A/N: And we're back!
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Disclaimer: Not mine.
Tarrah had been sorely tempted to inspire a betrayal, either by the Force or by simple persuasion. After all, Vek was bitter and put-upon enough to stick a knife in Ithorak's spine, and a little encouragement would have been all the hapless Twi'lek needed. But in the end, she'd decided against it: quite apart from the fact that Ithorak would have seen the attack coming, Vek was just too pathetic to send on a suicide mission. So, the old Jedi mind trick had been enough to make him fall asleep in the corridor and forget that he'd ever met her.
Then she'd snuck up on the war droid, made a few discreet adjustments to its programming, and waited as it clattered into the room. She gave it a few seconds for the war droid to whittle down Ithorak's defenders, and then followed it in.
And then everything seemed to happen at once.
Somewhere at the back of the docking bay, a hoarse Selkath voice shrieked, "There! Kill her!" Instantly, the two remaining battle droids turned and opened fire on Tarrah, leaving the Mandalorians to fend for themselves as they clattered towards her, guns blazing.
Without missing a beat, Tarrah lashed out with a bolt of machine-savaging energy that tore the droids to gleaming shards of metal. Then, as if Ithorak wasn't startled enough, the last surviving Mandalorian drew a thermal detonator from his belt and charged the war droid with a howl, the two of them instantly vanishing in an explosion of searing heat and concussive force; needless to say, the mercenary's armour wasn't enough to save him, but when the smoke finally cleared, there was nothing left of the war droid but an oozing pile of molten metal.
In the ringing silence that followed, the Gotal shifted in her makeshift sniper's nest and took aim at Tarrah.
Without her lightsabre at the ready, the first blast should have punched a hole clean through her head – had Tarrah not raised a hand and took the shot right in the centre of her left palm, instantly absorbing the heat and the impact with a single flourish of the Force. Above, the sniper let out a muffled curse and fired again, but once again, Tarrah was ready with her right hand this time and absorbed the blast without so much as a grimace.
Then, just as the sniper was reloading, Tarrah raised the GenoHaradan blaster, took aim with all the expertise her years as a smuggler had granted her, and fired a single bolt.
Hulas had been right about the blaster's accuracy: the bolt roared through the air without so much as a wobble, hit the scope of the Gotal's rifle, blasted clean out the other side, and ended its journey in the sniper's skull, right between her cones.
The dead Gotal's now-useless rifle snipped free of her grasp and clattered to the ground.
Ithorak looked around in horror, suddenly realizing he had only two bodyguards left. "Don't just stand there, you idiots!" he howled. "Stop her!"
And with that, he took off running towards the opposite end of the docking bay, leaving the Chevin and the Echani to cover his escape. Tarrah catapulted herself after him at a speed only the Force could have granted her, but the bodyguards had been left until last for a very good reason: Echani were among the fastes and most graceful melee combatants in the galaxy, and Chevin were a lot quicker than their hulking frames suggested… and both guards were ready for her.
A pair of razor-sharp Echani blades scissored through the air just ahead her, narrowly missing Tarrah's throat, while the Chevin lunged in from the side like a charging Bantha, enormous fists hammering down towards her like meteorites, leaving Tarrah frantically dancing backwards to avoid the onslaught.
Realizing that she couldn't get to Ithorak with these two opponents blocking her every move, she looked around for the docking bay gate control and lashed out at it with the Force, instantly bringing the whole thing hammering down like a fallen portcullis, narrowly missing Ithorak as he dived for his exit. Then, as the Selkath struggled impotently with the now-broken controls, Tarrah readied her weapons and dived into the fray once more.
For thirty-five seconds, the three of them clashed back and forth across the docking bay floor, moving so quickly and so gracefully that it really did feel like a dance: the Echani diving and somersaulting and pirouetting in a lethal ballet of blades; the Chevin viciously kicking and punching with improbable agility despite his elephantine frame, moving with purpose and grace to rival any ceremonial dancer; and between them, Tarrah, without her lightsabre and using as little of the Force as possible, ducking and weaving and blocking with a swiftness that astonished even her.
With every swing of the Chevin's meteoric fists, she darted back across the floor; with every swing of the Echani's lethally honed sword, she countered with the vibroblade; when movement was possible, she relied on reflexes born from experience; when it wasn't, she fell back on the Force to carry her out of the way before the next strike landed.
She got them caught up in the dance, wove them into a tangle, spurring them on with impatience at a target that neither of them could hit. She stoked their rage, getting them angry at her for remaining on the defensive and never giving them an opening, every move she made buzzing away at them like a fly that couldn't be swatted no matter how hard they tried. And the two were so caught up in the heat of the dance that neither of them realized that they were being led inexorably towards Ithorak's position at the gate controls.
But then they heard their employer scream, "no, no, no, not this way, you idiots!" and immediately skidded to a halt, panicking as they struggled to re-manoeuvre – and in that moment, Tarrah struck.
Just as the Echani was lunging in from the right, blades ready to force her away from Ithorak with another one of his lethal pirouettes, the GenoHaradan blaster snapped upwards with whiplash force, stopping just above his nose. The Echani had just enough time to realize his mistake before Tarrah shot him right between his startled eyes at point-blank range with a sickly wet pop. Down he went, blades clattering noisily around him as he fell.
The Chevin roared in outrage and launched himself at Tarrah, a living maelstrom of deadly limbs ready to tenderize her into pulped meat and shattered bones, but with no partner to keep her on the ropes, she had nothing to hold her back. Darting away from the bruiser's strikes with Force-driven swiftness, she lashed out with the GenoHaradan blade and sliced him neatly across the back; she was instantly rewarded with a furious grunt and a muffled gurgling from the cannister at the vibroblade's hilt. Pausing only to dart away from a pain-frenzied swing of the Chevin's gigantic fist, she attacked again, this time slashing him across the arm. By now almost apoplectic with rage, the Chevin lashed out with a kick that would have reduced every bone below the kneecap to jelloid pulp, but Tarrah was ready for it; leaping over the elephantine leg sweep with another surge of the Force, she brought the GenoHaradan vibroblade lashing down on his undefended skull, then digging deep into his undefended spine before burying itself in the small of his back.
The pachyderm bruiser lurched away, reeling in pain and trying for a counterattack, but by then the poison was already making itself felt. After three precise strikes and several generous doses of poison, his reflexes were beginning to slow, and with every wild, drunken swing he took, he only grew slower and clumsier, all elegance lost as the neurotoxin ate away at his nerves, strangled his reflexes, and finally began destroying his higher brain functions. Finally, he crashed to the floor, left struggling for a grip on the deckplates – until Tarrah tucked the GenoHaradan blaster under his chin and fired until he stopped moving.
But no sooner had she wrenched the vibroblade loose from the Chevin's back, Tarrah all but hurled herself to the deck as a blaster bolt whizzed by, missing her by barely a centimetre.
For a con artist and blackmailer, Ithorak was a deadly shot, and she was forced to duck into a defensive position to block the incoming hail of blaster fire with her bare hands… but when it finally passed, Tarrah realized almost too late that Ithorak had managed to hotwire the controls to the docking bay gates, leaving him with an uninterrupted escape route: if he could work up the momentum, he could easily dive from here all the way to the waiting ocean below.
In that moment, time slowed to a crawl, even as Ithorak charged towards the open gate, robe flying behind him like the wings of some ancient chiropteran monster as he galloped to freedom, clearly designed to turn rigid and double as a short-range glider in emergencies. From what little she could see from here his shields were designed to protect against energy weapons – a sensible enough move, considering almost nobody in modern society used anything as archaic as a slug-thrower… but then, he'd clearly never met anyone accurate enough with a blade to make it count at a distance.
Drawing back the GenoHaradan vibroblade, muscles tensing like durasteel springs under pressure, she flung the poisoned sword with all her might and all the accuracy that the Force could afford, sending it arrowing through the air like a mythical lightning bolt from heaven.
She saw it soaring across the docking bay, towards the ever-so-distant figure of Ithorak as he galloped to freedom, and for a split-second her mind was empty except for a whirlwind of frenzied equations and calculations as she tried to determine how accurately she'd made the throw, even as her rational mind reminded her of Master Zhar's teachings, to feel, don't think.
Then the blade slammed home point-first as only a sword guided by the Force could, catching the fleeing Selkath diagonally in the left shoulder and burying itself in his paunchy torso. Speared through the flank, Ithorak staggered in mid-run, suddenly losing all traction, feet slipping across the deckplates even as momentum carried him inexorably forwards – until at last he fell, landing with a thud and squealing across the polished floor for another two metres before he ground to a halt less than forty centimetres from the open gate.
Tarrah immediately hurried forward, blaster at the ready, but she could already tell that there was no need of it any further: Ithorak had only been impaled through the flank of his torso, shearing through his ribs while leaving most of his internal organs untouched, but between a three-foot length of metal being buried in his side and a cannister full of poison being injected into his veins, he wasn't going anywhere before he died. Right now, the only undetermined factor was whether neurotoxin or blood loss would kill him first.
Yowling in pain, the Selkath forced himself into an awkward sitting position, webbed fingers struggling for a grip on the edge of the gateway in spite of his obviously fatal injuries. For a moment, he tried to haul himself to freedom, as if hoping that someone in the ocean far below could help him, or perhaps he simply preferred the notion of dying in the sea to dying on dry land.
But then his gleaming black eyes focussed on the blade in his side, then flicked to the blaster still in Tarrah's hands.
"I… know you," he gasped. "I know your sword… your blaster. You're… GenoHaradan."
A hand oozing with blue-tinted Selkath blood reached up and grabbed Tarrah by the collar. For a split-second, Tarrah thought he was trying to kill her one last time: Selkath had retractable claws just like Wookiees, only theirs were dripping with lethal poisons. A last-second attempt to take his assassin with him might not be out of the question… but then, Selkath had similar traditions to Wookiees, and even a slippery customer like Ithorak might not want to disgrace himself in his final moments. And besides, she couldn't sense any aggression towards her. So, against all logic, Tarrah led the dying Selkath drag her down until she was close enough to hear his last words.
"This… isn't what you think," Ithorak wheezed, his mouth a bubbling mess of blue blood and rabid froth. "Someone… someone has betrayed… you're being… you're… you…"
He coughed.
He gurgled.
He shuddered violently.
And then, he died.
As soon as she was certain that the target was well and truly dead, Tarrah pulled the blade fee of Ithorak's body, cleaned it, and sheathed it. Then, pausing only to scoop Ithorak's bloodstained datapad off the floor, she hurried off into the afternoon murk without a second glance.
Along the way, she disposed of her disguise: the jacket was the first to go, bundled up and set on fire before being tossed into an access shaft, followed closely by the trousers, the shoes, and her wig. She left her makeup for last. By the time she'd was back within sight of Manaan's security cameras, the humble buyer was long-gone, and Tarrah was back in her Jedi robes.
All the same, she was a long way from feeling any better about what she'd just done. Not only had she just committed another assassination, but now she had another mystery to unravel: how had Ithorak known of the GenoHaradan? If Hulas had been right, they were supposed to be a secret society, unknown to anyone but the chosen few since the days of Xim the Despot, so how could an information broker possibly know the secrets only revealed to new members and Supreme Chancellors?
Either there was a leak in the organization… or something very worrying was at work behind the scenes.
Once she was back in the safety of the Ebon Hawk's docking bay, she reviewed the datapad as best she could: most of it was decrypted and locked so effectively that it would have been impossible to slice within a month, if not longer, but one application had been left open – namely the datapad's messaging function.
Someone has discovered that you are more than you claim to be, read the most recent message. Watch your back: you know Vek is too incompetent to watch it for you.
Perhaps that was what Ithorak had meant in his last words: perhaps there was a leak in the GenoHaradan, and that was the betrayal he'd referred to. For the moment, Tarrah could at least rule out Hulas as the source of the betrayal: after all, why set Tarrah against the GenoHaradan's enemies, then warn them about it? It was too elaborate even as a possible Sith trap.
But if not Hulas, then who was the traitor? Who could be leaking GenoHaradan secrets to the underworld, and why?
The thought haunted her as she tiptoed out of the ship and out of the docking bay, until at least she came to a halt under the blind spot of the nearest security camera. To her surprise, Hulas was waiting to collect the datapad, his spindly frame tucked so tightly against the docking bay door that he might as well have been invisible. His emotions once again remained inscrutable, his thoughts impossible to read except for an endless procession of cargo manifests making their way out of Manaan, but as he tucked the datapad under his arm, he offered her a cheeky wink.
"Much obliged," he whispered. "We'll talk soon."
He handed her the latest of the GenoHaradan's rewards, a utility belt layered with the mechanisms for a unique stealth field generator. Even before Hulas began rattling off specifications for this special GenoHaradan stealth unit, Tarrah could already tell that it was a lot more effective than the standard model used by the Republic's military: a larger battery gave it a longer duration, anti-refraction emitters reduced the stealth field's distinctive "shimmer" effect, and audio dampeners reduced the volume of the user's movements, allowing for greater mobility without compromising stealth.
And with that, Hulas was gone, flicking on his own stealth unit and gliding off into the fading light of the evening.
Hopefully, the matter of who might be leaking the Genoharadan's secrets would now be a question for Hulas to answer. Of course, he'd most likely follow any investigation by sending Tarrah after the perpetrator… but with any luck, the GenoHaradan would at least be able to maintain its secrecy and effectiveness, otherwise her attempts to join would have all be for nothing. And even if all remained secure, she still had another set of coordinates to wait for, another journey to yet another planet that would leave her crew asking all manner of questions if she couldn't find a decent excuse for being there…
…and how long would that go on for? How long would she be asked to continue with this little masquerade until the GenoHaradan made her a full member and maybe considered lending their help to the war against the Sith. And that was assuming this wasn't just an excuse to have her slave away as the GenoHaradan's star pupil, killing all the targets they couldn't be bothered dealing with.
Oh gods, Tarrah thought. That's exactly what this is, isn't it? No, no, no, don't even imagine that. Don't dream the thought even crossed your mind. That way lies madness. That way lies things worse than the Dark Side.
Tarrah sighed, massaging her temples as the beginnings of a headache began chiselling its way through her skull.
This time around, she was regaining her calm much sooner: her heartbeat was dwindling back to a crawl, her adrenaline was fading, and this time, the Dark Side was less insistent in its call. Hopefully, that had been because the being she'd just killed had provoked her ahead of time, or maybe it was because she was becoming numb to the Dark Side's siren song. But even with these benefits, she still felt terrible: the level of secrecy and intrigue was beginning to wear on her, and she could already tell that it was going to get worse.
Fighting on the battlefield was exhausting. Repairing droids and slicing computers was tiring in its own way. Even trying to talk her way to victory brought on a very well-earned sense of weariness. But all three brought with them a sense of victory, a sense that she'd accomplished something.
The espionage of the GenoHaradan, the politicking, the scheming, the secrecy she had to maintain with local law enforcements, with her allies in the Republic, even with own friends… well, it only made her feel as if she was just setting herself up for another mission – and another one after that, and another, and another, and another, each one with worse consequences on the line. There was no victory here, only more work, more danger, more exhaustion, and worse of all, a sense that the work would never truly be over.
No, perhaps exhaustion wasn't the right word. Exhaustion was the sort of thing you could solve with the Force, if used correctly.
What Tarrah was feeling was futility, and it was splitting her head apart.
And the hell of it was that she'd been feeling it for everything she'd ever done on Manaan… and before that, she'd been feeling it for everything she heard of the Republic's history… and of course, for everything she'd heard of the Sith before Revan, all of it slowly inspiring futility. After all, it was so hard to hope when everything seemed so determined to repeat itself across history.
She hated feeling that way perhaps even more than she hated feeling hatred or fear, because futility-driven depressions always seemed to bring on those terrible dreams and visions that she always dreaded experiencing – the ones of Bastila confronting Darth Revan at the very moment of Malak's betrayal… and that just made her feel even worse, because she couldn't explain why it made her feel so terrible.
And in this case, the depression and the wide-awake nightmares only made the headaches even worse.
Groaning, Tarrah hobbled back into the bowels of the Ebon Hawk and made it as far as the main hold before collapsing onto the nearest couch in a contorted heap, clutching her head. She needed to stop thinking, just for a little while, if only because thinking only made her feel a thousand times worse.
No, more than that, she needed help to get out of this seat and away from any conversations that might play out here at the heart of the ship, because if she tried to rise of her own accord, her skull was going to split in two. She needed to lie down. She needed to rest.
And as if by magic, Juhani seemingly materialized over her.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
Tarrah briefly considered lying, just so her crew wouldn't have to worry any more than necessary, but then another jolt of pain seared across the inside of her skull. "No," she all but whimpered. "I… I need to get to my bunk. Need to… lie down."
Without even needing to be told what to do, Juhani scooped Tarrah off the couch and helped her upright, supporting her with an arm over her shoulders as she gently walked her out of the main hold, into the ring of corridors and cabins that made up the Ebon Hawk. And when they finally got to the tiny alcove that served as Tarrah's cabin, Juhani laid her down gently, even removing her boots and tucking her in so expertly that Tarrah would have asked if she'd had prior experience with putting sickly friends to bed, if not for the fact that speaking made her head toll like a cracked bell.
But as she turned to leave, something in Tarrah's brain hammered insistently on an override button, and in spite of the pain, she found herself gasping, "wait… please, stay with me for a while. Just a few minutes, please."
Juhani eyed her with undisguised concern. "Are you worried about the Dark Side again?" she asked.
"No… I just…" Tarrah cringed in pain. "I really don't want to be alone right now."
Without saying a word, Cathar sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, as watchful and solemn as a sentinel. She hadn't asked why she was needed or even if Tarrah needed help from anyone else: she'd just took up watch as if nothing in the world could be more natural. Could it really be possible for one barely reformed smuggler to inspire this much loyalty, even if it was by drawing her back from the Dark Side? Was Tarrah really worthy of this kind of camaraderie?
Or was she misjudging the whole thing? Was there something else in play here?
No, that wasn't the most important thing, or so her tired old brain insisted. She needed to ask something vitally important of Juhani before she finally lost consciousness, or else she'd have that dream again, and some mad logic told her that the answer to the question might be the only thing that could spare her from another awful night.
"Is there any point to it, Juhani?" she asked. "The wars keep breaking out, the Sith keep coming back, and the politics keep going on. Is it all for nothing?"
Her vision was fading now: she could barely keep her eyes open, not with even the dimmest lights of her room too harsh to bear. So she didn't see Juhani reach out and take her hand in hers – but she definitely felt those warm hands encircling hers.
"No," said Juhani. "Nothing about this is meaningless, Tarrah. Not as long as there is something that continues on in spite of the wars. The Mandalorians couldn't destroy that. The worst senators in the Republic couldn't destroy it. The Sith haven't been able to destroy it, and hopefully never will."
To Tarrah's ears, it sounded like she'd wanted to say all this for years. Still, hard-won cynicism left her with no choice but to question it.
"Let me guess," she sighed. "Hope?"
Juhani chuckled. "No. You already know the answer, Tarrah, otherwise you wouldn't have done half the things you've done, and you wouldn't have saved me."
"What, then?"
"People. Wars go on, the politics grow more corrupt, the Sith come back, but none of them can stop people from caring for each other and striving for a better way. Don't think about any of those three: think about the people you helped to carry on in spite of everything those three did. Think about those you showed the way to the Promised Land; think about the Sandrals and the Matales; think about the others on your crew you helped when nobody else could." And here, Juhani took a deep breath to steady herself before concluding, "Think of me."
In spite of herself, Tarrah smiled. "Where did you learn that from?" she asked, sleepily.
And even though she could barely see anything by now, Tarrah got the distinct impression that Juhani was rolling her eyes with feline exasperation, smiling in spite of herself.
"From you, of course," she said.
The last thing Tarrah felt, before she slipped back into a state of semi-conscious sleep, was Juhani kissing her on the cheek.
A/N: Up next... the Red Tusk.
