Sith! That word dominated Ella's mind as she was pushed into the palace dungeon after a quick search. Her brain sought for where she had heard it before. It was only when the door was slammed shut behind them that she forced herself to be in the present.
Lance Dare was at her side.
"How many of us are in here do you think?" he asked.
In the darkness, it was hard to see. Ella and Lance had been thrown in with four others, and yet there were at least a dozen more in the darkness.
"Lance?" a high-pitched voice croaked from the rear of the room. "Is that you Lance Dare?"
"Cor?"
"Yes!"
The short figure lumbered forward. Cor wasn't human, but bird-like. Dark feathered wings ran down the backs of its arms, and its legs were talons that 'clicked' over the stone.
"Have they hurt you Cor?" Lance asked.
"No. Haven't even been questioned. Chip and I had hoped you and Sal had escaped."
"No such luck for me. Sal should be back from camp seven by now. There might still be hope for him. Is Chip here too?"
Cor turned its head nearly one hundred and eighty degree to face the far wall. "Chip? Come on. It's Lance. You remember Lance?"
A small man made a peculiar shuffling motion, but didn't come forward.
Cor turned back.
"The Imperials put an inhibitor on his implants. I don't think he even recognises us."
"Can't you disconnect it?"
"Yes, I think I can. But I won't try it here. Not until we're safe and I have the right tools."
Lance gave Ella a look. "Ella, meet my two crew mates," he said. "This is Cor. She is a Corvian, from Aderyn, a mid-rim world. Ella saved my life earlier today." He pointed toward Chip. "Chip's a human cyborg. An AJ-8 model. He's whip smart, when he's working that is–"
"Argh!"
The scream from another cell silenced everyone. Cor seemed to shrink, her shoulder feathers puffed up to hide her head.
"What was that?" she whispered.
Another cry followed, and then a loud weeping.
"It's the boy," Lance muttered. "One of the dead Governor's staff who Commodore Sarn has ordered to be tortured as an example, even though he doesn't know anything. The galaxy has run mad!"
A man started shouting through the bars of his cell door across the corridor.
"Tell Commodore Sarn that we'll give him what he wants! For mercy's sake we'll tell him everything!"
But the five stormtroopers outside made no response.
The screaming continued.
Ella felt sick. So much had happened in such a short space of time. Tayre had vanished, Valsum and Jish were dead, her planet was occupied and had been sentenced to collective punishment.
And the secret of Farsalt, her secret, had been revealed to her.
She took Lance to one side and spoke in a whisper so no one else could hear.
"Have you ever heard of the Sith? Lady Jish once told me about them in a story. They were supposed to be the arch enemies of the Jedi. Like them, they too were supposed to have abilities. Do you think they exist?"
Lance shook his head.
"I don't know. I know the Jedi once existed. When I was young, I went to a church that worshipped the Force and its ways with my mother. It was on a planet not far from my home. Years later I returned there as a young man. By then the building had been levelled and a prison built in its place. All traces of it were gone. The same story has happened time and again across countless worlds. On Coruscant the Jedi temple was destroyed after the Clone Wars and turned into a palace for Palpatine. In other instances, whole cities have been destroyed: like the Holy city of Jedha and the famous temple of the Kyber, along with all its guardians - that one apparently due to a mining accident. The Empire hates any beliefs that conflict with its own ideology."
Lance put his hand on her shoulder.
"But why did you say you were a Jedi? It was a stupid thing to do."
"I just felt so angry," she replied. "With Lady Jish being dead . . . I can't believe what's happened."
She felt the tears tug at her eyes.
"I can't fight any more," she said, breaking. "And I'm scared."
Lance put his arms around her and held her tightly. "Innocence is the first to perish in war," he said. "That, and the truth."
He stroked her hair.
"War has come to Farsalt. And you were not ready for it. That's a hard test for anyone–"
The door was unlocked. Light entered the darkness.
A stormtrooper pointed his blaster toward Ella.
"You! You're wanted. Move."
Ella tightened her grip on Lance. She had never known fear like this.
"Please don't let them take me–"
"She's not going anywhere without me," Lance said sternly.
Two more stormtroopers entered. One of them took hold of Lance and dragged him away.
"Cor!" he yelled suddenly.
The Corvian's right leg came up sharply, kicking the blaster of the nearest trooper from his hands. At the same time, Lance threw his bodyweight against the man who had grabbed him, driving him into the wall, his blaster pinned behind him.
Ella felt the urgent need to act too.
The third stormtrooper raised his blaster to take aim as Ella barrelled into his waist in a tackle that was born of nothing but desperation. As she crashed against him he staggered, firing up into the air as his aim was spoiled.
But he was too strong for her to take down.
Suddenly another arm took the trooper around the back of his neck and heaved, whilst a third prisoner wrestled the weapon from his hands, shooting toward the doorway and felling a stormtrooper before he had time to raise his weapon.
But the fifth man behind had more time. The last of the stormtroopers guarding the prisoners got off two quick shots as he entered, passing straight over Ella's head..
"Urg–" The man above her gasped and slumped, face down and still, the blaster falling from his hand as he died.
It landed next to Ella's hand. She reached for it instinctively.
The trooper took aim at Lance Dare.
Ella's finger brushed the trigger.
The blaster made a scream. A red blaze lit up Ella's face as the shot smashed the ankles of the trooper, flipping him over as his body yielded to the pain. His fingers tightened as he fell, pulling his trigger, sending two more blasts into the ceiling.
Before he landed two prisoners were upon him, hammering him and pinning him down, tearing at his helm and beating his exposed face with fists and stones and anything they could lay their hands on.
Ella stood. She looked to Lance. The trooper lay at his feet, his helm heaved off, three prisoners standing over him. The same fate had befallen the three others as well. Sheer weight of numbers had beaten them down.
"Come on!" she found herself saying, leaping through the open door.
"Princess Ella!" a man's voice shouted from the cell across the corridor. It was secretary Dalian. "Yes," he said when she saw him. "I know who you are. You don't think Governor Mazier could have helped your adoptive father alone do you?"
"Leave them!" Lance said as he joined her in the corridor. "We've got to get to a secure commlink. Then I can signal Sal to bring my ship in and we get off this planet–"
Secretary Dalian laughed. "Get off this planet? You have a Star Destroyer directly overhead. There are two more keeping an eye over both hemispheres. You won't even make it to orbit, let alone light speed." He gave an ernest look. "I'm the only chance you have. I know things about Farsalt and its defences that few others do." He gave a baneful smile. "Believe me, princess."
"We would never get past that Destroyer," Cor agreed.
"Fine!" Ella gritted her teeth and aimed at the lock of the door. "Stand back!
She gave it a single blast.
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This chapter is key to Ella's development. This chapter exposes Ella to a real fear of being separated from her friends and potentially to be 'disappeared' into an merciless system. Disappearances are a common tool in dictatorships, and they are exceptionally painful for those relatives left behind who never find a final answer of what happened to their loved ones. In real life, and an example I find particularly touching, is the disappearances in Argentina in the 1970s and early 1980s. Even today, nearly forty years later, the mothers of many of these victims whose fates were not even recorded still gather to protest for justice: The Mothers of the Plaza de May, the founder of which was also 'disappeared' and murdered, are a sober reminder that the affects of war do not end with the final shot.