STAR WARS REBELS || Her Wings Of Fire

CHAPTER TWENTY: The Three Of Us Together Again

"Hello, Conni."

Sorena recognized the voice immediately. Her eyes shot open, and she whipped around from where she had been meditating to face the tall red Zabrak she had somehow not heard enter the cargo hold of the Ghost.

"Maddox," she snarled, her teeth bared. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you. I had to know if it was true; that you..."

Sorena moved carefully to her feet, and, while she wasn't able to stand up completely cue to the constraints of the force field, she could at least ready herself in case a fight was forthcoming. "Well, do you have your answer?"

Maddox's face was uncharacteristically hard, and his normally soft and kind eyes glinted like chips of amber. "Yes," he informed her quietly.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke; there were no other sounds in the room except for the gentle hum of the Ghost's inner workings. But Sorena was intent upon letting him make the first move. Maddox could become very unpredictable if angered, and, knowing her affinity for getting on people's nerves, he had to be regarded with caution.

"I'm not going to ask you why you did it," he said finally, "because I already know. I lived as a Sith Lord for years, and I've done a lot of wrong things for what I thought were the right reasons. No one understands the pull of the Dark Side better than I do. But I do know that someone who has always been so keen on the Light will be seriously unbalanced by a sudden turn to the Dark."

" 'Sudden?' " Sorena barked out a laugh. "You call eleven years sudden? I chose my path, Maddox, like you always urged us to when we were kids back on Onderon. If you have a problem with me following your own counsel, then you'd better take it outside, because I don't give two credits."

"This isn't what I meant."

"Then nice job leaving it up to interpretation."

Maddox glared at her, and for a moment Sorena wondered if she hadn't gone too far. But the Zabrak remained impassive, even as he turned away to leave. The door slid shut behind him a moment later.

It can't be over so quickly as that, she thought. He's far to stubborn to give up so easily. So what's he up to...?

The door reopened a few moments later, allowing Maddox and Teri to enter. The second Teri tried to meet her eyes, she scowled at him with all the spite she could muster, and she watched him look away with a satisfied smirk.

But then, she felt a little twinge of pain – that irksome speck of Light was acting up again. She growled exasperatedly, channeling her darkest thoughts about how much she wanted to kill Lux Bonteri.

However, much to her surprise, it wasn't enough to reinforce the walls around her heart. Where the hatred had once flowed easily, it only came to her in a trickle like a streambed in a drought.

No, no, no! This can't be happening, she thought angrily, trying to refill her empty reserves with loathing that just wasn't there. I can't be going soft – that's not possible! I'm not weak; I hate Lux. I hate him. He left me for dead, and for that he deserves to die. I hate him more than I hate anyone. I want him gone forever.

But try as she did, it just wasn't coming. Infuriated by this peculiar defeat, she focused instead on her hatred for the other Inquisitors who connived incessantly to take her place as Grand Inquisitor; one in particular even more so than the rest.

That pulled her back into the embrace of the Darkness without fail.

In the meantime, Teri and Maddox had descended the ladder from the walkway down into the cargo bay, and had come to stand close by. Sorena summoned all the power she could muster, waiting for them to act.