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Author	Topic: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE October 16!
VaderLVR64 Title: Manager Emeritus Registered: Feb '04	Date Posted: 4/13 10:19am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE April 13
	I'll wait for updates! And the right-hand voice said, as if an answer were dawning on it, “Of course you dream. The crippled Dark Lord chose you, chose you because you are like him, you dream . . .” “Anedar dreams true?” Saarz breathed, half-shocked, half-delighted. And the central one laughed and said, very quietly, “Oh, little Sith, there is always truth in dreams.” Nice contrast to the Jedi's "Dreams pass in time." Lovely work! No surprise there! -----signature----- R.I.P John, Alex, Jason, and Christian Never forgotten Soldiers' Angels http://soldiersangels.org/ 2114 soldiers waiting for someone to care
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ratna Registered: Mar '07	Date Posted: 4/13 2:06pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE April 13
	* dancing with the dead * your chapters always raise more questions than they answer .... but still keep me coming back for more. very cool. -----signature----- “What we measure affects what we do. If we have the wrong metrics, we will strive for the wrong things.” Joseph E. Stiglitz
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Ceillean Title: Scattergories and 20 Questions Hostess Registered: Nov '01	Date Posted: 4/13 2:22pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE April 13
	I love the mysteriousness, the mystery of this story! And your writing is great, by the way. Thanks so much for the PM! I'm truly enjoying this. -----signature----- I claim Kyp Durron. I'm developing this thing for Captain Kirk.
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p_stotts Registered: Jan '01	Date Posted: 4/14 5:25am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE April 13
	I just love it when the Sith have to deal with a superior entity. It's good they be reminded that they're not completely all powerful. Great chapter, Nem! I look forward to seeing how this story progresses. -----signature----- How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand. - Larry the Cable Guy Proud master to Gkilkenny! Stories in my bio.
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Seremela Registered: Jul '08	Date Posted: 4/30 8:40am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE April 13
	Thanks for the pm and sorry to be so late! Great second part, as beautifully written as the first. It makes the characters real and very distinct and recognizable from one another. Oprah specifically carries a bit of craziness in her. And I do like Hayuketake I also like the three sisters, very captivating. The same for your angels, I hope we'll learn more about them as this goes along. And thanks for the dare challenge, I was the one who got yours and it was a lot of fun to write. -----signature----- Winner of WWTF round 2
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JediNemesis Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 5/13 3:18am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE April 13
	Morning, all. And a lovely day it is too, at least here in GB - beautiful blue sky. The last few weeks have been kind of hectic, and the next few are likely to be similar (exams). A post is, however, in the works and shouldn't be more than a week in coming. Thanks everyone who's reading! VaderLVR Nice contrast to the Jedi's "Dreams pass in time." Do you know, I didn't think of that. Good point, though, so I shall shut up and take the credit Lovely work! No surprise there! Thanks! ratna your chapters always raise more questions than they answer .... but still keep me coming back for more. very cool. I think the first bit can be explained by my barely knowing how this is going to end. But I'm glad you're hooked Ceillean I love the mysteriousness, the mystery of this story! And your writing is great, by the way. Thank you very much Mystery is always good, and I like writing characters faced with things they genuinely don't understand. p_stotts I just love it when the Sith have to deal with a superior entity. It's good they be reminded that they're not completely all powerful. I wouldn't say the Three Sisters are superior exactly - just that they're operating under a completely different set of rules, and the Sith tend to have trouble understanding worldviews/rule sets other than their own. Great chapter, Nem! I look forward to seeing how this story progresses. So do I Seremela Great second part, as beautifully written as the first. It makes the characters real and very distinct and recognizable from one another. Orpah specifically carries a bit of craziness in her. And I do like Hayuketake. Oh, thank you [face_blushing] Aki Hayuketake's been part of the backstory for a while; this is his first major role, though. Orpah came into being for the Dare Challenge and is rapidly getting away from me. I also like the three sisters, very captivating. The same for your angels, I hope we'll learn more about them as this goes along. Thank the_wandering_shadow for telling me to put in witches. I really like how they've turned out, actually - might have to bring them into stories elsewhere. Thanks everyone! I hope to have another post up soonish Nem -----signature----- BeTS Best Author '08 NEW Bad Dreams - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29893091 Eleven Summers - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29657584 Into The Shining Day - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29224914
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JediNemesis Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 5/14 7:42am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - Replies May 13
	Actually got sorted out a lot quicker than I thought (I should be revising for exams, it's amazing how productive it makes me). So, without further ado, we return to Ythnyn. “But Anedar dreams true,” Saarz said again, and this time it was not a question, but a certainty. It chimed somewhere in her mind, another piece slotting into the puzzle that was Anedar. From the swiftly fading blot of light came the left-hand voice, very faint but very sure, saying simply “You will never outstrip him.” “You are afraid,” said the right-hand voice, distant and faint as an echo on the wind, “and he is not.” And the third, almost wistfully, said “Oh, the Dark Lord lacks for many things, but courage, that he does not lack . . .” The light flickered and died, leaving the cavern black as oblivion, the ghosts of words echoing in the silence. Moments passed. “I am no coward,” Saarz said quietly to the empty darkness. “I am a Sith, a Dark Lady of the line of Ythnyn, heir to Aedonnain and to the iron throne of Ionnàs. I am feared. Not afraid.” She stumbled back across the black plain half in a trance, her robes whipping behind her in the howling, dust-laden wind. On the edges of vision shadows danced, shapes that were never quite there when she turned to look for them. She knew better than to give credence to the stories of horrors in the dark, but some cowering part of her mind, still a child, insisted on seeing them there - a shadow that hovered, twisting, on the point of becoming a claw, a wing, an outstretched hand, and gathered itself again behind her at every turn. * * * The sky was beginning to lighten, a faint reddish flush spreading across the western horizon, when Anedar returned to the mountain. It was summer, and the nights were short. For once there had been no visions in the darkness of the journey, no fragments of scenes from past or future, and for that he was almost grateful. Rather he had been left alone with his thoughts, to pick through them and turn them over, and try and fit the disparate pieces - Orpah, Saarz, the Jedi, the three sisters, the angels - into some kind of a pattern that could be understood. No solution had presented itself, but an idea had uncoiled in the back of his mind as he drifted through the dark. Perhaps some of the . . . inconveniences would take care of one another, if he engineered the conditions correctly, and then all he would need to do would be stand back and watch. The heat of the mountain increased as he passed the outer gates, towards the levels of the mountain occupied by the hive of lesser Sith. It was a warren of sleeping cells, sparring halls, and spaces in which to carry on a life that was, for most of them, only a kind of monasticism. Many came simply to learn, those too old, too damaged or simply too unlucky to have been selected for Jedi training; only the unusually driven and dangerous ever fought their way through the ranks to the level where Anedar bothered to notice them. Many of the lowest caste had never so much as seen their overlord, and in any case, in the lamplit caverns he was simply one more figure cloaked in black. Even the withered hand drew little attention: plenty of Sith sported disfigurements of one kind or another, whether taken in the course of combat or self-inflicted by those inclined to mortification of the flesh. Unseen, he moved through the knots and clumps of acolytes in one of the larger halls, overhearing to a snatch of conversation here, a few words there. They gossiped like schoolchildren, the lesser Sith, trading their little secrets as if they were the jewels of the universe, incapable of comprehending the scale on which life truly worked. Briefly Anedar toyed with the thought of killing them all, or most of them, for no reason other than to impress on the survivors the reality of that scale. He’d thought about it before, to the extent of idly scanning the hall with his farsense looking for the cracks and faults in the rock. It would be a matter of seconds, less than seconds, to let fall the cumbersome cloak, freeing his hands, and blast the chamber to pieces, unleashing a rain of crushing stone and choking dust. The moment passed, and in the end Anedar did no more than smile silently to himself under his hood. Most of the time it was enough to know that if he wanted to, he could. He left the common halls and followed a dusty, rarely-used passage out through layers of rock, finally emerging on a tiny plateau a little way up one side of the mountain. Parked precariously on the small amount of flat surface was a transport, a distinctively dart-shaped one-man fighter that still bore the scars of its last tour on active service, some fourteen years before on the other side of the galaxy. It was black, matt and dusty, its markings long since painted out. It was the same ship that had taken him across the galaxy from one side to the other in the service of the Sith, and, before that, the same ship that had brought him to Ythnyn, before he had taken the black; before he had been Anedar. Old as it was, it started without a glitch when he switched on the engine, and moments later was hovering hundreds of metres above the mountain range of which Failtemadh was the tallest peak. The sky was still very dark - it was always twilight-dark on Ythnyn, even just before the dawn - and so was the black landscape that stretched away in every direction. Against the black background, the few red-glowing active craters stood out like sores. One, a few dozen miles away, had been spitting and bubbling for weeks now. Those of the colony’s seniors who had mined on volcanically active worlds before had pronounced it a minor risk, likely to stay at the bubbling stage for months or even years before it erupted. He began to set co-ordinates and vectors, glancing out at the barren landscape every few moments to judge the wind. For a moment, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he glimpsed a flicker of wings; but he turned his head, and the vision had vanished back into whatever dark corner of his mind it had come from. Anedar shook his head silently to himself in the fighter’s cockpit, and set his nav system towards the spitting crater. * * * Morning on Ythnyn was little different than night. Sunrise was a more or less arbitrary marker, with the miners rising before the dawn and most of the Sheer after. Nor did it have the beauty of sunrises on other worlds, all dazzling colours and sparkling sea. The transition between night and day was slow and unimpressive: the sun, a dim, fuzzy disk the same colour as the glowing craters, inched its way over the western mountains, and the sky gradually went from black to dried-blood red to a kind of nondescript orange-grey. One by one, the stars winked out of sight. As the sun came up Orpah unfolded herself from the position in which she had been meditating, seated with her legs crossed and her back to the duracrete wall of the spaceport, and padded silently over to the cluster of unlovely buildings that housed the tiny administration facility and the portmaster’s quarters. She had slept a little more, and then in the hour before dawn come back down the long straight road to the spaceport. No more sleep. She would find the Jedi, and dispose of her, and be back in her master’s favour before sunset. Through a grubby window she watched as portmaster Maxin dragged himself awake - it was still Maxin, a little greyer; that at least had not changed - dressed, ate perfunctorily, checked the messages on his datapad, and finally came out of his tumbledown residence onto the landing pad itself. “Portmaster Maxin,” Orpah said, as cordially as she could manage. “I need to ask -” “No you don’t,” Maxin interrupted. He looked drawn and pale. “You’re in His Highness’ black books, and I don’t want any part of whatever you’re doing now.” “These are his orders,” Orpah said coldly. “I don’t know that,” Maxin said bluntly. He dragged the back of his free hand across his eyes and added “If you’re really still loyal, then respect the freedom of the mountain and leave me the hell out of it.” “Since when have you had the freedom of the mountain?” Orpah hissed. “Since the last time one of your friends damn near killed me, and His Highness decided they were more disposable than I was,” Maxin snapped back. He hooked his fingers around the narrow chain at his neck, and pulled a tarnished triangular pendant out of his collar. “There it is. Now get away from me.” “Aki Hayuketake put you up to this,” Orpah said flatly. “I’d prefer to say he warned me,” Maxin said tiredly, and walked past her towards the arched exit. She caught his arm as he went past; she felt him stiffen with trepidation, but did nothing, only saying “One day I’m going to strangle Aki Hayuketake with my bare hands, and after I’ve done that, it’ll be your turn. Think about that.” She let him go, and he hurried out of the arch. A moment later there was the whirr of a speeder engine starting up, and then the hum of the vehicle moving away. In the ochre sky, far overhead, a dart-shaped shadow crossed the sun. * * * Rahisa spent that night in a small but clean apartment Radim Maxin had found for her, curled up on the rocky mattress as if she were a child again. Hyperspatial travel always tired her out, and though Ythnyn was scarcely the most salubrious of worlds, the room was warm and in good repair and the locks on the doors were solid, and so she slept without anxiety. She was woken at what her chrono told her was nine the following morning, local time, by a knock at the door and a voice saying “Miz Lanisch?” Groaning, she sat up, rubbed sleepy dust from the corners of her eyes, and said “Who’s there?” The muffled reply came back “Radim. Think I might have found you a job.” That was fast. “Give me a minute.” She swung her legs off the bed, stood up, and after a few minutes’ fumbling in her travel bag and splashing around with the primitive plumbing in the ‘fresher felt slightly more able to face the day. Then she took another five minutes to brush out her hair, scrub her face, and put a few touches of colour around her eyes and lips. She had never been particularly careful of her looks, but Aisal Lanisch was: the kind of stringently rationed, precise care that was all a starfarer could afford. When she finally opened the door, Maxin swept her an ironically overstated bow, and said “Welcome to another fine Ythnyn morning.” “Don’t you have a port to mind?” Rahisa asked. “We get one landing a week, tops,” Maxin said dismissively, “and besides, it’s good to help people settle in. You sleep okay?” “Like a baby,” Rahisa said, truthfully. “Thanks for finding me the place.” “Pleasure’s all mine,” Maxin said cheerfully, and headed for the spiral stairwell. He called over his shoulder “Yeah, I think I found you a job. We’ll go see Doctor Rezwyn first and then -” he stopped on the landing, looking up at Rahisa as she came down the stairs “- I thought maybe I’d show you round town.” Something in his voice caught Rahisa’s attention, and she looked at him properly for the first time. He was younger than he’d seemed at first, with lively eyes and a permanent smile that was not so much attractive as endearing. Aisal Lanisch smiled back at him, flattered by his obvious interest in her. Rahisa sighed inwardly, and then put the thought aside as unimportant. She was here to follow up a rumour of the Sith, and to gather information for Jedi records; and when she’d done the latter, and the former had come to nothing as they always did, she’d leave Ythnyn on the first outbound ship. She didn’t plan to stay long enough for complications. They reached street level and stepped out into the dusty air. Rahisa blinked; it took her eyes several moments to adjust to the dimness of Ythnyn daylight compared to the bright lamps used indoors. The sun was high, but the orange cast of its light and the dusty atmosphere made the streets seem twilit. “So what’s the job?” she asked as they started down the sloping road. “General dogsbody,” Radim said cheerfully. “Doctor Rezwyn’s not getting any younger, and she’s spent the last three months moaning about how she needs an assistant. Nothing too complicated,” he went on as Rahisa opened her mouth, “just helping out round the clinic.” More soberly, he added “She’s the best doctor we’ve got, and we’ve only got three for the whole Sheer.” Shocked, remembering the view from the descending starship, Rahisa said “But there must be ten thousand people here at least.” “Twelve thousand, six hundred and nineteen at the last count,” Radim said promptly, then grinned and said “or twelve thousand, six hundred and twenty, counting you.” “I don’t know how long I’ll be staying,” Rahisa said, embarrassed by the warmth of the portmaster’s voice. “Got to settle somewhere,” Radim said mischievously, and laughed at the blush that spread up from Rahisa’s collarbones and across her face. “Here we are.” They had stopped in front of a nondescript transparisteel door, which Radim pushed open and held for Rahisa to go through. The room beyond was clean but . . . threadbare: cracking paint on the walls, a thin carpet underfoot, and a collection of mismatched hoverchairs that bobbed feebly at knee height. Radim leant on the counter and called “Alvani!” There was the creak of a door somewhere further back, and Alvani Rezwyn came out to the reception room. She was a Twi’lek, bluish-skinned, tall and trim, but obviously ageing. Her lekku were tucked up underneath a white medical cap. She nodded to Radim as to an old friend and said “And who’s this?” “Alvani, this is Aisal Lanisch, just got off the Vaza,” Radim said, then turned to Rahisa and said “Aisal, this is Doctor Alvani Rezwyn.” He added in a stage whisper “People usually come out of her surgery alive.” Rezwyn rolled her eyes at the portmaster and said to Rahisa “A newcomer, hmm? And looking for work?” She looked Rahisa up and down, consideringly, and said “You’ll do. Come into the surgery a moment, would you?” Slightly surprised at the speed of events, but not displeased, Rahisa stepped round the counter and followed Rezwyn into the back of the building. Once into the surgery - a room empty except for a row of very clearly locked cupboards and the polished table in the centre - the doctor closed the door carefully behind them, leant against it, and said in a businesslike voice “Now, young lady, I imagine you’ve gone to a lot of time and effort to pass for human, but I went to a lot of time and effort to pass a doctorate in xenophysiology and if you had human parents I’m the Dowager Duchess of Corellia.” She reached out, took hold of Rahisa’s chin and turned her head to one side, then the other, looking carefully. “Hmm. Carmil, am I right?” Enjoy! Nem -----signature----- BeTS Best Author '08 NEW Bad Dreams - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29893091 Eleven Summers - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29657584 Into The Shining Day - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29224914
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ratna Registered: Mar '07	Date Posted: 5/14 12:16pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE May 14
	No solution had presented itself ... Yeah, solutions generally only present themselves to laid back Jedi masters ... Sith dudes have to work and manipulate. Bummer. -----signature----- “What we measure affects what we do. If we have the wrong metrics, we will strive for the wrong things.” Joseph E. Stiglitz
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Ceillean Title: Scattergories and 20 Questions Hostess Registered: Nov '01	Date Posted: 5/14 9:35pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE May 14
	Now that's one heck of a cool doctor. I just hope she can be trusted. And I hope Maxin can be trusted as well. I'm sort of liking him right now. Wonderful update! -----signature----- I claim Kyp Durron. I'm developing this thing for Captain Kirk.
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p_stotts Registered: Jan '01	Date Posted: 5/15 6:12am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE May 14
	That doctor is one sharp female. I wonder if she has Force sensitivities. Your building the suspense in all the subplots nicely. I'm interested to see them all converge. I just hope everyone, cough Jedi, is up to the challenge. Great story so far. Thanks for the PM! -----signature----- How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand. - Larry the Cable Guy Proud master to Gkilkenny! Stories in my bio.
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Seremela Registered: Jul '08	Date Posted: 5/18 2:27pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE May 14 - Date Edited: 5/18 2:28pm (1 edits total) Edited By: Seremela
	Wow.... I'm now officially in love with your writing style (Actually, I'm jealous of it as well!) It takes me completely into the world you're painting. I'm afraid Rahisa is in for a big surprise and I'm even more afraid that it might not be a pleasant one. Like P I'm very curious as to how it all will converge, especially the angels. Since Anedar dreams true I'm kinda hoping we'll meet them in this -----signature----- Winner of WWTF round 2
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VaderLVR64 Title: Manager Emeritus Registered: Feb '04	Date Posted: 5/19 4:19am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE May 14
	One thing I've always noticed about your stories. Your imagery is unfailingly flawless, evocative, and powerful. Even small passages stand out. They gossiped like schoolchildren, the lesser Sith, trading their little secrets as if they were the jewels of the universe, incapable of comprehending the scale on which life truly worked. Briefly Anedar toyed with the thought of killing them all, or most of them, for no reason other than to impress on the survivors the reality of that scale. He’d thought about it before, to the extent of idly scanning the hall with his farsense looking for the cracks and faults in the rock. It would be a matter of seconds, less than seconds, to let fall the cumbersome cloak, freeing his hands, and blast the chamber to pieces, unleashing a rain of crushing stone and choking dust. Lovely, lovely, lovely! -----signature----- R.I.P John, Alex, Jason, and Christian Never forgotten Soldiers' Angels http://soldiersangels.org/ 2114 soldiers waiting for someone to care
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JediNemesis Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 6/22 5:56am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE May 14
	Afternoon all! Term's over, summer's set in with a vengeance, and life's pretty good. Good to see you all again ratna Yeah, solutions generally only present themselves to laid back Jedi masters ... Sith dudes have to work and manipulate. Bummer. Yeah, the Dark Side's a lot of work. Too funny Ceillean Now that's one heck of a cool doctor. I just hope she can be trusted. You'll be finding out fairly soon ... And I hope Maxin can be trusted as well. I'm sort of liking him right now. You'll find that out as well, eventually. Wonderful update! Thanks! p_stotts That doctor is one sharp female. I wonder if she has Force sensitivities. Your building the suspense in all the subplots nicely. I'm interested to see them all converge. I just hope everyone, cough Jedi, is up to the challenge. Two of the plot strands will be colliding in the near future - still working on pulling together the remaining ones. I have more of an idea what's happening now than I did when I started, though, which can only be a good thing. Great story so far. Thanks for the PM! No problem. Seremela Wow.... I'm now officially in love with your writing style happy (Actually, I'm jealous of it as well!) It takes me completely into the world you're painting. Thank you! I love creating new worlds and this miniverse is one I'm very fond of. I'm so glad it's coming to life for you I'm afraid Rahisa is in for a big surprise and I'm even more afraid that it might not be a pleasant one. Well ... Like P I'm very curious as to how it all will converge, especially the angels. Since Anedar dreams true I'm kinda hoping we'll meet them in this. Truth be told I haven't decided how much to involve the angels - whether to keep them in the background or bring them more to the fore ... but let's just say you definitely haven't heard the last of them. VaderLVR One thing I've always noticed about your stories. Your imagery is unfailingly flawless, evocative, and powerful. Even small passages stand out. Thank you so much. Lovely, lovely, lovely! I'm glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for reading! And now ... we return you to Bad Dreams ... Rahisa looked at Rezwyn with a new respect. Aisal Lanisch, found out, looked at her feet and whispered miserably “Please don’t tell anyone.” The doctor’s face softened. “I don’t blame you. For a race with so many cousin species, humans get very jumpy about people who look human but aren’t quite.” She let go Rahisa’s chin and rubbed her hands. “If you want to carry on as you are, nobody but me needs to know.” “I’d rather stay like this,” Aisal Lanisch said in a small voice. Behind the act, Rahisa’s mind was already racing, wondering whether the doctor’s evident skill extended to spotting the few perceptible signs of Force sensitivity. “In that case it’s safe with me,” Rezwyn said gently, and patted her on the arm. She nodded towards the door and added in a low voice “You really aren’t alone, though. Half the people on this planet who say they’re human either aren’t at all, or aren’t completely. Radim’s one-eighth Girlanyi. Even His Highness is half-blood. Now -” she folded her arms and examined Rahisa clinically “- as far as I know, there isn’t anything in Ythnyn’s atmosphere or light that’ll do you much damage. Eating might be a little more of a problem.” She raised an eyebrow. “What do you plan on doing about that?” “I haven’t touched blood since I was sixteen, thank you very much,” Rahisa said, and grimaced. “I get by on protein shakes and vegetable concentrate. I’ll live.” “You won’t be seeing many vegetables in this dustbowl,” Rezwyn said with a shake of the head. “Even synthetics just curl up and die. Breaks my heart.” She shook her head again and said “Protein blocks, though, they’re hardly in short supply.” She pulled a ring of heavy, old-fashioned keys from her belt and began to unlock cupboards. “Everything dangerous is in this room. Medicine and ingredients in these two end cupboards -” she swung the weighty doors open for Rahisa to see the rows of neatly labelled bottles and boxes inside “- instruments and sterilisers in this one. There’s gowns and masks in the sealed cupboard, though we don’t need them often, thank the stars. Oh, and there’s Sixty. Sixty!” There was a faint, distorted mechanical beep from under the operating table, and a moment later a round, spider-limbed droid flopped feebly out onto the floor. After a couple of seconds’ whirring its repulsors caught, and the thing slowly rose, groaning, to waist height, then reversed and settled onto the tabletop. A row of dimly glowing blue lights regarded Rahisa soulfully, and the machine let out a stream of oddly liquid noises. Rezwyn patted its domed carapace affectionately, and said to Rahisa “This is AMU-60-K. To my knowledge he’s the most advanced piece of medical technology on Ythnyn. Sixty, this is Aisal Lanisch. You’re allowed to take orders from her.” Sixty swivelled its dome a couple of times, settled its lights in Rahisa’s direction, and beeped twice. “Doctor -” Rahisa said in a low voice “- how old is this droid? To my certain knowledge the AMU line is up to 85-A at least.” Rezwyn shrugged. “Sixty came along in a freighter hold with half his processors fried and no registration chip, so your guess is as good as mine. Twenty years, maybe? Twenty-five?” She nodded to the little machine, and said gently “Thanks, Sixty. You can go back under the table now.” The droid beeped, folded in its legs, and hopped off the table. Rezwyn turned to Rahisa with a sad smile and said “Let me show you the rest of the building. It shouldn’t take long.” It did not take that long, in the event, for Dr Rezwyn to show Rahisa round the five rooms that made up her surgery: waiting room, consulting room, operating theatre, ward - tiny, with four narrow bunks barely squeezed in - and store. Aisal Lanisch, conscientious, paid careful attention as the doctor pointed out where everything went and which key fitted which lock. Inwardly, Rahisa fought down mounting guilt at the thought that she would be leaving Ythnyn in weeks, perhaps no more than days. This was where Jedi were needed, this little, dusty, deprived colony; while she chased shadows from world to world, there were lives to be saved, lives to build, out on the galaxy’s ragged fringe where the fledgling Republic was only a word. The Sith seemed suddenly very far away. Doctor Rezwyn turned just then, saw Rahisa scuffing at her face with her sleeve, and said “Something in your eye?” “Dust,” Rahisa said, and, to add verisimilitude, sneezed. “May not have anything else, but stars above, we’ve got dust,” Rezwyn said dryly. “You’ll get used to it.” She went to the door, put one hand to the handle, and then said “I’ll take you on for a month, see how you do. I don’t need expertise, just an extra pair of hands, and frankly with a colony this stretched I’ll take anyone who isn’t foaming at the mouth.” Without waiting for a reply, she opened the door and headed back through to the waiting room. Rahisa followed, wondering if every new arrival to Ythnyn was so eagerly seized on. Radim was waiting in the outer room, flicking through pages on an ancient handheld datapad. His face lit up as the two women came back through, and he got up, stowing the datapad somewhere indeterminate inside his coat. “So, everything okay then?” “Peachy,” Rezwyn said crisply, and pulled something out from under the counter, passing it across to Rahisa. “Key to the front door. Heavens know it’s open most of the time in any case.” “Hey -” Radim interrupted “- the heavy shift won’t be till later. Mind if I show Miz Lanisch the town before she has to start stitching bits of it up?” “He’s quite right,” the doctor said in answer to Rahisa’s questioning look. “Go and learn your way round the Sheer. I’ll see you back here at - noon, shall we say?” Rahisa nodded and followed Radim out of the surgery. Outside, the orange-tinted half-light gave the same deceptive impression of evening. As they walked away, what felt like a faint, cold breeze made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. * * * Orpah waited in the dusty shadows, eyes narrowed against the stinging breeze, as the portmaster and his companion walked away up the road. Certainty, hot and sweet, filled her. Maxin had forced her to stay back, but the fool had never once looked behind him as he walked up the sloping mountain path, through the dim morning streets, and straight to the door of a ramshackle tenement from which he had emerged with a black-haired woman on his arm. Her. Orpah was certain of it. It could have been some other recent arrival, the portmaster ever-solicitous to his charges, a relative, a colleague or even the man’s mistress for all she knew, but the woman carried herself with an unconscious alertness that Orpah recognised. It was the permanent awareness of the Force-sensitive, the barely perceptible tension of a body always half-readying itself for fight or flight. The Sith learnt it early; those who did not, died. Naturally the Jedi would do so too. There were too many dangers in the world for them to do otherwise . . . Orpah’s mouth twisted as she half-smiled to herself, and when Maxin and the woman had disappeared safely up the road into dimness, slipped out of the shadow and walked demurely into Alvani Rezwyn’s surgery. The green symbol over the door, across the galaxy the sign for a healer’s business, flickered and sputtered as she passed beneath it. The doctor came hurrying out of the back room in response to the sound of the opening door, came around the low counter, and froze. In the instant as their eyes met, Orpah reached into the Twi’lek woman’s mind and stilled it, the coercive power of the Dark Side settling over her like a monstrous, crushing web ready to tighten. Rezwyn faltered, clutching at the edge of the counter-top to keep herself from falling, then seemed to recover a little and said quietly “Your mother died, about two months ago. I thought you might want to know.” “What of?” Orpah asked sarcastically. “Grief? Shame?” “Just an accident,” Rezwyn said. Her eyes held Orpah’s steadily. “I brought you into this world, Orpah Kell, and I’ve helped your mother and your father and more souls than I can count out of it, and blood doesn’t scare me and death doesn’t faze me. You’ve got no power over me.” Orpah spat in contempt, and lifted her hand. The Twi’lek woman choked and clutched at her throat, stumbling backward into the wall. “And do you have the freedom of the mountain too?” Orpah demanded. “No,” Rezwyn whispered brokenly, the syllable eventually wrung out of her against her will. “Good,” Orpah said, satisfied. “Who was the woman with Radim Maxin?” Again the aching pause as Orpah forced her to answer, before the words came tumbling out, ragged and hoarse. “Her name is Aisal Lanisch. She came on the Vaza -” “Will she be coming back here?” “Yes . . . noon . . .” Orpah hissed triumphantly and let the mind-grip go. Rezwyn crumpled to the floor, her breath coming in fits and gasps. Tiny bubbles of blood formed and burst at the corners of her mouth. Her throat was already mottled with bruises, ugly shades of purple and grey against the blue skin. Orpah dragged the coughing woman behind the counter, out of casual sight, pulled her into a corner and stood back. The Twi’lek woman curled into a foetal position, her thin body racked with coughs that flecked the floor with blood, and then stilled. The Sith rolled her eyes at the woman’s idiocy, her own blood hot with triumph and anticipation. Not long now. The door creaked. The miner who opened it was met, as she turned with the speed of a whiplash, by the full force of Orpah’s hungry stare and her elated, vengeful mind. “You don’t want to come in here,” the Sith whispered. The man stumbled away. Orpah hissed again, happily, and settled herself behind the counter to watch and wait. * * * Menningsheer was essentially linear, a sprawling, straggling agglomeration of jerry-built dwellings clustered along the sides of a single wide sloping road. At the bottom of the slope, where the black rock flattened out, a patch had been duracreted over into a makeshift landing pad. At the other end of the town, the road narrowed and became less well surfaced, but continued up the side of the mountain, going into a series of sharp hairpin turns as it climbed. Rahisa narrowed her eyes, squinting through the orange shadows, trying to make out where the roadway finally came to an end. Did it go over the shoulder of the mountain, or into some entrance in the rock, or simply stop? The street was largely empty, and Rahisa had to remind herself it was still relatively early in the morning. Most of the passers-by looked human - or able to pass for human - as far as could be told in the dim light. She noticed fashions of systems as far afield as Cerea and Thousand Moons, as well as the nondescript layers of protective clothing common to every mining world in the galaxy. One or two wore plain black, greyed at the hems by the ubiquitous dust. “The Sheer’s one of those towns that just sort of happened,” Radim was saying cheerfully beside her. “Started with a few grounded ships, then readybuilts, then when the mines started working people started building in stone.” Rahisa nodded absentmindedly, rubbed a hand across her mouth and said “I can see. Er . . . I didn’t get the chance to have breakfast?” “Stars, I’m so sorry!” Radim covered his mouth with one hand. “I should have thought . . . okay, I’m taking you to Guin’s. My shout.” “I have money,” Aisal protested. Rahisa wondered acidly to herself whether the portmaster behaved like this to all new arrivals on Ythnyn, or only to the female ones. “My fault for forgetting, though,” Radim said cheerfully, and nodded towards a large, bulbous building a little ahead and across the road. “Guin’s. One of the oldest buildings on the planet. Unless you count the archaeological stuff.” “It looks like a grounded gas transport,” Rahisa said dubiously. “That would be because it is,” Radim confirmed, and steered her towards the entrance. “Parked here by the original Thay He Guin two hundred and forty years ago. His great-something-grandson runs it now.” Inside, Guin’s was bright, enough so that it made Rahisa’s eyes ache after the dimness outside, and smelt of unidentifiable alien spice. Radim pulled out a chair for her at the nearest table and wandered over to the bar, nodding to other customers as he went. There was an old-fashioned flimsy menu on the table. Rahisa scanned it as quickly as she could, and drew a gratefully deep breath on seeing that among the options presented was soup. Radim returned with two tall tumblers, one of garishly coloured juice, the other of something transparent but more viscous - and stronger-smelling - than water. He pushed the juice towards her and drained half his own glass in one go. “So, what’ll you be having?” “Soup will be fine,” Rahisa said firmly, and looked again at the contents of Radim’s glass. “Sure?” Radim said. Rahisa nodded. “No problem.” He drained the rest of the glass, picked it up, and went back to the bar to order, leaving Rahisa at the table. When he returned, it was with a refill. He sat down, propped his elbows on the table, and said “So Aisal, what’s your story?” Rahisa shrugged. “Just never been able to settle down.” In the six months she had been Aisal Lanisch she had constructed a detailed fictional history, right down to the middle names of Lanisch’s cousins, the diner where she had spent a summer as a waitress when she was fifteen, and the forlorn circumstances of how the woman had ended up single and penniless for the nth time. “I get restless easily. I’ve been on the road for a while now. See the galaxy for under ten credits a day!” She mimicked the cheery tone of an emigration advert on the last phrase, and took a sip of the juice. It was unfamiliar but pleasant, with enough sugar in it to satisfy the most saccharine of sweet teeth. “I was on Zhezn when the Vaza came through and I’d had just about enough of it there - it’s all pollution, religion and paying protection money to the vizhilantiy, the crime syndicates.” Another sip. “I’d never heard of Ythnyn, and I’ve been around, so I got on the ship. And here I am.” “Pollution, religion and the mob, hmm?” Radim took another swallow of his drink, set the glass down again and grinned ruefully. “If that’s all you object to, you should be all right.” Rahisa raised her eyebrows. Radim shrugged. “Pollution - really not much, unless you count the dust. As far as religion goes, we have the common ones, plus the resident bunch of martial-arts mentalists, but they don’t tend to come out in daylight much.” He nodded out the window and had another gulp of his drink. “They actually founded the colony; apparently the first Great High Panjandrum or whatever the hell he calls himself wanted somewhere nice and deserted to meditate in. Course, pretty soon they realised they needed, oh, food, clothes, repairs, that kind of thing. The needs of the world.” He laughed and drained the glass. “And the Sheer’s not really big enough to have its own mob yet, so you should be okay. You want a refill?” Rahisa shook her head, forcing herself to make the gesture casual. Under the table, she belatedly realised, her hands were clenched so tight the nails were digging into her palms. To be continued .... -----signature----- BeTS Best Author '08 NEW Bad Dreams - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29893091 Eleven Summers - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29657584 Into The Shining Day - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29224914
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ratna Registered: Mar '07	Date Posted: 6/22 6:30am Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE Jun 22! Thanks for the noms!
	i just wonder what radim is drinking ... ? and might that have very decided consequences in determining who will be the next one to bite the dust ....? lovely pacing on this story, btw. -----signature----- “What we measure affects what we do. If we have the wrong metrics, we will strive for the wrong things.” Joseph E. Stiglitz
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p_stotts Registered: Jan '01	Date Posted: 6/22 1:22pm Subject: Bad Dreams - far-past OC horror/thriller/mystery(?) - UPDATE Jun 22! Thanks for the noms!
	Thanks for the PM! Great post! I just wonder if our incognito Jedi is savy enough to sense the Sith ambush that awaits when she returns to the clinic? I look forward to reading that confrontation. -----signature----- How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand. - Larry the Cable Guy Proud master to Gkilkenny! Stories in my bio.
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