Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(6)

Mercurial visibly swallows. “Don’t hurt her.”

“We won’t,” Norra interjects, “as long as you tell us what we need.”

The dam of his resolve cracks, shudders, then breaks, and the words come gushing out of him fast and desperate—gone is the pretense of ego and arrogance, gone is his preening self-confidence. “I haven’t spoken to Sloane in months. Last time was just a transmission. She was looking for a ship on Quantxi. The Imperialis. Coordinates on that ship were tied to a, uh, an Imperial officer, a high-ranking admiral named Rax. Gallius Rax. She wanted to know the coordinates—where he was from, what system, what world.”

Sinjir grabs his jaw and squeezes. “Tell us, what world?”

“Jakku.”

The three of them all share looks. In their eyes: confusion. Norra’s never heard of it. Not that she’s some kind of galactic cartographer—out there in the black are thousands of systems and millions of worlds. Swift fills in more information: “It’s in the Western Reaches. I don’t know any more than that because I never had reason to care.”

“Did she go there?” Norra asks.

“I…I think so. I don’t know.”

“There’s more,” Sinjir hisses. “I can see it on your face. Something else you’re not telling us, Gebby. Don’t make me call our droid.”

“Sloane wasn’t alone,” Swift says.

“Do tell.”

“She was…injured, and in a ship, I think some kind of stolen Chandrilan cargo cruiser. There was a man with her. I didn’t get his name. I could barely see him.”

“Imperial?” Sinjir asks.

“I swear, I don’t know.”

Norra to Sinjir: “Do you believe him?”

“I do.”

“Then we’re done here. I’ll call in Temmin.” The younger Wexley, her son, is in orbit above Taris, piloting the Moth with his battle droid B1 bodyguard, Bones.

“We could haul Swift back to Chandrila,” Jas offers. “He’s worked for the Empire. Maybe he knows more than we know to ask.”

“No. No time for that,” Norra says.

“No time? We’ll be headed that way anyway—”

“We will not. We’re headed to Jakku straightaway.”

Jas scowls. “We’re not ready for whatever’s there. We don’t even know where it is. Norra, we need to take the time, plan this out—”

“No!” she barks. “No more planning. No more time. We’ve wasted enough already on this one—” She jabs a thumb against Swift’s breastbone for emphasis. “And I will waste no more. We don’t even know that Sloane is still on Jakku—so we need to pick up whatever trail is there before it goes so cold we can’t find it.”

“Fine,” Jas says, her voice stiff. A voice inside Norra’s head presents a warning: Ease off, Norra. Jas might be right, and even if she’s not, you don’t need to bark orders at her. This isn’t who you are. But every part of her feels like a sparking wire. Like she can’t control it or contain it. Jas asks: “What do we do about Swift, then? I could…dispatch him.”

“Emari,” Swift pleads, “there’s no bounty, there’s no value in killing me, it’s just not worth it—”

Norra sees her opportunity. She yanks one of Swift’s batons from Jas’s grip and spins it around. With a quick slide of her thumb she brings the electro-stun end to life: The tip of it crackles like static, and a blue elemental spark dances between two prongs.

She sticks it in Swift’s side.

He makes a stuttering sound as the electricity ravages him. Then his head falls, chin dipping to his chest. A low, sleepy moan gurgles from the back of his throat. “There,” Norra says. “Let’s go.”

—

Morning comes to Taris, and with it, Mercurial comes to life just as much of the planet—its scavengers and scutjumpers and its clouds of sedge-flies—goes back to hiding from the encroaching light of day.

The bounty hunter takes some time, then eventually flips his body up so that his legs wrap around the pipe married to his cuffed hands. He hangs there, then jostles his body, slamming it down again and again until the plastocrete at the far end cracks and breaks free, the pipe crashing down—and him crashing down with it.

His muscles aching, Mercurial scoots free of the pipe. He calls upon his body’s memory of a different life as a young dancer in a Corellian troupe and leaps backward over the loop of his cuffed wrists.

He tries to find his batons—one of the concussive ends will make short work of these magnacuffs—but Emari must’ve taken them.

Fine. He’ll head back to his ship and use the cutters there. But before that happens—he extends his thumb, opening up a comm channel to make a call to Underboss Rynscar of the Black Sun. The face that appears is her true face, the one Rynscar keeps behind that rusted demon’s mask. Her true face is pale, with dark eyes. Her lips are painted the color of dirty emeralds.

She sneers. “What is it, Swift?”

“Jas Emari.”

“You say that name like it is a key unlocking a door. What of her?”

“Is it true? There’s a bounty on her head?”

Rynscar lifts her brow. “It is true.”