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 one-time 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.
Following the string of his rage, he walked through a maze of storage containers until he found the several dozen that held the Lignan ore. They were stacked several high, arranged in a box shape, so that they described the perimeter of an open square of deck ten meters on a side. Several of the containers had been partially crushed and remained open. A pile of ore bled onto the deck through the open seals. He walked gingerly among the ore, touching none. He did not need to touch it with his flesh. He was connected to it in his spirit. It knew him, and knew what he needed.
The power in the air nearly lifted him from his feet. He was swimming in it. Elated rage buoyed his body, lit his spirit on fire. Force lightning formed flowing serpents around his fingers and forearms.
He sat down cross-legged among the ore, amid the embodiment of his need to murder one Padawan to avenge another, and awaited Saes and battle.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jaden felt the weight of his solitude the moment he and Khedryn parted. He was surprised at how much he had come to rely on the presence of Junker's crew. He had isolated himself for so long that he had forgotten the value of simple companionship. They were good men, Khedryn and Marr. Rascals, yes, but quality rascals.
He moved as rapidly as he could through the facility. The beam of a glow rod and the glow of his lightsaber augmented the dim illumination from the emergency lights. He did not need to consult the folded schematic in his pocket to know the direction of the lift. The way there was engraved in his brain.
Without Khedryn at his side, the metal walls of the narrow corridors felt increasingly oppressive, their unbroken gray smoothness a winter sky that sunlight never pierced. He wondered how the Imperial scientists had remained here for any length of time without going mad.
Perhaps they hadn't, he thought, recalling the progressively deteriorating physical condition of Dr. Black in the holo-log, Dr. Gray's nervous hand spasm.