The Rise of the Empire

by John Jackson Miller

  “I would if I could,” Kanan said. He could hear more troops running in the hall, searching for them. “We’re out of time.”

  “It happens.”

  The stormtroopers were closing in. Kanan knelt, protecting the doorway in front of her. “I’m sorry you have to do this, Zaluna. You never asked for any of this.”

  “Neither did you,” she said, securing her pouch. “You’re a decent person, Kanan, no matter what show you put on for the world. You keep being that way.”

  With a dutiful salute, Zaluna got down on all fours and peeked beneath the blast door propped up by the body of the unfortunate stormtrooper. She looked back and whispered, “All cyborgs, all the time. It’ll be just like evading cams.” Then she shimmied under the door.

  —

  The room was frighteningly large, with lots of computer consoles about. More places to hide. Zaluna crawled behind one. Vidian’s cybernetic assistants were here and there, but their minds appeared to be on their work.

  Zaluna quietly moved from one workstation to another, hoping the artificial ears in the room couldn’t hear her joints cracking or her heart pounding. It’s just like working my way across the floor of that cantina the other day, she told herself. It wasn’t, but thinking it helped.

  Finally, she found a console near the eastern wall that looked to have a connection to the comm system—and a nice little nook behind, where she could tap in and send her warning.

  Text would have to do. She’d prewritten it on the tramcar ride: “People of Gorse, beware…” She would send it and hope for the best.

  She was about to connect to the port when a voice came from overhead. “And here’s our rodent.”

  Grabbed by the back of her shirt, Zaluna was yanked upward and outward. Spun about, she saw the moon outside the windows. She saw stormtroopers running down the metal steps to the main floor. And now she looked directly into the terrifying eyes of Count Vidian.

  He shook the woman violently. Her bag fell open, spilling forth her blaster and all her devices. Vidian surveyed the instruments. “So they brought a slicer. I knew there was someone else.” His other hand on Zaluna’s collar, he brought her back face-to-face with him. “If you know about surveillance cams, you should have remembered something else: You don’t always know where they are.”

  He turned and hurled her across the room.

  —

  In the middle of firing at oncoming stormtroopers outside the doorway, Kanan heard Zaluna’s cry.

  The gambit had failed. Kanan shot and shot again, putting his last attackers on the deck. Holstering his blaster, he turned to the door. It had descended farther since Zaluna had gone underneath it: The servos were grinding away, trying vainly to push through the armored obstacle.

  Kanan placed his hands along the underside of the blast door and heaved upward. His muscles screamed, fighting against both the heavy door and the mechanism holding it in place. Metal groaned, and then something snapped. He forced the door up half a meter from where it had been—where it would go no farther. It was enough. He slid his legs beneath it and rolled, even as the door began to move again.

  Righting himself, he saw the count stalking toward Zaluna’s motionless body. Kanan stood. “Vidian!”

  A stormtrooper charged at Kanan from the left side of the door, his blaster raised. Kanan moved like lightning, grabbing the rifle by its barrel and shoving. The soldier stumbled backward, allowing him to wrest the weapon free. Another trooper came toward him, from behind. Kanan spun, smacking his attacker in the side of the helmet with the weapon.

  Vidian charged. Kanan turned the stormtrooper’s rifle around. Three blaster shots slammed point-blank into Vidian’s body, searing his tunic. Kanan knew that wouldn’t stop him—but he had to get the man away from Zaluna. Vidian charged, grabbing for the barrel of the blaster rifle. He ripped it away and shattered it in his bare metal hands.

  “Hurry up,” the count said, unruffled. “I have a schedule to keep.”

  Kanan moved his hand to his holster before changing his mind. He’d learned something from their first fight. Instead, he dived to the side as Vidian lunged, hitting the ground long enough to leap again—onto Vidian’s back.

  Enraged, Vidian clawed at him, raking at Kanan’s clothing. His heels digging into the cyborg’s metal hips, Kanan wrapped his arms around the back of Vidian’s neck and hung on for dear life.

  —

  Hera darted from hall to hall, careful to avoid stormtrooper details. They were numerous in this end of Forager—and apparently much exercised by her friends’ earlier infiltration.

  Kanan’s been here, all right, she thought, peering around the corner at the bodies of stunned troopers. Other stormtroopers were tending to their companions and helping to defend their station. She wouldn’t be able to follow the path Kanan had taken.

  Opening a portal leading off the main hall, she stepped into a storage area full of equipment—and loading vehicles, all unattended. There were even several hovercarts like the one Kanan used on Cynda.

  A power forklift caught her eye. A heavy-duty repulsorcraft, narrow enough to navigate hallways—with a cab that offered some degree of protection from attackers ahead.

  Hera grinned. Driving loading equipment was Kanan’s trade, but she’d show him what she could do.

  —

  Zaluna awoke to a nightmare. The sound had reached her first—Vidian stumbling about, driving his back into consoles and walls as he tried to dislodge Kanan. Horrific squawks came from Vidian’s speakers as electronic circuits tried to express his animal rage.

  And yet Kanan kept moving, shifting his hold every time Vidian came close to dislodging him. From headlock to arms around the cyborg’s shoulders to a headlock again, the younger man squirmed in response to the count’s every move.

  Zaluna forced herself to sit up. Her leg hurt horribly where she’d landed—but the only stormtroopers here were on the floor. Vidian’s cybernetic assistants milled about near the walls, looking on as the pair wreaked havoc on their work space. Vidian staggered past again with Kanan, nearly stepping on her. She rolled—

  —and saw her pistol, on the floor where she’d dropped it. Vidian had a handhold on Kanan’s left ankle now, she saw. She had to help her friend. Zaluna dived for the blaster and rose to face the count.

  “Zal, no!” Kanan yelled.

  Vidian swept forward, releasing his hold on Kanan and reaching for her blaster. She tried to fire—but he had hold of the barrel now. He squeezed. Zaluna saw a flash brighter than lightning as the blaster’s energy pack discharged in their faces. She fell backward—and saw no more.

  —

  The flash subsided. Kanan, who had remembered what happened when blaster shots struck Vidian, had leapt clear an instant before the flash occurred. His eyes adjusting to the light, Kanan saw Zaluna collapse. “No!”

  Vidian staggered, holding his face in his hands. Kanan quickly surmised the man had overestimated his ability to shake off energy attacks. Blaster bolts were one thing; power packs exploding point-blank were something else. Kanan scrambled past him to Zaluna’s side. The woman was still breathing, he saw, but her face was burned.

  So, he now saw, was Vidian’s. Recovered, the cyborg had pulled his hands away from his face. His synthskin facial coating was charred and melted, revealing the metal man beneath. He straightened and stared down the pair.

  “This ends now, gunslinger. Draw your weapon.”

  Kanan was about to—when he heard something else: blasterfire echoing through the huge chamber. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Looking around, Vidian acted as if he couldn’t figure that out, either—nor could he identify the gruesome, grinding sound that accompanied it.

  Then everyone saw it: a massive hover-forklift powering its way through one of the upper doorways onto the catwalk above. Two hapless stormtroopers had already been collected by its massive arms—and a third, caught by surprise, tumbled backward over the railing to the command center floor
.

  The vehicle kept on going, smashing through the catwalk barrier. Vidian, astonished at the new arrival from above, dived to the side—even as Kanan moved to protect Zaluna. With a deafening crash, the forklift and its pinned troopers slammed onto the floor between the infiltrators and Vidian. The lifting arms snapped violently off, one nearly taking out the count’s shins.

  Hera clambered out of the cab. Vidian looked at her in amazement. “You!”

  “That’s the trick with surveillance cams, Count. You can’t watch all of them at once.” She drew her blasters.

  Vidian started to claw his way up the pile of wreckage toward her. “You should have tried to run me down. You know your blasters won’t hurt me.”

  “No, but this might.” Hera turned and aimed each one at a different tall viewport. “These viewports aren’t magnetically shielded—and these blasters are set on full power. I can decompress this whole compartment. If you make a move on my friends—or try to give the detonation command—you’ll have a whole new address!”

  Vidian responded with a digital snort. “And which of us do you think would fare better in such an event?” He stepped over to a console and clamped his left hand on it. “I won’t be going anywhere. And my respiration is augmented already.” He shook his head and let out an electronic cluck. “But I find what you’ve said much more interesting. We’ve come to it, at last. You want to save the moon, Cynda.” He looked around at his workers—and at the few mobile stormtroopers, recovering and raising their weapons. “Tell me who you’re working for, now!”

  “I’m working for everyone. The people of Gorse. The people of the galaxy!”

  Vidian seemed surprised. Then he laughed. “I think we have an agitator here!”

  “If you destroy the moon, you’ll destroy the thorilide,” Hera shouted. “The Emperor won’t stand for that!”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Vidian said. “I’m smarter than you think.” He turned to face the console. “I am going to do this. And then I am going to find out who each of you really is. And the Empire will destroy everyone important to you.”

  Kanan glared. “You’re a little late on that one.”

  “And your time is running out. Four minutes until optimal detonation window.” He smiled back at Kanan. “Shall we all wait together?”

  SLOANE KNEW back on Calcoraan Depot that she had walked into a trap. She just didn’t know whose trap it was.

  The mouthy pilot had told her about Vidian’s double identity, his fraudulent test results, and his desire to make the Emperor’s deadline by destroying Cynda—and Gorse along with it. She’d thought it all nonsense, and very likely some bizarre test of loyalty from Vidian. After the speaker and his shadowy companions sank into the floor on the hydraulic lift, Sloane had been ready to dismiss the entire thing.

  But Vidian had laid it on too thick. He’d tried too hard to ensure her cooperation, insisted too much on speeding the project to a conclusion. Her elevation to permanent Star Destroyer captain—ahead of all the others with more seniority—was more than a bribe. It was a bludgeon, something no one could refuse.

  And the suggestion that he might have some way of elevating her to admiral—her, a green captain without a permanent posting yet—was simply insulting to her intelligence and to the service to which she’d devoted her life.

  Vidian, the mystery man had said, lived by terrorizing people into meeting quotas. Yet fear of loss of standing was driving him to destroy a resource that the Emperor could have expected would produce for years to come.

  And Sloane believed him.

  But there was no reporting the pilot’s information up the chain—not the usual way. It was too explosive. Instead, she’d returned from Calcoraan Depot to Ultimatum where Chamas had arranged a secure connection with Baron Danthe, using the contact information the latter had provided. It was highly irregular to involve a civilian, but Danthe was the only person she knew who had a hope of directly reaching the Emperor or one of his minions.

  Silence had followed, during which she’d done her job as ordered. Then, finally, she’d heard back from them in her ready room. The Emperor’s people had confirmed that everything the young man said was true. And there was more.

  Vidian had already launched one scheme to defraud the people of Gorse, starting before the days of the Empire. By secretly purchasing and controlling Minerax Consulting, he had issued the critical report accelerating the end of thorilide mining on Gorse. That single act damaged the guild he once worked for while lifting the interests of the comet-chaser industry, which he mostly controlled. On Gorse, mining work had literally gone to the moon then, defacing what had been a famous natural preserve.

  That had been enough for Vidian, until the past week, when he returned to the system for the first time in years—and Sloane’s part in it began. On his return to the system, Vidian had cut the last connection between him and Lemuel Tharsa by using her and Ultimatum’s power to eliminate the miners’ medcenter where he had convalesced. But that matter was minor compared with the problem he faced meeting the Emperor’s new production targets. The newly discovered prospect of destroying the moon for thorilide had been a sudden blessing, and his metal fingers grasped at the reed with full force. There, again, he had used Minerax to lie, asserting that the project would be a successful producer, long-term. Minerax, and its chief researcher: Lemuel Tharsa.

  As Vidian had expected, Tharsa’s name and reputation had been enough to gain Imperial approval for destruction of the moon. The man and his résumé were real. Hadn’t Tharsa been a veteran of the Interstellar Thorilide Guild, before dropping out to change his line to consulting? And hadn’t he given the okay to dozens of projects over the past several years, some of which redounded to Vidian’s personal profit?

  Yes, and no. Because the renegade pilot had spoken truly. Vidian was Tharsa. But Vidian had also kept Tharsa’s name alive, using it in order to advance his goals and to enrich himself. Moreover, Tharsa’s supposed existence helped hide the count’s past from others, who might have found his true origin—as a functionary for a guild where everyone was on the take—less compelling than his self-scripted myth of a military ship designer who had taken on his superiors in the name of the troops.

  There had been one other consequence: The Emperor hadn’t known the truth, either.

  Emperor Palpatine’s reach and resources were immense. Little went on in the Galactic Empire that he didn’t know about—usually, before it even happened. It was a good thing, and it worked to the advantage of all his subjects. But Vidian had spent well to cover his tracks. And perhaps Vidian’s past image as a fame-seeking business guru had caused the Emperor to accept his identity as it was described. As long as Vidian was as effective as his reputation advertised, what difference did it make that he lined his pockets playing the show-off?

  A whole lot, Sloane now understood. Because “Kanan”—the Emperor’s agent, she now accepted—had, through her, supplied his master with the truth. Vidian had lied about the lunar test results. Before passing the report along, Sloane had Ultimatum’s technical staff confirm the man’s claim: Within a year, the vast majority of unharvested thorilide from the moon’s remains would decompose in space, destroying the Emperor’s precious prize.

  Vidian’s aides aboard her ship—the ones that existed, anyway—had helped to rig the test, ensuring that false data would be reported. While still docked at Calcoraan Depot, her crack technicians had reexamined every probe droid in Ultimatum’s stores. Vidian’s people had done a good job of hiding their tampering, but not good enough. In order to fast-track the destruction of Cynda, Vidian had been forced to prepare his deception too quickly.

  Of course, the truth would have come out a year after the moon’s destruction: Vidian had to know the result would enrage His Highness. And yet, here the count was, going ahead with the project. Sloane wondered whether the quest for revenge had driven the man mad.

  But Vidian wasn’t insane. He had a plan, outlined in a supplemen
tal document given her by the stranger: an encrypted file from Vidian’s computers. The Emperor’s experts had cracked it just minutes before, prompting his call. Her anger rose now as she read the file.

  Cynda would be destroyed, and within a year would be worthless rubble—but by that time, it would be the responsibility of someone else: likely his underling and greatest nemesis, Baron Lero Danthe. The baron would naturally point at Vidian, who would in turn blame Sloane and her demolition crews’ incompetence. He would call her appointment to interim captain premature. And then he would rush to the rescue with another revelation: something so startling that she could barely believe Vidian had concealed it all this time. It was a fact Minerax Consulting had discovered fifteen years earlier, and that Vidian had bought the firm in order to bury.

  The moon Cynda did have more thorilide than the nightside of Gorse. But Gorse’s dayside held incalculably more, all buried under the blazing heat of a sun that never left the sky.

  It would otherwise have been a useless bit of knowledge: Organics couldn’t toil in that heat. And at the time, the suppliers of heat-resistant droids belonged on the side of the Separatists in the Clone Wars. The stuff was unreachable. And when the war ended, it left Danthe as the monopoly supplier. Such a prize would make Danthe incalculably rich and powerful, she realized. No wonder Vidian had hidden the fact.

  And it further explained what she had seen on Calcoraan Depot: workers of Vidian’s, trying to reverse-engineer Danthe’s droids. Vidian’s file described a one-year timetable for having his own droids ready to rush to Gorse’s dayside, able to fill the need when Cynda’s remains ran out of thorilide. In a sequence of events typical of his preference for neat solutions, Vidian would eliminate a competitor and save the day for the Empire—all while turning a huge profit.