Warning: This story contains both the darkest kind of setting you are likely to find in this collection and the highest rating (upper edge of T). If you can stand this, though, nothing else will scare you.
In war, all sides have monsters and all their tiny sparks of light.
They never ask me if I want to do this. In fact, I do not. Most emphatically not, but nobody cares. Nobody likes me, not even Daeks, though he is the only one who enjoys my presence. He enjoys to use me, I should say, the perfect tool for certain occasions.
Like this one. I have no idea who he is, this man I am locked in with, but then, I'm not here for my conversational skills. I'm here to make him talk. That's where I'm useful.
I hate being used, it makes me angry. And the more angry I become, the more useful I get, the more often I get used … a vicious circle. Bad things happen when I get angry. I can't control them but I hate the result and the hate feeds them further and the spiral spins faster.
The spiral spins faster …. A good image and I try to keep hold of it, but it dissolves too fast. So, scrabbling for purchase on this side of sanity, I finally take a good look at my latest victim.
He's crouching awkwardly in the furthest corner, hands secured behind his back, covered in bruises and the odd burn, but nothing else. They stripped him completely, but something in the way he holds his head, split lips and all, makes me see the stiff grey collar and peaked cap of the Imperial officer.
"Courier from the Devastator," I remember a snatch of overheard conversation, "he has to know something about that black monster's plan."
I try to keep it all outward observations, but this whole setup is built specifically to ensure that I have no other targets. He is in pain and somewhat afraid, but now mostly curious because I'm not what he expected.
Not what he expected – no, I'm much worse. And for that I hate myself, and I hate him for trying to be a hero which has brought me into this situation, and I hate Daeks for dropping me into situations like this, in exchange for food and shelter and the most basic dignities. And the first wave of the black tide, of whatever it is that breaks loose when I lose control, slams him into the wall.
I brace for the surge of fear and terror that will follow now, sucking me under completely, but beyond the shock of impact and the pain of jolting cracked ribs, there is only recognition.
"You're like …," he starts in pure astonishment, before he catches himself and clamps his mouth shut again.
The fury drains.
"There is another one, like me?" I dare not hope it's true, though I can feel he isn't lying.
"Not like you, he is not like anyone else," he says, with a bone-deep conviction, and I know exactly why Daeks felt the need to unearth his pet monster to break this man.
He gives me an appraising look and starts to detail just why I'm vastly inferior to this mysterious, tantalizing 'Him', but he's dog-tired and in pain, his derision only a paper-thin disguise. He does not feel any of the scorn he tries to convey, so it's pure provocation, which is a very stupid thing to do – or plain suicidal, which is not stupid at all, in his situation. He doesn't have that razor-edge of makeitstop-makeitstop-makeitstop, though. Instead … instead there is a sort of desperate satisfaction.
I claw at myself, fighting to keep the black tide at bay, to keep clear enough to think. I have felt this feeling once before, when falling masonry had smashed the legs and part of Uire's torso, and a whole squad of stormtroopers was surrounding him. He felt like this, just before he let go of the thermal detonator, taking half of the squad with him.
I'm the detonator, obviously, but …. "The rest of them is out of reach, where they won't get hurt."
"Yes, they will," he replies, but he won't say more.
It's frustrating as hell, and, already heady with the mix of pain and desperation pouring over me and the faint echoes of glee and fear further off, I can't take frustration.
The black wave surges over me, but just before his mind is swamped by the frantic wish to make the pain stop, there is a tiny spark of triumph. It shouldn't be there, and I cling to the oddity.
Oo oo oo oo oo oO
When I resurface, he's not where I last saw him. I find him in another corner, no longer in a crouch but facedown on the floor, gasping desperately.
I crawl over to him, trying to push him upright, but he's heavy – well, duh, he's a grown man, after all – and jerks away from my touch, at first. His skin is slick with sweat and other things, but I wipe my hands before I touch him, because the floor is worse, sticky with old stuff. I get him propped against the wall, at last, and slump down beside him, gratified to find his breathing even out in the upright position. Even if there's a wet wheeze that tells me that I have pushed a broken rib into something serious.
What now? I usually know better than to touch people, because that gives me the sort of sensory overload that makes me miss anything else – which is how Daeks keeps me from noticing his newest trap before I fall into it – and the usual deluge of fear and hatred isn't something I enjoy either. Yet, I couldn't let him suffocate there on the floor.
Not now that he has given me a first glimpse of a fellow being, something to raise me beyond 'monstrous freak' and into 'people' territory.
His mind is pushing frantically against the black clouds of unconsciousness and I should pull away, but beyond the animal fear of a dangerous creature, which he is fighting down fiercely, and a generalized hatred at his tormentors, there is a weird feeling aimed at me, suspiciously close to respect.
No one ever respected me for anything, and while I realize I'm getting spill-over from an all-consuming loyalty and respect that this Other-of-my-kind inspired, I'm not ready to let go of it, yet. Not that I could if I wanted to, we are leaning into each other as much as against the wall, and if I tried to move away, he would end up falling on top of me.
When I'm sure he's mostly lucid, I try to find out more. 'Tell them you know their plan and point out how stupid it is, and they will feel the urge to correct you' Tolvin once said, before that failed ambush killed him, and he was an investigator before he joined the rebels. He wasn't talking to me and he added 'sometimes it works', but it's the most I know of interrogation, other than being an instrument of terror.
"Last time I met someone who behaved like you, his legs were smashed by a collapsing wall but he had a detonator and he didn't let go until the stormtroopers had found him. He was in a lot of pain and I'm sure he wanted it to end as soon as possible, but he waited until they were close enough to get caught in the blast."
I stop, gulping air. I don't usually talk so much, but there is no reaction and I plunge on.
"I'm the detonator, obviously, and you are trying to bounce me off the walls, but there's nobody to take with you when I blow up." I know he listens but he's still feeling smug. Smug and the tiniest bit regretful.
"You are the beacon that will call him here." A whisper so soft I barely catch it, though our heads are almost touching.
A beacon. I laugh, an ugly sound in the half-buried box of solid metal, but it's only half derision. Taivel has a legacy of rebels far older than the Empire, and very much into low-tech solutions. Flashing lights have signaled the passage of patrols and tax-collectors since times immemorial. When I think beacon, I think a source of light and no one, least of all myself, would compare me to the light. The other half is disbelieving hope, for the kind of beacon he means, signify something worth coming for. Coming for me.
I didn't realize I said that last part aloud before I get an answering snort. "Who else? A wayward lieutenant is certainly not worth his time."
But I am. I bask in the glow of that revelation for a moment, before reality catches up with me and I start thinking furiously. Taking-you-with-me, a beacon to home in on, and a being with my sort of powers but the ability of gathering respect, which implies some measure of control at the very least – in sum it can only mean one thing.
I look up, at the recording units I know are there, even if I cannot see them, and try to come up with one reason why I should give Daeks the chance to play his games even one more time. One reason to like any of the people he has gathered around him, who know what he does and still stay with him, more than the nameless enemy beside me. One reason to protect those whose pity is the best I can ever hope for – and most of the time, it's fear and loathing, or worst, an eagerness to possess me. I can't find any, and for the first time in my life I reach for the black tide willingly.
I imagine a beacon, I imagine a beam of black, invisible light angling into the sky, plotting out nearby stars, a gigantic Here-am-I sign for that other creature who knows this terrible power, and I pour everything I have into it. The fury of not knowing I wasn't alone. The hate for everyone who told me I was. The seething jealousy for Him, who has respect where I haven't.
Oo oo oo oo oo oO
Something hits my face, again and again, cold and stinging.
I blink, the black tide recedes, and find myself soaking in the rain, the ceiling above me, space-rated titanium alloy though it was, torn off by an explosion that should have reduced anyone inside the former cargo container to red puree. The afternoon rainsquall is pouring in and has pooled ankle-deep on the floor already. The Imperial is squashed into the corner, staring at me with eyes as wide as the swelling would allow, and this time the fearful respect is well and truly mine.
I laugh again, and I'm still laughing when Daeks pulls me away, with a vicious kick at the captured Imperial, still laughing when he drops me because his comlink went wild.
"… just jumped into the system …" I don't hear more, but I don't need more, because I can feel He is here.
Daeks drags me back to the ruined container, now half full with water, but thankfully someone else has pulled the prisoner out before he drowned. I feel Daeks' indecision, weighting the value of a hostage against a weapon as powerful but unpredictable as me. I hope he chooses me, it seems poor gratitude to get the man shot by his own comrades when he has given me hope for the first – and likely last and only – time in my life.
Daeks does choose me, but by the time he has bundled me into his speeder, the low-hanging clouds are not only pouring rain, they also started pouring ships.
I watch a flight of fighters reduce the few bigger weapons to smoking rumble while a pair of armored carriers disgorges armored men. A handful of fighters, in perfect V-formation, are homing in on us and Daeks gives up on the doomed attempt of escape. He stops the speeder and the fighters, to my mild surprise, don't turn us into ash and plasma. Instead they hover, ominously, in an ever-tightening half-circle. Daeks has no choice but let them herd him back towards the ruined camp.
Oo oo oo oo oo oO
Near the container I wrecked less than an hour ago, near a cluster of white armors, he stops again and then gets out of the vehicle with his hands held high above his head. Someone coldly angry is bellowing orders, and Daeks visibly puts his blaster to the ground, before he slowly and deliberately reaches back into the speeder to get me out.
I don't particularly like being held in his arms, but right now, I'm distracted. The TIE in the middle of the half-circle, the one that was flying point before, has a shape I have never seen before, but I only notice that peripherally. The presence inside is far more captivating.
I watch the TIE come to rest on its repulsors, then a hatch opens, several meters above the ground, and a dark figure glides out, to hit the muddy ground with all the grace of a stooping bird of prey.
Daeks, both angry and fearful before, experiences a spike of fear so intense and unexpected, it almost shoves me all the way into the black tide. I scramble for a hold, determined not to lose control in front of Him so easily, grabbing at every sort of sensory input except emotion.
I watch a black cloak billow in the biting gusts of wind, unhampered by the heavy rain. I watch the cluster of white armors shifts at the Dark One's approach, and catch a glimpse of a floating gurney. I barely make out a deep rumble of "Well done, Lieutenant Piett," before he turns towards us.
The fear spikes again, but this time I am anchored, as well as I can manage – and almost flounder, anyway, when the fear is followed by a wave of icy hate.
"Kill him," Daeks whispers, his voice little more than hot breath against my cheek. Then louder, stepping forward, he says, "Please, sir, she's just a child, she's injured …"
How dare he!? Tethering on the edge, it took me a moment to process Daeks's words. How dare he order me to attack the only other creature of my kind? The only that I know of, so far, I dare not hope there might be more. I'm not as much letting go but diving into the black tide with a running jump.
When I resurface, I'm lying in a puddle not entirely composed of mud and rain, with every gun in the vicinity trained at my head, and Him standing just two steps in front of me. One hand is resting on his belt, the other … reaches out at me.
With a simple gesture he raises me up, and though he is grabbing me, more or less, by the scruff of my neck, this is the first time I remember of standing upright without anyone's hand gripping my arms. A nice feeling.
"Your hips were broken at an early age," He rumbles. "I see you never learned to walk."
I nod agreement, but he isn't finished, yet. "What a waste."
A twist of his hand and a white-hot sensation runs along my nerves. My vision shifts. For a moment I can see him, blazing with power like the heart of a supernova; see myself, white dwarf to his brilliance and still much brighter than the dim flickers that are all the other people moving around us.
Then I … dissipate.