"Who are you?" the Twi'lek girl asked through tears.
"My name is Amir. The ship is in danger—we need to regroup at the docking bay!" Amir answered without thinking.
"I'm not leaving. I'm waiting for Mona to come back."
Amir frowned. Mona? Then this girl must be Milisen.
"Where is Mona?" Amir asked.
"She went for testing a while ago and hasn't returned."
"Where was the test?" Amir had a suspicion, but asked anyway.
"In one of the smaller labs," Milisen replied, lifting her head to look at Amir.
"Come with me. I'll take you to find her," Amir said, stepping forward.
"Okay!" Milisen jumped down from the bed and ran out barefoot.
It must be the secondary lab, Amir thought as he followed her. That's exactly where he was headed.
"By the way, I'm Milisen!" The Twi'lek girl's eyes lit up a bit.
"Do you want to leave this place, Milisen?" Amir asked suddenly.
"I hate it here! I definitely want to leave—but only with Mona."
She hasn't been brainwashed... Amir confirmed his suspicion. Or at least, the brainwashing hadn't worked on her.
Amir had used the Force to implant commands into the children's minds to guide them to the docking bay, precisely because he feared they had been brainwashed. Telling them outright he wanted to help them escape could have triggered rejection or panic. Giving a direct command under the influence of the Force was far more effective in this scenario.
And it worked—the other kids followed his orders with total obedience, confirming that they had undergone mental conditioning.
But Milisen was different. She was thought to be non-Force-sensitive, yet had latent dark side abilities—and was the only one who hadn't been successfully brainwashed.
They passed two patrols of stormtroopers along the way, but no one paid Amir and Milisen any attention. Everyone was rushing to respond to the emergency.
The ship didn't house many stormtroopers to begin with—just a few idle combat droids and some pilots.
Soon they reached the secondary lab. Two combat droids stood on either side of the door.
Milisen froze several paces back, clutching her shirt hem tightly, her lips trembling.
She was terrified.
Amir stepped forward, but both droids immediately raised their thick arms to block his way.
"Zzt! Vrrrm! Vrrrm!"
With a pair of sharp, electric screeches, both combat droids were cut into four clean pieces.
Amir let out a breath. God, that was satisfying.
"Wow!" Milisen gasped behind him. "I want one of those!"
She was staring at Amir's lightsaber.
"Let's find Mona first," Amir replied, pressing a button by the side panel.
The hatch hissed open.
This lab was much smaller. Most of it was filled with bulky machinery. A figure in a white research coat stood in front of a medical pod.
"You've arrived," said John Morey, lifting his head to face Amir, as if he'd been expecting him.
Amir didn't answer. He looked past him.
"Mona!" Milisen cried and ran toward the medpod.
"Tell me everything you know. I'm not in the mood to waste time," Amir said, advancing with his lightsaber raised.
But the seemingly average middle-aged researcher showed no fear.
"I searched you, remember?" he said suddenly. "I found your weapon—but I didn't take it."
"You think that'll make me spare you?" Amir kept closing in. He had no patience for games.
"Heh... I don't care whether I live or die," Morey said, spreading his arms wide. "Countless lives have passed through my hands—brought into the world and destroyed by me. All those babies we captured, I drained their blood, extracted data, and selected the ones that met our standards for stimulation training. Ha! I let them be swarmed by training droids while armed with nothing but scraps of metal. I strapped them to shock chairs and watched them writhe in pain. If they awakened to the Force, they were heroes. If not, they were trash to be disposed of."
Amir's blade hovered an inch from his neck.
"Mona... Mona..." Milisen stood beside the medpod, dazed, murmuring her friend's name like in a dream.
"Hmph... and that one—just a waste with no Force sensitivity. She got what she deserved! Eliminated!" Morey cackled, completely unhinged.
Amir's gaze turned colder and colder. The desire to extract information faded. All he wanted now was to kill this bastard.
"Yes! You're angry! Think of what I've done! I deserve to die—come on!! Kill me with your rage! Let me see what all our effort in you has produced!!"
Amir looked at Milisen, who stood frozen in front of the medpod. Her grief was so intense, not even tears could fall. He saw the frail body lying inside, and remembered the electric chair... and Subject 032's unconscious suffering.
The fury rose—uncontainable.
He drew his saber to the side—not to lower it, but to gather power.
Suddenly, the air seemed to freeze. John Morey felt like he'd fallen into the depths of a frozen abyss—darkness... agony... He began to shiver uncontrollably, overwhelmed by a crushing force, as if falling into the void. The machines around them groaned from the pressure. A sharp crack split the medpod's glass!
Suffocation.
The thought screamed through Morey's mind. His throat felt gripped by invisible hands. He clawed desperately at his neck but touched nothing.
Now, finally, he understood what true despair felt like.
And yet—he smiled. A sick, twisted smile. As if, in his madness, he'd found... satisfaction.
Like a father seeing his child grow strong—fulfilling everything he'd hoped for.
But a second later, his face twisted in shock—as if witnessing something impossible.
"W-What?!" He looked like his eyeballs would pop out of his head. He raised a trembling hand to point at Amir.
The boy in the gray robe had deactivated his saber and now stood still, emotionless.
How?He should have fully fallen to the Dark Side. The power... the perfect result of a lifetime of twisted research... had been realized.
But then Morey's eyes darted—toward the little girl standing beside Mona's medpod.
Milisen.
The "useless" girl, rejected by the program. She was lifting her right hand... as if holding up something unseen.
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🌌 Star Wars: Relics of the Past
📢 The Force Calls! 📢
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