Alien Crossfire Chapter 11

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Wedge sat at the desk in the quarters he had been assigned. He frowned at the two things which decorated the desk.

The first was a bottle of Corellian whiskey, a cheap knock-off of Whyren’s Reserve.

The second was a holographic image of his family.

Of his wife, and two precious little girls.

He slammed his fist against the desktop, causing the bottle and the holographic display to jump slightly. Picking up the bottle, he took a long pull, feeling the liquid burn down his throat and the warmth as it hit his belly.

Sighing, he replaced the cap, and put the whiskey in a drawer. I can’t drink myself unconscious. No matter how much I want to.

There was a knock on his door, and Wedge looked at it for a moment. "Come in."

The door slid open, and Wedge smiled as he saw his old friend, Face Loran, standing there. "What can I do for you, Face?"

Face shook his head slightly, catching a light on his shaven head. "Just got a list of the newest arrivals in from Coruscant for you."

Wedge shook his head. "I’m not that interested in them truthfully. But I’ll take what you got?"

Then Face was violently shoved into the room, and Wedge stood up, his hand dropping to the blaster at his waist as Iella stepped in. From behind her are his two little girls.

Wedge was around the desk, before he realized it, and was picking up Syal and Myri, spinning them around. Their laughter a soothing balm to him.

He set them down, and then properly greeted his wife, as his children each grabbed a side of their parents, holding onto them both.

He pulled away from the kiss, happier than he had been in months at finding them again. "I missed you."

She grinned up at him. "Good, you were supposed to."

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Anakin stared at the Vong warrior, each of them holding a purple saber in identical mid-guards, grotesque mirror images. Frowning Anakin lifted his blade to a high guard watching as the warrior moved into the same position.

Anakin shut down his blade.

The warrior did the same.

Anakin scowled. "What do you want?"

"Is it what I want or what you will become?"

Anakin shook his head, pushing down his anger. "I won’t become you."

The warrior grinned, sharpened teeth flashing through the tatters of lips and cheek muscles. "What makes you think you haven’t already?"

Anakin watched in horror as the warrior grabbed at the seam scar, pulling it apart, ripping it open and peeling it away from his face. He laid the peeled skin back against the glistening armor and Anakin found himself staring at features similar to his own.

Similar but not the same.

He found himself staring at his brother.

"You’re dead."

The not-Jacen smiled at him, that familiar lop-sided grin which Anakin recognized from his own mirror. "Am I?"

"Yes."

He snorted a short laugh. "Oh well. Then don’t you find it odd that your unconscious would project me as a representation of your underlying fears?"

Anakin frowned as he stared at the image of his brother.

"What do you want Jace?"

"You already know that, little brother."

Then Anakin could hear a slight sobbing, and turned around to see Nelani pressed against the wall, her arms wrapped around her legs, and her head pressed against her knees as she rocks slightly. Anakin glanced back towards Jacen and did not see him anymore.

He walked slowly over to her, and knelt down beside her.

"Nelani?"

She looked up at him, and he found himself looking into her red-rimmed eyes, tears streaming down her face. "Are-are you real?"

He smiled for her, and held out his hand. "Yes, I am."

She tentatively reached out and slid her hand into his. As soon as he gripped her hand, she melted forward, flinging herself into his arms.

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Nen Yim stood before Warmaster Tsavong Lah. She bowed her head slightly, and then straightened, waiting for him to speak.

"You wonder why you were summoned here."

"Yes, Warmaster."

"I want you to check over my implant. To see if it is behaving properly."

Nen Yim nodded her head quickly, and stepped forward, her shaper’s hand running over the implant, probing the join, tasting the necrotic flesh. She frowned, confused. Things were not as they seemed.

"What is it Master Shaper?"

Her headdress twisted slightly in her confusion, as her eyebrows drew closer together. "It does not behave properly. In fact I’ve never seen an implant behave in this way before."

"How so?"

"Usually, when an implant is rejected, either the implant or the original body part dies. Here neither is happening, but rather the radank claw is consuming your arm to regenerate itself."

"What could have caused this?"

Nen Yim slowly shook her head. "I am…uncertain, Warmaster. There is nothing in the protocols that deals with such a thing. It could be the work of the gods."

Tsavong Lah growled, and turned his gaze down at her, for a heartbeat she almost cowered, but instead she stood her ground, watching.

"The gods favor me! I am the Warmaster!"

Nen Yim genuflected. "I meant no disparagement, Warmaster."

He began to pace, like a caged animal. "Can you think of how this could be done to me?"

Nen Yim fell silent, thinking. Her silence stretched as she pondered the problem, as she applied her secret heretical thoughts to what inflicted Tsavong Lah. That thought was almost enough to make her smile.

Finally she looked back up at the warmaster. "Does he touch you?"

The warmaster spun towards her, and she instantly regretted speaking, as she genuflected. "Belek tiu, Warmaster. But the shaper, when he comes to inspect you, does he touch you?"

Tsavong nodded his head slowly. "Yes he does."

"I believe I could replicate this, but there has to be a deliver method for the biot which causes this to happen. I would need to inspect you immediately after him to find it."

Tsavong Lah stared at her for a moment longer, then without speaking another word, he turned away and left the room.

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"Lando."

Lando grunted, and waved his hand in the air, then reached down and grabbed the thin blanket, pulling it back up over his head.

"Lando."

Lando grunted again, and finally sat up, rubbing at his eyes, and looking around the room trying to find who was talking to him. His eyes flickered across the bare walls, and the austere surroundings, causing Lando to frown, as he considered that this room needed some style.

"Up here Lando."

Lando looked up, to find himself staring at a silver pentagram about a meter long and a meter high. From the point of each angle extended long tapered tentacles which ended in a half-dozen thin fibers. His mouth dropped open in shock.

After a moment, he began to grin widely, his teeth flashing in the dim light. "Vuffi Raa! How have ya been buddy?"

The droid lowered itself closer to Lando. "I have been functioning within parameters, Lando. I am on another mission for my father and the rest of the Silentium."

Lando’s smile faltered a bit. "And what mission is that?"

"I am here to observe your efforts against these invaders. I had hoped to be able to do so by being here with you."

Lando thought for a moment, and then nodded his head. "That sounds great to me, old buddy. Wait until you get to meet my wife."

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Jacen sat on a small hillock, surrounded by the tall yellow-green razor grass and ignored by the sparkbees as they flittered around from snap-flower to snap-flower. He sat and watched the mass of beings as they toiled at one task after another, driven by the pain supplied by the dhuryam.

The same pain which ran through his body, activating his nerves, supplying pain, heat and cold.

A cheek muscle twitched.

That was the dhuryam’s new trick. To twitch a single muscle over and over again for hours or even days.

Jacen ignored it all. He got up to hunt and eat or to drink. But above all else, he just sat on his hill. Ignored by all the other slaves. The only being who even paid attention to him was the dhuryam.

Jacen ignored them all.

Then a wail pierced the calm which Jacen had wrapped himself in.

A scream of fear and pain. A scream which slammed at the embers of his heart and emotions. Without thinking, he was standing, rushing forward and up and over the hills to find some men surrounding a young girl. She could be no older than thirteen. Jacen caught a glimpse of her blonde hair, coated in grime and decorated with bits of twigs and grass. One of her eyes was swollen from her being hit, while the other displayed an utter abject fear. That eye, and its deep blue that bordered on purple, locked onto him for a moment, and her despair deepened even more.

With a shock, he realized that she thought he had come to join the other men.

With anger, he realized what their intentions were.

His fists tightened as a rage erupted in his heart, driven by the girl’s fear.

One of the men grabbed at her skinrobe.

"Enough. This ends now."

The men looked over at him, sneers forming on their faces. "Go away. This doesn’t concern you."

Jacen stepped closer, slowly, confidently, stretching himself up to his full height. "Stop. She is under my protection."

One of the men hesitated, and then turned towards him, pulling out a bone knife. He darted forward, intent upon stabbing Jacen. Jacen just watched the man advanced, and then at the last second, sidestepped and grabbed the man’s knife hand. Twisting it around, he heard the distinct sound of a breaking bone, and then slammed the knife into the man’s back, sliding the blade between the ribs and into the man's left lung.

He allowed the man to fall to the ground, his eyes focused once more on the leader.

"I said this stops."

The man slapped the girl, sending her sprawling. "Don’t move girl."

With that done, he turned towards Jacen, and rushed forward, followed by the three others. Jacen lowered his center of gravity, spread his legs slightly and prepared to meet them. They arrived, and Jacen attacked. A flurry of strikes of hands and feet and head. He reveled in the sound of bones being broken, and the moans of those who he wounded beyond their capability to fight.

Before he realized what had happened, he found himself with the leader’s head in his arms, his knee planted in the man’s back, as he strained to bend him in ways which his body was never meant to go. He looked over at the girl, still on the ground, the red from her split lip a bright blob of color on her pale skin.

Anger flushed through him again, and he twisted the man’s head. He reveled once more in the clear crisp snap of a breaking bone. He allowed the dead weight to fall from his hands and stood up, carefully walking over to the girl.

She cowered at his approach, and he hunkered down beside her, speaking softly, gently, the way he would to a scared animal. "It’s okay. You’re safe now. I won’t let them touch you."

"Promise?"

Jacen nodded his head. "I promise. Are you hungry?"

The girl nodded her head quickly, and Jacen stood up, holding his hand out to her. "Then come on."

She looked at his hand warily, her eyes flickering between it and his face. Finally she gave in, and grasped his hand, allowing herself to be pulled up. In silence they walked back to the hill where Jacen usually spent his time, and he grabbed the haunch of the game animal he had killed the night before. Ripping a piece off, he passed it to the girl, who quickly consumed it.

She sighed in pleasure, as she licked the juices from her fingers. "Thank you. I’m Taryn. What’s your name?"

He looks at her for a moment before replying. "My name is Jacen."

She smiled for him, a hesitant thing, both weak and brilliant, then a shiver gripped her body, and she lied down in the grass. She looked at him again. "Will you watch over me while I sleep? That’s when they like to try and do things to me."

Anger gripped his heart again as he nodded his head. "Of course I will."

As he watched the young girl fall asleep, he wondered at the innate unfairness of existence. The existence which would make a girl, an innocent such as Taryn, have to suffer such depravities, that she would be scared to sleep.

As a Shaper walked past, muttering to himself in his guttural language, Jacen’s eyes hardened, and his lips pulled back into a silent snarl. He knew who he blamed for it.

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