Who You Are in the Dark/Part 7

Was it morning? Evening? It might have been midday for all the caves gave away. Somehow the stink had gotten even worse with Kal-Di's presence; he smelled like he had come in through the sewer. The Jedi Knight sat there in meditative contemplation, holding his broken finger with the fingers of his other hand, healing the injury. Alecto wished the dark side had a comparable ability, but she would have to wait for a bacta patch. The sting of her various wounds and the maddening ache of elbows unextended for days might empower her when she was finally able to fight, but that didn't dull the pain itself. She was sorely tempted to throw another rock at Kal-Di just to bludgeon the tranquil look off his face, but when she had touched the dark side some hours before, his yellow eyes had snapped open, and even in the gloom she had seen the look of readiness on his face.

And so they had spent a long…night? Day? Many long, hot, humid hours, sitting in pools of their own sweat, neither foolish enough to sleep, both ready to react at an instant's notice. The dark side did not like to remain coiled for action without striking, but Kal-Di was right about one thing; he might hurt her before she could kill him, and that would leave her in no condition to tangle with the Dark Vanguard.

The Jedi's abortive offer rankled her more than it amused her. Did he expect her to just team up because Aresh had momentarily inconvenienced them? Help clean out the Vanguardians around the Architect of Betrayal only to have that lightning-fast green blade turned on her when they were gone? She would not be dragged back to Coruscant as a trophy for the Pantoran to present to the Jedi Council. Death was preferable.

She was furious with herself for having been captured in the first place. Had it been only one of the Vanguardians, she might have overcome him and continued on, but then the second had appeared to hem her in. She remembered their mixed-species thugs charging forward, an onslaught of blue stun rings, too many to resist…and then waking up in this damned cell.

Eventually Alecto became aware of life signs outside the cell. Calling on the Force to amplify her senses, she could hear nothing past the buzz of the force field. She saw Kal-Di leaning his head that way and almost asked, but restrained herself. He looked in her direction after a moment and shrugged anyway. She took advantage of the darkness to glare.

The force field powered down, and Alecto and Tirien got to their feet. From the corridor beyond, a voice commanded, "Out."

Like a good little Jedi, Tirien obeyed, ducking under the rocky door. Alecto hesitated, weighing her odds. Maybe if she started a fight, Kal-Di would join in. It might make a useful distraction…

A Vanguardian stepped in and raised a hand, and Alecto's throat closed. As she choked, he snarled, "I said out."

The Force within her demanded retribution, demanded that she leap across the cell and gouge out his eyes—her fingers were still free—but Alecto held back its power with difficulty. She could never overcome him restrained, and she would not give Kal-Di the satisfaction of getting cut down in front of him. Her airway opened again as she staggered toward the door, and she tried not to gasp down the putrid air.

The Sith pretenders still had mining lights strung up sporadically through the caves, so she saw one of the Dark Vanguard, along with a handful of Human guards, two Quarren, and a humanoid with antennae she couldn't identify. She saw Kal-Di staring at them.

"What happened to your hatred of non-Humans?" he asked the Vanguardian.

The Dark Jedi showed no emotion as he said, "Even animals can follow simple directions. It's not like we're teaching them to use the Force.  Let's go."

The two Quarren and one of the Humans started to prod them from behind, and so Alecto and Tirien followed the Vanguardian. "Where's Narasi?"

"Worry about yourself, alien," the Vanguardian said.

"You brought your pet Zygerrian, too?" Alecto taunted. "Pity they took our lightsabers, we could finally have that rematch."

He glared, but with what looked like a good deal of effort he dragged his attention back to their captor. "Where are you taking us, then?"

The Vanguardian stopped, turning to study them one after the other. Alecto thought the yellow in his eyes was a little sicklier than the real Sith of the Empire; more like pus than fire. "You're going to be our test case, Jedi."

"And as for you…" he added, looking at Alecto. His eyes tightened with what looked like annoyance. "The General wants to see you."

"Well, then, you could take these off," Alecto hinted, rattling her restraints.

"I don't think so," the Vanguardian replied. "Try to sell him on it if you're stupid enough. Consorting with alien Sith…"

He shook his head, apparently too disgusted to go on, but turned and continued their forced march. Alecto contained her smile, though she could not help giving Kal-Di a smug look. The General would surely have bodyguards, but if the fool was open to reasoning with her, he was leaving a vulnerability ripe for exploitation. Kal-Di looked like he shared the Vanguardian's disgust.

From behind her, one of the Quarren gabbled something in his own language; it was incomprehensible gibberish to Alecto, but it had the rising inflection of a question. His comrade reassured him in the same tongue, and the first replied with something more confident. At her side, Alecto saw Tirien stiffen, and she glanced at him. She found him looking at her, eyes narrowed; he opened his mouth, then closed it again without speaking.

She stared back, but the Jedi looked down, evidently deep in thought. Rolling her eyes, Alecto followed the Vanguardian on, working out what she could say to get the General off his guard long enough. Kal-Di was distracting her, though; he appeared agonized, as if wrestling with some terrible dilemma. She wondered if he was afraid to be tortured, and smirked to herself.

They reached a fork in the cave. The Vanguardian gestured. "Take her down to the General. Let's go, Jedi."

Alecto gave Tirien a bright smile. "I'd say it's been fun, Kal-Di, but…well…"

She enjoyed the anguished look on his face, but her smile faltered as his expression hardened. Without warning, he barked, "You Sith witch!"

And before she could react, he threw himself on her. Unable to use her arms for balance, she toppled under the sudden impact, and several of the guards cried out in surprise. Kal-Di landed on top of her, their restraints clang-ing as they landed chest to chest.

Alecto tried to knee him but missed. They were cheek-to-cheek as the Vanguardian snapped an order. She was about to take a bite out of his cheek when he turned his face to her, his lips pressed to her ear, and whispered, "It's a trap! They're going to kill you!"

An instant later, the guards hauled him off her. The Vanguardian punched Tirien across the face so hard the Jedi slumped and might have collapsed the other way had the guards not held him up. He hit Tirien in the stomach for good measure, then dragged his face up by his purple hair.

"I need you alive, alien, but I don't need you intact. Keep that in mind."

As Alecto clambered up, Tirien looked at her, and she glared back distrustfully. Looking vexed and desperate, the Jedi looked at the Quarren. "Why are you helping them? You're aliens too.  I knew a Quarren Jedi Knight once…"

She felt the odd sensation of him prodding her with the Force, and she had the impression he was talking for her benefit, not theirs. The Quarrens didn't respond, but the Vanguardian did punch Tirien again. "All right, all right!" the Jedi said. "Let's go."

They dragged him away as the two Quarren and one of the Humans led Alecto down into the darkness. Her mind was racing, wondering what Kal-Di's angle was. Did he think she would believe the Force had just shown him a vision of her impending doom?

What if the Force had shown him a vision of her impending doom?

She dismissed the thought. He was trying to play mind games with her, goad her into making a stupid mistake and ruining her chance. Yes, the guards around her felt tense in the Force, but that was to be expected—they were in the presence of a Sith Lord, and taking her to someone they at least thought was one. And the Vanguardian had gone with Tirien, not her. As the rot smell thickened deeper in the caverns, though, she couldn't shake a soft disquiet. It was something about his choice of words, she thought. Alecto had interrogated enough people to recognize a man choosing his words with great care. But if he had hoped to stir up a rebellion, his plan had clearly fallen flat on its face. Why would they care if he had known a…a…

Her eyes widened. She remembered the day three years before when she had first seen Kal-Di, the day he had sent her whole life spiraling sideways into the palm of Nerlus Zedum's hand. Tirien and the Quarren Jedi had battled Lord Zygro, who had insisted on leaving them out even though Alecto had been ready to slaughter Kal-Di even then. She had fixed every detail of that wretched day in her memory, using it to fuel her rage in training, bathing herself in the passion of the dark side. She remembered the thin brand of purple hair flying behind Kal-Di's shoulder as he dueled the Trandoshan…

A Padawan braid. The Quarren had been Kal-Di's master. And that meant he probably spoke Quarren. And that meant, when the Vanguardian had spoken of taking her to the General, and the Quarren behind her had been confused…

As they turned yet another corridor, Alecto let her senses explode outward, and she felt tension turning to preparation, heard the soft slide of a blaster against its holster. The monster inside her roared in indignation, and she let it out of its cage.

Whirling into a heel kick, she caught the Human across the jaw and sent him toppling sideways, his blaster flying from his hand. Her foot touched down for only an instant before she picked it up against and stomped one Quarren's knee. He screamed and collapsed as Alecto rounded on the second Quarren, who by now had his blaster out but radiated fear at the sudden turn of events. Empowered by his fear, Alecto dodged his shaky-handed shot, then darted in before he could fire another. She caught him by the collar with her trapped hands; even as he tried to bring the blaster up, she flooded him with lightning.

The Quarren might have been trying to scream, though it came out a gargled ululation as his flesh cooked and the smell of seafood filled the cave. When his eyes started smoking, Alecto let him go.

The Human was trying to get up. Alecto walked over to the howling Quarren with the broken knee and stomped on his throat three times; he tried to block feebly after the first, but she settled for a skull-cracking blow to his face instead. When he was still, she turned to the Human, and the Force pulled the blaster out of reach just as he dived for it.

He looked up at her in terror, and Alecto smiled as she coiled the Force around his throat. He clawed at his neck, his nails peeling off thin strips of flesh as he struggled to breathe, but Alecto raised him off the ground, hanging him with her mind until he stopped twitching and his lifeless limbs slumped.

She let the corpse drop to the ground, feeling the rush of the dark side…and in the Force, she felt power like her own, aware of her presence. Gritting her teeth, she tried to pry the restraints off, but the cuffs automatically tightened in response. She wondered if they would eventually tighten enough to crack her wrists.

She could sense danger approaching. Kicking over one of the dead Quarren, she examined him in vain for some sort of key. She tried it on the other Quarren, but succeeded only with the Human.

Of course, she thought with venom. Never trust the non-Humans with the important tasks.

The key sprang off the Human's belt and tapped itself against the restraints; instantly the arm cuffs and the back lock unlatched, and Alecto shrugged out of the damned thing, flexing her arms and feeling a rush of blood into her numb limbs as she willed them toward combat readiness. Time was hard underground, but it had to have been at least three days.

Footsteps on the rocks above drew her attention, and Alecto minimized herself in the Force, grabbing a blaster and slinking back behind an outcropping of rock. A second later a Vanguardian charged into the corridor, accompanied by two Human guards. While they looked over the scene and the Vanguardian's rage blackened the Force, Alecto seized her moment, ripping a stalactite free from the ceiling.

Her presence burst back into the Force, of course, and the Vanguardian whirled, drawing his lightsaber on the spin. It cost him time, though, and he didn't dodge the falling stalactite completely; it caught his shoulder and knocked him sideways, sending the lightsaber falling from his grip. As he fell, Alecto calmly shot the guards once each in the face, then took aim at the Dark Jedi.

The Force flung the stalactite at her, and Alecto rolled under it, coming up and firing from a crouch. The Dark Jedi threw himself toward her, dodging around two shots and taking the third on his spaulder. He seized her wrists before she could fire, bearing her arms back. At her best he would have been much stronger, and days of being unable to move had sapped her strength; her shaking elbows gave. She kicked him in the shin, but the blow bounced off his armored greave, and finally the pain in her wrist became bad enough that she dropped the blaster.

His sickly eyes tracked it for an instant, and in that instant Alecto head-butted him in the face. He took the blow with a grunt of pain, but then head-butted her back so hard her vision turned black. As she staggered, he caught her by the throat and lifted her bodily from the ground with one hand, the dark side filling him with strength. Alecto clung to his wrist with both hands, struggling to breathe, but she lacked the strength to lift herself.

It was not going to end this way. A Sith Lord did not fall to one of Aresh's mockeries. With a surge of rage, Alecto kicked off against the Vanguardian's chest, knocking his armor sideways and propelling herself out of his grip. He staggered back, extending a hand for his fallen lightsaber. It flipped through the air, but Alecto closed with Force speed, batting his arm down and elbowing him in the head; the lightsaber hilt bounced off his fingers.

He tried to catch her in a chokehold, but she ducked under it and reached for the lightsaber herself. The Dark Jedi tackled her, straddling her and latching onto her throat with both hands. Unable to break the choke, Alecto tried to pull the lightsaber to her, but the Dark Jedi caught it. In that second, when he took a hand from her neck, Alecto grabbed a rock and struck him on the side of the head.

He pitched sideways and Alecto reversed the mount, coming up on top of him and striking his masked face with the rock. As his head slumped back, she ripped the lightsaber out of his hand, stuck the emitter under his chin, and activated it. The blade burned out through the top of his head, and he stopped struggling.

Panting, her broken nose dripping blood into her mouth, Alecto struggled to her feet, attaching the lightsaber to her belt. Her arms throbbed from strain and disuse, and when she coughed her voice was raspy from the chokes. But she was alive, and her enemies lay in ruins at her feet.

Her cracked lips curved into a bloody, triumphant smile, but it faltered as she looked at the dead Quarren. Kal-Di had been telling her the truth. Not a bluff or a mind game after all. What was the Jedi playing at?

Well, more fool him. Alecto was free, and Kal-Di was off experiencing whatever torments this General could cook up. It was a little disappointing not being there to gloat, but one had to make sacrifices in war.

She followed the tunnel downward until she found a murky bog that reeked of the same odor Kal-Di had brought into her cell. Well, if he and Narasi could get in this way, Alecto could surely get out. Above her she could feel him, distantly, and she contemplated giving him a sarcastic farewell. Would he report her survival, or let her get away? Probably the latter, knowing Jedi; they lived to play the noble heroes.

Alecto shook her head with a smirk. Alive for the mercy of a Jedi. What a war.

Alive for the mercy of a Jedi…