Star Wars: Rebel Rising(27)
“You clean up well,” Jyn said, looking past Maia at Saw.
The suit was a bit tight around his broad chest, but the colors brought out the deep brown tones of his skin. The fine material made him look almost regal. Jyn felt as though she was wearing a costume, but Saw looked like a king.
“This is yours,” he said, tossing her a green purse that was embroidered to match her robes. Inside, the dozen imagecaster invitations were nestled in small pockets in the liner.
“The other members of the group will recognize you by your robes.” Saw indicated the elaborate, distinctive embroidery all along the hem. “The code word is cloud . Get the others inside.”
Jyn nodded her understanding. The ship dropped out of hyperspace, but her stomach had been left somewhere behind her in space. The mission felt…off. She didn’t like working with Arane, with her obvious disdain for humans. She didn’t like how fractured the mission was.
Saw gave his clearance codes, and Jyn smiled with satisfaction as they were approved to dock in the spaceport without question. He maneuvered the ship down, and Jyn eagerly leaned over, looking out at Inusagi’s beautiful landscape. An azure river cut through the lush green hills and valleys near the capital city, a ribbon of blue that spun off into curlicues and large pools. She knew from her research that Inusagi’s landscape had been cultivated over centuries, and each pool represented a different community led by a noble house. The largest pool spilled over the cliff, forming a waterfall into the ocean. The chieftess’s palace was built on the cliff, a long rectangle of milky brown stone, one side facing the calm pools overlooking each of the lesser noble houses, one side facing the waterfall and the tumultuous sea at its base.
Saw swooped the shuttle down into the spaceport, built a little distance from the river. As soon as they were docked, apprehension started curling in Jyn’s stomach.
“Once you pass out all the invites, come back here,” Saw said, standing. “Wait for me.”
“You said you only needed ten invites,” Jyn said. There were a dozen in her bag. She withdrew two and handed them to Maia and Saw.
“Come back here,” Saw repeated, his voice sterner, a clear warning that she was not to use one of the imagecasters for herself. “We each have a part to play.”
He moved stiffly out of the cockpit, and although his suit was fitted to his body, she knew it was hiding weapons. Maia nudged her forward, and Jyn glanced at the padding beneath her friend’s robes, wondering which blasters were wrapped under the silk.
Zip ports carried groups of people from the docking area to the palace. The large glass bubbles resembled eggs on their sides, and they were put on a magnetic track that took a scenic route around the decorative pool and up to the center courtyard of the palace. Saw positioned Jyn near the glass so she could see, but as their zip port moved them closer to the chieftess’s home, Saw subtly pushed his way deeper into the center of the glass egg, distancing himself from Jyn. Maia had hung back with the ship, taking the next zip port.
Colorful tents had been erected around the chieftess’s large pool, and it was clear the sakoola festival was in full swing for the locals. The delicious scent of some sort of sweet fried dough permeated the zip port, and Jyn could hear hawkers enticing people to buy souvenir nets with which to catch the sakoola petals. Mostly children ran around waving the nets, which had been decorated with colorful ribbons, but more than a few adults carried them as an accessory to their festive clothes.
When the zip port stopped between the courtyard and the east end of the pool, everyone filed out. Saw let the crowd separate him from Jyn. She watched as he went straight to the palace, holding out the imagecaster. A flash of apprehension shot through her, but the guards in front of the palace didn’t question Saw’s invitation in the slightest. He strode through the doors and was gone.
While the west end of the pool overflowed with street vendors and children, the east end, closer to the palace, was more reserved. The colors were muted, and rather than tents, discreet benches had been placed along the water’s edge and interspersed among the trees.
The sakoola trees had long slender branches that drifted easily in the near-constant breezes of Inusagi. The yellow petals that floated throughout the area were as soft as silk, with a hint of gold along the edges that didn’t seem natural but was beautiful nonetheless. People strolled through the trees in small groups or alone, talking in reserved voices.
Jyn chose a bench by the pool where there were fewer trees and she was more visible. As she sat, she caught the tail end of a conversation between a couple watching the palace steps and the stormtroopers who lined them.
“It’s not democracy if our chieftess is forced to sign a treaty with the Empire,” the woman hissed. She wore robes similar to Jyn’s—a long stretch of embroidered cloth wound tightly around her upper body and trailed down her legs.
Jyn had thought her companion was a man, by the clothes, but when the person spoke, Jyn realized it was another woman. “The Empire is here whether we like it or not,” she said. “At least they’re peaceful.”
“Peaceful,” the first woman snorted. “Silence isn’t the same as peace.”
Nevertheless, when they rounded the path and saw Jyn listening to them, they both went quiet.
Another man meandered down the path, nodding at the two women before he sat beside Jyn. “Lots of people talk the big talk,” he said in a strange accent.