“You’ve chosen an interim leader, I assume,” I-Five said, calling abrupt attention to his diminutive presence.
Sal shook his head. “We have determined that we must have not one leader, but many. Each with different spheres of responsibility. Pol Haus, for example, is chiefly responsible for intelligence and security.”
Jax turned to the police prefect. “He is?”
“It seemed to make the most sense,” said Sal. “He has insider knowledge of the workings of the ISB. And he knows how to keep us well hidden. This—” He gestured around them at the hovertrain. “—was his doing.”
Jax stifled a twinge of distrust. Pol Haus had been in a position to give them up repeatedly and hadn’t. He’d run interference for them, made sure the Imperial Security Bureau was looking the other way, hidden Whiplash operatives, and been in close contact with Jax and Yimmon. He’d had every opportunity to kill or capture them and hadn’t.
Still …
“So, you’re in all the way now?” he asked the prefect.
Haus nodded. “I’m in.”
“If this has proved one thing to us,” Sal said, “it’s that having all our credits in one bank doesn’t make sense. Our leadership needs to be redundant, and yet each of us requires a certain autonomy and a certain amount of overlap.”
Pol Haus was watching Jax intently. “Of course, now that you’re here, I, for one am perfectly willing to relinquish—”
Jax shook his head adamantly. “No. I can’t lead you. I can’t take Yimmon’s place. It’s because of me that we’re having to replace him. It’s up to me to get him back.”
“Is that even possible?” Sal asked. “As strong a mind as Thi Xon Yimmon has, Vader will eventually break him.”
“Yimmon wouldn’t betray the resistance,” Jax murmured.
“No,” Den said quietly. “But what if he doesn’t have a choice? Do we know what tech the Emperor’s got up his bloody sleeves? Do we even know what Vader is capable of?”
No, Jax didn’t know what Darth Vader was capable of. Aboard the dying Far Ranger he thought he had seen him fail to manipulate Thi Xon Yimmon’s mind and have to settle, instead, for manipulating gravity. Still …
“I’ve never known a Force-user as powerful as Vader,” he admitted. “Which only makes it more critical that we rescue Yimmon.”
Pol Haus slouched back in his chair. “How do you propose we do that? At the moment, we have no idea where they might have taken him. He could be here on Coruscant, or he could be at any Imperial stronghold. And if we do determine where he is, how do you propose we rescue him? There’s every chance that Vader will only use him as a trap to catch you. You’re the real prize, Pavan, and I think you know it.”
Jax was shaking his head. “No. He could have gotten me at the same time he got Yimmon. If he’d really wanted me—”
“You’re not thinking clearly, Jax,” said Den. “Laranth had just blown a hole in Vader’s vessel and shut down his stasis web. He was out of time. He thought we were, too. He thought the interstellar flux would take us out. It’s only thanks to Aren Folee and her crew that it didn’t.”
Den was right. Jax stared at his friend without seeing him. He didn’t have to kill me. He’d already done worse.
“Whatever Vader’s reasoning,” Sal said sharply, “we have work to do. We are in the process of scrapping our network and starting fresh. We have abandoned every safe house, every drop point, every pass-through, every escape corridor, because Thi Xon Yimmon could jeopardize every one of them.”
Anger flared in Jax’s heart. “He’d die first.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Jax stood as if the padded seat had shocked him. “Yimmon is your friend!”
The Sakiyan looked up at him wearily. “Yimmon was our captain. Our counselor. Our leader. We have to go on now as if he is gone for good. He’d expect it of us, don’t you think?”
Jax started to protest.
“Let me put it another way,” Sal said. “Do you think Thi Xon Yimmon would want us to jeopardize the entire organization to locate and rescue him? Sacrificing all other priorities?”
From the reactions of Pol Haus and the other operatives, Jax could tell this was not the first time they’d had this argument. There was anger at this nexus—contention. Haus was staring at something invisible on the curving wall of the train car, his horned brow creased in a scowl. Fars, Acer, and Dyat were nodding grimly; Sheel was looking down at her clasped hands.
Jax looked to Pol Haus. “You agree that we should … give up on Yimmon?”
“I do not,” murmured Sheel beneath her breath.
Haus put his hand over the Togruta’s to silence her as he met Jax’s eyes. “I think it’s safe to say that Yimmon would have argued that Whiplash needs to regroup, retool, and rethink its strategy—and do it quickly. We’re in the process of that now. And when that’s done—”
“When that’s done,” Sal said, his voice tight, “we need to strike at the Empire while they suppose us to be reeling from loss. This is a tragedy only if we allow it to be. If we view it instead as an opportunity to act in ways the Emperor would never expect us to, it will remain but a personal loss, not a loss for the Resistance. They suppose us to be a headless creature. But, as Pol Haus has suggested, we have six or seven heads where before we had only one. And each head is capable of directing the efforts of the body.”
“Strike,” Jax repeated. “Strike how?”
Sal’s gaze touched briefly on the faces of his cohorts. “That hasn’t been decided yet. But it must be decisive and devastating.”
Jax spread his hands in a gesture of entreaty. “What would be more devastating than snatching Yimmon out of the Emperor’s grasp?”
Tuden Sal grimaced. “Perhaps if we had even a glimmering of where he is—”
“We have a glimmering,” said I-Five.
The assertion brought a sudden silence.
“Go on,” said Pol Haus.
“I traced the route Vader’s forces took to get in and out of the area they trapped us in. We’re fairly certain that some of the vessels—possibly even Vader’s—made a call on Mandalore, then went on from there toward the Mid Rim.”
“Some of the vessels?”
“The larger part of the legion came back to the Core. Yimmon may even be here on Coruscant at this very moment. If we put our forces into finding him—”
“We cannot,” the Devaronian growled, “throw everything into finding Yimmon. You are not even certain of his whereabouts. In truth, he may already be dead. And even if he is not, every resource we dedicate to finding him is a resource we do not have for other, larger tasks.” She ended her statement with her gleaming red eyes focused on Tuden Sal. “Is that not right?”
Sal shifted in apparent discomfort. “Dyat is correct. In your absence, Jax, we have … moved forward on plans to strengthen our contacts within the Imperial Security Bureau. If we have to curtail those efforts, we will lose any ground we have gained.”
“You have been gone,” Dyat told Jax, “for over a month. That is long enough to have thrown this entire organization into a turmoil from which we have only recently emerged. Consider the consequences, Jax Pavan, if Darth Vader has done this with the full expectation that we will, as you suggest, pour all our resources into retrieving our stolen leader.”
The words hit Jax like a physical blow. He sat down, feeling as if his legs had been swept out from under him.
“You’re right.” He leaned against the back of the seat, closing his eyes. “We can’t bend all our resources to finding Yimmon.” But without those resources, we’ll never get him back.
“Jax looks like he could use some downtime,” Pol Haus said brusquely.
“Of course,” said Sal. “If you don’t mind …”
Jax felt a touch on his arm and opened his eyes to find Pol Haus standing next to him. “Why don’t I show you and your team to your new quarters?”
Jax nodded silently and rose to follow
the prefect into the next car. Den and I-Five brought up the rear. Haus led them through a lounge car that offered an open common area replete with food service machines and various seating areas. The car behind that was a sleeper with two private compartments accessed from a left-hand corridor.
“This one is Sal’s,” Haus nodded toward the first door on the right. “The next is one I use on occasion.”
They proceeded through the next car to a door near the far end. “Will that do for you, Den?”
The Sullustan shrugged and started to move in that direction. He hesitated and looked back over one shoulder. “Five? You coming with me, or …”
“I believe I will remain with Jax for the time being.”
Den glanced at Jax and nodded. “Good idea.”
When Den had closed his door, Pol Haus ushered Jax into his guest quarters. They were more than adequate, being about twice the size of the captain’s cabin aboard the Laranth. There was a bed that lowered from the wall, a seating area, even a small bar at which one might eat with a guest. I-Five entered first, checked the place over, and stationed himself by the door.
Jax just stood in the middle of the floor, feeling momentarily directionless.
“Not everyone agrees that we should write Yimmon off as lost,” Pol Haus said. “At least Sheel and I aren’t on board with the idea.”
“Factions?” I-Five asked.
Haus turned to look at the droid. “I wouldn’t go that far. Just … uncertainties. They’re not used to operating without strong leadership, but at the same time, they’re a bit leery of electing a single strong leader again.”
“The Empire seems to function with a single strong leader,” I-Five observed. “An absolute ruler, in fact.”
“The Empire’s leadership is in a position of power. The Emperor rules through secrecy and fear, while he has only one thing to fear himself … well, that is if he’s smart enough to fear it.”
“Vader.” The word dropped from Jax’s lips like a stone.
“Yeah. Vader. Am I right?”
Vader—the random element. “I’d like to give the Emperor more to fear,” Jax murmured.
Haus’s lips curled wryly. “Then you and Sal should be on the same wavelength.”
Jax roused himself and turned to regard the police prefect. “Should I be? Should I just leave Yimmon in Vader’s hands? Just move on?”
“What does that Force sense of yours tell you?”
“That I should not.”
“Can’t argue with the Force.” Haus sketched a salute and left the compartment.
Jax stared after him, aware that there was a wealth of subtext there that he was too weary to grasp.
“Lie down, Jax,” said I-Five, “before you fall down.”
He did, but just barely.
Ten
Sleep had come with difficulty. Jax’s emotions were still clouding things, and his mind seemed determined to take dark paths his soul did not wish to tread. He slept restlessly, pulling himself out of turbid dreams before they could take hold. In the most benign of these dreams, he saw I-Five’s tactical display of Vader’s Fist as it intercepted the Far Ranger, took the ship, and fled with Yimmon.
In dreams he saw what he had not allowed himself to witness in the tactical display: that moment when the blue light that was Far Ranger winked out of existence, torn apart by the competing gravitational forces of the Twins.
As much as he wanted to wake then, he didn’t. He couldn’t. Instead, he watched the fleet of bright dots speed away and slip into hyperspace, to emerge near Mandalore. In his dream, he saw that emergence, too, and woke wondering again why Vader would make a stop on Mandalore. Did it have anything to do with his prisoner?
When he finally gave up on sleep, Jax meditated, but he found it hard to concentrate without the miisai to serve as point of focus. It did not help that the seemingly dormant pit droid had stationed himself in one corner of the room.
Jax returned to his bed and slept, but fitfully. When he woke, I-Five was gone. Jax emerged from his quarters feeling only half awake, his mind wanting to dart here and there. He went in search of something to eat.
The lounge was empty. He availed himself of the food and drink dispensers. He looked out the long horizontal slits that served as windows. Not much to see—just flickers of light as they moved through the mag-lev tunnels. They were in motion now, but Jax knew they’d stopped during the night. Where, he had no idea. He had to admit it was brilliant of Pol Haus to have come up with this way of protecting the Whiplash leadership: by using the Underground Mag-Lev literally, rather than as metaphor.
Jax turned at the sound of a door opening and closing to see that Den and I-Five had entered the car. Den didn’t look as if he’d slept well. His oversized eyes were bloodshot, and his eyelids drooped.
“You look like I feel,” Jax told him.
“My condolences,” the Sullustan said, and went to get a steaming cup of caf and a protein cake.
I-Five—though Jax still had trouble thinking of this pint-sized droid as I-Five—moved gracefully to the table Jax where Jax was sitting and surveyed the Jedi with his single oculus.
“Condolences, indeed,” said the droid. “You did not sleep more than two, perhaps three, hours last night—and most of that in short naps. After your first wakeful period, you got hardly any REM sleep, which means you’re not dreaming.”
“I thought you were in regen. And I’d rather not dream, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It is not all the same to me. REM sleep is necessary to most sentients’ well-being. If you don’t get the required amount there could be repercussions, ranging from depression, exhaustion, and hallucinations all the way to a possible psychotic break.”
“Yes. All right. I know.”
“I may have to medicate you. I considered doing it last night, but reasoned that you’d be displeased if I did it without permission.”
Den snorted volubly and set his caf down on the table. “I’m sure displeased doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“I don’t want to be medicated,” Jax said quietly. Even as he spoke the words, he knew a niggle of guilt: it seemed somehow wrong to shut the dreams out. She inhabited them still. He thought longingly of the miisai tree, still in his quarters aboard the ship.
We won’t be here that long, he told himself.
“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” Den asked.
I-Five uttered a muted beep. “Must there be something on the agenda? Perhaps you two should take this chance to rest and restore yourselves.”
“We’re going to do reconnaissance work today,” Jax said. “I-Five, I need you to sniff around Space Traffic Control. Talk to the AI, if you can. See if there’s been any unusual activity.”
“Such as incoming vessels from the Five-Oh-First?”
“Exactly. I’m going to find Pol Haus and see if he’s heard anything interesting out of the ISB. We need to locate Vader.”
Den looked at him shrewdly. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“Are you ready to let it go? To let Yimmon go?”
They locked gazes for a long moment, then Den sighed deeply and shook his head again. “May the Warren Mother help me, no. No, I’m not ready.”
“It might be wise, however,” I-Five said, “to let Tuden Sal believe that we are, for the time being.”
Jax nodded and took another sip of the steaming caf. He hated being anything less than completely honest with his comrades-in-arms, but dissension in the steering group was the last thing they needed. As far as Tuden Sal and the others would know, Jax Pavan was grabbing some much-needed downtime. Only Pol Haus would be privileged to know how far that was from the truth.
Disguised as an Ubese merchant, Jax appeared at Pol Haus’s headquarters, presumably to lodge a complaint against a Sullustan trading partner. He blustered his way in to the prefect’s office and, once in Haus’s presence, paced the floor until he had located any surveillance devices, then placed himself
so that his gloved hands were visible to none of them.
“May I ask,” Haus said, eyes narrowed, “why one of my lieutenants couldn’t help you?”
Jax struck a belligerent pose and asked, in the mechanically amplified croak common to the Ubese, “Speak you Ubeninal?”
Haus’s gaze dropped to his own hands. “Yes. But I am not as good at signing it as I am reading—”
“Then I shall speak and you shall listen. A creature of Sullust has stolen my favored pit droid. I demand that you come with me at once and confront him.” That was what Jax said aloud—what he signed in the Ubese nonverbal lingo was something entirely different.
“Your … pit droid?” Haus repeated, scratching around the base of his left horn. He glanced from Jax’s hands to his eyes, hidden behind the lenses of the face mask Ubese wore when among alien races. “I could have one of my associates—”
“Not good enough. This Sullustan creature will not respect your associates. He believes himself above the law. I suspect he is aligned with Black Sun.”
“Really?” Haus watched Jax sign his real intent, then nodded. “Black Sun, you say? Imagine that.”
“He is a thief. He is more than a thief. I have proof. You come.”
Pol Haus rose from his formchair and moved to snag his disreputable coat from a hook by the door. “If you can prove what you say, sir, I will be happy to accompany you.”
They descended to the constabulary’s vehicle park and took Pol Haus’s speeder out into the gray canyons.
“Where are we going?” Haus asked.
“Ploughtekal Market.”
They reached that spot in silence. Haus parked the speeder and they got out by mutual consent, losing themselves in the noise and activity of the bazaar. It was the same as always—a barrage of sound and movement, an explosion of vivid colors overlaid on the cold and dark grime of Coruscant’s substructure. Jax heard the chatter of a dozen worlds—Basic being spoken in another two dozen accents. Laughter. Argument.
In short, life going on.
Jax shook himself, uttered a rasping sigh.
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