To Be Vulnerable

Chapter 1: Terms & Conditions Will Apply

The Empire believed in order. Order could only be established through rules.

Or restrictions, depending on who you asked.

From serving the Empire, Nyx considered only one rule the most important: follow your orders. Simple, right? Easy. How difficult was it to do as you're told?

No one could fully understand just how wrong it was to be right in the Empire's eyes. Nyx had seen the punishment for disobedience often enough. She could share horrors for days.

Better to stand tall. Emotion was weakness. Drop your gaze if you couldn't bear it, but subtly. Nod at your superiors as they walk by. Bite your tongue until it bled. Ignore the voice in your head, even as it screamed.

Just follow your damn orders.

And who was there to enforce them? Stormtroopers were among the first. White armor too clean to imagine it ever worn in the hell of battle. Colder than Hoth & even more soulless than a masterless droid. Intelligence meant little when they outnumbered the stars.

Dangerous thoughts. You realized this too late when they surrounded you, their black gazes darker than the void of deep space. A terrifying last sight.

But who came after stormtroopers? Who traveled unseen, as fluidly as the wind, quieter than a shadow? Who traded in spilt blood & stolen breaths? Assassins, rogues, & mercenaries living outside the law, but still ready to do the Empire's dirty work.

Her kind.

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These stormtroopers were completely brainless. Thicker than stone & they aimed lousier than a blind Gungan. Nyx wondered if troopers existed as punishment for her sins.

"Move." She shoved past a group of them crowding the hallway, ramming her shoulder into a pair lumbering too slowly for her taste. Their grumbles faded as she took to the corner with long strides.

Her mood had been fouled even before their brethren held her up at the safe-house entrance. A couple of new transfers stiffened by their protocols. Or maybe they were part of the group she fought just days ago in the mess hall. That destructive edge of hers had a tendency to slip her into trouble if she wasn't careful.

Damn him. Damn Kastin for summoning her like this. She could hardly be in two places at once. Or three, knowing his expectations.

The flickering lights crackled overhead like lightning, a poor resemblance of the electrical storms she once feared as a child. Nyx paid little attention to them, counting steps seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four scuffing over the brown speckled flooring. Blood. Not hers. No, her blood had dried in a slow trickling path down the adjacent wall. Not the first time her face had been smashed in, & surely not the last.

Nyx knew her limits. Her profession required it. But days bled into months, then into a dizzying number of years. It was harder now to separate herself from the unflinching killer living closer than her own shadow. The brawls she often initiated served as a way to take the edge off, but Kastin only tolerated so much. It may not be long before her troublesome behavior outweighed her usefulness.

Down the length of the dim corridor stood a pair of troopers guarding the entrance to Kastin's quarters. Great, she thought. More wasted breath to explain herself. Nyx strode right to them, unflinching under their blank stares. They couldn't see her mouth twisting into a sneer under her half mask, but her narrowed brows were expressive enough.

The scrawnier of the two raised his blaster with a tightened grip as she approached, his gloved fingers inching toward the trigger. That was fair.

"I'm expected." Filtered through the voice modulator, her words resembled a growl.