Chapter 13: Echoes of Pain
POV: Kael Vorn
Three Republic cruisers surrounded the dead Malevolence like carrion birds circling a fallen giant. Salvage teams swarmed across the battlecruiser's hull, cutting through armor plating to reach the technological treasures hidden within. The massive ship drifted silent and dark against the nebula's swirling gases, its ion cannon ports now cold and lifeless.
Kael stood in the shuttle bay of the Resolute, watching the boarding shuttles prepare for departure. His Codex had been screaming warnings for the past hour—not danger, exactly, but something more subtle. A sense of incompleteness, of vital information waiting to be discovered among the wreckage.
"You volunteered for salvage duty?" Anakin asked, his tone mixing surprise with amusement. "Since when are you interested in Separatist technology?"
"Since an alien computer in my head started insisting there's something important on that ship."
"I want to understand how they built the ion cannon," Kael lied smoothly. "If they have one, they might have others. We need to know what we're facing."
Ahsoka bounded up to them, her excitement barely contained. "Can I come too? I've never been on a capital ship this big!"
"It's a salvage operation, not a field trip, Snips."
"Please? I promise I won't touch anything important."
Anakin's resistance crumbled under her enthusiasm, as it usually did. "Fine. But you stay close and follow orders. No wandering off."
[BOARDING PARTY ASSEMBLED]
[OBJECTIVES: TECHNOLOGY RECOVERY, INTELLIGENCE GATHERING]
[CODEX PRIORITY: LOCATE COMMAND BRIDGE]
The Malevolence's interior was a tomb. Emergency lighting cast everything in hellish red shadows, while the bodies of battle droids lay scattered throughout the corridors—some destroyed by the ion cannon's catastrophic failure, others simply shut down when the ship's central computer died.
Their footsteps echoed through empty halls that had once housed thousands of crew members. The air tasted of ozone and recycled atmosphere, thick with the scent of burned circuitry and something else Kael couldn't identify—a metallic tang that made his skin crawl.
"This place gives me the creeps," Ahsoka whispered, her hand resting on her lightsaber hilt. "It feels... wrong. Like there's still something watching us."
Kael felt it too—a lingering presence in the Force, malevolent and angry and shot through with pain so intense it made his teeth ache. Grievous had commanded this ship for months, and his presence had soaked into the very metal of its construction.
[FORCE ECHO RESONANCE DETECTED]
[STRONG PSYCHOMETRIC IMPRINTS PRESENT]
[CAUTION: TRAUMATIC CONTENT POSSIBLE]
They found the command bridge after twenty minutes of navigation through the ship's labyrinthine corridors. The massive chamber dominated the Malevolence's forward section, its ceiling lost in shadows while tactical displays flickered with residual power from emergency batteries.
But what drew Kael's attention was the command throne—a grotesque fusion of furniture and life support that had been custom-built for Grievous's cybernetic body. Neural interface ports dotted the armrests alongside restraint clamps designed to keep the general locked in place during high-acceleration maneuvers.
"Kriff," Rex muttered, his voice muffled by his helmet. "No wonder the clankers follow him. Look at that thing."
Kael approached the throne cautiously, drawn by a compulsion he couldn't name. The Force whispered around the chair like wind through a graveyard, carrying echoes of rage and anguish and loss so profound it made his chest tight.
"I shouldn't touch it. The Codex is warning me for a reason."
But his hand moved without conscious direction, fingertips brushing against the cold metal of the armrest.
The vision hit him like a freight train going full throttle.
Qymaen jai Sheelal. The name came with the memory—a Kaleesh warrior in his prime, tall and proud and devoted to protecting his people from the Huk who ravaged their homeworld. He felt the alien's memories as if they were his own: the weight of traditional armor, the satisfaction of a well-placed shot, the fierce joy of victory against superior numbers.
Then came the shuttle crash.
The memory played out in excruciating detail—metal shrieking as the transport fell from orbit, bodies thrown against bulkheads, the sick sensation of knowing death was coming and being unable to prevent it. Bones shattered. Organs ruptured. The proud warrior reduced to broken meat and failing breath.
But death would have been merciful.
Kael experienced Qymaen's horror as he woke in a medical facility, his broken body replaced with crude cybernetics that felt wrong in ways that had no words. Arms that responded too slowly. Legs that carried no sensation. A chest that drew breath but provided no relief, no rest, no peace.
And threading through it all like poison: Dooku's manipulations, his gentle lies about the accident being unavoidable. Sidious's cruel laughter echoing from hidden speakers. The growing realization that the shuttle crash had been sabotage, that the Sith had deliberately destroyed everything Qymaen was so they could reshape him into their weapon.
The rage that followed was infinite and consuming. Not the hot anger of the moment, but the cold fury of someone who had lost everything that mattered and been forced to continue existing anyway. They had taken his body, his identity, his connection to everything that made life worth living.
They had made him into General Grievous.
Kael collapsed, screaming, as the alien's anguish flooded his consciousness. Tears streamed down his face while memories that weren't his own tore through his mind like broken glass. The pain was beyond anything he'd ever experienced—not just physical, but existential. The knowledge that you had been murdered in all but name, that your corpse had been animated to serve the very beings who had destroyed you.
"He was a person. He was a hero protecting his people, and they turned him into a monster. Oh God, they're doing it to everyone."
"Kael! What's wrong?!"
Ahsoka's voice seemed to come from very far away. He felt her hands on his shoulders, her presence in the Force warm and concerned and helpless against the tide of foreign memories that threatened to drown him.
[FORCE ECHO UNLOCKED]
[RANK: INITIATE (0/300 USES)]
[ABILITY: READ EMOTIONAL IMPRINTS FROM OBJECTS AND LOCATIONS]
[WARNING: HIGHLY DRAINING AND POTENTIALLY TRAUMATIZING]
[ALIGNMENT SHIFT: +1% TOWARD DARK]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 57% LIGHT-LEANING]
When Kael finally managed to speak, his voice was hoarse from screaming. "He wasn't born a monster. They made him one."
Anakin knelt beside him, mechanical hand reaching out before pulling back with visible effort. "Who? What did you see?"
"Grievous. Before he was... this." Kael gestured weakly toward the command throne. "He was Qymaen jai Sheelal. A Kaleesh warrior trying to protect his people. The Sith orchestrated his transformation—sabotaged his shuttle, destroyed his body, turned him into their weapon."
The words tumbled out in a rush, driven by the need to share the burden of what he'd witnessed. "They weaponize pain, Anakin. They take people's trauma and twist it into hatred. They're doing it to everyone. To all of us."
Anakin's face darkened, his mechanical hand unconsciously flexing as he processed the implications. His own transformation into Darth Vader followed the same pattern—loss, pain, manipulation by a Sith Lord who offered power in exchange for service.
"And you're next on their list, aren't you? Palpatine is already working on you, preparing you for the same fate."
Ahsoka helped Kael to his feet, her presence in the Force steady and comforting against the echoes of Grievous's torment that still whispered at the edges of his consciousness.
"I felt something," she said quietly. "When you were in that trance. Your pain. It was... crushing."
Kael met her eyes, seeing genuine concern mixed with the dawning realization that his abilities came with costs she'd never considered.
"Some knowledge comes at a price. I'm learning that the hard way."
She squeezed his hand, the simple contact grounding him in the present moment. "Then I'll help you carry it. That's what friends do."
The word "friends" settled warmly in his chest, a counterpoint to the dark memories still swirling in his head. Even as Grievous's ghostly screams echoed in his consciousness, Ahsoka's friendship provided an anchor to sanity and hope.
[PROJECT SHADOWFEED REFERENCE DETECTED IN GRIEVOUS'S RECENT MEMORIES]
[COORDINATES MATCH PREVIOUS INTERCEPT]
[PRIORITY: INVESTIGATE]
[MAJOR PLOT THREAD ACTIVATION IMMINENT]
But buried in the recovered memories was something else—a reference to Project Shadowfeed, the mysterious coordinates they'd intercepted during their escape from the Malevolence. Grievous had been briefed on the project recently, though the details remained frustratingly vague.
Something bigger was happening, something that went beyond the canonical events Kael remembered. His presence in this timeline had triggered changes that rippled outward in ways he couldn't predict or control.
As they evacuated the Malevolence with salvaged intelligence data, Kael couldn't shake the feeling that they had just uncovered the first piece of a puzzle that would threaten everything he was trying to protect.
The shuttle ride back to the Resolute passed in comfortable silence. Ahsoka sat pressed against his side, her presence a lifeline pulling him back from the abyss of alien memories. The simple warmth of human—well, Togruta—contact reminded him that not all touch led to pain, that connection could heal as well as harm.
But Grievous's screams still echoed in the depths of his mind, a reminder that in this galaxy, even the monsters had once been people.
And somewhere in the darkness, the architects of that transformation were preparing their next masterpiece.
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