Desperate Times/Part 14

"I owe you one, Trajan," Mali Darakhan said.

"Yes, you do," the Cathar Jedi Knight complained. "Ve should not be here, Mali."

It had started to rain again; local news had reported the Draxxakkar River was close to flooding in some places. Trajan's Zephyr was about as nondescript as it was possible for a freighter to be, but there was simply no concealing the dozen Shadow Commandos bustling the mercenaries offworld with hoods over their heads and stun cuffs on their wrists. Until they arrived, Mali hadn't even realized that the Jedi Shadows had their own personal force of Intelligence operatives—which was, he supposed, the point. Wearing hooded gray robes to mask their black fatigues and midnight blue armor, they worked with quiet, professional efficiency, but the dockhands and citizens of Skorr-upon-Draxxakkar would have to be blind to have missed the entire operation, to say nothing of the riffraff skulking in doorways and vanishing whenever they realized they had been noticed.

The Sith would soon realize that the trap was blown; he and Slejux needed to be on the trail of their Padawans before that happened.

"You've got a Sith Acolyte," Mali told Trajan. "It's…sort of what you do?"

"Ve're vell outside the Republic's boundaries," Trajan growled, and Mali sighed.

"I know. I know this was a big ask, and I appreciate it.  Thank you."

Trajan growled again, but said nothing more as his mate, Haleya, half-led, half-carried the Acolyte into the Zephyr. He was shackled at wrists and ankles and wore a sensory-deprivation helmet that encased his entire head instead of a hood. Had he been more responsive to interrogation, Mali might have pitied him.

"What'll you do with him?" he asked.

"Ve have confinement facilities," Trajan answered, and Mali knew enough not to pry. "But vot vould you have me tell the First Knowledge Council?"

"If they don't ask, nothing, at least until we get the Padawans back. If they do…"  Mali shrugged. "Tell them the truth—Mali Darakhan helped you catch a Sith Acolyte who threatened the Jedi."

Trajan crossed his arms with a narrow-eyed look, but before he could speak Haleya reappeared at his side. Slender where her mate was broad but just as feline, and dressed in the same drab shades of gray, she looked up at Mali with her slit-pupiled eyes. "Vot vill you do now, Mali?"

Mali shook his head, running a hand through his rain-damp hair to the back of his neck. "About the only thing the mercs can all agree on is that Alecto was never here—it was always a trap. We don't have the outbound vectors to trace; they didn't even give spaceport control a destination, they just blasted off.  Have your contacts heard anything?"

The two Cathar shook their heads, and Trajan said, "Ve haven't heard back from any."

"It's only been two days, Mali," Haleya added. "They are spies, not sorcerers."

"The Sith have Aldayr and Narasi," Mali said, and he heard the steel he hadn't even meant to put in his voice. "Days matter."

Trajan bared his teeth. "If ve learn anything, ve vill tell you. Now come, Haleya, ve should not leave our guest alone."

Haleya raised a hand. "I'll be vith you in a moment, love."

Trajan stalked off toward the Zephyr. Haleya turned her head slightly without actually looking back; when Trajan was aboard, Haleya looked back at Mali. "Ve'll get more out of them, but I'm concerned about vot ve've already heard."

Mali clenched his jaw, knowing exactly where her mind had gone. "You don't believe that, do you? Aldayr wouldn't do something like that."

"And yet your Padawan doesn't have the skill to take off the whole arm?" Haleya retorted. "Shadows are trained to see the things no vun else sees—sometimes vot no vun vants to see."

"You expect me to take the word of some honorless mercenary?" Mali demanded.

"I expect you to think dispassionately," Haleya answered, folding her hands into the opposite sleeves of her charcoal robe. "To be a Jedi. May the Force be with you."

Mali's answering "And also with you" was grudging, and he turned his back on the Zephyr before it took off, walking through the back passages of Skorr-upon-Draxxakkar's spaceport and dwelling on Haleya's words; his concern for his apprentice was marred by that faint hint of doubt, and he hated himself for it. It took considerable effort to meditate his way back to something resembling Jedi calm—so much that it took three buzzes for him to realize his beacon transceiver was vibrating.

He pulled it free, plugged it into his comlink, and barked, "Darakhan."

"Mali, it's Elata."

He scrambled for a respectful tone. "Yes, Master?"

"Are you still on Coruscant?"

"Negative, we had to go to the field for…a brief recon." To deprive her of the opportunity to ask more questions, he pressed, "What's wrong?"

"I need you and Aldayr back here immediately."

"I thought you had Kenza up there now."

"We do have Kenza, and she's half the reason we haven't lost more Jedi than we have. But Aresh is making a concerted push and I need you in command of one of our fronts."

"The Sith are pressing everywhere, Master—"

"And I can't stop them all," she cut him off. "But we're looking at losing whole sectors if Aresh steamrollers our resistance."

When Mali hesitated, she added in a gentle but firm tone, "I know you're worried for Tirien, and I'm truly sorry no one's been able to help him, but it's not a request. You and Aldayr will rejoin the North Fleet."

Mali gritted his teeth. "Yes, Master."

He and Slejux had taken a high-speed shuttle from the Temple's fleet, but they had made camp in the Second Chance once they located it. He found a Verpine workman leaving the ship while a Human waited outside. "Ah, Master Jedi. We've completed the work you requested."

"About time," Mali said, and the other man's smile faded.

"Well, we did have a number of systems to reroute and structural changes to…" He trailed off at the look on Mali's face. "Ah…anyway. My supervisor said to tell you he's applied a special discount for parts and labor, and hopes this will act as some small consolation for the…er…actions of a few rogue actors within the spaceport staff."

Mali grunted, but signed the authorization, hoping the Temple quartermaster didn't run an audit any time soon. Aboard he found Slejux in the hold, depositing sugary fluid from a nutrient dispenser into his rebreather apparatus. Turning his faceless head in Mali's direction, Slejux asked, "Anything?"

"Nothing from the Shadows, and now Master Cazars has ordered me back to the north front."

Mali sat down on the floor, resolving in the back of his mind to get Tirien and Narasi some chairs for their little common area. Slejux watched him for a moment, then asked, "What will you do?"

Mali grimaced. "If I go wandering off without even a lead, who knows how long it will take to find them—if we ever do. If I show up on the Valor without Aldayr, the Council will have my head when they find out what happened.  But…it sounds like it's getting bad up there.  We pulled too many resources away to defend the eastern front against Saleej.  I told the admiralty it was a mistake—hell, Master Cazars told them it was a mistake—but they were so afraid Saleej would just roll right into the Core Worlds if we didn't check him.  And now Aresh and the Dark Vanguard are there at every crack, trying to widen it into a breach."

Slejux listened without interruption, then set his nutrient solution aside, sealed the cap on his feeding tube, and asked, "So what will you do?"

"I don't know! " Mali's agitation propelled him back to his feet. "Cazars thinks I'm this great commander, and if she's right—if I can make a difference—I can't sacrifice a whole front of the campaign for Aldayr. But I can't just let some Sith Lord torture him to death either!"

The thought brought on a wave of anger; Mali took several calming breaths to re-center himself in the Force. When he had mastered his anger—and the fear beneath—he looked at Slejux. "What would you do?"

Slejux brushed each of his hands over the back of the other, one after another, over and over. It approximated a Human's gesture of wringing hands, but after seeing Slejux do it more than once this past week, Mali had come to realize it wasn't quite the same show of guilt or remorse, even if that was what Slejux was feeling. Brushing the sensitive cilia on the chitin plates of his wrists would force his perceptions down to those spots, help draw his focus back to the moment. So recently distracted by fears for his apprentice, Mali could not begrudge him the tic.

"You have skills I do not," Slejux began. "I can fight when no other choice presents itself, and fight well, but I have no more leadership skill than any Jedi Knight, and I lack your gift for command. And in a way I'm grateful for that—grateful that the success or failure of whole campaigns will probably never hang on my shoulders."

"It's…not easy, sometimes," Mali admitted, though it felt awkward to voice.

"I am sure that it is not, but that isn't what I meant. I can not tell you what to do, friend, I can only tell you what I will do.  And I will not rest until I have Narasi—and Aldayr—back."

"The Council might not be happy about that."

"The Praxeum Council was not happy when we intervened at Milagro," Slejux replied, and even the buzzing voice of his vocoder was dry. Mali made a face, but the Melitto Knight pressed on, "I made Tirien a promise, and by taking Narasi as my Padawan, I made a pledge to her too—to train her and test her as a Jedi must be tested, yes, but also to keep her safe as far as I'm able."

"You can't let guilt rule you, Slejux—"

"Nor do I wish to. I feel guilty—immensely so—but this is no longer about guilt." Slejux stopped brushing his hands and folded them together. Even without eyes or face, he seemed to fix all his attention on Mali. "I made a promise, and a Jedi Knight should not give his word lightly. If my oath can be set aside because it is difficult, or because of what consequences I might suffer for carrying it out, then I am no Knight at all."

Mali laid a hand over his face for a moment, thinking hard. "But we have no intel," he said, emerging. "Where are you going to go?"

"I intend to ask Tirien before I do anything else. If he has heard nothing, then I will proceed accordingly."

"We should update him anyway," Mali agreed, and though he felt energized having something to do, he loathed the prospect of reporting back that they still had nothing. The race to Skorrupon and the ensuing capture of the refuse the Sith had left behind had helped him focus, but during those times when he had devoted a few hours to sleep, his mind too had found time for guilt. He remembered the blow across his jaw and shuddered with shame when he recalled his heartless words to his friend; he remembered Tirien's look of anger and betrayal at being left behind, and could not help second-guessing that decision when he remembered how handily he and Slejux had brought down the Sith team.

Trying not to think of that now, he led the way to the cockpit, plugged his beacon transceiver into the Second Chance ' s communications array, and powered it up.

"I could overhaul half this ship and I would have more to do," he complained as Slejux took the copilot seat, but as if in response to his griping, the comms array came alive and homed in as requested. After a moment, it returned a negative bzzz.

Slejux cocked his faceless head. "What is it?"

Mali frowned. "He's not in the Temple."

"Perhaps he went for a walk?"

As far as Mali knew, Tirien hadn't left the Temple since arriving back from Anaxes, but he supposed it was possible. When he widened the search to the entire planet, however, the comms array bzzzed obstinately at him.

"Mali?"

"He's not on Coruscant at all."

Slejux brushed his hands. "But if he isn't on Coruscant…"

"Where the hell is he?!"