Private The Hunt

[Morné Karn]

She was pale, clammy but her skin was cold to touch. Her chest rose and fell quickly, the sound filling the small space.

Her lips, across which her last secret had just tumbled, were cracked and bloody. She was already on the edge of death.

He looked down at his own mother, bound to the stone slab and watched her tremble. He pressed the tip of the sith knife to the centre of her chest, just below the sternum.

There was no audience. The sith temple had been abandoned years ago. Just her desperate, pleading eyes.

All he heard was the voice of his father. The angry note as he blamed her for taking his sister away, for denying them their birthright.

One jerk and it was done. Her mouth shot open in a soundless scream. He left the blade, buried to the hilt. He watched as the life slowly faded from her eyes. Not Amber. Not like his.

He had the name of a planet. He hoped it would be enough to find Serya.

 

[Morné Karn]

A squalid, wretched hole. This could not be where his sister had been living. Atrayas had a very fixed view on what she would be. It was all based on what his father had told him. The treachery of his mother, the stolen sister. The implicit knowledge that if they could be reunited then they would become unstoppable.

He desperately yearned for her. He tried to reach across the great web of the Force to find her, but it had never worked. Only flashes of the girl. An imprint, an echo of her presence. A final betrayal from the woman who had given birth to them both. She had done more to hide her from his father's sight - and now his sight.

"You're lying."

Atrayas never shouted. Not even when he let the cold anger grip him. When he was at his most quiet, he was at his most dangerous.

"Na, this is where I saw her last. Nearly shanked me when I tried to take her stuff. But it's all gone now. She left it all."

The space was barely big enough for someone to sleep. Atrayas crinkled his nose for the stench of unfettered humanity that hadn't been taken as quick as her belongings.

"You are lying."

"Na I…"

The last word was cut out by a crack. Atrayas let his hand fall back to his side. The body toppled a moment later. The head was facing entirely the wrong direction, face frozen in a final look of shock.

Atrayas knelt down, staring into the dead eyes as if he was addressing a person.

"But if you weren't, someone will have caught her on a camera coming or going. And if you were not, then I will be thankful."

 

[Morné Karn]

Even at night the area was buzzing with activity. Atrayas was a shadow, but the arc welders sent sparks rolling in all directions. He had to take great care where he walked. There was no need to leave a trail.

The crash site had been half cleared away now. The bodies had been taken away, the intact carriages had been lifted by heavy cranes that still rose high above them.

The crews were working day and night to salvage the rest. A carriage that had been twisted beyond reuse was being stripped down for salvage. Heavy droids plodded back and forth, trying to repair the tracks.

This is where the trail came to an end. No sign of her since the crash. He knew she had boarded it, had stolen the station footage.

Atrayas had stood over the monitor, pressing two fingers lovingly to the screen just below her face. He hadn't seen her face before and yet he had known it was her.

He had not known who the man was. Atrayas did now. Voidstalker. A Jedi.

His sister had fallen into the wrong hands.

 

[Morné Karn]

Ghosts. They were ghosts.

His pale skin was lit up by twelve different monitors. A thousand images of men who didn't quite match Voidstalker flashed across them. They had not passed through any ports in Alliance space.

A muffled cry interrupted the silence. Atrayas' lip curled into a sneer.

"Shhh," he went, turning to the operative tied to the second chair.

The Galaxy was a large place. Atrayas allowed himself to feel a mote of despair. It drew from his other feelings, like a black hole drawing from live stars of all colours. His hands curled into fists.

Atrayas felt a tug at his heart. A pull that drew him out of the moment. He felt joy, elation, success. He found himself looking up at the pleased grin of a jedi master. He was seeing with her eyes, drawn to a moment where she had truly immersed herself in the Force.

It was a class. She was in a class with jedi.

Serya

He called out to her across the stars before the connection broke.

He smiled against the flickering light, back in his own body. Conflicting emotions broke out into a war. That was the closest he had been to his sister. He had felt her presence.

Atrayas had also seen her being defiled. She was with Jedi. She was being taught their way.

The bound guard struggled against his restraints.

Atrayas turned to him slowly. He drew a sith blade from his belt.

"That moment, it was not for your eyes," he said. Atrayas didn't leave until he had watched the very last spark of life fade from them.