by James Luceno
“You’d think there’d be more opportunities now that the Seps are history,” the lighter-complected of the pair of humans was saying.
“The war starts to feel like a golden age,” the other said, a bald and broad-shouldered Coruscanti named Ribert, “even with all the jumping around we had to do.”
“One mess to another,” Yalli remarked, carved wooded rings adorning each of his nine head tresses.
Ribert nodded. “It’s like no one cares about bargains anymore.”
“That’s not it,” his human cohort argued. “The work’s out there. There just aren’t enough jobs to go around.”
“No wonder things have gotten so competitive,” Has said.
Yalli looked at him. “I hear that meiloorun fruit is all the range in the Sluis sector. What about we divert some of the supplies to make them even harder to get?”
Has flashed him a dubious, drunken look. “Create a black market, you mean.”
“Only for starters,” the dark-eyed amphibian continued. “Once the growers start feeling the pinch, we levy a tax on them for every kilo of fruit they grow and ship, and we cut back on having to divert the shipments. You know, diversify.”
Ribert scowled. “I don’t know. Sounds like a lot of effort.”
“And really: fruit?” his tall shipmate said.
Has forced a bored exhalation. “I am so sick of this song,” he said as the Twi’lek band launched into another cover. “It follows me around like a hungry nerf.”
“Maybe you should start your own band,” Yalli said.
Has smirked. “Couldn’t make any fewer credits than we’re making now.”
“You obviously don’t know bands,” Ribert said.
Colleagues and competitors from the old days, they had been drinking all afternoon, drawn together by misery. At the bar, a four-armed humanoid prepared drinks for smugglers sporting turbans, headcloths, loose-fitting outfits, and fancy knives, while around them males and females in seductive attire plied their trades and worked their magic to keep the alcohol flowing. For several standard weeks now, Has had had his eye on a stunning Dressellian barmaid named Woana, who would answer his sidelong glances with an unnerving smile that seemed to say: You’re welcome to try, Has, but be prepared to be shot down in flames.
Despite the plunge in business, he considered himself lucky to have survived the war. Even after the abduction and rescue op with Orson Krennic had made him unwelcome in Separatist space, he had managed to stay busy. Arrested on Celanon for blockade running, he had been bailed out by the Republic. He had had two freighters shot out from under him, but with Krennic’s help had been able to purchase replacements at cost. He lost one crew, gained another; narrowly missed the invasion of Saleucami only to end up smack in the middle of the sneak attack on Roche. The end of the war had found him in Sy Myrthian space doing scut work for a local Hutt. And then the bottom just seemed to fall out, and he had barely worked since. While he had faith in the new galactic order, he made it a point to steer as clear of Imperial confrontations as he did idealistic causes of any sort. Now he mostly operated as a middleman, moving goods between sellers and buyers and making do with meager profits. Then, at his lowest point, who should he hear from but—
Sudden commotion brought him out of self-pity.
Two drunks were arguing either over a temporary companion or a drink—though probably the latter. Both had drawn curving knives from their cummerbunds but were too tipsy to wield them with any precision. Patrons were holding each of them back, more worried about being stabbed by mistake than concerned about the lives of the would-be combatants.
If nothing else, the fight had brought the music to a halt.
“At least some things never change,” Has told his companions.
“Yeah, they do,” the bald human said.
Yalli gestured. “Watch what happens next.”
Has followed the Nautolan’s gaze to the front door in time to see two Imperial stormtroopers enter. Advancing on the knife-wielders, they collared each and began to haul them out, to loud booing and colorful curses from the rest of the room.
“Since when’s a fight a reason to arrest anyone?” Has said.
“Since the Emperor’s given the clones new marching orders,” Ribert told him.
“There was a time clone troopers would have started the trouble.” Has shook his head. “I mean, it’s one thing for the Empire to shut down smuggling routes, but fights?”
The Twi’lek musicians took up where they had left off.
Has had his glass raised to his lips when Yalli said: “I think your guy just walked in.”
Has glanced at the door again, recognizing the new arrival immediately, even out of uniform. “That’s him all right.”
“Remember to keep us in mind,” Yalli added as Has was getting to his feet.
Wobbling somewhat, he eased his way through the crowd to where the Wanton Wellspring’s latest patron had taken a seat at a corner table even farther from the band, which Has took as a good sign.
“I hate this song,” his contact said as he approached.
Another good sign? Has thought. He grinned faintly and sat.
He hadn’t seen Matese since the ops on Merj and Vallt, and seeing him now brought back memories of the human family—the Ersos—he had helped spirit off the latter world. A research scientist who had wanted no part of the war on either side, his feisty wife, and an infant, Has recalled, wondering what might have become of them. Matese still looked like the ranger he’d been then, except for scars that weren’t there two standard years earlier, what had to be skin grafts on the right side of his face and neck, and a patch over his right eye.
“You’re a hard one to track down, Has.”
“Yes, but you found me anyway.”
Matese hailed a server. “Buy you a drink?”
Has hoisted his half-full glass. “Still some left.” Better not to add to his bleariness, he decided. Not around Matese, anyway.
Matese ordered a double shot and made himself comfortable. “You look good, Has, all things considered.”
“You, too.”
Matese touched the eye patch. “Lost it on Cato Neimoidia. Just waiting for Veterans Services to cover the cost of an implant.”
“You decided not to make it a career?”
Matese shook his head. “Maybe if I’d been regular navy. If I’d stayed in, I’d probably be wearing white plastoid now like some of the academy recruits.”
“Have you…heard from our former commander?”
Matese studied him. “You mean Krennic?”
Has nodded, wary despite his attempts to hide it.
“Not a peep. I did hear that he made it through the war in one piece. As far as I know he’s still with the Corps of Engineers. A builder.”
“No contact with him?” Has pressed.
“Not in years. What about you?”
“Maybe six months before the war ended I got word that he was looking for me, so I made myself scarce.”
“Probably for the best.”
“That’s what I thought.” Has relaxed somewhat. “I was just wondering if your reaching out to me was payback from Krennic for services rendered back when.”
“Payback?” Matese laughed. “Why would he?”
“Well, he did get me out of jail and help me find two replacement ships, but you’re right, why would he?” Has raised his glass in a toast when Matese’s arrived. “To Veterans Services.”
“To payback,” Matese said. He killed the drink in a long gulp and set the glass aside. “How’s peace treating you?”
Has’s shoulders drooped. “I’m not making what I made during the war.”
“Then I may have the remedy for what’s ailing you.”
Has leaned away from the table. “No harm in hearing you out,” he said, certain it was the drink talking.
Matese lowered his voice. “I’m working in one of the depots where Separatist arms are being warehoused.”
Has�
�s surprise was genuine. “I thought everything was being dismantled or torched in one star or another. What does anyone need with battle droids when the Empire has Star Destroyers?”
“Not everything is being melted down. I haven’t a clue why some of the stuff is being kept, but it is, and no one’s checking on it or cataloging it, and it’s my guess it’ll never get looked at again.”
“Okay,” Has said slowly and with caution.
“So it’s all for sale.”
Has gave his head a baffled shake. “Rumor has it the war’s over.”
Matese ridiculed the idea with a snort. “The war’s on pause, Has, and there are groups eager for this stuff so they can be ready when it starts up again.”
“That’s the remedy—arms-smuggling?” A plosive laugh escaped Has’s full lips. “Before you came in, I watched two stormtroopers drag two guys out of here for fighting.”
“You won’t need to worry about Imperials. It’s all cleared.”
Has studied the former ranger. “How is it all cleared, Matese?”
“The people I work with have a line on everything—patrols, choke points, inspections. Up and down the line everyone gets a fair share of the profits to make sure no one gets caught. All you’d be required to do is make some deliveries.”
Has pushed his drink away from him. “I might not be as desperate as I look.”
“Sure you are.”
“Been checking into my credit reports?”
“Maybe you think you’d do better throwing in with the Hutts or the Crymorah.”
Has shook his head. Matese had him all wrong. “Actually, I’m thinking about starting a band.”
Matese didn’t bite. “Look, all I can tell you is that these ops are a piece of cake. One way or another this stuff is going to end up on the black market or scooped up by criminal cartels. So why not get in on this before that happens?”
Has couldn’t resist considering it. “You’re talking about moving, what, battle droids, proton torpedoes, ion cannons? My ship’s not large enough to carry payloads like that.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself. Anyway, we can set you up with a suitable ship if it comes to that. You simply see to the transfers.”
“So you want a pilot.”
“You’re not getting it,” Matese said, sounding frustrated. “After a couple of runs I give you a price list. Then you negotiate your own deals with whoever you want. You choose your own crew, your own vessel. You just have to let me know the destination and route so I can get you cleared along the way.” Matese nodded toward the table where Has’s three companions were still nursing their drinks. “I’ll bet your buddies could use the work.”
“It’s not a question of needing work,” Has said. “It’s about staying out of prison.”
Matese appraised him openly. “So what are you gonna do—find a new profession? Live the life of some downsider who gets excited about seeing an eclipse? Try a run on for size. If it’s not for you, you take your profits and get out.” He laughed shortly. “Start that band of yours.”
CORUSCANT WAS MOST FREQUENTLY DESCRIBED as a city-world—an ecumenopolis—and while it was true that the fully urbanized eastern hemisphere buildings touched the sky, creating chasms thousands of meters deep, there was an area in the western hemisphere halfway between the pole and the equator where one could still stand on the planet’s undisturbed surface; an area where climate control had yet to overrule nature, where the sky wasn’t scrubbed clean and storms weren’t scheduled or regulated. Originally a stretch of privately owned grassland left undeveloped because of complicated legalities, the area had ultimately been acquired by the former Republic to serve as a sanctuary for a small group of ruminant sentients known as the B’ankora, whose planet had suffered a cataclysmic collision with a meteor. The arrangement had not been designed to be permanent, but in the waning years of the former Republic a benevolent supreme chancellor named Chasen Piian had granted the land in perpetuity to the sole surviving members of the species, and the sanctuary had gradually come to be known as the B’ankor Refuge.
As that region of Coruscant grew up around the refuge, construction droids excavated a rectangle of 5.1 square kilometers down to bedrock, raised two artificial hills, installed a couple of small lakes, brought in soil fertile enough to support copses of shade trees and flowering shrubs, then moved the B’ankora back in so that they could resume their sedentary way of life. As the surrounding monads grew taller and taller, the refuge came to resemble a sunken zoo, but the B’ankora never grumbled about being literally looked down on from all directions.
An Imperial edict enacted immediately after the end of the Clone Wars citing archaic laws of eminent domain removed the ten thousand pure descendants of the original group, not just from the refuge or Coruscant, but from the Core itself, relocating them to similar territory on a dying world in the Mid Rim. The B’ankora’s humble structures had been razed, their fields paved over. Most surface trails were erased, and air control stations and surveillance towers erected. A landing field was carved into a stand of towering buildings nearby to facilitate the arrival and departure of researchers and material, and from which starfighters could be scrambled at a moment’s notice to enforce no-fly regulations. Much to the aggravation and protest of those Coruscanti who had used the refuge as a recreation area, the recessed rectangle was sealed off to public use. Now the only beings allowed access had been thoroughly vetted by COMPNOR—the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order—and similar Imperial agencies. On their tunics they wore insignia squares not unlike those worn by members of the Imperial military, providing coded information to security cams and defining the limits of where the wearer could venture.
The repressive security measures struck Galen as exaggerated and unnecessary, even though they had been sold to him and his co-workers as critical to guarding against industrial espionage by rival energy concerns. For him the measures sprang from residual distrust generated during the war years.
Yet another example of the price of peace.
Excepting the security measures, the facility itself was like something out of a dream—one of his own, in fact. The main building was a colossal multilevel cube reminiscent of Helical HyperCom’s plant on Lokori; the difference being that the roof of the Project Celestial Power complex was level with the top of the high wall that enclosed the refuge, on all sides of which rose buildings a thousand meters high. Supplies and materials arriving at the nearby landing field were conveyed by airspeeders to much smaller landing zones on the roof, and from those lowered into the facility by means of voluminous turbolifts. The upper levels were mostly reserved for warehousing, while the lower and new sub-bedrock levels were devoted to maintenance rooms, power stations, laser installations, research-and-development centers, laboratories, libraries, and living spaces for a staff of more than twenty-five hundred mixed-species beings.
Both the roof and the expansive front entrance, which was reserved for guests arriving at a secondary landing zone on the grounds, bore the Imperial company logo, which was a bold black circle featuring a smaller circle centered in what could be considered the upper hemisphere.
The symbol notwithstanding, the project had been downplayed in the media. The relocation of the B’ankora and the subsequent construction had received scrutiny early on, but most Coruscanti gradually came to accept that the refuge was now headquarters for an energy research center dedicated to providing renewable power.
Galen had been treated like a luminary when he visited the facility before construction had been completed. Uncomfortable with the attention, he made it known that he didn’t want special treatment. He would dress like everyone else, eat in the same commissaries, and his door would be open to anyone with problems or suggestions—even though he had a personal staff dedicated to dealing with employee issues and problem solving. He was required to answer to a six-member board of directors who reported directly to the Emperor’s advisory committee. His quarters included
an office equipped with a separate library, computer room, and communications suite, linked by turbolift to an elevated residence that had been built expressly for the Ersos, although they had decided to keep their apartment in the Central District as well, if only as a getaway for Lyra and Jyn.
Almost ten standard months to the day of the meeting with Krennic on Kanzi, the facility had had its official opening, attended by political dignitaries and others. Tours had been given, food and drink had been served, speeches had been delivered. Now all that was behind Galen and he had arrived at the refuge, clean shaven and prepped for his initial day of actual work.
Newly delivered to the research lab was the largest kyber crystal he had ever seen.
Suspended from gantries as it was being moved to a huge antigrav platform, the translucent euhedral was the size of a small dwelling, and beyond his wildest imaginings. Gazing up at it while it was being moved, he couldn’t determine whether it was in its natural state or had been shaped and polished by unknown tools and hands.
Several of Galen’s fellow researchers—all of whom were new to him and clearly as mesmerized as he was—were following the crystal’s route through the cavernous room. He had expected to be working with at least a few of his old friends, but, surprisingly, many of the institute crew hadn’t returned to Coruscant after the war. Orson had said that some were indeed working for Project Celestial Power, but on diverse worlds where additional research was being done and other facilities were being built. As far as Galen could tell, Orson’s role was to oversee the construction of those far-flung installations in accordance with Galen’s discoveries.
Like him, his co-workers weren’t sure what to make of the giant crystal.
“The faces reveal no evidence of tooling,” one of them said, a Gotal with a muzzled face resembling a flower blossom and a pair of thick cranial horns capped with vibration-dampening cozies. “If you look closely, the matrix appears to be in flux—almost like organelles in a living cell.”