Star Wars: Heir to the Sith (Part 1) (#Wattys2018 shortlist)

Chapter 39: As she passed out, she knew she had no choice.

"The Emperor is dead," Darth Vader told her. "An Assayer betrayed and murdered him. Titus Perdition and his acolytes must be hunted down and destroyed. Together, we will do it."

"My Lord, I went to the Cirdym system as you commanded. Assayer Perdition was waiting for me! I only barely escaped. My crew are dead and my ship lost . . ."

The pain from her wounds crippled Neerada suddenly. She fell face down, in total supplication to the holographic image of her tutor and lord.

Vader said nothing.

Angry and embarrassed at demonstrating such weakness, she glanced up at the impassive figure, expecting a reprimand, seeking with the force to probe his feelings.

But as before, there was nothing.

"Go to the Taneeth system. Wait for me on the installation there," Vader commanded her. "I will meet you in the Executor when I can."

"The Executor, my Lord? I have heard that it was lost."

Vader simply stared.

"The Taneeth system. Don't fail me, Assayer."

The transmission ended.

Assayer Neerada gasped the question she had been dying to ask but had been too afraid to: "Are you alive, my Lord? What happened over Endor?"

She cried from the agony of her injuries. She needed air. The helm had become stifling.

She unfastened it and let it drop to the floor of her cabin. When she touched her wounds, she found she was bleeding anew.

"Captain Pina," she growled into her commlink. "Attend me."

She thought back to Commander Falaise of the ISB. She had trusted him for years, never deigning to delete his memory. And it had seemingly worked. He had never betrayed her.

Could Pina be trusted too?

Neerada searched her feelings about the man. She realised at once that her experience of sentient beings had been forged amongst the very extremes of their lives: when they were fighting, or dying, or lying severely injured next to dead comrades. When they were pleading for mercy, sometimes from her. From one war zone to the next, her life had been a constant stream of hunts, executions, and strife.

Was this life? Was the feeling of fear and agony and hatred that the insects all experienced so often the natural state of their existence? Was it destined to be hers too?

"The girl," she mumbled. "When she wakes, I will know how different it might have been."

She heard the door to her suite open and heard Pina's voice. Then she heard urgent words in his tone, though she could not understand the words themselves.

He was beside her, gently turning her face toward his own.

No one had seen her face knowingly for years. She had no idea how he perceived her. For it was a face she would be hard put to recognise herself.

"Help me . . ." she gasped. "Help me."

She was aware of his arms around her as she was lifted onto the bed.

Could she trust Captain Pina?

As she passed out, she knew she had no choice.

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Neerada is challenging her own beliefs of the Force and of the state of the galaxy in her moment of need. I especially like the way her own regard to the lives of other sentient beings, 'the insects' as she refers to them, has been forged almost elusively in moments of war and strife. Able to perceive their emotions, her experience of other beings for all her adult life has been of distress, hate and fear. She has rarely in this time, if ever, experienced any compassion and certainly not love. In effect, her power in the Force has been used to turn her into this being, by limiting her exposure to entirely negative experiences to the extent that she regards it as the norm of the insects. If this is all she is exposed to, is it any wonder she is this way?