Power and Betrayal: Chapter 28

"...and so by strength of willpower alone you can resist the flow of the Unifying Force and alter reality to your own command. Divert gravity around a rock and you can lift it. Slow time within your own body and you can hold your breath for long periods. Push friction to its limits and you can direct a discharge of electrical energy at an enemy. These things and many others are done by every Sith and Jedi, even the untrained to a degree. The vast majority of them go no farther."

"But . . . not you I take it?"

"The Dread Masters took defiance of the Unifying Force to another level entirely. You are familiar with lightsabers, are you not?"

"All Jedi are. But in MY case, . . . to be honest it's more of a symbol than an actual weapon."

"This is a good thing, at least for this specific situation. Think of yourself as the crystal that is the weapon's heart. By itself, it has an energy and a presence in the Force all it's own. In the hands of ones such as ourselves, it becomes a focusing point . . . an extension of our will. Just by carrying it on your person, you become stronger, if only a bit. Your song in the great chorus of voices is clearer, more distinct."

"Yes, that's one advantage the Jedi have over the Sith: we choose our crystals carefully and act in harmony with them, rather than dominate and bleed them into . . . I don't know . . . something like a slave."

"Perhaps, but you miss my intention. Activate that lightsaber, and the crystal transforms from something that merely exists into a powerful conduit of energy drawn from outside itself. The saber as a whole transforms from being a mere object of curiosity into something far beyond the sum of its parts--something powerful and deadly and beautiful."

"I'm not sure I like how you pair up 'deadly' and 'beautiful' together like that, but you're talking about channeling power from a Force Nexus, aren't you?"

"Indeed. And IF you are able to use your own strength and willpower to focus enough energy with enough precision, you'll no longer simply resist the flow of the Unifying Force and alter reality. Instead, you will cut through it like a lightsaber, and create a new reality of your own choosing, with YOUR will--and your will alone--determining what will and will not be."

"That sounds . . . really dangerous . . . like destroy-an-entire-planet dangerous."

"Oh, it most certainly IS, my dear, . . . for the weak. But you are NOT weak, are you?"

It wasn't quite morning yet, but Dina was already awake--because she'd just had one of the nightmares again, and was too shaken up to be able to settle down and go back to sleep in the little time she had before daylight would come.

They'd begun during the night that she'd spent with Kendsel, or at least that's when they'd become vivid enough to frighten her. In truth, she'd actually had the first one on the way back from Malachor--they just didn't start affecting her like this until that night. It was something about being that close to him for that long and feeling connected to him the whole time.

In these nightmares, she was back on Malachor fighting the Sith inside his barrier. It didn't really feel like it was her doing the fighting, even though she knew it was; but that feeling of being cut off from the entire known universe was incredibly familiar--a weird combination of frightening and sickening that she knew she'd never forget. But as similar as they always began, the nightmares would all unfold differently.

Each time it was some variation of this dream-land version of herself trying to defeat the Sith as he used his many blades against her. She was both observer and participant in these dreams, thinking her own thoughts and at the same time knowing the thoughts of the other. She would fight, she would defend herself, she would try to accomplish her mission. She would advise the other what to do and listen to the other's advice as she fought.


She would fail.


Over and over again, she would fail. And despite that, every night (occasionally multiple times per night), she would find herself trapped inside that tiny ball of nothingness trying something else. Sometimes she could remember bits and pieces of what she'd dreamed before and use that knowledge, but not very often. The only things that seemed to stick out in her memory were things that she'd tried that were out-of-character for her, like being aggressive rather than defensive, or trying to find and exploit his fears rather than protecting him from himself. It felt wrong, but at the same time it proved brutally effective against someone whose mind was already broken.


But each night she would fail again and again. Each night she would experience the painful sensation of some part of her being brutally stabbed, crushed, impaled, or severed from her body, waking up just as the killing blow would be landed.

But now, awake again, she sat up and meditated, trying to make sense of it all. She would think back, reliving what had happened. He had trapped her. He had managed to land a pretty severe strike to her right leg (which was healing nicely now, although she could still feel a bit of soreness from the metal splint that had to be inserted). She had broken open the barrier and shattered the massive crystal embedded in the core of the rock formation on which they fought. She had even lost her cool--something out-of-character for her--and gotten absolutely vicious with him by using the Force to project several large chunks of rock at him in sequence. THAT was something she'd never done before that day.

In the end, she killed him. She very much had NOT wanted to have to do that. Like all Jedi, she respected all life, but in this case it was something more than just that.

Back inside that barrier, she was cut off from from the Force itself, which meant being cut off from all life everywhere . . . except him. Inside that barrier, he was the only other living thing that existed for her (at least, apart from some traces of algae on the dry rocks and scattered bacteria). It was scary and it was repulsive, but it was also strangely intimate. Inside that barrier, he was the only other person who existed, her only companion through that experience, and the only person in that moment that stood between her and mind-destroying, soul-crushing loneliness. Without him, she would have been totally, utterly, alone.

She very much did NOT want to have to kill him.

In a twisted way, she missed him.

The flight to Belsavis from Tython had been uneventful, but it also hadn't taken place on board Scoundrel's Vacation and Kari had just been another passenger rather than the pilot--along with Lord Zarvell, Zedemm, Kinnan, Galadina, and of course Dianiss herself, who was incapacitated in the transport capsule and floating peacefully in the sedative Bacta solution.

The end of the trip, on the other hand, had become a sudden burst of drama when the Warden had refused to issue clearance to land. "JEDI?!? No way!" he'd exclaimed. "Nothing but bad things happen when Jedi come here. A bunch of . . . "Ex-ta" . . . or whatever . . . prisoners getting released without authorization, some scientist suddenly becoming a full-on mass-murderer, some giant franging Rakata causing trouble, another franging giant monster running around loose . . . and don't get me started on that time the whole planet was almost incinerated! And it ONLY happens . . . when YOU GUYS show up." His rant ended with him pointing at the screen with the most accusatory facial expression possible.

Much to his disappointment a short time later, his discretionary authority got overruled after Galadina--now a member of the Jedi High Council--contacted the Chancellor's office. That, of course, only amplified his grumpy disposition.

The group had checked in at the main office as protocol required, and waited patiently while the staff searched the ship . . . slowly . . . but were eventually permitted to move their cargo--a "Sith" named "Dianiss"--onto a planetary shuttle.

A middle-aged man in a correctional officer's uniform named Lt. Hopper had introduced himself and, along with 3 other medical technicians, took charge of the prisoner transfer and personally piloted the shuttle into the deeper sections where they could enter the only facility known (and tested) to be able to hold the most exceptionally-powerful and dangerous Force-users.

As the capsule holding Dianiss was unloaded from the shuttle and transferred into the vault, Dina could feel Dianiss' presence, strong and clear, even though she was unconscious and showing minimal brain activity on the medical monitors. Lord Kallig's presence was there, too, just barely, like a dim flickering flame within a sea of bright light, trying to resist the sedatives and wake up, but unable to overrule Dianiss' conscious decision to go to sleep willingly.

The technicians worked quickly to attach the capsule to the stasis pod (the same one, in fact, that had formerly held Dread Master Brontes), with a large, flexible tube wide enough for her to be pulled through with the robotic arms on the inside. Once moved, they removed one of the two identical hoses that connected her breath mask back to the capsule and in its place connected a similar hose from the stasis chamber.

As the technicians prepared to transfer control from the portable capsule to the vault's stasis chamber, Dina put a hand on the side of the chamber and whispered to it, wishing that Dianiss could hear her. "I'm so sorry, Dianiss. Please forgive me. I didn't want to have to do this, but this is where you need to be." she said, like a prayer that she knew would go unheard but still said anyway.

"Master Jedi, we're ready to transfer life-support control now." one of the medical technicians said.

"Go ahead." Dina answered.

The technicians finished the final steps of activating life-support, bringing up a series of displays on the side of the chamber showing Dianiss' medical information. Everything looked normal. With the stasis chamber's life-support operational, the technicians shut down the capsule's life-support functions and removed the last of the wires and tubes that connected back to the transport capsule, and finally sealed the chamber.

"We're all finished here, Master Jedi." Lt. Hopper announced. "The rest is up to you."

"Thank you." Dina replied, then turned to Kinnan. "Master Sig-lapp, I'll leave the final activation to you."

Kinnan's voice took on a formal tone as he spoke, mostly for the benefit of the technicians who had stepped back to allow him to officially carry out the sentence. "By order of the Jedi Council, this prisoner has been tried and found guilty, and sentenced to to imprisonment in stasis for the protection of everyone around her, including herself, for an indefinite period of time. On behalf of the Jedi Council, I hereby carry out the sentence." He quickly entered a code on the chamber's controls and pressed a large green button, fully powering up the stasis chamber and locking it out from being opened again without a series of authorization codes.

After the loud but low-pitched hum built up to a crescendo, there was a sudden flash inside the chamber, and everything quieted down again. Dianiss was now engulfed in a pocket of hyperspace and no longer being held inside normal space. Galadina realized it immediately when the sensation of Dianiss' presence--well, not exactly disappeared but dropped off dramatically, as if she were suddenly an astronomically long distance away.

Kari was trying to keep up a strong, stoic appearance like Zarvell and Zedemm were doing, but little by little was losing the battle to hold back her own sobbing. She, too, felt the sudden disappearance of Dianiss, and that shock proved to be more than she could bear. Zedemm placed a hand on her shoulder, and she reacted by immediately spinning around and burying her face against his chest.

While all eyes were on Kinnan for those few moments, Zarvell was keenly watching Kinnan's own eyes--or rather the facial areas immediately around them. The subtle muscle movements betrayed that he was, at the same time, using his ocular implants for . . . something. Zarvell couldn't know exactly what, but he had a pretty good idea, given Agent Violet's recent report.

--

"I'm kind of enjoying being a Jedi." she had said while transmitting the data. "Maybe I should take it up full-time. Wanna be my Padawan? Oh, I can teach you all about control . . . and endurance. You do want to please your new Master, don't you?"

Zarvell had ignored her suggestive banter--as usual--while studying the source code as it came in. It was, as he'd expected, a program to subvert the visitation system and connect the six chambers together with each other rather than a visitor's holo-console. "Yes, this will do nicely." he said mostly to himself. "Pity. It would be useful to use it to insert a message as well, but the risk is unacceptably high and I'm currently calculating an 88% chance that it's entirely unnecessary, given the particular talents of the one who'll be inside."

--

"I want to talk to her!" Kari suddenly blurted out. "You told us we'd be able to say our goodbyes, Master Gida'dia."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible." Dina calmly responded.

"What do you mean 'won't be possible'?!?" Kari shouted back. "The whole point of us coming along was to be able to visit with her."

"No, it was for you to be able to say your goodbyes--not converse with her. In fact, now would be a good time for that. I'll leave you alone now so--"

"HEY! Lawyer-man." Kari said to Zarvell. All of her grief had now completely converted into anger. "Tell this shutta that Republic prisoners are allowed to have visitors."

"This does seem irregular." Zedemm interjected.

"I'm sorry, but I'm uncertain of the relevant regulations." Zarvell said in response, trying to be as calming and diplomatic as he could.

"YOU THERE!" Kari shouted, ignoring Zarvell. "Hopper! What's the rule about visitors here?"

Lt. Hopper, suddenly finding himself being dragged into the argument, also tried to be as calming and diplomatic as possible. "The regulations do say that any prisoner can receive visitors. There are limitations, of course, but all of you have already been approved to enter this facility. I'm sorry, Master Jedi," he said, turning toward Galadina, "...but I have to say that she's correct."

"I like you!" Kari said quickly to Lt. Hopper.

Kinnan spoke up. "I . . . don't have any objections, Master Galadina."

Dina tried to give him a quick look that said No, but she--like most Miraluka--wasn't very good at such subtleties. It didn't help that the person she'd intended to receive her little message didn't have eyes either.

"Lieutenant, I appreciate your assistance here," Dina said, taking a different approach, "...but this is an internal Jedi matter and she is not--under the law--a prisoner of the Galactic Republic. Officially, she's in the custody of the Jedi Order and so the Jedi High Council sets the policy here, just as it did for the Dread Masters. As the Council's Representative Member here, I am saying No."

"You know...." Kari said with contempt, "For such a little thing, you sure do throw your weight around a lot." Kari made a point of standing close enough to Dina, who was almost a head shorter than Kari, so that she could look down at her to underscore her point.

"Indeed." Zedemm added, making his disappointment crystal-clear.

Dina softened her tone and addressed Kari directly. "C'mon, Kari. Don't you think it would be better for her to remain unconscious, and unaware of where she is? If we wake her up, she's going to know. Do you REALLY want to do that to her?"

Kinnan DID notice the irony in what Galadina had just said.

"I do NOT like YOU." Kari said to Galadina with obvious venom in her voice. She just stared at Dina with more anger than she'd felt in a very long time.

"I'm afraid I have to agree with the Master Jedi." Zarvell interjected.

"WHAT?!?" Kari shouted out, instantly diverting her ire to Zarvell.

Zarvell stared right back at her, standing firm but not looking the tiniest bit angry. "She is my daughter, and I love my children more than anything else in this life. I have devoted more of that life to protecting her than anything else. What has happened here is tragic and I never wished this for her, but I still want what is--under the circumstances, grim though they are--best for her." There was an unmistakable sincerity in his voice.

Kari's anger melted back into grief, with tears welling up again. Angry or not, she loved Dianiss too.

"We will find another way." he said. "I promise."

Continue to Chapter 29 . . . .