“Do I want to know?”
He dreaded the answer.
“I didn’t kill her, Zeerid. It was important to me that you knew that.”
Zeerid let himself breathe. “I’m glad, Aryn. Then you’ll come with me, now?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Tee-seven has the Dragonfly opened.”
“I can’t, Zeerid, but I’m … all right now. Do you understand?”
“I don’t, no.”
Aryn opened her mouth to speak, stopped, and cocked her head, as if she’d heard something from far off.
“He’s coming,” she said.
The hairs on the back of Zeerid’s neck rose. “Who’s coming? Malgus?”
Aryn knelt and laid the Twi’lek down as gently as she might a newborn child.
The sirens suddenly stopped wailing, the sound cut off as if by a razor. The unexpected silence felt ominous. Zeerid eyed the open double doors of the landing pad. A dark corridor stretched beyond them.
Aryn rose, closed her eyes, inhaled.
“Go, Zeerid,” she said.
“I’m not leaving,” Zeerid said, and drew his other blaster. He ran his tongue over lips gone dry.
She opened her eyes and grabbed him with her gaze. “You are leaving and you’re leaving now, Z-man. Think of your daughter. Go right now. Go … be a farmer.”
She smiled and pushed him away. He stared into her face, knowing she was right.
He could not make Arra an orphan, not even for Aryn. Still, he was unwilling to leave her. He stepped closer to her, and her expression softened. She reached up and touched his face.
“Go.”
Driven by nothing more than impulse, he grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her full on the mouth. She did not resist, even returned it. He held her away from him at arm’s length.
“You are a fool, Aryn Leneer,” he said.
“Maybe.”
He turned and headed for the Dragonfly. The feel of her lips lingered on his, a ghost of softness he hoped would haunt him forever. He only wished he had kissed her longer.
He imagined her eyes on him and he dared not look back for fear of losing his will to leave. He thought of the holo of Arra he used to keep on Fatman, her smile, her laugh, thought of his promise to Nat that he would not take unnecessary chances.
Hard as it was, he kept his back turned to Aryn Leneer.
“Get aboard, Tee-seven,” he said as he walked up the landing ramp.
T7 beeped a sad negative.
“You’re not coming?”
Again, a sad negative.
Zeerid patted the droid on his head. “You are a brave one. Thank you for your help. Take care of Aryn.”
T7 whistled an affirmative, followed that with a somber farewell, and wheeled away from the Dragonfly.
The ship’s engines were already winding up. T7 must have started the launch sequence.
Vrath picked his way through Razor’s narrow corridors until he reached the rear compartment, which he’d converted from troop carrier to cargo hold. Stacked crates magnetically sealed to the deck dotted the hold, forming a rats’ maze. He hurried through it to the rear door. The firefight outside seemed to have abated, so he allowed himself to relax.
Zeerid watched T7 move away. He hit the control panel to close the rear door, and it began to rise. He waited until the latches sealed. Still thinking of Aryn, he put his hand on the cold metal of the door.
The Dragonfly lurched as it rose on its thrusters. He needed to get to the cockpit. He could not have the autopilot flying the ship when the Imperials started shooting.
He hurried through the converted cargo bay, made into a labyrinth by the many storage crates that dotted it. Rounding a corner, he nearly bumped into another man.
It took a moment for recognition to dawn—the small frame, the neatly parted dark hair, the deep sockets with their dead eyes, the thin mouth.
It was the man from Karson’s Park.
It was the man who had betrayed Zeerid and Aryn to the Sith.
It was the man who knew about Arra and Nat.
“You!” Vrath Xizor said.
“Me,” Zeerid affirmed.
Aryn watched the Dragonfly lift off, missing Zeerid already. She tried to summon the rage that had brought her to Coruscant to face Malgus, but she no longer felt the same heat. She reached into her pocket, found the bead from the Nautolan bracelet, held it between forefinger and thumb.
She would face Malgus. She had to. But she would face him as her Master would have wished, with calmness in her heart.
She stood over Eleena’s body and waited. Malgus’s presence pressed against her as he drew nearer. His anger went before him like a storm.
Malgus rushed through the large double doors and into the landing bay. Vrath Xizor’s ship, Razor, rose on its thrusters toward the open roof doors. Two Imperial shuttles sat idle on the landing pad.
“Eleena!” he shouted, hating himself for his vulnerability but unable to contain the shout.
He reached out with the Force as Razor continued its rise, tried to take it in his mental grasp. Its ascent slowed. He held forth both of his arms, made claws of his hands, and shouted with frustration as he sought to hold back the power of the ship’s thrusters.
He felt a tightness in his mind, the string of his power being drawn taut, stretching, stretching. He would not release the ship. Its thrusters began to whine. He held it, teeth gritted, sweat soaking his body, his breath a dry rattle through his respirator.
And then the string snapped and the ship flew free, lifting clear of the roof doors.
He roared his rage as the ship’s engines fired and it headed for the heavens. Seething, he activated his wrist chrono.
“Jard, the spicerunner’s drop ship has just left the Liston Spaceport. Eleena may be aboard. Secure it with a tractor beam and detain everyone aboard—”
The hum of an activating lightsaber cut off his words. Another followed it. He looked across the landing pad and saw Aryn Leneer, a lightsaber in each hand, standing over the body of Eleena.
The pure hate and raw rage pouring off Malgus struck Aryn like a physical blow. She braced herself against it as she might a hailstorm. She realized how strongly he felt for the Twi’lek, how he sublimated all of his emotion for her into hate and rage.
He ignited his lightsaber and his eyes and the plates of his armor reflected its red glow. He reached a hand behind him, made a sharp, cutting gesture, and the doors to the hangar slammed closed. Another gesture and the emergency locks turned into place.
“Just us,” he said, his voice as rough as a rasp. He had not taken his eyes from Eleena.
Aryn indicated the Twi’lek. “She is alive, Sith. And I know your feelings for her.”
“You know nothing,” Malgus said, and took a slow step toward her.
“Let the drop ship go. Give the order, or I will kill her.”
“You lie.”
Aryn placed Master Zallow’s blade at Eleena’s neck.
Raw emotion surged out of Malgus, a gust of rage.
“I promise you I will do it,” Aryn said.
Malgus’s free hand clenched into a fist. “If you have harmed her permanently, I will see that you suffer. I promise you that.”
Aryn understood less and less about Malgus with each word he spoke. Still, she maintained her bluff. “Give the order, Malgus!”
Malgus glared at her, snarled, spoke into his comlink. “Jard, belay my previous order. The drop ship is to be allowed to leave the system.”
“My lord?”
“Do it, Jard!”
“Yes, my lord.”
Malgus walked toward Aryn, the slow movements of a hunter that smelled prey.
“And now, Jedi? You cannot leave here.”
“I don’t want to leave, Malgus.”
His eyes smiled. “No. You want to kill me. Need to, yes? Because of your master?”
The feelings the words mined out of the dark parts of her soul felt uncomfortably close to the r
age flowing from Malgus. A day earlier and her feelings might have mirrored his. That they didn’t she owed to Eleena.
And Zeerid.
And Master Zallow.
“I wanted to hurt you, Sith. Hurt you by hurting her. But I won’t add to her pain. She suffers enough already.”
Malgus stopped in his advance. His eyes went to the Twi’lek, and to her surprise, Aryn felt something akin to pity radiate from him, just a flash, quickly washed away by hate.
“Enough words,” he said, returning his gaze to Aryn. “Make your attempt, Aryn Leneer. I am here.”
He discarded his cape, stood up straight, and saluted her with his lightsaber.
She hefted her lightsaber, Master Zallow’s lightsaber, felt the weight of both in her hands. She fell into the lines of the Force, at peace, calm.
Still heart. Still mind.
She had trained in dual lightsaber combat when she had been a Padawan, but she rarely fought with two blades in a genuine combat situation. She would now, here, today. She thought it fitting that she do so.
She did not wait for Malgus. She bounded across the hangar, her speed augmented by the Force, the lines of her blades leaving a blur of light in their wake. Malgus held his ground, blade ready.
She stabbed low with her primary blade, high with her secondary. Malgus leapt over both, flipped, landed behind her, and crosscut for her neck.
She ducked under it while spinning into a reverse leg sweep that caught his feet and tripped him. When he hit the ground, she rose, turned, raised both blades, and drove them down in a parallel overhand slash. Malgus somersaulted backward, and Aryn’s blades cut gashes in the floor of the hangar. Sparks flew.
Malgus bounced up from the somersault and loosed a telekinetic blast that lifted Aryn from her feet and blew her across the hangar. She slammed into one of the shuttle’s bulkheads, but used the Force to cushion the blow so that it did no harm. Bouncing off the cool metal, she charged Malgus. As she ran, she cast first her own lightsaber at Malgus, then Master Zallow’s, using the Force to guide both.
The attack caught Malgus unprepared, and Aryn’s blade bit into his armor. Sparks flew and Malgus winced, snarled with pain. He ducked under Master Zallow’s blade, and Aryn recalled both to her hands as she ran. The moment she had them, she cast them both at Malgus again.
But this time he was ready. Augmenting his speed with the Force, he flipped high into the air and out of the way of both. She anticipated his movement, however, bounded forward to cut him off and landed a flying kick in his chest. He used the Force to diminish the blow’s impact but it drove him back a step and she heard his breath hitch through the sound of his respirator.
He recovered, roared, raised his blade high to cut her in two, and brought it down. But she had already summoned her own blade back to her hand and interposed it in a parry.
Malgus’s strength drove her to her knees. She held out her other hand and pulled Master Zallow’s blade to her hand, stabbed for his stomach with it.
Malgus sidestepped the stab, though it skinned his armor and showered sparks. He pushed her blade to the side with his own and kicked her in the face. The strength behind the blow blew through her defenses, caused her to see stars, loosed teeth, and sent her head over heels backward. She landed on her knees, stunned, seeing double.
She rose, swayed on her feet, seeing four blades in her hands rather than two. Something was in her mouth and she spat it out—a tooth, the root forked and bloody.
“You are a child to hate,” Malgus said, his tone incongruously soft as he stalked toward her. “Your anger barely smolders. You are a fraction of what you could be.”
She needed time to recover her senses, some distance from Malgus. She backflipped high into the air and landed atop the Imperial shuttle. Her mind was beginning to clear.
“Your Master was also misguided. He thought to defeat me with calm, but failed. You thought to defeat me with anger, but carry too little, despite your loss.”
Aryn’s vision began to clear. She felt more herself.
“Be grateful for that, Jedi. Anger exacts its own price.”
Again she felt the odd sense of sympathy or pity adulterating the otherwise pure hate flowing from Malgus. His eyes went to Eleena, her body crumpled on the landing pad’s floor.
As Aryn prepared to leap at Malgus, he held forth a hand, almost casually, and lightning sizzled through the space between them. Aryn interposed her lightsabers, but the power in the lightning exceeded anything she had felt from Malgus before. It blasted through her defenses and both lightsabers flew from her hands. The lightning seized her, lifted her up, and threw her from the top of the shuttle.
As she flew toward the deck, she smelled burning flesh, heard screaming, realized that it was her flesh, her screams. She hit the ground hard and her head bounced off the ground. Sparks erupted in her brain, pain, and everything went dark.
Zeerid’s military training responded faster than his thoughts. He made a knife of his right hand and drove it at the smaller man’s throat. But Vrath, too, must have been trained. A sweeping side block with his left hand threw Zeerid’s arm out wide, then Vrath seized the arm by the wrist, shifted his feet to get him closer to Zeerid, and rotated into a hip toss. Zeerid saw it coming, rode with the throw, hit the ground in a roll, and came up with his E-9 drawn and aimed.
A kick from Vrath sent the blaster flying and it discharged into the bulkhead. Vrath followed the side kick into a spinning back kick but Zeerid anticipated it, took the blow to the side to capture the leg, stood, and drove his fist into the man’s nose.
Bone crunched and blood exploded outward.
Vrath flailed wildly with his left hand, driving his straightened fingers into Zeerid’s throat, a blow that would have killed him if the man had been able to put more into it. As it was, the blow caused Zeerid to release Vrath’s leg and recoil.
Zeerid reached behind his back for his second blaster and started to pull it loose. But Vrath charged him before Zeerid could bring it to bear, drove Zeerid up against one of the cargo crates. The sharp point of the crate’s corner pressed into Zeerid’s back, and he grunted at the pain. Vrath’s hand snaked around Zeerid’s, caught him by the wrist, levered it, and slammed it against the crate. The second blaster fell to the floor and the man kicked it away.
Zeerid grunted with effort and shoved Vrath away from him.
They regarded each other from three paces, both gasping. Vrath’s eyes watered. Blood poured out of his nose. Zeerid had trouble breathing through his damaged trachea.
“Guess it had to come to this,” the man said, his voice made nasal by his broken nose. “Didn’t it, Zeerid Korr?”
He covered first one nostril, then the other, blowing out blood and snot in turn.
“I’m Vrath, by the way. Vrath Xizor.”
Zeerid barely heard him. He took the time Vrath had used to clear his nose to recover his own breath and eye the floor for either blaster. Both weapons had disappeared under crates during the scrum.
Vrath felt the damage to his nose with a two-finger pincer. “What are you? Harriers? Commandos?”
Zeerid’s breathing cleared and the two men began to circle.
“Havoc Squadron,” Zeerid said, sizing up the smaller man.
“First in,” Vrath said, reciting one of the squad’s mottos.
“You?” Zeerid asked.
“Imperial sniper corps.”
“A skulker,” Zeerid said.
Vrath lost his smile at the insult. “I killed over fifty men in a Republic uniform, Korr. You’ll be just another number to me.”
“We’ll see,” Zeerid said, as calm as the quiet moments before a thunderstorm.
Vrath feinted, drawing a response from Zeerid. Vrath grinned, his teeth bloody with runoff from his nose.
“Jumpy, yeah?”
Zeerid watched for an opening as they circled. When he saw one, he feinted high and lunged in low, thinking to take Vrath down where Zeerid’s size would give him
the advantage. Vrath sprawled to avoid the takedown, but Zeerid used his weight to drive him up against the bulkhead. Vrath threw a short elbow, grazing Zeerid’s head, another, catching him on the cheek.
Grunting, Zeerid pushed himself away from the smaller man to get some room to work. When he had it, still holding Vrath’s arms, he put a knee into his abdomen, another, another. Vrath grunted, turned his body to keep his hips in the way.
Vrath’s fingers slid up Zeerid’s shoulder to his face, toward his eyes. Zeerid shook his head but Vrath’s fingers found the sockets, started to burrow.
Zeerid shoved him away and backed off, blinking, covering his retreat with a front kick.
Vrath lunged at him, seized him around the thighs, lifted him off the ground, and threw him back down. Zeerid’s head hit the deck hard and he saw stars. Vrath squirmed atop him, fast, elusive, his arms and legs everywhere, wrapping Zeerid up. Soon he had his body atop Zeerid. Elbows and fists poured down, one after another. Zeerid took a blow to the cheek, the temple, another to the cheek, the top of his head. The last opened him up and blood ran warm and slick down his pate, smeared his face, darkened Vrath’s elbow.
Desperate, he reached for Vrath’s arms but the man was too fast and the blood made his skin slick, more difficult to get a grip. Zeerid wrapped his arms around Vrath’s back, pulled him close to disallow him the room he needed to ply his elbows.
And then Vrath made a mistake. Trying to pull himself back up to loose more elbows, he put his face above Zeerid’s with only a few centimeters between them. Zeerid threw his head up and slammed his brow into Vrath’s already broken nose.
Vrath cried out in pain, instinctively recoiled. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Zeerid seized one of Vrath’s wrists, rolled him over, threw his legs on either side of Vrath’s shoulder, extended Vrath’s arm, then extended his own body to lever the arm at the elbow.
Vrath screamed as the hyperextension turned into an audible break. The arm went loose in Zeerid’s grasp, the joint shattered.
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