Bloodline (Star Wars)

by Claudia Gray

  Joph eagerly sat down in the pilot’s chair and brought up the satellite signals. Princess Leia took the navigator’s position, and Korrie and C-3PO came up behind. A few lines of small green type began to appear on the screen. “Not a whole lot yet—but we can pinpoint the location the signal’s being sent to.”

  “Excellent,” the princess said.

  “Oh, it was nothing. Merely some complex programming performed very quickly indeed,” C-3PO said with obvious pride. “I’m always happy to have been of service.”

  Throwing a dirty glance over his shoulder, Joph forced himself to concentrate on the work at hand. When he had the data, he fed it into the navigation computer to see which location it would spit out. Within moments a planet came up, one Joph had never heard of before. “Sibensko. Expansion Region, in largely Centrist space. Do you know it, Senator?”

  “No,” Leia said. “But I have a feeling we’ll all get to know it before long.”

  Ransolm Casterfo was relieved to find Daxam IV’s weather warmer on his second day. The bright sunlight helped ease the slight nervousness within his gut—nervousness Greer Sonnel seemed determined to increase.

  “You shouldn’t have agreed to a meeting without me,” Greer said, not for the first time that morning, as they walked across the spaceport toward the speeder bike rentals. “I’m supposed to be your chief of staff, remember? Why not throw your rank around? Insist on taking someone along? You don’t strike me as the type to forget your senatorial privileges.”

  “Arliz Hadrassian doesn’t strike me as the type to approve of anyone ‘throwing their rank around’ in a situation where she considers herself to be the highest authority.” Ransolm glanced backward toward their Jeconne courier. “Fly far away enough for them to miss you, close enough to reach me quickly if I call for you. That’s precaution enough.”

  Greer’s dark eyes searched his face—for what, Ransolm couldn’t guess. “Do you really trust these people so much?”

  “I don’t trust them at all,” Ransolm said. “But I believe that I can get them to trust me.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Then you get to be smug and I get to find out just how fast these speeder bikes fly.”

  He’d rented a top-of-the-line model again, this time choosing a sporty one painted brilliant red. Ransolm wanted to attract attention today; he wanted to come across as young, successful, enthusiastic, guileless—and someone who would look at acquiring an Imperial artifact as reason to celebrate. And if that meant he got to drive a very flashy speeder bike?

  Duty, he thought with a wry smile. Always duty.

  As he slung his leg astride his bike and adjusted his goggles, Greer said, “If the pilots I saw last night are tied to Hadrassian’s organization, you could be getting in over your head.”

  “How else can I learn to swim?” Ransolm sighed. “I don’t mean to be glib. It doesn’t matter if I’m getting in over my head or not. I intend to follow this mission wherever it leads.”

  “All right.” Greer’s tone sounded different then—respectful, almost—but Ransolm had no time to assess that. He had an appointment to keep. He gunned the motor, leaned forward, and zoomed toward the Western Wastes, orange sand swirling in his wake.

  —

  Hadrassian’s compound stood alone in the wastes, a set of buildings at least forty kilometers away from any other human structures. Several dozen people were working on personal spacecraft—starfighters, apparently modern and sophisticated, unlike the average militia fleet. Everyone wore matching black coveralls, and none of them took particular note of his arrival…or they all tried to seem as if they didn’t. As Ransolm parked his bike, Arliz Hadrassian walked from the largest building, her silver-streaked hair drawn back in a tight bun that accentuated the sharpness of her features. Her smile showed the bared teeth of a predator with prey between its jaws. “Senator Casterfo. You honor us with your presence.”

  “The honor is mine, Ms. Hadrassian—as long as the helmet is, too.” Ransolm gave her his most winning smile. It was, he knew, a good one, highly effective on most women and more than a few men. Although he was no womanizer, he understood very well how to be charming when necessary.

  Hadrassian laughed. “Greedy for your prize. Well, come and see it, then.”

  As they stepped into the building, Ransolm’s eyes required a moment to adjust to the relative darkness. Inside, on the far side of a long black table, stood another dozen people, all apparently waiting for him. In the center of the table sat the helmet.

  Ransolm approached it with awe. The brilliant red was only a shade too light to match the color of blood, and it shone as pristinely as it must have in Palpatine’s royal chamber. He tugged off his riding gloves, but he didn’t reach for the helmet. Hadrassian had to be the one to hand it over; this had belonged to her late brother. The transfer had to seem as sacred to him as it must feel to her.

  She stepped to his side, hands clasped behind her back. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”

  “Breathtaking.” Ransolm could already see it on his office wall.

  “Imagine how often this mask was in the presence of the Emperor himself.”

  Palpatine had been near this mask, had seen it with his own eyes. Ransolm felt an unpleasant, seasick stirring within him. He preferred to think of the officers of the line, the common soldiers whose valor could not be questioned even if their cause was unjust. When he thought of the Emperor and Vader at all, he thought of them not as the Empire’s backbone, but its pollution. Its downfall.

  “Here.” Hadrassian took the helmet into her hands and held it for one silent, reverent moment before turning to Ransolm. “Put it on.”

  Ransolm paused long enough to feel the heft of the helmet, its surprising weight. Then he slipped it over his head to see the world through it.

  His first thought was that the eye slits were deceptively narrow; visibility was far better within the mask than any observer would first think. Perhaps the designer hoped to instill a false sense of security in those who sought to do the Emperor harm.

  “Imagine it, Senator Casterfo.” Hadrassian’s voice had become low and sweet, like a mother encouraging her child to daydream. “You stand at the right hand of the Emperor. Lord Vader himself is with you, and all the moffs. You stand aboard the Death Star, and this time there will be no errors, no accidents, no disloyalty. You will share in the Empire’s power and glory forever. How does it feel?”

  The high stone walls surrounding the labor camp. Air thick with soot and smoke from the factory chimneys. Ransolm’s small hands raw and chapped from polishing the blaster casings, the stink of the chemicals absorbed into his skin. Hunger clawing inside his belly. His father trying to explain to Lord Vader the impossibility of the quotas set for them.

  That harsh, metallic breathing. The mortal terror that made Ransolm vomit, right there, on the floor—and he’d thought that was it, for sure, now Vader would kill him.

  But Vader didn’t care about a small boy’s fear. He only cared about the quotas.

  His hand around Papa’s throat. The way he made Ransolm watch his father gasp and gag and plead. How Vader had thrown Papa down like trash.

  How he had hated Vader then. If he’d had a force pike like one of the Emperor’s guards, he would have swung it with all his might and claimed Vader’s head for his own.

  “Glorious,” Ransolm whispered. “It would have been glorious.”

  “Ah, yes.” Hadrassian’s smile widened. “I see my brother’s helmet has found a true home.”

  “Indeed it has.” He slipped the mask off again, grateful to be liberated of its weight. “If I only had a force pike, the picture would be complete.”

  Hadrassian arched an eyebrow as she looked around at the others gathered before the table; by now, most of them were smiling, too. “If you’d like a force pike, Senator—”

  “You have one of the Royal Guard force pikes?” Ransolm could scarcely believe such a prize could still exist.

&
nbsp; Hadrassian shook her head no. “Would that I could offer you something so fine. But we have other force pikes. We train with them here, my fellow Amaxine warriors and I—as part of our reenactments, you see.”

  “Fascinating.” Ransolm knew some people met for Imperial drill and battle reenactments, but he also knew real weapons were forbidden at such events. If Hadrassian was speaking of an operational force pike, not a mock-up—then the Amaxine warriors weren’t reenacting battles.

  They were training for them.

  “Come,” she said, gesturing toward the door. “If you’re not in a rush to take your helmet back to Hosnian Prime, we have much to show you.”

  “No rush whatsoever.” His heart thumped harder. The situation had begun to shift around him, and he could not yet guess what form it would take.

  When he and Hadrassian walked out into the clearing at the center of the Amaxine warriors’ camp, the others all gathered around, any pretense of inattention abandoned. Amid all the utilitarian black coveralls, Ransolm’s tailored green jacket and pants seemed gaudy, frivolous, citified. Certainly some of the Amaxine warriors thought so. Their gazes were more amused than sharp.

  Hadrassian walked to a long corrugated metal locker and flipped open the top. “Force pikes,” she said, taking two from the locker. “At their strongest setting, capable of cutting through durasteel. At their lowest, capable of causing excruciating pain.”

  She tossed one of the pikes toward Ransolm, who caught it in his dominant left hand. Fortunately, the pike hadn’t yet been activated, but he remained vividly aware of its power and its dark legacy. Force pikes had been used for torture. Their shocks could cause paralysis or even death; researchers were unsure whether the deaths were caused by electrical voltage or from the intensity of the pain alone.

  “Do you know how to fight with force pikes, Senator Casterfo?” Hadrassian handed the other pike to a young man with tan skin and close-shorn hair.

  “I’ve studied techniques in old holos, that sort of thing. But I’ve never had the opportunity to hold one before.”

  “Then let us be the ones to teach you.” With that, Hadrassian nodded at the other young man, who immediately activated his pike. Ransolm did the same. The low hum of the force pike seemed to thump its way into the sand beneath his feet as Hadrassian said, “Begin.”

  —

  And now he’s going to get himself killed.

  Greer cursed under her breath as she saw the scene via the speeder bike’s holocam, which she’d patched into the courier’s comm systems. As she punched the engines, zooming toward the Amaxine camp, she kept one eye on the holocam images. Casterfo was being led to the center of a broad enclosure, along with someone who seemed likely to be his opponent, or his executioner.

  I thought he might be taken hostage. I thought they might try to brainwash him. But I never thought he’d get himself challenged to a duel. The guy has a rare talent for suicide.

  She could get there within five minutes, fly in low, spray the perimeter with what little defensive fire the Jeconne courier could muster. Would the strike team she’d seen practicing the night before scramble to defend their camp? If so, they’d have her outnumbered and outgunned. Her heart raced in her chest. Greer would die rather than abandon the senator she was sworn to protect, but her sacrifice wouldn’t save him. She’d have to count on taking the Amaxine warriors by surprise. Hopefully Casterfo could keep himself alive long enough for her to reach him…

  The holoscreen continued to flicker. As she watched from the corner of her eye, Greer realized that Casterfo held himself straight. His chin was high. And his hands were in ideal fighting position on the force pike’s grip. He actually wanted to see this thing through.

  That left her with a decision: Get over there and save his life whether he wanted it or not—or let him try, preserve the cover he’d managed to create among the Amaxine warriors, and run the risk of getting a senator killed?

  Did he have it in him? Was there even the possibility that Ransolm Casterfo could survive?

  Greer eased off the engines and turned the courier back toward her original cycle. She might be a fool, and a fool who would soon have senatorial blood on her hands, but she’d give Casterfo what he so obviously wanted: the chance to save his own skin.

  —

  Surrounded by a ring of spectators with black coveralls and killers’ smiles, Ransolm shrugged off his cloak, passing his force pike from hand to hand while he did so. As his grip adjusted to the hum of vibration, he took stock of the field of battle. Sand, hard-packed, rather dry. Topography nearly completely flat. Sun coming from almost directly overhead, so neither of us can use the glare to our advantage. Opponent three or four centimeters shorter than I am—excellent.

  Hadrassian clasped her hands behind her back, like a mother proudly watching her children win their games. “Only to the first landed blow, I think. We wouldn’t want either of you to hurt yourself.”

  One blow from a force pike would be enough to fell a man. But it would be over quickly. Already Ransolm sensed that the purpose of this fight was not to threaten or kill him—only to test him. If he proved he wasn’t soft, if he could simply hold his own, he would have won the respect and trust of the Amaxine warriors. It didn’t matter whether he won or lost.

  So he decided to kick the guy’s ass just for the fun of it.

  Ransolm had studied old holos of force pike battles; that much of what he’d told Hadrassian was true. He simply hadn’t mentioned his lessons in Hosnian martial arts and in quarterstaff combat. Nor did he speak of the year between his parents’ death and his adoption, during which he’d learned how hard you could fight for a crust of bread when that bit of food might mean the difference between your life and death.

  He took dueling position, eyes locked on his Amaxine opponent as he thought, Now you will know me.

  Hadrassian said, “Begin.”

  The Amaxine leapt forward, a foolish attempt at intimidation. Ransolm sidestepped him easily. Although the force pike hummed insistently in his hand, he held back. Watch his movements. Learn his tricks.

  A high, slashing stroke toward Ransolm’s shoulder was parried with one brute thrust, enough to throw the Amaxine back but show him nothing else of how Ransolm fought. Electrical sizzle drowned out the reaction of the crowd, if there was one. Ransolm cared nothing about them, only about the person he was fighting. His opponent appeared simple to read. This man was impulsive, inclined to show off.

  Why not give him a chance?

  Ransolm stepped back into another of the formal dueling positions—one knee forward, the other leg extended backward—and held his force pike out in a horizontal line in front of his chest. The Amaxine grinned, following suit.

  The next step in formal dueling technique would lead them into some low spiral sweeps, a way of judging finesse and aim. As Ransolm had expected, the Amaxine went straight into it, eager for his chance to show how much he knew.

  And that provided an opening.

  The very moment the Amaxine finished his move, Ransolm swung his pike up hard, a crude move that nearly knocked his opponent’s force pike from his hand. The Amaxine compensated quickly enough to hang on, but he had been startled, thrown off his form. So Ransolm kept going, rough hit after rough hit, not giving his opponent one moment to readjust. The younger man was trapped, on the defensive. Ransolm knew what to do when you had an opponent in this position: Show no mercy.

  Again. Again. Ransolm kept the blows coming in underhanded, never opening up his torso to the assault. He struck the other force pike so hard the clash of vibration jarred his bones, but he would not stop. As he always had during his training, Ransolm called up the faces of those he wished were in front of his blade now.

  The supervisor at the labor camp—

  That boy who had stolen the tiny box of meat jerky Ransolm had been hiding in the lean-to where he slept—

  Darth Vader, always Lord Vader, if only fate had given him a chance to take that villain’
s head—

  His last blow came up so hard it knocked the force pike from the Amaxine’s hands. Ransolm slashed forward, almost blinded by the haze of anger and the past—but he caught himself. His last thrust stopped perhaps one centimeter short of his opponent’s neck.

  “You said, to the first blow, Ms. Hadrassian.” Ransolm did not take his eyes away from the Amaxine, who stared up at him with obvious dread. “But I would prefer not to cause harm to any of your warriors. I believe they have another purpose to fulfill.”

  With that he stepped back, deactivated the force pike, and bowed. After a pause long enough to make Ransolm wonder if they’d insist on a blow after all, Hadrassian began to applaud. The others followed her, their grins widening, and even the defeated Amaxine nodded in apparent admiration.

  “You continue to surprise me, Senator Casterfo.” Hadrassian stepped forward and put one hand on his shoulder. “They claim that the air on Hosnian Prime is thin, that it weakens the blood. But not yours.”

  “No.” Ransolm took a deep breath and looked up into Daxam’s pale sky. “Not mine.”

  —

  “Hadrassian says they’ve got at least fifty starfighters at this location alone, with at least two pilots fully rated to fly each one.” Ransolm Casterfo sat in the cockpit of the Jeconne courier, going through the preflight checklist for Greer, while she hurriedly logged everything he was saying. He’d insisted he had to get it out right away or the details might escape him. “She gave no exact numbers, but to judge by the exercises she mentioned, the maneuvers and drills they’ve performed, I would estimate approximately one thousand Amaxine warriors are linked through the Daxam Four base. But they are only a fraction of the whole.”

  Greer swore under her breath. “How many bases can they have?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but Casterfo had managed to uncover the answer. “Only a handful, five or six, all but one of those even smaller than the base on Daxam Four. But one base is their true center, the hub of their activity—and the place from which they’ll strike.”