BY CHUCK WENDIG 19 страница

He flops down in his chair: a massive skeletal thing formed of dark, dead wood. The many-pronged antlers of the arrawtha-dyr frame him as he slumps and slouches, pulling aside the fabric of his robe (made from the dyr’s own pelt) to scratch the expanse of pale, exposed belly.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

“You may speak if you have words, ” Tolruck slurs.

“I will tell the techs that a new probe is necessary. ”

“No. I want to go out. I want to hunt. Proper-like. ”

“It is too dangerous right now. ”

“Bah. ” He sweeps his arm across the air. “This is no revolt. The Wookiees remain in our control. It’s an insurgent cell—a little cancerous shadow clinging to our operation here. No more than a blood-bug. Let’s squash the rathhakkhan thing and be done with it. They can’t hurt me. ”

“They have been attacking vital targets. And you are our most vital. ”

With that, he won’t argue. He is lord of this world. The Empire has abandoned him. He is grand moff only in name. In truth, he is warlord. He is emperor. No—

He is god.

An entire world and its feral species exist under his sway.

What glorious power.

He hated this place for so long. But now it’s a part of him. Its dirt is under his nails. He stinks like it. And that stink? He likes it. He hasn’t bathed in weeks. He’s even taken to eating some of those wrosha-grubs whole and uncooked—fat, plump worms whose skin pops when you bite them, their guts evacuating their rubbery bodies and slicking his tongue. He wishes he had some now, even though he just ate not long ago.

He burps into his fist. His head lolls back. “I refuse to be cowed, Odair. I will hunt these mongrels myself. We’ve already caught one of them. Maybe we can use him as bait. Get me my rifle—”

“There’s something else, Governor. ”

“Out with it, then. ”

“We have a visitor. ”

“Who? ”

“An Imperial. One of Admiral Sloane’s people. ”

That makes him sit up. Perhaps they have finally remembered him. Perhaps they hope to include him and his throneworld in their Empire.

But then, that gives him pause. Does he want to join them? Does he care for their token advances, their crumbs flicked into his waiting mouth—they will expect him to be gracious, but they have abandoned him here.

He can do better on his own.

Best to let this Imperial stew. Besides, Commandant Sardo has been pleading for a meeting now for some time. He’ll take the call, and that’ll give Sloane’s lackey plenty of time to sit and simmer in regret. Then he’ll meet with her man, finally, and when he does, he can send Sloane back a present—her man’s head in a footlocker.

—

The Wookiees built many of their cities in and around the massive, skytower-like wroshyr trees—trees whose trunks are of an unimaginable circumference, big enough that to walk around the base of one could take you half a day. The trees turn and twist around one another, as if frozen in a mad dance—this, a competition for the boughs of each wroshyr to crest the upper atmosphere ahead of the one next to it.

Each tree, forever seeking the sun.

The sun, now, is veiled behind bands of dark cloud and ash. Spears of light stab through that darkness, but even then, the light is pale and thin. It feels insubstantial. It fails to bring warmth or even much illumination.

What it does illuminate is that the Wookiee city of Awrathakka is in ruins. The city once climbed the tree, as many of the cities do—following the bends and turns of the trunk. The life of the Wookiees was bound to the life of the tree. They tended to it. And in turn, it gave them shelter and food and all of their existence. Their symbiosis was honored as a bond both sacred and biological. But now, most of the city has been gouged from the bark. Pieces hang. The wood is burned in places, and so are the structures that were once affixed to—or grown into—the tree. The bond is broken.

It was once a city of gardens.

Now it is only a city of ghosts.

The Wookiees who dwelled there, though, are still near.

Far below, down through the layers of mist, is Imperial Work Settlement #121, aka Camp Sardo, after the man who runs the settlement, Commandant Theodane Sardo. It is one of many such settlements on the surface of Kashyyyk—all are built on the ground, for the Empire cares little to try to navigate the confusing topography of the wroshyrs.

Camp Sardo is also the largest of these settlements.

It is home to over fifty thousand Wookiees.

They work in varying capacities. They dig up the roots of the tree—the roots are softer than the tree itself, and it is easier to make use of the wood there. They also mine the fungal nodes that cling to those roots: Mineral deposits form, attracting fungus to feed on those deposits. And once a node is mature, the fungus can be scraped away; within is wroshite—a hard, flinty crystal the color of gun-steel. Good for focusing Imperial beam weapons. And worth a helmet-load of credits on the black market.

The Wookiees also grow food.

They fight for entertainment.

They are forced to breed.

They are subject to various chemical and medical tests.

And they do not revolt. They do not resist. Because if they do, the chips in their heads will end them. Or better yet, end their families—that is a trick it took the Empire too long to learn. A Wookiee will only fight so hard for herself. But they are slaves to their own bloodlines, and family is everything. Got a ruthless, undomesticated, willful Wookiee on your hands? Threaten those of her pack and she becomes as pliable as warm dough.

Still. Sometimes the Wookiees starve or are worked too hard, and when that happens, they are thrown into one of the carcass trenches and burned. Sardo brings in one new Wookiee for every other that falls.

—

“Productivity is everything, ” Sardo says over hologram. Tolruck grunts. The man is a sycophant. Which is fine; Tolruck needs men like Sardo, men willing to bow and scrape and lick boot. Just the same, it’s disgusting to witness. Though Sardo is a great distance away in his camp (that man would never be invited within the walls of Lozen Tolruck’s island fortress), his obsequiousness bleeds through. “The Empire may have left us behind, but you remain, and in your name we seek to improve our margins. I’ve been trying to think of new ways to use the Wookiees…”

Sardo goes on and on, explaining how the Empire has stopped bringing Wookiees offworld—it used to be that they would ship them away from the planet by the thousands for work (after all, it was Wookiees who helped build much of the Imperial war machine). “But since that has ended, the breeding programs have become problematic. We have a surplus of slave labor—but what to do with it? ” That is the conundrum Sardo puzzles over just now. “Could the Wookiees be farmed for their meat? Presently it’s stringy and tough, but maybe if they could be fattened up, or modified in some way—crossbred with another species, perhaps, like the Talz. ” (Tolruck does not hate this idea. The Talz are delicious. )

Just then, the holo of Sardo flinches.

Tolruck asks: “What is it? ”

“I…we’ve lost a turret is all. In the trees. ” Tolruck snorts. What’s in the trees above Sardo? He glances at the map on the wall. An old Wookiee city, isn’t it? Awrathakka. Hm. “Probably nothing. ”

Probably nothing, indeed.

Tolruck says, “Check on it anyway. Do not be lazy, Commandant. Control your environment. Do not disappoint me. ”

Sardo nods furiously. “I will. Of course. Thank you, sir. ”

Tolruck nods back and ends the holo. He sighs. He looks to Odair: “I suppose it is time we see what Sloane’s fool wishes of me. ”

In the ghost city of Awrathakka, a single ship eases in for a landing in the safety of a dead turret’s shadow.

It is an SS-54 gunship—or, rather, “light freighter. ”

Its designation: the Halo.

—

Lozen takes his time walking through the fortress. Fur-matted Wookiees and corroded droids work as he passes—many cutting thick planks of wroshyr wood to fortify the stronghold. That wood is damn near supernatural in terms of the protections it affords. It refuses to burn. It can take hits from a turbolaser and suffer only a little charring and splintering. Of course, that means cutting the stuff takes proton-teeth saw-blades. And even those break in contest with the wood—many a Wookiee has had his head split in half like a tongo nut by one snapping in mid-spin.

The Wookiees do not look at him as he passes. They have been trained not to turn their animal gaze toward him. And the inhibitor chips bolted to the backs of their skulls ensure that any violation results in varying levels of misery (escalating of course until paralysis and then death).

His feet splash in puddles as he walks from level to level, down one set of steps to another. Around a wooden walkway, across a planking of sheet metal, through a longhouse of painted forest troopers readying their blaster rifles for target practice.

Out here, the air smells of ash and char and burning hair. Clouds turn and twirl overhead—gray and dead as a diseased lung.

There, ahead, waiting at the bottom of the rusted metal steps:

The visitor. Classic stiff-backed Imperial posture. Chin up, nose down, hands behind the back. The uniform shows a naval banding. Just a lieutenant. A man of little significance.

That man offers a wan smile that lifts a mustache far too sculpted for this brutish world. Lozen’s own beard is unkempt, unruly—a wild thatch-scrub growing from his cheeks and jowls. Even Odair’s face is a patchy rug of dark stubble. Mad men for a mad place.

The Imperial salutes, then offers a hand.

“Lieutenant Jorrin Turnbull, ” the man says.

Lozen does not take the man’s hand or offer much acknowledgment at all. He does little more than twist his face into a dissatisfied scowl. “Sloane sent you, I’m told. ”

“That is correct, sir. ”

“Why? ”

“She understands you’re having some, ah, problems. ”

“And the Empire wants to help. ”

“We are all the Empire, sir. ”

“Are we? ” Lozen growls, then steps up to the man. Odair closes in, too—he is strung tight like a bow cable, ready for anything. The warlord gets into the lieutenant’s face and bares his teeth. The man is small and Lozen is large—he’s let himself gain size over the last many years, filling himself with bulk. Fat and muscle wreathing his bones. His beard is long, yes, but his hair is pulled back in a knotty snarl. He is everything this tall, thin man is not. “You have abandoned us. Gone is our resupply. Our slave stock is building up and nobody is taking them off our hands—we’ll have to cut breeding lines before too long. We’ve seen no changing of the guard, no passing the baton for our ships or our craft or our officers. It is as if we are forgotten. But we remember. And we survive. ”

The man looks nervous now. As he should. He may die before this day is done. “Grand Admiral Sloane surely begs your forgiveness in this regard—as you may know, the Empire has fractured since the Emperor’s death—”

“The Emperor is alive, ” Lozen seethes. It is a lie. He knows it to be one. And yet it’s one he props up. The story he tells his men and women here is simple, because simple is effective: The Empire has been robbed from its Emperor, and one day he will reclaim it. Until then, they are on their own. It gives his soldiers a future. It gives them an end. It whispers of victory.

“Yes. Of course. ” The Imperial visibly swallows. He knows now that the rope coils around his neck and tightens ineluctably. “Just the same, Sloane is extending a hand. You are menaced by terrorists? ”

Lozen’s eyes narrow into fat-pinched slits. “Yes. ”

“We know who they are. Ah, we think. They came to this world with a stolen code from an Imperial prison-maker. ”

“Golas Aram. ”

“That is correct. ”

“Never trust a Siniteen. A brain that large contains a multitude of treacheries. ”

“That holds true here. The terrorists arrived with those codes and under the false blessing of Admiral Sloane. ”

Lozen leans in. “Who are they? ”

“Imperial hunters sent by the New Republic. Led by a known scum-raker: the criminal Han Solo. Now a general in their ranks. ”

Lozen nods. That makes sense. “Interesting. The one we have hasn’t talked. Would not let a single word slip past his vile rebel lips no matter how much we hurt him. ”

“Do you still have him? Is he alive, the prisoner? ”

The governor snorts. “He is. ” He holds up a finger and loops it in a lasso gesture. “Bring me the captive, Odair. ”

His attaché goes away and returns shortly with a short cage on grav-pads. Odair nudges it along with his knee—the cage is too short for a human. It’s an iron kennel meant for one of Lozen’s strega—a blunt-beaked harrier bird. Big as a dog and a powerful hunter. Trainable, too. With the right…motivation. But this cage contains no such bird.

Rather, it contains a man.

This man belongs here. His eyes are wild like the forests of this place. He is rangy and savage—an undomesticated cur.

The Imperial stoops to look. His face tightens as he sees. “This one, he’s missing an eye. ”

“We loosened that eye thinking it would loosen his tongue. ” Lozen growls mucus up out of his throat and into his mouth and chews on it. “It did not. ” He spits the phlegm against the ground: spat.

“Well. Your methods are your own. I could use a tour of your…”

Just then, someone hands something to Odair. A holoscreen. Odair’s gaze flits to the Imperial, then to the screen, then to Lozen.

“Governor, you should see this. ”

Odair sidles over and hands him the holoscreen.

On the screen: a series of WANTED posters. This, he realizes, is the team of Imperial hunters that is plaguing him and his domain. He sees the man that is kept in the cage: a commando, looks like. Jom Barell is his name.

Thing is, he recognizes another face on there, too.

Sinjir Rath Velus.

It is the face of the Imperial in front of him. Oh, sure, the man has endeavored to change a little about himself: hair a bit longer, and not to mention that overgroomed caterpillar crawling on his upper lip.

But that, without a doubt, is not Jorrin Turnbull. (If such a man even exists. ) He is an intruder. He is prey.

Lozen feels his blood go hot. What a wondrous reversal: This man thought he could hunt the governor, but now this fool has gotten himself caught in a bind. And he senses it, too. Some prey is too dumb to know, but the best prey—the kind you want to hunt for the challenge it presents—can sense when the wind has changed, when a predator stalks the wild.

The man tenses—his gaze flits because he’s looking for a weapon or an exit or any advantage he can manage.

But he’s too slow.

Lozen has a knife in his hand: a kishakk blade. A Wookiee weapon; the name translates roughly to “bramble thorn. ” The beasts use them for eating—they pry open the shells of various crustaceans and bugs. But Lozen has found the blades to be elegantly balanced. So balanced, in fact…

He throws it. The traitor turns to flee—

The blade lands true. It sticks in the back of the man’s calf, crippling his leg. His prey—Sinjir whatever-his-name-is—falls forward, catching himself with open palms. His foe howls like a wounded dyr.

“Bring him to me, ” Lozen barks to Odair.

His attaché complies.

—

Burned bone chimes tink and tonk in the unstill air. As Jas sets up her rifle, snapping the scope on, one of the crew behind her—Greybok, the one-armed Wookiee—bumps something and it rolls past her.

A toy. A child’s toy. It’s a wooden saurian with wheels instead of legs, and as it rolls, its jaw squeaks open and closed.

She wonders how long it’s been since a Wookiee youngling has played with it. That youngling might now be older. Or dead.

A shadow falls over her. Chewbacca stands, staring out into the mist. He looks up, too. Like he’s equal parts sad and afraid.

He chuffs and barks.

Solo hunkers down next to her. “We’ll keep our eyes peeled. ”

“What’d he say? ” she asks him.

“You don’t wanna know. ”

She screws the thermal imaging module onto the side of the scope. “I’m a big girl. I can handle it. ”

“He said to watch out for spiders. ”

“Spiders don’t frighten me. ” She thinks: They sure frighten Sinjir, though. Even a teeny-tiny house spider running across the floor will have him freeze in place, saying a prayer to a hundred gods he doesn’t believe in. It occurs to her suddenly: She misses Sinjir.

Solo leans in. “Spiders don’t frighten you because most spiders are no bigger than your hand. These spiders, webweavers? Big as you and me. ”

“That’s horrifying. ”

“What’s more horrifying is what they do to you. ”

She blinks. “You’re right. I don’t want to know. ”

“The Wookiees eat ’em. Chewie says they’re, well, chewy. ”

Chewie yips in agreement.

Just the same, she looks over her shoulder, half expecting to see some massive scuttling thing coming up fast. But all she sees back there is the Halo and the team they brought on board: a ragtag crew of battle-hardened Wookiee refugees, plus a smattering of smugglers. That includes two of Greybok’s friends: Hatchet and Palabar. It’s Palabar who helped them conceive of this plan. The Quarren is utter poodoo in a fight—even the whisper of threat leaves him cowering and praying. But he’s tech-savvy and smart when he can see past his own fear.

The crew is doing what they’re supposed to—anchoring massive eyebolts into the wood with pneumo-hammers. The wood resists, but the Wookiees know the weak spots. Once the eyebolts are in, they start threading through the jump-cables. Everything is going according to plan.

Her mind drifts back to Sinjir…and Jom, and she feels suddenly less relaxed. But there’s no time for that distraction. Everyone has to do their part.

Her, included.

Jas leans in and tucks the scope against her eye.

It’s comfortable. Sitting behind a gun is always comfortable for her. That probably says something unhealthy about her, but she doesn’t care.

Solo flips the thermal imaging switch. “Thanks, ” she says, as the dead mist below suddenly flares with colors and contours.

There: Camp Sardo. Far below. The shape of a lumbering thing roams into view—an AT-AT walker slowly stomping along the perimeter. From up here, she can’t even feel the vibrations of its feet, that’s how high they are.

She sees the great blob of life down there: Wookiees and forest troopers and the officers who belong to Lozen Tolruck’s demonic regime.

“You see it? ” Solo asks.

“Not yet. ”

“Here, gimme the rifle. ”

“I have it, ” she whispers. “Patience, Solo. ”

He yanks back his hand as if bitten. “Hey, all right, all right. But put a little thrust in it, willya? ” He looks up at Chewie. “How we doing, Chewie? ”

Chewbacca rumbles a reply.

“Inhibitor frequency is still up, ” Solo says. “But it could be down any minute. C’mon, Emari. Find the damn—”

“I found it, ” she says.

The shield generator gives off its own heat signature. And it’s one of the taller structures in Camp Sardo—a dodecahedral tower on four steel posts. It controls the field that surrounds the camp: a field that Imperials can pass through without harm, but any chip that passes through it will detonate. Meaning, if a Wookiee waltzes through the field—boom. Unfortunately, it’s an entirely separate mechanism from the inhibitor frequency.

Which means it has to go separately.

But it can’t go too early—they blow that field too early, and they’ll set off alarms. That could compromise their plan.

“I hope your pair can handle this, ” Solo growls.

“Sinjir has it handled. ”

“The commando, your boy toy there, he wasn’t supposed to get captured. ”

She hesitates. I hope he’s all right. “He also saved our hides and let us get away from that ambush. A fact I hope you appreciate. ”

“Yeah, yeah. ” He shifts impatiently. “And that explosive slug of yours will take that whole thing down? You sure about that? ”

“It will, ” she growls through clamped teeth.

“Longer we sit up here, the bigger the target on our backs. ”

She gives him a look. “You need to trust us. ”

“Yeah, yeah, relax. I trust Sinjir. I’m just on edge. And I…trust you enough to take the shot when the frequency goes dead. ”

“Me? ” She smirks. “I thought you were Mister Crackshot around here. The scoundrel with the luck of the Force on his side. ”

“Here, how about this? We tell the world that I’m a better shot with a blaster, and you’re a better shot with a rifle. We’ll call it a draw. ”

She nods, says “That’s fair. ”

She likes Solo, after all this. Even with his boyish impatience. He gives off a vibe that floats somewhere between a sharp-tongued cad and a dim-witted oaf, but at the end of the day, there’s something genuinely good about him. She likes to hope he sees the same in her.

“All right, ” he says. “Stay frosty, just in case we—”

The mist around them lights up with a single laser spearing the air.

“—get company, ” he finishes, and then pivots on his heel with one blaster already up and in his hand. He yells to Jas: “Stay here with Chewie. Get ready for the shot! We’ll hold ’em off! ”

Coming up out of the mist behind them—and above, and below them—forest troopers in camouflaged armor. Everything lights up with the exchange of blasterfire, and Jas hunkers down, jaw tight, trying not to die.

—

Jom Barell is in his cage. His one eye, gone. And the men responsible are out there right now, about ready to kill Sinjir Rath Velus.

He didn’t recognize his crewmate at first. Having one eye didn’t help, but Sinjir disappeared into the role of some needy bureaucrat. Tolruck bought it, too. That ex-Imperial is good at his job.

Jom Barell appreciates those who are good at their jobs.

Right now, though, Sinjir is also about to be good at getting his hind end handed to him by Lozen Tolruck’s brute, Odair. Jom bangs against the cage, growling like an animal, his voice like two stones grinding together. “Get up! Get up, Rath Velus, you bloody sack of meat! ”

Odair advances—

Sinjir moves fast, rolling over and pinwheeling a kick with his good leg. Odair doesn’t see it coming; the kick knocks him down to the ground.

Others gather around—men of Tolruck’s with mud on their cheeks and callused hands, women with leering stares hungry for violence. Fights erupt here in the fortress from time to time. Sometimes they even make Jom fight—usually with one hand tied behind his back because even half blind he still put his attackers in the dirt. All around, Tolruck’s people hoot and call with the atavistic urgings of a primitive species.

The two men scrap. Odair crashes an elbow against Sinjir’s collarbone. But Sinjir bends back and fetches the blade from his own leg—it squishes and squirts a line of blood as he claims the knife as his own. It’s an opportunity, though, and Odair takes it, dropping a fist into his foe’s gut—again and again it falls like the head of a hammer, wham, wham.

It goes on like this for a while. The two men pummeling each other. The knife passing between them, the blade never drawing any more blood. Tolruck watches with eagerness, picking his teeth with a chipped thumbnail. Jom watches Tolruck. He thinks, Soon as I’m out of here, you’re a dead man, Tolruck. He’s dreamed of taking the man’s eye as vengeance for his own. When he was captured, the crew had been running the same two-prong approach that they started that day with the command station on the other side of Kashyyyk: Jom and his ground team did their commando recon business, in this case trying to secure a shuttle platform in order to grab an Imperial ride that would get them safely out to Tolruck’s island. But they were ambushed—turns out, they’d pulled the same trick too many times and gotten cozy with it. So did the local Imperials. Jom’s team of Wookiees got away, but he wasn’t so lucky. They captured him and brought him here.

And that’s where they cut out his eye.

Suddenly, Tolruck applauds—Jom looks and sees Odair finally get behind Sinjir. The brute pulls his arm tight around Rath Velus’s throat. Eyes bulge. Tongue wags. C’mon, Sinjir. Give ’em hell. Fight. Fight!

The knife drops from the Sinjir’s hand and clatters to the ground.

And with that, it’s done.

The crowd cheers. Jom slumps against the cage. His one chance at freedom, over. They shouldn’t have sent Sinjir.

Odair spits out a pair of teeth, then drags the ex-Imperial over by his heel. Panting, he says: “Here he is, Governor. ”

Sinjir rolls over. Jom winces; the man’s a bloody, bruise-dark mess. The side of his face is swelling up like a balloon. His nose might be broken, and blood spackles that twisted mustache.

Sinjir licks his lips. “I’ll be fine in a second. Then we can go for—” He grimaces and grunts. “Round two. ”

Tolruck lords over him, scratching his belly. “Why would you come here? Into the heart of it. Into my lair. Do you think me prey? ”

“Not at all. Just looking to borrow a cup of sugar, love. ”

“You came for your friend, then. The one-eyed man. ”

“No, not that, either. Actually, I came for your—” Here he coughs so hard it sounds like he might shatter a rib doing it. “Your control module. ”

A lantern of hope alights inside Jom’s chest.

At that, Tolruck barks laughter. The control module is how they program and control the chips in each of the Wookiees. It controls literally hundreds of thousands of chips. Jom’s seen it. It’s old tech, practically Clone Wars era. Tolruck probably barely understands how it works.

“You idiot. I would never have let you get near that, no matter who you claimed to be. The control module remains in my control only. ”

“And yet—” More coughing. “It doesn’t. ”

He frowns. “You are a sad, delusional little man. ”

“Probably. But not about this, I’m afraid. ” Sinjir sits up. One eye now is sealed shut behind a tomb of swollen flesh. “See, you checked me for weapons at the door, but you did not check my boots. I’ve got a hyperwave transceiver spike hidden in my heel—and, so sorry, your precious console is of the transmitting variety. Totally wireless. An old security flaw, but one that remains mostly uncorrected across the Empire. I should know. ”

“You…you didn’t…you couldn’t have…”

“I didn’t need to be at the console to hack it. I just needed to be near it. Oh, of course, I also needed enough time for the remote hack to work. Which, I think you’ve given me enough just…about…now. ”

The datapad in Tolruck’s left hand begins to flash red.

The alarm.

Now it’s Jom’s turn to bellow with laughter. He bangs his heels against the cage, cackling madly.

To Odair, Tolruck screams, “Kill the intruder. Kill him! ”

—

A laser lances through the air and Jas hears it hit flesh—bazzt! —and next to her, one of the Wookiees, Harrgun, topples off the platform. His body tumbles down into the mist, massive tree-trunk arms pinwheeling.

Every centimeter of Jas wants to get up and take the fight to the troopers. They’re surrounded now on damn near every side—they’ve got troopers behind them. And a LAIT—a low-altitude Imperial transport—keeps making flybys, the troopers within firing on them as they pass. On the latest pass, Chewie takes aim with a bowcaster and the air sizzles as he clips one of the forest troopers right in the visor. The visor shatters and the body rolls out of the transport, falling through the air and joining Harrgun in death.