The Last Jedi

Twenty-Seven


“That is a most interesting … necklace.”

Pol Haus looked up at the sound of Sheel Mafeen’s mellifluous voice and smiled inwardly, knowing it was not the necklace she found interesting, but the Togruta skin-suit he wore that transformed him into a handsome male of her own species. She had recognized him, he knew, only by the fact that he was wearing a rancor tooth pendant, which—according to their prearranged agreement—he would be toying with.

“Thanks. You have the speaking voice of an angel.” He reached over to pull a chair out from the small table from which he’d watched her performance. “May I offer you a drink?”

“I’d love one, thanks.” She sat down opposite him, smiling. “You’re new here.”

“I saw your picture out front. Thought I’d see if you sounded as good as you looked.”

“And?”

“Like I said, you have a beautiful speaking voice. And your selection of poetry is stellar.”

They ordered drinks, talked flirtatiously, and left for Sheel’s conapt. It was a nice place. But then, Sheel Mafeen was a well-known and much-admired performer in the sector. Haus reckoned she must do pretty well for herself to be able to afford a suite of rooms so high up in her resiblock.

A gleaming, carpeted hallway led to her door, which opened into a main room that was decorated in rich shades of green and furnished with pieces that looked as if they were fashioned of real wood.

She noticed him studying the furniture.

“Yes, it’s real,” she said. “I had it imported from my homeworld. The forest valleys of Shili are very dear to me.”

“Very nice.” He caught her expression and laughed. “No, I mean it. It’s beautiful.” He didn’t mention that the greens clashed a bit with her rosy complexion.

She smiled, showing sharp canines. “Make yourself at home. I’ll get us some caf.” As she spoke, she removed her shoulder bag and withdrew from it what looked like a makeup case.

It wasn’t, he knew. It was a portable sensor array—or SAP, as the military liked to call them, short for “sensor array, portable.” As she crossed the cozy living area and went into the kitchen, he got out his datapad and activated its sensors. In less than a minute, he had ascertained that the living room was free of surveillance devices.

Haus relaxed, sat down on a forest-green divan, and scanned the room visually. It took him several moments to realize that the view outside of the large living room window was real. Those were the real spires of the Imperial Palace, not holographic images of them.

“Whoa.” He was drawn to the window as if by a magnet, mesmerized by the play of light and shadow among the cloudcutters and skygrazers.

“Whoa, indeed. I bet you don’t often get to see that view in your line of work.”

Sheel Mafeen had reentered the room. Haus was surprised to see that she was carrying a tray with steaming mugs of caf and a dish of some sort of candied fruit.

“No. Not often. I’ve visited the Security Bureau a number of times, but even then, I’ve never seen the palace from this angle.”

“The kitchen’s clean,” she said as he returned to the divan.

“Have you ever found surveillance bugs in here?”

“Only when I first moved in. I’d just made a splash in the local performance and art world and I think the Imperials wanted to vet me. I left the bugs there for a while to establish that I was a good, upstanding citizen, then ‘accidentally’ destroyed them when I had the place redecorated. Since then, nothing.” She handed him a mug. “Did I mention that you make a handsome Togruta?”

He chuckled. “As opposed to a homely Zabrak?”

“I didn’t say that—or mean it. You’re a handsome Zabrak, too. Just a bit … scruffy.”

She wrinkled her nose when she said it, and for a moment, he considered that perhaps he didn’t need to always look like a demented street rat. Then again, it was such a useful thing—it nearly always caused people to underestimate him.

He took a sip of the caf. “What’s the situation?”

Sheel’s smile drained away. “Sal is going through with it—with the …” She shook her head, unable to frame the words. “Here’s what really worries me: he’s doing all this with minimal input from the full Whiplash Council.”

“I’m starting to think that’s the way Tuden Sal works,” Haus agreed. “Divide and control.”

Sheel nodded. “He’s not only divided the authority among Whiplash leaders, but he’s pieced out different parts of this … plan, as well; I think he’s the only one who has the whole picture. Not even Acer and Dyat are in on everything, though I think he trusts them the most. He talked about ambushing the Emperor in the streets around the shore, but that doesn’t tally with what I’ve seen. He’s got field operatives in the shore and floor maintenance crews near the Emperor’s villa. And Acer let it slip that he’s been in receipt of large amounts of explosives—explosives powerful enough to bring down entire buildings.”

Haus nodded. It didn’t surprise him that the Sakiyan had effectively made himself the head of Whiplash, all the while giving lip service to support for a nonhierarchical authority. It was—according to his dossier, which the prefect had combed through thoroughly—the way he had run his corporate organization, as well. He was in the pilot’s seat, while his underlings took care of discrete parts of the business with authority that only extended to their own small domain. No one except Sal himself had an overview of the entire operation.

In an organization like Black Sun, this kind of arrangement was offset by natural ambition; any and all subordinates were looking for ways to rise above their positions, pull off a coup, or work out their own competing plans. In an organization like Whiplash, however, in which the council members took the egalitarian nature of their cause at face value, Tuden Sal could make his own plans with confidence that no one else among the shared leadership would formulate competing schemes or imagine that he was withholding information. Haus remembered that the Coruscant resistance had chosen the name Whiplash out of a sense of irony—a constant reminder of the Imperial yoke they attempted to overthrow.

“I suppose it’s possible he’s just being careful,” Sheel said, her hands wrapped around her mug as if her fingers were cold. “If I were him, I’d be afraid that maybe someone would slip up and reveal too much to the wrong person.”

Reminded of his own unwelcome suspicions, Haus set his caf down on the carved wooden table more heavily than he’d intended.

“What is it, Pol?”

“What you were saying about slippage—it may have already happened. I can’t be sure.”

Maybe it was his imagination, but the Togruta’s face seemed to go a shade or two lighter. “What do you mean?”

“One of my speeder patrols checked in early this morning with the observation that for the past two nights, they’ve seen Imperial security forces moving into the Golden Crescent area near the Emperor’s villa.”

“Well, of course, the Emperor is in residence—”

He shook his head. “He’s been in residence for over a week. Why would they be moving now—and under cover of darkness? I also got a report from an operative who delivers supplies to the administrative offices of the Inquisitorius. She says the few Inquisitors that were left behind when Vader went offworld are no longer ‘drifting around the place’, as she put it.”

Now Sheel’s pallor was definitely not imaginary. “You think they’ve gone to guard the Emperor?”

“Entirely possible. It’s also entirely possible that, high-level Senate committee meeting or not, the Emperor himself may have been moved.” He shrugged. “Or, knowing how arrogant he is, he may be lying in wait like a spider at the middle of a web.”

“What do we do? Don’t we have to warn Sal?”

“How? Do you think he’d trust anything I had to say? And if you go to him with this intel, he’ll want to know how you got it. Worse—he may decide he can’t trust you, either.”

“What then?”

Haus stood. “I’ll try to reach him. At least that will keep you out of it. I’ll try to make him believe the warning is real and not my attempt to run interference. Chances are he’ll laugh in my face, but I can’t just let him run head-on into a rancor nest. I suppose I could arrest him on trumped-up charges or make up some reason to bring him in for questioning.”

“Would you do that? Could you do it?”

“If I have to. But I’m not sure that would stop whatever it is he’s set in motion.”

Haus started for the front door, then paused and turned back. “Sheel, maybe you shouldn’t attend any more Whiplash Council meetings.”

She blinked. “He’s called a meeting tomorrow morning. If I don’t go …”

Forgetting that he was in disguise, Haus reached up to scratch his shock of badly trimmed hair. His fingers met a fake Togruta montral. “You’re right. Stick with it, but keep your comlink handy.”

She nodded, her lips drawn into a grim, ashen line.



At the soft chime of the HoloNet terminal in his personal quarters aboard the Whiplash hovertrain, Tuden Sal looked up to see who would be calling him at this time of night. He was honestly surprised to see Pol Haus’s ident icon floating above the console.

He was even more surprised at himself: he actually answered the summons.

“To what do I owe the dubious pleasure, Prefect Haus?” he asked the holographic image of Pol Haus’s head and shoulders that appeared once he had answered the call.

“To a report I got early this morning from a couple of my speeder patrols. Specifically, the ones routed around the eastern shore of the Western Sea in the Golden Crescent area.”

“Oh, wait. Let me guess: they saw Darth Vader out walking his pet rancor beast. Or perhaps he was trolling the waters for Jedi.”

Haus sighed audibly. “Will you shut up for a minute and hear me out?”

“Why? Nothing you have to say is of interest to me.”

“If you’ve still got designs on Palpatine, it should be. There are Imperial security forces and possibly Inquisitors in and around the seashore near the Emperor’s villa.”

Sal was immediately wary. “Why should I care what happens near the Emperor’s villa?”

“Don’t play games, Sal. There isn’t time. I know you’re going after Palpatine, and chances are good that someone else suspects you are, as well.”

Sal’s pulse jacked up several notches. “How do you know? Who told you?”

“I have people all over the sector. They see things. They hear things. And what they see and hear they report to me—or to another prefect who then files his own activity report. The difference between those prefects and me is that I know who the Whiplash operatives are. And I know you. I didn’t buy for a moment that you weren’t going to act on that intel. Striking Palpatine while he’s in residence at the villa is the best chance you’re going to get.”

Haus was right. His logic was impeccable. Sal sometimes forgot that Pol Haus wasn’t the dense, lazy career detective he pretended to be.

“So you’ve called to warn me off. What are you thinking, Haus? That I’m an idiot?”

“I think you’re a zealot, Sal. I think you’re so focused on taking out Palpatine—so focused on revenge—that you’re not thinking straight.”

Anger, swift and hot, flared in Tuden Sal’s breast. He knotted his hands against it, striving to keep a smile on his face and his tone level.

“Revenge? Is that what you think this is about? My own personal agenda? Palpatine didn’t just ruin me, Pol. He ruined a lot of people. And murdered more. He’s directly responsible for us losing Yimmon and Laranth and indirectly responsible for us losing Jax, I-Five, and Den. This is the man, Prefect, who took down the entire Jedi Order, leaving the way open for his unchecked, iron-fisted control of all our lives. This isn’t just my battle. It’s everyone’s battle.”

“Yes. It is. Which is why you need to listen to me. If the Emperor’s been tipped off to your plans, everyone suffers.”

“You know what your problem is, Pol? You can’t commit to anything. You glide around in the background, slither through the dark, pretending to be something you’re not. Playing the foolish, clumsy police detective so that your enemies will fail to recognize you as a threat. I’m sure you think you do it to be clever and because it allows you to know things you wouldn’t otherwise know. But that’s not it, is it? You don’t do it for any of those reasons. You do it because it keeps you safe. Other people die. You’re already a ghost. The man no one sees. Fine, then. Be a ghost—be a coward. But don’t expect the rest of us to run scared, too. The Emperor is going to die.”

Haus was shaking his head. “Sal, listen to me. I want to be free of Palpatine as much as the next man—”

“Do you really?” An ugly suspicion struck Sal. “Or are you on his payroll?”

“If I was, would I warn you?”

Of course. That impeccable logic again. “No. You’re right. You’re no traitor. Just a coward.”

“If you think you can get under my skin by calling me names—”

“I don’t care about your skin. Frag your skin. I care about this mission.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Sal—”

“Wrong. I know exactly what I’m doing. How about you? Are you planning on getting in my way?”

The Zabrak ran long fingers through his frowzy mane, and for once, Tuden Sal read resignation in his sharp features.

“No,” he said. “No. I won’t get in your way. Good luck with this. I mean it. I hope you succeed. I’m just afraid you won’t.”

Sal cut him off.



In a spacer tavern near the Westport, Acer Ash shook wrists with Captain Donari Caron and felt a pleasurable flush of attraction as he touched the Zeltron’s ruby skin. He held her wrist a moment longer than formality required, basking in her glow, while her large dark eyes glinted in acknowledgment of his silent admiration.

He was hopeful that their business might also involve a significant amount of pleasure; he was also on his guard. A Zeltron smuggler had a tactical advantage—she could pheromonically manipulate the emotions of her contacts, thus negotiating better conditions than someone without that capacity might arrange.

Ash determined he would not fall prey to that sort of emotional byplay. He knew Zeltrons craved physical affection as much as he craved profits. That was a bit of leverage he could and would use. He gestured the captain to a private cubicle in the dimly lit back room of the tavern that, owing to a deal with the tavern owner—a Whiplash informant—amounted to a private office. Meanwhile, in the large main room, a live band thumped out loud music to the cheers and jeers of their audience. The white noise generated by the audio confounders in the back room melted neatly into the chaotic drift from the tavern.

Their negotiations were cordial, notwithstanding the Zeltron tried several times to employ her pheromones to sway him toward purchasing or bartering for items he did not, in fact, want. He caught her at it, called her on it, and the two of them had a good laugh.

He made good deals all in all, for the mundane imports, but there were a few items for which Captain Caron had rather specific demands—such as several extraordinary pieces of art ripped from archaeological sites on other worlds and for which Acer Ash had eager buyers. What he did not have in abundance were the cutting-edge tech gadgets that Captain Caron’s Black Sun contacts wanted for the artworks.

“How many units can you get me?” she asked, referring to an experimental palm-sized energy shield with a range of two meters that not only deflected energy weapons and projectiles, but turned them back on the attackers.

Ash returned the sample device to its little packing case. “I’ve got five of them, but I need to keep two back for another buyer.”

The other buyer was Tuden Sal. He had requisitioned two of the devices for field operatives involved in the Mission. Profits were profits, but Whiplash came first even for someone of Acer Ash’s mercenary bent.

“Only three?” She shook her head, sending a cascade of rippling saffron-colored hair over one shoulder. “My clients need them in the hundreds.”

He shrugged, fighting his hormonal responses to her, and leaned away from her against the back of his chair, pulling his hands back to his side of the table. “They can disassemble the prototypes. See what makes ’em work. Make their own.”

Donari Caron rolled her lustrous eyes; sweat broke out on Ash’s upper lip. She was certainly an exemplary example of her species; a regular pheromone factory. He desperately wanted to lean into her—to draw closer—but he kept his relaxed pose, slouched in his chair, one hand toying with his half-empty glass of cinnamon liqueur.

“Without the specs? Please, Acer, my clients have high expectations of me. I’d need twenty or thirty of the things at least if they’re going to have to reverse-engineer them. Or all five of the ones you’ve got and the specifications. I’m sure you understand the imperative.”

She put her hand over his on the table.

He withdrew his hand. “You’re kidding, right? I can’t get the specs. They’re a closely guarded secret.”

Her frustration was palpable. “What can you get? Can you at least get me ten of the devices?”

Ash laughed. “You seem to be under the impression that I could get you more of the bloody things if you offer the right incentives, but that I’m just trying to drive a hard bargain. I swear that’s not the case. I can get them, but not quickly and not in great numbers. What with Palpatine, Darth Vader, the inquisitive Inquisitors, and the fraggin’ Security Bureau, my supply lines are—shall we say—squeezed.”

Her eyes lost their gleam and she sat back, withdrawing herself—and her considerable hormonal presence—completely. “That’s bad news. I guess I oversold your ability to get things done. My clients will be disappointed … to say the least.”

He shifted toward her, hungry for the warm flush he’d felt moments before, then realized she was using his own tactics against him. The knowledge didn’t help much, though he was able to regain a bit of his poise.

“Donari, I can get things done, trust me. It’s just that things are a little tight on Coruscant right now, security-wise. But that’s going to change real soon.”

“Really? And why is that?”

“Let’s just say that Palpatine isn’t going to be a factor for much longer, and once he’s out of the picture, Vader and his spooks and his little black-shirted goon squad will be running around trying to figure out what happened. And while they’re busy doing that, I’ll take the opportunity to get all sorts of stuff out under their noses.”

She blinked at him, then gave him a cockeyed smile that lit him up like a homing beacon. “You seem awfully sure of your intel. What do you know?” She leaned toward him again, elbows on the table, her eyes bright and speculative.

Ash shook his head, chuckling. “Sorry, Captain, but I can’t tell you a thing about a thing. It’s just a feeling I got. You know how it is with … feelings.”

Her smile deepened. “I do, indeed. Now, what kind of deal can you give me for my temple art?”

They ended up striking a deal for three of the personal shields he had against one of the temple paintings she had with a promissory handshake for another set of ten shields. If he could produce the specs or another set of ten personal shields, a second artifact would be his.

They sealed their deal in the captain’s quarters aboard her ship, the Touch of Gold.



Three days.

In three days, the last of the selected Senators would collect at Emperor Palpatine’s villa on the shore of the Western Sea and enter into secret meetings. That was the day they would strike. To most men planning an operation of this type, the heightened security required for such a meeting might have argued against carrying out an assassination attempt. But Tuden Sal had observed many times over that the chaos caused by such events could afford the perfect cover for such a mission.

He was counting on it being so this time, as well.

There were multiple security organizations involved—Imperial forces, the Senators’ personal bodyguards and security detachments, their administrative personnel—all of which created overlap and gaps, and distracted rote-trained forces from their daily routines and habits. In such times as these, competing security protocols and agendas often came into conflict, and when they did it forced those involved to focus much more tightly on one another than on what was going on outside and beyond them.

It also put a whole group of operatives into play who were unfamiliar with what was “normal” in this neighborhood or in the waters that lapped at the Emperor’s private jetty and swirled beneath his private dock.

Tuden Sal had taken seriously Pol Haus’s claim that additional Imperial forces had moved into the area under cover of darkness, but none of his operatives in the coastal neighborhoods had reported any such activity, which led to the obvious conclusion that Haus was lying.

The Emperor probably suspected people were plotting to assassinate him all the time. He was right; very likely they were. But Palpatine was an arrogant man, so sure of his own powers and those of his dark-hearted protégé, Darth Vader, that he would never hide, even if he knew the hour and day of his planned demise. But he didn’t know. Hence, Vader was offworld and the Emperor was having a private conclave with his favorite sycophants.

Thi Xon Yimmon, Sal thought, would have balked at killing the Emperor at the risk of so much collateral damage—the explosives Acer Ash had brought in would reduce the villa and its nearest neighbors to rubble—but Sal had no such qualms. The Emperor deserved the death he was going to get, and so did the Senators who willingly supported him.

So, the explosives were in place on their cleaning droids; the “cleanup” team of Nautolans and Mon Calamari had infiltrated the maintenance crews of the seaside resorts and had every reason to be in or near the water; the aerial assault teams were ready to pick off anyone who escaped the conflagration; the ground forces were armed and ready to take down anyone who might get out of the villa’s grounds into the streets. Nor would there be any escape by water; the operatives who had planted the charges and reprogrammed the droids would be there to “help” any would-be escapees to a far quieter place.

Tuden Sal reached a hand out to the illuminated 3-D image of the Emperor’s villa. Soon all those years of loss would be over. He would reunite with his family. He would have a life again. His fingertip passed through the holographic image, erasing it in a split second.

Three days.