incantations and ancient sigils, stripped away in a final spasm of animal panic.
And then silence.
Always silence.
Trace exhaled, reminded now of other terms he’d heard used to describe the Republic’s role in crash sites like this. The officers might call them investigators, but the enlisted men on the ground had other names. Names like
corpse counters
and
dirt tourists
.
The nicknames meant little to him. That was the job; everything else was a distraction, including female officers who wanted to get to know him personally. He was aware of his reputation for being cold and impersonal: it didn’t bother him in the least.
He withdrew his hand, preparing his ascent to the surface—
And sucked in a quick breath between his teeth. The bright lancet of sudden overwhelming fear that he’d just experienced had nothing to do with the warship or the remains of its crew.
Something else was happening, somewhere far distant.
Something far worse.
He saw his sister’s face.
There could be no doubt about it. It was Zo and she was screaming in a frenzy of pain and helplessness. And although Trace couldn’t see her attacker clearly, he realized from the erratic sunbursts of her thoughts that she had no defense against the thing that loomed above her, dragging her out of the Jedi Agricultural Corps facility, toward—what?
He stopped, frozen, his current locale utterly forgotten, blindsided by a storm of disjointed images: the shaft of a spear, dripping with blood; a flash of green; a whiff of something rancid and feral. His nostrils burned with the stench of a place that had been bottled up too long, a place of death and solitude and agonized last breaths. He could feel her confusion and apprehension pumping through his own circulatory system, as if they shared the same heart. For a moment he could feel the presence of her abductor.
Listen to me
, Trace told him.
I don’t know who you are, but I am in possession of a very special set of skills. If you bring my sister back right now, unharmed, then I’ll let you go. But if you don’t, I promise you, I will track you down. I will find you. And I will make you pay
.
Of course there was no response.
From beneath him came a stuttering, squealing lurch, then a deafening crash as the fuselage of the crashed Sith warship swayed under his feet and abruptly gave way in a waterfall of sparks. There was a sudden
whoosh
and a plume of flame as a gas pocket blasted open from the wall.
The explosion rocked the crater to its depths. Snapping around, Trace felt huge slabs of scorched rock scaling loose, tumbling down toward him. On reflex, he threw up a solid bubble of air, pressing it outward to ensure enough breathable oxygen—too little and he’d suffocate inside here, a bug in a jar.
The bubble did its job. Debris hammered down on top of it, shale bouncing and skittering across the dome. Trace scarcely noticed. He cast his thoughts back toward Zo, back to the place in himself where he’d seen and felt the final compulsive timpani of her distress, straining for any hint of where she might be, where her captor was taking her.
But there was nothing there now, only dead air as deep and final as that which followed the crash of the warship where he now stood.
And awful silence.
Rising upward with the bubble, Trace made for the surface of the crater, the light from above growing brighter, broadening to illuminate the deep frown etched onto his face.
9/Mirocaw
Z O AWOKE STARING INTO THE EMPTY SOCKETS OF A SKULL .
Not human—it was a misshapen thing, one eyehole appreciably larger than the other, and a third gaping just above it, its gap-toothed grin seeming to welcome her into some murderous new realm where proportions were a joke and nothing made sense. There was a dusky blue sapphire, probably fake, embedded in the thing’s one remaining incisor. The skull’s current owner had strung several lengths of thick cable through its facial sinuses so that it dangled like a
And then silence.
Always silence.
Trace exhaled, reminded now of other terms he’d heard used to describe the Republic’s role in crash sites like this. The officers might call them investigators, but the enlisted men on the ground had other names. Names like
corpse counters
and
dirt tourists
.
The nicknames meant little to him. That was the job; everything else was a distraction, including female officers who wanted to get to know him personally. He was aware of his reputation for being cold and impersonal: it didn’t bother him in the least.
He withdrew his hand, preparing his ascent to the surface—
And sucked in a quick breath between his teeth. The bright lancet of sudden overwhelming fear that he’d just experienced had nothing to do with the warship or the remains of its crew.
Something else was happening, somewhere far distant.
Something far worse.
He saw his sister’s face.
There could be no doubt about it. It was Zo and she was screaming in a frenzy of pain and helplessness. And although Trace couldn’t see her attacker clearly, he realized from the erratic sunbursts of her thoughts that she had no defense against the thing that loomed above her, dragging her out of the Jedi Agricultural Corps facility, toward—what?
He stopped, frozen, his current locale utterly forgotten, blindsided by a storm of disjointed images: the shaft of a spear, dripping with blood; a flash of green; a whiff of something rancid and feral. His nostrils burned with the stench of a place that had been bottled up too long, a place of death and solitude and agonized last breaths. He could feel her confusion and apprehension pumping through his own circulatory system, as if they shared the same heart. For a moment he could feel the presence of her abductor.
Listen to me
, Trace told him.
I don’t know who you are, but I am in possession of a very special set of skills. If you bring my sister back right now, unharmed, then I’ll let you go. But if you don’t, I promise you, I will track you down. I will find you. And I will make you pay
.
Of course there was no response.
From beneath him came a stuttering, squealing lurch, then a deafening crash as the fuselage of the crashed Sith warship swayed under his feet and abruptly gave way in a waterfall of sparks. There was a sudden
whoosh
and a plume of flame as a gas pocket blasted open from the wall.
The explosion rocked the crater to its depths. Snapping around, Trace felt huge slabs of scorched rock scaling loose, tumbling down toward him. On reflex, he threw up a solid bubble of air, pressing it outward to ensure enough breathable oxygen—too little and he’d suffocate inside here, a bug in a jar.
The bubble did its job. Debris hammered down on top of it, shale bouncing and skittering across the dome. Trace scarcely noticed. He cast his thoughts back toward Zo, back to the place in himself where he’d seen and felt the final compulsive timpani of her distress, straining for any hint of where she might be, where her captor was taking her.
But there was nothing there now, only dead air as deep and final as that which followed the crash of the warship where he now stood.
And awful silence.
Rising upward with the bubble, Trace made for the surface of the crater, the light from above growing brighter, broadening to illuminate the deep frown etched onto his face.
9/Mirocaw
Z O AWOKE STARING INTO THE EMPTY SOCKETS OF A SKULL .
Not human—it was a misshapen thing, one eyehole appreciably larger than the other, and a third gaping just above it, its gap-toothed grin seeming to welcome her into some murderous new realm where proportions were a joke and nothing made sense. There was a dusky blue sapphire, probably fake, embedded in the thing’s one remaining incisor. The skull’s current owner had strung several lengths of thick cable through its facial sinuses so that it dangled like a
Similar Books
