Star Wars: Knight Errant (15 page)

“Coyn’skar, live!”

“Serraknife, live!”

“Dematoil, live!”

One by one, all eight battalions—all named for the exotic ancient weapons etched on their helmets—checked in. Rusher had found the names in his studies, names connecting his troopers with the past. It was a tough thing, nearly dying for a different Sith Lord every year. It helped to have a connection to something.

Snapping the visor down on his helmet, Rusher pointed toward a technician looking back at him from a hemispheric window in
Diligence
’s hull. Responding to the gesture, the tech threw a switch—and the entire vessel
hummed as the ship’s energy shield came alive.
Diligence
made too nice a target, sitting there amid the emplacements. The invisible shield wouldn’t stop a projectile, but it might dissipate some of the other fire directed their way. Rusher expected plenty. His flak jacket had been on, beneath his overcoat, since touchdown.

“Guns hot,” he called. “Rusher out.” Looking down again at the four transports, with their passengers gathering outside, he reactivated the comlink. “And if anyone targets within a klick of those kids, I’ll strap them to Bitsy and pull the trigger myself!”

“No! No!”

She recognized the visitors’ garments, now. These were all factory workers—slaves from Darkknell and other planets—recruited by Industrial Heuristics. Adolescents, like Tan. Led by droid minders, the group made its way slowly through the sludge toward the giant facility.

There’s still time before the ambush
. Daiman had said it in the dome—and she could see Daiman’s forces readying lower down the north crater wall. There were more forces in the highlands to the east. Who knew how many blasters, how much artillery might be trained on the innocents?

And why? She’d thought before there was no reason for Odion’s forces to come here, not into what was so obviously a trap. There wasn’t anything here worth fighting over. At least not until the monster city-ship showed up—

No
.

Kerra bolted down the hillside, uncaring. This was wrong, all wrong. In minutes Daiman had turned Gazzari from a useless rock into a vital strategic target. And the target was her friend, tromping around down there in the ashen mud with her companions and laughing.

Daiman had baited a trap for Odion on Chelloa by us
ing the explosive baradium mines as the lure. This time the bait was live.

The fastest way down the cliffside led away from Daiman’s dome. It wasn’t important now. Kerra launched down a rocky incline toward the crater floor, attracting the attention of two Sith soldiers at the perimeter. The armored warriors barely had time to look in her direction before she cut them down with a flash of brilliant green. Kerra stood revealed.

“Jedi?” came a stunned voice from higher on the ridge.

“Jedi!”

Kerra bolted into the valley, boots slapping against the ocher mud as she made for the temporary buildings. She hadn’t heard blasterfire yet, but she would. The transports were a good way off, but she still had the first warrior’s rifle. Maybe she could drive the crowds back onto the transports.

Lurching into the clear, Kerra tripped over her feet and slammed into the tarry surface. She looked up, stunned. Nothing had interfered with her progress; the ground was featureless in all directions. She listened again for blasterfire …

… and instead felt a stinging pain near her heart.

Ignoring the throbbing, Kerra tried to crawl across the blackened field. For a moment, she thought exhaustion from the past few weeks’ exertions had finally overtaken her. But hearing the rumbling above, she knew better.

Or worse.

Kerra opened her mind to the Force. Discretion didn’t matter; Daiman’s forces, including any Correctors present, already knew she was here. And if they were here now, they were probably feeling the same crushing pressure she was. Something was approaching. A psychic black hole, drawing in all that existed and destroying everything it encountered. It was a feeling she’d first felt on Aquilaris, the day she lost her family—and again on Chelloa, the day she
lost Master Treece and the other Jedi, her second family. It was why Daiman’s forces weren’t shooting at her now. They’d gotten the word. They’d sensed his presence, just as she had.

Vannar Treece’s killer was here.

Lord Odion had arrived.

“It’s a trap, Lord Odion!”

“Of course it’s a trap,” boomed the stentorian voice from above. “The little snot doesn’t operate any other way.”

Narsk looked up at Odion and marveled. Daiman’s older sibling truly was his antithesis, both philosophically and aesthetically. Where would-be creator Daiman surrounded himself with light, destroyer Odion sat at the center of a sphere of darkness, lit only by holograms depicting the ships outside.
Sword of Ieldis
had one of the stranger bridge designs Narsk had ever seen. A great uncomfortable throne of Mandalorian iron sat on a pedestal suspended meters above the ship’s crew, themselves arranged in concentric circles beneath their lord. Some facing inward, to serve him; the rest facing outward, scanning the space outside.

Sword
had come crashing out of hyperspace, hurtling into the Gazzari system at a speed that unnerved Narsk. It was just another day in Odion’s service. His flagship named to honor an ancient Sith warlord, Odion styled himself the barbarian king. Heavy battle armor hid a bulkier form, exposing only his hairless, burn-scarred head. Narsk thought it unlikely that true barbarian kings wore their armor all the time, but Odion seemed unbound by convention. Or much else.

“Of course, Bothan, if it is a trap, we could send
you
down first.” Odion glared down, ruby light from his left cybernetic eye pulsating in the blackness. “It ought to take you just a few minutes to bollix things up entirely!”

Narsk froze in his seat, searching for meaning in his employer’s scowl. Seconds later, Odion quaked with laughter, the sound amplified by his surgically implanted mouthpiece. Narsk bristled. The worst was the silence from the rest of the crew, unwilling or simply too afraid to join in their master’s laughter.
Sword
’s bridge had all the warmth of a polar icecap.

Even before Darkknell, working for Odion had been a barefoot dance on the long edge of a vibrosword. But Narsk had to return, even without the
Convergence
data he’d been sent to steal. Daiman had left Narsk alive for one reason: to arrange the upcoming battle. A battle that Odion desired more than a thousand datapads packed with secret schematics.

Narsk was now certain Daiman had wanted him to deliver Odion the news of the deal for Bactra’s arxeum. He’d had plenty of time to think back on it hiding in the cargo ship leaving the Daimanate. Daiman had kept Narsk in his presence long enough to hear everything that transpired with Bactra. Even the rotation of his gyroscopic prison, he’d realized, had been programmed to slow down whenever anything important was said.

And the Jedi woman was right. The Gamorrean sentries
had
loosened his bonds before abandoning him in the darkened hallway. If she hadn’t come along, he would have escaped himself.

As Daiman expected.

It also explained, he knew now, why it had been such a simple matter to emerge from the Darkknell junkyard and find offworld transit heading in the right direction. The freighter he’d chosen had hopped to a neutral planet, one that just happened to see regular visitors from the
Odionate. In two standard days, Narsk had found himself back before Odion.

Narsk’s homecoming was harsh but brief compared with the punishment he had endured at Daiman’s hands. Narsk had destroyed the Black Fang, after all; if he hadn’t pushed the button, he’d planted the charges. And while he hadn’t mentioned the Jedi’s role in that—or his escape—he had described her presence on Darkknell, something that interested Odion immensely. Odion had kept him alive throughout the battle preparations, just to hear more about the dark-haired Jedi running amok in Daiman’s territory.

As ridiculous as Daiman seemed at times, he’d definitely thought things through. He had given Narsk the kind of information that negated all of his previous failures for Odion, thus ensuring Narsk would deliver it. And he had engineered a situation that was obviously a trap, and yet irresistible to his older sibling. Daiman had avoided direct confrontations ever since the loss of Chelloa. Odion would take any chance for a fight, regardless of the danger.

“Scan for Daiman’s forces,” Odion said as
Sword
decelerated, its ungainly, chunky form reaching the edge of the planetary nebula.

“Daiman’s forces are not in the system,” screeched a voice from the grave—or somewhere near to it. Jelcho, one of Odion’s Givin navigators, showed his fright-mask face. It turned Narsk’s stomach.

“No, Boy-boy’s here,” Odion said, sniffing. “He’s on Gazzari, like the bumbler said.” The main body of Daiman’s space forces had made a public show of being elsewhere during the last couple of days; Daiman, likewise, hadn’t covered his tracks about coming to this frontier world with a light escort. “Someone else is in the nebula,” Odion barked. “Tighten the scan.”

Jelcho turned his empty eye sockets back toward the
monitor. Narsk was glad. He hated the Givin. An entire species with holes in their heads, and yet they made up the bridge crew. Diversity meant nothing in Odion’s service. He liked his spies Bothan, his engineers Verpine, and his navigators Givin—a curious species capable of calculating hyperspace jumps in their withered heads.

The holographic visuals surrounding Odion refreshed. He gestured to a small flotilla, loitering beyond Gazzari’s sun. “Who’s that?”

Jelcho had the answer. “Lord Bactra’s fleet.”

“Moving?”

Jelcho paused as another Givin whispered into his ear-hole. “If our scans on entering the system are correct, they have just delivered the arxeum to Gazzari’s surface. They appear to be departing.”

“They’re not being very quick about it,” Odion growled. He waved a massive gauntleted hand, activating an unseen system. “Who’s that over there?” he called into the darkness. “Identify yourself!”

Cold moments passed before the holographic image of Lord Bactra materialized in the space before him. “It is Bactra, Lord Odion. My greetings to you.” The flickering Quermian shifted, uneasily. “We are … literally just
passing through
.”

“That’s a lie. I know what you were delivering to the brat!”

“And it is delivered,” Bactra promptly responded. “What happens to the arxeum now is no concern of mine.” His enormous neck dipped, bringing his icy smile into focus. “Of course, if
you
should like to employ Industrial Heuristics’ services yourself, I am sure something can be—”

Odion cut off the transmission. “Wretched little trader.” Despite the years of uneasy peace between them, his distaste for the Quermian’s ways was well known.

Another Givin bleated. “I have firing solutions on the Bactranites, Lord Odion.”

“Forget it. Pleasure first.”

Narsk watched through the bridge window as they passed Bactra’s ships, still dallying before their scheduled engagement on Vellas Pavo. Maybe they simply wanted to watch a good fight. While none of Bactra’s affair, the result would certainly alter the balance of power in the region. Bactra would be interested in that.

Knowing Daiman as Narsk did, it could always be something else. He wondered: Had Daiman secretly gotten Bactra to renounce his neutrality, adding to the ambush? If so, the Quermian hadn’t brought enough forces for it. Bactra’s dozen ships might suffice to escort an arxeum or destroy some gadolinium mines, but Odion had brought a quarter of his home fleet, even now forming an orbital perimeter around Gazzari.

And the master of destruction had brought something else, just now exiting hyperspace behind them. “It’s here,” Odion said, rising with a clank. “Thunderers, to their transports. Jelcho, you’re with me.” Pausing on the opaque catwalk leading out of his personal planetarium, Odion shot a wicked look down at Narsk. “You, too, bumbler.”

Narsk jolted upright in his seat. “Why me?”

“I might need you to blow up something else of Daiman’s.” Black teeth showed through curling lips. “Or if the Jedi wench is here, maybe you can let
her
destroy it for you … again!”

Kerra got to her knees just in time. Blasterfire from Daiman’s ridgeline encampment raked the pasty soil, spraying ash all around her. She could see Daiman’s forces scrambling toward their heavy artillery, and while she now knew that the firepower wasn’t intended for her,
at least a few sentries were still after her. Finding her feet, Kerra made a dash for the cover of a temporary building.

Glimpsing through a window, Kerra saw what she expected: nothing at all. It was all a lure. The little outpost on the crater. The students. And now the towering Industrial Heuristics facility, just arrived. All of it was designed to attract Odion to Gazzari, so the forces on the crater walls could put him into a cross fire.

Could Odion really be so stupid, so desperate for battle as to walk into such a place?

Yes
, she thought. That was definitely his presence she sensed entering orbit. And the rumbling of the clouds above meant more than rain. She looked urgently to the west. Clusters of students still marched across the ebon valley toward the facility, seemingly heedless of anything that had transpired between her and Daiman’s sentries.