by Paul S. Kemp
“Are you all right, my lord?” Jard said.
Malgus waved a hand dismissively. He sat in the command chair and the viewscreen of Valor showed the distant silver-and-white triangles of an Imperial convoy just out of hyperspace.
“Magnify the convoy,” he said, and the image grew large enough to see the ships—blocky freighters escorted by the much smaller, sleeker navy frigates. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Jard monitored incoming transmissions and ships’ registries from the command lectern at which he stood.
“All appears in order, Darth Malgus.”
Malgus examined the convoy’s details on his own command readout. They bore medical supplies, spare parts, and a contingent of Imperial soldiers. All perfectly ordinary.
“They are requesting landing instructions, my lord.”
“Provide it to them. But have the shuttles put eyes on them.”
“We could delay them, my lord. If you think something is amiss.”
“No. Let’s get those supplies on the ground so they can be distributed.”
“Yes, my lord.”
ARYN AND ZEERID BOTH HUNCHED in their seats and said nothing, as if their silence within the cockpit would somehow assist Fatman in passing through the blockade. Zeerid radiated both apprehension and excitement. The angle at which Fatman had connected to the freighter restricted their field of vision to seventy or eighty degrees. The system moved into and out of their view, one small slice at a time. The convoy was on an approach vector and moving at less than one-half. Aryn could see the tail end of the starboard side of another freighter fifteen kilometers away.
“Can anyone see us?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper.
“Not at that distance,” Zeerid said. “We just look like part of the line of the ship. We’ll cut loose during atmospheric entry. Their sensors will be blacked out and we’ll be gone before they’re wise to us. I think we’re going to make it, Aryn.”
She nodded. She thought so, too.
Seconds slogged by, stretched into minutes.
“We have to be getting close,” Zeerid said.
Motion near the tail end of the nearby freighter drew Aryn’s eye. A small ship moved slowly around the freighter. Its tri-winged configuration told her it was an Imperial shuttle. She watched it for a time, unconcerned, until another came into view, this one cruising underneath the freighter.
“What are those shuttles doing?” she asked.
He frowned. “I have no idea.”
They watched the shuttles move methodically along the length and breadth of the tail section of the freighter.
“They’re checking its exterior,” Aryn said, and she felt Zeerid’s level of apprehension rise as he realized the same thing.
“Maybe it suffered damage in hyperspace,” Zeerid said. “Could be they’re just checking the one.”
“Could be,” Aryn said, and knew that neither of them believed it.
Zeerid cleared his throat, rubbed the back of his neck. “If we get seen, we either make a dash for the atmosphere and try to get lost under it, or we jump into hyperspace.”
“I need to get to the planet.”
Zeerid nodded. “Me, too. It’s unanimous then. We’ll make a dash.”
MALGUS SAT IN HIS CHAIR and watched his shuttles slide around the freighters, sand flies to banthas. None had reported seeing anything unusual.
One of the junior officers on a scanner called Commander Jard to him. The two conferred briefly, and Jard returned to his command lectern near Malgus.
“What is it?” Malgus asked.
“An anomalous reading from the Dromo,” Jard said. “An unusual magnetic signature.”
Malgus saw Vrath tense and lean toward them.
“Halt them and send the shuttles over.”
“My lord, it could just be an engine malfunction, scanner noise.”
Malgus thought not. “Do it, Commander.”
Jard raised the Dromo on the ship-to-ship. “Freighter Dromo, come to a full stop immediately.”
He cut off the connection before the Dromo’s captain could protest, then dispatched the shuttles.
“If there’s anything to it,” Jard said. “We’ll soon know.”
ARYN AND ZEERID WATCHED first one then another shuttle peel away from the other vessel and start toward them. Zeerid cursed as their freighter began to slow.
“Are we stopping?” Aryn asked.
Zeerid nodded, licked his lips. “I think we go hot right now. I don’t want a cold ship when they spot us.”
“If you fire up the engines, their scanners will pick us up.”
“They’re going to see us anyway. Those shuttles are coming. Let’s fire her up and make our run. You ready?”
Aryn watched the shuttles close the gap between them. She nodded. “Ready.”
Zeerid pushed buttons and flipped switches. Fatman came back to life.
THE COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER SPUN in his chair. “Sir, secured communication from Darth Angral. Shall I put it through?”
“What have the shuttles found?” Malgus asked Jard.
“Not there yet, my lord.”
Vrath turned his head sideways, as if he heard better out of one ear than another.
“Anomalous reading just flared and vanished,” the scan officer said.
“Vanished?” Jard asked.
“I’m getting something else,” said the scan officer.
“Darth Malgus,” said the communication officer. “Darth Angral insists I put him through.”
“Put him through,” Malgus said irritably, and slapped the comm button. He put a wireless earpiece in his ear so Angral’s words would be heard only by him.
“What is it, my lord?”
Darth Angral’s smooth voice carried over the connection. “Malgus, how goes the patrol?”
“I am in the middle of something, Darth Angral. I beg you to be brief.”
Before Angral could reply, the scan officer said, “Engines. Sir, I think there’s a ship hiding in the Dromo’s shadow.”
“That’s it!” Vrath said. “That is them!”
“Alert the shuttles,” Jard said. “Now.”
“ENGINES READY TO BURN,” Zeerid said.
The shuttles, perhaps a kilometer or two away, either spotted them or got word of Fatman’s presence. One peeled left, the other right. Fatman’s thrusters pushed it off the freighter. Zeerid engaged the ion drives and Fatman screamed through the space between the two shuttles. He throttled the freighter’s engines to full and headed straight for the next nearest freighter.
Aryn had flown with Zeerid many times but had forgotten what an instinctive flier he was. He seemed to consult his instruments only rarely, instead relying on intuition, experience, and his own reflexes.
A bit like Force-piloting without the Force, she supposed.
Fatman twirled a spiral as it closed on the nearest freighter and pelted along its exterior.
“Give me a hug,” Zeerid muttered.
Aryn gripped the armrests of her chair, expecting the red lines of the frigates’ plasma cannons to light the sky at any moment, but no fire came. She checked the scanner. No fighters yet, either.
“What are they waiting on?” she said.
Zeerid ran Fatman along the bulkhead of the freighter, close enough that Aryn felt as if she could have reached out and touched it. She imagined the crew of the Imperial freighter ducking low as Fatman buzzed them.
“Too much traffic and we’re staying too close,” he said, whipping Fatman over and past the bridge of the freighter. “They don’t want to hit their own ships.”
JARD’S VOICE WAS TENSE with urgency. “That’s a Corellian XS freighter, my lord.”
Vrath nodded and pointed at the viewscreen. “That’s the one I told you about, Darth Malgus. Shoot him down!”
Malgus used a blast of power to throw Vrath against the far wall.
“Shut your mouth,” Malgus said to him.
“Are you speaking to m
e?” Angral asked in his earpiece.
Malgus had forgotten about Angral. “Of course not, my lord. Give me a moment, please.”
He muted the earpiece and eyed the viewscreen. He could not shoot the freighter down in the midst of the convoy. Valor’s armaments could inadvertently hit an Imperial ship. The frigates would be in the same situation. Their formation was designed to thwart attacks from outside the convoy, not attacks from within.
“Keep the ship on screen. Pursue at full and order the rest of the convoy to get clear.”
“Yes, my lord,” Jard said, and made it happen.
Valor’s engines fired on full and the cruiser lurched after the freighter.
Vrath climbed to his feet, favoring his side.
Possibilities played out in Malgus’s mind. With a Jedi aboard, shooting the freighter down could undermine the peace negotiations. Of course, the mere fact that a Jedi was inbound to Coruscant arguably undermined the peace process already.
Malgus stared at the viewscreen, watched the cruiser gain on the freighter. In moments he would get a clear field of fire.
The Empire needed war to thrive. He knew that.
He needed war to thrive. He knew that, too.
He had it within his power, possibly, to reignite the war.
He saw Coruscant in the viewscreen beyond the freighter and imagined it in flames.
The flashing light on his console reminded him that Darth Angral was waiting.
“Hail the freighter,” he said.
Jard looked puzzled. “I doubt they will answer.”
“Try, Commander.”
ARYN DID NOT NEED to consult her scanner display to know that the ships of the convoy were peeling away to give the cruiser and frigates a clear field of fire. Zeerid said nothing, merely handled the stick, worked the instrument panel, and occasionally consulted the scanner readout. Fatman banked hard right, jumped away from the near freighter, and covered the short gulf of empty space between it and the next. Zeerid was frog-hopping along the convoy, all while trying to get Fatman closer to the planet.
But the convoy was starting to break up. The freighters and frigates accelerated away from one another. And above them all loomed the enormous bulk of the Imperial cruiser, waiting for its chance.
“I’m running out of ships, Aryn. We have to make a run for the atmosphere.”
Before them, the glowing orb of Coruscant’s night side hung in the deep night of space. The sun crested behind the planet, and Coruscant’s horizon line lit up like it was on fire.
“Do it,” she said. “No, wait. They’re hailing us. Holo.”
“You’re kidding?”
Aryn shook her head and Zeerid activated the small transmitter mounted in his instrument panel.
A hologram of an Imperial bridge took shape. Crew sat at their stations, their images clear in the holo’s resolution. Two human men stood in the foreground, one a thin redhead in the uniform of a naval officer, one a towering, bulky figure of a man who wore a heavy black cape and whose eyes seemed to glow in the light of the bridge’s instrumentation. The eyes studied Zeerid with such intensity that it made him uncomfortable even through the holo. A respirator clung to the man’s face, covering his mouth. His pale skin looked as gray as a corpse’s.
“Power down entirely,” said the tall man, his voice as raw as an open wound. “You have five seconds.”
Aryn leaned in close to see the hologram better. The man’s eyes moved from Zeerid to her and even across the distance he felt their power. She recognized him. He had fought in the Battle of Alderaan.
“He is Sith,” Aryn said. “Darth Malgus.”
Motion behind Malgus caught Aryn’s eye, a third man, short, arms crossed across his chest. She and Zeerid almost bumped heads as they eyed the holo. Aryn recognized him. So did Zeerid, it seemed.
“That’s the man that ambushed us in the spaceport,” Zeerid said. “Vrath Xizor.”
“He alerted them we were coming.”
Zeerid stared at the holo then leaned back, eyes wide. “Stang, Aryn. That’s the same man I saw in Karson’s Park on Vulta.”
“Where?”
“He knows I have a daughter.”
“You have two seconds,” Malgus said.
Zeerid hit the TRANSMIT button. “To hell with you, Sith.”
He cut off the transmission, unleashed a rain of expletives, and put Fatman into a rapid spin that turned Aryn light-headed and would make it as difficult as possible for targeting computers to lock on.
MALGUS STARED at the holotransmitter, now dark, on which he had communicated with the freighter, the freighter that had a Jedi aboard.
Torn, he thought of Eleena, of Lord Adraas, of Angral, of the flawed Empire that was taking shape before his eyes and how it fell short of the Empire as it should be, an Empire congruent with the needs of the Force.
“They will be clear of the convoy shortly, Commander Jard,” said Lieutenant Makk, the bridge weapons officer.
Malgus watched the freighter dance among the now-separating ships of the convoy, trying to hug what vessels it could as it skipped toward Coruscant.
He thought he should shoot it down and hope that the death of a Jedi over Coruscant would destroy the peace talks and restart the war.
He should do it.
He knew he should.
“I think he’s going to try to make the planet,” Jard said. “Why doesn’t he just jump out?”
Members of the bridge crew shook their heads at the pilot’s foolishness. Were he wise, he would have jumped into hyperspace and fled.
“His need to get to the planet outweighs the risk of his getting shot down,” Malgus said, intrigued.
“All this for spice?” Jard said.
“Perhaps it is the Jedi’s need that drives them.”
“Curious,” Jard observed.
“Agreed,” Malgus said. With difficultly, he let curiosity murder temptation. “Get close enough to use the tractor beam. There is more to this than mere spicerunning.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Malgus tapped the earpiece and reopened the channel with Darth Angral.
“What is happening there?” Angral asked, his tone perturbed.
Malgus offered a half-truth. “A spicerunner is trying to get through the blockade.”
“Ah, I see.” Angral paused, then said, “I have received a communiqué from our delegation on Alderaan.”
The mere mention of the delegation caused Malgus a flash of rage, a flash that almost caused him to reconsider his decision to capture, rather than destroy, the freighter.
Angral continued: “A member of the Jedi delegation has left Alderaan without filing a flight plan and without reporting her intent to her superiors. The Jedi have reason to believe that she may be heading to Coruscant. Her activities are unauthorized by the Jedi Council and she is to be treated no differently from the spicerunner you are pursuing now.”
“She?” Malgus asked, eyeing the freighter on the viewscreen, recalling the woman he had seen in the vidscreen. “This rogue Jedi is a woman?”
“A human woman, yes. Aryn Leneer. Her actions, whatever they may be, are not to be attributed to the Jedi Council or the Republic. The Emperor wants nothing to affect the ongoing negotiations. Do you understand, Darth Malgus?”
Malgus understood all too well. “The Jedi delegation told Lord Baras of this rogue Jedi? They sacrificed one of their own to ensure that the negotiations continued smoothly?”
“Master Dar’nala herself, as I understand it.”
Malgus shook his head in disgust. He felt a hint of sympathy for Aryn Leneer. Like him, she had been betrayed by those she believed in and served. Of course, what she believed in and served was heretical.
“If this Jedi does attempt to reach Coruscant and she falls into your hands, you are to destroy her. Am I clear, Darth Malgus?”
“Yes, my lord.”
The freighter broke free of the convoy into open space and flew an evasive path toward Corusca
nt. Perhaps the pilot thought to escape in the planet’s atmosphere.
“Engage the tractor beam,” Commander Jard said, and Malgus did not gainsay the order.
He cut the connection with Angral.
He had disobeyed an order, taken the first step down a path he had never before trod. He still wasn’t sure why.
THERE WAS NOTHING BETWEEN Fatman and Coruscant but open space, and that meant fire would be incoming. Aryn watched the distance to the planet’s atmosphere shrink on her scanner. She sat hunched, braced against the plasma fire she knew must soon come. She thought they might make it until Fatman lurched and lost half of its velocity, throwing Aryn and Zeerid forward in their seats.
“What’s that?” Aryn said, checking the instrument panel.
“Tractor beam,” Zeerid said, and pushed down hard on the stick. Fatman dived, her nose facing the planet, and Aryn could see the night side of Coruscant, the lines of light from the urbanscape like glowing script on the otherwise dark surface.
The ship was not accelerating. Alarms wailed and Fatman’s engines screamed, battling with the tractor beam but losing decisively.
The cruiser started to reel them in.
Cursing, Zeerid cut off the engines and Fatman’s reverse motion increased noticeably. Through the canopy, Aryn watched the distant stars move past them in reverse. She imagined the cruiser’s landing bay opening as they approached, a mouth that would chew them up.
She cleared her mind, thought of Master Zallow, and readied herself to face the Sith Lord and whatever else she might find on the cruiser. She reached into her pocket, traced her fingers over the single stone she’d brought from Alderaan, the stone from the Nautolan calming bracelet Master Zallow had given her. The cool, smooth touch of it helped clear her mind.
“I’m sorry, Zeerid,” she said.
“I was coming anyway, Aryn. And you didn’t get me caught. I got you caught. And anyway don’t apologize yet.” His hands flew over the instrument panel. “No Imperial tractor beam is holding my ship. I have to get back to Vulta and my daughter.”
He ratcheted up the power to the engines, though he didn’t yet engage them. The ship vibrated as Zeerid backed up the power and held it just before the exchange manifolds, a river of energy gathering behind a dam.
