Her crew. Unrelated to Vidian’s machinations, Captain Karlsen’s posting had just been permanently awarded to her. She was glad Commander Chamas had sent Deltic and her co-workers home to the ship immediately after the commendation presentation, before they embarrassed her in front of anyone else. But they were her embarrassment now. Ultimatum was hers.
And the proceedings were only beginning. Later, they would all ride the luxurious shuttle to Cynda, restored once again to its status as a tourist destination. The zone damaged by the test blast was only one of many former natural preserves on the moon; the Empire had wasted no time in reopening another. It would be made available for visits from the rich and powerful: those who had served the Emperor well and those whose influence he sought to court. That includes pretty much everyone in this room, she thought.
Taking a drink from the tray of a GG-class serving droid, Sloane thought back on the events of the days since Vidian’s death. An intermediary from the Emperor had met with her to follow up on the whole situation. Sloane had spoken completely and truthfully, of course, and he had seen no problem with her testimony. But he had expressed puzzlement over her tale of the young pilot, speaking to her in the dark. This “Kanan” was no agent of the Emperor’s, she was told. It didn’t make sense, and neither of them had pressed the issue. Did Vidian have another rival, loose, somewhere in the Imperial system? Or was it someone else entirely?
Sloane hadn’t shaken the feeling that there was another player out there. Someone allied with the young pilot, pulling the strings. She wondered if she would ever find out.
There was something she had found out. She had learned that someone on Ultimatum’s senior staff had queried Transcept about Lemuel Tharsa on their arrival. She hadn’t authorized it, and it made no sense that Vidian would have done it. She realized what had happened—and outside, on the balcony, she spotted the men responsible.
Nibiru Chamas drank there with Baron Danthe. Danthe saw her and smiled. He was even more radiant and robust in person, she saw. “My good captain,” the baron said, raising his glass. “Please join us.”
“I am yours to command,” she said.
And so was Chamas. He’d sent the inquiry about Tharsa, she’d realized, using his authority as an Ultimatum officer to help Danthe investigate Vidian’s phantom consultant. She wondered how long Chamas had been on the baron’s payroll as informant.
Smiling darkly, Chamas raised his glass of wine to her. It didn’t look like his first. No wonder, for she had supplanted his position with his patron. Danthe had been grateful, and she saw his hand in the Ultimatum staffing move. Perhaps Chamas had sought her chair. If so, then no matter: This was the way things worked in the Empire.
She stepped to the railing with the baron. Chamas, realizing his glass was empty, excused himself. It was humid as always on Gorse, and none of the visitors were out here—but she had gotten used to it. She looked up at Cynda, well past full now. It would continue to shine, and to set Gorse to rocking every so often. And one day, it would probably tear itself apart and rain down, as Vidian intended. But it wouldn’t be in her lifetime, and tonight she planned to enjoy it.
Baron Danthe watched her as she stared up at it. “I do thank you for alerting me.”
“I was alerting the Emperor.”
“Of course.” Danthe chuckled. “Such a life we lead. Did you ever think that stabbing people in the back would be a way to get ahead?”
“It’s the way the game is played,” Sloane said, a little surprised at his openness. “I prefer flying my starship.”
“And defending the Empire against—whatever.” He grinned. “Have you learned any more about the others that were involved?”
“Nothing.”
He gave a derisive sniff. “I don’t think we need worry too much. A single rebellious act isn’t the start of anything. This was a blip. A glitch in the system. Nothing more.”
“Maybe.” Or maybe they’d awakened a sleeping gundark.
Sloane decided there would be opportunities for advancement in a galaxy like that, too.
“To interesting missions ahead.” She clinked her glass against his.
—
The sun rose, and nobody died. Zaluna had lived her entire life where that was impossible.
This was a different world with a different sun, and while she couldn’t see it, she could feel its rays warming her body. She could feel the cool air of night gently giving way, hear the dew on the grass crunching as she walked. And all around, she could smell the flowers of the garden waking up.
Kanan had left them after their return to Gorse, thinking it best to meet again here on this sparsely populated agricultural planet sectors away. Zaluna didn’t know the name of the planet Hera had brought her to, but then she’d never asked.
She was taking her first step into a new world: a world disconnected from the grid.
It still wasn’t clear that the Empire was looking for her for her part in the Forager affair. Before bringing her from Gorse to the agrarian world on her fancy ship, Hera had stopped by Zaluna’s apartment for her things. It showed signs of having been entered by the landlord, but it hadn’t been ransacked. And certainly no video surveillance imagery from aboard Forager identifying Zaluna had survived.
The news had made Zaluna wonder. Maybe she hadn’t been the focus of any planetary dragnet, along with the others. Maybe it had been all in her mind. Maybe she could’ve come back from her suspension and gone back to work at Transcept, as if nothing had happened.
But she couldn’t. Because something had happened. A lot of somethings. And it meant she could never return to that life, if she even wanted to. And she didn’t.
Still, she was glad that life on Gorse wouldn’t be quite so bad anymore for those she’d left. The miraculous news of thorilide in quantity on Gorse’s dayside meant that work was already going ahead, using legions of heat-resistant droids Baron Danthe had ready and waiting. No further damage would be done to Cynda or the places where people lived on Gorse. The miners, by far the roughest customers on the world, would migrate elsewhere. And while the refinery work would stay, the Empire now controlled its own firm in Moonglow: a place where a farsighted Lal Grallik had, in life, made safety improvements that would now become the model for all the other factories there. The Empire had gotten the efficiency it had wanted out of Count Vidian’s trip after all—and yet people would be safer all around. Hera had particularly liked that thought. “Victory through unintended consequences,” she’d said.
The house they had found for Zaluna was abandoned and half in ruin, but it was cheap and quiet. The person Hera bought it from had said the garden out back had been planted by another older woman, long since dead; it was direly in need of care no one would give. Most of the planet’s settlers had moved to places like Gorse to find work.
Brushing her fingers against the blooms, Zaluna couldn’t imagine a sillier prospect.
She felt for the steps beneath her feet. There was a tree at the end of the path; walking up to it reminded her of the cemetery at Beggar’s Hill, with its large monuments.
“Keep walking, Zal, and you’ll bump into it.”
Zaluna smiled. “You’re still here, Kanan!”
“Enjoying the weather. Gorse was a steam bath.” Zaluna felt his hand on her shoulder. “You doing all right?”
“Better than ever,” she said. She began to walk past the tree, with Kanan’s hand still on her shoulder. “What do you think of my garden?”
“It’s good,” Kanan replied. “You know you can get those eyes treated, right? To get your sight back.”
“Like Vidian?” Zaluna chuckled and shook her head. “No, I think I’ve seen enough. I have a place to live, and there’s a little girl who visits daily to help me with things. But I’ll be helping myself soon.” She gestured backward. “And look! I have a tree!”
Kanan laughed.
“I’m thinking it’s Skelly’s tree,” she said. “A nice monument, don’t you think?”<
br />
“Well, there are some twisted clinging vines over there I would have thought of instead.”
Zaluna lifted her head to face the sky and sighed. “No, Skelly’s ashes are probably still back there, raining down on Cynda. I think he’d like that.”
Kanan didn’t respond for a moment. And then: “That works, too.”
She heard someone coming up the walk from the house. “I’m ready to go,” Hera said.
“Always on the move,” Zaluna said.
She felt Hera’s hands on hers. “Are you sure this is what you want, Zal? You have skills. There are others you could help.”
Zaluna shook her head. “I can’t save Hetto—not now. I know what you’re up against, and it’s beyond me. Wherever he is, Hetto would never want me to risk my life trying to save him. And if he’s in a bad place, he’d probably rather imagine me living somewhere nice like this. It’s certainly better than where we were!”
Kanan laughed. “She’s got you there.”
Hera hugged her. “Take care—and thank you.”
Zaluna walked to the edge of the gravel road with them. “And now,” Kanan said, “I get the pleasure of walking this gentle lady back to this mysterious starship of hers.” Kanan had been dropped off by a tramp freighter, and had yet to get a look at what she and Hera and had arrived in.
“I see,” Zaluna asked. “Are you traveling together?”
“We haven’t discussed it,” Hera was quick to say.
Zaluna smiled. “You’d better take him with you,” the woman said, “or I’ll put him to work.” She turned and walked back toward the garden.
KANAN AND HERA walked the long sylvan road from Zaluna’s house.
“I think she’ll be fine,” Hera said for the third time. “The medic I took her to said she’s healing nicely.”
“Oh, sure,” he replied again. They had done an excellent job of talking about nothing on the walk—indeed, since the life pod landed on Gorse. They’d parted quickly then, allowing Kanan time to leave a trail placing him on Gorse during all the previous action. Sloane might know his name, but as far as Imperial surveillance was concerned, he was just one more suicide flier who’d left Gorse when the work dried up.
They approached the small hangar she had rented outside the little town. Not turning toward him, she asked, “So what’s next for you?”
“Well, you know me. A force always in motion.”
“I do know you.” She kept walking. “So what do you think about what Zaluna said?”
“What, going with you?” Kanan shrugged. “Well, you know what I’ve said. You’re great company.” He eyed her. “But I don’t think you’re looking for a traveling companion, are you?”
“Not like that.” She stopped outside the door to the closed hangar, and he did the same. She looked up at him. “What’s happening to the galaxy is serious, and I mean to do something about it. If you mean only to mind your own business,” she said, offering her hand, “then I wish you luck in your travels.”
He looked down at her hand, and then at her. “I still haven’t seen this ship.”
“And you won’t. The fewer people see it, the better.”
He scratched his beard. “It sounds pretty large. Must be a lot on it to keep up.”
She stared at him for a moment—and nodded. “Yes, there is.”
“You might need a crew for something like that.” He looked at her pointedly. “Not a traveling companion. Not a revolutionary. Crew.” He thrust his hand into hers.
She flashed a shrewd smile—and shook his hand. “I can live with that.”
Kanan turned and clapped his hands together. “Great! I just hope it’s not as big a mess as the ship I just left.”
“Well, you’re going to love this,” she said, opening the door to the hangar.
—
So. Kanan Jarrus was a Jedi. Or rather, he had been in training to become one when the Emperor betrayed them all.
It was just a guess. He hadn’t said anything more to Hera about that moment aboard Forager. It was possible that he was just some random person who happened to have the ability to use the Force. Someone who, in a rush of adrenaline, had reached out to the universe for a great feat—and who had seen his prayer answered.
But Hera didn’t think so. When she was a girl, the Jedi had helped her people in the Clone Wars. Although she had been too young then to remember specific events from those days, her father had told her, time and again, of the Jedi in action. Later, she’d watched many historical holos—all of them now banned—of Jedi in action. She understood that Jedi abilities weren’t some suit of superpowered armor that someone could leave at home, or abandon in a garbage can. The Force influenced and enhanced every action of a person touched with it, whether they were conscious of it or not.
And no one but a Jedi could do the things she had seen Kanan do. The brawl in Shaketown, the escape on the hoverbus, the battle with Vidian—in each, she’d seen a man acting at the outer edge of human performance. And in all cases, she’d somehow thought him capable of doing even more. It seemed as if he’d identified a line that he would not cross, and had stuck to it.
Kanan had gravitated toward a dangerous calling on Gorse, because to him it wasn’t dangerous. And it was a solitary trade, so he secretly could call on his prodigious talents if danger struck. She suspected that described all the odd jobs he’d taken on in his life. It was the strategy of someone trained in a certain discipline, and yet forbidden from practicing it. That, his nomadic nature, and his lack of family ties all added up.
Kanan probably wasn’t yet a Jedi when the massacre came. She doubted he even had a lightsaber—all he had in the galaxy was one bag of clothing, and if he’d hidden it in there, she would never go looking for it. Hera wondered how young Jedi became apprenticed. She didn’t know, and such information was harder to come by now than just about anything else.
Where had he been, when the great betrayal had happened? Who had he been with? Had someone warned him?
And did that someone yet exist?
Kanan might tell her, someday. Or he might not. She was all right with that. The Emperor had disenfranchised souls across the galaxy, people from all walks of life. A reluctant near-Jedi was just one more of their countless number. Many people would be required for a rebellion to work, all contributing their unique talents. All would be equally important, in their own ways.
He obviously liked her starship, she could see as he walked around it. That was good. He was also smitten with her, she could tell—and she was all right with that, too. She didn’t want to tell him that her war had already begun, and that in war, there was no time for anything else. He would probably understand that eventually.
No, she thought, things would be fine the way they were. Kanan would be a great asset to her in the days to come even if he never returned to the Jedi ways.
But she couldn’t help but wonder: What would happen if he did?
—
Kanan Jarrus was in love.
The Ghost, Hera had called it. It was the ship he’d admired as it passed him on the way to Cynda days earlier—and it was a marvel. Roughly hexagonal in shape, it was a light freighter with lots of modifications—all of them, as near as he could tell, improvements. The two main engines jutting out the back were top-notch pieces of equipment, better than anything he’d seen on Gorse or anywhere else. A cockpit sat front-and-center above another bubble housing a turret for a forward gunner. It had symmetry many Corellian cargo ships lacked—and even a small excursion module mounted aft.
After piloting dingy freighters and explosives haulers, after riding in nasty commercial liners and the holds of mining ships, Kanan found Ghost a breath of pure oxygen. He would kill to fly it—and as Hera had joked, he might have to. It was hers, all hers. That was fine. He’d welcome the ride.
A nightmare had begun for everyone, years earlier, and it continued in almost every way that mattered. The galaxy hadn’t awoken from it yet, and maybe it never wou
ld. But Kanan had always been about going to perdition in style, and Ghost was a great way to get there.
Particularly with the company.
She was watching him as he admired the starship. Hera had hidden it well, constantly looking away or fiddling with some part—but Kanan was well trained in knowing when female eyes were on him. Things had changed there, too. Hera had been mildly curious about him before, but the events on Forager had definitely influenced her attitude toward him. That, or he had somehow gotten a lot more attractive.
Either reason was fine. Any excuse to be in her company was a good one, as long as she didn’t push the matter. Hera knew one little thing about his past now, which was one more than he knew about hers. He hoped she’d figure out it had no bearing on who he was. If delivering pinpricks to the Empire was what gave her a thrill, he could certainly help her without getting into all that.
Perhaps the answer will come to you in another form, Master Billaba had said years earlier when he’d asked what a Masterless Jedi should do with his time. He’d sought answers in dangerous jobs and travel, in cantinas and carousing. Hera was a new and very different answer: as good a way to spend his time as any.
The people who had taught Kanan as a child had left him with a handful of skills and some parting advice. Nothing more. That had been their total legacy. Heeding their instructions was all he owed them. He would continue to avoid Coruscant, to avoid detection. He didn’t understand what he needed to “stay strong” for, but he’d continue to defend himself against anyone who challenged him.
And the Force? Well, it might be with him, or it might not. Kanan would get by, either way. He always had.
He slapped the underside of the Ghost and winked as he made for the ramp. “Let’s go somewhere.”
The Rise of the Empire Page 65