Specter of the Past

by Timothy Zahn

  “Does this surprise you?” Tre asked. “The one truism in all politics is that loud voices will be raised against any decision that is made.”

  “Yes,” Luke said, looking down at the flickering lights below.

  “Many of those now demonstrating will be gathering later tonight at the ThoughtsAreFreedom tapcafe,” Tre said. “It is on the far side of the Common, at the western corner of the diamond. If you choose to meet with them, they will be pleased to speak their thoughts to you.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Luke said, carefully hiding a grimace. “Thank you for taking the time to show me this.”

  “It is my sworn duty to provide information to the leaders of the New Republic,” the Rellarin said gravely. “It is a swearing I take most seriously.”

  He placed his fingertips together and inclined his head. “I thank you in turn for your time and attention, Master Skywalker, and I urge you to visit the ThoughtsAreFreedom this night. You will gain much knowledge there.” Inclining his head again, he turned and headed back along the Promenade.

  Behind Luke, Artoo whistled softly, and he turned to see the little droid standing up on mechanical tiptoe as he gazed at the lights of the Canyonade below. “It’s impressive, all right,” Luke agreed soberly. “That’s what makes this so hard to deal with. So much of it really is honest differences of opinion.”

  Artoo warbled again, his dome swiveling pointedly in the direction of the skyarch to their left: the direction they would go to get across the Canyonade and down to the tapcafe Tre had mentioned. “I suppose we ought to go take a look,” Luke said reluctantly. “Though I doubt we’ll get any new information there. It’ll just be more opinions.”

  He pushed away from the guardwall and started walking toward the entrance to the skyarch. “If you want real information you have to go to someone like Talon Karrde,” he continued as Artoo rolled alongside like a well-trained pet. “In fact, I’ve been thinking that maybe we ought to try to get in touch with him.”

  Artoo made a rude-sounding noise. “I hope that’s for the current attitude toward him on Coruscant,” Luke warned, “and not for Karrde himself. He’s done a lot for the New Republic.”

  The droid gave an ambiguous twitter, followed by a remarkably good impression of a pile of coins clinking together. “Yes, I know he’s been paid for his help,” Luke acknowledged. “You might remember that money was the reason Han first got involved with the Rebellion, too, and he’s turned out pretty good.”

  They reached the entrance to the skyarch and stepped onto the umbrella-roofed, guardwalled bridge. Like the Rim Promenade itself, the Canyonade’s skyarches were remarkable examples of engineering skill, curving gently and gracefully across the half-kilometer gorge without the benefit of extra supports or suspension cables. The right side of the walkway was finished in a simple nonslip surface, clearly designed for casual strollers or those who wanted to pause and linger over the view of the Canyonade below. The left side, in contrast, was equipped with a pair of slideways for the serious traveler who merely wished to go from one side to the other.

  It would have been a pleasant walk, Luke thought with a quiet pang of regret, but he didn’t seem to have the time lately for such simple pleasures. “The important point is that Karrde has always come to us first with information that we need,” he added to Artoo, ushering the droid onto the slideway and stepping on behind him. “Whether he admits it or not, he really is on our side.”

  Artoo swiveled his dome around to face Luke, made an I-suppose-so sort of grunt, then rotated back to face forward again. The slideway was speeding up, Luke noted with interest, accelerating steadily as they approached the center of the arch. Presumably the entire strip wasn’t speeding up, which would create quite a challenge for anyone trying to get onto the strip behind him. Composed of some kind of pseudo-fluid material, he guessed, using a variant of laminar flow to create variable speeds along its length. One more engineering marvel to add to the list.

  They reached the top of the arch, and he was just thinking of asking Artoo to analyze the slideway for him, when he felt a flicker in the Force. It wasn’t much; little more than a twinge in the near distance. But it was enough.

  Somewhere very near at hand, someone was preparing for murder.

  He stepped off the slideway, fighting for a moment with the abrupt change in speed before he regained his balance. Artoo, suddenly missing him, squawked in surprise—then squawked again as Luke stretched out with the Force and lifted him bodily into the air. “Quiet,” Luke admonished as he set the droid down on the stationary section of the walkway. Looking around, he stretched out again with the Force.

  The murderous intent was still there, somewhere close by. But though there were a handful of other pedestrians in sight, there was nothing he could see that appeared to fit the sensation.

  At least, not on this particular skyarch.

  He turned around, peering upward beneath the edge of his skyarch’s roof and through the guardwall mesh of the skyarch running parallel one level above him. And there they were, perhaps ten meters farther along from where he stood: two cloaked and hooded figures standing with their backs pressed against the guardwall, the smaller child-sized figure clinging to the taller one. Beyond them, Luke could just make out the shadowy forms of three assailants moving slowly and confidently in on them. In the hand of one of them, he caught the glint of a blade.

  There was no time to waste, and exactly one route that had any chance of getting Luke to them in time. It would take a hefty jump, but nothing that a Jedi drawing on the Force couldn’t easily handle. The only imponderable was whether the Canyonade’s safety tractor beams would react fast enough to snatch him in midair and whisk him helplessly away.

  There was only one way to find out. “Wait here, Artoo,” he murmured. Stretching out to the Force, he hopped over the slideway to the top of his skyarch’s guardwall. For a pair of heartbeats he crouched there, steadying his balance as he did one final visual measurement of the distance up and across to the other skyarch. Then, taking a deep breath, he again drew on the Force and leaped.

  The emergency tractor beams were obviously not as hair-trigger as he’d feared, and he reached the other side without so much as a nudge from them. Catching the top of the other skyarch’s guardwall, he swung his legs through the opening between guardwall and roof to land in a slight crouch on the nonmoving section of the walkway.

  He took in the tableau laid out before him in a glance. The two prospective victims, as he’d already seen, were standing ahead and to his right, their backs pressed against the guardwall. The hood on the taller of them had slipped back, revealing the lined face and white hair of an old woman. The face of the child clinging to her side—most likely a grandchild or even great-grandchild, considering the woman’s age—was still completely in shadow. But Luke didn’t need to see an expression; the way the child clutched the old woman’s side was all the evidence anyone needed to recognize the silent terror there.

  A terror that was well founded. From the lower skyarch Luke had seen three knife-wielding men closing in on them. Now, from his new vantage point, he could see that those three were merely the inner circle of a much larger group. Nine other men were standing a few paces farther back, forming a semicircle around their intended prey. All nine of them had the hardened faces of men whose lives had been shaped by violence and cruelty; all nine had blasters out and ready.

  And at the moment, all nine of those faces—and five of those blasters—were pointed at Luke.

  “That’s far enough,” Luke called, straightening up from his landing crouch. “Put down your weapons.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” one of the men snarled, his voice as nasty as his appearance. “Why don’t you turn around and walk away. While you still can.”

  “I don’t think so,” Luke said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. With five—six, now—blasters trained on him, it was going to be a race to see whether he could get his lightsaber out f
ast enough to deflect the shots that would be coming his direction the instant he made a move toward the weapon.

  But there was the slideway two steps to his left. One section going each direction; both moving at reasonably high speed …

  “We’re wasting time,” one of the other men spat. “Burn him and let’s—”

  And in that instant, in the middle of the sentence, the child moved.

  It was so quiet and so smooth that at first Luke didn’t realize what was happening. The child rotated out of his panicked death grip on the old woman toward the nearest of the knife-wielding assailants, one arm swinging across the man like a stylized slap across his chest that fell short of its intended mark. The arm movement seemed to deflect the child like a ricocheted stone toward the second assailant; the slapping movement again, and he was now swinging toward the third man—

  And with a gurgling gasp, the first man collapsed into a heap on the ground.

  Someone swore with startled viciousness, the blasters pointed at Luke wavering as sudden confusion intruded on what had two seconds earlier been a solidly secure situation. Heads turned back toward the child and his grandmother—

  And then the second man crumpled, and the third man started to do the same, his knife now inexplicably in the child’s hand. But only briefly; an instant later, with an abbreviated flick of the wrist, the knife flashed across the short distance to bury itself in the chest of one of the other assailants.

  And as it did so, the hood fell back far enough to finally expose the child’s face.

  It wasn’t a child beneath that cloak. It was a Noghri.

  That single glance was the last clear view any of them had of the alien. For some, it was the last clear view of anything they would ever have. Even as Luke grabbed for his lightsaber the Noghri became a blur of motion: diving, rolling, slashing with blades now in both hands, evading the frantic sputtering of blaster shots with casual ease. A grenade clattered to the walkway at the old woman’s feet, vanished as Luke reached out through the Force to maneuver it through the gap between guardwall and roof and send it hurling straight up.

  By the time it exploded harmlessly far above them, the battle was over.

  “Master Skywalker,” the Noghri said, nodding gravely from the center of the carnage as he slid his two assassin’s knives back into concealment. “I am honored by your presence, and grateful for your assistance.”

  “Such as it was,” Luke said, shaking his head in astonishment. He’d seen Noghri in training and practice combat and had thought he knew the limits of their fighting skills. He hadn’t even been close. “Somehow, I think you would have managed quite well without me.”

  “Your pardon, but that is not true,” the Noghri demurred, stepping over the bodies and coming over to him. “Your distraction was most timely, allowing me nearly four extra seconds I would otherwise not have had.”

  “Not to mention the grenade,” the old woman added. She had crouched down beside one of the dead and was going through his pockets with practiced fingers. “If not for your quick action, we could all have been killed. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Luke said, eyeing her with growing doubts as she finished her search and moved on to the next body. A Noghri warrior and a woman with the expertise of a professional pickpocket were not exactly what he’d had in mind when he’d come leaping to the rescue. “May I ask who you are?”

  “Not who you’re probably afraid I am,” the woman said, pausing in her search to flash him a smile. “It’s really quite honest and mostly respectable. My name is Moranda Savich; Plakhmirakh here is currently attached to me as my bodyguard. We work for an old acquaintance of yours: Talon Karrde.”

  “Really,” Luke said. “Oddly enough, I was just thinking about trying to make contact with Karrde.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Moranda said, straightening up. “He’s just arrived on Cejansij.”

  “You’re joking,” Luke said, frowning. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Who ever knows what Karrde’s doing anywhere?” Moranda countered philosophically. “Why don’t you come along and ask him yourself?”

  Luke looked down through the guardwall at the city lights below. Once again, he’d managed to be in the right place at the right time. The Force was indeed with him. “Thank you,” he said to Moranda. “I believe I will.”

  “Chief?”

  Karrde looked up from his desk to find Dankin’s head poking around the open office doorway. “Yes, what is it?”

  “Savich and her Noghri guard are here,” Dankin said. “She’s got the data drop you wanted.”

  “Good,” Karrde said, frowning slightly. Back when the Wild Karrde’s bridge crew had been preparing to spring Booster Terrik’s Errant Venture on the unsuspecting H’sishi, Dankin had been wearing a half-concealed grin. He was wearing the same grin now. “And?” Karrde prompted.

  The grin came fully out of concealment. “And they also brought you a surprise.”

  “Really,” Karrde said, letting the temperature of his voice cool a couple of degrees. “I hope you remember how much I like surprises.”

  “You’ll like this one, Chief,” Dankin assured him, stepping aside and gesturing. Plakhmirakh and Moranda Savich emerged around the doorway and stepped into the office, the latter holding a data drop cylinder in her hand. And coming in behind them—

  “Well, I’ll be Kesseled,” Karrde said, getting to his feet. “A pleasant surprise indeed. Hello, Skywalker.”

  “Karrde.” Skywalker nodded in greeting. “I’m surprised to find you here.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” Karrde agreed. “Are you alone?”

  “Artoo’s with me,” Skywalker said, nodding back over his shoulder. “He spotted a G2-9T repair droid working off your cargo bay and stopped for a chat.”

  “I hope he enjoys it,” Karrde said, taking the cylinder from Moranda and glancing at its markings. “That’s the last G2 I’m ever going to buy. Any trouble, Moranda?”

  “We were jumped on the way back,” she told him. “Twelve men, very professional, no indications as to who they were working for.”

  “Probably one of the Hutts,” Karrde said, turning the cylinder over in his hand. “They weren’t exactly thrilled about losing this.”

  “Could be,” Moranda said. “Whoever they were, Plakhmirakh took care of them.”

  “With assistance from Master Skywalker,” the Noghri added in his gravelly voice. “He arrived at exactly the proper moment.”

  “Jedi Masters have that knack,” Karrde said dryly, handing the cylinder back to Moranda. “Good. Take it to Odonnl, then you can go and relax in the crew lounge while he checks it out and issues your payment. Would you be interested in taking on another assignment?”

  “Only if it’s more fun than courier work,” Moranda said. “Apart from the attack, it was all rather boring.” She waved a hand each toward Luke and Plakhmirakh. “And with these two around, even that part wasn’t very exciting.”

  “I’ll try to do better the next time,” Karrde promised. “As a matter of fact, I have one job in particular where your talents might prove useful. Check back here after you’ve been paid and we’ll talk, all right?”

  “Fine,” Moranda said, nodding. Plakhmirakh gave an abbreviated Noghri bow, and together they left the office.

  Karrde cocked an eyebrow at Skywalker. “Thank you for your help. I believe it’s now my turn to owe you one.”

  “Hardly,” the other said. “Plakhmirakh vastly overrates my assistance back there.”

  “Yes, they don’t generally need much help, do they?” Karrde agreed. “I’ve been very pleased with their service. Aside from running interference against Hutt hirelings, what brings you to Cejansij?”

  Skywalker shrugged. “The Force, actually,” he said. “I was trying for a vision of the future, and I saw myself here. So here I am.”

  “Ah,” Karrde said. “Not a scheduling technique I’d be comfortable with, personally.”<
br />
  “I’m not exactly used to it myself,” Skywalker said. “On the other hand, I was just thinking about trying to get in touch with you, and here you are, so it seems to have worked. What are you doing here, anyway, if I may ask?”

  “It’s not a secret,” Karrde assured him. “At least, not from you. I’ve been looking into the possibility that outside agitators might be involved in some of the protests that have been cropping up around the New Republic. Since Cejansij has a long history of peaceful demonstrations, I thought it would be an obvious target for subversion.”

  “Makes sense,” Skywalker mused. “Though maybe it’s too obvious.”

  “Depends on how subtle our unknown agitators decide to be,” Karrde said. “I thought it still worth checking out. You said you’d wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes,” Skywalker said. “I’ve been wondering if you’d made any progress on our clone hunt.”

  “None whatsoever,” Karrde conceded. “None of my information sources have heard even a whisper of clone activity. If they’re out there, whoever’s using them is keeping it very quiet.”

  “Mm,” Skywalker murmured. “How about the Cavrilhu Pirates?”

  Karrde shook his head. “They seem to have gone to ground.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Not that I really blame them. Being chased out of your most secure base by a Jedi Master must be a rather disconcerting experience.”

  “You were chased off Myrkr by Grand Admiral Thrawn, and you didn’t panic,” Skywalker reminded him.

  Karrde forced a smile. The memories of that time still provoked unpleasant twinges. “Perhaps I’m made of stronger stuff. Or perhaps I just don’t panic quite so noticeably.”

  On his desk, the intercom twittered, and he leaned over to touch the switch. “Yes?”

  It was Dankin, his expression suddenly and uncharacteristically grim. “Priority message coming through from the Starry Ice,” he said tartly. “Faughn says Mara’s been captured.”