BY CHUCK WENDIG 9 страница

The air warbles and something hits Jom in the back, knocking the air out of him. He pitches forward, chin hitting the ground and teeth biting into his tongue. Blood fills his mouth as he tries to summon his limbs to move, but they don’t respond to his commands. I’ve been stunned. He barely manages the will to lift his chin off the dirty ground—

And he sees Jas pinned down by a series of red lights—beam-sights, he realizes. Dozens of them. All from weapons threatening to fire. Her hands are up in surrender as enemies close in from the shadows.

Frag.

—

The air lock shudders as the Moth’s oxygen cyclers pump air into it. Wedge steps forward, leaning hard on his cane. He and Norra share a look, then she jams the big red button with the heel of her hand. The door slides open with a rattle-bang.

There, inside, sit heaps of scrap drawn into the ship with the tractor beam. Already she sees plasma scoring and char marks.

What she doesn’t see is anything moving.

“I know I saw something out there, ” she says.

Wedge nods. “We both saw it. ”

Just then—a piece of hull scrap shifts, groaning against the floor. Then all is silent once more. The two of them draw their blasters—

A faint scuttling and scraping.

And again, nothing.

Moments pass. Wedge starts to say, “Maybe together we could lift—”

The scrap piece flips up suddenly, slamming against the wall with a deafening bang. A dark shape, big as an astromech, takes flight, slamming into Wedge. He screams as he falls.

—

“The tea here, right? ” Sinjir says, holding up his steaming cup as if to demonstrate. He takes a noisy sip while Temmin stares disappointedly down at his own cup. “It’s a far sight better than what we got at the Imperial commissary, that’s for certain. ”

Jylia Shale was once a general in the Empire’s army—and legendarily one hell of a strategist. Sadly, her legend was habitually ignored by those above her. She sits with both of her small hands around a cup of her own. “It is something. But I had my own supply during the Empire days. ”

The apartment is spare, but functional. It’s more than she’d get in a prison cell—she has a food prep station instead of a protein recycler, a proper bathroom instead of a vacu-suck porthole, and no interrogator droids hovering about. All because she has played along and given the New Republic true answers to the questions it has posed.

House arrest is quite nice, Sinjir thinks. I should’ve gotten arrested. He could live a comfortable life in one of these boxes. As long as they delivered liquor. Did they? He makes a mental note to ask.

Then he sets the tea down because tea is disgusting.

“So, nothing? ” he asks, rapping his knuckles gently on the low table between them. He gestures toward the star map hovering there holographically. “You don’t know anything about this space? We’re looking for Imperials—any at all—you think might be in that area. ”

If no answers present themselves, that means Solo is—what? Investigating that region for his own daft giggles? Perhaps he’s truly gone back to the smuggler life. Succumbed to the pressure of adult life and bailed on the wife and the coming child. Perhaps Solo kissed the straight and narrow goodbye and he’s gone off to have his own illicit adventures.

It’s what Sinjir would do.

It’s what Sinjir did, at least.

Hm.

Still, Shale is lying. He can tell she’s withholding.

It’s strange sitting here, interrogating someone of Shale’s stature. Though he supposes her stature has fallen considerably. Not in his mind, though. Interrogating her—and that’s what this is, just a more polite version of it—makes him feel rather uncomfortable.

He tries not to show it, though.

“Do you miss it? ” Shale suddenly asks.

“What’s that? ”

“The warm embrace of the Empire? ”

“Ah, an embrace as warm as a hug from a slab corpse. ” He taps his thumbnail against the side of the teacup. Tink, tink, tink. “No. I don’t miss it. I don’t miss who I was or what I did in its service. I miss who I was once before the Empire turned me into me. Not that I much remember that version of myself, but I’m quite confident he existed. He may have even been nice. ”

“I don’t miss it, either. What we did formed a scar across this galaxy, and I’m not sure it will ever truly fade. ” She sighs. “You should go and ask Tashu. I don’t know anything, but he and his other sycophant advisers seemed awfully enamored of that region. Good luck finding whatever it is you seek, Loyalty Officer Rath Velus. ”

And with that, they are dismissed.

—

Wedge squirms and kicks under the clicking limbs of an Imperial probe droid—not a viper, but one of the smaller Prowler models. The droid’s flat, disk-shaped body suddenly glows red around the margins and emits a high-pitched trill. Norra recoils from the sound, her ears ringing—it’s a noise so terrible it feels like it’s trying to bore into her skull.

All she can do is steady her hand, take aim, and—

Her blaster shot slams the probe droid back, sending its top popping off. Its spider legs, free from the body, come away in Wedge’s hands and he flings them to the ground before kicking them away with his one good leg.

His hair is a mess. His cheek is bleeding. Norra rushes over, grabs a kerchief from her pocket, and dabs at it. “Hold still, ” she tells him. Thankfully, it’s not serious—just a scrape from one of the thing’s limbs.

The droid sits in the corner, sparking and smoking. The red light shines bright one last time then goes dark. At least the sound is gone. What was that sound? Self-defense mechanism?

The two of them are left sitting and staring at it.

“Why is there a probe droid out here? ” he asks, panting.

She helps him stand. “Searching the wreckage like we were? ”

“Could be. But why remain out here? That’s a Prowler probe. They don’t travel long distances. They’re local. ”

“They forgot it, ” she posits. “It’s easy enough to leave behind. Especially if things got violent. ”

“That doesn’t sound like the Empire. ”

“Maybe not the old one. But in its current state? They’re different now. Less efficient. ” Her brow wrinkles. “Hey, those probes don’t travel far, but how’s their transmission range? Could it have been…? ”

Wedge grabs his cane and uses it to move toward the droid. With the toe of his boot he lifts it. Sure enough, on the underside is a modular comm array: a little transceiver dish that would’ve been hidden by its limbs.

That dish is blinking green.

“It’s still transmitting, ” Norra says.

“What could they possibly be—”

From the cockpit, a proximity alarm. Its presence could mean only one thing: incoming ships. Norra rushes out of the hold and into the cockpit, spinning the chair and plonking herself down just in time to see a Star Destroyer cut through space like a spear-tip.

—

Drool drips from Jom’s chin as he grunts, pushing himself up on shaky arms. He falls back down, pain radiating through his old shoulder injury. With one hand he fumbles gamely for the blaster rifle hanging on his back—but the toe of a boot pries his hand away and gently steps on it.

It’s Jas’s boot. Her hands are still up. She looks down at him and shakes her head, clucking her tongue. “Now now. Stay still. ”

“Jas…” he moans.

“Shh. ”

And with that, they are surrounded.

Ridge-browed Niktos emerge, hand-cannons held aloft, beam-sights all targeting Jas. Their nose-slits flare, as if sniffing for her scent. Blunt-toothed mouths gnash and clamp open air.

They ease apart as a new player enters the scene:

A woman, by the look of her, face hidden behind a rust-pocked metal mask. The mask is curved, and the top of the metal is curled into the facsimile of curved horns. A pair of trillium lenses whirr and buzz as they focus in on Jas. The woman tilts her head and says: “Hello, Emari. ”

“Underboss Rynscar, ” Jas says. “Been a while. ”

“That’s because you’ve been avoiding me. Playing Suzee Goodgirl with the New Republic, I hear. ”

“Job’s a job. And last I checked, I need credits. ”

The masked woman stiffens. “You do. To pay me. You have debts. ”

“My aunt had debts. ”

“And now they’re yours! ” Rynscar barks, suddenly furious. “But since you don’t seem to be able to pay, I have little choice here but to bring your head back to Boss Gyuti. Black Sun demands money or blood, bounty hunter. Will it be blood? There is a bounty on your head. ”

Jom thinks: I won’t let this happen. He again starts to lift himself up—but Jas slams her foot down on his back. She hisses at him: “Stop. They’ll kill you and kill me and then what? I’ll handle it. ” Then, to Rynscar: “Who sold me out? It was the Hutt, wasn’t it? ”

“The Hutts are in disarray. Nyarla has come back to Black Sun. ”

“I will pay you what I owe. ”

“We’ve all heard that one before. ”

“I’ll make you a deal. ”

Rynscar sniffs behind the mask. The Niktos gathered all share looks and laugh. “What deal could you make me? ”

“I’ll pay you twice what I owe. And failing that, I’ll turn myself in. And the group I work with. ”

She’d really betray us? He again starts to get up, protesting—

And she grinds her heel against the back of his neck.

“Interesting, ” Rynscar hisses. Her head tilts at a curious angle. “And all I have to do is let you scamper away, out of my grip? ”

“Actually, ” Jas says, offering a nervous laugh, “there’s one more thing. I need information. ”

“Don’t we all. ” The underboss hesitates. “What is it? ”

“I need to locate someone. The smuggler, Han Solo. ”

—

Imperial adviser Yupe Tashu was, is, and forever will be a wild-eyed religious zealot. His capture on Akiva did little to dampen his fervor, and in fact seems to have allowed it to further infect his mind.

That presents Sinjir with two problems.

First, Tashu’s devotion to the Empire—or, more particularly, to Palpatine himself—is so intense it utterly overwhelms his fragile sense of self-interest.

Second, he’s as mad as a spark-drunk mynock.

It’s very hard to interrogate one who suffers from one of these problems, much less both of them. The deranged only offer cryptic or nonsense answers, while the self-sacrificial will gladly immolate themselves in the service of keeping their trap shut.

Sinjir hasn’t gotten anywhere with Tashu since they brought him in. And by the look of his cell, things have only gotten worse.

The man stands there behind the buzzing laser shield. He paces the cage like a pilgrim who has lost his way, wandering the world with a vague sense of purpose and faith but no actual destination. The walls have been marked up in his food waste. Strange symbols and maps and other indecipherable gibberish are drawn there. Temmin stares. Sinjir sees that this is upsetting the boy.

That’s interesting. Something about Tashu has gotten to him. It’s cracked the boy’s veneer of false confidence.

“I don’t think I can do this, ” Temmin says.

“You don’t have to, ” Sinjir says. “Run along. ”

“But—”

“Temmin. It’s okay. Go. ”

The boy cannot seem to tear his gaze away, so Sinjir helps him by turning the boy in the other direction and urging him forth with a gentle push. It’s enough. Temmin leaves.

The only other one that’s left now is the guard: a Chandrilan man with a swoop of blond hair and a light scar along his chin.

“Is Tashu usually like this? ” Sinjir asks.

The guard regards Sinjir with cold gray eyes, then reluctantly offers a curt nod. There’s discomfort there, with the guard—and Sinjir’s left to wonder why. Maybe the guard doesn’t trust him.

That’s fine. He shouldn’t.

“Open the cage. ”

“I…”

“You have your orders, do you not? ”

But still the guard hesitates.

And there, Sinjir realizes, is the glorious-yet-naï ve failing of the New Republic. It isn’t a fully fledged government. It isn’t a proper military. In the Empire, you didn’t turn down an order. You didn’t hesitate. Hesitation meant reprimand. Failure meant Vader making three long strides into your office and pinching your windpipe shut with the power of his mind.

In the Empire, the chain of command was everything. Someone above you told you to drop your pants and spin around three times, you did it. You didn’t ask questions. Here, though, individuality rules the roost. That was, at least on paper, a benefit, right? You get to think your own thoughts. Do your own good. If something doesn’t sound right or smell right, you speak up.

But when that happens, order breaks down.

The saying might be Too many admirals, not enough ensigns, but here that’s not precisely true, because in the New Republic there aren’t enough admirals, either. And given that Mon Mothma has already begun trying to figure out how to demilitarize the galaxy…

How long before it falls apart? Before it spins off its axis and bounces away? It wouldn’t take much. The Empire couldn’t even keep it together and in that gap, the disease known as the Rebel Alliance formed—a disease that is presently killing its host. How long before the New Republic suffers the same gap? How long before the Empire returns the attack with its own infection?

The Empire pushed too hard.

But maybe the New Republic isn’t pushing hard enough.

Ugh, he needs a drink.

Sinjir lends a Jom Barell growl to his voice and says: “You open that cage, guardsman, or I open your head. ”

“Fine, ” the guard says, staring balefully. He opens the cell.

“Thank you, ” Sinjir says, then steps inside. He tells the guard to turn the shield back on, which the man does, if reluctantly. Gently, Sinjir folds his hands behind his back. Best to give the veneer of authority here. Stand like an officer and maybe, just maybe, Tashu will fall into an old pattern—he’ll conjure the sense memory of what it was to serve in Palpatine’s Empire and he’ll nod and smile, bow and scrape, and give answers to the questions that Sinjir will ask. “Hello, Adviser Tashu. ”

“I remember you. ”

“Yes. I imagine you do. Now, I’d like to ask you a little something about Imperial prisons. ”

“I know nothing of those. ”

“We shall see, Adviser. ” And so Sinjir weighs in—trying to pluck at the man’s strings, hoping dearly to get him to confide (one ex-Imperial to another) just where the Empire might’ve taken a theoretically high-value target like Chewbacca, or if there’s something, anything out there Solo might be looking for. And all the while, the man in front of him continues to break down mentally—until he’s crumpled into himself, the barest human shape gutted of its stuffing. His shoulders rock as he laughs quietly to himself before that laughter dissolves into weeping. His hands pluck at each other. They pick at the nails until they’ve gone bloody.

Sinjir just stands idly by, watching.

He didn’t have to do any of this. He didn’t lay one finger on the man’s messy, sweat-slick head. Tashu wound himself up to a complete and total freak-fit, babbling about how he keeps trying to “open himself” up to something, because we’re all “bound in its web, ” but he cannot “hear its voice, ” cannot “feel its tremors. ” And how all he can do now is trust in his gut and trust in the “instructions” he was given.

And that’s it, Sinjir thinks. The game is over. He won’t get anything of value from this gabbling freak.

Sinjir’s communicator pings.

“Pardon me, ” he says to Tashu, then steps out of the cell. The guard with the shock of blond hair watches as Sinjir talks into the comlink. It’s Jas on the other side.

“I have information, ” she says.

“Good, because I’m not getting anything from this human methane fire. I would get better results if I asked a rain puddle. ”

“What I have isn’t complete. Ask Tashu about Irudiru. ”

“Is that some kind of delicacy? ”

“It’s a system near Wild Space. ”

“Irudiru, you say. All right. ”

Back in he goes, then.

—

The weapons at the fore of a Star Destroyer are many—the main battery alone presents a host of turbolasers that could tear an entire space station to ribbons. But therein lies the value of being in a smaller ship: Just as it’s hard to swat a fly, it’s hard for a Star Destroyer to eliminate a single small craft.

Provided, of course, that the littler ship acts like a fly. Sitting still—or even just retreating in a straight line—won’t cut it.

Norra puts a hard spin on the Moth, corkscrewing it through open space even as the massive capital ship wastes no time unloading a fusillade of weapons fire at them. The dark vacuum of space lights up with ship-killing spears of laserfire tearing past them. Wedge braces himself against the dash as he straps in and operates the weapons system.

Time for a little roll-off-the-top. It’s a maneuver she learned early in her days doing combat cargo runs for the Alliance, though some of the pilots call it an Eimalgan Turn, after the one who reportedly originated it: Cargin Eimalgan, one of the earliest Alliance aces. A hero. Now dead, like so many of them.

Norra accelerates forward, then pulls up hard. The Moth lifts through the open black, lasers chasing the space where the ship was only half a moment before. She brings the ship from level to a half loop, then a hard roll and turn so that the craft is now going the other direction entirely.

Which is to say, it’s heading straight for the Star Destroyer. It’s like facing down a monstrous beast poised to swallow you—and choosing to run toward its open maw rather than away from it.

“This is crazy, ” Wedge says with a smile of admiration.

“Let’s hope it’s the best kind of crazy, ” she says before giving the ship maximum thrust—

Just as the Star Destroyer ejects a swarm of TIE fighters into space.

—

Back on the Halo, Jom shakes his head, struggling to claw free from the mud that remains after being stunned by those thugs. Through blurry vision he sees Jas finish up her communication with Sinjir. Then she turns toward him.

She’s clearly worked up. Her blood must be running hot.

Her hands flex in and out of fists. He can’t tell if she’s angry, excited, or both. “You sold us all out back there, ” he growls.

“Relax, Barell. I’m not giving up the team. I just needed to buy us more time. ”

“Buy yourself more time, you mean. ”

But she doesn’t respond to that. Instead she says, “You think what she gave us is right? Will that lead us to Solo? ”

“Slag if I know. Point is, I don’t know if I can trust—”

She slams into him, knocking him back. He’s about to protest when she mashes her lips into his. Her tongue snakes into his mouth.

“Hey, ” he snarls. “What is this? ”

“No reason the fun has to end just yet, ” she says. Sound logic, he thinks, just before she renews her assault on his face.

—

Sinjir merely has to say the name:

“Irudiru. ”

With that one word uttered, Tashu freezes. He stops weeping and laughing. He stops biting at his fingertips. “Irudiru, ” he repeats.

“You know it? ”

“I do. ”

“Is there a prison on Irudiru? ”

“No. ”

“What is there, then? ”

“Not a prison, ” Tashu says. “But a prison-maker. ”

—

The TIEs form a screaming swarm behind them, spitting lasers. The Moth jolts and bumps as the aft of the ship is struck and stung. Wedge starts to spin up the nav computer, plotting a course through hyperspace even as Norra dives closer to the Star Destroyer—meaning any shots the TIEs take at her pepper the surface of their own capital ship. She banks hard past a turret, escaping its twin fire, then whips the ship back around, ensuring that the turret will be too slow to track her.

“Almost there, ” Wedge says.

“Gotta go faster, ” she says through clenched teeth, and nearly bottoms the freighter out against the surface of the Destroyer.

“There. Just get us clear. ”

To starboard, the massive towers and shield generators of the Star Destroyer loom over them like jagged cliffs. Dead ahead sits the end of the colossal ship: the bank of its engines. Norra intends to get clear of the Destroyer, then bank hard to get out of any wake from its engines, then…

All clear!

“Punch it, ” she says.

Wham. The ship rocks hard, its back end lifting high and sending them into a tumble before she realigns the stabilizers and gets them upright again.

“The hyperdrive, ” Wedge says. “It’s out. Direct hit. We’re toast, Norra. ”

“I’ve been toast before. So have you. ” She pulls up hard, moving back into another roll-off-the-top maneuver—they won’t expect her to do it so soon, though that element of surprise will wear off fast. “And yet here we are. ” She flings the Moth back through the cloud of TIE fighters, moving the freighter as erratically as she can manage—the gamble works, and two of the TIEs try to predict and evade the Moth’s movement, smacking into each other, leaving behind a blossom of blue flame consumed by the void.

Wedge knows the score. He’s been in fighters before, and he knows how to get out of the way of a big ship like this. They move fast but they turn slow. As the Moth’s weapons systems autotrack the TIEs, getting them off their tail, he narrates the plan: “All right. We need to go vertical. Perpendicular. You follow? ”

“I follow. ” The underbelly of the Destroyer—that’s where they go. She can slide the ship down over the edge, tucking it under, then launching it straight down through space. The TIEs will still be on them like a bad smell, but it’ll give them a chance to get clear of the Destroyer—

More alarms.

Something else is coming out of hyperspace.

Reinforcements.

Two blips coming in, growing bigger—

A pair of enormous ships, no, no, no—

The reinforcements drop out of lightspeed.

Wedge whoops with sudden relief. Because the two ships aren’t Imperial ships—they’re New Republic ships. One of them is an Alderaanian escort frigate, the Sunspire. And the other is one of the brand-new battleships: a Nadiri Mark One Starhawk, one of a few capital ships constructed at the Nadiri Dockyards deep inside the Bormea sector. This ship, and all the ships there, are built from the disassembled Imperial craft the New Republic has taken since Endor. The literal spoils of war. Weapons turned by a savior’s hand, pointed back at their masters.

This Starhawk, Norra recognizes as the Concord—which now operates under the command of newly minted Commodore Kyrsta Agate, who once commanded the frigate right next to it.

The front of the Starhawk is like an ax blade cutting its way through space. It is a foreboding ship, but regal, too, in its own way.

Sure enough, who comes crackling across the comm but Agate herself: “Hailing New Republic craft Moth. This is Commodore Agate. Time to come on board—we’ve got this. ”

With that, the Concord unleashes its fire.

Days have passed since her dalliance on Coruscant, and Grand Admiral Rae Sloane feels stuck in a waiting pattern. The pressures of leading an Empire have given her no time to take a side-trip to Quantxi, and she sees no way clear of the mire. Her last trip did not go unnoticed. She was able to deflect questions and criticism easily—after all, she is the operating military leader of the Galactic Empire, and many fear the power she wields.

The men at this dinner table, however, do not seem to fear her at all.

And that upsets her greatly, because they should.

This, then, is Admiral Rax’s vaunted Shadow Council. She sits at the narrow head of one side, and the opposing head of the table offers only an empty chair where Rax has promised to sit (though he has yet to make a proper appearance). The others dine, all of them watching one another, uncertain as to what this even is. They are suspicious of one another. They are dubious of the situation. Surely each of them fears, quite fairly, that at any point the ground beneath their chairs will suddenly open up and they will be evacuated into open space, or dropped down into the crushing walls of a garbage compactor, or devoured by some slavering creature.

Problem is, none of them think she’s the one to fear. They hardly give her a look. The empty chair at the other end of the table? Oh, they can’t stop staring at that, can they? Idiots.

The Shadow Council, as arranged around the table, consists of five Imperials (including herself):

Next to her sits Brendol Hux, once-commandant of the Arkanis Academy. Mercurial Swift did his job and rescued the man (and she makes a mental note to get the bounty hunter paid for that work). Hux is a big, blustering, ego-fed pig. Gone a bit to pasture, that one: His gut strains at his buttons, his neck is fat, and his firm jaw has gone soft with an unshorn patchwork of facial hair. He looks haggard, lost, angry. Occasionally he seems to remember that this is a dinner, then dives down into his meal with sudden gusto, shoveling food into his mouth once more.

To his right sits Grand Moff Randd, special governor of the Exterior—a far-flung slice of the Outer Rim, and the only true Outer Rim sector remaining under Imperial control. His distance from the action explains his survival. The war burned bright across the galaxy, claiming the lives of many of the Empire’s most elite members. Randd was not one of those members. He, like many, was at the edges.

And those at the edges were, and are, survivors. Sloane counts herself among those survivors—she had been pushed so far from center that her marginalization likely saved her.

Randd has the rigidity and the pointedness of a needle. He moves nothing but his eyes. His hands lie flat against the table, and he has not eaten a single bite. Prudent, that. Perhaps he thinks it’s poisoned. Or maybe his nerves are just so jangled he cannot contemplate the idea of food.

Across the table: General Hodnar Borrum, though nobody calls him that. His nickname is “the Old Man, ” because of how long he’s served the Empire—Hod Borrum actually served the original Republic under Chancellor Palpatine. It was he who reportedly led the charge against the last stand of the Jedi at the close of the Clone Wars, personally marshaling clone troopers against the mountain fortress of—what was it? Her history training is suddenly failing her. Madar? Morad? It matters not.

Point is, he’s a veteran in the truest sense, and she among others always wondered why Kenner Loring was made grand general instead of Hod Borrum. Some said he was too old, others said he was too practical. And he was known for making a show of how little regard he gave “the Force, ” which likely enraged Vader. Borrum is old, and his cheeks are marked with deep lines, craggy craters, and dark liver spots. But his eyes are still flinty—they are not clouded over with the fog of age. Those are a young man’s eyes. A predator’s stare looks back.

Last up is her favorite: Ferric Obdur. Imperial propagandist extraordinaire. He’s the only one who looks happy to be here.

Nobody is talking.

She decides that has to change.

Sloane says to Hux: “I’m glad we got you off Arkanis. ”

“Yes. ” He pauses, looking down at the hunk of steaming meat at the end of his fork. He sets it down with a clatter as if suddenly not hungry. “I suppose I am, too. ”

“You suppose? ”

“The Academy was my life’s work. I was good at it. The best of the Empire came out of Arkanis. The very best. And now what? ”