Dynasty of Evil (24 page)

“The three of us, then,” she conceded, grabbing the little table and wheeling it into position to bring it inside
with them. “Lock the door behind us,” she instructed the guards.

Lucia was worried about the princess. Ever since their visit to the Jedi Temple she had sensed something different about her, but she had never suspected she was capable of going to such extreme lengths. She hadn’t known mercenaries had been hired to reopen the Stone Prison; if she had, she would have tried to talk Serra out of such a foolish and dangerous plan. The princess must have known she would object, however, and so she hadn’t told Lucia what was happening until after the prisoner was safely secured in his cell.

She had known about the dungeons, of course. As part of the princess’s official security detail, she needed to memorize every possible entrance and exit to the castle. Up until three days ago, however, she had only ever seen blueprints. Coming face-to-face with the Stone Prison was an entirely different experience.

As soon as she stepped off the long turbolift ride down from the surface she had sensed the evil of this place. The stale air had an underlying stench of death. Too many dark and unspeakable things had happened here over the centuries.

Since then Lucia had kept a careful eye on her friend. She could see something eating away at her, and she feared the unholy gloom of the Stone Prison would only make things worse. The princess was obsessed with the man in the dungeon, yet at the same time she was unable to face him. Lucia knew it had something to do with her past, but when she had tried to broach the subject the princess had refused to discuss it.

Left with no other options, she had been forced to wait for Serra to make the next move. Now that she was about to face the prisoner for the first time, Lucia was
determined to be at her side. She might not understand what her friend was going through, and she might not agree with what she was doing, but she was still going to be there in case the princess needed her.

As the three women entered the cell, Lucia was surprised at how much smaller it was than the room on the other side of the door: just three meters square. The cell was dimly lit, the only illumination coming from a single sputtering light overhead. The prisoner was restrained against the far wall. His arms were extended out to either side above, his hands shackled by chains dangling from iron rings set into the ceiling. His legs were similarly splayed, his ankles cuffed to the wall behind him.

Because of the drug he was unable to stand erect; his weight sagged forward, pulling the chains supporting him tight and putting incredible strain on his wrists and shoulders. The pain in his joints would have been excruciating, were it not for the numbing effects of the senflax coursing through his system. His head was slumped down, his paralyzed muscles making it impossible for him to look up as they entered.

Serra selected a needle with a red label from the table and injected it directly into the carotid artery running up the side of his thick neck. An instant later his head snapped up and back in reaction to the powerful stimulant.

Seeing his face, Lucia gasped in surprise. The other two glanced at her momentarily, but when she shook her head they dismissed her reaction as unimportant and returned their attention to the man in chains.

It had been more than twenty years, but Lucia had recognized him instantly. Des had been her commanding officer—her leader, her hero. Without him none of the Gloom Walkers would have survived the war. He had saved their lives on Kashyyyk. He saved them again on
Trandosha. Time after time he had brought them through impossible situations against overwhelming odds, right up until their final mission together on Phaseera. And then Lieutenant Ulabore had ordered the enforcers—the Sith military police—to arrest him.

She had never heard from Des again; like the rest of the unit she assumed he had been executed for disobeying orders and striking a superior officer. And even though she had believed him to be dead, she had vowed she would never forget the face of the man who had once meant everything to her.

When she saw him hanging from the shackles in the cell, she hadn’t been able to contain her gasp of surprise. Fortunately neither the princess nor the Huntress had realized why she had gasped, and Lucia recovered enough to avoid another outburst. But though she managed to keep her emotions from showing on the surface, inside her world had exploded.

She doubted whether Des had recognized her. He was drugged, for one thing. And she was only one face among many in the unit. He was the leader they all looked up to; he was the one they idolized. In the Gloom Walkers, she was just a low-ranking sniper, one of a dozen junior troopers in the squad. Did she really expect he’d remember her after all this time?

Not that it mattered; she didn’t dare say anything with Serra and the Huntress standing right there. The princess was obsessed with the prisoner; she was gripped by some madness that had driven her to previously unthinkable acts. If she discovered that Lucia and Des knew each other, there was no telling what she would do. Or what she might order the Iktotchi to do.

And so Lucia was forced to just stand there, helpless to do anything to help Des. Just like the day the enforcers had dragged him away.
Serra instantly recognized the face from her nightmares. He was older, but his features were unmistakable: the bald head; the thick, heavy brow; the cruel set of his eyes and jaw.

Beside her Lucia gasped loudly as the prisoner fixed the three women with his cold, merciless gaze. Serra glanced over and saw a strange expression on the ex-soldier’s face; something had obviously upset her.

Lucia was the bravest person the princess had ever met, yet she was clearly distraught. Was it possible she was actually afraid of this man, even while he was chained? Or did she feel sympathy for him? She knew Lucia disapproved of what she was doing. Did her friend think she was a monster now? Or was it something else?

Her friend’s unexpected reaction unsettled Serra, and she fought the instinct to turn and flee from the man in the cell. She had nothing to fear from her prisoner this time. This time he was the victim, not her.

No matter what Lucia thinks, I have to do this
.

“Do you know who I am?” she demanded.

His answer came slowly. The stimulant she had given him only countered the physical effect of the senflax; the toxin still clouded his mind, dulling his focus and concentration.

“An enemy from my past.”

The words were slightly slurred, and it was impossible to read anything into the flat, emotionless tone. She couldn’t tell if he actually recognized her, or if he was just making a generalization based on the fact that she had taken him prisoner.

“My name is Serra. Caleb was my father,” she told him. She wanted him to know. She wanted him to understand who had done this to him.

“Is this revenge for him,” he asked after a long moment, the senflax making his mind lethargic, “or for what I did to you?”

“Both,” she replied, picking up a needle marked with a black sticker. Again, she injected it into his neck. This time, however, the effects were markedly different.

His eyes rolled back in his head and his teeth slammed shut, narrowly missing his tongue. Then his body began to convulse, causing his chains to rattle madly.

Lucia turned away in disgust, unable to watch. The Huntress leaned in closer, enthralled by his chemical-induced torment. Serra let the seizure continue for a full ten seconds before injecting him with one of the yellow needles to counter the effects.

“Do you see the kind of punishment I can inflict on you?” she asked. “Now do you understand what it is like to be at the helpless mercy of another?”

He didn’t answer right away. His breathing was ragged, his face and bare scalp covered in sweat from the pain he had just endured. A spastic tremble had seized his left hand, causing it to twitch and flex madly in its iron cuff.

“You have no lessons to teach me,” he gasped. “I understand suffering in ways you will never comprehend.”

“Why did you kill my father?” Serra asked, picking up another black needle and holding it up for him to see.

“Caleb did not die by my hand.”

She stabbed the needle into his neck, inducing another seizure. She let this one continue nearly twice as long before administering the antidote. She expected him to pass out from the pain, but somehow he managed to stay conscious.

“Lies will be punished,” she warned him.

“I did not kill your father,” he insisted, though his voice was so weak she could barely hear him.

“I told you that I saw another in my visions,” the Huntress reminded her. “A young woman with blond hair. Perhaps she was the killer.”

Serra glared at the Iktotchi before turning her attention back to the man in chains.

“Is this true?”

He didn’t answer, though a cunning smile played at the corner of his lips.

“Tell me what happened to my father!” Serra shouted, slapping him across the face. Her nails raked his cheek, slicing the flesh with four long, deep furrows. Blood welled up quickly into the wounds and began to run down toward his chin.

Bane didn’t answer, however. Jaw clenched, Serra reached down to grab another of the black needles, but Lucia seized her wrist.

“He didn’t kill your father!” the bodyguard shouted. “Why are you still doing this?”

Serra yanked her wrist free angrily. “He may not have done the deed, but he’s the reason my father is dead,” she insisted. She turned back to the prisoner. “Do you deny that?”

“Caleb was weak,” the man muttered. “When he ceased to be of use, he was destroyed. This is the way of the dark side.”

Serra picked the needle up from the table.

“This won’t bring your father back,” Lucia pleaded.

“I want him to see what it’s like to be helpless and afraid,” Serra hissed. “I want him to know what it’s like to be a victim. I want him to understand that what he did to my father—to me—was wrong!”

“The weak will always be victims,” the prisoner said, his voice growing stronger. “That is the way of the universe. The strong take what they want, and the weak suffer at their hands. That is their fate; it is inevitable. Only the strong survive, because only the strong deserve to.”

“You only believe that because you don’t know what it’s like to suffer!” the princess shot back at him.

“I know what it means to suffer,” he replied, his words no longer thick and slurred. “I used to be a victim. But I refused to accept my lot in life. I made myself strong.”

As he spoke, drops of blood from the gashes on his cheek fell from his chin and splashed to the floor.

“Those who are victims have no one to blame but themselves. They do not deserve pity; they are victims because of their own failures and weaknesses.”

“But it didn’t matter how strong you were!” Lucia said, suddenly jumping into the discussion. “Don’t you see that? You still ended up as a prisoner!”

“Had I been stronger I would not have been captured,” he countered, a fierce light burning in his eyes. “If I am not strong enough to escape, I will continue to suffer until I die. But if I
am
strong enough to escape …”

Serra slammed the black needle down and grabbed one of the green, injecting him with another dose of senflax.

“You will never leave this dungeon alive,” she promised as her victim slipped back under the influence of the drug, his eyes glazing over as his head lolled forward again.

Even drugged and chained, he’s still cunning enough to be dangerous
.

Caught up in arguing with him, she had almost missed the signs of the senflax wearing off. She had thought it would be hours before he needed another shot, but she had underestimated the effects of the other drugs she had been pumping into his system. She’d have to be more careful in the future.

“Right now I am weak,” the man mumbled with his head staring down at the floor, refusing to give up. “Powerless. You inflict suffering on me because you are strong enough to do so. Your actions prove the truth of what I believe.”

Serra shook her head angrily. “No. My father taught me to help those in need. The strong should raise the weak up, not trample them down. He believed in that, and so do I!”

Somehow the prisoner managed to lift his head, fixing her with his bleary-eyed stare.

“Your father’s beliefs got him killed.”

The princess raised her hand to slap him again, then froze, struggling to control the flood of grief and rage that threatened to overwhelm her.

“You’re not thinking straight,” Lucia said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You need to calm down.”

Her friend was right. He was inside her head. She needed to get out of the room and regroup. The last shot she’d given him would keep him helpless for at least another hour. Time enough for her to collect her thoughts before facing him again.

Lowering her hand, she turned her back on him without saying a word, leaving the Huntress and Lucia alone with him in the cell.

17

A
s the princess stormed out of the cell, Lucia resisted the urge to go after her. She knew Des’s words had hurt; normally she would have gone to comfort her friend. But everything had changed when she’d walked into the cell and recognized the man chained to the wall.

The Huntress was staring at her, smiling. The Iktotchi was evil. Twisted. She had enjoyed watching Serra torture the victim; she had relished in his suffering. Lucia suspected she took pleasure in Serra’s emotional torment, as well.

She returned the assassin’s gaze but refused to speak. For a moment their eyes locked, and then the Iktotchi turned away with an air of indifference, as if Lucia was beneath her notice. The bodyguard continued to stare at her back as the Huntress followed in the princess’s wake, leaving her alone with the prisoner.

At first a part of her had actually wondered if Des deserved what was being done to him. After all, he was a Sith Lord now. She had fought on the side of the Sith during the war, but she was only a soldier. Like Lucia herself, most of her comrades-in-arms had enlisted because they saw no other way to escape the suffering and hopelessness of their lives. They had turned against the Republic out of desperation, but they were still decent men and women.