14

These few chapters – the last two and this one – are for Melannen Halfelven, who has apparently stopped reading fanfiction lately. Oh, well. That gives me more time to build my bomb shelter. I have to collect more food in case it's atomic.

"When can we go back to the palace?" I muttered that evening. It seemed that we had been out for days. I kept thinking about Daru. And what Moyek had seen that I hadn't. And Taksayan. And whether we should just barricade the bad parts of the city and allow their residents to destroy themselves. But mostly about Daru.

"You know when," Moyek snapped. Then, she sighed and said more gently, "I know. I want to go home, too – I mean, to the palace."

Was the palace our home by then? Or becoming our home? Or had she been unconsciously saying that she wanted to be back at the Temple?

I couldn't stand to stay any longer.

We noticed, that day, that the fighting seemed to have turned on Zabrak by Mibir. Fang had told me that he felt the most hatred from Zabrak, and I, conversely, felt it from Mibir. The Hssak were an extra problem to the two species – the original owners of the planet yet very far from the other species. Mibir and Zabrak were too alike not to feel emotion for each other, and it came out in pure hatred. And, we thought, the Zabrak seemed to be losing.

Evenings were the worst time, maybe because everyone felt the weight of the day, as Moyek and I did. But evening also meant that we could rest in just a few hours.

Just a few hours, I told myself. Moyek and I were the last pair of Jedi out, but in just a few hours, we would be finished and the militia would take over to let the police and Jedi rest. Mibir don't like to fly in the dark, and Hssak need light, too. We could trust the badly trained people to keep order then.

Well, actually, we couldn't.

"What in the galaxy do you think you're doing?" Moyek shouted to a group of four Mibir in Militia uniforms.

It was pretty clear to me what they were doing. They were systematically injuring two adult and one teenage Zabrak – in plain view. They had cut the Zabrak's faces and arms where the wounds would bleed and hurt most but not necessarily kill and, if the victims did survive, scar very visibly.

When they heard Moyek, the Mibir dropped their blades and tried to run. They had been stupid enough to do what they were doing in clear sight and without a lookout – imagine if an itaka of Zabrak had passed before we had – so I wasn't surprised when one tripped and went sprawling in front of us. Clumsy idiot.

Like Dorn. But Dorn had been a Jedi and hadn't ever hurt people through malice.

"Akite, get them!" Moyek shouted.

We didn't often make arrests, but these were people who were supposed to be helping the palace, not contributing to the problem. I managed to catch one before he could get off the ground and another as he was lifting off. The third got too high as I bound the other two.

Moyek had bound the clumsy one and was doing here best to stop the bleeding for the youngest Zabrak, a girl about my age. "Akite. Find police now. Three prisoners and three Zabrak in desperate need."

I ran. The police called the medical workers and ran with me back to Moyek and the six others. A crowd had gathered. I wondered where all these people came from as I did my best to disperse them. Was this their amusement?

I knelt by the girl. Moyek had moved on, having stopped the worst bleeding, but the girl's face was still covered with bloody agony. Her blood, I noticed, was darker than the "blood-dust" she lay in. I had never thought to directly compare it before.

Her eyes opened. They weren't any different from mine. They weren't so different – only in color, really – than the eyes of Fang or any Mibir or human. Nor was her face very different. Except for the horns and skin color, half the galaxy would look like that after some sadist had pulled knives down their cheeks and across their foreheads.

I wanted to hold her hand, but they were bloody, too. I lay a hand on her shoulder and tried to smile comfortingly. I stumbled over the Otukushu word for "safe." I wished Fang had been there.

Her eyes were full of something I had seen before, but rarely directed at me. It was admiration, almost adoration.

She made a soft noise, trying to talk without moving her lips. I leaned closer to hear.

"Araki."

Thank you.

"That was the second issue of militia torturing civilians that I've dealt with today," Moyek growled as she left. "Don't they train them? Do they know that the Mibir are getting out of hand?"

"They're all civilians – at least, as much as each other," I said. The girl's eyes were still haunting me. I wondered why she had stayed. Maybe her parents – the other two might have been parents – didn't want to leave for some reason. "So the other thing – when you left me – that was the militia?"

"That's why they needed me. I had authority over the criminals." This was something I had missed in my speculations. "Well, these Zabrak will recover, at least."

I winced at her implications.

Everything was falling apart. Could we trust anybody but the Jedi? Well, I thought, we could trust our friends, and the Zabrak seemed to be better than the Mibir. Daru.

We heard shouts nearby – lots of them. We stopped talking and started jogging.

We heard the explosion as we were coming to the crowd, but there was barely any shock. A noisy but small explosive, hidden in a pocket to use when one was too cowardly to fight. The issue was probably something small but infuriating enough to gather a crowd.

Brandishing our lightsabers, we split the crowd. But I didn't want to be there. Something in the explosion had struck me like a punch in the stomach, and I felt like throwing up.

If I ever forget any of Kebro, what I saw in the middle of the crowd will be the last thing to go. After the Hssak younglings. After Daru and me in the dark stairwell. After the bloody-faced girl who thought I was worth thanking. This will stay with me after everything else I have ever seen has faded.

I stood beside Moyek in the crowd of onlookers and looked into the center, where dust still fell. On the other side of the circle, a Togruta – Master Sual – stood poised, one foot slightly in front of the other, his mouth slightly open, as if he, too, had pushed his way though the crowd and he, too, couldn't bear to see what was in front of him.

In the settling dust, three bodies lay: a small Mibir, its eyes still open and its broken wings not yet big enough to carry it; a large Mibir, perhaps its mother, with her enormous wings thrown wide and twisted; and a Paifei who had only ever wanted to help ease pain and would never feel it again.

Master Sual's cry of agony rose above all other sounds.

Gently, Moyek took my shoulder and turned me away.