The Execution

[Rossos Atrapes]

At twelve hundred hours precisely the doors opened, shooting a blindingly bright light into the darkened cell.

There had been no warning, no disturbance to give the prisoner time to prepare. The walls and door were too thick to allow sound to come through; the lights had been shut off yesterday, to make sure that the prisoner had time to settle down and let his guard down.

Imperial Knight Yotallu Ernz covered his eyes with one raised hand, only for hands to grab his arms and pull them roughly to his back and up.

The binding straps were tied around his forearms while they were held. He tried to fight, but light deprivation coupled with surprise and no contact made his efforts feeble and vain.

"The prisoner is secure," a vocabulated voice said from his left.

"Confirmed, prisoner secure." Another voice to his right.

"Control, 98 on CB 45-C2, escort from C2 to area four, and nothing to declare."

Silence. Yotallu's eyes watered as the light continued to burn his retinas, even though he'd closed his eyes.

At some silent signal, hands grabbed his arms and pulled him out of his cell. The door hissed shut.

The light glaring into his eyes dimmed only slightly, and he squinted around himself. The corridor was brightly lit all around, floodlamps shining on each door, clearly defining the cell numbers.

"Control, C2 is secure. Escort moving on to area three."

Imperial Stormtroopers wearing black armour stood around him; one on either side and a third in front of him. The voice speaking came from behind.

Another pause of silence followed by an unseen signal. The Stormtrooper in front of him stepped forward into the bright light holding a visor of some kind. The man (he assumed it was a man though the armour was made to hide such distinguishing features) held out his hands and flipped them over.

"Approaching prisoner to blind." The trooper's vocabulator-scrambled voice announced. The visor was placed on him, covering his eyes and resting on his ears with a noticeable chill. "Prisoner blinded."

The Stormtrooper stepped back and once more flipped his hands.

"Cleared to move," clipped the voice behind him.

He was pulled forward only for what was five minutes he assumed. They made no turns and spoke not at all until they stopped abruptly.

"Control, escort 98 to area 3. Waiting for clear signal."

A pause.

"Not clear."

"Control we are not clear to enter area 3. Repeat we are not clear."

More silence.

"Clear."

The sound of an opening door and the rush of pressurised atmosphere drifted over him.

"Control, 98 on entering area 3. Escort waiting for 76."

Yutallo twisted his head, almost sure he could tell things by the sounds around him. That was why he jumped in surprise when a new voice joined in.

[Rossos Atrapes]

"At blast-doors to lift."

The voice came from a commlink.

"Copy. She must say code line 24T."

"24T, copy."

"Who is it supposed to be?"

"I heard Sturkov."

The last exchange was quietly exchanged just as the first two voices finished.

"Quiet." The lead Trooper's voice cut off any remark in the making. "Hold the prisoner."

[Alexia Sturkov]

The blast doors split apart at the middle and slid open with only the faintest grinding marking their presence. Standing at the center so that her face would be the first thing revealed was Imperial Knight Alexia Sturkov. With piercing green eyes she looked each of the soldiers in the visor. Two of the four visibly shuffled in discomfort. Whether it was her gaze, reputation, or the scars at her mouth it was impossible to say. Her black robes were finely pressed and her armor polished until the blue plates glistened in the light. A gloved hand was raised to the side of her head, where her red hair was shaved away, and pressed against the comm device in her ear.

"Blast doors open. Giving pass code now. Thunder Bravo Rancor Seventeen. Receiving prisoner. Moving toward turbolift. Blast doors closing behind me."

With one hand in her ear and the other on the prisoners elbow, she half pushed half dragged him the short distance to the turbolift. Whenever his feet lagged or he moved out of sync he was less than gently shoved back into place, either by hand or with the power of the force at her disposal. The prisoner learned to walk a straight line in a timely fashion very quickly.

"Entering turbolift. Imputing level four."

The prisoner had been shoved as much in the corner as he could be in a circular lift cab. After some persuasion he had been put down on his knees with his head down; minimizing the threat he posed. She was hardly afraid of the man, but protocol required that she take no more risk than necessary. A keen eye was to be on him at all times.

"Turbolift opening. Arrived on Level 4. Proceeding to Grand Hall."

The prisoner was lifted forcibly to his feet and shoved through the open portal. When her finger was not activating her comm her hand was resting on the hilt of the lightsabre that hung from her belt, bouncing off her hip with every step. Ahead of them loomed the Grand Hall. It was to be quite the event.

"Arriving at the Grand Hall. Delivering prisoner."

[Rossos Atrapes]

The Grand Hall of the Citadel was grand in every sense of the word; Imperial banners hung proudly on each pillar, the Gear printed starkly black on a red background, the lighting was dim yet still bright enough to see the central platform clearly. As yet, it was still empty, but soon enough the Cadets and the Knights of the Order of the Knights of the Imperial Throne would fill it in orderly ranks.

Attendants were milling about preparing the room for the upcoming event, as were the black-armoured Stormtroopers that were the foot soldiers that worked most closely with the Knights.

"Copy. Knight Sturkov entering Grand Hall."

Alexia entered the Hall in a small corridor off the side, and was immediately flanked by two Stormtroopers. The small offshoot of the main hall was crowded with fully uniformed Knights, who silenced and watched her walk past with the prisoner to the emotionless figure of Knight-General Atrapes standing at the back end, with Knights Iscandar and Cain standing with him, equally emotionless.

"Prisoner received," Atrapes said. Yotallu shivered and gasped quietly. "Let the Cadets and the Knights not participating in the entrance enter the Hall."

[Matatek Sel Vissica]

A staccato beat of boots against the black marble hallway began to slowly fill the Great Hall, announcing the approach of the Cadet corps. At the head of a column of over one hundred sentients, Lady Vissica set the pace, proceeding on two feet as she towered over her charges. The minimalist armor worn be the Selonian shone with an attentive gleam, the same with the hilt of the prominent greatsaber that rose over her shoulder from it's back scabbard mount.

Vissica led her charges to the center of the Hall's expansive floor, then planted a shoulder-width stance at the fore of the assembly.

"Parade attention!"

On command, the Cadet corps filed out of their column, forming spaced rows that filled out the front of the attending area.

[Khoovi Wan]

A muted murmur filled the Grand Hall, accompanied by the staccato tapping of booted feet on the floor. Atrapes stood upon the dais in the centre of the hall, stoic and assured, as compared to the anxious and fearful prisoner arrayed before him.

Khoovi marched in the front of his group, and took the spot nearest the 'aisle' formed by the stoic silent forms of current Knights in their full armour and visored helmets. Rayner was nearby, and Redsun, and Onika as well, looking as pleased as she ever did. It was somewhat understandable, given that she was enlisted rather than having applied like he had, but he had the feeling that she still felt that everything was a dream or an elaborate prank.

"I wonder why this is an open spectacle," he said aloud. "There has to be a reason aside from a simple cautionary measure against defectors and traitors."

Khoovi pondered the niggling sense of a larger picture than what he was seeing.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Cautionary measures are never simple in a police state," Hal replied quietly. His pink eyes remained forward as he spoke, fixed upon the scene which was to play out before them, grim as it was. "Many of the cadets have never seen death, or witnessed what a lightsaber can do to flesh. Brutal as this is, it will galvanize them into a firm understanding of the structure of order within the Empire, and our place within it."

He paused before glancing side to side, then whispered, "And if there is one traitor, odds are there might be another here who is not who he says he is, as well. This may be a ruse staged to out whoever this man's conspirator is, as well."

Calculated words from a traitor himself, Hal chose them wisely, yet he enjoyed nothing about them. A spy himself, in a sense, he knew it would at least be better to cast suspicion of his own rather than have it cast upon him - especially when flanked by those actually loyal to the Empire, and all the evil and cruelty it stood for. Evil and cruelty which were being turned into a stage show, filled with pomp and asture regality for the sheer purpose of impressing them. In his heart, Hal longed to step in and beg for mercy for the damned soul, but he held his place, and his tongue in such regard. It was a time when preservation of self was more important than preservation of others - a conduct contrary to what he had once learned in these halls, yet the most prudent course of current action.

[Jeryd Redsun]

Impossible, though it was, to not hear the buzz of conversation around him, Jeryd did his utmost to ignore all of it. It broke out in whispers, first, then utterances; children, all of them, unable to hold their tongues in the way infants were unable to hold their bladders. The words prickled at the edges of his composure, charging his muscles with a determined kind of tension, locking his limbs in all the right places. He might as well have been set in carbonite. This was not the mess hall and there was not a chance he was going to be associated with such a brazen display of ill-discipline.

Did they not know who he was?

Knight-General Atrapes was not a large man. Indeed, when he shared a space with the likes of Lady Vissica and Baastian Cain, he appeared entirely average. However, there was something that set apart men like the Knight-General, and all men of great power: it was in the way he carried himself. Stood on the lonely dais, before all of the gathered might of Her Imperial Majesty's Knights, the man was a giant. And, though his gaze scarcely moved, Jeryd had the distinct impression he was being watched, and at all times. He felt it in his bones, piercing like shards of ice, an intuition that went beyond greenhorn's paranoia.

But there was more than one person of significance up there on that platform. There was also the antithesis of the Knight-General himself, given shape, draped in haggard flesh. He was there to die. Jeryd found himself unmoved by the sight of the broken wretch, or the fate that awaited him. It was simply a matter of fact, like the weather, or the especially smart boots on his feet. The sense of occasion had not been lost on him, after all, and he'd endeavoured to look his best. They were about to bear witness to Imperial justice: swift, unflinching, righteous. Soon, his chattering neighbours will fall silent, and discover what it really means to be an agent of Her Majesty's will.

[Rossos Atrapes]

Atrapes, Iscandar, Sturkov, Vissica, Cain.

While there were no real ranks in the Order of the Imperial Throne aside from that of Knight-General, the others were regarded as the unofficial leaders and commanders and influencers of the new military order; those assumptions were given more evidence by their unmasked presence on the dais with Atrapes.

None of them spoke or moved, however. Atrapes alone stepped forward, and two masked Knights followed, leading the prisoner to his position beside the Order's head.

"Some of you," Atrapes spoke, his voice somehow cutting through the murmuring voices like a knife through flesh, "know this man. He trained with us. He fought with us. He learned with us."

Atrapes was looking at Yutallo as he spoke. Despite the words being addressed to the gathered Cadets and Knights, they were meant in truth for the condemned man.

"And yet, here we are. On a stage, before everyone gathered together, before whom we will enact your sentence. I did not want this."

He stepped closer to the prisoner, who, despite being blindfolded, gasped and shrank back.

"I did not want this!" Atrapes shouted, his voice now echoing angrily in the silent hall. "To do what is going to be done, I do not want this!"

He turned to face the gathered Cadets.

"Watch," he growled to them. "And learn the consequences of one's actions."

He made a quick gesture.

[Palara Iscandar]

A Twi'lek in full armour stepped forward.

She was Palara Iscandar, one of the inaugural group of Knights: those who had dropped their shadowed Inquisitorial cloaks for the Blue, to stand in the light for the Imperial virtues of Security, Justice, Strength, and Unity, rather than continue working in the darkness.

"Yotallu Ernz," she said. The former Knight swallowed and stood straighter, despite his obvious fear. "I am to read out your crimes. I am sorry."

The red hued Twi'lek moved with grace to stand at the edge of the dais, and spoke to the Cadets and Knights.

"Listen to me," she said, her voice powerful, but lacking that quality which had Atrapes' voice ring in his listeners' ears. "I am Knight Iscandar. And zis man, 'oom I once called comrade — now I spit on him.

"'e trained with Knight Vissica. 'e wrote 'is papers on diplomacy and the righteousness of ze Imperial Order. 'is service, in fact, is mostly exemplary. At least, when it comes to serving with 'umans. And when it came time to serve with me, with 'is classmates, he allowed ze mission to fail. 'e stood by, and watched, not only as I fought for my life and zose of Knight-Cadets Mila, Heru, and Elion, but as zousands of Imperial soldiers died at our sides. And when I survived, 'e fled, to avoid ze consequences of 'is actions."

Iscandar turned to face the man's trembling form. Above the dais, three faces were projected: one, a young twilek girl, smiling brightly, her lekku barely brushing her shoulders. She was clutching her lightsaber and leaning against a human girl, who was also smiling. Another, a young Chiss man whose subtle smirk carried all the swagger his stiff parade attention managed to hide. And the third: a tall Togrutan male with a serious face, and the beginnings of a beard.

"I didn't know!" Ernz cried out. "I didn't know they were there!"

Palara slapped him.

"Quiet,​" she hissed.

[Khoovi Wan]

"I knew Elion, and Mila," Khoovi breathed softly to Rayner. "Elion would teach me tactics. Mila kept trying to ask me to cuddle. I told her that I'm not old enough yet for a physical relationship, and she told me that I reminded her of a pet she had back home."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"To be fair, I think everyone here wants to cuddle with you. You're cute as a button," Hal replied out of the side of his mouth. His words were scarcely audible, yet he knew a Shistavanen's ears could pick them up.

"I don't agree with this. There can be strategy in running, and one man should not be able to effect so much as to cost the lives of thousands. There were clearly other failures in command, and this man is the scapegoat for that."