Tales from the New Republic (22 page)

“All right,” Shada said, easing the holo tube into the player. The scan had showed it was a normal holo tube, with no surprises attached. But that didn’t mean she entirely trusted it. “Here we go.”

A two-meter-tall likeness of Fenig Nabon appeared. “Hello again, Shada,” the figure said. “Since you’re watching this, I presume Ghitsa and I are gone. Hopefully still alive, though you’re now probably regretting that you didn’t send us out the airlock without the benefit of vac suits.”

Dunc grumbled in her throat, but said nothing.

“Ghitsa has maintained that you would want to deliver us to the Hutts for their own peculiar punishments,” Fen continued. “If this went down right, she’ll be selling to Durga the Hutt a datacard with detailed information on the ship responsible for the theft of his dancers. A competent slicer will trace that information back to the
Indenture
and the Karazak Slaving Cooperative.”

The image grinned, a little shamefacedly. “I’m sure you’ve also noticed that
The Fury
’s ID is reading as the
Indenture
. That was my own touch, in case someone on Nal Hutta spotted you. The overlay program is buried in your backup comm system. You’ll probably have to go in through the battle game I was playing to get to it—that’s how I got in—but it shouldn’t be any real trick to disable.”

She sobered. “On the more serious side, you can probably predict what will happen when Durga reaches the conclusion that the KSC stole his dancers.”

“Gang war,” Dunc murmured.

“Ghitsa thinks that in the resulting turmoil both the KSC and the Hutts will leave Ryloth alone for a while. Durga’s slicer should also find certain inconvenient payments the KSC has made to Brin’shak. This will likely be the last Twi’lek acquisition Brin’shak will make for the Hutts.”

The image shifted, foot to foot. A little embarrassed, perhaps? “We’ve told the dancers that you’ll return them to Kala’uun on Ryloth. The Dira Clan is expecting them and can be trusted. The Shak Clan may howl about it, but you shouldn’t get anything but noise from them. They were discredited two years ago in Kala’uun after trying to scam the New Republic over some ryll kor and are generally trying to lay low.

“Finally, assuming you haven’t killed us, Ghitsa will transfer twenty thousand into your account, as agreed. I know you’re expecting thirty-two, but if you play it right with the Dira Clan, they may pay you some ryll kor for bringing the dancers back.” The image smiled, a little smugly. “Ghitsa urges you to sell quickly, as she believes the market will top out soon.”

Fen raised her head, looking out into nothing. “Jett always really admired the Mistryl, Shada. But sometimes he was uncomfortable with what you would do for money. Poverty makes people desperate, he would say. But sometimes, it’s better to be poor. Ghitsa, of course, disagrees.”

The image of Fenig Nabon flickered out.

Durga escorted them to the port city of Bilbousa where Fen had berthed the
Star Lady
. They set course for the nearest New Republic facility with a decent banking exchange.

As soon as the ship jumped, Ghitsa slipped out of her cockpit chair. “I’m going to get cleaned up.”

When Fen emerged from her own long, hot shower, Ghitsa was already in the cabin, sitting at the cabin’s table, intently watching the final chapter in the wooing of Leia Organa. Fen grabbed a bottle of Corellia’s finest and two glasses before sitting across from Ghitsa.

“So,” Fen began, pouring and sliding a glass across the table to her partner. Ghitsa said nothing, but did accept the drink.

“Did Durga buy it?”

“I doubt it,” Ghitsa scoffed. “But he is cautious. He won’t part with one-hundred mill without proof and thirty-seven and a half is a small price to pay, for now. All the proof will point to the Karazaks. They are more likely to cheat him than I am.”

“But you aren’t a counselor anymore.”

Ghitsa visibly brightened and took a sip of her drink. “Rather convenient, I thought.”

“You wanted this?”

She sighed, tilting her head back against the booth. It was the first time in a while Fen had seen Ghitsa look normal—a simple flight suit, damp hair, nothing caking her face or nails. “You remember how I said that mortality among Durga’s Twi’leks was around seventy percent?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s even higher for Hutt counselors. Even if a counselor’s own clan won’t kill her, we tend to be excellent acquisition targets for Hutt competitors.”

Ghitsa, Fen suddenly realized, would not have taken these kinds of risks for a mere seventy-five thousand. “And those twelve dead counselors?”

“Two of them were Dogders.” Ghitsa stopped there, lips pressed into a thin, firm line.

Fen veered to safer ground. “Will Durga pay the rest?”

Ghitsa took another swallow. “Maybe. Probably. He’ll be very happy when he finds out about the Karazaks. I expect he’ll give me a bonus.”

They watched as the
Coruscant Daily Newsfeed
gushed about Princess Organa’s impending nuptials.

“Pity about Han Solo,” Ghitsa said.

“Waste of a pretty good smuggler,” Fen sighed, staring into her drink.

The Princess appeared, again in her regal white, announcing that Dathomir would now be open to Alderaani exiles. The program intoned, “And Organa announced today that the New Republic has appropriated two-hundred million in financial assistance for displaced Alderaani. Low-interest loans will also be available to aid in resettlement…”

Fen whistled appreciatively. “Too bad you have to be Alderaani to be eligible.”

They stared at the screen.

“You know,” Ghitsa began, “I’ve always wanted to play impoverished nobility.”

Fen glanced from her partner to the vid, and back again. “True,” she finally said. “And Leia Organa may not look good in white, but, Ghitsa, I bet you do.”

The Imperial Star Destroyer
Interrogator
maintained its support position, matching coordinate planes and acceleration bursts with its nav computer specifications. From the observation deck, several levels beneath the flight bridge, the commanding officer stared through the transparisteel platform as the
Imperial II
-class Star Destroyer maneuvered into the mouth of a vacuous, black nebula. Gliding from the sinister shadow of undistinguished space, the
Interrogator
was an impressive sight, a precisely honed dagger tip against the starless backdrop of space.

An advanced point ship, his vessel was moving in to investigate a little-known area of space known as the
Nharqis’I
. The term, despite its romantic appeal, was a crude variation of a word in a lingering smuggler dialect, which he understood to mean “the death place.” Starless, featureless, menacing—the foreboding nebula was a testimonial to seemingly endless continuity.

Chewing nervously at his lower lip, the young captain stared into the faceless void, wishing he could lose himself inside it. The
Nharqis’I
could be no colder or more forbidding a place than the anonymous darkness of Lord Tremayne’s waiting room. And the
Nharqis’Al
, a hideous, mythical leviathan said to lurk within the nebula, could certainly be no more terrifying an entity than the Emperor’s leading High Inquisitor himself.

In the midst of the sparsely furnished, cruelly antiseptic interior of the waiting chamber, the young captain noticed only one chair sitting against the far wall. He wondered how many Imperial officers had sat in that chair and how many had lived to tell about it. The numbers were quite disproportionate to each other, he was certain, and he congratulated himself on his decision not to sit in it.

Though he was not a superstitious man, the captain was confident that he enhanced his chances of survival if Tremayne should come and find him standing in anticipation of this meeting. He had, in fact, been standing, respectfully at attention, for the past three hours, waiting for the Dark Adept to address him personally.

And if his diligence had no bearing at all upon the outcome of their meeting, at least he would have the satisfaction of meeting High Inquisitor Tremayne and his own potential execution with a small measure of dignity.

The others died on their feet
, his subconscious told him. Admiral Ozzel. Admiral Ranes. Captain Needa. His esteemed mentor and friend, Captain Nolaan. And there were others who did not directly come to mind.
What makes you so different
?

The inability to answer that question brought a hollow, unsettled feeling to the bottom of his stomach. Clasping his hands tightly behind his back, the young captain swayed back and forth on his heels, an impatient habit learned on the bridge and honed by the daily stresses of commanding a ship in the Emperor’s most prestigious war fleet. It was a peculiar fixation on motion that he was working to eliminate and had regulated it with some success. In any case, the swaying did not trouble him quite so much as the violent tremors that shook his hands.

The captain brushed his fingers over the front of his uniform and straightened the insignia, chiding himself for allowing a physical manifestation of his concerns to appear. The last impression he wanted to make before leaving this world was the empty illusion of fear.

Fear
. That was not the way to run a ship or motivate its crewmen and support personnel. Fear inspired mistakes, tension among the crew, which accounted for more mistakes and erroneous decisions in judgment. Ultimately, the end result of such tension was failure and more fear. Respect was what they taught in the Academy, respect and subject to authority.

Discipline is the immediate compliance to all orders, undeviating respect for authority, and above all self-reliance
.

The young captain grinned as the memorized definition came to mind—a recurring echo from his days at the Academy. He remembered the fear of those early days of training, when everything had seemed so beyond reach. He remembered his initial clumsiness with orders and superior officers, the ambiguity of doubt, and the gradual breaking down and reestablishment of his pride. There was indeed a certain arrogance in the mastery of discipline, the mastery of self. There was incalculable self-satisfaction in obeying orders, respecting the High Command, and in being recognized for the ability to think clearly in a crisis. These things combined evoked respect, not fear. High Inquisitor Tremayne knew little of the former and enlisted too heavy a hand in the latter.

The captain nodded in complete confidence. He regretted nothing he had done in the course of his military duties to dismantle, or at least dilute, the fear that High Inquisitor Tremayne inspired. His service record and that of the personnel aboard the
Interrogator
was without blemish, asserting, at least in his mind, that respect was a superior motivation to fear.

Meeting Tremayne’s orders with a thin smile and consummate bowing of the head had made him one of the most distinguished officers in the Fleet. No other would be so bold as to even meet the Jedi’s menacing face, with its equally sinister cybernetic replacements. And while the captain’s efforts were met with cold disdain and neutrality, he persevered, hoping to influence the Emperor’s infamous servant with a small measure of his loyalty and willingness to serve.

“What did it matter?” he whispered, startled by the sound of his own voice. The captain paused, cocking his head to one side as the echo reverberated between the narrow walls of the waiting chamber. Chiding himself for the outburst, he pursed his lips as that hollow feeling dug itself deeper into the pit of his stomach, where the root of all his suppressed fears had lain dormant, until this ignobling day.

Indeed, what did it matter? His relationship to the deceased Captain Nolaan was an unwritten blight on his reputation, one that would inevitably doom him. And his fate would be no different than the others who had been Nolaan’s trusted advisors and formal companions. High Inquisitor Tremayne had made that distinction very clear, starting with Nolaan’s summary execution on the bridge of the
Interrogator
. And in the aftermath, not one who had called Nolaan friend and mentor was alive to mourn him, except for himself. And that was soon to change.

Vharing swallowed convulsively, remembering Tremayne’s wrath. He shuddered with the recollection of Captain Nolaan’s gray, stricken face as the troopers dragged his body from the bridge and into the corridor for expeditious disposition. If Tremayne’s justice was as predictable as the black void of the
Nharqis’I
, he was next in line.

He straightened the collar of his uniform and adjusted the tilt of his cap. A patriotic cant learned during his tenure at the Imperial Naval Academy came to mind and the young captain took a sudden rush of optimism from the words. The power of those memories instilled him with the courage to face Tremayne as he would face any man in a position of power—with respect and deference rather than fear. After all, it was not his command that had sent a full squadron of Imperial TIE bombers to the cloudy, defenseless world of Qlothos.

His subordinate, the ambitious senior lieutenant, had picked up some peculiar signals from the nearby planet. It was a frequency that nearly matched a set of earlier transmission codes that had been intercepted from an Alliance operative. Suspecting a hidden Rebel garrison, the senior lieutenant sent the TIE bombers to destroy it.

All this had transpired while the captain lay asleep in his bed. He was only awakened by the lieutenant after the facts were collected and the casualties calculated. There were only minimal injures to report, no damages to craft or equipment. But nearly sixty civilians, most of them prominent Imperial citizens, were dead—among them a high-ranking Kuat Drive Yards engineer, his wife, and two sons, who were on holiday in the capital.

Evidently, the cloudy blanket of atmosphere covering the planet played havoc on the identification beacons built into the concussion missiles. One went astray and demolished a secluded section of the residential community, which lay only a kilometer from the suspected Rebel compound. Hours after the fatalities were counted, Lord Tremayne’s summons had come through directly. And without the added apprehension of his military aide to share in his inner torment, the captain came to meet with the High Inquisitor alone.

But now, he regretted that decision. The briefest contact with another human, however succinct, might have eased his anxiety and given him something to dwell on besides this impending meeting.

The industrious senior com-scan officer would have been an excellent choice. A family man and father, he was an incessant talker—one reason the captain had overlooked him as his military aide. A loyal and competent leader, the com-scan officer always had time to devote to the love of his wife, nearly three hundred light-years away, and to the newly born child he had never seen, except through holos and rare face-to-face transmissions.

The balance seemed to anchor the talkative officer in a way the captain had come to admire and finally resent. But after today, all that would change. After assuring High Inquisitor Tremayne that the ambitious senior lieutenant would be punished to the fullest extent—court-martialed, convicted of manslaughter, the destruction of Imperial property, and harassment of loyal Imperial citizens—the captain would promote the com-scan officer as his new advisor and begin to share in this esoteric life.

The door to Tremayne’s chamber abruptly opened. The captain turned curtly on his heel and saluted as the Jedi stepped into the room. “High Inquisitor Tremayne, I have a full report into Senior Lieutenant Leeds’s blundering—” His voice was arrested by the lancing pain that assailed his throat.

As the invisible grip intensified, the captain fell to his knees. He winced as the small bones at the base of his skull cracked audibly under the pressure. Unable to breathe, he found himself sprawled on the cold glare of the waiting room floor. He closed his eyes in an effort to compose himself.

His mind began to flounder for lack of oxygen, and he remembered the stress exercise at the Academy where his colleagues and he were subjected to a panic test in a room full of noxious fumes. Half blinded and nearly unconscious, he was the last to emerge—the only one with the courage, or foolish pride as many called it, to remain longer than any of the others. But in this new test, there were fatal consequences. Here the captain was fully cognizant of what was happening to him. There would be no noxious fumes to dim his senses and lessen the blow. He could feel every sensation in vivid detail, from the cold kiss of the deck plate against his palms to the coarse fabric of his uniform as it chafed his elbows and knees.

Unable to raise his head and beseech Tremayne for a second chance, the young captain could only stare into the flowing black hem of the Jedi’s robes. As his consciousness waned, he imagined himself being drawn into that black fabric and into an alternate world as dark and starless as the
Nharqis’I
nebula surrounding his ship.

What a fitting end to my life
, he thought with numb pleasure. The first small bone broke beneath the pressure and he felt his body relax.