Catalyst

by James Luceno

  “Archduke, we’re having a problem controlling your workers,” he said. “They’re fighting over tasks and refusing to obey orders, and your soldiers might as well be on vacation.”

  The Geonosian holopresence betrayed no emotion. “I see no problem,” he replied in his native tongue.

  “They’re dying, Archduke—by the dozens.”

  “Geonosians do not hold life to be as precious as you humans do, Lieutenant Commander. Perhaps you have forgotten how many drones died during the Eve of Meckgin Festival.”

  “How could I forget.”

  “That was just for sport and entertainment. Work is a much more serious matter.”

  “Then why aren’t you intervening?”

  Poggle’s wings stirred slightly. “To derive the most from them, you must be willing to abide their need to compete for tasks.”

  Krennic glared for the cam. “What are you telling me, that we should just let them fight and die?”

  “That is precisely what I’m saying. Rest assured that I absolve your security forces of all culpability should they be required to kill them.”

  “That’s very regal of you, Archduke,” Krennic snarled. “But how about offering a solution for not having to exterminate our labor force?”

  Poggle gestured in haughty dismissal. “Add to their number and allow them to work it out themselves.”

  —

  Blaring klaxons in the headquarters building cut short the impromptu lecture Galen had been delivering to some of his Lokori co-workers. He imagined that Roman Herbane would be chagrined to learn that Galen’s job of overseeing quality assurance was normally so mindless and repetitive that he had nothing but free time to think and theorize. His equations and words hung in the air as everyone raced to reach the underground shelters.

  “Mathematics isn’t just science, it is poetry—our efforts to crystallize the unglimpsed connections between things. Poetry that bridges and magnifies the mysteries of the galaxy. But the signs and symbols and equations sentients employ to express these connections are not discoveries but the teasing out of secrets that have always existed. All our theories belong to nature, not to us. As in music, every combination of notes and chords, every melody has already been played and sung, somewhere, by someone—”

  It was the second surface attack since he and Lyra and Jyn had arrived. Most of the conflicts were being settled out past Lokori’s moons, but Separatist drop ships had once again penetrated the Republic picket line and entered the atmosphere, releasing squadrons of reconfigurable vulture droid fighters. Fortunately the hypercomm production facility was protected by an energy shield provided by a massive but well-protected shield generator situated in the nearby hills, and the labyrinths of service corridors beneath the prosaic buildings were used as evacuation shelters for the entire western district of Fucallpa, including the mostly foreign neighborhood where the Ersos and many other HH employees were housed. In the midst of the earlier raid Galen had fortuitously run into Lyra and Jyn, and had passed a trembling couple of local hours with them until the all-clear had sounded.

  It was all the worse because of their growing fondness for Lokori—the sound of clippers and pruners at work on building façades substituting for the incessant sound of stone chisels Galen had heard on Vallt.

  He was in search of Lyra and Jyn again when the bombardment began in earnest. From the chatter in the tunnels he learned that the defensive umbrella was taking a thrashing. At a holo station he stopped to watch real-time 3-D video of squadrons of vultures and tri-fighters targeting the shield with concentrated fire in an attempt to overwhelm it, while closer to the hills Republic batteries were doing their best to prevent other fighters from reaching the shield generator itself. The sky was fractured by pulses of raw energy loosed by the reciprocating turrets of the big guns.

  Unsuccessful at finding Lyra, Galen retraced his steps through the maze to where he had separated from his co-workers.

  “Is there some equation that can put an end to all this, Dr. Erso?” one of the shaken insectoids asked.

  Galen set himself down on the floor to join him. “If sentient beings were moved by the same laws that govern nature, there might be. But as we’ve come to embody entropy, I don’t hold out much hope.”

  A second Lokori countered: “Surely the Jedi have unlocked the secrets of reversing chaos and will be able to outwit nature at its own game.”

  “The Force derives from nature,” Galen said somberly. “Against such chaos, even the Jedi are capable of accomplishing only so much.”

  JARRED FROM SLEEP BY THE clamorous chirps of his personal comlink, Krennic reached for the device in the dark, thumbed it active, and heard the equally strident voice of his adjutant.

  “Sir, we have a full-scale riot in the level-one enclosures,” Oyanta said.

  Krennic spit a curse through his barred teeth. “I thought we were done with this. What’s their issue now?”

  “We can’t figure out what started it. One moment it was business as usual, the next the drones were destroying all the work they’d completed.”

  “Destroying?”

  “All three months’ worth, sir. And they’re still on the warpath. Even the marines can’t contain them.”

  Krennic shot to his feet. “Meet me at the comm station. And raise Poggle’s ship. With any luck, you’ll be waking him up like you did me.”

  “I’m on it, sir.”

  Ordering the lights to come up, he threw some water on his face, stepped into his trousers, and hurried from his quarters.

  Incident-free months had gone by. The battle station’s parabolic focusing dish was nearing assembly, hull cladding had been added, interior spaces had been bulkheaded and made habitable. Living conditions for the drones had also improved, and every attempt had been made to limit overcrowding. Even the archduke had been especially accommodating—though when not relaying commands to his soldiers, he had confined himself aboard the shuttle with his private contingent of workers.

  And now this.

  Krennic was at a loss to explain how things had been thrown out of equilibrium. Had Separatist operatives infiltrated saboteurs into the workforce?

  His young aide was pacing in front of the unstaffed comm station when Krennic rushed in. Following a brisk salute, Oyanta gestured wildly to the console. “Sir, traffic control reports that the archduke’s shuttle has left orbit.”

  Krennic wasn’t sure he had heard him correctly. “Left orbit? When?”

  “About the time the riot began.”

  Krennic bent over the console to scan the monitors. He had assumed that the shuttle was bound for the surface; instead he saw that it was outbound from Geonosis. “Do you have him on the comm?” he barked over his shoulder.

  Oyanta gestured again. “Loud and clear.”

  Krennic enabled the holofeed and swung to the mike. “Where do you think you’re going, Archduke?” he asked in Geonosian.

  “I’m sorry to be leaving, Lieutenant Commander, but I have an important engagement.”

  “Whatever it is can wait, Poggle. Your workers are dismantling everything they put together.”

  The archduke feigned sympathy. “Try not to be too hard on them. They are simply following my orders.”

  Krennic’s thoughts raced. “Your orders? Have you lost your mind? Get your sorry carapace back here on the double.”

  Poggle stood tall in the holofeed, his wings slightly extended. “I required a diversion sufficient to occupy your security forces while I engineered my exit.”

  Krennic muted the audio and turned slightly toward Oyanta. “Comm the flotilla commander. Order him to draw a bead on Poggle’s ship.”

  Oyanta saw to it while Krennic disabled the mute. “What’s the nature of this important engagement? Who exactly are you meeting?”

  “My comrade, Count Dooku.”

  While Krennic was absorbing it, Oyanta said: “Captain Frist has the shuttle in target lock.”

  Krennic grinned for the holoca
m. “I’m going to give you an opportunity to turn around now and make things right, Poggle. Otherwise you’ll be in pieces before you clear the asteroid belts.”

  Poggle approximated a smile. “Ah, but thanks to your cordiality in providing me with a private retinue of drones, I have full confidence in my ship. You see, while my soldiers were helping you with the battle station, my drones were making significant modifications to the shuttle. I suggest you watch your displays, Lieutenant Commander Krennic.”

  “Order Frist to open fire,” Krennic said.

  While he was switching to an exterior view, he saw Oyanta’s mouth fall open.

  “What is it?”

  “Negative engagement, sir. The archduke’s shuttle has jumped to hyperspace.”

  —

  Galen and Roman Herbane were at it again.

  “I’m only suggesting that power could be diverted from the production plant to shore up the overtaxed shield generator,” Galen was saying. “That will allow us to enlarge the footprint of the defensive umbrella to encompass a greater part of the city itself—perhaps all the way from the western outskirts to Amboo Square and most of the historic center.”

  “I won’t even consider it,” Herbane said from behind his desk. “Diverting power will cripple production.”

  “You’re assuming that the facility will survive. More to the point, we owe it to the local population.”

  Herbane’s face wrinkled in derision. “I’ve heard word that your wife has all but adopted a couple of Lokori from your neighborhood.”

  “What of it?”

  “The locals have already been well compensated for allowing us to produce here,” Herbane said. “During the most recent election they were given the chance to vote to raise a shield that would have protected the entire city, and instead corrupt members of the administration decided to refurbish the town hall and their own offices. So don’t lecture me on what we owe them.”

  The air raid on Lokori had never really ended. Over the course of four local months it had waxed and waned. Day and night the skies above Fucallpa bore evidence of the hard-fought battle in near space. Where the planet had been reinforced by elements of the Bright Nebula Fleet, the Separatists had matched the Republic ship for ship.

  Time and again Fucallpa was rocked by flights of suicidal droid fighters, which had resulted in thousands of civilian casualties and the devastation of countless buildings.

  “A defoliated garden,” Lyra had lamented.

  She and Jyn had been relocated from Helical HyperCom housing to a safer area well inside the perimeter of the defensive dome, the homey surroundings to which they had just begun to accustom themselves exchanged for the sterile confines of a dormitory at the edge of the company’s now seldom-used landing field. Even without being able to airlift product, Herbane had demanded that work continue without interruption, so much so that the warehouses were beyond capacity and shipping containers were stacked all over the grounds.

  Rumors circulated of an imminent evacuation of all nonresident personnel at the first instance of a letup in the fighting, but pauses had been so few and far between as to render escape a greater risk than simply hunkering down and trusting that Republic forces would eventually prevail.

  Standing on the visitor’s side of Herbane’s desk, Galen adopted a more conciliatory tone. “Has Helical ordered you not to divert power, or is the decision yours to make?”

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, Erso.”

  “Tens of thousands of lives are at stake.”

  A massive explosion close by overwhelmed Herbane’s reply. The two of them watched from the window as black smoke coiled from the hills and the translucent shield doming the facility began to shimmer and fade.

  “The shield generator has been destroyed,” Galen said in a quiet voice. “We’re all vulnerable now, Roman.”

  Stricken, Herbane stared at him, seemingly unable to speak.

  In the hallway outside the office, Galen ran into one of his co-workers, who told him that the Republic picket line had been dealt a crippling blow. Landing craft had been scrambled to deliver Grand Army companies to the surface, but Separatist troops were already on the ground. Even now, a battalion of battle droids was marching on the city, annihilating everything in its path.

  Galen ran off in search of Lyra, whom he found moments later with a helmeted Jyn jammed into a back carrier and gazing over her mother’s shoulder. Lyra grabbed a large backpack by the straps and passed it to him.

  “The battle droids landed east and north of the city center,” she said in a rush. “That means our best option is to head south into the hills. With the shield generator destroyed, the Seps aren’t likely to care about that area. Jyn and I have walked most of the trails through the draws that access the ridge. It’s an easy climb, and once we’re over the top we can pick our way down into the basin on the far side. There’s plenty of good water and small game there, and places for shelter. We have enough food to last for two standard weeks—possibly longer if we economize. The rainy season won’t start for at least another three months, and by then Lokori will be retaken by the Republic. Or we could be forced to surrender to whoever’s in charge.”

  “Sounds like you’ve thought of everything,” Galen said.

  “You know better than to say that.”

  Galen shrugged into the heavy pack and they set out, snaking through the labyrinth of underground tunnels and gradually working their way up to the surface and into the streets that radiated out from the facility. Outside of what had been the defensive dome’s coverage the destruction was widespread and heartrending. Smoke billowed into a smudged sky, and distant explosions shook the ground. Thousands of Lokori crowded the streets, many of them similarly burdened with packs and supplies. And Lyra wasn’t alone in wanting to head for the hills.

  They hadn’t gone more than a kilometer when the river of refugees was forced to a sudden stop. Word from up ahead trickled back that a phalanx of battle droids was advancing from the west, and so the living stream shifted southeast.

  Panic began to mount.

  A trio of Republic landers raced overhead, taking heavy fire from hastily installed Separatist batteries. Galen watched as two of the ships sustained direct hits and were reduced to fiery debris, white-clad bodies plunging to the ground. Farther along, they came upon a squad of clone troopers deploying from a carrier that had managed to land.

  “There’s no exit in this direction,” one of them said, waving a gauntleted hand. “All of you need to fall back to the factory.”

  Lyra shook her head at Galen. “No way, right?

  “No way.”

  They swung south again, a handful of the insectoids accompanying them, skirting the line where other clone troopers were beginning to dig in and negotiating a clogged alleyway that opened onto a winding highway. They were running now, Galen winded, his legs burning, Jyn silent in the carrier and holding on for dear life. The sky was filled with tracer rounds, red pulses of energy, and blinding explosions. Soot and particles filled the air, and the day grew dark as the sun was eclipsed by smoke. Galen wrapped a moistened kerchief around Jyn’s face. The sound of repeating blasters came from their right.

  “Battle droids,” Galen said.

  They turned and ran, only to encounter another dozen of the bipedal monstrosities directly in front of them, marching in step with black blasters raised.

  They cut left and increased their pace, running flat-out and breathing hard. Lyra began trying the doors to storefronts they passed, but all were either locked or blocked by piles of organic debris.

  Battle droids appeared in front of them again, then behind as they swung around. Blasterfire whizzed through the air. Lokori left and right of them fell to the street.

  Protectively, Galen hugged Lyra from behind; Jyn whimpering, with her face pressed to her mother’s back.

  Lyra dug her booted feet into the base of a slippery debris pile and began to scamper for the top, where it looke
d as if they might be able to access the leafy roof of a conically shaped building. Galen followed, his work shoes churning in the organic fall, and by the time he caught up to Lyra she was shaking her head. The pile simply wasn’t high enough.

  They stood together at the base of a sheer wall four meters high without ledges or toeholds and with nowhere to go. Below, battle droids advanced from both ends of the street, killing the few Lokori that remained standing, painting the street green with their blood and joining forces at the bottom of the fall. Everyone Galen and Lyra had run with was on the ground, dead or wounded.

  Galen looked down to see one of the droids gaze up at them and communicate something to its brethren. The droids’ feet weren’t well suited to climbing mounds of organic rubble, but they tried nonetheless, and on realizing they were getting nowhere, they raised their weapons.

  Galen’s thoughts spiraled. Placing himself in front of Lyra and Jyn, he lifted his face to the darkened sky and screamed:

  “Is there no escape from this madness?”

  All at once, as if his voice alone had spawned a miracle, the droids began to power down.

  The entire city fell so unexpectedly silent that Galen was as discombobulated as he was comforted. “The central command computer,” he sputtered, his eyes leaking tears. “Republic forces took it out. That’s the only explanation.”

  Lyra pressed herself against his back while Jyn cried softly in the carrier. “I don’t even need an explanation.”

  What neither of them knew or could have known was that the war, so abruptly begun three years earlier, was just as suddenly over.

  FRESH FROM THE CORELLIAN SHIPYARDS, an Imperial Star Destroyer reverted to realspace a thousand kilometers out from the battle station. Because of whom it carried, the ship had been cleared to travel from the Core to Geonosis without having to be granted clearance at Sentinel Base, parsecs distant in another star system. Aboard was Emperor Palpatine, said to be recovering from wounds suffered during an engagement with disloyal Jedi. Traveling with the Emperor was a new addition to the court, a being known only as Darth Vader, masked and caped, clothed in head-to-toe black, and evidently feared by many. But Krennic had to wonder—Vader’s eccentric fashion sense notwithstanding—if he was really any more formidable than now Grand Vizier Mas Amedda.