Desperate Measures/Part 9

Deprived of the Force, Tirien and Alecto had only their reflexes to save them, but their reflexes were up to the task. As Cuddles the acklay Sithspawn charged them, screeching, Tirien broke right toward the stairs and Alecto left around the monster's lair. The acklay's six legs dug in to check its momentum; one head followed Tirien while the opposite head tracked Alecto and the middle head wailed in frustration. Its necks craned as far as possible, but as Tirien approached the stairs, the acklay prioritized and turned on him in a rush.

Twice as tall as Tirien, the acklay beat him to the stairs in seconds. It reared onto its back four legs, adding another Tirien to its height as it screamed and snapped its front claws at him. Tirien drew his lightsaber, swiping broadly with the blue blade to ward off the creature. The acklay arched back out of reach; its side heads screeched, but the center head spat at Tirien. He threw himself aside as a gob of goo struck the ground and started sizzling; rolling to his feet, Tirien saw the patch of stone smoking as the top layer disintegrated.

Tirien ran at the stairs, but the acklay cut him off, and Tirien barely flung himself back in time as teeth the size of his face snapped the air in front of him. He could smell the acklay's breath, a combination of bile and blood; he slashed with his lightsaber, but the head recoiled while another came at Tirien from the side. Switching the lightsaber to his off hand, Tirien drew his blaster and shot at both heads. Several of the bolts hit home, but most of them impacted the acklay's skin without effect; only one that singed the center head's tongue produced any noticeable result, and that was only to make the acklay shriek in pain and rage.

Behind the acklay, Alecto crept across the creature's lair. Tirien briefly considered a rush for the stairs, where they could tackle it together, but as yet it seemed to have forgotten she was there. Chances of the two of them overwhelming the thing were slim, but it seemed intent enough on eating Tirien that Alecto could probably slip by unnoticed. Tirien could draw Alecto into the fight on the off chance it would help, and at least then he would have the satisfaction of taking her down with him…

…and the only cost would be any chance of Tirien ever thinking of himself as a Jedi again. He sighed, dodged a claw which splintered a piece of stone flooring, and moved away from the stairs. The acklay turned to follow him, backing him toward a wall. Tirien shot at its faces to prevent it from spitting more acid at him, but he was losing ground.

Alecto had reached the stairs. She looked up, then looked at Tirien, then ran up the stairs and out of sight. The acklay swiped a claw and knocked Tirien off his feet; his lightsaber hilt went flying out of his hand. He rolled over onto his back and shot the acklay right above the eyes on pure chance; it blinked and shook the head Tirien had shot while the others screeched and snapped at him. He rolled up to his feet, but now the acklay was between him and Mali's lightsaber, for all the good it had done so far.

There was a flash of movement and, wearing a look of pronounced frustation, Alecto charged down the stairs at the acklay's back. She ignited her red blade and got a clean swing at one of the acklay's back legs, catching it completely by surprise.

The blade bounced off. In the second the acklay spent screeching in surprise, Tirien saw Alecto's expression morph to annoyance and heard, over the Sithspawn's screams, Alecto growl, "I hate you, Kai Latra."

The acklay kicked back and Alecto went flying, her lightsaber rolling across the lair and landing in a pile of bones. Alecto herself managed to roll over her side and up to a crouch, though she had one hand wrapped around her ribs. The acklay turned to pursue her, and she ran flat-out toward a pool at the far end of the lair.

She would never make it, Tirien knew; the acklay had already cut the distance between them in half. The stairs were now clear, but there could be no question of leaving Alecto to be devoured. Snatching up his lightsaber, Tirien gave chase, shooting at the acklay's back. It paused just long enough for Tirien to holster his weapons and leap up, wrapping his arms and legs around the same leg Alecto had tried to cut off.

"Uuuuuuuuuaaargh!" the acklay roared in confusion, turning a complete circle while its nearest head tried to see its back leg. Hanging on like a monkey for dear life, Tirien felt his stomach churning and squeezed his eyes shut. The acklay lifted its back leg and shook it; Tirien's clenched teeth rattled in his head, and he bounced back and forth between the acklay's body and knee until at last he was shaken loose.

Impacting the floor, Tirien groaned, the wind driven out of him. He rolled onto his side and managed to dodge the acklay stabbing its sharp back foot into the ground. As he realized the danger and the acklay picked its leg up again, Alecto shot it from across the room. The acklay snarled at her, but it was apparently not piqued enough to pursue; one head kept her in view while the other two ducked to look under its body at Tirien. Tirien rolled aside from another back leg stab; the acklay growled and started to turn.

There was a splash—Alecto had dived into the pool. At once all three heads pointed right at her and all three mouths shrieked in rage. The acklay thundered across the room and dove into the pool before Tirien had even regained his feet.

Groaning, he jogged over to the rib cage on the floor and pulled Alecto's lightsaber hilt out of a tendon. He advanced on the pool with narrow eyes, drawing his blaster.

Alecto burst from the water; Tirien recognized her just in time not to shoot her. Her eyes were wide as she clawed her way back onto ground, and she pelted away from the pool. "Lightsaber?!"

"Got it! Let's go!"

They sprinted across the lair, hurdling a skeleton, but halfway across the room there was a cacophonous splash as the acklay exploded out of the pool in pursuit, shrieking. The ground vibrated under the heavy footfalls; Tirien and Alecto traded a look on the run and came to the same conclusion. Alecto drew a grenade from under her camouflage jacket as they made the stairs and threw it over her shoulder.

Both had their hands over their ears, but the shock wave of the explosion still knocked them off their feet. As Alecto grabbed Tirien's arm to pull him up, he looked back and saw the acklay on its back, all six legs waving. There was a small crater in the lair's floor, but the acklay's shell had survived even this. It seemed disoriented, though; the left head kept bopping the middle one with its nose while the right head moaned, "Wheeee-oh-oh-oh-uh-uh-uh." The middle head just stared at Tirien until he and Alecto were away.

They ran through three different hallways with no objective other than away before they stopped, leaning against the durasteel wall and panting for breath. Much of the rainwater on Tirien's clothes had dried, but Alecto was soaking wet anew; she wrung out her hair with shaking hands.

"You know," Tirien rasped, "I know it's…not very Jedi…of me…but I'm kind of starting…to hate Kai Latra too."

Alecto laughed as she squeezed her jacket and dripped on the floor. "Speaking of which, we lost the little gizka."

"Then we'll have to find him again." He wiped a hand over his face. "Thank you, by the way."

"For what?" she asked warily.

"You came back for me."

Alecto's eyes tightened; she looked uncomfortable. "I can't take on Kai Latra alone, I told you that. Besides, you distracted it from me, too, so we're even."

"I appreciate it nonetheless. And when we were fighting those flying Sithspawn—"

"Yes, yes," she said, shifting her weight. "You saved me, I saved you, your turn, my turn…it evens out."

"I suppose that's Sith for 'thank you too'," Tirien said dryly.

Alecto rolled her eyes, looking more like herself. "You're welcome—happy? We need to get moving."

Unlike the lower levels, there seemed to be no consistency to the architecture here; the longer Tirien stared, the less sense any of it made. Eventually he picked a passage at random and said, "This way looks as good as any. Let's go."

"Tirien."

He turned, already three meters away. Alecto had not moved, and her expression was hard to read. "My lightsaber."

She extended her hand. Tirien looked at the weapon he was still holding, spotted along the emitter where dried blood from the acklay's last meal had flaked off. As he studied it, Tirien felt a wave of revulsion. Alecto had used this very weapon to strike down Admiral Arstyn and Master Shadeez. She had killed Master Faltko with it, and who knew how many other Jedi; she had tried to kill Tirien with it, and Narasi too.

"Tirien," Alecto said, "give it to me."

He looked back up. Her right hand flinched; she did not quite reach for the blaster she had holstered beside it, but her eyes tightened with suspicion and shook Tirien from the complacency of their teamwork in the face of death. Whatever experiences they might have shared under the curse of Kai Latra's poison, Alecto was not a friend, nor even an ally. She was an enemy, and a merciless, lethal one; a nexu he had caught by the tail who would turn and bite the second he let go.

He held the weapon out sideways, unwilling to offer it with the emitter toward him. She took it without comment, but he thought she absorbed the unstated message, because her eyes stayed narrow. Once she had replaced the hilt on her belt, Tirien set off down the corridor again.

"Do you have any idea at all what we're looking for?" he asked.

She took a deep breath. "He probably won't want too many distractions when he's working. He loves to talk about his work, but he doesn't like questions about how he actually does it." She shrugged. "Job security, I guess. If no one else can do what he does, he can get away with more because he's less likely to be replaced."

"Unlike, say, Darth Vandak?"

Alecto's jaw muscles worked. "Vandak's another issue…and he's not here," she caught herself belatedly. "Focus on Kai Latra."

They crept through the next few corridors in silence, neither of them knowing what they were looking for, though they avoided the halls whence issued low moans, savage growls, and, once, a strange hum that made them both disoriented and bump into each other until they staggered out of range. They saw no guards, though, and Tirien could tell Alecto shared his wariness about their continued absence. When at last they heard jabbering conversation coming from a corridor, they both stopped.

"More Ugnaughts," Alecto observed.

"And they sound Ugnaught-sized this time," Tirien agreed. He drew his blaster and flipped the setting, but frowned when Alecto produced hers as well. "Stun only."

She gave him a look. "They're working for Kai Latra."

"They might be enslaved by Kai Latra," Tirien replied. "We're not murdering them just because they got caught by the wrong side."

Alecto rolled her eyes, but drew her backup blaster and switched it to stun. They stormed the room together, laying down complementary fire, blue stun rings flying in every direction. Of the six Ugnaughts, only one had time to do more than shriek; he waddled toward an alarm box on the wall, but Alecto picked up an elbow section of pipe and threw it, braining the Ugnaught on the side of the head and sending him to the floor. He lay there, groaning and clutching his head, until Alecto stepped on his chest and shot a stun ring into his face.

"Don't give me that look," she told Tirien. "I didn't kill him, did I?"

It was Tirien's turn to roll his eyes as he searched the Ugnaughts, eventually producing a series of keycards. The first one he tried opened a maintenance door in the workshop, built a bit taller than Ugnaught height. "Looks like they have their own passages."

"Or they were for Kai Latra and he picked servants who fit," Alecto suggested.

"Either way, it'll be more efficient than wandering room-to-room."

And so they crouch-walked, and sometimes crawled, through corridors wide enough for both of them but just about tall enough for a Gossam. They emerged from the tunnel into a room filled with machinery, though it bore signs of recent conflict. An enormous sprocket turned in a machine in the ceiling, but it clanked as though its roller chain was off, and the entire thing was stained with blood. Tirien saw ground pieces of flesh around the bottom end of the chain and a trail of blood spatters leading out of the room by another door. He had no desire to find the creature that went with the bloodstains, and apparently neither did Alecto; she spared the entire situation only an arched eyebrow before swiping an Ugnaught keycard on a maintenance tunnel across the room and leading the way out.

The tunnel curved around and they surprised a pair of Ugnaughts wearing welding gloves and helmets; Tirien stunned them both before they could cry out. Farther along they heard the industrial sounds that went along with the welding gear, but Alecto didn't even slow down.

"Kai Latra won't be where the labor is," she whispered.

The tunnel ended in a lift, and they took it up; it ran on hydraulics and crept slowly toward the higher floor. As they ascended, Tirien heard a familiar buzz-crack and grimaced. "Slaves?"

"Zygerrians, probably," Alecto mused. "They acquire most of the Empire's slaves. Some we get from other sources, but the Zygerrians are…what?"

She broke off as Tirien shook his head, trying to rein in his contempt. "Slavery. It's disgusting—it's evil.  How can you not see that?"

She turned to face him, violet eyes narrowed. "It's the way of the galaxy, Kal-Di. The strong rule the weak; the weak are culled from the herd and the species as a whole grows stronger.  That's nothing but nature—how can you not see that?"

"Because we aren't just animals," Tirien objected as the lift reached the top. "People with power have an obligation to protect those who can't protect themselves."

Alecto smirked. "Yeah, that's been the Jedi philosophy for…what, twenty-three millennia and change now? How's that working out for the galaxy?"

And with that she turned, stunned the Ugnaught who was standing at the top of the lift with a befuddled expression, and led the way down another tunnel, leaving Tirien to follow and chew over the unfortunate truth behind her jibe.

The whip cracks grew louder, and now Tirien could hear the sobs and occasional screams that accompanied them. Their tunnel was on a higher floor overlooking the slaves, who had been clustered in manageable groups before being confined in pens. The grating covering the tunnel was thick, but Tirien and Alecto still dropped to hands and knees to avoid being seen. Tirien saw a number of Zygerrians and Ugnaughts among the slaves, but a Hiitian stood out, and he tapped Alecto's shoulder and pointed.

"One of Kai Latra's Acolytes," she breathed. Frowning, she gestured with her chin. "That's another one, the Nikto."

Looking back, Tirien saw a Nikto in flowing robes sweep into the room, nodding to the Hiitian. "The master requires an arm."

The Hiitian grunted. "More gardening?"

Tirien didn't understand the reference, but the Nikto shrugged. "He gave me an instruction, not an explanation."

Shrugging his massive shoulders in return, the Hiitian gestured to the slaves. "You've got your pick. No, wait…"

He raised a hand into a fist, and an Anx slid across the floor, clutching his throat as his feet dragged behind him. The Hiitian dropped the Force grip and the Anx collapsed at his feet, panting. The Sith Acolyte turned to his Nikto comrade and said, "Here you go. He doesn't need both arms."

Tirien's eyes widened in horror, but the Nikto shook his head. "No, too large. The master specified a smaller arm."

The Hiitian looked down at the Anx and snapped his beak. "Well, there's a solution to that too."

He raised his hand again, and an Anx youngling floated across the floor, choking too.

"NO!" the boy's father roared, pushing to his feet, but the Hiitian forced him down with a negligent gesture. The boy's mother tried to come into the mix, but a Zygerrian lashed her across the backs of her thighs with a shock whip and she shrieked, collapsing in pain. As both parents cursed and screamed, the Nikto calmly studied the boy, nodded approval, then gestured to a group of Ugnaughts.

Tirien reached under his coat and gripped Mali's lightsaber, but Alecto caught his wrist. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I am not going to just watch—"

"What are you going to do?" she demanded. "Jump down there? If the fall doesn't break your legs, you'll be a Forceless against two Sith Acolytes and what, a dozen slavers?  You'll get cut down before you take three steps."

"We can't just do nothing—"

"We aren't doing anything. If you want to throw your life away, fine, but do it some more useful way."

She started to crouch away. Tirien followed, but his heart was pounding in his throat. He could hear the boy crying now, watching his parents hurting and understanding that he was going to be hurt too. The Ugnaughts were holding his arm out from his body, and his father was screaming as Tirien had never heard anyone scream. The Nikto took the lightsaber hilt from his belt.

"How can you stand this?!" Tirien hissed.

"Come on," Alecto said, eyes forward.

Tirien felt a surge of fury and, without thinking, he grabbed Alecto by the collar of her jacket. She fought against the hold automatically, but he turned her toward the grate. "Look at—no, look at this!"

Both their eyes were drawn by the snap-hiss of the Nikto's lightsaber. There was a dopplering slash and a scream of pain, drowned out almost immediately by cries of horror from all the slaves and keening wails from the boy's parents. The Hiitian threw the maimed child back into the midst of the slaves while the Ugnaughts presented the arm to the Nikto.

"Yes, this will do splendidly. Good day to you all."

He sauntered back the way he had come as Tirien looked at Alecto. For just a moment he thought he saw conflict in her face, some unease creeping into her eyes. Then she blinked, wrenched herself out of Tirien's grip, and turned away from the grate. "Let's go."

Tirien followed, his hands shaking; he had never loathed Alecto so much as he did in this moment. "This is your fault."

"My fault?" she asked, turning to stare. "I didn't bring these slaves here. I'm not one of Kai Latra's lackeys."

"The only reason people like them can do things like this is because they're protected by people like you."

Alecto's eyes tightened and she turned back. "I'm not protecting him now. We're here for Kai Latra.  Keep your eyes on the big picture, Jedi."

They emerged through a door onto a catwalk overlooking a series of crates and cages; the cages seemed to house various Sithspawn, and some of the crates were rattling too. Alecto gestured—the Nikto was walking through the storage facility toward a stone staircase at the far corner of the room. She crept along the catwalk to a ladder and slid down; by the time Tirien had reached the floor she was already creeping amongst the Sithspawn. Some grabbed the bars of their cages, some snapped their jaws at her, and some merely observed her with unblinking, reflective eyes.

Tirien followed, trying to keep his eyes on the big picture, but the haunting screams echoed in his ears even though the slave room was out of hearing now. He had thought Alecto's capricious temper and penchant for brutality would be the greatest risk to their goal of keeping Kai Latra alive long enough to restore them to the Force, but now he could feel the temptation whispering to him even without the ability to feel light or dark. Had Kai Latra been within reach when the Nikto's blow fell, Tirien knew he could have drawn Mali's blade and sliced through the Gossam's scrawny neck without a second's hesitation.

But without regret? He hated Kai Latra and all his works, he hated Kai Latra all the more for engineering his own separation from the Force, but he hated himself for the intensity of those feelings. Was there, anywhere in him, the Jedi he had once been? But he and Alecto were nearly through the maze of cages; what else was there to do but follow her to the end of the road?

Kai Latra had no guards at the door to the stairs. Alecto was approaching when Tirien caught her by the sleeve. She whirled, teeth bared, but he hissed, "If there's anything else you've been holding back about Kai Latra, now's the time."

She grimaced, but said, "You see all these things; he made them. He's obviously strong in the Force, and in ways I'm not used to.  But at Taanab, Darth Saleej commanded us all to the field near the end—all of us.  The only people exempted were…his senior commander, and another senior Sith Lord…and Kai Latra."

Tirien sensed the editing, but let it go. "Because his talents were too valuable to lose, or because he made monsters to fight in his place?"

Alecto shook her head. "I thought so too, at the time, but in retrospect, I think it's because his skills are valuable and Darth Saleej didn't trust him not to get himself killed."

"You think he's not much of a fighter."

"If anyone's ever even seen him hold a lightsaber, it's news to me," she said. "If we can get close to him, it's over."

"And he can't sense us…"

She nodded. "But don't forget we need him alive."

Tirien grimaced. "I was going to tell you the same thing."

"If we catch him by surprise we can probably bully him down; just keep him off balance. But if we get a shot on the Nikto, we kill him; he's not anointed and I don't want even odds."

She led the way up the stairs, lightsaber hilt in hand, and Tirien followed. He remembered Narasi and Kenza trying and failing to read his mind on Anaxes, but he also remember the way Mali had flattened him against the wall in the Temple—clearly being deaf to the Force did not shield him from all its effects. He was not sure exactly what an alchemist like Kai Latra could do to them, but neither was he keen to find out.

The passage was poorly lit, which made the laboratory at the top of the stairs all the more jarring. His first reaction was shock at how bright everything was, overhead lights illuminating every workspace. Tirien saw lab benches built to Gossam height, with microscopes, centrifuges, molecular analysis chambers, and other devices he didn't immediately recognize. Several revolving racks were filled with tissue samples, which Tirien did not find overly unusual until he noticed one or two of them twitching. Darkened transparisteel windows looked down on the rows of cages below. Much of the sprawling lab had an industrial feel; at a casual glance one might mistake it for a normal lab.

As he and Alecto crept along under a bench, though, Tirien began to notice other things. A pyramidal holocron sat on one desk, closed but glowing. One wall had a square of surveillance monitors above a console, though all of them were powered down at the moment. There were five tanks large enough to hold a Pantoran-size being, one tank that could have held a pair of Herglics, and two chairs with restraints. The walls were black stone, carefully smoothed and polished, but Tirien could see Sith writing etched in, though he could not read it. Deeper in the lab, past the benches and work stations, Tirien saw a broad stretch of floor engraved with Sith glyphs, and beyond it a black stone altar. Locked cabinets stood behind it, and Tirien suspected he did not want to know what was inside. Pendants and amulets were cluttered together on hooks on one wall.

The Nikto swept across the laboratory bearing the severed arm. Kai Latra was sitting at a table studying a petri dish, wearing a brocaded red robe and humming to himself; he alternated between peering through a microscope and prodding the sample with his finger. The Nikto bowed and waited without speaking. Tirien and Alecto spent several minutes behind a counter, tensed in anticipation, until Kai Latra finally looked up. "Hmm? What?"

"The arm, Master, as you requested."

"Thewhatnow? Oh!  Oh, yeah!  Hmm, let's see…"  Kai Latra took the Anx youngling's arm, studying it critically, straightening the elbow and curling the fingers, measuring it against his own. "Yes, good! Perfect!  Good job."

Keeping the arm straight, he reached it over his shoulder and used the fingers to scratch a spot just above the small of his back. He sighed in contentment, his whole body relaxing. "Ahhhhh yes, that's the spot."

Tirien's skin crawled, and it was all he could do not to vault the desk and open fire. He tried to resist the urge to look at Alecto, not wanting her indifference to pique him further; when his resolve cracked, though, he saw her lip curled in disdain.

"Here, Maalt," Kai Latra said, extending the arm to the Nikto. "Take this to Sanno for the garden."

"Ugor should be back with the flesh samples soon, Master. If you'd prefer, I could have him take the arm so I can remain here and assist you."

"Nah, you do it," Kai Latra said, already back to peering through his microscope. He waved a hand vaguely in dismissal. Nikto were never much for facial tics—or facial expressions of any kind—but Tirien saw the way the Sith Acolyte's sharp nails dug into the Anx's arm. He hesitated only a moment, though, before he bowed and left.

Alecto looked at Tirien and mouthed Ready? He nodded, and she added Follow my lead.

Tirien was less thrilled about that prospect, but he nodded again. Alecto knew Kai Latra better, of course, and diminutive or not, poor swordsman or not, he was still a Sith Lord at full power; if they could avoid the fight, so much the better. She gave him a gesture he interpreted as divide and pincer, and he crept off among the lab tables, peering through beakers and clear tissue jars to keep the Sith Lord in view.

Rising from his microscope, Kai Latra waved a hand and an overhead holoprojector produced a blue hologram of a hideous, fanged monster. Kai Latra looked up at it for a moment, then typed on his datapad. The holo monster grew wings, but only for a moment; Kai Latra studied the holo, then blew a raspberry and removed the wings. He typed again and the monster's canine fangs lengthened, and this time Kai Latra bounced excitedly on his stool.

"Yeah! That!" He hopped down from the stool and walked over to a different table, picking up supplies and singing to himself.


 * Makin' a mooooonster, with poison teeth and claws!
 * Makin' a mooooonster, with big ol' snappy jaws!
 * Make a hungry eater monster yum-yum-yummy!
 * Put Republic soldiers in your tum-tum-tummy!

Tirien winced, nauseated, but he saw Alecto move into position wearing a half-smirk. She rose and stepped into view, and Kai Latra continued to sing right until he turned and spotted her.

"Makin' a mooooonstaaaAAAAGH—" The Gossam jumped, dropping the vials in his arms, which shattered on the floor. He did not seem to notice, but took a bold stab at salvaging himself. "AAAAAaaaaaalecto! Hi."

"Hi Kai," she said, sauntering toward him, tapping the handle of her holstered blaster with two fingers. "Miss me?"

"Y-Yeah. Hey, yeah, everybody's been looking for you!"

"Oh, I've missed them, too, but I couldn't exactly come home, could I? Not like this." She kept her smile, but Tirien saw the muscles in her face working harder for it as she drew from her jacket the needle she had plunged into her breast on Anaxes and held it out for him to see.

Kai Latra looked at it, then at Alecto; Tirien had crept behind the Gossam's back, but he heard something resembling sympathy in that high voice. "Oh noooo! Alecto, did you use the wrong one?!"

"You told me silver, Kai Latra—"

"No no no, I told you black. Definitely the black one.  Silver was the secret poison!  'Silver for sneaky', remember?!"

"I thought it was 'black for bad'," Alecto pouted in a tone of innocence Tirien was stunned Kai Latra couldn't see through.

"Nope, definitely nope. Oh, Alecto, that's so sad.  I worked so hard on it, digging through all those old Krath holocrons, making my special poison just for that mission!  And I put my own little twist on it…but it was supposed to be for a Jedi, not for you!"

"You're sure the black one was just the cure?" Tirien heard the bait in her voice, and he rose as Kai Latra walked into the trap.

"Of course I'm sure!" the Gossam promised.

"Well then," Tirien said loudly, watching Kai Latra jump and look between the two of them with wide eyes. He held out the black needle. "I've got some questions."

In the same moment, Tirien smiled pleasantly, Alecto stopped smiling, and Kai Latra said, "Uh-oh."

He backed away as Alecto advanced. "You set me up, you son of a bitch."

"No, no!" Kai Latra said, eyes so wide they bulged. "Old recipe, I told you! These things are finicky!  It must've been an…uh…accident!"

"Then you can fix it," Tirien suggested.

"I can?" The Gossam frowned. "Wait, you're a Jedi!"

"You can and you will," Alecto threatened. "Where is the real cure, Kai Latra?!"

"Heeeeey now, let's all be friends and—" He blinked and his expression morphed to annoyance. "Wait a minute, I have the Force."

He raised both hands, squeezed into fists, and Tirien rose from the floor, dangling from an invisible noose that squeezed his airway shut. Gasping, sucking breath into his mouth that never made it down his throat, he clasped his neck on reflex as he watched Alecto do the same, the green of her skin darkening to jade. As his head started to pound, Tirien drew his blaster and fired from the hip.

Asphyxiation and the shooting angle prevented him from aiming well, but he fired before Kai Latra could react to disarm him. The Gossam scampered back away from the first two shots, but into the path of the third; he was forced to draw his lightsaber from inside his robes and swat the next few shots aside. One went into the ceiling, another shattered three beakers and a tissue sample before putting a crack in the transparisteel window, and the third Kai Latra somehow managed to deflect over his shoulder and into one of the security monitors.

The effort of deflecting fire broke the Sith Lord's concentration, and Tirien and Alecto dropped to the ground. Alecto drew and fired as well; Kai Latra dodged while Tirien called, "Alive!"

She gritted her teeth. Kai Latra waved his hands and machinery from the tables went flying. A microscope clipped Tirien in the shoulder and he dropped his blaster, but reeling from the blow took his head out of the path of an even heavier scale. Alecto fired stun blasts, but Kai Latra took a hand off his lightsaber and drew the blue rings into his palm without harm.

Tirien heard heavy footfalls, and the giant Ugnaught slouched into the room. "I back, Master. What…"

He trailed off, looking at the chaos of the lab and the two beings he did not recognize. Alecto stared. "What did you do to him, Kai Latra?"

The Ugnaught was taller than a Wookiee and at least twice as broad, as if his dwarfish proportions had ballooned to monstrous size. His pig snout snuffled with loud snorts between two tusks that could have gone through Tirien's chin and out the crest of his skull with room to spare. There was a dull look in his deep-set eyes, but his enormous muscles and thick fists looked like they could fold Tirien in half.

"This is Uggie!" Kai Latra announced, beaming; he gesticulated with both hands, seeming only vaguely conscious that one of them was still clutching an active lightsaber. "Uggie used to be itty bitty! Runt of my Ugnaughts, right Uggie?"

The Ugnaught nodded, looking at the floor, and Kai Latra continued, "Right. So Uggie wanted to be all big and strong.  He said he'd help me out around the castle, so I helped him out and made him big!"

"Ugor is big," Ugor agreed. "And strong."

Kai Latra smiled, then said in the same happy voice, "Ugor, kill 'em!"

For just a moment the bulging veins in Ugor's neck glowed dark blue, the gleam creeping up into his skull and shining in his eyes, and Tirien suspected Kai Latra had modified more than Ugor's size. Then the huge Ugnaught cracked his knuckles and said, "Yes, Master."

He charged right through the first lab table, which splintered on impact. Tirien and Alecto bolted, vaulting the next table, but the lab was too small for maneuvering.

"This way!" Alecto barked, banking hard toward the wall of windows. Out of options, Tirien followed, and she put several more blaster shots in the already-cracked window. Hairline fractures latticed through it, and Alecto hit the window at a run with a slash of her lightsaber, leaping through in a shower of shards to the monstrous zoo below. The floor pounded as Ugor ran Tirien down, and he could do nothing but leap out after Alecto.