Desperate Measures/Part 2

Zarrke caught movement from the corner of his eye and glanced, leaving his proboscises in the Human's nose and holding him sideways. Faint pressure on his hands and a series of annoying bumps against his shins told him the Human was still fighting, but Zarrke was more interested in the two figures darting through the smog across the cracked ground of the spaceport. He took an experimental breath, but coughed in the smog; he could smell no one but the Human, and that soup was so weak it had barely been worth smelling in the first place.

The man had blue skin, or at least a blue face. The other, hooded figure was a little shorter and slighter; Zarrke had hunted enough to guess female. When he saw where they were going, he withdrew his proboscises and pitched the Human to the ground. Half-conscious, the man scrabbled on the ground with shaking hands, trying to push himself up to a standing position. Zarrke stomped his temple without looking and slipped into the shadow of a derelict freighter, watching the couple past a landing strut.

When they came into the shadow of the Scourge, Zarrke pulled out his pistol crossbow and expanded the limbs, fitting a poison dart; long practice brought the weapon from holster to shooting position in less than three seconds. The smaller figure typed at the ship's access panel, and after a moment the ramp descended.

"Master," Zarrke breathed, but he had no time for a sense of victory; the glow of the landing lights illuminated their faces, and Zarrke looked past the seven-section coil and the three arrowheads to the blue face and its yellow tattoos. Rumors of Darth Alecto's rivalry with Tirien Kal-Di had inspired many of the brethren to memorize the pattern, just in case, but Zarrke had seen it in person—just for a moment, while Nevya had secured their escape rope and Zarrke had braced the balcony doors to prevent interference, but a moment had been enough.

Had the Jedi somehow taken Darth Alecto captive? They had stopped at the entrance to the yard, and Kal-Di had discarded something, which suggested no…but she had walked in front of him…at lightsaber-point? Zarrke aimed…but hesitated. The crossbow had the range, and he had the angle to put the bolt through Kal-Di's eye, but only by shooting over Darth Alecto's shoulder at fifty meters. Harming the master of the Brotherhood was an unforgivable crime, to say nothing of what Nevya would do to him, and if he missed the first shot, he would not get a second; Kal-Di would kill them both.

Zarrke hesitated, and in that second of hesitation his moment passed. Darth Alecto went up the boarding ramp, and Kal-Di followed so closely that he never presented a clear angle. The ramp was closing, dark retaking the night, by the time Zarrke moved.

The Scourge had a quick startup sequence; Zarrke had to sprint for it, unloading and holstering his crossbow on the run. He could hear the sleek ship starting to hum as he dove into a slide beneath the fuselage. Dragging himself forward with his hands and heels, Zarrke dug into the pouches on his belt before he found a homing beacon. He had just enough time to secure it on the lip of a maintenance hatch before the repulsors rumbled ominously. Sliding sideways out of the way so their force would not pulverize him, he covered his ears and closed his eyes until the rumbling started to fade. The Scourge ran without signal lights, but Zarrke watched the glow of its engine trail until it faded into the smog.

He ran to the entrance of the spaceport, taking deep breaths. He could not follow their scents for long—he was, after all, an Anzat, not a beast—but he found a hint of Kal-Di's scent off the trail and realized it was where the Jedi had discarded…something. He rooted through nearby trash canisters, one lip curled but uncomplaining; he had known when he joined that the Brotherhood would not be all infiltrated balls and epic combat with Jedi and Sith. In the end he found a small metal cylinder that he recognized as a communication device.

Zarrke had never slain a Jedi himself, and he wasn't sure exactly what the instrument was for. He ultimately pocketed it, deciding to let Nevya sort it out, and began his next hunt.

It took three hours before another ship's crew arrived at the spaceport—three hours of anxious pacing, compiling and abandoning increasingly rash plans, and feeding to save up for what might be a long time without a meal. He had not notified Nevya of the Scourge when he found it—he did not, after all, have the master to go with it, and what if she had abandoned it? He had searched as far as he dared, but he did not want to be absent if and when Darth Alecto returned for the ship, either. Now it turned out she had been here all along, and if the rest of the brethren had come, they might have found her before Kal-Di…

At last a pair of drunken Togruta and a Human staggered onto the spaceport, wandering in the general direction of an upgraded freighter; a Gotal trailed them with a blaster rifle in his hands, trying to be stealthy. Zarrke killed the Gotal first, grabbing him by a horn and sticking his vibroblade into the would-be murderer's brain stem. He slit the Human's throat while one Togruta was fumbling with the boarding ramp's control remote. The Togruta seemed to sense his presence, but alcohol had slowed reflexes already doomed to be insufficient; Zarrke had time to sheathe his vibroblade, draw his cortosis sword from beneath his longcoat, and strike them both down before they could even raise their hands or cry out.

The Wandering Mistrel ' s hyperdrive couldn't compete with the Scourge ' s on its best day, but Zarrke hoped to be out of the craft by the time it came to pursuit. He got the ship airborne and made for space, passing through the shields that kept Bogg 14's specious atmosphere in. Only there, beyond Bogg 14's smog and the reach of other ships' slicing, did he make contact with Nevya.

"You let them go."

"I had no choice. The kill was infeasible." He kept to himself his tactical decision to wait rather than calling for aid; he suspected Nevya would not look favorably upon it.

"You're sure the homing beacon is secure aboard her ship?"

"Yes, Lady Khiyali."

"Monitor it; I'll contact the brethren. We are coming."