Star Wars: Heart of Deception/ Chapter 2: Sound of Silence

The sound of silence haunted Brigadier Alpha. All his ears could pick up was the incessantly ongoing ringing sound that one would hear when there was nothing else to be heard. That was the sound of silence. He looked around and noticed that there was something flashing from a high voltage point. He removed his helmet to see if it was just a glare from the view-plate. Alpha then knew what it was, right before he couldn't do anything about it. A clean shot through Alpha's head forced him to go down hard. Clone trooper Skipper, who had happened to be passing by, investigated the reactor room and spotted Alpha's body on the ground with a large pool of blood.

Skipper put his wrist communicator near his mouth. "Neyo, Neyo! You better get down here, fast!"

"Why, what's wrong?" Neyo replied through his own wrist communicator.

"It's Alpha. He's gone."

With that, Neyo sprinted towards the elevator to the lower levels of the ship. Once he got down to the main reactor room, there was Alpha's corpse and a grieving Skipper. "What? How the Hell..." Neyo could not even finish that sentence. "Skipper, I want you to tell Fordo. He was his partner. Please do it in person," Neyo managed to say.

"Yes, sir." A couple minutes later, Skipper arrived and knocked on the door to Fordo's quarters.

Fordo answered but sensed through Skipper's tone of voice and body language that something was indeed up. "Alright, Skipper, what is it?"

"Fordo, I know how close you were with Alpha," Skipper began.

This sparked some kind of darkness within Fordo's body. As if this current situation triggered or unlocked an edge to him that he kept on hiding for so long. "What the Hell do you mean? Huh?! We're on the damn ship! Where is he?" Skipper could not speak. He just showed a holomap of the reactor room. Fordo pushed Skipper aside and rushed down there. He was met by Neyo, Sergeant Skills, and Agen Kolar. Fordo charged at the body of Alpha but was stopped by Neyo. Neyo put all of his body might into stopping Fordo from reaching Alpha. "NO! How did this happen?"

"Fordo, I'm so sorry," Neyo said.

Jedi knight Agen Kolar consoled Fordo. "I feel your pain, Captain. I sympathize."

Neyo finally let go of Fordo right before Fordo rushed in towards the body of his former friend. "Is there at least a search party looking for the suspect?" Fordo impatiently asked.

"Yes, sir," Skills replied in a firm and assuring way.

Soon enough, the recon clone captain commanded everyone to leave him be as he mourned the loss of his great comrade. After everyone else left the main reactor room, Fordo commenced to hear something in his ears - something all around him. Ringing in his ears made him remove his helmet and also made him realize something... that was the sound of silence.