Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (3 page)

A
rocket exploded above his head, then another. They weren't aimed at
him, but at the city's upper levels. Rubble rained down on him,
forcing him to protect his head. The Mandalorian took advantage of
that slight distraction to dive under his guard and grip him tight
about the throat. Shigar's confusion was complete-but Mandalorians
weren't supposed to fight at close quarters! Then he was literally
flying through the air, hurled by his assailant's vast physical
strength into a wall.

He
landed on both feet, stunned but recovering quickly, and readied
himself for another attack.

The
Mandalorian ran three long steps to his right, leaping one-two- three
onto piles of rubbish and from there onto a roof. More rockets arced
upward, tearing through the ferrocrete columns of a monorail. Slender
spears of metal warped and fell toward Shigar and the soldier. Only
with the greatest exertion of the Force that Shigar could summon was
he able to deflect them into the ground around them, where they stuck
fast, quivering.

"He's
getting away!"

The
soldier's cry was followed by another explosion. A grenade hurled
behind the escaping Mandalorian destroyed much of the roof in front
of him and sent a huge black mushroom rising into the air. Shigar
dived cautiously through it, expecting an ambush, but found the area
clear on the far side. He turned in a full circle, banishing the
smoke with one out-thrust push.

The
Mandalorian was gone. Up, down, sideways-there was no way to tell
which direction he had chosen to flee. Shigar reached out through the
Force. His heart still hammered, but his breathing was steady and
shallow. He felt nothing.

The
soldier became visible through the smoke just steps away, moving
forward in a cautious crouch. She straightened and planted her feet
wide apart. The snout of her rifle targeted him, and for a moment
Shigar thought she might actually fire.

"I
lost him, " he said, unhappily acknowledging their failure.

"Not
your fault, " she said, lowering the rifle. "We did our
best. "

"Where
did he come from?" he asked.

"I
thought it was just the usual Black Sun bust-up, " she said,
indicating the destroyed building. "Then he walked out. "

"Why
did he attack you?"

"Beats
me. Maybe he assumed I was a justicar. "

"You're
not one?"

"No.
I don't like their methods. And they'll be here soon, so you should
get out of here before they decide you're responsible for all this. "

That
was good advice, he acknowledged to himself. The bloodthirsty militia
controlling the lower levels was a law unto itself, one that didn't
take kindly to incursions on their territory.

"Lets
see what happened here, first, " he said, moving toward the
smoke-blackened doorway with lightsaber at the ready.

"Why?
It's not your problem. "

Shigar
didn't answer that. Whatever was going on here, neither of them could
just walk away from it. He sensed that she would be relieved not to
be heading into the building alone.

Together
they explored the smoking, shattered ruins. Weapons and bodies lay
next to one another in equal proportions. Clearly, the inhabitants
had taken up arms against the interloper, and in turn every one of
them had died. That was grisly, but not surprising. Mandalorians
didn't disapprove of illegals per se, but they did take poorly to
being shot at.

On
the upper floor, Shigar stopped, sensing something living among the
carnage. He raised a hand, cautioning the soldier to proceed more
slowly, just in case someone thought they were coming to finish the
job. She glided smoothly ahead of him, heedless of danger and with
her weapon at the ready. He followed soundlessly in her wake, senses
tingling.

They
found a single survivor huddled behind a shattered crate, a Nawtolan
with blaster burns down much of one side and a dart wound to his
neck, lying in a pool of his own blood. The blood was spreading fast.
He looked up as Shigar bent over him to check his wounds. What Shigar
couldn't tourniquet he could cauterize, but he would have to move
fast to have any chance at all.

"Dao
Stryver. " The Nautolan's voice was a guttural growl, not helped
by the damage to his throat. "Came out of nowhere. "

"The
Mandalorian?" said the soldier. "Is that who you're talking
about?"

The
Nautolan nodded. "Dao Stryver. Wanted what we had. Wouldn't give
it to him. "

The
soldier took off her helmet. She was surprisingly young, with short
dark hair, a strong jaw, and eyes as green as Shigar's lightsaber.
Most startling were the distinctive black markings of Clan Moxla
tattooed across her dirty cheeks.

"What
did you have, exactly?" she pressed the Nautolan.

The
Nautolan's eyes rolled up into his head. "Cinzia" he
coughed, spraying dark blood across the front of her armor. "Cinzia.
"

"And
that is... ?" she asked, leaning close as his breathing failed.
"Hold on-help's coming-just hold on!"

Shigar
leaned back. There was nothing he could do, not without a proper
medpac. The Nautolan had said his last.

"I'm
sorry, " he said.

"You've
no reason to be, " she said, staring down at her hands. "He
was a member of the Black Sun, probably a murderer himself. "

"Does
that make him evil? Lack of food might have done that, or medicine
for his family, or a thousand other things. "

"Bad
choices don't make bad people. Right. But what else do we have to go
on down here? Sometimes you have to make a stand, even if you can't
tell who the bad guys are anymore. "

A
desperately fatigued look crossed her face, then, and Shigar thought
that he understood her a little better. Justice was important, and so
was the way people defended it, even if that meant fighting alone
sometimes.

"My
name is Shigar, " he said in a calming voice.

"Nice
to meet you, Shigar, " she said, brightening. "And thanks.
You probably saved my life back there. "

"I
can't take any credit for that. I'm sure he didn't consider either of
us worthy opponents. "

"Or
maybe he worked out that we didn't know anything about what he was
looking for in the safehouse. Lema Xandret: that was the name he used
on me. Ever heard of it?"

"No.
Not Cinzia, either. "

She
rose to her feet in one movement and cocked her rifle onto her back.
"Larin, by the way. "

Her
grip was surprisingly strong. "Our clans were enemies, once, "
Shigar said.

"Ancient
history is the least of our troubles. We'd better move out before the
justicars get here. "

He
looked around him, at the Nautolan, the other bodies, and the wrecked
building. Dao Stryver. Lema Xandret. Cinzia.

"I'm
going to talk to my Master, " he said. "She should know
there's a Mandalorian making trouble on Coruscant. "

"All
right, " she said, hefting her helmet. "Lead the way. "

"You're
coming with me?"

"Never
trust a Konshi. That's what my mother always said. And if we're going
to stop a war between Dao Stryver and the Black Sun, we have to do it
right. Right?"

He
barely caught her smile before it disappeared behind her helmet.

"Right,
" he said.

CHAPTER
2

Eldon
Ax licked her wounds all the way to Dromund Kaas.

The
damage to her body was most easily treated. Many of the cuts and
gashes she left to scar naturally, believing as her Master had taught
her that a lesson quickly forgotten is a lesson poorly learned. The
rest she treated with the help of the medkit built into her
interceptor's cockpit, avoiding painkillers and anesthetics
completely. It wasn't pain that worried her. That was good for her,
too.

The
damage done to her confidence would take much longer to heal-not to
mention her prospects of advancement. Darth Chratis would see to
that. It didn't matter that her record on solo missions had been
perfect up to this one. It didn't matter how highly she had been
awarded by the Sith Academy. All that mattered was success.

The
interceptor burst back into realspace and the Empire's grim- faced
capital, Kaas City, hove into view.

"I
will kill you, Dao Stryver, " Eldon Ax swore, "or die
trying. "

*
* *

The
debrief went as badly as she feared.

"Tell
me about your mission, " her Master instructed in clipped tones
from his meditation chamber. Ax had been admitted into his presence
before his morning rituals were complete, and she knew well how that
annoyed him.

She
bowed and did as she was instructed. Her Master doled out orders with
an unbendable desire to test her willingness to obey. She knew better
than to outright defy him, even when she was doing her best to keep
her failure from him.

It
was during her mission that the Mandalorian had found her. And it was
this encounter she did her best to conceal from her Master, inasmuch
as that was possible.

"Tell
me more, " said Darth Chratis, rising slowly out of his
sarcophagus. In order to focus most effectively, he occupied at least
one hour a day in a coffin-like shell that allowed no light or air,
forcing him to rely solely on his own energies to survive. "You
have not sufficiently explained the reasons for your failure. "

She
couldn't read his mood. His face was a mess of deep wrinkles and
fissures from which two blood-red eyes peered out at the world. His
knife-thin lips were twisted in a perpetual sneer. Occasionally, a
tongue so pale it was almost transparent appeared to taste the air.

"I
will not lie to you, Master, " she said, kneeling before him.
"While infiltrating an enemy cell, my identity was revealed and
I was forced to defend myself. "

"Revealed?"
The bloodless lips twitched. "I do not sense the foul stink of
the Jedi about you. "

"No,
Master. I was exposed by another-one whose people were once allies in
our war against the Republic. "

That
was the gambit she had settled upon, to turn the blame for the
incident back on the person who had caused it.

"So.
" Darth Chratis stepped free from the confines of his
sarcophagus. The soles of his feet made a sound like dry leaves being
crushed. "A Mandalorian. "

"Yes,
Master. "

"You
fought him?"

"Yes,
Master. "

"And
he defeated you. "

This
wasn't a question, but it demanded a response. "That is true,
Master. "

"Yet
you are still here. Why is this?"

Darth
Chratis stood directly before her now. One withered claw reached down
to touch her chin. His fingernails were like ancient crystals, cold
and sharp against her skin. He smelled of death.

She
looked up into his forbidding visage and saw nothing there but the
implacable demand for the truth. "He did not come to fight me, "
she said. "This I believe, although it makes no sense. He asked
for me by name. He knew what I am. He asked me questions to which I
knew no answer. "

"He
interrogated you?" That prompted a frown. "The Emperor will
be displeased if you revealed any of his secrets. "

"I
would rather die a lingering death at your hands, Master. " Her
reply was utterly sincere. She had been a Sith in training all her
life. The Empire was as much a part of her as her lightsaber. She
would not betray it to a pack of prideful mercenaries who worked with
the Empire when it suited them.

But
how to convey the truth of this to her Master when it was here, on
this critical point, that her story fell apart?

"He
asked me nothing about the Empire, " Ax told her Master,
remembering the scene with grueling clarity. Her assailant had
disarmed her and pinned her with a net resistant to all her efforts
to escape. A dart had paralyzed her, leaving only the ability to
speak. "He did not torture me. I was wounded solely in
self-defense. "