“Check it,” Pok ordered. “He’s still aboard somewhere—”
A sizzle and hum sounded, shouts, a thump, repeated blasterfire, a prolonged thrum, rising and falling, a series of shouts and screams.
“Pok!” Isval cried. “Pok!”
Cham cursed.
“What’s happening over there?” Isval asked. “What’s that sound?”
The rising thrum dredged memories from the back of Cham’s mind.
“It’s a lightsaber,” he said. The sound of the blade had been seared into his head during the Clone Wars, when Jedi had wielded them: Jedi doing things, like Vader, that no ordinary being could do. But there were no more Jedi and there was no more Republic. There was only Vader, and the Empire.
Another thump, then another. More alarmed shouts. Only two or three blasters were firing, and in the relative quiet another sound came over the comm: breathing, loud, as though amplified through a speaker or respirator. Vader’s breathing.
“What is that? Is that Vader?” Isval asked, her own breath coming rapidly. Cham hurriedly muted the connection on his end.
More shouts, the crash of something heavy, and still the hum of the lightsaber, rising and falling.
“For Ryloth!” Pok shouted, and the sound of rapid blasterfire filled the comm.
The hum of the lightsaber rose and fell, and Cham imagined Vader deflecting the blaster shots with the blade. He’d seen it before. Abruptly the shots stopped. A strangled gasp came over the comm: Pok, choking.
“He’s strangling him!” Isval said.
The choking went on for seconds that felt like hours, Vader’s amplified breathing the counterpoint to Pok’s dying gasps. Cham knew he should cut the connection, but he couldn’t. Cutting it would feel like abandoning Pok a second time.
“Tell me what I want to know,” said a deep voice, Vader’s voice. “And your death will be easier.”
They heard a pained gasp and a deep inhalation, followed by Pok cursing Vader in Twi’leki.
“Very well,” Vader said.
Pok gagged again, gasped, and went silent. Then a thump sounded, something heavy but soft falling to the deck.
Isval screamed a curse. Cham’s heart was a hammer on his ribs, but he said nothing. There was nothing to be said. The only sound was Vader’s breathing carrying over the comm.
“Cut if off, Cham!” Isval said.
Cham stared at the comm, open but muted on Cham’s end. Vader’s breathing grew louder, as if he had picked up the comm to study it or hold it close to his face. The breathing. The breathing.
“Cut it, Cham!” Isval said.
Cham realized he was holding his breath. He seemed unable to breathe.
There was only Vader’s respiration, regular as a pendulum. Loud. Ominous.
Cham finally got ahold of himself and exhaled, thinking of Pok, the awful gasps that had been the last sounds his friend had made.
“Your allies are dead,” Vader said, and the words made Cham wince.
Isval slammed her hand on the comm, cutting it short.
Silence.
“Cham, we should go,” she said. “Right now.”
But Cham knew it was already too late. If they tried to flee the system now, they’d end up exactly as had Pok and his crew: pursued, caught, and executed.
When he made no reply, Isval said to the helm, “Take us out of here.”
That brought Cham around. “Belay that!” To Isval, he said softly, “It’s too late for that. They’ll see us.”
“The V-wings are spreading out, sir,” the engineer reported. “They look like they’re starting a sweep. Another ship is coming into the system. A Star Destroyer.”
The air went out of everyone all at once. All eyes fell on Cham. They were waiting for orders, waiting for salvation. Pok was gone, the spell was broken, and Cham did not hesitate.
“Take us deep in the rings. Make us a rock, helm. Minimal life support. Take everything else down. We float.”
“If we go dark, we won’t be able to run if they detect us,” Isval said. “By the time we get the engines back online—”
“There’s no running, Isval,” Cham said matter-of-factly. “We hide or we die. Do it, helm.”
The helm nodded and did as she was ordered. The ship descended deep into the rings, and the viewscreen filled with pockmarked, irregular blocks of ice and stone, all spinning and whirling.
“Power us down,” Cham ordered.
“Aye, sir,” the engineer said, and the bridge lights and viewscreen went dark.
Dim, auxiliary lights cast the bridge in a faint orange glow. The shadowed faces of the crew looked at one another, at the ceiling, the bulkheads.
Bits of ice and rock ticked against the hull. With life support at minimum, the temperature started to drop quickly. But it wouldn’t get life threatening, merely uncomfortable.
Cham was more worried about the ship taking a high-speed impact from one of the larger rocks or ice chunks. The hull could take a beating, but it wasn’t impregnable, and if the ship started bouncing around in the rings, he’d have no choice but to fire up the engines.
“Steady now, people,” he said.
Some of the crew bowed their heads; others stared at the blank viewscreen. The tension was worse than the cold. Within a few minutes Cham could see his breath in the air. He tried not to shiver. He walked from crewperson to crewperson, touching shoulders, backs, whispering for them to be at ease. He eventually circled back to Isval and spoke to her quietly.
“I should’ve cut that comm sooner. I put us at risk.”
Isval did him the credit of not denying his error. “Let’s hope you get a chance to do so again.”
“That was…hard to hear.”
“Yes,” she said.
“This is the last time we hide from Vader,” Cham told her.
She looked him full in the face and nodded agreement.
An impact shook the ship and the crew exclaimed as one. The helm nearly lost her seat, but used her instrument panel to stay at her station. There were no follow-up impacts.
“That was just a rock,” Isval said. “Steady, people. If that Star Destroyer picks us up, it’ll be over before we feel anything.”
“That ought to cheer them,” Cham said, and Isval gave him one of her half smiles, or maybe a quarter smile.
They sat in silence for a long while, hope rising with each passing minute. Soon the crew was breathing easily again.
“I think that’s long enough,” said Cham. “Power us up, helm.”
Despite the time that had passed, the crew grew palpably tense as the systems came back online. If any Imperial ships were nearby and scanning, the freighter would light up on their sensors immediately. The lights and viewscreen returned, the engines engaged, and they headed up out of the rings. In moments the rings gave way to the black of the system.
“Nothing on sensors,” the engineer said.
The viewscreen showed an empty system. The V-wings were gone, the Star Destroyer, Pok and his crew. All gone, as if it had never happened.
“Take us back to Ryloth,” Cham ordered.
He fell in beside Isval as the ship moved out of the gravity well of the gas giant and powered up its hyperdrive. “No more half measures,” he said. “We stay smart, but we think bigger.”
Isval locked on to the first half of his statement and echoed it back at him. “No more half measures. Aye that, sir.”
The points of stars turned to lines and the black of space surrendered to the blue of hyperspace.
—
Vader stood behind his Master’s throne in the dimly lit receiving room on Coruscant. The steady rhythm of the respirator marked the passage of the minutes. Two members of the Royal Guard, covered head-to-toe in the blood-red armor indicative of their order, flanked the door. Each held a stun pole at station. Vader knew that each of their crimson capes hid a heavy blaster pistol, a vibroblade, and various other weaponry. Huge windows opened out onto the Coruscant skyline, c
ountless ships buzzing past the glass, metal, and concrete spires of the megacity. The sun threw its last light over the horizon, washing the terrain in orange and red.
The Emperor sat on the throne in silence, seemingly lost in thought. But Vader, standing behind the throne, knew better. His Master was never lost in thought. The Emperor’s thinking ranged over time and distance in a way not even Vader fully understood, allowing him to anticipate and plan for contingencies that others did not recognize. Vader hoped to learn the technique one day, provided he didn’t kill his Master first.
Soon after destroying the Jedi, the Emperor had told Vader that he would one day be tempted to kill him. He’d said that the relationship between Sith apprentice and Master was symbiotic but in a delicate balance. An apprentice owed his Master loyalty. A Master owed his apprentice knowledge and must show only strength. But the obligations were reciprocal and contingent. Should either fail in his obligation, it was the duty of the other to destroy him. The Force required it.
Since before the Clone Wars, Vader’s Master had never shown anything but strength, and so Vader intended to show nothing but loyalty. In that way, their mutual rule was secure.
Perhaps Vader would attempt to kill his Master one day. Sith apprentices ordinarily did. They must, if they were trained well. An apprentice was unquestioningly loyal until the moment he wasn’t. Both Master and apprentice knew this.
“But our relationship is different, Master,” Vader had said then.
“Perhaps,” his Master had said. “Perhaps.”
Or maybe self-delusion was part of the training a Master instilled in an apprentice.
“Your thoughts are troubled, my friend,” the Emperor said, his voice loud in the quiet. The Emperor often referred to him as a friend, and perhaps they were friends, in some sense, though Vader saw purpose in the use of the term. He thought his Master used a term he might use with a peer to emphasize that Master and apprentice were not, in fact, peers.
“No, my Master. Not troubled.”
The Emperor chuckled, the sound coming out a cackle. “ ‘Troubled’ perhaps misstates the matter. Your thoughts are on violence.”
He turned in his throne to glance back at Vader, and his eyes burned out of the shadowed recesses of his hood.
“You ponder the nature of strength, do you not?”
Vader never lied to his Master. And he understood that his Master asked questions only with great forethought, so that the answer revealed more than the words. “I do.”
The Emperor turned away, showing his back to Vader, itself a calculated gesture. “Share your thoughts, my apprentice.”
Vader did not hesitate. “I was thinking of the lessons you once taught me about the relationship of a Sith Master to his apprentice.”
“And?” his Master asked.
Vader dropped to a knee and bowed his head. “And I perceive strength all around me, my Master.”
“Good,” the Emperor said. “Very good.”
The moment having passed, Vader rose and stood station behind his Master.
Together they waited for the arrival of Orn Free Taa, the puppet delegate from Ryloth. Vader did not know the purpose of the audience. His Master told him only what he needed to know.
Before long the two members of the Royal Guard, no doubt alerted to the senator’s imminent arrival via their helmet comlinks, moved to open the double doors. But before they could, the Emperor gestured with his finger and pulled the doors open with the Force. The light from the chamber beyond backlit the wide silhouette of the corpulent Twi’lek senator. His stood there a moment as if pinioned by the Emperor’s eyes, or perhaps he merely needed to work up the nerve to enter.
“Come in, Senator,” the Emperor said, in the voice he used when attempting to disarm something small and weak and easily frightened.
“Of course, of course,” Taa said, waddling into the room. He eyed the guards sidelong as he passed and slowed for a moment when the doors audibly closed behind him.
When he stood before the throne in his embroidered robes, he gave as much of a bow as his girth allowed.
“Emperor Palpatine,” he said. Sweat glistened on his wrinkled blue skin, and his gaze danced nervously between Vader and the Emperor. His wheezes were so loud, they nearly matched the sounds of Vader’s respirator.
“How do you fare, my friend?” the Emperor asked.
“Very well,” Taa said between breaths, then quickly added, “Very well. But not so well, my Emperor. Because I know the spice production on Ryloth has slowed considerably due to…some unfortunate events, but—”
“By ‘unfortunate events,’ ” the Emperor said, leaning forward in his throne, “do you mean the terrorist attacks of the Free Ryloth movement?”
Taa sniffed and licked his sharpened teeth, a nervous habit. His lekku squirmed. “Yes, my Emperor. They are misled zealots and put all of my people at risk with their recklessness. But—” He paused to catch his breath before continuing. “—between the Twi’lek security forces and the Imperial troops answering to Moff Mors, I believe matters are well in hand and that production will soon be back to full capacity.”
“Alas,” said the Emperor, “I do not share your optimism, Senator. Nor your high opinion of Moff Mors.”
Taa looked like he had been punched. His skin darkened. He blinked, gulped, took a half step back. “But surely—”
“Because I do not think matters are ‘well in hand,’ I have made a decision.”
Taa’s eyes birthed fear, went to Vader, back to the Emperor. “My lord…”
“And it is this: Lord Vader and I will accompany you on an official visit to Ryloth. There we’ll investigate matters for ourselves. I will notify Moff Mors that we are coming.”
Taa sagged with relief. “I…don’t know what to say.”
“You need say nothing,” the Emperor said. “The decision is made. The planning for the journey is already ‘well in hand.’ ”
“Of course.” Taa looked down as he adjusted the folds of his robes around his belly. “But me return to Ryloth? Perhaps I can be of more service to you here, my Emperor?”
“I think not,” said the Emperor. “Your presence there will be invaluable. I believe it’s time the people of Ryloth were made to feel, truly feel, a part of the Empire. Do you not agree?”
“Oh, of course, of course,” Taa said, his chins bouncing.
“You still look unconvinced, my old friend.”
Taa shook his head so hard his fleshy ear flaps spread like wings. “No, no. It’s just…” His voice fell to a murmur. “It’s just that it’s…rather unpleasant there.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage, Senator,” the Emperor said, his voice carrying the full weight of his contempt. “We’ll all make the journey together, aboard the Perilous.”
Taa looked up, his wide face crinkled with concerns and excuses, but he seemed to think better of voicing them.
“You are dismissed, Senator,” the Emperor said.
“My Emperor,” Taa said with a bow. “Lord Vader.”
Once the doors were closed behind him, the Emperor said to Vader, “Give me your impressions of the senator, my friend.”
“He is fearful of you, as he should be, but he is not as timid as he seems. He will do as he’s asked in order to preserve what power and privileges he still retains, but he will do no more than what he’s asked. And he will do it all with an eye first to his own interests, then to his people, and then to the Empire.”
“Hmm. Would you say then that he is…loyal?”
“Viewed through those constraints, yes, I’d consider him loyal.”
“Viewed through those constraints, yes. I concur with your assessment. And so I conclude that Orn Free Taa is no traitor to the Empire.”
“You suspected him of treachery?”
“Either him or a member of his staff. He seemed an unlikely candidate, but one never knows. Someone is providing the terrorists of the so-called Free Ryloth movement with knowledge of w
hat transpires here. The hijacking you thwarted was indicative of that. The treason must originate in Taa’s staff.”
Vader should have seen the Emperor’s purpose. As usual, the Emperor’s thinking was one step ahead of his.
“And that’s why we’ll travel to Ryloth?” Vader asked. “To act as bait? Why take that risk, when I could simply kill Taa and his entire staff? That would eliminate the traitor.”
The Emperor shook his head and stood. The moment he rose, the Royal Guardsmen hurried from their station at the door to flank him. Vader fell in with them as they started walking toward the chamber doors. The sun cast its final rays over the Corsuscant skyline, throwing the room into deeper darkness.
“But that would not eliminate the roots of the treachery,” his Master said. “Nor would it reveal the scope of the treason, which I suspect reaches well beyond the senator’s staff.”
“I see,” Vader said. “Then I should go alone. There’s no reason to put you at risk.”
“But there is,” said the Emperor. “We must tear disloyalty out by the roots, expose it, and there let it wither and die where all can see.”
“An example to make the point.”
“Yes. An example for the rest of the Empire.”
“A needful one,” Vader said. Since the consolidation of the Republic into the new Galactic Empire, pockets of chaos had appeared here and there. Most of the former Republic accepted the Empire without complaint, but there were many bands of resistance fighters and Separatist remnants lurking around the galaxy. The Free Ryloth movement was one of the more capable and notorious.
“Indeed,” said the Emperor. “And that lesson is one that I must administer. Besides, old friend, it has been too long since we’ve traveled together. Inform Moff Mors that Orn Free Taa is returning to Ryloth for a state visit and that he will be traveling aboard the Perilous. She should not be informed, at least not yet, that we will be accompanying the senator.”
“Yes, my Master.”
“You have been to Ryloth before, have you not, Lord Vader?”
The question dredged memories of war from the depths of Vader’s mind.
“Long ago, Master. Before I learned wisdom.”
“Of course.”