“Ani, slow down dammit!” Sabine shouted into Kowani’s comm, the words a blur that mingled in with the rushing winds and screeching howl of the Scoris propelling her forward. At breakneck speed, Kowani peeled a path for herself, and her sister behind her, through the imposing stands of lush green Bamboo trunks. Her helmet secured to her craft at her back, she left her long black hair to streak behind her, feeling every fiber as they pulled lightly at the scalp beneath. The rush was intoxicating as the fore winds tore across her face, tugging at the lids and edges of her eyes to rip what tears the glands beneath could produce. Her returning eyesight providing a clarity she had never known with each tear that whipped across her temple, either soaking into her hair or falling to the ground outright after a thrill ride of their own.
Sabine rocked her throttle downward and thrust her body crouching into the bikes frame beneath her, turning the Scoris behind her into a banshee of howls and screaming trills, ready to lace into the Mirialan for her recklessness. The trees ripped across her peripheral at suicidal speeds, a constant blur that should have been alarm enough to slow her own progress. However, a superseding necessity to keep the Mirialan within sight prompted another downward thrust and a kick with her left foot to bypass the bike’s safety feature. Devoid of the natural inclination to return to safer speeds, Sabine was only focused on the determination itself to slap some sense into the woman ahead of her. She knew something was on Kowani’s mind, had witnessed its affects first hand, those that seemed to tear at the Mirialans own convictions if not soul.
Sabine was certain Kowani wasn’t lying to her, but felt an increased tension after the woman had admitted to conditional secrecy, ‘what does that even mean?’ She couldn’t shake the question from her mind, despite having to maintain an elevated focus to navigate the bike beneath her through the rich tangle of dense jungle and harrowing narrows between the meter’s tall trunks of unyielding Bamboo. The nagging concerns over being spotted, the assuredness of consequence for the loss of a patrol and their general lack of knowledge concerning Imperial mechanization planet side, forced Sabine to consider the viability of their own actions. An element that didn’t seem to bother the Mirialan one bit. She began to relax the anger that had driven her, conceding to the notion that she wouldn’t catch Kowani, adopting a focus centered on herself and her surroundings in the name of caution alone.
“The Mandalorian withdraws…” The baritone whisper rushed forward, the whipping winds and shrills of the seventy-four lost to mere echo in its wake.
‘Because she is assessing her anger. It is not a withdrawal, merely a redeployment.’ Kowani thought in return, lowering her head quickly to avoid decapitation from a severed tree trunk.
“Then it is fear that guides your compatriot.” Bane returned with an authoritative harumph of derision.
‘You clearly do not know Mandalorians.’ Kowani thought instantly, ducking her head low through a tangle of overgrown vines and thatch.
“Ahh...and we come to the heart of your own ambitions Kowani Y’mmat.”
‘And your point. You conceal yourself from the efforts here to unearth your secrets, yet openly declare yourself to me.’ Kowani would not waste time with pointless diatribes, a sense of greater workings fueling her own drive for the moment.
“It is revenge that guides my intent Kowani Y’mmat.” Bane almost shouted, eliminating the trills of the bike and the whooshing sounds of the whipping winds across her face.
‘I understand.’ Kowani thought to the invasive whisper, the baritone echo that frothed with a rage she could never comprehend, ‘our desired results align…’
Kowani knew Sabine was pushing her own progress far beyond anything the Mandalorian would consider rational, hoping, separate from the invasive whispers, that a point would be mutually understood between the two, despite the irregularities of her own chaos. Kowani looked toward the small indicator, displaying in Arabesh the four hundred kilometers per hour she had forced from her bike. She nodded in approval with a simple bob of her head to cement the point, sensing the distance between the two bikes was increasing, if only marginally. “Nicely done sis, were getting there.” Kowani said to herself, concurrent with a sense that they were close to their collective objective.
“We are near.” Bane cast his alert, despite Kowani slowing the bike already, the Scoris welcoming the change with a flood of fresh coolant and extended venting flaps.
‘I know.’
Although out of visual range, the indicator within Sabine’s helmet notified her that Kowani’s speeder was slowing. A quick observation of her surroundings confirmed a thinning of sorts of the carpeting jungle. Tangles of vine wrapped branches that had teemed with large blooms of colorful flowers had given way to mass areas of clear cutting and burned circles. Someone had made it a point to provide either improved lines of sight or a means to access the fertile ground beneath. ‘Maybe both.’ Sabine told herself, a chime within her helmet alerting her that she was nearing Kowani’s signal only to find the woman astride her bike, halted upon an overlook just outside the massive stands of Bamboo that she thought would be unending. Sabine tucked her foot under the accelerator plates and released the throttle while pulling hard on the repulsor control to slow her momentum to a crawl.
“Well, that was fun.” Sabine stated after removing her helmet, resting it in front of her on the bike’s frame. Kowani remained silent for a moment as she scanned their surroundings. They had exited the thick Bamboo jungles to a slight cresting of open terrain, tall brown and green grasses swaying slightly in a warm Westerly breeze. Before them stood a canyon of moss-covered rock, imperceptibly deep but narrow enough to see the other side in vivid detail. Shorter versions of the same thick trunked Bamboo lined another gentle rise of swaying grasses to the crest of the canyon, but more importantly, the ruins of vast buildings that glimmered their decay in the rays of the setting sun.
“Do you have any idea how fast you were going?” Kowani asked, startling Sabine with the direction of the question, her anger, inexplicably, evaporating as she contemplated an answer.
“In fact, I don’t.” Sabine stated, her head turned fully toward Kowani in a wavering conglomeration of emotional chaos of her own, “I didn’t have time to check.”
“Or worry about apparently.” Kowani returned, continually scanning the far side of the narrow canyon with tapering eyes.
Sabine followed her gaze toward the swaying fronds of unknown plants that lined the canyon’s far side, then looking beyond the delicate sawed edges of deep forest greens and contrasting whites to the broken stone walls and heaps of rubble between them. “What is that?”
“You traversed the choking paths of Ciutric’s jungle mass at four hundred klicks an hour Sabine.” Kowani stated, turning toward Sabine with a tight smile across her lips.
The Mandalorian immediately forgot about the stone ruins that had catered to her interest only seconds before as she turned her head slowly to match Kowani’s gaze, “that’s impossible.”
“It should have been, yes….but it wasn’t…” Kowani stated with a nod, turning back to the canyon, twisting her head in either direction. Her black hair, free of their tight braids, dangled down her chest, the purple streaks to either side catching the radiance of the falling sun, “we need to get across Sabine,” she added, satisfied that their current position would have to suffice, “we should make it.” Kowani finished, firing up her seventy-four again and gently pushing it backward on its idle repulsors.
Sabine didn’t match the gaze or hear the suggestion as she worked through the statement prior, wondering at what point she had crossed some line between rationality and insanity herself. The speed suggested was a marker she would use on the open roads or flat plains of Lothal, not here. She also knew the Mirialan would not have brought it up at all if it wasn’t significant in some way. The irritations and annoyances that had been given life and credence through the erratic actions of her sister began to dissipate, Sabine taking the quiet seconds she had with her own thoughts to forget her own stubborn resolve and constant detachment from truly embracing her feeling. Just as quickly, she was torn from the suddenness of her introspection by the wailing shrill of an airborne speeder bike. Contrails of fallen leaves and the steams of heated moisture following the craft in a grand arc across the canyons narrows.
The irritations returned immediately, Sabine setting her jowls with a determined will to slap sense into the Mirialan at all costs. She slammed her helmet on her head as Kowani bounded to a swerving stop amid the cries of protest from the Scoris as short bursts of trilling pierced the still twilight. Sabine pushed her own bike backward and turned in a wide sweep when provided the room, launching down the exit path far enough to repeat Kowani’s example. She slammed her foot down on the acceleration pad and gunned the throttle, sending her forward with a lurch. ‘I did feel something.’ She found the thought ill-timed and out of place but could not deny the truth of it. Nearing the crest of the canyon she pulled up on the navigational yokes simultaneously, readying herself for the forced reversal of her actions upon reaching the other side. Suddenly the shadows of swaying plants and trunks of trees, the silhouette of Kowani and the hope of any easy landing were stollen by a slender long darkness that had fired up from the canyon below.
Caught in the split seconds of surprise, Sabine forced herself into the mold she had created for herself ages ago. Realizing the path had become inexplicably blocked, she kicked herself free of the bike, and let momentum careen her into a soft fleshy substance seconds before the speeder barked horribly, its shrilling repulsor smashing through the bikes own frame with a sound that instantly downgraded the situation in Sabines mind from bad to worse. The splitting of flesh and the expulsion of organs filled the air with sickening slaps and the gushing of fluids just before the substance she was clinging to righted out of her grip, a bellicose screeching scrambling her thoughts in their high-pitched warbles as she began to fall slowly into something hard that grazed her Beskar across her chest and left shoulder. ‘Legs…’
The thought was the first thing to enter Sabine’s mind, free of the chaos the pitched scream had sent her into. She immediately focused less on the lost 74 and more on the situation itself, feeling a rapid succession of muscular contortions and tapping as whatever this creature was tried to locate her along its length. With a sense of fortune guiding her instincts, Sabine was grateful the bike was occupying the majority of the creature’s attention, giving her the time she needed to analyze her immediate threat. The thought of ‘legs,’ caused an involuntary shudder when reality registered, each one tapping erratically in unsuccessful attempts to locate her. The thought causing the shudders to evolve into convulsions when she realized there were far more than four of them. Sabine fired out her left hand as she switched the view within her visor to an active IR, noting the heat register she would use as an anchor. She clamped her hand around an appendage and looked down, horrified that her assessment was far more than a creature with multiple legs. Innumerable heat registers flashed before her visor as the creature began contorting and twisting through chaotic throes, Sabine slamming both feet above the closest appendage below her.
The creatures’ legs began to slow through their mad dash, giving up the crazed drive to remove the piercing metallic scrap from its abdomen. Focusing on the contractions of the appendages that held her precariously, Sabine felt the creature slip from its muscular contortions that bound it to the canyon wall. With a renewed wail erupting from the creatures head above, she couldn’t find a way a twist her body in any fashion to enact an escape. “Ani!!!” She shouted into her helmet, hoping the Mirialan could see the danger she was in. The flailings below began to relax along the creature’s body, an upward cascade of lividity as the muscles became useless. A final death cry of torment erupted before Sabine felt the inevitable downward free fall and the silence of the unknown.
✦
Any sense of euphoria the situation had presented was quickly extinguished the moment her line of sight was impeded. Something had shot from the canyon depths between her and Sabine and the sickly noises that had accompanied the situation itself turned Kowani immediately into a chaotic mess of scrambled thoughts and a conflagration of confusing emotion. She flipped her legs from the bike and shot from the saddle, reaching out with any assistance she may be able to provide only to see a mass of darkness descend into the canyon below her feet. “Sabine!” Kowani shouted, her vocater shrilling the statement into a garbled mess of echoes that bounced between the narrow walls of moss-covered rocks. Falling to her stomach, both arms reaching imperceptibly far below the crest of the canyon edge she shouted again, “Sabine!” Waiting for some form of reply she began closing her hands into fists as bouts of emotion began wracking her internally. She clubbed at the rock with both fists hard, refusing to let the emotions guide her, just before slapping at her left wrist with her right hand. “CZ, ping my location and get over here. I’ll need belly hooks and cable.”
“We are on our way Ani, what happened?” CZ replied immediately through the wrist comm.
“Canyon...Sabine...fell.” Kowani panted, trying to pierce the darkness beyond her line of sight, a loud thud and a watery splash fueling her own urgency. “We? Chams and yourself?” She didn’t miss the unmistakable pronoun.
“Chams..yes, but not all.” CZ replied.
The silence that had ensued within the canyon caused Kowani to slap a wrist over the device and she took the opportunity to call for a third time, “Sabine!?” The echo of her electronic voice was her only reply moments before a multitude of screeches echoed from either direction downward. She could feel the vibrations of the device under her skin, CZ following up the statement he had begun.
“Best to step away miss, they will be back. And by they, I mean all.” A gruff voice rasped behind her.
Kowani rolled herself quickly to her back and launched to her feet from the prone position, resting in a crouched state with a knee buried into the fertile ground beneath it, a vicious stare into the desiccated white plastoid of an Imperial storm trooper.
Kowani assessed the man before her. Cracked and incalculably soiled plastoid chest armor, garishly colored arm and shoulder plates and the streaking darkness of dried muds and grime filmed leggings that disappeared into ankle high black treaded boots. She fired her piercing gaze quickly to the man’s face, finding a thick matted beard and grossly caked mustache lining the imperceptible features of his eyes and mouth. The man was backing away with arms raising slowly as she carefully raised herself from the aggressive stance. “My sister has fallen. I will retrieve her.” Kowani stated, not daring to take her eyes from the man.
“All respects Ma’am, she is lost. If you pursue, you will be as well.” The rasp twinged the warm air of the encroaching night between them. A multitude of horrific screeches erupted from the canyon’s edge, driving home the man’s point as it solidified her own agenda.
Kowani let herself relax, but only to the situation before her as she slid her right hand to her waist. With a movement defying the art of physics, she snapped her wrist and had her lightsaber crackling with activated fury before the man could draw another breath.
“Whoa!” The man barked out loudly, his hands firing into the air with all haste. “You must be the one! Yes, yes...you must be!”
Kowani canted her head slightly, relaxing her stance to assess the odd proclamation, “which one?”
“The messenger. He said you would come!” The man’s arms dropped rapidly, closing over either cheek. The chirp of a blaster bolt clipped the man’s statement, arresting Kowani’s attention as she peered over the canyon’s edge once more. It was distant, at least thirty meters she had quickly estimated but the glow of another two volleys created a renewed sense of urgency. “Sabine!” Kowani shouted again into the canyon’s depth.
“Get me out of here, these things are everywhere!” Sabine replied over Kowani’s wrist comm.
Kowani quickly retrieved twin thermal detonators from a pouch at her knee in the serviceable cargoes she always wore, activating the first before pitching it far to her right, then the other to the left. “Get down!” She shouted into the comm a second later. Twin eruptions and the splintering of rock fired up twenty meters in either direction a moment later, vibrating the ground at her feet and causing a tremor to pass through the nearest vegetation, each leaf shaking with unnatural irritation.
“You will only succeed in calling more of them miss.” The gruff voice said admonishingly.
“Would that they respond, it will only add to my determination.” Kowani replied, “what are they?”
“Pedes, nasty ones at that.” He rasped in response, the addition of a shrill convulsion passing through his body involuntarily.
“I’ve never seen any that big before.” Kowani stated outright.
“Then this is the first time you’ve been to Ciutric…” The man responded, free of the volatile shuddering the creatures seemed to elicit within him.
“Somewhat embellished Ani, but the charges seemed to have worked. In two ways I might add.” Sabine chimed in over the comm again, begging for Kowani’s attention.
“In what way?” Kowani sensed the relaxed tone and began suppressing the adrenaline that was coursing through her blood.
“They don’t seem to like bright light and the explosions shook a good portion of stone loose. I think I can get about half way up. Give me some light quick so I can estimate.” Sabine stated, Kowani hovering her ignited saber over the canyon’s lip in response.
“A little more than halfway.” Sabine returned quickly.
“You. Fetch some of those vines.” Kowani barked at the odd man, pointing to the coiled heap at the base of a short, wide Bamboo trunk. To her surprise, the man acquiesced immediately, removing his hands from his cheeks, and following the order without question.
With at least twenty meters of organic salvation in tow, Kowani lowered the vine quickly to Sabine, feeling the tug of success immediately follow. “You, help me pull.” She barked at the man once again, his firm hands wrapping around the thick vine with an obedience that Kowani found disturbing. Within minutes Sabine’s helmet crested the canyon lip, Kowani diving a hand down to assist the remainder of the way.
Once free of the canyon, Sabine stumbled forward to remove herself from its edge entirely, Kowani turning to bath the Mandalorian in the light of her saber. From armored head to booted toe, Sabine resembled the filth of the man standing only a meter removed from them both. A thick mass of gelatinous materials oozed from the woman, a fine coating of dust from the rocks and scrapings of peeled mosses completed the image.
“Get you out of that before it starts eating through.” The man suggested, looking at the slime dripping from Sabine’s garments. “Come we can steam it off...come, come.” He motioned to both women who shrugged in return, watching as the man backpedaled toward the ruins behind him.
“It is safe, and by the readings I am receiving, he is right, that substance is a mix of enzymes and proteins. It will eat its way through your clothing. CZ will bring down a fresh change for you Sabine.” Both women stopped in their tracks, looking toward one another with widening eyes before transfixing a shared stare at the comm device on Kowani’s left wrist.
“That’s impossible.” Sabine whispered, closing the distance between herself and Kowani in two quick strides, “Isn’t it?” She finished, tilting her head to the pronounced green of Kowani’s flesh within the light shed by her pink energy blade. Kowani only made chopping sounds through her vocater, unable to form a response of any kind. The voice through the comm could only belong to N’dali.
“Yes Ani, it is I.” N’dali said through the device once more, noting the elevated heart rate, and several other increased vitals she could read through the multipurpose wrist comm. “I will explain on the way. But first things first.” N’dali said, suddenly appearing aside Kowani and Sabine. “Areti thought fit to install a complete host of external projectors, giving Chams the ability to visually represent any masking she may deem fit for her purposes.”
Kowani remained speechless, noting the flickering image before her, each feature in extreme detail, every crease she had remembered that pulled at the corners of the Thebeskan’s eyes and even the angle of the eyes themselves, offset and angling toward her nose. Kowani could not contain the emotions within, torn between a sorrow, a childish exaltation, regret, and fuming rage. Each of them vying for attention in an internal conflict that stole any form of speech from her. The woman was N’dali, the only notable exception, the smooth skin above her ears that had always been the socket for her implant. In its stead were finely braided hairs that followed her scalp from front to back in tidy rows.
“N’dali?” Sabine was the first to utter anything, “it is you isn’t it.”
“N’dali?” Kowani finally worked the words through her vocater.
“A portion, yes. Sylde did succeed, but then, so did I.” N’dali replied, a light smile pulling the visions full lips into a broad grin.
Kowani, shaking her head to knock some sense loose, passed a hand through the image, deactivating her saber in the process.
“I do not own a body Ani and can only manifest through connected aid, but it is I nonetheless.” N’dali said with a passion in her voice Kowani had never known. “The improbabilities that are racing through your mind can only be attributed the connection that we continue to share, even beyond death, sister.”
The emotional volatility within shattered to a knee jerking absolution, Kowani falling to the ground without an ounce of strength to support her. On her knees, planting her head firmly into the ground, Kowani screamed beyond the capacity of the device at her throat. The unexpected tides of emotion taking yet another unforeseen turn on a world she was sure she had business being on.
“Sabine, go with him. Your present situation requires immediate attention.” N’dali turned from Kowani to say.
“This way miss Wren.” CZ added only seconds later as he hovered within view, angling toward the ruins in the direction the man had gone. Sabine fired her head in a multitude of directions as she snapped it between the realistic image of the Thebasken they had all thought dead, the hovering med droid, appendages heaped with fresh clothing, back at N’dali and the almost imperceptible light emanating behind her. Following the trace source back to the dimly lit ‘Morai’ and a projector of sorts angled her way from the rear of the ship not one of them had even heard approach. Sabine swallowed the rash of comments she had on the tip of her tongue, lost to the change of events entirely. She looked toward Kowani a final time, a hint of remorse for the emotionally distraught sister on her knees but a renewing sense of hope as N’dali’s image positioned herself into a seated pose directly beside her. Sabine shook her head slowly and turned to follow the droid, finding the path bathed in a new light source. Someone, presumably the man, had lit trash and refuse within the confines of aged but ornate sensors in a pattern of five points, illuminating the stone ruins and its surrounding confines to a point where she could see some of the strangest images she could have imagined.
“It isn’t fair N’dali. Too much….” Kowani barked into the ground, the vocater sputtering the words in a garbled mess of bioelectrical chaos. She couldn’t articulate the messages she was trying to convey, understand the present situation, comprehend the warring emotions, or even explain why she was on Ciutric to herself.
“Remove improbability from your vocabulary for the moment then understand that nothing is impossible. CZ has explained to me what you’ve gone through Ani. That alone is hard to process. He has also shared the contents of the message you had him record. And that is hard for me to process.” N’dali said slowly, a practiced effort to convey the solace she wished to impart. Kowani lifting her head from the soil slowly, words stolen from her completely as she looked into the eyes of her oldest friend. Eyes that were every bit as real as she imagined them, torn between equal parts hysterics and genuine awareness of the clarity the image relayed and the sentiment the words did.
“I...I don’t even know what to say N’dali. I know it is you...but I can’t seem to remove improbability as you suggest.” Kowani finally did say, wishing she could take it back.
“As you’ve grown through the Force Ani, you yourself have proven my point, something I would never have questioned. What has embroiled you so to take that same belief from you?” N’dali asked with a deep compassion in her voice.
Kowani knew the answer but couldn’t bring herself to admit to the promise of something so far beyond herself, in both scope and personally. ‘How do I tell her I need to save Mandalore? How do I tell her the Force has Sabine, but Sabine doesn’t have it? These are elements that postdate both you and Ahsoka!’ The thoughts, rational or not, seemed appropriate in conjunction with an inner turmoil this image before her could not possibly understand.
“N’dali, our efforts failed. You….died...in vain. Ahsoka...Rex….Nara, all gone. The Liberator destroyed...even R3. N’dali it’s all gone! I died too!” Kowani shouted, the chirping of night born insects ceasing suddenly with a silence that bathed her own words in a convincing finality. “What is left? What is left is a burden that only I can carry!” She yelled out again, her eyes widening as saliva built up in the corners of her mouth. Her features pulling themselves into a frothing rage, adrenaline fueling the contempt she felt when N’dali simply returned a ridiculous smile, a mocking smile that seemed to skew the memories she had of a life before biologic modification.
“The only truth within your statement Ani is the Liberator.” N’dali pulled the smile even higher upon her cheeks.
Kowani forgot immediately that she was trying to be mad, “What do you mean?”
“Conum Arnia was a success. Ahsoka, Rex and Nara are currently orbital above Botajef, and they have R3’s memory core in their possession.” N’dali relayed the information she knew Kowani surely needed, “there is more Ani.”
Kowani had already thrown her head back, lost to the tumult of transgressing emotions that buoyed her at the same time they threatened to pull her under their own currents. With the fertile soils softening the blow to the back of her head, she only stared directly above her into the stars that began to shine down through the night sky. “What could possibly be more than that N’dali?” The question asked itself, Kowani almost unaware she had asked it.
“Sylde. He is coming for you, and probably myself if he’s figured that bit out by now. We are the last that remain of Keno.” N’dali said slowly, again adding an infusion of sentiment to the statement Kowani had never known her to.
Kowani lifted her head to stare into N’dali’s eyes as they peered over her chest, “I will tear him from limb-to-limb N’dali.”
“I will save you that...the rest is reserved for myself.” N’dali said with a chuckle, the emotion portraying enough authenticity to assure Kowani that the Thebasken might actually take pleasure in it.