ULA WATCHED WITH mounting dread as the rendezvous point loomed. He was in the worst position imaginable, unable to act against the Republic’s wishes because Satele Shan would immediately overrule him, and unable to reveal his identity to his real masters without blowing his cover. For a wild moment he considered throwing himself on the mercy of the Mandalorians, but sanity, fortunately, prevailed. Stryver had no mercy. The best Ula could have hoped for in his care was slavery.
At least he was alive, he told himself, and had a chance of staying that way if he stepped through this minefield with utmost care.
The Auriga Fire’s blunt nose was angling ahead of the Imperial shuttle on its approach to Sebaddon’s solitary satellite. The moon was blocky and misshapen, more like a brick than a sphere, with a cornucopia of craters and fathomless fissures marring its ugly face. No wonder Stryver had stayed hidden for so long. It didn’t appear to have been mined or booby-trapped, which was a major omission for a colonial administration so keen to remain undisturbed. Ula wondered if they’d simply never thought of it, or if they’d erroneously—but not unreasonably—assumed that they would never be discovered so far from the galactic disk.
The First Blood, Stryver’s scout, anchored itself to the surface of the moon as the two ships approached. It was shaped like a crescent moon, with forward-pointing wings that bristled with weapons and a matte-black, nonreflective skin. There were no markings of any kind, just two glowing circles on either side indicating ready air locks. Jet prepared a docking ring and tube to cross the distance, and jockeyed to approach the starboard air lock. The Imperial pilot noted his intentions and moved to dock on the opposite side. Along with Larin and Hetchkee, Ula watched the shuttle closely for any signs of treachery. The way the Imperials had illegally destroyed the Republic shuttle on Hutta was still painful to him. He expected better.
“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 foe. To slay her would bring Ax considerable fame and fortune among those favored 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 failed 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?”
“Do you really think that’s possible, now?” said the female near-human.
“Why not?” Shigar looked at his Master for support, but she wasn’t giving it to him.
“You are naïve,” said Ax. “This world is too valuable. The Emperor will have it, or no one will.”
“And your mother must be made an example of,” said Stryver, “otherwise the power of the Sith will be eroded.”
“Stop calling her my mother. Lema Xandret is a criminal and a fugitive. There is no possibility that she will escape justice.”
“Would you strike her down yourself, if you could?”
“I would, and I will. She means nothing to me.”
“Good. I believed once that I might reason with her. I believed that I could broker an agreement that would keep her and her creations in check. Now I fear that it is too late for any kind of negotiation. No reasoning or agreement is possible.”
“Has she gone mad?” asked the trooper to Shigar’s right. “If so, there are other options. We could take her out and talk to someone else, for instance.”
“This plan suffers from one small but fatal flaw.”
“That is?” asked the Republic envoy.
“Lema Xandret is already dead. She has been for some time.”
An icy splinter snapped in Ax’s heart at those words, leaving her unable to tell if she felt triumph or grief, or both.
“I THINK IT’S TIME you told us everything you know,” said Master Satele.
“I agree,” said Larin. “Since when do Mandalorians negotiate with anyone?”
Ula remembered Jet telling him, They don’t believe they have any equals.
“You were the person Xandret’s emissaries were hoping to meet,” Ula said. “You came looking for them when they didn’t show up.”
The giant, domed helmet inclined in his direction. “Correct.”
“Was Xandret herself supposed to be aboard the Cinzia?” asked Shigar. “Is that why you think she’s dead?”
“No. She sent another. I believe she was here when she died.”
“So you don’t know for sure?” asked the Sith. Her face had a white, pinched look under her bloodred dreadlocks.
“I am certain of it.”
“Did you kill her? Did you see her body?”
“No.”
“So how can you be certain?”
Stryver tapped his helmet with one gloved finger. Ula couldn’t see the Mandalorian’s face, but was positive he was smiling.
“She means nothing to me,” the young Sith said firmly, as though reassuring herself of the truth of it. “I just want to be certain.”
“Be certain of this, Eldon Ax: when those droids your mother created leave this world, they will consume the entire galaxy in less than a generation.”
Ula blinked. The claim was preposterous, but if Stryver truly believed it, that did explain another puzzling piece of the story.
“So that’s why you were willing to talk to her,” Ula said. “Lema Xandret was a threat or a possible ally—just like the Empire.”
“A force to be reckoned with, potentially,” said Master Satele. “A force we clearly underestimated. But you wouldn’t have taken her word on it. You must have received some kind of proof.”
“A demonstration factory,” said Stryver. “In two days, it manufactured seventeen droids and two duplicates of itself using nothing but the materials around it. The duplicate factories went immediately to work, making another four factories and even more droids. Their rate of reproduction was limited only by the energy available to them; later we discovered how they send out roots to tap into the local supply, ensuring they never run out. Curious, we put the droids in the pit and they prevailed against all but the current champion. Then the droids and factories self-destructed, leaving insufficient remains for us to probe the secrets of their manufacture or function. The message was clear. The Mandalore sent me to pursue the conversation.”
“Why did he send just you?” asked Larin. “You’re not much use to us on your own.”
“I can confirm several hypotheses that you might already be forming. This will save you time so you can begin to act.” Stryver raised his right hand and began ticking off points. “One. Lema Xandret and her fellow refugees arrived on Sebaddon determined to cast off the hierarchy they had left behind. Fifteen years later, hiding was no longer sufficient: Xandret wanted revenge on the people who had stolen her daughter. So she sought out Mandalore to help her. She approached him because my culture eschews the Force. That, after all, was where all this started, with militarized religious cults turning children into monsters.”
Ula didn’t dare look at the young Sith’s face. He didn’t know exactly how the Sith trained their acolytes, but this sounded plausible. He wondered if his Jedi “masters” had a similar system.
“Two.” Stryver’s count continued. “During her self-imposed exile, Xandret and her fellow artisans advanced robotics in directions no one has ever seen before. Finding inspiration and materials in human biology itself, they sought to make droids that would neither age nor grow inflexible and hidebound, so their small colony could last forever. The technical challenges were immense, of course, but they made some progress in unexpected directions. The droids you’ve seen are advanced prototypes called fast breeders. Given enough metal and raw energy, they grow from seeds into fully formed combat versions in a matter of days. The nest on Hutta could have produced dozens of such killers if left undisturbed, and the same is true of the nests on Sebaddon. The hot spots you’ve been observing from above, the ones that look like cities, are in fact droid-building factories. They are churning out fast breeders by the thousand now that the planet’s defenses have been tripped. And not just fast breeders: new factories as well. That is where the true threat lies. This was the weapon she intended to use against the Empire.
“Three. If left unchecked, Xandret’s breeder technology will inevitably outgrow its homeworld and spill out into the galaxy. The math of geometric progression is undeniable: one world this year, two worlds the next; then four, then eight; within a decade it’s two hundred and fifty worlds, then another decade later it’s a quarter of a million. One human generation is all they would need to take over the entire galaxy—along with Sith, Jedi, and Mandalorians alike.
“Four. Negotiation is no longer an option. Xandret put all her prejudices into her droids. You’ve heard their voices. You know what drives them. The only solution is to crush Sebaddon completely. We must be ruthless, decisive, and thorough, in order to ensure that Lema Xandret’s legacy is completely eradicated. Just one nest would be enough to allow all this to start over again.”
Stryver had run out of fingers on his right hand.
“Are you finished?” asked the Sith.
“I will be if this threat isn’t neutralized.”
Stryver’s fists descended to take his weight, knuckle-first, on the side of the holoprojector.
The sphere of Sebaddon turned unstoppably between them. Glowing red lights appeared and spread like a plague in fast motion. Soon the whole planet was red, and streams of tiny, malignant dots began to leap off the surface and escape into unseen spaces.
“You said ‘we.’ ” Satele Shan’s voice made Ula jump. “We must be ruthless. I presume that was deliberate.”
“It was. Everything I have seen, on Hutta and Sebaddon, confirms my worst fears. Sebaddon is responding to the threat you all represent by ramping up production. It must be stopped before the contagion spreads. Since neither Empire nor Republic can single-handedly destroy this menace with the resources available right now, you must work together to see it done.”
“With you in charge, I suppose,” said Larin.
“The end justifies the means.”
“I will never take orders from a Mandalorian,” said the Sith in mocking tones. “And I will never fight alongside a Jedi. You are insane even to suggest it.”
“There must be an alternative,” Master Satele said. “Another attempt at negotiation, perhaps—”
“The planetary defense system is automated,” Stryver said. “The only voices coming from the planet originate with the fast breeders. That’s how I know that Lema Xandret is dead. Everyone down there is dead. It’s just the droids now, and you can’t negotiate with them.”
“Well, we can’t trust one another,” said Shigar. “That’s some choice you’ve given us.”
“Could I make it any other way, I would. Believe me.”
Jedi and Sith glowered at one another over the hologram, and suddenly Ula knew exactly what he had to do. Once again, Jet had been absolutely right. Ula could see both sides at once, and save himself into the bargain.
“Are you the leader of the Imperial fleet?” he asked the young Sith. He already knew the answer. The Emperor would never trust such wealth to someone so young, no matter how powerful she might be. But he had to ask, for appearance’s sake.
“No,” she admitted.
“Whoever that person is, then, I want to speak to them, face-to-face,” he said. “I believe I can bring the Empire to the table.”
“You? My Master would gut a worm like you just to watch you die.”
Ula’s stomach roiled. Her Master. He had hoped for a non-Sith commander, but would have to settle for what he got. “Take me to your command vessel and let me try. If I fail, by the sound of things, I might as well be dead.”
“Your death is closer than you think. He’s in the shuttle.”
“Well, then. All the better. It’ll be over quickly.”
“Envoy Vii,” said Satele Shan, “be very careful. You must be absolutely sure of yourself.”
“I am.” He straightened and puffed out his chest. “If the Empire agrees to Stryver’s suggestion, will you?”
The Grand Master showed no sign of uncertainty. “Of course. We’re not at war, after all, and the threat is severe.”
“Good.” Ula turned back to the Sith girl. She was tight-lipped with rage, as though she couldn’t believe his audacity. “This isn’t a trick. I’ll go with you now, if you’ll take me. Please.”
“Just you,” she finally said. “No one else.”
“That’s out of the question,” said Larin.
“No,” he said, although his heart warmed at her concern. “I’m happy to go on my own. If I can’t convince them with words, what difference would a rifle or two make?”
She reluctantly backed down. “Just be careful. We want you back in one piece.”
“Not several?” said the Sith. She was grinning now, perhaps anticipating the sport her Master would have with him. “I refuse to guarantee anything.”
Ula wondered if he looked as faint as he felt. What if she killed him the moment they were on the other side of the air lock, before he had a chance to speak? That would be the most awful irony of all.
“I’m ready,” he said in as strong a voice as he could muster. “Let’s not keep your Master waiting.”
“Indeed,” she said. “Let’s not.”
“If we don’t hear from you within thirty minutes,” Stryver said, “we’ll assume you are dead.”
Ula walked around the holoprojector and let the Imperial guards take him by the shoulders and frog-march him to the door. There was no turning back now. The eyes of his erstwhile allies in the Republic followed him as he was led off to betray them all.
THE MOMENT THE air lock closed behind them, the puny envoy started to struggle. Ax strode on, her mind full of ways to lessen the inevitable consequences of her failure. She didn’t know what Darth Chratis had expected, but he was sure to turn this unexpected result against her. That she was finding it hard to think wasn’t helping.
“Listen to me,” the envoy called after her. “You have to listen to me!”
She didn’t slow down. She barely even heard him. Lema Xandret is dead, Stryver had said. Everyone down there is dead. She didn’t know why that pronouncement had made a difference, but it seemed to. Her family, her mother—what had happened to her father? She had never asked. Maybe he was dead, too, had died years ago, when she was a child. Maybe he was a Sith Lord who wouldn’t lower himself to be associated with a common woman. Maybe, she thought, just maybe …?
Impossible. She mocked herself for even thinking it. Darth Chratis was no kind of father to her, and never would be. She needed no father, just like she needed no family. If Stryver was right and the fugitives were all dead, that just made her life easier. She wouldn’t have to expend the energy finding and killing them, in the Emperor’s name.
“Please, I’m trying to tell you that I’m not who you think I am! We’re on the same side and have been all the time!”
The squawking of the envoy finally penetrated her consciousness. On the brink of entering the shuttle, she stopped and reached out one half-gripped hand.
He swept out of the guards’ hands and smashed into the air lock wall.
“Don’t even think of lying to me,” she said.
“I’m not.” The envoy was as pale as marble and his voice little more than a whisper, but he didn’t flinch as she approached. “I’m an Imperial agent.”
She activated her lightsaber and held it across his throat.
“You don’t look like a Cipher Agent. You’re not even fully human.”
Her contempt was ferocious. “All right. Not an agent per se, but an informer at least. And I am loyal regardless what species I am. Utterly loyal. I swear it.”
Ax didn’t move. She knew that many highly ranked Republic officers sometimes preferred nonhuman staff in the belief that this would protect them from surveillance. If this envoy had been turned, he would be highly prized by the Minster of Information.
“I tried to board your shuttle on Hutta,” he pressed on, beginning to stammer now, “but the guards t-turned me away.”
That much was true, and it made her hesitate. Ax couldn’t believe she was listening to him—and more, actually considering his story. But his brazenness and bravery in the face of certain death were persuasive. She had to admire his guts, even if she would see them sizzling if she found out that he was trying to trick her. It wasn’t impossible that he was a double agent placed by Satele Shan to lead her and her Master astray …
Ax smiled with her teeth. Darth Chratis would know. If the envoy was telling the truth, it would be a boon for her. If not, her Master would have someone else upon which to act out his displeasure.
“What species are you?” she asked him.
“E-Epicanthix.”
“Never heard of it.”
“We come from Panatha in the Pacanth Reach—”
“I don’t care. If you ever want to see your home again—if you ever want to see anything again—then you’ll tell my Master everything you just told me, and convince him that it’s true.”
“Who is your Master?”
“Darth Chratis. Does that name mean anything to you?”
If anything, the envoy went even paler.
“Good. Then you appreciate the gravity of your situation.”
She deactivated her lightsaber and let him drop. The guards picked him up and dragged him after her, into the shuttle where her Master waited.
Darth Chratis awaited her in the shuttle’s spacious but inhospitable passenger cabin, wearing a bulky armored suit. Only his face was visible, pinched and puckered into a permanent scowl. He leaned heavily on his lightsaber staff.
When he saw the envoy, his brow came down even farther.
“Explain.”
Ax did so, starting at Dao Stryver’s dire predictions and moving quickly on to the possibility of cooperation. The prisoner remained silent throughout, struck dumb by Darth Chratis’s forbidding mien. That was a good thing; had he interrupted at any point, he might have been killed out of hand.
“And Satele Shan has been taken in by this Mandalorian’s machinations?” Her Master’s eyebrows, as thin as old scars, rose up toward his time-worn scalp.
“It appears so,” she said. “She sent her envoy to negotiate on her behalf.”
Now Darth Chratis’s stare descended fully upon him, and the envoy quailed. “Speak.”
“My name is Ula Vii,” he stammered. “I report directly to Watcher Three in the operations division of the Ministry of Intelligence. I am your servant, my lord—a loyal agent of the Empire.”
“A spy? How unfortunate for the Grand Master.” Darth Chratis’s face broke into a broad, cracked smile. “Tell me, spy, how you propose to betray her.”
“Republic and Empire share the same initial objectives,” the envoy said, pulling free from the two guards. He had clearly been thinking hard while waiting his turn to speak. “The smashing of Sebaddon’s orbital defense system comes ahead of any invasion or mass bombardment—the purpose of which would be the neutralization of the planet’s central authority, since it must have one, human or artificial—and together, I agree that we can probably achieve that. But once we have the planet toothless and brainless, the need for an alliance will be gone. I suggest we turn on the Jedi and Dao Stryver then—break the so-called alliance and take what’s rightfully ours. Sebaddon will be the Emperor’s at last. I’ll supply misinformation at every opportunity, ensuring that the Grand Master does not ever find the chance to do the same to you.”
“What do you ask for in return?”
The envoy looked surprised by the question. “Me? Nothing, my lord. I’m simply doing my duty.”
“There must be something important to you, beyond your duty. Ask, and it shall be yours.”
“Well, there is one that I would ask you to spare, after your inevitable victory.”
“Tell me who.”
“She is no one, lower even than a trooper. Her name is Larin Moxla.”
“Do you know this woman, Ax?” Darth Chratis asked.
“I believe I do, Master.”
“Good.”
Darth Chratis’s smile disappeared. The envoy was wrenched roughly forward and raised into the air. He struggled against the invisible hold on him, but there was no resisting it. Ax had experienced the power of her Master’s Force grip. She knew how tight it could be.
“Listen to me, spy.”
The envoy frantically nodded, too frightened to speak aloud.
“I cannot read you. Your mind is shielded from me, by either some unnatural contrivance or a natural talent. I suspect the latter. The Minster of Intelligence seeks out your kind in order to keep his secrets from both his masters and our enemy. So when I look into you, I see no loyalty to the Emperor. I sense only tangled allegiances, with no clear outcomes. Given a choice, I would never trust you.
“Yet you and your kind are a loathsome necessity in times like these. I must find a way to curb your natural instinct for treachery. To that end …” Here Envoy Vii jerked violently forward, so he was staring straight into the eyes of Darth Chratis. “To that end, be sure that if you betray me I will hunt down the fancy of your nonhuman heart and put her through such torments that you will be grateful when I kill her. And then it will be your turn. Is that clear?”
“Yes, my lord. Abundantly so.”
The envoy dropped with a thud to the floor.
“Very good,” said Darth Chratis. “Ax, get him out of my sight. You will return him to Satele Shan with the agreement he promised her, and you will accompany him as my official mouthpiece.”
“But Master—”
“Be silent! I could hardly let him go alone. They would never believe that I trusted them unless I took such precautions. You will watch the Grand Master, and you will watch this one, too. At the slightest sign of treachery, you will notify me and my wrath will descend upon both of them.”
She bowed her head, thinking: Another dead-end task. And probably a suicide mission, too. “I will do as you instruct.”
“I sense your impatience, Ax. Remember that our rewards will be bountiful when victory is complete. When the Grand Master is dead and this world ours, then your apprenticeship will be over. Not before. Go now, and do my bidding.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, bowing deeply, sure that he sensed the burn of excitement in her mind. To be free of him at last, to be a true Sith—that was all she had ever wanted! And she deserved it. She knew that well. Not for nothing had she slaved this last decade and more, to the detriment of all else.
Lema Xandret is dead.
Ax suppressed even the barest hint of regret as she turned and left the shuttle, dragging the quivering informer behind her.