“HELLO, MOTHER. Sorry I’ve been out of touch for so long. Work has kept me very busy, but I’ll tell you all about that another time. Call me on Coruscant when you have the chance.”
Ula closed the line and settled back to wait. He didn’t think it would be long. After the loss of Darth Chratis, the failure of the Cinzia to amount to anything, and the erasure of the fleet’s data banks, he was sure someone would want to hear his side of the story.
What that would be he had given a great deal of thought.
His comlink bleeped, warning him the call was imminent. That was impressively fast—so fast, in fact, that it made him wonder. Ordinarily someone on Panatha would note the message, then relay the coded request up through the lines of command to Watcher Three, who would then issue orders that would filter back down the lines of command, resulting in that simple ping. Ordinarily, this process could take hours. Occasionally tens of minutes. Never seconds.
Ula looked around his apartment. It seemed smaller than he remembered, and now had a hostile cast to it as well. He would conduct a sweep later that evening in the hope of finding the bug he was now sure was there. Whether he would destroy the bug or not remained an open question.
The holoprojector flickered. He stood in front of it and blanked his face. One of the first things he had learned about espionage was that an apparent lack of emotion enhanced both the credibility of one’s reports and the illusion of authority. That, he suspected, was why he had never seen Watcher Three’s face in more than shadowy outline.
That outline appeared before him now, flickering and straining, as though coming from the other side of the universe. For all Ula knew, though, Watcher Three was on Coruscant as well, perhaps just up the road. Anything was possible. He knew of at least two other intelligence operatives who lived on his block, seeking a similar balance between easy access to the Senate and a ready escape route.
“Report,” said Watcher Three.
Ula needed to go back as far as his arrival on Hutta in order to tell the story properly. He didn’t lie once, but he told far less than the whole truth. As with all intelligence work, much was told by implication. He left Watcher Three to deduce that his rapid advancement from envoy to commander of the joint fleet had less to do with his own abilities than the need for a puppet in both positions. He also let Watcher Three decide that Darth Chratis was the person behind the second placement. Who better, after all, to place the blame on than someone who couldn’t defend himself?
“The last report Stantorrs received that I saw before being transferred,” Ula concluded, “suggested that Sebaddon’s orbit had been disturbed, leading to its imminent destruction by the black hole. Some small amounts of rare metals have been scavenged by the Republic, but Imperial attacks have kept that to a minimum. No wreckage has been recovered from any of the sites established by Lema Xandret and her fellow fugitives.”
Watcher Three didn’t divulge whether or not that accorded with reports made by Colonel Kalisch. He also didn’t mention the mysterious takeover of Kalisch’s ships or the matter of the data banks’ erasure. A computer virus propagated by the infected ships was sufficient to explain away the latter, and the colonel’s natural disinclination to admit that his ships had ever been out of his control fixed the former. Better to have a slightly botched mission on one’s record than a complete failure of command.
That didn’t surprise Ula at all. Jet Nebula had anticipated exactly this outcome. He had made the fleet do what it needed to do, knowing full well that his role in events would never be recorded. The only weak link in his wild plan had been Ula himself. Anyone less confident, less sure of himself, would have killed Ula out of hand, for fear of his secret getting out. But Jet had let him live. And now Ula would repay that favor the only way he could, by making sure that both sides believed the fake version of how things had played out over Sebaddon.
It wasn’t a complete whitewash, of course. Troopers would be telling wild stories about Sebaddon for years, as troopers always did, when wild stories were demanded. No one would believe them, though. And there the matter would finally rest.
“What of the Mandalorian?” Watcher Three asked.
“Gone. He left long before reinforcements arrived. Once the hexes were on the run, he presumably had no interest in the outcome of the battle.”
“Why invest so much in tracking the Cinzia to its source and then play no role in what happens? That doesn’t make sense.”
“He was just one Mandalorian who happened to be personally involved, remember. A raider operating on little more than his own initiative. Xandret might have hoped for some kind of alliance with the Mandalore, but it’s clear he was no more than idly interested. Had he believed the hexes truly remarkable, he would’ve sent more than Stryver to deal with them.”
“And they weren’t remarkable?”
“I leave that for more qualified people than me to decide,” Ula said, safe in the knowledge that Watcher Three would have a markedly vague intelligence on that score. Again, Colonel Kalisch wouldn’t want to be remembered for being routed by a gaggle of droids. Better instead to paint his early losses as the result of a Republic ambush, and minimize all involvement by the hexes, as Captain Pipalidi had. None of the surviving records would contradict either story, thanks to Jet.
Sometimes the smuggler’s brilliance overwhelmed Ula, along with his utter gall. Where was he now? Ula would’ve given his left hand to know.
“The minister is displeased by your demotion,” Watcher Three said. “You are to make every effort to regain your former post.”
Now, that was interesting. Not only was it a completely unreasonable demand, that Ula should have betrayed the Republic while at the same time keeping his position under the Supreme Commander, but the urgency with which they expected him to get back into Stantorrs’s good books suggested that there were no other operatives in that department. Ula would bear that in mind in his future dealings with both sides.
“Yes, sir. I will keep you informed on my progress.”
“Dismissed.”
The holoprojector emptied.
Ula didn’t move.
Before he had counted to ten, a new face appeared before him.
“Hello, Ula,” said Shullis Khamarr, Minister of Logistics. “It’s been a long time. I was becoming concerned.”
Once, Ula would have been struck dumb by this unprompted overture. In their previous dealings, he had invariably been the supplicant. For her to call him out of the blue bespoke a considerable alteration of their dynamic.
“My apologies, Minister, on many accounts. The search for the world I told you about did not go well, and the resources I had hoped to provide the Empire went unrealized. I can only assure you that the enemy did not get the better of us.”
“Well, that’s something. I hope you are not too disappointed.”
“No, Minister. My role here will be much reduced, but I am sure others will rise to take my place.”
“There will be others, yes. None like you, though.” She smiled. “I have always admired your passion and found our conversations to be thought provoking.”
“Minister, on that matter, I fear—”
“Yes, Ula?”
“I fear I may have been mistaken in my former opinions.”
Her smile slipped away. “How so?”
This was the one lie he allowed himself to tell. “During the course of my mission, I worked closely with Darth Chratis and his apprentice, and their actions persuaded me to reconsider the prejudices I held regarding them. I see now how foolish I was to dismiss them so readily. They are crucial to the war effort, and integral to the proper functioning of the Empire.”
The guarded cast to her face eased. “I’ll confess to being relieved, Ula. It was a dangerous heresy you had embraced. Well meant, naturally, but not one that can be tolerated at any level of governance.”
“I see that now. You were very forgiving, Minister.”
“Nonsense, Ula. We are friends, and friends forgive much.”
He wondered if part of her was disappointed. There must have been some advantage—even if merely psychological—to having a private informant intent on maintaining her own advancement. If so, she hid it well.
I am tired of seducing you to my way of thinking, Shullis Khamarr, he said to himself, thinking of Larin and Shigar, who had both rescued him from terrible fates, and the calm stoicism of the Grand Master, Satele Shan. The survivors of Sebaddon would be changed forever by what had happened to them there, and he was no different. I am persuaded that there is more to governance than just rules, laws, and discipline. A culture must have a heart, too. A strong heart that never falters.
“Thank you, Minister,” he said, and offered her a respectful bow.
She concluded their conversation with a hollow platitude, and signed off. Ula wondered if he would ever speak to her again. Probably not. Friendships of any kind were difficult to maintain in the intelligence business, all the more so when one had been demoted.
In the coming weeks he would consider the benefits of playing both sides against the other, attempting to juggle the interplay between them as Jet had. He didn’t have access to an army of unstoppable hexes or a droid that could take over entire fleets, but he was coming to believe that maybe the end did justify the means, sometimes. If he could guide the Empire and the Republic away from war, or at least spare their citizens the worst of their excesses, then that could be a good thing—and a real thing, not fake like everything he had tried before. He would be on his own side, at last, as Larin had been when she had been discharged from special forces—on the side of the trillions of ordinary people trapped in a warring galaxy.
He stood in his tiny apartment and considered his next move. Search for that bug? Draft a coded message for the Ithorian he had spoken to in Strategic Information Systems? Sleep?
Ula didn’t know just yet, which in itself was a pleasing thing.
The walls might be closing in around him, but his horizons were broader now than ever. Even Coruscant didn’t seem as cursed as it once had. Larin was back in the special forces. Satisfaction fairly glowed from her face when she talked about the future. We can drink Reactor Cores and talk about old times. No mention of Shigar, or any of the other survivors of Sebaddon.
That, at least, gave him something to look forward to.
AFTER HOURS OF WAITING, Shigar’s moment had come.
“We find you ready for the trials, Shigar Konshi,” said Master Nobil. “You will be unsurprised, I think, to learn that mastering your psychometric powers was only the smallest part of your journey.”
Shigar wasn’t surprised, but at the same time he couldn’t hide his relief. He bowed deeply before the holographic images of the High Council members, many of whom he had yet to meet in person: brooding Wens Aleusis, brilliant Giffis Fane, young Oric Traless, the newest member of the Council …
“Thank you, Masters,” he said. “I’m sure I won’t disappoint you.”
“Tell me how you resolved your agreement with Tassaa Bareesh,” Master Nobil said. “That was not mentioned in your debriefing session.”
“I’m afraid it remains unresolved,” he said. “The agreement was expedient at the time, but it was always likely to become a liability. She used a homing beacon to find the world herself, so I have no qualms about allowing the Republic there first. She can claim no disadvantage, since the world itself has fallen to no one.”
“There’s the damage to her palace on Hutta,” said Master Fane, “and the very public loss of face. Suudaa Nem’ro must be rubbing his hands with glee.”
“And there must be ramifications for dishonoring her, no doubt.”
“Yes, Master Nobil. I believe there is a price on my head.”
“We’ve all had one of those, at one time or another,” said Master Traless with a wry smile. “Don’t lose any sleep over it, but do keep an eye out.”
“Thank you, Master. I will.”
Shigar knew what they were trying to say. Don’t expect to play this game without breaking the rules. You’ve done it once, and you’ll do it again. Get used to it. It was Larin all over again.
The squabbling of Hutt crime lords didn’t worry him in the slightest. He had much bigger concerns.
“May I address the Council freely?” he asked.
“I think you should,” said Grand Master Shan, the first time she had spoken during the discussion. He had almost forgotten she was there, standing quietly in the corner of the audience chamber they had requisitioned. “There’s been something on your mind ever since Sebaddon.”
“It’s true, Master. I’m not sure where to start.”
“Start with what pains you the most.”
He had never thought of his new understanding as painful, but he saw that it was true. It burned in his chest like fire.
“So many people have died,” he said, “for nothing. Don’t tell me that this is what it’s like in wartime, because officially we’re not at war. Xandret and her hexes weren’t our enemy; Darth Chratis was in fact our ally for a while. Yet they are all dead. I see no sense to it.”
“Go on,” said Master Nobil.
He tried to explain himself clearly. “This whole affair is endemic to the current crisis. The Sith are on the rise. We are on the wane. The Mandalorians and the Hutts stand between us, creating confusion and jostling for advantage. Our options are limited. If we do nothing, millions of people die. If we fight back, we engage with them at their level.”
“Tell us your solution, Shigar,” said Master Traless.
“Attack now. The war is coming—we all know it—so why sit on our hands waiting for the Emperor to make his move? Preempt him before he has a chance to consolidate his power any further. Use the element of surprise while we have it. Don’t expend lives for nothing.”
“The owners of those lives might question the necessity of it,” said Master Nobil. “There is much talk of how we caused the current misfortune by making enemies of the Sith in the first place. Starting a war now would not ease those misgivings.”
“When we’ve won the war, people will see the necessity for it.”
“And if we lose?” asked Master Fane.
“We must not,” Shigar said. “We cannot. And we will not if we act quickly enough. With every day the Emperor grows stronger and we grow weaker. How many spies and traitors erode the fortresses we’ve built around ourselves? How many fruitless battles must we fight before everyone in the Republic deserts us? How many other Sebaddons are out there, waiting for us? The next one might be the one that finishes us.”
“Our mission is to promote peace,” said Master Nobil. “Have you forgotten that?”
“Never, Master. But there are degrees of war, just as there are degrees of peace. An early strike might spare the galaxy from total war.”
“But at what cost? Remember, Shigar, when you used to argue for justice for the billions of ordinary people, caught between the two sides in this conflict? If we act now, their deaths will be laid at our door. Do you want that on your conscience, my young warmonger?”
“No, Master. That is, I don’t—I just—” He looked down at his hands, so startlingly unburned after holding so much power on Sebaddon. If he could do it, why couldn’t the Jedi Council? That was the one lesson Darth Chratis had taught him. “I just think it’s worth considering.”
“We have considered it,” said Master Fane. “And we will continue to consider it until the proper solution presents itself.”
“You’re not the only one who feels this way,” said Master Traless, leaning forward. “We have a thousand young Jedi just waiting—”
He might have said more, but a glance from Master Nobil stilled his tongue.
“Your passion is undiminished, young Shigar. You must take care that it never rules your head. Thank you for your opinions. Come to Tython and finish what you started. When you are fully installed as a Jedi Knight, then you may play your part more fully in the times to come.”
But what is my part?
He let those words sit silently on his tongue as, one by one, the images of the Jedi High Councilors flickered and disappeared.
“We will go together,” Grand Master Shan told him. “The trials are difficult. Many try and fail, so I advise you not to be complacent.”
Her face was unreadable.
“I’m sorry if I’ve displeased you, Master,” he said.
“You haven’t displeased me at all, Shigar. I am simply tired. Like you, I wish a speedy resolution to these times.”
“But not through war.”
“Not if it can be avoided, no. I understand that you don’t see it this way, though. You are a product of your time.”
He started, recognizing her words from the vision he’d had on Sebaddon.
“I know what you’re about to say,” he said. “I’ve seen it. You’re about to tell me that I must confront the times ahead with great care. But I’ve already said that, so now maybe you won’t.”
She smiled. “It’s disconcerting when what you’ve seen doesn’t quite turn out the way it’s supposed to.”
That was true. The conversation had already headed off in a different direction, thanks to his intervention. Next she was supposed to warn him that the Sith were the enemy and that he shouldn’t become like them in order to beat them.
“So the future isn’t always laid in stone?”
“No, and I am glad of that sometimes, Shigar.” She put a hand on his shoulder and guided him toward the door. “You will learn to be, too, I think.”
She did seem tired. He wished there was something he could do to make her feel better. But how could he, a lowly Padawan, understand or even begin to shoulder the heavy load she was under?
Again, a spark of predestination told him that he was brushing closely against something seen in the past.
Be kind, Shigar.
Had she meant herself all along? Had all his agonizing about Larin been for nothing?
Then another thought occurred to him.
Some roads are harder than yours have been.
Were the words so far left unspoken for him to consider now?
She was talking about him.
As they left the audience chamber, he decided that it was okay to feel torn. In fact, he should get used to it. There were serious challenges to come, whether the High Councilors succeeded with their diplomatic efforts or not. In a universe that demanded black and white, he would settle for gray.
And when he passed his trials, he would talk to Master Traless in private. If a thousand Jedi Knights really felt as he did, there would be hope when diplomacy failed.
DARTH HOWL, Dark Lord of the Sith, was less imposing on second meeting than he had been the first time. He wore a black uniform lacking both insignias and trophies, and Ax interpreted that to mean he wasn’t out to impress. That he had asked to meet her in private, on his personal hunting range on Dromund Kaas, she took as a mixed sign.
“Pick a rifle,” he said, indicating an extensive collection lining the wall of his study. “Follow me onto the deck.”
Ax selected an antique weapon with a stock made of bone. Its charge was full and its sights, perfectly aligned. She bet herself Darth Howl kept them all that way, and not just for show.
She was right. The “deck” was an extensive viewing platform overlooking dense, tropical terrain that had been cleared in patches, allowing an unobstructed line of sight to the undergrowth. The sun was at its zenith above the clouds. Conditions were as good as they would ever be on the Imperial capital.
Darth Howl rang a bell. Somewhere in the trees, a cage door rattled open. “I brought you here, Eldon Ax,” he said as he raised his own rifle to scope the range, “so you could explain to me how you killed Darth Chratis.”
She froze. How did he know? She had told no one, and she was sure none of the troopers on Sebaddon would have understood what had happened that day. The hexes had killed so many people. Darth Chratis had been just one of them.
Darth Howl’s rifle emitted a sharp, high-pitched crack, making her jump. Something cried out in the trees below.
The Dark Lord glanced at her and offered her an eerie, sharp-toothed smile.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “As long as you’re up here, you’ll be fine.”
She wondered how long that good fortune would last.
“What makes you think I killed him, my lord?”
“Whenever a former apprentice returns without her Master, the question asks itself. It’s something of a tradition, although not one you’ll hear spoken of much. First you survive the Academy; then you have to survive your Master. That’s how I earned my reputation, and I presume that’s how you plan to do it, too. The question is: how?”
The rifle cracked again.
“If you don’t fire soon, young Ax, I’ll be forced to assume you’ve lost your nerve.”
Ax did as she was told, raising the rifle and holding it steady against the ball of her shoulder. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d fired a blaster of any kind. Certainly not since building her first lightsaber.
She scanned the foliage through the scope. When a fluffy, dark-eyed head peered warily out from cover, she took a shot at it. The rifle produced an odd whining twang but launched an impressive bolt of bright green energy in the right direction. The terrified creature exploded into a ball of flaming fur.
“I used the hexes,” she told Howl, appropriately satisfied, as she lined up for another shot.
“How did you get them to do your bidding?”
“It’s, uh, hard to explain.”
“I’ve not brought you here to make life easy for you.” Another shot from his rifle; another squawk below. “You’ve already told us about the remnant of Lema Xandret present in all the droids. What did you call it, again?”
“The amnioid.”
“Yes. You mentioned in your report that you and the Jedi Grand Master were both able to influence the hexes, thanks to the amnioid. I didn’t realize that you were able to do so to such an overwhelming degree.”
“That wasn’t how I did it.”
Her second shot missed. He was beating her three kills to one.
“Be assured, young Ax, that I’ll get it out of you one way or another.”
There was no denying the threat now. She sought the same steely strength Satele Shan had demonstrated on Sebaddon.
“There was something I omitted from the report, my lord,” she said. “The amnioid didn’t exist solely to control the hexes. It was designed also—mainly, perhaps—to sustain a child in a Force-free bacta tank. She was Xandret’s child. A clone.”
“Of you?”
Ax wouldn’t use the word me. She refused to. “Her name was Cinzia. She believed that I was her.”
“You talked to her?”
“Yes.”
“Then you killed her?”
“No, but I might have. The Grand Master released her when the amnioid tried to smother her. She died upon exposure to air.”
They both fired. At the very same time a bolt of lightning shattered the gloomy sky into a thousand jagged pieces. The synchronicity was unintended but impressive.
“When the hexes weren’t operating independently,” she went on, “they obeyed Cinzia, not the amnioid. Because we possessed identical genetic codes, they also obeyed me. It was easy to make them turn on Darth Chratis.”
“And of course that was necessary. You couldn’t have killed him on your own.”
“No.” It burned her to admit it, but that was the truth, and this seemed like a moment when only the truth would suffice. Darth Howl’s game was utterly unlike any Darth Chratis would have played. She was learning the rules as she went along.
“The omission of the clone from your report,” he said, “was premeditated, deliberate, and dangerous. The Dark Council disapproves of anything that smacks of disloyalty—or of emotional attachment to anything other than the Council itself.”
“I felt no kinship with the clone, my lord,” she said.
“None at all?”
She struggled to find words for the emotions that still stirred her when she thought of the pathetic creature in the tank. “Lema Xandret refused to let her daughter go, so she created a new one, whom she imprisoned. She refused to be controlled, yet she herself was possessive and controlling. What imprisonment might she have fashioned for me had I not been rescued from her by Darth Chratis? Was that why my memories of her have been so easy to suppress? The only thing stirred up in the entire affair was a recollection of her screaming. I think, in short,” she concluded, “that I had a lucky escape. And the clone, too, in the end.”
“Did you order the hexes to commit suicide?”
“That I didn’t do,” she said, “but I probably could have ordered them not to.”
He nodded. “It was the amnioid, then.”
“This time, yes. Lema Xandret lost her daughter twice. There was nothing else to live for. Not even revenge.”
“So instead of becoming their master, you let them die.” Darth Howl lowered his rifle and fixed her with an obsidian stare. “Some might find it puzzling that you did not use the hexes to fulfill your vendetta against Dao Stryver, and then go on to conquer the galaxy.”
“Yes.” I could have been Emperor! “The thought did occur to me. But the Mandalorian had already escaped by then, and I remain loyal to the Dark Council.”
“Some might say that your exposure to the Grand Master of the Jedi addled your thoughts. Some might use this as an argument to never trust you again.”
“I don’t care what people say.”
“You only need to worry about what the Dark Council decides to do about you.”
“I met with them yesterday. They—you said—”
“Many things are said, Ax, and many things are done. They are not always the same.”
She knew it. “So are you going to have me killed?”
He laughed at her, and raised the rifle. Another shot; another scream of pain.
“That depends entirely on how you spin it,” he said. “Were the fugitives punished?”
The fate of her mother and the clone left her in no doubt on that score. “Undoubtedly.”
“Did the planet fall into the Republic’s hands?”
“No.”
“So you survived where your Master did not, and you returned with valuable intel. You are strong and determined, like your mother. You deserve nothing but admiration, and a close eye.
“If anyone does learn the secret about the hexes, the explanation is simple. Your loyalty to the Emperor is such that you would never attempt to unseat him. Note that I said ‘Emperor,’ not the Dark Council. It’s a Sith’s job to try to unseat us. That’s why we have to keep a close eye on you. Fire the gun.”
Ax closed one eye and stilled her hammering heart. Perhaps she would survive after all.
The creature in her sights did not survive, and neither did two more that came to investigate.
She wasn’t going to tell Darth Howl that the only reason she had not spared the hexes was because trying to control them would have undoubtedly backfired. Riddled with the twisted spirit of her mother, the hexes would have turned on her eventually, and she would have ended up as trapped as her clone. Far from becoming Emperor, she would have been a bitter princess in a cage, shouting for help at an empty galaxy.
Better that it all disappear into a black hole, literally and metaphorically, and she get on with her life. Her life. However much of it she had left.
“Why did you invite me here?” she asked. “It wasn’t to grill me on my report or to offer me advice.”
“True. You are young and inexperienced, but you are observant, and you survived this crisis unscathed. Perhaps you are hiding your true feelings well, or you are more resilient than you look. Either way, you can be useful to me. I brought you here to offer you an alliance.”
Ax didn’t even see what lay down her sights. “What kind of alliance?”
“One considerably more to your advantage than the last one. Darth Chratis deserved what came to him. His methods were unreliable, his philosophies dangerous, and his ambition unchecked. It was therefore inevitable that he would fall. The only question was: how far would you fall with him?”
She didn’t answer.
Darth Howl’s teeth gleamed faintly in the night. “Darth Chratis failed you, just as my last apprentice failed me. It’s time to look beyond failure and see the successes awaiting you and I. With my power and your potential, can you imagine what we might accomplish together? We might shake the Supreme Chancellor from his seat, and earn rewards beyond our wildest dreams!”
She wasn’t thinking that far ahead. All she had in mind was how useful it would be to have a Master actually on the Dark Council, not just dreaming about it.
“What happened to your last apprentice?”
“She liked to keep pets,” he said, taking aim and dispatching another hapless furball down below. “And now I keep her in the observation dome directly above our heads. She loves it when I entertain guests.”
His smile was cold and vicious, and something about it thrilled Ax to her core. Darth Howl needed her, and she needed him. There was no shame in admitting it. There were bigger games to play now.
Dao Stryver could wait. When she needed to feel anger in its purest form, he would be there, ready to inspire her. It didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing. The longer her vow remained unfulfilled, the greater her anger would become. The end justifies the means, as he himself had said.
“I would be honored, my lord.”
“Good. And I will accept you as my student. You will put the messy business of your mother behind us and we’ll both look forward to slaughtering the Jedi scum in their beds. And, most important …”
He winked like the chopping of a guillotine.
“Most important of all, my young apprentice, we will both watch our backs.”