Hilts didn’t worry about how they’d reach the new continent. As his chief engineer, Edell promised to attack the problem with vigor, studying ways to span distances greater than any uvak or watercraft ever had. It might take years, decades, or even centuries—but the Tribe would succeed.
The new Grand Lord did wonder about what they’d find. Had Korsin told Adari Vaal about the new continent? Whether he had or not, if she had somehow reached there with her flight of stolen uvak, the residents would know the Sith existed. Korsin’s note was likely correct. The conquest of the new continent wouldn’t be as easy as the takeover of the old one.
The prospect of the challenge made him feel young again.
There was one last thing. It had come to Hilts almost as an afterthought. As soon as Edell and the others had announced his elevation, Hilts had seen the fire flash in Iliana’s eyes. She’d been the one vying for power, after all, not the Caretaker. He wasn’t supposed to be the one lifted on high. But after the initial shock—and realizing that Bentado and his companions still felt vengeful toward Iliana for her past actions—he’d thought of the absolute right thing to say to her, before all of them.
“If I am to be Grand Lord, I will need a wife.”
The surprise hadn’t been all hers, at first; Hilts could hardly believe he’d said it. He never knew exactly what she’d thought of it, either—until now, here on the sundappled colonnade outside the mountaintop Temple. Tall and regal, Iliana stood across from him, shimmering in a golden gown, product of the labors of the finest Keshiri artisans. Nuptial rituals were always just one more excuse for a celebration, as far as Tribe members were concerned; fidelity meant little to a Sith believer. But property meant a whole lot, and Iliana had just attained quite a bit. Several of her former Sisters of Seelah were here in their own regalia, he saw; evidently, this turn of events had patched up every rift on the continent.
Twirling Seelah’s ancient commitment band on her finger, Iliana smiled weakly for the others—and then glared privately at Hilts. “We both know this is ridiculous,” she whispered. “If you think I’m going to be all thankful to you for saving me—”
“I would never think that,” Hilts said.
That seemed to satisfy the woman for a moment. But as Tribe members passed them on the receiving line, Iliana had a sudden thought.
“Wait,” she said, under her breath. “If you’re restoring the old ways—isn’t the consort of the Grand Lord put to death on his passing?” Her eyebrows flared. “That’s right. It’s in Korsin’s Testament!”
“Oh, is that in there?” Hilts looked up at her, mildly. “I’d forgotten.”
Iliana smoldered. Hilts looked at his young bride and grinned. There would be wise leadership so long as he lived—and he could live another forty years, because there would be someone to make sure he did. Powerful, youthful, and devious, fighting all his battles. Surely some had assented to his elevation because he was an easy target—but she wasn’t. And the only way to protect her own life was to protect his.
Hilts looked up to the statue, looming over them both. There he was: Yaru Korsin, wise beyond all—even in matters of marriage. Behind the statue stood row after row of cleanly dressed Tribe members, at attention and waiting their turn to meet the new leader and his bride. Every surviving Sith on Keshtah Minor must be here today, Hilts thought. Some were worse for wear for the past month’s riots, but they were here, celebrating both his marriage and the last day of the Festival of Nida’s Rise. This would be one fête month no one would ever forget!
Along the sides of the colonnade stood hundreds of Keshiri, cheering and applauding. Waving to them, Hilts received a collective squeal of approval in response. The Keshiri couldn’t yet become part of the Tribe themselves, but Hilts would change that. Many of them had useful talents, and the Tribe might well need the help of all in the challenge ahead.
For a moment, he imagined what poor little Jaye would have looked like in the uniform of a Tyro or Saber. Hilts smiled at the thought. It would take a while, but he would do it.
Reading history had been his life. Now he would write his own.
The Tribe would go on.
Read more about the Lost Tribe in Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith, available in print and ebook from Random House/Del Rey in Summer 2012. And follow their descendants’ adventures in the far future in the Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi novel series, available now.
Read on for an excerpt from
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse
by Troy Denning
Published by Del Rey Books
THE STARLINER SWUNG INTO ORBIT AROUND THE PLANET Coruscant, and beyond the observation bubble appeared the glittering expanse of a billion golden lights. Through a thousand centuries of strife, those lights had continued to shine. Nothing had dimmed their brilliance—not the Rakatan enslavement, not the tyranny of the Empire, not the chaos of civil war. And they continued to shine now, in this new age of creeping shadow, when enemy impostors ruled the Galactic Alliance and Sith Lords slept in the Jedi Temple itself. But all those gleaming lights made Jaina Solo wonder whether Coruscant’s trillion residents actually cared who won the coming war—whether it mattered that they were living under Sith rule, so long as those billion lights continued to shine.
The answer came to her almost instantly, in the form of a dark tinge in the Force that could only mean Sith. Jaina shifted her gaze to the interior of the starliner, where a teeming mass of passengers hung floating in their transit harnesses, tethered to the walls of the EconoClass hold. Floating down the central access aisle was a Coruscanti Immigration inspector, his zero-g motility pack emitting small hisses as he twirled in slow-motion cartwheels, demanding identichips and ten-credit “expediting fees.” Behind him followed a pair of Bothan escorts, their snouts wrinkling in disdain each time their superior solicited another bribe.
Jaina would have liked to believe the inspector was merely a greedy Sith Saber trying to line his pockets, but she knew better. Vestara Khai, newly defected from the Lost Tribe of Sith, had warned the assault teams to take nothing for granted. In her briefings, Vestara had emphasized that the Sith were not stupid. After insinuating themselves in the Galactic Alliance Senate, they would have moved quickly to take control of the Coruscanti Immigration Service and other key bureaucracies. They would expect the Jedi to be coming, and they’d be on the lookout for infiltrators—and petty extortion was an ideal cover for someone trying to identify enemy agents.
The inspector stopped near a pair of human siblings in their late twenties. Both were slender and good looking, with wary eyes and small expressive mouths. The sister’s hair was reddish brown, the brother’s merely brown. Their fierce loyalty to each other showed in the way they remained shoulder-to-shoulder when they turned to face the immigration team.
The inspector oriented himself to the same attitude as the siblings—head-down relative to Jaina—and studied the pair without speaking or reaching for their travel documents. The unexpected change of routine sent a cold ripple through Jaina, but she quickly let out a calming breath and forced herself to relax. Allowing her alarm to permeate the Force would only confirm to the inspector that he had found something worth investigating.
The siblings, Jedi Knights Valin and Jysella Horn, continued to hold their documents, doing a good job of looking like ordinary passengers who were a little bit nervous. The inspector narrowed his eyes and waited, giving them a chance to betray themselves by doing something foolish. Jaina would probably never learn exactly what had caught the Sith’s attention, but she did know that it pointed to the one weakness of the Jedi Masters’ attack plan. These Sith were both careful and capable, and they outnumbered the Jedi ten to one.
Finally, the inspector said, “Documents.”
Valin and Jysella extended their hands, each holding a small packet containing a fare receipt, a forged identichip, and the “expediting fee.” The inspector took Jysella’s packet, then slid her chip into a handheld reader an
d compared it with the point of origin listed on the fare receipt.
“You were born on Kalla Seven?” the inspector asked.
“That’s right,” Jysella lied. “My brother and I both.”
The inspector glanced at Valin, then asked him, “Is this a family trip?”
Valin shook his head. “No, my sister and I are traveling alone.”
“Is that so?” The questions were the mundane sort that customs officers all over the galaxy used to probe for story discrepancies. But the real test would be taking place on another level, Jaina knew, with the inspector searching their Force auras for the sour hint of a lie. “Then you’ve come to visit family?”
“No,” Jysella replied confidently. Like every Jedi on the assault force, she had spent weeks perfecting her ability to lie without betraying herself in the Force. “We’re tourists.”
“I see.” The inspector glanced at her fare receipt again, then spoke to Valin in a casual voice. “Four thousand credits is a lot of money to visit a few monuments and museums. You should have used the HoloNet instead.”
“And spend our lives stuck in lower management?” Valin retorted. “I think not.”
“If you haven’t been to Coruscant,” Jysella added, “you go nowhere at UHI.”
“UHI?” the inspector asked.
“Unlimited Horizons Incorporated,” she explained, managing to sound just astonished enough to imply that she thought everyone knew what the acronym stood for. “You know—the UHI that controls most of the pallodenite reserves in the Corporate Sector?”
“Ah … that UHI.” The inspector had clearly been put off-balance by the tactic—just as Vestara had predicted. The Lost Tribe’s greatest weakness lay in their inexperience with the greater galaxy. Vestara had said that the quickest way to put a Lost Tribe impostor on the defensive would be to play on that ignorance. “There are so many.”
The inspector pocketed the bribe and returned Jysella’s documents. Jaina finally began to breathe easier. She turned her gaze back to the observation bubble and saw that the Plain Lady was crossing the terminator line into Coruscant’s daylight side. It would not be long now, she knew, before she was on the surface, fighting to save her homeworld … again.
Bazel Warv was “Jade Masher,” a celebrated Ramoan float wrestler. Seff Hellin was his human manager, and Vaala Razelle was Seff’s Arcona assistant. The three had just arrived from a series of grudge matches in the Bothan system, and they were passing through the Galactic Center Spaceport on their way to a championship match at the Iblis Glob. All Bazel had to do was remember all that—and believe it. Belief was the key to defeating a Force-user’s ability to detect lies. As long as Bazel truly felt like Jade Masher—the newest, greatest rising star in the Pan-Galactic Float Wrestling Syndicate—he would have no trouble fooling Coruscant’s new immigration inspectors. His friend Yaqeel Saav’etu had assured him of that. Bazel glanced across the sea of heads that was Arrival Lobby 757 and found Yaqeel three lines over. She was already at her inspection station, standing alongside another Bothan Jedi, Yantahar Bwua’tu. Wearing the ash-gray tabards of businessbeings, the two Jedi Knights were at the front of a long line of passengers waiting to be formally admitted onto a planet that had once greeted visitors with open arms. So far, the Coruscanti populace seemed willing to believe that these new precautions were due to an influx of spice lords, and Bazel was glad. There was no need for the citizens of Coruscant to get hurt—not when the Jedi were coming to save them.
But first the Jedi had to get past the inspection stations, and that part of the plan wasn’t going well for Yaqeel and Yantahar. Their Duros immigration inspector had been joined by his captain, a narrow-eyed blond whom Bazel judged to be fairly beautiful for a human. She was firing questions at the Bothans faster than they could answer. Meanwhile, a squad of body-armored Galactic Alliance Security guards were standing ready at a nearby security post. Clearly, something was wrong.
Bazel cocked an ear in Yaqeel’s direction, consciously tuning out the general din of the lobby and opening himself to the Force. A cool haze of fear permeated the line a few meters behind him, but he had been sensing that off and on since debarking the starliner. There did not seem to be anything menacing in the aura, so he ignored it and focused on the conversation between his friends and the blond immigration captain. His thick hide began to prickle with the bitter margin of a dark side Force aura. Suddenly he understood why his Bothan friends were having trouble.
Sith.
Ignoring the growing press of the crowd behind him, Bazel extended his Force awareness toward the security post. To his relief, he felt only the weak auras of non-Force-sensitive guards. The immigration captain was the only Sith in the area—probably just a Saber, assigned to keep watch on the arrival lobby.
“… all the way to Coruscant to place an order you could have filled anywhere in the galaxy?” the impostor-captain was asking. “United Hydrologic Institute is hardly the only Tibanna gas supplier in the Mid Rim.”
“But it is the only one with access to Hutt space,” Yantahar replied in his gravelly Bothan voice. “And since Nar Kagga will be the closest inhabited system to our operation, naturally we want to be certain of our supply chain.”
“And your operation will be … what, exactly?” the blond impostor asked.
“A trade secret, I’m afraid.” Yaqeel glanced around the processing station, then added, “There are spies everywhere, Captain. I’m sure you understand.”
The Sith’s reply grew inaudible when Bazel’s human “manager” grabbed the huge Ramoan’s wrist and asked, “Masher, you awake up there?” Seff Hellin started forward, trying to pull Bazel into the gap that had opened in the line ahead of them. “We’re holding things up.”
Bazel paid no attention, for over at the station where his friends were being questioned, the impostor-captain was looking over Yaqeel’s shoulder toward the security station. When the Sith gave a slight nod, the guards drew their stubby Merr-Sonn Urban blaster rifles and started toward the inspection station.
Vaala grabbed Bazel by the other wrist. “Mighty Masher, sir.” The Arcona’s voice was soft and bubbly. “We really should keep moving.”
Bazel shook his head, then stepped through the cordon-beams that marked the edge of the queuing area. With matching sighs, Seff and Vaala stepped out of line behind him, each pulling a pair of expensive Levalug travel cases that were large enough for Vaala to sleep inside.
“Masher!” Seff growled, putting just enough frustration into his voice to sound like a weary manager at the end of his wits. “There’s no time for your temper right now. We have only two hours before the weigh-in.”
They wouldn’t be making the weigh-in, Bazel rumbled in his native Ramoan. He could speak Basic when necessary, but his large mouth had trouble shaping the common language’s delicate vowels and subtle consonants, and he needed to make himself clearly understood. Yaqeel was in trouble, he explained, and he was not going to leave until she was safe.
Seff groaned and carefully avoided looking toward Yaqeel and Yantahar. “Drawing attention to ourselves won’t help anyone, Masher,” he said. “Our friends can take care of their own problems.”
As Seff spoke, the GAS guards shouldered their blaster rifles and fanned out behind Yaqeel and Yantahar. The two Bothans reluctantly opened their tabards, and the Sith impostor-captain stepped forward to frisk them. Bazel knew the woman wouldn’t find a lightsaber or anything else to identify his two friends as Jedi Knights. The assault team’s equipment had been shipped ahead, and it would be returned to them later, by an operative from the Club Bwua’tu resistance society. But Bazel also knew the impostor wouldn’t be searching his friends at all if she hadn’t sensed that something was amiss. He had to find a way to distract her before she confirmed her suspicions … a way that wouldn’t seem like it was a distraction.
Vaala clamped a three-fingered hand around one of Bazel’s stubby fingers and quietly bent it back against the joint. “Mighty Masher, s
ir, we need to focus on our match.” She tried to lead him through the cordon-beams back into the processing line. “The, uh, championship is still on, even if a couple of competitors can’t make it to the arena.”
Balling his hand into a fist to stop Vaala from hurting his finger, Bazel remained where he was. If a pair of clever Bothans couldn’t make it past the immigration inspectors, he replied quietly, there was no reason to think he could. Besides, they didn’t know how many of their peers had already been captured, and if the Sith caught even two teams of infiltrators trying to sneak onto the planet, the Jedi would find themselves attacking without the advantage of surprise, and the battle would grow very big very fast. A lot of innocent civilians would get caught in the crossfire, maybe a million of them, and Bazel wasn’t going to allow that. He was going to find another way.
Seff exhaled in exasperation. “What other way?”
Bazel wasn’t sure. Maybe he could go on a rampage. That would draw attention away from Yaqeel and Yantahar.
“Don’t you think that would be a bit obvious, Mighty Masher, sir?” asked Vaala.
Bazel nodded. Tactical planning wasn’t his strong point, he reminded them, but he could tell that Seff and Vaala just wanted to follow orders, and that meant he had to develop his own idea. Maybe he could just bull ahead to the front of the line and try to push past the processing station.
“And get yourself arrested instead?” Seff lowered his voice to a whisper. “Do you really think you can outwit an interrogator better than a pair of Bothans?”
Bazel had to admit that was unlikely. What he needed was to present the impostor-captain with another reason for the anxiety she seemed to be sensing in Yaqeel and Yantahar’s Force auras. He thought for a moment, then turned back toward the line he had just left and opened himself to the Force.
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #8: Secrets Page 4
