Smoker's Heaven

Smoker's Heaven
by
Bobby Derie

Intelligence buildings, despite their security and the careful thought that goes into the control of people and information within them, are living spaces. New walls go up and old ones come down; massive offices sectioned off by cubicles, closets repurposed, elevators put in to conform to new safety regulations for the disabled, annexes and extensions added on. Over the long years - for it is far easier to expand a current building than to decommission it and build a new one - they attain their own character, the accumulation of all the strange twists of architecture that have eroded and redefined the internal geography of the structure. Intelligence people live in those strange spaces, and know their paths as intimately as any native tribesman.

So it was that if you went down a certain corridor where the doors to dead offices had been walled off years ago, you came to a little door set in the wall that was never locked, but only secured by a little chain and rod. The door and the chain and rod were painted a pale institutional brown, and where the paint peeled and faded it revealed stratum of white and green from earlier ages in the building's history, and where it had worn away beyond that were dark red splotches of rust. Every hour or so a soul would find their way down that useless hallway, and open that door, probably to shiver at the sudden blast of fresh air, and step through.

It was a roof, though few had the clearance to know exactly what it was the roof of, and any utilities located up there had long since been re-routed. On all sides rose dark brick and concrete walls - the New Annex, now sixty years old on the left; and the high-ceilinged warehouse opposite the door; and on the right the solid mass where the executive conference rooms were. There were no windows anywhere, no safety and health signs. From an administrative viewpoint, the place did not exist; even the engineers would have difficulty pinpointing it on the building plans, provided they had the clearance to access them all and the wherewithal to look behind the iron filing cabinets where the originals had fallen twenty years ago. In the corners, the mounds of cigarette butts rose up almost to people's knees.

There was a quiet camaraderie between those who shared that space, the kind shared when they came back in after a quick puff to find somebody else waiting impatiently to go out, or a shared huddle over a tiny flickering match in the winter when the snow covered the mounds of old tobacco papers, even the still coexistence that came from two or more people standing outside and taking the smoke into their lungs while giving each other space, not acknowledging their presence or even looking in their eyes. It was such a silent conspiracy, however, that it always came as a bit of a surprise to nip out and find someone else. There was always a pause as they regarded each other, if they had not met out there before, a judging glance that often ended with a polite nod or a shift of the eyes.

It was something like this that Stephens felt when he came out, that frosty Friday morning, lungs aching in the cold air. Off the patch for three days and he still had the shakes; a quick coffin nail to keep the edge off was all he needed, and what he got instead was a body lying in the snow.

His first instinct was not to raise an alarm, or to check a pulse, but to take in the scene. A light snow had fallen in the early morning, and there were no tracks in it, so the murder had taken place the night before. The body was still and slightly blue, and there was a gaping bloody hole in the trousers; from the doorway Stephens could just make out the great pool of half-frozen blood that had spread out beneath him, and in one corner was a rather forlorn and deflated looking cock and balls that he assumed belonged to the deceased. Taking all this in with a glance, Stephens pressed himself against the wall - a slight overhang on the roof above the door kept the snow clear right next to it - and made quick work of his cigarette, sucking it down in three puffs, catching the ash and butt in his pocket. Satiated, he carefully rubbed the door handles down with his sleeve and returned to work.

Stephens was the first to discover the body, but far from the last. There was a distracted air in the office that day, a quiet tension as of a disparate group of intelligent men and women working silently on a mutual problem, each alone to their individual thoughts and devices. No one stayed long outside the door that morning, but empty cubicles were eyed carefully by several people, and attendance boards checked to see whether the people they belonged to were on sick leave, holiday, or temporary duty.

Carter arrived early the next morning, an hour before his normal shift, and mumbled something about traffic and flextime to the few fresh-faced coworkers as he excused himself for the bathroom. He found McEvins frozen over the body, having just finished cutting the clothes off with a pair of office scissors. They both wore gloves. Carter felt a momentary recognition as their eyes met, the same gaze they had shared when they had first met out here three years ago, on a blistering summer day. McEvins smoked thin cigarillos, he knew, and carried a box of wooden matches he didn't mind sharing. Without a word, Carter stepped into the snow and grabbed the dead man's ankles. McEvins grabbed the shoulders, and together they hauled the corpse over to the roof drain. Still not talking, Carter produced a letter opener and stabbed a few holes in the body, letting the fluids leak out.

They peeled off their gloves and had a quick smoke, McEvins sharing a match with Carter, then left it as it was.

Stephens came back after lunch, with a garbage bag. He found the snow had been swept into the corners, eliminating any tracks, and the body itself was concealed beneath the mounds of cigarette butts, which had been arranged to cover it. Stephens took a few deep drags and looked at the stain in the middle of the roof. Coming to a decision, he stretched his hand through the garbage bag and picked up the cock and balls, then rolled it over them and tied it tight. Back through the door, he found the nearest trashcan nearly overflowing; threw the bag in, and hauled the whole thing to the dumpster outside.

It was to be a long winter, and at lunch people surfed the internet, checking on rates of decomposition, science experiments on how to dissolve steak and teeth in acid, household odor eliminators. The clothes were already gone, though a "lost" wallet, car keys, wedding ring, and watch would find their way to security by the end of the day. In the parking lot, a Hyundai was gathering a drift of uncleared snow about it. The AWOL announcement came through a mass email; the plain-clothes detective with the visitor's badge clipped to his shirt arrived to toss his cubicle a couple days later.

Office life continued. The car was towed. A middle manager collected his things in a shoe box, IT hauled away the computers; the missing man's coworkers had already raided his better office supplies, leaving a drawer of bent clips, faded markers, and empty pens.

Come spring, Thompson was sucking on her Virginia slim while Clarkson bummed a clove cigarette off of Juanez. When they were done, they carefully deposited their butts on the pile, causing a small avalanche that exposed one mummified eye socket. Without a word, Clarkson moved forward with a brush of her hand to cover it up again.

###

Mule Contract

Mule Contract
by
Bobby Derie

“The United States has never lost a war when using mules,” Zvi began. Binyamin sat at the back of the room as the spielman started his pitch to a room packed full of fresh-faced men and women in military dress. Army and Marine veterinarians he had expected, but the Air Force had sent a Special Forces lieutenant colonel as well – probably just to get him out of the office.

Zvi was good at his speech. Lots of eye contact, repetition of key points, emphasis on training, advantages, economy, click to the next power point slide for illustrated examples…

“Hardy, intelligent, cautious, able to navigate over nearly any terrain and under heavy loads where tanks and Humvees can’t go, military mules have seen resurgence in recent conflicts, where open battlefields have given way to smaller scale engagements with insurgents. In March 2009 a group of Afghanistani fighters in the Pamir Mountains used improvised tank traps to channel a British Challenger 2 and bombard it with pack artillery that had been carried up the mountain by pack animals. If the British had their own animals they could not have been trapped and might even have been able to pursue them into the mountains.”

Mariah came in and laid a hand on Binyamin’s shoulder, he quietly got up and followed her out.

“Avi called,” she said as soon as he shut the door to the conference room. “The Mormons are challenging the contract.”

Binyamin said something that made Mariah blush. Their distinguished competition in modern military pack animals, the Utah-based Camelid Army Purveyors (CAP), were clownshoes that needed to stick to outfitting deadbeat South American governments and right wing paramilitary groups, not fucking his warm spot on a $120 million Department of Defense contract for trained pack animals. “What did he say exactly?”

“He was in the men’s room at the expo and overheard a couple of them talking.” Knowing Avi’s proclivities, Binyamin doubted that Avi had been an inactive partner in the exchange, and reminded himself to check how the company health insurance handled STIs. The lengths Avi would go to just to ghost the competition… “He says they’re arguing the award was unfair to small business development.”

Binyamin breathed out. “They just want a piece, then. Get me Junior Hatch on my office phone in ten minutes, I’ll feel him out on a subcontract.”

“I wasn’t finished.” Mariah said. “Avi also said they’re pushing the terrain issue.”

Binyamin swore again. The Andes were heating up, and the president was making noises that might lead to military intervention. Mules were universal animals that would go almost anywhere, but llamas were native to the region and the Mormons were savvy enough to make that a selling point and stupid enough to try and make it work. He pinched the bridge of their nose.

“Okay. Forget Junior Hatch. Get me Uncle Nazir, I’ll take it in my office.”

Binyamin stalked past the typical gray felt-covered cubicleville. Generic office furniture, right down to the ex-military buzzcuts of the guys in Logistics and the eager young faces blinking at computer screens and trying to match up proposals to DoD-provided Statements of Work. The back of the building was a suite of small offices with actual doors; Binyamin had taken the corner with the window that let him keep an eye on the stock.

He shut the door behind him and stared out at the Texas plains, the latest crop of mules in from the farm going through the morning training session – verbal and hand signals, taking a pack, avoiding tripwires and other obstacles… Eli was in jeans and a Stetson, the spitting image of a cowboy as he led a Marine veterinarian through a week-long refresher course on mule maintenance. Right now he was showing off the muleshoes—a new design, specially made to fit the mule hoof.

The phone rang and he picked it up.

“Boychik,” the old man croaked, the living voice of old Brooklyn, “you don’t call, you don’t write…”

“Your birthday was last week.” Binyamin reminded him. “I called, and sent a card, and a gift…”

They caught up on family matters for a bit, and Binyamin let the old man wind him up a bit before getting to the point. “I need an introduction to Jacob Schwab.”

The old man breathed. “What do you want with the Israeli Army?”

“I’ve got a goyim trying to undercut me on a contract. I know the Israelis are decommissioning some of their llamas, fully trained…”

“Because they aren’t suitable to stealth work! You can’t sneak up on a bunch of jihadists on a fucking llama. They’re supposed to be led straight to the dog food factory.”

“I just want to negotiate an option. The Americans don’t want military camelids, they want mules, but there’s local politics involved. If I can show that I can provide fully-trained pack llamas for military application, I can nip this in the bud before it goes too far.”

They talked some more. The old man was going to do it, and they both knew it, but he had to go through the show of the thing, and Binyamin didn’t mind. He liked the old man, always had. They said their goodbyes and hung up just as Mariah came back in.

“I’m going to be flying to Tel Aviv next week. Just a few days, to take a meeting and see some family. Tell Gloria to handle the tickets and itinerary.”

She nodded, then handed him a color print-out of a grainy low-rez internet photo. It looked like an impact crater made out of meat, with a couple hooves and a spine sticking out of it. A GI in full combat gear was posing next to it with a thumb’s up.

“What’s this?”

“Unit 160, part of the lot we sold to the New Mexico National Guard. According to the article on reddit, the young soldier pictured had fed 160 a cow magnet then sent it close to the mine field to see what would happen.”

“Any official response yet?”

“We’re still waiting for it to work through to acquisitions. PETA is having a field day with it already.”

“Okay, show this to Jake in legal and tell Bram Kelly he might be taking a field trip down to the border—he’ll need to pack a spatula—but this should be covered under our standard contracts. I’ll go have a talk with logistics about adding a disclaimer to the Operation & Maintenance Manuals.”

Mariah nodded and left. Binyamin took a moment to sit back and look outside again. The grass waved in the plains beneath a sky as big as the world, not a single storm cloud on the horizon. Young mules went through their paces, hefting military surplus camo bags to an appreciative audience. He allowed himself a smile. It was a good business.

###

Cat Kisses

Cat Kisses
by
Bobby Derie

I sucked her tongue into my mouth, savoring the soft warm muscle as it probed and swelled, knocking against my back teeth. We both knew it would be the last time. And when we broke that kiss, our shared spit dripping from her chin, she smiled at me like the cat that stole the cream. She stuck it all the way out, that lovely pink organ, and laid a trail down between my breasts, tasted the sweat pooling on my belly. Creeping backwards on all fours she found the edge of the bed and slid my hips right up to it, so my legs dangled off and the feet touched the floor. I propped myself up on my elbows so I could watch her dive into my muff. I tried not to cry, because I knew that would be the last time too.

It was an outpatient procedure. They let me watch. She didn't even have to change her clothes. They just laid her back on a dentist's chair, with a bib on her. It was a female doctor, not too old but past the prime of life and starting to waste, with big hands as long and skinny and strong as birdclaws; her nurse was a boy still in college, all soft muscle and tufted hair, with holes in his ears where the plugs would go after work. They waited for the shots they gave her to kick in, then got to work. I don't think I'd ever seen her mouth open that wide before, when the doctor went to cutting. I knew the blood was coming before the first spurt, because the boy had the metal pan under her chin and at the ready. Then came the little pink thing I had known and loved, and I had to leave to be sick.

No sex until it healed, the nurse at the desk said - a woman somewhere between black and Latino, with a wide smile that dissolved into a disapproving scowl at the slightest interruption, and an accent that ranged from Georgia to Chicago. Not even kissing. Liquid diet, with the sterile straw. No one wanted an infection. My heart tried to smile, but when she flashed those blood-stained teeth, I nearly cried again. She kept that smile on her for the ride home, still a little dazed and happy from the medicine, fingers drumming a melody on the inside of her right thigh.

It was a long couple of weeks.

She wasn't insatiable, but she was waiting. The numb tongue wore off in hours; the pain disappeared in days of medication and long nights of a rumbling stomach dissenting from the sudden liquid diet. There was an energy of expectation to her as she stalked the apartment, curling up on the couch as I worked, or over by me with her head resting against my lap.

Then, the date circled in red. The bandage came off. The doctor gave a critical glare and smiled as my heart stuck her tongue out - long and covered with backward-facing barbs, like a cat's. Bird-fingers played at the edges, tested the strength and sensitivity of the new muscle, brought out the little latex paper with the taste spots, smiled at the answer of sweet and salty, savoury and spicy, hot and cold. All clear.

All clear.

The anticipation was there, during dinner. I could see she knew it. Her first solid food in weeks, a simple lasagna, washed down with cold white wine. I sputtered when I saw her lick a dab of sauce off her own nose. She did laugh then. It sounded different now.

There was no time for dishes. No time, even, to drag me to bed. I had barely put them in the sink when she came up behind me, hands slipping under my shirt to clasp under my belly. We just stood like that for a moment, her head nestled in the crook of my neck, the scent of wine on her breath. Then the hands moved up to my breasts, just holding them, hefting them, feeling the weight, fingers tracing lazy circles around the nipples. I was waiting for it and still gasped when she licked my neck.

It rasped.

Not like sandpaper. This was wet, warm, living, and pliable; it followed the groove of your skin but dragged those little spines along it, hard enough to take the dirt and dead skin off it. My knees buckled, and though she couldn't see it my toes curled.

She took me on the couch, then. I thought she wanted to lick every inch of me with that weapon of hers. Rough and strong, like someone had taken a little dull knife and started scraping me along my collar bone, along my ribs, beneath my breasts. Little stinging cat kisses along my jaw, and down on my inner thighs. I wanted to do more for her, but she moved with purpose, taking initiative; this was her night.

She had me as she wanted me, panties flung aside, slouched on the front of the couch, posed in front of her. My heart gave her too-clever smile forced my knees apart with her hands, took a moment to nuzzle me there. Then she bent down to give my kitty a lick. I could have screamed. Then I really did.

I thought there would be blood. Like losing my hymen again, like that first bloody spotting when I was twelve, like the time after I had the cyst taken out. It's so much more sensitive than skin, inside, so delicate. I felt raw like an open wound; a scab scratched open to the air, the subtle painful swelling as it healed, where for hours after I could feel the throbbing of the veins inside. I didn't want to think what it would be like when I had to take a piss.

I was curled up when it was over, holding myself, unwilling to move. She was picking pubic hair out of her tongue, where they had gotten caught on the papillae. I wondered about hairballs, had a momentary dream of revenge - her naked, bent over a tub as I shoved a finger down her throat coated with Vaseline.

She turned back to me then, in the dark and bent low to look me in the eyes. My heart smiled, the woman with the cat's tongue, and as I watched she opened her mouth and it came out to gently scrape the tip of my nose.

###

Promises and Lightsabers

Promises and Lightsabers
by
Bobby Derie

We buried the clones outside, in the living dirt of Korriban, because that's what the Skywalker wanted. I didn't even complain; the mindless toil with shovel and sweat is better than any meditation I've ever come across, and I wanted to forget just then the small half-formed bodies I'd had to cut down because of one mad "Jedi." Illanova Skywalker, for her part, didn't shirk the work either. We spent hours at work with our spades, until the sun went down and the moons came up.

I sat on the mounds, filthy and exhausted save for my tireless prosthetic left arm, as the Skywalker fetched us a meal from her living ship: tubers that pulsed hot as body heat, and hollow gourds filled with a thin salty-sweet sap. She dug in to hers as readily as I did, and for perhaps a moment I forgot how she'd cajoled and blackmailed me into this. Only for a moment.

"Eiven," she said. In the light of two of Korriban's moons, I could see the pale green veins running just beneath her almost translucent skin. Her head looked like one of those flowers that only blossoms by moonlight, the strange plant-like "hair" turned a pale silver. A shudder went through us both then, a pulse in the Force that came like thunder, and passed as slowly.

"What is it?" I said. I had a bad feeling about this.

"I don't know," she said. "But great-grandpa wants to talk to you about it."

An apparition appeared over her left shoulder, limned in a faint blue aura against the night sky. He looked like an older human male in a black jumpsuit with black gloves, and his smile reached all the way to his eyes. I recognized the face. Most people alive would have.

"Skywalker." I spat the words.

"Eiven Task." He said, the words echoing in my head. "You did a good job here. A pity about Ammas, but he had lost his way quite badly."

"What do you want?" I said.

"I have another job for you."

My anger spiked, and it must have showed on my face because Illanova went from standing to a slight fighting crouch. They already held a bounty over my head from the tournament on Tatooine, and that and being broke had gotten me to do their dirty work. Now they wanted to dangle me on a leash...

"What was promised will be delivered." He said, holding up his left hand. "The bounty will still get removed. You'll still get paid. More, even. But something has come up and you're in the perfect position to do what has to be done. Something I can't ask a Jedi to do." He gave an intangible pat on the shoulder to his adopted great-granddaughter. "Even you my dear."

"And what can I do that a Jedi can't?"

The Skywalker told me. Then I smiled.

*

Korriban was lousy with temples of the Old Sith. Hundreds of generations built them, warred over them, lost them. There were entire villages whose houses had been scavenged block by block from millennium-old pyramids that had resonated with the Dark Side of the Force. Walk down any dusty street and a Force-sensitive could feel the tug from the stone, like wading at the beach and feeling the tide suck at your feet.

This temple was different from the others. There were signs of life and reclamation. Piles of new-turned earth, pre-fabricated huts erected around fresh-dug firepits and latrines. It reminded me of another camp, over a year ago, a tomb of a Prophet of the Dark Side...the artifact I had stolen from that adventure throbbed where I had installed it in my cybernetic left arm, and I became aware of the others lurking around. Force adepts, Sith acolytes, and three potent pillars of rage and hate that throbbed in my awareness. That would be their masters. My own signature in the Force was damped by the Sith runes I had carved into my flesh, a potent and rare piece of lore that lessened my own abilities. I hoped it would be worth it.

I was here to make an impression, and chose to go through the front door. That is how they first saw me: limned from behind by the alien sunlight, clad in spotlight white armor in the mold of the old Imperial Royal Guard, with a floor-length white robe on top of that, and in my hand a meter-and-a-half metal staff - my lightsaber-pike, though none of them would know that until it was ignited. My visor automatically adjusted for the darkness within the temple as I strode forward. The shadows moved around me, acolytes in black robes - I counted seven, moving as one, eyes accustomed to the darkness.

At an unseen signal, they all lit their lightsabers at once, the bloodshine blades flaring into life, casting the temple antechamber in crimson shadows. The fools. I was already moving as they struck, half-blinded by the sudden light, and my staff caught the first one by the throat with a sickening crunch. They moved mechanically through the forms they had been taught as if programmed, still unable to see properly, never trained to extend their senses to foresee their opponent's move, only their Force-heightened instincts preventing them from injuring themselves or each other. I took them apart quickly and efficiently, not bothering to ignite my own weapon, but using it sometimes as a club, tripping legs and crushing skulls, knees, and elbows. In less time than it takes to tell it, they lay on the ground, with only the sound of their moans and gurgles.

I stepped over their broken bodies, and stepped into the inner temple.

There was an altar there, and seated around it three Sith lords, their half-naked bodies marked by blue-black tattoos. I didn't recognize the race of the other two, but the middle one was human. He was the only one that did not rise as I entered unbidden, and whose hand did not stray to the lightsaber at his wrist. We regarded each other for a moment, and I knew that his extrasensory perceptions focused on me then with unnerving attention.

"I know you." He said. "The tournament on Tatooine. Eiven Task. Jedi-killer. Sith-killer. Who fled across the galaxy with seven holocrons. What do you want here?"

"A seat at the table."

"Interesting. Why?"

"Because I have something." Reaching into my robe, I pulled out a glassy yellow cube, strode forward and placed it on the altar between them. "Recently, I took this from a rogue Jedi. It contains the technical data of Imperial experiments carried out to clone Force-users - and to enhance their attunement to the Force, and the mass-production of lightsabers and synthetic lightsaber crystals. All you need to create a generation of acolytes...or an army."

"Very...interesting." He reached down and picked up the cube. The other two Sith masters did not move. I stood still, projecting ease and confidence. If it came to a fight, I could handle one, perhaps two, but not all three.

"We didn't sense you come up."

"A talent. You would be surprised what I have learned, with seven holocrons at my disposal."

"I'm certain. Our acolytes in the outer chamber?"

"Alive, for now." He raised a tattooed eyebrow. "I do not care for waste."

He nodded, staring again at the cubic infocron in his hand.

"How did you find us?"

"I...sensed you. From halfway across the planet. A ripple in the Force that drew me here."

He nodded again, one thumb tracing the lines of circuity embedded in the infocron.

"And what do you want for your...gift?"

I leaned close. "Partnership. The strongest branch, by itself, will always break; the sharpest stone is that which is sharpened against another stone. I require allies and peers against which to measure myself."

The Sith on my right hissed, flashing a long, pointed tongue. "You challenge us?"

"I seek to be challenged." I replied, turning my attention to him.

"He is a Sith-killer," the one on the left said, a pale yellow sweat dripping down her tall forehead. "We can kill him, and take the cube."

"Enough." The human Sith said, laying his hands at the table.

"Darth...Task presents us with a credible offer of service. We could probably take what we want from him, but better to gain an ally than waste our strength against a skilled opponent."

The two Sith lowered their weapons, though their stances said they were both ready for a fight.

"If you are to join us, however, you will need to see what we are about. Come."

*

There were crypts beneath the temple. I could feel the angry spirits behind the walls, still tied to their bones, hanging tenaciously on to this world when long ago they should have gone to the Netherworld of the Force. The human, Darth Kieron, led the way; the others saw to the acolytes. Alone, we descended into the darkness beneath the surface of cursed Korriban.

"There was a legend...isn't there always?" the Sith said, holding up a glow-torch. "Palpatine was not the first to clone a Jedi, or to seek to enhance their powers. Many Sith down through the long centuries have dabbled in those dark sciences - genetics, cybernetics, drugs, sorcery and alchemy. We knew, even before we had the words for it, that the ability to use the Force was stronger in some than in others...that it was a combination of heritage, psyche, training, and experience. Aspects physical and psychological. But what the Old Sith strove for with eugenics and abominations was achieved quite by accident, nearly four thousand years ago. A mutant."

He stopped at a sarcophagus, sealed with ancient Sith runes in the high formal temple script, and as well by quite advanced technological locks. I could feel the hum of the ancient engines in the wall that still powered the coffin and kept it inviolable.

"The Force was strong with her. They say she was nearly invulnerable to weapons, even the primitive energy-swords of the era. She could walk on air and had the strength to pull down the temples around her, only to walk out unscathed, and when confronted her stare could reduce her opponents to ash. It took a thousand Sith just to contain her."

"And you want to let her out?" I said, striving to keep the incredulity out of my voice. The human snorted.

"No. She was uncontrollable then, and if she is even alive in there after all these centuries, she'll be completely mad now. I thought of using her as a living weapon against the Jedi - a bomb to drop upon their temple and slaughter their padawans. Now," he lifted the infocron "A better idea presents itself. With the data you have provided, we can clone an army of such Sith mutants...a new race of super-Sith, each a veritable demigod in the Force!"

"Intriguing." I said.

There was a rumble down the steps. The other two Sith masters appeared, with their bruised and bloody acolytes in tow.

"A Jedi ship approaches! We are betrayed." The female hissed.

The human Sith ignited his lightsaber. "Traitor!" he shouted.

"Naturally," I said, and mentally thumbed a button on my belt pouch. The "infocron" in his left hand exploded in a flash of burning metal and crystal, the fragments of which ricocheted around the room and continued to burn, causing the unarmored Sith to cry out in pain and alarm. The shaped charge had removed the human's arm to the elbow, leaving a blackened stump, and half his face was burned almost to the bone, the left eye flash-boiled and blind. I brought the heavy heel of my boot down on his throat. I felt his hate seethe as he fought for life, but it eventually abandoned him with a wheezing rattle.

The other Sith came at me, style forgotten momentarily in their rage and the cramped hallway. The woman came first, and I sidestepped the woman's thrust and caught her by the throat with my cybernetic left hand; she tried to scream as I lifted her off the ground and smacked her head into the wall, then scraped her face across it in a wide arc that left a smear of yellow blood behind. The hissing male tried to strike while I was distracted, and was surprised when I dropped my staff and grabbed his burning blade with my right hand. Plastic and ceramic smoked, melted, and burned but my grip held as I pushed the pain away, all my attention and power focused on my right hand, hard as Mandalorian iron.

The Sith was dumbstruck at the feat, but not stupid. After a moment's attempt to batter the blade away, he clicked to disengage it. Too late he realized his mistake as my hand shot free - a hand that could hold a burning lightsaber - and ripped straight through the flesh of his unprotected throat. I ripped out a handful of muscle and cartilage and watched him collapse and drown in his own blood. By the time he died, I looked back to the female Sith, left forgotten on my tireless artificial left arm. His face was an alarming color, the eyes sightless. I took a moment to snap her neck for good measure, then let her body fall to the ground. The acolytes did nothing as I retrieved my lightsaber-pike.

The bravest one spoke up.

"Dark lord...Darth...what do we call you? Master?"

"I've only one lesson to teach you, my young apprentices." I thumbed the switch, and the silvery-white blade of my lightsaber-pike flared into life. "Be very careful whom you call Master."

By the time I took a third step toward the stairwell, the acolytes had fled. By the time I had exited the temple, they were already hastily packing up camp. Illanova was there, in her living ship, and towed behind it was my own vessel. In the sunlight, her hair was a bright yellow-green, and she was dressed in a kind of barkleather bikini to catch as much sunlight on her skin as possible while remaining decent.

"The bounty's off," she said. "Just like we promised. And I had your ship refueled, the credits placed in your account." The Skywalker looked a bit wistful. "Where will you go now?"

My hand burned. Old wounds ached, beneath my armor. I was tired in body and spirit, and her words finally crystallized in my mind a need I had long put off, and only now could give voice to.

"I'm going to get laid."

###