"Space Bound"

Chapter Six: Ruminations in Xanadu Blood

"It's holding me, morphing me
And forcing me to strive
To be endlessly cold within
And dreaming I'm alive
'Cause I want it now
I want it now
Give me your heart and your soul
And I'm not breaking down
I'm breaking out
Last chance to lose control"

-Muse, "Hysteria"

The Duros woman stuck the remaining half of a deathstick between her index and middle fingers. Her hands were blackened by grease, her face damp with cold sweat, and her red eyes paled with prolonged fatigue. She wore a stringy, beer-stained shawl that draped over her bald head and her shoulders. Dried specks of dirt filled the pores in her skin. Her legs were crossed over the footstool at the ankle, bare but for the black fishnets, and if one looked hard enough he would spot a few stray artificial pubic hairs sticking out through the holes. With a long, raspy sigh, the woman sat up straight and expelled dry nicotine smoke through her two front teeth. In front of her, in her open palm, was a holographic message sent to her an hour and a half ago sent after one AM local Coruscant time. Must be fairly important, in that case. Her voice crackled like dry, dead grass when she spoke.

"Cad Bane hasn't seen me in a while," she said to herself, browsing over the message again. Then she uncrossed her legs, blinking crust out of the corners of her dulled eyes. She dunked the last of the deathstick in the overflowing ashtray only to light up another. "What could he want with me he didn't get already? What's in this for me, man?"

She thought for a moment or two. Her current beau, not the first and certainly not the last in a string of males who received her services for free at the expense of quote-unquote 'relationship benefits', was currently somewhere in the Outer Rim doing cocaine business with pirates. He wouldn't be back for at least another two weeks. Her circle of friends was back in the neighborhood after returning from Nal Hutta. And her old accomplice Cad Bane could very well be gone for a good month or so, depending on how long this job of his would take.

This way, nothing could go awry. Nobody would discover the truth.

The Duros woman later found her old friend's apartment and who—what—was inside. As soon as she saw the Lethan Twi'lek girl, she knew she was looking at a prostitute. She knew it when she saw the purple veins bulging out of the girl's lekku and bare thighs, the indigo-tinted ovals under her eyes and cupped ears. Her eyelashes were matted and uneven, her ribs sticking out of her sides.

"What is he doing with this thing in here?" she wondered aloud.

The Lethan girl said nothing. She was silent, eyes closed, but not sleeping.

By then, the Duros woman had at least the basics of the message memorized in her head. For one-thousand credits a week, she had to practically baby-sit Cad Bane's latest object of pleasure—give her something to eat, keep her cleaned up, and check on her once a day. Otherwise the girl could fend for herself as long as she did not step out of bounds. That was all he asked of her. Seemed far too little to ask for a whore like this.

Of course, it was Cad Bane's whore, she remembered.

She couldn't recall him ever having one of his own before, but this would've been about all she expected from him. Too frugal for class, dirty enough for some risks, but keen enough to scrape up some quality in both looks and experience. He must have recently felt lonely or needing something to look forward to in his free time.

He probably saw this whore as nothing but his pet.

That sounded like her old friend all right. If she even dared to call him that.

Plus, even though one-thousand a week was cheap labor by what she knew of Bane's income, cash was still cash. She'd never forgive herself if she turned down cold hard cash. Why, cash means more deathsticks, more life.

"Nah, I don't think he'd mind at all," said the Duros woman. "Even if my beau found out about it, he'd understand. It's just business. It's just business. Just business."

Nothing could go wrong for what she was about to do.

Cad Bane checked the tracking signal one last time before taking Xanadu Blood out of hyperspace.

"Where do you think you're going, Solarin?" he wondered aloud.

"Were you expecting a direct answer? Because as far as I can tell, he's not within contacting range," Todo 360 replied.

For a droid, which technically did not feel any emotion, Todo had a way of letting that heavy sarcasm drip into his tinny voice.

Bane was about to do something, but since he wasn't even sure what it was, he forgot about the whole thing. He let himself relax a bit in the cockpit seat.

"No, I wasn't," he said dryly.

The droid shut up. It was a pleasant sound.

It had been over two weeks now, maybe a day or two over. All that time had been spent alone, and droids didn't count as company in Bane's datapad. For two weeks, he had not spoken to anyone but Todo 360, to himself, and he didn't enjoy having to keep up either of those conversations. For two weeks he had done little more than sitting around in the cockpit, stopping and refueling, keeping up with the signal from Solarin's tracking beacon, and using careful precision with where he landed and how close he strayed to the tracking beacon so Solarin would not suspect he was being followed. Space travel had never settled too well with Bane—he preferred hard, dry land—but it was all going to be over soon. Very soon, hopefully.

Normally, Bane wouldn't mind being alone for such a long period of time.

He never liked crowds, because when you came down to it, all creatures big and small were ultimately a pain in the ass, and he had yet to meet a male or female he would go out of his way to spend more time in the company of. Small talk and overabundant socialization could be useful in obtaining information about a target, no doubt about it, but it took a heavy toll on the mind's sharpness. A rejuvenating experience at a place like Hawke Noth was one thing. Energy spent on a group of drinking, partying buddies was another entirely. In his opinion it was the periods of alone time spent reviewing equipment and skills, developing backup plans, and staying as prepared as possible to stay up on top, that were all marks of a day well spent, not getting the scoop on the latest gossip. And on a normal night for him, this was the case.

But now he didn't feel so normal.

For two weeks something had been different. As if he had left something behind that he would regret not bringing with later. A spare blaster? A medical kit? Couldn't be.

He couldn't shake off the feeling that he was supposed to be doing something that he was not doing, that he did not have something that he should have. And the more the feeling dwelt in the cockpit of Xanadu Blood, a little ghost cold and tingling, the longer the hours spent boring into the blackness of outer space dragged on. The absence of light should be normal—the silence should be normal—hell, everything normal was set right for the time being but something could not be right. It was some sort of unnatural absence. It was like a cold shiver that wouldn't leave his body no matter how many layers he packed on, or an appetite that couldn't even be satisfied with the richest gourmet Corellian cuisine.

This so-called ghost had been lurking in the Xanadu Blood cockpit for the past two weeks, deliberate and persistent—striving to make him snap and need something sudden or loud like a screaming girl or a blinding light. And it hung on like a bad taste one couldn't rinse from his mouth, a stain one couldn't scrub off a favorite jacket, or that pestering little wooden sliver under the skin that just wouldn't come out.

Whatever it was, Bane despised it with a silent passion.

It was just another chase, another pursuit of a flying chunk of warm meat about to be cooked and handed over in butcher paper to Bane's client. Other than the fact that he happened to be Human, there was nothing that made Orett Solarin so special. Nothing.

So what was it? What had he left behind?

What was making the blackness and the silence enough to make him explode?

Just focus and get this done. No worries, then.

Bane pulled himself out of his thoughts as he landed Xanadu Blood in the next fueling station, which was on some small rock moon dotted with small towns. Solarin might as well have traveled across the whole fucking galaxy, what with his stopping at every other system to do trading and making petty bargains off the side. It only made it more difficult to follow the tracking signal undetected. Not impossible, but difficult. He hadn't gotten a thorough look at the ship when it took off, but now he was almost certain it was a cargo ship. Obviously, that meant it was dropping off and picking up Solarin's goods.

One of the workers at the fueling station flashed Bane a funny little smile as the Duros bounty hunter exited the loading ramp, as if there was something on Bane's face. And the worker was a Human too, just his luck. Bane could have smelled him a mile away. Wordlessly, he lit a cigarette, and pretended to ignore the look the Human was giving him.

It felt like an hour, although it hardly was. Still the little smile remained.

Fuck. I can't stand this. Why the hell can't I stand these guys?

"You know the best place to get a drink?" he asked the Human as he walked past. Bane sat down on one of the metal stools while the other workers set to refueling Xanadu Blood. Todo 360, playing innocent, remained in the cockpit.

"I'll show you the best joint," the Human said, "if you tell me why you're tracking Orett Solarin."

Cad Bane stopped.

"Are you saying he was just here?" he asked.

"Eh, so I was right after all," the Human laughed to himself. He had a strong Corellian drawl and his hair was a flat blonde mass falling over a sunburned forehead, ears, and neck.

"Why don't you answer the question?"

"Hey, take it easy, big guy." The human backed up, holding up his hands. "I'm your friend. I'm your friend. I'm innocent. What is it you want?"

"Sure you are. I want the bounty on Solarin's head," said Bane.

"Oh, I didn't know about that. What's it at?"

"I have no reason to tell 'dat to someone like you. Business matters."

"Sure, sure, I dig you. Bounty hunter secrets and all, yup," he said, nodding his head feverishly. "The guy was just here less than twelve hours ago to refuel and do some business in the stores downtown."

Well, how helpful.

Depending on this guy's status and how much he knew, or who he knew, it might be safest to keep him quiet the simplest way there was.

I'll find out soon what's the safest card. For now, more facts.

"What kind of a ship? Any customizations?" Bane decided to ask. It was a safe enough question, and if the Human could be convinced Bane didn't even know what kind of a ship he was following, he could take that to his advantage.

"Some sort of cargo ship. It was an old one. The kind that will have to make lots of stops to refuel."

"Do you have any idea where he's headed?"

The Human chuckled and coughed.

"Afraid I don't, nope. He didn't tell us too much. Didn't pay much either, come to think of it. He wasn't here very long, but I don't think he knew he was being followed. I didn't see much, so I can't be sure. So, um, is that it?"

Bane let out a small sigh that he knew the Human would never understand as one of a slight taste of relief.

This worker couldn't be faking the idiot act. Otherwise, he would be asking more seemingly out of curiosity questions. A small sum would do the trick of silencing him and leaving a spotless trail, for even one meaningless casualty could leave a big enough mess behind for someone else to pick up. There was no need to kill him or issue a heavy threat, as of now, anyway.

"For two-hundred credits, we never had this conversation and you never saw me," he told the worker, handing him the amount of said cash.

The Human beckoned outside the fueling station and nodded.

"Throw in an extra twenty and I'll treat you to a drink a few blocks down."

Bane smirked at the bland joke, but he didn't turn down the offer. He felt like he could use a drink. At least it would make matters feel a bit more normal.

The Duros woman pulled back her worn shawl to reveal a dark green scar that nearly reached across her whole forehead. She picked an old, greasy scab off one of her knuckles, shutting the door behind her with her ankle. The hologram figure in front of her came to life, blue, buzzing, and shadowed.

"Orett," she said, and coughed on a clog of mucus in her throat. "Long time, no see."

"Sorry, Ael, but I can't come visit you this week. I—"

"I have one I'm pretty damn sure belongs to you."

"Oh, Ael, don't feel like you're bonded to me or—"

"I'm not talking about me, idiot. I'm talking about somebody else entirely."

The figure cocked his head to the side.

"Funny you should mention that," he said. "I just got robbed some days ago by one of those scumbag bounty hunters. And it was easy to tell nobody was paying him to do it."

"Bane? I never thought he would—you know."

"Highway robbery, I tell you. I hope you haven't seen him in the past few day. The Corrino brothers on his tail for some death in the family."

"Is that so?" she sighed loudly, cracking her neck. "I thought you always kept your nose out of personal family businesses."

"Oh, they've been my customers too long for me to ignore such a juicy drama. I can't help myself when I have so many good friends." He hesitated, thinking. "Hey, I'll tell you what, Ael. I'll pay you if you send the girl over to me back on Ryloth. Maybe once I get this thing cleared up, we could have a little, you know, time to ourselves again, like the old days."

"Well, shit, Orett, I can't get off Coruscant this week and I can't trust anybody to send her over properly. How 'bout I take good care of her 'til you're hap'nin' to be hanging around again?"

"No touching her, you got that?" He pointed his finger at her and it poked through his long sleeve. "I know your type, Ael. You have this thing for little Twi'lek girls, don't you. Remember what you did last time?"

At that, Ael just laughed. Partly because it was true, and partly because it only seemed to bother her favorite client, Orett, when he could use it to his advantage.

"Don't worry, my boy. She's in such good hands," she replied.

Ael kicked the door open as the signal from Ryloth was lost.

Cad Bane had known they were following him for about fifteen minutes.

There were two Dio boys trailing less than thirty feet behind him. He had spotted them after leaving the cantina, in which the Human worker, poor fool, had let himself be carried away by a few too many rounds of whiskey, and Bane had to leave him passed out in the corner. By the time he had spotted the Dio's loitering outside, it was past midnight.

Xanadu Blood and Todo 360 were waiting only a few more blocks down. A few flickering streetlights shed a glow onto the cracked path leading to the fueling station. The street was deserted but for a few residents having a smoke outside their front doors. It was a small, small town for men who wanted to hide, men who wanted to forget, a town left for dead, populated by old folk waiting to die and merchants eager to take advantage of travelers and tourists in need of a rest-stop. It was the sort of place Bane, no matter how much creativity, speculation, and imagination he could muster, could never see himself living in. Not for a lifetime.

Bane pulled up the tracking beacon's log on his wrist link. Quickly he scanned over the data, ignoring the sound of footsteps from behind.

That's something.

Why was Solarin on the Ryloth system? If Ryloth was like all the previous stops, he would have left already, but the radar showed he was staying.

At least this meant Bane's space-travel days were numbered.

Bane turned a corner and caught a fleeting glimpse of his followers. They were Dio's, all right. He couldn't help but wonder what sum of money the Corrino's had put on his head. It didn't matter, though. Once Solarin was dead, he would have enough money to stay on the move and not worry about petty crime families putting on an act.

Seventeen minutes, now, they had followed him. To appear casual, Bane lit a cigarette and took a long drag. He wouldn't call himself in the habit, but a smoke was a good companion to carry along in case of an edge or in need of something to burn. He took a deep breath and let the nicotine sink in. The tension in his shoulders eased up a bit. It felt good. The taste of Corellian Ale lingered on his breath.

He pushed the comlink on his wrist gauntlet.

"Todo," he said in a low voice, "have the ship ready to leave the moment I arrive."

"Will do, Bane, but when exactly are you arriving?"

"In about thirty seconds."

The silence stung. Maybe it was the Corellian Ale getting to him. All he could hear were those footsteps. And then he could hear a second layer of sounds that were yet to be but he could feel them coming closer, the sound of a blaster drawn out of a holster not his own, a voice warning him what should happen if he didn't stop, or even better, an explosion sending the fueling station up in flames, and any or all or none of it was coming.

They were getting closer, and closer—and closer…

Or was he slowing down?

He picked up the pace a bit. It couldn't hurt.

A dull gray storage building appeared than disappeared on his left.

The footsteps grew louder. They were closer. Then he heard the metal grind against leather, scraping a Boltrunian hand to leave flakes of rust in the pores.

Then Cad Bane drew his own blaster, turned, and fired at the two figures behind him. There was a shout cut off by a thud. Spitting away the cigarette, he ducked into the fueling station.

Xanadu Blood was ready for departure. Outside the station the street had stirred up a short-lived ruckus as more blasts were fired. The cigarette smoke swelled in Bane's lungs as he jumped in and strapped himself into the cockpit. Todo fired up the engines. The cockpit window sealed shut. As a pair of Boltrunians cursed at the wind in a struggle for detonators and a hasty return to their own methods of transport, the ship pulled out of the garage and pierced into the night air.

To Ryloth. To Solarin.

"Was that too close a call?" Todo 360 dared to ask.

Down below, the thick cloudy atmosphere vaporized the last of what Bane could see of the small town.

"I am the one who takes the risks here. You just do what I say," Bane snapped as he set his hat aside.

"I have calculated that those two ruffians will not hesitate to pursue us out of the atmosphere. Our chances of being shot down escalate by the millisecond."

"Then get us into hyperspace," said Bane.

He had been fifteen feet from instant death, a blaster to the back of the head or worse. The question wasn't how they knew he was there—someone in town must have known about Gasta, Kel, and Sexen's deaths and reported Bane's appearance to them. What he really wanted to know was why they hadn't just shot at him instead of letting him slip away. Why didn't they take it more seriously.

"Faster, Todo."

The droid's eyes flickered, then it said,

"We are good to go, Mr. Bane."

As Xanadu Blood entered hyperspace, leaving behind the small, lonely moon, Bane felt a sting in the back of his head. He waited several seconds for it to go away as quickly as it had come, but it did not.

Maybe the Dio's had been more interested in where he was going.

At the same instant the thought had occurred to him, the sting morphed into the start of a headache. Bane bit back a hiss as he popped a pill into his mouth to clear it up. Headaches were a rarity for him, but like anything else they could attack at random. Unfortunately, of all the times he could have a headache, this was not a preferable time.

"Is something the matter, Mr. Bane?"

"No, just getting a goddamn headache..." he grunted.

This one, however, felt different. It didn't just ache. It pounded like a drum behind his skull. He hadn't had this kind of headache in a long time.

Relax and it'll pass. Not having a drink for a while.

An hour later, still in hyperspace, the headache had not gone away. It had only grown worse. Bane cursed.

He never would have admitted it to anyone, but back in the blackness and the silence, he felt a growing, aching question arouse itself.

Is the Lethan all right?

Ael was not the most trustworthy person, only the most accessible one.

But, no. Of course the Lethan was all right. A little medicine would do her just fine.

Why should he even ask the question?

Bane began rubbing his forehead to ease the pain. He even took a second pill. Still, the new headache would not go away. Todo, despite his insisting he wasn't a butler droid, picked up on Bane's affliction, and offered to control the ship while they were in hyperspace. Bane couldn't quite remember what he said in reply, but it was something along the lines of he'd get a lot more than a headache if he let a techno-service droidpilot this ship.

Nonetheless, at least he only had to share the cockpit with a little droid. Because he knew if anyone saw him, with this knowing that he was supposed to be doing something that he was not doing, that he did not have something that he should have, they would see something he didn't want them to see. For the next several hours on his way to the Ryloth system, old memories rekindled in concordance with the swelling headache, and before long it was as if he were in the Republican cell forcing himself not to scream and let those guards gloat over the moment of weakness he had given them when he cried out for mercy. That's what a sweet little ghost did. That's what a wooden sliver did if it festered long enough. And that was why Bane had never liked space-travel.

No. She's safe. She'll be just fine.

By what must have been high noon on the planet, Xanadu Blood had arrived at the Ryloth system.

At that point, the headache had moved to the back and was currently working on his attention span. If Bane let himself think about it, he was famished. It was near to impossible to keep up with meals during travels. When he thought about it he probably had not had anything to eat for several days.

Normally, it was not uncommon to deal with such stretches of deprived eating. But, then again, this didn't feel normal. Now, Bane could feel the hunger starting to get to him. Every couple hours or so, his hands would start a subtle, rhythmic shaking and keep at it for several minutes. Whatever it was, Bane was forced to put the ship on auto-pilot and wait until it had passed. The longer it took to approach the system, the more he anticipated when he could walk on solid ground again, and maybe the signs would go away then.

From what one of the workers at the last fueling station had said, the Corrino brothers' price on his head had bloated to a whopping sixty-thousand credits. Luckily, of course, no one at the station had known who he was. Otherwise it might have gone ugly.

For a moment, Bane thought about what sixty-thousand would do.

That's when his hands began shaking again.

Sixty, my ass, he thought to himself once the shaking had stopped. Let them all come. What can they do but stir the water.

The planet of Ryloth was coming into view.

"Todo," he ordered the droid at his side, "scan the planet's surface for Solarin's ship."

"Let me see…" the droid's yellow, round eyes flickered as its brain made some calculations, "I've found the tracking number. I will get the computer to begin searching."

The scan lasted a total of ten minutes and found...nothing.

Cad Bane snarled, making a mental note to have the ship thoroughly upgraded once this job was over.

"It doesn't look like the scanner picked up anything," said the droid.

"His ship must be under some heavy security radar. Run it again once we're closer to the surface."

"I'm sure we'll find something the second time around. It has been two weeks since the computers were upgraded."

Strange to think that only two weeks ago, Blythe's small, skinny hands were rubbing his bare shoulders, and the cool sweat from her breasts was sticking to his tongue. The delicate but audacious, fragile but excited taste was inside him and he was breathing the victim that surrendered by second nature. He shuddered. Fuck, that couldn't have only been two weeks ago. It was another reality, one memory stored among a sea of countless other memories. And with the remaining salty taste in his mouth he could not help but enjoyably recall past experiences with any other female in a long string of females from the past—the Mos Eisley bartender with the missing leg, the Togruta call girl as his own self-provided reward for a successful hostage crisis, the dancer on Florrum who turned out to be taller than him, and he couldn't the poor virgin servant girl who babbled on about 'making precious love' or some other shit. Some with names he never got and some with names he would never forget. He remembered none of their faces, only how well they had pushed him or how much prompting he had to give.

Every time he closed his eyes, Blythe was staring at him on the other side of the bed, her naked body wrapped in the thin white bed sheets. And the headache pounded with it.

It was aggravating. What could feel so wrong about being alone when he had been alone so many times before and for much longer stretches? Why didn't this feel normal?

What made that girl so special that he could not get her face out of his mind?

Damn her, Bane thought with a twist of inward shame. This was a mistake.

Maybe it would be better to get what he could out of her when he finished this job, and then just shoot her painlessly. Clean up, and move along.

It could be better.

A shrill beeping sound yanked him out of his thoughts.

"Okay, we have found something," Todo 360 announced.

While Bane lowered the ship down into the planet's atmosphere, he ordered Todo to fetch the black bag behind the cockpit seat. It was from another bounty hunter, Aurra Sing, a smuggled item only she had known how to find. It was, of course, a DC-15x sniper rifle. Bane had little experience with that type of weapon, but it would be required for a job such as this. Half of him was eager to try it out. The other half still held fierce loyalty to his double blasters. The only thing that would make those two more tightly held in his grip is if he gave them goddamn nicknames. On the other hand, trying his hand at a new trigger almost guaranteed a rejuvenating experience at the very least.

The surface of Ryloth appeared through the clouds. Bane had been to Ryloth a few times before, but only for a quick stop for fuel or supplies. Traveling through and eventually beneath the clouds, he could see miles and miles of lush rainforest, the ground swelling with a lively carpet of plants. The dark evergreen hills, the white-hot suntanned rocks, and muddy water lakes, and flat plateaus, all awoke from a deep sleep as the scarlet suns rose up over the peaks and spilled out morning rays. It was a melting pot of deformed, crippled rainbows. Bane started the scanners running again to find a safe place to land.

Solarin's ship was close by. Dangerously close by. Good. He liked dangerous. He loved dangerous. He loved everything about dangerous.

The scanners jammed up, again.

"Really, you should purchase upgrades more often than you currently are, Bane, because I am not detecting any direct interference with the scanners."

Bane almost whacked the dashboard in frustration. But he restrained himself. Losing his cool would get him nowhere. Letting a droid know you were seriously pissed off didn't get them to work any faster, after all. After a few more moments had passed, the scanners finally picked up a spot right in the outskirts of a small rainforest near a clearing, and since it wasn't under any security radar, it seemed safe enough.

Cad Bane lowered Xanadu Blood down into an opening in the floor of trees. Nearby was an open area, burning and white under the sun, that resembled more like a desert, and it drew a line across the Ryloth forest. Once the ship had landed, he hoisted the black bag over his shoulder and unbuckled himself from the seat. The sound of the deactivating hyperdrive made the cockpit shudder. He put on his hat and, to be safe, stuck the pack of cigarettes in one of his coat pockets.

"How shall I come into the plan this time?" Todo 360 piped up, sounding as if he wanted to tag along as a sidekick, or something of the like.

"You get to stay here, and in the event someone finds the ship, you erase the computers and self-destruct."

It felt good to be standing again, able to kick at a pebble or clump of dirt. Even the daylight felt warm and inviting, but he could only bask in its glory as long as this droid kept talking.

"What? Did you say self-destruct?" The droid fidgeted agitatedly. "You don't mean like the last time you did that to me, do you?"

Bane climbed out of the cockpit and turned around to face the droid, who was sticking his head up from behind the dashboard.

"Course I do. You wouldn't want any strangers getting access to your memory, would'ja?"

"I wish you would put more thoughts into your back-up plans, because it seems I'm the one who suffers most from them. How would you like it if I—?"

"Todo…" he growled.

Fucking headache. I don't have time for this.

"Well, I admit the enemy's access to my memory would be the worse of the two negative outcomes."

"That's more like it. Now activate the ship's cloaking device and shut off the radar. I'll be able to contact you with the comlink, but I don't want you making any calls. We need to keep things quiet around here," Bane said.

"I think it would be a good idea to bring some extra pills with you, that is, if the headache hasn't gone away yet."

"Look, I'm fine. I'd worry more about yourself if I were you."

"As if I needed to be reminded of that," the droid muttered half to himself.

The late-morning bog was heavier than he thought it would be. The ceiling of green branches above sheltered light streaming from a clear sky. It would only be a matter of minutes before he forgot the chilliness of outer space. Bane readjusted the heavy weight on his back as the pain in his head made a jump to the front. He pulled up his wrist gauntlet to catch the signal from Solarin's ship again. As he soon discovered, the signal was coming from four to five miles down the desert-like clearing. Which meant, either he had to cross the area on foot, or find a longer way around through the forest. The latter would delay him by hours.

In that case...a long walk awaited him.

Bane wasn't one to stall, and he turned his back on Todo 360 and Xanadu Blood.

Revision Note:

Cleaned up some of the similes/metaphors, and the "chase" scene in the small town hopefully has a bit more logic to it. I still feel a bit shaky on the plot and pace of this chapter as a whole but since it's mostly a filler, I can let that slip by. If you haven't read the next chapter yet I suggest putting on your big boy/girl pants.