Dark Matter: Episode 1

Sheefa nodded as, at the same time, Vaux'avh slipped on a thin patch of growth. The Sith went down hard, remaining on all fours for a few seconds and breathing heavily. She growled when Sheefa extended her hand in aid, and lashed out.

***

The night sky above them was clear in the way that only less-populated worlds can be. So much of the galaxy was visible, and stunning. Sheefa indulged herself in more glances upward than she knew was safe, considering that, even with her hands now tied behind her back, the Sith was still dangerous. It had taken a fair few thin vines to bind the wrists tightly.

"You..." Sheefa paused. She knew she shouldn't ask. She knew the best route was to communicate as little as possible. She knew the Sith would try to twist her words looking for any route to leverage. And yet... "You grew up on a...on a colony?"

Vaux'avh looked over at her, brow descending to eclipse the upper curve of her eyes..

"A-a Mirialan colony?"

"I don't know why I thought you would catch the sarcasm," Vaux'avh said, chuckling. "You lead such sheltered lives, don't you? Even now, scraping the bottom, I give you too much credit."

Sheefa's back stiffened.

"No. I grew up a slave. We were all slaves."

Sheefa blinked. "A colony of Mirial slaves?"

Vaux'avh chuckled again. "No. They... We... were courtesans."

She struggled to produce a more congenial title for a sex slave, and failed.

Vaux'avh's features wore the trappings of a smile. "Only women. All slaves. Only Mirialan. The owners traveled extensively, bought any Mirial slaves they could find, and sold Mirial services exclusively. Passed us off as different. Rare, and exotic. Almost Human, and yet just different enough to warrant exorbitant prices." She laughed, and it had the same hollow emptiness as her smile. "They manufactured myths about our prowess, like we were caged mystics of a lost and sweaty art. The clients would repeat them back to us. That was how we knew. They couldn't help talking too much while they were having so much fun."

Something happened in her brain, like two puzzle pieces that were not supposed to go together but had been forced into place, were now uncoupling. She had been barred from looking into Mirial, and her people. The Jedi discourage such interpersonal connections, familial roots, in the name of balance and an unclouded mind. She couldn't quite get her head around the root of the inconsistency, but felt it all the same. Something was wrong with what she'd been told.

"Did he...they... buy you?"

"No," Vaux'avh said, with just a hint of defensiveness. "I was born there."

Sheefa nodded softly. "I'm..." She could not stop herself, no matter how loudly a part of her argued that every word was likely a lie. "How bad was it?"

To her eyes, Vaux'avh seemed to glow in the low light. Lit by a fire from within. "We had nothing. We were only able to keep personal possessions if we were good enough at hiding them."

There was truth in her words; Sheefa felt it. She couldn't say if it was all true, and understood that the worst lies, the most compelling ones, started from truth, but drank it in all the same. Through the Force, through a kind of second sight, she saw a doll. A few scraps of fabric sewn together, with an over-large head, tucked behind a shelf. Behind a door. Being ripped from the hands of a young Mirialan girl.

Sheefa was not often granted visions through the Force, such was not her talent, but it had happened before. Often enough that she did not fall to her knees in obvious awe. She absorbed, let the Force flow through her, and kept what served her.

"We all took care of each other, though, and shared duties. I had many, many aunts."

"It sounds like they were very tight knit," Sheefa said, clearing her throat and recovering herself.

"As much as they were allowed to be, yes. Too much community was discouraged, but they knew what they could get away with. Patched each other up if the client was violent. Shared care for those of us too young to help. Until we were old enough to... help."

That same Mirialan girl, flinching, when a man pointed to her. Singling her out among a line. A yawning pit in her stomach. The end of something.

Sheefa opened her mouth repeatedly, with attempts to apologize or sympathize dying on her tongue. She knew she was stumbling, and knew that other Masters were far more adept than she at handling an abrupt turn into an emotional quagmire. She drew deep on the Force to center herself.

"Were you manumitted?" The last word came out as a croak, and even as she said it she knew the answer was no.

Vaux'avh looked back over her shoulder again and shook her head. "It was on a Hutt-controlled world. Boonta."

The name was familiar to Sheefa, but only vaguely.

"I escaped. Stowed away on a ship."

"I'm sorry."

Vaux'avh stopped and turned, eyes flaring wildly. "Why would you be sorry? Do you have something to be sorry for?"

"No," Sheefa said, surprised. "I just... I can't help but—"

"Spare me your condescensions," the Sith snarled. "It's empty and pathetic, and shows you for the hypocrite you are. I'm not ashamed of where I come from. I am who I am because of it, but you? You think you're better than me."

Sheefa clenched her teeth, expecting to have to put Vaux'avh down again despite the Force being still and even around them. Calm. It was hard not to respond, but she knew that rising to the challenge would only make her defensive.

"The galaxy is an unfair place. You'd know that if you hadn't spent your whole life hiding behind over-glorified wet nurses."

"Not all Jedi are so out of touch."

Vaux'avh curled her lips as she turned to walk again. "And you include yourself in that category? You think you've seen a few things, Soriel?"

Sheefa blinked, briefly reliving the overwhelming sensation of being taken completely by her Master, and nodded. "I have seen some things."

The Sith leaned against a tree, and regarded her carefully while catching her breath. She did not look away, as Sheefa did, when the sound of sparse fighting picked up.

"Could we stop here?" Vaux'avh asked, her head sagging. "If you docked in the city, the last of the distance we cover will be the hardest."

Sheefa nodded. She didn't need to look far to find more of the thin vines, and with a few deft applications of her lightsaber she had enough to loop Vaux'avh's bindings tightly to the trunk of a sapling. The Sith put up no resistance, and in that apathy Sheefa finally saw the severity of the wounds Vaux'avh had accumulated. She sat down a meter away, crossed her legs, and began to meditate.

Sheefa had almost never had access to Force visions, and with this woman she'd had two. That was meaningful. She was important. Sheefa attempted to reach out and sense Vaux'avh's feelings, but the Sith was difficult to read. She had to put those things down, however much she wanted to obsess over them, and remain in the moment. The Sith was dangerous, even now, and she needed all of her faculties available.

She tried to focus on centering herself, but it was to no avail. She was about to return to the Jedi with a Sith prisoner. The Jedi did not kill prisoners. This sort of thing was, to the best of her knowledge, unprecedented. And then it happened again.

She would save Vaux'avh's life.

This vision, more emotion than memory that had not yet come to pass, hit her square in the chest, and knocked the wind out of her. There was not enough yet to make sense of it. She wasn't even completely sure that it was what she thought it was. It was a feeling, though, and it was so strong and so right.

As near as she could tell, the Sith had not noticed any change in her, so she set this development aside and focused on the meditation.

Her Master would know what to do. She couldn't wait to see him.

***

Sheefa woke with a start. Vaux'avh was gone. She slapped her hand against the right side of her hip and breathed a bit easier when she felt the Sith's lightsaber under her palm. Questions about how the Sith had escaped, and why she herself was not dead, were pushed aside as she leapt to her feet and stretched out through the Force. Expanding her senses in all directions.

What had been scattered combat in the middle of the night had flared into full-scale rioting. She could feel the anger, on both sides of the conflict, as dozens of small bands of E'lon roved the city and its immediate surroundings. Her head still felt foggy in a way to which she was not accustomed, and it turned her stomach to sift through so much unrest and hate. So much malignancy.

After nearly a minute she recognized a more familiar kind of rage, determined and focused, and set off as fast as she could run. The meditative rest had been kind to her legs, which had been feeling the strain of the powerful gravity, though it had not been long enough to completely restore her.

It was a surprise when she realized that the Sith was heading toward her rather than away, and she was nearly on top of Vaux'avh before she saw her. The older Mirialan was bleeding badly from a wound in her side, and stumbled from tree to tree for support.

"I can't..." The Sith shook her head and spit to the side. Saliva tainted red. "Too many of them. I can't make it alone."

Sheefa nodded. She could sense the frantic energy and the panic, and knew that the fighting would be even more desperate as they continued.

"I don't want to die here." Vaux'avh spit again. More blood than saliva. "If you get me off of this backwater, onto your ship, I'll surrender myself. To you." After a few seconds, she added, "You have my word."

Sheefa knew she was risking much as she unclipped the Sith's lightsaber from her belt and tossed it. Vaux'avh clenched her teeth and drew it to her palm, and her breathing steadied as she held the weapon tightly. "My chains are broken," she whispered softly. "The Force shall free me." The blade leapt to life, covering her immediate surroundings in a magenta glow.

Unease crawled up Sheefa's spine, more every second the longer the Sith held the blade...

...but then Vaux'avh turned it off, and Sheefa relaxed.

"Let's go," the older Mirialan grunted.

***

"We shouldn't linger here," Vaux'avh said.

Sheefa ignored her as she crouched low over one of the dead E'lon. Singed fur, and teeth bared in a rictus. Three others nearby looked to have been felled by the same means, while the fifth one had been killed by hand. Its head turned unnaturally far.

"We need to move."

"You did this," Sheefa said flatly.

"This and more," the Sith hissed. "I tried to mask my presence."

"But they found you?"

Vaux'avh nodded, her eyes scanning their surroundings constantly. "I told you. I just want to get off this deathtrap."

Sheefa ran her finger through the stiff, blackened fur. "They suffered."

"I don't know how pleasant you think dying should be, but I assure you it is not a simple matter of turning off the lights." The Sith shook her head in disgust, and limped on. "They didn't want to die. They wanted to kill me. They attacked without warning. I had no choice but to defend myself."

"And do you not see how their grief, their rage, lays solely at your feet?"

"I said I would surrender myself." The older Mirialan ground her teeth together. "There will be a time for recriminations and finger-pointing, and that time will be after we escape, now—"

Both of them looked up, as one, to the west. A band of E'lon had banked hard and were sprinting toward them.

Snap-hiss. Snap-hiss.

Two of the E'lon dove over a low bush, side-by-side with the third just behind in the center. The first two, Sheefa did not recognize. "Da'at!" she shouted, lowering her blade.

"Sorial," the Sith growled, "what are you doing?"

While the first two E'lon remained on all fours, Da'at rose up on her hind legs. Fury rolled off of her in waves. "You aaare—" What followed was in the E'lon tongue, but Sheefa felt safe in her blind translation; the E'lon was beyond upset, and she was staring past Sheefa. Through her.

"Lower your blade," Sheefa said over her shoulder, just after turning off her own.

"Are you mad?" Vaux'avh snarled, instead lowering her stance. The E'lon talked rapidly back and forth. One of them moved in front of Da'at, presumably to stop her from advancing, but the third skittered to the side, around Sheefa. "Soriel—"

"Listen to me, Da'at," Sheefa pled, putting herself in between them and the Sith. "She is my prisoner. My prisoner!"

Da'at struggled with the E'lon before her, trying to push past while screaming at Sheefa in her own tongue. "My young!" she finally said in Basic. Sheefa's stomach wrenched painfully.

"Soriel..." Vaux'avh turned to face the third E'lon, who continued to circle farther and farther in a low crouch.

"Lower your blade," she repeated. "Da'at, I am going to take her—"

"Sheefa!" Vaux'avh shouted, a moment before the third E'lon dove forward. She grit her teeth and sidestepped the lunge, landing a killing stroke along the ribs as the E'lon sailed through the air. The second E'lon, who had been attempting to hold back Da'at, roared and pounced at Sheefa, who was closer. The Padawan reacted on pure instinct.

"No!" Da'at whined shrilly. "They were being mates!"

Sheefa thumbed off her blade and stared mournfully as the lifeless body landed in a heap just past Vaux'avh's feet. "Da'at, I'm—" She got no further. Claws raked through the air, swiping across and diagonally, and it was all Sheefa could do to dodge and evade. "Da'at! Please!" She deflected a swipe meant for her neck with her bare hand, but was only able to stay a step ahead. The E'lon moved too quickly, and the gravity was proving increasingly difficult to account for.

"My young!" she screamed. She snapped at Sheefa's hand, and then followed that with a horizontal slash that raked Sheefa's upper arm. The Padawan cried out as she fell, wincing from the pain, and nearly missed the magenta blur that took Da'at's arm clean off just before the follow-up would have struck. Da'at's pained howl was then silenced when Vaux'avh took her through the neck.

"What have you done?!" Sheefa cried, as she scrambled to her feet.

"You're welcome," Vaux'avh snapped back.

"She was on our side! She could have helped us!"

"Are you blind?" Vaux'avh roared. "She would have killed you. She wanted to kill you! She wanted to end you to numb her pain!"

"I'm surprised you didn't just let her."

The Sith stepped right in front of her, nose-to-nose. Sheefa took a step back, but Vaux'avh followed. "I need you. I can't get out of here on my own. If that means I have to defend you, so be it, but I am not dying here."

Sheefa nodded reluctantly, and Vaux'avh backed off.

"Besides," Vaux'avh said softly as she turned, "no parent should outlive their child. That was mercy."

Sheefa took one last look at the body of her friend as Vaux'avh limped away, and nodded solemnly.

***

The two of them crouched, side-by-side, on a thick tree branch, peering through the foliage. Nearly a thousand meters away, the port had become a rallying point for both the pro-Republics and Isolationists; a symbol of possibility as much as a warning of the future. Telling them apart was easier with such a polarizing element. The pro-Republic forces still manned the walls, but there were a significant number of E'lon circling it and attempting to gain egress.

"It's mayhem," Vaux'avh said, without a hint of her earlier bravado.

Sheefa agreed, although she said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the clashes going on near the walls. It hadn't struck her until now how different those walls were from the rest of the structures on Dur'Shist. They hadn't been grown or carved. There was no organicness to them, and were instead erected from dead trees in a manner that seemed so out of place. A row of logs that was so different, so alien, from everything else.

A monument to the pain of progress.

"Are you ready?" Sheefa asked.

"A moment longer." Vaux'avh breathed deeply and slowly. The bleeding on her side had stopped and started more than once. As the star Helia rose higher in the sky that morning the Sith had begun to tire, and it sat directly overhead as they watched from their perch.

"There's too many out here," Sheefa said, nodding toward the Isolationist forces. "The port won't hold without help."

"A moment longer," the other snarled. Her face darkened and her heavy breathing intensified, each one coming faster and harder than the last. Sheefa coiled beside her, waiting, and followed the charging Sith when she exploded out of the tree. Their blades both lit and humming. All around them, the E'lon weapons made their characteristic crack, as volleys of projectiles sailed through the air. Vaux'avh led the way, deflecting those ahead, while Sheefa jumped back and forth to protect them from behind.

Two E'lon popped out of a dip in the ground, but Vaux'avh wasted no time before electrifying them as she ran. The smell made Sheefa's nostrils burn.

The remaining E'lon ahead of them were too focused on the skirmish at the wall itself, and the two Mirialan were able to bound through the numbers and over the wall without molestation. Vaux'avh landed hard, rolling and sliding on her front, while Sheefa was able to manage something only slightly more graceful.

"Come on," Sheefa shouted, as she ran diagonally across the open space. Past her own ship, and toward the thickest of the fighting.

"What are you doing?!" Vaux'avh screamed. "We have to get out!"

"I can't leave these people here!"

"You can't help them either!" Vaux'avh staggered after her, one arm pressed tightly to her side to keep pressure on the wound had torn open again and was bleeding through what remained of her dress. "All you can do is die for them."

Sheefa turned, torn by guilt, and watched in horror as a part of the wall collapsed at the far corner of the port. Isolationist forces swarmed through the gap.

"It's up to you to tell the Council."

Sheefa drew her lightsaber, mentally preparing herself to stand before the oncoming horde, and jumped when Vaux'avh grabbed her hand.

"Soriel," the Sith begged tearfully. "Please."

A lifetime passed as they stared at each other.

Sheefa squeezed back, holding on to Vaux'avh's hand and dragging the injured Sith back to her ship. "Get us off the ground, N1," she cried, while still several steps from the ramp. The kinetic shields were already repelling small caliber fire as both Mirialan women moved through the door and into the ship. Vaux'avh collapsed to the ground, wheezing in pain, as Sheefa hauled herself through to the cabin and took over. The E'lon had no more powerful weapons for attacking large vehicles, and the shields stopped being necessary for more than standard atmospheric protection once they were a hundred meters up. Tears filled her eyes as they passed out of the gravitational shadow of Dur'Shist. As soon as the course was plotted, she took them into hyperspace.

***

The Sith clenched her teeth, sucking air through them sharply, as Sheefa pressed the kolto-soaked bandage over the wound in her side. Her left arm cradled her breasts while her right hand gripped the edge of the exam table in the med bay.

"That was definitely infected," Sheefa said, "but this will help." She reached around the older woman's torso to loop the bandage several times, keeping firm pressure, and then tied it off with adhesive. "Now—"