BY CHUCK WENDIG 26 страница

No wonder Sloane had no idea what the planet Jakku was. It lies at the margins of the Western Reaches, flung so far into the galaxy she’s not really sure if they’re even in the galaxy anymore. The system is close to Unknown Space—the uncharted end of the galaxy, beyond which lurk terrible nebula storms and gravity wells. Those who have tried to traverse the space outside the galaxy have never returned, though distorted, half-missing communications have come back—messages warning of geomagnetic anomalies and slashing plasma winds.

They take the cargo ship down to the ground. The world that awaits is a desolate, dead place. Sand and stone and bleach-scour skies. They set down not far from a rust-pan outpost near a wide-open salt plain.

She and Brentin walk.

Sloane grimaces and feels at her side—her hand comes away damp with fresh red. Just a few dabs of it. I’ll be fine, she thinks. She hopes.

The sun scorches them. The air is dry as bone dust.

They head into the outpost, and she nods toward…well, it’s not a cantina. It’s too primitive to deserve that name. It’s mostly a bar cobbled together out of soldered scrap underneath some bent and pitted roof. An unshaven man with a grease streak across his forehead stands behind the bar, pouring something chunky into a glass for a skull-headed alien whose species is unknown to her. The man turns toward her. “I don’t know you. ”

“I don’t know you, either, ” she says.

“Na-tee wa-sha toh ja-lee ja-wah, ” the skull-head says.

The man behind the bar shakes his head. “Yeah, I know, I’m not really from around here, either. Job’s a job, Gazwin. ” To Sloane and Brentin he says: “I got Knockback Nectar if you want some. That’ll be ten credits apiece or one quarter-portion from the Orkoon Hub. ”

“I don’t want a drink. ”

“Then we don’t have anything to talk about, ” the bartender says.

“What’s your name? ”

“Don’t see how that’s any of your business. But it’s Ballast. Corwin Ballast. And you are? ”

Sloane hesitates. She summons a name like a ghost: “Adea. Adea Rite. ”

“Great to meet you, ” he says, clearly not meaning it. “Again, I sell drinks here, so if that’s not what you want…”

“This is a bar. Bars are usually excellent places to get information. ”

“Oh. You want information? Here’s some: The planet you are on is called Jakku. Nothing is here. Everyone on this world is a ghost. If you’re here, you might be a ghost, too. Anything more detailed than that, you’ll have to wait till Ergel’s on shift. I’m new-ish, so. Sorry. ”

“We’re looking for someone. ”

“They’re probably not here. ”

“Gallius Rax. Or Galli, or Rax or…”

“Yeah, lady, I don’t know—”

But then, his words drift off as his gaze turns to the space above her head. Up, up, up. Suddenly, a long shadow falls over them—like a sword-shaped cloud passing in front of the sun. “No, ” he whispers.

Brentin gasps.

Sloane turns and she, too, gasps.

Up above, a Super Star Destroyer has come out of hyperspace, tearing the sky open like a slicing blade. The Ravager, she thinks. All around it, other ships begin to jump in one by one. Star Destroyers, mostly, manifesting out of nothing. Dozens of them. More than she commanded. Which can only mean: These are the hidden fleets. The ones concealed across the nebulae.

She came to Jakku looking for Gallius Rax.

It looks like Rax has come home. And he has brought the whole Empire—her Empire, and her ship—with him.

The bartender’s face goes white as he says rather solemnly:

“War has come to Jakku. ”

Galli is cold and hungry. He has hidden on this ship for long, too long. It seems to be leaching the heat from him. And his stomach growls so loud he’s sure the whole galaxy can hear it. He tries to summon spit to his mouth in order to force it down and stop his stomach from rumbling. When that fails, he pinches the skin of his sallow, thin belly and pushes it in, in, in, until finally it goes quiet once more.

Time passes. The ship moves until it doesn’t. Up and around and then back down again. Galli is tough. He will not weep. Even though he is alone and he is frightened. He tucks himself between boxes, making himself small. Small like a skittermouse.

Soon, a sound. Footsteps. Fabric dragging. It’s him, he thinks: the man in the purple robe and the strange hat.

A voice from somewhere close.

“Boy. Show yourself. ”

That is not the voice of the man in the strange hat.

This voice has a crisp accent, but is guttural, drawn out—in it is a grim vibration that chills the boy’s blood.

The boy swallows hard, then stands up and steps out from between the boxes. The voice beckons him: “Come. ”

It is a summoning. And in that single word is more than just a request—it has gravity to it. Like it’s pulling him willfully closer.

The boy resists it. He plants his feet and presses his knees hard against the steel floor of the ship. Galli tightens his jaw.

The man makes a sound: a grunt of what may be amusement.

“I’ll not ask again. ”

Menace presents in that sentence like a sword dangling just overhead. But this time, no compulsion pulls him. It is a request. A threatening one, but it is a request nevertheless, and so the boy steps forward, skirting alongside the boxes to face a man in robes, yes, but these are not the purple robes of the other one. These robes are black as night. Darker than the ship all around. The boy shuffles from side to side so that his front always faces the robed figure.

The man turns toward him. From under the hood, the boy gets a glimpse of an older face, pale as a moon and just as craggy. Lines lay drawn in the skin, like clay etched by a bent knife-blade. A smile stretches there. “Your name, boy? ”

“Galli is what they call me. ” The boy licks his lips with his dry tongue. It makes a rasping sound. “Are you an anchorite? ”

“Of a sort. ”

“Are you the Eremite come back? ”

But that question, the man does not answer. Instead he says:

“You come from that world. Jakku. ”

“I do. ”

“This is my ship. The Imperialis. You are a stowaway. ”

“I…am. ”

“Brave little boy. Naughty and nasty, too. Good boys do not stow away on unfamiliar vessels. But I have little interest in goodness. ” The man leans in close. “Galli. I have a proposal for you. It is fortuitous that you should find me here. Would you like to hear my offer, boy? ”

Galli is suddenly not sure he does want to hear it. Stay strong, don’t show him your fear, he thinks. So he gives a hurried nod. “Yes. Sir. ”

“Your life is now in my hands. ” As if to demonstrate, he holds out a papery hand. His fingers make his hand look like an overturned spider. From nearby, a scattering of sand from where Galli had been sitting lifts off the ground, floating like a serpent made of particulate matter. The coiling sand floats to the middle of the man’s hand and hovers there, until it collapses, forming a small pile in the center of his palm. Galli gasps as the man closes his fist over it. “Your preference in this regard matters greatly. I could end your life—and I would not blame you, being a young boy living in such a brutal wasteland as Jakku. Many on that world crave the luxury of death; I have felt their collective desire just as I can feel the cowardice that prevents them from fulfilling that desire. Or—would you like to hear the second choice? ”

Another quick nod from the boy.

“The second choice is, I give you a new life. A better one. I give you a task that, if you manage, will lead you to greater things. Not something so mundane as a job, but a role. A purpose. I sense in you potential. A destiny. Most people have no destiny. ” He says this last sentence as if it disgusts him—as if those without a role to play in his game are just obstacles in the way. Piles of junk to be gone around. “They are useless. They are not actors on the stage but just props. Just decorations to be moved around, painted, knocked over. Do you know opera? No. Of course you don’t. But we can fix that if you accept from me this new life. Will you, boy? Will you take the easy way—the road that leads to a quiet, immediate death? Or will you change your fortune? Here and now? Will you accept a new life? ”

The choice is no choice at all. Galli knows death well; Jakku is death. Already at his young age the boy has seen many corpses out there in the dirt and the dust, skin gone tight and shiny like leather, hair gone brittle like the mane of a thissermount—one of the stump-legged riding beasts the anchorites ride. Death is a favor to many on Jakku.

But the boy has never sought it. Not even in his darkest moments.

At least, he has not sought it for himself.

He says, “I want a new life. I don’t want to be me anymore. ”

The man hmms. “Good. Then I have your first task, young Galli. You will go back to Jakku. The spot there in the dirt where my droids were operating is precious. Not just to me, but to the galaxy at large. ” He sweeps his decrepit hand as if to the greater universe. “It is significant. It was significant a thousand years ago and it will be significant again. You will go back there and you will monitor my droids excavating the ground. Then I will send more droids and they will build something there below the ground. I want you to guard this space. Can you do that? ”

“Guard it? I’m just a boy. ”

“Yes. But a resourceful boy, I wager. ”

“I am resourceful. ” He doesn’t know if that’s true, but what good is it saying the opposite? “I will guard it. ”

“Good. Keep others away. Do not let them taint this. Lead them astray. Kill them if you must. Can you do that? Of course you can. The better question is—will you do that? ”

“I…I will. ”

“Then we may have a future together. For now, you go back. Go home. We will meet again one day. ”

“Thank you…whh…I don’t know your name, sir. ”

A small smile. “We can be on a first-name basis, you and I. Galli, my name is Sheev. We will be friends. An Emperor must have friends, after all. ”

To everyone whose heart goes a-flutter every time Han Solo steps onto the screen or onto the page…

BY CHUCK WENDIG