Author's Games: Star Wars

Task Five: Sul Juuk

The Emperor's lips curled into a sneer, yanking his hand away from Kim-Ny as if she were painful to touch.

"I had hopes for you," he growled, "I will enjoy watching you die!"

Darth Vader released Kim-Ny from his invisible hold and she leapt off the stairs into her mother's embrace.

From behind them came two scarlet sentinels. Standing on either side of Sul-Juuk they extended their spears, prompting her to leave.

Sending one last glare at the black figures proudly standing over her, she gathered Kim-Ny into her arms and walked away. She could feel herself ripping away from the presence in the room. It tried to grab and stick to her as she exited through the way she came. It tugged harder and harder like tendrils taut around her soul, stretching, groping, and begging. Oh, itbegged her to stay.

Freedom, it seemed to whisper desperately.

All she wanted to do was turn and beg for a second chance. But could she? If she let it drag her back, if she stayed, could freedom be hers?

Freedom, it screamed as she was pressed forward through the empty gray halls.

Free-

"We'll get to see Kiernan again, won't we?" Kim-Ny asked softly in Sul-Juuk's ear as she cried silently on her shoulder.

A door opened before them into a white-lit space shuttle.

"Yes, we will."

The tendrils snapped and all that held her gave way as she stepped through, the darkness dying as the light encompassed her.

She was free.

...

Sul-Juuk gazed around the shuttle thinking of how few of them were left. The Geonosian slaughter seemed only moments ago, yet they had come so far.

As they sat mostly in silence, all of them seemed to know what was going to happen. They all shared hell, even if they were against each other. Now they were ready to share death. It was bitter release to embrace their fate. The Empire had no more tricks. It was only death. Death – the only mercy it was capable of.

They were all afraid. They were all angry. But there was a worse poison surrounding them. They were hopeless. They had no hope and somehow it was okay. Somehow they accepted it just as they accepted death.

Sul-Juuk wanted to accept death as willingly as Kiernan had. She wondered what it was like for him to fall. Did he ever regret it at the last moment of his life before his body slammed onto that wretched ground?

She wondered what the future would have been like if he had lived.

Sul-Juuk would not have returned to the slavers. She would have sent him to another planet to live a life he wanted without fear of bondage; to live a life she wanted without fear of bondage.

The thoughts were savory for only a moment before reality came back to bite her. They were only pain now.

She hated pain.

Sul-Juuk tried to close her heart again, to build up the calloused walls she had lived behind to protect her from herself. She tried. She could not. Feeling was like fresh air she could not live without, even if every breath pained her. It was too late to go back to drowning. Now pain would be her companion.

But she wouldn't have to bear it for long. Death would heal her suffering.

The shuttle door opened again and Mayek stepped through. Only this time he was accompanied by two children. The older was a girl in her tweens and the younger was about Kim-Ny's age. It struck Sul-Juuk that they were Cathar, or, at least, partly so. It was apparent Mayek was their father. The boy, aside from his soulful violet eyes, looked exactly like him.