FORESIGHT and SCOPE: BOOK TWO

C H A P T E R E L E V E N

But he knew...Whether it was an assumption or not, he somehow came to the truth. He's no ordinary clone, his entire image gave that away. Could he be...a defective clone, too?

With her toe tapping, Athena stared at her clasped wrists around the pole. When she curiously knocked the center part against the discolored metal, it rattled like a disfunctional power tool and specks of rust rained down around her.

Pow! Pow! Pow!

A muffled onslaught of blaster fire echoed on the other side of the wall. Athena proceeded to thrust her elbows back and forth, banging the cuffs into the pole repeatedly, and accelerated when the sound of the skirmish began to diminish. No, I'm getting my answers, she decided as beads of sweat rolled down her temples from the exursion. Abruptly, the decayed pipe busted in half. Athena's momentum caused her to tumble backwards and crash onto her back. Shaking her head, she picked herself and scoffed.

Good news: she was no longer a sitting Bantha.
Bad news: she was still cuffed.

"What are these made of?" Athena stomped her foot in frustration. "Ugh...great." The distant discharge of weapons had ceased, so that meant one side had won. Question was, was Athena on her way to retrieve the restraints' key off a dead body? Or was she going to have to ask the owner nicely?

Athena cautiously entered the tower's primary level and saw commando droid carcasses scattered about. Slowly scaling the spiral stairway, she maneuvered around even more destroyed droids, bits of them littered the narrow path. Then, as she was reaching the final steps, she heard heavy breathing and Cody's voice.

"Nice throw."

"Nice shot."

"Nice view."

Athena's cuffed hands jumped in front of her face in surrender when both Cody and Crosshair snapped their weapons down at her, a small smile spread across her lips.

"Oh, great," Athena could hear the eye roll in Cody's voice. "Typical bounty hunter stunt."

"How did you get free, without getting free?" Crosshair mocked.

Athena shrugged nonchalantly. "Guess I'm just that lucky."

"Ugh...Come on." The elite clone nabbed her by wrenching up via restraints and dragged her the rest of the way into the room in which Athena had previously conversed with the governess. At first, it was quiet and no one of flesh and blood was in sight. It seemed completely abandoned.

"Scour the city. Find Governor Grotton." Cody ordered into his helmet comm.

"There's no need." a female voice hissed from the shadows. Athena's eyes narrowed as she watched Tawni Ames push the Imperial, who must be the Govorner Grotton the two troopers were fighting to rescue in front of her, holding a blaster to his neck. The pansy of a government official grunted and screamed, "Do something!"

"Ms. Quinn," Ames noticed her hired huntress in restraints. "I see you have failed your task. I'm afraid I won't be able to compensate you for your service. I suppose I can imagine why neither the Republic nor the Separatists wanted you. You have been bested by two mere clones."

"Aww," Athena tsked, the corner of her mouth twitched. "did you have to bring that up?"

"Enough," Cody said. "We are under official Imperial orders."

"Desix is an independent system. The sooner your government acknowledges this, I promise Grotton here and his soldiers will be released. Those are my terms."

Cody and Ames began to debate, but their words were suddenly drowned out by a familiar tick in Athena's head...Occasionally, something would surface, but the speech slurred in her ears...

"We are not the enemy." Cody forced. "The Empire seeks to establish peace and order throughout the galaxy."

"Uh oh," Athena giggled. "You said the magic word..."

Crosshair glanced down at the suddenly deranged bounty hunter on his left. She appeared normal: posed with decent stature, her hands remained still, her dark eyes stared ahead. The rusted-orange sun's rays from the viewport behind Ames made Athena's facial features glow. She even had light markings speckled across her nose like Fern... There was that strange smirk that seemed to never wane. His focus, hesitantly, resumed back on Cody and Ames. That was when Athena eyed her vibro-knives strapped to the elite clone's belt. Her cuffed hands clenched close to her lower stomach in uncertainty.

Can I pull it off without being sniped?

Her gaze traced over to Cody, whose back faced her as he continued to consult with her employer. Exhaling quietly to silence the ticking in her head, her trigger-happy fingers started twitching and her sly smirk grew with eagerness.

It's so easy, she realized. I can end this pointless haggle right now.

She recited her plan in her mind, darting her eyes at Crosshair, then Ames, then Cody, then repeat...She watched as Cody gestured Crosshair to lower his weapon and proceed to remove his helmet to speak with Ames face to face.

"Peace, is an option now."

At this point, Athena began to feel warm in her ears and chest...

"Please," Cody urged. "do this for your people."

By a short-sighted miracle, the bounty hunter witnessed Ames aversly release Grotton, who in return instantly demanded her execution. Athena's manicured fingernails clawed into the top of her opposite hand and her perfect teeth cut into the corner of her bottom lip until she tasted blood...which prompted the urge even more. Her firey orbs bored into Cody's back as he hesitantly declined the governor's direct order. On her right, Crosshair, dawned in his intimidating Imperial armor with his sneering face shrouded by his thickset helmet...she noticed his fingers writhing...

Mistress Ames... The name lapsed over her mind only once.

"I gave you an order!" Grotton squealed. "Follow it, or face the consequence for dis—"

"Ah! Ah..."

The governess crumbled to the floor, a vibro-knife protruding out of her chest.

All who were present heaved with shock, their eyes wavered over to the bounty hunter, whose bound hands still hovered in their final throwing stance. Crosshair's left hand leapt to his hip to find, indeed, one of the blades missing. Exchanging glances with everyone, Athena straightened herself and grinned sinisterly.

"I figured that, will be enough of an audition to join the Empire, hmm?"

"You killed your own employer?" Cody stammered. "Why?"

"It does not matter why." Grotton chided. "You there," He thrusted his bony finger at Crosshair. "bring this bounty hunter with you back to Coruscant. Admiral Rampart will decide how she will atone for her actions. Someone who is willing to murder her employer to incorporate herself into the Empire? All because she wasn't getting paid? We'll see about it. And you," Grotton turned to Cody and pointed at Ames' body and gave orders to dispose it in the square as a warning to others.

Crosshair, without a single glance to Cody, jerked Athena by her bicep once again and guided her back down the spiral staircase. Not a single word, not even a quip, was uttered the entire way to the ship's port.