Star Wars: Scourge (31 page)

There was no sign of Reen or Angela Krin, though a large number of the screens were beset by gray-blue static, and Mander remembered that their passage into the ship had knocked out a number of cams.

But Mika had known they were coming from the onset.

“When did the wupiupi finally drop?” asked Mika, his face wide and open, his tone as congenial as when they had first met him. “When did you realize you had been played?”

“Only at the very end,” said Mander, keeping his eyes
on the Hutt. “There was still a chance that Vago was responsible, or someone else in your household. Maybe even your father’s Twi’leks. But after we met Vago as the Twi’lek’s hostage, there was no one really left who could handle something this extensive.”

“Yes,” said Mika. “Pity about my brother. I had hoped that he would have been pleased enough just to take our father’s place, and not ask too many questions. Business could continue and I would be hiding safely behind my image as the innocent and ineffective younger child. Imagine my surprise when he actually showed the wherewithal to capture me and gin up a show trial for your Pantoran. His plans were that I would quietly disappear after he solidified his hold on the business, and I couldn’t have that. That was when I knew that he would not survive, but I still needed another decoy to take his place.”

“Vago,” said Mander. “She didn’t know, did she?”

“Not at first, no,” said Mika. “It is so easy to move things around when no one really suspects you. Vago never expected anyone else in the family to access the Anjiliac finances. Popara trusted her exclusively to carry out his will. Zonnos only cared for his own pleasures, whiling away the time until he finally controlled the family empire in name, but comfortable to let Vago continue to run the day-to-day. They were all expected to continue to play their parts. No one expected me. Or the Tempest.”

“How did you find it?” asked Mander, slowly closing the gap between them. A step at a time. “The Tempest, I mean.” He tried to keep his voice light and free of the Force. The Hutts were known for their resistance to Jedi mind tricks, and this one would be tougher than most.

Mika smiled, and it was clear that he saw through Mander’s casual charade. He backed up a step, putting a control panel between him and the Jedi. “I was interested
in our home planet. I found records of our most ancient times, speaking of its great cities and powerful families. And later, the reports of a blasted, almost airless world, exposed to the raw ravages of space. And after a time, those reports petered out. The Council of Elders still assigned patrols to the region, to keep others away, but the planet itself was considered so much dross, insufficiently profitable, a dying world spinning around a dying star.”

“So you didn’t come for the spice, then?” said Mander, and his eyes flicked to the various screens surrounding the Hutt. None of them showed his companions, or Vago.

“That was a happy accident,” said Mika. “I was actually searching for the old droids that you found guarding the plant. I thought at the time that their designs might prove useful in the modern age. Then an employee who was an … aficionado … of a less damaging breed of spice brought his own supply here. That supply was in turn affected by the air and water of this world. He died, both the first recipient of the drug and the first victim of its effects. I had the body autopsied, of course, and in the process discovered the Tempest. After that, it was a simple matter to backtrack and confirm, then set up the plant. This was the ideal location, and the cache of ancient droids made perfect workers and protectors.”

“Pity it is over now,” said the Jedi.

Mika let out a deep sigh. “It does not have to be this way. You could become part of the organization. You and the others. The offer I made through Vago still stands.”

“The refusal still stands,” said Mander. “As does our warning. We have allies waiting for us.”

“You want to help me,” said Mika calmly, smiling. He passed his hand in front of him.

The emotional pressure upon Mander was immediate,
a bow wave of the Force striking him head-on, penetrating him utterly. For a moment he was taken by surprise, his own will washed away, replaced briefly with the desire to help this little Hutt—this small, strange, persecuted being, all alone in the greater universe. Despite himself, he staggered back. Part of his surprise was that he had felt the style of this mental attack before, and knew where the Hutt had learned the trick.

Mander Zuma took a deep breath and dropped into himself mentally. He embraced the Meditation of Emptiness and let the wave of outside desire pass through him.

“No,” Mander said, and Mika’s broad smile disappeared with the refusal. “An apprentice’s mind tricks will not work on the one who taught them to him.”

Mika let out a growl and said, “So you know that as well now?”

Mander nodded. “Toro Irana taught you that. He tried it on me, once, and it failed then as well.”

“It was one of the few tricks I could learn,” said the Hutt, and laughed. “There is a cosmic irony in being able to affect the minds of lesser beings, but then to be surrounded by servants who would jump to my very word in any event. And to then keep the company of Hutts, who are naturally resistant to its effects!”

“But Toro could not teach you much,” said Mander. He made it sound like an insult.

Mika the Hutt chewed on his lower lip, and his face blanched. “Do you know what it is like? I could feel your Force. I could almost see it around me. Yes, I know that is basic to you
Jeedai
, and it is what you look for in your students. But I could not
utilize
it. I would attempt to and it would all slip away. It was like grabbing at water. I could close my fingers on it, but never hold it firmly.”

“Not everyone who can use the Force is made to be a Jedi,” said Mander. “There have been many disciplines in history.”

Mika ignored his words. “I needed someone to train me, but I proved a poor student. I was a fish looking at animals on the dry land, or a mammal watching the birds fly. I could hear the voices of the party that I could never attend. You want to help me.”

Again, he pushed hard with the Force, turning the casual request into an imperative command. Mander was ready for it this time, and batted it aside mentally, dismissing it as soon as he heard it. “And you killed Toro. You addicted him and then killed him.”

“I thought he could be controlled,” said the Hutt. “I know better than to try that again. For all your supposed talk of controlling your emotions, you Jedi are extremely passionate. You are an Order of believers. It became clear that Toro Irana was responding badly to my new spice, and rather than let him fall back into your hands and reveal my actions, I thought it best to take him off the board.”

“You play holo-chess, then,” said Mander, thinking of the board in Angela Krin’s office—and her own words—all the while looking for an opening, for the Hutt to lower his guard.

Mika was silent for a moment, then said, “I dabble.” He added, “I miss Toro Irana. He was a good teacher. I think that, in the end, he wanted to prove himself. To show he could have his own apprentice.”

“He taught you to gather the Force to influence others,” said Mander. “And to control minds.”

“In a clumsy fashion,” said Mika, trying to appear unthreatening. “At heart, I could not wrap my mind around your philosophy. I am afraid that a Hutt remains a Hutt.”

“You used the Force on Angela Krin,” said Mander.

“I was subtle,” replied Mika. “Nothing major, a nudge here, a warning there. When we were talking in orbit over Endregaad, I made clear my concern about the Tempest, because I wanted to know how much the CSA would find out. After your Pantoran found the serial numbers, I knew it would be only a matter of time before they tracked it back to Skydove Freight and my family. I had to prepare. I asked her to protect me.”

“Which is why she came to Nar Shaddaa, supposedly to track down the hard spice,” said the Jedi. “You put the idea in her mind.”

“That and more,” Mika said, nodding. “I had her keep me apprised of what the CSA knew. I led her to understand what a danger I thought Vago was. Then I had planned to maneuver her into the same room with my father’s counselor and let ‘nature’ take its course.” He held his hands out in a plaintive fashion. “But you knew that.”

“I am slow, but I get there eventually,” said Mander. “It’s why I came here by myself. There’s no one else for you to manipulate. Now it is time to stand down, Mika. Your Hutt mind tricks don’t work on me.”

“Then I will have to try something else,” said Mika.
“Killee du schoon!”

Mander heard the sound of a lightsaber engaging and immediately thumbed the activation plate and brought his own weapon up. Even so, he was nearly bowled over by the force of the blow.

The third Twi’lek handmaiden, her skin as green as the irradiated pools outside, had leapt at him, igniting a blue-white blade as she jumped. Mander caught the weapon on his own blade. As the two blades ground against each other, the Twi’lek arched over his head, landing between the Jedi and the Hutt. She shook her Tempest-veined head-tails, and Mander noticed that
they were shod in overlapping coppery plates—no vulnerability there.

She raised her blade to threaten Mander, and her eyes were a solid, deep violet from the Tempest spice. She was wielding Toro’s short-hafted lightsaber. Mika’s agents must have recovered it back on Makem Te, before Mander arrived.

“I could not learn to wield one of your blades,” said Mika, “so I choose to employ others who can.”

The Twi’lek hissed and leapt again, her blade cutting down on Mander.

Mander parried the blow, but now he was prepared, his blade steady as he brought it up. Their blades crashed with a crackling electrical static—Mander’s lightsaber and Toro’s cascading a series of nova bursts as they slid off each other. But Mander steered the lithe form of the Twi’lek to his right, and pushed her off as their blades parted. The Twi’lek was surprised by the move and landed badly, sliding across the bridge and into a control bank.

Such a move would have left an ordinary opponent dazed, but the handmaiden was fueled by anger and hard spice. She flipped up to her feet immediately and met Mander’s own attack with a sharp strike toward the hilt, near the blade emitter. Despite himself, Mander pulled back, seeking to protect both his hand and the emitter. The Twi’lek seized that moment to press forward with a flurry of blows, Toro’s former blade arching like ionized lightning in the red-hued light of the factory-ship’s bridge. Mander was driven back, parrying blow after blow, but at last he caught and held his former apprentice’s blade on his own. The Twi’lek tried to move past the blade, but Mander held her at bay, guiding her back to a neutral position. She would have to retreat—lessen the pressure—if she was to make another attack, and then he would have her.

“Too evenly matched,” said Mika. “You have knowledge but she has rage. Perhaps I can rattle that monklike calm that you Jedi love so much.”

The Hutt pressed a couple of toggles on a console and the holoscreen changed. Instead of showing locations within the factory, they all showed the same display: the
Barabi Run
, perched on its landing cradle outside.

“Where are your friends, Jedi?” asked Mika. “You had them when you came in. Did you think to send them to safety while you tried to deal with matters by yourself?”

Mander let out a shout, but the Hutt’s pudgy digits punched a button. From half a dozen directions, beams of ionic power laced through the poisoned atmosphere and struck the ship. It disappeared in a ball of flame.

Mander cried out at the sight, the image chilling him to his soul. The Twi’lek took advantage of his distraction. She jerked her head back, and then forward, arching the metal-shod tips of her head-tails above her and down onto the Jedi. One of the copper-colored tips carved a deep, hot crease along the side of Mander’s face, and the pain blossomed across his cheek and ear.

He fell back from the Twi’lek, rolling as he did so and regaining his footing, buying himself time. But the Twi’lek did not pause from her assault, swinging wildly at him. He danced back, bringing his own blade up, but she beat it back, recovering in time to unleash another assault and not giving him a moment of peace. He could deflect the blows, but not return any of them, and with every assault she forced him farther back. Another two steps and she would have him against the wall, with nowhere to run.

The Twi’lek, sensing her victory, made a broad, slashing attack against Mander’s stomach. He jumped back, against the wall itself, but smelled the burning of his
robes as the blade passed too close to his flesh. His assailant was already recovering, bringing the crackling blade back along the same path.

Mander thought of Reen, fighting this Twi’lek earlier in the Popara’s penthouse, and how easily she had dealt with her. Tempest or no, trained or not, this was the same woman with the same vulnerabilities. He ducked beneath the returning blade, and in doing so deactivated his own. He stepped into the arc of the Twi’lek’s attack, after the blade had passed, and twisted the lightsaber hilt in his hand before bringing the pommel up sharply against the Twi’lek’s chin.

The Twi’lek’s violet eyes rolled up into her head from the shock and she pitched backward, losing her grip on the blade. The deactivated lightsaber followed the curve of her attack and flew, useless, across the room, spinning to a stop beneath one of the large holoscreens showing the burning wreckage of the
Barabi Run
.

Mander turned toward Mika, standing at the command chair of the bridge. His face stung from the Twi’lek’s assault and, reaching up with his free hand, he felt something wet. His hand came away red with his own blood and fragments of plastoid. His comm had taken part of the blow, but jagged slivers of it were now piercing his flesh. He brushed the back of the bloody hand against his hair, shaking most of the splinters loose. His robes smelled of burned fabric, and his limbs ached from the fight.

Mander thumbed his lightsaber alive once more and pointed it at Mika. He stepped toward the Hutt, who did not respond, but instead smiled at the Jedi as he advanced.