Refugee: Force Heretic II (50 page)

“You humans are always causing trouble,” the Whiphid grumbled once they’d passed through a door to the back of the Thorny Toe and Han had been lowered to the ground once more. “If I had a credit for every time I’ve bounced one of you out of here, I’d have made it back to Toola years ago.”

“You see many strangers through here, then?” Han asked, straightening his jacket.

The Whiphid looked at him suspiciously. “Why? You looking for someone?”

“No; just curious.” He shut up, then, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself than he already had.

The alien took him up a flight of stairs and deposited him in an empty room containing little more than a padded green couch and a water dispenser. Han assumed it was an antechamber adjoining the bar owner’s office. He sat himself down on the couch and was startled when a voice issued into the room from unseen speakers.

“Han Solo, eh?” The voice’s sex, species, and accent were heavily disguised, but the speaker seemed amused underneath the camouflage. “You’re a long way from home.”

“Well, you know me,” Han bluffed. “Never been one to sit on my hands.”

A strange noise issued from the hidden speakers. It might have been a laugh. “But you’ve always been one for gambling,” the voice returned, more soberly. “It’s good to see that nothing’s changed.”

Han frowned at the familiarity. He desperately tried to think whom he had known in the past who might have ended up owning a bar on Onadax, one of the dingiest worlds the Minos Cluster had to offer, and whether he—or she—might hold a grudge against him.

“You get your thrills where you can,” he said, stalling again.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may.”

Han shrugged, giving in but feigning nonchalance all the same. “Fire away.”

“Who sent you?”

“No one sent me.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m just passing through. Is that a crime in these parts?”

“Where are you headed?”

“Nelfrus, in the Elrood sector.”

“You must be going the long way around, then.”

“You can’t be too careful these days. The Vong—”

“Are everywhere,” the voice interrupted. “Yes, I know. But they’re not here.”

“Which is why I thought I’d come this way.”

After a slight pause, the voice continued: “Are you here alone?”

“What difference does that make?”

“Perhaps none.
Millennium Falcon
has been on Onadax two standard days, one day longer than a Galactic Alliance frigate that docked here yesterday. Am I to assume that there is no relation between this craft and your own?”

“You can assume what you like,” Han said. “But that frigate doesn’t have anything to do with me. What did you say its name was?”

“I didn’t. It’s
Pride of Selonia
.”

He made a show of thinking about the name. “Sounds familiar. You think it might be someone looking for me?”

“Or perhaps the other way around.”

“I’m just here for the scenery,” Han lied. He jingled the credits in his pocket. “And whatever else I can pick up on the way.”

At this, the faceless bar owner did laugh. Onadax was a sooty, inhospitable world, not dense enough to harbor metals of any value, poorly placed even with respect to other worlds in the sector, and too small and ancient to possess any noteworthy geography. Its only saving graces were its lack of a policing authority and a relaxed attitude toward documentation of all kinds.

Just because the government turned a blind eye to who passed through, though, didn’t mean that the locals were stupid.

“Okay,” Han said, scanning the blank walls and ceiling, wishing there were some reference point on which he could focus his attention. “Let’s stop playing games. You’re right. I
am
looking for someone. Maybe you can help me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I’m asking nicely. Do you get many Ryn through here?”

“No more than usual,” the voice said. “Lift up any dirty rock in the galaxy and you’ll find a family living under it. Your taste in friends must have gone downhill if that’s who you’re after.”

“Not just any Ryn.” Han fumbled, not for the first time, for the right way to describe the Ryn he was seeking. “Just one that was supposed to meet me here on Onadax. He hasn’t shown, so I’m looking for him.”

“In a bar?”

“It’s not as if Onadax has much else to offer.”

The voice chuckled again. “You’re looking in the wrong place, Solo.”

“That sounds suspiciously like a brush-off. I swear, it’s nothing underhanded.”

“From you, those words take on a whole new meaning.”

“I’ll even pay, if that’s what you want.”

“If that’s what you think I want, then I fear you’re definitely in the wrong place—and at the wrong time.”

The Whiphid guarding the door stirred.

“So it would seem,” Han said. “Look, I’m racking my brain here trying to work out where we’ve met before. Can’t you give me a name to help me out a little?”

There was no reply.

“What’ve you got to lose?” Han said. “You obviously know me—”

He stopped when the Whiphid’s clawed hand came down on his back and began to drag him away. “At least give me a clue!”

The Whiphid hauled him out of the audience chamber and back down to the barroom. Clearly, the interview was over, and no protest from Han was about to be considered.

“Is he always this friendly?” he asked the bouncer. He amended that to a hopeful “She?” when the question wasn’t answered.

The Whiphid collected Han in its powerful grasp once again and hoisted his feet from the floor.

The bouncer forced its way through the crowd. Laughter and applause followed them, turning to cries of annoyance as Han’s head rammed into something’s foul-smelling midriff and sent a jug of ale splashing across the floor. Recriminations flew, which the bouncer ignored.

“I think you’ll find my seat was over that way,” Han said, pointing hopefully in the direction of the sabacc table where he’d been playing.

The Whiphid ignored him as well, propping him upright none too gently at the door. There was no question that Han was being told—not asked—to leave the premises.

He smiled, taking a hundred-credit chip from his pocket and slipping it to the alien bouncer.

“For your trouble,” he said.

“For yours,” was the response as he was forcibly ejected into the street.

“What sort of dive is this, anyway?” Han protested to the closed door as he picked himself up and dusted himself down once more. His shoulder was tender where he’d hit the ground, and the bouncer’s claws had left a few tears in his jacket. Still, it could have been worse. At least he’d made it out with his winnings.

His comlink buzzed as he limped down the seedy back alley that housed the Thorny Toe. He pulled the comlink out of his pocket, knowing before he’d answered the call that it was Leia on the other end.

“You’re out?” Her voice was faint, but her concern was obvious.

“And in one piece. The bar staff aren’t as tough as their jamming fields suggested they might be.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Nothing useful, although I’m guessing there’s more going on here than meets the eye.”

“There always is.” Leia hesitated. “Is that fighting I hear?”

Han glanced behind him. The ruckus inside the bar was getting nastier by the second.

“My exit was none too subtle,” he said, picking up the pace.

“Start making your way back, then. It’s not safe out there, Han.”

“On my way now.”

“I’d advise against stopping somewhere else en route, even if it does allay suspicions.”

Han smiled to himself. In the old days, he would’ve been tempted. But the choice between Leia and a seedy dive was getting easier every year. “Will do.”

The secure channel closed with a soft click. Han’s smile ebbed as behind him the fight spilled noisily out into the street. He hurriedly rejoined the stream of barhoppers cruising the settlement’s main thoroughfare, the grilling he’d received at the Thorny Toe still nagging at him. That the owner of the bar had known him didn’t bother him so much; after all, the Solo name had spread across the galaxy and back again, especially in the quasi-legal circles to which he’d once belonged. But the complete stonewalling regarding the Ryn
did
bother him. His other sources hadn’t known anything, but at least they had been up front about it. Dumb ignorance was totally different to silence.

Han rubbed his shoulder and hurried back to the
Falcon
, hoping Jaina had had better luck on the other side of town.

Long—
long
—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in
Star Wars: A New Hope
 … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.

But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force selflessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders fled beyond the galactic frontier, where they built a civilization of their own: the Sith Empire.

The first great conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire occurred when two hyperspace explorers stumbled on the Sith worlds, giving the Sith Lord Naga Sadow and his dark side warriors a direct invasion route into the Republic’s central worlds. This war resulted in the first destruction of the Sith Empire—but it was hardly the last. For the next four thousand years, skirmishes between the Republic and Sith grew into wars, with the scales always tilting toward one or the other, and peace never lasting. The galaxy was a place of almost constant strife: Sith armies against Republic armies; Force-using Sith Lords against Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights; and the dreaded nomadic mercenaries called Mandalorians bringing muscle and firepower wherever they stood to gain.

Then, a thousand years before
A New Hope
and the Battle of Yavin, the Jedi defeated the Sith at the Battle of Ruusan, decimating the so-called Brotherhood of Darkness that was the heart of the Sith Empire—and most of its power.

One Sith Lord survived—Darth Bane—and his vision for the Sith differed from that of his predecessors. He instituted a new doctrine: No longer would the followers of the dark side build empires or amass great armies of Force-users. There would be only two Sith at a time: a Master and an apprentice. From that time on, the Sith remained in hiding, biding their time and plotting their revenge, while the rest of the galaxy enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace, so long and strong that the Republic eventually dismantled its standing armies.

But while the Republic seemed strong, its institutions had begun to rot. Greedy corporations sought profits above all else and a corrupt Senate did nothing to stop them, until the corporations reduced many planets to raw materials for factories and entire species became subjects for exploitation. Individual Jedi continued to defend the Republic’s citizens and obey the will of the Force, but the Jedi Order to which they answered grew increasingly out of touch. And a new Sith mastermind, Darth Sidious, at last saw a way to restore Sith domination over the galaxy and its inhabitants, and quietly worked to set in motion the revenge of the Sith …

If you’re a reader new to the Old Republic era, here are three great starting points:

Read on for an excerpt from a
Star Wars
novel set in the Old Republic era.

D
essel was lost in the suffering of his job, barely even aware of his surroundings. His arms ached from the endless pounding of the hydraulic jack. Small bits of rock skipped off the cavern wall as he bored through, ricocheting off his protective goggles and stinging his exposed face and hands. Clouds of atomized dust filled the air, obscuring his vision, and the screeching whine of the jack filled the cavern, drowning out all other sounds as it burrowed centimeter by agonizing centimeter into the thick vein of cortosis woven into the rock before him.