by Claudia Gray
So the fact that these two worlds had called for the Jedi’s assistance was hugely promising. A successful mission might finally bridge the gap between this area and the Republic.
(Master Laret had pointed out that if these planets were willing to ask for help from within the Republic, the situation was undoubtedly a thorny one. But Orla was undaunted.)
Probably this hostage crisis could’ve been resolved by the two worlds working together—something neither planet was willing to do. Eiram and E’ronoh occupied a system that served as a waypoint through hyperspace; they held a gateway, one that had long remained closed to the rest of the galaxy. This could’ve led to immense power for both worlds, had they been willing to share it. Instead, they competed for control of the region, belligerently dealing with those who dared to violate their space, each limiting traffic almost to nothing. Eiram and E’ronoh weren’t actively fighting a war against each other, but intelligence suggested a bitter standoff between the two, one that had lasted for more than a century. Its origins were obscure and, by then, beside the point. Eiram hated E’ronoh. E’ronoh hated Eiram. The end.
Until royalty from each planet had been kidnapped and ransomed.
“It is both a great honor and a great opportunity that these people have called to the Jedi for help,” Master Laret had said when she briefed Orla on the way to the spaceport. “We can do more than save these two rulers. We can prevent a war. We may even be able to open another part of the galaxy.”
Orla had never had an assignment so significant before. Very few Jedi ever had. She didn’t intend to let her master down.
Not again.
Of late, Orla had been asking too many questions. Challenging the decisions of the Jedi Council—only to Master Laret, of course, but still. At first Master Laret had heard her out and even gently debated her, but her patience was being tested.
“To be a Jedi is to serve,” Master Laret had said. “How do you intend to serve if you keep questioning every command?”
The rare rebuke from her master still stung. So this time, Orla would prove how willing she was to serve the Order. She wasn’t going to question a single thing.
Nobody knew whether the moon had once orbited Eiram or E’ronoh, only that it had, at some point countless millennia past, drifted from its orbit and come to rest in dead space between the two worlds. The moon was so devoid of any value that Eiram and E’ronoh didn’t even bother fighting over it. It just hung there, obscure and ignored.
Which was why almost nobody knew about the caves and tunnels deep within the lunar salt flats, and why the caves were a perfect hideout for those who did not wish to be found.
It was the only element of the kidnapping plan that could be called “perfect.” The rest of it left much to be desired.
“Fools!” Isamer growled. The bulky Lasat threw the nearest thing he could reach at his lieutenants; it turned out to be a heavy chair, so they were lucky to dodge it. “How could you kidnap the wrong queen?”
At the far end of the cavern huddled two hostages, each bound with metal cuffs, each wearing finery that had been stained and torn during their abduction. Monarch Cassel of E’ronoh, a bright blue Pantoran, looked extremely nervous about his situation, which indicated more intelligence than Cassel was generally credited with. Next to him sat the tawny-skinned human Queen Thandeka of Eiram, who looked furious. Isamer could crush most humans without even trying, and Thandeka was a small woman—but he was grateful she had no blaster.
One of the lieutenants pointed toward Thandeka, specifically to the silvery coronet woven through her thick black braids. “She wears their crown—the manifest reported the queen was on board—”
“Yes.” Isamer folded his massive arms in front of his chest. “The queen consort was on board. The queen consort is the one who’s married to the ruler. On Eiram, the ruler is Queen Dima—the queen regnant. In other words, the useful one!”
“Oh, bosh,” said Monarch Cassel, amiably enough. “I’m certain the queen regnant wants her consort back. That’ll do, won’t it, for, ah, leverage?”
Under her breath, Thandeka muttered, “What are you playing at? Do you think you can team up with them?”
“Goodness, no.” Cassel seemed appalled at the thought. “But—hearing them describe you as useless, it’s rather impolite—”
“You’re trying to spare my feelings?” Thandeka looked toward the cave ceiling in what might have been either disbelief or despair. “Trust me, right now my ego is the least of our problems.”
Isamer had ignored all this. “We will discuss it no further,” he said. There would be time to punish these lieutenants—and find smarter replacements—after this was done. For now he could only stay the course.
The Hutts would expect no less.
They had approached Isamer, as one of the leaders of the Directorate. The mighty Hutts had come to him! With the Directorate’s greater local knowledge, they explained, he was in a better position to destabilize the local governments. That destabilization would play to the Hutts’ long-term advantage—an advantage they would share with those who had helped them.
Isamer could see it: the Directorate, empowered as partner to the Hutts, eclipsing every other criminal organization in that part of the galaxy. It was worth more than a little risk.
“Lord Isamer!” one of the sensor jockeys called. “A T-1 shuttlecraft has emerged from hyperspace, seventy radii distance.”
Isamer’s fur stood on end in anticipation. His fanged smile widened as he said, “Call to them from Cassel’s ship.” The wreckage of that ship lay broken across the planetoid’s surface, but his lieutenants had managed to salvage the communications array. At least they got one thing right. “Plead for their help. Lure them in.”
Cohmac pulled himself from a daydream, mentally repeating, Focus.
It hadn’t been a bad daydream—just one in which he was dueling brilliantly with his lightsaber, the kind of detailed imagining that could actually improve real performance. But that was a practice for meditation. He had to improve his ability to live wholly in the present, as Master Simmix constantly reminded him.
At first he thought he’d done well to pull himself from his reverie, but then he realized it had been the comm panel lighting up with an incoming signal.
Orla and Cohmac exchanged glances as the voice came through: “Monarch Cassel—in distress, attempted abduction—systems failing—”
The code signature of the signal confirmed that it was Cassel’s ship. Orla responded immediately. “The Jedi are on our way. Hold on!”
Should they have double-checked the signal first? That seemed like a minor detail, one Cohmac didn’t dwell upon. He simply steered in the direction of the signal. “So at least one of the hostages got away. Does that make our mission easier or more complicated?”
“I guess we’ll see,” Orla replied. They exchanged smiles. As different in temperament as they were—Cohmac always turning within, Orla always leaping ahead—they’d been friendly since the creche and were equally eager to begin their mission in earnest.
Within moments, some sort of planetoid appeared in the distance—one so small and remote it didn’t even have a name. Cohmac punched in the shuttle’s approach vectors without a second thought.
Then Master Laret hurried onto the bridge. She, like Master Simmix, had been deep in meditative trance; Cohmac had expected to go rouse them both. But something had brought Master Laret to awareness, and then to alarm. “What’s happening?” she said.
“Monarch Cassel must have escaped,” Orla began. “We got a confirmed signal from his ship—”
“From his ship,” Master Laret said grimly. “Not from Monarch Cassel.”
Cohmac and Orla exchanged uncertain glances. Too late, Cohmac felt a shiver in the Force—the eerie dissonance that meant not all was as it seemed—
And then outer space itself seemed to blaze with light, and the ship shook and twisted, and there was no up or down anymore, no way to stop, no way
out.
Reath wouldn’t have been concerned for even a moment if they’d been stranded in space in the Republic. Longbeams always flew stocked with surplus fuel and provisions for journeys two or three times as long as scheduled. The surpluses were unnecessary, of course. Abundant hyperspace traffic and a subspace transceiver meant that a potential rescue ship was rarely more than a few hours away.
Out on the frontier, however…it seemed possible to be stranded for very long periods of time. Maybe permanently.
So Affie’s announcement had at first sent a wave of grateful relief washing over Reath. Someone needed help. They might be able to give it, which would lend this strange detour some meaning.
But Orla’s words had stopped him, hand halfway to the holo-transceiver switch. He couldn’t believe he’d been on the verge of trusting the frontier.
Affie had obviously gotten there even before Orla’s warning. “What if they’re pirates? What if they’re Nihil? What if they’re just desperate people who’d raid us for food?”
“I’m sorry,” Reath said, apologizing for the mistake he’d nearly made. “These aren’t risks we have to deal with very often in the Republic.”
Leox Gyasi eased around Orla and strolled back onto the bridge, clearly having overheard much of this. “That’s about the first good thing I’ve heard about our joining the Republic,” he said. “Makes me reconsider my reservations, and I sincerely appreciate any chance to look within. But this ain’t the Republic yet, my man. Not by a long shot.”
Master Jora’s voice echoed in Reath’s head: Whenever you feel foolish, remember that you have been given an opportunity to learn. The truly foolish act is to refuse that opportunity. “All right. Pirates I know about. But the Nihil? Who are they?”
“Good question,” Orla said. She remained still and quiet at the door, though the tension Reath sensed within her seemed to arise from something other than their current situation.
Leox and Affie shared a glance that somehow seemed to include Geode, despite Geode’s notable lack of eyes. “They rose up a few years ago,” Affie said. “I mean, they’ve been around longer, but they just recently became dangerous. Nobody’s sure where they’re from.”
“Nor can we determine their ethos,” Leox added. “A confounding people. But we know three things for sure: they’re raiders, they’re brutal, and they’re not out there right now.”
It was Affie and Reath’s turn to share a glance. Reath said, “How do you know it’s not them out there?”
“I know it because we’re still alive.” Leox took his seat. “Doesn’t mean we couldn’t have some trouble, though. Tell you what. You pull the head monk or whatever in here, and we’ll go through the signals together. See if we’ve got help, or need to give help, or should absent ourselves posthaste.”
“We’ll go get Cohmac,” Orla said, already turning to leave.
Reath scrambled to catch up with her, thinking, Master Jora couldn’t have known about any of this, or she’d never have brought us out here.
As soon as Reath and Orla were gone, Affie turned to Leox. “Since when do we need Jedi to help us decide what’s dangerous and what’s not? Especially since they’ve never even heard of the Nihil.”
“We don’t need ’em for that,” Leox said. “But we three need to have a quick talk without any Republic types present.”
Affie realized what he had to be referring to almost instantly. She leaned in as Leox put one arm around her shoulders and one around Geode.
“Here’s the situation,” Leox said. “We would of course never want our Jedi to think that they might be aboard a ship carrying some cargo that is not, in the strictest sense, legal in the Republic.”
“Never,” Affie said, straight-faced. “That would never happen. The Jedi don’t know anything that would make them think that.”
Leox nodded. “We’d be prudent to keep it that way. Which is why no matter who’s out there, or what they want, or what they might pay, we continue to present ourselves as an absolutely open ship, a hauler turned passenger transport just for the one ride.”
Affie added, “No matter who comes on board, or where they want to search, certain compartments should continue not to exist.”
“So very true.” Leox pulled back. “Remember, everybody, our perceptions define the reality of the universe. Nothing is even a thing until our thinking makes it so.”
“Not thinking about those compartments,” Affie said. “The ones that aren’t there.”
“Scover’s gonna be so proud of you.” Leox smiled at her. Affie could’ve hugged him—not for the praise but for his casual assumption that her mother was still alive.
There was, of course, no “head monk” among the Jedi party. However, Cohmac Vitus had the most field experience of the group, and he could tell that Orla was shaken. They would need to talk about it soon—the parallels between this mission and the first they ever undertook together—but there would be time for that later. The distress call demanded his attention. So he went with Reath back to the bridge to help sort through the various signals. “Why not in the comm center?” Cohmac said, instead of hello. Leox Gyasi did not seem the sort to stand on ceremony.
“First, because we’re not talking back just yet,” Leox replied. “So we only need to isolate and analyze the signals right now. Second, because we can get a much better bead on each signal’s origin from up here.”
“Logical,” Cohmac said approvingly. How rare to find a freelance pilot who operated on a rational basis—even if he looked and talked like this one. How steadying to have a problem that demanded concrete solutions, one that required him to search beyond their ship for answers instead of looking within. “How many are we picking up in the immediate sector?”
“Looks like—eleven,” Affie said, gesturing to various red blinking dots on a green grid. “Of those, six are standard cargo haulers, not that different from us, except none is Guild-registered. Another two are standard passenger haulers, ranging in size from five-person skiffs to”—she whistled—“to at least one with two hundred sentients aboard.”
Many people needed help, then. Possibly soon. Cohmac felt reenergized with purpose. Already he’d been itching to do something, anything, of use; it appeared that he would be called upon even sooner than he’d hoped. The Jedi’s mission at the frontier would begin with both mercy and strength. First, however—“What about the others?”
“What about that one?” Reath asked, pointing over Affie’s shoulder. “The bigger one? Some of those readings—those are high radiation levels, right?”
Leox nodded, but his lack of concern was so complete that it nearly operated as a tranquilizer. “Looks like Mizi to me. They’re not as susceptible to radiation as most sentient species, so they haul cargo a lot of other ships can’t. And that one there”—he pointed to the next-to-last dot on the screen—“that looks Orincan, which is bad news. Their lack of outer beauty is perfectly matched by their lack of inner beauty. I hate to be disparaging of an entire species, but if there are any Orincans overflowing with wit, charm, and kindness, I’ve yet to make their acquaintance.”
Cohmac asked, “What about the final ship?”
“That’s the one that bothers me.” Leox zoomed in until the specs for that particular ship—the farthest out—became clear. “Smallest of the lot. The one that sent the original signal we intercepted. But I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
Cohmac could see the difficulty. “The engines of a racer—the plating of a transport—sensor strength almost akin to a research vessel—and yet some of the components are weak.”
“Old, to judge by the readings,” Affie said. “So they’ve souped up some of their systems but ignored the others until they’re almost falling apart. Which is weird, right?”
“Yes. But hardly unique.” Cohmac considered the possibilities. No armaments showed up on scans. Armaments could be shielded with certain plating. However, the engines didn’t seem powerful enough to support that kind of shie
lding. He weighed the possibilities and decided. “Let’s contact them directly.”
“But if they’re pirates—” Affie began, then stopped when Leox shook his head.
“You saw their scanners,” he said. “They know we’re here. They know what we’re about. If they want to attack, they’re gonna. So far they haven’t. It’s worth a shot. You want to make the call, Pawaman?”
It took Reath a moment to make the connection. Cohmac concealed his amusement. “Oh, uh, it’s Padawan, actually. But I can make the call.” He stepped closer to the comms and flipped the toggle. “This is the vessel—ah, Vessel. What’s your designation? Can you transmit a visual signal? Over.”
The screen fuzzed, then clarified into the image of a young girl—younger, even, than Reath Silas and Affie Hollow, though Cohmac thought only by a year or so. Her shining dark hair was pulled back into a neat tail, and her rounded cheeks blushed as she smiled. “Oh, thank goodness! We were so scared you might be pirates. But you don’t look like pirates. Wait. Are you pirates?”
Reath was smiling, too, as were most of the other people on the bridge. “Not pirates. Travelers bound for Starlight Beacon, and now stranded here.”
“At least we’re not the only ones,” said the young girl. “I’m called Nan. It’s just me and my guardian out here, and we don’t have much.”
Cohmac interjected, “Some of us, including Reath here and myself, are Jedi, sworn to protect and defend the peoples of the Republic.” All peoples, really, but he wanted them to understand the good that the Republic could bring to their lives. “We’ll contact all the ships in short order, work on organizing together. Sharing resources will be the best way to survive this crisis.” Nan beamed. Perhaps the Jedi had made their first friend in the sector. “Hold on. We’ll be back in touch shortly.” She nodded as the visual signal faded out.
