Restraint

by James Luceno

 

Above the frozen floor of the Vale of Pale Tears, young Maul zigzagged for cover, the scuffed toes of his combat boots digging into fragile ground, black-gloved hands seeking purchase where the grade steepened. Once more the gritty soil shifted under his feet and he fell hard on his right knee. Low-energy blaster bolts fired from below struck the slope to all sides of him, flinging hot shingle into his unprotected face. A bolt caught him in the calf as he scrambled upward, and he cursed his carelessness. As it was, his utility suit was holed from previous strikes, and his body was rashed with coin-sized welts and burns. If the goal of the pursuit had been elimination rather than capture, he would already be lying dead on the frigid bank of the valley’s meandering river.

A tall pinnacle of eroded stone provided momentary shelter. Maul narrowed himself behind it as blaster bolts added to the abuses nature had wrought. Breathless in the thin air and favoring his right knee, he lowered himself to peer from behind the base of the pillar. Ordinary eyes wouldn’t have been able to trace the movements of his would-be captors, but eyes enhanced by the Force allowed him to outsmart the camouflage provided by their suits. In the lead hurried the human, Meltch Krakko, who would have shot Maul years ago if not for Trezza’s intervention. Flanking him loped two of the short-snouted Rodians Meltch had trained, Hubnutz and Fretch, skilled in both tracking and sharp-shooting.

Even holding his genuine powers back, he had enjoyed a solid lead until a surprise move by Meltch had forced Maul to divert from his original plan. Splashing through the iced river, clambering into the rugged terrain of the valley’s north wall … Beings from hot, humid worlds shouldn’t have been able to keep up with him. But along with the mimetic suits, the Rodians were sporting respirator masks. As for Meltch, he was built for any climate, any terrain, and decades of combat on diverse worlds had transformed him into a kind of super-soldier. Not extraordinary in the way Maul was, but powerful in another way.A profane way, as he had been taught to think of it.

Pressing his back to the pocked spire, he scanned his immediate surroundings, then lifted his gaze to the summit of the slope, limned against the cloudless blue-green sky. This part of Orsis was a landscape more suited to the planet’s outermost moon, and the reason the valley and its sinuous river were known as Pale Tears. Descending raggedly from the face of a volcano ten kilometers high, the river spilled onto a deeply fissured tableland, and over the eons had fashioned from the valley wall a veritable forest of mesas and towering pinnacles, cleaved by crevasses and dotted with spiny cacti whose translucent juice was said to cause hallucinations in some species.

A blaster bolt whizzed past the vestigial horns that crowned Maul’s hairless black and red skull, and he shot to his feet. A quick follow-up glance revealed that his pursuers were attempting to surround him, covering for one another as they raced between protective out-croppings, trusting in the masking properties of their high-tech outfits. Maul raised his blaster and drew a bead on the nearest Rodian, forefinger trembling on the trigger, as if urging him to shoot. And he would have, if not for the blowback that would follow from seeing what he shouldn’t have been able to see. Frustrated, he bared his teeth to the cold dry wind sweeping down from the glacier and muttered another curse. Only when he was compelled to remain in the profane world did his feet slip out from under him and his lungs strain to deliver sufficient oxygen to his muscles. Only in the profane world was he forced to play the inferior quarry to safeguard his strength in the Force.Better to wait, he told himself. Better to lead the three of them to higher ground, where the air was even thinner and the mimetic suits would be hard-pressed to provide concealment. There he would turn the tables in what might at least appear to be an ordinary way.