Чарльз Соул: Star Wars: Light of the Jedi (The High Republic)

“But what’s causing it?” the minister asked. “There was no message attached?”

“No,” Daan replied. “We’ve repeatedly asked for clarification, but there’s been no response. We believe…the monitoring station was destroyed.”

Minister Ecka thought for a moment. He rotated his chair away from his advisers, the old wood creaking a little beneath his weight. He looked out through the broad picture window that made up the wall behind his desk. As far as he could see: the golden fields of Hetzal, all the way to the horizon. The world—the whole system, really—believed in using every bit of available space to grow, create, to cultivate. Buildings were roofed with cropland, rivers and lakes were used to grow helpful algae and waterweeds, towers were terraced, with fruit vines spilling from their sides. Harvester droids floated among them, plucking ripe fruits—whatever was in season. Right now, that would be honeyfruit, kingberries, and ice melons. In a month, it would be something else. On Hetzal, something was always in season.

He loved this view. The most peaceful in the galaxy, he believed. Everything just so. Productive and correct.

Now, with the alarm chimes ringing in his ears, it didn’t look like that anymore. Now it all just looked…fragile.

“Something’s happening out there,” another adviser said, a Devaronian woman named Zaffa.

Ecka had known her for a long time, and this was the first time he’d ever heard her sound worried. She was staring down at a datascreen, frowning.

“A mining rig out in midsystem just went down,” Zaffa said. “The satellite network’s starting to show holes, too. It’s like something’s taking out our facilities, one by one.”

“And we still don’t have any images? This is madness,” Ecka declared.

He pointed at his security chief, a portly middle-aged human.

“Borta, why don’t your people know what’s happening?”

Borta frowned. “Minister, respectfully, you know why. Your recent cuts have reduced Hetzal’s security division to a tenth of its former size. We’re working on it, but we can’t bring much to bear.”

“Is it some sort of natural anomaly? It can’t be…we’re not under attack, are we?”

“At this point, we don’t know. What’s happening is consistent with some sort of enemy infiltration, but we’re not seeing drive signatures, and the locations being hit are pretty random. We do still have some orbital defense platforms out there, and they’re all intact. If it’s an attack, they should be targeting our ability to strike back, but they’re not.”

The chimes sounded again, and Ecka spun his chair and pointed at Counselor Daan, who cringed back.

“Will you turn off that blasted alarm? I can’t think!”

Daan pulled himself up, standing a little straighter, and tapped a control on his datascreen. The chimes, blessedly, ceased.

Another adviser spoke up—a slim young man with red hair and extremely pale skin, Keven Tarr. The Ministry of Technology had sent him over. Ecka didn’t have much use for tech that wasn’t related to agricultural yields. In his heart, he was still a farmer—but he knew Tarr was supposed to be very smart. Probably wouldn’t be long until the boy moved on, found himself a job in some more sophisticated part of the galaxy. It was the way of things on a world like Hetzal. Not everyone stayed.

“I think I can show you what’s going on, Minister,” Tarr said.

The man had long fingers for a human, and they danced over his datapad.

“Let me give the data to the droid—it can project the information so we can all see.”

He tapped a few last commands, then unreeled a connection wire from his datapad and plugged it into the access port on the squat, hexagonal comms droid waiting in the corner of the room. It rolled forward, its single green eye lighting up as it moved.

From that eye, the machine projected an image on the large white wall in the minister’s office reserved for the purpose. Normally, presentations on the vidwall would be concerned with crop yields or pest eradication programs. Now, though, it displayed the entire Hetzal system, all its worlds and stations and satellites and platforms and vessels.

And something else.

To Minister Ecka, it looked like a field overrun with a swarm of all-consuming insects. Hundreds of tiny lights moved through his system at what had to be tremendous speed, all in the same direction: sunward. More particularly, planetward. Toward Hetzal Prime and the moons Fruited and Rooted not so far away, not to mention all those stations, satellites, platforms, vessels…many of which had people on them.

“What are they?” he asked.

“Unknown,” Tarr responded. “I got this image by linking together signals from the surviving satellites and monitoring stations, but they’re going down quickly, and we’re losing sensor capacity as they do. Whatever these anomalies are, they’re moving at near-lightspeed, and it’s very difficult to track them. And, of course, whenever they hit something, it’s…”

“Not good,” General Borta finished for him.

“Apocalyptic, I was going to say,” Tarr said. “I’m tracking a good number on impact paths with the primeworld.”

“Is there nothing to be done?” Ecka said, looking at Borta. “Can we…shoot them down?”

Borta gave him a helpless look. “Once, maybe, we’d have had a chance. At least some. But system defense hasn’t been a priority here for…a long time.”

The accusation hung in the air, but Ecka did not indulge it. He had made decisions that seemed correct at the time, with the best information he had. They were at peace! Everywhere was at peace. Why waste money that could help people in other ways? In any case, no looking back. It was time for another decision. The best he could make.

He did not hesitate. When the crops were burning, you couldn’t hesitate. As bad as things might be, the longer you waited, the worse they tended to get.

“Give the evacuation order. System-wide. Then send a message to Coruscant. Let them know what’s happening. They won’t be able to get anyone here in time, but at least they’ll know.”

Counselor Zaffa looked at him, her eyes hooded.

“I don’t know if we can actually implement that order effectively, Minister,” she said. “We don’t have enough ships here for planetary evacuations, and if these things are really moving close to lightspeed, there isn’t much time until—”

“I understand, Counselor Zaffa,” Ecka said, his voice steady now. “But even if the order saves just one person, then one person will be saved.”

Zaffa nodded, and tapped her datascreen.

“It’s done,” she said. “System-wide evac in progress.”

The group watched the projection on the wall, fritzes of static lancing through it now. Tarr’s makeshift network was losing capacity as more satellites met fiery ends, but the message was still clear. It was like a massive gun had been fired at the Hetzal system, and there was nothing they could do to save themselves.

“You should probably all try to find yourselves a way offworld,” Ecka said. “I imagine the starships we do have will be very full quite quickly.”

No one moved.

“What will you do, Minister?” Counselor Daan asked.

Ecka turned back to his window, looking out at the fields, golden to the horizon. It was all so peaceful. Impossible to believe anything bad could ever happen here.

“I think I’ll stay,” he said. “Broadcast to the people, maybe, try to keep folks calm. Someone has to look after the harvest.”

Across Hetzal Prime and the broad expanses of its two inhabited moons, the message of Minister Ecka traveled rapidly, appearing on datapads and holoscreens, broadcast across all communication channels, saying, in essence: Nowhere is safe. Get as far away as you can.