The Three Measures of Blood

[Klesta]

Vjun, Castle Bast. Some of the Primeval prisoners of war, captured on Irn, were brought to Vjun to repair the damage brought to Castle Bast in the wake of the Mandalorian raid. Also, the prisoners of war were brought under escort to the castle in order to make sure that they would not attempt to escape custody while they work on the castle repairs. With that said, the Second Sector Army took some defensive precautions after the loss of two squadrons of mobile artillery and the damage wrought by the Mandos in the capital, Bitter End, in the wake of the raid: aircraft is to be assigned to the security of the castle. Also, a medical checkpoint was being installed to tend to any prisoner that would be wounded by working on the castle's repairs and several people assigned to the area were due for blood testing and today was Pixie's turn. Pixie would approach the blood testing station, with her arm softening on the chair's arm, where Yula decided to employ the standard blood testing protocol on her once-wingman Pixie.

"Don't worry, it won't last long" Yula warned Pixie, while using a sterile vacutainer for venipuncture.

"How many tubes?" Pixie asked before the venipuncture began.

 

[Klesta]

Each tube that Pixie had to endure for venipuncture was the largest tube that was regularly used for blood testing, ca. 5 ml. Yula remained focused this entire time so that, in addition to the standard three tubes of blood testing, which were labeled as such on the tubes, she would get a fourth one and then the needle would be removed. Also, it was clear enough just how relieved Pixie was for the whole deal to be over, while she saw Yula repeat the same process on a Primeval prisoner of war that was pre-emptively chosen at random for blood testing. Perhaps the place of blood testing in the medical protocol for the handling of prisoners of war was not what I thought it would be. Then again Yula isn't one's everyday Sith: the average Sith is more like Satia or Darth Imperia, Pixie thought, while being reminded that Yula was a Sith, one that piloted fighters in combat just a few hours ago and that she arrived too late to actually have a slice of the action here. Daisy should stay alert in the medical station's waiting room, which was right next to the castle's damaged hangar, where debris were laying everywhere and could not hold more than two fighters at once, a far cry from its normal capacity. Once the blood has been taken from the Primeval POW:

"My turn now... could you please take samples of my own blood for testing?" Yula asked, with some sense of urgency in her voice.

"I guess, all I have to do is to change the needle, then to place a needle inside your elbow so as to fill four tubes and then take the needle out?" Pixie asked.

"Right"

"As you command"

 

[Klesta]

Pixie found it a little weird that she had to conduct a blood test on her own commanding officer. Then again, what purpose would they have for Yula's blood? She'd rather not think about those just yet, but cloning Yula so that they could train clone starfighter pilots based on her is a risky and costly proposition at best due to her Force-sensitivity. Pixie, on the other hand, would be much safer even though it wouldn't be as much of a propaganda tool. To clone what amounts to the best Sith dogfighter since Darth Vader was far too tempting for Sith factions to do provided that they actually made some effort in space, or so would Pixie think. She would not dare question Yula; she knew what Yula could do to her, and it could be rather traumatizing. She seems to be a little awkward with having to take blood samples from her commanding officer, even though she knew clearly what the first three samples were for.

 

[Klesta]

"Now, hand over the unlabeled blood samples!" Yula ordered Pixie.

"No need to be salty, general, but I'm a little perplex as to even what you're using the unlabeled blood samples for" Pixie asked.

"You'll see it once I have the samples in hand"

Knowing that the labeled blood samples will be used for medical purposes, especially diagnosis-related, then why would Yula insist on collecting unlabeled blood samples? And on Primeval prisoners of war, of all people? Pixie has never had significant medical problems, or else she would be unable to even fly. She could understamd if pilots needed to undergo blood testing, but prisoners of war are another story. Nevertheless, while the case filled with labeled blood samples and their patients' identity is being taken away to another location where the blood samples are brought inside a refrigerated case, the three unlabeled samples are brought with Yula inside a room where a chunk of laminanium, apparently large enough to cover the cockpit canopy struts, lied. Something's not right: I knew that my commanding officer was a Sith, I knew she was an opportunist, but I never suspected that I would get to see how she uses space magic, she thought, while the Hapan began meditating in front of the chunk of laminanium:

"Ask me for why I went through the trouble of getting blood testing done on three different people and I shall tell you about the blood ritual of Sith alchemy. Three measures of blood are required: one from someone the alchemist hates, one from someone the alchemist loves and one from the alchemist itself"

"You should probably get a personal venipuncture kit and a few if you want to do alchemy on a regular basis then"

 

[Klesta]

"A few what?" Yula asked, noticing that Pixie had one word missing in her last sentence.

"A whole box of vacutainers with the requisite sterile needles, as well as a case for biological waste disposal. I appreciate that you try to at least respect the people you get blood from"

"To be fair, not everything will require all three, but for what I want, might make sense. It's a canopy designed to enhance the connection of the pilot in the force and to feth with enemies' ability to pilot it should they somehow capture it while on the ground and later try to pilot it"

Pixie definitely knew first aid, even though she knew that neither Yula nor Pixie were combat medics, and there is a reason why Yula was doing that job as a starfighter divisional commander, or Pixie as a squadron commander. Yet, somehow, Pixie was given blood testing training in her early days as a pilot for some reason. She would never suspect that she would see the whole alchemical process unfold before her in her lifetime, which leads her to wonder just how Yula even learned about alchemy in the first place. Pixie had to respect her intellect, but she knew the Hapan had a limited knowledge of metallurgy at most. So why laminanium? And then... Pixie laughed as Yula enters some form of trance, which would look hysterical for someone that isn't a dark-sider, much less someone capable of doing alchemy: it's as if the dark side fed her some pleasure very similar in nature from that one time where the Hapan used Drain Knowledge to learn alchemy from some red-skinned girl under the effect of pheromones, although not at the same intensity.

 

[Klesta]

Also, Pixie may not realize it but Yula was calling upon her own remembrance of the process of learning alchemy. How the person Yula learned it from seemed to have so much pleasure (and pain, too) by exploiting Yula's own hormonality - and brain - to learn something else using the same process: Drain Knowledge. How said hormonality caused Yula to get hysterically large amounts of pleasure from that red-skinned girl's brain back then, and realize that another person's brain could be a source of pleasure provided that 1) she was in the right state of mind while using Drain Knowledge on that person and 2) that person's brain must have sufficient power; usually the more brainpower the target has, the more pleasure she can get, but the speed of the flow of information from a person to another depends on how fast is the slower mind of the two. But what - or why - would Pixie's commander be thinking of the process because it was somehow relevant to the actual use of alchemy, or what she would alchemize the chunk of laminanium for? Pixie began to ponder what her commander would be using the laminanium for.

 

[Klesta]

Pixie would not even need to be used Drain Knowledge on: Yula already seemed to know what laminanium was going to be used for. The process of alchemizing the chunk of laminanium that will later become the cockpit canopy struts began in earnest when she conjured a flame, using the Force, and then proceeds to create a region where the chunk of metal becomes liquid through which she pours the content of the three vacutainers: the blood of a Primeval POW, Pixie's blood and Yula's own blood respectively. With the three vacutainers being handed back to Pixie, Yula began to make an intense focus on pouring the dark side through that opening, with the dark side being already present in Yula's blood. Meanwhile, Pixie collected the empty vacutainers and then proceeded to go find the nearest container for the biological waste, such as the discarded needles from venipuncture-powered blood testing. Luckily they were not done administering blood testing on the Primeval prisoners of war: the command in charge of handling them decided that all the POWs would be administered blood testing.

 

[Klesta]

Once Pixie made it to the blood testing station, she realized that there were easily a few hundred Primeval POWs to process for blood testing, and that she had the clearance to go dispose the used vacutainers much as they would needles. But not even Darth Vader, or even Kopecz, went through the trouble of alchemizing fighter components, and they were the most celebrated Sith Aces in history. So what would make Yula even decide to alchemize the canopy struts of her own fighter? Pixie wouldn't know just yet; she was completely unfamiliar with the usage of alchemy even in a strict metallurgical context. But once Pixie returned to where Yula was pouring blood into molten metal, she found that Yula was into a deep meditative state, where she focused the energy of the dark side she could summon into the chunk of laminanium, while thinking long and hard about the role of the canopy struts in flight, in how she fights in space. But usually, while alchemy was often used to render materials lightsaber-resistant, lightsaber resistance would be pointless in a dogfight.

 

[Klesta]

Pixie could even see Yula's face turn beet-red as more and more effort is put on Yula's part to place the dark side into the chunk of laminanium; the would-be alchemist would be deep and even lost in thought, oblivious to Pixie, even as Pixie gets fascinated by the whole process, as if it was completely alien to her. Probably for good reason: the pilot never saw anybody use Sith Alchemy, but heard about it from the front lines about how some Sith used alchemized equipment on the battlefield. Or how some enemies ate alchemized long pork, which was probably one of those gross things one could do with alchemy (and, in her commander's eyes, why she even betrayed those Sith factions in the first place). She could also see how Yula's expression became more and more strained (and not just redder) the further along the process she is, and, with it, having to make more and more effort to put more dark side energy in the chunk of laminanium.

 

[Klesta]

Pixie saw her commanding officer faint and pass out from the sheer amount of Force-effort she needed to get the job done on that chunk of laminanium for reasons NFUs are in no position to know as to exactly what was the goal of alchemizing before it's over. And thus they both return into their rooms inside the premises of the castle, which are somehow likened to luxury hotel rooms. A few hours later, after a good night of sleep, or whatever could pass for one in a castle where repairs are underway, Yula is now ready to talk about the whole rationale behind alchemizing the cockpit canopy struts, when said struts are now ready to be carved out of the laminanium ingot. It was remarkably easy to cut those struts due to the great malleability of that material; after all, the material was described as self-sealing by those who used it.

"What is it that you wanted to alchemize that component for?" Pixie asked, rolling her eyes.

"I wanted the cockpit canopy to enhance my connection to the Force while in flight. With that said, the craft will respond to my commands in the Force, and because my brain is faster than my hands, I can get more precision, faster reaction times. Also, these alchemized struts will make it harder for enemies to fly it if they captured it on the tarmac" Yula explained.