31: Macabre Guignol
"I expected better of you," Kurosawa said, rising behind her desk with a stern look at her visitor. "Getting in a round of fisticuffs over a bottle of ale? You're an adult, Captain, and I expect you to act like it."
Kagura looked at the deck between her feet. "I'm sorry, Professor."
"Sorry is fine for now, but sooner or later somebody is going to get hurt. I had my eye on you for a promotion… I have to say I'm not so sure, now."
The soldier knew better than to respond.
"And seriously, how many times do you think Green has heard the 'unarmed combat demonstration' excuse? But I didn't drag you all the way to the Mon Remonda just to chew you out. You've been spending a lot of time with Ms. Mihama, haven't you?"
"Yeah." She blinked. "I mean, yes ma'am."
Kurosawa sat down and turned to look at the stars. Her voice was casual but concerned. "You wouldn't happen to know what could motivate her to hijack one of our bombers and run the Armada's blockade, would you?"
Kagura stared. She had a dozen questions, but the first that came to mind was, "She knows how to fly a Fenrir?"
"Not badly, either. She wove right through the fighter screen without damaging any of them."
"Damn…" She'd known Chiyo was some kind of prodigy, but that was just scary. "I have no idea why she'd do that though. She kind of closed up since we got back from Tatooine… I don't even know if her little friends knew what was up."
"Little friends?"
"Yeah, Miru and Yuka, the recruits I took to Thyferra?"
"Oh, the Katana's powder monkeys…" Kurosawa considered. "Actually, we're missing Yuka, as well. The Fenrir are two-seaters, so it's safe to assume…"
"Oh, my God," Kagura's eyes widened. "They're the only two people on the whole ship that the beast likes! What did they do with Maya?"
Maya sat in the center of the floor, staring daggers at Miru as she rose groggily. She stared back at him, then glanced down to read the note taped to her wrist. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience, but something came up. Please take care of Maya till I return. –C
After a ten-second staredown, Miru growled slightly. Maya broke off and padded off to curl up in the corner. "That's better."
Chiyo was alone. Terrifyingly, hopelessly alone. The ground beneath her feet was hardwood, like a stage, while the firmament above was an inky well of shadow. But as she gazed upward, she saw a web of glistening lines looping through the sky, so faint that it hurt her eyes to try and focus on them.
A bright light fell on her, obliterating the universe except for a tight circle of stage about her feet. She just had time to hear an ominous whistling before two of the lines pierced her hands. More came streaking down, stabbing through her knees and feet as she thrashed and the floor was speckled with blood--
"Oh!" Chiyo snapped awake. Hyperspace made a silent, shining tunnel around her. She looked at her hands, half expecting to see the vicious lines digging in, but there was nothing. Now that she noticed it, her natural hand was weathered by thirteen years of grit and sunlight while the other…
"Are you okay, C-chan?"
The prodigy yelped in surprise, wrenching herself around to stare back into the gunner's seat. Sure enough, she saw the back of Yuka's head. Oh, yes… that's right… "Yeah, thanks, it was just a dream."
Yuka half-turned and smiled impishly. "So, do you want to hear how I filched the hangar pass?"
"No. Ms. Tomo taught you, though, didn't she?"
"How did you know?"
"God, how they're corrupting you two…"
"I prefer to think of it as refining us." Yuka propped her feet on the gunner's panel and rested her head on the shoulder of Chiyo's seat. "Where are we going, again?"
"Dagobah… I have to see an ailing friend. Will you be alright with waiting in the fight- er, the bomber? He doesn't know you and he can be a bit… difficult."
"No problem."
"Thanks, Yuka."
"Wanna tell me about this friend?"
"No, I shouldn't…" but at Yuka's pleading look (they weren't facing each other, but she knew the other well enough to imagine it), she relented. "He's two-feet tall, lives alone, is completely insane, and over the time I knew him, he did his best to make my life a living Hell."
"And we hijacked a starship for this guy?"
"So did she say anything to you? Anywhere she wanted to go?" Kagura asked. "It just doesn't seem like her, y'know?"
Yomi shrugged. "Nothing. I haven't really talked to her a lot since we got back from Tatooine."
"Me neither. What must be going on in her head? She found out about her Aunt and Uncle before Matsuyama. It's kind of creepy…"
Setting aside a well-worn copy of Hyperspatial Mathematics and You, Yomi stood and walked to the back of the Silver Rose. "I don't have a lot, here, but do you want something to drink?"
"No, thanks."
"Because I think Tomo stashed some Crimson Ale somewhere that…"
"Oh, don't bring the damn ale up… and, uh, don't tell Tomo I visited here, all right? She still wants to strangle me."
Yomi was full of innocent surprise. "But you guys were getting along great!"
"Never mind that. Say, why are you hanging out here, anyway?"
"I'm having a hard time dealing with the crew…"
"Huh? You practically are crew by now!"
"Not anymore. Listen, Kagura, there's something seriously wrong with all of this. The Armada, the Death Star, everything. Whenever I try to tell anyone, they just think I'm stirring up trouble."
"What is it?"
"That's just it! I don't know."
Kagura considered. "Maybe you're just suffering a creampuff deficiency."
"What?"
"Yomi, have you been getting enough sugar lately?"
This time, Chiyo's entry into Dagobah's atmosphere went without incident. She set the Fenrir down in a pristine field not twelve meters from lake of muck that she'd crashed into on her last visit. As the ship's engines ticked and cooled, the girl steeled herself. "I don't know how long I'll be, Yuka."
"Don't worry about me, C-chan." Yuka turned in her chair and hugged the other briefly. "Do what you have to."
Chiyo hopped down from the Fenrir and sank a foot-and-a-half into the swamp. "Augh!" She waved up at Yuka, who looked about to have a heart attack. "Sorry, I'm fine. Just forgot how soupy the ground is here."
A thick, dank mist hung over the endless swamp, reeking of vegetable matter and mud. Huge, sinuous creatures slid through the ambivalent "land," brushing against her legs and making menacing, shadowy shapes for her to jump at. For some reason, the landscape seemed darker and wilder.
In the distance, something shrieked.
After ages of slogging, she finally came upon Kamineko's hut. It looked much smaller than she remembered it; the modest structure had lost something of its presence. Chiyo knocked on the doorframe, glancing back as a Devil's Lantern meandered by through the mist.
"Get in here!" She entered, drawing in the dry, sharply herbal air. Kamineko was sprawled on his pallet, taking long, shallow breaths. He just looked like he was resting, but Chiyo could feel him ebbing. A lump rose in her throat, but the elderly Jedi saw it coming. "We don't have time for that. Sit down!"
She sat.
"When I go, you'll be the only Jedi left. But listen here--you won't be the last Jedi. There are…" he coughed, "…others. Other people with the potential, everywhere in the galaxy. It's up to you, Chiyo, to rebuild the Jedi Order. You're the only one that can do it… so, hey, no pressure, right?"
"Others…?" Chiyo looked like she'd had her foot run over by a semi. This was rather abrupt, after all. "Wh-who? I mean…"
"They won't be as hard to find as you're thinking. That pinwheel chick, for starters."
"Pinwheel… you mean Darth Mito?"
"Is that what Nochichi's calling her? Heh, he hasn't gotten any better at namin' them. Yeah, I mean her. She could… (cough) oh, shit. Cigar. Cigar!"
Right on cue, Chiyo withdrew a small case from her pocket and handed the precious cancer-stick over. He caught it in his razor teeth and lit the end with a spark from his claws. "Ah… even better than last time. I can now die happy…"
"But wait, what about…"
"I said, I can die happy!" Kamineko snapped. "Ah, there we go…" He sank deeper into the pallet. "That's the stuff. Oh… and Chiyo-chan… one last thing…" She leaned in. "Finish… finish the cigar for me… it'd be a shame for it to go to waste…"
"But- uh, the Jedi Order?"
"Oh, yeah. I have faith in you. No matter what, you…" his eyes drifted closed. The cigar slid out of his mouth and left a half-ring of ash on the blanket next to his head. Chiyo blinked back tears, kneeling to kiss his furry forehead. He faded from beneath her lips, and once more she was alone, falling across the still-warm pallet.
Kamineko's presence faded from the air, and though Dagobah was still an impossibly massive and complex stew of life, it had lost a certain spice. Suddenly, the minds of the crawling and flying creatures outside grew in prominence; Chiyo became aware of a thousand tiny, subtle things that had been eclipsed by Kamineko's charisma and power.
Including…
Chiyo rose, eyes hard and dry. No way.
"He's gone…" Ayumu stood atop a gnarled tree, gray cloak blending with the omnipresent mist. Though the branch beneath her feet was thin and twisted, it did not bend from her weight. All one could see clearly of her were her great, shining brown eyes, giving her the look of a lost soul. "I'm too late…"
"What are you doing here?" The Sithling waved languidly as Chiyo approached the base of her tree. She looked angry and uncertain; in a Jedi, there was no more dangerous combination. "You weren't going to attack Kamineko-sama, were you? Answer me! Mito!"
As she spoke, Ayumu walked across the narrow branch and stepped onto another. "I hoped to find him. I thought he could… help me."
"Help you?"
"But instead, I find you…" Ayumu stepped down to a lower branch and crouched, regarding Chiyo eerily. She had the look of a drowning woman who was too exhausted by the struggle to be anything but relieved as she sank. "The Diminutive Slayer."
Chiyo flinched. "But I didn't—I didn't do anything! The Vratix just used me as an excuse! You have to believe me!"
In the misty distance, the whatever-it-was shrieked again. "I believe you," Ayumu said sadly, and then she was sailing down towards Chiyo, violet lightsaber extended in a reverse grip. Their blades collided, but it felt strangely without impact. They slid apart as if in a dream, Ayumu skidding across the surface of Dagobah's mucky ground without sinking or even leaving a mark.
"Wait! We… we don't have to do this!" Chiyo cried.
"It's the same for you, isn't it?" Ayumu giggled.
"What's so funny?"
She tilted her head back, smiling oddly. "They're controllin' you, makin' you what you're not. You can almost see the strings… I'm so glad I'm not alone." Ayumu withdrew her second lightsaber and ignited it; a crimson blade clawed over her shoulder, rippling sluggishly instead of the usual sharp crackle.
"What are you talking about?"
"When I was a little girl, I adored puppet shows." She slowly took a stance, her smile growing slightly. "I never imagined I'd get to star in one."
"Is that what you think this is? Listen to me! You're-!" Once more it rained cinders, red, violet and green bursting free and drifting through the still, heavy air like snowflakes.
"It's my… Jedi intuition," Yuka said uneasily, picking her way through the moist brush. "That's what I'll tell her, yeah. She'll have to believe me. She doesn't wanna be a hypocrite, does she?"
She fingered a small blaster Kagura had given her; the soldier said that she could carry it by virtue of being a member of the Katana's crew, but then had turned around and told her not to tell anyone where she'd gotten it. Fair enough.
"If I were a deranged, two-foot tall hermit, where would I live?" Yuka wondered aloud. "With my luck, he…" Then she heard the distinctive crash of two lightsabers beating together. Of course, she had never heard that sound or seen a lightsaber in action in her whole life, but it's a sound you can't mistake for anything else.
She struggled towards it, drawing her blaster and checking it the way Kagura had taught her. Come to think of it, maybe she should have practiced with it, or at least perhaps used it even once…?
Yuka pushed a towering, spiky plant, and they were there. The duel was so surreal and dreamlike she forgot to be frightened. Two indistinct figures slid silently and gracefully through the murky air, neither making a sound except for the incredible crash of their blades colliding. As the violet lightsaber was knocked from its owner's grasp, spinning over Yuka's head to vanish into the mist, she didn't even twitch.
The blaster felt like a toy in her hand. How could something so clumsy and random interfere in that?
Chiyo was getting tired, and she could only hope that her spectral foe was as well. The Sithling wasn't showing signs of wear--she wasn't showing anything except that damnable serene-but-frightening smile. It didn't even break her cool when the second saber was slapped from her hands and plunged sizzling into the slime at her feet.
The green saber streaked to her throat and hovered there, just kissing her skin. Ayumu closed her eyes, giggling softly. "You'd better hurry…"
"Or what?" Chiyo asked impatiently, "Look, I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back. Can't you just surrender?"
The former noble stood there for a second, as if to give Chiyo a chance to kill her… "Honma? Let's test that theory." Ayumu's hand rose and a shockwave burst into being between them, blowing a deep furrow in the "ground."
Chiyo screamed, staggering back as it rolled over her. It was a horrible sound, at once deep enough to rattle her bones and high enough to buzz in her teeth. She fell over backwards with a humiliating splat, head spinning, unable to breathe, pain surging through her chest and a strange feeling rising in her—
Paff! Something in her artificial arm burst violently, throwing shrapnel into her. Blood sheeted from her side and spread over the swamp's slimy surface; even when the Shriek finally faded, Chiyo couldn't rise. She could only lie there, pain crackling throughout her body, breath coming out in soft sobs. Ayumu retrieved her lightsaber and stood over her without igniting it.
"Ah'm sorry, Chiyo. You're… you're better and stronger than I could ever be… it's a real shame ya couldn't… cut my strings." She raised her saber dramatically, but then blaster bolt struck her shoulder and vanished into her without even singing the cloak. She turned to regard Yuka in blank surprise.
"Wh-what?" Yuka, similarly baffled, fired again to the same effect. The Sithling glanced down at her chest, noting the laser sight jittering all over it, and then back at Yuka. She advanced slowly, keeping that awful, blank expression, clipping the lightsaber to her belt and casually snatching another bolt out of the air.
"Why… why won't you…?" Yuka was crying by the time Ayumu reached her but she was rooted in place, even as the Sithling took the blaster from her trembling grasp and gently laid a hand on the side of her head, fingers sliding through her hair. "What are you doing? S-stop!"
"You leave her alone!" Her cry was punctuated by the blinding flash and buzzing slam of a lightsaber impact. Chiyo pressed on the attack, hacking away at Ayumu's frantic guard with such fury as she had never known before. The air about her rippled as if from a heat mirage, filled with an imaginary red haze.
Ayumu tumbled back, easy grace and mellow bearing shattered. Invisible fists hammered into her stomach, chest and face, driving her stumbling through the muck. "Ch-chiyo!" One finally wrapped around her throat and slammed her sharply against a tree, pinning her as the Jedi approached.
"I have lost my patience with you…" Chiyo said coldly. She raised her lightsaber one-handed and dragged her foot forward. "I won't let you hurt my friends! This ends!"
They made eye contact. It's not true! Ayumu flinched away. She's just like… just like…! The green saber slashed through her and she fell without a sound, vanishing into the murk beneath them. For a few seconds, the swamp was utterly silent, every creature holding its breath.
The Jedi's eyes slid predatorily over the rolling mist at her feet—there was no doubt that if any part of her foe emerged, it would be skewered. Finally, Chiyo extinguished her lightsaber and trudged back towards Yuka, who was staring as if she'd never seen her before. "Let's… let's go, Yuka," she said, forcing her voice to be as gentle as possible. After a few seconds, the younger girl shook herself sharply and nodded.
As the Fenrir rose out of the fog and blasted towards space, a dark, miserable shape finally rose from the swamp. "Oh…" Ayumu moaned, rubbing her chest. Even though she'd managed to slide into her fourth dimension, her insides still burned and writhed where the blade had passed through. "I can't believe that really worked."
"Come to me on Endor," Nochichi ordered. "You'll soon wish it hadn't."
