Star Wars: Rebel Rising(28)
Jyn nodded, her eyes scanning the sakoola trees, waiting for her first contact.
“But in the end, they’re about as threatening as a cloud,” the man added.
Jyn froze. The code word. She glanced over at the man, and his eyes narrowed. Jyn casually slid her hand in the purse, palmed an imagecaster, and slipped it into the man’s hand. He nodded, his beard moving over his chest, and strolled away casually. A few moments later, he headed to the stairs and entered the palace.
While the sakoola festival was a large tourist event, Jyn saw only a handful of attendees who weren’t human, and most of them kept close together, soon heading toward the more open festival on the other side of the pool. Everyone who approached Jyn and said the code word was human—many young men, a few women, and one old crone who looked as if she had a hunchback, although Jyn wondered if it was a disguise to hide weapons. Jyn was down to just a handful of imagecaster invitations—one to give the last member of the mission and the spares she had made.
A wave of melancholy washed over Jyn, unexpected and unbidden. But she couldn’t help thinking how much her mother would have loved this experience. Lyra had always been seeking out the ways in which worlds were unique; she valued the differences in the galaxy. She would have loved Inusagi.
More people crowded near where Jyn sat, as if expecting something. They faced the pool, and Jyn turned to see what they were watching. Soon the still, glassy surface of the water broke, and diamond-shaped creatures as tall as Jyn swooped out of the water, gliding across the surface. They were pale and hairless, very thin with almost invisible facial features. Their movements were part flying, part swimming as they glided over the surface of the water. A thin membrane connected their heads to the tips of their fingers, and from there down to their ankles.
“What are they?” Jyn asked a woman nearby.
“Rayeths,” the woman answered. She sounded sad, which made no sense; the Rayeths’ water dance was breathtakingly gorgeous, almost magical in the way they soared across the pool.
Soon a group of six Rayeths glided up to the edge of the pool, close to Jyn. They were so thin it seemed as if they would float away like the sakoola blossoms, but as soon as they stood, the Rayeths wrapped their membraned arms around their bodies, forming a narrow, almost cocoon-like shell around their torsos that gave way to looser folds flapping near their ankles.
The six Rayeths made something of a small parade as they left the pool and marched toward the grand staircase of the palace. Tension crackled through the crowd that had grown, and no one spoke as the Rayeths walked through the floating sakoola blossoms and up the first few stairs. Jyn watched as more stormtroopers, as well as some local guards, formed a barrier on the staircase, barring the Rayeths’ entrance.
The Rayeth in the front said something, but Jyn was too far away to hear it. She worried at first that the delicate white creatures would be struck down, but after a few moments, the Rayeths turned, beginning the long walk back the way they had gone. No one in the crowd gathered around the pool said a thing as the Rayeths hung their heads, denied entrance to the palace and shamed in front of everyone. They slid into the water silently, spreading out their arms and quickly disappearing under the surface.
“Such a shame,” someone near Jyn murmured. “A tradition broken.”
“Stupid animals,” someone else muttered. “At least the Empire knows they’re not important. They shouldn’t be allowed on the surface.”
They’re people, Jyn thought viciously. Not animals.
But she didn’t say a word aloud.
The last contact walked straight up to Jyn. “Cloud,” he grunted in a low voice. She handed him the imagecaster and watched him enter the palace. She was half surprised it worked for him; he was the least subtle of all her contacts.
Saw had told her to go straight back to the ship after she passed out the invitations, but she still had extra imagecasters, and she could use one for herself. And after seeing the Rayeths denied entry into the palace, Jyn was more than a little curious about just what lay beyond those forbidden doors.
Besides, all the other missions she’d done with Saw hadn’t ended in a party in a palace. The most glamorous thing she’d done lately was release mynock repellent around the asteroids closest to Wrea.
“Just a peek,” she told herself, wrapping her fingers around an imagecaster. She mounted the steps of the palace slowly, her eyes on the stormtroopers. They looked bored, waving her inside with one hand after she scanned her imagecaster on the ident lock.
Fallen sakoola petals formed a path down the hallway, but even without them, Jyn could have followed the sounds of the crowd to the large ballroom that was sunken into the heart of the palace. Pillars wrapped in ivy supported a glass ceiling over the ballroom, and several dozen steps led down to the main floor. Jyn’s Inusagian robes whispered against the stone as she descended into the ballroom. Her eyes darted around, looking for Saw or the other contacts in the partisan group, but she didn’t see anyone else.
They must have used the invites for entry into the building, she thought. The palace was huge, with high domed ceilings; they could be anywhere by then, uncovering the secrets of the Empire that had been hidden in its base there in the chieftess’s palace.
Just a few minutes, Jyn told herself. The ballroom was packed with people, most lingering around the buffet table, on which sat an array of Inusagian delicacies, fruits and honeys, breads and cheeses. Different wines were being passed around by server droids, a selection from Inusagi but also a few finer bottles from Core worlds, including a blue one featuring Alderaanian wine that was being served only to the more elite guests, who stood on a platform near the art sculpture that occupied the center of the ballroom.