The viewscreen showed the remaining Republic fleet at a much higher orbit than it had been before, well out of range of the hexes. Infected ships were lancing out in wildly different directions, thanks to crippled drives or gravitational pull from either Sebaddon or the black hole. The Imperial fleet, reduced to seven ships—including its bulk cruiser—was also ascending to higher ground. A quick glance at the projected orbits showed that they were likely to cross paths in a few hours—but that was something to worry about later.
“What’s all this?” asked Shigar, brushing his hand through a layer of fuzz surrounding the planet’s equator.
“That’s where the last three missiles broke up,” said Ula, “and two more launched since. They weren’t aimed at anything. I think Xandret is laying down a defensive halo of hexes to protect the planet.”
“As well she might,” said Master Satele. “Show me the latest arrival.”
Jet’s finger stabbed at a bright dot hovering near the planet’s tiny satellite. “It appeared a minute ago.”
“From the same coordinates as everyone else?”
“No. It launched from a crater on the moon. I think it’s been hidden there the whole time.”
She nodded. “I’d like to broadcast a message.”
Jet gave her the comm.
“It’s about time you showed yourself,” she said. “I’d very much like to talk to you, Dao Stryver.”
“And I you, Grand Master” came the immediate reply. “It pleases me that you survived this unflattering rout.”
“Can one take pleasure from the survival of one’s enemy?” she asked the Mandalorian.
“One can indeed,” he said. “I will explain in due course.”
“I very much hope so.”
“Meet me at the moon in half an hour. Send one ship. No escort. You have my word that you and your party will not be harmed.”
Stryver clicked off.
“I don’t trust him,” Shigar said.
“We have no choice,” she said. “Plot the course, Captain Nebula. Take us by the Commenor. I need to speak to Captain Pipalidi now, in case we don’t get another chance.”
“ ‘We’?” asked Jet.
“This mission has already lost seven vessels of war. I will not risk another.”
“Doesn’t anyone care what I’m prepared to risk?”
“Look at this,” said Ula, drawing everyone’s attention back to the viewscreen. “The Imperials are launching a shuttle.”
“We can’t let it reach the jump coordinates,” said Shigar. “If they’re sending for reinforcements—”
“I don’t think that’s where they’re headed,” Satele said. “ ‘One ship, no escort,’ ” she quoted.
“And Stryver did say we wouldn’t be harmed by him,” added Jet. “Are you certain you want to do this?”
“Forget the flyby of the Commenor,” she told him. “Get us moving now. I’ll talk with Captain Pipalidi on the way.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Jet, casting Master Satele a sardonic salute. “We might as well run to our doom as walk.”
ULA WATCHED WITH mounting dread as the rendezvous point loomed. He was in the worst position imaginable, unable to act against the Republic’s wishes because Satele Shan would immediately overrule him, and unable to reveal his identity to his real masters without blowing his cover. For a wild moment he considered throwing himself on the mercy of the Mandalorians, but sanity, fortunately, prevailed. Stryver had no mercy. The best Ula could have hoped for in his care was slavery.
At least he was alive, he told himself, and had a chance of staying that way if he stepped through this minefield with utmost care.
The Auriga Fire’s blunt nose was angling ahead of the Imperial shuttle on its approach to Sebaddon’s solitary satellite. The moon was blocky and misshapen, more like a brick than a sphere, with a cornucopia of craters and fathomless fissures marring its ugly face. No wonder Stryver had stayed hidden for so long. It didn’t appear to have been mined or booby-trapped, which was a major omission for a colonial administration so keen to remain undisturbed. Ula wondered if they’d simply never thought of it, or if they’d erroneously—but not unreasonably—assumed that they would never be discovered so far from the galactic disk.
The First Blood, Stryver’s scout, anchored itself to the surface of the moon as the two ships approached. It was shaped like a crescent moon, with forward-pointing wings that bristled with weapons and a matte-black, nonreflective skin. There were no markings of any kind, just two glowing circles on either side indicating ready air locks. Jet prepared a docking ring and tube to cross the distance, and jockeyed to approach the starboard air lock. The Imperial pilot noted his intentions and moved to dock on the opposite side. Along with Larin and Hetchkee, Ula watched the shuttle closely for any signs of treachery. The way the Imperials had illegally destroyed the Republic shuttle on Hutta was still painful to him. He expected better.
“Who’s going in?” asked Larin over the internal comm.
“Shigar and I,” said Master Satele, “and Envoy Vii.”
Ula swallowed. “I fear I can be of little use,” he started to say, but was cut off by Larin.
“You’ll need a bodyguard,” she said. “Just for appearances.”
“All right.”
“And take Clunker, too,” said Jet. “I’ll watch through his eyes.”
“Can you and Hetchkee pilot the ship on your own, if you have to?”
“In a pinch,” said the smuggler. “With the right incentive, I could fly a battle cruiser on my own.”
“Very well, then. Maintain the umbilical seal, but close the ship once we have disembarked. Leave on my signal, whether we’re aboard or not.”
“Don’t worry about that,” the smuggler told her. “I’ll dust off if you so much as twitch funny.”
Ula sought distraction in telemetry as the ship settled lightly on the low-gravity moon. Sebaddon hadn’t launched any missiles since the last round. The main hot spot had been made considerably hotter by retaliatory fire, and activity was growing in other regions as well. It looked to him as though the occupants of the planet were regrouping in order to fight back, but it was hard to tell from such a distance. Every spy drone launched by the Republic fleet had been intercepted by the orbital halo of hexes and destroyed.
Maybe, he told himself, he could slip a message of some kind to his opposite number in the Imperial party. That was a small and unlikely hope to cling to.
With a series of clanks and thumps, the ship’s belly grapnels took a firm grip on the dusty soil outside. The whine of repulsorlifts faded away. Jet took his hands off the controls and leaned back into the seat. For all his bluster, he looked exhausted, or at least hung over. His prematurely gray hair stood up on one side, and his eyes were heavily bagged.
“I’ll mind the farm until you get back,” he told them. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Ula stood, hoping against hope that the Grand Master would change her mind. No such good fortune. She was already heading down the cockpit ladder, trailing Shigar like a pet. Ula waved Clunker ahead of him.
“Good luck,” Jet told him.
“You didn’t say that to the others.”
“I figure they don’t need it.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Jet grinned. “You’ll be okay. Just remember: you’ve got an unbeatable advantage.”
“What’s that?”
“The ability to see both sides at once.”
Ula didn’t know what to say to that, or to the many other hints Jet had dropped indicating that he knew what Ula was. Ula had never had the courage to ask outright—not even during the long hours when he and the smuggler had sat waiting for Shigar to make good on his psychometric promise. Whether it was true or not that Jet had guessed, Ula would rather it was never said aloud. His life relied on pretense. Once it was gone, he didn’t know what that would leave him.
So he just nodded and headed down the s
tairs to meet the others at the air lock, wondering how anyone in his position could be considered advantaged. He felt like he was being pulled in a dozen directions. If he wasn’t careful, one sharp tug might tear him to pieces.
AX WALKED THE short distance along the umbilical with measured fury. She burned to be back in her interceptor rather than wasting her time with Mandalorians and envoys again. It was as bad as being back on Hutta, only this time she had no clear advantage to hope for. All she could think of was the work she should have been doing at that moment—protecting the fleet from hexes, at least, or maybe even preparing an attack force to wipe Stryver from the sky. She didn’t like coming to him when called, like some kind of menial.
“You will speak to the meddling Mandalorian on my behalf,” her Master had told her.
“But Master—”
“Do I need to explain to you again what your duty is? It is to serve the Emperor, through me, his instrument. When you defy me, you defy him.”
And that was the problem, of course. She had defied him, by ignoring his orders during the hexes’ attack on Hutta. Now she was being punished for it, while he waited comfortably half frozen in the secret room in his shuttle. Whether her defiance had served the fleet or not was irrelevant. She could only forget all about doing anything constructive—let alone to the betterment of the Empire—until Darth Chratis changed his mind.
“I’m here,” she said when she reached the First Blood’s external air lock. Her right hand fiddled with the hilt of her lightsaber. “Don’t keep me waiting, Stryver.”
The door hissed open. A token escort followed her into the ship—three soldiers in formal black-and-grays. She didn’t look behind her to make sure they were keeping up. As a deliberate act of defiance aimed at both Stryver and her Master, she hadn’t changed out of her combat uniform. It stank of oil and smoke and combat, exactly like Stryver’s ship. Her hair swayed heavily down her back, like thick rope.
The First Blood had a low profile, head-on, but was surprisingly spacious inside. Its walls were ribbed rather than sealed with flat panels; sometimes there were no gaps at all delineating corridor from hold. Wiring and components were occasionally exposed—all, she supposed, in an effort to keep weight down. She also assumed that anything secret was kept well out of sight, so she didn’t trouble herself with memorizing what she saw. She just walked, following the sound of voices leading to the center of the vessel.
“… understand why you need all of us at once. Can’t you tell us now?”
Ax knew that voice. She had heard it on Hutta. It belonged to a near-human who had fought on the Republic side, although clearly not a trooper herself. What was she doing here?
“I don’t like repeating myself,” said another familiar voice: the deep, vocoder-inflected tones of Dao Stryver.
Ax walked around a thick pillar of cables acting as conduit and support, and found herself in the main cabin. It was a circular room with glowing white floor and ceiling, and a central holoprojector. Stryver stood to Ax’s left, helmet just clearing the relatively high ceiling. To his left were a motley group of people, including several more individuals Ax recognized: the Republic envoy, a droid she had seen hanging around Tassaa Bareesh’s security air lock, and the Jedi Padawan. Next to him stood a woman she hadn’t met before, but instantly recognized.
Ax stopped on entering the room, a wary hiss unconsciously escaping from between her teeth. The air was thick with the enemy’s self-righteousness, concentrated mainly around the slight woman with the gray streak wearing the robes of a Jedi Knight. No mere Jedi Knight, she. The Grand Master of the High Council herself! Darth Chratis would grind his crystalline teeth in frustration at missing such a close encounter with the Emperor’s most hated foe. To slay her would bring Ax considerable fame and fortune among those favored by the Dark Council.
Ax forced her hand to leave her hilt alone. For all her ambition, Ax knew that she could not single-handedly beat both Master and Padawan. She would have to strike with words instead of her blade.
“The Jedi Order must be weak indeed,” she said, “for the Grand Master and a youngling to jump on a Mandalorian’s whim.”
The Padawan, Shigar, stiffened at her description of him as a child. “Not so weak,” he said, “that I didn’t save your life at least once on Hutta.”
“You are mistaken,” she said, feeling heat rise up her neck.
“Am I? I’ll try harder not to be, next time.”
“Enough,” said the Grand Master, and the Padawan obeyed her instantly. “We’re all here now, Stryver. Get on with it.”
“I do not take your orders, Grand Master,” said the Mandalorian. “Nonetheless, you have a point. I have brought you here to show you something.”
The holoprojector between them flickered into life. Ax recognized the globe of Sebaddon, with its tiny, gem-like lakes scattered among irregular, continent-sized bulges of heat. Magma seams glowed orange, forming a tracery that on other worlds might have been rivers. Several blue circles at the intersections of such traceries indicated settlements or industrial centers. Ax recognized the one Darth Chratis had bombed when the Paramount was attacked, and many others. Some that she remembered weren’t visible at all.
“This is how Sebaddon looked when I arrived six hours before you,” Stryver said. “This is how it looked when you arrived.”
There was a clear difference: many of the missing hot spots were now present; the brightest were brighter still.
“This is how it looks now.”
Ax didn’t need to study what she already knew. “Your point?”
“They work fast,” said the Padawan. “That’s what Jet said when we arrived. He thought the colony was about twenty years old.”
“It can’t be more than fifteen,” said Ax, remembering how long it had been since Lema Xandret defected.
“It’s actually much less than that,” Stryver said, resting his giant, gloved hands on the edge of the holoprojector and leaning over the image. “Study this sequence of images carefully and you’ll see that the colony expanded five percent since I arrived. If you project that rate of growth backward in time, that gives a founding date of about three weeks ago.”
“Impossible,” she said.
“That’s around when the Cinzia was intercepted,” said Ula.
“So what? It’s still impossible.”
“Is it?” Stryver said. “Lema Xandret chose this colony partly because of its wealth of resources. With an army of willing workers and a means of making new ones, why couldn’t she do whatever else she wanted?”
“If the colony could grow so quickly, why is it still so small?”
“That’s a good question, Eldon Ax. You should know your mother better than anyone else here. What do you think?”
Instead of blushing, Ax felt her face grow cold and taut. “Start talking sense, man, or I’m leaving.”
Both of Stryver’s index fingers tapped heavily, just once, and for the first time Ax noted that he had only four fingers on each hand.
Not exactly a man, then, she thought. But who cares about that?
“I’ve been watching all of you,” he said, “while you blunder about getting yourselves killed. That’s the advantage of being first on the field of battle. Instead of testing Sebaddon’s defenses myself, I sat back and watched you do it. It has been an interesting experiment, one that confirmed my previous observations. The inhabitants of Sebaddon are unwilling even to talk about opening their borders to outsiders—particularly the Empire—and they are capable of defending themselves when pushed.”
“We were taken by surprise,” said Ax. “That won’t happen, next time.”
“If you wait too long, surprise won’t be the only thing you have to worry about.”
“What do you mean?” asked Satele Shan.
“How long will it take you to call for reinforcements? You can’t call, so it’s a two-way trip to send a messenger. Then a fleet has to be assembled. The larger the fleet, the more time you
’ll need. And with each hour, Sebaddon is converting more of its precious metals to machines of war. More than thirty ships failed today. How long until fifty ships isn’t enough? A hundred? A thousand?”
Ax sneered. “No single planet could withstand the might of the Imperial war machine.”
“I might agree, if the Imperial war machine was available. But it’s currently stretched across all the galaxy, thin and vulnerable, and the same can be said for the Republic’s. Furthermore, we all know that neither would come if we called. They would think your concerns exaggerated. They are more interested in fighting each other than this single, isolated threat.”
“Is it a threat?” asked Shigar. “Xandret won’t talk to us, but at least she’s stopped firing now we’ve moved away. Why don’t we give her what she wants and leave her alone?”
“Do you really think that’s possible, now?” said the female near-human.
“Why not?” Shigar looked at his Master for support, but she wasn’t giving it to him.
“You are naïve,” said Ax. “This world is too valuable. The Emperor will have it, or no one will.”
“And your mother must be made an example of,” said Stryver, “otherwise the power of the Sith will be eroded.”
“Stop calling her my mother. Lema Xandret is a criminal and a fugitive. There is no possibility that she will escape justice.”
“Would you strike her down yourself, if you could?”
“I would, and I will. She means nothing to me.”
“Good. I believed once that I might reason with her. I believed that I could broker an agreement that would keep her and her creations in check. Now I fear that it is too late for any kind of negotiation. No reasoning or agreement is possible.”
“Has she gone mad?” asked the trooper to Shigar’s right. “If so, there are other options. We could take her out and talk to someone else, for instance.”
“This plan suffers from one small but fatal flaw.”
“That is?” asked the Republic envoy.
“Lema Xandret is already dead. She has been for some time.”
The Old Republic Series Page 27
