Chapter Thirteen
Standing at the windows at the front of the bridge, Moda absentmindedly stroked her right lekku that was draped over her shoulder while looking out into space. The Bright Defender drifted through the Aos system which consisted of an orange dwarf orbited by three hot rockball planets and three gas giants, dubbed Aos-1 through -6. They were approaching Aos-5, a tawny-beige gas giant shot through with swirls of rusty browns and reds, and it loomed large in the windows. Its wide ice rings were tilted almost ninety degrees from the stars orbital plane, with the result that its "north" pole was pointed almost directly at the orange dwarf.
The Aos system was on the edge of the D'Anjon Nebula in the Arkanis Sector, an immense, glowing cloud left over from an ancient supernova, and had been owned by Kosmo-Line Heavy Industries for centuries. Kosmo line had long ago imported hundreds of beldons from Bespin, and bred them until the skies of Aos-4 and Aos-5 were filled with them; Aos-6 was too cold to support them. Using fully-automated platforms, the company was able to maintain strict privacy in the system while producing Tibanna and other useful gases from the gas giants, and various metal ores from the rockball planets.
The reason privacy was necessary was simple: Kosmo-Line was owned by the extremely shadowy corporate firm Steele, Black, and Goldmann, or SB&G, and they, in turn, were a corporate front for the Ion Ascendancy. SB&G owned dozens of such companies, directly and indirectly, and funneled hundreds of trillions of credits of profit, along with a multitude of resources, to the Ion Ascendancy through corporate shell companies, anonymous bank accounts, dummy corporations, and various investments. Most important of all, each account, every dummy corporation, and every single investment instrument were all innocuous in and of themselves, and they were arranged in such a way that only by looking at how they were all interrelated as a whole could one trace them back to SB&G, and from there, to the Ion Ascendancy. Take away one or two of the puzzle pieces, and it all fell apart.
The Ion Ascendancy was one of the best-kept secrets in the galaxy, and the Empire was none the wiser.
Assuming, of course, we can catch this fool Twi'lek woman, Moda thought sourly, tossing her lekku over her shoulder. She glared down at her chest in annoyance; she was positive those stupid laundry droids were shrinking her uniforms. She grabbed the front of her uniform and tugged, trying in vain to adjust the bra underneath that Talus insisted she wear. Why in blazes he'd thought she'd need a ninety-six centimeter bust line was beyond her. She shot a glare at Talus, standing next to her and pretending not to notice her adjusting her microgarments, though his grin said otherwise. She was going to have a long talk with those idiot laundry droids.
"Entering Aos-5's gravity well," Lieutenant Creshwon announced from behind them. Wearing the form of a Nautolan, he'd come aboard with Talus from the Ion Tide and sat in the portside trench.
The bridge was sleek and dimly lit by recessed can lights in the low ceiling, providing a soft white illumination that gleamed off of the highly-polished black deck plates, bulkheads, and ceiling. Two parallel trenches containing the ship's duty stations ran the length of the bridge with a wide catwalk between them that led to a broad dais three steps above the main deck. Wrapping around the front of the dais were floor-to-ceiling windows, offering a panoramic view of the front of the ship and the space beyond.
The command dais was where Talus and Moda currently stood. In its center was a large holoprojector displaying a holo-tac, or tactical display showing the ship as a blue triangle in the center and listing navigational and tactical information in the space around it. Standing on the edge of both sides of the dais were a pair of red lacquered B1 battle droids, and another pair guarded the turbolift at the back of the bridge.
Commander Enthate, a tall, powerfully-built human male with dark skin and a bald head, strolled up the catwalk, his hands clasped behind his back. "Put us in a geosync orbit around the northern hemisphere, twenty-three degrees off the equatorial plane," he ordered. "Half-speed."
"Coming about, sir!" Creshwon announced, sounding the maneuvers alarm.
"Set altitude to ninety-five thousand kilometers and keep the dive plane level."
"Setting altitude, zero on the dive plane!"
"Conn, sensor contact bearing one-seven-three-mark-four in the negs!" Sami called out.
"Light it up and let them know we're coming," the Commander said. "I want an ETA."
Moda watched as the ship descended into the murky atmosphere. The ship's external lights were all switched on, lighting up the sandy-colored clouds for a quarter-kilometer around, making them visible to any beldons in the area so they could avoid hitting the ship. Although the north pole faced the sun, it grew rapidly darker as they continued to descend through the upper atmosphere; the clouds were so thick that visibility was reduced to fifty meters, tops.
"Slow to one-quarter," Commander Enthate ordered.
"Slowing to one-quarter!" Creshwon responded. "We are at ninety-five thousand kilometers."
"Platform Nine has pinged our transponder," Sami said.
"Lower shields and transmit authentication code esk-esk-seven-one-nine," Enthate said. "Tell them to begin transferring materiél."
"Sending."
Platform Nine was the primary refining facility and was the size of a small city. It was also a secret depot used by the Ion Ascendancy to store everything from weapons and battle droids to food stuffs and medical supplies. It sat deeper than other refineries, below a thermocline layer that shielded it from all but a direct sensor scan of the area it was in.
"Now, it's your turn," Talus said, turning to Moda and straightening the shoulders of her uniform. "I'd like you on the flight deck to supervise things."
"Let's hope they don't forget the package," she said, referring to the stasis pod.
"They won't." He gently lifted her chin to look into her eyes. "You're the only one I trust with this, Moda."
Such a human behavior, she thought, amazed by his mimicry. She knew that this was his way of encouraging her to do something without him close by, and it annoyed her to find that she still felt anxiety about being away from him. "I'll head down there, then," she said, saluting.
Her two red lacquered B1 battle droid escorts were waiting for her in the turbolift; she referred to them as One and Two, and they followed her wherever she went except the bridge. As soon as the turbolift doors closed behind her, she could feel the uneasiness pressing in on her, and her two body guards weren't much help.
It was confusing to her as to why she couldn't purge herself of this…clinginess; it was embarrassing, sometimes, but she couldn't help it. Even though others of her kind would find it impossible to so much as harm another being, she knew she would be able to kill for Talus. She would kill for him and never suffer a single pang of regret. Without him, she would have been destroyed at the hands of Kith K'bar; that was why she would always remain loyal to Talus no matter what.
She shuddered, and goosebumps formed on her arms at the memory of Kith K'bar. She pulled her sleeves up and looked suspiciously at her skin. How odd, she thought. She'd never before experienced such a physical reaction; what was wrong with her? It didn't seem to be harmful, though, so she pulled her sleeves down and returned to thinking about Kith K'bar.
The Devaronian pirate had been brutal. She still wondered sometimes if everything that had occurred since being rescued by Talus wasn't just some beautiful, elaborate dream that was playing out in her mind as she lay dying in one of the dark, scurrier-infested cargo holds of Kith K'bar's ship, some last gasp of life before the darkness descended forever.
Kith K'bar. She could still recall with perfect clarity his arrogant saunter and his cruel smile. It was the same smile he'd wear as he aimed his disruptor at someone and fired. How many times had he threatened her with it? She'd lost count. His favorite way of dealing with her had been to kick her over when she hadn't moved fast enough or given him the answer he'd wanted. He'd damaged her so badly at one point that she hadn't been able to turn her head.
She could remember, too, the feeling of endlessness, a hopeless despair that hung over her like the pall of doom. Every day, she expected to be terminated at any time because he'd beat her every day, or shoot at her, or shoot her with ion pistols. He'd been so much bigger than her—how could she have possibly defended herself against such a monster? With one of her tools that she used to keep his junker ship running? He would laugh while ripping the arm holding the tool right off her body.
The turbolift of the door opened, revealing a long, wide corridor that she followed, heading towards the middle of the ship. There were numerous other crewmen and droids out and about who offered a salute as she passed. After walking for several minutes, she came to another set of turbolifts, guarded by more of the red lacquered B1 battle droids.
She felt jittery as she got in the turbolift and the door closed. She could do this; she'd been away from Talus a lot longer than this when she'd been crawling around in the duct work of this ship as it was being built. She just had to focus on the task at hand; that always helped.
The turbolift door opened into an immense cargo bay thirty meters high and one hundred meters wide. It was easily three times that long, and there were dozens of smaller cargo areas lining the sides on multiple levels, with mag-cranes flitting about and moving cargo around. Cargo droids of various shapes and sizes were present as well, going over cargo manifests and supervising work teams. At the far end were a set of blast doors open to the "flight deck," with a glowing white border around the opening denoting an active atmospheric containment field. Sparks fell in a shower to one side as two ASP droids performed simple repairs; she was careful to go around. She didn't need holes burned into her uniform on top of having it shrank by those dim-witted laundry droids.
The "flight deck" of the Bright Defender was really just the reinforced roof of the habitable areas of the ship below. Power trunks ran along either side, and the vaults had been removed, it dropped off into open space. She could see the two halves of the turtle-shell forward hulls, and clinging to their underside were dozens upon dozens of starfighters. Talus' ship, Midnight Rider, was berthed in a yellow circle painted on the deck to the left of the blast doors, while to the right was the Positron, a GS-100 salvage ship. Three more yellow circles on each side running the length of the deck sat open. These were temporary berths for transports to off-load cargo and personnel.
She walked through the atmospheric containment field and out to the forward edge of the flight deck, the noxious wind from the gas giant's turbulent atmosphere tearing at her uniform and making her lekku flap about. She looked down over the tips of the massive barrels of the prow-mounted turbolaser cannons and into the soupy tan clouds far below. It was if the ship were flying through a fog bank.
"Send them," she told Talus through her internal comlink. The engine noise and howling wind was tremendous; her regular comlink would have been usesless.
"They are on their way," came the response.
Sure enough, a few moments later, she could see the lights from numerous freighters of various makes and models rising up through the murk. She retreated to the interior of the cargo bay and watched as the first transport—a YT-1250—flew up and over the flight deck and landed in one of the yellow circles with a booming thud. Its boarding ramp lowered and row after row of black lacquered B1 battle droids marched out, even as more transports began landing and disgorging their battle droids as well.
Six droids carried a large, rectangular box, three on a side. These were the last droids off the first transport, which quickly departed. The box was the "brain" for this division of battle droids, the remote transceiver that they relied upon to receive their orders. Talus, however, had studied the mistakes of the Separatists, and had ordered that all of the battle droids not retrofitted with heuristic processors be fitted with advanced secondary processors instead so that they could still function at peak efficiency.
"Comm room, deck twenty-one," she said as they passed.
"Roger-roger," they responded in unison.
A division of battle droids consisted of 21,814 droids, and the Bright Defender was taking on three of them. It took hours as the transports flew up, the droids marched off, and the transports departed to get more. None of them were empty-handed; all carried boxes and crates containing weapons, spare parts, medical supplies, food stuffs, and even linens. She had to assign every group to their place and direct them where to deliver their cargo, though eventually they learned to do this on their own. Food stuffs always went to a specific cargo bay, for example, and they transmitted this information down the line. Many of the battle droids, after delivering their cargo, returned to the main cargo hold and deactivated.
At least now we'll have the Ion Troopers we need, she thought, watching row after row of the droids march past. Now, I just have to wait on this stasis pod. Where in blazes was it?
As the hours wore on, lightning began to flash outside of the ship. A storm was brewing, dangerous on a gas giant because the electrical discharges seemed to grow more powerful in proportion to the size of the planet. If they didn't finish soon, they'd have to retreat to a higher orbit or risk—
Sure enough, there was a bright flash and thunderous boom, followed by the whine of engines trying to climb. The transport, a G9 Rigger—where in blazes had they dug that thing up? she wondered briefly—came sailing over the edge of the flight deck trailing black smoke from its main engine. It made it about five meters above the flight deck before what was left of the engine exploded, sending shrapnel flying and causing the ship to crash to the deck with a deafening boom. Its ventral wing snapped off and skidded into a group of Ion Troopers, while the ship itself bumped into another transport, causing it to rock.
Dozens of droids ran out of the cargo bay with fire extinguishing equipment and began putting out the flaming wreckage scattered all over the flight deck. Battle droids began picking up the pieces of their fallen brethren.
"Take them to engineering!" she shouted running over to what was left of the Rigger. Idiots! she fumed. This piece of junk had been obsolete in the Clone Wars! What was it still doing in service to transport something so valuable?
The boarding ramp at the back of it crashed to the deck. "That was unexpected!" a battle droid announced, climbing down.
"Who shot at us?" another asked, joining the first.
"What cargo do you have?" Moda yelled, running up to them.
"Uh, nothing big," the first one said.
"Just a stasis pod and some supplies," the second one added.
"Stang!" She climbed up the side of the Rigger and dropped into the ruined cargo bay, which had a gaping hole where its engine used to be. There were dozens more battle droids, but only four of them were moving. Buried under some crates, she could make out the corner of the stasis pod. "Stang, stang, stang!" she whispered, rushing over and uncovering the pod.
"Hey!" one of the battle droids yelled after getting hit with a box.
"Shut up and help me, you clankers!" she ordered.
A thumping came from the stasis pod. "Help!" a voice cried from within. "Let me out!"
"Stang!" she roared. "You clankers damaged the pod!"
"It's not our fault!" one droid protested.
"Help me get this pod out of here before I decide to melt you down for scrap!"
Now, what? she thought frantically. They didn't have any other stasis pods, so now she'd have to find some place to put this prisoner and quickly before Talus found out. They managed to get the stasis pod out of the ship—the coffin-like pod's controls spat sparks and the glass window was cracked and fogged over. There'd be no fixing this, she knew.
"Pleas, help! I can't breathe!" the muffled voice whimpered. "I'll be good! I swear! Just let me out! Please!"
Glaring at the droids helping her, she yelled for a hover cart and loaded the pod onto it. "Get her inside, now!" She walked beside the cart as the battle droids hefted it onto the hover cart and pushed it into the main cargo bay. "The rest of you salvage what you can out there and clear the deck!"
"Roger-roger!" came the response.
"Where to, sir?" one of the black battle droids asked as it pushed the cart.
She looked around. The main cargo bay wouldn't do. It would have to be somewhere out of the way, somewhere she could go regularly without arousing suspicion to check on the prisoner. "The engineering bays," she said at last. She was the ship's chief engineer, and the engineering bays just forward of the main reactors were warm and safe. "Let's hurry," she said, leading the way.
The voice inside the pod began screaming. "Let me out!" came the muffled shriek, followed by thumping from her pounding on the inside. "I know you're out there! Please! I don't want to die!" The screams broke down into sobs.
Moda ignored her. Were they all so emotional? she wondered in annoyance. She turned her mind to Talus. He was unlikely to come down to the engineering bays. Sami might, but she would stack some crates to block the view of one of the bay-rooms.
"Moda, what is happening?" Talus' voice said over her comlink.
"Stang!" she muttered, pulling the comlink off her belt. "Quiet, you!" She thumped the top of the stasis pod, then keyed the comlink. "One of the transports was struck by lightning and crashed onto the deck," she answered. Now, she'd have more work to do—the flight deck needed to be inspected to make sure nothing vital was damaged, which meant more documentation. "I think it is time to discuss updating our utility vehicles. They were using a flaming Rigger!"
His chuckling came through. "Was that a Rigger that was on fire, or just an epithet?"
"Don't get cute," she retorted, in no mood for his mimicry of humor. Still, it was good to hear his voice. "It is high time to stop using such obsolete junk!"
"What's the damage?"
"A few dozen battle droids trashed, and one of the other transports got bumped." She cut off the comlink. "Turbolift three," she ordered the Ion Troopers, pointing to one of several turbolifts at the end of the corridor, then keyed the comlink again. "Most can be repaired. The Rigger is dead, though. Its main engine blew. I say good riddance to bad rubbish."
"The stasis pod?"
"Safe and sound," she lied, finding it a strange experience. She'd never before lied to anyone, let alone Talus, but this was something that she preferred to handle on her own. She didn't need Talus hovering over her; she was the one who did the hovering. She got in the turbolift.
"Uh, sir?" one of the Ion Troopers said. "I don't think the stasis pod—"
"Shut up!" she hissed, then said to Talus, "I'll make a report later."
"Very well," Talus said. "Come to the bridge whenever you finish. The comlink clicked off.
"The stasis pod isn't safe and sound, sir," one battle droid said.
"I know that, you clanker!" Moda snapped, stepping off the turbolift.
There were several engineering bays throughout the ship, serving as storage areas for engine parts, tools, and various equipment. There were also secondary control systems that could access critical ship functions in times of emergency. All of them were cavernous chambers—the Separatists seemed to have an affinity for building things big—longer than they were wide, with large power and cooling conduits a meter in diameter along the right wall and a multilevel series of side-bays lining the other wall.
Some of the side bays contained machine shops, others refresher units and galley areas. Still others were empty or contained bundles of conduit pieces, spools of cable and wiring, or heavy machinery like mag-cranes and hover-lifts and binary load lifters.
The empty bays were completely open in the front, but were equipped with force-fields, and that was why Moda chose the engineering bay to hide the prisoner in. "Start loading some crates in front and to the side of this storage bay," she ordered the black battle droids. "Leave three meters of space between the crates and the opening."
"Roger-roger!" they said and went off to obey.
She pushed the stasis pod into the empty bay. "You two stand just outside," she told her red battle droids, who wordlessly obeyed.
"Please," the voice said weakly. "Let me out!"
She adjusted the atmospheric controls in the side-bay, activating the force field, then lowered the stasis pod to the deck and tried keying it open. The electronics were fried, so she settled for using a pry bar to break it open, wrinkling her nose in disgust as the odor of hot, unwashed body wafted up.
The young Togruta girl, dressed in a filthy white shift and wearing shackles around her slender wrists and ankles, came jumping out of the pod, gasping for air. She flailed and stumbled, falling to the ground, then tried getting up and scrambling away, only to run right into the wall with a yelp. "I can't see!" she wailed, feeling the wall with her hands, then putting her back to it and drawing her knees up defensively. "What have you done to my eyes?" she cried, trembling.
Moda ignored her and pushed the stasis pod out of the storage bay. The room was about five meters square, enough room for a cot and some linens. Stang, she thought. I have to feed her, too, and then she'll want to relieve herself. Disgusting.
"I-I know you're there," the Togruta whimpered, reaching out blindly with one hand. "Where am I? What have you done to my eyes?"
Moda came over and stood about a meter away, looking down at the wretch.
"Answer me!" she yelled, then began crying again, tears spilling from her large blue eyes. "Why can't I see? Help me, please." She held out both hands, waving them about; they trembled as if she had palsy. "My name is—" She stopped. "I can't remember," she whispered. She winced at the sounds of the battle droids stacking crates.
Food, linens for her bed, clean water, what else? she wondered. The girl was perhaps thirteen at the oldest, and Moda found herself at a loss for what else she might require. She left the room, activating the force field as she went, and walked to the end of the engineering bay.
"Come back, please!" the girl's voice followed her. "Don't leave me here!"
Moda looked at her datapad and began ordering supplies and equipment—a holocam, a foldable cot, pillow, blankets, linens, food, several drums of clean water, and a medical kit. She would have to order one of her battle droid body guards to take the prisoner to the refresher four times a day.
The supplies began showing up about ten minutes later. The food was dry rations, but it would have to do for now. She ordered everything put inside the room and the stasis pod disposed of well. The girl just cowered in the corner, flinching at every noise, her chains rattling almost continuously.
When all but her red battle droids had left, Moda leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, looking at this Togruta. The girl had white pau'ri markings in the form of ovals on the tops and bottoms of her small hands and feet, and the lines on her face formed white eyebrows that turned sharply and ran to the corner of her eyes, under which were a series of dors vertically aligned. A white strip ran from the center of her lower lip over her chin and down her throat, tapering off near the base of it.
"Please talk to me," she whispered, sniffing. "Tell me what's wrong with me."
Moda was surprised to find herself experiencing anxiety at the thought of saying something. "You have hibernation sickness." There, she thought, grinning. That wasn't so hard.
The girl jumped at the sound of Moda's voice and began whimpering. "Am—am I going to die?"
"No." She squatted down and pulled the girl's feet towards her to remove the shackles, noticing for the first time the scars around her slender ankles.
"Am I to be beaten, now?"
Moda glared at her suspiciously. What was this silly girl—
"It's okay," she whispered. "I don't remember what I did wrong, but it must have been bad for you to put me in that coffin."
She's serious! Moda realized. "It was a stasis pod." She came closer and removed the manacles, noting the scars on her wrists were similar to those on her ankles. "You have hibernation sickness. That's why you cannot see or remember much." She stood and tossed the restraints out of the cell.
"I was in—stasis?" she asked, sounding shocked. "For how long?"
"Six years, three months, seventeen days, five hours, forty-three minutes, and six seconds."
She reached out a trembling hand and felt around until she found Moda's boot, then ran her hand up Moda's shin. "Who—who are you, please?"
"I am Moda, and you are my prisoner."
"Prisoner? What have I done?" she whimpered.
Losing patience, she said, "It's not important. In time, you will remember, and then you will wish you had not. Give me your clothing."
Her eyes widened as she clutched her shift about herself protectively. "But—but I'm naked underneath!"
"There is no one aboard this ship to see nor care. Give them to me." Deciding that didn't sound authoritative enough, she added, "Now."
Tears spilling as her lekku darkened and her face flushed in shame, she slowly pulled the shift over her head and handed it outward in Moda's direction, pulling her legs up and trying to use them to cover herself.
Moda took the foul-smelling garment and tossed it in the garbage chute. The girl was better off—the rag was probably infested with bacteria. "Stand up," she said, when she returned.
"Please, mistress. I—I—"
"Now, Togruta. I want to examine you for parasites." Who knew what this girl had gotten into in the depths of Nar Shadda? She took a bio-scanner from the medical kit.
Weeping in humiliation, the prisoner did as ordered, or tried to. She stood, and her knees gave out, making her collapse.
Moda sighed—that was what people did when they were frustrated, she thought—she helped the girl stand up, then caught her as she fell forward and sat her on the cot. She frowned at how malnourished the Togruta was—she could count ribs and vertebrae—but the extensive scarring across her back made her eyes go wide. She'd never seen anything like it; dozens of lighter orange weals criss-crossed over the darker orange of her skin, stretching from the tops of her narrow shoulders to the top of her rump.
"You've been damaged," she said, shocked.
The girl had one arm across her chest to cover her barely-formed breasts, and the other across her lap. "I have?" she whispered.
"You have extensive scarring across your back." She adjusted the bio-scanner's settings. "Enjoy your amnesia while it lasts." She ran the instrument over the girl's legs and feet, then over her back. It would've been better to have left her in stasis, she thought to herself. The young girl was anemic and malnourished, and would need a specialized, high-protein diet with plenty of meat, and vitamin supplements; rations wouldn't do. More work. The scanner beeped, showing no parasites.
"What was that?" the girl asked, cocking her head.
"It's a medical scanner. So far, you have no parasites."
"May I cover myself with something?"
"Once I am done scanning you. Arms out."
She turned her face away as her lekku and montrals flushed darkly, and her blush spread down her neck, she did as told.
Moda quickly scanned the rest of her, and found no parasites. At least the prisoner wouldn't need medical care besides a specialized diet; if she'd needed to go to the medical bay, Talus would've found out for sure. She noted another scar, too, a four or five centimeter long, vertical cut that started a centimeter or two above the rust-brown nipple of her left breast and ran straight up.
She wanted to ask the prisoner about it, but it would do no good right now since the girl was still under the effects of hibernation sickness. Instead, she stood and handed the girl a fluffy white robe.
The prisoner put it on, clutching it closed. "May I have some water, please?"
She handed her a flask. "There's linens, towels, toiletries, rations, and several drums of water. There's also blankets. I'll have my droids take you to the refresher four times a day to attend to your physical needs. I'll be ordering you a specialized diet as well, as Togruta eat only meat, correct?"
She nodded. "Yes, mistress."
"Come on, then. I will take you to the refresher now." She grabbed a clean shift and microgarments for the prisoner, as well as socks and sandals.
"Thank you, mistress," she murmured, eyes downcast. She tried to stand, but fell to the cot.
Moda ended up having to help her stand and walk, letting the girl lean against her. She glanced at her chrono. Stang. This was exactly why she never took prisoners—she was no good at it, and they always ended up wasting your time. She helped the girl walk out of the room and down to the refresher.
The engineering bay had several refreshers, including one that had a sani-steam for emergency washing in case of spilled chemicals. It was completely outfitted like a normal sani-steam, with the addition of extra spray nozzles, and was roomy enough for hazmat suits, too. It also came with a jump-seat built into the wall in case someone had to sit.
"I hear droids!" she whispered, clutching at Moda's arm.
She raised an eyebrow. "Yes. The battle droids belong to me."
The girl began trembling. "I—remember black battle droids," she said, trailing off. She shook her head. "It's gone."
"Mine are red."
"The black ones—they came for me, I think." She reached up to touch Moda, her hand brushing a lekku. "You're Twi'lek?"
"For now." She set the girl in the sani-steam, pulling down the small bench so she could sit; she didn't want the prisoner damaged further from collapsing. The hot water would ease the girl's muscle stiffness from the hibernation sickness. "I'll have more garments brought to your cell." She took towels out of the nearby closet and set them outside of the sani-steam, taking the girl's hand and showing her where they were. "Soap is here," she said, guiding the girl's hand to the dispenser in the sani-steam. "Twenty minutes. There'll be two droids right outside. I'll be back in a little while."
"I'll be good, mistress," she said meekly.
She narrowed her eyes in suspicion like she'd seen others do in holo-serials. People who said such things usually wound up doing the exact opposite. Instead, she walked over to where the two red battle droids stood. "Set your weapons to stun and guard her."
"Our assigned duty is to guard you," one said.
"I am overriding your current assignment." She tapped her bracer computer and summoned four more red battle droids. "Two of you are to guard the entrance to this engineering bay. No one is to enter, not even Talus, without my authorization. You two," she said, pointing to the other two, "are with me."
She knew Talus could override her orders to these droids, but she hoped that he never even came down here. It wasn't her fault that the Rigger was hit by lightning, and now that the girl was free, there was no reason not to initiate an interrogation. She wanted to be able to interrogate the girl without Talus knowing; if any useful information came out of it, then she would tell him. He was a little too soft sometimes, but she had no problem doing the unseen dirty work for him.
Her two body guard droids followed silently as she went to the girl's cell and set up the holocam outside, hiding it against the crates. She tied it to her bracer computer on an encrypted channel so she could monitor the prisoner from anywhere on the ship.
Satisfied with her efforts, she headed down to the flight deck, ordering clothing and a meal schedule for the prisoner. She would receive a high-protein diet, and be fed three times a day. Such a blasted nuisance, she thought in annoyance. She'd prefer to just go in, interrogate, and get out, leaving the care and feeding to someone else. Not this time, though.
The flight deck, she was relieved to see, had been cleared, and there was only minor damage to the hull plating. The G9 Rigger had been pushed over the side, and all the droids and supplies were secured. "Close it up!" she ordered the droids in the cargo bay control room.
The blast doors closed behind her with a dull booming that vibrated through the deck.
"Talus," she said through her comlink. "We're clear down here for flight."
"Is everything okay down there?"
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"I'm just surprised you've been away so long. Kudos to you."
"Oh, get pulsed," she muttered under her breath. That was another thing people did: mutter under their breath.
"I heard that," he chuckled. "Will you be joining me on the bridge?"
"Eventually." She headed back to the engineering bay.
"Can you be a little more specific?"
"Give me twenty minutes."
"I'll be waiting." The comlink clicked off.
When she returned to the engineering bay, the girl was no longer in the sani-steam, and the droids were missing. Stang! she thought. "Where are you?" she yelled, bolting for the girl's cell. Where in blazes were those stupid clankers? They were supposed to be guarding her! Blast it! She rounded the corner of stacked crates and stopped.
The girl was in her cell, dressed in the thin white shift, ravenously eating a meal that had made it here ahead of her. The two droids guarding her stood on either side of the opening, and the force field was active. The girl stopped eating and looked up blindly, cocking her head as if listening. "Are you there, mistress?" she asked softly.
"How did you get back here?" she demanded.
"I—I waited, and when you did not return, I asked the droids to help me back," she answered. "Did I do something wrong?"
She turned on the droids. "You obey my orders, not hers! Do you understand me?" she snapped.
"Your orders were to guard her," the closest one answered. "So, we did. You said nothing about not taking her back to her cell."
"Don't play semantics with me, you walking scrap pile! You are to obey me, not her! I don't care if she asks you to stand on one foot!"
"I—I'm sorry, mistress," the girl said. "I only meant to make things easier for you. I didn't want to be a burden."
"Be a—! You're a prisoner! You're already a burden!" she exclaimed, becoming exasperated with this—this child! This entire situation was rapidly spinning out of control. The girl was a prisoner, so why wasn't she acting like one? She should have been cowering in fear, not trying to be helpful! It wasn't natural!
"I'm sorry, mistress," she apologized.
"Stop apologizing!" What in blazes was wrong with her? She threw her hands up in frustration—something else she'd learned from holo-serials. "Just—just eat!" Grumbling to herself, she stormed off, trying to figure out just where she'd lost control of this situation. It seemed incomprehensible to her that this young girl could so easily put her in such a state of confusion, and she knew she'd have to regain control of the situation before she could interrogate her.
She would get to the bottom of this, she resolved on her way back to the bridge. One way or another, she would teach the girl to fear being a prisoner of the Ion Ascendancy, even if she had to beat it into her.
The irony didn't even occur to her.