by Timothy Zahn
“Hey, at least we got jobs,” LebJau said. “Not everyone got hired back, you know.”
“What kind of maintenance?” Padmé asked, frowning. Maintenance at Separatist facilities was usually a droid job.
“Cleanup, mostly,” LebJau said. “Sweeping and carrying out any trash.”
“Ah,” Padmé said. “I suppose all the tech work is done by other droids?”
“No, that’s who else they hired back,” Cimy said. “Materials specialists—folks who make new plastoids and ceramics and stuff—and a bunch of engineers to remake some of the assembly lines.”
“Took about two months to do it, too,” Huga said. “Knocked out a big chunk of the east wing ceiling—the whole thing takes up about half the space of the bottom two floors.”
“You’ve seen the line, but you don’t know what they’re making?” Padmé asked.
“Never seen any of the finished product,” LebJau said. “They shut everything down before the cleanup crews go in and stuff the day’s work behind curtains.”
“But they do have droids, right?” Padmé asked.
“Metalheads? Yeah,” LebJau said. “Mostly a bunch of spindly things that walk around waving guns at us. Everything else is our people or the two overseers who work with the duke.”
“That’s another man and a woman,” Cimy put in.
“Right,” LebJau said. “I don’t think the metalheads can handle the machines and programming work.”
Padmé nodded. “I suppose not.”
Only she knew that the Separatists did have droids that could do that. They were specialized and very expensive, and Dooku and Grievous didn’t have very many of them. Still, they were functional and capable, and they didn’t need locals to feed them. Something else she needed to look into once she got inside. “So who is this duke? What’s he look like?”
“Never seen him,” Cimy said. “His overseers or the metalheads give us orders.”
“Used to be more men and women, too,” LebJau said. “A lot more. They were there for the setup, and for about a month after that. Lot of flights in and out of the courtyard, and a lot of stuff coming in from the mine. Then most of them picked up and left, and it’s been pretty quiet since then.”
“Probably all the R and D got finished, and they’re just doing production,” Cimy said.
“Ah,” Padmé said. “What do they bring in from the mine? Some sort of heavy, grayish metal?”
“No idea,” LebJau said with a shrug. “The mine was never ours—some other group owned it and had their own people working it. Never let us in. Then the duke came along and chased them off, I guess, because they all left a few months ago and haven’t come back.”
“Got a bunch more people from the town in to work it, though, so that’s good,” Cimy added. “But the metalheads keep close tabs on them, and they’ve got their own barracks on the grounds, so we don’t hear much from them. The duke’s keeping them busy, though.”
“I see,” Padmé murmured. If they were bringing in doonium or quadranium it would make sense to keep tight security around the mine.
But then why the mass exodus of staff? Even if what they were constructing here could really be so completely automated, shouldn’t they have more than just a few people here to oversee things? Maybe it wasn’t as big or important a project as Duja had thought.
Or maybe it was such a dead-dark secret that Dooku wanted the absolute minimum of people knowing about it.
Which would also explain why they would use local techs instead of programming droids to watch over the process. Not only would the absence of highly specialized droids from the war effort be conspicuous, but they would have to have their memories wiped and programming reinstalled afterward, which would be both expensive and time consuming. “You said something about a riverboat,” she said. “Aren’t we going in the wrong direction for that?”
Huga snorted a laugh. “Only if you want a real boat.”
“The boat’s LebJau’s baby,” Cimy added. “Or maybe boondoggle’s a better word.”
Padmé looked at LebJau. The big man was staring straight ahead, his lips pressed tightly together. “What does he mean?” she asked.
“He figured he could build a boat here in Kivley’s Gulley,” Cimy said, waving a hand around. “Up near the factory, where he could get scrap and maybe borrow tools when he needed them. Figured when the spring rains came and the gulley flooded the thing would float down to the river and he’d be sitting pretty.” He pointed ahead. “Only then the duke and the metalheads showed up, we got shifted to maintenance, and he can’t go outside anymore.”
“So now the thing’s just sitting there,” Huga put in. “Kilometers from town or anything else, and too big to move.”
“And nowhere near finished,” Cimy said. “So when the rains come, the water will just wash through it and leave it sitting there.”
“That’s too bad,” Padmé said. “How long until the rains?”
“Two months,” Cimy said. “Maybe three.”
“Ah.” So if she and Anakin could bring the Republic down on this place fast enough, LebJau might still be able to finish his boat in time.
She frowned as something he’d said suddenly struck her. “I thought you said you weren’t allowed outside.”
“We’re not,” Cimy said casually. “But they don’t give us enough food, and most of what we get is packaged stuff that tastes like sawdust. So we sneak out whenever we can to go catch fish.”
“We get out the door I always used to get to my boat,” LebJau said. “They had a road to it once, back before the metalheads came in, but one of the spring floods washed it away and they didn’t bother to replace it. So now it’s not used.”
“You just need to know how to dodge the scavs when they’re out on their patrols,” Huga said. “Once we’re outside the perimeter they usually don’t bother with us. A lot of townspeople come out at night to hunt, and I guess they got tired of stopping everyone to find out who they were.”
“Ah,” Padmé said. They were close enough to the fortress now that the top edge was in view even from the bottom of the gulley. “How far from the wall does the perimeter extend?”
“You tell me,” Huga said. “We’re inside it now.”
Padmé swallowed hard. And from the way the stars had suddenly gone muted they were also under an umbrella energy shield. Terrific. “How much farther?” she asked, lowering her voice even more.
“Not very,” Huga said. “Why, you getting tired?”
“A little,” Padmé said. “Also cold.”
“We’re almost there,” LebJau said. He pointed a finger over her shoulder. “There it is, just before that bend. You see it?”
“Yes,” Padmé said. At this distance, it looked less like a boat than a pile of junk filling the gulley.
Up close, she soon found out, it looked exactly the same.
“What do you think?” LebJau asked as he helped her over a low railing and led her toward a low-roofed wheelhouse in the middle of a half-finished deck.
“Interesting design,” she said in her best diplomat’s voice. In fact, the thing was about as rough and amateurish as anything she’d seen in her life. It seemed to have been constructed largely of scrap from one or more of the factories, mostly metal but with some ceramic and plastoid sections thrown in.
There was no way it would take a flooded gulley without sinking. For that matter, it might not even survive an extra-large wave.
“Thanks.” LebJau stepped to the wheelhouse and pried open the door. “You can stay down here.”
The wheelhouse was bigger than it looked, extending downward below the deck far enough that she could at least stand up without whacking her head. She followed LebJau down the three steps—one of which wobbled under her weight—and over to a plastoid ledge that would probably one day be a
bunk. “There’s no real bed,” he said, apologizing as he brushed some metal shavings off the ledge. “Sorry. I can try to find something tomorrow.”
“That’s okay,” Padmé assured him, handing him back his jacket. “I’ve been in worse places.”
“When are you going to send your messages?” Huga asked. “The five hundred you said you’d send to Uncle Anakin.”
“I’ll write them out right now,” Padmé promised. Sitting down on the ledge, she slipped her backpack off her shoulders and pulled out her datapad. “How are you going to get them to Interstel?”
“We’ll have Grubs or someone take them into town,” Huga said. “Someone there can transmit them to the Interstel office over in Yovbridge.”
“Hopefully, five hundred will be enough to get them to break out their ship,” Cimy added.
“Hopefully,” Padmé agreed. “Until then, you’ve got my necklace as a guarantee of my good behavior.”
Fifteen minutes later they were gone, Cimy with the message data card and her account number, Huga with the Corusca gem, LebJau with a promise to come back the next evening with food and bedding.
And once again, Padmé was alone.
In the shadow of a Separatist facility.
I’ve been in worse places, she’d told LebJau. But at least most of those other times someone had known where she was.
She took a deep breath and pulled a meal bar from her pack. Worry, she knew, would accomplish nothing. What she needed now was food, sleep, and a plan.
The first two were straightforward enough. The third, hopefully, would come with time.
And once Anakin got here, the two of them would figure out what the Separatists were up to. They’d figure it out, and they would stop it.
“They are encircling us,” Vader warned, studying the bar. Reflected in the decorative brasswork were the distorted images of the ten Darshi as they moved quietly around behind him and Thrawn into flanking attack positions.
A simple, yet well-executed maneuver. During the Clone Wars, The Jedi had seen many such attacks from Separatist forces. The attacks from the current epidemic of loudly flailing rebel groups were significantly less professional.
Rebel groups like the one on Atollon that Thrawn had been sent to destroy.
Thrawn had tried encircling them, too, just like the Darshi here in the cantina were trying. The Chiss had failed in his effort, just as the Darshi were going to fail in theirs.
Thrawn didn’t reply. Still disapproving of Vader’s decision to launch the First Legion at the incoming ships above Batuu?
The grand admiral was hardly in a position to be critical. He’d had the Phoenix group bottled up, in space and on the ground, and a few ships had still managed to slip through the blockade.
Here, Vader didn’t have those same resources, which meant some of the ships above Batuu would inevitably escape. But the big freighter, the one he’d sent the First Legion to, would be dealt with.
He would show Thrawn how it was done.
“Do you hear that?” Thrawn murmured.
“What?” Vader asked, still watching the movements in the brass.
“Their click code,” Thrawn said quietly. “Do you hear it?”
Vader frowned. Yes, he could hear the faint tongue clicking now. Odd that he hadn’t noticed it before. “Can you interpret it?”
“Not the specifics,” Thrawn said. “But most follow similar patterns. The number and frequency of clicks indicate they are nearly ready to launch their attack. Remember that we wish prisoners to interrogate.”
Vader glowered at the images in the railing. Simple blasters for hire, most likely. Better to eliminate them and allow Kimmund to deal with the task of finding prisoners. “Do you expect them to be equally courteous?”
“At first, yes, they will,” Thrawn said.
That wasn’t the answer Vader had expected. “For what reason?”
“Interrogation,” Thrawn said. “They will wish to know what I have learned of them.” He looked sideways at Vader. “Though they may not offer you the same courtesy.”
The Chiss thought highly of himself, that was for certain. “Then they will be surprised.”
“They will indeed.” There was the soft hiss of Thrawn’s combat baton being drawn from its holster. “Once they have lost some of their numbers, they will likely abandon any hope of taking either of us alive.”
Vader nodded to himself. And when they reached that point, not even Thrawn would be able to complain about leaving the bodies of their opponents scattered on the cantina floor. “Then their surprise will be short-lived.”
“We will first try to disable without killing,” Thrawn said, with an emphasis that suggested it was an order.
Not that Vader was in the mood to accept any such instructions, especially not under these circumstances. Fortunately for Thrawn, he’d presented the goal with more subtlety than that.
Subtlety. In an Empire filled with men like Tarkin, perhaps that was what the Emperor found most useful in this Chiss.
Thrawn had refused to send the Chimaera against the unknown ships on the grounds that it could be advantageous to keep the full extent of the Imperials’ power hidden. Now he wanted to strike nonlethal blows to suggest he lacked the power or the strength of mind to kill?
Very well. Subtlety was a game Vader could also play if he chose.
And in that instant he caught the flicker through the Force as the Darshi charged to the attack.
He turned, snatching his lightsaber from his belt. Three of the aliens were converging on Thrawn, combat sticks of their own ready in their hands, while four more charged at Vader with identical weapons.
Their knives, interestingly enough, remained in their sheaths. Apparently, they did have some thought of taking their quarries alive.
Still, they weren’t being foolish about it. Standing well back from the battleground, only intermittently visible as the rest of the customers beat a hasty retreat past them through the door, were the other three Darshi, blasters drawn and ready. Either Vader and Thrawn would leave as prisoners, or—their thinking apparently went—they wouldn’t leave at all.
The attackers were going to be severely disappointed.
Thrawn had already turned to face his attackers, a bottle of rum he’d snatched from behind the bar in his free hand. But instead of simply throwing it, he spun it around twice in his hand, pointed it at the nearest attacker, and slashed his baton across the bottle’s neck, shattering it.
And as the freshly agitated liquid burst from the bottle’s confines Thrawn sprayed the stream across all three of his attackers’ faces.
Their charge jerked to a confused halt amid gasps and roars as the alcohol hit unprotected eyes. Thrawn threw the now half-empty bottle toward Vader’s attackers, then waded into the midst of his own group, slamming his baton with expert precision across arms, legs, and ribs, disabling without killing.
But Vader’s group had seen Thrawn’s move, and had had time to recover from the surprise attack. As the bottle came toward them the nearest Darshi knocked it away with a flick of his own baton. He turned back toward Vader—
Double vision: the Darshi feinting left, then swinging his stick from the right—
The attacker staggered back, twisting around from the impact as Vader slapped him hard across the side of his head with his lightsaber hilt.
Not the blade. Only the hilt. If Thrawn could take on three opponents with just a stick, so could Vader.
Double vision: stick jabbing at his helmet—
Vader swung his lightsaber, deflecting the attack, then jabbed the end hard into the center of the alien’s chest.
Double vision: slapping blows against helmet and right forearm from the remaining two Darshi—
A complete waste of their time, of course, combat sticks against body armor. But Vade
r allowed the attack, letting the blows land without effect, luring them into moving within range of counterattack. Two more quick jabs with his lightsaber, and they had joined their companions on the floor.
Double vision: bolt coming at right shoulder—
He looked at the three backups, swinging their blasters toward him. He brought up his left hand, catching the bolt on his palm, feeling a brief rise in heat as the energy expended itself against the armored glove.
Double vision: bolts coming at chest, at helmet—
He reached out to the Force, tweaking the attackers’ blasters a couple of degrees to the sides, just far enough to throw off their aim. Probably they never even realized what had happened. He strode toward them, feeling his cloak billowing behind him.
Double vision: blaster bolts coming at chest, at head, at chest—
Again, he blocked one and reached to the Force to deflect the other two. He caught up a nearby table and, keeping his hand on it as if using only muscle power, used the Force to hurl it across the cantina into their midst.
One of them was fast enough to dodge out of the way. The other two weren’t so quick or so lucky and went down in grunts of pain and the crash of wood table on wood floor.
The one still standing had had enough.
Double vision: blaster bolt at head—
Vader again turned the weapon, sending the bolt to the side as the Darshi made a mad dash for the door. Vader strode after him, trying to decide whether to drop him right there or to let him get outside so that he could find out what kind of vehicle he’d arrived in.
The latter, he decided. The Darshi reached the door and pulled it open—
Sensation surging—rippling and swirling of the Force—something or someone appearing nearby—surprise—confusion—double vision—second vision bringing only darkness—
Vader felt his pace falter. It was the disturbance in the Force the Emperor had sensed from Coruscant. There was nothing else it could be.
But now, in sharp contrast with Vader’s earlier attempts to sense the anomaly, it was suddenly right there in front of him, flooding over and through his mind.