by Kevin Hearne
I supposed it wasn’t, so I shook my head. The vital question would be how to escape.
“Intercepted transmissions indicate they are inspecting all ships leaving the system, looking at passengers and crew only, not cargo.”
“That’s disappointing. I guess we could try to hide you in some cargo,” I ventured.
“That won’t work. They are using life-form scanners.”
“I can’t believe the Kupohans are putting up with that,” Nakari said.
“They are protesting, to be sure, and are demanding the immediate departure of Imperial ships, but the Empire is stalling them for now. Their story is that they are looking for certain criminals only and have no other interest in Kupohan affairs. So far that seems to be true. They are not holding anyone, just inspecting and then having their Interdictors turn off their gravity projectors at intervals to allow cleared ships to leave. All incoming ships are left unmolested. Since the net result is an inconvenience only to outbound ships and it is in pursuit of ‘criminals,’ the Kupohans have little cause to push the Empire too hard—especially when the appearance of rebellion would bring an even larger force in system.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said, not knowing what else to say. This would require some thought.
“I was not finished,” Drusil replied. “I have a recommended course of action.”
“Oh, sorry. Go ahead.”
“Our best options for achieving our goal rest in taking two steps: One, abandon the Desert Jewel and secure alternative transport offplanet. The Jewel is too recognizable now, and we would attract attention as soon as we left the hangar. However, a repaired ship can be traded or sold for another. Two, forge an entirely new hyperspace lane between here and Omereth—one that the Empire cannot possibly be blocking.”
“Can we even do that?” Nakari asked. I was surprised she hadn’t immediately vetoed the idea of abandoning her ship.
“Yeah, I’ve done it before,” I said. “With the Jewel, in fact. It was just a short trip to throw off any pursuit as I was returning to the rebel fleet, but Artoo is brilliant that way. How long a jump are you proposing, Drusil?”
“I am in favor of executing several short jumps until we are well outside the Empire’s probable containment. Then we can use a safer, well-established route to get to Omereth.”
A few days earlier I would have questioned Drusil’s suggestion as a genuine one, but despite many opportunities to betray us—especially here on Kupoh—she had never taken advantage. Her assistance in keeping our presence here a secret had been invaluable, in fact. I was willing to believe now that she just wanted to reunite with her family on Omereth. And aside from that, I just felt that she was telling the truth; whether that was attributable to my Force sensitivity or not, I didn’t know.
“What about the Interdictors in this system?” Nakari pressed. “Aren’t those gravity projectors going to keep us here?”
“They would keep us from using any established lane out of here,” the Givin replied, “but of course we will not be using any of them. We will be exiting the system in another direction, where their simulated mass will not hinder our hyperdrive. May I show you?”
“Please do,” I said. I cast an uncertain glance at the surface of the dining table. It was decorated with brown caf rings and assorted sandwich crumbs, which we didn’t notice when we were going to add to it, but looked mildly horrifying if you wanted to place anything valuable on top of it. Drusil didn’t care, though; she approached the table and put down her datapad so that we could see it easily without peering over her shoulder. It displayed a map of the system that had been marked with glowing yellow dots and blue circles around them as if they identified orbits.
“The Empire’s Interdictors are blocking egress here, here, and here.” She pointed with a pale finger to the three yellow dots. “I have indicated the mass shadows of their gravity projectors with blue lines. So to escape, we must plot a course out of the system in between those mass shadows and travel a goodly distance offplanet before the hyperdrive can engage. And you see that there are several options available to us—but our interest would be to move to the galactic east, correct?”
“Yes,” I admitted, “but there’s almost nothing mapped out in that direction.”
“Precisely why they won’t consider it a possible avenue of escape.”
“You’re right, nobody would consider it, including me. I’m all for the element of surprise, don’t get me wrong, but what are you using for a navigation point? Not Gamorr, right? Because there’s an entire sector of space between here and there, and that sector is largely unexplored. There might be uncharted brown dwarfs or planets or any number of things we could run into if you just pick a direction and go.”
“Ah. One moment.” Drusil dismissed the system map and called up a second one, which was a much larger view of several sectors, except that it had math symbols written all over it. “We will use this star here.” She pointed to an equation below and left of center, and I failed to see any indication of a star. The marks looked indistinguishable from any other set of scribbles on the map. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“I’m sorry, which star again? You pointed to an equation.”
“That’s the star.”
“I … what?”
“Unexplored space does not equate to unobserved space. An analysis of the movements of other stars around it prove that it must be there. No one has viewed it yet except through the lens of mathematics, but such a lens is frequently better than mere glass.”
Nakari and I exchanged a glance with widened eyes, each wondering if the other had heard the same thing. “Except that I can reach out with my hand and verify that the glass is there!” I said.
“Your senses can be fooled. Math and physics do not lie.”
“No, no. I’m not suggesting that you did the math incorrectly. I’m wondering how you can be sure that you’ve considered everything or didn’t accidentally miss a variable. Your senses can be fooled as well, right? How do you know you’ve accounted for everything?”
“I cannot be a hundred percent certain, of course, but I am confident that I have extrapolated correctly based on the stars we do know about.”
“Well, on the positive side, the Empire certainly won’t be looking there,” Nakari said. “On the negative side, if you’re wrong we’ll most likely be dead.”
“It’s a pretty big risk, Drusil,” I said.
“It is far less risky than remaining here for an extended period. How long can we expect to remain hidden and unreported to the Empire—and to keep Migg Birkhit and Barrisk Favvin in captivity? The variables are too numerous to consider, except for the significant pressure the Empire will put on the Kupohans to surrender us.” Her eyes flicked over to the Jewel, where Ruuf Waluuk and the Wookiee continued to work in our absence. She lowered her voice, even though we were supposedly wearing soundproof helmets, and continued, “Even if Azzur does not betray us, one of those other crew members will. You have already seen how unreliable they are. This astrogation, however, is based on quantifiable and verifiable data. I can walk you through the math if you wish.”
“No, that’s okay, I believe you,” I said. “It just seems like we’re jumping blind.”
“Propose an alternative method by which we may escape this planet and make it to Omereth before my family gives up hope and departs.”
“Give me some time to think about it.”
“How many units of time?”
“Until the repairs to the Desert Jewel are finished. I know that’s nonspecific, but at least it’s a deadline.”
“Will we not take another ship?”
“I wouldn’t want to take another ship than the Jewel. Even as patchwork as she looks now, we’re not going to find another one like her, and we need every advantage we can get.” Nakari gave a thumbs-up to indicate her agreement.
“What advantages are necessary?” Drusil asked. “Once we go around the Imperial forces and make it to
the Omereth system, we should have no trouble. The Imperials are spread too thin to watch everything.”
That didn’t sound like her. She should have rattled off a statistical probability of precisely how thin the Imperial fleet would be at any given point in the galaxy. But I think her desperation to get offplanet and reunite with her family was clouding her usual clear thought. “Stakes being what they are, they might have pursued your family,” I said. We still hadn’t heard anything from the Alliance regarding that part of the mission. “There’s no knowing if Major Derlin got them there or not, and if he did, whether he did so without detection. If he was followed, we could have some bounty hunters watching the planet, waiting for you to show up, all with their own custom ships. The Empire might even be there. We don’t want to be in a standard slow bird in a situation like that.”
“Can we not contact the Alliance, then, and enlist some more robust assistance?”
“I’ve already tried that, too,” I admitted. “Aside from using the dead drop, I asked Azzur to get a message through to the Alliance, requesting more help. They’re probably lying low right now with the Empire here in such numbers.”
The Givin’s tone turned morose. “Under such circumstances as these, that would be a delay of indeterminate length with no guarantee of aid.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Using crisp movements, Drusil cleared the maps from her datapad and made a conscious effort to ameliorate her tone. “Barring unforeseen complications, then, we shall forge a new path through the silence,” she said, “but in the Jewel.”
“Yes,” I said. Work had proceeded even faster than anticipated, and I thought that we could technically get the Desert Jewel ready to fly by that evening, but I didn’t want to try managing such a journey without a good night’s rest first. We’d have hazards enough without compounding them with a logy pilot. “We’re going to put in a new transponder identifying us as one of Nessin’s couriers, and we should be able to leave tomorrow.” When I tried to nod for emphasis, I smooshed my nose against the inside of the helmet, and it hurt because even that tiny impact reminded me of the blow I had taken from Favvin. Nakari seemed to find my pained reaction endlessly entertaining.
DRUSIL NEARLY QUIVERED with eagerness as she watched us eat our breakfast in the morning. We still didn’t feel comfortable eating in the hotel buffet area where anyone could spot us but we were sick of our rooms, so we had brought our breakfast to the relative privacy of the staff kitchen area in Nessin’s hangar. It was gloppy and half-cold; we’d ordered some for our captives in the hotel, immobilized them completely and gagged them after they’d finished, and then brought our own meals down to eat by the ship. Claiming that she had no need of sustenance at the moment, Drusil stared at us as we ate, most likely willing us to chew faster and idly computing how long it would take us to finish at our current rate of consumption. What had been a pleasant interlude for me and Nakari had been a festival of impatience for her.
“Please let me know if there is anything I can do to speed our journey,” she said, and uttered two similar statements to that effect as we shoveled eggs in our mouths and poured caf down our gullets. Even though we were wolfing it down as fast as we could, Drusil appeared ready to inject us with a nutrient solution and pronounce us able to fly. To take her mind off the fact that we weren’t currently on our way to Omereth, I asked her a question.
“Is there a chance you could slice through Imperial comm traffic and let us know if any of them are interested in us as we leave the atmosphere?”
“Certainly. Are you planning to head directly to the galactic east as discussed?”
I’d made more detailed plans with Nakari earlier, but Drusil had been absent for that discussion. “No, I thought we’d behave like a law-abiding courier ship at first, angling toward one of the Interdictor choke points, and then turn sharply spinward and move at top speed to get to jump range before they can redirect their gravity projectors to stop us. That’ll take them a few minutes, and we should be able to outrun the Imperial decision-making process. After that it’s up to you and Artoo to get us safely to Omereth.”
“That shall be as trouble-free as quadratic equations,” Drusil assured me. “I have rechecked my math twice, and your remarkable droid has checked it thrice.” It amused me that Artoo was now remarkable where earlier he had performed only adequately. “We can program the first jump into the nav computer as soon as we leave the surface, and a few moments of recalibration and safety checks at the end of each jump will allow us to make the others shortly afterward.”
“Good. Do that, and as soon as you finish—before we escape the atmosphere—I want you and Artoo both to check the system and the ship for any spyware or tracers that the Kupohans may have placed on the Jewel. And don’t forget to program a call to the hotel checking us out just before we jump to hyperspace. The cleaning staff will find Migg and Barrisk and they can go on with their lives, and we can go on with ours.”
Nakari nodded. “I’ll go get the preflight started and then I’ll go over the hull, as well.” She chugged the last of her caf and rose from the table. “Better get started.”
“I’ll help,” Drusil said, and the two of them left together, with Nakari dropping a “Hurry up, pilot!” to me in a perfect imitation of her father.
I looked at Artoo, whose cam eye swiveled from their retreating forms to my face. “I guess chewing your food is overrated, huh?” It was the wrong thing to say to a droid. His eye rotated back to Nakari and Drusil and his body followed, a few beeps chiding me for being a slowpoke. With the three of them headed to the Desert Jewel and the pressure off, I took my time finishing my breakfast and clearing off the table.
Azzur Nessin found me by the sink while I was recycling my plate, partly to wish us a safe journey but primarily to give me one last update. “After some thought, I changed the transponder signal to the fleet code of a competitor last night,” he said. “They’re called Polser Couriers. The story you’ll tell the Empire as you leave the planet remains the same: You’re still bearing important diplomatic pouches to Rishi. But once you turn and run, the Imperials might inquire afterward why a courier would behave so strangely and jump into nothingness. I’d prefer not to answer such questions.”
I shook his hand and thanked him for his help. He bobbed his head, setting off one last clacking party among his beard beads, and said it was a pleasure conducting business with me. His primary ears twitched, his mouth turned downward, and he began to turn, saying, “Someone—”
Then his skull exploded in a bolt of superheated plasma, spraying me with blood, bone fragments, and brain tissue. Another high-powered blaster bolt followed close behind it, but I had already ducked instinctively, and it sailed over me and Azzur Nessin’s fallen body. I yanked my blaster out of its holster and spied the assassin from a squatting position. It was the mechanic, Ruuf Waluuk, and he had company—a horned Devaronian dressed in black and laden down with weaponry. They had come in from the hangar entrance and were squatting down by the engines of the Desert Jewel, firing at me from under the wing. The bounty hunter loudly called the Kupohan an idiot for his poor aim, which told me that I had been the target.
I squeezed off a couple of shots in their direction to disrupt their focus and dived for the dining table. I flipped it on its side for a makeshift shield and crouched down behind it as fresh bolts slammed into the top. The table wouldn’t hold up for long, and I knew it was tactically a terrible idea to let the enemy pin me down with no place to run, but they had timed their ambush well and it was either use the table or let them shoot at me in the open.
Drusil might have stymied Ruuf’s direct attempts to communicate with the Empire, but she couldn’t have stopped him from going into almost any cantina and looking for help. He could have reported—and probably did—through an intermediary that we were on the planet, thereby corroborating the story of Migg Birkhit, but he wanted to make sure he collected that full bounty himself, hence the blaster and the Deva
ronian bounty hunter. He probably figured even half the price on our heads would be a good haul—assuming he survived his partnership with the bounty hunter long enough to split the proceeds.
A chunk of the table on the top side sheared apart under a bolt, and a couple of thin needles of hot metal tore gashes in my scalp and forehead as they passed by. I was lucky they didn’t punch through my skull. Instead I felt warm trickles of blood cooling as they dripped down my head; the trail from my forehead was diverted to the side by my eyebrow, for which I had never been so grateful.
I needed some kind of counterattack. Keeping my body behind the table, I stretched out my right arm and pointed my blaster around the edge, firing off three quick unaimed shots to draw their attention. While they directed return fire there, thinking my head must be nearby, I popped up over the top to locate them and took a careful shot at the easy target, Ruuf Waluuk. I was already ducking back behind my cover as I heard him grunt in surprise, a sound that was followed closely by the clatter of his blaster on the hangar floor and the thump of his body afterward.
I’d seen only a sliver of the Devaronian; more used to fighting than Ruuf, he’d minimized his silhouette by flattening himself on the floor. It was his blaster methodically taking apart the table now. Though the furniture was sturdy enough for the purposes of supporting a light lunch, it had not been built to withstand sustained fire from someone determined to punch through it with a blaster.
I spread myself out flat in imitation of the Devaronian, planning to roll to my left and take shots at him as I moved. Neither of us would have much chance of hitting the other in that scenario, but a second later I had to go with it, because the table developed a hole and the bounty hunter was pouring shots through it with frightening accuracy. He probably had his elbows braced on the ground and one hand supporting the wrist of his firing hand.
Tumbling to my left and squeezing the trigger of my blaster, I hoped some of my shots would be close enough to make him rethink his position or at least slow down his own barrage. If I moved fast enough, I’d put the Jewel’s landing ramp between us, and then he would have to move if he wanted a clear shot—and I’d be ready for him.
