Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(25)

All here. On the planet or just above it.

But that still told her nothing she didn’t already know.

She asked him again about the Plaintive Hand—

He said that what he heard is that some old weapons facility lies hidden in the sand, something built by Palpatine—or put here even earlier by, well, who knows? He heard Rax takes trips there. Alone. And that’s all RK-242 knew. He swore. He didn’t even know if it was true, but he’d heard it, so, can she help him? Can she rescue RK-242 from this purgatory?

She ignored him and asked Brentin: “A weapons facility? Could that be why they’re here on Jakku?” Even still, that didn’t add up. The Empire needed no new weapons. It built the greatest weapon in the history of the galaxy. Twice. It did not need new battle stations. It needed new leadership.

But, the Empire did love its war machine. And maybe what’s out there is something far greater than the Death Star ever was. A desire to find it—and to kill Rax—arose in her like hot magma churning up through the volcanic channel of her heart.

Sloane thanked the trooper. She said she’d have an important role for him, and when the time came, she’d call on him. “Get back into your armor,” she said. “Say nothing of this meeting to anyone.”

When he turned around to pick up his helmet, she shot him in the back of the head before he could put it on. Brentin cried out. He said, “We could have helped him.” She answered: “There was no help for him.”

Then she said they had to go there. To whatever this facility was at the end of the Valley of the Eremite.

One problem: They couldn’t take a ship, because they’d be shot down. And going on land meant going through the Yiulong Canyons—and beyond, into the mazelike Caverns of Bagirlak Garu. And that meant one thing:

Dealing with Niima the Hutt.

—

Niima the Hutt owns this part of Jakku. And her slime trail stretches much farther than this territory. Like Jabba on Tatooine or Durga on Ulmatra, her influence (and her corruption) has a long tail. She runs the black market: slaves, scavenge, kesium, bezorite.

She isn’t just some fat slug ruler, though. She isn’t Jabba with his palace or Durga with his yacht. It’s not just gangster business as usual. Most Hutts love their parties and ceremonies. They make sure everyone kicks up a portion of their credits to the big boss that rules the region—whether as protection money or as tithe. No, Niima demands something bigger.

Niima demands eternal service. It is not enough merely to work for her, no. One enters her stable of servants and never leaves.

Though she treats herself as if she is a divine worm born of sand and stone, those who serve her do so because she has set herself up in the middle of everything—a fat spider in the center of a web, a tumor drawing bloodflow. She has the resources. She has the access. She controls who may move through the narrow canyons and deep caverns. Niima’s power comes from what she controls—she controls resources, and so she controls people. Even still, Sloane wonders if over time those who follow her do so out of some kind of misguided worship. Because the rewards Jakku offers are so few and so meager, you either believe in something greater or die hopeless in the dust. Those who give their lives to her see nothing else for themselves. Serving Niima is literally the best option they have in a world of refuse and ruin.

As Niima’s long wormbody writhes atop the hands of her servants, she speaks a command: “Kuba, kayaba dee anko!”

Her voice is hard to take: It’s as if someone swallowed broken glass and is trying to shriek through the subsequent throatful of blood. The way her gargled cry echoes through this chamber brings it back to Sloane’s ears again and again. The sound of it forces a wave of nausea through her.

Sloane knows some Huttese, but this phrase is in a more ancient dialect. It’s more ragged, more primitive.

Her statement means, what? “Come to me”?

It must. Because from underneath, one of her very literal supporters emerges—this one, different from the others. A man, similarly shirtless and painted with red streaks of rock dust. His lips are the only part of him that aren’t stuck with hooks. Everything else—his wrists, the pads of his palms, the flesh of his arms and of his legs—is pierced with metal.

He carries something over his shoulder. From a leather strap hangs a black box and a dented, rusted speaker. A translator device. This servant climbs atop her, draping the translator over the meaty lump that passes for her shoulder. When placed, the box hangs down below her mouth. Then, the slave waits, crouching upon the top of her head like a pet waiting the next command.

He looks like a hat, Sloane thinks, absurdly.

Niima speaks again: “Man-tah.”

The speaker crackles with static, and then a word emits from it in mechanical, monotone Basic: “SPEAK.”

Sloane clears her throat and remembers: Be deferential. Hutts prefer to be spoken to as if they are not merely sentient, intelligent creatures. They like to be served. They want worship. This one more than others, it seems.

Only problem is, Sloane doesn’t do the deferential thing very well. Still, she clears her throat and makes a go of it:

“Glorious serpent, mistress of sand and stone, Niima the Hutt, I am Grand Admiral Rae Sloane of the Empire. I come today to beseech your help. I and my traveling companion wish to pass through your cavernous territory and on toward the plateau called the Plaintive Hand—”