Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories

by John Jackson Miller

  Bentado took the note and held it aloft. “Success!” he declared. “Our listeners heard the call through the Force just hours ago. Edell Vrai has found the hidden land Yaru Korsin revealed to us. It exists!” He crumpled the parchment in his gloved fist. “The probe is done. It’s time for the strike!”

  Hilts looked at his wife. Her sources had told her the same thing earlier in the day, but it was nothing to get excited about yet. “We should wait until Edell gets back.”

  “Grand Lord, most of the airships are ready. My crews are staffed and waiting. You agreed, if he found anything at all, it was worth conquering with a full force!” Bentado turned to face his troops. “We await your command—to strike!”

  “You said that.”

  Rubbing her husband’s shoulders over the chair back, Iliana smirked. “He’s not telling you the rest, Grand Lord. My people were listening, too. Only one clear message arrived. But there were other emotions sensed later. Surprise. Shock. Confusion.” She stopped rubbing. “And then, nothing.”

  Bentado faced Iliana and raised his stump of a left arm; she’d caused the wound, half a century earlier. “They’ve found a whole new world, consort. There’s probably much for them to wonder at—and they’re likely confused about what to do next. Edell Vrai is no warrior,” he said. “Respected, yes, as a High Lord should be. But still a talented tinkerer. He’s waiting for my forces to arrive, to carry out the invasion.”

  Iliana sneered. “What if Edell’s crazy contraptions went down in the ocean?”

  “Edell’s not dead,” Hilts said, suddenly defensive. “I would have sensed that.”

  Iliana glared down at him. She’d said many times he couldn’t sense water if he were in a lake.

  Bentado smiled broadly. “I share your confidence, Grand Lord. The host is ready now. The first sixty airships are inflated and outfitted for war.” He knelt, and behind him his followers did so, too. Little Squab caught the hint a moment too late and nearly hit the floor trying to follow suit.

  “I beg your leave,” Bentado said, head bowed, “to pursue our destiny.”

  Hilts blinked. “Umm … sure.”

  The warriors filed out. Before following, Bentado’s Keshiri companion bowed again before the throne—this time, more properly. Hilts smiled gently at the effort. Remaining until last, Bentado saluted the Grand Lord and stalked off after his crew.

  Hilts looked up at Iliana and cocked a thinning white eyebrow. “We’re wasting an airship on him. That man is his own gas bag.”

  “He’s in such a hurry,” Iliana said. She looked perplexed. “He should wait for Edell to return. He’s taking all his people to drown.”

  “And that would bother you?”

  “Not at all,” Iliana said, making for another exit in a whirl of lace. “He handpicked them. Anyone Bentado trusts is worth drowning.”

  7

  Mischance, the sailing ship was named, and it was purely mischance that put the Keshiri sailors on the water that night, Edell mused.

  He and his crew had set out from the southern shore of the peninsula—Point Defiance, the local map called it—minutes after finding the boat. They’d delayed only to move Quarra and the one named Jogan aboard as prisoners. The woman had objected; the feverish male kept fading in and out. But Edell needed a guide, and thus far her spouse, if that was what he was, had served as leverage.

  The timing was good: the forces from Garrow’s Neck arrived just as they were vanishing into the watery night. The troops would find the place empty and ransacked; Ulbrick’s body had been dumped down a cistern. Meanwhile, Edell and company made for the ship he’d seen, rowing hard against the crosscurrent to reach it while the cover of night remained.

  The Keshiri sailors had indeed been unaware of the earlier battle; surprise was absolute. They fought like wild animals nonetheless. It had taken the Sith until dawn to seize control of Mischance, and even then all but one of the defenders had fought to the death.

  Now, with the sun climbing to its autumnal noontime position in the north, the last Mischancer had died in screaming agony under the torture of his questioners. Edell watched from the bow as Peppin emerged from the wheelhouse, removing her gloves. “What did you learn?”

  “Not much,” Peppin said. “For sea-farmers, they were made of pretty strong stuff.”

  “Seems to be a local trait,” he replied, looking back to the foredeck where Quarra and her partner were tied to a mast.

  “The ship was out here trapping crustaceans. Mischance is due to sit out here for a week before returning.”

  Edell scanned the coastline. There were no signal stations visible anywhere on land, so there was no way for the Keshiri to call Mischance back in—and the only way they could see who was aboard the vessel was aerially, aboard uvak. “We could sit here for a while.”

  Peppin seemed taken aback. “We might not have to, sir. The Keshiri have good maps of the currents down here. Getting home might just be a matter of pulling up anchor.”

  “Home.” Edell looked up at the lone square sail, furled on the yardarms. Peppin could figure out how to steer the vessel, all right. She’d been on his staff for years, soaking up his knowledge of engineering. They could do it—and it made sense to get home as quickly as possible. It would complete the mission as assigned, and bringing back even a lowly harvesting vessel would be an achievement. It was larger than any seagoing ship Keshtah had ever produced.

  Peppin read his thoughts. “It would make for a good transport—it could carry back a couple hundred Sith or more, I figure. A lot easier than flying them here.” She paused. “A lot safer, too.”

  Edell’s thoughts went to their explosive arrival—and then recalled the dream from his delirium on the shore. His mood darkened. Would returning Mischance be enough of a personal triumph? Not with things as they were back home. Korsin Bentado was already readying the next wave. The Ebon Fleet, twenty times larger than his own expedition. Would Bentado await his return, or launch early?

  He knew the answer. And he knew that, were their roles reversed, Bentado certainly wouldn’t sail mildly back home. But what more could he do?

  He looked again at Quarra and Jogan. He knew nothing of the male, but she was clearly somebody among the Keshiri. The documents she carried said that, but he’d seen it in her demeanor first. She’d been all over this land, this “Alanciar.” She understood how the signal station worked, as well as the various weapons here. And she understood deep in her breast whatever it was that was making these Keshiri fight so hard.

  Yes, that would be something to know.

  Edell turned back to Peppin. “I have new orders,” he said. “Listen—and then follow my lead …”

  Quarra watched carefully as the lead Sith talked. She couldn’t hear, but his thuggish cohorts were around him now, paying attention. Compared with the younger marauders, Edell was relatively slight. How had he gotten to be on the mission—much less in charge? Probably, she concluded, through shows of brutality like the one outside the signal station.

  Yet twice she had overheard one of them calling him “High Lord,” a term of much larger significance from the Chronicles. The first time, she’d thought they were being sarcastic to the smaller human—the Sith had a sneering way of talking to one another. But seeing the deference they were paying him now, she wasn’t so sure. A High Lord! Were the Sith so few in number that this was the biggest invading party one of their top officials could muster?

  She hoped so, but she also worried that what she’d seen over the harbor was just one part of the Sith force. That there had been more airships farther north, threatening the fertile farms of the Western Shield—or worse, passing over them to the populated uplands in the interior. Uhrar was there. Were her co-workers and family safe?

  For the first time in hours, she thought of Brue, her husband. He knew so little of war, or their preparations for it. What would he have told the children, when the alarm whistles sounded?

  At least one thing wasn’t worrying
her anymore: Unless the old guard at Garrow’s Neck remembered her name, no one would know that she had been at Point Defiance. Strange to think that, by spiriting her away, the Sith might have saved her marriage!

  But she wasn’t the only one they’d taken. Tied beside her, Jogan drifted in and out of sleep. His ribs had nearly punctured his lungs back on the isthmus, she realized; he was lucky to be alive. Especially after being manhandled by the Sith carting him around. They’d tied him to the mast sitting up, and she could feel his agony through the Force—and through their touching shoulders. Every time Mischance pulled against its anchor, Jogan seethed with pain.

  He opened his eyes again. “Where am I?” he asked.

  “With me,” she said, fighting for any words that would bring comfort in this situation. “We’re done moving now.”

  “Not true,” the Sith High Lord said, stepping toward her. “At least, not for you, Quarra Thayn. You’re coming with me.”

  “What?” Quarra strained against her bonds and stopped suddenly, remembering that Jogan was tied to her.

  Edell clasped his hands in front of him. “This … first meeting of our peoples has not gone well. You haven’t provided your neighbors a proper welcome.”

  “That’s too bad!”

  “Reparations will come later. But in the meantime, I would like to know more about you.”

  “About me?”

  “All of you. Alanciar,” he said, waving to the mountaintops just visible on the northern horizon. “I want to see whoever is in authority here, and you will take me, Quarra. But on my terms—and on my timetable.” Taking a scrolled map from Peppin, he walked to the railing and gestured. “There’s a small cove to the northeast. Shadowed by the mountains, and not under surveillance. You and I will row to it. Your military capital is several days’ walk from there, according to this. Mischance will remain here until I signal from the mountains that I’ve returned,” he said.

  Quarra stared at him. “You’re crazy. You don’t look anything like us. We know you’re here now. Our people will spot you in a heartbeat.”

  “You’ll think of something,” Edell said mildly, passing the map to his female companion. “You must—if you want your precious Jogan to live. If I haven’t returned freely in two weeks, he’ll follow the harvesters we threw to the bottom of the ocean.”

  Quarra looked at Jogan. He was slumping again, fading. She doubted he’d heard a word. “I don’t want to leave him!”

  “You don’t have any choice.”

  Craning her neck, she spotted Tellpah. “You’ve got your own Keshiri slave with you. Let him be your pack animal. Why do you need me?”

  “Don’t be a fool. I need a local guide who knows the area. We brought Keshiri along to spread their religion—a religion centered on us. But you met us with war. I want to see what else you have in store.”

  She studied Jogan for a long moment before looking back at the human. “There might be a way I can hide who you are,” she said. “But I’ll only do it on one condition—”

  “You’re not in a position to negotiate—”

  “—on the condition that you untie Jogan from that mast. There are bunks in the cabin. Let him lie down. You keep knocking him around, you’re going to kill him.”

  Edell nodded. “I can be reasonable. Move him.” Immediately his companions stepped forward to untie the Keshiri couple from the mast.

  Feeling the bonds loosened, Jogan looked back at her with bleary eyes. Gratification crossed his face—and then concern. “Quarra, I’m not sure what’s going on,” he mumbled. “But whatever it is, you don’t have to do this for me. I’m not worth it.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said. She studied the humans again. Not Keshiri, but maybe not monsters, either: just as capable of doubt, and of making bad decisions. “And I think I may have just the thing that’ll scare these Sith back to where they came from.” She looked to the north. “I have Alanciar.”

  8

  Keshtah was the Sith domain. But Alanciar, Edell realized, was the true empire.

  In his homeland, it was possible to travel in secrecy in some places by avoiding the main roads. Here, it wasn’t. The foliage—such trees, here!—had been cut back far from the raised stone pathways, and trenches separated the stands from travelers. Staffed way stations looked up and down long stretches, observing traffic in either direction. Edell and Quarra had slipped unseen onto a remote mountain highway in the dark of night, but he doubted they’d be able to cross more country that way. Alanciar was aware.

  Shrill whistles continued to sound over the hills, seeming to come from all directions. He still hadn’t gotten used to them. The screeches came from every populated area, louder than anything he’d ever heard. Quarra had explained them as warning sirens, generated by passing steam through colossal glass pipes. Every village seemed to have one. It was the fourth morning since the Sith flotilla’s arrival, and the alarms were still sounding.

  Aware.

  Edell saw another way station up ahead and drew the hood of the seafarer’s slicker over more of his face. His appearance continued to worry him. Jogan’s Alanciar uniform had been too large for him, and Edell had considered changing into the sailors’ clothes. But Quarra had given him the coat instead, along with a pair of shaded goggles she’d found aboard ship to hide his eyes. That, and a little work on his face, would be all that was necessary to conceal his identity, she’d said. Edell couldn’t imagine how that could be.

  And yet, it had worked so far. They had encountered no one in the first day and night of travel, crossing the wooded mountains northward from Meori Cove. But since starting on the road the second day, they’d seen lots of Keshiri—mostly soldiers, headed west. Everyone had stopped them, and every exchange had gone the same way. Now, at the crossroads, it was playing out again.

  “What do you have here?” the armed sentry asked, eyeing Edell.

  “One of the performers for Kerebba,” Quarra replied, flashing her identification papers.

  “Tonight? Yeah, guess they wouldn’t want to break tradition. Especially not now!” The sentry stepped back to his guardhouse and nodded to Edell. “He’s a good one, he is. Move along.”

  Pocketing the documents, Quarra turned up the road to the north. “Come on,” she growled back at Edell.

  The High Lord stomped after her. “What was he talking about? Why do they keep letting me pass?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He grabbed her vest and yanked her to face him. “You’re in no position to be cute with me, Keshiri!”

  “And you’re not in a place where you can push me around,” she said. Behind, the way station guard looked toward them. There were others inside, and a staffed signal tower was within sight, just off the road. “I yell ‘Sith’ and you’re dead,” she said coolly. “And probably dissected.”

  Behind the goggles, Edell’s golden eyes widened. Grudgingly, he released her and continued to follow her up the road. There was more to the woman than he had thought.

  He grew more certain of that an hour later, after a long stretch of silence. She wasn’t just dour over being his unwilling guide, he realized. When prodded, she responded.

  “I’m worried about my family.” She looked back at him curtly. “You do know what those are, right?”

  “Your family.” Edell said. “You have children?”

  “It depends. You don’t eat them, do you?”

  Edell’s eyes narrowed. “Your children weren’t at the signal station. Sent away?”

  Quarra simply glared at him.

  Pieces fell into place for Edell. “Ah, I see. You do have a husband—but that strapping purple specimen wasn’t him.” He chuckled. “It seems that I’m not the only thing you have to hide.”

  She turned her face away and kept walking. “I don’t think I have to be judged by a Sith.”

  “Oh, I’m not judging you,” Edell said, a twinkle in his golden eye. “Unless it’s to say that you have more in common with the
Sith than you think.”

  The canal had two lanes for traffic, with a white towpath in the center. “Big,” Edell said. “Almost a river.”

  “It was, once. We’ve made upgrades.”

  Edell watched as packet boats and barges sped up and down the canals, yoked to teams of the beasts Quarra called muntoks.

  “How can the boats go so fast?” he asked. He’d studied the idea of developing a similar canal system for cargo back home, to coincide with the repairs to the elevated aqueducts. He’d finally given up. Fast traffic caused wakes that damaged the lining of the walls.

  “Look closer.”

  Kneeling, Edell felt the smooth bank of the canal. “Concrete!” The Keshiri back home knew the compound—cement, aggregate, and water were in plentiful supply—but they seldom used it, preferring to work with slabs of polished rock. They kept it out of sight when they used it at all. But the Alanciar Keshiri looked to have lined their entire river system with it. “This must have taken centuries!”

  “We had time.”

  Edell crossed the bridge with her, tolerating first yet another puzzling conversation with a sentry. The High Lord still had no idea what they were talking about, but he sensed no deception on Quarra’s part. Edell had instructed her to take him to the seat of government, and she seemed to be complying. The bulk of the continent was to the northeast, and they’d been zigzagging in that direction for hours. She was also becoming freer with details about her world, perhaps thinking the sights were making an impression on him.

  He’d been careful not to give her reason to think that; after all, his people had come from the stars. And though years of studying Omen had brought him no closer to being able to replicate a single thing inside that ancient ship, nothing about the waterwheels, brick fortresses, or paved rivers eluded his understanding. The fact that they existed here, however, did. It was hard to believe the people who had created them were of the same species as the Keshiri he knew. What had made them like this?

  “We’re here,” Quarra said. “Kerebba. As far as we go today.”