The power in the medbay was already out, and a cloak of darkness prevailed over its unfamiliar interior, save for the ambient glow of the diagnostic equipment, which cast a spectral blue glow on the figures moving through it, single file.
“Hold it,” Voystock whispered, raising his hand without looking back. “That’s far enough.”
Artagan glanced at him. He and Eogan were halfway across the medbay, creeping their way forward in almost total blackness. “How long can you keep the main power out?”
“Leave that to me,” the guard said. “I’ll bring the droid around and take care of the programming to deactivate the charges.”
Something shifted in the middle distance, and Artagan stiffened, glancing around. “Is there someone else in here with us?”
“No.” Voystock shook his head. “I sealed the medbay up behind us. You saw me do it.”
“I heard something.”
“Shut up and stay put,” the guard said. “Don’t move. And don’t touch anything.” He ducked his head and vanished.
“Father,” Eogan murmured a moment later, “you know we can’t trust him. Why would you—”
“He’s the only one who can help us. We need him.”
“What if it’s a trap?” the boy whispered, his voice going higher with urgency.
“Better listen to your old man, kid,” said Voystock. “I’m the only chance you’ve got.”
As if on cue, Artagan sensed something sailing past him in the blackness. Grabbing his son’s arm, he ducked and felt it graze his shoulder. As the thing turreted around, he saw the GH-7’s photoreceptors blink to life in the darkness, two perfect blue discs hovering before them.
Artagan listened and heard it again, the sound of someone else in the medbay with them, closer now.
“Voystock?” he hissed, turning in the direction of the sound. “Is that you?”
No one answered. In front of them, barely visible, Artagan saw the droid moving closer, its manipulator extending a long hypodermic needle.
“Father?” the boy asked.
“It’s all right,” Artagan said. “It will only hurt for a second. Then the charges will be deactivated. Go ahead.”
“But—” Eogan started to say something and the needle plunged through his prison uniform and directly into his upper thorax. The boy let out a sharp squawk of pain, but his words were lost beneath the sudden volley of blasterfire from outside the medbay. Artagan heard voices, guards shouting at one another, and the shooting started again.
“What—?” Glancing around, Artagan Truax saw the GH-7 withdraw the needle from his son’s chest, pivot in the air, and go flying backward. “What is this? What’s going on?”
Five meters away, Voystock stood up, rising to his full height. “What’s it sound like?” He turned around and faced the two inmates. Outside, the blasters had stopped firing again and Artagan heard a muffled voice barking orders, demanding whoever was inside to open up in there.
“You promised we’d have fifteen minutes,” Artagan said. “I gave you the khipu! I gave you everything I had!”
“What, this?” Voystock held up the string with the knots in it and threw it in Artagan’s direction. “Come on. You really think Radique would let you out of here that easily? After what you know about him?”
“Father?” Eogan stared at his father. “What’s he talking about?”
“What, he never told you?” Voystock asked. He was grinning now. “Go ahead, old man. Tell your son why you’re really here. Tell him how you brought him to this place.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eogan said.
“Kid, I’ve heard just about enough from you.” Without taking his eyes off Artagan, Voystock jerked his right arm back and drove his elbow into the boy’s face. Eogan’s head snapped sideways and he went flying into a tray of sterilized medical instruments, vascular clamps, and orthopedic drills, knocking them to the floor with a resonating crash of surgical steel. He lay there motionless.
“Eogan!” Artagan shouted, leaping up, then rounding on Voystock with a savage glare. “You’ll pay for that.”
“Easy, old man,” Voystock said, his hand sliding down to the detonator console on his belt. “Nobody’s paying for anything just now. That whelp of yours just signed his death warrant, and by the gods, you’re going to watch him redeem it.”
Artagan lunged at Voystock and fell on him, ripping away the guard’s belt, fighting with a ferocity that was ultimately pointless. Within a span of seconds, Voystock had rolled free and hammered Artagan twice in the stomach and once across the bridge of the nose before smashing his skull with the butt of his blaster, over and over.
“Maybe next time …” Wham! “… you’ll listen …” WHAM! “… when somebody tries to teach you …” THUMP! “… some karking respect!”
Voystock’s hand went down to the detonator console, but it was gone.
Artagan groaned. With monumental effort, he managed to lift his head. His face and scalp were bleeding profusely from a half dozen different lacerations, but beneath it all something vital and defiant still shone in his eyes.
“Looking … for this …?” Artagan was breathing heavily, barely moving air. In his right hand he held the dropbox that he’d ripped from the guard’s belt. He no longer looked steady on his feet, but his entire countenance was blazing with a kind of desperate willfulness, a stark and uncompromising refusal to go down. “Come on and take it.”
“I don’t need that thing anyway,” Voystock snarled, smearing blood from his own nose and raising the blaster. “Not when I’ve got this.”
“But Radique said—”
“Radique’s only instruction was not to let you escape.” Voystock pointed the blaster at Artagan’s leg. “He didn’t say anything about not killing you.”
And he pulled the trigger.
Artagan screamed. In the muzzle flash, he saw his own right leg explode in a gaudy bouquet of blood and gristle, leaving a ragged stump of gleaming bone exposed just below the knee. Curling back, he tried to scramble away and went sprawling backward across the floor.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Voystock stepped closer. “You’ll never walk again. You’ll never fight. You’re a cripple now. You’ll live in excruciating pain for the rest of your miserable life.” He raised the blaster, pointing it directly at the inmate’s head. “Maybe if you beg for mercy, I’ll spare you, grant you a quick death.”
The old man stared up at the blaster, his face momentarily evacuated of all expression. Then he smiled.
It was a warrior’s smile, full of pain and brokenness, and beneath it all a kind of cold-eyed clarity found among soldiers and killers whose entire lives had been spent plying their trade in the marketplace of mortal suffering. Beneath the blood, the old scars stood out clearly across his forehead.
When he spoke, his voice was calm and steady.
“On my home planet,” Artagan said, “it is no small thing to make up a man’s dying bed. It may only take a few seconds, and it may be nothing but the ground where he falls, but it is not a matter to be taken lightly. Are you sure that you are worthy of that honor, CO Voystock?”
“Honor?” Voystock snorted. “Old man, who do you think you are?”
“I am Artagan Truax.” His words had become low and hoarse but remained unwavering. Beneath his lids, the whites of his eyes were turning red, filling up with scarlet from internal hemorrhaging. “I have killed men in eleven systems. I have fought well and withstood much and have not given quarter. I will not be broken by the likes of you today, nor will my son. And I will not beg for mercy.”
Voystock shook his head, finger tightening on the trigger. “Then you can—”
The words broke off. There was a sharp vertebral crack as the guard’s head swiveled around backward 180 degrees.
Artagan Truax looked up and saw the Zabrak standing over the guard’s dead body, holding him by the jaw and skull base. The one called Jagannath released his grip and Voystock sagged to the medbay floor in a boneless, lifeless heap.
“Jagannath,” Artagan managed.
The red-skinned inmate was looking down at him with no pity in his yellow eyes.
“Talk,” he said.