Jax was stunned. He stood. “What do you mean ‘standing down’?” But he knew what was meant before Captain Breck answered.
“That was the boss,” the man told him. “He’s pulled the plug on the operation. We’re not going to Kantaros.”
“Did he say why?”
The captain shook his head. “No. And I didn’t ask.”
“Then I will.”
Jax strode from the bridge and off the ship.
“What’s happening?”
Den Dhur peered through the Laranth’s transparent viewport at the activity on the tarmac—or rather, the lack of activity. The three Black Sun smugglers, which had been powering up, were suddenly ramping back down again. After a momentary stillness, the loading ramp of the largest ship lowered and Jax came down it. He crossed the tarmac in long, ground-eating strides. The expression on his face was terrifying, and would have been even without the fake cybernetic eye.
Den was terrified by it, at any rate. He pulled back from the viewport. “Something’s wrong, Five.”
“You’ve only just noticed?”
“I’m serious, frag it! Something’s gone wrong. Badly wrong.”
“Apparently.”
Den turned to look at the droid, who was “dressed” in his new, not-so-shiny I-Five persona. “How can you be so sanguine about … whatever this is?”
“I’m not sanguine. In fact, I feel rather powerless to do anything. But consider what it might mean that Jax—apparently in a towering rage—has left the ship that was supposed to take him to Kantaros Station.”
Den considered what it meant and was about to say he didn’t follow, when he realized that he did. “Xizor’s broken the deal.”
“That would be my surmise.”
“What do we do? Should we follow him?”
“In his present state of mind, I doubt Jax would take that gesture in the spirit it was intended. I think we should just sit tight.”
Den clenched his fists atop the control console. “He could be in trouble, Five. He may be headed into a face-off with a Black Sun Vigo—one who almost killed him.”
“Jax wasn’t the same man then that he is now, and Xizor would be a fool to think that he is.”
The tapcaf was closed at this hour of the day. Only a few people were in the street when Jax arrived at the front of the building. The locked door was no obstacle. It opened at a gesture, letting him into the darkened ground floor. As he strode across the room to the staircase beyond the bar, a pair of startled employees—surprised in the act of polishing tabletops—glanced up but offered no objection.
He took the stairs two at a time and met his first resistance at the top in the form of a pair of Fabris’s goons—the Devaronian and the Zabrak. They came toward him, hands already on their weapons.
“Stop!” the Zabrak ordered.
Her partner drew his weapon. Jax made a swiping gesture, and the blaster spun away over the banister into the room below. The Zabrak woman went for her weapon next—Jax’s clenching fist caused the Force to twist it into an unrecognizable lump.
She flung the useless thing aside and lunged at him. He answered with a Force thrust powerful enough to toss her four meters down the corridor. Her Devaronian cohort, wisely, chose to run, scooping the Zabrak up and dragging her away.
Jax came down the hallway after them, doors flying open at his passing. When he reached the door to Fabris’s office, there were no guards there to challenge him, though he sensed quite a few in the depths of the building.
He thrust one hand, stiff-armed, at the door. It ripped from its hinges, blowing inward in a rain of wood dust and plaster.
Fabris was not behind his desk. Not surprising.
Jax closed his eyes, scanning. There, behind that tapestry, behind a door and the wall, were life forces. Four of them.
Jax crossed the room in three strides. One gesture tore the tapestry from the wall and flung it into a corner; another shoved the inner door aside, making its machinery scream. He drew his lightsaber and stepped into the doorway, expecting to have to parry blaster bolts, but no one fired.
Prince Xizor stood in the center of the room, his hands held out from his body—whether to show he was unarmed or to dissuade his two bodyguards from doing anything rash, Jax wasn’t sure. The Falleen was a stew of emotions, making his flesh shift colors rapidly. Tyno Fabris sat between the two guards, striving unsuccessfully to look composed. Sweat stood out on his brow, and his gaze was locked on Jax’s lightsaber.
Jax shifted his stance, swinging his glowing blade in a slow figure-eight that made it hum menacingly.
“What game are you playing, Xizor?” he asked the Vigo. “Why have you scrubbed the mission?”
“Mission? My, my, how religious that sounds. There’s no mission, Jedi. This is business, not a spiritual quest.”
“Then let me put it in terms you’ll understand. Why have you broken our contract?”
Xizor spread his hands in a gesture that said he had no choice. “The situation has changed radically. It no longer makes sense for me to involve myself in this … endeavor.”
Jax stepped fully into the room and moved slowly to his right, forcing Xizor to turn to face him. The last time the two men had confronted each other, Jax’s Force connection had been sputtering and inconsistent. Xizor had had the advantage. This time Xizor was pinned and he knew it.
“I’m going to let you explain yourself,” he told the Vigo, “but first I want to warn you about what will happen if the bodyguards that are massing in the outer corridor try to enter Fabris’s office. That big chandelier on the ceiling is going to come crashing down on their heads. Then I’m going to embed you in that wall behind you.”
Smiling, Xizor locked eyes with him, reading him. Apparently, the Falleen didn’t like what he saw. His eyes flickered, trying to dodge. His smile faltered, became wooden. His lips drew back in a snarl. “Let me send one of my men out to hold them back.”
Jax considered the idea, then nodded.
Xizor turned to the men flanking Tyno Fabris. “Brank, go out and forestall any attack.”
“Tell them to withdraw to the lower level,” Jax ordered.
“Fine. Tell them that.”
Brank, a tall, broad-shouldered Mandalorian of indeterminate species, nodded curtly, growled, and lumbered out of the room.
“You were expecting me, Xizor,” Jax observed. “Otherwise I doubt there would be quite so many guards lurking in the upstairs corridors.”
“You’ve got me there. I figured my news would make you less than happy, but what can I do? I can’t get you to Kantaros Station, Jax. Sorry. I mean that. I was looking forward to having a Jedi at my beck and call. I’d be the only Vigo in the history of Black Sun to be so endowed. So, you see, this hurts me as much as it does you.”
“I doubt it. You said something changed. What changed?” Jax struggled not to connect with the roil of fury in his breast. If he could stay above it …
“Well, you see, a funny thing happened. As you requested, I employed my network of associates to draw Darth Vader back to Imperial Center. My people effected this by spreading seemingly credible rumors that someone was plotting to assassinate the Emperor.”
Jax felt a clammy chill invade his gut. “And this changes things, how?”
“I’m a bit embarrassed about this, but it appears that someone actually is plotting such an attack. One of our captains was engaged in a business negotiation with a black-market supplier—a fellow named Ash, I think she said—and this supplier made a strange reference to Palpatine being removed from the picture.”
Acer Ash—a member of Whiplash. Tuden Sal was going ahead with his insane plan, and there wasn’t a thing Jax could do about it.
“The bottom line is that the rumors I had planted happened to be true. Now, let’s imagine for a moment that this assassination attempt is linked with an arguably insane attempt to free Whiplash’s captured leader. The fact that Yimmon’s liberator arrived on a Black Sun vessel would not be lost on
the Emperor.”
“You could say that I stowed away.”
The Falleen was slowly shaking his head. “A handful of valuable members within my organization know about this plan. If Vader were to question them, it would become immediately apparent that I was involved. I simply can’t take that chance.”
“Did you know? Did you even stop to think that rumors of that nature could impact the resistance?” Jax’s voice was hard, cold, and quiet.
“It didn’t occur to me, nor would I have cared if it had, to be perfectly honest with you. I simply reasoned that a credible threat to the Emperor would draw Vader away. It worked.” Xizor spread his hands again. “Sorry, Pavan. Nothing personal, it’s just business.”
Just business. How many people had died—how many would die—because Black Sun was just doing business?
Jax was struck with a full appreciation of Den and I-Five’s objections to his dealing with Xizor. To them it must seem as if he were neck-deep in his own version of “just business” as he pursued his goals.
Deep down inside him, something gave.
Xizor sensed it, for he took a step back and said loudly, “Brank! To me!”
Jax felt the sudden rise of adrenaline among the sentients in the tapcaf below. Of course, Xizor had kept a comlink open. He would have been stupid not to.
Jax turned and bolted for the outer room, reaching it as the first of the guards came pounding up the staircase. He knew others were coming along other routes, intending, no doubt, to cut off all egress. But they were dealing with a Jedi. Albeit a Jedi whom they had never seen show any sign of real violence.
Wielding his lightsaber, Jax sundered the rest of Fabris’s tapestries, effectively blocking the remaining hidden doors with yards of heavy material. Then he whipped around, free hand extended, generating a Force thrust that swept every surface in the room, creating a storm of flying objects. The hail of glass, metal, and wood pelted the bodyguards who were even now rushing in through the unblocked office door.
Jax leapt away from the center of the room, reaching up toward the ceiling with his free hand. Overhead, the gaudy, oversized chandelier quivered and chattered. The candles flickered in their sconces.
“No!” Tyno Fabris wailed from the doorway of his hidden room. “Not that!”
“Stand down, Pavan,” Xizor warned. “You’re trapped. You’ve nowhere to go.”
Jax met the Falleen’s smile with one of his own—one he guessed was no more pleasant. “I guess you’re right. There’s no way out.”
He deactivated his lightsaber and returned it to his belt, slanting a look at the heavily fortified stained-glass window behind him. He saw the bodyguards relax back, heard Fabris sigh in relief, felt Xizor warm toward gloating.
He glanced back at the Vigo. “But I can fix that.”
Jax spun, thrusting with both hands. The barred window exploded outward over the street below, taking a big chunk of the wall with it. Colored glass sparkled in the morning sun like bright rain.
In the stunned moment of silence after, Jax glanced back at Xizor and his lieutenant. “Nothing personal, of course. Just business.”
A last sweep of his hands wrenched Tyno Fabris’s fantastic chandelier from its mounts and brought it down in a shower of crystal and flame. Then Jax stepped out of the empty window and let himself down into the street in the arms of the Force.
He knew a moment of regret when he saw the devastation his blast of energy had caused—blocks of masonry and shards of wood and glass lay scattered across the walkway and into the street; the few people out this early were either scrambling for cover or staring in utter disbelief. He felt no injured here, and hoped there were no dead as he broke into a run.
Less than half an hour after he’d left the spaceport, Jax reappeared at a dead run, looking no less fearsome than he had earlier. He came straight to the Laranth, boarded through the hastily lowered loading ramp, and made his way to the bridge.
Den looked up into that stony face, uncertain what to expect.
“Prepare the ship for departure,” Jax said. “We’re going to Toprawa.” Then he turned and went aft.
Den stared after him, a strange, wild elation blossoming in his chest. Jax was back—again. They would soon be among friends. He sagged in the copilot’s seat and looked over at I-Five, who was going into the pre-liftoff protocols with mechanical precision—using the one “normal” hand on his mongrel I-5YQ chassis.
“Is it too early to celebrate?”
“Far too early,” I-Five said, nodding his still-misshapen head toward the commercial quarter Jax had just come from. “From appearances, I’d say Jax left some destruction in his wake.”
Den peered out the viewport, his eyes immediately finding what the droid was talking about: a telltale plume of smoke curling up from the direction of the Oyu’baat tapcaf.
“I suggest we hurry,” said I-Five, and activated the ion engines.
He had never felt like this—not after his Master’s death, not after Flame Night, not after Kajin Savaros’s near destruction, not even in the aftermath of losing Laranth and Yimmon. He was filled with a horrible, dark, quivering desire—but for what, he could not put into words. His whole life had been about self-knowledge, self-control, self-discipline. Now he knew nothing about himself except that he had none of those things.
In the moment the door of his quarters hissed shut behind him, the ravenous need swarmed him, swamped him, roared to be free. He let it, giving vent to a wild scream of alien passion. The room around him exploded in a cyclonic whorl of motion, sound, and violence. Whatever was not fixed to the decking or walls came loose, blown to the upper bulkhead. Whatever was fixed followed mere seconds later.
As swiftly as it had come, the tidal wave of emotion surged out again, leaving Jax empty in the center of his ruined cabin. He trembled as his eyes took in the devastation … and stopped dead at the sight of Laranth’s tree lying on the deck, its roots naked and half crushed by the broken remnants of its container.
The Sith lightsaber he had concealed in the device lay gleaming on the deck plating, taunting him.
He fell to his knees on the padded flooring, pulling away the debris and lifting the tiny miisai into a cupped palm. He reassembled the feeding container as best he could, collected the soil, and set the tree back into it, watering it and feeding it energy from his own life force. Then he sat and stared at it, numbly aware of the ship’s trembling as she lifted into the morning sky.
PART THREE
Journey’s End
Twenty-Nine
The timetable was set. Sheel Mafeen had recited it to Haus just as Tuden Sal had revealed it to the Whiplash Council. She’d backed it up with a set of plans sliced neatly from the holo-terminal in the council chamber aboard the Whiplash Express.
Haus was in the process of setting up his own plans for derailing the plot when he got an unsettling piece of intel from a contact inside the ISB: Darth Vader had returned to Imperial Center without warning or fanfare.
In response, Prefect Haus pushed his own timetable up by two days. He assembled a special ops force of crack combat-trained officers and informed them that a dangerous cadre of criminals had set up operations along an abandoned mag-lev route. In the late afternoon—1500 on the chrono—they would follow an informant to a prearranged meeting place, intercept the criminals, and arrest them.
Simple.
Except that when said informant—Sheel Mafeen—entered the abandoned tube station at which the train was supposed to stop at 1515, it wasn’t there. She waited; Haus and his men waited within sight of her. She tried to contact Sal; she got no answer.
She contacted Haus surreptitiously, fear clogging her voice. “This is all wrong, Pol. This is where the train was supposed to be at this time today. We were supposed to go over the plan one more time.”
Haus blew out a long gust of air and squinted at the abandoned freight terminal where the meet-up was to have taken place. A suspicion was slowly dawning that Tuden
Sal’s paranoia had caused him to plant decoy plans in the event that his intent was discovered.
Comlink open, Haus said, “All right. All right. I’m gonna call it.”
The words prompted a cloaked Sheel Mafeen to leave the terminal; it prompted Haus’s people to prick up their ears.
“Sir?” asked his Bothan lieutenant, Kalibar Droosh.
“Send the crew in. Look for any signs of recent visits.”
They found more than that. After taking a group of officers down the right-hand tunnel, Lieutenant Droosh appeared mere moments later, alone. Standing in the mouth of the tunnel, he waved to Haus.
“Sir? We’ve found something! There’s an abandoned train car just out of sight in the tube here.”
An abandoned … The hair rose up on the back of the prefect’s neck, making him rub at it. “Just one?”
“Yes, sir. Just the one. Should I have the men board, sir?”
“No! Don’t let them go near it! Get them out of there, Lieutenant! Get them out now!”
The lieutenant’s long nose scrunched into an exclamation point of Bothan puzzlement. He shrugged, turned and shouted, “Sergeant Amry! Come on back! Prefect wants you guys out of there.”
A second later, the lieutenant was blown off his feet by a blast from inside the tunnel—a blast violent enough to bowl over Haus and several other officers engaged in searching the terminal area. In the chaos that followed, Haus picked himself up, already shouting orders to his uninjured men.
What had started out as a sting ended up as a rescue mission.
As soon as the emergency crews arrived and the situation was under control, Pol Haus put a slightly-the-worse-for-wear Lieutenant Droosh in charge, got into his aircar, and called Sheel Mafeen. He explained what had happened in clipped syllables, then expressed his worst fears.
“Sal set that ambush for me, Sheel, because he expected me or someone else to betray him. The fact that you weren’t in on his plan makes it pretty clear he didn’t feel he could trust you completely.”
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