Star Wars: Heir to the Sith (Part 3)

Chapter 30: She stamped down, hard, on his kneecap.

"Please! P-please stop–"

Halva's cry died as Neerada brought her fist into his ribcage with all her strength. The gauntlets she wore were designed to inflict pain, and they did not disappoint.

She felt his agony as his ribs cracked and broke, sheering through the softer tissues behind. His bloodied face looked up at her, pleading, only to see her wrench his left arm to one side and break his wrist.

It wasn't the physical assault she enjoyed. It was the peeling back of his psyche, the assault on his beliefs. It was each physical blow that shattered the walls of his mental fortress, one brick at a time.

It was a challenge to her to see how much this Imperial fanatic could take.

He staggered and Neerada barraged in, pummelling wildly in quick vicious punches. His internal organs ached and roared in protest, and a tiny squeal erupted from his tortured mouth.

Why was she doing this? Why did she not simply shoot him?

She didn't know. But the fact that this man had concealed himself so close to his sister for so long was certainly a part of it. It exposed a weakness in Ella that would have to rectified: her naive nature and her inability to perceive the intentions of others.

Neerada doubted if Halva would have been able to fool her for so long.

Halva slumped to the floor of the passageway and crawled backward. Even now there was a wild satisfaction inside him. A belief that he would somehow win.

He reached into the pocket of his vacuum suit and offered her a small data cylinder.

And received a sharp kick in his stomach for his trouble.

"Wait!" he wheezed. "Ella needs this. It's important for her."

Neerada held back her foot, just short of crushing his kneecap.

"It's all the information I have on Governor Mazier's treachery, and Secretary Dalian. With it, you stand a good chance of retrieving what he has stolen from Farsalt, from Ella."

"Thank you," Neerada said. She reached down and took the cylinder from Halva's shaking grip.

Then she stamped down, hard, on his kneecap.

"Argh! W-wait . . . it's encoded. Let me go, and I'll transmit the code once I am safe."

She reached into his mind and found there was genuine panic now. He had played his last chip and was suddenly aware of how futile it was.

But the information on it might still be useful. If for nothing more than to use it to pressure Ella.

She grabbed Halva by his collar and dragged him to the nearest airlock.

"You will be safe from me in there," she said. "I cannot open the door from my side due to its safety procedure. You will just have to wait the battle out."

She pushed him inside and he fell to the floor.

As the door between them shut, trapping Halva in the small space, she activated the data cylinder.

"The code. What is it?"

Halva offered it up. Neerada detected no trickery in him and was rewarded with a confirmed access.

As she turned it off and secured it in her suit, she felt Halva's confidence return.

"You should have killed me," he said. "You realise you have committed the highest treason against the Emperor? When I am rescued, I will be a hero of the Empire. The man who infiltrated a key rebel cell and led the Assayers to find two Jedi, as well as a traitor in their own ranks." He coughed up blood and sat himself up against the far door. "My life was worth all those stolen credits. As for you, you better spend them fast if you can find them. Lord Vader's going to come looking for you - and I'm going to help him find you, so I can watch your execution."

Halva started to laugh.

"You really are the fool," she said. "You think I cannot reach you because there is a door separating us?"

"You can't open either door from out there," Halva replied. "So I'm safe for now." He reached the comm unit on his suit and held it up for her to see. "And I'm about to call in whoever is in range. Like I said, you better start running."

"You won't have time to make that call, Halva," she said. "In fact, if I were you I would prepare my vacuum suit for a deep space environment."

A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face before he broke into another smile.

"There are two levers to manually open the airlock," he said. "Both on my side. You can't do–"

'Clank.'

The first lever fell on its own accord. Halva stared.

"That's not . . . how did . . . ?"

"You have too little faith in the ways of the Force, officer Halva."

He turned to stare at Neerada through the viewport. She was already concentrating on the second.

"No!" Halva screamed, and such was his strength of passion that she was momentarily distracted. "Please! Don't do it! Don't–"

'Clank.'

The second lever swung away. The lights in the airlock changed to a warning red dim.

"The airlock will open in ten seconds," an automated voice said.

"Better get your helmet on," Neerada advised.

His fear was beautiful to her. Whatever certainty he had possessed before was now so broken, so crushed under her power, that his will was as fluid as a raging sea, ready to be put back under her moulding hands if she so cared to do so.

She had encountered a fanatic. And she had broken him.

A part of her toyed with the idea of saving him, of halting the opening airlock a few seconds before the count ended, and then seeing how she could rebuild his psyche into something that would serve her. It wouldn't be the first time she had done that, and the fact that he was a trained ISB operative did provide an intriguing experiment about what she could achieve.

The countdown had only seconds to go now, and she knew the simple truth was that he had to die. He knew too much about Ella. If she were to let him live, there would be a danger that that would one day come out.

And controlling the knowledge of a situation was key to controlling the situation itself, her tutors had drilled into her.

ISB officer Halva snapped his helmet shut. The control panel on his suit glowed a reassuring blue as it checked his systems.

He gave a triumphant grin to Neerada as the countdown ended and a final sound signalled the outer door beginning to open.

"I'll find you," he said. "One day, I'll find you and then I'll–"

Neerada pointed down to his waist, where she had pounded him with her gauntlets, where her blows had perforated his suit, where a jagged tear now revealed itself across his side.

The blue light on his suit died and flashed a warning red as the breach was detected.

"No!" Halva screamed. He looked at Neerada in astonishment, tears flooding down his cheeks.

He opened his mouth to scream again as the door opened.

Neerada blinked. Whatever he had screamed at her had been swept out into deep space along with the air lock's atmosphere.

And Halva too.

She reached out, feeling his flailing motions as he sought to cover the tear in his suit. It was an impossible attempt, as he obviously knew, for his mind was a raging storm of anger, bitterness, and pure abject terror as he perceived his end. Neerada turned away and started her march to the power chamber, reflecting that the tears on Halva's cheeks would already be frozen, and turning her thoughts to her next trial.

First Mahon. And then Ella.

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