Star Wars Riptide

SOLDIER WATCHED RUNNER STRIDE TOWARD THE FALLEN human. Runner flipped his blade and took a reverse two-handed grip in preparation for driving it through the man’s chest.

“Wait!” Soldier shouted.

Runner looked over his shoulder, the wind blowing his hair across his face so that Soldier could not read his expression.

“Wait, Runner!” Soldier shouted again. “Seer, tell him!”

“Hold, Runner!” Seer said, and Runner obeyed her, though he did not deactivate his blade.

Soldier and Seer, carrying Hunter and Grace, hurried to Runner’s side. Soldier nodded at the downed man. He wasn’t moving, and blood and dirt covered his face.

“If he’s not dead, bring him,” he said to Runner. “He must be with the Jedi. I want to know how they found us. They could send others.”

Runner looked to Soldier, then to Seer, who nodded. Grunting indifferently, Runner picked the man up by the armpits and slung him roughly over his shoulder.

In Seer’s arms, Grace stirred and opened her eyes. “Soldier?” she said.

Soldier smiled, delighted to see Grace’s eyes opened. The meds he’d given her back on the cloakshape were working. “Welcome back,” he said.

“Is that my mother?” Grace said, nodding at Hunter.

Soldier nodded. “She’ll be all right.”

“I want to walk,” Grace said to Seer, and Seer set her down.

Soldier watched her for a moment, then handed Hunter over to Seer.

“I’m going to check the containers the droids have unloaded. I want to make sure the meds are still aboard.”

“Let’s go aboard, Grace,” Seer said.

Soldier watched them all head for the supply ship.

“Get the engines started,” Soldier called to Runner and Seer. He looked skyward at the collection of police swoops that hovered at a distance. They showed no inclination to close or interfere.

Two droids rolled in front of Runner and Seer.

“Excuse me, but you are not authorized to—”

A diagonal slash from Runner’s blades cut both droids in half, and the four smoking, sparking pieces fell to the landing pad.

Still hidden in the darkness of the supply ship’s landing bay, Nyss watched the clones, bearing one of their wounded and Khedryn Faal, board the ship. He could have reached out and touched them with his hand as they passed. The Prime lingered on the deck outside. If Nyss could get the Prime alone, he could take him.

But the female clone shooed the child into the ship, then lingered in the cargo bay, near the ramp, watching the Prime.

Soldier hurriedly examined the labels on the shipping containers the loading droids had already unloaded, looking for the component materials he’d need to mix the Metacycline. He saw only probiotics and other ordinary supplies. No pharma.

“It’s still aboard, isn’t it?” Seer called to him from the loading ramp. He could see her smiling from there, still holding Hunter.

“If it’s here at all,” he answered.

“You’ll come to believe, Soldier.”

He deactivated his lightsaber and hurried to the ship. Seer wore her smile the entire time. When he got in, he used the control panel to raise the cargo doors. By the time they closed, Runner had the engines online.

Storage containers lined the vast space of the cargo bay, hundreds of them stacked like children’s blocks.

“I’ll get the manifest and find the meds we need,” he said to Seer. “Have Runner get the ship into the air and get us heading to … wherever we’re going.”

“To Mother,” Seer said.

Hunter stirred in her arms. The meds were working for her, too.

“Yes,” Soldier said. “To Mother.”

After she left him, he found the nearest comp station and called up the ship’s manifest. He felt as if he were engaged in a test of faith. If Seer was right, the meds were aboard. If she wasn’t, then Seer, Runner, Hunter, and Grace would all die. Maybe Soldier would, too, in time, but he’d die alone, the last of them, purposeless.

He felt the ship lift off, felt the vibration as the landing skids retracted into the body of the ship. The engines engaged with a hum and he imagined the ship streaking skyward.

The manifest came online and he scrolled through it. His heart beat faster than it had when he’d faced the Jedi. He licked dry lips as he eyed the data, hopeful but afraid to let himself hope.

And there they were, just as Seer had said they would be: the genetic stabilizer, the antipsychotics, a few other reagents he’d need to mix in, all of them in such quantities that the clones would have enough for years, even with the accelerated pace of the illness.

Seer was right. Again.

The supply ship would not have a lab aboard, but he could make do. He pressed a button near the station to activate the onboard comm and raised the bridge.

“The meds we want are aboard. Lots of them.”

A long pause followed, as if Seer and Runner were digesting his words. Finally Runner said, “We’re away. Scanners show that no one is following us.”

“Good. What about the prisoner?”

“He’s still alive,” Runner answered. “What course should I set?”

Now it was Soldier’s turn for a long pause. After considering, he said, “Ask Seer. She knows where we’re going.”

He imagined her smiling at his response.

Nyss knew the Prime’s name now: Soldier.

He maneuvered in silence through the dimly lit cargo bay, eyeing Soldier while the clone checked the cargo manifest at a comp station. With effort, Nyss kept the suppressive field closely drawn around him. He did not want Soldier to sense it … yet.

Nyss debated incapacitating Soldier then and there, but decided to wait.

If Jaden Korr was still alive, he would come for Khedryn Faal. And, when the time was right, Nyss could use his arrival to take both of them at once.

He moved off deeper into the cargo bay, away from Soldier, and raised Syll on his comlink.

“Have you been able to determine whether Korr is still alive?”

“He is,” Syll said. “Both he and the Cerean are alive. I see them on the roof of the medical facility right now.”

Nyss nodded, pleased. “Good. Don’t let them see you. Lock onto my signal and follow the supply ship.”

“What about Korr?”

“He’ll follow, too. He put a tracking beacon on the supply ship before entering the facility.”

“All right. And then what?”

Nyss was already working out the beginnings of a plan. “Keep your distance until I say otherwise. We’re going to get Korr and the Prime.”

“Should I bring the Iteration out of stasis?”

“Not yet.”

Marr assisted Jaden up the stairs until they reached the roof. The access door had been knocked from its mounting and lay on the landing pad. The supply ship was already one hundred meters off the deck. Police swoops buzzed around it like sand flies, but they could do nothing to slow its ascent.

Burning wreckage lay near a stack of shipping containers, spitting a gout of black smoke into the sky. Pieces of one or more droids lay near where the supply ship had been docked. The rest of the loading droids stood aimlessly near the handful of shipping containers they’d unloaded before the supply ship launched. Junker sat on the pad, her landing ramp open.

Jaden stared up at the rising ship, concentrated, felt the dark-side signatures of the clones aboard.

“The clones are on that ship,” he said.

There was no sign of Khedryn.

Marr nodded, activated his comlink. “Khedryn, do you read? Khedryn?”

No response. A pit formed in Jaden’s stomach.

He and Marr shared a look and ran for Junker, hoping to find Khedryn aboard. Before they reached it, two figures emerged from behind a stack of shipping containers near the burning wreckage. Both wore dazed expressions and the uniforms of corporate flight officers. The older, gray-haired man, his belly hanging over the edge of his pants, wore the captain’s wings. The younger man ran his hand over his hair, his eyes moving from the supply ship to the burning wreckage and back again.

“You piloted the supply ship?” Jaden asked, indicating the ship.

The men nodded, dazed.

“Did you see anyone else out here?” Marr asked them.

The men looked at them, seemingly not comprehending.

Jaden stood with his face in the captain’s, locking the man’s gaze. “Did you see another man around here?” He nodded at Junker. “He would have come out of that ship.”

The captain blinked, nodded. “We saw a man. Dark hair. Lazy eye.”

“That’s him,” Jaden said.

“He got us off the ship,” the copilot said, looking skyward.

“Where is he now?” Marr asked.

“They got him,” the captain said, nodding up at the supply ship just as its ion engines fully engaged and it shot skyward. “I’m sorry. I don’t know if he was alive or dead. He saved us.”

Jaden felt Marr’s concern for Khedryn sharpen. The Cerean closed his eyes, visibly sought his calm. He inhaled deeply.

“Khedryn is still alive,” Marr announced. “I can feel it.”

“Then we’ll get him back,” Jaden said. He felt a rush of guilt. He had been so concerned with his responsibility to Marr that he had neglected his responsibility to Khedryn. The man was so competent that Jaden treated him as he might another Jedi, and that was a mistake. Khedryn would be no match for a trained Force user. Jaden had failed to consider that, and it had cost Khedryn dearly.

“Who were those people?” the copilot asked. “They had lightsabers. Red ones.”

“They’re the bad guys,” Jaden said, and left it at that. To Marr, he said, “Come on,” and they hurried toward Junker.

Police swoops circled the roof, started to descend. Jaden could not afford to waste time with an inquiry. He’d have to explain later.

They boarded Junker as several police swoops set down. Junker’s landing ramp started to rise. The supply ship’s copilot ran toward the closing ramp and shouted at Jaden and Marr before it sealed.

“And who are you two, then?” called the copilot.

The ramp sealed.

“We’re the good guys,” Jaden said softly, and thought of his clone, another him, a murderous version of him.

They hurried through Junker’s corridors for the cockpit.

“I put the tracking beacon on the supply ship,” Jaden said as they ran. “We can follow them wherever they go.”

Marr nodded, his relief palpable to Jaden. Jaden activated his comlink and raised R-6.

“Ar-Six, put the Z-Ninety-five down on the Fhost landing field and seal it up. We’ll be there to get you in a few moments.”

The droid whooped agreement.

“We may need him,” Jaden said to Marr by way of explanation.

“A good idea,” Marr said.

When they reached the cockpit, Marr slammed into his seat and started the launch sequence. His fingers blazed over the controls. Jaden assisted.

“Calm, Marr,” said Jaden. “Strong emotions serve only to slow effective action.”

“Yes, Master,” Marr said, but did not slow.

Several policemen stood outside on the landing pad, beckoning at Jaden and Marr through the transparisteel of the cockpit. Jaden activated the external loudspeaker.

“My name is Jaden Korr, Jedi Knight. The individuals who attacked the facility are criminals sought by the Order. I can’t delay pursuit. Please back away from the ship.”

He saw them confer—pointing at the ship, at the facility—then at last saw a ranking officer shrug and order the rest of them to stand away from Junker.

“She’s ready,” Marr said.

“You want to fly her?” Jaden asked Marr. “You’re still the first officer.”

Marr shook his head. “I’m the copilot and I’m not switching seats unless … I have to.”

Jaden understood. “Let’s get her up, then,” he said, and took the controls.

Junker rose through the smoke and into the sky. The copilot of the supply ship stood with his arm raised in farewell. The gesture touched Jaden.

It made him feel like they were, indeed, the good guys.

They headed for Fhost’s dusty landing field, the field where Jaden had first set down his Z-95 while following the Force Vision that had ultimately led him to the clones. It seemed to have occurred years before, not days.

They spotted his Z-95, R-6 rocking on his arms in excitement beside it. Jaden set down Junker and lowered the landing ramp. R-6 beeped over the comlink when he was aboard, and Jaden launched Junker back into Fhost’s sky.

Before R-6 reached the cockpit, Jaden said to Marr, “I got good looks at the clones.”

Marr nodded absently, still plotting courses, trying to get a fix on the tracking beacon.

“One of them was of Lumiya, a Sith agent.”

Marr said nothing, lost in his task. He wouldn’t know who Lumiya was.

“Another was of my own Master, Kyle Katarn.”

That brought Marr up short. “I’m … sorry, Master. That must have been hard to see.”

Jaden plowed onward. “It was. But listen, Marr. The other clone was of me.”

Marr swung in his seat to face Jaden. “Of you?”

Jaden nodded.

“But … how is that possible?”

Jaden stared out the canopy. They were just moving through the atmosphere, the blue of Fhost’s sky fading to the black of outer space.

“I’m still trying to figure that out myself. The math …”

“Grand Admiral Thrawn was killed five years after the Emperor died.”

Jaden smiled absently. “You’ve been studying your history.”

“As you instructed me to do, Master. When did you enter the Jedi Academy?”

“Nine years after the Emperor died.”

Marr stared at him, the implication obvious. Jaden stated it anyway.

“The Empire had my DNA before anyone knew I was Force-sensitive. Not even my uncle knew.”

“Obviously someone in the Empire knew.”

Jaden shook his head. “Not possible.”

“I don’t understand. That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.”

“Then … what are you saying?”

Jaden struggled to maintain calm. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just stating the facts.”

Marr sat quietly for a moment, and Jaden could see the gears of his mind turning. Finally, Marr said, “We don’t know that they took your DNA before you enrolled at the Academy. They could have taken it after. The cloning program may have continued long after Thrawn’s death. Someone else could have continued the program. And the pace of a clone’s aging can be controlled.”

“That’s possible,” Jaden acknowledged.

He tried not to grab too hard at Marr’s theory, though it struck him as profoundly better than the alternative.

A beep of greeting announced R-6’s appearance in the cockpit. He whooped and whistled.

“It’s good to see you, too, Ar-Six,” Jaden said, and patted the astromech on his domed head. “Connect to the subspace transmitter and inform the Order that we’ve left Fhost in pursuit of the clones. Give the details of the attack and …”

He trailed off. Marr eyed him sidelong.

“… and that’s it.”

R-6 plugged into Junker’s computer core and started to transmit.

“I’ve got the beacon,” Marr said, tapping a finger on the scanner screen.

“I see it,” Jaden said, checking the instrument panel. “Let’s get after them.”

The dull buzz of voices pulled Khedryn out of the blackness. At first he heard the voices only as garbled nonsense, the rise and fall of pitch and timbre, not words. The stabs of pain in his ribs, head, and nose sharpened as his mind began to clear.

When he remembered what had happened, he forced his eyes open and looked on dim surroundings. Overhead lights cast only a slight glow. He tried to focus through blurry vision. His head throbbed with pain.

More words, something about a mother, a hyperspace course.

He was on the floor, propped against a wall. His hands were bound behind his back, the bonds cutting into the skin of his wrists. Small items lay scattered on the deck. He stared at them a long while before he realized that they were hypos.

He heard another hypo discharge and its empty cylinder hit the floor. He looked up and around. He saw an elaborate instrument panel, four swivel seats, a large viewport that showed stars and open space.

He was on a ship, in a cockpit.

On the bulkhead above the viewport, he saw the star-burst symbol of Pharmstar Industries.

He was on the medical supply ship.

“He’s awake,” said a coarse voice from off to the side.

A large form stepped before him and blocked his view. He squinted through the pain and focused on worn boots, a ragged cloak, tattered clothing, a lightsaber hilt hanging from a belt. Glancing up, he looked into the blotchy, bearded face and wild eyes of the clone he’d shot at back on the landing pad of the medical facility.

A clone.

He’d been captured by the clones. The mad clones.

He tried to keep the flash of fear from his face, but he must have failed, because the clone before him grinned, showing yellow teeth.

“I think he knows where he is,” the clone said, chuckling. He stepped away from Khedryn, sat in the pilot’s seat, and started to work at the navicomp.

Khedryn’s mind, still clunky, tried to piece together events, draw conclusions. The clones had gotten off Fhost. Did that mean that Marr and Jaden were dead? Why had the clones taken Khedryn instead of killing him?

He had no answers. He could barely breathe. His nose was broken. He blew out sharply and expelled a stream of snot and blood onto his face and shirt. The clones seemed not to notice or care.

A female clone stood beside the pilot’s seat, one hand on the back of it. She stared out at space and he could see her in profile—her delicate features, her bald head. He would have thought her beautiful had he met her in a cantina somewhere. Her eyes were closed and she swayed slightly, as if in a trance. A second woman sat in another of the chairs, her back to Khedryn, her long red hair pooling on the gray material of the seat. She seemed to be sleeping.

A child, a girl, sat on the floor near the woman’s feet, nestled against the chair. Her long hair, also red, hung almost to her waist. She smiled at him, a guileless, friendly smile. The gesture struck Khedyrn as so out of place that he did not know how to respond. Finally he stuck his tongue out at her, and she giggled.

A hand closed on his shoulder and pulled him roughly around. Another clone crouched before him, looking him directly in the face.

“I’m Soldier,” the clone said.

Khedryn saw only a hint of wildness in the gray eyes of Soldier.

Gray eyes.

He blinked, thinking how familiar the eyes seemed. He noted the narrow, angled features, the hatchet nose, the jaw … and his mouth fell open.

“Stang,” he whispered.

He was looking at Jaden Korr—a shaggy Jaden Korr worn thin by a harsh life on a forgotten moon, but there was no mistaking the eyes.

“I want you to tell me how the Jedi found us,” Soldier said.

Khedryn deflected the question, his response on autopilot. “What Jedi? I’m just a salvage jockey who was visiting a relative at—”

“I saw the recognition in your eyes when you looked at me just now,” Soldier said. “I saw the same thing in the Jedi’s eyes when he first saw me.”

“You should have let me kill him back on Fhost,” said the wild clone in the pilot’s seat.

“His name is Runner,” Soldier said, nodding at the wild clone. “If you lie to me, I will let him do what he wishes with you. Do you understand?”

“You’re going to kill me anyway,” Khedryn said.

Soldier did not gainsay it. He leaned in closer. “Tell me how you found us.”

“Jedi can do things. I don’t know how—”

Runner whirled in his seat and lunged for Khedryn, his face twisted in anger. He pushed through Soldier, took Khedryn by the throat, and jerked him to his feet. Khedryn gasped for breath, his feet kicking. He thumped a boot off Runner’s chest. The impact troubled the clone not in the least.

Khedryn began to see spots. He looked down and saw the little girl, curled up in a ball, hiding her eyes. He looked into Runner’s bloodshot eyes, saw barely controlled madness there.

“Tell me how you found us,” Soldier said. Then to Runner, “Put him down.”

Runner hesitated.

“Put him down.”

Runner dropped Khedryn and he hit the floor in a heap, gasping, wheezing. Soldier crouched beside him.

“Tell me.”

Khedryn rolled onto his backside and sat up.

“Happenstance,” he said, and Runner growled. “That’s the truth. We returned to Fhost from the frozen moon, heard about the attack on the medical facility, and put two and two together.”

Soldier seemed to consider this. “Then they are not following us now?”

Khedryn answered truthfully. “I don’t know. I don’t see how.”

“Bah!” said Runner, and returned to his seat.

Soldier studied Khedryn’s face for a moment. “I believe you,” he said, and stood.

As Soldier turned away, Khedryn said, “How can you be him? Jaden? This … doesn’t make any sense.”

Soldier turned back and looked down on him. “Jaden? That is the Jedi’s name?”

Khedryn nodded, wondering if he’d said too much.

“I’m not him,” Soldier said. “I’m Soldier.”

Khedryn looked away, looked over to the little girl, but she was gone. He did not see her anywhere in the cockpit.

“What are you going to do with me?” he asked Soldier.

Soldier stared down at him with Jaden’s intense eyes. The clone cocked his head as if asking himself the same question. He looked to the bald woman, then to Runner.

“This ship has an escape pod,” he said to them. “We can put him in it and eject him into space. Maybe someone will find him.”

Runner spun in his seat. “Why waste an escape pod? We should space him.”

Khedryn’s heart beat faster. Sweat formed on his brow, and he despised himself for it.

“Or maybe just kill him right now,” Runner said. He lurched to his feet, took his lightsaber hilt in hand, and advanced on Khedryn.

Soldier stepped between them.

“Wait.”

“He shot at me,” Runner spat, still trying to push through Soldier. “And he travels with the Jedi who tried to kill us both.”

Soldier looked back at Khedryn. Khedryn found it unnerving to see such coldness in that face, Jaden’s face. He knew his life hung on Soldier’s next words.

“It’s just an escape pod,” Soldier said.

“Seer?” asked Runner of the woman. “What do you say?”

Seer, the bald clone, did not turn from the viewport. She stared out at the black as if it held some answer she sought. “Mother has no need of him. And neither do we. He should be killed.”

Runner grinned and moved toward Khedryn. Soldier hesitated for only a moment before he stepped out of the way, his shoulders slumped. He turned and looked into Khedryn’s face. There was no apology in Soldier’s expression, but neither was there pleasure.

“There’s no reason to kill me,” Khedryn said, pleased that his voice remained steady.

“There’s no reason to keep you alive,” Runner said, and ignited his lightsaber.

“You’re murderers, then,” Khedryn said. “Typical Sith.”

“We’re not Sith,” Soldier said.

“Might as well be,” Khedryn said. He stared the big clone in the face and used the wall to scramble to his feet. His burgeoning fear vanished in the face of the inevitable. He would not die afraid. He stuck out his chin.

“Not with a lightsaber, you Sith bastard. I’m a spacer. You put me out the damned airlock. At least give me that.” He’d always figured he’d die in a vacuum somehow. He looked past Runner. “Soldier, give me that.”

Soldier looked to Seer, who gave no indication she’d heard Khedryn’s plea. Soldier turned to Runner.

“Space him,” he said to Runner.

The two clones glared at one another, Runner’s blade spitting sparks.

“Do it,” Soldier said.

Runner grinned darkly and deactivated his weapon.

“Doesn’t matter to me. Dead is dead.”

He grabbed Khedryn by the collar and dragged him out of the cockpit, toward the back of the ship, toward the airlock. Khedryn looked back, trying to see the little girl for some reason, but she was nowhere to be found.

* * *

Nyss prowled the corridors of the supply ship. He moved in silence, the darkness clinging to him while he familiarized himself with the ship’s layout. The clones, four adults and the child, congregated in the cockpit, where they held Khedryn. He set about preparing things.

He found a power transfer, cracked it open to reveal a nest of wires and conduits. Most of them were labeled with small tags. He found the power lines that fed the main lights in the cargo bay and the rear of the ship and cut them with his vibroblade.

All around him, the main overhead lights failed. Emergency lights flared to life, small and dim, creating an environment rich in shadows. He felt right at home.

Khedryn and Runner passed out of the forward section to find that the main lights in the middle section of the ship had failed. Emergency lights cast the corridors and rooms in a dim glow. Runner slammed his palm against the activation switches, but the main lights stayed out.

Runner pushed Khedryn before him through the dark corridors. It barely occurred to Khedryn to resist, maybe take Runner by surprise. It would be futile. His hands were bound and he had no weapon. Besides, if he resisted, Runner would kill him with a lightsaber, and Khedryn did not want to die on the end of a mad clone’s blade. He’d take the vacuum every time.

As they walked, Khedryn felt as if he were moving into a tunnel, a womb, not from out of which he would be born, but in which he would die. Chaotic thoughts swirled through his mind, a rush of memories: his time as a child in the ruins of Outbound Flight, the face of his mother, his friends, his enemies, men and women he’d known, his life bouncing off theirs, all of them helping to make him who he was.

People are not equations, he heard Marr say in his mind.

No, he thought, and smiled. People were the sum total of their interactions with other people, the choices they made. He’d made some bad ones in his life, but also many good ones.

Words and arrows painted on the bulkhead pointed the way to the airlock, directions to Khedryn’s execution chamber.

“Keep moving,” Runner growled.

Khedryn had not realized that he’d slowed. His legs felt weak under him. His breath came rapidly, trying to keep pace with the demands of his racing heart. The corridors seemed too narrow; the walls were closing in on him. He tried to calm himself, determined to die with dignity.

Runner squeezed his arm and pulled him to a stop. The hum and sizzle of the clone’s lightsaber split the dimness of the dark corridor. Khedryn fought to keep himself upright.

“The airlock,” he said, his voice steadier than he had supposed it would be. “Not like this. We had an agreement, clone.”

“Shut up,” Runner said, his expression tense, wild, but not focused on Khedryn at all. He looked down the corridor in one direction, spun and looked down another. Khedryn saw nothing but darkness down the corridor in all directions.

Runner’s breathing came almost as fast as Khedryn’s. Khedryn tried to make sense of what was happening.

The madness, he supposed. Runner was having some kind of episode.

Or maybe …

Runner voiced a low, dangerous growl. His hand squeezed Khedryn’s bicep so hard it made Khedryn wince.

The darkness before them seemed to swirl and deepen. Runner leaned forward, eyeing it warily, his blade held before him. The sizzle of his lightsaber grew less pronounced; the blade began to sputter. Runner held it before his eyes, staring, as the blade shrank.

“What is—” Khedryn started to ask.

The blade flickered and fizzled out altogether, the puff of smoke from the hilt like a leftover ghost.

A hiss sounded from the corridor before them and Runner jerked to the side and snatched at something in the air. By the time Khedryn registered what had happened it was already over.

Runner held the shaft of a crossbow quarrel. He’d snatched it right out of the air. The silver tines of the tip looked like razors.

A susurration sounded within the darkness of the hallway, the sigh of a soft boot on the floor, or the rustle of a cloak. Runner dropped the quarrel but held on to Khedryn.

The darkness in the hall thickened, rolled toward them, a pale form at its head closing fast. For a moment, Khedryn, his mind still stuck on his pending execution, thought it an apparition of death.

But it wasn’t. It was an Umbaran.

Runner shoved Khedryn against the wall so hard it knocked the wind from him and sent him to the floor. Khedryn caught the flash of blades in the pale form’s hand. And then the Umbaran and Runner were engaged, their movements so fast that Khedryn could scarcely follow them.

The Umbaran stabbed at Runner’s abdomen. Runner sidestepped the stab and punched for the Umbaran’s temple with his lightsaber hilt. The Umbaran ducked under the blow, slapped Runner’s arm out wide, and stabbed at the clone’s chest with his other blade. Before the knife could connect, Runner caught the Umbaran’s wrist, planted his feet, spun, and whipped the Umbaran against the wall so hard the pale man’s breath blew out of him in an audible whoosh.

Runner charged him and feinted with his off hand while he loosed an overhand slam at the Umbaran’s head with the hilt of his lightsaber. The Umbaran ducked and the hilt slammed hard into the bulkhead. A leg sweep put Runner on the ground and the Umbaran leapt after him, his blades stabbing downward.

Runner rolled to the side, away from one stab, away from another, and unleashed a prone kick to the Umbaran’s chest that drove the pale man back enough for Runner to regain his feet. He was breathing heavily. The Umbaran, unwinded, held his blades a little away from his body and studied the clone’s defenses, looking for openings. They circled, a meter apart. The Umbaran feinted lunges to draw Runner out.

Impatient with the games, Runner charged. The Umbaran drove his blades at Runner’s chest but the clone caught him by the wrists, held the knives out wide, and used his greater weight to drive the Umbaran against the bulkhead. There, he slammed one of the Umbaran’s hands against the wall until the Umbaran gasped with pain and dropped one of the knives.

The Umbaran shifted his stance and drove his left knee into Runner’s abdomen, once, twice—both blows landing solidly—before Runner could position his body too close for knees to do any damage. The Umbaran continued to try and snake his hands free of Runner’s grasp, but he could not loose himself from the clone’s grip.

Runner grunted, pressed the Umbaran against the bulkhead. A head butt from the Umbaran into the side of Runner’s face elicited a grunt of pain from the clone. Snarling with pain and rage, Runner heaved the Umbaran up the wall, off the ground.

The Umbaran did not resist, but used the opportunity to attack, flinging his legs up and scissoring them around Runner’s throat. The clone gasped, grunted, his eyes wide as the Umbaran’s legs pinched off his carotid. The clone pivoted away from the wall and ran at the far bulkhead, slamming the Umbaran against it.

The impact jarred the Umbaran. He loosed Runner’s neck from the grip of his legs but quickly unleashed a straight kick that caught the clone’s jaw flush. The blow staggered Runner, and he lost his grip on the Umbaran’s right wrist. The Umbaran twisted, put his feet on the floor, and drove his blade into Runner’s chest. Runner staggered toward him, his mouth already filling with blood, and the Umbaran drove the blade home again, then again.

Runner’s mouth moved as if he were chewing on his final thoughts. He gagged, gurgled, and then collapsed to the floor, dead.

Staring at the Umbaran, Khedryn realized that he should have fled ten seconds earlier. He clambered to his feet and ran off into the dark corridor as fast as he could.

The first turn he came to, he took. The second, he took. The third, he took. He was hopelessly lost and did not care. He slammed himself into a cul-de-sac, a power-exchange port. He tried to control his breathing while listening behind him.

He heard nothing but the gong of his own heartbeat. He tried to process events. Had the Umbaran been aboard the whole time? What did he want? Was he a potential ally? And most important, was the Umbaran following him?

The hallway darkened, or so Khedryn thought, but that didn’t make any sense.

He struggled against his restraints, which did nothing but cause them to cut deeper into his flesh. He bit his lip against the pain and stuck his head out, looking back the way he had come. He needed to find a way to get his hands free, then find a weapon—

Something sharp pressed lightly against the side of his throat.

“Hello,” said a soft voice that set his heart to racing. “Please do nothing rash. Otherwise, I will have to harm you.”

Khedryn swallowed and turned his head toward the speaker. The Umbaran took a step back, the loaded crossbow still pointed at Khedryn’s face.

“Move,” the Umbaran said, and prodded him with the crossbow.

Khedryn did, and the Umbaran walked him along the corridor until they came to an intersection that had a long safety bar attached to the bulkhead.

The Umbaran slipped his blade—a vibroblade—through Khedryn’s restraints. Keeping the crossbow aimed at Khedryn all the while, he removed a set of flexcuffs from his cloak.

“Around your right hand, then around that safety bar on the wall.”

He tossed the flexcuffs to Khedryn.

“Do it quickly, or I’ll shoot you in the face.”

Khedryn wrapped the flexcuffs around his right wrist, then around the safety bar.

“Tightly,” said the Umbaran, and Khedryn obeyed.

“Now sit.”

Khedryn did, and his arm, attached to the safety bar, stuck up over his head. He must have looked like a student with a question.

Sweat soaked his clothing. Blood seeped out of his wrist from where the clone’s cuffs had cut into his skin. “What do you want with me?”

“I don’t want you at all,” the Umbaran said, his voice a sibilant whisper. “I’ll be back for you.”

“Wait! Who are you? Do you work for the Jedi?”

At that, the Umbaran scoffed and sped off down the corridor. Khedryn marveled at the Umbaran’s ability to move in near silence. By the time the Umbaran was a few meters down the corridor, Khedryn had lost sight of him. He seemed to fade into the shadows.