“What have you heard?” Kindra asked.
He shook his head. “Just rumors.”
“I’ve heard them, too.” She was staring at him pointedly. “And not just about Lussk.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” she said, and walked past him into the dining hall.
His midday meal in front of him—a stringy lump of mubasa hock and canned montra fruit—Jura Ostrogoth pondered the dining hall around him with a watchful eye. He’d been around long enough to know that violence begat violence, that news of what had happened to Nickter could easily inflame some other apprentice’s desire to move upward in the academy’s pecking order—and Jura was just high enough up to be a target.
He ate alone, as did most of the students, with his back to the wall as much as possible. There wasn’t much talk, just the steady clink of utensils and trays. When you were here, you powered through the meal as quickly as possible and got back to your training sessions, or study, meditation, and Force drills. Time spent socializing was time wasted—it showed weakness, a lack of discipline and vigilance that was practically an invitation to your enemies.
“Jura.”
He paused and looked around. Hartwig was standing there with Scopique by his side. Their trays were full, but neither one of them looked like he was planning on sitting down there.
“What is it?”
“You hear about Nickter?”
“What, at the temple?” Jura shrugged. “That’s old news.”
Hartwig shook his head. “He disappeared.”
“Shocker.” Jura shrugged, turning back to his food. He was peripherally aware of the other apprentices nearby inclining their heads ever so slightly forward to eavesdrop on the conversation, and wondered if there might be more worth hearing. “He’s probably off someplace feeling sorry for himself.”
“No, I mean, he literally disappeared,” Hartwig said. “The med tech, Arljack, told Scopique all about it. One minute he was at the infirmary getting treated for that cut on his arm. Arl went to check on one of the other patients and when he came back, Nickter was gone.”
“So he just walked out.”
Hartwig leaned forward, lowering his voice. “He’s the fourth one this year.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what they’re saying.”
Jura sighed, realizing where the conversation was going. “You’ve been talking to Ra’at too much.”
“Maybe so,” Scopique said, speaking up for the first time, “but maybe in this case, Ra’at knows what he’s talking about.”
Jura turned all the way around and glared at him. Scopique was a Zabrak, and his tribal tattoos and the array of vestigial horns sprouting up from his scalp had always been a source of deep pride. In conversation, he tended to keep his head tilted slightly forward for dramatic effect, and with the light behind him, so that the shadows of the horns cut down over the geometry of his face like daggers. For a moment the two faced each other in tense silence.
“We’ve all heard the same thing,” Jura said, keeping his voice even. “Thinning the herd, the experiments … What’s your point?”
Scopique leaned in close. “Lord Scabrous.”
“What about him?”
“If he is abducting students for his own purposes,” Scopique said, “then someone needs to find out who might be next.”
Jura let out a dry little laugh, but it didn’t come out as dismissive or scornful as he’d hoped. “And how do you plan on getting that information?”
“I’m not,” the Zabrak told him, and pointed at him. “You are.”
“Me?”
“You’re perfect for the job. Everyone knows you have the survival instincts of a hungry dianoga. You’ll find a way.”
Jura pushed back his chair and stood up in one fluid motion. Swinging one hand forward, he reached up and snapped his fingers tight around the Zabrak’s throat, clamping down on the windpipe hard enough that he felt the cartilage pop. It happened so fast that, despite the strength and weight discrepancy, Scopique was caught off guard—but only momentarily. When he spoke again, his voice was calm, almost casual, and quiet enough that only Jura could hear him.
“There’s a saying on my home planet, Ostrogoth. Only a fool turns his back on an unpaid debt. You think about that.” Scopique nodded slightly at Jura’s arm. “Now, because you do still have some value to me, I’ll allow you to remove your hand from my throat voluntarily and save face in front of our peers. But the next time I see you, you will tell me what you’ve found out about the disappearances.” The Zabrak smiled thinly. “Or else the rest of the academy will soon see a side of you that I don’t think you want them to see—a very unflattering side. Do we understand each other?”
Jura’s jaw tightened; he was too angry to trust his voice for a reply. Instead he managed a curt nod.
“Good,” Scopique said. A second later the Zabrak turned and walked away. When he and Hartwig stepped out the door, Jura Ostrogoth carried his untouched meal to the waste receptacle and dumped it in, tray and all.
He’d lost his appetite.
Outside the dining hall, back out in the cold, Jura stalked through the snow, fists clenched and trembling at his sides. After he’d gone a few meters from the doorway, where he was sure no one could see, he stepped into a narrow alcove and stared at the stone wall. Fury boiled in his chest.
Or else the rest of the academy will soon see a side of you that I don’t think you want them to see, Scopique’s voice mocked in his head. Do we understand each other?
Jura’s thoughts flashed back four standard years to the day he’d first arrived at the academy, a scared and ignorant kid from the other side of the galaxy. He’d spent his first couple of days keeping a low profile, avoiding everyone, hoping to get his bearings before anybody had a chance to push him around, but that wasn’t how things worked around here. On the third morning, he’d been in the dorm, making up his bunk, when a fist swung out and smashed him hard between the shoulder blades, knocking him to the floor where he lay gasping for air.
When Jura managed to roll over and look up, he saw a gigantic Sith apprentice named Mannock T’sank looming over him. T’sank was stronger and older than Jura, and the smirk on his face was one of nearly homicidal glee.
“You look good lying there on the floor, newbie,” T’sank leered at him. “You know what you’d look even better doing? Licking my boots.” He’d held out one of his filthy leather dung-kickers, waving the toe right under Jura’s nose, close enough that Jura could smell the tauntaun droppings—T’sank had been sentenced to cleaning the paddocks for some minor offense. “Go ahead, newbie. Give them a good tongue-polish.”
Even then, Jura had known this was a test; how he responded would determine the way he was treated forever after in the Academy’s court of public opinion. Grimly, with the air of someone planning his own funeral, he had stood up and told T’sank exactly what he could do with his boot.
The results had been even worse than he’d expected. T’sank punched him in the face so hard that Jura blacked out, and when he woke up his entire head was a gonging carillon of pain. He couldn’t move. There was a dirty rag stuffed in his mouth, crammed so far back that he almost choked on it. Looking down, he saw that he was naked and tied to the bunk by his feet and ankles while T’sank stood over him, grinning with malevolence that bordered on madness. When Jura tried to inhale, he started gagging and panic took hold of him; he lost all control and burst into frightened tears, while T’sank howled with laughter.
And then, abruptly, the laughter had stopped. His last memory of T’sank was the thin, surprised yelp that the sadistic apprentice had let out right before he’d gone flying backward out the door. When Jura had craned his head and looked up through tear-blurred eyes, he’d seen Scopique standing there. The Zabrak had made no immediate move to untie him. Instead he’d been holding what Jura realized was some type of holocam, pointing it at him while the lens
autofocused.
“Smile,” Scopique had said from behind the cam, walking around the bunk, still recording Jura where he lay struggling to regain control of baser bodily functions. “Hold on, let me get your good side.”
When he was satisfied with the footage, he’d put the recorder away, yanked the rag out of Jura’s mouth, and untied him.
“Get up,” he told Jura. “Come on.” He glanced back out the half-open doorway, where T’sank had landed, half conscious and crumpled. “I gave him a good shot to the head, but it won’t keep him down forever.”
Jura struggled to his feet, wiped the blood and snot from his nose, and hurriedly struggled back into his robes. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
Scopique waved Jura’s gratitude off as if it disgusted him, then ejected the holocartridge from the cam and slipped it into his pocket, giving it a protective little pat. “For safekeeping,” he said, and Jura got the message. None of what happened had been about kindness or mercy. Jura was in his pocket now, and however long he stayed here, the Zabrak wasn’t going to let him forget it.
“And newbie?” Scopique had said, on his way out the door. “Welcome to the academy.”
Welcome to the academy.
Jerked back into the present moment by the blazing flames of his own anger, Jura blinked away the image of the cartridge in the Zabrak’s pocket. Standing here in the shadows between buildings, the urge to lash out was something he could no longer master. He raised both hands and unleashed a burst of dark side energy into the wall itself. Electric heat leapt through his wrists and palms, slamming into the rock, cracking it down the middle.
He closed his eyes and exhaled, momentarily relieved. He knew he should have saved his anger, held on to it and used it in one of the combat drills, but he couldn’t help himself.
Opening his eyes again, he looked at the cracked wall. It had been strong, but now it was damaged, its value weakened in some fundamental way by what had been inflicted on it.
I am that wall.
Turning away, he stepped back out of the shadows, his mind already trying to work out how he was going to get Scopique’s information for him.
3/Deep-Down Trauma Hounds
NICKTER AWOKE IN THE CAGE.
He had no memory of how he’d gotten here, or how long he’d been inside. The last thing he remembered was sitting in the infirmary, waiting for Arljack to come back and check the wound on the back of his neck. And in fact, for one disoriented moment, he thought he was still there. It’s cold in here, he’d started to say. Hey, Arl, you mind turning up the heat a little bit?
But this was not the infirmary.
He tried to sit up and slammed his head against the metal bars above him hard enough to make him let out an angry moan of pain. Just exactly what was going on here? The cage was small, forcing him to remain hunched forward, either on his hands and knees or in a slouch-shouldered sitting position. The top part of his tunic had been ripped away, leaving him naked from the waist up. His back hurt, really hurt, from the base of his skull all the way down to the bottom of his spine—a low, steady throb that made his molars ache.
As if to mock his immediate claustrophobic situation, the room outside the cage was very large, and very dark. From inside, Nickter could see almost all of it. It was a circular space, perhaps fifty meters across, illuminated by an irregular assemblage of flashing monitor equipment, candles, and torchlight. Laboratory equipment crowded every available surface and corner. Pipes and wires were draped from tables and desks, connecting odd piles of disjointed equipment, condensers, flasks, beakers, and burners. The walls were glass, and although he couldn’t see anything out there but darkness, Nickter had the vague feeling that he was very high up.
Sudden realization blindsided him.
He was at the top of the tower.
“You’re awake,” a voice said.
Nickter jerked upright at the sound of the voice and very nearly screamed.
Standing outside the cage, staring down at him, was a tall, broad-shouldered, black-robed figure that blended almost imperceptibly into the shadows. Nickter already knew exactly who it was, even before the flickering torchlight of the room revealed the man’s face—a long, bony sculpture of bone and half-lidded eyes, the famous curvature of the peaked upper lip, how it always seemed to be smiling slightly at some secret thought. A fresh spasm of apprehension leapt through him, raising hackles across his back. The eyes were the worst part, he thought: how almost silver they were, how they seemed to glitter with a feverish accumulation of ambition and indifference.
“Lord Scabrous,” he said, or tried to say. His mouth felt parched, and his lungs couldn’t seem to get enough air. “What am I doing here?”
The Sith Lord didn’t answer. But the eyes kept staring down at him … past him, somehow, as if there were something else inside the cage with him.
He could smell himself, the stale cheap grease of panic and perspiration seeping through his skin. The pain in his back had intensified from a throb to a sharp stabbing agony that shot down his ribs and up into his neck. It was getting worse by the second, like the sting of sweat in an open wound. Whatever injury had been inflicted upon him, it was deep, and whole packs of nerve receptors—those obedient trauma hounds—were circling back and forth, busily delivering the bad news.
Groping around behind him, Nickter felt something cold and smooth and hard sticking out of his skin just above the base of his spine. He looked around and saw what Scabrous had been looking at—it was some kind of tube, implanted directly into a vertebra. The sticky ring of exposed flesh around the wound site felt raw and hot, swollen, and it burned when he touched it. Sliding his hand upward, he felt another tube above it, and another, coming out of his back, all the way up to his neck. There were at least six of them protruding out of him, as big around as his finger. He realized that he could feel them pulsating inside his spinal canal—that was the source of the gnawing pain.
“What … what is this?” he asked, aware of how different his voice sounded already, high-pitched and wobbly. “What did you do to me?”
Scabrous still didn’t answer. He wasn’t even looking at Nickter anymore. He had walked around behind the cage now, where the tubes ran between the wire bars into what looked like some kind of mechanized pump with a wide flask mounted on top.
Rattling around inside the cage, Nickter stared at it. The flask was full of murky reddish yellow liquid. Next to the pump sat a small black pyramid covered in lines of engraved text—what he realized, through his pain and fear, had to be a Sith Holocron. They’d learned about it at the academy, but he’d never actually seen one before.
And then he saw other things, dozens of them, in glass bottles lined up across the wide platform next to the pump.
Flowers.
All black.
All different.
All dead.
Nickter squirmed in the cage. None of this made any sense, and the irrationality only intensified his mounting terror. He was sweating profusely now—it was dripping off him in big, oozing droplets. The urge to beg, to grovel, to bargain for his life, or at least for an end to the pain, was almost irresistible. The only thing that stopped him was the suspicion, based on everything he’d heard about Scabrous, that the Sith Lord wouldn’t even listen. Scabrous stood behind the cage, alternating his attention between the flowers and the Holocron. Finally he selected a flower, opened the glass chamber on top of the pump, and dropped it inside.
“What is that?” Nickter asked. “What are you doing?”
Scabrous glanced at him, as if hearing him for the first time. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and resonant, deeper than Nickter remembered. There was an awful intimacy to it, as though the Sith Lord were whispering directly in his ear.
“You were humiliated today at the temple, Wim Nickter—humiliated badly. You have shown yourself to be weak and easily defeated.”
“It was Lussk!” Nickter burst out. “He used the Force on me, he—”
Scabrous lifted his hand. “There is still one way in which you may yet prove useful. That is the offer I make to you, one of redemption.”
Then he pressed a button on the pump.
Staring at it, Nickter saw the black flower swirling in the reddish yellow fluid, its petals shredding as it dissolved. The pump let out a faint whining noise, like half a dozen odd vacuum parts called into dubious service. At first he felt nothing except for the odd vibration of the tubes in his back.
Then the pain he’d been enduring up till now became abruptly, horribly worse. It slammed through his body, gouging through every millimeter of his nerve endings, turning them white-hot.
Nickter arched forward and screamed. The pain owned him: he surrendered to it utterly. It became a vast, all-encompassing neutron star, and as it sucked him forward he saw Scabrous watching him through the cage.
The last thing Nickter saw before he blacked out was Scabrous turning away from him, swinging his arm across the long counter above the pump, sending the flowers and their vessels crashing to floor.
4/Dranok
PERGUS FRODE DIDN’T MIND HIS MAINTENANCE DUTIES AT THE ACADEMY’S LANDING pad. It meant he got the first look at the new arrivals, often a pretty sorry lot, and he was privy to some sensitive information even before some of the Sith Masters found out about it. Not a bad gig for a pilot-turned-grease-monkey whose last job had been wiping down engines at the Kuat Drive Yards.
Tonight, for instance—when the Corellian cruiser banked and began descending into the snow-strewn landing lights—Frode knew exactly who it was. He would have known even if Darth Scabrous’s HK droid hadn’t been standing right next to him, whirring softly to itself in anticipation. Frode didn’t mind droids—most of the time he actually preferred them to organic life-forms, especially on Odacer-Faustin.
“Statement: I shall alert Lord Scabrous, sir,” the HK said, “that his guests have arrived.”
Star Wars: Red Harvest Page 2
