Volume III: Intransigence
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Prologue
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All of This Has Happened Before
The blaster bolts were fine - expected, actually, but she ducked and heard something hard karom off the bulkhead next to her. Then ping and ricochet twice more. One of them brought a slugthrower. Sure. Why not? She dogged the hatch behind her, hoping it would keep her pursuers delayed for at least a minute.
The next car in the skytrain was half-full, which she was sure was a net loss for the shipping company, but a net gain for her as she scrambled over the crates, putting quite a bit of metal and hopefully dense, blaster bolt absorbing products between her and those behind her. She was rapidly running out of train and she dropped to her haunches for a breather. And a bit of a rethink.
Following Corran Horn's discovery of Yuuzhan Vong remains on the remote world Bimmiel, there'd been a bit of a craze in hunting for other footprints of the invaders. It was like there was some infectious belief that if you could just understand the vong, you'd find the chromium quarrel to send them packing. Almost none bore fruit, sure, but Tash Arranda always had a preternatural sense for when the ground was hot and there were secrets just waiting to be delicately exhumed. A brush here, scoop of the trowel there; compressed air gusting dust away, and Tash would reveal some new piece of the complex puzzle that was the history of civilization in the Galaxy - or as it seemed now, two galaxies.
She hadn't even a chance to put down the brushed steel lockbox tucked under her arm before blaster bolts whickered over her head. Well, that hatch didn't keep them as long as she might've hoped. She vaguely aimed her holdout blaster over her head, poking past the durasteel crate she crouched behind. Tash squeezed off a few stun blasts, not expecting to hit a soul - and heard a hissing cry as a Verpine crumpled. Huh, she thought. Well then.
No more slugs were bouncing around, so double lucky.
Look - she was a xenoarchaeologist with a doctorate from the University of (New) Alderaan. She was a Jedi too, and a Fellow of the Obroan Institute, and a visiting lecturer at half a dozen academies besides. She even had tenure. It was entirely within her rights to spring a six hundred year old set of bones from a local collector here on Tymo II. The marks on the bones weren't embalming marks! They were from ritual scarification! It was obvious! This had to be just like Mongei Shai - another Yuuzhan Vong scout arriving way ahead of their main armada. And intel on the invaders aside, such an important find obviously shouldn't be stuck in a private collection, an artifact of such monumental, intergalactic importance belonged-
Another pair of blaster bolts cracked past and punched smoldering holes into the bulkhead across from her.
"Jedi!" one of the goons called across the cargo car.
"That's me!" she shouted back.
"Surrender! We've got gunships coming in at the mountain pass. You won't get off this train alive."
Thinking hard, Tash rapped nails against the case under her arm. The Force felt tense and she sensed the truth in the goon's words, but just because he believed she was trapped didn't make it a fact. An actual fact: she could draw her 'saber and go right through the side of the car. Sure, the drop was like a kilometer and the whole point of hopping this skytrain was to leave the (probably) private security in the dust, but maybe she'd be better off taking her chances in the wilderness between Tymo II's capital and its neighboring harbor city.
She wasn't really keen on testing her admittedly middling control of telekinesis on stopping a fall from this height at this speed, but…
Those blaster bolts looked nasty.
"One more time, Jedi!"
"Bite me!" she laughed, stuffing her holdout blaster back into its holster and yanking her lightsaber from her belt. Its azure blade snapped to life, drowning out profanities from the goons. Big talk when it was just a cornered Jedi, but a cornered Jedi with their lightsaber?
Tash grinned.
They'd be expecting her to rush them. Instead, she flicked her 'saber around her feet once, twice, thrice. And she dropped with a triangular patch of the cargo car's deck. Wind struck her in the face immediately and she tumbled. Sky, ground, train. Sky, ground, train. The last car passed by so close the pressure of its passage hit like a fist, knocking her into a fiercer spin.
She felt the ground of Tymo II far below, but rising rapidly. She kept a deathgrip on the case of old bones. If her grad students could see her right now…
Well, she supposed, if she didn't pull this off, it would be a really, really embarrassing way to go.
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The patient was stable and breathing easy under sedation. Holograms fed him details on blood pressure, hormonal balance and brain activity. He stuck his bared hands and arms under a decon emitter, gritting his teeth as the cheap unit singed off the outermost layer of his epidermis. Then he rinsed the fine ash away, scrubbing well with antibacterial gel. He snapped on flexible gloves, hearing similar cracks at the other cleaning stations.
Shul Vaal's lekku were secured down his back, nicely out of his way. Turning back to his patient, the Twi'lek cleared his throat and glanced at his two assistants. Nairi Gem looked pale and anxious and he made note to sit her down after surgery. She was an excellent nurse, but she hadn't seen quite as much as he had and their patient appeared to be upsetting her. It wasn't a nice sight - swoop wrecks rarely were. The Bothan was missing half his fur from burns and duracrete abrasion and what was left of one leg was more of a tangle of bone and tendons.
Not the nicest sight. H'gol Lok wordlessly slid a tray of burnished, shining tools up next to the Bothan as Shul sighed behind his sanitary mask. This was going to be several hours, even with his best tricks and techniques he'd picked up from Masters like Cilghal and Milessa. There was no time like the present and he settled in with a rhythm and confidence born over years and years of work. Nairi hovered at his right, handing off requested tools when he voiced his need. H'gol Lok managed fluids and kept the poor Bothan comfortable and unconscious.
The Force guided his hands as much as his learning and experience did and he attacked the mangled mess of the Bothan's leg. The abrasions were the worst to look at, but the least life-threatening. In that twisted up leg were ruptured major arteries. All it took was one unnoticed for a little too long and Shul would feel the quiet departure of the Bothan's whole being. He'd felt that awful moment plenty of times. Master Skywalker said the Force was all, and all were in the Force and that returning to the Force was the fate of all beings, but Shul was a doctor. Fighting death was his calling and he waged his war in truer ways than any with a lightsaber.
He clamped another spurter shut, wincing as he gently massaged the tissue with the Force and encouraged rapid cellular growth. A tiny point-cauterizer stroked back and forth as Shul worked and he eyed the pinched off artery. He still had some of the bridgers in stock, even if they were hard to source. He could tie one in here, let the artery absorb it and regrow the connection…
He mentally shook his head. No telling if the limb was even salvageable. Might just need to come off.
Shul held out his hand, asking for a deep tissue scanner. He needed to get a look into the ball of bone and muscle that had been a Bothan's knee joint. His hand remained empty.
"Tissue scanner," he reiterated, glancing toward Gem.
She wasn't next to him.
'Boss-" H'gol Lok started and Shul felt his sudden shock in the Force get cut short, replaced by thoughtless dreaming.
Keeping his hands half-inside the Bothan's leg, Shul carefully twisted just enough to see Nairi standing over H'gol Lok's crumpled body, a touch-stunner in her trembling hand. In her other was a vibroscalpel, already active and buzzing.
"Hey, Nairi," Shul said, voice pitched low and soft.
"I'm not-" she gulped, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes. "I don't - I don't work for them. I wouldn't ever. I swear."
"I believe you," he placated. Then he kept working.
"Shul! Stop. Stop."
"I can't, Nairi. He needs my care."
"Shul, you have to stop. There's going to be some - some people outside, okay? You have to go with them."
Shul nodded distractedly. Without the tissue scanner, he was mapping the Bothan's knee himself. It wasn't a pretty sight, but he was growing more and more confident he could save it. The road to recovery would be long, but given the Bothan had come by Shul's clinic, the Twi'lek bet the swoop rider didn't exactly have deep pockets for a prosthetic.
"Sure, Nairi. I just need to finish here."
Her distress was palpable. Her guilt was acrid. Her fear was almost overwhelming.
"I have to do this," she said, more to herself. "I have to. Shul, please. Don't make me."
"When I'm done," he repeated. "My patient needs me. He needs us, Nairi."
He felt her move closer, dared to hope that she was going to go back to the equipment tray and be his second pair of hands again. His hopes were dashed when buzzing grew in his ear and a trembling hand wrapped around one of his lekku.
"They promised," Nairi said again, her voice small and shattered. "They won't attack again if we can give them Jedi."
He'd seen the broadcast and heard the words again and again. It wasn't anything new to him. He heard the promise a thousand times. I promise, Doc. I'll lay off the stims. I promise, Doc. Patch me up, I won't get in a podracer again. I promise, Doc. I promise I won't relapse, I promise I'll change, I promise, I promise, I promise.
Putting an edge of durasteel into his voice, Shul shook his head as much as Nairi's grip on his lekku allowed.
"He'll lose his leg if I stop. So I won't. If you need to stop me…"
Nairi was an excellent nurse. She took to his lessons like a krakana to water. She knew where a body could be hurt and survive, knew where it couldn't bear the slightest punishment. With that vibroscalpel, Shul wouldn't even feel it when it came.
Bone fragments from the Bothan's burst knee had shredded down into his connective tissue. They were deep and embedded and would've been a hassle for even the best surgeons to extract. Shul drew gently on the Force, easing and prodding the first loose. It relinquished its newfound perch slowly and he took his time to avoid further inflammation or worse - more tearing.
He held out his hand.
"Forceps," he asked. Cool metal fell into his palm. He gently gripped the tip of the bone fragment, assisting his careful grip in the Force with a mundane one from the forceps. Nairi stood next to him, eyes cast away, tears still staining her cheeks.
I promise, I promise, I promise. Everyone promises to change.
Sometimes they just have a moment of weakness. Shul started on the next bone shard.
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On the tidal bulwark, the mob tipped over its fulcrum. A few final droids skittered down the causeway, hooting and warbling in alarm. Aqualish shouted and screeched, hurling epithets and stones.All fell short, but others drew short blasters. Dorsk 82 lit his lightsaber, the orange blade flicking to life. He paced down the causeway that linked his landing pad to the tidal bulwark.
I am a Jedi, he thought. A Jedi knows no fear.
And he did not. Through his training with Master Skywalker, he had been hounded by bouts of panic, feelings of deep inadequacy and darker thoughts of deep boots that could never be filled. Dorsk was the eighty-second Khommite to bear the name, all cloned of the first Khommite to be gifted it. He'd grown up in a world that was satisfied with its own form of perfection, a world that rested on the accomplishments of its ancestors.
He'd followed in the path of the eighty-first Dorsk, the celebrated and mourned Dorsk 81, whose sacrifice had been a feat worthy of legend and who had offered his life with head held high and not a hint of uncertainty.
Long he had feared to never live up to the standard set by Dorsk 81, no matter how much others assured him it was not expected.
Now, though, he felt only gentle sorrow that the Aqualish had been driven to this. This was not how they were. The beings that ran down the causeway, they were fathers and mothers, they were workers and teachers and good, one and all. They feared the Yuuzhan Vong so much that it twisted them into something else. He pitied them, but he did not hate them.
The destruction of the droids began small, but in a few short days had become a planet-wide epidemic. The government of Ando - that which existed still - did not condemn nor condone the brutality. The police stood by. Dorsk was all these droids had. Too many others had no one at all.
The setting sun lit the sky into orange and crimson fire that melded with his lightsaber. Distant clouds that piled high into the sky were burnished bronze by the light. High above, the sky darkened from pale jade into darkening aquamarine. The lights in the city were coming on, winking to life in parody of the death brought by the Yuuzhan Vong.
Salt air buffeted him, lingered on his tongue. He took deep breaths, lungfuls of the astringent ocean air. Whitecaps rolled and crashed. The tide was coming in.
At long last, after all these years, Dorsk 82 felt he was doing what he dreamt of at last.
One Aqualish stepped forward from the mob. He was shorter than most, his tusks incised and etched in the local style. He wore the slicksuit of a tug worker. Dorsk saw a myriad of uniforms, including the painful ones of the local police.
"Move aside, Jedi," he demanded. "These droids aren't your business. And you're not ours. Don't make us change that."
"These droids are under my protection," Dorsk replied levelly.
"Their owners don't say that."
"Maybe not, but I still must disagree." Dorsk looked across the mob, meeting eyes with purpose. Some met him, some looked away. "I plead with you: see reason. Destroying these droids will not appease the Yuuzhan Vong. They are beyond appeasement."
"That's our business. Aqualish business. Didn't you hear? Duro's gone. Our world's next, not yours."
Dorsk felt a pang of loss at word of Duro. He placed it aside.
"I had not heard. It doesn't matter. Go back to your homes in peace. Don't let this be your legacy. If you need to fight, fight the invaders that come for your homes. Not these droids. I promise, you will never see them on Ando again."
An Aqualish deep in the mob lifted a blaster - Dorsk grasped it in the Force and tugged it away, pulling it to his left hand.
"Please," he asked.
A moment bred two more and a tense silence hung between the Jedi and the mob. Dorsk almost believed they might be wavering, until he heard the hum of an approaching speeder. It was marked in the colors of the local police, a badge declaring a constable of higher ranking. It coasted to a halt, interposing between Dorsk and the mob. He allowed himself a scrap of hope, that perhaps the government had come to their senses.
"What's all this, then?" the officer asked, climbing out of the speeder's driver's seat while troopers in yellow and white armor piled out of the rear. The mob snarled and growled, but backed off, corralled by the armored police.
"These people were intent on destroying a group of droids. I have placed them under my protection."
The officer eyed Dorsk's ship.
"That's your ship?"
"It is."
"Any Jedi aboard?"
"No-!" Dorsk's denial became a shout of dismay. Beams of light struck in, pinning the freighter through for a spare moment before it became a pillar of white-hot flame. Shards and scraps spun lazily, splashing down into the rising waters. It was all that remained of his ship, thirty-eight droids - and his pilot, Hhen.
Dorsk was still transfixed when the stun baton hit him.
He twitched and fell, landing on his back to stare dumbfounded up at his attackers. The officer stood there, face blank and eyes empty.
"Why?" Dorsk breathed.
"Stay down, Jedi."
"Why?"
"I suppose you haven't heard. The Vong proposed a peace. They'll stop at Duro and leave Ando as long as we turn Jedi over to them." Faint emotion crossed the officer's face. Regret. "They'll take you dead, but they'd rather have you alive."
Dorsk drew on the Force and it eagerly leapt to his side. He washed the pain and paralysis away, stood.
"Don't, Jedi."
Blasters came up. At least a dozen. Dorsk hooked his lightsaber to his belt.
"I will not fight you." His words rang with the gentle sadness that still held him.
"Fine. Then you'll come with us."
"I will not be coming with you," Dorsk stated, firm and with a wave of his hand.
"You won't be."
"Or with any of the rest of you."
Blasters sank down. One trooper remained, more strongly willed, his blaster held in shaking hands.
"Don't-" Dorsk pleaded. He lifted his hand-
The blaster bolt seared a hole through the Khommite's palm. The pain was sudden and the sound was surprising. The other troopers and the officer jolted from his suggestion.
The next bolt went through his thigh. Dorsk fell to his knees.
"No more tricks," the officer snarled.
Dorsk drew himself back to his feet. He took a step forward
I am a Jedi. A Jedi knows no fear.
The dusk lit with blasterfire.
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He had a lot to juggle. In fact, he was successfully keeping so much in the air, he supposed he might be able to become a particularly favored entertainer for a Hutt crime lord. First there were the wrinkles around Jedi having their own internal divide over what role to take in the war. Then there were the cold facts that the Core was, as the Core ever did, prioritizing their own security over the more sparsely populated and less economically powerful Rim. Then you had the Senate's infighting, despite best attempts of mediators like Cal Omas and Viqi Shesh to head it off.
Then the Exiles showed up on the board, bringing a ferocious desire to fight and a brutal efficiency when they slipped their leash. Then was the surprise attack on Fondor, then the swiftly-famous battle on the surface, culminating in a one-walker stand against a phalanx of Yuuzhan Vong monsters. Then was the Guild of Starshipwrights, in agreement with Procopia, deciding to politely tell the NRDF that they didn't trust them anymore.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Markre Medjev had a lot to juggle. The Tapani Sector was casting the first vote of no-confidence against the New Republic and he was here to assure everyone that no, that was not in fact what was meant when the Tapani were saying that they'd rather beg at the feet of the Imperium Exsilius to protect them.
No, see: it was, ah, perhaps more of an agreement of circumstance. Elements of the Exile's fleet were already over Fondor, after all…the NRDF had many concerns and would likely welcome some slack being taken up…there has always been a great deal of leeway in how regional governments can conduct their own affairs…
He fenced with words where others dueled with 'sabers. Markre Medjev was Tapani himself, though (he hoped) a far cry from the fat and spoiled nobles that tarnished the otherwise sterling reputation of his home. If pushed, he might even agree with few reservations about the decision. Then he'd gently counter that the New Republic could use allies. Nothing herein said the Exiles were rivals at best or foes at worst. Just a friendly power, offering assistance.
He stressed this, over and over, exchanging contact details and holonet addresses, sipping at wines and sampling bites of meats and cheeses. He was never quite comfortable at galas like this, but he served where he needed to.
After all, Tapani was making waves and her sister sectors were sitting up to listen.
Banntan, in the Inner Rim, was making noises about potentially joining with the Tapani on at least a minor level. Agreements for refugee handling, some mutual defense aid, sharing intelligence on Yuuzhan Vong movements. Markre had leapt at the chance to serve his home just like all those brave and bold beings did down on Fondor-
A finger tapped on his shoulder and Markre turned, smile on his face.
And fell, ash in his heart and the crack of a blaster hanging in the air.
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The Clone Wars came, went. The Galactic Civil war came, went. Even under Leonia Tavira's little kingdom, Yumfla stayed sleepy and quiet. For all the dramas of galactic destiny and cosmic heroes warring against monsters of myth, the simple fact was that an average galaxy bore a hundred billion stars. Certainly, most were barren and never birthed a living child, but if even a fraction of stars sheltered a world of water and air and life - that was a number of worlds beyond reasonable consideration.
The universe was a big, big place, and there were always corners and nooks for those who didn't wish to be part of any greater drama to settle themselves. Four hundred years and Susevfi remained a planet of wide savannahs and scrub forests, fierce seas and warm nights. Its exports were minor, its imports forgettable and that was that.
A fine world for the Jensaarai, a fine sanctuary away from the imagined sins of the Jedi Order and their perpetual theological war.
It seemed common knowledge that for the size of the universe and the vastness of the galaxy, that no matter which winds blew, a side didn't always need to be taken. That history could pass by these quiet places.
Flames crackled red and orange, tinted to white at the roots. Flames rose high and roaring, devouring, an entire block of Yumfla consumed. Emergency fire-suppression services stood by. They were there to prevent a spread, not stop the conflagration. A few lagging combustible cocktails lofted, arced, plunged down into the blaze.
Mei Taral, in her new-forged armor, crouched among shadows atop a squat mercantile building nearby. The cool seabreeze, sweeping in from the west, tugged at her mantle and tousled her loose hair. Her only hand clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed. She watched the Jensaarai safe-house burn to ashes, her rolling fury banked only by the comfort that none had been inside. Premonitions of danger had the entire sect on edge for the past several days, withdrawing younger members of the family back to the Temple.
Only trusted associates had been in the safe-house and they had escaped through a bolthole exist in the basement before the roof started to collapse.
Mei had returned home to recuperate. She'd come back to Susevfi to leave the bloody business of the war behind for a little while. Her body was still unbalanced, a space where her arm had been.
Susevfi was home, for all that the Jensaarai stayed more reclusive and cryptic.
The Warmaster's taloned reach was long, if it could hound her even here.
She turned away from the fire, lip curled and eyes narrowed. She itched to leap down and return the insult tenfold to the arsonists. They knew what they were doing. None of them were innocent. 'Give me the Jedi,' the Warmaster promised. Jensaarai weren't Jedi. They weren't Jedi. That was the point. That was the rift between her and her family; one that wasn't insurmountable, but one that was felt. It was the one that kept Grenmȃtre at arm's length and made some of her nieces and nephews wary of her.
Tavira could've punished the world if she wanted. The Jensaarai had sacrificed themselves on the altar of service they detested, for the good of every last man and woman on Susevfi.
This is how they're repaid? With betrayal? With arson? With attempts made on the lives of their children?
Telekinesis boosted Mei as she leapt from rooftop to rooftop, a shadow in the night, out of sight and out of worry. Yumfla's streets were quiet, emptier than usual. All the excitement was over at the pyre. Suarbi loomed over the horizon, bringing with it reflected glow from the sun. In the sky above, tiny lights winked and blinked and traced across the heavenly dome, marking out lazy system traffic. Her chest felt tight. They'd come for the safehouses first. Was the Temple next?
It was supposed to be hidden. Only Jensaarai ever darkened its doors.
Was she really naive enough to believe that? Determination blended with fear was a potent tool. None of the Jensaarai had the talent or the training for mind-altering illusions like the Fallanassi had taught the Jedi. Ironic - that the sect whose fault it was the Jensaarai were threatened also would have given freely the tools to protect themselves.
The fault of the Jedi, she mused, working her way across the skyline toward the outskirts of the city. Open to a fault, trusting to a fault. She worried for friends, scattered across the stars. They didn't have the same caution and ingrained mistrust that Jensaarai did. If echoes of this betrayal rang across the galactic wheel, then many Jedi, dozens in fact, could be facing death and capture before they even knew what was coming.
The mental presence of all the other Jensaarai were wordless whispers in her mind. Grenmȃtre wished for none to be alone, so her cousin Nulko volunteered to be the nexus of a thoughtscape. Words were beyond his talent, but impressions and emotions could be shared, keeping Jensaarai who were abroad on the world aware and alert.
Another presence intruded on the thoughtscape. A foreign one, without the familial connections and understanding that Nulko manipulated. If Nulko's working was an assembly of whispers, the newcomer barged in, chatting at a volume just shy of a shout.
Mei winced, peering upward unbidden. A triangle hung over Yumfla, small as one joint of her little finger. It seemed to be painted red.
Her commlink popped.
"Mei? Is this channel still active?"
A smile touched her lips for the first time tonight.
"Master Horn," she replied, bring her comlink close. "I wasn't expecting you."
"Well, Booster took a while to convince. But I think it was the irony of the whole thing that got him going."
Above, more flecks of light like shooting stars whizzed from the crimson Errant Venture. Master Horn's presence in the Force bloomed above.
"We're being hunted," Mei related. She worked to keep the melancholy and anger from her voice, failed. The Jedi would sense it from her anyway. "Susevfi is no longer a sanctuary. The authorities aren't helping them, but they aren't stopping them either."
Corran didn't reply for a moment, static hissing from her comlink.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Truly, Mei. You've done good by your people. I hope you can find a way to forgive them for this, someday."
She bit out a harsh laugh, more a bark of despaired amusement.
"I'm being run out of my home," she shot back. "Let me survive this war and then we'll see."
Diplomatically, Master Horn shifted the subject.
"Booster is warning Yumfla not to interfere with us. We can spare shuttles to help move your people. Will…your great-aunt allow it?"
Grenmȃtre would be chiller than interstellar ice and twice as hard. She'd be raging on the inside, but severe and serious on the outside. But saving face and returning insults ranked far, far below the survival of the family. She would bend, though it would curdle her heart.
"Yes. And Master Horn?" Mei closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and wanting one last simple memory of the ocean air and Yumfla's complex melange of civilization and nature. "Thank you. We won't forget it."
The last time a lone Star Destroyer graced Susevfi, the Jensaarai had found themselves in bondage. Later, while Mei watched sullen and angry locals kept at bay by holotape and barricades manned by tense police, she saw the humor that convinced Booster Terrik. Leonia Tavira used the threat against their home to control them. Now, the threat that was their home forced their hand again. The Temple would be sealed and buried, left for recovery someday.
Jensaarai in robes, armor and civilian clothes shifted ident-sealed crates into gaily painted landers and shuttles, watched over by Terrik's private security in Venture marked fatigues.
Mei glared at the gawking crowd, daring them to consider the shaken and pale-faced children among her family.
Children. She traced fingertips through the mantle about her shoulders. Brackardian vraks were restful and wished for peace.
Until you threatened their home. Their family.
She'd had enough time to recover.
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She was just another Zabrak. Plenty around. Her jumpsuit was stained with grease and lubricants. Just another rigjockey. Her horns were unpolished and dull. Down on her luck. She was huddled into herself, just like all the other sad denizens of the Flyrot Hopper. She sipped her lum ale and swirled the glass. She had eyes only for the slowly discovered bottom of it and nothing else. She didn't look around, she didn't meet any eyes or respond to knocks and nudges as spacers shoved through the bolt-hole cantina.
Just another Zabrak.
Her two stunsticks under her cloak were for personal protection. She was a loner on a fringer skyhook. Girl had to defend herself. The stunsticks worked just fine, if anyone asked.
How in the vaping voids the Peace Brigade were still on the tail of just some random Zabrak was beyond her capacity to fathom. She'd bounced six tramp freighters, changed clothes a dozen times and this was her third skyhook. And still there were squads of the turncoats swaggering down every corridor. Their disgusting little patches were worn open and proud. One hand, human, grasping another hand, scarred.
She busied herself with trying to imagine ways that the Peace Brigade could stay right on her heels despite pulling almost every trick in the book. It was much better to think that they had some kind of special 'screw-me-over-in-particular' power, and not that the damned Peace Brigade was so entrenched in this sector that every time she turned her head she saw more.
She didn't want to think that poorly of the folk of the Galaxy that they'd just let this happen.
Her next flight left in three hours. She kept checking the flickering chrono over the bar. Time moved like void-chilled bugsludge. They didn't know she was here. They couldn't. She was just another Zabrak, a nobody Zabrak, drowning a long and awful day in awful and watered down ale.
That crew over by the door had the hairs on her neck prickling. No handshake badges for them, but she felt their eyes burning a hole in the back of her head more than a few times. They all looked grim and grizzled. Enough scars across the lot of them to impress a Trandoshan. Telltale chunky lumps under long trenchcoats screamed 'blasters!' and kept a healthy bubble around them. Five humans. Four men and a woman.
She was just another Zabrak, just another Zabrak.
She repeated the mantra, over and over, until the Force hissed at her and she shrugged in time to avoid a meaty hand from clamping over her shoulder. The owner of that hand, unbalanced, staggered and she swept his leg, elbow finding the small of his back and the human's head bounced from the rim of the bar.
Now there was space around her. The man groaned and twitched and all along the bar hooded eyes glared at her. Those who had penned her in at the bar wisely found elsewhere to drown their sorrows.
Grabby hands had friends. Two more humans, a Rodian, an Ortolan in shabby armor. Handshake badges on four chests.
She snaked both hands under her cloak, grabbed for her stunsticks.
"Oi!" bellowed a deep voice. She paused, her fingers touching cool metal. The group from the table elbowed and shouldered their way through the cramped cantina, spreading out to face off against the Peace Brigaders. "What's your problem with the lady?"
Their leader had an accent that was alien, tinging his Basic oddly and he had a sharply peaked cap sitting askew on his head. His four looming compatriots were thin-lipped and tense, hands on blasters inside their long coats. His face was shiny with a rippled radburn that made her wince. In her head, she called him 'Burns'. They all looked rough and serious.
With their leader at her feet, the Peace Brigade held a quick election and the Rodian puffed himself up.
"She's under arrest," he sneered.
"What for, eh?"
"Not your business, spacer, unless you want to be in the cell next door."
The Peace Brigaders exuded malice and intention, but from the five humans?
Her brows drew together. She felt strange disgust that didn't seem to make much sense, but she also felt a weird indignation.
Burns looked to his fellows.
"Last I heard, Peace Brigade was a bunch of thugs and traitors." Burns spit the last word like acid, the other humans growling.
"Last I heard," the Rodian taunted. "I didn't care. Go and sit little humans. This is a new galaxy."
Burns rolled his head, cracking his neck.
"Surely is," he said, just as she felt sudden danger. She whipped her stunsticks out - the false emitters popping loose as one-two lightsabers lit with a buzzing snap-hiss.
She needn't have bothered.
Crackle-flashes of crimson light snapped between the human crew and the Brigaders. Ozone tinged the air and the cantina dissolved into chaos, every single patron struggling to flee. Burns and the other humans had chunky, simple looking guns out at their hips, like a quickdraw exhibition. She didn't know what in space they were - definitely not blasters by the sound - but all four Peace Brigade keeled over with crisp little scorched holes in their heads.
Not that she minded the assist, but their easy violence and immediate jump to killing meant her lightsabers were definitely staying out. The Flyrot Hopper rapidly emptied, revealing just how much of a dump the cantina was. She both sensed and heard the proprietor huddled under the bar, swearing in Bocce.
Burns holstered his gun, hard eyes flicking over her. He reached into an inner pocket, plucked out a credit chit, tossed it onto the counter.
"For the mess."
She didn't raise her 'sabers, nor lower them either. Just kept a careful guard, interposed.
"Well, thanks," she tried. "They've been after me for a while."
Burns raised half an eyebrow.
"Half the galaxy is after you, Jedi."
She nodded in agreement.
"Maybe it is. Are you?"
Burns didn't gesture, didn't make any motion at all, but his crew split up like they'd rehearsed. Two went to the front entrance of the Flyrot Hopper, peering out into the station's corridors. Another two prowled into the back.
"Might be, but not what you think."
Voices called from the cramped little kitchen in the back of the cantina.
"Clear, sir. Got an alternate exit."
She still felt the threat of violence thrumming in all five of them, but none of it seemed directed her way. None of that rancid duplicity that the Peace Brigade seemed to exude. Taking a chance, she cut off both sabers. Burns looked pleased and inclined his head.
"Looks like you could use a lift, Jedi." He tapped fingers to his peaked cap as if in salute. "We're with a private consortium. Neride Solutions."
She'd never heard of it. Said so. Burns didn't seem bothered.
"We're new here. How about we continue this somewhere a little less public?" Burns aimed a vicious kick at the Rodian's corpse. "With better company than these traitors."
Still no menace directed her way. She exhaled. Just another Zabrak. No one special, just another Zabrak taking on a new temp job.
"Kes Lo," she introduced herself, holding out her hand.
His hand enfolded hers, far larger and rough with old calluses.
"Captain Decimus."
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Elsewhere, Uldir Lochett ejects his long-time copilot into the hungry void, surviving calculated treachery by gut feeling and whispers of the Force. Swilja Fenn enjoys the twisted hospitality of the Warmaster, who grows frustrated by her stalwart silence in the face of unimaginable torment. Metarie Graff dodges an assassin in a group of excited fans, the former glitzpop star horrified by the twisted return of her past. Luxum and Ken abort a docking sequence, the Shard sensing at almost the last moment an ion bomb welded to the airlock. Harlan Ysanna calmly picks off a Peace Brigade captain and half his command crew at two kilometers, felling them each with precision slugs. Jedi, known and unknown, celebrated and anonymous, humble and prideful, find themselves alone in crowds.
His Eminence Harrar declares Yun-Harla well pleased. The Warmaster broods over the Jeedai's uncanny ability to slip through even the most determined nets. Nom Anor, redeemed by his subversion of Duro, enjoys quiet vindication.
The New Republic Senate is in an uproar. Worlds argue. Sectors dither.
And in emptier space within the Coruscant system, the veil of reality is punctured, slit open, and peeled back.
From the space between the veil, the space that holds no space, from between and behind and beyond logic and comprehension, arrows Samothrace.