Refugee: Force Heretic II

by Sean Williams

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Nelfrus, in the Elrood sector.”

  “You must be going the long way around, then.”

  “You can’t be too careful these days. The Vong—”

  “Are everywhere,” the voice interrupted. “Yes, I know. But they’re not here.”

  “Which is why I thought I’d come this way.”

  After a slight pause, the voice continued: “Are you here alone?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Perhaps none. Millennium Falcon has been on Onadax two standard days, one day longer than a Galactic Alliance frigate that docked here yesterday. Am I to assume that there is no relation between this craft and your own?”

  “You can assume what you like,” Han said. “But that frigate doesn’t have anything to do with me. What did you say its name was?”

  “I didn’t. It’s Pride of Selonia.”

  He made a show of thinking about the name. “Sounds familiar. You think it might be someone looking for me?”

  “Or perhaps the other way around.”

  “I’m just here for the scenery,” Han lied. He jingled the credits in his pocket. “And whatever else I can pick up on the way.”

  At this, the faceless bar owner did laugh. Onadax was a sooty, inhospitable world, not dense enough to harbor metals of any value, poorly placed even with respect to other worlds in the sector, and too small and ancient to possess any noteworthy geography. Its only saving graces were its lack of a policing authority and a relaxed attitude toward documentation of all kinds.

  Just because the government turned a blind eye to who passed through, though, didn’t mean that the locals were stupid.

  “Okay,” Han said, scanning the blank walls and ceiling, wishing there were some reference point on which he could focus his attention. “Let’s stop playing games. You’re right. I am looking for someone. Maybe you can help me.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I’m asking nicely. Do you get many Ryn through here?”

  “No more than usual,” the voice said. “Lift up any dirty rock in the galaxy and you’ll find a family living under it. Your taste in friends must have gone downhill if that’s who you’re after.”

  “Not just any Ryn.” Han fumbled, not for the first time, for the right way to describe the Ryn he was seeking. “Just one that was supposed to meet me here on Onadax. He hasn’t shown, so I’m looking for him.”

  “In a bar?”

  “It’s not as if Onadax has much else to offer.”

  The voice chuckled again. “You’re looking in the wrong place, Solo.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like a brush-off. I swear, it’s nothing underhanded.”

  “From you, those words take on a whole new meaning.”

  “I’ll even pay, if that’s what you want.”

  “If that’s what you think I want, then I fear you’re definitely in the wrong place—and at the wrong time.”

  The Whiphid guarding the door stirred.

  “So it would seem,” Han said. “Look, I’m racking my brain here trying to work out where we’ve met before. Can’t you give me a name to help me out a little?”

  There was no reply.

  “What’ve you got to lose?” Han said. “You obviously know me—”

  He stopped when the Whiphid’s clawed hand came down on his back and began to drag him away. “At least give me a clue!”

  The Whiphid hauled him out of the audience chamber and back down to the barroom. Clearly, the interview was over, and no protest from Han was about to be considered.

  “Is he always this friendly?” he asked the bouncer. He amended that to a hopeful “She?” when the question wasn’t answered.

  The Whiphid collected Han in its powerful grasp once again and hoisted his feet from the floor.

  The bouncer forced its way through the crowd. Laughter and applause followed them, turning to cries of annoyance as Han’s head rammed into something’s foul-smelling midriff and sent a jug of ale splashing across the floor. Recriminations flew, which the bouncer ignored.

  “I think you’ll find my seat was over that way,” Han said, pointing hopefully in the direction of the sabacc table where he’d been playing.

  The Whiphid ignored him as well, propping him upright none too gently at the door. There was no question that Han was being told—not asked—to leave the premises.

  He smiled, taking a hundred-credit chip from his pocket and slipping it to the alien bouncer.

  “For your trouble,” he said.

  “For yours,” was the response as he was forcibly ejected into the street.

  “What sort of dive is this, anyway?” Han protested to the closed door as he picked himself up and dusted himself down once more. His shoulder was tender where he’d hit the ground, and the bouncer’s claws had left a few tears in his jacket. Still, it could have been worse. At least he’d made it out with his winnings.

  His comlink buzzed as he limped down the seedy back alley that housed the Thorny Toe. He pulled the comlink out of his pocket, knowing before he’d answered the call that it was Leia on the other end.

  “You’re out?” Her voice was faint, but her concern was obvious.

  “And in one piece. The bar staff aren’t as tough as their jamming fields suggested they might be.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Nothing useful, although I’m guessing there’s more going on here than meets the eye.”

  “There always is.” Leia hesitated. “Is that fighting I hear?”

  Han glanced behind him. The ruckus inside the bar was getting nastier by the second.

  “My exit was none too subtle,” he said, picking up the pace.

  “Start making your way back, then. It’s not safe out there, Han.”

  “On my way now.”

  “I’d advise against stopping somewhere else en route, even if it does allay suspicions.”

  Han smiled to himself. In the old days, he would’ve been tempted. But the choice between Leia and a seedy dive was getting easier every year. “Will do.”

  The secure channel closed with a soft click. Han’s smile ebbed as behind him the fight spilled noisily out into the street. He hurriedly rejoined the stream of barhoppers cruising the settlement’s main thoroughfare, the grilling he’d received at the Thorny Toe still nagging at him. That the owner of the bar had known him didn’t bother him so much; after all, the Solo name had spread across the galaxy and back again, especially in the quasi-legal circles to which he’d once belonged. But the complete stonewalling regarding the Ryn did bother him. His other sources hadn’t known anything, but at least they had been up front about it. Dumb ignorance was totally different to silence.

  Han rubbed his shoulder and hurried back to the Falcon, hoping Jaina had had better luck on the other side of town.

  THE OLD REPUBLIC

  (5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)

  Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.

  But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force sel
flessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders fled beyond the galactic frontier, where they built a civilization of their own: the Sith Empire.

  The first great conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire occurred when two hyperspace explorers stumbled on the Sith worlds, giving the Sith Lord Naga Sadow and his dark side warriors a direct invasion route into the Republic’s central worlds. This war resulted in the first destruction of the Sith Empire—but it was hardly the last. For the next four thousand years, skirmishes between the Republic and Sith grew into wars, with the scales always tilting toward one or the other, and peace never lasting. The galaxy was a place of almost constant strife: Sith armies against Republic armies; Force-using Sith Lords against Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights; and the dreaded nomadic mercenaries called Mandalorians bringing muscle and firepower wherever they stood to gain.

  Then, a thousand years before A New Hope and the Battle of Yavin, the Jedi defeated the Sith at the Battle of Ruusan, decimating the so-called Brotherhood of Darkness that was the heart of the Sith Empire—and most of its power.

  One Sith Lord survived—Darth Bane—and his vision for the Sith differed from that of his predecessors. He instituted a new doctrine: No longer would the followers of the dark side build empires or amass great armies of Force-users. There would be only two Sith at a time: a Master and an apprentice. From that time on, the Sith remained in hiding, biding their time and plotting their revenge, while the rest of the galaxy enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace, so long and strong that the Republic eventually dismantled its standing armies.

  But while the Republic seemed strong, its institutions had begun to rot. Greedy corporations sought profits above all else and a corrupt Senate did nothing to stop them, until the corporations reduced many planets to raw materials for factories and entire species became subjects for exploitation. Individual Jedi continued to defend the Republic’s citizens and obey the will of the Force, but the Jedi Order to which they answered grew increasingly out of touch. And a new Sith mastermind, Darth Sidious, at last saw a way to restore Sith domination over the galaxy and its inhabitants, and quietly worked to set in motion the revenge of the Sith …

  If you’re a reader new to the Old Republic era, here are three great starting points:

  • The Old Republic: Deceived, by Paul S. Kemp: Kemp tells the tale of the Republic’s betrayal by the Sith Empire, and features Darth Malgus, an intriguing, complicated villain.

  • Knight Errant, by John Jackson Miller: Alone in Sith territory, the headstrong Jedi Kerra Holt seeks to thwart the designs of an eccentric clan of fearsome, powerful, and bizarre Sith Lords.

  • Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, by Drew Karpyshyn: A portrait of one of the most famous Sith Lords, from his horrifying childhood to an adulthood spent in the implacable pursuit of vengeance.

  Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the Old Republic era.

  1

  Dessel was lost in the suffering of his job, barely even aware of his surroundings. His arms ached from the endless pounding of the hydraulic jack. Small bits of rock skipped off the cavern wall as he bored through, ricocheting off his protective goggles and stinging his exposed face and hands. Clouds of atomized dust filled the air, obscuring his vision, and the screeching whine of the jack filled the cavern, drowning out all other sounds as it burrowed centimeter by agonizing centimeter into the thick vein of cortosis woven into the rock before him.

  Impervious to both heat and energy, cortosis was prized in the construction of armor and shielding by both commercial and military interests, especially with the galaxy at war. Highly resistant to blaster bolts, cortosis alloys supposedly could withstand even the blade of a lightsaber. Unfortunately, the very properties that made it so valuable also made it extremely difficult to mine. Plasma torches were virtually useless; it would take days to burn away even a small section of cortosis-laced rock. The only effective way to mine it was through the brute force of hydraulic jacks pounding relentlessly away at a vein, chipping the cortosis free bit by bit.

  Cortosis was one of the hardest materials in the galaxy. The force of the pounding quickly wore down the head of a jack, blunting it until it became almost useless. The dust clogged the hydraulic pistons, making them jam. Mining cortosis was hard on the equipment … and even harder on the miners.

  Des had been hammering away for nearly six standard hours. The jack weighed more than thirty kilos, and the strain of keeping it raised and pressed against the rock face was taking its toll. His arms were trembling from the exertion. His lungs were gasping for air and choking on the clouds of fine mineral dust thrown up from the jack’s head. Even his teeth hurt: the rattling vibration felt as if it were shaking them loose from his gums.

  But the miners on Apatros were paid based on how much cortosis they brought back. If he quit now, another miner would jump in and start working the vein, taking a share of the profits. Des didn’t like to share.

  The whine of the jack’s motor took on a higher pitch, becoming a keening wail Des was all too familiar with. At twenty thousand rpm, the motor sucked in dust like a thirsty bantha sucking up water after a long desert crossing. The only way to combat it was by regular cleaning and servicing, and the Outer Rim Oreworks Company preferred to buy cheap equipment and replace it, rather than sinking credits into maintenance. Des knew exactly what was going to happen next—and a second later, it did. The motor blew.

  The hydraulics seized with a horrible crunch, and a cloud of black smoke spit out the rear of the jack. Cursing ORO and its corporate policies, Des released his cramped finger from the trigger and tossed the spent piece of equipment to the floor.

  “Move aside, kid,” a voice said.

  Gerd, one of the other miners, stepped up and tried to shoulder Des out of the way so he could work the vein with his own jack. Gerd had been working the mines for nearly twenty standard years, and it had turned his body into a mass of hard, knotted muscle. But Des had been working the mines for ten years himself, ever since he was a teenager, and he was just as solid as the older man—and a little bigger. He didn’t budge.

  “I’m not done here,” he said. “Jack died, that’s all. Hand me yours and I’ll keep at it for a while.”

  “You know the rules, kid. You stop working and someone else is allowed to move in.”

  Technically, Gerd was right. But nobody ever jumped another miner’s claim over an equipment malfunction. Not unless he was trying to pick a fight.

  Des took a quick look around. The chamber was empty except for the two of them, standing less than half a meter apart. Not a surprise; Des usually chose caverns far off the main tunnel network. It had to be more than mere coincidence that Gerd was here.

  Des had known Gerd for as long as he could remember. The middle-aged man had been friends with Hurst, Des’s father. Back when Des first started working the mines at thirteen, he had taken a lot of abuse from the bigger miners. His father had been the worst tormentor, but Gerd had been one of the main instigators, dishing out more than his fair share of teasing, insults, and the occasional cuff on the ear.

  Their harassments had ended shortly after Des’s father died of a massive heart attack. It wasn’t because the miners felt sorry for the orphaned young man, though. By the time Hurst died, the tall, skinny teenager they loved to bully had become a mountain of muscle with heavy hands and a fierce temper. Mining was a tough job; it was the closest thing to hard labor outside a Republic prison colony. Whoever worked the mines on Apatros got big—and Des just happened to become the biggest of them all. Half a dozen black eyes, countless bloody noses, and one broken jaw in the space of a month was all it took for Hurst’s old friends to decide they’d be happier if they left Des alone.

  Yet it was almost as if they blamed him for Hurst’s death, and every few months one of them tried again. Gerd had always been smart enough to keep his dis
tance—until now.

  “I don’t see any of your friends here with you, old man,” Des said. “So back off my claim, and nobody gets hurt.”

  Gerd spat on the ground at Des’s feet. “You don’t even know what day it is, do you, boy? Kriffing disgrace is what you are!”

  They were standing close enough to each other that Des could smell the sour Corellian whiskey on Gerd’s breath. The man was drunk. Drunk enough to come looking for a fight, but still sober enough to hold his own.

  “Five years ago today,” Gerd said, shaking his head sadly. “Five years ago today your own father died, and you don’t even remember!”

  Des rarely even thought about his father anymore. He hadn’t been sorry to see him go. His earliest memories were of his father smacking him. He didn’t even remember the reason; Hurst rarely needed one.

  “Can’t say I miss Hurst the same way you do, Gerd.”

  “Hurst?” Gerd snorted. “He raised you by himself after your mama died, and you don’t even have the respect to call him Dad? You ungrateful son-of-a-Kath-hound!”

  Des glared down menacingly at Gerd, but the shorter man was too full of drink and self-righteous indignation to be intimidated.

  “Should’ve expected this from a mudcrutch whelp like you,” Gerd continued. “Hurst always said you were no good. He knew there was something wrong with you … Bane.”

  Des narrowed his eyes, but didn’t rise to the bait. Hurst had called him by that name when he was drunk. Bane. He had blamed his son for his wife’s death. Blamed him for being stuck on Apatros. He considered his only child to be the bane of his existence, a fact he’d tended to spit out at Des in his drunken rages.

  Bane. It represented everything spiteful, petty, and mean about his father. It struck at the innermost fears of every child: fear of disappointment, fear of abandonment, fear of violence. As a kid, that name had hurt more than all the smacks from his father’s heavy fists. But Des wasn’t a kid anymore. Over time he’d learned to ignore it, along with all the rest of the hateful bile that spilled from his father’s mouth.