Self Indulgence

[Hera]

Hera had been good.

No, not good. Behaved.

Hera had been behaving.

What a distasteful thought. She was ashamed of herself. Her Master, could he see her now, would be ashamed of her too.

Her time spent in introspection, reliving that lesson (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17043] lesson) in the Ancient Woods had, if nothing else, made her remember who she had been. No, who she was.

She had been towing the line ever since her capture.

The horrendous interrogation by Y'roth Helghast designed to crush any hint of rebellion or disobedience in those he'd allowed to survive such a session, had done its job. Hera had been a tamed kitten.

She thought of Baralai Lotus, the young fool Sith who'd been caught with her. (http://sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12703) He hadn't shut up with his defiant bravado despite the torture, insomuch that Helghast had torn out his tongue for him. Hera had it still in her drawer, laquered in amber, and kept it as a constant reminder of his foolishness. But now she thought differently of it. It reminded her that Baralai did not yeild to a greater force just to buy himself some time. He had not accepted terms. There had been a time when Hera would never have accepted terms.

She had let herself believe that without the Force, she was not the person she had once been. Which, was true to some degree. But, Hera knew better than to kid herself any longer.

Hera had been afraid. All this time, she'd hidden from that hard fact. Helghast, Valten - the Nightmares. She could not beat them and she had been cowed by Heghast's poisons and their devastating effects. And by the sheer lethality of the Grand Inquisitor and his officers.
She had been afraid.
She had done as they had wanted
And she was doing what was expected.

Now it was time to indulge in what she wanted to do.

And what she wanted to do, was misbehave.

[Hera]

Hera's freedom to move about the common rooms and corridors of the Inquisitoriate under the ever-watchful eye of IMP, the orbital droid who was Helghast's eyes and ears when the man himself was not physically present, had resulted in the general Imperial populace she encountered to grow familiar with her, and therefore, contemptuous of their Sith prisoner.

She strolled into the small cafe enclave, situated on the 118th level of the tower, just as she would on any given day. And, just as on any given day, the comfortable surroundings were peppered with lounging military staff enjoying some downtime. Some sat in deep couches hunched over a game of chess. Others read newspapers or manuals to pass their time. While others still engaged in the nausiating social dialogue that was typical of droned humanoids devoid of personality who seemed to flock to the armed forces in droves. Hera hated the lot of them.

She stood at the counter in order to take her turn requesting a caffe. The soldier ahead of her tossed her a sneer and rolled his eyes at the barista across from him.

"We dont serve your type, here" the barista declared to Hera, fishing for an approving nod from the soldier, which he got.

"He means" the soldier clarified, his tone designed to belittle Hera, "Prisoners gotta get their own." He jerked his head to the left, "That'd be your brew right there"

Hera moved around her beligerant acquaintance to the hotplate where a half flilled pot of coffee had sat the better part of the morning getting old and stale. She lifted it, swillig the black muck with the rotation of her wrist.

"Would you like some?" she offered genially and the soldier answered with a scoff and and a disdainful shake of his head.

"Sure you do" Hera contradicted and thrust her arm forward, smashing the glass pot into the soldier's face.

The crash made those at the the nearest table jump and the barista let out a surpsied yelp. Hera swung her hand, still holding the handle of the coffee pot, of which there remained two or three jagged glass shards shooting out lethally from its rim, coffee rolling from their tips. She collected one soldier in the side of the face, as he rushed at her, his cheek sliced clean through to his lips which gave him a grotesque lop-sided yaw for a mouth.

She swept her other arm the length of the counter top, scattering danish podiums and glass scone cases in her wake, sending them off the bench to crash about the place on the floor. She now had the attention of the entire cafe.

An armed ensign reached for his blaster, and Hera hurled a chair at him, hitting him squarely in the chest and sprawling him backwards to hit against the duraglass of the cafe wall.

Another ensign - a female - rushed her, diving at her bodily and connecting with a momentum that would have felled them both to the floor, had a small couch not been directly behind them. As it was, they landed in a twist of arms and legs, where they grappled for a few seconds, before others joined the pile. Hera got her hand to where the female's weapon was holstered on her hip, and a shock of thrill vibrated through the Sith's body as the blaster pulled into her hand for a split second before her fingers even touched it.

Flicking the safety off, Hera clenched down on the trigger with determination, shooting the ensign through her torso. Further blasts found their marks in a more hapazard fashion and bodies began to drop from off her.

Hera felt wildly exhilirated and continued to fire, despite the fact that, for the moment, no more advances had been made upon her. Pushing the ensign's dead weight from off herself, Hera struggled up out of the chair, and it dawned on her why everyone else was remaining in place.

Targeted on her own chest was a blue neon ring, its source - IMP, of course, no surprise.

Hera remembered smiling up at the droid like a cat who'd just got the cream. After that, things got a bit hazey.

But, krasst, what a feeling it was to smile like that again.

[Hera]

Helghast's orbital droid hovered imperiously over her, neon target steady, and it seemed that she and it were the only two creatures in the room. People held their places standing or sitting, quietly expectant, with only the odd groan or curse of pain from the injured to soundtrack the stand-off.

Hera swung the blaster round to shoot at IMP but was absurdly slow in comparison to the unit's response. She had gotten no where close to an accurate aim before the droid emitted a low frequency pulse, illuminating the neon circle and straffing Hera's body with electricty, sending her into a debilitating spasmodic arch.

IMP perhaps should have disarmed her first as the shock of voltage caused her finger to clamp down on the blaster trigger and a laser bolted from its barrel to sink into the bad-mannered barista's head, leaving it a smoking ruin.

IMP at last desisted its charge, and Hera dropped like a sack of sodden wheat to the floor.

*******************

She woke some time later, uncertain of how long she'd been incapacitated.

She cracked one eyelid open and the shock of white light that assaulted her made her gingerly pull it back closed.

The surface she lay on was cold. Clinical. And even the thought of attempting any movement, the tap of a fingertip, the brush of a cheek, in order to explore it was overwhelmingly rejected by the riot of pain that ran unchecked throughout her every nerve-ending.

A sick and loathsome possibility crossed the Sith's mind as images familiar and regrettably remembered whispered at the edges of her consciousness.

Hera thought she may have been in this room before.

[Karl Valten]

A frighteningly familiar sound flooded through the sterile room, a low hum accompanied by a faint tingle along the skin. Hera found her limbs pinned to the surface of the table; the metal bracers strapped to her wrists and ankles pinning her against the surface. A sharp hissing sound punctured the silence and Grand Inquisitor Valten entered the chamber carrying two more all too familiar objects, an obscure bag in one and an ivory dagger spinning in the other.
<o></o>
“There are easier ways to get attention, less painful as well I would imagine.” His voice had a strange tone to it, one that Hera had never heard before. She only knew him as the Grand Inquisitor with his calculating and somewhat sane mind; she had not known him before.
<o></o>
Valten dropped the case and moved to stand above the restrained Hera, placing the abstractly decorated blade next to her head. So close and taunting, just waiting to be used.
<o></o>
“Take it, I am dying to see what you can really do?” He smiled at the glare he received in turn. She was like a caged animal that suddenly lashed out against her keepers. There was still life and hope in her mind, she had hid it well.
<o></o>
The Grand Inquisitor leaned almost casually on the edge of the table.
<o></o>
“So now that you have my attention, what is it that you, oh so, desperately need that you absolutely must shoot up a galley?”

[Hera]

It hurt to even think, let alone speak. Her body had still not recovered, and that fact atleast helped her to guage how much time had passed. A few days, maybe? A week?

"As I recall, I just wanted coffee" she said with effort.

The dagger was not lost on her. She'd seen it before at some point...where, exactly, she couldn't bring to mind, just now. It was a struggle to even fully open her eyes.

She felt cold, too, for some reason. Of course the room was sterile and bereft of any furnishings of comfort, that was pretty standard. She had bare hands and feet, and the loose clothing she had on consisted of baggy draw-string pants and a flimsy tee. But there was something more, she couldn't pin the change..

Valten was leaning close to her, the smug bastard. She noticed he didn't undo her wrists. His eyes were not cold exactly, but..detached. In the past, the Grand Inquisitor had kept a certain demeanor of approachability. Hera had felt she could atleast talk with Valten and some corresponding semblence of humanity would answer her. He had ambitions and plans. She could relate to that. It was an unspoken common ground between them. But that rapport was not here with him today.

Today, he felt very much her enemy. As he, in fact, was and always had been.

He was looking at her with a certain bemused curiosity, which Hera found humiliating. His gaze, for the breifest moment flicked from her face to her head, then back again and Hera felt the cold again.

Realisation hit her, and Hera struggled furiously against her restraints.

"Damn you Valten" she cursed. "You jerks shaved my head??"

[Karl Valten]

The bindings kept Hera pinned as she lashed out, but she did get some distance towards Valten before she jerk to a stop. The Inquisitor didn’t flinch.

Karl shook his head with a sigh. “What is it about appearances that worry you?” The question was spoken with cold admonishment. “It’s merely a side effect of the drug IMP had to use on you, unfortunately.” His eyes momentarily lowered to the knife that still lay beyond Hera’s reach on the table. “On the bright side it makes it easier for us to sew you back together if we need to. But I wouldn’t worry about it, hair grows back.”

Karl focused on Hera’s eyes, his gaze never wavering, never blinking. He remained silent as Hera angrily fumed. For some time Valten simply stayed there leaning over the table eyes locked with hers, giving her the feeling that he was sifting through her mind looking for something in the chaotic mess.

Unease set in quickly in the former Sith. “Damn it, what do you want?”

“Why?”

Valten interrupted her and Hera shut her mouth with a confused look at the simple query. “I always suspected that you’d do something like this. Why?”

“Why now and not sooner, why not when you at least had a chance? ”

[Hera]

Hera held Valten in a measured look.

He really didn't know her at all. He thought he did, perhaps, and assumed he had her figured out, likely pigeon-holeing her into a neat box, labelled in some socio-babbled term like "Insecure Female Abandonment Issues" or "Broken-force Syndrome" or some similar rubbish. That's probably why he evidenced no fear of her whatsoever. She was no threat, not really. Not to him, atleast. He thought she was upset about her hair for vanity sake? Good grief, men are always so stupid.

The injury lay not in appearances, but in the liberty that the Inquisitoriate take with her. She is their prisoner, true, but that didn't change the fact that they are still jerks for doing it, whatever the cause.

"Chance?" she asked, rolling the word off her tongue as if the concept was foreign to her. "What is it about my circumstances, Inquisitor, that you think has changed since I have been here that my chances of anything are less than before?" Hera didn't understand what he meant by his question. The knife, still where it was and out of reach, tempted Hera. She could probably move it. Possibly bring it to herself..

What she'd felt in the cafe was real. The thrill still quickened her breath as the memory of the blaster jolting into her palm, bidden to a call Hera had not, at the time, realised she'd made. Hope envigorated her and Hera did her best to hide it from Valten's inquiring eyes. If he thought he knew her..she had to keep him under that misconception.

"I told you "why" already, I wanted coffee. Your ignorant staff just pushed me on the wrong day, thats all."

She slumped back, deliberately turning away from the knife, and tried a different tack. "Im bored here, Valten. I dont know what to do with myself" she offered him in further explanation. "I have no student to teach, I have no job to do. My best companion is an annoying digital orb with zero personality. Its a wonder I haven't lost my sunny disposition completely"

[Y'roth Helghast]

IMP suddenly stirred from its seemingly dormant state in the corner of the room. It buzzed over to the door just as it opened; the tall, imposing figure of Y'roth Helghast stepped through the threshold, his eyes, void of any human glimmer, was looking at Hera without any sign of surprise or suddeness. Of course there would be no surprise, IMP had been relaying everything to Helghast the entire time. The room if anything might have seemed suddenly colder with the appearance of the Inquisitor. IMP shifted to behind its master, the red glow of its receptors matching Helghast's glowing eye.

But once he had fully entered the room, Helghast saluted the Grand Inquisitor.

"Grand Inquisitor, if I may?"

[Karl Valten]

For once, the Grand Inquisitor considered Helghast’s timing rather poor. He’d wanted some time to speak in private with Hera. It seemed that there was so little time recently to focus on any particular happening, this incident had provided that time. Valten held up a hand to momentarily silence the other Inquisitor.
<o></o>
“Wrong day? What is it that is different about today than from any other day you’ve been here that makes it inherently wrong?”
<o></o>
She didn’t understand what he was getting in the slightest. Hera had at one point been a mere prisoner to the Inquisitoriate and possibly a study subject, but if she had escaped, there would have been no real need to track her down again. She would have been placed on the most wanted list, but an adept severed from the force and removed from galactic events for half a decade would have been considered low threat.
<o></o>
But she had become an…..investment for the Inquisitoriate, an investment well worth keeping. Perhaps she didn’t realize it, but she’d been given more freedoms than many agents had. But the recent incident put a severe strain on Karl’s opinion on the wisdom of such liberties.

The Grand Inquisitor did agree with Hera on a particular point. What was an investment without any return? Many people would consider boredom a luxury…those people tended to be the mass mindless drones of society. Valten considered it a sacrilegious waste.
<o></o>
“Perhaps we can find something for you to do then?”
<o></o>
It was probably not a response she was expecting.

[Hera]

Hera pulled her eyes away from Helghast. It was infuriating the effect that man's appearance still had on her. She knew she had begun sweating despite the chill of the clinical surroundings, despite how cool she was trying to play her conversation with Valten. Some scars burned deeper into the flesh than others, and Helghast was an abuse her body refused to forget.

Effecting an ignorant attitude toward Helghast, Hera replied with genuine curiosity to Valten's suggestion, though distrust coated every syllable

"What do you suggest Inquisitor? I should think you wouldn't trust me with any task above that of your janitorial crew. And other things Im good at, well, (her smile was designed to provoke him) lets just say, you aint ready for the likes of me"

[Karl Valten]

Valten couldn’t see them, but the technicians behind the wall wore looks of complete and utter shock, even Inquisitor Helghast twitched and the Grand Inquisitor’s outburst. And Hera found herself speaking to a completely different Karl Valten.

He rarely ever fell into what was considered lower-language by the Inquisitoriate and absolutely never swore or spoke on a personal level with anyone. This was the Valten from before gaining the title of Grand Inquisitor, from before Project Nightmare and even become an idea.

Karl let his arms drop to his sides and shook his head at the restrained adept. “I look at you and all I see is a spoiled brat whining for attention: I can’t do anything, I’m bored, I’m being treated badly, I didn’t get warm coffee.” Karl stepped towards the table with a mocking voice.

“Do you really want me to throw you in a cell and give you to the explicators? I guess it would be fun watching you scream for weeks on end.” Valten’s voiced blackened to a point that neither of the occupants in the room had ever heard. “Or maybe I can tie you up and throw you to the inmates, I’m pretty sure many of them haven’t had female company in quite a while.”

Valten reached the table and with lightning speed swept up the knife stabbed it down towards Hera’s face. She didn’t have time to make any exclamation before the blade stopped, hovering less than a centimeter from her eye. Valten leaned close and whispered.

“But those would just be a waste of time on my part, better just to drive this through your skull and get rid of the baggage.....................I think that a little less wit and a little more assent might be beneficial for you, what do you say.”

[Hera]

He wouldn't dare.

Though, if he did, she could expect that Helghast most certainly would not stop him.

And now, when it mattered after not mattering for so long, Hera couldn't allow herself to be killed this way. Not when there was a chance she could realize her potential once more.

She held herself very still, her eyes fixed on Karl's. He was so close. She could smell his anger, she could breath it in, drawing strength from the dark emotion.

"I've made you angry, Valten" she said, softly. He kept the knife where it was, his hand unmoving. Was he still deciding to do it? Did he wish he already had?

"What if I made you a promise?" she said after long moments. Karl's brow flickered almost imperceptibly, but he otherwise remained unmoved. "Maybe we could change our relationship to a more amicable one?" she continued. "Surely after all this time, you realise my imprisonment is for no real purpose." Aware of Helghast's presence, she chose her words carefully. She leaned slightly back from the blade point, speaking on, "So I bloodied some noses, broke a teacup. A dead lackey or two is hardly worth a mention after all my time here, wouldn't you say?"

She moved her head around the static blade, and leaned so close to Karl that her breath tickled his ear, "Tell me what I can promise so that you may start to trust me. Couldn't I be a friend to the Empire?"

[Karl Valten]

“Friend to the Empire?” The Grand Inquisitor narrowed his eyes. His knife hand dropped and lightly dragged the tip of the blade across her throat to make clear that she was not easily getting out of her predicament. “Are you even capable of being a friend?”

The knife trailed along the side her neck and the flat of the blade pressed against her carotid artery. Valten had ample skill in the field at terrorizing victims, in the old days his methods were often the most efficient at conducting fast and impromptu interrogations. Much of the time he didn’t even have to damage the suspect, though Valten was more than willing to do so if needed.

“I have a very difficult time believing you.” He’d have preferred a string of corpses in her time as a prisoner, it would have made her much easier to predict. But his mind had already been made up far before he had even entered the room. If Hera had truly angered Valten, she would have woken up amongst the inmates…and Valten would have kept here there for weeks before letting her die.

“But perhaps I am wrong, yes?” The pressure from the knife lifted from her artery and began tracing down her neckline…all without a drop of blood being drawn by the exquisitely sharp edge. “I believe Inquisitor Helghast has a task for you. Complete it and I may consider the offer.”

Karl lifted the pressure completely and lay the knife down next to her. A silent signal from Valten’s neural implant triggered the tables restraining field and Hera felt her limbs go loose. “Consider that a gift on my part of the bargain. But if you do anger me, I will personally take that knife and carve you to pieces.”

[Hera]

A task from Helghast? Not exactly the proposition she'd been looking for, though her disappointment was offset quickly as her hands were released from the restraints.

Valten had a point - could she ever really be a friend? She'd had few enough of them in her lifetime, the majority of Hera's relationships being based solely on some mutual beneficient arrangement. The more necessary to her, the better a friend she could be. The only lasting companion she could call to mind was that brigand Cyrus Haman, (http://75.126.43.122/forum/member.php?u=4217) and he was more like one of those loyal dogs that keep returning no matter how often his master kicked him. She wondered where in the galaxy (http://75.126.43.122/forum/showthread.php?t=17108&page=3&highlight=cyrus+haman)he was now, was he even still alive? Last she'd see of him was at the helm of the "Wolfsschanze" running decoy in her ship for her against the Imperial patrols so that she might make a run for some remote planet and escape the Purge. One thing was certain, if he was alive and she ever clapped eyes on him again, he'd better make a good accounting for that damn ship.

Hera stretched her limbs, extending arms and legs in a luxuriant fashion as she sat atop the table. She ran her hands over her shorn head - her fingers gently pummelled by the short bristling ends of regenerating hair. So, she'd been there some days, if one could judge by the regrowth. Karl's knife lay untouched beside her. She would come to that.

"So then, I am to prove myself to you?" she asked, "And in dutiful obedience to him?" She didn't bother to look Helghast's way, there was no doubt to whom she referred. "You ask alot, Valten"

Hera ran a light finger back and forth along the table against the length of the knife, thinking. She wondered what exactly Valten was wanting from her - odd that he would set her to task with Y'roth, then arm her with such a weapon and release her, all as his own display of goodwill. Hera gave the Grand Inquisitor a curious look - was he giving her deliberate suggestions of how to gain his trust? If so, she was finding Valten more and more to her liking.

Hera picked up the knife, a gesture of acceptance. "There will come a time Grand Inquisitor, when I will put a proposition to you - I can only ask that you will be as receptive to what I have to say, as I am being to you."
She looked past him to the silent officer in his black uniform.
"What task?"

[Y'roth Helghast]

Helghast had stood silent and without any sign of movement or even human life. His eyes betrayed no sign of inner workings or activity of his subconcious, as if simply waiting to be addressed. Whether one decided to believe that was true was their own risk to take. How prudent had the Empire been to not develop any sense of corrupted, human-like ambition in their biological machine thus named Helghast.

"You are to accompany my detail as a subject matter expert in adept capabilities. While the Imperial Mages will also be present, you provide another perspective, without their doctrination and bred outlook."

And that was all, this was not Helghast's conversation, he was merely available for input may the Grand Inquisitor possibly be in need of it.

[Hera]

"Accompany?"

She didnt like the sound of going anywhere with Helghast, especially if it meant leaving the protection of Valten, frail as an illusion that might be.
The Mages would be there, and that assurance alone counter-balanced some of her misgivings. More time with the old wise prune could only be beneficial.

"So were off on another road trip are we?" she said attempting levity, "And I'm to be the Force expert?"

She turned to eye Karl directly. "I suppose that is an easy enough task"

And if she'd read Valten's sublties correctly, it may just provide an occassion for using her new knife.