Star Wars Character Cafe - Interrogated Sociopath Chapters 11

INTERROGATED SOCIOPATH

CHAPTER 11

Once they’d stepped into the interrogation room, Kat could well imagine the countless unfortunate aliens, Jedi and suspected Rebel conspirators who had been tortured there. Their pain and fear hung around the place like the stench of blood and death in a slaughterhouse, and Kat was more sensitive to it than others because of her connection to the Force.

The guards took her to a chair that reminded her of the dentist chair she’d sat in as a child on Chandrilla when she went for check-ups, hoping that they wouldn’t find any tooth they had to drill for a filling, or to take out. That had been nasty enough, but this had no sense of any thing to do with medical treatment about it, only persecution.

Her guards forced her to sit down in it and then clapped restraints around her wrists, ankles, middle, thighs and neck, making sure that all but the last were tighter than they needed to be so that they’d bite into her flesh and cause superficial cuts.

Riv, they bound face down to a rack against the wall in front of her. For the first time, she got a good look at the mess they’d made of his back and it wasn’t pretty. After making them secure, the guards made their exit. Kat and Riv where then made to stew while they waited for their interrogator to arrive. They waited for such a long period that Kat wondered if their interrogator was ever going to show up, that they’d just been taken there to make them paranoid, until at last a dark cloaked figure entered, followed by a brutish looking thug of a wolfman.

The wolfman had been surprising enough, but Kat was more astounded to discover the cloaked figure was a female Shistavanen when she pulled down the cowl of her hood. There was a dark aura of what Kaitlin could only describe as evilness surrounding her, and she knew without a doubt that she was looking upon the Sith that Rivik had mentioned was supposed to be working with the rogue, Za.

It was Riv who broke the silence first. “How could you do it, lupa? Why did you turn against your own kind?” His use of the word lupa lacked the affectionate way he’d used it to address Kaitlin. It was full of hate.

“Silence, cur. The only reason you’re involved in this is that those brainless, naked apes fouled up their investigation of your identity. Still, you may be some use to me,” she inclined her head to the brute who’d entered with her and he lashed out at Riv with the baton he carried. To his credit, Riv didn’t even flinch. Kat had to stop herself from grinning at the racial slur that came out of the Sith’s mouth. It was almost refreshing to hear something like that directed at humans for a change, instead of humans calling an alien, an “animal.” Riv being hit drained out any humour she might have found in the situation, though.

“I am Azet. I’m sure by now that Rivik and your Master have told you about me.”

Kat didn’t reply. Why should she reveal anything to the Sith. Azet closed her eyes and nodded to the brute again. Realisation came to Kat as Riv was struck again.

“I see you understand the game. So, puny human, where is Flik Sivrak?” Azet’s next question came at her. Though she didn’t want to see Riv hurt, she couldn’t betray Flik and Shiba.

“Who? I don’t know anyone by that name.”

Kat closed her eyes so that she didn’t have to witness Riv receiving the next blow, but that didn’t cut her off from the guilt of knowing she’d caused him to get hurt.

“You seemed to know his brother. You mentioned him when you resisted arrest in the cantina.”

At least she couldn’t lie this time. “I didn’t know him, at least not that well. I just met him shortly before he died at Endor. I didn’t even know Lak Sivrak had a brother.”

Azet reached inside her cloak and produced a lightsabre, Kat’s lightsabre, the one that Flik had helped her to create. Azet activated it to reveal the green blade. In the background, the brute of a wolfman beat Riv again.

“This lightsabre tells me different, human. Every time you are unco-operative, your wolfman lover will get hurt, every time you lie to me, he will be hurt. He’s been through so much pain already – how much longer do you think he will hold out before he perishes? I doubt you want that.”

“Don’t listen to her, little lupa. Any physical pain they inflict is nothing compared to my Kiyah’s loss. They can’t hurt me.”

Azet stepped up to Riv and stroked his head. Jealousy stabbed through Kat as she whispered into Riv’s ear. “Brave words, cur, and I believe that you would endure any pain inflicted upon you, but it’s dependant on how much pain your lover can endure seeing inflicted upon you.”

She inclined her head to the brute again. “Don’t stop until I give the word.” Azet walked towards Kaitlin’s chair and stopped at her side. She laid a clawed hand on her shoulder and bent down until her head was line with Kat’s. “Only you can stop his suffering, weak one. What will it be?”

Kat remained silent as the brute reigned down blows on Riv’s back.

“Be quick about your decision, human. He doesn’t have to die, but it will be on your head if he does.”

Kat continued her silence, but tears started to well in her eyes, as the beating carried on. She could see that Riv was starting to weaken.

“All you have to do to stop this is tell me where your Master is.”

Kat turned her head to look at her until she looked directly into the Sith’s evil yellow lupine eyes. They lacked the wisdom and compassion that had been so prevalent in Flik’s eyes, they lacked the tenderness and bravery she’d seen in Riv’s, the innocence she’d seen so often in Zak’s were absent. They were the eyes of a killer without remorse, and Kat wondered for a moment what had happened to Azet to remove those qualities from hers. She swallowed to combat the tightness in her throat that would hinder her speech.

“We will die. Stop this, please,” Kat said, trying to make her words clear, but they only just made it past her throat.

“That will be his fate if you continue to refuse to co-operate and lie. If you want it to stop, all you have to do is tell me where your Master, Flik Sivrak, is.”

Kaitlin considered her response. Riv had drifted into unconsciousness. Should she betray Flik and Shiba? She couldn’t bear never to look in Riv’s eyes again. Besides, Flik would probably be able to take care of himself. Forgive me, Master.

“He’s here, on Ord Mantell,” Kat swallowed, hoping that she had done the right thing.

“Thank you for your co-operation, human. Leave him and tell those guards to take them back to their cell. We have the information we need.”

CHAPTER 12

Flik brought the swoop to a standstill, cut the engines and looked over his shoulder at Shiba.

“It shouldn’t be far from here,” Flik said. “The place where the Imps picked Kat up is down that street just around the corner.”

“Okay,” Shiba said, dismounting the swoop. “I’m ready for this.”

Flik shut down the swoop’s navigation system; the one linked to the Warrior and tossed her the electronic key. Shiba caught it without fumbling. Flik started moving off in the direction he’d indicated.

“The area may still be crawling with Imps, so I want you to stay here.”

Shiba caught his arm, forcing him to stop in his tracks and turned to face her.

“Not likely, Sivrak. That’s exactly the reason you need me to go with you. I don’t want a repeat of what happened the last time we were on Nar Shaddaa.”

Flik regarded her for a moment or two and scratched his chin. Of course, if he got captured, that would leave Shiba on her own to spring him and Kat out, unless she contacted the rest of the Ackley for help, but they were occupied with their own mission, with the Rebel Alliance trying to prevent an invasion by an alien reptilian species at Bakura. They were on their own.

“Point taken,” Flik replied. “Watch my back.”

Shiba released her grip on Flik’s arm and followed close behind him. They used the darkness to cloak them, as they got closer to the scene of Kat’s capture. They soon recognised the spot where the disturbance had taken place, as Riv Shiel’s home was a burnt out ruin. Flik stopped and crouched down beside a length of overgrown hedges, gesturing Shiba to do the same. He’d caught the scent of humans in Stormtrooper armour and waited until the two Stormtroopers given the task of guarding the scene to keep the curious at bay, came into view. The original perpetrators seemed to be long gone.

“Only two there,” Flik told Shiba, trying to keep his voice low so they wouldn’t be detected. “I’ll circle round, you take them from the front. I want them alive; they might know something.”

“Careful,” Shiba mouthed, quietly.

Flik headed off, a moving shadow in the night. Shiba watched him until his dark mass had melted into the darkness. Then she turned her attention back to the Stormtroopers. She wondered if she should try to creep closer, or wait until Flik began his attack, as she didn’t want to leave it so late that she would have trouble getting to him in time if something unforeseen happened, but neither did she want to alert them to the forthcoming attack prematurely. So she sat and waited, and despised the fact that she’d decided to wait.

CHAPTER 13

After leaving Shiba, Flik circled around to the back of the row of buildings containing the dwelling that had once belonged to the Shistavanen picked up with Kat. His dark fur and his natural ability to stalk helped him to blend into the dark. Excitement caused by the act of hunting began to rise within him, which he pushed back down to control his instinctive impatience and concentrated on avoiding any patches of light to conceal his movement that laid between him and his goal.

He ducked down the narrow pathway that separated one row of houses and the next. There was no garden to speak back here; just the dreary filth that came with low-grade housing that was commonplace in the sprawl of most cities in the galaxy. Strange, noxious smells assaulted his nose and obscured his ability to scent any would-be onlookers. There was no way of telling if he’d been seen from any of the darkened windows, but considering the neighbourhood, he took comfort in the fact that if anyone had clocked him, they would mind their own business as many inhabitants of slums such as this wouldn’t want to draw attention to themselves. It was more than likely that any of its residents would have cleared out of the area if they possessed any sense of self-preservation during or after the recent disturbance, but caution was still best maintained in the circumstances.

He mentally ticked off the buildings as he past them, so that he knew when he came to the right house. All of the houses along this stretch and for several blocks around were single storey, that is, they had no upstairs floor, though there were steps he noticed going up to the flat roof, that in some ways made up for the lack of gardens.

Flik began to understand how a thief like Kat Ros had found their trade so easy in Ord Mantell, except for the fact that anyone who’d had anything worth stealing would have gotten out of these shacks along time ago.

It was relatively easy for him to scramble up the stairs, but his profile would still be too conspicuous unless he shuffled along the rooftop on his belly, so he made sure he crawled along when he got to the top of the stairs.

Once he’d reached the front of the building, he discovered that the Stormtroopers were still hanging around there. At the sight of his intended prey, Flik had to repress his initial urge to attack then. Common sense restored, Flik concluded that he needed to give Shiba the opportunity to get into a better position.

He recalled seeing or more accurately, scenting an overflowing garbage dumpster at the back of the house next to Riv Shiel’s, and an idea formed in his mind. Concentrating hard, Flik was rewarded with the clattering sound made by the dumpster as it tipped over.

He opened eyes he’d not realised he’d closed and saw the white clad Stormtroopers leave their post to investigate.

Come on, Shib, his thoughts urged her.

A satisfied grin creased his muzzle as he saw Shiba’s silhouette cross the open ground and hunker down on the other side of the wall.

He gave the predatory instincts he’d been suppressing free reign as he waited for the Stormtrooper’s return.

CHAPTER 14

It would have been a hell of a lot simpler, she concluded, if they didn’t have to take them alive, but as they had so little to go on to begin with, any info they could obtain would be most welcome.

Then she was in luck, as both of the Stormtroopers, seeing that nothing was amiss, (oh just how wrong they were), moved off to inspect another part of the grounds. Moving swiftly, silently and keeping low, Shiba used the shadows to cross the distance between the hedge and the pile of blocks that had once made up the wall surrounding Riv Shiel’s home. She crouched in the shadows there, letting her breathing and pounding heart come back down to normal levels. She’d gotten back undercover just in time, as she heard the Stormtroopers come back around to the front.

She used that time of inactivity to inaudibly draw her blaster and braced herself to be ready for the time when Flik began his attack. It seemed like an age and Shiba began to worry that Flik had miscalculated the numbers of Stormtroopers and got himself killed, or captured, when a commotion exploded on the opposite side of the wall.

Shiba reacted in an instant and vaulted over the ruins of the wall. Flik, she saw had wrestled one of the troopers to the ground and was delivering him a blow to his now un-helmeted head that knocked him out. Shiba’s momentum had knocked the second trooper to the floor and she was now wrestling with him to get his helmet off. Breathing heavily, Flik trained his blaster on the struggling trooper and he stopped all resistance and allowed Shiba to remove his helmet. Shiba opened her med kit and took out a syringe which she used to pump the downed trooper full of a drug that would render him unconscious and then she moved on to the one Flik had knocked out, injecting him as insurance against him coming round.

“How long will it take for that stuff to wear off?”

“Three, four hours. It’s the stuff I use on patients when they require a complicated operation.”

The wolfman grinned. “Just how did you know we needed it?”

Shiba shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t, but you never know when something like that might come in useful.”

“I’m gonna take a look around,” Flik said, inclining his head towards the ruined building. “Will you be okay dealing with these clowns?”

“They’ll be no trouble,” Shiba reassured him. “Just be careful when you’re poking around in there, okay? It doesn’t look that stable.”

He bent down to kiss her. “I’ll be fine, Shib.”

When Flik returned from the wreckage of the building, Shiba had finished trussing up the two Stormtroopers. She looked at him, catching the haunted look to his face. He sank down on the ruined wall and Shiba parked herself beside him.

“Did you find anything?” Shiba asked.

“Yes and no. The smoke from the fire has taken away any sign of Kat’s scent, but I did find these.”

He held out Kat’s lightsabre, the electronic key and a three dimensional pyramid. Shiba took the key from him first. “She was in there, as this belongs to the vehicle we hired. She must have lost it when they captured her.”

“That’s my conclusion, too. It’s all scorched, but her lightsabre isn’t – it was planted after the fire.”

“I get the key and the lightsabre, but what’s that?” Shiba asked, pointing at the pyramid.

“It’s a holocron,” the wolfman replied.

“You mean like the thing you have?”

“Yes and no,” Flik replied. “I’ll explain later.”

“You found something else in there, didn’t you?”

Flik nodded silently. He couldn’t give voice to what he had seen.

“Dam it, Flik. Tell me what you saw! Kat’s not dead in there, is she?” Shiba bounced up off the wall and circled around to face him directly. Still Flik remained silent.

“Tell me what else you saw in there, Sivrak!” she said, placing her hands on his shoulders. “What did you see?”

“Remains,” was Flik’s choked reply. “It was like finding Auoura all over again.” He explained to her about finding Riv Shiel’s family.

“I think it’s time we left this place,” Flik said, pushing himself up off the wall. Shiba draped an arm around him, understanding first hand what he’d just gone through. A similar experience had happened to her recently, when she discovered that the Empire had been building a new Death Star. In spite of all the times he’d tried to hide or control his emotions in the light of him being Jedi, or his appearance of seemingly invulnerability, the wolfman could still be affected by things such as that. If he weren’t, then he’d be no different to Palpatine himself.

“What about these guys?” Shiba asked, gesturing towards the unconscious Stormtrooper guards.

“Leave them. We don’t need them anymore. I want you to recover those remains, instead, just in case our friend who was taken with Kat is still alive. He deserves the chance to mourn them properly. After that, we go back to the Warrior and see if we can’t sort this mess out.”

CHAPTER 15

“So, you going to tell me what this is about?” Shiba asked, pointing at the holocron on the table in the galley. Miraculously, Shiba had been able to restock their hot chocolate supplies and she figured that now was the time to bring it up again. They had finished working with the remains, having stored them in the preservation compartments they’d used during their time as bounty hunters. It seemed strange that they were now being used to help someone, rather than being used for storing bounties. Though neither of them really felt like eating, Shiba had retrieved two packets of those unappealing survival rations after she’d finished her work. As she’d been dealing with that, Flik had moved the Warrior from the spaceport.

“It’s clear to me that the holocron and the lightsabre were left deliberately for me to find,” Flik said, sitting opposite her.

“I’d pretty much worked that out for myself, Flik. What I meant was, what could it contain?”

“Good question. You already know that the Jedi used holocrons as teaching devices, as you’ve seen from the one I possess.”

“Yes, but you’re going to tell me there’s a different purpose to this one, aren’t you?” Shiba asked, picking at the congealing mess that was her survival ration. Her stomach lurched as it brought unwanted memories to her mind, which she forced herself to take no notice of. You had to have a strong stomach to be a doctor, after all.

“That’s correct,” Flik said, staring at his meal in the same way one would look at sludge on one’s shoes. He longed for real food…

“They were also used to carry messages between one Jedi and another. The Sith also used them.”

“Makes sense, I guess, but there’s one thing I don’t understand – I can see why they would use them as training devices, but why go through the trouble of using them to send messages when they could just as easily use a holocube. What’s the difference between one of these holocrons and a normal holocube and how can you tell a Jedi holocron from that of a Sith?”

“A holocron can only be activated by a Force-user, that’s why they are used instead of a normal holocube.”

“We can’t have smugglers and other assorted scum seeing what’s on them, I figure,” Shiba said, shovelling a mouthful of tasteless protein into her mouth.

A smile crossed Flik’s face. “Keeps politicians from prying into business that don’t concern them, either. Though if the Jedi had been on the ball more during the Clone Wars, it would have given them a better advantage.”

“There’s not much use for regret now, Flik. You were about to tell me how to tell a Jedi and Sith holocron apart.”

“The difference between them is usually the shape. A Jedi holocron is usually a cube, a sphere or a flat square or circle. A Sith holocron tends to be a pyramid, as we see here. The script you see is a language used on the Sith planet, Korriban.”

Shiba put her fork to one side and picked up the holocron so that she could have a better look at it. They were incomprehensible pictograms, or hieroglyphics. Even she could sense a kind of power radiating from them, but it also had the aura of malice around them, something she’d never thought was possible to pick up from something that was just a script, a feeling that her logical, scientific mind would have rejected until that moment. She set it back down on the table, as she couldn’t bear to handle it any longer.

“You feel its coldness, don’t you?” Flik asked her.

“It might sound silly, but just handling it fills me with dread. I’d much rather deal with what we have stored back in the cargo bay than look at that thing.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but it certainly runs cold fingers down your spine.”

“Do you know what it says?”

Flik shook his lupine head and Shiba caught a hint of relief in his voice when he replied. “No. Though my Master Naja taught me enough about the Sith to recognise their symbols and where they come from, he forbade me to learn their meanings as he thought knowledge of them would corrupt me. Sometimes, over the years, I wonder if even being able to recognise them has been enough to do that.”

“I’ve always taken the view that all knowledge is neutral and it’s how you apply it that makes it good or bad.”

“That maybe true, for most things, Shiba, but there is some knowledge that should never be known. If the science of the Death Star’s superlaser hadn’t been discovered, then Alderaan would not have been destroyed.”

“I see your point, Flik. Do you think our mystery Shistavanen, the one picked up with Kat, could be our Sith?”

“No,” Flik said. “Though I have an inkling of who it might be. During my time as a padawan and as a Knight, there was three other Shistavanen Jedi in the Order. One was my own father, killed by Vader. The second was another male Shistavanen, but he was killed in the Clone Wars. I don’t recall his name, however. The final one was a lupa, well, she wasn’t even that. Her name was Azet. I’d always thought that she’d died during the Purge.”

“So you think that it’s this Azet?”

“From what Rivik spoke to me about just before the Battle at Endor, it’s a possibility.”

“There’s only one way to find out. Activate the holocron.”

“You’re right. Let’s find out what this whole mess is about,” Flik said, reaching forwards to grasp the holocron in his hand. He closed his eyes, concentrated for a second or two and the holocron flared to life. The holocron opened up like a flower head, its triangular sides lying perpendicular to the top of the table.

He opened his eyes to see an ethereal female Shistavanen, around eight years his junior, staring back at him. He let out a gasp as he recognised her as the padawan he’d saved at the arena on Geonosis, and he wondered for the first time since that day if he had acted right. But that question was mote now, merely academic, as though he’d pretty much liked to, the past events could never be changed.

“Greetings, Shirak, the deserter. You should know who I am, but if you don’t recall, I’ll remind you – I am Azet. You have no idea the amount of trouble I’ve been through to track you down – Lyet, your sister, as already been dealt with, though your niece and nephew gave me the slip. I hear that there is no need for me to track down Lak, as he eliminated himself for me, at Endor. You dealt with your son with your own hand, I hear, but that sadly, won’t save you. By now you’ve probably already guessed that I hold your whelp of a Jedi. If you wish to see her again, you will come to the co-ordinates written on the side of this holocron. Your time limit is 14 days. Fruitful hunting, Jedi.”

Her image disappeared back into the holocron as its sides closed up.

“That’s just great – she gives you co-ordinates in a language you can’t decipher.”

“She’s just messing with us, that’s all. Perhaps Lobo will be able to decode them, as he did belong to my father. Just because Jedi don’t know it’s meaning - ”

“I get the picture, Flik, but what if Lobo has nothing of this in his files?”

Flik looked at her, his ears lying flat against his skull. “Then we have a problem.”

“I’m whacked. We didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m going to get some rest.”

“Best idea you’ve had all day, Shib.”