Even so, Kanan had kept the old man at arm’s length. There had been someone like Okadiah on all the planets he’d visited: the one person willing to help a stranger, no questions asked. And Kanan had left all those worlds without saying good-bye to those people.
It might have been ironic, if Kanan bothered to think much about such things. The Jedi had always preached against forming connections, to prevent their acolytes from putting too much value in any one relationship. In so doing, they had unwittingly trained their students to be the perfect fugitives, able to cut and run at any moment. As long as they didn’t stop to care, they could go on indefinitely.
Even so, Kanan thought as he ate, Okadiah was a little different. Kanan had never known his father; prospective Padawans tended to get plucked from their families very young. Kanan had only known mentors, like Master Billaba—and while he didn’t know from experience, he suspected parents were different. Parents taught, too, but without all the judging. Good parents, anyway. And on that score, Okadiah had probably been more fatherlike than any of the other patrons Kanan had found in his travels. Okadiah didn’t mind Kanan’s prickly attitude, his drinking, or the hours he kept; the old man was right there with him, some of the time. And with dozens of workers on his mining detail, Okadiah could always point to someone worse on all those scores.
But for some reason, Okadiah hadn’t treated him like just another member of the crew. The old man had seen something in him—what, Kanan didn’t know—and he’d done everything right. Okadiah had never tried to push his help on the drifter; he’d left it to Kanan to decide what assistance to take.
It had worked—mostly. For while Kanan had never shared any secrets about his origin with the foreman, he had stayed on Gorse longer than he’d intended. The explosives hauler, bad as it was; the home across from the bar; and Okadiah, his host: They’d all made Gorse more livable than some of the other places he’d tried.
But he’d seen all the world had to offer. And there were plenty of things he wouldn’t miss. One was in the doorway behind him.
“Suicide flier! You show your face here, after the last time?”
Kanan looked up at the mirror behind the grill, already knowing the speaker’s identity. “Hello, Charko,” he said. He felt for his shoulder holster but otherwise didn’t move.
Charko, two meters of horned Chagrian meanness, wouldn’t set foot in Drakka’s Diner—the cook kept not one but four big blasters behind the counter. Instead, Charko just yelled like an idiot from the open front door. “We’re waiting for you, pilot. Come out and play.”
The Besalisk cook swore and moved toward his blasters. Charko didn’t wait around. The door slammed shut. Unconcerned, Kanan finished his stew as Drakka rounded the counter, four weapons in four hands. A fully armed Besalisk defending his business was a great equalizer.
Charko never went anywhere without at least half a dozen members of his gang, the Sarlaccs. A sarlacc was a ravenous monster that was little more than a mouth; Kanan thought the name was properly descriptive. Charko’s Sarlaccs had an endless appetite for the credits of anyone fool enough to wander the streets of the industrial area. The gang activity had provided Okadiah with a business opportunity: opening his cantina across town and busing miners safely past the trouble spots.
Three times, Charko had tried—and failed—to separate Kanan from his hard-earned credits as he’d walked Broken Boulevard. The third time, Kanan had broken off one of the horns on Charko’s head; the Chagrian had sworn revenge.
“They still out there?” Kanan asked without looking up.
“They’ve moved up the way to talk to someone,” Drakka growled. “But yeah, they’re still there. Idiots.” He shut the door and returned to his cooking.
Well, no sense leaving unfinished business behind, Kanan thought as he wiped his face. He pushed back the bowl with one hand and drew his blaster with the other. Kanan walked cautiously to the entrance, blaster in hand. He nudged the door open with the tip of his boot.
“Hey, ugly!” he yelled. “Where’d you go?”
Outside, he spotted Charko’s unmistakable one-horned silhouette as part of a shadowy gathering up the street. There were eight or nine of them, all members of Charko’s band, but they were ignoring Kanan, talking to someone else.
Before Kanan could see more, the group quickly dispersed, breaking up into groups of three and heading off into the alleys, while whomever they’d been talking to remained, twenty meters up the street from Kanan.
Wearing a black cloak that gave no indication of the person beneath, the figure stood beneath the glare of the moon, watching not Kanan, but the Moonglow facility across the road. Clearly this wasn’t one of the Sarlaccs.
Something told Kanan to holster his weapon. As he did so, the watcher turned toward him—and called out.
“Excuse me!” He couldn’t see the speaker’s face, but the voice was female, almost melodic. “Where can I find the repulsorlift entrance to Moonglow?”
The restless ground beneath Kanan’s feet rumbled as she spoke, but he didn’t hear it. He was still trying to process the voice, so warm and polite it was totally out of place on a Shaketown street. It startled him so much that he could only manage: “Huh?”
“Never mind,” the figure said primly. “I’ll find it myself.”
With a whirl of her cloak, she headed off in the opposite direction.
Kanan, who had had no mission in life, now found himself with one: seeing who it was that could be attached to a voice like that. Gorse had one last surprise in store for him after all. It didn’t matter that she’d been chatting amiably with a street gang. His feet, developing a will of their own, started to move to follow.
They didn’t get far, and neither did the rest of him. Cousin Drakka appeared behind him, slapping two pairs of huge grease-matted hands on Kanan’s shoulders.
He’d forgotten to pay his bill.
“I UNDERSTAND YOU’VE CAPTURED the suspect from Cynda,” the shimmering holographic form of Count Vidian said. “You will be receiving a squad of stormtroopers to take custody of him shortly.”
Skelly glowered. Looking through the back of the image, he could see Vidian, but Vidian could not see him. Or maybe he could. Lal had barely informed the authorities that Skelly was there when the efficiency expert had called. It would make sense, Skelly thought, for the Empire to keep an eye on all the producers of a strategic compound like thorilide.
But he didn’t mind their spying. He minded the fat four-armed fools in the room with him, who had yet to release him from the chair—and who had decided to keep the gag on him when Vidian called, despite his urgent muffled cries to be allowed to speak.
“Moonglow. Your firm is a newer one?” Vidian asked.
“Only under that name, my lord,” Lal replied. “I have worked in this facility for more than twenty years.”
Skelly wondered if a hologram could catch how nervous she was to be speaking to the Emperor’s man. She’d better be worried, Skelly thought. By the time the Empire learned what he knew, the whole Mining Guild might well be out of work.
Lal continued. “We’re a smaller firm, but we’ve made many advances in efficiency. I assure you we knew nothing about—”
“Never mind the saboteur,” Vidian interrupted. “I would see these efficiencies. I will begin my inspection there.”
“Here?” Skelly saw Lal’s eyes widening. She clasped both sets of hands together, prayerfully. “My lord—we’d like some time to prepare for your arrival. It’s the end of a very long workday. I know we don’t have mornings around here, but could it possibly—”
Vidian waved his metallic hand dismissively. “Diurnal cycles! So annoying. Fine. In twelve hours, then—regard it the reward for your service. But I’ll show no leniency in my review because of your help to me tonight. Is that understood?”
“I would expect none, my lord. Moonglow will be ready.”
“See that it is,” came the cold response. “An Imperial repulsorlift will
arrive in five minutes. Have the prisoner ready.” Vidian vanished.
Lal sat, dumbfounded, looking at the space where the image had been. Off to the side, Skelly could see her security chief husband, Gord, scratching his head. “I thought you said you didn’t think the Empire would inspect here,” Gord said. “We’re too small.”
“I don’t understand, either.” Lal cast a glance over at Skelly. “I guess it’s because of you?”
“Mmmm-mmmph!” Skelly replied.
“Oh,” Lal said, flustered. “Gord, get that out of his mouth!”
Gord grumbled. “All right,” he said, looming over the seated Skelly. “But I think it’s a bad idea.”
The rag finally removed, Skelly coughed before turning his ire on the Besalisks. “That was Vidian! Why didn’t you let me talk to him?”
Lal goggled at that. “I’m already terrified of him. I definitely wasn’t going to let you talk to him!” Almost in a daze, she plopped down in her office chair. “Twelve hours to get this place looking good enough for an Imperial inspection?”
Gord looked back at her. “It’s all right, Lal. You run a good place. I’ll get the cousins in with some mops and it’ll be fine.”
Skelly rolled his eyes. The security chief was moon-eyed over his wife, and their mushiness was the capper to a horrid day. “You’d better worry more about what Vidian will say after he talks to me. You and every firm that’s ever used Baby to break open a wall up there.”
“Forget this guy,” Gord said. He snapped his fingers. “Oh, Lal, I almost forgot. That Kanan fellow said he was quitting.”
Lal shook her head, disappointed. “I was afraid of that. It was the worst day ever. He nearly got killed. But I wanted to thank him—he wound up saving some of my people’s lives.”
“Maybe you can talk him out of it,” Gord said. A buzzer sounded. “There’s somebody at the repulsorlift gate.”
“That’d be the stormtroopers,” his wife replied. She looked at Skelly sadly. “I am sorry.”
“Yeah, sure,” Skelly said. “You guys’ll be the sorry ones.”
Gord whistled. Two of his Besalisk assistants entered and lifted Skelly, chair and all. They carried him into the moonlit stockyard at the side of the complex. Equipment lined the inner perimeter of the tall black fencing, with a path between large enough for a repulsortruck to arrive.
Skelly knew what to expect: He’d seen the Imperial troop transports hovering through Gorse City now and again. He hoped this time, they’d take him straight to Vidian. He watched as Gord, leaving Skelly with the other guards, stepped up to the gate and opened it.
No one entered.
Curious, Gord walked into the street. A second later, the burly Besalisk looked back and shouted to his assistants. “Guys—it’s Charko! The Sarlaccs are stealing our hovertruck!”
Moving almost as one, Gord’s fellow guards drew their blasters and ran out to join him. Alone, Skelly shook his head. In high-crime Shaketown, no supply delivery was safe—not even when Imperials were on the way. He heard blasterfire from the street. Maybe they’d all shoot one another.
Then it occurred to Skelly that the Sarlaccs must have activated the entry buzzer. Why would they have done that? Before he could consider it, he became aware of someone behind him—and something pulling at the strap on his left shoulder.
“Are you Skelly?”
“What?” He looked to his left to see a cloaked figure crouching behind his chair. “Yeah. But who are—”
“Hera,” the female voice said. A green hand inserted a vibroblade under one of his restraints. “And you’re leaving.”
“No, wait,” Skelly said. “I can’t go. I have a story to get out!”
For a moment, the woman stopped cutting, as if puzzled. But only for a moment. “I can help get your story out. But you have to go!”
“Wait!” Skelly had no idea who she was, or what she was talking about. “Listen—”
“I will listen. But you have to go,” she said, severing the last bond. She ripped the straps free. “I paid Charko for a distraction. But it won’t last.”
Skelly looked through the gate at the street. It was empty. But he could hear Gord and his companions running somewhere and firing their blasters, and beyond that, the low whine of a repulsorcraft.
He didn’t know what to do. The stormtroopers would take him to Vidian, who had the power to stop what was being done to Cynda. But then again, they might not. And the cloaked woman had said something he wasn’t accustomed to hearing.
“I’ll listen,” she repeated. “Go!”
Skelly looked back, only to see she was no longer at his side. Hearing footfalls heading for the gate, he forced his cramped muscles to stand. Walking painfully, he headed for the gate.
“Where can I find you?” he yelled.
The call came from over the fence, outside: “I’ll find you!”
She was already gone.
KANAN RUSHED AROUND the corner of a building—only to be nearly run down by an Imperial troop transport. Seeing the boxy repulsorcraft careening straight at him, Kanan dived to the muddy roadway. The long vehicle passed right over him, its metallic underside mere centimeters from the back of his skull.
Now he lay in the mud at the corner of a Shaketown intersection, and there was still no sign of the woman with the alluring voice.
Picking himself up, Kanan wiped off his tunic and stood as more traffic came down the other street, this time on foot: two of Charko’s gang members, barreling in his direction with big metal pry bars in their hands. The sound of blaster shots followed behind them.
Kanan reached for his weapon, only to realize the Sarlaccs weren’t coming after him—and that the blaster shots were meant for them. The hoodlums ran past without stopping, rushing to stay ahead of their pursuers—who turned out to be Gord and his fellow guards, firing blasters.
“You’d better run, punks!” Gord yelled, firing blasters held in all four hands.
Kanan looked down the street after them and then up the route the Imperials had taken. He shook his head. I’m too sober, he thought. Nothing makes sense!
He walked around the block. At the far end of one street, he could see the Moonglow service entrance. There was no sign of any caped woman there; just the stormtroopers from before, piling out of their repulsorcraft. Kanan quickly turned away.
This was no place to stay on a fool’s errand, stormtroopers or not. This end of Shaketown, he recognized, had fared badly in a recent quake; half of it was under renovation and most of it was closed down. Resigned, Kanan decided to give up and head for Okadiah’s. I’m just being silly, he thought. Tomorrow’s moving day. Time to get packing.
Then he heard the voice again.
“Fifty up front, fifty afterward,” the woman said. “Like we agreed.”
Kanan looked down the alley to see the hooded figure facing off against Charko, flanked by several members of his gang. It was like the scene Kanan had witnessed outside the diner—only not. This place was more enclosed: Construction scaffolds rose against buildings on either side of the passage. There was a new menace to how Charko’s friends—a mix of tough-looking humans and other beings—stood. And Charko, clutching a bunch of credits in his hand, wasn’t happy at all.
“If you’ve got a hundred credits, maybe you’ve got a hundred more,” the one-horned gang leader said. He took a step forward. Towering over the short woman, he gestured to her black cloak. “You’ve got room for a lot more cash under there, I’ll bet.”
Kanan strode into view at the end of the street. “Hey, Charko! You were looking for me. Did you forget?”
Charko and his companions looked back at Kanan. “Never,” the Chagrian said. “There’s always time for you!”
Kanan saw blasters being raised. His was already drawn. Six—no, seven against one. That’s about right.
But before he could fire, Kanan saw the woman suddenly twirl in place. With one swift motion, her cloak came off—and became a weapon she cast into t
he air like a net. Charko turned back to get a faceful of fabric, dropping his credits in the process.
The gang leader stumbled backward, victim of a high kick from his assailant. His friends turned and gawped at what Kanan now saw: a beautiful, lithe, green-skinned Twi’lek, holding a pistol in one gloved hand.
The Twi’lek shot one human Sarlacc point-blank in a single motion, and then rushed forward in the next. As the burly man fell backward, the Twi’lek used his body as a makeshift staircase, giving her the altitude she needed to leap for a horizontal strut on one of the scaffolds. Catching the bar with her free hand, she used her momentum to help her gain a perch, clinging to one of the vertical supports. Turning, she fired her blaster down into the astonished crowd.
“Get her!” yelled a female gang member. But blasterfire was coming from a second direction as Kanan, done with watching, charged into the alley. The Sarlaccs scattered, uncertain who to target first.
With an angry bellow, Charko leapt from the mud, heedless of the cross fire. Turning toward the Twi’lek’s position, he slammed chest-first into one of the scaffold supports. The structure shook, and the Twi’lek woman dropped her blaster. Her weapon hand freed, she scrambled like a sand monkey higher up the scaffold—even as it began to fall.
Kanan knew he had to move. He rushed his nearest attacker and grabbed her blaster arm with his left hand. His motion directed her errant shot into the assailant approaching on his right; he followed with a head-butt beneath her chin that knocked her backward. Now he could see the raging Charko trying to upend the scaffold. He dived forward, even as the Twi’lek woman vaulted in the opposite direction high above, to the scaffold on the other side of the alley.
The Rise of the Empire Page 41