The Jedi Purge

Chapter Four

Flight of the Mendez

The muzzel of the gun seemed big enough swallow him up completely - a long dark tunnel to nowhere.

Chainy's breath caught behind his ribs. Before he could do anything the gun disappeared, and the man holding it stood up.

"Welcome back." Petri greeted him.

"Wouldn't you rather be waving this round?" Chainy replied, taking Petri's Hawkeye from his jacket pocket.

"How was she?" the bounty hunter asked.

"Who?"

"Your old friend."

"Okay. She's still a great business woman."

"I bet." Petri accepted the blaster with gratitude. He spun the familiar wieght in his hand, then holstered it like a fast draw artist.

"Did you get the money?"

Chainy dropped two large bundles of money on a small table. "One of them belongs to Mos."

"Good. I'll wake him."

"What?"

"It's good to have you back. We were going to start tralling the river if you didn't show up by dawn." Petri slipped past Chainy and opened the door. As he crossed the threshold he turned back. "Oh, don't go to bed. We're going to talk to the guy Karo-Than recommended."

"Now?"

"No time like the present."

"But I haven't slept. You haven't slept."

"We'll let Kelly handle the talking. We'll stay in the background."

"You trust Kelly?" Petri paused, his back turned. Chainy tried a different tack. "Has Kelly slept?"

"He's meditated. Jedi don't need sleep." Petri closed the door with his heal.

*

The exit doors had been left open, leaving a portal into a grim new day.

Sunlight flooded the chamber like a morning tide filling an ocean bay. The starship brooded under a shaft of light which looked like a pillar carved from the dawn itself. Gathered under it was enough darknes to fill the entire hanger, as though the shadows themselves were seeking asylum from the sun's invasion.

Kelly, with his superb senses, lead the way; but only after Mos had done what he could with his technology.

The door yeilded to the jawa's attentions. It's only warning to those it should have gaurded was a whisper of servos as it glided into the wall.

Kelly paused. "Is Mendez the name of the ship or the owner?"

"Ship."

"Willing sell?"

"No. He needs the money."

"We've got sixteen thousand. How much are we going to offer?"

"No more than fifteen thousand. We'll need bribe money."

Behind the Jedi and the bounty hunter Mos stirred. He spoke a single, soft word. "Movement."

"Where?" demanded Petri.

"Inside." whispered the Jawa, indicating the ship.

"We're supposed to be buying his ship, not murdering him in his bed." Kelly reminded them in a normal speaking voice. "I think we can stop sneeking around."

"The man has money troubles. I doubt fifteen thousand runs to covering all of it. The bounty on our heads might though. 'Sides, not everyone's wild at the idea of losing their ship."

Mos spoke up from besides him. "Trouble. Someone just charged the firing capacitors on a blaster."

Petri faded to the left, but not before Kelly heard the safety catch on his Hawkeye snap. Chainy swore. He pulled his blaster free too slowly and with too much force.

Kelly felt, rather than heard, Mos manoeuvring his support platform. He knew the Jawa was using him for cover, but didn't mind.

In his hand was the hard, reassuring surface of his weapon. Kelly drew the lethal wieght free of the strap holding it against his belly. The folds of his robe covered it like the veil of a mourner.

"It's been fired." Mos reported. Outside the ship they heard nothing.

"Think he offed himself?" wondered Chainy.

The outer airlock door unlatched itself at gunshot volume, it's servo moters twisting it out of sight. Two men; one evil looking, the other merely dangerous, walked out into the landing bay.

They were professionals. Cheep, but professional. Kelly could tell by the way they realised they had company.

No words passed between the two. The tall one, Dangerous, backed away to his left. The slim one, Evil, hunched over. His hands were already in his coat, now the fabric moved like something was unfolding it's self inside.

"You want something?" Yelled Dangerous, his voice bouncing off the walls of the hanger bay.

Kelly considered the question. He also admired their strategy. The pair worked well as a team. Dangerous, who made the easier target, was already worked into the landing geer. Evil, who seemed to be offering himself as a decoy, was ready to disappear back to the airlock behind a cloud of heavy weapons fire.

"I mean you no harm." He told them.

"Good. What do you want?" Evil returned.

"We came to see a ship. We might be buying."

Evil looked back to his friend. His eyes swiftly came back to stare at Kelly. "Captain isn't seeing anyone just now. Asking price is eighteen thousand."

Kelly digested the man's response. Silence spread between the speakers, a tightrope with a fire fight on either side.

"Would you mind if we took a look at what we came to buy? The outside at least."

Evil's eyes narrowed. Kelly could see the man playing out the choices, taking as much time as he could afford to make his decision.

"Go ahead. You'll want to start at the far end." he said, nodding at the nose of the ship.

Kelly looked to his friends. Petri nodded, uncertainly. Together the four fugitives made way for the hoodlums. Evil threw a look back at Dangerous. He began to walk towards the exit and Kelly knew immediately that when Evil reached the doorway he would turn and wait for Dangerous.

Kelly watched and waited. He saw Evil shoulder his weapon, an assult rifle able to turn someone's head to pulp and bone shrapnel. Then with a chilling, lipless smile Evil took aim; the rifle's barrel a perfect line pointing to Kelly's face.

Dangerous left his makeshift fox-hole under the ship. He walked the concrete floor of the hanger, a featureless grey span between him and safety.

Hanging in the man's hand, the bulk of a heavy blaster pistol swung back and forth like a corpse on the gallows.

And then they were gone.

Before Dangerous had to cross Evil's line of fire, he turned and levelled the heavy blaster at Kelly. It was surprising how big the weapon looked, even in the hands of a man this size. Behind him, Evil lowered his blaster rifle and folded his coat over it. Dangerous stepped backwards through the door, and the space he left was filled by silence.

For a minute nothing moved, as though the world was holding it's breath and wasn't quite ready to let go.

Slowly Kelly looked down at his feet.

This was how it went sometimes. You could be ready, but that was no guarantee that violance would erupt. When it didn't you were left with the knowledge that the edge of violance was as draining as bloodshed itself... and your life.

Like the Messiah of mechanics everywhere, the tiny Jawa sat cross legged on his platform. Freed from the fear for his own hide, which was Mos's other great love in life, he closed in on the engines.

There were two aft thrusters, each with a mouth a meter and half wide. They loomed over a sloping square of metal set in the stern of the ship, the cargo loading door.

Smiling, Mos stared into the belly of the sub-light thruster. By looking through the tail of the drive he could see the compression field generators, lining the gut of the engine.

There was no gaping mouth for the thrusters, because in space there was no air. There were no compression fans, because the engine ran on plasma, and no metal could survive the merciless touch of star fire.

A slight sound caught Mos's ear. He lifted his head. He could see nothing moving across the ship, but his eyes locked onto another pair of thrusters.

Four thrusters. Each a hundred and fifty centimeters wide. That put the ship's sub-light acceleration well over the legal limits. Mos rose higher still, taking in the whole ship from above. They were probably registerd as auxiliaries, or their potential was understated.

The sub-light drive was based on action and re-action. At close to the speed of light, even a neutron could push the ship through space like it had been kicked. The same thrusters provided the power for hyperspace jumps. Quarks were smashed into energy, to fuel the subspace field that carried the ship through hyperspace.

Mos smiled. Tending the engines on this ship would be a pleasure. There was a dull, metalic sound from the center of the ship's hull. Looking up, Mos saw a tiny circle of sterile white light appear. It began to grow large, and Mos realised he was seeing an airlock iris door open.

His heart fluttering wildly, Mos gunned the repulsor lift on his support platform. The platform droid soared through the open bay doors, taking him into safety of the open sky.

Below, he could see a man. An old, angary man, clutching a blaster rifle close to his chest. Mos stared down at him, a detached observer.

They had been ready to fight only moments ago, and the violance had stood them up. Now it seemed the same spectre was going to drop in unannounced.

The first blast lanced through the air like a spear hurled by an angary god. Kelly's eyes widened. It was all he had time to do before the sniper levelled his blaster rifle - and fired.

But Kelly was a Jedi, and his reflexes were faster than thought itself. His right leg kicked against the floor, his left picked up as though it had been burnt.

As he dived left the blaster muzzle flashed. Kelly saw the holographic lance light up the air like tracer fire; he knew he wasn't going to escape unscathed.

The young Jedi twisted away from the searing energy. He felt agony flare in his shoulder and then the concrete surface of the landing bay met his back. He planted his hands on the gritty concrete surface and threw his legs overhead. All it took was a push to flip him base over tip.

Kelly's planted his feet and righted himself. He could still feel the grime from the floor on his hands, was shocked by the touch of metal against his palm.

Kelly marvelled at how independent his skills were of each other, even as he drew his lightsaber.

The sniper's blaster rifle flared again, naked energy crashed against concrete; the very place Kelly had lain a heartbeat ago. The weapon's wieght made it clumsy against someone as nimble as a Jedi.

A plume of sparks lit up the gunman as Petri opened up with his Hawkeye. His shots thundered into the side of the ship, but the hull eclipsed the assassin's position.

Kelly threw himself into a shoulder roll towards the ship, a blaster bolt darting over his back.

The bolt drew a perfect line of death from the stock of the rifle, through the air where a slower man would have been, to the ground behind that. It shattered the ground with an explosive shock Chainy could hear through his ribs. The pilot swore through his teeth and turned his back on the fight.

Kelly was closer to the man who was trying to kill him, but the edge of the hull protected him the same way it prevented Petri from getting a clear shot.

Chainy finished pulling himself up onto the forward thruster. Turning, he jumped from the support pylon onto the dorsal hull itself.

He was twenty four meters behind the sniper.

The sniper tried to angle his rifle downward. When it pointed straight down, he realised the overhang above the cargo doors was going to block his aim. He stood up, looking for another target.

Chainy drew his blaster and pulled back the safety. He stood up and planted his feet firmly on the ship. The blaster pistol wavered as he aimed it at the sniper and thought:

No. Not in his back.

Chainy gathered breath to yell.

When the sniper stood, Petri was granted a look at the man's head and shoulders. He caught his breath and aimed.

Chainy yelled. To his horror the order sounded like a near hysterical shriek.

"Drop the..." The sniper turned. The underside of Mos's repulsor platform blocked his view, seeming biger than the whole docking bay.

Something like a wind, the repuslor field, pressed against his face. As the huge metal dish rushed towards him, he tried to back away.

"...blaster!"

His foot found only air to support it.

Petri's target dropped away. Swiftly, the bounty hunter lowered his gun.

Chainy discovered he was pointing a deadly weapon at his engineer. Very tenderly he allowed the blasters wieght to drag it down, out of harm's way.

Kelly's lightsaber blazed when he sensed motion. There was blur of moving flesh, cut off by a crack that set Kelly's teeth on edge. The lightsaber's sapphire glare highlighted the young man's face, in the shaddows under the ship.

Carefully, holding his weapon as though it were a spear set against a charging animal, he moved forward until he stood over the body of the man who had tried to kill him.

His would-be killer's face was pale. His skin flacid with age and shiny with a thin coat of sweat. Blood had begun to spread behind the man's head.

There was no sign of life.

Kelly let the lightsaber's blade collapse back along it's length. His eyes ran along the body, finishing their journey on a charred and twisted ruin of a foot.

Abruptly Kelly noticed the smell of burnt fat and carbon. The wound was recent enough for the blood to remain fluid. Kelly's eyes returned to the sniper's face. The course of things were clear, now.

Petri leaped from the protection of the starship's hull, his Hawkeye blaster at his side.

Kelly started, almost guiltily. He was kneeling beside the body of the assassin, one hand outstreached to touch the man's face. When he recovered, he pressed two fingers to the fallen man's face.

Petri watched as the jedi seemed to retreat within himself, leaving the material world behind. Within a moment the bounty hunter realised he had lost the power to turn away, or even blink. He was entranced, hypnotised.

There was a quiet sound of metal touching metal. Coming back to himself; Petri traced the sound to his blaster, which he had lowered unconsciously.

Kelly withdrew his hand. The man before him inhaled deeply, and reminded Kelly himself to breath.

"What's going on?" Chainy called. His voice was strained; unexpectedly it came from dorsal hull of the ship.

"It's the Captain of the ship." Kelly replied. His voice was peaceful, no louder than a normal speaking tone. Surprisingly, it was perfectly adequate.

"He must have thought we were with the "debt collectors". I don't blame him for taking shots at us. They've used a slow beam on his foot."

Above him, Chainy grimaced.

*

"Captain" was too grand a way to describe Vath Onisca. He was a space tramp, pure and simple. The portmasters he delt with sneered at him. The women who spent time with him loved only his money, which most of them needed desperately.

Vath said that gambling had been kind to him. If so, it had been leading him on, like a cruel woman toying with a lonely man. His ship, the Mendez, was a trophy from a thirty hour card game. So were the debts that had cost him a foot.

Now he lay in a sleeping niche, lit up like chilled food in a supermarket.

Vath's sickbed was a mattress, fixed over a row of lockers. There was just enough space for an average man to sit up on the bed, without knocking his skull against a similar set of lockers overhead. Kelly waited by his side, watching over the computer doctor in one of the upper lockers, and an automated surgeon in the one next to that. Between them they tended to Vath's injuries at least as well as a human nurse could have done.

Slumped in the corner like a caged predator, Petri ran his hands over the buff chrome plating of the sniper rifle. As he looked up Chainy stepped into the confined room.

"Well, I guess you've all seen the outside." Chainy said.

They had.

The ship was cylinder based; it was about six meters high, not counting landing gear. The nose was rounded and blunt, like something powerful and bludgeoning that only remembered how to cut and slide through the air.

A transparent steel canopy gave the thing a short sighted, mole like, stare. The sides of the canopy gave the pilot a wide enough view to see his forward thrusters.

Their support pylons were rooted to the fuselage, just behind where the hull began it's noseward curve. The engines themselves were held three meters away from the side of the ship. Only their torpedo like noses set them apart from the jet engines of truly crude, cheep air vehicles.

From nose tip to tail thruster, the ship was twenty eight meters long.

The tail thrusters, between which Captain Onisca had crouched with his rifle, were part of the ship's duck tail. Three meters before the end of the ship, the lower hull stopped. The cargo loading doors were thick, armoured, hull plating. They formed the stern of the ship, rising up and out a further three meters. Above either top corner of the door was a thruster engine.

Petri set the blaster rifle against the wall he had been leaning on. His eyes cornered Kelly, almost daring him to turn his back on the patient.

"What's the verdict?" Kelly spoke up.

"It needs maintenance. I'd say it has done for about five years."

"Is it as bad as it looks?"

"Well, I haven't heard form Mos yet, about the engines. Off hand though, I'd say our best chance is to just sneak past them."

"Weapons?" inquired Petri.

A brief pause hung between the men, spanning the distance like a spider's web.

"There are no weapons. There's a tracking system. Some gunnery controls and a cannon mounting. I guess he sold the power cell and the gun."

Petri gave Kelly a level stare. "And this is the hulk you think we should get out on?"

Chainy looked up at him. "I'm sure Mos can come up with something. He can rig up an overdrive on the engines, up their output or something..."

"Wouldn't the Imperial sensors pick up on that?"

"Not if we arrange some interference."

There was a brief pause, as if everyone was uncomfortable with their chances and didn't know what to say. Then Chainy claped his hands together and left, saying: "I'll give Mos a hand on the technical side. You guys can deal with the data-pushers."

"We'll need to file a flight plan." Kelly observed.

Petri turned his back on the Jedi and walked out. Kelly followed.

"And pay his docking fees." Kelly added, on their way to the flight deck.

Petri said nothing.

"What's eating you?"

"The fact that we're wanted on every planet Nayl to Ebon."

"That's nothing to worry about once we're away from here." Kelly's tone was dismissive. "We'll get new papers. There are too many people for anyone to keep track of properly. I've done it half a dozen times."

"I caught you."

"Maybe a little cosmetic re-touching."

"You have to give a DNA sample to become a bounty hunter."

"Oh."

"You didn't know that?"

The cockpit door opened.

"No. I didn't know that."

"So, where do you want to go?"

The door closed behind them.

*

The tiny freighter cleared the atmosphere and reached for space like a hungry child stretching out for food. Light flared behind it, as the sublights kicked in. The last chains of gravity strained and broke away.

Starlight beckoned to the crew.

Hanging between them and the terrible freedom of the void was a single frigate.

The Cyclone was a truly ugly craft, over gunned and muscled for it's size. It cried out officious demands, ordering them to identify and power down.

In the eyes of the Cyclone, the oncoming ship was wrapped in a haze of light. It seemed nebulous, and secretive.

The frieghter was close enough to see the Cyclone's massive weapons pylons, it's leach like docking mouth. The freighter crew watched as it rotated, like the head of an enormous eagle, following it's prey.

A message crackled over the com' board of the fleeing freighter. "Attention vehicle on bearing two hundred ten mark one hundred seventy. Your reactor containment system is emitting subspace and EM static. Power down. Prepare for boarding and manual inspection."

The message screamed across the vacuum, it's volume goosed, so it could be heard over the throaty roar of the freighter's guts. In response the prey lept forward, like something had kicked it in the tail. It's thrusters glared blue white, like angery suns with X-ray flames.

As if it were a dozing sentry summoned to wakefulness, the Cyclone twitched. On either side of the bridge weapons pylons stood like the stumps of amputated wings. Silently, but for the vibrations that passed through the hull, the blaster cannons were deployed. They followed the course of the fugitive, ready to unleash their fury in an instant.

"Unidentified freighter, power down immediately." Cyclone decreed.

The little ship took no notice, continuing it's reckless dash for space. Blistering emerald light exploded from the cannon muzzles, a union between wrath, fire and lightning. It leaped the gap between the two ships like a thunderbolt and died, leaving only an afterglow for those who had seen it.

"Unidentified freighter, that was a warning shot. You will power down or we will open fire."

Denied it's liberty, the freighter cut it's engines abruptly. The ship continued to drift, wobbling almost petulantly as the Cyclone's tracter beams locked with it.

Grimly, the customs frigate draged the runaway towards it's docking mouth. Within minutes the two ships were locked together.

That was when the Mendez made it's break for freedom.

Coming up from the same spaceport, it parted company from it's assigned course and increased power. Clearly the new arrival planned on forgoing the customs inspection.

The Cyclone barked orders at the Mendez. They were ignored.

The Mendez's four thrusters were already open full throttle, leaving a trail of light like a silver thread.

Chainy's body was full of tension. He wanted to worry about what the customs ship was doing, but couldn't afford the time. He forced himself to concentrate on dealing with the demands of the flight deck.

Mos had done something clever with the reactor. It was putting out far more than it should, without much danger of exploding.

The shields were down. They had to be. Chainy was giving the engines all they had. Everything seemed heavy, clumsy; with the drives red lined the acceleration compensators were acting heavy handed.

The keyboard typing behind him came to an abrupt end, and he knew that Kelly had a course.

"Got it." the Jedi announced. "Throw the switch any time you want." Chainy's fingers trembled with the urge to escape, but he held back.

"Check that Mos is ready." He licked his lips. "I don't want to go to hyperspace and fry all our power ducting."

The Cyclone broke free of the freighter and spun as it drifted clear. Thrusters glared horribly, as the ship got under way.

The fleeing Mendez was almost out of range when the blaster bolts started flying like spears. The first salvo cut across the target's wake.

The frigate gunner over compensated, as the Mendez threatened to pull clear of their weapons altogether. A bolt of light, so harsh Chainy had to shield his eyes, lit up meters away from the flight deck viewport.

They've almost go our number, thought Chainy. I can't wait any longer. He threw the switch, and the stars danced madly before him.

*

"Well, I guess we made it. We outsmarted them." Chainy remarked.

Almost to see if the pilot had tempted fate, Petri checked the view from the flight deck. All clear.

"Can't a customs frigate trace a ship? Even after it's gone to hyperspace?" Kelly handed the ex-bounty hunter a data-pad.

Chainy shook his head. "I paid Vincenzo to lean on the bit of his ship that was causing interference. Just when they'd be trying to get a fix on us."

"They'll throw the book at him." prophesied Petri.

"He can pay them out of the thousand credits we gave him."

"I've been thinking..."

"Dangerous past time." warned the ex-smuggler.

As a comeback it was tired at best, but it distracted Petri from deciding they could have safely split up on the surface.

"How long before we're re-charged?"

Chainy turned back to the Jedi. "Only another ten minutes. Then I'll have Mos put the reactor back to normal. Be a shame to blow ourselves up after outrunning the Civil Authority."

"If it was so dangerous for us to go near your smuggler pals, how come you could bribe one to play decoy?"

Damn. He's been thinking again, thought Chainy.

"I didn't exactly go near him..." The pilot pointed out. "I called him from the ship's terminal. Knew the Civil Enforcers wouldn't conect us with this tub 'til we'd made our break."

"For that matter, how come they didn't see us when we came to buy this barge?"

"The two "debt collectors" we saw probably paid someone to be repairing the security system when they came calling."

"We didn't know that."

"Mos said the security system was down." Put in Kelly. "I thought it was convenient. If you're not reading that..." He reached across for the data pad.

"What is it?" wondered Petri, as he surrendered the display screen.

Chainy looked up from the captain's chair. "Did I mention what Karo-Than said, just before I left?" His face was nervous.

Something about his casual tone tripped Petri's early warning system. "No. What?"

"If any one of us..., er, defaults on the loan, then the others become responsible for his debt."

"There's a lot of traffic near Gothine. Any persuers could lose a ship like this, in amongst that turbulence." Kelly said thoughtfully.

"Do we split up there?" Chainy had spoken, but all three of them seemed to wait on Petri's reply.

"And have one of you three default?" He said at last. "Leave me with a debt I can't pay? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"