Chapter Text
This Count Dooku bore an uncanny resemblance to the holodeck’s rendition of Saruman. Shorter hair, shorter beard, but the same sort of regal self-assurance━and the same subtle sense of danger, too.
“Ah,” he said, “the rumors are true. You are not her.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Someone who so significantly discommodes the Jedi Order as you have will find it very difficult to disappoint me, my dear.” While Chester was figuring out whether that was a compliment or insult, he added, “Trench, Grievous, you may leave us. The good commander and I have much to discuss.”
So much for all the bickering over who got credit for her capture. Trench and Grievous slunk away, trading resentful looks.
The Count had had her brought to him in an opulent study of sorts, all rich fabric and dark-stained wooden furniture, high up in an honest-to-god castle overlooking a green pastured valley. It had been sunny outside, when she and her escorts had disembarked the shuttle that brought them planetside. It felt like winter in here, cold and dark. There was a fire crackling merrily in an ornate hearth; it was having no effect on the chill whatsoever.
“You had a pleasant journey, I trust?”
“As much as could be expected, under the circumstances.”
“I apologize. The war has suspicions running high. I shall make it clear that you are my honored guest. It is not often we entertain guests from the Unknown Regions.”
“I was wondering why the interest. It wasn’t as if my coming was expected━was it?”
"Not at all," said the Count, in a tone of voice that was smooth and sympathetic and immediately made Chester disinclined to believe everything he said. “In my years governing this world and in studying the Force, I have learned not to trust accidents. I had hoped that by arranging your rescue, I might place myself in a position to be of assistance.”
Well, that wasn’t how someone helping out of the goodness of his heart would put it. “I need to return home,” she said. “That’s all. Preferably with the minimum of interference in your affairs.”
“Of course,” he said. “Let us discuss it further; it will take time to make the arrangements for such a journey, in wartime. Allow me to offer you our hospitality in the meantime.”
Fortunately, Dooku had meant genuine hospitality. A hot shower, clean clothes (limited color palette, though; black and more black, but the clothes the Jedi had loaned her were getting rather lived-in), and then an invitation to dinner.
Chester didn’t trust this last one; he had a war to run, so taking the time to have dinner with her meant he wanted something from her, very badly. In her experience, anyone dissembling via an invitation to dinner instead of a frank discussion of the matter at hand was up to no good at all. Just look at the original Enterprise logs.
“It seems the Republic has treated you exceptionally shabbily,” said Dooku. Chester made a noncommittal face and took a sip of the (admittedly very good) wine to occupy her hands.
She was finding she distrusted Dooku’s careful courtesy even more than the Republic’s outright reluctance, and something about this whole palace set her teeth on edge, like a grating noise just outside of hearing.
“So, you have come seeking aid,” Dooku continued. There was nothing actually off in how he was looking at her, no more than any attentive host, but the hairs on the back of her neck had been standing on end since he’d first greeted her, and showed no inclination of relaxing anytime soon. She was in no mood to ignore them.
“Nothing so involved,” she said, meeting his gaze. It sent unease trickling down her spine. “I was abducted, and I have duties and responsibilities to get back to. The first duty of any captured officer is escape; I am simply looking for a ship and to return home.”
“Of course,” said Dooku. “An admirable dedication to principle, Commander Chester.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgement.
“A pity, this confusion between you and Knight Tulin,” said Dooku, thoughtfully. “I was very much looking forward to meeting her; it’s rare to find individuals principled enough to examine another point of view.”
With a chill, Chester wondered if Song Tulin would have appreciated meeting Dooku as much as she had evidently expected to. “Consideration of a diversity of beliefs and viewpoints is a cornerstone of the Federation,” she said.
“A worthy philosophy,” said Dooku. “One the Republic━and the Jedi━have left far behind.”
She thought about Plo Koon, and though she nodded, the comment downgraded her estimation of Dooku’s honesty yet again. “The Federation has a strict principle of noninterference in the affairs of other sovereign entities,” she said. “I am afraid it is my duty to return as quickly as possible, without further involvement.”
“Of course. How very reasonable an approach. You may, however, find it has a higher cost than you would expect.”
Once again, Chester found it more prudent to stay silent.
“I will of course expedite your return,” said Dooku. “But before you go, there is one other matter I would like to discuss.”
Ah, thought Chester. Here comes the catch . Something of a relief, really, that he was coming to it. She set down her glass and looked intently at him, letting her lack of amusement come fully to the surface. I see what you’re doing , she thought, and it’s not cute, buddy.
He seemed undisturbed. “I am sure that at some point the Jedi mentioned your own Force sensitivity to you.”
That wasn’t the tack she was expecting him to take. “It was noted, yes.”
“But I doubt that for all your clear ability, they offered you any form of training.”
She thought briefly of Plo Koon, sparring with her, the discussions of meditation and philosophy that seemed to skirt the edges of more than conversation━as if he couldn’t help but to teach, even when he wasn’t supposed to. “They did not,” she said. “Why? My understanding is that the mind becomes too set in its ways after a certain time.”
He snorted. “ They would like to think so. It will be more difficult, but you can be trained. Think of it, Commander Chester. Returning home to your people with all the capability of a Jedi. More than the capabilities of most Jedi. You know they need every advantage they can get.”
That took her by surprise, and she looked sharply at him. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t dissemble, Commander.” He leaned forward, eyes intent. She thought of a Vulcan le-matya, bracing to spring. “You’re desperate. And being stranded far from home is not enough to cause the fear I sense in you; you’re not a woman to fear for herself, not easily. What else, then? A fear, perhaps, of not being where you’re needed, when you’re needed; a fear of wasting time, and a fear of what will happen to the ones you love in your absence. You say your Federation is peaceful; I believe you. But you carry yourself like a soldier. You fight like a soldier.” He steepled his fingers, a smile in his eyes. She kept her face very carefully still while alarm roiled in her gut. “The Republic clones see it as clearly as I do, how well you work with them. Better than most Jedi, in fact. You’ve seen battle, and recently, and, I think, quite a lot of it. The conclusion is obvious; your peaceful Federation is at war. And, as it’s a comparatively young and small association of worlds, I expect the war is one of survival. Perhaps some larger empire has come along, and seeks to add your home to its possessions.”
She drew in a breath, largely to remind herself to breathe at all, and looked down at the remains of the meal. She was shaken; she knew he knew it. She would have to be insane not to know it. “I must,” she started, swallowed hard. “I must congratulate you on your powers of deduction, Count Dooku.”
“A single Jedi can turn the course of a battle. A single warrior of my tradition can do a great deal more.” His voice was like silk, cold and smooth; she felt a sudden, strange kinship with no reason at all behind it. She looked up. “Can your Federation really afford to have you pass up such an opportunity?”
Sick fear had sat in her gut since she woke up in that cell with the damn collar shocking her; she set it aside as unimportant to the job in front of her. But now it crept up like bile, suffocating and sour. She drew a breath in through her nose, released it through her mouth, silently thanking T’Volis and her regular meditation schedule, the techniques she learned not to unsettle a Vulcan partner. The fear was horrible, inescapable. But it was information, nothing more.
It was a half-step to anger, which was much more useful. But when she pushed it that way, it felt wrong . Too powerful. She looked up again in time to see the true smile widen on Dooku’s face, as if he’d been waiting for that all along.
He rose, stepped around to her side of the table and offered a hand. “Come with me. I have something to show you.”
She got up, pushing her chair back and pointedly not taking the hand. “What, exactly, is a warrior of your tradition called?” she asked. Her anger beat at the back of her throat, at him for playing whatever this sick little game was, at the assholes who kidnapped her and dragged her here in the first place. She fought for control again, furling it back into something cold and focused. He seemed to be far too happy to see it.
“We are the Sith,” said Dooku. “With the power I can give you, you can lay waste to worlds .”
She stopped where she stood. “I don’t want to lay waste to worlds,” she said. “Why the hell would you think I’d want that?”
He laughed at her. Kindly, it seemed, but her anger receded and unease rolled in like the next wave. “If you can, you will not need to. If your enemies know what you can do━they will not push you. You could end your war in a day, Commander.”
Privately, Chester thought standard Dominion operating procedure would probably be to eliminate her as quickly as possible, probably via her very own changeling assassin. But then she looked more closely at Dooku, and calculated her odds of walking out of this fortress alive if she refused.
They were not good.
She drew a breath. He seemed pleased when she was angry, so she let herself get angry again, just a little. It was like taking a sip out of a fire hydrant, but she’d spent a lot of the last two years alternately pissed or terrified, so she managed. “I’m a diplomat first,” she said to him coldly. “And history has plenty of lessons about escalation as deterrence. Usually radioactive ones.”
“Come now, Commander. No secrets between friends.”
“Seems we became friends in a hurry.”
No comment. She followed him through cavernous halls and wide rooms to a balcony overlooking a staging area━squadrons of droids stood below them, eyeless faces staring straight ahead. Chester felt a chill go down her spine, thinking of the legions of white-armored clones on Coruscant. A war, fought by disposable armies, like so many toys.
“Observe,” he said, and raised a hand and closed it.
The squadron standing directly in front of them, with a scream of rending metal, tore themselves apart. Chester took an involuntary step back, throat closing. She remembered the mechanical burble of the droids talking to each other on the trip back. Nonsentient hardware didn’t talk.
He’d killed them to make a point to her.
“Think of the lives you could have saved in that last battle,” he said softly.
Chester swallowed hard, looking at the wreckage. “Believe me, I am.” Revulsion boiled in the back of her throat.
But if he doubted her, he would kill her. She was certain of it. And if she died here, she wouldn’t get home. The Bedivere would lose its second first officer in a month. Captain Steenburg wouldn’t have someone to watch her back; mom, dad, and grandmama would never know what had happened to her, only that letter from Starfleet. We regret to inform you that two years have elapsed since Commander Diane Chester’s disappearance; she is now considered killed in action. Our condolences in this difficult time. Should you wish to use them, Starfleet Recovery Services counseling is available to family of the deceased…
And worse, if she died here, Starfleet wouldn’t know about the Republic, or about CIS, and she could see it clearly in her mind’s eye, this army coming boiling out of the wormhole, descending upon the unsuspecting Federation, wounded after the Dominion War. If they survived that.
So she made herself look at the wreckage, and see Commander Faisal. They’re going to expect to find one of us, Chester. So you take the ensigns and lie low. I’ll buy you time. She remembered hiding flat in the ditch of a Betazoid park, the water seeping through her uniform, a hand clamped over Ensign Idri’s mouth━Idri had been trying to stop him. She remembered how Faisal screamed━sharp, surprised. And how the Jem’Hadar moved on. One more dead Starfleet officer, barely enough to register as a success. Another body, another heap of garbage.
She thought about doing just what Dooku had done, but pulping flesh instead of metal. She thought about the mounded bodies of Jem’Hadar, instead of the single huddled one they’d left behind. She let herself taste it.
Dooku watched her, a pleased curve to his mouth. “Yes, Commander Chester, I think you do understand.”
“I’ll have to think about it,” she said, sounding as firm as she could.
“Somehow, I think you already have,” he said, and then he reached into his sleeve and withdrew something. A lightsaber hilt, designed like his own with a curve to it. He put it into her palm and it was all she could do not to flinch; it felt terribly cold, and the dread in her gut increased tenfold. “I’ll see you in the morning in the salle. I suspect a little sparring will do wonders for your confidence. It’s about time you learned how to use that.”
The atmosphere was more subdued than Wolffe would have expected.
Frankly, Wolffe himself felt more subdued than he would have expected. Had someone told him three days earlier that their personal headache would go and get herself grabbed by the Separatists, he would have been relieved. Said good riddance to bad rubbish , or something similar. But the general was moping (he probably would have called it ‘reflecting’, or ‘mourning’, if someone had asked him), and Wolffe felt━personally offended, that the Seppies had grabbed her out from under their noses.
Exactly what they’d been aiming to prevent.
She’d thought the Seppie fighters were manned and she’d been angry about it. But that could have been a cover for being angry that the ambush to rescue her had failed. No one was that stupid, right?
Jelly had said that. About the money thing. The Separatists had money. That would have been a perfectly stupid thing to fake, too.
She’d either been successful or incredibly naive; the former meant they’d let a dangerous enemy combatant escape, and the latter, an uninformed civilian guest. He hated both options; he got the feeling Cody, eating steadily next to him, did too.
The commanders were all clustered around a scorched table (one of the few still standing; some of the battle had trampled the mess tent). Hunched shoulders and more attention on the food than standard rations justified were the order of the day. Unusually enough, Dulcet had come over to join them. He was silent on Wolffe’s other side; he’d eaten his rations efficiently and quietly, as was his wont, and was now looking down at his hands, shoulders and back straight as if he were presenting at a briefing. Dulcet did not relax.
Now he said, “She thought it was one of the men.”
Around the table, heads popped up. Dulcet didn’t make conversation, either.
Dulcet kept looking at his hands. His expression didn’t change. “Commander Wolffe. Your report indicated Commander Chester followed screaming into a CIS ambush. You indicated it was most likely to be a deliberate escape or intentional surrender.” Because no natborn is going to dive into bushes crawling with enemy soldiers to rescue a clone went unspoken. It went unspoken very loudly.
“What of it?” said Wolffe. He kept his tone conversational, like he was trying not to spook Dulcet. It was instinct. “You brought her in, right?”
Dulcet inclined his head a little. “She thought it was one of the men,” he repeated. “It would not be the first time she put herself in…” He shut his mouth, glanced around━the most animation he’d shown since he first sat down━then lowered his voice. The other commanders craned to listen, Rex and Cody sharing a concerned glance.
“She intervened with Krell,” Dulcet said. “About one of the men.”
They waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. He got up and left.
“Now what do you make of that?” asked Cody softly.
“That the investigation into Krell is taking too karking long,” muttered Wolffe. He didn’t want to say the rest of it out loud. She’d been a prisoner at the time. Krell couldn’t have gotten away with hurting her━surely she’d known that.
But maybe she hadn’t known that, any more than she’d known she was running into a trap.
Well, she was as good as dead. There wasn’t a point to sitting here and worrying about it.
The next morning, Chester looked at herself in the mirror and took stock of the situation. Stranded on a strange world, check, with an enigmatic and enormously dangerous individual with uncanny powers, check, with an unknown motivation, check, a propensity for showing off technology like the lightsaber she was staring at, check, and an interest in recruiting a Starfleet officer, also check. Apparently when she wasn’t looking, she’d slipped into one of James T. Kirk’s logs. All she needed to do was find the right computer system to blast.
If only making light of it actually made her feel better.
If only even touching the lightsaber didn’t fill her gut with dread.
“It’s just a Wednesday in Starfleet,” she told her reflection. “Fuck’s sake, we deal with Q all the time, what’s one space wizard more or less.” She made herself pick up the lightsaber.
“Just a fucking Wednesday,” she muttered, forcing herself to clip it to her belt, where it sat and felt like it was thinking of activating directly into her kidneys. “Better than Jem’Hadar.”
But she was pretty sure it was not better than Jem’Hadar.
“I am going to befriend his droid army so hard he won’t know what hit him.” That made her feel sort of better. “The omnipresent dread is just some sort of telepathic field. I had worse when the Ambassador from Betazed was pining over that security officer.”
Then she went down to the training room.
He was waiting for her. “You’re on time. Good.”
“It seemed courteous,” she said. She moved to the center of the room, mirroring his stance. He nodded to the lightsaber on her belt. She unclipped it, feeling a snarling misery crawling up her wrist as she did, settled into her guard, and with an inward wince, pressed the button.
The blade that sprang from the hilt was red.
“You are trained, I see,” he said. “Good. In what?”
“Historical fencing,” she said. “Rapier, smallsword, and longsword.”
He paced around her, evaluating. “Steel, I take it,” he said. “You’re compensating for a weight that isn’t there. Your stance is too solid, rigid. But,” and he circled back to face her, a hawk’s smile on his long angular face, “it is an excellent base from which to learn Makashi.”
“Master Plo mentioned it was your favored form,” she said. It had been an offhand mention, one name in a list of masters of their forms, and she’d suspected it had slipped out without thinking. He had paused for just a moment, and moved on. She’d sensed regret, and hadn’t pried.
“It is the most elegant and precise of the forms, yes,” Dooku said, which did not sound conceited at all. “Economical in its movement, a relic from a more civilized time. It is always good to find an apprentice with a true affinity for it. Show me your lunge.”
She did. “An odd form, but good fluidity. You work with the point of your blade most, do you not? You will have to restrain your overreliance on that. Allow me.”
She allowed her stance to be adjusted, though his proximity had her on edge. Something very basic within her recognized him as a threat, a severe one, and after his little demonstration with the droids, she didn’t even need the memory of Krell restraining her to make her cautious.
Kirk fought worse on a regular basis, she reminded herself. Just another Wednesday in Starfleet.
Yeah, said the sensible part of her, but you’re not Kirk.
“Focus, Commander,” Dooku said, so close she flinched. She forced a breath out. “Regardless of what the Jedi told you, I have no interest in hurting you. Quite the opposite. You don’t want to be as helpless again, the way you were when they brought you here. I want to help you make sure of that.”
“At what cost?” she said quietly, before she meant to, then winced. Nice subterfuge, idiot. Why not throw in a ‘go fuck yourself’ to make it really clear where you stand.
“There is a cost,” he said. “But I somehow doubt a woman like you would be daunted by it. It will require you to expunge your weaknesses. Now, take your stance again.”
She drew a breath in, composed herself, and obeyed. Somehow, she suspected he did not agree with her on what those weaknesses were.
“Much better,” he said. “Now, we may begin.”
He took her through drill after drill, teaching from the ground up. He seemed patient, but sometimes she caught an edge to it, like he was holding back from a stronger response.
“You are competent,” he said at last, putting his lightsaber up. She stepped back, raising hers as well. The bones of her wrist on that side ached; she briefly considered switching to her right hand, then decided against it. Better he didn’t know she was ambidextrous. She might need every advantage she could get. “But I doubt you fence this way, with no passion.”
“Passion obscures,” she said, and realized how very much like T’Volis she sounded. She’d be horrified if she could see what I’ve gotten myself into this time, she thought. Maybe she was right. I do get myself into far too much trouble for a reliable partner. “This is about strategy. Understanding people━”
He raised a hand to forestall her. “Commander, don’t play the fool. It doesn’t suit you, and it’s unconvincing. You’re already using the Force; you just don’t understand it.”
“I’ve always had a knack for reading my opponents━” His expression killed the words on her tongue.
“You’re full of rage,” he said. “Fear too━”
“I think you’ll find Starfleet officers do not easily succumb to fear,” she snapped. “Cut the condescending bullshit and get to the point.”
His eyebrows went up. “Good. Very good. That, let it come to the surface. Use it. ”
Anger, as many emotions do, causes errors in judgment. While a contributor to documented cases of ‘hysterical strength’, the risks often outweigh the rewards. T’Volis’s voice was clear in her head. I would suggest avoiding it when there are important decisions to be made.
However, Chester was pretty sure the asshole standing next to her would kill her if she didn’t.
“I sense you need a little further persuasion, Commander,” said Dooku. “Very well. Observe.” He raised a hand; after a moment she realized that electricity danced between his fingers, a crackling, growing ball.
It scared her, way deep in the back of her brain, it made her step backward from the waft of scorching cold that seemed to converge on him. She was absolutely, utterly convinced that the very last thing she wanted to have happen was him to aim that at her. She was equally convinced it was going to happen, and in that moment she would have preferred to face an entire Borg cube than take one step closer to him.
He raised his hand.
She forced herself to stay where she was, grabbing frantically for the threads of her rage to keep from being swept away by the rising tide of fear.
And then he extended his hand and the energy exploded from his fingers, striking the wall with a stink of ozone and burning metal and something worse, something foul and rotting. She raised a hand instinctively to shelter her head; when she looked up it was to find a hole in the wall of the salle, looking out over the green valley.
“Channel your rage appropriately,” he said, perfectly conversational, as if it meant nothing at all that he’d just blown out a wall with lightning shot out of his fingertips, “and this too, will be a tool at your disposal. Don’t flee before your anger, Commander Chester. Embrace it. Use it.”
There were several dozen things she wanted to say, most of them fairly unprintable variations on no thanks! She forced herself to take a breath in, to look at it and look at him, and she put the pieces together in the next instant.
It was a case of Strange Energies. Just like Gary Mitchell. Get zapped by energy field, get powers, go bugfuck insane. Suggested treatments: dropping a mountain on him, though she knew of at least one ensign who’d cured a superior officer by kicking him in the balls repeatedly.
The problem was getting the Sith Lord to let her get close enough to do that.
She took a deep breath in. She pulled on her rage. He wanted passion? He’d get it.
She raised the lightsaber, saluted him crisply, and beckoned him forward with her other hand. Come on if you think you’re hard enough.
Predictably, he wiped the floor with her.
Nursing several minor burns and several dozen new bruises, Chester limped back to her quarters. At least her host seemed pleased. He expected her to lunch.
Leader of the Separatists, and paying this much attention to her. She didn’t like it. He was acting like someone in search of a protege, and something about his attitude made her rather doubt that a Sith apprenticeship was as pleasant as the experiences of the Padawans she’d talked to. Besides, after training her, the chances that he’d let her return home were shatteringly miniscule. He wouldn’t sink that much energy into someone he’d simply send on her way. No. If she got power through him, she’d only see home again as a conqueror.
That was a chilling thought.
She needed to find a boulder to drop on him. A flying buttress, in absence of a mountain. There were plenty of those around this castle, looking straight out of a fairytale. Or find an opportunity to get a really good run up at him when he was standing with his legs apart…
Thinking of it as just a case of Strange Energies helped. Less of the unknown. And while her job might have been to explore the unknown, the dread of the abilities of a vindictive space wizard intent on recruiting her to his evil cult wasn’t going to help her get out of here any faster. But Starfleet officers had fought people under the influence of Strange Energies, documented their effects and recommended strategies. It meant Dooku was not as special as he thought he was.
As long as that defense from intimidation didn’t tip into overconfidence, it was a good idea.
Lunch was, of course, very good. And, as if to emphasize her suspicions, there was a small stream of droids skittering in and out with datapads for Dooku to look at, a demonstration of just how valuable the time he was spending on her was. For the first part of the meal, he made simple conversation with her, as if she were a houseguest and he was a particularly attentive host. Nothing touched on the war or security concerns. It was mostly things like what does your family do , and so you studied linguistics and ethics, I see .
She was kind of pleased she managed to get his eyebrows to rise when she told him her family ran a bakery in Berkeley. She was also happy enough to run through the usual sales pitch about the Federation, and some of the more public adventures of the various incarnations of the Enterprise━ the sorts of things the Federation generally tried to spread around as widely as possible.
Still, she felt like she was giving too much away, like her veneer of confidence was wearing thinner and thinner under his watchful eye. He didn’t even seem particularly triumphant about it–pleased, yes, like he was watching a pupil slowly work her way around to a difficult conclusion.
“What will you do,” he said, as she lapsed into silence, “when you cannot return?”
She told herself he was lying. But it felt like the very good lunch had suddenly turned into solid neutronium in her stomach, dread and an inevitable kind of doom wrapping around her heart. “What do you mean?” she said, to buy time.
“I have been asking around about your route here,” he said. “There are a great many resources available to me which are not available to the Republic. And every one of them is… inconsistent, on the matter. The area in which you were found was once part of the domain of the Sith. Old, unnatural magics were practiced there, some said to tear the fabric of space and time themselves. It is terribly treacherous. Ships vanish there━and few, I imagine, are fortunate enough to vanish into your galaxy.”
“Well, I got here,” said Chester.
“You’re eager enough to take these risks on yourself,” he said. “But what of those who would take you? You would put their lives at risk?”
“I wouldn’t ask anyone to take this risk━”
“It will take years for you to learn the skills you will need to attempt such a voyage on your own.”
“You’ll find I’m a quick study.”
He smiled a little and shook his head. “Even so, it will take years.”
She didn’t believe him. She told herself she didn’t believe him.
“Surely, the Jedi know this. Why else would they have hesitated to return you? From what you’ve told me, you have been very foolish, even without the additional spur of despair.”
“And what would you have me do instead?” she asked, keeping her voice level as she could. “I’m sure you’re coming to a suggestion.”
He gave her a small, wintery smile. “Has it occurred to you that your perceptiveness and persuasiveness aren’t simply your own experience, but expressions of your strength in the Force, Commander?”
“Given the number of arguments I’ve lost to my former partner,” Chester said, “that’s not a terribly good argument for the Force.”
“Flippancy ill becomes you,” he said, with a faintly disgusted expression, as if she’d just told a dirty joke at a religious gathering. “I realize the idea is… threatening to your experiences, but you could oblige me and accord it a little more respect.”
“I meant no disrespect,” she said, thinking I absolutely did , which of course he saw through and frowned at. “It is only that, among my own people, my abilities in that direction are not considered particularly remarkable.”
His gaze sharpened; he could tell it wasn’t just false modesty, and that was far more interest than she wanted to see from him just now. “I see,” he said. “I propose an alternative, Commander. I offer you power, training. We will find a way back to your home, working together. And when you return━”
“I will do my people no good at all if I am too late,” she said sharply. “Our enemies will leave us nothing to recover; they’re not that stupid. Either help me return quickly, or get out of my damned way, sir, but do not expect me to throw my home aside for a vague promise of power.”
“Then I hope for your sake you are indeed a ‘quick study’. I have found, over my time, that learning is a far more efficient process when guided by an expert teacher. There is much I can teach you, Commander.
“As for your misgivings about the vagaries of my power…” His gaze sharpened; she had only a moment of misgiving before she was plucked from her chair like a ragdoll and dragged into the air, like Krell but a thousand times more inimical. A crushing grasp closed around her throat. She clawed at it in instinctive panic, but her fingers met only air.
She was not one to spend much time anticipating or fearing death. Every other brush she’d had had been on her feet, with her crew around her, or an immediate imminent risk to which she was reacting. There had always been an eye into which she could stick a finger, a knee to kick, something to grab, she had never been so fucking helpless.
Fighting meant the wild animal panic had somewhere to go.
Hanging in the air with an invisible fist around your throat━there was nothing but the panic to fight. Her vision clouded, she knew she was scrabbling at her own throat but couldn’t seem to stop, she fought back the panic and couldn’t. The red in her vision, her straining lungs–there was nothing to do, nothing she could do, but hang there with terror roaring up around her and the fervent denial━I will not die like this! But it would do no good━it would do no good━that was the horror of it. Defiance, courage, her anger and determination, none of it mattered to someone who could simply do this to her. The abyss of not mattering yawned wider than that of death.
It stopped as abruptly as it had begun. She dropped onto her hands and knees with a bruising impact, drawing in whooping breaths before she collapsed back, shaking.
“Be assured they are perfectly concrete,” he said, as if he had not just strangled her. “And perhaps one other item for your consideration. This is a very dangerous galaxy, and there are many ways for someone of your inexperience to meet a messy end, which will do the people counting on you at home no good at all.”
She managed to look up. He was standing over her, pleased with himself, and in that moment she hated him, gut deep and profound, impotent rage and despair boiling up in the back of her throat, a thousand if onlys behind it. She should have stayed with Plo, she should have fought harder to escape the bounty hunters, she should have stayed with her away team, not tried to cover their retreat, because then she wouldn’t be trapped here, now, with this smirking bastard standing over her.
He looked down at her, seeing her hate, and smiled. “Now we are getting somewhere.”