Scourge

by Jeff Grubb

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

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

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

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

  He placed the lightsaber on the table between them.

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

  “Were there any problems?” asked the Klatooinian.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  How much he feared her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Did you kill him?” she repeated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Consider it done,” said Koax. “You have my word—the Bomu clan will get its vengeance against this Jeedai. But I will warn you, if the Jeedai killed so many of your clan just at the outset, there will be more lives lost before you get your vengeance.”

  Dejarro nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, we know. It is the price you pay for vengeance.” The Rodian turned to leave the Klatooinian with her prize. />
  “One last thing,” said Koax, and Dejarro froze in his tracks, turning slightly.

  “I will have to tell the Spice Lord that we have this problem because the Bomu clan neglected to cover its tracks sufficiently,” said Koax. “And I will have to report that I have taken appropriate action.” The Klatooinian’s hand drifted to her weapons belt.

  Dejarro pulled his blaster, and if Koax had been going for her own, he would have beaten her to the draw. Instead, the Klatooinian pulled one of her throwing blades, and in a graceful, almost casual flick of the wrist, planted it deeply in the Rodian’s neck from five paces away. Dejarro went down, gurgling.

  Koax liked to think that last noise was an attempt at an apology.

  The Spice Lord’s agent knelt over the dead Rodian and pulled the small vial—the last pure sample of Tempest on Makem Te—from Dejarro’s inside pocket. Then she pulled one of the death robes from its hooks and draped it solemnly over the body.

  “Another victim of this new Jeedai,” said Koax. “But I am good to my word, and will gladly throw as many of your clan in his way as I need to.” She let out a deep sigh.

  “But first,” continued the one-eyed Klatooinian, “I will have to send a message to the Spice Lord, presenting the bad news. And let me tell you, Rodian, that you got off easy in that you had to deal with me instead of the one I serve.”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  NEGOTIATIONS

  They sat quietly at the table: Mander Zuma, Reen Irana, and the Bothan. The three had headed away from the sirens, and after half an hour they found themselves at a Swokes Swokes tapcaf that specialized in “outlander cuisine”—or at least the Swokes Swokes’s best guess of it. The establishment was missing the traditional trench down the center of the room, but the tables were still massive and, Mander noted, bolted to the floor.

  They sat across from one another, the clear envelope with the crystals between them. Reen Irana stared at it like it was a live snake, fascinated and horrified. Her Bothan companion, who had not spoken a word during their fight or their later flight, was looking around the tapcaf. He looked like an impatient, easily distracted puppy, but Mander realized that he was checking out all the exits and making sure that they had not been followed.

  “This is what killed my brother,” she said at last. She sounded defeated.

  “Likely,” said Mander. “There were strange crystals at the corners of your brother’s eyes, as well as in his blood.”

  She ran her hand through her dark blue hair. In a soft voice she said, “His blood. How was the rest of him? What did you discover when you examined his body?”

  Mander was surprised by her directness. “I don’t know if you would really be comfortable knowing the details …”

  “Tell me!” she snapped, and several heads in the tapcaf turned their way. The Bothan looked at her and frowned. She nodded agreement, then said, more quietly, “What else did you find in the body?”

  “Purplish crystals at the corners of the eyes and mouth,” Mander said quickly. “Darkening and expansion of the veins and arteries. In addition to the damage from such a fall. And there was a surprising rigidity in the muscles. He was angry when he died.”

  The Pantoran slumped in her seat and bowed her head.

  Mander looked at the now-concerned face of the Bothan, and back at the Pantoran. “I committed the body to the flames, as is the custom of our Order. Had I known you were in the area, I would have waited.” There was no response.

  Mander tapped the envelope and said, “It is definitely a spice—it dissolves easily, and could be put into the scentwine the Rodian brought him. I think that is how the poison was administered.”

  Reen Irana’s shoulders shook, and at first Mander thought she was sobbing. Instead, he realized that it was a sharp, mocking laugh. “Poison?” she said, and her jaw stiffened. “If only it was simply that.”

  At once Mander realized that he had been mistaken. Reen Irana knew something more than he. What had he missed? He decided to wait for the Pantoran to tell him, and the silence grew between them.

  When she finally spoke, she fought to control her words. “Are you Jedi all this naïve? This isn’t just a poison. This is a narcotic. A hard version of spice. It’s called Tempest.”

  Mander looked at the packet. Now he regarded it like a serpent as well.

  Reen leaned forward and continued, “Spacers have been seeing this spice throughout the spiral arms. Along the Perlemian Trade Route and Hydian Way—even in the Corporate Sector and Hutt space. It’s used either mixed in drinks or as an aerosol. It’s a spice, but a nasty one—addictive and destructive. Heavy users are marked by a darkening of the blood vessels—you can see them through the flesh. They also …” She paused for a moment, thinking of her brother, before continuing. “Addicts are also prone to fits of uncontrollable rage.”

  “Like that which Toro showed in the restaurant,” Mander said quietly. “It still could have been used as a poison.”

  Reen shuddered and shook her head. “It wasn’t a poisoning. It was an overdose.”

  Mander blinked. He could not imagine Toro using a dangerous drug.

  But before he could say anything, Reen continued. “The rage is a symptom of long-term use, as is the darkening of the blood vessels. The last few holos I’ve received from Toro—he was angry, upset. He blamed the Jedi for sending him out to the middle of nowhere. Felt he was getting a runaround from his contacts. He sounded bitter, frustrated. It wasn’t like him. I didn’t think about it at the time, but ran into a mutual friend on Keyorin, another Pantoran. The friend said that Toro looked sick, and had gotten angry when asked about it.”

  “Sick,” Mander said. A statement, not a question.

  Reen looked away from Mander. “He said that Toro’s veins were showing dark through his flesh.”

  “You think he was already addicted,” said Mander. He felt the air go out of him. It was one thing for young Toro to give in to a momentary flash of anger. It was another if he had been using a drug all this time, without anyone knowing.

  No, he corrected himself. Without Mander or the Jedi Council knowing about it. Toro’s sister knew, or at least suspected.

  “I came here to confront him, to find out if he was okay,” she said, making a gesture of frustration. “We were not … close. I left for space before he left to join your Jedi. But he was family, and I was worried.”

  “And you came here and found that he was dead,” said Mander, hoping his voice covered what he felt inside.

  “And that another Jedi was here, asking after him,” said Reen. “I didn’t know if you had been working with him, or looking for him as well, or …” She let her voice trail off.

  “You didn’t know if I was the one giving him the Tempest,” said Mander flatly. Reen nodded, her mouth a thin line.

  Mander said, “Your brother was on Makem Te at the behest of the Jedi Order. That is true. But his assignment had nothing to do with spice in any form.”

  “He was supposed to meet someone in the restaurant,” said the Pantoran.

  “Probably someone to do with his mission,” said Mander.

  “Or perhaps his source for the drug,” said Reen.

  Mander sighed. “Any evidence that would be at the warehouse is gone now. We can probably track down the Bomu clan, though. There aren’t many Rodians on Makem Te.”

  “The Bomu clan is strictly small-time,” said Reen. “They are scattered across a dozen worlds like this. They hire out to just about anyone. They would be middlebeings at best.”

  Mander suggested, “Still, they’re our best hope for finding out where this drug, this Tempest, is coming from.”

  Reen thought for moment. “It is a pretty large clan, and provides muscle throughout the quadrant. Their scams vary from planet to planet, and sometimes different parts of the clan work for rival crime lords. The one thing that pulls them all together is vengeance. Take out one of them, and you can have the entire clan on your back in no tim
e.”

  “I will remember to add them to the list of the Jedi’s enemies,” said Mander wryly.

  The conversation stopped as the waiter, a lumbering Swokes Swokes, came with their meals. The waiter also set three small iron cups on the table, bubbling with what Mander hoped was an infusion of Ansionian tea, or at least the Makem Te equivalent. Once the waiter left, Mander noticed that the bag containing the Tempest crystals was missing.

  He looked up sharply at Reen, who was staring into her cup as if the future lay there. Then he looked at the Bothan, who returned his glance with a gangly grin and reached into his vest, producing the envelope, which he handed back to Mander.

  Mander put the envelope back into his own robe pocket, “Yes, we shouldn’t leave things like this out to be found. And thank you for your help in rescuing both of us, earlier.”

  The Bothan raised both hands in an expression of What else could I have done? Reen looked up and said, “Sorry, I didn’t make introductions. Eddey Be’ray, here, is one of the best mechanics in this part of space. He can hot-wire just about everything, from a speeder to a battle cruiser.”

  “Or a manual loadlifter,” added Mander. “Does he speak?”

  “Only when I have to,” replied the Bothan, in a deep voice with an educated, Core accent. Despite himself, Mander blinked in surprise. It was not the voice he expected to come out of the furry muzzle of a Bothan.

  “Eddey believes that when you don’t say much, people forget about you, and they let things slip,” said Reen. “Once he comes to trust you, he’s positively chatty.”

  Again, the Bothan retreated into mime, raising both hands in a comical shrug and dug into a krayt steak.

  Mander nodded. The intelligence-gathering abilities of the Bothan people were legendary. He turned back to Reen. “What can you tell me about the Tempest drug itself?”

  “Not a lot,” said Reen. “It showed up less than a year ago, and suddenly it’s all over the place. At first it was like any other type of spice—used for medicinal and, um, recreational purposes.”