Chapter 4

Keldu watched as Senator Altamira Tonuu marched out onto the balcony excessively guarded. Keldu counted almost forty scarlet liveried guards, each brandishing a blaster pistol.

Senator Tonuu had changed her appearance greatly since the Jedi had last seen her, only a couple of hours ago. Now she wore long flowing magenta robes lined in gold shimmersilk. Her vibrant orange hair was coiled elegantly around her head with so many folds and tucks that Keldu could barely follow them. Color had been returned to her cheeks, but whether it was real or artificial, Keldu couldn't say.

Tonuu began to approach still heavily guarded. Nerca motioned the guards back. Some obeyed but too many still surrounded the senator.

"I said back," Nerca said forcefully. "We don't want all of those feet crushing the evidence."

"Ten?" Tonuu asked quickly. "Just ten, please."

"Fine," Jesbra, ever the diplomat, answered before Nerca could. "Where were you standing?"

"Here," the senator replied moving to a spot about ten feet from the doors.

"Show us what you did," Oliso said.

Senator Tonuu began striding forward the guards in tow. She faked a blaster bolt heading towards her and dove backward. The guards formed a ring around Tonuu, enclosing the Jedi in their circle so that they could watch.

Keldu stood looking down at a richly dressed senator wallowing on the ground surrounded by guards. Never in all of her eighteen years had she seen anything so ridiculous.

She felt a surge in the Force. A strange sensation, but she paid it no mind. The feeling was probably the affect of Tonuu's re-enacted feelings.

Moments later, Keldu had the feeling again, only much stronger. And then she realized what the feeling was. She quickly jumped back out of the way of a giant blast, taking three guards with her. She tripped but quickly turned the tumble into a shoulder roll and ignited her lightsaber. Well-rehearsed reflexes caused her blade to flick out in a defensive pose, covering her. Keldu saw Nerca's purple blade, Lexoc and Oliso's green lightsabers and Jesbra's sapphire one. The Padawans and guards had fallen back under the impact to safety … all but Zela Jan and one security guard.

Keldu quickly glanced through the hole that had been left in the permacrete.

Before thinking, she dove through it after Zela Jan and the Iamese man. Using a rare but centuries old trick, she pushed with the Force and matched Zela Jan and the Iamese's decent. Slamming a hand to her cable launcher, she wrapped an arm around each one. The launcher's hook caught on the permacrete and Keldu smacked the retract button. The small group shot upwards toward the balcony, permacrete raining down upon their heads.

That made the ascent much more painful.

Lexoc stood by the hole's edge, waiting. Grabbing, she pulled the pair from Keldu's grasp and up to safety. Keldu reached and pulled herself up. She looked up just in time to see a heavily armed fighter zoom away.

"Is everyone okay?" Keldu asked, breath eluding her.

Everyone sounded that they were, except Tonuu. Keldu ran to her, leaping another small hole in the permacrete balcony in the process. After a quick, amateur check, Keldu found a hole in her robe and a deep gash ran across her arm. Tonuu held a hand over it, wincing in pain.

"Oliso!" Keldu called for her medic friend.

Instantly, Oliso was at her side. Deft hands pulled necessary equipment from her belt. She worked quickly, her expert hands applying bacta and a bandage.

Sure that Tonuu was in good hands, Keldu strode towards Zela Jan, leaving her friend to her work. She knelt beside the panting young Human.

"Are you alright?" Keldu asked.

"Yes," Zela Jan replied. "Thank you Master Lujac. I dove towards Senator Tonuu, to push her to safety. But I found that Master Beyul had already done so. I had under judged my leap and I fell. A guard fell with me."

Something in Zela's words stuck in Keldu's mind, but it took her a moment to isolate the exact phrase.

Master Beyul.

Keldu's head snapped up. She scanned those on the balcony with her.

"Where's Nerca?" Keldu asked, alarm beginning to pulse in her.

"She went after him," Lexoc replied.

As if verifying what Lexoc had said, the sleek silver Cosmic Dragon pierced the clouds above. The starfighter raced off in the direction that the other one had disappeared in moments before.

A moaning Tonuu switched Keldu's attention back onto the balcony.

"Hold still," Oliso demanded.

Even though Oliso was very gentle, sometimes her patience ran short. She finished wrapping the white cloth around the injured Senator's shoulder, and she helped the weak Tonuu to her feet. While Oliso escorted the limping Tonuu to the durasteel doors,everyone else stood and brushed themselves off.

More guards appeared and carried the Verdinian senator inside. No doubt to the med center. Oliso sighed and followed them. Everyone else turned to go inside. Before Keldu followed into the cool building, she gave a last look at the fading violet twilight sky.

Moments ago, her friend had passed overhead in the Cosmic Dragon, racing off to follow their criminal. While Keldu could never doubt the Dragon's superb speed and maneuverability, nor Nerca's expert handling, it seemed too good that they could catch the criminal this early on.

Still, she could hope.

Get him, Nerca, she thought. Don't let him get away.

And somehow, Keldu was sure that Nerca wouldn't.

And neither Keldu nor the other Kindred Knights remembered the small particles that Nerca had found on the banister.