Star Wars - First Blood Read online

  Star Wars

  First Blood

  by

  Christie Golden

  Sith apprentice Vestara Khai stood beside her master, Lady Olaris Rhea, in the courtyard of the Sith Temple. Grand Lord Darish Vol was present, along with all the High Lords and Lords of the Sith Circle. There were too many Sith Sabers to include them all, so only a prestigious few had been chosen. Vestara’s father, Saber Gavar Khai, was among that number. She watched him as he stood next to his friend, Ruku Myal, a Saber as fair-haired as Khai was dark, as animated as Khai was solemn. Vestara was the sole apprentice. Oh, the rest of the Sith on Kesh would be watching, of course. Holocams were set up all over the courtyard, and the event would be broadcast live all over the planet.

  Vestara did not pay much attention to the speech Grand Lord Vol gave, and she suspected that, revered as Vol was, few others did either. Everyone was waiting for the Sith training sphere, Ship, who had told them to gather, as he had something very important to tell them.

  And when he finally spoke, inside their minds, Vestara was stunned.

  For long you have been isolated. Yet a well-established trade route closer than you know will open the galaxy to your conquest. We will find a vessel to take, and use it to repair the crashed warship Omen that stranded you here. And we will strike again and again, until we have a fleet to breed fear throughout galaxy. Five of you will accompany me on this initial voyage. Come.

  Murmurs of excitement arose, and then the names were placed in their minds. High Lord Sarasu Taalon. No surprise there, Vestara thought. Dark purple head held high, the Keshiri High Lord seemed unable to keep from smirking as he strode up to stand beside the Sith training sphere. Lord Ivaar Workan. Again, not unexpected. Both men, the Keshiri and the older human male, were powerful in the Force and, Vestara had heard, ruthless as well. Of course, Ship would choose them.

  Lady Olaris Rhea. Lady Rhea exuded pleasure and confidence in the Force as she absently patted Vestara’s cheek and lithely strode forward to join the two High Lords.

  Saber Ruku Myal. Vestara felt a ripple of surprise in the Force. A Saber? When there were still Lords and High Lords from which to choose? Myal’s chiseled features betrayed little, as did his Force aura. Nonetheless, he had to have been surprised at the choice.

  Vestara Khai.

  Vestara blinked, confused, thinking that Ship was speaking solely to her for some reason. What is it, Ship?

  A brush of humor. Come along, apprentice. Do not keep your betters waiting.

  Vestara knew she did a poor job of concealing her astonishment and delight as she made her way to stand with a High Lord, two Lords, and a Saber. But in the end, the disapproval coming from the crowd members meant little to her. She was going with Ship, and they were not.

  * * *

  “Good thoughts, Apprentice Khai?” The voice was masculine and kind. Vestara smiled. If her father couldn’t be here, at least her father’s friend was.

  “The best, Saber Myal,” she replied.”! am thinking of how fortunate I am to be here on this historic occasion.”

  “Apprentice,” growled Taalon, “you waste your energy and that of others. You should be meditating.”

  “No, Taalon. None of us should be,” said Workan. And he was right. Vestara felt the change in Ship, a tension, a readiness. Part of the curving sides that formed Ship’s interior wall became transparent. These five Sith, for the first time, beheld a spaceship other than the Omen.

  They heard Ship in their minds: This vessel is a Damorian s18 light freighter. it has a crew of six. It is en route from Eriadu, a major shipyard. Its cargo will help our cause greatly.

  “What do we do?” asked Taalon.

  We must damage it so that it is forced to land for repairs, Ship replied. Command me.

  Taalon, the leader of group, responded immediately. At once, Ship - designed to obey a powerful will - sprang into action. Vestara and the others found themselves making use of the Force to press their bodies flat against the floor of Ship’s interior as the vessel, eager for battle, dove toward his unwitting prey. Weapons appeared out of nowhere - laser cannons manifested from its belly and screamed fire at the freighter, a magnetic accelerator formed at its back to hurl devastating metallic orbs that punched holes in the freighter’s side.

  Vestara watched, wide-eyed. She had never seen Ship attack before, and it was a beautiful dance of destruction.

  Doesn’t it have any defenses! She thought to him.

  It can carry up to six BDY crew skiffs, came Ship’s response. They would have launched by now if they were going to.

  And as Ship had said it would happen, so it did. The freighter was disabled and unable to make the jump into hyperspace. Instead, it headed for the planet. Elation rippled through the Force, as Taalon directed Ship to follow.

  * * *

  The planet was pleasant and temperate. Ship had done perhaps too good a job on the vessel; there were gaping holes in its side... and even at a distance, Vestara saw footprints in the soft mud.

  “They have fled already,” said Taalon as he and the others stepped out of Ship’s interior. Vestara let the other four precede her, as was proper.

  “Of course they have,” said Workan, in a tone of voice that was almost a sneer. “Did you think they would sit around and wait to be caught?”

  “Look there,” said Myal, pointing. “Humanoid tracks going off in two separate directions.”

  “They will have weapons,” warned Workan.

  “So do we,” smiled Lady Rhea, patting the lightsaber clipped to her belt. They had more than that, of course. All of them carried small, handheld blasters and parangs. The parangs, sharp-edged glass tools that, when thrown, returned to the thrower, had originally been designed merely to clear fields. Now, they were useful and deadly weapons. And of course, they all had the ultimate weapon.

  The dark side of the Force.

  Vestara had been extending herself in the Force as the others had. The fear exuded by the fleeing crew was rich and satisfying, almost overshadowing something-

  “Come, Vestara,” Lady Rhea said. “We will go with Lord Workan.”

  Vestara opened her mouth to say she thought she had sensed something, but out of the corner of her eye she caught the movement of a small ground-dwelling mammal scurrying out of sight. She was grateful for her hesitation. She was already being scrutinized as the only apprentice on the mission; she didn’t want to make a single misstep. Vestara closed her mouth and nodded, moving to follow as instructed.

  “You will come with me, Lady Rhea,” Lord Taalon commanded. “Lord Workan will take Saber Myal and Apprentice Khai.” The smooth voice brooked no disagreement. Lady Rhea inclined her fair head as if she didn’t care either way.

  “Do me proud, Apprentice,” she said to Vestara.

  “Yes, Lady Rhea. Of course” Vestara replied.

  The hunt was on, and Vestara could feel the excitement building inside her. The terrain - open, grassy plains with patches of brown soil here and there - was far from ideal for concealment. There were clearly marked footprints here, flattened grasses there, and only one place that might offer any shelter - the gentle rise of forested hills.

  “We’re fortunate they are not Force users,” said Myal.

  “We are even more fortunate that they had no chance to hide their path,” commented Workan. Vestara remained silent - she only spoke when spoken to. Both the High Lord and the Saber were right. The frightened Force auras were like beacons, and the trail was obvious.

  “Should we take them alive?” asked Myal. “They might be able to help us repair the freighter.”

  “No,” Workan said. “You think too small, Myal. Ship will know how to repair it, if it is not too damag
ed. If he cannot, we will salvage what we can and return when we have more vessels. It is best to eliminate all witnesses.”

  Vestara expected as much. She only hoped that she would be permitted a kill. She knew that Workan and Myal, who outranked her by a considerable amount, would be eager for this sort of kill themselves. It was new for the Sith, to openly attack an enemy. Normally, in her society, murder and assassination were almost... genteel. One’s opponent was eliminated either by oneself or a hired killer. Vendetta killings were honorable, and one bragged by snapping off the recognizable blade of the shikkar. But this - openly chasing a foe, dispatching them like beasts - was new. They were not Sith. They did not deserve any elegance or sophistication in their deaths.

  There was movement in one of the trees, and it was not caused by the wind. Workan paused, unfastened his parang, took aim, and let it fly. Emitting its unique whirring sound, the weapon struck home. The leaves of the tree shook slightly, and a body fell. It was short and squat and appeared to be male, wearing what Vestara knew to be a pilot’s outfit, with an overly large head that was - unfortunately for the pilot - cloven in two. The huge black eyes were wide and staring, the folds that encircled his mouth flapping in his death throes. Vestara wrinkled her nose.

  “Sullustan, I think,” said Workan. “So ugly.”

  Vestara’s danger sense tingled. She opened her mouth to warn her companions, but they had sensed it as well. All three of them drew their lightsabers, batting back the blaster bolts that did nothing other than reveal the shooter’s location to his killers. “You flushed his friend,” said Myal.

  “You take this one,” said Workan. Myal inclined his head, drew his blaster, and fired while Vestara and Workan almost effortlessly defended him. This shooter, a human, also dropped, dead before he hit the ground.

  Myal sighed, disappointment furrowing his brow. “Too easy,” he murmured. Vestara agreed. Apparently there was more challenge in planning and carrying out the murder of a fellow Sith than there was in killing these beings.

  Workan’s comlink chirped. It was Taalon. “We have found the rest, holed up in a cave. I thought you two would wish to see them before we dispatched them.”

  You two? Vestara fought to keep her expression motionless. Workan and Myal exchanged glances. “Indeed,” said Workan. “What do you wish Vestara to do?”

  “She will return to the frigate and begin cataloguing its contents,” said Taalon. Vestara felt her cheeks start to burn with embarrassment and used the Force to hide it. Workan clicked the com and looked at Vestara expectantly. She bowed and turned around, breaking into a trot as she returned to the frigate. Ship sensed her unhappiness but she did not respond to his inquiries.

  Vestara was used to unquestioning obedience, but this time, the dismissal stung. Taalon had deliberately denied her a chance for a kill and had added insult to injury by assigning her a menial task that had no urgency whatsoever. As she approached the grounded freighter, though, she sensed another presence in the Force - and this time, she was sure it was not an animal.

  Vestara drew her lightsaber and activated it with a fierce snap-hiss just as someone stepped out of the hole blown in the freighter’s hull.

  The human girl was barefoot, wearing only a single garment that covered her from shoulder to knees. It was stained, tattered, and oft-mended. Pale flesh showed old and new scars. A fresh gash on her head suggested that she had been injured in the crash. That’s why her Force presence felt so faint to me, Vestara realized. The girl had been unconscious, and Vestara, like the other Sith, had focused on the fear of the known prey.

  “Please don’t hurt me!” The voice was young and frightened. The girl flung up her hands in a pleading gesture, her face - too old and haggard-looking for the age Vestara suspected she was - filled with fear. “I don’t care about the cargo! You can have it!”

  Intrigued, Vestara lowered her weapon slightly, happy to seize another chance to learn something about this vast galaxy that her people would soon conquer. “You are not a member of the crew. Are you a stowaway?”

  The girl hesitated, and Vestara lifted her lightsaber. The other girl shrank back. “The pilots were helping me escape from B’nish. I am- I was- a slave. Are you bounty hunters? Pirates?”

  Were they pirates? As good a name as any. “Pirates,” Vestara confirmed. “We wanted the cargo.”

  “The others-”

  “Are dead, or will be soon.”

  She swallowed. “I have nothing you could want,” she said. “Take the cargo. Leave me here. No one will find me.”

  “It... doesn’t work that way,” Vestara said quietly.

  “Please... the others won’t even know. I wasn’t on any crew roster. Just let me go, say you never saw me. I just... I just want to be... to live as a free being. I’ve never known that. No one will know!”

  No one would. No one except Vestara. No one except Ship, whom she could feel in her mind, quietly observing her behavior. This girl, slave or no, harmless or no, was not Sith. And therefore she had to die.

  “I can make it quick and painless,” Vestara said, wondering why she said the words even as they came unbidden. Why should she care what pain she caused. “Kneel down, I will-”

  The girl’s blue eyes, hopeful a moment ago, now went hard even as tears sprang to them. “No,” she said, her voice firm and surprisingly strong. “No more kneeling. No more obeying. You are not my master. No one is. I will die free!”

  And quick as a sorumi doe, she took off running. Vestara was just as fast. Her parang was in her hands in an instant. She gathered the Force to guide her aim, then let fly.

  * * *

  The glass weapon could not know pity. It went through her with the same ruthless efficiency as it had once sliced through tangled undergrowth. The impact of the blow knocked the girl off-balance in mid-stride.

  * * *

  Red, the world was red, hot and vital and piercing. Vestara swayed for a moment. No one had warned her... she hadn’t expected... quite so much...

  * * *

  She had died resisting death, embracing life with a fierce passion that Vestara had never before encountered, and the sensation in the Force as that life was ripped away stopped Vestara’s breath as her heart slammed against her chest. She felt her own knees buckle and her world swirl around her. For a merciful instant, the grayness dimmed the urgent violence of the red, long enough for the Sith apprentice to gather herself and remember the power of her will.

  Only the Sith were to survive. This girl would never have been one. Vestara had done exactly as she should have.

  So why do you still tremble, apprentice?

  I- I don’t know, Vestara thought, not bothering to wrap a lie around herself. Ship knew how to see through those. She was still recovering from the feel of the wounded Force, from the sight of so much... too much... red. She walked up on uncertain legs to stand over the body, and wondered what the girl’s name had been.

  Name her yourself, Ship said.

  Vestara swallowed, then reached out in the Force to calm her own beating heart. She took a deep breath of the copper stench of fresh blood.

  I will name her First, Vestara decided, letting cold dispassion settle upon her. For she will be the first of many. And she was.

  From Star Wars Insider 125 (05-06-2011)

  11.6.18.15.14.5-1

 

 

  Christie Golden, Star Wars - First Blood

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