Star Wars

by Charles Soule

  Indeera turned toward the path that led back up toward the outpost.

  “Come on,” she said. “Porter is making breakfast. Nine-Egg Stew, and he told me he found some stone peppers, too.”

  “You think Loden will let me eat before he throws me off the cliff again?” Bell said.

  “I’ll insist,” she said. “No one should die on an empty stomach.”

  “Wow,” Bell said, “so kind of you.”

  He followed her up the path, Ember keeping pace at his side.

  * * *

  Ottoh lifted the single-lens ocular and set it against his eye. The device had a setting that allowed him to see through the walls to pick up heat signatures from outside—good, because the Nihil had already killed their homestead’s security cams. The monitors in the safe room were just throwing out static.

  Now, not all the parts of the fancy security system they’d had installed when they moved out to the claim had failed. The automated reinforced durasteel shutters had worked as promised—slamming down over doors and windows as soon as the family was safely inside—but without the cams, they were almost blind.

  All Ottoh had was the ocular, and the rough outlines it provided on its infrared setting. The Nihil showed up as purple-and-red outlines, with strange, misshapen heads. Ottoh had seen hundreds of different alien species in his day, but he’d never seen anything like the Nihil. It made him think they were probably wearing masks, which aligned with both the stories he’d heard and the fact that they used gas to hide their movements and incapacitate their prey. But knowing that didn’t make them any less threatening. They were monsters, looming up from nowhere.

  The gas was definitely still out there, too, even if the ocular couldn’t pick it up. The family’s herd of steelees were all lying on their sides in their pen, unconscious or dead, and as far as he knew nothing had touched them.

  “Will the seals keep out the gas?” Erika said, evidently thinking along the same lines.

  “That’s what the company promised. The safe room’s supposed to be impervious to all but the highest levels of blasterfire, and impermeable to chemical and radiological weapons.”

  “You didn’t say explosives,” his wife said. “What if they brought explosives?”

  Ottoh didn’t answer.

  “Well, whatever they brought, I’m ready to fight,” she said, and he set down the ocular and looked over at her.

  Erika tapped her datapad one final time, then held it up for Ottoh to see, displaying the elements of the plan she had come up with.

  “I think the speeder, right?”

  “Yeah,” Ottoh said. “At the very least it’ll buy us time. Maybe someone will see the explosion, or maybe the Nihil will just leave.”

  Now it was his wife’s turn to stay silent.

  “Any luck, Ronn?” he called to his son, thirteen years old, with everything that came with that age. But now, no angst, no pushback, just doing exactly what he was asked to do in an effort to keep his family alive.

  Ronn was using the family’s comlink, trying to reach someone in Ogden’s Hope who might be able to help. Their daughter, Bee, nine, was curled up against him for comfort, holding a stuffed varactyl toy she hadn’t touched for years, as far as Ottoh knew.

  “I can’t get a signal through, Dad. I checked the weather, and there’s a big rust storm between us and Ogden’s Hope. It’s messing with the transmissions, I think.”

  “Keep trying, son,” Ottoh said. “Your mother is going to buy us some time.”

  A huge boom from below—not an explosion, but the sound of metal on metal. Ottoh looked through the ocular again, to see that a cluster of four Nihil had gathered around the front door to the house. They were positioned as if they were holding something, all four gripping it together, but the ocular’s heat setting couldn’t pick out the object. A battering ram made of cold durasteel, he guessed.

  “They’re trying to break down the door,” Ottoh said.

  Another boom.

  “Now, Erika!” Ottoh said.

  His wife pressed a control on her datapad.

  Outside, Ottoh could see their four delving droids coming up out of sleep mode in the droid pen not far from the main house. Their outlines through the ocular were green and yellow—they put out a different kind of heat than the Nihil—but all were clearly visible.

  The machines left the pen and moved quickly, accelerating through the yard. The delving droids were industrial machines, loud and powerful, designed to punch holes into hard ground and remove the resulting rubble. There was no way for them to move stealthily, even though the gas presumably still circulating outside probably gave them a little cover. The quartet of droids split—two heading for the group at the front door, and the rest toward the speeder.

  Ottoh took a moment to appreciate the skill in what his wife was doing—simultaneously overriding the autonomous functions of four droids, taking control and making them operate in ways they were not designed to work, running them fast, guiding them via feeds from their monitor circuits on a tiny datapad display. All that complexity to manage, and each droid was moving in a straight line, unerring, right toward their targets.

  “Good, Erika…you’re doing it!”

  “Don’t…talk to me…right now…” she said, her voice tight with concentration.

  Blaster bolts, hot white through the ocular, began zipping out from both sets of Nihil—the four at the front door and another six clustered around their speeder. The raiders had noticed the approaching droids…no surprise there.

  The machines were tough, built to withstand high impacts and temperatures, but they weren’t impervious. One of the droids stopped moving, then another.

  “Faster, Erika! They’re knocking them down!”

  His wife didn’t answer, just flicked him a momentary glance. Ottoh understood. She was running the droids from her datapad. She knew when they became inoperative right away—she didn’t need his updates. He knew that—he’d known it when he spoke. He just wanted to…do something.

  From behind him, he heard his son’s voice, talking quickly, and Ottoh realized he’d actually gotten someone on the comlink. Ogden’s Hope maintained a small communal security force; all the claims paid into its budget every year. Their station wasn’t so far away. If the family could just hold on a bit longer…

  A third droid stopped in its tracks, hot green sparks shooting from where its head had once been attached to its neck.

  Just one droid left, and Ottoh watched as the machine barreled forward. He saw it dodge a Nihil shot, and again marveled at his wife’s skill. What operator could make a delving droid dodge? The one he was married to, apparently.

  The last droid took a hit, dead center, and its speed slowed to a crawl.

  “Blast it!” his wife said.

  “Is that it?” Ottoh said.

  “No,” Erika answered, her voice cold and certain. “It’s not.”

  Ottoh heard his wife’s fingertips tapping furiously on the datapad, and whatever rerouting and adjustments she did seemed to work. The last droid lurched forward, careening ahead at a rapidly increasing rate of speed. The Nihil weren’t done shooting, but the droid seemed all but impervious. It lost an arm, then another. Half its head disappeared, but it didn’t stop.

  It reached the Nihil’s speeder, and Ottoh yanked his eye from the ocular just before the lens flared white. A huge sound from outside, not a boom but a BOOM, this time definitely an explosion.

  The delving droids were mining machines. Sometimes they dug, sometimes they sorted, sometimes they lugged debris…and sometimes they blasted holes in dense, metallic rock with small pellets of high-powered explosive. From the sound, Erika had just set off every bit of the droid’s load at once.

  “Hnh,” his wife said, her tone satisfied. “How many did I get, dear?”

  Ottoh
raised the ocular to his eyes and looked outside. The scene was radically altered—the Nihil’s speeder was gone, as was the delving droid, both replaced by hot, twisted metal and leaping flames. He turned down the brightness, looking for…there. He counted outlines…four, close to the fire, and none of them moving. But two others were still alive, one slowly dragging himself away from the wreckage, and another being pulled free by the team that had been using the battering ram at the front door. That group, unfortunately, had been mostly sheltered from the blast by the house.

  “Not enough,” Ottoh said. “But it helps.”

  He lowered the ocular and turned to his son, who was speaking to Bee in a low, kind voice.

  “Did you get someone, Ronn?” Ottoh said. “I heard you on the comlink. Is help coming?”

  Ronn looked up. His face was bleak.

  “I got through to Ogden’s Hope security, Dad,” he said. “I told them what was happening. The man on the other end was asking a lot of questions, but he stopped when I told him the Nihil were here. He…he just…he said they’re too far away to get here in time. The man said he was sorry…but he just sounded like he was afraid. I’ve tried calling back, but they won’t answer.”

  “Cowards,” Erika spat.

  From below, a sound: a thud, of something heavy hitting their front door, and then a voice.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” it called, floating up from outside, low and strange. “We were just going to take you.”

  thud

  “Now we’re going to hurt you, too.”

  * * *

  “You want more stew?” Porter Engle said, looking down into Bell’s empty bowl. “Falling’s hungry work, I guess.”

  Across the table, Loden chuckled. Bell didn’t care. He was over it. He’d figure out the Force falling eventually, and even if he didn’t, that was no reason to turn down a second bowl of Porter’s Nine-Egg Stew.

  Porter Engle was a legend. He’d been in the Jedi Order for over three hundred years, a burly Ikkrukki who, at this point, was more beard than being. He had explored full careers in most of the primary Jedi roles in his time—teacher, explorer, diplomat, warrior—and the stories told about him in any one of those occupations would be enough to ensure his status in the chronicles. He had just one eye, for example, the other lost long ago, a long scar down his face a story of its own. But now he was nearing the end of his span, and his latest and final calling seemed to be cook. The stew really did have nine different kinds of egg in it, but Porter would only reveal five of them. The remaining sources were either too rare or too revolting for him to divulge. Whatever was in it, the stuff was good.

  Below the table, Bell felt Ember stir. She was lying across his boots, her internal heat warm and prominent even through the thick leather. The hound was no fool—of all the Jedi of Elphrona, Bell Zettifar was by far the most likely to slip her a bite or two during meals.

  The creature had appeared one day at the building’s entrance, skinny, trembling, and with an infected wound on her rear haunch.

  Indeera treated her injury, Porter fed her, Bell named her, and Loden had allowed her to stay, declaring that the Force had brought them a new member of the team. That was a neat workaround to the Order’s rule against forming attachments, because of course you were supposed to take care of your fellow team members, and make sure they were safe and happy and well fed and their coat was brushed and…well. The Jedi of the Elphrona Outpost had all become extremely fond of Ember the charhound, rule or no rule.

  “Yes please,” Bell said, holding up his bowl. “It’s fantastic today.”

  “It’s the stone peppers,” Porter said, pleased, ladling up another serving of the thick yellow stew. “Found some nice hard ones at the market.”

  Veteran Jedi could live wherever they liked once the passage of time naturally reduced their ability and desire to participate in the more active work of the Order. Most remained at the Coruscant Temple, which maintained lodgings for all its older members, to live out their days as they pleased. Porter Engle had taken the opposite approach, actually requesting an assignment to the Elphrona Outpost. He seemed intent on remaining as useful as possible despite his age, and an outpost was the best way he knew to ensure his three centuries of Jedi experience could directly help the galaxy.

  In an average day, an Outpost Jedi might be called upon to settle a dispute, defend a town from marauders, bring criminals to justice, teach children, offer medical assistance, or just wield the Force in any of the ten thousand ways it could be used to help people. Not every problem required a Jedi to solve it, but when a problem did rise to that level, people tended to be glad they lived on an outpost world.

  “Starlight Beacon’s almost ready for the dedication,” Loden said as Bell dug into his second bowl of stew.

  “Just a few weeks,” Indeera said. “But the chancellor’s hyperspace closures might push that back.”

  “Mm…I hope not,” Porter Engle said, taking a seat at the head of the table. “It wouldn’t be the end of the world if it didn’t open on time, but I know it’s important to the chancellor’s future plans that everything runs smoothly. I’d like to see it, too. It sounds beautiful.”

  “It is,” Loden agreed. “Wouldn’t you say, Bell?”

  “Gorgeous,” Bell said. “There’s a biosphere zone, where visitors can check out actual re-creations of various worlds in the Outer Rim Territories. Dantooine jungle, an ice flat from Mygeeto…I liked it.”

  Loden dropped his spoon into his empty bowl.

  “The idea is to showcase the diversity of the worlds out here,” he said. “They’ll rotate the biospheres from time to time, bring in different creatures…it’s very ambitious.”

  Indeera spoke, not looking up from the datapad she was perusing.

  “The whole station is ambitious. And it’s just the first of many, right? The chancellor’s got a whole network of Beacons planned, I think. I read about it.”

  “That’s what they told us at the conclave,” Bell answered.

  “Lina Soh and her Great Works,” Porter Engle said. “I think she’s fantastic. If there was ever a time for Beacons and relay networks and outreach, it’s now. I remember when the galaxy was just pulling itself together, a few centuries back…we couldn’t think about anything but survival, really. We should use this time of prosperity to build something meaningful for the future.”

  “Do you think the Order’s outpost network will close down once the Beacons all come online?” Bell asked.

  “I hope not,” Porter said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. “This sort of life suits me just fine. Every day’s a little different, seeing what comes, helping people however they need it…not so bad.”

  He signaled a servitor droid, which trundled over and began clearing the breakfast dishes. They were sitting in the outpost’s dining chamber, a comfortable, low-ceilinged room, one of eight set just off the main chamber, a tall, circular area designed around a huge Jedi Order symbol inlaid on the floor. Sleeping chambers, the kitchen, storage, the hangar, a sparring room for lightsaber training…all of it was accessible from the central zone, just as the Force touched all things equally.

  “Speaking of which,” Porter went on, “what do you all have on deck for the day?”

  “I’m going to take one of the Vectors to a spot down in the southern hemisphere,” Indeera said. “Some miners think they found a vein of essurtanium. I’ve never actually seen it before—supposed to have really rare properties, maybe even a little Force-reactive. I was hoping to buy a sample, bring it back here so I could study it.”

  “Take Bell with you,” Loden said.

  “What, so she can throw me out of the cockpit?” Bell said.

  “You are very wise, my Padawan,” Loden said.

  “Well, I’m going to wash the dishes,” Porter said. “What about you, Loden?�
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  “A claim to the north is having trouble with a nest of chromants. I thought I’d go give them a hand.”

  “Can’t they just bring in an extermination unit?” Indeera asked.

  “Probably,” Loden said, “But maybe I want to fight a hundred chromants.”

  Bell shook his head. He also wanted to fight a hundred chromants, but he knew better than to ask. He was jumping out of another Vector, and that was that.

  A low whistle from the central chamber, and all four Jedi turned their heads toward the sound—the signal for an incoming transmission on the outpost’s emergency comm system. Loden reached out and tapped a control set into the tabletop, bringing the transmission into the room. A voice sounded, quiet, filled with tension.

  “Uh, Jedi…this is…no. Don’t wanna get involved. But there’s a homesteader family, about thirty kilometers to the southwest of town. Two parents, two kids. The Blythes. I caught a transmission to the Ogden’s Hope security station, I monitor that channel on my comlink, like a hobby. Anyway, they were calling for help. The family’s being attacked…by the Nihil. Ogden’s Hope security won’t go. Afraid, I think. I’d be afraid, too—the stories we hear about the Nihil…But the person who called in…it was a kid. He sounded…it sounded really bad. Maybe you could go out there? Help somehow? I’m sending the coordinates. I can’t get involved, not with the Nihil. But I just…thought you should know.”

  The message ended.

  Ember sensed the tension in the room. From below the table, she coughed out one small sound, like a boot stepping on a piece of charcoal.

  “The Nihil,” Indeera said.

  “The family,” Porter Engle said.

  His voice had gone very cold. Perhaps for the first time, Bell looked at the man and no longer saw the joking, bearded Ikkrukki chef he knew so well, inventor of the Nine-Egg Stew. Instead, he saw the Jedi they once called the Blade of Bardotta.