Corso dropped back to the crate, propped his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his entwined fingers. His thoughts whirled and collided, propelled into a chaotic spin by Scourge's words. He'd lived this way for so long, openly displaying one mask, using the second as need required and locking the third away.
He was a man split into three psyches and had no idea how to integrate them into one whole being. The face he was born to, the one he now wore with comfortable familiarity, displayed the demeanor of a boy nurtured by loving parents, taught to be tough and self-reliant but also kind, caring and optimistic. His long, arduous struggle to find that 'gentle buffoon' again and bring him back from the edge of extinction would not be wasted, no matter the sage advice of a Sith Lord.
'Game face,' was the perfect alter-ego that he called at will. Cold, emotionless, calculating and controlled, it was a means to an end, a job to be done, pain to be endured. It had preserved his sanity when subjected to the 'barrel' during his time imprisoned on Singat 9 and served him well in protecting the woman he loved more than life.
But, the other, the one he feared, burned, white-hot and merciless. It supplanted all he was and drove him into a blind frenzy goaded by rage, fear, and grief. Belsavis was not the first encounter where he'd been engulfed by the insatiable hunger for revenge, for relief. Stars, he'd struck her while bludgeoning a man to death with his bare fists. How could he ever make amends with that?
"There are no innocents in war," he'd once said to Ky, and he was living truth of how the atrocities of war can shatter a man into irreconcilable fragments.
The warning chime from the cockpit drew his thoughts out of the unsolvable maze he traversed. Damn the Sith and his meddling. They'd be exiting hyperspace soon, and he set about stowing the cleaning materials back into his kit and securing the folding table into its cradle on the wall.
"Looks a bit like Port Nowhere," observed Ky as the shadowport expanded to fill the windshield as they drew near.
A bastardized space station served as the central hub of the structure with various platforms cobbled together in a lopsided semicircle along the periphery. They were directed to bay 26-Besh where Corso eased the craft into position and cut the repulsors. The ground crew piled through the station side door as soon as the outer forcefield engaged and waited for a signal to begin the refueling process, standing idly by pumping stations and hoses.
Scourge appeared at the cockpit entrance, his hood pulled up and a mask covering his face. "They expect payment up front," he explained, his voice deep and resonant through the modulator. "I'll take care of it and have a contact to meet. There's something I need before we continue and it's best my face remains hidden. Admit no one until my return."
She locked the hatch behind him and returned to the cockpit, watching him saunter across the bay, back straight, cloak swinging, exuding an aura of subtle threat. Eyes glanced at him nervously and immediately found more intriguing things to examine, like the floor.
Minutes passed before the crew sprung into action. The sound of unhooking latches and the dull metallic scrape and thud of hoses being attached reverberated through the hull followed by the faint hiss of charged gas flowing into the tanks.
Ky leaned against the console and settled in for the wait.
"You're awfully quiet," she said to Corso who responded with a noncommittal shrug.
She'd dealt with his reticence before, especially after Belsavis, and didn't push the issue. Whatever was going on in his head, he'd have to work out for himself since he'd made it abundantly clear that sharing with her was not an option.
An hour ticked by and still no Scourge. The ground crew completed their business, disconnected the hoses and sealed the fueling ports leaving the bay empty except for the ship. This had merely been a topping-off stop in their travels, and a means for Scourge to acquire whatever he thought he needed for the journey.
A commotion in the rearview monitor drew her attention.
"Fuck!"
She surged upright and sprinted to the exit hatch, sliding it open and dropping to one knee, blaster aimed and firing. Corso, crouched at her back, sighting around her shoulder at the men who poured into the bay behind the Sith. One man howled and fell, whether by her shot or Corso's didn't matter.
Scourge ran two or three paces, stopped and turned, striding backward, blocking the blaster fire. His lightsaber painted the flight of fireflies as each impact flickered and sparked. Ky and Corso held their fire when Scourge reached the bottom of the ramp and launched the lightsaber in an arc, slicing the air like a crimson scythe in a field of wheat. A voice was cut off mid-yell, and the saber buzzed home to his outstretched hand like a bee to the hive. He grunted and stumbled through the hatch where Corso caught his bulk as Ky closed and locked the door.
"You're hurt," said Corso.
Scourge waved him off and limped toward the cockpit handing a small rucksack to the droid with a word of warning to use care in its handling. The holo had begun to beep, and he removed the mask and jammed his finger angrily on the receive button.
The sizzle of a cutting torch crawled down the hallway from the direction of the hatch as the miniaturized image of a heavily tattooed man formed above the small console unit.
"Surrender to us now," tattoo man demanded, not mincing words. "My men are cutting into your entryway as we speak, the forcefield is still in place, and the tractor beam has you locked down. You have nowhere to go."
"I've got this," Ky said to Scourge, moving him aside so she came into full view. "If I were on the ground, you'd have me, but I'm not, and you have no idea how far I'll go when I've got nothing left to lose."
She moved to the nav computer, pulled up a random destination, and brought the hyperdrive engine online. The whine sang along the corridors of the ship like a farewell song.
"If I don't engage soon, the drive core will overheat, and if I do engage, well, you get the picture," she sneered. "What's your next move? Better make it a good one."
"You're bluffing," the man taunted. "You'd kill everyone on this station, including yourself."
"Your point?" Her lips rose in a snarl. "Tell your men to back off and leave the area. Unlock my ship, and we might all walk away from this."
Minutes hung like pendulums, warring for advantage from opposite ends of the arc, bumping back and forth between two immovable objects. Ky inched the jump lever forward, increasing the whine by octaves and sending a tremor through the ship.
If she jumped now, the shields might protect her ship, but more likely the debris from the destroyed shadowport would be pulled into the same space-time vortex, and if the flotsam didn't destroy then on entry, it would shred them when they exited the jump.
If she didn't jump, the anti-matter core would overheat, and the detonation would be catastrophic. Not high odds of survival either way but she had to play the hand she'd been dealt.
Scourge stood impassively at her side making no move to interfere, and Corso fidgeted in the pilot's seat, ashen-faced but silent.
"What's it gonna be?" Ky pushed at tattoo man. "Dead men can't spend credits."
His men shifted uncomfortably, and one of them whispered something in his ear. She advanced the lever one more notch to further instill the seriousness of her intent. The ship shuddered, and the whine became a screech. The systems status monitor crept slowly toward red.
"Enough," tattoo man yelled. "I concede, for now."
"Call them off and leave. Be quick." Her smooth tone belied the dread curled around her innards. She'd pressed this one close to a critical mass where there was no turning back.
The engine continued to scream, the men outside were leaving, "I'll see you again, bitch," tattoo man promised just before he also exited the bay and closed the door.
They all sighed in unison as she throttled the lever back one notch at a time, still monitoring the readout before powering down the drive completely.
"Thought we'd bought the farm for sure, babe," breathed Corso as he sagged back in the seat, his knuckles white where they still gripped the steering column.
"A little close," agreed Ky. "Looks like they dropped the force field. Take us out and keep us on sublights for a while. Expect to be followed and check the motivators for damage and make sure the transpacitor didn't get warped. I'd prefer blowing up on purpose rather than by accident."
"I'd rather not blow up at all," quipped Corso.
Ky turned back to the nav computer and programmed in the last known coordinates that would bring them out of hyperspace just outside the Nulastine Drift. Nothing on the other side was mapped and few who went in ever returned. Not only was radiation, particle waves, and gravitational eddies a problem but she would be flying blind with no destination grids or markers available. They would also be well out of range of any holonet transceivers, which meant no long distance communication and no rescue.
She should have handed Scourge the box and run like hell. Too late now; in for a credit, in for a pound as her father used to say.
"So, who were those guys?" asked Corso.
"Given their facial tattoos, GenoHaradan I'd say," answered Scourge.
"I thought they didn't ever give up on a contract," said Corso.
Scourge lifted a brow ridge. "They are dedicated, not stupid. Well played, Ky."
"I wasn't playing, but I figured he'd blink. From what little I've heard, they honor a contract to the letter. They'll bide their time and be back, but hopefully, by then, the notebook will be well out of their reach."
"But you won't," said Scourge.
"One battle at a time, my friend," she smiled.