“Even if we beat them to the island, they’ll only be a couple of minutes behind us!”
“Better that than anything that will happen to us out here! Kidi, monitor all channels in case they’re coordinating with other units.”
Kidi nodded, crouched over her own gear, as Lokmarcha fired wildly.
“I found their comm frequency,” Kidi said, looking horrified. “That’s Captain Khione back there—and they’re looking for you, Princess. They used your name!”
“Never mind that, Kidi,” Leia said. “See if you can raise Nien—maybe he can pick us up on the island.”
Another blaster bolt set the water to port boiling. Leia began to juke the boat back and forth, listening nervously to the damaged repulsorlifts’ protests. Black smoke was pouring from beneath the hull now. Antrot groaned and retched.
“There’s something under our boat!” Kidi yelled.
Leia peeked over the side, hoping the Cerean tech was wrong, and saw a large dark shape below them. She cut the boat hard to starboard, flinging Lokmarcha to the deck. Antrot was lying in the bottom of the boat with his arms clutching his head.
Ahead of them, something rose out of the water.
It was a vehicle, she realized—huge and dark. A crack appeared in its blunt bow, widening until it yawned like a leviathan’s mouth. Leia could see light inside and figures scurrying about.
Leia hesitated, then aimed for the mysterious craft.
“Princess, no!” Lokmarcha yelled. “We don’t know who they are!”
“They’re not shooting at us! Right now that’s good enough for me!”
Another shot struck the portside of their boat and Leia ducked. Bolts zinged past them, kicking up sparks from the vehicle’s hull. Leia saw that the ship was covered in lush green seaweed, like the shaggy coat of some massive animal.
The opening in the bow extended below the surface of the water, allowing Leia to zip inside without slowing down. She threw the engines into reverse, kicking up a column of water that soaked them. The basin inside the ship was ringed with catwalks, where humanoid aliens of a species Leia had never seen were gathered. They were human-sized, with silvery green skin, red eyes, and sharp teeth. They wore simple clothes and carried gear typical of sailors—along with blasters and knives.
Behind them, the ship’s massive maw began to close. When Leia shut off the engines, the aliens began to cheer.
“I’m having trouble determining if we have been saved or captured,” Antrot said weakly.
“Me too,” Leia said.
One of the aliens directed Leia to bring the boat alongside a catwalk. When it drew within a meter, several of the aliens reached over and grabbed it, tying it fast with impressive speed and skill. Their fingers were long and ended in wicked-looking claws.
“Maybe we should have taken our chances with the stormtroopers,” Kidi muttered as the pirates gestured with their rifles, ordering them out of the boat.
They took Lokmarcha’s rifle away from him and patted down the others, laughing as a shaky Antrot had to be helped onto the catwalk. Pirates began pawing through their gear, holding up detonators and comm terminals and chattering excitedly.
The crowd parted and an alien a head taller than the others looked down at them. He was festooned with dozens of necklaces and bracelets, and his green arms were crowded with tattoos. A breastplate scavenged from stormtrooper armor protected his chest, and a heavy cutlass hung at his hip.
He grinned at them, his teeth brilliant white.
“Princess Leia Organa, I presume,” he said in accented Basic, “of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. There’s a considerable bounty on your pretty head, Your Highness.”
LOKMARCHA STEPPED between Leia and the alien, teeth bared. But she pushed past the Dressellian commando.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “We’re hopelessly outnumbered. Let me.”
She eyed the alien pirates, hands on her hips.
“I see I need no introduction,” she said. “But you do. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
The alien’s grin got even bigger.
“Your captor,” he said. “That’s all you need to know for now.”
The pirates laughed. Leia raised her voice to be heard above them.
“The Imperials will be here in moments—and then we’ll all be captives,” she said.
“We’ve already submerged—those fools will never find us down here. To off-worlders the ocean is surface and what lies beneath is mystery. The question is what to do with you, Princess.”
“So we’re negotiating?” Leia asked.
“Negotiating? Hardly. I’m thinking—you’re waiting. Here’s the thing, Princess—I’m a businessman. And you’re worth a year’s prizes, for a lot less risk. Can you offer me a deal that good?”
“You can have the boat!” Kidi said impetuously.
The pirates began to laugh.
“I already do,” the leader said. “No, your offer will have to be better than that.”
Leia tried to think of something she could use. She knew better than to promise the pirates a ransom from the Alliance. For one thing, the Alliance needed every credit for the fight against the Empire; for another, such a promise would just drive up the price.
“You’re not friends of the Empire,” she said.
“No self-respecting Draedan is,” the pirate leader spat.
“So we have that in common.”
Leia looked at the Draedan pirates, at their guns and their toothy grins. They were tough, and there was a darkness in them. But perhaps that wasn’t all there was in them.
She’d have to hope so.
“I can offer you something better,” she said. “A place in the Rebel Alliance. A chance to make the galaxy better. To fight not for credits or stolen goods but for freedom. Freedom for the Draedans and all the people of the galaxy.”
“And what’s that worth?” the pirate leader asked.
“More than anything,” Leia said, then waited.
The leader cocked his green head at her, his red eyes narrowed. Then he laughed.
“You’re fearless—particularly for a human,” he said. “That’s good. We had to know.”
He made a curt gesture, and the pirates lowered their weapons.
“The name’s Aurelant, Princess—Captain Aurelant,” he said. “Welcome aboard the Daggadol.”
Leia felt her shoulders slump in relief.
“You’re our rebel contact?” Kidi asked in disbelief.
Aurelant nodded.
“We may be a small world, and far from the important places of the galaxy,” he said, “but we have long memories. Memories of a time before the Empire, when Sesid was free and the stars offered possibilities, not threats. Perhaps Sesid can be that way again.”
Leia bowed her head to Aurelant. The pirates began to cheer.
“You missed our rendezvous, Captain,” she said.
“That I did,” Aurelant said. “On account of the Imperials. They’ve been prowling these waters for hours.”
Leia felt her heart flutter, imagining if the Imperials had seen the boat in the cove and found one of the principal leaders of the Rebel Alliance by herself, asleep on the sand.
In a hideous flowered shirt, no less.
“Haven’t seen an Imperial operation like today’s on Sesid since the last time we Draedans went to war,” Aurelant said. “They’ve locked down all transports off-world while they look for you. And there’s a Star Destroyer in orbit.”
“That’s where we need to get, too—space,” Leia said. “So we can continue our mission.”
“Ah, yes. You—conehead. Can you tune a Horvax-16 transmitter?”
Kidi lifted her chin. “I learned to insert signals into the Holonet with a Horvax-8 when I was a kid.”
“Did your Horvax-8 use a subaquatic amplifying array?”
Kidi shook her head meekly, but Antrot cleared his throat.
“I have made communications rigs function wi
th everything from subaquatic amps to quantum relays. It’s an easy customization.”
“Good,” said Aurelant. “That means the two of you probably won’t damage our gear. I’d hate to get off on the wrong foot by having to charge your Alliance for a replacement.”
“Our ship’s in orbit,” Leia said. “But it’s too risky to have it come down to get us—that Star Destroyer will blanket the area with TIEs.”
“Rather than it coming to you, you go to it,” Aurelant said. “In an escape pod.”
“The Star Destroyer will see the launch. We’ll be captured.”
“Let me tell you something about Draedans, Princess,” Aurelant said with a toothy grin. “I’m one of eighteen brothers and twenty-two sisters—which makes mine a shamefully small family. I have more cousins than I can count in every town within five hundred kilometers of here. The Imperials can target one escape pod, yes. But we’re going to launch hundreds. They won’t know which one is yours—but your ship will.”
Leia smiled and nodded.
“You’ll do that for us?” Kidi asked.
The pirates began to laugh again.
“What’s so funny?” the Cerean asked.
“The Empire pays a salvage company to recondition accidentally launched pods and refuel them,” Aurelant said. “One of my brothers owns that company. We won’t make quite as many credits as we would turning your princess over to the Empire, but it will still be a pretty good payday.”
IN THE MORNING, on the way to the planet Jaresh, Leia’s door chimed again.
That time, she wasn’t surprised to find Kidi looking pale and anxious or to hear that the Empire had responded to Aurelant’s escape-pod stunt with reprisals. The footage from Sesid showed nervous-looking tourists lining up for transports, stormtroopers escorting captive Draedans, and TIE bombers hurtling over the surface of the turquoise ocean, their angled solar wings sending sheets of water flying up behind them. In a transmission, the Shieldmaiden’s Captain Khione demanded that all those who’d helped the rebel fugitives elude justice be turned over to the authorities—or all of Sesid would pay the price.
“Everyone who helps us suffers because of it,” Kidi said, looking stricken.
“I know,” Leia said. “That’s how the Empire keeps people living in fear. By demonstrating that anything other than utter obedience brings brutality.”
“But how can we ever stop such…such evil?” Kidi asked.
“By ridding the galaxy of those who commit such acts,” Lokmarcha said. “You said ‘evil’ and you were right. There’s no negotiating with people who would do that—or the far worse things done in the Emperor’s name.”
Kidi just nodded miserably, wrapping her long arms around her body. Leia felt like curling into a ball herself. Captain Aurelant and his pirates had seemed like marauders, but their reasons for opposing the Empire were as noble as any expressed by the people of Alderaan or Chandrila.
Now they would pay a terrible price for that opposition—and the Alliance would be no help to them. Leia knew perfectly well that the Rebellion wasn’t coming to Corva sector anytime soon, not with the fate of the galaxy to be decided nearly a hundred thousand light-years away. The people of Sesid were alone—just as the people of Basteel were.
And as the people of Jaresh would be.
We’re at war, Cracken had said, and Leia had accepted that. But now she wondered how much evil had been done, deliberately or not, because of that excuse.
Below the Mellcrawler hung the planet Jaresh, like a green jewel in space. As the yacht approached, Leia could see thin blue lines carved across the continents, marking a complex series of irrigation canals that brought water from enormous polar ice caps to the more temperate regions.
“It’s quiet down there,” Kidi said from beneath her headset. “I know there are communications towers that serve the planet, but you’d never know they existed if you listened. I’ve never heard a planet with that big a population and so little to say.”
“Seems wise to me,” Antrot muttered. “Maybe they save their words for when they matter.”
“The first Jareshi colonists were part of a religious order,” Nien said. “They’ve chosen to live with little besides basic technology and dedicate themselves to feeding nearby planets. Not my philosophy—I like my planets to be a bit more fun, thanks—but admirable enough, I suppose.”
“We’ll be landing near the village of Jowloon,” Leia said. “My contact is there—a village matriarch named Nyessa. I’m to ask for her at the general store. As for our beacon, Alliance Intelligence suggests we install it at a communications node some twenty klicks outside of the village. How many of you know how to ride?”
Lokmarcha raised his hand. So did Kidi, though she looked tentative.
“I’ve ridden aryx,” she explained. “Big bipedal birds native to Cerea. Do those count?”
“I don’t know yet,” Leia said. “Antrot?”
“I can ride in a speeder.”
“That would be a no, then.”
“What about you, Princess?” Lokmarcha asked skeptically. “Can you ride?”
“Former Alderaanian junior champion in steeple-chase,” Leia said.
“I didn’t know that.”
Leia shrugged. “It’s rarely much use in space.”
Nien set the Mellcrawler down in a spaceport that was little more than a landing field, a fuel depot, and a warehouse full of cargo containers. They stepped off the yacht to find the sun high in a bluish-purple sky dotted with white clouds. The air was humid and smelled of fertilizer.
“Well, it’s not hard to figure out what they export here,” Nien said. “Still, fertilizer’s valuable. Maybe I can swing a deal.”
“Better that than spending your time in the cantina,” Kidi sniffed.
Nien offered her a little bow. “Don’t step in anything.”
He waved and headed back up the ramp. Leia, Lokmarcha, Antrot, and Kidi pulled their hats down and their cloaks closed, hoping to look unobtrusive as they walked through the muddy streets into the outskirts of Jowloon. The houses were made of wood, carefully maintained and painted. In the fields, farmers shouted encouragement to burly livestock of a species Leia didn’t recognize—powerful beasts with bony plates on their backs, dragging plows behind them. Elsewhere, boys rested among herds of nerfs—though they weren’t the Alderaanian breeds Leia remembered from her youth—or watched over whellays.
The crew of the Mellcrawler walked quietly through the village, but Leia still saw heads turn to note their passage.
Not a place where outsiders are common—or fail to attract attention.
Suddenly, Kidi stiffened.
“Look!” she said urgently, starting to lift her arm.
Lokmarcha pushed her hand back down.
“Don’t,” he said urgently. “Inconspicuous, remember?”
Leia saw what had attracted Kidi’s attention—a pair of stormtroopers standing in the village square, their white armor a strange contrast to the rich colors around them, like blank spots in a painting.
“Keep going,” she said. “They have no reason to be suspicious of us unless we give them one.”
Jowloon’s general store was like the rest of the village—simple and rustic. A few farmers were buying tools or feed while aged locals talked about the weather and finer points of animal care. Leia leaned her elbow on the counter and waited for the old woman behind it to look up inquiringly.
“I’m a friend of Nyessa’s,” Leia said. “She said I could call on her here. I’ve just arrived from off-world.”
“Knew you lot was from away the second I saw you,” the woman said. It wasn’t an insult, just a fact she’d felt like stating. “This time of day you’d most likely find Nyessa by the warbu paddock.”
“And where’s that?”
“Same place ’tis always been—just up the hill from the ol’ Galway farm.”
Leia just waited.
“Och, that’s right. You lot’s from away. I’l
l make up a map.”
Nyessa was a hunched, leathery-faced Kyuzo. She was ancient, but Leia saw a wiry strength in the way she held herself, and her eyes were brilliant yellow sparks beneath a broad-brimmed hat of gray felt.
“You’d be the ones from away,” she said simply when they got her attention. “The rebels. Wait there a few ticks.”
She called to the warbu—apparently, that was what the armored beasts were called—making a strange clucking noise. They eyed her from beneath their intimidating horns, then obediently plodded in the direction of a long shed with a water trough.
“Loyal beasts,” Nyessa said with satisfaction. “Now then. I speak for the people of Jowloon. What ’tis that you need?”
Leia must have looked surprised, for Nyessa shook her head impatiently.
“Come now,” she said. “I don’t know how they do it out in the away, but on Jaresh we honor our obligation to help those who have pledged to help us. What ’tis that you need?”
Leia exchanged a look with Lokmarcha.
“Mounts,” she said. “We have something—a machine—we need to attach to one of the communications towers, up in the hills. It’s too far to walk.”
“Just in time, then,” Nyessa said. “A few more hours and the Empire would have fetched them to the corral to be tagged—urdas, warbu, nerfs, and whellays, everything. But I can lend you four urdas.”
“The corral?” Kidi asked.
“’Tis newly built and on the other side of the village—you would not have seen it,” Nyessa said. “The Empire wants to implement a system to track everything we have—beasts, crops, wells. So we can be more efficient in feeding their armies.”
“Efficiency is helpful in every industry,” said Antrot, looking puzzled when Leia shot him a poisonous look.
“You people from away want to change the way we are,” Nyessa said. “We came to Jaresh centuries ago because we did not want to change. ’Tis that not our right?”
“Of course it is, Nyessa,” Leia said. “And we want to restore that freedom. For you and everyone else in the galaxy.”
“’Tis good,” she said. “But you must return by dusk.”
Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure Page 8