A Butcher; I Feel Nothing

[Frystaen]

To someone who has travelled from one side of the galaxy to the other, a hyperspace reversion is nothing new.

Javier Zathe, however, hadn't spent any time away from home since he'd been born. A Corellian, he'd grown up on the world and spent his time there studying to be an officer of the law. A graduate with honors, he was now setting about to make his way in the wider galaxy.

That meant leaving the comfort of the densely populated core regions and looking for somewhere more... frontier.

As his body settled in after the brief shock of the reversion, Javier looked out the viewport at the front of the shuttle. "Is that it?" he asked of the pilot at the shuttle's controls.

"That's it," the pilot responded back. "Serenno. Not exactly what I'd call the final frontier but for a man from Corellia, it can be a bit to take in. You pack a jacket?"

"I packed everything I own," Javier replied, "and yes, that includes a jacket."

"Good," the pilot said with a wry smile. "Most of Serenno is thick, dense forests and jungles. Sometimes the precipitation, especially in some of the more steep inclines, can cause flash floods. Known to sweep a man off his feet, plant him several hundred meters away."

"Intact?" Javier asked with a small measure of trepidation.

"Usually," the pilot added. "Sometimes the person drowns and sometimes, depending on the temperature, you find the body covered in ice."

"A frozen corpse," Javier said. He chuckled. "Sounds a lot like the case they handed me."

The pilot turned, confused. "I thought this was a barfight turned homicide?"

"Indeed," Javier said. "I wasn't talking about the victim; I was talking about his assailant."





"Thank you for coming, Inspector Zathe," the humanoid man greeted him with a handshake.

"Please, call me Javier," the younger of the two human men said, shaking first the offered male hand, then another female one offered shortly thereafter. "If we're going to work together I'd like for it to be relatively informal. This is your case and I'm just here to help."

The two other humanoids shared a look. "I appreciate you saying that, and I'd like for things not to get complicated," the man offered. "I'm Detective Inspector Kolecade Norstor, and this is my associate, Lieutenant Bonearr."

"You're a... Miraluka, is that right?" Javier asked. "You'll pardon me for asking, I've never met one before."

"I am, yes," Bonearr replied back. "And no, you can't see beneath my veil."

Javier smiled and then frowned, realizing the gesture would be useless. Bonearr wore a veil across her face that covered much of it, leaving her mouth exposed so she spoke clearly. From what he understood of her species, she had been born without eyes.

"I can sense your nervousness, newcomer," Bonearr said, breaking the Corellian's thoughts. "There is a reason to employ a blind officer on your police force, and it's that my other senses are all much more attuned than the standard human."

"She's been known to smell a lie," Norstor offered up. "She's an invaluable part of my investigation team, no matter what species she is."

Javier raised his hands, defensively. "Of course," he offered back, "I mean no offence. This is all very new to me. This is my first time in the outer rim."

"Of course," Norstor repeated back to the rookie officer. "Now, should we focus on the matter at hand?"

"Please," Javier said, slightly embarrassed and eager to move on from his own personal lack of social skills to the business that had brought him here.

Norstor pushed a button on the wall. "This is your suspect," the senior detective said, as the screen on the wall came on and revealed the calm, pale man held in the cell on the other side of the wall. "We don't know his name; he, apparently, doesn't seem to know his name. From what we understand, the locals called him Nakenen, or Frystaen, which mean Naked Man or Frozen Man, respectively. We don't know where he came from, and we have only a limited idea of how he got here."

Bonearr made a gesture with her hand and the screen changed, revealing what looked like a crash site in the woods. "This is how he was found. A few meters from this wreckage. The wreckage is a lifepod, consistent with Sienar Fleet Systems specifications, but from an unknown design. We know it's not a stock design; serial numbers indicate a prototype run, and X-C 2 Ion Drives would seem to back that up."

"No sign of the ship itself, or any wreckage?" Javier asked.

"So far, nothing," Bonearr confessed.

"As for the man himself, he's the bigger mystery to us," Norstor said and changed the screen back. "At first we thought he was an albino, but study of his genetic markers show a lack of the usual protein markers you expect for albinism; the cause of his pale skin is actually some sort of damage to his skin. He's tall for a human, about six foot six, and he has am average build, but otherwise, not remarkable."

"What is interesting," Bonearr said, "is that in addition to the damage done to his skin, something appears to have damaged his mind. He has extreme difficulty accessing any of his long term memories."

"You're sure he's not just being elusive?" Javier queried.

"On the contrary, he's quite forthcoming," Norstor said. "He doesn't deny the murder he's been charged with. He's offered, in fact, a full confession. In fact, he's confessed to several murders."

Javier shook his head. "I don't understand," Javier said. "If he's confessed to murder, why are you still holding him for questioning?"

Bonearr and Norstor shared a look. "To truly understand, you'll have to talk to the man."




Sitting across from him, Javier Zathe felt cold.

He thought back to the story of the frozen corpses. And how they'd found this man, half frozen, near a crashed lifepod. No explaination for how he had gotten there. No memory of where he'd come from. After nursing him back to health, giving him shelter and a place to stay, the mysterious man had repaid them by murdering a man in a bar.

Javier wanted to know why.

But he had to start from the beginning.

"They tell me you don't know your name," Javier said, first and foremost.

The pale man blinked calmly. "I have trouble with memory... I see, flashes, images... sometimes I hear words," he said, then lowered his gaze a little. "But I don't know my name."

"You said you hear words?" Javier asked.

"Umbris est," the pale man began, monotone, as if reading the words from paper in front of him. "Tibi ipsi fidelis esto, nosce te ipsum, umbria aeternus."

"Do you know what it means?" The pale man shook his head. "Do you know what language it is?" Again, a shake of the head. "Well, what else do you remember?"

"There was a stream," he said. "I can see it clearly. It's completely translucent, and you can see the rocks below, an occasional splash of white foam as the tip of a rock breaks the surface of the flowing water. Trees, everywhere trees. Much like this world. But colder. Maybe a different time, maybe a different world. The air smells coppery; no, not the air. I do. I have a mouth full of blood."

Javier involuntarily shuddered. "What then?"

The pale man looked past him for a second, then fixated his gaze directly on the inspector. "I don't know," he said. Javier believed him. "I see... images. Flashes. Sometimes I hear words. Yinepu. Ntchwaidumela. Without context, information is meaningless."

"Okay," Javier said, deciding to refocus the conversation. "I want you to tell me about the night of the fight, in the bar. Do you remember killing the man?"

The pale man lowered his head and sighed, then raised his eyes again. "I do," he said.

"Witnesses say you were drinking, and he entered the bar sometime around nine, local cycle time," Javier started.

"He was loud," the pale man said, eyes focusing off beyond the officer. "And he smelled. Like a day of labour."

"He worked at a lumber mill outside of town," Javier said. "Would stop in for a drink before heading home to his fiance."

"Him and his friends were boisterous," the pale man offered. "Talking about women that they know, and what they'd like to do to them."

"Something he said set you off," Javier said. "Do you remember what it was?"

The pale man closed his eyes, trying to remember. Then he opened them again, and shook his head. "I don't know," he confessed, and Javier believed him that time as well. "I know that I grabbed him."

"Then what happened?" Javier asked.

"He punched me, but..." the pale man said, face a mask of confusion.

Javier leaned forward. "Tell me," he said, sympathetically. "Make me understand. Tell me every last detail."

"Something he said," the pale man repeated what Zathe had told him. "I don't remember what it was, but, I remember feeling... so much rage. I grabbed his head by the hair and slammed his face into the table."

"Then what?" Javier asked him. "Did he retaliate?"

"He punched me, but..." the pale man said, his thoughts trailing off.

"But what?" the inspector asked. "I can't help you if you don't help me understand. What happened next?"

"When he went to throw his second punch, it was like... like he was moving in slow motion," the pale man said. "I watched, and saw blood drip from my nose and his, as his arm moved slowly through the air. He was never going to hit me; it would have taken years for his fist to make impact the second time."

Zathe's interest was piqued. He'd heard that force users sometimes described motion as such... as if they were watching other people move in real time and to them, it appeared to be slow motion. "Then what happened?"

"There's a gap in my memory..." the pale man says, and then he raised up his hands. "They must have separated us... I remember... chains, linking my wrists together. I approached him from behind, and wrapped my hands around to the front of him, pulling the chain across his neck. We fell to the ground, his weight atop mine. I pulled back with my hands, digging the chain into his bulging neck. He tried to kick, to push himself to a position whereby he could relieve the pressure, but I wrapped my legs around his torso. For a few minutes it was the only sensation; the touch of his kicking and how his body shifted between my legs, the sound of his breathing, gargling and straining, and the scraping of his feet on the floor, making scuff marks and a horrible screechy sound. After those few minutes, he stopped kicking, and then when I was sure he had lost consciousness, I grabbed his neck and twisted, separating his spinal column from his brain."

Zathe said nothing. He was watching the pale man, studying his movements and gestures for signs he was lying. But he had a blank expression on his face, totally disaffected by what he had just shared. He looked down at his hands, past his hands, but at nothing in particular. It was like he wasn't even there at all.

Javier Zathe, convinced he was guilty, thanked him for his time and left the room.




"Frankly, I don't know why I am here," the junior investigator said to the other two.

"Seems cut and dry, doesn't it," Kolecade Norstar said. "Only that wasn't the same murder."

Zathe's eyes widended. "What do you mean?"

"The murder he described is not the murder we have charged him with," Bonearr added, then touched the display screen on the wall. Photos of the crime scene spread out across the panel. "After knocking out the victim, the assailant grabbed a piece of a broken bottle and plunged it into his neck, causing exsanguination."

Zathe shoved the displays aside, turning the pane transparent so he could look at the man. "But... why confess to a completely different murder?"

Norstar put his hand on Zathe's shoulder. "That," he said with a soft sigh, "that is why you are here."

Zathe stared at the pale man, transfixed. He couldn't help but think, that even for someone who had travelled from one side of the galaxy to the other, this case would be a tough one.

For Javier Zathe, it may well be the death of him.

 

[Frystaen]

"Okay kid, settle in, we're about ready to make our final approach," the captain said.

Zathe nodded, excited and nervous at the same time. "I've never been aboard a ship for a landing before," he told the captain.

"Nothing to it, just sit back, and..." the captain trailed off as red flashing indicator light began pulsing along with a shrill, short alarm. "Hold on."

"Is that a bad sign?" Zathe asked, definitely more nervous than excited.

"Well, flashing red is rarely a good sign," he said, then tapped a few buttons. "But there are degrees of bad. We're fine. Just a mass shadow of some kind."

"Mass shadow? What's that?" Zathe asked.

"It's anything that reads as mass on a ships scanners," he said. "It may or may not be an actual object; in this case, scanners can't confirm an object, only the gravity of one. Which means it's likely a true shadow in the meaning of the term."

Zathe nodded, partially following. "What causes such a thing?"

"Well, how much do you know about thermonuclear supercriticality?" The expression Zathe gave in return must have told the captain everything he needed to know. "Alright, the basics go like so. When the power generator of a ship is damaged it caused the regulators to break, and that prevents too much feul from being ignited at once. Once it starts igniting out of control, it consumes more and more fuel almost instantaneously in flash explosions, each one engulfing the previous one. Eventually, they become supercritical, and explode outwards, destroying the ship and a lot of stuff around it. The result of which, long term, is two fold. First, that explosion sends with it what is known as an electromagnetic pulse; its a wave of intense energy that overwhelms and causes extreme damage to most computer systems it comes in contact with. And more locally, but much longer lasting, a mass shadow is generated; its due to small damage that such a large explosion does to local space. The sensors read that area of space as unstable and insist you plot a course around it."

"I'm not sure I understood half of that," Zathe said, but then he relaxed as the alarms stopped. "But I suppose the most important thing is that you do."

"Aye, I do," the captain said, "all too well I'm afraid."

"Has Serenno seen many battles?" Zathe asked.

"Lately? No," the captain said. "But back in the day, this world was incredibly important in the scheme of galactic politics. It saw more than it's fair share of battle."

Zathe nodded silently, appreciating the history of this world; the first he'd visited besides his own. His nervousness faded to excitement again, and then the captain had him strap in; it was time to land.




"Does security processing normally take this long?"

"No," the captain said, grimly. "You're looking at the fallout of arriving two days after an election."

"I see," Zathe said. "That explains why people seem so on edge."

The captain nodded. "There was an open position for a new Count. The people voted and the result was sixty percent for one candidate, but unfortunately it was spread out disproportionately across various competing districts, so he finished in third place. The people are understandably upset."

"You'd think that when designing a system, you'd design one that could avoid such obvious downsides," Zathe commented, as he handed over another piece of documentation to the port authority.

"I suppose, if an accurate representation of the people's will was your ultimate desire," the captain said. "In my experience, political systems are created by a party in power with the aim of keeping that same party in power. How do politics work on Corellia?"

"The politicians are mostly figureheads," Zathe told the captain. "They serve less to represent the public as they do at the behest of their corporate paymasters. Corruption is common and barely noticed by the people, as long as the right people and enough of them are making money, everyone looks the other way."

"Sounds efficient at least," the captain said. One of the customs agents stamped one of Zathe's documents. "Well, Mr. Zathe, this is where we part company. You know your way to the hotel from here?"

Zathe nodded. "I have a map," he said, and offered his hand, which the captain shook. "Thanks for the ride, and the information. Now, if you agents have no more objections..." he said, and they did not, "I am going to take a shower."





Zathe was sitting across from the pale man again. They'd given him food and Zathe watched as he ate. He did not seem to enjoy it. But then he did not seem to enjoy anything.

"I apologize for this," the man offered. He held up his hands. "I felt like I hadn't eaten in days. If I had known you were coming I would have waited."

Zathe shook his head. "It's alright," he told the murderer across from him. "We want your help figuring out what you know. For that, you need to keep your strength up."

The man nodded, took a few more bites, and then pushed his plate forward. "I am happy to help in whatever way I can, investigator," the man said.

"You said something the other day that I wanted to hear more about," Zathe said. "You talked about a stream. Do you remember mentioning it?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me more about it?"

"If I am able, yes."

"Tell me everything," Zathe said, "everything about that place you remember."

"I am in a forest. Everything, everywhere, for miles around is a shade of brown or green. Trees, taller than Imperial Walkers, stretch well into the sky. I would not be surprised if they touched orbit. Their roots alone are as tall as men. Between these great trees were valleys, sometimes open and sometimes overgrown with moss and vines and grass. Wild animals grazed carelessly, evading the sun under the cover of the canopy of trees. And there was a stream..."

"Don't go there yet," Zathe said. "You're in a meadow, walking. Suddenly there is a break in the canopy above."

"The sky above is mostly blue," the pale man said. "It breaks, for two objects. A small and distant sun, and a larger, dominating sphere of red."

Zathe nodded. He didn't know much about the galaxy, but a dense, thick forest, being trawled across by a force user, orbiting a gas giant. Zathe didn't have to be a stellar cartographer to make a guess as to the place he was describing. "Okay, you're walking towards the stream."

"We're walking towards the stream," the pale man said.

"Yes... wait, what?" Zathe stopped. He looked at the mirror behind, wondering if his colleagues had picked it up as well. "What do you mean... we?"

The pale man seemed confused. "She is with me."

Zathe tried not to betray his surprise. "Who is she? You've never mentioned anyone else before."

The pale man did not answer, except to say, "she is with me."

Zathe excused himself, and immediately sought out Kolecade Norstor. "This is new terrain," Norstor confirmed. "If he gives us enough of a description, we can check for matching facial features across our databases."

"Does the planet sound familiar to you?" Zathe asked, and Norstor nodded. "I have never been but it definitely sounds like he might be describing Yavin IV. Where he is from, maybe?"

"It could be, but let's not assume anything," Norstor said. "We need to learn more. Find out about the woman. Make that your focus."

Zathe walked back into the room and took a seat across from the pale man. "Okay, you're walking towards the stream."

"Today is not a warm day; the canopy above prevents everything but narrow shafts of intermittent warmth. Everywhere else is a soft breeze, cold to the touch. I am wearing appropriate amounts of fabric, with robes and a hood that cover everything by my face. She is not, wearing a shirt that ends halfway down her biceps. So she tucks her arm into the crevice between my armpit and my elbow, and slides a naked hand into my leather glove."

How intimate, Zathe thought to himself. I wonder if she is aware you are a sociopathic murderer. "Tell me more," Zathe said. "Can you picture her, in your head?"

The pale man cocked his head a bit, as if digging for something inside his head. "She was soft, and small. The top of her head could and sometimes did tuck under my chin. To keep her arm in mine required me to lean in her direction, so short was she. Her body was thin, and frail. I couldn't stop the bleeding."

Zathe's eyes shot open in surprise. "Wait, what bleeding?"

The pale man cocked his head again, but this time winced, as if in pain. "I couldn't stop the bleeding. Her nose would not stop pouring blood; my robes were covered in it as I carried her, running from the woods."

Zathe raised up his hands. "Alright, slow down," he said. "You've jumped ahead. Don't focus on the blood, don't focus on her. She's beside you, and you're walking towards the stream."

Across from him, Zathe watched as the pale man reset. The pain faded from his face, replaced with that same stoic, cold expression of his. "She wanted to know more about the animals," he said, voice much less pained than before. "I have been the tender of this garden for many years now. Many of the animals I have released into the wild. She wants to know about them. She is lonely. She doesn't like the others."

Zathe felt he was onto something. "What... others?"

The pale man looked at him as if it was obvious what he meant. "The dark ones, of course," he replied. "They intimidate her. Some do it intentionally. They want to be feared, and she is timid."

"What about you?" Zathe asked. "Does she not fear you?"

The pale man blinked. "No; I scare the dark ones."

Zathe didn't like the sound of that. "So she feels comfortable around you?"

"No," the pale man said. "But she knows I have no interest in being violent to her. So she asks me questions, and I give her answers. Then she asks me to show her the animals. I have been the tender of this garden for many years now. Many of the animals I have released into the wild."

"You mentioned," Zathe said, feeling like he was losing ground. So many questions spun about in his head; he wanted to press too many conversations at once, and had to pick one. "So, you're walking with her towards the stream."

"Yes," the pale man said. "From here, I can see it clearly. It's completely translucent, and you can see the rocks below, an occasional splash of white foam as the tip of a rock breaks the surface of the flowing water. The rocks incline and decline with the surface of the earth, as the stream weaves in, out, and up and down as we walk. Ahead, there is an animal. It is soft, like her, but much more hairy. She doesn't have much visible fur at all. This animal has a fluffy tail, and a soft hump on its back. It dips its nose into the water and laps at it with its tongue."

Well, this is certainly boring, Zathe thought to himself. He was investigating a murder, not a nature documentary. "Okay, move forward a little."

The pale man lowered his head, and then raised it again. "From the south, a man approached. He wore a black cloak, much like my own, and beneath, a tunic fit for combat. I recognized him by the silver mask he wore on his face. His name was Sha'hrukh."

Zathe's attention was raised immediately. "Was he one of the Dark Ones?"

The pale man nodded. "Within the order of things, it is customary to rise in rank by killing someone superior to you. If you can administrate their demesne, and properly bring their loyalists to heel, then you usurp their position. Fail to do and someone superior is likely to execute you for creating disharmony in the order."

Vornskr eat Vornskr, an old expression Zathe remembered, popped into his head. "Was Sha'hrukh there to kill you?"

The pale man nodded. "He felt my sheltering of the girl was a weakness unbefitting a man of my position," he said, "and, he was jealous of my position in the first place. He knew that with her by my side I would be vulnerable; he could lure me in by attacking her, then attack me while I was off balance. Such became my afternoon."

"You fought him?" Zathe asked, and the pale man nodded. "Hand to hand?" The pale man hesitated but then nodded again. "And with weapons?" The pale man shook his head. "But with a specific weapon... did you have lightsabers?"

The pale man looked down at his hands. "It was dark grey, almost slate in color, except for the metal piping between the handles and the emitters. The emitters themselves reached out like claws and between them, shot forth from crimson jewels, came ragged light that burned like fire. It hissed as it cut the air and smoked as it cut through anything else. It was a glorious thing, able to cut the distance between myself and my enemies... then able to cut my enemies."

Zathe was starting to piece things together. "You and Sha'hrukh were fighting," Zathe tried to steer the conversation back to the fight.

"He was able to keep me off guard by continuing to break off his attacks in order to threaten her," the pale man said. "My anger and frustration grew, as he used metal gauntlets to strike at me. At one point, he landed a clean blow to my jaw, and I could feel the blood begin to fill my mouth. It tasted acrid and metallic, and my rage swelled."

Zathe had him going now. "And you fought, there by the stream?"

"It was only a matter of time until his elusiveness proved ineffective," the pale man said, eyes alive with the memory of combat. "He brought his saber down to cleave my arm off at the shoulder, but I met his blade with one of mine and pivoted my feet, hips twisting to swing my other blade around and under his arms. It cleaved into his side, searing the flesh and blood closed around it but coming out the other side, and causing him to fall. His saber fell as well as he reached to his side with both hands, and I raised my weapon to kill him."

Zathe waited for the pale man to finish, but he didn't. "Did you kill him?"

The pale man's hand curled up in frustration. "No," he said. "The order of things would be upset if I had killed a warrior to protect a girl. More would begin to question my position. I would let Sha'hrukh be a warning. I cut his precious silver mask, and laid a deep scar from forehead to jaw. He would remember, every time he saw his face, or the look of others who had the misfortune of seeing his twisted visage, that afternoon that he challenged me. Even as I cut his precious mask in half, I gave him reason to forge another. Then I let him go, and told him that if I saw the shine of his mask again, his life would be forfeit."

Zathe tried not to let his pride show; that was a lot of information, some useful, some not. "What happened to the girl?" Zathe asked. "You said Sha'hrukh kept attacking her."

"At one point, he struck her, and she fell to the ground. A rock lay in her path and she hit it with her skull," the pale man said, much of his earlier enthusiasm gone. "Her nose would not stop pouring blood; my robes were covered in it as I carried her, running from the woods. It was broken, and she had a bad concussion. I went to sleep that night, furious, unsure if she would live. But she did. And that was the only reason that when Sha'hrukh left the planet I did not pursue him."

Zathe nodded. "I need to take a break for now," he said, standing up, and taking a deep breath.



Kolecade Norstor shook his head as soon as Zathe entered the room. "There's no way to find someone named Sha'hrukh, and no notable Dark Jedi or Sith with that name come to my mind," Norstor said. "If he had a surname or a birth name, something to make it a bit easier to run a search on..."

"Probably wouldn't matter," Zathe said. "From my understanding, Sith and Dark Jedi love to take new names. Who knows if Sha'hrukh was a before or after name. For all we know he goes by a name like Darth Excruciating or Lord Masked Guy."

"There's something else that's bothering me," Norstor said. "If we assume that he is talking about Yavin, and the Dark Ones are some form of Dark Jedi or Sith... the current political status of Yavin is securely held by the Mandalorians. Even the Jedi don't tread there anymore, as far as I am aware. If he is talking about Yavin... when is he talking about?"

Zathe didn't have an answer for that. "How old do you think he could be?"

Norstor shook his head. "No way of knowing; the damage done to his genetic makeup would render any sort of attempt to age him impossible." Norstor considered and then smiled. "But if we can find the girl..."

Zathe grinned as they met eyes. "You think she might be alive?"

"Or if not, at least would have a name that we can trace," Norstor said. "It's something to go on."

Zathe nodded, and shuffled back into the room with the pale man. "I wanted to ask one more thing before I go," he said. "You talked about the girl, but you never mentioned her name. Do you remember what it was?"

The pale man seemed to be concentrating, and then sighed. "I cannot remember."

"Do you know what happened to her?" He nodded. "She survived the attack from the other Dark One?"

"She did," the pale man said. "For days I watched, and waited. Neglected other, more pressing matters. But then, one day, she opened her eyes, and that first day told me that, unperturbed, she would have many more."

Zathe nodded, and almost didn't want to ask, but he knew he had. "What... happened to her? Ultimately?"
The pale man took a second to consider the question. "I realized that I could not protect her, and that people wanting to attack me would attack her instead. She wasn't safe with me."

"You sent her away," Zathe said, perhaps optimistically, "exiled her from your world."

"I came to visit her when she was sleep, and put my hand over her mouth. Her eyes shot open and she watched me, at first with horror, and then with a sadness, tears welling in her eyes," the pale man said, devoid of emotion. "I could feel her trying to engage me through the force, to beg me to stop, to promise things would change, but she was a liability I could not afford, and after a few moments, her protestations ended, her tears broke, but then her eyes went dark, and her body collapsed. I buried her and then began a hunt for breakfast."

Zathe shouldn't have been surprised, but all the same, he felt his heart sink a little as he left the room for the last time that day.