Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(51)

Those plateaus cast long shadows across this deep valley.

“This is arduous,” Sloane growls.

Brentin Wexley looks up at her. He’s weary. Lines of frustration have been permanently etched into his forehead. His cheeks are reddened by the blowing sands. Her own cheeks must be stung the same way. Her goggles are already caked with dust, too—and, as she does every couple of minutes, she has to wipe them free with the backs of her hands.

The two of them hang back beyond the dragging dais. Though Niima sleeps, they dare not say anything against her within easy earshot.

“Progress is progress,” he says. Ever the optimist. Surely by now it’s just a show? “Our fates are married to the Hutt’s.”

“It’s been nearly a week.”

“I know.”

“We need to seize the moment. I’ve been thinking,” she says.

A look of worry crosses his face. “Do I want to know?”

“You do and you will and you’ll not dismiss me. I have a plan.”

“What is it?”

“The Hutt sleeps during the day. Which means that is the time to strike. Soon, even. Today.”

“Are you batty? Killing a Hutt is no easy thing—”

“We’re not attacking her.”

“Who? Her…people?”

She sneers. “Don’t call them people. They’re barely that anymore. They’ve been enslaved for so long they’ve been programmed into something else.” But even as she says it, she hears the way it must sound to him. Brentin flinches, as if the words were almost physical—the back of a hand swinging for him. “I don’t mean it like that, Wexley. They’re not like you.”

“It’s fine,” he says, newly curt. “Let’s not debate what makes us human. You want to attack the slaves, then. We don’t have weapons.”

“They do. And I am a weapon. I’m trained. I can fight.”

“We can’t fight them all.”

“I only need one or two. They have those wheel-bikes. We take out the riders and steal the bikes. Those engines must have some power. We grab one and we go. Fast as we can.”

“They’ll come after us.”

“I know. But what choice do we have?”

“We keep going. Same as we’ve been. Like you said, it’s been nearly a week. Why change course now?”

She steps in front of him and blocks his path. “Because I just thought of the plan.” It’s a lie, and he calls her on it, his voice low as he does.

“The plan isn’t even a plan. It’s so obvious, we could’ve done it from the beginning. No, what’s changed is you’re desperate. Hungry to have vindication and you hate that it’s delayed.”

“You don’t feel the same way? You want your vengeance, too.”

His face is suddenly stark with—what is that? Is it sadness? “Sloane, it’s not vengeance I want.”

“Don’t lie. If it’s not vengeance, then what? What drives you to be out here in this hell-blasted deadland?” She leans in close and lifts her goggles so she can stare at him with her cold, dark eyes. Rage flares up in her at the thought he does not share her desire for comeuppance. “You mean to tell me you don’t want to put a blaster to Gallius Rax’s forehead?”

“I do. Stars help me, I do. But that’s not why I’m here. I want to make up for what I did.”

It’s so absurd an idea, Sloane can’t help but bark an incredulous laugh. “Make up for what? Chandrila? Someone stuck a chip in your head, Brentin. You were dancing on the end of Rax’s puppet strings.” We all were. “You don’t have to own that. You can just cut his strings because it feels good to cut his damn strings.”

“I need to stop Rax because it’s how I show my wife and my son that I’m not the man on that stage. It’s how I fix what I did.”

Sloane grabs a fistful of his shirt. “You’re a fool. It’s vengeance that carries us. Forget everyone else.”

He pauses. The sadness on his face deepens. The look he gives her is one of…pity. “You don’t have anybody, do you? That’s why you don’t understand. There’s nobody out there who you love or who loves you back.” Those words are like a blaster shot to her middle—clean through, leaving a hole as big as a fist. He keeps going: “You have to have something or someone to fight for. Not just this. Not just…revenge.”

“I have what I have.”

“You have the Empire. You can save it.”

“This is rich. The rebel telling me how to save my Empire. My Empire? It’s dead. It died the moment it touched this planet. The only thing I have—and the only thing I need—is the look on Rax’s face as I take it all away.” She looks over her shoulder at the caravan. Already their lagging is being noticed by the bone-faced acolytes. “I’m retaking control of this situation. You can come with me, or you can die a Hutt-slave.”

And with that, she turns and marches back to the caravan. Sloane is singularly focused—ahead, the slaves on wheel-bikes do loops in and around the caravan, the kesium fuel burning black out their tailpipes. She storms up alongside the dais, calculating her path of attack.

One Hutt-slave walks in front of her. He’s one of the few with a blaster—a rifle cradled in some creature’s rib cage, the barrel framed by a pair of broken tusks. One punch, and she’ll have that blaster.