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| - The sun’s descent into the hazy banks of Bespin’s clouds tinged the sky with ochre. The sizzling golden orb was kissing the uppermost wisps of clouds as Shara made her way through the large Bexpress Shipping warehouse en route to the large private spacedock the company owned. It was late in the day, so most of the workers had gone home. Neither the sparse few employees or the droids occupying the warehouse paid her or the two plainclothes Yanibar Guard Intelligence agents escorting her any attention. For her part, Shara’s heart was heavy and she was reticent—her trip to Chalacta had been to tell the remnants of her family that had survived the Yuuzhan Vong War that she was moving to an even more remote planet and would not be returning. They hadn’t taken it well, and she was looking forward to returning to Yanibar, to seeing her father and hopefully Ryion as well. She emerged from the back of the warehouse, squinting against the rays of suns that scattered golden light across her dark locks. There were several transports perched on the array of open-air landing platforms. “Which one?” she asked one of her minders. “The Suwantek, third one down,” came the reply. Shara nodded and stepped forward quickly. Being shadowed by the two agents had been unsettling, but Ryion had insisted on it, saying it was for her own protection. She didn’t strike much of an imposing figure, wearing a plain burgundy cloak over a long gray dress, and the smooth brown skin of her face and hands couldn’t possibly be mistaken for the weathered appearance of a soldier or Jedi. No doubt her escorts were more used to protecting important intelligence assets or key figures in Yanibar’s government instead of a slight Chalactan woman with no real power. Having once been groomed to take over as viceroy of the Chalactan people, Shara had no desire to return to that lifestyle—the burden of governing had nearly killed her family during the Yuuzhan Vong War. She had steered clear of public service, instead spending her time volunteering to help veterans of the Vong War on Yanibar and looking after Ryion. Suddenly, one of her escorts held up a hand, signaling a halt, his other hand going for his blaster. The man, a Zabrak whose name she thought was Iribe, placed one hand on his ear and Shara thought he was trying to hear something through his earpiece comlink. Only when he collapsed dead a second later with blood pouring from the side of his head did she realize something was wrong. Shara stifled a shriek with her hands as she looked aghast. “Get down!” her escort, a female human named Lami told her, pushing her down even as she drew her blaster pistol, scanning the surroundings. Shara ducked obediently, looking around for their hidden assailant as Lami stood protectively over her. Then, she saw the three women emerge from behind one of the ships. Two of them appeared human, but their third was a Wroonian, judging by her blue skin. While the Wroonian was unarmed, the other two wore combat bodysuits and were cradling long rifles in the crooks of their arms. “You would be wise to lower your weapon, Agent,” the Wroonian called out, her voice low and deep, resonant with power and authority. “You first,” Agent Lami replied defiantly, her blaster raised. “Put ‘em down, or I open fire.” “Please, I have no argument with you,” the Wroonian said placatingly. “Tell that to Iribe,” Lami retorted. “I would have given him the same chance to surrender if he hadn’t been about to open fire on one of us,” the Wroonian answered soothingly. “It was self-defense.” “I know who you are,” Lami replied as Ariada and the two women flanking her approached. “You’re Ariada Cerulaen. You’re a traitor and a terrorist!” “Both wrong,” Ariada snapped quickly in reply. “I suggest you stay your tongue given that I hold your life in my hands.” “What do you want?” Lami demanded. “Her,” Ariada said, indicating Shara. “Get out of the way, and you can live. No more blood needs to be shed here.” “You’re right,” Lami said. Shara started in horror, but Lami pushed her down and then brought her weapon back up to bear on Ariada. “Just yours!” The agent fired three blasts in rapid succession, only to have a short dark-blue lightsaber ignite and bat them away. Ariada’s two bodyguards fired, their guns emitting an odd whirr-chirp sound instead of the standard blaster report. Lami twitched as she was struck four times by the metallic slugs they fired, and then collapsed back onto Shara, her lifeless body spilling blood on Shara. Shara scrambled free and screamed for help, running back the way she had come, only to have two more women in combat suits and armed with sniper rifles drop down from the roof of the warehouse to bar her way. Shara looked frantically in either direction, then to the sides, only to see one more identically-equipped assassin emerge on either side of her. There were six of them, plus Ariada, whom Ryion had told her about, and she was alone, surrounded, and unarmed. “So,” Ariada said coolly. “You’re Ryion’s emwhulb.” Shara was trembling from head to toe as they closed in on her, but she stood straight and replied to the expletive with as much confidence and dignity as she could muster. “I’m his wife,” she said. Ariada smirked. “For now.” Shara shook her head. “No,” Shara answered resolutely. “Forever. You can’t take away our marriage, or our love for each other. That’s something you can’t kill or destroy, no matter how hard you try.” Ariada’s eyes narrowed, glittering with malice. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “But I can do the next best thing.” Shara shook her head sadly. “If you’re going to kill me, go ahead and do it,” she told her. “I have nothing more to say to you.” One of Ariada’s eyebrows arched. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said. “Your fate will be far more . . . punishing.” She gestured at one of her companions. “Take her.” Shara screamed for help, but none was forthcoming. Nobody had come running when Iribe and Lami had been killed. Her eyes went wide with terror as Ariada’s two escorts advanced on her. She froze, uncertain what to do, hoping for some miraculous means of escaping whatever ignoble fate Ariada had planned for her. Ryion had told her enough that she knew Ariada would hurt her to get at him, and while she was willing to endure that ordeal, she wanted nothing more than to flee to safety, to have Ryion appear and take care of this matter once and for all. And her deliverer came. She did not see him come, and it was not her husband who arrived, but he came nonetheless, vaulting in from above like a thunderbolt to suddenly crash in front of her as he appeared out of nowhere. The Force wave he unleashed with one hand to the ground as he landed crouched down toppled Ariada and her assassins to the floor, as well as Shara, who was shocked to see Morgedh clan Kel’nerh materialize out of nowhere and offer a gloved hand to help her up. “We must go,” he told her in his gravelly voice. “Can you run?” Shara nodded, still too surprised for words. He led her back towards the warehouse’s rear entrance. One of the two assassins there recovered and began firing at him from a kneeling shooter’s stance. A golden lightsaber blade flashed in Morgedh’s hands to incinerate each of the slugs that were shot their way. By the time Shara and Morgedh reached the entrance, both assassins guarding that door were up and, abandoning their rifles, had drawn sixty-centimeter vibroblades, poised to engage. Morgedh was undeterred and suddenly leapt ahead of Shara. He landed between them, his lightsaber flashing back and forth as both women stabbed at him. He deflected both blades with ease, riposting and lunging at one of their legs. The assassin leaped back to avoid him and Morgedh swiftly pivoted around to parry the other’s assault from behind. The vibroblade locked on the lightsaber for a half-second, and Morgedh shoved her blade back in a steering block, allowing his lightsaber to slip off the vibroblade and slash the assassin cleanly across the middle, searing a burning line across her belly. She gasped and slipped back, mortally wounded, as Morgedh used the Force to shove the second assassin into the wall, stunning her temporarily. He started to lunge at her to finish her off, but the Force warned him that Ariada’s other assassins were up and firing, and largely at Shara. He turned the lunge into a Force-empowered leap that vaulted him backward to land behind Shara, incinerating the threatening slugs with his lightsaber. He looked back to see Ariada and her other four assassins approaching in a loose line. “Keep running,” he told Shara, who complied and ran into the warehouse. “Master Kel’nerh,” Ariada snarled, vitriol dripping from every word. “It’s been a long time.” “Too long,” Morgedh replied. “I should never have let you escape last time.” “But you did,” Ariada said. “And now you have wounded one of mine. I shall remember that when I capture Shara.” “You will not capture Shara, or anyone else today,” Morgedh grated. “I am going to end this.” Ariada smirked at him. “Long odds, don’t you think, Master Kel’nerh? You’re outnumbered.” “I have been outnumbered before. It did not stop me then. It will not stop me now,” Morgedh said, gesturing to the assassin he had already dispatched. “Very good, Master Kel’nerh,” she said, pressing a button on her wrist control. “But do you really think I’d stick around to match skills with someone who has defeated me twice before if I didn’t have a plan?” Morgedh’s eyes widened as four shipping containers burst open to reveal the lethal Mk. XII droids he had fought on Coruscant. With their presence, he was severely outmatched, and even if he could defeat his increased number of attackers, there was no way he could stop one of them from capturing Shara to compel his surrender. The only prudent course of action was to flee with Shara and continue this dispute under better circumstances. “We shall finish this soon,” he warned Ariada. “Sooner than you think,” Ariada replied menacingly. “Opal, with me. The rest of you, kill him, and bring me the woman.” Morgedh turned and sprinted into the warehouse with Force-assisted speed before the first slugs and blaster bolts could find him. He found Shara huddled behind a pillar. “Come,” he told her, helping her up. “We must flee.” He led her away, sprinting through the warehouse. “Isn’t the ship the other way?” Shara asked. “So is Ariada,” Morgedh replied. “She is hunting you.” He ducked out through a side entrance into a speeder pool. Surveying the array of airspeeders before him, he pointed at a blue open-topped model after judging it to be the fastest of the lot. “In there,” he told her. Shara hurriedly followed him into the vehicle, taking the passenger’s seat while Morgedh jumped into the driver’s seat. He popped open the access panel under the steering column and pulled out a fistful of wires. A few quick cross-wirings later and the airspeeder hummed to life. Morgedh wasted no time, flooring the accelerator and sending them shooting into the sky. He glanced over his shoulder to see Ariada and her posse emerge from the side door. Two of the assassins fired at him and Morgedh felt the airspeeder buck as its frame absorbed the glancing shots. “We’re clear of them!” Shara cried. “Not yet,” Morgedh said. “Hang on.” He jerked the yoke and banked the speeder hard to swoop around one of the many structures that surmounted the top of Cloud City. The airspeeder responded deftly to his touch as he swooped into the urban canyons. Behind them, he saw several speeders homing in on them. A blue stun bolt sizzled by them. “We are in luck,” Morgedh said calmly as he cut out the repulsors abruptly, resulting in a stomach-lurching drop of ten meters before he re-engaged them, evading blue stun beams that scorched through the air over them. “How is this luck?!” Shara demanded as she clutched the armrest of the speeder with a white-knuckled grip. “They still want you alive,” Morgedh answered. “I suspect Ariada will change her mind soon.” He slammed on the brakes and cranked the steering controls to send them careening around the rounded surface of a hotel. Azure stun beams washed over the windows behind them. Seconds later, their pursuit emerged. Morgedh kept the airspeeder juking like a starfighter in combat as stun bolts rippled around them. Several slapped into the side of the airspeeder, but Morgedh maneuvered the vehicle so that they didn’t hit the control surfaces or repulsorlifts. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that two of the airspeeders were vectoring to fire on them from above. Quickly, he hauled on the controls to break left, sending the speeder through the arch of an elevated walkway linking two skyscapers. He gunned the accelerator and the speeder throbbed as it surged forward. Shara shouted something at him, but her words weren’t audible due to the tremendous rushing wind. He glanced back to see a pair of Cloud City Wing Guard cloud cars rising in pursuit of Ariada’s party. The bronze-hulled twin-fuselage craft were more heavily armored and fully enclosed, as well as sporting their own armament. However, Ariada and her posse were undeterred by the attempted interdictions. Stun bolts continued to pour past Morgedh, narrowly missing the speeder. Suddenly, he heard a sound like an angry buzzsaw. He risked another glance back to see that two of Ariada’s droids had clambered out of the back of the speeders. The sawing noise had been the droid’s repeating blaster firing on the cloud cars, who had no doubt attempted a warning of some kind. Puffs of smoke erupted from the droids and Morgeh saw the tell-tale contrails of rockets. Both cloud cars exploded as the rockets found them, crashing down to slash a furrow of destruction across the city’s upper levels. Their pursuit temporarily distracted, Morgedh attempted to increase their lead. Something solid punched into the speeder’s rear, rattling them around even amidst the buffeting of the slipstream. “She has changed her mind,” he informed Shara in the same neutral tone. “Keep your head down.” Now that Ariada had decided to unleash her full arsenal at them, Morgedh knew it was only a matter of time before they were seriously hit. The speeder lurched as another tungsten-durasteel slug punched a hole in the rear seat. Blaster bolts were added to the weaponry slicing through the air around them. Morgedh took the airspeeder lower, trying to blend in with other speeder traffic that was content to skim across the upper surface of Cloud City. Ariada’s assassins paid no heed to the civilians in the area, firing at will. Blaster bolts and even projectile grenades erupted into the causeway around them. Morgedh swore under his breath; the necessity of avoiding traffic had been added to the task of evading the incoming fire. He had made a mistake, and though he quickly rectified it by climbing up and over the traffic, his airspeeder was punished heavily, its rear quarter riddled with holes and scorch marks. He veered left through another causeway, hoping to somehow gain enough space to elude their pursuit. Ariada knelt down beside the assassin Morgedh had wounded and she grimaced as she realized it was Sapphire. The woman was lying prone, clutching her stomach. Opal was there also, attempting to administer to the slash with a medkit. The wounded assassin’s eyelids fluttered and she finally managed to focus on Ariada. “Mother . . .” she moaned. “I’m here,” Ariada told her, injecting her with antishock. “I . . . I . . . failed you,” Sapphire gasped. “No,” Ariada replied fiercely. “I failed you. I didn’t detect Kel’nerh until too late.” Sapphire’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she said as she started to convulse. Ariada frantically placed her hand on the wound and tried to summon the Force for healing power, but the energy didn’t coalesce and seep into the wound as it once had. She closed her eyes, remembering the dictums of her teachers, and detached herself from her quest, her hatred of the Yanibar refuge, and her malice towards Shara. She did not release those emotions, but she placed them out of her mind, focusing only on her affection for Sapphire, how she had raised and trained the young woman over many years, teaching her in secret. Then, finally, she felt the Force flow through her in the way it once had, back when she had been one of the Elite Guardians. The healing energy flowed through her fingers into the wound, staunching the bleeding and restoring some of the damaged cells. However, thinking of how Morgedh had so callously wounded one that she loved sent the black emotions of hatred rushing through her veins again. The healing faltered and then stopped, leaving the wound in far worse state than Ariada would have hoped. She snarled and grabbed for the medkit, then glared over at Opal, who had stayed behind. Ariada recalled that Opal had been forcibly slammed into a wall by Morgedh. “Are you hurt?” she asked. “Not seriously, Mother,” Opal replied. “Just bruises and cracked ribs.” “Good,” Ariada answered. “Get back to the ship and arrange transport for our wounded sister. Then bring me my Firehawk. I will do what I can for her in the meantime.” “Shouldn’t I stay here to protect you and Sapphire?” Opal asked. “Do I look like I need protection?” Ariada snapped, unaccustomed to being questioned by one of her nine assassins. “The only threat here is Morgedh clan Kel’nerh, and you’ve already been embarrassed enough by him. Get to the ship.” Chastened, Opal gave a quick nod of obeisance and then rushed off. A dark thought struck Ariada and she reached for her comlink as thoughts of vengeance suffused her mind. “Who leads the chase?” she demanded. “I do,” she heard Amethyst reply. “We are closing on them, using stun weapons as you ordered, Mother.” “Change of plans,” Ariada said coldly. “Shoot to kill.” Satisfied, she returned to stabilizing the badly-wounded Sapphire. Ten minutes later, a shuttle descended from the clouds with Aspra Serpaddis and Opal waiting in the passenger compartment with two attendants. Ariada helped load Sapphire into the ship as it detached a small speeder that Ariada had stolen from Yanibar years ago. It had two seats and Ariada gestured curtly towards the rear seat. “Get in,” she told Opal. “Watch how Mother deals with those who hurt her children.” A confident smirk spread across her face as she brought the sleek black airspeeder to life and swooped skyward. Morgedh had once pursued her in one of these; now she would turn the tables. Morgedh ducked as the speeder was hammered by another stream of blaster bolts that chewed away most of the rear fender. The starboard control vane had taken damage and now he found himself fighting the suddenly sluggish controls. The three speeders behind them were dogged in their pursuit and while Morgedh counted himself a better pilot than any of them, he couldn’t gain enough separation to lose them either. The only thing that confused him thus far was why Ariada hadn’t pursued them herself. He sideslipped to avoid another barrage, then peeled away, climbing obliquely along the surface of a tall office building that rose majestically from the city floor. The polished surface formed a quasi-horizon for him as the speeder was rolled nearly ninety degrees on its port side, allowing Morgedh to use the port control vanes for most of their vectoring needs. Behind them, the blasterfire shattered windows into thousands of glassine shards as the speeders fought to keep up with him. He grimaced as they ran out of structure and he leveled the speeder out again. “Keep down,” he told Shara as she tried to look behind them. Sooner or later, this chase had to end, and he suspected the outcome would hinge on who received reinforcements fastest. He hoped that Bexpress Shipping would be able to recover and send aid, because while Morgedh had no doubts about his ability to defeat Ariada and her party if given the time, he could not also simultaneously protect Shara. Shara screamed aloud and Morgedh felt her alarm resonate through the Force. He swore—thinking ahead had distracted enough of a fraction of his concentration that he hadn’t been fully engrossed in evasive piloting. The Noghri warrior glanced over to see a bloody line traced across her arched back just under the shoulder blade. “I’m okay, it’s just a graze,” Shara said, though the pained expression on her face belied her reassuring tones. Morgedh continued to focus on his evasive piloting, though he wished he could grab his comlink from his belt and call for help from Bexpress. He started to instruct Shara to do so, when he sensed Ariada approaching on an intercept vector. His heart sank—any reinforcements he would summon would be too late. Glancing off to the side where Ariada was coming from, he realized she was in a small, maneuverable swoop. A quartet of Wing Guards zipped over her, inbound towards her chase party, and Morgedh realized with dismay that they hadn’t identified her as a threat. A split second later, Ariada had torn apart all four with hunter-killer drones and blaster fire, sending them plummeting from the sky in fiery ruin. Morgedh knew what she was flying from the weapons—a Firehawk speeder reserved for Yanibar’s Elite Guardians that she had apparently stolen or reverse-engineered. If Ariada had conserved her hunter-killer drones then it still had four more. He had once used them to cripple the Firehawk she had stolen during her initial fall to the dark side on Yanibar. Morgedh felt a great sense of regret wash over him—regret for not bringing more assistance to secure Shara in his overconfidence, regret for not killing Ariada when he’d had the chance twice before, but mostly regret over failing Selu and Ryion. They were over the industrial portion of Cloud City now, where Morgedh recalled that Selu and Milya had once fought a deranged Dark Jedi. He wove through a series of smokestacks overlooking a Tibanna refinery, then whipped the battered airspeeder across a complex labyrinth of pipework. Ariada would be on them any second now—he had one last tactic to try, and it depended on Ariada being fooled, which meant Shara couldn’t know. The Force warned him of incoming danger and he saw that Ariada’s Firehawk had launched its last four drones at him. The menacing explosive-packed robots would home in on him, riding wakes of white-hot fire. Morgedh saw them close and knew their detonation radius as well as their proximity sensors. In a Firehawk of his own, he might have had a chance to bat them away, elude them, or shoot them down with his own drones. In a chewed-up civilian airspeeder, he was nothing but a target, so he chose the one path left to them. Morgedh sent the airspeeder on a collision course with a regulator tower and then he yanked Shara out of her seat and tossed her over his shoulder out of the airspeeder. She was too surprised to scream and the furious current had sucked her voice away a second later when Morgedh bailed out of the airspeeder and caught up with her. He wrapped his body protectively around her back as they fell, just as the airspeeder and the drones and the regulator tower made contact simultaneously. The heat of the explosion washed over him and pieces of shrapnel sliced through his jacket and pants to cut his skin. However, Morgedh focused on shielding both himself and Shara in the Force, hiding them from sight and senses as they fell. As they approached the ground, he rotated him and Shara so that he landed first, which he did with Force-assisted grace. She landed a second later, right on top of him, driving him to the ground painfully, but without either of them breaking any bones. Shara quickly rolled off of him and helped him up. “What now?” she whispered. “Now we hide,” Morgedh said. “She will not be fooled for long, but we have briefly given her the slip. I know a safe place.” Four hours later, Morgedh ushered Shara into a freshly-appropriated airspeeder, this one fully enclosed. Starting up the vehicle, he piloted the speeder out into Bespin’s night, exiting Cloud City via a utility hatch on the underside of the floating structure. Overhead, numerous Wing Guard cloud cars circled around the city, part of lockdown into the events from earlier that day. No doubt sizable resources had been devoted to the investigation, but Morgedh couldn’t risk approaching them—the Yanibar Guard’s presence on Bespin was clandestine. The Noghri warrior was glad to be free of the confined hatchways and tunnels that he and Shara had crept through the last three hours, always watching their back for pursuit. They hadn’t been able to contact Bexpress Shipping for fear of having the call traced either by Ariada or the authorities, who would certainly take a dim view of their recent activities. Shara was quiet, haggard from the harrowing experiences of the afternoon. Only once they left Cloud City far behind did she speak up. “Where are we going?” she asked. “There is a small abandoned Tibanna gas platform several dozen kilometers away from the city. It used to hold and process Tibanna gas to be frozen in carbonite for storage,” he told her. “The Yanibar Guard keeps it stocked with emergency supplies for a getaway—including a small ship.” “Won’t Ariada know about it?” Shara asked. “It was created after her fall,” Morgedh said simply. In short order, they arrived at the station. It was dark and gloomy, with no running lights to mark its operation. Only when Morgedh transmitted the appropriate command codes did it power up, illuminating a docking area with a pair of running lights. Morgedh eased the speeder in on the platform, checking to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with. Only the faint hum of machinery told him that the station was still active, and faint emergency glowpanels lining the floors of the halls were the station’s only lighting. It was a poor refuge, but it was better than cowering in Cloud City’s underbelly, and they wouldn’t be here long. Morgedh led Shara through the station’s central chamber, past the cavernous pit that held the carbonite freezer. He was impatient, hoping to reach the ship as quickly as possible and get them off Bespin to safety. The Force gave no indication of a nearby threat, and he took that for granted. His impatience and reliance on the Force were almost his undoing, but he noticed just in time when he suddenly sensed a threat just as they skirted the rim of the freezer pit. He stopped in mid-step just as a slug whistled through the air right in front of him, shredding the lapel of his jacket. Morgedh swiftly pushed Shara down with one hand while drawing and lighting his lightsaber with the other to stand guard over her. Mocking laughter greeted him out of the shadows. “Surprised to find me here, Master Kel’nerh?” Ariada’s voice called out. “Surprised you can’t sense me with your vaunted powers?” He immediately ascertained what had happened, how he’d been duped and led into his own trap. “You found out about this place, and then waited for us to come here with ysalamiri here to hide your Force signature,” Morgedh realized aloud. “Once we landed, you closed in while leaving me enough space to not realize the ysalamiri were here.” “The Bexpress Shipping databases were very informative,” Ariada said. “It was far easier to simply wait for you here than try to hunt you down through that industrial labyrinth.” “Your quarrel is not with her, Ariada,” Morgedh said. “It is with me.” “That’s where you’re wrong,” she replied. “I have no interest in you—you are a mindless slave of Selu Kraen, deluded into following his dogmatic approach. But her, her I have uses for.” “I cannot allow that,” Morgedh answered stoutly. Springing into action, he shifted his lightsaber to one hand and drew his S-5XS sidearm, firing three slugs into the shadows. Slugs flew towards him, but he stood his ground, catching them on his golden lightsaber blade. Since the shooters were behind the cover of ysalamiri, he could neither see nor sense the attacks until they were within a few meters of him, but Morgedh was a trained warrior. His keen senses told him that he’d grazed the person he’d fired at earlier, and that there were several of them moving stealthily around—at least four. He regretted that Shara was here—had he tried to deposit her in some safe place on Cloud City and then come here alone to retrieve the ship, he would have simply activated the station’s self-destruct and ended the threat posed by Ariada once and for all. Morgedh swiveled around suddenly and fired twice more as he felt someone preparing to stab at him from the back. He knew from the clatter of the rounds against metal that the assassin had averted her attack to evade his fire. He grimaced—the sidearm only had three shots left. He carefully surveyed the inky darkness, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of their shadowy assailants. “Do it, Morgedh,” Shara whispered to him suddenly. “Activate the self-destruct.” “What?” he hissed. “How do you know of this?” “All offworld Yanibar Guard military installations and ships have some kind of self-destruct,” she pointed out. “I cannot sacrifice you,” he said. “My mission is to protect you.” “You will be,” Shara told him. “I’d rather die than be her plaything.” “So be it,” Morgedh replied grimly. He spun sharply and fired two of his shots to avert another attack just as a series of slugs fired at him from all sides. Morgedh’s lightsaber whipped through the air as he dropped the sidearm in favor of controlling the blade with two hands. For several seconds he stood over Shara, a vigilant guardian, beset on all sides as the slugs rained down around him. He could not defend against all of them and so evaded what he could not block. A slug grazed his thigh, while another flew close enough to leave his right arm tingling. Then suddenly, three short lightsabers ignited flew through the air towards him from different angles, requiring all of his attention to bat them away. In the process, a stun beam washed over him, slowing his reactions further. Morgedh made a gesture, summoning the Force to him and exploding it outward in a telekinetic wave to buy some time to recover. He glanced down at Shara and their eyes met as she looked up at him. “Do it,” she told him simply. Morgedh reached for his comlink, activating the self-destruct sequence and transmitting it in a hasty sequence of motions. By the time he had finished, he knew Ariada and her henchwomen had recovered. Again, he began his desperate defense, lightsaber sweeping back and forth as the slugs once again rained down on him. Alarms began to wail through the station. “So desperate,” Ariada told him bitingly. “So futile. Did you really think I didn’t know about the self-destruct?” Morgedh maintained his defense, the lightsaber leaving a trail of golden light in its wake as he batted away the slugs. He caught sight of one of the assailants as she cut loose on him. He interposed his lightsaber to meet the slugs, and then, in one swift motion he called his sidearm to his left hand from the ground and fired the last shot, and from the sound he knew he had scored a hit. Just as he did so, a massive metallic hulk crashed down through the ceiling in front of him. Morgedh ducked under a swing of the arm-mounted vibroblades that would have sliced him in half. Dropping his pistol, he retrieved a concussion grenade from his belt and shoved it into one of the droid’s expended rocket tubes before sending it flying back with a blast of telekinesis. The bulky droid crashed through the outer wall and exploded violently. The station lurched and shuddered. Morgedh sensed danger behind him and leapt back just in time to avoid a cryospray from the second droid that would have doused him in freezing mist. “Grab her,” Ariada ordered the droid as it now stood over Shara. Morgedh looked up in desperation to see it reaching for the helpless Shara even as he knew a flurry of slugs were about to find him. His lightsaber whirled around him to incinerate the projectiles even as he lunged for the droid. His lightsaber found a weak point and stabbed deep into its vitals, but to his surprise, the droid gripped him tight. Morgedh struggled, and in a half-second, would have been free, but it was too long. A slug ripped into his back, piercing the thin armor he wore and disrupting his focus. “Shara, run!” he called. With a great cry, he pulled out the lightsaber and stabbed the droid again and it started to fall back, crushing through the thin railing around the freezer pit to send them both toppling down inside. Shara screamed in horror as he fell. Ariada gave a great cry of triumph and activated the switch, sending gouts of mist and steam bellowing from carbonite pit. Suddenly, the station shuddered and lurched, nearly pitching it on its side. “He must have done something to the repulsors!” Opal shouted to Ariada. “We have another minute on the self-destruct, but they’re failing fast.” Ariada stretched out with her senses and realized that she sensed a lightsaber falling down through the bottom of the platform. She knew what he had done even as the station started dropping rapidly. “He locked his lightsaber on and dropped it through the floor into the repulsors,” Ariada shouted. “Grab her and let’s go.” “Mother!” Amethyst called from across the chamber. “It’s Night Pearl.” The young assassin’s voice was fraught with shock and horror. “She’s dead. He killed her.” A cold fury welled up in Ariada’s heart, but she buried it. She would find the appropriate time and method to both grieve and express her fury later—but now, she had to be strong. For the sake of her mission. For the sake of her children. “Bring her,” Ariada commanded. “And the target too. We’re leaving.” Opal grabbed Shara, who had attempted to flee, catching up her easily. “No, please don’t! No! Don’t do this!” Shara pleaded. The young assassin simply slapped her across the face hard enough to stun her. In thirty seconds, Ariada and her companions were in the speeder Morgedh and Shara had arrived in, zipping away from the ruined platform as it tumbled through Bespin’s clouds. Shara looked back from her position in the back seat tearfully as the faint rumble and a flash of light from below told her that the self-destruct had activated. She looked around for a means to escape, even if it meant jumping to her death, but the airspeeder was enclosed and Opal had secured her hands with forcecuffs to prevent her from seizing a weapon. She was alone, captured by vicious assassins and, worst of all, their dark leader. Ariada looked back from the front passenger’s seat to glare balefully at her. “I see fear on your face,” she said. “But not nearly enough, not yet.” Shara tried to think of a brave reply, but she couldn’t think of anything. Terror was written on her face, and she desperately tried to think of some way out of her current plight, to no avail. “Do not look for mercy or escape from me,” Ariada warned her. “Everything you will experience is for a greater purpose, and neither you, nor Morgedh, nor even your precious Ryion will stop me.” Zonama Sekot “The settlement should be just ahead,” Zeyn told Danni as they pushed through a clump of broad-leaved bushes. “Just over that ridge.” She nodded gratefully, tired and dirty from three days of hard traveling. It had taken them longer to get back than Zeyn’s initial trek, as Danni, while in decent shape, simply hadn’t been able to keep up with a trained Elite Guardian. She had endured the hardship stolidly, despite a bruised knee and little food or rest over three days of hard marching through the tampasi of Zonama Sekot. Despite his own physical stamina, Zeyn was exhausted as well—drawing on the Force constantly over the past five days while marching through a humid, blisteringly hot jungle had sapped his reserves of strength and stamina. As evening drew on and the sun sank past the horizon, he felt the effects of another long march. The fatigue had gradually eaten away at his awareness, despite his best efforts to maintain his vigilance. Zeyn led Danni through a small gully towards the village just as twilight began to set in, with only a faint ochre hue illuminating the rim of sky before them. He could see the silhouettes of the village structures ahead of them, his spirits lifting as he realized they were almost to safety. That sense of confidence evaporated a second later as he realized something was wrong. “Stop,” he hissed to Danni in a fierce whisper. She froze immediately behind him. “What is it?” she asked, her voice similarly hushed. “I don’t hear anything.” “That’s the problem,” he replied. “There’s no sound from the village. It’s too quiet. That gives me a very bad feeling about this.” “What do we do?” Zeyn considered for a moment, then made up his mind. “We’ll skirt the perimeter, see if we can tell what happened. If I can find a clear path to my ship, we’ll take it.” “Understood,” Danni answered. “Here,” he told her, passing her a syringe. “Inject yourself with that.” She complied. “What is it?” “It’s a pick-me-up,” he explained. “Nutrients, glucose, and a bunch of stimulants. You’ll need the energy in case this goes poorly.” Zeyn flipped down his night-vision goggles and began moving slowly and stealthily through the undergrowth surrounding the Yuuzhan Vong village. He was now fully alert, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, his weapon brought up to his shoulder, ready to fire. Behind them, he could hear nocturnal insects, reptiles, and birds in the distance, but the village was deathly quiet, as if life had suddenly abandoned it. His dark eyes flicked from point to point, searching for danger, or alternately, an explanation of what had happened. His coordinates showed that they had to circumvent a quarter of the village’s perimeter before they could reach the ship. His heart pounded his ears and regretted even the soft crunch of his boots on the grass. An bloodcurdling screech tore through the night, sending a chill down his spine. Zeyn whirled to face the sound, but neither saw nor sensed anything. The Force was distorted, the normally strong Force aura of Zonama Sekot distorted and clouded, but he could not have sensed Yuuzhan Vong through the Force anyway—the species as a whole could not be detected via the Force. He saw a corpse lying on the ground by a structure several meters away and stopped. Zooming in on his goggles, he zoomed in to ascertain the cause of death. The Yuuzhan Vong was lying prone, its hands gripping a coufee knife that had apparently torn through its stomach up through its rib cage to rip open its torso. Then Zeyn realized the blade’s angle was wrong if the Yuuzhan Vong had been gutted by another attacker—the warrior had killed himself, and in horrific fashion, his entrails spilling out amidst a pool of black blood. A tingling sensation ran down his spine as the hazy monochrome of the night vision mode caught sight of something gleaming on the Yuuzhan Vong. His stomach lurched with revulsion as he realized that the Yuuzhan Vong’s limbs and body had sprouted metallic growths—something no warrior would ever adorn himself with. Zeyn’s face contorted in horror as he realized that Ariada’s assassin had unleashed the technobeast virus, an expression rapidly replaced by one of alarm as he realized that he was in danger of exposure—and he only had one breathing mask in his pack. His spare was in his ship—no doubt already exposed to the virus. Hastily, he dug out the breathing mask from his pack, but stopped short. Could he take the mask, even if it might cost Danni her life? On the other hand, the alternative if he was infected would simply allow Ariada’s assassin to kill Danni after he succumbed, provided he didn’t do the job himself after being changed into a deranged cyborg. He could try and dash to the ship to retrieve his other mask with a quick breath of air, but that would reveal his position and leave Danni vulnerable, so he swiftly discarded that option. There was no time for further deliberation, so he put the breath mask on. Zeyn began backing away, clamping his hand over Danni’s mouth and nose to stop her from breathing as he led her back. She startled in surprise, her eyes popping wide. “Shhh,” Zeyn said in a quiet voice, leading her away from the village. Her eyes were questioning him, but she trusted him enough not to immediately thrash or struggle. “Toxins in the air,” he said. In forty seconds, they were several dozen meters away and Zeyn knew Danni was weakening and in danger of passing out. “Hold your breath until I say so,” he told her. She nodded weakly, and Zeyn took a deep breath, then pulled off the breath mask and fitted it over her face. Danni waited until he gave her a nod, then exhaled forcefully, sucking in air as fast as the mask would allow. He surveyed the trail behind them leading towards the village, wondering what to do next. They had to get to the ship, but leaving Danni behind was risky at best. Worst of all, the longer they delayed, the greater the likelihood the virus would spread. They might already be exposed—a thought which made his skin crawl. He felt Danni tap him on the shoulder and turned to see her offering him the breath mask. Zeyn shook his head, indicating for her to keep it, but she persisted, thrusting it at him. Reluctantly he pulled it on, and she gave him a questioning look, which he interpreted as a request for explanation. “The Vong village was hit by the technobeast virus,” he said. “They are dead.” A look of horror spread across her face. “Or worse,” he added grimly. “We will have to go through the village to get to the ship.” Danni gestured, and he took a deep breath, then handed the breath mask back to her. “You should take the mask and get to the ship,” she said, before handing the breath mask back to him. “That’s risky,” he replied once he was wearing the mask again. “The assassin might have found the ship and either destroyed or trapped it, and it’ll expose me when I power it up, not to mention leaving you alone.” She signaled for the mask again and he returned it to her. “Hide me with the Force like you do at night,” she said. “I’ll be fine for a few minutes.” Zeyn nodded, accepting the proffered mask back. “Good idea,” he said, then couldn’t resist adding a quip. “Having to wait for the mask forces us to listen to each other.” She managed a small smile despite their peril. “You take the mask,” he told her. “I can hold my breath until I get to the ship.” She shook her head no, pantomiming a fight. “If it comes to that, I’ll manage,” Zeyn replied, fitting the mask around her face. “And you will run to the ship and get away while I hold them off.” “I will do no such thing,” she replied. “I can’t even fly your ship.” Zeyn signaled for the mask back, handing her his datapad from his pack after keying in a quick command. “This datapad has the authorization codes for the ship. It also contains an AI—simply plug it in, and it’ll do the rest for you on autopilot.” She started to make protesting gesture, but Zeyn cut her off. “No more arguments,” he said. “My mission is to protect you—at all costs.” He pulled off the mask after several shallow breaths, inflating his lungs to full capacity, and fitted it back over her face. He drew on the Force, concentrating it into hiding Danni Quee in a bubble of concealment. The process only took a few seconds, and then Zeyn turned towards the village. Just as he turned, an inhuman howl sounded from dangerously close behind him. He whirled around, his lightsaber coming to life to slash across the chest of a Yuuzhan Vong that had plunged down from the canopy. The slash was ablated by the Yuuzhan Vong’s vonduun crab armor and the impact bore him to the ground. Danni screamed behind him as he was tackled. Zeyn was horrified to see that this was no ordinary Yuuzhan Vong, but an infected technobeast. Hideous metal extrusions emerged from where its eyes had once been and its mangled jaws, encrusted with artificial growths were snapping, trying to bite at his neck. Thankfully, the cyborging process had weakened the Yuuzhan Vong and Zeyn was able to shove it off. It grappled him, clawing for his face, while Zeyn tried to bring his lightsaber to bear. With his right arm still pinned underneath the warrior, he instead called his vibroblade from its sheath into his left hand and stabbed the technobeast warrior in the face through the eye socket. The creature writhed, allowing Zeyn to free his right arm and lightsaber, which he promptly used to impale the technobeast Yuuzhan Vong in the chest. The lightsaber snapped up to the guard position as several more technobeasts rushed at him, using the lip of the gully to plunge down on him, while others lunged from inside the gully. Zeyn was set now, the Force steadying him and this time, he did not attempt precise debilitating slashes, but instead wide power blows that cleaved through arms and bodies to severe them. Thankfully, they hadn’t yet attacked Danni, who was still hidden. He ran a charging technobeast through, then yanked the blade to the side to carve a deep furrow in its body before whipping it up to lop the head off another that was diving in upon him. A leap that would have tackled him to the ground where he could be easily mobbed was ruined by the loss of the head, but the technobeast still managed to swipe his head with a clawed finger. Zeyn’s eyes widened in shock as he realized that between the first attacker and this latest scratch, he was bleeding from several minor cuts on his face, while his armored suit had protected him from wounds elsewhere. Was the technobeast virus transmissible through direct contact? He didn’t know, but he did know he was running out of air. Another technobeast came screeching at him from behind and Zeyn responded with vicious uppercut that sliced the creature in two vertically. The Force boiled as he called on it to make the powerful slashes needed to tear through the corrupted vonduun crab armor and metallic implants. If he was going to make for the ship, he needed to do so now, and fast, hopefully serving as a distraction for the technobeasts to keep Danni safe. Lightsaber still in hand, he started sprinting forward, alert for any technobeasts attacking from around or above him. Unfortunately, what he sensed a split-second too late to avoid was the attack from below. He tried to leap to avoid it, but the sudden upheaval of the ground beneath his feet was not merely a technobeast grabbing for his feet. Instead, a two-meter high metal behemoth burst out of the ground in a shower of dirt and stone, vibroblades scissoring up to separate his head from his shoulders. Zeyn blocked them in mid leap, driving them away and behind him as he realized it was one of Ariada’s formidable assassin droids, which meant the assassin was likely near as well. The beamlaser from the droid’s third arm narrowly missed his head as he ducked. As soon he landed, he knew the droid would fire on him with that third arm while his lightsaber was out of position. Zeyn tumbled to the side as the droid’s weapons lit up the space where he had just been. He slipped around the edge of the gully just in time, desperate for air as black spots began swimming in his vision, but he couldn’t stop now. He had to destroy the droid quickly, and then escape, forcing him into a more desperate tactic. As it came around the corner after him, he lunged at its feet and then sprang upward. The droid tried to slash him, but he was inside its guard and he held on gamely to its shoulder as it whirled around, trying to dislodge it. Zeyn drove the lightsaber into the weak point at its neck one-handed, just like he had heard from Morgedh, but he was a hair slower than Morgedh had been, allowing the droid to recover and swivel so the blade didn’t fully reach its vitals. Zeyn tried to plunge it in deeper with two hands now, twisting aside to avoid a swipe from the droid’s left arm that he was practically straddling, thankful that the third arm couldn’t fire down effectively at him from this angle. However, he failed to account for the droid’s right arm, which, rather than risk damage to its own components by slashing at him with the vibroblade, instead grabbed Zeyn’s left wrist that was trying to stab the lightsaber in deeper. Zeyn succeeded in finally plunging his blade in deeper just as the metallic hand squeezed. Unable to help himself, Zeyn screamed in pure agony as his wrist was shattered, but managed to jump free of the doomed droid with his lightsaber just as it exploded, hurling him into the gully wall with bruising force. He collapsed to the ground, the breath driven from him, and felt the need to breathe, but willed himself to not do so, knowing it would imperil his own life. Hopefully, Danni had taken advantage of the brawl to run to the ship—though not knowing the whereabouts of the assassin, nor if there were more technobeasts around, he couldn’t guarantee she would survive such a course of action. There was little more he could do here, on the verge of passing out for want of air. Then, Danni’s face and dirty blonde hair filled his weakening vision. Just before he blacked out, he felt her pinch his nose and plant her lips on his, breathing air into him. Zeyn sucked in the air greedily as she placed her hands on his face and neck where they had been scratched by the technobeasts. She closed her eyes and suddenly her hands began to glow with blue radiance. Zeyn felt a sudden infusion of Force energy enter his body, seeping into the wounds and flowing through him, rejuvenating and restoring. He heard a single word echo in his mind. She released him as his strength returned and he got up, grimacing at the pain tearing through his wrist. Taking one last deep breath, he gave the breath mask back to her and turned towards the village. The shrill inhuman cry of a technobeast tore through the night, and he knew that more foes remained—including, no doubt, Ariada’s assassin. They had only one option left and Zeyn knew it. Wordlessly, he led Danni back into the jungle, into the unknown of the night. Away from the ship. Away from their escape route.
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