Star Wars: Knight Errant

by John Jackson Miller

  Before Kerra could respond, Arkadia spied someone up ahead and stepped up her pace. Rusher and the Twi’lek stood in a loading zone near a massive magnetic gateway to the frigid outside world. Beside them, several workers loaded a mountain of containers and cylinders onto a trio of trundle cars. Arkadia swept toward them. “Did my assistant find your supplies, Brigadier?”

  “Everything I could have asked for,” Rusher said, studying a datapad. “Should replenish all the stocks the refugees drew down. I’m surprised at the variety of food you have here.”

  “We don’t live by algae alone—not with so many different palates. What we don’t grow here, we ship in.” She looked at Beadle. “It will probably take your crew longer to unload it than we took to grow it.”

  “We’re pretty good with loading,” Rusher said, passing his recruit the datapad. “One of our specialties, in fact.”

  Arkadia smiled politely. Looking down, she reached for Tan’s hands. “Go, girl, and tell your friends aboard Diligence of the kind of life that awaits them here.”

  Kerra winced as Tan hugged the Sith Lord good-bye. Arkadia accepted the gesture, appearing to regard the expression as novel.

  “I’ll be across later,” Kerra told the Sullustan, walking her to the ramp. “I don’t think Arkadia is done with me.”

  “She’ll let us stay here, won’t she?” Tan asked, black eyes hopeful in the doorway. “Please try to convince her, Kerra.”

  Kerra’s heart caught in her throat. Looking back, she saw Arkadia standing confidently as she chatted with Rusher and the Ithorian aide. “Whatever she wants to do, Tan. I’m pretty sure she’s already decided,” Kerra said. “Stay safe.” Stepping back, she saw Beadle approaching the transport. “Make sure she gets safely back to Diligence.”

  The recruit nodded. “Master Jedi, do you think this could really be a home for us?” Flustered, he corrected himself. “I mean, for them?”

  “Not sure about a mercenary life, Trooper?” Kerra patted his shoulder and smiled weakly. “Well, I hope you make the right decision.”

  “You, too,” Beadle said, needlessly saluting her. Stopping in the hatchway, he looked back. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that.” Shaking his head, he disappeared inside the trundle car.

  Kerra turned to see Arkadia looking with obvious satisfaction at the work the Twi’lek’s team was doing.

  “You have mastered this office quickly, Warmalo,” Arkadia said. She looked the Twi’lek in his narrow eyes. “I should like to challenge you further.”

  “I … appreciate a challenge,” the aide said.

  “Report to the foundry. You are the new director of metallurgical operations.”

  The pasty-skinned figure rocked, seemingly unsure how to respond to the news. At last, Warmalo bowed his lumpy head. “Thank you, my lord.”

  Kerra watched the newly promoted aide stalk off. “Does he know anything about metallurgy?”

  “He has the same grounding I expect from all my people,” Arkadia said. “But he had been at the same assignment for nearly three months. I think he can do more. I expect him to.”

  As the loaded trundle cars revved up behind her, the din reverberated throughout the atrium. And yet Rusher and Arkadia couldn’t miss noticing it when Kerra suddenly burst out laughing.

  Rusher looked at her, puzzled. “You take these spells often?”

  “I get it!” The floor rumbling with the departure of the trundle cars through the magnetic seals, Kerra knelt and clasped her hands. “I get it. I understand what you’re doing here!” She looked again at the Twi’lek, shrinking into the distance. The Herglic. The Falleen. And now him. It was the common thread. She looked up at Arkadia. “Your whole society. It looks orderly. But it runs on chaos.”

  Arkadia stared down at her for a moment before her expression softened. “Your perceptions are sharp, Jedi,” she said. “I knew that they would be. You’ve learned, in your day’s journey, what I have spent a lifetime learning—how to forge an effective society under one person.”

  Rusher looked at her with interest. “I don’t follow.”

  “Organizations decay from the moment they’re created, Brigadier,” Arkadia said. “All Sith want to rule, and rule forever. But to rule forever, there must be constant revival.” Seeing Kerra stand, she gestured to the stars through the ceiling panels. “You’ve seen much chaos at work in Sith space. I have harnessed chaos. Organized it. I have made a slave of change.”

  Kerra explained to Rusher what she had seen. “It’s like the way you run your crew. She expects people to be able to do any job,” she said.

  “Flexibility. Versatility. These are the traits I’m looking for,” Arkadia said. “I don’t assume my subjects have only one kind of potential, only one destiny. I challenge them to find more in themselves.”

  The Jedi responded with a canny smirk. “But I bet Rusher doesn’t take his best gunners out of the field the second they get good at what they’re doing. Do you, Brigadier?”

  Rusher straightened his collar, seemingly unsure of the tack he should take. “No. No, that wouldn’t make sense.” He looked at Arkadia. “Don’t you have a competence problem?”

  “Don’t you?” Arkadia pointed in the direction Trooper Lubboon and the trundle cars had gone. “At least I’m guaranteed all my workers have the same starting knowledge about the things I care about. And those who knew life under regimes before mine have a great incentive to see that we all succeed.”

  Kerra studied Arkadia. The Sith woman’s philosophy was less deranged than others she had heard in Sith space—but she was still Sith. There was always an angle. Kerra just had to find it.

  Arkadia watched her working it out. “You can say what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m thinking all this moving everyone around keeps you safe, as much as anything,” Kerra said. “Your more skilled underlings never become rivals, because they’ve always got something new to do. They’re always having to scramble to get reestablished.” She looked directly at Arkadia. “Your philosophy is an insurance policy.”

  “And reducing wasteful conflict is bad how?” Arkadia rested her chin on the back of her hand. “You’ve seen what it’s like out there. Can you really say rivalry among Sith is good for the galaxy?”

  Kerra’s grin faded. The woman was right. As proud as Kerra was of her insight, it didn’t change the fact that, from all she had seen thus far, the Arkadianate appeared to be a safe place for those who lived in it. If this was Arkadia’s worst secret, it was hard to find an objection to it. But she wondered why the Sith Lord had wanted her to come to the realization on her own.

  “I did,” Arkadia said, catching the thought through the Force. “Because it’s important to me that we understand each other—and that you understand what I have to offer.” Stepping to the middle of the atrium, she spread long, silver-clad arms. “I’m offering sanctuary to all your students, here on Syned.”

  Kerra stared. “How do I know you won’t put them to work making weapons?”

  “You don’t—and I will,” Arkadia said. “I have my own borders to protect and wars to wage. But that will only be some of the time. With me, they have some hope of doing something else, besides. And in relative safety,” she added.

  Rusher shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lord Arkadia,” he said, “but your neighbors do things a lot differently. If you want the kids—and, hey, if you do, just ask—why don’t you just take them?” Catching Kerra’s angry glare, he added: “Not that you should.”

  “Because I want Kerra’s goodwill,” Arkadia said. “The hospitality I am offering is genuine, and I need her to know that—before I can ask something in return.”

  Here it comes, Kerra thought. Agreeable demeanor or not, Arkadia was still Sith. The students weren’t enough. “What, do you want Diligence, too?” Kerra could almost hear Rusher’s teeth grinding at the mention.

  “Nothing like that,” Arkadia said, gesturing deferentially to the man. “I’m sure Brigadier Rusher is t
alented, but specialists don’t really fit into my scheme. Their thinking is too … narrow.” She smiled primly at Rusher. “No offense.”

  “No defense,” Rusher said, breathing easier. “I’d be a goner the second you decided I’d serve you better as an accountant.” Rubbing his gloved palms, he added, “We are available for hire, though.”

  Kerra ignored him. “Then what do you want? Why would you possibly want my goodwill?”

  Arkadia didn’t answer. Another aide had delivered a datapad that the Sith Lord was scanning with interest. Looking up, she said, “I have something to attend to, but I will call for you both. Until then, I hope you’ll remain here as my guests.”

  Kerra looked back to see several members of Arkadia’s Citizen Guard stationed before the magnetic seal. Arkadia might offer hope, but she didn’t take chances with her own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Life was like a cannon, Beld Yulan had always said. “You’ve got to clear the empty casings before you can fire again.”

  As with most things—at least, up until he went Odionite—Rusher’s old mentor had been right. Depression had nearly claimed Rusher, aboard Diligence after Gazzari. But in a strange way, the Jedi and her brood had been the distraction he needed to get his bearings again. The escape from Byllura had woken him up. He still had a crew that needed his protection and guidance.

  But that shell had been fired. It was time to move on. Here, in just a few hours in Calimondretta, he’d gotten interested in starting over again. Arkadia’s people had done amazing things with fabrication, feats that might make future artillery pieces lighter. Watching the Twi’lek supply master work—while he had still had that job—had also been instructive. Rusher saw three ways he might reorganize Diligence’s cargo pods, to speed weapon deployment. He didn’t expect Arkadia would allow him to recruit here, but his visit would result in a better future for Rusher’s Brigade.

  Reaching that future meant clearing the barrel. The refugees had to go. And there, the casing was stuck.

  Entering Calimondretta, he’d realized why nothing larger than a fighter was allowed to enter the facility: the place was an icehouse for real. The roof panels in the atrium might be transparisteel, but the rafters and frame were solid ice. Not a place to light up engines—or even land near, given the shaking he’d felt when the trundle cars rolled out. Most of the city might be safely ensconced in the great tunnels, but its exit to the outside world had to be protected. Diligence could come no closer; the refugees would have to cross the ice sheet.

  But bringing seventeen hundred students across in trundle cars would take days. The airtight cabs held only four passengers, with cargo following behind on sleighs. He didn’t even want to think about trucking space suits for a thousand aliens of different sizes.

  A sticky problem, but one that Arkadia’s people had been working with him in earnest to solve. Now the solution was nearly in hand. Making notations on a datapad, Rusher descended an escalator into a bluish grotto. The locals were big on their algae, he saw; colossal tubes filled with the bubbling stuff rose thirty meters around an interior plaza, serving as both light source and living art for Arkadianites dashing off to work.

  Blue goo in an ice cave. Well, it beat Daiman and his statue, Rusher thought. But the coursing bubbles didn’t seem to be calming anyone. Syned never slept. Everybody had something to do, someplace to go.

  Almost everyone.

  “Hey,” called a voice from below.

  Rusher looked down. There sat Kerra, elbow propped on one of her knees, at the foot of one of the massive foaming cylinders lighting Reflection Prospect.

  He had to look twice. That nervous energy was gone. Since meeting Kerra, he’d only seen her in action. Even after he’d spirited her away from Byllura, she’d stayed on the bridge, fidgeting and quizzing him about their destination. He’d finally retired, just to keep her from straining her injured leg. Jedi healing didn’t seem to be a class everyone took.

  Kerra simply slumped, drinking from a container like a beggar outside a cantina.

  “A little early to start, isn’t it?” he asked. “The sun just came up.”

  “For the fifth time today,” she responded, opening the lid. “It’s water.”

  “Your loss.” Rusher looked from side to side. The only other people not heading off somewhere were a couple of Arkadia’s Citizen Guard, watching Kerra from a respectful distance across the hall. He thought he spied another up on the balcony, above.

  Kerra snapped the lid shut. “What’s she got you doing?”

  Rusher explained the work he was doing to bring his passengers into the city. “They’ve got a big icecrawler that’ll do the trick, but they need my help on a bushing we can marry to one of our cargo ramps,” he said. “That’s the problem when we mounted the spaceliner atop the cargo pods. All our doors on the ground are for heavy equipment.”

  “It’s not your only problem,” Kerra said, tucking the container in her vest pocket. “I haven’t decided they should go.”

  “What, the doors?”

  “The refugees!”

  “You sure that’s water? Because you’re not making sense,” Rusher said. “It’s my ship and it’s Arkadia’s planet. Who are you, again?”

  Kerra straightened against the tube and shook her fists in the air. “I knew she’d take you in! I’m surprised your drool didn’t freeze to the floor!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Ever since you met, you’ve been orbiting her like a satellite.”

  Rusher chuckled, despite himself. “Well, her is a handsome woman,” he said. Striking was more like it, but the kid seemed agitated enough. “And she’s created all this. You don’t see anything to admire there?”

  “She’s a Sith.”

  “Yeah, but she also knows stuff. A lot of people out here don’t know their own history, much less anyone else’s,” he said. “I like a woman who keeps up on current events … a thousand years ago.”

  Kerra stood, and as she did, her Arkadianite shadows across the plaza stapped to attention. She waved her hand, dismissively. “They’re always watching me. I’m in a box until she needs me—for whatever.”

  “Well, whatever she’s up to, she doesn’t sound like she’s going to hurt you,” he said, “or she’d have done it by now.”

  “Terrific.”

  Rusher laughed. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, but this looks like a pretty good deal. We didn’t have any idea how to get you back to the Republic, anyway, and a lot of routes just lead somewhere worse.” Kerra started walking away, but he went on. “Tan seems to like it here. And not only do we get to leave—they’re helping us!”

  Kerra spun, yelling up into his face. “So you’re just going to go somewhere else? Serve another Sith Lord?”

  “There aren’t many other customers,” Rusher said. He didn’t know many of the neighboring Sith Lords, but Mandragall’s practices had spread a long way. Someone would be willing to use an independent operator.

  “You could do something else!”

  “Like what?” He looked at the commuters, dashing to their assignments. “I’m a little old to start tending to riding animals.”

  “Something real,” Kerra said, shoving aside his trench coat collar and grabbing at the medals on his chest. “Look at you, Rusher. You’re wearing insignia that you’ve just made up. You’re not part of anything real. You don’t fight for anyone.”

  “I’m wasting my life, is that it?” Taking her arm, Rusher edged her out of the foot traffic and into the glow of the towering alga vial. “Look, what exactly did you think would happen? That I’d carry you all across Daiman’s creation and more to get you someplace I’ve never been? This sector is my home,” he said. “This is my job. I’m not some scoundrel with a heart of gold that you can sweet-talk into joining your …”

  “Don’t say it!” Kerra tried to force past. “This conversation is over!”

  Rusher blocked her path and grabbed her wrists. �
�Look, you’ve got a lot of opinions—but not a lot of facts. You don’t understand anything.”

  “Let me go.” Hazel eyes blazed with hate.

  “In a minute—once you understand what it is that I do,” Rusher said. “Yes, I’m a mercenary. Yes, I work for the Sith. But there’s no one else to work for.”

  “That’s not true,” Kerra said. “You could work for the people!”

  “Fine. You tell me how,” Rusher said. “You want me to be a part of something, but you don’t know what. It’s all good to set your own course when you’re just one person, carrying around a shiny stick. But I’m a cannoneer. Those artillery pieces weigh tons! Some take sixty operators to set up, fire, and withdraw! How am I supposed to feed those people, to fuel that ship, while working for your you-don’t-know-what? On the grift?”

  “That’s how you do it now!”

  “Yeah, with the permission of the Sith whose territory I’m in. How many places do you think I could land Diligence if I were a renegade?” Rusher shot a glance back toward the watchers and lowered his voice. “They’d enslave every person in my crew, and they wouldn’t care what happened to them. You’ve got a galaxy of people to worry about. I’ve got five hundred and sixty. And I’m not going to lose any more,” he said. “So before you go deciding what other people’s responsibility to the galaxy is, maybe you’d better take a closer look. They might have responsibilities already.”

  Kerra stared angrily at him. And then he saw her eyes widen, just a millimeter, those black eyebrows beginning to arc. For the first time since meeting her, Rusher saw something new in that small, determined face.

  Doubt.

  He released her hands and let out a deep breath, surprised and a little ashamed by the intensity of his outburst. He kept forgetting: Kerra Holt was just a kid, not much older than those refugees of hers, and the same age as many of his own recruits. He’d traded fire with her because she’d seemed to be able to handle any barrage.