Aftermath: Star Wars (9 page)

A small town in the mountains, reduced to rubble. A wind whips up, and dry leaves scrape the road between bodies. The corpses are everywhere. Two stormtroopers across the street. Two soldiers from the New Republic slumped up against a burning house, the roof still smoldering.

More down the lane, and more behind them.

Mon Mothma walks among the wreckage, attendants on each side of her: Hostis Ij to her left, and Auxi Kray Korbin on her right. Each serving the role of angel and demon on her shoulder (though the role is never fixed and one becomes the other depending on the situation). Behind them, four New Republic soldiers walking with blaster rifles at the ready.

This is the reality of war,
Mon Mothma thinks. It has to be over soon. It
must
be. Ending this conflict was priority one. Naalol was strategically insignificant. Here, a series of little mountain towns with their little crooked mountain houses, and people who were valdeer shepherds or artisans or miners. But not far away was a small Imperial garrison, and when the Empire began to lose ground elsewhere, it tried to gain it on planets like Naalol—fallback positions. What was a small garrison became a large one, and then war came to these people. And now those people—or the people in this town, at least—are either dead or have found their lives in ruins.

It’s as if Hostis hears her thoughts. As she walks, he strokes his long beard and makes lots of
hmm
s and
ahhh
sounds. Finally he speaks, unprovoked (as he often does): “This is the price of war. It is not the New Republic’s fault, Chancellor.”

“I’ve seen war,” Mon Mothma says. “I know its shape. I know its margins. But I’ll never be comfortable with it.”
As some most certainly are,
she thinks. She walks among some villagers who have gathered along the length of a low rock wall. Two Republic soldiers ladle hot broth out of a pot and into cups for them. As she walks, Mon Mothma takes hands and shakes them, pressing a few credits into palms as she does and saying a few small words of apology and gratitude. As they pass she says: “It is our fault and we must act that way to uphold our responsibilities. And it’s why the war must stop soon. We cannot keep fighting it. We are not equipped to.”

Hostis blusters and says: “That’s hardly true. We’re more equipped than ever, Chancellor. The Empire is waning and the whole galaxy can sense it. We can barely contain the lineup of recruits willing to fight for us now that the conflict is more out in the open. We have more ships. More equipment. More weapons. The tide has turned and—”

“I don’t mean equipped in the literal sense, Hostis. I mean that this is not our heart. War is not a state of being. It is meant to be a temporary chaos between periods of peace. Some want it to be the course of things: a default fact of existence. But I will not let that be so.”

Here, Auxi leans in and the Togruta woman whispers: “Chancellor, just to be mindful: We will have to leave soon if we are to be home on Chandrila in time for the Senate’s first official day back.”

“Yes. Of course.”

She stands in the middle of it all. The rubble. The bodies. In the distance: a wrecked Imperial AT-AT walker, slumped forward like an animal with its neck broken. Not far from it: the cross-foils from an X-wing fighter broken and burning on a mountain ledge. One street over, a lineup of Imperials bound in a cascading series of shackles, each connected to the other by a buzzing thread of electricity. The prisoners are marched forward toward a transport by New Republic troops.

The chaos here flared up and is now dying down. The Imperial garrison is diminished. They fled into the mountains, pursued now by the New Republic soldiers. Naalol’s time steeped in the boiling waters of war will be short, she thinks. Which is how it should be. Though war leaves its scars no matter its duration: Naalol will not forget this day.

To Hostis, Auxi says: “You do realize we are still going ahead with the relinquishment, yes?”

“What? You can’t be serious.” To Mon Mothma he says: “Chancellor. I beg of you. Now is
not
that time.”

“It is and must be that time,” she says, her voice quiet but firm. “Right now, I put my finger down anywhere on the star map, and our troops will go. They will fight. Some will die. That is my responsibility, but I do not want it. I never wanted it. The charter of Chancellor maintains the emergency powers granted by Palpatine, and they can persist no longer. They are a poison to democracy. They undercut my role.”

As Hostis starts to stammer, she turns to him and takes his hands in hers. Mon Mothma says: “I am not a military leader, Hostis. I am the leader of the Senate, and if we’re really going to attract more worlds and convince them to return to this process, it must not seem to be under threat.”

“But the army and navy of the Republic—”

“Will continue for a time, but not under my leadership. Rather, it will exist under the arrangement that already exists in practice, just not in law: I will be part of a council of wise voices who will determine the best course of action in terms of our military presence in this civil war.” She pauses to consider her next words. “It is vital we demilitarize our government so that a galactic war cannot happen like this again.”

The wind whips up and lifts his wispy hair from his liver-spotted head. “We are not yet at that day. We must show military strength. If we project weakness, the Empire will capitalize on it. Giving the war over to the fickle vagaries of politics will slow our response time, weaken our resolve, and make us appear vulnerable—in part because we
will
be vulnerable.”

Auxi offers a wry, knowing smile—she’s enjoying this, isn’t she? “Oh, it gets worse, Hostis. Tell him, Chancellor.”

Mon Mothma sighs and says, “I will today put up a vote that resolves to cut our military presence by ninety percent once we are able to officially confirm an end to this war.”

His face falls. Eyes wide, mouth open as if the old man is hoping to catch a winged meal of one of the orange-eyed deer-flies that buzz around here. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am quite serious. Look around you. The dead on our side are not proper soldiers, no matter how much we pretend they are. They’re farmers and miners, pilots and smugglers, all drawn into this conflict against the greater evil of the Empire. Once our conflict is over, what do we say to them? Keep fighting for us? Against what? To what end? For what ideal?”

“For democracy, of course—”

“Democracy is not in need of defense. People are. And it’s why we’ll keep that ten percent. A peacekeeping force. The rest of our efforts will go toward training the militaries of other worlds. We will be a true Galactic alliance, and not a false one with an authoritarian sun at its center.”

Hostis scowls. Gravely he says: “Then we shall see only endless war, Chancellor. Smaller armies just means smaller civil wars all across the galaxy. It means oppression will grow like weeds and we won’t have the eyes or the control to stop it. In this time of upheaval, the galaxy will need law and order and you will grant it only chaos. It is that vulnerability that caused the rise of the Empire in the first place. The people of the galaxy reaching out, looking for a central authority, desperate for protection…”

It’s Auxi who speaks up next. The woman is always wry, spunky, even a little venomous at times. “It sounds like you are on the wrong side of this conflict. I’m sure the Empire would be glad to have you, Hostis.”

“Why…how
dare
you…”

Mon Mothma holds out both hands. “Stop. Please. No bickering. Not like this. We must respect disagreement. That being said, Auxi has a point. We are not fighting the Empire just to become the Empire. This is not a power grab, and that’s what I want to show the galaxy. I want them to know that we trust them, as the Republic has always trusted them. If we’re going to ask anybody to fight for us, they need to know what they’re fighting for. And they will fight for a unified, democratic galaxy. Not one that merely pretends to be as it’s squeezed tighter in an unyielding fist. We must yield. And to your comment about earlier history…we will put safeguards in place. We will move forward, smarter this time. More aware.”

“Chancellor…,” Hostis says, but his plea dies in his mouth.

“My mind is made up. It’s why I brought you both here. I need you to see the bodies. The waste. The tragedy of war. I need you to see why we need to end it. I cannot ask our people to fight for this again and again. Not once the Empire is truly diminished.”

Auxi nods and says: “It’s time to go, Chancellor. History awaits.”

Hostis says nothing further. He just screws up his face into an uncomfortable smile and offers a grim, placating nod. “Of course.”

“Thank you both,” Mon Mothma says.

Together, they walk back through the debris of war. For it is time to return home. It is time to return democracy to the galaxy.

“I need to procure a way off this rock,” Sinjir mutters, pushing on through the narrow streets of Myrra. He passes by a food vendor—the big-headed Bith, like most of the vendors, have their tables and shops pressed into the nooks and alcoves of the city’s buildings. As he passes by, he grabs a crispy something-or-other from a dangling rack. He quick-pops it to his other hand so nobody sees, then looks down: some manner of little bird. Batter-dipped, deep-fried. He bites into it. Warm, juicy. Too warm, too juicy. It’ll do, though, since suddenly he’s starving.

Behind him, the Twi’lek man from Pok’s bar hurries after. “But why would you want to leave?”

To get away from you.
The alien has been following him for the last hour. Sinjir left the bar to clear his mind and, better yet, to get far away from that foolish scuffle—which he would have been wise to avoid—and this gawping blurrg who’s trailing Sinjir like a lost nek.

Instead, Sinjir says: “I don’t want to be here when it all goes to pieces. All the running around and the yelling and the…” He gesticulates with his hands to indicate a frenzied mess. “Chaos is most unpleasant.”

As if to emphasize his point, a pair of TIE fighters roar over their heads, not far above the city buildings.

This may not be an occupation, but something’s up.

“But—you’re a rebel. You’re here to fight the Empire.”

Sinjir stops.
You’re a rebel.
He almost wants to laugh, but the idea is absurd, too absurd, so absurd he can only stand there, his breath caught in his chest. Might as well take the lie—a lie that really began on the forest moon of Endor many months ago—and run with it.

“Yes,” he says, wheeling on the Twi’lek. Firmness in his voice. “I
am
an agent for the New Republic. That is correct. And I must take what I have learned here and bring it back to my loyal allies at the Alliance.”

From over the Twi’lek’s shoulder, he spies a trio of stormtroopers pushing up through this crooked alley—shoulder-to-shoulder, blasters out. They’re looking for someone, something. Maybe him.

Sinjir grabs the Twi’lek, pulls him into a small alcove. Finger to his lips. The stormtroopers pass.

“See? We are in danger.”

The Twi’lek man nods.

“My name is Orgadomo Dokura,” the Twi’lek says, his head-tails twitching like serpents as he speaks his name with some pride. “Please. Let me help you. Make me an agent of the Rebellion.”

“You mean, the New Republic.”

“Yes! Yes.”

“My name is Markoos…Cozen.” A name he just makes up right there on the spot. Cozen is a family name—distant, on his mother’s side. Markoos is…well, he really did just make that one up. “You want to help me? Help me find transport off this planet. If there’s a blockade up there—” He points heavenward, and even as the swirling clouds part he can see the distant shapes of triangles floating up there in the sky. Imperial Star Destroyers. “Then I need a sub rosa way of escape. Who can grant me that? Who do I go to, Oga-doki Domura—”

“Orgadomo Dokura.”

“Yes, excellent, whatever. Just answer the question.”

“You’re going to need to see Surat Nuat.”

The gangster.
“Him? Really? No other competing syndicates? No smuggler’s guild here? No fellow-who-knows-a-fellow-who-knows-a-very-nice-lady-pilot? None of that?”

The Twi’lek offers a wan smile with those little sharp teeth. “Sorry.”

“Fine, let’s go. You can show me the way.”

They step out of the alcove—

And there stand two stormtroopers. Centimeters away—so close, in fact, they almost run into each other.

“Out of the way,” one of the troopers barks, then reaches with a sweeping arm to push them aside.

The other stormtrooper, though—his helmeted head turns for a quick second look. “Hey.
Hey.
Grab them!”

So much for that.

Sinjir ducks a grabbing arm, and knees the other’s blaster up so that the barrel points toward the sky as it fires. He snatches the rifle and cracks one across the helmet, knocking him back.

To the Twi’lek, Sinjir mouths the word:
“Run.”

She literally cannot see the forest for the trees.

In her sights: Princess Leia Organa. Dressed not as a princess, not as a dignitary or diplomat or envoy from one world to another, but garbed instead in the raiments of a soldier. It’s no costume. Jas has read the files. And even without the files, the stories are known: Leia is a powerful woman. As capable with a blaster as ten stormtroopers. Twenty, even.

And right now, she’s injured.

A bird with its wing broken. An easy target.

Jas sits up in one of the Endorian trees—massive-trunked things. Impossibly large. They make her feel very small. It has taken her quite some time just to get to this spot—navigating the battle, skirting laserfire, avoiding those little black-eyed rat cubs that are native to this place. Now she’s in place. All around, the fighting has died down. The fuzzy natives are all around, wrenching helmets off stormtrooper heads. Bashing them once more before dragging them back through the jungle.

Then an Imperial scout walker comes tromping through the woods. Brush crackling beneath its feet. Guns pointed at the shield bunker. Han Solo emerges, while Leia remains crumpled against the door. Hands up. The golden droid frittering about, an astromech down for the count.

If the walker blasts them into oblivion, then what? Could she still recover the body? Cash it in for credits? Claim success?

A deception. One she does not prefer. Jas Emari is a professional. And though she despises the Galactic Empire, they are the client and if they ever found out…though, suddenly she wonders if that even matters.

That is not for her to worry.

Her worry is this moment.

An opportunity to finish the job.

She again returns to Leia in her scopes. Her finger coils around the trigger like a starving vine snake and—

The scuff of a boot. Jas opens her eyes, stands up. Moving quickly reminds her of the hit she took falling down from that zip-line—then she fired a secondary grapple line late,
too late,
and its anchor claw moored onto a balcony just three stories above the road. The line jerked her arm damn near out of its socket, and then she swung down and slammed into the side of the palace wall. A wall brushed with rough, jagged stucco. Her arm now scraped up, the skin in tatters. Already crusting over with scabs.

That doesn’t matter now. What matters is—

“Who might you be?”

A Sullustan stands there. One of his eyes is dead—an opalescent cataract over it, and around it a starburst of scar tissue. A small nose of two pinholes and pursed lips sit underneath the double flaps of jowl tissue. Atop his head: a skullcap, black. Like a spider clutching his scalp.

“Surat,” she says.

He is, of course, not alone. Six others stand behind him. Various thugs of various races: two Narquois with blasters pulled, an Ithorian with a long rifle and one eye bruised shut, a pair of gray-faced Duros, and at the back, a heaving, seething Herglic, the blowhole atop its slick black skin puffing out and hissing gouts of breath and spit. The Herglic has an ax. A very big ax.

Jas Emari curses herself.

She fell asleep. Here in the boy’s junk shop. She came in, didn’t find Temmin Wexley anywhere, then curled up on a back bench next to a table holding the board to some…child’s strategy game.

“I know you,” the Sullustan says. His face is wet and thick with flaps, and one would expect his voice to be some slurry gargle of sounds—or, as with some of those from Sullust, a gabbling jabber. But his voice is smooth, almost velvety. A deep bass. “You are that bounty hunter. Jas Emari.”

“Glad my name gets around in the proper circles.” She offers a stiff smile. Utterly fake. “Whatever this is, it doesn’t involve me. Excuse me.”

She moves to skirt past him.

But he sidesteps back into her path. He offers a raised finger, then tick-tocks it side-to-side. “Ah, ah, ah. May we talk?”

“I’m on the job. So unless you have credits to spare—?”

“Please. You have enough time for a
nap.
Surely you have the luxury of speaking with a friend.” That, a jab at her for sleeping. A deserved one.

“A friend. Are we friends?”

“We could be. If you’re honest.”

She pauses. Then sighs, and takes a step back. “Let’s talk.”

“Why are you here? Seems a strange place to find a hunter of your caliber. This boy…his shop…” The Sullustan makes a face like he’s just licked the hind end of a bantha. “It’s really beneath your level.”

She shrugs. “I need a part for my gun. He has parts.”

“I have parts.”

One of the Narquois chuckles.

“It’s no slight against you. It’s a small component and, really, beneath your level. So I came here.”

Surat claps his hands together. A moist sound. Clap, clap, clap. “Very good. Very good.” But then the little smile drops off his puckered lips. He steps forward. “But may I offer a countermanding theory?”

Jas is good at reading body language. A talent that has been practiced—one of her many senses she endeavors to keep sharp, like a knife. All of the gangster’s body has tensed up just now. His eyes narrowing, then going wide again. Paranoia bleeds off him in waves. A not-uncommon characteristic of individuals in his position—certainly
head of a crime syndicate
is a life replete with nigh-constant threat. Her life is similar. But she knows not to give in to it. Paranoia is a deadly emotion.

Deadly for you. But deadly for those around you, too.

“Whatever you’re thinking—”

“I am thinking that insolent grub, Temmin Wexley, has decided to make a play. He orchestrated the theft of…something important to me. And now he intends to dispatch me.” Another step forward. “He is a crafty little trilobite, that one. Smart, if not smart enough. He comes at you from the side, as he has done to me for the last year.
Nibbling
away at my business like the
hiss-wyrmgrubs
of Sullust, chewing up our subterranean gardens, eating the roots of our underground trees.” The gangster’s moist face-flaps tremble. “You. He hired you. To kill me.”

There it is.

“You’re being paranoid,” she says.

“Paranoia has kept me alive. Even when it has turned out misguided, I remain happily paranoid and have no regrets about it. Better safe than sorry.”

“I’m not here to kill you.”

“So you say. I let you go, I’ll likely get a slug in the back of my skull before I lay my head to rest tonight.”

Jas thinks:
If I wanted to end your existence, I could do it right here, right now.
At her back is a small utility knife. The blade would spring out with the tap of a button. She’s fast. Faster than him. But not faster, she suspects, than the cadre of his cohorts. Certainly not faster than their weapons. Another option is to run—duck, dodge, feint, move. Attack them, not him. Distract. Fling junk. But they’re all blocking the door out. And she’s both tired and injured. Not an ideal situation.

She does calculations.

Only one option presents itself. An excruciating solution, in fact, but she has no other reasonable choice. “I’m not here for you. I’m here for someone else. The pay is good. I’ll cut you in, seventy-five–twenty-five.”

“Oh, my.” He fans himself. “Twenty-five percent?” His mouth twists into a sour curve. “You think that’s what your life is worth?”

Just kill him.

No.

“Sixty–forty split,” she offers. “And you facilitate. You help get me close. At that level, I expect my partners to earn their pay.” A true statement, that. Or would be, if she ever worked with partners.

“Let me guess. The target is Imperial? I see what’s happening out there. Stormtroopers in the streets. Officers clucking along like little gray birds. The TIE fighters. The shuttle.” He smirks. “Rumor has it one such shuttle—of a Lambda designation—fired on the old capitol building.”

“So you’ll help.”

“By the stars,
no.
The Empire is an ally. You think I haven’t heard? You’re no longer offering contracts to the likes of them. Or the likes of me. You’re a kept dog now. On the Alliance’s leash. Really quite sad.”