Crosscurrent (31 page)

The door creaked open more, its springs and levers groaning against the Massassi’s strength. Marr looked over his shoulder and saw the hole of a blaster barrel pointed through the slit, one yellow eye of a Massassi fixed on him.

Marr hunched in his seat out of reflex, though the seat would not so much as slow a blaster shot. He pulled back on the
Junker
’s control and accelerated to full as the ship went vertical. The sudden shift in direction and velocity poured him flat into his seat and sent the Massassi backward from the door. The crowbar slipped free and the sound of a blaster’s discharge accompanied their frustrated roars.

Weakened from his injuries, Marr almost passed out from the maneuver. The view through the cockpit window shrank to a tunnel with a few stars as he tried to hold on to consciousness. His blood pumped like a drum in his ears. The drumming gave way to a soft, steady rush, white noise that reminded him of the surf on Cerea. The tunnel of his awareness reduced to a pinpoint. He was falling …

He fought his way back, seized awareness with both hands, and reached for the lever and buttons that would activate the emergency vent sequence. He seemed to be
moving in slow motion, watching himself on a vidscreen.

He hit the control sequence and an alarm beeped. Designed to put out an electrical fire shipside, the emergency vent would cause rapid depressurization and vent all oxygen in the ship into space. The Massassi would be dead in less than a minute while the vac suit would protect Marr.

In theory.

The beeping alarm turned into a prolonged keen, indicating imminent venting. Marr realized that he had never had the opportunity to check his suit. His fall could have pierced it, or one of the Massassi’s sharpened disk projectiles could have damaged it.

There was nothing for it.

The alarm fell silent as the interior of
Junker
turned into a vacuum. Marr listened to the sound of his breathing inside his helmet, the hiss of the oxygen kit feeding him air. He watched the life-support readout on the console show the absence of oxygen.

He turned in his seat and found himself staring at the muscular, red-skinned form of a Massassi. The cockpit door was open behind the creature, an open mouth that had vomited the Massassi into the cockpit. Broken capillaries turned the Massassi’s yellow eyes into a mesh of black. The creature swayed on its feet, already dying from lack of oxygen. For what seemed an eternity, the Massassi stared at Marr and Marr stared at the Massassi through his suit’s visor.

Baring its fangs, the creature lunged for Marr, clawed hands outstretched. Marr tried to grab the Massassi’s wrists as the creature fell on him, but blood loss had left him with little strength, and the creature got its hands free of Marr’s grasp. The Massassi tried to pull Marr from his seat but the straps secured him.

Marr reached for his blaster with a free hand, then
realized he had no blaster. The Massassi, mouth wide and gasping for nonexistent air, hit the emergency release on Marr’s strap and both of them fell to the cockpit floor in a heap.

The Massassi scrambled atop, his weight a vise on Marr’s chest. Its clawed hands pawed at Marr’s suit. Marr’s breathing rasped in the echo chamber of the helmet. He tried again to grab the Massassi’s arms but his strength was no match for the alien’s. He punched the creature in the face, shoulders, but the blows were so weak the Massassi barely seemed to notice them.

The creature’s face loomed into Marr’s faceplate. Droplets of black blood fell from the Massassi’s ears, eyes, and nose, smearing the screen. Marr once more felt the odd sensation that he was watching events happening to someone else on a vidscreen. The Massassi’s claws closed on the suit’s neck ring, then tighter, around Marr’s throat, and started to squeeze.

Marr’s body failed him. Strength rushed out of him as if through a hole. He could not lift even an arm to defend himself. He stared up through the smeared faceplate, barely able to see, barely able to breathe.

The Massassi squeezed Marr’s throat, squeezed, then … released its grip and collapsed atop him, dead. The vacuum had done what Marr could not.

For a time, Marr heard only the sound of his own rapid breathing. After a few moments, he rolled the Massassi’s bulk off him and sat up, feeling instantly dizzy. Every muscle in his body screamed. He tried to stand, but his legs would not support him and he sagged back to the floor. His body seemed disinclined to answer his demands.

Crawling on all fours, he climbed over the Massassi and went to the instrument panel, intending to deactivate the emvent and repressurize
Junker
. He tried to wipe away the blood on his faceplate but that only made
it worse. His eyes seemed unable to focus. So, too, his mind. He could not remember which buttons did what.

Only then did he notice the hiss.

His vac suit was bleeding air.

He looked down and saw a gash in the suit’s belly, a laughing mouth put there by a Massassi claw. He stared at it dumbly, watching the edges flap as the oxygen kit fed air into the vacuum.

He put both hands on the instrument console, leaned over it as if he could intimidate it into cooperating. Forcing himself to focus on the instruments, he tried to clear his mind enough to remember which sequence of buttons would repressurize the ship.

When he thought he had it, he pushed them, then pulled the lever.

Nothing happened.

He sagged into the pilot’s seat, his vision fading. He was going to die unless he did something. He flicked on the autopilot and it blinked at him, awaiting a course.

Focusing on the navicomp, blinking through his pain and dizziness, he hit a random button and stared at the coordinates displayed on the screen. He did not recognize them at first, then realized them for what they were: the provenance of the distress beacon coming up from the gas giant’s moon.

It occurred to him that he would get shot down by
Harbinger
’s fighters before he ever hit the moon’s atmosphere but he realized it did not matter. Oxygen deprivation and blood loss were already killing him.

He transmitted the coordinates from the navicomp to the autopilot.

He looked out the cockpit window as
Junker
came around. The moon came back into view, the gas giant and its rings,
Harbinger
. He wondered briefly how Relin was, then sank into his chair, into the Force, and did not move.

His mind wandered. He smiled, thinking that Khedryn could have at least allowed a medical droid aboard. But the captain was as stubbon as a bantha when it came to droids.

He found breathing difficult, tiring. He just wanted to close his eyes and sleep.

Relin stalked
Harbinger
’s corridors, more predator than prey. It was as if Marr had been the compass for his conscience, the Cerean’s presence the needle that pointed to right and wrong. Now, alone with his anger, with the Lignan, Relin gave full play to the darkness of his emotions. The shipwide alarm continued to howl but he tuned it out, hearing only the call of revenge. He did not bother to hide his presence in the Force; he transmitted it. He wished for Saes to find him. The power of the Lignan saturated him, eager to be used in service to his rage.

While thinking through his attack in his time aboard
Junker
, he had planned to return once more to
Harbinger
’s hyperdrive chamber and rig the hyperdrive to irradiate or explode the entire ship. But now, flush with power, he had another idea.

Moving through
Harbinger
’s corridors reminded him of the last time he had been aboard. He imagined he would hear Drev’s voice over his comlink—Drev’s laughter—but he knew he would never hear his Padawan’s voice again. His anger grew with every step. His power grew with every step. He used his growing connection to the Lignan to steer him through the ship, a left turn here, there a lift down or up.

Laugh even when you die
.

Laughter bubbled up between Relin’s gritted teeth, steam through an escape valve, venting the overflow of his anger lest he explode from it.

He turned a corner and found himself staring at three humans, all men, and a treaded mech droid. The humans wore helmets and surprised expressions. They stopped in their steps when they saw Relin and his lightsaber. One of them lifted the portable tool chest he bore to his chest, as if it could protect him.

Nothing could protect them.

The droid beeped a question.

Relin smiled.

All three of the humans dropped their tool chests, turned, and ran, shouting for help.

Relin augmented his speed with the Force, leapt over the droid, caught up to the humans, and put his lightsaber through each of them, one after the other. He barely noticed their screams.

A single Massassi security guard, perhaps hearing the tumult, trotted around the corridor to investigate.

“You!” the Massassi said, reaching for his blaster. “Halt right there!”

Relin gestured with his stump, closed a mental hand around the Massassi’s windpipe, and crushed it with a thought. The creature fell to the ground, legs drumming the floor, clawing at his throat.

Stepping over and past the writhing Massassi, Relin continued on. He looked down at his hand and saw long fingers of Force lightning dancing out of his fingertips.

He laughed louder, shouting his hate through
Harbinger
’s walls.

“Saes!”

Ahead, perhaps twenty meters, the doors of a turbolift opened to reveal six of
Harbinger
’s crew, all humans. He did not see a blaster among them.

One started to step off, saw Relin, and stopped cold. His mouth opened, but he said nothing. Instead he retreated into the lift, said something to his fellow passengers,
and frantically tapped at the control panel, trying to close the lift doors.

“Quickly!” another said, while one in the back spoke into her comlink.

Relin roared, increased his speed with the Force, and sprinted toward them. The six members of the crew flattened themselves against the far side of the lift, made themselves a living mural, but there was nowhere for them to run. Terror filled their eyes and blood fled their faces. The doors began to close but Relin held them open with telekinetic force.

Seeing that, the crew shouted for help, pressed themselves against the walls as if trying to meld flesh with metal. Relin stepped through the lift doors, laughing. The hum of his lightsaber competed with the screams, but not for long. He spun a circle, stabbing and slashing, pleased when his lightsaber met the soft resistance of human flesh. In a few moments the screams fell silent and only the hum remained.

Relin stared at the carnage he had caused. Tears warmed his face, mingling with the blood of those he had killed. Without warning he vomited,
Junker
’s caf and his last meal joining the gore on the lift’s floor. That, too, he stared at for a time, until his eyes dried.

Whatever had remained of him as a Jedi had just left him in a spray of puke.

On the control panel he saw a button for the lower-level cargo bay. He knew he would find the Lignan there. The touch of the ore was the fishhook he’d swallowed and it was pulling him along by his guts.

Ever gone angling, Drev?

He had said those words a lifetime ago.

He pushed the button.

“When is the last time I felt anything?” he said, echoing Saes’s challenge to him in their last duel.

“When indeed,” he said, chuckling darkly.

*  *  *

Alarms blared from speakers overhead, the sound muted by the erkush bone mask Saes wore. With each step, he felt more attuned to his tribe and ancestors than he had in a long while. He had lost himself entirely when he had joined the Jedi Order, forced by Jedi teachings to renounce the fierceness of character and passionate spirit that made him who he was. He had partially recovered himself when he had spurned the Jedi and embraced the teachings of the Sith. But he had never felt closer to whole than he did now, moments before he would murder his former Master. He was a hunter, a warrior, a Kaleesh.

He threw back his head and screamed an
ingmal
hunting cry through the fangs of the mask. Startled faces emerged from hatches and side corridors, but he strode past them without offering an explanation.

Through his connection to Relin, he felt his onetime Master’s growing anger over the loss of his Padawan. For a moment, but only a moment, Saes felt a flash of sympathy for Relin, a flash of kinship. He was pleased that Relin had felt the sting of loss, rather than only the distant, attenuated, abortive emotions the Jedi allowed themselves.

Saes knew that all men should feel the pain of loss before they died. In that way, they would know they had lived. Relin was no exception, and Saes was pleased for him. Now he could kill him with true affection in his heart.

Relin’s anger would lead him to only one place. There, Saes would confront him, and their story together would end. He activated his comlink.

“Sir,” Llerd said. “Other than a trail of bodies, we do not yet have any idea of the Jedi’s location.”

“He is on his way to the cargo bay,” Saes said. “The Lignan is drawing him.”

“I will alert security and—”

“No,” Saes said. “Order the bay evacuated. I will face him there. Alone.”

“Yes, sir.”

The lift hummed as it descended several levels to
Harbinger
’s cargo bay. Relin’s lightsaber sizzled, warmed the close confines of the lift. He stared at its light, hypnotized by the swirl of green. He knew it should have been red. He
wished
it were red.

The doors opened and the naked power of the Lignan filled the lift compartment, filled Relin. Light-headed, giddy with power, he stepped into the cavernous cargo bay. Stacks of storage containers lined the walls. If the stresses of the misjump had knocked some to the floor or otherwise put the ship’s cargo into disarray, the crew had cleaned it up.

Pieces of human-operated lift gear—lev pallets, treaded lifters—sat abandoned on the metal floor. He saw no one in the bay, not even a cargo droid, and he knew exactly what the emptiness meant. He walked across the floor, the lift closing behind him, the tread of his boots loud in the soaring chamber.