Choose a Path 10

I have not been on board for more than 12 hours but already I had discovered that life on an ISD is damned dull, and if you were not part of the pack you are on your own. If you are on your own, you were kept in the dark. When you were kept in the dark one tended to go looking to shed some light. I had decided to ignore the rules and go exploring, since everyone was ignoring me, it seemed the right thing to do.

However, this was the wrong thing to do when one wanders into the detention block by mistake. Only I could do this, it could only happen to me. And, to make matters worse it could only happen to me during a particularly loud interrogation between a Rodian spy and my boss who didn’t sound happy.Torture, questions, wrong answers, more torture. No one seemed to really take notice of me, I had no answers for this, because in theory I should have been marched right out of the area before anyone could have said Banthapoodoo. Maybe I was just lucky and no-one really had looked directly at me when I had snuck in. I had always been able to sneak about fairly easily. If I had not wanted to be seen then most people didn’t see me.

The Rodian was screaming in Huttese and Lord Vader was yelling back at him in the same language. Good to know he can speak Huttese. More screams and more wrong answers. I was not looking, I swear, I was hiding, sort of, but that didn’t mean I was deaf.

There was some sort of protocol droid in there with him but it wasn’t saying much until the Rodian switched to screaming in Rodian, then the protocol droid translated. This went on for another few minutes until the Rodian switched to another language that sounded remarkably similar to Rodian but wasn’t quite right. The protocol droid struggled and after the third try apologies profusely because he could not translate. Lord Vader was furious and screamed to the droid to fetch him someone who could translate. Me, bright spark that I was, got up and entered the room with the infamous statement that made me a bit of a legend on the ship, ( a legend in that I was regarded as the stupidest creature in the entire universe)

“I can translate it. He told you to go jump in the Almighty Pit of Carkoon.”

The world stopped. The only sound was the mechanical breathing of Lord Vader. The protocol droid stood statue still, the Rodian glared at me and the Imperial guard who I had not seen had turned a pale white and swallowed audibly.I stood in the doorway and realized that perhaps that had not been such a good move after all, but done was done and I could translate the Rodian’s thief cant so….

Lord Vader stepped forward and grabbed me by the arm dragging me into the room. “Explain yourself!” he said.

“I was bored.” I told him. “I got lost and ended up here. I overheard the screams and was curious.” Lord Vader’s already painful grip on my arm increased. “He’s speaking a very old thief’s cant. It isn’t surprising the protocol droid doesn’t know it, the language is only a spoken one, nothing written and not many speak it any more. I learnt it at Jabba’s palace. I’d tell you how but that’s a long story, you are hurting my arm!”

He let my arm go and increased the pain on the torture device he was operating and asked his question again in Huttese. The Rodian screamed, I suddenly felt very sick, the room was too small, too hot and I didn’t want to be here. The Rodian answered the question in cant and I translated.

It wasn’t what the Dark Lord wanted to hear so we did it all over again and again and again. I cannot begin to tell you how awfully disturbing this was. I had seen some twisted things in my life, live on Tatooine, work for Jabba hang out at a docking port and you see stuff. It wasn’t always nice, but this …this was nasty. It made me angry, though mostly it was the stupidity of the Rodian that made me really cross.

He actually knew what Lord Vader wanted, I could sense that much and I knew if I could somehow bend his mind a bit I could finish this but I didn’t know how to get there. More questions, more stupid answers and my temper was beginning to stir, I mentioned that I had a temper right? The wretched thing about my temper was that when I finally give into it, it was like a wicked sand storm, once it started there is no stopping it. It felt like lightening in my skin, like roaring winds in my head and I just gave into it.
Usually, I couldn’t remember what happens while I am in this state, but I am told it’s not good. Well, the Rodian set me off and I lost control and I pushed him with my mind. I don’t know how I did it either, I just saw white, closed my eyes and pushed. The Rodian stumbled over his words, speaking Huttese. I pushed again and he screamed. I could feel the pain and fear but it was as if I were on the outside of the room looking it, somewhere else. There was a roaring sound in my ears and each time I pushed it got louder and louder until I thought it was going to consume me, and then it was my turn to scream. I had no memory of anything that happened after that because I blacked out.

I woke up in the med-center. The first thing I saw was Lord Vader’s face, I would have screamed but his hand clamped hard across my mouth before I could do that, he only removed it when he knew I wasn’t going to scream after all.

“I see we have found one of your talents.” He said.

I tried to sit up and discovered that made my head pound. “What talent? What happened? Why does my head hurt so much? Where in the name Sarlacc am I?”

“You have a gift for getting inside of someone’s head and pushing them. I knew another, a long time ago who could also push another’s thoughts. Your head hurts because you have no idea what you are doing, we will change that with training. You are in the infirmary, which is where you will stay until you are well enough.” Lord Vader said.

“Well enough for what?”

But he did not say anything, merely nodded to the med-droid who unceremoniously stuck a needle into my arm and the world went dark again.