Sinawali: Sith Warrior

Lord Sinawali glided her speeder to a stop on the hillside overlooking the glacial fissure on the planet Hoth guarded and patrolled by a full battalion of the enemy Republic's finest. Sitting behind her on the speeder, Captain Quinn shivered and tightened his arms around her waist. She felt his chest shudder against her back as he suppressed his sneeze. The hovering speeder was kicking up snow, which the wind picked up and threw in their faces.

Sinawali barely felt the chill. Dark-skinned and slave-born, she had worked hard to escape her past and advance in the literally and figuratively cutthroat Sith society. A human Cyborg and Sith Warrior, she had been conditioned to serve, survive, and kill. Her training at the Sith Academy on Korriban had displaced almost all that was human about her.

Under Darth Baras' tutelage, Sinawali had learned to transform her emotions into a fiery rage that empowered her in combat. She had forgotten what being human felt like, how to value family and community, and how to love. She had forgotten that she even had a family, a sister who was also gifted in the Force, but had chosen the Jedi path and was now forever out of reach.

Then, two months ago, she had met Quinn, the handsome dark-haired Imperial operative who had been her contact on a mission in Balmorra. After Sinawali had commended Quinn's initiative in aiding her to successfully defeat the enemy, Darth Baras had offered Quinn any commission he desired. Quinn had chosen to stay with her.

"But why me?" she had asked at her starship's hangar at the spaceport on Balmorra, where he had knelt to pledge his service to her. "You don't agree with many of my choices. My instructors at the Academy would have called me weak if they knew what you know about me."

"I may not agree with all your decisions, My Lord, but I respect them. Surely we can find a way to work together despite our disagreements." He gazed at her with steady blue eyes set below an aristocratic high brow. He somehow always managed to look rugged and suave at the same time. In the field, he wore a long coat, tall boots, and cybernetic shaded goggles.

"Negotiating, Quinn?" she raised an eyebrow. "Now, you're sounding like a Jedi. Are you getting soft on me?"

"If I am, I suppose, you will just have to harden me," he said quite seriously, "My Lord."

She laughed in a way that felt surprisingly liberating. "I think I will enjoy having you in my service, Captain."

He had awoken in her feelings she thought the Empire had beaten out of her. Now, she couldn't imagine going anywhere without him.

She set the speeder on idle and activated its cloaking mechanism. Quinn suppressed another sneeze.

"We'll be done with this soon enough," she said.

"Of course, My Lord." He dismounted the speeder and gave her a hand down.

The speeder's fans had dispersed much of the snow below their feet, revealing the planet's hard rocky surface beneath the snow.

So as not to reveal her tension and misgivings about the mission, she resisted the urge to roll her neck and shoulders, and instead adjusted the comm device in her mesh metal helm, which wrapped around her lower face and throat.

"Can you hear me, Captain?" she said softly.

"Loud and clear, My Lord," his rich baritone whispered in her ear.

She glanced up at him with her cybernetic eye, his Light Side and Dark Side auras equally balanced in her scanner. The sun glinted on his goggles and the chipped metal plating of his blaster pistol.

"Let's hope we'll be vastly rewarded after this effort. We could both use some upgrades." She heard him draw his breath to speak, but she cut him off. "And don't say your service to me is reward enough. You mean more than that to me, Quinn."

He was silent, the slight wind ruffling his black bangs and the high collar of his grey long coat. She endured his enigmatic gaze for a moment longer, wondering again how she had earned his approval, how such a sensitive and candid man could have cared for a woman as tough as her steel ablative marauder armor, gauntlets, and boots. She didn't think she was very feminine. Bronze tattoos marked her forehead and dark warpaint wreathed her lips, and she wore her braided black hair short and away from her face.

Quinn said, "As much as your appraisal delights me, My Lord," he inclined his head toward the icy valley, "your enemies are waiting."

"Very well," she said, unsheathing her dual-wielding lightsabers, which beamed blue in the sunshine over planet Hoth. "Let's crush some Republic scum."

The Republic platoons were clustered along the mile-long valley leading to the Jedi's cavernous glacial hideout, which had emitted a subtle heat signature on the satellite relay Quinn had been monitoring from Sinawali's starship Fury. Quinn's discovery had confirmed her Master's suspicion that the Republic had rallied the locals to drive Imperial forces off the planet. Her mission was to bring down the Republic planetary alliance and identify and assassinate the Jedi leader who had masterminded it.

She dispatched each platoon swiftly and methodically, quietly directing Quinn via her headset or with abbreviated hand signals. After she immobilized the droids, Quinn froze the human troops with carbonite and focused fire on her target. She employed stuns and interrupted casts, and then, with inhuman accelerated force, she cut through her enemies, flesh and machine alike.

She didn't question why she didn't have an army of her own to back her up, or why Darth Baras hadn't simply launched an airstrike to clear the way for her. To question her Master was to ensure an early death, and now that she had Quinn by her side, she was more determined than ever to rise up the ranks, carve her own legacy, and secure some measure of independence.

Weaving her lightsabers, she slashed at the patrolling guards and deflected the fire from their assault cannons. Their weapons were bulky and slow like the wooly mammoths that grazed Hoth's icy plateaus. The troopers were no match for the acrobatic swiftness of her Ataru combat form. More often than not, their attacks missed, and each time she burned through her enemies, her fury increased.

How could she fear or feel the cold when her rage so consumed her? The snow crunched beneath her acrobatic footwork, her sabers hummed with quiet restrained energy, and Quinn's pistols blasted with high frequency lasers indiscernible to human sight. In the cavern, the enemy was stronger and more resilient and the droids more massive with heavier artillery. More than once she paused in the tunnels so that Quinn could attend to her injuries.

Finally, they arrived at the underground cave where the source of the heat signature was emanating. Her armor was cracked and splattered with blood, both hers and the enemy, and her fury was nearly spent. She stopped at the entrance to the cave. Quinn stood by her side and reached for her hand. His armor was as damaged and bloody as her own, and his pale cheeks were ruddy from the cold and the fighting.

"My Lord, your hand is trembling. What troubles you? Are you in pain?"

Softly, she spoke, "The Force is strong here. I have felt this power before, but I can't remember where or when."

Quinn squeezed her hand. "You will defeat this menace, My Lord. The Jedi's strength is nothing compared to yours."

"The Jedi's power is everything like mine," she said in the cold mechanical tone of a Sith Lord.

She let go of his hand and stepped forward into the Jedi's command center. From floor to ceiling, ice sheeted the cave's walls and glowed from the light of the towering control panel to the side and center of the room. She walked past the crates that presumably contained the arms the Republic was supplying to the locals, and turned on the path to the Jedi's command post.

The Jedi was kneeling in meditation on a deck elevated four feet off the ground by metal pylons. There was no one else present except Sinawali, Quinn, and the Jedi shrouded in a golden nimbus, her faced concealed by the hood of her robe.

Sinawali knew who the Jedi was now and why Darth Baras had concealed the Jedi Master's identity from her. It was ever the Dark Lord's way to test the loyalty and mettle of his apprentices. She shouldn't have been surprised or felt any pain. She knew this joyless reunion couldn't have happened any other way. She had chosen her path long ago, as much as it had chosen her.

"On your feet, Jedi," Lord Sinawali commanded.

"Must it come to violence?" her long-lost sister Balisong asked.

The Jedi's nimbus receded like mist as Balisong withdrew her hood and stood to face Sinawali. Her sister was tall and slender, statuesque. Identical bronze slave tattoos marked her forehead, and a serene smile seemed engraved on her face. Her dark hair was twisted in a chignon at her nape, and her brown synthweave robe was light and durable to enhance mobility in combat.

"It already has come to violence," Sinawali replied. "Or perhaps, you turned a blind eye to the massacre trailing in my wake. What I don't understand is why you Jedi allow such a monstrous thing to happen. You could have saved hundreds, thousands, of lives, perhaps even your own, if you had confronted me directly."

"Will you kill your own sister, then? Your family?" Balisong challenged.

"Do you think you can sway me? Is that why you're here? To convert me to your cause?"

"Is it so wrong?" Balisong asked. "Don't you remember what the Empire did to our family, our homeworld? How it enslaved us? And then, how it destroyed us, our world exploded into millions of debris now scattered across the galaxy?"

Sinawali's lips twisted into a grimace beneath the helm that was as much a mask as a piece of armor.

"Don't you remember, Sin?" pleaded Balisong.

Sin. Her childhood nickname. A play on words. Or a self-fulfilling prophecy. When she was a child, she had spoken with a lisp, so that when she pronounced the word "Sith," it sounded like "sin."

She used to call her sister Bali, her big sister who sang to her to help her fall asleep, because even then the Dark Side had been drawn to her latent power and whispered seductively to her in her dreams. She rarely dreamed now, because machines didn't dream, even the human killing ones.

"Even if I remembered, it wouldn't matter," Sinawali said. "This has to end. I will spare your life if you agree to withdraw your Republic forces from the planet."

"I would rather die than be taken prisoner and tortured by your Sith Inquisitors. The Republic will not retreat." Balisong unleashed her double-bladed lightsaber that emitted a purple beam on both ends.

Sinawali likewise brought her weapons to bear. "I want only for you and the Republic to leave. I said nothing about imprisoning you."

"I don't believe you, little Sin. Would you betray your Master's orders to kill me, Bali, your sister?"

For a moment, it seemed she couldn't breathe, her helm tightening around her neck like a noose, her armor constricting, the cybernetics entwining her veins and tendons like barbed wire. She couldn't think, she could only act. Her sister was stronger in the Force and as determined as she. If either of them had to die in combat, better at their own hands, a true warrior's death.

So, with the Force that had forged her destiny as a Sith, she leaped across the intervening space between her and her sister and onto the deck where her sister stood, her sabers arcing above her and pitching forward in a battering assault, while she landed lightly on her feet.

As Sinawali expected, Balisong deflected her attack and deftly twirled her lightsaber, clearing space between them. Now was the time for acrobatic footwork and dancing, spinning and weaving their sabers, clashing and blocking and deflecting, their sabers hissing in the frosty air, and the cavern's icy walls glowing, heating with the Force energy wielded by the combatants.

All at once, Sinawali understood. The heat signature hadn't originated from a machine, weapon or device in the cavern, but from the Jedi Master herself. Balisong was the weapon, just as Sinawali was a weapon, though their methods differed. Bali had wanted Sinawali to find her. This was all an elaborate ruse. Bali wouldn't kill her. It was never her intention.

Sinawali lowered her weapons.

"Are you giving up?" Bali said. "Fight me, you fool."

Bali charged, her saber held high, and then descending in a slashing angle at Sinawali's throat.

If Sinawali were a better person, she might have let herself die, but she didn't. She deflected Bali's strike with her offhand weapon and sliced through Bali's side with the saber in her right hand. Her saber burned through Bali's robe, which collapsed shapelessly at her feet. There was nothing left of Balisong's corporeal form. All that remained were the robe and the burnt hilt of Balisong's saber.

Still standing, Sinawali sheathed her weapons. Quinn came to her side and inspected her for any injuries. There were none.

"A clean victory, My Lord."

"She wanted to die," Sinawali said. "That was her intention all along. To die a martyr and rally the Republic and the locals against the Empire. She allowed me to massacre her own people in order to paint me as an example of the viciousness of Imperial rule."

"She was dedicated to her cause, and perhaps, her people were just as willing to make any sacrifice the cause required."

"Perhaps." Sinawali looked upon the tattered robe her sister once wore. She presumed Balisong had transcended, or whatever it was the Jedi did when they passed. She didn't very much care. She was tired, and she wanted nothing more than to leave this dreary frozen planet.

"Shall we return to the ship, My Lord?" Quinn asked.

"You read my mind, Quinn. Are you sure there isn't a Jedi lurking beneath your armor?"

"Would you like to find out?" he said. He removed his headset and goggles, and stuffed them in his rucksack. He did the same with her metal helm that had felt so confining.

Then, he pulled her into his arms. She leaned into his kiss, to his lips that were no longer cold but warm and yearning.

She didn't think about all the dead bodies in the tunnels and the valley aboveground, how the stark crimson blood had stained the snow, and the men and women she killed gurgled their last breaths.

She clung to Quinn desperately, as if somehow she could redeem herself by surrendering to his sweetness, his unflinching tender devotion. As if being able to love proved that some humanity yet remained with her.

"Activate the transporter," he whispered.

"The speeder," she objected half-heartedly, "we left it on the hill."

"We can let it rot for all I care."

"I will have to report to Darth Baras."

"Later," he said sternly. "You've done enough work for our Master today. You've bled, and you're cold, and you need to remember that you're alive, a human being."

He kissed her again.

She decided that she liked it when he was stern and decisive.

When they were transported back to the Fury, Quinn half-carried her to her quarters, where he shed their armor quickly and without much finesse.

"Captain," Sinawali murmured, "this is quite unlike you."

"It's a bit too late to protest, don't you think? After all, we are both lying naked in your bed, with your legs wrapped around my waist." He gazed down at her solemnly.

"It's just that you're not usually this bold. I had to work so hard to get you to come around, what with all those many gifts I bought you. You gave me quite a chase."

"But you enjoyed it, didn't you? Just as you're enjoying this now." And he moved with her in such a luxurious way that proved his point immensely.

"Naughty boy," she admonished, though she pulled him closer and nipped his neck.

"Not naughty, My Lord."

He rolled onto his back and pulled her onto his lap. He ran his hands over her hips. She shivered.

He said, then, quite seriously, "I am merely indulging in a little bit of sin."

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