Murder on the Outer Rim Express - Pt 6
Title: Murder on the Outer Rim Express
Author:
autumnsdarling
Fandom: Star Wars
Setting: Prequel-Era
Rating: G
Characters: Original Characters (Shai Laren Ashak, Anselm Erith)
Length: 8 parts
Words: 5,000
Summary: A Jedi Master and his Twi'lek padawan are on an interstellar train, on a mission to protect a Senator from assassination, and get a little more than they were expecting...
A/N: It is worth mentioning that Anselm is entirely
dark_knight_130's character, and has very little to do with me. I just borrow him for fun and frolics.
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Master Anselm Erith vaulted onto the roof of the hard-banking express train, and allowed himself a moment to find his feet. He looked down the glistening metal string of carriage roofs - a long, easy curve of silver, turning lilac in the gentle light of evening.
A hundred feet ahead of him, Shai Laren was moving with the grace and ease of the aurora over the northern sky. She twisted and pivoted in a way that would put most Jolian ballet dancers out of work, and brought her lightsaber around in a
shallow, purring arch to lock blades with Major Alladice...
Anselm blinked against the wind, and looked again. Somewhere in the very pit of his stomach, there was a horrible sinking sensation that wrapped its icy claws about his spine and crawled its way up into his throat.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” he muttered under his breath.
He drew his lightsaber, and began to run along the carriage roofs towards them, leaning into the pitch of the train.
Shai Laren performed a perfect, freehand cartwheel over the Major's head, and landed on the very tips of her toes just as a great arch of rust-coloured stone was looming into view out of the twilight behind her.
“Shai Laren!” Anselm shouted, his voice cracking and breaking in the wind.
For a moment, the look of perfect concentration on her face broke, and she locked eyes with him. Another split second and she ducked, throwing herself down onto the polished metal as the stone archway roared over her head.
Anselm pitched himself down against the train as it the archway whipcracked past him and disappeared off down the length of the Outer Rim Express. Then he rolled smoothly to his feet, and covered the last few meters between him and Shai Laren. She was, he noticed, beginning to look harried, and even before Anselm locked sabers by her side, he was beginning to see why.
What Major Alladice lacked in the finesse and control, he was more than making up for in sheer brute force, and although Shai Laren could run rings around him - both technically and often quite literally as well - she was no match for that sheer, supernatural degree of strength.
Anselm took a defensive stance - his feet spread wide on the juddering roof of the carriage for balance. A moment more and, the Major swooped on him. Their blades locked and spat, and when Shai Laren spun around behind him, Major Alladice brought his other lightsaber around with a sharp crack, and forced her onto the back foot.
Anselm raised his eyebrows, and risked a glance across at her. She was beginning to look tired. Tested. In trouble.
Perhaps it was that, or perhaps it was just sheer bravado that encouraged him to make such an reckless mistake. Maybe it was something else that made him push clean off the carriage roof and somersault back onto the one behind to gain better position. He knew it was going to end badly as soon as he twisted in the air and saw Major Alladice push Shai Laren back and take a step towards him. Instinctively, Anselm drew his legs up to his chest and twisted out mid-somersault. It saved him his legs, but it didn't quite save him from injury. He felt the white-hot sting of a lightsaber blade against his calf, and landed awkwardly on the surface of the train.
It could have been worse, he reflected as he closed his hand about the shallow wound across his leg. I could be unconscious. On second thoughts, maybe that would be simpler.
With the space opened up before him, Major Alladice turned and ran towards the front of the train where the engine steamed and smoked its way off into the dusk. Another moment, and Shai Laren spared Anselm a split-second glance - her skin slick with sweat, and dusted rust-coloured with the sand - and set off in pursuit.
“Shai Laren!” Anselm shouted after her into the wind. “He has nowhere to go! Let him run!”
She glanced back over her shoulder towards him.
“I have him, Master,” she said too quickly.
Then she turned away, and ran.
Anselm called out to her again, but she was already out of hearing, or else she was past listening.
He sighed, and pulled himself up tentatively to his feet. His right leg stung and burned with it, but it seemed to hold his weight.
“You've really picked one there, Anselm,” he muttered to himself, imitating Senetor Lascelles's voice as he began to limp along the roof towards the engine. “A real diamond in the rough.”
He sighed.
“However do I find them?”
** Read Part 7**