Author's Note: A huge, huge thanks to the amazingly wonderful laloga, for betaing this chapter on short notice and making it what it is.
Endex
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
- Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
The mine, Shenio Mining HQ, at the Senet River, thirty-two klicks outside of Eyat city, Gaftikar, Outer Rim, 21 BBY (27 days after the first bombing & 17 months after the Battle of Geonosis)
It always came down to choice, even if you weren't aware of the fact that you had one, and no matter how small, every choice had its consequence.
This was particularly true for Jedi. Guided by the Force - given power through the Force - choice in the hands of a Jedi could have consequences that would echo through the galaxy decades afterwards. A good choice - a right choice - and there could be peace on a planet ravaged by war. A bad choice and that war could spread to neighboring systems until an entire sector, or the entire galaxy, was caught up in it.
Ro knew this. She'd lived it.
Good choice: She'd left the Order to join Master Altis, which in turn had led her to Eda and Shiv and the first real sense of home and belonging she could remember.
Bad choice: Going with Master Altis to Solay without any backup. As a consequence, they'd been captured by the despotic king. The end result? Two people dead and one driven mad, courtesy of her. They hadn't been innocent people - far from it. Those three guards had been ready to execute her and a room full of other prisoners, but that didn't matter. One tiny, seemingly inconsequential bad choice and it had led her to cross a line she'd sworn she'd never even toe.
And now here she was again; at a crossroad, being forced to make a choice. Good or bad? Right or wrong? Stay or leave?
If she stayed with Wren, then maybe they could stand against Metesk, depending on how bad a physical shape Metesk himself was in. He had, after all, been pretty close to that explosion as well. But all they had to defend themselves was Wren's dead-blade and her lightsaber and they were both lightyears away from top fighting-form. And Metesk? The Force alone knew what else he had up his sleeve. More droids? More bombs? Both was possible.
If she left now, though...If she left Wren to fend for himself...
He was clever. He was strong. And quite frankly he was just too fangled ornery to die easily. Maybe, maybe, he could hold out long enough for her to find a way out of the mine and get help. All she'd need to do was get back into comm range and get a signal out to Gaff and the commander could come and save them, blasters blazing, just like on the propaganda vids that dotted Coruscant and most of the other Core Worlds. She wouldn't even have to go that far. Surely once she was a klick or more closer to the surface, the comm Gaff had given her would be able to get a signal again. She could even go back and help Wren once she'd managed to contact Gaff. She could...
But would he still be here when she came back? If she came back?
Choices. And she had an ugly track record of making the wrong ones.
He'd pushed her away from him, making no bones about the fact that he wanted her gone. The fatalism she sensed from Wren was almost as frightening as the coldness that was creeping towards her, making her spine feel like a single icicle. Metesk was coming and from the feel of it, he and Wren were on a crash-heading that neither one was willing to avoid. This confrontation was going to happen, whether she was there or not.
And so she was stuck, frozen in indecision. Go or stay?
Wren snarled and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her close enough so that she could smell his sweat and the blood welling up between the flaked and cracked skin of his lips. "Ro." She shivered a little at the sound of her own name. His voice sounded as rough as his fingers, pressing against the back of her skull, felt. "Get the kriff out of here."
Choice was a part of free will. Wren wanted - was willing her - to go. And Force help her, she wanted to go. She was just so tired and hurting like she'd never hurt before and there was so much darkness around her.
Ro closed her eyes as the heat of the chamber and the acrid stink of the fracking water settled around her and pressed her down; her knees shook from the added weight of the very air.
Stay or leave? Fight or run? Do what she'd been trained or what Wren wanted her to do?
It always came down to the choices you made. But sometimes, a choice was really no choice at all.
Ro chose.
He watched from between the slats of the air vent; watched as the Jedi-predator leaned her forehead against that of the cloned sheep. The remained that way for a heartbeat, then she rose unsteadily. For a moment, she hesitated, then her lightsaber sprang to life in her hand and, without looking back at the clone, the Jedi-predator turned tail and ran, disappearing down the catwalk, moving away from the scene of the carnage.
There was more darkness than light down that way and very soon, the glow of the lightsaber was the only marker to indicate her passage. Then that too disappeared, swallowed by the darkness.
That was how it would always be. In the end, the darkness claimed everything. Only he was wise enough to become a part of the darkness and thereby move through it unharmed.
He turned his attention back towards the cloned sheep, who was now struggling to his feet, leaning sharply to his right as he did so. The Rational had noted that weakness earlier, while they'd been trailing the two through the shaft. The cloned sheep could not put any weight on his left leg and judging by the way his left arm dangled at his side, that appendage too was now rendered useless. He'd needed the Jedi-predator's assistance during their slow trek, but now she was gone. And he was alone. And vulnerable.
Again and again his tongue wetted his lips, dashing out from between his blistered lips like a pink whip.
Their weakness had grown, even as The Rational had kept his at bay. It had not wanted to relinquish control over his body, but while he'd been willing to rest in the currents of his subconscious mind for a while, he'd been lusting to regain control ever since he'd scented their blood.
Now Metesk was once more steering his body and it was The Rational that remained at the back of his mind, observing, guiding, but a passive force nonetheless.
The cloned sheep managed three faltering steps, then had to rest.
From his elevated position in the vent, Metesk could see the clone's shoulders heave as it gasped for air.
The chemicals from the fracking water tasted bitter and sharp against his tongue and the air burned as he breathed it in, blistering his esophagus. But Metesk didn't care. He'd breathed in similar toxins on Melida/Daan, during the Bright Time, when he'd wielded the fire and so had others and it had burned and cleansed the earth frequently. He welcomed the stink of chemicals. As he would welcome the sight of the clone's life bleeding from his body and eyes.
And then he would catch up to the Jedi-predator, fall on her from the cover of the dark and prove once and for all that in this world, he was the one true predator.
Shoot it, The Rational whispered as the cloned sheep struggled along on the catwalk - alone - and passed right beneath his vantage point.
No, he thought back in return. No, he did not want to kill this sheep with the blaster strapped to his waist. As of late, he'd been forced to kill from a distance and often, letting his art speak through his presents and the fire. It was good and it made his blood sing and his mind settle into bliss, but there was almost as much satisfaction to be derived from spilling blood personally. A different kind of art and an artist needed, above all else, to experiment and expand his horizons.
And with the memory of dimming eyes foremost in his mind, he could turn the fire loose on the city and let his presents scour the ground free of the sheep.
Metesk let the clone continue on its slow way; waited until it was at least five paces past his vantage point.
He licked his lips and opened the vent's grate, dropping down onto the catwalk behind the cloned sheep.
Durasteel rang as he hit the catwalk, boots first, and the clone whirled about - slowly - a knife in his right hand, his left arm dangling uselessly from his side.
Metesk smiled at it and cocked his head, watching the cloned sheep with what would almost pass as affection. This was art in the making; it would be bliss and he would enjoy it.
In the back of his mind, The Rational stirred and slithered, already analyzing the clone's weaknesses. If he struck hard and fast and on the thing's left side, then he could incapacitate it and watch, with leisure, as it bled to death on the catwalk.
His tongue darted out and licked his lips; once, twice.
The cloned sheep pulled back its lips, showing him its teeth. "What the fek are you waiting for, barve? Republic Day? Come and effing get me." It raised its knife.
Metesk smiled and raised his own weapon, a vibroblade the length of his forearm. The cloned sheep's eyes darted to the weapon and Metesk could see a new sheen of perspiration wash through the grime covering the thing's skin and bodyglove.
His nostril's flared. He could smell its trepidation.
"Cliff-snails and voorpak-tails," he hummed, "what are little clones made of?" He giggled, then lunged.
That vibroblade was going to be a problem.
Wren hadn't expected Metesk to match his choice of weapon, but then, he'd also not expected the man to drop from the air vents, though in hindsight, Wren could only call himself ten kinds of idiot for dismissing the notion.
Alright, so the things were cramped even for a skinny barve like Metesk and probably hotter than even the air in this chamber, but fek if they weren't perfect for getting the drop on a target. Like him.
Either the fumes, the heat and the exhaustion had taken a worse toll on him that he'd thought, or eight years of ARC training had finally circled the cosmic drain, leaving him no better than a ground-pounding grunt. Maybe it really was time for that blaster bolt to the head.
"Cliff-snails and voorpak-tails," Metesk said in a lisping sing-song voice. "What are little clone made of?"
Wren's lips peeled back in a snarl of disgust and anger. "You really are effing thermal," he told Metesk.
If the man heard him over the sound of rushing water and electronics being crushed to scrap, he gave no sign. Or maybe he was just so caught up in his own insanity that outside stimuli had ceased to register.
Either way, all Wren got as an answer to his taunt was an oddly high-pitched giggle that seemed totally out of place coming from the thin lips and hollow face before him.
With almost no perceivable shift in mood, Metesk lunged at him, the vibroblade poised for a quick and decisive strike.
There was no time for either precision or finesse - nor was he still capable of such a feat.
Wren simply let his left leg buckle, falling heavily onto his back and thrusting his own knife up and to the side.
Whatever military training Metesk had received in his youth, it was clear that the man was more of a long-range fighter. Instead of trying to divert the arc of his lunge once his target was no longer where it should have been, Metesk actually tried to reverse his actions.
His legs flailed, trying to regain their traction on the catwalk, but it was already too late. Metesk overshot Wren and the tip of Wren's blade sliced through Metesk's side, parting clothing and skin. Wren rolled to the side, as Metesk crashed onto the catwalk, screaming; the sound eerily like that of a wounded animal, rather than a Human being.
Gasping and wincing, trying to ignore the scream of his own broken body, Wren stumbled towards the writhing Metesk, letting himself fall heavily onto the lighter man, pinning him down with his greater weight.
Metesk's eyes went wide and wild and for a heartbeat, their gazes met. There was no reason in those sunken, bloodshot eyes; and no humanity.
He screeched and began to frantically flail at Wren, spittle flying from his blistered lips. "My blood...my blood...get away from my blood..."
"Just fekking die, already," Wren snarled and grabbed for the flailing arm still grasping the vibroblade.
He tried to break Metesk's wrist, but Wren was hampered by his own knife and the fact that he could not let go of his one remaining weapon. He got a half-hearted grip on Metesk's hand, just as Metesk landed a kick against Wren's broken arm.
Wren let out a scream of agony and jerked back, wrenching Metesk's hand violently enough in the process to loosen the man's inexperienced grip on the vibroblade. The vibroblade clattered to the catwalk, then slid over the edge to disappear into the waves of fracking water; unnoticed and unheard by the two combatants.
Wren, now almost straddling the still struggling Metesk, tried to slam his right shoulder into Metesk's skinny chest in the hope of stunning the man long enough for the killing stroke.
But his vision was grey at the edges and the rest was starting to double. Wren's shoulder hit the edge of Metesk's ribcage, glanced off, and he hit the catwalk elbow first. Sickening pain rocked through his body, distracting Wren long enough for Metesk to get an opening. The man jammed an elbow into Wren's neck.
Wren choked, rolling off of Metesk to get some necessary distance. The catwalk swayed beneath him and Wren hit the railing, feeling his body slide for a sickening moment beneath the railing itself.
He gasped and his fingers scrabbled along the catwalk, seeking purchase and almost causing him to black out completely as he inadvertently moved his broken arm and squeezed his equally broken ribs.
The catwalk swung wildly from side-to-side and felt the vibrations as lumbering steps made their way towards him. He willed his body to move, willed it to react as he'd been trained in countless simulations. Sluggishly, he pulled himself forward, away from the ledge...
A boot collided with his unprotected midriff.
Wren cried out as more ribs snapped, then gagged as bile rose in his throat, threatening to choke him.
He couldn't breathe, couldn't convince his chest to move with his lungs. Unconsciousness clawed at the edge of his mind. It would be so good to just give in to that blackness, to just let his body sink to the catwalk and let whatever would come happen...
With a snarl of sheer defiance and rage, Wren caught the boot that had been coming down on him for a second kick.
He twisted to look up into the thin, sunken face of Metesk.
No way. No fekking way was he going to surrender to the likes of this barve! He hadn't survived Geonosis, Atraken Jabiim, Qiilura - fek, he hadn't survived Fett - only for it to end like this.
"Let go," Metesk whined, trying frantically to jerk his foot out of Wren's grasp. "Let go. Let go, letgoletgoletgo..." The words dissolved into senseless babble, then a shriek as Wren twisted the boot to the side with what remained of his strength. There was resistance, then the foot pulled to the side and continued to do so until the toes were pointing squarely at the opposite leg.
The bloodcurdling scream Metesk gave as his ankle snapped drove spikes of pain into Wren's skull. Metesk fell back, tears falling from his face as he actually tried to crawl away from Wren.
He would have laughed at the sight if he'd had breath to do so.
Wren curled his still functioning arm around his chest and tried to get back on his feet. He coughed, the action driving more pain through his body and he tasted blood on his tongue; blood and the acrid chemical taste of whatever it was that was in the fracking water and which was starting to pollute the air about him. his head swam, his vision doubled, then tripled and his nasal passages burned. Whatever he was breathing in, it was killing him as surely as the heat and his wounds.
A clatter drew his attention and Wren looked up, though his head felt like it weighed as much as an effing larty.
Unbelievably, Metesk was standing upright, resting his weight easily on both feet, though the right foot continued to point in an unnatural direction.
"What the fek?"
He met those dark, sunken eyes and despite himself and the suffocating heart, he felt a chill course through his body, cooling the sweat that covered his skin.
There was still no humanity in those eyes, but instead of the wild, animalistic thing he'd glimpsed earlier, now all that was staring back at him was...coldness.
Ro had been right; it was the only way to describe the...the thing that was peering out at him through Metesk's eyes. Cold, calculating; devoid of any feeling, including weariness and pain.
"What-what the kriff...are you?" he wheezed in-between labored breaths.
Metesk - for it was still Metesk's body and Metesk's face peering down at him, though the intelligence behind those eyes was nothing like what he'd faced earlier - cocked his head to the side. "Rational," Metesk said and the chill in Wren's bones deepened.
The lisp had gone from Metesk's voice. It was still high-pitched, but the words came out with a precise pronunciation that lacked all accents and inflection. It was like hearing a droid covered in synthflesh talk.
"I am," Metesk continued, "everything you will never be."
Metesk reached behind him and brought out a blaster, leveling the muzzle at Wren's kneeling form. From another pocket, his other hand brought out what was unmistakably a detonator.
"It is time," Metesk said calmly, "to cleanse this place."
Unable to stand, unable to even to breathe properly, Wren could do nothing but watch as Metesk's thumb hovered over the detonator, then came down on a large, red button.
Underground, Eyat city, Gaftikar, Outer Rim, 21 BBY (27 days after the first bombing & 17 months after the Battle of Geonosis)
"The last one." There was unmistakable relief in Ton's voice and in the minute sag of his shoulders, before he straightened and turned his attention to the bomb attached to the outer casing of a tibanna gas line.
"Finally." Gam'Eem, the woman from the GFH added her own relieved sigh. The constant work and relentless pace had worn away most of her spite and attitude. Captain Kase couldn't say that he was sorry to see the exhaustion lines on the woman's face behind her breather mask. Exhaustion had a tendency to make people more docile and cooperative and such an attitude was preferable to her previous hostile manner. Still, that did not keep him from watching her carefully. As far as safety went, fatigue was almost as dangerous as right out rebellion and insubordination.
Ton was nodding along, as if in agreement with her statement, though the clone captain knew that wasn't the case.
When pushed past his limits, Ton reverted to a mental dialogue with himself; one that mostly consisted of his recitation of the regs concerning bomb disposal. He said it helped him focus when all he wanted was to drop into his rack.
Kase, who found it soothing to read through the regs late at night in his own bunk, could relate.
"Alright, give me the microspanner first," Ton said, holding his hand out to the woman, while the rest of the squad stood guard in a semi-circle about them.
"I know what to do," Gam'Een groused, but her retort lacked much of her previous heat. She did, however, slapped the microspanner into Ton's hand with more force than Kase calculated was actually necessary.
"Repetition makes perfect," Ton muttered as he went to work, separating the det caps from the cylinders containing the incendiary material.
"How much longer do you think, Captain, before we can go back up topside?"
Kase looked to see Sitral staring up at him, Kaber at his side. The younger of the two men was still mostly silent and sullen in the presence of the troopers, but like his female compatriot, the last hectic hours had worn away at him, reducing him to a silent shadow.
Civilians, Kase was coming to learn, did not have the stamina of clones, nor the reserve of nerves trained into the troopers.
"Average time to deactivate a bomb is fifteen to thirty minutes, when done properly and per regulation," Kase answered smoothly.
Kaber's scowl increased, though by now, Kase understood that the expression was not directed as his answers - which were accurate and to the point. No, the GFH member was annoyed at the fact that, despite having been on-duty for almost forty-eight hours now, Kase sounded nowhere as ragged as weary as the civilians. His stance, and that of his squad, was still tall, straight and alert, while Sitral, Gam'Een and Kaber were visibly sagging and steadily falling behind as they moved from one location to another.
Kase could have explained to Kaber that in physical terms, clones were simply superior to normal Humans, thanks to the genetic engineering done by Kaminoan cloners. The attributes Kaber found so offensive, were what the clones had been bred for specifically and did therefore not reflect on or relate to the abilities of the average Human. Kaber and other civilians were, after all, only the product of random reproduction and not careful selection, so naturally there would be some deficiencies.
But Kaber had reacted so negatively to all of Kase's other explanations and orders, that the captain restrained his impulse to enlighten the civilian. Counterproductive actions were not something a clone officer should encourage or cause among the ranks, even when those ranks included temporary civilian assignments.
"What happens when they're not done per regulation?" Sitral wanted to know. Astonishingly enough, the man had actually become less taciturn, the wearier he grew.
Kase tilted his head, considering how best to answer the question, but Ton was quicker. Being the expert on the matter, he would have an answer ready.
"Then it takes about three seconds, because that's how long it takes for the signal to run down from the det caps to the mechanism and everything after that doesn't matter."
There was a snort of laughter, barely restrained, over the squad's comm channel, though Kase could not tell what was so humorous in Ton's statement. It seemed only logical to him.
"That makes sense," Sitral said with a shrug.
Kaber crossed his arms over his chest and began to rock back and forth on his heels. "I don't care," he said. "I just want to get out of here and..."
"Shab!"
The expletive was as vehement as it was startling.
Kase turned around, caught the flash of red numbers ticking down on a previously blank chrono - 10...9...8...
"Captain!" Ton yelled, but Kase was already on the move, barking orders.
"Evacuate! NOW!"
The troopers moved in perfect synchronicity neither panicking nor missing a step.
Kase grabbed Sitral and pulled him along beside him, while Caul did the same for Kaber. Dron simply picked up Gam'Een and threw the protesting woman over his shoulder. As one, the squad and the three civilians raced away from the suddenly active bomb, running to put as much distance between themselves and it as possible. All except one.
Never breaking stride, Kase contacted Ton, opening a private channel with the trooper.
"Ton..."
"Keep running!"
Ton had discarded all pretense at finesse. With desperate strength he'd ripped the bomb from the moorings that had held it to the pipeline and was clutching the device to his chest, running in the opposite direction.
"I gotta get it away from the pipeline." Ton kept talking even as Kase's mental countdown kept creeping towards zero. "If this thing ignites the tibanna..."
Zero.
The explosion shook the tunnel.
Kase was thrown clean off of his feet. He managed to brace his fall with his hands, then instinctively covered his head with them as a massive ball of heat and flames roared towards and over them.
His HUD started blaring emergency warnings at him as the plastoid heated and the exposed folds of his bodyglove began to tighten and then melt...
Kase must have blacked out, because the next thing he was aware of was the total darkness of the tunnel and a piercing scream that went on and on and on.
"Call in," he barked over the squad's channel, his voice surprisingly hoarse.
"Fek." That was Kipper.
"Still alive and so's Kaber," came Caul reply.
"I think I broke something and I know I burnt something." Dron's sentence trailed off into a moan.
One by one, the squad checked in. They were all alive. All except Ton. Kase tried to reach the trooper over his personal frequency, but was greeted only with silence. Not even static, just silence.
The screaming continued and Kase turned his head just enough to see the woman, Gam'Een, curled up on her side, her open mouth a gaping wound in a face that had been blackened and scorched beyond recognition. Kipper was hovering over her, emptying the contents of his medkit and that of Dron's in an effort to alleviate the pain of her second degree burns. The third degree burns did not, as Kase knew, actually hurt. For pain to reach the brain, the nerves still had to be functioning.
Kaber was in better condition. He and Caul had been at the head of the group and Caul had actually thrown himself over the young man at the moment of the detonation.
Kase twisted his head again, this time to the side and felt the skin along his neck tearing and ripping.
Sitral lay face down on the tunnel floor. The clothes and skin along his back had been reduced to ash and the wound that had been left in their place was so charred, it did not even bleed. Wide eyes met Kase's sightlessly. The police officer was dead.
Kase swallowed, feeling his own body descend into pain as the adrenaline ebbed out of his system. He blinked and opened a different comm channel.
"Commander." He coughed and felt warm blood run down his neck, oddly cool in contrast to his burned skin. "Request immediate med evac. We have wounded."
Sitral's dead eyes never left Kase's.
The mine, Shenio Mining HQ, at the Senet River, thirty-two klicks outside of Eyat city, Gaftikar, Outer Rim, 21 BBY (27 days after the first bombing & 17 months after the Battle of Geonosis)
The muzzle of the blaster did not waver as it pointed straight at the spot between Wren's eyes.
"The world will be cleansed by fire. You will be cleansed by my own hand, as all sheep must fall to the predator."
Rage burned through Wren, heating his veins, making his head buzz with energy. But there was nowhere for that energy to go. His body was, at this point, too broken to get him to his feet, let alone launch another attack. The fact that he might die on his knees, made his lips peel back in a feral snarl.
"I'm not effing dead, yet, shik."
Metesk's new, cool voice answered him. "It is all a matter of time."
Wren's lips curled and the scar that stretched from the right corner of his mouth up to his cheek turned the gesture into a mocking, arrogant half-smile. "Damn karking right you are. Ro! Now!"
"Call for me."
Ro was crouched in one of the large vats attached to the conveyor belt used to transport ore up to the surface and the main processing area. She'd curled herself up into as small a ball as was humanly possible. Not because the bucket was so compact - the space inside was easily large enough to hold two people and three of Ro's diminutive size and slim built - but because by tucking her knees against her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, she could physically keep herself from running away.
She could not keep herself from trembling violently as the darkness pressed in around her, as physical a presence as the heat and the stench of her own sweat and the fracking chemicals. But she could restrain herself from running away from that same darkness like the scared child she felt like.
It was difficult to breathe.
She kept trying to inhale large gulps of air, but feared to do so in case she started sobbing.
It was dark, so terribly dark.
Her head had started pounding ferociously from the moment she'd extinguished her lightsaber and doubled back along the catwalk. It wasn't a long walk - even for the sake of keeping up appearances, Ro wouldn't have been able to manage anything more than a few meters in her present condition - but it felt like an eternity. She felt like a prisoner.
Her lightsaber was tucked away in a pocket of her ruined and formerly russet pants, because the temptation to ignite the saber and be bathed in that wonderful beam of warm light would have been too much to resist if the weapon had remained in her hand.
Breathe. Breathe. Keep it together, Ro. Just keep it together. This isn't so bad. Wren's doing the hard part. Focus on him.
The constant mental litany helped keep her somewhat sane and focused. The fear was there, as was the panic, niggling at the edges of her mind, threatening to engulf her.
She kept it at bay by keeping her eyes squeezed shut tightly - as nonsensical as it was, not being able to see the darkness helped - and by focusing on Wren.
Wren. Oh sweet desserts, he was in so much pain.
The Force around him screamed with pain and pulled at her with exhaustion; a sensation that was akin to filthy bathwater circling a drain. But against that, Wren had put up a durasteel wall of determination, defiance, aggression and sheer rage.
She concentrated on that sensation, grasping that imaginative wall with desperate mental fingers like a life-saving bulwark in a hangar bay venting atmo. It kept her tethered to the here and now.
"Call for me."
She'd made him a promise. That thought kept circling in her mind and she mouthed the words again and again as time dragged and the darkness in the vat continued to press down on her, trying to smother her with its weight.
Wren had been right. They were being hunted and there was no way they could prevail in a confrontation; they were too broken and worn down for that. But they could still fight; all they had to do was fight smart.
Leaving him behind had almost torn Ro apart. He'd looked so lonely on that catwalk, cussing her out and telling her to run, to leave him behind. To die. He didn't want to die, that much was obvious. But looking into his eyes - so fierce, so determined - she'd realized that he was ready to die. Except she wasn't ready to let him.
It was a desperate plan that had come to her in those brief seconds and if anything went wrong...
There were screams. Screams of pain and of rage pierced the darkness and Ro shivered as the Force screamed along with the two combatants. She wanted to jump up and run to him, wanted to take away his pain, to help him. But did she want to break cover to join in his fight against Metesk? Or because she wanted to be out of and away from the darkness of this place?
She couldn't tell and because she couldn't distinguish between the two, she had to wait for the signal.
"Call for me."
She had to trust his judgement, had to trust that he knew when it was time to call for backup. Had to trust that he'd understood the words she'd hastily whispered to him as she'd touched his forehead with hers in feigned goodbye. Did he know her well-enough that she'd never leave him behind? Did he care enough?
"Ro! Now!"
Wren's voice boomed through the chamber, echoing off of the walls and ringing in Ro's ears.
Her eyes snapped open and with a cry that was as much relief as physical pain, she sprang to her feet, the lip of the vat barely coming up to chest.
Wren had set the scene beautifully.
In the second she had to assess the scene before her, Ro saw Metesk halfway turning towards her in an instinctive reaction to the trooper's shout. The working glowrods in that section of the chamber backlit Metesk, outlining his body clearly for Ro. She saw his eyes widen, felt coldness rush over her, along with his own assessment of her.
Then she saw the blaster in his hand and the detonator in the other and the last of the choices that had been weighing on her was made.
The blaster's muzzle was still pointed at Wren, who knelt helplessly in front of Metesk; his thumb already rested on the button of the detonator.
She'd wanted to take him alive. Ro always wanted to take her rats alive. But those cold, sunken eyes told her that if she gave him half a chance, Wren would be dead and perhaps the rest of Eyat as well.
The knife was already in her hand.
She didn't think; didn't let herself think. The Force coursed through and around Ro, the barest ghostly touch of invisible feathers coasting over her skin, guiding the hand with the knife in it.
A flick of the wrist and the songsteel blade flew through the air.
There was a wet gurgling sound and Metesk's body convulsed once, hard. The blaster kicked back and fired a shot as Metesk's finger stiffened.
Wren felt the heated plasma pass by his ear, smelt the burned ozone and signed hairs. Then Metesk collapsed, his back hitting the catwalk with a hollow thump, a thin songsteel blade gleaming wickedly as it protruded from his neck.
Slowly, keeping a tight grip on the handrail, Wren pulled himself towards Metesk, more or less inching forward on his knees.
The blade's keen edge had cut clean through Metesk's jugular. Blood flowed in a steady stream out of the wound, pooling around the man's body and slowly dripping past the edge of the catwalk and into the swirling mass of fracking water beneath. The barve would be dead in seconds; even as Wren watched Metesk's dark eyes grew glassy.
"Better than you effing deserve, shik," he told Metesk. "I would have made you kriffing suffer."
A form dropped heavily next to him and Wren looked up to see Ro, grey faced with exhaustion, lean over Metesk. He hadn't even heard her come down the catwalk.
He was too tired to comment on her accuracy with a throwing knife, too tired to point out that she looked like hell with a topping of crap. And he thought she was probably too tired to listen.
Ignoring the fact that blood was soaking into her pants, Ro took the hand that was feebly moving towards the knife stuck in his throat, stopping Metesk from whatever futile attempt he was making.
That he was not too far gone to comment on. "Cheeka, what the fek?"
"Hush." Her voice should have been far too quiet to hear over the rushing water. Those teal eyes were fixed on Metesk's face and there was no laughter in them, no triumph at her kill, nor even satisfaction. Her eyes were sad and far older than they had a right to be.
Jedi, he thought and shivered, holding his peace as the Jedi did whatever she felt was necessary.
Ro took the bleeding hand into her own broken one and leaned forward, until she gaze down into Metesk's eyes.
They were turning vacant and glassy, his life bleeding out of him and soaking into her clothes, but there was still a spark left; just a touch of a continued consciousness. It was the coldness that stared back up at Ro and she would not have it.
She had killed this man and she'd make sure that he would die as a man and not a monster. Whether he wanted to or not.
Using strength she probably could not afford to use, Ro reached towards Metesk's presence. The contact was tenuous, no more than a single thread of a spider's web, already stretched to its limit and fading into the Force, but the physical contact helped.
She brushed invisible fingers against that ephemeral thread and the sound that resonated through the Force was thin, weepy - and so very frightened.
Eod, she called silently.
The presence retreated, trying to hide behind the wall of coldness. And the coldness surged at her, non-existent claws unsheathed to tear at her presence in the Force. Ro did not retreat from the attack. Instead, she answered with a volley of her own, made up of compassion, warmth, understanding. She had been right. Metesk's mind had been shattered into two by the war on his homeplanet. To survive, he'd created a second personality for himself, a thing that was all logic and possessed none of the fear and doubt and anguish that the whimpering thing she sensed at the back of his mind was made of. Perhaps he'd been a sociopath from birth, but Melida/Daan had forced him to divorce that part of himself into its own deadly creature.
The Rational - she could sense its name now, suspended as they were in this place that was in-between places - howled under her onslaught and tried to withdraw, to regroup. Ro wouldn't let it. She imagined a spear made out of all the good things in life - love, courage, joy, friendship - and hurled it at The Rational's retreating back.
It shattered and she was free to surge forwards, towards the quickly retreating presence that was Eod Metesk. The sense she had of him was already blurring around the edges as he bled back into the Force in an eerie parody of his physical self bleeding out on the catwalk. Ro rushed after that fading presence, stretching herself to the limit in the process. She raced, reached out...And contact!
The Rational died.
It was like a permaglass window shattering in his mind, shards flying everywhere and he was left defenseless. Defenseless and alone in a darkness that appeared to stretch endlessly to all sides, filling space until even air was pushed away and he was left flailing, gasping, struggling...And all for nothing.
He could feel himself falling; could not tell if he was falling up or down. He was simply...falling. And there was darkness everywhere.
Warmth brushed against him and distant memories flashed up in the darkness, spurts of color at the edges of his vision. He was falling too fast to make out the images, but he could see fragments.
Lips that quirked up as kind eyes regarded him patiently...
A blanket that lay neatly folded on his rickety bed...
A stuffed animal of no particular design, with a ripped seam and stuffing flowing out of it...
The warmth receded, left behind as he continued to fall; faster, faster, faster. Then there was light and darkness and nothing.
Ro gasped, the sound in eerie synchronicity with the wet gurgling coming from Metesk as the man breathed his last.
Almost imperceptibly, the Force brightened as his essence merged with its vastness, then dimmed. The Force mourned any life lost, no matter how that life had been spent.
Ro bowed her head and felt tears come to her eyes, slipping down her cheeks and washing away some of the blood and dirt encrusted on her skin. Her hands and legs were bloody as well, awash with Metesk's blood.
Strong fingers grasped her chin and she was forced to look up, into Wren's contemplative face. He scowled, then shook his head. "Jedi," he scoffed, as if that explained everything. "He's effing dead, cheeka. Nothing to kriffing cry about that."
"I'm not..." She shook her head and wiped at her eyes. "I'm crying for what he might have been. It didn't have to come so far."
Wren raised an eyebrow, the gesture almost lost beneath his own layering of filth. "Sure. Someone put a blaster bolt through this chuff-suckers head on Melida/Daan and we wouldn't be in this fekking mess."
That hadn't been what she'd meant, but Ro didn't think she was in the right state of mind to explain it to him.
She carefully laid the hand she'd been holding on Metesk's chest and closed his staring eyes.
Wren, still watching her with that contemplative and slightly wary look, reached over and pulled the songsteel blade out of Metesk's throat. Flipping the blade over, he offered it to her, hilt first. "You are handy to have around."
She took the proffered hilt silently, studied the bloody blade for a moment, then tossed it over the railing. She didn't want to carry it anymore and maybe after some rest, a hot shower and a meal, she could explain that to Eda in a way that wouldn't make her adoptive mother try to excoriate her for wasting a perfectly good throwing knife.
Wren had watched the blade sail over the catwalk's railing. Perhaps at another time, he would have been surprised at her action, but all he did now was shake his head and mutter, "You're barvy."
"Still saved your canned keister," she retorted and a fain smile graced her lips at his snort of contempt.
"My canned anything isn't effing saved until we get the fek out of here," he pointed out. Then, more subdued, he added, "Any ideas?"
Ro looked about her, grateful for the distraction. This was not the first time she'd killed and she was afraid it wouldn't be the last, but she never felt quite right after taking a life. It wasn't just the blood on her hands - proverbial and literal - that left her shaking for days afterwards. It was that sense of fading as a person's life ebbed out of them and they became one with the Force, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell and a sort of vacuum in her mind.
She snuck a glance at Wren. If the trooper was at all perturbed by the fact that his armor was stained with the blood of anther sentient being, he gave no sign of it. In fact, aside from the pain and the exhaustion that dominated his Force-aura at the moment, he was surprisingly calm to her. And...Was that just a touch of disappointment?
He wanted to go out in a fight, she realized. Maybe not this fight, but he was willing to take the chance.
Ro felt fresh tears sting her eyes. Oh, Cookie. There was nothing he was holding on to in this life, but his rage; she understood that now. No trust, no faith, no comrades. And though he fed on that internal anger - she'd felt him do just that over the past few days - he wasn't willing to consist on it forever. All he wanted was to go out on his terms.
She wanted to take his hand in her own and tell him that there was more for him out there than his anger. In fact, her hand - blood-stained as it was - was already lifting towards his.
"What we need is a damn larty to fekking lift us out," he said and coughed; deep, hacking coughs that left him shaking and sweating.
The inspiration struck her in a flash so intense, it was like being struck by lightning.
"Lift us out. Cookie, that's it!"
He looked at her in confusion. "What's fekking what?"
"Lift us out," she repeated and pointed towards the lines of conveyor belts, each equipped with hundreds of over-sized vats. They all lead upwards, into a vertical shaft the width of a gunship and no doubt terminating in the main processing plant they'd come through at the start of this mission. She could have slapped herself for not seeing it earlier, because she'd used the thing as a hiding place for her ambush!
One of the conveyor belts ran right past the catwalk, halted, so that one its vats was hovering next to the catwalk's handrail. And like its mates, this conveyor belt ran up.
Recognition dawned in his eyes as he followed the line of conveyor belts upwards. "Fek," he breathed. Then his cynicism reasserted itself and he shook his head, pointing one finger downwards. "Ro, the karking controls are down there. And unless Jedi can take an acid bath..." He raised an eyebrow and didn't need to continue.
But Ro wasn't about to give up. Those ghostly feathers had started their dance across her skin again and she drank in the contact and with it, a fresh push of energy. This felt right.
"Why build a catwalk up in the air?" she asked as she tugged on his forearm, - the one he hadn't broken - urging him to his feet. "To fix things, that's why." She answered her own question as she beside Wren, offering herself as his crutch once more as he tried to rise to his feet.
He glared at her - despite everything, he was still unhappy about needing her assistance - but put his right arm over her shoulders.
She couldn't take his weight like she'd done before. The walk through the mine, the fight with the spider droids and Metesk, had taken almost everything out of her. She was dizzy from whatever it was that was in the fracking water and her connected to the Force sizzled in and out like a bad comm connection. But it was no more than two meters to the conveyor belt. They could manage two meters. After all, it wasn't like they had a choice.
Wren fell in a controlled collapse, trying to suppress his disgust at his own weakened state. Ro fell into a gasping heap at his side. Running next to the catwalk, the lip of the vat almost touching the top of the catwalk's handrail, was the thick line of the conveyor belt, reaching up in a straight vertical line; up into another shaft and towards safety.
His vision was continuing to grey out and shapes were becoming indistinct. The air in the chamber was now barely breathable and at this point, it was anyone's guess whether or not they died of oxygen deprivation or poisoning.
The catwalk had been built to grant easy access to the conveyor belt for maintenance checks and repairs and all Wren and Ro had to do was swing a leg over the handrail and let themselves slide into the vat Ro had used as cover for her ambush.
Trouble was, they were both so oxygen starved at this point, they could barely keep their eyes open, let alone force their bodies into an upright position.
Drowsiness was setting in and Wren could feel a tingling in his fingers and toes as oxygen deprived blood failed to provide his limbs with what was needed. Salvation was in reach and he couldn't barely bring himself to raise his head and look at it.
And from the way she was huddled next to him on the catwalk, Ro was in no better condition than he was.
"Should have...killed...that bitch...when I...first kriffing...saw her," he gasped.
Glassy eyed, Ro regarded him. "What….What are you...talkin' 'bout?"
"Lucara," Wren growled. "Should have just….effing...choked her." He was fighting his body's attempt to hyperventilate in a futile effort to pull more oxygen into his lungs. "Like we're….doing."
She was staring at him, blinking rapidly, a furrow appearing between her brows. "Choked?" she repeated. "Choke."
He regarded her with a mixture of annoyance and agitation. Fek, either he was hallucinating or even in her final moment the little nuisance couldn't make a mite of karking sense.
"Brain...finally sizzle out?" Fierfek, he was too far gone to even get off a good insult.
"Just...I think….Maybe." Her eyes roved restlessly over their surroundings, never focusing on anything in particular. "Maybe...got a think...here. But," she closed her eyes and pressed the heels of her palms against her temples, like she was trying to squeeze the answer out. "I just need…..need to think….clearly."
"Like that's...ever going to….kriffing happen." There. Now that was an insult he'd be happy to die with on his lips.
Her eyes flew open and she stared at him, gaping like a gooberfish on dry land. "I-I got it...I think...Maybe….Hold on!"
Her hands flew over the various pockets of her pants with frenetic energy that tired him just by looking at it. Her mouth kept working as she searched, like she was talking to herself, but if she was, Wren couldn't hear her past the rushing in his ears.
Ro gave a wordlessly cry and jerked her hand back from where it had delved into a pouch at her utility belt.
Wren saw drops of blood falling from her fingertips before the hand delved back into the pouch and came up with a clear little jar. The thick permaglass had cracked into two, but Ro didn't seem to care.
Carefully, she scraped up the jar's contents - which was a thick green paste, so dark it was almost black - and dumped the mess onto the catwalk between them, then took out the comlink Gaff had given her and her lightsaber.
Wren watched, stunned and numb, as she dismantled her one remaining lightsaber in short order, extracting the power field conductor and holding it to the comlink's power cell.
There was a crackle, then a spark, then several sparks as she brought the two components together again and again. One of the sparks landed on the pile of goo.
There was a tiny flame, there and gone almost before Wren could blink as something in the goo ignited and then...Air! A fresh puff of oxygen wafted towards him and he leaned forward, inhaling as greedily as a starving man at a buffet. Something brushed against his skin and he looked up to see Ro leaning towards the little pile of goo as well, breathing in as deeply as he was, her tangled bangs brushing against his forehead.
"How?" was all he could think to ask.
She gave him a weary smile, that nonetheless contained a glint of impish delight at having been able to stun him. "Beryllron," she replied. "Among other carious dingus it's made out of grassgrains, which is nifty in increasing oxygen levels in blood...Aaand someday I'll give you the whole shebanging skinny on herbal healing."
"Sounds fascinating."
She lit another layer of the Beryllron goo as Wren watched her. The fresh wave of oxygen revived him somewhat, clearing his head, though perhaps not fast enough, because he heard himself say, "Asher would have loved you."
Ro met his eyes, startled. "Who?"
Wren shook his head and looked away, watching her brow furrow in thought from the corner of his eyes.
"Is he...someone I met before?" she asked hesitantly. "Back at the base?"
"No." The answer came more sharply than he intended and he mentally winced. Why the fek had he brought Asher up, at this moment in time? He hadn't spoken to anyone about his brother in...Frag, years.
He looked back at Ro, saw the open curiosity on her face and felt memory stir. Asher'd often had that same look plastered on his face. To his brother, the world had been a constant puzzle, a mystery he was determined to solve, no matter what. It had led him down some strange paths and like the little nuisance before him now, odd tidbits of knowledge would always pop out of Asher's mouth at the most opportune moments.
"Maybe that's why," he murmured to himself. "Maybe it's time someone knew." Because Asher really would have loved Ro, Wren was sure of that. And maybe that made her worthy of knowing his brother's name. "Asher," he explained in a slightly louder voice, "was my brother. He...died back on Kamino, when we were three."
Ro's face fell and she lightly touched his arm. "I'm sorry, Wren."
He looked down at her hand, then shrugged, breaking the contact as he did so. "It was an effing long time ago."
"But that doesn't make it hurt any less."
He couldn't deny that and the fact that he couldn't was making him deeply uncomfortable. He jerked his chin towards the conveyor belt. "So any karking bright ideas about getting that kriffing thing working, cheeka?"
"No," she admitted, crestfallen and a little embarrassed.
"Well, good thing then that I effing do."
It took him longer than he'd cared to admit, but he finally did find the control panel.
Ro had been right, why build a catwalk if not to reach and repair equipment that was otherwise hard to get at? The conveyor belt was no exception. While the main controls had been located at the bottom of the chamber, secondary power couplings had been located up here, as a backup, should the primary system fail. In this, at least, Shenio hadn't skimmed on the safety regs.
"You know what you're doing?" Ro asked and started coughing, sounding like she was trying to hack her lungs up. Her little trick with the Beryllron hadn't lasted long and they were both back to breathing in tainted, hot air that scorched their nasal passages and mouths. Already, Wren could feel little blood blisters forming on his soft palate.
"Yeah, I kriffing do." Getting the panel off was a pain. He couldn't grip it with both hands and he didn't have any tools to work with. Ro hunkered down on the side opposite him and without needing to ask, she started pulling with him. The panel gave way with a wrench, nearly sending Ro sprawling on her ass. The sight struck him as unaccountably funny and Wren had to bite his tongue until it bled to keep from laughing hysterically. This was not a good time to lose it.
"Alright, we need to kick-start the power cells," he observed, peering into the mess of wiring. "Give me your lightsaber."
"Why?" Ro clutched the saber to her chest. She'd carefully reassembled the thing again after her meager supply of Beryllron had been burned away.
"So that we can get the fek out of here," he snapped back, his mood instantly shifting. That wasn't a good sign either. He'd always had a volatile temper, but moving from near-hysterical amusement to rage in the blink of an eye was a bit extreme even for him. Another effect of the chemicals?
She hesitated, then handed over the saber. "Please be careful," she said. "It means a lot to me."
The hilt was wrapped in dark leather, worn smooth by usage. He ran his thumb over the tiny carving of a bird in flight, before he methodically took the saber apart, handing each piece he discarded to Ro. When he had the pieces he needed, he extracted the empty tibanna gas cartridge from his Deece, along with the magnetic accelerating barrel.
"What are you doing?" Ro watched him put the pieces together in wide-eyed fascination.
"Building a power converter," he explained. "It's something..." He hesitated. "It's something Asher came up with."
The end result looked like a bad marriage between a power cell and something he'd fished out of a garbage compactor, but Wren knew it would do the trick. If nothing else, Wren believed in Asher's inventions.
"Get into the vat," he ordered Ro. "Once this thing gets rolling, there's no stopping."
She complied, sliding ungracefully into the same vat she'd hidden in earlier. Wren waited until she was in, then set his improvised converter against the couplings' own power cells. "This had better effing work, Asher," he muttered. He twisted two wires together, completing the circuit...
Arcs of electricity shot out of the power cell, burning his fingers before he had a chance to pull them away. He cursed and tried to scrabble out of the way, only to remember that he had to go towards the fekked up power cell in order to climb into the vat.
He lurched forward, grasping the lip of the vat and trying to jam his boot in-between the handrail for better purchase, just as there was a tired ka-runch and the conveyor belt began to move upwards with a jerk, nearly dislodging Wren's one-handed grip.
Small hands grasped his bodyglove and began to haul him up.
Wren, fighting a renewed fainting spell, ignored the howl of protest from his broken ribs and leg and pushed himself off of the handrail, vaulting into the vat and letting gravity take over.
He fell over the lip, landing hard on Ro in the process, who cried out, then starting laughing like the lunatic she was.
"No-not this a-again," she sputtered out in-between peals of laughter. "We-we really gotta-gotta stop doing this."
He rolled off of her, gasping for breath and trying not to black out from the pain in his chest and the sudden onset of vertigo. "You're. Effing. Barvy."
"And you're a genius." She rolled onto her left side, sparing her wrenched right shoulder and looked at him fondly. "You saved us, Cookie. You and Asher."
He shut his eyes as the drone of the conveyor belt filled his ears and simply fell back against the rough interior of the vat, letting himself be carried up, towards the light, fresh air and far away from the darkness of the mine. "You did your part, cheeka," he conceded graciously.
