Twenty-One

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CrossFire in the Unknown Regions, 1300 hours

Null sat in the pilot's seat staring dully out of the viewport at the grey planet he had left only hours before. The ship was silent, just as it had been two years ago when he first arrived here. None of them had deserved to die.

We were just kids, he realized. He fell quiet again, then after a few minutes let his mind drift back to the memories of that day. They were like a jumble in his mind, but one stood out. It was a question he had asked himself since the day of the incident.

Who would do this? And why?

Null had pondered different answers, tested them, like a scientist testing a hypothesis, but none of them ever seemed to work. He slumped back more, his gaze slowly falling to the floor. Suddenly his proximity detector beeped loudly and angrily. Null looked up to see a red dot moving across the tracking system screen. It was moving quickly towards him. He sat up quickly and asked the computer for the ship's specifications.

*Unidentified*

Null sighed and prepped his weapons, starting up the engines quickly and swinging around the face the ship. As it approached, Null stayed ready for an attack, watching it grow larger in the viewport. Suddenly, he froze. That was the ship he remembered firing on him from outside--the Blaze. That was the ship that belonged to the being who had murdered his brother's. Null took in a sharp breath and instantly tensed for a fight again. The ship paused, though, only a few miles from his own. The comm beeped.

Answer it, or not? Null wondered. He struggled with the decision as the comm continued to beep, then he decided to answer it and clicked it on.

"What do you want?" he barked.

"So it is you, SC-02," came the malicious, venom filled voice of--

Null stopped. He failed to reply for a long moment, the only sound the humming of the ship's engines. His eyes suddenly darkened.

"You," he hissed.

Bacsa's voice replied with an almost light tone, "You sound pleased to see me."

"I'll kill you!" Null roared, reached for the targeting system for the ship's weapons system.

"Let's not cut to the pleasantries too quickly now, wouldn't you like to talk a bit first?"

Null just growled lowly, setting a lock on Bacsa's ship. No wonder the hunter had been looking for him on Coruscant. Null was the last one. The only one alive, and no doubt the hunter had intention to finish his mission.

Yeah well, I haven't survived this long for nothing, and I'm going to make him pay for what he did, Null thought darkly.

Bacsa suddenly pulled his ship back a bit after seeing the lock Null had on him. "Well then, I see we'll just get down to business." The comm then clicked off.

Null didn't pay attention to it. His eyes were fixed on Bacsa's ship and he had no intention of letting the hunter get away. He reached over, about to fire a couple of missiles when then comm beeped again. He slammed his hand down over the reject button and then fired the missiles, watching them arc towards Bacsa's ship with a dark smile. Bacsa's ship then dodged, swiftly speeding off to the left.

Kriffing hunter, Null thought and prepared another round of missiles, jerking his own ship into a new position, keeping on the bounty hunter's tail. Bacsa's ship was smaller and more maneuverable, however, in the wide open space, he was simply like a moving target. Null's eyes narrowed as he watched the other ship jink left and right in front of him while he powered up the laser cannons.

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