Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [188]
My plans, of course, were less ambitious, but their reports played well in the Aviary. I heard a lot of hollow boasting about what this person or that would do if confronted by this avenger. Others might be frightened, the line went, but the speaker was not. He’d tear the avenger’s head clean off, then someone else would offer yet a more terrible fate for the avenger and so on, like the bidding at an auction gone mad. Mob bravery carried everyone to the zenith of hyperbole.
Then finally someone—me, sometimes; other folks most often—would shiver and clutch at his gunhand as if he, too, had lost fingers. That simple gesture could quiet a group. And the mere mention of the word “Jedi” was enough to send all the braggarts back to their drinks and private fears.
As a CorSec officer I’d seen this sort of bravado before, and had seen it fade in the presence of a uniformed officer, but never had it risen to such heights, nor plunged to such depths. The Empire’s effort to vilify and transform the Jedi into agents of terror worked to my benefit. If the Empire, which was bad enough, had feared the Jedi enough to wipe them out, then having a Jedi here preying on the Invids was about as bad as it could get.
So bad, in fact, that the captains of the various groups in Vlarnya offered a ten-thousand-credit reward for the Jedi’s head.
And I set out to make it higher, much higher.
For the next several nights I stalked and hit what I considered to be “soft” targets—bands of pirates wandering the streets in search of trouble. Each encounter occurred differently. The fact that many of the pirates reinforced their courage with lots of lum or whiskey helped me immeasurably. Drunks have often seemed incredibly lucky, and in Vlarnya they were as well—but all of their luck was bad.
One evening I let a trio of the Fastblast’s crew catch a glimpse of me ducking into an alley. I’d been drinking with them earlier and had talked up how a group could go hunting the Jedi and snag him, winning themselves that great reward. The Fastblasters—two humans, male and female, and a male Kubaz—worked themselves up into a frenzy, then I excused myself and made as if to head home. I wished them luck with their hunt, hoping they would find the Jedi before the other hunting groups, and they took the bait.
The Fastblasters came running and as they rounded the corner of the alley, I projected into their minds the image of me fleeing before them, my cloak flapping back, water from a sewage rivulet splashing up with each step. The humans raced after me at full speed. The Kubaz, who didn’t quite see the image I projected, slowed and raised a hand to warn his compatriots. Before he could do so, I rose from the shadows that concealed me near the alley mouth and clopped him on the head with the butt of my lightsaber.
Bereft of his warning, his two companions ran at full sprint into the brick and plaster wall I’d hidden with my illusion. The woman rebounded hard from the wall. Her blond hair wrapped around her face as she twisted through the air and crashed down in a trash midden. The man, who had been a step behind her, had begun to twist to his right, so he took the impact on his shoulder. Even from ten meters away, I heard his collarbone snap. He bounced back, took a couple of stumbling steps in my direction, then dropped to his knees.
His right hand fumbled with the blaster holstered beneath his left arm, but with his broken bone, there was no way he could get a hold of it. I stepped in closer and thumbed the lightsaber to life. His eyes grew wide and he sank back on his haunches.
“You’ve lost use of the arm. No reason to lose the whole thing, is there?”
He slowly shook his head.
“Very good.” I brought the point of the blade around so it sat a centimeter from the tip of his flattened nose. “The next Fastblaster