On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter CXI

Two people sat at a table across from each other. Once had handcuffs locked to the table, the other, skin paler than usual due to invisible agony, was leaning back in her seat, watching the person sitting opposite with an eagle's eye. A tuk'ata walked around the table and it's two occupants, it's long whip-like tail swinging back and forth that, when combined with its body, was able to be a complete half circle around the two humans. Two guard droids rested by the door.

"You look like hell," the girl noted, as though the man in front of her was a science experiment she was supposed to observe. It was true. He had access to the bare necessities, but that didn't include a shower or whatever drugs he had been hooked on. Withdrawal clearly hit like a Death Star. "Moving onto business, what year did you start working with the Empire?"

Ramsey said nothing, lips pressed into a thin line.

"2028, I see."

The man jerked, head snapping up to stare at her with wide eyes. His interrogator didn't meet them, head bent as she wrote down the information on a datapad.

"And how much information have you given the Emperor that has originated from Star Wars?"

He again said nothing. She tilted her head, as though listening to a voice only she could hear.

"The movies and some comics. Does he know about Leia?"

The man's eyes narrowed into slits as he clearly tried to concentrate on something else. Unfortunately for him, he was in the same room as Eclipse.

And Eclipse always gets the information she wants one way or another. What little blood they shared may have been the bane of her existence, but she could use it well to her advantage in the current situation.

"....So he does know of Leia's relation to the Skywalker bloodline. How interesting. How long has he known about that?"

"What are you doing to me?" the man asked hoarsely, voice little more than a whisper, slight fear flashing in his eyes, as though he only just now realized the identity of the person across from him.

"I ask the questions here," she said, looking up at him for the first time since they started the conversation. The man flinched back as soon as he met her eyes. She smiled, though the expression looked slightly psychotic. "And very little is keeping me from removing your nails and crushing your fingers. Answer the question."

"....Not long," Ramsey answered after swallowing the lump in his throat, looking away from her. "It was part of the payment to get you."

"So you gave Palpatine information, and he sent you machines and weapons," the girl stated, summarizing the greater picture with what appeared to be easy professionalism while the temperature of the room plummeted to something around Hoth's twilight turning night. Cerberus growled, sensing her anger, pausing from his circling at her side. "Zhol kash sveln. Gaben ant."

The tuk'ata returned to his previous activity.

"Do you believe the arrangement has continued without you?"

"Likely," Ramsey answered, quicker this time, though voice even more uneasy.

She took the word in with a simple nod, looking away to write it down.

"I'm—"

"I. Ask. The. Questions," the girl stated, eyes narrowing as she looked back up at the worthless excuse of a man. He again flinched back at her expression, but gathered himself.

"But I want to talk to—"

"This is an interrogation. You are aware of what that means, or need I explain it?"

"But you are my daughter!"

"No, I'm not," she responded, voice dull as though she was reiterating a fact that was as obvious as Earth's blue sky. The room was heading down to zero degrees Kelvin. Ramsey's breath was visible. "You killed that girl with your bare hands years ago."

Before either of the two could say anything more, the door to the room flew open, and Hurricane Vader stormed in, lightnight all but forming and striking the table as a near tangible barrier formed between the two.

"Palpatine knows about Leia," the girl stated before anyone could do anything, standing as she signaled Cerberus to her side and started to the door, pausing at Vader's side to look him in the eyes. "Ramsey paid the Empire for equipment with information, just as I expected. He is useless to us now."

"You wouldn't!" the man yelled, jumping to his feet and knocking his chair over, struggling to escape his bonds and managing to bang his head against the Force wall the Dark Lord had erected upon his entrance. "I am your father! I—"

Ramsey was cut off, suddenly unable to speak. Eclipse turned back around, eyes a Sith gold and her hand in the gesture her Master had made iconic.

"You are nothing, and you would do well to remember that."

The Sith Lord beside her grabbed her hand, and she released the man who bent over double to rest on the table, once again nearly face planting on the Force wall. In Ramsey's distraction, he didn't see the girl shaking, whether from hate and anger or fear and pain. He didn't see Vader rub a thumb over her hand and the Sith gold immediately retreat as she took a deep breath and let it go, allowing the Dark Lord to calm her. He didn't see her snatch back her hand and run off with her tuk'ata on her heels, fleeing as soon as she had regained a form of equilibrium.

No, he only saw what she had wanted him to see: Two Sith on a united front who had no problem with ending his life on a whim. Such a lie since Eclipse, Luna, had renounced her apprenticeship, but one that was easy for a stranger—especially an Earthen who had grown up just after the phenomenon that was the Original Trilogy of Star Wars where the the names of Vader and Eclipse were always seen paired together as the ultimate villains—to believe.

Eclipse had always been known to be good at mind games.