Star Wars, page 27
“Axel Greylark,” she crooned, “as I live and breathe.”
He walked around her desk and into her outstretched arms. Gella stayed put in front of the woman’s desk, and glanced away as Ney kissed Axel’s cheek for far too long.
“Ney, my darling,” he said, peeling himself out of her grip.
“This is a surprise.” Ney finally turned to Gella, her gem eyes raking down Gella’s robe, lightsabers, and boots. “And what did you bring?”
“Jedi Knight Gella Nattai, meet Ney Madiine.”
Gella tipped her head as the woman’s tooka-cat grin widened. The Jedi tried to reach into the Force to feel the woman’s intentions but sensed only excitement, and it was all targeted at Axel.
Axel held up the invitation they’d found on the dead Kage and placed it on Ney’s table. “I need a favor.”
“You know the rules.” Ney studied her rings. “My champion against yours.”
“Axel,” Gella gritted through her teeth. What champion? She looked down at the floor and stepped aside in case there was a trapdoor.
He simply waved away any of her concern, pressing a palm against her lower back and steering her away from Ney’s earshot, and against the glass wall overlooking the pit. “It’s just a little thing I forgot to mention. Winning a round’s the only way she grants favors.”
“Forgot to mention?” She grabbed him by the buckle of his cape and pulled him closer, propelled by a burst of anger.
His eyes flickered to the snarl of her lips, and he said, “Just know I have every bit of faith in you.”
Warm, musty air filled the office as the glass wall at their side opened and a metal slat appeared, like a plank on a sail barge.
Gella didn’t get another word in as Axel shoved her onto the plank. She stretched out her arms and pulled at the Force to regain equilibrium. What had she expected from Axel Greylark? She could see him through the office wall as he returned to negotiate with Ney. Fine. She’d do her part if he did his.
As the metal slats reset themselves two stories in the air over the fighting ring, the spectators down below went wild. She heard the telltale crackle of a lightsaber being ignited.
Across the ring was another Jedi, raising a double-bladed lightsaber straight at her heart.
The Pa’lowick descended from the ceiling on a spinning mirrored ball affixed to a metal rod. She cleared her throat and spoke into a slender microphone. It was the only time since Gella Nattai had stepped into the Rusty Rancor that the crowd down below was quiet. She took that opportunity to prepare herself for the match, clearing her thoughts of her anger at Axel Greylark.
“Fiends and friends!” the Pa’lowick shouted in a nasal soprano. “Welcome back to the Rusty Rancor! I’m Goldy Bex, the master of ceremonies of your most favorite place aboard the Hesperys Station, for a one-of-a-kind rrrrumble. Your champions have been chosen!”
Goldy spun on the mirrored ball, the contraption easing her through the levels of the glowing light slats. She winked a beady little eye at Gella. “Please give it up for a Jedi Knight all the way from the mystical land of Jedha—Jellie Nattal!”
Jellie Nattal? Mystical land? Gella had never felt more insulted at being treated like a spectacle. Her opponent laughed along with the crowd. She sized him up. He was twice as big as she, muscles nearly straining from Jedi robes made of green velvet that matched the double blades of his lightsaber. A band of neon, geometric tattoo mods decorated the polished brown skin of his throat.
Goldy Bex twirled, egging on the spectators. “And it wouldn’t be your lucky night without the reigning champion. With ninety-nine wins, he is the Wrath of the Jedi, and king of my heart—Dario Melek!”
Dario blew a kiss at the Pa’lowick for good measure. The crowd gave a deafening roar.
Gella knew something was wrong. Was he undercover here? She couldn’t think of any Jedi in the Order who would use their abilities in the Force like this. Perhaps that’s why Axel hadn’t told her the entirety of his plan. She wouldn’t have agreed. Would she?
And yet here she was, unholstering her lightstabers to defend herself.
“Remember! First opponent to knock the other onto the ring floor wins! Will it be Dario’s one hundredth victory?” Screams of adoration. “Or will Jellie make her stand?” Light clapping.
Gella fumed as she ignited her twin blades. The crowd multiplied until they were nothing but arms, horns, heads, and flashes of ravenous mouths shouting for the fight to begin. Gella had seen holos of piiraya fish acting the same way when they sensed a drop of blood in the water. Her heartbeat hammered in her ears, the staccato rhythm disparate from the electronic music thundering all around.
A buzzer rang, and Gella felt it reverberate through her as she sank into her fighting stance, though the metal at her feet did not give her much room to sink deep.
She wanted to look back, to see if Axel was at the glass office wall. She didn’t.
Dario lunged first, skipping across the air like he’d memorized every place the light slats would move. Gella stood her ground, lightsabers forward. If it had been her, she would have used the Force to guide her into a jump.
When he was centimeters from her, she parried his blow. Dario’s green blades crackled against her violet ones, and she saw the way his arms trembled. He looked at the moonstone hilts, and his brows drew together in worry. Something was wrong. The feeling nudged hard against Gella’s senses as she bore her blades against his and pushed.
Dario staggered back, but because he seemed to know which of the fighting ring’s metal slats could malfunction, he knew where to fall. Catching himself on a ledge, he simply waited another second for the opportunity to regain his footing.
Gella landed in front of him in a single jump.
“Impressive,” he growled in a booming voice. “But I am the only true Jedi on this station.”
He twirled the shaft in one hand with expert movements. It must have taken great practice to guide their motion, especially when the man was no Jedi.
“You are no Jedi I know,” she said, anger building. “Where did you steal that lightsaber?”
“Where did you steal yours?” Dario glanced around, still holding his blades up, and lowered his voice, changing his tenor entirely. “Wait, is this part of your bit?”
Gella realized all at once. Not only was he not a Jedi, but he had no connection to the Force. He was a grifter, using a sacred weapon that had once belonged to another.
She couldn’t fight a man with such a disadvantage, but he resumed his character. This Wrath of the Jedi. This showman making a mockery of everything she believed in.
“I am a Jedi.” Gella holstered one of her blades. Then she reached out into the Force and seized the lightstaff right out of his hands. He gasped, then looked her up and down.
“Maybe you’re the real deal.” Dario looked up in the direction of Ney Madiine’s office. His face twisted into something scared, then mean, like whatever was up there was scarier than Gella ever would be to him. “But you’re not taking this win from me.”
He screamed as he hurled himself at Gella. She felt him a little too late to move out of the way of his momentum. She grabbed onto his slippery robes, and they fell together, slamming into the glass floor with a painful thud. Pushing herself up, she wasn’t sure if the liquid on the floor was her blood or other secretions. But that wasn’t her biggest worry.
The Trandoshan bouncer and a few others shoved their way through the dispersing crowd.
“Too late,” Dario said as he sat up. “Ney does not like her shows interrupted.”
She held the stolen lightstaff in her fist, and felt the hum of its crystal within. She’d get it back. She was sure of that. First, she threw it back. “Defend yourself. We’re leaving this place.”
But as a magnetic force ripped her blades from her hands, and the hatch of the floor snapped open, Gella knew she wasn’t going anywhere.
* * *
—
Moments before Gella Nattai fell into the underground level of the Rusty Rancor, Axel Greylark was talking his way into getting what he wanted.
“My, my, Axel Greylark.” Ney rested her sharp chin on her folded hands. “I’m jealous. I’ve never seen you smitten before.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He ran a palm down his torso. He did his best not to turn left and peek at the fighting ring. Gella could handle herself. She’d survived a shuttle falling out of the sky, she’d survive this without him. “The Jedi is a means to an end, nothing more.”
“I’ll never understand why you run back to the Path.” Ney raised her brows. When he didn’t answer, she said, “My sweet, whatever you’re doing, it is not going to turn out how you think it will. You’re better off coming to work for me again. You barely lasted a year back on Coruscant before winding up right back here in this chair.”
“Ney. My magnanimous Theelin rose. Level with me. Can you dig something up on Viceroy Ferrol?”
She arched a brow. “What kind of something?”
He leaned forward. “The kind you don’t come back from. You know you owe me.”
“You’re no fun anymore,” she said, clicking her tongue. “It’s straight to business. And you’re right. I never took care of you for bribing that Chandrilan senator for me. Even if you broke his daughter’s heart.”
Axel felt a twinge of guilt, but then buried it. The senator had been lobbying for an Outer Rim police force that would destroy places like the Hesperys. And even if he hadn’t been, why did he need a reason? Everyone in the galaxy was a means to an end, and the end was his chaos.
Ney grinned at her mischief. “And now I will do you a favor.”
Axel frowned. “What do you mean?”
“This popped up earlier today on my feeds.” She flicked to a holo of his face. A bounty had been placed on him by Raik. “That’s not a very flattering angle.”
“All my angles are flattering.” Axel ground the back of his teeth. It was definitely time for him to go. “Is the favor that you’re going to let me out of here without collecting it yourself?”
“You’re more useful to me alive,” she said. “But I will give you a head start.”
Ney slid a datacard across the table and he pocketed it before she changed her mind and made him crawl for it. Wouldn’t be the first time. As he swallowed the dryness in his throat, he finally turned to the fighting ring.
Gella and Ney’s “Jedi” champion had fallen off the Theelin’s aerial playground. As her lightsabers were snatched by the magnetic clamp on the stage, the floor latched open and she plummeted into the cellars.
“You should see your face, Axel,” Ney teased him. “Thank you for bringing her. She will make a fine champion. Once we break her.”
Axel flashed a smile. That’s where Ney was wrong. He knew the Jedi Knight well enough now to know that a place like the Rusty Rancor wouldn’t break her. In his haughtiest voice, he said, “I’m bored now, I must be getting back.”
“Don’t forget your head start,” Ney reminded him as he made his way out of her office.
Opposite Axel, one of the Theelin’s security detail was hurrying to his boss. In his hands were three lightsaber hilts to be stored in between fights. Axel drew his blaster and shot the human man in his chest. Because of his surprise, he rocked back and cracked his head as he fell.
Axel holstered his blaster pistol and bent down to gather the lightsabers. The lightstaff, he tucked into the hook of his holster. Gella’s twin hilts, he held for a moment. He’d seen her fight half a dozen soldiers with them. Glide across stalagmites like she was walking on air. He squeezed his fists to stop them from shaking, and slid the twin hilts into his cape pockets, hurrying out of the corridor before someone noticed the body.
Retracing their steps from when they first arrived, Axel took advantage of the dispersing crowds, furious that the last match was stalled. The little Pa’lowick sang into the microphone during the slight intermission, but there was too much confusion.
On his way out, QN-1 stopped him, trilling obscenities.
“Where did you learn how to say that?” Axel asked, affronted. “And we have to go. There’s a bounty on my neck, and the minute I’m gone, my mother will throw you into the Coruscant recycler.”
Quin’s triangular panel pulsed red, as it did when the droid was angry or afraid.
Axel kept walking. He knew he should just keep walking. But with every step out of the Rusty Rancor, he found it became harder to breathe. He got down on one knee, pressing his palm to the place over his heart. He rubbed the place there. He had a small scar from the day his father had been buried in the rubble of Melida/Daan. It didn’t hurt. Not anymore. Not physically. But he touched it because it was a reminder, years later, that his father had been real. He wasn’t a memorial statue in a Coruscant park, and he wasn’t a tactless painting in his mother’s office.
Quin tried to stop him again, bumping his dome hard against Axel. This time, the little droid’s light pulsed violet like Gella’s lightsabers. Gella, whom he was supposed to leave behind. Gella, who was supposed to mean nothing. Gella, who looked at him with a kind of patience he had never felt or been given.
Axel stopped walking. Bodies pushed against him in the throngs of revelers. He looked back. He had his story. Gella fought and lost.
It was the way of the Force.
It was the way of the Force.
As soon as the thought burst into his mind, he whirled around and let out an exasperated scream. He knew the Rusty Rancor’s levels and doors. He pushed through the angry crowds waiting for the next match. There was an elevator on the other side of the fighting ring, but he’d never get there in time.
Squished right against a three-eyed Gran, Axel grabbed the being’s holstered blaster pistol and shot it into the air, before dropping it. Screams ripped through the room, the crowd churning like a wave. He coasted through the mob, then repeated the act, this time lifting a blaster from a panicked Aqualish. With the security detail running to the areas where the shots rang from, Axel and Quin slipped through the back door leading to the sublevel. Bright-white cells lined the row housing Ney’s prized fighters. Some were willing permanent houseguests, and some, like Dario, who had a gambling ledger to pay off, were chipping away at what they owed the Theelin.
Axel walked past Gella’s cell. Through the reinforced glass smudged with her fingerprints, he watched surprise bloom across her face. It was quickly followed by anger as he withdrew one of her lightsabers from his pocket.
He’d call it payback for the time she took the Eventide for a joyride.
It was a good thing he always knew what button to press. As the purple light of Gella’s lightsaber elongated, Quin flew out of the way before it could get cleaved in half.
“Sorry!”
Gella punched at the glass. Axel only stared at the sword in his hand. He’d never actually held a Jedi’s weapon before, not that he’d ever had the opportunity. It was disturbingly intimate. The coolness of the hilt in his palm, the very weight of it. The whole thing felt like an illusion, like he shouldn’t need to grasp it with both of his hands to bear it. That’s exactly what he did as he drove the violet blade into the glass and cut a way out.
In the other cells, the champions banged against the glass. “Get us out of here!” But he concentrated, struggled to cut a door because he kept flicking his gaze to her. To the way she bounced back and forth on her heels as if she was getting ready to burst through the doorway.
When he was done, Gella ducked out of the cell. She swallowed, the bottom pout of her lip trembling. He knew when someone was getting ready to yell.
Instead, Gella Nattai whispered, “Thank you, Axel. You could have left without me.”
He was going to. He should have. He was supposed to. “Quin wouldn’t let me live it down. Let’s go.”
“Wait!” Gella grabbed a fistful of his tunic, then turned off the lightsaber and holstered it. “The others.”
“We have to go, Gella,” he repeated. There was a bounty on his head. There was no time for this. Was there? Perhaps once, when he’d been a boy, when his father had been alive, when he’d been primed to lead. Perhaps then his first thought would have been to rescue them all, instead of just one person.
As she found the override lever that opened all the doors, Axel’s thoughts spiraled. But Gella wasn’t like him. She wasn’t like anyone he’d ever come across in the cosmos. She chose the galaxy and he chose himself. She chose the path of a peacekeeper and he chose a different way. She was justice and he was chaos. The thought made him want to run.
A dozen champions spilled out of the cells. Some remained behind. He watched Gella exchange a look with “the Wrath of the Jedi.” Then, together, Axel and Gella shot out of the belly of the Rusty Rancor and raced back to the Eventide.
Axel breathed hard as he punched in the flight sequence. Gella strapped into the seat beside him. He couldn’t look at her. Not after what he’d almost done.
“Well?” she asked. “What did you find?”
He pulled himself together, piece by piece. He reached into his pocket for the datacard Ney provided. “Everything the Monarch needs to get rid of Ferrol.”
The docking bay in Erasmus Capital City was situated on the south end of the coast. The city’s transparent shield dome opened above that sector to let in ship after ship arriving for the wedding of Phan-tu Zenn and Xiri A’lbaran. Senators and royal households had started arriving the night before, and they hadn’t stopped. As Chancellor Mollo had predicted, the galaxy was curious about the fate of E’ronoh and Eiram’s promise.
From there, all the way to Coruscant, tabloids created their own narratives, spinning the couple into legend. A peaceful union became a marriage of convenience became star-crossed lovers became fate—as evident by superstitions being bolstered around each world by the presence of the brave and true Jedi, and representatives of the Republic.
