Deceived

by Paul S. Kemp

  The droid gave an excited series of whistles and whoops.

  “He’s into the safety and fire suppression system,” Aryn said.

  “Trigger it with a ten-second delay,” Zeerid said to the droid.

  The droid beeped acquiescence.

  MALGUS BOUNDED INTO THE SHUTTLE as it set down near the Temple.

  “The Liston Spaceport,” he said to the pilot. “Quickly.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  He tried again to raise Eleena on the comm but got no response. With each moment that passed his concern grew. He recognized that his emotions were driving him, controlling him, knew too the weakness it evidenced, but he could not let her come to harm, not by a Jedi.

  Angral’s admonition bounced around his brain: Passions can lead to mistakes.

  The pilot’s voice over the comm disrupted his train of thought.

  “Have you heard the news from Alderaan, my lord?”

  “What news?” Malgus said. His muscles bunched, as if in anticipation of a blow, or combat.

  The blow came and hit him hard.

  “There are rumors that an accord has been reached and that a peace treaty will be signed later today. In exchange for the turnover of certain outlying systems to Imperial control, Coruscant will be returned to the Republic.”

  The pilot’s words pushed Angral’s words out of Malgus’s brain and ricocheted around in his head like blaster shots.

  Outlying systems.

  Coruscant returned to the Republic.

  Peace.

  The words applied heat to Malgus’s already bubbling emotions. He thought of Angral and Adraas sitting somewhere together, drinking wine and thinking that they had accomplished something by forcing the Republic to surrender some insignificant systems, when in fact they had poisoned the body of the Empire with the venom of peace.

  “Peace!”

  He paced the compartment, fists clenched, a wild animal tiring of its cage. His thoughts veered between Eleena on the one hand, Angral and Adraas on the other.

  “Peace!”

  He slammed his fist into the bulkhead, welcomed the pain.

  They thought they could tame him, Angral and Adraas, thought they could use Eleena to domesticate him. And wasn’t that what she wanted, too? She, who sought to be his conscience. She, who asked him to put love before his duty to the Empire.

  Malgus’s brewing anger boiled over into rage. He slammed his fists down on the worktable, denting it. He picked up a chair and threw it against the bulkhead, drove his fist through the small vidscreen built into the wall.

  “Is everything all right, Darth Malgus?” the pilot called over the comm.

  “Everything is fine,” Malgus said, though nothing was.

  “Coming up on the spaceport now, my lord,” said the pilot.

  ZEERID WATCHED T7 WORK, anxious. His internal clock was running. They needed to keep moving.

  Having jacked into the spaceport safety and fire suppression system, T7 was to send a false signal into the network, tricking the sensors into detecting a fuel gas leak in the landing bay where the Imperial shuttles had landed. An alarm indicating the leak of highly explosive fuel gas should trigger evacuation and venting procedures.

  Or so Zeerid hoped.

  The droid’s metal arms worked their magic. T7 cut a wire here, soldered there, reattached several cables here, then plugged into the interface he had rewired. His low whistles and chirps told Zeerid he was communicating with the spaceport’s network. After a short time, the droid retracted his metal arms into the cylinder of his body.

  “Done?” Zeerid asked.

  T7 beeped an affirmative.

  Zeerid slapped him on the head and the droid protested with a low beep.

  “Then let’s go,” Zeerid said.

  He and Aryn sprinted across the roof toward the launch doors, with T7 wheeling after them. Zeerid counted down from ten in his head. Just as they reached the launch doors, just as he finished his countdown, sirens began to wail, audible even from the roof. A mechanical voice spoke over the facility’s speakers.

  “A hazardous substance spill has occurred in landing bay sixteen-B. There is significant danger. Please move rapidly toward the nearest exit. A hazardous substance spill has occurred in landing bay sixteen-B …”

  “If Tee-seven did his job,” Zeerid said, and the droid beeped indignantly, “the system will detect the fuel gas leak in the pad right below us. When it does, it should open the launch doors automatically to vent the gas—”

  The roof vibrated as the launch doors unsealed and started slowly to slide open.

  “Nicely done,” Zeerid said to the droid.

  AHEAD, Malgus saw the small spaceport the Empire had commandeered. It looked somewhat like an upside-down spider with a few too many legs, with large-craft landing arms sticking out from the bloated body and raised skyward. Launch doors over the various small-craft landing pads dotted the spider’s body. All were closed save one. Light spilled out into the sky through the open doors.

  “There is a crowd near the port’s entrance,” the pilot said.

  Malgus looked away from the open launch doors to see dozens of people pouring out of one of the entrances to the spaceport and milling about. Most were port workers in dungarees, citizens of Coruscant whom the Empire had pressed into service to do menial labor at the port, but he counted perhaps twenty Imperial soldiers, a dozen navy sailors, and a handful of other soldiers in half armor.

  He pressed his face to the window to look more closely at the soldiers. He saw Captain Kerse, one of those he had picked to accompany Eleena.

  But he did not see Eleena.

  “Set down near the doors,” he said. “Quickly.”

  The shuttle touched down with a heavy thud and Malgus hurried out. Upon seeing him, the Imperial soldiers snapped to attention and offered a salute. The workers backed away, fear in their eyes. Perhaps they’d heard of what he’d done at the hospital.

  Malgus walked up to Captain Kerse, a powerfully built man whose bald head sat like a boulder upon his thick neck. Malgus towered over him.

  “Darth Malgus, there is a fuel gas leak in the small-craft landing area. We evacuated while the safety system—”

  “Where is Eleena?” Malgus asked.

  “She is …” Kerse looked around the crowd. His skin turned blotchy. To one of his men, he said, “Where is the Twi’lek?”

  “I saw her near the other shuttle, sir,” replied another of the soldiers. “I assumed she followed.”

  Malgus grabbed Kerse by his plasteel breastplate and pulled him nose-to-nose.

  “She was with you before the gas leak?”

  Kerse’s head bobbed on his neck. “Yes. She—”

  “Take me.”

  “The fuel gas, my lord.”

  “There is no fuel gas! It is a ruse to get to Eleena.”

  To get to him.

  “What?” Kerse said.

  Malgus threw Kerse to the ground and strode past him for the port’s doors. Behind him, he heard Kerse call out for the other soldiers to follow. By the time the doors slid open before Malgus, he had six elite soldiers with blaster rifles in orbit around him.

  “This way, my lord,” said Kerse, taking position beside him.

  “SPEED AND PRECISION,” Zeerid said, as much a reminder to himself as to Aryn. “Speed and precision.”

  They watched the launch doors pull back to vent nonexistent fuel gas. The open doors revealed the landing pad below. Zeerid saw the two Imperial shuttles, the Dragonfly-class drop ship. The sirens continued to scream. The automated voice on the speakers continued to drone on.

  Zeerid would hijack the drop ship. He’d have to dodge Imperial fighters and cruisers on his way out of Coruscant’s space. The shuttles would fly like the square heaps they were, and he’d get shot down as soon as he cleared the atmosphere. The dropship, at least, would give him a decent chance of getting clear.

  He took Aryn by the bicep. “You can still come with me, Ary
n.”

  She looked him in the face and he saw once more, for the first time since seeing her again, the deep understanding that lived in her eyes.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “You can,” he insisted. “You’ve honored your Master’s memory.”

  “Time to go,” she said. “Speed and precision, you said.”

  He bit back his reply and once more they wrapped T7 in their shared grasp and leapt into the void. Again Aryn’s power slowed their descent and cushioned their landing.

  They hit the pad’s metal-and-duracrete floor, assaulted on all sides by the wail of the sirens and the relentless voice on the loudspeakers. Zeerid took quick stock of the situation.

  He saw no one in the landing area and the only way out—a pair of double doors leading into a long corridor beyond—were open. Everyone must have evacuated.

  Both of the Imperial shuttles had their landing ramps down. The drop ship did not and the canopy of its cockpit was dimmed, as opaque as dirty water.

  “Tee-seven, I need you to crack open that Dragonfly. Right now.”

  The droid beeped agreement and wheeled toward the drop ship’s rear door. Zeerid looked to Aryn and gave it another try.

  “Reconsider, Aryn.” He stood directly before her, forcing her to see him, to hear him. “Come with me. Please.” He smiled, trying to make light. “We’ll start a farm on Dantooine, just like I said.”

  She smiled, seemingly amused by the thought, and he was pleased to see it. “I can’t, Zeerid. You’ll make a good farmer, though. I’m going to find the Twi’lek and—”

  She stopped in mid-sentence, her eyes fixed on something over Zeerid’s shoulder.

  He whirled around to see the Twi’lek descending the near shuttle’s landing ramp, a rucksack thrown over her shoulder. Two Imperial soldiers in plasteel breastplates flanked her to either side. Each had a blaster rifle slung over his shoulder. All three wore breathing masks. They had not left their ship when the alarm sounded, had instead just donned masks. Perhaps there was something on the shuttle they were unwilling to leave unguarded. Everyone froze, and for a moment no one moved.

  Then all at once everyone moved.

  The Twi’lek dropped her rucksack, her eyes wide behind the lens of her mask, and went for her blasters. The soldiers cursed in muffled tones, unslung their rifles, and tried to bring them to bear.

  Aryn ignited her lightsaber.

  Zeerid, one of his blasters still in hand, fired at the soldier on the right. Two shots screamed into the soldier’s chest. Armor ablated in a puff of smoke and the force of the impact knocked the man from the ramp, turned his mask sideways on his face. He hit the deck and lay there, scrabbling for cover. Zeerid fired again, and a hit to the man’s midsection made him go still.

  The Twi’lek got her blasters clear and fired two, four, six shots at Zeerid. Aryn slid before him and her blade deflected all of the shots, two of them back at the other soldier, which opened small holes in the soldier’s mask. He fell forward onto the ramp, dead.

  “Get out of here, Zeerid,” Aryn said over her shoulder. She started walking toward the shuttle, toward the Twi’lek.

  “Aryn,” Zeerid called, but she did not hear him. He imagined she heard only the voice of her dead Master now.

  Zeerid realized it was no longer his fight. He holstered his blaster and watched. There was nothing else he could do.

  Aryn strode toward the shuttle while the Twi’lek backed up the landing ramp, taking aim. Before the Twi’lek could fire, Aryn gestured with her left hand, and both of the blasters flew from the Twi’lek’s hands and landed at Aryn’s feet. The Twi’lek mouthed something lost in the muffle of her mask. Aryn stepped over and past the blasters.

  The Twi’lek, wide-eyed, turned to flee into the shuttle’s compartment. Again, Aryn gestured and a blast of power went forth from her, slammed into the Twi’lek’s back, and drove her hard into the bulkhead. She collapsed within the shuttle’s compartment, only her feet sticking out far enough for Zeerid to see.

  Aryn deactivated her blade. She stopped for a moment and lowered her head, thinking.

  Zeerid let himself hope, almost called her name again.

  But then she raised her head and walked for the landing ramp, stepping over the corpse of the soldier.

  Zeerid hung his head for a moment, saddened. It was her decision, her fight. He gathered himself, turned, and shouted at T7.

  “Get that Dragonfly open, Tee-seven. It’s time to go.”

  VRATH AWOKE TO THE SOUND of blasterfire, the high-pitched whine of sirens, and the voice on the port’s speaker system saying something about a fuel leak. He’d taken a sleeptab to put him out and it took a few moments for his head to clear. He’d fallen asleep in the cockpit. He checked his chrono. Almost dawn, or just after. He’d been out the better part of the night.

  Something thudded into Razor’s hull, a blaster shot.

  “What in the—”

  He undimmed the cockpit’s transparisteel canopy and looked out on the landing pad. Razor’s angle offered him a very small field of vision so he could see little, merely part of one of the Imperial shuttles docked near him. Strangely, he saw no workers, no Imperial soldiers, no droids.

  He heard a few more blaster shots from behind the ship. He had no idea what was going on and had no desire to find out. He did not yet have permission to leave Coruscant, but he would not leave his ship in dock in the midst of a firefight or whatever was happening out there. He figured he’d just take Razor into the air and stay in-atmosphere. He put the dull monotone of the spaceport’s automated announcement on his in-ship comm.

  “A hazardous substance spill has occurred in landing bay sixteen-B. There is significant danger. Please move rapidly toward the nearest exit. A hazardous substance spill …”

  On the wall near him, written in large black letters, were the words: LANDING BAY 16-B.

  He double-checked to ensure Razor was still sealed tight. It wasn’t. The rear door was open. He cursed. He swore he’d closed it. He hit the button to close it but it still flashed as unsealed and open. Something was keeping it open, or there was a malfunction in the circuit.

  He would have to close it with the rear switch or cargo would fall out as he flew. He started Razor’s auto-launch sequence, rose, and headed for the rear of the ship. Halfway there, he realized he’d left his blaster and blades in the cockpit. He’d stripped them off when he’d grabbed some shuteye.

  No matter. He wouldn’t need them.

  ARYN FELT LIGHT-HEADED as she walked up the shuttle’s landing ramp. She held her lightsaber hilt in her hand, held anger in her heart.

  She slowed when the Twi’lek stirred, groaned, and turned over to watch her approach.

  Aryn held up her free hand and almost said, I won’t hurt you, but walled off the words before they escaped her mouth.

  She did not want to lie.

  The woman scrabbled backward crabwise, eyes showing no fear, taking Aryn in, until she bumped into the bulkhead. She slid up the wall so that she was standing. Aryn stopped two paces from her. They regarded each other across the limitless gulf of their respective understandings.

  Outside, the sirens howled. Aryn could no longer see Zeerid. More important, he could no longer see her.

  The Twi’lek’s eyes fell to Aryn’s lightsaber hilt. Aryn felt no fear radiating from the woman, just a soft, profound sadness.

  “You have come to kill me.”

  Aryn did not deny it. Her mouth was dry. She belted her own lightsaber, took Master Zallow’s in hand.

  “I see your anger,” the Twi’lek said.

  Aryn thought of Master Zallow and hardened her resolve. “You don’t know me, woman. Do not pretend that you do.”

  She ignited Master Zallow’s lightsaber. The Twi’lek’s eyes widened and a flash of fear cracked her calm façade.

  “I don’t,” the Twi’lek acknowledged. “But I know anger when I see it. I know it quite well.”

  A sad smile illum
inated her face, overcoming the fear in her expression. She was thinking of something or someone other than Aryn and the sadness she radiated increased, sharpened.

  “Anger is just pain renamed,” she said. “This I know well, too. And sometimes … the pain runs too deep. Pain drives you, yes?”

  Aryn had expected resistance, a fight, a protest, something. Instead, the Twi’lek seemed … resigned.

  “You will kill me, Jedi? Because of Darth Malgus? Something he did?”

  Hearing Malgus’s name uttered stoked the heat of Aryn’s anger. “He hurt someone I loved.”

  The Twi’lek nodded, gave a single, short outburst that might have been a pained laugh. “He hurts even those he himself loves.” She smiled, and her soft voice sounded like rainfall. “These men and their wars. His name is Veradun, Jedi. And he would kill me if he knew I told you. But names are important.”

  Aryn had to work to keep hold of her anger. The Twi’lek seemed so … fragile, so hurt. “I don’t care what his name is. You were there with him. In the attack on the Temple. I saw it.”

  “The Temple. Ah.” She nodded. “Yes, I was with him. I love him. I fight at his side. You would do the same.”

  Aryn could not deny it. She would have done the same; she had done the same.

  The anger she’d carried since feeling Master Zallow’s death began to shrink, to drain out of her in the face of the Twi’lek’s pain and sadness, in the realization that her own pain was not the moral center of the universe. The loss of her anger startled her. Since his death, she had been nothing but anger. Without it, she felt empty.

  Pain by another name, the Twi’lek had said. Indeed.

  “Please be quick,” the Twi’lek said. “A clean death, yes?”

  The words sounded not so much like a challenge as a request.

  “What is your name?” Aryn asked.

  “Eleena,” the Twi’lek said.

  Aryn stepped toward her. Eleena’s eyes went to Aryn’s blade but she did not shrink from Aryn’s approach. She stared into Aryn’s eyes and Aryn into hers, each measuring the other’s pain, the other’s loss.

  “Names are important,” Aryn said. She flipped her grip on her dead Master’s lightsaber, deactivated the blade, and slammed the pommel against Eleena’s temple. The Twi’lek collapsed without a sound.