Between derision and complete apathy lies how I feel about you.
After what you have constructed it is no more, nor less, then you deserve.
And I see in your eyes that you agree.
I look upon you with equal measure sorrowful regret and infuriated disgust at what you took and what you have become. All I can see in you is wasted potential… the building blocks for everything you could have desired and the truly miserable excuse for a human being that you have turned yourself into.
And when I look into your eyes I know that everything I say resonates in you with a truth that hurts far more then even the most scathing, vitriolic lie. You are a waste of fucking space. And you know it. Every second you live is a waste of someone else’s oxygen and in the bottom of the remnants of your heart you hate every minute you are alive.
You fill me with a vile and putrid feeling from so deep within my body that I convulse in disgust and barely keep down my vomit at the consideration of your failures.
And in the ultimate gesture of your insipid ineptitude and your worthlessness as an entity, you cast down you failures upon me.
I am not sure whether I find you more disgusting then the realization that I am exactly like you in every single caveat I can imagine.
I cannot begin to put into words the level to which that perturbs me.
Oh, well. You have to wake up. You have a funeral to attend to. If you find an unused blaster lying around, why don’t you do us both a favor and put it to good use and arrange up your own funeral? Pragmatically you have to know that everything you now desire is but a fictional construct in your brain serving as a poorly summoned excuse for you to continue your miserable existence?
Just a thought.
You do whatever you do, as usual. I’ll be in touch.
Ahnk awoke with eyelids heavy, and for several minutes merely sat on the edge of his bed and cried.
And then he grabbed his lightsaber.
Cha’at’Nooq was a modest Imperial cruiser that had seen better days, taken pictures, lost them, and then forgotten what a good day was. Her hull was beaten from asteroid collisions throughout her service… her engines strained from pushing a schedule for the better part of several decades… weapons and shields inactive into atrophy, corroded to the core… pretty much the only thing that still worked was the food dispensator… the only comfort to be found aboard ship in bottles stashed or folded beds…
…folded… beds…
“Morning, sleepy head.”
Ahnk felt his eyes flutter open, taking in the woman above with mild surprise.
“Tell me I didn’t.”
“Nope. But after everything you’ve done for me I…”
“Stop. Your being here means more to me then that ever could.”
Ahnk tried to push himself away… trying to put a distance between them equal to his professional respect… to find his arms limp and useless. He shrugged his torso about, but was unable to move.
“Don’t strain yourself. You got yourself all worked up last night… gonna take a while to flush the system.”
Ahnk nodded. He could feel the lactic acid in his body, clogging his musculature like an irritating syrup of his physical actions… which begged the question…
“You’re sure I didn’t…”
“Positive. I think I would have remembered, and I’m a little disappointed you think so highly of me that you assume you would have forgotten.”
”Ow. Low blow. In my fragile emotional state such comments are ill advised.”
“No… if you want the story, here goes. I got an internal alarm of a contraband flush shortly before I was going to tuck in. As you know, this is an old Lancer frigate, and the security system was designed pretty well… if a cadet had an inspection and decided he needed to flush some contraband out the fresher, security picked it up, analyzing any discharge from within the ship… either released into space, or if they tried to sneak it into rotten foodstuffs for the furnace… for unusual properties.”
“…I expelled unseal properties?”
“You flushed your lightsaber down the toilet.”
“…really?”
“Yes, really.”
“…how did it fit?”
“Andrew Micheal Rashanagok, I have just told you that you have flushed your lightsaber, your most trusted possession, always at your side, personally created by you and used by you for a decade and change, perhaps, very likely, the closet thing in one inanimate object to being the symbolism for the very essence of who you are, down the shitter and into space, and you ask me how it fit?”
“I think it’s a perfectly valid question when you consider the nature of what normally is expelled down a refresher. By comparison the light…”
“Never mind how it fir for a second. Do the measurement later. You flushed your saber down the toilet and I want to know why.”
Ahnk took a moment to look at her, eyes matching hers, and sighed.
“I don’t know. I don’t even remember doing it.”
The sympathetic and simultaneously apologetic tone of his words allowed her the briefest of nods.
“I suppose that makes sense. As I made my way to my quarters… knowing, from experience, you’d make your way down there… the intruder alert went off. Someone was banging on the internal plating and bulkheads in a fashion consistent with intership physical combat.”
“…what?”
“That’s what I thought, until you walked in the door. You’d hit the sauce… again… and were just dripping blood. I took off your vest… that’s a nice tattoo, by the way. Did it hurt?”
”It was excruciating. Why else would I have gotten it?”
“To look cool?”
”But I was never cool. So you can…”
”…call me loser. Don’t be so self-deprecating.”
“Why not?”
“Because people care, you selfish asshole.”
And Ahnk couldn’t summon to that a sarcastic reply.
“Okay, so you took off my clothes.”
“And wiped the blood off your face and chest. You went berserk… I checked after you went under, you have a compound fracture in seven fingers and your right hand, as well as surface fractures in your remaining 3 fingers, your left hand, your right knee, and your skull. The laceration to your skull was quite severe… with all that head trauma I did consider stopping and turning on the EDB, but I figured if nothing else you’d be mostly just bleeding booze. But yeah, you were a mess.”
“You should see the other guy.”
“You’re lucky this ship isn’t a rental. But yeah, that just about covers it.”
Ahnk was almost afraid to ask.
“…just?”
She looked down at him wordlessly, a single tear streaking down her face.
“I need to know.”
She sighed, wiping her face dry with the sleeve of her shirt.
“You told me about your dream.”
Ahnk said nothing. She touched his head gently, and he nodded.
“It took about half an hour but you went over everything. When you were finished you leaned into me and cried yourself to sleep.”
For a lingering, painful moment, they looked at each other and didn’t say anything. She laid a hand down on his shoulder, and he looked away.
“Say something, Andrew. Now, before it’s too late.”
Ahnk didn’t… couldn’t… face her…
“It is not a dream…”
Her hand took the back of his head, fingers softly digging into his bald flesh. His veins pulsed against her… terror coursing across his heart, fear seeping from his brain he strained…
“It’s real… and… I can’t face him. I can’t face him again. I’ll glue my eyes open, I’ll shoot stimulants if I have to… I would rather die…”
He looked up at her, and she gasped when she saw him. All of his color was gone and he stared at her with a look of abject terror; trembling slightly with his mouth hanging open, eyes wider then she had ever seen him as he contemplated what was to him the incomtemplatable.
“I… can’t face him… not again…”
A tear began to streak down his cheek, and she found she couldn’t look at him anymore… she turned her head and pulled him into her, his eyes finding her shoulder, his tears dripping down her spine… he shuddered, he sobbed; losing control as he broke down in her arms… Andrew Micheal Rashanagok, formerly the Dark Lord of the Sith, simply lay and cry, as Ali Sabin held him to her, like a mother to child…
”I want to thank you, for everything.”
“You’d do the same for me.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“I want you to come back here if you need me. You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“I’m meeting someone. I’ll be okay… Ali…”
“Forget it.”
“…”
“I mean it. I’ll be here whenever you need me, Master.”
“I told you to cut that out.”
“Yes you did… Andrew.”
“…I’ll be back.”
”Hey Sabin, why didn’t you ever ask for a promotion?”
“I would have had to work with Exel more often.”
“…of course. Never mind me…”
During the Galactic Cival War, Ossus rose as a dream. The planet was the homeworld… adopted or of birth, depending on who shot the movie… of Gash Jiren, the hero of the oppressed, cutting through the organizational red tape of the Jedi to strike a blow at the heart of the Sith… he fought valiantly against an impossible foe, sacrificing friends, family, and the better part of his self in an effort to create a better galaxy, by any means necessary…
And, looking back, it probably wasn’t worth it.
Grand Admiral Thrawn had turned Ossus into a nightmare. The progressive attitude of the Rogue Jedi Order had been ventilated by shot after shot from Thawn’s discompassionate artillery, evaporating into the night sky like so much boiled blood, the proactive attitude nothing but a vapor lost amongst the odor of all the seared flesh. What was left of the Order was around… somewhere. If you dug hard enough, you could pick pieces of its halls from amongst the various piles of wreckage… if you looked hard enough through the decomposing corpses, you could find its members…
Imperial Doctrine did not allow for hope. Where hope existed, it was found, and systematically destroyed.
For a long time, Setherian Jiren was the exception to the rule. But he too, like all others, found his face crushed under the boot of his enemies…
…and now the dream of Gash was dead. To that stood a monument in his corpse… a warning to those who would fight, the irrefutable evidence that they will die.
While Gash Jiren was not a saint, with the universe the way it was, he was perhaps the closest thing it had to a hero. And now there were none.
The galaxy alone…
Ahnk…
Alone…
”As you are no doubt aware, the weather on Zanzabar is as it always was… makes the narayan hunting season more miserable every passing year.”
“Mr. Rashanagok. There is no need for code words… the lady is to be expecting you.”
“I wasn’t expecting her…”
”To be perfectly honest, neither was I. Her decision was apparently made at the last moment, and not without much internal disagreement as to whether it was a good idea.”
“Am I to see her?”
“I cannot say for sure. Mr. Vinda… and, in turn, the Lady Vinda… was made aware of your requests of me and authorized the funding necessary, and as such, is aware that you will be present at the service. If at a later time the sir or the madam would wish an audience, would you be able to make yourself available?”
“Without hesitation.”
“When I next see them, I will relay that information. All of your requested arrangements have been seen to. Shall we begin?”
“Please.”
“Then please follow me, Mr. Rashanagok.”
”She was born on Corellia.
Her father was a statistical engineer and analyst who worked for Rudrig Progressive, a technologies trust that purchased manufacturing and design companies to form a conglomerate entity. Shortly before Rudrig Progressive was absorbed into IDTech, he retired.
Her mother was a dancer. When she met her husband she was an erotic dancer, working in one of the more high-class establishments in what was at the known as Port City. Later, she began to dance in the classical style, performing at art houses for several decades until she, too, retired.
It is possible that it was the pregnancy that was the catalyst in her mother’s career change, but regardless… shortly after the child was born the two moved from the port cities of Corellia and into the more core developments, ensuring their child would grow up a more sheltered life, away from the various problems of living near the spaceports.
Growing up, she was always a shy girl. Both of her parents were very outgoing and friendly with people, so where her timidity was derived from no one can be certain. It is feasible that that character trait was what led her to become a scientist… her ability to be successful while remaining completely isolated from other human beings would have no doubt been an attractive choice of careers for her.
At a relatively early age, IDTech was interested in the booming young scientist. There she went to work for several decades, but truthfully was unfulfilled, as IDTech’s primary focus was on starship design and related technologies, and it was evident that she wanted a more… human assignment. Her termination was said to be amicable; the official cause listed as “mutual shift of interest”.
Not along after, Allied Biogen was looking for project managers. Allied Biogen was, as you know, the front company for all of the Allied Sith Empire’s genetic and biochemical related research. Her job application was ultimately unsuccessful… she was deemed too timid to take a managerial position… but she reapplied and was hired as a technical consultant. She would rise quickly, combining unorthodox ideals with a cold and constant attention to her work. She was almost single handedly responsible for the completion of the Massassi resurrection and the transformation of the grotto liquid into the regenerative black blood compound.
After her success with the Massassi, she was culled for the more high priority projects of the cloning human beings. She created the first five clones of the Sith Ahnk, and created the prototype of Ahnk’s “perfect warrior” he had desired cloned. She would continue to work in solitude, buried under the ocean with only a visiting Yuuzhan Vong to keep her company, until her work would become obsolete.
And as to what she did after the death of her master and the unmentionable things contained therein, I say only this. We do not commiserate her life through blinded eyes. She does not leave this plane of existence as an angel, but rather as a tortured soul; never recognized and nurtured for what she was, instead neglected and twisted into what she became. We cannot hold her blameless nor we can blame her; what happened was what happened, and none of us stand with clean hands and dry eyes at the results.
That all being said…
I hereby commit Emily Montague to the ground. May she rest in peace.”
Ahnk looked for a long, hard moment at the casket, and then uttered a small sigh. He closed his eyes, and slowly, the casket began to lower into the ground.
”Thank you.”
“Of course, Mr. Rashanagok. I take it that you are satisfied?”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d peg you as a preacher, rather then a banker.”
“Well, I take pride in what I do, even when what I do is… not, what I do.”
“You were excellent.”
“Then if you do not mind…”
“No, of course not. I appreciate you taking the time.”
“Then I bid you goodday, Mr. Rashanagok. I will tell the lady of your presence.”
”…please do.”
Between two destroyed buildings on Ossus is a clearing of the rubble. If you find the right spot, in the right crater, you can find an unmarked grave. Inside that grave is an empty casket, standing as the likely only to ever be created monument to Emily Montague, footnote in the history of the tyrant Ahnk Rashanagok.
Important to no one.
May she rest in peace.
OS: In a world of bon-bons, you are a twinkie.
Ahnk: God damn you, I am Count Chocula and you know it.
I'm not spending my anniversary night thumping my head against the wall. - Damalis, on Moderating TRF
Then tell him you want it harder, damnit! - Ahnk, on Damalis
