Chapter 19

Chapter 19

THE SIXTH BROTHER did not hold the district commander’s failure to apprehend the Jedi Padawan against him. After all, if just anyone could catch Jedi, there would be no need for Inquisitors. He did make sure to file a report detailing where the commander had fallen short and outlining his suggestions for reprisals, but he did not hold a grudge. He was too much of a professional for that sort of pettiness.

He was significantly less impressed by the nonmilitary lackey who called himself Jenneth Pilar.

“You weren’t exactly what I had in mind,” Pilar said, winding down a long series of complaints about how he felt the Imperial base was understaffed and why his suggestions should be followed to fix it. “I am sure you are good at whatever your job is, but I need men to patrol, to enforce order, and to make sure the fieldwork gets done on schedule.”

“Then you will have to do it yourself,” the Inquisitor said. He enjoyed the way Pilar recoiled from the harshness of his tone. “The Empire has other priorities on Raada now.”

Pilar huffed for a while longer but finally fled as the Inquisitor’s expression got blacker and more threatening. That was the easiest way to deal with weak-minded bureaucrats. They didn’t listen anyway, so it was best to intimidate them until they gave up.

The Inquisitor called up the interrogation report on the girl called Kaeden Larte. She’d given no indication that she knew anything about a Jedi, but of course her interrogation had been mostly botched. They’d pushed her too hard, trying to scare her, and then she hadn’t been physically capable of speech before her rescue. The rescue itself was almost certainly carried out by the Jedi. No one had seen anything, and the window was far too high for a girl who had a broken arm to climb through on her own.

A map of the surrounding area replaced the report on the Inquisitor’s screen. There was nowhere to hide in the agricultural region of the planet. It was too well patrolled, there was no cover, and it would take too long to cross. The insurgents couldn’t be hiding in the town itself. They would have been uncovered by now, by even the most inept stormtrooper patrol. That left the hills. Without use of the walkers, the commander had been slow to search the area, because it would require too much manpower. Maybe that wretch Pilar had a point about being understaffed.

It didn’t matter. The Jedi Padawan was long gone. Her ship had been seen leaving the planet after the successful rescue mission. What the Sixth Brother needed to decide was the order in which to take his next steps. He was going to find the insurgents and torture them, but he thought it might be wiser to track down the Jedi first, so she would be sure to hear about the suffering of the people she’d left behind. Then she’d come back to save them, and he’d have her. He knew, or at least suspected, the general direction she had gone. He’d received reports of a series of seemingly random heroic actions that, when considered together, he felt a Jedi could be responsible for. He simply required confirmation. He’d hate to go to all the effort of setting the trap without making sure his prey would be able to find it.

Decision made, he prepared to go back to his ship. Let the Empire drain Raada of its resources for a while longer. It wasn’t as if the people had anywhere else to go. He’d get the Jedi’s attention and then crush all of them at the same time. He deleted the report on the district commander before he left. He hated having to reestablish his authority, and if the incompetent man were replaced before the Inquisitor returned, he’d have to do just that. It was much easier to leave Raada as it was for now, ripe and ready for his return.

* * *

The casual observer might have thought it a regular meeting between a senator and his staff. Bail Organa sat behind his desk and discussed logistics while his underlings took notes, and everything looked absolutely aboveboard. Outside the window behind him, Coruscant traffic moved endlessly in ordered lines.

What Bail was really doing was making a list. There had been several lucky coincidences in the Outer Rim of late that had come to his attention. An Imperial contract had fallen through. A planet in desperate need of food aid had received it. A pirate ship known to run operations for Black Sun that had been preying on passenger shuttles had been thwarted. There was no pattern in terms of time or location, but for reasons he couldn’t explain, Bail was certain it was the Jedi he sought.

So far, none of his tracking methods had paid off. He wasn’t entirely surprised. The Jedi would be hiding from Imperial watchers, and the Empire was far more likely to employ unsavory types to do its dirty work than Bail was. He’d gotten R2-D2 back from Captain Antilles but had left the droid with Breha on Alderaan when it was time to return to the Senate. Although the droid was eager to help, Bail didn’t have a mission for him yet. He’d left the little astromech happily working through the Alderaanian historical database and hoped to have a more practical job for him soon.

“It’s tricky, Senator, but I think if we actually went out there and started tracing these supply lines, we might succeed in finding the source.” Chardri Tage was a pilot Bail had known since before the Clone Wars. He trusted the man, both to keep secrets and to plan strategy. The fact that Chardri could keep up with a spoken code only reaffirmed Bail’s instinct to ask the pilot to do the job, and the fact that he’d maneuvered the pilot into thinking it was his own idea helped with Bail’s cover.

“I agree.” Chardri’s partner and long-time copilot, Tamsin, was a small woman who was not at all reluctant to use her pretty face to lull enemies into underestimating her and then use her pretty blaster to shoot them.

“Will you need a ship, or can you use your own?” Bail asked. He didn’t have a lot of resources to work with when he was acting as a rebel instead of a senator, but there were some benefits to being married to a ruling planetary queen.

“We can use ours,” Chardri said. “I get the feeling we might have to do some tight flying, and it’s always best to do that in something familiar.”

Bail hadn’t told them they were looking for a Jedi. He trusted them, but he wasn’t stupid. Also, to be completely honest, he was a little wary to say the words out loud. He knew his offices on Coruscant couldn’t be completely secured. But even if they could, Bail didn’t think he would have said anything to them about the Jedi. There was just too much at risk. As far as Chardri and Tamsin knew, they were looking for some sort of ringleader, a person like Bail himself but on a much smaller scale—and presumably someone who wasn’t currently late for a vote in the Senate.

“Where do you want us to meet next?” Tamsin asked delicately as she rose to her feet.

Bail considered it. Alderaan was out, as was Coruscant. In fact, any planet at all was too risky. He’d be calling in another favor from Captain Antilles, it seemed.

“We’ll meet your ship,” Bail said. “Contact me when you’ve secured the objective, and I’ll give you the coordinates.”

Chardri and Tamsin exchanged a look but didn’t protest.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a vote,” Bail said. Both pilots took that for the dismissal it was. “Good hunting,” he told them as they preceded him out of his office. And may the Force be with us, he thought.

* * *

Ahsoka landed her ship, took her hands off the controls, and cracked her neck. It had been a very long flight, and while nothing had gone wrong, her nerves were on edge. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming, something that would change everything she was working to build. She did her postflight inspection as quickly as she could, eager to eat real food, take a decent shower, and then sleep in her own bed.

None of the Fardis came out to meet her, which was unusual enough to upset her nerves even further. She made her way toward the big house, looking carefully for any disturbance and even going so far as to reach out with the Force. When she got to the door, it was open, so she went inside.

All the family members currently in residence were gathered in the living room, and there were four stormtroopers with blasters standing in the doorway. They spotted Ahsoka instantly, so there was no point in running. She might get away, but the Fardis wouldn’t. She held their lives in her hands, and she could see that the older ones knew it. She thought fast.

“Your ship’s repaired,” she said. She had no idea what, if anything, the Fardis had told the Imperials about her. It was best to start with an easy lie and hope they followed her lead. “I took it for a spin around the system, and all the kinks seem to have been worked out.”

“Excellent,” said Fardi. There was sweat on his brow, but the room was hot with so many people in it. “This is the mechanic I was telling you about,” he told the stormtroopers. “When you keep as many ships as my family does, it makes sense to employ one full-time. She lives here, as a matter of fact, so that she’s always ready to work.”

“We don’t care about your mechanic,” said one of the troopers. “We’re just conducting a routine search of the house.”

Ahsoka made sure to keep her face neutral, but the trooper’s words surprised her. There was no such thing as a routine search of private property. They were looking for something, or they wouldn’t be there.

“Of course, of course,” Fardi said. “Anything we can do to help.”

Ahsoka went to sit beside Hedala, who was sitting in Chenna’s lap. Ahsoka leaned forward carefully and whispered in the girl’s ear.

“Any shadows today?” she asked.

“No,” Hedala replied, just as quietly. “Clear skies for good flying.”

Ahsoka breathed a little easier. She hadn’t felt anything, either, but the girl knew exactly what she was looking for, so it made sense to ask for surety.

Two more troopers and an officer came into the room. The stormtroopers who were already present straightened to attention.

“We were in a small room in the back of the house,” the officer said. “Whose room is that?”

“Mine,” Ahsoka said, standing up again. She tried not to measure how far it was to the door or to calculate how she might jump out the window.

“Please explain this,” the officer said, holding up the package of metal pieces that Ahsoka kept under her pillow. Her skin crawled to think of their searching her room to that degree.

“Oh, those are just bits of junk I’ve picked up doing various jobs,” Ahsoka said, deliberately underplaying the value of the tech she’d collected. “I can show you if you want.”

“Open it,” the officer said.

Ahsoka pulled on the ties. The Imperials must have thought it was rigged to explode or something. The package was only sealed with knots. The wrapping fell away to reveal the bits and bobs Ahsoka had collected on Raada. She still couldn’t have said why any of them were important to her, but she knew she didn’t want to hand them over to any Imperials.

“Nothing here, sir,” said one of the stormtroopers. “Just scrap metal.”

The officer drew himself up in front of Fardi.

“It might be wise to limit your exposure to those people who are outside your family,” he sneered. His eyes trailed to Ahsoka and then back to Fardi. “We’ve noticed a certain criminal element in this city, and we would hate to trace it to your home.”

“I’ll take it under consideration,” said Fardi.

“Good,” the officer replied. He signaled to the stormtroopers, and they all marched out of the house.

Fardi deflated as soon as they were gone.

“Everyone out,” he said, sounding defeated. “Except Ashla. We need to talk.”

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