Warra took the corner fast, her wings aching Why can't I pack a lighter weapon?.
Scarlet light, smell of fire. Air contaminant sirens shrilled. In the strobe of alarms it was hard to see one small red boy leap up the wall, smash in the rusty grate and disappear into an air-shaft.
"Frag it!"
She slung the rifle-strap around her belly, flapped to a com-point. "Cap'n, the kid's out again!". Slammed the switch shut on the torrent of abuse which followed and broke out the extinguisher one more time. "What's he set fire to this time? We cleared out the swodding room...."
Keyed off the fire-alarm; a moment of rosy pinkness when both sets of lights came on at once, then white light again and she could see.
"Chuuba!"
It was the Wookie, Taksharra, his fur ablaze, teeth chewing the air as he roared in anguish. He lurched towards her - a swipe of taloned paw - mad, stupid with pain. If she'd had the blaster in her hands she would have fired. Instead she opened up the nozzle and hit him in the face with a stream of foam.
"Kkkiiiii!"
"Shut up, Sithspawn, I'm trying to help!"
A dance in the narrow corridor, while he tried to claw her and she flitted out of his grasp, circling, until he was completely covered in foam. When his footing was slippery and he couldn't see her, she kicked him in the face, sent him tumbling. "Kid's got taste, Taks - you fragging deserve it."
How'd I get with this stupid crew?
It was a disturbing thought, that someone was willing to pay her enough to make staying with these tubeworms worthwhile. Someone had asked for her, personally. Someone with a hell of a lot of money. Just paying the damages from this kid'll set him back twenty k and counting.... Disturbing, because she didn't like the idea of that kind of power knowing about her. But then again, there really was serious money in it.
Taks was whimpering on the floor. Warra thumbed the com open again, "Send a medi-droid up here, we got a burn victim. You found him yet?"
Cap'n Jack had taken some happy pills, even his voice was smiling. "The Seeker's on it now. We'll have him in no time, but even if we don't, no problem. He's still on board. What can he do?
Unbelievable! "What can he do? Lil' Kirru's killed two of your crew already and maybe a third. What does it take, Cap'n Jack?"
Happy hadn't lasted long. She took a certain satisfaction from that. "Get your slimy blue butt up here, y'ugly freak!"
Tubeworms, all of them.
"Send me the seeker output and I'll get on to it, Cap'n. Oh, and someone's going to have to mend the kid's door again."
Kirru inched forwards in the darkness. The airvent was vertical against the ship's artificial gravity; he couldn't stop here. His hands hurt - the Wookie had beaten them with a strip of engine-coil. The palms left a track of liquid on the inside of the vent and slid treacherously, so he had to brace himself by elbows against the walls. But his elbows had been stepped on, twisted. Metal caught on his back where an earlier burn had been sliced through by the Wookie's claws. Plasma and blood soaked the shirt that his mother had embroidered for him, in other days, when he was someone else.
He reached the lip of the vent, tumbled over, and lay in pitch black, hoping that now he might be able to get one instant of rest without fear. One instant. It was all he could let himself believe in. He tried to curl into a ball, but the vent was not big enough, denying him even the comfort of his own warmth. He had forgotten how to cry.
I want it to stop.
It hadn't even started out personal with them. They beat him like it was a duty, and yes they enjoyed it, and yes they laughed, but it was still like it didn't matter that it was him. It could have been anyone.
But I'm not just anyone. I'm going to be a Jedi.
He could still wipe them off the face of the universe. He could still win. He would teach them!
I'll make it stop!
The pain was good. It made him angry, and the anger made him strong. He got up, crawled forward I'll kill them all!
Air movement to his right, a familiar, metallic voice. A faint rattle as of delicate claws dragging on the vent's surface. The black droid had joined him.
It was a spy for them, he'd learned that much. Cold, too cold to touch with fire, and too swift-moving to catch, he had begun to think of it as his own dark angel; almost protective, almost reassuring. He wanted to talk to it, confide in it, but he wasn't that much of a child any more. He just shrugged and kept going towards the engines.
Crim was in the engine room, pacing. Kirru recognised the stubble of dyed blue hair, the glitter of flashy jewellery. A faint reek of liquor and boredom came from him; a dangerous combination.
Kirru wanted to touch the engines, study them. They were, he knew, far more complex than the swoop's had been. Just putting his hand on them would help him understand them better. And that would let him destroy them. He warmed himself on the thought of the fireball. Just briefly, at the moment of his death, he would make a new star.
But first he had to get a closer look at those engines, figure out how they worked.
Dad would know.
The thought threw him as if he'd run into a wall. He still had a father!
In just over two months, Kirru's father would return to Est Valley expecting joy and would find emptiness. Even the bones would be gone by then. He wouldn't know that Kirru hadn't died with his mother. He wouldn't search, but he would weep. The thought of his father - unmanned, on his knees in the ruined house, crying - twisted Kirru's gut. Daddy!
Last year's memories came back in a rush of cold that tingled his battered skin. Genju racing down from the lookout point flushed with speed and self-importance "They're coming!"
A scramble for best clothes; Mother running from ice-house to oven with arm-loads of food; the droid calmly setting out treats on the table; Jenji's new dress hanging from her shoulder half fastened; Auntie Miri wiping dirty faces and shouting at everyone.
Fast as ski's could take him to the road, and the breathless wait - an expectation almost too good to end. Then the first tauntaun rounded the corner. He jumped and yelled with happiness like all the cousins, skid down the hill like flying, straight into his father's arms.
His dad tossed him into the air, didn't catch him. He came down in a breakfall, rolled to his feet, triumphant, and they both laughed, Dad's eyes shining with pride.
Dad reached into the pocket of his parka, drew out something concealed in his big fist. "Don't tell your mother. It's our secret." And pressed the training tape into Kirru's outstretched hand.
Memory wouldn't stay there. It segued into the tape crushed under his mother's foot, and then his mother, faceless in the ruins of the house.
Anger offered itself again, but he couldn't quite touch it, as if his father had reached out and brushed his fingers across the backs of Kirru's beaten hands. Daddy!
"D'you really wanna die?"
The ugly voice slapped him out of his reverie. Ancestors! He must be tired - he'd phased out, not heard her arrive. She was just there, speaking his thoughts as if she'd violated even his mind.
"Get out of my head!"
No point in denying his presence - the droid was there, telling them exactly where he was.
"Kid, I don't read minds. I'm just not brainless." She floated slightly away from the vent, so her gas-filled belly wouldn't block the light.
I bet *she's* flammable.
Unlike the huge stomach, her arms were all muscle, delicately keeping the blaster-rifle lined up on his face, compensating for her wing-beats and her slow drift to the side.
Was she taunting him with the empty room? Did she think he was stupid? Crim's not gone. He's just flattened against the wall to the side of the vent, waiting for me.
"Lil' Kirru puts Taks in the med-bay and heads straight for the engines. It doesn't take a genius...." Her trunk-like nose curled. He didn't know what that meant; amusement? Eagerness?
"We all saw the recording of what you did with Micar's swoop." She gestured with one hand, stretching it out as he had done, "Boom! And now you wanna do the same with the ship. Makes sense, right?"
"You can't stop me."
But she had, just by being the first person on this crew who had talked to him, like a person.
"Nah, I know. But the question is, d'you really wanna die too?"
Or perhaps it was Dad who had stopped him, by holding out the promise of a home; somewhere to go back to.
"You killed my mum."
The long gash of a mouth curved into unpleasant sympathy, "Ah, baby, you wouldn't have wanted to watch how they were gonna do it."
"I hate you." Once, uttering those words had been the worst thing he had ever done. Now he heard them with contempt. She's making you into a child again. Making you weak. But it wasn't her, not really. It was Dad.
"Yeah, I know." She turned her head, looked at the wall, "Get lost, Crim."
Crim's intake of breath mirrored his own - shocked, puzzled - what was she trying to do to him? Earn his trust?!
"Capn's gonna hear 'bout this."
"Big deal!"
The blue-haired man shot him a look of disappointment as he sauntered to the door. With his presence gone the air of the room was easier to breathe.
"Listen, kid." Warra had turned back to him, "Whatever the client wants you for - and I don't know what it is - it's damn sure not gonna be on this ship."
"So?"
"So you wait til you get off. Then you blow us up."
Of course. He hadn't been thinking that far ahead. He had assumed they were going to kill him, when they'd finished playing. Assumptions are deadly, said his tapes, But so is listening to your enemy. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Hey," she chuckled like someone gargling snot, "I'm stalling for time. It's a Jedi thing."
She was psychic, she must be. "What do you know about the Jedi?"
Even with the snout and the tusks her face could express smugness perfectly. "I've met a couple. I've even survived one."
He itched to kill them, but it would be nice to be alive to enjoy it; nice to jump up and down and laugh at them as they burned. Whatever else the rest of his life might be, it would be a victory over them. She survived a Jedi, but she won't survive me.
"I'm not going back in that room."
"That's OK. I reckon you've been 'processed' enough. Stay where you are and study the engines. It's not gonna be long."
Crim jabbed him in the back with his bow-caster. A technique of disarmament suggested itself If an idiot gets that close, but now was not the time. Only a little longer, then BOOM, Crim!
Out of the porthole Kirru could see, rising up into the ship's lights, the curved, silver form of an elegant liner, beautiful as the wings of sea-birds in the morning sun.
For a moment the sight seemed to make everything worthwhile. It had an eerie rightness to it, which promised him deliverance. It was hard to keep a grip on the engines, on the weakness he'd worked out, as his anger died into awe.
A transport tube quested out like a leech, fastened itself on the airlock. The outer door cycled open.
Is it right that whoever ordered all of this should have a ship like that? The guy who owns it; he's the one who killed my mum; he's the one who beat me; who ordered me to be 'processed'. Kirru goaded himself into fury, but it was an effort. He was so glad just to be getting away.
Kirru's angel, the black droid, came up behind him as if to say goodbye.
The inner door opened - grubby airlock and then a pristine tunnel, lined with soft white carpet. A silver protocol droid with strangely misshapen hands came forward to take Kirru's elbow.
He stepped off the pirates' ship. Only 'til the other airlock closes. Held the engines and his rage apart and gritted his teeth in impatience. Then you're carbon, all of you.
The modified fingers tightened on his arm, breaking the skin. A needle slid out of the enamelled nail.
"Fell for it again, kid." Warra's distorted voice mocked him as his universe spun, as the corridor came up and nudged his cheek. She was upside down, or he was. "When you wake up we'll be the other side of the galaxy. But hey, you're still alive."
Shame choked off his air, or perhaps it was the drug. It felt like shame.
"Don't be sore," she said, chuckling, "Only you're no Jedi."
The night side of Ryloth scintillated with sprays of crystal radiance as they came down - ship's lights scattering from plumes of frozen atmosphere. Yeah, bathe me in diamonds! Warra thought, hyped with tension as she braced against the final jolt of landing.
Carbon-dioxide flashed into vapour around the engines, fell back in a swirl of snow. The forward spots lit a greasy river of nitrogen, steaming as it slid through the dry ice. Raising a fog, the 'Lucre' settled up to her belly in solid air. Frigid winds curled the mist away in shapes like pleading wraiths.
When the ship's lights snapped off the cabin was left grey with the non-dawn of the distant terminator: the one place on Ryloth where life could exist.
"What a skuz place!" Captain Jack's skin was as shadowed as the landscape - these kids had him hitting the chemicals too often for his own good.
Warra thought about her end-of contract bonus, and keeping him sweet. "Cap'n?"
His temper had worsened too, "What?!"
"How much do they charge for pure oxygen these days?"
"More'n it's worth."
"Right here they've got an atmosphere of it. Why don't you get the 'mech to siphon some into the tanks? We could sell it off on Boulder; make a killing."
Ora turned her head with angry grace, long fingers stalling on the latches of her suit. She gave Warra a sweet, toothy smile while the wormlike ends of her head-tails flicked out the word 'Bitch' in Tiw'lek sign language. "This's my planet you're talking about. We're gonna steal my people's air?!"
Jack liked that idea - his skin stretched over his cheekbones in a smile that was increasingly skull-like. "Get on with your work, girl-flesh. We take what we want on this ship."
To keep him under any control at all Warra had to constantly feed him with the thought of his own power - even if it meant abuse for the crew. As long as they stayed together until her time was served. The truth was, of course, that Jack had about as much power in this business as Kirru had. He just didn't have the same brains as the boy. Even at ten Warra thought grudgingly, Kirru was twice the man Jack was. Poor little bastard! I wonder what does happen to them.
It wasn't her place to wonder that. Infact it made the webbing of her feet twitch to think of it. So much secrecy was going on; knowing anything must be bad for your health. Forget the speculation, get on with the work. "Is the Seeker out?"
"Couple'a seconds ago," Depper answered, pushing away his fall of blond dreadlocks with a greasy hand. "Should get the twins in minutes, if they're still living where they were."
Where they were when the Jedi came to assess them for their Force potential; when the Jedi offered to take them off their parents' hands and turn them into heroes.... Sometimes it really was hard not to think. This guy with the money? He knows who the Jedi visited, who they accepted and who turned them down. He's got access to Jedi records!
That was disturbing in itself. Like the movement of the swamp when a dianoga passes under the surface, the Jedi were a threat Warra had grown used to; she'd assessed it, she could live with it. But now she knew there was something else down there - something that didn't make a ripple. And it knows about me! Chuuba! Thinking was too scary. Best just do the job.
Not far from the bank of the nitrogen river stood a black volcanic outcropping - stark as an exclamation against the white. In the melted reflectivity of the stone a cave showed as an irregular area of matt darkness. It was perhaps one hundred metres away.
"You sure this entry is abandoned?"
"Yeah," Depper creased his brow over a lengthy report on screen. "Something about the ritual murder of clan chiefs coupla years ago means this area's..." he slurred the word, uncertain, "Tabu now. They use nine zero nine three for dry ice mining these days."
"Good...Cap'n?"
"Yeah, yeah, just do it."
The floating holocam showed darkness for the trip across Ryloth's nightside - it hadn't been designed for such a temperature - but inside the lift it warmed into life, and she saw the flick, flick of descending lights, the decayed brown of oxygen ravaged metal.
Swearing quietly she turned it round - Undergods be thanked for autocontrol! to watch the team struggling out of their heat suits, dumping the capture-sacks and thermals on the ice-slick floor.
Ora preened in front of the camera, though she had a strange, wistful look at the back of her painted eyes. I hope it's safe to let her loose on her homeworld.
Crim and Depper taunted each other over the stupidity of their prosthetics, but in a crowd - and wearing hooded cloaks - Warra thought they would pass as Tiw'lek for the few seconds that mattered.
"Listen," she growled over their headlinks, "This end of the tunnel the atmosphere's still mostly oxygen. No-one even thinks of using a blaster, OK?"
"Oh yeah, we're so stupid we hadn't thought of that." Crim's voice filled the cabin with accusation, but he moved his hand away from the weapon guiltily.
Tubeworm.
For a long time the hunt was stiflingly boring. She watched them jog through miles of corridor, prompted them where to turn when the warren of passages became too tangled. She read the atmosphere reports, snacked.
"Middle fork, then first right. Slow it down, you're nearly there." The rough hewn tunnel became polished; black pumice fading to grey and then to a shimmery white stone with veins of purple and flecks of amethyst crystal. Wonder how much that's worth?
Now there were wide avenues joining on either side, streetnames carved on the walls, a blaze of lamps the shape of pendant flowers, and a bustle of passers-by. "OK," she said at last, "Your blasters are safe now, but keep 'em hidden and try an' look native. Seeker says the girls are in the marketplace, so you're gonna have plenty of witnesses if you frag this."
They came out into a cavern so huge it might have been above ground; dizzying with light and colour. Above them tiers and tiers of dwellings looked down, their doors bright with painted carving, their windows spilling mossy beards of greenery down the white walls. Flowers and faces were equally bright - the people's blue skin startlingly beautiful in this setting.
"Smells great," said Depper, and she worried a little that he was developing a talent for aesthetic appreciation, until she realised he was looking at a hot food stall. Actually the mushroom pancakes did look good.
"Stuff's made out of spores and fungus," she told him, "You're not a swodding tourist. Get on with the job."
Stalls opened on every side - rickety platforms loaded down with goods. Ora paused to finger a shining gauze fabric; cerise with opalescent roses, and Crim had to be pulled back from a display of throwing stars. "But hey, look. They fit in this spring-loaded gun. No power-pack, right, so weapon-sweeps wouldn't pick it up...."
Some shore leave would have been nice, Warra thought, trying to work out the relationship between where they were and the input from the Seeker. Close. They should be able to see the twins by now.
"Can it, crew! Pay attention."
"Shut up, freak."
And there the girls were, sitting together at a cafe, heads bent over neon yellow glasses, drinking something virulent through curly straws.
"I see 'em." Ora's voice slipped into uncertainty and Warra wondered how these two ugly little beings looked to her. Touching, she supposed - with their straight, childish figures and over-painted faces. Purses and purchases on the table in front of them, looking around with studied gazes that said 'Look, we're out on our own. We're independent. We're so grown up.'
Aw, Sith, girl, don't go soft now.
The thinner of the two girls looked up even before Ora had begun to approach. Were children supposed to look that drawn? And the fatter scanned the crowd, nervously. Crim and Depper were making their way round behind the table, but there was no way the girl should have been able to see that.
"Hello," Ora gave them her number twenty smile - innocent enquiry, "Are you Neeta and Edeen?"
"I'm Neeta," the thin one smiled, uncertainly. An unlovely purple shade blotched her cheeks, as if being spoken to in public was too embarrassing to bear. Edeen grabbed her bag in silence, stuffed various small items inside.
"Neeta!" This was the voice of a child who'd been taught not to talk to strangers. It was ignored.
"Nice to meet you." Ora held out her hand. Neeta took it for a brisk, reassuring handshake. Then she looked at her palm, puzzled. There must have been just time for her to register the final grey smears of sedative being absorbed into her skin. Just time, before she sagged, unconscious, onto her chair.
"Pick her up."
Crim emerged from the crowd, hoisted the drugged girl into his arms before she slipped from the seat. At the same time Depper was pushing the barrel of a blaster into Edeen's ribs.
"My friend's got a blaster too - you do anything we don't tell you and your sister dies."
"You're not going to get away with this! My dad'll come after you."
Depper sniggered; "Oh, excuse me! I'm so scared I think I'll wet myself. Now shut up and walk."
They made a touching picture - the beautiful Tiw'lek mother, her husband carrying his sleeping daughter, the friend with his arm wrapped around the other sister's shoulders. People smiled at them as they passed.
Just maybe, Warra thought, Just maybe they're gonna get this one right!
"How's it goin'?" Jack looked over her shoulder. Her back tensed to receive a blow.
"Good," she said, hardly daring to believe it.
They had left the cavern, were back in the tunnels, walking less casually now, smiling, telling themselves how good they were. "Easiest 40 thou I ever made!" But Warra didn't like seeing Edeen conscious. Didn't like the calculation on the girl's face.
"Drug the other one too," she told them over the mike.
"Chuuba! Warra, you're not carrying them - and the other one's a fat slag."
Tunnels tangled in the darkness around them. Edeen had begun slapping the walls as she passed. Tap, pause, tap, tap. "Stop her doing that!"
"No-one can hear."
The girl's eyes had emptied and her lips parted, showing a fringe of spiked teeth. There was a blankness in her expression that Warra had only seen before on the faces of Jedi: The non-presence of self, while they reached out to the Force.
"Drug the little bitch right now! She's doing something."
Perhaps the panic in her voice finally spurred them. Ora moved forward.
Tap. Tap. Tap. An echo out of the deep. The crew swung round, torches making crazed shadows as they swept blank tunnel mouths. Something was moving there in the darkness, making a sound like the clicking of immense pincers.
Faceted stone reflected torchlight, and moved.
Tap. Tap. Tap. It came into the passage on feet like spears. A massive, heavy, scorpion-like creature with skin of polished stone. A lylek.
Time stalled; the crew's mouths dropped open. Then Edeen stamped on Depper's foot, twisted away from him and ran, straight at the ravenous monster.
Instantly the lads drew their blasters. "NO!" Warra yelled, "You'll blow yourselves up - the oxygen!" And by that time Edeen was past the creature, sheltered on the other side.
There was a clicking and tapping all around her; shapes moving like ants on a trail. None of them seemed to sense the girl, their mandibled heads swayed as they closed in on the pirates.
"The monsters are going to eat you," A line from childish play wound out of the darkness in a sweet little voice, "And when you're all gone I can pick up Neeta and go home."
I should have let him buy the star-thrower, Warra thought, distractedly, while she yelled down the com. "Cut your losses. Bring one. RUN!"
They didn't need telling twice.
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