From Elfaddictone@aol.com Sat Feb 8 13:54:19 2003 Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 06:43:31 EDT From: Elfaddictone@aol.com To: cantina@deathstar.org Subject: FoE Role-Play: Guest of the Emperor, pt. 2 by Pat Grant and Angel Grewe [ The following text is in the "UTF-8" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] GUEST OF THE EMPEROR, part 2 by Pat Grant and Angel Grewe Ricia couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something was bothering her. It somehow went beyond being in a Force damped cell and beyond the anxiety of anticipating being dragged before the Emperor. There was something elseâ^À¦ She spent more and more time meditating, and she wondered why her captors were leaving her pretty much alone. By day three of her captivity, Ricia thought that perhaps she was going crazy. It had happened before to her, being in a Force Damped cell. But this was different. Something was bothering her thoughts, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. That night her dreams were filled with torturous nightmares of prisoner interrogations and people dying at her own hands. On the fourth day there were voices, barely audible, but there. There were many voices, but one in particular stood out. It was her own voice. And in that recognition, Ricia finally began to fear. She was listening to recordings of interrogations; ones which she herself had performed many years before in these very dungeons. "Oh, Force, noâ^À¦" she said. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She would not let this get to her. She began meditating. The voices got a bit louder, and now she understood her feelings for the past few days. She'd been hearing these voices all along, but at a quiet enough level that they didn't register on her conscience. However, they had been getting through subliminally. She began to pace the room. After a bit, she stopped. *No,* she thought. *I can't let this overcome me. I must distract my mind.* She sat down and began running mathematical problems in her mind, adding long numbers, subtracting, multiplying, dividingâ^À¦.anything to make her mind work on problems and not listen to the voices. This worked for awhile. Then she fell asleep and the nightmares returned. The voices continued. The interrogations continued. Each day they became just a little louder. Ricia was no longer sleeping well, only minutes at a time until the nightmares awoke her, screaming. Then she would pace the cell. She had already ceased trying to use the mathematical equations to distract herself. They didn't work anymore. She listened to interrogation after interrogation; many of them coming back to her in vivid memory. Tears streamed down her face constantly. She tried to focus on better memories; her days as a child studying lightsaber technique with Yoda, her days more recently studying with Luke, her excitement of taking on Ebon as a student. These helped momentarily, but the voices raged on. There was nothing to distract her. No human contact whatsoever. Her food was brought in by droids, similar to R2 units, with no speech capabilities. By the sixth day the food was also removed by the droids as she had ceased to eat, having lost all appetite. By the eighth day, Ricia didn't think she could take any more. She sat in a corner, knees drawn up to her chin, as she stared off into space. Then, on the ninth day, after no sleep or food at all in the past 36 hours, Ricia rose. "Stop it!" she yelled. "Just stop it! Kill me, or whatever. Just, stop this!" But the voices just got louder. There was no response. Ricia lay on her bed, listening to the voices drone on. She listened to prisoners break and talk. She listened to them begging for their lives only to hear them scream out in death cries. She listened to herself giving order after order for torture and death. *If only I had the Force to focus on.* she thought as another voice cried out in agony. *No, I deserve this. I thought I could just walk away from my past. Luke told me I had to leave the past in the past and concentrate on the living Force. He was wrong. You have to answer for past deeds. The Alliance was right to sentence me to death. Listen to these prisonersâ^À¦ I was a monster.* She sat up on her bed again, resigning herself to her fate. How long would they make her listen to these? It had now been ten days, but she had lost track. There was no window in her room, so no way to know day from night. Time had ceased to matter. And the voices went on, still louder and louder each day. Also, each day, the droids continued to bring food, water, and clean clothing. They came at odd intervals so that Ricia could never predict when they would come and be ready to try something. The food, quite often was hot, aromatic meals to make the mouth water in anticipation. On the eleventh day, now having gone five days without sleeping or eating, Ricia gave in to the smells. Her appetite was back, even though the torturous voices continued unceasingly. *I must eat,* she told herself. *I need to keep up my strength so I can survive this.* She sat down at the small tray holding the food and began eating. It was very good and Ricia found herself enjoying the taste. She had eaten about half of what was on the plate, when she realized something. She was sitting here, eating this wonderful food, enjoying, savoring, the taste of itâ^À¦while the sounds of torture surrounded her. The very thought of it made her sick. She went to the toilet and threw up. *What am I going to do? I have to eat.* Her cell was set up with a small refresher unit on one end, complete with toilet, sink, and shower. There were no moving parts, nothing to grab onto. Motion sensors triggered each mechanism. The showerhead was recessed into the ceiling, and the spout for the sink was recessed into the wall above the sink. She flushed the toilet, removed her clothes and stepped into the shower. Perhaps a cool shower would help. When she finally emerged, a droid sat there with some clean clothing. Ricia nearly reeled at the sight of what the droid held; her old Imperial uniform. "NO!" she yelled. She snatched back the outfit she had been wearing. "I'll wear this again. You cannot make me put THAT back onâ^À¦ EVER!" She put the used outfit on and went back into the cell. On the twelfth day, the droid returned with more food and again brought Ricia's old Imperial uniform, neatly pressed. Ricia ate, but only just barely what she needed to keep alive and healthy. She continued wearing the same jumpsuit. However, on the fourteenth day, she noticed that the jumpsuit was beginning to fall apart. "â^À¦what theâ^À¦" The fabric was deteriorating. *Wonderful.* She looked at the Imperial uniform. Obviously they were going to give her no choice. Sighing, she picked it up, then slowly put it on. She did not hook the tunics flap completely up in the rigid military fashion, but allowed it to hang slightly in a casual manner. Then she removed the rank bars. She glanced up into the mirrored wall to check her reflection. But instead she was met with a new shock. Images were being projected on its surface; vid footage of Ricia from various activitiesâ^À¦ interrogatingâ^À¦giving ordersâ^À¦speaking and appearing at formal occasionsâ^À¦ appearing before the Emperor, kneeling in respectâ^À¦ However, the images and sounds did not match up, as if coming from different sources. Ricia went back to the main part of the cell, trying to avoid glancing in the direction of the mirrored wall. But the sounds were still there, as were the still continuing interrogations. By the next day, Ricia found herself shaking uncontrollably. It was just a slight shaking, but she could not stop it. She knew from her days as an interrogator and torturer that this was a sign of system shock. She was doing herself no good with the lack of sleep and minimal food. That night she forced herself to sleep for awhile. On the morning of the sixteenth day of her captivity, the droid showed up once more with food and a clean, neatly pressed Imperial uniform, complete with rank bars. This time, however, it was her old protocol droid which had served her when she was a Governor. "Why, good morning, Governor Targan. I do hope you had a nice sleep." Ricia stiffened momentarily, then sat up. Rising out of bed, she commented, "The name is Knight Targan." "There is not much on your schedule for today, I'm afraid, Governor, but that does not mean that routine should be simply disregarded. A nice hot shower and clean uniform will have you ready for just about anything! But, first, how about this delicious breakfast I have for you? And might I be so bold as to congratulate you on your promotion to Governor! Such a wonderful surprise! You've worked so hard to earn this, it's about time, after all. The Emperor must truly think very highly of you." Ricia simply stared at the thing. Then she sat down in the seat by the tray of food, but she did not pick up anything to eat. "Now, Governor, I know you must be very excited, but you must eat something. Surely you must! I'll just leave it here and come back for it later. Congratulations again, Governor Targan." With that the droid leaves, after sitting the uniform carefully on her bed. She was still sitting there when the droid returned about an hour later. "Oh, myâ^À¦ you haven't touched a bite, nor have you washed or dressed! And just look at you shaking! Oh my no, this just won't do, Governor. You must eat something!" The droid picked up a napkin and tucked it into the top of her tunic. Then he picked up a spoon and put some food on it. He leaned over and pushed the spoon between Ricia's lips, forcing the food into her mouth. Reacting a bit, Ricia pulled away, shaking her head. "Oh my, oh my. This is not good, Governor. You must eat. Ah well. Perhaps you will be ready to eat at dinner time. I've been told that the cook is preparing your favorite meal." She lay back on her bed, on top of the uniform which still lay there. The droid began tsk'ing her and retrieved the uniform. It left the room. Ricia simply lay there, trying hard to ignore the Imperial uniform she currently wore. Later that day, she noticed a difference. The interrogation and torture tapes had stopped. There were still tapes playing, but now they were recordings of Ricia receiving various commendations, awards, and promotions. There was also praise from her fellow officers. The recordings promoted a feeling of pride and acceptance. Ricia didn't like this any more than what had come before, but for some reason felt a sensation of relief at this point. The interrogations and torture had ended. At least for now. That night she slept fairly well for the first time in a week and a half. She woke up on day seventeen feeling better. She got up and went to the fresher. But what met her there was the greatest shock yet. Part of the wall had been replaced. Now standing there was a slab of someone encased in carbonite. It was Prism Nighthawk, just as it had looked the day Ricia had captured her and ordered her to be carbon frozen for transport to Lord Vader. Ricia and Prism had been friends before that, and Prism had forgiven her. What the slab was doing here like this now, Ricia didn't even try to figure out. It looked very real. Ricia fell to her knees, then to her hands, her head drooping. "Noâ^À¦ Prismâ^À¦ how could Iâ^À¦?" She stayed there a few minutes. Finally, she stood and crossed to it, reaching out a hand to feel it. It felt quite real. Her had was shaking uncontrollably again. "It was orders, Prism. I had no choice. I was following ordersâ^À¦" In the background Ricia could hear Darth Vader's voice commending her for her actions and loyalty. Ricia hugged the slab tightly. "Never again, Prism, I swear!" Then, screaming, she said, "I AM NOT THIS PERSON ANYMORE! I AM A JEDI KNIGHT! I DEMAND YOU STOP THIS NOW!" Anyone monitoring her would see that while she looked to be in full control again, she was still shaking quite badly. The only response to her demand was another change in the audio recording being fed into her cell. Once again it was back to the interrogations she had performed, concentrating now on the ones which she had, at the time, taken special enjoyment in. "Noâ^À¦" she said, as she slid down the slab, curling up at the foot of it. The sounds of Ricia's own voice raised in laughter filled the cell. She heard herself talking to other officers, describing things that had happened, and how much she enjoyed her work. She bragged about having developed new techniques that broke a group of Corellians recently and how the Academy had asked her to write a textbook for their advanced classes. She proud to be able to pass her knowledge on to others. This changed into the beginnings of her training in the Force under Lord Darth Vader. She listened to herself demeaning the Jedi and training hard so that she could help exterminate them some day. Her first Force training, however, had been under Lady Tianna Vader, who had left the Empire and formed a new faction opposing the Empire. Ricia had left with her to pursue her training. Later on she had returned to the Empire and had subjected herself to a probing by the Emperor to determine her loyalty. She listened as she requested to be reinstated and as the Emperor had accepted her back. This was when he had turned her over to Lord Vader for him to continue her training. There was forgiveness and acceptance. It felt wonderful to be acceptedâ^À¦ Again she slept that night, and had a good breakfast the next morning, the eighteenth day. When she stepped into the fresher, she was met with new scenes, of the Alliance broadcasts with her on the wanted list, and of the Alliance judges passing down a sentence of "death" upon her. Audibly she heard the Emperor commending her for her service to the Empire. Feeling numb everywhere, Ricia stepped into the shower and cleaned herself. She stepped out and dressed into the clean Imperial uniform, complete with rank bars. Her eyes were blank and there was no expression on her face. Unnoticed by Ricia, at some point, somewhere deep inside, the inner voice arguing against all this had ceased.