LARIN MOXLA STOOD in the Senate Gardens, on a busy thoroughfare lined with benches. It was early evening, and the sky was full of lights. She felt uncomfortably exposed, and was struck by how used she’d become to the old districts. Only a few months had passed since she’d been drummed out of Blackstar Squad, and already the hazy sky of the upper levels looked too large, the people too refined, the droids too clean, and the buildings too new. Give her a year, she thought, and she’d be completely at one with the dregs of society.
Her feeling of alienation was only confirmed when a quartet of Senate Security officers strode by, three men—Twi’lek, Zabrak, and human—and a stocky Nikto woman. The SSOs caught sight of her and approached.
“Are you lost?” rumbled the Twi’lek. “You look like you’ve been pulled backward through a Sarlacc.”
“Twice,” the Nikto woman chittered, not unkindly.
Larin wanted to walk away. They were speaking to her soldier-to-soldier, using familiar, bantering tones, but her heart wasn’t in it.
“Thanks, guys,” she said. “I’m okay, and I won’t be here long.” She was waiting for Shigar to return from talking to Satele Shan, and this was where she had said they should meet.
“No worries,” said the human with a wink. “Just try not to frighten anyone.”
“Wait,” said the Zabrak, peering at her. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “You’re Toxic Moxla, the Kiffar who snitched on Sergeant Donbar.”
Larin felt the blood rising to her head. “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, yeah? I’ve got a cousin in Special Forces who’d disagree,” said the Zabrak, right into her face.
She held his stare, fighting the urge to retreat, or to head-butt him—one swift, solid lunge that might cut her forehead to the bone on his horns, but would certainly lay him out cold.
But then she’d have a probable affray charge to wear afterward. The gardens were full of witnesses, fine, upstanding witnesses who didn’t sleep in an abandoned warehouse and hand-weld their clothes from castoff scrap.
“Easy, Ses,” said the Twi’lek to the Zabrak. “You’ve had one too many fizzbrews over lunch again.”
“When did you hear from your cousin, anyway?” added the Nikto woman, taking his arm and guiding him firmly away. “Last I heard, he owed you money.”
The human cast Larin an apologetic look as the trio led their drunk friend away, but not before he could call over his shoulder, “Crawl back into your hole, Toxic Moxla. We don’t want your kind up here!”
Larin watched the Zabrak go with her face burning hot. How did such a lout ever get into the SSO, let alone know someone in Special Forces? It didn’t seem possible.
But mixed with her outrage was a feeling of deep shame. Yes, she had snitched on her commanding officer. Yes, she was playacting at being a soldier in a poorly made costume. But neither came lightly to her. She had her reasons.
Larin turned to face the distant Jedi Temple. Abandoned in ruins and sealed off ever since the sacking of Coruscant, it was an ominous, shadowy presence against the lights of the skylanes and skyscrapers. Like fate, ever-present.
SHIGAR WAITED FOR five minutes before his Master appeared as though out of nowhere, right by his side. He never heard her coming, but had learned at least not to be as startled as in the early days of his apprenticeship. That, he assumed, was the heart of this particular lesson: some things could never be anticipated, but he could control the way he reacted to them.
They stood together for a moment in the empty cloisters, staring up at the looming, silver cylinder that was the Galactic Justice Center. Its lights burned brightly, and never flickered once.
“You’ve put something in motion, Shigar,” she said.
“Do you see this in the future, Master?” The foresight of Grand Master Satele Shan was legendary, and never wrong.
She shook her head. “Not this time. I received this a moment ago from Supreme Commander Stantorrs.”
She passed Shigar a datapad, and he read the packet of information displayed there twice. It contained everything uncovered about Dao Stryver, Lema Xandret, and the Cinzia in the previous hours. Someone had been busy, he thought.
“The Hutts certainly recognize an opportunity when they see one,” he said, wrapping the new data around everything he had already gleaned about the Mandalorian, the Black Sun, and the attack on Larin Moxla.
“The Cinzia gives Tassaa Bareesh two plays for the price of one,” his Master said. “To the administrations of the Republic and the Empire, the primary concern is the ship’s origin. Where it came from matters much more than its purpose or what it contained. We all know that the Republic is desperate for resources, and any new world will aid its cause. It goes without saying that Supreme Commander Stantorrs will pursue this matter further, on that ground alone.
“From the point of view of the Jedi Council, however, the situation is precisely reversed. The Hutts are auctioning more than just information: there’s the cargo of the ship to consider, too. The object they’re selling presumably has some recognizable value, but as yet we do not know what it is. It could be anything. We can’t ignore the possibility that they have stumbled upon something critical to the Jedi Order—an artifact, perhaps, or a weapon. Many are spoken of in ancient records but are yet unaccounted for; just one might make a difference in the war against the Emperor.”
“It could be a Sith artifact,” he said, knowing full well that the forces of the enemy had their own arsenals, as ancient as the Jedi Order’s.
“That’s also a possibility. We must, therefore, do everything in our power to ensure that this thing the Hutts have—whatever it is—does not fall into the wrong hands.”
“It’s already in the wrong hands,” he said.
“That’s true, but Tassaa Bareesh only recognizes one side: her own. I have no fears of her using this find directly against us. Still, we need to know more about it, and soon. That’s where you come in, Shigar.”
Shigar studied his Master’s face. He had felt that the conversation was more than idle chat, but he hadn’t expected an active role in the situation.
“I will do anything you wish, Master.”
“You will go to the court of Tassaa Bareesh and uncover everything you can about the Cinzia and its contents. You’re to travel incognito in order to minimize our apparent interest in the sale. You will report what you find to me directly, and I will decide what to do with that information. You will leave this evening.”
Her voice was brisk and matter-of-fact, belying the significance of her words. This was a major assignment, cutting through the thick of a complex political knot. Were he to fail, it would reflect badly on the Jedi Order, and perhaps hinder the entire war effort. The responsibility was considerable.
Coming so soon after his disappointment of that morning, however, it was impossible to silence a nagging, doubtful voice.
“Are you sure I’m the right choice?” he asked, dragging the words out as though they were made of lead. “After all, the Council believes me unfit for the trials. There must be someone else better qualified who can do this for you.”
“Are you telling me you don’t want to go, Shigar? That you’re not ready?”
He bowed his head to hide his mingled pride and uncertainty. “I trust your judgment, Master, better than my own.”
“Good, because I believe my reasoning is sound. Your face is unknown on Hutta; you will therefore find it easier to pass unnoticed. And I have faith in you. Remember that. I am certain that this is the path laid down for you.”
“So you have seen something!”
He tried to read her expression in the flickering lights of the city. She could have been amused, concerned, or completely blank. It was hard to tell. Perhaps all three.
He swore to himself that he would make her proud. “What about the situation here—the gangs, the poverty?”
“That’s the responsibility of the local authorities,” she said, fixing him with a firm stare. “They are doing their best.”
He heard the warning in her voice. The Jedi’s role in the galaxy led them outward, to Tython; he had been told many times before that the Republic’s many social problems should not be his, even if this time Mandalorians were involved. Until Mandalore declared himself a particular enemy of someone, he could be considered more or less neutral. “Yes, Master.”
“Go now. There’s a shuttle waiting for you.”
Shigar bowed and went to walk away.
“Be kind, Shigar,” his Master added. “Some roads are harder than yours have been.”
When he turned back, Satele Shan was gone, vanished into the night as though she had never been there at all.
WITH RELIEF, LARIN saw Shigar striding along the thoroughfare toward her. He had been gone less than half an hour, but it felt much longer than that. After the encounter with the Senate Security Officers, she had spoken to no one and avoided catching anyone’s eyes, feeling more out of place than ever. When he returned, she promised herself, and when he had finished assuring her that he had spoken to his Master about the situation down below and she would do something about it, Larin could vanish back down her hole again, just as the Zabrak had advised her to.
It wasn’t that she thought the Zabrak was right. On the contrary. She just didn’t know where to fit in anymore, up here. At least she had something to do in the old districts. Ever since her discharge, she had committed herself to protecting the weak and disenfranchised, those whom even the justicars ignored, to the extent her meager resources allowed. Unlike the justicars, she was interested in something more important than territory, and if that meant working alone, so be it.
“How did it go?” she asked Shigar when he reached her.
“Well. I think.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She didn’t know him well enough to be able to tell what troubled him, but he didn’t seem remotely content. His brow was knuckled, and the blue chevrons on his cheeks were twisted out of shape by the clenched muscles beneath. Perhaps the reassurance she’d been hoping for wasn’t coming after all.
“I have to go somewhere,” he said. “Will you walk with me, part of the way?”
“Sure. Where are we going?”
“Eastport.”
“I thought you only just got to Coruscant.”
“That’s right.” He glanced at her, as though surprised that she had remembered. “I’ve been traveling all my life—since Master Satele took me on, anyway.”
They walked at an easy pace through the temperate night. A light breeze ran its fingers through her short hair, and she was reminded of one good thing about life topside: weather. The last time anything had rained on her was when a sewage line had burst two levels up.
“I haven’t seen another Kiffar for years,” she said to break the silence. “Were you on Kiffu during the Annexation?”
“No. Master Tengrove, the Jedi Watchman of that sector, found me the year before. I was on Dantooine when it happened, helping my Master dig through some ruins.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“I don’t remember.” He glanced at her again. “What about you? The Annexation, I mean.”
“I was there, although I don’t remember it clearly. I was too young. My parents slipped me into a shuttle and got me offworld before the worst of it hit. The shuttle took me to Abregado-rae, where a host family adopted me. They had taken on a lot of kids after the Treaty of Coruscant, but there was always space for another. It was a madhouse.”
“What happened to your parents?”
“They died in prison on Kiffex.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be. It’s just more ancient history. What about yours?”
“Dead, too—from a vacuum seal accident on a Fresian shuttle, though, nothing to do with the Annexation.”
They walked in silence for a while again, he looking fixedly ahead and she down at her booted feet. She felt the usual mixture of relief and sorrow whenever the matter of her parents’ sacrifice came up. She hadn’t known it at the time, but she had worked out later how much her narrow escape had cost them. With Imperial warships crowding their home planet, they must have bribed an Imperial gunner to overlook an escaping shuttle, plus the shuttle pilot and who knew how many spaceport guards? They had given up everything, just to save her.
And how had she repaid them?
“I have to go to Hutta,” he finally said.
“Why?”
“One of the cartels has discovered something. I need to find out what it is.”
“Is this connected to that Mandalorian?”
“Seems so. But he’s off Coruscant now and won’t be bothering you again.”
“Are you sure he won’t come back?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“Well, that’s something,” she said with more satisfaction than she actually felt. Now that she had accomplished everything she’d set out to do that day, she could reasonably retreat to her sanctuary in the old districts and go back to doing what she did best. The trouble was, she wasn’t quite ready to cast free of Shigar Konshi. He reminded her of what it was like to be given a new mission: objectives, resources, constraints, deadlines. She missed the days when everything was sharply defined and unambiguous.
“Ever been to Hutta before?” she asked him.
“No. Not the surface.”
“It’s vile and dangerous. I was there on a covert op two years ago. Very nearly didn’t get out again.”
“You’ve done covert work?”
“More than I care to think about.” She hadn’t told him about special forces and the Blackstars. As far as Shigar knew, she was just an ordinary trooper, taking a temporary break from duty.
“What about slicing?” he asked her, visibly picking up. “Do they teach you that kind of thing, too?”
“The basics. I learned a whole lot more from a girl called Kixi when I arrived here. Now I could do it in my sleep.”
“And you’re familiar with some of the rougher gangs that run around the underworld. You’d even pass for one of them, with a bit of a wash.”
“Hey, watch it.” She threw a punch at his shoulder, which he dodged with surprising ease.
He stopped walking, not joking around at all, and they stood facing each other.
“You could come with me,” he said, as though the idea had just occurred to him. “To Hutta, I mean.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said.
He didn’t laugh. “I’m serious. You just implied I’d need a guide there, and I could certainly use the help. It’s a big job.”
“Will you tell me what we’d be looking for? I don’t like being left in the dark, ever.”
“I don’t know what it is myself. Not yet. I know as little about it as you do.”
“Well …” She pretended to think about it, although she’d worked out her answer while he had been asking about her covert ops qualifications, just like he had been wanting to ask her ever since he finished talking with his Master. That was what he’d had trouble spitting out this whole time. She could see it perfectly now. He didn’t want to ask her outright for fear of putting her on the defensive. And maybe he imagined that she didn’t want to ask him for fear of looking desperate. This way, it looked like they were coming up with the idea together. No one needed to be rescued. They were a team.
His transparency both amused her and warmed her to him. She had no choice but to go to Hutta, if only to save him from what was waiting for him there. Sure, the Sith were hard work, but the Hutts would eat him alive if they captured him in this state.
“All right,” she said, “but one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You stop thinking that you’re doing me a favor.”
He flushed. “All right.”
“And you buy me a proper meal. I’ve been living on concentrates for weeks.”
“That’s two favors.”
“Think of that last one as good troop management. You don’t want me losing my concentration on the job, do you?”
“I guess not.” He smiled in a way that made him look even younger than he was. “Come on, Moxla. We’re not getting any closer just standing here.”
She sloppily saluted.
They strode off into the night, and within three paces their steps had unconsciously fallen into time.
BLACK ON BLACK, and a hint of bright steel.
The twelve Lords of the Emperor’s Dark Council stared at Eldon Ax and her Master with the combined force of a glacial avalanche.
“… and so you see, my lords,” Darth Chratis concluded, “how this situation can be advanced by the application of swift and appropriate action: the right people in the right place at the right time. My apprentice and I are the people. The place is Hutta. The time to strike is right now.”
They were standing in a recessed section of the floor, surrounded by the Dark Council. Twelve monstrous visages gazed down at them—some exposed and scarred, others hidden by masks—all radiating cool and constant hate. These were the Emperor’s confidants, his most prized servants. They alone saw his face, and now they were seeing Ax’s.
She felt her Master’s fear for the first time, and it thrilled her.
“Spare us the rhetoric, Darth Chratis,” said one of the Dark Lords, a being that might once have been a woman but whose face now was little more than a sexless skeleton. “We will not be moved by speeches.”
“What is it, exactly, that you want?” added another, his voice a high-pitched stiletto issuing from a featureless iron mask. “Tell us your plans.”
“My apprentice will infiltrate the court of Tassaa Bareesh,” Darth Chratis said, “in order to steal the information from the Hutts. I will wait offworld. When she has succeeded, I will proceed to the location of the colony and begin its annexation, to the continued glory of the Empire.”
He bowed low, and Ax was filled with contempt.
“A simple plan,” said another of the Dark Lords. Darth Howl had teeth sharpened to points, and his face was slashed by random patterns of straight lines. “I admire its directness. We do not negotiate with criminals.”
“Tassaa Bareesh has been of use to us,” said another. “It would not be wise to anger her.”
“My apprentice will be circumspect,” Darth Chratis assured them. “She is unknown to them. They will not detect her.”
“And the annexation itself. How will you facilitate this? You cannot have sufficient resources of your own to capture an entire world.”
“No, my lords. I will require at least a division to quash any resistance.”
“An entire division?” Dry mutterings circulated around the ring of Dark Lords. “You ask too much.”
“Do you expect significant resistance?”
“Yes, Darth Howl.” Here Ax’s Master hesitated. The one point he had downplayed during his summary was at last being dragged into view. “The colony was founded by fugitives from the Empire.”
“What kind of fugitives?”
He outlined everything they had uncovered about Lema Xandret while the Council listened in chilly silence. When he described the connection between Xandret and Ax, all eyes turned to her. She did her best to stare right back, although it caused her physical pain at the back of her eye sockets. It was like meeting the gaze of a black hole.
“The Mandalorian let the daughter of the fugitives live,” said Darth Howl when the account was finished. “Can you be sure there is no connection between them?”
“I have examined her thoroughly. She feels no sympathy for the ones we seek.”
“What say you, girl? Tell me what you remember of your mother.”
Ax forced her tongue to unfreeze. She had been spoken to, so she must reply. That was how it worked.
“I remember nothing, my lord. That is both a curse and a blessing.”
“Explain.”
“My lack of memory means that I can offer no clue as to the whereabouts of the fugitives. That is a curse, because it would be simplest to avoid dealing with the Hutts altogether. But if I did remember, my feelings might indeed be clouded, and you would be right to mistrust me. I offer you my assurance that I am loyal, and that the Hutts can be dealt with.”
She felt a pressure on her mind, as though a mountain were leaning on it.
“You are confident,” said Darth Howl. “Perhaps overconfident. But you are not lying.”
“Thank you, my lord.” She bowed deeply.
“That doesn’t mean, however, that we can trust you.”
She straightened. “If I may address the Council once more, there is something I wish to say.”
“Speak,” Darth Howl instructed her.
Darth Chratis shot her a warning glance, but she ignored him.
“This mission is paramount, and not just because of the world we stand to gain. There is something my Master has not raised with you, and it concerns the actions of the Mandalorian, Dao Stryver. His master was once an ally of the Empire, but in recent years Mandalore has been distant, threatening, even. Yet this one knew my history, knew of my biological connection to Lema Xandret, knew where to find me. He knew all these things—how? I believe that finding him and obtaining an answer to this question is critical to the security of the Empire.”
That provoked another round of whispering. A Mandalorian spy in the Imperial administration? Unthinkable—yet potentially disastrous if it was true. It could signal the turning of hostile Mandalorian eyes onto the Empire. Whole chains of command would need to be scrutinized. Purges would be required. Heads would roll, perhaps even the Minister of Intelligence’s. The turmoil could be tremendous.
Darth Chratis stared at her with lips pressed so tightly together he might have been making diamonds out of his teeth.
Then, unexpectedly, Darth Howl began to laugh. It was an awful sound, full of bile and rot and cruelty, and it punctured the tension like a dagger. It echoed through the Council chamber like the sound of breaking glass, bringing all else to silence.
“Eldon Ax,” he said, when his malignant mirth subsided, “you do not fool me.”
The blood in Ax’s veins turned to ice. “I swear, my lord—”
“Do not interrupt.” The whip-crack of command was backed up by the full power of the Force. “I know a liar when I meet one.”
Ax could not move. She could only stare in horror, wondering what had gone wrong.
“You speak of infiltrators in the Empire, of Mandalorian infiltration,” her accuser went on. “But I see you clearly, Eldon Ax. I know what stirs in you, which you would hide from all of us. I feel your hatred for the Mandalorian and the desire for revenge. I know that this mission has nothing to do with the Empire. It is all about proving that Dao Stryver was wrong to dismiss you by not killing you. You yearn to turn the tables on him, to defeat him in turn, and then to kill him. That is all you desire. That is what fills your heart.”
An icy smile spread across Darth Howl’s face.
She braced herself to receive the punishment she deserved.
Instead he said, “I approve.”
The invisible hand gripping Ax from head to foot relaxed. “My lord?”
“You have demonstrated to me that you are a true servant of the dark side, Eldon Ax. I endorse your plans, and I advise my colleagues on the Council to do the same.”
Relief swept through Ax. Coming so soon after her certainty that she was about to die, it made her feel light-headed. “Thank you, my lord.”
Darth Howl raised a hand for silence. “I have just one clarification to make.”
Ax’s Master looked up at him. “Yes, my lord?”
“The issue at hand is not the security of the Empire. There are a dozen sources from which Dao Stryver could have learned the girl’s heritage, including, and not to be forgotten, the girl’s mother herself. The issue is not even the world you hope to bring us, although naturally that would be a significant boon to our preparations for war. No, Darth Chratis, the issue is defiance. Fifteen years ago, Lema Xandret made a stand against the Sith and escaped the punishment that was rightly hers. Now comes this opportunity to correct that oversight. We must take it in order to demonstrate to all that our strength has only increased, and that we never forgive.”
The Council greeted his pronouncement with a murmur of approval. Some eyes glanced at the holoprojector in the center of the room, as though even the absence of the Emperor’s image was enough to inspire respect and fear.
Darth Chratis bowed low. “You have my word, my lords, that an example will be made of the girl’s rebellious kin. Their names will be expunged from history, except as an example to those who would defy us.”
Darth Howl didn’t look at Darth Chratis. His gaze remained firmly fixed on Ax.
“I understand,” Ax told him. And she did. This was a test of loyalty as much as it was a mission to punish forgotten traitors. Being a Sith was not just about feeling hatred and anger; it was finding a way to focus those feelings toward the attainment of mastery. Ax said she had forgotten her mother and held her no affection, but when Lema Xandret stood before her and the time came to deliver her rightful punishment, could Ax be the one to administer it?
She swore that she would. There was no affection in her bones for anyone. Not even her Master.
She stood in silent obedience as Darth Chratis confirmed the details of his plan. The Empire would provide him with half a division to command as he saw fit. They would await word from Ax on Hutta before moving on to their final destination. An Imperial envoy would be sent to provide cover for Ax, but that person would play no significant role in the affair. He or she would simply assure Tassaa Bareesh that the Emperor wasn’t suspiciously disinterested in the auction of her prize.
“Your ambitions are plain to us, Darth Chratis,” Darth Howl told him. “Deliver us this world, and you will be rewarded.”
With one last, overlong bow, Darth Chratis took his leave of the Council, and his apprentice followed respectfully two paces behind.
Only when they were in the shuttle did he turn on her. His slender staff clicked open lengthways at one end and the other retracted, forming the crosspieces and handle of his bloodred lightsaber. It stabbed at her face, stopping just short of her skin, and she froze.
“You surprised me in there,” he said in a deceptively quiet voice. “Don’t ever surprise me again.”
She didn’t say: You’re a fool. You mishandled the whole thing. If you’d let me talk to you beforehand, instead of raging about my inability to remember anything, I could have told you in advance. Instead of betraying you, I saved you, and our plan, from being dismissed out of hand.
“I will not, Master” was all she said.
Satisfied with her compliance, Darth Chratis deactivated his lightsaber and stepped away. Truce, she thought, for now. With a grunt, he settled back to ride out the trip from Korriban back to Dromund Kaas—and from there to Hutta, and the attainment of all their dreams.