She floated in a space between life and death. Her body didn't respond, though her mind cried out for it to do so.
Even raising the tip of her little finger was impossible. The flutter of an eyelid a dream of mobility that was now beyond her reach.
Yet Assayer Neerada dreamed. Her body was imprisoned in carbonite, but inside her body she still had power. She still perceived.
And she was perceptive enough to know that she was waking. For an hour or more she had lapsed and relapsed in and out of a dreamlike-conscious. Without drawing a breath, she remained in her hibernation, aware of only tiny pinpricks in her extremities that gradually spread all across her body.
It was the sign that the carbonite was beginning to thaw. Usually, the process would take a bare moment, but Neerada had ordered her technicians to be cautious. A spike in temperature would probably set off an alarm that would attract her enemies, so she had ordered them to set the thaw to a much slower process than was usual.
She dreamed again, deeper than before, somewhere deep inside aware that this would be the final dream before her waking.
"You have failed," Vader's metallic voice told her. "Despite all the gifts I have bestowed upon you, you have allowed the girl to escape. You know the prophecy that I shared with you the very first time we met on Mustafar: those gifted with the Force must join us, or die. The consequences of them not doing so are grave for the galaxy."
She saw him in her dream, standing at the top of the ramp on a planet with a blasted surface and running rivers of lava. She saw him raise his clenched fist and gesture toward her, felt the tightening around her throat.
"The punishment for your failure is death."
She reached for her throat with both hands, only to find there was no longer any pain. Vader was still there, but now he was still.
Neerada breathed easily.
"No," she said. "You have lied to me since the day we met. The prophecy was used to convince me to follow your orders, to convince me I was serving a greater good by doing evil things. You have no power over me anymore. None whatsoever."
Vader didn't speak.
"If there is any way you can understand me, know this as well: I will hunt down the others to protect my sister and myself. One day I shall tutor her in the ways of the Force, and her power will be greater than mine for her mind has not been misled by your lies, her training not corrupted by your impositions."
Neerada thrust her hand out toward him, her palm flat, a feeling in her that she had never felt before: a confidence that she was doing the right thing. She felt the Force race out toward the armoured figure, first whipping Vader's cape back over his shoulders, then driving him backward off his feet in its intensity, hurling him back into the darkness from where he could never threaten her again.
The intensity was something she had never felt before. Never had she been able to summon such power.
Neerada lifted her hand in the dream to stare at it in detail, but as she moved she felt her hand break free from the carbonite as it melted away from her wrists. She found strength returning to her limbs, her bare skin tormented by a million tiny pinpricks as the cold of the artificial atmosphere met her chilled flesh.
She checked her face with her hand and wiped away the last of the frozen slivers, and only then did she remove her goggles.
In the red glow of the melting carbon freeze, she saw she was still in the container that the frozen block had been placed. She reached down for the canister that had been frozen alongside her.
It opened easily, and Neerada found her lightsaber.
The inside of the container held no fear for her under the light of her weapon. She would have enough oxygen for several hours, and if she needed more she could open up slits in the container from the inside.
So long as the atmosphere outside the container was standard, that shouldn't be a problem.
But even if it was not, she had prepared for that possibility too. Her second object in the box was a breathing apparatus that could keep her going for up to six hours, which could be linked to her pressurised suit and the oxygen cylinder attached on her lower back beneath her cloak.
With growing confidence she got fully dressed, and as her mask fell over her face, she checked the galactic time to work out how long she had left.
Pina would be entering the system within four hours.
She started a countdown, with the display at the corner of her eye to keep her informed.
She didn't have much time to get her signal to him to confirm that her infiltration had been a success. If he had stuck to her orders, the Reaver should be waiting on the edge of the system, at ten light minutes distance, beyond the sensor range of the facility.
And for that, she would need the rest of her equipment that she had smuggled in.
Focusing on the task ahead of her, she examined the reading on a small data card she produced from her belt.
It gave the location of the second cargo that had come with her, and she was satisfied to find that it was within twenty metres of her location.
Taking a breath, she opened the container door.
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