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

Chapter 40: "Just remember: I'll do all I can to help you."

Captain Pina waited as the Imperial medical droid attended to the Assayer. His uniform was again stained with blood and his damaged arm ached with the effort he had made to lift her onto her bed a half hour before. Still, he was encouraged by the feeling in his limb: the damaged bone was healing well, and as quickly as could be expected under the impressive technologies of the Empire.

The door to the officers medical ward slid open. The blue-coloured droid emerged.

"Well?" Pina asked. "How is she?"

"She has lost a lot of blood, Captain," the droid explained. "And her body shows signs of considerable damage over many years. But she is strong. She will make a full recovery, once she is rested."

"Did you look for any physiological abnormalities as I instructed?" He had ordered the droid to do so, desperate to see if the results could explain the abilities that he had witnessed from the Scythe's log.

"The patient has been subject to certain . . . procedures, shall we say."

"Procedures? What do you mean by that?"

"She is twenty four years old, but her cells, her telomeres, have been doctored. She will not live past her thirtieth year. We found a self-destruct genetic modification that has been added in her DNA within the last ten years. And she is unable to have children of her own - a deliberate sterilisation."

Pina found himself unable to speak. He had heard about such procedures before, but he had always believed they were conspiracy theories without substance.

He swallowed. "Do you think she knows about this?"

"I cannot say. I would think it unlikely however."

"Are they reversible?"

"Not from any technology we have aboard the Reaver. The genetic manipulation is very advanced. Perhaps the doctors on Coruscant might be able to prevent the sequence from activating, but I cannot be certain."

"And you cannot say who did this to her?"

"I cannot, Captain."

The cruelty of what had been done to the Assayer disturbed him. Yet in an obscene way he perceived the logic behind it: it was all about control.

He was sickened by it.

The droid walked across the ward toward another door. "I shall have the patient's equipment sent up to you, sir, as you requested. But you enquired about the young lady who was taken from the planet's surface. Come."

Pina followed the droid into another room. A woman lay in a medical capsule, either asleep or sedated, he could not tell. But she was young. Probably only eighteen. Her youthful face was covered in grazes, and her brown hair, done in the royal tradition favoured by the Elder households across the galaxy, was tied in two buns on either side of her head.

"How is she?" Pina asked, his mind full of interest about what the Assayer could want with such a person.

"She is concussed, and she has several broken bones. By the time she wakes, these will most likely be healed. But we have detected a drug in her system: she was sedated before she was brought aboard."

"By the Assayer?"

"I do not know. The drugs we have administered might act as a stimulant for her. We needed to speed up her body's functions for the healing to start."

A discreet ping sounded on the medical capsule's console. A light changed colour. To Captain Pina it was incomprehensible.

"She is waking, Captain," the droid said. "But I doubt for very long."

The young woman's eyes flickered open. She looked at Pina, her gaze unfocused.

"You are safe," Pina told her softly, painfully aware that the blood on the front of his uniform did little to build any trust in such a statement.

"W-where?" she mumbled.

"You are aboard the Reaver. I am its captain. Captain Pina."

She took a deep breath and her eyes closed.

Pina turned to the droid. "Leave us," he ordered. "I wish to ask our guest a few questions."

The medical droid obeyed. Only when the door shut and they were alone did Pina speak again. When he did so, he knelt close to her face.

"Ella?" he said. "That is your name, isn't it? You are a ward of King Garrand's? Adopted as a princess to Farsalt?"

The eyes opened again.

"Ella?" she repeated. "I'm . . ." she exhaled with obvious effort. Her eyes closed again and then she looked at Pina once more. "Ella?"

"Yes. We haven't much time. I gave your king a promise when I last spoke to him. I said I'd protect you as much as I could. I said I'd look after you. Do you understand that, Ella?"

"I . . . think so. But . . ."

"Don't speak. Don't worry about anything. Just remember: I'll do all I can to help you. You can trust me."

He stood and watched as her eyes fell shut, and this time, they didn't open. She slept once more.

Pina watched her for a long moment, aware that the promise he had given the king of Farsalt when they had last spoken might be beyond his capacity to keep.

No! He would keep that promise. He would find a way to do it. Such a woman, a girl even, could not warrant the Empire's wrath.

His comm sounded.

"Captain, we have received a signal from Farsalt," Lieutenant Cody from communications relayed. "It's delayed, perhaps by as much as two hours due to problems with the HoloNet, and–"

"What does it say, Lieutenant?" Pina asked angrily.

"Sir. Commodore Sarn and his command ship Assassin have entered the system and taken up position above the planet. They have two other star destroyers with them."

Cramps formed in the pit of his stomach.

"Do they say what Sarn wants?"

"No sir. The message was cut off. I suspect the Commodore has jammed the rest of the broadcast."

Pina remained silent. He thought of Farsalt, of the millions of refugees, of the king and his family. Of the Lady Jish.

He was suddenly very afraid.

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Again, the Empire's obsession with control is shown through the genetic modifications of the Assayer. It is a deep compromise that Pina is risking, by giving 'Ella' his word even though he knows the system he works within would place little store on his promise.