STAR WARS: Fugitive

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Bli Aeocc followed the couple with his sniper scope as they made their way toward him, still about four clicks out I’d say, he thought to himself. He reached up carefully and zoomed in on the girl. Attractive, he thought, It’s a shame she’s wanted dead. He focused his bead near the crook of her nose, right between those weird-looking eyebrows, and then slowly rested his finger on his trigger.

“You can’t kill her yet!” said Kym, meaning to disrupt his concentration on his aim. “That’s policy! There’s a reason primary targets are taken out before secondary targets.”

Bli straightened his finger back out to avoid the temptation of finishing his original job too soon, but continued to follow her through his scope.

“Speaking of which,” she continued satisfied with Bli’s response, “think out loud! Has our primary target made that corner yet?”

Bli was focused. The rest of the world was tuned out; he did not even hear Kym continue to speak to him. She’s beautiful, he thought, until he saw her pause, and then she looked straight at his position, which broke his trance.

“Bli! Are you with me?” Kym was irritated. “If you can’t cut this, let me know now,” she added un-shouldering her own sniper weapon.

“No! I got this,” he responded hastily, shifting his scope to look for the Togruta.

“There! He just made the corner!”

Kym grabbed her comlink, “Spen! Chum’lee! Look sharp! We have visual!”

Darth Syriu’us was growing impatient. He immediately spotted the girl and her companion once he rounded the corner, but they were still making good time on him. It is about time to set off all of this tension in the air, he thought as he gazed at the clusters of agitated locals randomly spread out along either side of the busy street.

It was actually an ingenious tactic Lord Subtyr employed to reveal the cream of the crop from among the rebellious and the dregs of any given world, and today the world was Ryloth. Subtyr would send out agents of the Sith to incite rebellion among the society, whether against the Sith Empire or against local organizations; it didn’t really matter. The whole idea was to inspire those who were more dedicated to rebellion to act too soon, that they might be easily put down and eliminated. Those souls who were worthless would likely be removed by any crossfire, and those most loyal and talented became more apparent and visible, ready resources for building up and ruling the Sith Empire. Subtyr always called it a purification process. Regardless, Syriu’us admired the principle of establishing order out of chaos, and now it lay before him as a tool in his own quest.

He flicked his fingers in one direction and every window of a three-story building shattered all at once. He gestured, and a huddle of bodies was suddenly shoved into a wall all at once. With another gesture, a landspeeder suddenly veered out of control into the corner of a building and exploded. Blaster fire slowly began near the points of turmoil, but then began to spread like wildfire across the remainder of the street, from windows of buildings, makeshift barricades, and even brave souls out in the open. Small, intermittent explosions slowly worked their way into the cacophony.

Syriu’us smiled in awe of his handiwork, Subtyr will never forgive me for this, until he noticed his prey disappear into one of the new skyscraper structures under construction. Using the Force, he leaped to the top of the nearest building, and then made his way along the rooftops toward the skyscraper structure.

“That’s right!” shouted Chum’lee into his comlink trying to hear himself above the noise. He was pressed against the side of an alley avoiding blaster fire. He had just narrowly avoided being taken out by the landspeeder that lost control somehow. “I said ‘take cover and lay low!’”