Hours had passed by so slowly, so quietly, Mand had briefly lost track of her own thoughts. As a reflex, her body seemed to have put itself into a light meditation without her knowledge, and with a deep, rejuvenating breath, she straightened her posture and checked her former partner's condition for the hundredth time.
Though partially the fault of the light trance she had placed him under, Horatio had remained peacefully asleep as the IV lines in his arms had slowly replenished the precious fluids and blood he had continually lost for days. The bacta patch on his side that she repeatedly replaced no longer darkened with fresh blood, finally an indication of ongoing, lasting healing. She knew she'd face his ire for his forced recovery, once she allowed him to wake up, but she had endured far worse from him. They had found Jewel at last, as she had promised him, and he clearly needed the rest. As stubborn as he was, though, she was mildly surprised he hadn't broken through her trance and woken up himself already.
Cutting through the silence, the room's door behind her softly slid open and a lone pair of footsteps slowly approached her. The fall of each step was far heavier than she recalled Aalon's or Talithana's being, however, immediately putting her on edge. She and Horatio had been sequestered deep within the Hunter Lead's compound, probably within the most secure area in the entire station, so a new visitor was either unlikely to know who she was, or they were an intruder with ill intent. In one swift movement, she stood from her seat beside Horatio, turning to face her visitor with her hand outstretched before her and positioning her body to shield Horatio behind her. She called on the Force, tensing her muscles to prepare for any quick action and honing her reflexes...
...but it was a vaguely familiar face she met. A sturdy young man stood before her, with short brown hair and wearing weathered spacer gear, his own hands held low in a submissive gesture. He hardly breathed as he awaited further movement from her, seemingly expecting her to attack, but his anxiety left him in a quick huff when she, too, remained in place.
"Master Natiyr," he began carefully, his voice calm and almost warm. "I'm not here to hurt you, or him. We've not met before, but...I think you know who I am."
Mand let go of a soft breath herself. Of course she knew who he was; she had immediately recognized those green-brown eyes in every Sheridan man she'd ever met. Those blasted genes were so strong. "Max..."
Max nodded weakly with a small smile, relaxing his posture as he stepped closer. "It is nice to finally meet you in person. I've heard a lot about you. Not from my uncle, but...from a number of sources, all over the galaxy. You're a bit of a legend in certain circles."
A small alarm was sounding in the back of her mind, rendering her far more wary of this Sheridan than she had expected to be. His casual attitude as he praised her was so...confident. What exactly was his intent? "...and what circles are those?"
Max shrugged lightly. "Some a little more reputable than others. But all of them share the same reverence - tales about the daughter of a powerful, dangerous man, a woman who was the only Jedi to face him and live to talk about it... You earned a lot of respect a long time ago, and it's only grown since."
So he knew how capable of a fighter she was, yet he didn't appear threatened by her. He hadn't yet reached for a weapon, nor did he even appear to be carrying one. "First I've heard of it. But I don't make a habit of listening for gossip about myself."
"Very wise," Max approved with a nod. "And not surprising in the least."
"So," she sighed with disinterest, "you seem to know a great deal about me. I know almost nothing about you."
She wasn't expecting his expression to become so penitent. "I know. For good reason. I do intend to change that, though, and soon. My brother should be arriving any minute, and we'll have a lot to...discuss." He paused briefly, glancing at Horatio's form behind her. "Can you wake him up? He needs to hear this, too."
The words had already left her mouth before she'd thought to form them.
"He looked for you," she breathed, easily recalling the look of intense distress on Horatio's face as he realized he'd lost his then-seven-year-old nephew Max when Soran's spicer group had vanished. "He looked for you for a long time, after we escaped that spice mine."
Max's posture visibly sagged with guilt he seemed to shoulder every day as he looked at his uncle. "I know. But it's not his fault he couldn't find me... I had to actively evade him. And I will explain why," he hesitated a moment as he glanced at his wrist commpad, finding sudden urgency in its reading. "I will explain everything, just please, hurry. When Aalon arrives, he will be very, very upset."
The last thing Horatio needed while he continued to recover was a rapid spike in blood pressure, but perhaps she could keep it under control for him. Only reluctantly agreeing to Max's request, she turned and touched her fingers to Horatio's forehead, brushing the Force through his consciousness to rouse him. He moaned softly as his head lilted from side to side, but once his eyes opened and his mind snapped them into sharp focus, she knew he was alert enough for the news.
"Horatio," she soothed, "...Max is here."
Her words echoed about the room for only a brief moment before he turned to look at his oldest nephew behind her. He stared with disbelief, silent and moving only to reach up for her assistance. She slowly pulled him into a sitting position, supporting him with an arm around his shoulders as he swung his feet off the bed, and thankfully he remained seated. She wasn't sure his legs would support his weight had he tried to stand so quickly after waking. Though his hand reflexively pressed against his healing side, he made no outward expression of pain for once, much to her surprise. His shock over seeing his nephew for the first time in more than two decades might have negated any discomfort he felt, but she could address it later. The three Sheridan men had never met together in any capacity before; it had taken the kidnapping of their cousin, Horatio's daughter, to effect that.
As Max had expected, his brother Aalon came charging into the room within seconds, unmasked and armed with a blaster and a wild, furious expression on his face. At seeing his half-brother Max, though, Aalon immediately froze in place as Max was quick to lift both of his hands again in submission.
A tense silence gripped them all, leaving Mand and Horatio in bewildered suspense about what had put the Hunter Lead into such a state. Aimed at his brother, Aalon's hand gripping his blaster visibly trembled with anxiety, and he made no move to lower it. Max offered no defense, either, though he seemed to know exactly what Aalon's issue was. They were locked in a bitter stalemate until Aalon finally found his breath to speak.
"...where is she?"
Mand's heart sank as she held even tighter to Horatio's shoulders. Not Jewel, not again...
Max remained resolute against his brother's rage. "My droid took her home to her family. She is safe with her mother and her brother there. And the Paneau will protect her."
Beside her, Horatio was weakened with relief. "You're sure...you're sure they have her?"
Max nodded with a brief glance at him. "I got word from Bex just before you woke up."
The Hunter Lead wasn't placated in the slightest, but even more enraged. "How the hell did you get in here!"
"The same way my droid did," Max returned with calculated strength, "with the right access codes. I can tell you a lot about your compound right now, and you are not going to like it."
Again the two brothers locked defiant gazes as Aalon shook with fury and Max seemed to expect it, nearly gloating and goading the younger to his breaking point. Four years separated the two Sheridans in age, but their stubbornness was so evenly matched. It seemed to be another strong genetic trait.
"Aalon," Mand pleaded gently for his deescalation, but it was Max's offer that finally lowered the Hunter Lead's aim.
"...I know who put that bounty on Jewel. It's why I'm here."
Horatio got to his feet from his bed, hanging on Max's every word. Mand kept a firm grip on his upper arm, though, carefully monitoring his condition in case he were to crash. Aalon still held his blaster at his side, but he, too, was fixated on his older brother.
"It was Azira."
Again Mand's heart felt as heavy as durasteel. It was a part of her past she had long buried, and it was a name she hadn't heard in decades. "But...the Huxnel were captured...detained, years ago by the New Republic."
Max nodded to her. "They were. Azira was the only one of the Huxnel command staff to have escaped. She was being transferred from a New Republic detention center not long into her sentence when she managed to free herself, and she killed all the guards who were transporting her. She disappeared, quickly, and it's been a complete mystery what she's been up to...until now.
"I know I don't have to remind any of you who my father was. What I didn't even know until after his death, though, was that his spice empire was only a small part of his entire enterprise. The rest of it was a vast, expansive network. Of information. Encrypted communication pathways. Back doors spliced in and out of almost every other criminal venture in the galaxy." He paused, briefly hesitant as he looked to his brother. "It didn't take me very long to discover the fingers he had through every aspect of even your Guild, Aalon, under Asakura. I don't think he was using his connection to run the Guild behind the Hunter Lead, but I think he liked that it kept him in the know. Maybe it was an early warning system for him; he'd know almost as soon as the Guildmaster did if a bounty had been put up on him or on any of his allies."
The look on Aalon's face was difficult to decipher. "...that can't be true."
"It is, and you know it is. You just don't want to admit it. It's how that bounty came through on Jewel, only it didn't come from me. That...was Azira's doing. But it was my fault.
"As much as I was using my father's network to dismantle it, I began to notice that someone else had the same access that I did, and was undoing all of my sabotage behind me. I knew it wasn't anyone within his spicer group; none of them were smart enough or had the right connections. It was coming from elsewhere. I spent years following it, getting close a few times, but she was always just a step ahead. I had suspected for a long time that she was the one behind it; it was what she'd tried to do with the Huxnel, after all, but I could never confirm it. So I set a trap."
Looking to his uncle, Max continued carefully, clearly remorseful. "She knew it was you who had betrayed them to the New Republic, getting almost all of them arrested and put away for life more than thirty years ago. The Huxnel incarcerated with her confessed after she escaped that she was obsessed with hunting you down, no matter how long it took. So I baited her. I planted small delayed blips of intel about you every few months, intel I'd gather from and relay to your son Wil, too. I knew you were always careful, rarely retracing your steps unless necessary, so I thought I would have enough time to catch her before she ever got to you, but," his voice faded, significantly weakened by guilt, "...I made a mistake. She discovered Jewel on a travel manifest I had intended to bury and she followed it to Dantooine, then she made the connection herself. The bounty followed soon after.
"I sent a warning to Wil to protect Jewel as quickly as he could while I tried to follow the Guild's back door before the track disappeared. That transmission came from an abandoned station in the Rishi System, where I just came back from, and I think that's where she is right now." Max turned to meet Horatio's gaze once more, pleading. "We need to stop her."
Another heavy silence hung in the air for long, painful moments, even subduing all movement from any of them as they processed Max's revelations until Horatio slowly sank to sit on his bed behind him. Afraid he was collapsing again, Mand reached up and steadied his upper body by both shoulders, desperately searching his face for a response. "Horatio? Horatio!"
Eventually he met her gaze, his eyes expressing nothing but sheer dread and guilt. It had happened, she sensed in his feelings, his worst nightmare had come true: his children had been targeted by his enemies because of their connection to him, and he had been completely unable to prevent it. He had failed them.
"How are we supposed to believe that anything you've said is true?"
Aalon's heated challenge was rebuffed by Max almost immediately, playing out like a normal sibling rivalry.
"I got into your compound without you knowing, didn't I?"
"That only means you've got an insider here. How do we know you're not the one who put the bounty on Jewel?"
"...he didn't, Aalon."
Horatio's voice was so distant, Mand was briefly unsure if it was he who had spoken. He had locked gazes with Max, having already come to a mutual understanding with his elder nephew despite Aalon's patent distrust. Though she wasn't yet sure herself, either, she could see in Horatio's expression that he believed Max wholeheartedly, and it only infuriated Aalon further.
"Look, I'll show you my father's network while we're on our way to the Rishi System, but we should leave, now." With a pointed glance at Aalon, Max kept an even tone. "Azira is still expecting a return on that bounty. We can take her by surprise, before she finds out that Jewel is already out of her reach." Getting no definitive response from any of them, he continued to plead his case. "Horatio, you and Master Natiyr both know firsthand just how dangerous Azira is. You know she can't have free reign like this."
With only a moment's pause, Horatio nodded and returned to his feet, slowly drawing himself up to his full height for the first time in days.
