A New Dawn

by John Jackson Miller

  “They’ve certainly got the greed part down,” Skelly said, looking up at the ceiling. “I can’t believe what they’ve done—what they’re going to do to this place. And for what?” He waved his good hand. “Whatever. I’m in. And I think if Gord Grallik had lived, he’d go with you on the injustice part.”

  Hera nodded. She turned to Zaluna next. “Do you want to go home, Zaluna? Because if you do, we all will. No one will judge you.”

  Zaluna didn’t say anything for long moments.

  Finally, summoning the words, she spoke. “You know, I always liked to tell myself I was a brave person. But the fact is, I’ve been a coward,” she said, looking down. “The place I felt safest was in a place where I could watch over others. But it’s changed. Hetto, Skelly—they’re far from the only ones. I’ve seen hundreds of people arrested. Based on things I heard them say and do.” She shook her head. “And I never saw any of those people on the screens again. Nobody comes back!”

  “The Empire doesn’t keep watch in order to protect, Zaluna. It keeps watch to scare.”

  “I know. I’ve been the terror.” Eyes full of defiance, she looked over at Hera. “I don’t want to make innocent people afraid anymore. And I won’t let them do it, either.”

  Hera smiled gently. Kanan knew Hera didn’t want to show it, but he could tell she was immensely proud of Zaluna.

  “We … we won’t have to hurt anyone, will we?” the woman asked.

  “Not if we can avoid it,” Hera said.

  Now she turned her eyes on Kanan. “And what about you?”

  “I lost track,” Kanan said. “What did you leave me with, injustice?”

  “Deceit,” Skelly offered.

  “Well, I think I’ve got that covered,” Kanan said, gesturing. “All those bodies down there. Nobody had to be here.”

  He was scratching his beard, deciding whether to offer anything else, when the next words came out anyway. “And they’re not the only friends of mine that the Empire’s deceived.”

  Hera studied him, perhaps deciding whether to ask him to elaborate. Instead, she smiled a little. “So what do you suggest doing about it?”

  “Something.” Kanan paused. “I don’t know what. But somebody sucker punched a friend. I won’t let that pass.”

  “Good enough.” Hera stood up straight and gestured to the ramp. “It’s your ship, Captain.”

  “You’re the pilot.”

  “And you’re the tactician.” She grinned. “Let’s see what you can do.”

  It was more than a risk, Hera thought: Going to an Imperial depot at this stage of her project bordered on madness. The Empire, as yet, hadn’t identified her. Getting tagged now would be just as bad as getting caught.

  But what was happening to Gorse and Cynda was beyond serious. It was the sort of thing she’d vowed to stop someday. The day had just come early—too early, before she’d assembled a capable team. Not exactly the new dawn she’d had in mind.

  Skelly would have been arrested if she’d left them behind on Gorse, she still believed; that could have put the Empire on her trail. But he wasn’t revolutionary material. And Zaluna had resolve now, but she would be out of her depth soon.

  No, it was Kanan she wanted to see in action. She watched him from the pilot’s seat, as he punched hyperspace coordinates into the nav computer. He seemed different to her now. Not obsessed, as Skelly seemed—but focused, directed. She’d seen him act that way in short bursts when heroism was required; now it was a sustained effort. It was clear that what had happened on Cynda had affected him deeply.

  She hadn’t lied earlier. She did want to see what he could do. But she was more interested in seeing what he would do.

  Phase Three:

  DETONATION

  “Count Vidian leading Mining Guild in heroic effort to stabilize moon”

  “Blast investigators turn eyes to mining firms”

  “Tourism industry watchers suggest busy season for travel ahead”

  —headlines, Imperial HoloNews (Gorse Edition)

  A child’s snow globe, filled with blood. That was how one of the first visitors to behold Calcoraan had described the world. It was a wonder anyone had ever returned, given that description—and Rae Sloane agreed.

  Looking out from Ultimatum’s bridge, she saw a planet that heaved and churned crimson, the result of a planetwide ocean thick with chromyl chloride. There wasn’t anything living down there—not on a sea where a drop of water could unleash not one, but two potent acids. But both the liquid and the ocean floor beneath it held uses for starship manufacturing, and so Calcoraan Depot had been constructed in orbit to service the many robotic factories already in space.

  It was just another bizarre stop on what had, for Sloane, become a tour of the galaxy’s strangest planets. The Empire tended to like these punishing environments, she thought, like an extremophile bacterium in a volcanic rift. It made sense to her, philosophically: True power could only be claimed by those brave enough to go and get it.

  And Gorse could soon become another hellish place, losing what little livability it had.

  Calcoraan Depot was Vidian’s design and domain, and the thing seemed an architectural expression of his philosophies. The vast polyhedral hub of the depot sat like the biggest atom in an extensive molecule, connected to all the orbital factories by a triangular lattice grid of passageways. New supplies kept moving through those tubes to the hub and its main warehouse or directly to departing vessels for snap delivery. The hub’s central position also gave its occupants a view of everything around, including the approaching flotilla of cargo ships from Gorse. Keep moving! Destroy barriers! See everything! was fully at work in Vidian’s station.

  Sloane could see Vidian’s minions fully at work, too, on a curious giant of a spacecraft at the far end of the sprawling complex. Vidian was over there now, overseeing final preparations and calling every thirty seconds to inquire as to when the rest of the cargo fleet would arrive from Gorse. It was a ship like none Sloane had ever seen. Seven bulging black spheres connected on a long axis, it looked like a segmented insect. But where a bug might have had legs, the vessel instead had long antenna-like structures running from the frontmost pod backward the entire length of the vessel.

  “Forager,” the science officer said excitedly. “That’s a real beauty.”

  The captain nodded. Lieutenant Deltic got on her nerves, but Sloane had ordered her here anyway. She felt she needed to understand the process she was being asked to protect. “What are those long things along the spine?”

  “Electrostatic towers—sixteen of them.” The lieutenant fidgeted with the pins on a hat gone lopsided. “They’ll fan outward when it’s in operation to become the spokes for the collection wheel. I saw a ship like that in action once. It just plows through the debris field, snapping up all the goodies.”

  “The goodies?” Sloane shook her head. “I don’t think I can handle all this technical jargon.”

  “The thorilide molecules. They’re drawn to the spokes and shunted inside the vessel. There are automated processing centers in each of those big pods—taking the place of much of what the refineries on Gorse would’ve done. Just above the thrusters, that tail-end pod has the landing bays for shipping the stuff out. They’ll churn out more pure thorilide in an hour than the miners did in a month.”

  Sloane nodded. The vessel was heavily shielded, as anything that barged into asteroid fields and comet tails needed to be; the turbolaser cannons on the outside of each pod and on the forward command hub probably also cut down on damage from errant debris. Once Forager was in place, Gorse would have its own Calcoraan Depot—for as long as the thorilide lasted.

  Which seemed to be forever. The lieutenant was dizzy with her math again. “Even if ninety percent of the debris were to strike the planet, that machine could supply a hundred Empires the size of ours for a century!”

  “There is only one Empire,” Sloane said sternly. Then she looked at the lieutenant. “Ninety perc
ent of the debris falling? Is that possible?”

  The younger woman shrugged. “I told you. Might be a drop, might be a deluge.” She grinned. “We have a betting pool going on down in Planetary Sciences. If something takes out the World Watch Plaza building in Gorse City in this calendar year, I’m taking my shore leave on Alderaan!”

  “Dismissed,” Sloane said. Out the airlock, she wanted to add.

  Still, she’d found out what she wanted to know. It was amazing, seeing up close the work involved to source and service just one component of the Imperial arsenal. And this was just one of countless facilities. How many other projects were out there, similar to what Vidian had in mind? How many had he run, and how many was he running personally?

  Playing bodyguard to an efficiency expert hadn’t interested Sloane in the beginning. But now she saw clearly that her mission was, in large part, about the basic business of the Empire: to keep going. To keep growing. It all suggested to her that Vidian, in his eccentric way, was as vital to the Emperor as Lord Vader—and that escorting Vidian was easily more important than chasing down pirates on the Outer Rim. Things had to be built.

  All interstellar empires rose and fell, ultimately, on their ability to deliver on this one simple, unexciting thing: logistics. Her military history studies had told her of the war forges of the ancient past—she didn’t doubt that Vidian had studied them, too. He could well be the great armorer of future legend—and she, his preferred deputy.

  It was just still a little surprising to her that an entire planetary population might wind up between hammer and anvil. Even as motley a group of specimens as lived on Gorse. The workers on her homeworld, so much closer to the galactic center, were much better behaved.

  Commander Chamas approached from the door to her ready room. “I see Lieutenant Strangechild has left you in peace.”

  Sloane rolled her eyes. “You want something?”

  “You have a call,” her first officer said. “I think you’ll want to take it. A very important person.”

  “Vidian again?”

  Chamas smirked. “A different important person.”

  She had seen him once at the commencement ceremonies at the Academy. He’d stood on the stage and shaken some hands. Not hers, but she could hardly forget him. Baron Lero Danthe spent more on a suit than her family spent on its house on Ganthel.

  “My lord,” she said. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “You and your crew do the honor, by your service,” the young man said, bowing. “I heard about the attempts on Count Vidian’s life. I was calling to thank you for protecting him.”

  “Most generous.” Extremely so, considering the bad blood she’d heard to exist between Vidian and his subordinate in the administration. “They haven’t made the saboteur who can foil the Empire.”

  The golden-haired man smiled. “Very glad you’re on our team.”

  She liked hearing it. They were separated by title and fortune, but she and Danthe represented the New Imperials—the media’s catchphrase for the first generation of people to ascend to adulthood under the Empire. With few exceptions, her naval superiors were part of a class that had struggled to reach the top, only to see all the rules change; now they were spending every waking moment trying to keep pace. Perhaps not Vidian, she thought. But it was tiring dealing with them all. The Empire would be a better place once people her and Danthe’s age were in charge.

  But in the military as in government, the time of apprenticeship had to be respected. She knew Danthe was already fabulously wealthy, having inherited control of a firm manufacturing heavy-duty droids for use on fiery worlds like Mustafar. But Vidian’s holdings were wider, his name already established. And given the cyborg’s health, she couldn’t imagine him handing off power for decades to come.

  Not that the young man wasn’t eager. “The count hasn’t had time to fill me in on this special project of his involving Cynda. How would you say it’s faring?”

  “I couldn’t judge, my lord. I’m simply the escort.”

  “Hmm.” Danthe frowned ever so slightly, before brightening. “Well, I am sure you will do well in that. I want you to know, Captain, if you ever have the smallest need, please contact me immediately. My people will put you through directly.”

  “I … thank you, my lord.” The transmission ended.

  Vidian, now Danthe? Were all interim captains this popular with the elite?

  Through his own reflection on the passenger-seat window, Kanan beheld the whole of Calcoraan Depot. He’d seen other such sights in his travels: enormous examples of Imperial ingenuity and excess. They seemed to get bigger every year.

  But his focus was on his reflection—and the question he now asked himself. Caleb, what are you doing?

  He hadn’t gone by that name in years, and he didn’t consider it relevant to the person he was now. Yet whenever Kanan stuck his neck out further than was comfortable, Caleb Dume was usually the culprit. Caleb, the little Jedi cut off before his date with destiny, his career as a galaxy-saving superhero stunted. He couldn’t believe now that he’d ever been that person. That kid didn’t know what real life—or real fun—was like. That boy was a nobody, a never-was. An unwelcome squatter in the back of his gray matter. Whenever Kanan had an idea that Caleb Dume would have agreed with, it was usually better to stay inside and order a double.

  As much as the Emperor, Caleb was responsible for making Kanan’s early adolescence miserable with his constant regrets. Caleb was all counterfactuals and what-ifs, all mental replays of the deaths of Depa Billaba and the other Jedi, always looking for some way disaster could have been averted. It was just as well that he was avoiding other people then, because it had made the young fugitive unbearably morose. While the other teenagers in the hangouts he’d tried to blend into were thinking about podracing, he was off in the corner trying to figure out how Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi could have better protected himself on Mygeeto, or Master Plo Koon on Cato Neimoidia. Every name he’d found out about in those days had just set the whole thing off again, making it impossible for him to forget.

  A waste of time. Except for one thing: All that thinking and hiding in those early days had trained him to analyze situations quickly and thoroughly. The tactical smarts Hera seemed to like had sprung from there. In that case, he thought, there was one good thing that had come of it. Because looking at her in the pilot’s chair now, he determined that he’d follow her anywhere.

  If he didn’t get her killed first. Or if she didn’t do the same to him.

  Hera was chipper as she braked Expedient. “Told you we’d catch up,” she said as the ship neared the tail of the freighter convoy. It had been open to question whether they would arrive at all. Expedient had left Cynda just as the straggler freighters were following Ultimatum into hyperspace. Kanan, who had never used the ship’s hyperdrive before, had worried that it might not work at all. Ships on the lunar run were there for the very reason that their long-haul days were past. But the fact that none of the other ships was better off made them catchable for the right pilot, and Hera had talked nicely to Expedient, getting her way. She did that a lot.

  It had worked that way with him, too. He liked that Hera had direction and drive. All women were magical creatures to Kanan, but there were happy forest nymphs, and then there were wizards. There was so much more to Hera, and it might take days or weeks or years to find out what was motivating her.

  Time, he had—but he wouldn’t stick around long if it meant constantly letting Caleb Dume call the shots. Hera had seemed to sense that old dutiful instinct in him, and had gotten him to come this far by appealing to it. The problem was, that person was someone he’d never really been, and could never be again. Okadiah’s death deserved an answer, yes, and Gorse needed to be protected if possible. But both were responsibilities of a kind he had avoided for years. He intended to keep avoiding them.

  Hera was clever, and pretty, and he loved her voice. If the only way to keep hearing it, though, was to play
at her cloak-and-dagger games, he might have to be on his way, with thanks for the memories.

  “Okay, you’re up,” Hera said.

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m not the pilot of record,” she said, sliding out of her seat. They were approaching the outer security perimeter, an invisible energy shield surrounding Calcoraan Depot. TIE fighters circled the station, demarcating the location.

  “Right.” Kanan squeezed past her—a not unpleasant experience—to take his usual seat. Grabbing the control yoke, he slowed Expedient to a stop just short of the barrier indicated on his viewscreen.

  A gruff female voice came across the comm system. “What’s your identifier?”

  “Moonglow-Seventy-Two,” Kanan replied.

  “Not anymore.”

  The response startled Kanan for a moment. “What do you mean?” He pushed a button. “Here, I’ve switched on the ID transponder. You can see who I am. I’m from Moonglow—”

  “And I said not anymore,” the woman answered. “You’re now Imperial Provisional Seventy-Two. Name, license, and personnel.”

  “Kanan Jarrus. Guild license five-four-nine-eight-one.” He paused to look back. “Passengers, three laborers.”

  “That’s two more than you’re supposed to carry.”

  “We’ll get loaded up faster,” Kanan said. “What do you care?”

  “Not at all. Continue on your heading to landing station seven-seven. Follow the lights, and go slow.”

  Kanan did so. Expedient cruised into one of the largest assortments of starships he’d ever come across. Every Baby Carrier he’d ever seen in the skies between Gorse and Cynda was here, and more from elsewhere. And yet, unlike on the lunar run, all the ships were moving in an orderly and precise fashion. He soon realized why, as Expedient shuddered and he felt the control yoke go dead in his hands.

  “Tractor beam parking attendants,” Kanan said. “Nice. I hope we won’t owe anyone a tip.” He sat back, a passenger again like all the others.