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"The dark side can reach anyone," Relin said, pained by the truth of the words.

Marr considered, nodded, released Relin's arm.

"Thank you," he said. "For showing me what you showed me."

Relin was touched, but kept his feelings to himself. "I need to go, Marr. Now."

***

Relin and Marr sprinted through Junker's corridors, Marr leading, until they reached the port cargo bay. The bay felt cavernous, as empty as Marr had seen it in years. His speeder bike, Khedryn's Searing swoop, and a few sealed shipping containers were all that remained. They had spaced everything else.

They hurried across the bay, their boots beating staccato on the metal floor, until they stood before the cargo door. Marr put his finger on the red button that would lower the door and looked to Relin. He could see that the Jedi was not well. Sweat glistened on his pale skin, pasting his black hair to his scalp. His breathing was labored, pained, like that of a wounded animal. His deep sunken eyes looked clear, though, lit by some inner resolve, and that heartened Marr.

"Ready?" Marr asked.

Relin inhaled and bounced on the balls of his feet, staring at the cargo bay door as if he could burn holes into it with his eyes. He ignited his lightsaber, the green blade humming in the quiet of the bay.

"Open it."

Marr hit the button and the bay door started to descend. The wail of Harbinger's alarm carried through the opening.

"Five minutes and go," Relin said without looking at Marr.

Before the door got halfway down, blasterfire from the freight corridor sizzled into the bulkheads, scorching the metal. Marr threw himself against the wall, out of the line of fire. Relin did not so much as move while the door continued its trek. More blasterfire poured through the opening. Relin deflected two shots with his lightsaber, almost casually sending the bolts into Junker's bulkheads.

Looking straight ahead, Relin started to speak, stopped, then started again, his lips barely moving.

"May the Force be with you, Marr."

Marr heard sadness in Relin's words, saw tears pooling in the Jedi's eyes.

"Relin… " Marr began, but before he could say more the bay door opened fully and Relin bounded out into a hail of blasterfire, the glowing line of his lightsaber transformed into a figure-eight by the speed of his defense. He roared like a rancor as he sped down the corridor.

Blasterfire forced Marr back against the wall and he lost line of sight to the corridor. He heard Relin's shouts answered by throaty growls, heard enough blasterfire to know that Relin was facing a large number of enemies. Blasts carried through the cargo bay and blackened the storage containers.

A lull in the fire allowed Marr a moment to peek out and down the corridor.

A pair of bodies-large, red-skinned humanoids in black uniforms-lay in a pool of blood eight meters down the corridor, both decapitated. One of the heads faced Marr, yellow eyes still open, a fleshy beard of finger-length appendages partially concealing a fanged mouth. Marr had never seen such creatures before.

Relin sheltered in a crouch in one of the many doorways that lined the hall, maybe fifteen meters from Junker's gangway. More of the red-skinned humanoids, all of them armed with large blaster pistols, crouched at intervals in the other doorways and alcoves that dotted the length of the corridor. Two more sheltered in the middle of the hall behind a treaded droid, which beeped plaintively at its predicament. Marr assumed the creatures to be some kind of security detail. He counted fourteen of them.

The smoky air carried the acrid tang of blaster discharge and scorched metal. Harbinger's alarm continued to scream.

The creatures shouted at one another in deep, gravelly voices, though Marr did not understand the language. Now and again, one of them fired a blaster shot in Relin's vicinity, but none made as though to advance. They appeared content to keep Relin pinned down. Probably they had already called for reinforcements.

Relin crouched with his back to the wall, facing Marr, favoring his cracked ribs. Anger twisted his expression so much he could have been another man altogether. His eyes looked like holes. The light from his lightsaber cast his pale skin in green.

He must have felt Marr's eyes on him. He looked up and made an angry gesture with his stump, ordering Marr to seal Junker.

When Marr made no move to comply, Relin snarled and leapt out of the doorway, moving so fast he looked blurred. His lightsaber weaved an oblong shield of light around him. The security detail opened up in full and blaster shots filled the corridor. Relin spun like a top, deflecting the shots with rapidity but no control. Blasts slammed into the ceiling, into overhead lights, sending a rain of glass to the floor, into the cargo bay, close enough to Marr's face that he felt the heat of its passage.

Relin closed on the nearest pair of the red-skinned humanoids, gesturing with his stump as he neared them. The creatures' blasters flew from their hands and they backed off a step, eyes wide, fumbling with the huge metal polearms on their backs.

Before they could bring them to bear, Relin redirected the blasterfire from their fellows at them and blew holes in both their chests, spattering the bulkheads with their black blood.

Relin ducked into the alcove where the two dead creatures had sheltered, using their corpses as partial cover. Marr saw him in profile, the pained grimace on his face, the angry set of his jaw. A blaster had winged his arm with the severed hand, though it appeared a minor wound. Scorch marks ringed the frayed holes in Relin's robes and shirt.

Blasterfire pinned him to the wall.

He was moving too slowly, Marr knew. He should already have been gone. They had not expected so much resistance right away. Harbinger's crew knew where he was, where Junker was, and more and more of them would marshal here to stop him. Relin looked back at Marr and again gestured angrily for him to seal the ship.

"Close it!" Relin shouted.

Blasterfire forced him to press himself against the wall.

From outside in the landing bay, something heavy thumped against Junker and the high-pitched whine of some kind of motor carried through the bulkheads. Marr knew the crew in the landing bay would soon either try to cut their way in or simply blow the ship from the deck. He had little time. If they got into Junker, he'd never leave Harbinger.

He reached for the button that would close the cargo bay door, let his hand hover over it, and… stopped.

He remembered the greasy touch of the Lignan on his spirit, its coldness, its sharpness. He did not fully understand its danger, but he knew Relin's warnings about what the Sith could do with it were true. Relin could not be allowed to fail. He lowered his hand and met Relin's gaze.

Perhaps Relin saw Marr's resolve.

"No!" Relin shouted. "Go, Marr! Go!"

Marr nodded, but not at Relin.

"I am the keep," he said to himself.

***

Pulses of blasterfire slammed into the bulkheads near Relin, turning the metal black and warm. Anger, frustration, and pain warred for predominance in Relin. Every breath made his side feel as if he were being stabbed. He was moving far too slowly, he knew. More Massassi would be coming. Saes would be coming. He had underestimated their ability to respond.

A shout of rage crept up his throat, but he held it in, pulled it close, used it to focus his mind. The Force flowed strongly through him, but he was unable to use it to reduce his fatigue or replenish his spirit or body. His power, heightened by the Lignan, answered only to his anger, only to his hate. With it, he could only destroy and kill, not heal.

He knew what that meant but no longer cared.

He had left what he once was five thousand years in the past. Now he was something different, someone else. He wanted only to destroy and kill, to avenge Drev's death, to redeem the two great failures of his life in a conflagration of fire and blood. His grief had metamorphosed into hate, and the change pleased him.