Star Wars: Choices of One

by Timothy Zahn

  “I’ll encourage them not to,” LaRone said.

  The ruffled feathers smoothed out. “I stand in your debt,” he muttered, almost too softly for LaRone to hear.

  “You’re welcome,” LaRone told him. “You can repay the debt by leaving the merchant and his people alone.”

  The Feather drew himself up. “Our weapon?” he demanded, holding out his hand.

  LaRone considered. Then, reversing his borrowed blaster, he handed it over. “Remember what I said.”

  “I am not likely to forget.” The Feather made a sharp gesture to his companions and gave some more clickety orders. With baleful looks at LaRone, the whole group turned their backs on him in unison and stalked away.

  Grave stepped to LaRone’s side. “Well, that went well,” he said drily. “You probably shouldn’t have given him back his blaster.”

  “If they want trouble, one weapon’s difference isn’t likely to slow them down,” LaRone said. “Besides, it’s better to leave them completely in our debt.”

  “Yes, they strike me as a little like Yuzzem,” Brightwater commented as he joined them. “Quick-tempered, but with a strict code of honor.”

  “That was my impression, too,” LaRone agreed. “I tried to trade his debt to me for a promise to leave our knife makers alone. We’ll see if it works.”

  “What debt?” Marcross asked as he and Quiller came up.

  “This,” LaRone said, showing them the unbroken knife. “Come on—let’s return it to its proper owners.”

  The Greenies were still standing in a row in front of their defenseless, their hands ready on their sheathed knives as they watched the Feathers disappear into the pedestrian traffic. Behind them, though, the females and children had gotten to their feet and were starting hesitantly to return to their activities. “Thank you,” the head Greenie said as the stormtroopers came up to them. “We are in your debt.”

  “No problem,” LaRone assured him. “I’m glad we could help.” He reversed the knife and extended the hilt toward him. “Here’s your property.”

  The Greenie gave a wet-sounding snort as he saw the unbroken blade. “As I suspected,” he said contemptuously. “You should have exposed his fraud for all to see.”

  “It’s always a good idea to leave people with something more to lose,” LaRone said as the other took the weapon.

  “And his claims certainly aren’t likely to damage your business,” Brightwater added. “I’ve seen many blades in my travels, and yours is exceptionally well crafted.”

  “Your kindness is most welcome,” the Greenie said. “I am Vaantaar, leader of this small group of Troukree. I stand in your debt.”

  “No problem,” LaRone said. “I’m LaRone. These are Brightwater, Grave, Marcross, and Quiller.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen people of your sort before,” Marcross said. “Where are you from?”

  “There,” Vaantaar said, gesturing toward the sky. “From the stars you call the Unknown Regions. We fled here, in hope, from the ravages of a terrible enemy.” His small, white-rimmed eyes narrowed. “An enemy we fear may soon assail us here, as well.”

  LaRone frowned. Jade hadn’t said anything about alien threats being part of this operation. “Who is this enemy?” he asked.

  “They are a group of beings, some allies, some slaves,” Vaantaar said. “They attack and destroy under the orders of an evil creature named Warlord Nuso Esva.”

  “What sort of being is he?” Marcross asked. “Is he one of the feathered people who were just here?”

  “The Pineath?” Vaantaar’s eyes flashed with contempt. “No, Nuso Esva is not Pineath. Though perhaps the Pineath have now joined him. They are the sort of foul-minded creatures he would use to his advantage. Especially here, in the mud and fear that is this world.”

  “Do you know anything else about him?” LaRone asked. “His species, or what he looks like?”

  Vaantaar gave a furtive glance over his shoulder at the females and children. “I have seen only the dark challenge he sends before each of his attacks,” he said in a low voice. “He is constructed similarly to you, but with his covering surface smooth and soft and shimmering like a rainbow.”

  “His covering?” Grave asked, tapping the back of his hand. “You mean his skin?”

  “His skin, yes,” Vaantaar said. “His head covering is arranged similarly to yours, but the tendrils are much longer and are pure black. His eyes are … I do not know the word. They are bright yellow, and give off many small reflections.”

  “Multifaceted, like an insect’s?” Brightwater suggested. He pulled out his datapad and punched up a picture of a Noehon. “Like this?”

  “Like, but unlike,” Vaantaar said, nodding at the picture. “Nuso Esva’s eyes are smaller, and lie nestled within the head like yours or mine, instead of being on the outside as this creature’s are.”

  LaRone looked at the others. “Any of this sounding familiar?”

  “Not to me,” Brightwater said, putting the datapad back into his pocket.

  “Me, neither,” Grave said. “I would have said near-human until he mentioned the eyes. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “Of course, if he’s from the Unknown Regions, it’s not unreasonable that we’ve never run into his species before,” Brightwater pointed out.

  “True,” LaRone said. “I was hoping he was someone from the Empire playing conquest games.”

  “Nuso Esva plays no games,” Vaantaar said darkly. “He conquers, and he destroys.”

  “You said you were afraid he would be coming here,” Quiller said. “Why here? Is there something in the Poln system of particular value?”

  Vaantaar gave a whistling sigh. “What does any warlord find of value in new territory? He wishes only to conquer, to hold, and to exploit. That is all that matters to such beings.”

  He lowered his eyes. “He was preparing to conquer or destroy our own world when we fled,” he said quietly. “To this day, we do not know which was its fate.”

  “Well, if he tries to show his face here, he’s going to be in for a surprise,” Quiller assured him. “I doubt he’s got anything that could take on an Imperial Star Destroyer.”

  “I pray that you are correct,” Vaantaar said. “I have seen his legacy of destruction. I do not wish to see more of it.”

  “Nor do any of the rest of us,” LaRone told him. “Try not to worry.” He gestured to the others. “In the meantime, we need to move along.”

  “Again, we are in your debt,” Vaantaar said. He hesitated, balancing the knife LaRone had given him across the dog-like pads on parts of his palm and finger joints. Then, as if suddenly coming to a decision, he flipped the weapon around and held the hilt out toward LaRone. “In gratitude for your aid,” he said.

  “I’m honored,” LaRone said. “But there’s no need. Our honor and pleasure is in the helping of others.”

  “As our honor and pleasure is in paying our debts,” Vaantaar said, still holding out the knife.

  LaRone looked at Brightwater. The other was gazing unblinkingly at the knife. Practically salivating over it, in fact. “Then we accept with thanks,” LaRone said, taking the weapon. Silently, one of the other Troukree stepped forward and handed LaRone a matching sheath of some sort of tooled leather. “Thank you again,” LaRone said, sliding the knife into the sheath. It fit snugly, yet at the same time was surprisingly easy to draw. “Farewell, and take care.”

  He gestured, and the stormtroopers resumed their journey toward the stormtrooper station. “Here,” LaRone said, handing the sheathed knife to Brightwater. “Early Transland Day present. Enjoy.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” Brightwater protested.

  “Yes, he could,” Quiller said drily. “Come on, buddy. Take it before your eyes fall out of their sockets.”

  “Well, if you insist,” Brightwater said, taking it almost reverently and sliding it out of its sheath for another look.

  “First an antique druggat, and now this,” Grave said. “
How come Brightwater gets all the good stuff?”

  “It’s my kind face and generous personality,” Brightwater said, tucking the knife into his belt at the small of his back and pulling the edge of his tunic down over it.

  “Yes, that must be it,” Marcross agreed. “Any of you ever hear Jade mention this Nuso Esva character? Or any other threat in this area besides the Rebellion?”

  “She didn’t say anything to me,” Grave said. “Brightwater? You were with her the longest.”

  “If you can call floating in her bacta tank being with her,” Brightwater said. “And no, I didn’t hear anything.”

  “But we’ll hear plenty if we don’t get some data on the stormtrooper station by tonight,” LaRone warned. “Playtime over, gentlemen. Let’s get back to work.”

  ONE OF THE FIRST DISCOVERIES OF POLN MAJOR’S ORIGINAL SETTLERS had been a long line of large mounds, one to two hundred meters tall, which when sliced open yielded rich lodes of a hard, white, crystalline stone that was both highly decorative and strong enough to build with. Decades later, when the double planet first joined the Old Republic, that bit of their early history had been honored by constructing the governor’s palace out of that same white stone and setting it in front of and slightly beneath the last, partially mined mound, which at that time had marked the edge of Whitestone City.

  The effect, visitors to the city all agreed, was striking. Some saw the gouged-out mound as an oddly shaped breaking wave of pure whitewater that had frozen in midair, its crest towering over the palace. Others, focusing on the view from straight on, saw it as a scaled-up version of the falling-star domes that were a prominent style of souvenir sold at virtually every tourist spot in the Empire.

  Standing at the window of her sixth-floor room in the Hewntree Hotel, two blocks from the glittering white mound and palace, Mara wondered if Poln Major gift shops had such falling-star domes of the scene for sale. Almost certainly they did.

  Taking one last trinn berry from the room’s fruit bowl and popping it into her mouth, she went back to the chair she’d placed two meters back from the window and sat down. She’d had a falling-star dome once, she remembered. Most of her childhood was vague and shadowy, but she distinctly remembered the trouble she’d gotten into when she’d broken open the dome to find out what made the falling-star streaks when it was shaken.

  Breaking into cheap plastic souvenir domes was easy. Breaking into Governor Ferrouz’s palace was going to be considerably more difficult.

  She switched on her special electrobinoculars and focused again on the palace. The wall that encircled most of the Empire’s palaces had here been truncated into an arc, running from one edge of the mound cutout to the other. The mound itself took the place of the rest of the wall. The grounds enclosed by the mound and wall were more oval than circular, with the main open areas to the right and left of the palace. Mara couldn’t see much of either area from her current vantage point, but from the Emperor’s data she knew there were formal gardens on one side and an outdoor theater and small fragrance jungle on the other.

  The mound itself rose a good fifty meters above the palace, and in fact the tip of the crest overhung the rear third of the building. Normally, that would suggest the possibility of a rappelling incursion. In this case, though, it was such an obvious approach that Ferrouz or his predecessors had taken special care to close it off. At least half of the unobtrusive wall-mounted lasers were aimed up and inward, their swivels blocked to keep them from firing down into the compound itself but more than capable of picking off someone dropping spider-like from a rappelling line.

  Not that a potential infiltrator would find it easy to get into rappelling position in the first place. The mound’s base was patrolled by scout troopers on speeder bikes, who flew regular patrols that covered all approaches to the rear and sides of the mound. Most of the time the speeder bikes stopped where the compound’s wall met the mound and turned back to circle the other way, but occasionally a trooper would continue on, cutting close alongside the wall and swooping past the gate, then continuing around to the mound’s other side. The sheer randomness of those extra circuits made it impossible to predict when an opening in the pattern would take place, which made getting to the mound, let alone climbing it, problematic at best.

  The wall itself was just as bad. It was a good five meters tall, with six watchtowers spaced out along it, each of which was occupied by at least three guards at all times. The wall was set back about fifty meters from the major street that ran past the front of the palace and compound, sitting across a wide paved road spur that led from the street to the gate. Two pairs of guards stood at the gate, which was opened only when vehicles were entering or leaving. The outer part of the wall was patrolled by four pairs of stormtroopers, and Mara had no doubt there were more walking the inside perimeter as well. She hadn’t yet seen the nighttime routine, but the security would undoubtedly be tightened as darkness fell across the city. More stormtroopers and armed patrollers moved among the shops and residence areas of the city sector nearest the palace, undoubtedly trained to spot signs of brewing trouble.

  Mara had breached high-security walls before, either climbing them or using her lightsaber to cut through them. But such tricks usually required a guard corps that had been lulled by routine into negligence. The fact that Ferrouz was using stormtroopers to supplement the palace guard corps strongly implied that Mara would find no such negligence.

  Which left only the gate itself.

  She focused her electrobinoculars on it. The structure was as tall as the rest of the wall, decorated with intricate bas-reliefs highlighting some of Poln Major’s historical events. To one side was a narrow personnel door, barely big enough for a fully armored stormtrooper to pass through and thus impossible for a gang or mob to effectively rush. From what little she could see as the outside guard was being changed, it looked like the door also included a weapon and energy-source scanner.

  The four guards currently posted at the gate were dressed in an elaborate blue-and-red livery—probably, like the bas-reliefs, something from Poln Major’s distant past. They weren’t wearing any armor, but when the wind blew just right Mara could briefly see the slight bulges of blasters concealed beneath their capelets.

  There were no outside controls for the gate. One of the guards had to call inside via comlink whenever a speeder truck or other vehicle came up requesting entrance. The oval shape of the compound meant that the gate was also the closest part of the wall to the palace, probably no more than fifty meters away from the main entrance.

  Vehicles with proper authorization were allowed inside without any fuss, but Mara could see as the gate closed that each was then stopped between the wall and the palace for a search. With her electrobinoculars’ audio capabilities, she’d also eavesdropped on the guards’ orders to the inside gatekeepers, and it was clear that a system of rolling passwords was in use.

  Clearly, no one was getting in without a battalion of armored troops or invitation from someone already inside. And a governor presumably engaged in treason was unlikely to throw his gate wide to visiting officials, media personalities, art dealers, or dignitaries from minor worlds.

  But he might open the gate to a criminal. Or at least, his guards might.

  Returning her electrobinoculars to their case, Mara left her room and headed downstairs. There was an open-air tapcaf she’d noted, across the main street from the wall and a little way down from the gate itself.

  Time for a little experiment.

  The tapcaf was doing brisk business, but Mara was able to find a small table to herself out on the patio facing the palace grounds. She ordered a half flute of one of the local brandies and for a few minutes sipped it as she watched the flow of humans and aliens along the walkway between her and the street. She would have preferred to try this with another palace-authorized vehicle in place, but for the first fifteen minutes no such vehicle came along.

  She had just concluded that she was going to have
to make do without that added embellishment when a speeder truck with a baker’s logo turned onto the spur and headed in toward the gate.

  Mara sat up straighter in her chair, her eyes flicking back and forth as she looked for a likely target. Approaching from her right, in the lane closest to the spur, was an open-topped landspeeder with a teenage girl driving, the wind whipping through her hair. The vehicle flashed past Mara and started to pass the spur.

  Stretching out to the Force, Mara twisted the landspeeder’s control wheel hard over to the right.

  The landspeeder spun onto the spur, weaving and bobbing with interrupted inertia as it made the turn. Even at her distance Mara could see the girl’s panic as she wrestled with her suddenly rogue vehicle, trying to turn it off its new path. Mara kept a tight Force grip on the wheel, noting out of the corner of her eye that the gate was just starting to open to admit the speeder truck. The teen, apparently only now spotting the truck directly in her path, abandoned her attempts to steer and stomped with all her weight on the brakes.

  She just made it. The landspeeder bobbed to a stop bare centimeters away from the speeder truck’s rear crash plate.

  And as the gate hastily closed again in front of the truck, all four of the liveried guards arrowed in on the landspeeder, their concealed blasters drawn and pointed at the hapless girl.

  The near accident and resulting drama had already caused traffic on the street to grind almost to a halt as drivers slowed down, craning their necks to see what was happening. Some of the tapcaf’s patrons abandoned their drinks and stood up, the better to see over the creeping vehicles.

  Mara didn’t bother. She already knew how standard guard procedure worked, the normal routine of checking vehicle registration and personal ID. All she cared about was what the guards would do once the first-tier protocols had been completed.

  She didn’t have long to wait. Barely a minute after the guards arrived at the landspeeder, the teen was ordered out of the vehicle and marched over to the gate. The small side door had opened and a middle-aged man in a gray uniform was waiting there for her. They held a brief conversation, then the middle-aged man had another conversation on his comlink. A few minutes later two more gray-uniformed men emerged from the side door and headed over to the landspeeder. The liveried guards stayed with the teen, moving her a few meters away from the gate and door and standing her out of the way beside the wall. Peering over the still-sluggish traffic, Mara saw the two gray-suited guards move the landspeeder off the road and then pop open the engine compartment. A minute later, the gate finally opened again and the speeder truck was allowed through.