The Old Republic Series

by Sean Williams

  She bowed her head, thinking: Another dead-end task. And probably a suicide mission, too. “I will do as you instruct.”

  “I sense your impatience, Ax. Remember that our rewards will be bountiful when victory is complete. When the Grand Master is dead and this world ours, then your apprenticeship will be over. Not before. Go now, and do my bidding.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, bowing deeply, sure that he sensed the burn of excitement in her mind. To be free of him at last, to be a true Sith—that was all she had ever wanted! And she deserved it. She knew that well. Not for nothing had she slaved this last decade and more, to the detriment of all else.

  Lema Xandret is dead.

  Ax suppressed even the barest hint of regret as she turned and left the shuttle, dragging the quivering informer behind her.

  “DID YOU HAVE to bring her back with you?” Larin whispered to Ula as she escorted the passengers of the Auriga Fire to the Commenor’s conference room. “I don’t trust her.”

  The envoy adjusted his collar as though he was feeling too hot. “No choice, I’m afraid. Darth Chratis was insistent.”

  “Well, he didn’t offer to put one of us on his command deck.”

  “I suppose he wouldn’t offer, given the choice, and I’m afraid I didn’t think to ask. I thought the Sith would be valuable as a hostage, that’s all.”

  “I suppose she will.” Noticing Ula’s discomfort, she forced a smile. “Hey, look, I’m not saying you didn’t do your best. I’m just glad you got us this far. No one else could’ve done it.” She patted him on the shoulder with her prosthetic half hand.

  “Thanks,” he said, looking embarrassed. “I’m glad you think so.”

  She couldn’t help a smile. His social awkwardness was both touching and puzzling. How had anyone so clumsy ever risen so high in the Republic administration, let alone survived an audience with a Dark Lord of the Sith? Perhaps Darth Chratis had taken pity on him.

  That seemed rather unlikely.

  The Sith apprentice, Eldon Ax, walked steadily between Master Satele and Shigar, surrounded by an entourage of business-like soldiers, all holding rifles at the ready. Her wild-haired head was held high, and she took each step as though fighting the urge to spin and fight. She was like a wild animal, held barely in check.

  “I don’t trust her,” Larin repeated, “and I’m good at reading people.”

  Beside her, Ula cleared his throat but said nothing.

  THE MEETING WAS uncomfortable from the beginning. Captain Pipalidi’s crest was a deep purple, and her Basic difficult to understand, as was often the case with Anx, whose voices tended to be so deeply pitched that they bordered on the subsonic. Shigar swore he felt his rib cage rattle on a couple of occasions.

  The captain first ordered all nonessential personnel out of the room. Larin was one of those, and Shigar caught the hurt glance she shot him. There was nothing he could do about it, though. He had no power here.

  “Colonel Gurin had no opportunity to confirm his succession plans to me,” said Master Satele, “but I know he had the highest regard for you, Captain Pipalidi. He would be glad to know that the fleet is in reliable hands.”

  “May it remain so,” the captain growled, with a sharp look at Eldon Ax. The implication was obvious, and twofold. Many in the military harbored hard feelings for the Jedi after the events leading up to the Treaty of Coruscant, when the Order had been deliberately trapped between the Empire and the Mandalorians. The closing of that trap had left the Republic divided over the role Jedi Knights should play in future conflicts. Some even went so far as to mistrust the Order entirely, preferring to leave them out. The fact that Master Satele had brought a Sith to the negotiating table only confirmed those mistrustful feelings.

  “My enemy is your enemy,” said Ax. “That makes you useful to me. And vice versa.”

  Captain Pipalidi’s crest turned bright orange. “We do not need you, you murderous witch-child—”

  “Enough,” said Master Satele, raising both hands. “This won’t get us anywhere. The fact is that we do need her, Captain Pipalidi, and the Imperials as well, so we must negotiate accordingly. Have your analysts confirmed Dao Stryver’s calculations?”

  “Yes.” The captain raised herself up to her full height, making her the tallest person in the room by more than a meter. “I have sent a long-range probe droid to convey a message to the Supreme Commander, but I do not anticipate a response of any kind within a day.”

  “The chance of Stantorrs sending a fleet on the basis of one message is remote,” Master Satele said. “And by the time it came, Sebaddon would be boiling over.”

  “Yes.” That single syllable conveyed a weight of import. For all her dislike of the situation, at least the captain understood its significance.

  “I don’t understand why Stryver didn’t tell us this earlier,” said Shigar. “As it stands we have just fifteen ships, now. If we’d combined both our fleets on arrival, it would’ve been over thirty. If he’d warned us—”

  “Would you have believed him?” asked Ula.

  “No,” said Ax unexpectedly. “I tried to tell my Master about the hexes but he didn’t listen.”

  Shigar didn’t add Me, too, but he could have. “So Stryver let us take a hammering just to make a point? If we’d been beaten, that would’ve done no one any good.”

  “I’m sure he has his reasons,” said Master Satele. “The same reason, possibly, that he’s the only one of his kind here. If the Mandalore feels so strongly about this, why wouldn’t he send more to back us up?”

  “Perhaps he wants us to do his dirty work for him.”

  “Or he doesn’t think his people are up to it,” the young Sith said.

  Shigar met her quick gaze. If they shared one thing, it seemed, it was a mistrust of the Mandalorians.

  “Fifteen ships,” mused Captain Pipalidi, “including one bulk cruiser …”

  Ax said, “We have three thousand front-line troops, divided across the remains of three regiments—repulsorlift, heavy weapons, and armored—with two hundred TRA-Nine battle droids. We have shuttles sufficient to land them and support them, but we lost much of our munitions when the ships carrying them were destroyed by the hexes.”

  “Are those figures accurate?” asked the captain suspiciously.

  “I have been ordered to withhold nothing. It is to our benefit, at the moment, not to do so.”

  “In that spirit, I will offer the same. Three thousand five hundred troops, two full regiments. Repulsorlift and armor. Our wings were in the air when their capital ships were destroyed, so most of the fighters themselves survived. Hangar decks are crowded, though, and refueling options limited.”

  “We have the same problem,” said Ax. “Colonel Kalisch sent raiding parties to salvage what they could from the infected vessels, but none returned. One came back infected. We destroyed it.”

  “We noticed. Our intelligence staff is working double shifts, watching everything around the planet. Not helped, of course, by the fact that we were short-staffed to begin with.”

  The captain’s tension visibly eased as she and Ax exchanged details of losses and setbacks. Shigar had heard how battle lines could be blurred on a war’s bloody front. This was the first time he had seen it in action. Perhaps Stryver’s unlikely plan had some merit after all.

  Ula broke into the rapid exchange of intelligence.

  “Every minute we stand around chatting,” he said, “Xandret’s droids build more of themselves, more factories, more who knows what? If we’re going to stop them, we have to start making solid plans, and fast.”

  “Agreed,” said Master Satele. “Our number one priority is stopping the droids from getting more than a toehold in orbit. While their factories are confined to the surface of the planet, it will be possible to defeat them.”

  “A whole planet with just fifteen ships?” asked one of the captain’s senior officers. “And just one bulk cruiser?” The hard-skinned major shook his head. “No m
atter how you divide it up, it’s impossible.”

  “Only if we tell ourselves it is,” said Shigar. “Stryver’s data clearly showed how the hexes radiated outward from a central point—the main hot spot your ships bombarded,” he added with a nod to Ax. “I think it’s safe to assume that this was where Xandret and the others founded the colony’s capital. Destroying it didn’t take out the hexes’ coordinating intelligence, but must have hurt it enough to move elsewhere. If we look for the place that’s growing the fastest, that’ll be the place to hit.”

  “We have identified two such locations,” said Captain Pipalidi. A hologram flickered to life between them. “Here and here,” she said, indicating one spot at the equator and another at the south pole. “Perhaps the hexes have decided not to put all their eggs in one basket, this time.”

  Shigar studied the image. The site on the equator was in the middle of a vast sea of lava, dotted with islands of solid stone. The polar site was much more stable. Straight lines radiated from it in all directions, leading to other spots elsewhere.

  “That’s a factory,” he said, pointing at the pole. “Perhaps the master factory, where everything else originates. And that’s the brain,” he said, transferring his finger to the equator.

  “How can you possibly know that?” asked Ax.

  “Because factories need physical means to get things in and out. Resources, power, finished droids. That’s what these are.” He followed one line from point to point. “Roads or railways of some kind. Or power cables.”

  “And brains don’t need anything of the sort,” she said, nodding. “It can just sit there, isolated in the middle of that mess, sending orders out by radio.”

  “I think you’re right, Shigar.” Master Satele moved around the globe, rubbing her chin. “Teams striking both at once, plus targeted bombardment at the secondary locations, should be enough to slow the hexes’ growth.”

  “Enough to stop it, perhaps,” said Captain Pipalidi, “until reinforcements arrive.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Shigar knew as well as anyone that, once the threat of the planet was reduced to zero, the alliance would break. This moment of solidarity was both fragile and temporary. No one had forgotten that the Sith and the Jedi, the Empire and the Republic, were anything other than mortal enemies.

  “Let’s worry about reinforcements when they get here,” Ula said. “Captain Pipalidi, would you be willing to sketch out a basic plan now, to pass on to Darth Chratis and Colonel Kalisch for their opinion? I suggest dividing resources evenly over all tactical objectives, to ensure that both parties feel that they are included but not exploited, plus double the usual number of commanding officers to each platoon. Discipline must be maintained. We don’t want the troops shooting one another at a critical moment.”

  “Naturally not,” said the captain with a bluish cast to her crest. Shigar didn’t know what that meant. Irony, perhaps.

  Shigar caught another glance from the young Sith’s direction—bored, this time, and again he sympathized. Their duel in the Hutts’ security air lock felt a lifetime ago. His lightsaber hand itched, but he kept it carefully limp at his side.

  THE DOOR TO THE conference room hissed open. Larin was taken by surprise. She had long ago given up trying to read the lips of the people inside. On seeing a major, she automatically stood to attention.

  “Private Hetchkee, a moment,” said the sturdy Rellarin. “You, too, Moxla.”

  Larin followed Hetchkee and the major into the conference room. The air seemed much denser than normal, as was always the case during long planning sessions. A current projection of the planet hung in the center of the room, dashed and dotted with notations in yellow and green. People huddled around it, making suggestions. The Sith girl was one of them.

  Both Shigar and Ula looked up as Larin entered, but it was the captain who spoke.

  “We’re sending strike teams to two locations,” she said in a voice so deep it hurt Larin’s breastbone. One long finger stabbed at the globe. “Here, and here. We need people familiar with the hexes to guide each team. Both your names have been mentioned for the assault on the master factory. Private Hetchkee, your detail was with the envoy, under the authority of Supreme Commander Stantorrs. I don’t outrank him, of course, but I can promote you above the rank required for an escort. No one would dream of wasting a lieutenant on such a detail, and we’re short of officers. Will you accept this assignment?”

  “Yes, sir.” Hetchkee snap-saluted, looking like he was equal parts delighted and terrified. This was not only the fastest leap up the chain of command imaginable, but it could also be the briefest.

  “And what about you, Moxla?”

  “Forgive me, sir, but I have a history—”

  “So I’m told. I don’t care what happened back then. You’re the closest thing we have to special forces now, so I’d be insane not to use you. All that matters is that you’ll follow orders—and be followed in turn, by anyone who has any doubts. Do you think you can manage that?”

  Her face was burning. In the service again! She didn’t know whether to kill Shigar or kiss him.

  “Yes, sir. I do. I will.”

  “Good. Major Cha, take them to the quartermaster and have them kitted out. I want them briefed and ready for action within the hour.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Rellarin saluted and guided them toward the door. Larin felt as though she were walking through a weightless vacuum—not floating, exactly, but cut loose from everything. One touch, and she could tumble out of control.

  The major chuckled once the door was shut behind them. “You should see your faces,” he said. “Well, I can’t really see yours, Hetchkee, but I can imagine.”

  “Are we really going to attack the planet, sir?”

  “You bet you are. Are you up to it?”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “That’s all we can ask of you. What we expect is a different story.”

  In no time at all they reached the Commenor’s expansive technical storeroom. Larin gazed hungrily at row after row of clean armor shells, up-to-date weapons, and apparently endless cases of ammunition. She knew this wasn’t a big ship, so the stores weren’t as extensive as she imagined, but it was so much more than she had seen in a long time. She almost wept.

  “Here we are. Sergeant, these two new lieutenants find themselves sorely underprovisioned. Make sure they’re equipped with everything they need, and do it on the double.”

  “Yes, Major Cha.”

  The swarthy sergeant took charge of Larin and led her into paradise.

  “WHAT ABOUT THE Mandalorian?” Ax asked when the stunned troopers were gone. “What role does he play in all this?”

  She hadn’t forgotten her vow. I will kill you, Dao Stryver, or die trying.

  “Apart from supplying any other intel he might have,” said the captain, “I expect him to join the fighters sweeping hexes from orbit.”

  “It might be difficult keeping him out of play,” said one of her officers. “Mandalorians love nothing better than a good fight.”

  “He’s done a very good job of staying out of this one,” said the Padawan with a shrug. “Maybe he’ll be content with that.”

  Ax kept her feelings to herself. She would be hundreds of kilometers away from them, then, intent on destroying the droids’ coordinating intelligence. But she would advise her Master to keep an eye on Stryver’s scout, in the hope that it strayed too close to an Imperial ship. In the chaos of combat, missiles often went astray. She wanted him dead, even if she couldn’t deliver the killing blow herself.

  “One of our signals officers believes the hexes identify us by our transponders,” said another alien on the captain’s staff. “We could feather our drives, confuse them.”

  “Better yet,” said the Padawan, “we could avoid drives entirely.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Shuttle to low orbit, free-fall straight down from there, then chute onto the ta
rgets.”

  Ax was impressed. She liked that plan, despite herself. “It could work. We’ll show up on radar, of course, but they won’t know what we are. Toss out a bit of junk with us, and they might even mistake us for debris.”

  The captain was nodding. “Excellent. The only thing left to decide is who has overall authority.”

  There was another awkward silence.

  Ax had known this moment was coming. “Darth Chratis or Colonel Kalisch. We have the bulk cruiser.”

  “But we have more ships,” said Captain Pipalidi.

  “Master Shan should make the call,” said the Padawan, with perfect predictability. “Her foresight is legendary.”

  “Does she know how this is going to end?” Ax asked him.

  “I do not,” the Grand Master said. “But I do know that we’ll never agree on this point. I suggest we give someone else the authority to oversee this engagement. Not the details, but the key strategic moments. Someone we have already trusted to act as a go-between in difficult circumstances.”

  All eyes turned to Envoy Vii.

  “I, ah, would be honored, of course,” he said, “but—”

  “Darth Chratis will accept this proposal,” said Ax, enjoying the way the traitor squirmed.

  “So will I,” said the captain.

  “On one condition,” Ax added. “We must be sure that Envoy Vii is acting independently, not under any kind of distress or influence. As we cannot guarantee that he will do so here, in a Republic vessel, we require that he be stationed elsewhere, and remain in constant contact with all parties.”

  “Not with you,” said the captain. “Or Dao Stryver.”

  “Nebula’s ship,” said Shigar.

  The Grand Master nodded. “The Auriga Fire.”

  Envoy Vii’s larynx bobbed once, twice, then he visibly got himself together.

  “I will accept this responsibility,” he said, “on the assumption that my instructions will be followed to the letter. There’s no point having me in this role if you won’t listen to me. All of you.”