Клаудия Грэй - Into the Dark

“Oh, bosh,” said Monarch Cassel, amiably enough. “I’m certain the queen regnant wants her consort back. That’ll do, won’t it, for, ah, leverage?”

Under her breath, Thandeka muttered, “What are you playing at? Do you think you can team up with them?”

“Goodness, no.” Cassel seemed appalled at the thought. “But—hearing them describe you as useless, it’s rather impolite—”

“You’re trying to spare my feelings ?” Thandeka looked toward the cave ceiling in what might have been either disbelief or despair. “Trust me, right now my ego is the least of our problems.”

Isamer had ignored all this. “We will discuss it no further,” he said. There would be time to punish these lieutenants—and find smarter replacements—after this was done. For now he could only stay the course.

The Hutts would expect no less.

They had approached Isamer, as one of the leaders of the Directorate. The mighty Hutts had come to him ! With the Directorate’s greater local knowledge, they explained, he was in a better position to destabilize the local governments. That destabilization would play to the Hutts’ long-term advantage—an advantage they would share with those who had helped them.

Isamer could see it: the Directorate, empowered as partner to the Hutts, eclipsing every other criminal organization in that part of the galaxy. It was worth more than a little risk.

“Lord Isamer!” one of the sensor jockeys called. “A T-1 shuttlecraft has emerged from hyperspace, seventy radii distance.”

Isamer’s fur stood on end in anticipation. His fanged smile widened as he said, “Call to them from Cassel’s ship.” The wreckage of that ship lay broken across the planetoid’s surface, but his lieutenants had managed to salvage the communications array. At least they got one thing right. “Plead for their help. Lure them in.”

Cohmac pulled himself from a daydream, mentally repeating, Focus.

It hadn’t been a bad daydream—just one in which he was dueling brilliantly with his lightsaber, the kind of detailed imagining that could actually improve real performance. But that was a practice for meditation. He had to improve his ability to live wholly in the present, as Master Simmix constantly reminded him.

At first he thought he’d done well to pull himself from his reverie, but then he realized it had been the comm panel lighting up with an incoming signal.

Orla and Cohmac exchanged glances as the voice came through: “Monarch Cassel—in distress, attempted abduction—systems failing—”

The code signature of the signal confirmed that it was Cassel’s ship. Orla responded immediately. “The Jedi are on our way. Hold on!”

Should they have double-checked the signal first? That seemed like a minor detail, one Cohmac didn’t dwell upon. He simply steered in the direction of the signal. “So at least one of the hostages got away. Does that make our mission easier or more complicated?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Orla replied. They exchanged smiles. As different in temperament as they were—Cohmac always turning within, Orla always leaping ahead—they’d been friendly since the creche and were equally eager to begin their mission in earnest.

Within moments, some sort of planetoid appeared in the distance—one so small and remote it didn’t even have a name. Cohmac punched in the shuttle’s approach vectors without a second thought.

Then Master Laret hurried onto the bridge. She, like Master Simmix, had been deep in meditative trance; Cohmac had expected to go rouse them both. But something had brought Master Laret to awareness, and then to alarm. “What’s happening?” she said.

“Monarch Cassel must have escaped,” Orla began. “We got a confirmed signal from his ship—”

“From his ship,” Master Laret said grimly. “Not from Monarch Cassel.”

Cohmac and Orla exchanged uncertain glances. Too late, Cohmac felt a shiver in the Force—the eerie dissonance that meant not all was as it seemed—

And then outer space itself seemed to blaze with light, and the ship shook and twisted, and there was no up or down anymore, no way to stop, no way out.

Reath wouldn’t have been concerned for even a moment if they’d been stranded in space in the Republic. Longbeams always flew stocked with surplus fuel and provisions for journeys two or three times as long as scheduled. The surpluses were unnecessary, of course. Abundant hyperspace traffic and a subspace transceiver meant that a potential rescue ship was rarely more than a few hours away.

Out on the frontier, however…it seemed possible to be stranded for very long periods of time. Maybe permanently.

So Affie’s announcement had at first sent a wave of grateful relief washing over Reath. Someone needed help. They might be able to give it, which would lend this strange detour some meaning.

But Orla’s words had stopped him, hand halfway to the holo-transceiver switch. He couldn’t believe he’d been on the verge of trusting the frontier.

Affie had obviously gotten there even before Orla’s warning. “What if they’re pirates? What if they’re Nihil? What if they’re just desperate people who’d raid us for food?”

“I’m sorry,” Reath said, apologizing for the mistake he’d nearly made. “These aren’t risks we have to deal with very often in the Republic.”

Leox Gyasi eased around Orla and strolled back onto the bridge, clearly having overheard much of this. “That’s about the first good thing I’ve heard about our joining the Republic,” he said. “Makes me reconsider my reservations, and I sincerely appreciate any chance to look within. But this ain’t the Republic yet, my man. Not by a long shot.”

Master Jora’s voice echoed in Reath’s head: Whenever you feel foolish, remember that you have been given an opportunity to learn. The truly foolish act is to refuse that opportunity. “All right. Pirates I know about. But the Nihil? Who are they?”

“Good question,” Orla said. She remained still and quiet at the door, though the tension Reath sensed within her seemed to arise from something other than their current situation.

Leox and Affie shared a glance that somehow seemed to include Geode, despite Geode’s notable lack of eyes. “They rose up a few years ago,” Affie said. “I mean, they’ve been around longer, but they just recently became dangerous. Nobody’s sure where they’re from.”

“Nor can we determine their ethos,” Leox added. “A confounding people. But we know three things for sure: they’re raiders, they’re brutal, and they’re not out there right now.”

It was Affie and Reath’s turn to share a glance. Reath said, “How do you know it’s not them out there?”

“I know it because we’re still alive.” Leox took his seat. “Doesn’t mean we couldn’t have some trouble, though. Tell you what. You pull the head monk or whatever in here, and we’ll go through the signals together. See if we’ve got help, or need to give help, or should absent ourselves posthaste.”

“We’ll go get Cohmac,” Orla said, already turning to leave.

Reath scrambled to catch up with her, thinking, Master Jora couldn’t have known about any of this, or she’d never have brought us out here.

As soon as Reath and Orla were gone, Affie turned to Leox. “Since when do we need Jedi to help us decide what’s dangerous and what’s not? Especially since they’ve never even heard of the Nihil.”

“We don’t need ’em for that,” Leox said. “But we three need to have a quick talk without any Republic types present.”

Affie realized what he had to be referring to almost instantly. She leaned in as Leox put one arm around her shoulders and one around Geode.