The Rise of the Empire

by John Jackson Miller

  What Vidian could easily see, however, was the pilot and his friends being part of some plot by one of his many rivals. And that meant he had to be cautious. He had no idea what the pilot had said to Sloane—but he had to be certain of her loyalty, and his eventual success. “I appreciate your freeing me, Sloane. This could have been…embarrassing.”

  She shrugged. “My duty is to you, sir.”

  “Then I will do mine to you.” He paused for several seconds before speaking aloud again. “I have just sent a verbal instruction to the staff at my offices at Corellia. In a few days Captain Karlsen will be receiving a very lucrative offer to join the private sector.”

  Surprised, Sloane put up her hand in protest. “Sir, I wasn’t expecting—”

  “At that time, Ultimatum is yours to keep.”

  The news appeared to take her breath away. Good, Vidian thought. “Return with Ultimatum as planned while I finish the preparations aboard the collection ship. Once the moon is destroyed and Forager begins to do its job, the Emperor will see the return, and our work together will be vindicated.”

  “Together, my lord?”

  “You’ll have the credit you deserve for helping to make this happen so quickly. I might even request you and Ultimatum be permanently detached to me.” He eyed her. “Who is the youngest admiral, I wonder?”

  THERE WASN’T ALWAYS much to do when a ship was in hyperspace, the interdimensional realm between stars. There was even less when flying Expedient, a ship with no galley or living quarters. Worse, the cockpit area offered no privacy at all; Skelly was snoring away on his seats, and Zaluna, unshakable for so long, had taken to nervously fidgeting around with the contents of her magic bag. Well, even the strongest had their limits—especially when death was coming for their homeworld.

  The only getaway existed in the far rear of the ship, down one of the branching aisles of the cargo hold. And there, at the far end, standing amid the shelves of secured baradium-357 canisters, waited the person he wanted to see.

  “Cozy back here,” Kanan said. “We could send out for flatcakes.”

  “Very funny.” Hera held the smile for only a moment. She looked tired. “We need to talk.”

  “My pleasure.” Kanan found a spot at the end of the aisle with no canisters on either side, creating two makeshift seats on opposing lower shelves. “I fixed the ID transponder like you asked. It’ll say we’re a different ship than landed on Calcoraan Depot—in case they’ve finally figured out we were the ones that messed with Vidian.”

  Hera still wore the same worried expression, he saw. “I’m guessing you had a different problem?” Kanan asked.

  “It’s Skelly,” she said in a low voice, nodding in the direction of the cockpit. “I think he’s in trouble.”

  “He’s always in trouble.”

  “I think he’s dying,” she said. “The joking around is a cover. He’s in bad shape.”

  Kanan inhaled deeply and nodded. He’d seen the same thing. “Vidian did a number on him. Broken bones, internal bleeding.” He shook his head. “I caught a look at the readings that medical droid took of him. It wanted to open him up, right then and there.”

  “We need to get him to a medcenter,” Hera said. “He’s navigating on force of will alone.”

  “He’s got plenty of that. But where can we take him? We’re about to tell everyone on Gorse to run for their lives.”

  Hera sighed. “You’re right. They come first. He’s just going to have to hang on.”

  She looked toward the small viewport to her left, at the end of the aisle. Stars streaked by. Kanan thought she looked striking even now, facing likely defeat. “This isn’t what you came to Gorse for, was it?”

  She chuckled darkly. “Not even close. I’ve been talking to people who have grievances against the Empire—but only to find out the scope of what’s out there, what’s possible. I wasn’t expecting to do anything against it. Not yet, anyway. Not for a long time.”

  “That’s the problem with people,” Kanan said. “They never need help on your schedule—only theirs.”

  She nodded. Then she looked back at him. After studying him for a moment, she spoke. “Where are you from, Kanan?”

  “Around,” he said. “You?”

  “Same.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She smiled gently. “That’s not what I really wanted to ask, anyway.”

  Kanan smirked. “Fire away, then.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Sitting with you? Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “No, I mean this. Flying around fugitives and trying to take down Vidian. I know why Skelly and I are doing this,” she said. “Even Zaluna. But not you.”

  He shrugged. “I love a party.”

  “Seriously.”

  He scratched his beard. “You were there. You saw what happened to Okadiah, and all the others—”

  “And that’s awful. But by your own admission, you move around. You were about to leave Gorse forever when I found you. So while I appreciate your being here, I wonder if there’s something else going on.” She eyed him. “I mean, you’re not here for the politics.”

  He laughed. “Definitely not.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, you don’t strike me as a victim of oppression.”

  Kanan’s grin melted a little on hearing her words, and he looked away. “You never know,” he muttered. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  “What?”

  Feeling her eyes on him, he faced her again and smiled. “Nothing. Hey, it’s like I said at the start. I’m just going where you’re going.”

  Hera’s nose wrinkled. “Hmm,” she said, after a moment.

  “Hmm what?”

  “I think I liked your first answer better.”

  —

  Zaluna stood before the onrushing stars. It was an amazing spectacle, something she had never expected to see. Her salary wasn’t enough to take her far, and besides, she had nowhere to go. Her office was her universe.

  And now that Skelly was snoozing and Kanan and Hera were gone, somewhere in the back, this was her last chance to get it back.

  Her last chance to change her mind.

  She’d completely ruined her life in the last few days. She’d only wanted to fulfill Hetto’s parting wish, not go running around the galaxy like some kind of secret agent. Infiltrating an Imperial depot? Tampering not just with the computers of an important official, but with his very body? Who was that person? It certainly wasn’t the woman she’d imagined she was.

  But here, she had an opportunity to undo everything. She’d seen the big red light on the forward control panel, earlier: It had signaled when the vessel was about to exit hyperspace. Dark now, it sat adjacent to the comm system—and that was something Zaluna knew how to use.

  And she could use it, right as they reentered realspace, to contact the Empire and get off this ride.

  They might still believe her. She could say she was kidnapped, forced to help the would-be radicals. Skelly and Kanan were violent characters who’d attacked Imperial agents. Hera was the mastermind, trying to lure her into betraying the Empire. Zaluna was innocent, a pawn, a foolish woman with nothing but good intentions. She could say she was trying to entrap the agitators when she got trapped herself. They’d taken her into danger. She didn’t owe them anything.

  And the moon might still be saved. If Vidian was doing something he shouldn’t, the Empire would stop him, wouldn’t it? And how was any of it her business anyway? Maybe the deadly predictions of what might happen were wrong. Who was she to second-guess decisions made from so far on high? It would be an irrational Empire indeed that would ignore its people’s best interests.

  Only…the Empire had done exactly that many times that she had seen. And its minions had never listened to anyone’s defense before. They only listened to what people said about the Empire. Zaluna knew firsthand, having been the state’s ears and eyes on Gorse and Cynda for years. She’d heard—but never comprehended. She w
atched, but never saw.

  And now that was changing. The others had started her thinking.

  Hera had listened patiently to Zaluna’s concerns several times during their journey, and each time had spoken frankly and firmly. Fear was understandable and forgivable—and no one expected Zaluna to do more than she was capable of. “But seeing and doing nothing isn’t the worst thing,” Hera had said. “The worst thing is to see and not to care.”

  Zaluna had seen Imperial minions do many things. Bad things, that Transcept’s watchers were ordered to look the other way on. She’d done as commanded—but it had never made sense. Wasn’t being a watchperson her job? What good was being a witness if the laws could be changed at whim by the lawgivers?

  Then there was Skelly. He was troubled, for sure, but she’d come to understand that he truly was interested in protecting Cynda and Gorse. The Empire cared little for those damaged by the Clone Wars, and even less for people who had qualms about its industrial activities. She could tell that for Skelly, the impending destruction of the moon was like watching death approaching for someone close to him.

  And finally, there was Kanan, who seemed to go from disaster to disaster as if he were wandering from one cantina to another. Nothing seemed to touch him—yet she knew that wasn’t true. Yes, he played the roustabout, working a dangerous job and pushing back against those who pushed him. But that day with Okadiah was not the first time she’d seen him come to someone’s defense. They were always small acts; often, the person helped hadn’t known he’d done anything. He seemed to want it that way, for some reason.

  She could also tell he was tired of living the way he had been: tired of going from one pointless job to another, looking for a place where he could live his life his own way. She’d seen the look a hundred times on the faces of other migrant workers—and the Empire had made it into a perpetual state for many. Kanan was young—but his secret soul was much older. And Zaluna knew the Empire was somehow responsible.

  But Zaluna had the right to a life of her choosing, too—and time was running out.

  The red light on the nav computer flashed. A buzzer, half broken and barely audible, sounded. Her eyes went to the comm system controls. It would be so easy…

  “Your only value to the Empire is what you can do for it,” said a voice from behind.

  Unsurprised at hearing Hera, Zaluna turned over her words in her mind. “You know,” she said calmly, “Hetto used to say that exact thing.”

  “He was right.”

  Zaluna saw Hera’s reflection in the viewport, against the streaming stars. She was motionless behind her, not approaching. “Aren’t you afraid?” Zaluna asked.

  “Anyone would be. But the Jedi had a saying about fear. It leads, ultimately, to suffering.” Hera paused. “Someone has to break the chain.”

  “People can’t talk about the Jedi anymore.”

  “Maybe they should.”

  Zaluna nodded and looked back at the control panel. “It was better then.” She felt her strength reviving. She was more than an extra set of eyes and ears to a sadistic cyborg—and to a faraway Emperor. She was no revolutionary, but she could at least try to stop them now.

  Zaluna moved her hand to the nav computer and shut off the buzzer. “I was just coming to get you,” she said. Turning to Hera, she smiled. “We’re here.”

  KANAN THOUGHT it sounded foolish to say aloud, but leaving hyperspace was just like entering it, except in reverse. The stars through the forward viewport went from blurred lines back to twinkling dots. Only this time, few could be seen from Expedient’s cockpit. Cynda hung above, a brilliant crescent from their angle, while massive Gorse sat up ahead, its cities in their eternal night.

  And there was something else: more TIE fighters than he had ever seen. Swarms lay ahead, peeling off in quartets as Expedient entered the area.

  “Vector right seven-five degrees, down-axis twenty,” snapped a voice over the comm system. “Follow the formation if you want to live.”

  Kanan flinched. This was normally when he’d give the Imperials some lip—but he wasn’t flying, and it wasn’t smart. Not now. Hera complied, banking the vessel and bringing it into line with a queue of ships far ahead. Each freighter had a pair of TIEs either above and below it or on either side, defining a corridor: Kanan could tell from the sensors that two flanked Expedient, on the port and starboard sides. Ahead, the sky went black for a moment, as the hexagonal wing of another TIE zipped past their field of view.

  “They’re crisscrossing,” Kanan said. “Keeping us all separated.”

  Hera frowned. “They’re limiting the damage a saboteur can do. They’re afraid there’s another Skelly out here.”

  “They’d be right,” called Skelly from behind. Holding his midsection, Skelly hobbled toward the front of the cockpit. He reached for the side of Kanan’s seat and missed. Zaluna hopped from her seat and grabbed onto him. Skelly seemed almost unaware of the woman steadying him. His eyes were locked on the outside. “Somebody means business.”

  Expedient followed the convoy across the terminator dividing Cyndan night from day. There they saw it, sitting off in space: the gang boss to their work crew. Zaluna gasped at the sight. “Another Star Destroyer!”

  “No, the same one,” Hera said.

  Kanan nodded. It was one of the more unnerving consequences when ships of differing speeds used hyperspace. Ultimatum had been in their rearview cam, parked at Calcoraan Depot, when they’d gone to lightspeed; now it was sitting in front of them over Gorse, disgorging even more TIE fighters.

  Hera looked in unsettled wonder. “These TIEs can’t all be from the Star Destroyer. Imperial-class has sixty, maybe seventy.”

  Kanan pointed out other vessels orbiting off Cynda’s horizon. Long and bulky like the thorilide cargo craft, the ships had docking ports for four TIE fighters each. “Looks like the Empire’s refitting Gozanti freighters these days.”

  “And they beat us here, too!” Hera was as aggravated as he’d seen her. She was clearly used to flying a faster ship. “We’re lucky they didn’t have time for shore leave.” She looked at the scanner and raised her hands in frustration. “I don’t know that we can get to Gorse at all through this blockade.”

  “I thought you were good,” Kanan said.

  “Not that good. Not in this thing.”

  The TIEs led the convoy on a long descent path, several hundred kilometers off the surface of Cynda. Hera rolled Expedient 180 degrees so the ground could be seen from the cockpit. “Construction work ahead,” Kanan said. He flipped a switch, triggering the viewport’s magnifying overlay.

  Skelly staggered forward and half collapsed against the forward panel between Hera and Kanan. Arms splayed forward across it for support, he gawked at what he saw. “We’re too late,” Skelly said, staring at a large metal tower on the surface over their heads.

  “What? What are those?” Kanan asked. He could see at least six others, spaced seemingly randomly across the moon’s surface.

  “Injection sites. They’re pumping in xenoboric acid, punching holes deep into the mantle. They’ll run the baradium charges down on suprafilament next.” Skelly looked from tower to tower. “Down below, Cynda’s got flaws, just like a diamond. They’ll set off the charges in a precise order, seconds apart. The primaries will cleave it. The secondaries will crush it. The tertiaries will disperse it.”

  Kanan stared at him. “How do you know all this?”

  “It’s my idea. I did it as a thought experiment—just to prove my point. It was on the holodisk.” He sighed and sagged to the floor. “Why do I always have to be right?”

  Hera studied the workers on the surface. “They’re in a real hurry,” Hera said.

  “Vidian’s in the hurry,” Kanan said. “He’s got to destroy the moon before the Emperor gets wise to what he’s doing here.” He smirked. “And that’s who’s missing. Him and his big collector ship. I told you, you just had to trust—”

  “Attention, newly arriving frei
ghters,” said a familiar voice over the comm system. “This is Captain Sloane of Ultimatum. I have important information about a change in plans.”

  Kanan smiled at the others and gave a thumbs-up signal. “This is it!”

  “The accident earlier this week left the moon’s mines dangerously unstable,” Sloane said over the comm system. “Imperial scientists have determined the only way to prevent future disasters is to release all the stresses that have built up—now, with no one in the mines. By doing so, we assure safe mining can continue, in the name of the Empire.”

  “Yeah, that Empire’s really looking out for them,” Skelly said. “They’re talking our own people into committing suicide!”

  “You will be guided to sites on the Cyndan surface where you will off-load and leave immediately,” the captain continued.

  Kanan frowned. “Wait a minute. That wasn’t what she was supposed to say. She was supposed to say Vidian’s a goner—and send us all home!”

  “That doesn’t sound like a woman who just squealed to the Emperor,” Hera said.

  Kanan stared at the comm system. “No, it doesn’t.” He shook his head.

  The hyperspace anomaly alarm flashed blue and squawked loudly. Ahead, Vidian’s gigantic thorilide harvester vessel appeared in the only free patch of space available.

  “Welcome, Forager,” Sloane said over the comm system. “The final freighters are here and the last charges will be injected in forty minutes. You should receive a data hookup with Detonation Control down there in one hour.”

  “Excellent work, Captain Sloane,” they heard Vidian say. “You’ll make a fine admiral one day.”

  Kanan looked at Hera. “This is making me sick. They’re on a date.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Blast it, I thought she’d listen!” He pounded his fist on the dashboard. “That’s the Imperial way, all right. They’re always stabbing their friends in the back!”