BY CHUCK WENDIG 25 страница

Survive. Fight. Get Rax.

She ponders opening a comm channel. In her head she conjures a message to Rax—a bitter threat that tells him she’s coming for him, even though truly, she’s dying here in the void. He will always be forced to look over his shoulder in case she might be sneaking up behind him with a whetted blade. It would be a wonderful curse to pass along. A small castigation sent preemptively from beyond the grave.

Her finger hovers over the button.

Sloane’s mind is muddy. She thinks instead to go find medical help—certainly, she deserves survival. But where would she go? She fears the Empire has now fallen fully into the betrayer’s hands. And anywhere else might earn her a one-way ticket back to Chandrila, because by now she suspects the word is out for her capture. She imagines her face up on a bunch of holoposters like a common criminal. What a crass indignity.

No. She has to wait. She sent out her message. She made her play. She can’t get to the junk moon on her own, but someone else can…

Wait. The realization slowly comes to her that she is not alone on this ship. That is a mad, impossible thought. It is clearly her body dying—the toxins are running laps through her now. She’s hallucinating. And yet, she feels someone’s gaze boring into the back of her head.

Paranoid, she turns around.

A man is standing there. Pale. Mussed-up hair.

He has a blaster. A small, graphene blaster.

“Get off my ship, ” she murmurs, her words a smeary mess.

“You did this to me, ” the man says.

“Put you on a cargo ship in the middle of nowhere? ” She barks a mirthless laugh. “Hardly. How did you get here? ”

“I saw your uniform. I followed you. To get answers. ”

“Why announce yourself now? ”

“Because I wanted to see what you were doing. ”

Her chin dips. “You won’t find any answers from me. ”

“You turned me into a monster! ”

Sloane blinks. He looks familiar. “You are one of them. ” She doesn’t have to explain to him what that means—one of the captives-turned-murderers. A traitor made by the Empire. Not her Empire, though.

“Yes. ” The man trembles. “And you’re going to pay for it. ”

“I’d rather not. Since it’s not me that did this to you. The blame falls squarely on someone else’s shoulders. ” Her words slur together. “I don’t even know what happened there. I was set up, same as you. ”

“Not the same as me! ” the man screams, and fires the blaster.

She doesn’t flinch; her mind is slow, her body hurting, and the shot comes and goes before she even realizes what happened. The bolt scores the steel above her head. She blinks. “You missed. ”

“If you didn’t do this, who did? ”

“A man named Gallius Rax. At least, that’s the name he gives. You want whoever did this to you, go have at him. ” Her eyelids flutter as her chin dips. “Leave me in peace. ”

“You know him. You can help me. ”

“I look like I can help anybody? Can’t even…help myself. ”

“You’re hurt. ”

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t say. Idiot. ”

The man seems personally upset by that. Thin-skinned, this one. “You haven’t even touched the medkit under your seat. ”

“Medkit…what? Under the…” Her hand brutishly paws the space beneath her chair. Sure enough, she feels something. “Oh. ”

“Who’s the idiot, now? ” he chides.

“Pfft. Still can’t save me. Got shot. ”

The stranger grumbles, then tucks the blaster in his waist before hunkering down and pulling out the kit. He pops it open with both thumbs and draws out something that looks like a wide-mouthed scatterblaster. Still grousing, he pulls out a wad of what looks like gray hull putty, shoving it unceremoniously into the mouth of the weapon.

“Hold still, ” he says. “This may hurt. ”

“What are you—”

He grabs her hard, crams the device right into her wound. The gun shudders—and then the pain hits like a comet. Hot and terrible, it burns her up from the inside and she can’t breathe. All she can manage is a howling gasp as she doubles over, trying hard not to weep.

Unconsciousness takes her with its teeth.

Eventually, it lets her go again, and when she awakens, she’s on the floor of the ship, on her side. A puddle of drool pools underneath her.

“Wha…”

“Bacta patch gun, ” the man says, sitting in the copilot’s chair. “Healing web-epoxy. The Rebellion used it from time to time. We got covert training on how to stay alive to fight longer. The stuff is inside, mending what can be mended. Eventually you’ll have to get to a real doctor. It isn’t a perfect fix. ”

She feels like someone punched all her insides.

But she also feels clearer. And when she takes a breath…

It doesn’t feel like needles stuck in her lung meat.

Well. That’s something.

“Thank you. I suppose. ”

He points the blaster at her.

“Now take me to this…Rax. ”

“If only it were that easy. I can’t just push one of these buttons and make him appear. He’s not a hologram. ” Though really, he might as well be. “Getting to him will be a long con. ”

“Let’s get started. ”

She shrugs. “It’s not that easy. I’m waiting for information. ”

“I know. I heard you make the call. Who is Mercurial Swift? ”

“Bounty hunter I work with sometimes. Tell me, though. What’s your name? ”

“It’s…” The rebel hesitates. “Brentin. ”

“I’m Sloane. ”

They wait like that for a while. Talking here and there. Mostly just sitting in silence. Comes a point when she starts to fade out, and then when she startles awake, Brentin is right next to her. Damn near face-to-face.

She’s about to grab for him, but he says:

“Incoming comm. ”

It’s him. Mercurial. He appears above the dash, a blue ghost rising from nowhere. A cocky tilt to his stance.

“Sloane. ”

“Tell me, ” she hisses.

“You’re pushy. ”

“I’m paying to be pushy. ”

“You know Imperial credits are damn near worthless, right? Might as well be plastochits traded during a game of pazaak. ”

Through her teeth she says, “Then I’ll pay you back in favors. Ten favors. A hundred. A whole Star Destroyer packed to the walls with favors. ” And here she almost loses it, almost starts coughing, but she bites it back and holds her tongue. This stranger on board her ship has already seen her be weak. Mercurial will not be afforded the same luxury. “Now, did you get to Quantxi? Did you find the ship? ”

The hologram hesitates. “I did. ”

“And? ”

“Amedda was right. He had droids. I had a slicer take a look. ”

“Did you find anything on Rax? Anything at all? ”

Mercurial nods. “I did. ”

“Tell me! ”

“Infinite favors, you say? ” He doesn’t give her a chance to confirm. “Your friend is from a world in the Western Reaches. Right at the edge of Unknown Space. Jakku. I’ll uplink the coordinates. ”

The drive console dings. A map shows on the screen charting the hyperspace path through to Jakku. It’s all she needs, so she finishes up with, “Good. I owe you. ” Then she ends the transmission.

She sets a course for Jakku.

—

The Ravager launches through hyperspace.

Those gathered around the table with Gallius Rax at its head know where the Super Star Destroyer is headed, and as yet, none of them are quite sure why. They give each other furtive looks: Obdur looks to Hux, Hux looks to Borrum. Only Randd keeps his eyes forward; a sign of civility, loyalty, and fear.

Rax appreciates that.

“By now you know that our precious Grand Admiral is lost to us, ” Rax says. He shakes his head and clucks his tongue. “We will of course make every effort to get her back from the clutches of the New Republic, should we discover that she is alive. Thankfully, she is well-trained in resisting interrogation. We have no expectation that she will give up the location of the fleet. She will be true to us. ”

It’s Hux that speaks. He’s agitated when he says: “She knew? She knew what would happen? Are you saying Grand Admiral Sloane was in on it all? ”

“Of course. I only advised her on this plan, but the plan was hers all along. Hers is an incisive mind. And the loss of that mind leaves us in the lurch, doesn’t it? ”

Together, the men nod.

“As such, it is vital we preserve her vision of the Empire. And we need to preserve her leadership and the vision that directed her leadership. ” Rax pauses, letting his words hang in the air.

“Are you claiming the mantle of Emperor? ” Borrum asks.

Rax hms. “I think not. I am not worthy. ”

“Grand Admiral, then. ”

“No. I am far too humble for such mighty titles. As I am the adviser to this group and to the Empire at large, I shall take for myself the title of Counselor to the Empire, serving as an interstitial leader only until Grand Admiral Sloane returns to us. ”

“This is unprecedented, ” Borrum blusters. Of course the old man would be the one to protest. Age brings stubbornness. Age diminishes vision. “Counselor is not a title in our record and it leaves us effectively leaderless—”

“Our record must evolve, much as the Empire must evolve, ” Rax says sharply—too sharply, he fears. He must maintain the illusion. He must lead his men to the conclusion he seeks, not the conclusion they want or expect. “Again, I expect this to be a temporary title. ”

Borrum again: “As temporary as the Emperor’s title when he ceased to be Chancellor of a lost Republic? ”

At that, Rax smirks. “Perhaps. ”

“And why Jakku? ” The general is pressing his luck. “Jakku is a wasteland. It has no strategic value to us. No resources, no populace to enslave, it has—”

“It will be our proving ground, ” Rax says. “We will test ourselves on Jakku. And we will do so far from the eyes of the galaxy, far from the eyes of Mon Mothma and her sycophants. And when the time is right, when we have whetted ourselves to a vicious point, we will strike once again. The Senate is injured. The Republic is wounded. We will go in for the kill, but it is too soon and we are too weak. ”

In their eyes, the firelight of uncertainty and fear. That is fine. He needs them only so long. All of them but Hux. Hux will be necessary.

The aftermath of Liberation Day is like a slow concussive wave. It ripples through the New Republic in the weeks after the assassinations.

It has only been a few days, but this is what they know:

Grand Admiral Sloane is gone. She fell off the skybridge, but then landed on another—all that they found of her was a streak of blood and, later, her jacket all the way down on the shoreline, caught in some fisher-droid’s net.

The theory on Sloane is that she escaped in a small cargo ship—a Chandrilan HHG-42 Bulkstar docked close to where she fell. It took off not long after Norra and the Imperial finished their fight. The final clue is that the ship never made it to any of the Chandrilan colonies. It escaped through the blockade above the planet, seizing the chaos and its cleared colony codes as a likely opportunity.

Brentin is gone, too. Where, none can say. They have not found him. Not alive. Not dead. He is a ghost, once more banished to the void.

Many are dead.

Those liberated from Ashmead’s Lock had weapons—small concealable graphene blasters that remained shielded from detection. Those pistols held only a handful of shots, but each was lethal. It seems that the dissemination of the pistols comes down to the efforts of a single guardsman: a man with blond hair and a little scar, a Chandrilan man named Windom Traducier.

With those weapons, the turned captives fired into the crowd. Citizens were injured and murdered.

They killed members of the New Republic government, too. Madine is rumored to be dead. So is Hostis Ij. As are senators, diplomats, and military higher-ups. Agate is alive, but her face requires reconstructive surgery. The chancellor is alive, too—her injury is serious, but she’s awake and aware. The doctors expect her to make a full recovery, though every day she’s injured is another day the New Republic looks weak and its future uncertain.

Norra was told she will receive another medal for saving Mon Mothma’s life. They said that her action against her own husband helped divert the blast meant for the chancellor. Norra ensured the blast only struck the New Republic leader in the shoulder, not in the chest or the head.

Norra does not want the medal.

No, she wants something else.

—

Temmin crashes the X-wing. It skims along the Silver Sea, going low to avoid sensor arrays—but he goes too low, and he’s not paying attention to his proximity alarms. The tip of one of the S-foil wings dips into the sea, hissing and sending up a wave of spray—that spray cools the engines just as he’s coming in way too fast. The starfighter’s nose dips and twists, and next thing Temmin knows the ship is tumbling end-over-end, pieces breaking off, the cockpit cracking above him as the ship rolls into the water and sinks.

Everything goes dark.

Wedge drags him out of the simulator.

“Another ship down, ” Wedge says. The disappointment in his voice is as plain as it is on his face.

“Not like it’s a real ship, since you’ll only let me in the simulator, ” Temmin says, popping his knuckles nervously. He stomps off and sits down on the bench against the wall. The other line of simulators sits unused.

“I told you, Snap, we can’t put you in a fighter right now. ”

“Because of who I am. ”

“It’s not just that. Things are locked down right now, kid. The bureaucratic belt just got a little tighter, is all. If you score well on the simulator—and maybe don’t crash your fighters every time—we can get you back in a ship before the next moon alignment. ”

“Great. My father tries to kill the chancellor and suddenly nobody trusts me. ” Temmin pauses. “Actually, when I say it out loud like that, it kinda makes sense? ” He sighs. “Whatever. ”

“Things okay with your mother? ”

The way Wedge is asking—the way he asks every day, in fact—makes Temmin think there’s something going on he doesn’t understand. It’s now, right now, that he considers the possibility: Does Wedge Antilles have a thing for his mom? What the hell? That can’t be right. He makes a face like he just licked a leaky battery. That’s gross. So gross.

And yet…

At least Wedge isn’t an Imperial assassin. So that’s something.

Dad…

A familiar rage roars inside of Temmin like a firing engine. It won’t stop. It won’t leave him alone. He closes his eyes at night and there it is: anger at his father, a bottomless well. Brentin Wexley: supposed rebel hero turned, what, Imperial sympathizer? Drone and soldier for the evil Empire? They’ve been questioning the former prisoners—the ones turned into assassins—and it’s like they’re lost, confused, or stonewalling. Almost like they don’t realize what they did. Temmin tries to hang on to that, clinging to the thought that maybe Brentin didn’t know what he was doing…

Temmin’s knuckles are already scabbed over from where he punched a locker a week ago. He wants to do it again and he almost hauls back and slams his fist into the wall. But with Wedge here, he has to restrain himself. So he does. Instead, he thinks about something else, something better. “I, uh, never said it, but good job with Kashyyyk. ”

“That wasn’t me. That was Leia. ”

“I dunno. I heard you coming in there with Phantom Squadron was pretty slaggin’ amazing. Wish I could’ve seen it. ” Instead of being here and seeing my father up on that stage pointing a blaster at Mon Mothma.

Wedge putting together Phantom Squadron like that—out of a bunch of washouts and weirdos—was a thing of genius. That’s why Temmin wants to join.

“I did what Leia needed me to do. She led the way. ” And from what Temmin hears, it cost her political capital, too. Whatever political capital means. Wedge adds: “And hey, watch your mouth, will you? I don’t want your mom thinking you’re picking up that kind of language from me. ”

“Sure, Dad, whatever you say. ” He sighs. “I’ll get the next flight right. Put me back in the sim. Right now. Let’s do this. ” He’s itching to do something. Get his mind off everything.

“You sure? ”

Temmin is about to answer hell yes, but next to him on the bench, Wedge’s holoscreen lights up. Temmin can see what it says:

It’s a message from Norra.

His mother wants him to come home. ASAP. He arches an eyebrow to Wedge: “Do I have to? ”

“Sorry, Snap. You’d better. Like I said, I don’t want your mother mad at me. You can try the sim tomorrow. And hey, miracle of miracles, maybe you won’t crash the fighter next time? ”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you, Wedge. ”

Better get home, see what Mom wants.

—

The door to the interrogation room hisses open.

“Guardsman Windom Traducier. ”

The man looks up when his name is spoken. The shock of blond atop his head is mashed flat. He sneers in the half dark. “You. ”

Sinjir nods, then sits. “Me. ”

“The ex-Imperial loyalty officer has come to interrogate me, ” the traitorous guardsman says, lip still curled in a cold smirk. The man tries to lean back, but the cuffs bound to an eye-ring in the center of the table prevent him from moving too far. “Good luck. ”

Sinjir’s nostrils flare with a long sigh.

A coldness has settled into his bones, his skin, his mind. When he and Jas learned the news of what had happened here in their absence, her response—as was the response of so many—was anger. Rage burning hot like a puddle of hyper-fuel spilled on the ground and set aflame. Sinjir’s anger was not hot. It was cold. An icicle stuck into the meat of his heart. Perhaps what he felt could not even be best described as anger—rather, what he felt was disappointment. Disappointment that the galaxy confirmed for him its worst self. His deepest suspicions about how all things are broken and unfixable were suddenly given evidence.

But it clarified things for him, too.

Things about the galaxy. About the New Republic. And about where he really belongs and who he really is.

“I have not come to interrogate you, ” Sinjir says.

“Oh, really? The New Republic didn’t send you? ”

“They did not. I do not work for them. I paid the guard to let me in here. Interrogating you would do no one any good at this point. You’ve already given up what information you have. As I understand it, the New Republic security bureau did find your secret, second apartment, and that tells quite a story. They know that you distributed the weapons of assassination. They know that you planted a transponder on top of the Hanna City opera house, and that the transponder rebroadcast a scrambled Imperial signal to little inorganic bio-chips—undetectable slivers embedded in the brain stem of each of the Ashmead’s Lock prisoners. They know that it was you who killed Jylia Shale and Arsin Crassus, and also that you helped Yupe Tashu escape. ” Sinjir leans forward and lowers his voice. “I’d ask you why, but I don’t care. I don’t care about any of this. ”

“Then why come at all? Why have me brought to this room? Don’t you want to hear my reasons? Don’t you want to hear how I believe the New Republic is a hobbling, crippled thing at the outset? How the Republic will allow chaos to take hold in the vacuum of control, how—”

“Shh, ” Sinjir says, thrusting a finger against his own lips. “You stupid little man. Let me tell you my reasons for being here. I no longer care about the state of the galaxy. I no longer give three damns about the Empire or the New Republic or whatever else comes rolling along when those both fade away. What I care about are the people I have in my life. I care about my friends. ” He shrugs and stands up. He moves to the corner of the room, where a cam remains fixed to the wall. As he speaks, he covers the cam with a small silken handkerchief. “I’ve never had friends before. I had no idea how that felt. It’s rather…overwhelming. To feel for people like that? To care about them? It’s almost disgusting, frankly. It’s like I can’t control it. But I don’t want to control it. Not anymore. I’m all in. ”

“This is boring me. Would you get to the point? ”

Sinjir sits back down. “Perhaps you’re too insipid to understand what I’m getting at, so, let me lay it out for you, traitor. ” He enunciates the following words comically, as if he’s speaking to a daft child whose brain is parasite-riddled: “You made my friends sad. And that makes me mad. ”

From behind, he pulls a vibroknife. Sinjir flicks it on. It hums.

The blade is small. But it is long enough.

The guardsman starts to protest—

Sinjir cuts that protest short as he plunges the thrumming blade deep into the man’s sternum. Any words the guardsman planned on uttering are lost underneath a gassy, throat-clogged hiss.

When Sinjir retracts the blade, the guardsman slumps forward, dead.

With that done, he leaves the room.

—

Jas checks the board at the New Republic Security Bureau—everything here is in disarray, as it has been for weeks. The investigation into the assassination has taken priority, and that means the whole building is like a kicked-over redjacket hive. Doesn’t help that the NRSB is completely nascent—hadn’t been operating for a full month when the Liberation Day atrocity hit. They were unprepared. They remain unprepared.

The board is empty.

No jobs.

The officer behind the blast-glass tells her, “Focus has shifted. We’re not looking for bounty hunters right now. Sorry, hon. ”

Jas gets it. She knew the day would come. Bounty hunters are thought to be scum. The Republic has a major public relations muck-up on its hands right now—already a number of systems on the verge of sending a senator to claim a Senate seat have withdrawn since Liberation Day. There’s talk of moving the Senate from Chandrila to another, better-protected system. And already there’s talk of an Independent Systems Alliance forming in the margins. Not Empire, but not Republic, either. Hiring bounty hunters will just make the New Republic look weak—even though Jas damn well knows that hiring bounty hunters is a very good way to get things done.

They don’t need her? Fine. Someone will.

Time to head offworld, then. But where? Buccaneer’s Den? Kanata’s castle? Ord Mantell might be her best bet. She has contacts there—contacts who won’t sell her out for the debts she owes. Of course, she’s also heard of several smaller pirate states out there in the Outer Rim, taking advantage of the Empire’s absence to establish a foothold. Hm.

She leaves the office and considers her options when her comm crackles. A familiar voice reaches her ears:

It’s Norra. And she wants to see Jas.

Well, can’t hurt.

—

“Norra Wexley has been trying to get ahold of you, ” Conder says as Sinjir enters their apartment.

“Mm. ”

“You all right? ”

It’s a loaded question. Conder knows that Sinjir is most certainly not all right. Whatever bliss the two of them possessed prior to Liberation Day has dissolved like a sand castle under siege by the sea. Stress has throttled them both. Conder’s been off working freelance for the NRSB, doing whatever investigatory slicer work they have around—the work is plenty thanks to a recommendation from Leia herself. It also means they have him as the slicer trying to hack the little controller chips they found in the brain stems of each of the Ashmead’s Lock assassins. That in an effort to figure out who made them and how they work. As such, Conder’s barely been around. And Sinjir has only been around. Sitting here with naught to do but pace. And ponder. And plot.

So, when Conder asks that question, Sinjir wonders if it’s wise to give the real answer. But he’s tired of pretending otherwise.

“I am both better now than I was and worse, ” he says. What he does not say is: I killed a man because he upset my friends. Which only confirms for him what he’s long-suspected and irresponsibly denied: Sinjir is not a good person. He is a bad man with a talent for bad things.

Conder comes over and takes Sinjir’s hand.

Conder’s hands are warm.

Sinjir’s are cold.

“It’ll be okay, ” Conder promises, but it is a promise he cannot know. He’s sweet and optimistic. Translated: naï ve as a wandering waif.

Sinjir decides in that moment. He leans forward and kisses Conder hard, and then tells him: “I am not the man for you, Conder Kyl. I am a moral weather vane spinning in this hurricane. You need a nicer breed of man than I. ” He thinks, I love you, but that doesn’t matter, yet those words never make it to his lips. All he does is leave.

—

It feels almost normal, them meeting like this inside the Moth. It’s Sinjir and Jas, Temmin and Mister Bones. They share hugs and small words, and though it’s only been a few weeks since they’ve seen one another, it feels like it’s been forever. So much has happened. So much has changed.

Norra cuts right to the heart of it:

“I regret dragging the rest of you away, too, and you’re under no obligation to say yes to this—”

“Yes, ” Sinjir says rather abruptly.

Norra arches an eyebrow. “You don’t even know what I’m asking. ”

“And I don’t care. The answer is still yes. ”

Temmin claps Sinjir on the shoulder, grinning.

Jas hesitates. “I told you, Norra. I can’t do this anymore. I have debts. It’s time I deal with them before they deal with me. ”

“I know. And you can say no. But please understand: I’m only asking for one last mission. ”

“What is the mission? ” Jas asks. “Who is our target? I assume that’s what this is? Another hunt-and-find? ”

Norra slides a small black disk across the table. She taps the side and a holoviz projects above it: the frozen image of Admiral Rae Sloane from the security cams on Liberation Day. The hologram rotates slowly.

All stare at it, wide-eyed.

“We’ve missed her twice now. That makes us responsible for what happened. ” Norra shuts her eyes and draws a deep breath. “No. It makes me responsible. But I don’t think I can do this alone. I will if I have to—”

“You don’t, so stop, ” Sinjir says.

Temmin adds: “If anybody knows where Dad is, it’s her. I’m in. ”

“I ENJOY EVISCERATION, ” Bones offers ever-so-helpfully. “I TOO AM ALONG ON THIS FOOLISH ADVENTURE. ”

Jas rolls her eyes. “I’m guessing there’s no money in this? A small ragtag crew of miscreants and deviants going after one of the highest-ranking Imperial figures cannot possibly be sanctioned by the New Republic, can it? ”

“No, ” Norra says. “But…”

“You have my support, ” Leia says, stepping on board the ship. “Sorry I’m late, Norra. ” She steps up, hands unconsciously holding her growing belly. “The New Republic wouldn’t touch this mission with a catch-pole. But I will. I have resources. I will use them to help you. Just the same, I cannot promise some grand payday, either. My actions at Kashyyyk have made me something of a political pariah. The New Republic is no longer offering bounties, and I don’t have the political capital to make it so. But this is necessary work and I will do what I can to help you do it. ”

“There it is, ” Norra says. “We aim for the biggest star in all the sky. We capture her if possible. ”

“And if that’s not possible? ” Temmin asks.

Norra doesn’t say. She doesn’t have to say.

“Fine, ” Jas says. “I’m in, too. All right, crew. One last mission. Let’s go catch ourselves an admiral. ”