The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  Raw emotion surged out of Malgus, a gust of rage.

  “I promise you I will do it,” Aryn said.

  Malgus’s free hand clenched into a fist. “If you have harmed her permanently, I will see that you suffer. I promise you that.”

  Aryn understood less and less about Malgus with each word he spoke. Still, she maintained her bluff. “Give the order, Malgus!”

  Malgus glared at her, snarled, spoke into his comlink. “Jard, belay my previous order. The drop ship is to be allowed to leave the system.”

  “My lord?”

  “Do it, Jard!”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Malgus walked toward Aryn, the slow movements of a hunter that smelled prey.

  “And now, Jedi? You cannot leave here.”

  “I don’t want to leave, Malgus.”

  His eyes smiled. “No. You want to kill me. Need to, yes? Because of your master?”

  The feelings the words mined out of the dark parts of her soul felt uncomfortably close to the rage flowing from Malgus. A day earlier and her feelings might have mirrored his. That they didn’t she owed to Eleena.

  And Zeerid.

  And Master Zallow.

  “I wanted to hurt you, Sith. Hurt you by hurting her. But I won’t add to her pain. She suffers enough already.”

  Malgus stopped in his advance. His eyes went to the Twi’lek, and to her surprise, Aryn felt something akin to pity radiate from him, just a flash, quickly washed away by hate.

  “Enough words,” he said, returning his gaze to Aryn. “Make your attempt, Aryn Leneer. I am here.”

  He discarded his cape, stood up straight, and saluted her with his lightsaber.

  She hefted her lightsaber, Master Zallow’s lightsaber, felt the weight of both in her hands. She fell into the lines of the Force, at peace, calm.

  Still heart. Still mind.

  She had trained in dual lightsaber combat when she had been a Padawan, but she rarely fought with two blades in a genuine combat situation. She would now, here, today. She thought it fitting that she do so.

  She did not wait for Malgus. She bounded across the hangar, her speed augmented by the Force, the lines of her blades leaving a blur of light in their wake. Malgus held his ground, blade ready.

  She stabbed low with her primary blade, high with her secondary. Malgus leapt over both, flipped, landed behind her, and crosscut for her neck.

  She ducked under it while spinning into a reverse leg sweep that caught his feet and tripped him. When he hit the ground, she rose, turned, raised both blades, and drove them down in a parallel overhand slash. Malgus somersaulted backward, and Aryn’s blades cut gashes in the floor of the hangar. Sparks flew.

  Malgus bounced up from the somersault and loosed a telekinetic blast that lifted Aryn from her feet and blew her across the hangar. She slammed into one of the shuttle’s bulkheads, but used the Force to cushion the blow so that it did no harm. Bouncing off the cool metal, she charged Malgus. As she ran, she cast first her own lightsaber at Malgus, then Master Zallow’s, using the Force to guide both.

  The attack caught Malgus unprepared, and Aryn’s blade bit into his armor. Sparks flew and Malgus winced, snarled with pain. He ducked under Master Zallow’s blade, and Aryn recalled both to her hands as she ran. The moment she had them, she cast them both at Malgus again.

  But this time he was ready. Augmenting his speed with the Force, he flipped high into the air and out of the way of both. She anticipated his movement, however, bounded forward to cut him off and landed a flying kick in his chest. He used the Force to diminish the blow’s impact but it drove him back a step and she heard his breath hitch through the sound of his respirator.

  He recovered, roared, raised his blade high to cut her in two, and brought it down. But she had already summoned her own blade back to her hand and interposed it in a parry.

  Malgus’s strength drove her to her knees. She held out her other hand and pulled Master Zallow’s blade to her hand, stabbed for his stomach with it.

  Malgus sidestepped the stab, though it skinned his armor and showered sparks. He pushed her blade to the side with his own and kicked her in the face. The strength behind the blow blew through her defenses, caused her to see stars, loosed teeth, and sent her head over heels backward. She landed on her knees, stunned, seeing double.

  She rose, swayed on her feet, seeing four blades in her hands rather than two. Something was in her mouth and she spat it out—a tooth, the root forked and bloody.

  “You are a child to hate,” Malgus said, his tone incongruously soft as he stalked toward her. “Your anger barely smolders. You are a fraction of what you could be.”

  She needed time to recover her senses, some distance from Malgus. She backflipped high into the air and landed atop the Imperial shuttle. Her mind was beginning to clear.

  “Your Master was also misguided. He thought to defeat me with calm, but failed. You thought to defeat me with anger, but carry too little, despite your loss.”

  Aryn’s vision began to clear. She felt more herself.

  “Be grateful for that, Jedi. Anger exacts its own price.”

  Again she felt the odd sense of sympathy or pity adulterating the otherwise pure hate flowing from Malgus. His eyes went to Eleena, her body crumpled on the landing pad’s floor.

  As Aryn prepared to leap at Malgus, he held forth a hand, almost casually, and lightning sizzled through the space between them. Aryn interposed her lightsabers, but the power in the lightning exceeded anything she had felt from Malgus before. It blasted through her defenses and both lightsabers flew from her hands. The lightning seized her, lifted her up, and threw her from the top of the shuttle.

  As she flew toward the deck, she smelled burning flesh, heard screaming, realized that it was her flesh, her screams. She hit the ground hard and her head bounced off the ground. Sparks erupted in her brain, pain, and everything went dark.

  Zeerid’s military training responded faster than his thoughts. He made a knife of his right hand and drove it at the smaller man’s throat. But Vrath, too, must have been trained. A sweeping side block with his left hand threw Zeerid’s arm out wide, then Vrath seized the arm by the wrist, shifted his feet to get him closer to Zeerid, and rotated into a hip toss. Zeerid saw it coming, rode with the throw, hit the ground in a roll, and came up with his E-9 drawn and aimed.

  A kick from Vrath sent the blaster flying and it discharged into the bulkhead. Vrath followed the side kick into a spinning back kick but Zeerid anticipated it, took the blow to the side to capture the leg, stood, and drove his fist into the man’s nose.

  Bone crunched and blood exploded outward.

  Vrath flailed wildly with his left hand, driving his straightened fingers into Zeerid’s throat, a blow that would have killed him if the man had been able to put more into it. As it was, the blow caused Zeerid to release Vrath’s leg and recoil.

  Zeerid reached behind his back for his second blaster and started to pull it loose. But Vrath charged him before Zeerid could bring it to bear, drove Zeerid up against one of the cargo crates. The sharp point of the crate’s corner pressed into Zeerid’s back, and he grunted at the pain. Vrath’s hand snaked around Zeerid’s, caught him by the wrist, levered it, and slammed it against the crate. The second blaster fell to the floor and the man kicked it away.

  Zeerid grunted with effort and shoved Vrath away from him.

  They regarded each other from three paces, both gasping. Vrath’s eyes watered. Blood poured out of his nose. Zeerid had trouble breathing through his damaged trachea.

  “Guess it had to come to this,” the man said, his voice made nasal by his broken nose. “Didn’t it, Zeerid Korr?”

  He covered first one nostril, then the other, blowing out blood and snot in turn.

  “I’m Vrath, by the way. Vrath Xizor.”

  Zeerid barely heard him. He took the time Vrath had used to clear his nose to recover his own breath and eye the floor for either blaster. Both weapons had disapp
eared under crates during the scrum.

  Vrath felt the damage to his nose with a two-finger pincer. “What are you? Harriers? Commandos?”

  Zeerid’s breathing cleared and the two men began to circle.

  “Havoc Squadron,” Zeerid said, sizing up the smaller man.

  “First in,” Vrath said, reciting one of the squad’s mottos.

  “You?” Zeerid asked.

  “Imperial sniper corps.”

  “A skulker,” Zeerid said.

  Vrath lost his smile at the insult. “I killed over fifty men in a Republic uniform, Korr. You’ll be just another number to me.”

  “We’ll see,” Zeerid said, as calm as the quiet moments before a thunderstorm.

  Vrath feinted, drawing a response from Zeerid. Vrath grinned, his teeth bloody with runoff from his nose.

  “Jumpy, yeah?”

  Zeerid watched for an opening as they circled. When he saw one, he feinted high and lunged in low, thinking to take Vrath down where Zeerid’s size would give him the advantage. Vrath sprawled to avoid the takedown, but Zeerid used his weight to drive him up against the bulkhead. Vrath threw a short elbow, grazing Zeerid’s head, another, catching him on the cheek.

  Grunting, Zeerid pushed himself away from the smaller man to get some room to work. When he had it, still holding Vrath’s arms, he put a knee into his abdomen, another, another. Vrath grunted, turned his body to keep his hips in the way.

  Vrath’s fingers slid up Zeerid’s shoulder to his face, toward his eyes. Zeerid shook his head but Vrath’s fingers found the sockets, started to burrow.

  Zeerid shoved him away and backed off, blinking, covering his retreat with a front kick.

  Vrath lunged at him, seized him around the thighs, lifted him off the ground, and threw him back down. Zeerid’s head hit the deck hard and he saw stars. Vrath squirmed atop him, fast, elusive, his arms and legs everywhere, wrapping Zeerid up. Soon he had his body atop Zeerid. Elbows and fists poured down, one after another. Zeerid took a blow to the cheek, the temple, another to the cheek, the top of his head. The last opened him up and blood ran warm and slick down his pate, smeared his face, darkened Vrath’s elbow.

  Desperate, he reached for Vrath’s arms but the man was too fast and the blood made his skin slick, more difficult to get a grip. Zeerid wrapped his arms around Vrath’s back, pulled him close to disallow him the room he needed to ply his elbows.

  And then Vrath made a mistake. Trying to pull himself back up to loose more elbows, he put his face above Zeerid’s with only a few centimeters between them. Zeerid threw his head up and slammed his brow into Vrath’s already broken nose.

  Vrath cried out in pain, instinctively recoiled. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Zeerid seized one of Vrath’s wrists, rolled him over, threw his legs on either side of Vrath’s shoulder, extended Vrath’s arm, then extended his own body to lever the arm at the elbow.

  Vrath screamed as the hyperextension turned into an audible break. The arm went loose in Zeerid’s grasp, the joint shattered.

  He released Vrath’s elbow, rolled, and bounded to his feet. Vrath, his face twisted in pain, crawled for where the E-9 had disappeared under a crate. Zeerid cut him off, picked him off the floor, and shoved him hard toward the bulkhead. Vrath careered into the metal wall, off kilter. He tried to catch himself with his broken arm but it just hung limp from the joint and he caught the side of his head flush. His eyes rolled and he went down in a heap.

  Zeerid jumped atop him, punched him square in the eye, thinking he was only stunned, but the man stayed limp beneath him. Blood dripped from Zeerid’s head onto Vrath’s face.

  Gasping, Zeerid checked Vrath’s pulse. Still alive.

  All at once the adrenaline that had fueled him during the combat drained out of him. His entire body ached. His breath came ragged and he had no strength. Stabs of pain in his face and head echoed each beat of his heart. The entire fight had taken maybe forty seconds. He felt as if he’d been beaten for hours.

  He stared down at Vrath, wondering what to do with him. He searched the man’s pants, jacket, coat. He found several IDs and other personal items. He also found flex binders. He flipped Vrath over and pulled his arms behind him.

  He felt the bones in the broken arm grind together and Vrath groaned.

  “Sorry,” Zeerid said. There was nothing he could do about the arm.

  Once he had the man’s arms secured, he slung him over his shoulders and carried him on shaky legs through the ship to the cockpit. A Dragonfly had no brig and there was no way Zeerid was letting Vrath out of his sight.

  By the time he reached the cockpit, the ship had cleared the spaceport and angled upward for the atmosphere. Zeerid studied the instrumentation. His face was swelling and his eye was damaged from Vrath’s fingers so he had to squint. He took off his shirt and used it to apply pressure to his head wound. He didn’t want to bleed all over the controls.

  A weapons belt with a GH-22 blaster and several knives lay on the pilot’s seat. Vrath’s weapons, presumably. Zeerid belted them on and sat.

  He’d never flown a Dragonfly-class drop ship before, but he could fly any kniffing thing that tramped the stars. He’d need to get past the Imperial blockade and get into a hyperspace lane.

  “Time to dance between the raindrops,” he said, and disengaged the autopilot.

  He looked down out of the canopy at the spaceport far below, wondering what had happened with Aryn. He’d have paid a lot of credits to have her beside him right then.

  Aryn opened her eyes. Malgus stood over her, his bloodshot eyes fixed on her face. He held the Twi’lek, still unconscious, in his arms. He also held both of Aryn’s lightsabers. His own lightsaber hilt hung from his belt.

  He had not killed her. She had no idea why.

  He stared down at her and she felt his ambivalence. He was struggling with something.

  “Take them and go,” he said, and dropped both of her lightsabers. They hit the floor in a clatter. “Take the shuttle. I will ensure you have safe passage away from Coruscant.”

  She did not move. The lightsabers were centimeters from her hand.

  His eyes narrowed. “Unless your need to avenge your Master requires you to die, you should do as I command, Jedi.”

  She pushed herself up with one hand, took both of the lightsabers in the other. The metal was cool in her palm. “Why?”

  “Because you spared her,” he said, his voice soft behind the respirator. “Were our situations reversed, I would not have done so. Because your presence made me aware of something I should have known long ago.”

  Aryn rose, still cautious, and clipped the lightsabers to her belt.

  “We will be leaving Coruscant, you know,” he said, almost sadly. “The Empire, I mean. All that remains is to sign the treaty. Then we will have peace. Does that please you?”

  “Please me?” She still did not understand. She inventoried her injuries. Lots of bruises and lacerations. Nothing broken. She inventoried her soul. Nothing broken there, either.

  She looked into Malgus’s face. She did not know what to say. “Perhaps we will meet again, under other circumstances.”

  “If we meet again, Aryn Leneer,” Malgus said. “I will kill you as I did your Master. Do not mistake my actions for mercy. I am repaying a debt. When you leave here, it is paid.”

  Aryn licked her lips, stared him in the face, and nodded.

  “Do you know your own Order betrayed you, Jedi?” he said. “They informed us that you might be coming here.”

  Aryn was not surprised, but the betrayal still hurt.

  “I no longer belong to an Order,” she said, her throat tight.

  He laughed, the sound like a hacking cough. “Then we have more in common than anger,” he said. “Now, go.”

  She did not understand and resigned herself to never understanding. She turned, still disbelieving, and headed for the shuttle. T7 emerged from hiding near the ship and beeped a question. She had no answer. Together, they boarde
d the shuttle. When she reached the cockpit and sat, she realized that she was shaking.

  “Still heart, still mind,” she said, and felt calmer.

  Exhaling, she engaged the thrusters. She had no idea where she would go.

  As the blue of Coruscant’s sky gave way to the black of space, Zeerid started to sweat. He eyed the sensors for Imperial ships. They would have detected him by now. A cruiser showed on his screen, maybe Valor, maybe another one. He wheeled the drop ship away from it, accelerated for the nearest hyperlane. He just wanted to jump somewhere, anywhere.

  A beep from the panel drew his attention. It took him a moment to realize it was a hail. It took him another moment to figure out how to operate it. He slapped the button, opening the channel. If nothing else, he’d curse out the Imperials before they shot him down.

  “Drop ship Razor, you are cleared to leave.”

  Zeerid assumed it had to be a ruse, a bad joke. But he saw nothing on the scanner, and the cruiser did not move to interdict.

  He flew for the hyperlane. He let the navicomp calculate a course and tried to believe his luck. Vrath’s voice startled him.

  “Not bad, Commando. I’m impressed.”

  “Impressing you isn’t my concern, skulker.”

  Vrath chuckled, but it turned into a cough and a wince. “There are pain pills in the medbay. You mind?”

  “Later,” Zeerid said.

  “It hurts pretty bad, marine.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s just business, Korr.”

  Zeerid thought of Arra, Nat, Aryn. “Right. Business.”

  He’d had all he could take of business.

  “We’re done as far as I’m concerned,” Vrath said. “I was hired to stop that engspice from getting to Coruscant. I did that. Which means we’re done. I report back and we never see each other again. I’d like my ship back, though.”

  Zeerid resisted the urge to punch a restrained man. He was behaving as if they’d just had a friendly sparring match, that they’d go out for drinks later.

  “The Exchange probably won’t be as forgiving though, eh?” Vrath said. “I hear they don’t tolerate lost shipments. You and your family are going to have a hard row there.”