Star Wars: Brave Misdeeds

Chapter 30

"Evil comes from weakness, and weakness from an insatiable desire for power."

                     —Jaalib Cassia Brandl (as the Seneschal in the play For Want of An Empire)

Breathless and clutching at the heavy woolen cloak, Soelle jumped up from her pillow, panting and soaked with sweat. Fully aware of the peculiarity of recent events, she glanced into the mirror beside her bed. The raised line of three, red gashes marred her face—the marks of a rancor's claw. Though the wounds were deep, a bacta treatment accelerated the healing process. In a few days, the angry, swollen cuts would fade, returning to the skin to its natural color; and no one would notice evidence of her close encounter with a living spirit. In the back of the reflection she saw Memcha stand over her worriedly. Soelle turned to face the Twi'lek, clutching the Elder's cloak about her shoulders. "The Elder?" she croaked, her throat dry, her voice cracking.

Memcha nodded to confirm and smoothed the gray, woolly fabric about her neck. She sat down on the bed, cuing a dim light. "Elder Husk herself declared that this cloak was to be yours. I don't know if Lomm was more proud or more frightened by the state you were in when she brought you home. Soelle—" She fell silent as Soelle took her hands and held them tightly.

"Why didn't you ever tell me, Memcha?" Soelle demanded. "Three years, and you said nothing about that night you found me in the desert."

"What was I to tell you, Soelle? If your memory refused to yield up the events of that night, there was reason to suppress them." Memcha stared into the dimness. Sensing the tension between the two women, E'yor jumped onto the bed and laid across Soelle's legs. The Razor Cat kneaded her knees and began to purr loudly. "Initially, I didn't know what had happened that night, Soelle. I could only guess at S'oelle's cruelty. I knew that he had given you to his bodyguards as a punishment. By the time I spoke to my father, secured his blessing, and rounded up my cats, they had left the compound with you. I literally had to track them into the desert; and when I found them...what I found left my stomach quivering." Memcha squeezed her hands gently.

"They were like the Rebels assassin that night in Mos Eisley?"

Memcha nodded, her pale lips pursed into a thin, anxious line. "I deal in science, Soelle, hard science and fact with results that are consistently reproducible. There are times, however, that even I must acknowledge a world where nucleotides make little or no sense. I won't pretend to know about such things. Sith, Jedi, the Force. I feared what I saw that night in the desert. There would be questions, possible repercussions for the deaths of these men. My father is a the lord of Socorro, I had nothing to fear; but I wanted my freedom; so I talked my father into letting me leave Socorro with you. I had a safe place to go and people to shelter me."

"Lomm and <VIPER>?"

"I never looked back. Your nightmares started shortly after we left Socorro. I thought nothing of it. Who wouldn't expect you to have bad dreams? I had hoped in time they would fade, and from time to time, they did, only to resurface more potently than ever before. But again, wasn't that to be expected considering your traumatic situation? You were under so much stress, trying to fit in, to be accepted, to live free." Memcha caressed Soelle's cheek tenderly. "The hardest duty of all, to live free. Though my father was your guardian and you were no slave, you continued to live as one. Eventually, through working in the lab, you showed such aptitude for animal handling and science." Memcha shook her head sadly. "I am sorry, Soelle. This was an equation I could never have hypothesized."

Soelle stroked E'yor behind the ears, pulling her legs from beneath the heavy cat's weight as her toes went numb from lack of circulation. "Where is Lomm?"