Moments of Truth/Part 2

Pain greeted Zaella as she woke in the gloom of the Second Chance ' s hold. The dying flesh at the tip of tchun pounded agony up the whole lek and into her head, one wave after another; she buried her face in Tirien's pillow to smother a moan. She didn't know how much the bacta had accomplished, but clearly it didn't have the regenerative properties Narasi had imagined. Or perhaps the damage was simply too severe.

She remembered—and her gut clenched at the remembering—the feeling of Ghrond's hammer smashing the lek flat. The pain had been so incredible, so overwhelming, that she couldn't even pass out. The torturer Guldroq's lashes on her lekku had been feather-light brushes in comparison. She had been tempted to let Ghrond finish her just to end the agony, but there hadn't been a follow-up blow. Only once she had gotten to the stands, hiding from Izkara in Tirien's shadow, had she realized that Narasi had come to her aid, attacking Ghrond to distract him and taking that rib-breaking blow for her trouble.

Why? she wondered. They had only come to a truce after; why hadn't Narasi let Ghrond finish her?

She knew then, Zaella told herself. ''She knew she couldn't take him on alone. She needed me alive.''

She said it to herself, and as she did it made perfect sense, but somehow it felt wrong.

Once she had been awake a few seconds, she became conscious of Narasi snoring below. One of the Jedi had turned down the lights, but she could see the contours of the hold. She wondered if she could sleep through the snores, but even as she considered it, another spasm of pain sent razors up tchun and drew a gasp past her clenched teeth. Tirien's Force trick to numb the pain had long since worn off, and whatever it might have healed, the bacta hadn't deadened the nerves.

Lowering herself down from the bunk onto the deck, creeping off in her socks, Zaella snuck around Tirien's prone form to the mixed pile of her belongings and Izkara's—all hers now. Narasi had checked everything in the room for weapons, but she had seen Zaella's belt pouch before, so she hadn't bothered. Zaella's datapad and sketching stylus were both still there—as were her last few vials of spice.

Taking the whole pouch, Zaella crept down the corridor toward the cockpit, where she could see the usual mottled blur of hyperspace through the canopy. A timer ticked off the seconds before their arrival; they still had a couple hours to go. Plunking herself down in the co-pilot's seat, draping her mangled lek down her chest, she opened the bag. She had a couple vials of ryll…but one glitteryll, too.

She hesitated, wanting to preserve the glitteryll for an occasion she could really enjoy the effects but wondering how the Jedi would react if they found it.

Self-righteous Core Worlders, she thought. ''Probably think it's a Rim vice. 'Oh, you don't have pure bacta where you come from? Isn't that primitive! ' '' She hated them a little more as she thought it. She hated being here, trapped aboard their ship, being hauled off who-knew-where at lightsaber-point. It would be worth snorting the glitteryll now just to forget her circumstances for a few hours, to forget being a prisoner…to forget everything that had happened to her.

Part of Twi'leki is nonverbal, in lekku motions; it may affect her ability to communicate… The words cut her as she thought of the things she could never quite say again. Something as simple as goodbye…or as complex as I love you.

The cockpit blurred, and Zaella was infuriated to find tears in her eyes. Wiping them away in the crook of her elbow, she pulled out one vial after another. Ryll…ryll…

She had just pulled out the third and determined it was ryll when it slipped through her fingers. She turned to see it flip end-over-end through the air—and into Tirien's palm. Zaella turned pale; she had to grab the bag with both hands so she didn't drop it.

"Good morning," he said, his tunic and hair still rumpled from sleep but his eyes alert.

Zaella stared, frightened of what was coming next. The last time Izkara had caught her with spice she had been sent down to Guldroq—and they hadn't been about to depart on one of Lady Hadan's missions then, so her stay in the dungeon had been longer.

Tirien took the pilot's seat, holding the vial up to the light between his thumb and forefinger. He shook it to rattle the contents around, then asked, "Ryll?"

Zaella nodded, clutching the pouch in her trembling hands. Tirien glanced at it, then extended his hand. "Let me see that."

"It's mine," Zaella said. At once she cursed herself inside. ''Stupid! Why the hell did you say that?! It's bad enough, don't make it worse!''

Tirien did not shout at her; Zaella could have sworn his eyes actually softened as they gleamed with hyperspace white. "Please don't make me take it from you."

Zaella had seen him slaughter Runganna's Gank bodyguards like he was cutting down children; she had felt him overpower Izkara with a tranquil cold that was more powerful and dangerous than all the raging heat she had ever encountered. He had stopped a blaster bolt with a thought, then brought it home to Izkara's head with another when it suited him. Other than Lady Hadan, Zaella had never seen anyone perform feats like that. If he wanted to take the pouch, no power of hers could stop him. She swallowed and extended it.

He took the pouch and opened it, brushing through the contents with his fingertips. Holding up her datapad, he asked, "Your sketching pad?"

So Narasi had told him even that; she had hidden it from Izkara for years, and the Jedi had uncovered it in the space of three or four days. Guess a prisoner has no right to privacy. "Yeah."

Tirien only nodded, tucking it back in. "Ryll…ryll…" He pulled out the opaque, wrapped vial. "And this one…glitteryll?"

Zaella blinked. "How did you know that?"

He shrugged. "Glitterstim spice has to be packaged in opaque material so the light doesn't activate it. It could've been pure, I suppose, but I imagine they make that harder for apprentices to take on Ryloth, and if you were a glitterstim addict, you'd have shown signs earlier.  Besides, it makes more sense to cut it with ryll on Ryloth—it has similar effects, just not as potent, and ryll is abundant there.  So to answer your question, I didn't know, but it was a solid guess."

He had spent ten times longer explaining it than thinking about it; the words made sense when he spelled it out like that, but Zaella found herself more intimidated rather than less. He had identified a drug based on the packaging and context clues; he had cut to the heart of her anguish over her maimed lek when he wasn't even paying attention to her. She felt her stomach clench as she remembered her brief, wrong assumption about what he would want in exchange for the bunk…what else had he guessed about her?

He held up the vial. "Why do you use this?"

Oh for kriff's sake, how much time do you have?! "It helps when I get hurt."

"The Force can do that too."

"Yeah, well, like you said, dark siders don't get that one."

"I could teach you."

His calm expression was maddening. "Why? What do you care?"

"Narasi spared your life, and now you're here whether you like it or not." Zaella wondered if Jedi courtesy had silenced the additional, And whether we like it or not. "For the time being, anyway. I'm not a jailer by nature; I'm a Jedi Knight, and if I can help you, I will."

"I…" Zaella shook her head; she winced when the mangled tip of tchun flopped against her chest, but the pain focused her. "It's fine. Besides, ryll works too.  It's medicinal; Lady Hadan sells it to some pharmaceutical companies, not just Hutts and junkies."

"Yes, I'm sure Tarni Hadan has only the welfare of the galaxy's ill and injured in mind." He narrowed his eyes. "It bothers you, doesn't it? When I don't call her 'Lady Hadan'."

Zaella squirmed. "If you just threw around her name like that on Ryloth, someone would cut your tongue out."

His answering smile was contained and without mockery, but Zaella flushed, feeling like a melodramatic child. She had a feeling anybody less than Lady Hadan herself who tried to cut out Tirien's tongue would lose the cutting hand, and that would be a mercy.

He didn't say it himself, but after a moment his smile faded. "You don't need to be afraid of her anymore. She can't hurt you now."

Zaella shivered, and as she did the tip of tchun spasmed again. She squeezed her eyes against the pain; when she could force them open again, she said, "Can I have my stuff back?"

He tilted his head a little, still holding the pouch. "You don't need it, Zaella. The Force will take care of you if you let it."

She felt like someone was twisting the tip of her lek; it was getting harder not to cry. Hissing again a ripple of pain, she said through her teeth, "It hurts. Can I please have it back?!"

His eyes tightened with a look Zaella recognized at once—disappointment. For some reason it made her feel more ashamed than usual. But he offered the bag back, holding up the vial. "I'm keeping the glitteryl; that's not medicinal. You can have the rest, but you only have what's there.  Once it runs out…"

"Yeah." Zaella didn't want to think about that, and pain made it hard to think about much of anything. She snatched the bag from his hand.

"I'm going to take a shower. Can you sleep any more?"

Zaella shook her head.

He nodded and stood, his face smooth again. "If you insist on taking that, you'd probably best do it before you shower; it's a sonic, and your lek won't thank you for that."

The thought of sonic vibrations on tchun's mangled tip made her skin crawl. "Right. Thanks."

He started down the corridor, and without knowing why, Zaella opened her mouth. Only a small sound escaped, but Tirien stopped and turned. "Yes?"

She hesitated a moment, but meeting those cool eyes was too uncomfortable; that sense of being scanned and evaluated left her feeling hollow. She shook her head. "Nothing."

He waited a moment, but ultimately turned and walked out of sight. Zaella opened her pouch, looking at the three vials of ryll and her sketchpad. The gleam of hyperspace might make for a good subject; she'd never traveled off Ryloth without Izkara, so she'd never had the opportunity. Maybe if she got distracted enough, her lek…

She gave it a twitch to test and had to grab the control console with her free hand as she gasped in pain. When she could straighten up, she popped the cap off a ryll vial, held it to her nose, and inhaled.