Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi V: Allies

by Christie Golden

  Her insight had proven correct. Now she was here, in orbit around this backwater planet, assigned to perform a task that would specifically please the leader of this whole expedition. And once that was out of the way, she would rejoin the fleet and be part of the ultimate Sith victory. With the power Taalon would command and the Skywalkers eliminated, there was no telling how far she could—

  “Incoming message, Captain,” said Syndor. She smiled prettily at him. He had once been captain of this vessel and was dealing surprisingly well with his demotion to second in command. Which, of course, meant he had some sort of plot up his sleeve. She’d have to be careful. But then again, she was Sith, and there was a joke among the Sith that they were always born faceup to protect their backs. “From Commander Sarasu Taalon.”

  It was only the commander’s voice, but that was enough. “The flotilla is ready to depart for the Maw, Captain Faal,” came Taalon’s smooth voice. “Join us when you are able.”

  “Of course, sir,” Leeha replied. “That will be soon, I hope.”

  “As do we all,” Taalon said. “I would hate for you and your crew to miss all the fun. Remember your duties, Captain.”

  “I ever do, sir,” said Leeha.

  Sarasu Taalon had told Luke Skywalker that he had left two vessels behind to wait for the Rockhound. That was not entirely true, although neither could it be said that it was entirely false. The vessels would be well into the Maw by the time Lando Calrissian arrived with his asteroid tug, but Lando would be able to catch up with them quickly enough.

  It simply worked better for the Sith if they were not here when the Rockhound arrived.

  So it was that less than a day later, when Leeha Faal received notification that the Rockhound would be there within twelve hours, she sent back a polite and vague response, and issued the orders to the captain of the second ship, the Starstalker.

  Captain Vyn Holpur had leapt at the opportunity. An older man with pale green eyes and black hair elegantly going to gray, he was a Saber who had once been well on his way to becoming a Lord. No one knew for sure what had happened, but there had been some sort of scandal, and then there was no more talk of promotions. Still, Taalon had regarded him well enough to bring him along. Successful completion of this task would go a long way to restoring Holpur’s favor.

  The order had come, from Taalon to Faal to Holpur, and he obeyed.

  The Starstalker’s light freighter, piloted by Holpur himself, soared above the sand, zipping speedily and smoothly toward its destination, due west of Treema. The object of their desire appeared in the distance, the bright sunlight bouncing harshly off it, and everyone had to squint and remember to not look directly at the Fountain of the Hutt Ancients.

  Holpur had been sent all documentation of the ancient natural formation. He read disinterestedly about the wintrium that formed the beautiful, glassine “sculpture,” how long it had been in existence, how sacred it was to the Klatooinians, what a vital role it had in the making of the Treaty of Vontor. He knew that his ship would not be permitted within a kilometer radius of the Fountain because all modern technology was forbidden.

  He did not particularly care about any of it. He did, however, care very much about pleasing Sarasu Taalon and recovering his lost status. And so it was that he was completely calm when the first warnings came.

  “Fountain Security to unknown vessel. You are approaching within five kilometers of the Fountain. Please alter your course.”

  Holpur tucked his robes about him more comfortably as he sat in his chair. He extended his senses in the Force, attentive to his crew’s emotions. Some of them were a little uneasy. Not, he suspected, out of any mere qualms, but about possibly being caught and punished. Others were excited, eager, enjoying even this little adventure after waiting and doing nothing for so long. Still others were neutral, not caring one way or the other. Holpur made note of all of it. When this was done, he would reward those who had had faith in him and the mission, and mete out punishment to those who did not.

  “Unknown vessel, you are rapidly approaching the forbidden radius of one kilometer. Alter your course immediately or we will open fire!”

  Holpur leaned forward and thumbed the intercom. “As we discussed,” he said. “We’ll have to be fast. Anyul, Marjaak, are you ready?”

  “Copy, sir.” Anyul, twenty-four, blond and lithe, and Marjaak, a white-haired Keshiri male, were standing ready to leap out of the ship as soon as the hatch opened and execute their task quickly. He’d chosen them carefully. Both were Sabers, given that high honor at comparatively young ages. Both were physically fit, swift, and disciplined. They were prepared.

  Now, finally, Holpur’s heart sped up. It was a risky maneuver, although Taalon had made it sound like child’s play. The very law that they were violating was what would protect them long enough for them to succeed.

  The Klatooinians opened fire from several small blaster cannons. Holpur frowned slightly as the ship took a blow and rocked. It could withstand much more than this, but he had hoped that even a minor attack would be avoided. He wanted to bring the ship whole into the Maw, to find Abeloth, glory, and his restored name.

  And then suddenly the firing stopped. Holpur actually laughed, a short bark.

  They had entered the one-kilometer forbidden zone.

  The Starstalker opened its hatch. A small, elegant, if older, skiff darted out as the Starstalker moved out of range of the land-based blasters.

  The Fountain of the Hutt Ancients loomed ahead, bright and beautiful and gleaming. Anything but the most rudimentary technology anywhere in this zone was a blatant violation of both law and tradition, and was not only illegal, it was blasphemy. But the Klatooinians would never willingly violate the sacred law themselves, and so the best they could do would be to come after them with ancient weapons.

  The skiff settled down, stirring up sand. Even before it had landed, the hatch had opened and Anyul and Marjaak used the Force to leap out gracefully close to the Fountain. They, like the three Sith behind them cradling blaster rifles, were in full armorweave. They had known they would not need much more.

  The pair raced up to the Fountain. Swiftly, calculatedly, Anyul drew her lightsaber and began shaving off samples from a large “wave” of wintrium. Marjaak moved farther down and tried to cut off a thinner, dagger-shaped portion. The wintrium was startlingly strong. Even their lingnan crystal-powered lightsabers were having difficulty cutting through the deceptively delicate-looking material.

  The three Sith behind them took up defensive positions, prepared to defend Marjaak and Anyul with their lives if need be.

  That need would not come, and when they saw what they were up against, they began to laugh.

  “You’re joking,” said Turg, a red-haired man in his early forties. “This is the defense for a twenty-five-thousand-year-old treaty?”

  His companions Vran and Kaara, a brother and sister pair with black hair and blue eyes, were laughing so hard they couldn’t reply, although they were able to fire quite well.

  Outside the packed dirt wall that encircled the Fountain, as they had just witnessed, the guards had blasters and proper armor. But the Klatooinian guards who rushed in, crying, “Blasphemers! You will pay!” wore nothing but simple plate armor and carried spears, arrows, swords, and nets. They looked like actors in a drama, enacting some long-ago battle.

  It was ease itself to mow them down, but more came—and from all sides. Turg’s laughter died in his throat when, from behind him, a net dropped over him and pulled tight. His companions swore and rushed to cut him free. Kaara, the dark-haired woman, grunted when something hard struck her, only to gasp in surprise when her armorweave began to hiss and smoke as acid started eating away at first the armor, then her skin.

  Her brother Vran activated his lightsaber and freed Turg with a single precise, perfect slice of the red blade. In the same motion he whirled, bringing the lightsaber around to slay Kaara’s attacker. The Sith woman dropped to the sand, biting her
lip to stay silent as the unbearable pain continued. Unable to help her, her brother concentrated on exacting revenge, cursing and letting his fury and hatred augment his deadly speed.

  Marjaak glanced over his shoulder at the commotion. “Faster,” was all the Keshiri Saber said to his colleague. Anyul nodded, clenching her teeth as her muscles knotted, adding her strength and that of the Force to push the lightsaber through the crystal.

  Turg, the redhead, took the offensive, rushing at the approaching Klatooinians. One of them aimed a spear right at him, the other three had swords raised. Casually, the Sith sliced the weapon in two, and did the same to its wielder and the three others who charged, sending three swords—each still with part of an arm attached to them—flying.

  Arrows sang as they were released. Turg sensed them and turned casually, deflecting them even more easily than he would bat back blaster fire. They had gotten a lucky blow in with Kaara and the acid, because that had been an unexpected weapon. With the element of surprise gone, Turg and Vran began accumulating bodies. Quietly, as befitted a Sith Saber, Kaara died.

  The two Sith assigned to take samples of the wintrium were sweating with effort. “This stuff is almost impossible to cut,” muttered Marjaak.

  Anyul shot him an angry glance. “Tell me something I don’t know, fool,” she spat, and continued. The impossibly hard substance was finally starting to yield.

  Almost … there …

  ABOARD THE STARSTALKER

  “SIR,” SAID THE COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER TO HOLPUR, “THE ELDERS are attempting to contact us, telling us to stand down and surrender ourselves for punishment for blasphemy.”

  Holpur chuckled. “So amusing,” he said.

  There was what amounted to a palace close to the Fountain, on the far west side. This was where the Elders, the governing body of Klatooine, dwelt. Holpur knew they arose every morning and looked east, to the sun’s first rays striking off the Fountain. They were no doubt seeing a quite different view now.

  He called up an image of the Elder’s palace on the small screen by his chair and regarded it thoughtfully. It had no defenses. Anyone could simply march right up and bang on the entrance. What were these people thinking? He could, with the Starstalker’s weapons alone, blast it to rubble. He toyed with the idea, but he was too amused at the thought of these beings, like ants he was about to step on, yapping at him to cease and desist.

  “Patch it through,” he said.

  “Copy, sir.”

  “… repeat, stand down! You are in violation of sacred space! We will not tolerate this!”

  “Sir,” said his communications officer, “They’re sending out a distress signal. They’re trying to contact the Hutts to come protect them.”

  “Let them,” said Holpur. “I know what the situation is. The Hutts have not cared much for this planet since the war with the beings known as the Yuuzhan Vong. It will be days, or at the very least, hours, before the Hutts deign to send a response unit, and we shall be long gone.”

  INSIDE THE ELDERS’ PALACE

  “Repeat, stand down!”

  Darima Kedari paced back and forth. The emergency session of the Elder Governors was in chaos. They were shouting at one another, and finally Darima, the Chancellor, abandoned any effort at civility to his fellow Elders.

  “Silence!” he bellowed, shaking his staff of office at them. “I cannot hear myself think!”

  The moment they had been notified of the blasphemy, they had of course contacted their defenses in Treema. And they were on their way—such as they were. There were approximately five ships of any size that were in sufficiently good flying order that they would be of any use at all. The Governors could hire mercenaries among those visiting Treema, of course, but that took time, and the Fountain was being violated now. The Hutts had not left them much with which to defend themselves, assuring the Klatooinians that if the need arose, the Hutts would, per the treaty, come to protect them. Where were they now? An urgent signal had been sent, with the plea that would surely grab the attention of their masters:

  The Fountain is being violated. Come at once.

  All would now be thrown into chaos.

  Anger and rage tore at his heart. This precious, exquisite thing, this symbol of beauty and strength and timelessness—blood was being spilt on it, strangers who had no love or understanding of it had come and simply taken what they wanted. How dare they!

  “How did we not foresee this?” he cried, clenching his fists as he beheld the sacrilege.

  “We never dreamed anyone would harm it,” said the frail, elderly female Mashu Tek Barik. Tears stood in her eyes. “It is forbidden to no one—we ask no payment to see it, even to touch it. We could not conceive of … this.”

  She waved a bony hand in the direction of the Fountain.

  “Where are the ships?” demanded someone else. “Where are the ships to defend the Fountain?”

  “It is too late,” said Mashu softly. “It is done. It is done.”

  And suddenly, the realization broke over Darima with an intensity so strong he broke out in a sweat and had to grasp the back of his chair. She was right. It was done.

  “The Hutts will come” came another voice. Blood was thundering in Darima’s ears so he could not even tell who was speaking. “They will destroy these blasphemers. They will exact revenge for what they have done. They will pay. They will pay!”

  Others murmured hopeful agreement, but Darima glanced over at Mashu. She was rocking back and forth slightly, staring at the light freighter that now opened to let the skiff return. Return with the blasphemers, with the wintrium they had stolen.

  And he thought that Mashu was right.

  ABOARD THE ROCKHOUND

  “What do you mean, the rest have gone?”

  Lando Calrissian was seated in a mobile levchair at the pilot’s station of the antique vessel, the Rockhound. He was glaring at one of the drop-down display screens that currently showed the head and shoulders of the purple Sith woman who had introduced herself as Captain Leeha Faal.

  She smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, but it did not detract from her attractiveness. Sith.

  “Your Master Skywalker was most insistent,” she said. “He felt that it would be better to have the fleet assembled and ready to proceed closer to the Maw itself. He left the Winged Dagger and the Starstalker behind in his stead. We are allies, Captain Calrissian.”

  Allies, right. Sith flying around in frigates. “Of course, Luke told me he was working with you.” He was proud of himself. His smooth voice had lost none of its charm, even when he uttered words that unsettled—even disgusted—him. He gave her one of his best smiles, lifted his arms, and winked. “Well, here I am. Are you ready, Captain Faal?”

  “We shall be momentarily,” she said, her voice soothing and easy on the ears. “The Starstalker should be here shortly. We will conduct our preflight check, and then we shall hasten to join our comrades outside the Maw.”

  “That sounds fine,” Lando said. “Let me know when you’re good to go. Calrissian out.”

  He clicked an old-fashioned, shiny button. Faal’s pretty face was replaced by a blank screen. His smile disappeared as if it were a glow rod he had switched off.

  Though he was the only living being on the ship, Lando was not alone. There was a full crew complement; it was simply one composed entirely of droids. He turned in the levchair to regard the one with whom he had the most interaction, the bridge droid Cybot Galactica Model RN8.

  “Bust my rear getting you droids and this ship functional, and Luke hightails it out of here without me. Nice of him to leave such an attractive welcoming committee though.”

  Ornate straightened and turned her head globe to regard him with her three blue photoreceptors. The transparent globe was alive with the sparkles of her processing unit, and her bronze body casing was decorated with comets and stars. She was extremely old, functioning well, and as lovely as any piece of art. “I am not programmed to evaluate human standards of attr
activeness,” Ornate said in a deep, purring voice.

  “I am,” Lando said cheerily. Ornate merely turned her globe head back to the navigation console. Lando grinned a little and swung the chair back around just in time to see a white flash indicating someone dropping out of hyperdrive.

  Four vessels suddenly appeared, bristling with weapons, their forms bulky and threatening. Lando’s gut twisted, his humor gone.

  “Oh great,” he muttered. “Just what we needed. Hutts.” He waited, sweat gathering at his hairline, to see if he would be hailed, but the Hutts were apparently here on other business. After less than a minute, they dived as one for the atmosphere. Lando breathed out a sign of relief that lasted about two seconds.

  “Faal to Rockhound!” The pretty voice was urgent.

  “Rockhound here, go ahead, Captain Faal.”

  “We are under attack! Repeat, under attack! Request aid immediately!”

  “What’s going on? Ornate, ready the Stoneskipper!” The droid inclined her sparkling globe and began the process for readying the Rockhound’s small skiff. “Who’s attacking you?”

  “The Hutts! They are opening fire!”

  Oh, this was great. Just great.

  “Captain Calrissian, I assure you, it’s a huge misunderstanding!” Faal continued. The strain of trying to speak calmly made her pleasant voice less so. “But as our ally, I request that you aid us!”