[right][sub][b][u](Selene)[/u][/b][/sub][/right]

"You're all going to die."

Her lips let slip the short sentence in a single, quiet, breath. The two Jedi in the room snapped their attention to her; it was the first time Selene had said anything the entire trip. The Jedi Council had seen to it she got on the transport, they saw to it that they sent Jedi brutes to guard her, yet she noticed there was a noticable absence of Republic commandos. There were some, sure, but not the giant that was with Shan. That wasn't an accident, she felt, and it was a feeling she trusted. No small part of that was due in her mind to what she had seen under Tython's surface. 

She had spent the entire trip in meditation. Focusing on what she'd seen. 

"You make a poor prophet, Selene," one of the senior Jedi retorted, pretending to feel secure.

Normally she would have hissed at such a creature uttering her name like it KNEW her. In the dimly lit brig of vessel specifically designed to hold a Force user her breath didn't bother in the cold recycled stale air. The Jedi warrior was dead, whether he or any of the other Jedi, knew it. She merely flicked her dark eyes opened and stared at the Jedi, never even breaking her seated position of meditation. After a few belabored moments Selene slowly drew away her eyes and closed them again. The Jedi would speak to each other, some discussion about a meal or rotations, Selene didn't pay attention.

It didn't matter. 

Right?

Selene's body deflated with a sigh, and her eyes fluttering open once more, lazily instead of sharply, sticking towards the floor this time. "Listen...I know you can't allow yourself to believe me. And I don't blame you. If I were in your shoes, I'd be too concerned about mind games and tricks. What prisoner headed to the unbreakable prison actually gets their transport messed with? None. Maybe one in a billion. And I know you're all very tired of me being that one in one billion..."

Her dark lips spread a light smile. She understood that. If Selene wasn't Selene, she'd probably want to kill herself. Luck eventually runs out. And so it had: despite what she was able to focus on within the Tython vision, all she had after the screams died down was...blackness. Nothingness. Nothing except one scream left; her own. That was far from a comforting feeling. Selene had been trained for torture. She still had the scars from the training. But everyone breaks, Selene told herself for the hundreth time in the last twenty-something hours. 

And she was scared. "You're going to die, but at least they won't torture you, at least they won't play with your soul. You're a Jedi: you die, and the Force takes you in. I die, and...if I'm lucky I linger as some remnant spirit." She shrugged, letting a half-sigh except her lips as her tongue wetted them again, to continue, "Spend your time with your fellow Jedi. Go take the most glorious shit you've ever experienced. Have a drink! Play a GAME! YOU'RE GOING TO FUCKING DIE SO STOP JUST STARING AT ME AND DO SOMETHING WITH WHAT LITTLE REMAINS OF YOUR L--"

As if on cue the red lights of the starship and the alarm began to blare. The sudden sound stole the very emotion from her, the anger in the Jedi being so stubborn he'd rather stare at her like an idiot then go life his fucking life. All that was left was a full, heavier, sigh. Her dark eyes back on the ground--she'd given up on the Jedi now. "Go. Guard me. Die knowing you tried to keep me from their hands. Die playing your part. I hope it matters to you, in the end."

The Jedi had stared, but refused to react outside the widening of their eyes when she screamed at them about living their lives. Or trying, anyway. When she gave them up they turned their attention to each other. But it was too late. The ships were already descending, and the ship with her name on it flown by the girl with golden glowing hair and commanded by the starry eyed dead man. She had seen them. She had heard them. 

---
[right][sub][b][u](Briar Vaughn)[/u][/b][/sub][/right]

She had to ignore the instruments. One of them was already giving her a reading that had to be avionics crap, doing the math quickly in her more or less confirmed it, assuming her math was right. She felt comfortable with that assumption, though when she made it she did sneak a peek to the person next to her in the cockpit...and grin as wickedly as she ever had. She always grinned in the cockpit. She always enjoyed herself, even when everyone else was doing anything but. Hence the name of her fighter: the Suicide Blonde. But this vessel was NOT the Suicide Blonde. It was like trying to fly a battering ram. 

The rest of the task force started in on the actual combat, but not them. There was some token tracking fire on their way in, but for a second it was as if the Republic ships just never saw them, or even noticed they had a gaping hole towards a hangar bay. It seemed unwise, but Briar had no misunderstandings about what she was about to fly into: The Republic and their fucking Jedi wouldn't be shocked someone had come for this target, the main target, anyway. 

Little did the Republic know the Sith had their target, the Empire it's target, and then various on either side of the same side who undoubtedly had yet THEIR own agendas to toss into the rush of operations. The co-pilot she'd been forced to take, though he was at least a capable flight mechanic, asked, very loudly, how was it she expected to live when she was ignoring vital flight instruments. Briar looked side-eyed at the Imperial scab, flared her nostrils, and tried to smile. 

"I have to process ten or so things at once while trying to fly straight WHILE things shoot in our direction and our ships try not to hit us. WHILE," she continued, having already turned her attention back to the mission and the flying at hand, "having to try to explain to you how and why?" Briar's head tilted to the right and her shoulders rose in a tiny shrug. Her real focus, her eyes on the field in front of them, never again broke. "Learn later, in the meantime maybe don't miss those fighters coming in at us."

The co-pilot blinked, and Briar turned on the internal comms: [i]"Fighters coming in hot. We're going too fast to deal with shooting back, so strap in and enjoy the rest of your flight."[/i] It wasn't entirely useful, but Briar had always been talkative pilot in the very rare times she found herself with passengers. Truly, truly, if she ever wanted a change of direction she felt a civilian transport pilot would be right up her hyperlane. 

"Co-guy, bypass the safe-guards and give me manual access to manuevering thrusters." Normally they fired as the computer AI directed them, compensating for a living pilot's miscues. This wasn't normally, and Briar knew she'd need the extra [i]umpth[/i] of thrust to make the sharp angle was getting ready to take. After the co-pilot confirmed to her she had her right hand danced over the control panels staring her in the face, her knees angling the control stick of the craft just-so, her left hand activating the channel between her shadow, the craft making it by following her. "Don't back off, turn tight, you won't hit me."

"You're the mission commander." The pilot on the other end was someone she knew by mutual acquaintance and she trusted that he was skilled. He resented not being the mission commander for this one, not flying point--he was older and had more pride than Briar. It wasn't something she would ever let distract her, let alone bother her. The cockpit was neon hues of red and blood orange with the occassional pop of blue or green or yellow. The air was colder here in the cockpit, her cockpit, anyway. Briar had always liked it cold. She ran hot, and the Flight Doc backed that up: her heart beat unusually fast. Not enough to interfere with her or make her a flight risk, but it made her warmer than most people. 

"Hold on, Co-guy."

Her craft cut hard along the Z-axis after a quick roll. The Republic fighters had met long distance fire from the gunboats, it caused enough chaos for them to underestimate Briar's angle of approach, the hull of the vessel glowing as every micro-thruster fired with the main thrusters at the command of her Sith red painted fingernails, their tips seperated from most of the fingernail with a thin black line that angled across, nothing but dazzle and glitter from black line to nail tip. Her nails were usually short, though longer than normal for this unofficial mission. 

There was no one to inspect her. 

And anyone else on either boarding vessel was either holding on for dear life or screaming. The Force of gravity wasn't something her co-pilot was as used to, out of the corner of her eyes she noticed him start to fade. As quickly as he started to let his eyelids lower they snapped open with the quick correction and the sheer force of the vessel going full power. Not full recommended power. Full power, the sound of engine and hull vibrations and nothing else. It was a dangerous thing to do; she was doing the approach by the seat of her pants. 

The literal seat of her pants. The flightsuit was tight for a reason, and it wasn't to make her hips look nice: the difference between blowing up and success was the moment Briar decided it was time to throttle back. That, in that scenario, was pure feel. And she was far more concerned with aligning the boarding vessel with the target hangar bay. Again her hand activated the hot comms line. "Line up Port side. Tell your people to be ready. They definitely know we're aiming for this hangar and why."

Her voice was tense, irritated: whatever Republic technician was behind the CIC analysis that sent Fighters at them was a shit. A shit. If not for the gunboats being just in range...her gold hair swayed as her head shook sharply. [i]Not the time to review.[/i] The engines throttled down, and the ship had a good hard shake until it quickly stabilized. The computer liked her angle of approach, and she agreed with it. This time when her hand went to activate the comms, it was internal communications that came to life. The hangar bay was rushing to them impossibly fast.  

"Minute out. Good luck."

---
[right][sub][b][u](Sela ir-Ramalla Vitaal VII)[/u][/b][/sub][/right]

"Tell me. Tell me now."

She didn't want to move. She just cried. So the man took the sharp angled tip of the rod and whispered it across the exposed skin of her leg. Her body betrayed her, convusling and her voice screaming the shrill scream of the young child. The electricity rocked her little body, and when he removed the rod she sobbed so hard her rib muscles seized and cramped and burned. Breathing became daggers, her tears truly her only comfort. Her cousin stared with dead eyes. She begged in incoherent whimpers, sobbed, begged again quiet like a prayer that no gods would answer if she said it too loud.

Maybe if she was quiet. Maybe if she didn't scream. The little girl would try again. 

"Please, Jeth..." she tried to say more but nothing came. Breathless from desperation and pain and misery, her little body tried to hide her legs under her, the stinking wet oversized shirt they'd given her to wear two months ago. "I don't have to be the Queen, I don't want to be the Queen. I'll sign anything. Please, Jeth, please Jeth pleas--" her body twisted so hard something popped loudly."

His brown eyes looked black in the half-shadow of the cold stone room as he lowered himself to a squat in order for her to get a closer look at just how empty of anything his eyes were. Her hair was matted, a rat's nest of misuse and abuse. Her aunt had hung her up by her hair for wearing the dress put out for her. The dress was purple. Purple was the color of traitors and criminals, the color of her mother and father. Her aunt had tested her, Sela should have refused the dress and demanded the blue of her aunt's bloodline. There was too much of her mother in Sela and her sister. The sister would be sold off as a wife to whoever gave them the best alliance, the younger the better, her aunt had declared.

If their parents were dead...they were lucky. That's what the little girl thought to herself. That's what woke the voice up, not her father, but her ancient father. He told her to get angry, not sad. Death wasn't lucky, it was just death. And there were better ways, he told her. He promised her there in the dark as her oldest cousin took the back of her head by the rat's nest of hair, and took her chin in his big hand. And [i]squeezed[/i]] until she screamed. She wiggled, her body twitched hard every way it could to get away. 

Only through a cover of teary eyes could she even see her eldest cousin. "I didn't, Jeth...I didn't ask anyone to do anything, I didn't talk to anyone, you've see me every day."

He smiled. Sela's heart dropped. "I know, little Sela. I killed my mother, or had her killed. Close enough in the eyes of our ancestors. But you, you dangerous little Force witch, brainwashed to believe you were the great founder of our bloodline reborn. You'd kill anyone and no one would ever know how you did it. For the protection of all you must be kept prisoner. One day you can earn forgiveness. I will show you the path, and one day, when you've earned that and you're older...you will be Queen and I will be the King and husband that you've grown to rely on. Because you're a witch, you're evil, and since your sister told us the truth about you surely it means she doesn't trust you either? Who would? You can only be safe with my guidance. All you have to do is commit your crime, child."

"...she wouldn't, she wouldn't, she would never tel--"

Her body trembled as the electricity forced a broken howl of pain from the little girl's lips. [i]Revenge, not fear. Anger, not terror. Anger.[/i] He said it again, and again, and again, with every rapid beat of her strained little heart. Her sister wouldn't tell. Her sister wouldn't betray her. Heart and mind fell into sadness. If Mari turned on her, if her parents were dead as her aunt, if...

When he pressed the tip of the rod to her lower leg, the spark arced and flashed blindingly bright--she didn't even see it, she only felt it. Her anger seethed past anything she had felt before. Her aching head felt nothing but heat, every hurt and every scar just felt hot. Nothing hurt. She felt no fear, no dread, no sadness...she felt only anger. Only rage. True blinding white rage. Sela didn't realize until the flash of light too bright for that rod dimmed enough for her to see it.

Lightning. Lightning from her little hands. Jeth's dark hair stood on end, blackness and char at his chest where his thick tunic had been. Blood at the edges of his mouth. The rod was just dropped, forgotten as her cousin quickly escaped the room in a strained limp. The heavy lock of the door thundered into place, and the sound came again. So loud and high even her little girl's scream could never match it in the past, her dirty hands clutching her ears.

But she wasn't screaming this time. She was shaking, but it was rage that trembled her frame. For the first time since the night she and her sister were kidnapped from her bedroom, the last night she had seen her parents, she wasn't scared. She didn't want to die. She wanted her cousin to die. She wanted everyone who ever hurt her sister, her parents, her...she wanted them all to die.

When Selene's eyes opened, slowly, the memory was back where it belonged. But the rage she felt as that tortured little girl was still there. Her eyes were so bloodshot now they were bright red. The one Jedi left in the room was trying to contact someone on his communicator, the ship had been hit and hit hard. Lights flashed, power flickered. Selene took the chance she knew would come if she was patient. The Jedi wouldn't have another chance. The attack hit him so hard, so fast, his own lightsaber was the weapon used to end him. Between the unnatural twist of his neck and the ignition of his lightsaber into his side, what was left of the Jedi just fell. And bled.