[Last Of The Jedi] - 07 (4 page)

Vader nodded. “I have assembled a team of the best scientists from around the galaxy. Those who did not want to work with us have been persuaded.”

“Good. Now, let’s move on. Twilight?”

“Progress has been slow, but lately there has been movement. 1 have complete confidence in our operative. And our eventual victory.”

“Excellent.”

“We are approaching Bellassa now, my Master.”

“Ferus Olin … you must work with him. Keep him close, for just a little while longer. We can use him.”

“It is dangerous to keep him close. He’s not stupid. I caught him in my stateroom.”

“Did he find anything?”

“Of course not, Master.”

“Then why should we care? He will discover nothing of consequence.”

“But after Bellassa?” Vader ventured the question. How long would this maddening protection of Ferus last? He knew there was more behind the Emperor’s use of Ferus than there seemed to be”. Vader was ready to get rid of him for good. Ferus was an irritant.

“I shall revisit the situation,” the Emperor said.

A highly unsatisfactory answer. But Darth Vader did not question his Master.

It didn’t matter anyway. He promised himself that he would find a way to get rid of Ferus Olin on Bellassa.

That would be satisfactory.

They had learned to choose busy space stations in tiny comers of the galaxy, where spaceliners and freighters docked. On the planet of Omman, the crush of vehicles and passengers meant that controls were difficult to maintain. The Empire had not yet completely perfected its checkin systems. Trever had no doubt that it would. Just not yet.

Their fake ID docs passed muster. They were checked through without a challenge and made their way to the smoky cantina.

Trever saw Flame sitting in a comer, her back to the wall, one foot up on a chair in front of her. He was startled by her appearance. He had left her on Rosha in stained coveralls, her dark hair filmed with dust and her skin reddened and windblown. Now she was dressed all in white, lounging elegantly at the table, her dark hair smooth and shining in a coil at the back of her head.

She was all business as she pushed a chair toward him with one booted foot. “Have a seat and introduce me to your friends.”

Trever noted that Clive’s gaze lingered on Flame for a long moment, puzzlement in his eyes. After Trever introduced Clive, Astri, Lune, and Roan and Dona, Clive turned to Flame.

“I think we’ve met before,” he said.

Flame gave him a cool look. “Is that your standard line?”

“I hope I’m not that uninspired.”

Solace snorted.

“I wouldn’t know,” Flame said. Her frosty tone told Clive that she wasn’t in the mood for banter.

“Let’s get down to business,” Trever said. He was anxious that they all get along. One trouble with the group he traveled with was that they were all such personalities. He turned to Flame. “Roan is one of the founding members of the Eleven. Dona is also a member of the resistance. They’ll come with us to Bellassa. “

“Good. Do you have an entry point?” Flame asked. “I was thinking of landing in the mountains and taking airspeeders into Ussa.”

“That used to be a route. No more,” Dona said. “The Empire has patrols all through the mountains now, thick as the yarrowfew flowers in spring.”

“I have a way, but it will take some tricky piloting,” Roan said. “The Empire has shut down Ussa, but it’s difficult to maintain patrols in the forested area south of the city.”

“The Tanglewoods?” Flame asked. “But that’s unnavigable.”

“There’s a way,” Roan said.

“What about the rest of you?” Flame asked.

“We’re going to catch a spaceliner to Coruscant,” Astri said.

Clive was leaning back against the wall, holding in his hands a cup of bright blue juice that he hadn’t tasted. “Any advice there? We haven’t been in some time.”

Flame shook her head. “Tight controls on all entry points. Your ID docs better be perfect.”

“Do you have a favorite landing hangar?” Clive asked.

She shook her head. “Haven’t been to Imperial City. Not even before the Clone Wars. I don’t like crowded planets.”

“Well, we’re off,” Solace said, standing. “The spaceliner is boarding.”

“I’ll go do the preflight check with Flame,” Trever said.

They all pushed back their chairs. It was the moment of parting, and no one knew what to say.

Trever was suddenly filled with foreboding. Parting with friends was so different now. He didn’t know when he’d see them again. If he’d ever see them again.

“Curran Caladian told me that the Svivreni never say good-bye,” Solace said gruffly. “They just say, ‘The journey begins, so go.’ “

Trever looked each of them in the eye, holding the gaze. “So go.”

“So go, kid,” Clive said.

Then Lune shouted, “So go, Trever!” making them all laugh.

Astri, Lune, Solace, and Clive headed to the departure gate. Roan and Dona went with Trever and Flame to the private vehicle departure hangar.

They boarded, and Flame automatically slid behind the controls. Roan raised an eyebrow at her.

“She’s a great pilot,” Trever told him. “I trust her.”

Roan waved a hand. “Carry on.” He settled himself behind the nav computer. “I’ll plot the route.”

The ship was cleared for takeoff and shot out into the atmosphere.

They didn’t speak much on the way to Bellassa. What lay ahead was so uncertain and dangerous that it was hard to think about anything else.

Trever found himself wondering again about Ferus. It seemed so strange now, as if he’d substituted Flame for Ferus. Events came rushing at him like a jump into hyperspace, and he didn’t have time to think anything through. It was reassuring to be with Roan, at least, someone he knew and trusted. Someone who connected him to his past.

And now he was flying right into it.

It was a long day’s journey before Roan quietly announced that they were approaching Bellassan airspace. They would enter the planet’s atmosphere well away from Ussa, over the wastelands on the other side of the planet. Then they would come up from the south.

Suddenly, alarms rang throughout the cabin.

“Imperial ships ringing the docking stations,” Roan said crisply. “Evasive action!”

The ship went into a screaming corkscrew dive, and Trever held on. It shouldn’t be this hard just to get home again. Once again, he had the sensation that the galaxy was upside down. Just as he was, at the moment.

The ship leveled out, and they all took a breath.

“Out of radar range,” Roan reported. “But we’re going to have to go back in again if we want to land. Usually the patrols are more random and centered around the landing platforms near Ussa. They never had large Star Destroyers lurking out here before.”

Flame turned the ship and lessened the speed. “What now?”

“I’ve got a large freighter cleared to land at the Ussa spaceport,” Roan said, monitoring air traffic. “It’s got to come in from the south. If you could hug its flank, we might pass through the detection scan. Then peel off when we’re close to the surface.”

“Got it,” Flame said.

Flame turned the ship into a quick dive, then flew in a random pattern toward the freighter. She quickly dipped the ship down, heading for the stern of the freighter.

“We’re going to catch a few space disturbance waves from displacement as we get closer,” she said. “So hang on.”

Suddenly the ship lurched, and Flame had to pull back to avoid smashing into the freighter. As winds whipped around their craft, sending it left and right and hurling it toward the large freighter, Flame was able to keep the ship steady, only meters from the freighter’s exhaust.

“The ship will blowout the exhaust soon,” Roan advised.

“I’m ready. It’ll be a good time to dive.”

The exhaust blew, and the ship rocketed backward. Flame lost control for a split second, and the ship spun so quickly that Trever almost fell to the floor. He was beginning to feel dizzy. Flame quickly leveled out, then dived toward the surface.

“Didn’t expect that to be quite so … aggressive,” she said with a grin.

“All right, we’re beyond their sensors,” Roan said, watching the computer. “No sign that they’ve seen us. I think we made it past the checkpoint.”

Flame’s hands relaxed slightly on the controls.

Sunset spread out below them in streaks of hot orange and deep red. Their craft zoomed downward.

Suddenly the Tanglewoods loomed ahead. The forest was renowned on Bellassa. The towering trees shared a complex root system and grew so thickly together that their branches intertwined in fantastical shapes. There was not a sliver of space to be seen between them. The darkness was falling rapidly. Only streaks of color remained near the horizon. Flame’s hands tightened on the controls.

“This is impossible,” she muttered.

“It only seems so,” Roan said. “Trust me. Follow the coordinates I laid out. Don’t trust your eyes.”

“Okay,” Flame said, her voice a bit shaky, “but we’re about to crash into that tree.”

Trever shrank back in his seat. The massive trunk loomed ahead. Flame kept going.

The ship burst through a holographic scrim. Now ahead through the gloom they could just make out a narrow, twisting tunnel through the entwined branches of the trees.

“The resistance worked for weeks to get this set up,” Roan said, leaning forward. “First we set up the hologram, then we cleared a path through the trees. The Empire hasn’t discovered it yet, and we hope they never do. It’s a safe pathway to Ussa.”

Confident now, Flame powered down the speed and looped through the twisting tunnel. It was now completely dark, and the trees overhead made only a whispering noise as they slipped through. “

“We can leave the ship at the edge of the wood,” Roan said. “It’s a short hike to Ussa.”

“This looks good,” Flame said, easing the ship down into a clearing surrounded by a thickly tangled canopy of trees.

“No survival packs,” Roan warned. “We have to look like residents of the city.”

For a time they walked through the forest, which gradually thinned until they could make out twinkling lights in the distance.

Gradually they heard the hum and whoosh of air traffic, and they knew they were close. They walked parallel to the main road.

“Up ahead is the airbus stop,” Roan told them. “Dona and I will bring Flame’s credentials to the Eleven. We’ll contact you when there’s word. Are you corning with us, Trever?”

“I’ll stick with Flame for now,” Trever said. “I’ve still got my buddies in the black market. They’ll hide us for sure.”

Roan nodded. “Good luck. Dona and I will continue on foot.”

Trever and Flame stepped out onto the road. The lights of Ussa were just a kilometer or so ahead. The airbus stop was crowded. This was where those who lived outside the city either left their personal transports or stepped off the interplanetary liners to get to the city airbuses. There was a small landing area crowded with swoops and speeders. Trever and Flame joined the short line forming to wait for the next airbus. A soft rain began to fall.

I’m home, Trevor thought.

The airbus arrived and they boarded. No one gave them a second look. They stood near the rear doors. The airbus glided through the winding city streets. Outlanders often got lost in Ussa, since it was a city built around seven lakes, and roads were circular and twisted around each other in dizzying arcs.

More people got on and off. The passengers began to dwindle as the airbus reached the Moonstone District, which was made up of warehouses and power plants for the city. Trever nudged Flame, and they jumped off.

“Not much to see around here,” Flame observed.

“We like it that way.”

Trever had exited the airbus two stops away from his destination, just to be sure the approach was safe. He led Flame through the dark streets and down an alley. At the alley’s end, he pushed open a door to what seemed to be an empty, abandoned warehouse. Inside, however, there was light and activity. A makeshift city had been set up within the warehouse’s four walls. Tents had been pitched, temporary structures thrown up, black market goods catalogued and stored in durasteel bins. As Trever walked in, all eyes turned to him. A tall, muscled man, with a heavy beard and a chest holster filled with small but deadly vibroshivs, stood up. Flame tensed.

The menacing man threw open his arms. “We thought you were dead!” he bellowed. “C’mere, you black-hearted scampweasel!”

Abashed, Trever walked through applauding thieves and claps on the back to the man, who lifted him off the ground and squeezed him in a bear hug that almost knocked every trace of breath from Trever’s body.

Trever pounded on the man’s shoulders to release him. “Glad to see you, too, Ptor,” he choked out.

Ptor dumped him down on the floor and gave his head a pat. “I’ll get a tarp for you and your friend so you can stake out a patch of floor. Plenty of food to go round, too.”

Trever took the tarp that Ptor tossed him, and Flame helped him spread it on the ground. “When I first started living on the street, Ptor watched out for me,” he told Flame.

“Seems like a good guy to have watching your back,” she observed.

“Sure helped the transition,” he agreed.

Someone had set up a large holoscreen, hanging from the ceiling. It was broadcasting Imperial Holovision. Ptor looked over and his face darkened. “Only thing we can get on Bellassa now. Still, they promised to broadcast some archives of the Galactic Games tonight. They’re good for something, I guess.”

Suddenly Darth Vader filled the screen. The room slowly quieted as the commentator’s voice came through.

“Lord Vader has been specially appointed as the Imperial liaison to the Bellassan drive to convert all factories to productive end,. The crash of the Bellassan economy has been a personal concern of the Emperor …. “

Darth Vader Was shown standing in a room, Surrounded by men and women in somber tunics.

“. .. gathered the best and the brightest of human scientists in the galaxy … “

“What’s the matter with the rest of us?” someone called out from the back, a Dornean, a Bellassan immigrant.