Jax, in a tailored synthsilk suit and gleaming black boots, looked the part of a successful freighter captain. Laranth, ostensibly his business partner, wore the flowing, diaphanous robes that declared her a member of a merchant clan. She’d also affected a pair of vivid orange, silky, bell-trimmed mantles over her lekku, thus effectively concealing both her truncated left lekku and her emotions. The damaged lekku was an old injury Laranth had received in a firefight; it was also an identifying feature that she usually declined to mask. Now, though, it was critical to conceal both identity and telltale changes in hue. Her blasters were concealed; Jax had left his lightsaber with I-Five. This was not the sort of place one advertised the bearing of arms, and he wanted no one to suspect that he was a Jedi.
As part of her headgear, Laranth also wore a medallion that, like the lekku mantles it adorned, was more than just stage dressing. It was a sigil that was meaningful only to its intended target—an Antarian Ranger.
They entered the large main room of the Mossy Glen Inn and looked around. Jax smiled. How different this was from entering Sil’s Place, where everyone contrived to look at you without seeming to look at you—or the Twilight Taverna off Ploughtekal Market, where everyone in the room turned to assess each newcomer’s potential to be exploited in some fashion. Here, they drew only the most casual of glances. Jax sensed momentary admiration of their physical appearance, but no clandestine regard.
The variety of sentients was not remarkable in any way—there were life-forms from a dozen worlds, though human colonists seemed the best-represented group. All were well dressed and well curried—to their species’ standards—and all seemed to be enjoying a good meal, a good drink, a good laugh, or a good haggle.
Laranth looked around the room with a brisk, businesslike gaze, then led the way to a staircase that rose upward into the softly lit reaches of a second floor. It was quieter up here, and duskier. Little lamps flickered on the tables, and a huge fireplace at the far end of the room sent light and shadow dancing over every surface. The shadows would not stand still and be recognized as one thing or another.
Ambiguity. Jax found it suddenly discomfiting, for reasons he had no time to contemplate. He felt a subtle shift in Laranth’s energies—a sharpening of her regard. She strode down the length of the room to a semicircular booth at the right flank of the great hearth. Jax followed.
A woman sat at the booth. She was dressed in a sleek cutaway coat with synthfur collar and cuffs. Her hair was drawn back in a tight coil at the nape of her neck, and her gray eyes were bright and assessing. Jax suspected that the skirt of her coat concealed a number of weapons.
Laranth inclined her head. “Greetings. Do I have the pleasure of addressing Aren Folee?”
“You do,” replied the other woman, dipping her own head minutely. “And you are …”
“Pala D’ukal,” said Laranth. “This is my partner, Corran Vigil.”
Folee nodded in greeting. Her expression was one of polite interest, no more.
“We bring a message from a common friend. A Cerean gentleman of your acquaintance, recently from Imperial Center.”
Folee’s eyes lit. “How is he?”
“He is well. He speaks highly of you and recommends that we do business.”
Folee indicated the seats opposite her. “Please.”
They slid into the booth.
“How confidential are our dealings?” Jax asked, glancing around the subtly lit room.
Folee didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached up and palmed a medallion she wore around her neck on a thick metal torque. “Very confidential now,” she said. “If anyone’s snooping, they’re getting only the most deadly boring of trade talks fabricated from our actual conversation. So we ought to discuss a bit of trade to give the dialogue generator some fuel.”
Jax was intrigued. He’d heard rumors about the sort of antisurveillance device they were apparently now being screened by. Its ionite circuitry didn’t so much jam snoop signals as feed them cobbled-together dialogues that made use of the raw material of actual conversation. It required only that the speakers clutter their verbal trail with just enough innocuous debris to fool potential eavesdroppers. The device screened out programmed “hot” words and phrases but, as far as any surveillance systems were concerned, no jamming was taking place.
“Nothing could be easier,” said Laranth. “As it happens, we’ve got a cargo hold that contains enough ionite to gum up a whole shipload of surveillance snoops.”
“And in return?”
“One of those lovely medallions you’re wearing, for one thing,” said Laranth. “We could really use that tech at home.”
“And information,” Jax said, “about the Imperial presence in the sector.”
Folee grimaced. “Well, there is a presence, or at least the dregs of one. Messed up my last big mission really good. Killed a lot of resources—both material and personal.”
“Understood,” Jax said. “We’ve sustained our own losses … which is, frankly, the reason our mutual friend is moving his base of operations.”
“To?”
“As any pilot would say: to the point.” Jax drew on the tabletop with one fingertip. A long diagonal line. He dotted the end of it with a sharp tap.
Folee frowned, then nodded in comprehension. “Any pilot” would know that the planet at the “point” of Myto’s Arrow was Dantooine. She glanced up, caught the attention of a serving droid, and ordered drinks and a plate of finger food—necessary items for serious and amicable negotiations.
When the droid had trundled off with their order, the Ranger leaned toward Jax and Laranth, looking from one face to the other. “Does this move mean that we are close to incorporating our efforts and moving against our competitors together?”
The question was earnest and had behind it the weight of deep and visceral disappointment and loss. Aren Folee may have spoken casually of the killing of resources, but her feelings about it were far from casual.
Jax exchanged a glance with Laranth. “Closer, perhaps. Very close to orchestrating those efforts more effectively, at least. That was one of the incentives our friend had in relocating. Where he was based …”
“Was increasingly bad for his health,” Laranth finished. “Communication with satellite organizations was difficult at times. Though there is something to be said for hiding in plain sight—”
“Or getting lost in a crowd,” added Jax. “Unfortunately, our … competitors are making it hard to stay lost.”
Folee nodded thoughtfully. “Communication is not an issue here. We have a most effective network that gets to the point quite efficiently. But about the, um, competition in the area—it is, at times, most fierce. Recently, for example, the trade route between here and the Telos system was overrun with our competitor’s ships. They’re big boys, too. Far outweigh anything we lowly little Rangers can put in the space lanes. So, if your cargo holds are modest …”
“They are,” Laranth and Jax said in unison.
Folee smiled. “Then I’d advise against even bothering going any farther up the Hydian Way. This is as good a place as any to replot your course.”
Their food and drink arrived and they made a show of imbibing before they settled into conversation once more, setting up an arrangement for the off-loading of as much of the ionite as their allies on Toprawa could make use of.
“Coming back this way?” Ranger Folee asked as they concluded their arrangements.
Jax looked up and met Laranth’s eyes briefly before saying, “We hadn’t planned on it. We figured to take a more direct route back to Imperial Center.”
Folee’s gray eyes widened. “You’re going back to Imperial Center? Why?”
“We have … interests there, as you might expect,” Jax explained. “Business to see to—”
“And people counting on us,” added Laranth.
“You could have that here, too, you know,” Folee said. “I could really use a couple of associates with your �
�� talents.”
She had Jax’s attention. “Our talents?”
“Clearly you both have a connection to the Force. I’d heard that our friend was working with a couple of especially talented individuals. Individuals whom the Emperor found of particular interest. I suspect he meant you two.”
Jax looked at Laranth. Was Aren Folee a Force-sensitive? He considered briefly trying to probe her mind, decided against it; if she were sharp enough in the ways of the Force to be either a benison or a menace, she’d notice his efforts. If she wasn’t, there was no point to it anyway. “What makes you say that?” he asked.
“I’d heard one of these special operatives was a Twi’lek, for one thing.”
“And the other?”
Folee laughed. “Subtext. Half of what you say to each other is unspoken, and you complete each other’s sentences.” She sobered quickly and leaned toward them again. “I’m serious. We could really use you here. This is the best of all worlds—literally. We’re on a main trade route, so there’s a lot of covering traffic for our ships and special cargo, but we’re far enough from the center of the galaxy that the Empire doesn’t normally pay us much attention. We’re just an outlying trade center. But I can safely say there’s a lot more going on here than meets the Imperial eye. We have an extensive underground—and I do mean underground—network.” She glanced down toward the floorboards, then back up. “Sound appealing?”
Laranth sat back in her seat. “Of course it does. But …”
“But,” concluded Jax, “with our friend offworld, someone needs to run the business on Imperial Center.”
“Does it have to be you?”
Did it? Jax had to admit he’d asked himself that question a number of times in recent weeks. He also had to admit that Toprawa had strong appeal. He shot a glance sideways at Laranth. She was sitting stiffly erect behind a wall of reserve. He couldn’t, for once, tell what she was thinking, but he suspected she was a bit outraged by the thought that she and Jax might abandon their operations on Coruscant.
He looked back at Folee, smiled regretfully. “I’m afraid it does,” he said.
“So … we finish each other’s sentences.” Laranth strolled beside Jax as they made their leisurely way back to the ship.
He smiled. “Apparently.”
“Next we’ll be eating off each other’s plates.”
They walked on in silence until they came within sight of the spaceport. Then Laranth said, “What do you think about what Folee proposed?”
“About basing ourselves here?” He shrugged. “I don’t see how we can. Whiplash needs us on Coruscant.”
“Does it?” She swung around to face him. “Might we not serve the cause better out here, where our forces are building? It seems to me that this is where the front is. This is where the resistance will become a real force in the galaxy.”
Jax was stunned. This wasn’t the Laranth Tarak he knew. Laranth, the fiercely loyal, the champion of honor and duty. He laughed uncertainly. “Who are you and what did you do with Laranth?”
She made an impatient gesture. “Not joking, Jax. On Coruscant, it feels like the walls are closing in. They’re learning to read us. Learning to know what sort of situations we involve ourselves in. What sort of people we’ll risk our lives to help. On Coruscant, they’re learning how to bait us—how to get to us …”
Jax raised his eyes to the dark wall of trees that embraced the spaceport. Uncomplicated. Natural. Real ground beneath his feet, the scent of grass and tree needles, the simple susurration of wind. Coruscant, with its barrage of sounds and energies—its clutter of angles and jagged, chaotic patterns of light and shadow—seemed suddenly suffocating. It was like living in a hive. There was no distance between you and the next person … and the next person could be an Imperial operative with instructions to capture or kill you. If you didn’t have your Force sense tuned to danger level every minute of every day, you could be caught off guard.
Come back to Toprawa and work with the Antarian Rangers? Maybe use it as a base to find other Jedi—if there were any other Jedi—and build a new Order? Come back to Toprawa … with Laranth?
He brought his eyes back to her face. In the moment their gazes locked, to do that—to return here with her and blend into the underground network—was something he wanted beyond reason. The desire rose up in him and almost swamped him.
Almost.
He took a deep breath, and let the desire out.
“We can’t just leave Coruscant, Laranth.”
“Tuden Sal has turned out to be a real asset,” she argued. “He’s smart, politically savvy, driven …”
“And still thinks it would be a good idea to assassinate Palpatine.”
That stopped her. “Yes. True. All right. But Pol Haus can balance that out, don’t you think?”
“Pol Haus isn’t, strictly speaking, a member of Whiplash. He’s an ally, certainly, but …” Yimmon had assured them that the Imperial Sector Police prefect could be trusted, but Jax didn’t know how much influence Haus held over Tuden Sal.
“Wouldn’t you rather be out here?” she asked pointedly. She tilted her head back and looked up at the night sky. It glittered with a million stars, the broad swath of pale radiance that was the Galactic Core gleaming like a river of light.
“It’s …” Jax’s voice caught in his throat. “It’s not about what we want, Laranth. It’s about what the galaxy needs. It needs to be free of darkness.”
She shivered visibly. “Will that ever really happen, do you think?”
He stepped toward her. Put his hands on her shoulders. “Laranth, is something wrong?”
She shrugged free angrily. “By the Goddess, Jax! Tell me one thing that’s right!”
“You? Me? Our connection to the Force?” He smiled—or at least tried to. “The fact that we complete each other’s sentences?”
She took a deep breath, exhaled, and shook her head, making the row of tiny bells that edged her lekku mantle sing. “Sorry. It’s just … going back to Coruscant feels like going back into a trap.” She turned her head toward the landing field, started walking. “Let’s go make sure the ionite is ready for our customer.”
“Sure.” Jax fell into stride with her.
Maybe it was time for them to consider a new base of operations.
The Far Ranger left Toprawa with her nose set toward Ciutric. They would arrive at Dantooine after a series of careful intermediate jumps. Jax piloted the ship as far as the Ciutric system, then adjusted course and relinquished the helm to I-Five to retire to his private quarters.
The miisai tree sat atop a column, beneath a wash of light. His meditation mat sat before it, and it was there he went now, sitting cross-legged on the floor. He took a deep breath, focused on the tree, following the contours of its elegantly turned trunk and branches with his eyes. When he closed his eyes, the image of the tree remained—the spiraling trunk, the uplifted branches, the bristling energy of the needles. He saw it as a figure of pale green light—a ghost image imprinted on his retinas.
There is no emotion, there is peace.
Peace. He had to dig for that just now, delving beneath the slurry of emotions that he’d been managing since they’d made the decision to move Yimmon away from Coruscant. Jax realized, for the first time, that he had taken it as a sign of failure. It felt, sometimes, as if they were in constant retreat—running from the Emperor. Running from Vader.
Running from themselves …
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
No. He knew they weren’t running. It was a tribute to their success that the Empire had increased its pressure on them. And from his new headquarters, Thi Xon Yimmon would be far freer to organize a resistance worthy of the name. Out here, Jax told himself, there would be far more opportunities to network with other resistance cells like the one on Toprawa.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
Toprawa.
Aren Folee’s world had seemed the seat of ser
enity, and her offer for them to stay there and work with the Antarian Rangers was, he had to admit, appealing. No—more than appealing—seductive.
There is no chaos; there is harmony.
Jax reined in his thoughts. The Whiplash needed to be on Coruscant and—right now, at least—he and Laranth needed to be there, too. Maybe later. Maybe if he and Laranth and the others could raise up replacements. Maybe when battles had been won and some balance returned to the Force.
There is no death; there is the Force.
The image of the miisai still burned behind his closed eyelids. It struck him as paradoxical that this tiny specimen, with its fragile sprigs, was a close relation to the towering columns of wood around Big Woolly’s spaceport. Both drew life from soil and sun. Both pulsed with life force. Both were at once strong and flexible.
There was, indeed, a lesson in that, he realized, and it turned his thoughts toward the way he had experienced the Force, standing amid the trees of Toprawa. It had been different from his normal perception of it. He had always “seen” it as a web of energies in which he existed. When he used those energies, he saw them as tendrils or ribbons that reached out from his core to interact with the material universe.
But on Toprawa, he had experienced the Force as something that flowed up from the heart of a world, through the arteries of every forest giant and into the atmosphere with the oxygen. In his mind’s eye, he saw the trees—the great, monumental trees—roots in the ground, reaching into the skies, simultaneously moving and still.
It was suddenly very still inside Jax Pavan. He opened his Force sense to the miisai where it sat in its pot of soil. He could see it, then; he could feel it—the Force originating in some infinite well, flowing up through the slender trunk and gracefully turned branches, breathing out into the ether.
The Last Jedi Page 3
