Without the constant use of stims Book found herself sleeping in her room, albeit fitfully and brokenly. Every time she shut her mind down to try and sleep a vague prescient terror would slowly rise from the depths of her subconscious, putting her on edge. The terror had no name or distinct impression but it left her shaking, rolling over the side of the bed and pacing the floor, feet bare as she tried to center her thoughts. Sure she had slippers (and wasn't that a weird thing to find in the pile of clothing acquired by Karker) but she favored the grounding feeling of foot to floor, plascrete or not.
After a moment she knelt on the floor, adopting the typical pose of someone meditating in the Jedi's style. She let her breathing slow, counting softly as she tried - almost desperately - to slip into the meditative frame of mind she could achieve while cleaning her blaster or practicing forms with her saber. But even that escape - like every other one she'd tried so far - was denied, this time by an inability to settle enough to fall into that meditative state. Her mind warred with emotions she couldn't stop feeling and the shoddy sleep without her usual stimulants to counter the effects were wearing on her. And through everything wove a growing sense of guilt at the way she was going behind Karker's back, weighing down on top of everything else.
"I'll be honest here. I live on stims and caf, food cubes and alcohol." Possibly the oddest admission she could've made to her captor in the middle of their impromptu shopping trip. At least it wasn't something important, something vital. Which he didn't want to know anyways so what was the point of holding her? To please his ally, he'd said. Maybe later if she could be trusted she could leave, he'd said. "I don't know what would engender that level of trust," had been her sarcastic reply. She still didn't' know and she felt in her gut that if her duplicity - if the way she'd broken into his systems - came to light through accident whatever headway she'd possibly made would be gone.
An up-beat Sith. Who baked and cooked. There were, she decided, worse or better Sith to be stuck with. And as far as company went, well, she really could be a lot worse off. Proteus, for example, had been a very bad host. The torture had been one thing, Hostility another, and the bad conditions left most of the prisoners in horrific states of injury and near-death. She angrily pushed off her knees, stalking around the room in a shifted pace, less stately or even bored and more a predator trapped in an enclosure before she stopped herself.
Like body, like mind. She was not that person anymore no matter how much the press of the city called softly to her senses. She knew, logically, that the Dark Side should look abhorrent to her but having grown up surrounded by it instead the Miraluka found it almost entrancing sometimes, the intricate whorls and knots and tangles something she could lose herself studying. Coupled with the city, the constant little pinpricks of Dark Side she could sense in herself, she found the call almost... comforting. She returned to the bed, folding into a seated position and focusing on the Force. Even in the city of Drumond Kaas there were small bastions of Light that she focused on instead, hunting them as she stretched out her perception past the estate's grounds. Any time the though of studying the Dark Side became as meditative as a moment of peace on Tython she knew she needed to change things.
A breath, in and out. She did have a few Sith she'd rather be stuck with - BigWig came to mind, the glacial but almost regal presence putting her in the reference of perhaps a Chiss. The meeting with BigWig had been short and brief, but the alliance - tentative - was worth it. A Sith House willing to ally itself against the threat of the Dheroveer? Willing to help analyze footage and willing to work with other allies? She'd mentioned the Jedi, but BigWig had been willing to look past that for the larger threat - to House and Empire. An entity like the Dheroveer threatened more than the Republic, as amply demonstrated by Proteus.
Xze was another Sith she'd rather be spenidng time with. Her own alliance with the Chiss was shaky but they were united against the threat the disease stumbled upon posed. She felt an undercurrent of concern. Karker wasn't... really that bad, as far as things went. And that feeling brought about the tiniest relief against the washes of guilt and trepidation that were threatening to shatter the fragments of calm she was keeping herself sane with.
She shifted, knees pulling up as she curled into the bed, back pressed against the wall, the Miraluka a huddled figure. Guilt. Anger. Despair. Peace. Relief. Determination. Fear. Hopelessness. Trust? The start of trust at least, and she squashed that feeling deep down, reminding herself that Karker was, above all else, Sith. Dark. Trusting in a darksider had gotten her into trouble numerous times. She couldn't afford more trouble, not now; her thoughts and mind whispered that sometimes trust was well placed in the person, not their affiliation... but she ignored that voice. With nothing else to keep her occupied - and sleep a distant dream with memories of the Dune Sea floating in the forefront of her mind - she muttered a vitriolic oath and padded back to the holoterminal.
Settling into the chair she curled up, knees a comfortable place to rest her chin, fingers once more moving over the terminal's keyboard. She pulled the files back up, the recovered and corrupted data she'd pulled from the garbage directories and read the information over again.
A weakness in the implants.
One she could actually pursue.
Sometime between reading the relevant databases Book dropped off to sleep, terminal still opened to the sliced access she wasn't supposed to have.
No comments:
Post a Comment