Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (41 page)

"Who's
going in?" asked Larin over the internal comm.

"Shigar
and I, " said Master Satele, "and Envoy Vii. "

Ula
swallowed. "I fear I can be of little use, " he started to
say, but was cut off by Larin.

"You'll
need a bodyguard, " she said. "Just for appearances. "

"All
right. "

"And
take Clunker, too, " said Jet. "I'll watch through his
eyes. "

"Can
you and Hetchkee pilot the ship on your own, if you have to?"

"In
a pinch, " said the smuggler. "With the right incentive, I
could fly a battle cruiser on my own. "

"Very
well, then. Maintain the umbilical seal, but close the ship once we
have disembarked. Leave on my signal, whether we're aboard or not. "

"Don't
worry about that, " the smuggler told her. "I'll dust off
if you so much as twitch funny. "

Ula
sought distraction in telemetry as the ship settled lightly on the
low-gravity moon. Sebaddon hadn't launched any missiles since the
last round. The main hot spot had been made considerably hotter by
retaliatory fire, and activity was growing in other regions as well.
It looked to him as though the occupants of the planet were
regrouping in order to fight back, but it was hard to tell from such
a distance. Every spy drone launched by the Republic fleet had been
intercepted by the orbital halo of hexes and destroyed.

Maybe,
he told himself, he could slip a message of some kind to his opposite
number in the Imperial party. That was a small and unlikely hope to
cling to.

With
a series of clanks and thumps, the ship's belly grapnels took a firm
grip on the dusty soil outside. The whine of repulsorlifts faded
away. Jet took his hands off the controls and leaned back into the
seat. For all his bluster, he looked exhausted, or at least hung
over. His prematurely gray hair stood up on one side, and his eyes
were heavily bagged.

"I'll
mind the farm until you get back, " he told them. "Don't do
anything I wouldn't do. "

Ula
stood, hoping against hope that the Grand Master would change her
mind. No such good fortune. She was already heading down the cockpit
ladder, trailing Shigar like a pet. Ula waved Clunker ahead of him.

"Good
luck, " Jet told him.

"You
didn't say that to the others. "

"I
figure they don't need it. "

"Thanks
for the vote of confidence. "

Jet
grinned. "You'll be okay. Just remember: you've got an
unbeatable advantage. "

"What's
that?"

"The
ability to see both sides at once. "

Ula
didn't know what to say to that, or to the many other hints Jet had
dropped indicating that he knew what Ula was. Ula had never had the
courage to ask outright-not even during the long hours when he and
the smuggler had sat waiting for Shigar to make good on his
psychometric promise. Whether it was true or not that Jet had
guessed, Ula would rather it was never said aloud. His life relied on
pretense. Once it was gone, he didn't know what that would leave him.

So
he just nodded and headed down the stairs to meet the others at the
air lock, wondering how anyone in his position could be considered
advantaged. He felt like he was being pulled in a dozen directions.
If he wasn't careful, one sharp tug might tear him to pieces.

*
* *

Ax
walked the short distance along the umbilical with measured fury. She
burned to be back in her interceptor rather than wasting her time
with Mandalorians and envoys again. It was as bad as being back on
Hutta, only this time she had no clear advantage to hope for. All she
could think of was the work she should have been doing at that
moment-protecting the fleet from hexes, at least, or maybe even
preparing an attack force to wipe Stryver from the sky. She didn't
like coming to him when called, like some kind of menial.

"You
will speak to the meddling Mandalorian on my behalf, " her
Master had told her.

"But
Master..."

"Do
I need to explain to you again what your duty is? It is to serve the
Emperor, through me, his instrument. When you defy me, you defy him.
"

And
that was the problem, of course. She had defied him, by ignoring his
orders during the hexes' attack on Hutta. Now she was being punished
for it, while he waited comfortably half frozen in the secret room in
his shuttle. Whether her defiance had served the fleet or not was
irrelevant. She could only forget all about doing anything
constructive-let alone to the betterment of the Empire-until Darth
Chratis changed his mind.

"I'm
here, " she said when she reached the First Blood's external air
lock. Her right hand fiddled with the hilt of her lightsaber. "Don't
keep me waiting, Stryver. "

The
door hissed open. A token escort followed her into the ship- three
soldiers in formal black-and-grays. She didn't look behind her to
make sure they were keeping up. As a deliberate act of defiance aimed
at both Stryver and her Master, she hadn't changed out of her combat
uniform. It stank of oil and smoke and combat, exactly like Stryver's
ship. Her hair swayed heavily down her back, like thick rope.

The
First Blood had a low profile, head-on, but was surprisingly spacious
inside. Its walls were ribbed rather than sealed with flat panels;
sometimes there were no gaps at all delineating corridor from hold.
Wiring and components were occasionally exposed-all, she supposed, in
an effort to keep weight down. She also assumed that anything secret
was kept well out of sight, so she didn't trouble herself with
memorizing what she saw. She just walked, following the sound of
voices leading to the center of the vessel.

"...
understand why you need all of us at once. Can't you tell us now?"

Ax
knew that voice. She had heard it on Hutta. It belonged to a
near-human who had fought on the Republic side, although clearly not
a trooper herself. What was she doing here?

"I
don't like repeating myself, " said another familiar voice: the
deep, vocoder-inflected tones of Dao Stryver.

Ax
walked around a thick pillar of cables acting as conduit and support,
and found herself in the main cabin. It was a circular room with
glowing white floor and ceiling, and a central holoprojector. Stryver
stood to Ax's left, helmet just clearing the relatively high ceiling.
To his left were a motley group of people, including several more
individuals Ax recognized: the Republic envoy, a droid she had seen
hanging around Tassaa Bareesh's security air lock, and the Jedi
Padawan. Next to him stood a woman she hadn't met before, but
instantly recognized.

Ax
stopped on entering the room, a wary hiss unconsciously escaping from
between her teeth. The air was thick with the enemy's self-
righteousness, concentrated mainly around the slight woman with the
gray streak wearing the robes of a Jedi Knight. No mere Jedi Knight,
she. The Grand Master of the High Council herself! Darth Chratis
would grind his crystalline teeth in frustration at missing such a
close encounter with the Emperor's most hated toe. To slay her would
bring Ax considerable fame and fortune among those tavored by the
Dark Council.

Ax
forced her hand to leave her hilt alone. For all her ambition, Ax
knew that she could not single-handedly beat both Master and Padawan.
She would have to strike with words instead of her blade.

"The
Jedi Order must be weak indeed, " she said, "for the Grand
Master and a youngling to jump on a Mandalorian's whim. "

The
Padawan, Shigar, stiffened at her description of him as a child. "Not
so weak, " he said, "that I didn't save your life at least
once on Hutta. "

"You
are mistaken, " she said, feeling heat rise up her neck.

"Am
I? I'll try harder not to be, next time. "

"Enough,
" said the Grand Master, and the Padawan obeyed her instantly.
"We're all here now, Stryver. Get on with it. "

"I
do not take your orders, Grand Master, " said the Mandalorian.
"Nonetheless, you have a point. I have brought you here to show
you something. "

The
holoprojector between them flickered into life. Ax recognized the
globe of Sebaddon, with its tiny, gem-like lakes scattered among
irregular, continent-sized bulges of heat. Magma seams glowed orange,
forming a tracery that on other worlds might have been rivers.
Several blue circles at the intersections of such traceries indicated
settlements or industrial centers. Ax recognized the one Darth
Chratis had bombed when the Paramount was attacked, and many others.
Some that she remembered weren't visible at all.

"This
is how Sebaddon looked when I arrived six hours before you, "
Stryver said. "This is how it looked when you arrived. "

There
was a clear difference: many of the missing hot spots were now
present; the brightest were brighter still.

"This
is how it looks now. "

Ax
didn't need to study what she already knew. "Your point?"

"They
work fast, " said the Padawan. "That's what Jet said when
we arrived. He thought the colony was about twenty years old. "

"It
can't be more than fifteen, " said Ax, remembering how long it
had been since Lema Xandret defected.

"It's
actually much less than that, " Stryver said, resting his giant,
gloved hands on the edge of the holoprojector and leaning over the
image. "Study this sequence of images carefully and you'll see
that the colony expanded five percent since I arrived. If you project
that rate of growth backward in time, that gives a founding date of
about three weeks ago. "

"Impossible,
" she said.

"That's
around when the Cinzia was intercepted, " said Ula.

"So
what? It's still impossible. "

"Is
it?" Stryver said. "Lema Xandret chose this colony partly
because of its wealth of resources. With an army of willing workers
and a means of making new ones, why couldn't she do whatever else she
wanted?"

"If
the colony could grow so quickly, why is it still so small?"

"That's
a good question, Eldon Ax. You should know your mother better than
anyone else here. What do you think?"

Instead
of blushing, Ax felt her face grow cold and taut. "Start talking
sense, man, or I'm leaving. "

Both
of Stryver's index fingers tapped heavily, just once, and for the
first time Ax noted that he had only four fingers on each hand.

Not
exactly a man, then, she thought. But who cares about that?

"I've
been watching all of you, " he said, "while you blunder
about getting yourselves killed. That's the advantage of being first
on the field of battle. Instead of testing Sebaddon's defenses
myself, I sat back and watched you do it. It has been an interesting
experiment, one that confirmed my previous observations. The
inhabitants of Sebaddon are unwilling even to talk about opening
their borders to outsiders- particularly the Empire-and they are
capable of defending themselves when pushed. "

"We
were taken by surprise, " said Ax. "That won't happen, next
time. "

"If
you wait too long, surprise won't be the only thing you have to worry
about. "

"What
do you mean?" asked Satele Shan.

"How
long will it take you to call for reinforcements? You can't call, so
it's a two-way trip to send a messenger. Then a fleet has to be
assembled. The larger the fleet, the more time you'll need. And with
each hour, Sebaddon is converting more of its precious metals to
machines of war. More than thirty ships tailed today. How long until
fifty ships isn't enough? A hundred? A thousand?"

Ax
sneered. "No single planet could withstand the might of the
Imperial war machine. "

"I
might agree, if the Imperial war machine was available. But it's
currently stretched across all the galaxy, thin and vulnerable, and
the same can be said for the Republic's. Furthermore, we all know
that neither would come if we called. They would think your concerns
exaggerated. They are more interested in fighting each other than
this single, isolated threat. "

"Is
it a threat?" asked Shigar. "Xandret won't talk to us, but
at least she's stopped firing now we've moved away. Why don't we give
her what she wants and leave her alone?"