Star Wars: Knight Errant (8 page)

Tan smiled up at the visitors, and then at Kerra. The youngling was ecstatic. “This is what I’ve always wanted, Kerra! What we’ve been working toward!”

Kerra had never known of any specific goal Tan was working toward; she’d just assumed literacy was good in and of itself. But the girl acted as if she’d been reprieved from a death sentence. Maybe she had.

At the same time, though, it seemed like another kind of prison to Kerra. And so, it seemed, to Gub.

“Bombsights.” Gub stared at his granddaughter, his eyes weary. “That’s all she’ll learn about? Only that?”

The Ishi Tib trilled an answer, which Ler-Laar translated. “An engineer is a part like any other,” he said. “Specialized. Devoted to a specific function. Replaceable, should the need arise.” Tan would learn her specialty in a setting with other handpicked students who would form her work group in later life. “There isn’t any need for her to learn about anything else.” The Gran chuckled. “You wouldn’t try to boil water with a blaster.”

Kerra steamed. It was all so backward. Tan would be doomed to a life little different from Gub’s, putting Daiman’s imprint on the past. Almost anything in the “next generation of optics,” she estimated, would have been discovered long ago. Discovered, and lost, in
the interminable years of conflict during which countless universities, corporations, and scholars had been lost. They were constantly trying to rediscover knowledge they, themselves, had destroyed.

“Where would she go?” Gub asked, looking down.

Not seeming to understand why it mattered, the Gran explained that his company had education centers throughout Bactra’s space—as well as some mobile centers. “Of course, after …
recent events
here, Tan might well find an opening closer to home.” Daiman had proclaimed publicly that the Black Fang had been demolished to make way for a new and better research center. Even if the ongoing public inquisition suggested otherwise, Daiman might well be in the market for more brainpower.

“It’s what His Lordship intends,” Gub said. Limping across the room, he took his granddaughter’s hands in his. The old man trembled, holding back tears. “You will go.”

Kerra shot the scouts a look as the Sullustans embraced. As far as they were concerned, Tan didn’t have an option. They wanted her. She
would
go. And right away. The Ishi Tib waved off Gub’s efforts to give his granddaughter anything to take along. The recruits were being taken to a staging area at the spaceport, Ler-Laar said; transports had already been sent for. What ever facility she went to would have everything she’d ever need.

And it will be all she’ll ever have
, Kerra thought. But as she’d seen every day, life under Sith rule was a constant negotiation. The only way to improve things was on the margins. “Take care,” she said, hugging a tearful but happy Tan in the doorway.
May the Force be with you. Let it be with something, out here, for a change
.

Gub lingered, sad and small, in the doorway. Outside, neighbors parted and watched, amazed, as one of their own escaped.

“She’ll remain a slave,” Kerra whispered behind her landlord’s back.

“But she’ll have an easier time of it,” Gub responded. In a year, Tan would be thirteen—and obligated to work three shifts daily if she wanted to be fed at all. There was no guarantee her next assignment wouldn’t be more dangerous. She could even wind up drafted. A safer monotony wasn’t a bad thing, especially if it was somewhere else. The old man straightened, his leg braces creaking. “She’ll have an easier time of it,” he said again, almost to himself. “As will I.”

Limping back inside, he found Kerra’s curtain again. A stiff yank brought it down for the second time in a week.

The message was clear. “You want me to go?”

Gub looked up at her, fat eyes communicating the obvious. The child was gone. Kerra was no longer necessary. He took the curtain—now a sheet again—and draped it across the chair where he did his work.

Kerra looked blankly into the darkened room.
Evicted from a closet
.

“Come now,” the old man said, depositing himself in his seat before the desk. “Now you will be able to work a third eight-hour shift—and qualify for a room and ration of your own.”

But, of course, Kerra needed her nights.

“I’m … glad I was able to help, Master Tengo,” she said to his back. “I’ll be out in the morning.”

“To night,”
he said, charging his pen against his knee.

“We’re racing against time, here! Step it up!”

Scratching his muscled neck, Jarrow Rusher squinted up at the crane. They were losing the sun—the one sun that did anything, anyway. Daiman’s “eyes” had set earlier, beyond the smokestacks west of the parade grounds. Now the cannoneer was watching major surgery on the vessel that was his livelihood—and facing the prospect that the operation might have to be completed in the dark.

Squatting on what once had been a bolo-ball field,
Diligence
resembled nothing more than a mammoth, two-clawed crustacean. Two colossal retro-rockets provided the ship with its footing, each engine the center of a cluster of four giant cargo modules. Large X’s when viewed from above, the cargo clusters were joined together by the oversized fuselage of the crew section—

—or at least, that was how things were
supposed
to be. At the moment, Rusher’s precious warship was in two pieces, while his team levered up three thousand metric tons of metal to make room for the new hydraulic accumulator unit the Lubboons had sent over. But the old one had to be dealt with first.

“Watch out!”

A steel cable snapped with an earsplitting
crack
, causing the mass of metal bound to the crane to dangle
wildly. Seconds later the remaining cable gave out, rocketing around the pulley and flinging outward, bisecting a metal scaffold in the process. The crane’s lopsided cargo fell to the ground, burying itself in the turf and just missing Rusher’s chief machinist.

At least it was the old unit, Rusher thought. He scanned the scrambling crowd. “Who set that rig?”

“Rookie!”

Rusher didn’t need to hear any more than that—and he didn’t need to look. It had made some sense, initially. The new hydraulic module had bought Beadle Lubboon a place in the crew, after all, and the Duros teen had assured them that he’d worked with the equipment in his parents’ factory. But it was looking less like a bargain for Rusher all the time.

The new recruit scurried past in his too-small fatigues, offering something between a wave and a shrug. “Sorry, Captain.”

“That’s
Brigadier
.”

Trooper Lubboon was already out of earshot, slamming the door to the portable refresher set up at the field’s edge. The team had learned earlier in the day that stress did something vile to the boy’s stomach. This evening was having much the same effect on Rusher, standing in the long shadows cast by his disjointed creation. If the playing field had ever been under the lights, it wasn’t anymore. Soon the only illumination would be what they could generate themselves—and, of course, from those fool holographic statues at the four corners of the field.

It was a crazy idea, mounting a full-sized troop transport ship on top of a couple of cargo haulers. But the daring design of
Diligence
had made Rusher something of a legend in Sith artillery circles. Most methods of cannon deployment in the sector involved shipping guns and their operators separately. That was dangerous on several scores. Often, one or the other wouldn’t make it
to the battlefield. Or worse, the crews would have to traverse contested ground to reach their weapons. Frequently, artillery pieces were simply dropped from space, with no provision for retrieval. That had been good for scroungers like Rusher, but it was hardly efficient.

Some pieces
were
carried aboard ships with their operators, but the guns tended to be small. Weapons could be disassembled, but as Rusher had seen, another problem came in: most ships unloaded down a single ramp, causing traffic jams as workers got parts into position. Rusher had longed to combine the large, automated cargo pods dropped from orbit with a vessel hauling the gunnery crews.

No such ship had existed in Sith space—until Rusher, a few years after leaving Beld Yulan’s crew, built it himself. Salvaging a Devaronian cruise liner, Rusher and a sleepless work team mounted the massive ship atop a superstructure bridging two cargo pod clusters. Their modules opened outward in four directions, allowing eight crews to off-load weapons simultaneously. “Down, gun, and done,” he’d called it. Few crews were faster than Rusher’s Brigade.

They’d even solved the problem of shipping long guns by mounting the barrels outside the ship, jutting outward from the cargo pods. That didn’t do much for the ship’s appearance, and there were few city platforms wide enough to accommodate
Diligence
with all the metal prods sticking out. On the other hand, as Rusher had once observed, in Sith space it didn’t hurt to appear to be bristling with guns. That the guns were nonfunctioning parts of cannons yet to be assembled was their little secret.

“That’s better,” Rusher said, seeing Prenda Novallo and her engineers hoist the new hydraulic unit into place. He retreated to the sidelines. They were literal this time, but Rusher usually stood there anyway for these kinds of
jobs. It was easier on the nerves. Dackett, Novallo—he’d been blessed on the maintenance side of things. No one knew better how to run an artillery carrier in all of Sith space than his crew. And they’d kept him free.

Free enough, anyway.

Rusher looked to the rumbling skies. More warships were arriving. Independents, like him. There were even a couple of corporate transports mixed in that he didn’t recognize. He swore. Something was going on. He’d put in at Darkknell for refit and recruiting, not to take on a new mission right away. People just didn’t show up on a Sith Lord’s homeworld unbidden. Not if they wanted to be able to leave.

“That’s Mak Medagazy,” called a voice from behind as a Toong battle droid carrier soared overhead through the darkness. Master Dackett pointed to the vessel, lighting on the other side of the field. “What’s this about?”

“I’ve seen what you’ve seen,” Rusher said. It was a problem with working for Daiman. Normally, the chiefs of mercenary vessels would gather at local cantinas and compare notes. But Daiman had dismantled most services that marketed to the public, unwilling to waste entertainments on those who existed to provide
him
entertainment. He’d wiped out a key source of information—and a lot of good cantinas to boot.

Stepping into the light of one of the holostatues, Dackett made his report on the refit.
Diligence
’s unusual configuration put extreme stresses on its frame when landing in high-gravity environments; functioning hydraulic systems were vital. “We’d like another two weeks to get the whole thing done right.”

“Two weeks.” Rusher looked again to the darkening skies, filled with lights from descending vehicles. “Well, do what you have to. As long as we don’t hear from His Craziness, we should be—”

“Lord Daiman speaks!”
thundered a voice from above.

Startled, Rusher and his aide looked to the holographic statue behind them. Three times life-sized, the figure of Daiman had ceased its automated posturing and was now addressing them. Specifically,
him
. “Jarrow Rusher is destined for the Sanctum Celestial, tomorrow at noon.”

Rusher shot a glance to the dark wall of the palace, looming to the northwest. “Do you have a mission for—”

“Jarrow Rusher is destined for the Sanctum Celestial, tomorrow at noon. Meet your destiny.” At that, the holographic statue was as it had been before, depicting Daiman looking thoughtful and complicated.

“I regret to inform you, the mission has been scrubbed,” Dackett said.

“So much for your two weeks.” Rusher looked at Dackett. “Think he heard me?”

“I doubt it. But who knows?”

It would certainly be an excellent way for Daiman to impress his omniscience upon his people, Rusher thought. Eavesdrop on everyone electronically, and then use his virtual personage on every street corner to react. It would be right up there with some of the more effective totalitarian states he’d read about. But, like his aide, Rusher doubted it. He’d never met the young lord, but he’d known people who had. Spying on everyone sounded like too much work for someone like Daiman. If you didn’t think anyone else existed, why bother?

Dackett clapped his datapad against his artificial hand. “Right, then. I’ll tell Novallo she’s working through the night.”

“Tell you what, Dackett,” Rusher said. “I’ll finish the welding.
You
visit His Lordship.”

“No, sir,” the older man said, his gapped tooth whistling. “Every band has a front man. I just play the pretty music.”

Rusher chuckled.
Front man?
Maybe. But even for the
so-called independents, someone else always called the tune.

When she was a child, Kerra had visited the chilly polar regions of Aquilaris—about the only place on the planet where the weather wasn’t gorgeous constantly. Even that had been beautiful, with whitecaps cresting one after another in the fjords.

She had spied a lone quadractyl, an oceangoing avian creature more at home in warmer climes, afloat in the crashing surf. At first, she thought the animal was in trouble. A whitecap would wash over it, forcing it underwater. Seconds later it would resurface, soggy and closer to shore, just in time to be struck by the next icy wave. It didn’t seem to be making any attempt to fly away, preferring, it seemed, to ride along and take what fate—or the planet’s three moons—had in store for it.