Into the Void: Star Wars (Dawn of the Jedi) (9 page)

She would best serve the dead woman by catching her killer.

The Noghri had flowed down the steps and was sprinting toward one of the mooring stations.
When they saw him coming, most people moved away, his violent intent obvious. But
when two militia crouched before him and aimed long, spearlike weapons at him, he
shot them both. The movement was almost too quick to be seen, and as they fell back
dead the killer was already entering the shadow of the mooring tree.

He was well trained. It would take someone who knew what he was doing to bring down
those two guards without pause.

She was gaining on him as he entered one of several doorways into the Cloud Chaser
mooring structure. He was still doing something with the object in his other hand,
and she paused and reached for him, concentrating, willing the Force his way, her
clawed hand closing
slowly as she struggled to grasp him. But there were too many other people around,
and the panic was too great.

More laser blasts erupted from the interior lobby of the mooring platform, and more
screams.

Lanoree used the Force to increase her speed, willing her muscles to stretch and contract
faster, pumping her arms, pushing blood through her veins. There were a hundred travelers
and merchants in the lobby, and two people were on the ground with blood spattered
around them, others rushing to help. But she saw the Noghri immediately.

He was plugging the device into a comm column. He glanced back over his shoulder but
did not raise his blaster.

More concerned with sending whatever he has to send
, she thought. And as she ran at him she reached for the comm column, probing, frowning
in concentration. She had to stop him sending, and if—

She heard the dry cough of a blaster and raised her sword, and it was only that instinctive
reaction that saved her. The shot struck the sword and she stumbled backward, then
fell, her weapon clanging against the marble floor. She still grasped its haft—she
would never let it go—and she could feel the heat dispersing from the exquisite blade.

Lanoree shoved, and forty paces away the Noghri was lifted from his feet and smashed
back against a wall. The blaster dropped from his hand and skittered away across the
floor.

The crowd of people had scattered and hidden as well as they could, leaving only the
two shot people behind. Lanoree sensed that they were both dead.

Anger throbbed through her but she reined it in. It would feed her action, but it
could also cloud her senses. Using the Force while harboring rage could upset the
balance within her, and that would lead to mistakes.

She jumped to her feet, and she was the only person standing.

“Stay down!” she shouted. She held out her hand and Force-pressed her observer to
the ground. Heard him gasping for air. Pressed a little harder.

Walking forward, sword held protectively before her, Lanoree glanced at the comm column
and the device he had attached there.

A flurry of movement and she knew what was coming, lifting the sword to deflect the
blast a blink before it came. Another followed.
She shifted to the left and raised her blade to the right. The shot was swallowed
by the hot metal.

He’d been carrying a second, concealed blaster.

Lanoree grunted in frustration, then reached out and lifted the Noghri above the ground,
grasping him there, tight, tighter.

“Drop it,” she said. Though quiet, her voice carried all across the open lobby.

He dropped the weapon. She raised him even higher … then let go.

The sound of breaking bone as he struck the ground was followed by the collective
gasps of those watching.

Lanoree ran to him. He was writhing, his gray-skinned leg twisted, protruding bone
visible beneath his loose robe. Keeping an eye on his big, clawed hands and feet,
and conscious of the Noghri’s reputation as fighters and killers, she kept her sword
drawn in case he had other concealed weapons. And as she knelt by his side, she reached
for his mask.

“Hold him!” someone called. Militia. Lanoree cursed inwardly, knowing that this would
now get complicated. She wanted to get him somewhere quiet to interrogate him, and
handing him over to Kalimahr militia would gain her nothing. She sighed and looked
up at the two uniformed women running her way, wondering if she could persuade them
otherwise.

“He shot them and just—”

“She chased him in here, and she
threw
him, she must be
Je’daii
and—”

“Dead, my brother’s
dead
, and leaking his brains all across—”

There was a flood of voices as terrified people started speaking around the edges
of the concourse. And in that cacophony, one shout from a child that saved Lanoree’s
life.

“Look out!”

As she looked back down at the injured Noghri, she saw the shell of his mask peel
back and a wisp of smoke from within.
Voice activated!
she had time to think, and then she put every shred of strength and every measure
of power she had in the Force into shielding herself from what came next.

She barely heard the explosion.

For a moment, as she saw the Wookiee’s face and felt its strong, furry hands hauling
her to her feet, she thought she was back on Ska Gora with her fingers hovering over
laser cannon triggers. Then she remembered what had happened and smelled acrid smoke
on the air.

“I’m fine,” she said. Dizziness swept over her and she composed herself, breathing
deeply. The female Wookiee grumbled a question, and Lanoree nodded. “Really. Fine.”

The few people around her—the Wookiee; several humans; a tall, eyeless Miraluka with
slatted mask—observed in stunned silence. When Lanoree looked beyond them, she understood
their amazement at her survival.

The Noghri had packed quite a blast. There was nothing left of him, and the site of
the explosion was the center of a wide swath of blackened and broken marble. Detritus
littered the lobby. He had killed himself without a second thought, and it was incredible
that no one else had been caught by the blast.

I was there
, Lanoree thought, looking at the small, cracked crater in the marble floor. She had
been blasted across the lobby, protected and shielded by the Force that she was so
rich in, and for a few moments she tingled with something approaching ecstasy. She
took a deep breath and felt a rush of well-being. Perhaps it was relief. Or maybe
she was simply realizing that it was good to be alive.

“You!” a voice called. “Je’daii!” It was one of the militia who’d been approaching
when the Noghri had killed himself. The other was bloodied and being helped to her
feet. As the woman drew closer, Lanoree glanced quickly around at the comm columns.
One side of it had taken some of the blast, but it remained standing, though bent
and twisted. She could see the comm point in which the Noghri had plugged his device.

She ran.

“Stop!” the militia woman called again, angry. Lanoree would have to be careful. The
woman was shaken, and in the confusion she might decide to take a shot.

Lanoree raised one hand, smiled, then slowed to a walk. “Just here,” she said, pointing.
“Just going here.”

“Stop or I’ll—”

“You’ll wait for me,” Lanoree said, pushing softly.

“I’ll—I’ll wait for you,” the woman said, frowning even as she stopped running. She
looked around as if confused, and then Lanoree reached the comm column.

She examined the device briefly, then plucked it from the socket. It was a small black
box with several connectors and a screen on one side. A camera, among other things.
Lanoree tapped the screen and scrolled down the list of stored images.

They were all of her.

“When a Ranger comes, death always follows,” the man said.

“I thought the saying was ‘danger always follows’?”

“Whatever.”

They had taken her to the nearest militia post, and Lanoree had gone without argument.
Her assignment had already become more complex than she had hoped, and making herself
a fugitive would mean answers would be even more difficult to come by. People were
dead. She owed it to the Kalimahr authorities to answer their questions.

Besides, she would be meeting Tre again at dusk. She had time to kill.

The captain was Lorus, a tall member of the proud Sith species, powerfully built and
obviously used to being a leader and having his orders obeyed, and demands met, without
question. He seemed unperturbed at holding a Je’daii in his restraining cell. He must
have known that she could likely escape at any moment, but that would cause a diplomatic
incident. So for now there was a gentle balance between them, an act from which both
sides might benefit. The fact that they both knew this made things easier. At any
other time it might have been amusing.

“Something funny, Je’daii?”

“No, not really. And I’ve told you my name.”

“I prefer to call you Je’daii.”

“Very well, Lorus.”

“You should address me as Captain Lorus.”

“I should?”

The captain sighed and leaned against a wall. The two human militia who had brought
her in stood in the corners of the room at either side of the door. They both looked
afraid, and stared at her in open wonder. Probably the first time they had seen a
Je’daii in action.

The room was a little larger than the main control room on her Peacemaker, with one
door, several chairs around the edges, and the single containment cell at its center.
The cell was too small to lie down in, and consisted of an archaic heat field instead
of bars. Lanoree could feel a touch of heat where she stood—the generator was old
and leaking—and knew that she’d be singed to a crisp if she moved too close to the
shimmering walls. She also knew that she could knock out the generator with a single
thought, and with a little more effort she could shield herself and walk straight
through the heat field.

But she had no wish to fight Captain Lorus and his constables.

“Five dead,” Lorus said.

“Six, sir,” one of the militia women said. Lorus stiffened but did not turn around,
and the woman became suddenly nervous. “Er … including the bomber.”

“I don’t care about the bomber,” Lorus said. “There are five people dead who I care
about, including two of my militia.”

“Sir,” the woman said, quieter.

“I didn’t kill any of them,” Lanoree said.

“They’re dead because the bomber was following you.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m here on Je’daii Council orders,” Lanoree said.

“Why?”

“I can’t reveal the purpose of my assignment.”

“Why?” Lorus smiled.

Lanoree did not respond. She looked down at her feet and probed softly, so gently
that she hoped he would not feel. What she discovered did not surprise her. He enjoyed
the power his position gave him. He was something of a bully toward his staff. And
though he had been in the presence of Je’daii before, he had no love for them.

“I’ve done nothing to make you hate me,” Lanoree said.

Lorus’s face fell.

“I know your mind. And there’s more I can do.”

“Not if I press the purge button on your cell and fry you to a crisp.”

Lanoree said nothing. Silence was more effective. It projected confidence.

Lorus snorted. “Je’daii. Rangers! I knew a Ranger once, several years ago. Vulk. Did
you know him?”

“No,” Lanoree said. But she remembered the name and the sadness of people she loved.
“My parents knew him.”

“Arrogant. Superior. He moved me out of the way once. I was a constable then, still
in training, and he’d arrived close to here with two younger Je’daii. Those you call
Journeyers. Too young and unable to control the powers you give them. Troublesome.
There was a dispute at the time, two of the richer Kalimahr families bickering over
mining rights for some distant asteroid or other. Vulk said he’d come to settle the
dispute before it came to blows. Never did know why the Je’daii were involved, don’t
care. But when I confronted him in the street—told him I had questions and that he
and his young troublemakers would have to follow me—he told me there wasn’t time.
Said he had a meeting to attend and a gift to make, otherwise blood would be spilled.
And then he lifted his hand and … moved me aside. Picked me up, almost throttled me
with that damned Force you people mess with. Dropped me out of his path. Walked on,
without giving me another glance.”

Lanoree smiled. She could not help it, even knowing it would only enrage this proud,
simple man more. But she had heard her parents talking of Vulk, and this sounded exactly
like the man he had been. He had never permitted anything to obstruct what he thought
was right.

It was a lesson her parents had taught her well.

“You’d laugh at me, Je’daii?” Lorus said.

“Only at Vulk’s memory.”

“You
did
know him, then?”

“No. Like I said, my parents did. And it was more than several years ago. Vulk died
eight years ago in a Cloud Chaser crash a thousand kilometers from here. But I guess
you’re so parochial you won’t have heard about that. He’d already killed fourteen
Xang terrorists by then, and he was mortally wounded. He steered his ship away from
populated areas, saving hundreds, maybe thousands. He crashed into the
sea.” Lanoree said no more. But she watched Lorus’s expression change, subtly but
definitely, and she was glad. It seemed the man had some measure of honor after all.