Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(70)

And again all is still.

“Nasty business, dealing with traitors,” Rax says.

“It is,” Sloane says. “As you’ll see.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It is.” She feels her body moving in time with her heartbeat—rocking side-to-side, bobbing up and down in case she has to run, attack, punch, kick, anything. She flits her gaze to Brentin. In it she attempts to convey a clear message: Be ready for anything. She looks to the stormtroopers again—no, not to all of them. Just to one. The one closest. That trooper stands there, his helmet crisscrossed with angry carved hashes filled with the accumulated rustred dirt of Jakku. To this trooper she says: “I am Grand Admiral Rae Sloane. I command you to capture Counselor Gallius Rax on the charge of treason against the throne.”

That trooper flinches—but doesn’t budge.

“They aren’t yours to command,” Rax says plainly. “A noble effort. And I’m sad you think that what I’ve done is treason. Don’t you see, Sloane? I’ve given the Empire a place again. A purpose.”

“It’s come to this, then? Death on a dead world. You’ve driven us all to the edge of the galaxy. To the edge of everything.”

“As I say: There is a purpose.”

She sneers. “But let me guess? I’ll never see it.”

“To the contrary. I’m taking you back. Alive.”

“Why?”

A slow, self-satisfied smile spreads across his face. “A show must have its audience, dear Sloane.” He turns to Brentin. “But whoever he is, he can go.”

The troopers raise their rifles—

Brentin cries out as fingers curl around triggers—

Sloane steps in front of him. “No. No. He comes with me.”

Rax laughs. “But why?”

Because if anybody can help me, it’s him. He saved her once. He’s helped her countless times already. If they kill him now, any utility he may yet possess will be gone.

Not that she can say that to Rax.

“He’s a rebel, if you’ll believe that. He had a chip in his head, a chip you helped put there. Don’t you want him to see what your seeds have grown? You want an audience? A witness? Then let him see what you’ve wrought.”

“Oh. Hm. A rebel, you say?” Her enemy pauses to think, and she watches him come to some silent conclusion. “I can use him, too.” To the troopers, Rax says: “Get them on board. We’ll take them back to base.”

The troopers gather her arms behind her and shove her forward, past Gallius. As she passes, she spits on his uniform—summoning that much moisture is a nearly heroic effort, but the result is as desired: Her saliva is laced with the filth of this planet and it stains the white accordingly.

He says: “This world has transformed us all, it seems.”

“You have no idea,” she says as they push her toward the shuttle.

“Welcome to Jakku, Rae Sloane. Welcome to Jakku.”





Already the morning sun is a searing presence, oppressive, like a boot on the back of the neck. Jas watches Norra stalk the wreckage—she moves through the debris of the caravan like a ghost. Her wailing is done. She spent that time last night, howling and raging. Now she’s a gutted thing. Probably thought it couldn’t get any worse. Then they saw Brentin.

And then they saw Brentin taken away again.

Jas has no idea what any of that means. Mysteries persist. Why is Sloane in scavenger robes? Why did they capture her and Brentin as if they are enemies to the Empire? Why was Brentin here at all? Why did Niima go along with it—and why is the Hutt now dead?

“Nothing here,” Norra says. Two words she’s said already half a dozen times. Her raw, red eyes search the wreckage, looking for any answer to those questions Jas keeps in the back of her head.

“We should go,” Jas says.

“Yes,” Norra says, but she continues wandering. She kicks over the smoldering wreckage from a wheel-bike. She nudges the elbow of a dust-blown Hutt-slave corpse. Jas tries to summon her back again, warning her that those turbolasers are off, now—but no telling if they’ll remain so.

“Norra.”

“I know.”

“We have to go.”

“I know.”

“We can get him back. Him and Sloane.”

“How?” Norra asks, that one word spoken louder than all the others—the word rough-edged with sorrow, desperation, and anger. “We don’t know where they went. Or why. We don’t have anything, Jas. We were close. We were so close. And then just…” She holds up her hand and closes it on open air. Fresh tears threaten to leave new tracks down her dirt-stained cheeks.

Jas doesn’t know how to answer.

She wants to offer hope, but that’s not really her thing. Jas doesn’t want to lie. Losing Sloane and Brentin like that means hope is fading fast.

Then—

A gassy belch erupts as the Hutt carcass rolls over. Norra cries out. So does Jas, startled as she staggers backward, hissing an old Iridonian curse. She raises her rifle, pointing it at the slug.

Niima paws at the ground, struggling to get up. Dark blood oozes from holes in her body in gummy runnels and rivulets. She gurgles in some old form of Huttese—“Uba, Zabrak! Nolaya bayunko.” The body rights itself, then slithers over the carcasses of her slaves. Every movement draws a grunt of anguish from the slithering worm.