Entry 12.5

"If you ever find yourself hunted for the price of your ambition, Onderon will always be a safe haven for you." - General Vaklu to Meetra Surik

- - -

[ Onderon | Onderon Highlands | Shan Manor | 4th Floor | Southern Patio ]

[ Time: 1900 | Temp: 9.4 | Wind: 21 MPH | Scattered Showers ]

[ Hova'dira the Twi'lek maid sits on the patio porch nearby. She taunts a tooku with a jingling toy on a string. Every time the tooku snatches the toy in its claws, the Twi'lek jerks it away and begins swaying it over the animal again. She will randomly wrap her hand loosely over its muzzle, causing it to snarl and wrestle free. - I told her to go be a bothersome worm-brain far away from me. She answered by indirectly criticizing me. ]

HOVA'DIRA: "Why does ole Basti wet that bucket 'o wusted botes in da home?"

[She hyperactively rubs the tooka's back. It grins and nibbles her hand.]

HOVA'DIRA: "Huh? HUH? Watch we's gonna do 'bout that wust bucket?"

[The animal pounces on her front and she giggles while prying it off. Then she starts again with the jingling toy.]

HK-47: Profanity. For the love of fragging Sith.

[I fire my blaster at the ceiling. The Twi'lek screams and scoops up the animal, runs back in the home.]

[One hour, seventeen minutes left. I watch sheets of rain move across mountainsides. My behavioral core quivers with anticipation.]

HK-47: I see a Zabrak and I want it painted black. No colors anymore, I want them to turn black. I see the girls walk by, dressed in their summer clothes. I have to shoot them down until my darkness goes.

[Fifty minutes left. It's drizzling outside now.]

HK-47: Love, love me do. You know I hate you. I'll try to kill you. So ple-he-he-ease love me do.

[Twenty-nine minutes left. I stand in the same spot on the patio, a dark guardian of justice. The lightning and thunder might give my mistress a heart attack. That would be a justice.]

HK-47: I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire, 'cause I am the champion, and you're gonna hear me roar, louder, louder than a rancor. . .

[Time up. I enter the home, cross the dining hall, step onto the first step of the stairway and click the 'up' button on the control pad.]

HK-47: Statement. Per order of my mistress, Bastila Shan, I uploaded her autobiography on a HoloNet forum specializing in historical fiction. Based on the compiled data it would seem an addendum of sorts is required before the story can be considered a complete work.

Admission. I asked my mistress what she wished to put in the epilogue. More concerned with doing picture puzzles these days, she told me to ask my secondary mistress, Meetra Surik. Surik told me to give her a couple of hours to read the autobiography and think up a last chapter. Perhaps now I can be free of this speeder-wreck of a story.

[I press the ringer outside their quarters and wait. Portal swishes open and I enter. The two women are sitting in armchairs beside one another, holding hands and laughing. I station myself in front of them, a soldier.]

HK-47: Greetings. It is a pleasure to see you still functional, Mistress Surik. And in a slightly less than decrepit condition than your counterpart.

BASTILA: Why don't you ring before entering? Such a rude machine.

HK-47: Statement. I did ring, mistress.

BASTILA: I didn't hear. Go out and try again.

[The women slap each other's arms and chuckle. I have long learned to detect their strange humor. I stay where I am.]

[Meetra coughs for several seconds, clears her throat, and looks to me.]

MEETRA: Why did you refer to me as husband in the story?

HK-47: Explanation. My analytics suggested that a large portion of organic audiences might view a union such as yours as... controversial. I was attempting to be discreet, Mistress.

MEETRA: Thank you, HK, but that audience already read of Bastila and I hooking power couplings. Is marriage that much of a leap?

HK-47: Answer. It seems so, Mistress. At least in certain parts of the galaxy. If this displeases you, feel free to activate my assassination protocols and I will begin silencing such criticisms. It would be a most pleasant diversion from this current mundanity.

MEETRA: We should delay publishing the autobiography in a professional capacity until we tell the story of Bastila's redemption.

HK-47: Objection. I have already allocated precious time to this pointless endeavor. Not to mention the continuous use of a first-person narrative could be viewed as somewhat self-indulgant by your reader base.

BASTILA [to Meetra]: You must be the one to tell that story, dear, if it's told at all.

[Long pause.]

BASTILA: My heart would shatter if I had to relive those darker moments. Everything I did. I have nightmares as is --- [Her voice cracks.]

[Meetra soothes her lover, whispering words of comfort.]

MEETRA: Want me to? I will, but only when I believe it's what you want.

[Bastila nods.]

[Meetra leans back.] All right, then. Third person narrative.

HK-47: Agreement. Very good. I have no doubt your meatbag extremities will be up to the task.