“That’s acceptable,” Vidian said, walking toward the doorway.
“We would be destroying a habitable world,” Sloane said, at once repulsed and amazed.
“We wouldn’t be refining the thorilide on Gorse anymore, but in space, using the harvester vessels I have at my disposal,” Vidian said, pausing in the doorway to look back out on Cynda. “Those with appropriate skills could apply to join their crews.”
“And the rest?”
“The rest are of little use and do not concern me. They can find their own way offworld—and live to be of service somewhere else. But as of this discovery, there can be no doubt: To the Empire, their world is better off dead.”
“Pending the test,” Sloane said.
“Of course.” He turned and left.
Hera watched as the others slept.
Only Kanan had not remained. The discussion had wandered aimlessly after the Cynda revelation, with Skelly concocting new wild theories by the minute. Zaluna, who had been remarkably resilient until now, had let her weariness feed her worry. Hera had tried to give shape to the discussions, urging practicality—and that effort, somehow, had seemed to aggravate Kanan all the more.
“Don’t you care about anything?” she’d asked before he left to go downstairs.
“It’s never good to care about too much,” he’d said, flippant as always. “You’re bound for disappointment.”
Now she had to decide what she was going to do. Enough hours had passed quietly that she doubted Kanan had been identified at the Imperial spaceport; that meant there weren’t stormtroopers waiting outside The Asteroid Belt. She might be able to slip back to her own ship. Zaluna had at last given her the data cube Hetto had prepared for her. That, she knew, would help other dissidents elsewhere.
And she’d learned all she expected to about Vidian—that the famous odds-beating business pundit was a murderous thug evidently willing to entertain outrageous schemes. Like Kanan, she doubted the destruction of the moon was possible; it was too big an idea, too fantastic to imagine. Engineering on that scale just wasn’t done—or at least she’d never heard of it. Vidian would surely figure that out. At least while he was doing that, he wouldn’t be carrying out any more sadistic “inspections.” So there wasn’t much reason for her to linger on Gorse.
First, however, she owed it to Zaluna to get the woman to safety somewhere, before the Empire arrested her. It certainly would: Hera had no illusions about that. And for some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, she wanted to have one more talk with Kanan. He was self-centered and hedonistic, to be sure—but there had been flashes of something different, moments that made her wonder who he was and where he had come from. He was good at staying a step ahead of the Empire, and she’d seen him perform remarkable physical feats.
But none of that mattered, if the man lacked a conscience. It took more than talents to bring about a revolution. It required spirit.
And not everyone had it.
One of the perks of living in a place without daylight, Kanan felt, was the large number of options it offered for those who didn’t want to be seen.
A group of tourists had lost their shirts—or rather, their fine and expensive cloaks—to Kanan weeks earlier in a sabacc game. The wraps had sat useless in the cantina’s storeroom ever since, unable to be pawned. It turned out that in the dark, the cloaks looked just like the robes a group of weird blood cultists wore as they wandered the streets every full moon, chanting their mantras and looking for escaped house pets to practice their religion on. Not only did the Empire tolerate the cultists, it had shut down Gorse City’s animal control department to reap the savings.
Kanan had cursed his fellow players, who certainly must have known that “creepy maniac” was a fashion statement nobody wanted to make. But now he and the others put the cloaks to work. “Keep walking,” he said from under his hood as he led the others up the long avenue in the industrial district. “If you see anyone, keep your head down and growl like you’re hungry.”
No one had bothered them. The full moon was approaching soon enough that other blood cultists were about and making for the cemeteries where they liked to hold their rites. It was a good time to be out and gruesome. Kanan had lashed his traveling bag to his back beneath his cloak; mad monks carried no luggage, and he thought the hunchbacked look it gave him was a nice touch.
“Seems to be working,” he said. “We won’t get away with it more than once, but it’ll get us across town.”
“You keep surprising me,” Hera said. She was walking directly behind Kanan, keeping a careful watch all around.
“Yep, it’s the whole lunatic family out for a crawl,” Kanan said. “Mom, dad, grandma, and the weird uncle we keep in the basement.”
“You’re the grandma,” Zaluna said.
Kanan grinned. The Sullustan woman had run out of steam the night before, but sleep had seemed to return her spirits. He still thought she was a little strange, but she amazed him nonetheless. He’d had the routine of a lifetime disrupted, years earlier—but he hadn’t lived remotely as long as she had. And yet Zaluna seemed to have bounced back. He wondered what her secret was.
Skelly was in worse shape. He was moving slower, now, he saw: The latest round of meds hadn’t lasted the whole walk. He was looking up at the moon as he trudged along. “You know,” he said, “I think I really always wanted to be a rock guy.”
Kanan looked at him. “A what?”
“A mineralogist. They used to study Cynda before they started ripping it up. I’d have had to go to school for it—everything I know I learned on my own. But coming here was nice. It showed me that the underground’s more than just a place to plant mines.”
“Or people,” Kanan said, gesturing ahead. “Beggar’s Hill, ladies and gentleman.”
Beggar’s Hill was no hill at all. A square clearing defined by little-traveled streets, the cemetery was populated by the aboveground sepulchers that Gorse’s moist soil necessitated. Nightferns and crawling yettice had overtaken most of the ancient crypts, wearing all the names away. Catching a little light now as it did at this time of Cynda’s orbit, it had the look of a peaceful grotto.
Kanan watched Hera as she stepped down the little path between the graves, moonlight in her eyes. She really is something.
Skelly staggered up and looked around. “I guess there won’t be any place like this for Lal—or Gord. I didn’t get along with them, but still …”
“Yeah,” Kanan said, but he didn’t think on it long. Wakes weren’t for him. The Jedi were big on funerals, but no one had memorialized any of them. A death meant it was time for the living to get moving.
And it was. “All right, I’ve done what I can,” Kanan said. “This is the western edge of Shaketown—Moonglow’s just a few blocks away. We’re in the middle of everything here. Hera, you said your ship was parked two kilometers to the west. Zaluna’s apartment is two blocks to the southeast. And the nearest commercial spaceport,” he said, turning and pointing north, “is ten blocks that way. So wherever you want to go, you’re almost there.” He took his hood down. “We’re done.”
Hera looked over at Zaluna, who was wandering around looking at the monuments. “Have you decided?”
“I want to go with you,” she said, “in your ship.” The woman gestured to the graves. “Almost everyone I’ve known on this planet is just a name on a screen—or a name on a stone. I don’t want to work at Transcept anymore, even if they let me back. And it would be nice to see an actual sunrise someplace.”
“Should we go to your place and pick up your things?”
Zaluna shook her head. “They’re watching it by now. And my life wasn’t at that apartment anyway.” She looked up at the moon. “Let’s get started.”
Hera turned to Skelly. “And what are you going to do?”
Skelly opened his cloak and patted his satchel with his left hand. “I’m going to cut off this problem at the source—by blowing up the explosives plant that’s ne
ar the spaceport. If they can’t bring baradium from Gorse, they can’t destroy the moon!”
Hera looked reproachfully at him. “You do know there are other sources of explosives besides Gorse, right?”
“If I cost them a day, it’s worth it.” Skelly jutted out his chin. “Besides,” he said, “what else is there for me to do?”
Kanan nodded in agreement, despite himself. Skelly had just summed it up. Futile efforts—that was all anyone on Gorse had left. Kanan, of course, knew all about being cut adrift with no guidance as to what to do next. He’d figured out the secret: never again identifying with anything or anyone so much that losing it left him with no other option. But not everyone was as smart as he was.
He walked up to Hera. “So, where do you want to go after we drop her off? Wor Tandell’s nice. Or there are some casino worlds I think you’d love.”
Hera shook her head. “I hate to sound like that droid from yesterday, Kanan, but I don’t take riders.”
Her serious tone startled him. “What’s that again?”
“I’m not traveling the stars looking for companions or places to see,” Hera said. “I have goals. I don’t need anyone who isn’t interested in them slowing me down.”
“But Zaluna—”
“—has performed a service to the galaxy in providing data about the Empire’s methods, and needs to start a new life where she can be safe. You, as near as I can tell, roll with whatever happens—and with whoever’s in charge.”
“That’s harsh.”
“It’s what I see,” she said. She offered her hand. “I do thank you for what you’ve done. Good luck to you.”
Tongue-tied, Kanan simply accepted the handshake. “Okay,” he finally said. “You’re sure?”
Hera nodded pleasantly, took her hand back, and turned away. “Oh,” she said, reaching into her cloak. Facing him again, she withdrew a small pouch and began counting out Imperial credits. “For your help.”
Kanan was startled. “What am I, a mercenary?”
“No. But I saw you putting money back into Okadiah’s safe, to pay for the hoverbus.” She offered the cash. “Take it. You’ll go farther.”
So I’m a hired hand now, Kanan thought. Oh, well. He took the money.
He looked at Skelly and Zaluna. “So long,” he said—and walked back toward the street. It would be a long trek to the spaceport, and sweaty in the robe. He doffed the cloak and threw it into the nightferns. He’d take his chances, as he always did.
Where the path met the street, he turned to get one last glimpse of Hera. They were all still there, getting ready to go their separate ways. He shook his head, wondering what was keeping him. Kanan Jarrus never looked back. He always looked upward, outward, following the pull of the beyond. Cynda, hanging big and bulbous, was the glowing light pointing the way to his future. Up to the sky, where …
The moon exploded!
The Gorse skyline lit up, awash in the light of a dawn for the first time in a geologic age. No explosion of Skelly’s had lit the cityscape so, and Kanan staggered, expecting some kind of thunderous sound. But there was none. And as the flash waned and his eyes adjusted, Kanan saw that, no, the moon hadn’t exploded.
But it wasn’t intact, either. Near the darkened lower limb of the near-full disk, a colossal plume of white ejecta was spreading downward and outward. It almost looked as if Cynda was shedding a teardrop—a teardrop a hundred kilometers across and widening as it moved.
Kanan had seen comets and meteors striking moons before. Those didn’t look like this. This was an eruption. An eruption, on a world volcanically dead.
And he knew that spot on Cynda. He landed there every day.
He looked back at the street. All traffic had stopped. People were outside their vehicles, next to their speeder bikes, looking up in fascination and horror. Kanan looked past them to the big glowing clock on the waterworks building behind. It said what the sickness in his stomach had already told him: Okadiah was on shift on the moon.
Everywhere, people began talking all at once, like the buzz at a sporting event. Kanan could hear Hera’s voice, too, the voice he loved hearing, calling out to him from behind. But he didn’t listen. He was running to a speeder bike paused in the middle of the street, grabbing it from the hands of its stunned rider. She and the speeder bike’s owner were still yelling as Kanan tore away down the thoroughfare, racing into Shaketown.
The world shook beneath Skelly. To one side, Zaluna’s voice was filled with horror. “It’s happening.”
“No,” Skelly said, looking up in wonder as the ground rumbled. “The groundquake’s just a coincidence. Call it a sympathy pang.”
He had removed his hood: No one was going to be looking at him. Not now. And a graveyard seemed to him the perfectly appropriate place to be witnessing the beginning of the end of the world. He looked back at Hera as the tremor subsided. “That was nothing compared with the quakes we’ll feel if they keep it up.”
“The Empire’s doing it,” Hera said, looking up in amazement. “They really are doing it.”
“You didn’t think they would?” Skelly asked.
“If they can do something, they will do something.” She shook her head. “I just didn’t think it was possible—or that it’d happen this fast.”
Zaluna tugged at the Twi’lek’s sleeve. “Do people need to leave, Hera? Is something going to happen to the planet?”
“Skelly says we’re okay. But we should get back to my ship, just in case.” She looked back to the street. “That’s what I was trying to tell Kanan.” Hera had something in her hands, Skelly saw—some device she’d been struggling with since not long after Kanan fled the scene. “I’ve been trying to get any information I can, but there’s too much interference on the airwaves.”
“Everyone’s talking,” Skelly said.
A Recon transport drove past as if nothing were happening, aiming a searchlight in the opposite direction from them. Skelly could hear another approaching down an intersecting street.
“They’re still after us,” he said glumly. “Even with what’s going on up there.”
“Then we can’t wait around,” Hera said, pocketing the gadget.
“Looks like your plan’s been overtaken by events, Skelly. Let’s head for my ship.”
“To go where?” Zaluna asked.
“I can drop you both someplace safe,” Hera said, removing her cloak. “But first, I may need to stop Kanan before he does something rash.” She glanced up at the sky with worry. “I think I know where he’s going. There’s only one pilot in a million that could navigate that debris up there. I’m afraid of—” She stopped herself. “Let’s go.” She headed down the path out of the cemetery.
Skelly tried to follow. But before he could limp to the street, the roar of engines came from above. And light. Not as bright as before, but closer, and more directed. Skelly yelled out. “The Empire’s found us!”
“I don’t think so,” Hera said as the dark mass of a starship descended toward the street.
“Your ship?” Zaluna asked, quivering.
“It’s Kanan!” Skelly exclaimed, recognizing the shape. “It’s Expedient!”
The rear ramp descended as the mining ship settled half a meter over the street. Kanan appeared in it. “Hurry,” he called to Hera. “I need you to get me to that blast site. Next to you, I’m an amateur!”
Hera gestured toward her companions. “They come with us!”
“I don’t care. I’ve got Okadiah’s team on the comm,” Kanan said. “They’re dying!”
Expedient rocketed through the exosphere into space. Kanan had guessed right. He’d missed two work shifts, but with Lal dead and Vidian’s appointed caretaker not yet in place, his ship hadn’t been reassigned to anyone. His identification had gotten him onto the tarmac—but nobody was looking at the ground anyway. He found that the passenger seat had been replaced, but the ship hadn’t yet been reloaded with explosives. The latter fact was helping Expedient’s handlin
g enormously.
Only he wasn’t the one handling it.
“Busy,” Hera said, guiding the control yoke. From the passenger seat, Kanan could see that all the traffic normally headed toward Cynda at this hour had joined the ships fleeing it. A colossal cone of silvery debris rose into space from Cynda’s southern hemisphere, blooming outward like an upside-down snowfall. Contact with the fast-moving ejecta could be catastrophic, and the other freighter pilots knew it.
Kanan knew it, too, which was why he’d surrendered the controls to Hera. After their experience on the hoverbus, he’d been left with little doubt that Hera wasn’t just a good pilot; she was great. At the moment, he was upset, not the master of his emotions—and he knew how that could compromise the focus and reflexes necessary to do the kind of piloting that was about to be required: They had to go exactly to the one place everyone else was fleeing.
“No more info on the comm,” he said. There’d been nothing but static for long minutes, ever since he’d heard Okadiah’s team send their distress call. The other companies’ channels had similarly gone dead. Looking at the long-range scope, he could see why. The fragments emanated from a point less than a kilometer away from the main entrance to the mining complex. He couldn’t make out a single landmark. What hadn’t blown outward had caved in.
Hera weaved Expedient through the rush of oncoming freighters. Half of them didn’t seem to know where they were going, Kanan thought: All were seeking refuge, either on Gorse or around it. “They’re afraid it’s going to happen again.”
“Good bet,” Hera said. “But not today.”
Maybe it’s just a natural disaster, he thought. That, or an industrial accident. He wanted more than anything for his worst fears to be wrong. Would the Empire—would anyone—really test a far-fetched theory while everyone was still at work? It made no sense. But then he looked out onto Ultimatum, the only ship not in motion. It simply sat, the indifferent observer at a safe distance. No rescue vehicles had been released: only probe droids, headed toward the debris field.
A New Dawn: Star Wars Page 21