Tales of the Citadel

[Inkara Liet]

Where does a secret spend its time?<o></o>
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Imagine if you will, an empty corridor, the dim-lit stretch extending for distance beyond sight, branching off into more corridors of the same, marked at intervals with secured chambers and cells. A corridor empty of the fervour of life, but not of its insufferable whining and bare whispers of has-been or barely-there. The holding cells of the Citadel Inquisitorius offered no escape, save for one. More, if one is not a prisoner.<o></o>
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The held ones never see the one who always watches, who always observes their suffering and extrapolates the finite length of their usefulness, a watching not of infinite patience, but of studious focus. The one who watches is not meant to be seen.<o></o> For, to be seen, is meant to have the end at hand. In her hand.
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Where does a secret spend its time?<o></o>
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Amongst its own kind, of course... when it is not elsewhere.
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------



It didn't take long for the summons to come. It was to be expected. Grand Inquisitor Valten always had something or other to say when mention came to his ears of certain 'unusual' occurrences within the Citadel. As always, she would oblige. Denial of involvement was unbecoming and he would know the truth, regardless. They both did. It was routine and entirely on purpose. She was prompt, little time being put to waste in answering his call. It was to be expected. It was a game.

It wasn't a game. It was necessary. It merely appeared to be a game.

The turbolift shifted to a stop, doors opening and beckoning her outwards to the reception chambers of the Grand Inquisitor. He taken more interest in her program in the wake of the dissolution of the Nightmares, in light of the Project's proclaimed failure. Even they knew not of her existence. Those that had nonlethal contact with her were of necessity or the more abstract thing of fate. All necessity, de facto, in the end.

Approaching the chambers, she found to encounter the Crimson Guard. They never spoke, there was no asking, no leading in. She always suddenly appeared before their eyes. It was of an observational amusement to gather the surprise registered in the Guard the first time she had appeared, draped in a hooded cloak that obscured her features. The exchange required one word and they had stepped aside - one word, saying 'I am meant to be here. You are meant never to speak of it.' As always, she was expected. Doors parted, admitting her. Doors closed seamlessly, again, enclosing her in a room with the one who called upon her. She stood, keeping the distance, hands clasped in the fore of her after having drawn back the obscuring hood, which would not be of necessity if she could simply pass through walls. Such was typically not within the skillsets of the living.

"Veritas Vincit, Grand Inquisitor." She said, tipping her head forward, slightly, in respectful acknowledgment of his position. She smiled when her head lifted, not out of camaraderie or pleasantness, but out of necessity to appear something other than what was apparent. It was entirely an act that was not without its need of continual practice. The smile dropped away from her face, leaving behind a visage of nothing expressed atop a slender neck shrouded in the high neckline of her vêtements, unique from the standard fare of the Inquisitoriate. "You rang?"






<o></o>

[Karl Valten]

Knowledge is power……or so the old adage goes. Knowledge indeed controlled the universe. Knowledge of controlled the balances of power. Knowledge of Warfare controlled the rise and fall of empires. Knowledge of the physical realm created countless wonders. Knowledge of the esoteric governed the souls of people.

Inquisitor Valten sat cross-legged on the cold obsidian of the Inquisitorial Citadel’s inner sanctum, known simply as the Cathedral. While not an adept, meditation still helped to sooth the mind and focus turbulent thoughts.

And in the chaos and rapidly changing state of the Imperium, there was much for the Grand Inquisitor to dwell on. Politics and business had distracted and blinded him. Atrapes was right; the Inquisition didn’t belong in the light.



There is much knowledge to be found in these catacombs. The great databanks of the Inquisitorial Archives may contain even more of the precious substance than even the old Jedi Library. If one searched long enough, they could even find the keys left behind by aeons dead civilizations.


He had long been away from the shadows and the whispers creeping within. Many events had been overlooked, occurrences ignored that should have been pursued as if on a crusade. The lack of vigil had spawned rumors and flickers of doubt.

And while the Inquisitoriate thrived on secrets and lies even amongst its own……doubt could not be tolerated. Especially not when doubt was sown from within.



But for each vast repository of knowledge there are ten times as many tomes of deceit. Should one try and survive, they must be able to discern true knowledge from the filth.

So now he waited, focusing inwards as incense wafted across the chambers. As he purged all doubt from him…and renewed his faith in the Doctrine that dictated the Inquisitoriate…the impulse that the rest of the Inquisitoriate must do the same surfaced.

Yes, and it would start in the Citadel. The Tales would be told and those that were deemed to rot the heart of the Inquisition be join countless other in the oblivion of the archives.




Knowledge is indeed power, for not only does it great gifts, but it is also a curse. Knowledge in the wrong hands can spell doom for entire populations. Knowledge can corrupt the most stalwart of minds. Knowledge can turn the cattle on their handlers. Knowledge can destroy hope in the strongest light.

And Knowledge can be bliss for those who do not possess it

The door opened and a figure entered, weaving deeper into the chambers. As always the Grand Inquisitor new the moment drew before him even without the grace of sight. Even when those who could tap into the force could not even catch a ripple of her.

Valten drew a deep breath before opening his eyes, the heavy scent of incense burning his lungs.

“Inkara.” He never used first names. “A phantom seems to be sowing doubt in the minds of my acolytes.”

He did not need to speak the question; it would have been rhetorical for both knew the answer. But it was part of the game, and the unspoken rules to be followed. The question itself was simple, why? , though the answer much deeper.



But of you, my faithful Inquisitors, nothing shall exist. For if Knowledge truly is power……then to be unknown……is to be invincible

[Inkara Liet]

"Why..." She drew out, dropping her eyes that moment and moving aside, away from the door. She tipped her head to look at him, as she paced, moving her hands from the front to the back and clasping them there. "...you know well enough there is no such thing as phantoms, Karl."

She never used only the first name. Full titles and names seemed so much more condemning in times of judgment. Mothers were known to bring a child's full name to bear in much similar a fashion. Most sentient mothers, however, tended not to kill their young. Inkara halted, a metre and a half to the port side of the Grand Inquisitor, turning her face away from him again and looking ahead.

"Your acolytes are weak and lacking faith in the doctrine." Her voice effected something of a stern current to it, now, biting off words. "Your acolytes. Need I say to whom the fault lies, here? Is it necessary that I should need to remind you of where your duty, in primary, should lie?"

Fear was not something that seemed to occur to Liet. Fear was for others. Fear happened to others. Fear was her tool. Judgment, her measure.

"Lack of discipline is breeding dissent, doubt and dishonest behaviours that lie astray of the doctrine. Your acolytes have been taking liberties that can and will and may already have breached our securities." Again, she looked at him from where she stood. "You, Grand Inquisitor, have lead them astray yourself, by your actions and ignorance."

She turned towards him, then, and took slow steps forward. "I have been testing them, finding out for myself just how far down the rabbit hole goes. Your phantom has merely been marking out a suitable candidate."

One corner of the Unseen's mouth raised almost imperceptably when she ceased in her forward pace, leaving little distance now between her and him.

"A suitable candidate to be made an example of." Her mouth fell to a nondescript line. "Vincit Omnia Veritas, Grand Inquisitor, as I am certain you may have heard, most recently. We are always watching, are we not?"

[Karl Valten]

So she was watching him too? It was to be expected.

The Grand Inquisitor’s eyes fell closed and a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. Forces existed within the Inquisitoriate that even Valten wasn’t immune to; judgments could be passed even against him.

“You suggest that I am at fault? My actions and ignorance?” He began laughing openly at the accusations being hurled at him. “No, no, I think you mistake my meaning.”

Inquisitors always had a history of disagreeing with each other, but as long as they all followed the rules set written in the Book of Indoctrinations by Palpatine himself, they maintained their unity.

But that was then, and Valten had long come to the conclusion that a new book must be written should the Empire survive. He himself had already broken several codes, though only a handful of Inquisitor were privy to the fact.

“Tell me, Inquisitor Liet, do you doubt my faith?”

[Inkara Liet]

"Of course not." She replied, in such a tone as if it were a matter of fact and public record. "Nor is mine to be called into question. It is not you, directly, that I judge in this matter. Every action has a reaction - a simple concept."

She stood over him, whereas he continued to sit. It continually was something that piqued her interest that the Grand Inquisitor was without some of the faculties at his disposal that his own acolytes possessed. It was not a regular occurrence for any man or woman to reach the position of Inquisitor without the proof that such faculties were within the individual's grasp. It was curious. She did not have to wonder, however, how it was that he retained his office. That too, was within her purview. She crouched to his level, forearms laid across thighs.

"However, I am certain your faith might be lacking, as with how things stand at this point in time. This I can accept. But what, then, is to be done? Tell me - what do you think comes next?"

She had her own thoughts on this matter. It remained to be seen if the Grand Inquisitor was of a similar mind.

[Karl Valten]

“Lacking in faith?”

Valten’s eyes darkened at the statement. No, no, the woman, intelligent as she was, could not have been farther from the truth. He had been the one most loyal to the cause, to the Empire. Faith not in the throne, not in an individual, not even in the Inquisitorial Doctrine, but faith that the Imperium’s cause was the one true thing keeping the galaxy from spiraling into chaos.

Every action that he had taken in the last two years was to strengthen the Inquisitoriate and allow them power to keep the late Emperor’s vision alive. While the Moffs and the Aristocrats and the Soldier and the Generals and even many Inquisitors simply continued on with no focus, Karl never lost sight.

“I am well aware of my every action and I am perfectly aware of the reactions they cause. As for what I think comes next….”

The Grand Inquisitor stood to his feet and pulled a document from his robes.

“…the deviants have made themselves known and the storytellers are openly spreading their filth. What comes next is that you do your job and stop questioning mine.”

He handed the document over to Inquisitor Liet. It was a simple one, his authorization that she do what she must by any means needed.

“Listen to the tales. Silence the ones spreading this rot through our citadel.”

[Inkara Liet]

She received the authorization and his orders, eyes flicking over each line as she stood. When the intake finished, she folded it precisely and tucked it in somewhere under her cloak. Just as she had on entering, she tipped her head to him.

"As you have willed it, so it will be done."

She drew the hood back over her head and retreated to from whence she came. Work needed doing.


----------------


Citadel Inquisitorius - One Week Earlier

He was certain the apparition had been real. It looked so real. There had to have been a reason. He had never seen her before and was convinced that there was something in the Citadel that should not have been. If not, it had to be a ghost. There were rumours. Stories. Rumours of stories. And he had only heard rumour that these all existed. He needed fact.

The High Inquisitors had not believed him. They had rebuked him. 'There is no such thing as ghosts, Inquisitor Allem', they said. 'Perhaps your visual acuity should be reassessed, Inquisitor Allem', they suggested. 'There is no such woman by that description in our ranks and there are no unauthorized personnel within our walls, Inquisitor Allem.' They rebuked. He was tired of hearing his name and rank by the end of the day.

They were hiding something. Something that he had to find out and know for himself. There were ways. It began with inquiries to the database. He hoped he wouldn't have to begin asking other Inquisitors. He had hoped he wouldn't have to crack files above his classification, but hope only stretched so far as he sat at the terminal, fingers dancing deftly across the keys. Inquisitor Junus Allem believed in ghosts - no dismissive High Inquisitor or even Grand Inquisitor Valten himself would convince him otherwise.

Paydirt. His eyes widened as he read the first words...

[Rossos Atrapes]

Levi Eldrel gasped in slight pain as he was tossed into the room, the impact jarring his knees. Deep breaths shuddered through him as he worked through his fear and settled himself as well as he was able in this dark place. After a moment in which nothing happened, he hesitantly lifted the blindfold. The room he was in was dim, but brightly lit; in the centre was a pedestal about five feet tall, with a small, tarnished silver pyramid sitting atop it. His eyes widened.

“A—a holocron?” he said. Shakily, still weak from the interrogation of the Inquisitors, he stood and staggered over to the pedestal, his eyes locked onto the precious object. It seemed weak though. He raised a hand, a finger, to touch it. A sound stopped him mere centimetres from the holocron. His eyes were drawn to a figure in the corner of the room.

It looked like a child, of a grey-blue hue that he’d only ever seen in holograms. Instinctively, he knew that the child-avatar of the holocron was supposed to be a girl. Questions raced through his head. She was clad in the tunic and trousers of the old Jedi order (which he knew from holos shown to him by his Master—the padawan quickly pushed the painful memories away), though it was clear that the garments were soiled and unkempt, even given the colourlessness of the hologram. There were no shoes or boots on her feet, and her arms were mostly bare, showing mottled, almost diseased looking skin. He couldn’t see her face for the amount of matted and tangled hair that covered it. The strength of her image was weak, almost like the holograms he’d seen from old R2 units.

Levi desperately tried to centre himself in the Light. She was facing him, her arms wrapped around herself protectively.

“Cold,” she whispered. Levi nodded, and stepped away. He could sense a curiosity in the girl-image. “You’re not co—ld. Not like the others.”

Levi shivered despite himself. The girl was cautiously taking steps towards him.

“It hurts.”

“Wha—what hurts?” he asked. The girl’s head tilted to the side, her face still covered by her hair. Only, now he could see her mouth. The skin around it looked in the same condition as the rest of her, only there were what seemed to be scars there.

“No... crystals,” she whispered. Her face tilted back, though the hair was now parted to show her mouth, but the rest of her face remained hidden. “Need crystals to FO-fo-f-f-f-f-f-fo-ocuss beams.”

He backed away some more as the girl’s image broke up almost completely before reforming once more. The girl didn’t move again, still standing there, facing him. Her arms dropped to her sides. Levi didn’t let his guard drop, and took another step back. What did they want him to do?

“What do you want me to do?” he shouted, looking around and up. But there was nothing to indicate they were watching. He knew they were, however.

“I used to be,” she whispered. “I ca-a-A-a-an-N-n tel-l-l-l stories.”

She flickered out of sight, reappearing right in front of him. Levi let out a sharp gasp and fell backwards.

“So many stories.”

She started walking toward him, slowly.

Levi tried to back away, but couldn’t—he was against the wall. The girl continued to walk towards him. When she reached his feet, she crouched.

“I can tell s-s-s-sto-O-ries,” she whispered, extending a hand to him. “Light. Light everywhere. Until clouds come and rainfall. Thunder... light—lightning... Fount-a-a-a-ains. Beautiful. But no water. Just... empty.”

The hand, mottled, almost looked like she had started to decompose. Her hand touched his face; he could feel her hand, pressed against him. Her mouth, the only part of her face, visible, smiled.

“Warm,” she breathed, and he could feel her breath. He gasped. He could see her breath, gusting out. Wait, was that his breath? When did it get so cold? He reach a hand to pull hers away, but then he saw his hand. It was starting to turn mottled white. His breath was coming in quick gasps. She was...

“No,” he gasped, trembling. Tears started to leak from his eyes. The girl’s other hand reached up, and pressed up against his left cheek.

“We can tell each other stories,” she breathed. Levi started to choke. “I know so many things, now.”

***

The doors slid open, and the Inquisitors entered. The girl was huddled in the far corner from the body, shivering. But she looked stronger now. Not nearly as frayed. Her shivering intensified as they entered.

“Take the body to the research level,” he ordered. The other Inquisitors nodded, and a droid floated in, followed by a stretcher. They placed Levi on it and pulled him out.

“The boy’s still alive,” one Inquisitor said. Atrapes shook his head.

“You will find there will be no mental activity, and his immune systems have been stripped. The body will likely shut down within a day,” he replied. The girl curled herself tighter, hiding her face. She was humming something, but Atrapes couldn’t make out exactly what she was saying. “We’ll get nothing useful from it. But perhaps we can still use this.”

He turned, and followed the other Inquisitors out. The doors slid closed.

The girl shivered. “I used to be good. I know so many things. All I ca-a-a-a-A-n tell-l-l-l are stories.”

[Hera]

Classification: Access Level-Designate TR156, or Above.
Prisoner Interrogation File 18963HDK-Est03




The holovid recording quality was poor. Grainy images scratched across ones visual in sterile tones until someone unseen on the other side of the lens made the necessary adjustments and brought a semblence of depth and clarity to the projection.

The room revealed was sparce. A desk, a chair. The Sith was seated facing her questioner, who's profile was cast in shadow, but his bearing told immediately that he was an Inquisitor. Angular jaw, close-cropped hair, a hook nose, shoulders that were square and rigid. A harsh overhead light flooded down a conal pool of illumination, small at the top expanding outward on its' decent to bathe its scope of influence in brilliant white and leaving the peripheral in darkness.

The Sith's blonde hair reflected ethereal white, likewise her hands cuffed and placed complacently in front of her. Her fingers occassionaly fidgeted.

"You will explain what happened" a voice reached her from just off camera frame. Apparently, there was more than one Inquisitor in the room, his tone level, clinical. Ominous.

"You wont believe me" the Sith replied, looking up to the speaker the audience could not see. Her blue eyes pale and temperate in the candescance of the beaconed light as she looked beyond frame.

"That isn't the point" the Inquisitor seated across from her cut in for his counterpart, "The point is that you tell it"

Hera held the first speaker's gaze for a moment, then dropped her eyes to look at the Inquisitor seated opposite her.

"It wasn't me. I didn't do it" she said. It was not the first denial she had made on the matter.

"If not you, then who?"

"Whom"corrected the off-screen voice and the seated Inquisitor waved a hand abruptly through the air, repeating, "If not you Hera, then whom?"

The Sith hesitated just briefly before responding. What the frell, they asked didn't they? They wont believe her, though. They will think she is being a smartass which, for once, she wasn't. She barely believed it herself. But she knew what she had seen. She fixed the seated officer with a hard stare and let him have it.

"The Ghost"

"Ghost?" A mocking smile was her reward for being candid. "That's a new one. Not the Devil, he made you do it? Not the Boogeyman? Or the tooth fairy? But a Ghost, splendid."

Sarcasm, great. A sarcastic Inquisitor. Did they come any other way?
"That's right, sparky. A Ghost. And she's a mean little bitch."

"And who is this Ghost? Is she here, now, with us?" The Inquisitor darted his eyes about in apparent alarm. "Should I be afraid?"

"This isn't a joke" Hera glared at him.

The Inquisitor slammed his palm down on the table, the unexpected noise making the Sith start in her chair, "Youre damn right this isnt a joke" he shouted. "I have two dead soldiers, their intestines took two hours to be mopped up into a bucket and you dare sit here and tell me fairytales!"

"Are you calling me a liar, Inquisitor?"

"I am calling you a liar and a coward and a disgrace to your own intelligence, AND an insult to ours."

Coming into frame of the holovid projection was a hypodermic needle, a small amount of black fluid was squirt from its tip. In the background, Hera stiffened in her chair and her face drained to ashen. The second officer came into view positioning himself around the chair behind her, his upper body remained out of frame so that the viewers only saw a solidly built torso wrapped in the starch confines of a black Inquisitoriate Uniform. He clasped the Sith by her bound hands and plunged the needle into the soft flesh of one wrist, emptying the syringe into her with the ease of depressing his thumb on the plunger.

"You kriffing skralks - Im telling you...the...truuthth"

"You will now" the seated Inquisitor asserted.

Hera's eyes dilated and the torrent of brilliant light that knifed into her head was blinding. She lolled in her seat, struggling to hold herself upright. The Inquisitor across from her became twinned where he sat and his body swayed in impossible degrees. She felt dizzy.

Behind her, the black-uniformed Inquisitor stepped again from view, leaving the two at the table in a momentary silence. Hera's breathing was shallow and laboured and the Officer watching her with a cold dispassion, allowed the drug to take full effect.

"Now, Hera" he began after a while, speaking down to her as if she were a child, "You will explain what happened."

She had planned to meet Brenlar Scothis in the Citadel gymnasium, they had agreed to another sparring match, just the two of them. The first one had been a tag-team scenario and while that was fun, it was not the same work out as going round after round, having to change tactics and style on the same opponnent to keep him off balance.

"Scothiss was late" she said, slurring her words a little.

"Lt. Scothis?"

Hera nodded.

"A fight. Me and him. For practice"

"Go on"

"I was...I was in the locker-er--room, changing"

"The locker room, you were there, yes."

Hera had stopped the distracting lolling in her chair and had now slumped down in her seat. She looked sleepy, her eyes kept closing, but she was less disoriented and there came a strange stillness over her as her memory of the event unveiled.

"Cold"

"Cold?"

"I got very cold"

"Where were the two soldiers?"

"The locker room"

"What were they doing?"

"Watching me. Whispering"

"Did they threaten you? Attack you?"

Hera shook her head, "The trouble started"

"Did you have a weapon? Did they?"

"Wouldn't help"

"They wouldn't help you?"

Another head shake, "No. Weapons woudn't help"

Here a lightening strike of clarity flamed into Hera's eyes. A surety of fact that is sometimes glimmered under the effects of the truth-drug. With effort she held her head up and her expression was earnest, despite the laconic delivery of her words.

"She was inside"

"Inside? Inside the locker room?"

"Inside the soldier. Her face, under his." Hera's eyes widened with rememberence.

The Inquisitor began to scoff but an unseen signal from his partner and he obediently forced himself to hold his peace.

"The other soldier ran. Or,tried" she continued.

"He tried to run from his comrade?"

Hera smiled oddly, "Too slow"

"Then what?"

"Mano a Mano"

"They fought? Each other?"

Another nod and an unusual cast in her eyes, a fear disguised weakly just beneath their surface.

"Unnatural. He--she moved strangely. So strong. Bent and twisted. I heard bones break."

"What did you do?"

"I watched. They were screaming." She was perspiring now, the Inquisitor noticed. "Shrieking, like cats in a grinder.."

The holovid flickered off and on, the image jumping chaotically for a second or two, but the players in the scene remained transfixed, Hera with what her mind saw, the Inquisitor watching her, repulsed.

"The smell" she inhaled reluctantly and squrimed in her chair, her features contorted with disgust. "Bile and vomitous scents. Putrid."

She tossed herself to bend sideways over the edge of her chair and threw up on the floor. No one else in the room moved. She wiped her mouth on her shoulder and re-righted herself again resuming her narrative.

"She opened him up. Split like a ripe fruit"

"Split, who? The other soldier?"

"Him, them. Both, the one she was fighting and the one she was in"

"With what? What weapon did she have?" He thumped his fist at her lack of response and shouted, "What weapon!"

"No weapon. Just, her."

"This is kriffen!" the Inquisitor said waspishly to the black-uniformed Officer. "She is making this rubbish up so we wont kill her for this outrage. Your drugs aren't working and have only made her puke all over my floor"
The seated Inquisitor struggled to gather his equilibrium again, finding his patience was wearing very thin.


"Why do you think she did it, Hera?" the clinical voice addressed her from the shadows, ignoring the former outburst by his partner. "Why kill them and not you?"

Her answer was slow in coming. It was a hard question.

"Maybe someone told her not to."

The seated Inquisitor scoffed at such nonsense.

"Maybe she likes me" Hera tried again with a lame attempt at humor.

The seated Inquisitor drummed his fingers on the desk and then looked to the man off-frame, "..Well?"

There was a condsidered pause before the man in the black-uniform responded. He stepped into view but positioned himself only to reveal strong hands clasped together behind a ramrod straight back, the empty syringe being turned deftly in his fingers. An unyeilding and determined individual, his obsidian uniform blocked the majority of the scene from those watching the recording. To his left, though, one could see the Sith and she lifted her head with some difficulty, realising he was going to deliver his judgement on the matter.

"You're right" he said coldly as Hera and he locked eyes, "She is a liar. And we will punish her accordingly. I apologize for the floor"


The scene flickered erratically, then disintergrated into a pinprick of light, ending the transmission of the record file.




/End CLASSIFIED.

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

[Victor Crestmere]

Victor Crestmere, Inquisitor Crestmere, sat alone in his private study. It was part of his quarters at the INQ Citadel. His fine mahogany desk played host to a glass of Coruscant finest brandy, a holo-vid projector, and a few unopened reports. The room was of moderate size, Crestmere didn't care for extravagant things, and contained only a few bookshelves that were filled with a very small amount of books. His taste for literature pertained only to things on the psyche of the human mind; books on schizophrenia, mental capabilities such as telepathy and mind reading, and books on force users. These things greatly interested Victor not only because they involved aspects of his job, but because he himself for so long has dealt with issues of his own mind....

Why do you even bother Victor? You know we're not going anywhere.

Yeah! We are your best friends!!

Who knows you better than we do? Huh!? Name one person...

"No one..." Crestmere found himself saying under his breath.

That's right. Now put that book down before things start getting...

Victor quickly interceded before the voice could finish.

"You're right. You do know me better than I know myself, but I hold the ace of spades up my sleeve! I ask you, who knows you better than you know yourselves?"

No response.

"That's right. I know all your fears, I know all your doubts, and I know where all your families live, so I would suggest that you remember that the next time you want to remind me of anything."

Victor's voice was blunt and to the point. The others obviously understood his tone.

"That's better. Now..." He said as he stood up and downed his glass of whiskey. "who wants to listen to me sing..." But before Victor could finish he noticed a shadow under his door. Frowning to himself, he quickly marched himself over to the door and swung it open only to find no one there. In the shadows place was only a frigid breeze that made Victor's skin crawl.

Placing his hands on his hips, he said in a very matter of fact tone, "Now hear this! I don't like games. Show yourself or it'll be you I sing to..."

There was a soft echo of the door to his quarters clasping shut and then silence. Whoever it was had made their get away. With the air still cold and Victor's breath still floating in the air in front of him, he quirked an eyebrow up and then retreated to his study. Sitting down, he flipped on the holo-vid and entered his security code.

...
....
.....

Access granted. Welcome Inquisitor Crestmere. How may we be of assistance?

Said a very beautiful face and with a matching voice.

"I need to access the security camera's outside my quarters. Feed me the footage from an hour ago until now please and thank you."

...
....
.....

Certainly Inquisitor Crestmere. The footage will be streamed to your room momentarily. Anything else we can assist you with?

"Your name please."

...
....
.....

That information is classified.

"Even for a high ranking Inquisitor such as myself who is only interested in knowing the name of the lovely voice who is pleasing my sense of hearing ever so greatly? Come now miss, care to have a drink with me?"

...
....
.....

Good evening Inquisitor.


"Can't say I didn't try"

At that moment the video footage began to play.


--------------------------


Moments passed with nothing of interest showing. A few guard patrols here, a lone Inquisitor there, and occasionally a droid would pass by and clean something. How droll... He thought to himself. It wasn't until thirty minutes into the feed, when the hallway in front of his quarters were empty, did he notice a slight blur on the screen. It wasn't much and it wasn't there long, but something had defiantly passed by. Rewinding the footage, he tried to slow it down. Even moving at a frame by frame speed, the image was still a blur.

Victor poured himself another drink as his curiosity continued to be intrigued.

His failed attempts at a visual recognition aside, Victor allowed the footage to continue. A droid passed by, empty hallway, the blur, and then...static. Crestmere's eyes widened as he just could not believe his luck. The video feed just was corrupt.

Re-entering his security code, the familiar face appeared.

...
....
.....

Access granted. Welcome Inquisitor Crestmere. How may we be of assistance?

"Uh yes, the video footage you gave me is corrupt. Forty minutes into the feed the footage turns to static. Unacceptable!"

...
....
.....

Please hold while I pass this onto our tech dept

...
....
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"Uh, hello? Are you seriously putting a high ranking Inquisitor on hold?"

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Thank you for waiting Inquisitor Crestmere. Our tech team stated and I quote, 'It would appear that the footage is corrupted; however, we were able to pick up a voice at the last ten seconds of the transmission.' End quote. Would you like me to play the last ten seconds of the transmission sir?

"Yes please"

The static footage appeared on his screen and as the seconds counted down, the last thing Victor heard before the footage ended was, "Sing away...Inquisitor"

Once again, the room seemed to grow cold and a chill ran down his back. It had been a long, long time since anything had made Victor's heart rate increase. Someone or something had invaded his quarters. Someone or something had got close enough to strike out and kill him. Someone or something was sending him a message. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead and it was then, that the voices came back.

Whatsa matter boss? You're not scared of ghost are ya?