The Rise of the Empire

by John Jackson Miller

  But Kanan Jarrus had surprised her, and people seldom did. In Shaketown, she’d seen a brawler, a typical roughneck. But in the bar—beyond his romantic interest, which she had decided to find amusing—she’d seen him act with subtlety and cunning.

  It was timely, but likely a onetime thing. She didn’t expect to have a chance to find out, in any event.

  No, her real quarry remained. Vidian wanted increased production from the world, obviously, but the urgency of his visit had her thinking something else was going on. If Vidian was here on a secret mission—maybe a secret mission for the Emperor—then she wanted to know.

  And then there was Lemuel Tharsa. From her ship, she’d checked the public HoloNet and found Tharsa was alive and well and living offworld as a mining consultant, doing freelance work for the Imperial government. Why, then, would anyone aboard Ultimatum want to check out his distant past on Gorse? Might he be a potential traitor in Vidian’s midst—and an ally for her, were she to warn him?

  She would look for answers tomorrow, at Moonglow. She would find the truth—and the truth would tell her what to do. As it always did.

  She forced herself to sleep.

  PHASE TWO:

  REACTION

  “Emperor opens new veterans’ medcenter on Coruscant”

  “Hunt under way for missing after industrial accident on Cynda”

  “Count Vidian arrives on Gorse for inspection tour, traffic delays possible”

  —headlines, Imperial HoloNews (Gorse Edition)

  FOR THE FIRST TIME since she entered the Academy, Rae Sloane was late for an appointment. But the Galactic Empire had made the schedule. It could break the schedule.

  And it wasn’t her fault, anyway. During the descent through Gorse’s atmosphere, Count Vidian had emerged from the passenger compartment to reroute the captain’s shuttle—Truncheon—to a location well south of the factory districts. He’d demanded a flyover of the miners’ hospice he had ordered closed.

  She hadn’t understood the point of making such a trip, if they weren’t going to land. There wasn’t much to see in the dark. But then she’d seen the reason in a flash—or rather, with a flash, as the cube-shaped building abruptly imploded. Vidian had been busy while Sloane had slept, ordering the movement of the personnel, usable equipment, and all patients—so far as she knew, anyway—from the medcenter. With many of the just-evacuated still on the ground looking back from their transports, the Empire’s demolition teams had made quick work of the building. Debris removal vehicles were already on the scene; Vidian had plans to turn the site into a more convenient fuel depot. True to his reputation, the man worked incredibly fast. Sloane could only imagine what the bewildered patients watching must have thought, watching their home coming down.

  She didn’t bother to imagine what Vidian had thought. The man had simply watched the collapse, emotionlessly, before returning to the rear of the vehicle. It was fine with her. Her job was making sure nothing else happened to interfere with his visit. What had happened on Cynda would not happen here.

  The count had stops planned all over the muddy megalopolis, so Sloane had decided against using ground vehicles to get to them all. There would be too many routes to secure. Instead, Truncheon would fly from stop to stop, bringing its own complement of stormtroopers and protected by electronic countermeasures against ground-to-air attacks while in flight. Such an attack was unlikely in the extreme, but Sloane tried to think of everything.

  It meant clearing landing zones everywhere and securing them. That hadn’t been a problem. The captain of a Star Destroyer was a naval officer, of course, but she was also the personification of Imperial authority in the system. And while she did not have formal power over the Empire’s local authorities on Gorse—except under certain circumstances—captains of capital ships were nonetheless treated like miniature governors. Few petty bureaucrats wanted to argue with someone who could put a dozen AT-ATs on the ground with a comlink call. And so Gorse’s local police force had joined with the stormtroopers from the planetary garrison to make ready for Vidian’s arrival.

  She could get used to having this kind of authority. She certainly wanted to.

  “Shaketown,” she announced as the ship approached an industrial neighborhood. “Such as it is.”

  The place was aptly named, she decided: Sloane felt a slight quake as the ship’s landing gear settled in the mud. The advance team had decided against having Truncheon land on Moonglow’s tarmac, where it would have been parked amid explosives haulers; the fugitive had flown back on one and was still at large. Instead, the street in front of Moonglow’s front gate had been cordoned off—reportedly over the heated objections of a Besalisk diner owner—to create a reception area.

  Such as it is. The ramp down, Sloane surveyed the scene. Vidian’s official visit—even her visit—on another world would have merited pomp and preparation, short notice or not. Here, there were a few temporary light stands supplementing the waxing moon—and someone had laid some planks over the muddy street. About two dozen citizens stood off to the side, flanked by stormtroopers, watching as a sad little processional approached Truncheon. Not the greeting she had ordered or would have liked—but she knew Vidian wouldn’t care.

  He appeared in the doorway behind her. She’d only known Vidian to march straight into places, not wasting any time—but here, he stood, looking up, down, and all around. And mostly at the factory across the way, where his macabre eyes lingered for long moments. She decided he was just doing whatever it was he did when he prepared to inspect a place. The man could be standing there staring at tomorrow’s menu in the Ultimatum mess halls, for all she knew.

  A tan-skinned human woman waved to them, flanked by two Besalisks. Sloane knew her from their holographic conversation as Shaketown’s mayor. “Welcome, Count Vidian. Welcome, Captain. May I present Lal Grallik, chief operating officer of Moonglow Polychemical?”

  Vidian broke from his trance and walked down the ramp. No hand was offered. Sloane joined him on the planking.

  Lal, wearing a dark business suit, bowed and gestured to the other Besalisk. “This is my husband, Gord—head of ground security.”

  “I hardly think we’ll need him,” Sloane said, following Vidian. “And I’m surprised he would be employed here after letting the demolitions man escape.” She paused to glare at Lal. “Family or not!”

  The male Besalisk growled. “If you think you can do any better—”

  His wife shushed him. “I’m sure there won’t be any problems now, Captain. Gord’s team has triple-checked every square meter of the site.”

  “Uh-huh.” Hearing a high whine coming from the south, Sloane turned to see a weathered hoverbus setting down outside the security line. “What’s that there?”

  “Part of the next shift for Cynda,” Lal said, smiling too broadly. “We’re always working here!”

  —

  The stormtroopers waved the battered hoverbus through the checkpoint. The Mark Six Smoothride had already been past its life span when Okadiah bought it; where it had once flown through the skies, not even Kanan ever dared to take it more than a meter off the ground. Okadiah had been so terrified it would skyrocket off uncontrollably that he kept a parachute under the seat. Kanan thought that an unlikely scenario. It was much more likely to die in the street, as it had for him several times. It was good for one purpose: bringing hungover miners back to Moonglow so they could earn enough credits to drink again.

  The Imperial Lambda was parked up ahead, its mass completely blocking the entrance to Drakka’s Diner. Kanan was certain the chef loved that. In front of the Sienar Fleet Systems shuttle, Kanan saw his boss’s husband ambling along, following several steps behind a larger party. Spotting him drive past, Lal waved. “Hello, Kanan! Good to see you didn’t quit!”

  Kanan replied with a half wave—and then, seeing Vidian out there, quickly pulled his head back inside the window. He gritted his teeth. Yesterday, he had been ready to leave Gorse entirely. Today, h
e was willingly coming back to an armed camp. But it was just one more day, and there was an excellent reason why. Looking back down the aisle, he saw her chatting amiably with the miners. They were spellbound by Hera. He couldn’t blame them.

  The stormtroopers waved the hoverbus around to the service gate. The Smoothride groaned as it turned sharply, and for a moment, Kanan thought he heard a thump coming from one of the rearward compartments. It could be anything, he thought. The hoverbus was apt to die on any given trip. Even the door to the restroom was broken.

  “I’ve been having the most lovely conversation with your young friend,” Okadiah said, arriving from the back. “We have decided to vacation on Naboo. You may drive us.”

  “Be careful. She’s a woman with a mission,” Kanan said as the metal beast settled harshly in the mud. The doors opened, and his passengers filed past him. Kanan remained.

  “You’re not flying bombs today?” Okadiah said.

  “No,” Kanan said, nodding toward the back. “I’d like to show someone the sights.”

  Okadiah patted his shoulder. “The only job that matters. Good luck.”

  Kanan smiled, slowly, as the man stepped out. Okadiah hadn’t seen the duffel on the floor near the driver’s seat—Kanan’s belongings, packed while the old man wasn’t looking. He’d miss Okadiah, and that was probably good-bye. But the next chapter, he could feel, had already begun.

  Even if it was starting strangely. “You really want to do this?” he asked Hera. She was at the window behind the driver’s seat, looking all around.

  “Yes,” Hera said. “I really do.”

  She slipped off her cloak to reveal an all-black outfit. Good for sneaking around in a sunless place, Kanan thought—and better to look at. She checked her holster to see that her blaster pistol was secure. “I really think you ought to hang this and do something else with your time,” he said.

  Hera replied with a firm look. “I’m sure you have suggestions.” She put out her hand.

  “Fine.” Kanan reluctantly handed her his Moonglow ID badge. “Wave it in front of the sensor at the inner door. I’ll be parked out in the street, pretending to have engine trouble.” It wouldn’t require much of a lie, he knew. “When you get back, I’ll get my pay from Lal and take you to the spaceport—and we’ll go to any planet you want.”

  “We will, will we?” Hera rolled her eyes.

  “That’s right.”

  “I have my own ship.” She stepped out of the bus.

  Huh. That was interesting news, he thought as she disappeared through the door.

  Kanan guided the hoverbus back out the gate and parked it within sight of the shuttle. Stepping out, he saw that stormtroopers and local security types were still stationed all around. It was time to start the pantomime.

  And there was one small blessing: Skelly hadn’t made an appearance after all. Nobody’s that foolish!

  —

  “That’s Kanan, all right.” Skelly surveyed the new arrivals from his perch hidden among the chimneys atop Drakka’s Diner. Only one eyepiece of his secondhand macrobinoculars displayed anything, but that was enough to show him what he needed to see.

  He’d realized that he couldn’t simply reveal himself. The mining company people wouldn’t want him to speak to Vidian, and he didn’t trust stormtroopers to deliver him after the episode on the moon. He needed to reach the man when he was alone—and that meant getting into the factory. Thorilide refineries were complicated places: a lot of huge equipment often crammed into tight spaces, offering lots of hiding places.

  And Moonglow had something else: an ancient connection to Shaketown’s long-abandoned sewer system. Gorse wasn’t a particularly rainy place, but the underground water table rose and fell dramatically with the tides. Cynda’s movements squeezed the planet like a sponge, causing puddles to spring randomly from the soil. But quake damage had rendered the sewers useless, and only people interested in such places, like Skelly, knew the sewer system existed.

  And how to get into it. Prying the macrobinoculars from his hand, he stuffed them into his enormous backpack. Donning it, he found the ladder leading down into the diner’s back alley. There, in the middle of a low pool of brackish water, sat the rounded cover he was looking for.

  Struggling under the burden of his pack, Skelly fished for handholds around the circumference of the metal disk. He curled his fingers beneath and strained for a long minute. It wouldn’t budge. He tried to stand up—only to realize his malfunctioning right hand was locked in position, with his fingers underneath the cover.

  Great, Skelly thought. What else can go wrong?

  Then he found out.

  “Who’s back here?” Drakka, the enormous Besalisk chef, appeared behind him, armed—as if he needed to be—with a huge iron skillet. He grabbed at Skelly with his three free hands, trying to turn him around. Skelly felt pain in his arm as his hand, still attached to the sewer cover, didn’t budge.

  “Whoa, there!” Skelly said. He was trespassing, he knew—but the Besalisk ought to recognize him. “It’s me, Drakka! Skelly! You know me!”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing!” The Besalisk continued pulling. “You’re breaking into my place!”

  “Whoa, no!” Skelly winced with pain. “I’m going over to Moonglow to see the Imperials!”

  Drakka stopped tugging. He frowned. “I’m closed today because of those idiots.” Skelly watched him nervously, for a moment, as the behemoth decided what to do.

  Then he reached past Skelly and ripped the sewer cover off the hole, freeing the human’s hand in the process. “Besalisks have a saying,” he said. “When your neighbors trouble you, send your rodents to their nest.” Before Skelly could feel relief, Drakka yanked him from the ground and threw him down the hole.

  “Thanks, pal!” Skelly called up from the drenched bottom. He was lucky to have good friends who wanted to lend a hand.

  HAVING POWER TO wield on the ground might not be so good after all, Sloane thought. Not if authority meant going on mindless tours of local factories. Hailing from the industrial world Ganthel, she had seen quite enough of shipyards and loading docks. She had gone to the Academy to escape a life working at such places.

  But Lal Grallik had insisted on extolling the virtues of every little thing at her company. She was leading them now into the new section, built under her watch; when Gorse ran out of thorilide deposits and mining of the moon started, a new intake center had been required. Next she’ll be showing us the janitorial closets, Sloane thought.

  The one surprising thing was that Count Vidian had said little during the tour. Strange, since he was here to issue directives, and if anyone could stop the Besalisk woman in her time-wasting palaver, he could.

  A beeping comlink from the rear of the entourage stopped her instead. “Lal!” her security chief husband called out. “There’s a report of someone sneaking around the plant. Personnel department.”

  “That Skelly person?” Vidian asked.

  “They didn’t see who it was,” Gord Grallik said. He pocketed the comlink and turned around. “I’ll check it out.”

  Sloane gestured to her stormtrooper escort. “Go see.”

  “No, no,” the guard said, heading off. “This is my turf.”

  “It’s all our turf,” Sloane said. She pointed after the Besalisk. “Follow him!”

  —

  Skelly watched from his hiding place behind a moving conveyer belt. He had been lucky. An old storm drain opened up right next to one of the newer buildings; he’d had to leave his pack at the bottom to climb up, but he’d been able to dash quickly into the building.

  Since then, he’d crept around the high-ceilinged facility, waiting for his chance to get to Vidian. Something had happened to cause Gord to leave, and the Imperial captain had sent her stormtroopers along. Skelly continued to creep closer. He could finally hear their conversations, even over the din of the active belts.

  “—and you may find this of particular interest,
Captain Sloane.” It was Lal, speaking from the foot of the ten-meter-tall mass of titanium at the far end of the room. “This is our heavy-duty bulk-loader vehicle, the newest in use on Gorse. You’ll find the cab interior similar to what’s in some of your own armored walkers: It’s the same manufacturer. If you’ll step inside, I can show you,”

  Skelly saw the women climbing up the metal staircase and into the passenger compartment of the big vehicle. Creeping ahead, he saw Vidian unaccompanied at the bottom, pacing down the long aisle between the conveyer belts out of the women’s sight. Skelly’s heart pounded. Whether Vidian was alone a moment or a minute, this was his chance!

  “You can come out now.” The loud voice was the one Skelly had heard on a dozen management recordings. “I can hear you very well, even in a place like this.” Count Vidian turned to face him. “The saboteur, I presume.”

  “That’s not what I am,” Skelly said, rising from his knees. He dusted himself off. “I’m a whistleblower, Count Vidian. I’m like you—I think the old ways of doing things have to change. I see what people are doing wrong!”

  “I see someone doing something wrong.”

  Skelly was glad Vidian was talking. He’d heard about the man’s cybernetic capabilities: Talking to Skelly meant he wasn’t calling for help on his internal comlink.

  “If you know me,” the count continued, “you know I take problems into my own hands to solve.”

  “Then you want this,” Skelly said, pulling the holodisk from his vest. “My research. You’ve got to stop the blasting on Cynda. You could tear the whole moon apart by mistake!”

  “Madness.” Vidian kept walking purposefully toward him. “And if it were possible, and the Empire chose to do it, we would certainly not ask your permission.”

  Skelly’s eyes locked on Vidian’s macabre visage, and he stumbled backward. “I’m trying to help you!”