(no subject)
So this is the first chapter of "Purpose Beyond Redemption" I think I'm happy with it. Just need editing and feedback.
There was no life in the apartment overlooking the skyline of Coruscant. There was a man, but there was no life, just existence. No noise came from the holovid, no light seeped from under the doors, and no sounds of movement. Nothing at all indicated that someone lived there. The air within the apartment was dark and heavy, a feeling that was reflected by the man sitting in the sill of the open window. He looked down at the sprawling metropolis and the bustling life and noise just echoed against him. He was empty. No matter how many bottles of Corellian whiskey he went through, nothing within him stirred. There was no slurred speech, no stumbling about, or fevered ranting. No matter how many glasses he poured, there was no effect. They didn’t fill the hole aching inside him, did nothing to cool the smoldering anger. There was just emptiness, where life used to be. Carth Onasi was a shell of a man.
His skin was slick with the alcohol-induced fever as he continued to stare out his lonely apartment window. It had been days since he had eaten anything with real substance, and it seemed as though he had spent just as long contemplating in the window. There were no thoughts of suicide filling him, just an aching emptiness. Beyond that emptiness was a slow, smoldering anger, one that Carth had long learned to suppress. It was that anger that got him placed on an “extended leave of absence” from the Republic Admiralty. It was that anger that caused him to try and hijack a Republic Starship, and according to the report his plan was to “try and shove it down that schutta Saul’s throat.” It hadn’t been pretty, and after a night of sleeping it off in the Republic brig he had been told to go home and rest. But there was no rest for him, his only purpose was revenge, and it seemed he would never get that revenge. Until his holovid rang.
It took him several minutes to register the sound; he had almost forgotten what it sounded like. He hastened to put several empty bottles out of view of the holovid screen before he placed himself before it, unconsciously standing at military rest. The screen flickered to life and the image of an older woman wavered before him, even though the image was solid blue he recognized her and her Republic uniform immediately. There was a slight stirring of excitement in his breast, and he quickly squashed it down. No reason to raise his hopes for nothing.
“Greetings, Admiral Dodonna,” Carth answered, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“A little of this a little of that, how are you holding up?” The older woman’s eyes misted with pity, Carth hated that look. He always got that look from everyone. He was beginning to hate their sympathy, and it never did anything to ease the ache within.
“About as well as can be expected, Admiral,” he responded stiffly, feeling that familiar void of emotion pass over him. It made it easier to handle empty condolences and reassures of “It is the way of the Force,” that offered him no comfort.
“I see. Well, I’m sure you know this wasn’t much of a social call.”
“I gathered as much from the uniform, Dodonna. Social calls don’t usually involve full dress.”
A real smile passed across Dodonna’s face, “Yes, I should have known that I couldn’t get anything past Carth Onasi. To get straight to the point, because I know how you like to be direct: you’ve been reactivated.”
That cold anger uncoiled in his gut and grumbled at him like a hungry beast, “Reactivated?”
“Yes, we have a mission for you. The Republic has granted a command ship to Jedi Council. They’re conducting some sort of scouting mission, and we’re providing personnel for them. We want you there in an advisory position to their Commander.”
“A scouting mission?” Carth furrowed his brow in confusion, “So why do they need Republic assistance?”
“The Jedi in charge of the mission is Jedi Bastila.”
The beast within him was growling now, its cold anger creeping through his veins and warmed him to his core. Bastila and her Battle Meditation. Being around Bastila would bring fighting. Fighting would mean Sith. Sith meant Saul. That desire for revenge tore through him, singing promises to him that he struggled to hide from Dodonna.
For a long moment he just stared at Dodonna.
“Where do I report in?”
*****************
There were voices… and there was blackness surrounding her, choking her, and she didn’t have a name… This realization struck her more than the aching cold darkness she was floating in….”Why don’t I have a name?” She thought and the whispers grew louder, “If they would shut up long enough I could remember…”
The voices grew, and her head ached. Their soft cadence stabbed into her mind… probing and searching…the buzz grew louder and she clapped her hands over her ears to keep them out.
”STOP IT!” she screamed into the void, the echo coming back and knocking her to her knees. Part of her was amused, how can she fall to her knees if there is nothing to stand on?
This is the only way, I FEEL it.
The voices were clearer now, but they still hurt… molten carbonite being poured through her ears and into her mind…freezing and burning at the same time, acid coursing down the invisible channels of her mind.
What if it just brings the Dark Lord back?
There must be another way…
Whatever it was, she just wanted them to leave her alone. Whatever they were talking about, she had nothing to do with it. Didn’t she?
This is our only hope. I can handle it. I swear to you. Give me a chance.
The conviction in that voice tightened around her, possessive and tight, crushing her with an almost physical vice. It hurts to breathe… and my head… why are they in my head?
Very well, and remember what she was, what she could become again. Do not let her fall again. Be always mindful of the Path of the Dark Side. Once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destinies.
Suddenly the void opened, and she saw light. It pulled to her. It promised her no more voices and no more pain. She would be able to breathe again. She struggled towards that light like a drowning man floundering to break to the surface of water. Suddenly, without warning, the light streaked forward, blurring together like star lines in hyperspace. It blinded her, and tears stung her eyes as she was thrust forward…. What was my name? Images rushed at her too quickly to comprehend, filling her until she was overflowing, her mind full of their heady scents and sensations. What was her name?
Koren Renata.
**********
I would rather be buffing the floors of a Rancor pit than be here right now. Being back on board a command ship wasn’t the dream he was hoping it to be, although he felt more alive these past few weeks than he had in over two years. His constant source of irritation: Bastila Shan. Bastila had to be the most annoying Jedi that Carth had ever met. If he had known what he was signing up for, he would’ve run for the hills. Babysitting a prideful Jedi was the last thing on his list of “fun things to do.” She was headstrong, and while she was in charge of the Endar Spire, she had no head for strategy or military thinking. Bastila just ordered everyone around and glowered when it took too long or they didn’t understand her. She was very young as well, and for some reason it made worse her “immortality and know-it-all” attitude of youth. Carth was on board in an advisory position, but any advice he tried to give her was answered with disdain.
As she kept clamoring on at the rear of the bridge to her Jedi entourage, Carth was beginning to think she was vying for a position as the most annoying human being as well. Barely covering a grimace, Carth leaned over his; no he corrected himself, Bastila’s Navigator. “How are we doing, Lieutenant? Still on course for Dantooine?”
“Everything is in the green, Captain Onasi,” Lieutenant Jaris glanced at Carth expectantly, “We should be there within 6 hours. Give or take.”
“Good. If I have to hear ‘Are you so certain the Jedi Council would agree’ one more time, I might have to hurt someone, and I don’t care if they carry a lightsaber.”
Carth was rewarded with several snickers that were quickly covered by fits of coughing and he felt slightly better. Now if I could only do something about this thrice-damned headache.
“Captain Onasi,” his headache called, and Carth straightened with a groan before turning to face Bastila.
“Yes, Jedi Bastila?”
“Are you sure that we’re on the most direct course for Dantooine?”
How can she make the word “direct” so coarse and pompous sounding? “Well, if by most ‘direct’ you mean ‘safest,’ then yes we are.” Carth clasped his hands behind his back in military rest to hide the fists he was making.
Bastila closed the distance across the Bridge of the Endar Spire in long, graceful strides, her entourage several paces behind her. They made it look choreographed, like they practiced it in that Academy of theirs. Bastila stopped in front of him, scrunching her face like she had stepped in bantha droppings. That headache was throbbing now, and Carth had a feeling it was a few words from a full-blown migraine.
“We were ordered to report immediately to Dantooine,” Bastila had a nice voice, melodious, it was a shame it didn’t match her personality. “I’m sure the Jedi Council would not agree with us taking unnecessary detours.”
More coughing. Out of Carth’s peripheral vision, he noticed several quickly lowered heads.
Yep, it’s a migraine. “Jedi Bastila,” Carth mentally counted to ten, she was just a kid after all, yelling wouldn’t help anything, “I know I am here purely in an advisory role, but I fail to see how flying into known Sith space will make our trip any safer. We’re over-staffed and loaded down with civilians. I am not going to put their lives in danger so you can speak to the Jedi Council in person a few hours earlier. Especially when a coded message would be much faster than flying close to the enemy.” He added snidely.
Bastila’s eyes flashed, and he could tell he hit a nerve, “Captain Onasi, if we may talk privately.”
“Am I going to get some answers?”
“We must talk. Privately.” She turned on her heel and called back over her shoulder with a tone in her voice that boded no arguments, “And change our course. We must arrive in time.”
Carth nodded to Jaris, who began re-entering coordinated in the navi-computer. Carth could already feel the Endar Spire making course adjustments by the time he reached the corridor.
About damn time I got some answers around here. It had taken far too long for the Jedi to come clean with this “top-secret” mission of theirs. It involved Bastila, the Republic’s most important weapon in this war. So there was no way this was simply a “scouting mission.” There were plenty of scouting missions in deployed right now. No need for more with a ship as heavily staffed as this one, and certainly no call for possibly the most important Jedi alive today to be there with her entourage. Dodonna was very closed-lipped about what sort of mission the Jedi were on. He didn’t think it was an issue of her not telling him everything, but rather the Jedi not telling her everything. He had known Dodonna longer than that, and she wouldn’t let him fly in the blind, and the fact that the Jedi Council was willing to do so with so many Republic citizens had put him on his guard ever since he read the manifest.
Too many people, most of them untrained, and the Endar Spire not the right kind of ship for flying into Sith-patrolled space without a much larger escort. The extra crew made them suspicious. They were manned like they were headed for the front lines, but with no weapons to use once they got there. Compound that to the fact that Bastila had been ordering them to orbit planets he knew to be under Sith surveillance… she was looking for something, that much he was certain of. She was going to get them all killed before she found what she was looking for. It was all too confusing. He had tried diplomacy, maybe switching tactics would help. As he followed Bastila to the Captain’s quarters, Carth sincerely hoped their upcoming conversation would help ease his tension headache. But he doubted it.
There was no life in the apartment overlooking the skyline of Coruscant. There was a man, but there was no life, just existence. No noise came from the holovid, no light seeped from under the doors, and no sounds of movement. Nothing at all indicated that someone lived there. The air within the apartment was dark and heavy, a feeling that was reflected by the man sitting in the sill of the open window. He looked down at the sprawling metropolis and the bustling life and noise just echoed against him. He was empty. No matter how many bottles of Corellian whiskey he went through, nothing within him stirred. There was no slurred speech, no stumbling about, or fevered ranting. No matter how many glasses he poured, there was no effect. They didn’t fill the hole aching inside him, did nothing to cool the smoldering anger. There was just emptiness, where life used to be. Carth Onasi was a shell of a man.
His skin was slick with the alcohol-induced fever as he continued to stare out his lonely apartment window. It had been days since he had eaten anything with real substance, and it seemed as though he had spent just as long contemplating in the window. There were no thoughts of suicide filling him, just an aching emptiness. Beyond that emptiness was a slow, smoldering anger, one that Carth had long learned to suppress. It was that anger that got him placed on an “extended leave of absence” from the Republic Admiralty. It was that anger that caused him to try and hijack a Republic Starship, and according to the report his plan was to “try and shove it down that schutta Saul’s throat.” It hadn’t been pretty, and after a night of sleeping it off in the Republic brig he had been told to go home and rest. But there was no rest for him, his only purpose was revenge, and it seemed he would never get that revenge. Until his holovid rang.
It took him several minutes to register the sound; he had almost forgotten what it sounded like. He hastened to put several empty bottles out of view of the holovid screen before he placed himself before it, unconsciously standing at military rest. The screen flickered to life and the image of an older woman wavered before him, even though the image was solid blue he recognized her and her Republic uniform immediately. There was a slight stirring of excitement in his breast, and he quickly squashed it down. No reason to raise his hopes for nothing.
“Greetings, Admiral Dodonna,” Carth answered, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“A little of this a little of that, how are you holding up?” The older woman’s eyes misted with pity, Carth hated that look. He always got that look from everyone. He was beginning to hate their sympathy, and it never did anything to ease the ache within.
“About as well as can be expected, Admiral,” he responded stiffly, feeling that familiar void of emotion pass over him. It made it easier to handle empty condolences and reassures of “It is the way of the Force,” that offered him no comfort.
“I see. Well, I’m sure you know this wasn’t much of a social call.”
“I gathered as much from the uniform, Dodonna. Social calls don’t usually involve full dress.”
A real smile passed across Dodonna’s face, “Yes, I should have known that I couldn’t get anything past Carth Onasi. To get straight to the point, because I know how you like to be direct: you’ve been reactivated.”
That cold anger uncoiled in his gut and grumbled at him like a hungry beast, “Reactivated?”
“Yes, we have a mission for you. The Republic has granted a command ship to Jedi Council. They’re conducting some sort of scouting mission, and we’re providing personnel for them. We want you there in an advisory position to their Commander.”
“A scouting mission?” Carth furrowed his brow in confusion, “So why do they need Republic assistance?”
“The Jedi in charge of the mission is Jedi Bastila.”
The beast within him was growling now, its cold anger creeping through his veins and warmed him to his core. Bastila and her Battle Meditation. Being around Bastila would bring fighting. Fighting would mean Sith. Sith meant Saul. That desire for revenge tore through him, singing promises to him that he struggled to hide from Dodonna.
For a long moment he just stared at Dodonna.
“Where do I report in?”
*****************
There were voices… and there was blackness surrounding her, choking her, and she didn’t have a name… This realization struck her more than the aching cold darkness she was floating in….”Why don’t I have a name?” She thought and the whispers grew louder, “If they would shut up long enough I could remember…”
The voices grew, and her head ached. Their soft cadence stabbed into her mind… probing and searching…the buzz grew louder and she clapped her hands over her ears to keep them out.
”STOP IT!” she screamed into the void, the echo coming back and knocking her to her knees. Part of her was amused, how can she fall to her knees if there is nothing to stand on?
This is the only way, I FEEL it.
The voices were clearer now, but they still hurt… molten carbonite being poured through her ears and into her mind…freezing and burning at the same time, acid coursing down the invisible channels of her mind.
What if it just brings the Dark Lord back?
There must be another way…
Whatever it was, she just wanted them to leave her alone. Whatever they were talking about, she had nothing to do with it. Didn’t she?
This is our only hope. I can handle it. I swear to you. Give me a chance.
The conviction in that voice tightened around her, possessive and tight, crushing her with an almost physical vice. It hurts to breathe… and my head… why are they in my head?
Very well, and remember what she was, what she could become again. Do not let her fall again. Be always mindful of the Path of the Dark Side. Once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destinies.
Suddenly the void opened, and she saw light. It pulled to her. It promised her no more voices and no more pain. She would be able to breathe again. She struggled towards that light like a drowning man floundering to break to the surface of water. Suddenly, without warning, the light streaked forward, blurring together like star lines in hyperspace. It blinded her, and tears stung her eyes as she was thrust forward…. What was my name? Images rushed at her too quickly to comprehend, filling her until she was overflowing, her mind full of their heady scents and sensations. What was her name?
Koren Renata.
**********
I would rather be buffing the floors of a Rancor pit than be here right now. Being back on board a command ship wasn’t the dream he was hoping it to be, although he felt more alive these past few weeks than he had in over two years. His constant source of irritation: Bastila Shan. Bastila had to be the most annoying Jedi that Carth had ever met. If he had known what he was signing up for, he would’ve run for the hills. Babysitting a prideful Jedi was the last thing on his list of “fun things to do.” She was headstrong, and while she was in charge of the Endar Spire, she had no head for strategy or military thinking. Bastila just ordered everyone around and glowered when it took too long or they didn’t understand her. She was very young as well, and for some reason it made worse her “immortality and know-it-all” attitude of youth. Carth was on board in an advisory position, but any advice he tried to give her was answered with disdain.
As she kept clamoring on at the rear of the bridge to her Jedi entourage, Carth was beginning to think she was vying for a position as the most annoying human being as well. Barely covering a grimace, Carth leaned over his; no he corrected himself, Bastila’s Navigator. “How are we doing, Lieutenant? Still on course for Dantooine?”
“Everything is in the green, Captain Onasi,” Lieutenant Jaris glanced at Carth expectantly, “We should be there within 6 hours. Give or take.”
“Good. If I have to hear ‘Are you so certain the Jedi Council would agree’ one more time, I might have to hurt someone, and I don’t care if they carry a lightsaber.”
Carth was rewarded with several snickers that were quickly covered by fits of coughing and he felt slightly better. Now if I could only do something about this thrice-damned headache.
“Captain Onasi,” his headache called, and Carth straightened with a groan before turning to face Bastila.
“Yes, Jedi Bastila?”
“Are you sure that we’re on the most direct course for Dantooine?”
How can she make the word “direct” so coarse and pompous sounding? “Well, if by most ‘direct’ you mean ‘safest,’ then yes we are.” Carth clasped his hands behind his back in military rest to hide the fists he was making.
Bastila closed the distance across the Bridge of the Endar Spire in long, graceful strides, her entourage several paces behind her. They made it look choreographed, like they practiced it in that Academy of theirs. Bastila stopped in front of him, scrunching her face like she had stepped in bantha droppings. That headache was throbbing now, and Carth had a feeling it was a few words from a full-blown migraine.
“We were ordered to report immediately to Dantooine,” Bastila had a nice voice, melodious, it was a shame it didn’t match her personality. “I’m sure the Jedi Council would not agree with us taking unnecessary detours.”
More coughing. Out of Carth’s peripheral vision, he noticed several quickly lowered heads.
Yep, it’s a migraine. “Jedi Bastila,” Carth mentally counted to ten, she was just a kid after all, yelling wouldn’t help anything, “I know I am here purely in an advisory role, but I fail to see how flying into known Sith space will make our trip any safer. We’re over-staffed and loaded down with civilians. I am not going to put their lives in danger so you can speak to the Jedi Council in person a few hours earlier. Especially when a coded message would be much faster than flying close to the enemy.” He added snidely.
Bastila’s eyes flashed, and he could tell he hit a nerve, “Captain Onasi, if we may talk privately.”
“Am I going to get some answers?”
“We must talk. Privately.” She turned on her heel and called back over her shoulder with a tone in her voice that boded no arguments, “And change our course. We must arrive in time.”
Carth nodded to Jaris, who began re-entering coordinated in the navi-computer. Carth could already feel the Endar Spire making course adjustments by the time he reached the corridor.
About damn time I got some answers around here. It had taken far too long for the Jedi to come clean with this “top-secret” mission of theirs. It involved Bastila, the Republic’s most important weapon in this war. So there was no way this was simply a “scouting mission.” There were plenty of scouting missions in deployed right now. No need for more with a ship as heavily staffed as this one, and certainly no call for possibly the most important Jedi alive today to be there with her entourage. Dodonna was very closed-lipped about what sort of mission the Jedi were on. He didn’t think it was an issue of her not telling him everything, but rather the Jedi not telling her everything. He had known Dodonna longer than that, and she wouldn’t let him fly in the blind, and the fact that the Jedi Council was willing to do so with so many Republic citizens had put him on his guard ever since he read the manifest.
Too many people, most of them untrained, and the Endar Spire not the right kind of ship for flying into Sith-patrolled space without a much larger escort. The extra crew made them suspicious. They were manned like they were headed for the front lines, but with no weapons to use once they got there. Compound that to the fact that Bastila had been ordering them to orbit planets he knew to be under Sith surveillance… she was looking for something, that much he was certain of. She was going to get them all killed before she found what she was looking for. It was all too confusing. He had tried diplomacy, maybe switching tactics would help. As he followed Bastila to the Captain’s quarters, Carth sincerely hoped their upcoming conversation would help ease his tension headache. But he doubted it.