Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Force Heretic II - Refugee - Book 18

by Sean Williams

  Worlds upon worlds upon worlds . . . Saba ranged among the records of civilizations dead, thriving, or newly born. There were a thousand new species to examine, but time didn't allow her to linger too long on any of them; she could only touch fleetingly upon each, skimming over their aspirations and philosophies like a pebble across a pond.

  "Be sure to take a break if you need to," Luke said the next time she returned for another list of books. "You've certainly all earned it."

  "That might not be a bad idea, actually," Jacen put in, eyeing the towers of books building on the table. "You and Danni have been searching for six hours. We have plenty of data to pore over while you rest."

  Saba was speechless for a moment. Six hours? It didn't feel anywhere near that long. It had been so pleasant to be apart from the world, to forget her own troubles for a while. Now that she thought about it, though, she could

  feel her body's fatigue. Her tail was as limp and lifeless as the trail of Zonama Sekot itself.

  She shook her head.

  "Time iz passing," she said, picking up the next list. "And hunting iz this one'z specialty."

  Then, with the scent of old books and cold trails rich in her nostrils, she resumed her patient, determined prowl of the data.

  Jaina kept her head low as she followed Malinza across the flat, tiled rooftop.

  "Are you sure you know where you're going?" she asked after a while.

  "Positive." The escapee didn't look over her shoulder to reply, nor slacken her pace. "This way."

  Malinza sidetracked to the edge of the roof, jumping off without hesitation into space. Jaina hurried to the same spot in time to see Malinza land heavily on another rooftop two floors below. Despite her growing reservations, she followed easily with a similar leap.

  Salis D'aar from the air had seemed a lot more sophisticated than the side of it she was seeing now. Its weblike radial layout and high towers had reminded her of many other affluent colony worlds she'd visited. On Bakura, the beginnings of rot had seeped in at basement level, with the high water table and humidity attacking steel-crete and other preventives directly, or encouraging plant life to grow around and into it. The cultural unwillingness to use droids meant that menial repair work often went undone. Since fleeing the penitentiary, she had become quite familiar with the sort of decay the city was capable of. The farther she went out from the center of the city, the more unattractive it became. The paint jobs were rougher, the streets themselves were considerably grubbier, and fewer repulsors meant that things like street-lamps, vehicles, or buildings didn't float. It was almost

  like an entirely different world than the one she'd initially been introduced to.

  Jaina maintained Malinza's pace perfectly, staying half a dozen steps behind at all times. She wasn't trying to catch up; watching the girl's back was her priority right now. This whole escape had been way too easy, and her tingling senses were screaming for her to keep her eyes peeled. Her only consolation was that their route through the city had been far too convoluted for anyone to follow.

  They descended a stairwell to the third floor of the building. There they climbed through a window and went handover-hand along a dead power line to yet another building. This one appeared as if it had been empty since the Ssi-ruuvi invasion. Its outer shell held empty offices and reception areas; the interior was a giant atrium filled with tropical plants gone wild. The faceted roof far above consisted of dirty transparisteel that seemed as though it had been designed to let the sun in during the day and open at night, although it obviously hadn't done so for a long time. The opening mechanism had long since turned to rust, and now, apart from a narrow slit through which the rain crept in, it remained permanently closed.

  Malinza stopped briefly at a balcony on the second floor, quickly checking on Jaina. She was about to continue when Jaina grabbed her by the shoulder and held her back. Malinza faced her, confused, and Jaina put a finger to her lips to indicate that she should remain still. The sense of walking into a trap was stronger here than ever.

  The only noises she could hear were dripping sounds from within the dense vegetation at the heart of the building. If Bakuran security forces had managed to follow them, then they were being exceptionally stealthy about it. Still, she had more than just a sneaking suspicion that Bakuran security weren't the only threat awaiting them.

  From above her in the trees, Jaina heard a soft click. In an instant her lightsaber was out. With her free hand she

  pushed Malinza behind her, protecting her from any attack.

  "She's fast."

  Jaina squinted into the trees, but she couldn't make out the owner of the voice.

  "Who is she?"

  "Look at the lightsaber," replied another. "She's a Jedi."

  "One lightsaber against three blaster rifles," returned the first. "She couldn't be that fast."

  "Just try me and find out," Jaina challenged the voices, tightening her grip on her lightsaber while pinpointing the exact location of the voices in the trees. There were three of them at different heights, two male and one female. A subtle movement of the leaves suggested that perhaps there was a fourth slightly higher, silent for now. The leader, perhaps?

  Whatever, she thought. A quick tug of the branches with the Force would soon bring them down.

  "It's okay," Malinza said, taking a step forward so she stood between Jaina and those in the trees. "At least I think she's okay, anyway."

  "What's she doing here, Malinza?"

  "I brought her." Malinza faced Jaina. "It's all right. You can put your weapon down. This is Freedom."

  Jaina reluctantly relaxed her posture, deactivating the lightsaber and dropping her hands to her sides. She wasn't completely convinced everything was all right, but the last thing she wanted to do was give the rest of Malinza's rebel cell the wrong impression.

  The mini forest rustled as leaves parted and three people emerged. The woman was striking, with the sides of her skull shaved and the remainder of her blond hair tied back in a whiplike ponytail. The man nearest to her was dressed in a tatty security uniform about two sizes too big; his brown hair was wild and he looked as

  though he hadn't shaved in a week. The third was a Rodian, his green skin blending almost perfectly with the foliage.

  "This is Jaina Solo," Malinza told them.

  Jaina acknowledged them with a curt nod, glancing uneasily toward the tree for a glimpse of the fourth person she suspected to be still hiding there.

  "And what is it, exactly, that Jaina Solo wants?" the blond-haired woman asked.

  "There's something going on here, on Bakura," Jaina replied for Malinza. "I'd like to find out what it is."

  "You mean something other than the usual?" the human male asked. "The exploitation of the weak by the powerful, the rape of natural resources, the corruption of innocents"

  "Easy, Zel," the blond said. "Let's not scare her away before we've heard everything she's got to say."

  "Be mindful, Jjorg," the Rodian said in a rasping voice. "A Jedi is likely to put things into a mind as open as yours."

  "That only works on the weak-minded," Jaina said. "Besides which, I'm not here to brainwash anyone."

  "And we're just supposed to take your word on that?"

  "Hey, that's enough," Malinza said firmly. "Where's Vyram, Jjorg? I need to talk to him."

  "He's lurking about somewhere," Zel said. "As usual."

  "I suspect that's him up in the trees over there," Jaina said, pointing to where she suspected the fourth person to be hiding.

  A short laugh escaped from the greenery. "You have good eyes, Jedi," said a voice. "If that is indeed what you're using."

  The leaves parted again and the fourth person emerged. He was a rakishly thin, black-haired male who was perhaps a little older than Jaina. His cheekbones were promi-

  nent even beneath a patchy beard, and his movements were sure in the treetop.

  "I've learned not to rely on my eyes alone," she responded.

&n
bsp; The man Malinza had described as the brains of Freedom smiled faintly. "Well, you come here with Malinza," he said. "That's enough for me, at the moment."

  Jaina practically felt the spark that passed between the young woman at her side and the black-haired man in the tree, but neither of them openly acknowledged any connection other than professional.

  "Take it down, Zel, so we can come aboard," Malinza said. "I'm getting tired of calling out to you from down here." The scruffy-haired human disappeared into the foliage. Jaina was shepherded toward a nearby stairwell, and as she descended, she experienced a momentary giddiness. The strange sensation caused her to stop and grab hold of something to steady herselfand it was then that she realized that the forest she was standing in wasn't what it appeared to be. The entire area was an artificial construct draped with vines and other plants, suspended in midair on a bed of Bakura's ubiquitous repulsors so a casual glance would miss it completely. She wondered if it was an existing structure that Freedom had found and occupied, or one they had slowly built up so as not to attract attention. From this distance, there was no real way of telling.

  By the time she and Malinza reached the ground floor, the base of the structure was at arm's length above their heads. It wasn't a particularly elegant arrangement, resembling nothing more than several large, rectangular freight containers joined and surrounded by numerous layers of scaffold tubing and heavy cables, with pots and lattices for the plants covering it, but it did make for an effective disguise. Jaina glimpsed dark spaces within, and ladders leading higher up still.

  Malinza reached up to grab one of the horizontal bars hanging over them and hauled herself into the dense canopy. Clipping her lightsaber onto her belt, Jaina did the same. With a groan, the structure ascended back to its original position, leaving the floor some distance below.

  Jjorg and Salkeli, the Rodian, were at the entrance to the lowest container and helped Malinza inside. No such assistance was offered to Jaina; she had to manage by herselfwhich she did without difficulty. Vyram was waiting inside the container, seated in a corner on a packing crate.

  "Welcome to the Stack," he said to Jaina with a sweep of his arm to take in his surroundings. "It's not much, but it's all we have, I'm afraid."

  "Where are the others?" Malinza asked him.

  "Scattered about," he replied. "Or out on patrol." His dark eyes glistened in a faint electrical light. "Things have been... difficult."

  "Your arrest really had us worried," Salkeli said.

  "Not me, though," Zel said, dropping into the container through a hole in the roof. "I'm cool."

  "Yeah," Jjorg scoffed. "About as cool as a red dwarf."

  Malinza ignored both of them. "I'm sure the others will come back when word spreads that I'm out."

  "And I presume this one had something to do with your escape," Salkeli said.

  "Jaina? Actually, I'd assumed it was you, Vyram."

  The black-haired man shook his head. "I tried, but the defenses were way too tight. I was going to have another go at it tomorrow, when everyone's attention was on the consecration."

  Malinza frowned. " If it wasn't you, then who was it?"

  "One of the other groups, perhaps," Vyram said. He shrugged. "Or someone on the inside. A sympathetic guard, maybe."

  "Or someone sympathetic higher up, perhaps," Jaina mused.

  "How do you mean?" Malinza asked.

  "Cundertol didn't believe you were guilty," Jaina answered. "So if you were framed and there was nothing official he could do about it, maybe he decided to at least try to make escape easier for you."

  "The Prime Minister?" Zel looked more unnerved than he was before. He used a short laugh to hide it. "No way! That would just be too bizarre."

  "It's not important right now," Vyram said. "I'm just glad that we have you back."

  Again Jaina sensed a surge of something more than just respect between Vyram and the young leader of Freedom. "She's not out of the woods yet," she said. "Remember, Malinza is still a fugitiveregardless of who helped her. She'll have to stay hidden until we can find out who really kidnapped Cundertol."

  "I've been digging around," Vyram said, "but none of the data I've come across has revealed any clues."

  "Would it be possible for me to see that data?" Jaina asked.

  The young man glanced uncertainly at Malinza, who nodded. "Come on, then," he said, standing. "I hope you're not afraid of heights, though. My workshop's at the very top of the Stack."

  "I'm sure I can handle myself."

  With a crooked smile, Vyram hauled himself up through the hole in the container, and Jaina and the others followed. From there it was up ladders and through other boxy room-spaces for another fifteen meters to the very apex of the interior jungle, where Vyram's workspace balanced on top of the rebel heap. Jaina had no doubts that the St ack was structurally sound, otherwise Freedom wouldn't have used it as a base in the first place, but her

  instincts were telling her otherwise. Any sudden movements made the upper reaches sway unnervingly.

  "Pull up a seat," he said, indicating a pile of empty crates in one corner. His own seat looked a lot more comfortable, consisting of a floating orthopedically designed chair positioned in front of a complex array of computer screens and keyboards, many of them also levitated by repulsors. Jaina pulled up a crate, closely followed by Malinza, Zel, and Jjorg. The green-skinned Salkeli remained standing.

  Vyram brought the system to life. "I know it's not much, but..."

  "Given your circumstances," Jaina said, "I'm quite impressed." She noted insect fibers in the corner of the crate, and what appeared to be a bird's nest under a desk. "You're actually patched into the planetary network from here? "

  "Not permanently. We've a holocomm up on the roof, but we only use it when we need direct access. It's less risky to get a link-up, take what we want, then trawl through it afterward to see if we can find something interesting. That's what the system's doing at the moment. Comm scanners flag anything that looks vaguely suspicious for me to check out later. If I need to, I go back in to find more."

  That made sense, Jaina thought. Illegal nodes on any network were difficult to trace, even if suspicions were aroused, but it wasn't impossible. Accessing the planetary network irregularly would certainly make it more difficult for anyone to pin down Freedom.

  "What have you found so far?" she asked. "Malinza told me that you've uncovered evidence of corruption at a Senatorial level. You'd be naive to think that this is anything remarkable. Every government I've ever seen suffers from that to some degree or anotherincluding my own."

  Vyram nodded. "That's why we oppose the government we have. There has to be a strong opposition to keep the Senate and Prime Minister honest. They might try to shut us down, but we need to be here for the Bakuran people. We're the planet's conscience."

  "You keep things in Balance," Jaina said.

  Malinza smiled. "Exactly."

  "But how do you finance yourselves?" she asked again. " I can't imagine any of this setup would have been cheap."

  "You'd be surprised." Vyram's smile was full of pride. "The equipment is actually secondhand or on loan, and the Stack was here already. We just adapted what we found to our needs. It's a better strategy than becoming indebted to people, don't you think?"

  "Our allies today could be our enemies tomorrow," Malinza agreed. "You see, we're not naive, Jaina. The only way to be truly objective is to stay independent."

  "I admire your efforts," Jaina said, speaking with absolute honesty. She might not have agreed with Freedom's goals or methods, but the fact that its members had managed to stay out of serious trouble for so long was in itself a remarkable feat. "But something has changed. The obvious question is what?"

  "The only thing we can think of is this." Vyram's hands flickered across the keyboards as he accessed encrypted memory. "We uncovered a secret leak of government funds through several intermediaries. The amounts were all different and the payments weren't regular,
but our software was sophisticated enough to spot and flag them."

  "Where did the money leak to?"

  Vyram shook his head. "There's no information about that at this end; whoever set up the leak was careful in that respect. Barely had we begun to dig when the communications blackout came down on us."

  Jaina had heard about the infamous cluster over the

  years, but her own knowledge was scant. Aunt Mara had entertained a younger Jaina with stories of adventures in the cluster with Talon Karrdetales of pirates and outlaws and renegades. If only a small percentage of the stories she'd heard were true, then she had no doubt that there were probably many places within the cluster that would be more than happy to take credits from Bakura whether it was stolen government money or not.

  "So you think this led to Malinza being arrested?" she asked.

  "What else could it be?" Vyram replied. "Nothing else we've found is as big as this. I mean, we're talking millions of credits here. It has to be someone in government behind it, because no one else would have the codes needed to access those funds and set up the system of automatic payments from within. If word got out, the scandal would be huge."

  "We're guessing we tripped something when we sliced the data," Malinza said. "There would be safeguards against detection. The person behind this must have realized that we noticed the leaky funds. They acted immediately, before we put together a strong enough case to go public. At the moment, we have no idea who's behind it, or why."

  Vyram nodded glumly. "It conies down to our word against the governmentand following Malinza's arrest, our word isn't looking so good anymore."

  "So you need a suspect," Jaina said, thinking quickly. "Someone high up in the government. High enough to set the payments in place and to order the fake arrest."