Dark Tide: Ruin

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “Perhaps it has.”

  “Has your time with me tainted you?” Shedao Shai watched him closely. “Have you learned enough of pain that you would share it with others?”

  “Inflict it upon them? No.” Elegos’s violet eyes all but closed. “Violence is upsetting to my people, horribly so.”

  “But you have killed in the past.”

  “Only to save others from that horror.” The Caamasi shook his head. “I would not willfully inflict pain.”

  “Even if the victim wished the pain?”

  “Such as strapping you into the Embrace? No. I would not do that.”

  “And if I threatened to kill a person for every minute you did not do it?”

  Elegos’s expression hardened. “Any people who are subject to such a capricious order of death are beyond my protecting. If not killed then, they could be killed later, at your whim. They would never be safe as long as they were in your power. I would let you kill them, knowing you would be denying them greater pain by taking such quick action.”

  The Yuuzhan Vong leader turned away, slowly, and let talons trail across the transparent wall between him and the water. “You have learned much, Elegos, and have taught me much. Chief among it is this: Your people, blasphemers, heretics, and damned though they may be, have a resilience that may prove troublesome.”

  “A good lesson for you to learn.”

  “Indeed, and one to test.” Shedao Shai smiled, enjoying the twisted vision of his face he saw in the transparisteel. “One we will test when next the New Republic sends its forces against us.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Anakin Solo felt pretty good about himself. Once Luke, Mara, and Mirax returned to the Pulsar Skate, a discussion began concerning the possible places Daeshara’cor could have gone from Vortex. It was agreed that the chances that she knew her cover had been blown were slender, so she would proceed to the next place where she might be able to get information about a twin for the Eye of Palpatine.

  The logical choice for such a place was Belsavis, since the first Eye had traveled there. The difficulty with that idea came from two directions. The first was that Belsavis was an inhabited world that would certainly have raised an alarm if another Eye showed up there. The second was that while the first ship had a mission that would take it to Belsavis, there was no indication that the second had a similar mission.

  Anakin retreated to access the Skate computers and approach the search more systematically. He pulled down records of ships leaving Vortex with their stated destinations, then cross-referenced those worlds with an index of the availability of Imperial records there. One world popped immediately to the top of the list: Garos IV.

  Garos IV was known primarily for the University of Garos, located in the capital, Ariana. Garos IV had not joined the New Republic until after Thrawn’s defeat. Whereas Ysanne Isard had destroyed many covert files in the computers on Coruscant when the world fell to the Rebellion, no such destruction had taken place on Garos IV. Scholars descended on the world to use the secret Imperial files to complete studies of the Empire. It struck Anakin as highly possible that Daeshara’cor would access these files in continuing her quest for a weapon to use against the Yuuzhan Vong.

  Luke agreed, so Mirax plotted a simple short hop to Garos IV. Actually skirting the Nyarikan Nebula made plotting a course somewhat tricky, but between Whistler and R2-D2, the work was done quickly and the trip made in record time. This heightened hopes that they would arrive before Daeshara’cor had a chance to escape. Anakin entertained great hopes that he’d be side by side with his uncle, heading to the university to apprehend her.

  His good feeling evaporated when Luke told him he would be waiting behind on the ship yet again. With the others gone, Anakin scowled, and the very weight of it seemed to press him deeper into the copilot chair. “It’s not fair to be stuck here.”

  Chalco laughed. “Well, I hope you’re not complaining about the company, because Whistler here would be mighty put out if you were.”

  The young Jedi scooted back up a bit in the chair and glanced at Chalco standing in the cockpit hatchway. “I just wanted to be doing something, you know?”

  “I know, and you are.”

  “Yeah, waiting.”

  “Waiting here because we’ve got the best chance of catching her.”

  Anakin straightened up in the seat. “How do you plot that course?”

  The short man laughed aloud. “C’mon, smart boy, you’re the one who figured out she’d come here. You should be able to get the rest of it.”

  “Okay, she comes here for the information. She goes to the university, then will come back here to fly away.” Anakin looked up. “Not very enlightening.”

  “Okay, a clue. Why am I here?”

  “To help spot her.”

  “Why?”

  “You saw her on Coruscant.”

  “So did every Jedi there. Why am I here?”

  Anakin’s jaw dropped. “You’re here because you know spaceports the way Daeshara’cor knows spaceports. And she knows spaceports because she spent lots of time at them. Since the extent of her formal training was at the Jedi academy, she’s not going to be comfortable in some crowded university setting.”

  Chalco scratched at his chin. “University has a lot of folks to keep an eye on, lots of memories to mess up, if she doesn’t want to be seen.”

  “Right. So she’s not going to go to the university herself. She’ll find another way to get the university’s records delivered.”

  Chalco smiled. “Now, your uncle said we should keep to the spaceport, but I think there are a few areas nearby where the sort of folks she’d need can be found. If we expand our search area, I think we can tag her.”

  The young Jedi’s blue eyes narrowed. “Master Skywalker is rather specific about his orders.”

  “Was that an order, or suggestion? I mean, if we saw her here, and she left, he’d expect us to go after her, wouldn’t he?”

  “That’s true.” Anakin glanced at Whistler as the droid moaned in a low tone. “We wouldn’t go far, Whistler, and we can keep in comlink contact with you. Then again, I could comlink Master Skywalker and ask permission to explore.”

  Chalco interlaced his fingers, bridged them, and started cracking the knuckles. “You could do that, but if we’re wrong and she was at the university, and your uncle decides to come back here, he’ll miss her.”

  Anakin shot Chalco a sidelong glance. “You know, that kind of circular logic is why you get in trouble a lot.”

  “Got me where I am today, kid, which is in a position to help you get this Jedi of yours back on the straight and narrow.” He got the sort of sloppy grin on his face that Anakin recognized his father wearing—usually right before his father wanted to do something quite risky. “Let’s go, kid, up off your butt. Time to go hunting.”

  You know better than to do this. Anakin heard the little voice in his head warning him off, but the fact that it sounded more like Jacen than it did himself pushed him away from the sensible course. Jacen had impulsively gone up against a Yuuzhan Vong warrior; but Anakin told himself his mission was nowhere near as dangerous. I’m just going out to find someone we need to find.

  He stood, shunting away the twinge of foreboding niggling in the back of his mind. “Let’s go.”

  Ariana’s spaceport sat on the outskirts of the beautiful city. The battle to liberate Garos IV had been brief, so not much was damaged. Since the world was largely self-sufficient, the fluctuations in the New Republic’s economy really didn’t affect it that much. In fact, the influx of scholars had increased the university’s reputation. As it expanded to accept more students, the business that catered to students and faculty likewise expanded. An economic boom followed, which allowed rebuilding painlessly and resulted in Garos IV showing up regularly on lists of worlds where the living was desirable.

  Despite the world entering into an economic golden age, the area surrounding the spaceport had the usual mixture of
industrial zones along with a seedy assortment of cantinas, casinos, cheap hotels, and other places of diversion. The garish holographic signs, the grime, and the powerful spoiled scent emanating from alleys—all of these things assaulted Anakin’s senses. While he’d been well aware of such places—and knew his father, of late, had been spending a lot of his grief time in them—this was pretty much the first time they’d taken on a harsh reality for him.

  Chalco did nothing to insulate Anakin from this nasty domain the way Lando Calrissian might have, or his father. Or Chewie. The man had told him he couldn’t go out in his Jedi robes, so they found some clothes aboard the Skate and fixed him up. Anakin assumed they’d belonged to Corran, and they were only slightly too big. That worked to his advantage, though, since he needed to hide his lightsaber inside the nerf-hide jacket. He found a little hook there that let it hang in his left armpit.

  Properly attired, and with his brown hair messed up by Chalco’s rough rubbing, Anakin followed the man through the streets. He did note the change in Chalco’s gait as bits of swagger entered it. The man puffed up a bit, nodding, winking, pointing at people as they wandered along. It seemed as if he was making himself obvious on purpose, and that truly did seem to disarm some of those folks on the street. Anakin kept getting a sense of curt dismissal from most folks, or a sense of idle curiosity about him.

  He was very careful to keep the Force close to himself. He knew he was fairly powerful as far as the Force was concerned, but by no means did he have full control over it. He assumed Daeshara’cor would be running with the Force held close, as well, and he didn’t want to give her the chance to detect him before he could find her. Worse than following Chalco off on some silly errand would be to tip Daeshara’cor to their presence and start her running in earnest.

  As they went along, Anakin’s admiration for Chalco slowly began to blossom. The man made his first stop at a news agency, where spacers could come in and download into their datapads the news feed from a variety of worlds. There he made some inquiries, quietly, and emerged grinning.

  “What now?”

  “I have a new place to look. I’ll talk there, I’ll get another place, and so on until we find her.”

  Anakin turned sideways to slip between two hulking Ithorians, then caught back up with Chalco. “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “What you’re doing. You manage to survive without really doing anything. You act like you know these people, but I’d bet you’ve never seen a one of them before. You just talked to that guy and he told you something.”

  Chalco’s stubble bristled as he smiled. “I don’t know these specific people, Anakin, but I know them by type. The guy in the news shop, he hears a lot of rumors. People expect him to know things. He barters for information. I asked about secret Imp files at the university, he sent me to a guy.”

  “But you didn’t pay him.”

  “Sure I did.” Chalco nodded. “I told him that a shrewd operator on this rock could make a lot of money in the short term buying up bulk lots of rooms in hotels.”

  “What?”

  Chalco pulled Anakin into an alley and bent down a bit so they were face-to-face. Farther down the alley a ragged Gotal looked at them, but a snarl from Chalco sent him shambling down to the far end. “What I told him only makes sense, Anakin. This world is a nice world. Lots of people would want to live here. Now, the refugees coming from the worlds the Yuuzhan Vong have hit, they’ll end up here, too. They’ll need rooms and someone will pay for them. This guy buys blocks—or, more like, passes the information on to someone who will buy them—and someone will buy them off him. Inside a year he can double his money. I gave him information for information.”

  “I never thought—”

  “You never had to, kid, but I know your father did.” Chalco straightened up and tousled Anakin’s hair again. “Sure, I thieve a bit, but pretty much I’m a trader, like your father or Talon Karrde. I carry my inventory in my head. I look at things, I figure out the angles, and I make something out of them.”

  Anakin frowned as they moved back onto the street again. “Okay, I understand that, but don’t you see that what you’re doing is harmful?”

  “Harmful? Get out of here.”

  “No, think about it. Let’s say the rooms get bought up and the price is raised to make it hard on the refugees.”

  Chalco smiled. “The government will help them out.”

  “Sure, but where does the government get its money?”

  “Taxpayers.” The man winked at him. “I know where you’re going, but, hey, kid, you think I pay taxes?”

  “Nope, but the people you thieve off do. If they have less money, they don’t have the things you want to take. You pay no matter how you try to Hutt out of it.”

  Chalco’s mouth opened and then closed with a snap. “You want me to starve, don’t you?”

  “No, just to consider the consequences of your actions.” Anakin sighed. “If you give information that allows speculators to profit off other speculators, the only folks getting hurt are going to be those who put their money at risk. The greedy people get hurt, not folks who have had their lives destroyed.”

  “I get it. That leaves me what to work with? Produce futures? Commodities? They’ll do.” Chalco arched an eyebrow at Anakin. “You know, that ‘smart boy’ comment I made earlier, I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  “Yeah, I know. Let’s go.”

  Their second stop took them to a curio shop. Anakin waited on the street while Chalco went in. Even before the man returned Anakin could sense the pleasure pouring off him. “Told you something, did he?”

  “Yeah, where he sent the other person looking for that same information.” Chalco smiled carefully as he hustled Anakin along. “Said he’d forgotten about it, but his cash account came up short at noon. He played back the surveillance holocam output and caught his conversation with a Twi’lek. She must have blanked his memory, but the holo still had her, just like your uncle told me it would. She talked to him three, maybe four hours ago.”

  “That means we’re close.”

  “Very. The guy he sent her to won’t be around for another half hour.”

  Anakin waited for a blue landspeeder to turn a corner before crossing the street. “What did you trade him?”

  “Told him I was private security, undercover, tracking her. Promised him his money back, plus the reward.” Chalco shrugged. “I’m sure once he found the till off, he pocketed even more credits than she stole, so he’s already been paid.”

  “That works.”

  The man nodded. “And you know, I got this odd feeling of, um, I guess, satisfaction knowing I’ve, ah, cheated a cheater. Weird, huh?”

  “Not at all. It’s about as close to justice as there can be in that case.”

  “Well, nobody gets hurt, unless that guy’s boss figures the way I did, that he hit the till for his share.” Chalco cut down an alley. “C’mon, it’s over here. The Violet Viska.”

  Anakin blanched at the cantina’s entrance. A sculpture of a viska formed an archway over it, leathery wings two and a half meters long arching down, leaving the viska’s two-meter-long body at the top of the arch. A pair of arms sprouting from the center of the torso were drawn up, just waiting to dart down and grab a victim. The creature’s head sported a forty-centimeter-long, needle-sharp proboscis. Viska, which were more commonly known as the great bloodsucking fiends of Rordak, fed exclusively on blood, and Anakin had to wonder at what sort of establishment would choose such a nasty creature as its emblem.

  The interior, which smelled of warm ale, hot sweat, and boiling coolant, had no viska hanging from the shadowed rafters. Anakin felt sure this was because the thin layer of grease over everything would have made maintaining a grip on prey all but impossible. He slid into the booth to which Chalco directed him, then furiously wiped his hands on his pants, hoping to clean them.

  He watched as his companion sauntered over to the bar and started t
alking with the Baragwin behind it. The heavy-headed alien nodded, then pointed to a doorway in the back. Chalco spun, winked at Anakin, then held up a hand to keep him in his place. The man cut through the crowd and made his way to the doorway, then disappeared through it.

  Anakin frowned and tried to look nonchalant as aliens of every sort wandered past. He was determined that he’d not feel abandoned, but that didn’t stop doubt from creeping into his mind. I should do something, because if Daeshara’cor is in there with whomever Chalco is meeting, he’s in a world of trouble.

  Anakin started out of the booth, then he caught a hint of movement near the front door. He turned just in time to see the tail of a cloak whisk through the doorway. And lekku, too. That was a Twi’lek, and of Daeshara’cor’s coloration.

  He dashed to the doorway, sidestepped a gaggle of Jawas, then looked right and left down the alley. Deeper into it, off to his left, he saw the cloaked figure running away. Anakin sprinted after her, elation blossoming in his chest. He opened himself to the Force and tried to get a sense of her.

  He did, but it came from behind him. As he slammed into a brick wall, he realized she’d projected into his brain an image of herself fleeing. It’s an old trick and I fell for it.

  Stars exploded before his eyes. He rebounded and fell hard to the ground. Anakin blacked out for a moment, then the world swam slowly back into focus.

  Daeshara’cor stood over him, her head-tails twitching nervously. “Anakin Solo . . . If you’re here, then Master Skywalker is. That’s not the encounter I wanted, not this soon.” She waved a hand, and Anakin felt his body slowly rise into the air. “Still, all is not yet lost. And with you in my possession, I may be able to win after all.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jacen Solo remembered well having heard that military service was hours of sheer boredom punctuated by seconds of absolute terror. He’d not disbelieved what had been said, but had never experienced it himself. Even fighting on Dantooine he’d never been bored, and the terror, well . . . I was too busy to be scared.