Grim Tidings/Part 7

In theory, the Festival of Stars existed to facilitate cultural exchange and tourism between worlds. In a galaxy more connected by hyperlanes than anything else (excepting, perhaps, the sheer scale of Human colonization), this lofty goal captured the spirit that had pioneered the wild galactic frontiers and knit together the Republic. In the Core Worlds and Colonies, and even the Corellian-dominated areas of the Inner Rim, that theory was still practice. The Carosites, by contrast, did not seem to expect any visitors, and while Slejux was given to understand they would share their medical knowledge as widely as they could for the betterment of all, there seemed to be no unusual rush to the spaceports either.

Together with the Premier, they had made the decision not to warn the city. It went against Slejux's instincts as a Jedi, but if the slavers came and found themselves anticipated, they might inflict greater hardship on the Carosites, who had no army to prepare any real defense. Instead, the Premier and her council had placed all their faith in the Jedi—placed the fates of Life Point's millions in the hands of three beings. Slejux had borne the responsibility for lives, even worlds, before, but something about the total trust here—the Jedi save us or we are not saved—sharpened his senses and steeled him against the inevitable violence to come.

He was in a park near the center of Life City, sitting among the flowers and contemplating the way each triggered his olfactory senses in a unique way, even members of the same species. Tirien had staked out the Premier's offices; if the raid targeted high government officials, the slavers would probably have Sith with them, and while Slejux and Tirien could spar inconclusively for hours on end, Tirien was the more skillful swordsman when it came to scoring a quick kill. Narasi had the spaceport; Slejux had told her it was to protect Gizmo, but he privately believed Tirien wanted his Padawan to be able to retreat to the Second Chance if the need arose.

A butterfly landed on his head, tickling some of the cilia there, as Slejux wondered whether that was a species of attachment. The decision was entirely defensible—Narasi was the youngest and least experienced of them, and the spaceport provided a wealth of corridors and maintenances hatches into which she could disappear and then emerge in ambush—but had that been Tirien's logic? Was it Slejux's place to wonder such things, or was he enjoying the opportunity to critique another Jedi's tutelage of his Padawan when he lacked the spine to take on that burden himself?

The sun shone brightly on Prime Day of the Festival of Stars, and Carosites were out with their children, enjoying the park as well. Slejux hoped the slavers would not land here; the people would be easy prey, and inflicting their evil in such a gentle, idyllic place would be like a slap in the face of the light itself.

A voice issued from the comlink Slejux wore on his wrist, as soothing as it was unfamiliar. "We detect a ship of cruiser length reverting to realspace within Carosi's orbit."

"Acknowledged," Tirien's sharper voice replied. "Ready," Narasi added.

"Understood." Slejux got to his feet, trying not to disturb the butterfly as long as possible; it took wing only once he began walking for cover. His cilia painted a detailed picture of the park for him—wind brushed up against trees and blew on in the gaps between them, footfalls and voices created echoes in the air, water gurgled in a pond surmounted by a crescent bridge—but this time he did lean on Force Sight to broaden his perspective. With innocents at stake, there was no margin for error.

The Carosite government fed them more updates as Slejux settled himself into an alley across one of the streets that boxed in the park—the cruiser had launched a drop ship, then the drop ship had passed through the atmosphere, now it was definitely bound for Life Point. Slejux adjusted the gas mixture in his rebreather to allow for longer, slower—and thus quieter—breaths. The Jedi had all agreed on plainclothes to blend in, especially in case they were forced into Plan Osk, and Slejux tapped the pommel of his lightsaber hilt, hidden beneath a fold of the padded gambeson Melitto warriors wore beneath their armor. He wore no armor, but he had the Force.

"The drop ship's trajectory is consistent with a landing at Hope Park."

"That's Slejux," Tirien observed. "Narasi, let's move."

"On my way!"

"We detect additional smaller signatures," the Carosite added.

"Probably fighter escorts," Slejux reasoned. "Make sure you aren't seen."

With no more danger of revealing themselves to be forewarned, the Carosites sounded alarms throughout the city. Tuning out the noise, Slejux contemplated the difficulties anew as he waited for the drop ship. Regardless of their fellow Jedi's insistence upon their skill, neither he nor Tirien was the ideal choice for confronting and neutralizing a large group of enemies. The heart of Form III was a passive acceptance of the enemy's attack, yielding and deflecting until the enemy reached exhaustion and only then striking a blow. Tirien's Form II was little better, designed as it was for lightsaber combat. Mali Darakhan could have torn through the entire enemy formation; Kenza, from all Tirien and others had said about her, could probably have hit it like a thunderbolt before they even realized she was there. But the Carosites had only Tirien, Narasi, and Slejux, so they would have to be enough.

He sensed the drop ship before he saw it in the Force; by the time he could make it out, Narasi had appeared at his side. She had a wrap up around her face, covering her ears and giving her head an oddly Arcona triangular shape.

"I can see it," she said, her voice muffled by the wrap.

"As can I." The distant vibrations of repulsor engines told even Slejux's cilia that something was descending on Hope Park, but the Force outlined the craft and pierced its hull to show him the lives inside. Without eyes of his own, Slejux could not have put a name to the way they appeared or said whether his sensation of them was what other beings meant when they spoke of "colors". He knew only that an aura of hostility surrounded the drop ship's crew, a sense of wrongness and violation awaiting victims to actualize.

Narasi risked a glance past the mouth of the alley, and Slejux felt her mind sharpen and tense as she retreated. "It's a Zygerrian ship."

"So much the better; we expected it, and so we're that much better prepared," he replied to encourage her. "Do you speak any Zygerrian?"

Her mind told him she was making a face as much as his cilia or the sight he borrowed from the Force. "Tirien asked me that too. A few words and phrases?  I haven't spoken it regularly since I joined the Order; my pronunciation will probably be terrible."

There were cries of alarm as the drop ship lowered into the park and fighters swooped by overhead. "It's more important that you understand them than they understand you."

She reached beneath her jacket, and her hand came out with her lightsaber hilt. "Unless we go to Plan Osk."

"Let us hope we can avoid that."

Cannon fire echoed from nearby and screams followed. Narasi took another peek. "The fighters are stitching the roads. They're trying to herd people in."

"How many can the drop ship hold, do you think?"

She raised her head, shielding her eyes with one hand. "Couple hundred, at least. Can you see how many are aboard?"

"It's hard to tell." The life signs, clustered so closely together, made a single blob of awful. "I suspect we'll know soon."

The drop ship set down in the middle of the park, lowering its ramp and disgorging its cargo of slavers. Slejux could hear the distinctive wa-zews of stun rings and the crack of blaster fire.

"Narasi, I'm by the fountain," Tirien's voice came over the comlink.

"We're at your…eighteen hundred, Master," she whispered.

"They're breaking into squads of four," Tirien reported. "At least ten squads."

"We could pick them off one by one?" Narasi suggested, but Slejux shook his head.

"If one group fails to report in before we've eliminated them all, they may execute the prisoners."

"Or leave with the ones they have. Slejux, can you see how many are still aboard?"

Focusing hard, Slejux could perceive the Zygerrians aboard the ship through the alley wall and the ship's hull, but they remained amorphous at this distance. "No. More than a few, though."

After a few tense seconds of silence, Narasi suggested, "Plan Osk?"

"There has to be something better than that…"

"I'm all ears, Master."

Tirien did not reply, and when there was another round of fire and a wave of anguish in the Force, Slejux knew it had to be done. "We have no choice. We can't get aboard otherwise, and we can't eliminate them all."

"Yeah." Narasi sounded tense, but determined.

Tirien's sigh came over the comlink. "All right, agreed. Narasi, stay with Slejux, even if you do have to kill someone.  I'll try to find you aboard."

"Yes, Master. But remember, they'll scan—"

"I remember. May the Force be with you."

The last thing the Zygerrians wanted, Narasi had thought to point out, was an armed riot aboard their ship after it had left ground, so even among the pacifist Carosites they would surely scan incoming prisoners. The scanning chokepoint would be perhaps the worst place to be exposed as Jedi, and so Narasi cast about before trying the side door of a shop. It did not open at her touch, so she waved a hand and unlocked it with the Force. Slejux followed her inside to find the restaurant's Carosite staff cowering on the kitchen floor.

"It's okay, we're Jedi, we're gonna help!" she said in a rush. "But we have to get aboard their ship, and we can't take our lightsabers. Can you keep them safe for us?  I give you my word as a Jedi that we'll stop them."

She offered the weapon, and Slejux drew his own. The Carosites looked at one another, and Slejux inhaled to remain calm even as the seconds ticked by. Then the proprietor got up to a crouch, nodded, and extended his hands. "And I give you mine I will do this thing for you."

"Thank you!" Narasi whispered as she and Slejux laid their lightsabers in the man's trembling palms. Tossing their comlinks on a counter, they ran back out into the alley just as a blast from a circling fight pulverized the roof at the alley's other mouth, filling the air with smoke and dust.

"We'll never have a better opening," Slejux said as Narasi coughed.

They bolted out of the alley and ran right into a Zygerrian squad accompanied by two battle droids. All six of them raised their rifles, and the leader barked, "Don't move!"

"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" Slejux cried, and his vocoder did a good job replicating panic, though it occurred to him that was a new emotion for it to emit.

"Please don't hurt us!" Narasi whimpered.

"What is that?" one of the Zygerrians asked the leader, pointing at Slejux.

"That, my lass, is what we call Exotic merchandise: Fifty perfect above base price," the leader answered. "Cuff 'em both, we'll sort 'em out later. And take that rag off the female's head."

Milagro had taught Slejux the danger of using his powers without great care, but here he could not hesitate; if Narasi was exposed, they would be in mortal danger. Without a change in his tone of urgent desperation, Slejux said, "You don't need to take the rag off her head!"

He waved a hand and brought the Force down on all four of them, and his cilia twitched as they trembled as if from a physical blow. In a rote, mechanical voice, the leader said, "We don't need to take the rag off her head. Just cuff them and get them aboard."

"Cuff them and get them aboard," all three other Zygerrians repeated in unison.

Slejux gathered that the battle droids' programming was simple and to the point, because neither of them seemed to notice anything unusual about the exchange. He allowed them to pull his arms behind his back and fix stun cuffs on his wrists. The slavers frog-marched Narasi and him across the park, where packs of cowed Carosites had been rounded up. Casting about, Slejux found the bright light in the Force that was Tirien mixed in with a group of Carosites; Slejux imagined the Zygerrians were not discriminating in their "merchandise", but he caught a lingering ripple of the Force among the Zygerrians nearest and suspected Tirien had eased them along anyway.

They were shoved into a mass of shivering, weeping Carosites, many of whom sported injuries or were nursing those who did. Slejux felt Narasi's empathy mix with fury, and he nudged her and whispered, "Control. Wait."

"There is no talking on line," one of the battle droids cautioned, and struck Slejux in the back with the butt of its rifle. The impact was negligible against the chitin armor of his body, but Narasi skipped forward to catch and steady him with her shoulder.

The line plodded forward, the Zygerrians processing prisoners while the battle droids patrolled and took shots at civilians observing from a distance. There were a few other non-Carosites mixed in among the locals; Slejux saw Tirien whispering to a glum Whiphid. From somewhere ahead came the buzz-crack of a shock whip and a scream of pain; at his side, Slejux heard Narasi growling through her face wrap and sensed her anger building. He warned her with a nudge.

A few beings still separated them from Tirien and the Whiphid when the Pantoran Jedi was shoved aboard. When Slejux and Narasi got to the front, they discovered Narasi had been right—droids waved scanning attachments on their arms over each prisoner. Another mind trick convinced the Zygerrian overseeing the droids that Narasi could keep her wrap on and she proceeded through the scanning without incident, but there was no help for Slejux's cybernetics.

"What is all this?" the Zygerrian demanded, poking Slejux's chestpiece.

"My respirator tubes," Slejux said, trying to convey both fear and a desire to please. "My homeworld has a different atmosphere. And these are for my vocoder…"

With his hands bound behind his back, Slejux could only twitch the clypeal chitin plate on his head. The Zygerrian seemed to understand, because he reached out and unplugged it. "Yeah, I don't need to hear you. Any weapons?"

"Negative," the droid intoned.

"Good, get moving. Next!"

Silenced, Slejux considered using the Force to plug his vocoder back in, but rejected the idea and instead stretched out with the Force to explore the drop ship. It seemed to be little more than a warehouse with wings and engines; the captives had been herded into a large, fenced pen. The wires around it hummed in a way Slejux could not interpret; electrified, perhaps, or simple vibrowire designed to maim anyone who touched it. There were observer decks above the pen, though they were little more than catwalks welded to the bulkheads. If they wished, though, the Zygerrians could turn the pen into a shooting gallery.

Narasi wormed her way through the crowd of huddled Carosites, forcing a path to Tirien's side while Slejux contemplated their options. If they killed the crew now, they might be able to isolate the Zygerrians on the ground from the cruiser's help, but only if they were willing to take on the rest of the slavers unarmed. Once they were airborne, on the other hand, they would have to fight the entire slaver contingent together while risking the cruiser being alerted to their presence. Slejux doubted even all three of them together could mind trick all the Zygerrians at once.

He thought of Master Kwhuel, and sank into a moment of meditation, seeking the Force's guidance. Act or do not act, seize the chance now or dare the chance of a better one later…

As the suffering and fear around him receded for a moment, he felt a clear sense of restraint that had nothing to do with his binders. Directing his head in Tirien's direction, he sensed the Pantoran Knight's mind reaching out to his and knew Tirien had come to the same conclusion—perhaps drawn it from Slejux's thoughts.

We wait.

Waiting was hard—hearing the sobs of children separated from their parents and the wails of parents separated from their children; feeling the lances of agony in the Force along with every buzz-crack; and observing the cool efficiency of it all, as if the Zygerrians were engaged in nothing more complicated than a shopping trip. It was how they saw the beings around him, Slejux understood—as objects, not beings—but feeling their minds for himself was jarring. He understood the temptation to the dark side here, the urge to punish these barbarous beings for their evil, to rend them limb from limb with nothing more than his mind and enjoy the uncomprehending terror in their thoughts as they felt inevitable death reaching out for them. He had the power to do it, he knew; being a Jedi and forsaking such things did not make him somehow incapable of them, and the dark side painted a tantalizing, gruesome picture of the Zygerrian massacre that could be.

But because he was a Jedi, he simply drew another breath through his respirator tubes, waited, and tried to comfort those nearest him, subtly touching a shoulder or a side and easing their aches. He knew his comrades must be tempted too; more than once he felt Tirien giving Narasi a mix of encouragement and warning.

After more than an hour the Zygerrians filled the pen, and once they had marched aboard the ramp closed. Slejux felt the ship tremble as it took off from Carosi IV. A Zygerrian in a more ornate uniform than those of the raiders stepped onto the catwalk, flanked by other Zygerrians and a quartet of battle droids.

"Silence!" he roared, and Slejux heard Narasi's accent deepened and sharpened in his voice. When the prisoners were all looking up at him, he said, "I am Talar Nimbran, executive officer of the ship Culling Blade. You are now the property of the Zygerrian Slave Empire.  You will do what you are told, when you are told, or you and your loved ones will suffer.  Obedience is your key to survival.  Obey and live; disobey and suffer.  Should you see death as an escape, it is not; you will be made to suffer in every way you can imagine, and many you can not, before you are rewarded with something so sweet as death.  Obey and live, disobey and suffer."

Tirien leaned against Narasi; Slejux was sure she could not take much more. He reached for the Force, and it seemed to whisper to him, Soon.

None of the captives spoke; fear hung over the pen like smog, clouding the Force just as Slejux needed it for guidance. Executive Officer Nimbran turned to confer with one of his aides while some of the Zygerrians left the pen area for the rest of the ship and others milled about, radiating boredom. The ship rumbled as it passed through Carosi IV's atmosphere into space.

As Slejux began to wonder whether the Force would have them wait until they boarded the cruiser and capture that instead, an alarm began flashing, and Nimbran turned and left the room toward the bridge. Tension flickered among the Zygerrians.

Then the ship rattled, and the Force told Slejux, Very soon.