Symmetry and Imperfection

Part 7

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Kal Madedo managed to live down to its sordid reputation.

The smuggler's haven was an otherwise pleasant world. Mild axial and a small moon insured agreeeable weather and gentle tides. The seas were shallow and warm, with green water lapping on sands ranging in color from snowy white to blush pink to glittering black. The buildings were armed forts; everyone went armed and stepped over the bodies in the street.

Everything that one could imagine - and many things that rational beings would never consider - were sold here as casually as one might by a sandwich and soft drink elsewhere. Information, slaves, drugs, banned technology, anything was available for a price.

Naum leaned back in his booth at a popular cantina in Truce City and watched the crowds. The shadows cast by the bar's lighting and the hood of his cloak let him remain a shadow to all that cared to look.

She was here - somewhere - he could feel it, he'd been tracking her for ten days.

Vader was one system over, beginning the brutal pacification of Algeda. This made everyone on Kal Madedo very nervous, as smuggling 'liberated' goods from Algeda's largesse was the prime mover in the Kalini economy. If the Empire turned its gaze upon Kal Madedo, and what goods wound up in whose hands, things would get very bloody, and very quickly.

A grimace crossed Naum's face, hidden in the shadows. The groups that formed the Alliance to Restore the Republic were composed of staunch idealists like Bail Organa and some characters whom the Council could not bring themselves to trust. The remnants of the Trade Union, the Banking Clan, the Techno Union and others had gone scuttling for cover the day Palpatine declared himself Emperor and were - to some points of view -hiding in the skirts of the rebellion.

Even now, years later Naum still could close his eyes and see his beloved Master falling in to the sands of Geonosis, his chest blackened by a droideka laser blast. Later, when the Trade Union shipcores had started falling from the sky, Naum had cheered, ashamed but filled with a vengeful joy.

Naum reminded himself that a Jedi should have compassion, and that the members of those groups had suffered from a massive backlash, encouraged by Palpatine. Even now, Nemoidians called themselves Duros, hiding themselves from the shame brought to their race by the Trade Union.

Pushing back from the table, he began to rise. All this rumination in the dives of Truce City was not getting him any closer to his quarry. Abi had not let so much as a ripple escape her shielding since the aborted tug-of-war with Vader. Naum's lips formed into a hard smile, he hoped the Sith's head had hurt as much as his own had afterward.

What does he want with her?

How did the Sith find their apprentices, anyway? One of his old teachers said that the Sith looked for those who felt deeply, passionately. Not so much hate, though that was a part of it, but those for whom passionate dedication to a person or an ideal ruled their lives. Those in tune with the living Force tended to me more susceptible, dwelling as they too often did in the here-and-now, bound up in the moment-to-moment flow of pain, pleasure, love, hate, suffering and joy. Abi fell squarely into that category, but he had yet to discover the root of her single-minded pursuit of vengeance.

A flutter in the Force, like the brushing wings of a moth brought him to full alert.

::: Run, Jedi. :::

The trace was gone before he could form her name, but was that brief communication a threat? Or had it been a warning?

As he exited the bar two men in gray shipsuits and mid-calf duster jackets abruptly flanked him. One was tall, his red hair and beard shot through with silver. The other was short, muscular and an earthen-brown from skin to hair. Both about his age, the pair had hardened expressions and eyes as cold as termination orders.

"You're leaving, brother? Very good idea, we'll see you to your ship." Red-hair kept stride with him easily.

"Actually, brothers, I was just about to try another cantina." Naum kept his voice calm, but he could feel threat emanating from the two. If they were not looking for Abi, he would kiss Vader's boots.

Red-hair jumped in front of him, blocking Naum's way. "That might be unhealthy, brother. She's not the kind of company you would want to keep, and some very nasty types are interested in her. Much better to let us take her home to her kin, and private matters can stay private."

The stocky one opened his gray duster to reveal his lightsaber and said, "The kind of interest she's attracting is unhealthy for all of us, let family matters stay within the family."

Naum laughed, "And here I thought laying a trail of bodies across the Out-Fars was Abi trying to get shut of her family!" Then the laughter cut off. "Whatever you have done has driven a Healer to not only kill, but so far into the Dark that Vader can not only sense her, but he can touch her at will. Remove yourself from my way."

It was nothing unusual for duels to be fought in the streets of the city, but a duel using lightsabers would pull a great deal of unwanted notice. Surely, these two fools realized that?

The tension stretched until Naum could almost hear the snap-hiss of igniting sabers.

Stocky One cocked his head as if listening to something only he could hear and nodded at Red-hair.

"We have other business, brother," Stocky One spat out the last word as he might a piece of rotten meat. "I would advise you to take your search in another direction. We would deeply regret the necessity of your death should you choose your way unwisely."

Naum watched as the two vanished into an alley and hurried to a parallel street. He knew by the dead, blank eyes of both men that they would regret little, if anything, and never killing any whom stood in their way.

~