by Jeff Grubb
“No,” said Reen, “And I didn’t see Toro after he left to join your Order. But the holofilms. The old epics and the news reports from the war. The Jedi were always moving, always attacking, always taking risks. Heroic. You seem too …”
“Insufficient?” suggested Mander, and the dream rose in the back of his mind.
“Ordinary,” Reen suggested, but the word gave Mander little solace. “Normal. You were more willing to talk than fight me when we first met. You were polite to Popara and his people. And you surrendered the medicine to the CSA.”
“They will be better at distributing it than we would,” noted Mander.
“Fine. But I still expected you to brandish your lightsaber, or throw someone across the room, or use your mind control powers to make them dance,” Reen said.
“What makes you think I can’t do any of that?” said Mander, smiling—and hoping that the smile would turn aside further questions.
It did not. “What do you do as a Jedi?” she asked.
“Different Jedi have different roles,” suggested Mander.
“But what is yours?” Reen insisted.
“I was Toro’s Master,” said Mander. “I taught him in the ways of the Force.”
“Yes, I know,” said Reen. “And when he mentioned you in his messages, he spoke well of you. Is that all you do, teach young Jedi?”
Mander gnawed his upper lip. “There are few teachers and many who need instruction,” he said. “But no, I do have other tasks.”
“Such as?”
Mander let out a deep sigh. “I go where I am sent by the Order. Currently, I am overseeing the Jedi Archives on Yavin Four. One of my tasks is to track down texts and holos throughout that region of the galaxy and compare them against those in the Jedi library on Coruscant. During the Galactic Civil War, many of the vital records were corrupted—”
Reen interrupted, “You’re a librarian.”
“Archivist, if you please,” said Mander.
“Librarian,” said Reen, with a small laugh.
Mander felt himself redden with embarrassment. “I served as an apprentice to the great Jedi historian Tionne Solusar. She has been trying to restore the Archives in the old Jedi Temple, and my work has been vital in identifying and confirming lost texts.”
Reen beamed a wide smile, and Mander would have called it a playful and winning smile if the woman weren’t being completely insufferable. “A librarian!” she laughed. “My brother never told me that. But I should have guessed. He complained you were always sending him to this text or that volume for some quote from an old Jedi philosopher who was dead long before the Republic was created!”
The Jedi wanted to respond, to point out the fallacies in her argument, but Eddey hollered from outside the ship. The Bothan had closed up the cargo bay and was already at the control pedestal in the floater’s stern. Reen moved at his call, and was down the hillside and clambering onto the skiff.
Mander let out a frustrated sigh and wondered why he let her get under his skin. Probably because she was very much like her brother. The Jedi pressed the last security code into the monitors and followed her.
The skiff was open-topped, in the Ubrikkian style, and Eddey skated along the dry wash at a good rate of speed, such that any conversation of less than a shout was lost in the swirling dust they kicked up. They passed between a pair of sentinel rocks and were out of the wash and into the open bottomland that held Tel Bollin. Mander turned to confirm where they had come from. The dust in their wake shifted from red and tan to a lighter shade, and the Jedi realized that the city was built on an evaporated lakebed, probably the remnant of when the planet last saw rainfall millennia ago.
The town itself was a dirty smudge on the horizon that did not look much better close up. Like most miner worlds, the place had a temporary look about it, the walls made of precast concrete dropped in from orbit and supplemented by mud bricks. Nothing was more than two stories tall, and all the edges were worn away into soft curves. Were the city to be abandoned, it would disappear into the lakebed within a generation.
It seemed to be well on its way already. Most of the outlying buildings were empty, open doors and windows staring blankly out at the world. Some were scorched around the entrances from fire. Some were marked with a crimson skull and a number underneath. Plague houses, indicating the number of bodies found inside. There was no movement on the streets, and if there were inhabitants, they were watching weakly from the shade.
Eddey slowed the skiff and Mander said, “Find a place to set this down, and we’ll go farther into the city on foot. We’ll stand out on this skiff. After all,” he added for Reen’s benefit, “we want to blend in.”
Eddey chose a location that was either an abandoned scrap yard or a multivehicle pileup. The scrap yard’s office, if it had been the former, had been gutted by flames, and smoky stains marked the walls. Mander made sure no one was about while Eddey secured the skiff. Reen adjusted her blaster, setting it to ride low on her right hip.
From eye level, the city did not improve in the least. As they moved deeper into Tel Bollin, there were finally people—dust-covered wretches moving through the morning light. It would normally be the time when people would be abroad, before it got too hot, but the inhabitants were few and far between. Small beads rattling in a much bigger box. One of them staggered by—a miner, by his look—and Mander hailed him, asking where he might find the Skydove Freight offices. That was Popara’s business, and that was where they should start.
The man looked up suddenly, as if Mander had manifested himself out of the desert air. His eyes were red and rheumy, and thick deposits of white crust hung from the corners of his eyes and mustache. For the first time, Mander wondered about the efficacy of Popara’s proposed vaccinations. The miner’s mouth worked a few moments but nothing came out. Instead he pointed in a general direction, to the right of one of the metal towers in the center of the town. Mander thanked him and pressed a few credits into his hand. When he looked back at the end of the block, the miner was still standing there, looking at the credits in his hand as if Mander had given him beetles.
“Try using Huttese money next time,” suggested Reen. “A couple of wupiupi will do.”
Mander nodded and said, “Sixteen wupiupi to a trugut, and four truguts to a peggat, which is worth forty standard credits. So a wupiupi would be worth about two-thirds of a credit.” Reen made an exasperated noise, and Mander regretted immediately sharing the information. He had learned the conversion rates back on Yavin 4, when he had first known he would be dealing with Hutts, but what truguts and wupiupi he had brought were unused in his pocket.
There was a whine of engines behind them, and the few people on the street quickly sought the safety of nearby doorways. The trio was on a low sidewalk beneath a veranda, so they turned to look.
Half a dozen swoop bikes—low, lean machines—screamed up the city street. Unlike their surroundings, they were brightly colored and well maintained, their riders deeply tattooed and grinning as they carved up furrows of dust in the empty street. They didn’t wear any unified colors or uniforms Mander could notice, but clearly shared a love of the noise and the effect it had on the natives.
Mander folded his hands in front of him to watch them pass, and realized that Reen and Eddey had melted back into one of the doorways. As the repulsor bikes flared past, kicking up dust, one of the riders flung a bottle in the Jedi’s general direction.
It did not seem intentional, and the throw was wide in any event. Mander did not flinch as it struck the wall a few feet to his right. Then the swoop gang was gone, swallowed again by the city, and the natives emerged, moving around as if nothing had happened.
“We’re trying to keep a low profile,” said Reen. “You should have stayed in the shadows with us.”
“I didn’t realize you were gone until it was too late,” said Mander. “Besides, the one with the bottle had terrible aim.” Still, the Jedi pulled at his zerape to shake the dust loo
se.
They were encountering shops now, run by merchants who looked like they were uninfected or survivors of the plague. Still, they were haggard and worn, and had little more than information to sell. They got better directions to Skydove Freight, though, as well as a warning to stay clear of the center of town. The CSA was rounding people up, an old woman selling discolored fruits said. Mander dropped a couple of wupiupi into her hand. She nodded but shot Eddey a sharp, nasty glance before retreating to the back of her shop.
Two blocks later a landcruiser bearing CSA markings rattled around the corner. This time Mander followed the local customs and pulled far enough off the street not to attract attention. The craft looked a little battered, and its forward weapon was obviously plugged and nonfunctional. The pilot behind the wheel was in a CSA uniform, but Mander noted that he was wearing a full breathing rig. Obviously the CSA had concerns about the usefulness of their own vaccine stores.
A landcruiser of this type could carry a squad of troops, but this one had been kitted out with a loud-hailer, which blared in Basic, Huttese, and a few other languages. Medicine was available, barked the loud-hailer. It would be distributed at the slingball pitch to the south of the city center. Only those with CSA-provided identity tags would receive vaccinations. All citizens should have tags. Those without tags would be violating the law and given tags. Please proceed in an orderly fashion. Be sure to bring your tags. The landcruiser shifted to another language and continued to lumber on, ignoring the people on the streets. For their part, the citizens seemed to be in no rush to take the CSA up on their offer.
“The distribution has begun,” said Mander. “That should help us. More people on the street.”
“And it may be that we’ll find the Skydove offices to be empty,” Reen said, “because they’re all out getting the medicine we could have brought them.”
The office of Skydove Freight was empty, but it seemed unlikely that the workers were out for a vaccination break. The front door was caved in, the barred windows smashed into jagged shards. Inside, the place was a mess—overturned desks, their electronics hanging out of them, rendering them inert and useless. Smashed datapads and crystals crunched underfoot. Interior closets were vandalized and chairs reduced to kindling. What might have been a safe was now a large hole in the floor, with drag marks leading to the door.
And across one wall, written in dark paint, were words in Huttese script.
Mander read the glyphs aloud. “ ‘The Fallen Warrior.’ Is that a reference to Mika? A testament to his protectors?”
“I don’t think of Hutts as warriors,” said Reen. “Probably a brag from the people who did this. Maybe a group of them, like the swoop gang we saw.”
“Odd name for a group,” said Mander. “You two look about. See if any of the datapads survived. I’m going to ask the neighbors.”
There were no neighbors—just another handful of empty offices. Some were vandalized, but others were left untouched. He did find a young man sulking in one of the doorways.
“Spice, spice,” the young man said as Mander approached, low and indistinct.
“You have spice?” asked Mander.
“I have medicine,” said the man. “Fell off the back of a loader this morning. CSA is swimming with it, not that they want to share it without all their red tape.”
“Let’s see it,” said Mander, and the youth produced a grimy vial filled with yellowish crystals. It looked like the medicinal spice they had brought the same way that Mander looked like the Jedi of Reen’s imagination.
“Good quality,” lied Mander, “but what I really need is information. The Fallen Warrior.” He tilted his voice with just a bit of the Force, enough to keep the young man talking.
He hissed. “You don’t want to go there.”
“So it is a place,” said Mander, keeping the Force in his voice. “Tell me why I don’t want to go there.”
“It’s a cantina for nonhumans,” said the youth. “Non-humans brought the plague, some say. They weren’t getting sick. The Hutts, the Toydarians, all of them. Early on, when things got bad, people drove them away.”
That was why Eddey was getting strange looks. When society was under pressure, they blamed people who were different. Aliens. Outlanders. He recalled the holoconversation he’d had on the Resolute with the young officer stationed planetside. “They drove a Hutt away?” asked Mander.
The youth paused, and Mander wondered if he was trying to answer correctly or fighting the Force-powered command in the Jedi’s voice. At last he shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know. There was a Hutt here. Didn’t see him later. Could be dead. Could be at the Warrior. There was a Nikto that came in before things got bad. He was here after they looted the place. Lousy aliens.”
Mander found the youth irritating. “Where’s this place I shouldn’t go?”
The young man told him, then blinked at him and said, “You want that spice?”
“That’s not spice,” said Mander, scowling now, throwing the Force fully into his voice.
The youth took a step back, then shrugged. “It’s not really spice.”
“What you should do is get vaccinated.” He brought the Force up hard with the command, and the youth almost staggered back a step.
“I really should get vaccinated.”
“And tell others to do so as well.”
The youth nodded, his eyes vacant now. “I should tell the others.” And with that he turned away and disappeared down the street, his feet slowly carrying him away as his brain tried to figure out what had happened.
Mander frowned. He hadn’t needed to do that, but after being needled by Reen, the urge to demonstrate a little Jedi mind power was too strong—even if she didn’t see him do it. A momentary weakness, he realized, like a child kicking over an anthill. And just as mature, especially since he had already gotten what he needed.
He returned to the office to find the others making a desultory search. “They were thorough,” said Reen. “There are not enough functioning chips here to light up a droid’s eye sensors.”
“I found out that the Fallen Warrior is a cantina about ten blocks from here,” Mander said, “and that the locals are blaming nonhumans for the plague. So we should be careful.” The others said nothing, but, as they stepped back into the sunlight, both the Pantoran and the Bothan were looking up and down the street for potential trouble.
The Fallen Warrior was built like a bunker, and Mander realized that it would be a good sanctuary if the mobs were looting nonhuman businesses. Its walls were the original permacrete of the colony, built up with additional layers of mud. Low stairs led up into the building itself, which was set apart from the other structures by broad alleys and a large plaza. There were a couple of obvious side exits as well.
Mander also noticed, parked beneath a huge but bare-leafed tree, a collection of brightly colored swoop bikes.
The gang was inside, claiming half of the bar and driving the alien clientele to booths along the sides. A stern-looking, statuesque, white-haired woman was behind the bar itself, and gave them a nod that, in one motion, welcomed them, demanded to know their business, and instructed them that the business had better involve drinking.
Mander and the others scanned the rooms, blinking as their eyes adapted to the darkness. A bleary-eyed Ithorian sprawled forward over one table. A couple of Neimoidians were talking to a Duros cousin in another booth. No Rodians, which made Mander offer thanks for small favors. Some Chiss who pulled back a beaded curtain of their booth to give the new arrivals a once-over, then returned to their plotting.
And one Nikto: an Esral’sa’Nikto, also called the Mountain People among their species. This one had the traditional flat features common to all Niktos, but bore a set of facial fins that dominated his pale gray features. The Nikto was at the far end of the bar, asleep or drunk or both, his back against where the bar met the rear wall.
The tattooed swoop gang had made the Nikto a target for their game. In tur
n, each would slide a half-filled mug down the length of the bar, toward the inert alien. The idea was apparently to get as close to the Nikto as possible without dropping the drink in his lap. Of course, eventually they would.
“That’s probably our Nikto,” said Mander. “We should stop this.”
“What are you going to do,” said Reen, “talk them to death?” Mander ignored her and motioned for the pair to stay by the door.
One of the swoop gang, a big thug in a broad-brimmed hat, gave his mug too hard a push. It slid down the length of the bar, sloshing a pungent, frothy liquid as it spun. It caromed off another glass and right toward the Nikto’s lap.
And Mander was there to pick it up, settling himself on the stool next to the Nikto, raising the mug in a toast to the swoopers, and then setting it down on the bar. “Sorry to interrupt the game,” he said, “but I need to talk to this one. I’ll let you get back to your fun in a moment.” He turned to the Nikto and shook the alien by the shoulder. “Wake up. I am looking for Mika the Hutt.”
“Hey!” shouted a voice behind him, and the swooper who had flung the most recent glass stormed down to their end of the bar. Mander turned and realized that he had made a mistake. The swoopers were not tattooed. Instead the dark lines on their faces were veins. Dark veins, standing up from the flesh.
Tempest, he thought. But what Mander said was “Leave us in peace for a moment,” throwing as much of the Force as he could quickly muster behind his request.
The thug should have stopped in his tracks and spat something about leaving them in peace. Instead, he raised a massive fist and smashed Mander across the jaw.
Surprised, Mander dropped to one knee, the room swimming in his vision. When he looked up, the other swoopers had descended on Reen and Eddey, three thugs apiece. No weapons had been drawn, but Reen had already knocked out one opponent, while Eddey was fending off his trio with a chair.
The big one standing over Mander had a chair as well, raised above his head to bring it down on the Jedi. Mander’s head cleared in an instant, and he reached across his body to pull his lightsaber, only to get it tangled in the folds of his zerape. He rolled out of the way as the thug brought the chair down on the space where he had been, the Jedi pulling himself fully upright.
