ago in Kala'uun after trying to scam the New Republic over some ryll kor and
are generally trying to lay low.
"Finally, assuming you haven't killed us, Ghitsa will transfer twenty
thousand into your account, as agreed. I know you're expecting thirty-two, but
if you play it right with the Dira Clan, they may pay you some ryll kor for
bringing the dancers back." The image smiled, a little smugly. "Ghitsa urges
you to sell quickly, as she believes the market will top out soon."
Fen raised her head, looking out into nothing. "Jett always really
admired the Mistryl, Shada. But sometimes he was uncomfortable with what you
would do for money. Poverty makes people desperate, he would say. But
sometimes, it's better to be poor. Ghitsa, of course, disagrees."
The image of Fenig Nabon flickered out.
Durga escorted them to the port city of Bilbousa where Fen had berthed
the Star Lady. They set course for the nearest New Republic facility with a
decent banking exchange.
As soon as the ship jumped, Ghitsa slipped out of her cockpit chair. "I'm
going to get cleaned up."
When Fen emerged from her own long, hot shower, Ghitsa was already in the
cabin, sitting at the cabin's table, intently watching the final chapter in
the wooing of Leia Organa. Fen grabbed a bottle of Corellia's finest and two
glasses before sitting across from Ghitsa.
"So," Fen began, pouring and sliding a glass across the table to her
partner. Ghitsa said nothing, but did accept the drink.
"Did Durga buy it?"
"I doubt it," Ghitsa scoffed. "But he is cautious. He won't part with
one-hundred mill without proof and thirty-seven and a half is a small price to
pay, for now. All the proof will point to the Karazaks. They are more likely
to cheat him than I am."
"But you aren't a counselor anymore."
Ghitsa visibly brightened and took a sip of her drink. "Rather
convenient, I thought."
"You wanted this?"
She sighed, tilting her head back against the booth. It was the first
time in a while Fen had seen Ghitsa look normal-a simple flight suit, damp
hair, nothing caking her face or nails. "You remember how I said that
mortality among Durga's Twi'leks was around seventy percent?"
"Yeah."
"It's even higher for Hutt counselors. Even if a counselor's own clan
won't kill her, we tend to be excellent acquisition targets for Hutt
competitors."
Ghitsa, Fen suddenly realized, would not have taken these kinds of risks
for a mere seventy-five thousand. "And those twelve dead counselors?"
"Two of them were Dogders." Ghitsa stopped there, lips pressed into a
thin, firm line.
Fen veered to safer ground. "Will Durga pay the rest?"
Ghitsa took another swallow. "Maybe. Probably. He'll be very happy when
he finds out about the Karazaks. I expect he'll give me a bonus."
They watched as the Coruscant Daily Newsfeed gushed about Princess
Organa's impending nuptials.
"Pity about Han Solo," Ghitsa said.
"Waste of a pretty good smuggler," Fen sighed, staring into her drink.
The Princess appeared, again in her regal white, announcing that Dathomir
would now be open to Alderaani exiles. The program intoned, "And Organa
announced today that the New Republic has appropriated two-hundred million in
financial assistance for displaced Alderaani. Low-interest loans will also be
available to aid in resettlement...."
Fen whistled appreciatively. "Too bad you have to be Alderaani to be
eligible."
They stared at the screen.
"You know," Ghitsa began, "I've always wanted to play impoverished
nobility."
Fen glanced from her partner to the vid, and back again. "True," she
finally said. "And Leia Organa may not look good in white, but, Ghitsa, I bet
you do."
***
The longest fall
by Patricia A. Jackson
The Imperial Star Destroyer Interrogator maintained its support position,
matching coordinate planes and acceleration bursts with its nav computer
specifications. From the observation deck, several levels beneath the flight
bridge, the commanding officer stared through the transparisteel platform as
the Imperial II-CLASS Star Destroyer maneuvered into the mouth of a vacuous,
black nebula. Gliding from the sinister shadow of undistinguished space, the
Interrogator was an impressive sight, a precisely honed dagger tip against the
starless backdrop of space.
An advanced point ship, his vessel was moving in to investigate a little-
known area of space known as the Nharqis'I. The term, despite its romantic
appeal, was a crude variation of a word in a lingering smuggler dialect, which
he understood to mean "the death place." Starless, featureless, menacing-the
foreboding nebula was a testimonial to seemingly endless continuity.
Chewing nervously at his lower lip, the young captain stared into the
faceless void, wishing he could lose himself inside it. The Nharqis'I could be
no colder or more forbidding a place than the anonymous darkness of Lord
Tremayne's waiting room. And the Nharqis "Also, a hideous, mythical leviathan
said to lurk within the nebula, could certainly be no more terrifying an
entity than the Emperor's leading High Inquisitor himself.
In the midst of the sparsely furnished, cruelly antiseptic interior of
the waiting chamber, the young captain noticed only one chair sitting against
the far wall. He wondered how many Imperial officers had sat in that chair and
how many had lived to tell about it. The numbers were quite disproportionate
to each other, he was certain, and he congratulated himself on his decision
not to sit in it.
Though he was not a superstitious man, the captain was confident that he
enhanced his chances of survival if Tremayne should come and find him standing
in anticipation of this meeting. He had, in fact, been standing, respectfully
at attention, for the past three hours, waiting for the Dark Adept to address
him personally.
And if his diligence had no bearing at all upon the outcome of their
meeting, at least he would have the satisfaction of meeting High Inquisitor
Tremayne and his own potential execution with a small measure of dignity.
The others died on their feet, his subconscious told him. Admiral Ozzel.
Admiral Ranes. Captain Needa. His esteemed mentor and friend, Captain Nolaan.
And there were others who did not directly come to mind. What makes you so
different?
The inability to answer that question brought a hollow, unsettled feeling
to the bottom of his stomach. Clasping his hands tightly behind his back, the
young captain swayed back and forth on his heels, an impatient habit learned
on the bridge and honed by the daily stresses of commanding a ship in the
Emperor's most prestigious war fleet. It was a peculiar fixation on motion
that he was working to eliminate and had regulated it with some success. In
any case, the swaying did not trouble him quite so much as the violent tremors
that shook his hands.
The captain brushed his fingers over the front of his uniform and
&
nbsp; straightened the insignia, chiding himself for allowing a physical
manifestation of his concerns to appear. The last impression he wanted to make
before leaving this world was the empty illusion of fear.
Fear. That was not the way to run a ship or motivate its crewmen and
support personnel. Fear inspired mistakes, tension among the crew, which
accounted for more mistakes and erroneous decisions in judgment. Ultimately,
the end result of such tension was failure and more fear. Respect was what
they taught in the Academy, respect and subject to authority.
Discipline is the immediate compliance to all orders, undeviating
respectstor authority, and above all self-reliance.
The young captain grinned as the memorized definition came to mind-a
recurring echo from his days at the Academy. He remembered the fear of those
early days of training, when everything had seemed so beyond reach. He
remembered his initial clumsiness with orders and superior officers, the
ambiguity of doubt, and the gradual breaking down and reestablishment of his
pride. There was indeed a certain arrogance in the mastery of discipline, the
mastery of self. There was incalculable self-satisfaction in obeying orders,
respecting the High Command, and in being recognized for the ability to think
clearly in a crisis. These things combined evoked respect, not fear. High
Inquisitor Tremayne knew little of the former and enlisted too heavy a hand in
the latter.
The captain nodded in complete confidence. He regretted nothing he had
done in the course of his military duties to dismantle, or at least dilute,
the fear that High Inquisitor Tremayne inspired. His service record and that
of the personnel aboard the Interrogator was without blemish, asserting, at
least in his mind, that respect was a superior motivation to fear.
Meeting Tremayne's orders with a thin smile and consummate bowing of the
head had made him one of the most distinguished officers in the Fleet. No
other would be so bold as to even meet the Jedi's menacing face, with its
equally sinister cybernetic replacements. And while the captain's efforts were
met with cold disdain and neutrality, he persevered, hoping to influence the
Emperor's infamous servant with a small measure of his loyalty and willingness
to serve.
"What did it matter?" he whispered, startled by the sound of his own
voice. The captain paused, cocking his head to one side as the echo
reverberated between the narrow walls of the waiting chamber. Chiding himself
for the outburst, he pursed his lips as that hollow feeling dug itself deeper
into the pit of his stomach, where the root of all his suppressed fears had
lain dormant, until this ignobling day.
Indeed, what did it matter? His relationship to the deceased Captain
Nolaan was an unwritten blight on his reputation, one that would inevitably
doom him. And his fate would be no different than the others who had been
Nolaan's trusted advisors and formal companions. High Inquisitor Tremayne had
made that distinction very clear, starting with Nolaan's summary execution on
the bridge of the Interrogator. And in the aftermath, not one who had called
Nolaan friend and mentor was alive to mourn him, except for himself. And that
was soon to change.
Vharing swallowed convulsively, remembering Tremayne's wrath. He
shuddered with the recollection of Captain Nolaan's gray, stricken face as the
troopers dragged his body from the bridge and into the corridor for
expeditious disposition. If Tremayne's justice was as predictable as the black
void of the Nharqis'I, he was next in line.
He straightened the collar of his uniform and adjusted the bit of his
cap. A patriotic cant learned during his tenure at the Imperial Naval Academy
came to mind and the young captain took a sudden rush of optimism from the
words. The power of those memories instilled him with the courage to face
Tremayne as he would face any man in a position of power-with respect and
deference rather than fear. After all, it was not his command that had sent a
full squadron of Imperial TIE bombers to the cloudy, defenseless world of
Qlothos.
His subordinate, the ambitious senior lieutenant, had picked up some
peculiar signals from the nearby planet. It was a frequency that nearly
matched a set of earlier transmission codes that had been intercepted from an
Alliance operative. Suspecting a hidden Rebel garrison, the senior lieutenant
sent the TIE bombers to destroy it.
All this had transpired while the captain lay asleep in his bed. He was
only awakened by the lieutenant after the facts were collected and the
casualties calculated. There were only minimal injuries to report, no damages
to craft or equipment. But nearly sixty civilians, most of them prominent
Imperial citizens, were dead-among them a high-ranking Kuat Drive Yards
engineer, his wife, and two sons, who were on holiday in the capital.
Evidently, the cloudy blanket of atmosphere covering the planet played
havoc on the identification beacons built into the concussion missiles. One
went astray and demolished a secluded section of the residential community,
which lay only a kilometer from the suspected Rebel compound. Hours after the
fatalities were counted, Lord Tremayne's summons had come through directly.
And without the added apprehension of his military aide to share in his inner
torment, the captain came to meet with the High Inquisitor alone.
But now, he regretted that decision. The briefest contact with another
human, however succinct, might have eased his anxiety and given him something
to dwell on besides this impending meeting.
The industrious senior com-scan officer would have been an excellent
choice. A family man and father, he was an incessant talker-one reason the
captain had overlooked him as his military aide. A loyal and competent leader,
the com-scan officer always had time to devote to the love of his wife, nearly
three hundred light-years away, and to the newly born child he had never seen,
except through holos and rare face-to-face transmissions.
The balance seemed to anchor the talkative officer in a way the captain
had come to admire and finally resent. But after today, all that would change.
After assuring High Inquisitor Tremayne that the ambitious senior lieutenant
would be punished to the fullest extent- - court-martialed, convicted of
manslaughter, the destruction of Imperial property, and harassment of loyal
Imperial citizens-the captain would promote the com-scan officer as his new
advisor and begin to share in this esoteric life.
The door to Tremayne's chamber abruptly opened. The captain turned curtly
on his heel and saluted as the Jedi stepped into the room. "High Inquisitor
Tremayne, I have a full report into Senior Lieutenant Leeds's blundering - -
was His voice was arrested by the lancing pain that assailed his throat.
As the invisible grip intensified, the captain fell to his knees. He
winced as the small bones at the base of his skull cracked audibly under the
pressure. Unable to breathe, he found himself sprawled on the cold glare of
the waiting room floor. H
e closed his eyes in an effort to compose himself.
His mind began to flounder for lack of oxygen, and he remembered the
stress exercise at the Academy where his colleagues and he were subjected to a
panic test in a room full of noxious fumes. Half blinded and nearly
unconscious, he was the last to emerge-the only one with the courage, or
foolish pride as many called it, to remain longer than any of the others. But
in this new test, there were fatal consequences. Here the captain was fully
cognizant of what was happening to him. There would be no noxious fumes to dim
his senses and lessen the blow. He could feel every sensation in vivid detail,
from the cold kiss of the deck plate against his palms to the coarse fabric of
his uniform as it chafed his elbows and knees.
Unable to raise his head and beseech Tremayne for a second chance, the
young captain could only stare into the flowing black hem of the Jedi's robes.
As his consciousness waned, he imagined himself being drawn into t black
fabric and into an alternate world as dark and starless as the Nharqis'I
nebula surrounding his ship.
What a fitting end to my life, he thought with numb pleasure. The first
small bone broke beneath the pressure and he felt his body relax.
Born into a prominent bloodline and class, Jovan Vharing attended the
Imperial Naval Academy, a decision made for him by traditional family dictates
rather than of his own accord. But there were no regrets to that course, and
he delved deeply into the best of himself to impress mentors and superior
Tales From the New Republic Page 25
