Chapter Text
Despite the bone-deep exhaustion of the two-day hike, Tapper doesn't sleep.
There's something wrong with the planet, something off. The unshakable silence of his comm makes Tapper’s skin prickle worse than the radurtica rash snaking up his arm. He curses and clenches his fist around his forearm tighter, staving off the desire to scratch and make the blisters worse.
He’d kill for a shower. He’s not entirely sure who he’ll murder first: the local dragging him through the forest or the conwoman that referred him. Maybe both. He could definitely resolve any suspicion regarding their intentions in a large, fiery explosion.
A thermal detonator would suffice.
If Fenig Nabon and Chin are colluding with a competitor, they're terrible at execution. They have an obvious advantage over the situation and they haven't exercised it. And, if they simply wanted to isolate and disrupt trades, a planetary-wide signal distortion is overkill for even the greediest Hutt mob-boss.
None of the motives make sense.
Despite his beliefs, Chin's assistance proves invaluable. Within the first three days, he assists in clearing a wide path to Hyllyard. The effort shaves eight hours off the route, facilitating frequent trips into town. The time (and distance) Chin puts between himself and Tapper increases productivity overnight. Repairs quickly follow: power generation, kitchens, a rudimentary comms solution, and the water filtration system.
The ability to shower leaves a marked improvement for Tapper's demeanor. Fresh hair and clothes bolster his confidence: he stands taller and complains half as much.
As much as Tapper hates to concede, the venture may actually be a solid investment. The organization needs structure and foundation. It needs a home base and the security of a planet so far off the grid – that not even ghost stories can reach it – is a good start.
With the new base almost livable – and Tapper's improved mood – Karrde transmits the Wild Karrde an all-clear and landing guidance.
By the sixth day, Tapper's not entirely sure if the base is legitimately haunted by a species departed or if sleep deprivation has finally caught up with him.
It's probably the latter – although, he can't quite shake the existential dread of an entity being observed by something much larger in the periphery. He tells himself it's nerves – some feverish byproduct of the vine, a bad hit, space sickness, general paranoia – and runs through a breathing exercise a former gunner explained to him.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Consider your target. Consider the playing field. Consider your place between the two. Repeat.
It would work, except the focus on his breathing amplifies the unnatural silence. He's not entirely sure the audible breathing – the air passing easily in and out of a deep chest – is his own.
Maybe Chin is right: maybe the forest is a living entity, maybe the trees have eyes, maybe the vines are all that stand between himself and certain death. The surrounding forest has existed long before he arrived and will persist long after he's departed. He isn't a biologist but that sounds like the kind of behavior reserved for an apex predator.
It would certainly explain all the howling and screaming.
Night falls across the base and Tapper finds Karrde in his new favorite vantage point: a balcony outside the decorative bay-window in the master suite.
The master suite itself is sparse – a small wardrobe partially obscures a new mattress from a work-strewn desk – but the bedroll carefully spread across the open-air balcony suggests Karrde has seen more of the forest than either of them have seen of the bed.
Tapper pauses at the door before toeing-off his boots.
"There's one benefit to comm-silence and isolation I hadn't accounted for," Tapper says, not waiting for an answer before chucking his comm and holster onto the desk and closing the distance.
Karrde remains oblivious to his presence, his attention fixed on something at the other end of his quadnocs.
"See something you like?" Tapper asks while undoing his belt-latch and dropping it noisily on the wood floor.
There's curious delight in Karrde's expression, as he lowers the quadnocs, that has nothing to do with Tapper's half-dressed state. He pats the empty space on the bedroll beside himself and points toward the edge of the forest, where he and Chin have spent the last three days piling branches and debris against the treeline. It's probably a fire hazard – Tapper's stated as much – but it's a serviceable demarcation between probable-safety and probable-death for the arriving crew.
There's movement along the clustered debris: hideous writhing shadows backed with muscle and teeth.
"I've learned two things," Karrde says. "The first being that the ysalamiri are fused into the trees. I assumed they'd move along when I'd started felling trees but, no." He chuckles to himself before his face tightens into its usual slate. "Relocating each of them manually was taxing. Don't tell Chin – most of them are still in there."
"In the leaf-pile?"
"They're quite attached."
The movement is starting to take shape. He can see them now: two gigantic creatures lurk just beyond the snaking barricade, their quadrupedal legs capped with three-toed claws. One pauses to sniff the air while the other whips a long, leathery tail into the fallen branches, producing an explosive shower of pink and gold leaves on impact.
"We're going to need a legitimate fence," Tapper says.
"Doesn't exist."
The pun earns an exhausted sigh. "An actual slatted-metal fence. A tall one."
"Ah. I've Torve and Corvis assigned to that."
Another explosion of leaves underlines the need. Tapper watches a moment before his attention fades – the spectacle doesn't intrigue him quite as much as the one at his feet.
"Five hours until the crew arrives." Tapper nudges Karrde's shoulder with a gentle knee and rakes his fingers through the man's short, dark hair. "Let the vornskrs enjoy the buffet in peace."
Karrde tilts his head into a propped-up palm and slowly scratches his stubble with a thumbnail. The rasping tickles the back of Tapper's throat. "The second discovery," he continues, "was that the vornskr don't see the ysalamiri."
Tapper crosses his arms to smother the rising desire to pitch the quadnocs over the balcony. "I don't see the ysalamiri."
Karrde lifts himself to his feet and uses the upward momentum to drive Tapper's attention toward the forest, physically. Long fingers pull Tapper's wrist from his pouting tuck and press the offending instrument into his palm. The skin-warmed metal is almost as jarring as the haptic rush of the man's body against his.
"The vornskr don't see the ysalamiri at all," Karrde repeats, pushing Tapper's focus toward the display. "They're right there, vulnerable and alone, practically begging to be devoured and the vornskr–"
The quadnocs lower almost as fast as Tapper's patience. He cranes his neck to pin Karrde with a stare. "No shit," he says. "I wonder what that's like."
Surprise jolts the older man. His eyes search for a punchline, the obvious jest, and linger on his frown a moment before following the visible path of discarded clothing back into the room. Karrde's smile folds under a flash of embarrassment before recovering an almost sheepish recognition.
"You haven't slept," Karrde says.
Tapper exhales slowly through his nostrils to prevent airing choice grievances pressing against his teeth. He hasn't slept. He hasn't slept in six days because he's been walking for two, working for three, and subjected to fairytales for five; all in the name of preventing Talon Karrde from being murdered in his sleep.
That's his exclusive, hard-earned right.
Karrde matches the noisy sigh with a centering breath. It’s a stalling technique he often uses to reassess a volatile situation – match the posture and body-language of a target to blend in, gain an ally, gain sympathy – and Tapper does not miss the comparison to a hostile negotiation.
"Five hours?" Karrde asks, artfully rescuing the quadnocs from Tapper's blanching grip.
"Yes."
"I shouldn't waste them.” Karrde’s voice is as gentle and firm as the arm sliding behind his lower back to settle on Tapper’s hip, the familiarity blocking potential weapons access. He covers the maneuver with a nudge toward the master suite. “What did you have in mind?”
"There is nothing about this planet on the holonet,” Ghent says, pushing his neon-blue hair out of his eyes. "I don't know how that's even possible."
"I'm not surprised," Tapper says.
Ghent’s eye-roll is so overdone that his head tilts back across his slumped shoulders. He pushes aside his half-eaten meal and leans into the stacked crates currently serving the morning crew as a breakfast island.
The common room of the main house swirls with the foot-traffic of fascinating and eclectic individuals but Tapper lowers his cup of caf to watch the young slicer squirm. The adolescent human has never turned down a meal and the new behavior is strikingly similar to Karrde’s hyperfixation.
“How did you find it?” Ghent asks.
"Holonet ad."
"You're lying."
"Of course."
Chin scoots around Ghent's stretched form and swipes a second bagel from the platter, taking a brief look at the interaction and dismissing it. It's his second loop through. Chin's not accustomed to free food, Tapper notes.
"Everything's on the holonet." Ghent's hand raises and falls, slapping the wood. "Except Myrkr. It doesn't exist."
"Yet here we are."
"How did you find it?"
Tapper's head tilts in concession. "Karrde met a woman. Drinks were involved." He pauses and scans the room for his least favorite monitor. There were three individuals present for the transaction at the Black Dust Tavern and, now that he’s showered and stimmed, he has suspicion to spare. "And Aves."
From across the room, the accused tenses. A mop of blond hair sinks beneath the back of a red sofa, as if he could shrink out of sight and avoid attention entirely. The maneuver might have worked if the man didn't also yelp and spring to his feet, holding a freshly-spilled caf at arm's length. His blue eyes scowl as he reluctantly marches toward the conversation to retrieve a napkin.
Ghent jerks a thumb at the flustered man dabbing a stain on his shirt. "Aves?"
The disbelief in the young slicer's question almost matches the suspicion in Tapper's when he discovered he’d been replaced as Karrde's choice companion for the Socorro run. Jealousy doesn't entirely convey the emotional turmoil the new pilot in Karrde's favor evokes. In fact, knowing they're the same height, build, and function bolsters Tapper's opinion of himself – a younger and hotter version of Karrde’s apparent type – but there's something deeply alarming in Aves' natural ability to build trust and confidence so effortlessly.
Tapper sips his caf. "Aves was privy to the entire sordid affair."
“Fenig Nabon is a trusted informant,” Aves states before anyone can leap to conclusions. “Karrde and I met her at the Black Dust Tavern. He mentioned he was searching for a new base and she referred him to a contact." He tips his head toward Tapper with a tight-lipped frown. "The sordid affair stayed home.”
The energy required for Tapper’s ambivalent shrug could power a small freighter.
“Uh.” Ghent waves his hands until he regains Tapper’s attention. “So how did she find it?”
Aves murmurs under this breath, "That sounds like a great question for Chin.”
No, it's not jealousy at all. It's principal. The new favorite is too comfortable too quickly. Aves has no concept of the time, effort, and energy Tapper’s poured into establishing himself as a figurehead in the criminal underworld. No grasp on the blood, tears, and bodies buried under his ascent to partner in Talon Karrde’s organization. Aves knows more than he should because he listens, because persons want to tell him things, but Tapper –
Tapper’s position is wrought from watching, from planning, from practiced execution.
A sharp pop disrupts the chain of thought: a disobedient knuckle protesting the subconscious order to throttle the ceramic mug occupying both hands. "Her father had a type," Tapper says. "Stubborn nobility. Lost causes. Martyrdom. Ms. Nabon is the last recognizable piece of his infatuation with Emberlene before it was immolated by the Empire. Myrkr’s the result of getting too invest in,” – long, thin fingers tap against the ceramic mug, fidgeting the tension from his shoulders – “folklore. Religious persecution. The kind of sacrifice that triggers an evolutionary shift in planetary ecology strong enough to disrupt comm signals."
Ghent gapes. "That's metal."
Aves stares. "That's absurd."
“No more absurd than Ghent finding reliable Holonet access on this Sith-forsaken dirtball.” The tapping stills. “How did you find it?”
Ghent’s eyes widen. His eyelashes bat against his pale cheeks as he sits up, his posture righting itself in the sudden spotlight. “I reduced the operating frequency to a longer wavelength and shot a repeater above the landing yard.”
“Fascinating.”
Aves shakes his head. “You shot a repeater?”
There are ten landing pads on site and Quelev Tapper would rather weed and repaint each one personally than spend another moment fielding the same four repeated questions from the arriving crew.
Tapper stands at the center of the second landing pad, the sun a bleeding sliver of red spilling into the purple ink of night through the trees.
There's something very wrong about the entire situation; beyond the fact that he's awake and dressed before the sun, beyond the fact that he's had a total of eight hours of sleep since landing, beyond the haunted screams from the forest. He's not even bitter that – despite the bizarre and haunting screams that echo though the forest – Talon Karrde has been getting the best sleep of his life.
No. This is even more mundane and jarring: the task at hand is already done. And he's just arrived.
The landing pad was overgrown when he went to sleep. Cutting grass is simple work that can be completed quickly. it's an honest labor, a quick win. It's why he volunteered for it.
But the grass is gone. Plucked clean from the gravel like it never existed. No cuts, no stains, no piles of debris. It's simply … gone.
As if the planet itself actively gaslighting his sense of awareness weren't enough, he can feel it. He stares, studying the expanse of the gravel landing pad, searching for the suggestion of other; the disruption of his cool, the presence in his periphery, the slow breath across his neck.
He spins in place, blaster drawn and ready, shoulders and thighs dipping his body low for the inevitable crush of gravel – a blaster, a blade, a fist, an ambush.
There's nothing. No one. He's alone in the twilight chill of the forest. There's nothing but insects buzzing and birds stirring; nothing but himself and the distant sounds of crew shuffling around the loading yard and main house.
Tapper stands, bringing himself reluctantly to his full height, and tucks his blaster into its holster. His palm remains stuck to the grip like his life depends on it. It does depend on it – his continued existence is evidence a blaster and fighting instinct are necessary for survival. But it's hard to act, to fight, to plan against the faceless omnipotence of Myrkr.
He closes his eyes and focuses on that strangeness, that presence.
It feels foolish – closing his eyes and calming his breathing to locate a shapeless threat because the lawn was unexpectedly mowed.
It is ridiculous. A real threat would have killed him by now.
A real threat –
Something breathes against his neck: hot, heavy, large. Too large for Karrde, for Aves, or any entity known to him. He can feel the warm, wet flesh on his skin, hear the whoosh of air through lungs much, much larger than his – much larger than him.
It's gone just as quickly.
His hand braces the back of his neck as he spins again, scouring the clearing, the nearby buildings, the treeline, every shadow for the presence.
Somewhere in the distance, a pack of vornskrs bray for a hunt. Alone, he shudders. If he can't find peace soon, he's going to tear into the forest and join them.