Trial of a Lorrd: Synthesis
Posted on Fri Oct 14th, 2022 @ 2:57am by Amare
5,882 words; about a 29 minute read
Chapter:
Additional Stories
Location: Institute of Aquatic Studies, Lorrd City, Lorrd
Timeline: Afternoon, Day 6, follows "ToaL: Convergence"
Tags: Trial of a Lorrd, chrysalis
OLD
I will now use your hands to enter Alefgard’s passcode...like that. Now, put your criminal knowledge to use and slice into root access, delete the security archives, purge the doctor’s entire research database, bleach the storage drives, and then disable the computer coolers. With that done, have the CPU perform a multiplicative processing loop. Set the number of times to infinite. That should meltdown the machines here and burn this lab—
Stand ready! The doctor is attacking. You fool! You were not strong enough to knock him out completely. Get up! He is on you! We have no time for this. Fight him! We must get you to Korriban before we—
Ngghh! Something is wrong. I cannot sense your essence...I’ve lost our Force binding! No!!!
(Archonus’ words end here)
NEW
The surge of the Force’s power cleaved the astral tether between undead Sith Lord and neophyte Sithling. With Darth Archonus’ ramblings and narration firmly dispelled, Coda regained full consciousness and found that her right hand was ablaze in shining scarlet light. Her power was unleashed making Doctor Alefgard hover above the floor, his entire body violently convulsing as a steady stream of scarlet energy flowed from his chest to Coda’s glowing hand. When the full terror of what she was doing to the professor washed over her, the stream vanished, and the old researcher fell to the floor in a motionless heap. Coda winced and groaned in agony as she fell to her knees, her left hand gripping her other hand as the scarlet light faded and left behind a feeling of many tiny needles mercilessly stabbing her digits and palm.
She stared at her soft blue palm in disbelief at the new level of power it had just unleashed and began to feel the man’s life energy wash over her entire body. The momentary rapturous feeling was becoming quite familiar to her as all her pain and exhaustion from days prior was almost completely discarded. Alertness and strength returned to her, but the harm it required to happen made Coda almost sick to her stomach. She compared it to when she drained the Zenibalas flying beast, and the thief woman she drained in that dark alley back on the planet Sheva. Zenibalas was already very unhealthy, and, in spite of his gargantuan size, his essence felt hollow and not particularly satisfying after the initial feelings from the kill. The thief on Sheva was malnourished and not quite as vital, but still a good early drain nonetheless. She wondered what it would be like to fully consume the essence of someone young, strong of body, and powerful in the Force. The thought alone made her shiver with gluttonous anticipation for a scant moment.
Shaking her head and casting her shameful dark thoughts aside, her mind returned to grim reality, then turned and crawled over to Alefgard as the pain in her hand gradually subsided.
“Doctor? Hey, wake up!” she pleaded as she shook his body to rile him awake. She checked for a pulse at his neck, then at his wrist and could feel nothing. When she turned him over to look upon his face, she was struck with horror upon witnessing his eyes had been rendered as heavily bloodshot bulges on the verge of bursting out of their sockets, his face almost bone white, and blood was streaming liberally from his nose, ears, eyes, and mouth. She then spotted the medical scanner she had thrown at him moments ago, grabbed it, and slowly waved it up and down the doctor’s body. She glanced up at the large medical monitor screen on the wall and saw the displayed results showing organ damage beneath the skin so extreme that the computer suggested in text that it would require a full cybernetic rebuild to save him. Unfortunately, his brain would be dead long before anyone could get him to the operating table.
Coda sprung up to her feet, dropped the scanner, and backed away in shock at what she had done despite it not being the first time. The thought of becoming such an effective killer using only the Force made her begin to feel uncomfortable in her own skin.
“No, no, no, no...this can’t be happening...I’m so sorry!” she cried with deep remorse and panic. “Stars, forgive me. I’m so sorry. Oh, my goodness. What am I gonna do?”
She glanced around the lab just as a warning tone chirped from the computer console next to her. She glanced at the monitor and read aloud what was there, “EXECUTE? Yes or No.” Her right hand was shaking, almost reflexively moving towards typing the Y-key, but she quickly grabbed her hand and shouted at it, “No! I’m in control! I’ll cut you off with a laser scalpel if I have to!” She forced her hand to stop its course and pressed N instead. She saw a full system bleaching was prepped and a CPU meltdown sequence was set and ready to go. Now that Dr. Alefgard was dead by her side, it occurred to her that a police investigation would easily find evidence implicating her in his murder. She decided to delay the purge and overload and searched elsewhere on the system.
She found Alefgard’s research notes and uncovered sections marked urgent seeking information on how to sterilize the new Yuuzhan Vong-based contaminant. The doctor believed that Coda was key to neutralizing the new bug, but how could that be? Coda looked down at the floor for a moment at the ancient Sith relic. She could barely remember anything that strange voice had said to her, or even remember the tone of the voice or how it introduced itself, only that it caused her unbearable agony for many hours under Alefgard’s watch. Somehow, the relic, while worn over Coda’s hand, had enthralled the doctor under its control. Many times, Coda saw the doctor studying the new bioweapon, experimenting on it to find ways to destroy it, but to no avail. Alefgard was resisting the relic’s control while the relic itself was trying to use Coda’s connection to the Force to enhance the phage, making it more powerful than it originally was. The relic...whatever being was behind it cruelly desired to wipe out a large portion of Lorrd’s population as some twisted science experiment. “To test its effective lethality for the glory of the Sith” was what she thought a voice had spoken into her mind.
Coda picked up the relic and it felt almost like it was calling to her, drawing her in to its service as she stared at the crystal amulet on the back of the hand portion of the partial gauntlet, though it was more like an exoskeleton that exposed parts of her arm and hand rather than a plated glove. It certainly was not built for protection due to its elegant ornamental design, but something more ritualistic. She tore her eyes away from it before the mind trick could take hold and looked at the computer again. She lacked the scientific acumen to understand most of the notes or be able to type in a cure for other researchers to synthesize, but she had a very strong hunch that the relic itself could stop the immediate problem threatening Lorrd.
Turning back to the relic with brows furrowed, her eyes filled with grim determination. “I have to try,” she said to herself with firm resolve, “yet I need to stay in control...but how?” She looked at her right hand again, turned it a few times in front of her, and then closed her eyes and focused the image of it in her mind. She thought of all her recent experiences and scants moments of training from Thane and Bomoor. In particular, her thoughts fell back to Vaa, to Thane firing blinding bolts of Sith lightning at Darth Cabal, and then to her mysterious power that she used to heal Thane and save his life from his wounds.
“I have the power...I can do this,” she told herself. “I can do this! No...this is crazy, but I can’t let those people die. Whatever old Sith ghost is in there, you’re not the first I’ve fought! I am the apprentice of a new Dark Lord. He is alive. You...who or whatever you are in there...you’re dead!”
Coda balled her right hand into a clenched fist mentally compelled it to become a fiery scarlet inferno again. She then opened the hand again and swiftly dove it into the relic, quickly setting the fingertip and palm parts in place, feeling more like it fit better on her than it did before, as if it somehow self-adjusted itself to her. It reacted the presence of the Force in her by alighting its crimson phylactery crystal, and by thrusting her ensorcelled hand against her will into the air above her head. She felt her bare feet slowly begin to defy gravity and found herself levitating above the floor. The red crystal amulet began to crackle with surging energy which sent random bolts of crimson bolts of Force-manifested electricity in all different directions zapping the floor, destroying a few of the several large widescreen monitors in the room, and striking the Nautolan water tank with enough power to cause microfractures deep enough for water to begin sputtering out in small streams.
Surges of energy began to flow down through Coda’s arm as she began to scream out as the amulet started to show the first small signs of fracturing. Her eyes became like bright reddish-orange balls of light, and her mind became flooded with multitudes of scattered memories that were not her own including a giant black pyramid, an ancient training academy on a desert-looking world with many colossal statues, an enormous roaring armoured monster, and a red-skinned woman with raven black hair and golden eyes of a species Coda was unfamiliar with. The woman was floating wearing a form-fitting black short-sleeved wetsuit in some chamber sparsely lit with artificial light. There were empty medical tanks nearby like the kind that would be used for bacta treatment, and the woman was tightly tucked inside a large liquid bubble in a fetal position, a bubble that looked to be made from a bacta-looking substance but was of a more green-tinted colour. The word “kolto” popped into Coda’s thoughts in recognition due to the relic’s influence.
The eye of Coda’s mind fixated on the exotically beautiful red woman floating in such an enticingly placid state and was completely unaware that the relic’s amulet had cracked beyond the point of repair, and the Nautolan tank was at the point of no return towards full rupture.
The relic had shattered from Coda’s hand into many scorched pieces, and she fell unceremoniously hard to the floor, a reminder of her failed levitation attempts in front of Bomoor on the Red Raptor. Coda came to with a throbbing headache, her brain feeling like it just had just been doused after it was on fire. She was finding it difficult to see straight for several seconds, but the sound of a deepening breach of reinforced glass drew her immediate attention, and she knew her time to act was fast running short.
The fleeting battle of wills had been won, and Coda had managed to evade the ancient Sith Lord’s mental domination long enough to find the information she was looking for. While her mind was in there, she had seen herself stumble inside an old cavern leading to a brightly lit stone altar where a shimmering red idol was seated. She thought about stealing it like some kind of daring archaeologist, but for reasons she couldn’t explain, it somehow didn’t feel right to do so without a proper hat, a nice leather jacket, and a bull whip and revolver at her side. She had instead imagined herself using the Force to fling the idol across the room and smash it to bits. It was entirely a metaphorical psychic experience, but it had the desired effect of destroying the relic and its phylactery.
Stars...did that thing damage my brain? Coda wondered as she scrambled back to the computer terminal. A bull whip...? And what the heck is a revolver? Maybe it’s a blaster from ancient times? I wouldn’t mind a nice jacket right about now. There was also a name...someone named Doctor Jones? Weird. Maybe one of Alefgard’s friends. Yeah, that has to be it.
It was then that she felt a draft from the climate control system drift across her bare abdomen. She looked down and gasped with embarrassment at the cause. Coda’s loaned swimsuit outfit from the institute had mostly disintegrated from her body leaving only charred and torn tatters. Strangely enough though, there was no visible damage to her skin at all that she could see or feel.
“Really?! Lousy no good Sithspitting—(REDACTED obscenities),” she grumbled furiously as she ignored her unwelcome wardrobe malfunction and focused on swiftly typing her newfound knowledge into the computer while it was still fresh in her mind. About a minute later, the Nautolan tank was gushing heavy streams of water indicating the whole thing was going to violently burst open at any given moment.
It was then that she realized the full gravity of what she entered into the system. Coda saw that the reason she was so important to the phage experiments was that the heavy concentration of midichlorians in her body was necessary for using the relic to modify the phage into a new evolved form. The Sith from the relic wanted to use the Yuuzhan Vong microbes to create a spore shell that would enable and amplify airborne transmission and make destroying the phage virtually impossible by most medical means, including Jedi healing methods. Alefgard, on the other hand, was trying to fight back by using Coda to do the opposite by creating a cure and was on the verge of a breakthrough.
Unfortunately, he just didn’t know what the most effective vector of distribution for the cure would be since all simulations involving traditional allopathic chemical delivery form factors such as hypos and pills had failed. He had considered simply dumping the cure into the general water supply, but the chemicals would unfortunately dilute and become ineffective without some kind of protective carrier system, and even then, the active application of the Force was required to have any effect on the phage. He had worked on using a bacta-based suspension inspired by something he learned from the relic, but he never had time to test it. His notes indicated plans to have Coda swim into the city water system and use her powers to deliver the cure where it needed to go and activate it. Finally, there was also a vaccine prepped and ready to go, but it was custom designed for Nautolan biology and not suitable for any other species.
In Coda’s mind, she again saw the red woman floating peacefully in the bubble of kolto, and then looked up at the bacta tank situated in the corner of the lab. Coda stared at the medical tank just as the other, much larger Nautolan environment tank was just less than a minute from bursting. She knew she could easily survive the flood since her species was most at home underwater, but if she was out in the open when it collapsed, the shards of industrial glass could be very hazardous, not to mention the fatal conductivity with water and live electronic equipment.
Coda quickly typed in another line of programming and completed Alefgard’s formula using what her mind stole from the relic and sent it directly to the bacta tank. Since there was no time or means for gathering the Lorrdian people and providing inoculations, Coda would have to go directly to the source herself. The primary vector for delivering the cure would be her own body, and she was going to put her meditation training to use, only this time she couldn’t afford to fail. The bacta tank signaled with a chime that it was ready, and that prompted Coda that it was time to carry out the relic’s suggestion of the destroying the computer and all the evidence. She quickly sent a brief message in Alefgard's name to the Lorrd City Health Department containing the formula for the cure and made some last-second adjustments to the computer power and drainage systems on the floor in anticipation of the incoming flood. She then executed the self-destruct sequence for the computer and security systems.
Remembering her original quest to assemble Thane’s lightsaber after surviving the desert, she anxiously ran over to the storage locker where her belongings were and discovered much to her relief that Alefgard had conveniently placed almost all of her things in a small waterproof travel waist pack. Nothing important was out of place, and her amber lightsaber crystal was still where she left it, its Force-driven glow reflecting softly in her eyes and bringing a warm smile to her lips and a sigh of relief, like a worried mother having found her lost child. That only things that remained missing much to her chagrin were her personal outfit and Bomoor’s spare robe she was wearing out in the desert.
Pack in hand, she dashed over to the bacta tank and opened its chamber door. Realizing she couldn’t take anything in with her, she laid the pack halfway between the mouth of the big drain near the center of the lab floor and the foot of the tank, praying inwardly that she could safely retrieve it on the other side of wherever the drain led to.
“I really hope I don’t keep losing clothes like this,” she said to herself in frustration from losing what little protection from the cold laboratory air she had. “It’s bad enough my costumes tore up or caught fire on stage back at the club, but this? It’s almost like I’m one of those female characters made for fanservice in someone’s cheap adult fantasy novel. At least this is reality, and there’s no creepy writer putting me in these revealing situations on purpose...I hope.”
Amare:
I think back to that first night we met on the Red Raptor when I mistakenly referred to the Force as having a female aspect. You were right, there’s no way the Force is female. As much as I enjoy exploring this weird and powerful chrysalis ability of mine, with the number of times I’ve lost perfectly good outfits to it, I’m pretty sure now the Force is definitely male.
When she was finished disrobing, the data card with the phage research fell to the floor from where she had it tucked under the short left sleeve of her discarded swimsuit top piece. She bent down and quickly stuffed the card in the pack and zipped the seal shut.
She rose up, stared hard at the open tank, took a deep breath and muttered to herself, “The Force is with me. I can do this. The Force is with me. I cannot fail.” She entered the tank and added, “Bomoor doubted my abilities and then let Thane cast me aside like trash. I’ll show him. I’ll surpass him. I’ll surpass them both!”
Her words were spoken in anger, but in truth, she just wanted to go somewhere where she could feel safe and be with people who would love her and never betray her trust. Coda’s talents with the Force far surpassed her mundane thinking. It would take someone named Amare to fully grasp the wisdom of her adventures on Lorrd, and why surviving it was a necessary step in surviving the future. After all, being Sith means being on a team of two versus a galaxy of billions that all want you dead. Revenge is our bread and butter, but survival through supreme power is our specialty.
By the time Coda hopped in and sealed herself in the tank, the computer had been purged of all research data and the security files were eliminated and “bleached” with binary ones and zeroes. The sea water would hopefully cause considerable damage to the rest of the evidence. If the authorities were clever enough to have found any traces left behind, it would take extensive lab testing of any DNA-based evidence to uncover something of value to build a case, and hopefully by then Coda would be off-world and heading safely towards Yavin IV to make her rendezvous with Thane and Bomoor. With no security records and suspect identity to go on, along with a corpse of someone slain by one of the rarest and most esoteric of methods, the police would be stuck with a difficult homicide case that had the possibility of going cold, though there was the issue of witnesses and hospital records, and other video surveillance outside of the lab computer’s reach before she transferred to Lorrd City. Coda decided to forget thinking too hard about it and told herself that all she had to do was keep her head down and avoid trouble until she could find a way to book passage off-world. In the meantime, she had a bigger problem to kill.
Just as the bacta tank began to fill up with its room temperature healing fluids, the Nautolan environmental tank on the opposite end catastrophically exploded wide open spilling its contents all over the floor of the lab. She was grateful for the bacta tank’s protection as its own fluid rose up above her head and was even more thankful that her pack was not torn to shreds, but it did appear that some of the glass might have nicked it a bit.
The lab’s automated emergency systems activated shutting down all electrical equipment to prevent fatal shocks to anyone caught in the floor, and an alarm klaxon sounded just as the water started to be drained out.
Completely submerged and floating in the bacta tank, she closed her eyes and returned her thoughts to the red woman again and began to concentrate. She felt a strange connection to her, almost like...a sister...? But how? She was positive she had never seen the likes of her before. It was such an odd feeling to have for the image of a total stranger.
A mechanical arm gripping a medical hypo descended from the ceiling of the bacta tank while the internal monitoring sensors scanned Coda’s body. The diminutive droid hand pressed the hypo injector into her shoulder, and she threw back her head with a pained moan from the sudden hard sting of the deltoid muscle injection and rush of chemicals into her bloodstream. A strong sense of fever washed across her entire body, her body reacting to the vaccine much faster than she could’ve anticipated. Additional side effects kicked in shortly after including muscle aches and her head feeling slightly nauseous. Her eyes remained shut as she felt a sudden sharp wave of drowsiness come over her like a runaway speeder, as if the vaccine had included a sedative as part of the injection. The pump for the tank then started to add Alefgard's completed phage cure into the bacta mixture.
Coda’s body began to mirror what her mind’s eye became entranced with. She was mimicking almost perfectly the fetal position state the red woman from the relic was in. Coda had faded into light sleep, her face locked in a deep pained frown, resting peacefully as all the bacta in the tank gathered around her in a tightly controlled swirling elliptical flow like a clear liquid egg that began to softly glow in a bright blue colour matching her skin, her body floating and slowly rotating inside with her arms wrapped around her legs and her head resting against her knees. She wanted so much to go back home to Glee Anselm, to be in her mother’s and father’s arms again, to hug her self-crafted Kit Fisto plushie doll and play pretend Jedi with herself and her imaginary friend, the one calling herself “Amare”.
Amare:
My mind was asunder during my years as Zaracoda and was that way since early in my childhood. Admitting that, up until Korriban, I had what amounted to a split personality problem, is no easy confession for me. I am whole now thanks to my rebirth on Archonus’ forge, but my history of being so weak and mentally fractured as Coda still shames me greatly. My studies of our Sith holocrons have taught me that the Dark Lords of the past could easily blame their deep changes in personality due to the influence of the dark side of the Force, but I was cracked from almost the start, long before you came along, master.
I could not blame you if you speculated that it had something to do with a family tragedy, or some kind mental trauma due to abuse or neglect, but this went on long before my darkest days. My childhood was wholesome and mostly free of abuse, aside from the minor bits of tough love from my late brother, Capo, and the rare moments of corporal punishment that I deserved by my father’s hand. I honestly cannot think of a reason why or how the split began. The conflict between me and Coda was there all along. I have a suspicion as to what the root cause might be, but I cannot say for sure right now.
Back in Alefgard’s lab, during that moment of Coda’s...of my great evolutionary triumph, I decided to again play the role of her invisible playmate and provide that part of me some genuine comfort, however strange that may sound. I admit, the totality of my mind, Coda and Amare together, were equal parts excited and scared. I, of course, was always the strongest aspect of my own mind. Not because I am any smarter or wiser—Coda was as much a part of me as I was her—but rather that I represented the part of us...of me that was the secret to my daring and convictions: I had faith, in myself, and in the Force. It is a lesson I have learned well from you and Bomoor. Faith is everything.
“You are safe for now,” Amare had said soothingly with Coda’s mind voice, but slightly deeper and more confident. “I will open the bacta tank so you can be free.”
“I'm grateful you are there for me, Amare,” Coda’s inner voice of innocence said, lighter, almost like she was five or ten years younger. “You are my bestest friend ever. But wait...what's happening to me? Am I inside a bubble? The water...the bacta, it’s different. Feels like silk on my skin. It feels so warm...so soft. Oh my...I think I’m floating...strange...I'm starting to remember things I've forgotten. This bubble is just like my dreams as a little girl. I never could levitate properly on the Raptor. Now it's just so...perfect...whatever it is.”
“It is...it’s a...chrysalis,” Amare replied, the word she hesitated to use having come to her but did not know from where. “It is a place of sanctuary; a place to heal; a place to touch and bond with the Force with greater clarity and intimacy than you could manage otherwise.”
“I...I don’t think I understand,” Coda admitted tiredly, exhausted from the chrysalis’ formation and the effects of the vaccine, having expended most of Alegard’s drained essence to make the glowing bacta egg possible.
“Imagine a lightsaber crystal that’s as big as you, and you are floating inside of it, and it is made entirely of liquid you gathered around you with just your thoughts and desires,” Amare gently explained. “That is the chrysalis. It reflects your desire to feel safe and loved. It is home for us now. Our true home. No ship or building can replace it. It’s our own little water palace, and you are the princess living inside, seated upon its magical throne.”
“A princess...me?” Coda wondered sheepishly as her words grew softer and sleepier. “I would have to find a handsome prince first. Mmm...that sounds so nice...strong arms wrapped around me...loving me...but...how do you know so much...?”
“I have seen many sad things,” Amare assured her in an almost motherly tone, cautious in sharing in Coda's warm feelings and selfish desires, “and many wonderful things.”
The idea of being in love with a strong man in a comfortable home sounded like every decent girl’s dream, but for a Sith in the making, it was dangerous thinking based on common female nature and not the path of true strength. Amare realized that was the crux that separated her from Zaracoda. Female whims and female feelings would always be a part of Amare, but power as a Sith required supernatural discipline to smother and tame such hazardous traits. Amare understood that her femininity could not be the main focal point of how she conducted herself, but she also recognized its golden value to be used as another tool in her arsenal to acquire and achieve in the pursuit of greater power. She wanted to succeed and overcome anything life or her master threw at her, not end up dead at a young age, or worse, back in the slave pens waiting to be auctioned off to another living hell on some far away world where no one could hear her scream.
Amare continued with words softly flowing as if she were weaving a lullaby or a mystical spell of subtle enchantment, "Visions...dreams. Together, we are the dream, and someday soon, we will finally wake up, stronger and happier than ever. Through me, we will do many wonderful things, create beautiful miracles, and bring peace and hope to all good people, as one, under the stars.”
The primary floor drain opened wide, and Coda’s translucent bubble slipped from the opened tank through the flood waters. Within the chrysalis’ protection, she was dragged along with her travel pack into the drain’s perilous depths. Doctor Alefgard’s corpse was dragged along the floor by the drain's fast-moving currents and was not far behind.
“Peace...under the stars...” Coda muttered softly on the verge of full sleep as she was oblivious to her fall into Lorrd’s underground waterworks, her voice slipping back towards adulthood again. “I...love...you...Amare...”
Amare:
I heard the words from Zaracoda, the lost and scared girl you found on Nar Shaddaa, her genuine love for her truest self having touched me, but I was too self-aware to return her affection. No use repeating the love I had for myself. Even Sith apprentices should have limits to their narcissism.
I still vividly recall how we slept so soundly within that beautiful swirling bacta egg held together by the Force. We slept in the land of dreams, drifting beneath an imaginary warm ocean on a soft bed of lichen and sea flowers. We began to remember things she did even as a toddler, old forgotten memories that began to feel as strong to us as if they happened yesterday. I giggled, she wept, and we slipped into silent moments of apathy, together, holding hands, like twin sisters who knew each other’s thoughts. I felt her sorrow, her fear, and her trust in me...in her stronger self. Her ’bestest friend’ she called me. Foolish, but I understood her need for security. I happily obliged and squeezed her hand in that dream to gently remind her I was there, and I intended to never leave her side...that is until I no longer had need of her.
She dwelled heavily on the memory of her begging the Wolphs not to join the colony expedition, how much she cried wanting to stay on the family's private island on Glee Anselm. Her adoptive family loved her, but they never took anything she said seriously.
Empathy is not exactly a tenet of our great Order, but I strongly feel that the one you knew as Coda deserved to be her own person, to love and to care and to be kind...to just be kind. She did not...does not deserve me. I am the only living heir to the Sith Order, the one upon which all our unyielding ambitions rest should you someday fall by my hand, or otherwise. She, on the other hand, is just a simple woman of the sea. Had I the power to grant her freedom with her own body and her own life, I would make it so. I can be as ruthless as the night I threw Yaxley’s ship into the rocks by the ocean on Sleheyron with her on board, but I can also be merciful and compassionate for those I deem most deserving. We are not the Sith of old. We are the Sith of Serus. We can rule with the dark side without letting it rule us.
As we drifted away from the lab into the larger city water system, I kept watch through the Force. I had expected we were going to be dumped into the sewers, but instead sensed that we had been directed into the university’s clean water reservoir. Upon passing through the decontamination fields, the chrysalis had gradually begun to shed itself dispersing out to create enzymatic reactions that would trap and eliminate the loose samples of the phage that could not be scrubbed or filtered by technology. I later learned over the HoloNet that my actions saved the lives of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands without any of them knowing they were in danger. The government received my message in Alefgard’s name and recreated the cure to take care of the remaining quarantined samples outside the city that I could not reach. Because of the vaccine I gave myself, my body continues to synthesize a natural immunity form of the cure.
At some point along the way, when I slipped free from the spent bacta egg, there was a brief armistice of peace and mental unity for me, Coda and Amare as one. For just that very fleeting span of precious time I felt born again. I was somewhere between sleep and consciousness, my arms and legs outstretched, my face down in the water, feeling as if I were an angel afloat upon the surface of the underground river. The moment was perfect, calm, and silent, and then I had a dream...
...I had a dream of my father...
...he was dead...
...but it was all right.
TBC
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