As she came down the boarding ramp the two men were waiting patiently. She took it as a good sign that neither one had bothered to ready his weapon, yet.
“Miss, is there anyone else on your shuttle?” the one with the pistol asked.
Teff’ith shook her head. She could see the guards exchange a knowing glance, and she saw their muscles tense up slightly.
“Is this your shuttle, miss?” the second wanted to know.
“Not ours. Belongs to Jedi. Gnost-Dural.”
“And where is Master Gnost-Dural, miss?”
Had the guards tried to bully or intimidate her she would have had no trouble dealing with them. But she found this unrelenting politeness, with its thinly veiled undercurrent of suspicion, strangely alarming.
“Gnost-Dural not here. Gave shuttle to us. We have urgent message for Grand Master Satele Shan.”
“Who’s ‘we,’ miss?” the one with the pistol asked. “I thought you said you were alone.”
Teff’ith rolled her eyes. “We is me. Nobody else. Just me.” She put an unduly heavy emphasis on the final pronoun.
“Do you have any identification, miss?”
“We—I—got no time for stupid questions,” she snapped, her composure finally slipping. “Got to see Grand Master Shan right now.”
The guards looked at each other, then back at her.
“If you have a message for her you can give it to us. We’ll make sure she gets it.”
Teff’ith shook her head. “Gotta be in person. Now!”
The guards must have exchanged some kind of unspoken signal, because suddenly they both had their weapons trained on her.
“Miss, please remove your blaster and set it on the ground. Slowly.”
Teff’ith did as instructed.
“Miss, you need to come with us.”
“We go with you,” Teff’ith said, trying to sound calm instead of like some raving lunatic. “But you send message to Grand Master Shan. Tell her Theron sent us.”
While the guard with the blaster rifle kept his weapon pointed at her, the other holstered his pistol and came over to collect her weapon from the ground. Then he gave her a quick pat-down, careful to avoid the wound on her shoulder. To her surprise, he didn’t slap a pair of stun cuffs on her, only took her by the elbow and led her inside the small structure in the middle of the spaceport, his partner following behind with his weapon still at the ready. It was clear they didn’t trust her, but since she’d arrived in a Jedi Master’s shuttle they were hesitant to treat her like a common criminal.
As Teff’ith suspected, there was a turbolift at the rear of the structure, along with two chairs and a holo-terminal. The only door was the one they had just entered, though there were two small windows on each of the side walls.
“Sit down, miss,” the guard at her elbow said.
Still hoping she could reason with them, she did as instructed.
“Send a message to Grand Master Shan,” she reminded him. “You promised us.”
“Just try to remain calm, miss. We’ll get this sorted out.”
“Nothing to sort,” she said, rising up from her chair. “Call Shan!”
The guard with the blaster rifle took a step back, weapon raised, as the other came forward and grabbed her elbow again.
“We’ll put a request in through the proper channels,” he said, hoping to calm her while trying to guide her back into the chair. “Just sit down and relax. Someone is on the way.”
Teff’ith let her shoulders slump and bowed her head as she started to lower herself into her seat. Thinking she was resigned to her fate, the guard at her elbow relaxed his grip.
Instead of sitting down, Teff’ith spun free, yanking the pistol from his holster with one hand as she slid around behind him, using his body to shield her from the guard with the blaster rifle. At the same time she grabbed his wrist with her other hand, twisting his arm up and behind his back while jamming the pistol against the side of his neck.
It happened in the blink of an eye; the other guard didn’t even have time to cry out in surprise before Teff’ith had his partner at her mercy.
“Let him go!” he said, raising his blaster rifle.
Teff’ith twisted her human shield’s arm up even farther behind him. He grunted in pain as she peered at the other man from over his shoulder.
“You go outside. Close the door. Come back in, friend dies!”
The guard hesitated, and Teff’ith pressed her pistol even harder into her captive’s neck.
“Listen to her!” he pleaded. “Do what she says!”
Keeping his weapon high, the other guard slowly backed up until he was outside the small building. He waited a moment, then ducked to the side and out of Teff’ith’s line of fire. She braced, fearing he would pop back around the corner to take a shot at her. But instead the door slid shut as he hit the access panel on the outer wall.
Teff’ith shoved her captive in the back, sending him stumbling away from her. She raised the blaster and fired, frying the panel by the turbolift and causing the man to let out a sharp yelp as he dropped to the floor.
Backing away to the far corner of the room, Teff’ith said, “Get up. Use holo. Call Grand Master Shan.”
“I … I don’t know how to reach her,” he said. “I don’t have that kind of authority.”
“Call your boss. Call boss’s boss. Get Shan on the holo or you die.”
“Okay,” he said, getting to his feet. “Okay, I’ll try.”
Teff’ith had no idea if her plan would work. She knew in the Empire they’d rather let a hostage die than disturb a Sith Lord with this kind of request. She hoped things were different in the Republic.
In the five minutes it took the guard to run his request up a chain of superiors, explaining his situation each time, three speeders came in to land on the roof outside, each carrying four more armed security personnel.
Teff’ith kept one eye on the guard at the holo while the other darted back and forth to the windows at the gathering array of firepower, wondering how long she had until they tried to storm the building.
Just as she was about to give up hope of ending this without bloodshed, the man at the holo said, “I got her! She’s here!”
Teff’ith glanced over to see a woman’s face on the holo. She had no idea what Grand Master Shan looked like, though she thought she could see a faint resemblance in the face to Theron.
“In the corner,” she said, motioning with the gun. “Face down. You move, I shoot.”
“There’s no need for violence,” the woman on the holo said as the guard complied with her instructions. “Let’s try to stay calm.”
“Tried that,” Teff’ith told her, keeping the weapon trained on the guard in the corner. “Nobody listened. Violence only way to get results.”
“I’m here now,” the woman said, obviously trying to soothe her. “I’m listening.”
“You Grand Master Satele Shan?”
“I am.”
“Message from Theron. Needs your help. Sent me to tell you.”
From the expression on the woman’s face, Teff’ith knew Satele was who she claimed to be. She also knew Satele had no doubt that she was telling the truth.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Not here,” Teff’ith said, shaking her head. “Too many ears. Somewhere private.”
“Do you want to come to me?” Satele asked. “Or should I come to you?”
Teff’ith glanced out the window to see more than twenty armed guards waiting on the roof outside.
“You come here. We not going anywhere.”
Thirty seconds after ending her holo call with Satele, Teff’ith saw the guards outside pulling back and lowering their weapons, though none of them left. Five minutes later another airspeeder touched down, this one carrying a single figure in a brown robe.
Ignoring the armed guards, she jumped from her speeder and walked quickly toward where Teff’ith was holed up. As she drew closer, the Twi’lek recognized h
er as the woman from the holo call. She paused at the door.
“It’s Grand Master Satele Shan,” she said.
“Get up,” Teff’ith said to the man still lying on the ground. “Open the door.”
He did as instructed. Satele glanced from the guard, to Teff’ith, then back to the guard before stepping inside.
“Go,” she said to the guard. “And take the rest of your CSF friends with you. This is Jedi business.”
The man looked back at Teff’ith, then bolted for freedom when she nodded.
Satele closed the door behind him, sealing the two of them alone in the room.
“You don’t need that pistol anymore,” she said.
Teff’ith glanced down at her hand, surprised to realize she was still holding the blaster. She quickly set it on the chair beside her.
“You said Theron sent you,” the Jedi said. “He needs my help.”
“Gnost-Dural, too. Tried to tell guards. Wouldn’t listen.”
“Tell me everything,” Satele said. “Starting with your name.”
CHAPTER 28
THERON POPPED THE SALT TABLETS and downed the last of the water from his second ration kit, hoping it would be enough to keep his body hydrated and his muscles from cramping for a few more hours in the sweltering engine room.
He was nearly finished mapping the Ascendant Spear’s control systems; he only had a handful of relays left to go. And as he had become more and more familiar with the systems, he’d started writing preprogrammed subroutines to disrupt the ship’s operations: one to disable the hyperdrive; another to take down the shields; a third to throw off the targeting systems of the laser cannons. He saved each subroutine as he created it in his cybernetic implant, storing them electronically for later reference, much the way he might memorize a list of names or numbers using his organic memory. Later, he’d be able to call them up and deploy them in rapid succession against Karrid and her ship, giving the Republic fleet a fighting chance when they faced off against the Spear over Duro.
There was just one problem with his plan: so far he had heard nothing about the Spear making preparations to go to Duro. Master Gnost-Dural had assured Theron he’d convince Karrid to go there, but Theron had no way to know if his friend was alive or dead. He’d been listening to the commands issued to and from the vessel’s bridge ever since he’d sliced into the comm channels, but so far he hadn’t heard a word about the Jedi, and the only orders Karrid had given the Spear were to stay out in deep space until they knew more about the feigned attack on Reaver Station.
His slicer spike pinged, notifying him that it had finished mapping the current relay. Theron disconnected it and scanned the data, the information transmitted wirelessly from the spike to the implant in his left eye, superimposing the image over his normal vision.
He recognized a familiar pattern from a previous relay—one that indicated a holding cell, complete with security cams providing live images. The previous cell Theron had stumbled across had been empty. He’d tapped into the cams hoping to see Gnost-Dural, only to be faced with an empty room. He hadn’t thought to look for another holding cell, however. Reattaching the slicer spike to the relay, he established a connection with the security cams, projecting the image onto his visual overlay. This time he found what he was looking for.
Gnost-Dural was alive, strapped to some kind of table. His robe and most of his clothes had been stripped away; even on the low-quality image there was no mistaking the Kel Dor’s exposed body.
Theron carefully used his link with the cam to have it pan slowly around the room. The Jedi was not alone. In addition to a pair of Imperial soldiers, there was also a female Sith pureblood in the room watching over him. From her black robes and facial tattoos it wasn’t hard to assume she was a follower of the dark side. She was probably Darth Karrid’s apprentice, tasked with making sure the prisoner didn’t escape.
Moving the cam back to its original position, Theron cut the feed. He had no idea if the Sith would be able to sense him spying on them through the Force, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, he’d seen all he needed to see.
His mind quickly ran through his options. He could try to help the Jedi escape, but was that what Gnost-Dural wanted? He’d told Theron he was going to convince Darth Karrid to go to Duro; was getting captured part of the plan? Did he know his former Padawan well enough to think he could manipulate her into going to Duro by allowing her to interrogate him? It was a tactic SIS had used in the past, though the success rate wasn’t high. Sometimes the target saw through the ruse and refused to take the bait. Other times they simply killed their prisoner before the false information could be fed to them.
There was no way to know if getting caught was actually a calculated gamble by his partner or if something had simply gone terribly wrong with his original plan. But if something had gone wrong, Theron realized there wasn’t much he could do to help. He might be able to overpower the guards or the Sith individually, but he doubted he could handle all of them together. And even if he did, breaking Gnost-Dural from his prison would only alert Karrid that her old Master wasn’t the only one who had infiltrated the Spear. The entire ship would go into lockdown until they were both found.
Most important of all, rescuing Gnost-Dural did nothing to address the problem of getting the Spear to Duro in the next twelve hours. If getting captured was part of his plan, rescuing him would ruin everything. If it wasn’t, they were doomed anyway. Hard as it was, Theron had to leave Gnost-Dural in enemy hands, trusting that his partner knew what he was doing.
Trying not to think about what the Imperials would do to the Kel Dor, he returned to his work, attaching the slicer spike to the next relay. But it was impossible to push the Jedi completely from his mind. If Gnost-Dural was going to do something to deliver Karrid and the Spear into the hands of the Republic, he had to do it soon. Time was running out.
This time Gnost-Dural’s torment was cold. Not the cold of bitter wind or a frozen world, but the black chill of the grave. He could feel his flesh rot and decay, his skin growing taut, his bones becoming hollow and brittle before crumbling into dust.
When the suffering abruptly and mercifully ended, Gnost-Dural’s mind teetered on the brink of madness, shattered by hours upon hours of unspeakable torments. Even as he sought refuge in an ocean of dementia and delusion, some small part of him fought to cling to the last threads of his sanity.
Had the Sith ordered another immediate bout of torture, he would have succumbed, sinking into the depths of lunacy. Instead, she commanded the interrogators to halt, perhaps sensing how close he was to being lost forever and knowing the punishments Darth Karrid would inflict if she failed to uncover his secrets.
“Are you ready to talk now, Jedi?” she asked.
Still struggling to sort reality from the crazed pain hallucinations creeping around the edges of his mind, Gnost-Dural could only whisper, “No more. No more.”
“You can end this,” the Sith told him. “Tell Darth Karrid what she wants to know and your suffering will be over.”
“I will talk,” he promised. “No more … I will talk … no more … I will talk … no more …”
Turning away from the babbling Kel Dor, the apprentice said, “Inform Darth Karrid that the prisoner is ready for her.”
By the time Darth Karrid arrived a few minutes later, Gnost-Dural had regained much of his composure, though he was careful to keep playing the part of a broken victim. Given his current state, it was an easy role to slip into.
“No more … I will talk,” he mumbled as he heard Karrid’s familiar footsteps approach. “I will talk.”
“I told you I would break you,” the Falleen whispered in his ear. “Now that you have tasted the power of the dark side, you can understand why I left the Jedi to follow Malgus.”
“I will talk,” the Jedi answered. “No more … I will talk.”
“Why did you come aboard my vessel?” Karrid asked. “Why face me and my apprentices? Why
enter a battle you knew you couldn’t win?”
“A distraction,” Gnost-Dural breathed. “Keep you away.”
“Away? Away from what?”
“Duro. The attack on Duro.”
“How do you know about that?”
Though blind without his protective goggles, he knew Karrid was watching him closely. Studying him; analyzing his words to see if he was lying. The best way to keep her from recognizing his deception was to blend fact and fiction; seed his lies with bits of truth.
“The black cipher. We cracked the codes.”
He could sense Karrid suddenly stand up straight, shocked by the news.
“That’s how we found you,” Gnost-Dural continued. “We intercepted a message that you were going to Reaver Station.”
“How long have you had the cipher?” she demanded, crouching down beside him again.
“Since Ziost.”
He didn’t need to say any more for her to know what he was talking about. And the less he said, the harder it would be for her to get a read on him.
“You came to the station, you attacked me on my ship, you staged a false Republic invasion fleet … all to make sure we didn’t go to Duro?”
“We were afraid of you,” Gnost-Dural said, feeding her ego. “The Republic is setting an ambush at Duro. But we can’t spare enough ships to bring down the Spear. You would turn the battle against us.”
“My ship was never part of the fleet heading to Duro,” Karrid said, and he heard the suspicion in her voice.
“You are on the Dark Council. You choose your own path,” Gnost-Dural explained, remembering how headstrong she had been as his Padawan as he played even further to her pride. “We feared you would defy the will of the Minister of War and come to Duro to claim your share of the glory.”
“Then why are you telling me this now?” Karrid asks. “Are you hoping I will show you mercy?”
Gnost-Dural tried to laugh, but all that came out was a hollow, haunted rasping of breath.
“My plan worked,” he said, offering the final piece of bait. “It’s too late. We’re too far away. You’ll never get to Duro in time for the battle.”
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