
"Shame your bosses lack the... vision... to properly equip their employees," she mused again, "Lex is much more lax about that kind of thing so long as the investment is realized. But then again, that's why you reached out to Lex, wasn't it?"
"The Hutts are... both terribly long-lived but terrible shortsighted," agreed Krayn.
Zora hummed, stretching her arms above her head and leaning back slightly, giving an impressive view of herself, before she slowly righted and said, "Alright, give me a rundown and a walkthrough of your operations. Time to see if Lex should even bother with measly Hutt Slaver, Lord of Nar Shaddaa or not."
Krayn bristled. How dare...!
He reigned it in. "Of course."
"At least you have some self control," she mused, flicking her fingertips, "Lead on."
Krayn and a small detachment of guards begin leading her through the facility. He rattles on about near a hundred facilities across Nar Shaddaa. He details the goods they make, the profit margins, their workforce, filled to the brim with slaves and low-income workers along with turnover rate. Their paired partners that fish out new slaves all across the Galaxy from the Outer Rim to the Core. The best part of it all? He doesn't have to exaggerate at all, their operation is titanic in scope. Yet... if anything, Zora seemed unimpressed.
So he showed her another facility, and another. Cracked the whip a few times on unruly slaves. Presented her a few goods. Showed her the luxury suites for the higher ups, including one she'd be given for the stay. He ended the tour with one of his favorite restaurants. Its only afterwards, when they are sipping on fine Aldaraan Wine, that she speaks her mind... its not to his liking either.
"Your operation is impressive, to be sure," said Zora, "But I think, Krayn, you fail to see the point of why I am here. What does the Black Sun need with yet another few factories filled with cheap labor? What do we need with average goods? What do we need with more slavers? What do we need with yet another contact? The answer is, we don't."
He grit his teeth. "Then why did you come?"
"For you," she answered honestly, "We're looking for quality in those who work for us, those who stand out above the rest. The reason you drew interest was because you were lauded as the man behind the machine, the one this entire operation is dependent on. But frankly, I haven't seen anything yet that couldn't be gotten with any above average thug. You're rather fortunate then, that you have a crisis going on right now for your organization."
He narrowed his eyes. "Am I?"
"With the upcoming war comes a lot of uncertainty, and yes, Lex is betting on it going to war between the Republic and Confederacy," she says, swirling her wine glass and taking a sip, savoring it for a moment before swallowing, "We need people who can take command, who can lead when shit hits the fan. Who can keep cool under pressure if either side shows up near our operations, and of course, who can turn a profit on war torn worlds."
He wonders if the Black Sun set up the current killer taking out his captains as a test. "You wish to see how I handle this then."
"Correct," she says, leaning back in her chair and...
Is her wine glass levitating?!
She smirks. "I'd love to see if you can rout out and kill this meddler. It would be a useful skill set."
He eyes the glass, and wonders if this is yet another undercover Jedi. One would think after the last they were tipped off about the Jedi wouldn't bother. But this is a forceful display, no Jedi sneaking about would do this. "You're Force Sensitive."
"Hmm, hadn't noticed," she mocked, then smirked as she tilted her head back and levitated her glass to pour it down her throat.
She sits up, sets the glass on the table, and grins. "For the record, so are Lex and a few of our higher ups. So you better impress, Krayn, because you have a high bar to meet."
He stares at her retreating form when she leaves, sweat sliding down his back.
Alexi Garyn was Force Sensitive?
That... made usurping him a lot harder. It made a lot of things harder. Hells, if he understood that Force shit right, Zora had probably sensed Krayn had wanted to kill her most of the day. It was a message, a warning, and a threat. But that was fine, he'd done high stakes most of his life, and he'd killed Jedi before, someone without official training who picked up a few tricks? More difficult, but certainly within his abilities.
He bares his teeth, chuckles deeply and downs the rest of his wine. "Challenge accepted."
Animals don't necessarily do well on Nar Shaddaa, but they have a few hounds for hunting down and sniffing out runaway slaves or tracking their goods that might have mysteriously disappeared. The next time one of his captains vanishes, he has a hound brought in to sniff him out. The scene them come across...
The man's throat was ripped open, not by a knife, but by teeth. Even more is the dozens and dozens of stab wounds to his chest. The hound handler grimaces. "Damn, this kill was viscous."
Krayn motioned the hound's handler. "Well, see if you can get a scent off it."
But the animal refuses to get closer, it wines and trembles, whimpering and trying to scoot back. "The hell is wrong with it?"
There is a soft patter of feet as Zora comes to stand beside him, frowning. "Interesting."
He turns to her. "What is?"
"I'm getting one hell of a sketchy vibe here in the Force, hell, even the mutt picks up on it," she murmured, "And look, what is that on the ground surrounding him?"
He frowns. "Its just blood."
She flicks her hand, and the body levitates. "That's not just blood, that is a symbol drawn in blood all around him.
Krayn goes silent, eyeing it, and wondering if he missed this every single time.
"Damn boss," said the hound handler, "You've got one sick bastard on the loose."
"You said it was... sketchy in the Force, what does that mean?" asked Krayn.
"Someone or something very dark killed this person and used the Force to do so," said Zora warily, "Who the hell did you piss off Krayn?"
He doesn't honestly know, so he evades. "I'd think the throat bite or the knifes would have killed him."
"No, that's not what the Force says," countered Zora, narrowing her eyes at him, "I'd almost say the life was drained out of him... an Anzat maybe? But this isn't their usual MO. Its... very excessive, and the blood symbol doesn't seem familiar."
Krayn shivered a little at the thought of an Anzat. "Know many Anzati?"
"I've met one in my life, and one was enough," she said flatly, "I read up on them to be on the safe side though."
"Smart," he agreed, "So you don't think its one?"
"I don't know," she said, withdrawing a datapad from her pocket and taking a snapshot of the symbol, "I'll see if I can't research it. I ain't doing your job for you, but..."
Her eyes go distance. "I've got a bad feeling about this, I need to keep myself aware."
She turns and walks away, pocketing the datapad.
Krayn rolls his shoulders, eying the bloody mess. "We need to up patrols, and no one goes out alone anymore. Should have already had that rule in place."
The hound handler nods. "Yes sir."
"Clean up the mess and get back to HQ," orders Krayn, walking away.
He goes a few streets before he feels a chill roll up his spine... then he hears a child's giggling. He scoffs, and glances towards the sound. Standing there at the turn of a side-street is an obviously poor, blonde human girl. Blue eyes, thin cheeks. A baggy white shirt, blue shorts witha s trap barely keeping them bound over her shoulders, and... no shoes? Was this kid kriffing stupid? She was a human, not a tough skinned species. This was a city of metal, but by all means if she wants to cut her feet on rusty scrap, more power to her and her idiot parents. Speaking of which... she was alone... were the kids parents really this stupid? On Nar Shaddaa? Well... he wasn't one to pass up on getting another slave free of charge.
He could just grab the kid, or could trick her by offering her something to come with him, less screaming that way...
The girl giggles again and clasps her hands together, swinging her arms back and forth. "Hello Krayn."
"Know of me, eh?" maybe this was one of his men's kid? "Wheres your parents kid?"
"As dead as I am."
He blinks. "Excuse me?"
"Why did you kill me, Krayn?"
He stares at her. "Why did I wha-."
The girl explodes, her body ripping apart from the inside around her shoulder, blowing an arm clean off, nearly taking her head off, and ripping open her chest in a gory bloody spray the coats the street, her, and him. Just like a slave chip blowing."The kriff?!"
The girl's nearly separated head giggles. "Killed me dead Krayn, blew me up!"
He reaches up and rubs his eyes quickly. When he lowers his hand... the kid is gone. There is no blood or gore. "The hell did I drink today?"
There is a soft giggle again, and Krayn... Krayn bugs out. He does not run, but he walks quickly, blaster drawn.
He doesn't hear or see anything odd for the rest of the day.
Krayn keeps seeing the girl as days pass.
Vanishing around corners. Scattered among his slaves in his facilities. Sitting on boxes with her legs swinging too and fro. Sometimes he only hears her giggling. Usually the kid is whole, but sometimes... sometimes he'll hear a gruesome splotch, a detonating slave chip and the girl will just be there, blown apart. She vanishes when he pursues her, when he blinks. The one time he got close enough to touch, he felt actual flesh and blood, looked away towards a distracting sound, then looked back and it was all gone. Even the blood he had on his fingers was gone. Even more... no one else seemed to hear or see anything, when asked...
"Boss? I don't see any girl."
"We don't keep kids in this facility, they're bloody useless for this kind of work."
"I... don't see any blood? Boss are you okay?"
"No? I didn't hear any explosion, no slaves were detonated today."
"I looked in the camera recordings, there is no kid there boss."
What the hell was going on?
The next time he sees the kid, walking down the hallway of one of his facilities, he pulls out his blaster and just shoots her. It hits the girl and just... ripples into her.
The girl smiles, and blood drips down from her eyes, her nose, out her ears, dribbles out of her mouth and down her chin. "You can't kill the dead, Krayn."
He shoots her again.
"Why did you kill me Krayn?"
"I don't know who the hell is doing this, but when I find out who is kriffing with me, they're going to suffer," he snarled.
She giggles at him.
He snarls and reaches for her, but his hand passes through her, making him stumble through as well.
"I knew it," he seethed, "Hologram, whoever the kriff is messing with me is dead! We have more important things to be worried about then fooling around like this!"
She giggled again and steps up to him. "I'm not a hologram, Krayn."
He lashed out with his arm, trying to make it vanish... only for his arm to hit real flesh, send the girl rocketing back and slamming into the wall hard enough to rattle it, and at an angle that snapped her neck, indenting her head, leaving a bloody smear as she slid down the wall. She smiled a bloody smile at him despite this.
"Why did you kill me Krayn?'
She detonates again in a spray of blood, her severed arm flying forward and hitting his head, making him stumble back in alarm. He catches it and squeezes, feeling real resistance. His heart is pounding, there is a chill in the air. What the hell is this? He turns and bolts back down the hallway, into the floor of the workshop he's in, and raises his hand with the arm to show one of his men...
Its gone.
What the hell?!
"Yes boss?"
He takes a deep breath, unsettled, confused... and afraid. "Where the hell is Zora?"
The woman is in her suite, typing on her datapad, but puts it aside to listen when he speaks.
"...and you keep seeing this girl?" she asked, frowning.
"Yes," he grits out, "And no, I'm not insane! This has to be some weird Force shit! Its the only explanation!"
She rolls her eyes. "I wasn't going to say you were. Its been a very long while since I've seen or heard of such an impression left in the Force. But usually its on very strong and very dark places filled with the Force, not on Nar Shaddaa."
He blinks. "...an impression?"
"Superstitious people would call them ghosts," she said slowly, "But they're more an impression, an intelligent will, left behind. Usually bound to one area, by someone powerful in the Force."
"Its followed me all over the bloody planet!" he snapped.
She crossed her arms and frowned. "Maybe not that then. Though... is it just a coincidence?"
"Is what a coincidence?"
"I wonder if this has anything to do with the killings?" she said, "That sketchy feeling I had in the Force..."
He paused. "No one has been able to find any evidence. Its as if... as if the killer doesn't exist."
"You said you felt... cold? Right? That last time?"
"Yeah, that mean anything?"
"Usually means the Dark Side," she mutters, crossing her arms.
"I don't know what that means," he grits out.
She doesn't answer for a few minutes, thinking. "Ritual killing, and a shade of some sort stalking you and your organization..."
She cocks her head. "I suppose I'll be blunt, did you kill the girl?"
"I don't bloody well know!" he snapped, "Do you know how many slaves we go through in a year?"
She opens her mouth to speak, but then a furious knock comes at the door. "Boos? BOSS!"
He snarled and moved to the door, throwing it open. "What?"
"T-t-the b-b-arracks," stuttered out one of his men, "Gods above Boss, the barracks!"
"What about the barracks?"
"M-m-massacre," he stammered out, "No one came up for the shift change, when we went d-down t-there to check..."
The man chokes a bit. "Gods above... its a bloody massacre."
Zora moves to stand by Krayn. "Show us."
Krayn had seen a lot of gruesome things in his life, but easily thirty of his men butchered in pieces, blood and body parts everywhere... is hard to stomach. The smell of ozone is oddly strong in the air, burnt flesh along with it. Some of them almost look like they'd been struck by lightning? He takes a step into the room... and feels like he is in a freezer, a chill settling into his bones.
"Holy shit," said Zora, frozen in the doorway, "The Force is screaming here."
"What... what does that mean?" he asks.
Zora takes a step back. "I... I'm contacting Lex, I want the kriff off this planet."
"You can't just leave!" he sputters.
"Krayn," she snapped at him, "If you were smart, you'd get the hell of Nar Shaddaa too. Whatever the hell this is is way above my pay grade."
"I can't just leave!" he exclaimed, barring his teeth, "I will not be driven from my Empire!"
She scoffed. "Didn't you want to leave your empire for the Black Sun?"
He hesitates.
"And besides, its not your empire, its the Hutts," she drawled, "All of this belongs to the Hutts, not you."
He grits his teeth and turns to some of his men shaking in the hallway. "Someone get me camera recordings of the room, NOW!"
They rush off, when they return, they have a terrified look on their face. "Boss..."
"Just show me," he growled.
He's handed a datapad, and a recording starts. His men are getting themselves ready for their shift, joking around with one another. One of them had a pleasure slave they were using, some of the others jeering him on. Nothing extraordinary yet. The men send the slave away when they're done, a few men walk out, then...
"Who the hell cut the heating? Its freezing in he..."
The recording tears, a high pitched screeching sound coming from it, then just static. Except... there are still voices.
"The hell? The door just... hey! It wont open, the kriff?"
"I got a bad feeling all the sudden."
"Boy, you got a bad feeling about everything."
Then a shiver rolls down his spine when that familiar giggling emanates from the recording.
"Wha- where the hell did that kid come from?"
There is an odd chanting in a harsh language he doesn't understand, then... then the screaming starts. Static overwhelms the recording, and he can hardly make out any other sounds. Then... then it clears, image restored, into the bloodbath that remained. Except... the girl is there, pristine without a shred of blood on her. She looks up at the camera, and smiles.
"One, two, I'm coming for you."
Krayn snarls and shuts the recording shuts off.
"Three, four, better lock your door."
The recording snaps back on without input, and the girl is floating, face inches from the camera, a creepy smile on her face. She reaches...
SHE REACHES A HAND THROUGH THE KRIFFING SCREEN FOR HIS NECK!
Krayn drops the datapad, kicks it away, pulls out his blaster and shoots it until its in smoldering pieces.
Zora is still frozen in the doorway, looking terrified. His men aren't any better. "Not a word of this gets out, you hear me? Not a word!"
He storms away, furious... and afraid. Then on second thought he looks back at his men and Zora, "With me!"
He's not going anywhere alone again.
Krayn had taken to keeping Zora near him, since she had the Force and could pick up on things, and managed to entice her to stay with a large sum of money. It worked so much as he never usually saw the girl when he was with Zora, but if he ventured too far... or hell, even one time while hitting the can.
"She can't keep you safe forever Krayn," he'd heard the girl whisper, giggling after, "I'm getting stronger..."
The one time they met, Zora lashed out and threw the girl down the hallway with unseen energy, but the apparition merely phased through a wall and was gone. Krayn gets over his irritation with Zora pretty quickly in favor of staying bloody well alive.
Ultimately though, keeping whats going on hushed up doesn't work.
Mainly because the massacre happens again, and again, along with the individual murders.
His people are dropping like flies, either dying or bailing out on the organization and fleeing for their lives.
By the time he's decided enough is enough, over two hundred killings have happened, and more than double that amount have bugged out. Its getting harder to staff his facilities as no one wants to join up anymore, the Hutts are furious and breathing down his neck, making threats if he can't get things back under control. The slaves are getting restless and afraid, Krayn is honestly surprised there hasn't been a riot yet. But he knows things are failing apart.
So he decides its time to go.
He asks for a big security loan to settle this once and for all, and the Hutts agree.
He buys a large yacht with it, loads up his remaining men, all the slaves he can fit along with machinery for them to work with, then leaves the Hutts high and dry. Let them deal with the kriffing Force monster-girl-thing. He asks to join the Black Sun, which is pretty much the only way he'll survive the Hutts coming after him, and Zora agrees, giving him coordinates and they're off. Zora toasts him at the yachts bar less than an hour into their trip. "To kriffing over the Hutts and high tailing it out of there. Sometimes, you gotta know when to cut and run, only an idiot would have stayed there in that mess."
He clinks his glass against hers, settled and relieved. "Agreed, to new beginnings."
He doesn't usually bed humans, but that night he finds his limbs tangled with Zora's, a bit drunk, pushing her into the bedding as he takes her. When they're finished, she lays half on top of him, humming. He rakes a hand through her hair, and decides he might keep this one around when he becomes top of the Black Sun. He settles into sleep...
They wake up with a jolt sometime later, feeling the ship coming out of hyperspace.
Zora slurs a bit. "Hrn? 'sposed to be a few day trip?"
Krayn scowls. "This bloody yacht better not have a defective hyperdrive or I'm going to have that dealer hunted down and killed."
He rolls over and grabs his comlink on the nightstand, going for his 2nd in command's number, he ought to be on the bridge. "The hell did we drop out of hyperspace for?"
Nothing.
He frowns. "Report!"
The comlink crackles alive.
"Why did you kill me, Krayn?"
He chokes.
Giggling emanates from the comlink, then it goes dead.
The bridge crew was massacred.
Krayn, Zora, and five of his most heavily armed men cautiously search through the bloodbath. The entire floor is literally covered with blood, dripping down from stations where the dead are leaned against. His men mutter prayers under their breath. Krayn... Krayn stars at a single bloody hand-print on the view-port and swallows thickly. It was supposed to be over, he was supposed to have escaped...
"It followed us," said Krayn.
"Yeah," said Zora quietly, "And now we're trapped on a ship with it heading to who knows where."
"Well find out where we're going!" he snapped.
She moved for a station, dumping a body out of the chair and presses a few keys, shaking her head. "I'm locked out."
He snarled and shoved her aside, jabbing his fingers on the key, entering the master code for the ship he was given when he bought it.
'ACCESS DENIED'
"WHY?" He roared
The screen went blank...
Then blood red letters started to appear on it.
'Why did you kill me, Krayn?'
Then the console itself starts bleeding out of its screen.
"The hell!" he screeched, stumbling away from it.
Then one of his men shoots the damn thing.
"IDIOT!" roared Zora, "You just shot our only way to get this ship back under control!"
Krayn pulls out his blaster and shoots the idiot in a rage. "We've got to have a mechanic! Get someone up here to fix this! I want this room under heavy guard all hours of the day! I want the ship under lockdown! No one moves without me knowing! No one goes in groups of less than five, and they must have a repeating blaster! Got it?"
"Yes sir!"
He runs a hand down his face, half turns to Zora, and mutters, "I didn't... I didn't know the Force could do things like this."
"The Force is full of many wonders," said Zora quietly, "But also many, many horrors."
"You've got to have some way to deal with this," he demanded, "You have the Force!"
"Yeah, the one thing about that is the Jedi and their splinter groups keep a tight reign on how to use it," she grumbled, "I'm mostly self-taught, along with what Lex and his Nightsister passed on. This is out of my league. I can ward it off when it gets close, but I don't think I can actually destroy it. Worse..."
She licks her lips. "Its getting stronger. Each kill is making it stronger Krayn, I can feel it now even when its not here. Not... not a general presence, but a subtle chill rolling through the air. We need to survive until we get out of hyperspace, get off this ship, and... kriff, I don't know. I'm almost tempted to say seek out the Jedi for help."
He snarled. "I will not surrender myself to the Jedi! I am KRAYN! I will not be defeated by this thing! I will triumph!"
"I hope you're right," she said quietly, frowning in consideration, "I'm... so bloody confused by this thing though. The other Force shit even somewhat like this requires an anchor of sorts, a place or an object that its bound to. We're off Nar Shaddaa, so it can't be the planet itself."
"Can it be bound to a person?" he asks uneasily.
It keeps coming after him.
"Not usually without certain signs or effects," she said, eying him, "You don't look like you're having the life drained out of you, its not possessing you either..."
"Posses?!" he demanded, "It can posses people?!"
"Probably?" she said with hesitations, "Some of the other things I'm aware of could, though usually it required a person holding the object the thing was bound to."
He contemplates that. "Could... it be possessing one of my men? Dragging around it's 'anchor' with them?"
"Possibly," she murmurs, "But I imagine it'd be hidden if so."
"We have to check," he said, "Because frankly Zora, I don't think surviving until we get out of hyperspace is a realistic option. We have to find and kill it."
She rolls her shoulders, turning to eye a mound of corpses being made of the bridge crew by the men moving them out of the way. "I don't like our odds. Its already killed hundreds."
He takes the repeating blaster from the man he shot. "We have little choice."
They search the ship inch by bloody inch.
Sometimes literally.
They find the odd corpse here and there, dead, blood etched into the floor around them, a chill in the air. Some of his men are... broken, sobbing to themselves and rocking, begging for forgiveness and offering apologies. He finds it disgusting enough to shoot one of them to force the rest back into line. He'll occasionally hear blasterfire and screaming. But the worst...
The worst is the quiet.
When hours pass and nothing happens.
They walk through the ship, and its freezing. It feels like he has something crawling over his skin, eyes on him at all times. They end up finding... nothing. Nothing at all. Its enraging, then... then a nearby scream. They rush towards it, burst into a room...
Krayn has never felt more terrified in his life.
One of his men is levitating slightly off the floor, his throat slit, screaming in gurgles. The girl stands next to him, chanting in a harsh dark tongue, above him levitates a golden amulet, below him a circle of glowing blood swirls. Some kind of energy is flowing out of the man, and he starts writhing in agony. Then...
Then a blue ghostly version is sucked out of the body, gives one last terrified scream, and is sucked into the amulet.
Krayn isn't superstitious.
But he's pretty sure that amulet just ate the man's soul.
The girl turns and smiles a wicked smile. "You'll all be going into one of these soon enough."
"FIRE!" he screams.
The room lights up with a torrent of blasterfire. When it clears, the girl and the amulet are gone.
He wakes up out of a nightmare the following morning, having dreamed of himself being sucked into the amulet, and shivers. He reflexively checks for Zora, finding her naked form asleep next to him. He had desperately needed to take his mind off the madness, and the pleasures of the flesh had been a much needed escape. He hesitates for a moment, before reaching for his comlink and dialing the new bridge crew.
"Status report?"
He dreads silence, but thankfully he gets an answer that isn't the girl. "Had to cannibalize a few work stations, but I've got the main console back up and running. I'm working on seeing if I can't override the lockdown on the console."
Finally, something going right. "Good, keep me appraised."
"Sir... we lost contact with two patrols last night."
Krayn snarls under his breath. "I... enough is enough. I want a patrol to fetch all the supplies they can and bring them to the bridge. Then I want all of the men recalled there. Leave the slaves to rot..."
He pauses. "The slaves."
"We never checked the slaves for the anchor!" he realized, "Zora get up!"
She groans. "Honestly... kriffs me into the bloody mattress and doesn't let me sleep in."
He garbs himself and throws clothes at her, impatiently waiting for her to dress before they leave, the guard outside his room falling in behind them. The men are silent, skittish, he's impressed that they manage to not even make a sound when they walk. He orders them to wait outside, then he and Zora walk into the Slave Quarters, which really, was just a large storage room for them to sleep on the floor...
Its empty.
There isn't a single slave inside.
"What the hell?" he whispers.
Zora walks in and raises a single finger to her lips, glancing around. "There's no one in here at all?"
For a moment, he thought he heard shuffling, breathing... but there is nothing there!
"No blood though... what the hell did it do with them then?" mutters Zora.
Krayn backs out of the room and turns, ready to order his men...
They're gone.
He freezes and then hisses. "Zora! Get out here!"
"I'm coming I'm... where are the men?" she said uneasily, jabbing a fist on the door button and closing it, "Krayn... Krayn I have a terrible feeling, we need to go, now."
They run, and as they do, he grabs his comlink. "All of you to the bridge, NOW!"
He waits for an acknowledgement, but hears nothing. "Report!"
That infernal giggling comes from the comlink. "All alone Krayn, all alone in the dark. There's no one left."
Then he hears a choking sound behind him. He stops, whirls, and finds Zora floating mid-air, struggling, clutching at her throat. She's... she's being strangled by nothing. He turns and runs, leaving her to her fate without hesitation. He's got to... got to... wait... yes! If he can shut down the hyperdrive, he can force them out of hyperspace and then get into an escape pod, trigger a beacon, and get out of here! He sprints for engineering...
The hallway lights start flickering.
They flicker once...
The girl is standing in his path, smiling.
He grinds to a halt and raises his repeating blaster.
"Why did you kill me, Krayn?" she asks once again.
"Because you slaves are worthless, weak, pathetic mongrels!" he roars at her.
She smiles widely, and starts walking forward. "Finally, some honesty. Its time to draw this to an end then."
The lighting flickers.
Instead of the girl there is... Zora? No... the hair isn't the same, she's dressed completely in black robes, and the eyes... the eyes are molten yellow. She trails a hand along the wall and leaves streaks of blood where she touched...
The lightning flickers.
The girl and the woman are gone. The blood streak remains.
Krayn is shaking.
"Krayn."
He whirls around and raises his blaster...
But its just Zora. Shit. He let her behind. He swallows thickly. "I... listen Zora, surely you understand, I had to run..."
Zora cocks her head, but when she speaks, its the girls voice that comes out of her mouth. "Zora? Who is Zora?"
Krayn steps back and raises his blaster and fires. It goes right through Zora like she's not even there. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?! What did you do with Zora!"
"Zora," mused the thing possessing her body, "Wasn't real."
The lighting flickers, and the girl is there instead of Zora.
He drops his blaster and stumbles backwards, terrified, and falls on his ass.
The girl cocks her head and stares down at him, dark satisfaction on her face. "Zora was never real."
"What... what do you mean?" he demands.
"She was an illusion I created," explained the girl, smirking, "You were, quite literally, kriffing compressed air particles. Did you enjoy yourself?"
"That... that can't be true, I felt her, I was in her!" he denies.
She laughs, shaking her head. "Oh this was the most fun I've had in so very long. But like all good things, it come to an end. Consumed by the dark."
"W-what are you?" he whispered.
"Some people call me Rain," mused the girl, "But you..."
The girl whispers hungrily, her young eyes flashing yellow. "Will scream the name Zannah for the rest of your agonizing existence."
He rolls and lunges up and away, making to sprint away.
Snap-hiss.
He blinks, and a red lightsaber is buried through his chest, a dark cloaked figure standing before him. Molten yellow eyes gleam out from under the hood, and a woman's voice whispers out, "Hello Krayn."
He staggers back as she withdraws the lightsaber, wheezing and clutching at his chest. A boot kicks him to the floor, and then Zannah and the cloaked figure stand over him. The figure withdraws an amulet from her cloak, and its the most terrifying thing he's ever seen.
"I'm going to drain your lifeforce out of your body, you worthless slime," seethed the woman, staring down at him with hatred so deep it takes his breath away "You will be trapped inside the amulet, tormented, until you are consumed to give your life more purpose than its ever had before."
"P-please...," he begs.
"How many have been in your position, Krayn?" she snarled, "Begging for mercy and their lives? How many people, how many slaves, have you and your men taken captive, sold and branded and bred like cattle? Beaten, abused, raped, and murdered? I've seen so many instances in my short time taking apart your organization. Having truly witnessed it myself, not as a mere outside observer, but watching it happen as it happened, has given me something I almost hate as much as him."
Than... him? Who... who was...?
She exhales, shaking with rage. "No hesitation, no doubt. You and yours deserved everything we did to you and more."
Zannah snorts. "I'd call you soft, but really, I'm impressed by the sheer amount of slaughter and mind-kriffing you did with his men."
The figure smiled. "I think I'll gift his amulet to Anakin."
Who...
Zannah snorts. "Of course you will Tachi."
Tachi... as in... as in the Sith?
Siri Tachi smiles down at Krayn and starts chanting in a burning tongue.
Krayn screams.
He never stops screaming.