Into the Void: Star Wars (Dawn of the Jedi) (48 page)

Read on for an excerpt from a
Star Wars
novel set in the Rise of the Empire era.

T
he light freighter
Bargain Hunter
moved through space, silver-gray against the blackness, the light of the distant
stars reflecting from its hull. Its running lights were muted, its navigational beacons
quiet, its viewports for the most part as dark as the space around it.

Its drive gunning for all it was worth.

“Hang on!” Dubrak Qennto barked over the straining roar of the engines. “Here he comes
again!”

Clenching his teeth firmly together to keep them from chattering, Jorj Car’das got
a grip on his seat’s armrest with one hand as he finished punching coordinates into
the nav computer with the other. Just in time; the
Bargain Hunter
jinked hard to the left as a pair of brilliant green blaster bolts burned past the
bridge canopy. “Car’das?” Qennto called. “Snap it up, kid.”

“I’m snapping, I’m snapping,” Car’das called back, resisting the urge to point out
that the outmoded nav equipment was Qennto’s property, not his. As was the lack of
diplomacy and common sense that had gotten them into this mess in the first place.
“Can’t we just talk to them?”

“Terrific idea,” Qennto bit out. “Be sure to compliment
Progga on his fairness and sound business sense. That always works on Hutts.”

The last word was punctuated by another cluster of blaster shots, this group closer
than the last. “Rak, the engines can’t hold this speed forever,” Maris Ferasi warned
from the copilot’s seat, her dark hair flashing with green highlights every time a
shot went past.

“Doesn’t have to be forever,” Qennto said with a grunt. “Just till we have some numbers.
Car’das?”

On Car’das’s board a light winked on. “Ready,” he called, punching the numbers over
to the pilot’s station. “It’s not a very long jump, though—”

He was cut off by a screech from somewhere aft, and the flashing blaster bolts were
replaced by flashing starlines as the
Bargain Hunter
shot into hyperspace.

Car’das took a deep breath, let it out silently. “This is
not
what I signed up for,” he muttered to himself. Barely six standard months after signing
on with Qennto and Maris, this was already the second time they’d had to run for their
lives from someone.

And this time it was a
Hutt
they’d frizzled. Qennto, he thought darkly, had a genuine talent for picking his
fights.

“You okay, Jorj?”

Car’das looked up, blinking away a drop of sweat that had somehow found its way into
his eye. Maris was swiveled around in her chair, looking back at him with concern.
“I’m fine,” he said, wincing at the quavering in his voice.

“Of course he is,” Qennto assured Maris as he also turned around to look at their
junior crewer. “Those shots never even got close.”

Car’das braced himself. “You know, Qennto, it may not be my place to say this—”

“It isn’t; and don’t,” Qennto said gruffly, turning back to his board.

“Progga the Hutt is
not
the sort of person you want
mad at you,” Car’das said anyway. “I mean, first there was that Rodian—”

“A word about shipboard etiquette, kid,” Qennto cut in, turning just far enough to
send a single eye’s worth of glower at Car’das. “You don’t argue with your captain.
Not ever. Not unless you want this to be your first
and
last tour with us.”

“I’d settle for it not being the last tour of my life,” Car’das muttered.

“What was that?”

Car’das grimaced. “Nothing.”

“Don’t let Progga worry you,” Maris soothed. “He has a rotten temper, but he’ll cool
off.”

“Before or after he racks the three of us and takes all the furs?” Car’das countered,
eyeing the hyperdrive readings uneasily. That mauvine nullifier instability was definitely
getting worse.

“Oh, Progga wouldn’t have racked us,” Qennto scoffed. “He’d have left
that
to Drixo when we had to tell her he’d snatched her cargo. You
do
have that next jump ready, right?”

“Working on it,” Car’das said, checking the computer. “But the hyperdrive—”

“Heads up,” Qennto interrupted. “We’re coming out.”

The starlines collapsed back into stars, and Car’das keyed for a full sensor scan.

And jerked as a salvo of blaster shots sizzled past the canopy.

Qennto barked a short expletive. “What the
frizz
?”

“He
followed
us,” Maris said, sounding stunned.

“And he’s got the range,” Qennto snarled as he threw the
Bargain Hunter
into another series of stomach-twisting evasive maneuvers. “Car’das, get us out of
here!”

“Trying,” Car’das called back, fighting to read the computer displays as they bounced
and wobbled in front of his eyes. There was no way it was going to calculate the
next jump before even Qennto’s luck ran out and the fuming Hutt back there finally
connected.

But if Car’das couldn’t find a place for them to go, maybe he could find all the places
for them
not
to go …

The sky directly ahead was full of stars, but there was plenty of empty black between
them. Picking the biggest of the gaps, he punched the vector into the computer. “Try
this one,” he called, keying it to Qennto.

“What do you mean
try
?” Maris asked.

The freighter rocked as a pair of shots caught it squarely on the aft deflector. “Never
mind,” Qennto said before Car’das could answer. He punched the board, and once again
the starlines lanced out and faded into the blotchy hyperspace sky.

Maris exhaled in a huff. “That was
too
close.”

“Okay, so maybe he
is
mad at us,” Qennto conceded. “Now. Like Maris said, kid, what do you mean,
try
this one?”

“I didn’t have time to calculate a proper jump,” Car’das explained. “So I just aimed
us into an empty spot with no stars.”

Qennto swiveled around. “You mean an empty spot with no
visible
stars?” he asked ominously. “An empty spot with no collapsed stars, or pre-star dark
masses, or something hidden behind dust clouds?
That
kind of empty spot?” He waved a hand toward the canopy. “And out toward the Unknown
Regions on top of it?”

“We don’t have enough data in that direction for him to have done a proper calculation
anyway,” Maris said, coming unexpectedly to Car’das’s defense.

“That’s not the point,” Qennto insisted.

“No, the point is that he got us away from Progga,” Maris said. “I think that deserves
at least a thank-you.”

Qennto rolled his eyes. “
Thank
you,” he said. “Such thanks to be rescinded if and when we run through a star you
didn’t see, of course.”

“I think it’s more likely the hyperdrive will blow up first,” Car’das warned. “Remember
that nullifier problem I told you about? I think it’s getting—”

He was cut off by a wailing sound from beneath them, and with a lurch the
Bargain Hunter
leapt forward like a giffa on a scent.

“Running hot!” Qennto shouted, spinning back to his board. “Maris, shut ’er down!”

“Trying,” Maris called back over the wailing as her fingers danced across her board.
“Control lines are looping—can’t get a signal through.”

With a curse, Qennto popped his straps and heaved his bulk out of his seat. He sprinted
down the narrow aisle, his elbow barely missing the back of Car’das’s head as he passed.
Poking uselessly at his own controls, Car’das popped his own strap release and started
to follow.

“Car’das, get up here,” Maris called, gesturing him forward.

“He might need me,” Car’das said as he nevertheless reversed direction and headed
forward.

“Sit,” she ordered, nodding sideways at Qennto’s vacated pilot’s seat. “Help me watch
the tracker—if we veer off this vector before Rak figures out how to pull the plug,
I need to know about it.”

“But Qennto—”

“Word of advice, friend,” she interrupted, her eyes still on her displays. “This is
Rak’s ship. If there are any tricky repairs to be made, he’s the one who’ll make them.”

“Even if I happen to know more about a particular system than he does?”

“
Especially
if you happen to know more about it than he does,” she said drily. “But in this case,
you don’t. Trust me.”

“Fine,” Car’das said with a sigh. “Such trust to be rescinded if and when we blow
up, of course.”

“You’re learning,” she said approvingly. “Now run a
systems check on the scanners and see if the instability’s bled over into them. Then
do the same for the nav computer. Once we get through this, I want to make sure we
can find our way home again.”

It took Qennto over four hours to find a way to shut down the runaway hyperdrive without
slagging it. During that time Car’das offered his help three times, and Maris offered
hers twice. All the offers were summarily refused.

Sometime during the first hour, as near as Car’das could figure from the readings
tumbling across the displays, they left the relatively well-known territory of the
Outer Rim, passing into a shallow section of the far less well-known territory known
as Wild Space. Sometime early in the fourth hour, they left even that behind and crossed
the hazy line into the Unknown Regions.

At which point, where they were or what exactly they were flying into was anyone’s
guess.

But at last the wailing faded away, and a few minutes later the hyperspace sky collapsed
into starlines and then into stars. “Maris?” Qennto’s voice called from the comm panel.

“We’re out,” she confirmed. “Running a location check now.”

“I’ll be right there,” Qennto said.

“Wherever we are, we’re a long way from home,” Car’das murmured, gazing out at a small
but brilliant globular star cluster in the distance. “I’ve never seen anything like
that
from any of the Outer Rim worlds I’ve been to.”

“Me, neither,” Maris agreed soberly. “Hopefully, the computer can sort it out.”

The computer was still sifting data when Qennto reappeared on the bridge. Car’das
had made sure to be back at his own station by then. “Nice cluster,” the big man commented
as he dropped into his seat. “Any systems nearby?”

“Closest one’s about a quarter light-year directly ahead,” Maris said, pointing.

Qennto grunted and punched at his board. “Let’s see if we can make it,” he said. “Backup
hyperdrive should still have enough juice for a jump that short.”

“Can’t we work on the ship just as well out here?” Car’das asked.

“I don’t like interstellar space,” Qennto said distractedly as he set up the jump.
“It’s dark and cold and lonely. Besides, that system up there might have a nice planet
or two.”

“Which means a possible source of supplies, in case we end up staying longer than
we expect,” Maris explained.

“Or a possible place to settle down away from the noise and fluster of the Republic
for a while,” Qennto added.

Car’das felt his throat tighten. “You don’t mean—?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Maris assured him. “Rak always talks about getting away from it
all whenever he’s in trouble with someone.”

“He must talk that way a lot,” Car’das muttered.

“What was that?” Qennto asked.

“Nothing.”

“Didn’t think so. Here we go.” There was a screech, more genteel than the sound from
the
Bargain Hunter
’s main hyperdrive, and the stars stretched out into starlines.

Silently, Car’das counted off the seconds to himself, fully expecting the backup hyperdrive
to crash at any time. But it didn’t, and after a few tense minutes the starlines collapsed
again to reveal a small yellow sun directly ahead.

“There we go,” Qennto said approvingly. “All the comforts of home. You figure out
yet where we are, Maris?”

“Computer’s still working on it,” Maris said. “But it looks like we’re about two hundred
fifty light-years into Unknown Space.” She lifted her eyebrows at him. “I’m thinking
we’re going to have a stack of late-delivery penalties when we finally get to Comra.”