by Claudia Gray
“Is it all written on paper?” Korrie said in despair, about three hours into their work in the Ryloth archives.
“Except the stuff that’s written on tanned hides.” Leia put the ancient vellum to one side, wrinkling her nose. “Or on wooden tablets or rolls. But yes, it’s all either written or printed.”
Only Joph Seastriker’s thick shock of golden hair showed behind his high stack of leather-bound volumes. “Could they seriously not afford regular holograms or computers or anything? Ever?”
“No, Lieutenant Seastriker, they couldn’t.” Leia kept her voice civil—but her staffers needed to understand this. “Ryloth has never had much in the way of resources, and whatever they had was traditionally taken away from them by either the Niktos or the Hutts. They learned that if they wanted to preserve their own version of their history, this was the only way they could do it. We have to respect that, even if it makes our jobs harder.”
Which it did. Immensely. But nobody ever said being a member of the Galactic Senate was fun.
She, Korrie, Joph, and C-3PO were clustered around a long sandstone table in the heart of the Ryloth archives—a vast, cavernous basement area in which all the planet’s records were kept, going back to what seemed to be the beginning of time. Candledroids floated close by, giving Leia enough light to work by, but making the rest of the space feel even colder and darker by contrast.
“Here’s more to add to the dossier, Your Highness!” C-3PO tapped his metal hand on the page of an open book. “Another mention of Rinnrivin Di, this one from approximately fifteen years ago.”
Korrie leaned toward the page, her eyes narrowing as she tried to make out the handwritten words. “It’s a list of the Hutts’ spice brokers. Rinnrivin was on the lowest rung of the operation—at least as far as anyone on Ryloth knew.”
“I’d be willing to bet that was accurate.” Leia folded her arms across her chest as she sat back in her chair. She’d worn a lightweight jumpsuit for the journey—appropriate for Lessu’s moderate climate, but inadequate to the damp chill of the archives. “To judge by what we’ve seen from Rinnrivin’s dossier so far, up until seven to ten years ago he was no one. Little money, less power, hardly any independent organization of his own. And now? We’ve turned up enough information to know Rinnrivin has one of the largest criminal enterprises in the galaxy.”
C-3PO swiveled his torso to her, tilting his head as if in human curiosity. “Perhaps our information is inaccurate, Your Highness. It comes from humans and other sentient creatures, not machines, and could therefore be faulty.”
Leia shook her head. “No. Though we don’t know everything about Rinnrivin’s operations yet, we’ve seen too much to doubt that he’s at least as powerful as the Twi’leks told us, probably more.”
“Well, what about this?” Joph pushed the books in front of him to one side so he could make eye contact with the others again. “Maybe another cartel collapsed around that time. One of the Hutts died without an heir, something like that. Rinnrivin could have seen an opportunity, stepped in, picked up wherever the other cartel left off.”
Leia weighed that idea for a long moment before saying, “That would be plausible. The only problem is, we have no records of any such cartel. Not here, not on Hosnian Prime, nowhere.”
“Rinnrivin stayed out of sight long enough,” Korrie pointed out. “We might not have known the other cartel existed. Surely there are others out there we haven’t heard about even now.”
“True. But if Rinnrivin were merely stepping into a power vacuum, by now we’d have run across traces of whoever it was he was replacing. We haven’t.” She wished they had. The more she thought about the mysterious origins of Rinnrivin Di’s operations, the more deeply they unnerved her.
As she and Casterfo had speculated, someone else had sponsored Rinnrivin Di. Her lone meeting with the Niktos had taught Leia that the man was no fool, and not the type to readily accept second-tier status from just anyone. Whatever the real power was behind Rinnrivin’s cartel, its reach had to go almost past anything Leia could imagine…
“Are you still sure this isn’t connected to the Centrists?” Korrie ventured, gesturing at the piles of ledgers on the table. “Because all of this suggests Rinnrivin’s money goes to Centrist worlds. That makes me think the original money must have come from there, too.”
“Just because a planet politically aligns itself with the Centrists doesn’t say anything about what any individual citizens might do or believe.” Leia said the words, and she meant them, but inside she felt the inexorable tug that told her something was very wrong here.
Centrist worlds pride themselves on law and order, she thought, remembering Ransolm Casterfo’s words about the death penalty on Riosa. They’d be more likely to pick up on large-scale criminal enterprises operating in their midst. Could every single Centrist world touched by Rinnrivin’s cartel truly be ignorant of his power and reach? Possibly. Few peoples had as much reason to track the Niktos as the Twi’leks did. But Leia now sensed the shape beneath the surface—the immensity of the danger lurking just out of sight, but growing closer all the time.
—
Piloting a top-of-the-line ship like the Mirrorbright to an independent world like Ryloth as part of a secret mission: High-quality adventure. Top grades. Excitement score of…seven, maybe seven and a half.
Spending hours sitting in a musty basement reading words written on actual paper, trying to trace financial records: Zero adventure. Excitement score so low it had actually drained excitement out of other parts of Joph’s life, like a black hole engulfing all light and heat.
“This stinks,” he confided to his one companion on the ship that evening.
“I detect no strong chemical components in the onboard atmosphere,” C-3PO replied, “though of course that’s not part of my primary programming. We could locate an astromech unit for a more thorough scan of the ship’s ventilation systems—”
“I didn’t mean literally.” Joph kicked back in the pilot’s seat, staring glumly out at the silent stillness of the spaceport. “I meant that this is boring.”
“I see, sir.” The droid’s politeness never flagged. Joph wondered if the droid’s programming kept him from ever being bored—or maybe, to C-3PO, humans were so slow and dim-witted that boredom was all he knew.
Princess Leia had been invited to some kind of dinner. If the event were a grand state banquet, Joph would probably have been asked to attend as well. However, this was a humbler affair, a private gathering that Emissary Yendor had put together for the princess and some others who had known one another during the war. Korrie, meanwhile, was finishing up work in the archives. Until she returned, Joph had nothing to do but “guard the ship.”
Hey, at least you got a chance to fly this, Joph reminded himself as he looked at the Mirrorbright’s sleek console. Not much consolation, but he had to take what he could get.
Just then, the communications unit began to blink with the pattern of lights that meant “top-priority message.” Joph sat up straight. Only someone from the Senate or another high official in the New Republic could send that kind of message. It happened so rarely that his training had never covered how to handle it. Did he answer for Senator Organa? Or would he be violating security protocols even seeing it?
He had to try. Joph punched in the appropriate signal. “Mirrorbright receiving. Lieutenant Seastriker here.”
“Joph?” Senator Casterfo’s face took shape onscreen. “I take it Leia’s not aboard, then.”
“Banquet.” Should he have phrased that more carefully? Didn’t matter. Joph continued, “I can, um, take a message—or go get her, if it’s that urgent—”
“Not quite that urgent, though we should act soon.” Casterfo leaned closer to the projector screen, so that his holo seemed to hover in the cockpit itself. “Greer’s turned up evidence that the Amaxines are far more than a militia; they seem to be a substantial fighting force in training.”
“In training for
what?” Joph asked. Behind him, Korrie walked in, the Mirrorbright’s door swishing shut behind her. She frowned as she came closer, listening to the call.
Casterfo continued, “That’s the question. But here’s the thing: We need to conclusively link Rinnrivin Di to the Amaxines, posthaste. If we can’t bring them down along with Rinnrivin, this could be more than a mere criminal matter. The Amaxines might defend him, or avenge him. Given the scale they’re operating on, it could even mean open conflict between systems.”
Joph straightened in his chair. “All right. What can we do here?”
“Greer suggested that Rinnrivin would scarcely leave such a large fighting force unmonitored. We performed some scans that turned up spy satellites sending periodic updates from Daxam Four to a few worlds—including Ryloth.”
“You think Rinnrivin Di is hiding out here?” Korrie said.
If Casterfo found it odd that Korrie was now a part of the conversation, he gave no sign. “No. I think Ryloth is a relay station of some sort. Rinnrivin has enough influence there to bribe local officials into simply ‘not detecting’ his satellites orbiting Ryloth. What we need to know is where the Ryloth satellites are sending their signals.”
The final puzzle piece snapped into place. “Because that’s going to tell us where Rinnrivin Di is.”
Senator Casterfo nodded, or Joph did; the signal wavered, distorting the image of his face for a moment. “Very likely. We’re transmitting the specs you should search for right now. If you can find and splice those satellites, this investigation will take a big leap ahead.”
“We’re on it,” Joph promised as the computer began processing the received data.
Anything else Casterfo might have added was lost when the holo signal blanked out completely. After a moment of silence, it became clear that he would not re-signal, or could not.
Joph drummed his hands against the bulkhead. “We’ve got a mission. No. We’ve got a secret mission. Now, that’s more like it.”
“Wait, you’re going now?” Korrie said. “As in, right this moment?”
“Hey, you heard the senator. It’s important.”
“We haven’t even told Senator Organa!”
“She’s busy, and another member of the Galactic Senate just gave us orders.”
Korrie sat in the copilot’s seat, datapad clutched to her chest, her loose curly hair framing her worried face. “Do you want to do this now because you think it’s so critical that we shouldn’t wait, or because you’re just bored?”
Joph grinned. “Yes.”
“But sir!” Threepio shuffled out of the back, where he’d been powered down for too brief a time. “This is highly irregular. Princess Leia would undoubtedly wish to be consulted.”
Probably. However, the more Joph thought about this, the more he was sure this was the right time—and he hoped that wasn’t just his own wishful thinking. “If Rinnrivin has spies here on Ryloth, and he probably does, he’s most likely to be watching Senator Organa herself. Not us. Which means our best chance of doing this without being observed is acting now, while the senator’s somewhere else.”
Although Korrie’s expression still looked dubious, she finally nodded. Threepio said, “I’m sure we’re making a terrible mistake.”
“Only if I screw it up.” Joph brought the engines online and felt the Mirrorbright shiver around them, ready for action. “And I’m not going to screw it up.”
They soared away from Ryloth, a bright streak in its night sky, leaving the hazy blanket of the planet’s atmosphere to just skim orbit. Normally vessels stayed clear of the narrow bands of satellites circling the equator, but Joph pulled in close as Korrie double-checked each against the specs that would help them identify likely targets. Within minutes, the viewer began to ping with multiple red dots—satellites that might be working for Rinnrivin.
Joph skimmed closer to the first one, feeling as if he were threading the ship through an asteroid belt. Silvery satellites dotted the space around them as he matched orbital speed. “Threepio, you can process the data coming in from one of these if I hijack the signal for a few seconds, right?”
C-3PO cocked his golden head. “I function primarily as a protocol droid and translator, advising Princess Leia on matters of higher diplomatic importance—”
“But you speak to other machines, so you can understand these satellites.” If not, Joph’s day was about to get a whole lot more difficult.
If the droid could have sniffed, he would have. “If you so require, sir.”
“I do.” Joph slipped in even tighter, until the satellite was practically close enough to touch the Mirrorbright’s gleaming white hull. Just as he was about to tell C-3PO to get started, however, an idea took shape in his mind.
The satellites have to be sending information to Rinnrivin regularly. But there’s no way Rinnrivin’s staying in one place—not while he’s wanted like this. We don’t need to just retrieve the data; we need to tap into it permanently.
Thinking fast, Joph said, “Hey, Threepio. If you can get the satellite to give us the data now, can you reprogram it to keep sending us the data going forward? Including the primary destination for the signal?”
“I could, sir, but that will be far more time consuming.”
Korrie broke in, “If we take too long up here, we could be detected. That would blow the whole thing.”
“Yeah, but that’s the only way to be sure we’re tracking Rinnrivin Di.”
She nodded, but her expression remained troubled. “Senator Casterfo gave us specific orders.”
“That’s just because he hadn’t thought of this yet!”
“We should stick to the plan for now and ask Senator Organa about your idea later—”
“Interacting with the satellites twice would be way more likely to trip any alarms, right, Threepio?” Joph turned toward the droid.
“Yes, sir, but Senator Casterfo’s orders were quite clear,” C-3PO insisted. “We shouldn’t disobey them.”
Joph would’ve thumped C-3PO upside his metal head, if he wouldn’t have bruised his hand in the process. “We’re not disobeying his orders. We’re…improving them.”
“Joph, don’t,” Korrie pleaded. He’d gotten into the habit of thinking of her as someone closer to his own age, but the alarm in her voice reminded him that she was only sixteen. “It’s too big a risk.”
“It’s too good a chance to waste.” Joph made up his mind. “We’re doing this. I’m noting for the record that I proceeded over both your objections. If something goes wrong, it’s on me.”
C-3PO looked as though he were about to blow a circuit. “If we’re captured by Rinnrivin’s thugs, we’ll be doomed!”
“They’re not going to fly up here and grab us in the act,” Joph said, mentally adding, At least I doubt it. “Is there some kind of—sleep mode, something like that, you can put the satellites into? That would slow down any alarm activation.”
Resigned, the droid said, “I’ll try my best, sir.”
The work turned out to be at the edge of C-3PO’s capabilities, but he could manage it. Over and over, Joph wheeled the Mirrorbright toward a satellite, flying with the precision necessary to bring them close enough for signal range, and let C-3PO coax the satellites into sleep mode. Then, while the data was being downloaded, they could input codes suggesting that the satellites do a little extra work the next time they broadcast their signals. Although they worked as quickly as possible, the delicate flying and C-3PO’s complex task meant that every single satellite got within seconds of activating automatic alarms before they were able to detach. The suspense made Korrie look seasick, and Threepio’s complaints were interrupted only by his panic, but Joph enjoyed himself immensely.
A challenge to his skills, a mission with some meaning to it, and following his gut to come up with a better idea than he’d had before—this was what Joph had dreamed about on Gatalenta. He hadn’t had this much fun since he’d piloted his X-wing down into the caverns of Bastatha.
That feeling of exhilaration lasted until later that night, after they’d landed, and Princess Leia found out what they’d done.
“Let me get this straight.” Leia paced in front of Joph, who stood rigidly at attention in front of the ship’s cockpit. In the far corner of the main room, Korrie and C-3PO stood by silently. Korrie’s worry and sympathy were as obvious as the droid’s unspoken I told you so. “You took it upon yourself to improve Casterfo’s orders.”
“Yes, ma’am. The idea came to me in a—a moment of inspiration. I felt you would have okayed my actions if you’d been present.”
The princess stopped mid-step and gave him a steely stare. “But I wasn’t present, Lieutenant Seastriker, and you shouldn’t presume to guess what I would and wouldn’t approve.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know. But—” Maybe she hadn’t quite figured out what they’d managed to do up there. “We’re going to get updates on Rinnrivin Di’s location from now on. That’s got to be worth the risk, right?”
“That’s not your call to make, Lieutenant. You could’ve exposed this entire operation.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Joph wondered just how many demerits he was going to receive for this. Surely she wouldn’t bust him back down to ensign, would she?
She continued, “You’re here to work with me, on this mission, as I command. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”
By now Joph’s spirits had sunk down to the soles of his boots. “Yes, ma’am.”
A few moments of silence passed, during which Joph awaited his orders to get his butt back in the cockpit—until Princess Leia said, “It was a good idea.”
Joph grinned as he lifted his head. While the princess had folded her arms across her chest, her expression had changed from stern to intrigued. He ventured, “Yes, ma’am. I mean, thank you.”
“Next time you have a similar ‘moment of inspiration,’ you run it by me first. You’ve got good instincts, but they won’t help you much if you don’t learn to work as part of a team.” Princess Leia nodded toward the cockpit. “You strung the net for us, Seastriker. Let’s see if you’ve caught anything yet.”
