The Old Republic Series
Page 4
The Supreme Commander had had a busy morning: countless visitors, endless supplicants, the eternal buzzing of his comlink. Ula didn’t know how he stood it. Then came the request from Grand Master Satele Shan for an audience, throwing the Supreme Commander’s schedule completely out of whack.
“Can’t you put her off?” Stantorrs asked his secretary, with a look that signaled annoyance. The longer Ula occupied his role, the better he was getting at understanding the expressions of aliens, even noseless, moon-faced Duros like this one. “She was here only an hour ago.”
“She says it’s important.”
“All right, all right. Send her in.”
Ula had never formally met the Jedi Grand Master before. He regarded the Jedi with suspicion and dislike, and not just because they were the Emperor’s enemy.
She strode into the palatial office and offered the Supreme Commander a bow of respect. With a finely boned face and gray-streaked hair, she was not a tall woman, but the position she occupied in the Republic hierarchy was considerable.
Stantorrs stood and offered a nod that seemed much slighter in comparison with hers. Like Ula, he didn’t approve of Jedi, but his reasons had nothing to do with philosophy. Many in the Republic placed the blame for the Empire’s ascendance firmly on the Jedi Council’s collective shoulders. The Treaty of Coruscant had wrenched the galactic capital out of the Emperor’s control once more, but only at great cost to the Republic and its allies, and at terrible loss of face. The Council’s retreat to Tython hadn’t helped.
“How can I help you, Master Shan?” he asked in gruff Basic.
“I’ve received a report from my Padawan of a possible bounty hunter loose in the old district,” she said in measured tones. “Running riot among the criminal classes, apparently.”
“That’s a minor issue. Why bring it to me?”
“Your brief is restoring security on Coruscant. Furthermore, the bounty hunter is a Mandalorian.”
Ula didn’t need to read minds to know what Stantorrs was thinking now. A Mandalorian blockade of the Hydian Way trade route in the last decades of the Great War had crippled the Republic and very nearly led to its ruin. Since his defeat, Mandalore had lost many of his raiders to the gladiatorial pit fights on Geonosis, but Ula wasn’t the only person on Coruscant who knew that Imperial operatives had been behind the anti-Republic action, and that he was still looking for a fight. If he was considering making a move on Coruscant itself, it had to be addressed immediately.
“What can you tell me about him?”
“His name is Dao Stryver. He’s looking for information regarding a woman, Lema Xandret, and something called Cinzia.”
Ula’s ears pricked up at the latter name. He had heard that recently. Where, exactly?
The Supreme Commander was performing the same mental search. “A report,” he mused, drumming his long fingers on the desk. “Something from SIS, I’m sure. Perhaps you should ask them about it.”
A hint of Grand Master Satele Shan’s true authority appeared in her voice. “I am to contact Tython immediately regarding our earlier discussions. General Garza impressed upon me the urgency and secrecy of the matter. I cannot afford to be delayed any further.”
Stantorrs’s waxy skin turned a deep purple. He didn’t like the Republic’s own policies being used against him. Ula hoped for a momentary loss of control, that something might slip about the nature of those earlier meetings. Try as he might, he could learn nothing about them, although he was certain they were of grave importance to his Masters on Dromund Kaas.
Unfortunately Stantorrs’s self-control was a match for his temper.
“I haven’t got time to investigate every minor disruption,” the Supreme Commander fumed. “Ula! Look into it, will you?”
Ula jumped at the mention of his name. “Sir?”
“Follow up this incident for Master Shan. Report to both of us when you find something. If you find something.”
The last was directed at the Grand Master with a generous amount of ill feeling.
“Of course, sir,” said Ula, hoping that the concession was simply a ruse to get the Grand Master off Stantorrs’s back.
“Thank you, Ula, Supreme Commander. I’m most grateful.”
With that, Satele Shan swept from the room, watched resentfully by Stantorrs and his staff. Every department in the Republic was overstretched and understaffed. The last thing anyone wanted was the Jedi sticking their noses in, finding fault, and handing over more work.
Ula’s job wasn’t to sow dissent, but sometimes he wished it was. Dissent practically sowed itself on cursed Coruscant, where the sky was the same heavy gray as its pedwalks and the pockmarks of war still scarred its artificial face.
The Supreme Commander resumed his seat with a heavy sigh. “All right, Ula. You’d better get started.”
“But sir,” Ula said, “surely you don’t—I mean, I thought—”
“No, we’d better do exactly as I said, just in case it does turn out to be important. No sweeping anything aside when Mandalorians are involved. If that rabble of troublemakers is helping the Empire make another move on Coruscant, we need to know about it. But don’t spend too much time on it, eh? The rest of the galaxy won’t wait.”
Ula inclined his head in frustrated obedience. He was dismayed that the Grand Master’s minor request was removing him from the Supreme Commander’s presence. How was he going to gather the intelligence he needed now? This pointless quest could cost him valuable data.
There was no use arguing, and perhaps some benefit to complying, too. Mandalorians weren’t any kind of rabble: their vast numbers of individual clans, each available for hire to the highest bidder, added up to a potent fighting force capable of shifting the balance of power in a major battle, as the Republic had already learned to its cost. The Empire had given the Mandalorians the means of returning to the galaxy and gaining revenge on their enemies, but there was no loyalty lingering between the two sides. With the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant, Emperor and Mandalore had gone their separate ways.
It was worth pursuing this lead, he told himself, even if an hour or two’s research proved that someone had been chasing at shadows and business returned to usual afterward.
It would be out of character, too, to do otherwise. Ula Vii, the amenable functionary, always did as he was told. That was how he had gained such intimate access to the Supreme Commander’s affairs. With a brisk bow, he smoothed the already impeccable front of his uniform as he left the office and headed for the headquarters of his opposite number in the Republic.
STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS didn’t advertise its offices in the Heorem Complex, but anyone with any seniority in the administration knew where they were. Ula had had reason to visit only once before, while covering for a Cipher Agent, and he’d made a point of avoiding it ever since. The company of other intelligence operatives bothered him, no matter whose side they were on. They were all of the same breed, more or less: observant, quick thinking, used to seeing—or imagining—deception all around them. Creatures of few words, they gave little away, and their eyes were as pointed as the needles of an interrogator droid.
Ula masked his nervousness behind a façade of calm as he entered the spacious, cultured atrium. The secretary smiled warmly at him.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Ula Vii, adviser to Supreme Commander Stantorrs.”
His voiceprint was checked, naturally, but unobtrusively. The secretary waved him through. He was met in a conference room by an unreadable Ithorian, possibly female, dressed in simple, black robes bearing no name tags or insignia.
“You’re an Epicanthix,” she said bluntly, from both of her mouths.
As conversation starters, it was a disconcerting one. Most people failed to notice that he wasn’t fully human. He refused to give her the advantage.
“Supreme Commander Stantorrs requests information,” he said.
“Why doesn’t he follow the usual channels?”
“Ask,” she said.
He gave her the Mandalorian’s name, and the other names associated with the case.
The Ithorian produced a datapad from beneath her robes and tapped at it with one long, slender finger. Apart from that digit, no part of her body moved. Ula waited with no outward sign of impatience, wondering how the creature breathed.
“A ship registered to a Dao Stryver landed on Coruscant two standard days ago,” she finally said. “It left an hour ago.”
“What was the name and class of the ship?”
“First Blood, a modified Kuat D-Seven.”
“Destination?”
“Unknown.”
“Tell me about Lema Xandret.”
“We have no record of that name.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Once,” she said, “information flowed freely across the galaxy, ebbing and flowing as readily as light itself. We prided ourselves on the ease with which we knew all things. Then the Empire came, casting a shadow across the Republic, and the constant shine of knowledge was shattered. Much we would know now comes sluggishly, and in incomplete forms. Our task is as much to reconstruct as to gather.”
“That’s a no, then,” said Ula testily. He was very aware of the state of information in the galaxy, and he didn’t like the Empire being blamed for it. From his point of view, the Republic had never gotten it right, and only the establishment of Imperial rule would enable the right and correct flow of data to everyone.
He wasn’t getting very far with the alien, but he had one question left.
“What about the third name: Cinzia?”
“We have three appearances: two from the Senate and one from an allied spy network. Both point to the same source.”
More spies, Ula thought with distaste. He hated that word. “Who are the Senators?”
“Bimmisaari in the Halla sector and Sneeve in the Kastolar sector.”
“Can you tell me their source?”
“Readily. There are no security warnings attached to this subject.” The Ithorian tapped again. “Both Senators and the spy network report on an unusual auction in Hutt space. Tenders have been called for.”
“Where does the name Cinzia fit in?”
“It appears to be a vessel of some kind.”
“Anything else?”
“Speculation varies among the three parties. I can offer you no hard facts.”
Ula thought quickly to himself. So Dao Stryver was real, and the Cinzia, too. But what was one doing on Coruscant while the other was in Hutt space? How did the greed of a species of malignant criminals connect them?
“Thank you,” he said. “You’ve been some help to us.”
The Ithorian walked him back to the atrium and left him there. The secretary waved cheerfully as he left. A film of sweat covered Ula from head to foot. It could have gone much worse, he told himself, if they had only known what he really was …
Ula had a contact in the office of the Senator from Bimmisaarian. He made an appointment by comlink as he walked. With luck, he hoped, this whole thing could be wrapped up before day’s end and life would return to normal.
“OH, I KNOW exactly what you’re talking about,” breezed Hun et L’Beck over a pot of traditional ale. He had insisted on meeting for lunch, and Ula had found it impossible to talk him out of it. Ula didn’t like eating in public. It was one of the things he preferred to keep to himself, without worrying about what other people thought.
“Go on, then,” he said, moving scraps of yot bean fry-up around his plate. “Tell me everything.”
L’Beck had finished eating long ago and was on to his second pot. That made him even more loquacious than normal, which wasn’t a bad thing. Ula needed him to talk.
“The Senator’s offices on Bimmisaari received a communiqué from Tassaa Bareesh seven days ago. Do you know who she is?”
“A member of the Bareesh Cartel, I presume.”
“Only the head, the matriarch. She has close ties to the Empire, so we keep an eye on her as best we can. There’s nothing we can do about the smuggling, but open slavery is something we try to crack down on.”
Ula nodded. Bimmisaari’s home sector butted directly on Hutt space, so the behavior of the cartels could have a hugely destabilizing effect on the local economy. “Go on.”
“The communiqué was a pitch, really, and a fairly unsubtle one at that. Bareesh was attempting to interest us in something one of her pirates had found in the Outer Rim. Information, apparently, and an unspecified artifact. She didn’t say where they had come from, exactly; way out past Rinn was the only hint she dropped. We didn’t pay it much heed at first, naturally.”
“Why ‘naturally’?”
“Well, we receive dozens of offers from the Hutts every day. Most are scams. Some are traps. All are full of lies. Not so different from what we receive from the Resource Management Council, but at least that’s supposed to be on our side.” L’Beck toasted his own cynical witticism and ordered another drink.
“So you ignored the communiqué,” Ula prompted.
“And that normally would have been the end of it. Except another one arrived, and then another, each adding a little to the story until eventually we had to pay attention. It was quite a clever campaign, actually. We wouldn’t have accepted it if it had arrived all at once, but doled out bit by bit, letting each piece of the puzzle fall into place before offering us the next one, eventually it was enough to get even the Senator himself interested.”
“In what, exactly?”
“The Hutts found a ship. The Cinzia. There was something inside it, apparently, an artifact they’re trying to sell, but that’s not the most important thing. What really makes this interesting is where the ship came from.”
Ula was getting tired of playing games. “Just tell me, will you?”
“I can’t. That information is what the Hutts are selling.” L’Beck leaned forward. “We’ve been trying to generate interest in the Senate. Support is spreading for an official response, but not fast enough. The auction is in a few days’ time, and I’m afraid we’ll miss out.” L’Beck’s voice lowered until it was barely audible over the background noise. “How would you like to be the one to hand the Republic a previously unknown, resource-rich world, ripe for the picking?”
Ula kept his expression neutral. So that was what the fuss was about. New worlds weren’t especially hard to come by, but anything steeped in minerals or biosphere was fiercely contested between the Empire and the Republic. If the Hutts had stumbled across the location of one such world, there was indeed a real chance to profit from the knowledge.
“Are you sure it’s real, not another scam?” he asked L’Beck.
“As sure as we can be,” L’Beck said lightly, taking his third pot from the waiter and knocking back a hefty swallow. “Supreme Chancellor Janarus would authorize a bidding party from Bimmisaari, I’m sure, if we could only get word to him. Do you think you can help?”
And there it was, the appeal for assistance in shoring up local politics. Halla sector wanted not only to be the ones who brought a new world to the Republic’s attention, but access to the Chancellor’s coffers as well. A small percentage would be skimmed off the top to cover administration expenses, no doubt—providing more ale for the likes of Hunet L’Beck and his ilk. Thus the Republic doomed itself, and all it purported to represent.
Ula suppressed his ideological revulsion. “I’ll bring it to Supreme Commander Stantorrs’s attention,” he said. And that was the truth. He had no choice now. If he returned with nothing, and two days later the information did reach the Supreme Chancellor’s ears from another source—well, it wouldn’t pay to be diminished in Stantorrs’s eyes. Maintaining that contact was paramount.
But that wouldn’t stop him from spreading the information elsewhere first.
“I owe you,” said L’Beck as Ula paid
the bill and took his leave. That was the best way to leave an informant: in one’s debt. Ula’s coffers, like the Republic’s, weren’t limitless, but they contained enough credits to grease the path to Imperial domination, just a little.
MANY MEANS EXISTED of getting secret transmissions off Coruscant. One could stash an antenna on a little-used building and broadcast when official satellites were out of range. One could pay a lowlife to take a recording to orbit, there to send the message farther by more ordinary means. One could employ a code of such baroque complexity that the transmission resembled layers of noise upon noise, with no significant features.
Ula believed that the best way to arouse suspicion was to go too far out of his way to avoid it. So his preferred method of contacting his superiors was to place a call to Panatha, the planet of his birth, leave a message for his mother, and wait for the reply to come to him. That way, the burden of guilt was shifted elsewhere. It was much easier to brush off receiving an illicit communication, one possibly misplaced, than the accusation of making one.
After notifying the Supreme Commander that he was hot on the case, he went immediately to his austere quarters and sent two signals. Ula lived in Manarai Heights, near his work in the Senate District while at the same time close enough to the Eastport Docking Facility to make a quick getaway if he needed to. He had stashes of documents, credits, and weapons in several locations between home and the spaceport. He also had a secondary apartment, little more than a closet, really, in case he needed somewhere to hide for a while. He wasn’t one for taking chances. The illusion of innocence he had wrapped around himself could be all too easily dispelled. He had seen it happen before. One mistake was all it took …
The bleep of his comlink broke him out of the nervous reverie in which he had spent the last hour. The call was on its way, in response to the first of his signals. He readied himself by straightening his uniform for the dozenth time and taking position in front of his holoprojector. This was the part of his job he liked the least.
A ghostly image appeared before him, flickering blue with static. There was little more than a hint of a face, and the voice was both genderless and species-less. Ula had no idea whom he spoke to on distant Dromund Kaas.