Disclaimer: I don't own any of this, just the concept and the crew of the Star Dancer
A/N: Welcome to the first tentative chapter of my Kotor 2 fic! This is basically what the Exile was doing before being taken aboard the Harbinger and the beginning of the game. Enjoy!
LFK
Star Dancer: Five Minutes Outside of Dea'une
It was the height of the galactic trade season, and, as usual the starport cities of Dea'une, a planet in Hutt space, were hubs of frantic activity. Hundreds of ships docked every hour, while hundreds more appeared out of hyperspace and waited in the atmosphere to be hailed and waved in by air traffic control. Common Corellian frigates rubbed cheeks with the equally rare Aratech droid manned cargo ships as their experienced pilots flew their crews through the chaos to the docking bays that made up the spacer-run cities.
A few clicks away from the murky planet, a junky, titanium plated Horizon-class star yacht came out of hyperspace with a flash of light and began maneuvering into place in the crowded shipping lanes.
"All right, ladies," Jake Ricks, a dark haired man in his late twenties, yelled into the comm system from his seat in the cockpit of the Star Dancer as he guided the arrow shaped ship with a deft touch. "Welcome to Dea'une! This is where we get to drop off the bad," referring to their cargo, of course, "and pick up the worst. Meet in five in the lounge!" Jake tapped in the commands to his blinking Nav console and then left as the affirmative beep that signaled autopilot went off. He smacked a hand on the door lock, shutting the door with a hiss, and then jogged down the brightly lit hallway that led from the cockpit to the spiraling staircase that passed down to the next level.
Though the outside of the medium sized yacht looked like space trash, the inside was elegant enough to accommodate the senator from Alderaan, as well as modified with all the latest technology, released and unreleased, from the Sluis Vaan shipyards. Separated into three levels, the Dancer was perfect for long jaunts across the galaxy with cargo ranging from raw materials to finished products, as well as the various disreputable items that most 'traders' dealt with.
The first level was a spacious cargo hold loaded, though not for the first time, with canisters and crates full of various liquors, spirits, and non-alcoholic drinks. The crew's main supplier, a shipping company based off of Mustafar, had gone out of business, leaving Jake and the others scrambling for a job to keep themselves on the market. The second floor held the roomy lounge area, the galley, and a bar, as well as quarters for all five crew members and several passengers. The third and top level was the cockpit, Nav, systems, and engine area where Jake spent the majority of his time.
Just as the slim man reached the second landing, members of the crew began filing in from their respective rooms, where they'd spent the seventeen hour hyperspace trip sleeping or amusing themselves.
Pol Raga, a surly Bothan as well as his best friend and first mate, was the first to enter the comfortable lounge, taking up his usual seat at the bar and punching an order into the console for a glass of juma. The large, beastlike humanoid, took a sip at his drink before nodding his shaggy head at Jake and rumbling, "Any chance of some deck leave when we dock, Ricks?" he held up his cup in a mocking salute. "This juma tastes like week old kath hound piss!"
"Sure, sure, Raga," Jake replied as he clapped his hand on the other man's shoulder. He and the Bothan had been in the same unit when they served the Republic in the Mandalorian Wars, and had used the pay they'd received afterwards to buy themselves the ship and begin their own shipping business. "Just as soon as we unload all the swill in our belly, we'll take some good 'ole R and R." Jake left the large man grumbling about not being able to drink their cargo and kicked back on one of the long, synth-leather couches.
"Captain, Raga," Jake looked up as he heard the clipped voice and watched as the third member of their crew, a zabrak woman that went by the name of Kara, strode past him and sat stiffly in a chair opposite the couch.
"You know, Kara," Jake said, mischief glinting in his dark eyes. "You really need to relax a little!"
"And why is that, captain?" the woman replied a tad bit testily. "Is it not wise to always be on the alert?"
Jake could only shake his head bemusedly. "First of all, we have kath hound boy over there to be alert for us," he barely dodged the empty glass that whistled over his head to shatter on the wall behind the couch. The Bothan hated it when his friend called him that. The name had come about when he and Ricks had had a little too much to drink, and were sharing some, disreputable, stories. Suffice it to say, neither had forgotten what had been said, and Ricks got a little kick every now and then by reminding his friend. "And second of all," Jake continued as he picked shards of glass carefully out of his thick hair, "I think the people we bought the furniture from said something about having ramrods sticking in the leather."
"Are you sure they didn't mention something like that about you, captain?" Kara's grey eyes glittered with amusement, and she even allowed a little smile on her face.
"What do you -aagh!" Jake grunted as a blur blond vaulted the couch and landed right in his midriff. "Sorah!"
"Hey there to you too, big brother!" the blond teenaged girl on his chest replied with a bubbly laugh that got their more dour crewmembers chuckling as well. Sorah Ricks, Jake's younger sister and last remaining family member, was the youngest member of the crew, as well as their navigator and general computer specialist.
"Why can't you ever say hello like a normal person, S?" Jake wined as he pushed his sister off his stomach and resettled himself so they could share the couch. "Ooh, my poor liver!"
"Where would be the fun in that?" Sorah replied innocently, crystal blue eyes wide in her face. "Besides, I think you should have some words with Mr. Whiskey and Mrs. Brandy if you're having issues with your liver!"
"Haw haw, how funny." Jake grumbled as he sat up straight and looked out at his crew. "Alright then, time for the arrival debrief." His tone, when coupled with his stern expression, made him look more like the hardened soldier than the easy going pilot he usually was. "Now, once we dock-"
"Wait a minute!" Sorah interrupted, ignoring her brother's death glare as she counted off the people in the room. "There are only three of us in here! Where's Reysha?"
"She's still in her quarters," muttered Raga as he climbed behind the bar looking for something stronger than the non-alcoholic juice. "Probably sleeping."
"And why didn't anyone tell me?" Jake asked as he smacked his forehead. "She's our tech! Without her, this hunk of junk wouldn't fly! She needs to be here!"
"She had a pretty rough trip, big bro," Sorah said, bubbly voice toned down in concern. "I think we should just leave her alone for now." The member's of the Dancer's crew were well acquainted with the eccentricities of the young tech after months spent together onboard the ship. Though she never shirked her duties, and attended all meetings and briefings required of her, Reysha had held all of them at arms length from the moment they'd met her, throwing off all efforts at friendship with soft words and sad smiles. They still knew little more about her than her name and homeworld, Deralia.
"Well, I'll be gentle. She signed onto this ship, so she's gotta do what we've all gotta do." Jake said firmly as he stood up and headed to Reysha's portside room. She was the only crew member to sleep on that side of the ship.
"Yo, Reysha!" he knocked on her door and then stopped and listened. He heard sounds coming from inside, but the door remained shut. "Hey! I'm coming in!" he palmed the door lock and winced as the heavy smell of liquor flooded out of the room. "Dear Force," he whispered as he took in the wreck of a room. "What happened to this girl?"
Reysha, a caramel skinned woman in her mid twenties, lay sprawled across her bed in a twisted mess of sheets and sweat soaked, purplish hair, fully dressed but for the shredded top on the floor. Scattered on the floor around her bed were scores of empty stimpacks and bottles that held everything from Tarisian Ale and Firewhiskey to Hothan Ice Vodka. There was even a half empty bottle of the acidic stuff clasped in her right hand, dangling over the side of the bed.
"Reysha?" he put a hand on her bare shoulder and then quickly removed it when she let out a pained whimper.
"It's gone, it's gone!" she whispered frantically, "why, sister? Tell me why I can't…" her voice degenerated back into unintelligible whimpers as her trembling increased.
"Damn woman," Jake grumbled as he reached into his belt pouch and began sorting through the random credit chips. "Why do you do this to yourself?" he pulled out an adrenal stim and positioned it over her jugular vein. "Don't worry, you'll be awake in a moment." He pressed the button and then began his wait for her awakening.
Star Dancer: Seventeen Hours Earlier…
Connect the power core to the external photoreceptors… Reysha Starfire was sitting in the darkness of the Star Dancer's cargo hold, occupying her mind with anything she could find. She had already memorized the labels of every single one of the cargo crates in the hold, counted the blips in the hyperdrive engine, and even memorized the five hundred hyperspace routes between Coruscant and Corellia, all in a frantic attempt to keep herself from thinking.
… By fusing the fiber optics cable o the verpine switchboard chip embedded in the center left of the central chassis…nothingness, empty nothingness…screams, howls as all those lives…No! Think about something, anything else! Right, power servos must be connected to the core by hooking the right systems link to the processor…. She chose a hydrospanner from her tool belt and then pulled her safety visor, complete with embedded flashlights, over her eyes. It wasn't until the white light hit her hand that she realized that it was trembling uncontrollably.
"Damn," she whispered to herself. She could feel the craving building up in her chest. It had been a full week and a half since her supply of glitterstims, death-sticks, and spice had run out, and she was feeling intense withdrawal. This was not going to be a good day.
The young ex-Jedi had turned to drugs and vice after failing to find anything that would fill up the emptiness inside her where the Force had once lain; that would drown out the maddening echo in her mind that was the death scream of thousands of sentient life forms.
At first, she'd thought that taking a job on a busy freighter would occupy her mind enough to let her move on, but a few weeks without sleep had dissuaded her of that notion.
Next, she'd tried drinking herself into oblivion. Passing out was all well and good to the sleep-deprived woman, but the dreams that came to her during the night and the painful headaches in the morning shot that idea down as well. It wasn't until she was introduced to spice and other narcotics by the shadier sentients she came across while off duty in spaceports that she found a way to block out the emptiness, if only for awhile.
"This is your captain speaking!" Reysha jumped as Jake's voice came on over the comm system, nearly splicing the wires of AT-40, the tiny astromech she was working on, into a billion pieces with the sharp edged tool. "Return to your rooms and prepare for the jump to hyperspace. We should arrive in a little over sixteen hours, so I suggest everyone return to their bunks and get some sleep. Actually, I ORDER you all to get some sleep!"
"Alright, AT," Reysha sighed regretfully as she closed the droid's chassis. "I'm done for now. Go back upstairs and help Jake out in the cockpit."
"Dwoo beep boop!" the little droid trilled as it came online and bumped her shins gently, much like a cat would.
"I'm fine," Reysha replied, sliding the 'spanner back into its belt loop and then pushing the visor back up on her head. "Truly! Just a little tired is all."
"Woo dee bop!"
"I look like a what?" she glared down the stairway at AT as it trilled its laughter sound. "If I'm a glitbit, then you're gonna be scrap the next time I get my hands on you! Now leave me alone!" she stomped back up the stairs and blew through the crew quarters on her way to her room, startling Pol Raga as he went for his nightly glass of juma.
The moment her room door closed behind her, leaving her alone in the soundproofed cabin, the death screams of the Force rose to a deafening cacophony in her head. "Why won't it stop?" she moaned aloud as she clutched her head in her hands and buried her face in the smooth blankets on her couch. "The emptiness, the silence, it's still there, and I don't know why!" she began rocking as the void in her soul once more began to consume her thoughts, teasing her with memories of how the galaxy had seemed brighter, how voices sounded sweeter, how even the air tasted of hope and potential through eyes seeing through the grace of the Force.
But it was all gone now, the Force, her brother and sister Jedi, her life. All she was left with was memories that tormented her thoughts, screams that haunted her every moment, and a loss the ached with each breath she took.
It is alright. The Wars ended eight years ago. The Code brought you peace once before. Do not forsake it now. You will find peace in time…
"Oh shut up…" Reysha knew she was speaking to a voice in her head, but had already accepted insanity as part of her penance. "How did the code help me, help any of us, when all around us, our men were dying and killing? I knew each of those brave men and women personally, almost as if we had been born and raised together like family. I was as closely bonded with those thousands as I was with my own sister, if not more! I knew their sorrows, their worries, their secrets; everything there was to know about them! And they trusted me with their lives! What did I do to reward them? I threw them all away."
But you won the war, saving more lives than could possibly have been lost. How can you torment yourself for doing what was right?
"I felt all those billions of sentients and worlds die too." Reysha interrupted the voice, strange as that sounds, by muttering to herself. "The other Jedi were saddened by the loss, but fell back on the Code and didn't allow themselves to feel. I nearly died when I felt the Mandalorians attack the Cathari home world, the hatred and killing and agonizing sorrow…"
But that emotional tie to all life is what made you a Jedi, one of the best of the Order. It gave you the strength to do what was right. Come now, life will go on. You will heal-
"Enough!" Reysha dashed the helpless tears streaking her face away and began digging frantically through the footlocker at the base of her twin sized bed. "Just, shut up! I don't want pity, not even my own! I just want… numbness... apathy…." Her efforts were rewarded a moment later with a vacuum sealed box and a crate full of various liquor.
"Here we go," she murmured eagerly as her trembling fingers fought with the ancient combination lock. "Oblivion and sleep, all in one go." The catch finally snapped open, spilling twenty full needles out onto the coverlet. Each hypo was full of a sedative strong enough to knock out a trandoshan, and, when mixed with synthehol, was enough to put a person in a semi-coma. It was exactly what she desired for what was going to be a truly horrific seventeen hours.
Why do you do this to yourself?
Reysha ignored nagging voice in her head as she lay back on her pillows, settled herself comfortably, and downed a full bottle of firewhiskey in one long drought. "Gahh!" she gasped as the liquid burned down her throat, and then pitched the bottle across the room to shatter against the wall, sending shards of glass flying into the piles of clothes and spare parts scattered haphazardly about the room.
"Thank the Force this place is soundproofed," she muttered as she reached into the crate and pulled out another bottle, this time Corellian brandy.
You're killing yourself, you know?
"And?" she replied thickly as she tilted the bottle of reddish liquid to her lips. She was starting to feel a pleasant buzz from the liquid she'd imbibed, and her problems began blurring together in a distant part of her mind. "Don't I deserve death for all the mothers I rendered sonless, the wives husbandless, and the children fatherless?" thinking, and arguing, in this strain inevitably led her synthehol clouded thoughts back to the root of her pain. Malachor V.
It was above the shattered planet of Malachor V, less than a click out of range of the unstable planet's gravity well, that the final decisive battle raged between the faltering Republic Forces and the persistent Mandalorian warriors, and where a seventeen year old Jedi Knight had to make the hardest decision she'd ever made, one that would end the war then and there.
Leading the troops against the hardened warriors on the surface of the planet was Admiral Revan Starfire and her best friend, Jedi Knight Malak Habari, while General Reysha Starfire ordered the fleet in the dance of silent death and bright explosions that was space battle high above their heads. The war below was as much a battle as a series of ambushes and assassinations taking place in the maze like environment, while the fighting above was simple killing. Every now and then, the twisted wreckage of a ship caught in the gravity well or shot down landed on the surface, adding another element to the fierce fighting taking place amongst the crags and shadows.
It was in that moment of desperation that Bao-dur, a zabrak tech working for the Republic, approached Reysha with a final, terrible solution. The Mass Shadow Generator.
"General," the zabrak had said as he approached her command chair in front of a view-screen monitoring the battle. "My teams have reported that the charges for the MSG are set and ready to be triggered at your command. We can end this war now! Use it, General, and wipe the Mandalorians from existence!" his normally gentle eyes had been burning with the hatred and anger that rolled off him in waves that she could feel through the Force, and his voice had an edge that she'd never heard before, not even in past battles.
"We wait until we receive word from my sister, Bao-dur." Reysha replied with the Jedi calm that she didn't feel, forcing her tone and features to remain neutral when she really wanted to hack into something with her saber. "Revan and Malak are still on the surface seeking out the Mandalore, not to mention the troops accompanying them. Now," she typed in a few commands into her console and the view screen switched from a swarm of green dots attacking a huge mass of red to statistics that updated themselves constantly as fighters were destroyed, frigates knocked out of commission, and the numbers of repaired vehicles reentering the fight. "I'm sure there is something that a man of your talents can do around here, my friend. Have faith in the Force. All shall be well, and the Mandalorians will be defeated." She turned her jade eyes back to the screen in clear dismissal and began running the numbers in her head, comparing them to those in the last battle over Duros.
"But, General!" Bao-dur slammed his self-made hand on her terminal, causing it to wink out for a moment. The bridge froze at the sound, leaving the warning claxons shrieking in the dead silence of the room. "We can get them NOW!"
"I said we wait, Lieutenant!" Reysha's normally quiet voice cracked like a whip as her blazing eyes met the tech's and a Force push sent him stumbling back. "We will NOT make such a drastic move until Revan has confirmed that her mission was a success. We will NOT sacrifice our men to such a gruesome death if we can hold out! The death of Mandalore will force the Mandalorians to surrender, as were the terms when Revan agreed to duel the man! Do I make myself clear, Lieutenant?"
Movement on the bridge returned to normal slowly, warily, as the men watched the young Jedi stalk to the plasteel windows and lean her head against the cool glass, shoulders heaving in ire and confusion.
Where did that come from? Reysha thought as she felt the cold of space sap the warmth from her skin. One moment I was calm, serene, and the next I was using the Force on a subordinate, a friend! What in the name of all that is good is happening to me?
She was still standing in front of the window, eyes seeing the fighters fighting and dying while her mind confronted what had just happened, when she heard her comm link crackle to life.
"Reysha!" she jumped as her twin sister's voice came through the headset with a burst of static. "Manda…d...ead…u…se…gen…!"
"Repeat that request, Revan!" Reysha nearly shouted as she heard and felt the urgency in Revan's voice. Strangely enough, though, when she reached out to touch her sister's mind, their bond was blocked on Revan's end. "I can't understand you!"
"DO IT NOW!" Revan roared, voice cutting through the interference caused by the planet's gravity well. "USE THE MSG!"
"Copy that, Reysha out." Reysha turned to Bao-dur, noticing the zabrak still standing by the console that would activate his invention, and then hesitated. She would follow her sister's orders to the T, yet, even though she trusted Revan with her life, she felt that something horrible was looming just over the horizon. "Do it." She nodded to the zabrak and then stared out the window at the roiling planet. Transports were streaming from the surface, the one at the fore containing, she felt through the Force, Revan and Malak.
"With pleasure!" Bao-dur growled as he tapped in the command and then pushed the final button firmly.
At first, nothing seemed to happen, and then a huge shockwave burst out of the planet, twisting the hunks of space debris in its orbit into unrecognizable lumps.
"Oh no," Reysha mouthed as she realized how close the Fleet's ships were to the planet. "Computer, open communications to the fleet!" the computer beeped when the command went through, and Reysha shouted, "this is General Starfire speaking! All ships leave the immediate area immediately! I repeat, get the hell out of here!"
A psychic blast knocked her forward, and she gasped as, before her eyes, Mandalorian and Republic ships alike were being crushed in the rapidly expanding gravity well. A second blast followed that, and then another and another, leaving Reysha gasping against the pain of those thousands of deaths. There was a bright flash of light as finally, the planet itself cracked under the pressure of its own gravity, killing all those on the surface instantly.
The blood drained from Reysha's face as she saw the fissures spreading across the surface, and then pain unlike any she had ever experienced assaulted all her senses at once. The last thing she remembered was screaming as she felt something being torn out inside her, and then everything was blessedly silent….
…. And she found herself back in her room aboard the Dancer, staring into a half-empty bottle of Tarisian Ale. Her eyes shifted muggily to her forearms, to the white scars that criss-crossed her skin all the way to the elbow. In those first few days after the battle, she'd found that concentrating on the smaller pain had taken away from the large, but cutting no longer held any power over her thoughts. She'd concentrated on not feeling for a long time now.
How long has it been? Her thoughts had to struggle through the cloud of synthehol that filled her mind, dimming her awareness to everything, especially the void. Scattered on the durasteel floor were, at the very least, twelve differing bottles of liquor and two empty hypos. Her white blouse, one of the few she had, lay on the floor, shredded where her fingernails had caught trying to get it off, leaving her in naught but her leggings, boots, and black sports bra.
Funny, She thought giddily as she stretched out on the bed and shielded her eyes with her arm, I don't remember taking all that… maybe it's time to sleep now… I should be drunk enough… drugged enough… And then oblivion claimed her, pulling her into the heavy, oppressive darkness that she'd come to know as sleep.
It didn't take long for the nightmares to start.
Star Dancer: Current
"Damn, girl," Jake muttered as he reached into his belt pouch for another stimpack, "What the hell did you do to yourself? I haven't seen anyone this smashed since the end of the war!" It had been twenty minutes since the young captain had left the mission debrief in Pol Raga's hands and come to the portside cabins to collect Reysha, the missing crewmember.
What he'd found in her room had sent a surge of anger through the man, though even he didn't know why. Something about seeing that paradox of a woman; beautiful and yet horribly scarred; intelligent and yet heartbreakingly innocent; wise beyond her years and yet childishly pure; passionate and yet empty- hurting threw a 'spanner in the gears of his life.
How did those happen, I wonder? He thought as he stared at the scars and welts that criss-crossed the girl's back. One wound in particular caught his attention: a perfect circle burned into the flesh right over her left hip. Jake knew that if he turned the girl onto her back, he'd most likely see a matching hole on her abdomen.
Suddenly, the girl moaned and sat up abruptly, narrowly missing his head as the stims running through her system finally took effect. "W-what are you doing in here?" Reysha demanded as she pulled out of his grip and backed out of reach, either unaware or uncaring about her lack of decency.
"What am I doing here?" Jake replied, suddenly very angry as he stepped away from the trembling woman and leaned back against the far wall. "I should be asking you the same thing! I came here to drag a sleepyhead out to our debriefing, and I open your door to find evidence of a drinking binge laced with sleep stims! What the hell were you thinking? Were you trying to kill yourself?"
Reysha just looked at him with those calm, neutral eyes of hers and waited until his tirade ended before saying, "I apologize, Jake, for missing the meeting. I assume it's just the usual docking procedure? I'll make sure to take a look at the hull and systems before I take my leave." Traditionally, after every successful run, Jake allowed his crew shore leave for all but the last day they were in port. That day they spent doing last minute check-ups on supplies, cargo, and the ship before leaving again.
"Well, yeah," Jake scratched his head confusedly at the girl's response. Had she not heard anything that he'd just said? "But wait a sec! What's with all this?" he gestured towards the bottles and empty needles scattered across the floor.
Reysha just smiled sadly and replied, "Have you never wanted to crawl into a bottle and spend the rest of your life there, dead to the world?" still trembling, she uncoiled herself and stood up gracefully, sweeping her purple-black hair out of her face and behind her shoulders, and walked to the door that led to her private 'fresher.
"Maybe during the Wars," he said, a bewildered expression on his face as he watched her. What did any of that have to do with what he was saying? "But only after a battle where we lost a lot of people, or won a great victory. Why? Were you a soldier back then?" I can't believe it took finding her on the back end of a drinking binge to get her to open up to me!
"No," she replied as she palmed the door open with a shrug. "But I know what it's like to feel loss. I feel it every hour of every day, forever. Now, excuse me," she didn't wait for a reply and ducked into the 'fresher.
"Fine!" he shouted through the closed door. "But this isn't over! You owe me an explanation after pulling a stunt like this!" he received no reply, and, after standing about for a few minutes in the wreckage of her room, stomped away. He would figure out what was going on with that girl if it was the last thing he did!
A/N: Like? Dislike? Tell me! Spring break is nearly over, and I don't want to waste time writing this when I could be writing any of my other fics too! Oh, btw, check those out (shameless self-promotion) R&R!
LFK