Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (32 page)

"I
intend to, Master. "

"If
you do not, I will flay you alive in front of the Dark Council,
before they in turn flay me. "

"Yes,
Master. "

"Abase
yourself before me, " he told her, "and swear to me that
the thought I see in your mind is not another reason I should kill
you now. "

She
froze. All she had been thinking was that the hexes fought her as
hard as they fought her enemies-harder, in fact, because she was a
Sith. Surely, instead, they should have recognized her and held back.
After all, Lema Xandret had created both of them. She had even named
the ship after her daughter. They should be her allies, not her
enemies.

Darth
Chratis held her mind like an egg, ready to crack it with a thought.

She
did exactly as he said, pressing herself face down onto the cold
metal floor to reaffirm her allegiance to him.

"I
remain your trustworthy servant, " she said. "I am yours to
kill if you deem it fit. "

She
waited, hardly daring to breathe, and gradually the pressure eased.

"You
shall live, " her Master told her, "for now. Find me the
location of that planet. If you fail me again, I will show no mercy.
Do you understand me?"

"Yes,
Master. "

"Leave.
"

She
went.

Only
when she was sure she had reached a safe distance did she dare think,
You can expect no mercy from me. Master, the day our positions are
reversed.

CHAPTER
25

The
very second the medkit bleeped to tell her its work was done, Larin
slid her half hand free and headed for the refresher. She was tired
and ached all over, but this couldn't wait. There was only so much
she could ask of a self-cleaning body glove. A good rinse was exactly
what it needed.

When
she was done, she did as Ula had suggested, and looked through his
suitcases for anything she might be able to wear. Much of it was
formal wear and still vacuum-sealed in its original packaging. A lot
of it was also made from more expensive natural fabric, and therefore
not amenable to on-the-fly adjustments, but Ula wasn't significantly
larger than she. Eventually she found dark blue pants and a matching
jacket with a militaristic cut. The sleeves and legs came up to match
her length, and the other measurements pulled in tight enough. With
the black body glove underneath, she almost looked stylish-but for
the bruises on her face and the missing fingers of her left hand.

Larin
considered what she had told Ula she would do, and rejected it. She
was tired, but knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. The first thing
she'd noticed on leaving the refresher was that the ship wasn't
moving. It was still in orbit about Hutta.

She
explored the main level of the Auriga Fire. Hetchkee was sound asleep
in the crew quarters, and like any good soldier hadn't been disturbed
by her rummaging around. The soft male voices coming down the
stairwell from the cockpit belonged to Jet and Ula. All the holds she
poked her head into were empty, bar one.

Shigar
sat cross-legged with hands folded across his lap and eyes closed.
The silver scrap sat innocently on the floor in front of him. His
face was expressionless, but she could feel the tension radiating
from him like an audible twang. He looked like she had felt half an
hour earlier: exhausted, dirty, and beaten half to death.

She
went and got the medkit.

"Your
arm, " she told him when she returned. "How are you going
to achieve anything if you bleed out here in the dark?"

Without
moving a single other muscle, he opened his eyes.

"I
can't do it anyway, Larin. "

"You
know, you'll never be able to prove that true, " she said,
holding the medkit at him like a challenge. "All you can prove
is that you've stopped trying. "

"But
if you distract me..."

"That's
not the same thing as giving up. That's called a regroup. I'm your
reinforcements. "

His
mask of concentration finally broke into a faint smile. "I'd
happily trade places with you. "

"Me,
too, " she said, raising her injured hand.

He
took the medkit from her without another word.

She
explained the clothing situation while he tended his arm. He nodded
vaguely. She slid down the wall and sat with her back against it. He
didn't stop her. By the light spilling through the open door, he
looked much older than she knew him to be.

"Everyone
is waiting for me, " he said as the medkit hummed away. "Not
just you and Master Satele. Supreme Commander Stantorrs, hundreds of
soldiers and starfighter pilots, the entire Republic-waiting for me
to do something I've never been able to do. Not properly, anyway. It
conies and goes. It's not reliable. I can tell you where your armor
came from, but this thing... ?"

The
piece of droid-nest glinted impassively back at him.

"What
about my armor?" she said.

"Once,
when I brushed against it, I got a flash of its former owner. She was
a sniper from Tatooine. She got a medal for taking out a local
Exchange boss. "

"What
happened to her?"

"She
didn't die in the armor or anything, if that's what you're worried
about. "

Larin
nodded, feeling a small amount of relief. "Maybe she was
promoted out of the field and took the armor with her. That happens,
sometimes. "

"But
she sold it, " he said. "Would she have needed the money
that badly?"

"Her
kids might have. It's old armor, Shigar, last in action before the
Treaty of Coruscant. Took me a lot of work to get it into the shape
it was, let me tell you. "

"You
could've bought new armor anytime, " he said, "but you
didn't want to. It's a symbol standing in for all the things that
need to be fixed. "

"Is
that what you think?"

"Just
a guess. "

His
green eyes watched her unblinkingly. She felt sometimes that they
looked right into her. Sometimes she liked that feeling. Sometimes
she didn't.

"You're
thinking too much, " she told him.

"That's
what I've been trained to do. "

"I'm
sure it isn't. I'm sure the Grand Master trained you to think just
enough, and no more. But the lesson hasn't quite sunk in yet because
people only learn it the hard way. And that's where you are right
now. Absolutely stuck, in a hard place. Right?"

Still
he didn't look away. "Maybe. "

"Maybe
nothing. You know you have to do something. You know what it is and
you know why it has to be done. But you can't do it because you're
too busy going over it and over it, making sure you're absolutely
right. Most of you knows you are right, but there's a small part that
wants to think it over one more time. The reasons, the method, the
fallout. Whatever. Like you can plan everything in advance and then
just sit back and watch it happen, so perfectly you don't even have
to be there to do it. Things will just happen on their own. Maybe you
don't need to do anything if you think about it hard enough. That's
always worth hoping for. "

"You're
speaking from experience, I can tell. "

"You
bet, " she said, but then she stopped. The words had dried up.

"It's
okay, " he said. "You don't have to tell me. "

"No,
I do. I need to tell someone, one day. It might as well be you, now.
" She felt her face growing warm, and she turned away, hoping he
couldn't see. "I ratted on a superior officer. "

"I
presume you had a reason. "

"The
best. Sergeant Donbar was corrupt. But that didn't change anything. I
went against the chain of command and reported him to his superiors.
They slapped him down and discharged him, but the reason for it was
hushed up. There were always going to people who didn't believe me,
thought I was doing it out of a grudge, but because of the secrecy I
couldn't defend myself. No one wants Special Forces to look bad, and
he was about as bad as it gets. He was discharged, and eventually I
quit. It got way too uncomfortable. "

"Do
you regret it?"

"Sometimes,
" she said, thinking of the Zabrak on Coruscant, "but it
had to be done. If I tried to capture the weeks of agonizing I went
through leading up to me actually doing it, I'd bore you to death. "

The
skin around his eyes tightened. "And now you think I should just
get over myself and do what I have to do. "

"You
don't agree?"

"Not
at all. Finding a planet that could be anywhere in Wild Space is a
little different from putting in a report, don't you think?"

"Sure
it's different. You don't stand to lose every friend you've ever had
if you do the right thing. And you've actually been training for this
most of your life. Remember, Shigar, that you didn't have to crawl up
from nowhere to get where you are. You were handpicked from everyone
on Kiffu to be a Jedi Knight. Whatever happens today, you'll go back
to the life you know. So you can do it at your own pace, or you can
do it when you need to do it. I for one think there's only one right
choice. "

He
looked away. "You came to tell me you think I've got it easy.
That makes a huge difference. Thanks. "

His
sarcasm stung. Larin didn't know what she'd come to him for, really,
except to break him out of his funk. She was surprised at how deep
the feelings ran and the harshness with which she had spoken. It was
hard to tell how much was for his benefit.

"All
right, then, " she said. "I'll leave you to it. "

When
she stood, her knees practically shook with fatigue.

"I
will do it, " he said. "I have to. "

"Well,
keep it down when you do. I'm going to catch up on some sleep. "

She
didn't wait for his snappy comeback, if he had one. Letting her legs
work on autopilot, she went to a bunk in the crew quarters and was
asleep before her head hit the pillow.

*
* *

Shigar
listened to her go. Already he regretted the way he had reacted to
her combined advice and confession. Clearly, she had been building up
to the latter part for some time, and he should have showed more
compassion. But he was so bound up in his own issues, his own
self-centered mess, that he hadn't been able to see the raw wound she
had exposed to him. Not her hand, but the aching severance from
everything she had once held dear.

How
would he feel, he asked himself, if he had to turn his back on the
Jedi Order? It was impossible to imagine Master Satele ever doing
anything counter to the Code he lived by, but famous Jedi had fallen
to the dark side before. What if he discovered that she was in fact
working against the Council? And what if he knew that her word would
be taken against his? Was his sense of justice strong enough to make
the call anyway, as Larin's had been?

Once
he would have been completely sure of himself. Now, after his
dealings with Tassaa Bareesh, he wasn't so sure.

And
still there was the matter of the mysterious world, waiting to be
resolved.

The
piece of droid-nest glinted impassively back at him.

Larin
was right on one point: sitting around thinking about it would get
him nowhere. All the time he had been isolated in the dark, he hadn't
even touched the silver sliver. He had been trying and tailing to get
his mind into the right state, believing that there was no point even
starting until he was completely ready.

Larin's
faith in you is not unwarranted. Perhaps you should have faith in
her, too.

Shigar
remembered how he had felt when Master Satele had ordered him to go
to Hutta. He had invited Larin along because he felt she needed him
to prove something to herself. She was full of bluster but lacking a
clear sense of purpose. Now he understood why that core of her life
was missing, and it was he who needed to prove something. If he
didn't, he would do much worse than let down his Master and the
Republic. He would fail himself.

There's
only one right choice.