Aftermath: Star Wars (27 page)

It is Jak’s thirteenth birthday.

The young boy—no, the young
man
—needs a birthday present. Not that he has anyone around to buy it for him. But he’s sure his father would’ve wanted him to have the very best.

He walks through the shattered conduits of 1313: Coruscant’s most infamous underworld level, a dungeon so deep that the world above has forgotten about it. He walks past a pair of pale, wan Er’Kit scraping fungus from the walls and greedily sucking the spongy mess. He passes by a spider-armed Xexto pulling wires out of a dented panel, feeding them into a charger full of plump, buzzing batteries—the alien chatters irritably as Jak walks past: a warning not to attempt to plunder the spoils of stolen electricity. And there, past that, around the bend—

A pair of guards. A rough-looking ale-bellied human with food stuck in his beard, and a bigger, even fatter Kerkoidan. The Kerk stares out past a pair of blood-pink tusks. As Jak approaches, the Kerk shows the blaster at his hip. In Basic, the alien mutters: “Keep moving, rat.”

“I’m no rat,” Jak says, summoning courage. “I’m a buyer.”

The Kerk pulls the blaster—it’s not a real threat yet. His movement is slow, languid, the motion of a confident bully. “I said—”

Jak fumbles with the card.

It’s matte black.

The ink on it is red—and it glows.

“Here,” Jak says.

The human’s eyes go wide. “A kid with a card.”

“I’m no kid. It’s my birthday.”

“Happy birthday, skidstain,” the Kerk says. “All right, you can go in.”

The bearded man raps on the door. It hisses open.

Inside, the one Jak seeks: the horned Iktotchi scumlord, Talvee Chawin, aka the Thorn. Named maybe because he’s got one horn broken, and the second horn loops down around under his chin, and then barbs outward like the warning thorn of a poisonous plant.

But maybe because he’s been a thorn in the side of the Empire.

“You,” the Thorn says. “You’re the kid.”

“I’m not…”
Oh, never mind
. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“I didn’t think you’d ever show.”

“Your friend gave me the card.”

“But what cause does a boy like you have to use it?” The Iktotchi crime lord steps up from around his half-circle couch and approaches the boy. He licks the air. “You don’t belong down here. You belong up there.”

“I do. You’re…right. But right now
up there
doesn’t belong to me.”

A smile curls at the crime lord’s lips. “It belongs to them.”

The Empire.

Jak continues: “I saved your woman from police custody.”

“She’s not my woman. Nobody owns Lazula.”

“She works for you.”

“She works
with
me.”

“Fine. Whatever. I saved her. She gave me the card. Now here I am.”

“The card, the card.” He puffs and pops his pale lips. “Yes. It’s almost as if you knew what you were doing, saving her.” He turns one of his dark eyes toward Jak. “One even wonders if you set her up in the first place.”

On this, Jak stays silent. He tries not to quake in his boots.

But then the scumlord claps his big hands together and waggles his pointed fingers. “Either way, I admire your
take-charge
attitude. You give me the card, I’ll give you a birthday present. But it’s a present that comes with a price tag, as all presents do. This price is not just another year added onto your life—the usual price for another year on this world—but something bigger. Longer. A different life. A life with me.”

“I…”

“You can go. Think about it. Talk to your family. Ask your house gods. But that is my condition. Lazula already told me what you want, and I know what I want as recompense.”

“I have no family.” He has only a jar of ash with his father’s name on it. And as for house gods…they never had those. Dad never believed. “I saved Lazula. That should be enough.”

“It’s enough for me not to gut you like a pipe-weasel.”

“…oh.”

“Yes. Oh. You want the weapon you seek, you join the team.”

“I’m in.”

Those two words, spoken without hesitation—a lack of hesitation that surprises even him.

The Iktotchi smiles. “Good. Then you shall have your weapon. Why do you need it? What is your plan?”

I’m going to knock out all the power to Coco-Town.
But he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t explain how the Anklebiter Brigade—kids younger than him fighting for the rebels—know all the bolt-holes and tunnels in that part of the city. How they know one such access port hidden in the back of old, defunct Dex’s Diner—and how if one were to sneak into and through that tunnel, one could theoretically plant an EMP device underneath the Imperial front lines, knocking out their power. Their eyes. Their ears. Their cannons.

All he says is, “It’s my birthday, but really, it’s a present for the Empire. A cake I’m baking them.”
And when the power is all out and they’re fumbling around in the dark, I’m going to pop up out of nowhere and put a blaster shot right in Commander Orkin Kaw’s back.
Then he will finally have his vengeance against the man who took his father from him. Because the battle—this war—still rages. And Coruscant is not yet won.

Adea hurries along the long hallway, her feet echoing on the tile floors. She stares down at the screen in her hand, pulling up maps of the satrap’s palace, trying to figure out where the captive may have gone. Ahead, a quartet of stormtroopers intersects her, then keeps moving down a perpendicular hallway. To the side, a few serving girls hide in an alcove, watching, waiting, frightened.

In the quiet, if she listens, Adea can hear the sounds of the crowd outside. A dull rush, like blood in the ears. She wonders how long it’ll be before someone breaches the walls. Maybe even clambering up through the broken tower, the one shattered by the laser turret.

No time to worry about that.

Focus on the present
problem,
she thinks.

The palace map hovers in the air before her, a small holograph. She splays her fingers out and the map grows larger, and she touches an area to zoom in. The captive pilot had to have left the room and then—? No ductwork to speak of. Everything is open and obvious. Big halls and staircases. The problem isn’t that everything is open, the problem is that the palace is
so large.
It would take her a full day just to walk every centimeter of it—up, down, all around. He could be hiding anywhere.

And what’s this? Here. A fragment of a passage behind the walls. Flickering. A secret passage. Or the start of one.

Adea realizes: They’re dealing with an incomplete map. The satrap has furnished them with a map that fails to show the clandestine passages—

Movement from her right.

Someone runs fast, catches her shoulder, spins her around—

She cries out as the small blaster she keeps in the holster right at the base of her spine is snatched away.

The captive stands only a meter away, with her pistol in his hand. Captain Wedge Antilles. His hair a muss. Eyes unfocused. His pallor is the color of ash, greasy and slick with sweat.

“That holoscreen,” he says. “I need it.”

“No,” she says. Lifting her chin. Trying to look tough.

“See this blaster? I need that screen. And I need you to open comm channels. You can do that, can’t you?”

Her mouth forms a flat, resolute line. “No.”

“You’re lying.”

“What if I am?”

He laughs. Exasperated. Tired. He’s in pain. He says, “I want you to think about this really hard. All this? The Empire? It’s over. This is the end. You help me and I won’t forget that. Nobody here has to know. Say I overpowered you. You don’t look like a soldier. Or an officer. Do the smart thing. Help me. Give me that screen.”

Hesitantly, she nods.

Whimpering, she leans forward, starts to hand him the screen.

He reaches for it.

Adea sneers, and turns the screen toward him, sliding her thumb along the side to jack up the brightness all the way so that the projector lights shine right in his eyes. He shields them, crying out—

Adea doesn’t run. She thinks:
This is my moment. I capture him. I earn favor with Sloane and the others. I fix her mistake. I’m a hero.

She lunches in, knees him in the gut. Her hands lash out, catch his wrist, and she gives it a twist—she’s practiced in self-defense, having trained in the Imperial martial arts: a combination of Zavat,
echani,
and good-old-fashioned ICE—Imperial Combat Exercises, the same training that every stormtrooper and officer gets. The blaster drops out of the pilot’s hand.

But Wedge, he’s fast. Even in his condition. His other hand stabs out, catches the dropped blaster. She drives her head forward, catching him right in the nose with the flat of her skull—

Crunch.

He cries out.

The blaster goes off.

And pain fires through her. Adea staggers back. In her left leg, a hole from the blaster smokes. Wisps of smoke coil upward from the wound. Her whole leg goes numb and she tumbles to the floor.

The rebel scum says: “I’m sorry. I am.”

Then he scoops up the holoscreen and hobbles off.

Adea cries out, calling for help, screaming that the interloper is here. And then she just crumples up and cries because she failed. Her chance to do right by the Empire has gone so very wrong.

Jas stands at the doorway to Temmin’s shop. The journey here was not an easy one, though it should’ve been. Akivans stream past. Some of them are carrying signs. On the way here, she saw an effigy of the satrap. Out there, right now: a clumsy scarecrow that looks like the dark Imperial enforcer Darth Vader. Someone sets it on fire and it burns. Black smoke rising from underneath, fire consuming the Sith lord scarecrow.

This city is a keg of cordylleum about to go
boom
.

She didn’t make this happen, but she and the others definitely measured out the fuse and handed out matches.

Part of her is proud: This is her operating at a much higher level. This is Jas wielding an entire city population as a weapon against her target. She’s used to manipulating people, but this? This is magnified. This is something sublime. The other side of it is, she’s so used to working alone. Auntie Sugi always had a crew, not to mention a soft spot for the downtrodden. Farmers and slaves and fools.

Jas always figured that for weakness. Maybe it wasn’t.

She looks behind her. Inside the shop, Norra and Sinjir work together. The boy, Temmin, had to make a side trip: He said he didn’t keep his maps in the shop, just in case. Had to go to his “hidey-hole nook-and-cubby” (his words, not hers) to get them. So he and his lunatic droid went off.

I’m using these people to accomplish my goals.
That’s what this is, isn’t it? They’re not her crew. They’re tools, same as any hydrospanner or Harris wrench. That’s what she tells herself to harden against their loss. Because smart credits say that someone won’t survive this mission. They already almost lost Norra. Another will fall.

She tries to ignore how that makes her feel.

She tries to ignore that it makes her feel anything at all.

This is a job. You hold no allegiance to the New Republic or to this particular pack of freaks and deviants. They are not your people. You are not their people. Get the work done, get paid, get out.

That’s what her head tells her.

But why does her heart tell her something else?

“Here we go,” Norra says, bringing up a box and plunking it down on the table.

Sinjir leans over, sees what she’s bringing up, then backpedals away. “That is an
entire box
of thermal detonators.”

“I didn’t think they were snow globes.”

“Can I trust you not to blow us up? You handle those things like a dockworker dropping off a case of potted bantha meat.”

She laughs. He frowns as she sizes him up and says: “You weren’t a soldier, were you?”

“All are soldiers in service to Empire,” he says wryly.

“Uh-huh. I mean, front-line soldier. Gun up. Taking blaster fire. Look—thermal detonators don’t go off until you activate them.” She picks up the box and gives it a shake. He winces, waiting to be blown to his constituent molecules. “They don’t go boom if you jostle them. I could kick one and it wouldn’t go off. Until you prime them, these things are basically just shiny rocks.”

He clears his throat. “You’ll forgive me if I stay a few meters away from that box of ‘shiny rocks’ at all times, then.”

“Just trust me: We’re safe.” But now she stops and folds her arms. He can see she’s got something on her mind.

“Go on. Say it. Unburden your soul.”

“I…”

“Spill it, Norra.”

“You can trust me. Can I trust you?”

“With thermal detonators?”

“With my life.”

“Oh. That.” He arches his eyebrow so high, he expects it’s hovering above his hairline. “You mean because I was an Imperial.”

“The Empire doesn’t do betrayal very well. Its people are loyal because they know what happens if they’re not. I’m your enemy. And you’re mine. That kind of thing isn’t easy to shake.”

He snaps his fingers. “See there? You’re right, but you’re also wrong. Those loyal to the Empire are loyal because they know what will happen to them if they betray it. That much is true. And do you know why that is, Norra Wexley? That’s because of
me.
I was a loyalty officer. Are you aware of the responsibilities of an Imperial loyalty officer?”

“I confess that I’m not.”

“Oh, it’s a truly charming role. I was trained to sniff out weakness in my cohorts. I learned how to read body language, how to detect lies, how to use people against one another, all in order to discover where my own people had committed trespasses against the Empire. Anything from small breaches of conduct to outright treachery against the throne. I was the shadow they couldn’t shake. You put me in a base or battle station or office and they knew they were on notice. I’d scare up what they’d done like a hunter flushing prey from the brush. And I’d hurt them to earn a confession and correct the errors. Oh, it wasn’t just physical pain I caused, though that was certainly a part of it. It was emotional pain. Can I tell you a story?”

“Temmin’s not yet returned, so—have at it.”

He leans back against a table. As he tells the story, his long nimble fingers gesture along with it. “Most of the people I hurt were people I didn’t much care for. Some were brutes, others were cowards, and all of them were people I was happy to hobble on behalf of the Emperor. But that wasn’t always the case. Take, for example, young Gunnery Officer Rilo Tang. Rilo: an eager officer. Eyes bright like polished credits. A beautiful man. Pretty like a sunrise. Sweet like a jifcake. And
sneaky
like a
monkey-lizard.
”

“I don’t follow.”

“He was a thief, you see.”

“What did he steal?”

Sinjir laughs and cocks his head. “Well, that’s the thing. Nothing particularly important. It was a compulsion of his, I suspect. Grabby hands picking up anything that wasn’t nailed down. Mostly he stole the personal effects of others. Silly things. Holopics and ID tags and—by the stars, one time I remember he stole a private’s pair of shoes. Why do that?”

Norra narrows her eyes. “I’d ask the same. Why?”

“Best guess given his psych profile? Parents often sent their troubled children to the Imperial academies. An act meant to be corrective, as they assumed we could shape their sloppy, insubordinate progeny into something resembling a proper galactic citizen. The reality was often that those types washed out. Forcibly so. The Empire wanted its own heroes, not its own freak show. I suspect Rilo was like that.”

“What happened to him?”

“We warned him.
I
warned him. Again and again. And then one day he stole something from a moff—a ring. A ring the moff said was personal to him, meaningful, but I realized had encoded information in its scrollwork, though that’s a story for another day. So I was forced to…deal with Rilo in order to solicit his confession.”

There. That look on Norra’s face. Up until now she’d been following along with curiosity, but suddenly: That look falls away like bark off a dead tree. What’s left is a cold, empty stare. One of horror.

“You killed him,” she says.

“No. Oh, no, no. You misread me. I wasn’t the executioner. I was the confessor. The secret police. I found the evidence, and then someone else signed the warrant and someone else beyond that pushed you out of the air lock. Or hanged you or put you in front of a firing squad, or, or, or. But to elicit that confession, I had to break many bones on this beautiful boy’s body. I don’t know if they killed him. I heard rumors he ended up working the trash compactors. What matters is that his face would never look the same. His beauty, his vigor? Gone. And that was my fault.”

“You were a bad man.”

“Still am, maybe, though I’m trying to do better. But that’s not why I’m telling you this story. The reason I’m telling you this is that you think you’re my enemy, and that’s not true, not at all. The Empire is my enemy. The Empire has always been my enemy. I hunted my own kind. I hurt them. I was made to doubt them, to see the weakness in them. And I saw
so much
weakness and ruination. In them.”
And in myself.
“They were my enemy then and remain my enemy now. I’ve just scrapped the uniform.”