space him.”
Khedryn’s heart beat faster. Sweat formed on his brow, and he despised himself for it.
“Or maybe just kill him right now,” Runner said. He lurched to his feet, took his lightsaber hilt in hand, and advanced on Khedryn.
Soldier stepped between them.
“Wait.”
“He shot at me,” Runner spat, still trying to push through Soldier. “And he travels with the Jedi who tried to kill us both.”
Soldier looked back at Khedryn. Khedryn found it unnerving to see such coldness in that face, Jaden’s face. He knew his life hung on Soldier’s next words.
“It’s just an escape pod,” Soldier said.
“Seer?” asked Runner of the woman. “What do you say?”
Seer, the bald clone, did not turn from the viewport. She stared out at the black as if it held some answer she sought. “Mother has no need of him. And neither do we. He should be killed.”
Runner grinned and moved toward Khedryn. Soldier hesitated for only a moment before he stepped out of the way, his shoulders slumped. He turned and looked into Khedryn’s face. There was no apology in Soldier’s expression, but neither was there pleasure.
“There’s no reason to kill me,” Khedryn said, pleased that his voice remained steady.
“There’s no reason to keep you alive,” Runner said, and ignited his lightsaber.
“You’re murderers, then,” Khedryn said. “Typical Sith.”
“We’re not Sith,” Soldier said.
“Might as well be,” Khedryn said. He stared the big clone in the face and used the wall to scramble to his feet. His burgeoning fear vanished in the face of the inevitable. He would not die afraid. He stuck out his chin.
“Not with a lightsaber, you Sith bastard. I’m a spacer. You put me out the damned airlock. At least give me that.” He’d always figured he’d die in a vacuum somehow. He looked past Runner. “Soldier, give me that.”
Soldier looked to Seer, who gave no indication she’d heard Khedryn’s plea. Soldier turned to Runner.
“Space him,” he said to Runner.
The two clones glared at one another, Runner’s blade spitting sparks.
“Do it,” Soldier said.
Runner grinned darkly and deactivated his weapon.
“Doesn’t matter to me. Dead is dead.”
He grabbed Khedryn by the collar and dragged him out of the cockpit, toward the back of the ship, toward the airlock. Khedryn looked back, trying to see the little girl for some reason, but she was nowhere to be found.
* * *
Nyss prowled the corridors of the supply ship. He moved in silence, the darkness clinging to him while he familiarized himself with the ship’s layout. The clones, four adults and the child, congregated in the cockpit, where they held Khedryn. He set about preparing things.
He found a power transfer, cracked it open to reveal a nest of wires and conduits. Most of them were labeled with small tags. He found the power lines that fed the main lights in the cargo bay and the rear of the ship and cut them with his vibroblade.
All around him, the main overhead lights failed. Emergency lights flared to life, small and dim, creating an environment rich in shadows. He felt right at home.
Khedryn and Runner passed out of the forward section to find that the main lights in the middle section of the ship had failed. Emergency lights cast the corridors and rooms in a dim glow. Runner slammed his palm against the activation switches, but the main lights stayed out.
Runner pushed Khedryn before him through the dark corridors. It barely occurred to Khedryn to resist, maybe take Runner by surprise. It would be futile. His hands were bound and he had no weapon. Besides, if he resisted, Runner would kill him with a lightsaber, and Khedryn did not want to die on the end of a mad clone’s blade. He’d take the vacuum every time.
As they walked, Khedryn felt as if he were moving into a tunnel, a womb, not from out of which he would be born, but in which he would die. Chaotic thoughts swirled through his mind, a rush of memories: his time as a child in the ruins of Outbound Flight, the face of his mother, his friends, his enemies, men and women he’d known, his life bouncing off theirs, all of them helping to make him who he was.
People are not equations, he heard Marr say in his mind.
No, he thought, and smiled. People were the sum total of their interactions with other people, the choices they made. He’d made some bad ones in his life, but also many good ones.
Words and arrows painted on the bulkhead pointed the way to the airlock,