Skelly, Hera concluded, was on that transport.
It was more than a guess, but it was hardly a scientific deduction. She didn’t want to let it deter her from her real goals. Her connection on Gorse, she now saw, had just responded to confirm their meeting for later. That was the important thing.
But as she was now going in Skelly’s direction anyway, Hera decided it wouldn’t hurt to find out what his story was …
Kanan had lived with secret stress every day for years without showing it. It was out of necessity in his case, but it was also a choice. Gloom attracted gloom, as he saw it. Acting like a victim only made things worse.
Gorse and Cynda were a case study. The gravitational dance between the two worlds put both under constant stress, but Gorse wore it worse. Cynda, with its crystal lattice innards, kept it together, foolish acts of sabotage notwithstanding. Gorse, with mud on the surface and mush beneath, suffered incessant groundquakes as Cynda made her close approach. It didn’t help residents’ attitudes that everyone was trapped in permanent night.
But even a rattled loser could catch a break, and Gorse got one every full moon. Cynda sat huge and glorious in the sky for standard days on end. Streetlights were doused. Crime decreased, marginally. And living on Gorse didn’t seem so bad.
Cynda was a few days from full, Kanan saw as he stepped off Expedient’s ramp onto the tarmac. He wouldn’t stick around to see it. Looking toward the cluster of low buildings ahead, he spied an approaching burly figure with four arms and multiple holsters slung around his midsection. It was Gord Grallik, Boss Lal’s security chief husband. Gord was a decent sort, Kanan thought: capable, if a bit doting on his wife.
“Kanan. Heard about the collapse—glad you’re safe.”
“I’m staying that way,” Kanan said, reaching for his ID badge. “Give my ship to someone else.”
“I don’t blame you,” Gord said. He put two of his hands up, rejecting the badge. “You should talk to Lal first. She’d hate to see you go.”
“Not changing my mind.”
“Go across to Cousin Drakka’s and get a meal. Lal should be down here by the time you’re finished.” Gord looked up at the moon and shook his head. “I’m sure she’s worn out.”
Kanan’s mind was still back on the mention of food. He’d have to see Lal to get his final pay, anyway. Remembering something else, he snapped his fingers. “Oh, and I brought you a farewell gift.”
Gord followed Kanan up the ramp into the ship. There, in the front passenger seat, sat Skelly, still bound to the seat. He had a rag stuffed in his mouth and hatred in his eyes.
“Mmmph! Mrrppph!”
“What in—” Gord put a hand over his own mouth.
“There’s your mad bomber,” Kanan said. “No bounty requested.”
Gord laughed heartily. Everyone around Moonglow knew about Skelly. The security chief examined the smashed restraint buckle. “I’ll have to cut him out of there.”
“I suggest taking the seat out and him with it,” Kanan said, patting Gord on the shoulder as he turned to leave. “You don’t want the rag to fall out of his mouth. He’ll just start talking again.”
Count Vidian sat alone in the troop compartment of Cudgel as it rose from Cynda. The newly arrived shuttles had landed behind him, and there was no more point staying on the moon. The stormtroopers, including his escort, had remained to investigate.
Whatever had happened down in Zone Forty-Two, it had left several areas unworkable. If it had been a deliberate act of sabotage, Vidian’s forces would find out. And if the one responsible had lived, well, he would find that out, too. Either the stormtroopers would find the culprit on Cynda, or Transcept’s surveillance assets would locate him on Gorse. There was no third possibility. The Empire could not be resisted.
No—it should not be resisted. The Empire was the only way.
The Empire, Vidian understood, was the logical result of a thousand years of galactic government. For centuries, the Republic had expanded not through force, but by quietly exerting a powerful magnetic pull on bordering systems. The promise of trade with Core World markets had great value, and the prospect inexorably lured nonmember worlds into ever-tighter cooperation with the body.
But the Republic was often slow to invite new systems in. The addition of territories tended to diminish the political power of existing senators. New members invariably aligned themselves with blocs in their own galactic neighborhood—yet most senators who controlled the invitations represented worlds near the Core. The Republic repelled even as it attracted. And there were other constituencies that had slowed expansion. Republic bureaucrats disliked the expense of extending services and protection to the hinterlands. The result was that many useful star systems were left waiting, some for centuries, on the Republic’s political doorstep, even though it came at the cost of the body’s overall power.
To Vidian’s mind, Emperor Palpatine had brought sanity to the Republic’s growth policies. In standing up to the secessionists as chancellor, he’d signaled the Republic was no longer some social club that could be exited at will. That move had attracted Vidian’s attention, and his financial support. Now, as Emperor, Palpatine had shown an eagerness—no, a zeal—when it came to expansion. The Core Worlds had always been the heart of the Republic, drawing nutrients from the periphery. The Emperor had taken that biological model and refined it, improved it. The Empire was growing robustly, with the fat of bureaucracy no longer clogging its arteries and veins. A single brain was directing it, not an aggregation of minds with conflicting ideas.
The Emperor had done everything right—so far. Selecting the count to represent his interests was his best decision yet. Surely no one could be more effective in advancing the Emperor’s goals. Vidian was the perfect Imperial man, seeing without sentiment, reshaping what he found, and moving on.
He had but one ritual he held to—and even it was purely practical. Seated in the low light, hearing only the normal pings from the cockpit and whirs from the Lambda’s guts, Vidian commanded his lungs to let out a deep breath. His prosthetic eyes no longer had lids, nor any need for them, so he set them to display nothing. What Vidian did required as few distractions as possible.
Vidian’s mind was his most powerful asset—and yet, he dealt every day with its limitations. His artificial eyeballs recorded the sights of his entire waking life, but their storage capacity was limited: The data had to be purged every sleep cycle. Where Vidian had once dreamed in images, now, when he slept, he lost them.
More invasive cybernetic technologies existed that might have given Vidian near-total recall, allowing him to process all the information he had at his disposal. But he had decided against upgrading, afraid to risk harming whatever brain chemistry gave him his extraordinary genius. An irrational fear, perhaps—but while he’d never believed in the Jedi’s mystical Force, he did allow that some things might defy logic where the mind was concerned.
So every evening Vidian sat as he did now, reviewing the day’s events and deciding which images to commit to permanent storage. Cargo vessels en route to Cynda, yes. The backs of others’ heads in countless corridors, no.
He didn’t preserve the images of the death of the guildmaster. He knew no repercussions would come from it, and he didn’t take undue joy from violence, apart from the satisfaction he always felt in setting a failing enterprise aright. He saved the image of the old man he’d confronted, to remind him to follow up on the new age restrictions, but he deleted the face of the foolish gunslinger. The old man’s rescuer was likely just another roisterer, too brave for sense. There wasn’t anything special there, either.
But the word the man had said: Moonglow. That gave Vidian pause.
He’d seen the name of Moonglow Polychemical for the first time while doing his advance research on Gorse. He’d paid it little mind. It was a small firm, probably a start-up—or maybe a piece of a broken-up conglomerate, being run now by its old employees. That trick never worked, he thought. Why did peo
ple always insist on trying to reanimate the dead?
Calling up the company’s files over the HoloNet, however, he was surprised by its numbers. The blaster-toting fool was right about its efficiency. The firm’s production targets were lower, relative to the other corporations, but it was the only one coming anywhere close to meeting them. Maybe there was something there, he thought: some ideas to steal for the other manufacturers.
Scraping ideas from the bottom of the bin, Vidian thought. It galled him that the state of things on Gorse was such that he’d have to resort to—
“Message from Coruscant, my lord.”
At the sound of the captain’s voice, Vidian’s eyes flickered and reset themselves, and Cudgel’s passenger area reappeared around him. “Patch it through.”
A figure appeared before him in holographic form. Rugged and sharply dressed, the blond young man placed his hands together and bowed. “Count Vidian! Wonderful to see you.”
“What is it, Baron?”
Vidian had pleasantries for few—and none at all for Baron Lero Danthe of Corulag. The wealthy scion of a droid-making dynasty had a sinecure in Imperial administration but was always angling to turn it into something more, usually at Vidian’s expense. As now. “The Emperor has embarked on several amazing new initiatives,” Danthe said, beaming. “We need more thorilide.”
“I already know the quotas—”
“Those are the old quotas. The Emperor desires more.” Danthe’s eyes widened with happy malice. “Fifty percent more per week.”
“Fifty?”
“I told the Emperor you were on the scene, and that if anyone could do it, you could.”
“I’m sure.” Vidian knew Danthe could never have said such a thing: It didn’t involve stabbing the cyborg in the back.
“Of course, if my droid factories can help in any way, you have but to—”
“Vidian out.” He cut the transmission.
He was still steaming a minute later when he felt the thump indicating the shuttle had arrived on Ultimatum’s landing deck. There weren’t any “new initiatives,” Vidian knew: It was all Danthe’s doing, part of his continued pursuit of the count’s position in the Empire. Vidian had thwarted the upstart at every turn in the past, but this was something else. Given what Vidian had seen on Cynda, even 5 percent improvement would be a challenge.
Holding a datapad, Captain Sloane met him at the foot of the landing ramp. “You asked for updates every half hour on the chamber collapse,” she said. “We’ve confirmed it was intentional. A blasting team located a device set by the fugitive Skelly.”
Vidian wasn’t surprised. “The team survived. How did they escape?”
“Somebody played hero,” she said. “We’re trying to find out how—”
“Forget it,” Vidian said, looking through the magnetically screened landing bay entrance into space. After a few long moments, he nodded. “It’s time for the next phase.”
“Of the inspection, you mean?”
Vidian looked back at her. “Of course. It’s what we’re here for. The thorilide mines on the moon are only part of the problem. The refineries must be put in order. I must go to Gorse.”
Sloane blinked. “I had thought you’d decided it was more efficient to meet with the planetary managers here, by hologram.”
“I know what I decided. Don’t question me!” A second passed, and he lowered his voice’s volume. “My plans have changed. I’ll need your assistance on the ground.”
“I’m … not sure what you mean, my lord. Planetary security should be able to coordinate your efforts.”
“Captain, I have many more steps to take that will not be popular with the masses,” he said, hitting the last word with particular disdain. “As we’ve just seen, they need to know my moves have the full weight of Imperial might.” He studied her and thought for a moment before continuing. “You’re helming Ultimatum only while Captain Karlsen is detached elsewhere, no?”
Sloane averted her eyes a little. “Yes, my lord. There are more captains than postings.”
“Then we must build Star Destroyers faster. Perhaps Karlsen can return to one of those, instead—while you keep Ultimatum.”
She looked up at him. “But he’s more senior.”
“I hold some sway in certain quarters. Serve me well, and you may find this a permanent position.”
Sloane gulped, before straightening. “Thank you, my lord.” She saluted needlessly and departed.
Vidian turned to look into space. Gorse was down there, in darkness as it always was; only the lights occasionally peeking through the clouds gave any indication that the black body wasn’t just another part of the void.
Gorse had been a disappointment to him before—in ways nobody knew about. And now, it and its lazy workers threatened to do more than disappoint.
But he would deal with it. Efficiently, as only he could.
It had been, bar none, the worst work shift in Zaluna’s memory.
The new security condition had been executed earlier, quadrupling the surveillance workload on Myder’s Mynocks. Imperial security officials, an occasional sight in the elevators of World Window Plaza, were crawling all over the place—and more startling to Zaluna was the presence of stormtroopers in the building. All were following leads generated by her office and others, preparing to round up troublemakers in advance of what she’d gathered was Count Vidian’s impending visit to Gorse.
There had been visits to Gorse’s factories by bigwigs before, but none on this scale. Vidian’s role in the Emperor’s administration was no secret. He’d been a wealthy entrepreneur before joining the Imperial cabinet. The poor planet and its moon of riches were recent additions to his portfolio: He’d never set foot on Gorse before, so far as she knew. So if the security steps were exceptional, they were at least explainable. Gorse needed to put on a good show for the new boss. That the boss himself had ordered the measures was only added inducement. The Sec-Con One had created a frenzy, true—but an ordered one.
While her Mynocks scanned Cynda’s caverns for Skelly, Zaluna had looked for the dark-haired character she’d seen Skelly arguing with earlier in the elevator, in case he might know something. A Transcept file hadn’t been started on him—it took a while for migrant workers to get one—but she knew she’d seen him several times via various cams in recent weeks. The Rugged Pilot, she’d called him: always steering his cart and minding his own business—except when he wasn’t.
She had just found the pilot’s name in the Moonglow personnel records when she caught him on a Cynda cam, saving an old man from abuse by the frightening Count Vidian. Vidian, who had earlier done something to the guildmaster: The cams couldn’t see what, but Palfa had immediately turned up dead, and Vidian had remotely ordered the records of their meeting purged. It was the sort of thing that happened far too frequently these days.
So for standing up against Vidian, Zaluna had decided to reward Kanan Jarrus by leaving him alone. He’d already been intimidated enough for one day.
Work had proceeded normally for a while. Then came news of the explosion and collapse in Cynda’s mines—and everything went berserk.
Now the Imperials were on the work floor, quizzing Zaluna and going over recordings of events on the moon. They’d been at it for hours. While public reports from Cynda held that the collapse had been a natural phenomenon, the officers clearly thought a bomber was responsible and had already taken all the files on Skelly and a dozen other potential suspects known to have been on the moon. Making things worse for the Mynocks was the fact that few in the mining community seemed to believe the cover story—which just resulted in even more borderline seditious statements for her team to evaluate. It seemed as if every miner preparing to leave Cynda for the day had said something about it in a monitored place.
And the mere presence of the stormtroopers was rattling everyone. Intellectually, Zaluna knew the white-clad figures were on the side of peace and order, but there was no doubting how intimidating th
ey looked. What must it be like to have them come to your home or workplace? She’d always wondered.
They’d all found out. Hetto, normally a source for tiny treasons in the safety of the office or during the isolation of his walks with Zaluna, was clearly nervous. He’d said nothing since the Imperials entered the room, keeping his dark eyes fixed straight ahead on his work whenever the officers came near.
And once, as she’d walked through his aisle, he’d reached out to tug at her sleeve. “Are they talking about me?” he whispered.
“You? Why would—”
“Never mind.”
She thought she knew why he was worried. If Skelly had indeed done harm on the moon, her team would get the blame for not flagging him sooner. But the remedy to that was obvious: vindication. And so she continued running her searches of Cynda’s surveillance network, hoping to catch sight of Skelly.
Then Zaluna had a flash of insight. Gorse!
She paused her search of the lunar surveillance cam feeds and started a new scan of Gorse, instead. The routine took less than a minute to find a vocal and retinal match.
“Got him,” Zaluna announced. Down on the work floor, the visiting Imperials paused in their conversations. “Skelly’s on Gorse. Moonglow Polychemical’s offices, over in Shaketown.” It was one of the covert feeds, coming off the corporate security cams.
“Here on Gorse?” The lead officer sounded alarmed. “How did he get down to the planet?” The burly lieutenant stomped up the steps to Zaluna’s dais and unceremoniously pushed past her. “Let me see. Out of my way, creature!”
Zaluna thought to stomp on the rude officer’s foot. Instead she listened in on her earpiece. “They’ve taken Skelly into custody. The factory manager’s contacting planetary security now.” That was plainly the case, from the images: She and the officer could clearly see Skelly secured to a chair and being watched by a Besalisk guard. She’d seen the guard many times over the years.
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