T H E • L U K E - W A R M • C O L D • E Q U A T I O N
Epilogue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVmb4AVpE4M
It was a sanitation processing station underneath the Mandalorian Quarter.
The kind of place he'd
grown up in. Finding his way in and out easily, like wandering into a familiar neighborhood in the forsaken and forgotten Undercity of Coruscant.
The canisters of deadly algae were positioned between a hospital and an elementary school. The risers in the ceiling above would channel the explosion upward, ensuring wide coverage across the heavily populated area above. The initial blast would probably only kill a handful at first. By the look of the rig, it was a two stage production. An initial detonation, just one thermal detonator, to blast apart the pipes, road, and sidewalk. Then a daisy chain of thermal detonators would blow open the fermented algae containers, with the open riser funneling the majority of it upward. The heat would flash-evaporate it into an aerosol, dispersing it across several city blocks. The neuro-toxin would do the rest, killing hundreds. Mostly elderly and children.
The news media had recorded a raid on a house about a block-and-a-half away a week ago, something that the pundits continued to talk about. Fear was a powerful tool for the media, so they kept it in the headline news. As such, no one would think twice about the idea of Mandalorian dissidents plotting to kill thousands of people. The High Court of Public Opinion would assume the detonation in the Mandalorian Quarter was an accident.
A
happy coincidence most likely, being that the deaths would be mostly Mandalorian.
Public opinion would turn against the Mandalorians, and people like Théodwyn Malakai would be ready to come in with commercial re-zoning and bulldoze down the shanty towns of the Mandalorians so they could put up a new Biscuit Baron or Super Valu-Mart on the corner.
The tibana gas hung so thick in the air that it seemed as though a fog had invaded the subterranean sector.
It looked like a
war zone.
Hagar Helson crawled along the ground. His ashen complexion said with one look that the man was already dead, and simply didn't know it yet. One leg blasted off. He was leaving a smear of blood along the ground from the shot to the gut he was bleeding out from. But he was clawing along all the same, fighting desperately to get to a blaster pistol on the floor in front of him. His finger tips had been worn raw, his finger nails ripped off from the effort of pulling his body's dead weight across the duracrete.
The blaster pistol had been dropped by Vigo. Vigo was the owner of the pair of legs that were dangling in mid-air at present, lifted by some invisible hand that had grabbed him by the throat and elevated him up -- as though he were being hung by some invisible rope, his body convulsing violently with the effort to fight against the darkness that had him in its grip.
A blaster cartridge bounced off the floor. A small, metallic
chime as the small Pantoran boy ejected the spent magazine with one hand. His other hand was stretched out toward Vigo, his fingers twisted into the distinctive claw-like gesture that invoked the power known as
Force Choke.
Hagar saw the child and was terrified. The
hellspawn's yellow eyes were aglow with all the seeming of a demon's that was dreaming. Gasping vainly for air, the dying man harried with even more effort toward the discarded blaster pistol.
His hand slapped down on top of it and, for a moment, Hagar felt a certain
peace.
The child's foot came down a second later, putting his full weight down on the man. Hagar heard a muffled
thud hit the ground beside him. Turning, he saw Vigo's face contorted into a ghastly apparition. Mouth agape. Eyes rolled back in his head. Blood oozing from his nose and mouth.
Above him, the child used his now free hand to withdraw a fresh blaster cartridge from his belt. Sliding it up into the grip of the subcompact blaster pistol, the boy casually primed the bolt and then cycled the chamber to prep the next shot.
As he turned his eyes up at the
hellspawn lording over him, Hagar was crying. A grown man reduced to tears in the realization that this was the end.
A single blaster shot echoed through the sewers.
Stepping casually over Hagar's body, the Pantoran continued his stroll through the chaotic scene. The back half of an amphistaff was sticking out from a duracrete partition. A load bearing column that supported the tunnel in which the pump room had been constructed to service the Mandalorian Quarter. The boy holstered the pistol at his hip, before reaching up to wrap both hands around the javelin-like biot stuck through the wall.
It took quite a bit of effort to pull the amphistaff free. Blood smeared the hole, Azi coated in it as the biot was pulled back through.
The sound of a body sliding down on the other side of the wall could be heard.
The bloodied biot went limp, undulating in his arms as a serpentine, living creature once again. The dragon-like head, glistening red, stared up at him. The tail was waging like that of a golden retriever eager to be petted and told it was a good girl. Blood smeared across his hands, arms, and body as the amphistaff made itself at home, moving up and sliding along his body like a perch.
The young Pantoran turned to look at the death and destruction all around him, at last letting go a breath he hadn't even known that he'd been holding. The Dark Side of the Force radiated out from him, dropping the temperature as the breath crystallized in front of him. He felt his body weakening as the adrenaline and
Dark Rage began to subside.
It felt like an eternity had passed. In reality, it was all over in three minutes. A flash-bang grenade stunning the three men before the boy had unleashed hell.
An eternity of mere seconds, in which life and death had been decided.
The child crossed his arms in front of him. Turning his left wrist over, he used the fingers of his right hand to tap out a quick message on the wristlink he wore.
Staring ahead, he saw the lattice of thermal detonators and biohazard containers that held enough neuro-toxin to kill hundreds of people.
Around him were the bodies of three men.
Three men dead, hundreds saved.
It was a
fair bargain. So, should he feel good about what he'd done? Should he feel anything?
The men came into the tunnel behind him. They were in full enviro-suits. Bright yellow with black block letters that read
OLSTYN SANITATION on them. One pair broke out the body bags, while four others went to work on the dirty bomb -- defusing and beginning the task of disassembling it.
Maybe the Mandalorians above were plotting to do something. Most likely they weren't, but some of the same people stereotyping and accusing them of being Mandalorian on a Friday night as though it were a crime were the very same who'd plotted the deaths of hundreds of innocent people simply because they were
different.
And no one would ever know what had happened here.
elegation Group Gathering
