:: Chapter Thirty Two ::
"Foolish, absolutely foolish," Jarak muttered his repetitive disapproval while he rotated several slides under his microscope to study Lord Scourge's blood cells and skin tissue.
"I've sent a vial of our most successful concoction to the Emperor! What if that particular formula is the one causing your body to degenerate now, huh? I'll have killed him!"
The mere thought caused Lord Scourge to smirk as he lay strapped to the examination table. "Pity."
"Pity?! He'll have my head!"
The Anomid scientist was in clear distress, panicked after he'd uncovered Lord Scourge's missing teeth and became aware of the Sith's deceptive plan.
"Naturally. He'll rise from the grave just to exact his vengeance upon you." Heavy sarcasm dripped from Lord Scourge's voice.
Amusement these days was a rare occurrence and while the humor of the situation failed to tickle him in all the right places, he appreciated it nonetheless.
"Silence!" barked Jarak.
For good measure, he activated the Sith's shock collar for five straight seconds and eagerly awaited for the writhing he expected to follow but Lord Scourge's pain receptors barely took notice of the shocks at all. A thing, Lord Scourge realized, could become quite dangerous—his bones could break, his body could deteriorate completely and he wouldn't even feel it or become aware unless he saw or experienced the change.
"You shouldn't have deceived us! Your body is in a terrible state while I am meant to keep you alive and it'll take me days to figure out which mixture caused this change!"
'I do hope you've poisoned your precious Emperor,' thought Lord Scourge and his smirk remained while otherwise, he kept mute.
Jarak, frustrated and at his wits end racing to discern which of his formulas put the Sith's body in a deteriorating state, accidentally knocked over a few of his vials and swore in his native tongue. He released a droplet of a maroon substance onto the skin tissue he'd been examining and watched it decay under the lens of his microscope.
"Curious…" he mused, mostly to himself and he checked his records to verify the contents of his mixture.
"The Xesh-0178 compound I extracted from your white blood cells years ago appears to have mutated and is now attacking your system. It must have had an adverse reaction to… ah, yes, I see…"
Jarak sighed his relief, "Fortunately, this is not the mixture I presented to our Emperor."
"Your Emperor," snarled Lord Scourge. "Pity."
"It is strange, however," the scientist carried on, ignorant to his remark, "it appears to have taken years slowly turning your immune system hostile. So gradual my tests never detected the changes."
'Or perhaps you're not as skilled as you'd have people believe. Even that moron Doc could have done better than this,'the comment sat on the tip of Lord Scourge's tongue but he swallowed it.
"Now, if I can uncover what caused the mutation, I may be able to reverse the effects and perhaps even boost… mmm, yes…"
Jarak busied himself with his monologue and recorded every word spoken. As if saving his discoveries for prosperity and a published article even while this type of knowledge would never reach the common world, nor should it.
While he muttered and mused, Lord Scourge let his mind drift to better days—the very first days he had ever spent with Eliza and the crew after escaping Vitiate's fortress.
—
"Arielle," he heard the little ginger whisper, "are you sure about this? It's several days to Tython, what if he decides to murder us in our sleep?"
Lord Scourge smirked a sardonic grin. "If I were going to murder you, I'd want you to be awake for it so I could delight in the terror I'd see in your eyes."
The Jedi graced him with a smile and turned to her padawan. "I believe him, Kira. Not a single word from his lips has been a lie, I felt no deception."
"Perhaps our guest should remain confined to his quarters for the duration of the trip," suggested Sergeant Rusk with a wary eye on the Sith.
"No," said Arielle, "he's our guest and he'll be treated as such until the Council has passed their judgment."
Her decision was final, that much everyone understood and yet, her crew didn't silence their protest or concerns regarding his presence aboard the Defender.
With his bags in hand, Lord Scourge sauntered toward the quarters he'd been assigned and made a sharp turn at the door. "Leave it, Jedi, I'm hardly keen for the company. Inform me when we've arrived."
He shut the door before the woman in charge of the crew could argue but he couldn't hide from the fierce sentiments he picked up on through the Force.
A strange jealousy and resentment, combined with fear, permeated even through the closed door and reeked of the man others had called 'Doc'. The padawan exuded an air of worry and distrust while torn between her own inclination to want the Sith gone while at the same time, desiring to show faith in her Master's instinct. He also sensed the presence of darkness within the padawan which tickled his curiosity.
The Sergeant appeared mostly blank in both thought and sentiment yet Lord Scourge could tell he was closest to him in proximity than any other and he suspected the Chagrian had taken to guard his quarters.
It was the Jedi, however, who demanded most of his attention. Both a mystery and an open book as he sensed her every emotion, near heard the call of her thoughts and yet he couldn't discern which emotion went paired with what thought. As if she teased him through the Force, drawing him in with the smallest glimpse and yet keeping him at bay by guarding the full extent of her silent musings.
Two days he spent alone in his quarters, only every so often visited by Ceetwo who'd offer him a tray of beverages and food which Lord Scourge left untouched each time. On the third day, an already too familiar stench reached him through the Force and he loathed to allow Doc into his quarters.
"Arielle's asked me to draw up your medical chart, just in case, I guess…" the, in his eyes, unimpressive man muttered.
"There's no need."
"She insists."
"As do I. Out." Lord Scourge held the door open still and glowered at Doc.
Doc glanced into the hallway, swallowed hard, averted his eyes to the datapad he held and let out a deep sigh while trying to gather his courage.
"We've noticed you haven't touched your dinner… which is fine yanno, more for me, heh. But, Arielle's concerned and insists you're a guest. If you're unwell—"
"I'm in perfect shape," growled Lord Scourge in a threatening tone, "would you like me to demonstrate?"
"That won't be necessary." Arielle appeared and inclined her head at Doc, silently suggesting he give her and the Sith some privacy.
"It's not the greatest quality, I know, dinner in space never is but…" she began while allowing herself into his quarters and shutting the door. "It's all we've got really."
Lord Scourge looked on as she pulled up the chair sitting by his desk and made herself comfortable. "I don't need anything. Please, leave, doesn't anyone respect privacy aboard this vessel?"
"You had two days of privacy. Besides, while these are your quarters, they're aboard my ship so, I win."
She appraised him with kind eyes and a tender smile. "Why won't you eat?"
"I rarely need to and I don't want to. When will we arrive on Tython?"
"In a few days. Why don't you need to?"
"That's my business, why do you care?"
"You have important information to share and you are, for now, an ally and my responsibility."
Lord Scourge raised one of his deeply defined ridges brows—he knew there was more to it, he could almost see the inquisitiveness and fascination she held for him cloaked around her. "And?"
"And? Why don't you need to eat?"
She was headstrong, just as he was and he soon realized that if he remained unwilling to lower his walls and guard, she never would either.
"I was born in the year 3976," he admitted, his arms crossed over his chest as he stood before her and smirked at the curious shock on her face. As if she was doing the math on the spot and slowly, her jaw dropped.
"That… no, you can't be. That would make you, 334 years old?"
He nodded and as a teacher educating his pupil, began sharing the story of his immortality—everything from his service to Darth Nyriss to his betrayal of Revan and how he came to be the ghostly assassin people now knew as the Wrath.
By the end of his story, Arielle sat awestruck gaping at him. Unable to fathom all he'd done and the lengths the Emperor would go to, the atrocities the ruler of the Sith had already committed by sacrificing his own people.
"Now do you see why I, and we, must make every sacrifice, pay any price to ensure this galaxy's survival, to end his reign?"
Arielle smiled solemnly and rose up from her seat. She reached out and caressed a hand down his arm before taking his hand, completely unexpected in a gesture of well-intended comfort and kindness he'd not experienced in centuries.
"Then I'm with you until the bitter end. We won't rest until the Emperor's been defeated and I will make sure the Council sees reason."
The sensation of her touch was odd and he resented it. He could see her hand in his and yet failed to feel it, not even the gentlest tickle. He withdrew and took a step back.
"And if they do not?"
"Well…" She made no further effort to approach him again and instead circled his quarters, her eyes exploring the various book titles he'd placed on a shelf. "We'll just have to do it without their permission then, won't we?"
"You would defy your Masters for this cause?" He frowned.
"If I had to, yes. This concerns us all, it's bigger than the warring between our two sides."
It was the kind of support he hadn't expected. Centuries he'd spent wondering when the Jedi from his vision would come along, how she'd react and whether she'd be willing to hear him out at all, much less cooperate with him.
Perhaps it was her overt light teachings that shaped dedication to the cause even above loyalty to her Jedi Council or maybe it was that delectable flavor of the dark side he'd sensed buried deep within her when their eyes first met on Quest. In any case, her promise to go above and beyond in order to deal with the Sith Emperor marked the change in their relationship from that day forward.
Arielle would visit his quarters often in the following days. Entertaining conversation and debate while sharing dinner in privacy rather than with the rest of the crew. She even had Doc show her how to write up a medical chart and created one for Lord Scourge as she was the only whose touch he'd allow.
Every so often, in the midst of a discussion, silence would fall when their eyes met and in those quiet seconds resided an unspoken truth neither of them would become aware of until years later—the love and unique bond between them that promised to change both their futures in unimaginable ways.
—
Eliza closed her eyes and exhaled a deep sigh of joyful reminiscence. Doc's presence on Odessen had brought back many distant memories of days that now seemed to be of another lifetime and experienced by another person, someone so vastly different to who she was today.
"Credit for your thoughts?" Doc fell in at her side to gaze out over the Odessen Wilds, watching Sana Rae and Senya work with the Sith and Jedi who'd joined their alliance.
"You, actually, and Kira… Scourge. His first day aboard our ship. Do you remember?"
"Mm, all too well. Kira and I often wondered if those days marked the beginning of the end… no offense." He gave her the faintest of smiles.
"No, I understand. His presence changed everything for all of us," Eliza agreed, unaffected by the confession she understood only too well. "I know it was hard for you both."
"It was, yes and I never really took a liking to the guy but, I'm sorry he was taken from you."
"Thank you. We'll find him, one of these days."
Doc put an arm around her shoulder, an attempt at comfort for both their sakes, his heart still heavy with his own loss. "Is there any news?"
"No, but after some consideration, I've ordered Lana to narrow her search to the Outer Rim territories first, near the Esstran and Corva sectors."
"Why?"
"Well, I think we can count all of Wild Space out—if Nathema was anywhere in these regions then Vitiate would have formed this Eternal Empire far sooner," Eliza reasoned.
"Hutt space or the Core Worlds? It just strikes me as unlikely and consider all that we know. The Seat of the Empire is part of the Outer Rim territories. Oricon, Yavin, Ziost… Nathema has to be near somewhere near those sectors."
"Sounds possible…" Doc considered. "I don't suppose the uninvited guest in your head is in any way willing to cough up the coordinates, huh?"
"Would I be standing here if he was?"
"No, I guess not." He grinned sheepishly. "And Theron, how does he feel about all of this?"
"It's not easy for him, I know, and he's being so supportive but I do worry at times… you know, he's made mention of defecting…"
"Really? I thought the Republic was in his blood."
"So did I and, I mean, I get it in a way, he has justified reasons…"
"But?"
Eliza gave a gentle shrug. "He said his home is with me but, would he still defect if it weren't for me? What if he one day regrets it and it comes to stand between us? What would his life in the Empire be?"
"Well, he could run Intelligence or something, right?"
"Stars no." She laughed at the mere idea. "He's brilliant at what he does but he would hate being in charge of anyone other than himself and he'd want to do the work, not have someone else do it for him. Theron needs to move freely, have his own space to do what he does best. No leadership above him and no leading."
"Yeah, I get that."
"I don't know… I want to be with him, and I intend to be but I want to make sure he is happy as well. Not just with me but with his life there, if that makes—"
"Commander," Koth interrupted and came running, "Jenna and her crew have returned and they've brought guests."
"Guests? Who?" asked Eliza.
"I don't know, two guys. Bit scruffy looking and skinny, didn't get their names."
"She really should have checked in before bringing just anyone along…" she sighed and shook her head. "Get Theron and have him meet me at the landing bay, thanks, Koth."
