Penance - Chapter 8

Chapter 8 – Night Sweats

That night is a repeat of many others. Nervous and fitted slumber followed by a quick scramble to the fresher to vomit up any remaining food. Penance has decided not to take the sedatives that she had taken from Bast. They leave her foggy and she feels that her grasp on the force is flimsy and tenuous the morning after.

The dreams are mostly still the same; Kendra’s life on Alderann or the battle on the ship. A new one however has cropped up that has taken their place in her slumbering mind, a dream that is growing in frequency. Repeatedly she sees a boy standing with his back to her. He is standing in the shade of an archway looking out over the horizon of a sand swept planet. He’s dressed simply in the style of his people and he seems to be holding something. She approaches him and reaches out to touch him. As she does he turns and looks at her with this malevolent smile scrawled across his face. Penance can feel her nausea rising by then because the boys eyes are bright orange, bathed in the power of the dark side. The eyes she recognizes immediately for they are Quinn’s. What he holds is a light saber that he ignites and proceeds to attack.

What follows is yet another quick scramble to the fresher. She barely makes it as her stomach churns and she dry heaves. As the nausea passes, waves of sorrow wrack her and she begins to cry. Shaking she draws her legs underneath her in an attempt to regain her composure by meditating. Each attempt to reach out with the force is met by feelings of pain. She can’t forget those eyes. Quinn’s eyes staring back at her from their child’s face.
As she grips the sides of the basin in the fresher she tells herself to stop crying, but she can’t. In her pain and frustration she begins to bang her head against the sink over and over while screaming, “STOP IT!!! STOP IT!!! STOP IT!!! STOP IT!!! STOP IT!!!” The physical pain finally breaks through the emotional pain and Penance collapses on the floor between the fresher and the bedroom.

The next day she makes sure to do her meditations and travel preparations early. She wants to make sure that she is gone before lord Vader rises and has time to send for her. Looking in the mirror she sees that the damage she did to herself is pretty severe. Her lips are both split and several of her teeth are loose. There is a nice sized gash above her left eye where she hit the corner of the sink a couple of times. The eye itself is intact, but the orange of her iris is now marked by the blood of ruptured blood vessels.

She makes her way to the flight bay without incident. She has made sure to keep her head deep in to her hood so as to avoid any questions from passersby. She makes her preparations to depart quickly. From where they are to Tattooine is a long journey even by hyper drive. Penance plans to use the time to meditate and regain her center. As she loads her ship she wonders if Vader goes through these fits of self doubt. He has the benefit of hiding behind his respirator mask, but she wonders if he is constantly battling inner demons like she is. His mind is an enigma to her as well. That too has a smooth cool veneer to it, but there are times when she can feel creases in the uniformity of his thoughts. Could they be cracks in his finely polished consciousness or merely blemishes? She has heard rumors that the man never sleeps. He can be found wandering the halls of his great ship at all hours of the night. He spends most of his time milling about in the engineering sections where the crew gives him a wide birth. Perhaps he doesn’t sleep. Many Jedi use meditation in place of sleep when there is a severe shortage of time, but sleep can never be fully replaced. Maybe that’s what the sedatives are for. Meditation for as long as his body will put up with it then sedatives for dreamless sleep.

She soon finishes off her preflight and is on her way to minimal distance for hyper drive engagement. Once there she inputs her coordinates and the computer makes its calculations. Within minutes she has entered hyperspace. She then begins her meditations. Once she has arrived at the coordinates she leaves her meditations as she leaves hyperspace. She feels slightly refreshed and renewed in her quest, but still uneasy. No matter how hard she concentrates she can’t banish the image of Quinn’s eyes from her memory.