BY CHUCK WENDIG 8 страница

“You, ” he says.

“Me what? ”

“You never once asked. ”

“Never once asked what? Speak plainly, Sin, or I’ll boot you off this platform. I’m in no mood for your brand of devilry. ”

“What it paid. ”

“I said, speak plainly—”

He rolls his eyes, obviously impatient with her lack of getting-it. “You never asked what it would pay to go find the missing Solo, Jas. You didn’t ask about a bounty. Or a reward. Not any of it. ”

“I…” Her breath catches in her chest. A very real and very cold panic rises inside her like a cyclone of sleet. He’s right. She didn’t. Worse, she didn’t even give a thought to it. “I knew there’d be a reward, ” she lies to him (and really, to herself, as well). “Leia’s accounts run deep. Of course rescuing Solo would be a particularly big payout. And! And even if not, having an Alderaanian princess owe you a favor is not insignificant. ” She tells herself that all these things are so true that she must’ve just taken them on as assumed—of course it would be worth her while.

“Look at you. Such precious backpedaling. ”

“Eat sleem, Rath Velus. ”

He chortles and winks. She stomps off.

I’m not here to make friends. She repeats this in her head again and again, over and over, until it’s all just gabbling noise.

Mas Amedda is troubled. He has not slept in days. He has hardly eaten. He is a creature who is trapped by the architecture of a government he helped create, a government that no longer wants him or needs him. For a time, Amedda hoped he had it figured out—he would give himself up. He would hand himself over to the New Republic and they could do with him as they chose. It was, he believed, a foolproof plan. And it was a plan that left him eerily comforted—at least it felt like he had agency. At least it felt like the choice to give up was his. Because everything else is out of his hands. Everything but minor administrative details.

It is lonely being the head of a dying Empire.

He is a figurehead. Or worse than one. They don’t even trot him out for appearances. His office and his chambers make up his prison. It’s here he mostly stays. Taking in his meals. Watching the HoloNet. Thinking about his future, or rather, the lack of his future.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Palpatine was supposed to remain. The Emperor was as certain a fixture in the galaxy as the Core itself. As fundamental as the Imperial Palace. Timeless and immortal.

But he wasn’t.

He is dead. And Mas Amedda is alive.

Mas wishes he was dead, too.

And that is his plan when he returns to his office in the tallest spire of the palace. The office has a balcony over which one can regard the width and breadth of the Empire’s throne room. It has a deflector shield, of course; the whole palace does. But that shield only stops energy blasts—it won’t stop a physical being such as himself from passing through it.

He will go to his office. He will step out onto the balcony.

And he will jump.

None will care. Why would they? The illusion of a united, cohesive Galactic Empire won’t last much longer. Already the schisms have begun. It’s breaking apart like a delicate pastry in his fingers.

You’re an administrator, Mon Mothma said. So administrate.

The only thing he intends to administer tonight is his own demise.

He steps into his office, distracted. It takes him a moment to notice the blue glow coming from the far side of the room, flickering before the massive bulging window that overlooks the Federal District like a great eye. It’s a holographic image. An unmoving one: a static image captured. Amedda approaches the desk cautiously.

There, in its center, an image reader. On it, a crystal.

Amedda stares at himself. Because there he is, in that image. Like a ghost of himself standing there, with Palpatine and four others. Screed and Rancit, he recognizes, and Yularen, too.

The final, though—just a boy. It takes him a moment to recognize…

“Do you remember it? ” comes a voice from the far corner of the room. He startles, though he tries not to show it. Amedda turns, attempting to demonstrate his implacable demeanor. As his eyes adjust, he sees someone sitting there in the far lounger, leaning forward. Hands clasped over his—

No, her knees.

“Grand Admiral Sloane, ” he says.

She stands up.

Here, before him, is the leader of one of those Imperial fragments—a rather considerable one. Perhaps the fragment of note. She controls what remains of the Imperial Navy, and their navy is dominant, so it is clear that whoever controls the navy controls the Empire. More or less. Still, it leaves her without the bulk of the ground forces, but rumor already has it that she’s begun to bridge that gap and complete the deficit in her military presence.

Another rumor is that she has been cleaning house. Those who are not faithful to the navy find themselves at the wrong end of a blaster.

That’s what this is, he realizes.

She’s come to kill him.

And here, an ironic twist, because now Amedda is thinking: I could kill her first. He has a blaster holstered under the desk. If he could just skirt around, he could get it. He could defeat her before she defeats him. What a coup that would be—rather than the coup she intends it to be.

He begins to back toward his desk even as she advances.

“That image, ” she says. “That is you in it. ”

“Obviously. ” He’s at the edge of his desk, now. His nails tick and tack against its hard metal surface even as he slides around the edge. Now the holographic image separates him from her—her image is warped by the hologram. Stretched and mutilated, at least until he eases around to his chair and begins to sit. “Let me take a seat and we can talk. ”

“Yes. Let’s talk. ”

His hand eases to his knee, then in toward the blaster—

“Why do you bring me this image? ” he asks.

“I want to know about it. ”

“I can’t imagine why it interests you. It’s archival. Meaningless. ”

His finger teases along the edge of the holster and he realizes—he’s leaning into it too far. His movement is surely telegraphed. She’s no fool. She’ll see what he’s doing. You have to move fast. And he does.

He reaches in—

And finds no blaster.

“I have your weapon, ” she says. She pulls it from behind her, letting it dangle like a tantalizing piece of fruit hanging from a branch too high to reach. “I’m not here to have a conversation with blasters. I’m here to have a conversation between two equals. ”

That last bit she says like she doesn’t believe it, though Amedda supposes he appreciates the thought just the same.

Resigned, he sighs and eases back into his chair. He slouches. “Fine. I don’t know what help I could possibly give you. ”

“It’s the boy in that picture. Who is he? ”

“I don’t know. ” She can tell he’s lying, can’t she?

“You know something. ”

“Haven’t you heard? I know nothing. ”

She leans in, hands planted on the desk. “I have had a hard night, so spare me your appetite for self-pity. ” He notes, suddenly, that she does look rough. She’s not even wearing her uniform. Sloane appears in the guise of a common pilot. What fresh mystery is this? “Tell me something. ”

Amedda chews on it. Why help her? She holds his fate in her hands. Mon Mothma’s words revisit him: so administrate. If he wants to bring the Empire back into his grip, then maybe this is the way. An alliance with her. Or at least a favor done, which means a favor owed.

He hems and haws as he thinks. “I remember something. He would send his ship out. Always with proxies. Droids or advisers or, once upon a time, his Inquisitors. One time the ship returned with a stowaway. It was that boy, I believe. The one in the picture. ”

“And who is that boy? ”

“You already know who. ”

“Gallius Rax. ”

A strange tremble presents itself in his many stomachs. An acid tingle, eager and excited despite the insanity of it. Since the destruction of the second Death Star, rumor has dogged every step of the Empire and come at him from every angle. Nearly all of these rumors could be discarded—Vader was surely not alive, despite what some insisted. Nor could Palpatine be giving commands after his death through coded droid messengers—how absurd a story was that! But one of them was that Rax had survived and was manning the Ravager, the Empire’s last Super Star Destroyer. Then the truth came out that he was dead and Sloane had control.

“He’s not dead, ” Amedda whispers.

Sloane says nothing. “Where did Rax come from? ”

But he doesn’t answer that. Instead he says, “If he’s not dead, are you really in control, Admiral Sloane? ”

She points his own blaster toward him. “I’m in control of this conversation. Of that you must be assured. ”

“Yes. Yes. Of course. ” He swallows hard. This is an opportunity. For a long time he felt himself sliding down the side of a mountain—a slow and unending slip down the scree. But here is a handhold. He doesn’t understand it. He cannot say where it will take him should he avail himself of it. This isn’t hope, not yet, but it’s close. “I don’t know where Rax came from. But I know how you could find out. ”

“Tell me. ”

“Those droids I spoke of. They might know the boy that Rax once was. Their memory banks might have data. If not the droids, then the databanks of the ship itself: the Imperialis. ”

“A slicer could access the data in those droids, ” she says. “If I knew where they were. ”

“I know where they are. ”

A cold silence stretches out between them. Finally she says, “Tell me where. ”

“And what will I get? ”

“You will get not shot. ”

“Hardly good enough, ” he says. “My lust for life is a dead and withered thing, Admiral Sloane. I am a broken fixture on the wall of an empty palace. If you want my help, I want a place in your Empire. If it is your Empire. Well? Is it? ”

She narrows her eyes, suspicious of him. As she should be. “It is. Or will be. I can give you a place. You know how to run an Empire, after all. ”

Yes, he thinks. I know how to run one. Even if I don’t know how to lead one. “Rax is still alive, isn’t he? You don’t have to answer. I see the fear in your eyes. You’re a prisoner of your own command, just like me. Perhaps we can plot our escape together. Perhaps we can take over the prison. ” He idly drags a nail against his teeth—click, click, click. “The droids are in storage. Along with the wreckage of the Imperialis itself. ”

“Where? ”

“Where else? Quantxi, the Junk Moon of Ord Mantell. ”

Asteroids tumble through space. They drift and spiral, and when one hits the perimeter shield, it breaks. Bits drift, pulverized, as the rest of the rock pirouettes away to join the rest of its crumbling brethren.

Every time it happens, it hurts Teven Gale’s heart. Because that asteroid is a piece of his world. Was a piece of his world, anyway. Out there waits an infinite black space horizon of Alderaan, now reduced to rock.

The flotilla is safe, at least. Seven ships belong to the flotilla, now, including the Alderaanian frigate Sunspire. Another gift from the nascent Republic. Or, rather, another gift from their princess.

The ships float near to one another, gathering in a circle and protected by the deflector shield to keep out both the asteroids and, hopefully, marauders. The galaxy is drifting toward lawlessness, he thinks. Better that, though, than choked in the black steel gauntlet of Darth Vader.

Out in the black, demo-droids drill and dig into the asteroids, one by one—they look like fireflies out there with their bright-orange light flickering from their cutting lasers. Those droids look for anything of note from the world the Alderaanians lost: artifacts, remains, fragments of precious stones or minerals or metals. Even a single brick would be a find. Accessing any of this wasn’t even an option under Imperial rule; the Empire blockaded all access to the Alderaanian graveyard.

Behind him, the argument—the one he tries to tune out—continues.

Eglyn Valmor is up and pacing, as is her wont. “This is our home. This patch of sky is ours. Our world was here. And the diaspora has returned us to this place. We are home and I will not leave it. ” She tugs on the loose braid from her ice-blond hair. She’s young, Gale thinks, unlike himself. But she’s got a vital heart. He likes her. She and the others are not royals—there exists only one of those, now—but they are what the world has left. Alderaan has to be ruled by someone, and the commoners are what remains. Valmor is not queen, but rather, regent administrator.

“Bah, ” says Icar Orliss—once a teacher at a university. The man sits back in his chair, idly scratching at the peaky beard rising up off his jowls like mountains of chef’s meringue. “This is no world, Regent Administrator, forgive me for saying. It’s just rock. Blasted, wretched rock. The Empire turned our world into salt and dust and though I’m old, I for one don’t want to be like some geriatric clutching to his chest the remnants of what once was. It’s time to demand resettlement. I’ve prepared a list of worlds we could colonize—”

“That’s not how it works, ” chimes in Argus Tanzer. Argus is a young bureaucrat, possessing a handsomeness that looks less cultivated and more like someone simply carved him out of quartzine. Argus thrusts up a finger, gesturing with it as he speaks. “The New Republic won’t be keen on us just picking some planet and resettling there. There’s a process. ” He lowers his voice when he adds: “Not that anyone quite knows what the process is. ”

Orliss barks: “All the more reason to seize the chance now. We can claim that the Republic simply did not have their bows tied and their knots cinched—we seize upon their ignorance. ”

“Besides, ” adds Janis Pol, an elder diplomat. A small woman, as sharp and as pale as a broken tooth, she steeples her fingers and stares over them. “We are not yet members of the Republic. ”

“We are, ” says Riyana Torr. She’s young. Too young to be here, Gale thinks. But when the Empire destroyed their world, what was left but those who were living offworld? Riyana was with her missionary parents, part of a roving school dedicated to helping those in the galaxy who could not so easily help themselves. Now she’s back and fulfilling a similar mission, isn’t she? We can’t help ourselves, Teven thinks. He reminds himself: We are all just asteroids, tumbling into one another. Riyana continues, visibly nervous as she says, “We are a member of the New Republic! Leia is one of their most vital members. ”

“And yet, we have no senator, ” Orliss says. “We’ve no representation. We’ve no vote. What has Leia given us? Is she even truly our princess? None of us are royals. Why do we think she would listen to us? ”

It’s time to speak up. Gale turns and offers words in a stern tone when he says, “Leia has already listened to us! She’s given us this flotilla. Four of these ships are from her. The supplies we use to survive are from her. We exist, gathered together because of the efforts of her and Evaan Verlaine and the other Alderaanians working on Chandrila. I’ll not have her name sullied in this room. ”

That earns murmurs and mumbles of both agreement and dissent.

He hopes the dissenters will change their tune soon enough.

As if on cue, the center of the korabite table—a table carved from one of the asteroids and formed of Alderaanian bedrock and schist—lights up with an incoming message. Above the table floats Rickert Beagle, one of the comm officers on the Sunspire.

“We have incoming ships, ” he says, visibly worried.

“Who is it? ” the regent administrator asks, leaning in.

“I…we don’t know. But the ships are big. ”

They damn well should be, Teven thinks. Hauling cargo that big, well, you can’t just pull it along with a couple of tug-tugs.

The worry rises in the room. Whispers of pirates or bandits. Fear of a resurgent Empire—or, perhaps worse, some brutal fragment of what remains of the Empire. Certainly rumors have persisted of various worrisome remnants of the Imperial forces that have gone mad out there in space.

Rickert suddenly says: “Wait. We have a signature—code clearance says it’s New Republic. ”

Beyond the asteroid field, ships begin to pop out of hyperspace. Big ships—cargo freighters whose cargo will not fit within those ships’ bellies. Cargo so big it must in fact be contained in its own shield, lashed to the ships with magna-beams. The scrap they haul is epic in size: huge curved slices like the rind of some fruit designed only for the massive hand of an old god. Those with Teven gather at the glass, staring out.

“What…what am I looking at? ” Valmor asks.

“It’s a gift from our princess. I had to pull quite a few strings just to get this on the table, but as it turns out, nobody was really doing anything with it—it was just going to end up as scrap elsewhere. I started the ball rolling, but it was Leia who really made it happen. Her and Evaan. ”

Orliss growls, “I still don’t know what that is or why we’d want it. ”

But Tanzer sees it. He smirks. “It’s pieces of that damnable Death Star. Isn’t it? ”

“It is, it is. ” Teven laughs and nods. “They reduced us to scrap. Now we get their scrap as reparations for war. This is just the first lot of it, too. Quite a bit more coming if we say the word. ”

“We could build a whole space station of our own, ” the regent administrator says, beaming. She presses her hands against the glass, and therein lies the wonderment of a child, even though she is one no longer.

“That’s my hope, ” Teven says. “What say the rest of you? ”

Orliss grumbles some kind of reluctant acquiescence, then stomps off. Pol, another dissenter, shrugs. “We can try this. But resettlement will still be on the table. And we must be afforded a voice in the Senate if we are to aid the New Republic in any of its efforts to secure the galaxy. ”

Their conversation fades as Teven looks at the regent administrator—an untested, untrained, politically naï ve young woman whose eyes are as big as moons and whose heart is as bright as ten suns. The awe in her eyes is so tangible, Teven thinks he could bask in it. Drink it up, even.

“This is our future, ” she says not to him, not to any of them, but to the glass and to the space beyond.

Yes, he thinks. I hope it is.

The Moth drops out of hyperspace into the open black of nowhere—for a moment, Norra finds the open emptiness overwhelming. As if it’s going to swallow her whole. Once upon a time, she found the expanse of space comforting: so much potential, so much freedom. These days, it only offers her terror, from which she must wrest her own respite.

She tries Leia’s trick: closing her eyes, drawing a deep breath, exhaling slowly. Norra tries to reclaim that feeling of freedom, and, finding even that difficult, she just lets herself sit there.

In, out. Clear the mind. Become one with the stars.

And then—

It helps. She feels less…lost. Less overwhelmed.

More centered.

Thanks, Leia.

She cuts the engines and the ship floats there.

The Moth once belonged to the smuggler Owerto Naiucho, but he lost his life during the rebellion on Akiva after helping Norra get planetside. That left the MK-4 freighter up for grabs. Norra considered selling it…

But, truth is, how long can she live this life? She was a pilot for the Rebel Alliance and now leads a team of Imperial hunters for the New Republic. This work has to have an expiration date, she tells herself. (And yet she keeps coming back for job after job…)

Either way, it seemed like a good idea to have a ship of her own for once. Something that belonged to the Wexley name. If she dies—or when, since immortality is not likely—then Temmin will have something to call his own. He is becoming a good pilot. He deserves it. Especially since his father is gone. He should have something of his own.

Right now, though, Temmin isn’t here.

Though she’s not alone, either.

“See anything? ” Wedge asks, hobbling into the cockpit.

Norra points at the viewscreen. Out there, in the foreground of the glittering stars, float bits of gleaming metal. Wreckage.

“Giving her a little thrust, ” Norra says, and she does. The Moth eases forward. Wedge leans over her, accidentally bumping into her—they share an awkward laugh as he clears his throat and sets up the scanner.

After a few key-taps, a green beam—glittering like precious stones flung onto a cloth of black velvet—sweeps the void in front of them. First a vertical scan, then horizontal. Pulsing as it searches and catalogs.

This space represents the coordinates of the Millennium Falcon when Solo and Chewie were trapped by the Empire. “The Falcon wasn’t destroyed here, was it? There’s a lot of debris, ” Norra asks.

“I doubt it, ” Wedge says. “Leia didn’t say as much. Besides, the Falcon has gotten out of more scrapes than the galaxy has stars, I think. ”

Norra can personally attest to that—she remembers watching the blue burn of the freighter’s engines as it whipped through the narrow channels and conduits inside the belly of the second Death Star. The ship clipped a pipe and lost its rectenna array, the dish spinning off as Norra’s Y-wing went past. Wedge goes on to say: “Something sure happened out here. Look at this. ” Data scrolls on the nav screens. “Wreckage from at least…four different ships. None of them the Falcon. Let’s see what we have…three freighters, one fighter. Wait. Imperial wreckage, too. Scrap from a TIE’s wing panel. What a mess. I don’t know that we’re going to find any clues to Chewie’s whereabouts out here, Norra. ”

“Let’s pull in the scrap, see if we can’t eyeball something. ”

“I’ll get the tractor beam cooking, ” he says. Wedge eases into the copilot’s chair. As he spins up the beam controls, he looks over at Norra. “Thanks for having me along. It’s nice being out in the black again. Planetside’s all right, but out here? This is home. ”

“It won’t be long before you’re back in action. ”

“I hope so. ” He hesitates. He looks like he wants to say something.

“What is it? ”

“After this, after…we find Han, because I know we will, do you want to…” He coughs into his hand and wets his lips. “You wanna go out and get a drink sometime? I know this little cliffside cantina—”

Movement on the viewscreen. They both see it.

Norra says, “Did you see that? ”

Something darts from one piece of scrap to another. It moves like a squid through water: tentacles pushing off, legs like a blooming flower whose petals are closing. There’s a red glow before the shadowy shape is again behind another piece of scrap. Hiding there. Where the sensor beam wouldn’t have found it. Wedge says, “Let’s see what we’ve got. ”

The tractor beam hums as it fires up.

—

“I’m not your babysitter, ” Sinjir says.

“Good, because I’m not a baby. ”

Temmin and Sinjir head down the hall toward a door guarded by two New Republic soldiers with vibro-staves crossing the door.

“I never said you were a baby. ”

“Good, because I’m not. ”

Before they get to the door, Sinjir stops and plants a hand on Temmin’s chest. “Listen. The pouty, angry teenage thing? It’s tiring. ”

“I know. Does that mean you’re going to stop doing it? ” Temmin asks, crossing his arms and cocking his eyebrows.

The smirk that crosses Sinjir’s face will not be denied. “Oh, ho, ho. You think you’re clever, do you? ” He sighs. At least the boy told that mad droid of his to stay home when asked. “Believe me. I speak from experience when I say that cleverness will earn you as many enemies as it does friends. ”

“So? ”

“So, take it down a notch. We’ve got work to do. ”

“It’s just—” But then the boy shuts up.

Sinjir knows he’s going to regret this in much the same way one might regret sticking a hand into a hive of redjacket wasps in the hope that they make honey (hint: They don’t), but he asks anyway: “Oh, fine, what is it? ”

“I don’t know what I’m doing here. ”

“We’re here to visit one of our estimable prisoners. ”

“No, I mean like, here-here. Like, nnngyah. ” The boy makes a wild, frenetic gesticulation. That sound, that movement, perfectly articulates a specific feeling. That’s when Sinjir understands the problem.

“Ah. The existential ‘here. ’ ”

“I don’t know what that means. ”

“It means you’re having a crisis of identity. ”

Temmin fidgets. “Yeah, I guess. ”

“Congrats, my boy. It means you’ve become a proper adult. ”

“So you don’t have it figured out? ”

“Hardly. I’m utterly bewildered nine times out of ten. I just happen to make it look good. I don’t know what I’m doing here, either. I suspect that the moment I have it figured out, I’ll probably die half a second later. Because if there’s one mystical energy that powers the galaxy, it’s not the Force. It’s pure, unadulterated irony. Now let’s go talk to General Shale. See if she can’t help us in our foolhardy quest to locate the errant smuggler. ”

—

“I hate this place, ” Jom says, following Jas through a narrow, crooked alley on Nar Shaddaa. Behind them is the mouth of one of the moon’s countless black markets. This one is lorded over by the maven, Nyarla the Hutt—a slime-dripping slug-woman whose red tongue slathered the nozzle of a bubbling spice-drip while she told them she didn’t know a damn thing about Solo, his Wookiee, or Imperial prisons out in Wild Space.

“You want to hang with me, ” Jas says, “you should get used to places like this, Barell. ”

At that, Jom feels mighty conflicted. He does want to hang with Jas. His attraction to her is something on a whole other level. It’s practically feral. His greatest desire right now is to grab her and pull her into some dark alcove and have another go. And yet, why? She’s nothing like him. He’s a man of order and principle. She’s a fragging bounty hunter of all things. A criminal haven like this is second nature to her. Meanwhile he feels like a Mon Cala out of water—like he’s drowning in open air, totally exposed.

“This is a strange place for a date, ” he says.

“You’re funny. It’s not a date. Don’t think that what we had will happen again. It was just a bit of fun, is all. ”

They pass a stall full of wide-mouthed toothy aliens barking about a table full of strange oils and unguents. He slaps their hands away as they reach for him and he calls after Jas: “No reason the fun has to end. ”

“Fun always has an end, Barell. ”

They push on toward the spaceport—really it’s just a ship receptacle carved out of the urban sprawl. Jas paid some crumple-headed Weequay too many credits to keep their ship hidden and off syndicate registers. She told Jom that Black Sun operates out here and the last thing she wants is to be on their screens. Them or the Crymorah. I have debts, she told him. He asked her what kind, but she didn’t elucidate.

As they duck under a ratty tapestry hanging from a fraying rope and enter the spaceport, Jom says, “This is the third time we’ve come up empty, Emari. Maybe it’s time to realize that your underworld connections here are drying up. Time to go back to Chandrila and—”