"I don't ever want to do that again," Bard said emphatically as they walked down to the docking center. He was sweating profusely, nervously wiping away the moisture with his sleeve. "That's cutting it a bit close to the blaster bolts."
"I wholeheartedly agree," Angela said. Unlike her companion, she was decidedly more composed. But her heart was tripping like a hammer. "I honestly didn't think he'd buy the bluff. Good thing my reputation precedes me."
He looked at her, dumbstruck. And then he laughed uproariously. "Oh, by the worlds, that's just wonderful. Bluff and bluster—I'd never imagine it from a Jedi. I didn't think you people could lie."
She smirked innocently. "It wasn't a lie. It was a bluff. There's a difference."
"Not a whole lot." They arrived at the docking center and he hailed a taxi speeder. "Since you're giving me a ship and a lightsaber, the least I can do is buy you a fare ticket to wherever you're going. Where are you going, anyway?"
"To Rakaris," she replied. "There's some things to finish. Big things. Here." She handed him her lightsaber as well as a datacard containing the security codes for the Nebula Dancer. "You're fee. Take good care of the ship, you hear? It's very important to me and means more than you can ever know."
"Thanks. And I promise I'll take care of it."
Taking care of things…yes, she had things to take care of, too. Suddenly, a thought struck her—a plan so devious it surprised her with its simplicity. "Bard, could you do me a favor?"
"What? You're not going to ask me to do something crazy again, I hope."
She smiled. "This is perfectly safe, I promise. Can you fix me with a long-range personal transmitter or a planetary transmitter that can be relayed through the HoloNet? I'd like to record something and send it to the Jedi Order and the Federation in real time."
"Sure. Just give me an hour to get things set. I'll be right back."
An hour later, she had the gear she needed. She extended her hand to him, which he took in a strong shake. "It was interesting working with you, Bard. If I need any information later in the future, I know exactly who to look up."
He chuckled. "Girl, I don't ever want to see you again. You're liable to get a man killed."
She could not stop herself from wincing at that.
"This is as good a ship as any," she muttered, looking up at the battered freighter. She addressed the captain. "Here's your fee, good sir. Take me straight to Rakaris, as fast as you possibly can."
"Not a problem, lady," said the captain. "No bags or anything?"
"Not a one."
"Suit yourself. Makes my job easier, at any—" His words were sharply cut as a blaster bolt took his head clean off.
Angela dodged to the side, rolling behind an empty fuel barrel, blaster bolts searing into the metal. One peek over the barrel's top revealed the identities of her attackers. She saw pressed uniforms and military-grade weapons. Rakarisian troopers—Admiral Adguard had found her.
She swore under her breath. Half an hour away from Bard and already she was right back in the thick of trouble. "I must be a magnet for this sort of thing," she mused. The only weapon she had was a blaster pistol, its battery half depleted. She was not the best marksman in the quadrant, but it was better than taking the fight hand to hand against armed soldiers.
"Give a message to your Admiral!" she shouted over the roar of laser fire. She leveled her blaster, keeping most of body behind the fuel barrel. "Tell him that if he wants even a ghost of a chance at beating me, he's got to come after me himself!" Red blaster bolts erupted from her weapon, spraying wildly in the direction of her opponents. A few troopers fell dead, but most simply took cover and returned fire.
The gunfight was at a standoff. She had the advantage of cover, forcing her foes to attack her from one angle. They had the numbers. I can't keep this up, Angela thought. I have to find a way out. I have to find a way off this planet. She looked around frantically for a way to break the firefight—and she found it in a ventilation duct bound to the wall above the troopers. A quick Force tug brought a large chunk of the ductwork crashing down on her enemies, knocking them unconscious.
Angela fished her credits from the dead freighter captain. "Now I have to find another ship," she said softly.
The trip to Rakaris took almost two weeks, courtesy of a fifth-rate hyperdrive engine. The shuttle conveyance was cramped, the food was lousy, and the hyperspace trip was slow and dull, without so much as an in-flight holovid to alleviate the boredom. But that was fine with her. She spent most of her time in quiet meditation, thinking back on everything that had happened in the past few months.
She thought about her parents. She had estranged herself from them under poor circumstances. Words were said that would forever distance her from them, words that left her repentant at heart but far too proud to admit them, much less speak them aloud. To her mind, it was her parents' fault. They demanded that she put herself in a cage of their devising, stripped of freedom and life—the hallowed halls of matrimony to a weak-willed fop.
They said it was for her own good, that her arranged husband would be a positive influence on her. In truth, it was a marriage of convenience, one that would expand the family holdings. She was expected to surrender her individuality and play the role of a pawn for something as petty as trade routes and profits. But she simply could not run from her family on just a bit of impertinence. She needed a legitimate reason to run. And so she sliced the files of the school dean, earning her enmity of the police as well as the indignation of her parents. Seizing the opportunity, she fled to find a life for herself.
As a result, she fell in with bad crowds, running with gangs and drug lords, setting up illusion acts and magic shows to make ends meet. It made a decent enough living, if questionable and unfulfilling. Being a con artist was something she had always been good at, and bilking money from wide-eyed tourists soon became another thing she was good at. But then she made the mistake of falling in with the underworld, asking for money from loan sharks tied with the syndicates. Her life went from bad to worse once she set foot down that dark road.
She thought about Ran. Memories of him were strongest in her mind, for he had left such impact on her life. They met under unscrupulous circumstances, circumstances that united them against a particularly resilient and dangerous underworld crime boss that she owed money to. Ran offered to take her as an apprentice. She accepted—what other option did she have? The Jedi Order gave her a place in the galaxy that she had been searching for.
As a Jedi, she found herself with new responsibilities. No longer did she strive to succeed for her own sake. Now a galaxy looked up to her for guidance and protection. She tried to do the right thing, but she always believed that she would do the greatest good by diving into the thick of things, by immersing herself in action and violence. Gang lords, drug dealers, slavers, smugglers, crime bosses—all fell to her determination and hard justice. Ran taught her throughout her adventures, instructed her in compassion and wisdom, encouraged her to curb her excitability and bold nature. It would not be until later that those lessons finally sunk in.
They did not become lovers until much later, when she finally admitted her feelings for him on the space station Yavin. She remembered fondly how he swept her off her feet and brought her into the cabins of the Nebula Dancer and proceeded to teach her the various sexual techniques he had learned in his career as a rogue. The memory of that night would forever be burned into her mind—when she flew amongst the stars upon the wings of ecstasy.
Their nights of passion were always ones of love. Sex became the physical outlet of the feelings in their hearts. Many of the Jedi Order thought their relationship was inappropriate. It was an understandable conclusion. He was ten years her senior; she was only seventeen when they became lovers. But that did not stop them from loving one another. "Love conquered all"—it was so trite to her mind, but she was living out that adage every day she spent with Ran, every night she curled in bed beside him.
That all changed when they came to Rakaris.
She thought about the mission to Rakaris, the mission that led them to a nameless world outside of the Dagobah system. The mission that drove a red-bladed lightsaber through her lover's chest, leaving his corpse to cool in her arms. He said words to her as he lay dying, but she had forgotten them in her sorrow. She could only remember the stillness of his flesh, the shallowness of his breathing, the light leaving his green eyes. The soft whisper of his robes as his body vanished, becoming one with the Force.
His death almost drove her to the dark side. She directed anger, hatred—pure, simple, passionate, true—at Admiral Adguard, the man who had sent them on that fateful mission. He used them to further his own nefarious, selfish ends. For Ran to have died for something so petty as self-advancement was more than she could bear. She convinced herself that she sought Adguard's defeat to protect the galaxy and to avenge Ran, when, in truth, it was sate her growing hatred. The dark side had her in its grasp, and its supple, murky, black fingers tightened around her with time.
She thought about the guardian she confronted on Hoth. She fought to claim one of the keys, but the darkness had taken her then. The guardian fell to her anger, but not before giving her a sad look that she understood only after she had trod the paths of darkness. The guardian had foreseen just how close to the dark side she would walk, how many souls would be consumed because she forgot Ran's warnings about its evil. The guardian saw the black future and tried to show her that sadness. She had not heeded the silent warning.
She thought about the week of torture she had been subjected to on the Fortune of Demise. The humiliation, the pain, the frustration and desperation, the hopelessness. It had broken her, that week of agony. The darkness could not sustain her. It left her bereft and alone. Without allies or even the shadow of hope to cling to. Then came the light—giving her a renewed sense of purpose. She had a new mission, drawn not from duty to the Federation or the Jedi, drawn not from the desire for revenge. It was drawn from doing the right thing.
How many had died because of her? Ran Tonno-Skeve, Master and lover; Kanig and Ooroosh, comrades in arms; the crew of the Ardent Soldier, dead for doing their duty; Admiral LeFrein, a good man trying to do the right thing. How many more would join the parade of souls left in her wake? She did not know. But she knew one thing. There would be one last corpse to throw onto the pile, one last soul to send off the mortal coil.
Admiral Adguard.
Rakaris loomed beneath her. The docking center came ever closer. The shuttle landed and she disembarked. She had no baggage, no passports, no papers. She came and went with impunity. A subtle wave of her hand, a subtler touch of the Force, ensured that none saw her or noted her passing. Not even the security cameras or droid guards noticed her; all they saw was an indistinct shadow of a human being. She had no identity or form as she made her way through the docking center to the taxis waiting outside.
She picked one at random and named a destination. The driver nodded and took her there, wished her a good day when she paid her fare. Then she stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked up at the majestic iron fences that surrounded Admiral Adguard's mansion.
"I'm coming for you," she murmured.
Admiral Adguard listened to the report of his latest failures. "She did it again, majordomo," he said in disbelief. "We had her cornered, trapped with no way out. And she beat a score of my best troops? And how did she beat them, majordomo? By dropping a ventilation duct on them. By dropping parts of buildings that even maintenance workers don't want to crawl through! She's beyond my comprehension, majordomo! I simply cannot see how she can defy me again and again and again!"
"Angela Marshair is a woman who must not be underestimated," the majordomo replied soothingly, trying to mollify his commander.
"I know that, you fool!" Adguard roared. "We've tried everything—bounty hunters, legions, torture—nothing fazes her! Nothing slows her down! She's inhuman, majordomo. She must be some kind of vile demon."
"I believe you are now overestimating her, sir."
"A metaphor, you twit." He sighed and struggled to regain his composure. "Send an order to the bridge. The Fortune of Demise is to send out all scouting ships and observation droids into the Corellian system. Sweep the place. I want her found—dead or alive, this time."
"Sir, if we do that, we'll violate—"
He pounded his fist on his desk, sending papers and pencil racks a few centimeters into the air. "I don't care about protocol and policy, majordomo! I gave an order and I expect it to be obeyed. Send an order to the bridge," he repeated in low, dangerous tones. "This ship is to send out all scouting ships and observation droids into the Corellian system. They are to sweep the region, go over it with a fine-toothed comb. Do whatever it takes to find Angela Marshair. If you have to break Federation laws, do so. If you have to destroy Federation ships, so be it."
"Sir, this is very unadvisable."
"I did not ask for advice, majordomo. Obey."
The majordomo left with a sharp salute, leaving the Admiral alone. He sighed and looked out the viewport into the starry darkness of space. He felt so tired. Victory was within his grasp, kept at bay by the tenacity and determination of one teenaged girl. "A demon," he murmured into the emptiness.
Circumventing the gates was easy. All she had to do was call upon the Force to give her the strength to leap over them. The sentry guns posed little threat to her, though they were an unexpected inconvenience. They opened fire on her as she walked up the cobblestone path, forcing her to roll to the side. A series of telekinetic bursts left the droid guns in shattered pieces. A troop complement tried to bar her entry to the mansion proper. She threw them aside with a wave of her hand, before they could even get a shot off.
The halls of the mansion seemed to crawl with guards, all of which she cast about like toys in her hands. They could not harm her or even touch her. They simply fell to her might and whim. She did not run nor hurry. She just walked, casually and leisurely. Nothing in all the universe could stop her. She stormed Adguard's home with impunity.
She was like a goddess, resplendent, fearsome, beautiful. She was an elemental force, unstoppable, all-powerful, incomprehensible. Power surged within her and she used it with care. She used only enough to achieve her goals. A wave of the hand brought men to their knees and no further. A nod of her head crushed machinery, but never did she turn her destructive inclinations toward the living. That was small comfort to the scores she left in her wake, scores who nursed broken bones and bruised heads.
Finally, she found the Admiral's office. The door was sealed and locked. The merest touch of her finger splintered the rare Hggian oak like so much glass. She waltzed in and sat in the cushioned chair, propped her booted feet on the polished desk. And she settled down to wait.
"Sir," the majordomo ventured cautiously, far too aware of his superior's foul mood. "I've just received word that there is an intruder in your mansion.
"I don't care about that," the Admiral said. He was reading a detailed report from the scout ships. So far, all investigations were inconclusive. Somehow, Angela Marshair had managed to elude all forms of planetary identification recordings, space travel registrations, and orbital scout ships. His men had rubbed against the Corellian defense forces more than once already, had been threatened with political upheaval if they did not desist their unwarranted searches. The Admiral dismissed the Corellians without a thought.
"Sir, you really should take a look at the mansion reports."
"I'm busy with reports now, majordomo."
"But sir—it is confirmed that Jedi Angela Marshair is at your mansion at this very moment."
The Admiral stopped—his movements, his thinking, even his breathing halted, trapped in the instant of hearing her name. Finally, he regained his wits enough to speak. "How fast can we return to Rakaris?"
"Sir?"
"I said how fast can we return to Rakaris?" he shouted. His patience had long since disappeared in the flames of his desperation. He was so close! And she was in his home!
"Uh…normally it would take a week, but if we pour all available energy sources in the hyperdrive, we should be able to return in five hours."
"Make it three hours, majordomo. I don't care what has to be done, but I want to be on Rakaris as soon as possible. Make any sacrifice you must. I want to be there now."
None dared to enter the office. They were all afraid of her. She did not enjoy it one bit. What she was doing was dancing the edge of the dark side once again. But it was necessary—this was the most expedient path, the path that would prevent more lives from being destroyed.
But a small part of her wondered just how far would necessity push her before she willingly reveled in the darkness.
She cleared her mind of such musings. Right now, in this moment, she had to be a Jedi. She had to be in complete control: of the situation, of the outcome, and most importantly, of herself. Ran, she prayed silently, give me your strength. Show me your rakish smile one more time. Ran had always managed to smile in the face of even the grimmest of disasters. He had smiled into the face of death itself. His courage would be welcome.
She waited for three hours. And then a strapping figure entered the room.
"Admiral Adguard," she greeted with false warmth. She dropped her feet from the desk and stood. "It's about time you showed up."
