Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(9)

“Why would Sloane go there?” Leia asks.

“Beats me,” Han says. “Maybe she’s looking to get away. Run and hide. Nobody would look for her on Jakku.”

Norra says, “Swift thought it had something to do with another Imperial. Someone named Gallius Rax.”

That name isn’t familiar to Leia, and she says as much. Something about all this feels wrong. A feeling of worry has burrowed under her skin. “Norra, come home. Perhaps it’s time we present this to the chancellor—”

“Respectfully,” Norra says, “I’d like to scout the planet first. Time is slipping through our hands like so much rope, and I’d rather not lose any more of it. After what happened on Chandrila, we need to report more to the chancellor than just the word of some bounty hunter. At least let us take a pass, see if we can’t uncover…something.”

Leia gives Han a look. He twists his mouth into a lopsided grin. “Hey, don’t look at me. You know what I’d do.”

“Yes, you’d run off like a madman, right into danger.”

He shrugs. “A smart bet.”

All the more reason to warn Norra away from that course of action. Any plan whose best endorsement is a thumbs-up from Han Solo is trouble. Still, Norra isn’t Han. She’s smarter than that. Isn’t she?

“Go,” Leia says, finally. “See what you find out, and then we’ll have something to bring to Mon.”

“How is the chancellor? Her injuries?”

“They’re healed, mostly.” Though far deeper injuries remain: injuries to the woman’s spirit and to her career. “She’s fine, I’ll tell her you were asking. And eventually, we can tell her what we’ve been up to.”

“Thanks, Leia. I appreciate your help in all this.”

“It’s you who’s helping me, Norra. You’re helping me and the whole of the galaxy if you can find Sloane’s scent out there. Just be careful. If you see the Empire, do not engage. Do you understand?”

“I hear you loud and clear,” Norra says. “I’ll see you soon.”

And then she’s gone.





The Moth floats above Taris.

The long-legged Sinjir Rath Velus sits on the lower bed in the back bunk, the hilt of a vibroknife flipping between his fingers, over his knuckles, and from one hand to the other. Back and forth, the blade dances. Around him, the ship is alive with activity: Norra off talking to Leia, updating her on their progress (“We found Swift”); Jas shuttling from room to room, looking for her ammo belt (“I swear, if that droid misplaced it, I’m going to turn him into ammunition”); Temmin stalking the hallways, moaning again about how his mother keeps him in the ship and out of danger (“I’m an adult now, you know, basically, and I can handle myself”); Mister Bones humming along, tapping and whirling about, singing some song in Huttese:


LA YAMA BEESTOO, LA YAMA BEESTOO

CHEESKAR GOO, CHEESKAR GOO

WOMPITY DU WERMO, WOMPITY DU WERMO

MI KILLIE, MI KILLIE…



Sinjir remains sitting and silent. The knife hilt rolls and turns. Sometimes he looks down and sees blood on his hands. Real, fresh blood: the fingertips wet and greasy with it. He thinks: I cut myself. The blade is out and I am injured. But then the blood is gone again. An illusion. A dream. Real until it’s not.

Eventually, Jas moves past the bunkroom, the ammo belt slung over her shoulder, and she reverses and storms up to Sinjir and says, “It was in the kitchen. Why was it in the kitchen?”

He has no answer, so he shrugs, the blade still dancing.

She narrows her eyes. “What’s your problem?”

“I have no problem. I am a man unburdened by conflict.”

“Sure, and I’m a baby Hutt-slug.”

“You’re slimy, but not that slimy.”

She kicks him in the knee. Not hard.

“Ow.”

“No, really, what’s your malfunction?”

“For starters, I don’t have anything to drink.”

She sits down next to him. “Thought you quit drinking.”

“Hardly. I quit drinking Kowakian rum, because even though it tastes like the sweet, syrupy glow of pure liquid stardust, it invokes the kind of hangover that makes you feel as if you’ve been romanced by an irascible rancor. It is the kind of hangover that makes you plead for death while hiding in the darkness under your bedcovers or even under the bed itself. No more Kowakian rum for me.” He sniffs. “Everything else is fair game.”

“You’re doing that thing.”

“What thing?”

“That thing where you use mockery, sarcasm, and derision to deflect a sincere question.”

“Ah, that thing. It’s a very good thing.”

“I’m not going to pull teeth. If you don’t want to tell me what’s going on with you, I won’t pry—”

“Takask wallask ti dan,” he says. “Do you remember telling me that phrase? On Kashyyyk after our work was done?”

“I didn’t just tell it to you. I called you that. A man without a star.”

He finally stops moving the blade between his hands and stoops over, rubbing his eyes. “I feel like you were wrong.”