“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.
CHAPTER FOUR
“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 wit
h 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.
Having watched Sith slaves from Chelloa to Darkknell deal with their lives, Kerra began to think that was what was happening here, too. The people who lived in this sector were like the wretched quadractyl, being buffeted by one violent wave of Sith conquerors after another. Blow followed upon blow. And yet the people, like the animal, rode it out.
Some in the Republic felt that the people who lived under Sith rule didn’t deserve saving, because they hadn’t acted to free themselves. It was clear to Kerra those people had never seen Sith oppression up close, or they would have understood how wrong they were. The power imbalance between master and slave was just too great. There was no practical way for those under Daiman’s heel to band together—and in fact, gathering together had the effect of making them more vulnerable, rather than more powerful. No uprising was possible.
And yet, kneeling in the darkness of her soon-to-be-former room, Kerra wondered if she’d just seen resistance in action. Parents in the Daimanate were willing to endure more hardship for themselves if it meant their children might migrate to a position that was marginally better. Decades of oppression had forced on them such a long view of life that even the smallest step was a mighty leap to freedom.
Maybe that quadractyl was where it was because it had acted—acted to send its chicks south. It just didn’t have anything left to save itself.
But Kerra had escaped once. And she wouldn’t stay now.
Peeking outside to confirm that Gub was at his desk, Kerra pulled the folded stealth suit from beneath her bedroll. It was pristine. She’d been given a solvent by one of her friends at work. Ostensibly intended to clean a piece of furniture, the fluid had worked marvelously on the Mark VI. It had taken meticulous effort, mostly after Tan had gone to sleep each night. But the suit was necessary. Essential, in fact, for realizing the value of what she’d gained through her other job on Darkknell.
Kerra pulled the drawstring on the duffel bag. Lifting her few personal items from the top, she emptied the sack onto her pillow. Pouches of glistening gel tumbled into a pile. Baradium nitrite. Enough explosive to send the universe’s would-be creator on a journey of discovery—through the stratosphere.
She’d brought the explosive out of the factory a little at a time, in disposable squeeze food packets. It had been easy enough; she was supposed to bring her own lunch and pack out her trash. In its fluid form, it was less prone to accidental detonation than other explosives, and she probably didn’t have enough to pull off what the Bothan had done at the Black Fang. But as a Jedi alone heading up against a Sith Lord, she knew it didn’t hurt to have backup.
She hadn’t known what to do with it all, before the other day. Daiman himself had given her the key, in his vain insistence that everyone hear his voice daily. On one other world, she’d heard his message declaring the sunrise. Listening again the last two days, she’d heard it again: the same phrasing as offworld, except for the parts about the day’s duration. Surely, he didn’t record different ones for every world he held—and she wasn’t aware of any communications network in Sith space that equaled the one that the Republic had deactivated on the Outer Rim. Both meant that Daiman’s voice was being simulated, and simulated locally on each world.
Obvious, really, but she’d never thought about the corollary. If Daiman vanished tomorrow, the rival Sith Lords whose rampage she feared might not find out about it for a long time. Daiman’s Correctors would want to keep their jobs, which meant they would pretend nothing had changed.
But in fact, something would have changed, Kerra thought as she refilled the bag and cinched it shut. Life wouldn’t improve dramatically, but a Daimanate without a Daiman would be something that would help many people at once.
Kerra took a last look around the room and stood to depart. Daiman would vanish tomorrow.
And it was about blasted time.
There were worse things than death.
Narsk’s aunt had told him that, raising him alone on Verdanth. Near the juncture of three sectors and situated on a major hyperspace lane, the planet was desired by many a petty princeling. Indeed, several had declared themselves Sith Lords immediately upon taking the green world, as if the title conqueror of Verdanth meant anything. It usually didn’t. Verdanth’s masters seldom lived long. But they always survived long enough to do serious damage to the population of the world, a diverse patchwork of transplanted peoples.
The Bothan community on Verdanth had suffered less than others, if only because of the species’ penchant for intrigues. More stubborn races had refused to submit when the Sith first invaded; their survivors saw each successive wave as something to be resisted with all means. A noble thought. But ownership of Verdanth was changing almost annually. Defiance of all invaders earned only extinction. The Bothans, meanwhile, submitted freely to whichever Sith warlord they estimated had the upper hand. Their instincts were so good, observers said, that one could track the balance of power in the system simply by looking at who had the most Bothans in his or her camp.
Being on the losing side meant death. But that wasn’t the worst part, as his aunt had put it: it meant that you’d guessed wrong.
Understanding the relationships between others and accurate reckonings of power and where it lay: these were the things that made one a Bothan. Narsk’s aunt once described a tribe of feral Bothans, found untold years after a crash on a deserted planet. They had no spoken language, but they could rank with exactitude the numbers of various kinds of predators in their surroundings. To be a Bothan was to be always on the lookout.
Narsk had taken those lessons to heart. While a slave for successive Sith Lords on Verdanth, he’d managed to find chores that bettered his perceptions. The sloppy job of harvesting rimebats led to assignments tracking escapees. Those led to missions as a nonmilitary scout and, finally, a saboteur. All the time, he’d kept his eyes on the Sith players, in the best traditions of his people.
The quandary came when two particularly pugnacious rivals chose to settle the ownership of the planet in a duel that left them both dead. The resulting power vacuum put many Bothans off kilter. There was no reason to expect Verdanth would stay free from Sith rule for more than a few weeks at most, and yet the planet-bound Bothans had no real way of gauging the relative strengths of powers yet unseen. The only real way to know which Sith Lord to back was to strike out into space personally and have a look.
Narsk did. And never returned.
He’d found a wondrously complicated political scene. A patchwork of dominions and dependencies, ruled by despots
with secret connections and histories of betrayal. It could keep an industrious Bothan busy for a lifetime.
For Narsk, it had. And now, it was all over—because he wasn’t on the lookout.
The Jedi was a wild card, but he should’ve known she was there. He’d been on Darkknell a month, assessing the potential hazards. Even if only one person on Darkknell knew she was there, he should have been the one.
He noted, ironically, that he probably had been the first to know she was there. But that information had come too late to be useful. And now that Daiman had, through him, become the second to know, Narsk wondered why he was still alive.
He’d remained on the slab for days without food, tasting water when a torture session involved it. Daiman knew now that Narsk was an agent for Odion. Once Narsk realized that secret was gone, he’d relaxed his defenses, allowing the Sith Lord to see everything in his memories since his arrival on Darkknell. The assumption of the cover identity, the scouting of the testing center, the many forays inside. That was a tactic he’d been taught, too. Once a secret lost its value as a secret, it could be used to shield other truths. He’d flooded Daiman with details that didn’t matter anymore.
It seemed to have worked. Apparently satisfied, Daiman had left him alone. Several times the young Sith had sensed the importance of a female human in Narsk’s memories—but from his remarks, Daiman had always assumed it was the Jedi. Daiman was no better than the sentries, Narsk thought. They only see what they’re looking for.
Now, though, Narsk saw only imminent death. He had nothing more to give—nothing he would give, anyway. His execution was at hand. Four Correctors entered the room, releasing him from the table and shifting his limp, half-clothed body to a circular metal frame. His feet and ankles were fastened to its perimeter, splaying his body across its width. The Correctors tipped the device on its side, wheeling Narsk down one of the narrow darkened hallways.
With nothing to support his neck, Narsk’s head hung backward as the frame rolled. Dizzily, he saw a blur of light ahead. His eyes adjusting, Narsk realized it was a wide indoor area with a skylight above. With a bump, the Correctors rolled his circular rack onto a small platform built to lift something in antigrav suspension.
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