The Liberator/Part 20

Day 70 of the Liberation of Milagro

"Who's left?" Jaon asked.

Daveito checked his datapad. "Dar Grosskis, Bevrelles, and the reptile."

Jaon snorted. "Of course they left those three. Cowards."

Daveito smiled for the sake of camaraderie, but he didn't really mind. Sure, Bevrelles was scum, and his holier-than-thou air of wounded dignity got old real fast, but whenever he got really tiresome, Daveito just reminded himself that he was looking at the traitor through bars—and he, Daveito, was on the side that could just walk away. Dar Grosskis had gotten a rep in the prison early for being a little too flashy with his demonstrations of remorse, but he'd been quieter lately. And Kysl Ssron…

Daveito's smile faltered as they started down the first hall. Yeah, Ssron was creepy, and Daveito'd gotten more than his fair share of the slimeball; most of the others seemed to find ways around trips to Ssron's cell. But Daveito wasn't going to be the one to complain; the guard job at the tribunal's prison might not be basking in the riches of a free Milagro, but it was a hell of a lot better than the last year, running from one safehouse to another with the Resistance. At least here he could go home to a comfy bed at the end of the day.

Eldrin dar Grosskis and Deordis Bevrelles were imprisoned in neighboring cells, but they were soundproofed so the two couldn't talk to one another. Jaon looked through the transparisteel viewport of the first and snorted. "Still praying for forgiveness for his sins, I guess."

He opened the cell and Daveito stuck his head through the door. Dar Grosskis sat on his cot, back to the wall, head bowed and eyes distant; Daveito could've believed him lost in some deep philosophical musing. "Chow time."

Dar Grosskis shivered and looked at Daveito as if from miles away; it took him a moment before his eyes really seemed to focus. "Hmm? Oh, right, of course.  Thank you."

He gestured to the table, and Daveito set the tray of food down without saying anything else; like Jaon, he didn't buy dar Grosskis's shtick of remorse. The man's courtesy now fell just a little flat when Daveito recognized that dar Grosskis probably could've signed a warrant for his execution by disembowelment a few months before; probably wearing that same courteous little smile too.

Dar Grosskis winced and rubbed his head, and Daveito frowned. "You all right?"

"What? Oh, yes, fine; just a headache." Dar Grosskiss smiled. "But thank you for your concern."

"Hey, concern is what I do," Daveito commented as Jaon closed the door. When it had sealed, he muttered, "Hope he chokes on it."

"Let him testify first and send the rest of these sleemos to the block," Jaon countered. "Then he can choke all he wants."

"True enough," Daveito admitted as he tapped his keycard to the access panel for Bevrelles's cell.

Where dar Grosskis had become disengaged with navel-gazing, Bevrelles was hard at work with a datapad; they had allowed him a stylus too blunt for stabbing himself to death. Whether he was working on his defense or just some memoir for posthumous publication, Daveito had never bothered to ask; It's Really on You: How My Decision to Kark You All Would've Been Easier if You'd Just Laid Back and Taken It, Daveito imagined. He let Jaon handle the archtraitor.

"Food, Bevrelles," Jaon said, setting the tray on the edge of his desk.

Bevrelles looked at it and snorted once without humor. "Of course. The Republic needs to keep me strong for its show trial."

"Nah, it's not that," Jaon assured him. "It'll just be a lot less fun watching you swing if you're already half-dead."

Bevrelles looked up, those pale gray eyes full of judgment. "How charming. If there's nothing else, I pray you'll excuse me to continue my work."

"Work away," Jaon snapped, and Daveito wished the door had a  SLAM  option as he closed and locked it again.

"Shoulda said Your prayers are answered," Daveito suggested.

"Dammit, yeah, that woulda been perfect."

"So just the lizard now," Daveito asked, "and then we're on patrol?"

"Yep," Jaon said, checking dar Grosskis and Bevrelles off the datapad. "Want me to handle it?"

Yes, Daveito thought; anything to avoid the creepy monster incarcerated on the top floor. "Nah, it's fine," his voice said instead. "Let's just get it over with."

Daveito was unsurprised to find the Issori Jedi Knight Feur-Thran Quayli outside the door. The three Jedi assigned to keep Kysl Ssron confined usually took the same babysitting shifts, although two or even all three of them usually showed up when it came time to move the lizard to and from the tribunal. Daveito personally thought it was a bit much; Ssron was repellent, of course, but without his lightsaber, what could he do? On the off chance he tried using his Force powers to choke somebody or something, the Jedi were right outside the door.

"Evening ma'am," Jaon greeted Quayli. With her froggy features, it had taken Daveito a couple weeks to determine she was female, so he let Jaon handle the pleasantries.

"Good evening Jaon, Daveito," she greeted them.

It was always a little flattering that she knew his name—as she apparently had learned every guard's name—and Daveito smiled despite himself. "Hi ma'am. Just here to feed the lizard."

He held up a tray of raw meat and eggs. Quayli frowned—or at least Daveito thought it was a frown; those fat, rubbery lips made it hard to tell—but she got up from the little pouf she'd been sitting on. "Of course. Shall I come in with you?"

"We'll be okay, ma'am," Daveito assured her, confidence welling up inside him. "Thanks, though."

She waved a hand over the exterior door, which had no keypad, and it clicked as the door unlocked. "Call if there's trouble."

She left the exterior door open as Daveito and Jaon walked the few meters to the reinforced durasteel door that sealed Kysl Ssron away from the world. Jaon looked through the peephole—Ssron didn't get a head-sized viewport—and recoiled at once. "Creepy bastard's looking right at me!"

Daveito looked at his watch. "We're ahead of schedule, he can't know we're here."

"Maybe he can…I dunno, feel that we're here? Is that something they do?"

Daveito shrugged. "Dunno. Never really talked to any of the Jedi about it."

Jaon shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I hate this place."

Daveito stared. He knew Ssron's reputation as anyone, but it was just a hallway. Even as he thought about it, the hallway felt secure to him—safe and impenetrable, beyond the Cha'a's ability to hurt anybody. "So go wait by the door, it'll only take me a minute."

"We're supposed to do it together…" Jaon said, though his eyes showed his eagerness for any escape.

"Man, it's pressing a button, I can do it. Just give me your keycard."

"I…oh, all right, here. Hurry!"  He handed over the card and retreated down the hall.

Balancing Ssron's food tray on one knee, Daveito swiped both keycards, and the revolving door built into the wall swung open. He deposited the food tray on the little shelf, hit the button…and stopped it with his hand.

He stared; why had he stopped it? Not that Ssron was going to escape through a tray hole, but what was the point?

"Guard Daveito," the voice hissed through the small space on the other end of the tray door, opening onto the cell.

That was why, Daveito remembered. To hear the voice. "Hello Master."

"Soon," the voice hissed. How had Daveito forgotten the way that sibilant, hissing voice caressed his mind, as if the forked tongue behind it was tracing the ridges of his brain. "Soon you will act."

Under the guise of reattaching his keycard to his belt, Daveito reached for the lock on his blaster holster. "Now?"

"No. But soon.  Bring the Jedi next time."

Daveito blanched. "Won't she ruin everything?"

"Bring the Jedi."

"I…" Daveito winced, a terrible pain behind his eyes for a second. Then it was gone, and the idea sank into his brain, slithering through conscious thought down to the dark subconscious, that part that would only remember when it had to. "I'll bring the Jedi."

"Good. Go."

Daveito drew his hand out of the tray door; it locked as it hissed closed.

"Daveito?" Jaon hissed from the far end of the corridor. "What're you doing?"

"I…" Daveito frowned; the entire moment was a blur as he thought about it. I opened the door, he recalled. ''I set the tray in the trap. I pushed the button, and then I…I…''

A voice whispered in his mind, ''And then you watched it close. Nothing else happened.''

Shaking his head, Daveito said, "Nothing, it's good. Here."

He handed back Jaon's keycard. Jaon pursed his lips, but they walked out of the corridor and pushed the outer door closed together.

"Is everything all right?" Feur-Thran Quayli asked. She was seated on her pouf again, but had shifted to a half-kneel as if to rise. "I sensed…

She trailed off, and as Daveito looked down at her, for no reason he could explain he loathed her—her disgusting frog face, her grotesque webbed hands, the cowardly way she sat out here and let hardworking men do all the heavy lifting with Ssron. It'd serve her right if somebody just—

Not yet.

He shook his head. "He's just…well, he was staring at Jaon through the peephole, ma'am."

Jaon nodded. "Looking right at me, just like he knew I was there, ma'am."

"I'm sure he did." Quayli frowned—or at least Daveito thought it was supposed to be a frown. "I think I will come with you next time."

Bring the Jedi next time.

"Yeah…yeah, if you don't mind, ma'am," Daveito said, giving her a smile.

She settled back down on her pouf. "Not at all."

"Thanks, ma'am," Jaon said.

"Yeah. Yeah, thanks," Daveito said. As he hooked one thumb through his belt and the heel of his hand rested against his blaster, he felt a surge of rightness. "That'll be great."