Aftermath: Star Wars (10 page)

Her muscles tighten. This isn’t working. She makes one last plea: “You need to watch the stars, Surat. The galaxy is wheeling on its axis. It’s turning against the Empire. Don’t tie your fortunes to that ship, because it’s about to come crashing down. The New Republic—”

“Is a bastion of fools!” he suddenly screams, foul-smelling saliva flecking her cheeks. She pivots on the ball of her foot—

A blast from one of the Narquois hits her in the side. Her foot skids out—she crashes down on a table full of spacer parts. Metal clatters against the floor as she slides off. Her body, slack. Her mind, suddenly disconnected from her muscles. A stunning shot, not a killing one.

Surat stands over her, hands clasped in front of him. He seethes: “The New Republic will make no room for the likes of me. I will not face extinction at the hands of a choir of overly moralistic do-gooders. The Empire allows me to work, and so the Empire remains my friend. And now, as it turns out, I have a new gift for my friend.”

He claps his hands again, and suddenly his cohorts are picking her up. The Herglic tosses her over his slick, cartilaginous shoulder. She wills her hands to move. Her legs. Her
teeth.
Anything at all. But it’s all for naught. Her efforts are futile.

As they carry her out, she thinks:
You should have killed me.

Sinjir steps out of the fading light of day and into the dank underground—well, what to call it? It’s a cantina, probably, at least in part. The name hanging on the door outside says:
THE ALCAZAR
. But it’s more than just a cantina. By the look of it, it’s also a gambling house. And a house of ill repute. Probably also a slaver market, and black market, and—it’s a whole damn compound, frankly. In this room sits an elevated stage on which plays some warbling gang of so-called
musicians.
Along the far wall is a long black bar carved out of some dead hunk of lacquered driftwood—and everywhere else, tables of gamblers sit, all praying to catch a little of that magic, whether at pazaak or rolling sheg-knuckles or yanking the lever on the One-Armed Smuggler.

Gambling. Sinjir never understood it. He had to take punitive measures against any Imperial soldier or officer attempting to gamble in the bunks, the mess, on a long and lonely shift. He decided that gambling was never about the credits. It was always about the risk.

The risk, and the thrill it brings.

Sinjir has no love of that thrill.

He wants to get off this planet as soon as possible.

“Come on, Ogly,” he says, waving his new friend farther.

“Orgadomo.”

“Uh-huh. Let’s get a drink.” His own sogginess is starting to dry up and wear off—now’s a good time to replenish that pleasant feeling. And of course find out a little information. He grabs a length of the Twi’lek’s head-tail and pulls him up to the bar. Sinjir gives the bar top a good, wet slap.

The bartender—a human man, as scruffy as a Wookiee yet somehow slimy like a worrt—turns, popping some kind of thin green leaf in his mouth. He chews it. Green fluid runs down his chin and he licks the one good tooth in his mouth. “Wuzzat?”

“Two drinks. I’ll have a…” He turns to the Twi’lek. “You first, friend. What are you having?”

“An…ale?”

The Twi’lek looks nervous.

Sinjir makes a face. “He’ll have an ale. I need something stronger. You got ahh, let’s see. Jogan fruit brandy?”

“Kind of a fancy place you think this is?” the bartender rumbles. “I got ale. More ale. Other ale. Different ale. Grog. And starfire ’skee.”

“I’ll take that last decoction, then. A jorum of ’skee for me.”

The bartender grumbles. Begins pouring a glass of something brown and muddy before sliding a bottle of foaming ale to the Twi’lek. “That’ll be ten credits.”

Sinjir catches the man’s wrist—a gentle hold, and the man’s skin is, as its appearance suggests, sweat-slick and slimy. The man gives Sinjir’s hand a poisonous look as another squirt of green fluid runs down his chin. Sinjir laughs, withdraws his hand, and says, “One more thing.”

“Go on.”

“I need to see the man in charge of this establishment. Surat Nuat.”

“Oh, do you?”

“I do. And I will pay.”

The bartender’s eyes flit about. “Then let’s call it a hundred.”

Sinjir winces.
That’s valuable drinking money.
He reminds himself that now, it’s also valuable
escaping
money. He unpockets the credits and slides the small cairn of filthy lucre across the table.

“Now,” he says. “Where can I find him?”

The bartender gets a big, nasty grin across his face. Like a smear of mud across the wall, that grin. “He’s coming in the door right now.”

Sinjir sighs. He turns and looks.

A Sullustan is coming in the door. Milky eye. Smug, self-satisfied look. He’s trailed by a pack of punks and thugs. The way all eyes turn toward him—a mix of genuine awe and utter fear—tells Sinjir that this alien is the real deal. That this is, indeed, Surat Nuat.

He’s about to turn and demand his credits back.

But then he sees someone else.

A woman. Zabrak—or is it Dathomirian? Or Iridonian? He’s not sure of the distinction or if one even exists. Those pale eyes. The dark tattoos forming spirals and knots on her cheeks and brow and chin.

His breath catches in his chest—

Sinjir stands there. Ferns up to his hips. A fallen tree across the soft, spongy moss of Endor. Beneath him, a rebel. Dead. The man’s outer clothes—vest, poncho, camouflage pants—now hanging on Sinjir’s frame. He puts the helmet on, too. Blinks. Swallows. Tries to focus.

A bead of blood drips down Sinjir’s head. To the end of his nose. It hangs there before he sneezes it away.

His ears still ring from the sound of the shield generators going up.

His hands are filthy with dirt and blood. His own blood.

Superficial cuts, he tells himself. Nothing deep. He’s not dying.

Not today, anyway.

Then: the snap of a stick.

He turns—and there she is. An alien. Sharp thorny spurs forming a crown on her moonlight-blue skin. She turns and sees him. The tattoos on her face—whorls and corkscrews of black ink—almost seem to turn and drift, like snakes entwining with other snakes. But when he blinks again, that stops. Just an illusion. He’s still shaken up. Maybe she’s not even real.

She nods at him.

He nods at her.

And then she yanks on what looks like a vine—and a whole swath of netting, netting woven through with sticks and blankets for purposes of hiding something in plain sight—pulls away. Underneath is a speeder bike.

The woman cinches a rifle up on her back.

She gives Sinjir one last look. Then the engine of the speeder bike revs and she’s gone, whistling through the underbrush and between the trees.

—he knows her.

“I know her,” he says. Low enough so that only his new friend hears.

The Twi’lek grunts in confusion.

“Her,”
Sinjir clarifies. “The one with Surat’s thugs.”
I saw her on the moon of Endor.
“I don’t
know
her know her. Never mind. Come on.”

He hops off the stool—

Then quick darts back to the bar, and slams back the ’skee. It tastes like he’s drinking pure laserfire, and it carves a hot, burning channel deep through his core. Sinjir shakes it off, then pursues Surat and his entourage.

Out the window, past the endless black, a repair droid totters past, carrying bits of scrap, its welding torch dangling by a long, black tube. Even after these many months,
Home One
still requires a last few repairs from the battle over Endor. Ackbar thinks:
It is a good thing we won that battle.
It was their last true shot. They gambled everything. And they almost lost it all. By the grace of the stars and the seas and all the gods and all the heroes, somehow,
somehow,
they managed.

He clears his throat. His time is up. With a webbed hand he grabs the plastic bottle and squeezes moisturizer into his palm and then rubs it on his neck, his bare shoulders, down the length of each red arm.

A deep breath.

Then, he is again under attack. He moves fast, picking up the kar-shak
—
the net-pole, a traditional Mon Calamari weapon—and whirls about in the padded room. A stormtrooper rushes up, the blaster rifle raised.

Ackbar grunts in rage, spinning the kar-shak and cracking the stormtrooper in the helmet. The end of the stick: barbed like a gaff hook. It whishes clean through the air, and clean through the white Imperial helmet.

As it passes, the stick interrupts the hologram for just a moment—

Then the stormtrooper is back, and Ackbar’s enemy topples.

A second one comes up, and a third, and Ackbar captures the one’s head in a net, and flings him into the other—again their holograms disrupt, then flicker back to life before dropping.

One, two, and now three stormtroopers enter from the corner projectors and—

Someone clears his throat.

Ackbar stops.

“Pause,” he barks. The trio of incoming troopers freeze. Shimmering.

There, at the door, a young man. A cadet. “Sir,” he says. A small fear shines in his eyes. But he stands tall, just the same. Chin up and out. Hands holding a screen pressed to his chest. “If this is a bad time—”

“Deltura, isn’t it?”

“Ensign Deltura, yes, sir.”

“No, now is a fine time,” Ackbar growls, and sets his stick down. “I am to assume this is important?”

“You assume correctly.”

“And why isn’t Commander Agate bringing this to me?”

“She is occupied with repairs, sir.”

Ackbar harrumphs, then steps forward. His sharp fingers click together. “Very well. Let’s see it.”

Deltura hands over the screen.

The admiral looks over it. His big yellow eyes turn back toward Ensign Deltura. “And you’re sure about this?”

“Yes, sir. Captain Antilles hasn’t checked in, and his comm won’t answer. We can’t even ping it.”

“His last known location?”

“Raydonia.”

“And he found nothing there.”

“No, sir.”

“And I will hazard a guess that says we are not certain of his next jump?” The ensign shakes his head because that’s not how Wedge wanted to play this, was it? Captain Antilles saw no harm in doing some light scouting. He said it would feel like a “vacation”—just him and the Starhopper. Alone with his thoughts.

Ackbar thinks:
I warned him of this.

I’m sure I won’t find anything,
Wedge said at the time.

You don’t know that. One does not want to casually stumble upon a pit of eels,
Ackbar cautioned.
But it can happen.

Just doing my due diligence. It’ll be nice.

“Nice.”

Harrumph.

The ensign says, “The five closest worlds to Raydonia offer a glimpse of where Captain Antilles could have been heading next.” On the screen: a list of five planets. Mustafar. Geonosis. Dermos. Akiva. Tatooine. Any of them could make sense—they know the Empire has gone to ground. “Mustafar makes some sense, as does Geonosis—”

Deltura is looking at him. Wanting to say something.

Ackbar pauses. “What is it?”

“There’s more.”

“And?”

“Something more than what’s on that screen.”

“Spit it out, Ensign. I don’t care for this waffling.”

“We have intel. From the Operator.”

Ackbar steps closer to Deltura. “And how do
you
know about the Operator? That is classified information, Ensign.”

“Commander Agate cleared me.”

“Commander Agate seems to trust you.”

A curt nod. “I hope so.”

“Then I do, too. What is this intel?”

When Deltura tells him, Ackbar feels all the moisture go out of him. They keep the air in this ship as humid as possible—it is a Mon Calamari ship, after all—but he suddenly feels bone dry. Desiccated. He feels again on the precipice of something bigger, something
dangerous
. Some shadow unseen in the margins. “Are you certain?”

“No. We have no spies in the region that we know of.”

“I’m older,” Ackbar says, suddenly. Staring off at nothing. “The reason I do this—stand here and take my kar-shak and continue to practice my kotas—is because I wish to stay sharp. And flexible. And ahead of my enemies. I know one day that I will fail at this, and we almost failed above Endor. We rushed in. Careless. It almost cost us everything.”

A moment of silence between them. His nostrils flaring.

“Sir—”

“Yes, yes, send scouts to each of those planets. But send
two
scouts to Akiva. We must be sure before we commit to anything.”

Deltura salutes. “Sir, yes, sir.”

As the ensign leaves, Ackbar is left alone once more. And he truly feels it, for a moment: the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders. An illusion, of course. He is not the standard-bearer for the New Republic, and nothing hinges on him. But the pressure remains, just the same.

And with it, a worrying thought persists: As an informant within the Empire, the self-titled Operator has not steered them wrong yet. His pinpointing of vulnerable Imperial routes and convoys, as well as supplying them with a list of likely governors and other galactic leaders who would gladly betray the Empire, was all of immeasurable help.

So why, then, can’t Ackbar shake the feeling that once again they are about to fall into a trap?