Star Wars: Red Harvest Read Free Page B

the present moment by the blazing flames of his own anger, Jura blinked away the image of the cartridge in the Zabrak’s pocket. Standing here in the shadows between buildings, the urge to lash out was something he could no longer master. He raised both hands and unleashed a burst of dark side energy into the wall itself. Electric heat leapt through his wrists and palms, slamming into the rock, cracking it down the middle.
    He closed his eyes and exhaled, momentarily relieved. He knew he should have saved his anger, held on to it and used it in one of the combat drills, but he couldn’t help himself.
    Opening his eyes again, he looked at the cracked wall. It had been strong, but now it was damaged, its value weakened in some fundamental way by what had been inflicted on it.
    I am that wall
.
    Turning away, he stepped back out of the shadows, his mind already trying to work out how he was going to get Scopique’s information for him.

3/Deep-Down Trauma Hounds
    N ICKTER AWOKE IN THE CAGE .
    He had no memory of how he’d gotten here, or how long he’d been inside. The last thing he remembered was sitting in the infirmary, waiting for Arljack to come back and check the wound on the back of his neck. And in fact, for one disoriented moment, he thought he was still there.
It’s cold in here
, he’d started to say.
Hey, Arl, you mind turning up the heat a little bit?
    But this was not the infirmary.
    He tried to sit up and slammed his head against the metal bars above him hard enough to make him let out an angry moan of pain. Just exactly what was going on here? The cage was small, forcing him to remain hunched forward, either on his hands and knees or in a slouch-shouldered sitting position. The top part of his tunic had been ripped away, leaving him naked from the waist up. His back hurt,
really
hurt, from the base of his skull all the way down to the bottom of his spine—a low, steady throb that made his molars ache.
    As if to mock his immediate claustrophobic situation, the room outside the cage was very large, and very dark. From inside, Nickter could see almost all of it. It was a circular space, perhaps fifty meters across, illuminated by an irregular assemblage of flashing monitor equipment, candles, and torchlight. Laboratory equipment crowded every available surface and corner. Pipes and wires were draped from tables and desks, connecting odd piles of disjointed equipment, condensers, flasks, beakers, and burners. The walls were glass, and although he couldn’t see anything out there but darkness, Nickter had the vague feeling that he was very high up.
    Sudden realization blindsided him.
    He was at the top of the tower.
    “You’re awake,” a voice said.
    Nickter jerked upright at the sound of the voice and very nearly screamed.
    Standing outside the cage, staring down at him, was a tall, broad-shouldered, black-robed figure that blended almost imperceptibly into the shadows. Nickter already knew exactly who it was, even before the flickering torchlight of the room revealed the man’s face—a long, bony sculpture of bone and half-lidded eyes, the famous curvature of the peaked upper lip, how it always seemed to be smiling slightly at some secret thought. A fresh spasm of apprehension leapt through him, raising hackles across his back. The eyes were the worst part, he thought: how almost silver they were, how they seemed to glitter with a feverish accumulation of ambition and indifference.
    “Lord Scabrous,” he said, or tried to say. His mouth felt parched, and his lungs couldn’t seem to get enough air. “What am I doing here?”
    The Sith Lord didn’t answer. But the eyes kept staring down at him … past him, somehow, as if there were something else inside the cage with him.
    He could smell himself, the stale cheap grease of panic and perspiration seeping through his skin. The pain in his back had intensified from a throb to a sharp stabbing agony that shot down his ribs and up into his neck. It was