CHAPTER TEN – MACBETH DOES MURTHER SLEEP

LUX

"We have an apartment in Coco Town," Maria says dully. "Jack should still be home."

"We need the address," I say, passing her a datapad.

She writes down the address and hands the 'pad back to me. "Whatever you do, don't tell him I talked to you."

One advantage to Ahsoka's master being paranoid about her safety: when she asks for a strike force to help her take down "a psycho," General Skywalker couldn't give her the men fast enough.

Of course he also decided to tag along, and that's how I end up in the backseat of a speeder clinging to my seat for dear life while Skywalker and Ahsoka argue in the front.

"This my mission," she argues. "All I needed were some men for a strike force, not for you to babysit me."

"I'm not babysitting you; I'm driving you," Skywalker shoots back and makes a wild turn that almost sends me careening across the speeder.

"General Skywalker?" I speak up once I'm sure I won't lose my lunch. "Do people usually drive like this in Galactic City?"

"No Lux, they don't," Ahsoka says before Skywalker can say anything. "If my master here wasn't the Hero With No Fear, then he would get his license pulled!"

"I'm a good driver!" Skywalker protests.

"Says the one who just blew a red light!"

He ignores her. "Senator Bonteri, could you repeat that address for me?"

I read the address off the datapad and try not to scream in panic when Skywalker floors it and sends us lurching down the lane. I watch the numbers on the speedometer go from 35 to 60 in five seconds, maximum.

"Master!" Ahsoka shrieks and clutches her seat. "Remember Lux is in the backseat and you promised Padme that you would drive safely with him."

"I remember."

"No, you clearly don't!"

I don't ever want to ride in a speeder driven by Anakin Skywalker again, but if I have to storm a place then he and Ahsoka are on the top of my list of people I want on my team.

"Jack Vierson, open up in the name of the Republic!" Ahsoka yells through the door.

There's a scuffle inside and Skywalker Force Pushes the door in, sending it flying off its hinges and into the apartment where it knocks over a bucket with a loud THRACK!

A Twi'lek man freezes, seemingly startled by the door. But Ahsoka isn't fazed in the slightest. She shoves past Anakin and steps into the apartment with her lightsaber in hand.

"Put your hands in the air," she orders and hovers her thumb over the button to activate her lightsaber.

"What is this about?" the guy cries. "Why did you kick down my door? My girlfriend is going to have a baby, and if she sees this I'm toast."

"You're in more trouble than just with your girlfriend," Ahsoka seethes and stomps further into the apartment, her hand now firmly on her set of binder cuffs. "Jack Vierson, you're under arrest for three counts of murder and the attempted murder of Saw Gerrera."

I enter, wary of the destruction in the doorframe and struggling to keep my anger under control. This man shot my best friend, my brother, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't entertaining a few violent fantasies.

"What?" Jack protests as Ahsoka locks the binders around his wrists. "I didn't murder anyone. I'm just trying to clean my new place."

"Cleaning? Do you usually clean with a slugthrower?" Ahsoka snaps and jerks her head toward said gun sitting on the table. "Someone bag that for evidence."

I glance over to the mop and bucket leaning against the wall.

"Whatever's in that bucket is probably enough to gas us all," I wrinkle my nose. "Did you water that stuff down? I'm surprised you don't have chemical burns on your hands."

"My girl likes things clean. Is that a crime?" He blinks. "Look, can I at least dump the bucket down the sink so it doesn't gas us when we come back?"

My instincts poke me and I mosey over to the bucket. "I'll do it for you."

Maybe it's like the outsiders say, and the people of Onderon are all animals at heart complete with animal instincts. Maybe I really do watch too many crime procedurals.

But whatever it is, I hit pay dirt when I look into that bucket.

"Ahsoka, you need to see this."

The chemicals in the bucket have been dyed a bright lime green. Ahsoka cranes her head over my shoulder to see.

Then she turns to Jack.

"So," she says. "Duros?"

"Jack, it's over." Ahsoka says. "We have a positive identification from Saw Gerrera as the guy who tried to kill him. The ballistics from your slugthrower match all the previous crime scenes. We found the body of the tenant you just killed in a Dumpster. We have your girlfriend in an interrogation room down the hall, and we found traces of blood literally on your hands."

"Maria sold me out, didn't she?" he asks. When I don't answer he swears in Twi'leki. "That schutta. Of course she did. Is she pinning this all on me?"

"What's there for her to pin?" I snort.

"I'm betting you picked up a slugthrower because it isn't detected on weapons scans, which is sound." Ahsoka drums her fingers on the table. "Here's the thing about slugthrowers, though: when you fire them, the powder leaves residue on your hands. Despite those chemicals your hands have come back positive for it, and I can't think of any other way for slugthrower residue to get there besides shooting someone."

"It wasn't my idea."

That catches me off guard.

"You're telling me you didn't want to break into those apartments, pull out your slugthrower, kill the tenants, and move on to the next victim when you realized you weren't getting away with it," I deadpan. "You didn't want to kill four people and injure one?"

"Yeah!"

"Jack, you fled two different planets after you killed those men," Ahsoka says, her face broadcasting that she is completely and utterly unimpressed.

"I wanted to stay on Ryloth and shack up with Rassk."

"That clearly couldn't happen, because you killed him."

Jack's hands shake wildly. "Not at first!"

"So you drank some of his beer before you shot him?" I snap.

Ahsoka shoots me a Shut up, Lux look. Thankfully, Jack doesn't notice.

"No, we lived there for something like a week!" He blurts out. "Rassk wasn't my best friend in the world but he said we could stay with him until we got on our feet as long as we helped pay the rent. The rent part was going to be a little tricky, but I figured he would forget about it or give us some extra time until I had the credits. Maria made him swear not to tell anybody, something about her father, but Rassk is either drinking or hungover so that wasn't a big deal. It's not like he talks about what goes on at his place except to complain about the rent."

Okay, this isn't making an iota of sense. Jack and Maria wanted a house, but it looks like they got what they needed with Rassk. "If it was okay there, then why did you kill him?"

Jack goes deadly silent. Ahsoka leans forward on her elbows. "Jack, this is your last chance to help yourself and say something."

"Maria."

I blink. Ahsoka's head jerks back the smallest bit.

"You killed him for Maria?" I repeat.

Jack nods and casts his eyes down to the table. "The day it happened, Mar met me alone in the kitchen and told me he tried to seduce her," he trails off. "I was so mad. She had to have seen how angry I was but she just kept on going and – I don't even know how I got the gun! I kept it in my suitcase and I don't remember going back to our sleeping area to get it. Next thing I remember Rassk is dead and Maria's telling me that we need to get another place."

"Did she have a place in mind?"

"No, she just said 'nobody's gonna miss Rassk; we'll just find another Rassk.'"

"Wait a minute," Ahsoka sits up straight. "You're telling us that this entire murderous rampage was Maria's idea?"

"Yes!" Jack bleats.

If I was anywhere but directly in front of someone who we've hypothesized to be, by all counts, a psychopath then I would sit back and zone out to the wall in front of me while I processed the information. But in my present situation there's only one thing I can do.

"Ahsoka, I think the lab results for the M-40 tests should be in."

There's no such thing as an M-40 test, and Ahsoka knows it.

Maria stares at us with huge, tear-filled eyes.

"He's saying it was my idea?"

"That's what Jack told us." Ahsoka explains, reaching across the table to gently pat Maria's hand.

"He's lying," she sniffs. "Isn't that something that messed-up people do? They lie and hurt the people they love to get their way?"

"Beings with antisocial personality disorder tend to use whatever means necessary to meet their goals," I say, practically plagiarizing a HoloNet article I read on the way here. "Maria, Jack said that you two lived with Rassk for a week before the murder. What made you leave?"

She wipes her nose with her sleeve. "Rassk came on to me. I asked Jack to talk to him, and he lost his mind and grabbed his slugthrower. I tried to stop him, but he was too strong."

"Okay, and after he shot Rassk what happened?"

"He got this look on his face," she shudders. "And then we grabbed our stuff and went to get a new place. He said we would just find someone like Rassk."

"They're telling the same story but with the names swapped."

"Yes," Ahsoka says sardonically. "I could tell. Looks like we did our job of driving them apart a little too well."

Tell me about it. I almost wish we hadn't done so well. Then we wouldn't be trying to sort out this massive, confusing mess.

"Who should we believe?" I ask. "They haven't had any contact with each other so there's no way they could coordinate their stories unless it was a prior arrangement."

"They're selling each other out," Ahsoka reminds me with a pointed finger. "I don't think they're coordinating their stories; I think one of them is telling the truth and the other one is lying."

"All right, so which one? You can tell with the Force, can't you?"

She shakes her head. "It's not really something I can turn on or off."

Beautiful. I grasp at my last possible straw. "Can you mind trick them into telling the truth?"

She gives me a withering look and I feel the straw slip through my fingers.

"Mind tricks only work on the weak-minded," she practically seethes. "Do either one of them strike you as weak-minded?"

Nope…

But I don't dare to say it out loud, because it looks for all the world like Ahsoka will strangle me the next time I say something stupid or smart-mouthed. I may not be force-sensitive, but I can guess that Ahsoka wants one thing in particular more than anything else: sweet, sweet sleep.

"Did you sleep on the transport?"

She stops me before I can even suggest it. "Not a chance, Lux. We only have so long we can hold these two without a charge, and if we don't know who did what then we can't charge them with anything. I'm going to call Anakin and Barriss to see if they can help us, you try to get ahold of the milita or of your hacker friend, wherever he is -."

Ahsoka's comlink buzzes. Written across the display in red block letters is the name BARRISS.

"Thank goodness," Ahsoka grabs the comm and puts in on speaker. "Barriss, please tell me you have good news."

"'Good' may not describe it well," Barriss says. "I did dispatch Mr. Reyes; he is on an express transport to Coruscant and a police escort will take him directly to the station. That's not what I'm contacting you over, though."

She pauses.

"I found some information which is rather … disturbing."

Lux and Ahsoka need to find some answers, and fast. The two of them placing the blame on each other creates reasonable doubt, which could hinder them in delivering any charges.

Thank you to Starwarshobbitfics for your review. And speaking of which, please review!

Until next time,

LS