Annihilation

by Drew Karpyshyn

  “Why are you shooting at me?” said Mander calmly, as if being shot at in a warehouse were a common occurrence for him.

  “I’m here for justice,” she said, and the barrel came up. Despite himself, Mander brought up his lightsaber in defense, but she did not fire.

  “Justice is good,” said Mander, trying to keep his voice casual. “I’m seeking justice as well. Perhaps you’d like to help me find some.” He paused and added, “You know, I once trained a Pantoran in the ways of the Force.”

  This time she did shoot, and Mander almost toppled back onto the pile of trash bringing his blade up. Almost too late, and as it was he deflected the bolt upward instead of back. There was the distant crash of a shattered skylight.

  “You’re the one responsible for Toro’s death, then,” said the Pantoran, her words as sharp as a vibroblade’s edge.

  “Relative?” asked Mander, willing himself to be ready for another shot. It did not come.

  “Sister.”

  Mander forced himself to relax, or at least give the impression of relaxing. He deactivated his lightsaber, even though he wasn’t sure he could reignite it fast enough should she choose to fire. “You’re Reen Irana, then,” he said. “Toro spoke to me of you.”

  The blaster jerked toward him for a moment, but the Pantoran did not fire. Mander added quickly, “I was not here when Toro died. I was back at the academy on Yavin Four. I came here when we heard the news. To find out what happened. And to finish Toro’s assignment.”

  The blaster wavered, just a bit, but at last she pointed it away from the Jedi. Even in the moonlight, he could see a wetness glistening at the corner of her eyes. “It’s your fault,” she managed at last, her voice throaty with grief. Mander waited, giving her time to gather her thoughts. When she spoke again, the iron had returned to her words. “Toro was a dreamer, and you took him to become a Jedi and now he’s dead. You’re responsible.”

  Mander held his palms out and said simply, “Yes.”

  Reen was startled at the admission. She had apparently expected the Jedi to say many things, but not this.

  Mander looked hard at the young Pantoran—he could see the resemblance to Toro in her face. He continued, “Yes I am responsible. Every man’s journey is his own, but I did train your brother, and he was here on Makem Te on Jedi business. So yes, we … I … put him in harm’s way. And … I failed to prepare him for what he faced here. That is why I am here. I want to find out who poisoned your brother, to see justice brought against them.”

  For the first time, the Pantoran seemed confused. “Poison?” she managed.

  “I believe so,” said Mander. “I found something strange in his blood. And now there is this.” He held up the clear envelope with the crystals. “I found it here in the warehouse.”

  The Pantoran kept her blaster aimed at the Jedi, but reached out with the other hand. Mander held the envelope out to her, and she took it, taking a few steps back immediately in case this was a trick.

  Reen stared at the purplish crystals, then shook her head. She holstered her blaster, and Mander returned his now-inert lightsaber to his belt.

  “I think it is the poison that was used,” said Mander. “A Rodian administered it with some wine he brought to your brother in the restaurant. That was why Toro was unable to defend himself at his full abilities. Why he made such a mistake in combat and plunged out the window.”

  Another noise in the darkness around them. Mander’s head came up. It was not from outside the warehouse this time. Inside. Someone familiar with the area, who knew where to step. “Hold on,” he said. “Others are here.”

  Reen began to say, “Don’t worry. That’s just—” But her words were cut off as Mander grabbed her and pulled her down. Blaster bolts erupted from three sides, firing into the pile of abandoned crates.

  Reen had her own blaster out in a flash, and for a wild moment Mander was afraid she was going to use it on him. But instead she returned fire against the assault, using the discarded shipping containers as cover.

  Mander rose to a crouch, his lightsaber ignited and at the ready. The shots were heavy but not well placed, and he managed to bounce a few of them back. There was a shout of pain, and a string of curses in Swoken. Mander thought he must have gotten one of them.

  “I’d say a dozen,” shouted Reen. “Some of them up on the racks. Swokes Swokes. Some Rodians, too.”

  “Must be the Rodians that use the warehouse,” responded Mander.

  “I know the clan,” said Reen, bringing down a pair. “Bomu family. I recognize the facial tattoos. We’re pinned down!”

  “Hang on,” said Mander, “I’m going to level the playing field.”

  Reen may have said something but Mander didn’t pay attention. Instead he leapt forward, somersaulting toward one of the racks the Rodians were using as a perch. Blaster bolts fell around him, but he didn’t use his blade to block. Rather, he pulled it effortlessly through the rack’s iron supports, slicing the metal easily. The entire set of racks shuddered, and then began to collapse in on itself, the shriek of the metal matched by the surprised shouts of the ambushers.

  Reen was at his side. “What did you do?”

  “I made a new pile of trash to hide behind,” said Mander as one of the surviving Swokes Swokes rose from the debris, a thick-barreled blaster in his hand. One swipe with the blade cut the weapon in two, and then the Swokes Swokes fell backward as Reen discharged a bolt squarely into the attacker’s face.

  There was a short pause in the battle, and then the blasterfire started again, heavier than before. Looking back, Mander saw that their previous hiding place was on fire, and the flames were already spreading through the bolts of funeral cloth and to the room’s supports. The Rodians had climbed down to the ground, trying to surround the pair. They were now clear in the firelight.

  “They’re trying to burn us out. Can you make it to the door?” asked Mander, but Reen just shook her head and brought down a Rodian from across the room.

  Mander looked across the open floor between him and the entrance. Alone, on his best day, he might be able to make it. Carrying the Pantoran, he doubted he could get halfway before the cross fire caught him. He was about to chance it anyway when something extremely large shifted in the background.

  It was one of the manual loadlifters, wading into a squad of Swokes Swokes. The huge flat feet smashed one, while the others broke and ran as it spun and slammed into another set of racks, toppling them against their neighbors in a chain of collapsing shelves. The Rodians and Swokes Swokes started pulling back, firing behind them to deter pursuit. Perched in the control pit of the lifter, limned by sparking control screens, was a Bothan—long-faced and furry.

  Reen put a hand on Mander’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. He’s with me.”

  The Bothan was having trouble handling the loadlifter, and as he tried to get the walker under control it grazed one of the already-burning roof supports. The support groaned menacingly, and parts of the roof and skylight started to cascade down around them.

  “About time you showed up!” bellowed Reen at the pilot of the stumbling walker. “Now get us out of here before this place comes down around us.”

  The Bothan got the loadlifter under something like control, and brought one of the large pallet-hands level to the floor. Reen grabbed on, and Mander leapt ahead of her, turning to help her up. Then the pair gripped the sides of the lifter as the Bothan maneuvered it toward the doors through a tunnel of the now-flaming warehouse. The large door was still almost completely shut, but at the last moment the Bothan spun the lifter around and slammed through it backward, smashing the door off its hinges.

  Then they were outside, tromping through the alleys. The loadlifter got clear of the worst of the fire, and set the pair down. The Bothan himself slid down from the side of the now-smoking control pit. Whatever the Bothan had done to get it working had set its internal electronics on fire.

  “I thought you Jedi were never supposed to be sur
prised,” said Reen.

  “I was distracted,” said Mander, trying to keep the irritation within himself out of his voice. She was right. Despite her presence, he should have noticed their assailants creeping into their positions.

  In the distance there were shouts and klaxons. The local authorities were responding to the fire, and the flames were clear along the roofline now.

  “We need to be elsewhere,” said Reen. “A pity we didn’t get one of the Rodians alive.”

  “We found the poison that they used on your brother,” said Mander. “And we know that they’re willing to kill to cover their tracks. For the moment, that’s enough.”

  Dejarro of the Bomu clan made his way through the Swokes Swokes bazaar, past the hucksters selling memorial mementos and purified ointments and funeral wreaths. Past the stalls of seers and spiritualists who, for a small fee, would contact the spirits of the recently interred and, for a slightly larger fee, confirm that they were resting comfortably and satisfied with their funeral arrangements. Dejarro squeezed his way among the lumbering forms of the Makem Te inhabitants, his own Rodian frame unlikely to win any shoving match. He kept one hand inside his jacket, tightly gripping his heavy prize, fearful that something else would go wrong.

  The word had come down that afternoon: Koax, the one-eyed Klatooinian, had arrived on the planet, bearing with her both the goodwill of her master, the Spice Lord, and the lordship’s demands that the assigned task had been completed.

  Dejarro of the Bomu clan carried both good news and bad along with his package, and it was a good question which of the three was the heaviest weight.

  At the fourth street, at the alchemical shop, he turned right and made for a singularly empty shop that displayed funeral wrappings but had never seemed to succeed in selling any of them. The Swokes Swokes behind the counter, scarred from many regenerations, just nodded to him as he passed through. Dejarro had been here before. The Rodian climbed the iron spiral staircase to a windowless upper storage room.

  The room was lit by a single bulb, hanging from a noose-like cord. Koax was waiting for him, surrounded by racks of long-sleeved robes, used to dress the dead before interment or cremation. To Dejarro, it felt like they were surrounded by silent witnesses to hear his report. There was a low table between the two of them.

  The Klatooinian herself was lean and muscular, thinner than most of her species. She was dressed in dark red spacer’s slacks and a vest, and kept a set of ceremonial throwing knives on her belt alongside her blaster. Dejarro knew the Klatooinians were mostly traditionalists, favoring the old weapons and ways. Koax apparently kept the affectations of the past alongside the more effective present.

  The Klatooinian’s face was thin as well, but what took Dejarro aback was the crater where one eye had once been. Some would have worn a patch, or had a plate bolted to their skull to hide the deformity, but Koax set a glowing red gem deep into her empty socket. The Rodian wondered if the gem allowed the Spice Lord’s agent to see into alien frequencies or tell if someone was lying. The idea chilled Dejarro to the bone.

  “Waajo koosoro?” asked the Klatooinian in fluid Huttese. Have you brought it?

  Dejarro nodded and pulled the prize from beneath his jacket. It was a thin cylinder fitted with a worn, comfortable grip along one side. It was heavier than Dejarro had thought it would be, particularly since he had seen it used with fluid, almost effortless grace. Heavy enough to hold the soul of a man, he had thought at the time.

  He placed the lightsaber on the table between them.

  Koax looked down at the device with her good eye, but did not reach out for it. The red gem set deep into her skull kept a bead on Dejarro, who waited to be dismissed or questioned.

  “Were there any problems?” asked the Klatooinian.

  “We found it on the street,” said Dejarro, his voice sounding a little strained in the dusty dead air. “Not too far from the body.”

  “Did anyone see you take it?” She was still examining the deactivated blade before her.

  “I don’t think …” And Koax looked up at him, her gemstone eye blazing for a moment. “No! No. No one saw it. It went better than we had planned. I had the wine delivered, and we were prepared to move in when he started a fight by himself. Once he went out the window, we were afraid we had lost him. That he had used some sort of Jeedai trick to escape us. That he could fly away. But when we got to the bottom of the building, there he was, dead, and the item was right beside him, just as you see it now.”

  Koax grunted an affirmation, then said, “We?”

  “The other members in good standing of the Bomu clan,” said Dejarro. “Trusted family all. We would have taken the body itself, but the local law was already coming down on us. As it was, I grabbed the lightsaber and kept it, until I heard from you. Kept it safe, like you ordered.”

  “Did you turn it on?” asked Koax, almost casually.

  “No, no,” Dejarro assured her. “I don’t know if it still works or not. I just followed your orders. Drug the Jeedai. Take his lightsaber. Bring it to you. Nothing about figuring out if it worked.”

  Koax gave a throaty chuckle and reached out to the lightsaber, grasping its short hilt and activating the blade. It sprang like a genie from the bottle, a bolt of brilliant blue-white, accompanied by a flash of radiant thunder. The empty robes that hung around them threw back deep shadows, doubling their number.

  Koax moved the blade back and forth, and it looked to Dejarro as if the blade fought her, like it had its own inertia—its own spirit—resisting her control, fighting her grip. Koax seemed to feel it as well, and frowned, then thumbed off the blade. At once the upper storage room was plunged back into a dim light, which to the Rodian seemed even darker than before.

  “Good,” said Koax, and reached for her belt. Despite himself, Dejarro’s hand twitched toward his own weapons belt, but the Klatooinian instead brought out a vial tucked between her belt and her dun-colored flesh. Koax smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile. She had made Dejarro flinch, and understood in an instant how much the Rodian trusted her.

  How much he feared her.

  Koax set the vial on the table. Even in the dim light Dejarro could see that it was tightly packed with purplish crystals, deeper in hue than any he had seen before.

  “Pure,” said Koax. “None of that diluted garbage that reaches the street. Cut it, share, use it, I don’t care. We’re done.”

  Dejarro looked at the vial, then up at the Klatooinian, then nodded, reached out, and snagged the vial. He tucked it into an inner pocket and said, “There’s something else.”

  Koax’s eyebrow, the one above the gem-set socket, jerked upward slightly. “Something else?”

  “It took you a while to contact us,” said Dejarro. “While we were waiting, there was another.”

  “Another?” Koax repeated, her voice careful, trying to draw the story out.

  “Another Jeedai,” said the Rodian. “Came to the restaurant. Talked to the staff. Tracked us back to the warehouse.”

  Koax held her hands out, palms outward. “Didn’t you think to burn out the warehouse and move your supplies, just to prevent that possibility?”

  “We were in the process … that is, we intended to. But we didn’t think he would get here before you,” managed Dejarro.

  Koax frowned and looked at the empty table once more. “Tell me what happened.”

  “We ambushed him,” said Dejarro quietly. “Ambushed the Jeedai.”

  “Did you kill him?” said Koax, and her intent was clear in the tone of her question: One dead Jedi on Makem Te was a casualty. Two would attract more attention than the Spice Lord would want.

  “We lost a lot of people. The Jeedai … he had backup, and he …” Dejarro froze when Koax transfixed him with the ruby eye.

  “Did you kill him?” she repeated.

  “No,” said Dejarro, looking away. “There was a firefight. The warehouse caught fire in the battle.”

  “Too little, too late,�
�� said Koax. “You should have torched the place the night the first Jeedai died.”

  Dejarro nodded. “We didn’t want to lose the stock. We had a lot of funeral supplies there.”

  Then Koax did something that Dejarro did not expect. She laughed. It was a full-throated, hearty, honest laugh, the laugh of someone confronted by the basic stupidity of the galaxy. “You kill a Jeedai, then are surprised to find another one comes looking for him. You let this new Jeedai uncover your operation, resulting in a firefight and setting the warehouse ablaze, and you’re worried about the stock?”

  Dejarro himself managed a sickly chuckle and said, “We’re tapped out now, except for …” He tapped the vial in his pocket with his palm.

  “I see,” said Koax, pulling her features back into a stern repose. “So you need …”

  “More of the hard spice. More Tempest,” said Dejarro. “We can make it up to you. Just a little advance. Enough to keep the regulars stocked up. We did what you asked for. We didn’t expect the Jeedai to bring backup.”

  “I don’t think the Spice Lord will be happy about this development. Do you think that’s the case?” asked Koax.

  “If you want, I can talk to the Spice Lord,” said Dejarro. “Explain things.”

  “The Spice Lord has more important matters to deal with than talking to street-level dealers,” said Koax. “That is why the Spice Lord has me.” She skewered him with her good eye, and a silence grew between the two.

  “So.” Dejarro’s throat was dry now. “Do you think you could do something about this?”

  “Yes, I think I could,” she said. “I think I could warn the Spice Lord that there is another Jeedai. One with allies. I could also find out who these allies are, and tell you. Is that what you would want?”

  Dejarro nodded. “The Jeedai killed my clanbrothers and clansisters,” he said. “We need vengeance on their behalf.”