The Art of Chaos and Darkness

Chapter Eleven

Din woke to the view of his own ship's ceiling.

Then he felt strangely lighter. And free. With a start he realized most of his armor had been removed aside from his helmet. He sat up abruptly and winced at the sharp pain in his skull. Then he remembered the battle, the rocks closing in. There was blood all over the room and him but when he lifted his shirt, no wounds marked his skin. Just a slightly red, raised line across his ribs.

How...

Valda

She was to the right of the table, crumpled on the floor. The ground was slick with blood, so much so that he dropped to his knees, using his helmet to search for a pulse. She had one but just faintly. He gently scooped her up in his arms, placing her on the table and powered the machine to life. It scanned her form and brought back a series of diagnostics for him. The cut on her bicep would need stitches and her ribs were cracked. The gash to her side would need the most care. She'd already lost so much blood.

He gathered the required equipment, briefly wondering how she'd been injured. Then he realized she would have had to drag his body all the way back to the ship to get them off the planet.

She could have just left him but she hadn't.

He applied the med-patch over the gash and used sealant to close the gash on her bicep. The machine prompted him to give her the correct vials of liquid for her blood loss before telling him all that could be done now was wait for her to wake up. Her body temperature was low so he went into his quarters, pulling a few blankets from his bed and brought them back to drape over her body.

Din glanced down at her face. "Why didn't you leave me?" He spoke aloud into the silence.

And only silence greeted him back. There was nothing to do but wait. He gather up the pieces of his amour, making a mental not to clean them. In the cockpit he noted the course was still charted for Moraband. Valda must have activated it before passing out. He returned to his quarters, stowing his armor away and locked the door. Then he removed his helmet. His face was dirty and crusted with dried blood but again, there were no wounds. It made him wonder how long he'd been passed out for.

He stripped off the rest of his clothes and stepped into the rinse station. Once the dirt and blood was gone he realized there wasn't a single cut on him aside from a few new scars. Nothing hurt aside from his head. Din ran through the battle again in his mind, coming across the information he'd been avoiding.

Darth Kchaos. The Chaosbringer. Right hand to the King of the Ancient Sith.

Valda had done more than just lie about the existence of the Sith, she'd failed to mention that she was one herself.

They're evil people. Monsters that live in caves and shadows. My parents used to scare me with stories of them.

Was that not how she had described her own people? Din stepped out of the shower and dressed quickly. There were so many questions he had now. He changed into a clean pair of clothes and then the chirping of an alert from the medical bay rang through the ship. Din hurried into the room.

Valda still lay on the table, skin pale and dried blood crusted around her face. Din pulled up the alert onto the holo-screen. Her body temperature was too low. He looked at her again, at the bluish tint around her lips. Din cursed his ship then for not having a heating system. He never noticed because his Beskar was protection enough and he had a small heater built into only his quarters.

Din glanced at the screens again. Her temperature was still dropping and she was still low on blood. She would die if he didn't fix this and her body would never be able to heal. Din made a split second decision and then carefully slipped an arm beneath her legs and her back. He left the bay, cradling her in his arms and went into his quarters where he laid her gently on the bed. He accessed the panel in the wall, turning on the heater. Then he tucked the blankets around her body.

The small cuts on her had already closed. The gash in her side seemed to have stopped bleeding as well. He hoped the medicine he'd given her helped. Din stood for a moment staring down at her. The bruises around her neck were still there, even more so against her paled skin. The shock collar rested just below them. The restraints were still around her wrists, just broken in two. With a sigh, he carefully removed first the left and then right one.

The skin beneath the metal cuffs was scarred and mangled, and covered in a thin black band. They were tattoos, he realized, connected further up her arms as well but he refrained from pushing her sleeves up to further look at them. He ran a gloved finger lightly across the skin of her wrist. The tattoos probably hid the discoloration but the raised, ridges of flesh and twisting pattern could not be camouflaged. The marks of a slave who lived her life in chains.

He abruptly let go of her wrist. She'd chosen to stay and dig him out from that rubble, to drag his lifeless body through the forest, risk her own safety for him and nearly killing herself in the process. Why? All he had ever done to her was chain her, rob her of her freedom and nearly kill her to collect his stupid money.

He could never forgive himself if he was taking her back into a life of slavery. The look in her eyes in the dim lighting of the club was one he would never forget. The pain and rage cut so deep he'd said, "I'm sorry" though he doubted she even heard him. Those two females were now free because of her. She'd been willing to sacrifice her only chance at escape to save them.

What kind of a Sith did that?