Crimson Tides: In Chains

[Hara Kiri]

There was an artist, about 2,000 years in the past, who suffered from a vision disorder. As he grew in age, things became increasingly blurry. He could hardly walk without collisions, he could barely feed himself. His friends urged him to help himself, back then, simple robotics could be transferred to to humans. The painter could recieve new eyes, eyes that would never blur or distort. But the artist never did it, he never got his eyes fixed. He reasoned, 'How else could he see the beautiful symphony of radiant, diffused color?' The artist's blurry vision went on to become some of the most influential pieces of art in the Old Republic.

For Hara Kiri as she recalled this story, she felt wholly analogous to it. Days had passed by in a sickening blur; from new threatening face to new threatening face she travelled. She'd seen crimson blood pour from her body and radiently glow before her under the interrogator's light. Orange and brown made a scheme similiar to that of autumn on Idor, only she viewed it through a pail full of water. It was like a reflection, she reasoned, a reflection of the fall leaves of Idor. Then she took a very prolonged swim.

When you can't breathe, the blood vessels in your eyes feel as though they may burst. When that interrogator yanks your hair with such a force that your whole frail body collapses back upon itself, your head having collided with solid durocrete... Vision, Hara Kiri observed, becomes the most beautiful painting of all. In the dance with the grey haired interrogator, Hara Kiri was coming to a realization, though it was hard to pinpoint just yet. Somewhere between strikes from a metal chair and the sensations birthing from his desert skin rubbing against her, violating her, Hara Kiri was grasping for straws. In this madness there was logic. In smears of paint, there was beauty.

"Forty Days, forty nights." A gruff, male voice said. "You're a hot catch violet."

The voice was new to her. She had changed locations yet again and like the past eight times she had no idea where she was. Asking questions only resulted in heightened misery; she kept her mouth shut.

He gave her time to speak, though nothing came and he continued. "You have no idea where you are, do you?"

Hara Kiri said nothing.

He tilted his head a little as if he were looking for signs of life. "How about, who your captures are?" He grinned devilously. "Eh?"

All these little mysteries that, as of recently, were the only structures of her life could hardly be forgotten. But his careless prodding and jesting only embellished the facts unto the point of which she could hardly breathe and be reminded at the same time.

"Do you know, Hara Kiri, where you were last before you were captured?" The smile shrinked to the scowl he wore coming in. "That's, ah, not rhetorical."

"I hate you." Were the only words she allowed through her lips.

"Dear, please." He said, already showing signs of unenthusiasm for games. "Last time, where were you last before being captured?"

"And I'm gonna kill you." This was the part in a holovid where she revealed she had broken her restraints and proceeds to murder everyone.

"You're hardly in the position." His dismissal was much closer to the truth than the actual threat. "Where were you, girl?"

She only bent her body further more into the fetal position. It was a gamble, perhaps a large one. There had been two types of interrogators in this long line of transfers, weak ones who gave up, weak ones who raped and beat her, and the good ones who drained her like a fat milk cow. She was betting at best this one was the second type. He had already choked her on water, only now she needed to infuriate him to the point where he might do her some good. Not responding was the best way so far, what else could she do? Maybe he would hit until her vision faded from blurry to black, she hoped he would.

"You're going back to the bucket, violet one."

She wanted to protest, but couldn't. She simply didn't want to anymore, her body had become devoid of willpower. A strong hand clutched her already wet hair and thrust her head into the rusty bucket. Instinctively her body resisted, though the mind gave commands to die. Could she not even do that any more? She couldn't simply die?

---

Her eyes flickered open, she expected them to be damp, they weren't. But hadn't her captors thrust her head into that pail of oily water? She'd passed out, she must have. But where was she now, a different cell, she thought, one without chains and a window glowing brightly on the end farthest from he. Standing up, she slowly shuffled towards it as her body ached and knees cracked.

Nothing but endless white, a blanket of snow that made the walls and floor glow in indiscrimenent unison. Where was she?

In an instant, the skeletal face of a stormtrooper appeared before the window barking orders to back away and facet he opposite wall with hands and legs spread.

Stormtroopers. Fear coursed through her as naturally as blood in her veins, only her thoughts dwindled on Lamar Starworth, the only stormtrooper she had ever known with a real face.

The door opened and she dared to look. A silhouetted officer stood, arms behind his back, flanked by stormtroopers. Here come the chains.

[Y'roth Helghast]

The Imperial officer was sweating. This was a transfer procedure that Captain Smelding was not comfortable with at all. The Inquisition had appeared suddenly and demanded the adept into their authority. Their black fleet never seemed to register in their security net until after the Inquisitoriate was already involved in communications with higher. And then the orders had been filed down, finally reaching the intelligence division and resting at the desk of Smelding.

Captain Smelding had seen Inquisitoriate agents and soldiers, the black uniforms and the black stormtrooper armor, the blood red crest. He had never seen an actual Inquisitor, until now. The... man walked amidst the others like some kind of monarch predator. One of his eyes even illuminated itself a diabolical red on occasion. And he didn't look the Military Intelligence type either. This Inquisitor... Helghast, a fitting name, was built like an Assault Recon Commando or something. The enlisted were in awe of the Inquisitoriate forces. They were simply fear inspiring. Their looks didn't make the full weight of that awe though.

Their reputation was wide known. They were the loyal extremists. And their zealot propaganda drove the masses into a tizzy when they were on display and the regular joe stormtrooper always came away from their briefs thinking he was more and more for the Empire every time. And then the Fear set in.

The rumors caught up to those in authority positions, like Smelding and trickled down to the lowest ranks. If you heard or saw the wrong thing around the INQ ranks, you'd disappear. If you botched one objective that might have relevance to their agenda, you might as well commit suicide. And whatever one could do in the Imperial forces, you never went near adepts with anything stupid in mind, caged or not. The Inquisitoriate had a horrible habit of rooting out flaws because they watched the adepts so closely.

Smelding didn't know of any flaws and had no intention but to follow his orders and be rid of the Inquisitoriate as soon as possible. Two of his white stormtroopers entered the room, one leveled a rifle at her, the other brought one arm behind her back and then the other and linked them in stun cuffs. A chain ran from the stun cuffs to a collar that they placed about her neck. As the collar locked, the adept could feel a slight sting in her neck that faded over the next few seconds and the collar beeped in response.

"Sergeant, render her senseless."

Smelding indicated towards the senior trooper present who nodded and withdrew what they all simply called the 'black bag.' It cut out hearing, sight, and smell. As well as dampened the sound of her voice to nothing louder than normal conversation. It was slipped over her face and they ushered her out of the room. She couldn't hear Smelding's voice any longer as he began to speak.

"Its too bad, eh Leiutenant?"

As he turned to his XO.

"I mean, look at that body. And straight to the Inquisitoriate. They don't even know where to start with with that."

His XO smiled but said nothing more to it. They were both nervous, and each man handled their anxiety in their own way.

=======

The bag was pulled from over her head sometime later. Her environment had drastically changed from before. It was much darker. Blue lights casting dim glows across the room. To her side was a stormtrooper, not the same kind like before, but in black, with a blood red symbol on his left breast and right shoulder plate that was Imperial in design but slightly different. Three more stood before her and behind them were two taller men. They wore what seemed to be black officer uniforms bearing the same symbol as the soldiers.

One of them had long dark hair that was tied behind him, his eyes went from the man beside him and back to Hara Kiri with every other few whispered words. His mouth would twist into a smile at points that were unavoidably attractive and at other times, incredibly devious. His hands moved as he spoke but his posture was just the same as the man beside him. His skin was slightly darker and beyond that, he was simply one of the most attractive men any woman would ever lay her eyes upon.

The man beside him though. His gaze bore no human resemblance. His right eye did infact glow a devilish red in the darkness of the room. He was solid, his body stretched the uniform across broad shoulders. His hair was jet black and swept back from his emotionless face. Unlike the other man, he wore gloves, and his collar was higher, covering wires that ran up his neck like veins. With the light adjusting some, a small black sphere could be seen, floating at his shoulder, a red receptor glowing to match the man's eye.

A soldier turned and saluted with a fist to his chest to the two men.

"Prisoner OE-4783293 is ready for processing and interrogation."

[Hara Kiri]

Like the previous days, the experience of living blurred as time casually passed by. In the moments containing the handover between regular Imperial forces and the Inquisition, her body had begun to recover and ready itself for the torrent of pain she knew she was destined for.

At last, the hood was removed and the fearsome group of men stood ominously before her. Should she protest, should she submit? Her body tensed with internal confusion as she did neither. She couldn't even muster up a look of terror in high hopes of gaining sympathy.

Was this what she had amounted to? All that time spent with the Sith, all the time under training... developing an attitude. Her nose scrunched as her brow furrowed and finally she sat, "The frell do you want?"

Immediatly thereafter she realized her mistake.

[Y'roth Helghast]

The handsome man held his hands out to his sides, palms up, as he shrugged almost comically to her question. The smile across his lips most decidedly devious at this point. The soldiers parted fluidly as he stepped forward. He leaned forward, still two feet away from Hara Kiri though.

"The frell do you want?"

The man's lips moved but her voice, flawlessly, with the exact same intonations came out of his mouth.

"That is the question, isn't it? The frell do you want?"

He wasn't even repeating what she had said before now, but he still used her voice as if he had stolen it from her very throat.

"You can get whatever you want too, and you can get it for only..."

His voice suddenly changed without skipping a beat to that of a well known talk show holovid host.

"... teeeeeeelling us what we want to know!"

While this might've been bleakly humorous to some. Victor Crestmere's ability to assume the traits of others was uncannily accurate and it betrayed a scary amount of skill in one person to have assumed her voice in a familiar way from just one small question.

His voice changed back to hers though as he continued.

"You really have to think on this though. Its like a big deal or something like that, not to take this offer like a joke. Because..."

The fear in his eyes was convincingly genuine. The poor girl would honestly never know if this was a truth hidden within a joke or merely a continued mockery, or more obviously, a veiled threat.

"...If you say no, I leave. And it suddenly gets like sooooo much worse."

His eyes slowly looked to the tall man, wearing the same uniform as him behind him and then he looked back to Hara Kiri.

[Hara Kiri]

She lurched back at the sound of her own voice emerging from the man's lips. Astonishment and fear merged into one across her worn face. What was she to think now? She'd been beaten and battered by a plethora of men in a multitude of cells and cages. She'd changed hands over and over again that she hardly knew whether to believe these men truely were Imperial stormtroopers or if it was just another tactic by some lowlife space pirate to scare her into submission.

She heard the man's voice change back and forth while she stared at his lips, looking for evidence of a mechanical device, she tried to feel some use of the Force and found nothing.

"not to take this offer like a joke. Because If you say no, I leave. And it suddenly gets like sooooo much worse."

She began to panic, she had heard every word of the man's alternating voices but fell short of actually listening to what he had to say. An offer? It was more than anyone had given her in the past hands she sat captive in.

"What offer?" She relied meekly, hoping the man wouldn't taunt her anymore.

[Y'roth Helghast]

She was young, she was naive, and yet youth enabled an individual options that elder and more jaded personalities could not grasp. All the Inquisitoriate required was cooperation, complete and utter cooperation. Resistance of any kind was not tolerated and the older a subject, the longer that person had to develop their own 'identity' and thus they resisted in an attempt to maintain that independence. How futile it was and how lucky Hara Kiri might be to not fall into that category.

Victer's smile was seductively amused as he continued, speaking in a voice that might've been his own.

"An offer. You tell me everything, and everything means everything, that I want to know, and I, in return, will give you whatever you want. We can deal with this in a courteous manner, settle it without any rough edges, and in the end, we actually both get what we want from this.

The only catch being, we'll have my side of the conversation first to make sure that you hold up your end of the bargain."

Before she could say anything, he held up one finger between them in a gentle warning.

"But hold that thought, yes, you will have to trust me to follow through because there are no incentives beyond your request which will be fufilled after I am finished asking you questions. And if you choose to deny us any of your information or we discern that you have lied to us, the deal is off and we will have to resort to what I would consider unnecessary measures.

I am a liason between the Inquisitoriate and... special cases such as yourself and there are rules I have to follow of course. I only hope that as I give you a moment to think it over that you understand my position as much as yours."

Helghast stood in the back of the room, his arms crossed over his chest. Crestmere was playing his part well, as usual, and following Y'roth's instructions flawlessly. Helghast didn't expect her to divulge all of the information they wanted from her and when she refused this information, He would personally continue the process from that point on.

[Hara Kiri]

"Freedom." She said meekly. "All I want is to go free." A tear trailed down her cheek as she looked in the eyes at what may be her best hope in escaping the past days of hell. She was shackled in every way imaginable, she couldn't move a limb. If she could have, she would have clutched the mans leg and hugged it in desperation. Instead, she pivoted on her knees and leaned towards him.

"Please." She begged. "What do you want to know?"

[Y'roth Helghast]

Crestmere leaned in forward some, his elbow resting on his knee, and his chin resting in the palm of his hand. He seemed so innocent, so genuinely concerned that she would just answer the question he was about to ask and that she would answer without any kind of delay. A person like Hara Kiri, who just met the man with a thousand faces, a Judas of Alderaan, would never guess that he had been responsible in helping the Empire in destroying a planet, had murdered thousands as an operative in Project Nightmare, and could practically 'steal the soul' of someone, making it his own, after he studied them long enough, adding another personality, voice, characteristic to the archive of names he could already emulate.

"What happened to the Sith Order? From the beginning. And how did you come into the hands of that woman, Alexei Sturkov?"

[Hara Kiri]

There were some rules about not having to tell secrets of the Sith Order that she had agreed to submit to when she was admitted. She was never privy to many secrets to begin with, would telling the Empire the basics of what happened constitute as treachery?

Doubtful. She assumed. So long as I don't give it all away.

"Umm..." She mumbled, trying hard not to look the disturbing man in the eye. "We got attacked, I got captured."

[Y'roth Helghast]

"Elaborate please, wouldn't you? Make a story out of it. You've got an audience to impress and I'm afraid..."

His voice shifted to hers once again.

"We got attacked, and I got captured..."

And reverted back.

"Is not going to cut it. Where did this occur, why were you attacked, who else was there, so on and so on. Please, don't be dodgy or try to divert from what we ask you. Remember, I'm here to help you but there are some things that I have to have."

Victor appeared distressed for Hara Kiri's sake and sympathetic to the situation she was in. Internally, the myriad of faces and voices were patient and otherwise all at once.

Just kill her. She's useless. Wait, she will be cooperative. She only needs a friend. One that will stab her in the back when she least expects it.

[Hara Kiri]

"Korriban." She said and grew more feisty. "Duh."

Like water to parched lips, the Darkside welled inside her and gave her a little more energy. Traditionally the Force had a renewing and empowering effect on the person who touched it, for her it merely 'made her more useless and a smart alack." As her former master Jorshal Vuntana once said to her.

"Is not going to cut it." The voice chameleon said. "Where did this occur, why were you attacked, who else was there, so on and so on. Please, don't be dodgy or try to divert from what we ask you. Remember, I'm here to help you but there are some things that I have to have."

"Oh!" She said and raised an eyebrow. "Loosen these shackles and you can have me."

[Y'roth Helghast]

Take her. Kill her then take her. No, don't do that! Ignore them, maintain proffesionalism. Just kill her. She's useless. She wants to play games. Leave her to Helghast, she might as well be dead then. Take her.

Victor hung his head in depression. He looked up from the ground, his head still bowed; his eyes were brimming with tears.

"I'm so sorry that it had to be this way. I thought this would've worked out. I wish things could've been different."

He stood and wiped the tears from his eyes with the side of his hand. Crestmere turned to face Helghast and saluted. She couldn't see his face while he was standing and away from her thus she couldn't see the sudden change in his facial features. Helghast returned the salute of the stoic demeanor of Captain Crestmere before they both dropped their hands. Victor then slumped in stance and sobbed as he walked out the door, two guards in suit. He didn't expect he'd be seeing her in normal disposition ever again.

Helghast stepped forward and looked over the female before him.

"Rack the prisoner to the wall and spread her limbs out."

The soldiers answered as one, their tone suddenly more detached. SSG Bayers was one of the two remaining and he felt like everytime he swallowed, there was a rock stuck in his throat. He wished he had been with Captain Crestmere. He'd seen one of the Inquisitor's interrogation sessions before. Bayers hadn't even seen it actually happen, he'd only seen the before and after. That had been enough for a slew of nightmares and even a few sessions of reconditioning therapy. That poor girl. Crestmere had been her out. Even as weird as the guy was, Bayers had figured they really were going to cut a deal with her. It had happened before, once or twice, he was sure...

[Hara Kiri]

"Wait!" She called as the man left the room. "I'm serious!"

No use. Apparently he wasn't into the opposite sex. She concluded. She took a deep breath of air into her lungs, paused and exhaled as the more frightening of the Inquisitors stepped up and spoke. The hope that the other more talkative man would return crept up on her. This new one looked like he meant business.

"Rack the prisoner to the wall and spread her limbs out." He ordered.

She grimaced with sarcasm in her eye, "Kinky."

Despite the fearless facade she put up, fear trickled into the back of her mind. She'd barely dealt with the Imperial Military before, unless you call the incident with Lamar dealing. She'd never dealt with the Inquisition before either, but she dreaded it now. Stormtroopers clutched her wrists tightly as they hauled her up, the only sound heard was the rustling of the chains that bound her. She hung her head low and watched as a tear dropped from her eye to the floor. Hope for an escape to safety, that someone might rescue her, had abandoned her.

[IMP]

PRISONER/// XFA-14920877
SESSION/// 14920877
INTERROGATOR/// XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
AUTHORIZATION/// XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX-94, LAACD
SUMMARY COMMENCEMENT/// ADMITTED FORCE ADEPT CAPTURED UNDER THE PRETENSE THAT AN UNSANCTIONED ORGANIZATION OF FORCE ADEPTS EXISTS; MANDATORY OBJECTIVE TO RETRIEVE VITAL INFORMATION FOR PRIORITY PURPOSES

BEGIN RECORDING SESSION/// ...

The black orb drifted in front of her face, the red light from its main receptor casting a dim glow across her features. She was chained to the wall with little to no slack in her chains, her limbs spread out, and the Inquisitoriate troopers responsible for it saluted hastily and left without a pause. The red light reflected off the damp streak on her cheek, the droid even noted where the tear had landed on the ground before her. But IMP was also already at work to Helghast's specifications, scanning the force adept prisoner for a number of specifics, bone structure, organs, nervous system, organic deteriorization, and so on. All of it was being uploaded to Helghast's neural implant for his viewing.

IMP did little else beyond that, waiting and anticipating Helghast's next order.

[Hara Kiri]

"So, you always play this rough?" She asked sarcastically. If she could afford to, she would have spit in his direction but the lack of water in her recent life compelled her to save any liquid that might touch her lips. She swallowed hardly as another tear broke from her eyes.

Be brave. She told herself silently. They can hardly do worse than what was already done.

Finally they began their process of 'interrogation.' While she was covered in the most indecent places with undergarments she now stood partially naked and chained to a wall. She smiled as the soldiers and seeming Helghast paused. Her body was covered in scars that made no pattern or sense.

"I've done horrors to my body. Bring your worst."

[Y'roth Helghast]

Helghast had done worse. The scars on this woman were not debilitating in any fashion that left her crippled, physically. She boasted as if it were some kind of achievement. As if Helghast was supposed to care. Jedi, trapped in the cages designed by Lord Vader and the late Emperor himself, had done worse to themselves with almost nothing to work with and even they thought that the Inquisitoriate could inflict no more than that. The imaginations of prisoners often seemed so limited.

Helghast stepped forward, a cylindrical machine falling in tow behind. It raised its body into the air on a stand for Helghast's convenient access and it slowly opened, six layers of different, sterilized equipment, refrigerated chemicals, and other devices necessary for any avenue that the Inquisitor might embark upon during his interrogation. He drew a canister, a pale white chemical that was frozen until he pressed the button at the top and it instantly thawed. He loaded the canister into the chamber of the injection pistol and then pressed it against the skin just below her left arm pit. The white fluid disappeared as it was forced into her bloodstream. He set the injection pistol back into the holster and withdrew another, as well as retrieving another vial, a sickly yellow in color, thawed in the same fashion and loaded. She would experience the same sharp pain and the interesting sensation of fluid being forced into her blood stream as he withdrew it from its placing against her neck.

The first injection was a pseudo-organic liquid that would act in a similar fashion to lactic acids and it would work itself into the muscular system of the entire body, causing a soreness throughout the muscles that most would never experience. The stiffness was necessary for the second fluid to properly. The yellowish liquid was actually a supplement to the bone marrow and would keep the body from becoming susceptible to blood loss so readily. One of several preparations in preventing the degrees of shock that would inevitably set in regardless of the subject's mental abilities.

Helghast was a masterwork interrogator and in many senses could be considered the very antithesis of a surgeon, using the same precision but for quite a different intent.

[Hara Kiri]

Her muscles churned beneath her skin, looking for a point of tensing the pain away. Nothing worked. She rolled her neck and wriggled under the chains. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, but she supposed it was only the beginning. This was supposed to be a torture session, wasn't it? This was discomfort, not torture. She tried to keep her eyes focused, to at least see what was coming her way, but the tiniest muscles that controlled her eyes even ached.

"If this is supposed to get me to talk..." She said and stretched her jaw. "I think you'll render me able to talk sooner."

Her eyes made out his hands working diligently as they searched for yet another chemical. Maybe talking wasn't so bad.

"What is it you want again?"

[Y'roth Helghast]

"The questions asked by the agent previously still stand. Why were you attacked on Korriban? Who else, specifically, was present? How did events pass that you in result became a prisoner?"

The cold feeling of the metal against her neck happened again as Helghast injected another substance into her blood stream. This one would help regulate the cardiovascular system, however it took a little time to settle into the system so Helghast set to the next task while he awaited her response. She'd feel no immediate effects from that one, but she would feel slightly warmer, not necessarily uncomfortably warm, but almost.

His hand ran over some of the catalysts and their chain reactive counterparts as he considered the young female adept. Truth serums rarely worked outright on adepts, Helghast already had those ruled out, but the psychological alteration drugs, also known as psalts, could break down will power in their own unique ways for the truth serums to break through. The rate at which the psycho-alt drugs worked depended on the drug and the dosage of course but also upon the brain chemistry of the subject. Without the time to file the proper tests, it was a hit or miss process that Helghast had no problem with enduring.