The first time Zark had tried Severa he had felt better than he had ever felt in his entire lifetimes, better than he could ever remember feeling. The first time Zark had tried Severa, he had felt better than he had during his time spent with her…but she was the past.
And to Zark, Severa was the present and the future and everything else in between.
As he slowly succumbed to the effects of the drug, the former Jedi Knight seemed to disconnect himself from his place on the timeline of his life. He went forward, back, all over. He watched himself spring out of his cursed mother’s womb and jumped forward to watch himself die. All the time, he was still back on Astral Astoria, half unconscious, barely able to speak.
So he didn’t speak, he just watched. He watched, and slowly he resettled on his own timeline some months ago. He watched.
It had been months since Zark Ekan had come back from the dead. Months since he had resided inside the body of a Jedi Master named Silus. Months since he had invaded the body of Zarko the Mad. Months since he had felt sane. Zark Ekan had thought himself to be a free man, given a second chance. Zark Ekan had, obviously, thought wrong.
He was on a shuttle from the Force knows where to the Astral Astoria, some big space station that had popped up in the middle of the Corporate Sector a while back. Zark never stayed in one place for very long. None of the places he had been seemed…right. None of them seemed safe. He saw shadows everywhere he went, leaping out at him from the corner. He wanted peace. He knew he’d never find it.
He hoped to find something at least close to it.
But right now, Zark was not thinking about peace. He was not thinking about shadows. He was not thinking about a place to call home. He was thinking about the Astral Astoria, and the immense problem the security there provided. Zark had always been able to either ditch the security checks on every planet he visited or had managed to use the Force to help avoid a situation, but he couldn’t see this happening on the Astoria.
He needed a lightsaber to pass through security. Zark wasn’t quite sure why, but he needed it to happen.
And so he had come up with a solution. It wasn’t the best answer, and if he had been given more time to ponder it, even in his current state, Zark would have realized it to be one of the stupidest ideas he had ever had. But he hadn’t been given more time. He had been given one night. And…well…it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Zark slipped from his drug induced flashback long enough to register that there was something going on around him. There was screaming, loud bangs, and flashes of light. Oh well, Zark thought to himself. It was not his problem, now was it? He slipped back under.
The shuttle was a nice one. His room was spacious, and gave him the room to work in. He had paid quite a bit of credits for it, he remembered, although he couldn’t quite remember how exactly he had procured said credits. Most likely illegally, Zark imagined to himself. It didn’t matter. That was in the past. Everything was in the past.
Every time he settled down for the brief periods of time he was on a planet, Zark started a completely new life. New job, new home, new friends, new enemies. Some of the lives he led weren’t too bad, and they would have allowed him to live out the rest of his life in peace if one thing or another hadn’t gotten into his head to make him leave. Some of the lives he led, however, were lives that were better forgotten than remembered.
So he did. He forgot everything. Everything he could. But some things stuck. Like her…
Shaking his head, Zark went back to work. The crew of the shuttle had been very kind and generous, allowing him to use any of the tools they had that he might need for his little project. They expected he would reveal to them what it was once they reached the Astral Astoria. There was a going pool on what it was exactly.
They would be disappointed, even more if they actually did find out what it was. In that case, they would be disappointed and likely dead.
He was almost done. All that was left was the crystals and the actual…procedure…itself. Holding the crystals in front of him, he marveled at their beauty. The crystals had always fascinating Zark, just like everything else about the lightsaber. He had spent days just studying his lightsaber, memorizing what every piece did and where it went. At one time, he had held the unofficial record for fastest lightsaber ever assembled at the Jedi Order. There was no official record, for the Knights and Masters frowned upon competition amongst the Padawans. In secret, many of the Knights had tried to best his time. None had succeeded.
Most of that, Zark had forgotten by now. It had taken him hours and a lot of wasted scrap metal in order to reeducate his mind on how to construct a lightsaber. But Zark had always been a fast learner, and not even death and resurrection could take that away from him. If he had not been so busy working, he might have taken some solace in that fact. But he hadn’t the time. He worked on.
The crystals were in place now. One for the regular lightsaber, and one for…for it. All that was left now was the procedure. It wasn’t his favorite part of the idea, not by a long shot. But at the time, Zark knew in his mind that it had to be done. Looking back on it, he realized it was probably one of the stupidest things he had ever done, but that didn’t matter to him that night. All that mattered was to have a lightsaber nobody would ever notice.
He tied a tourniquet right above his wrist, making it as tight as he possibly could. The circulation was completely cut off, and already he began to feel his right hand numbing. Good. Now it was time to wait. He waited, and waited, and waited. For hours, it seemed. His hand had, by this time, turned completely white. He smacked it. No feeling whatsoever. He smacked it harder. Nothing. Using the Force, he amplified his strength as he slammed down on it, putting a rather large dent into the table. Absolutely nothing.
It was time.
Standing in the center of his quarters, he braced himself. Activating the normal lightsaber with his left hand, he marveled at the beauty of the purple blade. It saddened him to know that he would be flushing out down the toilet and out into space with the waste and garbage of the shuttle. He tried not to think about it, or what he was about to do.
Zark swung, and off came his right hand. He nodded appreciatively at how precise the cut had been. He had trained himself to become ambidextrous. And then he passed out, tumbling in a heap to the floor of his quarters.
Zark let out a soft, almost inaudible yelp of imaginary pain to go along with the flashback, stumbling once more temporarily out of his reverie. Whatever had been happening before seemed to have stopped now. There were still raised voices all around, but the flashes and the booming had stopped. He slipped back.
Opening his eyes, the intense pain in his right hand…where his right had used to be…almost put him under again. As Zark had expected, the lightsaber slice had not only severed his right hand completely, but it had also cauterized the wound even as it created it. The blood flow hadn’t even started, so he was in no danger of dying of blood loss.
Zark checked the chronometer. He had only been out for a half hour. Good.
Stumbling over to the small corner of the room he had prepared for this part of the project, Zark brought the…other device…with him. His right hand lay forgotten on the floor of his quarters. He would deal with it later. Right now, it was time to take care of his unnervingly low supply of hands.
Zark activated the medical droid…top half of a medical droid…he had brought along with him. He rested his right...stump on the surface in front of the droid, placing the device across from it. The droid injected him with a painkiller, numbing the intense burning sensation in his right stump and bringing instant relief.
The droid proceeded to serve its purpose.
Someone was talking to him, or about him. Zark heard his name, which was odd, considering he had never told those who supplied him what his name was. He didn’t know who it was exactly, only that he was the subject of conversation, and possibly involved in it as well. Oh well, it could wait. He slipped back under…
It was done. The lightsaber, hand, and even the medical droid had been flushed out with the garbage. It had taken him some time, since he had to disassemble the medical droid enough to actually fit it down the toilet, but it was done. Zark washed his hands…hands. Plural. Two, to be precise.
He held up the prosthetic to his face. He bent his fingers, they responded. It was exactly like before. Only something was there…something was different. Slowly, his left hand shaking, he pushed in the skin on his wrist, right below the right side of the palm. He closed his eyes.
It was the strangest feeling in the world. Something that, despite Zark’s experience, he had never felt before, or even heard about anyone else experiencing. His prosthetic right hand was gone, and the golden lightsaber hummed to life. He waved it around a bit. It responded all too eagerly. It felt kind of awkward. It would definitely take some getting used to. But it was done.
He pressed the skin again, and the lightsaber retracted. The strange feeling returned, and faded. Once more, his right hand appeared right before his eyes. No different than before he had sliced it off. Perfect.
He slipped back once more, this time more permanently. Something was definitely going on, and it involved him. His senses slowly returned, and he tilted his head upward. Something was definitely going on.