"Cin?"
"Yeah."
"You… you ever give Tamai flowers?"
"Flowers?"
"Mm-hmm."
He glanced at her. "Uh… yeah. Yeah, I give her flowers. Sometimes."
Her head lolled against his shoulder, her cheek pressed against the cold, hard planes of his epaulet. It was nice. It cooled her fever the slightest bit. "She like them?"
"I hope so."
"Hmm. Denton gave me flowers. Last week. A bouquet of Mantellian roses."
"Romantic."
"I didn't like them."
He glanced at her again. "Didn't you?"
"Uh-uh. Smelled like shit."
He snorted a laugh. "Did you tell him that?"
"No." She shook her head to the best of her ability. The motion made her neck wound throb dangerously, so she quickly stopped before the pain overwhelmed her. "Does that make me a bad girlfriend?"
"You're asking the wrong person, Jay."
She frowned. "I don't think I am. A bad girlfriend, I mean."
"You would be the ultimate authority."
She could barely feel her feet thumping against the ground anymore. Her fingers had long ago begun to tingle like she'd left them tucked too long beneath her arms and they'd fallen asleep. Her vision wavered in and out of focus, but she could still hear well enough. She forced herself to keep talking; it was the only thing keeping her awake and away from the clutches of the… other thing.
"He didn't want me to come here. Denton." She licked her too-dry lips with a too-dry tongue. "He was mad that I decided to go with you."
"I'm… not surprised."
"Said your fights aren't my fights," she continued. "That I should let you solve your own problems."
"Can't deny the man has a point."
She frowned deeper, but couldn't summon the strength to move more than that. She wasn't sure she wanted to. Every muscle ached, every motion sent fire through her body and threatened to send her pitching forward onto the floor. A roiling, churning sensation was building in her gut, coiling and uncoiling like some serpent winding its way through her intestines. Her eyelids fluttered and her head felt like it had swelled to the size of a grossly pulsating balloon. How she was still standing was a mystery beyond her current capacity for comprehension.
"He says I like you too much," she choked out. "That you're going to get me killed."
"We've been over this before. I'm not going to let you die here, Jay."
"Mmm…"
She managed to focus her hazy vision toward her strangely numb feet and found that the reason she couldn't feel them hitting the floor was because they weren't. Vhetin was carrying her, tucked into his arms like a groom carrying his new bride.
She recoiled a bit, protesting the position. "What… what're you doing?"
"You collapsed again. Couldn't walk on your own."
"You… you don't need to carry me. I can walk on my—"
"I'd rather you just rest. I'm not sure Lord Vader will let us fall too far behind and I'd feel a lot better if we both stuck close to the group. Safety in numbers, right?"
"You do realize that means it's only safer because other people are fodder for whatever's hunting you?"
"I'm aware."
She groaned and curled up tighter, ceasing her already weak struggle to free herself and stand on her own. She could feel exhaustion tugging at her eyelids but somehow willed herself to stay awake. Her gaze fell on the confusing, hazy view of the world beyond her cradle: she saw dirty corridors and bloodstained security checkpoints marred with battle scars and blaster burns. Occasionally they passed a viewport and she glimpsed the stars, gently twinkling in the void outside, so far beyond the hellhole in which they were all trapped like captive rats. They had to pause every so often to allow the rest of the group to cut down a wandering pack of infected. She could hear their warbling, croaking cries and the crack of the blaster fire that mowed them down and she made sure to keep her eyes on the stars during those long and frantic minutes.
Eyes on the stars, some long-forgotten voice whispered to her. Eyes on the stars, Jay-jay. In here might be a nightmare, but out there is nothing but light.
Thankfully, none of the roaming packs were anywhere near the numbers they'd faced in the initial assault, so close to the safe zone. The infected they cut down here came in groups of five or six, maybe ten if the sounds of fighting brought others hungry at the prospect of prey worth hunting. Vhetin told her it was because the infected had smelled the fresh meat in the safe zone and crowded there hoping for a meal, while out here the pickings were scarce and the hostiles were spread out more. If it was meant to be a comfort, it was a pretty poor one. He was about to say more when his voice was overpowered by the warbling scream of an infected woman dying her second death.
Eyes on the stars, Jay-jay
And after each assault came the corpses. Jay saw each of them as she was carried past. Men and women, officers and scientists and stormtroopers, all twisted into a hideous mess of bloated limbs, blood, and shattered plastoid and held in a flailing, frozen paroxysm of death. One of the infected officers had a still-smoking hole burned through his forehead. As she passed him by, the dead man opened his eyes and smiled at her.
She flinched in Vhetin's arms, shrinking against the protection of his armor plating. But when she looked again the infected man's face was still and serenely dead; eyes closed, bloody mouth slack. It had just been her imagination.
Or perhaps it was the imagination of the… other thing. The beast still lurked inside her, smug and superior with its quiet patience. It had drawn back since that first terrifying attack of mind against mind, that invasion of Jay's innermost thoughts that still sent her spine crawling every time she recalled the sensation. The bacta Vhetin supplied to seal her wounds and keep the infection at bay kept it quiet, at least.
Quiet. Not silent.
It would be so easy, it whispered even now. So easy to just reach up and bite. Right in the throat, where his armor is virtually nonexistent. Bite through his flight suit to get at the sweet flesh below, sink your teeth deeper and deeper and—
She squeezed her eyes shut and forcefully pushed the voice away. The beast receded deep into the recesses of her hazy mind, still with an air of victory, like a feline hunter toying with its prey. They both knew it had won already. It was only a matter of time before she succumbed to the poison racing through her veins. And time was the one thing it had in excess.
She forced her lips to move again, forced her throat to cough up words to smother the ones creeping up on her from within. She didn't try to move. Her partner's hard armor, while uncomfortable as pillows went, felt cool against her fevered flesh.
"Cin?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you… afraid of dying?"
He looked down at her. Though his face was still sealed within his helmet, she got the distinct impression he was frowning at her. "What did I say about talking like that?"
"I'm serious. Are you afraid?"
He was silent for a long time. When he did speak, his voice was low and tight. It was the voice of a man who was deeply uncomfortable with the subject but was also resigned to telling the truth regardless. She had earned that much from him.
"No," he said. "No, I don't suppose I am afraid."
She shifted a little so she could look up at him. "Why not?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's from all the close calls I've had. Maybe it's because of my Mando training."
When she didn't respond, he sighed and clarified, "All I know is that when my end comes — when it really comes and there's no doubt about it — I won't try to run from it. A warrior should know when to accept his end."
She wondered if that's what she was doing now, in this strange half-dreaming state. The beast had told her she didn't have to die here. The beast had told her it would grant her new life as a hunter of hunters, consumed by the eternal urge to kill and consume. But if the choice came down to death or living in whatever the infected called a life… well, she wasn't sure death was the worse option.
"Then… what are you afraid of?"
"Failure," he replied, still in that blunt tone. "I'm afraid of leaving the ones I care about. Being taken from this world when they still need me."
"Why would they be in danger?"
"I'm a Mandalorian, Jay," he said. A note of wry humor had entered his voice now. "When I go, it won't be peacefully asleep in my bed. A good warrior dies fighting, surrounded by enemies on all sides. I guess… I guess I'm afraid of what those enemies might do once I'm gone."
A fair enough point. She saw another dead man's smile and shivered against her unyielding metal resting place. When she looked again, the man's leer was again only a passing hallucination. She took a shaky breath.
"I don't want to die."
"I know."
"Not here. Not in this place."
He sighed. "I know."
"Does that make me a coward? You don't fear death, but I do."
"It does not make you a coward," her partner said with finality. "You're not a Mandalorian."
"I know," she said, unconsciously echoing him. "But—"
"But nothing. My people are taught to treat things differently. We're trained to treat things differently. It's not a weakness to not have that training. And you are not a coward."
She coughed and felt something sticky coat her lips. She wiped it away with a trembling forearm and the sleeve of her flight suit came away smeared with black goo.
"Right about now," she said hoarsely, "I think I'd like a bit of that training."
"There'll be plenty of time to drill you on Mandalorian death philosophy once we get you back home."
This is your home now, the beast hissed in her ear. The only home you will ever need, rich with meat and prey. The perfect place to kill and feed and—
"I'm scared, Cin."
A short nod. "I know."
"I… I feel like I shouldn't be. That it's somehow… unprofessional."
"Everyone feels fear."
"You're not afraid."
"You don't think so?"
She nodded, her cheek rubbing against his cool armor again. "You're always so… so calm. All the time. Even when all the world is crashing down around you, you just… pick yourself up and keep going."
She sighed, feeling her temples throbbing dangerously. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to chase away the sensation, but only succeeded in compounding it. Her face twisted into a painful grimace. "I wish I was like you. But I'm not."
"You're not," he agreed. Then, to her surprise, he added, "You're better."
"W-what?"
"I don't know if you've noticed," he said, "but I'm not exactly a model for safe and stable living. But you… you have a chance at normal life."
He sighed and shifted his hold on her. His gaze was fixed on the hall ahead, never straying as they continued their march through this dead station filled to bursting with its dead occupants.
Dead and dying, she reminded herself. The next few hours would decide which she truly was.
"One day," Vhetin said, drawing her attention away from such morbid thoughts, "years from now, you'll retire from this business. You'll settle down. You'll have a husband and kids. A family of your own. You'll grow old with them and you'll die with them. Like normal people do."
"And you won't?"
He was silent for a long time. When he spoke his voice was… off again. Like something was trying to strangle him from within. She knew the feeling.
"No," he said. "My fate is to die fighting. It's what I was made for. It's what I'll be remembered for."
"You sound… you sound like you don't like that."
"It doesn't matter what I like. It's what is expected of me. What's always been expected of me. Live for your clan, my old marksmanship coach used to say. You live for your clan, and when the time comes you die for your clan. No Mandalorian can ask for more. It's why I won't let you die here, Jay."
She looked up at him with bleary eyes. "Why?"
"Because…" he hesitated. "Because I am afraid of dying. Sort of."
Ahead, the snap of blaster fire rang down the hall to them. It was quickly followed by an inhuman screech and the harsh buzz of a slashing lightsaber. The scream fell abruptly silent. Jay cringed. The beast smiled.
"I'm afraid of dying," Vhetin continued, "with nothing to die for. With no family to lay down my life for. With no reason to die beyond death itself. Without Rame or Janada or Brianna…"
He paused a half-second before adding, "Without you."
He trailed off and she didn't push him further. But he wasn't finished just yet.
"When I pass, I want there to be people left to mourn me. Otherwise… well, we Mandalorians have a term for it," he said. "Naasad aliit. No-Clan. It's reserved for Mandalorians who die without leaving behind anyone to remember them. With no one around to mourn them or even remember what they were like when alive."
Another chorus of blaster fire and screams ahead of them. They both ignored the noise.
"Some of the more spiritual among us," Cin continued, "believe a Mando's soul can only rest in the Manda — heaven if you prefer — so long as their life and deeds are remembered among the living. And if they aren't remembered, their spirit just… wastes away. Gone forever."
"You've—" she coughed into her sleeve again and again it came away spattered with black. "You've never been much of a spiritualist."
"I'm not," he agreed. "But I admit the concept still scares me. That I could move on from this world and no one would even remember I existed at all. That one day I might be just another pile of bones, unworthy of even a passing glance as people walk over my grave. That everything I've done, everything I've sacrificed, would be reduced to nothing but… but ash on the wind."
Keep your eyes on the stars, Jay-jay
The beast stirred now, catching her in its petrifying gaze and whispering in her ear. She shivered as its presence swelled within her again; she could feel it rising in her like a wave of nausea in her gut. And when it spoke, she spoke with it. Her lips moved with its lips, her voice joined with its voice.
"Nothing lasts forever," they said.
He was silent for a long time after that.
She didn't know when it happened. When it finally took control. Maybe it was when she was plunged into a fitful slumber, bundled up against Vhetin's armored chest. Maybe it was when her eyes flickered open to see Darth Vader, that hated, horrible man looming in the hall ahead of her like a dark tower on the not-so-distant horizon. Or, far more frightening, maybe it had always been in control. From the moment that infected man had plunged his teeth into her neck, it had been in control.
She didn't know. She didn't even care to wonder. All she knew was that one minute she was resting in her delirium, watching through watery and unfocused vision as hall after hall and corpse after corpse passed them by. But then an unnatural strength flooded through her like an explosion, like a wildfire in dry brush. It raced through her with purpose, sensation blooming within every fiber of her ragged and ravaged body.
And then she was flailing and screaming and cursing. She drew herself up in Vhetin's arms and grabbed for his head, wrenching it to the side as she buried her teeth into his neck. She felt his hands grabbing at her, batting her clawing fingers from his helmet, trying to keep her at bay. Her teeth sank deep into the rough cloth of his sealed bodysuit but didn't break through. She reared back, fire in her eyes, and tried again. Again, his suit held.
The beast was infuriated. It wielded her like a puppet, forming her twitching fingers into hooks that tried in vain to find purchase under the lip of her partner's helmet, tried to tear the bucket free and expose him to the sweet scent of death that surrounded them all.
Failure. Again.
She screamed and beat at him. His helmet's angular rangefinder snapped off with a shower of sparks and he grunted and dropped her to the ground, more out of surprise than anything else. Within seconds, his sleeping partner had transformed into a snarling beast. She leaped at him again and he caught her by the wrists, keeping her from getting at his helmet.
She heard his voice, but it was muffled like she was underwater and he was standing above the surface yelling down at her. It sounded like her name, Jay, and something like stop it and listen to me. She couldn't be sure. What she could be sure of was that his flesh, his meat, was hiding just beneath that damned flight suit and if her teeth could puncture it, it would be hers all hers and she could rip and rend and eat and eat and eat—
The first blaster shot tore through her shoulder from behind, wrenching her out of her partner's grasp. The force of the bolt's impact sent her reeling and she crashed forward onto all fours. Her shoulder quickly gave out and she sprawled to the ground, face-first in the blood and muck of the hellhole in which they were all trapped. Above the surface, Cin was shouting again. He sounded afraid now.
Still, the beast persisted. It pulled her arm up, made it reach for Vhetin's boot. Her fingers caught on the laces, hooking into them and pulling. It was still within her grasp. If she could just grab it, yank it forward and unbalance him—
The second blaster shot hit her in the back of her hand. It was her own will now that forced the scream from her lungs. It was her own pain she felt as the bolt tore through her palm and vaporized her two smallest fingers. In that moment, the fire racing through her vanished and the beast shrank back into shadow once more. The sudden disappearance left her feeling strangely empty inside.
Empty, alone, and very frightened.
Pain became her world. She cradled her mangled hand to her chest and wailed as it consumed her. A rushing sound assaulted her ears and she suddenly broke free from the depths in which she had been sinking. She breached the surface and all the sights and sounds of the waking world assaulted her at once.
Cin was standing a few feet away, holding a stormtrooper by the throat and punching him repeatedly in the gut where his armor was weakest. The trooper held a still-smoking blaster in his hand. The plastoid of his armor was cracking beneath the force of his attacker's prodigious alien strength and he was sagging, limp, against the wall. Kalyn and Gattor both were shouting at Vhetin to stop, but they were difficult to hear over Jay's tortured screams.
But then a very different sound drowned out both.
Snap-hiss.
Jay's vision was tinged scarlet as a humming lightsaber blade descended and came to a halt only a hand's breadth from her throat. She looked up to see that towering colossus of black leather and polished obsidian armor as Darth Vader loomed above her.
"Release the trooper," the Dark Lord boomed, "or she dies."
Vhetin gladly dropped the trooper and rounded on the Imperial Supreme Commander, drawing his pike from its sling over his shoulder and igniting the blue blade with a sizzle of sparking plasma.
"Get away from her."
"Raise your weapon against me," Vader cautioned, "and she will suffer the consequences."
Vhetin didn't back down. In fact, he took a step closer. His entire body was quivering with rage. Vader's humming scarlet saber drifted closer to Jay's exposed throat. She could feel the heat radiating from the pulsating weapon, could see that scarlet glow even when she squeezed her eyes shut against its light.
"Lower your weapon or she dies. You have exactly five seconds to decide."
For a moment, she was sure Vhetin would ignore the warning. She saw his hands clench tight over the shaft of his pike. She saw the way his feet spread, preparing for a lunge that would carry him into battle. She saw Vader's stance shift as well, preparing to draw the lightsaber across her throat and end her pain once and for all.
It was Kalyn Farnmir, strangely, who saved both their lives. She threw herself between the Mandalorian and his would-be opponent, put both her hands on Vhetin's chest, and shoved him hard back against the wall. Hit with both force and surprise, he staggered away off balance and hit with a crash that seemed to knock the sense back into him. He froze for a half-second before finally lowering his saber and, with trembling fingers, hooking it back to its place on his back plate.
"All right," he said, holding both hands up in surrender. "All right, my weapon is gone. Just let her go."
Vader watched him for a moment more. Then, with a short wheeze from his respirator, he retracted the crimson saber and stepped away. Jay was left whimpering and bleeding, alone in the dark once more.
She wasn't alone long. Cin was instantly at her side again and helping her into a sitting position. She protested, feeling her body tense and the agony flare at his handling, but he didn't listen. She'd barely made it to a full sit-up when her gut lurched and she spewed a vile mixture of vomit and black glop over them both.
"Oh god…" she managed to choke out when breath returned to her lungs. "Oh god, Cin…"
"Shut up."
"I tried to—"
"Shut up," he repeated, his voice rock-hard. He pulled a vial of bacta spray from his belt and began tending to her hand. She looked down through streaming eyes and saw it was a mangled mess of blood and tissue. Her pinkie and ring fingers were completely gone, not even stumps left behind. Half her palm was gone too, and blood was pouring from the open wound.
"M-my hand," she said. Her voice sounded so very small. "My hand."
"It's fine," her partner growled. The bacta was running low; the canister was starting to stutter, spraying nothing but air. He slammed it hard against the ground and dislodged enough to work with. "It's fine."
"It's not fine!" she screamed at him. She yanked herself away, tears streaming down her cheeks. "None of this is fine!"
She shoved her half-stump of hand in his faceplate. She gestured to the wounds on her neck and the thick, viscous soup of vomit and infection staining her jumpsuit. "Does any of this look like it's fine?!"
"It will be if—"
"If what? If you can save me?"
"It's what I'm trying to do!"
"You can't!" she shouted. "You might as well thank that trooper and tell him to finish the job!"
"Hey!" He grabbed her by the shoulders, his grip rough and unbreakable. She was forced to stare into that reflective T-slit visor she had come to know so well. "Listen to me. I am not going to let you die here. So long as I'm still breathing, you're still breathing too."
She broke down into exhausted sobs now. "I… I tried to—"
"No." His voice left no room for argument. "That wasn't you."
"But—"
"Jay," he interrupted, "I want you to repeat it. That wasn't you. Say it."
"I-it… it wasn't me."
It was you. All you.
"It wasn't me. It was the infection."
"I-it wasn't me. It was the infection."
You are the infection. We are one. Never to be parted.
His hands cupped her cheeks now. "Jay, look at me. I need you to look at me."
She didn't want to, but she forced herself to look into his faceplate again. He held her tearful stare.
"You die," he said, "when I say you can die. No sooner. That's an order."
She let out a weak scoff that quickly devolved into a coughing fit. "You think you're some big shot military man, giving me orders like that?"
"No. I'm your partner, your trainer, and your employer. And I'm ordering you to stay alive until I tell you otherwise. You can die when I say you can die. No sooner. Understand?"
"Fuck you—"
"Do you understand?"
The beast was suddenly back, raging and roaring and so full of wrath it almost made her split at the seams. Her good hand balled into a fist and swung with all her might, an inhuman snarl tearing itself from her lips. She barely felt the pain as her fist hit the hard armor of his helmet. Such a strike should have left her yelping and cradling her hand. But the beast had dulled her senses and replaced them with its own. Now all she saw was food.
Vhetin recoiled and she — it — used the distraction to its full advantage. Her legs came up, curling against her chest, and then shoved hard outward. Both soles caught the Mandalorian in the chest and sent him crashing onto his back.
She was on her feet in moments, eyes raking over the hall. Blood poured from her mangled hand and thick tendrils of drool from her lips. She saw more stormtroopers raising their weapons, saw Kalyn reaching a hand out to stop her, saw Vhetin throwing himself back to his feet with an agility she no longer found surprising.
Then her eyes fell on a side passage, a corridor leading away from them all. Into the depths of the station, into the dark. She took off, her feet flying with renewed strength as the infection pulled at her limbs like a master puppeteer. She vanished down the hall, the shadows opening up and enfolding her in their fondest embrace.
She descended into the darkness and was lost in it.
"Jay!"
Vhetin scrambled to his feet and shouted after her. When she didn't reemerge, he spun to face Darth Vader once more. He was standing, fists planted on his hips with a haughty air of superiority. The air of a man who had been proved right.
"She is lost," he said. "She belongs to the infection now."
His voice was desperate and he didn't care. "You have to let me go after her."
"Must I?"
"Yes! If she dies—"
"She is already dead," one of the Inquisitors, the quiet Urieth, said. His voice was soft and carried a surprising note of sympathy. "The infection works quickly."
"No. No, I don't believe that. If I can get her to the station's medical staff before it sets in completely—"
"Hope," Vader intoned, "is the domain of fools and martyrs."
"It's not hope!" Vhetin shouted. "It's…"
He didn't know exactly what it was. All he knew was that Jay was out there and she needed to come back before this place took her forever. He couldn't bear the thought of that happening.
Vader stared at him for a few long moments. The muggy, sluggish breeze kicked up by the barely-functioning ventilation systems tugged at his cloak and sent it rippling around his bulky frame. His broad chest swelled with a wheezing breath, then—
"Go."
"What?"
"Go," he said. "Find your companion. You will find no resistance from me. But neither will you find aid. If you choose this path, you will walk it alone."
"Fine," he instantly agreed. "Yes. I will."
"No." Another voice cut in. Kalyn's voice. "You won't."
She stepped closer and pressed a comlink into his hand. She held it there, squeezing his arm to drive her meaning home. "You find her," she said, "you call me. I'll come and get you two. Lead you to the medics."
He could not transform his gratitude into mere words. All he could manage was a single tense nod. It didn't seem to matter, as Kalyn smiled encouragingly behind her breath mask and patted his arm.
"Bring her home."
"I will."
He didn't wait for more permission. He turned and sprinted off into the dark after his partner. The hall yawned before him like the gaping maw of a great beast. Seeing it, he set his jaw and plunged forward, into its belly.
Sights and sounds flashed around her, pelting her from all directions. She caught glimpses of rust and blood coating old metal walls. She smelled blood and dust and the sticky must of old coolant fluid. She heard shuffling feet, snarling, and the snapping of teeth dull and rotted teeth.
The sensation of being plunged underwater had returned and she experienced all these things from the other side of a strange kind of veil. Sights were little more than shadows playing across the wall. Sounds were little more than distant, muffled murmurings. But she understood them all the same because something within her comprehended far better than she did. Something was using her senses, stealing them from her while she was nothing more than a prisoner trapped in her own skull.
Then, just like before, the thing stealing her body temporarily lost its hold and sensation broke over her like a crashing wave. She breached the surface and the world returned in a rush of noise and nauseating smells. Her vision widened into a bright flare of blinding light as if she had just emerged from a deep tunnel into the harsh illumination of day. And then she was herself again.
She was shambling along a hallway, back hunched, arms hanging limply at her sides. Her flight suit was smeared with blood and vomit and black glop. The revolting mess had gotten in her hair as well, which had been pulled loose from its ponytail in all the commotion of before. She must have been quite the sight: a disgusting and disheveled shell of a woman, hobbling along like a drunk after a three-day binge.
But she didn't hobble alone. She was surrounded by fellows: men and women and the rotting skeletons of men and women. They were all walking together, all with that same uncoordinated limping, all heading the same direction like a macabre parade of the damned. She saw hair falling out in clumps and flesh hanging from bones like loose cloth. She saw some walkers with arms missing, some with huge chunks blown from their bodies by blaster fire. One even waddled along with no head, feeling its way blindly through this cold land of nightmares urged on by the whims of its unseen master.
The infected paid her no mind. Why would they? She was part of the family now. Part of the group. Part of the pack.
The thought quickly transformed into a scream and she broke free of her shambling gait. She turned and limped away as fast as her wounded leg could allow, shoving away any who stood in her path and cutting them down with her lightsaber when they grew too difficult to shove. The humming amethyst blade carved the dead into pieces, sending them thudding to the floor and clearing her path. Those with the capacity continued their lifeless march, crawling hand-over-hand down the hall with the rest. She didn't stop to question where they were all going, didn't care where this procession ended. Only evil lay in that direction.
Instead, she ran. She didn't care where her feet carried her, so long as it was away from this horrible place and those horrible creatures. She needed to find some place quiet, some place where she could stop and think and push back the monster crawling through her skull.
I tried to kill him, she thought. I tried to kill my own partner. My friend.
She was so far gone now, she didn't even feel bad for it. She mirrored the beast's rage at her failure. The pain that still consumed her blasted-apart hand only stoked its rage: its plaything had been damaged and it hadn't even managed to kill anyone yet.
She staggered against the wall, leaving behind a long smear of blood and vomit as she dragged herself along it.
Never should have come here, that sane part of her mind whispered to her. Should have listened to Denton. Should have stayed far away from Cin Vhetin and his problems.
This is what happens, another voice hissed, when you put your friends before yourself. This is what happens when you stick your nose in his business.
It should be HIM in this position, not us. All this is his fault anyway. But he's immune, isn't he? Lucky him.
He probably wanted this to happen. Probably arranged for this to happen so he could be rid of you, once and for all. He never wanted you, never will want you. You're not a Mandalorian, not a mercenary. You're just a frightened little girl who wandered too far from home.
Her fingers — those that were left — clenched into claws and buried themselves into her temples as she did her best to dig the thoughts out. It failed. As much as she tried to resist the flood of whispers that assaulted her, they just continued growing stronger and stronger.
Why would he care about you? Why would he ever want you? You deserve this. You're going to die here. You're going to die here and no one will be there to save you or soothe you or hold your hand as you breathe your last—
A great rumbling growl echoed through her mind like the world-shattering horn of a fogbound freighter as the beast loomed large once more. Once more she was caught in the full power of its gaze and she shrank before it like a gizka before a nexu.
There is only one truth, it said to her. All things die. As you are, so once were we. And as we now are, so shall you be.
"No." She screwed up her face, teeth clenched so hard her jaw hurt. That was good; if her jaw was shut the beast couldn't use it to bite. "No, you're lying!"
All things die, it repeated. Planets explode. Suns burn out. Entire galaxies waste away into the darkness. Birds fall from the skies, fish float limp to the midnight depths of the oceans, and forests waste away into dust. In time, even the Force shall cease its endless struggle of light versus dark. Of all things, only death is eternal.
"You're lying!" she screamed at the empty hallway ahead of her. "You're lying!"
What do you hope to achieve through your defiance? You cannot escape death. You can only postpone it. Delay the inevitable. Far simpler to just… give in. Lay down your head and join the procession of the dead. Slumber and know that when you awake, you will be as eternal as I.
"Wh-what are you?"
I am that which lurks in the darkness between stars. I am that which waits for you at the end of all things. I am the monster under your bed and the beast in your heart. I am your hunger, Jaciea Elmerie Naer-Kolta.
"Stop talking in riddles!" she shouted. The effort drained her and she fell against the wall again. Her mangled palm left a smeared half-handprint as she pushed off and continued her staggering path down the hallway, deeper into darkness. "Give me a straight answer!"
Simply, then? The beast swelled and circled around her like a black mist only she could see. You may call me Mnggal.
"Mnggal," she repeated through thick and rebellious lips, stumbling over the pronunciation as surely as she stumbled over her feat. Strength fled her limbs and she collapsed onto her hands and knees. "Mnggal."
It rose up in the darkness now: a formless mass of ever-shifting black fluid that twisted and roiled and billowed as if fed by the shadows themselves. It slithered through the dark with a graceful serpentine motion, rising up and bobbing in the air as tendrils of purest midnight reached for her, beckoned to her.
You are tired, Jay. Rest. Recover. You have all the time in the world now.
It drew closer, closer. The dim and flickering light danced across its viscous, reflective surface, making its deepest depths sparkle like distantly twinkling stars. It was both beautiful and horrific all at once and she both was both terrified and fascinated by the scintillating forms that played across its shimmering surface. Her instincts, however, screamed at her to flee from this monstrosity before it consumed her, body and soul. She tried to rise up to her feet again but failed. She tried to crawl on her hands and knees, but the motion sent fire up her wounded arm and she wobbled dangerously, threatening to collapse into the dust.
Lay down your weary head, child, the beast whispered. The grasping tendrils morphed, melded, and formed into a single open hand. You have nothing to be afraid of anymore.
It was all a ploy, she knew; a trick to get her to lower her defenses and let the beast reign once and for all. As soon as she reached out to take that spectral hand, as soon as she gave in, she would be truly lost. She could not fall prey to this monster. She had to fight.
Unfortunately, the best she could do was raise her limp arm and thumb the activation switch of her lightsaber.
It was enough; with a crackling ignition, the glowing bar of violet light sprang to life and speared the phantom mass through the chest. The apparition didn't recoil or shout in pain; rather, it simply melted away into a sea of viscous black soup that drained away into the darkness.
The beast retreated. She was alone once more.
Long ago, when she had been a girl growing up in the rural farmlands of Corellia, one of her neighbors had kept a herd of poggalos. These were dumb beasts, big and brutish and covered in coarse blackish-brown hair that hung down and covered flat and lifeless eyes. They were docile creatures, easily shepherded to whatever pasture was opened to them and even more easily sheared for their wool and butchered for their meat.
One day, one of these dumb poggalos had stepped a little too close to the edge of a tall drop, maybe twenty or thirty feet. The subsequent fall had broken three of its legs and shattered its spine. A mortal wound.
Little Jay and a small cadre of others had gone to investigate all the commotion and found the poggalo at the bottom of the cliff, lying on its side and bellowing in agony. She remembered it well: a painfully pitiful creature, pawing at the dirt with one hoof while its blood soaked into the ground. Most of the others didn't care much for the creature's pain. It was only a dumb poggalo, after all. But Jay had felt for the creature, lying broken in the dust and able to comprehend nothing but its own pain.
Jay felt like that fallen poggalo now: weak and unable to free herself from the cage of fear and anguish that had closed around her. And like the poggalo, it was quickly becoming clear that the only thing to free her from this terrible prison would be a single well-placed blaster bolt to the head.
But when that happened, it would still be her pawing helplessly in the dirt, not this beast that was trying to consume her from within. It would be her blood that would soak these rusty floor panels. It would be her body that would fall to the ground and never rise again.
The beast was not so easily defeated. It swelled up within her, enraged by her defiance, and roared like a rabid rancor.
RESIST, it bellowed. RESIST AND REBEL AND USE ALL YOUR STRENGTH TO KEEP ME AWAY. I WILL STILL REMAIN. ALL THINGS DIE, AND YOU ARE NO EXCEPTION. YOU BELONG TO ME.
The whispers started again as if startled into life by the beast's rage.
Kill, kill, kill
So hungry
You can't stop it. You can't keep it out. You can't run from it forever.
Hide. You have to hide.
Eat and eat and eat and eat and—
You know there's only one way out of this.
She looked down at her trembling hand, still holding the lit lightsaber. She watched the blade dance in the air, humming as her grip wavered. It would be so easy to pull the saber around. Pull it around and turn that beautiful amethyst light upon herself. End it all before the beast took it all away…
Do it, the whispers told her. It's the only way. The only way to be free of him.
Eat and eat and eat and—
There's no escaping the infection. No hiding from what's already inside you.
— inside you. He'll find you wherever you are. Find you and force you to kill and kill again.
Look at what you almost did to Cin. You can't let that happen again.
The blade rotated, coming around to face her now. Its synthetic hum drowned out the voices, the light growing brighter and brighter, consuming her whole world until—
It blinked out with a rasp of deactivating plasma. The hilt smoked in her hand, tendrils of discharge wafting up into the air and mingling with the dancing dust motes. Her thumb still pressed down on the activation stud, where it had quite literally saved her life. She stared at the metallic cylinder with wide eyes, then let out a wheezing, choking exhalation.
She couldn't do it.
She went limp, her saber clattering to the ground next to her. Her head thudded hard against the wall. The sound echoed down the empty corridor, into darkness. She sat there, alone and broken, for a long time. It was almost… peaceful.
Then the beast began screaming. And she screamed with it.
As a bounty hunter, finding people was Vhetin's specialty. But never before had tracking down a target felt so harrowing. Never before had his heart pounded so wildly as he pursued his quarry. Never before had the stakes been so very, very high.
His HUD's scanning overlays picked up Jay's trail quickly enough. Smears of blood and vomit marked her path through the station, away from the expeditionary force heading for the medical wing. He followed as quickly as his scanners would allow; he could not afford to make a mistake and follow the wrong path. He had to be careful and sure, though he knew time was running out.
Hang in there, Jay, he thought. I'm not leaving you here.
His path led him through maintenance bays and conference rooms and barracks, all deserted and filled with the residue of decay. He passed by mounds of corpses and scanned them all, praying all the while that none would return a positive identification. His motion tracker showed infected in the area, but they seemed occupied with other prey at the time. He was never one to look a gift reek in the mouth, so he moved on without paying them further mind.
He was beginning to doubt he was on the correct path when his helmet system's picked up something. It was so slight that his auditory receptors were barely able to pick it up; they strained to isolate this strange anomaly. He crept down the hallway, both gauntlet blades ejected and held at the ready, prepared to sink them into whatever leaped from the shadows to attack him. He drew closer and closer, careful to let his boots fall quietly on the hard durasteel floor. As he approached the source of the noise, his helmet systems finally identified the noise.
It was a woman. A woman crying.
He rounded a corner and saw a storage locker just ahead. The noises were coming from inside. He retracted his arm-mounted blades and drew closer, hands outstretched as if to placate a snarling dog.
"Jay?"
The crying didn't stop, but it did die back a little. There was a sniff, then a voice — muffled by the locker door and echoing from within its confines — whimpered, "Go away."
"I'm not going to hurt you."
"I don't care. Go away."
"I'm not going to do that. I'm here to bring you back."
An echoing, watery chuckle from inside the locker. "To what? A cure?"
"Yes."
"You really think that's going to work? After all you've seen me do?"
"I have to." He paused by the locker, one hand resting against its surface. No doubt about it now; she was hiding inside. "I can't think otherwise."
A groan from within. "There's no point. I… I don't know how much of me is left to save."
"We can fix your hand—"
"I'm not talking about my hand." His partner's voice, weak as it was, carried a harsh note of venom. "I'm talking about… about me. All of me."
He didn't press her further. She sniffed a few more times before whispering, "It's inside me, Cin. This sickness, this rot. Mnggal, it calls itself. It's whispering in my head, twisting and turning like a nest of snakes. I can feel it getting stronger. And if you rip it away… how much of me is going to be ripped out with it?"
He slowly sank to the ground next to the locker, easing himself into a sitting position. "It… doesn't work like that. They'll give you an injection. They're not going to rip away anything."
"You don't… you don't understand." The tears were threatening to take over again. "You saw what I've become. You saw what it makes me do. How can a syringe make that stop?"
"It just will. I know it will." He listened to her quiet whimpering, then rapped his knuckles gently against the locker door. "Can you open up?"
"I… I don't know if I want to."
"Why not?"
"I don't… don't want you to see me. Not like this."
"Jay…"
"I'm becoming a monster. Piece by piece, it's turning me. Twisting me into something I'm not. Eating me away from the inside out."
He had no response to that. He linked his arms over his knees and waited for her to continue. She didn't. They just sat there, together in the dark, listening as her strangled sobs faded away into the thick, fog-like shadows.
"Can I tell you a story?"
Jay snorted, then coughed terribly for a few long moments. When it cleared, she gasped, "Is now really the time?"
He shrugged. "Might be the only time, if you're right about all this."
An exhausted sigh and a thump from inside the locker; she had probably leaned her head against the door. "Fine. Go ahead."
"Years ago," he began, "when I was still in training, Rame set me up with this old veteran drill master. She was a martial arts expert and a former forward assault trooper with the Supercommandos. I wasn't very good at fighting at the time, and this woman took it as almost a personal insult. So she was going to teach me to fight like her, even if it killed the both of us in the process. Every day I would get in the sparring ring and she'd beat the living shit out of me. She would yell at me, scream at me to stand up and keep fighting, even when I begged her to stop or go easier on me. She refused every time."
He rested against the bulkhead behind him, calling the memories back with a rueful shake of his head. "I was terrified of that woman."
A soft sniff from inside the locker. "Really?"
"Really. I was terrified every day at the prospect of getting in that ring with her. I was afraid I'd lock up and forget my footwork and she'd see it and berate me. Afraid I'd miss a punch and she'd break my arm. I went to Rame and begged him to change instructors. He refused."
Silence for a moment. Vhetin smiled a bit and continued, "He put his boot in my back and shoved me into the ring himself. And I got my ass kicked until I didn't think I had any ass left. Later, I went to Rame and demanded to know why he'd pushed me. Why I had to keep training with this awful woman who was clearly enjoying her beatings. He told me it was an important lesson, if taught inelegantly. A Mandalorian's first enemy is fear, he told me. You're afraid of your trainer. Stay on your feet despite that and you conquer your fear. Conquer your fear, and you can conquer anything."
He let out a short derisive snort. "I didn't believe him. I thought he was being cruel. But I went back to the ring again and again until I couldn't do it anymore. I just couldn't take it. So I stopped outside the sparring circle one day and refused to go back in. My trainer insisted. I insisted otherwise. She punched me in the gut and knocked the wind out of me. I got back up and told her to kriff off. She hit me in the head next. I got back up."
He glanced at the locker. "I'm sure you can imagine how things proceeded from there."
Jay sighed, the sound echoing inside her sealed shelter. "Does this story have a point?"
"It does. My trainer beat me to a pulp that day, but I didn't set foot inside that damn ring. The whole time, I kept thinking, stay on your feet. Stay on your feet. Eventually she gave up and canceled training, while I was lying half-conscious on the ground at her feet. But I hadn't set so much as a toe inside that ring."
He smiled at the memory. "Later, Rame congratulated me on conquering my fear. I asked him what he meant and he said, You reached a point where you were able to ignore your fear of your teacher and stand up for yourself. In that moment you defended yourself better than any martial artist could.
"The next day, my trainer called off our sparring. Said I'd done a good job defending myself and had earned a rest." He looked over at the box-like locker next to him. "You want to know who that trainer was?"
A sniff. "Who?"
"Janada Bralor."
No response from inside the locker.
"You're in the same position now, Jay. You're fighting your own demon, and you have the same choice I did: succumb to your fear and step into its territory where you'll be at its mercy, or stay on your feet, stand up for yourself, and refuse to bow. Trust your instincts; they won't lead you astray."
"My instincts told me to kill you," she whimpered. "My instincts made me try and rip your throat out with my teeth."
"That wasn't you. That was the infection."
Another weary sigh from his partner. "How long before they're one and the same?"
"You're sitting here talking to me. I'd say we're not there yet."
A weary huff from his partner. "You're wasting your time."
"You're not the first to tell me that."
"You're also an idiot." Her voice was growing weaker with every word.
He snorted. "You're not the first to tell me that either. Do you think you can open up now?"
"I don't know. I…"
She trailed off for a long time. When she spoke again, her small voice quivered with every word.
"You won't leave me?"
His response was instantaneous. "Never."
A rustling from inside the locker. A groan from his partner and a dull clank as the lock snapped open. The door swung wide and Jay spilled forward onto the floor, unable to hold herself up. She reached out a hand for him and he took it.
"That's better," he said. He gathered her up, pulling her into a sitting position supported against his chest. "C'mere. I've got you."
Her breathing was shallow, her skin so pale it seemed to glow in the dim light. Black veins pulsed and crawled up her face like spiderwebs, framing eyes that were so sunken and black, it almost looked like she didn't have eyes at all. Emerging from her hiding place must have used the last of her strength; she was still alive, but unconscious. Her heart was racing, too fast to be natural. She wouldn't last much longer.
"I've got you," he said again, shifting back to sit against the wall. He triggered his helmet's comm and dialed Kalyn's number. When the huntress picked up after the first dialing tone, he grunted, "I've got her. Trace my transponder and you'll find us. Make it fast."
Once the channel was closed, he sighed and looked down at his dying partner. Only a little longer now and everything would be back to normal. She would pull through. She had to. There was no other alternative he dared to imagine.
Pulling her closer, he rested his helmet forehead against hers, closed his eyes, and prayed to whatever forgotten god who would listen that it wasn't already too late.