Star Wars: Scourge (2 page)

Everyone turned in their seats to see the blue-skinned Pantoran, wielding a lightsaber, and his injured opponent. As one, the aliens rose from their meals, some grabbing iron dining forks as they did so, others hefting the heavy iron stools. They converged on the pair.

The injured Swokes Swokes pushed forward, its good arm raised like a warty club. Toro danced backward, up over the iron chair and onto the table itself, bringing the lightsaber around in a smooth, level arc. The Swokes Swokes’s head separated at the approximate intersection of its neck and body, spilling backward into the surging mob.

“Regenerate
that
!” Toro said. The death of the high-caste alien gave half the group pause, while it infuriated the other half. Toro noted that the two Niktos from the other table were already heading for the door—along with the waiter—but that was all he had time to notice before the mob was on top of him.

Toro spun with the lightsaber, cutting through flesh and iron with equal ease. One of the attackers had thought enough to duck beneath the sweeping blade, and grabbed Toro’s sword-arm in a soft but unrelenting embrace. Toro tossed the lightsaber to his left hand and brought up a booted foot into the alien’s face. The entire face gave in like soft putty, which did not seem to trouble the creature in the slightest, but the grasp on Toro’s arm lessened. The Jedi drew his blade through the attacker’s
arm and the detached limb loosened its grip fully now, vanishing into the tumult.

Something heavy and dark flew toward him, and Toro reached up and split an iron-shod stool in two with his blade, the pieces caroming off the window supports behind him. Two more Swokes Swokes grabbed at Toro’s feet on the table, but he leapt up, spinning and dragging his blade across the table’s surface, separating hands from arms as he did so.

Now makeshift missiles showered Toro—stools, eating utensils, two-handled goblets and bits of food. The Jedi wove his blade through the air, cutting down the more dangerous, dodging the merely disgusting. The glass behind him spidered from the heavier missiles, but did not break. Assailants would try to get close, but he would spin and leave these missing a few appendages for their trouble. Where they wore embedded jewels, signs of status among their people, the Jedi treated them as targets, carving them from too-soft flesh.

Toro realized that he was cursing now, cursing at this planet and its people and his contact and the uncaring universe that would put him in this place at this particular time. His chin was wet, and when he wiped his sleeve against it, it came away with a bubbling, bloody froth on it. Had he been injured? Had one of these melted, horrible creatures gotten lucky against him? He snarled and his vision seemed coated in blood as well. They would all pay for attacking him.

There was movement behind him, and Toro spun and lashed out without thinking. The table, already weakened from his assaults, collapsed, pitching him forward. Toro leapt, slashing as he did, and only then realizing that he had mistaken his opponent. His foe was only his reflection in the window, caught by the dying sun.

But then it was too late and he was through the window
itself, the fury of his blade sharding it into a thousand daggers from the blow. He twisted to catch the ledge but he had leapt too far, and he spun out into open, dust-strewn air, forty stories above the necropolis.

The entire way down, all Toro could feel was the anger.

Mander Zuma pursed his lips as he moved through the back alleys of Makem Te. He was far from the Tract, far from the necropolis that dominated this world, far from the site of Toro Irana’s death.

And far from satisfied with what he had discovered so far about the death of his former apprentice.

Word had reached Yavin 4 and the new Jedi Order in the form of a complaint from the Congress of Caliphs that ruled Makem Te, of a blue-skinned Jedi who had killed a Caliph’s nephew. Apologies were made through the New Republic’s diplomatic channels, but Mander was pulled from his regular duties in the Archives and dispatched to find out what had really happened.

His assignment made perfect sense to Mander. He had taught Toro in the ways of the Force, and had monitored the young Jedi’s own reports back to the Order. His own skill set dovetailed nicely with Toro’s assigned mission. Yet the older Jedi was still reluctant to leave behind the Archives, to leave Yavin 4 after years of diligent and productive research.

What Mander found on this planet surprised him. Not that Toro had gotten into a fight—the young man had been headstrong and easily riled even when he had been his apprentice, and the Swokes Swokes were by all reports a prickly species to deal with. But the idea that Toro had gotten into an argument so easily, or that he
had made such a fatal mistake in combat, troubled Mander deeply as he made the long trip from Yavin to Makem Te. As he stepped off the shuttle and breathed the dusty air of this world, the questions swirled within him. What had gone wrong? Had it been his training that had been at fault? Had Mander prepared him insufficiently? Or were there other factors at work?

As a student, Toro had been a superb warrior—limber and smooth, a blue-fleshed blur in combat. More important, he bonded with his lightsaber, treating the blade as an extension of his self. Even in training, Mander was impressed with the young Pantoran’s skill and confidence.

Mander himself had none of that easiness in combat. The Force was strong in the older Jedi, but it was directed elsewhere. He could feel the energy moving through him, but his own lightsaber often felt like an alien thing, a lump in his hand. He had come to the Force late in life, as did many in the later years of the Empire, and it showed.

Toro was better with a lightsaber, and Mander was sure that he would have become a fine Jedi Knight. A better Jedi Knight than he. But now Toro was dead and Mander was not sure why.

Mander’s first stop was to claim the body and examine it, a rented medical droid at his side burbling commentary. The dried flecks of blood on his apprentice’s lips and the broken bones along one side of his body spoke of a sudden, violent end. But there was also a darkening of the young man’s veins and arteries—violet against the sea-blue of his flesh—that had not be present in life, and pointed to an external agent at work.

Further, purple crystals budded at the corners of Toro’s eyes. Mander was not sure if this was natural to the Pantorans in death, but he assumed it was not, and took a sample of the material. It had a pungent aroma, more
cloying than the acrid dust of Makem Te’s air. There were similar crystals in the dead Jedi’s darkened veins, now stilled of pulsing life. Something had been injected or ingested, he decided.

Toro was under the influence of something else before the fight, Mander thought, and possibly the two events were tied. The older Jedi double-checked his evaluation before consigning Toro’s body to the funeral pyre. The Swokes Swokes, regardless of their official indignation, were extremely helpful with funeral arrangements. It was a point of pride for them.

Mander Zuma visited the scene of Toro’s death, the restaurant. It had been closed for a period of mourning for the Caliph’s nephew, but already the smashed furniture had been stacked to one side for recycling and a new sheet of plate glass installed, replacing the one shattered by Toro’s exit. The wait staff was initially unhelpful, but Mander’s modest knowledge of Swoken, the native language—combined with a bit of the Force in the voice—helped smooth out the questions. By the end of the interview the staff was positively chatty about the incident.

Yes, the blue-skinned Jedi had been there. He was waiting for someone, he had said. He had been drinking. A lot. Local stuff, but a Rodian came in with another bottle. A gift. The Jedi had insulted the staff. Insulted the other diners. He had gotten into an argument with Choka Chok, the Caliph’s nephew. The Jedi pulled his lightsaber and killed Choka Chok. Killed five more regulars as well, and had left a dozen regenerating. Screaming in that weird, liquid-sounding, offworlder Basic. Not a proper language at all. Foaming at the mouth. Then he had smashed his way through the window. The wait staff thought he was trying to escape, but had forgotten he was forty floors up. The joke was on him. No, no one had found the Jedi’s energy blade, or at
least reported that they had found it. Yes, yes, they had the bottle the Rodian brought somewhere around. They were still cleaning up the mess.

The Swokes Swokes provided the bottle and Mander calibrated his medical datapad. A few simple tests on the dregs in the bottle confirmed his hunch—there was something unusual in the scentwine. Potent, unknown, and similar in composition to the crystalline tears at the corners of the corpse’s eyes. Distilled out, it had the same cloying smell. The wine’s bouquet covered the smell.

Poison, then. The Rodian brought the wine. Was the poison what clouded his judgment at the end?

The possibility left Mander concerned. Why was Toro unwary enough to drink the wine in the first place? A Jedi in the field had to be aware of his surroundings and potential attacks. Had he trusted the Rodian, or whoever the Rodian represented? And what, if anything, did this have to do with his assigned task, to acquire the navigation coordinates for the Indrexu Spiral? Was someone trying to stop the New Republic from gaining those codes? Or had Toro stumbled onto something else?

Indeed, scanning the last communications from Toro to the new Jedi Order had been troubling as well. They had been brief, even terse. He had made initial contacts. He had begun negotiations. He was pleased with the progress. Nothing to indicate that there was a problem. Even so, there was a brusqueness in his communiqués that now gave Mander pause. Details were missing.

Now the trail led to this warehouse, made of ancient wood, reinforced with the cold iron that was so much a part of Swokes Swokes architecture. There were few Rodians on Makem Te, and it was relatively easy to track Toro’s deadly wine steward back here. A Rodian family
cartel ran a small trade out of these warehouses, trafficking in ornate funeral plaques and reliquaries and other offworld items.

The darkness of the alley cloaked him more effectively than any mind trick, but the lock was old and stubborn, and at last Mander used the Force to snap the hasp. So much for getting in and getting out without leaving any trace, he thought. Carefully, he slid the door open, but was met only with a hollow echo of the sliding metal. He slipped inside, leaving enough of a gap that he could leave quickly if things went bad.

Mander moved quietly at first, but, it was quickly clear that no one seemed to be present. Moonlight from the frosted skylights overhead shone on a bare floor. Mander reached into a vest pocket and pulled out a set of magnaspecs—two pinkish lenses set in hexagonal frames. He unfolded the lenses and placed them on the bridge of his nose; magnets in the frame held them there, pinching his flesh slightly. When he tapped the side of the lenses they issued a soft, pale red glow, heightening the available light in the dim warehouse.

Large wooden racks stood in neat ordered rows from floor to ceiling along the length of the structure. Empty cargo containers were lined along one wall, and a trio of manual loadlifters—great walker engines with huge spatulate hands—along the other. These Rodians were too poor, or too cheap, for droid-operated versions. The shelves were heavily laden with blank epitaph plates and bolts of funeral shrouds, all covered in a thin coating of dust. Scraps and more dust were heaped in the corners as well. Whatever business was being done out of this warehouse had precious little to do with mortuary arrangements.

In the center of the room was a pile of broken crates, damaged and abandoned in a rush to clear out. Clear spots showed where other crates once stood, and the
dust was disturbed by the broad feet of the loadlifters. Somewhere far off, in some connecting warehouse, there was a soft thunder of people moving crates, but this place was devoid of workers.

Mander frowned. Whoever poisoned Toro expected someone to come after them, and had probably decided to put a few planets between them and their pursuers. No doubt the warehouse was under an assumed name and behind three shell companies. Tracking them down would not be easy.

Mander poked through the trash with his toe—funeral robes and tapestries, metal plates with Swokes Swokes memorials—about three or four containers’ worth that had been breached and abandoned. And there, glittering in the moonlight, something dark and crystalline.

The Jedi knelt down next to the pile and examined the crystals. They were purplish, dark almost to the point of being black. He sniffed it, and it gave off a rich, pungent aroma. Spice, but unlike any he had seen before. He pulled out a plasticlear envelope and scooped a handful of crystals into it.

That was when he knew he was not alone. It could have been a shadow against the moonlight or a footstep landing too heavily, but at once he knew that someone else was in the warehouse with him. He rose slowly from his examination, trying to move naturally, his hand fumbling with the strap of the lightsaber. Still, he engaged it and brought the ignited blade up, glowing green, before the first blaster bolt erupted.

Mander parried the energy discharge, trying to send it back to his attacker but succeeding only in deflecting it among the racks of epitaph markers. Inwardly he cursed at his lack of skill. Another shot unleashed, again from near the warehouse’s entrance, and again Mander turned the energy pulse aside, but only just, and it scorched the wall behind him. Mander reminded himself that he was
in a wooden building containing flammable funeral shrouds. Too many such stray shots would be a bad thing.

“I can do this all day,” he lied to the darkness. “Why don’t you come out and we can talk?”

There was a shadow against the doorway, and for a moment Mander was sure that his assailant would try to flee. Instead, a lone figure walked into a rectangular square of moonlight. Smoke swirled from the barrel of her DL-22 heavy blaster. She was almost Mander’s height, and even in the pale radiance Mander could see that her flesh was a rich blue, marked with yellow swirls on each cheek. Long hair—a deeper blue in shade, almost to the color of night—was worn short in the front, woven in a thick braid down the back. A Pantoran, then, like Toro. Her lips were a thin, grim line and her eyes flashed with anger.