Dynasty of Evil (27 page)

Crouched on one knee, he clenched both fists then
threw his arms out to either side, fingers splayed wide. The resulting Force wave pummeled the guards, sending them hurtling backward so they bounced off the walls hard enough to leave cracks in the stone.

Bane rose to his feet in the center of the carnage. Half a dozen bodies lay strewn about him, bones shattered, internal organs crushed into pulp. One choked out a pink, frothing spray with his final breath; all the others were still.

To his dismay, he saw neither Caleb’s daughter nor the Iktotchi among the dead. He had sensed a few guards fleeing the room as he had charged up the staircase, but he hadn’t felt either of those two women among them. He also didn’t recognize any of the corpses as the dark-skinned woman who had saved him, though he was—for the moment—less interested in her.

He had found Serra once before. During his first meeting with Caleb, the healer had tried to trick him with a simple illusion to hide his daughter. But Bane had sensed the little girl cowering behind the façade; he had tasted her fear. Yet it was more than that. Like her father, the girl had power that could be sensed through the Force.

You can’t hide from me. I will find you
.

Calling up the long-buried memory, he reached out with his mind, concentrating on picking out her unmistakable presence.

She’s here. Still in the facility. But she’s not alone
.

His awareness had spread through the halls of the dungeon, whispering over the minds of all who walked the halls. He had sensed Serra, along with several other powerful individuals. Yet there was one in particular that had drawn his attention.

Zannah. What is she doing here?

Was his apprentice somehow involved in his capture? Had she come here to rescue him? Or maybe to stop him from escaping?

Whatever the explanation, Bane knew one thing for certain: He didn’t want to face Zannah right now. Not while he was still recovering from the toxins Serra had used to render him helpless, and certainly not without his lightsaber.

She was searching for him; he could feel her reaching out, drawing ever closer. Still, there were ways to counter her efforts: subtle manipulations of the Force could confuse and misdirect her.

Fooling Zannah while tracking Caleb’s daughter at the same time was possible in theory, though few individuals had the discipline to maintain the balance between two such mentally intensive tasks. But Bane’s will was as strong as his body.

If he was quick, cunning, and careful he had a chance to find his quarry while still getting out of the prison alive.

Tears of anger, shame, and frustration were streaming down the princess’s face. She had held them in check as she had passed the guards, but with nobody around to see her she had finally let them go.

Her plan to avenge her father’s death and free herself from the traumatic memories of her childhood had so far failed miserably. She had wanted the Sith Lord to admit he was wrong. She had wanted him to apologize and ask forgiveness for Caleb’s death. She had wanted him to beg her for mercy.

She had convinced herself that if this happened it would help her deal with the senseless death of not just her father, but also her husband. She had thought it would help restore some type of meaning to a cruel and random universe. She had hoped it would bring her peace.

But nothing had gone the way she had planned. The prisoner was completely unrepentant. He had twisted everything she had done and said into some perverse
justification for what he believed in. He almost made it seem that Caleb’s death was
right
.

And he turned your best friend against you
.

As much as the words of the Sith disturbed her, the actions of Lucia had upset her even more. The bodyguard had been the one who hired the Huntress to avenge Gerran’s death. But now she seemed determined to oppose Serra’s quest to avenge Caleb.

It made no sense to the princess. She had expected Lucia to stand by her during the confrontation, to support her as she faced the demon of her past. To shore up her strength so she could conquer her fears and triumph over his evil. Instead she had defended him.

How could you turn your back on me like that? When I needed you the most?

Serra had fled the interrogation cell to escape the madness, not even paying attention to where she was going. Moving with long, quick strides, she had rushed heedlessly down the maze of halls without any purpose or direction.

She didn’t know where she was going or what she was trying to do. She just needed to think. To try to make sense of it all. To be alone.

Only she wasn’t alone.

The physical exertion had helped bring her swirling emotions back under control, and after several minutes she began to regain some semblance of composure. The tears stopped and her pace slowed. It was only then she heard the footsteps of someone following a few meters behind her.

She stopped short, bringing up a hand to wipe at her eyes before turning around. She was hoping to see Lucia. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with the Iktotchi assassin.

“Why are you sneaking along behind me?” she demanded.

“If I was sneaking, you wouldn’t have heard me,” the Huntress replied with her implacable calm. “I was following you, but I made no effort to mask my presence.”

“Then why were you following me?”

“I wanted to see what you would do. I’m curious to learn how you will react to your failure.”

Serra’s lip twitched, but she managed to keep the rest of her face expressionless, mirroring the other woman’s emotionless demeanor.

There was no point in denying what had happened; the Iktotchi had witnessed the entire exchange. But the princess wasn’t willing to admit defeat.

“I will pick myself up from failure and try again,” she declared. “Next time I speak with him I’ll be ready for his tricks.”

“There won’t be a next time,” the Huntress replied. “You had him in your power. His very life was in your hands. But you chose to let him live, and now it is too late. His fate and his future have slipped through your grasp. You are powerless once again.”

The words were spoken without spite or malice, which made them sting all the more. Serra realized there was something evil about this woman. She wasn’t just a hired assassin. She used her ability to sense the future so she could spread suffering and death.

“I don’t want you here anymore,” Serra told her, her voice firm. “Your job is done and you’ve already been paid. So go.”

“The future is muddied right now,” the Iktotchi admitted. “Events teeter on a knife-edge, and I cannot foresee which way they will fall. I want to stay and see what happens when the prisoner breaks free.”

“He will never break free!” Serra snapped. “I won’t let that happen!”

“You can’t stop it. It’s already too late,” the Huntress replied. “Lucia has betrayed you. I saw it in her eyes
when you left. She wants to save the man you want to destroy.”

Serra shook her head, but though she wanted to deny it she couldn’t speak the words.

She was defending him during the interrogation. Trying to protect him
.

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” she asked, perplexed. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“As you said, I have already been paid. My job was to deliver him to you. Nothing more.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

The Iktotchi didn’t answer, but the first hint of emotion played across her face as the corners of her lips curled up into the hint of a cruel smile.

She feeds on the misery of others
.

Serra started to say,
Lucia would never betray me
, but her words were cut off by the sudden clanging of the Stone Prison’s alarms.

In that instant she knew everything the Huntress had told her was true. The prisoner had broken free, and Lucia had helped him.

“No!” Serra shouted, clasping her head in her hands as for the second time today her world came crashing down around her. “No!”

The Iktotchi was grinning now, transforming the tattoos on her lower lip into fangs.

“No!” the princess shouted again, her voice rising up over the alarms.

He can’t escape. Not now. Not after everything that’s happened
.

“No!”

Serra turned and fled down one of the nearby corridors, a last, desperate plan forming in her mind.

20

A
s soon as Lucia was out of sight of the guards watching Des, she broke into a brisk jog. She knew she didn’t have much time before he escaped, and she needed to find the princess before that happened. But figuring out where Serra had gone was no easy matter.

Dozens of passages branched off from the main corridor on either side, leading to other cell blocks in the wing, or to completely new areas of the dungeon complex. Fortunately only a small section of the Stone Prison had been reopened. Most of the halls Lucia passed were still dark and deserted: she didn’t think the princess would have gone down any of these.

Even so, there was a lot of area to cover. She had started with the administrative office for the maximum-security wing, only to find it empty. After that she had backtracked, moving quickly up and down the halls that were illuminated, occasionally calling out Serra’s name in what she hoped came across as a calm, normal voice.

She needed to find her, but she also didn’t want to make her suspicious. Lucia had no intention of revealing what she had done. She had helped Des because she felt it was right, but she doubted Serra would understand.

Her hope was that she would be at the princess’s side under the guise of a supportive friend when the alarms
went off. As her bodyguard, it would make perfect sense for her to whisk Serra away to safety at that time, and her friend would never have to know the truth about how Des escaped.

Unfortunately, the first part of her plan fell apart when she heard the alarms ring out a few minutes later.

She cursed under her breath and broke into a full run. Her plan could still work: if she found Serra she could still convince her to leave without exposing her betrayal. But now she was in a race against Des to see which one of them could find the princess first.

Where could she be?

The clanging alarms made it hard to think. Lucia skidded to a stop, taking a moment to collect her thoughts.

From the corridor off to her right she heard the princess scream out “No!”—her voice carrying even over the cacophony of the alarms.

She had to be close! Turning, Lucia ran down the hall in the direction of the sound. She came to another intersection: the corridor branched right, left, and continued straight ahead. Pausing, she listened for another clue, but heard nothing.

Thinking back to the blueprints she had memorized when she had first joined the Royal Guard, she remembered that the corridor on the left led deeper into the dungeon, toward an area that was still closed. That left only two options.

She continued on straight ahead, knowing the hall carried on for about twenty meters before turning sharply and ending in an old guard barracks. The room was on the same power grid as the maximum-security wing, so it would be illuminated. But it wasn’t being used: the hired mercenaries had been given lodging in the barracks on the other side of the wing.

Lucia was guessing the princess had gone there to find some privacy as she struggled to deal with her emotions.
She guessed wrong. Finding the barracks empty, she was forced to double back and take the other branch, knowing precious seconds had been lost.

Running at a full sprint, she dashed down the hall and around the corner, nearly barreling into the Huntress. The Iktotchi stepped quickly to the side to avoid the collision. At the same time Lucia pulled up short, throwing herself off balance so that she stumbled and fell. Her knee smacked hard into the floor and skidded across the rough stone, tearing a hole in her trousers and scraping away a layer of skin.

“Have you seen the princess?” she asked as she got back to her feet, ignoring the warm blood already welling up from the deep scrapes on her injured knee.

“She knows what you did,” the assassin said. “She knows you betrayed her.”

The unexpected accusation caught Lucia off guard; she didn’t even try to deny it.

“How?”

“I told her.”

Lucia was stunned, unable to fathom how her secret had been exposed. And then she remembered the rumors that claimed the Iktotchi could see the future and read minds. She was on the verge of asking why the Huntress would let this happen only to tell Serra of her betrayal after the fact, but then she remembered whom she was dealing with.

She did it to hurt her. She’s as much a monster as any Sith
.

For a moment she thought about going for her blaster. She wanted to kill the Huntress. She’d be doing the galaxy a favor. But despite her outrage, she knew she had no chance of killing the assassin. Attacking her would result only in Lucia’s own death, and it would do nothing to help the princess.

You can still find Serra. Even if she knows what you did, maybe you can still convince her to get away before Des finds her. You can still save her.

“Which way did she go?” she asked, wondering if the Iktotchi would even bother to tell her.

“She ran off that way,” the assassin replied, tilting her horned head to indicate the direction.

Lucia’s mind flashed back to the blueprints of the complex, and she knew where Serra was heading. The princess was still determined to kill Bane. She was going to the control room to detonate the Stone Prison’s self-destruct sequence.

Not bothering to waste another second on the Huntress she turned and ran off down the corridor in pursuit, her gait clumsy and uneven because of her bloody and rapidly swelling knee.

The Huntress watched the princess’s bodyguard rush off down the hall. She knew what lay at the end; in her visions she had seen the walls of this prison come crashing down in a series of explosions.

For an instant she had thought the bodyguard was going to try to kill her. She was somewhat disappointed when it didn’t happen. Yet she knew Lucia’s end was inevitable: she had seen it.