A New Dawn: Star Wars

by John Jackson Miller

  Hera squinted to see through the smoky darkness where Vidian had gone. She spotted him and Sloane in intense discussion, heading between a line of flanking stormtroopers on the way toward—

  No, Kanan’s not going to like that.

  “Are you kidding me?” Having finished his search and joined Hera on the roof, Kanan stared down at the empty spot on the street. “I can’t believe this. They stole the hoverbus!”

  “I think they call it commandeering on official business,” Hera said, crouching at the roof edge and pointing east. Kanan saw the outline of the hoverbus bobbing far up the lane. “I’m sure they’re headed to the Imperial spaceport to get another shuttle.”

  Kanan frowned. “Yeah, well, wait until they find the bathroom door’s stuck.” He flicked wet ashes from his tunic. He’d found Drakka pinned behind his freezer unit; it had taken long minutes to extricate him. Then the cook had stormed out, intent on giving the Imperials a piece of his mind about his destroyed business. Kanan could see from his position that the conversation wasn’t going very well, but he had his own problems. “The spaceport’s in Highground. How am I supposed to get over there?” It was ten kilometers away.

  “I’m more interested in getting out of here,” Hera said, rising. “An attempt’s been made on an envoy of the Emperor—everyone’s a suspect. We’ve got to get out of this neighborhood before half the Empire shows up!” She turned away from the street side of the roof. “Maybe back down those alleys to the south?”

  “It’s Okadiah’s bus,” Kanan said. “I can’t just forget about it.” This was the whole problem with making friends, he did not say: They made it impossible to be truly free.

  He looked back across Broken Boulevard—now a more descriptive term than usual—and saw a lumbering gray hovertruck departing Moonglow’s loading dock. “Hey, wait,” he said, grabbing Hera’s wrist before she could leave. “I think we can solve both problems at once.”

  He pointed to the vehicle. “That’s full of refined thorilide.” Even trespass, murder, and sabotage couldn’t stop thorilide production, it seemed: Every six minutes another one of the transports departed the plant. “It’s headed—”

  “—straight to the Imperial spaceport,” Hera said. “I caught that on my reconnoiter yesterday.”

  Their eyes met—and a heartbeat later they were running along the rooftops. Hera was fast as she was lithe, hurdling obstacles and leaping one gap after another. Every so often, she looked back to see if Kanan was keeping up.

  “I’m fine,” he said, keeping a few steps back. “Just trying not to run into you.”

  She smiled and leapt the next opening. He followed suit.

  Reaching the end of the row of flats, they found a door and scrambled down a staircase. Catching their breaths in the doorway, they stopped in time to see the hovertruck move up the street toward them. A stormtrooper waved the vehicle and its golden chauffeur droid past.

  As soon as the stormtrooper turned his head, Kanan and Hera bolted toward the approaching truck. Kanan leapt to the running board of the passenger side.

  “I am sorry,” the droid said. “Riders are not allowed on the—”

  Hera, now hanging outside the other door, flicked a switch on the droid’s neck, shutting him off. Kanan scrambled inside the cab, grabbed for the control yoke, and ducked. The vehicle executed a wide left turn past the last stormtrooper checkpoint; the sentry never saw the woman hanging outside. Adroitly, Hera opened the door and bumped the robot out of the way.

  “I prefer driving,” she said, reaching for the controls. “Nothing against you.”

  Kanan closed the passenger door and stretched his legs. “Sweetheart, you can drive me anywhere.” He glanced back at the mess Shaketown had become. “As long as it’s away from here!”

  Hera had been scarcely more talkative than the deactivated droid, Kanan thought. She’d said nothing about what had gone on in the plant before she’d found Lal.

  He didn’t know Lal’s husband well, other than that he had a short fuse and a big blaster collection. And something else. “That guy lived for Lal,” he said.

  “I could tell. It was rough.”

  Watching her, Kanan thought that must be an understatement. “Well, you found out one thing about Vidian. He’s evil in a can.”

  “Being evil doesn’t stop you with the Empire. It helps.” She sighed. “I didn’t even get near him this time—but I guess I found out what I came to Gorse to learn. The secret to Denetrius Vidian’s efficiency is murder.”

  “And where does that get you?”

  “Nowhere I wasn’t before.” She shook her head. “And all I was able to find about Tharsa was that he’d visited there a few times a long time ago. I couldn’t find out anything else. First, Gord showed up, then they all started running around looking for Skelly.” Guiding the hovertruck around a corner, she sighed. “I don’t know what Skelly thinks he can accomplish this way. This loose-cannon stuff—it doesn’t get you anywhere.”

  “And where are you trying to get?” He looked at her keenly. “I thought you were going to ditch me after you did your little break-in. And you just said your big mission is done. But here you are.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m helping you get your hoverbus back.”

  “Uh-huh.” Kanan chuckled.

  “No, no, it’s the least I can do,” Hera said. “You were willing to come back inside, looking for me. Unnecessary—and nearly trouble for you. But appreciated.”

  “Well, you’re the only person on this planet I’d take that chance for.” That should tell her something, he thought.

  “I’m not sure I believe that. You went back to help that Besalisk cook—and Okadiah told me back in the bus about you saving him from Vidian.” She smiled. “You even saved Skelly at the cantina.”

  He put up his hands. “Hey, everyone makes mistakes!”

  “Well, we’ll see,” she said, and left it at that. Kanan liked the look he saw from her. It said she’d come to think he was worth keeping an eye on.

  Looking out at the buildings whizzing by, Kanan laughed. “Everything that goes into thorilide—all the security—and here we’ve just driven off with a truckload.”

  “We’re taking it right where it’s supposed to go,” she said. “And it’s not like we’d find anyone to sell it to.”

  Kanan shook his head. “You know, I don’t even know what the junk is used for.”

  “Thorilide?” Hera asked. “It’s used in granular solid-state shock absorption. They use it on Star Destroyers to keep turbolaser turrets in place after firing.”

  “Loose cannons again!” Kanan chortled. “They’re going to this much trouble for it?”

  “They’ve got a lot of cannons!” Hera’s eyes widened as she considered it. “A Star Destroyer requires the use of sixteen million individual components, twenty-seven thousand of which are only produced in a single system, like Gorse.” She looked at him, her face animated with passion. “That’s why the Emperor needs an Empire, Kanan. It’s like a space slug, whose only function is to stay alive. It’s got to consume, and consume, and consume.”

  “You’re starting to sound like Skelly.”

  “He’s not all wrong,” she said, guiding the hovertruck into Highground. “But he’s definitely not all right.”

  Skelly had taken the speeder bike over rooftops to reach Highground, flying low over their surfaces to avoid any tracking of air traffic. With most of the Imperial attention on getting police vehicles to Shaketown, Skelly had guessed that relatively little attention was being paid to the landing fields. Even so, he knew he couldn’t simply fly the bike over the retaining wall. And he was reluctant to dismount, because every step he took off the bike caused him pain.

  But now, in the dark at the far eastern end of the compound, his war experience subverting barricades served him again. He’d seen during flights to Cynda that the terrain at Highground had deep drainage ditches leading off to the low side of the compound. It was there, outside the w
all in the darkness, that he found a culvert large enough to accommodate both him and the speeder bike. The bars guarding the pipe were no match for the variety of explosives he carried in his pack. It amused him that the same techniques he’d used to mine Cynda for the Empire were now getting him onto its base.

  A few muffled blasts later, he was hunched painfully low against the spine of the speeder bike, letting it carry him and his bag of revenge through the tunnel. Inside the compound, he continued to fly the vehicle low through the drainage canals separating the landing areas. The lights here all pointed upward; if anyone had bothered to look down, the sight of his head poking out of the ground and gently sailing along might have given someone pause.

  But no one saw. Now, in the shadow of the spaceport’s control tower, he waited, padding at his swollen face with swabs from the medpac. He watched the ground transport arrival area, where every few minutes another droid-driven hovercraft appeared bearing thorilide for the waiting Imperial freighters.

  This spaceport was it, he thought. The last step before the beauty of Cynda, crushed down and refined, left for Calcoraan Depot and distribution to all the Empire’s insane shipbuilding projects. It made Skelly sick to see it.

  Time passed. For a minute, he worried that he’d gambled wrong. He’d assumed that Vidian, having lost one ride offworld, would come here next. But shortly the gate opened to allow in—Okadiah’s hoverbus?

  Skelly blinked when he saw it. What was it doing here? Then he saw a group of stormtroopers exit it, followed by Vidian and the Imperial captain. No wonder he had beaten them here, he thought. It would take a genius of a pilot to get the Smoothride to beat a determined person on a speeder bike.

  He felt his ribs shifting painfully as he huddled back against the outer wall of the control tower. Skelly was running on adrenaline, now—his own, and stimulus shots from the medpac. But he was undaunted.

  He’d missed Vidian before. He wouldn’t do it again.

  Count Vidian looked up past the control tower. Cudgel was descending from space, dispatched from the Star Destroyer to return him to orbit. He didn’t want to waste another moment on Gorse. Staying on the planet was unnecessary to his plans.

  And now his plans had changed. He didn’t have time for the people of Gorse to shuttle back and forth, mining their moon. Even his most extreme notions, erecting dormitories on Cynda and forcing laborers to move there, would take too long. But he now was looking at another alternative—provided by the strangest source imaginable.

  Skelly was deranged, just another shell-shocked Clone Wars veteran. But a quick look at the material suggested that he might have stumbled onto something useful. Vidian would need to consult with his staff and Ultimatum’s experts to be sure.

  The commandeered hoverbus was the least efficient means of reaching the spaceport he could imagine; even Sloane’s surviving shuttle flight crew hadn’t been able to get it more than a meter off the ground. But he’d used the time well, explaining to Sloane his intentions. She’d reacted to his plans with caution, characteristic of the navy. He hadn’t been able to find an iota of imagination in the entire service. Still, Sloane was young and ambitious—and even now, she was suggesting solutions.

  “The stores on Ultimatum should have what you need, my lord. There’s no need to involve anyone on Gorse.”

  “Excellent.”

  The gates swung wide to admit the thorilide hovertruck. The droid—reactivated but muted to prevent its nattering on about its dislike of hitchhikers—guided the vehicle inside as it was programmed to do. No sentry saw Hera and Kanan, ducked down as they were. Within moments, the big vehicle was in the parking area, queued to have its cargo placed on the freighters beyond. Poking his head up, Kanan saw that the line would shortly bring them alongside the parked hoverbus.

  That was a relief. He figured he was due to catch a break.

  As he dropped back down next to Hera, he chuckled. “It’s always an adventure with you, huh?”

  Hera smiled. “Yeah, and we’re just going to pick up your ride.”

  “I’m carrying Okadiah’s chauffeur license—I should be able to just drive back out,” Kanan said. “I don’t think I could’ve just walked up and asked them for it without them wasting my time again. And I’ve got places to—”

  Seeing her expressionless face, he stopped. “Wait,” Kanan said. “You didn’t come here with me because you wanted to chat, or save me from impound hassles. You’re going to go sneaking around checking on Vidian some more!”

  Hera responded with a gentle smile.

  “This is ridiculous!” He pointed back through the windshield at the Imperial shuttle, settling in for a landing. “Vidian’s leaving. What more do you need to know?”

  “Something brought him here,” she said. “And something’s making him leave early.”

  “Try Skelly and his bomb!”

  Hera shook her head. “That’s not it, Kanan. I saw him through the electrobinoculars as he was leaving. He’s—different. Something’s changed. He’s got a new mission.”

  “How do you read the expression of a human droid?” Kanan looked to the floor in aggravation as the vehicle shuddered to a stop. Hera’s was the old Jedi way of doing things, he remembered. Master Billaba or Obi-Wan or someone would get an idea in their heads and chase it all over creation, hiding in closets and creeping around ventilation shafts, spying.

  Even when there was plainly nothing to see, as here. Kanan sat up cautiously, took a peek outside, and opened the door on the left side of the hoverbus. He slipped out onto the gravel surface, shielded from the Imperials’ sight by the Smoothride. A moment later, Hera lightly touched the ground behind him.

  “Look,” he said, turning around to face her in the shadows. The space between the vehicles was narrow, and it brought them close together. “I travel alone. But I think you’re fun, when you’re not running off doing something outlandish.” He pointed with his thumb to the hoverbus. “I’m going to take this back to Okadiah’s and then I’m heading for the public spaceport. You can come along, or let me hitch a ride on whatever this ship is you say you’ve got. But I’m done sneaking around here—and I think you should be, too.”

  There wasn’t anything else to say. Obi-Wan’s warning and the Emperor’s wrath had made him hide part of who he was. But he wouldn’t live his daily life skulking about just to have a woman’s company—or to support her cause, any cause. That wasn’t who he was. Kanan began working his way along the left side of the hoverbus, feeling glad it had open doorways on both sides. He’d wait for Vidian to leave, and then get back to his regularly scheduled life. Either Hera would see sense, or she wouldn’t.

  He paused to look back. Hera was at the tail end of the hoverbus, trying to peek around at the Imperials. He shook his head. Guess not, he thought. It’s a shame. She was something. Kanan put his foot on the doorstep—

  —and heard shouts from the other side of the vehicle. Alarmed, he looked back Hera, but she had already turned and was running in his direction. “What is it?”

  “Move!” Without a further word, she shoved him into the hoverbus. He fell onto the floor, and she on top of him. Pinned, he instantly began to formulate a response about how she couldn’t live without him—when he caught a sideways glance of what was outside the door on the right-hand side of the vehicle opposite him, in the direction of the Imperials.

  Vidian, Sloane, and several stormtroopers were fifty meters away, running away from the Lambda-class shuttle that had just landed. In the moonlight, he could just make out the sight of something being hurled toward it, from the shadows of the nearby control tower.

  Krakka-boom! For the second time in a little over an hour, the populated side of Gorse saw what seemed to be the light of day as an Imperial shuttle blew apart. Kanan shielded his eyes from the flash—and then held on as the shockwave rocked the Smoothride. When he looked again, he saw debris raining all across the landing field—and then he heard it, as parts of the Lambda slammed against the rig
ht fuselage and roof of the hoverbus.

  As the din subsided, Hera relaxed her hold on Kanan. “I think that’s it,” she said. She rose, and he followed. Carefully, they crept out of the right-hand side of the vehicle for a better look.

  Fiery smoke blotted out the moon. But they could see that Vidian and all his companions, including Sloane, had been flattened by the blast, some hurled several meters. Vidian was still moving, Kanan saw, but he was definitely reeling.

  “Come on,” Kanan said, grabbing Hera’s arm.

  “Yeah, I think so!”

  They’d already been bystanders to one attack. They wouldn’t be able to walk out of another. But before they could reach the doorway, Kanan heard a high, whizzing whine coming at him from behind—the direction of the explosion. More debris, now? It didn’t matter. This time, he threw her down—

  —right as a mass of metal screamed just over their heads. Something slammed headlong into the hoverbus, shattering more of its windows. Kanan shielded his and Hera’s heads with his arms.

  When Kanan finally looked up, he saw something that rendered him speechless. It was a speeder bike, the kind Imperial stormtroopers rode. Or part of it: Its long nose had shot through one of the hoverbus windows, halting its flight and effectively impaling the larger vehicle.

  Outside the hoverbus, hanging upside down from the deeply lodged bike, was Skelly, his right hand holding one of the handlebars in a death grip. He looked as if he’d been through one of Okadiah’s blenders. His battered body dangled limply from the frame, and a big backpack hung precariously around his midsection, about to fall.

  A subsidiary explosion went off in the field behind them—but Kanan could only look at Skelly, dazzled. The bomber opened his eyes and looked back, wearily recognizing him.

  “K-k-k …,” Skelly said, his face swollen, his mouth bloodied. “Kanan.”

  “What?”

  “The pack. Grab it.”