Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 21:40:41 -0500 (EST)
From: Tenandys Qural <beattier@river.it.gvsu.edu>
Subject: The Qural Halloween Special Part IV.
To: SWRPG-ML <jae+sw-rpg@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU>
Errors-to: jae+sw-rpg-errors@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU
Reply-to: jae+sw-rpg@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU
Message-id: <Pine.HPP.3.91.951030211049.9739I-100000@river.it.gvsu.edu>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

[Continues...]

	Liquid darkness bubbled up from the rent stone, swirling and 
coalescing in a vaguely humanoid set of parameters.  It looked strangely 
like an intricately folded cloak submerged in a pool of black blood.  Its 
limits were indistinct and not quite perceivable, and it seemed to be in 
constant flux, shifting from one state to another.
	Tenandys pulled himself upright, quelling the pain that impact 
had blessed him with.  Visually, he thought, this must look really 
interesting.
	It had all the underpinnings of an archetypal battle.  One 
hundred and eighty three centimeters of Kyanin warroir dressed in the 
white duty uniform of an Imperial Combat Engineer.  White mane falling in 
a longish braid, with short black fur covering the rest of his lithe 
felinoid frame, he looked the part of tamed civilization, replete with 
elegant lightsaber.
	And he faced inchaote darkness, as primal as the night itself and 
older than comprehension.  Feral as a Gen D'sar's cry.
	Civilization versus wildness, order against entropy, reason 
fighting senseless fear.  Light and dark.  All that was missing was 
clearly defined good and evil.  Qural knew better than to side himself 
with benevolence, even though he knew that his actions were in the best 
interests of the galaxy in the long run.  It was a matter of semantics 
that he wanted to examine some day when he had the chance.
	Unless, of course, he was slain on the spot.
	And from the way the situation was stacking up, that was becoming 
a rather distinct possibility.

	Tenandys Qural awoke in sudden breathless panic, every muscle in 
his body tensing for action.  Something moved to his left, and he swung 
instinctively, his cybernetic arm catching something hard in the chest.  
There was a sound of painful exhalation as the person collapsed.
	Qural dove forward, rolling to his feet on the sterile floor.  
Two more people rushed toward him.  He wrenched a piece of steel from his 
bed and dispatched them with the same ease.
	At the door, someone else appeared.  Tenandys sought cover beside 
his bed, warily eyeing the new intruder.
	Slowly it dawned on him where he was.  Somehow, he had woken up 
in an Imperial Medical Facility, well removed from the park he last 
remembered.  And there was some sense of time having passed.  Just how 
long, he did not know.
	He let his improvised weapon clatter to the floor and rose to a 
standing postion.  Stormtroopers were gathering in the hall outside, 
congregating around the young lieutenant that had been standing there, 
blaster carbines poised to cut the young felinoid down for any false move.
	"At ease.  I understand that I'm not in danger right now."  The 
troopers relaxed slightly, but kept their cabines ready.  The lieutenant 
stepped forward carefully.
	"Qural?"
	Tenandys nodded.  "Yes, sir.  I apologize for my actions, but I 
think you understand why I reacted as I did."
	The lieutenant spared a glance at the three prone bodies.  "Yes.  
Indeed, you acted as a Combat Engineer is trained to do in a situation of 
uncertain threat; you removed the possible threat."
	"Thank you, sir."
	"I am pleased to inform you, by the way, that the planet 
Talshan, your last assignment, has been successfully subjugated.  It was 
a very rapid operation."
	Tenandys registered an expression of shock and disbelief.  "Who 
was able to clean that mess up?  Geist?  Eldritch?"
	The lieutenant smiled.  "Another Combat Engineer was not 
required.  In all truth, you did a superlative job, even though you might 
not have realized it at the time."
	"How so?"
	THe young man slid a chair over and sat down.  "Simple, really.  
It takes from a doctrine that predates the Tarkin Doctrine, stating that 
is you subject people to a certain situation for long enough and then 
appear to relieve the situation, they will be desperate enough to 
overlook what you are doing to them."
	"How does this apply?"  Qural perched himself on the edge of his bed.
	"You created an atmosphere of terror and chaos through your 
actions.  Those people were so in need of a resolution to this that when 
our forces arrived, they cried to us to help them.  And we did."
	"Interesting."
	"You have taken on strangely mythic proportions as some sort of 
demonic presence.  All we had to do was come in and haul you out 
publicly, and they were ready to do whatever we wanted them to."

	Qural was given a commendation for the efficient handling of the 
assignment and told to take a leave of absence on psychological grounds.  
This had surprised him a little, as he knew that - being an alien - he 
was considered expendable, but after he caught hold of the details of the 
operation, it began to make more sense.
	The ground forces had found him in a tomb beneath the shrine, 
curled into a catatonic ball.  He had muttered about things that were not 
meant to be known, and it had taken the better part of two weeks before 
he had come out of it.
	The strangest thing of it was realizing that something was 
missing.  When he had gotten his lightsaber back, that had been his first 
indication.  Some significance had been removed from it.  And from time 
to time, he found himself trying to reach out to something 
instinctively.  When he noticed what he was doing, it confused him.  
There was a sense of deja vu that eluded him as he tried to search it down.
	In the end, this feeling of undefinable loss and disconnection 
prompted him to put in for temporary transfer upon his return from 
leave.  He didn't want to jeopardize everything by attempting to do his 
job like this.  When he figured out what was wrong, he would go back to 
being a Combat Engineer.
	Until then, he would try to hold onto the momentary flashes that 
he had and look for whatever had been cut away from his memories.  The 
feelings of disconnection seemed to be fading slowly, but he couldn't 
define why.
	Perhaps, he thought, the darkness knew...

[End.]

	Tenandys