The first thing he was aware of was a coldness, piercing and frigid, seeming to wrap around his very bones. The second was the fact that he couldn't see a thing, and the third was a voice.

"…leave him there. He's becoming troublesome, or so they said."

That voice was low and young, a man's voice. The one that answered him, though, was no human. The words sounded hissed rather than spoken.

"I do not like leaving a subject to die. They too often fail to do so. Let us end it now."

"Hardly," replied the other voice dryly. "I've got a reputation to uphold. I earn my bounties, and I obey orders."

Anakin's eye cracked open, but he shut it again hastily; nothing good ever happened to a captive after he awoke. Knowing that they might be monitoring his vital signs, Anakin forced his quickening heart rate to slow, his breathing to relax. Could they tell, he wondered, that his limbs were beginning to warm?

There was a pause in the conversation.

"Are you sure he won't wake up?" asked the young man. The hiss answered him confidently.

"Even a Jedi cannot withstand such a dose as I gave him. He will not regain consciousness for hours yet."

The noise of a chair being pushed back, then footsteps that grew successively louder. "I know this one," murmured the young man in a warning tone. His voice came from almost directly above Anakin. "He was on Geonosis. He's very strong."

"That is why we should not wait."

"You're a fool, A'shir. If a Jedi were found to be murdered—"

Anakin was careless. At the word "murder" his heart rate jumped, and they must have known it, for the man exclaimed in an angry, panicked voice, "I told you! Put him back! How could he have…?"

Anakin heard nothing more before a sharp, brutal pain stabbed into his forearm. Robbed of his charade, he had no reason to keep from crying out in pain as the needle dug into his skin, and the coldness burst from it to overwhelm him once again. Anakin looked up to see what appeared, to his dazed mind, to be a giant insect standing over him. Then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he lost the consciousness he had fought so hard to regain.

It wasn't the most difficult job A'shir Kor had ever taken. All it entailed was sitting around for a few days, watching the Jedi starve to death, and it was almost done anyway—but A'shir didn't like it. As he had warned his temporary partner, he disliked slow deaths for his bounties.

This ruthless approach was hardly surprising, considering the bounty hunter's origins; a Tendresti from a moon of Jabiim, he had been reminded from childhood that to survive meant to kill, as was all of his species. The atmosphere on Tendres was made up almost entirely of methane, so it was this climate that the Tendrestis had adapted to. On their homeworld, they breathed the deadly gas as though it were air; everywhere else, A'shir wore a mask that allowed him to survive, providing him with the atmosphere to which he was used.

The other distinguishing mark of the Tendresti species was their unique brain structure. Most sentient species had one distinct section to their brain, but Tendrestis had three, allowing them to concentrate on three different subjects at once. This was why A'shir's partner had hired him in the first place—it was almost impossible for a Jedi to sense danger from a Tendresti when the alien's malicious thoughts were clouded by two other thoughts simultaneously.

Right now, he was half wishing that he had turned down the offer of this job and wondering how long it would take for the Jedi that was tied to the bed to die. The third section was contemplating a short knife from the Tendresti's belt, thinking that it needed to be sharpened. The door to the small room opened as he did so, and A'shir's partner stepped inside.

"Took you long enough," commented A'shir, tipping his chair back against the wall. His partner pulled the helmet from his head, revealing dark brown curls and a disparaging expression.

"It's not so easy to get to our employer," he retorted. "It took me half a day just to get past his flunkies."

"And?"

The young man shook his head and sat down at the table opposite A'shir. "He insists on sticking to the plan. Any man can die in the wilderness, if he is lost, but the slightest sign of murder will bring every Jedi down upon our necks. That, at least, is our employer's argument."

"Then he is a fool," A'shir sneered. "A Jedi is more dangerous than he knows."

"A normal human can only last a few days without water," answered the young man. "A Jedi, six or seven days at the most, and we are already halfway through that. If we keep him unconscious, he is harmless." His tone grew mocking. "Unless you are afraid of a dead man, I see no reason why we should not follow the original plan."

A'shir leaned forward. "Those are bold words from an unproven child," he said in a cold voice. The knife he held rubbed pointedly against the scaly skin of his other hand, a menacing gesture.

"If you're wise, you will take that back," warned the young man through gritted teeth. "I'm neither a child nor unproven."

"Oh no?" The Tendresti smiled, revealing two rows of pointed teeth through his mask. "You wear Mandalorian armor, yet you've undergone none of their rites to be worthy of such a thing. Only a child would do so, stealing another's toys and pretending to own them."

"If you do not watch your tongue—" The young man broke off abruptly, half-rising from his seat at a noise from the monitor a few yards away. The Jedi's vitals jumped as he stirred, a dry moan escaping his cracked lips. "Shavvit!"

A'shir jumped up and, grabbing a prepared syringe from the table, stabbed it into the Jedi's arm. The whites of the Jedi's eyes showed for a moment, and then his eyelids fluttered closed, and he was still once again.

"Shavvit!" the young man swore once again, slowly sitting back down. "He's had more than three times the normal amount already, and still he's waking! What is he?"

"He is determined to live, whatever else he may be," said A'shir. The tension of a moment before had gone. Tempers were on edge; lately, arguments were easily started and just as easily forgotten. He took his seat again as well, resuming the idle motion of the knife against his scaled fingers. Reptilian eyes flicked upward to fix upon the boy's face. "You know, you still have not told me our employer's name."

A faint smile crossed the young man's face. "I haven't," he admitted. "And I don't intend to."

Ferus was worried.

At first, he'd tried to remain calm. After all, Anakin was not the most reliable person, and it was very possible that he had discovered a lead and followed it up without telling his friend. Then again, maybe not, and though Ferus could never have explained it, he had a feeling.

It wasn't through the Force. All he could think of to explain it were Anakin's eyes, sick with fear, looking into his own all those years ago and whispering, "Something is wrong. That is what I know." That was what this feeling was.

He asked around the city, although fully aware that Anakin would have ensured no one would remember him. He searched the Force, but Anakin's connection was faint and trembling, almost impossible to follow. After four days of searching, Ferus was beginning to lose hope.

The fifth morning was the day he decided to contact the Temple and request a search party. It was a decision he'd hesitated to make, due to the fact that their original mission would be impossible to complete once a noticeable team of Jedi arrived here, but Ferus had ceased to care.

When Anakin had failed to contact him that first night, Ferus, tossing scruples to the winds, had mind-tricked an innkeeper into giving him a room for free. Now, before leaving the hostel, he checked with the innkeeper to see if maybe, just maybe, someone fitting Anakin's description had left any sort of message. They hadn't, of course—Ferus nodded his thanks, heart in throat, and went outside.

The streets were small and cramped, dozens of beings fighting their way to their destinations. Ferus avoided the masses, leaning against a wall and lightly scanning the crowd. A Trandoshan jostled his way through, hand on his blaster; an Aqualish, a Dug with blue beads hanging from his whiskers, and a Mandalorian in green armor. No Anakin. Biting his tongue, Ferus pulled out his commlink.

Something caught the corner of his eye: Ferus looked up to see that the Mandalorian had removed his helmet, revealing a face that looked vaguely familiar. The Jedi frowned, momentarily distracted. He had seen those dark eyes somewhere before, set against a background of red stone—it couldn't be—was it the bounty hunter's child?

Damp, sweaty curls plastered to his head, the young man seemed intent on his destination as he jostled his way through the crowd. Ferus waited until he was a good twenty feet ahead of him, then started moving, gingerly probing out the man's Force signature as he did so. It was more difficult than Ferus was used to—the bounty hunter had a determined mind, severely focused and not easy to penetrate. It was this, among other things, which intrigued Ferus so that he continued to follow the man.

The crowd began to thin as they reached the outskirts of the little city, but the bounty hunter did not slow his pace. With less people to hide behind, it was more difficult for Ferus to stay unseen; he was forced to fall back even further, relying on the Force to keep him going in the right direction.

They kept walking for another good half-hour, into a part of town almost deserted. There were almost no passersby—Ferus hid behind buildings and took back routes, praying that he wouldn't lose the man while he couldn't see him. Then without warning, he felt his quarry leave the open air. He ducked out from his hiding place only just in time to see a door close on the opposite side of the dusty road.

Ferus withdrew slightly from the bounty hunter's signature, and in doing so unintentionally caught another one. This one was weary, and pained, and—the Force thrummed—unmistakably Anakin. Adrenaline shot through Ferus, his senses suddenly painfully alert; he had to get inside that building.

Carefully he investigated the rest of the building as best he could with the Force. There were two levels to the place—Anakin was somewhere on the first floor. The bounty hunter that Ferus had followed he couldn't quite place, but Ferus guessed that he was on the second floor.

He weighed his odds: if he went inside now, it would be one bounty hunter against one Jedi. Normally that was a good scenario, but these bounty hunters had been able to render Anakin Skywalker himself helpless; Ferus would be the first to admit that that was a difficult task indeed. It wasn't a great situation—but Anakin had done stupider things for him.

Ferus took one deep breath, then walked calmly across the street and laid a hand upon the door. It was unlocked, opening at his touch and revealing a room that was completely empty but for a few scattered articles of furniture. He hesitated a moment, rocking on the balls of his feet, but no one seemed to have noticed his entrance. To be on the safe side, he ignited his lightsaber. There was another door beyond the first—Ferus's hand brushed against it, and he felt Anakin behind it.

Thoughtless with relief, he opened it immediately, and came face to face with a gas mask.

Both faces registered shock for a single instant, then both reacted simultaneously. The Tendresti grabbed for the knife on his belt, but Ferus's weapon was already in hand. Before the Tendresti could say a word, the lightsaber had gone through his side.

Ferus took a step backward, breathing hard. He had been careless—there was at least one bounty hunter left still in this house, maybe more, which meant he had to be quick. It was then that he looked up and first saw Anakin.

From a distance of fifteen feet, his friend didn't look so bad despite the fact that he was tied to a bed, thick cords tied tightly across his chest, arms, legs, ankles, and throat. But Ferus got closer, his hands shaking, and saw the death-white skin, the hollow cheeks and the sunken eyes. This hardly looked like Anakin at all.

Ferus was suddenly terribly frightened. He fumbled for a few moments at the cords that held Anakin in place, then gave up on that and slashed them through with his lightsaber, along with parts of the mattress. Anakin's eyes were shut, and he seemed hardly to breathe—Ferus grabbed his friend by the shoulders to shake him awake. He could feel the fierce burning of Anakin's skin even through the cloth of his tunic, and it scared him even more.

"Anakin—Anakin, please—wake up, wake up—" he muttered, but nothing happened, and he was afraid to shake his friend too hard. Anakin felt frail and thin under his hands, as though Ferus could break him by accident if he were too forceful. And then—it seemed like a miracle—Anakin's eyes fluttered open.

It was only for an instant, but Ferus grabbed at it desperately, taking it as a sign of definite life. He wanted to shout at Anakin to wake, but didn't dare. With no other recourse, he lifted his friend gingerly onto his shoulders. Don't come down, don't come down, don't come down, he prayed to the bounty hunter upstairs.

And just like that, as though Ferus had summoned him, footsteps could be heard on the steps above them.

Ferus ran, panicked as a Jedi should never be, wincing every time his foot came down hard on the ground and he felt Anakin's head flop loosely on his shoulder. Looking back, he saw a flash of green just before the door closed behind him, and he knew the bounty hunter was coming.

He had a bit of a head start, perhaps twenty feet or so, but the bounty hunter was not weighed down by anything. What was more, as Ferus discovered suddenly, he could fly: without warning, he heard the sound of a jetpack starting up, and the bounty hunter landed easily in front of him, blocking the Jedi's way. Knowing futility when he saw it, Ferus stopped running.

"I'm surprised you managed to get as far as you did," the young man said in a conversational manner. His helmet was back on, lending his voice a tinny quality. "My associate should have stopped you."

"He didn't get the chance," replied Ferus, wary. "If you haven't seen already, he's dead."

The bounty hunter seemed not at all perturbed by this news. "He was useful, but far too inexperienced for a job like this. He tended to underestimate the two of you on occasion. For instance, he might try to tell you that, if you give your friend to me right now, your own life would be spared. I won't insult your intelligence by lying to you—I'm afraid I can't let either of you live."

"I would never give him to you!" Ferus spat. The bounty hunter tilted his head to the side, as though amused.

"If you intend to fight, fight for yourself; your friend is no longer worth it. He's been under heavy sedation without food or water for five days. He cannot survive."

Five days. The words chilled Ferus's heart, but the emotion did not appear on his face. "I will fight for both of us, and I will win."

They attacked both at once. Just as Ferus threw out his hand, the young man raised his own; and as the Force flung the bounty hunter onto his back, something flew from the green glove, and Ferus felt a sharp pain pierce his calf. He looked down and saw a short feathered dart embedded in his skin. With one swift motion he pulled it out and began to run again, taking what advantage he had while the bounty hunter was still disabled.

It seemed to be the most difficult thing Ferus Olin had ever done in his life. At the very best, he was still running from a man intent on killing him, weighed down by the lifeless body of his best friend. But the road seemed never to stop, and there was no crowd to lose himself in. Worst of all, though he tried to ignore it at first, was the slow, dead feeling—or lack thereof—that crept up his leg. Gathering his thoughts, Ferus concentrated the Force on the unpleasant sensation, and it receded, but only temporarily.

He kept running, though it seemed that hours passed, with no sound but his footsteps beating furiously against the dirt road and the blood as it pounded in Ferus's temples. Strange, that he sensed no more hot pursuit—the bounty hunter seemed to be counting on the tranquilizing dart, whose effects were growing more difficult to quell by the moment, to win his quarry for him.

Ferus blinked; was it his imagination, or were there more people now on the streets than there had been further up the road? His mind seemed to be growing numb as well, but he struggled to think: if there were more people, then he had to be getting closer to the center of the city…and at the center of the city, there was the hotel…and the med droid…

His own breathing sounded deafeningly loud in his ears; every breath that he took ached. Just a few more steps, the Jedi promised himself wearily. Just a few…more…

The door opened, and Ferus rushed inside to sag against the wall. Were they safe? Oh, let them be safe. He couldn't think any longer, couldn't manage to escape again.

The face of the innkeeper, whom Ferus had last seen only a few hours ago, was shocked and bewildered. Ferus swallowed, thinking very carefully how to speak.

"Get-a-med-droid," he said, running the words together. And then he blacked out.