Seized from behind by Kanan, Charko lost hold of the scaffold support—and the whole thing started to come down, all five stories of it. Kanan saw only one place to go: the large picture window of the building the scaffold was attached to. He launched himself and the Chagrian through the window, creating a shower of shards even as an avalanche of scaffolding came down in the alleyway behind them.
Dazed, his blaster lost in the dive, Kanan struggled to regain his feet inside the vacant building, which he recognized as an abandoned cantina. The Chagrian had taken the brunt of the crash, and yet somehow the thug still stood, ready to fight it out.
“You’re on my turf now,” Kanan said, raising his fists. “I do all my training in bars!”
Kanan and Charko traded punches across the dark quake-damaged room. Kanan grabbed a chair; Charko did the same with half a broken table. The two carried on a parry-and-thrust battle with their makeshift weapons—it was a kind of fighting the Jedi never taught, and it suited Kanan just fine.
Blow by blow, he maneuvered Charko in front of the only remaining intact window. Winded from his exertions, the Chagrian staggered. Kanan saw his opening. A roundhouse kick sent his opponent smashing through the pane behind him.
“Are we done here?” Kanan asked, stepping up to the windowsill. Charko didn’t get back up this time. But the others were still out there, Kanan remembered. He readied himself and carefully climbed out the shattered window.
There wasn’t anything to do. All Charko’s companions were down. Some, Kanan had taken out earlier; others, the Twi’lek had. The rest had been crushed under the falling scaffold. And the Twi’lek herself was nowhere to be seen.
Rubbing his bruised cheek, Kanan searched the wreckage for his blaster. He was in pain: the kind that would pass, but enough to make it tough to go another round with the Sarlaccs. By the time he found his weapon, however, it was clear to him no danger remained.
But something was missing from the scene. The credits Charko had dropped had been plucked from the ground, and small footprints led away from the place where they had lain.
He saw the Twi’lek’s cloak nearby, pinned beneath a heavy girder. She did leave me a souvenir, after all. With great effort, he pulled the metal aside. He took the garment into his hands and held it up. It was a good find, he thought, as he turned to stagger out of the alley. Because he was beginning to believe she had never been there.
He stopped thinking that when he stepped out into the street—and found himself looking into her eyes.
“Ah,” she said, seeing her cloak.
“Ah,” he repeated. Kanan stood frozen, studying her under the bright light of the moon. She was shorter than he was, with deep green skin, full lips, and a chin that came to a pleasing point. She wore a gray pilot’s cap that allowed exit for two head-tails that hung at a little more than shoulder-length. She wore a brown vest, gold-colored slacks with utility pockets, and black gloves that matched the cloak in his hands.
“I knew I’d forgotten something,” she said, removing the garment from his hands so deftly he barely noticed she’d done it. Then she looked at him with concern. “You okay there?”
Kanan nodded.
“You speak Basic?”
“Words fail me.”
She smiled. “So they do.”
It wasn’t a dig—or if it was, it was delivered so gently that Kanan chose not to notice it. He looked back. “That was something back there.”
“Yes,” she said, still talking in that wonderful voice as she flicked mud from the cloak. “It’s a good thing I was here to save you.”
Kanan’s brow wrinkled, and he looked back. “Save me?” He pointed at the bodies. “You had a whole gang after you!”
The Twi’lek lifted the cloak to put it on. “I’d paid them to do a job for me. There was a minor pricing dispute. I could have handled it.” Seeing him look back at her, slack-jawed, she bumped a gloved fist underneath his bruised chin. “You did pretty good though. I’m impressed.” She studied him. “So, you just randomly go around sticking your neck out for people?”
“No!” Kanan said. “Er—almost never.” He blinked as she pulled her hand back. “Wait a minute,” he said, gesturing back to the bodies in the alley. “You needed them to do a job? For you?”
“Mm-hmm. And now it’s done.” She flipped the cloak back into place around her shoulders, turned, and started walking.
“I do jobs,” Kanan said, tromping after her. His whole body hurt from the fight, but he didn’t want the conversation to end so soon. “You need something done, I’m there.”
“No, thank you,” she said, continuing on. “I have stops to make.”
“Wait!”
Kanan tried to follow, but his body rebelled. Wincing, he grabbed at his knee. When he looked up, she was gone again—likely down one of the side alleys.
Disgusted with the universe, he yelled into Gorse’s endless night. “What’s your name?”
For a long moment, nothing.
And then that voice again, calling back to him.
“Hera.”
STARSHIPS WERE SETTLEMENTS in the sky. Some were villages; Ultimatum was a great metropolis. And yet even Star Destroyers functioned like small towns. A big sink full of gossip—and as with small towns, the contents all tended to flow toward one person, like water to a drain.
Sloane stood at the window as Nibiru Chamas, Ultimatum’s unofficial drain, sat casually in the chair in her office. The mining ships were continuing to shuttle back and forth between Gorse and Cynda—faster than before, of course—but her mind was on the list Chamas was reading.
“Count Vidian has designed and issued new traffic patterns for the cargo ships traveling between the two worlds,” Chamas said. “He has ordered several changes to the loader droids’ subroutines on Cynda that should make them more productive. He has changed the color of the plates used in the communal mess hall—”
“What?”
Chamas chuckled. “That last one is a joke.”
Sloane rolled her eyes. “Continue.”
“He also ordered a review of Transcept’s personnel—you know, the ones who found the madman on Cynda? There has already been at least one arrest for suspicious activity.”
“Thorough,” Sloane said.
She was thorough, too—or intended to be. She’d been caught flat-footed by Vidian’s actions on her bridge, issuing commands to her staff. Ultimatum had the authority to destroy the freighter Cynda Dreaming; Vidian had clearly known that. But, while she agreed with that decision, it behooved her to find out more about her visitor, and how he’d interacted with other crews. She wasn’t going to be just one more mechanical arm.
“What else has he done?”
“Laid groundwork for his tour of Gorse. He has a full schedule already. He doesn’t head down there for hours yet, and he’s already reorganized three guilds, ordered the consolidation of several equipment suppliers into a single firm, and even shut down a medcenter, moving the patients to an institution closer to the factories so they can get back to work more quickly.”
“That’s it?”
“Isn’t that enough? He has met several times with the aides he brought aboard and made several calls back to his main office on Calcoraan Depot. There’s only one thing he hasn’t done.”
“Slept,” Sloane said. “He doesn’t have the time.”
“He doesn’t have a bed,” Chamas corrected. “The attendants changing his room found the place wrecked. The furniture, smashed.”
“What? When was this?”
“After he came back from the moon—after we piped a second call to him from Baron Danthe. I think our count has a temper.”
Sloane chuckled. She’d heard Vidian had a short fuse—and word back from Cynda was that the Mining Guild chief had found out the hard way. “You got him another room, I hope?”
“We have an ample supply. Don’t worry, it’ll all be put right before our—er, regular captain arrives.”
Thanks for reminding me I’
m just a temp, Sloane thought, walking around to her desk. But Chamas’s comment brought her back to what she wanted to know. This next, she wanted to ask cautiously.
“Interesting man, Vidian—and striking that he would choose government service. You said he bought the title. Do you know where he’s from?”
“His biography says Corellia. In the Republic days, he was an engineer for a small design firm that worked for shipbuilders. A cog in a small wheel. His suggested improvements were constantly rejected. Then he was struck with Shilmer’s syndrome—and spent the next five years while it was eating him alive conquering the stock exchanges from a bed.”
“And the firm?”
“As the legend goes”—Chamas said the term derisively—“Vidian’s first act on regaining mobility was buying the company and putting everyone on the street. But I don’t even know what firm it was. There were confidentiality provisions to the severance packages. He doesn’t want anyone he’s burned sniping at him, ruining sales of his next management holo.”
Sloane knew Vidian didn’t need the money, but she didn’t have any problem with his rationale. A little revenge did wonders for the healing process. It was also a human thing—and there weren’t many human things about Vidian.
“If he’s from Corellia,” she said, “he’s probably connected in the shipbuilding sector—and the Admiralty.”
It was halfway between the question she’d intended, and the matter-of-fact observation she’d wanted it to sound like. But Chamas was too sly, catching her drift immediately. “In other words,” he said with a smile, “can he make your posting here permanent—perhaps by giving Captain Karlsen a cushy job at one of his subsidiaries? Please, ask him for one for me, while you’re at it.”
Caught, Sloane simply stared. “What’s tomorrow like?”
Chamas passed her his datapad showing the stops on Vidian’s planned tour of Gorse. It sounded like an exhausting day.
She was struck curious by the first name on the list. “Moonglow. Why start with this little one?”
“They apparently captured—and lost—the fugitive from Cynda a few hours ago.”
“That’ll go over well for them,” Sloane said, passing back the datapad. She swiveled her chair to look again out the window at the ships heading down to Gorse. Her brow furrowed as she tried to take it all in.
“So while he’s on his world tour, we play traffic officer,” Chamas said, standing. “Keeping the rabble back while Vidian adds to his folktale. We should demand part of the royalties on his next holo.”
Sloane smiled inwardly. She only wanted a supporting role. It was her job to help the Empire; helping to find Ultimatum’s rightful captain a different ship would be a nice bonus.
—
Stormtroopers had ransacked his apartment hours earlier. That, Skelly thought without the least amusement, officially represented the first attention the Empire had ever paid to the homes in Crispus Commons.
Crispus was a project for homeless Clone Wars veterans in the sector, an idea hatched in the final days of the Republic. The Empire had kept it going, shipping in new residents from time to time without ever adding to or improving on the complex. Skelly thought it spoke volumes about what the Republic and Empire really thought about those who’d fought against the Separatists. Let’s stick them where the sun doesn’t shine.
Skelly had stayed in the dilapidated apartment partly because it was sandwiched between Gorse City’s industrial districts. That way, no matter who fired him, his commute never got any longer. But the other reason he stayed was the rusted grating behind the complex’s trash bin at the far end of the rectangular exercise yard—and what lay beneath.
Certain no one outside had seen his approach, he slipped behind the bin and into the hole. He closed the grille above him. Passing through an improvised curtain, he fished for the power switch. A crackle or two later, the darkness around Skelly turned red, lit by computer monitors and a single weak overhead lamp.
It had been intended as a bomb shelter, built by the Republic as part of the Crispus project in the unlikely event Count Dooku or General Grievous took a sudden interest in destroying a retirement colony. Its permacrete walls had been a moldy mess when Skelly found the place. But he liked that it had its own generator, and the presence of a giant garbage bin in front of the grating meant he could enter and depart without anyone seeing.
All Skelly’s computers were built from kits, making them safe from slicing by the powers that be, corporate or government. Only one machine was attached to the HoloNet grid, and that through a connection hijacked from an Ithorian lunch wagon that parked daily on the other side of the quad. By selecting an intermediary that was mobile and garaged somewhere else, Skelly had cut down on prying eyes and ears.
Everywhere but at work. Skelly had known some of the corporations working on Cynda had installed surveillance equipment, but he’d assumed that was just to keep an eye on productivity—and to prevent the theft of explosive material, which had once been a problem. Evidently, they were now listening in on individual conversations there, too. It was insane. Deaf to his appeals about safety, but nosing in on everything else!
Skelly quickly ate a meager meal of tinned food paste before collapsing, exhausted, on a mat on the floor. This room had been his world, his real world, for years. Boards mounted on one wall were covered with hand-scrawled notes about the military industrial complex, and the intricate network of who owned what. A second wall was home to his studies into the history of galactic conflicts; the sides kept changing, but the stories were always the same. Whenever titans fought, the peons did the dying.
The biggest collection of notes, however, was on the wall facing him now. Apart from the curtained opening that led to a little closet, every square centimeter was festooned with notes about Cynda and its geologic structure. Seeing it all made his gut hurt. Skelly had long feared a day like this would be necessary: a day when he’d have to risk everything to get someone’s attention. But he’d been deciding things on the fly, and he worried he’d already blown it.
He’d run here from Moonglow’s grounds without thinking, after a spur-of-the-moment promise from someone he’d never met—and had in all likelihood ruined his chance to talk to Count Vidian. He still didn’t know why he’d fled. Yes, it was natural to fear being taken anywhere by stormtroopers; the Empire’s foot soldiers had a bad habit of damaging prisoners in transit. And everyone had misread his attempt to educate them as sabotage. But Vidian was still his best chance, the only one with the authority to effect change. Would Vidian leave Gorse without talking to him? Would Vidian see him at all, now that he’d run?
Staring at his collected writings from his spot on the floor, Skelly let out a low moan. “Nobody listens.”
“What do you want to say?”
Skelly looked up, startled, to see the cloaked figure that had rescued him. She removed her cowl. “You’re her!”
“Hera,” the Twi’lek corrected. “Let’s talk.”
SKELLY SAT UP, alarmed. “How did you find me?”
Hera patted her own shoulder. “If you’ll look in the utility pocket on your left shoulder, you’ll find a tracking device that I slipped in when I was cutting you loose.” She smiled. “I did tell you I would find you.”
Skelly reached for his pocket and discovered a small chip. He stared at her angrily. “I don’t like people spying on me.”
“You’re in the wrong system, then.” Hera simply opened her gloved hand. “I’ll take that. Thanks.”
“You said my name,” he said, suspicious. “How do you know me?”
“You’ve gotten a lot of people’s attention today. I heard about what you did on Cynda. You know—the blast, while the Emperor’s envoy was there.” She paused, stopping to take in the many notes about the Empire on the wall to her left. “I’m interested to hear your reasons for doing what you did.”
Frowning, Skelly stood up. “And why do you care?”
“I’m just…interested,” H
era said.
Seeing her reading his notes, the redheaded human interposed himself between her and the wall. “Look, don’t read my stuff. I don’t know you, lady. I don’t know that telling you will help anything!”
Hera looked to her right—and saw the other wall and its writings about Cynda. A glint appeared in her dark eyes. “Would you tell me…if I was a reporter for the Environmental Action Gazette?”
Skelly goggled. “I thought that had shut down!”
“Just retooling,” Hera said. “You can be part of the big relaunch.”
Skelly studied her. He’d never been in that HoloNet publication’s audience, but it had come up several times in his research. It had put a stop to a number of bad business practices in the past.
“Come on,” she said, pulling a datapad from her cloak. “I did let you go.”
Skelly took a deep breath—and made a decision. “Okay.”
He rushed to his wall and pointed to one diagram after another, laying out his theories. Severing a few crystalline stalactites and stalagmites was fine; those were the mere outgrowths of the physical structures that held Cynda together. It was like giving the moon a haircut. But using explosives to break into new chambers was more akin to breaking bone.
“Every chamber they discover has more thorilide than the one before,” Skelly said. “And that makes them use more juice to get into the next one.”
“And that causes collapses that harm workers.” Hera nodded, making notes on her datapad. “While ruining a beautiful natural setting.”
“Now you’ve got it!” Triumphant, Skelly jabbed his fist to the low ceiling.
“Okay,” Hera said mildly.
Skelly’s face froze. “Okay?”
She smiled gently at him. “This is not big and shocking news, Skelly,” she said kindly, returning the datapad to its place. “The Empire hurts workers and ruins things. It does that all the time, everywhere.”
“So?”
“You have a problem, like a billion other people in the galaxy. One day, we’ll all do something about it. This is good to know, and I feel for everyone involved. But I’m not sure the time is right to do much about it.”
The Rise of the Empire Page 42