Aysha – Nightmares and Bargains

[Illuminatus]

Aysha leaped to her feet still screaming. She put her hands to her head and bent over, head down, and tried to get control of her breathing, the overwhelming horror and the sense of loss she felt.

She’d been peacefully meditating as she looked out over the desert at one of the House Shiba strongholds when the nightmare hit. At least, it felt like a nightmare. But she knew it wasn’t.

She’d never had a vision before. She’d shared memories, sometimes even thoughts, with the one person in the galaxy she had been closest to. But she never had visions. Not like this. This was… this was not a day dream or any other kind of dream. She felt it deep in her bones this was absolutely, terrifyingly real.

Something was consuming them. Ripping out their very soul, siphoning their existence. She knew these poor people, victims in every sense of the word from the moment they were dragged out of a bacta tank and shackled with collars, implants, or simple brainwashing, to the moment she arrived and devoured everything they had been and ever might be.

Aysha knelt, still holding her head. She tried to make sense of it. Who was doing this? Some rogue sith lord, another deranged lunatic from Korriban or Dromond Kaas? No, it didn’t feel right. It felt… familiar. Yet utterly alien at the same time. As alien as the AI known as the Mother Machine, but yet very different from that, too. All she could see clearly from the vision was a female shape, masked, and wearing crimson robes.

That led to another question. Why was she doing this, whoever she was? There were no answers in the vision, but Aysha knew that what drove many evil acts was a simple quest for power. Power over self, power over others, power over resources. Always it was about power. Power meant control and control provided the illusion of mastery over destiny. Control was the thing no one ever really had over anything, but it was the one thing almost everyone wanted anyway.

So. Someone was tearing the Force out of them and devouring their power. Those poor, twisted, enslaved creatures were dying. And Aysha knew who they were.  They were her clones.

Now you understand. It was a familiar voice. “Kai?” She looked around and while she could see Maria emerge from the gate to look for her, she was otherwise alone.  The voice chuckled humorlessly. You’re welcome. Our Bargain proceeds.

Aysha shivered as a cold desert wind brought stinging, sandy misery. The horror she felt in her heart had melted only to be replaced with a burning knot of anxiety in her gut.

At least, she told herself, she knew the source of the vision. It hadn’t been one of her own after all, but a message. It was a very small comfort he was doing exactly as she’d asked. But now she knew what she must do next. She must try to save the remaining clones and liberate them. The alternative was worse than a life of servitude.

She straightened, then turned and walked back to meet her mother-in-law, Maria.

a.k.a. Lumiani in The Old Republic:

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