“But I’m telling you, if we can buy two ships today, I’m authorized to place a very large order,” Flame said. “When we get back, if we like them. Fifteen, at the minimum. Maybe twenty. And after all, we have to see how the ships maneuver.”
“We have a flight simulator right here,” the salesman said.
Ry-Gaul moved forward and waved his hand in the air. “But we look reliable, so go ahead.”
“But you look reliable, so go ahead,” the salesman said.
“You’ll need the ship registries,” Solace said. “I’ll push them through.”
“You’ll need the registries. I’d better push them through.”
The salesman disappeared inside his temporary office.
“So far, so good,” Flame murmured. “We’ll be able to take off right out of the hangar here.”
“The danger is after we’re away,” Solace said. “He’ll have to explain to his boss why he let the prototypes go. We have to hope they don’t rescind those registries.”
“Or that the Empire doesn’t check them over,” Ry-Gaul said.
The salesman came out of the office, his hands full of durasheets. “The credit transfer went through, so you’re good to go. These are your hard copies, and the ships have been coded with your registry numbers. I applied for temporary registration, and it was approved. So all you have to do is register on your homeworld when you get there. You’re authorized to fly there by a direct route, but not outside the Core. So no joyrides, ha ha. Great doing business with you. Use the manual mode to steer out to the hangar. You’re cleared for takeoff.”
“Thank you,” Flame said, turning on her most charming smile. “You’re a great salesman.”
“Tell my boss!”
“Will do!”
With a final cheerful wave, Flame headed for the ships.
Solace slid into the pilot seat of one, Ry-Gaul into the other. Trever and Flame climbed aboard as passengers on Solace’s ship.
The hangar was adjacent to the cruisers. They powered up the engines and rolled forward. The security check lay ahead.
“There are Imperial guards at the security check,” Solace observed.
“It’s all right,” Flame said. “They’re just there for show. They’re not going to stop the richest beings in the galaxy.”
Trever felt his heart tripping against his chest.
The officers waved them through.
Ry-Gaul shot out into the space lane. Solace followed. They all breathed a little easier as they left the convention center behind.
They flew through the space lanes and dropped down hundreds of levels, zooming toward the hangar near the Orange District. Solace nodded approvingly as the ship maneuvered through traffic. “Good feel on the helm,” she said.
At the hangar, they landed the ships and disembarked. Ferus was waiting. He whistled when he saw what they’d brought.
“You sure know how to pick a ride,” he said admiringly to Flame.
Now, along with Flame’s ultra sleek cruiser, they had three fast ships.
“Leaving the Core with a temporary registry is a minor infraction,” Flame said. “But we should try to avoid unnecessary stops.”
“Each ship can hold about thirty passengers,” Solace said. “We’ve broken down the resistance leaders who are coming into groups of three. Most of them can get off-world to central locations. We’ve got sixty leaders, so we’ve got plenty of room.”
They each took a third of the list. Ferus checked his over. He’d only have to stop twice in the Core before heading to the asteroid. It seemed like a piece of juju-cake. But anything could go wrong.
The three Jedi would split up so each would be on one ship. Ry-Gaul volunteered to ride with Flame on her cruiser. They had the most stops to make. Trever would go with Ferus.
“As of now, we’re on comm silence,” Ferus said. “Any emergency transmissions should go through Toma at the base. May the Force be with us all.”
It was like old times, Trever thought. He and Ferus were zooming around the galaxy together, avoiding the Empire. So far, they hadn’t run into any trouble. They stayed in the Core, and their ship registry was passing every Imperial control. Their ship was now full of passengers anxious to arrive at the meeting place.
Things hadn’t gone this right in ages.
As usual, Ferus read his mind, the Jedi spook.
“Don’t get overconfident,” Ferus told him in a low tone. “We still have a long way to go.”
It was definitely good to see Wil again. Wil managed to smuggle himself out of Bellassa and came to the nearby station of Telepan. He was the last one aboard, clapping Ferus on the shoulder with great affection. Wil and Ferus had been among the original Eleven, the famed resistance group on Bellassa that now numbered in the thousands.
“Amie didn’t want to join you?” Ferus asked.
“I left her in charge back in Ussa,” Wil said. “I’ll miss her, but we have some operations going that need her expertise.”
The resistance leaders stayed in the luxurious salon, their heads together as they spoke of strategies and plans. Trever stayed in the cockpit with Ferus. He noted a change in him. Even through danger and chaos, Ferus had kept his sense of humor. But now there was a grimness to his mouth, and often his gaze was faraway. Was it his grief over the loss of his partner, Roan, or was something else going on? Trever couldn’t figure it out. For the first time since he’d met Ferus, he was afraid to challenge him.
A dark shadow hung on him like an old coat. Trever wished Ferus would just shrug it off.
“So,” Trever tried, “how’s the double agent business these days? Are you going to quit soon?”
Ferus gritted his teeth. “That’s the plan.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Trever asked. “You investigated all the Force-sensitives and didn’t come up with a Jedi, right? Seems like time to check out.”
Something in Ferus shut down. Trever didn’t have to be Force-sensitive to feel it.
“It’s not that simple,” Ferus muttered. “Time to jump to hyperspeed.” He keyed in the jump coordinates.
Suddenly a warning systems light on the console started to blink.
Ferus leaned forward. “What’s this? The hyperdrive shows a malfunction.”
“It’s brand-new,” Trever said. “Maybe it’s just the indicator. I’ll do a systems check.” A moment later he called out, “It’s the transpasitor. I’m getting a failure reading.”
“Take over the conn,” Ferus said tersely.
He made his way out of the cockpit toward the engines. When he came out, he was covered in grease. “This is the transpasitor,” he said, holding the fist-sized part. “I don’t get it. Without this we can’t risk hyperspeed. We’re going to have to land and replace it. At least it’s an easy repair. I can do it myself.” He strode over to the nav computer and flicked through the star maps. “We’re deep in Imperial territory here. Not only that, we’re outside of the Core. It couldn’t happen at a worse place. We’re going to have to land at Hallitron-7.”
Suddenly Wil loomed in the doorway of the cockpit. “Hallitron? There are three garrisons there. The spaceport is a main takeoff point for Imperial ships! What’s going on?”
“We have no choice,” Ferus said. “The transpasitor is out. Look, if they don’t double check the registry, we’ll be all right. You all stay aboard. I’ll get the part and fix it. It’s a basic repair; it should only take a few hours.”
“We’re landing?” One of the resistance leaders, Boar Benu, came into the cockpit. His hooded dark eyes were anxious. “We were supposed to head straight to the secret base.”
“Engine trouble,” Ferus said.
“Engine trouble? Wasn’t the ship checked out before we left? This is sloppy! If I ran a resistance movement in this fashion, I’d be in an Imperial jail!”
Ferus couldn’t argue with him. He was right. They’d done a systems check on the engine but you couldn’t catch everything. The transpasi
tor had failed mid-flight. “We’re going to have to set down. Let’s accept it and keep calm.”
With an angry look, Boar Benu retreated to the cabin. Wil looked at Ferus. “We’re all jumpy,” he said. “We don’t want anything to go wrong.”
“Something always goes wrong,” Ferus said. “The trick is fixing it.”
Ferus called in the registry, and they were cleared to land and given the berth coordinates. Trever swallowed when he saw the line of Imperial ships. Starships, cruisers, TIE fighters, a capital ship, and stormtroopers everywhere.
“This is one crazy new moon day,” he whispered. “Bad luck would be good luck compared to this.”
“It’s okay,” Ferus said steadily. “We can do this. I’ll just wheel us into the hangar, and we’ll keep a low profile.”
He slid the cruiser into a slot. The resistance leaders looked up as he poked his head in the cabin.
“We’ve taken a vote,” Boar Benu said. “If you don’t return and the ship isn’t fixed in one hour, we’re all splitting up and finding transport back to our own worlds.”
How dare you defy me?
There was that voice again. Ferus kept his breathing even.
“That’s more dangerous than waiting,” he protested.
“We’ve had to scramble before,” Boar said. “That doesn’t worry us. Sitting here and waiting to be arrested is worse.”
“I’ll get you off the planet in an hour,” Ferus said.
“We should act as normally as possible,” Boar said. “My suggestion is that we head for the cantina, as though this were a routine stop for repairs.”
“I think you should stay aboard,” Ferus said. “You’ll attract less attention that way.”
“If they check that registry and find out it’s temporary we’ll be in trouble,” Boar said. “We’d rather be in a position to jump on a passenger ship if we have to.”
Ferus inclined his head. He couldn’t tell them what to do, unfortunately.
Wil caught up to him as he was leaving the craft. “I tried to reason with them. Boar has spooked them. He doesn’t trust you.”
Trever said, “He’s pretty jittery for a resistance leader.”
“I don’t blame him,” Ferus said. “There’s a lot to be jittery about. But we’ve gone through too much to have everything fall apart now. If I’m not back in an hour, steal a ship and take off.”
Ferus strode through the hangar, heading for the bank of turbolifts that led to the surface of the planet. He counted on there being plenty of repair shops close to the busy spaceport. That was a given. But he also had to find a place where questions weren’t asked. Luckily, places that sold parts were usually that way.
As the turbolift dropped, Ferus felt the motion as though he were free-falling. He once again had the sense that his mind was dividing. It was happening more frequently now. Several times on the trip he had to restrain himself from telling Trever brusquely to stop asking questions. He remembered a time not long ago when he’d enjoyed Trever’s talk. He had known it sprang from a combination of youth and nervousness and affection, and had joined in with the boy’s banter. Now it just made his brain explode.
When Boar had told him that they had taken a vote to leave if he didn’t succeed, he had felt fury out of proportion to the decision. The anger had been startling.
The turbolift doors opened. Ferus felt the breeze on his damp neck. The feelings were caused by the Sith Holocron, he knew. The trick was not to be intimidated by them. If he was going to learn how to draw power from the dark side of the Force, then he was going to have to navigate some bumpy waters.
When Wil had touched his arm as he was leaving, Ferus has also experienced a flare of anger. For a moment, Wil had seemed like a shadow, and Ferus had looked at Wil and Trever as though they were behind a screen. He had felt no emotion for them except anger.
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t him at all.
Of course it is you.
Recognize it and begin the journey to what you can be.
You are learning that others just impede your progress.
Clive and Astri were well-hidden, but when Darth Vader entered, Clive wondered if they really were as secure as he thought. They had ducked into the bedroom. If Vader came upstairs, they would be able to slip out the window and jump down to the soft ground below.
They could hear him questioning the servant, his voice terse and his usual deep monotone full of annoyance.
“She was supposed to meet me here. Are you telling me she’s not coming?”
“I don’t know, Lord Vader. She contacted me yesterday and told me to ready the house. She didn’t say when she’d arrive. She doesn’t give me her schedule.”
A long silence stretched out for a moment that must have terrified the servant.
“Go about your duties, then,” Vader said.
Clive put his eye to the crack in the door. The servant scurried off to the other wing of the house. Vader activated his comlink.
“Yarrow is not here,” he said. “No message here for me, either.”
Clive couldn’t see the holo-image, but he recognized Emperor Palpatine’s voice. “Are you telling me that Twilight must be cancelled?”
“It is already in play. It is time to awaken our mole. Then I will check the emergency drop.”
“Nothing had better go wrong this time,” the Emperor said.
“I am proceeding...” Vader’s footsteps sounded, the clack of his boots on stones, and Clive kept missing words. “. . . Bespin system...Coruscant.” The footsteps paused. “The preliminary weapon will be tested and Twilight will come to a close.”
Clive couldn’t hear the Emperor’s response. He heard the sound of Vader’s boots again. With relief, he recognized the sound of the front door opening. Astri let out the breath she’d been holding.
The door didn’t close.
Vader was standing there. Waiting.
The servant’s footsteps came down the hall. “Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”
“Has anyone come to visit here besides me?”
“No visitors here. I mean, aside from herself. She got this place for peace and quiet, she told me, so there’s never any visitors here. Oh, except for yourself, Lord Vader. And me, I suppose, though I’m not a visitor, technically—”
Vader must have grown impatient of the servant’s bumbling manner. Clive heard his footsteps on the gravel.
Moments later an agitated caretaker opened the bedroom door. “He’s taken off. You’d better be going. Do me a favor.” She thrust a bag of food into their hands. “Don’t come back.”
“Don’t worry,” Clive said. “We won’t.”
The way back to their craft was slower than the way down. They hiked up the steep, overgrown trail, occasionally having to scale sheer rocky cliffs.
“I couldn’t tell what all that was about,” Astri said. “But I know we got some crucial nuggets of information.”
“Twilight again,” Clive said. “We’ve got to contact Ferus. We’ve got pieces of the puzzle, maybe he can put it together.”
As soon as they got to the ship, they tried to contact Ferus. No luck. Solace, Ry-Gaul, Dexter’s safe house...no answer anywhere.
“Strange,” Clive said. “I don’t like this.”
“We’re going to have to try Toma at the base,” Astri said. “I know we’re only supposed to do that in an emergency, but this qualifies.”
Luckily they were able to get through. Toma’s voice was faint but distinct.
“They’re all on comm silence,” he said. “They picked up some new ships at the Galactic Luxury Cruiser Convention, and they’re all heading here. And the safe house is gone. Dex, Curran, and Keets are in hiding. That’s all I know.”
Something pinged inside Clive’s head, an a-ha! memory. It flashed fully formed into his brain. At last he remembered what he’d been struggling to recall.
“The Galactic Luxury Cruiser Convention!” he said. “That’s where I saw her!?
??
“Eve?” Astri asked.
“Flame! She is Eve Yarrow! I always knew she looked familiar. And that time she was wounded on Bellassa and I saw her lying down, with her eyes closed—she looked really familiar. I was there at the convention—maybe five years ago—and Eve Yarrow got hit accidentally by a prototype airspeeder that went hairy. She was knocked out for a minute—it caused all kinds of commotion. I helped her up. I remember her now—the hair is different—but it’s Flame!”
“And Vader was just here for a meeting with Eve Yarrow.” Astri looked stricken. “Flame is an Imperial agent!”
Toma’s voice crackled from the comm. “Are you still there?”
Clive leaned in and spoke urgently. “You must tell Ferus to contact us,” Clive said. “He must delay the meeting. Flame is an enemy agent. Don’t bring anyone to the base.” They were losing the connection now. “Do you read me? Flame is an agent of the Empire!”
To his relief, Toma’s voice came through. “I read you. Flame is the enemy. The storm’s intensifying—I’m going to lose the signal, but I’ll keep trying. Don’t worry.”
As the communication ended, Clive turned to Astri. “The guy must be kidding. Worrying is all I do.”
Vader set the coordinates and settled in for the trip back to Coruscant. He would let his fury leave him now, but he would recall it when he saw Eve again. This operation was in jeopardy, and it could not fail.
The comm unit blinked, and he saw it was from a high-ranking member of the Security Corps. He had enlisted him to monitor reports over the security channel for certain areas he was keeping an eye on.
“Lord Vader, something has come up in the Niro 11 segment.”
“What is it?”
“Just a routine police matter, sir, but—”
“Do not interpret it for me,” Vader spit out. “Just tell me what it is.”
“The theft of a space cruiser. A human man and woman entered the bank posing as a wealthy couple. We believe their purpose was to rob an account until security showed up to do a routine check. They left and stole the cruiser of a bank employee named...Herk Bloomi.”