Aftermath: Star Wars (19 page)

Jas wings the door open. Blaster up.

A droid stands there in the early-morning rain.

It’s a B1 battle droid.
The
B1 battle droid—the bodyguard Temmin calls Mister Bones. Rain hits the servomotor in its exposed skull, sparking and turning to steam as it does. Temmin rushes past Jas.

The droid, painted red and black, laughs maniacally: a warped, mechanized sound. It raises its one arm (the other is now missing), and all the little animal bones that dangle from it rattle and clack.

The droid gives a robot thumbs-up.

“Bones!” Temmin says, throwing his arms around the droid.

“I PERFORMED VIOLENCE,” the droid warbles. Jas wonders if that’s pride she hears in the thing’s discordant voice. “ROGER-ROGER.”

Then a shower of sparks erupts from its head. Its eyes go dark.

It falls to the side like a felled tree.

Temmin makes a sad sound in the back of his throat. Sinjir peeks past and says: “I think that thing has seen better days, boy.”

“Quiet,” the kid snaps. “You’ll hurt his feelings. He just needs work. Help me get him inside.”

“It’s night, you know,” comes a voice.

Wedge, magnetically shackled to the table, startles awake. The dream he was in—a dream of being out in space in a broken fighter, the oxygen failing, his astromech blown to slag, the ship drifting through the void—falls apart in his hands like wet sand gone suddenly dry.

The voice. It’s coming from the strange man—the man whose age is hard to tell, the one with the dark striations that aren’t quite wrinkles. With the beady eyes and serpent’s smile.

The one who cuts Wedge with the knife.

Right now, though, he sees no knife. Just the man clasping his hands within the bundled, puffy sleeves of his robe.

“You here for more torture? I won’t break.”

The man’s spooky smile never wavers. “I know. I can see that. I can see your vitality will never waver.” He thrusts up a finger, as if having an epiphany. But the epiphany is not his own—rather, he seems to wish to deliver one. “Did you know that Sith Lords could sometimes drain the Force energy from their captives? Siphoning life from them and using it to strengthen their connection to the dark side? Extending their own lives, as well, so that they could live for centuries beyond their intended expiration?”

“You fancy yourself some kind of wizard?”

The man tut-tut-tuts. “Hardly. I am Tashu. Merely a historian. An eager student of the old ways. And, until recently, an adviser to Palpatine.”

“My friend Luke told me some things about him.”

Tashu’s grin broadens. Showing off his too-white teeth.

“Yes, I imagine he did. Seen through the lens of a confused, naïve boy, most assuredly.” His fingers pluck at the air like a spider testing its webs. “I know I won’t break you physically.”

“So why come here at all?”

“To keep you from sleeping well. And to help break you mentally. It may not yield us any information. But I like to practice.”

“I’m a pilot. I’m used to not sleeping.”

“Yes, but you’re not used to hopelessness. Look around. You’re locked away. Tortured without function. The Empire even now is resurging here in this very palace. Your New Republic has a moment to breathe and gain its footing—but we have a war machine. We have the blessings of the dark side. And even if your people continue to march forward, reclaiming system after system—we will be waiting. In some form or another. The Empire is just a skin we wear, you see. A
shell.
It’s not just about law and order. It’s about total control. We will always come back for it. No matter how hard you work to beat us back, we are an infection inside the galaxy’s bones. And we will always surge forth when you least expect it.”

“You’re wrong,” Wedge says, gritting his teeth. “The galaxy is home to good people. There’s more of us than there are of you.”

“It’s not about numbers or percentages. It’s about faith. The few of us have infinitely more faith than the many of you.”

“I have faith in the New Republic.”

Tashu chuckles. “And that faith will be tested.”

“Your face will be tested when I kick in your teeth.”

“There it is,” Tashu says, snapping his fingers so hard it sounds like a bird’s neck breaking. “A vital spike of anger and hate. Born of the hopelessness I’ve planted in you. A terrible little seed. I can’t wait for it to grow its wretched tree and bear its ugly fruit.”

Lightning flashes, and the fight continues. On the roof of the old holoplex, against the backdrop of a bright, gaudy, ever-shifting billboard of advertisements, two men battle. They’ve been here for so long now, all sense of time has escaped them. They’re tired. Bedraggled. Soaked by the rains that came through and have gone again.

But they keep going at it.

The older one—thick, slovenly, his body encased in loose rust-red armor, his head swaddled in rain-sodden wraps—circles. Both of his hands up in clublike fists. A line of blood snakes from his nose, and he licks it away, then grins like a drunk.

“We can quit this charade anytime, mate,” Dengar growls. “We can sit down, have a proper pint somewhere, talk over the agreement.”

“No agreement,” says the other man—the one who calls himself Mercurial Swift. He’s young. Agile. No armor at all. Dark hair now plastered to his pale brow. In his hands, a pair of batons. He gives them a twirl. “You gotta give this up, Dengar. You’re reaching past the stars on this one. A fool’s crusade—”

At that, Dengar rushes in again. Swinging fists like hammers. Like he doesn’t just want to punch the younger, faster man, but wants to pulp him like a fruit for his morning juice. Mercurial catches a fist to his collarbone, and pain shoots up his neck and down his arm. One of his batons clatters against the rooftop, splashing into a puddle.

Mercurial cartwheels the other way. When Dengar moves to follow, the younger bounty hunter ducks, and pistons the end of his baton in the gap between Dengar’s armor plates—right into his ribs.

The older thug howls and staggers back, clutching his side.

His smile is somehow a scowl at the same time. “Join me. You’re good. You’re
fast.
But dumb. Real dumb. Just look at you. Green as fresh doaki spice. You need a…guiding hand.”

“From you?” Mercurial asks with a coughing scoff. “I can’t see that happening, old man.” Another flash of lightning. No thunder. “Don’t you get it? I got into this gig because I like being alone. I
like
the rogue thing.” He laughs: a curiously melodic sound. “I didn’t become a bounty hunter so I could join a club, eh?”

Dengar begins to circle again.

Mercurial circles the other way. Toward his lost baton.

“We’ve always been a club!” Dengar shouts.

“Maybe that’s what’s been holding you back. Other hunters always scooping up the bounties before you. Beating you to the punch.” There. At Mercurial’s feet—the baton. He kicks it up into his hand.

“Oh ho ho, you think I’ve lost a step, huh?”

“Can’t lose a step you never had!”

Dengar guffaws. “You little scrap-muncher. I was putting away bounties while you were still in your space diapers.”

“What’s it say about you that you’re still
in
your space diapers?”

“You don’t much like me, do you?”

“You want it point-blank? You’re a strange, gross old man. Heart to the moon, truth on my sleeve? Nobody’s ever liked you.”

There. That got him. Dengar’s like a crazy beast—you just have to wave the right bait in front of his nose to get him to charge. And charge he does, thundering forward like a starving pack animal.

But then, at the last moment, he jukes left. The older bounty hunter dives across the roof and tucks into a roll. When he springs back up on the other side, he spins around—and his particle array gun is in his hand. Ready to scatter Mercurial’s atoms across the flashing billboard.

Again, the fight pauses. Mercurial with his hands up. Dengar on one knee with the wide mouth of the array gun pointed.

This time, they’re silent. Tension drawn out like strangling cord. Lightning flashes again. Dengar’s finger hovers near the trigger. The gun hums. Mercurial’s hands tighten around the batons.

Something is about to break.

Something
has
to break. Or Dengar’s going to shoot him.

Mercurial’s eyes flash to a nearby rooftop. His eyes go wide. His jaw, slack. He summons the image in his mind and says:

“Boba Fett?”

Dengar wheels toward the rooftop, the gun barrel turning.

And that is Mercurial’s opportunity. He flings one of the batons—it cracks Dengar on the top of his forehead as soon as he whips his head back around. As his skull snaps back, Mercurial is already leaping forward and driving a knee into the side of the old bounty hunter’s face. Then an elbow against his collarbone. A baton against his wrist. The gun drops.

Mercurial picks it up and jams the barrel under Dengar’s chin.

Just as fresh rain begins to fall. A spitting, flecking rain.

Dengar winces. “You’re good.”

“I’ve been told.”

“That trick back there? Maybe I have lost a bloody step, mate.”

Mercurial shrugs. “I used to be an actor and a dancer.”

“No fooling?” Dengar croaks. “What turned you to this life?”

“The Empire doesn’t much care for the performance arts.”

“True that, true that.” Dengar sniffs a bubble of blood back up his nose and sneers. “But all that’s more to the point, innit? Things are changing now. Our profession is about to get
marginalized,
too. Those rebels won’t put up with our special brand of sauce for too long, will they? It’s why we gotta band together. Form a proper union. We’ll be a force to reckon with. We’ll look all official-like!”

“I’ll take my chances alone.”

Dengar nods. “Okay. Okay. You, ahh. You going to kill me?”

“No bounty on you. Why bother?”

“You watch. That day will come. Bounties on the bounty hunters. We’ll see it soon enough. Even in my lifetime. Just you watch.”

Mercurial nods, takes the gun away. “Take care, Dengar.”

“Not likely, kid. Not bloody likely.”