Aftermath: Star Wars (33 page)

I have made a huge mistake.

The pike is out of his hands. Temmin’s arms pinwheel through open air as the yacht drifts. The side of the ship comes up fast—

He slams into it.
Wham.

His hands reach for a hold. But they don’t find one. He hears the pathetic squeak as he paws at the metal and starts to fall.

But then—

He stops falling.

His hand catches one of the decorated pipes outlining one of the windows. Temmin clutches it tight, and brings his other hand up and pulls himself up. There’s a moment of triumph—a flutter in his chest as he thinks,
I made it! I totally made it!

And then the yacht starts to lift up and he realizes:

Why did I do this? I’m going to die!

The ground beneath starts to shrink as the yacht ascends.

So close,
Rae thinks, easing back into the copilot’s chair.
Almost there.

This entire trip has been a failure. She realizes that now. But failure cannot be the end of it. Failure has to be illuminating: an instruction manual written in scar tissue. What, then, are the lessons of this? What has been learned and what can be built from the wreckage?

One: Consensus will not be easy. And it may in fact be difficult enough that it is not worth pursuing.

Two: The Empire is fractured. That is not new information, but it has been clarified here. And a new dimension is revealed to her, as a result: Many inside the Empire do not want to heal those fractures but rather, want to use the division for their own designs.

Three: If the Empire is to survive, then they must—

A red blip on Morna’s screen. The pilot frowns.

“What is it?” Rae asks.

“Could be a bird,” the pilot says. “Though, if it is, it’s a very big bird.” She shakes her head and clarifies: “Something’s on the hull.”

Rae nods. “I’ll send some men to look into it.”

Sinjir kneels next to the others. His face feels like pounded dough. There they wait in this opulent room toward the back of the yacht, kneeling like slaves in a plush room of couches and tables. The fat banker, Crassus, sits in the corner, smoking spice out of a long obsidian pipe. His slave women in their beastly masks buff and trim the nails of his plump, desiccated feet, cutting the calluses off his awful toes.

On the one side of Crassus sits Jylia Shale. A general. Sinjir knows her—or, rather, knows of her. Depending on who you talk to inside the Empire, she’s either a legend or a traitor. A conqueror or a cur. She has a pair of red-cloaked Imperial Guardsmen with her.

On the other side of Crassus: the purple-robed adviser. Sinjir doesn’t remember that one’s name, though he’s fairly sure Jas told him. One of Palpatine’s inner circle, most likely. An acolyte of the Sith side of the Force, though certainly not a proper practitioner of it. Essentially, a cultist.

Across from Sinjir:

Pandion sits, stock-straight.

Staring at them.

No. Staring at
him,
at Sinjir.

“I know I’m handsome,” Sinjir says—an unintentional growl in the back of his throat as he speaks. A rattle from injury, not rage.

Pandion only chuckles—it looks like he’s about to say something, but then a small contingent of stormtroopers hurries past, toward the middle of the ship. They look alarmed. Pandion tries not to flinch, but it happens.

Sinjir says with a smirk: “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“Still your lips, traitor, or I’ll cut them off.”

Gonna die, gonna die, gonna die.
Temmin holds on with every ounce of willpower he can. Already wisps of clouds are passing by. The air grows cold. The ship starts to shudder with turbulence. He starts to think:
Maybe I can crawl down underneath the ship. Use my multitool to pop a maintenance hatch, climb into the belly of the ship and—

The window above him pops open with a hiss.

A stormtrooper’s head pokes out.

“Hey!”

That’s as good an invitation as Temmin’s going to get.

He reaches up, hooks his hand behind the stormtrooper’s helmet, and yanks the Imperial soldier out through the open space.

The trooper’s scream is loud at first, and then fades as he falls.

Temmin crawls up inside the open window.

He belly-flops to the floor, panting. He shakes the blood flow back into his arms. He’s in a hallway full of doors. Cabins for the yacht. He stands up, dusts himself off. Then someone taps him on the shoulder.

Uh-oh.

He turns. There stand two more stormtroopers, rifles up.

And behind them come a pair of red-helmeted Imperial Guards. Their cloaks sweeping the floor behind them.

“Hey, guys,” Temmin says, giving a fake laugh. “Is this not the twelve thirty space-bus to the Ordwallian Cluster Casino? No? Ooh. Awkward!”

He turns and runs.

“Fragging frag it!” Jom Barell snarls, his face red. Nothing he’s done has made this thing work, and now his target is fleeing toward orbit.

He stands for a few moments. Chest rising and falling.

Calm down,
he tells himself.
Think.

But he doesn’t think and he doesn’t calm down.

He roars in rage and brings his good fist down on the console again and again, because whatever chance he had has been squandered, and the effort undertaken to capture this turret in the first place didn’t do a damn thing to help the New Republic and—

With the last hit, the console suddenly glows bright.

“What the…”

Outside the window, the twin cannons adjust, tracking the target.

The whole turret shakes as it fires, filling the cockpit with the bright, demonic light of turbolaser blasts.

It’s going well. Too well. Sloane feels the twist of dread in her gut, and that twist only tightens when Morna turns and says with a frown:

“We have a problem, Admiral.”

Of course we do.

“What is it, pilot?”

“A rebel fleet. Coming into space above Akiva.”

Perfectly atrocious timing.

“How big?”

“Big enough to be a problem.”

“Let’s just get us to the
Vigilance
safe, Morna. Then we can—”

Again, the pilot’s screen starts flashing.

“What
now
?” Rae snaps.

Morna’s eyes light up with panic and confusion. “One of our turrets. From the ground. It’s tracking us. It’s about to—”

The ship rocks and shudders. Rae’s head snaps back and she tumbles out of her chair. Everything goes dark.

Lasers scorch the air above Temmin’s head—he runs, ducks, and dives onto his belly to avoid getting cooked. He rolls over and puts his hands up to surrender—

He can see they’re not going to let him.

The stormtroopers raise the rifles again.

And the wall next to them suddenly disappears.

The ship jolts hard to the right as a bright flash tears through it, ripping it open from underneath. Taking the wall, the floor,
and
the Imperials away—what’s left of them spirals away out the open hole. Wind keens like a mournful beast. Temmin feels it start to pull at him as the whole hallway depressurizes: He grabs out with a hand as the yacht starts to dip, catching one of the cabin door handles. Fixtures start popping off the walls, vacuumed out into the swirling clouds. At both ends of the hall, pressure doors start to close, sealing off the middle portion of the yacht.

Temmin kicks open the cabin door, pulling away from the hungry winds trying to suck him out into the void. He throws himself inside.

Emergency klaxons blare. The panel dash on the shuttle is lit up in an array of panicked flashes. Rae hauls herself back into the chair. Morna never left hers. Her arms are extended outward, and the tendons in her neck stand taut like bridge cables. She fights to keep the yacht aloft—it starts to dip but she pulls back and she again lifts its nose.

“Status!” Sloane demands.

“Kinda busy, Admiral,” Morna hisses through her teeth.

Rae wants to chastise her, but the pilot is right. She instead pulls up the screen, sees the damage was straight to the middle underside of the yacht. Near to where the first-floor cabins are. Both halves of the ship are sealing off with pressure doors, which means they’re not dead yet and nobody has to abandon ship. But it
does
mean that the front half of the yacht—in which Rae sits right now—is separate and in fact
inaccessible
to the back half. And the middle of the ship is a no-being’s-land.

The ship bounces and judders like it’s about to come apart. Morna warns: “The atmosphere is rough up here. Could tear us apart. Almost to orbit.
Almost there.
”

“Keep it together,” Rae demands.

If anybody can do this: Morna can.

The lights buzz and flicker. They go from darkness, to red emergency lighting, back to full lights—then back to darkness once more.

Jas doesn’t know what happened, but best guess is that they took a hit. From where, she cannot say. She’s surprised they’re still aloft. Good thing this is a pretty big ship, but even still, they’re all lucky that the whole thing didn’t get sheared in half with both pieces plunging to planetside.

Panic has filled the Imperial ranks now. Murmuring and frittering about. Crassus whining about his yacht. The adviser, Yupe Tashu, praying in some heretical tongue to beseech whatever Dark Force he calls upon in times of crisis. Shale simply leans forward, head between her legs. Like she might be sick. She’s a general—used to, in part, being on the ground. Or in a cloistered war room somewhere. She’s not a soldier, or at least hasn’t been for years.

Jas, for her part, just sits still.

Like Pandion, who seems to have a real hate for Sinjir. It’s there in the way he stares at the other man. Black eyes like a pair of blaster barrels ready to fire.

A stormtrooper enters. “We’re cut off from the front of the ship. Pressure doors have sealed us off.”

Pandion, without turning his gaze from Sinjir, picks up his communicator and speaks into it: “Admiral Sloane, are you there?”

His comm crackles. Her voice emerges: broken, staticky, but there.

“Moff Pandion. We’re presently occupied.”

“Should we expect to die? This ship has escape pods, does it not?”

Sloane’s voice returns: “We’re safe. Almost in orbit. Patience.”

Jas doesn’t know what’s going on.

But chaos has sunk its teeth into the situation.

And in chaos, there lurks opportunity.

“They’re coming in!” Borgin Kaa cries to his young girlfriend: the dancer Linara. She gives him a look of panic as he gestures toward the front door of his luxury domicile where a line of sparks is drawing its way up the outer edge of the magnalocked portal. The sparks burn bright and ease upward with the speed and perfection of a confident, practiced hand.

The older man fumbles around the foyer table and finds a ceramic vase from the Vinzor Legacy. It’s an artifact many millennia old, dating back to the Old Republic. Or so he’s told. All he cares—or cared—about is that it’s worth something. The way it’s shot through with blue lacite. Like gleaming cerulean spiderwebs. Blazing blue.

He hates to do it, but he palms the vase.

It’s a weapon,
he thinks.
Not an ancient, valuable artifact.

His heart hammers in his chest.

Did he take his tincture this morning?

Did he forget?

Is he going to die?

No! I’ve lived this long. I’m on the list.
Cloud City has become quite the destination to procure rare implants: new oculars, custom-tailored hands, whole new organ systems for whatever human or alien can pay. He needs a new heart. He was on the list—still is, he hopes. But then the rebel villains had to muck everything up and the Empire stepped in and took over this sector and now all those implants are on hold.

The Imperials will fix this. The Emperor has assured the galaxy of peace.

The embers dance around the final curve of the door, then down to the floor.

The portal hisses and slides open.

Through the smoke he sees the shapes of the trespassers—Linara cries out, and Borgin grunts and heaves the vase hard. It hits to the side of the door, missing. It doesn’t even break. The thing just goes
thud
and lands on the floor.

Apparently the Vinzors knew how to make a vase.

Figures storm in, blasters up. Two of them he doesn’t recognize: a Devaronian woman and a lanky, clanking PAD—a personal assistant droid—on whose tarnished silver faceplate someone has painted a black skull.

The other two he does recognize: the local miscreant, Kars Tal-Korla—aka, the Scourge of Cloud City. Hard not to recognize him. He’s on every poster and cautionary holovid here in the city! The Empire wants him bad, and now here he is—live inside Borgin’s own apartment. Wearing his trademark armor: a mismatched patchwork set of Mandalorian, Corellian, and even bits of Imperial trooper thrown in for good measure.

Next to him, though, is the real surprise:

Jintar Oarr—

Fellow Onderonian. Wealthy beyond measure. One of the residents here in the luxury levels of Cloud City alongside Borgin.

A friend. Or was, once.

“You,” Borgin says, pointing a thick finger at the man. Jintar, that handsome prig. Sharp-cut beard. Eyes like gray clouds. Even the lines in his face look distinguished.

But as Borgin thrusts his accusing finger up, the Devaronian steps in, grabs his finger, and bends it back. Pain arcs like a blaster bolt up to his elbow. He howls in a way that shames him—a piggy, high-pitched squeal, like the sound one of those Ugnaughts makes when it tumbles into the machines—and then he drops to his knees as she with her other hand jams the barrel of her blaster rifle against his forehead.

“Wait,” Jintar says. He reaches for her wrist, and she hisses at him like a snake. He stays his hand, but then says to her: “Let me talk to him.”

Kars gives a nod. “Let them speak. But we’re on a timetable here—so make it snappy.” To the assistant droid he barks: “Go find that access panel.”

Access panel? Borgin’s gaze follows the droid as it totters out of the foyer and down the hall—but before he can see where the metal man is going, the Devaronian grabs his chin with a rough pull and turns his face toward her.

“Your friend would like to speak with you.”

Jintar kneels. “Bor,” he says. “Listen to me. We’ve been lied to. Adelhard has sealed off the whole sector. Massive blockades with a ragtag Imperial remnant. But that’s not how they keep control. They keep control by lying to us.” He takes a deep breath. “The Emperor is dead, Bor. It’s been confirmed.”

“Lies,” Borgin hisses. “Of course, that’s what
his
type would have you believe!” He gestures with his chin toward the rebel, Kars. The scruffy pirate in the patchwork armor does nothing but scowl and shake his head. “I’ve seen the holovids. You have, too. Palpatine is alive and well on Coruscant and—”

“He’s just a stand-in. A proxy.
An actor
.”

“No. More rebel lies.”

“We’ve done the comparison. The vids don’t match. This…person in the dark robes isn’t Palpatine. Different chin, different gestures. A poor facsimile.”

“You’re a traitor.”

Jintar’s face falls. Sadness flashes in his eyes. “No, Borgin. You’re the traitor.”

“The Empire’s been good to us.”

“It has. But it hasn’t been good to everyone else. And the righteous folks of the galaxy will see that. Which means I’m calling on you to act.” Jintar’s voice softens. That man could coax a slakari-hound off a rotten carcass. “We could use your help.”

Help. They want
his
help?

That’s not happening. Borgin roars—he’s been in a few fights back in the day, back when he was a young mining baron on the Sevarcos moon. Sure, he’s older now, much older, and heavier, but he lurches upward, slamming his head into Jintar’s—

Stars explode behind his eyes. He falls back on his tailbone. Someone reaches for him, but he cries out and swats the hand away.

Jintar is wincing, his forehead already showing the bloom of a future bruise. Borgin, though, tastes blood.

It’s the rebel’s turn. Kars steps into view. Blurry. Borgin blinks. The pirate scratches at his stubble and twirls the pistol at his hip. “Let’s talk this through. You’ve got an access panel in the back. It’s tied into the same conduit as Governor Adelhard’s chamber up on the prime tower. We need that panel opened. You give us the code, we’ll be happy. You don’t give us the code, we’ll have to do it ourselves.” Kars’s mouth sharpens into a wicked razor-angle grin. “And we won’t be happy.”

“Brutes! Bullies!
Criminals
.”

Kars sighs. “Okay, then. Rorna?”

He gives a nod, and the Devaronian woman pistons a fist into Borgin’s side. Borgin bleats and flails—Jintar catches his hands and wrenches them behind his back. He feels his hands being stuffed into something. A fabric bag. A sock, maybe. Then the rip of bonding tape coming off its roll as it winds around his wrists.

“Linara!” he cries. “Linara, save me!”

But his girlfriend merely looks down at him the way a disappointed mother looks down at her troublemaker child. She asks Kars: “Is there anything I can do?”

The pirate chuckles, then tosses her a roll of bonding tape. “Why not close up that gassy vent of his he calls a mouth?”

Borgin protests: “Linara, I’ve been good to you. We love each other. Don’t you do this to me. I’ll punish you! I’ll punish your whole family! I’ll end their loans and stack debtors against them and—”

She slaps the tape against his mouth. And she doesn’t stop there. She winds it around his head once, twice, a third time. It looks like she’s enjoying it.

“Mmph!
Mmph
.” Translation:
The Emperor will have your heads for this.

Kars nods. From the back of the domicile, the sound of a whirring drill. Kars lifts a wrist-comm to his mouth: “Tell Lobot we have to do it the hard way.”

The Devaronian says in a lower voice, “We could torture the code out of the rich man. It would be no small pleasure.” Said with a feral smirk.

The pirate waves her off, then away from his comm he says: “No. We have specific instructions. No such shenanigans. We’re to keep this clean, aboveboard. Blah blah blah, the Alliance doesn’t do it ‘like that.’ ” Then, back to his wrist: “Yeah. Yeah, I’m listening. Tell Lobot to make sure he’s standing by with the intrusion team. And get a message to Calrissian. Tell him we’re almost in and that he can transfer the credits—” He pauses. “No, you know what? Tell him we’re doing this one gratis. On the house. He and his New Republic pals can owe me a favor. Make sure to emphasize that. A big favor.”

Scum. Scum!

Jintar once more kneels down. “You’re on the wrong side of history, Bor. You never did understand that the galaxy was more than one man.”