[Last Of The Jedi] - 07 (7 page)

“You’ve received your instructions,” Tarkin said. “I hope that all of you are happy with the arrangements the Empire made for your families.”

It was as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. The looks of impatience and condescension on the scientist’s faces changed to fear. Ferus could smell it.

He realized what it meant. The Empire had taken their families. They were holding them hostage to ensure the scientists’ cooperation.

The woman in the burgundy tunic spoke up. Her voice was pitched low and did not tremble. “Will we be allowed to contact them?”

“Visits will be arranged. As long as you are able to focus on your work. You’ll submit regular reports of your progress to me.”

When no one objected, Tarkin continued. “All of this is being done to facilitate new strides in research and discovery. You are privileged to be in a position to assist the Empire.” He nodded toward the back of the room. “Bring in the press.”

This was Ferus’s cue. He stepped behind a pillar and Waited until the press obediently streamed in, then trailed behind them. He knew what was expected of him. He was present in order to convince them that knuckling under to the Empire was inevitable, even for so-called resistance heroes. He went and sat next to Darth Vader. He watched as Tarkin continued as the official spokesperson, touting the group as a think tank called the Bellassan Project, which would hurtle Bellassa into the future with advanced technological discoveries, all of which would benefit the planet. The scientists had agreed to take up residence on Bellassa for an unspecified period, out of their great desire to join this ambitious and unparalleled voyage into research and discovery.

Blah-blab, Ferus thought. It was an expression of Trever’s.

“As you can see, the great Bellassan hero Ferus Olin is here to facilitate the transition,” Tarkin continued.

Ferus fought against the revulsion that rose in him. He saw the floating HoloNet news camera trained on his face. He made himself think of nothing so that his face would look blank. He did not want to give the impression that he was pleased, nor did he want to give Vader grounds to complain about him.

He had to play the game. Now, in addition to Twilight, he had to find out the Empire’s real plans for Bellassa. Were the two things linked? What was the top-secret project the scientists had been recruited for?

Ferus climbed into the Imperial airspeeder with the rest of the security crew. They sped through the streets of Ussa back to the Bluestone Lake District at the center of the city. The garrison, a blight on the landscape, rose from the former Commons. Once the Commons had been green parkland that rolled for kilometers, a central place for Ussans to gather.

“Hangar’s full,” the pilot said. “You’ll have to walk from here.”

Ferus got out with the others. He’d walked across this green thousands of times in what felt like a former life. He started down the slate walkway to the garrison. The others fell into step around him in what he knew was a flanking maneuver to keep him from turning off.

Ahead he saw a splotch of paint on the sidewalk, as though someone had been walking with a dripping can. Ferus counted to twenty-five and saw another red splotch. Then another twenty-five. A yellow one.

Impatiently, the officers hurried ahead. He was left with the stormtroopers. No doubt they had their orders to surround him. He felt the shoulder of the guard next to him brush his own. His footsteps matched theirs. They were subtly guiding him toward the garrison entrance just a few meters away.

But the marks told him he had to ditch them somehow. It was a code so ingrained in him it was like a voice in his ear.

Roan needed to see him.

Bog Divinian bounced on the chair in his new office on Rosha. It was a silly indulgence he allowed himself when no one was around. He couldn’t believe he was actually here, a ruler of a whole system. Of course Samaria was only a two-planet system, but it was in the Core, and it was a start.

He looked out the window and down on the ruins of the city. The smoke was still thick over the buildings. He had already drawn up plans to rebuild the city. Or, rather, he had ordered someone to find someone to do it. It was worth nothing to the Emperor in the state it was in now. Rosha had the technical expertise that was sorely needed by the Empire, so he would have to get it back up to speed. He couldn’t risk losing this position. He knew the invasion hadn’t gone well. It had been a bit heavy-handed.

But all in all, he was doing well. Very well.

A passing cloud rendered the window opaque, and he saw himself reflected. For a moment, he looked old. There had been too many long nights lately. He had shadows under his eyes, and was that a sagging at his jawline? Politics could age you. But politicians couldn’t afford to look old. He’d have to find time to sneak away and tighten up a few things. Soon.

Bog swiveled back and forth in the chair, his buoyant mood flattened. Just when he started to think he had his hands full of riches, he would suddenly remember something he didn’t have, and he would crash back down into unhappiness again. It was a lonely feeling.

It was all Astri’s fault. He’d had a family, and she’d stolen it.

He’d won the political game, but somehow Astri had outsmarted him and spirited Lune away. He had spies working for him, trying to track her down, but she’d simply vanished from the Fountain Towers in Sath, flying off with a mysterious group, no doubt helped by the resistance.

He reached for his comlink and contacted Sano Sauro. Sauro had messed up badly and had been demoted, but Bog had learned never to kick down the ladder that had boosted him to the top. You never knew when you’d need the ladder again.

Sauro took his communication immediately, which was pleasant. Now that Bog was Imperial governor, he wouldn’t have to scrounge for attention.

Sauro was still a Senator because he could be counted on to vote strictly as the Emperor wanted him to, but he was no longer head of powerful committees, no longer a known politician with Palpatine’s ear. Now he was merely in charge of the Imperial Naval Academy, which amused Bog to no end. Sauro was practically a nursemaid!

“Hello, Bog,” Sauro said. “How is the governorship coming?”

Bog could hear the poison in his tone. Sauro was probably being eaten alive by jealousy. He’d thought he was smarter than Bog and would rise faster under the new government. What he hadn’t valued was Bog’s gut instincts. That made him smarter than all the rest of those know-it-alls.

“Coming along,” Bog answered shortly. “Lots to do, busy time here. Trying to unite the planet, get them on board with the Empire.”

“Of course.”

“Any word on our project?”

“None. But I’ve tapped into the SAM database.”

“What’s that?”

“Suspicious Movement. Acronym SM. Nickname SAM. Stormtroopers and spies patrol Coruscant and keep their eyes open for suspicious activity. Do spot ID checks. It also goes on within worlds occupied by the

Empire. Governors set up the programs. They all go into one database and are cross-referenced and crosschecked. Then the head security officer decides on surveillance. I have clearance for the database now. I thought you’d know about SAM, Bog.”

Sauro was leaning on his name, just a little bit. Just to show that they were still close associates. Bog wondered if he could ask Sauro to call him Governor.

“Oh, of course,” he said quickly. “I just didn’t get the lingo.”

“Right. Anyway, I’ve got reports coming in daily, and I go through them personally. Any leads, I’ll let you know.”

“How’d you do that? Get access to the database? Let’s face it, your clearance must have been bumped down to almost zero, Sano-Mano.” Bog allowed himself a small laugh.

“This is a naval academy,” Sauro said in a voice like a carbon-freezer. “I’m still heading the search for any Force-adepts to join it. I have a valuable friendship with Hydra.”

The new Grand Inquisitor. How had Sauro managed it? He wasn’t a guy you’d want to spend time with. Yet he managed to collect more favors and alliances than even Bog. Which was one reason to keep him happy.

“All right, then. Keep me in the know. And I’ll pass on what a good job you’re doing, next time I speak to Emperor Palpatine.” Bog didn’t usually speak to him, actually. But he was sure he would be, now that he was governor of an important system.

“Your generosity has always been overwhelming,” Sauro said.

Bog felt flattered, even if he wasn’t sure Sauro was being sincere. “Well, you know, the galaxy is big. Lots going on. We’ve got to keep each other in the loop. Help where we can.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

Bog sensed that Sauro was about to sign off, so he quickly turned off his comlink so he could be the one to break the communication. Then he stabbed at the button for his assistant and asked him to find out why that SAM program hadn’t been set up on Rosha. Unless it already had been, and the notation was buried in those reports he kept meaning to read.

Until then, he had Sauro on the line.

“I haven’t been lucky since the Emperor took over,” Solace said in a low tone to her companions. “I forgot what it feels like.”

“It feels gleaming good ” Clive said. “That’s all I know. It’s about time we caught a break”

He and Astri huddled with Solace in an alley. Clive had investigated some old contacts on Coruscant. One of the contacts had clued him in on a network of residence inns that would accept those on the run from the Empire. The group had left surveillance devices outside of each inn. Three levels below the Orange District, they hit paydirt.

It was nothing more than a shadow on the surveillance playback. A figure who leaped from a building a hundred meters away, landed lightly on the roof, then entered the building through an open window. Solace had seen the image and breathed Jedi. Immediately they had staked it out. No one had come in or out, through the front door or the windows or the roof.

“It’s time to take a look,” Solace said. “I doubt I can surprise a Jedi, but if I can get close enough they’ll see that I’m a Jedi, too. I’d like to avoid tangling with one unnecessarily.”

“Good point,” Clive said. “You go first.”

Solace arched an eyebrow at him, then Force-leaped to a ledge fifty meters up.

“Show-off,” Clive said.

From high above, Solace looked down on Astri and Clive. She hoped they would stay out of the way.

From that vantage point, she spied the window she’d seen on the surveillance feed. Solace leaped over the distance and into the open window.

She stood in a narrow hallway, listening to the quality of the silence. It was a trick she’d honed on countless, tedious sessions at the Temple. She’d only been a human. She didn’t have the kind of extrasensory powers she’d seen in other species. So she’d worked on her senses for endless hours. She’d discovered that her hearing was above average, so she’d focused on that. She’d drilled and drilled, entering thousands of different sounds into the computer, turning down the volume lower and lower to identify them, until she could hear a fly land on a wall twenty meters away. Concentrate. Differentiate. The slight hum of the air control vents, the distant whine of the lift tube. A cough behind the door of 1257. Someone turned over on a sleep couch in the room directly opposite her. In the room next to that, a towel slipped off a rod and fell to the floor. It was picked up and re-hung.

Then she heard what she was waiting for.

The slither of rough fabric against the leather of a belt as someone moved. The slight, unmistakable metallic click as an object was unclipped.

He knew she was here.

Solace went carefully down the hallway, stopping outside the door she wanted. There was only one way to announce herself, one way to let the being on the other side of the door know she meant him no harm.

She unclipped her lightsaber, activated it, and buried it in the door.

A heartbeat later, three things happened simultaneously. A lightsaber came through the door from the other side.

Well, hello, she said in her head.

She was still smiling as stormtroopers charged out of the lift tube. At the same moment, Clive and Astri climbed in the hallway window.

“Stormtroopers!” Astri shouted.

“No kidding!” Solace yelled back.

The blasterfire streaked down the hallway. Solace pulled her lightsaber out of the molten metal doorway and began advancing, her lightsaber dancing. She didn’t know what the Jedi on the other side of the door would do, but a little help would be nice. But no one arrived.

The stormtroopers released two droidekas in wheel mode. No Jedi wanted to tangle with a droideka. They were hard to shut down, and their double-barreled blaster cannonfire could give even a Jedi a battle headache. Solace leaped out of the way, trying to figure out a way to get past the deflector shields without being blown to bits.

Another stormtrooper rolled a grenade down toward her. Solace kicked it back with one foot while leaping up to take down the seeker droid overhead. More stormtroopers poured out of the lift tube. The grenade exploded, sending three of them flying.

She certainly had her hands full.

Thanks a lot, whoever you are, Solace thought. The Jedi had obviously escaped out of the room through the window.

Well, the galaxy had changed, and the remaining Jedi had changed along with it. It was every Jedi for himself or herself now.

Wasn’t that what she’d told Ferus?

A spasm of blasterfire came a little close for comfort. Her battle mind had slipped for a moment. It wasn’t like her to start thinking in the middle of a battle. That could be deadly.

Suddenly a tall human male came swinging out of the turbolift shaft. Solace didn’t get a glimpse of his face, hidden in the shadows of a hood. But his lightsaber work was extraordinary. The stormtroopers were surrounded now, and Solace and the mysterious Jedi moved as a team. The tall Jedi was obviously familiar with droidekas. He charged, his lightsaber in a spinning arc, and with deft precision struck them at a vulnerable point Solace hadn’t known existed, underneath their shell, near their repulsorlift motors.