Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(21)

Perhaps the one advantage is that this is such a dead place. Someone like Sloane would stand out. Now if only they could find someone to whom that matters—someone with eyes to have seen Sloane in the first place.

She’s about to say something to Jas—

But the bounty hunter now faces her with wide eyes. A hard finger mashes against Norra’s lips. The Zabrak warns: “Shh.”

Norra watches as the shape of Jas—her shadow, her silhouette—gestures toward her ear. A sign to listen, so Norra listens.

The few sounds of the planet crawl into her ear: the whisper of wind across the dunes, the distant ululation of some animal, the drum-pulsing of her own heartbeat behind it all. But then their ears pick up something else—a faint shudder and hiss. Like the sand moving. It’s off to Norra’s right. And then, again, to her left. The sounds come simultaneously.

And they’re getting closer.

The noises stop as fast as they start. Once again Norra and Jas are left with the wind, the faraway beasts, the pounding of blood in their own ears.

Norra thinks and is about to say: We need to keep moving.

She doesn’t get that chance.

It happens quickly—from both sides, the sand erupts around them. The spray stings against Norra’s cheek and she staggers back, her eyes burning. She swipes at her face, blinking back tears, and something crashes into her, roaring. Her shoulders hit the ground half a second before her tailbone. The wind is knocked out of her, leaving Norra gasping. Her attacker is on top of her, and as her vision clears she wishes it hadn’t: The face leering down at her is far from human. Big black eyes, an insectile mandibular mouth, leathery flesh—

No. Not a face. A helmet. A mask.

“Sah-shee tah!” her foe barks at her, words gurgled around a hissing ventilator. A fist slams into her middle. Anger blooms in its wake.

Her adversary has his legs straddling her hips—but the ground beneath her shifts easily with the sand, and it takes little effort to wriggle free. She kicks out hard, pivoting her lower body as she does, and it gives her the opening she needs, crab-walking backward as her foe paws for something in the sand—a weapon. A blade.

Square at the top, bent in the middle. Like a machete. The metal is dark, maybe rusted, though it’s hard to tell. He roars again and brings the blade down against her legs—but she scissors them apart, and the blade is buried in the sand with a coughing cuff sound.

Norra stabs out with her foot.

Her heel connects with his ventilator, and it starts squealing. Plumes of steam, white as a ghost, come free of his mask as he claws at his face.

Now, as he dances backward, Norra can see Jas—

Jas has her own enemy to deal with. The bounty hunter is still standing—and lashing out with a high kick. Her foe is bigger, heavier, with an upper torso like a handful of grain sacks strung together with heavy-gauge chain. She connects with the kick but it doesn’t seem to faze him. The big monster bellows an incomprehensible cry, then catches Jas in a hard swing of his meaty fist. The bounty hunter topples, limp and lifeless.

No. Norra gets her legs under her and springs forward. She connects with his middle, tackling him, expecting her weight and momentum to knock him off balance. But the thug isn’t going anywhere—he’s like a pylon driven deep into the mantle. He doesn’t budge.

Worse, he laughs.

A gross, mechanized chuckle erupts from his own ventilator, and both of his hands marry together into one hellacious mega-fist. He slams his hands down into the center of Norra’s back. She hits ground once more. Air gone. Pain radiating. Blood in her mouth as her jaw snaps shut, teeth around the tip of her tongue. In the dark behind her eyes she sees streaks of white.

Someone grabs her ankle. Turns her over.

Her attacker is back. He adjusts something along the side of his head, and the jets of steam suddenly cease.

The thick sack-chested monster joins the other one. The two of them stand tall over her, talking, pointing.

“Va-wey ko-yah,” the littler one says.

“Yash,” the sack-chested monster says, agreeing, chuckling.

Then the little one shakes and shudders. His chin lifts and his head does this…wobble on his neck. Norra’s face is suddenly wet, as if misted.

He hits the ground like a felled tree.

Sack-Chest grunts in confusion. Then his head tilts hard to his shoulder—this time, Norra sees a faint red flash along with it—and the monstrous thug pivots on one heel and lands hard atop the other.

We’re saved, Norra thinks. Or, rather, Norra hopes.

She stays still, though, just in case.

“Jas,” she says in a loud whisper. Nearby, Jas groans.

Lights fill the air. Bright and bold. Not from one direction, either, but from three—all on at the same time, and Norra has to cover her eyes lest she go blind from it. Shadows emerge, light framing dark armor.

The crackle of static as a voice broadcasts:

“Don’t move.” As the shadows close in, Norra hears the faint jostling of jointed armor and blaster rifles in gloved hands. It’s a familiar sound that means one thing: stormtroopers. The voice is quieter when it says: “We found them. We found the rebels.”

From nearby, Jas curses under her breath.

Norra, though, smiles around her bloodied mouth. Because stormtroopers means Empire, and Empire means Sloane.