Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [22]
The shuttle nose dipped, and the acceleration pushed Johun back into his seat as they dived in to get a closer look at the figures. Irtanna took them in low and fast, a military maneuver that pushed the civilian vessel to her limits.
“I’ve got a visual,” Johun reported as a pair of tiny, indistinct shapes on the ground became visible through the shuttle’s cockpit viewpoint.
Bordon lifted himself up out of his seat and leaned forward over the back of Johun’s chair to get a view as the shuttle plunged toward the rapidly growing figures. As it drew closer the details came into focus: a man and a woman, each wearing light armor and running hard.
The roar of the rapidly descending shuttle’s engines caused the two on the ground to stop running and turn back to look up at them. An instant later they threw themselves face-first to the dirt as the shuttle swooped in less than ten meters from the ground and buzzed them.
Cursing under her breath as she struggled with the clumsy controls, Irtanna veered around sharply and brought them in to land less than fifty meters away from their quarry. Through the window Johun saw the pair slowly climb back to their feet as the pilot cut the engines. The woman said something to the man, who nodded in agreement. Then they raised their hands and began marching slowly toward the vessel.
They were dressed like members of Kaan’s Brotherhood. But Johun didn’t feel the presence of the dark side about them.
“Minions of the Sith,” he said. “Mercenaries, probably.”
“Could be a trap,” Bordon warned. “Kriffing mercenaries have no honor.”
“I don’t think so,” Johun replied. If there was any danger here, he would have felt some kind of disturbance in the Force. “I think they just want to surrender.”
“Slag-sucking scum,” Bordon spat. “Fire the engines up and run them over!”
“No!” Johun exclaimed when he saw Irtanna reaching for the ignition switch. “We need to question them,” he reminded her. “See what they know.”
“Then what?” Bordon demanded darkly.
“Then we take them to Farfalla and lock them up with the rest of the prisoners.”
Bordon slammed his hand against the cockpit wall. “These schutta-spawn came to my world—my home—to kill my people for profit!”
“They’d cut our throats without a second thought if they had the upper hand,” Irtanna agreed.
“We’re not like them,” Johun said. “We don’t kill prisoners.”
“My wife died fighting munk-whelps like these!” Bordon shouted. “Now you want to show them mercy?”
“Hate leads to the dark side,” Johun replied, reciting the wisdom of the Jedi. But the words lacked power coming from the mouth of a nineteen-year-old Padawan, and even as he said them he knew how empty they sounded.
Bordon threw his hands up in frustration, then let himself fall back angrily into his seat. “Is that why you’re here?” he grumbled in disgust. “To keep us in line? To make sure we don’t stray from your precious light-side ways? Is that why Farfalla sent you along?”
He didn’t send me. I came on my own, Johun thought. He turned in his seat to look back at Bordon, who stared intently at the floor, refusing to meet his gaze. His two sons, however, glared at the young Jedi with venom in their eyes. He understood their anger. The Sith had brought war to Ruusan, a war that had taken everything they knew and cared about: their homes, their livelihoods … and, of course, their mother.
What Bordon and his sons didn’t see was that these nameless soldiers couldn’t be held responsible for all the horrors and tragedies that had brought their world crashing down. Whatever their crimes, these two didn’t deserve to be made accountable for the actions of Kaan and his Brotherhood. It was the Sith Masters, the followers of the dark side, who were truly to blame. Yet as he looked into the boys’ hate-filled stares, he knew there was no hope of making them understand. Not while all that they had suffered was still fresh in their minds.
Johun had come to Ruusan to hunt down any members of the Brotherhood who might have survived the