STAR WARS: Fugitive

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

“Well, well! Look what the nexu dragged in!” remarked A’pratti’ka from across the warehouse as she drew near. Thera stared at the spectacle of Lady A’pratti’ka, Dark Lady of the Sith, her former master, whom she thought was dead – I remember distinctly feeling her disappear from the Force; I know I remember... – walking casually toward her. She appeared relaxed, her dark Sith robe hanging loosely from her shoulders, exposing her black bodysuit and crimson blouse. A Chiss, she had solid blue skin accented by equally solid red, glowing eyes, her hair as black as her bodysuit that hung in neat, shallow curves around the edges of her face.

New questions seemed to overwhelm Thera’s mind as she attempted to force herself to gain her composure in spite of her body aches. She reached out in the Force for her danger sense, looking for trends to continue unraveling along with her dealings with the Sith since her sabotaged mission. If she needed to fight again...

Lady A’pratti’ka smiled at Thera, stopping a few meters from her. “Your thoughts betray you, Tykos,” she said, her voice firm but soothing.

“You don’t need to fear me,” she added, meeting Thera’s uncertain glower. “The Force is with you! You have learned much since we’ve been apart, and now I am come to complete your training.”

Thera tilted her head and squinted skeptically, maintaining eye contact with A’pratti’ka, unsure where to begin with all of her questions, and unsure if she was fit to be a Sith.

A’pratti’ka mirrored her head tilt, raising an eyebrow. “Has that Jedi shaken you away from your destiny with the Sith?” she asked.

Thera said nothing at first, but closed her eyes and pressed her fists together against her forehead with a deep sigh. She knows the Jedi was here; I am the last to know anything, she thought. “I don’t know what to say,” she said at last. She felt herself scrambling for a course in her mind, seeking for some sort of direction in the Force, but instead she found herself unable to comprehend what she felt. She began to think back to the mission, and then dropped her hands squaring herself before A’pratti’ka.

“What really happened?” Thera asked.

“The mission?”

Thera didn’t answer, knowing well A’pratti’ka could see through her.

“We were betrayed from the beginning,” began A’pratti’ka. “A few of us suspected a double agent among us beforehand, but they managed to remain anonymous.”

“Lord Matthster,” interjected Thera quietly.

“Yes. His exposure finally came moments before our own betrayal was apparent. The blow came swiftly from the Mandalorians, efficient in combat and elusive in mind as they can be; we never saw it coming. I managed to kill my assailant. Few others of the team were even able to retaliate, but you and I were the only two to escape with our lives.”

Thera looked down, pondering and piecing her own memories together with what she was hearing.

“I hid myself in the Force,” A’pratti’ka continued, “and shadowed the Mandalorians, and eventually discovered the extent of their plot. They were allied with our own Sith forces to eliminate us.”

Thera looked up at her in shock, as the spoken thought matched with her own unspoken but steadily growing understanding. “Why?” she asked, feeling desperate for clarity that had eluded her.

“That remains a mystery, unfortunately, but I have learned that our forces will not relent in their pursuit of us, also employing whatever mercenary is brave enough to hunt us down, until they succeed in killing us. Meanwhile, they use us as a tool, an opportunity and collateral benefit for them, to filter out the weak from among them, and thus we have been able to survive until now, the stronger yet to emerge.”