Catalyst

by James Luceno

  The only sticking point to all this was the data he had collated regarding mining on the worlds Lyra had visited on the return leg of her journey to Alpinn. Contrary to what Galen had expected to learn, there was nothing ordinary about the ores known to exist in abundance on Samovar and Wadi Raffa. While they were occasionally used in construction projects, exfoliating doonium and dolovite were primarily employed to insulate the cores of immense hypermatter reactors and to dissipate heat in the collimator shafts of superlaser weapons.

  Galen pushed concern from his mind and riveted his gaze to the console’s TRANSMIT key.

  Would Lyra understand? Or would she accuse him of being so driven by a need to measure up to the challenge that he had not only abandoned caution and scientific discernment, but also dragged her and Jyn down with him? What would his legacy be then?

  Lyra might not see it as a noble lie so much as a grand betrayal.

  —

  Tarkin’s blunt-nosed shuttle dropped like a raptor into the clear skies of Epiphany’s exemplary moon. He sent his cadre of stormtroopers down the ramp ahead of him, then on descending found himself facing a Zerpen Industries representative backed by a uniformed security force several hundred strong arrayed in a formation as tight as might be expected of an Imperial battalion. Hopelessly outnumbered, as it were—except for the Executrix, which was ten thousand meters overhead with its complement of crew and soldiers at general quarters.

  “Welcome to Epiphany, Moff Tarkin,” the Zerpen rep stepped forward to say. He was a slender, hairless near-human dressed in tight-fitting purple clothing emblazoned with the company logo. “To what does Zerpen owe the honor of a visit by an emissary of the Empire?”

  Tarkin had no patience for mincing words. “You may well consider it an honor, but I suspect you’ll change your mind soon enough.”

  “I take it, then, that we’re dispensing with official protocol.”

  “Why waste time?” Tarkin said. “We are in pursuit of a group of insurgents who were admitted through your cordon and have apparently been given safe haven here.”

  “Yes, so you explained when your Star Destroyer entered orbit. But in fact, we only permitted your shuttle to land as a courtesy. No foreign ships prior to yours have arrived on our moon, and we have no knowledge of this group of insurgents you seek.”

  “I suggest you dispense with coyness as I have cordiality,” Tarkin said. “Do you think we would arrive without proof? We have the tracking data. We know precisely when and where the insurgents inserted.”

  The rep lengthened an already long face. “Your data must be incorrect, Moff Tarkin.” He indicated the landing field and the hangars and buildings beyond. “As you can see, the only ships here belong to Zerpen. You’re welcome, of course, to conduct a search of the hangar spaces, but you won’t find what you’re looking for. What’s more, I hope you will take it on faith that the autonomous worlds of Salient would never grant access to enemies of Emperor Palpatine.”

  “At least not since the war ended,” Tarkin said.

  “Ah, but wartime was another matter, Moff Tarkin. With the Republic and the Confederacy determined to vie for supremacy, our system was but a sanctuary for those who wanted no part of the fray.”

  “Except that Zerpen brooked no issue with building and supplying weapons to anyone who asked—to being equal-opportunity profiteers.”

  The near-human tilted his head to one side. “We prefer to think of ourselves as mere entrepreneurs.”

  Tarkin, who usually knew what it took to get beings to give up their secrets, could see that he wasn’t getting anywhere with the Zerpen rep. Even with a Star Destroyer overhead.

  “May I suggest an alternative explanation, Moff Tarkin?”

  “You can try.”

  The rep proffered a calculated smile. “The Empire is using these alleged insurgents as a pretext for executing some hidden agenda.”

  Tarkin almost returned the knowing grin. It seemed that he and the rep shared the same skills. He was about to respond when his adjutant appeared by his side with a comlink in hand. “Urgent from the Executrix, sir.”

  Tarkin moved out of earshot of the rep and enabled the feed.

  “Sir, the target ships have been identified and located. It appears that instead of landing, they completed an orbit of the moon and are now vectoring deeper into the system, all speed.”

  Tarkin took a moment to digest it. “Continue to track them, but do not fire. I’m returning to the ship.” Without a further word to the rep, he spun on his boot heels and marched up the shuttle ramp, trailed by his adjutant and contingent of stormtroopers.

  The shuttle extended its wings and began to ascend even before Tarkin was fully in his harness. It was clear that Zerpen had seen through the ruse, so perhaps they had denied the smugglers permission to land. But why then were Krennic’s dupes making for Salient II rather than outbound from the system? It also occurred to him that the smugglers might have been killed on arrival and had their ships pirated. He had no sympathy for the smugglers one way or another. They were going to be treated as insurgents to help make the case against Zerpen. But if Salient had been so bold as to pirate the weapons instead of surrendering them—

  “Sir, scanners indicate that Salient escorts from the checkpoint are en route to Epiphany,” the shuttle’s comm tech reported. “The ships are fast and heavily armed.”

  “Alert the Executrix to go to battle stations and reposition to protect us while we dock. If any of the escorts lock onto us, the commander has permission to destroy them.”

  He had barely gotten the words out when the tech continued: “The Executrix is receiving an incoming transmission from Salient Two Strategic Command.”

  Tarkin unfastened from the harness and moved to the communications board. “Have the Executrix redirect the comm to us.”

  He had to wait only a moment before the face of an avian humanoid appeared in the holo. “To whom am I speaking?” the Salient officer asked in a dulcet voice.

  Tarkin identified himself.

  “Moff Tarkin, you have been denied permission to remain in this system. Make no attempt to move your ship sunward.”

  “We are in pursuit of enemies of the Empire, General. I will make the determination as to where I can and cannot venture.”

  “We have the rogue ships on our scanners, Moff Tarkin, and we request that you allow us to deal with them,” the Hiitian said. “Unlike the Empire, Salient still has a functioning judiciary.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t suffice, General. Place them under arrest and we will see to the rest of it.”

  “You are violating the sovereignty of an autonomous star system. Withdraw from Salient or face the consequences.”

  Tarkin muted the feed and glanced at the enlisted-ratings tech. “Where are our quarries?”

  “Still on course for Salient Two, sir.”

  “Inform the Executrix that I expect a complete assessment of this system’s defenses the moment I arrive.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do we have hypercomm?”

  “We do, sir, although Zerpen is attempting to jam us.”

  “Then contact the battle group at Telos while we still can, and tell Admiral Utu that I want her to dispatch whatever assets she can spare to Salient soonest.”

  “Anything else, sir?”

  Tarkin nodded. “Inform the Executrix to prepare for a microjump to Salient Two on our docking.”

  —

  On Salient II the Hiitian officer who had spoken with Tarkin welcomed Has Obitt and his ragtag band of smugglers and mercenaries.

  “The Imperials have refused to withdraw, Captain Obitt—exactly as you predicted. They demand that we arrest all of you and turn you over to their custody.”

  “That wouldn’t be the worst idea…” Has started to say.

  “Yes, it would,” Saw broke in. “Because right now we’re the allies Salient needs most. Besides, you’ve nothing to gain by arresting us, beyond delaying the inevitable
. The Empire has Zerpen Industries and the rest of this system in its sights.”

  The Hiitian scrutinized him. “We are well aware, Captain Gerrera. Which is why Zerpen didn’t simply blow your ships out of the sky the moment you inserted—although some in our government urged us to do just that.”

  Has accepted it. “If the Empire can’t use us to make the case that you are harboring insurgents, it will find some other way to overpower you.”

  “Then why not simply invade?”

  Saw forced a breath. “The Emperor’s no fool. He’s waiting to see if any of the local systems of the Corporate Sector come to your aid. Maybe he doesn’t want to be seen as instigating another galactic conflict so soon after the last one.”

  The Hiitian nodded in agreement. “The word is already out, and we’re expecting reinforcements from far afield.”

  “If you have a chance to fight, you take it,” Saw said. “That’s what we did on my homeworld when the Separatists took control.”

  The humanoid looked at him. “Were you victorious?”

  “Eventually,” Saw said. “But we paid a price—a terrible price.”

  Has and the Hiitian traded looks. This was Has’s first face-to-face with Salient’s commander, but they had communicated by holo shortly after Krennic had selected Salient as the Empire’s next target.

  Long before the war, the star system had become a headquarters for unsavory corporations, tax evaders, pirates, and arms merchants. Colonized by many of the species that had ultimately joined or sided with the Separatists, the system had been the site of incidents and skirmishes during the Republic era, and the confrontations had grown only worse in the lead-up to the war. Given the Empire’s attitude toward autonomous systems, it was surprising that Salient had managed to remain independent for as long as it had, since absorbing it would net the Empire not only Zerpen Industries, but also a systemful of reprobate conglomerates loyal only to themselves. More, Salient would become the staging area for incursions deeper into a sector of the Outer Rim that was slowly coalescing into an entity all its own.

  Has had considered rejecting Krennic’s offer, but doing so would have meant running the risk of suffering an industrial accident of the sort that had eliminated Matese, or flight of a sort that would have left him looking over his shoulder for the rest of his days. Instead he had opted to make a show of playing along, when he had actually been busy informing Salient’s leadership of the Empire’s plan.

  “I still don’t understand your stake in this,” the Hiitian general told the two of them, his gaze favoring Has. “You said yourself that even without justification the Empire will find a way to rationalize its actions here. So why not simply light out for as far as your hyperdrive can take you?”

  Has wasn’t about to confess to having been Orson Krennic’s useful idiot, or to the effect that Lyra, Nari, and Jyn had had on him. Since Alpinn he had been rethinking the events that had brought him to a point in his life where he was answering to people like Krennic, and all he wanted now was a chance to make things right.

  “What hope is there for freelancers like myself if the Empire is determined to vanquish every independent system?” he said. Glancing at Saw, Molo, and Yalli, he added: “All of us will end up Imperial employees, imprisoned, or dead.”

  Saw clapped him hard on the back. “That’s the spirit, Has. But there’s more to it than that. To the Empire we’re nothing more than clots of dirt they’d kick from their boots. Even Salient is nothing more than a trial run. Not when the goal is subjugation on a galactic scale. And that’s where we come in, even if it’s just to rattle them some: to rebel against injustice.”

  Has heard him out. Like Lyra Erso, Saw was another glaring example of what he might have been. But then, allies and partners often came along when you least expected them.

  “I stand with Captain Gerrera on that,” he found himself saying.

  The Hiitian general returned a glum nod. “I’ll tell you this much: Salient has vowed to keep its resources from being used as grist for the Emperor’s voracious war machine. We’d sooner see our worlds reduced to ash than be swallowed up by the Empire.”

  Saw appraised him sadly. “Those eventualities aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  The Hiitian nodded. “We’ll defend ourselves until we’re unable to.”

  “Even if it’s not a fight you’re likely to win?” Has asked.

  “Even if.”

  Has said, “Another option would be to let the Empire have what it wants.”

  “Not an option,” Saw said with force.

  The Hiitian agreed. “Occupation? Captain Obitt, you’ve obviously visited worlds that have chosen that route. How is life there?”

  Has smiled in solidarity. “I’d rather fight.” Again he glanced at Saw and his fellow smugglers. “That’s why all of us are here.”

  The humanoid flexed his feathered back. “What we fail to protect, Captain, we will leave in ruins.”

  —

  The Star Destroyer that Krennic had requisitioned for use by his Special Weapons Group dropped out of hyperspace far from any known space lanes or jump points. No navigation buoys took note of its arrival, and there were no local HoloNet relays to provide easy communication with Coruscant or Geonosis or any other world.

  In the middle ground of a perilous expanse of deep space, two collapsed stars were attempting to devour each other, the mated fields of their accretion disks resembling a mask, the black holes as cutouts for eyes. Warped by gravitational lensing, realspace swirled, making the nearby starfields appear to be rotating, dragged around the edges of the mask by unseen forces.

  From the Star Destroyer’s bridge, Krennic, Professor Sahali, Reeva Demesne, and other team members observed the dance of darkness in silence, the inspiraling energy prompted by supernova explosions.

  Mas Amedda had wanted them to test-fire the experimental weapon closer to the Core, closer to home, but Krennic didn’t want to chance a repeat of what had happened on Malpaz—even though the kyber-crystal-assisted twin laser array had been carefully assembled and calibrated, and a misfire would likely mean going down with the ship.

  “The Emperor doesn’t want this,” Krennic said, gesturing out the viewport toward the lasers. “You remember the former Palpatine. He resisted every attempt by the Senate to create an army, much less the push to wage war with the Separatists. But times have changed. Those he relies on for advice and guidance have proposed a revolution in military affairs, and it has fallen to us to lead the charge.”

  Krennic moved away from the viewport. “You look at the history of any sentient species and what do you find but tableaux of violence and slaughter. It’s finger-painted on the ceilings of caves and engraved into the walls of temples. Dig a hole deep enough on any world and you’ll find the skulls and bones of adults and children fractured by crude weapons. All of us were fighting long before we were farming and raising livestock.”

  He held up a hand before anyone could voice an objection. “All of you are exceedingly well educated, and you’re going to start rattling off the names of species and societies where that isn’t the case. And my answer is that those aren’t the beings or the star systems we need to worry about. It’s the rest of them. Violence is hardwired into most of us and there’s no eliminating the impulse—not with an army of stormtroopers or a fleet of Star Destroyers. That’s why we’ve embarked on a path to a different solution. We have a chance to forge a peace that will endure for longer than the Republic was in existence.”

  “Peace through fear,” Reeva said.

  “Yes,” Krennic told her, and let it go at that.

  By rights it should have been Sahali who gave the countdown, but the scientist allowed Krennic to have the privilege, since he had been responsible for netting Galen Erso at last.

  As Krennic counted down, everyone turned from the view of the internecine black holes to gaze at monitor screens, on which computers would depict what their eyes and optical sensors would be unable to per
ceive. Elsewhere, other computers and monitors would measure the discharged energy and compare the results with Galen’s calculations.

  When Krennic reached “one,” Sahali called for simultaneous ignition.

  Computer modeling showed the lasers’ twin collimating beams racing away from the Star Destroyer. Then, captured by gravity, the beams become one, changing vector and accelerating beyond lightspeed as it disappeared into the mask’s churning accretion envelope.

  Krennic watched the monitor in naked awe, wishing there was some way he could screen the results for Galen without sending him into cardiac arrest or fleeing for the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

  His legacy, in any case, his contribution to the greatest weapon ever constructed, was now assured.

  IN A COMMAND PIT BELOW the Star Destroyer’s bridge, Tarkin viewed the data compiled by the ship’s battle-assessment computers. In a move that was unusually cautious for him, he had ordered the Executrix to exit its microjump well out of range of Salient II’s downside and orbital defenses. The smugglers’ ships were known to have landed, but Tarkin had yet to learn whether the pilots and their crews had been arrested or given sanctuary.

  “The planet has several massive shield generators, as well as ion cannons left over from the war,” Tarkin’s XO was saying. “It also has a couple of Zerpen-built turbolaser batteries capable of putting our deflector screens to the test.”

  Tarkin pinched his jaw as he mulled over the news. “Did the smugglers deliver any ordnance we need to take into consideration?”

  The commander swung to a separate holo to access the information. “According to a report received from Lieutenant Commander Krennic, the smugglers’ payloads consisted of pulse weapons and fission devices.”

  “And Salient One’s fortifications?”

  “Not as well defended on the surface, but home to the system’s flotilla of warships, most of which are older-generation vessels retrofitted with Separatist weaponry—consistent with Salient’s leaning during the war. Long-distance scans indicate that three ships separated from the home group and are presumably on their way to reinforce Salient Two. Hyperspace fluctuations suggest that they may have already taken up positions on the far side.”