Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi V: Allies Read online

  It was with gentleness and a regret that went bone deep that he spoke. “I understand why you are asking this. But … you have to know I can’t possibly do it. I can’t ask my people to go out and commit crimes that would cause the sort of gigantic diplomatic incident that could possibly start a war. I can’t do this for any of a thousand reasons. You see that, don’t you?”

  She reached out to him imploringly. “Jag, this is me. Jaina. Just trust me. It will all work out, I swear it to you. But we’ve got to get some kind of fleet to Luke or it’s going to be too late!”

  “For me, Jaina, I would believe you. I would follow you anywhere just on your word. And you know what that means to me.”

  She swallowed, nodding. She knew. Trust was something that had once been shattered between them, and the admission that he was willing to trust her again did not come easily.

  The door slid open. Ashik rushed in, grabbed a controller, and turned on the viewscreen. Both Jaina and Jag had their mouths open to protest his barging in, but they quickly forgot it as they watched what was unfolding.

  The cam focused on the familiar image of the Jedi Temple. Jaina stopped breathing, her eyes going wide. The cam then pulled back to show that the Temple was completely surrounded. By Mandalorians and their vehicles.

  Jag quickly took in the sight of at least half a dozen tra’kads, Mandalorian Protector starships. Slow, heavily armed, and built with beskar, the things were essentially flying tanks. They were on the ground now, in various places on the now empty square, but once they were airborne, they could cause a great deal of damage to the Temple’s structure. They were augmented by several distinctive orange-hued Canderous-class assault tanks. There were other heavy ground vessels, and bombers of various types made slow, ominous passes over the Temple.

  “—is under siege,” came the too-familiar voice of Javis Tyrr. “A siege, right here in Coruscant. One might think that Chief of State Daala has run out of ideas, or reverted to the days of the past, where one ruled with an iron fist.”

  “That was fast,” Jaina said quietly.

  Jag turned his attention from grainy, stock holofootage to stare at her. “You knew about this?”

  “I was trying to tell you,” Jaina said, her voice unusually quiet. “Daala contacted Master Hamner—”

  “—about the families, right, but—”

  Jaina looked like she was about to punch a wall. Instead, she took a deep breath.

  “Jag. She’s laying siege to the Temple. Using Mandalorians. It’s too late to get the StealthXs out. She acted too fast. She’s not about to listen to us. But you can still help me. Please.”

  Jag turned from her to the sight of Mandalorians enclosing the Temple. He thought about what Jaina was asking him to do. He thought about Daala, riding this guarlara right off a cliff in an effort to extract two Jedi. He thought about the attack on himself—and on the Solos. The attack they all suspected Daala had orchestrated.

  Suspected.

  They didn’t know for sure.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and gazed up at his fiancée.

  “I will talk to Daala, and try to get her to end the siege,” he said, his voice cool and calm and quiet. “More than that—I cannot do.”

  Jaina froze, like a statue, for a long moment. Finally, she spoke, and her voice was subdued and strangely gentle. “I shouldn’t have asked this of you. I shouldn’t have asked you to bend so far you’d break, and that’s exactly what I did.”

  “Jaina, I’m sure there’s some other—”

  “We’re not going to be able to make this work, Jag. No matter how much we want to. Our duties are always going to come between us. This is something I have to do … just like your refusing to help is something you have to do. I’m sorry.”

  Then, slowly, she reached with her right hand, pulled off the engagement ring, and placed it with surprising tenderness down on the desk. Tears stood in her eyes, but she rose without trembling and walked out.

  He could have called her back. He could have apologized, offered to covertly send her anything she wanted. She’d have leapt into his arms, holding him tight, and all would be well between them again.

  Except it wouldn’t. She was right. Jag was who he was, and Jaina was who she was, and once again, for a final time, that had come between them.

  Jagged Fel reached out slowly, grasped the engagement ring tightly in his hand, and, expressionless as his heart cracked within him although there was no one to see, watched the news unfold.

  Dorvan’s comm buzzed. “Dorvan.”

  Daala’s voice. “Turn on the holonews. Now.”

  Dorvan sighed and obeyed. He had protested the installation of a vidscreen in his office, but recently Daala had been insistent. As she said, it was not as if her chief of staff would be caught watching daytime holodramas.

  He suspected what he would see even before the reporter’s distinctive, oh-so-irritating voice came on. Mercifully, Dorvan was spared the sight of the fellow. Instead, the cam focused on the Jedi Temple, surrounded by Mandalorians in their distinctive armor.

  “—is under siege. A siege, right here in Coruscant. One might think that Chief of State Daala has run out of ideas, or reverted to the days of the past, where one ruled with an iron fist.”

  As he talked, there was grainy, jumpy stock footage of familiar figures. One was a pleasant-looking older man with thick, wavy silver hair and kindly eyes. He was standing and speaking passionately before the Senate. The other was a shot of a distinctive moving figure in black, with a cloak flowing behind him and a mask that morphed into the face of Jacen Solo.

  Dorvan was not a man easily moved by propaganda or calculated images. He had seen enough in his life to know exactly how easily pictures could be manipulated. But he was troubled by watching this footage of Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Jacen Solo because the comparison wasn’t altogether ludicrous. Daala was behaving in a fashion that called those tyrants to mind. She did have her history with the Galactic Empire trailing behind her like Vader’s cloak.

  “Are you watching this?” Daala’s voice trembled with outrage.

  “Ma’am, your connections with the Empire have been cast in a negative light before,” he said calmly. “It is distressing and inaccurate, but most beings with half a brain can see right through Tyrr.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s everywhere, and there’s no one actually simply reporting on the issue. There’s no one just covering it without feeling compelled to hurl images of Vader and Palpatine and Caedus in along with invectives. This can’t be permitted to continue.”

  Something akin to alarm fluttered inside Dorvan’s chest. He sat forward in his chair and spoke to her in his blandest, most calming voice—the one he had learned she listened to the most. “Ma’am, it’s a free press. Please trust me on this one, it’s self-regulating. You don’t want to get involved the way the Moffs did.”

  “Maybe we should. Maybe we should find our own reporter, set him or her up with an inside connection.” She was coldly angry now, and looking to go on the offensive.

  Dorvan could not let that happen. He’d warned her about being perceived as another Palpatine. He’d not been able to dissuade her from the siege. As far as he was concerned, the Mandalorians were bad news. He’d not wanted her to use them at all, but she had ignored his advice multiple times. It was difficult for him not to say, “Well, ma’am, if you hadn’t laid siege to the Temple, then the reporters wouldn’t be able to use that against you.” That would not help. She had done it, the siege was continuing.

  But the minute Daala stooped to the same tactics as her enemies in this situation, or began gagging a free press, there would be even more, and possibly worse and more far-reaching, trouble for the Galactic Alliance. Trouble that could only be temporarily eased by going down the path even farther to try to fix the problems. It was a vicious cycle, and Daala could not be permitted to get caught up in it.

  He could not permit her to get caught up in it.
He sat very still for a moment, thinking.

  “You still there, Dorvan?”

  “Oh, yes ma’am, quite. I don’t think that escalating this into a journalistic war is a good idea. But I think I have a way to muzzle our tawny-haired newshound.”

  “Really? What?”

  “It’s best if you don’t know the details, ma’am. But I can assure you that it will be legal and not implicate you or the GA in any fashion.”

  Her voice was warm. “I knew I could count on you, Wynn. You always come through.”

  “That’s my job, ma’am.”

  He clicked off the comm and leaned back in the chair, eyes on the screen. He’d misled Daala slightly. He hadn’t told her the details not because it was best that she didn’t know them, although that was most certainly true, but rather because he hadn’t figured them out himself yet. Tyrr was still nattering on about “siege of the Temple” and “trapped inside” and so on. Where was his concern for the Jedi when he aired the footage …

  That was it. That was the key. But how to …

  He watched the footage very carefully. Tyrr himself was in the shot now. The lighting was excellent, and Tyrr almost—almost—was convincing in his faux concern.

  Oh yes. That was it.

  He pressed his comm button. “Desha?”

  “Yes sir?” Desha Lor’s voice was eager and alert, as, Dorvan mused, was the young Twi’lek herself.

  “I need you to do a little digging for me.” He outlined what she needed to find out, but not why, because she hardly ever needed to know why and thus he hardly ever told her, and she dutifully took notes and assured him, in typical cheery Desha fashion, that he’d get it as soon as possible, if not sooner.

  He fished Pocket out of her favorite napping spot and stroked her. She stirred, shifted, opened her tiny mouth in a yawn, and went back to sleep draped over his hand. Tyrr was still continuing melodramatically.

  “Enjoy this last story while you can, Javis Tyrr,” Dorvan said quietly, and permitted himself the tiniest smile of satisfaction at the thought.

  UMALOR, VINSOTH

  IT WAS A DRINKING HOLE WITH THE IGNOMINIOUS NAME OF THE Drunken Ootak, and from the interior it could have been a drinking hole anywhere in the galaxy. It just happened to be on Vinsoth.

  The Drunken Ootak, named for an indigenous primate that was known for searching out fermented fruit and proceeding to gorge until intoxicated, was crowded and noisy and smelly, and a complex variety of beings were laying bets and shouting. Smoke hazed the air, and laughter punctuated it.

  The bets and the shouting and the laughter revolved around the activities occurring at a center table. Seated in a far-too-large high-backed chair at one end of the table was a slender, delicately built humanoid female. Her clothing was simple: travel-worn boots, trousers, shirt, and a vest with several pockets. She had long ears, pink skin, a wispy, tousled mop of white hair, and bright eyes. Those eyes were currently blinking very slowly, and her head was nodding. Standing at her side was a human male with graying blond hair, blue eyes, and a rather worried look on his face.

  On the other end of the table sat a Chevin male. He was thinner than most, his enormous face seeming harsh and angular. The smoke-hazed light glinted on a gold ring pierced through one nostril. His robes, purple and blue shot through with gold thread in pleasant geometrical designs, proclaimed him as a being of some wealth. Currently, however, the distinctive reek of alcohol wafted from the robes from where more than one glass had been spilled over the course of the evening. There was a little crowd gathered behind him. Some of them appeared to be personal friends or servants, others were simply angling for a good view. Two Chevs, a male and a female, stood slightly behind him.

  The Chevin and the pink-skinned female each had eleven small glasses upended in front of them. Between them was a bottle of Twi’lek liquor—a beverage known for its potency.

  Brukal, the Chevin owner of The Drunken Ootak, poured them each another shot of the green fluid, then recorked the bottle. It had been unopened not so long ago; now it was nearly empty.

  The shot was passed to the female. She started, as if waking herself, and then reached out for the glass with unsteady hands. She brought the glass to her lips, then paused. She took a deep breath. There was muttering and credits changed hands.

  “Don’t be so hasty,” she said, in a voice that slurred only slightly. “I c’n handle this …”

  She brought the glass to her lips, licked them, and then knocked back the shot with a quick flick of her wrist. There was scattered applause, and credits changed hands again.

  “Hey, Guumak,” Brukal said, his expression twisting slightly in annoyance. “You gotta pay up. We bet each round. Or you too drunk to remember that?”

  The other Chevin looked distressed. His snout wrinkled in agitation. He frowned at the female, clearly unable to understand how it was that one so small could be threatening to drink him under the table. But he waved for another shot.

  “Money first,” Brukal said, waving his fingers impatiently.

  Guumak turned and spoke to the two Chevs who stood behind him. The female, clad in an attractive robe of subdued colors with black hair held back by a jeweled band, held a small sack. Looking as distressed as the Chevin, she said something in her native tongue and indicated the sack, which was obviously empty.

  Guumak grunted, reached out a hand and grabbed the wrist of the male Chevin. With a firm tug, the Chevin was yanked forward, stumbling a little.

  “Put Shohta up.” He gestured. The Chev, presumably Shohta, looked stunned.

  “Master?” He glanced uncertainly from the drunken Chevin to the delicate-seeming female with whom his master was competing. This time, Guumak stared at the glass for a long time before lifting it and upending the contents into his open mouth. He gulped the alcohol down.

  And that was when his motor skills failed completely. The glass tumbled down to shatter on the duracrete floor, and the Chevin followed it a second later.

  Wild cheering went up, although there were also plenty of dirty looks shot the female’s way as beings reached for pouches, purses, and sacks. She smiled, satisfied, and rose as the crowd began to disperse, drifting their individual ways. Her unsteadiness had markedly decreased, and the human who had stood beside her, vastly relieved, offered her a glass of pure, clear, nonalcoholic water. She drank it down eagerly. Her companion asked, sotto voce, “How the kriff did you manage that?”

  “Devaronians have a second liver,” Madhi Vaandt said equally softly, grinning a little.

  The human stared, then started to grin in return. “Oh, I get it. So you can’t get drunk.”

  “Oh, we still can, and do. Just takes an awful lot. Find out anything?” The two retreated to a shadowed corner, ducking out of the path of a Wookiee who was lugging out the unconscious body of the Chevin. The female Chev followed closely, looking distressed. She glanced over her shoulder and met the eyes of the male who had been attending Guumak. He gave her what was meant to be a reassuring smile, then turned and approached the human and the Devaronian female. He inclined his head and cleared his throat.

  “I am Shohta. It is an honor to serve you,” he said, almost mechanically.

  A week ago, Madhi Vaandt and her cam operator, Tyl Krain, had just finished a segment on Tatooine. It was there that she had received her first letter, which had revealed the existence of a group called the Freedom Flight. They were a very loosely connected group, the letter told her, who had as their chief concern the extermination of slavery throughout the galaxy. They had been observing her reporting for some time now, and would continue to do so if they believed she could help them.

  A second letter had come just hours ago. “We suspected your path would lead you here, to Vinsoth, where slavery has been coated with sweetness and made to appear palatable,” the letter had said. “We are watching you and are considering giving you an exclusive insight into our group. However, be warned—any public mention of the Flight prior to such contac
t would result in termination of any possible leads. Enjoy your stay, and observe how different, and yet how similar, slavery is on different worlds.”

  Madhi had seen slavery at a distance on Tatooine. Now she was forced to truly look the institution, as personified by this single being, in the face. She regarded Shohta uncomfortably. He stood quietly, as if he was used to doing so, and simply waited.

  “Um,” Madhi said, “It’s all right. You … don’t need to serve me.”

  “Oh, but I do,” he insisted. “You won me in the competition. I am considered as good as credits in this establishment. You may confirm this with Brukal.” He turned and indicated the proprietor, who was busy pouring drinks. Even over the din of the place, Brukal was apparently accustomed to hearing his name. He glanced up, fixed Madhi with his small dark eyes, and nodded to her.

  “He’s yours,” Brukal grunted, then returned to tending his bar.

  Madhi’s stomach flip-flopped. “As good as credits in this establishment,” she repeated. She shook her head. “Not with me you’re not.”

  “Miss … ?” Shohta paused and waited politely.

  “Vaandt. Madhi Vaandt,” she said.

  “Miss Madhi Vaandt, I belong to you. If I return to my former master, I will be severely punished and he will be penalized by Brukal for failing to honor his bet. I would ask you please to accept me as your winnings. If I disappoint you in any fashion, I assure you I am a quick learner and will not do so twice. I come from very fine stock.”

  “Stock?” Madhi and her cam operator exchanged glances.

  “Oh, you would wish a pedigree? I’m sure once Master Guumak is … er, has recovered from the contest, he would be happy to provide you with proper documentation.”

  Krain seemed to have recovered, at least somewhat. He glanced at his chronometer. “Well, we were supposed to do the segment in fifteen minutes, but we can wait.”

  Madhi shook her head. Her mop of white hair became even more tousled with the gesture. “No,” she said. “No need to wait.”

  “But, uh … this … being here …”