Empire's End: Aftermath (Star Wars)

by Chuck Wendig

  The girl appears to chew on this. Like it’s a piece of gristle she can’t quite get out of her teeth. Seems she’s about to say more, but an interruption from her Omwati first mate, Shi Shu, prevents that.

  Shi’s beak clacks together. “We have visitors.”

  “Come to revel in my elegance?” Eleodie asks.

  The Omwati seems guarded. “We need you on the bridge now.”

  Eleodie asks the girl: “Want to come?”

  “I do.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Together they walk the length of the balcony overlooking the hangar deck (presently named Hangartown, though that is its third name and other names may yet come) before turning in toward the turbolifts. They take the lift up to the bridge, riding in silence, Eleodie with zher chromatophoral cape tucked around zher like a cocoon.

  Once on the bridge, zhe sees what just dropped out of hyperspace.

  Three Star Destroyers. “Imperial Two–class,” says Gunner Carklin Ryoon, a bug-eyed Ssori with a tiny mouth and sharp teeth. Many Ssori choose to wear mechanical suits to compensate for their diminutive size, but Ryoon has always preferred to remain, as he puts it, “pure organic.” The Ssori says: “They’re trying to hail us now.” One of his bulbous eyes winces. “They might think we’re actually Imperials. They haven’t seen the rest of the fleet yet. Could be a good ruse.”

  The Omwati concedes. Shi Shu says, “Yes, yes, that could work. We encourage them to think we’re a lingering remnant, we offer them safety and succor, then we press-gang them—”

  “We destroy them,” Eleodie declares.

  “What? But those are good ships.”

  “We destroy them and we send their pieces to the New Republic. Along with any escape pods we can catch in our pretty little net.” Noticing the stares coming zher way, Eleodie clarifies: “These ships are running. Look at the battle damage—they’ve taken fire, and recently. And behold those hyperspeed vectors—they’re coming from near to the Unknown. They’re coming from Jakku. We do a little cleanup here for the New Republic, then we send them the bill.”

  “But the New Republic is no friend of ours,” Kartessa says.

  “No. And they never will be. But maybe this will convince them to look the other way for a while. Maybe this’ll give us an air of legitimacy,” Eleodie says with a sweep of the hand, as if zhe is trying to run zher fingers through a rain of stardust. “Set the whole fleet to attack.”

  “They have considerable firepower—”

  “Do it.”

  “The other fleet captains will want to confer—”

  “If they take damage, I will personally repay them. There will be recompense. I am enacting my divine right. Attack.”

  Shi Shu nods, hesitantly, then commands the rest of the bridge crew—the demand cascades through them, and a flurry of activity ensues. Targeting computers are spun up. Weapons systems brought online. The tractor beam is spun to readiness. Kartessa looks to Eleodie.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  Eleodie grins like a moon sliver. “No, girl. That’s what makes this so interesting. The present is a pair of dice always about to leave my hand, and I never know if it’ll come up zero or one, win or lose.”

  Outside, the void lights up with fire as the attack begins. The Star Destroyers do not have a chance. Soon the New Republic will have a present from his highness, her glory, his wonder, her luminous magnificence—the picaroon! The plunderer! The pirate ruler of Wild Space! The glorious knave, Eleodie Marcavanya!

  This is the Observatory.

  It is one of many scattered across the galaxy. All of them are laboratories, in a sense, and all of them look beyond the galaxy’s margins in different directions. At the same time, each is also its own unique entity. Palpatine began establishing the Observatories before the start of the Galactic Empire, infusing each with purpose: Some were meant to house ancient Sith artifacts, others designed to host powerful weapon designs (or the weapons themselves), others still meant as prisons harnessing the lifeforces of those captured within for a variety of strange purposes.

  This one, the Jakku Observatory, has its own function.

  It is part of the Contingency.

  From here, the Observatory appears only to be a bunker mostly buried in the mounding sand. If any would approach, the turrets or the sentinel droids would make swift work of them. It has long been protected here, mostly hidden, only recently emerging, at his command. As Gallius Rax and the transport ship enter the shadow of the Plaintive Hand, approaching the Observatory, he sends another command: this one to power down the turbolasers and the sentinel droid defenses. He sends this command through the sentinel that pilots the ship (for all the sentinels are networked together).

  Beyond the Observatory, another shape emerges, because as he powers down the defenses, he also programs the landing dome to rise. And rise it does, bubbling up out of the sand, gently turning as the scree and grit slip free from its rounded surface. The metal dome telescopes open.

  It reveals a ship gleaming bright in the dust-filtered sun.

  “The Imperialis,” Brendol Hux says, leaning forward in the cockpit. Tashu is there with them, and as he sees the ship, he giggles, clapping his hands like a gluttonous child seeing a tray of cakes come out of the oven. Hux has a voice of reverence and confusion as he says, “I…thought the Emperor’s ship was destroyed.”

  “It was,” Rax answers. “Stolen by a gambler, then scuttled. But it was one of many.” As he understands it, all of the Observatories play host to a functional replica of the Emperor’s pleasure yacht. The Observatories serve as receptacles for old Sith artifacts, too—and should those artifacts ever need to be moved off-site, the yachts are there for just such a purpose.

  Slowly, their transport settles into the well of the valley, easing against the dust-swept stone. The Observatory awaits. From here, it is only a broad door in the side of a dune. The rest lies concealed beneath Jakku.

  “I still don’t understand what’s happening,” Hux says.

  “This Empire is ended. A new one must begin.” The demesne is clear, the board swept clean, he thinks. A new demesne must be made. “Take your son and the other children. Go to the Imperialis. Prep the ship for takeoff.”

  “How can there be a new Empire?” Brendol blusters. “The one we had is gone. We do not number enough to begin anew—”

  “There are others,” Tashu says, singsongy.

  “Once we had the calculations, we sent another ship ahead.”

  “Calculations. What calculations? What do you—”

  “Brendol, please. Time is fleeting fast, too fast. Go to the ship. I will join you there.” And just in case, Rax puts a gently threatening hand on the man’s arm. “Understand that you will help be an architect of the future to come. You are a visionary and that is why you are here, alone. This is not a time to test me. This is a time to trust me. Do you trust me?”

  The man, red-cheeked and obviously afraid, nods. “I…do.”

  “Good. Now go, go like the skittermouse.” To Tashu he says: “Are you ready to fulfill our destiny, Adviser Tashu?”

  Tashu licks his teeth and shudders as if experiencing otherworldly pleasure. “All glory to the Contingency. All glory to Palpatine.”

  “Yes,” Rax says, mirroring the same sycophantic smile. “All glory.”

  —

  It takes both of their handprints to open the door. Tashu on one side, Rax on the other. The scan plates shine around their splayed fingers. Behind the door, a mechanism fires up, groaning and grinding.

  The door, gold as the sun, opens slowly, rolling upward.

  When they enter, the door closes behind them.

  Rax walks ahead of Tashu. He moves forward with a confident stride. The pentagonal hallway descends slowly at a gentle angle. It’s formed of burnished metal and black glass, with lines of red light framing every angle. Every ten steps is a pillar holding up the world, preventing the sands from pressing down and swallowin
g the Observatory whole.

  Everything is clean and untouched by the filth of this world. As an irony, Rax runs his hand along the wall, leaving behind the faintest streak of oil and sweat. There, now the world has left its mark, he thinks.

  No. He is not of this world, he tells himself. He has transcended it. Palpatine saw that. Yes, the old man was delusional about the mystical forces that governed the galaxy, giving too much credence to them—he believed that just because he had abilities beyond the ken of mortals, all things cleaved to the same power. Which is madness, really. It is the primitive attitude of a creature learning to make fire for the first time, certain that the fire he made was the only power that governed the galaxy.

  And yet Palpatine wasn’t delusional about the state of the galaxy and the role of the Empire. Though he infused it with a great deal of magical foolishness, he was a master tactician, and knew how to play a game so long that the horizon line was actually the starting line.

  Palpatine saw something in Rax. A destiny, he called it. Even now, Gallius—Galli, in a way, for he feels oddly young and innocent again, like that Jakku child running across the desert—feels that destiny swelling up inside him. He takes a moment to enjoy it. To feel filled up by it; satiety resonates through him.

  But the job is not done. Not yet.

  Ahead, the hallway opens up into an eight-sided chamber. In the center of it is a same-shaped bank of computer systems—but not systems like the ones found on a Star Destroyer or even the Death Star. No, these are ancient computational mechanisms from an earlier civilization. From precisely when, Rax cannot say. The Old Republic? The fallen Sith Empire? He knows not and he cares little. Their history is irrelevant.

  It is only the present that matters.

  Above the computers is the projection of a three-dimensional star chart that matches no known map here in the galaxy. Which makes sense given that it does not chart the known galaxy, does it?

  For decades, these computers have been plotting a journey. Outside the known galaxy is an unexplored infinity, Palpatine explained, one closed off by a labyrinth of solar storms, rogue magnetospheres, black holes, gravity wells, and things far stranger. Any who tried to conquer that maze did not survive. The ships were obliterated, or returned to the galaxy devoid of travelers. Communications from those explorers were incomprehensible, either shot through with such static as to make the content useless, or filled with enough inane babble to serve as a perfectly clear sign that the explorer had gone utterly mad out there in isolation. But Palpatine had one in the navy who knew something of the Unknown Regions: Admiral Thrawn, an alien with ice-blue skin who came from beyond the borders of the known galaxy. Palpatine only kept that one around because of what he knew of traversing those deadly interstices. Much of what Thrawn knew went into the computations of this machine.

  Palpatine said that this galaxy was to be his, but that it was only one among many. Again that phrase arose: the unexplored infinity. This, he noted, was his demesne. The galaxy was his game board.

  If he lost this game, the game board was to be broken in half and discarded. A new demesne must then be found.

  The computers here have long been searching for a way through the storms and the black spaces. Slowly, surely, they have been putting together a map: a journey into chaos. The Empire has sent probe droids to test the computations as the computers have made them. Many never returned.

  But some kept reporting in, pinging the transponder here. Every droid that made it further contributed to the map. And with distance achieved, the computers, through the scanning droids, continued to chart the course and compute the next branches of navigation.

  Before Palpatine’s demise at the hands of the rebels, the computers finished their calculations, finally finding a way through the unknown. The Emperor was convinced that something waited for him out there—some origin of the Force, some dark presence formed of malevolent substance. He said he could feel the waves of it radiating out now that the way was clear. The Emperor called it a signal—conveniently one that only he could hear. Even his greatest enforcer, Vader, seemed oblivious to it, and Vader also claimed mastery over the dark Force, did he not? Rax believed Palpatine had gone mad. What he was “receiving” was nothing more than his own precious wishes broadcast back to himself—an echo of his own devising. He believed that something lay beyond, and so that became a singular obsession. (When you believe in magic, it is easy to see all the universe as evidence of it.)

  Now that Palpatine is gone, the original purpose of the Observatory can be maintained. The game is lost. Time to exit and find a new demesne.

  The Empire is dead.

  But the Empire can live again under Rax.

  First, though, preparations must be made. Beyond the map chamber is one more hallway—this one with steps leading down. As Rax passes the computers, he sees on the far side a gift that Palpatine left for him:

  It is a broken Shah-tezh board. It lies shattered on the floor in halves. All around it are the pieces, also broken. Only two pieces remain: the Imperator and the Outcast. He wonders, is that how Palpatine saw him? As the Outcast? This is new. Gallius never knew that. It hits him like a slap to the face. He wants to struggle against it, to rage against the idea that he was some kind of exile at the margins of the Empire…

  And yet he was, wasn’t he? Rax always kept a distance. His role was never to preserve the Empire but to destroy it.

  He snatches up both pieces. With a juggle of his fingers he rolls the two figures around in the palm of his hand. Whatever Palpatine thought of him before, he is no longer the Outcast. Rax has become the Imperator.

  Gallius pockets both pieces and continues on, humming his favorite cantata as he goes. The hallway ahead is lined with artifacts of the old Sith Empire: a red mask, a white lance, a bloody banner, a holocron so black it seems to consume all the light around it. Between each of the artifacts is a smooth-faced sentinel droid, slumbering in its chamber, ready to be woken if a threat approaches.

  Beyond all that is the well. The well is a channel bored through the schist and mantle of Jakku, drilled so deep it touches the center of the world. The well glows with wisps of blue mist winding up through orange firelight. The light pulses and throbs like a living thing. Palpatine told him that once, this world was verdant—overgrown with green and home to oceans. He said that though the surface of the world no longer shows it, the core still has that vital spark of life essence. (And, he added, “That essence disgusts me.”)

  Tashu gambols down in front of the artifacts, his fingertips dancing along their cases. He mutters to himself, and Rax sees that he’s chewed his own lips bloody. “Are you ready?” he asks Palpatine’s old adviser.

  “I am,” Tashu says, turning. His cheeks are wet with tears. His teeth slick with red. “Palpatine lives on. We will find him again out there in the dark. Everything has arranged itself as our Master foretold. All things move toward the great design. The sacrifices have all been made.”

  Not all of them, Rax thinks.

  “You must be clothed in the raiment of darkness,” Rax says. “The mantle of the dark side is yours to wear, at least for a time. At least until we can find Palpatine and revivify him, bringing his soul back to flesh anew.” This is all a lie, of course. He believes none of it. It is a ruse sold to Tashu. (Lies are like leashes. Tug them just so, and all who believe them will comply.)

  And the lunatic believes it because lunatics always believe the things that confirm their view of the galaxy. Tashu’s view is that the dark side is all, that Palpatine was the Master not just of the Empire but of everyone and everything, and that through all of this, the Dark Lord will be reborn.

  Good. Let him believe that.

  Rax helps him carry the lance and the banner. He carefully puts the mask upon the man’s head, tightening it with black leather straps and a buckle of old tarnished chromatite. Tashu owns many masks, all of which he believes contain some fragment of the dark side. But never before has he worn one lik
e this: It is a vicious, bestial thing with tusks of coiling black steel and eyes of blood-red kyber crystals. As it snaps against his face, Tashu tightens up, a hungry moan ill contained behind his clenching jaw.

  “The final piece,” Rax says, handing Tashu the holocron. Even as the man takes it, it seems to leach the light from all around. Tashu goes even paler as he touches it. The veins in his hand stand dark in contrast.

  “Yes,” Tashu says. One word, short, clipped, ecstatic. His arms stretch out by his sides. His hands shake. “Yes. I can feel it. I am a locus of dark energies. All the death and despair of the world is filtering through me. I can feel it on the back of my tongue. Captured there like a struggling moth—”

  “Then come, let us pray.” He interrupts Tashu because if he does not, the man will continue to gabble for minutes, hours, perhaps until both of them have died of old age and gone to dust. Gallius Rax leads Tashu the way a parent leads a child, by the hand. Together they go to the well.

  As they approach, a narrow platform extends out, as if sensing their presence. It drifts out over the well: a plank they must walk.

  They go out together. Out here, the air is somehow both hot and cold. Warm breath interspersed with wisps of ice.

  “Palpatine will be pleased by you,” Rax says.

  “Yes. He will. And by you, too. We have done it. We have punished the undeservers. We have activated the Contingency. Let us speak a prayer to the darkness, a prayer to all the things that wait—”

  “First, my brother, I’d like to ask you something.”

  “Yes, little Galli?”

  “What will you say to him when you see our Master again?”

  “I—”

  Rax gives him no chance to answer. He pushes Tashu.

  The man cartwheels through the mist and the light, spinning, screaming—his body hits the side and slams against the rock, silencing his cries. The body goes and goes until Rax cannot see it anymore.

  A few beats of quiet and stillness. One. Two. Three…