Desperate Measures/Part 6

"Now what?" Narasi moaned as organ music echoed up from the bowels of the castle.

Aldayr couldn't be sure whether the music was just of deafening volume at its source and rebounding off stone from each corridor to the next, or the Sith had cleverly concealed speakers or pipes in the walls to bring it up through the castle. Either way, the effect grew eerier the longer Aldayr listened; when the tones were thundering and aggressive, the danger all around them seemed to press in from all sides until Aldayr jumped at the sound of Narasi shuffling her feet, and when they turned deep and funereal, they were surely the last tones Aldayr and Narasi would hear until the hovering shadow of Death at last descended upon them…

He shook himself, then reached over and shook Narasi too; she had the same look of hopelessness he felt he had just cleansed from his face. She blinked her big eyes several times, then snapped back all at once. She raised her clawed hands and tightened them into fists, but there was no tangible threat to battle.

"Let's keep moving," Aldayr suggested.

"Yeah…yeah…"

They slunk along each corridor one-by-one, Aldayr carrying his dead right arm in his left hand, Narasi creeping ahead to scout each turn for enemies or more abominations in cells. Aldayr had let her lead even though it felt unchivalrous; as she had fairly pointed out, her hearing was much better, which was a useful quality in the point man. He kept her in sight except when glancing back the way they had come, but tried not to be aware of her body, as he had seen her trying not to be aware of his. Which was not to say that she had a bad one, despite her alien features, and a wild streak in her personality that matched well with his own growing feelings of being restrained…

One hundred percent not the right time he told himself sternly. And one hundred and ten percent not the right place.

The castle was a maze of corridors leading in strange directions, staircases so narrow Aldayr and Narasi had to walk single file that opened onto halls as breathtaking in their grandeur as they were obscene in their decorative scheme, comfortably furnished rooms accessible off stone corridors that featured blood- and brain-stained torture devices one door down. Between that and its insistence on never using the same construction material for more than one room in a row, Aldayr privately thought the architect was either a madman or high out of his mind on spice so pure that Aldayr could have sold a gram of it and lived like a king until the end of his days. The best Aldayr could say for the place was that the Sith seemed as stymied as they were, for even after hours on the run, naked and unarmed, they had yet to be caught.

Aldayr watched a trio of rodents scuttle by in their wake, slipping one-by-one into a crack in the wall's foundation. After a moment, a fourth rodent followed; it looked the same as its fellows except that it had wings and was flapping after them. It landed, folded its wings, and wriggled itself into the same hole. Aldayr stared long after it was gone, but when he finally turned around he found Narasi leaning halfway into the Y-shaped junction of three corridors, eyes closed.

"What is—"

"Shh!" she said, eyes squeezed shut, one hand waving him into silence. Aldayr frowned as he padded softly to her side. The organ notes were still booming and moaning off the walls, and Aldayr feared Narasi had fallen under their spell. But then she opened her eyes and pointed. "This way."

Aldayr stretched out with the Force as much as he could stomach. "The dark side is even stronger that way."

One side of her mouth pulled down. "I know. But I can hear people crying that way.  If that's where they're holding prisoners, in a place like this, the dark side would be stronger that way, right?"

There was no denying the force of that disturbing logic. "Lead the way."

She did, through an unlit corridor in which Aldayr laid his hand on Narasi's shoulder so as not to lose her in the darkness; across a sudden bridge over a chasm whose bottom was lost in fog; and, memorably, through a hall upon whose walls were mounted the heads of various predators and monsters as hunting trophies, along with more than one head that had once belonged to a sentient being; Narasi took one look and marched on, eyes determinedly forward.

Aldayr caught a breath of fresh air before he understood why; he only had time to appreciate, in retrospect, how heavy the air of the dungeons was. Then he followed Narasi into a hall with half its wall missing, exposed to the night and the rain. Aldayr wondered if it had been damaged until he saw the clean mortaring of the weathered bricks on one side and the rusted girder on the other; apparently the construction team had simply given up halfway through. Fungus and moss along the pillars in the room had long since blossomed into blooms of unusual colors, and a whole nest of vines were entangled around the far corridor. From outside, Aldayr heard a strange, ululating shriek and sensed predatory instincts in the Force.

"You sure about this?" he asked.

"Ye—maaaaybe not." She had stopped in her tracks; at the end of the hall the vines started to squirm, and Aldayr realized they were tentacles.

"Back the way we came?" he whispered.

"No, this is definitely the right direction…"

Aldayr almost pointed out the obvious flaw in that logic when, at no signal he could see, the tentacles coiled back, disappearing around the far corner. At the same moment, though, the darkness around them grew heavier, the danger closer. Did the thing have the mental wherewithal to plan, to deliberately lure them into a trap?

"Something's wrong," Narasi muttered.

"You don't say!"

She raised her eyes to the gap in the roof, then pushed against Aldayr's chest. "Get back!"

He followed her gaze as they retreated and saw a hooded figure standing on one of the exposed rafters. The figure leapt to the next rafter, then dropped the dozen meters to the floor. His hood shadowed his face, but beneath Aldayr could see what looked like Jedi garb, though in darker colors and shredded as if from rough wear. Aldayr cast about for a weapon, but there was nothing within reach; even the walls and the windows were constructed well enough that Aldayr could not rip anything free without his cybernetic arm. He tried to step in front of Narasi, but she remained determinedly side-by-side.

"Run?" Narasi asked out of the corner of her mouth.

The hooded figure shook his head. "Running doesn't help," he said in a rasping voice, as if he was half-recovered from a throat infection. "I tried running, once. Everywhere you go is just back where you started."

Hearing him give voice to the fear that had been growing in the back of Aldayr's mind made it seem more real, and Aldayr's voice was a snarl as he replied, "Who are you?!"

"I have to bring you back," the man said in his growling monotone. "Kai Latra commands it."

Narasi started. "This…Kai Latra's a person? We're in his place?"

"Yes." The man took a lightsaber from under his robe; his left hand ended in a hairy, clawed hand that did not go with the voice under the hood. "Now come with me or I'll hurt you."

Aldayr felt Narasi focusing the Force, but he didn't like their odds—two naked and unarmed Padawans against a Dark Jedi with a lightsaber. The man raised his right hand, and Aldayr felt a shudder wrack his spine as the fingers stretched weirdly, extending and uncoiling…the Force screamed at Aldayr in warning. "Hit him!"

They were on the same wavelength; each thrust out a hand, and their combined Force push was strong enough to knock the man onto his back. They were just in time; the fingers extended into tentacles that shot out, bouncing off the walls as he missed. Aldayr seized Narasi's arm, dragging her after him as he sprinted away, his dead right arm bouncing off his leg.

They ran into the first side corridor they came upon, which was straighter and simpler than most they had seen thus far. Instinct pulled Aldayr into another hall at the same moment Narasi banked that way, but they found themselves up against a door that wouldn't open. Aldayr knew a moment of panic—had the dark side clouded their vision?

Narasi swiped at the access panel, which gave a negative beep, then tugged at the panel itself. "Can you get this open?!"

He tugged too, but it was screwed into the durasteel. "No. Narasi—"

"Get it open! I can hotwire it!"

There was no time to argue. Aldayr took his limp cybernetic arm in his right hand and bashed his durasteel knuckles against the plate. He couldn't put nearly as much power behind the blow as the live arm would have permitted; it felt like trying to use a tool. Ultimately he dented the plate enough wedge his fingers behind it and pull it away with Narasi's help. She tugged out a handful of wires, studying them with a frown.

"Hurry!"

"Yeah…I can do this, I saw Tirien do it once…"

"You saw him do it?!" Aldayr hissed. "He didn't teach you to do it?!"

"Quiet, you're distracting me!"

A warning from the Force aborted Aldayr's caustic reply, and he turned to find the hooded man at the other end of the corridor. He threw another Force push, but this time the man was ready for it and kept his feet, resisting with his own powers enough that his boots merely slid on the floor. The man thrust out his right hand and his tendril fingers crossed the space between them in a second. Two caught Aldayr around his cybernetic arm, another wrapped itself around his neck, and the last two encircled his waist and one thigh; they felt like rubber and secreted some sort of ooze so that Aldayr's hand slipped on the tentacle around his neck as he tried to pull it free. Each tendril was no wider than two Human fingers together, but they tugged Aldayr irresistibly down the hall.

"Aldayr!" Narasi cried.

"Get…the…door!" he croaked; he tried coil a tentacle around his wrist and lever it, but his arm slipped through and he slid another half-meter toward the dark sider. There were electric hisses behind him from the door, and nasal, feline hisses as Narasi's frustration mounted. "Fo…cus…!"

Aldayr couldn't even bite the tendril around his neck, it had pulled so taut. The hooded man activated his lightsaber, and Aldayr was astonished to see a blue blade. His distraction cost him another meter, and he had to hop to avoid getting pulled off his feet. He saw a gleam of red beneath the hood.

There was a mechanical zhwuum from behind him, and Narasi cried out in triumph. A second later she seemed to realize that Aldayr was closer to their pursuer than to her, because her follow-up cry was frightened and outraged at once. She leapt on Aldayr's back, wrapping her arms around his chest and pulling; she had enough strength to ground him, but he feared his neck would snap or his leg would be wrenched out of its socket.

She seemed to sense his pain, because she let go; he slid another meter. The next instant Narasi slashed at the tentacles with her claws, drawing a mix of green and red fluids Aldayr hoped was only blood. As the hooded man snarled, Narasi seized the tendril still wrapped around Aldayr's neck and bit down on it, sinking her fangs in to the gums and tearing away a chunk of rubbery flesh. The hooded man shrieked in pain and the tendrils recoiled; Narasi spat the blood and flesh out before she and Aldayr turned and bolted through the door.

Aldayr understood at once why the door had been sealed against them. The room was full of mechanical devices, turbines, generators, and gears clanking and rumbling as they powered the fortress. The whole room smelled of motor oil and improperly-vented exhaust. Lights came on only as they advanced, and Aldayr trusted the Force to guide him. Sensing pursuit, Narasi dove right through the spokes of a slowly turning gear twice the height of a man; knowing his right arm would catch, Aldayr called on the Force to lift him right over it. He came down in a roll, Narasi tugged him to his feet, and they took off at full speed.

Aldayr heard the snap-hiss of the lightsaber activating again and remembered yet again how defenseless they were. Here, however, they had found a railing at last. He ripped a section of piping free with the Force, then tore out another for Narasi. They retreated side-by-side, maneuvering for fighting room as their pursuer leapt the gear and closed. From below Aldayr heard panicked jabbering; he glanced and saw the little pig-faced aliens who had dragged him off to torture before take one look at what was happening above them and run for it. He had no time to worry about them; death was much closer at hand than whatever reinforcements they were going to summon.

"Why are you doing this?" Narasi demanded.

"Kai Latra commands it," came the gargling voice beneath the hood. "I have to obey."

"You don't," Narasi pleaded. "You can—"

The hooded man leapt forward, slashing with his lightsaber. Narasi swung her pipe to block without thinking; Aldayr attacked at the same instant, and the man's lightsaber had only half-sheared through Narasi's pipe when Aldayr's hit him in the chest and knocked him back. Narasi shook her maimed pipe to free the drops of molten metal, warier now. She grabbed the railing Aldayr had already broken and pulled another section free, swinging the two pipes carefully.

"Ever used Jar'Kai before?" Aldayr whispered.

"I'm a quick study!" she hissed back.

The hooded man shot out the tendrils on his right hand again, but Aldayr swatted them out of the air with his pipe. Narasi swung for his knee with one pipe and his head with the other; he cut the lower pipe completely apart, and the shift in weight off-balanced Narasi so her higher blow struck his shoulder instead, but she was still a Zygerrian, and there was enough power behind the blow that the man gasped and his hood dropped onto his shoulders as he lurched back.

Narasi dropped her half-pipe, but failed to press the attack, staring with narrowed eyes. "Who are you? I know you."

Aldayr raised his pipe to guard, staring. He had never met the man; he was sure he would have remembered this face. The man had, perhaps, once been Human, or so close a near-Human that it made no difference; he had skin so pale he seemed never to have seen sunlight, and, shaggy, shoulder-length, prematurely grayed hair that showed only a few strands of the brown it had once been. One of his eyes was dark brown, but the other was not at all Human—glowing red, with a slit black pupil, sunken deeper than the Human eye and surrounded by cracked, bleeding skin. His lower jaw had obviously been flayed—the half-healed skin was crusted over and flaking in places, and his bottom lip was still missing, leaving his lower teeth exposed.

The man raised his eyebrows, and Aldayr noticed belatedly his brows had little spines instead of hair. "Do you?"

"Who are you?" Narasi pressed.

The man shrugged and raised his lightsaber. "I have to bring you back now."

"Wait," Narasi insisted. "Why are you using a blue blade? Are you a Jedi?"

The man winced; his Human eye squinted while his red one widened, the pupil expanding. "I…this has always been mine."

Aldayr retreated; Narasi followed more slowly as she asked, "Who was your master?"

The confusion cleared. "Kai Latra is my master."

He came in, slashing aggressively but inexpertly at ankle height; Aldayr knew that, given both of his arms and his lightsaber, he could defeat the man, and he thought even Narasi could have overcome him. The tendrils shot out and Aldayr smacked some of them down; Narasi stepped on one and hit it with her pipe, but it jerked back, pulling Narasi's foot out from under her and sending her to the ground. Aldayr had to throw his pipe to give Narasi time to get back to her feet; the mix-and-match man cut it out of the air.

"Narasi, we need to move," Aldayr said.

Their attacker had brought up his lightsaber for another swipe, but stopped, that pained look overtaking his distorted face again. "Narasi…I know you…"

"I knew it!" Narasi exclaimed; Aldayr tugged on her elbow, but she pulled against him. "Who are you? What's your name?"

"I…" He pressed his rubbery, tentacled hand to his shaking head. "It doesn't matter. I have to bring you—"

"I'm Narasi," she pressed. "Narasi Rican. Where did we meet?"

"Narasi Rican…" he repeated; one of his tentacles had wrapped around his own head. "With Tirien Kal-Di, on Taanab…"

Narasi's shock was so profound it cut through the miasma of darkness surrounding them, but Aldayr felt horror replace it completely. "Olik?"

She was appalled enough that Aldayr managed to drag her farther away. "Who?"

"Olik Gryfe?" she asked; her arms had slumped to her sides, her pipe resting against the floor. "Taanab…what happened?! The Sith killed Saotu and Finja, and nobody could find you…"

Aldayr remembered then; he had been with Mali when they had responded, far too late, to a reported assault on the Taanab Jedi Chapter House. He remembered the defaced building and the uprooted plants. He remembered the maimed corpses of the Ho'Din Jedi Knight, Saotu, and the teenage Roonian AgriCorps Jedi Finja who had been around Aldayr's own age, the two dead Jedi who should have been three…

"I…I fought too," Olik mused, obviously struggling to remember. "The Sith knew I was strong…they told me I had potential…"

Aldayr gritted his teeth while Narasi stared, horrified. "And they did this to you? Kai Latra did this to you?!"

"…he made me stronger…" Olik insisted in a tone of rote memorization, and both of his mismatched eyes narrowed. "Every way he's changed me made me better. And when my time comes—"

"Olik, it's been two and a half years! Have they been torturing you all that time?!"

Olik's face twisted, his Human eye staring at nothing. "Two and a half years…"

"Stop this! Help us!  You were a Jedi, Olik!"

"A Jedi…" For a moment it was his face and not his body that was tortured, and Aldayr thought with awe that Narasi had gotten through to him. Then his red eye glowed and his remaining lip pulled up to expose his top teeth too. "Bring the Jedi back. You're coming with me."

"Time to go," Aldayr told Narasi.

Olik leaned into the start of a run, but Aldayr reached out with the Force and pulled the lightsabered pieces of pipe off the floor toward Olik's back. He turned, cutting them apart with his lightsaber one after another; Narasi threw her pipe at his back, but he caught it with two tentacles. They started running before Olik could turn.

Another set of lights kicked on at the end of the platform, where an enormous sprocket tugged a roller chain with links as long as Aldayr's arm. Aldayr took the first leap, wrapping his elbow around the link and frantically trying to balance his bare feet on another greasy link. Narasi was only a couple links below, though with a better hold. Just short of the top, where the chain vanished into a machine that would have shredded him to pulp, Aldayr leapt, pushing off with his feet and the Force.

He had the angle toward a platform, but his dead right arm dragged him down, and his chest slammed into the deckplates. He scrabbled for a hold, the links cutting into his fingers as his entire body weight hung suspended in midair. Fortunately, Narasi made a better jump; she hit the railing, but rolled over it onto the platform, caught Aldayr's forearm, and dragged him up.

"Thanks, Narasi. We—"

"LOOK OUT!"

Aldayr looked at the chain, but Olik hadn't bothered; instead, his tendrils had shot up and wrapped around the platform railing like grappling lines. He hoisted himself up, the tentacles coiling back as they wrenched him up to the second level. Aldayr blasted a Force push downward, and the deckplate at the railing's edge groaned. Narasi pressed down too just as Olik cleared the railing, and his weight was too much; the platform fell. Olik scrambled for somewhere to put his feet, holding himself up with the tentacles wrapped around the rail. He slashed with his lightsaber, but wildly and without aiming, and Narasi threw herself forward.

"Narasi!" Aldayr yelled, eyes wide, but she managed to dodge the blade. Catching Olik by his hairy replacement arm, Narasi cranked it back, slamming it against the railing repeatedly until Olik screamed and his claws spasmed open.

Aldayr made a reach for the falling lightsaber, but as Narasi split her focus to watch it fall, Olik threw her off and Aldayr had to catch her. He saved her from going over the railing herself, but there was a mechanical crunch from below as the gears of a turbine ground Olik's lightsaber and a roar as it exploded.

Seizing the railing with his clawed hand, Olik pitched himself forward and managed a landing on Narasi and Aldayr's platform. Aldayr kicked him before he could get his hand tendrils free, but Olik buffeted him away with a backhand.

"Olik, stop!" Narasi begged.

"I can't stop! I have to bring you back!"

"Olik, you were a Jedi, you can—"

"I'M NOT A JEDI!" he screamed.

Aldayr threw his cybernetic arm up with his good hand as a shield, then punched Olik in the face. Olik grunted under the blow, and Aldayr gave him an uppercut in his flayed lower jaw. Olik cried out in pain, but by then Aldayr's replacement arm had dropped to his side again, and Olik slashed him with his clawed arm; this time the claws cleaved into Aldayr's chest and Aldayr screamed as he fell back, holding his bloody chest.

"NO!" Narasi roared, charging. Olik swung at her, but Narasi had the strength to stop his blow with her forearms, even though her elbows buckled. Throwing Olik's arm down, she hammered his face with three punches; her first two jabs made him jerk away and close his red eye, and her ferocious third cross spun Olik sideways into the rail. His tentacle fingers writhed to his side, but Narasi caught his grayed hair and slammed his forehead into the rail. His boots slipped on the deckplate as he struggled for footing, and Aldayr kicked his legs out. Narasi caught him and hefted him onto the railing. "Olik—"

Aldayr shot to his feet, grabbing Olik with his bloody hands and pushing too. Under their combined force, the fallen Jedi went over the railing.

Narasi's eyes widened, and Aldayr realized belatedly it wasn't what she'd had in mind. Olik caught the thick roller chain with his tentacles, but it seemed more by reflex than design; the tendrils wove through the chain links in odd ways, doubling back on themselves and winding around one another. They checked Olik's momentum, but by the time he had swung onto the chain and gotten a foothold the chain was two-thirds of the way toward the top sprocket. Olik tugged, but the tentacles would not pull free, and Aldayr saw sudden fear on his bloodied, mutilated face.

"Narasi, let's go. Narasi!" Aldayr pressed, because she was standing, horrorstruck, at the rail. He caught her hand and pulled her away, and they fled down the catwalk to the door at the end. This one was unlocked, and they were through and into the next corridor by the time they heard a mechanical grinding and a hideous scream.

Narasi leaned against a wall, dry heaving, and Aldayr pressed a hand to his chest wounds; the claws had not cut down to bone, but he was bleeding too profusely for pressure alone to stop. "Narasi, help…"

She pushed herself off the wall, her face conflicted until she saw him. She laid her clawed hands over his real one. "How do you use curato salva on somebody else?"

Aldayr's blood was dripping down his abs and pooling in his navel; he had to lean against the wall himself. "Think the same thing…just point it at me…"

"Thanks, that helps," she said, rolling her eyes. She pressed for a moment, focusing the Force. "Is it helping?"

Aldayr wasn't sure, but he knew they couldn't linger long either way. "If that guy found us, the others will too. We have to keep moving."

Narasi's face crumbled for a moment, but she rebuilt it before Aldayr could offer comfort, though her voice shook a little as she said, "W-We can't leave a blood tr-trail either, though."

He studied her. "I never met him. Olik, I mean.  By the time Mali and I got to Taanab…"

"I remember." Narasi shook her head. "He…I know he had been a Padawan, but something went wrong in his apprenticeship, and he got put in the AgriCorps. He…he wasn't as…I dunno, at peace as Saotu and Finja?  The AgriCorps seemed wrong for him.  I mean, I only knew him for the week Tirien and I stayed there…"

"Maybe that's why they were able to turn him," Aldayr offered. "If he resented it—"

"Do you really think that's what happened?" Narasi demanded; her claws dug into his chest a little, though without opening new wounds. "You saw what Kai Latra did to him. Maybe he didn't have a choice."

Before Aldayr could speak to that point, Narasi frowned and looked away from his face. Closing her eyes, she opened her mouth and cocked her head toward the far end of the corridor. Aldayr had learned the signs by now, so he tried to amplify his hearing with the Force.

"I hear someone crying," Narasi breathed.

Then, as they listened, there was an unmistakable buzz-crack and a wail of pain. Both Padawans opened their eyes and met one another's gaze, on the same screen in an instant.

They had found the prisoners after all.