The Rise of the Empire

by John Jackson Miller

  Hera covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Zaluna, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s more than that. The Empire knows I was friends with Hetto. They’re going to find out where I was today. I’m going to lose my job—or worse!”

  “Some job, spying on everyone,” Skelly said, snapping out of his funk.

  “It’s important!” Zaluna retorted. “At least—it was, once. We did things. Important things.”

  “I don’t see it,” Kanan said, standing and walking over to the door. He leaned against it with his arms crossed. The Empire’s snooping didn’t surprise him, of course. It just seemed like a waste of time. “What’s the good in watching a bunch of miserable people going about their boring lives?”

  “In the old days—under the Republic—we did more than that,” Zaluna said, perking up. “We found missing persons. We stopped crimes. We prevented—”

  “Prevented people from questioning anything!” Skelly threw the green stalk he was holding on the floor. “You helped the Empire monitor production. Helped them bust anyone who got out of line!”

  “That’s now,” Zaluna said, her voice pitched high. Her words coming fast, she faced Skelly. “Has anything bad ever happened in your life? Anything bad that could have been stopped, if only someone had been paying better attention?”

  Skelly took a breath and nodded. “More than once.”

  “And you, Kanan? Is there something bad that could have been prevented if someone’d been watching over you?”

  Kanan shifted. Hera had been listening silently from the corner, but now he could feel her attention focused on him. “I don’t know,” he finally said, hands in his pockets.

  “Everybody’s got something like that,” Zaluna said. “What we do—what we did—was good.” She dipped her head fretfully. “And now I’m done for.”

  Kanan struggled to find something to say. He couldn’t think of anything. But removing his hand from his pocket, he found the recording device Zaluna had located in the hoverbus. “Unless someone wants to relive today’s disaster,” he said, “I’ll be crushing this thing.”

  “No, wait,” Hera said, approaching him. She reached for it. “The Imperials were driving the bus for a while earlier. Vidian, and the Imperial captain.”

  “I didn’t hear anybody,” Zaluna said, offering Hera her holoplayer. “But then, no one heard me.” Hera connected the devices and cued the recording back several hours.

  They sat in silence, watching the material from the hoverbus surveillance cam. By the time it was over, Kanan looked up, bewildered. “Skelly was right. They’re going to blow up the moon.”

  “…SO WE DON’T have to mine Cynda at all. If what the bomber says is true, the moon could be pulverized, and its thorilide directly harvested and processed in space. No need for slow miners, or the costly processors on Gorse…”

  Hera shut off the recorder. She looked mystified.

  Skelly was apoplectic. “He stole my idea!”

  “Stole your—” Kanan smirked. “You gave him your idea. You nearly got killed giving him your idea!”

  “Hey, when I told you the Empire was going to destroy the world by accident, you thought I was crazy,” Skelly said. “Now we know they’re going to destroy it on purpose. Looks to me I wasn’t crazy enough!”

  “So this is why Vidian left Moonglow so abruptly.” Hera shook her head.

  “Delusional,” Kanan said. Sloane, he’d noticed, had barely said a word during the recording. He wondered if she thought Vidian was insane. “You can’t just dissolve a whole moon!”

  “You want me to show you?” Skelly snapped. “I’ve got loads of studies I can show you!”

  “All on the wall of a bomb shelter across town,” Hera said. She frowned. “I didn’t believe it, either. Skelly, are you sure?”

  “I’m sure! Of course I’m sure,” Skelly said. He gestured to his battered face. “Do you think I would’ve risked all this if I weren’t?”

  It sounded too incredible to Kanan. Was Vidian really taking any of this seriously?

  And yet, hadn’t Skelly brought down several levels of Cynda’s substrate just by one well-placed bomb?

  “It could happen,” Zaluna said. “None of the rest of you was born here. I remember when I was young, my mother used to tell me the moon was all brittle, because Gorse loves it and keeps trying to hug it too hard. And the moon keeps trying to get away.”

  A good metaphor for some of my relationships, Kanan thought.

  “She said Cynda would one day break up and come tumbling down. We all heard that story, as schoolchildren.” She chuckled darkly. “Maybe that’s part of why people on Gorse live as they do—because doomsday’s coming. But we were told it wouldn’t happen for thousands of years, so not to worry.”

  Hera nodded. “But what if it happened tomorrow?”

  —

  The grinning young lieutenant appeared in the doorway of the captain’s office on Ultimatum. “The projections are run, Count Vidian.”

  “And?”

  Ultimatum’s planetary science specialist saluted Sloane belatedly and read from her report. “The bomber was right,” Lieutenant Deltic said, “partially. The moon Cynda might be shattered by blasts at the stress points he names, but it would require far more explosives, and of a higher grade, than Gorse has in its stores.”

  “I have baradium-357 in quantity at Calcoraan Depot,” Vidian said, looking meaningfully at Sloane. “As well as a thorilide collection vessel, of the sort that harvests the material from broken-up comets. Would the debris field remain in orbit for sifting?”

  “The highly elliptical orbit makes it unlikely that the material would form a ring around the planet,” the lieutenant said. “At least some debris would be ejected from the system; some would be captured, falling on the planet. Presuming the thorilide survives, your collector would have more than enough to keep it busy.” She chuckled darkly. “The planet’s another story, though.”

  “I don’t need to hear about Gorse,” Vidian said.

  “I do,” Sloane interjected. The lieutenant worked for her, after all.

  “Well, first there’s the direct impact—that depends on how energetic the initial dispersal was, and where it took place. You’d have more meteor action if the blast occurred at the upcoming perigee; less if it happened weeks from now, when the moon is farther out. The chunks won’t be that large, but their composition will make them harder for the atmosphere to burn up.”

  “And seismic reactions on Gorse?” Sloane asked.

  “Hoo boy,” the lieutenant said, her expression suggesting they were well off into the realm of speculation. “Little would change at first, but the system would evolve. As the tidal balance shifted, Gorse would respond. Things could get pretty rocky.”

  “Groundquakes and meteor storms!” Sloane looked at Vidian. “Sounds cataclysmic.”

  “That’s not even all,” the lieutenant put in. “The planet could start spinning again.”

  “What?”

  “The moon is a junior partner in the dance between Gorse and its sun, but an unusually important one. The dynamics of Gorse’s atmosphere are extremely sensitive to change—it’s already a miracle the dark side’s livable at all!”

  “The bottom line?” Vidian asked drily.

  The lieutenant checked her notes. “Nothing could happen. Or you could see the destruction of the whole biome in ten years.”

  Sloane was amazed. “Ten years!”

  “Or not,” the lieutenant said hastily. “It’s almost worth doing just to see what would happen.”

  “Enough,” Sloane said, rolling her eyes. Glancing out at the moon, hanging large and bright outside her office viewport, she remembered something else the lieutenant had said, something earlier. “You said if the thorilide survives the moon’s destruction. Why wouldn’t it?”

  “I’m not a chemist,” the young woman replied. “But I know the thorilide molecule is fragile, easily prone to dissolving into its component elements. It
’s why Cynda’s such a great source for it. The crystals that the thorilide’s suspended in protect it. But there’s a difference between carefully controlled blasts and what we’re talking about. You wouldn’t know whether the crystals would survive unless you did a test first.” She paused. “Be a waste of a good moon otherwise.”

  Sloane glanced at Vidian, and then back at the lieutenant. “Dismissed.”

  The lieutenant saluted and departed. The captain looked back at Vidian. “The Emperor will expect such a test,” she said.

  Vidian idly studied the back of his hand. “I’ve already considered it. One of the specialists I brought in my entourage has assured me he can make the observations using Ultimatum’s sensors.”

  Convenient, Sloane thought.

  “So we can run an experiment posthaste. We will, of course, report everything we find to the Emperor,” Vidian said.

  Of course. Things were moving very fast—especially considering the seriousness of what they were contemplating. “It’s still so hard to imagine. Wiping out Gorse within ten years?”

  “That’s acceptable,” Vidian said, walking toward the doorway.

  “We would be destroying a habitable world,” Sloane said, at once repulsed and amazed.

  “We wouldn’t be refining the thorilide on Gorse anymore, but in space, using the harvester vessels I have at my disposal,” Vidian said, pausing in the doorway to look back out on Cynda. “Those with appropriate skills could apply to join their crews.”

  “And the rest?”

  “The rest are of little use and do not concern me. They can find their own way offworld—and live to be of service somewhere else. But as of this discovery, there can be no doubt: To the Empire, their world is better off dead.”

  “Pending the test,” Sloane said.

  “Of course.” He turned and left.

  —

  Hera watched as the others slept.

  Only Kanan had not remained. The discussion had wandered aimlessly after the Cynda revelation, with Skelly concocting new wild theories by the minute. Zaluna, who had been remarkably resilient until now, had let her weariness feed her worry. Hera had tried to give shape to the discussions, urging practicality—and that effort, somehow, had seemed to aggravate Kanan all the more.

  “Don’t you care about anything?” she’d asked before he left to go downstairs.

  “It’s never good to care about too much,” he’d said, flippant as always. “You’re bound for disappointment.”

  Now she had to decide what she was going to do. Enough hours had passed quietly that she doubted Kanan had been identified at the Imperial spaceport; that meant there weren’t stormtroopers waiting outside The Asteroid Belt. She might be able to slip back to her own ship. Zaluna had at last given her the data cube Hetto had prepared for her. That, she knew, would help other dissidents elsewhere.

  And she’d learned all she expected to about Vidian—that the famous odds-beating business pundit was a murderous thug evidently willing to entertain outrageous schemes. Like Kanan, she doubted the destruction of the moon was possible; it was too big an idea, too fantastic to imagine. Engineering on that scale just wasn’t done—or at least she’d never heard of it. Vidian would surely figure that out. At least while he was doing that, he wouldn’t be carrying out any more sadistic “inspections.” So there wasn’t much reason for her to linger on Gorse.

  First, however, she owed it to Zaluna to get the woman to safety somewhere, before the Empire arrested her. It certainly would: Hera had no illusions about that. And for some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, she wanted to have one more talk with Kanan. He was self-centered and hedonistic, to be sure—but there had been flashes of something different, moments that made her wonder who he was and where he had come from. He was good at staying a step ahead of the Empire, and she’d seen him perform remarkable physical feats.

  But none of that mattered, if the man lacked a conscience. It took more than talents to bring about a revolution. It required spirit.

  And not everyone had it.

  ONE OF THE PERKS of living in a place without daylight, Kanan felt, was the large number of options it offered for those who didn’t want to be seen.

  A group of tourists had lost their shirts—or rather, their fine and expensive cloaks—to Kanan weeks earlier in a sabacc game. The wraps had sat useless in the cantina’s storeroom ever since, unable to be pawned. It turned out that in the dark, the cloaks looked just like the robes a group of weird blood cultists wore as they wandered the streets every full moon, chanting their mantras and looking for escaped house pets to practice their religion on. Not only did the Empire tolerate the cultists, it had shut down Gorse City’s animal control department to reap the savings.

  Kanan had cursed his fellow players, who certainly must have known that “creepy maniac” was a fashion statement nobody wanted to make. But now he and the others put the cloaks to work. “Keep walking,” he said from under his hood as he led the others up the long avenue in the industrial district. “If you see anyone, keep your head down and growl like you’re hungry.”

  No one had bothered them. The full moon was approaching soon enough that other blood cultists were about and making for the cemeteries where they liked to hold their rites. It was a good time to be out and gruesome. Kanan had lashed his traveling bag to his back beneath his cloak; mad monks carried no luggage, and he thought the hunchbacked look it gave him was a nice touch.

  “Seems to be working,” he said. “We won’t get away with it more than once, but it’ll get us across town.”

  “You keep surprising me,” Hera said. She was walking directly behind Kanan, keeping a careful watch all around.

  “Yep, it’s the whole lunatic family out for a crawl,” Kanan said. “Mom, dad, grandma, and the weird uncle we keep in the basement.”

  “You’re the grandma,” Zaluna said.

  Kanan grinned. The Sullustan woman had run out of steam the night before, but sleep had seemed to return her spirits. He still thought she was a little strange, but she amazed him nonetheless. He’d had the routine of a lifetime disrupted, years earlier—but he hadn’t lived remotely as long as she had. And yet Zaluna seemed to have bounced back. He wondered what her secret was.

  Skelly was in worse shape. He was moving slower, now, he saw: The latest round of meds hadn’t lasted the whole walk. He was looking up at the moon as he trudged along. “You know,” he said, “I think I really always wanted to be a rock guy.”

  Kanan looked at him. “A what?”

  “A mineralogist. They used to study Cynda before they started ripping it up. I’d have had to go to school for it—everything I know I learned on my own. But coming here was nice. It showed me that the underground’s more than just a place to plant mines.”

  “Or people,” Kanan said, gesturing ahead. “Beggar’s Hill, ladies and gentleman.”

  Beggar’s Hill was no hill at all. A square clearing defined by little-traveled streets, the cemetery was populated by the aboveground sepulchers that Gorse’s moist soil necessitated. Nightferns and crawling yettice had overtaken most of the ancient crypts, wearing all the names away. Catching a little light now as it did at this time of Cynda’s orbit, it had the look of a peaceful grotto.

  Kanan watched Hera as she stepped down the little path between the graves, moonlight in her eyes. She really is something.

  Skelly staggered up and looked around. “I guess there won’t be any place like this for Lal—or Gord. I didn’t get along with them, but still…”

  “Yeah,” Kanan said, but he didn’t think on it long. Wakes weren’t for him. The Jedi were big on funerals, but no one had memorialized any of them. A death meant it was time for the living to get moving.

  And it was. “All right, I’ve done what I can,” Kanan said. “This is the western edge of Shaketown—Moonglow’s just a few blocks away. We’re in the middle of everything here. Hera, you said your ship was parked two kilometers to the west. Zaluna’s apartment i
s two blocks to the southeast. And the nearest commercial spaceport,” he said, turning and pointing north, “is ten blocks that way. So wherever you want to go, you’re almost there.” He took his hood down. “We’re done.”

  Hera looked over at Zaluna, who was wandering around looking at the monuments. “Have you decided?”

  “I want to go with you,” she said, “in your ship.” The woman gestured to the graves. “Almost everyone I’ve known on this planet is just a name on a screen—or a name on a stone. I don’t want to work at Transcept anymore, even if they let me back. And it would be nice to see an actual sunrise someplace.”

  “Should we go to your place and pick up your things?”

  Zaluna shook her head. “They’re watching it by now. And my life wasn’t at that apartment anyway.” She looked up at the moon. “Let’s get started.”

  Hera turned to Skelly. “And what are you going to do?”

  Skelly opened his cloak and patted his satchel with his left hand. “I’m going to cut off this problem at the source—by blowing up the explosives plant that’s near the spaceport. If they can’t bring baradium from Gorse, they can’t destroy the moon!”

  Hera looked reproachfully at him. “You do know there are other sources of explosives besides Gorse, right?”

  “If I cost them a day, it’s worth it.” Skelly jutted out his chin. “Besides,” he said, “what else is there for me to do?”

  Kanan nodded in agreement, despite himself. Skelly had just summed it up. Futile efforts—that was all anyone on Gorse had left. Kanan, of course, knew all about being cut adrift with no guidance as to what to do next. He’d figured out the secret: never again identifying with anything or anyone so much that losing it left him with no other option. But not everyone was as smart as he was.

  He walked up to Hera. “So, where do you want to go after we drop her off? Wor Tandell’s nice. Or there are some casino worlds I think you’d love.”

  Hera shook her head. “I hate to sound like that droid from yesterday, Kanan, but I don’t take riders.”

  Her serious tone startled him. “What’s that again?”