Private A Sithspawn Dilemma

[Katherine Holt]

While the Brotherhood of the Maw had been defeated, there were no doubt remnants that still lingered throughout their territory. Thus, the Galactic Alliance had deployed ships to facilitate patrols across former Maw space. Scout. Scour. Purge. Those were their objectives, and for the most part only one out of the three ever really happened. Made for some dreadfully boring days.

For Captain Burke, today was most certainly not one of those days.

During his latest patrol, his men had picked up a sudden spike in Netherworld activity. Just the faintest thing, there and gone within a matter of seconds. But protocols dictated they needed to investigate, and so they did. However, the only thing they found was a young woman, who couldn't be older than a teenager, lying unconscious on the ground. She looked like she had been running for a while, her skin marred with cuts, bruises and burns.

The men unanimously agreed on not leaving her there. So they carried her back to the shuttle and flew back to the main ship. And immediately brought to the medical bay to be checked. The medics there performed several tests and examinations, of which it became apparent the girl was malnourished. Her body was marred with burns that were similar to others who had endured trekking through the Netherworld.

What became the most alarming however, was the fact she was apparently a Sithspawn. Or rather parts of her were. The tests had picked up alterations to her genetic makeup, a basic framework for something greater.

Of course, the medics were quite concerned and panicked about this revelation. But Captain Burke assured them he’d contact the New Jedi Order, ask for one of theirs to come and examine things. However, what the Captain hadn’t counted on was there to be a SIA agent onboard.

Not long after he had left the medical bay, she had shown up. All it took was a brief pass through, a curious question aimed towards the ‘new patient’. By the time Burke returned, he found a group of soldiers about to take the young girl away.

He immediately ordered them to stand down, and an argument ensued. The agent wanted the ‘girl’ to be put in a holding cell, if not outright removed from the ship permanently. Burke on the other hand believed she should be placed somewhere more comfortable, so she didn’t wake up to find herself being treated as a prisoner. Albeit, during the rising tension and negative emotions, the seemingly comatose patient suddenly sprouted a pair of large, white feathered wings that wrapped around her like a defensive cocoon.

Okay…so that wasn’t exactly a normal thing to see. But the Captain was adamant it didn’t suddenly make the girl a monster to be imprisoned.

The commotion got so bad, that the Admiral had to be called upon to address the situation. Fortunately, between that time Burke had received a reply back from the Jedi. They were sending someone who specialised in Sithspawn, Kahlil Noble.

Burke hadn’t expected the recently anointed Shield of the Jedi, but he wasn’t about to complain.

The Admiral ultimately decided they weren’t going to do anything drastic, nothing beyond putting the teenager in a cell and waiting until the Jedi could arrive and assess things for himself. As much as he shared the agent's concerns over the dangerous nature of Sithspawn, he wasn’t about to call the execution of someone who could just as equally be an innocent civilian.

So Burke now waited, pacing back and forth in the designated hangar bay waiting for the Jedi’s ship to land.

Kahlil Noble | Cordé Sabo​

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Sithspawn were a force of evil. A twist of life, warped and shaped by the Sith they were named after to kill, main, torture, scar, ruin, and other such cruelties. That was their only purpose. Living weapons to utterly destroy and demoralize their enemies.

To most, anyway. Kahlil knew first hand how they were made. And how often they were just animals, or even just people, warped against their will. Often, the Sithspawn they fought against from the Maw were as much a victim as the people they terrorized. He walked through the ship with purpose, the Shield dressed in his full attire as a Jedi. Not the usual spacer garb he'd usually be seen in.

He paused, just briefly, to look around the hold for the one who put out the call. Burke was their name, according to the report. He flashed a smile.

"Captain Burke, yes? Show me to the girl, if you wouldn't mind."

Katherine Holt | Cordé Sabo

 

[Cordé Sabo]

The captain was, at the very least, a fool; Nothing more than an older man swayed by the appeal of a young woman’s innocence and doe-eyed extreme dependency looking for salvation. At best, he was operating on the basis of The Alliance’s respect for sentience. Cordé ricocheted between condemning him, and giving him the benefit of the (ungenerous) doubt. The admiral was a bit better.

But the captain became little more than a faraway thought the more she read through the medical reports of that which had been uncovered from the Netherworld. The bioelectric readouts from her scan were alarmingly matched to the unholy, and the blood samples were corrupted and mutated. The Sithspawn had a file created in general, but Cordé duplicated the data to an encrypted version, accompanied with her own field notes, and submitted it through to Task Force Null.

She was in the middle of comparing Subject #4590’s blood sample with something that had been scraped from the Netherworld Rift in Corellia when her datapad pinged. Flight Control’s logs forwarded an update through. The Jedi was arriving.

And not just any Jedi — the Shield of The Jedi. The rejected or runaway heir of The Sith.

“Of course.” Cordé mumbled and closed everything off she’d been studying.

When she arrived in the hangar that matched her notification, Burke’s pacing and stopped but his hands were fretting behind his back just as the Jedi greeted him. She inserted herself.

“Master Noble, Captain, I’m to accompany you both on behalf of The Agency and DF.” Her eyes moved between the two men, pointedly lingering on Burke “I assume the full extent of the subject’s files have been shared with Master Noble prior to his arrival?”

Not prisoner, not patient; subject. As clinical and detached as possible.

---

Kahlil Noble | Katherine Holt

 

[Katherine Holt]

Burke felt a measure of relief when he saw the Jedi approaching, he returned Kahlil’s smile with one of his own.

“That’s correct, Master Noble. If you would follow-” But before the Captain could continue, Corde made her presence known. Despite having his back turned to her, Burke refrained from rolling his eyes too much. “Of course, I sent the updated files prior to his arrival. I was just about to update him on the newer developments.”

He stepped to the side, so he had eyeline sight of both Jedi and Agent. “Such as Agent Sabo here deciding that the young girl…” Burke’s eyes lingered on Corde for a moment. “Had to be put in a holding cell, rather than you know…in more friendlier surroundings. So when she finally awoke, she wouldn’t immediately be on edge and potentially uncooperative?”

It wasn’t like the Captain was just gonna put her in a room unguarded, he was sympathetic sure, but he wasn’t a fool.

However, before anything more could be said a soldier came running up to them. One of the two that had been assigned to guard the young girl. “Captain!”

“What is it?” Burke asked.

“She’s woken up.”

The Captain shared a look between Kahlil and Corde, before they set off with a more hurried pace.

Upon arriving at the holding cell, they found its lone occupant was huddled in the far corner. A mass of white feathers curled around in a protective shell. It was difficult to see past them, but from certain angles there was a hint of dishevelled red hair beneath.

Kahlil Noble | Cordé Sabo​

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Kahlil raised a brow slowly as he watched the agent. Of course. The Alliance would want it's eyes here to watch and make sure the Sithspawn wasn't a problem. A shame that's what they viewed the girl as. He gave the Captain a simple, apologetic smile. Things were only going to get more complicated from here. Before he could speak though, another came. He raised a brow, but nodded before motioning a hand forward.

"Let's not keep her waiting. I imagine the poor girl is quite scared of being thought of like a subject of some mad scientist again."

Cordé Sabo | Katherine Holt

 

[Cordé Sabo]

How much of it was an act, and how much of it was genuine was hard to know. The humane part of Cordé deeply pitied the youth in the cell, for she looked and acted misleadingly human.

But all the tests, all the poking and prodding, all the circumstantial and hard evidence, revealed that perception was flawed. The anthropomorphic winged sentient was a Sithspawn.

She’s woken up. The misleading façade of the Sithspawn was starting to humanise the subject. Cordé’s gut clenched, and so did her jaw, but she assimilated to their selective dialogue.

Just before arriving at the cell, she asked the guard: “Has she done anything? Any use of..The Force?”

Regardless of the answer, the subject was curled in the corner. Unhelpful. The wings, now active, were impressive. Cordé’d never seen anything like them, and wrapped up and cocoon-like, they were more to look at then when they’d been folded up while the subject had undergone medical examination. They were a beautiful mutation, but unnerving in the way they looked permanently stained with blood.

Cordé remained silent, and looked down at her Force detection device. It needled into the dark. She frowned, and looked up, angling it in the direction of the Jedi and the naval man to see.

“Good, you’re awake.” Cordé spoke first, softly. The idea of the sentient in the cell being uncooperative wasn’t ideal. And Sithspawn could be intelligent enough to respond to coercion in its finest form. She hem-hawed the idea of kneeling like she was speaking to a toddler. But didn't. She stood alongside the men and did not make herself smaller.

The subject had been found unconscious. Nobody had heard a word from the creature yet.

“Do you know where you are?”

---

Katherine Holt | Kahlil Noble

 

[Katherine Holt]

The guard shook his head. “Nothing other than moving. She was lying where we had left her, and then within moments of waking she scuttled into the corner.”

Captain Burke had a particular look on his face, as he looked upon the young woman. When his men had found her, the wings didn’t seem nearly this big. But now with them unfurled, there was no doubting the Sithspawn she was meant to be. It gave Burke flashbacks to his days on the frontlines, during the height of the Great Galactic War.

“Yeah…there’s no doubt who was behind this.”

The Captain peered over at the device Corde showed, he recognized it but he wasn’t completely sure what the agent was looking for. Force sensitivity in general, or active use of it? Either way, it was currently detecting nothing.

But he couldn’t imagine the former was true, she had come from the Netherworld after all. Surely a non-force sensitive wasn’t going to survive in that hellscape?

The young woman seemed to almost curl further into herself hearing Corde speak. Whether it was because of the Agent herself, or just hearing a stranger's voice, she was obviously scared.

Corde received no answer, leaving the area in silence. Burke glanced over at Kahlil, wondering what the Jedi was thinking. He was about to ask something until a quiet, hoarse voice broke the silence.

“No...”

Kahlil Noble | Cordé Sabo​

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Kahlil's head canted far to the side as he stared at the detector. That.. Was new. He hadn't heard of something that could detect the Dark. A Fieger Counter or such? He'd have to get his hands on his own eventually. Mostly to see how biased of a device it was. He stood beside the other two, letting his gaze drift from the unfamiliar device to the girl on the ground, huddled onto herself. the white wings, stained red.

He knew who made this change. And the process, somewhat, behind it.

"Do you remember who made you as you are? And, do you remember the before?"

Katherine Holt | Cordé Sabo

 

[Katherine Holt]

No answer was given to Kahlil’s questions, but if one focused they could see the slight shake in the feathery cocoon. Captain Burke glanced over at Corde, who didn’t look particularly pleased. An idea came to mind, but Burke sighed quietly, knowing it was likely going to dread up some bad memories.

“Was it the Sith?” He asked. And almost like a switch had been flipped, the wings stopped shaking and seemed to curl in further. “Was it the Sith Empire who was behind it?” Burke paused for a moment, gauging the young woman’s reaction.

“They’re gone now, they can’t hurt you anymore.”

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t wholly true either. While it had been some time since the Sith Empire had been a major power in the galaxy. There were no doubt parts of it that had survived and disappeared into the shadows.

Her appearance raised certain questions, especially so given the clear evidence of being a product of their experiments.

Were those particular elements of the old Empire still active in the galaxy? Or was the young woman displaced by time?

Maybe both?

Burke could feel a headache brewing.

“The man that spoke before me, asking the questions. He’s a Master from the New Jedi Order, he can help you.”

“...I was in hell.”

Kahlil Noble | Cordé Sabo​

 

[Cordé Sabo]

“Help?” Cordé’s voice dropped to only be audible to her companions. “That’s a misleading euphemism, captain. Don’t Jedi hunt and..” she clicked her tongue against her cheek for a wordless kill indicator “..terminate Sithspawn?”

She wanted to thwack Burke in the arm for interjecting and assuming who’d done what. He might have been trying to be helpful for the girl (again!) but uncomfortable silences oft’ drew out more information than being fed outs and options. Further, Cordé felt her eyes narrow at the insinuation that The Sith Empire was gone. Placated maybe for now, but gone was far too generous a term for anything that had to do with the cockroach like Sith.

Hell was an answer that provided more evidence to prove the hypothesis of this creature being something from the Netherworld. It was becoming far from irrefutable.

“Hell, maybe before. But now,” Cordé explained. “You’re on board a ship that belongs to The Galactic Alliance navy.”

She paused a little longer. The conversation with the subject itself was tenuous and slow, maybe because the subject was afraid?

Too bad.

“A team of scientists and explorers found you during a patrol. We don't know where you're from.

Do you know why you're here?"

She forced more crispness to her voice: "Why are you here. Appeared out from hell.” Cordé took a second to shrug, as if to gesture her words not mine without saying it outloud to the other two on the same side of the cell as her.

---

Kahlil Noble | Katherine Holt